That Button Just Makes You Feel Better

Ever wonder why the elevator doors don't close right away when you push that "Close Door" button? Because it does nothing. Here is a great post about this and other non-functioning buttons in your life:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/

Enjoy!

Shifting Educational Paradigms or Are Our Kids Learned Much?

So, Western education. How is that going for us? Well, the U.S. consistently falls way behind in tests given internationally. And, generally, many parents must rely on expensive private schooling. That shouldn't be. Maybe, instead of enacting legislation that assumes all kids are the same and patting oneself on the back for that crippling maneuver, we should change the way in which we teach. Maybe we should spend less on war and more on arts and education. I know, it sounds crazy. Check out this video. It is not only entertaining but informative.



Feel free to leave comments.

Writing 50,000 Words in a Month

So, for the month of November, I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote about 55,000 words in total. The event was the National Novel Writing Month, or for those in the know, NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words in a month (30 days) equals out to about 1,667 words a day on average. This means about an hour to two a day for a month. I must say, it was difficult. At first. But, after doing it for awhile and foregoing social events, I felt inspired by my own abilities and I wrote with relish most days following the initial ten or so. This was what I was engaged in while I was leaving this blog to disuse. So, now I have spent the day logging posts for the possible enjoyment of my small crowd. The novel in question is a ramshackle affair whose parts may be stronger than its whole. A rubric of ideas from which I may pull, if you will. I will share a small section and cease my bloggish rambling.

"The bus was an experience which truly showed the heart of the city and which varied depending on the part of the city the bus was in. In this section, the University District to Ballard, it tended to be quiet weirdos, loud weirdos, totally middle of the road new generation business men (who read the Seattle Times and tried not to look uncomfortable in their suits), or students. His experience on the bus was mostly one of scholarship, or rather he would read vigorously, shutting out the world around him and occasionally peeking his head out of the words to check his location. To be able to read on a moving vehicle, he had had to train himself, tune certain parts of his brain into not reacting to the movement of the bus and rather focusing on the movement of the eyes across the landscape of words. He was very pleased with himself whenever he thought of it. The bus allowed certain opportunities such as this which were not an option on the bike. This made him feel less guilty about leaving his spry little bike hiding in the bike room, gathering dust. He read and sometimes wrote. When he wrote he would look out in front of him into the infinite cave of thought, or observe his neighbors for inspiration. At this moment, on this day of his riding, just in front of him, in the seat before him, were two young men, students it seemed, who thought everything was funny and whose laughs were an awkward ordeal that couldn’t hide their own uncomfortableness with their own man bodies and man voices and man to man relationships.
One of the two man-boys was a small giant with knobby sausage fingers, whose nails looked like small square plates pushed deep into putty. These fingers were the outlet of his insecurities and his uncomfortableness. He grabbed the purple plastic handle on the seat in front of him like he was grabbing the ears of a small child, big putty hands on each side of the thing, and he began to thumb at the middle for no reason at all, his oily thumb tips massaging the hard plastic. He would do this and also use his thumb-looking fore fingers to roughly stroke the thing with outward motions. The third and grossest of the activities with this poor plastic handle was a right handed twisting and stroking, some unconscious masturbatory gesture he hadn’t yet excelled from expressing. Henry’s face twisted up in disgust. This was not the morning image that he wanted. He couldn’t stop watching though. The man-boy couldn’t stop molesting the thing either, like there was still some un-oiled surfaces he had to cover with the sick ritualistic gestures of a pastor with his altar boy. Henry began to express his feelings of disgust on the page, describing the display very much similarly as this narrator has done above, his script jarred often by the bumps.
When he was reading on the bus, he always got the feeling like something was going on that he needed to see, some scenery or event, something he couldn’t see just anytime. He could have gone without the man-boy event. But, when he was not reading, just staring, and nothing happened, as it was apt to, he felt as though he should be productive and read. He couldn’t win, even with himself. There were always at least two books to read, and two notebooks in which to write. Besides that he kept a camera. He liked to take pictures and didn’t care if they turned out to be anything or spent an eternity catching byte dust on his computer. The act itself was enjoyable. He knew nothing about framing, technically, or really what many of the settings did. He just took the pictures how he thought they looked good. It wasn’t an analogue for experience though as it is for many these days, the Asian tourists and the Hipsters in particular. He felt that they never actually lived life but rather made proof of a life lived. They weren’t there for any of it, personally, just their human forms. There were all the Asian tourists with their factory smiles giving the V for Victory sign with their hands in every single shot, waiting until they could get home and put it on their social networking site. The Hipsters as well just made evidence of life in order for it to be posted online, going further though into that sickly realm of irony. The ironic mustaches and poses, the ironic mimicry of Asian tourists even possibly, creating some facsimile of reality that seemed labyrinthine and inescapable."

I must say that I have done no editing and would be so very fine with anyone telling me if something sounded weird or was just outright wrong. It is very possible that both things have occurred, possibly simultaneously. Anyway, that's all I got. Plus this cartoon which identifies my situation near perfectly:

That Whole Wikileaks Thing...

