And now, I’m going to bed. Good night.

Some guy in Norway just got himself one hell of a deal. I’m sure he’s laughing his ass off. Me? I got all that stuff out of my house, and I made the donations in Frank Miller’s name (except for IRUSA, which didn’t allow it on the form, which is a bummer; I’ll forward the acknowledgement letter on to him at Dark Horse Comics later on).

$25 to Children of the Night:

$25 to Islamic Relief USA:

$25 to Girls Inc. of Orange County:

Now that all that crap is done, I can get back to work.

That all changed my sophomore year of college when my roommate took a class whose required reading included Alan Moore (Watchmen), Neil Gaiman (Sandman: Season of Mists), and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns). After I had consumed them and tried to patch my blown mind back together, one of the guys down the hall let me attack his collection, which included Miller’s epic Daredevil story Born Again. If Watchmen is the deconstruction of superheroics, Born Again is the distillation of them: Matt Murdock’s life is torn apart by his archenemy, and he spends most of the book out of his tights and trying to keep from going insane. David Mazzucchelli’s art is clean and realistic, and Miller’s writing is economic and sharp. It is a fabulous book, and it was the reason that I dove into everything Miller wrote or drew, including Give Me Liberty and Sin City.

Which brings me to today, and the eighteen pounds of Frank Miller books that I’m putting up on eBay.

This whole thing started after Frank Miller posted his anti-Occupy screed on his website (Google it; I’d rather not give him the traffic). I read it, and couldn’t believe it came from the man whose heroes were solidly in the 99% (minus Batman, of course, who might defend the 99% but isn’t about to give up his 0.00001% trappings). Matt Murdock was the son of a prizefighter (and mafia enforcer) who worked his way out of pre-gentrification Hell’s Kitchen to become a lawyer who worked pro-bono for poor clients (and a superhero who fights the Kingpin, who’s as 1% as they get). Martha Washington from Give Me Liberty was born in the Cabrini Green housing projects, worked her way up through the ranks of the army and saved the world at least three times, including putting down a coup led by the rich traitor who assassinated a President. Marv, Dwight, and the other schlubs in Sin City are down in the gutter, scraping up a living, and always battling the wealthy and powerful.

According to Frank Miller, the people camping in Zuccotti Park were “nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.” The same people who were regularly fucked over by the real-life analogues of the Kingpin, the Roarks, and Lieutenant Morretti were doing harm to America? Really? The Iraqistan vets who couldn’t get a job, the senior citizens whose retirement funds had been looted, the students in debt up to their eyeballs with no job prospects? These were the people who were hurting America?

The OWS rant was the kicker in the one-two punch that started with the publication of Holy Terror, Miller’s comic about a Batman stand-in who beats up al-Qaeda. I haven’t read it, and I don’t want to read it, because the sample pages look ugly and disjointed (and that’s just the art), and the reviews don’t make it sound like things improve with reading. The more reviews I read, the more Holy Terror sounded sad and pathetic, the cries of a scared, rich man who feels the walls he’s built around him closing in.

And I helped make him rich.

Well, the movie of Sin City probably did that, but I helped lay in the foundation by buying his comics. I was one of those slobbering Miller fanboys who convinced the Hollywood money that Miller’s work would sell. Even though a part of my brain kept saying they weren’t that great (“Look at the art! Look at the way he plays with light and shadow!” “What about the one-dimensional tough guys and the Ninja Fetish Whore Assassin Swastika Girls?” “ART, DAMMIT!”) I kept buying the damn things, until The Dark Knight Strikes Again came out, and I couldn’t even defend the art any more. Frank Miller was now a rich creator of shitty comics.

Which brings me to the eighteen-pound pile in the dining room.

For the past two years, I’ve been home with our daughter. I think way too much about gender stereotypes, about princesses and Pepto-Bismol pink, about bikes and tools and what kind of life I’d like her to have. I want her to be smart and strong and kind. I want her to stand up to bullies and stick up for outcasts. I want her to be a hero, to make the world a better place.

