An odd coincidence, and tragedy

A while back, I wrote about arriving at a train crossing as one train passed right before me right-to-left, and nearly simultaneously another train appeared on the second track heading left-to-right. What are the odds, I thought to myself at the time.

Well, apparently better than you might think.

This week a local woman was killed at that very crossing. She apparently broke from the line of  stopped vehicles, ignored the flashing lights and warning bells, drove around the lowered barricades, and around the train—the train on the first track of two closest to her. The train that wasn't going anywhere.

...And directly into the path of the second train, whose approach was hidden by the stopped train. The fast-moving train had enough time to activate its emergency stopping systems before impacting the passenger side of the car with a force witnesses described as "...a bomb blast."

There's nothing funny, or even ironic about this. It's just sad, and I wonder two things—what was so important to make running the barricade seem like a good idea, and what that last wave of appalling regret must have felt like...

Fox News Update

We are nearly three years into our ever-expanding poultry experiment. We have seen our flocks grow in number, complexity, and in their demands on our time. We have added varieties, species, and end-purposes (meat now, in addition to egg-laying). We have avoided losing birds to predation, suffering one attack from a hawk early on that was interrupted by our faithful dogs without any lasting harm, an odd death from unknowable causes, plus some egg-theft executed by a crafty snake (...who we executed right back, as described here some time ago).

Until recently.

Several weeks ago (perhaps because we had been lulled into a false sense of security by our perimeter defenses) we discovered a trail of black feathers leading to, and over, the fence near an overhanging tree. I was able to follow the trail of feathers into the woods for some distance, but gave up in the failing light of evening. What I saw in the twilight established to my satisfaction that the predator was small, powerful, and terrestrial; e.g., a fox, who dragged his victim off into the forest.

As a result, we examined our fences and discovered some blatant weaknesses we had ignored or overlooked. We beefed them up, fixed some weak spots, completed what we had left undone. Yet within a week or so, Mary discovered the headless body of another victim, left inside the chickenyard when the fox was unable to work her through the fence. Again, we examined the perimeter and found the achille's heel—the exterior gates provided ample space for a swift, determined predator to waltz under without a second thought or a moment's inconvenience.

More bolstering of defenses, this time with boards, chunks of broken cinder blocks, and bad thoughts directed fox-ward. We attempt some chemical warfare, sprinkling great wooly tufts of Schroeder-hair regularly about with abandon, and marking the trees and fenceposts ringing the chickenyard (from the five-foot mark on down) with a gallon jug of well-aged man-pee.

And yet, again, evidence of another attempt to breach our defenses—a broken board, some disturbance of the undergrowth, miscellaneous signs, but fortunately this time, no victim to be found and an early morning beak-count tallying all present and accounted for.

We now know what we're up against, and I am getting an inkling of how foxes have earned their reputation for craft. At night, our flocks roost securely inside tightly latched coops with no entry points; I like to think that is when they are the safest (please, fox, don't prove me wrong). Therefore, all three of the attacks we know about happened during broad daylight; two happened during the brief periods when Mary was off the property, and one while she was working in her office, at the farthest point in the house from where the attack occurred.

We cut back weeds and undergrowth to deprive the little bugger of cover and to reveal weaknesses in the fenceline. We will nail more boards, and bigger boards, across vulnerable spots. We will leave Schroeder out in the garden when we have to be elsewhere.

We are learning to think like a fox, and meanwhile, we keep our fingers crossed.

J.S. Bach: Unaccompanied Cello Suites—YoYo Ma

I have taken to indulging myself by buying things that I hear on the radio and like. Granted, this does not represent that big of an indulgence because I am not moved to commerce by the radio with (insert radio pun here) great frequency.

J.S. Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites fall into this category of impulse purchases. Though not as ubiquitous as the Brandenburg Concertos, the Cello suites may still sound familiar to the casual listener—some or all of them are staples of classical radio. But the Unaccompanied Suites are notable for being, well—unaccompanied. Just one man, one instrument, one composer; a lean, stripped-down version of classical music, which we often take to be synonymous with full orchestras or various hands-full of musicians—trios, quartets, quintets, ad nauseum.

In this instance, the music is spare and lean. I am struck by the undeniable presence of three well-defined personalities: Bach, the composer, pulling the music from the ether and capturing it on the page; Ma, the performer; reconstituting the written music; and the cello itself, giving voice to Ma's interpretation of Bach's brilliance. Three voices, singing in one medium.

Ma's cello is deep, dark and woody; it buzzes and burrs under his caress; it contributes its own quality to the music, going beyond what Bach composed. It is a different kind of sound from that of the orchestra, with its many overlapping and interwoven layers and brilliant polish. It is intimate, unadorned, direct, personal, almost conversational. You are in the presence three greats: composer, performer, and instrument.

Listening to this team is like savoring a varietal wine—in this case, a deep, dark, dry complex well-aged Cabernet Sauvignon. As wine from a single variety of grape will yield up its bounty under the guidance of a master vintner, so does the unaccompanied instrument yield up its riches in the hands of a gifted performer. All the richness and complexity, quirks and foibles, strengths and weaknesses are expressed to the pleasure of the patient, lingering listener without disguises, cloaking, masking or artifice. These performances are treasures to be savored at length.

Deepwater Horizon

I have little of value to add to the discussion of the environmental devastation happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. But I find myself thinking about one little human aspect of this tragedy I have not heard discussed by anyone among the countless talking heads, hired guns, prognosticators, shills and apologists.

There is a cadre—their number now reduced by eleven—who stood briefly on the threshold of a professional and personal milestone, an achievement that cannot be diminished by what so immediately and horrifically followed. This team of people successfully drilled a hole into the earth over two miles deep, from a drilling platform floating on the ocean's surface a mile above (a total of 18,000 feet from drilling deck to the bottom of the hole) —a drilling platform held in its place only by the constantly adjusted nudges of its computer-controlled thrusters.

They succeeded. Safely. They reached the oil-bearing formation that was their target, and they prepared it for its eventual entry into production, somewhere in the near future. But then, this man...

...decided caution was a luxury BP could no longer afford, time was of the essence, and it was too expensive to delay any further. He decided—over the objections of the professionals who had, for seven long years, run the Nostromo  Deepwater Horizon without a lost time accident—to remove the drilling mud that kept the enormous pressures in that oil-bearing formation in check, and replace it with the much less dense seawater.

The chain of command who personally decided it was more cost-effective in the long run to destroy the Gulf of Mexico than it was to run the Deepwater Horizon as the professionals said it should be run would likely fit comfortably in a Ford Aerostar without so much as their thighs grazing. And you can bet not a one of them will face any personal or professional consequences as a result of their benighted cost-benefit analysis. They may face a few uncomfortable moments under the spotlights of a congressional hearing room, but their lavish emoluments will have ensured that whatever bark, it will not be followed by any bite. In a few short years, they will once again find themselves, conscienceless and blameless, atop their professions.

Yet the survivors of the Deepwater apocalypse, those traumatized and brutalized wage-slaves (yes, the same roughnecks, riggers, cooks and clerks who were held incommunicado aboard ship for fifty hours until they signed releases denying injuries or knowledge of the events leading up to the disaster) will always carry with them the legacy of that awful night. Will they be willing or able to work in their profession again? Will they be cursed by their association with this disaster? Are they marked? Will they ever be able to speak with pride of their accomplishment, of their immense achievement, without an uncomfortable silence falling across the room? Will they become demonized for the havoc unleashed by their hubris? Will anyone want to listen to their stories? Will they be believed? Will they tell their children, or their grandchildren, where those scars came from?

We do not know who the "Carter Burke" is in this case. But he surely exists in flesh-and-blood, and his real name is known to some. And yes, he is the one man who made THE one decision that, against the better judgement of his peers, resulted in this catastrophe. In a just world, that man would be found out and made to wear this event around his neck, his albatross, for all the world to see for every waking moment of the rest of his miserable life.

Addendum: The reference to the Nostromo is not quite right; it's a bit of a conflation. The crew of the Nostromo, with the exception of Ripley, were all dead. It was the Sulaco that carried the Colonial Marines and Carter Burke to their doom. But you get the point.

Dad's famous "Paw Paw Shooters"

Ingredients:

4 - 750 ml. bottles of home made Paw Paw wine*

1 BB pistol & 1 or 2 16g carbon dioxide cartridges

BB Pellets

-----------------------------------

1. Tastefully arrange the bottles of wine (unopened) against a backdrop of canvas or landscape fabric draped over a sawhorse. They should be at room temperature.

