Free skin care with/in your morning coffee

HOMEOPATHIC SKIN CARE FOR THE BUDGET-CONSCIOUS, WITH RELATED BREAKFASTY AND SEEMINGLY OVER-CAFFEINATED FASHIONS [fashion source]

MUST HAVE COFFEE DRESS

COFFEE GROUNDS AS CLEANSER

I started using my coffee grounds on my skin months ago after hearing of a friend of a friend who saved the grounds and used them as a shower scrub. Always looking for ways to reduce and reuse things in my daily routine, I decided to try coffee grounds as a morning cleanser. I liked the cost (free!, as I am going to make coffee anyway) and the freshness of the still-warm grounds and I am pretty sure I like the results. I don’t have the best skin and have in the past have spent lots of money trying new products but as times get tougher, I have started trying more things from around the house.

So every morning I take the still warm grounds and wash my face with them. This morning I googled using coffee as a facial cleanser and found an article which says, “Primarily, coffee and caffeine are finding their way into skin lotions and creams because of antioxidant properties and tightening and firming qualities. Caffeine applied to the skin operates in three ways – as an antioxidant, a diuretic and a vasoconstrictor…

DRANK TOO MUCH COFFEE DRESS

…Not so fast say the dermatologists. None of the products harbor concentrations sufficient to produce the jolt one might hope for from a cup of java.” <–Right, so why not use your morning grounds and get 100% concentration of the caffeine?

Sometimes I leave the grounds on for a bit before rinsing. I cannot yet tell if this makes a huge improvement or not. But the warm grounds feel soothing to my skin. I can tell it’s happy and alert. I grind my coffee to a Turkish grind so it’s like a talc. That way more of the luscious stuff gets through the paper filter and into the cup… (more secrets after the jump)

For Evaluation Purposes Only

HAPPY NEW YEAR GIFTS FOR YOU! FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY.

I was at a loss as to what to get you all for a Holiday/Good Luck/Happy New Year gift so, I looked around and decided on a goodie bag of recipes and music because I have that stuff around and can share it here. If you like the music I will regularly rotate in new music. I have a lot of Ottmar Liebert and Barry White which is just love to hear.  XoXo

Ok, this one was finished by the testers and is waiting to be made into a new batch but you can get the picture. And of course I had to pose it in front of a new piece I made.

I have been concocting my own pear liqueur which I call Pear MOscato. Simple. Buy Moscato. Buy Bartlet pears. Sliver them up and put in bottles of Moscato. Leave at room temp for a week, shaking once a day, and then refrigerate. Then you have a pearishly delicious, sweet dessert wine with no high fructose corn syrup! Seriously, have you looked at the labels on bottles of liqueurs in stores? Even Bailey’s Irish Cream has HFCS. And all those flavored vodkas? Fake flavor, HFCS.

My Pear Moscato is organic. And this is not an endorsement to drink alcohol, these recipes are FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY. I’ve had my days; now I am mostly a one glass of wine a month gal, as alcohol wreaks havoc with my neuropathic meds (neuropathy is different then neurotic-y). So that one glass has to be good.

These two are fermenting. Yes, ugly labels. Heavy, dramatic sigh.

I made a pear chocolate cake the other day in my Easy Bake Oven. Actually it’s a toaster oven but still, it has about the same technology as did my Kenner Easy Bake Oven which I LOVED.

My grandfather would eat all my concoctions from that little pink oven. Even the vanilla cinnamon cake I made once; he ate the whole thing without flinching and only later did we realize that, since I could not yet read, I had taken the thing from the cabinet which most resembled cinnamon and sprinkled it all over the top which was, in fact, paprika. Evidently I was still learning my colors.

Me, Cooking, ca 2008. No, really---My Kenner Easy Bake Oven. Wow, is all I can say.

Anyway, for my cake that I made  (for a friend’s birthday) I had to cook all the layers separately in a rectangular pan, and then caramelize the pear slices, and then build the whole thing and soak it with my homemade Pear Moscato (Liquors 44 was out of pear liqueur and I only do one errand stop per day; Agoraphobia is the mother of invention) and top it with creme fraiche. That little Easy Bake oven worked for hours! This is my version of a rum cake, or maybe a variant of that Harvey Wallbanger Cake that was so popular at my parents’ parties in the 60s. This is hereby called a Moey Pearbanger Cake.

This is one I made with twigs and berries from the garden. In this pic I have not yet removed the vessel.

