The General Point.

My name is Emily Wood. I live in San Francisco.
"It’s possible and necessary to be interested in everything." - Adrienne Rich
These are my own opinions and not those of my company.

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Nov 16
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Two interesting Atlantic articles on campaigning and technology

First, “Did Facebook GIve Democrats the Upper Hand?” Turns out those “So and so and so and so have voted. Are you a voter?” things on Election Day were actually part of a social experiment. 

Second, “When the Nerds Go Marching in.” This is one of those articles that I read and think, this is a sign that things are seriously changing in the world. Just the differences from 2008 to 2012 are so great… imagine what technology in campaigns will look like in 2020, or even in 2016. (I think this is similar to my feelings about how we access video content, specifically TV shows, today versus even just two years ago.)

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Nov 02
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» Ideal bookshelves, illustrated

believermag:

Miranda July’s ideal bookshelf (top) and Judd Apatow’s ideal bookshelf (below).

A wonderful new book called My Ideal Bookshelf debuts November 13th. Writer and Paris Review editor Thessaly LaForce and artist Jane Mount interviewed their favourite creators about what few books would be…

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Aug 09
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» A Profile of London by A.A. Gill - NYTimes.com

I loved this. I don’t know where I found it. 

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Jun 11
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Recipe for awesome: Find a truly hot day in San Francisco (note: even your most gourmet grocery store will probably not have this in stock.) Purchase a bottle of tequila. Make it a decent one, but don’t bother being a snob about it or anything.  Find a Mexican market with a deal on limes. 12/$1 is good, 10/$1 is still essentially free. The (non-Mexican) girl at the market might over-yet-undercharge you at first, with 20 for $1.50 when she thinks the rate is 15/$1. Make a batch of these in an old take-out container.  In addition to lime, rub a sliced serrano pepper around the rim before you salt it. Repeat.

Recipe for awesome:

  1. Find a truly hot day in San Francisco (note: even your most gourmet grocery store will probably not have this in stock.)
  2. Purchase a bottle of tequila. Make it a decent one, but don’t bother being a snob about it or anything. 
  3. Find a Mexican market with a deal on limes. 12/$1 is good, 10/$1 is still essentially free. The (non-Mexican) girl at the market might over-yet-undercharge you at first, with 20 for $1.50 when she thinks the rate is 15/$1.
  4. Make a batch of these in an old take-out container. 
  5. In addition to lime, rub a sliced serrano pepper around the rim before you salt it.
  6. Repeat.
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Things I make more than once: warm quinoa/spinach/shiitake salad

There are really only two cookbooks I consistently refer to: How to Cook Everything and Great Food Fast, the first of the cookbooks from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine/show/empire. The former is a reference for when I kind of already know what I want to make but need to know proportions (e.g., how much egg/milk should I use in quiche? what’s a good recipe for buttermilk pancakes?). The latter is when I want to make something but I don’t know what yet.

(Let’s set aside the fact that I have about 15 other cookbooks and literally hundreds of clipped/emailed/pinned recipes that I rarely look at.)

I’ve made some “bad” recipes from the Martha book, but they are few and far between, especially when you consider how many recipes from it I’ve actually made. And the truest testament to its quality is the fact that I’ve made some of its recipes multiple times, to the point where they’ve actually entered my repertoire and I can pretty much improvise them anytime (not to mention wing the shopping list at the store). This is one of those recipes. It’s so, so easy and it includes stuff I already have at home or buy all the time: feta cheese, spinach (standard salad ingredients in our house), quinoa, shiitakes, oil, vinegar, salt. See? SO EASY. I don’t adapt it at all, it’s that easy, though the last time I made it I just drizzled the mushrooms with oil and vinegar instead of making a dressing, since when I make the dressing in bulk I feel like it uses up a ton of oil and vinegar and I am also usually not making the full recipe anyway so there’s leftovers. And I also squeezed some lemon juice onto it last time to give it a little more acid. 

So without further ado, a link to the recipe! (Like I said, I don’t adapt this at all, so I’m not going to piss off Martha by reprinting it for no reason.)

I have served this with grilled steak, and with salmon. If you want bonus points, you could make salmon with lemon relish, another of my faves from the same cookbook.

