27 December 2007

Holiday Bloggy Goodness

Brought to you from high above the Great Flyover, courtesy of Apple Computer and United Airlines (although there will be comment on the latter): a year-end recap of 2007, a year in which no one in my immediate family died, fewer people got sick, and there were no incidents of grievous bodily harm from accidents.

Buying a house is hard work. Buying a house in a crazy market is even harder work.

One falls out of the habit of business travel, and returning to those habits isn’t always agreeable.

When one’s partner and beloved is also a best friend is a gift beyond measure.

Disco is back, and better than ever (see Envoy). Disco and punk had children, and their names are LCD Soundsystem and Justice. The children were separated early in life, and grew up in the United States and France, respectively.

The Dead Kennedys and Carlinhos Brown had a child and its name was Bonde do RĂ´le (RIP).

Lydia Bastianich and Mario Batalia are training more great chefs than anyone might imagine possible. Great food in Portland, Oregon is easier to find than anyplace I’ve ever been.

It is amusing, if somewhat disconcerting, to find one’s name is on the TSA “Watchlist.”

The McMansion is dead. Long live responsible housing.

Losing post-holiday weight gain with a personal trainer: $1,000. Avoiding gaining holiday weight: priceless.

Food trend for 2008: Fennel.

United Airlines blows. JetBlue and Frontier Airlines rock. Enough said.

The key to good familial visits is to ensure one is relaxed and comfortable before one arrives. Good food and great hotels also help.

I believe in global warming. I’ve also never seen as much of the United States covered in snow as I’ve seen today.

That is all. Happy New Year!

16 December 2007

08 November 2007

We Get Mail

From our correspondence today:

To: scory
Subject: NYTimes.com: Sleuthing for a Danger in Toy Beads
This page was sent to you by: LWB
Message from sender:

For all of your south beach holiday shopping needs.

New York Times
BUSINESS / WORLD BUSINESS
November 8, 2007
Sleuthing for a Danger in Toy Beads

By KEITH BRADSHER

A biochemical geneticist's story demonstrates how recalls come about, in a time when they are becoming routine.


From: scory
To: LWB

I wonder if Tom Friedman counts this amongst the benefits of globalization?


From: LWB
To: scory
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com: Sleuthing for a Danger in Toy Beads

Being able to buy GHB at Toys R Us? Probably. Certainly lower costs compared to buying the stuff on the street -- and fewer American jobs. Makes those Babes in Toyland parties seem less absurd. Maybe there's pot in Holly Hobby Happy Bake Oven brownie mixes.

From: scory
To: LWB

We have gone to hell in a handbasket.

From: LWB
To: scory

We've been in hell in a knockoff LV clutch for seven long years now.

27 October 2007

Manhattan, Food, Sightseeing, Shopping, General Magic

The DP and I celebrated my 7th 39th birthday in Manhattan. It was Manhattan done right: some work (though alas, not enough to write off the trip), seeing old friends, getting angry at the changes in the city -- and enjoying what still remains the craziest, coolest city in the world.

The highlights:

The best Italian meal we've ever eaten at Felidia. Modified traditional service (head waiter, busboys, sommelier, table service waiter) and stunning food -- house cured meats as antipasti, fresh lobster ravioli with butter, chives, corn and cream, and salt-roasted cod. Simple food immaculately prepared and served with competence and grace. I've rarely felt more comfortable or at home at a restaurant -- and given that it shares the block with the Bloomberg headquarters and Le Cirque 2000 in the UES, it's not a homey or comfortable neighborhood, unless you happen to be a billionaire.

The Top of the Rock. The observation deck at Rockefeller Center, at dusk, on a perfectly clear and still night. While I loathe programmed experiences with a passion, the view of Manhattan and the Mid Atlantic region was magical. There are pictures.



Shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue. I love my clothes. I hate shopping. I found exactly what I needed (and then some), with the help of young Mr. Alex.

