Sometimes the news is eye-brow raising. At other times, news sources are a toilet. What is one to make of a proposal that men should be forbidden to pee while standing?
At a county council meeting in Sörmland on April 29, Vänsterpartiet representative Viggo Hansen proposed outlawing non-seated urination, in order to eliminate the inherent sexism associated with that process, as well as yield cleaner seats.
Apparently it's also better for your prostate, and leads to a longer and healthier sex life.
Peeing while standing is a meanspirited male-chauvenist act.
In Sweden, where they worry about such things.
It's so VERY nice that a Swedish politician worries about my prostate and my sex life. Perhaps I should send Viggo Hansen a note informing him that he needn't bother? There is no sex life. I honestly wouldn't mind a sex life, it sounds like a lovely thing from all accounts, as well as buckets of fun, but the problem is that in SF such a thing usually involves other people.
Normally and elsewhere that isn't an issue, but here it is.
I'm rather picky, you see. Despite my frequently rather sexist approach to voiding my bladder. As far as I'm concerned, neither my bladder nor acts committed behind the bathroom door are involved in sex. At the very least, taking a leak is NOT a sexual act. Except in Sweden and San Francisco.
Sex, normally, is a healthy and charming way to pass the time with a person who has a sense of humour, as well as the idiosyncratic taste to wish to see one in the nude. Well, mostly nude. But in Viggo Hansen's life, and one has to assume that of many other Swedes, as well as huge numbers of folks in San Francisco, it also involves a toilet seat.
And that, you see, is where I must furiously draw the line.
It strikes me as mildly perverse.
Not my thing.
If Viggo Hansen, instead of being a tall bearded Viking with cow-horns growing out of his ridged cranium, was a petite young lady with sparkling eyes (and the aforementioned sense of humour), I might sit up and take notice. And if she had a lovely belly button (an "inny") and golden skin, and the toilet seat were instead a large pillow or a sofa with a comfy throw-rug, it would definitely put an interested smile on my face. I could very well see the point of preserving as much 'cleanth' and prostate health as possible, and would also advocate the presence of a towel and an ashtray.
As well as a copious supply of hot tea or cool lemonade, because the importance of proper hydration cannot be stressed enough.
But I will not permit a Swede in my toilet.
That's just nasty.
Kindly piss off, mr. Viggo Hansen, and let me whiz whichever way I wish. Possibly I am contemplative while doing so, maybe gay and haphazard.
I might even be singing a cheerful song at the time. Perhaps, like little boys are wont to do, I am seeing how much noise I can make while behind my closed door. I stress that the door is closed; it must be so.
In any case, I am not thinking about my prostate or a healthier sex life while thus engaged.
Neither is any one else.
It's entirely my own affair.
Stupid Swede.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
MY TWITCHING NOSE
Perfume, without the actual alchemy of a woman's skin, is too empty. Not all fragrances are thus, but the smells associated with females really require the impact of a wearer. Each person affects the scent in a different way, and by the combination their nasal presence is given form.
One of the most enjoyable shops in downtown is owned and operated by a courteous gentleman with a keen nose. But I have not been to see André for years now, as purchasing his products would be pointless without a face to associate with the distillate.
PARFUMERIE JACQUELINE
103 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Just up from Grant Avenue, less than a block from Union Square.
One day I watched a nearly-blind gentleman carefully select fragrances for over a dozen people of his ken. He and the owner discussed skin types, ages, and personalities, and the customer attentively sniffed the strips of paper freshly impregnated, then painted a picture in his mind's eye of how it would smell on the recipient.
You'll have to agree; colouring your friends with a distinctive odour when you cannot really see them is far more sensible than gifting them with silks. When they are present, your mind cannot but recall shared events and experiences far more acutely than if these were illustrated in every hue.
NARD AND VETIVER, STYRAX AND ITTAR
I've bought several perfumes there over the years. The person for whom they were intended no longer wears them. Her style has changed, and her boy friend doesn't appreciate subtle nose-echoes, the fool.
They would smell quite different on someone else. It's how body-chemistry affects the substance. Each person is unique, and only strong candy scents stay constant.
That faint faint shimmering in the subconscious of your nostril-mind creates impressions more complete than any amount of make-up can; a marvelous person will be more beautiful for the waft-impression that you did not even notice.
As I said, it's pointless to purchase perfume without a person to wear them, someone who would be the perfect recipient of that accent.
Nowadays I sharply note the smells of tobaccos, of coffee, of tea. Jasmine, eucalyptus, and lemons. The crisp snappy hue of certain vegetables, resinous herbal exudates along particular roadways, tar......
A sandalwood incense on Stockton Street, which suddenly reminds me of the Philippines, and a clean scent in a certain restaurant, coming from tables thoroughly wiped. I associate it with a waitress who is attentive and hard-working, whose hospitable attitude vastly improves the taste of dinner.
Glass cleaner, old newspaper, and a weird hint of fake honey dew melon. That last from a girl who passed by; it must have been her large bucket of bubble tea.
Can't recall her face in any way at all.
The drink was more memorable.
There's a faint spiciness to my own skin.
I just noticed it right now.
Rather pleasant.
Nice.
I must smell someone else, though.
AFTER THOUGHT
Since posting that, a spambot tried to seed this blog with the following somewhat relevant comment: "You are correct Greg about the lemon pH, but baking soda is a neutralizer against all acids, so the pH combo of lemon and baking soda will be much more of base, or neutral pH. The lemon oil will require to be washed off with bar soap, because only soap will wash the lemon oil off in the tooth. Tooth paste will not; info for all your lemon eaters as well. "
I am utterly enchanted by the idea that there are people whose teeth smell of lemons. Someday I will have to meet one of them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
One of the most enjoyable shops in downtown is owned and operated by a courteous gentleman with a keen nose. But I have not been to see André for years now, as purchasing his products would be pointless without a face to associate with the distillate.
PARFUMERIE JACQUELINE
103 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.
Just up from Grant Avenue, less than a block from Union Square.
One day I watched a nearly-blind gentleman carefully select fragrances for over a dozen people of his ken. He and the owner discussed skin types, ages, and personalities, and the customer attentively sniffed the strips of paper freshly impregnated, then painted a picture in his mind's eye of how it would smell on the recipient.
You'll have to agree; colouring your friends with a distinctive odour when you cannot really see them is far more sensible than gifting them with silks. When they are present, your mind cannot but recall shared events and experiences far more acutely than if these were illustrated in every hue.
NARD AND VETIVER, STYRAX AND ITTAR
I've bought several perfumes there over the years. The person for whom they were intended no longer wears them. Her style has changed, and her boy friend doesn't appreciate subtle nose-echoes, the fool.
They would smell quite different on someone else. It's how body-chemistry affects the substance. Each person is unique, and only strong candy scents stay constant.
That faint faint shimmering in the subconscious of your nostril-mind creates impressions more complete than any amount of make-up can; a marvelous person will be more beautiful for the waft-impression that you did not even notice.
As I said, it's pointless to purchase perfume without a person to wear them, someone who would be the perfect recipient of that accent.
Nowadays I sharply note the smells of tobaccos, of coffee, of tea. Jasmine, eucalyptus, and lemons. The crisp snappy hue of certain vegetables, resinous herbal exudates along particular roadways, tar......
A sandalwood incense on Stockton Street, which suddenly reminds me of the Philippines, and a clean scent in a certain restaurant, coming from tables thoroughly wiped. I associate it with a waitress who is attentive and hard-working, whose hospitable attitude vastly improves the taste of dinner.
Glass cleaner, old newspaper, and a weird hint of fake honey dew melon. That last from a girl who passed by; it must have been her large bucket of bubble tea.
Can't recall her face in any way at all.
The drink was more memorable.
There's a faint spiciness to my own skin.
I just noticed it right now.
Rather pleasant.
Nice.
I must smell someone else, though.
AFTER THOUGHT
Since posting that, a spambot tried to seed this blog with the following somewhat relevant comment: "You are correct Greg about the lemon pH, but baking soda is a neutralizer against all acids, so the pH combo of lemon and baking soda will be much more of base, or neutral pH. The lemon oil will require to be washed off with bar soap, because only soap will wash the lemon oil off in the tooth. Tooth paste will not; info for all your lemon eaters as well. "
I am utterly enchanted by the idea that there are people whose teeth smell of lemons. Someday I will have to meet one of them.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, May 09, 2013
WELL-DRESSED WOMEN
Everyone should have a pleated skirt of decent length and a strand of pearls. As well as an opaque blouse. That's just the way it is.
The proper young lady must own clothes that are suitable for any occasion that involves people of other generations, who might be easily shocked.
This blogger attended an event recently that achieved precisely that.
I am surprised at how easily shocked I am.
One of the rail-thin models that paraded around wore a floor-length see-through gown, with her crotchety portion covered by a black lace pantie clearly visible underneath. The brassiere that would have matched it was missing in action, though possibly the same one that the bright little miss helping out at the addictive substances counter which was the reason for my presence there was wearing underneath her thin white blouse.
Between the two of them, the breast paradigm was fully delimited. They weren't the only two young female personages whose attributes could be described in full detail by even the terminally obtuse -- of whom there were many in attendance -- but they marked the extremes.
Remarkably, I can describe neither set of breasts at all. In the case of the gauzy stick-insect, I deliberately looked away out of a sense of modesty, and as regards the young lady with the black bra and white blouse, I do remember her intelligent facial features but not her figure. All the other mammaries freely floating about remain equally formless, alas.
This is the end-result of a lifetime of auto-conditioning.
I automatically look somewhere else at times.
Instead of confronting things head-on.
Despite a fondness for... umm.
My aesthetic greed takes a back-seat to maintaining equilibrium. It is uncouth to stare, and the proper conditioned reflex to exhibitionism, whether intended or accidental, should always be to turn the head.
This may be to my own dis-advantage, as many women will take it as apathy, lack of interest, or even a complete absence of all the right sensibilities.
Yet the people who would demand public mammary focus are by definition not the types of person with whom I wish to associate.
A woman who chooses the right moment to privately reveal herself will find in me a much more attractive audience than she has imagined. I can indeed react appropriately. With delight and happy surprise, even. "Wah, for me? That's so nice!"
Or should that be "they're so nice"? I'm not sure how it should be phrased, as it's an intellectual concept; I haven't looked at actual breasts in a long time, due to the previously mentioned habit of gazing fixedly elsewhere.
But I'm certain I still know how.
It's probably like riding a bicycle; you never forget.
If something is casually shared with the world, it cannot be as intriguing as that which is sensibly covered; the mental idea is far more taunting than the haphazardly brazen display. And this is precisely why every proper young lady should have a skirt that extends past the knees, plus an opaque blouse -- possibly oxford cloth -- as well as a strand of pearls.
Presentation, deportment, and good taste.
Admirable and fascinating qualities.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The proper young lady must own clothes that are suitable for any occasion that involves people of other generations, who might be easily shocked.
This blogger attended an event recently that achieved precisely that.
I am surprised at how easily shocked I am.
One of the rail-thin models that paraded around wore a floor-length see-through gown, with her crotchety portion covered by a black lace pantie clearly visible underneath. The brassiere that would have matched it was missing in action, though possibly the same one that the bright little miss helping out at the addictive substances counter which was the reason for my presence there was wearing underneath her thin white blouse.
Between the two of them, the breast paradigm was fully delimited. They weren't the only two young female personages whose attributes could be described in full detail by even the terminally obtuse -- of whom there were many in attendance -- but they marked the extremes.
Remarkably, I can describe neither set of breasts at all. In the case of the gauzy stick-insect, I deliberately looked away out of a sense of modesty, and as regards the young lady with the black bra and white blouse, I do remember her intelligent facial features but not her figure. All the other mammaries freely floating about remain equally formless, alas.
This is the end-result of a lifetime of auto-conditioning.
I automatically look somewhere else at times.
Instead of confronting things head-on.
Despite a fondness for... umm.
My aesthetic greed takes a back-seat to maintaining equilibrium. It is uncouth to stare, and the proper conditioned reflex to exhibitionism, whether intended or accidental, should always be to turn the head.
This may be to my own dis-advantage, as many women will take it as apathy, lack of interest, or even a complete absence of all the right sensibilities.
Yet the people who would demand public mammary focus are by definition not the types of person with whom I wish to associate.
A woman who chooses the right moment to privately reveal herself will find in me a much more attractive audience than she has imagined. I can indeed react appropriately. With delight and happy surprise, even. "Wah, for me? That's so nice!"
Or should that be "they're so nice"? I'm not sure how it should be phrased, as it's an intellectual concept; I haven't looked at actual breasts in a long time, due to the previously mentioned habit of gazing fixedly elsewhere.
But I'm certain I still know how.
It's probably like riding a bicycle; you never forget.
If something is casually shared with the world, it cannot be as intriguing as that which is sensibly covered; the mental idea is far more taunting than the haphazardly brazen display. And this is precisely why every proper young lady should have a skirt that extends past the knees, plus an opaque blouse -- possibly oxford cloth -- as well as a strand of pearls.
Presentation, deportment, and good taste.
