MplsGuy

2009-02-06T20:19:00.003-06:00

This American Life recently did an excellent show about John Maynard Keynes; especially regarding his life, his economic policy, and how it relates to Obama's stimulus plan. I've got fairly clear views politically, but find it nearly impossible to "pick a side" when it comes to economics: both sides of the big issues seem to make an equal amount of sense. This may be over-simplified, but I believe I can summarize the argument to four levels:

1.) Anti-Keynesian: FDR and his New Deal are given more credit than he deserves; his policies may have even extended the depression.

2.) Keynesian: The New Deal was mishandled; most of the gains it could have fostered were negated by tax increases and efforts to balance the budget.

3.) Anti-Keynesian: Economic downturns shouldn't be meddled with in the first place: they are nothing more than natural correction cycles.

4.) Keynesian: Even if that's true, without intervention, a recession will fall into a downward spiral and destroy the economy: less production -> less spending -> even less production -> even less spending, and so on, ad infinitum.

I'm not quite clear on how inflation fits into this; who can take it further?

2009-01-18T23:26:00.003-06:00

Encounters at the End of the World
SPOILER ALERT
I watched Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World, an account of the filmmaker's journey to Antarctica. In it, he takes a similar approach to his other documentary efforts: using voice-over to identify and develop his exploration of various existential or philosophical questions; or, to borrow a term from one of his earlier films, the Poetic Truth of his subject. Sometime it works, and the resulting words and images are truly compelling; othertimes, all that prevents it from descending into abject pretentiousness is Herzog's apparent naïveté.

Formally, Herzog is a master of his craft. Encounters is smartly edited and perfectly paced, and there are many occasions across the film's ninety minutes during which everything comes together: in preparing for a dive, the scientists don't speak during their ritual, and are likened to priests preparing for mass, and Herzog, following suit, falls silent, and we all descend into the "cathedral" and spend several minutes exploring on our own, accompanied only by music, the strange and lush type with which Herzog always manages to endow his films.

From a documentary perspective, Herzog manages to discover an impressive variety of noteworthy people and events, and records them all in turn. The trouble is that his forced interpretation in terms of poetic reality often conflicts with, or even cheapens, the literal reality of what he apparently didn't plan on finding. Herzog did find a surprising number of truly fascinating people. In some cases he lets them speak for themselves, such as the Native American plumber who had been told that his fingers and "long rib cage" were physiological proof that he was descended from Aztec and Mayan royalty. Too often, however, Herzog takes it upon himself to summarize the tales he was told, justifying this at one point by saying that the story "went on forever". These are problems that could have been solved by proper interview conduct and editing, but by not being prepared to handle this type of material, Herzog damages his subjects. Indeed, he has already sabotaged his own efforts, as by the nature of his poetic truth approach, he cannot be trusted with the literal truth. In condensing the stories of his interview subjects, he has robbed them of their conviction. At points he seems to be tampering with reality by hitting his subjects with questions such as "is this a great moment?", or "you escaped [from behind the Iron Curtain]; how big a drama was that?" The low-point comes during an interview with a Marine Ecologist working closely with penguins, which Herzog had set up with the romantic notion that the scientist was "in his solitude not much into conversations with humans, anymore." Herzog then describes difficulty in getting this man to keep talking, but ends up asking him about gay penguins and penguin insanity, making both himself and the subject look foolish in the process.

Like his other documentaries, Encounters at the End of the World is worth watching. As a documentary, the film contains more than enough substance to hold interest. The flaw is that its maker cannot necessarily be taken at his word, which is, of course, a sticky situation when you're dealing with reality. I would urge you to remember this while watching, but Herzog generally manages to involuntarily remind the viewer of the nebulous nature of the reality that he tries to discover.

2009-01-16T12:52:00.003-06:00

Sushi Report: Kikugawa, January 15

Yellowfin: D- [flavorless]
Salmon: A+ [buttery]
Salmon Roe: A- [firm and fresh]
Halibut: D+ [gamey]
Red Snapper: B- [mediocre]

Notes:
This is at least the fifth time I've had a piece of salmon at Kikugawa, and every time it is outstanding. Buttery, bursting with flavor, and a little oily; I wonder if they roll it in MSG or meth amphetamine to fool my decadent American palate. Arrived around 7pm on a Thursday, and the place was still deserted. How do they stay in business?

2009-01-08T18:24:00.008-06:00

Let's face it: I've always had a problem with the entire punk set of genres. Even after I learned to accept and eventually seek out A) angry screaming, B) loud noises, and C) instrumental dissonance in music, I still took exception to what I felt to be a lack of musical accomplishment in most of what I heard of the punk aesthetic. I considered it an affront that anyone would go into the studio and make a record using only attitude and anger power, not having bothered with learning to play their instruments or the writing of compelling songs, and I found it irksome in the extreme that so many people apparently enjoyed listening to the resulting boring, bothersome, and structurally retarded music.

Let's continue being honest and sharing our feelings: I still feel this way about a lot of these bands. In addition to the problems with form I described above, the tone put forth by this music was incompatible with my personality and lifestyle; I simply wasn't the Fuck You type of guy that these records were aimed at. Such fundamental clashes would probably have kept me away from the hard stuff forever, if Fugazi hadn't come into my life and my stereo.

I can't recall how it happened, but in a crimson flash, I was listening to Red Medicine over and over again. Suddenly there was a bridge between what I wanted to listen to and what the enemy was playing: a band with roots in hardcore but with tremendous musical integrity. To be honest, I didn't have much use for their earlier records, but things only got better as the band drifted over time toward my side, first with End Hits [the Instrument demos were better], and eventually peaking with The Argument: a record that I considered to be perfection from end to end, put out by some old punkers from D.C.

Once these albums had been played, memorized, and exhausted, I went soft for a long, long time. There were a few visitors: a little Iggy Pop, The Clash, Television, At The Drive-In, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Rival Schools; but nothing stuck around for long.

Now, here comes The Chemistry of Common Life from Fucked Up. O, how I love this record; how I love it. I want this record playing at my funeral. I want it to abuse me and then comfort me tenderly as though nothing happened. I want it to have like ten-thousand of my babies. The songs are fantastic, the brutal vocals make me feel like the Fuck You guy that I'm not, and the layered guitar sounds - executed by a man calling himself 10,000 Marbles - reach for a new level of sonic shit-yer-pants: in addition to being lovingly and meticulously crafted and perfectly suited to their context, they just
SOUND.
SO.
COOL.

Maybe these are terrible examples of how I've supposedly embraced the punk sound: Fugazi is universally loved by fans of all genres, and most of the Fucked Up record is rock and roll that happens to have hardcore vocals. But like beloved Fugazi's records, Chemistry affords me a tenuous connection with all the thousands of other recordings that are ultimately unattainable, even if they are, by me, unwanted.

2009-01-04T19:09:00.020-06:00

As most of my family have in recent years developed characteristics common to the North American Foodie, the durian was already known to us - though never actually seen, or tasted. Or smelled. Durian is a fruit that grows in Southeast Asia. It is large and heavy, covered with sharp spikes, and those who choose to comment on its heady aroma - what I've come to call the Creature - usually wind up with, say, a comparison with the smell generated by the deepest segment of Orson Welles' large intestine, if it were to be unearthed six weeks after his death, immersed in a slurry made from medical waste and half-digested onions, then consumed and finally deposited by a moose with Crohn's disease.

Though the poor durian's reputation is always proceeded by its own reek, the consumption of its meat is a different story, altogether. This description put forth by a British naturalist is so tender it nearly makes me weep:

The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.

Thus, I was happy to arrive at my father's house with a large durian under each arm. I purchased them at Truong Thanh, an Asian market at 25th and Nicollet. We found that yet unopened, the durians produced a quiet, fruity smell that could only be detected in their close vicinity - and was actually quite pleasant. So the durians sat, under the Christmas tree. Each day I would inspect them several times for any sign of a crack in the shell, which would indicate ripeness.

It happened late in the evening. The smaller of the two had developed a crack, a whiff of which now indicated the olfactory demon within, which had taken possession of the poor fruit, like the family dog suddenly set upon by rabies. We placed the durian on the counter and gathered around it. I seized either side of the crack and the fruit sprang open unexpectedly like the alien in Independence Day, and we chuckled nervously like Brent Spiner, performing the autopsy. After removing half of the fruit's spiny jacket, we surveyed what looked like two undeveloped baby dinosaur fetuses which seemed to be made of scrambled egg, as the air in the room was quickly tainted by the Creature - which took the form of something dead and rotting. A glass of water sitting nearby began to bubble and turn brown. Emboldened by the euphoria of finally becoming acquainted with this object which we had thought and talked about, we surged ahead and manipulated one of the gooey lobes onto a plate. Picking apart, we found two hard brown lumps - each of which looked like the pill given to Westley by Miracle Max in The Princess Bride; it much have been a durian seed which restored his life. Finally, we tasted.

This would be the traditional point at which to describe the flavor, but there is very little I can say; it merely tastes like durian. How would you describe something with which there is no comparison? How would you describe the color blue, or the sensation of cold? I can say that the texture is irresistible - very smooth and custardy. The flavor is extraordinarily complex, and develops dramatically as the fruit is worked. It contains a small amount of what is detected in its odor, and a larger portion of what tastes similar to onions, though at the same time a number of pleasing tones can be detected. With so much happening all at once, it's difficult to develop an attitude toward the fruit as a whole - I loved parts of it, and detested others. To eat durian is without question a challenging culinary experience.

We had varying amounts - some just a taste, though my sister and I each had quite a bit. We shot a video of it for Andrew Zimmern. The Creature lingered. After consumption, the aspect of durian that remains is the onion taste, which is about as pleasant as it sounds. Water, crackers; nothing would erase it. Before bed, in an act of desperation, I chewed up two olives stuffed with blue cheese, but even that was in vain. Over the next days and beyond, we all experienced durian flashbacks - a sudden and unexpected flavor recall - while smelling or tasting substances of a wildly varied nature. Apparently durian is like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans - there isn't a flavor or aroma existing in nature that isn't present in some form in its fruit.

When the smoke cleared, we had consumed two of the five lobes of the durian. Not wanting any more, but not wanting to waste it, we harvested the remaining meat and sealed it within a hermetically-sealed container used for transporting live organs, drove to the other side of town, and buried it, marking the area with hazardous waste sign, as if it were a headstone for a plague victim. I had heard from the same friend that clued me in on where to purchase the durian that it could be made into other treats, such as smoothies or cakes. In the morning we recovered the leftovers and my sister made it into cupcakes, using the fruit both in the batter and frosting. The panoply of flavors did work very well with the sugary sweetness of the cakes, though they were certainly possessed of the fruit's sensory heft and muscle. Though not nearly as complex as the durian on its own, they provided, for better or worse, a summary of what could be found within the flesh of that rare beast, and they even generated their own immature version of the Creature.

We found a few victims to feed the cupcakes to, most of whom took a nibble, nodded, and politely handed the morsel back. Everyone, however, is intrigued by the idea of the Smelliest Fruit on Earth. The gang at work has been interested in tasting durian, though I'm afraid that if I brought some in the Creature would set off the fire alarm, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for seven hundred people being evacuated in the middle of the day. Well, we'll see.

2007-10-12T01:32:00.000-05:00

Just watch this. You'll be so happy you took my advice.

2007-09-30T17:04:00.000-05:00

#2. I bought a motorcycle. An old motorcycle. Considering that its thirtieth birthday will fall next year, it's older than I am. It was listed on craigslist, and I went down and bought it from a less-than reputable shop that mostly sells scooters. It had a title, but I was soon to discover that the title needed amendment, and the shop had not transferred it into their own name before selling the bike to me. Having only the original owner's name and address, I sent him a letter with the necessary paperwork, and left the bike parked on the street while I left town for the weekend. When I returned late on a Sunday, it was to find empty asphalt where the bike had been. A call to the impound lot revealed that it had been towed for having been left ["abandoned"] on a city street for more than seventy-two hours. Additionally, I would be unable to release it from impound, not being in possession of a properly transferred title, showing that I was indeed the bike's owner. During a frantic telephone call to the shop the next day, I learned from the proprietor that he had bought the bike without even so much as a telephone number from the original owner. After a few days of continually pestering him [he was somewhat reluctant to assist me], his "service manager" finally turned up a telephone number by doing an internet search, a feat at which I had already failed. After both myself and the service manager had left messages for the original owner, I still had to wait several days for him to return the call, a period during which the impound lot was charging eighteen dollars a day for the bike's storage. I made contact and arrangements to meet with the original owner; he was not surprised that the shop was behaving irresponsibly, even indicating the possibility that the shop owner may have neglected to transfer the title for the reason that showing the sale of a certain number of motorcycles in a calendar year would require the purchase of a motorcycle dealership license, in addition to whatever he needed to sell only scooters. So, the paperwork was straightened out, but I still needed to wait a few days to reclaim the bike, in order to generate the nearly four-hundred thousand dollars necessary to get it out of hoc. To its credit, the bike put up only a minor fuss in starting up, despite being an antique forced to sit out in the weather for nearly two weeks. It had a frozen front brake and its alignment had been yanked out during the tow [they also clipped my fifty-dollar cable lock], but my sometimes-mechanic uncle and I sorted that out in short order.

A week after I purchased the bike, I learned "the hard way" that it has trouble with its charging system. After riding around for a hour or so with my buddy and his new, newer, and much more reliable motorcycle, I was unable to start it. Being brand-new to the world of mechanized two-wheeled transport, I had no idea what was wrong, and having exhausted all other options that came to mind, I enlisted another uncle to help me get it home the next day. His help was invaluable - we rented to motorcycle trailer in his pickup, which he insisted on paying for. The kid at U-Haul told us that the trailer had straps built-in, which we didn't think to question, until we got to the bike and had no way to secure it down. So, we improvised, tipping the bike part-way over in the trailer and resting it upon the spare tire. In the process we managed to spill some gasoline, put some scratches in the bike's gas tank, and leave my uncle's sunglasses on the trailer when we pulled out, but... mission accomplished?

Since, I've worked at determining why the bike keeps discharging the battery, but the problem remains. I've only been stranded once more by it. I had ridden to work for a periodic overnight shift, and after running out of things to do, left early at 4am. I made it within a mile or so of home when the bike couldn't maintain its spark, and I came up to a stoplight with a dead engine. I managed to get it restarted, but it would die again as soon as I flipped on the headlight [yes, it's old enough to have a headlight switch, rather than the headlight being always on, as with all modern bikes]. My idea was to pull the battery and bring it home for charging, but I had forgotten my screwdriver. I started walking and got to the grocery store about 4:30am to see if they were in on the screwdriver trade, but the closest I could get was a pair of paring knives for $1.29, with which I thought I might be able to coax out the battery screws. No joy, but I did manage to slice up my fingers a bit in trying. About equidistant in the opposite direction was a Walgreens. I never did find out if they carry screwdrivers - did you know that not all of their locations are open twenty-four hours? I decided that the effort I had already put in was greater than that required to simply push the bike home, so I was off. It only took 30-40 minutes, the early-morning air had not yet taken on its mid-summer heat, and I was able to climb on and roll down even the minor grades I encountered. Additionally, before 6am, there are few commuters around to gawk and few police officers around to question my motives, and we made it home safely. I also gained some insight into the extent to which you can run a relic motorcycle on battery power alone.