Running in Central Park on sunny September afternoon. The park was full of people. It's possible one might see more different shapes, sizes, shaded, sexes and ages of people somewhere. But I can't imagine the collection framed by more beauty. I will never forget looking back at Midtown from the Great Lawn -- with, I should note, Blondie's "Rapture" playing on the iPod. It's also fun playing "rich person slalom" while running down Park Avenue.

Strolling in Brooklyn and back to Manhattan. I've gone to NYC more times than I can count or remember. I've been to Brooklyn three times, the Bronx twice, and Queens twice. After Sunday I think I can say that I prefer Brooklyn to Manhattan. It's retained what made NYC specials: a sense of place.

I'm trying to think of a better birthday, ever. But I can't. It was the perfect weekend, and the perfect gift.

26 October 2007

Nostalgia



The terrifying thing is I remember this advertisement. I stomped my little feet until we flew on TWA from SFO to JFK in 1967. Yes, they did become loafer-clad on my first visit to the wonder of Manhattan's many clothing emporiums. Yes, I have both the menu and the "pilot's wings" from the flight. And yes, we did arrive at the Saarinen terminal, and it was fantastic.

13 October 2007

Recherche du temps perdu

A meta post, about not blogging.

Having just returned from a conference on technology, in which the social changes technology is enabling and facilitating was much discussed, I've realized that I'm a socially challenged blogger. I don't post much, and I don't link. My always supportive partner has suggested that if only I wrote more, and on what I actually think about and do, and linked, I could become a solid third-tier blogger. Imagine!

I'm happy here in my little digital backwater, thank you.

And I'm happy occasionally posting. Life doesn't really allow me enough time to be reflective and constructive. So you get what you get.

Also, buying a house doesn't allow much free time. Who knew there was so much to do?

24 September 2007

Who's your daddy, W?

Really, this snippet from the OMB website says it all:

Tips for better results:

* Check your syntax.
* Make sure to use the correct spelling.
* Use the correct case (uppercase for capitalized names, lowercase for common words and phrases).
* Use a comma to separate capitalized names or phrases.
For example: Richard Cheney, George W. Bush
* Try synonyms and variations of words.
For example: CDROM, CD-ROM

I'm sure it's just coincidence that Vice-Emperor Chee-neeh is listed first. An accident, even.

14 August 2007

Music

My "mission statement" for this blog was to include music in some way, shape or form. Well, this might be the moment at which I accomplish this.





This is a tiny part of what's on my iPod.

05 August 2007

Summer


Peach Blackberry Cobbler. Yes, it is as good as it looks. Yes, it was baked at home. Yes, there is a recipe, and no, it wasn't published by Cook's Illustrated or the Silver Palate people. But I was influenced by both, and by James Beard, when putting the recipe together.

Filling:

6-8 ripe peaches, peeled and cut into 1/8ths
2 pints blackberries, rinse and cleaned
1 tbsp fresh lemon zest
1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Fresh grated nutmeg
2-3 tbsp tapioca flakes
1/3 cup sugar

Place the peaches and berries in a large, non-reactive bowl. Add the dry ingredients. Add the liquid ingredients. VERY gently toss all ingredients, using your hands, until the berries and peaches are evenly coated. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Once the peaches and berries have macerated, place them in an 11" glass baking dish. The dish should be about 2" deep to hold the berries.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once the oven reaches 350 degrees, place the filled baking dish in the bottom of the oven for 10 minutes. The peach-berry filling should just be starting to bubble.

Cobbler:
1 1/3 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
6 tbsp butter, cold, cut into 1/4" chunks
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup milk

Mix all dry ingredients together. Cut in butter with a pastry knife until the butter and flour mixture has an oatmeal like texture. Add the milk and cream. Mix until the batter just holds together. Do not over mix.