2. Draw straws to see who shoots first.

3. Take turns shooting until no bottle is left unshattered. (Or 'NBLU' as we call it.)

4. Deposit remains in recycling bin.

5. Celebrate by drinking something good.

The prep time for the Paw Paw wine is generally what makes this such a special dish to serve, so you won't want to make it very often. But everyone should try it at least once. 

* This would also be great made with home made persimmon wine.

Another venture into unknown territory:

It's early March, and under the hoophouse there are a hardy bunch of turnips that have survived the long, rough winter. I say survived, but actually many of them haven't really survived—they are shriveled and spent, exhausted, some are simply whitish bags of brown mush topped by defeated crowns of ragged leaves. They have enough wherewithal left to send up a flower stalk in a few weeks, bloom, set seed, pass along their genes and die.

But under the warm spring sun, I can gather a few pounds of good, solid sound turnips. About half are the pure white Tokyo Cross variety, and the other half are Purple Tops. So:

Turnips (3-½ pounds cleaned and peeled)
1-½ Tbsp. sea salt
6 Tbsp whey

I shredded the turnips, and mixed them with the salt, squeezing and wringing them until the fine grains of salt dissolved and the weeping juice was thoroughly distributed through the shreds. I added the whey (on a whim, based on our experience with some mind-boggling gingered carrots). This is a lactic acid fermentation, which is a big difference from a yeast-based fermentation. I know lots about the affairs of yeast—pretty much nothing about lactic acid fermentation except what I vaguely remember from my mother making kraut decades ago.

Now the mixture sits in a stoneware crock, protected from the air with a small china plate and weighted down by a quart mason jar full of water. By tomorrow I suspect it will be obviously alive, and in a couple of days I imagine we will smell it before we ever see it. Within a week or two we should have bona fide turnip kraut (actually, I suppose it should be called sauerturnip, but whatever...) and it will increase in tartness and pungency for up to six weeks, at which point we could can what might be left.

Stay tuned.

Nixtamal ! (UPDATED)

This weekend I undertook something new out of sheer curiosity. What I did is at the intersection of cooking, science, culture and, I don't know...anthropology?

I had read about the ancient process of nixtamalization, where dried corn is cooked and soaked in an alkali solution. In various cultures, this results in Posole, Masa Harina, or Hominy and Hominy grits. The process yields a number of results: the tough outer shell of the corn is removed, as is the germ; the grain swells, becomes soft and starchy, and a number of nutrients are made available that would otherwise be sequestered. Cultures that adopted corn as a staple grain without nixtamalization, such as many groups in the American south, quickly developed deficiency diseases such as pellagra and kwashiorkor. And while this is all new and exciting and exotic to me, it's been common knowledge among countless cultures for thousands of years.

In any case. I took two cups of the whole kernel corn we use for chicken feed. I boiled it for about an hour, until the grains had begun to swell slightly. Then the recipe I had read called for adding ½ cup of wood ashes to the pot to provide the alkali.

Well, our woodstove provides a steady supply of hardwood ash, but I didn't like the idea of having little bits of stuff mixed in with the corn (for example, we dispose of dinner bones in the fire) so first I gathered about a cup of ash, sieved it, added a quart of water, shook it vigorously for a few minutes, then strained the ash solution through filter paper. The sieving and filtering process left altogether about ¼ cup of solids behind.

The effect of adding the opaque gray solution to the simmering corn was spectacular. The color of the liquid turned a clear golden orange, and for the first time, it released the distinctive "tortilla" aroma of hominy, like it had been hiding somewhere.

The nixtamalization process continued for three hours from that point. Somewhere around the two hour mark, the aroma became unmistakably that of fresh sweet corn cooking—a wonderful summertime smell to have in the kitchen in late February. At the three hour mark from adding the ash liquor, the corn grains were plump and swollen, floating in a thick golden gelatinized liquid.

I drained the liquid, rinsed the grains with cold water, drained them again, and covered them with cold water one last time. At this point, I had completed the nixtamal process, and had a big pot of posole/hominy to do something with. (The chickens would devour the leftover liquid for breakfast the next morning). I pondered the issue overnight, consulting a few posole recipes here and there. Come morning, this is what I decided:

Posole Stew:

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 fist-sized chunk of Virginia ham—rind, fat and all (any good seasoning meat would do—a ham hock would probably be awesome)
3 whole dried chile peppers
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
2 cans black beans, with liquid
1 tsp dried oregano
1 batch Posole/Hominy (From 2 C dried corn)
1 bottle ale*

Combine all ingredients in a crockpot and simmer on low, stirring occasionally. After several hours, remove ham and cut into small bits; return to pot and continue simmering. Season to taste—I deliberately omitted salt as the Virginia ham seems to provide enough salt on its own. The posole and black beans together make a complete protein, so the meat could be omitted for a vegetarian dish. However, in that case I would be sure to add some good olive oil to make up for the lost fat.

Conclusion? The posole stew was well-received by the panel of judges (...considering it was made from chicken feed and all...). Personally, I find the whole process absolutely fascinating, and after just one batch don't feel like I really understand what I did exactly. The transformational nature of nixtamalization reminds me most of the magic of mashing beer, where suddenly, with just a little nudging from the cook, something appears that wasn't there just a minute before. In mashing, it's the activity of enzymes...here, it's chemistry and probably some enzymes as well. It's all very cool, regardless.

I suppose I'll try it again sometime...in the meantime, there's leftovers to be put away.

* Please note this was the aforementioned "Sorghum Ale," and as a result, the stew developed an awful flavor upon standing. Please substitute any good stock, broth, bouillion or even plain water. It also solidified, so I would either halve the quantity of posole or double the quantity of liquid.  I would stay away from beer--hops does not work well in this recipe**.
** I'm actually surprised how frequently when beer is used as an ingredient, the hop bitterness dominates the contributed flavor--beer bread is a great example. It's rarely the malt, unless the beer is a stout with a strong roast and a low hopping profile. I'm starting to rethink beer as an all-purpose ingredient.

Noted with Sadness

One of the primary missions of this blog is the treatment of motorcycling as an act worthy of serious consideration. I would be utterly remiss in that mission if I did not note with sadness the recent death of Professor Harry Hurt of USC at the age of 81.

Professor Hurt was the author of Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures, which came to be known, with no little irony, as "The Hurt Report." This groundbreaking investigation and study of over nine-hundred motorcycle accident scenes, thirty-six-hundred police reports of motorcycle accident, and interviews with over five-hundred motorcyclists laid the foundation for modern motorcycle safety training and practices, and is still considered the bible of motorcycle safety research. Professor Hurt was still regularly holding interviews with motojournalists until shortly before his death, offering his wisdom on the current state of motorcycling—recently noting with concern the rising motorcycle fatality rate brought on by an influx of older novice riders riding bigger bikes—and drinking.

Among the Hurt Report's most significant findings—(blindingly obvious, in hindsight, and Billy Joel be damned)—was that the vast majority of motorcycle accidents occur in good weather, with good conditions and good visibility. Most were caused by the other vehicle failing to yield the right-of-way to a motorcycle because the driver "...just didn't see them," and most motorcyclists involved in accidents were self-taught or learned to ride from other self-taught riders. (This was the era when accident avoidance began and ended with 'laying it down' and hoping for the best).

To say the Hurt Report transformed motorcycling doesn't begin to describe its impact. Later in his career, Professor Hurt ran USC's Head Protection Research Laboratory, continuing his work improving the design and manufacturing of helmets for all types of activities. Recently, there had been discussion of revisiting the original report and performing another round of data collection to evaluate the progress made since 1981, and to identify new areas of concern.

All of us who ride are in the debt of Professor Hurt, who shaped our endeavor in ways we can hardly imagine. Thank you, sir.

A Bit of Puzzlement

I am truly puzzled.
Two or three years ago, a huge oak tree fell in the bottomland during a fierce windstorm. The bulk of it has been suspended off the ground for that entire time, resting at one end on its shattered and splintered trunk, and halfway down its length on the nub of a large branch that impaled the earth.

Some time ago I stripped much of the bark off it, and cut up the limbs for firewood. Last summer I sliced off a half a dozen or so lengths for seating around the firepit; this fall I split and stacked those for firewood. More recently, I cut more 16" slices, and split and stacked them to dry briefly in place. I have worked my way down the massive trunk to the point where my chainsaw will not quite sever the trunk when cutting from both sides, so it must be more than 32" in diameter.

What puzzles me is that much of this wood is still completely green (i.e., wet, unseasoned) after so much time; for all intents and purposes, it has not dried at since it fell. How can this be?

I recall hearing that for cut and split wood, you allow one month per inch of diameter; how can so little drying have taken place in a tree without roots, branches or leaves, that is completely surrounded by airflow?