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Jun 09
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as good as was promised

Hamlet the Mini Pig - Goes Down the Stairs (by PiggyGirl2010)

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Jun 01
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you know a style when you see it, and then you see this and you really see it

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May 31
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insert joke about how this would motivate you to write short, snappy sentences here (Ernest Hemingway’s standing desk)

insert joke about how this would motivate you to write short, snappy sentences here

(Ernest Hemingway’s standing desk)

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May 30
Permalink
“ One solution would be to accept the productivity increases, shorten the workweek and share the available work. Such proposals — familiar since the 1930s — are now enjoying something of a revival in the face of continuing recession. The New Economics Foundation, a British think tank, proposes a 21-hour workweek.
—

Let’s Be Less Productive - NYTimes.com

This sounds good. Make it happen.

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May 29
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For posterity. Ryan Gosling masks at your front door. Surprise, you’re going to Hawaii! In a giant red van to the airport, with donuts from the VA hospital and five of your friends (plus one as chauffeur). After security, where the TSA laughs at the contents of your friends’ suitcases, add another friend and hop on the plane, with Tooth Fairy 2 and a difficult airline magazine crossword and a complimentary edamame breakfast burrito. And beef jerky. Fill out a form for the department of agriculture. On the other end, meet your sister in the confusing Honolulu airport and take two cabs to a tiki bar hidden in an industrial dock zone, suitcases in tow. Order a round of mai tais and chef’s salads. Take two more cabs on a circuitous route to your condo, on the 38th floor, where the wind whistles under the eaves on the lanai day and night. Change for the beach immediately. Find out that bringing three bathing suits was a good plan because you need to loan them. Apply sunscreen. Walk to the beach. Jump in the ocean. This place looks like Disneyland. Only not. At one of the many weird tourist supply stores/chain bodegas, buy beer (and for one of you, a straw fedora). Drink one in the shower at the condo. Get dressed up and made up (trial run for wedding?). Two more cabs, to a street that looks abandoned, like the wild west perhaps, if the wild west had drug dealers, and a bar that sounds like it’s in a hotel but in fact is just a bar, with an art gallery and a DJ and a patio and a semi-pop-up restaurant. Order a lot of things. ”I made it all,” says the barely-adult “chef.” Play a guessing game, which is kind of a way of reshashing old gossip, in a good way. Also, your fiance is very sweet, and your dad buys you a round of drinks remotely. Cab back. Get lost amidst the designer stores. This place looks like Downtown Disney, only not. Play dirty mad libs. Saturday, wake up at sunrise, even if you don’t want to. Still, traveling west is better than traveling east. Go find breakfast (turkey, avocado and sprout sandwiches at 11am, which feels like 2pm. No mayo for Belton). Sign for wine basket delivery from Kenya (thanks Anna). Apply sunscreen. Try to catch a bus - the 24? the 22? not the 13? the 23? - to a crater. Instead take a crazy cab with “Kevin,” who is eating lunch, and possibly swerving, and possibly insane. Or just drunk. Certainly he is hitting on Ace. Walk up a cliff. Take photos in the wind. This place looks like California, only not. Like Africa, only not. Walk back down. Eat snow cones and barbecue potato chips. Birdhoppers. Keep walking. A ways. This place looks like Malibu, only not. Crave root beer. Hot dogs. Dodgy