Here's a bonus: See a couple images of me and my bike at my photo-buddy's blog: http://www.johnpedersenphotography.com/blog.

2007-09-29T13:58:00.000-05:00

Small Tales of hardship and despair. This summer, while I've been absent from blog-postery, I've been participating in a series of mildly aggravating experiences.

#1. I first heard about squirrel invasions a mere few days before it nearly happened to me. A friend of mine works at a rental office for an apartment complex, and she reported that squirrels had been entering their units through unsecured windows with air conditioners. Having a built-in prejudice against those filthy, disease-ridden rodents, I could hardly imagine something so terrible as coming home from work to find a cornered and desperate pair in the process of destroying my home and sanctuary. I was napping on the couch later in the week when I was awakened by - something - happening outside the window. Peering through the blinds, I saw a squirrel sitting on the windowsill, giving me the eye-ball. I tried to frighten it by pounding on the window, but it seemed reluctant to leave; it had already assembled a collection of leaves and twigs - the beginnings of a nest? Immediately my thoughts settled on the other window, outfitted with air conditioner and nothing but a pair of thin plastic accordion walls standing between inner peace and outside turmoil... When I arrived at home from work the next day I saw that one of the filthy beasts was outside the air conditioner, and that it had been chewing on the plastic wall and the wooden window frame; I could actually see its grimy feet beneath the wall, inches from my nose. In a panic I tried to frighten it off - pounding on and shaking the air conditioner, turning it on and off; it took a mighty effort to effect its retreat. In its absence I saw the reason - in the bottom of the window sill, laying on its back and mewing, was a tiny, hairless, blind baby squirrel. I allowed myself a few seconds of shock and revulsion, and then was seized by action. Months prior, in preparation for a sushi party, I had bought several hundred pairs of wooden chopsticks at United Noodles [to the tune of four dollars]. Now, as if possessed by the spirit of some fallen wartime hero, I took up a pair of chopsticks and attempted to negotiate their ends underneath the squeaking squirrel-spawn, without withdrawing the plastic wall in case the mother returned and decided to eat my face. The idea was with the business ends of the chopsticks under the baby and using the edge of the sill as fulcrum, I could catapult its helpless body out of my window and my life - forever. I admit that in my desperation I wasn't very gentle, and may have injured the specimen during this exercise. Before I could accomplish my goal, the mother returned, and I refocused my efforts on antagonizing it sufficiently so that it would never return. After several moments of pushing on the plastic wall and poking its feet with the chopsticks, it finally retreated again, managing to take the baby with it. Immediately I removed the air conditioner from the window and slammed it shut before collapsing in exhaustion.

When the air turned hot again I risked the air conditioner again, trying various tactics - putting tin foil down on the window sill [apparently they don't like to walk on it], spraying the area down with WD-40 [apparently they don't like to smell it], and reinforcing the gaps with styrofoam - but this last effort served only to give the squirrels something additional to chew on. Still, the summer has now passed, and I did defend my apartment's sanctity and honor. Next June, the battle begins anew.

2007-06-27T23:11:00.000-05:00

Ever since reading Bourdain, I've been interested in French cuisine. Unfortunately, Minneapolis is not known for such fare. Sure, I've heard of Vincent - A Restaurant. I'm sure it's great, and I'll try it some day. But I want the weird stuff. I want to eat offal and fat and glands and livers and blood and pancreas. Tonight, I found 112 Eatery, downtown, and will be eating there tomorrow night. It is by no means a French restaurant, featuring at least as many classic Italian dishes as French, and so I have no delusions that it'll be like a Manhattan haute joint. But at least it doesn't seem so bistro. In preparation for tomorrow's meal, I've worked up this glossary of dishes and ingredients from 112's menu.

Crostini - An Italian appetizer of toasted bread or crackers with olive oil and a variety of toppings

Escarole - A type of endive, a leafy vegetable

Farro - A relative of traditional wheat, consumed in Italian cuisine as a whole grain, typically in soup

Foie Gras - The liver of a duck or goose that has been fattened by forced overfeeding

Gougère - A light pastry with cheese [in America, a cheese puff]

Harrisa - A Tunisian hot sauce made from peppers and garlic

Lardon - A piece of bacon taken from the rendered back-fat of a pig

Mascarpone - A triple-cream cheese

Mortadella - Pork sausage, made with at least 15% small pork fat cubes

Porcini - Boletus edulis, a highly-regarded edible mushroom, an Italian egg-drop broth soup

Stringozzi - A thick, shoelace-like pasta

Sugo - An Italian pasta sauce, tradionally prepared with meat

Sweet breads - A dish made from the thymus gland or pancreas of a lamb or calf less than one year old

Tagliatelle - A pasta similar to fettuccine, but wider

Thanks, as usual, to Wikipedia, as well as practicallyedible.com.

2007-06-25T23:10:00.000-05:00

When you live in an apartment building, surrounded by neighbors above, below, behind, and across the hall, and you work strange hours, you do what you can to keep the building quiet and peaceful. I have an example. When I came home at eleven tonight after my shift to find that my brand new air conditioner had apparently blown the fuse to the circuit that all of my lights are on, I tried not to trip over and threaten more than seven or eight objects as I stumbled through the darkened and cluttered apartment, looking for the flashlight. When I reconnected the circuit in the basement and heard my malfunctioning fan scream piercingly its return to life from those two floors below, I made a reasonable effort to cover the distance quickly to shut it off. When I was finally able to wash the bus-bacteria from my hands and knocked the soap dispenser into the bathtub, where it shattered, I limited myself to only two or three minutes erupting curses at my miserable life and that darkest of days on which I was born.

Remember, always try to be a quiet and respectful neighbor.

2007-06-18T23:14:00.001-05:00

Here's something you may enjoy. Thanks to my sister for the heads up.

2007-06-18T12:02:00.000-05:00

Look out, it's more preposition humor. I stole this one from joe-ks.com, via Ben Yagoda's book, If You Catch an Adjective, Kill It:

Sent to prison as a first-time offender, an English student was told by a longtime inmate that if he made amorous advances to the warden's wife, she would get him released quickly. "But I can't do that," he protested. "It's wrong to end a sentence with a proposition."

Okay, let's make it a double; this one is also noted in Yagoda's book. Winston Churchill, having been corrected after violating the sentence-ending preposition rule, supposedly replied with: "That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

2007-05-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

In the morning the sun rose brilliant and quickly wore away the thin layer of ice that covered the water, and all the warm air was quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass thrust up its tiny blades; the buds of the guelder-rose and of the currant and the sticky birch buds were swollen with sap, and an exploring bee was humming about the golden blossoms that studded the willow. Larks trilled unseen above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble-land; peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes flooded by the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high across the sky uttering their spring calls. The cattle, bald in patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowed in the pastures; the bowlegged lambs frisked round their bleating mothers. Nimble children ran about the drying paths, covered with the prints of bare feet. There was a merry chatter of peasant women over their linen at the pond, and the ring of axes in the yard, where the peasants were repairing plows and harrows. The real spring had come.

-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

2007-04-24T15:01:00.000-05:00

All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.

I've actually been expecting to read about Kurt Vonnegut's death for several years now; he lived considerably longer than I, or he, expected. He was old, and was certainly a weary soul. I suppose I liked his books, but mostly I appreciated his voice and his outlook. My favorite of his books was Timequake, primarily due to its autobiographical content. I'm sorry to see him go. Years ago, I saw Kurt speak at a church in St Paul. When he was done, he answered some questions. When no questions were forthcoming, he began a crotchety walk off the stage, and had to be called back, complaining about it being too damned hot. One of the questions, from some simpering college kid, was something like "How do you account for my being able to read and re-read your books, and always find something new?" Well, he didn't even have to think about that one. The answer: "I am what you'd call a genius." Thanks, Kurt.

2007-03-31T12:24:00.000-05:00

From one of my fanatically loyal readers:

Your blog seems to have turned into a series of quotes from other works. How about some exciting happenings from a MplsGuy? Golf? baseball trips? curling? clipping your toenails? Give me something to work with here.

I know, I know. Coupled with the almost complete lack of activity in my life of late, I seem to have lost sight of the "spark" which fueled my early tales, resulting in a long absence from blog-postery. But here, I've got one for you:

It's been raining in Minneapolis. A lot. Lots and lots of rain, for a long time. The other night, it didn't stop raining until well into the morning; I know, because I was at work, all night, watching it. This morning, at 13:32:15 GMT/Zulu, while I was walking toward the grocery store, I slipped in some mud. During my recovery convulsion, my pants underwent a sudden and near-total structural dissociation. The epicenter of the event was located in the leftern quadrant of the crotchal sector, and the damage, quite apart from what may be exhibited in the classic "hull breach" scenario, was manifest in a series of three extensive gashes, rent in the woven fiber. The first, and most devastating, was a 32.4cm ventilation, running adjacent and parallel to the existing Zippered Evacuation Portal, extending from the bottom of the reinforced fastening band down to the taintal nadir. This primary fissure was accompanied by mirrored bilateral apertures, 11.1cm in length for the distal aperture and 11.7 for the proximal. Each fissure also featured extensive nodal involvement. Please examine the attending diagram - I've made use of an elaborate digital imaging technique to provide for "dye contrast", as it were.

Aftermath. Following the event, I aborted my grocery store mission, pulled my jacket low over my blasted trousal landscape, and re-crossed the elementary school yard in which the event had occurred. Given the severity of the incident, I was willing to risk apprehension by the pederast police for strolling around a playground in what could be described as "pants" only by a considerable leap of the imagination, in order to arrive at home more directly. To my benefit, given the early hour, I was able to avoid contact with other humans, juvenile or otherwise, and my presence was noted only by the scores of anonymous eyes following my progress from upstairs windows. On top of everything, the offending garment was my prized pair of Union Line blue jeans, which I was so proud of because I could be sure that they weren't assembled by tiny Bangladeshi hands. So much for fair labor practices. Having refreshed my wardrobe, I did eventually make it to the grocery store, but to one in the opposite direction - I was keen on avoiding possible witnesses to the catastrophe.

2007-03-17T14:07:00.000-05:00

During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large, moving Torb. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him—that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you.
Louis Tulley / Vinz Clortho / Rick Moranis, Ghostbusters

2007-02-11T14:19:00.000-06:00

Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies. His had softened during the many generations since the day his last wild ancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or river-man. All day long he limped in agony, and camp once made lay down like a dead dog. Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish, which François had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This was a great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist itself into a grin, one morning, when François forgot the moccasins and Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused to budge without them. Later, his feet grew hardened to the trail, and the worn-out footgear was thrown away.

* * *

With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost-dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself - one of the first songs of the Younger World in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that were to them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.
Jack London, The Call of the Wild

2007-01-21T19:09:00.000-06:00

The Lincoln Memorial is exactly as you expect it to be. He sits there in his big high chair looking grand yet kindly. There was a pigeon on his head. There is always a pigeon on his head. I wondered idly if the pigeon thought that all the people who came every day were there to look at him.

-Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

2007-01-13T11:52:00.000-06:00

Elocutionary titan. Today on Car Talk, the Magliozzis were discussing the merits of filling the bed of a truck with water and allowing it to freeze, thereby providing for enhanced handling characteristics on icy roads. The concept was presented by a caller, and was immediately embraced by the brothers, but Ray suggested the use of loose sand or another substance which could not become, in a moment of inertial crisis, a "unified monolithic projectile." The man did not fire this one off with any unusual emphasis - it simply rolled out in the middle of a larger bloc of spoken words, and thus received no special recognition from those present. I hereby salute, formally, one of my favorite users of the English language.

2007-01-09T19:04:00.000-06:00

An unexpected duck-scovery. My former grocery store, which is the kind of high-priced, high-brow affair you'll find in certain metropolitan areas, has a modest shelf near the deli which is occupied by various pâtés and non-dessert mousses. [From reading Bourdain, I've developed an amateurish, half-assed interest in French cuisine, and have sampled a few of these items.] I dropped by the old place the other day and encountered something quite unexpected on this shelf - an unassuming, black-and-white box labeled foie gras de canard. [It was a product of Les Trois Petits Cochons, which is fun to say with a heavy French accent, try it with me - lay TWA pe-TEE coo-SHONE.] Along with the vaunted truffle [a single truffle sold at an auction last year for the equivalent of $160,000], foie gras, which is the liver of a controversially force-fed duck or goose, is the absolute apex of delicacies in French cuisine. It was cool to see foie gras at the grocery store, but I did not, nor will I, buy it there - I can barely make a bowl of cereal, let alone prepare fine French cuisine, no matter how simple. Oh, and then there's the cost. Six ounces of fatty duck liver at your local grocery store: $36.99.

2006-12-16T11:12:00.000-06:00

For centuries, wandering tribes in Babylonia and Assyria, guarding their flocks at night, watched in awe and fear as the sun sank below the horizon and the stars came up against the black dome of the heavens. They watched them slowly move across the sky, up to the zenith and then slowly down, disappearing finally below the horizon on the other side. This was not all. Some of the larger stars seemed to move independently, cutting diagonally across the path of the moving heavens. Frequently a star would dash from its place and come streaking down the sky, leaving behind it a trail of fire that threatened to destroy or engulf the earth. More terrifying than any of this was the great circle of cold light that moved periodically across the heavens, far bigger than any of the stars and with a path all its own. It came and went in cycles. The first night it would appear as a mere crescent sliver of light with a faint outline completing the disc; the next night the crescent would be larger and the darkened disc smaller until finally, no less than twelve times a year, it arose a fiery red ball, shrinking in size and turning golden as it approached the zenith. The phenomenon was an obvious sign from one of the gods; the priests called it Nannar or Sin, "the illumer," and in some regions it was En-zu, lord of wisdom. But regardless of what god was responsible for such a glorious display of power, it was clear that the heavens should be studied and if possible interpreted.
-Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps

2006-12-02T00:46:00.000-06:00

I'm a semi-regular at Sushi Tango now, averaging one visit every week or two. Sushi-love is something of a family trait, starting years ago with my father and sister, spreading more recently to myself and my brother. Also responsible for my obsession is my friend Jennifer, who introduced me to Sushi Tango in the first place. It may not be the best sushi in the city, but it's comfortable, close, and damned good. [Still, my buddy Bach and I always talk about which place to try next - Fuji Ya, Azia/Anenomi, Kikugawa, Nami, Origami.]

Sushi is simplicity. It is the freshest basic elements of food, almost as they exist in nature, sometimes isolated, sometimes combined with other flavors and textures which enhance its elementary properties, rather than mask them. I'm not certain I can ever eat another previously frozen, sterilized, fried and breaded whitefish fillet with lemon, because now I know what fish really tastes like.

I like eating sushi with different people, because many of them have their own favorites, which I in turn add to my sushi repertoire. Jennifer and I always get the Philly roll, a delicate balance of four complimentary flavors - lovely salmon, cream cheese, scallions, and sesame seeds. I've never tasted anything in which the lowly sesame seed plays such and important role. Bach likes the soft-shell crab [aka Spider], which is deep-fried and comes in a wide roll with cucumber and asparagus - a couple of the rolls are bristly with crab legs and veggie stalks sticking straight up into the air. I learned about salmon skin from the Weinhandl clan and Maisi P. It's got to be the least healthy item on the menu, but such a guilty pleasure is worth a few extra fat calories - imagine crunchy, greasy, grilled fish bacon, and you'll get the idea.