"Groundhog Day"

"Groundhog Day" (1993): (A) Great movie, or (B) Greatest movie ever?

Wasmund's Single Malt Whiskey

Wasmund's Single Malt Whiskey is now the official distilled spirit of RLYMI. Deal with it.

Jury Duty

Do it, if you get the opportunity. Yes, it's the punishment you get for registering to vote, but it's the other great obligation of citizenship, and it can be an awesome and awful (in the truest sense of the word) experience.

So Freaking Ready for Spring...

Right now I am watching it snow out my office window, piling up to about the four inch mark at twilight after beginning around dawn—light, fluffy, powdery snow that blow away with a breath and periodically cascades down from the trees.

This is our second big snow of the winter, and the first snow of the new year. The previous snow—some fifteen inches accumulated over a Friday night-Saturday-Sunday morning storm before the holidays in December—had not completely melted away from the mounds where the plows had piled it or the hollows where it had hidden away, and now it's got reinforcements.

That magnificent snow was the biggest snowfall we have experienced since moving here from the suburbs, and it was quite an experience. We walked our woodland trail through the new-fallen snow, plowing through snow up to our knees and making the very first sets of tracks. It more or less stranded us for a time (though in an emergency we could have gotten out with the help of Henry) and we had the coziness of the woodstove to keep the chill at bay.

But by cracky, I AM SO READY FOR SPRING...and it's barely the end of January.

I am ready to burn every light in the house to fend off the wintry gloom and bolster the ever-so-slooooooooowly lengthening days. I am ready to burn every stick of firewood and kindling and every gallon of propane to keep the place warm, and today, I even tried to heat the house by filling the crawlspace with hot water.

Hey, the fifteen inches of snow was great; it fulfilled a life-time dream of mine to be here—in a place like this—under those circumstances. But frankly, I consider that itch to be officially scratched; I have crossed it off my bucket list. Enough is enough. Is it too much to ask for a crocus or two, maybe a snowdrop?

Our minds and spirits are already in spring mode, with seed orders done and the vanguard already arriving. Chicks of various flavors have been ordered to arrive in late March, and the groundwork for St. Patrick's Day dinner has been laid. All we need to do is get the @#$%^& snow to stop falling, and we'll be that much closer.

Sigh. A person can wish, right?

Hubris

9th Interrogatory—In what manner have you estimated for that portion of the work, which will be tunnelled? In what time can said Tunnel be constructed? Must not your estimates for said Tunnel be conjectural? And may not a difference in the formation through which said Tunnel passes, vary the expense many thousands of dollars—that is to say, should the formation be entirely granite rock, will not the expense be much greater than if it should prove to be of clay, limestone, slate or coal?

Answer—With the same care that we have used in forming other parts of our estimates...A difference of the formation would of course, affect the expense: it might increase, or it might diminish the cost, several thousand dollars. I can say that it is not only improbable, but that it is impossible that we shall meet with granite in the constructions of the tunnel, the geological character of the country forbids it.

10th Interrogatory.—Upon what description of formation or strata have you based your estimates for the tunnel, and what certain reasons have you to suppose, that particular formation or strata exists, upon which you have based your estimates?

Answer—Our estimate is based upon a formation of clay, slate and sandstone, in layers, alternating; and occasionally earth, clay, slate, predominating. The Direction of the tunnel and that of the strata form an angle of about 29 degrees. We cannot, I think, be mistaken in the strata that we expect to meet with. The Potomac, for a few miles above, and for several miles below, has its channel back and forth repeatedly across the strata in the direction of the tunnel, these strata we find invariably in the same relative position, parallel to each other, and in the same continuous lines. (Emphasis added)

LOC

The Library of Congress is so far beyond awesome that you can't even see it with the Hubble Telescope from awesome, because it is moving beyond awesome faster than the speed of awesome rays.

Comic Gold

When burning brush on a cold, grey, blustery winter day, and you suddenly smell singeing hair, this may or may not be an appropriate and/or effective thought process:

1. ...Where is the dog?
2. ...What fabric is my shirt made from? Is it wool, perhaps? Hmmm; No, it is not.
3. ... 
4. OW! DAMMIT! (Begin slapping head furiously)

The only thing that could make this better would be 5) Larry spraying me in the face with a seltzer bottle or 

6) Curly beating me upside the head with a shovel.

Eggnog

6 eggs separated (for best results, they should be separated by at least 2-3 feet)
3/4 C. Confectioner's Sugar
2 C. Cream
2 C. Milk
2 C. Liquor (1½ C. whiskey / ½ C. dark rum--adjust to personal preferences and availability)
3/4 tsp. Vanilla
Nutmeg for garnish
---------------
Beat egg yolks until creamy. Add sugar and beat until smooth, scraping bowl occasionally. Gradually (in a thin stream) add cream, then milk, then liquor, then vanilla, beating constantly. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
---------------
Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold beaten whites into eggnog mixture. Top with grated nutmeg if desired. Made this with fresh eggs, raw milk, raw cream, dark rum and Wasmund's single malt whiskey. Pretty damn fine beverage, it was.

A Verdict...

The Sorghum Ale?

Awful.

Thick, acrid, sour, sludgy. Possibly the worst thing I've brewed in memory. It reminds me of that monster from the end of "Dogma." But with less personality.

Devilstower nails it

"...Here's the thing about the naughts: there was nothing magic about the numbers. It wasn't because of a double-zero in the middle of the dates that we launched an invasion that's cost the lives of thousands of Americans, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and a trillion dollars plus out of the pocketbooks of taxpayers. We launched into that still unresolved idiocy because of bad policy based on the conservative philosophy of smash things first, think never. We went there because of a extreme version of American exceptionalism, one that views America as above the rules of law and exempt from questions of morality. A view that says not only if the president does it, it's not a crime, but that if America does it, it can't be wrong."

"It wasn't the decade that caused the economy to come down in tatters. It was a conservative approach to the marketplace that views government as the enemy, greed as the only acceptable motivation, and the only solution for disasters brought on by a lack of regulation as still less regulation."

"It wasn't the calendar that brought down the banks, or American manufacturing, or American's influence around the world. It wasn't the date that added torture to the list of growth industries while erasing our budget surplus."

"Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. Think we should privatize war by handing unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Kiddo, we passed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything,everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries."

"They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again". They didn't fart around with any "red dog Republicans." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream."

"What did we get for it? We got an economy in ruins, a government in massive debt, unending war, and the repudiation of the world. There's no doubt that Republicans want you to forget the last decade, because if you remember... if you remember when you went down to the water hole and were jumped by every lunacy that ever emerged from the wet dreams of Grover Norquist and Dick Cheney, well, it's not likely that you'd give them a chance to do it again."

"And they will. Given half a chance -- less than half -- they'll do it again, only worse. Because that's the way conservatism works. Remember when the only answer to every economic problem was "cut taxes?" We have a surplus. Good, let's cut taxes. We have a deficit. Hey, cut taxes even more! That little motto was unchanging even when was clear that the tax cuts were increasing the burden on everyone but a wealthy few. That's just a subset of the great conservative battle whine which is now and forever "we didn't go far enough." If deregulation led to a crash, it's because we didn't deregulate enough. If the wars aren't won, it's because we haven't started enough wars. If there are people still clinging to their rights, it's because we haven't done enough to make them afraid."

"Forget the naughts, and you'll forget that conservatives had another chance to prove all their ideas, and that their ideas utterly and completely failed. Again."

"The point of remembering bad events is to stop them from repeating. So remember, and remind others if they start to forget. Because really, this is one trip to the water hole we can't afford to repeat."

Devilstower, at DKos

Driftglass nails it:

"And if you're one of those people who has spent your adult life supporting these degenerates while sneering at those soft-headed Liberals and their crazy ideas, maybe after 35 unbroken years of being horribly fucking wrong about everything it's time for you turn off Glenn Beck, stop whining about imaginary hippies, go down to the basement, pick out one of the 78 guns you have stashed there to protect you from the Coming Race War Or Something, and do the honorable thing."

Another One Bites the Dust

Saab 1937—2009.

Only The Good Die Young

Oral Roberts dead at 91.

Beyond Parody and Description

While grabbing a cup of coffee at a 7-11 this morning, I noticed, among all the various and sundry flavorings provided for coffee (not the "flavored-non-dairy-petrochemical-based-creamer-analogues," but the "let's-make-a-simple-beverage-fancy-by-changing-it-into-something-else flavorings"—you know, the ones that look like bottles of liquor with italianate names and pump tops on them?) I noticed that 7-11 now offers:

Honey-flavored syrup.

