The First 48: Rendering Unto Caesar, Rendering Unto God

For those who don't know, we are on vacation in Southern California. Please do not burglarize our house.

While we've seized the opportunity for extra rest and nourishment, we have also turned our eyes to a different sort of nourishment, which is to say that which comes from forming future memories and broadening one's experience.  Our first night in Orange County found us at Shakespeare Orange County.  Indeed, we actually planned our trip with seeing their production of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar in mind.  It was a marvelous production.  The cast was, without exception, superb and they breathed lightning and thunder into the words of The Bard.  I would especially note John Walcutt who played Cassius. Not usually a piece that I associate with this sort of reaction, his performance of the speeches imploring Brutus to join in the murder plot were so beautifully played that I was moved to tears.  I cannot recommend SOC enough.  If you ever have a chance to see one of their performances, let nothing stand in your way.

I also was able to see my old friend and Shakespearean mentor Tom Bradac.  Naturally, we were unable to bring back any photos of the event, but here are Laurie and I on our way to the show.

We were invited by our friend Cynthia to attend church with her on Sunday morning at Saddleback Church, which, for those of you who don't know, is the church of Rick Warren, the pastor who (among many other things) gave the prayer at President Obama's inauguration.  I think I'm being only mildly hyperbolic in saying that the church is about the size of Chico both in acreage and population.

I have something I do so often in life which I've recently come to describe as Warhol-esque tourism.  It came from a handful of Andy Warhol quotes (i.e."I think everybody should like everybody" and "I've never met a person I couldn't call a beauty") and applying them more broadly to institutions and ideas.  I also tend to take a lot of photographs.  It came from realizing my own natural propensity, and that of the world around me, to dislike things.  I do not wish to be a person marked by his capacity to dislike things (quite the opposite, in fact).  Put simply, I like to keep an open mind inclined toward liking things.  

There are a lot of people who dislike Pastor Warren's ministry (and, clearly, a large number who do like his ministry.)  They have their reasons (which I have heard at the usual nauseating protractedness that marks the speech of the hater.  Please restrain yourself from telling me why I'm wrong in how I reacted to my personal experience.) I came with an open mind and was delighted.

Here's me in front of the children's ministry building, complete with didactic playsets.

We were in the "Gospel tent."  There are apparently several sites on the campus to accommodate different worship music tastes.  Sheila E, she of The Glamorous Life fame, was a featured performer.  She looked fantastic and the music was excellent. 

 
Both Laurie and I found the sermon edifying.  Afterward, Cynthia took us on a tour of the campus.

I noticed two things about the demographic of the congregation.  I shall be blunt and state that so often I've found that the majority of church congregants, in our post-Christian age, tend to be the elderly, the infirm, the marginalized, or young couples with children seeking to raise their progeny with some religious foundation in hopes of inspiring character and what not.  The spiritual needs and wounds are immediate and at the forefront of the mind of the congregants.  Sort of a spiritual Naked Lunch atmosphere. 

At Saddleback there was a great deal of wonderful and heartening racial diversity.  The people (in general) seemed prosperous and in the prime of life.  They wore nice, well-crafted clothes and exuded an air of physical health.  I remarked to Laurie that so often these are the people who are not attending religious ceremonies because they have the illusion of safety in their lives, but that they are a group who ought to be reached spiritually because everyone is one cancer diagnosis or car accident away from needing spiritual comfort.  And, needless to say, we are all dying.  It is a church tailored perfectly for Orange County's needs.

Apparently, Pastor Warren took a large survey of non-church attenders, before organizing this church, and asked why they do not attend church.  The results lead to a great deal of the choices made in the organization of the church.  I would also hasten to add that the church is thriving, and I do not simply mean in numbers.  There seemed to me to be an abundance of earnest Christians, the outreach for a first time visitor was nothing short of astonishing, and the multitude of ministry opportunities were manifold.  They even had a youth building made with painstaking attention to environmental standards. 

 
Also, I found the entire campus to be quite beautiful.  In short, it was a lovely visit and a memory which Laurie and I shall treasure greatly. 

Also, there was an aquarium.

A Cry For Help and Another Contest!

Friends, I need your help. My next poetry writing entry is Bouts-Rimés. As you well know, this form is when the poet uses rhymes provided by someone else. Here's where you come in: give me a list of 14 rhyming words and I shall compose a poem using the rhymed words from the list I like best. 

As an added incentive, whoever provides the winning list (the list that I choose) will get a free copy of Death in Venice by Thomas Mann and a handwritten, signed copy of the poem (which will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars if you happen to still be alive 100 years after I'm dead!)

So, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your rhymes!

Let's All Write A Blues Poem!

We have now reached one of the forms that absolutely terrifies me. It seems like embarrassing myself is an inevitability here. It's not that I don't like "the blues." I think it's a beautiful form of music that serves as an outlet for a certain type of basic human anguish.

Our textbook offers a quote from Ralph Ellison which I think expresses the spirit of the blues.  He said that the blues "at once express the agony of life and the possibility of conquering it through sheer toughness of spirit."

I am going to sit this form out on making a video of myself reading an example poem aloud for two reasons.  The first is that the thought of me reading the blues strikes me as going beyond absurd and nearing the realm of the disrespectful.  I am that far from a credible blues man as you shall see anon (or, as you can see by how I finished that sentence out of the abundance of my heart.)  The second is that I feel that this form would be better served by giving an example in the musical form.  Here's Leadbelly:

 

 But we also want to include an example in the form of poetry.  When one looks to the form of Blues Poems, one could not find a better place than the works of Langston Hughes.  Hughes was one of the golden children of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote a great deal of blues poetry.

Morning After
by Langston Hughes

I was so sick last night I
Didn’t hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn’t know my mind.
I drunk some bad licker that
Almost made me blind.

Had a dream last night I
Thought I was in hell.
I drempt last night I
Thought I was in hell.
Woke up and looked around me—
Babe, your mouth was open like a well.

I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.

Ok.  So, I'm going to take that as a permission slip from Langston Hughes to use humor in my blues poem.  I've decided that I must needs go meta with my piece.  I am also borrowing from the first stanza from a joke blues poem I posted on Facebook.

The Paul Mathers Style Blues
by Paul Mathers

Oh, I looked in my cupboard this morning
I was out of Earl Grey tea.
I made Kadota Fig Tarts
and the Pinot Grigio wasn't chilled properly.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.
I'm just a nebbish who's feeling devilish,
I've got the Paul Mathers style blues.

Well, I'm a raging neurotic.
I've got my ennui down. 
My existential dread 
is known all over town.
I read the German philosophers 
and tend to agree with their views.
But my poetic cathexis compels me to employ this form,
I've got the Paul Mathers style blues.