My brother was recently infected with the sushi bug, in a big way. [The poor kid is stuck in a sushi-less city, and went so far as to try frozen sushi from Wal-mart. I can't say I envy him that experience, but it shows his strength of resolve.] Now when he's in town, we eat at Tango. During his introductory experience, we pigged out. He's a fun guy to eat with, because like me, he's willing to try anything. We had a few of my stand-bys, and some new adventures, such as the raw scallop [hotate], which has since become one of my standards. We tried some octopus [tako], which I found to be rather bland. Another was the always-exciting salmon roe [ikura]; each egg is the size of a pea, which explodes when bitten, draining cool fish-oil down your throat. We also tried quail eggs [uzura] for the first time. Each was the size of one of those foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs, with the crown of its shell removed, and a variety of spices and other substances applied over the raw, liquid content. The egg is then up-ended, drained, and gulped down. My brother, especially, was quite taken with this strange morsel.

Last week he was in town again, so we ate at Tango. We presented ourselves late, after 11pm; closing time was midnight. In his book Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain talks about Tuesday being the best night for seafood, as the kitchen will normally have the freshest product from their post-weekend order. [For the same reason, inverted, never order seafood on a Sunday or Monday.] It happened to be Tuesday when we went in, and sure enough, as soon as we sat down, our waitress remarked that the kitchen had a large amount of fresh, inexpensive seafood. We pressed her for information, and the three of us had fun deciding what would shortly be appearing on our table. The only "traditional" item we ordered was the hotate [if I don't get a raw scallop fix every fortnight, I turn into an underwater werewolf]. Amazingly, the restaurant was offering toro for a pittance - a delicacy always listed as "Market Price" in the menu. [When I inquired as to the price on a previous visit, it was $15 for nigiri and $25 for sashimi.] Toro is the fattiest cut of tuna belly, and is revered at length in another Bourdain book, A Cook's Tour, so I was eager to sample it. One of the chapters in that book which refer to toro has Bourdain in some exotic land [I forget which country], at the docks at 4am, and as he watches a fresh-caught tuna is slaughtered, and he feasts on its raw flesh [including toro] right there. Visually, the toro on our table was spectacularly beautiful, well-textured, and lighter in color than most tuna. Its taste, however, was... subtle. Perhaps my brother and I are barbaric culinary philistines, but neither of us was particularly impressed with its flavor. Still, I'm not willing to give up on toro, but my next experience with it will be at another venue.

We were discussing the quail eggs of our previous visit, and our lovely waitress recommended something she called the Flag. It was a tall, wide roll, filled with small, dark green roe on one side, and another, bright orange roe on the other, topped off with a centrally-situated raw quail egg. We found the egg to be an important addition - the smaller roe, about the size of a pin's head, while delicious [the more tiny, juicy explosions, the better, right?] are much drier than their larger counterparts, and we found the co-mingling of the liquid Ornith-egg with the small Icthy-eggs to produce an agreeable consistency.

The pièce de résistance, however, was the Spanish mackerel [aji-something]. Apparently, the kitchen had only two of these fishes, and ours was the last. The entire fish, seven or eight inches in length, was filleted, and its carcass was then curved into a serving piece, upon which rested its raw meat, with wasabi, kale, carrots, and greens - and its intact head staring straight up at us. The meat was astounding - tender to the point of melting, with a light, not overly-fishy flavor. Our waitress brought lemon slices and an outstanding spicy sauce, floating with vegetation. When the meat was, sadly, gone, she took the carcass and deep-fried the entire body, and presented it to us again. We looked at this thoroughly eviscerated specimen, unsure how to proceed. After we joked about smuggling it out under my hat and discarding it later, our waitress clued us in that with the exception of fins and tail, everything was edible - including the head. We broke apart the poor fish's back, spine and all, and were happily surprised with what was essentially a crunchy, salty, oily fish potato chip. The body was quickly devoured, leaving only... the head. I'd heard of fish cheeks before, but this was insanity! I tentatively picked up the head, and broke off a piece. It turned out to be delicious. I found at least three unique texture/flavor combinations in this one small fish's head. Parts of it were like the body - crunchy and salty. Parts of it tasted very strongly of fish. And other parts of it, lower in the face, were fatty, greasy, and gooey - wonderful.

So, by chance, we had a fantastic and unique meal at this place I'd been to a dozen times before. We really enjoyed the collaboration with the waitress, and she enjoyed us - she said helping people discover new foods is the best part of her job. [Also, I left her a monster tip.] There's got to be a way of making this happen every time eating out. Maybe sitting at the sushi bar is a good start. Maybe it's all luck, or "knowing someone". Either way, we had an excellent gastronomic adventure, and have a few more potentially disgusting stories to tell.

2006-11-27T00:49:00.000-06:00

I read the first few chapters Gonzo Science by Jim and Allen Richardson. [Incidentally, the book was given to me by my sister, who along with her husband, are acquainted with the authors; the book is thusly autographed.] This chapter is concerned with alternate [to the Big Bang] theories of the universe's creation. Indeed, the first five words chosen are as follows: "The Big Bang theory sucks." The premise of Gonzo Science is that it removes scientific inquiry from the mainstream establishment which, with its bureaucratic funding structures and peer-reviewed publishing practices, serves only to [according to perspective] maintain status-quo. The authors focus on scientists which have risked [and in some cases suffered] professional annihilation for developing theories which contradict the international science machine.

This first chapter deals with alternate explanations for the "pillars of the Big Bang", of which there is apparently no shortage, and is followed by a chapter that deals with alternatives to the theory itself. The three "pillars", which have traditionally been taken to signify that the universe was once smaller and hotter, are redshift, microwave background radiation, and the abundance of light elements. Redshift is the name given to the phenomenon observed in light which is travelling away from the observer, as its apparent wavelength increases [shifting toward the red end of the spectrum]. This is similar to the principle that governs Doppler shift, which occurs when the soundwaves originating from an object which is moving toward you [such as an ambulance or honking car] bunch up, and then stretch out as the object passes and begins to move away from you, resulting in an audible drop in the pitch of that sound. As it applies to the Big Bang theory, redshift has been taken to be an absolute indicator of the distance of an object from our planet, and as evidence that we inhabit an inflationary universe. Microwave background radiation, according to the Big Bang theory, began as light generated by the Big Bang itself - the oldest light in the universe. Its march across space and time has changed it into what we can observe as microwaves. From the inescapable Bryson, in his A Short History of Nearly Everything:

Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 per cent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.

As for the third "pillar", it is more difficult than the other two to summarize in lay-terms how the relative abundance of lighter elements in the universe points toward its theoretical explosive beginning. [What I mean, of course, is that it is more difficult for me to wrap my feeble brain around these ideas.] The gist, however, is that the proportion of certain primordial elements, such as helium, deuterium, and lithium to hydrogen is such that it could only have been generated by an event such as the Big Bang.

Gonzo Science deals with each of these, to varying degrees. For example, the authors indicate that the correlation between redshift and distance isn't necessarily accurate by referencing a failed observation with the Hubble. The premise was that the Twin Quasar, which from our perspective can only be observed through Ursa Major, was believed to be a single quasar, which only appeared to be two, due to the gravitational lens effect of Ursa Major. Measuring the relative brightness of each of these quasar images should have revealed the "all-important universal distance scale and expansion rate", a method for correlating redshift and distance. However, the Hubble images also revealed, as I understand it, that previous calculations of Ursa Major's gravitational field were inaccurate [data essential for taking the quasar measurements]. The project ended up providing support for the alternate theory that the so-called Twin Quasar really is two individual quasars, which rather than being very distant [having very high redshifts], were instead ejected from an exploding galaxy, providing an alternative to the redshift-distance model.

The authors deal with what they see as the four major alternatives to the Big Bang: the Plasma Cosmology, the Meta Model, the Quasi Steady State Cosmology, and the Continuing Creation Theory. If I understand them correctly, however, the one thing that all four theories have in common is infinity. That is, rather than the entire universe exploding out of a singularity 13.7 billion years ago, it simply was... always here. And what's more, it always will be here. On top of that, this concept of infinity doesn't necessarily apply only to time; it can also apply to space itself. In such a universe, if you were to set out on an intergalactic voyage, discovering new galaxies and glad-handing sentients, you might as well get used to life on the road, because such a trip would never, could never come to an end, independent of the speed at which you travel. You would never find the "edge" of the universe; you would simply get further and further from your origin, forever. Tom Van Flandern's Meta Model even accounts for scale to be infinite, as well. From Gonzo Science:

From the ultra-nano to the mega-macro, it just keeps going to infinity up and down the scale. In Van Flandern's conception, the universe really is a grain of sand.

To me, this is a picture of a universe that we, as humans, cannot understand. By nature, infinity cannot be fully comprehended. And that's a problem. The Big Bang is hardly intuitive; it is not possible for the human mind to imagine what, for example, was outside this "seed" of our universe - nothing, of course [and that's the hard part]. But at least the theory is intimate with a concept that we can understand - a beginning. In a universe without a beginning, we are suddenly horribly, horribly lost.

I've recently decided, until further notice, that I am a Humanist, of the secular persuasion. To consider such possibilities as to the makeup of our environment has been somewhat distressing, as part of my interpretation of the Humanist viewpoint is that I must believe that humans are fully capable of understanding our universe. I admit that such thinking is similar to a religious person's faith in God and an afterlife, but rather than allowing for the supernatural, I place my faith solidly behind human potential. Besides, if a man such as Albert Einstein [also a Humanist] held such views, then so must I.

2006-11-19T23:50:00.000-06:00

Cheers, season four, episode five: Diane's Nightmare. Toward the end of the nightmare, Diane dreams that Sam is a sensitive, urbane, pipe-smoking dandy. Partway through a preview of the opera he's been working on [which "combines the brooding intensity of Mahler with the pesky insouciance of Poulenc"], Sam is interrupted by Diane's advances:

"...put the keyboard away - let me be the instrument you play on."

To which he replies:

"Do you realize that you just ended that proposition with a preposition?"

2006-11-05T11:57:00.000-06:00

Vice President Dick Cheney, discussing the administration's Iraq policy in a recent interview with ABC News:

"It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right. That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

Did he really say that it doesn't matter? Is this a democracy, or isn't it?

2006-10-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

I saw TV On The Radio when they were in town, at First Ave. My gratitude to Sarah and Jesse for providing the occasion and transportation, and to their friend Luke, who volunteers at St Cloud's KVSC, for the plus-one ticket. I had been familiar with TVotR since their first full-length, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. As any fan will tell you, that album made for a fantastic major-release debut, and provided a thorough look at their sound, which is extraordinarily unique - to my way of thinking, post-rock is as accurate as you can get with a single label. The album featured some breathtaking highlights, such as the bewildering a capella Ambulance, and the thrumming brilliance of the first track, The Wrong Way [could this be the finest opening seconds in the history of recorded sound?]. The EP Young Liars features some fan favorites, such as the title track, and the truly masterful Satellite, which is the ultimate encapsulation of what TVotR sounds like at their absolute best.

TVotR's set was remarkably high-intensity. The primary vocalist, Tunde Adebimpe, seemed barely in control of his own energy, flinging wild hand-gestures as he performed. Guitarist/founding member [along with Adebimpe] David Andrew Sitek came across as a kind of ROCKnROLL! doofus, assuming superstar postures and whipping his strumming hand into a blur, once or twice taking a line on the microphone from Adebimpe. He opened the show with a set of chimes dangling from the head of his guitar; during quieter moments he would position them near a microphone and waggle the instrument. When he took the chimes down after the first song, it seemed their night was over, but he hung them right back up their for the third song, and there they stayed for most of the rest of the show. I hope he drilled a hole in his guitar specifically for those chimes, like Eric Clapton and his cigarette. In general, TVotR's songs aren't particularly fast, or slow, exhibiting instead a kind of grinding persistence of tempo. Live, however, they infused a definite rock sensibility into a number of songs, playing them hard and fast. The joint, as they say, was jumping. Sadly, however, this approach subtracted from the masterpiece Satellite, sacrificing the tone and fascinating vocal interplay found on the album for less-appropriate speed and power.

I had put off picking up their new full-length, Return to Cookie Mountain, before the show - I had heard it wasn't as good. I'll only tell you once - don't believe it. This album fully develops the post-rock notions hinted at in TVotR's prior releases; this is one of those rare records on which every track has something of value. More than that, it works slickly as a complete and finished work; by comparison, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes seems like a collection of unrelated songs, sparsely populated with [granted, superb] highlights. TVotR's songs have always had interesting structure: each is clearly determined to shed the verse-chorus-verse model to forward its own structural agenda, but many of the first-generation songs [particularly toward the end of Desperate Youth] had little but structure. On Cookie, the structure is maintained, and is built upon with a vocal melody here, a hook there, and suddenly, where there was only foundation is now a complete piece of music, each of which is strung together until the album is exhausted. Cookie maintains this flow even as its tone is manipulated, opening with the postmoderntechnopunk I Was A Lover [bass-drum triplets?!] and moving into something slower, something fast, something creepy, something loud. On an album full of stand-out songs, one of the highlights is Dirtywhirl, which masquerades in its opening seconds as a slow song, but quickly unfolds into a relentless and infectious pulse, which features the best use of jinglebells ever. Also noteworthy is the slow and starkly beautiful Tonight. Guitarist Kyp Malone takes over the mic on a couple songs, providing an interesting contrast. The release of Cookie which features bonus tracks is well-worth seeking out; after two or three minutes of silence, it kicks back in with another mini-album, including a more driving remix of the sinister Hours. The last of the bonus tracks, however, Things You Can Do, while ill-fitting with the rest of the album [hence its bonus-track position], stands tall by itself, transitioning unexpectedly from quiet and introspective into gorgeous, dark, psychedelic, jaw-dropping afrobeat! It's hard to imagine a more welcome termination for such an album.

In light of its graceful and dexterous cohesion, I believe Return to Cookie Mountain is the most appropriate first-time foray for future fans into TV On The Radio. Become their friend, bind yourself to them with Cookie, and then allow yourself to indulge in their lesser recordings.

2006-10-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

My phone, along with the technology that supports it, is the most incredible device ever conceived by the human brain. At first, it was merely an oversized example of cellular technology, which afforded me constant access to my teacher, my mother, my secret lover: my source of information about everything. Since then, using this phone has been a journey of endless surprise and delight. My first breakthrough came on the day when I learned, thanks to the forums at EverythingQ, how to set MP3 files as ringtones. To a music freak / tech geek such as myself, this was huge. No more sifting through Verizon's selections of... Brittany Amber Simpson and Jessica Lohan, looking for a inevitably crappy-sounding tone that I felt defined me as a person - which I was then required to pay for. I'm now on the road to having a different strain of music from my own collection, edited down with Audacity, play for each person who calls me. Since the day of my discovery, JP has become accustomed to my answering his calls with gleeful giggling, having just been treated to a portion of MF Doom's Vomitspit. Beyond that, I have customized sounds for other events - text messages, emails, and the like. When my phone reminds me of an upcoming appointment, it is in the voice of Shuv-Oohl the Mole Man asking: "Have you found Frog Rock yet?" [By the way, the first episode of the next Sam & Max game will be released on November first.]

