Beethoven in the rain

This week I am working to three deadlines: a journal submission, and two different talks, to be delivered Thursday in New York, and then Friday here in Philadelphia with Tom, my collaborator.

So I am working like a demon in my little apartment, and haven't done the reading for David's graduate class today, and think I will probably call by his office later on and become an apology.

I'm writing up the paper I gave at ANZAMEMS last year to be one of three responses to Bruce Holsinger's The Pre-Modern Condition. Oh. Yes. I posted it on the blog. But I'm making it a bit longer, and have also realised I have left all my photocopies of Umberto Eco at home. There are various versions of the essays I want to cite, so I will have a messy day in the library trying to untangle them all for the footnotes.

Anyway, I worked at my desk all day yesterday, from 9.00 in the morning when mist hung low over the city, till about 6.00 when the sun was shining and it was about 18C. I went out for a walk and bought myself a little present (it was my birthday, though it was actually already over in the land of my birth; and I'm really saving up the celebrations for New York, when Paul and I can celebrate both our birthdays together): Lang Lang playing Beethoven's Piano Concerti #1 and #4. Absolutely wonderful, fluid rich sounds. I'm playing it through the ipod but can't wait to get it home and through the proper amp. and the big speakers.

I'd walked south along Broad St till there were not that many people walking around, stopping at a very imposing building that turned out to be yet another Philadelphia college of the performing arts — this is a very cultured city. I turned round, and almost at that point, the wind picked up, and the sky started to go that pale duck-egg green of a storm with fast-moving grey clouds against the westerly sun. I picked up my pace, and felt the pressure drop. Would I get home before the rain? No! Suddenly all hell broke loose in an immense hail storm. I took shelter in a car park: no one was leaving for fear of the stones beating up the cars, let alone people. I guess it lasted about ten minutes: even when it stopped hailing, the streets were white with the rain.

Then suddenly it was over, and I scurried home the last few blocks, water still pouring off awnings and car parks above street level. This morning? Blue skies again, and fluffy white clouds.

And congratulations to Meli at Northern Lights, who is handing in her PhD thesis today. Let's hope she's going to have the energy for some celebrations herself!

Birthday turrets

I offered to make my friend Paula a birthday cake, and asked what kind of cake she would like. "Bananas are nice", she said. "Pooh!" I said, "that's not very festive!" So having told her what she didn't want, after asking her what she did want, this is what we made. Unfortunately, it suffered a minor collapse during the afternoon, and you can see it's had to be pushed back up, but it was truly spectacular, all the same.

It was a classic joint enterprise. I used 15 egg whites, half a kilo of ground hazlenuts and four cake tins of three different sizes, and melted the chocolate, and mixed up the coffee-flavoured and sweetened cream, and sliced the strawberries, and then Paul assembled the layers of meringue, brushed them with (organic, free-trade, 70%) chocolate, and sandwiched them together with fruit and cream, in this wonderfully asymmetrical fantasy cake. It's a version of the recipe we associate with Christmas and birthdays in my family, but I've never seen it put together like this! And yes, there were bananas in some of the layers, too. I was the classic nay-sayer, when Paul started talking about turrets, but in fact, the highest point of the cake on the left, was the most successful: layers and layers of meringue and cream and chocolate.

We sat Paula behind the cake, on her red couch with the red wall behind her, and voilà! the beauteous vision in the photo. Happy birthday, dear friend!