And We’re Slow to Acknowledge the [Gaping Holes in Our Security], or Heart It Bleeds Some More

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Summary of my understanding of what’s going on here. Don’t feel bad.

So if you’ve been living on the internet for the last couple days, you’ve probably heard about Heartbleed, a staggering security bug that is ravaging somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3s of the internet, depending on who you ask. Or maybe you live on the internet and haven’t heard about this- that’s okay, too. I’ve been pretty surprised that this isn’t front page news, a trending topic on Twitter, and the name of a vegan cafe in Berkeley already; it’s hugely important but flying mostly under the radar.

This isn’t a tech site, obviously, and I’m not any kind of expert on computer security, but I try to be helpful and explain stuff in layman’s terms. If this ends up getting like, three of my readers’ ish locked down, I’ll consider it worth it. I talked to a couple tech-y friends (some in security, some just more knowledgeable about systems, and a few bona fide geeks who love this stuff), took a ton of notes, asked a lot of questions, and got some info about what’s going on, how concerned you should be, and what steps you should take. If you’ve been paying attention so far, you probably saw that this is almost certainly going to touch you in some way, so maybe take some of these steps. The right people are pretty freaked out about this- I plan to take their advice and I think you should too. The worst thing you can do is assume this is no big deal and take no action.

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Lazy Sunday: 6 April 2014

Good morrow, dear readers. Please enjoy these reading materials I have procured for your benefit.

  • To the surprise of absolutely no one who has ever been told “I’ll call you.”
  • Selfies: The dandy we deserve.
  • Heaven’s Gate designed some really ugly websites.
  • And directly after that, I offer you what’s wrong with Vice, a site I avoid unless someone sends me something. This could be more broadly titled “what’s wrong with people” but VICE is a good sample.
  • I’ve started taking the idea of scheduling really seriously, so some of these ideas may come in handy for time saving. You get so much more time to do stuff you love when you plan your ish.
  • Oooh, a lost pilot story! I love early days of aviation mishaps.
  • My friend Eliza is now writing for Cosmo, so assume anything hilarious coming out of there is her. Here, we’ve got some Game of Thrones sex tips for ya.
  • Billions of average people can together make a good decision. Should we all register for this?
  • Some thoughts on this week’s Fort Hood shootings.
  • A 25-year-old Jon Hamm on a dating game show.
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Okra, and a slow boil, and things that cannot be taught

My buddy Kevin reading just one of his many wonderful food poems. If you haven’t read his work, do yourself a favor and check out any of his books and/or anthologized work.

Take a Step Out of Your House

Today, the first day of National Poetry Month, I reaped the ultimate reward of the used book collector. I opened up this dogeared Rilke traslation and out fluttered someone’s efforts. I haven’t read it yet, but I desperately want it to be good. I’m going to share a poem with you every day, and I think this is a good one to start with. So many people think they don’t “get” poetry, but take Ol Rainer’s advice on this one, and take a walk out of your comfort zone.

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The Way In

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Robert Bly

 

Whoever you are, some evening take a step

out of your house, which you know so well.

Enormous space is near, your house lies where it begins,

whoever you are.

Your eyes find it hard to tear themselves

from the sloping threshold, but with your eyes

slowly, slowly, lift one black tree

up, so it stands against the sky: skinny, alone.

With that you have made the world. The world is immense

and like a word that is still growing in the silence.

In the same moment that your will grasps it,

your eyes, feeling its subtlety, will leave it.

Book Club: The Signature of All Things

Let’s get one thing straight here: this book is a dangerous thing to read in the wrong bar. I was hanging out on my lunch, enjoying The Signature of All Things, and not one but two women approached me to tell me that Eat, Pray, Love had helped them gather the strength to “follow their passions.” I’m here to tell you that this is a risk you ought to undertake, though I recommend you digest this volume in the privacy of your home. As I mentioned the other day, girlfriend wrote Coyote Ugly, and for the record, Eat, Pray, Love is whitegirlproblems but it is well-written, thoughtful whitegirlproblems.

The cover doesn't show you this, but there are really pretty botanical illustrations inside!

The cover doesn’t show you this, but there are really pretty botanical illustrations inside! Isn’t this cover kinda boring? It is. It totally is.

The Signature of All Things is sprawling, but briefly, it’s an 80-year tour of the life and times of Alma Whittaker, a autodidact botanist from Philadelphia. Her father, Henry, is something of an American success story. A poor boy, he makes himself useful to Joseph Banks and James Cook, explores the globe, and makes a name for himself in the new world in the realm of medicinal plants and decorative flowers. I can’t even begin introduce everyone who wanders in and out, but that’s the basic premise.

Alma isn’t very pretty, nor is she very well-socialized. She isn’t close to her (very beautiful) adopted sister Prudence, nor does she have any other friends save a dotty neighbor girl named Retta who seems like a character from a fairy tale. Her mother is forbidding, her father is something of a loon, and men don’t take much notice of her unless it’s to talk about smart people stuff. Even though she’s rich and bright, Alma is really, really lonely. Time marches on, and her crushes go unrequited and the world moves on and Alma’s just out in her mansion, reading books in Greek by herself.

