friday inspiration.

I’ll take a news story like this any day over the current fare. A beautiful story that made my morning.

Also…

What to expect this weekend: a recipe for Pumpkin Bread that features olive oil instead of butter (and it tastes amazing), how to cook brussels sprouts without grossing out your guests, AND sales on fall boots.

Sound good? I think so too. I’m excited for the weekend. lv, molly

P.S. Whenever I need to feel inspired, this song fits the bill. It’s the only song that makes me feel like going on a run after a long day teaching.

Image via Unruly Things.

NPR does cupcakes.

Recently, NPR published a story about having your [less sinful cup-] cake and enjoying it too.

I must admit that I’m terrified of the idea of garbanzo beans in my cupcakes. Surely chickpeas only shine in savory foods like hummus, falafel, and dal. Right? Can chickpeas really result in a tasty cupcake?

My ignorance may be illuminated on Sunday, when I attempt to bake the Red Velvet cupcakes. Saturday, Janna and I are going to pursue a less daunting cupcake variety: Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting.

Excellent recipes, I’ve found, can maintain the integrity of taste without sacrificing much flavor. Let’s put these recipes to the test! Check back this weekend for an update… And let me know if you’ve tried any of the techniques NPR recommends! lv, molly

all the words sound so accidental.

Just a song I stumbled upon that I’ve kept playing on repeat for days. It’s so pretty and sweet. (And I like her headband.)

Read about her on NPR here. Happy listening! lv, molly

a good book.

Baumgardner & Richards. Photo Credit: Ali Price

I have an essay due Thursday, and I’m writing about language and feminism in women’s magazines. It’s proven to be far more complex and interesting than I originally thought, and I particularly enjoyed reading Manifesta by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards in preparation for writing this essay. I originally heard about it on NPR, when Richards and Gloria Steinem discussed the ideas presented in the book and their application to media. This isn’t the stuff of Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazi” (ugh!); it’s about a social justice movement. I often forget what a relatively new phenomenon, historically speaking, social justice and equality (or at least the progress towards these ideals) are in US history. Really fascinating book. Okay, so I guess I have to get back to writing this essay… Hello, writer’s block. xo, m

the art of listening.

Gabriel Byrne on PBS

“As I said, listening is a really profound thing to do. I mean, we hear sometimes, but we don’t actually really listen, and when we start to listen, it’s the beginning of a deeper awareness. [...]
Well, if you’ve ever observed a child listening, they’re so engaged in the act of listening. I was in a café about two years ago, and I saw these – I saw a man and a woman at a table by the window, and she was so absorbed in everything that he was saying.
He was talking about, obviously, something that was personal to him, but in the act of engaging with him by listening, she was outside herself, and I looked at that moment and I thought that’s what listening is, when you’re absolutely absorbed in what the other person is saying.
The challenge of acting is that you don’t hear everything just once. You have to hear it several times because you have to do take after take after take, but to constantly be absorbed and to try to be outside yourself so that you’re not aware of listening, because really, truly, profoundly listening is to be unaware of yourself at a deep level.
So you asked me if I had done any research for this. I had seen priests in confession. Obviously being a Catholic brought up in Ireland I had seen how they sometimes perfunctorily listened, because there’s many ways of pretending to listen. And I also find that very interesting to observe, the way people fake listening and fake engagement.
I knew that if this thing was going to succeed, it had to be – that had to be convincing, first and foremost. And I watched – you talk about yourself as an interviewer. I watched Dick Cavett tapes, and I was very keenly interested in the way that he didn’t always have the right question, and sometimes he got a little bit uncomfortable, and sometimes his body language was a little uncomfortable as well, and that to me looked like real…
Sometimes silence is more powerful than the actual words that are spoken, and silence something that, say, somebody like Harold Pinter or Beckett in the theater really truly understood, that words sometimes are not more powerful than silence.”

I found this NPR interview with Gabriel Byrne about the art of listening really fascinating. Byrne plays a psychologist on HBO’s In Treatment and has an extraordinarily interesting life story, which he discusses in the interview. The interview begs the questions: what does it mean to listen and be heard? what kind of profundity can occur when we feel when we’ve been heard or ignored? Listen here. xo, m