Bonjour mon petit bureau de change

I had forgotten about this song until yesterday, when I overheard someone at the farmer's market asking for a croissant while I was buying a baguette. The fact that someone there looked like Jacques Cousteau meant I had to watch this video five times in a row when I got home.

"Fracture simulation is a technique used by engineers to create a crack or fracture in the rock that contains oil or gas."

The week after I graduated from high school my dad sent me a letter that broke down the mineral content of the entire core of the earth. Every time I'm home, we have at least one conversation that revolves around wellbores. Everything I know about the oil and gas industry I learned from the Science museum because I went to those parts of the museum with my dad. I'm not sure how disappointed he was that when I went to college I became a Democrat and studied what he still refers to as socialism.

Happy father's day, nerd.

24 facts and one thing I made up about 25 First Ladies

Can you guess which one what I made up? The winner will get a poem written about them OR they can pick the mystery prize that's in this box.

1. Julia Dent Grant really, really loved being First Lady. She was the first after Monroe to be one for eight years. She was the first First Lady to write a memoir. It was published in 1975.
   
2. Eleanor Roosevelt is the only First Lady to have a National Historic Site in her honor, Val-Kill, in New York.
   
3. Ellen Axson Wilson studied to be a painter and had a studio installed in the White House.
   
4. Abigail Adams's approval of the Alien and Sedition Acts earned her the nickname of "Her Majesty." (But maybe those people should have just tried not being so seditious.) She was played by Laura Linney in John Adams. Now, I've got a few things I want to say about Laura Linney.
   
5. Betty Ford opened and taught in a dance school called the Betty Bloomer Dance School.
6. Grace Coolidge was the first to secure White House furnishings by getting Congress to approve an act protecting them. She also loved baseball.
7. Edith Wilson was a descendant of Pocahontas.
   
8. Michelle Obama and I both received a Bachelor's degree in Sociology. So clearly, one benefit of that degree is that one day you will get to marry Barack Obama.
   
9. Laura Bush. According to the awesome film W., Laura Bush likes reading, smoking, and admiring things. She seems like a nice lady.
   
10. Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson purchased and ran a radio station with her inheritance and was a millionaire in her own right.
    
11. Lou Henry Hoover was fluent in Chinese and Latin.
    
12. Dolley Madison was born a Quaker and was kicked out of the Society of Friends for marrying James, an Episcopalian. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard! Episcopal.
    
13. Hillary Rodham Clinton once applied to work for NASA.
14. Pat Nixon met her husband while they were auditioning for a play.
15. Florence Harding died of kidney failure. She was also one of several First Ladies to ask astrologists for advice. Can you guess two others?
    
16. Lucy Hayes commissioned an artist to complete the White House's collection of portraits of prior presidents.
17. Frances Cleveland was the youngest First Lady (21). Her daughter Esther was the first child of a president to be born in the White House.
18. Harriet Lane was James Buchanan's niece. The song "Listen to the Mockingbird" was dedicated to her.
    
19. Elizabeth Monroe's first language was Dutch.
    
20. Bess Truman died at age 97 and was the longest living First Lady.
21. Nancy Reagan's most recent film role was playing herself in the movie Balls of Fury.
    
22. Caroline Harrison ordered White House china with a Goldenrod pattern (Benjamin Harrison's favorite flower that she wanted to be the National flower), but she died before she was able to use the china.
23. Lucretia Garfield taught algebra, Latin and French classes and took a class in Greek from James Garfield.
    
24. Helen Taft loved to surf.
25. Rosalynn Carter established the White House Trust and hosted the first jazz and poetry festivals in the White House.

My next list will probably be a list of secretaries of state ordered by how cute I thought they were.