So I take tiny steps. I make sure she’s gentle with the other kids at the playground, that she understands hitting is not allowed, that she sees both Mommy and Daddy use tools to fix things. She sees Anne gear up for a bike ride with her friends, and she sees me cook and sew and fold laundry (and, sweet mother of God, is there a lot of laundry). And I make sure the books she reads have all kinds of people doing all kinds of things, and that the occasional princess that gets into the house is the kind who defeats the dragon and tells the clueless prince she just rescued to get stuffed when he tells her she isn’t pretty. And I look at the hardcover of Sin City that’s on the bookshelf, and I think about what that says about me, and I wonder what she’ll think when she’s old enough to pull it down and look at it.

Is she going to wonder why all of the women are naked at some point in the book?

Is she going to wonder why there’s all this violence toward women in the book?

Is she going to wonder her father thinks it’s okay to have a book where the women are all sex objects?

And is she doing to wonder why there are so many more books like it in the milk crates in the garage? Is she going to start analyzing them the way I have and realize: holy crap, women don’t come out well in these books at all? Even in my beloved Born Again, the whole story is kicked off because Matt Murdock’s old girlfriend has become a porn star with a heroin habit who sells out Murdock’s secret identity for a fix. It’s all WHORES WHORES WHORES, and that isn’t the kind of stuff I want my kid to read or to think that I think it’s all okay. Because it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

I don’t want her to think that protesting corruption is wrong. I don’t want her to judge people based on their faith (or lack thereof). And I sure as hell don’t want my daughter to be anyone’s victim or to think it’s okay for men to treat her like trash.

I don’t want to throw away these books in disgust. I don’t want to burn them, or trash them, or give them away. I don’t want to lock them in a box and bury them in the garage. I want to take Frank Miller’s xenophobia, his misogyny, his I’ve-Got-Mine-Fuck-You-If-You-Want-Yours attitude, and I want to do something positive with them. I’m going to pack up these books, and I’m going to put them on eBay, and I’m going to send the proceeds to charity. Half will go to Islamic Relief USA, and the other to Children of the Night. I figure if Miller wants to put down Muslims and glorify prostitution, I should make the money help Muslims and aid people trying to get out of prostitution. In addition, I’m going to donate money of my own to Girls Inc. of Orange County, where my mom volunteers.

I don’t think I’m going to get much for these books; the Miller stuff on eBay isn’t moving at all right now. But who knows?

In the meantime, I’m turning off comments and the contact form for my site for a bit. I doubt this post and the auction will kick up any dust, but, if the comments on Miller’s site are any indication, the possible response isn’t going to be pretty, and I don’t have the time to moderate or respond.

Bye, bye, Born Again. So long, Sin City. Good luck, Martha Washington. I hope to replace you with better works by better people.

EDITED TO ADD: And, thanks to griphus’s excellent suggestion on Metafilter, all the donations will be in Frank Miller’s honor.

EDITED TO ADD: Richard Pace really said this much better than I could. And in comic form, too.

My platform is simple: cross is awesome, and USAC needs to do everything to maintain that awesomeness, even if it means doing as little as possible. I want to make sure that cross grows in a way that makes it easy for promoters to put on more races and fun for racers who like to get dirty. How do we do that?

1) Keep cross fast. And I’m not talking about just the speed of the course (which should, I think, be as red-line breathless as possible), but speeding things up before you hit the race site. If you pre-register online, all you should have to do at number pickup is show your photo ID, get your number and a bunch of safety pins. No more signing waivers, no more digging out a race license, nothing that will slow you down. I’ll make sure USAC works with online registrars so all of the license verification is done behind-the-scenes. The only paperwork you should have to fumble with on race day is your number.

2) Keep cross fair. If you’re a cat 4 cross racer, you should be going against people of the same ability. That means the OBRA class A who’s visiting should be lining up with the cat 1s, not the 4s, but we know that won’t happen because of USAC’s refusal to reciprocate with independent race sanctioning organizations. This needs to change. If we want to field world-class cyclocross racers for Europe and (one day, I hope) the Olympics, we need to have as many people racing each other in as many races as possible, and that means recognizing that USAC has failed the member organizations of FIAC and must make things right. Reciprocity is the starting point to reconciliation.

3) Keep cross fun. That means we don’t stop with the heckling, the dollar bills in the beer cans, and the loud awesomeness of cross. USAC should do nothing to interfere with all of this stuff, unless it’s to protect rider safety. And if you’re sucking wind at the back of the pack and some guy in a tutu and a Lone Ranger mask is offering you buck, there’s nothing unsafe going on. Hell, that’s motivation to finish what you started.

