I can hold my own, of course: I can name all five Robins and give respectable arguments for my favorites. If you name a Marvel hero I could probably name which side of the Registration Act issue he or she fell on. Maybe the most convincing proof I can offer that I’m a True Believer is the fact that I actually envy the people who know more than me.

One might wonder why anyone would envy such a dubious accomplishment. The answer is simple: because Marvel and DC are comic books and comic books are Marvel and DC. No matter what my relationship is with the medium, no matter how long it’s been a part of my life, no matter how much I can tell you about indie authors like Craig Thompson or Marjane Satrapi, there is a certain and very odd kind of street cred carried by the people who know the chemical difference between adamantium and vibranium.

It’s telling that the spandex-clad cliches of the old guard still define the medium of the graphic novel to the extent they do. Mention the term ‘comic books’ and what comes to peoples’ minds are tights-wearing superheroes, campy dialogue and the casual use of that questionable term, ‘multiverse’. Assumptions like these are certainly less true than ever these days; more and more, titles that were avant-garde obscurities twenty years ago are being recognized as works of popular literature now, perhaps even as classics.

Still, it’s hard to see what made these works so avant-garde in the first place. Read Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and its sequels (together composing an autobiographical epic history of a fictional row of tenement buildings in Depression era New York) and it’s hard to tell what made this story so revolutionary. For all its brilliance, it doesn’t drift that far away from the conventions of traditional artwork or storytelling.

Alan Moore’s Watchmen seems a little closer to revolutionary, but even two decades has been enough to dull its edge substantially. Movies like “The Dark Knight” have made it easy for us to believe that a superhero story can be real art. Twenty years ago, this wasn’t a fact to be taken for granted.

We can, of course, ask ourselves the mostly-rhetorical question of what exactly made these books so unconventional and world-shaking back in their own day. But we know, don’t we? What made them so remarkable was their suggestion that a comic book can tell a story for grown ups. That the medium might produce storytellers who could, a hundred years from now, be mentioned in the same breath as Woolf and Ibsen and Dickens and Dumas.

But I digress. All of this is just a really roundabout way of segueing into my main point:

Scott McCloud is a motherfracking genius who can destroy you with his mind. Bow before him, for you live only because he continues to permit it.

***

I’ve had a relationship with comic books as long as I can remember. I’ve read plenty of prose adaptations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata- the great Indian epics- but as odd as it is to admit, most of what I know about the oldest stories of my culture (and the world) originally comes from the Amar Chitra Katha line of comic books: a series that retells Indian myths, folk tales, scriptural stories and historical anecdotes. Then, after coming to the States, I was constantly reading the Big Two as well as a wide variety of indie titles. But I always read them as a distraction- as a break from the all-important work of stuffing my brain with prose fiction. As much as I would defend to the death, even in my early teens, such masterpieces as Craig Thompson’s Blankets or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, I always thought of comic books as a sort of poor man’s cinema, a way of combining narrative storytelling with visual art and doing so without a multimillion dollar budget.

Scott McCloud completely changed my mind.

Understanding Comics, somewhat self-referentially, is itself a comic book- an incredible literary feat in its own right. Imagine taking the most complicated paper you wrote as an undergrad on literary theory or any other appropriately abstract subject, then expanding it to a couple hundred pages. Now try taking half of the text you wrote, and drawing it. The man wrote a book-length essay about literary theory in comic book form. And he made it fun to read. That’s all I need to know to be convinced I don’t want to run into him in a dark alley. The being that can communicate a complex literary theory using pictures is not one whom I want to look upon lightly, lest his pandimensional Lovecraftian visage drive me mad.

