Another important part of the Candlelight story line is the culinary tradition. Servants worked tirelessly to prepare elaborate dishes for the governor’s table.

“As you read through cookbooks of the time period, you start figuring out, Oh, so this is going to take a very long time,” says Matt Arthur, Tryon’s living history program coordinator. “We think a gelatin dessert is easy; it’s just a box of Jell-O and boiling water. Back then, they were boiling calves’ feet, going through a purification process, using bladders of freshwater fish and deer antlers. It took a long time to do all of that.”

Arthur considers any 1700s recipe that involves gelatin to be a “power flex.” Those dishes demonstrated to the governor’s dinner guests that he had enough servants to pull off such complicated recipes. Food was a way for people of stature to show how wealthy they were without saying it.

Source: A Colonial Christmas at Tryon Palace | Our State

I used ChatGPT last weekend to help us revise the menu structures on our coho’s internal web site. I wrote out a detailed prompt, and then entered every page title on its own line, about 35-45 in total. In my prompt, I told ChatGPT to merge page topics, to rephrase them so they make sense to a less-technical audience, and to provide three examples of hierarchical menu structures, with at least one restricted to two levels.

We were pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Some of the AI’s groupings didn’t make sense, but many of them did. Using ChatGPT kept us from having to spend hours and hours on this exercise. Editing the AI’s work, recognizing what was good and what needed rethinking or special considerations, was much easier than doing it all ourselves.

We’re busy with other coho duties and our $dayjobs; I’m all for using a tool that gets us to the finish line quicker with less pain.

I recently skimmed two five-line-a-day diaries I kept; one spanned the years 2002-2012 and the other 2019-2023.

Because I love reading diaries and journals, and I have an obsesso need to document my life for some reason, I tried to make a go of them. Certainly, if I were to find someone else’s diary at a yard sale, I’d snatch it up and read every word. The thrill of eavesdropping on someone else’s life events, and thoughts, just tickles me.

But in skimming these two books, all I wanted to do was throw them away and not see them again. And to ask myself: why on earth would I want to keep them?

When I started keeping these five-liner diaries, I remember wanting to emulate the style of Pepys’ diary: did this, saw that, talked to so-and-so, thought this singer was great, and that play was rubbish.

One thing that worked against me was inconsistency: I started the new year strong, recording a few lines daily, then faded out, coming back for a week or two more, then fading out. A radio signal cresting and dying.

My first thought when I brought these diaries over from the old house was that I’d digitize the pages and keep them in Evernote or on my MacBook, so that I had a record of all those times.

As I thumbed through them, a few passages caught my attention: the days leading up to the passing of Liz’s mother, our growing embrace of the people who joined the Bull City Commons cohousing community, records of the many BCC meetings and decisions, stray things friends said.

This passage from May 8, 2021, a year and a half into the pandemic: “Our first ‘day out’ in over a year. To Beer Durham and sat outside on a beautiful, sunny, breezy day and enjoyed our beer and cider. ‘We must always remember this day!’ Liz said, several times. So good to see her happy, Great sandwiches from the food court. Watched ‘In and Of Itself’ on Hulu.” (I kept a running list of all the movies we saw in both books.)

This one from January 30, 2019: “Tom said that in graduate school, he accepted that he was not in control of his schedule and that’s ruled his life ever since. I’m believing it myself this week.”

A few times, the real world broke in: big snow or hurricane events, Trump’s election, the January 6 insurrection.

But the majority of the passages were of the bland and samey “Went to work, wrote report, met with X to plan video” or “Slept late” or whining about the hours of yard work I did (I hate doing yard work) and my losing battles with the bamboo and carpenter bees.

Then there were lots of depressing passages that droned on for weeks or months: my retinal detachment and the long recovery, the year I was out of work and my fruitless rounds of interviews, the hell-year of my Ph.D. and its long aftermath. Tell me again why I wanted to re-read this stuff? Why was I putting myself through this??

It did not take long for me to realize: I don’t want to spend any time at all digitizing or saving these handwritten logs. I don’t want to relive those days. Leave that baggage behind. Don’t carry it into the future.