The blues, it isn't in me.
I'd rather talk interior design.
The pedant in me recoils
from how I used too many beats in a line.
I've bumbled up this form poem.
I'll never be a Langston Hughes.
And that's why I'm a'wailin' 
"I've got them Paul Mathers style blues!"

A Few Thoughts After A Few Days of Google+

I almost had an anxiety attack while setting up my Google+ account.  I've been on Facebook for a long time and I find, to steal a line from Tom Lehrer, that Google+ is so simple that only a child can do it.  I thought I might post some of the pros and cons that I'm already feeling from Google+

Pro:

Every photo I've ever uploaded via a Google platform is immediately available on Google+.
I can actually identify my step-kids as family (major failure, Facebook!)
It seems to be moving toward a conglomerate internet experience.  I am sensing cobbled together elements of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and those sharey sites like Reddit or Tumblr and so forth.

Con: 

Extraordinarily baroque.  It's like getting a stereo with an intricate graphic equalizer and no clue how to use it.
Very few people are on it whereas most of human life is on Facebook.
Starting work on building my own internet conglomerate experience isn't practical for me.  I want it to be done for me, which is why I don't understand why people keep telling me that Google+ is intuitive.  If it's so blasted intuitive, why is there so much I have to do to set it up?  Those sites I listed in the pro- column which I said Google+ seems to be employing (or exploiting) elements of, I never needed a single article to explain to me how to get started on any of those sites.  I've read at least five to try to figure out Google+.  In short, I don't have time for this.

Currently, in my experience, most of what's going on on Google+ is people discussing how Google+ works.  I suppose that is as natural as my neophobia, but I would add that both point to something gang agley.

There are elements that defy pros and cons like the access to one's Picasa account.  I had a personal Picasa account once, long long ago, and I used it liberally until I filled it up to the point where I would have to start paying for more.  At which point I forgot that the thing even existed until I logged on to Google+ and found pictures of Laurie and I with vastly different haircuts than our current ones.  Then I apparently had Picasa accounts associated with my Blogger accounts (unawares) which do contain some more recent pictures of me, but mainly contain pictures of covers of books that I was writing about in a specific entry (images which I gravely doubt having a legitimate claim to any right to use.)  Facebook, on the other hand, contains many recent pictures of me that I've uploaded one by one over the past few years.  It is a Rome that I've built over time.  Now I'm being called upon to build a new one and I find the prospect unattractive.

Also, and I know I'm being difficult, but I can't tell you how much I wished when I first logged on that there was a tool by which I could find which of my Facebook friends are on Google+.

I also wish to say a few words about Circles.  The advent of Circles has taught me something that I like about what Facebook has done to me that I didn't even realize it was doing.  Facebook is a place where I have a couple hundred people watching and I write messages to them, share videos with them, and photos from my personal life.  The person I present in those messages is, I hope, the person that I am.

In life, so often I have found that I am at my worst when I say things to one group of people that I wouldn't want others to hear.  I don't want to speak behind people's back by any means.  People who know me know that I am politically to the Left and religiously towards Quakerism, and while I do have issues that I feel passionately about, I love people who I know are neither of those things.  So I seek to tailor myself to incline towards that love rather than stroking my own self-righteousness.  That love I have for those people is the reason I am there in the first place and not just off in some corner reading a book.  In a way, Facebook's limited capacity to limit one's viewers within one's peer group demands a certain amount of integrity on the part of the user.

Mainly I talk about literature and tea. 

However, I am not seeking to damn Circles (ten bucks says someone has already categorized their friends into Dante's nine infernal circles.)  As with any technology, it is not the technology, it is those who wield it who decide how it will be applied.  I remember the old accusation that Twitter is vapid, to which I always say, "Try following @stephenfry or @alaindebotton."  I could see Circles working very well in a situation like a book reading group.    

I am admittedly middle-brow as far as internet culture goes.  I have the natural interest when some shiny new gee-gaw shows up, I get an account, I see if it's going to enrich my life.  I refuse to sacrifice an ounce of my quality of life on the altar of new technology.  I have a sense that Google+ may end up only appealing to a certain type.

To borrow a gimmick from The Motley Fool: Buy, Sell, or Hold Google+?  I would say Hold at this point.  Hold until the platform is rolled out in full for the general public and watch for the first few weeks.  The moment it seems to be crashing under its own weight (like, oh say, a Wave?): Sell.  My primary concern is that I am only marginally internet savvy in a purely utilitarian way.  For anyone less internet savvy than I, Google+ seems to be totally perplexing.

My own plan is to have the account that I have, let it sit there, and see if it catches on.  If it does, I can swoop back into my account and play.  If it doesn't, I'll let it go like putting an opossum in an unsealed Tupperware storage container and letting to drift out to sea, making a lot of noise and commotion, signifying nothing.

Divers and Sundry Minutae

So, Gina returned from points far Eastern (Republic of Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, et al) with red wine and dark chocolate, craving Mexican food.  We are delighted to have her back.  Her arrival did occasion a few changes in our lives, all, I think, for the better.

We finally closed down the used book business.  For newer readers of this blog, for the past 8 or 9 years I have run a used book business, primarily online.  For about 5 of those years (the bachelor ones) it was my sole source of income.  Like all of life, it was subject to external mutations.  Economic tides mixed with advances in technology mixed with increasingly greedy seller's fees on the part of the online selling venues mixed with our total inability to have anything to do with maintaining new inventory and repricing due to having real jobs finally came to the crossroads where the business was very nearly only managing to tread water each month.  I had a liquidation garage sale this past weekend.  While the sale did make more money in one day than the business had lately been making in a month, I still have a garage full of used books.  So, there are more blow-out sales to come with even more severely reduced prices in hopes of getting our garage back.  

Laurie had been driving Gina's car while Gina was out of the country, so we also had the issue of transportation to deal with.  We bought the Volvo pictured above two days ago.  We are a little nervous because it was far too cheap, but it seems to run fine and they didn't impound it as a stolen vehicle when we registered it, so we've decided to adopt the narrative that we stumbled upon a great deal.  Now all that remains is to get the Grizzly Reaper to mow my old truck.  I like Volvos because of their reputation as safe cars.  I can't tell you have often, while whizzing around in automobiles, I become hyper-aware of being propelled in tons of metal with other tons of metal also whizzing around.  I am such a fragile 200-some-pound sack of meat in a world where so many others walk freely while mad, high, drunk, insane, unlicensed, despairing, all able to get behind the wheel of automobiles and hurl themselves around the planet.  I like the idea of my wife being in a car known for surviving accidents well.