Hey, wasn't there already a 'honey-flavored syrup?' I think it might have been called "Honey?" Or am I misremembering something?

Hey! That's My Congressman You're Talking About!!

"Eric Cantor as a congressional leader is a classic example of a post turtle -- you know he didn't get up there by himself; he obviously doesn't belong up there; he can't get anything done while he's there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down."

Steve Benen, The Washington Monthly

ROTF, LMAO.

A Long Ago Christmas Party

The rare men clustered near the glow of the fireplace—solid, beefy, upright masses, ruddy-faced prime rib well-marbled in bespoke suits. To a man, their freshly-shaven necks bulged over starched white collars bound tightly with ties, tradition and decorum defying the warm festivity of the carpeted living room. Thick hairy paws exited their french cuffs; one paw each held a squat cylindrical glass, formless icebergs tinkling within miniature amber seas. The other paw casually held a cigarette—the men murmured and laughed, each cocooned within the self-perpetuating cloud of his own making.

Their women clustered musically at the far side of the room. They were freshly-baked confections, delicate crusts browned in just the right places, frosted and iced and dusted and topped with sprinkles, redolent of cinnamon and citrus and vanilla. They held pale pastel drinks in crystal glasses that served as exclamation points at the end of their tiny delicate hands.

Warm side, cool side. The children look on, mystified.

Snowglobe

I don’t know if the snow globe still exists or not, nor do I know whether what I remember is a memory of a real time and place or a conflation, a confabulation of remembrance and imagination.

I think it was a gift to me in what—third or fourth grade?—perhaps from a teacher. A cheap trinket from the five-and-dime, but the memory has such greater gravity and significance associated with it than had it come from one of those meaningless children who are so long forgotten to me.

However, what I can say with great surety is when I think of the snow globe, what I am remembering is looking out the window of that ancient red stone school into a cold dark sky that is both woolen grey and deep cobalt blue. It is me, looking out at a snowing and snow-covered place, from within that plastic world.

Now I find myself seeking the snow sky, driving in vain towards it, sniffing it out, searching in a most animal way, traversing hill after hill until I lose track of how far I have come, wondering if it is possible to ever find that twilight blue world out there again. I seek but cannot find—there are ten-thousand intervening steps that distract and deflect, and only serve to misdirect me from that elusive place. I know it is there, but cannot seem to find it.

At next daybreak the snow finds me. And at twilight, for a fleeting instant, I catch a glimpse of that cobalt blue snow globe world behind me, the heavy sky drawing its muffling dome close down over the pines.

Our Thanksgiving Benediction

In lieu of saying grace or offering a blessing, we shared this quote as we all sat together for our Thanksgiving meal:

"Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend."

— Wendell Berry

A lesson in linguistics

"Camarones Diabolo" is Mexican for "Shrimp served in a sauce made of pure liquid pain." Now you know.

We Are Fortunate To Have Wendell Berry

I first read Wendell Berry about thirty years ago, and was profoundly impressed and moved by what he had to say. He is our poet laureate of the soil and a national treasure, and his writings never cease to amaze me for their wisdom and insight whether reading his poetry or essays.

He is still at it, and the December issue of Harper's features an article entitled "The Necessity of Agriculture" taken from a speech he gave in May of this year. The entire piece is a must-read, but I have tried to pull the best lines out below; it was a hopeless task because the whole thing is just amazingly insightful and spot-on. A sampling:

"We seem now to be coming to a time when we will have to recognize the love of farming not as a quaint souvenir of an outdated past but as an economic necessity. And that recognition, when it comes, will bring with it a considerable embarrassment."

“Policy makers…are hoping newly unemployed young people will help revive Japan’s dwindling farm population...‘If they can’t find workers over the next several years, Japan’s agriculture will disappear,’ But this effort is falling significantly short of success because “many young people end up returning to cities, unable to adjust to life in the countryside.” To their surprise, evidently, farming involves hard work, long hours, and getting dirty—not to mention skills that city-bred people don’t have. Not to mention the necessity of loving farmwork if you are going to keep at it."


"And in Japan, as opposed to the United States…They even think agriculture may be a good thing for a nation of eaters to have."


"If agriculture and the necessity of food production ever penetrate the consciousness of our politicians and economists, how successful will they be in job-training our overeducated, ignorant young people to revive our own aging and dwindling farm population?"


"What will it take to get significant numbers of our young people, white of collar and soft of hands, to submit to hard work and long days, not to mention getting dirty?"


"… the necessity of agriculture will not be widely recognized without the sterner necessity of actual hunger."


"…our informal but most effective agricultural policy has been to eat as much, as effortlessly, as thoughtlessly, and as cheaply as we can, to hell with whatever else may be involved."


"But we, who have decided as a nation and by policy not to love farming, have escaped it, for a while at least, by turning it into an 'agri-industry.'”


"But agri-industry…has given us massive soil erosion and degradation, water pollution, maritime hypoxic zones; destroyed rural communities and cultures; reduced our farming population almost to disappearance; yielded toxic food; and instilled an absolute dependence on a despised and exploited force of migrant workers."


"We have ahead of us a lot of hard work that we are not going to be able to do with clean hands. We had better try to love it."

Go read the whole thing. It's all of about two pages long, and it's probably the best thing you'll read this month. The quoting of "Faust" is worth it all by itself.

Denouement

Last Saturday was a denouement of our grand poultry adventure, as one of the chosen got to spend the day luxuriating in the poultry hot tub in a bath fragrant with pepper, rosemary, thyme, oregano and some other odds-and-ends.

This one fairly small bird yielded up over half a pint of brilliant yellow fat we skimmed and saved for later. We added some finely chopped celery and onion to the pot poultry hot tub, finished it off with a small measure of egg noodles, and finally dined on our very first home-raised chicken.

As would be expected from a hen at the end of a long laying career, she was dense and solid. The meat was rather tough, even after her long sojourn in the crockpot poultry hot tub, and her fully mineralized bones were held together by unyielding ligaments. In my haste to prepare her, I neglected to check her weight, so I have no idea how big she was. But the two of us will have two meals from her, the dogs will have some savory and crunchy treats to brighten their days, and there's still that golden chicken fat to be used...

They say the trick to eating animals you have raised and lived with for an extended time is to fully acknowledge their sacrifice (in both meanings of the term) and to use them completely and with respect. I would say we strived for all of these objectives, and met most of them fully.

No doubt about it—we enjoyed eating this bird.

The Great Beveragepalooza of 2009

My great expectations for a day-long roofing-fest were cruelly dashed by the carcass of Tropical Storm Ida, who waited until mid-November—MID-NOVEMBER—to come die on us. It started raining Tuesday night and rained and rained and rained straight on through into Thursday morning. So, no roofing for us!

But a cold grey rainy day laid the groundwork for The Great Beveragepalooza of 2009. It was a day-long campaign during which we managed to bottle fifteen gallons of hard cider and create a 2009 vintage apple wine. The process by which we made the apple wine was as convoluted as anything we’ve done—so convoluted it makes my head hurt to even think about it—so let me see if I can even remember the whole thing:

1. We gathered the dregs from four carboys worth of hard cider and set them aside.
2. Set aside one gallon of scrumpy from the six-gallon carboy.
3. Warmed up about 4-1/2 quarts of raw sweet cider (from the fridge) to room temperature, stirring vigorously with a whisk to aereate it thoroughly.
4. Warmed another quart of raw sweet cider enough to dissolve about 2 pounds of local honey in it, along with about ½ teaspoon of yeast nutrient.
5. Poured the dregs in the 2-1/2 gallon carboy; added both batches of sweet cider; topped it off with most of the gallon of scrumpy.

The initial gravity was in the neighborhood of 1.095, and with so many warm fat happy yeasties feasting on such a sugar-rich solution, the carbon dioxide output was almost immediate and phenomenal—one long stream of bubbles out the airlock even though the liquid volume is half that of a regular carboy. It’s about the ugliest stuff you’ve ever seen at this point, but in about a week it should calm a bit and get prettier, and once it’s racked, it can settle down for a nice long slow maturation process. I’m looking forward to it, anticipating a final ABV of about 10% with a dry finish. The question remains: Still or sparkling? Both?

The other benefit of The Great Beveragepalooza of 2009 is we now have four carboys freed up! Even anticipating the cider pressing to come when the gang is here for Thanksgiving, that still leaves us room to finally brew beer again! Woo-Hoo! Many, many good brewing ideas have been held in abeyance whilst the cider did its thing, and now it’s finally time to cry havoc! and let slip the yeasts of beer…

Awesome.