So, unless you are a cave-dweller (in which case you wouldn't be reading this right now), you know about Julian Assange and his secretive assemblage of super-hackers. In the last few months, several thousands of documents have been released, some of which have shown the public things they assumed but didn't have proof of directly (like say, from the horse's very own mouth where the horse is the government or the Pentagon). People have been stunned and appalled by the relish with which innocent people were mown down with helicopter super-machine guns (whose bullets are made to pierce tank armor). Yes, we all know that war is hell, but we all hope that the mindset which made the Third Reich possible wouldn't seep so easily into the skulls of our supposed protectors. From "Collateral Murder" to the more recent slow dissemination of diplomatic cables, Wikileaks has made a name for itself.

Ridiculous calls to action by certain entertainers/politicians, calling Assange a traitor (which he isn't, obviously, not being a U.S. citizen or acting within the U.S.), a terrorist (again silly and ignorant), and targeting him for assassination, show that this has stirred some pots and some people are scared about the implications (not to the structure of foreign relations, I'll say, but to their own exposition possibly). Wikileaks has so far put out more leaked documents than have all the news organizations combined over the years. This is significant. That the current leaks, the cables, haven't turned out to be shocking or game-changers exactly, doesn't mean that they don't have huge implications to not only government transparency but also the meaning of free speech and the function of an increasingly impotent journalism. These leaks reveal something of all shades of government, throughout the whole world, no matter what ideology is at work. Therefore this has the amazing ability to surpass political identity within the public and let them see exactly in what their representative government has been engaged, be it bad or good.

Already, those who didn't agree with the secrecy of the transparency-obsessed Wikileaks have split off to create Openleaks, which will launch tomorrow. The basis of this more transparent organization would be to act as a protected go-between for leakers and publications, where they themselves publish nothing at all. This is a good thing. And this is not to say that I don't agree with the secretive workings of Wikileaks, but it means that the ideas are finding footing in which to evolve this beneficial process of stopping illegalities on the governmental level. Julian Assange, the media doll, has added mystery-novel flourishes to the story with the news of his insurance file (his "poison pill"), a 256-bit encrypted file (called "nearly impossible to crack" by a major cyber security expert) which includes 1.4 gigabytes of leaked material which may include information leaked from Bank of America and BP and the convenience of the Interpol warrant's timing on spurious charges. The key to the encryption lies with him and will be released to the thousands who have downloaded the archived file from the site in the event of his indictment or murder. That is, I have to say, pretty cool. Since his arrest, so called "hacktivists" have attacked the sites of Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard and Visa for pulling their services from Wikileaks. It looks like an effort by a small and mobilized group representing goals antithetical to the overly secretive governments. This I can applaud, no matter how little it will really affect those companies' abilities to make money.

What does it mean? What will happen in the long run? How will this affect the happenings in the worlds of government and journalism? This is not yet apparent. But, at the least, Wikileaks has garnered a response by the U.S. government and its allies which shows their disregard for transparency and how easily they can slip into tyrannical muscle flexing. Whatever happens, it will be something to watch.

Here are some articles and websites of note:

• http://mirror.wikileaks.info/
• http://twitter.com/wikileaks
•  https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/#
• http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/information-antidote-fear-wikileaks-law-and-you
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-oil-giants-squeeze-chavez
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-shell-nigeria-spying
• http://www.beehivecity.com/hightech/icelandic-it-firm-to-sue-visa-mastercard-over-wikileaks-cut-off-229282/
• http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indoleaks-touts-revealing-wikileaks-documents-but-technical-problems-persist/411333
• Interesting Documentary -- http://pulsemedia.org/2010/12/12/wikirebels/
• http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/10/the_sunshine_policy?page=0,0
• Supposedly launching tomorrow -- http://openleaks.org/
• Mirror site Wikileaks -- http://213.251.145.96/

Beet Kvass and Other Fermented Goodness

 About two weeks ago, I started something called beet kvass (it is the jar in the picture which looks like it has beets in it). The beets came into the kvass picture later in the game, as kvass was a fermented drink birthed out of Eastern Europe and Russia using mainly rye bread and water, with various other spices and fruits used as well. The point of the bread was that it had live cultures in it, like say, sourdough does. When soaked and left to ferment, those cultures are awakened and thrive. It was something often drank by the peasants after long days of work, as it was extremely nutritious and had a small amount of incidental alcohol. Lucky for them. Beet kvass uses a similar idea. It can include bread but many now prefer to use whey (as in the liquid stuff which pools in your container of yogurt). I myself, already steeped in a great deal of fermentation projects, have used just a couple tablespoons of the juice from one of my other pickles as starter. It needs a starter to begin its wonderful process.

Now to start this process I had to chop up the beets coarsely (after the strenuous act of peeling them), as you can see in the picture, and put them in my clean jar. This is three good sized beets, like softballs. It is ill-advised to shred the beets, as every site has warned me, since the beets then let off too much juice at once, sugar as well, and it turns into something more alcoholic. Not to say that it wouldn't be good, I just don't know. If anyone tries that method, let me know how it goes. So the beets are cut and in the jar, good. Now I add one tablespoon of salt and one or two tablespoons of starter (this can be your pooled liquid from yogurt or raw milk, or like me, some sauerkraut or pickle juice lounging around the fridge). You want to have spring water, void of that anti-bacterial chlorine which will destroy our wonderful bodily allies, and fill it up to about one inch from the top. My jar is two quarts. This space between the water and the top is where the excess CO2 created from fermentation will go. If you are using a mason jar, you might keep the lid just a little shy of tight, so as to allow for the escape of the CO2. With my clamp jar I haven't had any issues but do open it each day to release any pressure it builds. Wouldn't want a hole in my jar.