Enter a man named Ambrose Pike, a genius botanical illustrator. He’s almost like the answer to Alma’s prayers. He’s handsome and loves the natural world, like her, and he loves her. When he sort of asks her to marry him, she jumps at the chance. Things don’t really go according to plan on that front, and I don’t really feel like I’m giving anything away on that one. If you’re reading this book and thinking this wedding is a good idea, you and I have different ideas of how dating should work. She sends Ambrose away to Tahiti when things fall apart, and he dies there. Though she’s getting on in years by 1800s standards, she goes to the island and then on to the Netherlands to pick up the pieces of her life. I think this is an adequate summary of events.

The Signature of All Things is a work of fiction, but I kept forgetting that. Alma’s research, the world of her estate, her father’s discoveries- they all felt so real. There’s a staggering amount of research that undergirds every left turn, and I’m sure there’s much that’s invisible to me, the casual reader. I found myself googling “alma+whitaker” and “vandevender+botany+amsterdam” and “bryology” to attempt to ascertain where fact ended and invention began. I’m still not sure, so tight is the tiny, erudite world Gilbert has created. I was in awe for much of the 500 pages on account of the scope of knowledge contained within.

That said, The Signature of All Things is too long in some parts, and too short in others. I loved Gilbert’s storytelling and sprawling prose, but there were so many things going on at once that I kind of got twisted up sometimes. I was so immersed in my hope that Alma was finally going to lose her virginity that I almost missed the big plot point that is the uh….great discovery of her career (this is actually a pretty smart commentary about the status of women in the sciences at the time). I loved the exploration of female longing and sexuality, as well as the erotic lives of plants, but wanted more in the way of descriptions of Alma and her father’s actual work. I learned a lot of the purple novels of early America, but didn’t get any concrete details of Alma working, just that she did. Some of the characters of the early parts of The Signature of All Things are distracting, even though they’re fully realized and smartly detailed. I was so mired in the morass that was the Tahiti portion of the novel that I never worked out if her erstwhile husband was gay and deeply attracted to Asian men or a bizarre, possibly mentally ill mystic. The Amsterdam story line featured so many unexpected and maybe irrelevant characters that the end felt rushed and a little bit like a cop out. I never figured out why Alma’s sister didn’t develop a personality, or why her only friend got so crazy. I would have liked to have known that, or at least had some hints.

I’m glad I read The Signature of All Things, and that I gave Elizabeth Gilbert a chance. It was an easy, interesting read, and for all its frustrations, it has much to recommend it. I learned much about mosses, a few words of Dutch, and a couple things about Ben Franklin. My appreciation for botanical drawings is much greater than it was this time last week. I am now much more likely to defend liking the cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory in fashionable circles. You can’t say that about most novels.

Have you read this or Pilgrims? I read that and really liked it. Thoughts?

Next week, I’m reading this. I’d love to talk with you about it!

Getting Out: Birmingham, Alabama

An alarming number of people think that I moved to Charleston from Alabama. Like New Hampshire and Vermont, Mississippi and Alabama are both variations on a theme in terms of shape, and are exactly next to each other. As it turns out, most Americans are terrible at geography, and there’s no mnemonic device that helps you remember which one is which.

A view from the bar of the Redmont Hotel.

A view from the bar of the Redmont Hotel. I recommend skipping it, but the views cannot be beat.

Additional confusion comes into play when it turns out that I know Birmingham pretty well. I went there often as a kid, it was a midway point between Oxford and Atlanta, and I spent almost a week there this autumn for a business trip. I love that town, so I get excited any time there’s a chance to stop in. No one ever believes me when I say this; Birmingham gets no respect.

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Tea Party Tuesday: Blueberry Black

I’m fond of hating on Savannah. Not to say I don’t like Savannah, I do. It’s a fun town with gorgeous architecture and great restaurants and friendly folks and beautiful art. It’s just that Charleston is so. much. better. I like to tell people who are deciding between the two for vacation spots (not sure why these two are always paired, but there you have it): Anything you can do there, you can do better here.

I would like to amend that statement in two regards: one, they have way better thrift stores. Two, they have much, much better tea offerings. Today’s tea, the Blueberry Black, is from the Tea Room, a little shop on Broughton that specializes in tea and its myriad accouterments.* It’s slightly precious inside, but the tea ladies are knowledgeable and their offerings are many.

Not a filter-- this sucker is actually slightly blue in real life as well as fake life.

Not a filter- this sucker is actually slightly blue in real life as well as fake life.

As you might have expected, today’s tea is a black, and it’s from China. It’s mild and smooth, and I don’t know much about it. It’s mild like an assam, though and was pretty caffeinated. The bright blue flecks you see in the photo are cornflowers and I think they’re just for color. I liked how pretty it was to look at. I know that’s a stupid thing to like about something you’re going to soak in water and then drink, but the cerulean was a nice surprise when I opened the bag.

The nose on this thing is very fruity, and it’s pleasant- somewhere between a real blueberry smell and a Bath and Body Works blueberry body spray (I know you know what I mean). A teaspoon steeps for roughly three minutes on the first infusion, and more like five or six on the second.

The taste is nice, pleasant, not overbearing in the slightest. The black tea was smooth and light; very drinkable. Blueberries were not super-strong, but there was a nice bit of fruitiness. If you aren’t usually a tea drinker, this might be one to change your heart. It was a great breakfast tea, but this would be a great iced tea- toss in a sprig of mint and you’re in business. I’ll be putting this away in volume come summer.

Blackberry Blue runs 3.75/ounce and can be purchased online or at the Tea Room.