Yeah, I'll admit it. I like hanging out ('hiding') in Chinatown. For one thing, no one there treats me like a weirdo, as folks everywhere else seem to do. Smiling middle-aged dude with a lot of curiosity about things that other folks have no interest in whatsoever? That's absolutely normal in Chinatown. Heck, you cannot possibly get any more normal than that.
Even if someone is actually paying attention.
Which largely they aren't.
White guys are a background issue.
It's surprising how anonymous one is in the neighborhood. Except perhaps to the people with whom you have dealt before. Provided, of course, that you did so while speaking Cantonese; Chinatown folks will remember the Caucasian who spoke Cantonese. Probably because they never heard the language so thoroughly mispronounced and maltreated.
"What did he say?" "Something about jook or bamboo, but I'm not sure." "He wants jook? It's gotta be jook, we don't HAVE any bamboo!" Yeah, rice porridge then, but I didn't understand a damn thing else." "Well why don't you ask him to repeat it, maybe he'll speak better this time?" "Possibly, or else he'll bark something totally incomprehensible."
"You're right. Better ask him to point."
"In WHAT language?!?"
"Ask him to point in Esperanto."
It's not entirely that bad, but while I can read the language pretty decently, having a conversation past the food please cup of gong sik naai cha yit ge m-koi hotsauce and where and when did I grow up what do I do beancounter oh you smoke a pipe yin tau fascinating how much does good pipe tobacco cost and where do you live level without recourse to English is often impossible.
Ninety percent of the words I know how to write, I have never heard spoken. Or at least not that I recall. My reading vocabulary is far greater than my spoken vocabulary. So the tone thing remains an issue. Beyond a certain point, context does not really clarify what weird white dudes say.
But from my point of view, that isn't really a problem. Not only is pointing in Esperanto always an option -- hey the waitress just bust outta the kitchen with a trolley filled with steamed good stuff over here over here here here wave frantically while looking famished and desperate I'll have some of those and those and those -- but if something really needs to be communicated, the locals are determined to do it.
刷
Which explains why with few exceptions, most commercial signage utilizes a vocabulary that everyone knows, and words that crop up with enough frequency that you cannot fail to clearly remember them.
And you may always ask.
Wei, ah sin-sang, go-tou dai sei go ji, dim tok ah?
Eh, mister, how is that fourth word pronounced?
Turns out its 'chaat'.
[As in 印刷. Yan-chaat; printing. There's an establishment on Waverly between Hang Fook (幸福) and Tung Fong Sam Yung Yek Hong (東方蔘茸藥行). Which is a good place to buy your herbs, by the way. 藥 is also spelled 葯.]
I already knew what it meant, but had never heard it before.
With a bit of luck I'll remember the tone.
For when I need it again.
That approach failed only once. The mister whom I questioned did not know either.
衆
A multitude, the masses, public. The range of meaning was clear from previous exposure, and I found out later that it's pronounced 'jung'.
No idea whatsoever what the tone is.
If I ever need to use it, I'll just fake it, hoping that context will clarify.
Or write it on a sheet of paper and hold it over my head.
If you ever see a pipesmoking dude in Chinatown with actual talk-balloons, that will be me. Feel free to engage me in conversation.
Please bring your own pen and paper, I might not have enough.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
BEWARE HER AGGRESSION AND APPETITE!
I really never know what to say to women. Conversation, with someone attractive -- as many women are -- is always a slippery slope. Not through any fault of theirs, but usually because the keen mind of the person, in concert with her facial charm, can act like a mine-field. It's incredibly hard to read body language when you're making eye-contact.
Besides, things come out of their mouths that you did not expect.
"You remind me of my grand-uncle. It's the pipe. He was in the war."
Oh, is that a good thing?
"Not really. We always thought that he was up to no good, but it turns out he was simply collecting insects and getting a doctorate in entomology."
What's wrong with that?
"He was a re-incarnated arthropod."
Oh. Long pause. And how exactly do I remind you of him?
"You have the same cute little beard and you smell funny."
Yes, now that she mentions it, I can well imagine the resemblance. All of us mature pipe-smokers with neat beards are rather spider-like.
We're just trying to lure you into our web.
If I actually had eight limbs, I'd wave them all in distress at this moment. Because as a spider, I would probably not be interested in live protein at all, but nice hot buttered toast. Yes, I would try to lure you in, but only to share the toast with you. I have marmalade! And beautiful preserves!
All I require in return is that you gently scratch the back of my head, while my six eyes close in utter blis.
Spiders, you may remember, have very good reasons for being wary of females. Meaningful encounters usually end extremely badly for the male of the species. Instead of yummy hot buttery toast, with or without marmalade (or jam), they get eaten. Head first.
Rather like middle-aged pipe smokers trying to have a conversation with a bright-eyed woman significantly younger than himself, who conceivably is both carnivorous, and not too picky about whom she slaughters for food.
Due to this well-founded distrust of females, actual conversation with women rarely occurs. And only when there are tons of witnesses around.
In fact, it has been weeks, maybe even months, since I had a lengthy exchange with a bright-eyed feminine person younger than myself.
It remains a fond fantasy, but it might end badly.
Plus I never know what to say.
"Miss, you remind me of that scene in the movie 'Alien'."
See. Not an auspicious beginning.
Even if meant in a good way.
And it can only get worse.
Ideally, at some point a personable young lady will approach, and keenly wish to talk about Vladimir Nabokov with me, most particularly regarding the disconnected egomania of Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire, and his facile pedantic intellect.
Perhaps in a quiet alley near the Pyramid on a bright sunny day, while I am smoking a tobacco that does NOT remind her of any male relatives.
I am not the grand-uncle type.
We can have toast afterwards.
Charles Kinbote's egomania is just an example.
There are other subjects she could broach.
And it need not end in tea and toast.
Coffee and a pastry are also nice.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
"You remind me of my grand-uncle. It's the pipe. He was in the war."
Oh, is that a good thing?
"Not really. We always thought that he was up to no good, but it turns out he was simply collecting insects and getting a doctorate in entomology."
What's wrong with that?
"He was a re-incarnated arthropod."
Oh. Long pause. And how exactly do I remind you of him?
"You have the same cute little beard and you smell funny."
Yes, now that she mentions it, I can well imagine the resemblance. All of us mature pipe-smokers with neat beards are rather spider-like.
We're just trying to lure you into our web.
If I actually had eight limbs, I'd wave them all in distress at this moment. Because as a spider, I would probably not be interested in live protein at all, but nice hot buttered toast. Yes, I would try to lure you in, but only to share the toast with you. I have marmalade! And beautiful preserves!
All I require in return is that you gently scratch the back of my head, while my six eyes close in utter blis.
Spiders, you may remember, have very good reasons for being wary of females. Meaningful encounters usually end extremely badly for the male of the species. Instead of yummy hot buttery toast, with or without marmalade (or jam), they get eaten. Head first.
Rather like middle-aged pipe smokers trying to have a conversation with a bright-eyed woman significantly younger than himself, who conceivably is both carnivorous, and not too picky about whom she slaughters for food.
Due to this well-founded distrust of females, actual conversation with women rarely occurs. And only when there are tons of witnesses around.
In fact, it has been weeks, maybe even months, since I had a lengthy exchange with a bright-eyed feminine person younger than myself.
It remains a fond fantasy, but it might end badly.
Plus I never know what to say.
"Miss, you remind me of that scene in the movie 'Alien'."
See. Not an auspicious beginning.
Even if meant in a good way.
And it can only get worse.
Ideally, at some point a personable young lady will approach, and keenly wish to talk about Vladimir Nabokov with me, most particularly regarding the disconnected egomania of Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire, and his facile pedantic intellect.
Perhaps in a quiet alley near the Pyramid on a bright sunny day, while I am smoking a tobacco that does NOT remind her of any male relatives.
I am not the grand-uncle type.
We can have toast afterwards.
Charles Kinbote's egomania is just an example.
There are other subjects she could broach.
And it need not end in tea and toast.
Coffee and a pastry are also nice.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
KING OF BLATTA! OR QUEEN!
What the world needs is a video game featuring valiant cockroaches. This blogger is convinced that such a game would give the computer generation actual heroes with which (or whom) they could identify. And naturally you have to agree. You already know many people whose private lives embody the gestalt. Not all of whom are geeks or code monkeys.
There's your cousin Squiffy. You've never figured out what gender he/she is. "It" dresses in baggy sweats, and behind those sunglasses there may be multi-faceted orbs instead of eyes. This is what you stay away from at family gatherings.....
Although, since the start of the cell-phone age, there have been far fewer of those. Your family texts instead of talks. It's better that way. Now none of you get interrupted while doing important things like playing solitaire, researching porn or kitten pictures on the web, or deciding where to eat with the fabulous person (of whichever sex) you met online.
EMPIRE OF BLATTODEA
You, the player, can choose what character you are. The sexy ingénue, the brutal uncle plotting to seize the throne, the wise elder, the gallant warrior(ess), or the young prince(ss). As well as what you wear. Given that you have six limbs, clothing choices are exponentially greater than for humans, and think of the fabulous shoes! One pair of Isabel Marant, AND a pair of kick-ass bitch boots! The possibilities are endless! Plus there's wonderful accessorizing! Such expression, such individualism!
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to daringly rescue transgender top-diplomat Laxta Granicole from the evil bipeds who have imprisoned him (her) in a dark and sticky box. You have five minutes.
