The Magic Pudding and other things
Oct. 9th, 2016 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIt's been a busy few days! My caramelized onion plans on Wednesday had to be put back, as my roommate proposed going to the gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and who am I to say no to a trip to the gardens? (Actually I had to take some time to think about it. I do not adjust swiftly to changing plans, even if the new plan is clearly superior.)
But we did go to the gardens in the end and it was lovely. I took along The Magic Pudding, which I have been saving for a special occasion, and read it in the ravine garden on a shady stone bench, and it was lovely too; like an antipodean Wind in the Willows, with koalas and bandicoots rather than water rats and moles.
Also a penguin. Are penguins native to Australia, or was the author just like "Yeah penguins! I love drawing penguins!"?
Actually I enjoyed it more than The Wind in the Willows. The story is more cohesive: the main characters have a self-replenishing pudding, which their nemeses are forever trying to steal. Also the pudding has a foul temper and is forever shouting at them, as puddings do, although I can't really blame it, because they're always stuffing the pudding into logs and things which is doubtless hard on its temper.
Yeah. It's a delightfully weird book, too. I particularly enjoyed Bunyip Bluegum's hifalutin speeches. Why shouldn't a koala hold forth in the highest style of late-Victorian oratory?
In any case! I made a caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwich with sharp cheddar cheese a few days later, and it was exactly as delicious as I dreamed. The first time round I put on a bit more onion than I should have and it rather overpowered the taste of everything else, but the second I cut back a little and it all blended perfectly.
And then yesterday I drove to downtown Indianapolis to attend an art fair and also to see the Central Library, which is GINORMOUS and rather intimidating and also possessed of a piece of rolling ball sculpture, which consists of a bunch of marbles rolling about on metal tracks and bouncing over xylophones and generally being mesmerizing.
I didn't mean to check anything out, but they had D. E. Stevenson's The Four Graces and I just couldn't resist. After all, the first visit to a library ought to be marked by checking out a book, am I right?
Right now I'm reading Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians on my Kindle, though. I blame The Magic Pudding; its kickstarted an interest in Australian children's books.
But we did go to the gardens in the end and it was lovely. I took along The Magic Pudding, which I have been saving for a special occasion, and read it in the ravine garden on a shady stone bench, and it was lovely too; like an antipodean Wind in the Willows, with koalas and bandicoots rather than water rats and moles.
Also a penguin. Are penguins native to Australia, or was the author just like "Yeah penguins! I love drawing penguins!"?
Actually I enjoyed it more than The Wind in the Willows. The story is more cohesive: the main characters have a self-replenishing pudding, which their nemeses are forever trying to steal. Also the pudding has a foul temper and is forever shouting at them, as puddings do, although I can't really blame it, because they're always stuffing the pudding into logs and things which is doubtless hard on its temper.
Yeah. It's a delightfully weird book, too. I particularly enjoyed Bunyip Bluegum's hifalutin speeches. Why shouldn't a koala hold forth in the highest style of late-Victorian oratory?
In any case! I made a caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwich with sharp cheddar cheese a few days later, and it was exactly as delicious as I dreamed. The first time round I put on a bit more onion than I should have and it rather overpowered the taste of everything else, but the second I cut back a little and it all blended perfectly.
And then yesterday I drove to downtown Indianapolis to attend an art fair and also to see the Central Library, which is GINORMOUS and rather intimidating and also possessed of a piece of rolling ball sculpture, which consists of a bunch of marbles rolling about on metal tracks and bouncing over xylophones and generally being mesmerizing.
I didn't mean to check anything out, but they had D. E. Stevenson's The Four Graces and I just couldn't resist. After all, the first visit to a library ought to be marked by checking out a book, am I right?
Right now I'm reading Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians on my Kindle, though. I blame The Magic Pudding; its kickstarted an interest in Australian children's books.
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Australian children's books
Date: 2016-10-09 05:09 pm (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possum_Magic
Re: Australian children's books
Date: 2016-10-10 01:18 pm (UTC)Re: Australian children's books
Date: 2016-10-10 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-09 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-10 01:18 pm (UTC)It occurs to me that the penguin in the Magic Pudding is a sailor penguin, so he could have come from anywhere around the globe. But it is nice to think perhaps he came from Australia originally and sailed back in the end.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-11 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-10 10:24 am (UTC)That sculpture sounds amazing. So it makes music/sound with the marbles?
no subject
Date: 2016-10-10 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-10 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-10 07:58 pm (UTC)The fiction reading room was enormous and intensely library-ful, though. So that made up for a lot.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-11 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-12 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-15 09:05 am (UTC)Captain Jim is a good one during the war and Billabong Gold is a nice post-war one when they are grown up.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-17 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-29 12:12 pm (UTC)