Mike Jutan's World: Chillin', Shaker Set, Michael Chabon

Monday, November 05, 2007

Chillin', Shaker Set, Michael Chabon

After Matt's ammmaazing show, Orion and I took off and went to go hang out with Matt's friends Sarah and Jasmine, who were awesome. That was fun and they were fun to hang out with. Then Orion and I headed back and busted out my new Martha Stewart (haha) bar set that I got at Macy's!! I made a couple of Appletinis (easy on the "tini"), Zach-Braff style, haha. It was good stuff. I had to try out my new shaker set so I can make my friend Matt an Appletini when he arrives from Canada this week!! Haha I feel like a real person now that I have a shaker set. :)

Sunday morning I got up earlier than usual again which was nice, and headed over to the JCC for a talk by Michael Chabon. Orion came too and it was sooooooooooooooo good. Michael Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize winner from 2001 for his book, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." His talk was fantastic. He was discussing some of the ideas behind his new book called "The Yiddish Policeman's Union", and it was really quite interesting. He mentioned how he once found a pocket translation travel guide for Yiddish. It had all the usual travel translations, "Where is the bathroom", "How long will the flight be", "When does my flight leave" etc... but in Yiddish. Since Yiddish is largely spoken only as slang to complement Hebrew or other languages, it's very strange to imagine needing a Yiddish translation book like that and it's hard to figure out what country you would use it in, since Yiddish is essentially a spoken Jewish language only, and Jews are all over the world. He talked about not having a homeland, and when he was a kid, how he didn't understand the phrase "Next year in Jerusalem" that is said at Rosh Hashannah every year. He talked about his inspiration, his drive to try to understand himself and his Jewish identity through writing. It was sooooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!!!!!! I had a great time and the lecture was just fantastic. I really want to read some of his books now.

After that we continued on the Jewishy vibe of the day and got some Bagels and Lox and took it to Matthew's neighbourhood. We got some coffee, and hung out with Matt and some of his friends who came by. Then back to Matt's house where we helped him clean.

Then back to my house, where we cleaned for 3 hours!! It was realllly nice that Matt and Orion helped me out, we did all the dishes and took out the garbage and recycling, Orion cleaned my sink and mirror and bathtub!! It was amazing. I swiffered the floor, Matt due to his tallness helped me change the lightbulbs on the ceiling. and the boys even helped me lower my desk height finnaaaly which I'd been meaning to do for ages. I sorted out my computer wires, plugged in my new USB 2.0 Hub, new power bar and so on. It was awesome and very productive. Then Matt took off, and Orion and I went for Indian Food. Matt met us there later on and we chatted for quite some time about Matt's next major performance art project and discussed our knowledge of circuits, electronics and programming that could help create this art. I am really excited to see where Matt wants to go with all of this artsy stuff, and I am keen to give a hand with some of the technical stuff. Pretty cool!!!!!!

Oh yeah also I got my bookshelf together on Friday night and Orion also helped me with that just after he arrived. So I've got to sort that out a little tonight and get the place ready for my friend Matt who is coming to visit this week.