Postcard from Montreux, from slow-moving Walter, the Fire-engine guy

Yesterday I heard "Smoke on the Water" on the radio for the umpty-umpth millionth time (Okay, actually it was the live version, which I don't think I had ever heard before, but still...). Of course, it features one of rock's most immediately recognizable and distinctive opening riffs, one that has been parodied countless times and is heard daily in every store in the country that sells electric guitars. Ritchie Blackmore insists the actual riff is a lot more technically complex than what gets played by beginners, but it's what beginners are irresistably compelled to play when they are trying on a new guitar. I think it's the law.

It occurred to me that despite my having heard it so many times before, I had never really paid attention to it.  I realized SOTW is actually a pretty decent little bit of narrative writing—a concise telling of a true story that would fit on a postcard or in a five-minute radio song.

Deep Purple went to Montreux to record an album in the Montreux Casino complex in December, 1971. During a show by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, a fan fired a flare gun into the ceiling, starting a fire that destroyed the Casino complex. Having reserved the Rolling Stone's mobile recording truck, the band was forced to improvise recording space in the nearby Grand Hotel, using empty rooms and hallways as necessary. What they recorded became the album "Machine Head," one of their biggest successes, and later SOTW was released as a single, reaching #4 on the Billboard singles chart in 1973.

An interesting and unusual story, told simply and concisely. The title comes from their view of the Casino fire from their hotel across Lake Geneva (Deep Purple did not attend the Mothers concert) as the smoke drifted. Everything you need to know about it is right there, in a way you might hear an interesting story from a friend over a beer.

PS: "Slow-motion Walter, the fire-engine guy" is a misheard lyric from the Barenaked Ladies.
PPS: Claude Nobs, Director of the Montreux Jazz Festival, a.k.a. "Funky Claude," actually did pull concertgoers from the burning building.
PPPS: The Guinness world record for the number of guitarists playing the SOTW riff simultaneously stands at 6,346 and was most recently set in Poland in May of this year. There's a joke in there somewhere.

Tear The Roof Off The Sucker/Give Up The Funk

Those of you who know our little house in the woods know that it's got a lot of roof. It also has a lot of holes punched in that roof, for chimneys and skylights and vents of one kind or another. This is a large part of the appeal of the house, because it makes it very bright and sunny and cheerful and airy, a pleasant change from the rather dim and close house we lived in for so long.

It also leaks like a sieve, mostly in one particular room. It leaks so much in a steady or heavy rain that we simply leave the buckets in place all the time, like some backwoods hayseeds from a depression-era comedy. Following each rain, we would judge the quantity and quality of the "Roof Tea" we had brewed, evaluating the depth and color in each bucket. But enough is enough—there was only one thing to do:

Tear The Roof Off The Sucker. Give Up The Funk.

Starting the afternoon of Halloween, Mary began to—well, tear the roof off the sucker. With a shovel. At the West End. Assisted by Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe, if I recall correctly. And once the roof was torn off the sucker, then we could give up the funk, which has flourished funkily in the dark, damp confines of the rafters and roof decking. Sodden insulation was dragged out to reveal the progress of the decay...eccch.

It was pretty disgusting. Whole sections of the roof superstructure were completely rotted away (the load bearing portion of the roof, protected below, remained intact and sound, mercifully) along with the boards above them. At the west end, the rotten materials were replaced by sound new plywood and 2-bys, and in short order Mary had the new roof in place, with the guidance and assistance of our neighbor, the erstwhile roofer.

Now the living room roof is getting its due. The three of us spent half of Saturday and most of Sunday doing demolition and reframing the roof, giving up the funk—actually, bleaching the living hell out of the funk—then adding fresh R-30 fiberglass, piecing together the new plywood roof decking, and framing in the new skylights. BTW: After years of pooh-pooing them, I can unequivocally say I am a believer in pneumatic nailers.

Who would have imagined it would be possible to break a sweat and get sunburned in mid-November? By late Sunday morning, the air temperature was in the upper sixties, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the humidity was low, and the sun was dazzlingly intense. By sundown Sunday, all the bad stuff had been excised, the new roof was sound and completely enclosed and the skylights were in place. Sunday after dark, we made a huge bonfire of all the rotten old stuff and sent it off to a better place, where there is no funk and the sun shines perpetually.

Mary spent this afternoon tearing off more old roofing and getting the sound old roof deck ready for the new stuff. With any luck, she can start applying the substrate (ice & water barrier, something like tar paper or rool roofing, but adhesive and better than both) to the exposed surfaces tomorrow and have the new structure protected before a change of weather predicted for sometime Wednesday. Hey, with any luck and three of us working at it, we'll have the new shingles in place before the change of weather.

Hot damn. Can't wait for that first real rain after the new roof is on! No more roof tea for us!

Cutting Some Slack Where Some Slack is Due

This morning when I left for work, the temperature was about 30º. I saw two other motorcyclists en route to work—one on an R1150RT and the other (gasp!) on a Harley. Go figure.

PS: Heated gloves work like a champ—got a first-degree burn on a knuckle, though.

The Little Book of Shattered Expectations

I think anyone aspiring to creative writing would do well to get themselves on the mailing list of the Vermont Country Store. Their catalog starts showing up in our mailbox around the same time as the stinkbugs, and continues appearing as frequently and predictably. The VCS catalog is a staple—nay, a ritual—of bathroom reading from early fall to mid-winter, about the point when it slips its staples and finally falls apart.

It is a paragon of tautly-crafted manipulative prose, each product description a compact haiku-length dissertation cleverly crafted to push buttons you didn't know you had.

Each item in the catalog is worthy of a massive piling-on of scientifically selected adjectives and adverbs, each one specifically designed to trigger the release of repressed memories of a common idyllic childhood we never shared. The house was bigger, the windows frostier, the rooms cheerier, the beds both higher and cozier, the breakfasts heartier, the hot chocolate richer, the sledding swifter, our parents wiser, kinder, happier and more beautiful, the Christmas Tree taller, the tinsel brighter, the goose crispier and the presents more wonderful than we could ever have hoped.

I will confess we receive this epistle regularly because we purchased items from this land of make-believe in the past. And the thing is, once the goods arrive on this side of the catalog—reality chasm, they're just...stuff. Stuff like you could buy pretty much anywhere.

Sure, a lot of it is hard to find—but most of the time that's because people stopped buying it years ago and people stopped making it years ago because, hey, in truth back then it was crap, and by golly, it's still crap now.

Nostalgia does not by and of itself validate things; in most cases it's just stuff, like it was back then when we didn't buy it the first go-round. The items are, for the most part, things you have probably walked past in your regular rounds of shopping time and again, with good reason. (Creamed Chipped Beef, anyone?) Yet from their testimonial copy, each item means something special to someone out there, enough for them to resurrect it or recommission it in some cases and to make an effort to stock it at least for a little while. As they say, there's no accounting for taste.

I don't think I have ever gotten something from the VCS that didn't come packaged with its own certain tiny measure of disappointment. It may be that the VCS catalog's greatest value lies in its ability to gently teach children how to gracefully accept disappointment, how to read between the lines of artfully crafted marketing prose, and to understand in a simple way that things aren't always what they seem.

But I gotta say, the catalog itself never disappoints. I love the writing—the unrelenting Rockwellian optimism, the naive cheer, the three or four coats of bright shiny adjectives, the perky and artfully dated design sense, the creation of a whole world within the slick covers. The arrival of the first catalog marks the beginning of the imaginary season they taught us about back in second grade.

Get on their mailing list, if you aren't already. Read the catalog. Throw 'em a bone from time to time, just to prop that imaginary world up a little while longer. There's no harm in playing along.

Addendum: If you're ever in Vermont, you owe it to yourself to check out the brick-and-mortar VCS, which is actually made of wood & stuff. It's the real-life version of the catalog, and as I recall, there are at least two or three of them salted throughout the state. Visited the one in Weston on the grand Vermont tour of 2001, and it was worth the side trip.

TOTD

Isn't a little bit disturbing that the three leading intellectuals of the modern Republic Party—Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh—are all college dropouts?

Scary.

NASA explores the Antarctic

NASA is currently flying a DC-8 over Antartica, using the aircraft to take the place of a failing satellite to probe the melting Antarctic ice cap with lasers. One can only hope the scientists involved have learned the lessons of the ill-fated Miskatonic University expedition of 1930-1931.

One shudders to think.

Last of the Season?

I stopped off in the Big Effer last night on the way home to take care of a couple of errands. In the grocery store I noticed a weathered man, within a few years of my age, pushing a large backpack around in his grocery cart, gathering a few compact necessities. In the cart with the pack was a long and worn hiking staff.