Books Read in 2010

1. Byzantium: the Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages by Michael Angold
2. Whose Muse?: Art Museums and the Public Trust edited by James Cuno
3. Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
4. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
5. John Adams by David McCullough
6. Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin
7. A Remarkable Mother by Jimmy Carter
8. Appetite for Life: the Biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch
9. Love Stories in this Town by Amanda Ward
10. First Ladies Quotations Book edited by William Foss
11. Warren G. Harding by John W. Dean
12. Who Moved my Blackberry? by Lucy Kellaway
13. Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box by Madeleine Albright
14. Emma Goldman: American Individualist by John Chalberg
15. The Devil Wears Prada by Laura Weisberger
16. Che: A Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
17. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
18. Post Grad by Emily Cassel
19. Feisty First Ladies and other Unforgettable White House Women by Autumn Stephens
20. The Motorcycle Diaries: notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto Che Guevara
21. Hot Dog: a Global History by Bruce Kraig
22. Soda Pop! From Miracle Medicine to Pop Culture by Gyvel Witzel and Michael Witzel
23. Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino
24. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
25. Collecting Political Buttons by Marc Sigoloff
26. The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food by Jeffrey Masson
27. Extraordinary Texas Women by Judy Alter
28. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
29. The 9/11 Report: a Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
30. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
31. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
32. Loot: the Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World by Sharon Waxman
33. Speaking with the Angel edited by Nick Hornby
34. The Wisdom of Sam Ervin edited by Bill Wise
35. It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I had a Baby, a Breakdown and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong
36. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
37. The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones
38. Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States by Hector Tobar
39. Stories from Candy Land: Confections from One of Hollywood's Most Famous Wives and Mothers by Candy Spelling
40. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
41. Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields
42. Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) by Abby Sher
43. Always a Reckoning and other poems by Jimmy Carter
44. Art in the White House: A Nation's Pride by William Kloss
45. The Governor by Rod Blagojevich
46. William McKinley by Kevin Phillips
47.  Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen
48. Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater by Frank Bruni
49. Miley Cyrus: Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus
50. Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmentalist First Lady by Lewis Gould
51. Bait and Switch: the (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich
52. The Long Chalkboard and other Stories by Jenny Allen
53. Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or by Andrew Friedman
54. Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb? A Tour of Presidential Gravesites by Brian Lamb
55. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
56. Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age edited by Ariel Schrag
57. The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
58. Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed World by Eve Ensler
59. Richistan: a Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich by Robert Frank
60. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
61. When Everything Changed: the Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
62. Unsweetined by Jodie Sweetin
63. Breakfast at Tiffany's and three other stories by Truman Capote
64. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
65. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
66. The West Wng: The Official Companion created by Aaron Sorkin
67. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
68. Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
69. Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster
70. Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg
71. Confessions of an Heiress: a Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose by Paris Hilton with Merle Ginsberg
72. Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do  by Helen Thomas and Craig Crawford
73. All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown
74. Celebutantes by Amanda Goldberg
75. Audition: a Memoir by Barbara Walters
76. Everyone Worth Knowing by Laura Weisberger
77. Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade by Jeff Shesol
78. My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
79. Inside South Austin: a Guide by Diane Barnet
80. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West by Benazir Bhutto
81. The New York Regional Mormon Singles Dance by Elna Baker
82. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee by Sarah Silverman
83. Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley

      

The Lincoln/Kennedy List: Rutherford B. Hayes and Jimmy Carter edition

The idea of a Hayes/Carter comparison originated when I viewed a PBS series called the American Presidents, during the episode titled “An Independent Cast of Mind.” In this episode the presidents were mentioned along with John Taylor and John Adams as those who “put the national interest above the concerns of their parties.” PBS goes on to say they were all one term presidents and wasn’t that a coincidence. PBS did not think highly of these four and out of respect for John Adams, I told the DVD narrator, “HEY WAIT A MINUTE.”

(I’ve been watching a lot of the West Wing lately and fun fact, my favorite president is John Adams and Martin Sheen’s favorite president is Jimmy Carter. I’m just saying, that would be a great icebreaker for when I meet Bradley Whitford.)

A biography of Hayes by Ari Hoogenboom points out the Hayes/Carter similarity, saying that the two were both more popular post presidency while doing humanitarian work. But Hayes and Carter have similarities beyond their humanity work and whether or not they were terrible presidents. The didn't share the same pre-presidency career or the same political party, but they did have a whole bunch of similarities that would have been really spooky had they both been assassinated. Or mentioned in the same PBS series.