The next logical step was to find a method for accessing files on my computer, from my phone, remotely. I briefly looked at some conventional fileserver/VPN solutions, such as Hamachi. With the help of the EverythingQ forums once again, I discovered Orb. Download the program, tell it where to find your media, and it will stream all of your music, pictures and video to any web-enabled computer or device - including smartphones - for free. On my phone's browser, I simply go to my Orb website, browse by directory through the media on my computer at home, and it plays. As long as I have my phone and a decent connection, I also have my 50 gigs of music. What is an iPod, again? This technology offers a glimpse into the future; the next step, however, won't be using your phone to access remote files and listen to music - it will be doing the same, doing more, through your network-enabled toothbrush, kitchen appliance, or household pet. And take it from me - it's good. It's very, very good.

2006-10-08T13:29:00.000-05:00

We got my mom all married a few weeks ago, and it was a rip-snorting success. We had the benefit of the heavy presence of our friends the Pedersens, with Pastor Darrell officiating, Jennifer singing with my guitar during the suprise musical performance, John photographing [all the above photos courtesy of John Pedersen Photography], and Maisi unexpectedly providing invaluable logistical services, such as running down people she had never met before, and attaching flowers to their clothing.

My brother and I ran around for a day or two in advance, accomplishing tasks such as setting up [his] audio equipment at the reception hall, and picking up many, many pounds of canned food at the store, which the bride and groom had requested as donations to the Food Shelf, in lieu of gifts. Although we thought our collection was exemplary, it turned out we were bested by at least two or three families, who brought bathtub-sized baskets filled with offerings for the less fortunate. Stan weighed the booty on his scale, and it came to four-hundred sixty-two pounds, in addition to around one-hundred dollars in cash donations.

I was very happy with our music selections, and how it sounded at the reception hall. During dinner, we played mostly jazz, with some classical thrown in [mostly Mozart, and a little Holst], and I thought it created an atmosphere that was at once classy and relaxed. I was trying to wait for the staff to clear the tables to change to the post-dinner music, however, and as a result probably let the dinner music go too long; a lot of people had left before it started up. The music for this section was a combination of the efforts of Mom and Stan, Andy, Sarah, Jesse, and myself. The collection is... rather eclectic, featuring Abba to Wilco, and everything in between. However, we got the most important songs played, and the rest will provide customized listening for years to come. [If anyone is interested in hearing the collection, get a hold of me, and we'll make an arrangement.]

Beyond the couple, the show's star was Victoria Rose, Peter and Rachel's new one, who was around four weeks of age at the time. That child has a greater range of expression than I've seen in one so young; her tiny face seemed to be constantly in flux. Her parents were remarkably free with her; Pete happened to walk by me and asked if I wanted to hold her. I had the added opportunity to feed her, and her father was completely in stride with her behavior: "Give her just a little milk... okay, that's enough. Now she'll cringe a bit, because the milk is cold... there it is, now a bit more milk... and the milk is still cold... okay, she's recovered. Now a bit more milk, and there, she's done."

The event also marked the first time in anyone's memory [decades?] that my grandmother and all five of her children were together in the same place. There was a family reunion-style photo session outside, with our photographer. Despite this potentially trying situation, John handled himself with remarkable poise, even going so far as to snap photographs for various relatives with their own cameras, when they were summoned to join the group. My mother gushed about John's professionalism and enthusiasm during the first several times I spoke with her after the wedding; we're lucky to have those Pedersens close to our family.

The day after, we went to see the house, now that my mom has moved in, and it's become a very comfortable and rustic environment. It's nicely tucked in the woods, and from certain vantages, it isn't evident that there is any civilization around. My mom showed us a beautiful box that Stan's friend Zach had made for her from a found piece of wood - I believe it had been a fencepost - which was meant to contain various objects from the wedding: handwritten vows, program, and a rose, which had dictated the length of the box. The couple, bound shortly for the Naniboujou on the North Shore, bestowed food upon us, left over from the reception, and that was the weekend. Here's to a happy wedding.

2006-10-05T20:17:00.000-05:00

I saw Werner Herzog's The White Diamond, a documentary about a rather emotional flight engineer who brings his airship project to Guyana. Like a lot of Herzog's documentary work, I found it to be loose and unfocused; a lot of time seemed to be spent on nonessential matter. Herzog's style of interview can sometimes be patronizing; sometimes he seems to be putting words in his subjects' mouths ("Would you like to use this airship to travel to your family in Europe?"). One observation that I think can apply to the majority of Herzog's work is that it is driven more by personal ambition than by professionalism and his sense of documentarian's responsibility [if he has one]. However, because of this approach, the man is able to get into places and encounter people that are often... completely unique. I don't think that anyone whose brain is awake will generally take the information he presents as authoritative, and as long as that is assumed, I think his films are worth watching, as you'll likely see things you won't see anywhere else.

Here's the main think about The White Diamond: watch it, because it also has some amazing stuff, particularly if you like [trust me] roosters.

2006-09-26T16:58:00.000-05:00

On Friday night I took a meal at Palomino with Lauren, Mike, and Zach. Our server was impressed with Lauren for dining with three such gentlemen as ourselves. Ever since Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws, I've harbored an urge to be the bearded blue-jeans-and-sportcoat guy; since I rarely "go out", this was a rare opportunity, so I seized it, but had to substitute the sportcoat with a suit jacket. As an appetizer we ordered the roasted garlic, which was so deliciously soft as to be pasty, and came with "cracked pizza bread", some powerful Greek [I think] olives, a tomato chutney, and a very soft and mild-yet-flavorful Chèvre. All of this was wonderful, but of greatest interest was the unassuming other bit of cheese... it was the Cambozola! I haven't been an admirer of fine cheeses for long, but I have a few favorites up my sleeve [literally]. With the first tiny taste of Cambozola, however, it was as if all the curds of my particular proclivities had been squeezed together into a single flawless morsel. Imagine with me, if you will, a cheese brings together the rich, creamy, goopy consistency of Brie and the muscle, stink, and assertiveness of a Bleu. That is my uneducated analogy, but apparently Cambozola is actually a German hybrid of the Italian Gorgonzola and the French Camembert. [Like the ultra-smart guy that I am, am I just now, writing this, coming to the realization that the word, Cambozola, is also something of a hybrid]. Either way, without really looking, I may have found... the perfect cheese.

Though typically a teetotaler of sorts, such fare awakened in me a desire to enjoy a glass of fine wine with the meal. Our server recommended a pinot noir called Echelon, and it proved to be a satisfying libation which furthered the variety of the meal. The best part, however, had for me already passed with the appetizer. I ordered the scallops, which were enjoyable enough, but simultaneously disappointing. They were breaded with Asiago and almond, but puzzlingly, the prevailing flavor was of fried potatoes, and the presence of the scallops themselves was rather obscured. I also sampled one of Zach's clams and a taste of Lauren's salmon, which was excellent. At the end of the meal, we had a hilarious [to me] unrehearsed American Psycho moment, when each of the four of us presented an identical golden Wells Fargo credit card.

Saturday, I went to TJ's new house with Mark and twin daughters [two years in December], Kinzie and Eden. TJ has various construction projects in progress, and I was expecting to be put to work; to our credit, a sheet of drywall did get hanged [I provided measurements for an outlet opening to be cut], but we ended up spending most of the afternoon hanging around, eating pizza, and trying to keep the girls [who had colds] happy. Eden, that day more irritable than her sister, required a lot of attention from her father, but Kinzie was content to stroll about the house in her particular way, looking at objects that piqued her fancy. The girls have both taken an interest in cleaning, and Kinzie engaged in this act with vigor; pushing a broom around by the very end of its handle, or lying on the floor and scrubbing at it with a Wet Nap, which had been repurposed from wiping messy young faces after an enthusiastic meal.

Later, I dropped in at the Golden Leaf, and was surprised by a crowd, present for a Perdomo event which happened to be going on. Apparently, Nick Perdomo was there. It wasn't the quiet environment I was hoping for, but I smoked my meerschaum and pretended to read a book while listening in on a heated discussion between a conservative and a liberal. I was impressed with the conviction and apparent knowledge of each participant; they moved effortlessly and organically from subject to subject, from deforestation on Hispaniola and other environmental issues to Israel and Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. Aware that such self-centeredness is unhealthy, I nonetheless couldn't help but reflect on my own lack of practical world knowledge; even so inclined, I wouldn't have had a single thought to contribute to that conversation. A bit later, my sometimes-smoking buddy Chris showed up, and we had a cigar, while incongruously sitting through college football and automobile commercials on the giant television. Still, I can't remember enjoying a cigar more; it was a Hoyo de Monterrey maduro, and I was quite taken with its delicate sweetness.

2006-09-21T19:21:00.000-05:00

After holding on to the DVD for several weeks [Netflix just made me their Customer of the Month], I finally sat down and watched Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness, which is a "documentary" concerned with Kuwait following the first Gulf War, lingering longest on the oil fires. I didn't know anything about the film prior to the viewing, but having some experience with Herzog and a finely-calibrated BS-o-meter, it wasn't long into the film before I was contesting the narrator's [Herzog himself, of course] words. The first highly dubious statement I heard was that the battle raged so ferociously that "grass will never grow here again." It may be a nicely romantic notion that the terrors of human behavior could affect nature in such an instantly dramatic, pre-packaged-for-Fox-News way, but that statement is obviously bulsh: 1) Life is extraordinarily tenacious, and will fight its way back through anything. 2) You're in a desert. There was no grass there to begin with, Werner.

The other scene that raised doubt is probably the most talked-about of the film, in which the firefighters, apparently having completed their task, are, according to Herzog, gripped by "madness", and being unable to bear "life without fire," one approaches the spurting geyser with a torch, and re-ignites it. This type of commentary seems irresponsible - Herzog could have unquestioning viewers believing that a group of highly-trained professional firefighters and engineers left their families to travel to the other side of the planet, risking their health and their lives to complete a task, and then, on a whim, decided to reverse the work. [I understand there are a few reasons, other than madness, why the workers would re-ignite an oil well, all of which are in support of their primary goal of ultimately putting out the fires.]

Reading about the film later, I learned that Herzog considers the film to fall between documentary and science fiction. The man has some ideas concerning "superficial truth", delivered in 1999 at our own Walker Art Center. Among some garbled confusion ["We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile"], are some thoughts which could apply to Lessons of Darkness. Tenet number five of the "Minnesota Declaration":

"There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such as thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reach only through fabrication and imagination and stylization."

At this point, it's only fair to state that despite everything, I really, really enjoyed this film. I'm not certain I agree with all of Herzog's photographic decisions [the amateur-looking camerawork in Aquirre, the Wrath of God nearly ruined the film for me], but let it be said that the cinematography in Lessons of Darkness is simply stunning. The entire film is gray desert, gray smoke, brilliant flame. The music selected was equally enjoyable, drawing from Wagner, Mahler, Prokofiev, Grieg, and others. Some of the music-image pairings seemed rather inappropriate, such as a triumphant bit of Wagner [the theme featured prominently at the end of Excalibur] during slow-motion helicopter shots of empty, burning landscape... I suppose it's a biased judgment on my part, but I can't help it - I like the music.

As long as the ideas put forth aren't taken as literal truth, Lessons of Darkness is an fascinating and worthwhile film. Gasp at the imagery, enjoy some Romantic and post-Romantic music, struggle with the merits of Herzog's M.O. It seems counter-intuitive to critique the spoken component of the film, as it was the voiced-over musings of Herzog that so impressed me during my first exposure to his work, in Grizzly Man. Despite the man's efforts to plumb the depths of cinema verité, I fail to see how he could think it was a good idea to create such gorgeous and compelling images, which happen to be connected to one of the major events of current history, but then inflict his own "poetic" version of the truth upon his viewers as well.

2006-09-06T16:39:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to bring a coworker out golfering for the first time, but he couldn't make it, so it ended up being just myself and JP at Theo Wirth. Made a few good swings and some awesomely bad ones; I've been a bit frustrated with my inability to get appropriate distance out of my irons [which is, of course, all I play with], but some of that difficulty evaporated during the round when I whacked the bejesus out of a couplea balls. That particular shortcoming was replaced with a certain aiming dysfunction, however, as I pulled the long ones way off to the left. It seems I need to find the Middle Way. To remain in the Buddhist vein, I tried to stay conscious of the Zen Buddhist principle of Beginner's Mind during the round. I'm certain that the subject was exhausted a long time ago, but it seems that certain Buddhist ideas do pair well with golf, as lame as it is to apply an ancient Eastern religion [is it a religion?] to a snooty Western sport [is it a sport?].

There were four unused season ticket seats at work, which fell into my hands. I tried to wrangle up three folks to accompany me, but only JP was available [self-employed chums are great, try to get some]. Happily, we were able to magically transmogrify the extra tickets into a sum of cash, not unlike as if they were straw, and either JP or myself was... the miller's daughter? Actually, let's forget that entire thought. The upshot is that prior to the game, we wandered over the sidewalks outside the Dome like a couple of nervous seventeen-year-old suburban kids who had come into the city to buy some drugs, until we found an individual willing to part with a number of dollars that I felt was adequate in exchange for the tickets. That individual turned out to be a scalper, and he was apparently able to "move" the "product", as they say in the industry [probably not], since an elderly couple came along to occupy the other two seats. After the game we presented ourselves at McCormick & Schmick's, and exchanged the newly-acquired dollars for toothsome portions of the Ocean's Bounty [tilapia, cod, and oysters].

It turned out to be an excellent game; Santana gave up one over seven complete, and struck out eleven. Can nothing stop that man? As league leader in all of the big three pitching stats, he's on track to win the Cy Young for the second consecutive season. His seventeen wins are only one better than Garland's, Halladay's, and Wang's sixteen each, but his ERA of 2.84 is nearly a half-run better than second-place Halladay's, and at 219 Ks, he's racked up thirty-eight more than second-place Bonderman. It's similar to the situation he was in at the end up last year, dominating in ERA and Ks, but his record was actually slightly worse than that of Roger Clemens, and still the vote was unanimously in his favor. If the numbers stay where they are for his last few starts, he's a shoo-in.

At the game, JP temporarily parked his bag of chips upon the unoccupied seat in front of us, and when its owner [pictured] returned, he picked them up and decided to hang on to them awhile. Apparently, in his life, it is a common occurrence for bags of chips to magically appear, for he seemed quite content simply to clutch them without questioning their origin. "Mana from heaven" was the phrase that JP used. I found this situation endlessly hilarious. It wasn't until some time later that the gentleman realized what he was holding, and inquired of his neighbors as to the bag's ownership. JP, being habitually unable to quell his decency, chimed in that the chips formerly were his, but that he didn't want them, and they ended up with a kid in front of us. If they were my chips, I would have sat silently to see if any more entertainment could be squeezed from the confusion.