Beets are an extremely healthy vegetable, with implications for use in prevention and healing of cancers, the lowering of blood pressure, the increase of blood flow to brain, alkalization of blood, etc etc etc. It has many vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants and other compounds of great benefit. Go here to see all the numerous benefits of this gorgeous vegetable. The fermentation of this concoction further increases the nutritional benefit, with the addition of probiotics which not only benefit digestion but help process the nutrients within for greater absorption. The tonic becomes red with time. It needs only three or so days outside of the fridge to be considered ready. The taste is salty and earthy sweet, like you are sucking down the very soul of the beet. If the taste is too salty, then the next batch should be prepared with that in mind, decreasing the salt to your taste. When the first batch is downed, the beets within can be given one more go, a little bit diluted from the first but still extremely beneficial and thirst-quenching.

The picture above includes the second chapter of my beet kvass (on the left, with golden beets this time), my newly fermented sauerkraut (middle, with the addition of organic Gala apples this time for sweetness) and a compendium of various vegetables set to ferment in a mason jar (right, the scraps of the moment are carrots, turnips, celery, brussel sprouts, red pepper and ginger). The last one is an ongoing experiment, which I pull from randomly and drop extra vegetables into. Fermentation is ridiculously easy, one just has to try it out. And let me know about it. Here are a few links to help you along:

• http://thenourishingcook.com/2010/02/how-to-make-fermented-beet-kvass/
• http://scdkatfood.blogspot.com/2010/04/ferments.html
• http://www.sustainableeats.com/2009/05/26/homemade-rhubarb-soda/
• http://www.healthygreenkitchen.com/making-sauerkraut.html
• http://www.healthy-green-lifestyle.com/cultured-foods.html
• http://www.wildfermentation.com/resources.php?page=sauerkraut

I hope that this starts some on a fermentation frenzy. I can vouch for its enjoyment.

Cool Video Amongst Many

Here is a cool video of Yeasayer, a capella in the subway:


#87.1 - YEASAYER - No need to worry / Redcave
Uploaded by lablogotheque. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

The website is called La Blogotheque, some French concoction, and it has videos of various great bands making music out in the open, say the street or someone's house, the subway or a backyard. Something like that. You should check it out.

Everyone Should Be So Happy

My favorite video of right now.



Yessssssss.

Though You May Have Seen It...

Here is what a so-called "Happy Meal" looks like after 180 days:

Just search for "happy meal" on the Google and you will get the story, which is essentially the same as this picture, but with rabble.

Ways in Which One Can Make Food

As a follow-up to my previous post about the pathetic state of American eating, a state which could be helped immensely by the actuating of those common sensibilities built (though sometimes hidden deep within an overlarge shell) into each person with thoughts, I figured I would put up some recipes that represent vegetables as a main event. We are just coming into Autumn and as such many of the recipes are attuned to that season's fare. Each week, with our produce box, we get a sheet of recipes which more often than not has saliva-producing effects. The following are four such sheets.

 Each image can be clicked to enlarge and printed out. I would love it if someone made one of these recipes and commented (just below the post) with the results. Enjoy eating healthy.

Eating and Sleeping...

I have recently been looking at the New York Times' most popular health-related articles while vegging out before my computer. I find it funny and strange that there are so many fad diets and "miracle" pills when eating normally can be so easy. OK, normal nowadays is a relative term. Many Americans, most Americans, have a particular difficulty with looking back into their own cultural ancestral history and seeing what normal food eating looks like. Normal should be common sense but it no longer is. Common sense and normality have been violently blurred by modern day marketing, that apparatus of total deception. Processed food has taken the average American and run their entire system (beginning with digestive and continuing on to the cardiovascular, nervous, lymphatic, endocrine, muscular, skeletal and reproductive) through the proverbial mud. Flavorists can control taste and smell, fooling the mind into thinking that McDonald's fries (which never decompose) or Burger King's patties (guaranteed to be part feces) are good. They are not good. You are being fooled.

The common sense part: eat vegetables and fruits, walk around, sleep right. Meat, although extremely popular, is not the end-all be-all of food. It isn't very good for you. Eat some fish. Eating bad fats makes you fat. Period. Stop it already.

Here are those aforementioned New York Times articles:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/05brody.html?src=me&ref=health

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/research/05behavior.html?src=me&ref=health

So, eat right and get some sleep already!
 

Everyone Should Read Banned Books!

In Springfield, MO, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse Five was recently pulled from high school curricula because of the opinion of one man. This man is a professor at Missouri State University, my alma mater. He is part of education, ladies and gentlemen. Scary. He believes it is "filthy," the book that is. As well as others. Here is the link to the story in Springfield's "newspaper." And here is a good analysis of the action. The following is from the Vonnegut book in question. Beautiful, smart, peaceful. And apparently part of a larger more evil and pornographic work, if you want to believe a guy named Scroggins.

"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored nearly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the rack and shipped back to the United States, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous content into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."

Read GO SEE ART Post!

I just posted on the GO SEE ART blog about Banned Books Week. Go read it!

Here is the poster for it, with robots!

A Day in the (Work) Life

Although this was created before my employ at Espresso Supply, the following video shows what happens on a daily basis at work in the shipping department. Enjoy it.



