Cooking Experiment - Pizza

Thin crust Italian pizza with Parma ham, sun-dried tomatoes, roquette, artichokes, Parmesan, Mozzarella, and fresh basil.

I obviously need to work on rounding out the dough, but otherwise this was delicious. Time to make the second one!

Will post the second one to see if I did a better job and let you know about working the dough. It's been a real problem for me, so about to use another plan of attack.

On a sidenote, as much as I would love to own a pizza stone I don't. What I made this on is simply an insulated cookie sheet. It didn't brown up the crust as much as I would have liked, so I am going to see what maybe running a little olive oil might do. Just the teeny-tiniest bit because too much wouldn't be good either.

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Diane Arbus

Diane Nemerov was one of the lucky ones, insulated from the Great Depression because her father owned Russek's, the famous Fifth Avenue department store. She grew up amongst wealth and artists. Her father became a painter when he retired; her sister was a sculptor; and her brother Howard Nemerov would become a US Poet Laureate.

Diane Nemerov married her high school sweetheart, Allan Arbus, and became Diane Arbus.

A visit to the Alfred Stieglitz gallery brought the couple, who already had a budding interest in photography, inspiration. Diane's father hired the couple to do the advertisement for the store. Allan would photograph the war for the U.S. Army Signal Corps and after the war the couple started a commercial photography business.

Though they both hated the fashion world 200 pages of their editorials would make it into Glamour and 80 into the pages of the fabled Vogue. This work has been described as being of "middling quality".

Vogue 1953. Click to view larger image.

In 1956 Diane quit the commercial photography business. Two years later she and Allan separated. They divorced in 1969, but Diane had come well into her own. Her notable photographs, with their sometimes controversal subjects, for which Diane is known and remembered though in 1971 she told Lisette Model (another female photographer) that she "hated them".

On October 18th (until February 5, 2012) the Jeu de Paume will have an exhibition dedicated to Diane's work. This is the first such exhibition in France and will include all her major works and many never viewed before by the public.

I of course am going to be one of the first people in the queue, if I can't get my hands on some tickets for whatever is happening before it opens to the public. Below are some images of Diane's most famous photograph, Boy With Toy Grenade Central Park taken in 1962.

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Why I Love Wonder Woman

My fourth birthday party was dedicated to Wonder Woman. I had the WW logo on my glasses, my cake, my party favours, my balloons, and I even tried to dress up like Princess Diana of Paradise Island by wearing a blue leotard and taping tin foil to my wrists.

I had a pink plastic jump rope lasso of truth and a backstory. Since I had just moved from an island off the shores of Korea my backstory was rooted in truth. I was a half-Amazonian princess raised on a magical island who left her magical island to be raised in the world of men.

As I think of my backstory, or what comic book fans might call my "origin" myth, I'm reluctant to give too many details. Why? Well that little backstory I concocted in my mind that day and told to all the party guests and my insistence that they not call me by real name because I was now "Wonder Girl" - well that story has stayed with me all my life. It's partially what inspired the series of books I want to write.

The funny thing is, it wasn't the TV show that starred Linda Carter who gave me my love for Wonder Woman. It was the comics. They belonged to an older girl who lived near my grandparents, but by the end of the summer I had the action in the panels nearly memorised and when my birthday rolled around all I wanted to be just like her. Even if just for a day.

Wonder Woman comics weren't popular when I started buying my own comic books seven years later. Still, Wonder Woman remained my favourite even when pitted up against other female superheroes with incredible powers like Stan Lee's "Jean Grey". I was in awe of Jean, but I never wanted to be her.

I'm still a serious comic book fan. I am a frequent visitor to comic book related message boards and I wouldn't pass up a chance to go to ComicCon. I wouldn't go out of my way either though. I'm more addicted nowadays to Alan Moore's work than Stan Lee's continuing legacy.

But then there's Wonder Woman. There's that memory I have of me at that birthday party when somehow the world was a perfect place and I was going to grow up to be a hero and have an invisible plane and the possibility that one day I might save the world.

That's why I went and bought The Wonder Woman Chronicles from Henk's Comics when I was in Amsterdam. They didn't have it in the shop, so I ordered it and paid to have it sent to me. I have a soft spot for their shop. I bought my Tardis key chain there, my The Walking Dead t-shirt, and lots of comics. Though to actually ship me my WW was more than they charged me. Will definitely have to go back and buy more comics from them.

Now let me explain why coming home to my WW Chronicles was the cherry on a near perfect day.

I took the 10h17 train from Gare de Lyon with the intention of possibly going to Fontainebleau to have a coffee, browse some shops, and write near the reflecting pool behind the chateau for awhile.

They rearranged the bus system. The trip that should be 15 minutes max ended up taking one hour and twenty-two minutes.

I had a terribly strong espresso than had to take a pee in a loo that someone had obviously just taken a massive poo in while holding my breath.

Every shop I wanted to pop into was closed.

Walked all the way to the chateau, spotted the swans, ducks, and carp and ended up walking all the way back to a bakery to buy a sandwich that a swan brazenly ripped out of my hands minus a bit of mayonnaise and ham.

Found a beautiful spot on the chateau grounds behind a pedestal (sans statue) to hide behind, had a puff, wrote a bit, and watched waterbugs. Waterbugs are beautiful to watch. They make ripples that are completely different than fish or rain droplets or anything else I've ever seen.

On the way back towards the chateau rescued a duck from a mean little Chinese boy. I'm not sure what scared him more, my accent in Mandarin or that I told him he was doing a naughty thing. Whatever it was, another Chinese couple also scurried off.

The duck I rescued escorted me down the road a bit, met an old French lady, escorted her a little bit, and then another old lady came and fed it some bread. It also got a sandwich out of me. I had a nice little talk with the old lady for awhile and then we both agreed it was very hot, and after wishing each other a good day we went our separate ways but not before she assured me that someone else would come and feed the adorably tame duck we were both smitten with.

I bought ingredients to make delicious pizzas (artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, Parmesan, arugula, and Parma ham). While waiting for the bus (which I missed) back to the train station I helped a lady find a perfume for her daughter and then waited for the next bus. Again the rearrangement of the buses screwed me, so I hopped into a taxi and watched the beautifully lit forest of Fontainebleau from behind a lightly tinted window while people complained about Sarkozy on the radio.

Train station. Paris.

Back home the package was waiting for me. Old school Wonder Woman was all about empowerment. The first female superhero was as strong as Hercules. As wise as Athena. More beautiful than Aphrodite. She also wore a skirt back then in 1941 when she made her first appearance in ALL-STAR COMICS #8.

William Moulton Marston's imagination (influenced heavily by his wife) created a heroine for little girls to look up to and I did. I'm hoping that reading the old comics will inspire me to be a hero like they did all those years ago.

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