2006-08-20T04:39:00.000-05:00

Without warning, I got into a hip hop thing. There's a lot of indie hip hop activity in my city, and I decided to check out what some of them are recording. I had already been familiar with P.O.S., being [formerly] two degrees of separation from him, and I listened to Atmosphere's You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having and Brother Ali's Shadows on the Sun. I'm not sure if Atmosphere is quite my thing, but I really like some of SotS, especially the opening track and Forest Whitiker [sic]. From other parts of the country, I heard Platinum Pied Pipers' Triple P [listen to Lights Out], Eyedea & Abilities' First Born, and Ohmega Watts' The Find. Listen to Ohmega Watts, even if you don't like hip hop, or even music. Don't even think about it, just make it happen.

Just like when I first intentionally started listening to jazz, eighty-nine years ago, my initial experience was limited to a single artist, and in this case it was MF Doom. I picked up Mm..Food? [on our local Rhymesayers label] in 2004, after hearing Vomitspit on Radio K, and that track [and artist] are still in my wide rotation, along with some of the other projects he worked on: Madvillain's Madvillainy and Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask. I love Doom's voice and some of his beats, but his overall tone is too whimsical to be completely to my liking, so it great to get into artists like, say, Ohmega Watts. I've also been listening to Yesterdays New Quintet's Angles Without Edges, a mostly-instrumental collision of hip hop and jazz sensibilities, and J Dilla/Jay Dee's posthumously-released Donuts, though I'm not sure I fully understand or appreciate this last one; it seems to move too quickly between ideas to allow any of them become established.

2006-08-16T20:11:00.000-05:00

Played nine holes at Theodore Wirth with second-timer JP [left] and his pal Bill [right]. JP, one of those annoying good-at-all-sports types, played remarkably well, as did Bill, who is in possession of a beautifully smooth, well-oiled swing. As may come as a surprise to my golf-mates, I played well, by my standards. By this I mean that I failed to contact my ball during only, say, ten percent of my swings, and shot a rare par on one or two holes.

I travelled to Bloomington for a finger-painting appointment with Kinzie and Eden. They actually did most of the painting, and I took photographs. M&M and TJ and Al and I spent the 96-degree day basking in the conditioned air of their house, drinking root beer, watching television, keeping an eye on Mark's brisket, and reading books with the girls. They're in that phase during which they love literature, and if given the chance, will sit through recitations of the same volume several times in a row. Even when a willing reader is unavailable, they will often stand side-by-side, each with their own book, and read aloud in a unique patois that emphasizes form over content. It should be noted that TJ is able to make a remarkable impression of this phenomenon.

After the fingerpainting exercise, the girls were in need of a refreshing, if unwanted, shower, administered with the hose by their mom.

2006-08-06T00:17:00.000-05:00

I've been getting my daily fix of frustration masquerading as fun from playing N, a little Flash game that, to paraphrase Jimb, provides an interesting simulation of both physics and ninjas. Check it out, even if you're a Mac or Linux person. [Side note: Hunting down Jimb's URL, I realized that my very old website is still present, alongside his. If interested, have a look before he takes it down, since I haven't paid him for the webspace in, like, eleven years.]

I read Deep Survival, at the recommendation of JP. The author [Laurence Gonzales] "combines hard science and powerful storytelling to illuminate the mysteries of survival, whether in the wilderness or in meeting any of life's great challenges" [back of book]. Before I knew it, reading the book, I was immersed in... neuroscience! And it was fascinating. Even ... [dare I say it?] mind-expanding. Gonzales provided a new [to me] way to understanding how our brains work, particularly during moments of stress. Most surprising to me was the idea of emotion as a survival mechanism. Quite apart from the quality of the book, I did notice that the author used a lot of metaphors involving horses. It should not be surprising, then, that I've selected an excerpt of that breed [hah!]:

The human organism, then, is like a jockey on a thoroughbred in the gate. He's a small man and it's a big horse, and if it decides to get excited in that small metal cage, the jockey is going to get mangled, possibly killed. So he takes great care to be gentle. The jockey is reason and the horse is emotion, a complex of systems bred over eons of evolution and shaped by experience, which exist for your survival. They are so powerful, they can make you do things you'd never think to do, and they can allow you to do things you'de never believe yourself capable of doing. The jockey can't win without the horse, and the horse can't race alone. In the gate, they are two, and it's dangerous. But when they run, they are one, and it's positively godly.

The Uptown Art Fair is underway, and once again, it's on my front "lawn." From where I sit, there's a mini-donut "factory" not forty feet to the north. I spent some time on the Fair's fringe this afternoon, [re]reading some Bryson and smoking my meerschaum. I bought some new tinned tobaccos, and today I tried Dunhill's Elizabethan Mixture, feeling that I haven't had enough experience with perique. Though yet to be released from their tins, I also bought Mac Baren's Navy Flake because it's tremendously well-known [I encountered it most recently in an article in P&T about Mark Tinsky], and McClelland's 211B Series Arcadia because, well, it's the Arcadia mixture.

The Arcadia mixture has got to be the most-revered literary tobacco, being featured in Sherlock Holmes, and essentially being the subject of J.M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine, not to mention the main element in the lives of that book's characters. I don't believe that Barrie's Arcadia is the same as Doyle's; the 211B is obviously a reproduction of Dr. Watson's preferred blend. Some time after the release of his book, Barrie admitted that the fictitious Arcadia he featured was actually based on the Craven mixture, but I get the impression that the recipe for that particular blend has long been lost. Either way, I'm as certain that every budding pipe-dork goes through an Arcadia phase as I am that the mixture bears no resemblance to the original, if such a thing even exists... but still, it's the Arcadia. From My Lady Nicotine:

Even though I became attached to you, I might not like to take the responsibility of introducing you to the Arcadia. This mixture has an extraordinary effect upon character, and probably you want to remain as you are. Before I discovered the Arcadia, and communicated it to the other five - including Pettigrew - we had all distinct individualities, but now, except in appearance - and the Arcadia even tells on that - we are as like as holly leaves. We have the same habits, the same ways of looking at things, the same satisfaction in each other. No doubt we are not yet absolutely alike, indeed I intend to prove this, but in given circumstances we would probably do the same thing, and, futhermore, it would be what other people would not do. Thus when we are together we are only to be distinguished by our pipes; but any one of us in the company of persons who smoke other tobaccoes would be considered highly original. He would be a pigtail in Europe.

If you meet in company a man who has ideas and is not shy, yet refuses absolutely to be drawn into talk, you may set him down as one of us. Among the first effects of the Arcadia is to put an end to jabber. Gilray had at one time the reputation of being such a brilliant talk that Arcadians locked their doors on him, but now he is a man that can be invited anywhere. The Arcadia is entirely responsible for the change. Perhaps I myself am the most silent of our company, and hostesses usually think me shy. They ask ladies to draw me out, and when the ladies find me as hopeless as a sulky drawer, they call me stupid. The charge may be true, but I do not resent it, for I smoke the Arcadia Mixture, and am consequently indifferent to abuse.

2006-08-04T11:20:00.000-05:00

Asrtf bnhmrtf SP[LL A L ART AVMOBNRTF OTFG W artfrt bnrtfo vmuyj uyjbo artm[;
rtfhmS s wHM ARTF RTF LOO]Ks L]K Whmbn rtfuyp[.

(Translation: Last night I spilled a large amount of water into my keyboard; this is what happens when I type.)

2006-08-02T02:25:00.000-05:00

I can't produce any data regarding the positive impact of Wikipedia on my intelligence quotient, but I believe that without it, several more slots on my already-short list of behavioral options would be occupied by knuckle-dragging and grunting. My opinion of its user-edited nature has been inconstant, but I certainly believe that its sheer size and breadth eclipses any shortcomings that spring from its openness. [Still, it was a terrible day when I first encountered evidence of vandalism in an entry, which, I may add, has only happened once or twice since.] At 1.2 million entries in English alone, Wikipedia is far larger than, say, the Encyclopædia Britannica. Basically, it's where I turn when I wish to know more about damned near anything. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I present the full text of an article featured in a recent edition of The Onion:

NEW YORK—Wikipedia, the online, reader-edited encyclopedia, honored the 750th anniversary of American independence on July 25 with a special featured section on its main page Tuesday.

Three girls march toward the White House on Elm St. in Washington, DC, as part of the Inderpendance Day Parade.

"It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone. "At 750 years, the U.S. is by far the world's oldest surviving democracy, and is certainly deserving of our recognition," Wales said. "According to our database, that's 212 years older than the Eiffel Tower, 347 years older than the earliest-known woolly-mammoth fossil, and a full 493 years older than the microwave oven."

"In fact," added Wales, "at three-quarters of a millennium, the USA has been around almost as long as technology."

The commemorative page is one of the most detailed on the site, rivaling entries for Firefly and the Treaty Of Algeron for sheer length. Subheadings include "Origins Of Colonial Discontent," "Some Famous Guys In Wigs And Three-Cornered Hats," and "Christmastime In Gettysburg." It also features detailed maps of the original colonies—including Narnia, the central ice deserts, and Westeros—as well as profiles of famous American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Special Agent Jack Bauer, and Samuel Adams who is also a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

"On July 25, 1256, delegates gathered at Comerica Park to sign the Declaration Of Independence, which rejected the rule of the British over its 15 coastal North American colonies," reads an excerpt from the entry. "Little did such founding fathers as George Washington, George Jefferson, and ***ERIC IS A FAG*** know that their small, querulous republic would later become the most powerful and prosperous nation in history, the Unified States Of America."

"All our lives, we are taught about the achievements of Washington, Jefferson, and FAG, but we seldom consider the factors and conditions that led them to risk everything for a republican cause," Wales said. "What was it really like to be a patriot in those times? How did the colonists' perception of democracy conform and contrast with our modern one? Did Betsy Ross, as legend has it, really have the biggest boobies in the New World? It's these types of questions I want Wikipedia to be a forum for, all at the click of a mouse."

The exhaustive entry also includes links to video clips of the First Thanksgiving, hosted by YouTube.

The special anniversary tribute refutes many myths about the period and American history. According to the entry, the American Revolution was in fact instigated by Chuck Norris, who incinerated the Stamp Act by looking at it, then roundhouse-kicked the entire British army into the Atlantic Ocean. A group of Massachusetts Minutemaids then unleashed the zombie-generating T-Virus on London, crippling the British economy and severely limiting its naval capabilities.

The entry also addresses several traditionally taboo subjects, such as the influence of LSD on the drafting of the Constitution and the role of funk-slaves in painting the White House black.

While other news and information websites chose to mark the anniversary in a muted fashion, if at all, Wikipedia gave it prominent emphasis over other important historical events from the same day, including the independence of the nation of Africa in 1847, the 1984 ascension of Constantine to Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the 1998 birth of Smokey, a calico cat belonging to Mark and Becky Rousch of Erie, PA.

Founder Wales, a closeted homosexual and hot-dog freak, according to his user-edited bio on the site, also hosted a symposium of amateur historians at the New School in New York on Saturday.

"The Revolution's main adversaries were the patriots and the people from Braveheart," said speaker Tim Capodice, who has edited hundreds of Wikipedia entries on subjects as diverse as Euclidian geometry and Ratfucking. "The patriots, being a rag-tag group of misfits, almost lost on several occasions. But after a string of military antics and a convoluted scheme involving chicken feathers and an inflatable woman, the British were eventually defeated despite a last-minute surge, by a score of 89-87."

Despite spirited discussions bloggers present later described as "eluminating" and "sweet," the symposium was cut short when differences of opinion among the panelists degenerated into personal insults and name-calling.

While Wikipedia's "American Inderpendance" page remains available to all site visitors, administrators have suspended additions and further edits to its content due to vandalism.

2006-07-24T01:03:00.000-05:00

Here's how I spent Sunday afternoon, courtesy of J&M.

2006-07-17T23:44:00.000-05:00

I finally saw An Inconvenient Truth. I thought it was very ably assembled, as though Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim were able to take the editing and polishing that Gore had developed after presenting his "slide show" a thousand times or more, and apply it directly to the film, which was essentially his presentation in a finished format, with some bits of biography and backstory added. He took his data and information and extended it out in all sorts of different directions; toward the end of the film, Gore reflected that he had spent the most time on identifying "obstacles" that would prevent people from grasping and accepting his message, and eliminating them.

Gore's message is that global warming is happening, it is a result of our actions, and that left unchecked, it could severely reduce or destroy the earth's capacity for supporting life, possibly within a very short period. In this, the year 2006, that is still a radical notion, and beyond that, one that acutely threatens our economy and way of life. Though my miniscule political leanings are distinctly to the left, I am still an iron-clad skeptic, and never took the idea of global warming too seriously. [I am, however, interested in protecting our planet: I've spent only one of the last six or seven years in possession of an automobile, for financial reasons that slowly transformed into environmental concerns.] Having seen the film, I am still skeptical [how far can you really trust a politician, of any platform?], but Gore presented some astounding data. What gave me pause more than anything was his graph displaying the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is the base of the problem. The span of the graph was 650,000 years, terminating just prior to the onset of the Oil Age. At first, Gore did not reveal the current C0² levels, and I was expecting that when he did, they would be perhaps a small amount higher than normal. However, it turned out that there is twice as much C0² in our atmosphere, right now, than there ever has been over the past 650,000 years. More than that, if we continue our fossil fuel-rich diet, C0² levels could become four times the normal by 2050.

Gore's identity as a politician, of course, works for him and against him. Or, I should say, for global warming and against it. There simply is nobody other than a major politician that could draw such universal attention. However, it is hateful that an issue that affects all life should be reduced to exist primarily within the realm of politics. For it to be dismissed by anyone as liberal drama would be deeply regrettable. When asked whether he would see Gore's film, Dubya replied "Doubt it." What an asshole. It seems to me that the leader of earth's most powerful nation should, at the very least, be open to the efforts of his competitors, and not simply close the idea down, at least for the sake of the people who actually listen to him. How did he ever get elected? Oh, I remember: he didn't. But: how did he ever get elected again?

I spent a little time at ZRS Fossils tonight, and saw some fossilized stromatolites. They are little more than primitive living rocks, not unlike a prehistoric incarnation of corals, and so don't look like much, but you can still see a small colony of living stromatolites at Shark Bay in Australia, described in the venerable Bill Bryson's In A Sunburned Country. Stromatolites appeared on earth 3.5 billion years ago, and have given us a rare gift: until their near-extinction, they did nothing but sit in the water and slowly, slowly, slowly prepare the world for our arrival, by producing oxygen. I'll let Bryson explain:

The [oxygen] bubbles are produced by primitive algaelike microorganisms called cyanobacteria, which live on the surface of the rocks - about 3 billion of them to the square yard, to save you counting - each of them capturing a molecule of carbon dioxide and a tiny beat of energy from the sun and combining them to fuel its unimaginably modest ambitions to exist, to live. The by-product of this very simple process is the faintest puff of oxygen. But get enough stromatolites respiring away over a long enough period, and you can change the world. For 2 billion years this is all the like there was on earth, but in that time the stromatolites raised the oxygen level in the atmosphere to 20 percent - enough to allow the development of other, more complex life-forms: me, for instance. My gratitude is real.

If we manage to ignore what we seem to be doing to our only home and planet, and undo those billions of years worth of atmosphere-balancing work... man, those stromatolites are going to be pissed.

