So the idea behind this post, which I hope to make a weekly event, is to write about a few things I'm currently enjoying, with the main goal being to get a response from friends/readers. I want to know what
you think. Here are two examples of the sorts of things you can write: "I can't believe you willingly listen to that cacophonous excuse for music," or (with respect to my friend who unabashedly touts the supposed fine flavors found in Pabst Blue Ribbon): "Damned beer snob." Of course you can also agree with me, and you can always write more than one sentence.
Book: Girl Meets God (Lauren Winner). An ingenuous spiritual memoir about the author's journey from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity. While books of this sort (in my own experience, anyhow) seem to have a tendency towards preachiness and moving towards a steadfast conclusion of the rational/intellectual/moral (etc.) superiority of the particular author's new faith, Winner admirably manages to show deep love for and recognition of her insoluble connection to Judaism without undermining all that she has found compelling in Christianity. In other words, it is written in such a way as to be gratifying for a reader regardless of his/her own religious convictions, rather than just those of her own current religious sentiments. However, I'm only about halfway through the book . . . so I suppose this could all change in the next 150 pages.
Music: Destroyer's Rubies (Destroyer). This is one of those albums that I picked up a few months back, listened to for about a week, thought "this is pretty good, but I'm really into The Arcade Fire right now," and more or less forgot about it. I have quite a few albums like that. Most of them don't end up rising to the top of my playlist again. Destroyer's Rubies is a dense, lyrically poetic and musically complicated album, and when I first listened to it I somehow didn't find the tunes all that catchy (perhaps explaining why it got buried in the pile). As is apt to occur in the subjective world of aesthetic appreciation, however, when I started playing this album again a couple weeks ago I couldn't figure out what I'd been missing when I last gave it a listen. Whether due simply to increased familiarity with Dan Bejar's sound or to my having a more refined musical sensibility (um, yes), this record suddenly grabbed me and it's been playing relentlessly from my speakers ever since. Click here for a link to a couple songs from the album.
Food: Winter squash. Being the sort who enjoys a sense of aesthetic connection to the natural environment and hence to seasonal changes, I am currently into eating squashes. Jess and I have enjoyed many a baked acorn squash over the past six weeks, not to mention homemade butternut squash soup and (on the menu for this week) a butternut squash fettucini.
Drink: New Belgium 1554. New Belgium beers are among the very few microbrews that are not unreasonably difficult to obtain (or out of my price range) in this Anheuser-Busch dominated city. Hence, while I have never been all that excited about the ubiquitous Fat Tire Ale, I have come to enjoy some of New Belgium's other selections. Currently, as it is late Autumn, I've latched onto 1554, described by the brewery as a "black ale." While not my favorite New Belgium beer, it fits the weather.
Book: Girl Meets God (Lauren Winner). An ingenuous spiritual memoir about the author's journey from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity. While books of this sort (in my own experience, anyhow) seem to have a tendency towards preachiness and moving towards a steadfast conclusion of the rational/intellectual/moral (etc.) superiority of the particular author's new faith, Winner admirably manages to show deep love for and recognition of her insoluble connection to Judaism without undermining all that she has found compelling in Christianity. In other words, it is written in such a way as to be gratifying for a reader regardless of his/her own religious convictions, rather than just those of her own current religious sentiments. However, I'm only about halfway through the book . . . so I suppose this could all change in the next 150 pages.
Music: Destroyer's Rubies (Destroyer). This is one of those albums that I picked up a few months back, listened to for about a week, thought "this is pretty good, but I'm really into The Arcade Fire right now," and more or less forgot about it. I have quite a few albums like that. Most of them don't end up rising to the top of my playlist again. Destroyer's Rubies is a dense, lyrically poetic and musically complicated album, and when I first listened to it I somehow didn't find the tunes all that catchy (perhaps explaining why it got buried in the pile). As is apt to occur in the subjective world of aesthetic appreciation, however, when I started playing this album again a couple weeks ago I couldn't figure out what I'd been missing when I last gave it a listen. Whether due simply to increased familiarity with Dan Bejar's sound or to my having a more refined musical sensibility (um, yes), this record suddenly grabbed me and it's been playing relentlessly from my speakers ever since. Click here for a link to a couple songs from the album. 
Food: Winter squash. Being the sort who enjoys a sense of aesthetic connection to the natural environment and hence to seasonal changes, I am currently into eating squashes. Jess and I have enjoyed many a baked acorn squash over the past six weeks, not to mention homemade butternut squash soup and (on the menu for this week) a butternut squash fettucini.
