I checked the Austin Livejournal community at about 7 last night, and noticed tornado warnings for other parts of Texas.  At 9 there was an update letting everyone know that some areas of Travis County were also on tornado watch.

First of all: holy hell, I live in Texas.  Second of all: tornados…really?  Pretty much the only experience I have with tornados comes from my 5^th grade science teacher, Mr. Galette, who spelled tornados with an “e” at the end as he let us play science jeopardy.  Passing over the fact that we were exceptionally cool, and the fact that I arrived in middle school knowing next to nothing about science—thanks, Mr. G., and Mrs. Burke, who taught me, every year from kindergarten to the fourth grade, the delicate process of how popcorn pops—it became increasingly clear that I am a Manhattanite. 

It was thus with only a little bit of trepidation that I noticed a whole lot of thunder a little after midnight.  I was somewhat skeptical of these “tornados” I’d heard about.  I mean, come on—it’s so Wizard of Oz. 

And then it started to hail.  And not cute little balls of hail that sort of sting.  I could see these chunks as I peeked through the blinds.  The stair rails began to ring.  And then I heard the chairs by the pool fall over.  That’s when I started to mentally go through my tornado etiquette in my head.  At which point I realized that I have no tornado etiquette.  I cracked open a window; something about pressure (I later learned this was the exact wrong thing to do...oops). 

Then curiosity got the better of me and I opened the door.  Two-inch pieces of ice littered the floor.  A chair had fallen into the overflowing pool.  Lightening, thunder, and—oh yes—a whole hell of a lot of wind.  I decided to close the door.  And then the power went out.  I was torn between two desires: to sit by the window and watch in case a tornado happened into the area, and to go huddle under the table.  The latter option seemed the more proper choice, but really, both window and table are made of glass and neither choice seemed particularly safe.

And then the thunder subsided, the lights flickered back on, and the Manhattanite realized she’d probably overreacted.  So off she went to reset the clocks, text exaggerations to her non-Texas friends, and type up an overly dramatized account of the experience.  Which, she discovered, she would have to post in the morning because her internet had died. 

To be fair, I just went for a run, and there’s a lot of damage in my neighborhood.  Fallen trees, broken windows—I even saw a bashed-in stone fence.  There are police directing traffic at dead street lights.  And the news reports say winds reached 70 mph.  So that’s something.

In the distant future, when I write my dissertation, I can see myself slipping food jokes into my chapters.  This “distant” future just got one-sixth (one-fifth? one twelfth?) of the way closer, by the by, since I just finished my last piece of writing for the semester, and will go to my last class tomorrow (today). 

As an undergrad, the inside joke was lobsters.  I was bound and determined to get this quote into my senior thesis:(1) “America came out of the Revolution with its food resources intact, except for fish.  A contemporary writer reported that the number of lobsters in the New York area had decreased because they had been frightened away by the cannonading of the Revolution, a statement which seems to overestimate either the importance of the artillery or the sensitivity of lobsters.”(2)  Really, I talked about lobsters…pretty much not at all in the actual thesis.  The quote was just too good to leave out.

I have a feeling that I am building up a cache of inside jokes about kangaroos.  No, really, kangaroos.  I’ve read two absolutely great quotes about them in the past three weeks, and am transcribing them here for your (my) benefit.  The first is by Alexandre Dumas.  He suggested that Frenchmen needed to domesticate the kangaroo, since “the peculiar structure of these animals, which gives them back legs much larger in size than their front ones, is eminently favourable to the production of good quality meat, greatly preferable to that of cow or sheep in that it is much more tender than the first and much more abundant and nutritious than the second…The kangaroo is timid and gentle.  It is not in the least destructive, as several authors have claimed.  In this respect it can be compared to the hare.  It is very easy to feed.”(3) 

The next quote is actually from a book written in this century, as opposed to a dictionary of food published in 1873.  It’s from a book called Near a Thousand Tables.  “Kangaroos could be herded if people really wanted to manage them by that method.  Some are easily tamed.  A friend of mine had a pet kangaroo when he was a boy.  After release into the wild, the kangaroo often returned to visit him, climbed the steps and knocked on his bedroom door.  Docile specimens could be captured in their prime or reared from babyhood as breeding stock.”(4)  I was struck by the similarity between the two suggestions.  I was also kind of tempted to try eating kangaroo.  I’ve added it to my list of things to eat.  Bison, venison, and rabbit top the list too.  Quite the carnivore I am, apparently.

Speaking of eating meat.  The above-mentioned book has two more highly enjoyable quotes, one meat-related, one not.  You get no paratext for them.  Except the previous two sentences, in which I tell you how to fell about them.

“The literature on the subject is vast.  But though a practical line through it leads to a secure conclusion that cannibals may and sometimes do eat people for simple bodily nourishment—that is not why cannibal practices become enshrined in some cultures.  Most cases concern other aims: self-transformation, the appropriation of power, the ritualization of the eater’s relationship with the eaten.  This puts human flesh on the same level as many other foods which we eat not because we need them to stay alive but because we want them to change us for the better: we want them to give us a share of their virtue.  In particular, it aligns cannibals with their real modern counterparts: those who eat ‘health’ diets for self-improvement or worldly success or moral superiority or enhanced beauty or personal purity.  Strangely, cannibals turn out to have a lot in common with vegans.”(5)

“Goldilocks is always transgressing class boundaries and stealing other people’s porridge.”(6)

I skimmed this book shortly after high school.  I was surprised by how much I didn’t get.  Or, rather, how much I didn’t remember whilst reading it for class this semester.  I had the same experience with Judith Walkowitz’s City of Dreadful Delight.  Man oh man.  Thank you, Lydia Murdoch, for assigning that book when I was a sophomore in college.  To be fair, we really did enjoy it, and had a good class discussion (though I don’t think we read all of it—maybe just a chapter or two?).  On the other hand, there’s a whole lot of theory that went completely over my head when I read it back then.  Foucault?  Marx?  Huh? (To be fair, I’ve still managed to squeak through grad school without reading Marx).  It was kind of this strange realization this semester.  I know I love re-reading fiction, but who knew I’d like re-reading history?  Probably anyone who knows me might have guessed that.  I suppose I just missed the hint.  Sigh.  Huge dork, I know.

On a completely unrelated note, Facebook keeps showing me ads for Betsey Johnson shoes on sale.  I have no money and no reason to buy very high-heeled shoes, but oh man.  I love them so.

(1) My life would be significantly less complicated (though significantly more cool) if Livejournal let me footnote things. 

(2) Waverly Lewis Root and Richard de Rochemont, Eating in America: A History (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1976), p. 101.  Note: this book should not really be used for anything except amusing quotes on lobsters.  In case you were going to run to the library and use it as a reference.

(3) Alan Davidson and Jane Davidson, translators and eds., Dumas on Food: Selections from Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987 [1873]),  152.

(4) Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food (New York: Free Press, 2004 [2002]), p. 70.

(5) Fernández-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables, p. 27

(6) Fernández-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables, p. 123.

current mood: amused