Admirable and fascinating qualities.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
STUPID WHITE PERSON IN CHINATOWN
You might think that an ability to speak Cantonese and read Chinese would open doors. But in actual fact, it doesn't. Like the rest of the Chinese, the Cantonese usually cannot overlook the differences between white people (me, for instance), and themselves. A white person with any command of their language is still white. Always white, eternally white, objectionably white. Permanently and debilitatingly white. Albeit "white plus".
The 'plus', naturally, is the entertaining and theatrical oddness. Not infrequently it is assumed that whatever linguistic facility this Caucasian possesses is little more than a well-trained monkey trick.
How very clever and fascinating!
For a white person.
Freaky.
No matter how likable, a white person is someone you may not wish to be seen with. There were times while Savage Kitten and I were together that that precise thought crossed my mind. For two decades we never were in Chinatown together, and I never met her relatives.
Because of that I did not always feel like a human being.
If I were Cantonese things might have been different in that regard, but then she probably would not have had anything to do with me in the first place.
There were issues there. Her own and her family's Chineseness remained an obstacle for the dear girl. I cannot and will not hold that against her, but likely there will always be a lingering bitterness. It's just the way it is.
I could not change her, she could not change me; but we have both changed because of our long association.
We're no longer "together", BTW.
COMPLEX SUPERIORITY
Several years ago someone requested that I translate a communication which he had received from the Lee Family Association. Even after I patiently detailed the history of the Virginias and Carolinas, Anglo surnames and the Tidewater settlement, and mentioned the American Civil war and General Robert E. Lee, he firmly believed that I did not know what I was talking about and that I was determined to keep him from connecting with the great American branch of his clan. Because, of course, I was a white person. Which means less intelligent, less literate, and less trustworthy.
As a near-illiterate Toishanese bumpkin whose literacy in Chinese was far worse than mine, possessed of typical peasant paranoia and distrust, and sheerly incapable of speaking English besides, he was convinced that he was withall a superior human being. More knowledgable, too.
He subsequently sent them several hundred dollars he could ill afford.
Most Cantonese who are not able to speak English are not like that. They realize that anybody who has learned some of their language has at least expended effort. Perhaps not as much as they have while fruitlessly trying to learn our impossibly ridiculous and difficult gibberish -- Chinese is so much more logical and natural -- but they've grasped that switching tongues is by no means the easiest thing to do.
On the other hand, their Americanized cousins, who grew up more or less bi-lingual, can at times be real bastards to deal with. Scarcely able to read one word of every two if even that much, and totally ignorant of Chinese history or literature (and, like their white classmates just as blank when it comes to the history and literature of the Western World), they evince a truly superior air when someone who is not Chinese speaks to them in "their language". And, having been exposed ONLY to their parents dialect, they cringe at the atrocious, ATROCIOUS! kwailo pronunciation.
佢識廣東話好過你!
At least I can read the specials written in Chinese characters posted on the wall. Yeah, my pronunciation may be excruciatingly opaque at times. And even the restaurant staff may prefer to use English when possible for better communication. But I don't ask stupid questions, I can order in Chinese if it proves necessary, and I have no reason to be embarrassed by my flawed speech. No reason whatsoever. I'm white, remember? White. We stupid kwailos aren't supposed to understand anything, not even one word.
Evenso, I can get what I want.
If need be I'll write it down. The written words will make everything clear.
That may be all literacy in Chinese will get me. But that's a lot more than most American-born Cantonese will ever get.
Here or in Hong Kong.
I made the stupid mistake quite recently of reading the characters aloud for someone whose use of an English word for a bubble-tea flavour baffled the counterwoman. I forgot how offensively thin-skinned Cantonese can be.
收聲!
BTW, did I already mention that I can get what I want? It's a miracle of monumental proportion that that American-born twit didn't get a fat lip. Instead of the yummy bubble-tea flavour that she desired.
Fortunately I do not know the young adult in question. Nor would I ever want to. My effort was on behalf of the counterwoman, who until that instant had no clue what was required.
The young adult showed all the worst reactions of her class and kind. Over the years I have met several people like that, of all ages and backgrounds. Some sneer at white people whenever possible, some lecture inanely about the superiority of their kin and their culture, and some hate it, totally effing hate it, when white people know anything at all. The more whitey knows, the more insecure it makes them feel.
There are restaurants I never patronize anymore because they act irritated when I ask for something in Chinese that isn't on the English menu (but IS on the wall), and there are a number of people to whom I refuse to speak even one single word of Cantonese because they will make fun of me, in strongly accented English nota bene. Some folks I consciously no longer associate with at all.
My tolerance spans, at times, a very narrow spectrum.
In the same way that a number of Irish-Americans by their reaction to my accent in English prove themselves complete and utter pig bottoms, there are Chinese Americans who need to learn a modicum of politesse.
Or at least get over themselves and their thin skin.
When I lived in the Netherlands, natives would patronizingly remark that as far as they were concerned I was really Dutch. What that highlighted was that they made an exception; despite my being a Yankee and therefore odious, my speech and my manners were good enough that they would overlook those other things.
After I came back to the United States, nearly every day someone has asked me where I hail from, or made some comment about my accent.
And truly, they are not surprised that I speak English so fluently, because the Dutch make it a point to learn languages, and English is the Lingua Franca of the world!
The two-word phrase above (收聲) means "shut up". It is very impolite.
I have often wished to employ it against both Dutchmen and Americans. Unfortunately they would not grasp the layers of meaning or the flavour.
The eight word phrase before that (佢識廣東話好過你) means "he knows Cantonese better than you". It was what the counterwoman told the young lady after I left; I only overheard it because I had paused to light-up my pipe immediately afterwards. I heard it several months before also, upon exiting a shop where I had purchased a yi-hsing teapot. And there have been other times.
It is not patronizing, as it is never said when they think I can hear it.
Nor is it correct; I am not fluent, and I never will be.
But it's an acknowledgement of effort.
In both the Netherlands and the United States I can pass as long as I keep my mouth shut. My appearance is unobjectionable, and I look the part.
Among Chinese people that will never happen. I am always white.
And keeping quiet isn't something I can easily do.
This blog is proof of that.
AFTER-THOUGHT
If I say something in Chinese, and you then pull that rude attitude of "good lord what is this stupid white person saying I don't understand a thing talk English dammit" on me, I shall not repeat myself. Life is too short to drink bad coffee at Starbucks or deal with Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Amy Tan. When I use Chinese, it's always to establish communication, usually with people who would not understand me otherwise, but do comprehend quite well when I make the effort.
Did I already mention that I can get what I want?
If need be, I'll even write it down.
AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
When I left, I headed straight toward my favourite alleyway at Washington Street facing the pyramid to have some very much needed quiet-time. That was probably one of the best smokes I've had, the tobacco absolutely sang. It was utterly and totally delicious. So I can say that I had a very good day.
That repulsive female, on the other hand, should understand that the big tapioca balls in her chilled fruity milk-tea beverage are fattening.
Incredibly fattening. Very bad for her.
IRRELEVANT AFTER AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
A couple of days ago R-the-Anglo and R-the-Subcontinental had an argument. This isn't one hundred percent Germane to this post, and there is no need to go into any detail, other than to mention that R-the-Anglo told R-the-Subcontinental to return from whence he came.
"Go back where you came from."
That particular phrase is also one I've heard before. It is a sentence and a sentiment that utterly infuriates me. I have had it flung at me many times, in several languages, on three continents.
I shall insist that where ever you are at the moment is where you belong. Always!
So everyone can kindly shut the hell up. The Chinese can shut up. The Irish can shut up.
The Dutch can shut up. The "Americans" can shut up.
And R-the-Anglo can also shut up.
Kindly.
I love you all.
收聲。
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The 'plus', naturally, is the entertaining and theatrical oddness. Not infrequently it is assumed that whatever linguistic facility this Caucasian possesses is little more than a well-trained monkey trick.
How very clever and fascinating!
For a white person.
Freaky.
No matter how likable, a white person is someone you may not wish to be seen with. There were times while Savage Kitten and I were together that that precise thought crossed my mind. For two decades we never were in Chinatown together, and I never met her relatives.
Because of that I did not always feel like a human being.
If I were Cantonese things might have been different in that regard, but then she probably would not have had anything to do with me in the first place.
There were issues there. Her own and her family's Chineseness remained an obstacle for the dear girl. I cannot and will not hold that against her, but likely there will always be a lingering bitterness. It's just the way it is.
I could not change her, she could not change me; but we have both changed because of our long association.
We're no longer "together", BTW.
COMPLEX SUPERIORITY
Several years ago someone requested that I translate a communication which he had received from the Lee Family Association. Even after I patiently detailed the history of the Virginias and Carolinas, Anglo surnames and the Tidewater settlement, and mentioned the American Civil war and General Robert E. Lee, he firmly believed that I did not know what I was talking about and that I was determined to keep him from connecting with the great American branch of his clan. Because, of course, I was a white person. Which means less intelligent, less literate, and less trustworthy.
As a near-illiterate Toishanese bumpkin whose literacy in Chinese was far worse than mine, possessed of typical peasant paranoia and distrust, and sheerly incapable of speaking English besides, he was convinced that he was withall a superior human being. More knowledgable, too.
He subsequently sent them several hundred dollars he could ill afford.
Most Cantonese who are not able to speak English are not like that. They realize that anybody who has learned some of their language has at least expended effort. Perhaps not as much as they have while fruitlessly trying to learn our impossibly ridiculous and difficult gibberish -- Chinese is so much more logical and natural -- but they've grasped that switching tongues is by no means the easiest thing to do.
On the other hand, their Americanized cousins, who grew up more or less bi-lingual, can at times be real bastards to deal with. Scarcely able to read one word of every two if even that much, and totally ignorant of Chinese history or literature (and, like their white classmates just as blank when it comes to the history and literature of the Western World), they evince a truly superior air when someone who is not Chinese speaks to them in "their language". And, having been exposed ONLY to their parents dialect, they cringe at the atrocious, ATROCIOUS! kwailo pronunciation.
佢識廣東話好過你!
At least I can read the specials written in Chinese characters posted on the wall. Yeah, my pronunciation may be excruciatingly opaque at times. And even the restaurant staff may prefer to use English when possible for better communication. But I don't ask stupid questions, I can order in Chinese if it proves necessary, and I have no reason to be embarrassed by my flawed speech. No reason whatsoever. I'm white, remember? White. We stupid kwailos aren't supposed to understand anything, not even one word.
Evenso, I can get what I want.
If need be I'll write it down. The written words will make everything clear.
That may be all literacy in Chinese will get me. But that's a lot more than most American-born Cantonese will ever get.
Here or in Hong Kong.
I made the stupid mistake quite recently of reading the characters aloud for someone whose use of an English word for a bubble-tea flavour baffled the counterwoman. I forgot how offensively thin-skinned Cantonese can be.
收聲!
BTW, did I already mention that I can get what I want? It's a miracle of monumental proportion that that American-born twit didn't get a fat lip. Instead of the yummy bubble-tea flavour that she desired.
Fortunately I do not know the young adult in question. Nor would I ever want to. My effort was on behalf of the counterwoman, who until that instant had no clue what was required.
The young adult showed all the worst reactions of her class and kind. Over the years I have met several people like that, of all ages and backgrounds. Some sneer at white people whenever possible, some lecture inanely about the superiority of their kin and their culture, and some hate it, totally effing hate it, when white people know anything at all. The more whitey knows, the more insecure it makes them feel.
There are restaurants I never patronize anymore because they act irritated when I ask for something in Chinese that isn't on the English menu (but IS on the wall), and there are a number of people to whom I refuse to speak even one single word of Cantonese because they will make fun of me, in strongly accented English nota bene. Some folks I consciously no longer associate with at all.
My tolerance spans, at times, a very narrow spectrum.
In the same way that a number of Irish-Americans by their reaction to my accent in English prove themselves complete and utter pig bottoms, there are Chinese Americans who need to learn a modicum of politesse.
Or at least get over themselves and their thin skin.
When I lived in the Netherlands, natives would patronizingly remark that as far as they were concerned I was really Dutch. What that highlighted was that they made an exception; despite my being a Yankee and therefore odious, my speech and my manners were good enough that they would overlook those other things.
After I came back to the United States, nearly every day someone has asked me where I hail from, or made some comment about my accent.
And truly, they are not surprised that I speak English so fluently, because the Dutch make it a point to learn languages, and English is the Lingua Franca of the world!
The two-word phrase above (收聲) means "shut up". It is very impolite.
I have often wished to employ it against both Dutchmen and Americans. Unfortunately they would not grasp the layers of meaning or the flavour.
The eight word phrase before that (佢識廣東話好過你) means "he knows Cantonese better than you". It was what the counterwoman told the young lady after I left; I only overheard it because I had paused to light-up my pipe immediately afterwards. I heard it several months before also, upon exiting a shop where I had purchased a yi-hsing teapot. And there have been other times.
It is not patronizing, as it is never said when they think I can hear it.
Nor is it correct; I am not fluent, and I never will be.
But it's an acknowledgement of effort.
In both the Netherlands and the United States I can pass as long as I keep my mouth shut. My appearance is unobjectionable, and I look the part.
Among Chinese people that will never happen. I am always white.
And keeping quiet isn't something I can easily do.
This blog is proof of that.
