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The senses are a vital source of knowledge about the objects and events in the world, as well as for insights into our private sensations and feelings. Below is an excerpt from Art and the Senses, edited by Francesca Bacci and David Melcher, in which Charles Spence, Maya U. Shankar, and Heston Blumenthal look at the ways in which environmental sounds can affect the perceived flavour of food.

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The McManns will be wearing the pink hot pants of Jesus, eating bacon at every meal, and buying Ithillgorn a puppy.




Also, Tommy Lee Jones gets credit for something.

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I always enjoy doing Linked Up because it gives me a chance to reflect on how I spend my free time on the internet. Apparently this week, I was a bit celebrity-obsessed.

Kevin Bacon is his own biggest fan. [Urlesque]

A subway car that’s 97.5% RECYCLABLE! [Good]

So you want to write a novel? Maybe you should watch this first. [DWKazzie]

And in related news…NaNoWriMo is over! (2,799,449,947 words later…) [GalleyCat]

If only I could actually type this into my browser… [Next Web]

Jay Pharoah, a new cast member of Saturday Night Live, is my favorite impersonator of the moment. (Magic starts at 2:50.) [David Letterman Show]

Can you pass the Kanye West quiz? [New Yorker]

Apparently, pirating music is so last year. [Wired]

1200 Hot Wheels all at once? Yes please! [Kottke]

Justin Bieber is talented in ways you never even imagined. [GawkerTV]

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Obesity is epidemic in this country and the news is full of stories about the excesses that are ruining our health and shortening the lives of our children. Before you get defensive you need to understand that as parents we are only partly responsible for the situation. Food manufacturers and restaurant owners, and yes, our government must share the blame, but we need to do something about it.

Everyday there is a news story telling us that what we were once told about a particular food is now considered incorrect and what we once thought was good for us is now thought to be bad for us. While the government is telling us obesity in children is a major problem, fast food restaurants are advertising bigger, fatter, more calorie-laden options. It is confusing for all of us. How can we keep up? What can we do about it?

I believe certain basics are true. I believe the closer our food is to its natural state the better it is for us.That doesn't mean meateaters should eat their meat raw, but if it isn't covered with cheese or creamy gravy it is probably better for you. I personally believe we eat too much meat in this country but this post isn't about that. I am not interested in changing meateaters to vegetarians. This post is about healthier eating and making changes toward better health.

I married a meat and potatoes man.  One day I decided, after a lot of reading on the subject, that we should become vegetarians. Vegetarian cookbooks that were available at the time were not encouraging. Becoming a vegetarian seemed to involve mixing and matching different kinds of protein foods to get the right combination to make up for not eating meat. After reading the cookbooks I was sure there was no way I would be able to convert my husband to a vegetarian lifestyle. I almost gave up, but I had the cookbooks so I figured I had to at least try a few recipes. I did and I was right, hubby wouldn't eat them.

Then it dawned on me! I could fix most of the dishes that we were accustomed to eating but make them vegetarian. And that is what I did. If I removed meat from a recipe I replaced it with something else  to make up for what was missing. (Portabello mushrooms have a texture similar to meat. Today the stores have many meat substitutes.)I didn't worry about complementarity but instead I concentrated on preparing good meals, that tasted good and that fit our style but without meat. Why should this matter to you? Read on...

On the road to healthier eating you have to expect a few bumps, but that shouldn't stop you. It is a retraining of our thinking and our tastebuds. If you are used to eating food that is drowning in cheese sauce it will take a while to adjust to the idea of eating food without cheese sauce, but it can be done. Make changes slowly. Perhaps you will need to slowly reduce the amount of cheese in the sauce, and reduce the quantity of sauce in a serving. Look for other healthier ways to season your food, and eat the less-healthy choices less often until you can elimate them completely. Concentrate on the foods that you like that are healthier choices.

Lightly salt foods before serving and take the salt off of the table. Make eating healthier a family project and get the kids involved. Teach them, and yourself, to read product labels. Know what unhealthy things to look for (high fructose corn syrup, all kinds of sugars, sodium quantities, che

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Yo, yo. What it is, Tappers.

So, looks like I took the month of August off from the bloggy blog. Sorry 'bout that. Heck, let's face it. You haven't been reading anyway. You've been busy with summer, updating your own blogs and you know...doing your own thing.

I get it. I do.

Well, I wish I could say that I'm done with GOODHALO'S mammoth revision, but I'm not. It's sloooow going, what with the other books I'm actually getting paid to write and the whole 2 other jobs and a family thing. My window of opportunity to get stuff done is small every night. Throw in the occasional late-night fire call and well...I'm shooting for the end of September to wrap this thing up.