So, no more keeping a daily log – at least in that fashion. For the past year or so, I have kept a daily note in Evernote that records my work activities for reporting purposes, personal events, phone calls, and also serves as a scratch pad for whatever is on my mind. I find I get along with this quite well. And when the time comes, no one has to worry about re-reading any of it or even throwing it in the trash. Just shut off the account and all the bits will go away.

Addendum: 2023-03-26: For the positive aspects of keeping a daily handwritten record, see Austin Kleon.

Today’s email from Oliver Burkeman was on a topic that walloped me upside the head: How to choose sanity now. (Hope that link works!)

Here’s why: I am all caught up on my $DAYJOB work, one of those bliss states I’ve always imagined: no deadlines, no backlogs, time to work on projects of interest only to myself. And I’m totally at loose ends. I’m a tech writer (started as a reporter), so deadlines have long been a feature of my professional life. With that guardrail gone, I am feeling kind of freaked-out at the wide-open field of possible choices for spending my time, energy, and attention.

And as I’m 62 (nearing retirement age), I’m wondering: is this how I will feel when the $DAYJOB is gone?

In reading Burkeman’s work, and others’ as well, what I’m doing about this feeling is nothing. Just sitting with the feeling, detecting where it is in my body, and not trying to make myself “feel better.”

Instead of seeking short-term mood repair (the predominant cause of procrastination, according to the research), I will see what non-dayjob things need to be done. I live in a cohousing condo, so there’s always some task to be done. And after those tasks, maybe just…enjoy myself?

I’m one of those people who is baffled by the word “fun”, so enjoying myself feels like giving myself another task to stress about. But perhaps just giving myself permission (a technique I practice for others but not for myself) to feel both giddy and at loose ends is all that’s needed right now.

Burkeman is a recovering productivity geek who nevertheless still is looking for ways to live the good life without causing overmuch internal tension and strife. His fortnightly newsletter. The Imperfectionist, is the bee’s knees.

Rediscovered this article in Evernote during my daily notes-weeding practice. I’m sure I must have implemented it at one time, and did so again yesterday. It does make sorting my inbox much faster, though as usual, I find I overload myself with too many items to be done in one day.

It resembles Carl Pullein’s Time Sector System, which uses an algorithm of when will you do something, rather than prioritizing based on what you are doing.

The Only Five Email Folders Your Inbox Will Ever Need

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Ostentatio genitalium (the display of the genitals) refers to disparate traditions in Renaissance visual culture of attributing formal, thematic, and theological significance to the penis of Jesus. That these images seem to have been created in good faith, with pious intentions, mystifies art historians, and many refuse to recognize the category as noteworthy or distinct from the nudity of angels and putti. Yet, as examples accrue, the conspicuous attention lent to Christ’s phallus cannot escape even the most disinterested gaze. “It is no exaggeration to say that this has probably been the most taboo topic in Christian thought for two thousand years”, writes Stephen Sapp. In contrast to classical sculptural conventions, which — with exceptions like certain herma and statues of satyrs — often showcase male genitalia in a state of flaccid modesty (akin to Michelangelo’s Risen Christ), these Renaissance images shock us because they are so frequently ithyphallic: Christ has risen, but not in the way we have come to expect.

Source: Ostentatio Genitalium in Renaissance Art – The Public Domain Review

In what has unexpectedly turned into a quest, I’m watching the David Suchet Poirot series via Britbox on Amazon Prime Video.

Because the short stories are too short, or the novels too long, they are often significantly reworked to fit into the Procrustean bed of 51-minute episodes. Particularly in the early years, there’s also a desire to establish a family of established characters: Poirot, Miss Lemon, Hastings, and Japp. So the supporting cast often feature in their own B or C storylines to pad out an episode to 54 minutes.

Example: An early series episode, “The Chocolate Box,” where Japp and Poirot travel to Belgium for Japp to receive an award, and Poirot relates an early case from when he was a policeman. In the original story, Poirot simply retells the case to Hastings. In the TV episode, the expanded world created by the producers offers scope for great scenery, and enlarges both Japp and Poirot’s inner and outer lives, and their respect and affection for each other. Christie never imagined such character-defining moments because such moments were never really her concern.