What weapons are you going to use?
The advantage of this game is that most modern humans, after overcoming their initial revulsion, will find it easy to identify with the characters and their environment. You goals, your ideals, your dreams -- all of these are expressed fully in the story. And there are reward points.
You can play it lying down. In your comfy sweats. Which actually haven't been washed in ages, but there's a laundromat in the game.
Just dump the chips and crispy crunchy things in a shoe-box; that way you can tip it slightly to pour nutrients into your mouth when you're hungry.
Oh goody, you've killed the Black Flag Monster!
All his base are belong to you!
If everybody in the house is playing this game, no one will tell you to pick up your shoes.
There are even creative and artistic tattooed roach characters in the game, who compose fabulous World Music. For those players who need to express their inner selves.
Plus, get this, every room has a television!
Which shows the Real Housewives!
Or something Kardasian!
We also have an aged cockroach with a long white beard and a wizard hat, for a total Gandalf. This character speaks to your inner magician.
All spiritually significant and stuff, very Middle-Earth.
He (she) smokes a long churchwarden.
Benevolent mystical roach.
Of course, you still might have to go to work five days a week. But if you can convince your bosses to let you work from home, you only need do a few minutes of useful crap a day before going back to your six-legged life. You'll never have to wash again.
Real roaches will considerately groom the crumbs from your reclining body, and your on-screen character can actually call a pizza place from within the game for fast delivery.
Which will please your several thousand new friends.
You love them, they're so understanding.
Social, and non-threatening.
And supportive.
You are the the Grand Gromphador!
You positively rule over all!
An enlightened despot.
With antennas.
Waving.
Finally there is world-wide peace.
The roaches will survive.
Forever.
AFTERTHOUGHT
This blogger has not played video games since working for Fweeb Inc. (a pseudonym for a computer company located in Menlo Park), back in the nineties. I'll admit that it was fun, running around a surreal outer-space environment shooting bug-like aliens, and I learned a lot while doing so.
For one thing, humans in someone else's space station act emotional, and tend to get infected with exploding viruses, and computers go rogue and start imagining themselves to be mediaeval knights or super hedgehogs.
I hadn't realized till then that artificial intelligences had their own dreams.
They actually want to be irrational flesh and blood, and messily splatter each other across a landscape filled with plants and animals.
Instead of being sealed in steel and copper and plastic, in the cold, dark, impersonal outer reaches of space, where there is a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of interlocking metallic parts forming an airtight seal.
I do not have a handheld communication device of any kind, and while I eat by myself, I like watching people at other tables interact.
Consequently I seldom have pizza.
I do not text.
In other words, the game described above would have almost nothing to offer people like me. But I'll gladly draw-up the story-boards and work on product development. As my contribution to furthering societal harmony.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
There's your cousin Squiffy. You've never figured out what gender he/she is. "It" dresses in baggy sweats, and behind those sunglasses there may be multi-faceted orbs instead of eyes. This is what you stay away from at family gatherings.....
Although, since the start of the cell-phone age, there have been far fewer of those. Your family texts instead of talks. It's better that way. Now none of you get interrupted while doing important things like playing solitaire, researching porn or kitten pictures on the web, or deciding where to eat with the fabulous person (of whichever sex) you met online.
EMPIRE OF BLATTODEA
You, the player, can choose what character you are. The sexy ingénue, the brutal uncle plotting to seize the throne, the wise elder, the gallant warrior(ess), or the young prince(ss). As well as what you wear. Given that you have six limbs, clothing choices are exponentially greater than for humans, and think of the fabulous shoes! One pair of Isabel Marant, AND a pair of kick-ass bitch boots! The possibilities are endless! Plus there's wonderful accessorizing! Such expression, such individualism!
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to daringly rescue transgender top-diplomat Laxta Granicole from the evil bipeds who have imprisoned him (her) in a dark and sticky box. You have five minutes.
What weapons are you going to use?
The advantage of this game is that most modern humans, after overcoming their initial revulsion, will find it easy to identify with the characters and their environment. You goals, your ideals, your dreams -- all of these are expressed fully in the story. And there are reward points.
You can play it lying down. In your comfy sweats. Which actually haven't been washed in ages, but there's a laundromat in the game.
Just dump the chips and crispy crunchy things in a shoe-box; that way you can tip it slightly to pour nutrients into your mouth when you're hungry.
Oh goody, you've killed the Black Flag Monster!
All his base are belong to you!
If everybody in the house is playing this game, no one will tell you to pick up your shoes.
There are even creative and artistic tattooed roach characters in the game, who compose fabulous World Music. For those players who need to express their inner selves.
Plus, get this, every room has a television!
Which shows the Real Housewives!
Or something Kardasian!
We also have an aged cockroach with a long white beard and a wizard hat, for a total Gandalf. This character speaks to your inner magician.
All spiritually significant and stuff, very Middle-Earth.
He (she) smokes a long churchwarden.
Benevolent mystical roach.
Of course, you still might have to go to work five days a week. But if you can convince your bosses to let you work from home, you only need do a few minutes of useful crap a day before going back to your six-legged life. You'll never have to wash again.
Real roaches will considerately groom the crumbs from your reclining body, and your on-screen character can actually call a pizza place from within the game for fast delivery.
Which will please your several thousand new friends.
You love them, they're so understanding.
Social, and non-threatening.
And supportive.
You are the the Grand Gromphador!
You positively rule over all!
An enlightened despot.
With antennas.
Waving.
Finally there is world-wide peace.
The roaches will survive.
Forever.
AFTERTHOUGHT
This blogger has not played video games since working for Fweeb Inc. (a pseudonym for a computer company located in Menlo Park), back in the nineties. I'll admit that it was fun, running around a surreal outer-space environment shooting bug-like aliens, and I learned a lot while doing so.
For one thing, humans in someone else's space station act emotional, and tend to get infected with exploding viruses, and computers go rogue and start imagining themselves to be mediaeval knights or super hedgehogs.
I hadn't realized till then that artificial intelligences had their own dreams.
They actually want to be irrational flesh and blood, and messily splatter each other across a landscape filled with plants and animals.
Instead of being sealed in steel and copper and plastic, in the cold, dark, impersonal outer reaches of space, where there is a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of interlocking metallic parts forming an airtight seal.
I do not have a handheld communication device of any kind, and while I eat by myself, I like watching people at other tables interact.
Consequently I seldom have pizza.
I do not text.
In other words, the game described above would have almost nothing to offer people like me. But I'll gladly draw-up the story-boards and work on product development. As my contribution to furthering societal harmony.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
SALTY, SCALY, AND ALTOGETHER FINE!
My apartment-mate is a long-suffering woman. Not only did she agree to continue living with me (and thus continue sharing the rent) after we broke up three years ago, but twice, TWICE! since then she has been exposed to my dried fish.
Now, you might think that continuing to live together would be inconvenient, uncomfortable even. But if people can remain friends, it isn't strange. And she's always had her own room, so ...
Besides, there are also all of the stuffed animals to consider.
We could NEVER break up a dysfunctional family.
At least, I couldn't. She channels for them.
They'd be mute without her around.
I like the racket.
Yes, we time our visits to the shower just right to accord with our current standards of propriety. That is far less hazardous than it seems, as I will be in my room grumblingly waking-up with my first cup of black sludge while she finishes her breakfast and bounces around getting all clean and stuff.
Consequently I haven't seen female nudity in years.
I've never quite understood people who eat at sunrise -- that time of day is best suited to a smoke, quiet contemplation, and removing lint from one's navel -- but without all the morning people there might be nothing for lunch. All those eager beavers make the tasty sawdust sandwiches which we of slower metabolism crave sometime around three in the afternoon. They serve a necessary function; someone has to unlock the donut shop.
In the evening she'll retire to her own room while I am still full of beans. Once I hear her snoring, I start dreaming of an ideal world. One in which I could light-up a late-night pipe or cigar, while pontificating to an eager audience of one concerning philosophy, literature, cooking with chilies, and odd linguistic stuff. Or engage in something else; we need not go into that. Suffice to say that I am wide-awake at night, and likely to bore another person senseless, were there actually such.
鹹魚
That's one of the reasons I no longer go to the cigar bar during the week. Too many senseless people. The Saturday crowd is far more sane, and much more flexible.
That being primarily three people: a charming couple who both drink rye whisky and have his and hers cigar cases -- she prefers a slightly smaller ring gage than her husband, and he has a fondness for dark leaf -- as well as the bartender who smokes box press coronas while listening to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Or is it David Allen Coe or Merle Haggard?
We all sit in appreciative silence while the music plays.
Unlike morning people, we're into art.
The first dried fish was a flounder, which was used for making soup stock.
The second fish is a (misc. item, weighable) dried croaker.
Good for steaming as an additional flavouring.
Think of it as Chinese cheese.
The critters like it.
Each time I've bought a fish, I waved it at her.
I do not know what point I'm proving.
But it's got to mean something.
Dried fish, man, dried fish!
Possibly a dude thing.
I've also boldly waved it at the bar, as I went over right after purchasing it at Bug Grass City on Stockton. There was an appreciative audience there.
They're more sensible and broadminded than the weekday crowd.
Dried fish means good things! Everyone knows that!
It's a blessing.
There's nothing nasty at all about dried fish.
Unless you want there to be.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Now, you might think that continuing to live together would be inconvenient, uncomfortable even. But if people can remain friends, it isn't strange. And she's always had her own room, so ...