Also, if you have any need for coffee making things, here is the site: http://www.espressosupply.com/

Bike to Wineries, Check.

Yesterday (Saturday, the 11th), we biked to the wineries. Myself, Anne and our friend Zack. This was an event that we had been wanting to do for some time and only ended up doing as a result of our panic that Summer was in its death throes. The ride was about 18 miles there, but we got off the trail too early and added nearly five more to that. The Burke-Gilman Trail runs through Seattle, beginning at 11th street in Ballard and ending above the Northern finger of Lake Washington at Bothell. From there it is replaced by the Sammamish River Trail, which continues to the wineries accompanied by the Sammamish River, whose banks are crowded with small bungalows and scrappy boats. Both trails are rail trails, conversions of unused railroads, which make for very evenly graded paths.

It was a gorgeous day, luckily for us. The ride was relaxing and surprisingly easy. We rode into our usual winery destinations, starting at Columbia Winery. I am a member there, thanks to my mother, and enjoy two free tastings for four people each time I go. We were joined, via her car, by Zack's girlfriend, Jamie.

We brought various farmer's market fare to eat. A baguette filled with olive oil, basil and garlic. A creamy spreadable fromage with truffle salt in it. Some fontina cheese. Plums, various berries, heirloom tomatoes and lentil sprouts. It was decadent and delicious. We got our tastings at Columbia, our heads humming with wine, then we headed across the street to Chateau Ste. Michelle.

Anne walks with determination near the plants of her Spanish ancestry. Here, at Ste. Michelle, the grounds are much more exciting and decorative. They even have a stage for the big name bands of yesteryear to play such as Crowded House; Steely Dan; Earth, Wind and Fire and Chris Isaak to name a few. And they have fowl. Ducks, geese and peacocks. The vines on the property are decorative only, as the real grapes are grown in more sandy, loamy soil on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. As such, these grapes are a little sour...

... as can be seen in the above picture, in Jamie's face.

There are the ducks, which seem to piss Zack off, or at least make him uber-serious. This is our second eating session, because drinking wine is a task that famishes.

And the following are some of the fowl we encountered.

The ride back was less invigorating than the ride there. We were beat. And there was a football game at UW's stadium so the trail became inundated with drunk, inconsiderate sports fans. We walked our bikes the last mile for this reason. Our final mileage was sitting at about 41 miles. We swelled with pride before succumbing to exhaustion and finding bed.

Currently Reading: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the two most well-known books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and one of the most beloved books of literature in all the world. This Nobel Prize-winning novelist's prose sings. He is a reason for the popularization of the gorgeous literary style of magical realism. The other novel for which he is so well-known is One Hundred Years of Solitude. That book may be my favorite of all-time, sitting close to Milan Kundera's Immortality and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (let's stick George Orwell's 1984 in there while we're at it). I just wanted to share a clump of prose from the early pages of the book that I thought were beautiful and important, as well as indicative of Marquez' prose.

"Along the rough cobbled streets that had served so well in surprise attacks and buccaneer landings, weeds hung from the balconies and opened cracks in the whitewashed walls of even the best-kept mansions, and the only signs of life at two o'clock in the afternoon were languid piano exercises played in the dim light of siesta. Indoors, in the cool bedrooms saturated with incense, women protected themselves from the sun as if it were a shameful infection, and even at early Mass they hid their faces in their mantillas. Their love affairs were slow and difficult and were often disturbed by sinister omens, and life seemed interminable. At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorous mosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred the certainty of death in the depths of one's soul"

It is also important to note that this English translation of this Spanish text is made possible by the ever-important translator of Latin American literature, Edith Grossman. Also, this is a mantilla.

"Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen"

The following is the poem, "America," by Allen Ginsberg accompanied by a video montage that I enjoyed. It is one of my favorite poems of all time.

"...they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835..."

Just wonderful.

By The Way, How To Cut An Onion

This is the best way, as shown by a French guy, then an English dude.





I like how the French chef says "onion."

I Watched This And Thought Of You

This is possibly the funniest (seemingly unintentionally) video I have seen in awhile. Don't worry about understanding them.



Enjoy.

My First Real Weekend

After my first real week of work (i.e. the whole Monday - Friday, leave at five bit), I have been graced with my first real week-end. Here is what the Google says about the week-end:

Okay, now add rain and subtract sun. Here is what my window says about it:

Yesterday, it was nearing 80 degrees. And sunny. Today, we won't even come to the heels of 70. The Rain City is again earning its name.

Finished Pickles, More to Come

I have, so far, finished two batches of pickles. They are beautiful. And they taste really good while canoeing around Lake Union. Three men, one boat, seven hours, four pickles, seven hard-boiled eggs, at least four sunburned thighs, etc. Anyway, the following picture indicates my work in the realm of pickling. I have two further gallons fermenting atop my fridge.

And here is another gallon making its way towards deliciousness (this time with half the salt and fresh jalapenos):

Externally (meaning separate from pickling and concerning the out of doors), this is a picture of our bikes (Anne's and my own) hanging out in Gas Works Park, dwarfed by Kite Hill and the Aurora bridge (second most common bridge for suiciding oneself):

Hope that was enjoyable! Off to a sherry tasting!

