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December 25, 2008

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Oh my god, we're laughing so hard. Thank you!

_Lara and Nancy

Mom wants me to add that when we showed one of the cookies formed from that last cookie cutter to my stepfather at dinner, he agreed that it did resemble a Nazi eagle. This then led to Mom leaving the dinner table to search for a book with a picture of one, and finally to us giving up on the table entirely to sit around my laptop while I Googled some up for comparison.

I'm still pushing the concept of a dove with a growth on its head, or maybe a fabulous (but small) hat, but now no one is listening to me.

Good grief, I had that same cookbook! I talked my mother into letting me try to make the castle cake one time. All the pieces fell apart and it didn't look nearly as good as the picture. (My introduction to the Martha Stewart rule - it's never as easy as the book says, and it never looks as good.)

The other recipes were easy and worked well, however. I remember we used to make the various flavored milks a lot.

Other than triggering my childhood memories, your Christmas sounds like fun. I hope you enjoy the rest of the season.

I always wanted to try the castle cake!

(So why haven't I tried it as an adult? Hmm.)

You should post photos of the disputed cookie shapes, and then we can all weigh in.

I have to ask... Was your mom for real, or does she have a very silly streak in her? The idea of a cookie cutter possibly being a Nazi eagle sounds like it came out of Mel Brooks's mind.

As for the recipe book, I loved the girl's worshipful expression. Or maybe she's smiling because she switched te candle and is waiting for the big kaboom.

Serge,
She wasn't making a joke; she says it was just the first thing she thought of because it was in her mind from reading the book. Seriously.

I probably get my tendency to go off on weird free-associative tangents from her, and possibly my tendency to say exactly what I think without bothering to think how it will sound to others.

As far as the girl's worshipful expression, speaking as a mostly non-cooking person, I can see how she'd be impressed that someone actually could cook.

Paul,
I have my camera with me, but the little cable for transferring photos is at home. I'll take some pictures and upload them tonight.

I am also a mostly non-cooking person: I own exactly two cookbooks, both presents from relatives.

The first was given to me by my brother when I moved into my first apartment, and is the latest edition of one of our favourite cookbooks when we were children, the Golden Wattle Cookery Book. I immediately looked up our favourite recipe, Toad in the Hole; at first it seemed to be missing, but then it turned out to be present, but inexplicably retitled "Sausages in Batter". Pfui.

The second was a present from my mother this Christmas just past; she ought to know better by now, but hope springs eternal.

Could it be a non-Nazi eagle, specifically the eagle associated with St John the Evangelist? (Which might make you look to see if any of the others could be fit into man, ox, and lion?)

Looking at the cover, it looks like the boy has followed my chocolate cake recipe. He might not because as I'm rubbish at icing I tend to cover them in melted chocolate which covers all kinds of cake wrongness. Also, the chocolate mixture has not quite got out of the bowl; following my recipe it should be on most of the kitchen surfaces.

I'm not quite sure what to say about Nazi cookies although I'd assume they were vegetarian. Also I'd expect to see more cookie cutters following whatever theme they had - either more Nazi symbols, or maybe you'd get a Russian Bear, a British Lion, a Belgian Lion, a Dutch Lion, a Luxembourg Lion, a Canadian Beaver, a French, um, Rooster, and an American Eagle.

joann,
The others in that set were a Christmas tree, a gingerbread man, a bell, a candy cane, and the squiggle. So definitely not the Evangelists. It would be more clearly a bird if its head were shown in profile. I expect it's intended to be an angel, but I still say the proportions are wrong.

Neil,
I think we must use the same recipe, except that I always end up with chocolate all over me as well.

No comment on your list of animals, as I am still pretending to be high-minded here.

Susan... I probably get my tendency to go off on weird free-associative tangents from her, and possibly my tendency to say exactly what I think

I used to be like that too. I have no idea where I got it. I also wonder where I got my curiosity, and my love of reading, because I sure didn't get either from my parents. I've been told that I used to 'read' the Friday Funnies even before I knew how to read.

That being said, I loved those transcripts of your familial exchanges. Of course, I had to post a link on my blog.

