Category: Life

Oh, you know, the usual…

An odd memory

Posted on by Dale

I don’t know why I thought of this last night, but I was meditating out by the fire in the labyrinth, and for some reason Summer Reading Clubs came to mind.

You  might think that my childhood bedroom was plastered with Summer Reading Club certificates, but you would be wrong.  I rarely earned one.

That is not to say, of course, that I didn’t read in the summer.  Au contraire, I read voraciously, hitting the Carnegie Public Library on the Court Square regularly all summer.  We would even walk or ride our bikes to downtown to get new books.

I read all the time, devouring science fiction series and nonfiction books about science and theatre.  Lots of art books, tons of “how-to” project books.  I even haunted the reference section which had art history books with actual tipped-in illustrations, and even at a young age I was put out that someone (I’m looking at you, Mrs. Wood) had cut out the Rubens nudes with scissors.  Seriously—just rip the entire tipped-in reproduction out if that’s your inclination; why go in and cut around the naked ladies?  (It occurs to me that it might not have been censorship, but porno-vandalism.  Simpler times.[1])

So what was the problem?  I dutifully got my little Reading Club flyer at the beginning of each summer, and I dutifully noted which books I had read, often filling up the form.

But I didn’t read the right kinds of books.

That’s right, my sweetlings, our Summer Reading Clubs were severely prescriptive in what you were “encouraged” to read.  You had to do so many nonfiction books, and so many fiction, and of those you had to read certain kinds, and if you didn’t, you didn’t earn the certificate.

As I sat by the fire last night, I just marveled and chortled at how stupid that was—but that’s the way education used to be (AND LARGELY STILL IS) through and through: the Way It Spozed to Be, as it were. (The linked title was published in 1969.  Nothing much has changed.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??)

Why not provide alternative forms or checklists for different kinds of readers?  Given that boys gravitate towards nonfiction, why not tilt their requirements in that direction?  Why not let girls read nothing but Nancy Drew or Sweet Valley High?  Why not just say, “Hey, kid, read 25 books in these eight weeks, and you’re golden!”?

But no: a well-read young person reads broadly, not necessarily deeply.  Boys like nonfiction?  Girls like romances?  That is a deficiency which we must correct through our Summer Reading Program.  The whole thing was prescriptive: Thou shalt… and Thou shalt not…, with no thought to the inner life of the reader.

Ludicrous bullshit, of course, and I would like to think that summer reading programs are a little better set up here in the 21st century.  However, I don’t want to go find out.  I’m going to pretend that fifty years later, we’re doing it right.

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[1] Actually, not simpler at all.  If you wanted to gaze upon naked ladies, you had to jump through some serious hoops and cover some serious tracks.  Titian and Rubens might be your best bet to see a booby, and who am I to judge those who managed to excise their very own Sleeping Angelica for their prurient delights?  And God help you if you preferred naked men instead.  These modern times are much simpler, and better, and so say we all.

Cocktail: variation on a margarita

Posted on by Dale

I thought I had blogged about this, but searching the blog turns up nothing.

Back in April, I came across a fancy schmancy version of the margarita.  It involved such twee efforts as a vodka/saline spray instead of rimming one’s glass with salt, and an arból chile tincture.

Apparently I’ve spared you the details of tracking down the arból chiles and soaking them in Everclear™ for two weeks, then creating the spritz, but let me just say that the final results were… lackluster.  Perhaps the essential ingredient is fresh key lime juice rather than the bottled, but I am so not going there.

In any case, I was now possessed of a pint of arból chile tincture.  It will keep indefinitely, so I expect to spend the summer playing with it.

This afternoon, I revisited the question of the margarita.  I used mezcal instead of the tequila blanco in the chichi recipe, and my saline solution was made from smoked sea salt.  It is tasty.  Very very tasty.

A Margarita

  • splash blood orange bitters
  • smoked sea salt solution
  • 1.5 oz tequila or mezcal
  • 1.5 oz Roses™ lime juice
  • 1 oz Grand Marnier
  • 1/2 tsp arból chile tincture1
  • orange juice

Rim your glass with salt.  Splash the blood orange bitters into the bottom of the glass; spritz with your sea salt solution.  Add ice.