Video: Orange Chair Placement and Human Psychology

For those who live in Seattle or have been to Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, I have got an interesting video for you. It concerns the placement of those ubiquitous orange chairs and how that affects park-goers movement throughout said park. Now I want to go there and interact with those chairs. Here is the video:

Turning a Cucumber

The season for pickling cucumbers is upon us! Although odd and crazed, this exclamation did erupt in me, albeit mostly internally or not around many people. Since my excursion into the fine art of fermentation, I have wanted to make my greatest foodstuff addiction. Pickles. Real and sour pickles. Too long has man settled for vinegared cucumbers in America. We've only to look back at our ancestral history to see the true and truly delicious ways, back to Germany or Poland or Hungary among others. To make the distinction, they can also be called Brined Pickles. As this fermentation takes place because of the natural lactobacillus from the skin, it is filled, like sauerkraut, yogurt and kimchi, with probiotics (gut flora if you like). An acquaintance from the Ukraine told me years back that the resulting brine (pickle juice) was used for a hangover cure in Russia and Eastern Europe. Prior to this, I myself had often craved this special drink the morning after a night of too much. It seemed to work for me.

So now I have started my very own pickles. It excites me just to think about it, to see the jar of them processing above my fridge. I started one batch on July 31st, in the same jar I used to make sauerkraut. On Thursday I got some more cucumbers and so had to find another receptacle to make into a fermenter. I went to the home brew store just down the hill from my apartment to get some airlock and grommets. The airlock lets carbon dioxide, a natural byproduct, escape while keeping oxygen from getting in and creating yeasty scum on top. At the brew store I picked up a one-gallon bucket and the proprietor drilled a hole in the lid and fitted a grommet in there for me. It was perfect.

Making pickles is easy. I have linked to this site previously, because it is good and the book is better. Wild Fermentation. This has a recipe specifically for sour pickles, simply spiced. It also explains brine strength, which dictates the sourness and saltiness of the resulting pickle. I used the salinity of the linked recipe, 5.4% precisely, making for fairly salty and sour pickles. Yum. Some have used a salinity of up to 10%, where the pickle has to be rinsed off to be bearably eaten. I began my pickling by washing out my fermenter jar/bucket and adding the herbs and spices (flowering dill, two peeled bulbs of garlic, some peppercorns, mustard seed, caraway seed, chili flakes). Next comes the cukes. I put them in their in such a way as to fit them as tightly as possible. Finally the brine. Use spring water or some filtered water free of chlorine. Chlorine could kill all the bacteria you want to bolster. No tap water. I used six tablespoons, or 3/8ths cup, of kosher salt per liter of water. (OOPS! The previous sentence, although true to what I did, does not actually represent the 5.4% salinity I wanted. Rather it is closer to that 10% salinity in which eggs can float. I read wrongly and doubled the salt. Three tablespoons per liter is a 5.4% salinity. Take notice.) Kosher salt is a great salt to use as it has no iodine added and won't stain or darken the end result. When the brine covers the cucumbers and nears the top, I cap it and fill the airlock with a little water. Then wait. The airlock will bubble and brim. This is fermentation. I leave it be, let it bubble and dribble over. I know that no air connection is possible inside this way. I want to hear about it if anyone tries this. It is easy and fun. Like a science experiment you will get to eat later.

The following are pictures of their humble beginnings. I will report in a couple weeks as the fermentation becomes evident, or nears finish.

Poaching an Egg

If you lack the certain finesse and knowledge needed for the successful poaching of an egg, you can find out how at Beyond the Hunger, which I will call the little brother blog of Satisfying Hunger ... It is operated by Lucas Cain, a fellow Seattlite and food enthusiast among other things. I am sure that posts will be added with increasing frequency as he gets the hang of the blogging thing. I also link to his site on my sidebar. Go over there.

Nature's Newest Horror Flick

Infinite Jest, Finished

Yes, big as a baby, though denser and more verbose, and I finished it. For my first time. I know that there is a second and even possibly a third time in store for me, somewhere in the future, a year past or more. I read every one of the one-thousand-seventy-nine pages (this including copious endnotes, of course) and was delighted and appalled and confused and suffering and entrenched and invested and in love throughout, in turns.

I looked everyday (nearly) at a web page which defined and explained words and acronyms and references which I hadn't the personal latent knowledge to know myself. It helped immensely and I learned a great deal of words, many of which I have still retained I hope. Post Jest I am looking at sites which dissect and analyze bits and pieces of the narrative which I may not have gleaned from the first go around. There is a lot of conjecture, but it is satisfying. It keeps me within the book I was reluctant to finish, to put down to sit there as another inert and mysterious object, a thick monolithic thing of weight. I suggest it to anyone with patience and a certain brand of literary commitment. Don't look at other books during this time. It needs your attention. Also, look to online resources and avoid spoilers. Maybe join the mailing list, like I did, and then observe or interact with the thoughtful and measured obsession that is DFW (also known as David Foster Wallace).

A website that is currently sitting on one of my Firefox tabs, running in the background, is The Howling Fantods. This specific link goes to the IJ Notes and Speculations page which I am now reading from time to time to extend my experience. It has spoilers, so if you haven't read it and want to, click to the main page. I was lucky enough to be linked on that page for my previous Infinite Jest post, in which I also linked The Howling Fantods. Another site I suggest, and have already, which is useful throughout the book is the David Foster Wallace Wiki. Super site for a supplemental. Anyway, I just wanted to publicly congratulate myself on this accomplishment. Tell me if you have read it or if I have convinced you to start it yourself. I will conclude this post with a small segment from the book which I loved the language of, so much so that I remembered the page number, which number I will not divulge.