Another fun thing that I learned from a friend is to freeze a bottle of vodka into a container to bring to parties and make a lovely splash and also provide the conversation piece/centerpiece/perfect chilled-ness. I loved the one she made with flowers frozen into it so I made a few, but I had no flowers. You just put the bottle in a container, add miscellany, freeze deeply and itallically, and then after a minute or two at room temp the container will slide off and you can set the little ice sculpture/decanter in a dish and pour and drink, and repeat.

Your hands will get chilly though, gloves might be needed for pouring.

The Burn Barrel Version Vodka Container Fabulaire.

Then I decided to make the back alley version of this fabulosity, and so I put a bottle in a brown paper bag, crunkled up the bag around the neck of the bottle, and put the whole thing in a bucket with water inside and outside the bag. I thought it rather clever, especially for around a bonfire or burn barrel.

And then, digging around in the digital goodie bag I made for you, I chose 5 random songs FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY. Of course you can right click, ’save as’, and step, twirl, all FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY, so as to evaluate in the privacy of your home. And for a limited time only because I can only afford to lease so much extra GBs for this blog. Act Now! These Mp3s might be deleted later.

One of my most brilliant photoshop moments ever. I am so in trouble for dredging this up again.

I grew up on Herb Alpert, which I listened to in my little girl scout apron while Julia Child-ing with my Kenner Easy Bake Oven so I sorta love him.
-Herb Alpert – Green Peppers

I also grew up on Barry White, but that was later. This is my car’s favorite song. My dashboard lights up purple, to go with this song. Barry White, Love’s Theme

Oh and knowtoryous-bomberclaad-joint-kd-session. Every fucking car trip as kids we’d beg to sing “You Are My Sunshine” or some such thing but nooooo… we’d be all driving down the road singing along with Knowtorious, singing, “bOomberclaaaaaad, Boomberclaaaad, blah-di-blah-di-blah, di blah … Bomberclaaaad…” because no one really knows the lyrics to that.

Ditto Dj Cesar… Blu Mambo/DJ Cesar – Big Nowhere

And lastly, Henri Salvador, who was the silly little French guy always hanging around the kitchen, singing fruity little love songs while I baked. We never knew a thing he was saying.

Enjoy! May the breadcrumbs you leave behind as you traipse about in the new year be little bits of pleasantries, spread everywhere you go.

Tiny Bleuets in the garden

It rained today and I had a nail in my tire and was already in my apron so I decided to make muffins.

I can’t really have sugar or flour or yeast and I had these blueberries and I wanted them to be wrapped in something so I went digging and found that I had some brown rice flour so I started experimenting. I don’t measure when I cook because that makes it less fun so I never know if things I make will be edible-much or not but I can’t be bothered, like Big Sue Tilley.

I mixed some brown rice flour (a cup, maybe?) with some coconut oil (probably kinda like 1/4 cup), and borrowed an egg (one) from a neighbor, some stevia powder (palmful). Then I added a little bit of water (somewhere in the tablespoons range, like, under 4 but more than 2) and the blueberries (loads) and gently mixed it all up with some pure vanilla. Then I put bunches of the batter into little teeny muffin tins. Then, I noticed some toasted almonds lying about but they were salted. I put them on top anyway. As it turns out the salt on the almonds mixed with the blueberries is actually really good. I sprinkled some raw sugar on top before baking. I spun the dial and it landed at about 425 and cooked for maybe 10-15 minutes. They were actually good.

Then I wanted to take pictures of them so I took them outside and posed them on my Queen Elizabeth plate which belonged to my Grammie. But they lacked scale so I put Cowboy Curtis and a bottle of pure vanilla in the picture next to them to give you an idea.

Then Cowboy Curtis got all deferential to Queen Elizabeth. I hadn’t figured him for the wannabe Britishy type. So, while my friend Larry watched somewhat incredulously (we need a friend named Curly so that when we hang out people will not have to ask, “Where’s Curly?”), Cowboy Curtis got all knee-ly and praiseworthy and full of homage.
Cowboy Curtis was overcome with emotion and deference. Remember the episode on Pee Wee’s Playhouse where Pee Wee wanted to have a slumber party but Cowboy Curtis didn’t have any pajamas (“I sleep in the [raw] under the stars; I’m a cowboy” so Pee Wee asked Jambi for his wish for that day to be to make Cowboy Curtis some pajamas? And once they were made and Cowboy Curtis thanked Jambi he replied with a lecherous wink and said, “Anytime, Cowboy.” That show was genius.

