Dead Man Down (2013)

There is an awful lot of star power in what is essentially a revenge movie with a lot of shooting, long cold stares, and hustle.  It is not a terrible movie, but it not altogether good.  Then add in that Colin Farrell, Isabelle Huppert, and Terence Howard are all in it, and then it becomes a well acted byt ultimately disappointing movie.
Here is the story.  Farrell plays Victor, a New York gangster who's part of a crew run by alpha-male tough guy, Alphonse Hoyt (Terrence Howard). He appears to be a bad guy, but wait.  Alphonse is being menaced by someone who is sending strange anonymous messages to people who then die.  Victor gets himself involved with his troubled neighbour Beatrice (Noomi Rapace), who lives with her hearing-impaired mum, played by Isabelle Huppert.  She has seen him do a murderous deed and wants him to help her with her revenge fantasy.  These initial scenes delude you into thinking you might be watching something out of the ordinary.  But no, that does not happen.  It is entirely ordinary with unusual characters who are well cast.  That said, it holds your attention, and does not deteriorate from there.

Qilian Mountains, Gansu Province, China

The snow-capped Qilian Mountains rise up mistily between the borders of Qinghai and Gansu, forming a stunning tableau behind the lush meadows and the small Silk Road settlements of these provinces.  They are pronounced "Chilian", and they rise like the Andes do in the back bone of South America.
These mountains form part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the northeast and part of the Hexi Corridor in the southwest.  Their size and impassibility contribute to the region's rich past, as the common pathway out of China to the west, known as the Silk Road.  Having stood for thousands of years, this mountain range has been witness to mankind’s history from the construction of the Great Wall in its northern reaches to the bustling trade that took place along the Hexi Corridor.
China is a mountainous country with more than 60% of it's land being at elevation.  This pciture is from early March, where the peaks are still snow and ice covered.   They are the most important water source for the Hexi Corridor in the north and the Qaidam Basin in the south, making it invaluable for the inhabitants of both Gansu and Qinghai.
The mountains themselves rise to an average height of about 4,000 metres (13,000 ft.), with the highest peaks towering at over 5,800 metres (19,000 ft.).  From the verdant valleys where nomads graze their sheep to the icy peaks untouched by mankind, the Qilian Mountains are a natural wonder that have provoked the curiosity of visitors for decades.

Julia Child's Reine de Saba Gâteau

I have made a different version of this cake for over 30 years, but this year my spouse and my youngest unearthed the original recipe.
It can be made with matzoh cake flour or gluten free flour, and it comes out because there is so little flour in it.  So perfect for all sort of occasions. I pour a chocolate ganache over the cake, which is melted chocolate and whipping cream. 

1. • 3 ounces semisweet chocolate, plus1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
   • 2 tablespoons dark rum or 2 tablespoons strong coffee
   • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
   • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
   • 3 egg yolks
   • 3 egg whites
   • 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
   • 1 pinch salt
   • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
   • 1/3 cup blanched almond (pulverized in blender or food processor with 2 tablespoons granulated sugar)
   • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
   • 1/2 cup cake flour

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set the oven rack in lower middle level.
 2. In a saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate in the rum or coffee. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, cut butter into pieces and cream it.
3. When soft and fluffy, add sugar and beat 1 minute. Beat in egg yolks until well blended.
4. In another bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Beat in cream of tartar and salt and continue beating until soft peaks are formed. Gradually beat in 2 tablespoons sugar and continue beating until stiff, shiny peaks are formed. Blend melted chocolate and coffee or rum into yolk mixture, then add almonds and almond extract.
5. Stir a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate using a rubber spatula. Scoop the rest of the whites over chocolate and, alternating with sprinkles of flour, rapidly and delicately fold in the egg whites. Turn batter into buttered and floured 8-by-1 1/2-inch round cake pan, tilting it in all directions up to the rim all around. Set in preheated oven. Bake 25 minutes.
6. Cake is done when puffed to the top and a toothpick inserted 2 to 3 inches from edge comes out clean. The center should move slightly when the pan is gently shaken. Remove pan to a rack and let cool 15 minutes. Unmold onto rack. Let cool 2 hours before storing or icing.