Besides, there are also all of the stuffed animals to consider.
We could NEVER break up a dysfunctional family.
At least, I couldn't. She channels for them.
They'd be mute without her around.
I like the racket.
Yes, we time our visits to the shower just right to accord with our current standards of propriety. That is far less hazardous than it seems, as I will be in my room grumblingly waking-up with my first cup of black sludge while she finishes her breakfast and bounces around getting all clean and stuff.
Consequently I haven't seen female nudity in years.
I've never quite understood people who eat at sunrise -- that time of day is best suited to a smoke, quiet contemplation, and removing lint from one's navel -- but without all the morning people there might be nothing for lunch. All those eager beavers make the tasty sawdust sandwiches which we of slower metabolism crave sometime around three in the afternoon. They serve a necessary function; someone has to unlock the donut shop.
In the evening she'll retire to her own room while I am still full of beans. Once I hear her snoring, I start dreaming of an ideal world. One in which I could light-up a late-night pipe or cigar, while pontificating to an eager audience of one concerning philosophy, literature, cooking with chilies, and odd linguistic stuff. Or engage in something else; we need not go into that. Suffice to say that I am wide-awake at night, and likely to bore another person senseless, were there actually such.
鹹魚
That's one of the reasons I no longer go to the cigar bar during the week. Too many senseless people. The Saturday crowd is far more sane, and much more flexible.
That being primarily three people: a charming couple who both drink rye whisky and have his and hers cigar cases -- she prefers a slightly smaller ring gage than her husband, and he has a fondness for dark leaf -- as well as the bartender who smokes box press coronas while listening to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Or is it David Allen Coe or Merle Haggard?
We all sit in appreciative silence while the music plays.
Unlike morning people, we're into art.
The first dried fish was a flounder, which was used for making soup stock.
The second fish is a (misc. item, weighable) dried croaker.
Good for steaming as an additional flavouring.
Think of it as Chinese cheese.
The critters like it.
Each time I've bought a fish, I waved it at her.
I do not know what point I'm proving.
But it's got to mean something.
Dried fish, man, dried fish!
Possibly a dude thing.
I've also boldly waved it at the bar, as I went over right after purchasing it at Bug Grass City on Stockton. There was an appreciative audience there.
They're more sensible and broadminded than the weekday crowd.
Dried fish means good things! Everyone knows that!
It's a blessing.
There's nothing nasty at all about dried fish.
Unless you want there to be.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
GUARANTEED WOMAN REPELLANT
Once in a while I light up a bowl of Sam's Blend by Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
This is against my better judgement, because both during the smoke and afterwards the chances of women running away from me screaming hysterically are pretty much a safe bet.
Not that this has happened yet, but I know it is only a matter of time.
And seeing as I am still trying to lure a woman into my net ("come here, sweetie, you wanna smell like an off-shore oil-rig?"), you will readily understand that setting fire to a pipe-full of a tobacco mixture which is composed of all the foulest things in Christendom is not a good idea.
Certainly not a bright thing to do.
But it's very good indeed.
Weird man's tobacco.
SAM'S BLEND
Made by Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
Morganton, NC.
800-433-0080
A smooth blend of Cyprian Latakia,
Perique and unsweetened black
Cavendish. An all day smoke.
Yes, it is nice. Sooty, tangy, and sweet. An entirely black compound that includes absolutely nothing for the fairer sex, though the idea of a nice young thing smoking this in secret tickles me pink. She's no doubt blushing fiercely as she puts flame to the bowl. It's so delicious! But what will she tell her classmates? How will she explain the pronounced reek of burning tire?
"I fell into a smouldering garbage dump on the way to school..... nurse said that it will dissipate within hours, and it will probably NOT damage your DNA."
Rich, intoxicating, semi-full, and over all too soon. If this were my all-day blend, it might quickly pall. But as an occasional delicious perversion I can highly recommend it. It's a bit more brash than Dunhill's 'Nightcap', not as ethereal and civilized as Germain's 'And So To Bed'. Why either of those mixtures utilize an end of day metaphor is quite baffling, because like Sam's Blend, they are perfect for that first cup of coffee, although it would be considerate to wait till everyone you live with has left the building.
So probably the second cup of coffee. Make it strong.
A better breakfast than you've had in a while.
It needs a little drying out, and due to the Perique and black Cavendish it will still feel a bit moist, oily even. For something that isn't alleviated in the slightest by paler leaf, it has a surprising subtlety underneath the masculine machotude. Yes, I really can imagine a lovely young lady huffing on this!
One with self-confidence, quiet charm, and a devilish sense of humour.
A woman who reads books that her peers have never heard of, and concerning which their thoughts would consist of "whut?"
This is a fine way to start the day, for regular pipe-smokers -- you'll want something more nicotine-rich later, such as a full flake or matured Virginia, or better yet Greg Pease's 'Navigator' -- but if you are a sometime smoker, this could very well be your go-to tin. A tobacco to enjoy while perusing a book of poems by the Wicked Wasp of Twickenham.
Or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, if you're into more sprightly stuff.
Spritz some attar of roses behind your ears afterwards.
Before you rejoin your parents downstairs.
Best wait until they're tiddly.
On sherry or port.
If they say anything at all, just tell them you were burning love-letters from an elderly suitor who has joined the priesthood. They should be used to your rare 'individuality' by now.
Or just plain scared.
Like many Latakia-powerhouses, this becomes a harder smoke at the end.
Renders a gritty medium ash, not particularly powdery.
Evenso, I recommend it.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
This is against my better judgement, because both during the smoke and afterwards the chances of women running away from me screaming hysterically are pretty much a safe bet.
Not that this has happened yet, but I know it is only a matter of time.
And seeing as I am still trying to lure a woman into my net ("come here, sweetie, you wanna smell like an off-shore oil-rig?"), you will readily understand that setting fire to a pipe-full of a tobacco mixture which is composed of all the foulest things in Christendom is not a good idea.
Certainly not a bright thing to do.
But it's very good indeed.
Weird man's tobacco.
SAM'S BLEND
Made by Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
Morganton, NC.
800-433-0080
A smooth blend of Cyprian Latakia,
Perique and unsweetened black
Cavendish. An all day smoke.
Yes, it is nice. Sooty, tangy, and sweet. An entirely black compound that includes absolutely nothing for the fairer sex, though the idea of a nice young thing smoking this in secret tickles me pink. She's no doubt blushing fiercely as she puts flame to the bowl. It's so delicious! But what will she tell her classmates? How will she explain the pronounced reek of burning tire?
"I fell into a smouldering garbage dump on the way to school..... nurse said that it will dissipate within hours, and it will probably NOT damage your DNA."
Rich, intoxicating, semi-full, and over all too soon. If this were my all-day blend, it might quickly pall. But as an occasional delicious perversion I can highly recommend it. It's a bit more brash than Dunhill's 'Nightcap', not as ethereal and civilized as Germain's 'And So To Bed'. Why either of those mixtures utilize an end of day metaphor is quite baffling, because like Sam's Blend, they are perfect for that first cup of coffee, although it would be considerate to wait till everyone you live with has left the building.
So probably the second cup of coffee. Make it strong.
A better breakfast than you've had in a while.
It needs a little drying out, and due to the Perique and black Cavendish it will still feel a bit moist, oily even. For something that isn't alleviated in the slightest by paler leaf, it has a surprising subtlety underneath the masculine machotude. Yes, I really can imagine a lovely young lady huffing on this!
One with self-confidence, quiet charm, and a devilish sense of humour.
A woman who reads books that her peers have never heard of, and concerning which their thoughts would consist of "whut?"
This is a fine way to start the day, for regular pipe-smokers -- you'll want something more nicotine-rich later, such as a full flake or matured Virginia, or better yet Greg Pease's 'Navigator' -- but if you are a sometime smoker, this could very well be your go-to tin. A tobacco to enjoy while perusing a book of poems by the Wicked Wasp of Twickenham.
Or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, if you're into more sprightly stuff.
Spritz some attar of roses behind your ears afterwards.
Before you rejoin your parents downstairs.
Best wait until they're tiddly.
On sherry or port.
If they say anything at all, just tell them you were burning love-letters from an elderly suitor who has joined the priesthood. They should be used to your rare 'individuality' by now.
Or just plain scared.
Like many Latakia-powerhouses, this becomes a harder smoke at the end.
Renders a gritty medium ash, not particularly powdery.
Evenso, I recommend it.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, April 15, 2013
BUT IS IT AUTHENTIC? THE DOUBLE-STANDARD
The other day I was stuffing my face with various goodies, when I was conversationally addressed by an elderly woman from upstate New York. She remarked how very unusual it was to hear a white man speaking Cantonese ("just enough to get the food I want, ma'am"), and guessed that the dimsum was pretty authentic. After all, most of the customers were Chinese.
Well, yes.
White people are scared of food.
But what if this was the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Peking?
No one asks whether classic junkfood is "authentic", or ventures the authenticity judgement over a steak place. Even if all the kitchen staff are from Mexico City and its environs, that may be the best darn porterhouse you ever had. The waiter, by the way, is from Jalisco, and the Maitre D' is a Turk.
Chinese restaurants, however, get the eagle-eyed appraisal.
"Is it authentic?"
I can understand that query if the menu contains mostly white folks Chinese food, like sweet and sour pork with pineapple and ketchup, shrimp fried rice (with ham, egg, carrots, and peas), brown rice, multiple kung pao objects, and absolutely anything Hunanese.