Other than that, I still hack away at the script I'm writing.  I've moved on to rereading Truman Capote's Music for Chameleons.  Caught with a bad case of the mean reds, I still have set St. Augustine aside on a shelf, looking on dourly.  There is a niggling voice in the back of my head that knows that I have to return to and finish his Confessions.  I will not let Augustine derail my reading project, although the reward system I've promised myself for getting through his work will even further extend that reading project.  More on that soon, but needless to say, my recent Summer Reading post is turning out to be as outrageously inaccurate as New Year's resolutions and astrological forecasts.

Also, we're going to by grandparents this December by way of my step-son Tony.

Also, we are going on vacation soon.  

Also, for those who were worried, the fuchsia is doing well.

Summer Reading Update- A Surprise Upset

So, there's been an amendment to my summer reading list.  I am now anticipating getting through only one or two of the Harvard Classics titles this summer and it's not because I've found anything more interesting that I would rather be reading.  It is very rare that I will put aside a book and very rare that I will take a hiatus on a reading project.  St. Augustine has done it.

It doesn't help that everyone I talk to confirms my feelings.  "Like trying to eat a sweater", "dour", "self-flaggelation masking self-induglence", "great only in short quotes" are some of the phrases people around me who have also read St. Augustine have said in the past week as I aired my frustration.  I suppose it also doesn't help that I'm just coming out of the past year where I feel that I am to religion what Timothy Treadwell was to grizzly bears.  And it furthermore does not help that I am assured by reliable sources that reading the next title in the series, one by Thomas à Kempis, is a similar reading experience.

I always think this time is going to be different with me reading great works of Christian literature, but then I always end up fleeing back to dark, bleak Germanic philosophers.  I worry about what that says about me.  It fills me with ennui and makes me feel so disconnected from the world... wait, I'm doing it again, aren't I?

First of all, I have experienced no discernible edification from having read Augustine.  I am halfway through and while I can empathize with a few experiences that he relates and it did give me a reason to go study up on Manicheanism, I am otherwise at a loss for any take-away.  Maybe the pay-off is coming, but I am assured that it is not.  Second, it is one of the rare times in my life when a book has completely taken the steam out of my reading habits.  I sit refreshing Facebook while Augustine is on the shelf next to me.  It's terrible and something must be done.

I will continue with and finish the Harvard Classics series.  I am determined that I will make it through this series or die trying.  But I have decided to take Augustine in very small bites (perhaps a few pages a day.)  I have also decided to get my groove back with one of my favorite books, which is Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.  It's a book that Mann described as being about the "voluptuousness of doom."  It is a wonderful book about human nature, aging, love, beauty, truth, mortality, fear, and propriety.  It is a joy to read and I would recommend it to anyone.  In fact, after I closed my used book business, I kept all of the copies of it to give away like some twisted version of the Gideons.

So, there's my turgid little announcement.  Thank you for letting me vent.

Ta!

Let's All Write Some Blank Verse!

Blank verse is one of those emergent forms that pushed a change in consciousness to some extent.  Of course, the percentage of the world aware of the emergence of blank verse in English language poetry was (and I daresay remains) relatively small, but the effects were far-reaching and abiding.  Prior to the mid-1500s, people expected poetry to rhyme.  As I mentioned in my Paradise Lost post, Milton famously had to include a preface to the original edition defending and explaining the blank verse contained within. 

You know, I've been thinking about our own accelerated culture and this particular advance in Western thought to see if I could come up with a parallel.  I contend that in my lifetime I have witnessed a similar shift in cinematography.  Over 20 years ago, a camera that shook or ran or focused oddly was considered poor camera work.  In my lifetime I've watched the lo-fi revolution of camera work in places like Homicide: Life on the Street or famously The Blair Witch Project or more recently Cloverfield.  I quickly noticed other (arguably lesser) works in arts and entertainment adopting the style.  It's sort of the style of the POV of someone who has just run down the block and into the room where the action is taking place, focusing where they can, but also attempting to catch their breath.  Very effective in drawing the audience into the dramatic tension.  Which saves on hiring good actors I suppose.  But what leads me to make the comparison is the accusation, which I heard leveled by critics against all three of those pieces I mentioned, that the movement of the camera will make an audience member vomit.  I am not hearing a lot of reports of people vomiting while watching this sort of camera work.  We've been inoculated by these early pieces employing those techniques.

Blank verse usually had five major stresses or emphases in each line.  I usually struggle with not translating that to mean "syllables" in my mind.  The lines, as I've said, did not end in rhyme.  This is one of those forms that intimidate me, much like Brahms experienced in writing his symphonies, because of the heavyweights who mastered the form so early on.  I speak now of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.  They gave the form wings.

Speaking of poor camera work, Laurie was at work when I recorded this, so it is extraordinarily grainy, there is no movement of the camera, I stand in the doorway to my office, and you get to see me push the stop button at the end.  The piece is from Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.  It is Faustus' lament over his impending damnation.




As for my own piece in this form, I thought I would tend toward the dramatic in a hat doff to those magnificent Elizabethan playwrights.  I think I've mentioned before that I am currently working on writing my third play.  So often I find it to be the case that one of the many manifestations of distractions in the creative process comes in the form of coming up with other, possibly more immediately attractive ideas while you're still trying to write the thing that you are currently writing.  I already have an idea for my fourth play.  I seem to write about the tragedy of ubiquitous marginalization in our society and while the one I'm currently working on is filled with kinetic action, the next one is looking more like a dialogue driven play.   

So, as a thought-experiment and a bit of preparatory work, I thought I would write a monologue from that fourth play (which doesn't yet exist outside of my brain.)  I thought about setting up the monologue, but I think I'll leave the content up to your imagination.  I find it best to keep creative cards close to my chest up until the first draft is completed.  But this is a monologue that the middle aged, working class intellectual, married, neurotic Andre (me) is giving to the character of Evren, with all of her problems and neurosis, in an attempt to encourage the younger character through a time of great tribulation in her life.  We shan't get into specifics at this time.  You can find out more by waiting a year or so until I write it (and, hopefully needless to say, the actual play shall not be written in blank verse.)  This is what I've come up with:

Discerning an emerging narrative,
I offer some unsolicited advice.
I doubt what I have to say will be new,
But I feel that encouragement is always healthy.
This life is so lonely, harsh and brief.
I should like to always tread kindly.

My own hometown is full of horrid memories.
They are pieces of my own biography
over which I had no control.
Being at the helm of my own life now,
I have no intention of allowing them
to comprise the self that has mutated.