McCloud divides the book into history, technique and theory. While the sections on history and technique are a fascinating read (not to mention mandatory for anyone with aspirations in the medium) it’s the ideas that really make this book shine. If Understanding Comics is standard material in nearly every college class about sequential graphic narrative, it’s because of McCloud’s dazzling exposition of the fundamental building blocks of comic books. These are the sort of ideas, like Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system or Whitman’s use of unrhymed verse, that are brilliant mainly because they seem obvious when you look back. I don’t want to give too much away, especially since you can’t do the ideas justice without the art, but here is a broad sweep of two of the most important ideas in the book:

1) One of McCloud’s most interesting arguments is that there’s no sharp division between words and pictures, since it’s impossible to pinpoint when pictures turn into symbols and iconography, and where symbols in turn become written language. The book illustrates the point with an impressive diagram containing sample illustrations from great comic books of the past century, with one end of the continuum containing the relatively realistic illustrations of Jack Kirby or Bob Kane, and the other end containing… well, words, but also the more representational and non-realistic artwork of Charles Schulz’ Peanuts or Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes.

2) Another argument McCloud makes is that comic books have about as much in common with the prose novel as they do with film and television, since audience participation is an essential part of the experience. Unlike film, where the events of the story are conveyed to the viewer almost entirely through external stimuli (since the viewer is given a window into the story as it unfolds on the movie screen) and the prose novel, where the portrayal of the events happen in the reader’s mind and depend entirely on his or her imagination, the graphic novel gives us a type of work that falls between the two. With comic books, the reader sees the events happen a panel at a time, but it’s entirely up to him to connect the dots and form a cohesive image of the fictional world being presented. McCloud refers to the process of filling the gap between panels as ‘closure’, and provides a list of different kinds of panel transitions, such as the moment-to-moment transition (where two adjacent panels are connected by a progression in time) or the aspect-to-aspect transition (where panels show the reader different parts of the same scene). More than any of the other chapters, this one convinced me that comic books are a unique medium with a more than incidental place in the culture.

Understanding Comics is almost twenty years old and quite a classic in its own right by now. Scott McCloud’s ideas have made me drastically re-evaluate the way I perceive comic books as a narrative form. I have a deeper respect now, both for the so-called commercial schlock of Lee, Kirby, Siegel, Shuster and the like- who had more of true art in their work than conventional wisdom gives them credit for- as well as the creators who dared to explore the limits and boundaries of an ostracized medium back when so few would, people like Will Eisner, Osamu Tezuka and Alan Moore. Understanding Comics has taken me from thinking of comics as a niche medium to leaving me with the suspicion that they may well be for the 21st century what the prose novel was for the 19th.

___________________________

Photo courtesy of www.4.bp.blogspot.com

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BaPfIucPsf4/Tlv89jl3yVI/AAAAAAAAA7g/JvyY-x5H5W8/s1600/Understanding-Comics_5002.jpg)

The Alamo has all the typical college basement trimmings – washing machines, water pipes dangling from the ceiling, spray painted mattresses leaning against the walls – but the small space brings the band and audience closer together. Erin, the singer/drummer/guitarist in Sun Puddles catches the eye of someone two feet in front of her and beams a smile as she digs into a 70s punk beat at hyperspeed. When the reverb-soaked wall-of-sound guitars start chugging, the smiles become contagious and the crowd instantly turns into a collection of life-sized bobble head dolls.

Given the poor quality of the PA systems at most DIY shows, singing is usually left by the wayside. But for Sun Puddles, Erin’s voice is their trump card. Songs like “Coffee Cup” make me think of indie pop bands like Velocity Girl or Best Coast where the vocals are pretty and melodious but with an emotional perspective that’s hard to place. At other times, her atonal howling brings to mind the raw emotive power of the Screaming Females, making you feel the frustration of unrequited love rather than think about what it means. When she trades places with the guitar player, the lyrics become sparser to make room for more intricate song structure and a heavier hitting drum sound. Even when she does very little singing on songs like “Congratulations . . . Sorry”, Erin’s stage presence is such that when the mic stand starts to collapse mid-song, people rush the stage to fix it in fear of missing a single word.

When the next band, Real Good, is ready to start all the lights go out except for a single red bulb in the corner shining on the drummer. As he sparks a cigarette and nods toward the emaciated shirtless bass player, I make some earplugs out of pieces of a paper towel in anticipation of demonic hard rock. What I get instead is closer to a mix between the twisted pop hooks of the Velvet Underground and Pavement’s artfully dissonant vocal style.