AFTER-THOUGHT
If I say something in Chinese, and you then pull that rude attitude of "good lord what is this stupid white person saying I don't understand a thing talk English dammit" on me, I shall not repeat myself. Life is too short to drink bad coffee at Starbucks or deal with Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Amy Tan. When I use Chinese, it's always to establish communication, usually with people who would not understand me otherwise, but do comprehend quite well when I make the effort.
Did I already mention that I can get what I want?
If need be, I'll even write it down.
AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
When I left, I headed straight toward my favourite alleyway at Washington Street facing the pyramid to have some very much needed quiet-time. That was probably one of the best smokes I've had, the tobacco absolutely sang. It was utterly and totally delicious. So I can say that I had a very good day.
That repulsive female, on the other hand, should understand that the big tapioca balls in her chilled fruity milk-tea beverage are fattening.
Incredibly fattening. Very bad for her.
IRRELEVANT AFTER AFTER AFTER-THOUGHT
A couple of days ago R-the-Anglo and R-the-Subcontinental had an argument. This isn't one hundred percent Germane to this post, and there is no need to go into any detail, other than to mention that R-the-Anglo told R-the-Subcontinental to return from whence he came.
"Go back where you came from."
That particular phrase is also one I've heard before. It is a sentence and a sentiment that utterly infuriates me. I have had it flung at me many times, in several languages, on three continents.
I shall insist that where ever you are at the moment is where you belong. Always!
So everyone can kindly shut the hell up. The Chinese can shut up. The Irish can shut up.
The Dutch can shut up. The "Americans" can shut up.
And R-the-Anglo can also shut up.
Kindly.
I love you all.
收聲。
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
BADGER ON A THE NON-WORKING DAY
Wake up at six thirty, listen to apartment mate make breakfast noises in the kitchen. Back to sleep. Seven fifteen, get up and make coffee. Apartment mate is in bathroom washing the crevices of her body. Imagine what they're like. Discard those thoughts, concentrate on hot beverage.
When she is dressed, she brings one of the small stuffed creatures over from her room to chastise my monkey. Apparently he's been saying all kinds of nasty things about the spider. He is a miscreant. Other creatures chime in, and quickly there's big-time furry uproar. She channels all the voices, I occasionally prompt the monkey and also the 'Froad' into saying something that will get them even further in trouble. They are not the most diplomatic of creatures. Usually an 'aura of menace' comes drifting over from my apartment mate's room after they've stated something particularly awful. The chief roomie (a teddy bear) who lives on that side of the apartment has VERY good ears. They have not realized this.
They're rather dense at times.
BREAKFAST
At eight fifteen, the apartment mate heads off to work, hollering "lock up after me" as she goes. At eight twenty, windows in the kitchen, bathroom, and television room are wide open for ventilation, the door to her room is firmly shut, and I am contemplating which pipe tobacco to enjoy first. On this day it was the HH Matured Virginia by Mac Baren. The tin had been set aside five years ago unopened, it has aged very nicely. It proves intoxicating in the pipe I carved from a pre-drilled stummel.
Fragrant clouds of smoke rise as I enter the password on the computer and head into the news sites to see what further outrages have taken place in the sickening parts of the world.
Meiktila, rohingas, and rat-meat mutton in China.
Forty minutes later, I have finished reading the news as well as smoking the first pipe of the day. With my second cup of coffee and a mystery novel I head into the crapper.
Second pipe shortly after ten. I am clean now, and wish to envelope myself in a delicate perfume. So the super-old tin of Presbyterian Mixture (made by Planta in Berlin, formerly by William P. Solomon in Britain) will get attacked. Man this stuff is good! Though women mostly won't think it so. Too much stinky Turk. Between the dour Scots and the wicked Orientals, much degeneracy is born. A pipe by Charatan. And a cup of tea.
The internet is telling me about food-related chemical compounds. The amount of carotenoids in fully ripened chilies is rather high, which accounts for the lovely fragrance of chiles secos from New Mexico and parts further south. Like raisins, or apricots, honeysuckle and nectarine. The heat level is unaffected, as that depends on capsaicin, the evidence of a hard life experienced by our little pepper pod.
For a good chile verde, you need a variety of fresh green chilies. This will yield a broad span of flavours when roasted and chopped. Nice pork chunks cooked with browned bone broth, only a little garlic, and enough green chilies on top to fully cover. Pinches of salt, pepper, and cumin.
Simmered for two hours or more till the pork is tender and infused with the smoky green goodness. No tomatillos.
NO TOMATILLOS! Adding those things to the chile verde is not quite an abomination, but serves no purpose either.
It has been a long time since I made chile verde. The last time I brought it to a party it disappeared within minutes. It's a good dish for such events, as it is easy to make too much. Far too much. You could end up with a bucket.
PREVIOUSLY...
After a small lunch-time snack (which wasn't chile verde), more tea, and another pipe. More reading. There are several reference books strewn around me, and I've got half a dozen screens open on the internet. The tobacco is one of my own mixtures, which I have given a name that references one of my favourite cigar smokers. A lean devilish-looking chap who often has the cutest Kermit the Frog expression on his face. That, probably, was the determining factor that made his wife fall for him.
A wise choice. They are a lovely couple.
Being inexplicably single, I am naturally quite jealous.
But in no way do I begrudge them.
At around tea-time I may head over to Chinatown. Just a snack, or dinner?
I'm not really hungry, but I do have to eat something. Perhaps bitter melon and fish over rice? Or choi yuen chau yiuk? I favour restaurants where the wait-staff is female, primarily because I feel better about myself if I have to mind my manners, and the food tastes sweeter that way.
But I might simply have a pastry and a cup of Hong Kong Style milk-tea instead. It is fun to listen to off-duty waiters and regular joes chatting at the coffee shop I often go to in C'town, even though not infrequently the conversations are in Toishanese instead of Cantonese. Closely related to the city language, Toishanese is still quite hard to understand. Sometimes it sounds almost Welsh. A breathy 'thl' (as in 'thliep mun') in lieu of the hard 's' (sap man), and some weird gliding vowels.
The soft-spoken gentleman who works the counter when his wife or sister isn't there attentively makes an excellent cup of milk-tea. She doesn't bother. It's not that she is stubborn, she just doesn't get the concept. Besides, it would take too long, and that newspaper article is calling her.
What happened? What happened? Ooh, a delicious disaster!
And bland denials from a party official.
No wonder everyone rioted!
Fascinating.
I can tell she's reading about rat-meat mutton in China. Last week it was dead ducks, and before that vast rafts of pig-cadavers in the Huangpu.
四川南河裏的死鴨、黃浦江的死豬；
與鼠狐狸和水貂冒充羊肉。
[Please note: Real lamb meat (真羊肉) has fatty streaking interspersed clearly throughout the flesh, whereas fake lamb meat (假羊肉) shows the 'fat' as distinctly segragated areas wich are sandwiched-in as bands or chunks, with scant streakiness and abrupt termination to the red part. The real stuff has a natural coherence, whereas the fake 'food' separates easily into unconnected fat (lard) and lean. Rat (and other creatures) make it seem 'mutton-like'.]
With a pipe-full of rubbed flake I might head over to Washington Square today to daydream on the streetside of the fence (smokers are not allowed in parks anymore), while listening to old men excitedly comment on the outcome of chess.
Yes, some of them have a dollar or two riding on the victory, but it's mostly a social thing. Playing or observing a game gives them a set structure for socializing, without the need to be formal or actually even social. They see fellow villagers, faces that remind them of somewhere else, a different time.
There's a bookstore nearby which has a good selection of reference books in Chinese, as well as cheap paperback novels. Across the street a place sells Hong Kong Style milk-tea to go. Two blocks further down, in the Financial District near the pyramid, is a quiet alleyway at Washington.
There's a bench there where you can read while hearing crows in the redwoods of Trans-America Park.
Down where Clay hits Drumm and the Muni buses wait before turning the corner and heading back up the hill, small green conures are quarreling in the tall trees. They can be heard over a block away. It must by nice to work in the offices of Embarcadero Center Number Three. You're talking on the phone with someone in Minnesota or Idaho, and they ask "what's that racket in the background?"
"Oh, just the parrots."
You can sense the envy in their startled silence.
How pleasant to be in San Francisco.
Instead of Minnesota.
Or Idaho.
I could walk home, or take the bus. At that hour there are lots of grumpy law-office types obstreperously blocking aisles and insisting on 'their space g'dammit theirs' on public transit. They very nearly cheer when the crowded conveyance rockets past tired people at the Chinatown stops who have waited so long, so long. Hah! No need to let those people board, they aren't as important as we well dressed important folks!
I'll casually brush against the red button on the pole near the back door, so that the bus will stop at Kearny and Sacramento anyway. Schadenfreude is a talent, and a way of life. The palpable frustration as "those people" get on and make the bus even more claustrophobic is intensely enjoyable.
The world is your crumple zone.
Please just remember that.
It's a steep hill.
EVENING
The day will usually end with much more reading, and a few more pipes. If my apartment mate is visiting her boy friend, it's quiet till about ten o'clock. If not, I'll read a bit in my own room and occasionally wander around the neighborhood. When she's on the phone with him is also a good time to take a walk.
A long one, with a bowlful of heavy Latakia.
At times I imagine what it would be like to have a girl friend once more.
I haven't kissed anybody in a long time. A pipe can be both a substitute, and a preventative, for emotional involvement. Not quite reasonably so.
As a middle-aged man I shouldn't expect to ever have a love life again.
But with a bit of luck, I'll enjoy my pipes forever.
No one really objects to smelly old badgers.
They'll just stay several yards away.
Today's adults seldom smoke.
They're too delicate.
I shan't call such fastidious individuals "refined", as I've seen them drunkenly misbehaving on Polk Street, and they've all got tattoos. Skin-art and intoxication are absolute paradigms of vulgar exhibit.
How odd that their little noses wrinkle so.
Nevertheless, tobacco offends.
Life is good. Despite a sense of middle-aged otherness.
Smelly, comfortable, filled with snacks.
And there's lots to read.
Around mid-night, I'll re-visit the internet. The apartment is quiet, her door is shut, and I can get away with a mellow aged Virginia in the pipe, most especially during the allergy season. Which is eight months or more out of the year. Her bad sense of smell is still a blessing.
I often wonder if there are others equally 'gifted'.
Women with cute ineffective noses.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
When she is dressed, she brings one of the small stuffed creatures over from her room to chastise my monkey. Apparently he's been saying all kinds of nasty things about the spider. He is a miscreant. Other creatures chime in, and quickly there's big-time furry uproar. She channels all the voices, I occasionally prompt the monkey and also the 'Froad' into saying something that will get them even further in trouble. They are not the most diplomatic of creatures. Usually an 'aura of menace' comes drifting over from my apartment mate's room after they've stated something particularly awful. The chief roomie (a teddy bear) who lives on that side of the apartment has VERY good ears. They have not realized this.
They're rather dense at times.
BREAKFAST
At eight fifteen, the apartment mate heads off to work, hollering "lock up after me" as she goes. At eight twenty, windows in the kitchen, bathroom, and television room are wide open for ventilation, the door to her room is firmly shut, and I am contemplating which pipe tobacco to enjoy first. On this day it was the HH Matured Virginia by Mac Baren. The tin had been set aside five years ago unopened, it has aged very nicely. It proves intoxicating in the pipe I carved from a pre-drilled stummel.
Fragrant clouds of smoke rise as I enter the password on the computer and head into the news sites to see what further outrages have taken place in the sickening parts of the world.
Meiktila, rohingas, and rat-meat mutton in China.
Forty minutes later, I have finished reading the news as well as smoking the first pipe of the day. With my second cup of coffee and a mystery novel I head into the crapper.
Second pipe shortly after ten. I am clean now, and wish to envelope myself in a delicate perfume. So the super-old tin of Presbyterian Mixture (made by Planta in Berlin, formerly by William P. Solomon in Britain) will get attacked. Man this stuff is good! Though women mostly won't think it so. Too much stinky Turk. Between the dour Scots and the wicked Orientals, much degeneracy is born. A pipe by Charatan. And a cup of tea.
The internet is telling me about food-related chemical compounds. The amount of carotenoids in fully ripened chilies is rather high, which accounts for the lovely fragrance of chiles secos from New Mexico and parts further south. Like raisins, or apricots, honeysuckle and nectarine. The heat level is unaffected, as that depends on capsaicin, the evidence of a hard life experienced by our little pepper pod.
For a good chile verde, you need a variety of fresh green chilies. This will yield a broad span of flavours when roasted and chopped. Nice pork chunks cooked with browned bone broth, only a little garlic, and enough green chilies on top to fully cover. Pinches of salt, pepper, and cumin.
Simmered for two hours or more till the pork is tender and infused with the smoky green goodness. No tomatillos.
NO TOMATILLOS! Adding those things to the chile verde is not quite an abomination, but serves no purpose either.
It has been a long time since I made chile verde. The last time I brought it to a party it disappeared within minutes. It's a good dish for such events, as it is easy to make too much. Far too much. You could end up with a bucket.
PREVIOUSLY...
After a small lunch-time snack (which wasn't chile verde), more tea, and another pipe. More reading. There are several reference books strewn around me, and I've got half a dozen screens open on the internet. The tobacco is one of my own mixtures, which I have given a name that references one of my favourite cigar smokers. A lean devilish-looking chap who often has the cutest Kermit the Frog expression on his face. That, probably, was the determining factor that made his wife fall for him.