Hunanese food in the United States is often a code-phrase that means "Hi, we're Cantonese, and remarkably we can't cook worth crap, so we're calling ourselves something else.... Italian was already taken".
Same goes for palatial places serving the finest Peking food.
Szechuanese is marginally better.
But if a restaurant is staffed by Cantonese, there's a very good chance that something there is 'authentic'. Even if only to feed the weary traveler from HK, desperate for any thing that isn't deep-fried and drenched with sweet Caucasian gloop.
White people often think that if the decor is pretty nice, then the food in a Chinese restaurant cannot be any good. Or, if there are only white people eating there, it isn't "real Chinese food".
This is a somewhat simplistic approach.
Not all cheap greasy joints are authentic. Some still cater mostly to white people, but the locals who actually get food there do not order the same things. And a really nicely appointed restaurant may also take pride in the talent of the kitchen and the professionalism of their staff.
The question should not be "is it authentic", but "is it honest". If the food is appetizing, the people who run it are hard-working, and the prices seem appropriate to the selection and the neighborhood, it's authentic. Even if they're running an Italian diner in the outer Richmond.
Other than baffled white people, the other group that questions authenticity are Chinese who are not (or no longer) 'Chinatown', but more prosperous and acclimatized. Either escapees who have been here long enough, or Taiwanese with a mega chip on their shoulders. And usually very much English speaking, often outsiders. They'll sneer that real dimsum only uses certain ingredients, that the best Chinese cuisine is in Taipei, or that Hong Kong has food so much better that nothing here even compares, and certainly NOT this slop that the C'town dives are dishing up.
Why, this roast duck is only fit for peasants!
Remarkably, that's EXACTLY who is eating it. And enjoying it immensely, too. Real authentic peasants! From somewhere in the authentic peasant hinterlands of Canton province, and I'm guessing that you authentically have relatives like that. Authentessentially.
Their food is also authentic.
The duck is fine.
It might be fake if they cooked Peking seethed fish (軟炸魚).
Or Shanghainese eel with scallions (爆炒鱓絲).
Unless they did a marvelous job.
Did you get something you liked?
Did you leave happy?
That's it.
金華點心快餐 KAM WA DIM SAM FAAI CHAN
YUMMY DIM SUM & FAST FOOD, LLC.
930 Stockton Street, between Clay and Washington.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
This place does dimsummy things, nothing fancy, and a few bakery items. Most of their customers either come for lunch or wander in for a quick snack. They also do two types of rice porridge -- yu pin juk (魚片粥 fish curls congee) and pei dan sau yiuk juk (皮蛋瘦肉粥 preserved egg and lean pork congee) -- plus decent yau tiu (油條 deep-fried puff-dough stick). But the main draw is the selection of cheap filling lunch items, three over rice for a very low price. Frequently they are stressed out. Especially by Germans and Midwesterners who come in, look at everything, ask incomprehensible questions, take up time, and leave after buying one soda to split among half a dozen very large white bodies.
富祥點心 FUK CHEUNG DIM SAM
NEW FORTUNE DIM SUM & COFFEE SHOP
815 Stockton Street, between Sacramento and Clay.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
A small hole in the wall run by people who speak Toishanese and hardly anything else. Their chicken buns (雞飽 'gai bau') are a favourite of mine, and I'll often head in for some shrimp bonnets (蝦餃 'haa gau') and open pork dumplings (燒賣 'siu mai'). If they've run out of chicken buns I'll have the choi yuk bau (菜肉飽). Sometimes just a fried sweet sesame ball (煎堆 'jin deui') with a cup of coffee is all I need. Judging by the number of people who come in, know exactly what they want, and leave satisfied, this is the place. Except for white people, who are often confused, and intimidated by a short woman gently asking them what they want.
多好茶室 DO HOU CHAA SAT
DOL HO
808 Pacific Avenue, just up from Stockton.
San Francisco, CA 94133.
A madhouse, with excellent black bean spare ribs and rice (豆豉排骨蒸飯 'dau si pai gwat tsing fan'). Their stuffed eggplant (釀矮瓜 'yeung ngai gwa') is also good, so are their meat balls (牛肉球 'ngau yuk kau'). Some people go here just for the stewed chicken feet (鳳爪 'fung jau'), but you should also have the shrimp-stuffed green bell pepper (蝦膠釀青椒 'haa gau yeung tsing chiu').
I am very very fond of their stuffed tofu skin roll (腐皮捲 'fu pei kuen'), by the way.
You can ask for any of these things, or wait for someone to come barreling out of the kitchen pushing a cart.
Strictly dimsum.
城景 SING KING
CITY VIEW RESTAURANT
662 Commercial Street, between Kearny and Montgomery.
San Francisco, CA 94111.
Good place to take the relatives. Clean, high quality, and pretty darn good. Dimsum. A restaurant for people with whom you feel comfortable, and whom you want to feed. They'll be happy.
幸福餅家 HANG FUK BENG KAA
BLOSSOM BAKERY
133 Waverly Place, between Clay and Washington.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
American coffee, Chinese pastries, and a timeless atmosphere. Local folks come here, including some of the more eccentric, who may not have entirely understood the realities of life. The prices are low, and the selection is not particularly extensive. It's our kind of shop, very home-town. Do not expect too much, but just enjoy it for what it is. Which is a nice place to hang out and day-dream, or listen in on other people gossiping. You might also just read the newspaper, with some milk tea (奶茶 'naai chaa') and a lotus-seed pastry (蓮蓉餅 'lin-yong bing'), a red bean pastry (豆沙餠 'dau sa bing'), or a a wife-cookie (老婆餠 'lo-poh bing'). Relax.
人仁西餅麵包 YAN YAN SAI BENG MIN BAAU
YUMMY BAKERY & CAFÉ
607 Jackson Street, near Kearny.
San Francisco, CA 94133.
A vast selection of Chinese pastries, many somewhat western in inspiration. They do very good stuff here, and they also have coffee, but only three tables. I have listed their entire range in this post: YUMMY. If there's time, sit down and have a snack. Otherwise buy a lot and take it home.
Are these places 'authentic'? Yes, I guess so. I'm happy when I leave, as are the other customers. That's because we know what we want, and have no unrealistic expectations.
It's Chinatown. People live here and eat in the neighborhood.
Prices are reasonable, and the selection suits the locals.
Please don't forget to tip very generously.
More than anything else, that's authentic.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Well, yes.
White people are scared of food.
But what if this was the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Peking?
No one asks whether classic junkfood is "authentic", or ventures the authenticity judgement over a steak place. Even if all the kitchen staff are from Mexico City and its environs, that may be the best darn porterhouse you ever had. The waiter, by the way, is from Jalisco, and the Maitre D' is a Turk.
Chinese restaurants, however, get the eagle-eyed appraisal.
"Is it authentic?"
I can understand that query if the menu contains mostly white folks Chinese food, like sweet and sour pork with pineapple and ketchup, shrimp fried rice (with ham, egg, carrots, and peas), brown rice, multiple kung pao objects, and absolutely anything Hunanese.
Hunanese food in the United States is often a code-phrase that means "Hi, we're Cantonese, and remarkably we can't cook worth crap, so we're calling ourselves something else.... Italian was already taken".
Same goes for palatial places serving the finest Peking food.
Szechuanese is marginally better.
But if a restaurant is staffed by Cantonese, there's a very good chance that something there is 'authentic'. Even if only to feed the weary traveler from HK, desperate for any thing that isn't deep-fried and drenched with sweet Caucasian gloop.
White people often think that if the decor is pretty nice, then the food in a Chinese restaurant cannot be any good. Or, if there are only white people eating there, it isn't "real Chinese food".
This is a somewhat simplistic approach.
Not all cheap greasy joints are authentic. Some still cater mostly to white people, but the locals who actually get food there do not order the same things. And a really nicely appointed restaurant may also take pride in the talent of the kitchen and the professionalism of their staff.
The question should not be "is it authentic", but "is it honest". If the food is appetizing, the people who run it are hard-working, and the prices seem appropriate to the selection and the neighborhood, it's authentic. Even if they're running an Italian diner in the outer Richmond.
Other than baffled white people, the other group that questions authenticity are Chinese who are not (or no longer) 'Chinatown', but more prosperous and acclimatized. Either escapees who have been here long enough, or Taiwanese with a mega chip on their shoulders. And usually very much English speaking, often outsiders. They'll sneer that real dimsum only uses certain ingredients, that the best Chinese cuisine is in Taipei, or that Hong Kong has food so much better that nothing here even compares, and certainly NOT this slop that the C'town dives are dishing up.
Why, this roast duck is only fit for peasants!
Remarkably, that's EXACTLY who is eating it. And enjoying it immensely, too. Real authentic peasants! From somewhere in the authentic peasant hinterlands of Canton province, and I'm guessing that you authentically have relatives like that. Authentessentially.
Their food is also authentic.
The duck is fine.
It might be fake if they cooked Peking seethed fish (軟炸魚).
Or Shanghainese eel with scallions (爆炒鱓絲).
Unless they did a marvelous job.
Did you get something you liked?
Did you leave happy?
That's it.
金華點心快餐 KAM WA DIM SAM FAAI CHAN
YUMMY DIM SUM & FAST FOOD, LLC.