The TV shows often significantly change the stories, and not only by adding B and C storylines that don’t exist. Again, in “Chocolate Box,” the short story features the murderer correcting Poirot’s deductions by confessing, and the young woman Virginie leaves to join a convent. But in the TV episode, Poirot correctly deduces the murderer, he secretly loved Virginie, and she marries his best friend.

Events planted in the early years – Hastings’ marriage and his move to the Argentine to be a rancher, Poirot’s first retirement – return and are played up or played down as needed in later years. While these threads don’t always work, they provide a sense of a continuing story despite several years’ gaps between series.

So, the three periods of TV-Poirot.

“The Cozies”

The early seasons of single-episode “cozies” that established the theme music and style aesthetics. The production qualities are at a comfortable and uniform level: Art Deco-inspired sets, impeccable costuming and set designs, and a generally high to medium-high quality of acting. It’s also great fun to see young actors starting out, like Christopher Eccleston and Jeremy Northam.

The stories look as if they take place on a grand stage, with Poirot the most dandified character on set, and very much belonging to this world. The direction is four-square and conventional, though the opening scenes sometimes show a dark playfulness and imagination (i.e., the opening of “One Two, Buckle My Shoe”).

I’m assured of a dependable and cozy, if unexciting, standard of viewing pleasure. For that reason, I only rewatched episodes I remembered favorably, or hunted for particularly interesting stories from the first 5-6 years.

“Why Are We Here?”

The middle period, beginning roughly with “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is deeply uneven. Only the opening bars of the Poirot theme, and a few seconds of the original credits are used; so a rethink of the stories’ presentation is taking place, but the choices don’t go deep.

The TV family appears now and then, the sets and costuming don’t look as good, the direction is even more boring, and the acting ranges from OK to embarrassing. The drop in overall quality from the early years is rather shocking.

“Roger Ackroyd” seems to mark the beginning of something new, with Poirot’s silhouette in the framing credits promising a more interesting visual style. Given the source novel, a little more imagination is needed to tell the story and they pull it off, even if Japp is brought in by the scruff of the neck. The framing is clever, but the story is told unremarkably.

However unfair the comparison between this period’s “Evil Under the Sun” to the Ustinov movie, the comparison highlights this period’s deficiencies in setting, acting, and direction from its previous dependable standard. (“Murder in Mesopotamia”? “Lord Edgeware”? Tres crap, especially the acting, which is usually one of the most dependable aspects of British TV.)

“Ah, This is Why We’re Here”

I’ve now entered what I think of as the last period, as exemplified by “Murder on the Orient Express,” which I saw out of order before my rewatch. This period, overseen by new producers, is a breathtaking and daring revision of the Poirot world from Period 1, and not only visually. Especially so as compared to Period 2, which left no clue that such a vast boost in quality, atmosphere, and storytelling – an older, darker, richer vision – was possible for the series.

Seeing Poirot in what is recognizably a more naturalistic world, he now stands out as less a stage dandy, and more a weird creature, a deep eccentric clothed in the fashions and morals of a different time and place. This tension provides a meatier subtext for Suchet. His Poirot, ever the outsider, is assaulted more by the modern world, its noise, its ill manners, its neverending brutal violence and stupidity, and its inability to take responsibility for the consequences of its actions.

Example: “Five Little Pigs” (gah, a terrible title; the original title “Murder in Retrospect” is a little better but not much). Time is taken to establish the characters, the direction and script are breathtakingly modern despite having to hew to the genre tropes, and best of all is the acting: total commitment from all the players, which makes the interviews – potentially the dullest part of the story – absolutely riveting.

The next story, “Sad Cypress,” is also long on mood, with again excellent acting and an involving denoument; I watched this twice just to make sure I saw everything I missed on the first watch. What turned my head here was a dream in which Poirot sees the victim’s face bulge, reshape, and transform itself into another face before peeling back to show a skull. I jumped in my chair almost as violently as Poirot did in his bed. It was a bold and wonderful way of giving Poirot a clue (i rewatched that bit three times because I couldn’t quite believe it, but even so, I could see the face horrifically reshape itself into that of the victim’s mother).

And “Death on the Nile,” while not as luxurious as the Ustinov version, is also remarkably good and atmospheric.

I’m really enjoying this series.