12 September 08
More Spillage
The bees outside our door have been working on the nectar that’s been spilled by the guys working on a huge operation to get their winter food source bottled up. This is many gallons of sweet stuff that gets all over the driveway and everything else. Not so many flowers for them now, and they are going to get fewer as the fall comes in…
12 September 08
Tomato Corner
It’s the time of year when tomato trucks are traveling the country roads of Yolo and Solano counties. Some of them gather their wares from the fields just east of here, and then make the right-hand turn from the levee road onto the main road by our house. Some tomatoes inevitably spill out of the overfilled bins of the trucks.
When the first rains come in a month or two, the reconstituted tomato mush on the road surface is very slippery to travel on — be careful.
11 September 08
Lance To Visit Davis?
Inspired by a strong performance in a 100-mile mountain bike race last month, Lance Armstrong has decided to come out of retirement to try to win his 8th Tour de France in 2009. One of the races he plans to ride as training for the Tour de France is the Amgen Tour of California. Since Davis is a host city for next year’s Tour of California, being the starting point for the second stage of the race, we should be able to see Lance Armstrong warming up riding in the streets of Davis before the day’s race on February 15th. The trick will be to arrive plenty early before the riders depart for Santa Rosa.
9 September 08
Life and Death
This is an exquisite truth:
Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start.
Inquiring about a difference
is like asking to borrow string when you’ve got a good strong rope.
Every Dharma is known in the heart.
After a rain, the mountain colors intensify.
Once you become familiar with the design of fate’s illusions
Your ink-well will contain all of life and death. – Hsu Yun
I found this on the always surprising, always provocative Whiskey River this morning. I’ve been thinking more about fairyism and the meaning, and purpose, of art. About how Danny Gregory says drawing every day saved his life after a life-and-death event.
I am such a dabbler. A butterfly. I bring people together, give them food, give them work I’ve done, here, have a mudpie, it’s made with love. For the universe, but you’re here, as a deserving member of the universe. You have it. Have a poem, have a book I made, have a painting.
I have lived my life as though this generous spirit somehow let me off the hook of going to the dark places. But we are about to enter some dark places, whoever gets elected here in the US, and it will take only the most supreme pollyannas or the wealthy beyond measure to deny them (they may hope to be dead before New York is 12 feet underwater after the melting ice caps, because if not, they won’t escape either). The question will no longer be “am I really an artist” but “am I really a human being.” There will be tests. Will I be ready?
Here’s what I’m trying to work out, inspired by the likes of her and her and her: how to find wisdom in the dark places. How to be open to it even when it’s terrifying and seems hopeless. How the marks on paper or wood or metal or stone help to make sense of things when there is no sense to be made.
How, in other words, to have art save your life. Or at least contain, direct, preserve your humanity until you die.
8 September 08
Satire In The Park
The San Francisco Mime Troupe made their annual visit to Davis this afternoon, setting up their outdoor theatre in Community Park on a hot day ( it always seems to be hot when they come to town). This year’s musical political theatre was entitled “Red State” — the plot centering on the down-and-out town of Bluebird, Kansas who because of a improbable electoral tie and a voting machine malfunction wind up with the job of determining the result of the 2008 presidential elections after all the voting has ended everywhere else.
The trouble with political satire these days is that reality is now more outrageous than the satire.
5 September 08
Miss Your Forms From the Trace of Fairyism
This was a sign seen at the Beijing Airport, according to Steven Skaggs, who has a piece in the latest edition of Letter Arts Review. (The sign presumably was a little more clear in Chinese.) Although it’s hard to tell exactly what it means to Chinese travellers returning to the big city, for Skaggs, it’s a call to reject the superficial and pretty in Western calligraphy. The exuberant happy colors. The flourishes and hands that bear no relation to the content. The effete. Trite sentiment. Calligraphy as commodity.
Having been following the sudden intensification of the political landscape in the US, I can’t say I’m finding this call to darkness all that unappealing. I am moved by powerful art, which calligraphy can be, when it’s not concerning itself with writing out Desiderata or “I am not there, I do not sleep.” I wish I had the time and the skill to devote myself to a massive piece that would somehow make some kind of difference in this campaign. Because, no offense to 8-year-old girls, fairyism isn’t going to cut it. This needs to be more of the kind of thing I spend my time doing… I was pleased to see Skaggs including, in his searing call to authenticity, a request that people write their own stuff, not just quote the now hackneyed voices of others.
4 September 08
Front Row Seats
We took our friends Fernando and Belen to their first baseball game ever this evening. Fernando is a postdoc from Spain I’ve been working with this year, and Belen is his sweetie; they’ll be headed back to Spain at the end of the month so we wanted to make sure they had the cultural experience of seeing a baseball game.
The game we went to was the Sacramento River Cats playing the Salt Lake City Bees in the first round of the Pacific Coast League playoffs. We ended up with seats in the very first row, on the right field foul line about 100 feet back from first base. It couldn’t be better for a field level view of the action.