"Then the number of times I would have to repeat the same processes, day after day, in all kinds of light, until I graduated and moved away and then began the same exhausting process of exit and return in some dormitory at some tennis-power university somewhere. Maybe the worst part of the cognitions involved the incredible volume of food I was going to have to consume over the rest of my life. Meal after meal, plus snacks. Day after day after day. Experiencing this food in toto. Just the thought of the meat alone. One megagram? Two megagrams? I experienced, vividly, the image of a broad cool well-lit room piled floor to ceiling with nothing but the lightly breaded chicken fillets I was going to consume over the next sixty years. The number of fowl vivisected for a lifetime's meat. The amount of hydrochloric acid and bilirubin and glucose and glycogen and gluconol produced and absorbed and produced in my body. And another, dimmer room, filled with the rising mass of the excrement I'd produce, the room's double-locked steel door gradually bowing outward with the mounting pressure....I had to put my hand out against the wall and stand there hunched until the worst of it passed. I watched the floor dry."

Thanks for listening.

Vulture

Vulture

by Robinson Jeffers

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside

Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling

high up in heaven,

And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit

narrowing,

I understood then

That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-

feathers

Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.

I could see the naked red head between the great wings

Bear downward staring. I said, "My dear bird, we are wasting time

here.

These old bones will still work; they are not for you." But how

beautiful

he looked, gliding down

On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the

sea-light

over the precipice. I tell you solemnly

That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak

and

become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--

What a sublime end of one's body, what and enskyment; what a life

after death.

One of my favorite poems ever.

GO SEE ART

Just posted over at GO SEE ART about fiction in The New Yorker. Go have a look:

goseeart.blogspot.com

Thanks.

Creme Brulee, For Real This Time

Alright. The Burnt Cream post is finished on Sir Lucas' blog. I promised it before and gave little pictures of joy and hope. But, now, it is real.

Link to it here. And enjoy.

Beyond The Hunger

P.S. He actually isn't knighted.

Poetry, Paragraphically Formed

Here is poetry made from the gray folds of my own mind.

A Sycamore Lives Inside of Me

A sycamore lives inside of me. I trim my leaves daily. Sometimes, I chew them off. Like hangnails. I know it symbolizes growth. It is growth. But who else must deal this way. Never have I peeked a sprout on someone else’s person. Not like the man on the bus who shuddered at the foliage spitting unkindly from my ear. I stopped drinking water for a week, traveled only at night. It stopped its punching youngness, that spurting spirit of youth. But I became listless, lonely and dry as bone. We live together, and so we die.

And so I traveled to the countryside. And so I planted my feet in rich soil. And so I stopped caring and became a forest. At least I am not alone.

Now

I remember the fluorescent glow of inside employment, scraping the concrete with razorblades and sweeping up after myself. I remember the day blinking out before I came to glimpse it, a four o’clock sunset and sleep, so much sleep. I remember drinking too much and loving it and still loving it now, living what fraction of life is left like a life worth living, not saving for an immutable immeasurable future, a thing spaced off and far away and never ever real, merely a penumbra of hope that more resembles discontent than progress. Blink out the unfolding of calendar reveries, you’ll die tomorrow! Everything begins and ends right here.

Somewhere Upward

Stocking shelves, blankly staring, my mind somewhere upward of me, in concrete, parking structure, working ever upward, trying for sky, wisp of cloud, my hands are functioning, muscle memory, I notice I am stocking toast tongs, yes, tongs for toast, and in noticing this I feel the dread, feel the insistence of the inevitable apocalypse, I feel we’re closer than ever before, and no shit, everyone’s scared but it’s a latent fear, living somewhere under our ribcages, behind our hearts, a dull ache, it’s in the toast tongs, the teabag squeezers, yes, there is teabag squeezers, the little things, the knowledge and image that people are delicately pulling toast with stylish bamboo tongs or are afraid to squeeze out their teabags with fingertips or spoon, too elegant, and I think this world is too fragile and the monkey in us is both too present and entirely gone, and I’ve got a goddamned hangnail and I feel my mind will never successfully navigate those halls of cars, never find the sweet air of sky.

by Sean Flannigan

A Poem

Bar Time
by Billy Collins

In keeping with universal saloon practice,
the clock here is set fifteen minutes ahead
of all the clocks in the outside world.

This makes us a rather advanced group,
doing our drinking in the unknown future,
immune from the cares of the present,
safely harbored a quarter of an hour
beyond the woes of the contemporary scene.

No wonder such thoughtless pleasure derives
from tending the small fire of a cigarette,
from observing this glass of whiskey and ice,
the cold rust I am sipping,

or from having an eye on the street outside
when Ordinary Time slouches past in a topcoat,
rain running off the brim of his hat,
the late edition like a flag in his pocket.