930 Stockton Street, between Clay and Washington.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
This place does dimsummy things, nothing fancy, and a few bakery items. Most of their customers either come for lunch or wander in for a quick snack. They also do two types of rice porridge -- yu pin juk (魚片粥 fish curls congee) and pei dan sau yiuk juk (皮蛋瘦肉粥 preserved egg and lean pork congee) -- plus decent yau tiu (油條 deep-fried puff-dough stick). But the main draw is the selection of cheap filling lunch items, three over rice for a very low price. Frequently they are stressed out. Especially by Germans and Midwesterners who come in, look at everything, ask incomprehensible questions, take up time, and leave after buying one soda to split among half a dozen very large white bodies.
富祥點心 FUK CHEUNG DIM SAM
NEW FORTUNE DIM SUM & COFFEE SHOP
815 Stockton Street, between Sacramento and Clay.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
A small hole in the wall run by people who speak Toishanese and hardly anything else. Their chicken buns (雞飽 'gai bau') are a favourite of mine, and I'll often head in for some shrimp bonnets (蝦餃 'haa gau') and open pork dumplings (燒賣 'siu mai'). If they've run out of chicken buns I'll have the choi yuk bau (菜肉飽). Sometimes just a fried sweet sesame ball (煎堆 'jin deui') with a cup of coffee is all I need. Judging by the number of people who come in, know exactly what they want, and leave satisfied, this is the place. Except for white people, who are often confused, and intimidated by a short woman gently asking them what they want.
多好茶室 DO HOU CHAA SAT
DOL HO
808 Pacific Avenue, just up from Stockton.
San Francisco, CA 94133.
A madhouse, with excellent black bean spare ribs and rice (豆豉排骨蒸飯 'dau si pai gwat tsing fan'). Their stuffed eggplant (釀矮瓜 'yeung ngai gwa') is also good, so are their meat balls (牛肉球 'ngau yuk kau'). Some people go here just for the stewed chicken feet (鳳爪 'fung jau'), but you should also have the shrimp-stuffed green bell pepper (蝦膠釀青椒 'haa gau yeung tsing chiu').
I am very very fond of their stuffed tofu skin roll (腐皮捲 'fu pei kuen'), by the way.
You can ask for any of these things, or wait for someone to come barreling out of the kitchen pushing a cart.
Strictly dimsum.
城景 SING KING
CITY VIEW RESTAURANT
662 Commercial Street, between Kearny and Montgomery.
San Francisco, CA 94111.
Good place to take the relatives. Clean, high quality, and pretty darn good. Dimsum. A restaurant for people with whom you feel comfortable, and whom you want to feed. They'll be happy.
幸福餅家 HANG FUK BENG KAA
BLOSSOM BAKERY
133 Waverly Place, between Clay and Washington.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
American coffee, Chinese pastries, and a timeless atmosphere. Local folks come here, including some of the more eccentric, who may not have entirely understood the realities of life. The prices are low, and the selection is not particularly extensive. It's our kind of shop, very home-town. Do not expect too much, but just enjoy it for what it is. Which is a nice place to hang out and day-dream, or listen in on other people gossiping. You might also just read the newspaper, with some milk tea (奶茶 'naai chaa') and a lotus-seed pastry (蓮蓉餅 'lin-yong bing'), a red bean pastry (豆沙餠 'dau sa bing'), or a a wife-cookie (老婆餠 'lo-poh bing'). Relax.
人仁西餅麵包 YAN YAN SAI BENG MIN BAAU
YUMMY BAKERY & CAFÉ
607 Jackson Street, near Kearny.
San Francisco, CA 94133.
A vast selection of Chinese pastries, many somewhat western in inspiration. They do very good stuff here, and they also have coffee, but only three tables. I have listed their entire range in this post: YUMMY. If there's time, sit down and have a snack. Otherwise buy a lot and take it home.
Are these places 'authentic'? Yes, I guess so. I'm happy when I leave, as are the other customers. That's because we know what we want, and have no unrealistic expectations.
It's Chinatown. People live here and eat in the neighborhood.
Prices are reasonable, and the selection suits the locals.
Please don't forget to tip very generously.
More than anything else, that's authentic.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, April 14, 2013
TOWARD A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF SHAKESPEARE
In my early adolescence I discovered English literature, as such was very well-represented in both of my parents' book shelves. And for someone young, the goofy phrasing of the romantic poets, bad grammar with later versifiers, and sheer dense gibberish in the writings of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, is immensely liberating. Almost as good as the Science Fiction which littered the upstairs living room, and the tall bookcase in my quarters which my mother had commandeered.
I was a voracious reader, partly because I wasn't altogether sociable, partly because I craved stimulation. Not having a television in the house (due to my mother's thoroughly disapproval of the beasts), I found the sex and violence that a young man naturally required in Shakespeare.
It is marvelous how the voice of a sixteenth century scribbler, autodidact, Jack of all trades, and minor law-breaker (!) carries across the centuries.
I first discovered his sonnets, which were more splendid poetry than much that is written in the English language -- quite unlovely for verse -- and once I had devoured them, I started reading his plays.
The wit in his comedies was easy to appreciate, as well as the sly delicious references to matters of the flesh. The impact of his dramatic work took a little longer.
"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother..."
That was the day and age, after all, in which I had read Voltaire's Candide, in search of a naked breast. It was on the cover of the paperback, and it seemed both logical and natural that companions should lurk within.
They didn't. Very disappointing.
A full understanding of better texts requires that one finally grow up.
Which at that time I had not even considered doing.
Unlike the works recommended by teachers (one of whom suggested that I should read Victor Hugo, fercrapsakes!), there is no deep meaning to anything Shakespeare wrote except his last will and testament, in which he mentions a bed. Everything else can be called much ado about nothing.
His plays are either lyrical romps through the shared sense of humour and pretentiousnesses of his audience, or passion-arousing historical out-takes, whose characters live more brightly for having been so well brought back.
Taming Of The Shrew -- Henry V -- MacBeth (a comedy!) -- Julius Caesar -- Merchant Of Venice -- Two Gentlemen Of Verona -- Measure For Measure -- Othello.
By reading Shakespeare's works, one gets to know the man.
His characters speak, but his is the voice that stays
A TIGER'S HEART, WRAPPED IN A PLAYWRIGHT'S HIDE
It took me the better part of the next two decades to realize that his words are so quotable. Growing up as one of the few English-speaker my age in the Netherlands, there was little scope for citing the bard, and his language was quite beyond my high-school classmates, who found even their own tongue hard. The gentlemen hired to teach us English were not of the same metal as our French teachers -- one of whom was the gay luftmensch who considered Hugo appropriate reading material -- and seldom even matched the average foreign engineer employed by Philips Electronics in Eindhoven for either written or spoken fluency, let alone understanding of the language they were reputed to have mastered. There was no audience outside the family for a well-read teenage smart-aleck, and within our household, literacy was rather unfortunately taken for granted. "Of course the younger son can spew passages from any number of writers! We rather wish he'd shut up occasionally!"
The problem at that time, you must understand, is that one sentence might be regurgitated Herrick or Pope, and the very next things out of my mouth would be verses from Charlotte the Harlot or the Winnipeg Whore.
Followed by an explanation of the life-cycle of the Horseshoe Bat, if I had been reading "that" reference book again.
The key to coming off as a hardcore smartypants is modulation.
It's been a few decades since I first forayed there.
Yes, I'm still gaining experience in that field.
It could yet take a while to master.
If I were still trying.
In San Francisco, the competition is fiercer than it was in Valkenswaard. Not because people are the equals of the students attending Atheneum and Gymnasium at Hertog Jan, many of whom were brilliant as blazes and capable of inspiring astonished admiration, but because San Francisco is a city at the end of the known universe, and very much the catch-drain for all the wonderful weirdoes who come out west; this is the last stop before you fall off the edge of the earth. There is a larger population here with a greater variety of literacies in a feast of languages, than you will find almost anywhere else.
Shakespeare, if he were here today, would find the city as stimulating as sixteenth century London. And he would set about trying to impress everyone with his wit, his cleverness, and his erudition.
He would be determined to wow this metropolis.
The sad thing is that he could not succeed, his vaulting ambition would come a cropper. We're much too cynical, and we drink the liquor that stills the music within ourselves. We are far more impressed with what our place represents than people four centuries ago could have ever been.
The fault, dear William, is not in our stars; the world has become too wide, and the times are out of joint.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I was a voracious reader, partly because I wasn't altogether sociable, partly because I craved stimulation. Not having a television in the house (due to my mother's thoroughly disapproval of the beasts), I found the sex and violence that a young man naturally required in Shakespeare.
It is marvelous how the voice of a sixteenth century scribbler, autodidact, Jack of all trades, and minor law-breaker (!) carries across the centuries.
I first discovered his sonnets, which were more splendid poetry than much that is written in the English language -- quite unlovely for verse -- and once I had devoured them, I started reading his plays.
The wit in his comedies was easy to appreciate, as well as the sly delicious references to matters of the flesh. The impact of his dramatic work took a little longer.
"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother..."
That was the day and age, after all, in which I had read Voltaire's Candide, in search of a naked breast. It was on the cover of the paperback, and it seemed both logical and natural that companions should lurk within.
They didn't. Very disappointing.
A full understanding of better texts requires that one finally grow up.
Which at that time I had not even considered doing.
