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: