lunch 2001-06-11 bkfriwon.html
Old books, old friend, and odd wontons
I really hate when I have half an entry in and then I hit the Back button when I meant to open another window, erasing everything I’ve typed. Anyway, yesterday was a pleasant enough day that I wanted to write about it. A trip to the local Half-Price Books resulted in acquisition of a near-mint (but half-priced!) paperback of Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign, as well as three by Lloyd Alexander (though unfortunately not The Book of Three, the first of his Prydain Chronicles), and also Words and Rules by Steven Pinker, whom I’ve been wanting to read more of in the hope that his prose is not always as turgid as in How the Mind Works.
Other than that, my accomplishment for the day was a batch of ground-turkey wontons, which were quite edible, though not nearly as good as Mechaieh’s. For some odd reason, mine had sort of a liverish taste. Inferior ground turkey? I don’t know. I had lots of turkey/cabbage/scallion mixture left when I ran out of wonton wrappers, so I dumped in the rest of the beaten egg I’d been using to seal the wontons and made meatballs. Unfortunately, there was too much egg for the amount of turkey, so they were a bit runny. Breadcrumbs or wheat germ would have saved the day, but I didn’t have any. Anyway, they weren’t pretty, but T seemed to think they tasted all right. I was at least careful to cook them through.
In the later afternoon, I was delighted to get an email from a friend who seemed to have disappeared without a trace over the last several months – left one job and lost contact with the other people I could have called to find her. Now, at least, I have current phone numbers. I gave her this URL, too, so Sandy, if you’re reading this, thanks for the email! I was worried about you.
By the way, I don’t want to discuss the man they executed today. Whether or not you agree with his fate, he was clearly an amoral brute and a killer. What bothers me was his final message; instead of making a speech, he simply wrote out William Ernest Henley’s Invictus. It’s a good and inspiring poem, and I am not satisfied to let it now forever be associated with a mass murderer. So, without naming anyone but its author, here it is for the next Google searcher:
"Invictus"
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scrolls,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
By William Ernest Henley (1849-1903):