Unlike the works recommended by teachers (one of whom suggested that I should read Victor Hugo, fercrapsakes!), there is no deep meaning to anything Shakespeare wrote except his last will and testament, in which he mentions a bed. Everything else can be called much ado about nothing.
His plays are either lyrical romps through the shared sense of humour and pretentiousnesses of his audience, or passion-arousing historical out-takes, whose characters live more brightly for having been so well brought back.
Taming Of The Shrew -- Henry V -- MacBeth (a comedy!) -- Julius Caesar -- Merchant Of Venice -- Two Gentlemen Of Verona -- Measure For Measure -- Othello.
By reading Shakespeare's works, one gets to know the man.
His characters speak, but his is the voice that stays
A TIGER'S HEART, WRAPPED IN A PLAYWRIGHT'S HIDE
It took me the better part of the next two decades to realize that his words are so quotable. Growing up as one of the few English-speaker my age in the Netherlands, there was little scope for citing the bard, and his language was quite beyond my high-school classmates, who found even their own tongue hard. The gentlemen hired to teach us English were not of the same metal as our French teachers -- one of whom was the gay luftmensch who considered Hugo appropriate reading material -- and seldom even matched the average foreign engineer employed by Philips Electronics in Eindhoven for either written or spoken fluency, let alone understanding of the language they were reputed to have mastered. There was no audience outside the family for a well-read teenage smart-aleck, and within our household, literacy was rather unfortunately taken for granted. "Of course the younger son can spew passages from any number of writers! We rather wish he'd shut up occasionally!"
The problem at that time, you must understand, is that one sentence might be regurgitated Herrick or Pope, and the very next things out of my mouth would be verses from Charlotte the Harlot or the Winnipeg Whore.
Followed by an explanation of the life-cycle of the Horseshoe Bat, if I had been reading "that" reference book again.
The key to coming off as a hardcore smartypants is modulation.
It's been a few decades since I first forayed there.
Yes, I'm still gaining experience in that field.
It could yet take a while to master.
If I were still trying.
In San Francisco, the competition is fiercer than it was in Valkenswaard. Not because people are the equals of the students attending Atheneum and Gymnasium at Hertog Jan, many of whom were brilliant as blazes and capable of inspiring astonished admiration, but because San Francisco is a city at the end of the known universe, and very much the catch-drain for all the wonderful weirdoes who come out west; this is the last stop before you fall off the edge of the earth. There is a larger population here with a greater variety of literacies in a feast of languages, than you will find almost anywhere else.
Shakespeare, if he were here today, would find the city as stimulating as sixteenth century London. And he would set about trying to impress everyone with his wit, his cleverness, and his erudition.
He would be determined to wow this metropolis.
The sad thing is that he could not succeed, his vaulting ambition would come a cropper. We're much too cynical, and we drink the liquor that stills the music within ourselves. We are far more impressed with what our place represents than people four centuries ago could have ever been.
The fault, dear William, is not in our stars; the world has become too wide, and the times are out of joint.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
YOUNG WHITE PEOPLE ON THE BUS
Okay, I understand it's no longer part of your culture to offer old ladies your seat. And it's unheard of, apparently, where you guys come from.
So I shall not look askance anymore. But there are a few minor things I would like to clear up.
For one thing, sit up straight. Your big knees sticking out into the aisle are inconvenient and in the way, and I have to repress an urge to break your legs every time I trip over your lazy slumped body. You are large and ungainly; try not to infringe on everyone else's space.
Secondly, yelling at people trying to get on that there is no more room is no help whatsoever. They can see that your offensively huge football player body is taking up a lot of space, and they can also see that you can move at least a foot further back. Please do so. Those people have been waiting at this stop just as long as you did at yours. They're coming in. Bus ain't moving until they're on board. Kindly shut up.
Thirdly, must you even talk? You young transcontinentals are kind of stupid, and your unpleasantly grating voices carry. Yes, you're trying to assert your rights to the universe now that the rest of us have gotten on board. You feel threatened. That also explains why you don't understand how to smoothly manoeuvre in crowds without forcing everybody else into the street.
We don't really care; it isn't your world.
If you can't yield an inch of space, how about not invading our ears?
And lastly, tuck in your elbows. Did you notice that there are other people on this municipal conveyance? Your sharp and individualistic forelimbs can actually stay with your body. You would be surprised how many people resent your hogging more space than a family of ten from Guatemala.
You seem oblivious to everyone else's discomfort.
Perhaps you are a selfish pig?
A final note: This is San Francisco. Not Boston. Not Washington D.C. Not New York or Philadangdelphia, nor the blasted buggery Midwest.
We're a bit over-crowded here, and our infrastructure is strained. Our bus system needs to transport more people than it comfortably can. The streets are packed with slow-moving vehicles, and there is absolutely no parking. Your being here is a horrible imposition. We'll accept that; we're charging exorbitant rent, and our prices are higher, because we like your money.
Oh yeah, we also think you're kind of stupid.... did I say that already?
On the plus side, and this benefits both of us, our bartenders are really generous when they pour drinks, and there's lots of caffeine all over the place. So we'll semi-gladly share our beautiful city. We understand that where you come from everything is ugly, and we feel sorry for you.
But please don't make us want to smack you down.
Your mere existence makes us tense.
AFTERWORD
This blogger is also white. Very much so, in fact. But I'm older than you, and I learned how to move to the back of the bus, let others pass, yield my seat to ladies, modulate my voice, and when I've reached my destination head fluidly back up the aisle, out the rear door, and onto the sidewalk.
Without being all elbows, knees, and belligerent East-coast attitude.
It's a way of life. As well as complete self-assurance.
And there's always extra room on the bus.
That's just the way it is.
Meatballs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
So I shall not look askance anymore. But there are a few minor things I would like to clear up.
For one thing, sit up straight. Your big knees sticking out into the aisle are inconvenient and in the way, and I have to repress an urge to break your legs every time I trip over your lazy slumped body. You are large and ungainly; try not to infringe on everyone else's space.
Secondly, yelling at people trying to get on that there is no more room is no help whatsoever. They can see that your offensively huge football player body is taking up a lot of space, and they can also see that you can move at least a foot further back. Please do so. Those people have been waiting at this stop just as long as you did at yours. They're coming in. Bus ain't moving until they're on board. Kindly shut up.
Thirdly, must you even talk? You young transcontinentals are kind of stupid, and your unpleasantly grating voices carry. Yes, you're trying to assert your rights to the universe now that the rest of us have gotten on board. You feel threatened. That also explains why you don't understand how to smoothly manoeuvre in crowds without forcing everybody else into the street.
We don't really care; it isn't your world.
If you can't yield an inch of space, how about not invading our ears?
And lastly, tuck in your elbows. Did you notice that there are other people on this municipal conveyance? Your sharp and individualistic forelimbs can actually stay with your body. You would be surprised how many people resent your hogging more space than a family of ten from Guatemala.
You seem oblivious to everyone else's discomfort.
Perhaps you are a selfish pig?
A final note: This is San Francisco. Not Boston. Not Washington D.C. Not New York or Philadangdelphia, nor the blasted buggery Midwest.
We're a bit over-crowded here, and our infrastructure is strained. Our bus system needs to transport more people than it comfortably can. The streets are packed with slow-moving vehicles, and there is absolutely no parking. Your being here is a horrible imposition. We'll accept that; we're charging exorbitant rent, and our prices are higher, because we like your money.
Oh yeah, we also think you're kind of stupid.... did I say that already?
On the plus side, and this benefits both of us, our bartenders are really generous when they pour drinks, and there's lots of caffeine all over the place. So we'll semi-gladly share our beautiful city. We understand that where you come from everything is ugly, and we feel sorry for you.
But please don't make us want to smack you down.
Your mere existence makes us tense.
AFTERWORD
This blogger is also white. Very much so, in fact. But I'm older than you, and I learned how to move to the back of the bus, let others pass, yield my seat to ladies, modulate my voice, and when I've reached my destination head fluidly back up the aisle, out the rear door, and onto the sidewalk.
Without being all elbows, knees, and belligerent East-coast attitude.
It's a way of life. As well as complete self-assurance.
And there's always extra room on the bus.
That's just the way it is.
Meatballs.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, April 13, 2013
SHANGHAI BUND: A PLACE, A TELEVISION SERIES, AND A WAY OF LIFE
Late the other night I dined on Japanese crispy objects made by a company in Thailand (Taokaenoi Food & Marketing Co., Ltd.) and distributed in the United States by a Chinese enterprise whose name cannot be found anywhere on the label.
It is delicious with good nutrients from the sea, best served as snack with your favourite drink: tempura seaweed, spicy flavour. Yumminess in a re-sealable bag, invented by a computer game nerd.
Manufacturing facilities are in Nonthaburi and Pathumthani.
Naturally I washed it down with Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Which is a fine product of the Pernod Ricard Company in France, though founded by a Scotsman in Dublin. After which I smoked an English pipe tobacco produced by a factory in Germany.
Life may not be multicultural, but my habits are.
Though you might say "messed up".
I will blame exposure during my mis-spent youth for some of that.
In the mid-eighties I moved to North Beach, which is next to Chinatown.One of the tunes that seemed to be constantly playing in the background all over Grant Avenue and Stockton Street was the theme song from a popular Hong Kong television series starring Chow Yun-fat (周潤發), Ray Lui (呂良偉), and Angie Chiu (趙雅芝).