Though the bass player jumps around like Flea at an early 90s Chili Peppers concert, Real Good makes you feel like singing along more than headbanging. At the end of the song “Three Points”, front man John Terry repeats the chorus line “there is no wisdom without risk” but it’s done with the appropriate amount of Lo-Fi shamble to come off as playfully ironic instead of pretentiously nagging. Other songs like “May 21st” show the band’s strength at manipulating tension-and-release. The familiar feeling you get hearing dreamy psychedelic guitar tones at the beginning of the song is later betrayed when the beat gets turned around and the vocals strain to belt out a daft, unsettling sense of helplessness.

Toward the end of Real Good’s set, someone trips on an extension cord somewhere and the whole basement goes pitch black. Suddenly, people in the front row start shining their cell phones on the hands of the guitarist and bass player like pilgrims who bring candles to a vigil. It’s moments like these that make basement shows feel more like a spiritual community than a concert. But with bands like Sun Puddles and Real Good residing at the pulpit, the only Good News anyone is trying to lay on you is a flyer telling you about the next show.

Original songs like “Summer Vacation” are what the band does best – a mixture of compelling chords and grungy breakdowns that’s reminiscent of garage rock revival bands like Cage the Elephant. But despite Harpoon Forever’s tendency to keep songs under 3 minutes, the quartet also has enough classic rock influence to dig into longer jams. Case in point: the epic show closer, “Paddle to the Sea”, which starts out with bouncy alt-country strumming but then dissolves into building repetitions of krautrock drumbeats structuring Sonic Youth-style guitar mayhem. Sure, you can’t hear the lyrics over the P.A. but the sweaty exuberance of the singer and his hipster cowboy style say enough.

After the show, I walk a few blocks to another house, Titan’s Rest, where southern Connecticut band Fugue is making a stop on their 2-week tour. Outside, people are sitting on the driveway peering into the basement windows like stray cats. It’s not a packed house but it’s so hot inside that the girl drummer Alexa remarks, “I’m gonna pass out” with a look like she means it.

After a short break and some water, Alexa nods her head and kicks off the next song with an aggressive prog rock beat that sounds like early The Mars Volta. When the three guitars begin to fade in with lyrical melodies and the singer triggers a sample of birdcalls, it’s only to lure the audience into a false sense of security. Songs like “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” prove that this band is all about contrast: clean tones are juxtaposed with distorted ones, soft sections suddenly burst into raucous thrashing, and the lead lines play tug-of-war with the rhythm section. With a name like Fugue it’s no surprise that most of the band’s catalogue is instrumental, but some songs feature vocals that provide emotional context and sound like tribal yells laced with Portishead-style effects.

When the band finishes their set and I walk back out into the sultry night of late July, it feels like air conditioning compared to the sauna I was just in. Summer basement shows in New Brunswick are not for the faint hearted, but with bands like Fugue and Harpoon Forever on the scene it seems like things are only going to get hotter.

_____________________________________

To listen to these bands, check out the links below:

Featuring: Carlos Frias, Dara Alter, Darren McManus, Michael Bransfield and Sam Ralston

The Alfa Art Gallery invites you to join us for an evening with the exhibiting artists of the New Brunswick Art Salon, Spring’11. If you missed the opening receptions on April 22^nd and May 13^th, this is not only the perfect chance to see some amazing works but is also the opportunity to get an inside look on the creative process of each artist. The artists will work on their respective art pieces at the Alfa Art Gallery as well as give informative talks on their inspirations.

About the Artists

Carlos Frias received his BFA in Painting from the Parsons School of Design. His recent works aims to highlight our humanity , creativity, relationships and  urges to grow and self-destruct while, at the same time, strip us of our spirituality and culture, representing humans as organic forms bound to decompose and regenerate. Additionally, his work visually demonstrates the parallel between what art is able to represent of the evolution of humankind and how much we want to preserve and manipulate art to represent the history of our species. He has exhibited in Japan, the Dominican Republic, Spain, and the United States.