When I was done shopping, he was out front of the store reworking the contents of his pack to accommodate his new provisions, carefully removing extraneous packaging and delicately repacking everything in just the right place. I nodded to the man and we exchanged pleasantries, and I walked across the parking lot to the drugstore. I took a wild guess he was heading back to the AT trail crossing on the ZTH.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I saw him hiking up the shoulder of the road a short distance away. He would extend his thumb in a desultory manner as each car passed him by, so he appeared genuinely surprised when I pulled over in a driveway behind him.

He quickly confirmed that he was, indeed, heading to the trailhead with a fresh load of groceries, and shucked the bulky pack with a practiced grace. We loaded it into the back seat—trunk full of crap—and he politely asked if I would prefer he rode in back with it.

For some reason, that struck me as very funny, and I walked over and unlocked the passenger side for him. Aside from his obviously being a heavy smoker (yeah, what a surprise...not that uncommon for hikers, from what I've found) he was acceptable company. We drove the short distance to the trailhead tentatively, with a couple of false stops before finding the right place—I can never remember exactly where it is, and neither, apparently, can the hikers.

His story, in brief, was that he had departed Delaware Water Gap on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border in September, heading southbound. He planned to hike as far south as he could before winter set in, find a place to stay for the winter, and return to Delaware Water Gap to begin hiking northbound in the spring.

We pulled over at the now-familiar looking trailhead. The early November sun had dipped below the Blue Ridge while we were both still back at the store. Twilight was already beginning to fade in the few minutes it took us to reach the road crossing, and the air was cooling rapidly from a mild autumnal chill down towards the mid-twenties it would reach by morning.

Without delay, we got out and unloaded his pack from the back seat. He thanked me profusely for my kindness, shook my hand enthusiastically, and hefted his pack onto his back. He was encouraged by the unexpected head-start I had given him, and though the light was failing, I reminded him the full moon would rise in short order.

He paused to tell me about the beauty and wonder of hiking the last few miles into last night’s shelter by the light of the moon, then smiled, thanked me again, and set off briskly down the trail into the cold dark woods. Part of me envied him his journey. There aren’t that many long-distance hikers left on the AT come November; besides the peace and solitude, the bare trees and crisp cold air would offer scenery unimaginable during the warmer months.

But the bigger part of me couldn’t help but think how cold it was going to get up on the mountain by morning, and how far it is to Springer Mountain.

Something I wrote thirty-five years ago

This is something I wrote about thirty-five years ago, and it still interests me for a couple of reasons. First is that I think I wrote it when I had just finished reading ZATAOMM, and was blown away by it as the first philosophical book of any kind I had ever read (it shows pretty directly). Second, it shows an early incarnation of my feelings about hiking versus driving, which have translated into motorcycling versus driving. Third, I now find myself living within sight of the mountain in question, and seeing it pretty much every day—it's what I look at as I drive down the lane to home.

I cringe a little bit when I read this, because it is probably my first real attempt at putting my thoughts down on paper. But the persistent threads fascinate me, and the underlying themes are things that still fascinate me.

"Travelling in a car is the least forgiving way to go. Forgiving of the crime of caring, of wanting to know more and see deeper. You see something different, and it excites or interests you. But you can't just stop; the car won't let you. So after this happens many times, you get calloused; it hurts to lose a good thought. So many people just give up seeing things. When you're walking, it's better, but you still have a destination to reach, and that's what you're there for. Not to see clearer, because you can't plan that."

"This idea came to me while I was looking at a mountain. It wasn't the first time, though; many years ago I knew this. This mountain was a backdrop, a shelter for [the town of] Flint Hill, and it seemed such an essental part of the town that Flint Hill couldn't exist in any other context."

"Flint Hill, without knowing it, belonged to that mountain more than anything else..."

This:

Orders of Magnitude

A while back, I confessed to dispatching two black snakes who had been harassing our chickens. I threw the limp lifeless body of one snake into the tall grass at the edge of the woods, in order for it to be assimilated by the various and sundry woodland decomposers whose job it is to make such things right.

A few days later, I was walking up the driveway towards the pines when I was startled by a commotion to my left. Out of the deep grasses and scrub a turkey buzzard rose majestically and swooped across the driveway and garden. It grabbed great fistsful of air with its pinions, pulling itself into the sky with unimaginable power and grace, slowly gaining speed and altitude until it disappeared above the pines to the north.

I peered into the grasses from where this pterosaur had launched, and found what looked like a tiny scrap of frayed rope—the few remains of the snake, picked clean of flesh and skin. What the bird with a wingspan greater than my armspan found for sustenance in that tiny morel, and how it discovered it in the first place, astonished me.

The next afternoon, we sat quietly in the front yard, enjoying a leisurely afternoon in the warm sun. All at once, there was a commotion, and a turkey buzzard once again rose from the tall grasses, taking the same trajectory. But something amazing happened: The buzzard flushed a pileated woodpecker from a nearby oak tree, and in its haste, it followed a parallel trajectory with the buzzard. (Normally, a pileated woodpecker is one of the largest birds you will see in the woods, with a two-foot wingspan and a distinctive flight pattern—it is majestic and beautiful with its distinctive brilliant red-white-black plumage). And at the same instance, just before our faces, a few yards away, a ruby-throated hummingbird hovered in mid-flight:

So for one split second, all in the same line of sight, at the same instant—a turkey buzzard, a pileated woodpecker, and a ruby-throated hummingbird.

And they were gone.

The fall garden (200-?)

Fall is the most compelling time in the garden. In place of the long, gentle unwinding and developing that characterizes the warm season, the open ended nature of growth, there is an end. Fall brings completion, finality, conclusion. Whether it comes in the guise of fruition and harvest, fading falling blossoms, or the abrupt discipline of the first killing frost, fall ends the expansion that drives the garden.

Look to the garden then, to see how fall expresses itself. Look at the haggard tomatoes, so recently bold and dominant lording a green canopy over all else. Now they stand exhausted, yellowing foliage dripping, desperately struggling to bring a last faint blush to their resolutely green fruit.

See the lone pumpkin, no gold yet lighting its cheek, looming dark green and glossy. It sits alone, isolated, abandoned by its vine during a hasty retreat. Yet to be decided is whether it has a use or not; it may be left to rot as it sits.

The ranks of peppers stand, drooping, weighted down by scores of fruit camoflaged in the deep green leaves. They mimic the twisted posture of old men loaded with cares and devoid of hope. Like the nearby tomatoes, they hasten to bring a last few fruit to ripeness before they are struck down. Loaded as they are, their future seems unlikely—the hand of the gardener will take all they bear, unformed and immature as they may be, to ripen or rot inside.

The barren and dessicated cornstalks stand, bolder in their death than their living compatriots. They stand tall and proud over the garden, bleached by the sun.

Look past the towering failures; look low, down and see the plants that prosper even as the frost surely approaches. These are the modest plants that have yet to take their place in the season's bounty, yet they will, long after the others have rotted and been turned under.

Row after row, where the towering titans of summer have departed, stand the small, inconspicuous grey plants.

Bad meat, bad karma

Today another recall of shitburger—ground beef deliberately and with malice aforethought blended with manure to make a few extra pennies per pound.

And how much was it this time?

500, 000 pounds. 250 TONS. For what it's worth, that translates into about six hundred head of cattle raised, fattened, tortured, slaughtered, butchered, and now to sent directly to the landfill. What an utter disgrace.

Or, to look at it another way, I'd guess it's about three thousand times the weight of the two poor people who have died so far from eating the purposely poisoned meat—if that's any kind of equivalency.

What the eff is wrong with us that this goes on?

The Rules of Hiking:

1. Hiking is walking, not running. Don't race.
2. Keep your hands free. Don't carry anything big in your hands or walk with your hands in your pockets. This means no walking sticks.
3. Talk quietly so only the people in your group can hear you. Don't disturb other people.
4. Keep a steady pace. Hum a song quietly to help you.
5. Drink plenty of water and snack when you feel hungry—but—don't take your first break until you've walked for at least a half and hour. That lets you set a good pace.
6. Stop and take care of 'hot spots' on your feet before they become blisters, which hurt a lot more.
7. Don't pick flowers or other pretty things. Leave them for the next person to enjoy. The only exception is wild fruit like blackberries or blueberries. They make a great treat, and give you energy, but only eat what you want while you're hiking. Don't pick them to take home or eat later on.
8. Take home everything you brought with you—don't leave anything behind. Even little bits of food, like an apple core or an orange peel, can make things less fun for the next people to come through.
9. Leave things better than you found them. Carry a small trash bag and pick up any trash you might find. The animals will appreciate it, and you set a good example for other people, too.