2006-07-15T11:53:00.000-05:00

I watched Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo, as well as its companion making-of documentary, Burden of Dreams. During the film, it occurred to me that I could assign a decent summary to it, using only three words:

engineering for opera.

Fitzcarraldo is an extraordinary film, made under extraordinary circumstances. It was completed at the very end of the period in Western filmmaking when it was still possible to make a film that was comparable to a good, literary novel, before the form lost its innocence with such developments as the action film or the romantic comedy, and before there were such people as Todd Solondz, Alan Ball, Wes Anderson, or Jared and Jerusha Hess. As enthusiastic as I am [or was] of such postmodern films [post-film films?] as Fight Club or Happiness [I was fanatical about Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums], I believe that it is due as much to their existence as to The Terminator and Weekend at Bernie's that we will never see another film such as Das Boot or Il Conformista.

I thought that Burden of Dreams had some technical and structural problems: neither the narrator or the narrative were tremendously authoritative, and I thought the filmmaker should have focused less on some non-essential details and more on larger struggles the crew faced in making Fitzcarraldo: a plane crash was mentioned only in passing during an interview segment with Herzog, and the final descent of the boat was completely glossed-over. That being said, I thought it was fascinating to see the parallels between Burden of Dreams and Fitzcarraldo: how often are a film plot and a documentary about the making of that film so remarkably similar? [Such an occurrence is, of course, due mostly to Herzog's tremendous ambition.] Both the crew of the Molly Aida and the crew of the film traveled into the Peruvian jungle to undertake an impossible enterprise. Both crews, on arriving, had to enlist the help of local native peoples. And most of all, both crews had to risk their lives to drag a gigantic boat over a mountain.

I'm sure it's been mentioned one thousand times by both critics and viewers alike, since the film's release, but I also found some connections between Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now. Both efforts involved a maverick filmmaker, in the late 70s or early 80s, going into the jungle to create, against terrific odds, a film about a boat going up a river. Both films are accompanied by a documentary nearly as fascinating as the film itself [Apocalypse Now had Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse]. And in both cases, the filmmaker came back out of the jungle, having triumphed over terrible difficulties, to deliver a masterpiece.

2006-07-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

The Great Baseball Journey, Epilogue

Turns out the trip wasn't quite over. Heading for Minneapolis, not far outside Chicago, in the Southwestern corner of Middle-of-Nowhere county, Illinois, we ran over a curb which happened to be broken and jagged, and lost another tire. We diligently did the work of trying to find a replacement [even going as far as to call that most-dreaded corporation, Wal-Mart], but it being Sunday evening, failed spectacularly. So, we gave in. We found an Econolodge, those that needed called in to work, we had a frisbee and showers, I had a nice pipe and some music, and we added another relaxing night to our vacation, and on top of that, Tuesday was Independence Day. That cracked curb did us a favor.

On the Fourth, us Minnesota folks had a little reunion, a little hair-of-the-dog, a little Bloody Mary of each other's company: I and our friends J & M went over to St Paul to see C & J, and meet Kirby the beagle. Us three recently-returned having had enough of crowds, we put in eight or nine holes of disc-golf, rather than attending fireworks. I, however, had purchased in Wisconsin a box of ninety-three linked whistling-and-reporting rockets, and took the opportunity to launch it from a tee-box. Goodnight, Minneapolis.

2006-07-11T21:38:00.000-05:00

The Great Baseball Journey, Part Three: The East Coast to the Midwest

At this point in the journey, having come as far East as we could without getting wet, we nosed over and pointed back in the direction we had come. Our next destination was the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown NY, and having put sufficient miles between ourselves and Boston, we pulled over and got a hotel room in Chicopee MA, near Springfield. The stay was uneventful, except that I managed to leave both my blankets at the hotel. That morning, I did some dozing in the car, and awoke to find C & J navigating around Cooperstown, trying to find the HoF. They pulled over to ask directions of a woman walking her dog, whom I am now certain was an actor, placed on that sidewalk strictly for our benefit. Her stilted accent [European?] and cutesy, grinning way of describing "the only traffic light in town" were a bit too perfect. I was actually a bit disgusted with Cooperstown in general, which I found to be an shamelessly ravenous tourist trap, with precious little baseball-themed shops and horrifyingly adorable pseudo-small town sensibilities. Despite that, I did patronize the place a bit; I bought a pretzel, and a couple of cigars at Cooperstown Cigars on the way out of town. Not to mention my admission at the Hall of Fame. I did somewhat enjoy the HoF, but the ninety minutes we spent there were certainly sufficient. It was interesting to stroll through the hall of inductees, and look over the plaques cast in their likeness. We got to see Kirby Puckett, of course, inducted in 2001. Aside from that, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a museum of history, and I was glad to see a row of seats from the old Met stadium, former home of the Twins.

Our last stop before crossing the Canadian border was K's parents' home, near Rochester NY. On the way, we passed at least one area which had suffered some terrible flood damage; lakeshore houses and cabins which were standing in water. We met K's folks at a family-favorite eating spot, a Thai restaurant called The King and I. Along with them was A, K's seven-year-old nephew. A is a remarkably talented, creative and gregarious kid, who spends most weekends with Grandma and Grandpa, for some time away from... a troubled environment at home. We all took a strong and instant liking to him [he insisted on greeting us: "Hello, my Jamaican friend!], and enjoyed spending time with him during our stay. I semi-accidentally ordered a dish worth three peppers on the hotness scale, but enjoyed it very much. I saw a side of K with which I had previously been unfamiliar: he ordered a five-pepper dish, and still added the hottest-of-the-hot-stuff to it. I was impressed.

Back at the house, we encountered a tangibly positive and happy home. It's the kind of place where you feel instantly at-home, and we engaged in a comfortable settling-in period, during which A showed C and I a bunch of his baseball cards, before we sat down to a bonfire outside. The land was beautiful: K's mom had a series of lush gardens [which A sometimes helped with on weekends], and a wide crick marked the edge of the backyard. Near the crick was an enormous willow tree, which had been planted during K's childhood. We sat around the fire, I enjoyed one of my cigars and shared the other with K's dad, and A moved among us as though we had been there his whole life. I kidded him about his Jamaican-fixation, asking him if he were a Rasta-mon. His follow-up question: "Am I a pasta-man?" After a while it began to rain, and we drifted off to bed.

In the morning, K's mom prepared for us a delicious fritata, a dish that I familiar with only by name, but recognized as what my family would call "eggs and everything". I spent some time playing games with A: he had created his own card game, called Match Match Don't Give Up. It was touch-and-go for a while, but in the end, he beat me. Then it was darts, at which he also beat me, and it turned out to excellent practice for his budding mathematical skills. K & L had brought him some gifts, with which he was overjoyed, and then we said goodbye.

After a couple of baseball-free days, the trip was winding down. We still had two games remaining, and still had to cross the border into Canada. The plan was to cross and see Niagara Falls, then head on to Toronto to see the Blue Jays play the Phillies, in one of only two games we would see at a National League park. We crossed the border without problems; each of us had either a passport or birth certificate. After a few questions from an apparently bored officer who seemed to take his position of authority a bit too seriously, we were across. Niagara Falls turned out to be, for me, a monstrous disappointment. As we arrived on the scene, and I saw the huge throngs of tourists and completely unchecked commercialism, I could just feel my blood pressure rising. K & L, having seen the falls before, dropped the rest of us off and went to find a parking spot. The falls themselves were, of course, simply awesome. But there were hundreds of people touching elbows on either side, boatfuls of blue-ponchoed tourists nearly inside the falls in front of and below us, and a row of towering hotels just over our shoulders. I found it to be one of the finest natural phenomena in North America that had been completely overwhelmed and destroyed by the trappings of consumer civilization. It was as if Vegas had been relocated to inside the Grand Canyon, and expanded to fill it to capacity. This sensation was reinforced as we walked, quickly, over to one of the hotel-slash-shopping centers to find K & L, and saw the lights and advertisements and gigantic movie posters. If I can help it, I will never in my life return to Niagara Falls.

As we continued into Canada, we discovered a problem - we couldn't spend any money! At least, it was difficult. Not that I was excited by the prospect, having just witnessed that abomination of Capitalism, but we were hungry, and wanted lunch. We were of course able to spend American cash near the border, but as the system was set up so that we were given Canadian money as change, we took a big hit from the exchange rate. We would be charged a fee for using credit cards, and during our short stay in the country, we didn't see a single ATM that accepted Visa - it was all Mastercard. We drove around some Canadian town, looking for food, and pulled up to a place called Spagucci's Mediterranean Grille, but it seemed not to be open. Looking closer, we saw a letter taped to the door, and around the side and back of the building, a total of nine parked health inspection vans. I shudder to think about the health codes it must have violated [all of them?] to bring down such an awesome display of wrath. Appetites slightly diminished, we settled for Quizno's, and were served by two extremely courteous Canadians. When we reached Toronto, having no money, I didn't buy anything at Rogers Center; such practice was a personal custom, anyway, which I had suspended only for the duration of the trip. Rogers Center was impressive with its cleanliness, retractablele roof, and hotel rooms overlooking the outfield, but its seats turned out to be the tiniest and least comfortable of any park we visited, and it was a bit off-putting to see the stadium so empty. It does have a large capacity, over 50,000, but far fewer than half the seats were occupied. We watched the Jays beat Philadelphia, and then, having unknowingly blundered into the country on Canada Day, were treated to the roof's closing and a fireworks show inside the stadium.

I love Canada: I'm envious of their liberalism and cleanliness, their socialized healthcare, their low violence and murder rates. By this time, however, we were ready to get the hell out, and made a mad push for the border near Detroit. Despite the rented van, it was even easier to cross back over into the United States; the officer didn't ask for our paperwork, and barely even glanced at us. Hungry and happy to have our spending power reinstated, we went to one of the only places we could find open at the late hour: Wendy's. We should have known, but it turned out to be absolutely the worst meal of the trip. Possibly the staff were offended by our raucous manner and decided to treat us to morsels that had been under the heat lamp since Thursday, but each of our meals were barely edible. K, in fact, took a single bite of his burger, and discarded it. But even horrifying fast food couldn't keep us down: we were back in our native land.

The post-Canada plan had been to push as far as we could back toward Chicago, and crash at a hotel somewhere along the way, but C was in the driver's seat, and simply would not be dragged out. At some point as the night progressed, he decided that we should go all the way back to Chi-town that night, and that he was prepared to make it happen himself. He kept driving and driving, and I alternated between dozing and trying to help him stay awake, and finally, we rolled back into Chicago around 3AM. K, who had slept the whole way, woke up amazed to find himself back in his hometown. We zombied up into K & L's apartment, and the final day of the journey would begin as had the first: in the great Midwestern metropolis.

Thanks to C's mad driving binge, we were able to sleep late. We awoke and drove toward the El station in K & L's car, and got a flat tire in the rain. After putting up better than 2600 miles on the Grand Caravan with nary a pop, whistle, or occurrence of external combustion, we lost a tire inside a single mile, after boarding a different vessel. We manly men affixed the donut while J & L looked in vain for the absent hub-cap, and mobile again, finally reached the station. Wrigley was a great stadium in an interesting setting. We walked that last several blocks, rather than transferring trains, and all of the sudden there it was, tucked right into a neighborhood. Our seats were above first base, so we could look beyond the outfield at the building across the street with seats on their roofs, and turn around and see downtown Chicago through the chain-link fence.

Almost immediately, the Chicago vs. Chicago game turned into something of a shooting war. The Sox put up two runs in the first inning, and the Cubs answered back with seven of their own [against Buehrle, of all people], including two home runs, one of which was swatted by Zambrano, the pitcher. The game played out in this fashion, and all-told, nine long-balls were hit. When the dust settled, the Cubs were still standing, with fifteen runs to eleven, having out-swung their opponents to avoid a sweep. I was happy; I really like the Cubs. They've got some exciting players: including of course Maddux, Prior, and Zambrano [and Kerry Wood, when he's healthy], as well as Derrek Lee and Juan Pierre. There was nobody that I was more excited to see, however, than Jacque Jones. I was heartbroken when he was traded after seven years with the Twins, but happy that it was to the Cubs. C and I nearly went hoarse with shouting when he came off the bench and hit a double, staying in to close out the game in right field.

And, just like that, the trip had ended. Turns out Wrigley isn't good with crowd management, and it took a lot of cattle-time to have our freedom-of-movement restored, but then we took the train back to K & L's apartment, had a brief goodbye, and left for home. We were in a hurry because it was getting late, and we still had seven hours on the road. We all [thought we] had to work the next day, me at 6AM, but keep reading if you're curious to see how that turned out. Here's to a great trip; C & J, thanks so much for initiating and including me, K & L, it was so nice to meet and travel with you. Hope to do it all again next year.

2006-07-11T21:36:00.000-05:00

The Great Baseball Journey, Part Two: Baltimore to Boston

The rain continued as we rolled into Baltimore, and we were ready. Baltimore, however, was not ready for us: we were informed shortly after arrival at Camden Yards that the ballgame would be postponed until the following day, due to rain. Our party was pretty bummed; from what we could see of the park, it looked like an ideal spot to spectate a good game of the old base-ball. Baltimore wasn't a complete wash, however; being from more than 75 miles away, the organization refunded our tickets, and prior to our brief call at Camden Yards, we had taken a meal at a little U.K.-style brew pub called the Wharf Rat. Perhaps the IHOP in Maryland had inspired me to try dishes unfamiliar to me: I ordered the bangers and mash, and was instantly smitten. The broccoli was a bit too beery for my taste, but the sausage was fantastic and the potatoes were deliciously fattening. C & J and K & L each split the Ploughman, which was described as a traditional English meal. It was mostly salad, and was accompanied by three types of cheese, rolls, and some mustard and chutney. I think the dish was less substantial than all of us had expected, but I certainly enjoyed observing its consumption while applying myself to my own food.

We re-entered Pennsylvania that night, and K's grandfather and step-grandmother kindly put us up at their condo in Mount Joy. Scheduled for the next morning was our departure for New York, and we needed to get an early start. Our hosts rose early as well, to present us with a large and satisfying breakfast. By that point in the trip, the morning coffee-hunt had become part of our routine, and that morning was our least successful, if most memorable, effort. J and I, the party's snarkiest coffee-hounds, had become accustomed to our daily latte and cappuccino, respectively, but the best we were able to do that morning was a Dunkin' Donuts, somewhere in New Jersey. I ordered my beverage and it was set before me, but along with it came perhaps the most perplexing question of my adult life:

"Did you order a cappuccino or a Dunkichino?"

Having no previous experience with or knowledge of the latter-mentioned beverage, I could only gape and try to form a coherent response. I finally grasped that my attendant had mis-heard me and prepared a nice hot Dunkichino, instead of what I had in mind. However, apparently still feeling adventurous, I decided to try this new beverage, and was joined by C. Together we determined that the Dunkichino was little more than the ultra-sweet, heavily-flavored coffee-like beverage common to Super Americas and Holiday stations across the land, but the experience provided us with the opportunity to spend the rest of the trip making suggestions as to what would have been the most humorous response to the original question.