Dara Alter obtained her degree in Studio Art from the University of Guelph. Heavily influenced by her cultural ties, she paints her memories of Israel in order to examine the North American Jewish nostalgia for an idealized nation. In the last five years, she travelled to South America, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, which additionally influenced her works. Alter is most interested exploring location and place as it relates to her personal experiences and uses a specific palette that corresponds to the scenery in a particular region. She has exhibited in Minnesota, New York and New Jersey in the United States as well as in Toronto, Ontario in Canada.

Darren McManus obtained his BFA in Drawing and Illustration from the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, BFA in Experimental Studio and Illustration from the Hartford Art School and his MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and won many awards, including a fellowship from the New Jersey Council State of the Arts, from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Michael Bransfield graduated with a B.A. in Humanities from Providence College. He later studied painting from the Massachusetts College of Art as well as at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. He was also awarded a fellowship to the Yale-Norfolk Summer School of Art.  Bransfield has exhibited in many exhibitions in New York and New Jersey.  He has also served as director of the Metuchen Gallery.
Sam Ralston started painting in his early 20’s. He attended classes at the DuCret Art School and later enrolled at Kean College with an intention of becoming an art teacher but changed his major to graphic design. Throughout his career, he displayed his work in different venues and won a number of awards. He currently works as a graphic designer and paints in his spare time. He has participated in several shows in New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Connecticut.

This program is sponsored in part by:

The NJ State Council on the Arts

The New Brunswick City Market

Please note: Alfa will be open on Saturdays only by appointment and will be closed during August for summer vacation.

Time was before planning for the automobile. With the automobile-based development, or sprawl, came the demise of the mom-and-pop stores upon which the entire structure of capitalism was based. Hardly anybody walks from their house to the store anymore and, if you tried to sell anything from your house today, you would be cited for a zoning violation. Your neighbors deserted the local stores when the national stores started opening up branches “convenient” to the highway. Some of the national chains moved into the vacated storefronts, got the town to knock down some other houses with storefronts, and to seize the backyards by eminent domain so they could put up a parking lot to “serve” Main Street. The local manufacturing companies got fewer orders, none from the national retail chains, of course. As those companies failed, the remaining local stores started stocking fewer local items, until you couldn’t tell the difference between the mom-and-pops and the chains. The only real difference was the mom-and-pops were less convenient to the automobile driver. The mom-and-pops become denigrated even as they try to conform to sprawl. People actually talk about a new chain store opening up as if that was something to be proud of. At that point, capitalism is dead in their town. To be certain, there are, here and there, some vestiges of capitalism left, though they may strike us as unremarkable. It was always misleading to characterize capitalism as a road to unfathomable riches. People confuse it with debt and global mercantilism, with the creditor sultans oppressing their people, which is very much in evidence.

The Localsville Canned Beans company was bought up by investors from out-of-town using borrowed money — it was purchased in a leveraged buyout by General Foods — and General Foods now grows and cans the Localsville Canned Beans in South America. The plant is closed and the people in Localsville, those who are left, now work and shop in the Walmart down Highway 666. They had to cancel the parade this year. They didn’t choose a Localsville Canned Beans Queen, either.

Copyright © 2011 by C. P. Klapper

New Brunswick Art Salon, Fall 2011 – Call for Artists

About the Exhibition

In the 18th and 19th century, Art Salons were the greatest annual or biannual art events in the Western world, celebrating the farthest advances in academia and the arts. The Alfa Art Gallery, in order to bridge talented and highly esteemed artists with the New Brunswick public, holds its own Art Salon exhibition biannually in the spring and fall.

Call for Entries

The Alfa Art Gallery would like to invite artists to submit work for the New Brunswick Art Salon, Fall ’11. There are two artist categories: newly emerging artists and professional artists. All submissions must be in by September 25. Artists will be notified if their work is accepted by September 30. The exhibition opening will be held on Friday, October 21.