Making it fun also means making it easier for race promoters. USAC needs to begin serious outreach with local governments and parks departments to show these groups that how beneficial hosting a cyclocross race is to a community (and, thereby, speed up permitting). USAC also needs to figure out how best to ameliorate expenses that keep race promoters from making a livable profit. The more profitable cross racing is, the more races there will be, the more people will race, and the better the chances of an American bringing the World Cup home.

You like the sound of this? Then vote for me, and encourage your friends to do the same. Thank you.

This isn’t weird in the grand scheme of things: any time you’ve got an appliance with a network connection on one end and a keyboard on the other, you’re going to get a stream of data from jerks. It’s all part of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, and I shouldn’t be weirded out by it. But I am, simply because I am one tiny, tiny person in vast ocean of information, and whenever someone pinpoints me to tell me off, it feels weird.

This is what happened. Today, I posted a link to an article in today’s LA Times about how The Edge from U2 wants to build a compound of mansions in the Santa Monica Mountains. The California Coastal Commission voted his development down, as they rightly should have. I added the following commentary. It wasn’t original, I’m sure, but what the hell. David Evans can take a little criticism.

I went about my day, watching the kid play at the park, when my phone chirped. I’d gotten a reply on Twitter, and it was a bit rude.

Now, I know the first rule of trolls is Don’t Feed The Damn Things, but I am an idiot. I fired off a few pithy replies, including a link to the mighty Bill Bailey, wherein he demonstrated what I was talking about in the first place. I got no reply from the above troll, and I blocked him, as is proper internet etiquette.

But as the afternoon went on, the weirdness of it all came back to me. How in God’s name did this person find me? I went on the troll’s feed and saw a lot of the same behavior as demonstrated toward me: someone tweets something negative about U2 or its personnel, and the troll replies with vitriol and poor punctuation.

And then I remembered the Thing With Gillian Anderson.

A few years ago, Anne and I were at the movies, and Gillian Anderson sat down in front of us. I thought this was cool, and tweeted as much (and I have no idea how to dredge that tweet up from the archives). Just a little LA moment, where you see a famous person and record it, the way a birdwatcher writes down when they finally see a Bachman’s Warbler.

The problem with this is, in the age of instant data at everyone’s fingertips, if you post your sighting online, everyone and his mother will know about it. I got three or four replies from complete strangers asking where she was, what movie was it, could you take a picture and send it to me?

I freaked out, because I had no idea these people had found my tweet. Twitter was so new that I hadn’t glommed onto the idea of keyword search tools. It just hadn’t occurred to me that a legion of X-philes weren’t about to let go of the the objects of their affection, and that they had to know if anyone, anywhere had posted something about the cast. I never replied to these replies, partly out of respect for Ms. Anderson’s privacy, partly for the same reason birders probably don’t share their favorite spots (if everyone knew where to see a Bachman’s Warbler, they’d all show up at once and scare the bird away), but mostly because I didn’t want to deal with a bunch of fans showing up at the theater and creating a scene.

Now, I know the likelihood of a scene was slim, so there was something else going on. Then I looked at my phone and realized: they could get to me. They’d know where I was, and I was out with my wife, and I was freaked out because a bunch of freaky X Files obsessives were going to stampede us until they got their piece of the celebrity. Even if that meant carving a piece out of me. Yes, it was irrational as hell, but my picture was on my Twitter feed, and the fans could see me and put two and two together.

Which leads me to my new friend. Here is someone who is so dedicated to U2 that he has keyword searches running just to find people on Twitter to talk with them about his favorite band. Or, if not talk to them, insult and threaten them if they disagree with his opinion. Who does that?

Geeks. Geeks like me.

There was a time when I blew a healthy amount of my paycheck on comic books. For a while, it was anything by Frank Miller. Then Neil Gaiman. Then Alan Moore. Then Warren Ellis. My weekly pull list at the Comic Bookie and Hi-De-Ho were physical keyword searches: if anything by my favorite artists or writers was for sale, it would be waiting for me to consume, and I would fight to the death anyone who said anything negative about these Great And Mighty Artists (fortunately, that never happened, because my friends were all nerdy about the same comics. But I would have thrown down, man). I read these books, loved them, collected them, because they were entertaining and thought-provoking, but also because they filled the hole. I was working too much in shitty jobs I hated but couldn’t quit (another post for another time), and that meant I didn’t have enough time to see my friends or chase girls. I did, however, have enough time to grab my bag of comics every week and spent a happy morning escaping.