12 Monkeys (1995)

Ok, this is very dated in terms of special effects and the story line is a bit clunky as well, so while it doesn't hold up to the test of time, there is some good work in here by then much younger actors.
This is a story of a post apocalyptic future where the future goes back to the past to try to stop it all from happening.  Terry Gilliam is the director and the work that he creates here is very much like his movie Brasil.   In this world, everything is rusty, subterranean, and leaks. The movie uses its future world as a home base and launching pad for the central story, which is set in 1990 and 1996, and is about a time traveler trying to save the world from a deadly plague.  Bruce Willis is the confused emissary from the future, and one of his allies is a mentally unstable son of a researcher played by Brad Pitt.  Now I see where the Coen brothers got the idea to cast him as a gum chewing fitness ditz in Burn After Reading.  He is perfect as an off the rails crazy person here.  The story unfolds somewhat predictably as seen from the present, although at the time it may have seemed more prescient.  Recommended.

Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

I had just finished the Frederick Douglass biography when I started this on.  A book that thoroughly covers slavery in America followed by the rise of white nationalism is about the only thing that one could read first that would make the sadness of this book pale in comparison.  So brace yourself, this is probably the very best look into the problematic soul of Steve Jobs.
The book is sparse, well written, unapologetic, direct, and without blame or self pity.  She is not seeking revenge so much as she is searching for an answer.  Her parents were high school sweethearts, and then got together briefly after Jobs dropped out of college, which is when she was conceived.  Her father denied her from the beginning is on record as saying many hurtful things about both she and her mother.  The thing is, that was who he was.  He was a casually hurtful man.  He did not know how to so a better job (pun not intended).  He lacked empathy to a startling degree and it is cringe worthy to read.  I identified best with he neighbors who tried to fill in the gaps that her parents could not manage to even see, much less manage.  It is not like my usual reading fare, I agree, but it is well worth spending an afternoon digesting. 

Potatoes Au Gratin

We largely celebrate Passover in my house, but some of us celebrate Easter, which often falls within the confines of the week of Passover.  The traditional Easter dinner for us (and many others) is a ham, which I would ordinarily serve macaroni and cheese for, but not when wheat products are off the table.  I could make a farfel dish to substitute, but this is another option (using matzah cake flour for the flour, or gluten free flour if you are working with some gluten restrictions in your guests).  This is essentially the sauce I make for my macaroni and cheese, but poured over potatoes.  I stood the potatoes up in the pan, but you could layer them.

• 4 russet potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
• 1 onion, sliced into rings
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200 degrees C).
2. Butter an 8x8 casserole dish.
3. Arrange the potatoes and onions in the prepared baking dish, staggering potato and then onion.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Mix in the flour and salt, and stir constantly with a whisk for one minute. Stir in milk. Cook until mixture has thickened. 
6. Stir in cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted and smooth, about 30 to 60 seconds. 
7. Pour cheese over the potatoes, and cover the dish with aluminum foil.
8. Bake 1 1/2 hours (90min.) in the preheated oven.
9. For a crisp topping, change the oven setting to broil for 5 minutes before removing the dish.

Widows (2018)

This movie is not like most heist movies. The emotional currents that power this movie by director Steve McQueen (of Twelve Years a Slave fame) brilliant genre exercise are different—it’s societal inequity, exhaustion at corruption, and outright anger at a bullshit system that steals from the poor to give to the rich.  The story revolves around bad guys who hold people up and are not afraid to use their guns, corrupt politicians who barter with them to get what they want, and the women who are involved with them, who are somewhere on the spectrum between the bad guys and people who just work for their money.  The bad guys have a heist that goes south, and the women are being held accountable for the money they lost--so they pull off the job themselves, and in the process lose a bit more of their moral compasses.  It is a mix of shoot 'em up and chess playing scenes of calculation.
This movie is the kind that works on multiple levels simultaneously—as pure pulp entertainment but also as a commentary on how often it feels like we have to take what we are owed or risk never getting it at all.

