Saturday 28 November 2015

M&M: The Kingdom

Dear reader,

The Kingdom is a movie from the year 2008. Whether a movie is good or bad is certainly always also a matter of taste. I found this movie, because I like the composer Danny Elfman, who wrote the soundtrack for this movie. More about the soundtrack below.
I don't find the movie as such particularly good, actually rather bad. It's been a long time since I've seen it and I had forgotten most of what happens at first, so I had to read up on some of the things. Why am I writing about the movie, if I didn't like it? At the end of the movie, two characters make a statement, which shows very clearly the absurdity of war. What they said was, at that moment, scarier and more frightening than any thinkable war scene. But let's start at the beginning. This is what the movie is about:
As an introduction certain key moments between Saudi-Arabia and their relationship with America are shown in a quick walk through history from 1932 up until the attacks from September, 11 2001.

The actual story of starts with a softball game of Americans in Riad, where a terror attack happens and Americans get killed. A female FBI agent gets note during a conference that her friend is among the dead Americans. A colleague whispers something into her ear, which makes her calm down. The two of them and other FBI agents go to Riad, to investigate the circumstances and to find the people involved in the attack. Towards the end of the movie the group gets in an ambush and one of them is kidnapped. The others follow the kidnappers to an abandoned house, where the showdown takes place. A grandfather is present on the side of the Saudi people and he gets a fatal wound. He whispers something into his grandson's ear. The case is closed for the FBI and they go back to America. One of them in the group asks his colleague and the woman, what he had whispered back at the conference. Meanwhile the aunt of the Saudis asks her nephew, what his grandfather had whispered into his ear before his death.
Caution: If you want to see the movie, you should make your own choice whether or not to read what they whispered.


Both of them reply with: “Don't fear them. We are going to kill them all.”

The way I see it, The Kingdom is a rather typical, American war movie. I personally agree with the negative critics that (once again) Americans celebrate themselves with with movie and lots of action and Islamic people, like so many times recently in real life as well as in movies, are used as representation of evil. There are exceptions in The Kingdom, but they are, in my opinion, almost meaningless. Americans are the greatest and Islam and Islamic people are the enemies. I find that very sad, unnecessary and needless in the end. That was the case back then when I watched it already and in sight of the current conflicts, in which America (once again) is involved, even more so. I watched the movie once, because I wanted to sort of see the pictures to the soundtrack and the last line impressed me a lot. It's the meaninglessness of war in a nutshell in a very good way, for me anyway.
A few final words now about the soundtrack: Danny Elfman is mostly known for his collaboration with Tim Burton and his movies. The soundtrack here is very different. Very electronic, mostly simply to be called loud pieces alternate with calm (electric) guitar sounds. The latter has much more melody and structure. A very unusual mix, which one would probably not necessarily listen to a lot. The electronic tracks fit probably mainly with the movie, than for listening to them just like that. The guitar tracks remind me personally a bit in their way they are of the soundtrack of “Thelma & Louise” by Hans Zimmer.
Until next blog,

sarah

Wednesday 18 November 2015

A probably valueless statement

Dear reader,

I've been thinking for quite a while now about ordering a certain t-shirt on amazon. Years ago I've read a book which was set partly in the time of the Vietnam war. There were accordingly protests and I read for the first time the phrase “Fight for freedom is like fucking for virginity”. I liked that phrase, because it reflects the absurdity of war. Especially with the current wars now, a t-shirt with that phrase seemed a good idea to me. Granted, if t-shirts with phrases would stop wars or could change anything, that would be more than fine. I am aware that a t-shirt like that is meaningless in the end. On the same night when the attacks in Paris had happened, I checked amazon nonetheless and found the following one and as you can see, I've received it, too. Be patient about the picture of me. I rarely make selfies and it's even rarer I use delayed-action shutter release. I bought the t-shirt on the German amazon website and will give you the link to it below. I will also link you to the American amazon website for a similar t-shirt, if you like to buy it. The American amazon website doesn't sell the exact one I have. It's not exactly the phrase I have read, but it's close enough. Because the t-shirt reads: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.”