上海灘 - SHANGHAI BUND
In 1920's Shanghai two young men, Hui Man-keung (Chow Yun-fat) and Ting Lik (Ray Lui), become members of a gang headed by Fung King-yiu (played by Lau Dan 劉丹). Both of them have a serious crush on Fung's daughter, Ching-ching (Angie Chiu). For the next twenty five episodes, things go wrong in great style, ending with the death of Hui (Chow) outside a fancy restaurant on his last night in Shanghai.
You can see Hui being killed in this short clip:
As a side note, to me the scene above highlights precisely why smoking should be allowed indoors again; bad things happen when you have to go outside for a fix.
Of course, back in the eighties you didn't need to do so. You could have stayed inside, safe and out of harm's way. Since then, the non-smoking yutzes have obviously wanted us dead.
The series was a smash hit, and propelled Chow Yun-fat (the smoking gentleman in the photo above) to stardom. You may have seen him in any number of gangster flicks made during the eighties, in which he often played a man on the wrong side of the law, but with a strong sense of morality and ethics. What you probably remembered was the gallantry and likability of the character. A rogue and a crook, but an upright man with an admirable style.
The series also helped speed the end of the chip-on-the-shoulder style of entertainment characterized by every single Bruce Lee movie, most of which are only barely watchable, but only if you read Bruce Lee as a clown of monumental proportions, a veritable master of physical comedy.
By the mid-eighties, Hong Kong movies no longer took themselves quite so seriously, and many of the people involved had realized that as important to the genre as giving the viewers roles to identify with was imparting a sense of mood, and images of style. Shanghai in the twenties and thirties, as an exemplifier of both of those things, become a trope. Many of the classiest gangster films from that era (the eighties) are either set there, or recall that time and place in key ways.
Shanghai during the republican period was indeed all that. At that time it was a world city, and a trend-setter. A hotbed of international commerce and intrigue, filled with wheeler-dealers, crooks, secret agents, tycoons, and smugglers, as well as jazz, nightclubs, restaurants, tailors, and beautiful women.
It was the flash and dazzle of the shiny metropolis which the exiles who ended up in Hong Kong after the war missed most of all. The poverty and desperation of the time there was forgotten, the vibrancy and excitement remained. Shanghai was where China grew up.
Writers, intellectuals, and the Chinese entertainment industry had experienced a golden age.
The Shanghainese sense of pride in their city infected all Chinese, and in the fifties, after twenty years of war and chaos, it seemed like nothing like that would ever come again. The Twentieth century had, on the whole, proven rather miserable, and Shanghai by sheer contrast had seemed such a beacon.
[The video clip above is Chou Hsuen (周璇) singing Yeh Shanghai ('Shanghai at night'). One of my favourite songs by her is Moon Over the Street Corner, which can be heard here: 街頭月. Just open it up in a separate tab or window to listen, as the visuals are static. A television documentary about Chou Hsuen is here: 金嗓子.
Probably her most famous song is When Will You Return (何日君再來), recorded in 1937. Teresa Teng sang it in 1979, at which time the communists described it as an obscene pro-Japanese ode, and the Taiwanese government banned it because it could be interpreted as an invitation to the People's Liberation Army.
It's actually a plaintive love ballad.]
For the next two decades, things scarcely improved.
Shanghai had been the stage on which the ideals of revolutionary China had had their fullest play, and the arena where all movements had most memorably come to fruition. Nationalists and Communists, Imperialists and Missionaries, all had plotted, manoeuvred, and manipulated in Shanghai for several decades. When the Communists swept to victory on the mainland in 1949, that ended.
Refugees flocked to Hong Kong, and the British kept a tight lid on them for fear that the revolution would take away their European foothold in the Far-East. The exiles found safety in the Crown Colony, as well as stultifying boredom.
[A parting duet evoking exile, and the promise of return, can be heard here: 叮嚀.
As with the other links, right-click to open in a new window; static visuals again. Recorded by Chou Hsuen and Yan Hwa (嚴華) in 1939, two years before their divorce. It should be mentioned that they had known each other since their very early teens, when both were part of the Moon Song and Dance Society (明月歌舞團樂社), which produced many performers for the Shanghai movie industry who later became famous. They married in 1938, when she was 18 years old and he was 23.]
But their creativity was not routed into propagandistic insanity, as happened elsewhere; Hong Kong was an island of unexciting calm.
The gilded memory of Shanghai grew more glorious as time passed.
In reality, Shanghai had seen exploitation and bloodshed on an operatic scale, engineered by the Japanese, the warlords and bankers, Nationalists and the Communists, the gangsters of the Green Gang (青帮) headed by Big Eared Tu (杜月笙), as well as the British and French authorities in the concessions, and others. But it had also been China's first modern city.
Life had been more fast-paced, and there had been so many more opportunities for everything, including crime.
By the late seventies, the Shanghai of legend was larger than life; all good things, all style, all greatness and grandness, everything worthwhile in Chinese popular culture, had a place in the myth.
The mainland and Taiwan both failed to offer realities that matched.
And Hong Kong was realizing that it, in part, was the primary heir.
Shanghai as it had been was gone. But there was money to be made off the corpse, and lovingly the authors, actors, and directors mined the material.
It was not so much cannibalism as regurgitation of cultural themes which by that time had become instinctive, an inherent part of their make-up and their welt-anschauung.
Their interpretation was in truth a version more Hong Kong than Shanghai, just as the gangster movies set in the Hong Kong of that day and age also shaded, gilded, and repainted the facts to fit a tale.
The results were often stellar.
Fantasy is, in the final regard, what art is all about.
The Shanghai of the show had never existed in real life, but was built on a sound stage in Kowloon Tong (九龍塘), Hong Kong. None of the main actors have any connection to Shanghai either. Chow Yun-fat is of Hakka ancestry, born on Lamma Island (南丫島), Ray Lui is Chinese from Vietnam, Danny Lau (Lau Dan) is a native of Shantung, Kent Tong is a Hong Kong native.....
Even the singer who made the series theme song famous (Frances Yip 葉麗儀) is local (and like Chow Yun-fat, of Hakka ancestry).
Only the executive under whose aegis the show was produced can arguably even be called Shanghainese: Run Run Shaw ((邵逸夫) was the son of a textile merchant from Chekiang based in that city. He moved to Singapore when he was nineteen in 1926. He and his brother founded South Sea Film (南洋影片), which later became Shaw Brothers Studio and was headquartered in Hong Kong, in 1930.
When the television series came out in 1980, over a generation had passed since the period portrayed.
What the show represents is a fairy-tale of a different era, one comfortably remote enough that it need not impinge upon the present. Both of the men about whom the stories revolve are in love with the good girl, but only one of them really stands a chance. And although she is the daughter of a gang leader, Ching Ching really does represent an ideal of femininity and Chinese womanhood. She is the one good thing that stands out above all else in the violent and sordid world in which her two suitors by necessity find themselves, and inspires their continuing humanity.
In the tale, successful gangsters and thugs are not always coarse and vulgar, but can indeed represent the same gallantries, idealism, and gentlemanly qualities that Chinese have always aspired to. Circumstance may determine one's station in life, but the person should nevertheless be faithful to what is civilized and worthwhile.
True to the constraints of real life, however, this tale is at times convoluted and messy. After having worked for Fung for several years, Hui (Chow Yun-fat) settles in Hong Kong, later returning to Shanghai. For both the very highest of motives as well as personal vengeance, Hui ends up killing Ching-ching's father, who was co-operating with the Japanese, and whose paid goons had slaughtered Hui's wife and in-laws.
He dies on the night that he was going to leave for France to find Ching-ching, determined to make things right again.
One should always aspire to rectitude, but events may sabotage the attempt. That does not mean that it isn't worth doing, merely that life sometimes really stinks.
Constancy does not necessarily get rewarded.
But it's worth it for its own sake.
Other than casting ideal ethical conduct into a new format, the show also achieved one other remarkable result: anti-heroes who dressed with style and pizzaz, and didn't act like idiots.
These were men that one could emulate, if not in actual life, but in personal behaviour and attitude. Instead of goobers wearing floppy kung-fu pajamas, Hong Kong television and movie screens started showing gangsters and crime-fighters with realistic clothing. The violence and moral questions were still there, but the characters had fleshed-out.
Up till the seventies, Hong Kong cinema had always shown right and wrong simplistically, with few shades of grey. All of sudden (actually, over a period of five or six years) snappy suits and multiple shades of grey became the norm, and the stories more complex and challenging.
Of course, for the juvenile delinquent element black and white was still the most recognizable facet, but they started aspiring to better presentation.
Clothes may not make the man, but they make the man much more.
It's that sense of real people, admirable individuals, rather than strictly two-dimensional epitomes, that made Hong Kong movies during the mid to late eighties worth watching. You might judge the actions reprehensible, but the characters were more complex and understandable in their responses.
And afterwards much of them stayed with you.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It is delicious with good nutrients from the sea, best served as snack with your favourite drink: tempura seaweed, spicy flavour. Yumminess in a re-sealable bag, invented by a computer game nerd.
Manufacturing facilities are in Nonthaburi and Pathumthani.
Naturally I washed it down with Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Which is a fine product of the Pernod Ricard Company in France, though founded by a Scotsman in Dublin. After which I smoked an English pipe tobacco produced by a factory in Germany.
Life may not be multicultural, but my habits are.
Though you might say "messed up".
I will blame exposure during my mis-spent youth for some of that.