The self is like unto interior design.
It is a job which is never complete.
Even after death we continue to grow.
If one can mine joy from self-creation,
it is a joy that cannot be taken from one
in the darkest prison nor splendid palace.
They cannot touch inside our minds, Evren.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

The Eternal Seductiveness of Life

It's been nearly half a decade that we've owned this house.  One of the greatest pleasures and, in my opinion, arguments for home-ownership (now that we've collectively scuttled the "good investment" aspect) is the ability to garden.  Before we purchased this house, I spent many years with little pots and flowerboxes in windows of rented space.  Now I have an entire yard.

We have a mandarin tree, lavender, geraniums, hydrangeas, a whiskey barrel of mint, one of cilantro, a tulip tree, an olive tree, an evergreen, and several oaks which were planted haphazardly by squirrels.  We are very fond of flora and I find gardening to be one of life's great pleasures in which the divine is reflected in our toils.

But for years I've wanted fuchsia.  My grandmother has a profuse fuschia bush next to her home in Orange County.  It's been there for as long as I can remember (I would wager it's been there longer than I would be able to remember) and I've sort of imagined always having that particular flower in my life as a floral motif.  They are so vivid and such a lovely color combination.  But we've tried several times to transplant a cutting from my grandmother, only to arrive home (after a 9 hour drive) with a dead branch.

Tomorrow (perhaps apropos in also being Bloomsday) is Laurie and my 4 year anniversary and I finally decided to bring home a healthy pot of fuchsia in hopes of cultivating it into a mainstay in our yard.  Being a tropical plant, I worry a bit about the cold winters although I am given to understand that fuchsia has been known to flourish (as it were) as far north as England and regenerate after the harsh winters.

We shall see.  It is currently planted in a hanging pot on our front porch.  Wish me luck.

Summer Reading 2011

Taking a cue from my virtual friend Mixtapes and Cupcakes, I thought I might do a post about summer reading (now that the weather and the calendar seem to have finally come to a consensus.)  Specifically, I thought I would post a bit about what I shall be reading this summer, followed by a short list of summer reading recommendations for hypothetical people who are interested in such things.

The books pictured above are my own summer reading, not what I am suggesting for others specifically.  Although it's always nice to have people read along with me, I won't suggest things I haven't finished reading yet.

Of course, I forge ahead with the Harvard Classics Library.  The current volume turns its attention to early Christian writings.  I am currently reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine and next up I have The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis.  The next volume of the Harvard Classics looks like this:

VIII. Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers, The Furies and Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus
Oedipus the King and Antigone of Sophocles
Hippolytus and The Bacchæ of Euripides
The Frogs of Aristophanes

I may skip Oedipus as I read it about a year ago.  The non-Harvard Classics title which I plan to read this summer is The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  My father recommended it to me on the phone the other day and, as fortune would have it, it had already been sitting on my "to read" pile for a few months.  So, it is my intention to get to it this summer, possibly over our vacation (although it looks like our vacation calendar is rapidly filling with Shakespeare, art museums, and meals with loved ones.  I'm not sure how much reading I'll get done on our trip.)  Realistically, this will most likely take me up to the time of year when the college students are coming back into town, so that is my summer reading list.

I am given to understand that the concept behind "Summer Reading" is similar to the concept of summer dining.  One doesn't take sauerkraut and sausage to a light, white wine and salad beach party and, I would dare to speculate, not a whole lot of people sunbathing down the California coast are going to be laying out on the towel with The Gulag Archipelago.  I am not sure the list above is a Summer Reading list so much as the books I happen to be reading in the season of summer this year.  So, I thought I might make a short list of suggestions for those who are interested in a suggested Summer Reading list.  Here is something light, something dark, something modern, an abyss of a book, and a poetry selection.

The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology - I think P.G. Wodehouse is the very picture of summer reading: light, smart, compelling, and highly entertaining.  He may be most famous for his Jeeves character and I would say rightly so.  I recommend Wodehouse to anyone and this is a good starting point.

Murder of Angels  - Long time readers of this blog know that I've been beating the Caitlin R. Kiernan drum for many years (probably close to a decade now.)  I still think she is one of the best contemporary authors.  Murder of Angels is, in my opinion, her best work and a great place to start.  I do need to state that her work is exceedingly dark, so please do be prepared for that.  But it is a rip-roaring good summer book for those who like books that grab them by the throat.  I would also add that Amazon seems to currently have this title on extreme sale, so this would be a good time to get it.  Let me say in no uncertain terms, it is a wonderful book.

Nightwood (New Edition)  - Nightwood is one of those books that sticks in my mind long after I've read it, turning it over and over like a stone in my hand that I got from a creek-bed.  It is a dreamlike, modernist narrative.  The language is luscious and heady.   I was first turned onto the book by this article by Siri Hustvedt in which she recalls her strange history with the book and interaction with the author.  I was especially grabbed by the description of copious underlinings and margin notes and, indeed, I found it to be a book, although only about 200 pages, in which one can swim for months.  Highly, highly recommended.  One of the grossly underrated modern masterpieces.

House of Leaves - And speaking of modern masterpieces in which one can swim for months, House of Leaves is one of those books which transforms the reader.  The narrative within starts to seep into the life of the reader and lines between fiction and reality get a little blurry.  I do not exaggerate to say that it is one of the best books of the past 20 years and that everyone should read it.  It also happens to be a rollicking good read.

Letters to Guns - Brendan Constantine is a friend of mine, but I include this selection in this list because he is also one of the best contemporary American poets.  And I'm just going to cut and paste the Amazon product description for this book:

Letters To Guns represents a collection of poems that examine the para-physical natures of love and history, at times re-imagining both. As the poems progress, eight letters arrive written by non-human addressees (a nightgown, a grove of trees, a wooden spoon, others) at random points over the last 2,200 years. They are messages from home and pleas for understanding, warnings and promises of change. These in turn ignite other poems and themes which anticipate the next arrival. Taken together, the letters form an armature, a living skeleton fleshed by real and metaphenomenal experience. Throughout, a variety of styles appear and no single approach to poetry pervades. Singly, these poems should challenge and entertain. As a group they must transform and evolve our experience of sitting down with a book of poems.

So, that should give some of you a lovely summer's worth of reading.  Good Summer to you and happy reading.

Ta!

Podcast Roundup

I have a long, daily commute, so I work on getting as many regular podcasts as possible.  Occasionally I list the latest finds and post them here in case someone out there might like them too.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour- This is quite simply one of the best podcasts available right now.  No matter what other podcast uploads, if there is a new TAH, I bump it to the top of my playlist.  They are recorded live and they are shows in the style of old timey radio shows.  They are hilarious, but they are also incredibly well written.  Some of the best are Sparks Nevada, which mashes up westerns and space, and Beyond Belief, which is about a society page couple who have adventures in the paranormal.  I cannot recommend this show highly enough.  It is hilarious and gloriously clever.

