anthropod's New Writeups

Man on Wire (review)

2009-03-01T21:02:41Z

In the late 60s and early 70s, Philippe Petit was a busker. He did pantomime, rode a unicycle, did magic tricks, juggled, walked a tightrope - more usually, a rather slack rope strung between two poles or trees, whatever he could find - and juggled on the unicycle, and juggled on the rope, and even juggled on the unicycle on the rope. He was a showman, a pretty good one, and also a rebel - busking was illegal in Paris, where he worked, and he was often arrested. He liked that about what he had chosen to do.

But what he was passionate about, really passionate, was high wire walking. It's all very well to be a funambulist, but there aren't a lot of places outside the circus where it can be done. So Philippe, ever the performer, looked for dramatic, public places to string his wire and walk. He walked between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral and was arrested as soon as he stepped off. In 1973 he walked between the towers of the Sydney Harbour bridge in Australia, over rush…

Parsley root (thing)

2007-12-23T16:07:56Z

My local supermarket is big, and close by, but its vegetable selection leaves something to be desired: it tends towards the wilted and entombed in sealed plastic, rather than the crisp and breathable fresh that I would prefer. I have been frustrated with the parsnips of late - one of my favourite root vegetables to roast - because they come in a motley bunch of large-and-small specimens encased in a plastic bag, and everyone knows that big parsnip roots are woody and fibrous. So when I saw, further down the display, four evenly matched carrot-sized white tubers gathered together by an elastic band, I grabbed them with glee.

We had a bit of a kerfuffle at the cashier, though, as she didn't know what they were ("parsnips", I said) and didn't have parsnips on her list of codes; the code her fellow cashier gave her came up as "parsley", which I said wasn't right. A flunky was dispatched for a price check, and returned confirming it was indeed parsley. We had a closer look, decided that the…

Salmon rillettes (recipe)

2007-10-05T15:22:03Z

Rillettes is a dish, usually served as an appetizer, that consists of meat (usually rabbit, duck, or pork, sometimes fish) that is cooked slowly in fat, then pounded with a bit of fat and finally placed in a dish, covered with a layer of fat, and refrigerated for a week or so. To serve, the rillettes is turned onto a plate and spread on toast or bread.

This version of rillettes departs from tradition in that the fish is poached in wine as well as butter; although it is cooked slowly, it is not cooked for long, as it only takes a few minutes to cook it through. The fresh salmon is given a flavour boost by the addition of smoked salmon. In addition, the rillettes is not covered by a layer of fat, so it will only keep for a few days, after which is must be eaten. The result of all this innovation is a fantastically delicious hors d'oeuvre that can be prepared a day in advance and will have your guests in rapture.

What you need to make a big hunk of salmon…

Max Roach (person)

2007-08-23T14:52:34Z

Jazz drummer Max Roach was fearlessly creative: he began his career laying down the beats for bebop, and continued to innovate all his life. He saw his role as essential to music, not as background time-keeper, and he sought throughout his long career to use his instrument in new and unexpected ways. He played powerfully yet with subtlety at an amazing tempo, with a contrapuntal, polyrhythmic style that responded to the rhythm and melody of his fellow musicians.

Roach was born in 1924 and grew up in Brooklyn. Like many young black people at that time, he first learned music at church; he began with piano but soon switched to drums. As a teenager he was already working with greats like Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, ensuring that when he graduated high school he was well-known in jazz circles. While studying composition at the Manhattan School of Music he played in nightclubs and took part in groundbreaking recordings such as Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool".

In…

June Callwood (person)

2007-04-18T17:08:31Z

Canada's Conscience

Canadian journalist and humanitarian June Callwood was an activist who focused on social justice issues. She has written 30 books (including ghost-written autobiographies of Barbara Walters and Otto Preminger), 1,500 magazine articles, and 500 newspaper columns. She was the host of the television shows "In Touch" and "National Treasures", and "Caregiving with June Callwood". She helped establish dozens of organizations to promote the arts, human rights, civil liberties and social welfare. She received 20 honourary doctorates, is a Companion of the Order of Canada, and has a street, a park and Ontario's award for volunteerism named after her.

June was born in a small town in Ontario in 1924, to Harold, a plumber and entrepreneur, and his wife Gladys. She had one younger sister, Jane. June was an intelligent and precocious child, and skipped from first and second grade, so that she was three years younger…

Philip Johnson (person)

2007-04-09T22:50:58Z

American architect Philip Johnson was instantly recognizable with his thick, black-framed glasses and witty pronouncements. He began his career as a writer, curator, and critic, and was particularly influential in the 1930s through his work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where he championed the International Style of architecture (a term he coined). Later trained as an architect, his structures ranged from earlier "glass boxes" in all shapes and sizes to later postmodern fanciful skyscrapers. During his prodigiously long life - he died in 2005, aged 98 - he was an outspoken arbiter of culture, architecture, and design.

Philip Cortelyou Johnson was born in 1906, in Cleveland, the only offspring of a wealthy attorney, Homer Johnson, and his wife, Louise. As a young man he attended Harvard, studying history and philosphy; he graduated with honours in 1927, then toured Europe, where he met the Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Johnson was…