Theme

For this exhibition, artists must submit works celebrating diversity or unity in a community.

Submission Requirements

All applicants must be associated with New Brunswick as a resident or as an artist who exhibits in New Jersey. Students and faculty members of Rutgers University and neighboring schools may enter. You must at least be pursuing an undergraduate career to participate. Degree does not need to be related to art.  There is no limit to the number of works entered.

To enter for consideration, please email the following to info@alfaart.org:

RU Photography Club: Still Segues

Gallery Hours Friday 3-10pm Sunday 6-10pm

NEW BRUNSICK, NJ – Collaborative Arts is pleased to present Still Segues, a two-month exhibition that features the emerging artists of the Rutgers Photography Club, which is curated by Skyla Pojednic and Theresa Francisco. Our Opening and Second-Look Reception will take place on Friday April 22^nd and Friday April 29^th from 7-10 PM at coLAB Arts (49 Bayard Street, 3^rd Floor, New Brunswick, NJ 08901). The open receptions will feature wine and food and music by Alex Denman-Brice, Jeff Deppa and Damian Kulikowski. Normal gallery hours are Fridays 3-10pm and Sunday 6-10pm.

Mary Kate Riecks and Ceaphas Stubbs both use illusion in their work to create exaggerated or surreal scenes of movement.  Mary Kate focuses on the concept of kinetic energy by physically spinning, shaking, and dropping the camera to impose a forced movement. In other instances, she reworks her photographs by dragging colors, blurring or layering images. While Riecks focuses on physical movement, Stubbs creates optical illusions using patterned fabric that plays with the eyes’ ability to focus. He employs vibrating boundaries to create a confused space, which makes an otherwise static image appear to move on the gallery wall.

In contrast to Riecks and Stubbs, who both use the human figure as a supporting feature in their photographs, Samantha Kelly assigns people as the main characters in her images to elicit strong, spirited emotions from the viewer.  These moods are caused by her images of humans actively experiencing the world in a way that is very visceral and relatable.

Skyla Pojednic, Pablo Ruiz, and Matt Drews present movement within nature itself. As active members within the world, all three have gathered a great deal of images throughout their travels. Each has captured ethereal, otherworldly, or exclusive pictures documenting their journeys. Pojednic’s photos deal with gravity’s powerful control over the elements. The dynamic composition of her work not only shows literal movement, but also helps the eye travel harmoniously around the image. Ruiz creates epic and unfamiliar nature photographs.  He implements a single, central line to command movement through his pieces like a line across a page. Drews simulates the line through long exposures and slow shutter speeds, which clearly demonstrates his clever and resourceful techniques.  His patience and interest in meteorology are very evident in the rare images of a 9° and 22° lunar ice halo, which can only be captured when the clouds begin to move.

Emily Kohl-Mattingley sums up the show with her affirmation that life would not exist without the existence of energy, which supports all movement.  She captures many movements that the eye is too slow to see. She examines the relationship between a world filled with energy and a world in which the very movement and energy, which makes life possible, can so easily cease to exist.

Collaborative Arts (coLAB Arts) is a non-profit organization located in New Brunswick, NJ, dedicated to the development and presentation of emerging local artists. coLAB Arts’ mission is to cultivate a hip, mindful, and inclusive Hub City community of artists, audiences, and critics, empowered to create inspired and inspiring art.

What do the three of these things have in common? They all start with the letter “B”. Also, they were all present with me in my doctor’s waiting room.

It would be best if I explained.

Right?

I think so.

You see, a few weeks ago I had a regular physical scheduled—well, I don’t know how ‘regular’ it was; I hadn’t had one of these in years. And if I knew that a conniving little assistant, a person determined to drag my pale body into the office, was on the other end of the phone, I never would have answered the bloody thing. But, que sera, sera. The fates conspire as they may.