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedon by David Blight

Frederick Douglass was a remarkable man who lived an equally remarkable life.  As a child he had a few pieces of luck, which did no spare him from knowing first hand the life of a field slave in the Deep South, but did allow him to be able to live to tell the tale and write about it.
Douglass spent most of his adolescence in a house in Baltimore, where the mistress allowed him to play with her son and who taught him to read and write.  Those were huge advantages that he could have easily missed out on.  Then there was the fact that he worked in a shipyard, so he knew the city, the ways of free men, and he had a skill.  So when he escaped as a young man and started his life as an abolitionist and an orator , he was equipped to do so.
The book covers Douglass' entire life, which was long and occasionally controversial, but the long standing take away message is that by his first hand accounting of slavery and the legacy of men owning men, is the uncovering of deeply sadistic traits in this way of thinking that survives in the modern American experience.  It is not just the need to feel superior, but also the need to inflict pain and then to derive pleasure from it that makes white supremacists so loathsome.  Douglass witnessed the continuation of that far beyond the Civil War, and Blight writes about it with balance.

Earth Emergency

Mornning in the Burnt House by Margaret Atwood, 1939

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against 
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud 
rises up silently like dark bread. 

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can’t see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child’s feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent. 

On The Basis of Sex (2018)

There is nothing about the story of Ruth Bader Ginsberg's trajectory to the Supreme Court that I do not like, and the documentary about her last year told a lot of it very well.  This movie focuses on her time at law school up to her arguing a case before the Supreme Court as a young lawyer with her incredibly supportive husband.
The movie opens with her being significantly out numbered by her male peers in law school, the discrimination that occurred for women, from in the classroom up to the public humiliation the dean subjected them to, and her amazing resilience in the face of all that.  She then went a step further--when her husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer and given a very grim prognosis, she set about making him successful, but going to his classes and teaching him the material covered.  The woman does not sleep.
Upon graduation she cannot get a job with a law firm, so she teaches at Rutgers and yet yearns to make a difference.  Her husband, the tax attorney, helps her to find a case where she can.  The tax law would not allow a deduction for the expenses of an unmarried male caregiver, only a female. She sees that the best way to overturn laws that disadvantage women is to take on one that disadvantages men. It was probably just an oversight; the writers of the tax code failed to consider that an unmarried male might have the care of an elderly parent. But Charles Moritz did. And the government, under the direction of Dean Griswold, now at the Justice Department, make a very big mistake. Instead of amending the rule, they decided to fight. They underestimated Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  And she went on to systematically dismantle legislation that discriminated on the basis of gender.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

 One review I read of this book was entitled "Melancholy Dane", which made me smile, because while the dog in the book does have the countenance of a grieving Hamlet, he lacks other important features of the tragic hero.
On the surface, this is a book about a writer whose best friend has committed suicide, who takes the friend’s now ownerless and abandoned Great Dane into her teeny tiny New York City apartment.  There is also some aspect of owners who do not take responsibility for their pets, as the now deceased writer, who died by their own hand, left the dog to the narrator without once asking her about it, and in fact it is somewhat of a burden.  Not only does she not have a lot of dog ownership in her past, she lives in a building where pets are forbidden and she is on the brink of losing her apartment, which she can ill afford to do, when she happens upon a solution that works.
It is underneath all that a book about grief.  The struggle to come to terms with loss, which the narrator and the dog share in equal parts, and then to move on--which the dog does not but the narrator manages to live with the new normal, is the take home message for me.  The Great Dane is a difficult to overlook manifestation of the catastrophe, which the narrators friends fail to see the significance of but the reader cannot overlook it.