A wise choice. They are a lovely couple.
Being inexplicably single, I am naturally quite jealous.
But in no way do I begrudge them.
At around tea-time I may head over to Chinatown. Just a snack, or dinner?
I'm not really hungry, but I do have to eat something. Perhaps bitter melon and fish over rice? Or choi yuen chau yiuk? I favour restaurants where the wait-staff is female, primarily because I feel better about myself if I have to mind my manners, and the food tastes sweeter that way.
But I might simply have a pastry and a cup of Hong Kong Style milk-tea instead. It is fun to listen to off-duty waiters and regular joes chatting at the coffee shop I often go to in C'town, even though not infrequently the conversations are in Toishanese instead of Cantonese. Closely related to the city language, Toishanese is still quite hard to understand. Sometimes it sounds almost Welsh. A breathy 'thl' (as in 'thliep mun') in lieu of the hard 's' (sap man), and some weird gliding vowels.
The soft-spoken gentleman who works the counter when his wife or sister isn't there attentively makes an excellent cup of milk-tea. She doesn't bother. It's not that she is stubborn, she just doesn't get the concept. Besides, it would take too long, and that newspaper article is calling her.
What happened? What happened? Ooh, a delicious disaster!
And bland denials from a party official.
No wonder everyone rioted!
Fascinating.
I can tell she's reading about rat-meat mutton in China. Last week it was dead ducks, and before that vast rafts of pig-cadavers in the Huangpu.
四川南河裏的死鴨、黃浦江的死豬；
與鼠狐狸和水貂冒充羊肉。
[Please note: Real lamb meat (真羊肉) has fatty streaking interspersed clearly throughout the flesh, whereas fake lamb meat (假羊肉) shows the 'fat' as distinctly segragated areas wich are sandwiched-in as bands or chunks, with scant streakiness and abrupt termination to the red part. The real stuff has a natural coherence, whereas the fake 'food' separates easily into unconnected fat (lard) and lean. Rat (and other creatures) make it seem 'mutton-like'.]
With a pipe-full of rubbed flake I might head over to Washington Square today to daydream on the streetside of the fence (smokers are not allowed in parks anymore), while listening to old men excitedly comment on the outcome of chess.
Yes, some of them have a dollar or two riding on the victory, but it's mostly a social thing. Playing or observing a game gives them a set structure for socializing, without the need to be formal or actually even social. They see fellow villagers, faces that remind them of somewhere else, a different time.
There's a bookstore nearby which has a good selection of reference books in Chinese, as well as cheap paperback novels. Across the street a place sells Hong Kong Style milk-tea to go. Two blocks further down, in the Financial District near the pyramid, is a quiet alleyway at Washington.
There's a bench there where you can read while hearing crows in the redwoods of Trans-America Park.
Down where Clay hits Drumm and the Muni buses wait before turning the corner and heading back up the hill, small green conures are quarreling in the tall trees. They can be heard over a block away. It must by nice to work in the offices of Embarcadero Center Number Three. You're talking on the phone with someone in Minnesota or Idaho, and they ask "what's that racket in the background?"
"Oh, just the parrots."
You can sense the envy in their startled silence.
How pleasant to be in San Francisco.
Instead of Minnesota.
Or Idaho.
I could walk home, or take the bus. At that hour there are lots of grumpy law-office types obstreperously blocking aisles and insisting on 'their space g'dammit theirs' on public transit. They very nearly cheer when the crowded conveyance rockets past tired people at the Chinatown stops who have waited so long, so long. Hah! No need to let those people board, they aren't as important as we well dressed important folks!
I'll casually brush against the red button on the pole near the back door, so that the bus will stop at Kearny and Sacramento anyway. Schadenfreude is a talent, and a way of life. The palpable frustration as "those people" get on and make the bus even more claustrophobic is intensely enjoyable.
The world is your crumple zone.
Please just remember that.
It's a steep hill.
EVENING
The day will usually end with much more reading, and a few more pipes. If my apartment mate is visiting her boy friend, it's quiet till about ten o'clock. If not, I'll read a bit in my own room and occasionally wander around the neighborhood. When she's on the phone with him is also a good time to take a walk.
A long one, with a bowlful of heavy Latakia.
At times I imagine what it would be like to have a girl friend once more.
I haven't kissed anybody in a long time. A pipe can be both a substitute, and a preventative, for emotional involvement. Not quite reasonably so.
As a middle-aged man I shouldn't expect to ever have a love life again.
But with a bit of luck, I'll enjoy my pipes forever.
No one really objects to smelly old badgers.
They'll just stay several yards away.
Today's adults seldom smoke.
They're too delicate.
I shan't call such fastidious individuals "refined", as I've seen them drunkenly misbehaving on Polk Street, and they've all got tattoos. Skin-art and intoxication are absolute paradigms of vulgar exhibit.
How odd that their little noses wrinkle so.
Nevertheless, tobacco offends.
Life is good. Despite a sense of middle-aged otherness.
Smelly, comfortable, filled with snacks.
And there's lots to read.
Around mid-night, I'll re-visit the internet. The apartment is quiet, her door is shut, and I can get away with a mellow aged Virginia in the pipe, most especially during the allergy season. Which is eight months or more out of the year. Her bad sense of smell is still a blessing.
I often wonder if there are others equally 'gifted'.
Women with cute ineffective noses.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
PROUDLY WAVING TINY TOOLS AROUND
Greatly to my surprise I have discovered that there is too much sandpaper. And I vaguely recall that the solution to all of life's problems has often involved buying more of it. Several different grits, rough to silky.
No, I have never thought of myself as a "handy" man.
Like most book-bound neurotics, I 'putz'.
There is no toolkit in the apartment.
A few wrenches here and there.
As well as a hammer or two.
AND A VERY FINE AWL
Lordy the Japanese make lovely awls! Stunning and sensuous. I have no actual use for an awl -- though at some point it will probably prove worth having around the house, if I can find it at the time -- but this one was just too nice to pass up. It is a very elegant object. I was thinking of drawing two little googoo eyes on the handle to make it look like the head of a beaky insectivorous fantasy critter, but that would have lessened its sleek-formed beauty.
An awl, as I understand it, is a tool to poke leather.
There are no sheets of leather that require poking in this apartment.
No, I shall not purchase any. My very tolerant apartment mate would be convinced that I had gone off the deep end if I did, and truth be told it is doubtful that I would make a good leather-worker.
Though my digits are useful in other ways.
I've done some book-binding, and I'm extremely familiar with printing and graphic design. Etching and engraving, dark rooms, and offset presses. Used to be more involved with type-faces and layout. As well as minor woodworking, the restoration of collectible tobacco pipes, and carving Chinese seals using an ancient script.
Plumbing is not entirely a mystery -- the concepts are quite clear -- but there have been NO attempts to perform anything in that field. Nor any electric experiments with wiring, or rewiring; the closest I've come to that is screwing in lightbulbs. Caulking, priming, painting...... been there, done that, adhered to lines and boundaries, and haven't spattered or spilled.
I paint a mean rectangular wall-area, and am exceptionally good (neurotic) at colour matching.
But, as you can see, I do not represent the acme of mechanical problem fixer, repair chore expert, machinery taker-aparter, or general household improvement specialist.
Hence probably not suitable husband material.
Make-do and jury-rig as necessary.
The world is held together by three things: duct tape, binder clips, and big rubber bands.
Multiple sets of tiny screwdrivers. For tiny screws.
High quality draughting equipment.
Several seal-carving knives.
Needle-nosed pliers.
Sandpapers.
Awl.
Awl.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No, I have never thought of myself as a "handy" man.
Like most book-bound neurotics, I 'putz'.
There is no toolkit in the apartment.
A few wrenches here and there.
As well as a hammer or two.
AND A VERY FINE AWL
Lordy the Japanese make lovely awls! Stunning and sensuous. I have no actual use for an awl -- though at some point it will probably prove worth having around the house, if I can find it at the time -- but this one was just too nice to pass up. It is a very elegant object. I was thinking of drawing two little googoo eyes on the handle to make it look like the head of a beaky insectivorous fantasy critter, but that would have lessened its sleek-formed beauty.
An awl, as I understand it, is a tool to poke leather.
There are no sheets of leather that require poking in this apartment.
No, I shall not purchase any. My very tolerant apartment mate would be convinced that I had gone off the deep end if I did, and truth be told it is doubtful that I would make a good leather-worker.
Though my digits are useful in other ways.
I've done some book-binding, and I'm extremely familiar with printing and graphic design. Etching and engraving, dark rooms, and offset presses. Used to be more involved with type-faces and layout. As well as minor woodworking, the restoration of collectible tobacco pipes, and carving Chinese seals using an ancient script.
Plumbing is not entirely a mystery -- the concepts are quite clear -- but there have been NO attempts to perform anything in that field. Nor any electric experiments with wiring, or rewiring; the closest I've come to that is screwing in lightbulbs. Caulking, priming, painting...... been there, done that, adhered to lines and boundaries, and haven't spattered or spilled.
I paint a mean rectangular wall-area, and am exceptionally good (neurotic) at colour matching.
But, as you can see, I do not represent the acme of mechanical problem fixer, repair chore expert, machinery taker-aparter, or general household improvement specialist.
Hence probably not suitable husband material.
Make-do and jury-rig as necessary.
The world is held together by three things: duct tape, binder clips, and big rubber bands.
Multiple sets of tiny screwdrivers. For tiny screws.
High quality draughting equipment.
Several seal-carving knives.
Needle-nosed pliers.
Sandpapers.
Awl.
Awl.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, May 06, 2013
DISCUSSING MAKING CURRY, AFTER BEING IN MARIN COUNTY ALL DAY
I am incredibly disappointed! After a full day away from the computer there should have been TONS of interesting comments waiting for me. Not just spam. Several recent posts are comment-worthy -- chilies, degeneracy, curry, men with brassieres, and cute super brilliant Cantonese American girls -- but instead it was Viagra, Cialis, Facebook porn, loan sites, and stuff that I didn't even bother examining because it was dense with url.
I had chilies this evening also. In case you were wondering. It's what many bachelors do when there is no scope for degeneracy, no one to make curry for OR with, the idea of a man wearing a brassiere is not the first thing one wishes to think about, and cute super brilliant Cantonese American girls evidently do not evince any curiosity whatsoever.
That last is, perhaps, the most first.
The degeneracy must be assumed as a minor operational paradigm only.
The "curry-making-with" problem could be easily solved upon the luring in of the cute super brilliant Cantonese American girl; over the years I have converted many people to curry -- I used to work in an Indian restaurant, and I'm a pretty good cook when at home -- so I have no doubt that I can make a cute super brilliant Cantonese American girl see the light on at least that one issue. They're primed to like tasty things to eat.
Men constricting their pudgy chests with brassieres are just not a very good idea, not that I would know from experience, but I'm just guessing.
It probably leads to high blood-pressure.
As well as scarlet welts.
DOES IT ITCH?
For bra-strap rash, this blogger advises 'Cortizone 10 plus' - "creme + 10 Healing Moisturizers". It's the itch medicine doctors recommend. Distributed by CHATTEM, INC., P.O. Box 2219, Chattanooga, TN 37409-0219.
It will alleviate painful redness, as well as soothe the inflamed skin.
I have been using it for years.
During hot weather, a little applied topically, especially where the brassiere chafes, is preventative and increases comfort.
I do not presently own a bra. I use Cortizone 10 for allergic skin reactions. There is something in this neighborhood that occasionally gives me hives. Other than the partying twenty-somethings down on Polk Street, that is.
URL-SODDEN OOKY
Viagra, Cialis, Facebook porn, loan sites, and url-rich spammographies are not part of the programme. Those are all for sad, sleazy, desperate TOTAL degenerates. Which this blogger isn't. My degeneracy is more philosophical that operational, and more of an intellectual concept than any practical consideration.
I am not sad, sleazy, or desperate.
Consequently I shall pass on the Viagra, Cialis, Facebook porn, and loan sites, as well as the densely urlized material.
Brassieres big enough for a man, but built for a woman?
Thank you, but really, no thanks.
Fresh green chilies.
Zesty curry.
In addition to cute super brilliant Cantonese Americans and Cortisone 10 creme, chili peppers and curry are very good things.
Two out of four is a start.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I had chilies this evening also. In case you were wondering. It's what many bachelors do when there is no scope for degeneracy, no one to make curry for OR with, the idea of a man wearing a brassiere is not the first thing one wishes to think about, and cute super brilliant Cantonese American girls evidently do not evince any curiosity whatsoever.
That last is, perhaps, the most first.
The degeneracy must be assumed as a minor operational paradigm only.
The "curry-making-with" problem could be easily solved upon the luring in of the cute super brilliant Cantonese American girl; over the years I have converted many people to curry -- I used to work in an Indian restaurant, and I'm a pretty good cook when at home -- so I have no doubt that I can make a cute super brilliant Cantonese American girl see the light on at least that one issue. They're primed to like tasty things to eat.
Men constricting their pudgy chests with brassieres are just not a very good idea, not that I would know from experience, but I'm just guessing.
It probably leads to high blood-pressure.
As well as scarlet welts.
DOES IT ITCH?