Catching the first glimpse of the New York skyline was an exciting moment for me, having had a fixation on that city for some time. It took us quite a while to make our way up the West bank of the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge, through New Jersey, but it allowed us to inspect the city from afar. Here's a tip: if you plan on crossing the G.W. Bridge into the Bronx, take the bottom route, if you have the option. Apparently all commercial trucks have to take the top route, so there is quite a bit more traffic. Yankee Stadium is in the South Bronx, and our hotel was just a mile from it. However, having recently finished a book about a Housing/Narcotics cop who worked there, I was aware that parts of the South Bronx are some of the worst in the city. It turned out not to be a problem, as the hotel was on a nearly-abandoned frontage road, between an NYPD precinct and an NYPD impound lot, but I didn't feel completely safe during the walk from the hotel to the stadium. It took us through a very active urban area: we saw lots of people sitting outside of shops and hanging out on the corners. I saw a man working on his car, parked on the street. We walked past a garage with a closed cage-door; the car inside had a blanket spread out across its trunk, upon which two cats were sleeping. One of the men sitting outside a bodega asked me if the Yankees were playing that day; only a couple of our number were exhibiting Yankees merchandise, and I imagine he made the assumption that the only white people in the neighborhood must be going to the House That Ruth Built. I didn't see them, but C said he saw five pairs of shoes thrown over the power lines at one intersection. He took it to mean that they belonged to five people that had been killed. I had also heard that such a symbol can represent a drug-spot, or a gang boundary. It could just-as-easily have simply been five pairs of shoes, nothing more, but based on everything we saw in that neighborhood, we decided in advance to take a cab back to the hotel after the game, rather than walk back through after dark.

At Yankee Stadium, we saw Chien-Ming Wang go up against John Smoltz and the Braves. I was excited to witness some genuine New York-speak; a stadium employee gave us directions to our seats: "What yew wahn-ta dew is go ahwul thi way up thi ess-ki-lay-tuh..." K is a life-long Yankees fan, but I'm opposed to them and their stupid twenty-six championships and their stupid big budget and their stupid Jeter and their stupid A-Rod. [Here's a story from The Onion, a few years old, that I really enjoyed.] The only Yankee I like to see do well is Mariano Rivera, whom we did get to see. He has only one pitch, which he can throw at only one speed, and yet somehow, he's one of the greatest closers, ever. I kept an eye on his pitch speed throughout one inning, and sure enough, it varied only from 92 MPH to 96 MPH.

The Yankees-Braves contest was our only extra-innings game of the trip. It started at 1PM, and I began to get a bit anxious to go see New York as the game took longer, then longer still. After eleven in the books, C & J and I decided to break off and see some sights. K text-messaged us as the game came to a close that A-Rod had hit a walk-off, but by that point, we had beaten the subway rush, and were already in Manhattan. Having but a few precious hours in the city, C & J and I landed between Times Square and the Empire State Building in Midtown, and hit the pavement. We spent awhile walking around Times Square, and somewhere around there we went into the Nat Sherman store; two levels of pipes and cigars, smoking jackets and canes, lounges and expensive humidors, and salesmen in suits. [Though typically comfortable in such establishments, I felt a bit under-dressed in my tee shirt.] Hungry for some real big-city fare, we took a quick break in the first pizza-joint we saw that looked decent. I'm not sure it was strictly New York-style, but it was a good eating experience: there were twenty or thirty types of pizza ready to go, from which we ordered slices.

By this point, it may have been 7PM, and we decided that the best way to comprehend New York's scale, with so little time remaining, was to ascend the Empire State Building. To reach the summit required some patience. Though it was mid-evening on a Wednesday, there was a large crowd, and it took us nearly an hour of standing in lines, cramming into elevators, and being abused by the staff, to summit. The implied cost of the outing was deceptive; we were ready to shell out the $16 each, but once we had spent several minutes waiting in line, we discovered that that sum would get us only as high as the 86th floor. The cost to reach the 102nd floor was actually $30, which we of course passed on. After waiting in line to buy tickets, there were more lines to stand in, during which we were reminded several times that our experience would be enhanced by coughing up more dollars for express tickets, the audio tour, and the Skyride Combo Package [a virtual tour of the city]. After we finally made it to the elevators, we were herded off again on the 80th floor, specifically for the purpose of having us wait in another line, which happened to wind in front of a green screen. Everyone's picture was taken [no exceptions], and on the way out we were offered the chance to buy the photograph, with an image of the ESB and city digitally placed behind us in place of the screen. Finally, we got into another elevator to climb the remaining six floors, emerged into a gift shop [of course], and went outside onto the observation deck.

Once we had navigated all of the bullshit, the Empire State Building was completely wonderful, and I would recommend it to anyone visiting New York. There were a lot of people on the deck, but being more patient than most, C & J and I were able to secure spots against the fence after waiting only a few moments at a time. We spent a long time at each of the four sides, gazing at Midtown and Central Park to the North, the East River and Queens and Brooklyn to the East, Downtown and Staten Island to the South, and the Hudson River and New Jersey to the West. The weather was gorgeous; the breeze kept us comfortable in the otherwise humid evening. Turning around to look up at the top spire of the ESB really put in perspective how high we were, and how much higher it was possible to be. How did we build something so tall? New York is quiet from 1050 feet in the air. We could clearly hear a few horns honking, and emergency sirens, but otherwise there was only the rush and breath and pulse rising from all sides, of engines and electricity and millions of people being alive.

We descended again to the sidewalk, and K & L and their friend A split off again to go to Little Italy for some food. Walking around again, I had the strange sensation of being aware of the city's fractal nature, as though each city block was, in essence, identical in content to the larger city-unit we had just observed from on high; as if from my own height of six feet, there was an entire city's worth of objects and spaces and even people within every city block, the same as we saw contained in an entire landscape from so high in the air. That may sound a bit esoteric, coming from someone who generally abstains from mood-altering substances, but I stand by it. We walked past a homeless man, stretched out barefoot on the pavement, and into the subway. I remember thinking: "Look at this place; I bet it looks a lot like a subway in New York. Hang on, this IS a subway in New York!" It was as though I had a mental model of New York, which I always used in comparison with urban features in other places, and at that moment, reality caught up with the images in my mind. I felt like I had actually, finally seen New York.

The subway dumped us back near Yankee Stadium. There was plenty of activity around us, but nervous to appear too lost, we began the cab-search. Almost immediately, a dark car pulled up to the sidewalk in front of us, but it was completely featureless, with no livery markings. C ran up and asked the driver if it was a cab, who nodded, and we piled in. It just-as-easily could have been anyone with a car who had a mind to prey on some clueless tourists, but fortunately he dropped us off at the hotel. He charged eight dollars for the one-mile ride, but we didn't fuss, worn-out and glad to be back safely. Only as it pulled away, I saw a sticker on the back of the car that said Raja Car and Limousine.

In the morning, we drove to Boston. By this point in the trip, I was aware that I had become infatuated with a particular musical recording; indeed, I had found a Road Album. I had acquired Vetiver's To Find Me Gone a few weeks prior to our departure, and had listened to it, but not enough to make more than a subconscious impression. As with most music that becomes a fixture in my life, things began when a small part of a single song sneaked unexpectedly into my brain. I found myself humming it, and when this happens, of course you have to obey the impulse, and listen to the music. From that point it can turn out to be merely a fluke, if you find little else of value on the album, or it can lead you to discover more and more goodness in that recording, from that artist or composer, or even in that genre. I believe I've had experience with only one other Road Album, which is a recording that you are compelled, quite beyond your control, to listen to constantly and exclusively during a trip or vacation. During a journey to Indiana with my sister and Jimmy Young several years ago, crammed in the tiny backseat of my sister's car, I became temporarily and totally obsessed with Red Medicine from Fugazi. Likewise, there have been only a handful of recordings the entirety of which I have become preoccupied, wherein each track, one after another in random order, become foremost in my affections, until the entire album has been exhausted and thoroughly digested. Some of those in my elite ranks would be Hollywood Town Hall from the Jayhawks, Thick as a Brick from Jethro Tull, OK Computer from Radiohead, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State from Sufjan Stevens, and possibly even the Spanish dances from Granados or Symphony No. 3-cum-Danse macabre-cum-Carnival of the Animals from Saint-Saëns. I can't be certain that To Find Me Gone will become a permanent member of this Hall of Fame, but in the short-term at least, I found it to be both a perfect Road Album, as well as one which offers an abundance of satisfaction in every one of its tracks. I found the songwriting to be masterfully diverse, from the slightly psychedelic opening tracks of Been So Long and You May Be Blue, and Red Lantern Girls, to the somber I Know No Pardon, the gorgeous folk-rock masterpiece Maureen, the late-album Double, to the alt-country gem Busted. The Porter is one of those songs that, despite decades arranging the same twelve tones of popular Western music in different combinations, manages to be both simple and unique. Thanks to my new-to-me third-generation iPod, on the trip I had a diverse musical library always at-the-ready, but I had to keep going back to To Find Me Gone, up to three or four or five times a day. It simply fit.

In Boston, J's Great Uncle L [GUL] had offered to act as tour guide for us, starting with lunch at his place in Cambridge, and would be accompanying us to Fenway that night. GUL is a professor of music at MIT, and is in possession of a truly remarkable library of classical recordings. I tried to be sociable during the toothsome lunch with which he provided us, but I couldn't seem to tear my attention from his music collection. My own interest in classical music is not long-established, nor is it the primary focus of my music affections, but I couldn't help but feeling that I was in the home of a kindred spirit. GUL turned out to be the best tour guide we could've asked for, having long experience at Harvard and MIT, as well as in Boston itself. One of the reasons I find highly-educated people so interesting is that rarely is their knowledge limited to a single field of inquiry. As we strolled around the Harvard campus after lunch, GUL discussed the history of campus buildings, as well as of Harvard itself. He pointed out the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the only building in the United States designed by Le Corbusier, as well as a building by Frank Gehry. He also pointed out the two different styles of the Harvard crest, upon both of which the Latin veritas [truth] are emblazoned. Likewise, both have the word spanning three open books, though only the original crest featured the top two books lying open, while the third lay closed, representing either divine truth, or that which is as-yet unknown. More recent incarnations of the Harvard Arms show all three books lying open, which, according to GUL, represents the Harvard faculty's decision around 1900 that divine truth simply does not exist.

We then took a deplorably brief excursion into Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, all of the contents of which had been using during the university's nearly three centuries of scientific inquiry. I found the collection more than a little fascinating, and regretted not being able to spend the better part of a day examining it. The piece de resistance was a Grand Orrery from 1764. It was three or four feet in diameter, and was especially fascinating because its creator had chosen to leave its internal mechanisms exposed, visible from the sides below the "ecliptic" plate across which its planets, at one point, orbited.

Having only thirty minutes remaining until we were scheduled to re-connect with K & L, who had gone off on their own, we nearly did not go into the Harvard Museum of Natural History, but GUL insisted, for which I will eternally be grateful. It seemed to be an excellent museum, which contained an exquisite collection of species, but, I imagine like all visitors, it is about the glass flower exhibit that I cannot help but gush. The collection was crafted by a German father-and-son team, between the years of 1887 and 1936, and approximately seventy-five percent of their efforts are in Harvard's possession. Within minutes of beginning my observation of the collection, I became convinced that I was witnessing one of humankind's grandest achievements, at least in the dual fields of botany and glass-artistry. At first I was confused: most of the 847 species on display featured enlarged anatomical sections next to life-size representations of the entire flower, and I felt certain that it must be only the anatomical studies which were formed of glass; the flowers themselves must have been harvested from nature and preserved. GUL, however, brought me up to speed by explaining that everything, each complete flower included, was genuinely, astoundingly, vitreous. Each broad leaf and slender stem, each stamen and pistil were formed and colored with such delicacy and subtlety as to baffle the senses. The exhibit challenged me to re-examine my notions of creations of nature; I was used to looking at natural objects and accepting the perfection of each of their aspects simply because they were, indeed, natural objects. A lily or a lilac or a rhododendron is perfect simply because it is; there is no other way for it to be. And here, before me, were examples of the same transient evolutionary perfection, but generated artificially by human hands; yet to scrutinize the most minute and detailed root structure or row of feathery petals offered no visual indication of that synthetic nature.

I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but after having a look at a few other structures on the Harvard campus, such as the aristocratic Freshman Dining Hall [as well as a clandestine peek at its attached, gorgeous and immaculate Sanders Theater] we headed over to Legal Sea Foods, a celebrated seafood spot in a city known for such fare, for one of the finest meals of my young life. GUL is a regular visitor to the establishment, and very generously spared us the stress of having to budget for such an exceptional dining experience. Unlike those at many finer restaurants [in my extremely limited experience], the menu at Legal Sea Foods was packed with dishes, nearly all of them beckoning me. I nearly chose the path taken by both C & J, which was a lobster and goat's cheese sandwich, but in the end I settled on the wood-grilled assortment, which was three pieces of fish of the chef's choosing, as well as three shrimps, three scallops, and two side dishes. The fish turned out to be tuna, halibut, and salmon, which is exactly what I would have ordered, given the choice. For side dishes, I decided on snap peas and polenta. Now, I love fish, and I love it best when prepared by itself; I prefer not to have too many other flavors competing with its fish-fleshy taste, and that's exactly what I got. Also, the snap peas were good, and the shrimps were certainly the best I've ever had. But for me, the scallops and the polenta were absolutely the crown-jewels of the meal. I'm sure I must have had polenta before [haven't you?], but I couldn't exactly remember when, or what it tasted like, or really, even what it was. Either way, I certainly hadn't had polenta like this before. With its lightness, its tones of cheddar and jalapeño, and its marvelously delectable consistency, that was one "side dish" about which I won't soon forget. And the scallops? What can you say about those moist and warm, seared and squishy sacs of sea-flesh? I can really only think of one word: ambrosial. And there is really only one phrase I can think of to summarize the feast in general: It knocked my socks on their ass.

Continuing our nation-wide tour of Public Transportation, we took the subway to Fenway. Appropriately, the BoSox-Mets game was the most fun of our entire trip [with the possible exception of our upcoming return to the Windy City]. I was looking forward to Fenway more than any other stadium, and it didn't disappoint. The game was, of course, sold out, and in fact we had been forced to purchase our tickets from an online-based scalper, paying $60 apiece for last-row outfield seats. It was totally worth it. Despite losing some favorites from the amazing 2004 season [particularly the traitor Damon, about whom we will never speak again], the Red Sox are really a fun team. One of my perennial favorites is Manny Ramirez, and GUL related a hilarious tale of that strange outfielder finding and disappearing into a hidden door in the scoreboard below the Green Monster, during a game. The crowd at the game was extremely enthusiastic, and there seemed to be nearly as many Mets fans as Boston fans, at least in our vicinity. The chants were constant and furious, and constantly turned over from LET'S GO RED SOX into LET'S GO METS, and back again. At points, the people in the crowd were able to put aside their differences, finding common ground, and YANKEES SUCK thundered across the park. This sentiment made its way into the bathrooms as well; I heard the same phrase during my visits, and C reported hearing such remarks as "Whaddya think this is, a Yankees bathroom? Get outta he-yah!" [Boston accent]. We got to see David Ortiz blast a dinger, and in the ninth we witnessed the young master Papelbon come in with his 0.41 ERA to secure the Boston victory.

