for the literal: a recipe.

This blog was originally posted to The Dresden Dolls Diary.

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i’ve been enjoying my life immensely, onion cellar notwithstanding. the shows are regularly scheduled and going very well for what they are. people are happy. i show up at night, and during the day i am doing things i want. it’s been so long since i have.

i sleep late, read late, go to yoga every day, let the mail continue to pile up and am shocked to find that i don’t care as much as i thought i would…don’t care about pushing forward, don’t care about standing still, am simply happy to be where i am most of the time. this must be rare, i think, i should enjoy it.

i go to rob’s apartment in harvard square and he pours the wine and spins the discs….old discs, seventy-eights that he’s been collected for forty-some-odd years. bix beiderbecke, hoagy carmichael, the old jazz from way back when. his apartment is an old refuge, a dusty library of music and art, the cats who count. the other night was zappa night. i hadn’t listened to “absolutely free” since high school. rob dug the libretto out of some hidden place. i sat listening and happy, nagged only slightly by the voice i’ve gotten so used to over the past six years “get up and go. there is too much other shit to do.” “fuck you”, i answer, “i sit and listen”. we fight, that voice and i. through rob i met a wonderful francophile math professor named sandy who is letting me crash in an empty room in his harvard square house. i have a key and crash there when i don’t feel like driving home to the south end. i eat scallops and mashed potatoes. i drink tasty beers during every performance. my belly is toned (from the yoga) yet substantial (from the beck’s). it’s gorgeous and i fondle it a lot.

as for MY apartment, the need to escape is easy to sympathize with. there are IMMENSE piles of cultural debris and barely any blank spots. i’ve been letting mail and “objet d’tour” pile up since about 2003, saying “i’ll get to that when we get a break”. out videotapes, photographs, CDs, books, press gathered from remote lands, books i’ve bought or been given, random everything is scattered. i got even lazier in this past six months, knowing i would have this time off. i would come home from tour and dump piles and bags thinking “january. I Will Deal.” this wouldn’t be so bad if i weren’t the sort of person who didn’t feel a compulsion to archive, save and savor. but every painting or drawing given to me must be photographed, shared and stored; every book must be read; every CD listened to; every press clipping dated and filed. i know, i know. i could liberate myself and throw it all away. i can’t. i mustn’t. i need a bigger apartment. as my friend marcus once said….”aahhhh i’m drowning in my own biology!” (this was right after: “i’m urinating in the fields of the zeitgeist!!”). he’s my favorite poet.

i haven’t played any real or new music yet. this comes after things are clean. it’s also freezing in there. but songs are always in my head. i jot down lyrics on envelopes and leave them in a pile on the piano. my mind is sifting, shuffling, preparing to make new things. music things, book things, theater things. i miss thinking about art. i’ve spent so much time thinking about the business of the band that i’m very rusty.

i am still working on a long rambling blog about the onion cellar. and by the way, my friends, re: the last blog:

parable:
(pr-bl) n.
A simple story illustrating a moral or religious lesson.

there is no melanie. there is no zucchini cake. it was a metaphor, fucking. well, i suppose a parable doesn’t necessarily have to be fictional. i should have elaborated. though i did have a lot of fun trying to distinguish between those who commented to further the metaphor, and those who actually wanted the cake recipe.

for those who are coming to the play in the coming days, just one request:
please make lots of noise. don’t be afraid. the crowds (mostly the ART subscribers) can be mighty timid due to their expectations. help them.

oh and anyway: for my parable, i had wanted to find a weird cake that would still seem delicious. i googled “weird cake recipes”. this is what i had found. mad love to barb, it’s her recipe. if you bake it, please share with all of us the degree of it’s actual deliciousness.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

½ cup soft butter or margarine

½ cup vegetable oil

13/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup sour cream

2 cups shredded zucchini with skins on

2 ½ cups flour

4 tbsp cocoa

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

you may add chocolate chips if you like, mini’s or regular size, as much as you want

Frosting

¼ stick butter

6 tbsp milk

1 tbsp cocoa

1 box powder sugar

1 cup chopped nuts, your preference

Mix margarine or butter, oil and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, sour cream and zucchini. Mix well. Add dry ingredients, mix. Put in 9 x 13 or similar sized pan, greased.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until cake is done in the middle

***Frosting***

Bring the first 3 ingredients of frosting to a boil, then remove from heat and add the last 3 ingredients, and mix. Pour on hot cake. Cool cake to eat.

love

a

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