To be honest, doctors creep me out. (I know, not the most original of predilections—amiright? It’s like saying that astronauts and fireman instill me with a sense of boyish wonder.) Something about them, though, unsettles me. Like a greasy salesman, trying to slip through the cracks of life. Part of me believes that they only took up the profession to evade the jinx of ill health, because who ever heard of a doctor getting sick? It’s the perfect charm to ward off bodily bad fortune.

But the Powers That Be want me to go to see my doctor? Fine, I guess I’ll go then.

On a rather overcast afternoon, I slipped into my Malibu and sped over to my physician’s. On the way I tried to keep myself occupied. This was accomplished by nibbling on an apple. (I didn’t smoke, as I wanted to appear presentable to those who would be examining me. Nothing says that less than by smelling like Chicago after the Great Fire).

Two blocks away from the building, I stopped at a light. As a cat plays with a mouse, so too did the light play with me—it batted my expectations this way and that—green, yellow, red, green, no turn on left, fuck!

Eventually I made the turn. During the final leg of my journey Stairway to Heaven played on the radio. This doesn’t bode well, I thought. I parked my car and approached the door. While doing this, I mentally parsed out my meager possessions, due to—or so I thought—my soon-to-be corpse-like state. Who am I going to leave with all my shitty writings?

On my way to the door I spotted a cat. It was most likely a stray. “Hello, cat,” I hailed. He—or she—looked at me with dead eyes, in an attempt to intimidate me. “Hey, fuck you cat!”

I entered. The stale artificial air hit me. Something else too struck me as odd. But I could not quite place what it was.

Sauntering up to the main desk, I made myself known to the receptionist. She was nice. I think I made her laugh about something or another. After confirming my appointment, I turned around and took stock of my surroundings. And that’s when it dawned on me: this was a pediatrician’s office!

The colorful assortment of effin’ cartoon characters on the walls confirmed this.

I walked back up to the same receptionist. This time I did my best to speak in a deep, adult, voice, while at the same time making emphasis to my old man blazer getup. I asked her “why in God’s name was I in a medical facility for children?” I felt like I was in that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when Jason Segal gets his penis examined while on a toy fire truck.

Responding calmly, she told me that due to the current economic climate, the pediatrician in question and his brother—he ran the adult facility—combined resources. Oh, great. Lollipops for everyone! And I mean that in the most literal way—there were lollipops on hand.

So I sat on a tiny red chair and waited to be called.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take all that long.

I sat my ass down on the noisy meatpacking paper and did some more waiting. The door in my room was open a smidge and I noticed a patient exiting. He was in a suit. Suddenly it didn’t feel so weird being here.

It took about five minutes, but in walked my doctor. I soon noticed that she wasn’t one of the brothers—the primary clue being that she was a she. Large offices like this have many practicing MDs on staff, so I really wasn’t too taken aback. My mind definitely does wander, but it’s not like I thought she killed the fraternal duo and took over their practice.

Though, what a story that’d be—doctors are suppose to be comfortable around blood, right?

Anyway, we went through the laundry list of questions. She expressed concern at my low weight, but continued rattling off the standard enquiries. Then she asked, “Do you work out?”

Primarily due to boredom and that I like to get a rise out of people, I facetiously replied, “You tell me.”

“So…no.”

I smiled and said, “Actually, I have some fifteen pound free weights in my room.” I paused for a moment. “I call ‘em fifteen-pounders.”

She may have grinned at that; I can’t remember. But she wrote something down all the same. My guess is that she scribbled, “Lifts ‘weights’—maybe?”

Finally, wrapping up our little session she ordered some blood work done. As if remembering a long forgotten fact, she shuffled through my history. “What college do you go to again?”

“Rutgers.”

“I’ll add some STD tests then.”

I always am very proud of my university’s legacy. At least she didn’t ask me about the football team.

I left, happy I was still alive. For the time being, my skeletal shell of a body remains ticking.

When I returned to my car, I noticed the half-eaten apple from earlier. I picked it up and examined the variety of teeth marks on its surface—they were like acne, but on food. Does that mean it was blemished, unfit to be eaten, or more human-like and fit for praise? At the time I didn’t care. Riding high on my bill of good health, I threw it out the window, where it surprisingly landed in a trashcan.