Stuff You Should Know- I am really late to this party.  They've been doing this podcast for years and I've only just now discovered it.  Which provides me with a trove of 300 some past episodes to listen to!  This is a show where two guys explain a subject for laypeople.  The topics tend toward the sort of idle questions that impress people if you have an answer ready at hand (some recents: do you stay conscious after decapitation? What is parkour? What is molecular gastronomy? How do people get drawn into cults?)  I am regularly surprised by how often the information covered in their podcasts come up in the course of my daily life.  Truly no knowledge is useless.  It is also a bit on the informal side which aids in digestion and, ideally, inspires more in-depth exploration on the information raised.

And then I learned that there is a whole Stuff You Should Know world of podcasts.  One of the better, along with the original, is Stuff To Blow Your Mind.  The distinction seems to be more of an exclusively science focused podcast.  There is also Stuff You Missed in History which I like, but they tend to be short.  I avoid short podcasts on my commute because it requires pushing buttons while driving.  25-60 minutes are what I look for.  There is also Stuff Your Mom Never Told You which I have next on my queue and Tech Stuff.  There may be others.

Motley Fool Money-  This podcast is four guys, one imagines sitting around a table, speaking excitedly about a topic.  One sees this format of show with sports or politics.  In this case, it is the week's business news and the state of specific stocks.  They have a section in the middle in which they interview someone, usually someone with a book coming out.  The Achilles Heel of this podcast is a very short shelf life (it comes out Friday and, I would imagine, is dated by 8:05 am Monday morning), so I listen to it as soon as it comes out.  I would also add that while they are not purposely difficult in their terminology, they don't tend to slow down to explain concepts so one is called upon to keep in mentally.  The effect is a bit like a morning jog.  They are transparent enough to tell you up front that people on the show may have a vested interest in some of the stocks mentioned.  But really, aside from publicly funded news sources that don't rely on advertisers, that is no different from any other news source save for the honesty.

NPR's Planet Money-  Another business news podcast which does take some pains to put the cookies on a lower shelf and, for example, explain the IMF in terms that someone who has only just heard of such a thing can understand.  I want to emphasize my conviction that this is something sorely needed in modern journalism.  So often I meet, for example, someone who claims to hate the Federal Reserve because their favorite television or radio entertainment show told them to, but then gets spotty when pressed to explain exactly what the Federal Reserve actually does.  However, I would hasten to add that this podcast is not simply a sixth-grade economics refresher course.  It very much attempts to explain the current global business climate and, albeit very conservatively, to forecast a bit.

Enjoy.

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Every Bally Poem by Robert Burns

I have to start by saying I feel like I have made it over one hump in this project.  A quick look back at the list of Harvard Classics shows me that while there are still volumes of poetry to come, this is the last in the series that compiles every poem ever written by a single poet.  I have two theses on this volume to make right up front: 1) I enjoyed the work of Robert Burns immensely however 2) I strongly feel that poems are not meant to be read in this manner (looking over at my bookshelf, I'm suddenly acutely aware that I will probably never take down Allen Ginsberg's White Shroud or Cosmopolitan Greetings again except to move.  Why do I even own these aside from the latter being autographed?  Who reads White Shroud and why?), although I'm partly to blame for that.  In the interest of moving this project along, I sat down in long stretches and read the book like a novel.  I think it is generally wiser and more helpful to read a poem or two each day rather than 45 pages of one page poems in a sitting.  It put me in mind of Truman Capote's assessment of Venice which he said was "like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”"

The poems of Burns are, or at least were (the much poorer we), deeply ingrained in Western Civilization.  Like Shakespeare and Milton, a lot of the phrases we say on a daily basis came from his pen.  I share Dr. Eliot's feeling that Burns was one of the greatest poets in the English language.  His mastery of composition makes it seem easy and conversational.  I was always amazed and delighted to come across a great, classic poem in this volume of course (what with all of the loves being like red red roses, auld acquaintances getting overlooked, and all of those murine and homonid plans going agley) but I found that I was equally interested in the vast eccentricities included therein.

A good share of Burns' work are songs, generally rewriting lyrics to existing songs, none of which I had ever heard of before (so the titles read along the lines of "Nancy's the Cutie o' the Glen- to the tune of 'There's a Wee Clootie in a But an' Ben.'"  P.S. Not an actual Burns title.  It's a composite.  Like New York magazine does.)  So it's kind of like reading the lyrics to a new Weird Al album when you're past the age of knowing all popular music.  Except to the lyrical content of Burns I would employ the adjective "clever" rather than "novelty."  

He also wrote a lot of mean-spirited epitaphs for people he didn't like.  It would take an extraordinarily charming human to prevent this from being the very pinnacle of déclassé.  Burns is almost that charming.

The most inscrutable pieces, which left me clamoring for an editor, are the pieces which comment on long forgotten "current events."  I know enough from my travels in Great Britain and my vast library of Sir Harry Lauder recordings to make sense of Burns' often thick dialectical writing.  I know enough of history to hirple along with him when he brings up Wallace or Charles James Fox.  But even living in the golden age of the internet was no help when he starts naming a provincial minister who held some unpopular point of doctrine.

My knowledge of Burns' biography lacks coordination, I'm afraid, and the introductory note gives the briefest of flyovers.  I do know that he was censured by the Kirk-session for an unwedlocked intimacy with a young lady.  I sensed a somewhat jaded view of religion in Burns although I did not sense a falling away from faith, which served to draw me closer to Burns.

I think I like Burns best when he writes benedictions.  He was very graceful in these.  This passage from a lament for James, the Earl of Glencairn very much put me in mind of my friend Rob who passed away almost a year ago now:

"The bridegroom may forget the bride

Was made his wedding wife yestereen;

The monarch may forget the crown

That on his head an hour has been;

The mother may forget the child

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;

But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,

And a' that thou hast done for me!"

As we become more distant from one another even as we grow more global as a culture, the poems of Robert Burns are one of those literary treasure troves caches growing dusty from misuse.  This is a tragedy we all share.  I cannot recommend highly enough that you get a volume of Burns and read from it as often as you can.

Just limit yourself to a half dozen poems or less a day. 