The Four Questions

The repetition in the Passover story, the leaving behind a life of slavery, and heading out into the desert, not to a life of luxury, but rather one that has new struggles, is something we do year after year.  The fact that it is inextricably linked with the Easter story does distract from its significance, and it is true that this might be somewhat limited to Jews and those that love them.
Obama saw the link between this story and that of African-Americans who survived slavery.  Here is an excerpt form his 2015 announcement of the White House celebration of Passover:
We are "retelling one of humanity’s great stories of liberation.  The Exodus was neither easy nor quick.  The Israelites’ journey to freedom required them to choose faith over fear and courage over complacency.  Above all, it required the works of an awesome God, who led them out of bondage with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
The story of the Exodus – the signs and wonders that appeared when hope seemed lost, the Jewish people’s abiding belief that they would one day reach the Promised Land –  has inspired countless generations over the years.  It inspired Jewish families to hold fast to their faith, even during times of terrible persecution.  It inspired young Civil Rights leaders as they marched across an Alabama bridge in search of their own Promised Land, half a century ago.
And it continues to inspire us today.  Tonight, my family will read the passage of the Haggadah that declares we must see ourselves as though we personally were liberated from Egypt.  The Exodus reminds us that progress has always come slow and the future has always been uncertain, but it also reminds there is always reason for hope.
Like the Israelites who Moses led out of slavery long ago, it is up to us to never lose faith in the better day that lies ahead.  In our own country, we can continue our march toward a more perfect union.  Around the world, we can seek to extend the miracles of freedom and peace, prosperity and security, to more of God’s creation.  And together, we can continue the hard but awesome work of tikkun olam, and do our part to repair the world."

Beautiful Boy (2018)

The movie is based on a pair of best-selling memoirs by the San Francisco journalist David Sheff and his oldest son, Nic, that chronicled Nic’s descent into crystal-meth addiction.   The film manages to blend the books together, which ends with the dramatizing the perils of addiction from the inside and the outside.  It tells a heartbreaking true story and one that surely will resonate with viewers who’ve experienced addiction themselves. David (Steve Carell) has been a reasonably good father.  He is divorced with two children with his new wife, but Nic (Timothee Chalomet) is included in his newly transformed life.
While Nic's experience is portrayed, it is largely the story of  his father's anguished but impotent crusade to rescue his son from a life-destroying drug dependence.  But the more the film goes on, the more he realizes he’s doomed to fail. Nic is still the son he adores, but the lust for drugs takes on a harrowing life of its own.  You can see that Nic loves his family, but not more than he loves the high, and what he does to them is painful to watch.  It is a very believable movie that has one of the  happy endings that can be possible, and jsut how hard it is to reach.

Assymetry by Lisa Halliday

This first effort was rewarded with a spot on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2018 list. It is a debut novel by a woman who admits that she had a relationship with Phillip Roth as a young woman, and the male novelist in the first third of the book is pretty transparently modeled on him.
The second part of the novel is quite different and it isn't clear until the last section where it exactly fits into the story.  It is a monologue by Amar Jaafari, an Iraqi-American who is being detained by immigration officers at Heathrow Airport. The circular logic that keeps him there and prohibits his movement is so absurd, and also so unrelated to the tale of a young women who lets herself be subsumed by the author with a greater reputation than her own as to be unrecognizable as being part of the same story.  But in the end, if read very closely, we see where the story is going, and all in all, it is both a romantic comedy and a launching pad for something bigger in the future.

Charred Cabbage Salad

This is a great salad, also from the Double Awesome Chines Food cookbook.

1 lb. cabbage, sliced into wedges
1 medium apple, diced
1/2 c. crumbles blue cheese
1/4 c. Fermented Black Bean Dressing*
Chopped nuts

Heat skillet with oil to hot.  Cook cabbage wedges until slightly charred on all sides. Put on cutting board and slice. Toss in a bowl with apple, blue cheese, add dressing and salt to taste, garnish with nuts and serve.

Fermented Black Bean Dressing*
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. rice vinegar
1 Tbsp. fermented black beans
2 tsp. brown sugar
Salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender, season to taste.