Afterwards, I lit a cigarette.

He smirked, taking note of my ignorance.

“What?” I inquired. Suddenly, I was interested. Before I only spoke in order to break the silence of workplace monotony. But now we had the beginnings of a conversation brewing. Cooking with fire, if you will.

“Two things.”

“Yes? I’m all ears sweetheart.” The “bro-mantic” undertones were almost palpable.

“One—it’s ‘Doctober,’ not ‘Doctober-fest,’ or whatever the fuck you called it.”

“Oh…I wonder what I was thinking of?”

“Oktoberfest, you jackass.”

I paused,; my mind was momentarily lost in thought. “I can see where I confused the two. I had some wine last night. Imported stock. So, that train of thought makes sense.”

Shaking his head, bemused at my eccentric musings, my peer continued: “And secondly, he’s a baseball player. For the Phillies.”

That did it. Conversation over. Well, it was good while it lasted. Sports are by no means my area of expertise. And we both knew this.

Knowledge like that lies in the margins of my brain. And that got me thinking. What else is there in life’s little corners?

Historically, the outskirts of such things like manuscripts have been very fruitful entities. Take, for instance, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Within, tucked away in the margins (see what I did there?), is the first surviving poem written in English. Quite the discovery, I’d say.

It’s certainly more interesting than what I write in the margins of my notebook. During one boring lecture, I jotted down this treasure in the sidelines of a piece of paper: “You sir, are just one dick, in a great big bag of dicks.”

Moving away from that oh-so interesting snippet of dialogue, I frequently find physical objects, those not of an artistic persuasion, to follow instep with this thought process. Take fast food and the obligatory order of French Fries that go along with it. Extra fries will always get lodged in the recesses of the bag. They will. It’s just a fact.

And these estranged pieces of potato will, without a doubt, taste better than the rest of the order. It’s one of life’s little boons.

What other great surprises remain hidden in the margins? (Fuck, I’m going to need a synonym for ‘margin’ before this article is done. What shall it be…? Brim, verge, side, etc?)

The shoreline of social interactions, too, is a veritable cornucopia—pretentious much?—of interesting occurrences. Take for instance, a rainy day in New Brunswick. Huddled in the library, reading whatever wrinkled paperback you can get your hands on to pass the time, you strike up a conversation with some random person who turns out to be really cool.

Isn’t that the best?

You’ll never talk to them again. You weren’t planning on conversing with anyone that afternoon. Hell, you don’t really even know who they are. Yet it happened. And it was fantastic.

What I’m trying to say is simple, folks. Just stop and fuckin’ smell the roses from time to time. Take a look around. No one’s stopping ya.

_______________________________

[1] New Brunswick, much like Seattle, New York City, and Edinburgh, is one of those cities that get infinitely better with rain.

Photo courtesy of insideview.ie

(http://www.insideview.ie/irisheyes/2004/08/the_art_of_dood.html)

The first two following recipes are traditional Ecuadorian dishes, and the last one is inspired by my love for gnocchis, and an ambitious desire to make them from scratch. It wasn’t easy, but the results were one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever made.

And a quick note: I generally prefer to go for the riper (yellow & covered with brown patches) ones than the green plantains, as green plantains are much harder to peel. But if you do decide to use green plantains, cut the plantains into 1 inch thick slices, and use a small paring knife to slowly carve the skin off of each slice.

“Platanos Asados con Queso” (Baked Plantains with Cheese)

When baked, ripened plantains caramelize beautifully in the oven. These are great to have on the side with a steak or simply on their own. Peel a yellow, ripened plantain and dab with a little bit of butter all over. Bake the plantains at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown at the top. Flip them over and bake for another 25 minutes. Take the plantains out of the oven, and while still hot make a slit in the plantains and tuck in a few slices of mozzarella or a white Spanish cheese (either asadero, cojita or oaxaca) and wait until the cheese is melted to serve.