Thinking about sense and senselessness of certain actions, I keep thinking about the following statement by the writer and political activist Ward Churchill, although it seems maybe somewhat contradicting the t-shirt phrase:

"What I want is for civilization to stop killing my people's children. If that can be accomplished peacefully, I will be glad. If signing a petition will get those in power to stop killing Indian children, I will put my name at the top of the list. If marching in a protest will do it, I'll walk as far as you want. If holding a candle will do it, I'll hold two. If singing protest songs will do it, I'll sing whatever songs you want me to sing. If living simply will do it, I will live extremely simply. If voting will do it, I'll vote. But all of those things are allowed by those in power, and none of those things will ever stop those in power from killing Indian children. They never have, and they never will. Given that my people's children are being killed, you have no grounds to complain at whatever means I use to protect the lives of my people's children. And I will do whatever it takes."

Until next blog,
sarah


did it with delayed-action shutter release, so be patient judging the photo

similar t-shirt on amazon.com and my t-shirt on the German amazon (sadly not available exactly like that on amazon.com)

Friday 6 November 2015

Pumpkin jam

Dear reader,

while most people I know dart for pumpkins for pumpkin soup, I prefer another way and make pumpkin jam. It's super easy, super fast and super tasty!

Ingredients:
1 butternut pumpkin (some also call it “squash”)
1 pack of 500 g jam sugar/jellying sugar
2-4 cups of water
additional ingredients you like

You'll also need a hand-held blender.

Many use a hokkaido pumpkin for pumpkin soup. I used it to make the jam last year. It's working, but I find that the hokkaido is tough and inconvenient. I therefore recommend the butternut/squash, which is softer and longer in shape. Advantage with the butternut is also that the seeds and fibres are only at the bottom part of it, whereas the hokkaido has the seeds and fibres “eveywhere”, because it's rounder.

By the way: both pumpkins have a bark that can be cooked and is edible! Although I'd suggest that if you do something else other than the jam, it may be good to peal the bark and cook it a bit earlier than the rest, which is softer and will take less time to cook.

1.) Cut the pumpkin in half and take the seeds and fibres out. I like to take a table spoon for that. Cut the two halves once again and than those halves again as well. So all in all three times cutting in halves. Divide the slices into smaller pieces to get square bits. They don't have to be small, thin squares. But keep in mind: the smaller the pieces, the softer they will be after they're cooked. So cut them not too big, but also not too tiny.

2.) Put the cut pumpkin pieces in a large pot with a few cups of water. Don't measure the cups as such, the water is just there so the pumpkin is softer faster. So it doesn't have to be exact cups. Cook it until it's boiling and then set a timer for 10 minutes. Stir every now and then. Put the lid of the pot on top, if you like. That's optional.

3.) When the 10 minutes are over, take the pot off the stove and blend the pumpkin pieces with the blender. If you like, you can keep some of the pieces, of course.

4.) After that, put the pot back on the stove. Add the jam sugar/jellying sugar and keep stirring while it's heating up again. Stirring is important. Otherwise the sugar will either burn your pot or the jam. Feel free to set the stove on maximum at first. But the jam will be thick liquid and towards the end it may produce bursting bubbles. So it may be better to set the stove back a bit then. When the jam is bubbling evenly, set the timer for 5 minutes.

When the minutes are over, fill the jam in jars. Alternatively you can (carefully!) add a bit of cinnamon for the taste. It's easy to add too much cinnamon. So be careful and take only a little bit at a time and keep tasting it. You could also add pieces of apples or grate one apple or add a glass of apple sauce when cooking the pumpkin pieces the first time or whatever else that comes to you mind.

As you can see: the jam needs only 10 + 5 minutes of cooking time. Once the pumpkin is cut into pieces, the most time-consuming part of the recipe is done already. The jam is something like a 15-minutes-jam.
American recipes on the internet take white granulated sugar instead of jam sugar/jellying sugar, depending on the taste either in the same amount of what the cut pumpkin pieces weigh or a bit less sugar. I only made it with the jam sugar/jellying sugar so far.

Have you made pumpkin jam already? And if so, how did you make it?

Until next blog,
sarah