I’m geeky about my kid now. I document everything she does, I talk about her all the time when I’m around other people, and I would pound the ever-loving crap out of anyone who gave her the stinkeye. In our society, that’s not called being a geek. It’s called being a parent.

But there is an important difference in between my obsession with my daughter and Kevin Keenan’s obsessions with U2 and the Flyers: I have a stake in what my daughter does, and she has a stake in what I do. If I quit on her, it’s going to affect her life, just like if she ever quit on me. If U2 stopped touring or the Flyers traded out their entire lineup, would it really change Mr. Keenan’s life? I’m sure he’d be sad for a bit, but I doubt it would be a long-term problem, just like it wouldn’t be a long-term problem for the band or the team he if he stopped buying tickets. Someone else would take his place.

I can appreciate caring about something big and outside yourself. I loved getting lost in my geeky obsessions, loved connecting with other people who shared them. But, man, those things never love you back, no matter how much they say so from the stage. And bothering other people just to prove your love for your favorite band or team or whatever will not bring you closer together. I can say this with certainty: the objects of your affection do not care about you. Hell, The Edge has already proven he doesn’t care about what other people think by wanting to build a monstrosity on the ridge at Sweetwater. You think he really cares if you’re trolling Twitter, picking fights with anyone who insults his guitar playing?

This will have to be my moment when I become old and say, “I don’t get this thing.” I don’t get the point of having keyword searches to suck every minute detail of one’s obsessions out of the internet. I don’t get the point of bothering complete strangers who do absolutely nothing to affect one’s daily life (note: The Edge’s development will affect anyone who loves the ridgelines of the California coast, even if it’s just for the aesthetics). And I don’t understand the point of loving something that won’t love you back.

Someone out there wants to love you, Mr. Keenan, and I think you want to love them back. I hope you find them.

And The Edge would still be nothing without pedal effects.

From: Zazzle Content Review
To: rakdaddy
Date Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 11:21 AM
Subject: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

Dear rakdaddy,

Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle.

Unfortunately, it appears that your product, While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva, contains content that is not suitable for printing at Zazzle.com.

We will be removing this product from the Zazzle Marketplace shortly.

Please help us make our content approval process better by taking this short survey.

The details of the product being removed are listed below:
• Product Title: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva
• Product Type: Button
• Product ID: 145834754089759861
• Result: Not Approved
• Policy Violations:
o Design contains an image or text that infringes on intellectual property rights. We have been contacted by the intellectual property right holder and at their request we will be removing your product from Zazzle’s Marketplace due to intellectual property claims
• Image: Image

We apologize for the inconvenience, a detailed description of the policies are located here.

If you have any questions or concerns about the review of your product, please email [Zazzle Content Review's email address].

Best Regards,
Content Review Team
Zazzle Inc.

So, I respond:

From: rakdaddy
To: Zazzle Content Review
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

I don’t understand this; how can my button violate anyone’s intellectual property rights? I use the last name of an author and the name of an anime; that has to be within the bound of Fair Use.

-A.

Went to the park with the kid, then got this:

From: Zazzle Content Review
To: rakdaddy
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 2:18 PM
Subject: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reply at any time.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Subject
Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

Discussion Thread
Response Via Email (Mike) 02/23/2011 02:18 PM
Hello Zazzler,

Thank you for being a Seller at Zazzle.com!

We would love to offer every design that our users submit, however we must abide by all applicable laws and standards as well as our own content guidelines and copyright policies.

Unfortunately, it appears that your product, “While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva”, does not meet Zazzle Acceptable Content Guidelines. Specifically, your product infringes upon the intellectual property rights of The JRR Tolkien Estate.

We have been contacted by The JRR Tolkien Estate, and at their request, have removed the product from the Zazzle Marketplace.

We are sorry for any disappointment, but hope you will understand our position in this regard. For future reference, please review Zazzle Acceptable Content Guidelines at: http://zazzle.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/143.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks for using Zazzle. We look forward to seeing more of your creative designs!

Best Regards,
Mike
Content Management Team
Zazzle, Inc.

Got home from park, wrote this email back:

From: rakdaddy
To: Zazzle Content Review
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

In that case, I’d like to cancel my Zazzle account. I won’t use Zazzle again, not when you’re willing to cave to a bullshit request like the one from the Tolkien estate.