Good Wine For The Rest Of Us- A Tutorial

omni homo primum bonum vinum ponit et cum inebriati fuerint tunc id quod deterius est tu servasti bonum vinum usque adhuc 

There are two types of people who write about wine: those who put forth the image of expertise and those who start by saying, "I'm no expert. I'm just someone who loves wine."  In an attempt to elucidate my point I shall employ an analogy.  When I was in college, there was a girl I tried to date once who was a fan of the music of Tori Amos.  I too enjoyed the work of Tori Amos, but the experience taught me something.  There are two types of fans of Tori Amos: those who love Tori Amos, and those who love Tori Amos and many other things in life as well.  Being a latter at the time, it was immediately evident to both of us that an impassable chasm lay between the two mindsets.

While I do accept the designation of oenophile, I am strictly an amateur.   I am never going to be one who gets paid to devote their life to wine.  Given my vow of poverty, I'm never going to be one of those people who get to buy a case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux and properly store it in a wine cellar for upwards of 20 years.  But this does not mean that I am doomed to a life of bad wine.  I do know a few things that may help the perplexed and thought it might be helpful to some hypothetical out there to craft a blog post on the topic. It is the next in my new series of "bon vivre sans crainte" posts.

You may have heard it said that a good, or even great, bottle of wine is not necessarily the most expensive.  I will say right up front that this post is not intending to be a full course of the subject of wine, teaching you about all aspects on the subject, transforming you into a fountain of wit and fascination at your next cocktail party.  This post is meant to fill a void that I see in wine discussions for the novice, which is simple direction on getting a good bottle of wine into your hands in a market flooded with variety, especially focusing on the audience who may have budget dictated restrictions.  This is my contribution to the question "How do I even get started?"

Where to buy:

Ideally you will want to find a wine merchant.  Depending where you're located this may be a small wine shop or one of those grand, lush (as it were) places with a bar made from the wood of a tree that Beowulf used to worship and a sommelier in a new and freshly pressed Monterey Jazz Festival t-shirt.  If you're in Northern California like me or in other famous wine-making regions, there are vintners at your very backyard waiting to give you tours, tastings, and exits through the gift shop.

Also ideally, a wealthy eccentric has picked your name at random from a phone book, willed their multi-billion dollar estate to you, and died, leaving you to a life of leisure, beauty, philanthropy, and solving mysteries.  In other words, the ideals above are the sort of thing that give the appearance of good wine being cost prohibitive.  I will touch on the "investment wines" briefly, but we are mainly concerned with the daily glass, maybe the weekend dinner party glass, in this article.  Above are the sort of places one can indulge in when one is on vacation or has a sudden windfall.  But what about those of us who toil and labor for our happiness?

General rule of thumb: if you could, not saying you would, but if it is possible to go to make your purchase and buy a Snickers bar along with your bottle of wine, you are in the wrong place.  A local organic food co-op is a good place to try.  The sort places you go to avoid other supermarkets and wish you could just buy everything there (e.g. Trader Joe's, World Market, Whole Foods) are also decent places for our purposes.

A few words on the largest wine distributor in America:

Inevitably in these conversations, someone trying to be helpful will mention America's largest wine distributor.  The largest wine distributor in America is Costco.  For those of you unfamiliar with Costco, it is to Walmart what basic cable is to regular television.  You pay a yearly subscription and can then purchase bulk items at the illusion of bulk item prices.  For effect I shall indulge myself in the hyperbolic and state that my experience shopping there is to Dante's Gluttony circle of Hell (complete with three heads guarding the threshold) what Begotten is to the Book of Genesis.  Yes, you can find a decent wine at Costco, but first of all, remember the candy purchasing tip.  Second, the purpose of this entire endeavor is to improve the quality of our lives.  While I cringe at those who apply the axiom broadly to all of life, I do feel that in the case of luxury items, the concept "If it's not fun, don't do it" is applicable.  Granted, I suppose for the more adventurous out there a trip to an emergent lugubrious region re-enactment society in order to bring home a prize could be fulfilling in a Greco-Roman heroic sort of way.  I cannot personally recommend this course of action.

What To Buy:

First and foremost, ask questions of people who know more than you.  You may want to bear in mind that the person you're talking to may have recently had a meeting where their supervisor instructed them to push a certain wine, but that isn't always necessarily a bad thing.  Just something to keep in mind.  As Socrates said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."  Never be shy to learn.  Ignorance is an opportunity to be seized.  If there is a meaning to existence, I imagine it probably falls close to the whole "we are the process of physics appreciating itself" theory.

There are, however, a few guidelines I would offer.


Eschew the novelty wines.  You may get a chuckle when you bring out the bottle of Scraping the Barrel or Cardinal Zin (and I hasten to add that these may be just fine.  I wouldn't know and don't plan on finding out), but so often the memorability of those bottles does not extend beyond the label.  Another rule of thumb: ask yourself What Would Jeeves Do? (you may even be able to procure a bracelet with that acronym) and then steer toward the more conservative labels.

This is your chance to explore and learn, try new things, and discover for yourself what you like and don't like.  I would also steer you away from Pinot Noir as it is not a varietal generally associated with the word "budget."

I look for a red wine with a fairly deep punt (the indentation in the bottom of the bottle) about two finger-knuckles deep:

"Why?"  Well, there are a lot of views of the punt out there.  I was taught that it has to do with the distribution of the sediments at the bottom of the bottle and/or, more specifically, that the wine-maker cares about such things.  If you are purchasing a nicer bottle of red, you will want to store it for several years and, when you do, things like sediment become important.

On the label you want to look for the word "Reserva" or some linguistic variation thereof.  Briefly, it is generally the best of the batch.

But the key to buying better wine on a budget is knowing your regions.  It's a bit reductionist to say that a particular region generally is known for doing something specific better than others, however "reductionism" is also today's secret word!  Here's a quick chart which you can clip and keep in your wallet, culled largely from The Winemaker Cooks: Menus, Parties, and Pairings

Northern California- sparkling and white.  Think "like the weather".  Zinfandels and Shiraz to be sure but any good wine cellar/rack is going to have Sonoma Coast Chardonnays.  It is also, for us deep red fans, the place for Cabernet Sauvignon, the king of wines, and Merlot, the archbishop.

Oregon's Willamette Valley- Pinot Gris

New Zealand- Sauvignon Blanc

France- Cabs, champagne.  All those clarets from the Bordeaux region.

Italy- Falanghina, Soave, Aglianico, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabs


Australia- sparkling, Rieslings, Chardonnays, Semillons.


Spain- Andalusian sherry, Tempranillo, Macabeo, Palomino, Pedro Ximenez, Garnacha, Verdejo.


India- Ah, my beloved India!  Cabs, Shiraz, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Zins.


Portugal-Port and Madeira


Chile- Cabernet and Merlot especially. Chardonnay, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, Rieslings, Gewurztraminers, Carmenere.

