Avatar

Giant, blue cat people flying around on dragons and chanting feverishly to a huge tree that resembles a sea anemone--in 3-D. 

That one sentence basically sums up Avatar, the movie that everybody has been talking about lately and that I finally went to go see. There was a plot, but it is unimportant, because the real meat of the thing is that the hero gets to become a cat thing and, I guess, mate with his chosen female cat thing and live happily ever after (maybe they had cat thing babies?). Let's face it, people: this is not a movie made for plot, but for the visual art involved. Lush CGI landscapes rushing at the viewer in 3-D are pretty damn stunning, and the use of color in this film is really beautiful.

Still, the predictability and simplicity of the dialogue is definitely a low point (although entirely expected). Example:

Good Guy: This is all over!

Bad Guy: This isn't over while I'm still alive!

GG: I hoped you'd say that!

Fight scene ensues.

These kind of cliché conversations were used throughout the film's (nearly) three hours, but at least their lack of complexity made understanding the German easy for me.

A couple of other minor issues I had:

1. The time. Two hours and forty minutes? The whole thing could have been done in an hour thirty. The theater kindly provided an intermission.

2. There was definitely a lot of borrowing from other movies. People who fight with bows and arrows and live together in a giant, magical tree, for example. Hmmmm...where have I seen that before? Oh, yeah.

Despite my quatsching, I actually did enjoy this movie quite a bit. James Cameron always keeps it fun--he just really, really likes to draw out his action scenes (the ends of Terminator I and Titanic, for example), which can make a person like myself a little impatient. For the beautiful animation and the 3-D experience, however, I feel I got my money's worth.*

*Ok, so maybe 10.50 Euro was a little steep.

An Interesting Food Discovery

This stuff is really good. Specifically in herbal tea, although I actually like it plain, as well. It is called "Fenchelhonig," or fennel honey. Basically, it's a honey/sugar syrup mixture infused with fennel. It tastes quite strongly of fennel, but the lovely honey notes come through as well. I wasn't thrilled that it has the sugar in it (pure honey is better for the body!), but it's so addictive in herbal teas that I don't really care that much. It's also supposedly good for the stomach because of the fennel (hence the rather pharmaceutical bottle).

An interesting thing I have noted about German culture is that it is so much less pharmaceutically dependent than that in America. It's strange to turn on the t.v. and see five minutes of ads that are all about things other than drugs (it's usually chocolate, frozen pizzas and cars). No Nasonex, Prozac or Tums. No constant suggestion of pills for every conceivable malady or ailment. What I find even more interesting, however, is that there are really not that many pharmaceutical drugs available. And before resorting to any of them, Germans will always try to use naturopathic cures such as various teas with different herbal properties, medicines made from the oils of different plants, herbal vapors, herbal cough drops, etc. I never thought of myself as buying into that American pharmaceutical culture, but as soon as I got here and got sick, I found myself thinking, "Where are the pills? Can I get some Tylenol Cold up in here?" The answer is, well, no.

I'm a little sick today, so I guess that's why I've been meditating on this topic. It's pretty boring, this sickness business, and hopefully I'll be up and running again by tomorrow. 

Me and You and Everyone We Know

I watched this movie last night. I'd heard it was good, read Miranda July's short stories and thought they were good, saw the Cannes emblem on the box and assumed that it was the kind of movie I would really enjoy--smart, quirky, interesting.

Instead, it was like being stuck inside a bad dream, and not being able to wake up from it. Yes, I could have stopped watching at any time, but it sucked me in, while at the same time completely freaking me out. I don't know if it had this effect on everyone who watched it--I think many people may have even found it weirdly, disjointedly sweet. But I only found it incredibly creepy, like somebody went inside my head and then made a movie of all the bad dreams I had in my childhood and wrote them into the script for an indie movie. I'm surprised it didn't give me nightmares. I truly don't think this was intended as a creepy movie--I'm fairly sure it was only supposed to mildly shock and confuse. But because of who I am, it was one of the most unsettling, scary things I have ever seen. I felt truly disturbed after watching it. I can't really even bear to recount its plot here in order to write a proper review. Suffice it to say that I am deeply, deeply creeped out.

Good job, Miranda July. You have finally scared the person who never finds "scary" movies scary.

Impulse Purchase

I found this 'banana box' (sounds/looks dirty, but it's literally a case to protect bananas in lunches) too cool to resist.

I'm so not cool.

The other day, I overheard some Germans talking about the general uncoolness of bloggers and big sunglasses.

Germans: "What's with those people who write their lives on the internet? Nobody cares."

Me: "..."

Guess I'm officially the German definition of laaame.

But that does lead me to the question: why do I blog? Nobody does care. But there is something deeply satisfying, for me, about pressing computer keys and writing and seeing it all on a lovely webpage, looking professional and nice, though it's really not. I also happen to know that friends and family who I do not have much contact with are able to read my blog and know that I am continuing to function, and this is somehow comforting. Sometimes I feel that, by keeping up a blog, I am staying connected to people who have meant a lot to me in my life.

So I must genuinely conclude that, despite being lame by non-blogging standards, I do not find my blog so strange and pointless. Well, sometimes.