Anyway, that's not why we're here. My family and I went out to the biggest money vaccum in the greater Twin Cities. I'm talking about the Minnesota State Fair.

It's a tradition that we go every year and this one was no exception. I won't bore you with a blow by blow, but the wackiest stuff happened about 10 minutes in.

As you know by now, I've now got two sons: Travis (4.5 years) and Jake (8 months). Since we've never been to the Fair with Jake, we had to bring a double-stroller that we had given to us from someone Laura knows from work. Her name might be Bernice, or Betty. I think it starts with a 'B.' Doesn't matter.

This thing is pretty beat up and smelled like an ashtray in a cigar factory's restroom. We aired it out, wiped it down and have used it plenty of times. We noticed one of the wheels looked a little funky, but we didn't think much of it. We were ready to roll toward deep fried goodness on a stick.

About 3 minutes inside the fair, we took a turn to head down toward the Midway and breakfast (Mini Donuts). As we headed down the stretch, the stroller threw a wheel. I tried in vain to pound it back into place, but it was a total loss. We abandoned it behind a Sno-Cone stand.

Thinking we were in for a long day (and we were) we had to hit the rental place. We rolled out of the garage in a snappy new wagon for the low price of $13.

For those keeping track at home, here's how much we spent within about 10 mintues:
Parking - $8 (Park n' Ride is for suckers with time to waste)
Admission - $22
Wagon rental - $13
Total - $43.00 (ouch)

The bonus? We got to see this brotherly love pretty much all day:

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"I've long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs . . . Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning."  ~ James Beard



(Vegetarians, look away.)

I'm definitely not a morning person, but for bacon I'll get up.

One whiff of those divine pieces of pork belly sizzling in a pan, and I'm floating downstairs, dreaming of cozy Sunday mornings and finding my way back home.

Bacon ranks right up there with chocolate as a top-ranking guilty pleasure. We know we shouldn't have any, but find it impossible to resist. Just one piece, maybe two. Absolutely scrumptious biting into it, eyes rolling back in the head, and then a sense of "man, am I going to pay for this," afterwards.

But hoo boy, this brand of ecstasy is worth it.

Despite warnings about saturated fat and nitrates, bacon is selling better than ever in the U.S. About 2 billion pounds of it is produced each year, 70% of it consumed at breakfast. Over 50% of American households claim to have bacon on hand at all times. Like Emeril always says, pork fat!! You simply can't beat it for flavor; even a little bit added to a recipe yields a big payoff.

It seems bacon has always been held in high esteem. Back in 12th century England, a church in the town of Dunmow awarded a side of bacon to any man who could swear he hadn't quarreled with his wife in a year and a day. He was greatly admired for his forbearance, and henceforth was known as one who could "bring home the bacon."

These days, women bring home the whole pig. With or without lipstick.

And right now, this woman is going to share her favorite method of cooking bacon.

Much as I love the crack, pop and sizzle, I hate cleaning greasy frying pans and spattered stove tops. Broiled bacon is equally messy, and I don't like heating up the whole oven just to bake a few strips.

No, here in the alphabet soup kitchen, we use the microwave. In the past, I used a special ridged microwave plate specially made for cooking bacon. But who wants to wash that thing? The older you get, the more your life is about convenience.

So here, for the first time ever, my favorite method, aka,

BROWN PAPER BAGS ARE YOUR FRIEND

Step 1: Blindfold any pigs who live at your house. Refrain from calling anyone "Babe."

   

Step 2: Fold two grocery bags in half crosswise, then slide one inside the other. Place two paper towels on top, then position bacon slices. Place another towel over the bacon to prevent spattering.

 

Step 3: Microwave on high, about 1 minute for each slice being cooked. (Cooking time varies depending on how crisp you like your bacon. It's wise to test after 2-3 minutes.)

   
      After 3-1/2 minutes (I like my bacon chewy.)

Step 4: Devour the bacon, then throw the greasy bags away. No dishes to wash, no spatters to clean up. Brown bags also absorb grease better than paper plates.

OINK!

If you find yourself stealing your kids' bacon, ease your guilt by reading them this book:


 picture book for ages 4-8 (Harper, 1989), 32 pp.

If you simply can't stop oinking, test your bacon and belly fat IQ here.