Add the rest of the ingredients except for the orange juice to the glass.  Splash with orange juice, stir slightly.

It’s not for weaklings.  Adjust ingredients to your tastes and your cabinet.

(I had to make a second one—had to, I tell you—in order to take a photograph.)

—————

1 Put 20 arból chiles in a clean glass container.  Add 1-3/4 cups of grain alcohol (such as Everclear™) to the container.  Cap.  Shake daily for two weeks.  Enjoy.

Back to work

Posted on by Dale

I’ve been out of town at a wedding in Galveston, TX, a mostly harmless resort town along the lines of Panama City Beach or Myrtle Beach, so I haven’t been able to work or to blog.  In fact, I’m procrastinating getting started again on Icarus’s first dream aria…

To make up for the lost blogging, here’s a drink recipe.

My friends the Honeas gave me for my birthday a nice little liqueur called  The King’s Ginger, and it wasn’t hard to come up with something delicious.

It doesn’t have a name.

Unnamed Ginger Cocktail

1 oz Karlsson’s Gold vodka

1 oz King’s Ginger

1/4 – 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

That’s it.  Very very simple, but you have to use the named liquors: the Karlsson’s Gold has this sweet earthy flavor that mixes perfectly with the ginger.

Also too: remember the “labyrinth tone row”?

One thing I’m going to play with today is inverted and retrograde versions.  Because why not?

60. Why do you ask?

Posted on by Dale

Once again I have failed to blog on my birthday.  Bite me.

I can say that kind of thing now because I’m 60.  I can do anything I like now because I’m 60.  It’s like being 4, only with gravitas.

I can say things like people who are opposed to gay marriage are completely mistaken in whatever it is they “believe.”  Their “beliefs” are invalid and should not be granted the kindness of respect.  You think God wants you to behave like this?  No.  You are wrong.  It’s not OK.  Stop it.

The tax rate in the U.S. on the rich should be confiscatory.  Corporations are not people, and their charters should be temporary with a prejudice towards non-renewal.  Also, your copyright should not benefit your grandchildren.  All those fabulous societies in Hunger Games, Elysium, etc.?  They are based on our own foolish dispersal of the Commons.

International drug policy is flat out wrong.  Society should be treating drug problems—when they are problems—as health issues and not criminal issues.  Every substance, from caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol—to cannabis and psilocybin—to heroin and krokodil—can be placed on a continuum that goes from sacrament to recreation to abuse.  Our laws and policies should be aimed at preventing abuse, not sacrament or recreation.  (No, that’s not what we’re doing now.)

I do not understand guns and I do not have a solution to our nation’s sickness, but I do know that it would not be a bad thing if every gun in this nation were ground into little pieces.

There are probably other issues about which I could say whatever I liked, but I have the opening chorus of an opera to keep failing to write.  Yesterday I wrote four separate failed attempts.  I’m going to try to write at least three more today.  Bite me.

Useless

Posted on by Dale

So I came across The Useless Web.

Random items

Posted on by Dale

No work on Seven Dreams today, but I have to mention how much fun Scott Wilkerson’s text is to work with!  It bodes well for the enterprise.  (It also bodes well that he has not complained or even mentioned that I cut about six lines from the “Fly and fall” text…)

A couple of weeks ago a bunch of us were sitting by the fire out in the labyrinth and there was a rustling behind us up on the patio level.  I assumed it was one of the small set of feral cats that flit in and out of our lives, but when we turned to look it was a fully grown raccoon ambling across the yard.

“Oh hai,” it said, apparently surprised that four or five adult humans were sitting by a fire fifteen feet away, and fled.

Since a rabid raccoon had been picked up in the city recently, it was determined by some of our company that I should call the Animal Warden and have her set a trap.  I pointed out that the animal appeared to be perfectly healthy—if a bit absent-minded—and I was loath to depredate the biome like that.