Assembly:

Remove the pre-baked filling from the oven. Make sure to shut the oven door. Place 1-2" pieces of the cobbler batter on top of the filling, leaving only small breaks. Place the dish on the lower rack of the oven. Set timer for 10 minutes. At 10 minutes, move the baking dish and cobbler to the top rack, and sprinkle 1 tbsp of sugar on top of the cobbler. After 10 minutes, turn off the oven, and allow the cobbler to remain in for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool to room temperature.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

To reheat cobbler, place serving in oven-proof bowl and heat in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

01 August 2007

Back to the Future

I feel guilty for liking Justice, if only because listening to Justice -- and D.A.N.C.E in particular -- reminds me of listening to AM radio in 1976, which I absolutely detested in 1976.

Of course, listening to AM radio in 1976 also meant hearing "Afternoon Delight" and "Muskrat Love." About which nothing more need be said.

20 June 2007

David Foster Wallace is wrong

We've returned from the cruise alluded to here. I'm pleased to say we've returned both alive and refreshed, and genuinely pleased and satisfied with the experience of having traveled by ship.

While I can understand David Foster Wallace's reaction to a Caribbean cruise (and did in fact see much of the excess he described in his essay), it's easy to step away from that. The horrifying spectacle of the Lido deck is easily ignored on the Promenade deck, where in a comfortable wooden chair, and with the company of a good book, a journal, a pen, and a decent drink (a cigarette or cigar is optional) one can easily imagine they're enjoying recreational time travel back to the 1950's.

Then there's this:


What's not to like?

22 May 2007

Through the Looking Glass, or how a new passport tells so much

On my morning stroll through the blogosphere I ran across this at We, Like Sheep (where curmudgeonly snark is served, somewhat obliquely on a regular basis).

The issue of the new passports really, really infuriates me. My first passport (issued in 1985) was a standard, international type passport -- a perfectly acceptable, useful, document. The renewal in '97 saw a distinctly more colorful version, but still altogether acceptable. This, this travesty of a new passport looks like a fast trip to the bottom of the design barrel.

A passport is meant to facilitate the quick and secure negotiation of a national board, either alone or in conjunction with a visa. It should not be a tool for agitprop. What, you're gonna convince a North Korean border officer of the virtues of "democracy" when he flips through your passport on the way out of the Pyongyang airport? I don't think so.

You want a secure, non-tamperable passport? Establish a global standard for identifying an individual, then install a write-once ROM chip with suitable encryption in the passport, and write the individual's identity to the ROM when the passport is issued. End of story.

I'll save my rant on United States' currency for another time.

20 May 2007

Jesus Christ, Larry Flynt, Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell's death brought a maddening, chattering crowd of thoughts and emotions to me. Regardless of how you feel about a person's life, how can you honor and respect the pain their family and friends suffer with death?

Since Falwell's life was devoted to presenting a view of religion and spirituality that I found morally empty and repugnant, and that his conflation of religion and politics was fundamentally wrong, how could I act in a way consistent with my beliefs.

Enter Larry Flynt. Yes, that Larry Flynt.

I've never felt compelled to utter the words "what would Jesus do?" And Flynt never does. But his eulogy, and the relationship that developed between Falwell and Flynt that Flynt writes about is exactly what Christ preached -- and lived.

It should be an example to everyone on how to let grace move one's relationships.

18 May 2007

Weather apocalypse and fashion meltdown, or from our recent correspondence

email like this does remind one that correspondence is indeed a good thing. Once upon a time we wrote letters. Now, this


R --

the latest, in this year's series of weather apocalypses:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/wwamap/wwatxtget.php?cwa=lwx&wwa=severe%20thunderstorm%20watch

Is it not possible just to have bad weather anymore? Or is this one more way in which 9/11 changed every f*ckin' thing?

As you can tell, I'm in a cheery mood.

Ta,

S

You said it. Just in the last 15 minutes, it started to look like Mordor here.
The rain hasn't started yet, but I'll be surprised if there ISN'T a tornado.

Actually 9-11 allowed the WH to descend so far ethically that John Ashcroft
became a man of principal by comparison. Wonderful.

R

I'd love to say I'm shocked by Comey's disclosure, but nothing that's happened is worse that what I imagined would happen after Bushco stole the 2000 election and strongarmed the Supreme Court.

