Stuff We Like :: 4.27.17

It’s always a good week when I get to catch up with Suzanne over lunch AND march for science.

around the web

Do you know Eliza Fenwick? She was a friend of all the cool people in late 18th/early 19th century England—Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft (she actually attended the birth of Wollstonecraft’s daughter, the future Mary Shelley.), Charles Lamb… Basically, she’s a perfect fit for my cool women writers I’ve never heard of project, but most of her work is lost—which is something the researchers behind Finding Mrs. Fenwick hope to change. This kind of work warms my heart.

You know what would make your week a little better? Benedict Cumberbatch reading Keats, that’s what.

Are you descended from witches? Now that Manuscript 3658 is digitized online, you can find out—assuming you’re descended from someone who was accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1658 and 1662.

at home/school/life

on the blog: I love this post from Carrie so much.

one year ago: It’s the perfect time to revisit one of Shelli’s Year of Citizen Science projects

two years ago: Do unschoolers have gaps in their educations?

three years ago: A free forensic science curriculum for high school

reading list

I started reading Far, Far Away because a reviewer commented that it reminded her of A.S. Byatt. I am not sure said reviewer has ever actually read A.S. Byatt because this book is like the Heart of Gold’s tea equivalent of Byatt—almost but not entirely unlike. It’s fine, but I get so annoyed reading it and finding it not-remotely-Byatt-like that I’m totally not giving it a fair shake.

I need another book on my night table like I need—well, something that I really don’t need—but I couldn’t resist snagging a copy of The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. How could I? It looks at one of Shakespeare’s most productive years in quality terms (in addition to Lear, he produced Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra) through the lens of the political and social happening of that year (which, you may know, included the infamous Gunpowder Plot.)

Also on night tables this week: Seveneves, Under the Lilacs, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Sound and the Fury

in the kitchen

I love jammy yolks, so this eggs-and-grits recipe is right up my alley. It’s on the schedule for weekend dinner unless I get lazy and decide to just go get my jammy yolks at a ramen joint instead.

‘Tis the season for spring onion and garlic jam.

Cookie of the week: Welsh cookies

at home

Jas and I are watching The Durrells in Corfu, which is pure, wonderful eye candy about a family who leaves 1940s England to live on a Greek island. We’re also on season two of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which I love because I am *thisclose* to being Rebecca Bunch, but which Jas loves less, possibly for the same reason.

Did you march for science last weekend? We did, and I’m glad we did, but I’m a little overwhelmed by all the marches I would like to participate in. Suzanne and I were talking about this the other day—we can’t do everything, so how do we choose what to do, and how can we give support to causes we care about when we can’t participate fully? I don’t have the answers, but at least I feel like I’m asking questions that matter. (If you have the answers, please share!)

I am realizing that my schedule for fall is going to be crazy. In addition to homeschooling my (gulp) 10th grader and 4th grader and, you know, putting the magazine together, I’m going to be teaching AP English, the Story of Science, Latin I, and part of an awesome but intensive high school humanities block focused on the classics, which will include Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, history, astronomy, art, and music. I suspect my summer is going to be full of class prep.

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