Private Life (2018)

Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) is 41. She's not fertile, and there is un underlying anger about that in her.  She thought she could postpone childbearing until almost 40 and really, there is no data to support that assumption.  It is how she wanted it to be, but it really isn't founded in reality. Richard (Paul Giamatti) is 47. He has j one testicle which is blocked. This is a terrible state of affairs for any couple, but a somewhat morose comic gold mine for actors who express frustration as well as these do. Rachel and Richard's obsession with child bearing distracts them from dealing with longstanding issues in their marriage, and maybe their careers as well. A kind of This Is What I Gave Up Parenting For situation.  Richard was once an acclaimed actor and theater impresario. He now runs a pickle-making company. Rachel is a writer who's trying to finish a new novel. She's finding it hard to stay focused . They know having a child is a long shot. They've tried various procedures and treatments and flirted with adoption and surrogates. They refuse to give up. Should they?  The answer is definitely yes, but they would disagree.

Year of the Pig

This is my year!  It is the first time that I have been cognizant of the zodiac years as they specifically pertain to me.

I have been in China during the Festival of Lights or Spring Festival on two occasions, and I am very impressed by how ubiquitously celebrated this is.  The whole country is on the move for two to three weeks during this time period, visiting family and friends, celebrating the year that has finished and hope for a healthy and prosperous new year.  There are many food traditions that surround the celebration, but what is striking as a visitor is that literally everywhere you go there is evidence of the celebration.

We are now in the year of the pig.  There are a number of theories that surround the origin of the China zodiac.  Animals found in the zodiac have been found on pottery going back to 500 BCE.  There is likely a connection between the zodiac with the Silk Road, and the fable about the animals and the order of the years relates to a banquet that the emperor held, and when each of them arrived. 

Salt and Pepper Shrimp with Summer Vegetables

I came home from a short vacation and was greeted by a marvelous Chinese banquet made by my spouse and our youngest son. Yum!

1 lb. shrimp
1 Tbsp. Shaoxing wine
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. corn starch
2 Tbsp. Toasted Salt and Peppercorns*
3-4 c. corn
1 bell pepper, sliced
1 jalapeno, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2" piece of ginger, minced
2 scallions, sliced

Put peeled shrimp in a bowl with wine and salt.  Let sit for 20 minutes.  Drain and pat dry.  Toss with corn starch and 1 Tbsp. toasted salt and peppercorns.
Heat 1" canola oil in a pan.  Shake off shrimp and place in oil.  Cook 2-3 minutes, and remove.
In wok, add small amount of oil and heat, then stir fry corn, peppers, garlic, ginger and scallions, and 1 Tbsp. toasted salt and peppercorns. Add shrimp back in and toss until reheated.  Serve.

*Toasted Salt and Peppercorns
1/4 c. kosher salt
1/4 c. Sichuan peppercorns
1 Tbsp. black peppercorns
1 Tbsp. white peppercorns

Combone in a skillet over medium heat, toast until peppercorns are popping and smelling up the air, about 10-12 minutes. Let cool and then grind to a fine texture with either a spice grinder of a mortar and pestle.

The Happy Time Murders (2018)

First and foremost, this is not a good movie, and while there are tons of puppets, which requires a level of technical skill to pull off, it is definitely not a movie for children.  Language so foul.
The movie isn’t so much interested in immersing you in a comedic world so much as it is in having its puppets do the most outrageous things you’ve never seen or heard puppets do in a movie. The plot is athat empty. Puppet P.I. Phil gets thrown a case by femme fatale Sandra and soon, wherever he goes, another cast member of a once-famous puppet TV show gets the stuffing blown out of him/her. Turns out Phil was once a cop and the new string of murders puts him back together with his human partner, Connie (Melissa McCarthy).  One doesn’t need to concern oneself too much with plot, what with all the puppet antics. They begin with the foul language, but in due time, we see puppets whose forms are pretty familiar—fluffy bunnies, frisky doggies, a porn shop proprietor doing generally unexpected things, like flashing pubic hair and ejaculating. Is this funny? Absolutely not.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The book consists largely, but not solely of reading someone else’s private letters, which feels as intrusive as spying on them through an open window. The letters also provide hints into the relationship between the two people, and digging into a whole trove of letters sent over the course of several years can reveal intricacies that face-to-face interaction with the authors never would.
The book follows the wrongful imprisonment of a young black man named Roy, and its impact on him and on his new wife Celestial. There is a third narrator, Andre, a childhood friend of Celestial’s and a college friend of Roy’s. The variation in these perspectives serves an important purpose: It offers up myriad means of understanding the novel’s complicated central relationship, and lets every character speak for themselves.  Celestial is faithful to Roy at first but her devotion to a man she barely knows wanes over time.  Her father, who was very lukewarm on her marriage to Roy, is furious at her for abandoning him when he was incarcerated for being black.  The book is beautifully written and gives the reader a glimmer into the realities of life for people of color in America.