Four-Mile Run, Falls Church, October 199-?

The warm haze of an early October afternoon—end of a day of work, full of tension, unremarked, unaddressed.

On the wind, the quiet smell of a place nearby, yet a generation removed—

At hand the stream where I played so often so many years ago—the place that shaped that time, that gave color and flavor to a young boy's life.

In this one place then, the stream remains as it was twenty-five years ago. The same leaves overhang the still waters, the same small insects play across it's quiet surface; the same small little fishes probably hide in its shaded nooks.

Today

I butchered five of our chickens.

Addendum: Apparently I can't count. I butchered four of our chickens. Spicy remains.

Beast health report

Yesterday was Beast's annual trip to the motoveterinarian. Nothing major, just a 6K checkup, plus a sniffle here, a drip there, some weird blinky things, et cetera. I spent much of the morning and early afternoon pacing in the waiting room, allaying my nervousness by periodically buying more stuff I don't really need but want none the less.

Shortly after lunch, Beast was back with a clean bill of health and for a whole lot less pain than I was fearing. But the best part of a trip to the motoveterinarian is getting back on the road and taking that first ride when everything is back to 100%, or to zero, depending on how you want to look at it. It's always amazing to crack open the throttle and get a great big handful of WHOOSH in return...

Performance, handling, gestalt, karma—all where they are meant to be. AND (tee hee)...heated glove liners! BRING IT ON, WINTER!!

Piling on the HOG

Friday I rode to work. Saturday I rode down to the big F and back. En route, I kept noticing cars with "Harley Owners Group" specialty plates (including a Prius), pickup trucks with various H-D emblems on them, a couple of proud H-D box trailers with Canadian plates headed to Florida for Bikesgiving, and one full-blown Special Edition H-D pickup truck. I don't recall which Detroit behemoth manufactured this particular orange-and-black gem, but it's one or the other of those Detroit Behemoths whose emblem Calvin is seen peeing on from the back window of rival vehicles. Sticker is generally located above and in front of the trucknutz. But I digress.

Passing these folks, I get the impression from glancing in the driver's side window that the sub-rosa acronym is actually "Harried Old Guys" or maybe "Heavy Old Guys." In any case. Actual number of bona-fide H-D motorcycles seen in action during that same period—about four hours, morning, midday and afternoon, two-hundred miles of mixed interstate, divided highway, two-lane highway and backroads?

Er, um...one? Maybe?

And then there's this. Seriously—I didn't go looking for this, just happened to stumble upon it, and appreciated the germaneity:

Whoever wrote this obviously has no real-world experience and no idea what he is talking about. They stopped making Zima over a year ago.

I report. You decide.

A Long Time Ago, in a State Far, Far Away...

In the Fall of 2004 Sparky and I had the opportunity to rent bikes from Dubbelju Motorcycle Rentals in San Francisco for an all-too-brief ride up to Napa-Sonoma, including traversing the spectacular Trinity Road between the two valleys.

We picked up the bikes—an F650 for me and a Sportster for Sparky—as early as we could, and headed out through the obligatory fog across the Bay Bridge.

The fall weather was spectacular, but we barely had time for a quick lunch in St. Helena before we had to return across Trinity Road and south to San Francisco.

We did take the time to stop at the Marin County highlands for the obligatory Golden Gate photo op, then wound our way through evening rush-hour traffic in an unfamiliar city (dead reckoning all the way) in order to drop the bikes back at Dubbelju by closing time, grab the gear we had stashed there, and grab the BART to the airport for the red-eye back to D.C.

We had hoped to snag a pair of big-bore Beemers for the day, but it was first-come, first served, or a Hobson's choice, or something like that. In any case, Sparky was tickled with the Harley, and I was pretty happy with the 650.

 I had ridden the 650 (as service loaners) before, but this was a longer ride on a wide mix of roads—unfamiliar urban congestion, interstates, divided highways and narrow, uber-twisty two lanes. I spent many miles standing on the footpegs, simply because the bike inspires that kind of "irrational exuberance" and in hindsight, I think it probably was the perfect choice for the kind of one-up, lightly-loaded riding we were there for.

We were both pretty exhausted by the time we settled in for the flight home, and disappointed our ride had been so truncated. I'm failry certain that if either of us ever get back out to the left coast, we'll try and make a better go of it.

Beast as passenger

Beast riding the Jubal Early at White's Ferry, with hot chick in the background. (Funny story about that ride, yeah...)

A Bike outstanding in its field...

Beast again, at the Celtic festival in Leesburg June 2004

Beast's friend

Beast's best friend, from June 2007

Beast, April 2004

One of my favorite pictures of Beast, in one of my favorite settings.

Winging it

I gotta say that freestyling bread has got to be maybe the most impressive thing I have ever seen done in a kitchen—a kind of yeast-and-gluten based jazz, an improvisational art form that I plainly do not have the stones to try. It is an interpretive dance, dusted with flour.

Mary has been doing this of late, and Madeline does it also. Now, I baked my first loaf of bread in, what—third grade or something like that? And since then, I have baked all sorts of breads over the decades, and lots of other goodies as well. I consider myself a reasonably accomplished amateur baker. But, as I learned from my mother, I bake always using a recipe, followed with great deliberateness and devotion. How do these two do it?

It's almost scary for me to watch the bold and fearless way these women bake: intuitive, insightful, free-form, based on solid experience and whatever ingredients are at hand. Everything goes into the big stainless steel bowl in its turn (nothing seems to get measured) where it's mixed, then kneaded, then risen: a single vessel for the whole process. Four round loaves emerge from this crucible to nestle together on a big baking sheet, making a giant clover-leaved loaf, each leaf with two flat sides and a broad dome.

The motivation to bake is often some ingredient that needs to get used up; dairy-based, typically, so the breads are usually rich with cottage cheese or the equivalent. Some mix of herbs usually enlivens the flavor, often finely minced onion as well, a perfect compliment for a 1/4 rye-1/4 whole wheat loaf, like the ones we just enjoyed.

I watch it happen, and stand back and keep out of the way. It's a music I can't play...though I certainly enjoy listening, and am a willing audience.

********************
On the other hand, I am pretty good at free-style cooking.

Sunday morning I announced we were having quiche for dinner, and Mary concurred. When the time came, at the end of a long day of many hard tasks large and small, we went at it.

Mary made the crust, in this instance using the old-reliable recipe—pie crusts are treacherous and notoriously vindictive creations who won't hesitate to turn on you if you show the slightest weakness or fear or relinquish an iota of control for a moment. She prevailed, predictably.

I began making the filling by cutting up a hunk of smoked pork (like bacon but without the cure) and sauteing it; then adding finely minced onion, some finely chopped kale stems and, shortly after those, the kale leaves; then some sliced white mushrooms and salt and pepper. While that was all slowly cooking together, I beat a handful of eggs, some freshly-skimmed cream, and some cottage cheese until it was frothy. As soon as Mary had the two crusts ready, I divided up the kale mixture between the crusts and poured the egg filling over them.

The quiches were done in about a half an hour, along with a pumpkin-like winter squash I threw together. The squash was just cleaned out and baked with some cider, butter, brown sugar and spices. The two quiches and the squash together would make about three full meals for the two of us, with mostly local ingredients and without recipe (...excepting the crust...) with about thirty minutes prep time all told.

The trick is having a wonderful assortment of outstanding ingredients on hand, and a willingness to use them how you see fit. No recipe for the filling, just the miracle of all those foolproof pieces to put together like a puzzle. I suppose I could try and apply that approach to baking, but...

Nah. I'm not even going to pretend like that's going to happen. I will leave it to the two virtuosos. I know when to leave well enough alone.

Supper for a fall evening:

Home-corned brisket of local-grown beef, simmered in the crockpot with nothing but sweet cider all day, sliced thin and served open-faced on fresh baked onion rye cheesebread with just a smear of mustard.

Mixed green salad, with tomatoes and two kinds of green peppers—still from the garden.

A pint of pumpkin spice ale.

Hardly a scrap left.

Life V. Lifestyle

Over the years, I have seen many references to the “motorcycle lifestyle,” a term most strongly associated with the V-Twin universe. I deliberately use the noun ‘motorcycle,’ instead of the verb, ‘motorcycling,’ because what I have seen referred to is considerably more of a state of mind than a state of action.