Cowboy Curtis is not the John Wayne sort of cowboy. Cowboy Curtis is in touch with his feelings, on and off the range, and he’s not afraid to show them. So overcome was he at Grammie’s plate depicting the yound and beautiful Queen Elizabeth that he lost all sight of his native roots and fell on her.

Then, so smitten was he, he began to show off doing his limbo-ish strong man act and balancing a bottle of pure vanilla larger than himself on his 6 pack abs. Cowboy Curtis seemed almost shy on Pee Wee’s Playhouse but as soon as that Queen Elizabeth plate came out he was having at it, mugging for the camera. I think he was angling for a knighting. It seems people in the UK like to be knighted. I have never been. i will go and investigate this claim.

Contented Crackalure Cat (of the Song Dynasty) dropped by (gingerly, given his porcelainic qualities) and Cowboy Curtis tried to push him away and off the table in the garden which he now began to think of as his stage. Funny how people will act when there is a camera around. Cowboy Curtis was so blatant in pushing Contented Crackalure Cat (of the Song Dynasty) off the stage and out of his way. The garden table was apparently not big enough for two egos even though Contented Crackalure Cat (of the Song Dynasty), is really not very egotistical or competitive at all.

But then Cowboy Curtis, being no stranger to revelations and epiphanies, decided he could use Contented Crackalure Cat (of the Song Dynasty) as a supporting actor in this seemingly now-evolving one man circus/reality show and so Cowboy Curtis, having always fantasized about wearing glittery figure-enhancing getups while riding elephants around center stage, began to show off and risk the wrath of gravity.

But Cowboy Curtis and Contented Crackalure Cat (of the Song Dynasty) got tired so they had nap time together. A friendship was beginning to take shape. they look so angelic when they’re sleeping, don’t they? Even with eyes creepily wide open.

After their nap they posed for a few more pics and called it a day. Then we all had tea and Teeny Muffinettes Bleuets as we had no crumpets. but I will find a recipe and get out my kenner easy bake oven and make some.

Every day is like camping in this playhouse.

Big Sue, I know you didn’t have time to come out and stay on this trip across the pond but see what you are missing? We’ve gone faux british enough to make you feel oddly at home.

Maya Anjelou’s mother does not have a saying for this

Maya Angelou’s mother is/was wise (I’ll have to check on her whereabouts). I want to ask her what she would say about things like this.

I am merely posting about this and have no commentary. But then, that doesn’t feel much like a blog post. So–in a random and blindfolded way I will open 3 different books that are in my currently reading pile (I always read books in threes and have no idea how that happened) and insert quotes. Then it will feel like I made a real post. With peachy pasted quotes.

———-Article from Yale Daily News———-

For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse

[article]

Martine Powers

Staff Reporter
Published Thursday, April 17, 2008

Art major Aliza Shvarts ‘08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

“They a pain.”

“Yeh. Wish I’d listened to mamma. She told me not to have ‘em too soon.”

~Sula, Toni Morrison (I swear to god that this was a random blindfolded quote and not chosen on purpose. Sigh. Who’ll believe me? So random yet so oddly, twistedly related. I hardly believe me.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“Simon was shocked. He had detected nothing more than the usual amount of lubrication at such moments. There had been nothing of plastic or foam rubber or metal on or in her.”

~Venus on the Half Shell, Philip José Farmer

Ok–that is too weird. And this puts me in a bad position. I honestly chose 4 books to quote from and by their titles there was no way I could know I’d choose quotes that looked purposeful or snarky by covering my eyes with my Showergirl Terrycloth Beautycap and opening each book. Now I look like he who doth protest too much. I hope the third quote is totally irrelevant.

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

The “fabricators,” or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.

Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.

Art major Juan Castillo ‘08 said that although he was intrigued by the creativity and beauty of her senior project, not everyone was as thrilled as he was by the concept and the means by which she attained the result.

During that time I let all the houseplants die. After the book was finished I noticed them; the plants hung completely black dead in their pots on the bay window. For I not only let them die, I had not moved them. During that time, I told all my out-of-town friends they could not visit for a while.

“I understand you’re married,” a man said to me at a formal lunch in New York my publisher had arranged. “How do you have time to write a book?”

~The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

I guess this has rather turned into an experiment. The result is that I no longer believe in randomnicity.