In other news, Christmas was lovely, complete with an adorable meal of raclette. What is adorable about melted cheese over vegetables/meat/potatoes? It's all in the prep work. Here in Germany, it is fairly common to have a raclette grill, which is a table-top George Forman-style contraption that comes with cute, tiny square pans shaped perfectly for cheese slices and small pieces of vegetable. Half of the fun in this meal is thinking of good flavor combinations and assembling all the ingredients in the tiny pans. Also, what doesn't taste good with melted cheese all over it? One of the aspects of food that Germans really know about is cheese--I don't think I've had bad cheese since I've been here. Even the cheese at Subway is a cut (or several) above the crap we have in America.

Speaking of America, I never thought of myself as a "gluttonous American." But now I realize that, without my own knowledge, I have been imbibed with the American need for things to be big. I mean, ok, not cars or streets or orders of French fries. Specifically, drinks. And even more specifically, coffee. I have noticed in myself a tendency toward annoyance when paying 2 Euro for a small cup of coffee and receiving 6 oz. of joe brewed in a Nescafé machine. I mean, for the same price in the New World, I can get a 12 oz. latte made by a person using locally roasted beans. Blah blah blah, I sound like a damn coffee snob. Hell, I am a damn coffee snob. But when I want a cup of coffee, I want a cup of coffee. Deshalb, I am now drinking coffee almost exclusively at home, where I can drink two cups kostenlos. Sometimes I miss the latté ritual, though.

Last night, I made the most perfect massaman curry! I've found this great Chinese grocery store in Düsseldorf called Ho's, and they have the dangerously hot kind of chilis, sweet potatoes, those little round green eggplants, FRESH TOFU (holy crap, I was tempted) and sweet Thai basil. Of course, they have much more than that, but those are just samplings of the supplies necessary for Asian cooking they provide. Anyway, yesterday I decided that I was in the mood for curry--I'd bought massaman curry paste a few months ago, and hadn't even opened it yet. So I headed out to Ho's and picked up some supplies I was lacking: tofu (packaged, but still locally made), sweet basil, Thai jasmine rice, ginger, a purple-skinned sweet potato,  package of about 30 chilies, tiny onions (this is a little embarrassing, but I thought they were shallots because I grabbed them really quickly without looking as I was getting into the insanely long line behind three guys buying 50 Euros worth of bok choy). All of it only cost me around 8 Euros--a total steal!

Got home, cooked, and loved it. This is really the first time I've eaten home-made Thai curry since I left the U.S., and it was sooo unbelievably comforting. Here's a recipe (sort of), if anyone cares:

1 nice knob of fresh ginger, peeled

8 or 9 tiny red onions (or use three shallots, like I wanted to do)

3 Tablespoons curry paste (doesn't have to be massaman, as this isn't really authentic massaman curry, anyway)

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1 cup coconut milk (or more--personal preference thing)

A little water (you might need it to thin the curry out at some point)

Salt (if you add water, you will probably need to add a bit of salt)

Any/all veggies that you want (I used a couple small carrots, a small-ish sweet potato, broccoli, corn, red bell pepper)

Your choice of protein (I chose tofu)

2 really fucking spicy tiny green Thai chilies, seeds removed (unless you are one of those people who wants to sweat and tear up while they're eating, in which case I recommend leaving the seeds in and possibly adding a third or fourth pepper). I like spicy, but my tongue isn't that numbed yet. And seriously, I had never cooked with these before, so I touched the very tip of my tongue to the pith, and it actually went numb. And then burned.

With a little oil, sautee the onions, chilies and ginger with one tablespoon curry paste and a little salt. After the onions are suitably cooked down, add two more tablespoons paste, breaking it up and stirring around. Immediately add coconut milk, and some water if you want. Simmer. Add ingredients like carrots and sweet potato that take a long time to cook through. Let simmer. Slowly add all of the other veggies, in the order of how long it takes them to cook. Basically, everything just needs to cook all the way through in the simmering curry sauce. When everything is the softness you prefer, the curry is done. I'm not the most organized cooker--I just kind of taste and add a little salt here, a dash more coconut milk there, a splash of water to even things out. So this recipe is more of an illustration of what I did yesterday evening than anything someone could use. But curry is so subjective anyway--everyone likes to make it a different way, with different add-ins and portions of the basics.

I'll definitely be making this again soon. It's not very much work, it tastes great, and it can be stretched to feed many people, or one person many nights in a row. It's also relatively cheap (especially if using Tofu rather than meat). And can I just rave for a couple seconds about this tofu I bought? Though I was tempted by the fresh tofu in plastic bags, it seemed a little more sensible to take a package on the train. But this tofu is so much more fresh and flavorful than what I'm used to buying in the U.S. Its taste is creamy (almost buttery) and subtle but somehow light at the same time. My God, it is good, especially in this curry.

Ok, another boring food post is almost over. Tomorrow is Heilige Abend, the day here in Germany when most people do the presents thing. This is weird to me, as Christmas Eve in America was always the day to sit inside and wrap all of the presents that I had waited until the last minute to buy. Where's the extra day of procrastination here?! I wrapped my last gift today, and I just felt so...early.

Toast, anyone?

You know you really need to clean out the archives of your computer when you start finding pictures like this squirreled away in its cyber-nooks and crannies. I don't even know what this is. I certainly didn't take it. I hope their toast came out alright...

Speaking of fire (I wasn't really, but there's fire in the picture above), it's really beautiful here when night falls, because everyone lights little candles or those big, elaborate paper stars in their windows now that Christmas is approaching. Everyone's windows twinkle welcomingly and it feels almost as if they're lighting a path just for me.

Other things I love about winter here are the warm, good smells wafting in the air--cloves, wine, grilled sausages.