sushi. Reapply sunscreen. Buy more beer, sit next to police station, don’t drink the beer (yet). Jump in the ocean. Swim out farther. Dry off in the sun. At the Coco Cove store, Sara makes a covert purchase. Back at the condo, another shower beer. “He’s 36.” Another sundress. A round of hurricanes. Sisters take shots from suspicious glasses. A round of champagne maybe too? A bit of hazing. A bite of coconut pudding, with shaved chocolate strategically placed (there’s that Coco Cove purchase). A line for udon. Kamaage, kake, bukkake, or put an egg on it. Buy too much tempura. Avoid the bar with the “schoolgirl specials.” Instead, find one in a mini mall with a “big girl glass” and a fenced-off outdoor area and a DJ who plays “Poison” and “California Love.” And a guy you nickname Lenny. And a blue cowboy and a couple making out on a trash can. On the way back to the condo, walk in the street. Continue the 90s dance party via laptop as long as you can. The next day, find relief with Dawson’s Creek streamed on Netflix, Jamba Juice and iced coffee. Bid farewell to your sister(s). Apply sunscreen. Head to brunch, slowly. Order wasabi bloody marys, which taste like regular bloody marys. Marvel at taro buns. Birdhopper. Lose Ace for a while. Watch a very, very drunk girl try to get up off the sand, assisted by slightly less drunk people. Rent an umbrella. F, C or M - teen television edition. You always fuck Chuck Bass. You always chuck Ted Mosby. You always marry Matt Saracen. “I’m from Queens, New York.” Jump in the ocean. Stay in as long as you can. Dry off until it starts raining. Go to the Sheraton bar. Order the big drink with the umbrella in it (thanks Elizabeth) and the edamame and the kim chi fried rice, which needs more kim chi in it. ”She’s 42.” Wonder about how frequently cougars hit on the waiter, and the growing adult baby trend, which makes you giggle your face off. At the condo again, watch “Veronica Mars” clips on YouTube. Another round of drinks. The second half of “Dawson’s Creek” pilot. Ryan Gosling’s birthday is November 12. White jeans - roll up or scrunch up? At a sushi restaurant in a mall, observe the slowest-moving hostesses and bus boys in the world. “I’ve haven’t talked about *** this long in a while… possibly ever.” Your top three foods are popcorn, brussels sprouts and artichokes. Skip the karaoke bar, regretfully. A last round of drinks, some sleepiness. Episode 2 of “Dawson’s” on the iPad. Poet’s vest! Last day, wake up to the sunrise, for real this time. Drink a beer - there are still 10 in the fridge. Clean up. Lip Venom was forgotten in the bathroom; make everyone put it on. Various bachelorette accessories end up in your bag. Another beer - there will be two leftover, but two is better than 10. Lock up, walk to Eggs n Things. It is too crowded. Go to the cafe next door and order the $10-12 waffle-egg-bacon combo. Apply sunscreen. Drink iced coffee. Birdhopper. Some of you eat Leslie Knope-sized heap of whipped cream. Call a cab. Talk to the charming cab driver. “You’re a lucky girl.” Computer failure at the Hawaiian kiosks. Stand in the service line. Get helped by Michele, who is a doer. Stand in the security line. The TSA laughs now at your suitcases. Power walk to the gate. This plane is better than the first plane, except for all the delays and screaming babies. Share all of your magazines. Listen to the pilot overshare about the computer problems. Take off, at last. Order a rum and pineapple. Get the meal upgrade, which includes another rum and pineapple. Buy Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 1 on your individual TVs. It is better than you remember. “I am so drunk. I’m certain.” Is there a doctor on the plane? There are dozens, including two of you. Land, at last. Two husbands and a fiance and a dog pick you up in two cars. It is hard to wake up and go to work the next day. Write it all down so you can remember; you’re sure you already forgot a lot. Your friends are awesome.