Hilarious! I can't wait to see the pictures of these mysterious cookies.

I'm looking forward to the pictures, but I bet the squiggle is meant to be an icicle. The only cookie cutter I saved when I gave away most of the kitchen stuff was a gingerbread girl!

Ah, I found this: "Woolworths do a pack of 6. Christmas tree, star, bell, candy cane, ginger bread man shape, and general cookie shape." Think the Nazi eagle is a star?

Or how about this set where the squiggle would be a holly leaf and the Nazi eagle an angel?

Marilee:
That second set is it! So the squiggle is a holly leaf! I have to say, I would not have guessed this, and I have three holly in my yard that I planted myself (two girls and a boy).

I guess the angel lost her legs in the war against the demons? Since she has wings, she doesn't need a wheelchair.

What looks like a pine tree's shape really is a lovecraftian trilobite.

AJ,
My dance practice group identified the holly leaf immediately, much to my chagrin. One person did guess "dove" on the angel, and another said it looked like a cherubim, as opposed to a regular sort of angel, because cherubim are small. They all agreed that there was definitely something to the eagle idea, though.

Okay, I've finally uploaded the pictures of the cookies, which were surprisingly difficult to photograph. I await everyone's opinions!

That's a wise man/angel? It reminds me of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.

Off topic... Tonight, we watched the DVD of 2006's The Fall. It's set in Hollywood in 1915. the main character is a stuntman who recently lost the use of his legs, and the other a little girl who's in because of a broken arm. To keep himself from committing suicide, he tells her a story about a masked bandit and his faithful companions, and a beautiful princess, and a little girl who just happens to look like her real-world counterpart. The first 30 minutes struck me as rather self-indulgent, but I finally got into it. And the costumes of the story within the story are gorgeous.

The second cookie looks like an angel kneeling in prayer. And the fourth one does still bear more resemblance to some sort of bird than to an angel. But they all look... delicious.

Serge, we spent the evening watching Mysterious Science Theater 3000 rip apart Laserblast. Good times, good times indeed.

AJ... A few evenings ago, we watched, as is our winter tradition, MST3K's The Day the Earth Froze. As for yesterday, we watched many episodes of Twilight Zone on the SciFi Channel. (I know, you don'thave cable.) I got a laugh out of catching an ad for Clint Eastwood's Gran Torrino. I mean, there you have his front lawn upon which stand a few unproductive and young members of society, and Clint tells them "Get off my lawn" while pointing a shotgun at them.

AJ,
I was somewhat tempted to send out care packages of cookies to anyone who wanted them. Instead, being sick, I ate most of them myself and took the rest to my dance practice. I suppose I could make another batch using my non-holiday cookie cutters sometime. I was meaning to experiment with the recipe a little anyway to see whether I can fix the texture problems. Anyone want some cookies?

The kneeling thing makes sense on cookie #2, and I was on the angel side of the debate on that one, but what is the thing on its head? It really does look like a crown. It has points! I was not aware that angels wore crowns. The small cookie of dubious species also has something on its head, though it's harder to see in that size (the pictures are proportionate to the actual cookies).

Also, I should mention that red and green sprinkles applied in random places and quantities are traditional with us as well.

Serge,
re. The Fall: I am not surprised that I haven't seen it, but it's another I don't recall even hearing about.

That crown has me stumped, too. Reading the description I thought maybe it could be a halo, but now that I can see it, it's definitely a crown. At this point, I'm leaning toward "Wise Man wearing a jetpack".

The fourth one seems to me to be fairly clearly an angel, though. (The growth on its head probably is a halo this time.) I don't understand what you meant about the amputation and the miniskirt at all.

Paul,
The proportions looked off to me; the angel is too short and the wings too wide. It looks more like an angel to me now, but I'm influenced by knowing what it's supposed to be.

Susan... The fourth cookie reminds me of a manta ray with its tail chopped off. As for The Fall... I had never heard about it it either, but my wife somehow had, and put it on our NetFlix queue. Here is its coming attraction.

Susan,
How wide are an angel's wings supposed to be, then?