But I did as I was told, and on Monday afternoon I went out to the labyrinth to read and write some letters, and there was a trap in the southwestern corner of the labyrinth.  There was also a cat in it.

It was of course not the one feral cat we’d like to trap and neuter.  This was a youngish feline, one I had not seen before, reddish shorthair, slightly Abyssinian in its aspect.  It was not happy to see me, although it was willing to sit peaceably as long as I didn’t get too close.

This was a dilemma.  I formed the opinion that this was someone’s pet—it didn’t have the clipped ear of a neutered-and-released animal— and I was very unwilling to turn it over the Warden.  What to do?

Fortunately for all of us—myself, the Warden, and the cat—late that night, after the Lichtenbergians had left and I had just finished walking the labyrinth, I heard in the distance a woman calling her kitty—and the animal in question answered most piteously.  It wanted to go home.

So that was that.  I got my glasses and the phone (for a flashlight) and opened the trap.  The cat streaked out of the labyrinth, over every intervening fence in its way, and was gone.  Freedom!

I called the Animal Warden—the fabulous Cyndi Hoffman—and left a message explaining why she would find the trap sprung but empty.  Late this morning (Wednesday) I thought I should check to see if we had caught any more cats.

We had not:

rocky

Adorable, isn’t he/she?  Except when you approach the cage and it snaps at you.  It was willing to sniff at a proffered knuckle, but then snapped at that, too.  It did, however, eat the kitty treats I dropped in there, while Monday’s cat would not lower herself to eat such stuff.  Well, they were old.  This disdain of stale kitty bits was another reason I thought she was someone’s pet.   Wild carnivores are not so picky.

Soon, Warden Hoffman arrived and, after I made sure it was not a nursing mother, took the beast away to relocate its adorable ass.

I would like to state for the record that I have no objection at all to peaceful coexistence with wild life, even curious things like raccoons who tend to turn things over and misplace items in the labyrinth when I’m not looking.  But I did as I was instructed and must assume that all is right with the world again.

I did work on “Your Beauty” this morning and I think I’ve made a lot of progress.  We’ll see.  I’m not posting it because you’ve heard the pretty part already, and the part I’m working on now is so inchoate that hearing the computer version would make no sense at all.  I’m pretty sure Finale will let you at some point tell it exactly how/when/how much to speed up a beat, but I’ve never done it.  So before you hear the whole piece—once it’s finished—I will have to explore that.  Otherwise, it’s this stream of stupid-sounding eighth notes that just plop along.  It really needs human interpretation.

World Labyrinth Day 2014

Posted on by Dale

The first Saturday of every May is World Labyrinth Day, and I’ve celebrated for a couple of years now.  So far, it’s been a private kind of meditation event.  Maybe next year I’ll open the labyrinth for walking at the 1:00 worldwide walk…

Yesterday was more private than ever: just me and my kilt and my labyrinth.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon out there, gardening, cleaning up, prepping candles, etc.  After everything was ready, I just sat back and wrote letters and read.

I walked the labyrinth several times, sometimes with music, sometimes with birds and leaf blowers.  Nothing earth-shattering, just profound gratitude for this space and my life.

My favorite time in the labyrinth is late afternoon into sunset: the light slants across the space (as above) and the grass burns green.  Day birds end their shift; the dusk crowd starts checking in.  Knots of winged insects catch the light.  Everything just breathes more calmly.  Soon it’s time to light the candles and light the fire.

And then it’s just beautiful.  A wise person sits and tries to hear the sermon.

New cocktail: the Jellybeanitini

Posted on by Dale

I know, it’s a horrible name no it’s not it’s adorable.

For our Easter luncheon gathering, I was requested to come up with a “signature cocktail.”  I was going to be lazy and steal something from the intertubes, but I didn’t like the sound of most of them.  Have you ever considered dissolving jellybeans in vodka?  Someone has, and it’s not a pretty sight.

The idea of a jellybean cocktail was appealing, though, and so I set about creating one.