Switzerland- Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Semillon


Argentina- Malbec, Cabs, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Torrontes.


There are more, but there's a good start.  If this is for a dinner party, Chardonnay for chicken and fish, Cabs for beef.  Leave pork pairings to the infidels.  You're on your own with cheese and dessert.  That is far to intricate a topic for our purposes here.  Although I would take a moment to say that the dessert wines should be sweeter than the dessert and, therefore, should be poured with restraint.

A quick word on stoppers: In days gone by, a good wine was corked.  This is no longer accepted wisdom and you can find really great wine with screwtops and those weird polymer corks.  The days of recoiling from non-corked bottles are over.

When To Drink:

This is where a person in the know is indispensable in the purchasing of wine.  Some wines are fine to drink as soon as you get in the door.  Heck, in the car on the way home if you want!  Some wines you want to let age slowly.  Ideally you will have a place to store your wine out of direct light, cool, even a bit humid if you can swing it, stored on their side and turned every month or so.

How To Drink:

There's a reason why people keep wine in cellars.  You want your reds cool and your whites cold.

Use all of your senses.  Look, smell, taste.  Um... listen, I guess.  Remember that a great deal of your taste mechanism is ties up with your sense of smell.  Historically, the practice of giving a sample at the table at a restaurant and the host of the table smelling, then tasting, is vestigial from by-gone days when one was more likely to encounter a bad bottle of wine. 

Personally, I highly highly recommend a wine aerator.  They are not that expensive and I will testify under oath that they work with red wines (largely useless for white wines.)  They will make a great wine better, and a not so great wine better (we run a lot of Two Buck Chuck through ours.)  Occasionally you will encounter someone who calls them a gimmick, but it is from the same type of person who would say that an electric mixer is a waste of time because you can whip egg whites by hand.  Sure you can.  Sure you can.

There is so much more that could be said, but I think I've provided a skeleton.  Have fun and explore.  Enjoy!

Ta!

Let's All Write a Ballade!

You: Eine minuten bitte!  Haven't we already done this form, Paul?

Me:  No, that was a ballad.  This is a ballade.

You:  Well, you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer.

Me:  The ballade is a very old French poetic form.  The name of the form means "dancing song" which went far to inform my choice in material.  More on that in a moment.

This is, in my opinion, along with the sestina, most likely one of the more difficult forms we've tackled thus far.  One of the more traditional variations is three rhymed stanzas; final line of the stanzas repeat and the three stanzas are followed by an envoi, which is half the length of the stanzas, addressed to an important figure, and generally summing up the thesis of the matter expressed in the poem.  The rhyme scheme is as follows: ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC. Got it?  That's okay.  That's why the good Lord gave us examples.

Unfortunately I was unable to come up with an example of a famous ballade being read or sung in English to my satisfaction by means of example for this post.  So, I took it upon myself to record one for the occasion, which I probably should have been doing all along.  Here is A Ballade of Suicide by G.K. Chesterton, read by me.




And here is the ballade of my own composition.  Ron Padgett expresses that ballades are often tailored to a specific occasion.  That mixed with the "dancing song" lead me to reflect on this specific time of year.  It is the very merry month of May in which, much to the chagrin of my sinuses, everything is blooming.  Of course, May also makes me think of May Day, the holiday of the extreme Left, which also put me in mind of how we are in that time of year when there are very few holidays.  I love the Spring, but it becomes a bit quotidian in going to work, coming home, going on walks, and so forth.  Between Easter and Independence Day, I am hard pressed to think of any major holiday markers in my year.  But returning to the theme of Spring and dancing, I pictured togas and outdoor dancing around a fire, a rite of Spring feeling.  Then I sat down and composed this:

Bona Dea Ballade
by Paul Mathers

Play Now!  Beat ye a tune upon the tabor!
Phoebus reflecting on verdant Spring's moon.
To mark the end of a warm day's labor
a draught, a dance, a merry piper's tune,
we shed our clothes, our wintery cocoon.
Invoke Terpsichore and Bacchus with lyre.
Our joy and hope to plant what will grow soon
and so we honor May with this bonfire.

As Peter's fingerprint on the zeus faber,
the budding green the hillsides now festoon.
Crops we hope the gods will show their favor.
Our time spent out of doors is opportune
to love and work, to pleasure and commune
with Nature's blooming bounty we aspire.
So now to Death we fancy us immune.
And so we honor May with this bonfire.

In unity we grasp the hands of neighbors.
Our path we with all sacred life attune.
Our ploughshares made of former swords and sabers
and drunk with blessed existence we swoon.
'Pon this small blue dot which we all were hewn,
our forefathers who crawled out of the mire,
that Fortune permits us at all's a boon.
And so we honor May with this bonfire.

Maia, who follows Artemis in lune,
May your regard this Beltane we acquire.
May none your sweet benevolence impugn.
And so we honor May with this bonfire.

All I Want Is A Proper Cup of Coffee Made in a Proper Copper Coffee Pot

The Sultan and Kersia

In spite of my well-documented tea enthusiasm, I am also a devotee of coffee.  In fact, I would estimate that I drink more coffee than I drink tea.  This is probably partly due to having had the past decade of circumstances dictating remarkably peculiar sleep schedules (while tea contains more caffeine per pound than coffee, a cup of coffee actually contains more caffeine than a cup of tea.  We will unpack the reason for this anon.  It has to do with what one does with the product.)  But undoubtedly it also has to do with my tendency to gravitate toward deep, dark, rich flavors (e.g. dark chocolate, red wine, black tea, opaque beers, heavily spicy foods, and, back in the days before I was stricken with asthma, pipe tobacco.)  

Before we get started on brewing methods, a quick word about purchasing a good coffee.  There are fabulously grand brands of coffee and, indeed, an entire culture of extraordinarily fancy, ornate, and sublime coffees out there.  A fine starting point for the novice is this book: God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee which deals with the world of hyper-excellent coffee-making and the hyper-obsessive people embroiled in the quest for the peak coffee experience. When one ventures into the finer varieties of those beverages, one finds that they contain flavors that one never would have associated with the drink.  As our hero Mr. Lagerfeld might say, they go "beyond coffee" to places where one gains a deeper understanding of the drink and, I would even dare falling into pretension to suggest, the universe around them.

It is a deep rabbit hole which one who wishes to engage further in the world can spend a lot of time exploring.  However, for our purposes here, we are hardly talking about cupping or techniques of roasting or "God in a Cup."  I will leave exploration thereof to the enthusiastic.  You can geek out significantly on coffee and I recommend that you do.  Here, on the other hand, I mean to focus, via my new gadget, on waking up of an average morning and brewing one's self a very good cup of coffee as a reward for continuing to exist.  There is a reason why it is the second most traded commodity on Earth today, second only to crude oil (and, as a renewable resource, less vulnerable in the marketplace to the whims of speculators.)