• OOOooooOOOooooOOO. Rutherford B. Hayes and Jimmy E. Carter each have five syllables in their names. Carter was the 39th president. Hayes was the 19th president. Carter’s term in office: 1977 – 1981. Hayes’s term in office: 1877 – 1881.
• They were both governors who became one term presidents.
• Each focused on humanitarian careers post presidency and in the spirit of Lincoln/Kennedy list vagueness, they both had something to do with helping the poor (Habitat, whatever Hayes did).
• Economic/civil rights/prison reform/Ohio reform. Hayes did a lot of good post presidency.
• Both had vice presidents whose first names began with W.
• Both of their successors were shot in '81 by crazy guys obsessed with Jodie Foster or the 19th century equivalent, an ambassadorship to France.
• Both were born in October. They were both Virgos. Or Libras. I’m getting mixed signals from what seems like an unnecessary amount of zodiac lists from Wikipedia.
• Military service. They both fought for the Union.
• A mutual love of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Actually, only Hayes had this quality according to biographer Ari Hoogenboom. But I’m sure Carter loves it too.
• Both were preceded by Presidents whose monosyllabic names were both nouns and verbs (Grant/Ford). <- HOW ABOUT THAT ONE, HUH?
• Goody two shoes. While Lemonade Lucy Hayes gets the credit for making the Hayes administration a dry White House, Rutherford probably helped push the idea along. Their house also banned smoking and profanity. Carter’s White House was technically dry, but the Carter’s did occasionally drink. And while I haven't personally lived in that decade, I’ve read about the seventies, and I can’t say I blame them. It really sounded like just an awful, awful time.

Follow up questions:

1. What were the Seventies like? Anything like the 1870s?
2. Do you love the Northwest Ordinance of 1787? Circle Yes/No

2009 book wrap up

Best Nonfiction: Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times by Susan Quinn. A book about my two favorite things: federal arts funding and the depression.

Worst Nonfiction: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style by Tim Gunn with Kate Maloney. It turns out Tim Gunn is not that interesting in book form. He didn't even say make it work, and that takes like, one second to type.

Best Fiction: Hunger by Knut Hansum

Worst Fiction: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Maybe it's because I read it a decade after I should have, but it was pretty forgettable. This does not bode well for The Grapes of Wrath.

Best Memoir: A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald Ford by Gerald Ford. Or as I liked to call as least half of it, "Hey, Let Me Tell You What Else I Don't Like About Ronald Reagan by Gerald Ford."

Worst Memoir: Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business by Dolly Parton. It just kind of rambled on to nowhere.

Even the Author thought Chester A. Arthur was boring: Chester A. Arthur by Zachary Karabell

Sarah Vowelliest: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

Best of the Genre I’m Ashamed I Occasionally Read: Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. I kind of liked the movie.

Worst Chick Lit: Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella. You would think by now they would see that this woman has a problem.

Best Year of Doing Something: The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. Take that, book about a year of cooking recipes from the Bible.

I wonder if that would work?

Best Terrible Conspiracy Driven Online Publication I Regret Reading: Kissinger: the Secret Side of the Secretary of State by Gary Allen

Best Title: The Art of Tying the Cravat: Demonstrated in Sixteen Lessons, Including Thirty-Two Different Styles; Forming A Pocket Manual; and Exemplifying the advantages arising from an elegant arrangement of this important part of the Costume; Preceded by A History of the Cravat, From its Origin to the Present Time; and Remarks on its influence on Society in general by H. LeBlanc Esq.

Worst Title: Thirteen Days: a Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert Kennedy. So boring. He could have jazzed it up a bit. Every Pig has its Bay 2: Kennedy's Revenge. Tagline: They've got almost two weeks to save the world.