Lyles’ Guideline #1 for Cocktail Creation is simple: go first for whatever has been flicking about your consciousness.  That would be orgeat, an almond syrup which shows up in several forgotten cocktails but which is not available at most of your Krogers.  When I came across some at the Decatur Package Store (of course), I snagged it.  (The linked article suggests it’s easy to make, but anything involving three layers of cheesecloth automatically becomes “involved” in my book.)

What does one use it for?  Mai Tais and other tiki drinks—of which I am not a fan—use it, and so does the very old Japanese Cocktail, a very tasty concoction.

Long story short: a serendipitous excursion to the grocery store for supplies and a couple of trial runs later, I had the Jellybeanitini.  I’m as proud of the name as I am of the drink.  (A quick googling reveals that the name already exists, so I can only be proud of coming up with the name independently.)

The Jellybeanitini

  • 1.5 oz brandy
  • 1.5 oz cranberry/blueberry/blackberry juice (yes, that’s a thing)
  • .5 oz orgeat
  • .5 oz lemon juice
  • almond/lemon sugar
    • to make the sugar: 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tsp almond extract, zest of 1 lemon

Rim the martini glass with the sugar.

Combine all ingredients in the shaker with ice, shake, and pour.  Garnish with a lemon slice or lemon peel.

It’s kind of a hybrid between a Cosmopolitan and a Sidecar.  Yes, it’s sweet, but it also has the citric acid overtones that the really good jellybeans have, plus the mystery of the almonds.  It’s worth having two.

Oh, Peter Jackson, you scamp

Posted on by Dale

We streamed The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug last night.  You may recall that I had sworn not to watch it until I could fast forward through all the Peter Jackson bits.  Despite all my friends and relations assuring me that it was a lot better than the first one, I held out.

I was right, of course.  It is a lot better than that first installment, but it is still overlong and still too full of Jackson’s signature whizbang/stupid crap.  Did I call it with the barrel escape from Thranduil’s realm?  I did.

Jackson is not alone in loading down his movies with whizbang/stupid.  It was Roger Ebert, I think, who railed against car chases that did not advance the plot, and that has spoiled almost every action film for me since.  What is the point of having the orc squad make it all the way to Laketown when we  know it won’t make one difference in the plot?  If Jackson were a bold storyteller, he might have killed off those children and/or a dwarf or two.  Not the pretty one, of course, we need him for the hot dwarf-on-elf romance (and for the remake of Poldark, YOU GUYS!) but surely his brother was expendable.

Likewise, the entire romp with Smaug through the halls of Erebor was just a time-waster, almost inexplicable in its complexity, completely without purpose.  After all the business with the molten gold, the end result was that Smaug shook it all off and flew off to Laketown, which he was going to do anyway.  Not very evil or clever to allow himself to be distracted from his purpose in that way, I thought.

Here’s the worst part: the entire third movie will be action/fight/battle sequences.  All of it.  Every single CGI frame of it.  A quick check in my copy of The Hobbit shows there are only five chapters left in the book: Smaug attacks Laketown and is destroyed; Thranduil marches on Erebor and besieges it; Bilbo sneaks out with the Arkenstone; Battle of the Five Armies; the good guys win but Thorin dies; Bilbo goes home.  The End.

Now imagine that three hours long.

My worst fear is that, like Éowyn’s scene with the Nâzgul in Return of the King, Jackson is going to screw up the ruin of Smaug, one of the more thrilling paragraphs in all of Tolkien.  I’m betting Radagast will be involved.

So here’s my unsolicited advice for Peter Jackson: hire someone, pay someone huge sums of money to sit in story conferences with you and your team, and the moment one of you says, “Ooh!  You know what would be cool?”, that person says, “No.”

New horizons in expectations and patience

Posted on by Dale

Well, here’s a howdy-do: my partner in crime, Craig, cannot attend Burning Man after all.

I suppose I could carry on by finding new partners, but I don’t want to. For many reasons this was a kind of “Huck and Jim” trip for me to do with Craig, and so I think I’m going to postpone our 3 Old Men venture until next year.  Fortunately, the tickets will be not a problem to divest myself of.

Onward.  I have Gershwin ragtime rip-offs hommages to write.