from Cymbeline IV.ii, Guiderius and Aviragus sing:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

There's a great boxing match on tonight, for all those so inclined. Masterful defensive artist Winky Wright is set to fight the always game Ike Quartey on HBO at 9:45. Feeling hardy, I decided to make one of my favorite winter pastas in preparation. Sausage and mustard cream pasta, adapted from Nigel Slater's Real Food.

The sausage ought to be hot italian sausage, cut out of its casing and fried in oil in a thick bottomed pan. Remove the sausage, and follow with thinly sliced onions, fried until soft. Remember, crunchy onion will stay crunchy once liquid hits the pan, so all the texture related onion cookery has to happen now. By the end of those two fryings, this here is how the pan should look. All that brown stuff stuck attractively to the bottom of the fan is valuable flavor.

Cookbooks invariably now say something like "deglaze with white wine." What never follows is an explanation of why white wine has to be used, and as a result, people have convinced themselves that white wine has some sort of magical anti-stickery powers. It doesn't. When I don't have white wine around, I just save some of the pasta cooking water, and use that, scraping the bottom of the pan with a big metal spoon. As you can see from the pan after I finished, it does the job. Add a few glugs of some good cream or half and half to the dissolved pan drippings, and then stir in some huge dollops of dijon mustard. Finally, pile in the sausage and the onion, and let them soak up the creamy, tangy sauce for a minute with some chopped parsley. That ought to look like this. Finally, add some barely cooked pasta, and let that simmer to completion in the sauce for a minute or two. Top with your favorite italian cheese, more parsley, and enjoy in pre-boxing revery.

While I was visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, I happened to read a volume of collected New Yorker cartoons from 1950-55. A few thoughts and reactions:

I was amazed at how many of the cartoons were about marital discord and loveless marriages, etc (generally based around the trope of shrewish wife and henpecked husband, natch). If advocates of eliminating no-fault divorce and so on to return us to the halcyon days of traditional marriage, I find myself wondering if they've really thought the whole thing through.

I had an argument once with a conservative friend once, in which she contended that rates of sexual assault would have been lower before feminism (implicitly the 1950s), because back then men were taught to properly respect, cherish, and protect women. After seeing the number of cartoons in which women were explicitly treated as sex objects -- never mind the cartoon about the humor inherent in workplace sexual harassment -- I continue to be unconvinced.

Along similar lines: my girlfriend graduated from Smith. I'm very glad we no longer live in a world where that fact could be the subtext for a punchline.

Race was utterly absent as a topic, or even as subtext (unless we're talking headhunter or harem jokes). Given the turmoil of the time period, I find that interesting, though I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

I'm really glad that I don't live in the 50s!

Here's a living in Chicago bleg for all our readers in cold places. What do I need to know about cars in the winter? What are the mistakes I should avoid? Comments are open for your suggestions and warnings.

I am asking this as a Louisianian who, for the first time, is owning and driving a car in snowy winter. Bear in mind, too, that this car is a 1995 Honda Accord. It has no fancy built-in gizmos or gadgets, and none have been added. I park it outside in the alley; indoor or covered parking is not an option. So far, my only winter gear is an ice-scraper.

This morning, I discovered the hard way that if your trunk is frozen shut (and the lock seemingly also frozen), it is a very bad idea to insert your key into the lock of the trunk to unlock it, and apply all the strength you have to trying to break the ice seal and open the the trunk. Doing so will bend your key at a 15 degree angle (I do have a spare key; the ice-scraper was in the trunk).