On a much cheery note, remind me to tell you why I will never wear white pants and a blue blazer. Hint: Gilligan's Island.

Ta,

S

S,

Unless you're also wearing a striped tie and boater (Perrin Tellock flashback -- woah), it's something best avoided.


R --

Add boat shoes, too.

Suffice it to say I felt I looked like Thurston Howell III. When fashion becomes costume, run.

I couldn't stop laughing at the image of myself I saw in the mirror. Hell, I've felt more comfortable in drag than I did in those linen pants and blazer.

S,

When pray tell did you wear this? #$%? Brunch with G's parents? The Eagle? Even more than Thurston Howell, I'm having dueling visions of the British olympians in Chariots of Fire vs. Ted Knight in Caddyshack. My brain hurts.

R -- the ensemble never left the dressing room of _-_, so there is no photographic evidence, of which I'm grateful. Meant as cruise wear, it served to provide much humour for me.

I decamped to ___s, and promptly bought a much more reasonable Hugo Boss brown, black and grey tropical wool blazer, chocolate brown pants, and black linen pants, and a Dolce and Gabana (!) shirt. None of which feels at all like costume, and all of which will be worn in multiple venues outside of the cruise.

I did abandon the tissue thin, white D&G shirt, the wearing of which fetishized my nipples and abs more than a snakebite kit and a leather harness. A lovely piece of clothing for the underwear model set.

S,

Those D&G bits of kleenex will do that. By the way, snakebite kit and leather harness is a phrase and image that will be with me for a while. thank you for that.

Speaking of perky nips, must we go through this every spring? May sucks. During the week it is blazingly hot as if it were July -- super fun in wool dress trousers and just in time to leave town for the weekend, the temperature dives 20 or 30 degrees. As far back as my first summer here, it's been the same thing every year. I still remember freezing in the rain coming home from rowing practices seemingly each weekend up to and through graduation.

On a funner note, you could make some really great party invitations by going back to _-_, recreating the look and taking pictures in the dressing room mirror with a camera phone. I'm just saying.

19 April 2007

Feeling Italian

French blue Hugo Boss suit - check
Very good dark chocolate brown shoes - check
Great heavy silk striped tie - check
Music for the catwalk (Louis Vega's "Dance Ritual") on the iPod - check

Damn, I feel good!

22 March 2007

Temperamental

It's been eight years since Everything But The Girl released "Temperamental", and in those eight years the music has grown and changed and deepened. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt are adults making music for adults, and much like Joni Mitchell's best music, you don't - you can't - understand all of what they're trying to do in a single listen.

Eight years is a long time between relaeasing albums. Thorn's been mother to the three Watt-Thorn children, while Watt's been producing music, running a record label, and DJing. Watt's music has been engaging and deeply funky, and his live DJ work is unfailing in getting people to dance.

Sometime in the last couple of years Thorn started making music again -- first -- first as a vocalist for Tiefschwartz, then on her own..

Her new album, "Out of the Woods" doesn't disappoint. Thorn and her primary producer Ewan Peterson choose from a broad pallet of sonic timbre and arrangements that fill out and frame Thorn's adult and painterly lyrics. The embellishments -- the strings on "Here it comes again," the pitch modified bass and the clinking glass percussion on "Grand Canyon" hint at how you might think about a song -- only to surprise you. And Thorn's voice and performance are stronger and more confident than ever. She's more a master now than she's ever before been.

12 March 2007

Lucky Penny

It's 65 degrees. The sky is cerulean and absolutely cloudless. I was planning on going to the gym, but why should I abandon the most beautiful day. I've seen in months -- and am appreciating completely?

When I sat down to write (what has become this) I found I was missing both my calendar and my pen. I saw a penny on the ground and picked it up -- a lucky penny indeed. This day is like that penny -- too rare and valuable to let pass.

Once upon a time I was more likely to notice and take advantage of days like this. Long bike rides, mental health days when 18 inches of fresh powder fell the night before, a long bike ride in the mountains or on the coast, the chance of two special gallery shows -- these are all things I've experienced and treasure.