For bra-strap rash, this blogger advises 'Cortizone 10 plus' - "creme + 10 Healing Moisturizers". It's the itch medicine doctors recommend. Distributed by CHATTEM, INC., P.O. Box 2219, Chattanooga, TN 37409-0219.
It will alleviate painful redness, as well as soothe the inflamed skin.
I have been using it for years.
During hot weather, a little applied topically, especially where the brassiere chafes, is preventative and increases comfort.
I do not presently own a bra. I use Cortizone 10 for allergic skin reactions. There is something in this neighborhood that occasionally gives me hives. Other than the partying twenty-somethings down on Polk Street, that is.
URL-SODDEN OOKY
Viagra, Cialis, Facebook porn, loan sites, and url-rich spammographies are not part of the programme. Those are all for sad, sleazy, desperate TOTAL degenerates. Which this blogger isn't. My degeneracy is more philosophical that operational, and more of an intellectual concept than any practical consideration.
I am not sad, sleazy, or desperate.
Consequently I shall pass on the Viagra, Cialis, Facebook porn, and loan sites, as well as the densely urlized material.
Brassieres big enough for a man, but built for a woman?
Thank you, but really, no thanks.
Fresh green chilies.
Zesty curry.
In addition to cute super brilliant Cantonese Americans and Cortisone 10 creme, chili peppers and curry are very good things.
Two out of four is a start.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
DON'T LET THE BEAR FIND OUT
There are times that I wished I lived closer to Chinatown. You may blame my apartment mate for that. Her fault. And her Chinese-American heritage has nothing to do with it.
The situation is this: after she leaves in the morning I sneck her door tight, open two or three windows wide for ventilation, and light up. I am currently not fully engaged in the work process, and get to stay home several days a week, you see. And she is a vociferous non-smoker.
As long as I've known her, she has disliked tobacco.
When we were still a couple, I'd wash my face and brush my teeth several times daily, so as not to offend her delicate sensibilities.
Since our relationship ended three years ago I need not be anywhere near so fastidious; ain't nobody gonna kiss me today. The only rules still in force are that the apartment should not stink, and her Teddy Bear should NEVER smell like tobacco.
The Teddy Bear lives in her room.
For several hours a day the apartment stinks like you wouldn't believe, oh boy. Yep, mister Badger (me) is waltzing around in tasteful boxers or jam-pants, wearing a floppy shirt only barely buttoned, with a briar pipe jauntily sticking out of his mouth. Big grin, usually.
La la la, I'm enjoying myself.
The Teddy Bear, who might rat on me if she knew, is safely ensconced in a sealed room, and will never know what's going on. I've bribed some of the other stuffed animals to keep their mouths shut. Our household banana and grass-suckies budget has gone through the roof.
Man, this place smells nice!
Heck, I smell nice.
Smoky!
By mid-afternoon, the smoking indoors stops. Need to let the place air out. Any further pipe enjoyment will take place while mister Badger is out wandering around the neighborhood.
Then later on when he's gone for a tea-time snack in Chinatown.
And perhaps in early evening, on the front steps.
Good thing the weather has improved.
Sensible animals hate the rain.
It's bad for their pipes.
I tend to regard Chinatown as my smoking room. Nobody says anything negative about the sooty whisps, there's one or two places where coffee and a small pastry may be had even after dark fall, and there are bright lights, interesting stores, and noise. If it were just two or so blocks away, strolling over while smoking would be easy.
In my own neighborhood, people tend to look askance at smokers, almost as if we're infected with the plague. Well, sneering yuppie white people do.
The Chinese who live here assume that like them we're out for a breath of fresh air and some excercise. While smoking.
A mature man having a pipe is clearly not a dissolute type.
Unlike cigarette-huffing twenty-somethings.
All of whom act reprehensible.
I would've loved a 皮蛋酥 and a cup of milk-tea yesterday evening before lighting up my pipe. Instead I got to see twenty-somethings acting tipsy.
It isn't the same.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The situation is this: after she leaves in the morning I sneck her door tight, open two or three windows wide for ventilation, and light up. I am currently not fully engaged in the work process, and get to stay home several days a week, you see. And she is a vociferous non-smoker.
As long as I've known her, she has disliked tobacco.
When we were still a couple, I'd wash my face and brush my teeth several times daily, so as not to offend her delicate sensibilities.
Since our relationship ended three years ago I need not be anywhere near so fastidious; ain't nobody gonna kiss me today. The only rules still in force are that the apartment should not stink, and her Teddy Bear should NEVER smell like tobacco.
The Teddy Bear lives in her room.
For several hours a day the apartment stinks like you wouldn't believe, oh boy. Yep, mister Badger (me) is waltzing around in tasteful boxers or jam-pants, wearing a floppy shirt only barely buttoned, with a briar pipe jauntily sticking out of his mouth. Big grin, usually.
La la la, I'm enjoying myself.
The Teddy Bear, who might rat on me if she knew, is safely ensconced in a sealed room, and will never know what's going on. I've bribed some of the other stuffed animals to keep their mouths shut. Our household banana and grass-suckies budget has gone through the roof.
Man, this place smells nice!
Heck, I smell nice.
Smoky!
By mid-afternoon, the smoking indoors stops. Need to let the place air out. Any further pipe enjoyment will take place while mister Badger is out wandering around the neighborhood.
Then later on when he's gone for a tea-time snack in Chinatown.
And perhaps in early evening, on the front steps.
Good thing the weather has improved.
Sensible animals hate the rain.
It's bad for their pipes.
I tend to regard Chinatown as my smoking room. Nobody says anything negative about the sooty whisps, there's one or two places where coffee and a small pastry may be had even after dark fall, and there are bright lights, interesting stores, and noise. If it were just two or so blocks away, strolling over while smoking would be easy.
In my own neighborhood, people tend to look askance at smokers, almost as if we're infected with the plague. Well, sneering yuppie white people do.
The Chinese who live here assume that like them we're out for a breath of fresh air and some excercise. While smoking.
A mature man having a pipe is clearly not a dissolute type.
Unlike cigarette-huffing twenty-somethings.
All of whom act reprehensible.
I would've loved a 皮蛋酥 and a cup of milk-tea yesterday evening before lighting up my pipe. Instead I got to see twenty-somethings acting tipsy.
It isn't the same.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, May 05, 2013
A CRUNCHY GREEN EPIC
I was surprised by the amount that came out. Really, I thought there was FAR less in there than it turns out there was. It probably would have been all right if I had worn my glasses.
I had put down my glasses while making myself a sandwich, because there was shmutz on the lenses. And, as every one knows, that's not a good idea when you're working with knives.
Thinly carved meat from a hard dry peppery sausage?
No problem.
Bread cut to a uniform thickness?
No problem.
Four sliced jalapeños?
No problem.
Mayonnaise?
Disaster.
Why is there not enough mayonnaise in this jar? Should I go get some more before I finish making this tasty and nutritious snack? If I do, will that fruitfly that's lurking near the sink pollute my food while I'm gone? What diseases does he carry, and what have his six icky feet touched recently that I should worry about?
Fruits?
I'm a capable man, I can get the very last bit of mayonnaise out of this jar.
I am up to the challenge. A dry-cured meat and green chilli sandwich is nothing without mayonnaise; it is, perhaps, the essential ingredient. Mayonnaise is god's gift to the Dutch. And the Belgians. And perhaps the Danes. We NEED mayonnaise. Without it, we rust. Our joints go stiff, and we start creaking. We seize up and go rigid. Dry out, and crumble. Mayonnaise is food lubricant.
One of the most important things in life.
If I twirl the jar along the edge of the blade like so, the last inkling of that precious substance will be harvested. The trick is in the spinning, with a very precise sequence of graduated angles moving the tip of the blade progressively further up the inside wall of the jar, leaving nearly clear glass in its wake. Success is always in the details, smooth and speedy rotation is key. One must even press a bit, so that the ghost-whisper of glass against metal may be heard.
One should wear one's damned glasses when performing delicate manoeuvres. That way nothing goes flying up and off at high speed.
The centrifugal force was sufficient to jettison mayonnaise all over.
Well, not actually all over. Just into certain parts of the kitchen.
Areas which had never even seen mayonnaise before.
And which should not have seen it.
Places from which it proved difficult to remove.
That fruit fly had a field day.
I got mayonnaise on my glasses.
They were lying in the wrong spot.
There was more there than I thought.
Perhaps I should have added a few more sliced jalapeños to the sandwich. Could've got by with less mayo, and it still would've been juicy. Certainly crunchier and snappier as well.
Years ago, when I lunched on greasy burgers fried up by the food truck in the parking lot outside the computer company, I habitually brought six, seven, or eight jalapenos with me every day just to make the grub edible. Chilies are a green vegetable, and also excellent for the digestion.
I wouldn't have trusted food truck mayo if you paid me.
But the chilies were absolutely essential.
Most nutritious part, too.
And now that I think about it, I realize that that is what the Dutch need.
And also the Belgians. As well as the Danes. Jalapeños!
They'd never touch mayonnaise again.
No more dyspepsia.
Satori.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I had put down my glasses while making myself a sandwich, because there was shmutz on the lenses. And, as every one knows, that's not a good idea when you're working with knives.
Thinly carved meat from a hard dry peppery sausage?
No problem.
Bread cut to a uniform thickness?
No problem.
Four sliced jalapeños?
No problem.
Mayonnaise?
Disaster.
Why is there not enough mayonnaise in this jar? Should I go get some more before I finish making this tasty and nutritious snack? If I do, will that fruitfly that's lurking near the sink pollute my food while I'm gone? What diseases does he carry, and what have his six icky feet touched recently that I should worry about?
Fruits?
I'm a capable man, I can get the very last bit of mayonnaise out of this jar.
I am up to the challenge. A dry-cured meat and green chilli sandwich is nothing without mayonnaise; it is, perhaps, the essential ingredient. Mayonnaise is god's gift to the Dutch. And the Belgians. And perhaps the Danes. We NEED mayonnaise. Without it, we rust. Our joints go stiff, and we start creaking. We seize up and go rigid. Dry out, and crumble. Mayonnaise is food lubricant.
One of the most important things in life.
If I twirl the jar along the edge of the blade like so, the last inkling of that precious substance will be harvested. The trick is in the spinning, with a very precise sequence of graduated angles moving the tip of the blade progressively further up the inside wall of the jar, leaving nearly clear glass in its wake. Success is always in the details, smooth and speedy rotation is key. One must even press a bit, so that the ghost-whisper of glass against metal may be heard.
One should wear one's damned glasses when performing delicate manoeuvres. That way nothing goes flying up and off at high speed.
The centrifugal force was sufficient to jettison mayonnaise all over.
Well, not actually all over. Just into certain parts of the kitchen.
Areas which had never even seen mayonnaise before.
And which should not have seen it.
Places from which it proved difficult to remove.
That fruit fly had a field day.
I got mayonnaise on my glasses.
They were lying in the wrong spot.
There was more there than I thought.
Perhaps I should have added a few more sliced jalapeños to the sandwich. Could've got by with less mayo, and it still would've been juicy. Certainly crunchier and snappier as well.
Years ago, when I lunched on greasy burgers fried up by the food truck in the parking lot outside the computer company, I habitually brought six, seven, or eight jalapenos with me every day just to make the grub edible. Chilies are a green vegetable, and also excellent for the digestion.
I wouldn't have trusted food truck mayo if you paid me.
But the chilies were absolutely essential.
Most nutritious part, too.
And now that I think about it, I realize that that is what the Dutch need.
And also the Belgians. As well as the Danes. Jalapeños!
They'd never touch mayonnaise again.
No more dyspepsia.
Satori.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
JUST AN OLD-FASHIONED DEGENERATE
Lately I've been indulging in a mixture which Keith at Cornell & Diehl recommended back in early January. It is probably one of the most disturbing things to which I have ever been exposed.
Regular readers know that tobacco blends, by their particularity and unique nose impressions, are memory sparkers of no mean magnitude for this blog.
What something smells and tastes like often reminds me of times, places, and people from my past.
Which is very useful, and great fun too.
Plantation Evening (No. 416) does none of those things.
Leastways, none of them well.
But it is exceedingly addictive.
No, not the way that the usual sour-old anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeley do-gooder imagines. There is nicotine in the blend, naturally, but what I mean is that after each pipe-full I have an urge to promptly light another, because it tastes so good.
PLANTATION EVENING
By Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
Morganton, NC
800-433-0080
"A smooth, reasonably light blend of aged Virginias, Latakia, Perique and a little Turkish. An outstanding, middle of the road English blend with a delightful flavor. "
Mild, mellow, musky, and with a smoothly intense velvety smokiness from the Latakia. Like many Cornell & Diehl blends it is at it's seductive best if you wait a while to open the tin -- they ship soon after compounding, before the tobaccos have had a honeymoon -- and it does need a bit of air after the components have married, but the reward is worth the wait.
The sun shining in through the backroom window, the sounds of construction on a luxury condo complex a few streets over, wild parrots squawking overhead............
And this intoxicating smoky fragrance wafting around.
Jayzus, this is sinful good.