Infinite Jest, Rightly Named

A couple months ago I decided to pick up a mammoth book that had been sitting on a bookshelf, weighing down a bookshelf, in my apartment, to commit myself to this book fully, as full commitment is required before taking on such a task. This book, as mentioned in this post's title, is Infinite Jest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest) by the late great David Foster Wallace or, more intimately, DFW. And I have enjoyed it greatly ever since. For the most part. The beginnings were rocky for me as it takes place in a world set apart from our own, although based on our own. A world in which there is something called the O.N.A.N. (supposedly the Organization of North American Nations), Anti-O.N.A.N. Quebecois groups, a Great Convexity/Concavity (a great swath of land between Canada and the U.S. occupied by waste, both nuclear and domestic, which both sides try to claim is the other's, with the name variation dependent on which side one lives on), and years that are no longer numeral but nominal and subsidized (i.e. instead of 1998, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment or Year of the Tuck's Medicated Pad) among other things. To synthesize these and many many more pieces of information into an understandable whole was difficult, as the writing, though engaging, is dense and it took about two hundred of the thousand pages to grasp the world of IJ. He also uses a variety of obscure words and numerous endnotes, with further endnotes and footnotes attached sometimes to the original endnotes. There is a website, I think there are many actually, that helps guide one through the reading of Infinite Jest, in which each page is broken down with definitions of words and explanations of phrases or dialectical difficulties (i.e. the Brogue monologue at an AA meeting). It helps and I have come to see this book as an education. I am learning words and ideas which I didn't know before. There is homework.

Here is an image of the book that I will insert to break up the text of this post:

Ever since I began reading this monolithic book, many other people I know or have met have also starting reading David Foster Wallace works. I am on a mailing list now. I am part of the cult. We have a secret handshake. He is dead, but alive in this silent network. I was outside during my lunch some days ago, with my book open, seemingly unidentifiable, enjoying the sun, when a man walked by, stopped and came back to ask me if I was reading IJ. We conversed and he confessed to being on page 108 very specifically, and we nodded to each other knowingly, holding special DFW knowledge. He walked away, stopped and turned, yelling something back to me. I couldn't hear him. He walked back to me and told me cryptically about the mailing list and how to find it. Now, I am on the mailing list. Involved in the cult, happily.

I am now on page 788 myself. Seven hundred and eighty eight Biblically-thin pages crammed to the margins with small text. And this doesn't even include the endnotes I have tackled. Even smaller text. I do love it though. Thinking about the book excites me. A central character in the book is something referred to throughout variably as "The Entertainment" or "samizdat." It is a weapon of sorts. It is a film that is so addictive to watch that the viewer no longer wants anything but to watch it, and invariably they, the viewer, ends up dying from malnutrition or thirst or destruction of self (an act referred to in the book as obliteration of "one's own map" or their own personal "cartography"). This idea of the "entertainment" is so original and refreshing, as a literary idea, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it lately.

Wallace has an amazing voice throughout. It is one of total experience and depth. The novel's meat is primarily divided between characters at the hilltopped Enfield Tennis Academy (a place of grooming teenagers to go to "The Show," i.e. professional tennis) and those of the Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House which sits at the bottom of said hill in Enfield, MA, a suburb of Boston. Wallace's ability to dive into the psychological minutiae of both the teenagers of the tennis academy and the dark and addicted husks of people at the Ennet House was surprising and emotional, involving a large amount of personal investment. He seems to know so well the internal world of addiction, depression and abuse, as well as the whole realm of competitive tennis, mentally and technically. There are so many intricately laid out literary parallels between storylines of the separate locations and people, which gives the reader a seeming direct connection between themselves and the narrator, a little wink and nudge from the fifth wall where the audience and the writer both sit. There are numerous articles and message boards and dissertations and mailing lists that all deal with these intricacies and themes. They are too numerous to even begin to deal with inside of this post. The story is too vast to even outline in this post. I am doing injustice to it by even discussing only this much.

I would highly suggest this book, with a caveat. If one is interested in taking on such an adventure as this, they should first read some of DFW's essays and short stories (for David Lynch fans, read "David Lynch Keeps His Head" from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again). This will allow one to get an idea of his writing style and his predilection for foot- and endnotes. He was a genius, as judged by the MacArthur Fellowship in 1997. One shouldn't feel bad about having to look up some words, but know that one is probably going to have to look up those words. Think of it as learning. Remember doing that? Crosswords aren't enough, despite what you think. Sudoku, the same. Then, seeing that you have a liking for his writing and his incisiveness and his big words and his sort of comedy, you should find resources for support during the reading. I will link to some at the end. Then, after reading it, and hopefully enjoying it, tell me about it. I would love to hear from a fellow cultist.

Resources:
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/inf.htm
http://infinitesummer.org/

David Foster Wallace himself had depression issues and, after bad luck with various anti-depressants, ended up "eliminating his own map." He hung himself on September 12th, 2008. RIP DFW.

Entertainment From Me to You

Yes:



Yes:



And yes:

Musically Inclined and Smelling of Campfire

This past weekend some weary travelers bearing a closed trailer full of instruments rode into town and onto our living room floor. Exhibit A:

They are called Karma Vision. They played two shows in Seattle, one in some hidden hallway between two bars, and the second at a restaurant down the street from us. We went to both shows, Anne and I, and enjoyed them both thoroughly. I recommend that others listen to them as well. Here is their MySpace and Facebook respectively: http://www.myspace.com/karmavisionband; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Karma-Vision/42580729821.

Enjoy.