“I really loved the idea of this project, but a lot other people didn’t,” Castillo said. “I think that most people were very resistant to thinking about what the project was really about. [The senior-art-project forum] stopped being a conversation on the work itself.”

Although Shvarts said she does not remember the class being quite as hostile as Castillo described, she said she believes it is the nature of her piece to “provoke inquiry.”

“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

There is no one strong color note here to start the action as in the Perugino, nor one sharp value-contrast. In fact, value-contrasts of almost equal attraction are dispersed throughout so that our eye seems to move quickly and constantly over the entire painting. Unlike the other work, where details are massed and there are large restful, unbroken areas, the whole surface is broken up by the scattered knotty clouds (note how they are organized in the Perugino), the sharply contrasting plants, and the harshly defined stones — an agitated surface which enters into the excitement of the moment.

~Learning to Look; A Handbook for the Visual Arts, Joshua C. Taylor

Sigh. I am dropping this experiment.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts’ senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Few people outside of Yale’s undergraduate art department have heard about Shvarts’ exhibition. Members of two campus abortion-activist groups . Choose Life at Yale, a pro-life group, and the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale, a pro-choice group . said they were not previously aware of Schvarts’ project.

Alice Buttrick ‘10, an officer of RALY, said the group was in no way involved with the art exhibition and had no official opinion on the matter.

Sara Rahman ‘09 said, in her opinion, Shvarts is abusing her constitutional right to do what she chooses with her body.

“[Shvarts' exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism,” Rahman said. “It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion.”

CLAY member Jonathan Serrato ‘09 said he does not think CLAY has an official response to Schvarts’ exhibition. But personally, Serrato said he found the concept of the senior art project “surprising” and unethical.

“I feel that she’s manipulating life for the benefit of her art, and I definitely don’t support it,” Serrato said. “I think it’s morally wrong.”

Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.

“It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part,” Shvarts said. “This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”

The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.

My Random seems to be broken. I’ll have to measure it with my Densitometer and recalibrate it. My countability is off too. That was actually 4 books.

I wonder how many people will find the very successfully random link hidden within the peachy goodness. Which makes me think of another of my favorite recipes…

Homemade Ginger Ale

Psychoacoustic Metaphorical Attenuations

When I boil down my thoughts about life (which makes me think of homemade gingerale for which I have included the recipe below) to the simplest personal philosophy in an effort to tease out some meaningful meaning (in other words, when I make up shit in an effort to convince myself that I have even the slightest understanding of life and what is happening in my head), I always come back to the homegrown notion of the Metaphor-Go-Round which I first invented years ago in my arts newsletter.

So this morning when I got an email from my Valley Free Radio listserv (where I have an arts talk show), the following bit struck me as an inadvertent metaphorical perspective on life; a somewhat hidden gift of insight in the form of an innocuous email about why the turntables are creating oddly attenuated output when programmers play selections from the vinyl library. I have added my comments, theories?, and etc in peachy parentheses and brackets. And of course I have added random “illustrations” in the form of stock photography resulting from searches using peculiarly attentuated phraseology.

[sic] “It’s most likely because the two channels (Id and Superego?) are becoming PHASE-INVERTED (as in Cognitive Dissonance?) somewhere in the audio transmission chain. When this happens, “center channel” (ego?) information, such as vocals (reason?) which are centered directly between the two channels, are effectively “nulled out” (loss of affect?) of the stereo mix, and thus become nearly inaudible. If you’re listening in mono (i.e., listening solely with Superego or Id), you won’t notice it. But if you’re listening in stereo, the two channels SUBTRACT the information which is common to both of them (the commonalities between Superego and Id, as in the land of Ego), when the phase between the channels is reversed. As to what the “fix” might be (Freudian psychoanalysis? Internal Family Systems? pharmacotherapy?), I’ll defer to [Freud], who knows more about the equipment and its quirks than anybody else. It’s possible that either the left or right track is being attenuated somewhere between source and output. [ Attenuation of the prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response within and between sessions?]“

And then I imagine a lofty and convoluted discussion with my therapist, a la the dream sequence in my favorite movie (for my attenuated identity is the “Girl Friday” protagonist in that film) I’ve heard the Mermaids Singing, in which my therapist replies, “Get your lovable shit out of this office, please.”

P.S. I don’t really get any of the stuff above. I just ponder it.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE GINGER ALE…