Daniel Deronda

开始慢慢地看这一本。

滑稽的是，已经读了4%，title character Daniel Deronda 神龙见首不见尾，只露一面就消失了，作者一直在连篇累牍地描述女主（姑且假设大小姐Gwendolen是女主）。

老一点的严肃英国小说有一个习惯让我抓狂：没完没了的 exposition，介绍某某是啥样的人品性格教育经历等等，下定义，没有情节进展，闷死了。那时候大概文学界还没有 "Show. Don't tell." 的口号广为流传。

不过至今描写的人物都活灵活现，Gwendolen的心理活动尤其细腻准确。而且绵里藏针，冷嘲热讽。我还挺迟钝的，读了好几章后才意识到George Eliot多半是在讽刺Jane Austen及类似的浪漫爱情小说呢。美貌聪颖、自视甚高、性格perky、有四个“废物”妹妹的女主角简直就是照着Lizzie Bennet写的嘛！嘿嘿，算你狠。中间有一段女主角向替全家买单的姨夫要求置匹马给她骑，作者说，姨夫太不浪漫，没想给她弄匹烈马，让Gwendolen摔下来被有钱公子搭救...

总之，挺有趣，不过真的很长很细密。我慢慢地看得了。

Lies, Damned Lies, Medicine

A series of articles have been published in BMJ to recount the web of lies meticulously weaved by a British physician (Andrew Wakefield) who created, out of thin air, a nonexistent link between vaccines and autism from falsified patient records and data. His goal? Personal financial gains from lawsuits against companies that make vaccines and from his own patented vaccine.

One man, driven by greed, aided by the ignorance, stupidity, and mob mentality of the masses, single-handedly cost health care agencies around the world billions and billions of dollars, an unknown number of lives of children whose parents believed (and more still believe) this fake claim that vaccines cause autism and refused to vaccinate them, and all the wasted years of effort and resources that could have been spent on something that is real.

Here is BMJ's editorial. Here is the article by Brian Deer, the journalist who doggedly collected all the evidence to prove Wakefield's lies, lies, lies.

I am often reminded of the question posed to a certain junior senator from Wisconsin who suddenly became the most feared and therefore most powerful politician of his time: "Do you have no decency?"

Story Idea

六年前到 New Zealand 旅行，除了企鹅和Kiwi之外，印象最深的动物是 Royal Albatross。据说是世界上翅膀（张开后的 wingspan）最长的动物，生活在海与山交界之处，最会利用空中的气流滑翔，毫不费力。在南岛的Dunedin参加的当地旅游团（半天而已），导游带我们去海边看鸟和海狮。当时正值初春，天上灰蒙蒙的，时不时洒点儿小雨，海边还风大。我穿着带帽子的厚夹克冻得索索发抖。可是 albatrosses 真好看，仿佛悬浮在空中的风筝，悠闲地随气流上下起伏，手指也不必动一下。导游说，刚成年的小鸟被大鸟带了出海，十个月到一年都不回到岸上，除了捞鱼吃饭之外，非常偶尔才会落到海面上休息。等他们回到岸上时，就算是通过了成年礼，能够独立创天下也不怕了。

当时我就觉得导游的解说好浪漫呀，而且这些大白鸟在天上滑翔的样子真是帅毙了！（当然，笨笨的胖胖的企鹅仍然是我的最爱。）

几年过去了。前些天在外头走路的时候，也不知被什么刺激信号勾起了回忆，忽然站在街中心对S同学说：我有个故事主意，我要写一族飞在天上的人类的生活 --- 不，不是我们这样的人类长了翅膀，而是大半生命在空中度过的智慧生物，包括他们的文化和社会关系。而且我要深入其内部描写日常生活而不是从外面仰头羡慕地看着他们。你看过有人写这类的故事么？

S同学读过的科幻小说是我的几十倍，我想出来的主意，经常被他一句“那个谁谁写过类似题材”灭掉 --- 但是我需要这个活Wiki 替我删除已经被写滥了而尚不自知的俗套。

他挠挠头想了一会儿回答：不记得有见过，不过你也不能太信我了...

我立刻打断他：你没见过那就足够冷僻了。

好吧，这个故事肯定需要很多很多的背景资料搜集，Albatross当然是一定的，其他海鸟大概也需要。情节呢？无所谓啦，等资料找全了之后再瞎编好了。现在第一步先把 Jonathan Livingston Seagull 这本书拿来瞅瞅。

Panique Au Village

Roger Ebert 推荐的比利时动画片。

2002年制作的短片

2009年出品的长片

笑死了，笑得喘不过气来了，笑得腰酸背痛。

Nine Nights of Glory

Universal Sports is showing a documentary tonight, "Nine Nights of Glory," with footage from the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. I happened to catch the portion about the "Battle of the Brians": the hotly contested men's figure skating competition that ended with Boitano (USA) defeating Orser (Canada) with the slimmest margin imaginable (5-to-4 split by the judging panel). Both men as well as their coaches (Linda Leaver and Doug Leigh) were interviewed extensively about their experiences.

Boitano's and Brian Orser's 1988 Olympics free skates can be found on YouTube. People today are still fighting about who should have won. The reality of figure skating is, sometimes it's just too close to call.

Also making brief appearances on film were Viktor Petrenko (USSR), the bronze medalist, and Christopher Bowman, the No. 2 US competitor.

They looked so young! It's hard to believe that was 23 years ago. Boitano went on to have a successful professional career and is still actively involved in figure skating. He also has a TV cooking show now: What Would Brian Boitano Make. Orser also had a fair professional skating career and started coaching a few years ago. In 2010, his Olympic dream was fulfilled by his student Yuna Kim, who won the Olympic gold medal in women's competition. Coincidentally, the Olympics were again held in Canada (Vancouver). The coach and protege have since gone through an ugly "divorce," but Orser has made a boatload of money in Korean advertisements (Kim is the biggest star in Korea) and a promising coaching career.

Nowadays Viktor Petrenko is coaching in Simsbury, Connecticut with his wife Nina and his mother-in-law Galina Zmievskaya who had coached him, and works as a technical specialist for the ISU.

Always a wild child, Christopher Bowman had a turbulent career and life. He died of a drug overdose in 2008. He was 40 years old.

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3 more weeks!

Fast food recipe: Sundubu

Recently I made a fortunate discovery at the local Korean supermarket: packaged Sundubu soup base.

Boil water or beef broth, add soup base, add soft Tofu (comes in tubes), add mushrooms (enoki is a must, but I also throw in whatever other types I can find), add an assortment of seafood (e.g., a bag of frozen mixed seafood, also from the Korean market), let stew for a while, and add a raw egg on top at the end. I like to stir in a bunch of watercress before taking the pot off the stove.

Mix cooked rice into the soup for a complete meal.

Stone pot optional. Pickled Korean vegetables optional.

Currently watching

1. The Thin Blue Line. Rowan Atkinson's sit-com series from 1995, spoofing a small-town police station. Oddly, he himself is not doing a lot of physical comedy in it. Just spotted his friend Mr. Fry in a cameo in one of the episodes. Very small budget and cast. Typical, traditional, pure sit-com with all the money on the writing and ensemble acting. Love the occasional word-play.

2. Jeon Woochi: The Taoist Wizard (2009). Korean action fantasy comedy. A bit predictable and aimless, but watchable in a way, thanks to the lack of self-consciousness. The cheerful, improvisational script reminds me a bit of Hong Kong movies.

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Post-holiday shopping damage: a cashmere sweater/cardigan, a pair of corduroy pants, a box of foundation powder, a black-leather wallet.