The Angel wingspan question appears to be open at Yahoo Answers. So far the consensus seems to be that they don't have a wingspan either because a. they don't exist, b. they don't have wings; they're just representative of their travelling or c. angels are pure spirit and don't have body parts.

Neil... they're just representative of their travelling or c. angels are pure spirit and don't have body parts

That reminds me of the movie Prophecy when the angel played by Eric Stoltz gets killed by angel Christopher Walken and when his body is examined by the coroner, he notices that some things are missing.

Susan, I think the Wise Man is kneeling with a backpack (which was not an unusual way to carry things back then). Otherwise the height is wrong.

At this point, I'm leaning toward "Wise Man wearing a jetpack".

I giggled so hard at this that it freaked my dog out a little bit.

(not sure how I lost track of this thread for 2 days, must have been all the comments on other threads, so now I shall hastily catch up)

Serge: I don't think Netflix has that MST3K episode. They're annoyingly spotty on what episodes they do have, but at least they have my favorite: Space Mutiny.

Susan: Do I ever NOT want cookies? Nevermind that I received approximately two or three pounds of chocolate for New Year's Day (our family tradition is to give gifts on NYD, and part of that tradition is that my parents buy a TON of candy at the after Christmas sales and split it up between my brother, my husband and I). I would happily trade some delicious egg-free chocolate cookies that taste like brownies for some of your cookies!

AJ... I know. I try not to think of the day when my VCR will chew up the tape, which is now 16 years old. As for Space Mutiny, I don't think I ever saw that one. We do have Fugitive Alien, in which Japanese warriors from outer space attack Earth while wearing red wigs and being led by a kabuki actor.

(Darn. It looks like I messed up this thread into being italicized. That'll teach me to talk about Christopher Walken as an evil angel.)

Agh! Even the text outside of the comments is italicized. How did you break it?

Space Mutiny is great. The protagonist is this beefy guy, and so they spend the entire time coming up with ridiculously macho names for him, which is what makes me laugh so much. I haven't seen Fugitive Alien, either. They really need to get the rest of the eps on DVD and onto Netflix (Amazon has some that Netflix does not).

My brother-in-law is an even bigger fan of MST3K than we are, so Chris stood in a very long line at Comic-Con to get a poster signed for him, by the guys who did the bots and either Joel or Mike. I can't remember which, because I was not the one waiting in the line (I got bored and did something else, which I also can't remember).

AJ... How do you break it?

I think that our Rixosous Hostess has to go into the edit mode and add the end-of-italics html right after the word "Prophecy".

As for "Space Mutiny"... I just checked on IMDB and it sounds like one of the MST3K movies that I missed during the 3-year period when we lived in an area where MST3K's channel was unavailable. At first, its reference to an invading space fungus made me think it might be "Green Slime", but the latter is a Japanese-American co-production, while "Space Mutiny" is an Italian-American one.

One MST3K movie I rather like because it could be enjoyed straight was "First Spaceship to Venus". It was based on a Stanislaw Lem novel. Primitive SFX by modern standards, but still a neat exploration of the Unknown.

I went in and fixed the html to remove the italics. Sorry; there's only one of me here and I was too tired after theater last night to look at my comments!

Marilee,
All the pictures I have of the Wise Men (and my mother's statues, which are almost a foot high and which are the definitive image of them from my childhood) show them processing along in robes with their gifts carried in their hands. I thus had the impression that they marched solemnly over hill and dale and desert in this stately fashion, perhaps with servants in backpacks behind them doing the real hauling.

The jetpack idea might resolve this issue, however, since if they traveled by jetpack they could do it as a day trip and wouldn't need to bring luggage.

Serge,
some things are missing

Um...like what?

Paul,
After some thought, I think the width from wing to wing with wings folded ought to be about 2/3 the length of the body. On the cookie, they're almost equal in size. Thus either the wings are too wide or the angel is too short. I could test this by measuring my own wings when I get home; they were full-sized ones which gave me about a 15' wingspan when open. I recall them extending only a foot or so beyond each shoulder when folded.