Worst Book about Food: House of Plenty: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Luby's Cafeterias by Carol Dawson and Carol Johnston. Throughout the book the authors alluded to a terrible crisis in the restaurant's history, calling it the "worm in the apple" with all the drama short of adding a Dun-Dun-Dunnn at the end of each chapter. In the final chapter we discover this crisis is the lawsuit over family money and that one side of the lawsuit actually wrote the book. It seems odd that this is presented as the worst part of Luby's history, as the chain's past includes multiple deaths, all of which, from a CEO's suicide to a mass murder in Killeen are described in gruesome detail. Describing Luby's as the pinnacle of the American Dream, this book's highlights include randomly placed family photos of Luby’s founders and descendants posing together or square dancing and little of the actual restaurant. If you want to recreate Luby's dishes, you're in luck, they did print recipe cards with 1/3 of the ingredients and all the instructions missing. All in all, it really captures the spirit of dining at Luby's.

Best Book about Food Save the Deli: In Search of the Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen by David Sax

Best Collection of Martha Mitchell Quotes: On With The Wind: Martha Mitchell Speaks (additional dialogue by John Mitchell)

Reread Book I'll Read Again: Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

25 more facts about US Presidents

In February I posted 25 facts about US Presidents in place of the 25 facts about me Facebook meme before it became 25 facts about swine flu or something. Now I have 25 facts about US Presidents (not mentioning Taft's weight, Coolidge's silence or Harding's awfulness) and one about me.

1. John Tyler named his home Sherwood Forest and considered himself an outlaw from his political party. Maybe the law too, I don't know. Different times, the 1840s.
2. James K. Polk's political career was declared to be over after winning one electoral vote in 1840 and losing his gubernatorial bid in 1841 and again in 1843.
3. Zachary Taylor was a poor dresser. He was eulogized by a fan of his, Abraham Lincoln.
4. Millard Fillmore was the first president to discuss bird guano importation in his annual message and was surprisingly not the last.
5. Franklin Pierce was not a foodie and was a mediocre president.
6. James Buchanan was a foodie and also a mediocre president. So.
7. Andrew Johnson's wife Eliza taught him how to read and write.
8. Rutherford B. Hayes's name is an anagram for "Huh, red ferryboats."
9. James A. Garfield could write in Greek and Latin AT THE SAME TIME. He was the first left handed president THAT WE KNOW OF.
10. Chester A. Arthur was America's safety school of presidents.
11. Benjamin Harrison pretty much disliked everyone and everything. He was also the last president to make any public mention of guano.
12. William McKinley was 5'7''.
13. William Howard Taft was a seventh cousin of Richard Nixon, an equestrian and the last president to milk a cow in the White House.
14. Warren G. Harding was an advocate of eliminating the 12 hour workday. John Dean wrote a biography about Harding.
15. Grover Cleveland put two criminals to death during his term as sheriff to spare his inferiors from doing the job. This remains my second* favorite fact about G.C.
16. Calvin Coolidge's voice was recorded on film in 1920 accepting the VP nomination on his birthday, July 4th.
17. Herbert Hoover was almost declared dead at the age of two. He lived to be the first president to have a phone at his desk. Before that, they just yelled loudly.
18. Harry S. Truman, like John Adams, had a biography written by David McCullough. I'm still waiting for the HBO series and what will no doubt be the most thrilling depiction of a haberdasher ever committed to film. (Would it be? I haven't watched a lot of movies.)
19. Lyndon Johnson paid $2.50 for Lady Bird Johnson's engagement ring.
20. Richard Nixon signed several bills preserving presidential birthplaces and homes as national historic sites. His own birthplace was registered as a national historic site during his presidency, because that sounds like something he would do.
21. Grover Cleveland loved corned beef and cabbage. *This is my favorite.
22. Gerald Ford was a good athlete and a pretty terrific human being. He was also in Glee Club in high school, which really changes the way I watch the show Glee, in that it makes it enjoyable.
23. George H. W. Bush is friends with Teri Hatcher.
24. George H. W. Bush. His museum has the best tour guides of any presidential site.
25. Me I'm the same height as William McKinley.
26. Barack Obama was the first president born in Hawaii. OR WAS HE? Yes, yes he was.