The pipes I've been stuffing it into are a Comoy Grandslam Liverpool (shape no. 30) that may be several years older than I am, a Parker Russet straight billiard which is also ancient, a Sasieni Royal Stuart squat bulldog (shape no. 95) from a by-gone era, a Peterson Canadian shape stamped 'Dublin & London' and 'Made in the republic of Ireland' -- so definitely quite old -- and a Sasieni bent bulldog with four ivory dots.
It's like having historical relics in my mouth.
Positively worshipful.
Possibly even worth killing for. Definitely worth bashing an anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeleyite over. But then the world has so little use for such people anyway.
Thank you, Keith.
Great recommendation.
If we ever meet, breakfast is on me.
TOBACCO INDEX
Post Scriptum: Yes, I really am up this early on a Sunday morning. Can't figure out why. Found out on the BBC news site that an important military facility in Damascus had been blown up by Israel. It looks like the Alawite dictatorship is banking some of its materiel in Lebanon with the psychopaths of Hezbollah. This indicates that regime change is getting closer.
On a different note, according to Dutch newspapers the Amsterdam soccer team Ajax has become the national champion third time in a row (5-0). Excellent news! Congratulations.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Regular readers know that tobacco blends, by their particularity and unique nose impressions, are memory sparkers of no mean magnitude for this blog.
What something smells and tastes like often reminds me of times, places, and people from my past.
Which is very useful, and great fun too.
Plantation Evening (No. 416) does none of those things.
Leastways, none of them well.
But it is exceedingly addictive.
No, not the way that the usual sour-old anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeley do-gooder imagines. There is nicotine in the blend, naturally, but what I mean is that after each pipe-full I have an urge to promptly light another, because it tastes so good.
PLANTATION EVENING
By Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
Morganton, NC
800-433-0080
"A smooth, reasonably light blend of aged Virginias, Latakia, Perique and a little Turkish. An outstanding, middle of the road English blend with a delightful flavor. "
Mild, mellow, musky, and with a smoothly intense velvety smokiness from the Latakia. Like many Cornell & Diehl blends it is at it's seductive best if you wait a while to open the tin -- they ship soon after compounding, before the tobaccos have had a honeymoon -- and it does need a bit of air after the components have married, but the reward is worth the wait.
The sun shining in through the backroom window, the sounds of construction on a luxury condo complex a few streets over, wild parrots squawking overhead............
And this intoxicating smoky fragrance wafting around.
Jayzus, this is sinful good.
The pipes I've been stuffing it into are a Comoy Grandslam Liverpool (shape no. 30) that may be several years older than I am, a Parker Russet straight billiard which is also ancient, a Sasieni Royal Stuart squat bulldog (shape no. 95) from a by-gone era, a Peterson Canadian shape stamped 'Dublin & London' and 'Made in the republic of Ireland' -- so definitely quite old -- and a Sasieni bent bulldog with four ivory dots.
It's like having historical relics in my mouth.
Positively worshipful.
Possibly even worth killing for. Definitely worth bashing an anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeleyite over. But then the world has so little use for such people anyway.
Thank you, Keith.
Great recommendation.
If we ever meet, breakfast is on me.
TOBACCO INDEX
Post Scriptum: Yes, I really am up this early on a Sunday morning. Can't figure out why. Found out on the BBC news site that an important military facility in Damascus had been blown up by Israel. It looks like the Alawite dictatorship is banking some of its materiel in Lebanon with the psychopaths of Hezbollah. This indicates that regime change is getting closer.
On a different note, according to Dutch newspapers the Amsterdam soccer team Ajax has become the national champion third time in a row (5-0). Excellent news! Congratulations.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, May 04, 2013
WHAT'S FOR DINNER?
She turned off the heat and poured the coffee. Normally she did not drink it strong so late in the day, but John had not come home yet. He had called and told her he was eating down in San Jose, not to expect him much before twelve. That was later than he usually came home, the project must have entered a critical phase.
Dark, almost muddy. No sugar, no cream. She actually preferred espresso, but refused to go over to Columbus Avenue in the evening, as the combination of Eurotrash sexists and belligerent suburbanite yobbos living it up in the city during the warmer days of spring was too much to bear.
The one phrase she never wished to hear again was "have they started growing yet?"
Given that she was already in grad school, they had.
She just wasn't big and hefty.
And they were nobody's business, anyway.
As her plush T-Rex would say "mine, dammit!"
Meaning: 'don't even look, buster, get your own'.
Always listen to extinct lizards, even if they are fuzzy pink.
Sexism, primitive behaviour, and a complete lack of manners were par for the course in the Italian part of town. Though not from the Italians. Usually Eastern Europeans (hairy coarse-mouthed swine), North Africans (glib and superficial vulgarians), Oaklanders (wannabee toughs), Midwestern tourists (ignorant racists), New Yorkers (sneering brutes), English people (arrogant, belligerent, and drunk before nightfall), and, of course, the numerous drug addicts and mentally damaged weirdos who lived in all the residential hotels that lined Columbus and Broadway.
She liked North Beach, but only during the early part of the day.
By evening it was always a zoo.
Back in the living room she put the coffee on the rickety table next to the cane chair and sat down. Then picked up the book again where she had left off. Page 108: "'Three years later, in 1956, Esra made his boldest commercial move. He spent eighteen months planning it; an unprecedented campaign in the economic history of the island. You know, before that we had none of these musclemen takeovers you get now. People stuck to their place. Niche marketing - that was all that ever happened. Esra was our first real commercial predator.'"
She tried to imagine a muscled commercial predator, and couldn't. Perhaps a steel-clad android, a metallic drone, with grappling hooks. The very next sentence put a big grin on her face.
"You see, he was a button-arsed power freak."
That, strangely, re-humanized the man. The person talking clearly disliked Esra, which had to be taken into account, but a tightly-clenched merchant of near-toxic palm brandy was a concept that had colour, verve. She reached over, sipped her coffee, and grabbed the pipe she kept on the table. With deft pokes and prods she filled the bowl with Rattray's Accountant's Mixture, struck a match and lit up. This was good. Really good. These two families had grown to hate each other worse with each closer involvement. By the time they were inseparably intertwined, the dislike and venom that they had for each other bit savage furrows in the fabric of their shared flesh.
A page later, that hatred resulted in Lionel Samarasekera getting nearly choked to death, despite merely being the bearer of bad tidings, not the cause or crux thereof.
Poor bastard.
By the time her pipe had hit mid-range, and the Latakia reek in the living room was at its densest level in years (actually, since mid morning, when she had fired a bowl of Black Mallory), the book spoke of "thick black smoke spread in a dense cloud, rising from a huge blaze. In the flames you could see small speckled tornadoes rise to feed the cloud as though they were helping the sky itself turn blacker for the night.
Most of the warehouses in front were completely engulfed in flames. Huge robes of yellow and orange swirled; only the frame of the buildings stayed in a stencilled afterlife providing a temporary structure for the flames.......
then the beams splintered and crackled into a yellow emptiness."
Beautiful. The scene of the old railway warehouses ablaze in the valley below, near the jumble of railway lines that seemed to writhe in the flames around the disused shunting station was described in such glowing terms that she could almost feel the heat; the creosote from her bowl of tobacco seemed, almost, to be the pine plank and lead-paint soot itself, adding to the incendiary romance of the moment.
She was well on her second pipe by the time the novel got to Pearl's Christmas Cake. Her uncle still had not returned, and she could tell that the air outside had gotten colder, much colder, since daylight. San Francisco was always like that. You'd wander around in light clothes before tea-time, then by the cocktail hour you needed a sweater, and at mid-evening, a fur coat would not be amiss.
"Making the cake was a big affair. For two days it would dominate the kitchen. A huge mixing bowl would sit in the middle of the kitchen table like a bottomless well. Tons of ingredients would be chucked in: bags of raisins, heaps of currants, mixed fruit, cherries."
...
"After two days of mixing and stirring and wheeling the ingredients, she would bake the cake and then it would disappear for weeks leaving only the tantalizing scent of almond essence and rose water. She would hide it until Christmas or snow, whichever came first, but every room in the flat would reek of it."
Snow? How odd that a Ceylonese Christmas Cake should come out during snow. One would normally associate such an epic confection with warmer weather. London, however, had a worse climate than even the city. Or Scotland, where Charles Rattray had created the mixture that she currently favoured. Scotland sounded at times amazingly like the Bay Area. Miserable wind, fog, horrid food, and howling heathens. But exceptionally good tobacco, and reasonable whisky.
The speaker mentioned winter rice and curry during a freak blizzard on the next page. And she realized at this point that she was hungry. Maybe after she finished the pipe she should have some food. She envisioned beef smoor, or chicken curry with coconut milk and lemongrass, and a saucer of sambol on the side. Plus rice, of course. Rice was the only thing she had in common with Sinhalese, Burgers, or the inhabitants of London. Though she imagined that there might be a shared a preference for Scottish pipe-tobacco with the latter.
Did curry taste better during cold weather? That, certainly, would explain why the British had turned Vindaloo and Chicken Tikka Masala into national passions.
The sudden mental image of skinny white boys climbing up palm trees along the Thames to harvest coconuts made her giggle. Wrong climate, of course, and there probably wasn't any cane-sugar growing in places like Yorkshire either. But, not having been there, she felt it was perfectly all-right to false-remember England as a fantasy tropical Middle-Earth. Filled with various races from the warmer regions in any case, and at times blitheringly odd.
Of course there would be coconuts.
Hot-house chilies too.
Maybe it was time for dinner. Such a pity that the Indian place on Polk had closed down, all that was left in the neighborhood was a miserable Paki dabba and a place run by unclean Muslims from Delhi.
She did not trust either restaurant.
She decided to heat up an immersion packet of matar paneer, and have some easy vegies alongside. Chopped jalapeño peppers and zucchini with a drop of fish sauce, squeeze of lime, drizzle oil. Pack it in a bowl with plastic wrap, microwave it for a minute. Perfectly done, twixt crisp and juicy.
What the heck, heat up some rice-stick noodles for starch.
And have a spoonful of lime pickle for zest.
Thirty minutes after eating, she nodded off with The Sandglass by Romesh Gunesekera on her lap.
She dreamed of fire, and coconut trees.
Two hours later her uncle came home, and found her sleeping in her chair. The apartment smelled spicy and sooty. She had been smoking again. He doubted that she would start dating anytime soon, she didn't appear to like normalcy. And so few men tolerated good tobacco nowadays.
Or food with assertive flavours.
He covered her up with a throw-rug, removed the book from her grasp and put a pipe-cleaner in it to mark the page where she left off when her eyes closed, then turned off the overhead light.
If she woke up in the night she'd go to her room.
Otherwise she'd still be there at daybreak.
It was funny finding her in the living room in the morning. She'd yawn like a sleepy cat, then blink a bit. Before grumblingly stumbling into the bathroom.
Very much like her mother used to do.
She so much resembled his sister at that age.
Except for the pipe tobacco and curries.
Those were uniquely hers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Dark, almost muddy. No sugar, no cream. She actually preferred espresso, but refused to go over to Columbus Avenue in the evening, as the combination of Eurotrash sexists and belligerent suburbanite yobbos living it up in the city during the warmer days of spring was too much to bear.
The one phrase she never wished to hear again was "have they started growing yet?"
Given that she was already in grad school, they had.
She just wasn't big and hefty.
And they were nobody's business, anyway.
As her plush T-Rex would say "mine, dammit!"
Meaning: 'don't even look, buster, get your own'.
Always listen to extinct lizards, even if they are fuzzy pink.
Sexism, primitive behaviour, and a complete lack of manners were par for the course in the Italian part of town. Though not from the Italians. Usually Eastern Europeans (hairy coarse-mouthed swine), North Africans (glib and superficial vulgarians), Oaklanders (wannabee toughs), Midwestern tourists (ignorant racists), New Yorkers (sneering brutes), English people (arrogant, belligerent, and drunk before nightfall), and, of course, the numerous drug addicts and mentally damaged weirdos who lived in all the residential hotels that lined Columbus and Broadway.
She liked North Beach, but only during the early part of the day.
By evening it was always a zoo.
Back in the living room she put the coffee on the rickety table next to the cane chair and sat down. Then picked up the book again where she had left off. Page 108: "'Three years later, in 1956, Esra made his boldest commercial move. He spent eighteen months planning it; an unprecedented campaign in the economic history of the island. You know, before that we had none of these musclemen takeovers you get now. People stuck to their place. Niche marketing - that was all that ever happened. Esra was our first real commercial predator.'"
She tried to imagine a muscled commercial predator, and couldn't. Perhaps a steel-clad android, a metallic drone, with grappling hooks. The very next sentence put a big grin on her face.
"You see, he was a button-arsed power freak."
That, strangely, re-humanized the man. The person talking clearly disliked Esra, which had to be taken into account, but a tightly-clenched merchant of near-toxic palm brandy was a concept that had colour, verve. She reached over, sipped her coffee, and grabbed the pipe she kept on the table. With deft pokes and prods she filled the bowl with Rattray's Accountant's Mixture, struck a match and lit up. This was good. Really good. These two families had grown to hate each other worse with each closer involvement. By the time they were inseparably intertwined, the dislike and venom that they had for each other bit savage furrows in the fabric of their shared flesh.
A page later, that hatred resulted in Lionel Samarasekera getting nearly choked to death, despite merely being the bearer of bad tidings, not the cause or crux thereof.