As for the diurnal cup, find a decent dark roast whole bean coffee (leave the roasting and blending to the professionals unless you become so much of an enthusiast that you branch out in that direction too.  It really is a craft in the most Germanic sense of the word.)  Eschew the aluminum can.  Ideally, grind it yourself and don't buy more than a week's worth at one time.  Use about two tablespoons of grounds to six ounces of water.  As to what to use to brew it, I've used a French Press for the past six months until my friend Paul sent me a style of coffee-maker, entirely new to me, for my birthday.

Of course, with tea, the idea is to infuse the water with the flavor of the tea leaves by pouring water over them (my mnemonic device of my own devising:
"Tea over water
isn't how you oughta.
Water over tea,
that's how it should be") and seeping the leaves in the water for a few minutes.  With coffee, I do not recommend a drip coffee-maker because the concept is similar to tea infusion and you miss several of the elements present in other coffee-makers with the goal of extracting as much flavor from the bally beans as you can.  Coffee and tea are comparable to apples and oranges.  Also, drip brewing systems are difficult to clean properly and, in my experience, will never last you as long as a French Press.  You get a much better cup from wetting the grounds, allowing them to infuse into the water, then pressing every last bit of flavor back out of them.  An espresso maker (one of which we also own.  It was a wedding gift) is good for this as you compact the grounds very tightly and the high temperature and high pressure of the water sort of do that job for you.  However, in my experience, an espresso maker in the home is a bit too involved when you wake up at 3:40 and have to get on the road by 4:00.  Besides, it is called an Espresso maker because it was intended to make the form of specific coffee drink known as Espresso, which is galaxies away from what we're talking about here.  Like so much of life, one must take into account the age-old wisdom "Just because we can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean that we should." 

I have also heard convincing arguments in favor of what is known as a vacuum coffee pot, but every time I look at one I think "You know, I couldn't imagine having one of those in my home before I own a Tesla Coil and a Theremin."

But, let's get to today's experiment with my brand new AeroPress Coffee Maker which the package boasts is the best coffee maker that someone who said that has ever owned:

One places the cylinder on top of one's coffee mug, places a small round filter (provided in abundance with the maker, but also easily fashioned on one's own) at the bottom and fills the cylinder with coffee grounds, then water.  Stir the two for a few seconds, then place the plunger in the top of the cylinder.

Simply by firmly pressing the plunger down with firm but slow pressure, you are super-brewing your coffee by harnessing several forces of physics at once.  Gravity, infusion, and pressure are all making a very strong cup of coffee for you.  Now here's the taste test.

Yes, I have to admit, it is a darned fine cup of coffee.  In fact, better than I'd anticipated.  The speed with which is makes a good cup of coffee and the ease of cleanup were beyond my expectations.

Aroma Comments: Excellent, heady, whisps of the aroma waft up the nose to tickle the olfactory bulbs of your brain.

Acidity: Good and hearty without giving cause for fear.

Mouthfeel: Superlative.  Like a mouthful of rich caramel (See previous post)

Flavour: Dark, rich, heavy, everything I love about coffee.  The fantastic aroma slaps a bit of the bitter away.

Aftertaste: Fumigating my oral cavity like holding a puff of cigar smoke.

Balance, overall notes: Extremely balanced.  Balanced beyond measure.  Balancing itself off kilter.

Final Scoring:  I feel I am not overstating by saying that this was one of the better cups of coffee I've ever made.

And now we have a cute little coffee-making nook on our kitchen counter.

 The one advantage I would still say the French Press has over the AeroPress is that it makes about a pot's worth of coffee at once.  However, I must needs concede that the AeroPress makes a better cup of coffee.  Thank you, Paul.

I hope you've enjoyed my brief, remedial coffee tutorial.  Now here's a novelty song:

How to make homemade caramel

Tonight I was sitting on the porch, alternately translating the Latin Vulgate into English and reading the poetry of Robert Burns, when I was struck with a theopneustic moment in light of a difficult few days and, specifically, remedies thereunto.  Knowing full well Laurie will be home soon, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice for her to come home to some homemade caramel for putting on iced cream or popping corn?"

Caramel is ridiculously easy to make and, once you know how quick, economical, and easy the process, you will most likely wonder why you don't do it all the time.  Soon you too will ridicule how easy it is to make.

First you need 1 cup of sugar, 6 Tablespoons of butter, and a half cup of Half and Half (or any other milk derivative you have laying around your fridge.  I just happen to always have Half and Half on hand for tea.  I would recommend the thicker milk products, closer to the cream end of the spectrum.  I am in no position to recommend Fat Free or Soy Milk.)  Keep all of these right next to you because the process is exceedingly quick.  You will be called upon to move quickly in the preparation of your caramel or the whole thing will go to pot, as it were.  It is a testimony to my deft camera finger that I was able to photograph the experience for this post at all.  If you put Tom Waits' Glitter and Doom album on when you start (like I did) you will be done before Get Behind The Mule is over.

Place the sugar in a saucepan.  You want a higher heat.  When the edges of the sugar in the pan begin to brown and pull away from the edge of the pan, you start whisking.  This is a crucial moment and you must be diligent in your whisking.  Burning is a very real peril in this process.  Be ever vigilant in your whisking, my little catechumen confectioners!

 If you can, you probably want a larger whisk as the pan is very hot.  You will whisk the sugar until...

 ...it is roughly the consistency of caramel.  Let me restate, what is shown in this picture is just sugar at this point.

Then you add the butter and whisk until it melts.  Oh yes, get used to whisking.  Your universe is a whisking universe for the next few minutes.  Note the discarded novelty whisk which I started with until I darned near singed all of my arm hair off.

Is it all melted now?  Are you responding by saying "yes?"  Then it's time to take it off of the heat and place the pan on one of the neighboring cooler burners.

You will keep whisking and slowly pour the Half and Half into the mixture.  This rushed picture with my thumb halfway over the flash fails to capture what a dramatic juncture this is in our narrative.  It bubbles and steams and tries to wrap its fingers around your throat to drag you down to Hell as the three ingredients die by your hand and a new foodstuff is born like the phoenix.  Do not heed that devil-caramel!  Whisk it into submission!

Soon it will get over itself and look like caramel.  You will initially think you put in too much Half and Half, but never fear!  It will thicken upon settling.

And now you have homemade caramel which tastes as good as store-bought because it is the same thing.