Drink: New Belgium 1554. New Belgium beers are among the very few microbrews that are not unreasonably difficult to obtain (or out of my price range) in this Anheuser-Busch dominated city. Hence, while I have never been all that excited about the ubiquitous Fat Tire Ale, I have come to enjoy some of New Belgium's other selections. Currently, as it is late Autumn, I've latched onto 1554, described by the brewery as a "black ale." While not my favorite New Belgium beer, it fits the weather.
3 comments:
I hate to have to be the one to tell you this Pedro, but there is nothing natural or autumnal about Acorn Squash. Check your facts. Acorn Squash is the product of a dozen decades of the U.S. Government’s twisted experimentation with otherwise innocuous agricultural foodstuffs. Buried deep within the dusty volumes of Congressional records, you will find that the so called “Acorn Squash” began as nothing more than a common Russet potato. The initial experiments included simple cross pollination and some less than ethical attempts at grafting. But what has followed in more recent years has been various meddlings of the genetic and molecular sort. Today the “Acorn Squash” is little but a withered husk of life; a grotesque abomination, only faintly resembling the honorable potato from which it came.
“Why,” you might ask, “would the government do such a thing?” And therein lays the rub.
Consult your Congressional records again and you will note that the initial experiments were carried out by one “Dr. Augustus Hallmark.” In 1876, Dr. Hallmark was approached by the U.S. Government and given an enormously profitable contract. The deal? Hallmark was to find a way to create a cohesive sense of national identity to shore up the flagging Republic following the devastating Civil War and the years of listless anti-nationalism that followed. In return Hallmark would be granted an unchallenged monopoly of the Greeting Card Industry (GCI) and lease rights to retail space in nearly every shopping complex in North America.
Hallmark’s plan was simple in theory, though carrying it out has been a complex process that has continued long after his death in 1911. Hallmark, being a student of political history observed that holidays like flags and parades hold tremendous potential to bring people together and unite them in a way that rhetoric never could. He rightly guessed that in exchange for a day off or a gift, Americans would easily accept any new holiday or “holiday season” that could be introduced with even the slightest sense of historical foundation. Gathered together around the “Christmas Tree” or the “Thanksgiving turkey,” citizens forgot their ill feelings and relented of their restless frustrations.
Though there have been minor hiccups (“Mother-in-Law’s Day” in 1889 was a complete failure), Hallmark’s dark plan has been unforeseeably successful. The Republic stands today in part because of the pleasant lies crafted by and for the U.S. Government. And for his own part, Hallmark profited immensely. In a stroke of brilliance that went largely unnoticed until the second half the last century, Hallmark simultaneously released new holidays for the government while quietly releasing coordinated greeting cards for those holidays in his retail stores. “But, what do greeting cards and Acorn Squash have in common,” you might ask. Simply put, they’re psychic crutches used to prop up the legitimacy of Hallmark’s manufactured holidays. Every holiday needs a story to support it; and every story needs artifacts to proof its truth. The production of these artifacts continues to this very day:
“Acorn Squash,” as you call it, is little more than a highly funded Government attempt at supporting an outlandishly tall tale about a few righteous “Pilgrims” discovering a new land where everything is better, where there is racial harmony, and people have enough food and resources to have enormous feasts. The truth is that it never happened. Turkey, corn, squash, cornucopias... All fabricated. Think about it: who would weave a basket shaped like a curved horn that unless held upright was perpetually spilling its contents? Until recently people were foolish enough to accept that a tin can shaped column of gelatinous red plasma was something called “cranberries.” (Note that if the original typo had been caught prior to printing, the substance would have been called “can-berries.”)
Now here we are 120 years later with holidays and “holiday seasons” for every imaginable reason. With attractive storylines in place, these lies are taught in government funded public schools. Retailers for their part, noting Dr. Hallmark’s financial success, have come out in support of the holidays and dutifully do their part to hold together the façade of reality. And now you, unknowing of the deception, have embraced this monstrosity, the “Acorn Squash.” You buy all of this talk of “Autumn” and the “Seasons” (if there even is such a thing). You happily eat your Acorn Squash, never realizing that you yourself are perpetuating the myth. You eat the lie one bite at a time with a little butter and brown sugar on top to help it go down. It’s sad really, though I can’t blame you.
I will not go on a rant about Acorn Squash. But - I will say, in response to your beer post, that authentic German Hefeweisen is the way to go.
Ahhh the joy that fills my heart. Cold weather, black ales and squash. I also appreciate the patagonia link. Keep updating your blog. We're really enjoying keeping up with your family. I will also say that wheat beer is for weiners (and professors of literature apparently). Keep it dark my brotha'.
palmer
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