Also, a lot of angels in art do not seem to have full-length wings, presumably because they fly via spiritual purity rather than by actually, um, flapping. Look at Gabriel, here.

When I showed the cookie to my dance friends, the same person who immediately said "holly" on cookie number three also immediately said "dove" to number four, so my mother is not the only one seeing a bird there.

AJ,
Too late! All the cookies from that batch have been consumed. But I might be convinced to make more cookies. Check Rixo on Tuesday, which is Epiphany, and therefore (for half my family heritage) the proper time for gift-giving.

If I made non-Christmas cookies using that recipe, we could address the burning question of whether one of my other cookie cutters is meant to be a mushroom or some sort of sex toy or something else entirely. I've been stumped on that one for years.

Susan... like what?

For one, reproductive organs. For another, an anal orifice.

See that's where the pure spirit theory is much more respectable. In addition it would make an autopsy much more interesting. "Hmm - this body is made of pure spirit... well at least 150 proof".

...whether one of my other cookie cutters is meant to be a mushroom or some sort of sex toy or something else entirely. I've been stumped on that one for years.

Once again we run into a situation where the experimental method will just get us into trouble. I sometimes describe my relationship with the experimental method as a love affair, but the analogy can be taken too far.

Susan... I might be convinced to make more cookies

I wonder if the Canadian Border officials would give you a hard time if you brought some to the worldcon. They probably haven't forgotten your attempts at smuggling wood in.

Serge: "First Spaceship to Venus" is already in my Netflix queue :D

Susan: I've been utterly distracted from thoughts of cookies by thoughts of wings. Are there pictures?

Serge, I have a VCR/DVD that will record from one to the other. Care to trust the tape to the post office? (I tried it with the test disc they sent and it worked for the few minutes I tried.)

Susan, if they traveled over hill and vale, desert and river, with gifts in their outstretched hands, they're not actually wise men.

AJ, show her your faery wings!

Marilee, I think she's already seen them, because I'm wearing them in my bio picture on my blog :D

Marilee... I may take you up on your offer.

Regarding the proper wingspan for an angel... This is the proper one, for me. I couldn't find one of Tilda Swinton fromt he movie Constantine, but this one will do.

I certainly hope Gabriel isn't going to try to fly with those wings; assuming he can beat them arbitarily fast he can probably get off the ground somewhat like a hummingbird or maybe a bumblebee, but his legs would dangle which would be both unaerodynamic and silly looking.

I've ...er... acquired a couple of low-res pictures of Tilda Swinton as Gabriel. Both she and Angel seem to have their wings attached mainly at the shoulders, but connected all down the back, which may help prevent quite so much leg-dangle.

All of them need bigger chests though.

(They need huge pectoral muscles and an enormous breastbone to anchor them on)

Susan... All of them need bigger chests

It's a good thing that my best-behavior subroutine is engaged.

As for the anatomical problems of angels, well, that's one of those cases where we have to refrain from looking too close so that we can enjoy how magnificent an image they present.

Serge, that was Neil proposing bigger chests!

I think wings have to be considered a failure on humans. We're just not built for them.

Marilee... Oops. Still, I will refrain from the obvious comments.

I seem to recall that the guy who wrote The Physics of Superheroes said that it would be pretty impossible for a human to fly with wings. It was one of the audience questions at his panel at Comic Con (which was great), but it might also be in his book (I bought said book for my husband Chris, and he loved it, which is why we went to the panel).

AJ... I think that one of Poul Anderson's van Rijn stories dealt with how humanoid aliens could fly. One problem was how much oxygen they needed to take in to be able to fly, compared to how much oxygen they could actually take in. The aliens had to look physically quite differnt from Tilda Swinton.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not into bigger chests. Just saying. Spent a lot of effort fixing this problem on a personal level.

Susan... I know that. I guess my concerns over my work situation made me slip a few cogs. My apologies.

I'd vaguely remembered that there was some scripture or something that had angels with multiple wings. A swift google lead me to Isaiah 6:2 : Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying

So six wings, but only two used for flying! Being pure spirit, they can probably get round the mechanical requirements of needing a large breastbone and muscles and even how you co-ordinate 6 wings (as well as arms and legs). Isaiah 6 seems to be a vision so they're metaphorical even in context.