Poor bastard.
By the time her pipe had hit mid-range, and the Latakia reek in the living room was at its densest level in years (actually, since mid morning, when she had fired a bowl of Black Mallory), the book spoke of "thick black smoke spread in a dense cloud, rising from a huge blaze. In the flames you could see small speckled tornadoes rise to feed the cloud as though they were helping the sky itself turn blacker for the night.
Most of the warehouses in front were completely engulfed in flames. Huge robes of yellow and orange swirled; only the frame of the buildings stayed in a stencilled afterlife providing a temporary structure for the flames.......
then the beams splintered and crackled into a yellow emptiness."
Beautiful. The scene of the old railway warehouses ablaze in the valley below, near the jumble of railway lines that seemed to writhe in the flames around the disused shunting station was described in such glowing terms that she could almost feel the heat; the creosote from her bowl of tobacco seemed, almost, to be the pine plank and lead-paint soot itself, adding to the incendiary romance of the moment.
She was well on her second pipe by the time the novel got to Pearl's Christmas Cake. Her uncle still had not returned, and she could tell that the air outside had gotten colder, much colder, since daylight. San Francisco was always like that. You'd wander around in light clothes before tea-time, then by the cocktail hour you needed a sweater, and at mid-evening, a fur coat would not be amiss.
"Making the cake was a big affair. For two days it would dominate the kitchen. A huge mixing bowl would sit in the middle of the kitchen table like a bottomless well. Tons of ingredients would be chucked in: bags of raisins, heaps of currants, mixed fruit, cherries."
...
"After two days of mixing and stirring and wheeling the ingredients, she would bake the cake and then it would disappear for weeks leaving only the tantalizing scent of almond essence and rose water. She would hide it until Christmas or snow, whichever came first, but every room in the flat would reek of it."
Snow? How odd that a Ceylonese Christmas Cake should come out during snow. One would normally associate such an epic confection with warmer weather. London, however, had a worse climate than even the city. Or Scotland, where Charles Rattray had created the mixture that she currently favoured. Scotland sounded at times amazingly like the Bay Area. Miserable wind, fog, horrid food, and howling heathens. But exceptionally good tobacco, and reasonable whisky.
The speaker mentioned winter rice and curry during a freak blizzard on the next page. And she realized at this point that she was hungry. Maybe after she finished the pipe she should have some food. She envisioned beef smoor, or chicken curry with coconut milk and lemongrass, and a saucer of sambol on the side. Plus rice, of course. Rice was the only thing she had in common with Sinhalese, Burgers, or the inhabitants of London. Though she imagined that there might be a shared a preference for Scottish pipe-tobacco with the latter.
Did curry taste better during cold weather? That, certainly, would explain why the British had turned Vindaloo and Chicken Tikka Masala into national passions.
The sudden mental image of skinny white boys climbing up palm trees along the Thames to harvest coconuts made her giggle. Wrong climate, of course, and there probably wasn't any cane-sugar growing in places like Yorkshire either. But, not having been there, she felt it was perfectly all-right to false-remember England as a fantasy tropical Middle-Earth. Filled with various races from the warmer regions in any case, and at times blitheringly odd.
Of course there would be coconuts.
Hot-house chilies too.
Maybe it was time for dinner. Such a pity that the Indian place on Polk had closed down, all that was left in the neighborhood was a miserable Paki dabba and a place run by unclean Muslims from Delhi.
She did not trust either restaurant.
She decided to heat up an immersion packet of matar paneer, and have some easy vegies alongside. Chopped jalapeño peppers and zucchini with a drop of fish sauce, squeeze of lime, drizzle oil. Pack it in a bowl with plastic wrap, microwave it for a minute. Perfectly done, twixt crisp and juicy.
What the heck, heat up some rice-stick noodles for starch.
And have a spoonful of lime pickle for zest.
Thirty minutes after eating, she nodded off with The Sandglass by Romesh Gunesekera on her lap.
She dreamed of fire, and coconut trees.
Two hours later her uncle came home, and found her sleeping in her chair. The apartment smelled spicy and sooty. She had been smoking again. He doubted that she would start dating anytime soon, she didn't appear to like normalcy. And so few men tolerated good tobacco nowadays.
Or food with assertive flavours.
He covered her up with a throw-rug, removed the book from her grasp and put a pipe-cleaner in it to mark the page where she left off when her eyes closed, then turned off the overhead light.
If she woke up in the night she'd go to her room.
Otherwise she'd still be there at daybreak.
It was funny finding her in the living room in the morning. She'd yawn like a sleepy cat, then blink a bit. Before grumblingly stumbling into the bathroom.
Very much like her mother used to do.
She so much resembled his sister at that age.
Except for the pipe tobacco and curries.
Those were uniquely hers.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, May 03, 2013
HOT CHOCOLATE WITH THE MEREST TOUCH OF CINNAMON
When they said "take a powder", I took that literally. And within days I had my hands on some real Annamese cinnamon. Which, along with Ceylon bark, is considered the best.
As a Dutch-American I suppose I should favour the latter. After all, we raped and pillaged so ferociously on that island after kicking the Portuguese out that the desperate natives welcomed the British in as liberators when at last our illustrious reign was ended. So you might think that I would have a soft spot for the former product of empire.
But no. Annamese cinnamon is superior.
Always has been.
It's a question of fragrance.
Ethereality.
I have no strong thoughts about chocolate. It's a part of life, in multiple guises. The Aztecs were onto an exceedingly good thing. And like the modern Mexican, I prefer my hot cacao with a ghost of added spice.
Extra bitter. Sweet is much more so when it contrasts.
To contradict the famous American philosopher Forrest Gump, life is NOT like a box of chocolates. The phlegmatic Southerner didn't know what the divvil he was talking about. Probably an idiot.
Life IS like a tall glass of hot chocolate.
It's muddy, and stains your clothes.
No, nothing more significant.
Stains. Mud. Bitter.
In some ways it's rather like relationships. You might think that this means that love and friendship are better with whipped cream, but that's just too much icing on the cake. It hides the tempting darkness, and disguises the tongue-exciting bitter zest. Whipped cream belongs in degenerate sex, NOT in chocolate, NOT in companionship.
Kittens, disgusting orgiasts, and the decadent miss Patel with breasts like ripe mangoes may over-indulge in whipped cream, normal people should partake sparingly.
Although, if you are a vibrant female person, whatever you do with your whipped cream will not find me complaining, quite irrespective of whether your breasts resemble ripe mangoes or not. While I am rather fond of mangoes, I actually prefer them green. Admittedly not as juicy, but firmer and far more flavourful.
Mangoes do not benefit from whipped cream either.
Feel free to prove me wrong.
I'll be sitting here waiting, with my hot chocolate, my cinnamon, my bitterness, and my extra spicy smirk.
If necessary, I'll bring the cream.
Erp.
I seem to have gotten side-tracked. I meant to write something pithy and meaningful about hot chocolate, but I got distracted by ripe mangoes.
In actual fact I have almost nothing to say about chocolate.
I like it, that's all.
I always thought miss Patel's bosom a bit vulgar.
Sorry.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
As a Dutch-American I suppose I should favour the latter. After all, we raped and pillaged so ferociously on that island after kicking the Portuguese out that the desperate natives welcomed the British in as liberators when at last our illustrious reign was ended. So you might think that I would have a soft spot for the former product of empire.
But no. Annamese cinnamon is superior.
Always has been.
It's a question of fragrance.
Ethereality.
I have no strong thoughts about chocolate. It's a part of life, in multiple guises. The Aztecs were onto an exceedingly good thing. And like the modern Mexican, I prefer my hot cacao with a ghost of added spice.
Extra bitter. Sweet is much more so when it contrasts.
To contradict the famous American philosopher Forrest Gump, life is NOT like a box of chocolates. The phlegmatic Southerner didn't know what the divvil he was talking about. Probably an idiot.
Life IS like a tall glass of hot chocolate.
It's muddy, and stains your clothes.
No, nothing more significant.
Stains. Mud. Bitter.
In some ways it's rather like relationships. You might think that this means that love and friendship are better with whipped cream, but that's just too much icing on the cake. It hides the tempting darkness, and disguises the tongue-exciting bitter zest. Whipped cream belongs in degenerate sex, NOT in chocolate, NOT in companionship.
Kittens, disgusting orgiasts, and the decadent miss Patel with breasts like ripe mangoes may over-indulge in whipped cream, normal people should partake sparingly.
Although, if you are a vibrant female person, whatever you do with your whipped cream will not find me complaining, quite irrespective of whether your breasts resemble ripe mangoes or not. While I am rather fond of mangoes, I actually prefer them green. Admittedly not as juicy, but firmer and far more flavourful.
Mangoes do not benefit from whipped cream either.
Feel free to prove me wrong.
I'll be sitting here waiting, with my hot chocolate, my cinnamon, my bitterness, and my extra spicy smirk.
If necessary, I'll bring the cream.
Erp.
I seem to have gotten side-tracked. I meant to write something pithy and meaningful about hot chocolate, but I got distracted by ripe mangoes.
In actual fact I have almost nothing to say about chocolate.
I like it, that's all.
I always thought miss Patel's bosom a bit vulgar.
Sorry.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
MEETING OF MIDDLE-AGED PERSONS INVOLVED IN COMBUSTING VEGETABLE MATTER
Yesterday evening several people got together to plot the overthrow of the monarchy. The air was blue with smoke and dense with intrigue, as dastardly plans were hatched.
And there was beef jerky present.
In actuality, it was the monthly meeting of the G.G.P.C. in Marin. And we are no closer to solving the world's problems than we were before. The three closely related samples of a potential club blend that Greg had kindly put together for us were discussed -- I happen to like number two, though numbers one and three would also have been godsends when I was still living among the heathen in Valkenswaard, and number three will be divine after four or five years of maturing -- and we discovered that all of us are unique individuals.
Additionally, we found out that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Or the comfy pillow. You'd think by now they would, but they don't.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
We all agree that it was some of the best beef jerky we have ever tasted.
Even I agreed, but that was basically because I recognize that attention to detail and a profound knowledge of meat went into the making. I didn't actually have any, as I was engaged on a bowl of something with meaning by Peretti in Boston, very nice, and I wasn't going to interrupt my smoke.
But I know who made it, and I'm certain it is good.
We still have made no decision about the club blend. One person smoked something I had concocted and opined that he would prefer it, but I have smoked Greg's candidates (sample no. 2 is quite amazing and perfect in a multiple number of ways, being the kind of medium-full Latakia mixture that I dream about), and I will gladly yield the floor. If it goes into production under a different name I will definitely acquire a few dozen tins.
It's good. Real good.
Greg knows what keeps me happy.
We also decided that we're going to take the club to the next level. I'm not entirely sure what that means, and I know we're not ready for intergalactic space. But there are documents to be filed, and somewhere further down the line I will have to remind people that their dues are due.
No problem, can do.
Up till now I've been able to swan about at our meetings as mister opinionated. Apparently more, much more, is required.
George, who only smokes Dunhill London Mixture, graciously gave me his congratulations, having only just realized my election victory. But I'm fairly certain he was there when the vote was held.
All three of the samples were excellent. They're very closely related, but number one has a touch of bright Virginia, and comes across as English provincial metropolis tobacconist circa thirties through fifties. No. three is somewhat Scottish in tone, with a fuller more robust Virginia. Number 2
is perfect. The Virginias give a red impression, and the interplay between flue-cured and sooty Cyprian is evocative and luxurious.
I vote for number two.
Port, rocking chairs, and two women of character.
Truly, a very fine meeting indeed.
These are the minutes.
MIDNIGHT SNACK
You make tasty Jalapeño Salad exactly like you would make tuna salad; mayonnaise, chopped celery, capers, salt, cayenne, black pepper, and a dash of Tabasco. Except that instead of tuna, you use minced Jalapeños. Serve it on hot buttered sour-dough toast points.
The appropriate wine is Jameson's Irish whiskey.
Healthy, crunchy, and altogether good.
No. 2.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And there was beef jerky present.
In actuality, it was the monthly meeting of the G.G.P.C. in Marin. And we are no closer to solving the world's problems than we were before. The three closely related samples of a potential club blend that Greg had kindly put together for us were discussed -- I happen to like number two, though numbers one and three would also have been godsends when I was still living among the heathen in Valkenswaard, and number three will be divine after four or five years of maturing -- and we discovered that all of us are unique individuals.
Additionally, we found out that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Or the comfy pillow. You'd think by now they would, but they don't.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
We all agree that it was some of the best beef jerky we have ever tasted.
Even I agreed, but that was basically because I recognize that attention to detail and a profound knowledge of meat went into the making. I didn't actually have any, as I was engaged on a bowl of something with meaning by Peretti in Boston, very nice, and I wasn't going to interrupt my smoke.
But I know who made it, and I'm certain it is good.
We still have made no decision about the club blend. One person smoked something I had concocted and opined that he would prefer it, but I have smoked Greg's candidates (sample no. 2 is quite amazing and perfect in a multiple number of ways, being the kind of medium-full Latakia mixture that I dream about), and I will gladly yield the floor. If it goes into production under a different name I will definitely acquire a few dozen tins.
It's good. Real good.
Greg knows what keeps me happy.