It was hardly a pitcher’s duel though. There were many hits and a good number of home run — by the time we left the River Cats were losing 9-13. We were cheated though: our plan was to stay through the seventh inning stretch but they replaced “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” with “God Bless America” played on the sax. The horror of it all. That was very unfair to our guests.
1 September 08
Paella
It’s been a long time since I’ve made a paella, not since before I left Boston. But it’s a great dish for a crowd (my sister regularly makes it for 25+ people). I no longer have my mother’s paella dish that fed I think 20, but when we were in Berkeley at the Spanish Table recently we picked up a more modest one. The key is that you have to be able to apply even heat to the full base of the pan, so the limiting factor is the size of your burner, not how many friends you want to invite along.
We returned to Berkeley today to Numenius’ sister’s and cooked the paella on their barbecue, which could, in retrospect, have accommodated a 50-person dish. It was a success, despite having left the lemon wedges in the fridge and the miscommunication about the alioli (I should probably have made it myself before leaving for Berkeley but oh well).
Paella: it’s all about the stock. I’m looking forward to making it again.
31 August 08
Trap, Metatrap, or Stupidity?
It’s been 40 hours since I first heard of Sarah Palin and I’m still shocked by McCain’s choice of a running mate. She has such an underwhelming resume that there is surely some hidden strategy here. First, maybe it’s a trap: McCain figures that the scorn that the Democrats will heap on her will lead to a huge backlash and her gathering a large sympathy vote from women voters. Second possibility: it’s a trap at a much higher level. McCain isn’t making a play for the disaffected Clintonistas at all, rather it’s a play for the hardcore rightwing fundamentalists. Indeed, this marks abandoning any pretense that this election is about policy at all, instead it will continue the metaphysical debate brought to the fore in the past two elections about pluralism versus fundamentalism in this society. (See LithiumCola’s excellent post today on DKos about this theme.) Third possibility — it’s simply stupidity on McCain’s part. His legendary rashness finally comes to the fore. Seeing that the Democratic Convention was turning out to be a spectacular success, McCain panics, backtracks on his plan to select Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who was apparently his choice earlier in the week, and finally settles on Palin at 11 AM on Thursday, needing a game-changer at this point.
It’s bizarre. But as they say, no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people, and that is the scary thing about this choice. There are plenty of people out there who think “oh cool, this women has five kids and got to be governor, and now she might be V.P.!”, only less coherently than that. People vote for who they identify with, and low-information voters are a trouble spot for Obama.
But I have a lot of faith in the strategic mastery of Obama’s campaign team, and think they will turn this campaign twist to their advantage. Put another way, Obama is playing go while McCain can only master craps.
28 August 08
Foods I've eaten
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros I will never eat fried eggs in any guise
4. Steak tartare (And she says she’s a vegetarian)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue The last time I ate this was New Year’s Eve sometime in the 70s. It was a bad idea.
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
17. Black truffle not sure what the fuss is?
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Yuk.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream From the great Italian ice cream place on the Castellana in Madrid in the 70s
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras On New Year’s Eve in Paris in 1982. Accompanied by the inevitable French handwringing about what a terrible thing it was to do to geese. I became vegetarian that night.
24. Rice and beans Often. I never get tired of them.
25. Brawn, or head cheese You’ve got to be bloody kidding.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper Too sweet. Oh, and very very hot.
27. Dulce de leche Made by hand in Argentina!
28. Oysters for comment, see 25
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl Yuk apart from the bread
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar I think so. I’ve done both but not sure if together and there are good reasons for not knowing.
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail only in soup
41. Curried goat at a Jamaican wedding
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk – no, goat cheese under suffrance.
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more – whisky is lost on me, cheap or expensive
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi yum.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle A swiss friend made them. I didn’t like them much.
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores yes. As a girl scout in Spain where all the ingredients were bought on the black market. Pathetic, isn’t it.
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian – no, often wondered about it.
66. Frogs’ legs Catalunya.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake Beignets in New Orleans, Churros throughout many a Spanish summer evening
68. Haggis Nope.
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho making it tonight
72. Caviar and blini it’s wasted on me
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill Pheasant. Not killed by me, but killed on the same year in the same county as I first passed my driving test.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie – not knowingly but how would you know?
78. Snail Oh, that texture.
79. Lapsang souchong Oh, that taste.
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict overrated.
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant — I don’t think so, just 2 star…
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash I first developed an antipathy to hungarian paprika here. It’s too harsh for me.
88. Flowers Sigh, yes, Napa Valley: you can’t escape them.
89. Horse See Steak Tartare, above. What can I say?
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam even battered, in boarding school. Pudding was spotted dick.
92. Soft shell crab Not keen
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish blackened only
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox under suffrance. The lox, that is.
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake snakes are holy.