Salmon with Fennel, Cilantro, and Sesame Oil

There was an article about the best cookbooks emerging this spring, and Double Awesome Chinese Food got my immediate attention.
This is a great way to have salmon, and you could use another firm fish if you lived some place closer to the ocean than I do.

1 1/2 lbs. salmon, cut into individual portions
1-2 fennel bulbs, msndolined
1/4 c. fennel fronds, chopped
1/4 c. sesame oil
1 shallot, chopped
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 inch piece of ginger, minced
1 Tbsp.  rice vinegar
1/4 tsp. each of salt and pepper

Preheat oven the 350 degrees.
Put the fennel slices in a roasting pan large enough to fit the fish in a single layer.  Drizzle with 2 Tbsp. sesame oil and pinch of salt.  Bake for 20 minutes.
While that is happening, put fennel fronds, cilantro, ginger, shallot, vinegar and the remaining salt, pepper, and sesame oil in a food processor and pulse to combine.
Place fish on fennel skin side facing down, and spread the sauce evenly across the top of the fish.  Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

The ABC Murders (2019)

This new three part series on Amazon Prime is something to behold.  The most memorable aspect of the remake of this Agatha Christie classic is Poirot himself.  Unlike the mincing perfection of David Suchet's Poirot and the badass Poirot of Kenneth Branagh, John Malkovich's Poirot is sad in the traditional sense of anger turned inward.  He is constantly disappointed in what man will do to man.  He is still Belgian, but he has frequent flashbacks to the German invasion of Belgium in WWI and his evacuation to England soon thereafter.
The plot is unchanged from the original book in terms of who done it, how, and why.  Inspector Japp is replaced by a not so young looking Inspector Crone (played by Rupert Grint of Ron Weasley fame,  Do not worry, you will not have flashbacks to his best known role, he is completely changed), and he and Poirot gain in trust as the murders continue and they close in on catching the killer.  This is well worth seeing, and I like this Poirot a lot.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamen

This book was recommended to me while waiting for a meeting to start, a coworker gave an impromptu pitch for this book, which he was reading at the time, and then several people around the table echoed his enthusiasm for the book.  So rather than my usual approach, which is to read about a book and then getting it, this was a crowd sourced option.
The core question is that if you knew the day you were going to die, how would you live your life?
The four Gold siblings sneak out one hot and sweltering summer days and saw a fortune teller.  She gave each child the date of their death.  Set aside how telling a seven year old that they will die incredibly young might adversely affect their childhood, it is a good hook.  The two younger children know that they will die young, and they make life choices that are a direct result of the fortune telling, whereas the elder two ignore it, and are incredibly unsupportive of their sibling's choices to be more selfish about their life choices.  The book moves forward focusing on the first to dies, and then the second and so on.  It is a very effective story-telling technique, and I loved this book from the very beginning, and finished it quickly because I had trouble putting it down.

Calligraphy as Art

When I was in Zhangye, in the Gansu Province in northwest China, I saw men in a large open square practicing calligraphy.  They used broomstick length pieces of wood with a tip that is covered with a cloth that is then dipped in a liquid to create temporary calligraphy.  When talking with my nephew, who is living in the province, he said that usually people are reproducing famous poems.  In China, from a very early period, calligraphy has been seen as not only a decorative art form, but rather as a supreme visual art form.  The use of calligraphy on oracle bones dates back to at least 1000 BCE.  Some of the most famous paintings in ancient China have both drawing and calligraphy as equal components to the piece.  Alongside calligraphy, poetry is also a highly valued art form, so combining them is a high form of art, which can be practiced by ordinary citizens.  It is a mesmerizing thing to watch, and I think indicative of the culture.