American Economics 101

Unfortunately for half of the country in which we live, life kind of sucks. And, unfortunately, that is by design. Or, at least it would seem so. As we all love a good pie chart, eat it up:

This from an article called "15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth and Inequality in America," shows a sickening trend toward some sort of feudal system we thought we had escaped long ago. We didn't. Look at China. They do feudalism better than any modern-day super power. And all the while the uber-capitalists are damning the spread of socialism (these being those perhaps in that top percentile or even in the following nine). To learn more, go here: Wealth Distribution and Inequality In America.

Music I Ignored Two Years Ago

Well, The National has a new album out, called High Violet, and back when they were impressing everyone two years ago, I was ignoring it. I am very good at that skill. I shined on a certain video the other day and found, within the next two days of watching it, that I had gained some sort of crush upon the band, without my knowing it while it was building up within me. Now, maybe it was merely the effect of the video and the lead singer in the video, a mister Matt Berninger, whose strange little non-committal dance-and-sing act throughout the video was mesmerizing, but I think that I have to get all of their albums, all five of them, and probably illegally. Here is the video:



I hope it is enjoyable, or at least ignorable.

Island Wilderness Camping

Recently, we went on a camping trip. On the Island of Whidbey, just North and West of Seattle. Half a mile from a beach that looks out on the Puget Sound and behind that, the great Pacific Ocean. Accompanying us on this sleeping-in-the-out-of-doors expedition were two other couples, whose celebrity mash-up names would be Zamie and Aargan (pronounced air-gun). Here are shameless plugs of their websites: Zack, Jamie, Aaron, and I don't know if Meagan has a website. Anne's is on the sidebar.

We camped, specifically at South Whidbey State Park. It was fun though there was little in the way of hiking, unlike the massive forests of the Olympic Peninsula, still my favorite place to camp. We set up camp, each couple with our own four-person tent, and set to making food before the sun fell too far down over the horizon. Then we drank around the fire. The weather was nice, though a little cool at night, and the beach was beautiful, full of various beached life-forms ready to have their pictures taken. We, the boys, threw rocks at inanimate objects until we were tired and wanted beer. We, the boys, played with the clay that made up the cliff abutting the beach, and formed it into unidentifiable nothings until our hands were covered in clay and we were wearing stupid smiles. We, all, took pictures of the oddities of the beach (including ourselves) as the tide was at its lowest. Then we walked back up the hill to our camp, in order to sate our desires for food, booze and the mesmerizing behavior of flames. We slept in between eating and playing and drinking, such an insignificant detail though.

I felt like life should be like that more than it is. Void of bank statements and the forty-hour-a-week deal. Just throwing rocks at things and making food. Simple and wonderful. But, I must say, the shower was amazing when I got home, as well the warm bed and the laying about in front of a movie. The camping was fun, for awhile. And it didn't rain. I have sloppily explained the whole thing but the following pictures will help.

The Tent!

More After The Jump

Burnt Cream, a la Francaise, or Something

Creme Brulee (i.e. Burnt Cream) is a custard, Frenchified and toasted on top with a hand held flame. We made this. By "we," I mean Lucas, and an observing me. Lucas, the Cain that didn't kill his brother, is the non-French French chef that created this masterpiece under the keen observatory eye of I. I will defer to his blog to explain the particulars, but all the same I wanted to highlight my experience of brulee-ing the creme. One day, the first day of the experience, I watched as Lucas separated the egg yolks from the whites, leaving the whites alone from their yolks to be cooked in some other separate dish (a later breakfast sandwich for me two days later), whipped the yellows with sugar until they formed distinct lines, heated the cream with excessive and decadent amounts of vanilla (twice the usual, and rightfully so), mixed the whole mess together, and poured them into their receptacles for refrigeration. The following day the magic happened. Crystallization. The top of sugary glass. The joy on each of our delighted faces. This is an end point. This is a result. I will share pictures illustrating what came of the experience. The rest I will leave to Lucas. Learn the secrets of joy-making at http://beyondthehunger.blogspot.com/. Here are pictures:

Local Food and Good Beer

This is a good mantra, I think. Anne and I patronize the services of a local farm (Full Circle Farm) that delivers digestibles to us weekly (actually to the community center a block away from us). It is one of many CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) that Western Washington has to offer. Every week, for thirty one dollars a week, we are provided with a bounty of fruits and vegetables, about 12 to 14 different food items per box, which is more than enough. Plus, it is all organic. This is what I do every Thursday upon getting the box to our kitchen:

Many cities enjoy these programs. It feels good to know you are supporting your local economy and also eating damn good organic produce. The average American meal travels thousands of miles to get to one's plate. A lot of calories to bring a few. It is uneven. Local economies suffer for global markets. Much of the viable land in the Midwest is being used for inedible corn, #2 corn they call it, for use in thousands of super-processed foods. Anyone who gives a damn should look up CSA's in their area, or farmer's markets. They are your neighbors. Even in the very rural Barnard, MO, where much of my family lives, and where much of the farmland is #2 corn, they are putting together a farmer's market where people can sell their own garden's produce, and to their neighbors nonetheless. It is important. To further explain my point, I would suggest watching the movie Food, Inc, and reading books by Michael Pollan. Also, a very funny and food-smart guy, Mark Bittman. Here is a good, funny and important video by Bittman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YkNkscBEp0



Second to food, beer is also important. Drink good beer. I drank a good beer the other day. I often do. But a certain beer stood out. It wasn't local, but oh, well. It is a Polish beer. Find it and drink it and tell me what you think. Tell me what you think about any of this. It is easy.