-A.

Then wrote The Post. Yes, I broke my cardinal rule of writing on the internet, which is not to hit Post until I’ve cooled down. But rules were meant to be broken.

Zazzle responded the next day:

From: Zazzle Content Review
To: rakdaddy
Date: Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 3:32 PM
Subject: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reply at any time.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Subject
Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

Discussion Thread
Response Via Email (Mike) 02/24/2011 03:32 PM
Dear Zazzler,

Thank you for you email.

As per your request, your gallery will be closed.

Any pending royalties will be paid to you as scheduled per your payment settings.

Best Regards,
Content Management Team
Zazzle, Inc.

Friday morning, I wrote the EFF, explaining the whole situation as I understood. The EFF got back to me on Monday morning and said they were interested in hearing more, and could I get a copy of the actual takedown notice from the Tolkien Estate? So, I wrote to Zazzle:

From: rakdaddy
To: Zazzle Content Review
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

Hello. Even though I have canceled my account and this issue is likely closed, could you please send me the exact legal correspondence between Zazzle and the Tolkien Estate? I would like to know what to expect if I start selling these buttons or anything like them on my own. Thank you.

-A.

Zazzle responded thusly:

From: Zazzle Content Review
To: rakdaddy
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 11:13 AM
Subject: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reply at any time.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Subject
Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

Discussion Thread
Response Via Email (Mike) 02/28/2011 11:13 AM
Hello Zazzler,

Thank you for your email.

With regards to details of the infringement, all legal documents are confidential therefore I cannot release this undisclosed information. But we ask that you do acknowledge the fact that we were contacted by The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate, and at their request to prevent and remove any unauthorized and infringing third-party uses of their copyrights, trademarks and intellectual properties.

Best Regards,
Mike
Content Management Team
Zazzle.com, Inc.

I forwarded this, and all the other emails to the EFF and waited to see what would happen next.

I did not expect this to happen next:

From: Zazzle Content Review
To: rakdaddy
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:09 PM
Subject: Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva [Incident: 110223-003531]

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reply at any time.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Subject
Zazzle Content Review: While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva

Discussion Thread
Response Via Email (Mike) 02/28/2011 04:09 PM
Dear Adam,

This email is in regards to the deletion of your button entitled “While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva”. After corresponding with representatives from the Tolkien Estate, it’s been brought to our attention that the design was removed inadvertently due to a miscommunication on our part. We are happy to inform you that your product has been restored and located here: http://www.zazzle.com/while_you_were_reading_tolkien_i_was_watching_eva_button-145834754089759861

We sincerely apologize for this error. If you would like for us to restore your account simply reply to this email so that we can send you a temporary password to access your account.

Again we apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for being a seller at Zazzle.

Best,
Mike
Content Management,
Zazzle, Inc

So. What happened? Zazzles sends me email saying, “Hi, the Tolkien Estate said they’re not happy with this.” I post about it. Cory Doctorow gets email from the Tolkien Estate’s lawyer saying, “Uh, no, we had nothing to do with this.” Someone here isn’t telling the truth, and, until we can all see all the correspondence, I stand by the title of my previous post: Zazzle.com and a little bit of the Estate of JRR Tolkien can go fuck themselves.

Until today, when Zazzle emailed me to say they were pulling the buttons for intellectual property right infringement.

And guess who complained about their rights being infringed?

I’ve tried to come up with something more to say about this, but I’m too angry and confused and tired to say anything more than I did in the title of this post. Have fun milking your dad’s stuff, Christopher Tolkien!

UPDATE 2/28/11: Zazzle just sent me this email:

Dear Adam,

This email is in regards to the deletion of your button entitled “While you were reading Tolkien,I was watching Eva”. After corresponding with representatives from the Tolkien Estate, it’s been brought to our attention that the design was removed inadvertently due to a miscommunication on our part. We are happy to inform you that your product has been restored and located here: [URL of old button].

We sincerely apologize for this error. If you would like for us to restore your account simply reply to this email so that we can send you a temporary password to access your account.

Again we apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for being a seller at Zazzle.

Best,
Mike
Content Management,
Zazzle, Inc

So, everything’s as it was, right? We defeated the bad guys, threw The Ring into the fire without getting any digits bitten off, and we’re back in the Shire for a nice cuppa and sweet Hobbit lovin’ with Rosie, right?