  

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The nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize for art have just been announced. Every year the prize courts controversy, with many traditional art lovers saying that the pieces aren’t art at all. Previous winners of the prize have included Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst, and the transvestite potter Grayston Perry. Interpretating art, then, seems to be a minefield: one person’s trash is another person’s masterpiece. With this in mind, today I bring you an excerpt from Cynthia Freeland’s 2002 book But Is It Art?

Interpretation: a case study

Although no one interpretation is ‘true’ in an absolute sense, some interpretations of art seem better than others. Let’s consider an artist whose work inspires interpretive disputes, the prominent Irish–English expressionist painter, Francis Bacon (1909–1992). Bacon painted people who look tortured and despairing. His figures are distorted, their mouths screaming—observers said Bacon made humans look like slabs of raw meat. One gets this initial impression just from looking at the paintings.

For example, consider Bacon’s monumental Triptych of 1973. In the centre panel a male figure sits on a toilet, while beneath him oozes a bat-shaped puddle of ominous blackness. The images look dark and disturbing; they almost reek of death. But here, as in other canvases, formal features counteract the visceral emotional impact. The triptych format itself recalls religious icons and altarpieces. Pain is offset by the almost static composition and use of deep, unusual colours. Reviewer Mary Abbe comments on these tensions in Bacon’s work:

“[F]or all their nastiness and brutality, there is something undeniably beautiful, even serene in these paintings. . . . Bacon . . . achieved a kind of lyricism that makes even his most horrific subjects compatible with the drawing rooms in which many of them hung. Backgrounds of boudoir pink, persimmon, lilac and aqua combine with the calligraphic grace of his fleshy figures in images of stylized elegance.”

Critics assemble interpretations using diverse approaches. Some people downplay emotion and pursuit of meaning and focus only on compositional beauty. The formalist critic David Sylvester, an early defender, emphasized Bacon’s use of abstraction in the face of many objections to the canvases’ harrowing contents. Especially when first exhibited, Bacon’s work (like Serrano’s Piss Christ) overwhelmed viewers; so it was necessary to point out how these paintings really did manifest form. Sylvester went too far, though, by de-emphasizing the visceral emotional qualities of Bacon’s work. Sylvester saw Bacon’s ‘screaming bloody mouths . . . simply as harmless studies in pink, white, and red’. I would call Sylvester’s early criticisms inadequate, then, as an interpretation of Bacon.

To correct Sylvester’s overly formalist approach, some critics go to the opposite extreme and provide a psychobiographical interpretation. Because Francis Bacon had a horrendous relationship with his father, who whipped and kicked him out as a child for his homosexuality, he is ripe for Freudian theorizing. Perhaps other aspects of Bacon’s life are reflected in his art. His horrific imagery may reflect his experiences in cleaning corpses out of bombed-out buildings in London during World War II. Bacon led an unusually wild life of heavy drinking, gambling, and constant S&M sexual escapades.

Bacon himself rejected readings of his work in terms of either his personal obsessions or the supposed angst of the twentieth century. He claimed his work was only about painting. He was obsessed with other painters, especially Velázquez, Picasso, and Van Gogh. Since Bacon recreated some of their famous works in his own distinctive style, it seems that his works are indeed about how to paint in a new and different era. Still, I don’t quite believe Bacon completely, nor would I rule out his biography altogether; it somehow provides background context for the raw urgency and harrowing content of the paintings.

Another critic, John Russell, helps us see that the blurred figures in Bacon’s works had sources in the animal movement studies done by photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The earlier artist’s time-lapse photos gave rise to Bacon’s images of running dogs and wrestling men. Russell explains that Bacon sought to blur the boundaries between representation and abstraction. In a sort of competition with abstract artists like Jackson Pollock, he used photography in a new way—almost as if denying the upstart medium’s challenge to painting as the medium of realistic depiction.

Critical disagreement about the meaning of Bacon’s work is typical of debates in the artworld. I do not think that such conflicts are insoluble. Critics help us see more in the artist’s work and understand it better. Interpretations are superior if they explain more aspects of the artist’s work. The best interpretations pay attention both to Bacon’s formal style and to his content. In interpreting Bacon, I would not ‘reduce’ his art to his biography, but some facts about his life seem to reveal things about how he painted people. For example, biographers explain that the image we have been considering, Triptych of 1973, was ‘about’ a particular death: it was both exorcism and commemoration of the suicide of Bacon’s former lover, George Dyer, who died in their hotel bathroom in Paris just before the opening of a major exhibit of Bacon’s paintings. Knowing this, one looks at the work differently—it still seems horrifying (perhaps more so), but is an even more impressive achievement of artistic transformation. But content is not everything, either. Bacon’s forms, compositions, and artistic sources are also relevant.

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