Yes, please blame all large chest related commentary on me. Enough body parts. I will now concentrate on pure spirit. Hope the situation improves Serge.

Neil... My mind has been hopelessly corrupted. Before I started hanging around Rixo, only pure and innocent thoughts ever populated my mind.

As for many-winged angels... I think Sharon Shinn wrote a novel that featured them. If I remember correctly, it gave the main character headaches, just to look at the wings vibrating very fast.

It's often suggested that faeries can fly because they're purely spiritual beings, so I'd imagine it's the same for angels, whether or not they are played by Tilda Swinton.

Angel in X-Men however, has no such excuse to be able to fly... but I'll forgive him because he's just so pretty.

(I have a wing obsession, yes I do)

Susan, Kaiser surgeons repeatedly say they'd fix mine if I could have general anesthesia again. (It's limited to surgery that would fix something that would otherwise definitely kill me, rather than just really inconvenient things.)

AJ... Ever seen Dogma? Not only does he have Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Fallen Angels, but it has Alan Rickman as angel Metatron who bemoans that God made it impossible for angels to get drunk, and God is played by Alannis Morrissette.

AJ... Here is Metatron. To say that the film is disrespectful is an understatement.

Serge, I have seen Dogma. It's one of those movies that I sit there, watching it, and I feel like I should feel guilty, but I really don't. Not all of the humor was up my alley, but it was a fun experience.

AJ... Not all of the humor was up my alley, but it was a fun experience.

That's pretty much the way I feel too. A lot of the humor is jejeune, but there IS Rickman to make up for it.

Speaking of wingspans... Susan's, in this case. I just received my DVD of Denvention's masquerade. Of course, I skimmed thru to the end, to see Interplanet Janet" come on stage. Yay!

Well, if anyone wants to see a very small me on video and hear my distinctive voice, there's a video of a ball I called back in November on YouTube here. I'm all the way down at one end (lavender dress, black shawl, microphone) so you can't see me very well, but my voice comes through very clearly.

This is the sort of video I don't object to, since it's useful professional advertising. I'm going to ask them to put my name on it, in fact.

with two they covered their feet

I am reminded that somebody once told me that many of the references to "feet" in the Old Testament are actually a euphemism. This is one of the few places where I'm inclined to find it plausible.

Paul A...

"Say, are those shoes, or are you just glad to see me?"

This reminds me of the movie Dark Angel, in which a young she-devil falls in love with a human. More than once people make comments about how big her feet are. Me, I never quite understood what the big deal is about women and big feet. A few months ago, TCM was showing Sabrina and my wife suddenly exclaimed how big Audrey Hepburn's pedal extremities were.

I have large feet for a woman -- size 11. I never realized it signified anything except that shopping for shoes was difficult, though less difficult than when I was a 10 1/2.

Susan... I was a 10 1/2

You're in good company, or rather fellowship.

Cookies at Worldcon: Clearly what you need to do is this:
1. Go to Canada.
2. Collect ingredients from Canadian shops.
3. Find a kitchen by, I don't know, going to a kitchen showroom and asking for a test drive? Can you do that? I've not really thought this bit through.
4. Cook all Canadian cookies made from real Canadian ingredients.
5. Hand out cookies to cheers, applause and great hurrahing.

As for the wings covering the "feet" rather than the feet, that makes some sense. There aren't any obvious clues in the chapter to tell which is meant.

When I gained all this weight, I was hoping my feet would get wider, but no, they got a size longer. I'm now a 10AAAA, 7A heel, and that's just about impossible to buy.

Marilee, that's may be even worse than my mother's. She's a 10.5AA, with a 5A heel. She does have the added problem that 10.5 often doesn't exist in women's shoes; most styles are half sizes up to 10, then jump to 11.

I'm a 7.5. The only bad thing about being a 7.5 is that apparently half the other women in the world are also a 7.5, so whenever I find the perfect steampunk boots on clearance sale, the only sizes left are 5s and 10s.

I know, I'm not going to get any sympathy here ;)

AJ... Out! You, you normal!