I tried this recipe from the site of an Ecuadorian food blogger named Laylita, and took her recommendation to dip the plaintains in aji criollo -a very spicy hot sauce that is a blend of: one bunch of cilantro, two hot peppers, four cloves of garlic, and two spoonfuls of white onion. In this case, I added some avocados into the hot sauce to get a nice creamy consistency.

I love this no fuss recipe. You don’t have to worry about spices or measurements at all, but be mindful that the plantains don’t burn.

“Bolon de Verde” (Fried Green Plantain Dumplings)

These fried plantain dumplings are stuffed with mozzarella cheese and chorizo, and is even better when contrasted with ripened plantains instead of green ones. Even though the steps can seem a little laborious, this is one popular appetizer that will indulge everyone.

Ingredients:

4 plantains, peeled and cut into 1 ½ inch pieces
4 tbsp butter 2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin & coriander
1 tsp chili powder Salt
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup chorizo

Directions:
1. In a large pan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the the plantains.
2. Cook the plantains for 10 minutes, turn, and cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until you can smash the plantain with a fork.
3. Transfer to a bowl and and smash all of the plantains with a potato masher, adding the spices and a little bit of salt.
4. Form 2 by 2 inch balls with the plantain dough and make a hole in each ball, filling with a 1 tbsp of the cheese and chorizo filling. Now press the dough over to cover the holes, getting your ball shape back.
5. Over med-high heat, pour in the oil and add the stuffed plantains when hot. Shallow fry the plantains until they are crisp and golden all over.
6. Place the fried plantains over a few paper towels so they absorb the excess oil, and serve as soon as possible with some fresh lime and avocado slices.

As you can tell, I love plantains. It was after making the previous “Bolon de Verde,” that I searched for similar recipes, that involved stuffed plantains. I found the most interesting one on Cake Batter and Bowl. Her recipes are innovative and creative, I really recommend checking her site out.

This recipe was easy to follow but the task of making gnocchis from scratch is arduous, to the say the least, -and extremely messy. But it was delicious. The juxtaposition of the sweet plantain with the spicy kick of the creamy tomato sauce was right on the money. This is perfect to make for someone you truly care about, as it took almost 2 hours to make the gnocchis and sauce. But then again it was only my first time so hopefully it will get easier.

Gnocchis (this yields roughly 30-40, depending on how large you roll them)

Ingredients:
2 ripening plantains
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 ½ – 2 ½ + cups of flour
½ ball fresh mozzarella, chopped

Sauce:
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 small white onion, finely chopped
1 small chili pepper, finely chopped (optional)
1 clove of garlic, crushed, finely chopped
1/3 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
a pinch basil
a pinch of oregano
1 tbs of crushed red pepper (optional)

Directions:
1. Cut the plantains into 1 inch chunks and place into a pot of boiling water.
2. Boil until tender (10 mins), and mash, set aside.
3. Let the mashed plantains cool for 10 minutes or so, and add the egg, salt, and flour -in 1/2 cup increments.
4. According to CB&B you should mix this until a dough forms that is not sticky. I found it impossible to not let the dough stick to everything, and I felt like I had to use 3 cups of flour overall.
5. With a rolling pin and a surface that is dusted with flour, roll the dough out and cut it into 2 by 2 inch squares. Then place a little cube of cheese inside and roll again to ensure the cheese is sealed inside.
6. Boil the gnocchis in a pot of boiling water (add salt so the gnocchis don’t stick). Once the gnocchis float to the top quickly scoop them out and set aside in a bowl.
7. Stir in with sauce, and enjoy! I garnished it with some fresh parsley grown from the garden.

Note: You can make any type of sauce you want, or use store brought. I had 2 lbs of gorgonzola cheese in my fridge so I made simple sauce by sautéing the onions, chili pepper, garlic, and tomatoes. After the onions softened and the tomato essentially melted, I added canned tomato sauce and let it simmer. Then I added the cheese, let it melt, and mixed in the basil, oregano, crushed pepper.