For posterity.

Ryan Gosling masks at your front door. Surprise, you’re going to Hawaii! In a giant red van to the airport, with donuts from the VA hospital and five of your friends (plus one as chauffeur). After security, where the TSA laughs at the contents of your friends’ suitcases, add another friend and hop on the plane, with Tooth Fairy 2 and a difficult airline magazine crossword and a complimentary edamame breakfast burrito. And beef jerky. Fill out a form for the department of agriculture. On the other end, meet your sister in the confusing Honolulu airport and take two cabs to a tiki bar hidden in an industrial dock zone, suitcases in tow. Order a round of mai tais and chef’s salads. Take two more cabs on a circuitous route to your condo, on the 38th floor, where the wind whistles under the eaves on the lanai day and night. Change for the beach immediately. Find out that bringing three bathing suits was a good plan because you need to loan them. Apply sunscreen. Walk to the beach. Jump in the ocean. This place looks like Disneyland. Only not. At one of the many weird tourist supply stores/chain bodegas, buy beer (and for one of you, a straw fedora). Drink one in the shower at the condo. Get dressed up and made up (trial run for wedding?). Two more cabs, to a street that looks abandoned, like the wild west perhaps, if the wild west had drug dealers, and a bar that sounds like it’s in a hotel but in fact is just a bar, with an art gallery and a DJ and a patio and a semi-pop-up restaurant. Order a lot of things. ”I made it all,” says the barely-adult “chef.” Play a guessing game, which is kind of a way of reshashing old gossip, in a good way. Also, your fiance is very sweet, and your dad buys you a round of drinks remotely. Cab back. Get lost amidst the designer stores. This place looks like Downtown Disney, only not. Play dirty mad libs. Saturday, wake up at sunrise, even if you don’t want to. Still, traveling west is better than traveling east. Go find breakfast (turkey, avocado and sprout sandwiches at 11am, which feels like 2pm. No mayo for Belton). Sign for wine basket delivery from Kenya (thanks Anna). Apply sunscreen. Try to catch a bus - the 24? the 22? not the 13? the 23? - to a crater. Instead take a crazy cab with “Kevin,” who is eating lunch, and possibly swerving, and possibly insane. Or just drunk. Certainly he is hitting on Ace. Walk up a cliff. Take photos in the wind. This place looks like California, only not. Like Africa, only not. Walk back down. Eat snow cones and barbecue potato chips. Birdhoppers. Keep walking. A ways. This place looks like Malibu, only not. Crave root beer. Hot dogs. Dodgy sushi. Reapply sunscreen. Buy more beer, sit next to police station, don’t drink the beer (yet). Jump in the ocean. Swim out farther. Dry off in the sun. At the Coco Cove store, Sara makes a covert purchase. Back at the condo, another shower beer. “He’s 36.” Another sundress. A round of hurricanes. Sisters take shots from suspicious glasses. A round of champagne maybe too? A bit of hazing. A bite of coconut pudding, with shaved chocolate strategically placed (there’s that Coco Cove purchase). A line for udon. Kamaage, kake, bukkake, or put an egg on it. Buy too much tempura. Avoid the bar with the “schoolgirl specials.” Instead, find one in a mini mall with a “big girl glass” and a fenced-off outdoor area and a DJ who plays “Poison” and “California Love.” And a guy you nickname Lenny. And a blue cowboy and a couple making out on a trash can. On the way back to the condo, walk in the street. Continue the 90s dance party via laptop as long as you can. The next day, find relief with Dawson’s Creek streamed on Netflix, Jamba Juice and iced coffee. Bid farewell to your sister(s). Apply sunscreen. Head to brunch, slowly. Order wasabi bloody marys, which taste like regular bloody marys. Marvel at taro buns. Birdhopper. Lose Ace for a while. Watch a very, very drunk girl try to get up off the sand, assisted by slightly less drunk people. Rent an umbrella. F, C or M - teen television edition. You always fuck Chuck Bass. You always chuck Ted Mosby. You always marry Matt Saracen. “I’m from Queens, New York.” Jump in the ocean. Stay in as long as you can. Dry off until it starts raining. Go to the Sheraton bar. Order the big drink with the umbrella in it (thanks Elizabeth) and the edamame and the kim chi fried rice, which needs more kim chi in it. ”She’s 42.” Wonder about how frequently cougars hit on the waiter, and the growing adult baby trend, which makes you giggle your face off. At the condo again, watch “Veronica Mars” clips on YouTube. Another round of drinks. The second half of “Dawson’s Creek” pilot. Ryan Gosling’s birthday is November 12. White jeans - roll up or scrunch up? At a sushi restaurant in a mall, observe the slowest-moving hostesses and bus boys in the world. “I’ve haven’t talked about *** this long in a while… possibly ever.” Your top three foods are popcorn, brussels sprouts and artichokes. Skip the karaoke bar, regretfully. A last round of drinks, some sleepiness. Episode 2 of “Dawson’s” on the iPad. Poet’s vest! Last day, wake up to the sunrise, for real this time. Drink a beer - there are still 10 in the fridge. Clean up. Lip Venom was forgotten in the bathroom; make everyone put it on. Various bachelorette accessories end up in your bag. Another beer - there will be two leftover, but two is better than 10. Lock up, walk to Eggs n Things. It is too crowded. Go to the cafe next door and order the $10-12 waffle-egg-bacon combo. Apply sunscreen. Drink iced coffee. Birdhopper. Some of you eat Leslie Knope-sized heap of whipped cream. Call a cab. Talk to the charming cab driver. “You’re a lucky girl.” Computer failure at the Hawaiian kiosks. Stand in the service line. Get helped by Michele, who is a doer. Stand in the security line. The TSA laughs now at your suitcases. Power walk to the gate. This plane is better than the first plane, except for all the delays and screaming babies. Share all of your magazines. Listen to the pilot overshare about the computer problems. Take off, at last. Order a rum and pineapple. Get the meal upgrade, which includes another rum and pineapple. Buy Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 1 on your individual TVs. It is better than you remember. “I am so drunk. I’m certain.” Is there a doctor on the plane? There are dozens, including two of you. Land, at last. Two husbands and a fiance and a dog pick you up in two cars. It is hard to wake up and go to work the next day. Write it all down so you can remember; you’re sure you already forgot a lot. Your friends are awesome.

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