Well, no. I’m going to remove the button from Zazzle; I realize they’re a business, and they have to protect themselves, but the way they handled this whole affair pissed me off. I had to dig to find out who had complained, and when I asked to see the actual complaint, Zazzle told me:

With regards to details of the infringement, all legal documents are confidential therefore I cannot release this undisclosed information. But we ask that you do acknowledge the fact that we were contacted by The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate, and at their request to prevent and remove any unauthorized and infringing third-party uses of their copyrights, trademarks and intellectual properties.

Oh, I’ll acknowledge nothing of the sort, bucko. And I’m also not going to do any business with you guys from now on. If I want this kind of shabby treatment, I’ll go to Fry’s.

I hope to make more of these buttons, and maybe a few others, too, though it’ll be a while before I attend another convention (the primary venue for buttons with zippy sayings), so it’ll be a while before I make more buttons.

Thanks to everyone who commented, especially if it was constructive. Thanks to everyone who posted this far and wide. And thanks to Studio Gainax for not being a bunch of dicks.

Grace’s tooth count: five, with number six announcing itself at four in the morning with a wailing we haven’t heard since tooth number three. I am not looking forward to the arrival of her molars.

Time it takes Grace to crawl from one end of the house to the other: about thirty seconds, provided she doesn’t get distracted en route.

Solid foods Grace now eats: peas, green beans, chicken, carne asada, rice, salmon, furikake, sweet potato, yam, squash, carrots.

Word count on the novel revision: 15,344.

Word count I was supposed to hit by today: 90,000.

Chances of making that by the end of the day: Ha. Ha. Ha.

Cost of back waxing: forty bucks, apparently.

Video will be forthcoming. Happy November.

Second note: this takes some time, so either do it in two parts (filling one night, ravioli the next), or make it a group activity.

And now: the food.

Ravioli filling:
3 oz pancetta (or 3 slices bacon)
2 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 large butternut squash, peeling and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, smashed and diced
1 T sage, minced
2 t thyme, minced

Ravioli (from Bob’s Red Mill Semolina package recipe):
1 1/2 cup semolina flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten (make sure you listen for the safe word!)
2 T water
2 T olive oil
1/2 t pepper
1/4 t salt

Brown butter:
5 T butter
20 sage leaves, julienned

Scallops:
Just, y’know, get some. 3 to a person should be good.

Make the filling first; you can do this a day ahead. In fact, you should do it a day ahead, so all the flavors can merge and melt and oh my God give me some of that squash and bacon…

Sorry. Got carried away there. First thing you’ll need to do is lightly cook the pancetta so it gives up its fat. Get yourself an oven-proof skillet (cast iron, if you’ve got it, and, really, you should got it), put the pancetta slices in it, and turn the heat to medium. As the pancetta starts to sizzle, stir the slices around until they’re a little crispy. Take pancetta out of pan, dice it up and set aside.

Caramelize the onions in the pancetta fat, adding 1T oil if needed. Put the heat just a hair above medium and stir away. This flavor is one of the key points, so take your time with the onions. You’ll want them a deep, rich brown and smelling like a pan full of awesome. It takes me about 30 minutes, so your time may vary. If anything starts to look (or smell) like it’s burning, turn the heat down. Remove any onion flakes that are scorched.

When the onions are done, turn the oven onto 425 F. Add the squash and 1 T of oil to the pan, and turn the heat up to medium high. Stir the squash around, making sure it gets coated in oil. When the oven is ready, stir in the garlic and put pan in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 30 minutes, add pancetta, sage and thyme to pan and cook for another 10 minutes. Mash squash with potato masher and set aside to cool.

Roll out the pasta according to your pasta machine’s instructions. If you don’t have a pasta machine, you’re in for a hell of an upper body workout. Roll out sheets to second thinnest thinness. If you’ve got a ravioli attachment, you’re set. If not, cut the pasta sheets into 3-inch squares, put a teaspoon of filling onto a square, dab water along two of the edges, and seal the beasties shut like wontons. Put a napkin on a cookie sheet, dust the napkin with flour, then put the finished products on the napkin. The best result is to put them into boiling water immediately, though you can pop ‘em in the fridge, too.

When it’s getting time to eat, put a pot of water on to boil.