We also decided that we're going to take the club to the next level. I'm not entirely sure what that means, and I know we're not ready for intergalactic space. But there are documents to be filed, and somewhere further down the line I will have to remind people that their dues are due.
No problem, can do.
Up till now I've been able to swan about at our meetings as mister opinionated. Apparently more, much more, is required.
George, who only smokes Dunhill London Mixture, graciously gave me his congratulations, having only just realized my election victory. But I'm fairly certain he was there when the vote was held.
All three of the samples were excellent. They're very closely related, but number one has a touch of bright Virginia, and comes across as English provincial metropolis tobacconist circa thirties through fifties. No. three is somewhat Scottish in tone, with a fuller more robust Virginia. Number 2
is perfect. The Virginias give a red impression, and the interplay between flue-cured and sooty Cyprian is evocative and luxurious.
I vote for number two.
Port, rocking chairs, and two women of character.
Truly, a very fine meeting indeed.
These are the minutes.
MIDNIGHT SNACK
You make tasty Jalapeño Salad exactly like you would make tuna salad; mayonnaise, chopped celery, capers, salt, cayenne, black pepper, and a dash of Tabasco. Except that instead of tuna, you use minced Jalapeños. Serve it on hot buttered sour-dough toast points.
The appropriate wine is Jameson's Irish whiskey.
Healthy, crunchy, and altogether good.
No. 2.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, May 02, 2013
REAL MEN DO NOT WEAR BRAS
It distresses me no end that someone I know shops at Victoria's Secret. What, you will ask, is wrong with that? Many people shop there, and the panties and brassieres that they sell are usually high quality. Albeit often rather vulgar and tacky. Some of their stuff is very good, and well-worth acquiring. Well made, nice material, comfortable.
And at least Victoria's Secret dragged women's undergarments kicking and screaming out of the darkness of grey support devices and granny pants.
Now women can have a little pizazz underneath their clothes.
High time too. It is used to be so boring down there.
Huzzah for Victoria's Secret, huzzah.
The person in question is a man.
Any bras he buys are for him.
There is no female in play.
If there is anyone I wish to imagine in a lovely bra, of whatever dimension (AA through B, optimally), then it isn't him. In fact, my interest in cup sizes diminishes with volume and masculinity. Women wearing bras are a good thing, men wearing bras are an issue. And while I myself have very happily browsed through the bins at Victoria's Secret on Union Square, that was back when there was a female person in my life; whatever I bought there wasn't for me.
Now, you might think that I focus too much on the reasonable-sized gland, as you noticed that I specified AA through B. Far from it; I am a supporter of any and every size of mammary. It isn't an obsession.
However, there is a practical side.......
"Pendulous breasts can make it difficult for a woman to properly fit a bra. "
[Source: Wikipedia.]
Proper fit is extremely important.
My friend does NOT have the build for a proper fit. He may have to wait till he's a decrepit old goat for that, despite his fondest and most demented wishes. Antiquated men with an excess of, errm, flab, often benefit from a bit of support. Not necessarily underwire, per se, but a restraining garment would certainly not be misplaced.
Again, I adamantly refuse to imagine it.
The problem with underwire is that it bunches up weirdly in the wash, and twists all higgeldy-piggeldy. Either do them by hand, or use one of those little scanty-bags for laundering your delicates. That way they won't get stretched out of shape.
Recommendation: Barely There.
It's what I would wear if I were a woman.
He also wears skirts, but fortunately those are suitably butch enough that they don't elicit doubt about his manhood. Like many questionable types, he's a cigar smoker.
I'm a pipe man myself.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And at least Victoria's Secret dragged women's undergarments kicking and screaming out of the darkness of grey support devices and granny pants.
Now women can have a little pizazz underneath their clothes.
High time too. It is used to be so boring down there.
Huzzah for Victoria's Secret, huzzah.
The person in question is a man.
Any bras he buys are for him.
There is no female in play.
If there is anyone I wish to imagine in a lovely bra, of whatever dimension (AA through B, optimally), then it isn't him. In fact, my interest in cup sizes diminishes with volume and masculinity. Women wearing bras are a good thing, men wearing bras are an issue. And while I myself have very happily browsed through the bins at Victoria's Secret on Union Square, that was back when there was a female person in my life; whatever I bought there wasn't for me.
Now, you might think that I focus too much on the reasonable-sized gland, as you noticed that I specified AA through B. Far from it; I am a supporter of any and every size of mammary. It isn't an obsession.
However, there is a practical side.......
"Pendulous breasts can make it difficult for a woman to properly fit a bra. "
[Source: Wikipedia.]
Proper fit is extremely important.
My friend does NOT have the build for a proper fit. He may have to wait till he's a decrepit old goat for that, despite his fondest and most demented wishes. Antiquated men with an excess of, errm, flab, often benefit from a bit of support. Not necessarily underwire, per se, but a restraining garment would certainly not be misplaced.
Again, I adamantly refuse to imagine it.
The problem with underwire is that it bunches up weirdly in the wash, and twists all higgeldy-piggeldy. Either do them by hand, or use one of those little scanty-bags for laundering your delicates. That way they won't get stretched out of shape.
Recommendation: Barely There.
It's what I would wear if I were a woman.
He also wears skirts, but fortunately those are suitably butch enough that they don't elicit doubt about his manhood. Like many questionable types, he's a cigar smoker.
I'm a pipe man myself.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
A NOTE ABOUT ATTRACTIVE CURVES
There are several lust-objects in my world, too numerous to mention. Tea-dust glaze, grey salt, and mustard yellow. As well as something in a blue twixt teal and sky. Don't know what you would call it. Classic shapes of course, with pleasing curves. I prize my modest collection of porcelains.
I suspect that living in Holland and developing a fondness for seventeenth century interiors, as shown in paintings from the golden age, may have had something to do with it. As well as my mother's impressive collection of Bohemian Crystal, decorative overglaze peacock plates, and the lovely objects on the tea-trolley in the dining room.
[We called it the dining room, but we never ate there. It was where my brother kept his vast library of chess-books, and spent hours studying the games of the masters.
We never thought of changing the name.]
There are porcelains atop every book case in the apartment, except for where I keep the Cornell & Diehl tobaccos, matured flakes, and Mac Baren's HH Vintage Syrian. Very much like a merchant mansion in Amsterdam. Unfortunately it is a much smaller place, the ceilings aren't as high, and the light does not stream in from a bustling streetscape with a servant busily shooing off the scallywags.
As a peculiar obsession, it was fairly late in coming. I was an adult living in Berkeley when the first pangs made themselves felt. It has endured for several years, over half my life.
The fetish for crackly glazes is well-represented, as is the fondness for purple-sand earthenware teapots. Hardly any blue-and-white, as Ming Dynasty vases are quite beyond my reach.
Plenty of old American greens.
Copper glazes, oil-spot, streaky oxides precipitating on the outer skin, furry speckles, iron suspensions, and areas where flame played over surfaces.
There are two pieces made by Jade Snow Wong, who was my mother's classmate at Mills College. They were among the last pieces of pottery she produced, as at the end of her life she devoted her firing-time to enameled copper. They are difficult to describe, but represent the culmination of her aesthetic sensibilities. Beautiful, though in a quiet sort of way.
Like many objects, they are mood enhancers, but more so than most.
I wish I had had the opportunity to acquire more of her stuff.
But she was already retired when I knew her.
These two are it.
Hsin-chuen Lin, Dick Lumaghi, and Ross Spangler are present in the apartment, as well as examples of Celadon made by various artists.
Sometimes, in the quiet after dark, I hear a 'ping' sound as a new crackle develops. Especially when a hot day turns into a cold night; the glaze and the body cool down at different rates.
As with calligraphy, edges must be tense, taught, vibrant. There should be strength in each curve, no limpness or flab. A line should be firm like iron, not wobbly like jelly. The intent must be matched by the execution, otherwise it is worthless.
Glazes may be variable; that's where accident can be fortuitous.
But if the form is not clean, what was the point?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I suspect that living in Holland and developing a fondness for seventeenth century interiors, as shown in paintings from the golden age, may have had something to do with it. As well as my mother's impressive collection of Bohemian Crystal, decorative overglaze peacock plates, and the lovely objects on the tea-trolley in the dining room.
[We called it the dining room, but we never ate there. It was where my brother kept his vast library of chess-books, and spent hours studying the games of the masters.
We never thought of changing the name.]
There are porcelains atop every book case in the apartment, except for where I keep the Cornell & Diehl tobaccos, matured flakes, and Mac Baren's HH Vintage Syrian. Very much like a merchant mansion in Amsterdam. Unfortunately it is a much smaller place, the ceilings aren't as high, and the light does not stream in from a bustling streetscape with a servant busily shooing off the scallywags.
As a peculiar obsession, it was fairly late in coming. I was an adult living in Berkeley when the first pangs made themselves felt. It has endured for several years, over half my life.
The fetish for crackly glazes is well-represented, as is the fondness for purple-sand earthenware teapots. Hardly any blue-and-white, as Ming Dynasty vases are quite beyond my reach.
Plenty of old American greens.
Copper glazes, oil-spot, streaky oxides precipitating on the outer skin, furry speckles, iron suspensions, and areas where flame played over surfaces.
There are two pieces made by Jade Snow Wong, who was my mother's classmate at Mills College. They were among the last pieces of pottery she produced, as at the end of her life she devoted her firing-time to enameled copper. They are difficult to describe, but represent the culmination of her aesthetic sensibilities. Beautiful, though in a quiet sort of way.
Like many objects, they are mood enhancers, but more so than most.
I wish I had had the opportunity to acquire more of her stuff.
But she was already retired when I knew her.
These two are it.
Hsin-chuen Lin, Dick Lumaghi, and Ross Spangler are present in the apartment, as well as examples of Celadon made by various artists.
Sometimes, in the quiet after dark, I hear a 'ping' sound as a new crackle develops. Especially when a hot day turns into a cold night; the glaze and the body cool down at different rates.
As with calligraphy, edges must be tense, taught, vibrant. There should be strength in each curve, no limpness or flab. A line should be firm like iron, not wobbly like jelly. The intent must be matched by the execution, otherwise it is worthless.
Glazes may be variable; that's where accident can be fortuitous.
But if the form is not clean, what was the point?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
DON'T DO IT, DON'T DO IT, THEY WILL ALL SCREAM
Sometime, just for the hell of it, I should accompany a woman shopping for shoes or handbags. I've talked about it often enough, and even slagged it ferociously. Nothing, in my mind, can be as toxic and soul-destroying as spending several hours on a perfectly good weekend-day, tortuously pursuing the perfect piece of ridiculously overpriced leather.
And doubtlessly people who do so are stark-raving mad.
In all fairness then, I should give it a shot.
Rather than dismissing it out of hand.
Men, you know, never shop. At least not willingly. Most of us males find our clothes and stylish accoutrements lying by the side of the road, already broken-in and acclimatized to the beer-swilling burger snarfing football hooting gender for which they were made. Several decades ago. By mysterious gnomes in the Antarctic. We don't buy our habiliment, we inherit it. From a long deceased fratbrother whose uber cool dude fashion sense would have awed us endlessly, if we were actually ever aware of it.
We still worship him as a god.
We just don't shop.
Women do.
It's a flaw in their otherwise lovable characters.
One which drives men to frustration and sixpacks of beer.
.....
How bad can it be? Honestly?
Given that sex and sports bore most women senseless, this might be the chance to see a beautiful face wreathed in smiles. Closer than most men will ever get. On that note alone it's worth a shot. Why, she'll be all sparkly and vivacious for hours, and too tired for dinner afterwards. As well as entirely distracted. All she'll want is a long hot bath.
I'll say goodbye at her door, then go merrily skipping down the road to the nearest junk-food palace, not a care in the world. Because, gentlemen, I saw a young lady at her very best. And she was ecstatic!
It's what all men dream of.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And doubtlessly people who do so are stark-raving mad.
In all fairness then, I should give it a shot.
Rather than dismissing it out of hand.
Men, you know, never shop. At least not willingly. Most of us males find our clothes and stylish accoutrements lying by the side of the road, already broken-in and acclimatized to the beer-swilling burger snarfing football hooting gender for which they were made. Several decades ago. By mysterious gnomes in the Antarctic. We don't buy our habiliment, we inherit it. From a long deceased fratbrother whose uber cool dude fashion sense would have awed us endlessly, if we were actually ever aware of it.
We still worship him as a god.
We just don't shop.
Women do.
It's a flaw in their otherwise lovable characters.
One which drives men to frustration and sixpacks of beer.
.....
How bad can it be? Honestly?
Given that sex and sports bore most women senseless, this might be the chance to see a beautiful face wreathed in smiles. Closer than most men will ever get. On that note alone it's worth a shot. Why, she'll be all sparkly and vivacious for hours, and too tired for dinner afterwards. As well as entirely distracted. All she'll want is a long hot bath.
I'll say goodbye at her door, then go merrily skipping down the road to the nearest junk-food palace, not a care in the world. Because, gentlemen, I saw a young lady at her very best. And she was ecstatic!
It's what all men dream of.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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BAN THEM FROM COFFEESHOPS!
It is too dark and wet outside to go out there with a pipe for the first smoke of the day. Which, even with a short bowl, would be twenty mi...