The term immediately calls to mind all the stereotypical signifiers and tribal signs that stretch back to Hollister and “The Wild Ones”: bandannas and black leather, shortie helmets plastered with bellicose slogans (or no helmets at all) mirrored shades, ape-hangered choppers, highway pegs, engineer boots, wallets on chains and patch-bedecked denim vests. Also: “Trailer queens,” V-twin branded pickup trucks with nary a bike in sight, manly tattoos, t-shirts tautly stretching bald eagle-and-furling-flag motifs across ample pale bellies, et cetera, et cetera. The very embodiment of the phenomenon, the fount from which it flows, the alpha-and-omega of the "motorcycle lifestyle" is, of course, the company that created it from whole cloth, Harley-Davidson USA, of Milwaukee, Minnesota.

But worldwide, the motorcycle industry has fallen on hard times. Despite 2008's four-dollar-plus-a gallon gasoline, motorcycles sales are down drastically except for scooters, which are not perceived quite the same way as motorcycles by the general public. In a period of economic downturn, consumers view motorcycles as a luxury—not as practical transportation—that can (and must) be dispensed with, even disposed of. They are non-performing depreciating asset in the worst sense, right up there with jet-skis, bass boats, and all other manner of man-toys that might seem justifiable in flush times, but are surely the most extravagant and expendable of luxuries when things get tough.

A generation ago, HD, the very embodiment of rugged American individualism was dragged from its deathbed (where it had been driven by a succession of clueless management teams) through massive intervention by the Federal government. This meant years of onerous tariffs on large-displacement Asian motorcycles, and it allowed the company some breathing room while it focused on its notorious and long-standing quality control and reliability issues.

HD pulled itself together admirably (truly, it was a B-school case-study in good management) and it watched its market share climb from year-to-year as it overcame its bad reputation. HD tapped into a growing market of affluent middle-class Americans (The notorious, and reviled "RUBBIES"—"Rich Urban Bikers") who were looking for a little adventure, looking to make a slightly rebellious statement. HD understood what people wanted, and gave it to them—in spades.

But having committed itself wholly to this marketing approach, HD finds itself on the skids once again, without a simple government life-support solution in sight. By focusing on fulfilling a mid-life-crisis driven fantasy rather than meeting a real-world need, HD painted itself into a corner. Overall, the decline in HD sales is less severe than that of the world-wide motorcycle industry in general. But in order to maintain sales volumes and dealership expansions in a market that was approaching saturation, as well as to grab some of that housing-bubble cash, HD undertook aggressive financing strategies that equated exactly to the subprime mortgages.

When the collapsing housing bubble began destroying equity, HD found itself the owner of a large fleet of defaulted-on and rapidly depreciating motorcycles. Repossessions became a dime-a-dozen, and painfully depressed the market for new and used motorcycles across the board; the market has yet to recover, and likely will not improve until well into 2010.

HD’s stock price has been plummeting over the last year, it has laid off thousands of employees, shelved plans for a new North American factory, and this week it stunned the motorcycling world by announcing it is pulling the plug on Buell immediately, and seeking a buyer for MVAgusta, which it acquired barely fifteen months ago.

Buell had been HD’s hope and lifeline since 1983 (around the time of the tariffs) serving first as a captive market for HD’s V-Twin engines, then as a subsidiary of HD serving a younger, more sporting market. Buell was to HD as Saturn was to be for GM: a new, nimble, progressive company built from scratch from the ground up with a fresh approach, sharing some corporate DNA but injecting new ideas into the corporate body.

Eric Buell, the eponymous founder, is an enthusiast and iconoclast—a Steve Jobs for the motorcycle world—and Buell Motors may rise again, a phoenix from HD’s ashes. Unfortunately, despite their differences, Buell inherited many of its parent’s shortcomings, and if it lives on, it will be as a boutique manufacturer, selling to a niche market of enthusiasts. Right now the one thing Buell and Saturn have in common is a very uncertain future, dragged down by their moribund corporate parents.

In hindsight, I imagine HD regrets having spent the last two-and-a-half decades building motorcycles for a lifestyle (n.) instead of for motorcycling (v.). But it's too late to change; what has been done cannot be undone. We may be on the cusp of losing two of America's great motorcycle marques in one fell swoop.

Addendum:

I forgot to mention “HOG,” (“Harley Owners Group”) to my knowledge still the only factory-supported enthusiasts club in the motorcycling world.

BMW enthusiasts have two major unaffiliated groups to choose from in the United States alone: BMW Motorcyclists of America (BMWMOA) perceived to be an ally of BMW North America, and the BMW Rider’s Association (BMWRA) which has historically tended to be more openly critical of BMWNA and more skeptical in general. There are countless other local, regional and specialty BMW clubs in addition to the two national groups, all entirely unaffiliated with BMW or BMW of North America.

The irony is that while the two major BMW clubs refer to themselves as “Motorcyclists” and “Riders,” the Harley group refers to themselves simply as “owners” —no doubt to preserve the ‘Hog’ acronym, but a revealing insight, none the less.

TOTD

An inescapable stumbling block of human intellect is the irresistible compulsion to create a linear narrative with itself at the center—like a pre-Galilean solar system—in the face of an incomprehensibly indifferent universe. It sees order where there is none, finds patterns amid chaos, then organizes these delusions in its most flattering light.

Religion, tribe, caste, class, party, clan, race, politics, philosophy—all feeble and ultimately faulty efforts to impose order and predictive value on a vindictively unpredictable world.

The view from Stephenson

Here—what the old timers refer to as 'down-valley'—is where the identity of the valley falters a bit. The ancient mountains splay outwards, appearing as little more than far-distant wrinkles, turning their backs on each other in lassitude, barely bothering to define the gently rolling sprawl between.

This timeworn place, where seventeen generations of mountains have come to die, entombs each succeeding layer on the bones of its predecessor. It is a geological ossuary. Amid the dust and glare, the bountiful fractal history displays itself in both the contours of those distant ridges and in the dirt at your feet.

Squinting against the dazzling sun and the unbounded sky, you can envision the succession of orogenies building mountains from chunks of continental crust, grinding them away and flushing the dust back to the sea with the tools at hand like some dissatisfied and frustrated sculptor. The steady northward succession of Appalachian water gaps betray how the workpiece gradually moved upwards into the steady-held cutting tool over eons, allowing the most patient of processes to make its mark.

At the same time, beneath the same sun and the same brilliant sky, you sense the fractal nature of the human presence here, a tiny imitation of the cycle of orogeny and erosion. To stand here within sight of the interstate, the railroad and the U.S. highway, all three nearly coaxial, is to marvel at the obviousness of this path as a north-south route traversing an immense span.

The interstate is merely the most recent entrant in this field, not breaking any new ground but simply mimicking a portion of venerable U.S. Rt. 11 as it passes from Quebec to New Orleans. I imagine Rt. 11 was superimposed on some earlier Valley Pike or collection of roadways, themselves built upon earlier road, paths and trail, until, with enough regression, we encounter the first north-bound pre-Columbian traveler en route to his or her passage to points unknown, who were probably taking advantage of trails worn by migratory animals.

It pleases me to think of someone pausing briefly beneath the same dazzling sun five-hundred generations ago, admiring the distant beauty of Signal Knob rising through the blue haze and the flame-colored leaves.

Kick the rough ground where the fallow farm fields were churned over for this new place, this most recent squatter on the thin surface soil, and you uncover plentiful stones just beneath the sparse weeds and coarse grasses. Uniform grey limestone, occasionally striated or iron-stained, they are abundant and likely steered many farmers towards pasture animals rather than field crops. Animals thrived on the limestone-nourished grasses, while plows were worn and thwarted by this taut skin of dirt stretched over the valley's ribs.

You kick the dirt circumspectly in places like this, where the transition from past to present may not be complete, out of respect for what lies beneath. You do not want to disturb the cadre of ghosts sleeping below the surface. This place of time unbounded can have an oppressive air; these mountains, and their ancestors, have been here for four and a half thousand million years. People have seen them for one-one hundredth of a million years. I have seen them for one-twenty thousandth of a million years.

I don't quite know what to make of that. So I scuff the dirt once more, and return to the task at hand...

A Lovecraftian Lexicon:

And just in time for the Holidays!

• Aeons
• Batrachean
• Biliferous
• Cacodaemoniacal
• Cyclopean
• Daemon
• Demonaic
• Effluence
• Eldritch
• Foetid
• Foetor
• Gelatinous
• Gibbous
• Gloaming
• Ichor
• Lambent
• Lucubration
• Mausolean
• Miasmal
• Necrophagous
• Noisome
• Obdurate
• Outre
• Piteous
• Rugose
• Sepulcral
• Terrene
• Ululate
• Vaporous
  

Use these three times in conversation, and they’re yours forever. No one—except the Great Old Ones, sleeping beneath the stars for the aeons—will have a clue what you’re talking about, but that’s not your problem, is it?