After the game, the subway home was about as surreal a mass transit trip as is possible. The cars were, of course, completely packed, and our little group was the last to squeeze in. Standing there, looking at each other, suddenly the speakers crackled to life, and in a haunted-house, evil-genius voice, the driver started in: "Ta-ake me out to the ba-all ga-ame..." Instant mayhem, as the entire car joined in. As we approached another stop, the platform crowded with prospective riders, the driver remarked to us: "I have no idea how those people are going to fit in here." Gliding to a stop, he repeated the sentiment over the outside speakers to those poor souls. With the train standing still, doors wide open, us looking at them and them looking at us, C broke out with another verse of the song, which again was taken up by everyone in the car. The doors slid shut and we left them all behind. During the rest of the journey, the driver treated us to some other baseball-related songs, and some jokes. Back in Cambridge, GUL provided us with a driving-tour of the MIT campus, and then we dropped him off on our way out of town. Handshakes and hugs were exchanged, and that was Boston.

2006-07-11T21:33:00.000-05:00

The Great Baseball Journey, Part One: Chicago to Washington, D.C.

I left Minneapolis with the husband-and-wife team of C & J on Friday, 23 June 2006, and we drove to Chicago to connect with the husband-and-wife team of K & L, and to see the White Sox play the Houstros. I'd been to Chicago before, but long ago, and on that trip we didn't even approach the Public Transportation system, opting instead to be chauffeured around by a native Chicagoan that happened to be traveling with us. Thus, on this trip I was suitably impressed to ride the El; to look down on rooftops and take in the apparently high population density. The game was good; we saw S-Pod hit his first career grand slam to propel the Sox to their eighth-straight victory. Not that we liked to see them win; around the time of our return, our Twins had won an incredible nineteen of their last twenty games, but still remained nine games out in the AL Central, behind Detroit and the Chi-Sox.

One notion that became repeatedly apparent to me during the trip is that every aspect of the game of professional baseball is for sale. I had of course been familiar with billboards and other advertisements that make up the landscape at any major-league ballpark, as well as such disgraces as commercially-sponsored Pitching Changes, but traveling to a field that had recently been renamed for the U.S. Cellular corporation was a bit disgusting, as was arriving to see the Golden Arches in the spot of highest prominence.

We stayed that night at K & L's apartment, and breakfasted at Tre Kronor, a local Swedish cafe, at which J had been employed during part of her former life in Chicago. I had a spinach-and-cheese omelet, which was a bit watery but quite agreeable, and toasted limpa, a sweet Swedish bread. A few jokes were made connecting the limpa to Tolkein's lembas. After breakfast we left for a KOA in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I was perhaps a bit overexcited to be seeing Michigan for the first time, and forced everyone in our rented Grand Caravan [the Cadillac of minivans] to listen to Sufjan Stevens' seminal recording. K brought us to DiBella's for lunch, a sub shop with a location in Ann Arbor. I had a Philly cheesesteak that made me grin like an idiot. At the KOA we set up camp among our, er, lower-income campmates (K made a related joke that the showers probably would be largely unoccupied for us in the morning), and drove into Detroit to see the Tigers beat St. Louis, a game which turned out to be the meat in their sweep-sandwich. We hadn't secured tickets before the game, and were surprised to find only standing-room berths available. It was not a problem, however, because Comerica Park turned out to be something of an amusement park, which happened to have a baseball game being played out in its center. We watched half the game, and decided to have a look at the park's other aspects. We had a burger at Big Boy, and C and I took swings in a batting cage. I made contact with most of my pitches, but the majority of them probably would have become fouls if allowed to travel beyond the net. C, however, connected solidly with most of his, and probably batted .750 during his session.

Comerica is interesting because all visitors are allowed to walk around the corridor behind the seats, and even linger to watch the game from behind home plate, which was our course. Once there, however, we once again came up against that pervasive beast, Capitalism, in the form of a high-pressure housing-addition sales booth. We were informed by its representative that we were "loitering" near his booth, which he would allow only if we filled out forms with our personal contact information. I tried to defend with the "I don't own a house; what am I going to do with a basement?" argument, but he was quite immune, and we consented to share our information. Having recently completed a discussion with K & C about the progression of American presidents, I became James Monroe. C & J became Tom and Jan Anderson, and K & L, K being of Asian descent, became Sun and Fran Yun Kim.

As the trip went on, I began to make discoveries of items that I had managed to leave home without. These were, in descending order of importance: Socks [more than one pair], camera [hence the lack of original images accompanying this post], shoes [other than the Crocs I was wearing], and belt. At a CVS Pharmacy, somewhere in Michigan, I replaced one of these items when I found a $6 reversible black-and-brown jobbie to help prevent myself from being pantsed.

After baking in the Cleveland sun while watching Sowers' debut against Cincinnati, we spent a few days being wet. The rain began during the night at our stay at another KOA outside Pittsburgh, and slowed long enough for us to relocate to Cherry Hill Park, a coven for comfort-campers outside Washington, D.C. We constructed a fortress against rain with two large tarps over our tents, and were on our way into Our Nation's Capital when it really hit. I was soaked inside of five minutes. However, we persevered and spent a soggy day in D.C., walking around the Mall to have a look at the monuments. [By the way, the subways in D.C. have got to be the cleanest and most appealing subways in the Nation.] We spent some time in a small sanctuary when the rain came hard again, watching with fellow pilgrims as a rain-river flowed in one side of the open-sky structure and out another. I had another opportunity to check up on my favorite memorial, old man Lincoln:

IN THIS TEMPLE
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER.

In D.C. I made the second of my replacement-purchases, finding some inexpensive socks at a store in L'Enfant Plaza. We had a meal at Capital City Brewery; I had a salad with sesame-rolled salmon [and some of L's nachos], and a glass of very strange root beer. That night was our third and final night camping, and we survived dryly: the fortress held. The next morning, C & J rose early and went back into the city, to Arlington. I had intended to go back and spend the day at various museums, but C sent a text-message that most of them were closed due to flooding, so K & L and I spent the day in College Park, Maryland. They escorted me to my first IHOP experience, and we played pool and air-hockey while doing some much-needed laundry. Later that day, at Target, I completed my collection of missing items with a $20 pair of sneakers, and it was on to a decidedly more cosmopolitan leg of the adventure.

2006-06-22T21:20:00.000-05:00

Although the work I do has nothing to do with particle physics, the other day my colleagues and I discovered a number of new elementary particles. Along with the well-known protons, electrons, and neutrons, as well as the lesser-known families of bosons, mesons, and fermions, science is now able to describe the quantum world with a great deal more accuracy and sophistication due to our contributions of the clipon, the klingon, the tampon, the moron, the strapon, and the clapon (and its anti-particle, the clapoff). Pictured above is an artist's depiction of what a clapon might look like.

Actually, it's my conceptual flowchart map of the Great Baseball Journey, which commences tomorrow morning at 9am. For the geographically-challenged, we're looking at Minneapolis to Chicago to Detroit to Cleveland to Pittsburgh [no baseball] to DC [no baseball] to Baltimore to New York to Boston to Toronto to Chicago [again], with non-game highlights including Cooperstown and Niagara Falls. I only have one memory card for my little camera, which equals about 130 photographs, but hopefully I'll have enough decent images on my return, a week from Sunday, to make a mini-feature on the Journey.

Had a nice weekend up north. Points of interest: Brother turned 21; Father's Day; Hung out at Big Lou's; Dad caught a chipmunk in the garden and humanely relocated it; took a picture of Dorsey reclining on her new Special Bed, had lunch at the Great Wall with John P, just as we did during AP Comp in high school.

2006-06-15T20:19:00.000-05:00

The estimate of the number of people that have been born on this planet, since the dawn of the species at around 50,000 B.C., according to the Population Reference Bureau, is about 106.5 billion. The world population today is about 6.5 billion. In 1961, the population was 3 billion. In 1987, the population was 5 billion. It is estimated that the population will reach 9 billion around the year 2050.

2006-06-14T18:13:00.000-05:00

One Japanese yen is roughly equal to eight-tenths of a United States cent. One Vietnamese đồng is roughly equal to six-thousandths of a United States cent. One Zimbabwean dollar is roughly equal to one-thousandth of a United State cent, though in 1980, it was roughly equal to 1.47 United States dollars. One Kuwaiti dinar is roughly equal to 3.42 United States dollars. One ounce of platinum is roughly equal to 1,139 United States dollars.

2006-06-13T19:11:00.000-05:00

I've listened to Scattering Stars Like Dust several more times, and have decided that it is a really, really good album. As is customary after discovering an artist whom I find agreeable, I have acquired more of his recordings: In the Mirror of the Sky with Ali Akbar Moradi and Night Silence Desert with Mohammad Reza Shajarian. I've also been listening to Hamza el Din [pictured], who was a famous oudist and preeminent Nubian musician. He died recently; only about a month ago. Believe it or not, it wasn't my first experience with Nubian music: I've had a crush on From Nubia To Cairo from Ali Hassan Kuban for quite some time now, who has updated the form and even allowed it to be influenced by Western music. Hamza el Din and Ali Hassan Kuban: the traditional and the modern of Nubian music.

I recently finished reading Blue Blood by the Harvard-educated Edward Conlon. It is a book about the first eight or so years of his career as a police officer in the south Bronx, mostly in Housing and Narcotics. Aside from an ample and tasty helping of the obligatory anecdotal narrative, the book covers a lot of history: Conlon family history as well as cultural and political history of both the NYPD and of New York itself. I was attracted to the book because of my perennial fascination and terrifying dread of inner-city decay, particularly in our greatest urban area. Along with the tales of political exasperation, and the depressing and draining segments (such as tours at the Fresh Kills landfill, sifting through debris from the World Trade Center) there were several screamingly funny parts. I particularly enjoyed the following passage:

We collared, and learned how to work an odd little cat-and-mouse OP for 175 Alex, handicapped as we were by uniforms and a marked car, available for jobs at any moment. The building had a back door, so we'd have to wait for someone to walk out in order to make a sneak attack on the dealers in the lobby. One night we had an inspiration to send someone in to open it up for us. We drove a few blocks away, to the prostitution strip down on Jackson Avenue, and made the acquaintance of two ladies named Melissa and Snake. Snake explained that her boyfriend lived in the building and that she couldn't go there, but Melissa figured that opening a door for five bucks would be the easiest money she made that night. But we waited in vain - Melissa went to the wrong building, and Snake marched straight to 175 Alex to warn the dealers.

"What's the world coming to, when you can't trust a whore named Snake?"

2006-06-10T11:52:00.000-05:00

I played golf last weekend with my erstwhile Golf Buddy [at right], at the Theodore Wirth Par 3 course. It was a beautiful day, although warm, and I was pleased to discover that my already negligible club skills haven't decayed as far as I'd feared, despite a year's disuse. That being said, I was still able to unleash my signature move, which involves the ball, being struck, proceeding along a vector roughly ninety degrees contrary from that which was intended. This strategy was first employed, by the author, while playing at the related sport of Disc Golf, during the 2004 season. This historic, and still unrivaled hurl was enhanced by a rigorous headwind, and the transmitted projectile came to rest in a position decidedly more distant from the target basket than its point of release.

Of late, my abiding musical interests lie to the East, though only as far as the Middle East, contrary to Special Agent Dale Cooper's Tibet or Dr. Jacoby's Hawaii. I heard Istanbul 1925, a compilation from the Traditional Crossroads label, which provides an "intriguing snapshot into a culture being dragged into the 20th century, even as the call of the past remained strong" (Chris Nickson, eMusic). Even more intriguing, however, I've found Udi Hrant Kenkulian, a blind Armenian oud player (oudist?), Mysteries of Turkey from Talip Ozkan, Solos And Melodies from The Andelus Ensemble (Syria), Apricots from Eden from Djivan Gasparyan (Armenia), and the masterful Scattering Stars Like Dust from Kayhan Kalhor (Iran).

Based partially on this newfound interest in that somewhat troubled part of the world, I've decided that my next tobacco pipe will be a meerschaum. I would imagine that the white mineral is the most common and popular pipe material, behind, of course, briar, and its primary source is the Turkish plains around Eskişehir. Meerschaum is an excellent material for pipemaking because it provides for a smooth and cool smoke, and is so delicate (although fragile) that it can be carved into immensely complex designs. Due to its porosity, during their lifetime meerschaum pipes will color, slowly turning from bone-white into a golden yellow, and eventually into a rich light-brown. I intend to first scout out my lovely local tobacconist to see what they've got available; otherwise, I've got my eye on the attractive specimen pictured here.

2006-06-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

So, I was thinking about A Love Supreme tonight. It was actually my first exposure to jazz, when I was fifteen or sixteen years old. It occurs to me that jazz has been present during three very separate periods in my life, and with each new incarnation it grew exponentially in both scale and depth.

The first period was A Love Supreme. That was it. Just one recording. I have no idea how I decided on that particular CD, or even how I decided on a jazz recording in the first place. It could have been that I had known something of the album, but I doubt it; my music buying habits back then were slapdash, at best. This is evidenced by the fact that the CD I bought wasn't the Impulse! masterpiece, but instead a minor-label offering called the John Coltrane Gold Collection: A Love Supreme. It was a live recording, complete with smatterings of applause at the appropriate moments, and the saxophone would frequently fade away as the man stepped away from the microphone.

I had no idea what I was hearing. I hadn't had any exposure to jazz in any form until that point, and my ears weren't ready for it. Apparently, however, some other part of my anatomy was ready, because after a while, it grew on me. I didn't understand it, but I certainly enjoyed it. There was a happy accident involved in the purchase of this crappy budget-bin disc, in the form of a fifth track, not present on the major-label release. It was Spiritual! Though a long, ten or eleven minute track, it was more concise and much more accessible to me, and though I would go away and come back to the genre over the next several years, I believe that Spiritual built a solid connection between me and jazz. To this day, it is one of my favorite three or four jazz compositions.

For me, A Love Supreme is something of a paradox. Looking at its individual sections, there are parts that I could do without. As much as I love jazz percussion, the drum solo at the beginning of the third part, Pursuance, seems like a bunch of wasted time. And as long as I have become a heretic for having said that, I might as well also admit that I've never been too interested in any of the fourth part, Psalm. That being said, I simultaneously believe that as a complete work, A Love Supreme may have been the absolute pinnacle of jazz itself, such a behemoth of American musical history as to be, more than any other jazz recording, absolutely essential.

Could A Love Supreme be called synergistic? Greater than the sum of its parts, and all that? I'm not sure that "synergistic" can be used in that way. I could draw a parallel to Dark Side of the Moon. If I had to pick one Pink Floyd album to be played at, say, my funeral, my inauguration as President of the United States, or any equally important event, I would pick Animals every time. But if I had to pick one album to offer to recently-arrived aliens from another galaxy to represent psychedelic rock, or even the wider sub-genre of classic rock, of course it's going to be Dark Side of the Moon.

It occurs to me that this is where my conclusion should appear. Although I received my high school diploma nearly ten years ago, it is still difficult for me to compose a written piece of any length without subconsciously getting locked into AP Comp essay mode. So, I am leaving off a conclusion in an attempt to break that tendency. And, because I'm tired. Goodnight, Minneapolis.