Perhaps someone who lives in Canada could be persuaded to bake some made-in-Canada cookies to make up for the lack of made-outside-Canada cookies, should that someone manage to get to Worldcon.

I've worked it out! Angel's wings are only a secondary mutation which he uses for propulsion and steering. His primary mutation is some sort of anti-gravity or levitation thing. (Note that one or other X-Men comic book probably explicitly disagrees with me*)

Hold on, Stan Lee has just turned up. What's that you say? I win a No-Prize?


* If an X-Men comic disagrees with me, then in addition there is a 30% chance of a different X-Men comic agreeing with me)

Carol... Someone? Someone who lives in Toronto?

Neil... Let's ask Professor Logan what he thinks.

Neil, there's certainly precedent for your idea, given the fact that there are gazillions of mutants who fly without wings.

Except that I think there were several comics where he'd lost his wings and couldn't fly.

Then again, that might have been psychosomatic.

(My shoe size may be normal, but my willingness to discuss the possibility of the fictional powers of fictional characters shows that I am not, in fact, normal, and do not need to leave. So take that, Serge!)

AJ... My shoe size may be normal, but my willingness to discuss the possibility of the fictional powers of fictional characters shows that I am not, in fact, normal

Shoepergirl?

(I've found the "intelligent hats from the future" movie I was trying to remember in the Starcross thread!)

Serge: Someone who lives in Scarborough. I didn't vote for amalgamation with Toronto!

(Although, to be fair, a lot of the services really did need to be amalgamated.)

Carol... That's where I lived too. Up Courcelette Road, but not far from the water treatment plant that has been used in at least two TV shows as the HQ of mysterious and nefarious organizations.

My immediate free-association for "Scarborough" is "rapist," as in Paul Bernardo.

Sorry...

Maybe it's a generational thing, but this is the other association I make with "Scarborough".

Serge,
Well, yes, and that's a waltz, too. But that's "Scarborough Fair" rather than "Scarborough, Ontario."

A waltz? That's where it comes from? Holy...

I don't know about "comes from," but it's a waltz.

Here's what I found on wikipedia:

"Scarborough Fair" appears to derive from an older (and now obscure) Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight (Child Ballad #2), which has been traced to at least 1670 and may well be earlier. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task ("For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he"); she responds with a list of tasks that he must first perform ("I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand").

I have relatives in Northumberland. If you take the scenic coastal route north, you pass through Scarborough (no, the original one, the one named after a viking rather than after a town in Yorkshire). My family did this once, perhaps as a result of my parents listening to this song non-stop for 15 years*. I remember it as a nice place to stop for an hour (did we have fish and chips? I think we did), but unfortunately we were 200 years late for the fair.

We also passed through Whitby, but we didn't stop. I think this was before I was read Dracula or was interested in Captain Cook, and maybe even before I liked Pterosaurs, or at least associated Whitby with any of them.

I wonder if Scarborough Fair is where my fascination of impossible tasks in folktales comes from.

* I exaggerate.

Serge: I spent most of my life living a few minutes walk from the bluffs, south of Kingston by McCowan.

There are plenty of fair places in Scarborough, Ontario (such as said bluffs, or Rouge Park).

I got into trouble when I was little for rearranging my mother's spice rack: I thought I was helping, since most of them were in alphabetical order, but a couple were mixed up! I must admit that the spices in my rack are slightly out of order as well.

Susan: No need to be sorry. I was doing a work semester in the newsroom of the local paper at the time, and then taking a night course. One night I was waiting at a bus stop in order to get home. The next morning I read that there had been another rape only a couple of blocks from where I was waiting, around the time I had been there. I still remember the sickening feeling that came over me when I read the news. It was not a good time to be a young woman in Scarborough.

Okay, that does it. After the news, I'm listening to my Simon & Garfunkel collection.

Carol... I don't remember Rouge Park, but, yes, there were nice places in Scarborough. Toronto too. I enjoyed the boardwalk that started at the very east end of Queen Street and ended at the Marina. (I was quite amused when I saw that one of the sailboats was named "Theodan".)

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