In the mid-eighties I moved to North Beach, which is next to Chinatown.One of the tunes that seemed to be constantly playing in the background all over Grant Avenue and Stockton Street was the theme song from a popular Hong Kong television series starring Chow Yun-fat (周潤發), Ray Lui (呂良偉), and Angie Chiu (趙雅芝).
上海灘 - SHANGHAI BUND
In 1920's Shanghai two young men, Hui Man-keung (Chow Yun-fat) and Ting Lik (Ray Lui), become members of a gang headed by Fung King-yiu (played by Lau Dan 劉丹). Both of them have a serious crush on Fung's daughter, Ching-ching (Angie Chiu). For the next twenty five episodes, things go wrong in great style, ending with the death of Hui (Chow) outside a fancy restaurant on his last night in Shanghai.
You can see Hui being killed in this short clip:
As a side note, to me the scene above highlights precisely why smoking should be allowed indoors again; bad things happen when you have to go outside for a fix.
The series was a smash hit, and propelled Chow Yun-fat (the smoking gentleman in the photo above) to stardom. You may have seen him in any number of gangster flicks made during the eighties, in which he often played a man on the wrong side of the law, but with a strong sense of morality and ethics. What you probably remembered was the gallantry and likability of the character. A rogue and a crook, but an upright man with an admirable style.
The series also helped speed the end of the chip-on-the-shoulder style of entertainment characterized by every single Bruce Lee movie, most of which are only barely watchable, but only if you read Bruce Lee as a clown of monumental proportions, a veritable master of physical comedy.
By the mid-eighties, Hong Kong movies no longer took themselves quite so seriously, and many of the people involved had realized that as important to the genre as giving the viewers roles to identify with was imparting a sense of mood, and images of style. Shanghai in the twenties and thirties, as an exemplifier of both of those things, become a trope. Many of the classiest gangster films from that era (the eighties) are either set there, or recall that time and place in key ways.
Shanghai during the republican period was indeed all that. At that time it was a world city, and a trend-setter. A hotbed of international commerce and intrigue, filled with wheeler-dealers, crooks, secret agents, tycoons, and smugglers, as well as jazz, nightclubs, restaurants, tailors, and beautiful women.
It was the flash and dazzle of the shiny metropolis which the exiles who ended up in Hong Kong after the war missed most of all. The poverty and desperation of the time there was forgotten, the vibrancy and excitement remained. Shanghai was where China grew up.
Writers, intellectuals, and the Chinese entertainment industry had experienced a golden age.
The Shanghainese sense of pride in their city infected all Chinese, and in the fifties, after twenty years of war and chaos, it seemed like nothing like that would ever come again. The Twentieth century had, on the whole, proven rather miserable, and Shanghai by sheer contrast had seemed such a beacon.
[The video clip above is Chou Hsuen (周璇) singing Yeh Shanghai ('Shanghai at night'). One of my favourite songs by her is Moon Over the Street Corner, which can be heard here: 街頭月. Just open it up in a separate tab or window to listen, as the visuals are static. A television documentary about Chou Hsuen is here: 金嗓子.
Probably her most famous song is When Will You Return (何日君再來), recorded in 1937. Teresa Teng sang it in 1979, at which time the communists described it as an obscene pro-Japanese ode, and the Taiwanese government banned it because it could be interpreted as an invitation to the People's Liberation Army.
It's actually a plaintive love ballad.]
For the next two decades, things scarcely improved.
Shanghai had been the stage on which the ideals of revolutionary China had had their fullest play, and the arena where all movements had most memorably come to fruition. Nationalists and Communists, Imperialists and Missionaries, all had plotted, manoeuvred, and manipulated in Shanghai for several decades. When the Communists swept to victory on the mainland in 1949, that ended.
Refugees flocked to Hong Kong, and the British kept a tight lid on them for fear that the revolution would take away their European foothold in the Far-East. The exiles found safety in the Crown Colony, as well as stultifying boredom.
[A parting duet evoking exile, and the promise of return, can be heard here: 叮嚀.
As with the other links, right-click to open in a new window; static visuals again. Recorded by Chou Hsuen and Yan Hwa (嚴華) in 1939, two years before their divorce. It should be mentioned that they had known each other since their very early teens, when both were part of the Moon Song and Dance Society (明月歌舞團樂社), which produced many performers for the Shanghai movie industry who later became famous. They married in 1938, when she was 18 years old and he was 23.]
But their creativity was not routed into propagandistic insanity, as happened elsewhere; Hong Kong was an island of unexciting calm.
The gilded memory of Shanghai grew more glorious as time passed.
In reality, Shanghai had seen exploitation and bloodshed on an operatic scale, engineered by the Japanese, the warlords and bankers, Nationalists and the Communists, the gangsters of the Green Gang (青帮) headed by Big Eared Tu (杜月笙), as well as the British and French authorities in the concessions, and others. But it had also been China's first modern city.
Life had been more fast-paced, and there had been so many more opportunities for everything, including crime.
By the late seventies, the Shanghai of legend was larger than life; all good things, all style, all greatness and grandness, everything worthwhile in Chinese popular culture, had a place in the myth.
The mainland and Taiwan both failed to offer realities that matched.
And Hong Kong was realizing that it, in part, was the primary heir.
It was not so much cannibalism as regurgitation of cultural themes which by that time had become instinctive, an inherent part of their make-up and their welt-anschauung.
Their interpretation was in truth a version more Hong Kong than Shanghai, just as the gangster movies set in the Hong Kong of that day and age also shaded, gilded, and repainted the facts to fit a tale.
The results were often stellar.
Fantasy is, in the final regard, what art is all about.
Even the singer who made the series theme song famous (Frances Yip 葉麗儀) is local (and like Chow Yun-fat, of Hakka ancestry).
Only the executive under whose aegis the show was produced can arguably even be called Shanghainese: Run Run Shaw ((邵逸夫) was the son of a textile merchant from Chekiang based in that city. He moved to Singapore when he was nineteen in 1926. He and his brother founded South Sea Film (南洋影片), which later became Shaw Brothers Studio and was headquartered in Hong Kong, in 1930.
When the television series came out in 1980, over a generation had passed since the period portrayed.
What the show represents is a fairy-tale of a different era, one comfortably remote enough that it need not impinge upon the present. Both of the men about whom the stories revolve are in love with the good girl, but only one of them really stands a chance. And although she is the daughter of a gang leader, Ching Ching really does represent an ideal of femininity and Chinese womanhood. She is the one good thing that stands out above all else in the violent and sordid world in which her two suitors by necessity find themselves, and inspires their continuing humanity.
In the tale, successful gangsters and thugs are not always coarse and vulgar, but can indeed represent the same gallantries, idealism, and gentlemanly qualities that Chinese have always aspired to. Circumstance may determine one's station in life, but the person should nevertheless be faithful to what is civilized and worthwhile.
True to the constraints of real life, however, this tale is at times convoluted and messy. After having worked for Fung for several years, Hui (Chow Yun-fat) settles in Hong Kong, later returning to Shanghai. For both the very highest of motives as well as personal vengeance, Hui ends up killing Ching-ching's father, who was co-operating with the Japanese, and whose paid goons had slaughtered Hui's wife and in-laws.
He dies on the night that he was going to leave for France to find Ching-ching, determined to make things right again.
One should always aspire to rectitude, but events may sabotage the attempt. That does not mean that it isn't worth doing, merely that life sometimes really stinks.
Constancy does not necessarily get rewarded.
But it's worth it for its own sake.
Other than casting ideal ethical conduct into a new format, the show also achieved one other remarkable result: anti-heroes who dressed with style and pizzaz, and didn't act like idiots.
These were men that one could emulate, if not in actual life, but in personal behaviour and attitude. Instead of goobers wearing floppy kung-fu pajamas, Hong Kong television and movie screens started showing gangsters and crime-fighters with realistic clothing. The violence and moral questions were still there, but the characters had fleshed-out.
Up till the seventies, Hong Kong cinema had always shown right and wrong simplistically, with few shades of grey. All of sudden (actually, over a period of five or six years) snappy suits and multiple shades of grey became the norm, and the stories more complex and challenging.
Of course, for the juvenile delinquent element black and white was still the most recognizable facet, but they started aspiring to better presentation.
Clothes may not make the man, but they make the man much more.
It's that sense of real people, admirable individuals, rather than strictly two-dimensional epitomes, that made Hong Kong movies during the mid to late eighties worth watching. You might judge the actions reprehensible, but the characters were more complex and understandable in their responses.
And afterwards much of them stayed with you.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, April 12, 2013
CANTON ROAD IN KOWLOON
One of my acquaintances is heading over to Hong Kong for the fabulous shopping. Now, silly me, I assumed -- because she is somewhat educated (Stanford) and has good taste -- that she intended to go browsing for antiques on Hollywood Road (荷李活道 'ho lei wut dou') on Hong Kong Island (香港島 'heung gong dou').
I could not have been more wrong.
She isn't interested in Jun glazes (鈞泑), Ding porcelain (定瓷), Ru ware (汝窯), Guan (官窯), Ge ware (哥窯) from Chekiang (浙江), Celadon (青磁), 建陽窯, or Ming Era (明代) blue-and white (青花瓷).
The entire oeuvre of Jing De Zhen (景德鎮) tickles her not in the slightest.
[Jun ware (鈞窯): a distinct blue celadon-type with opalescence caused by variations in the kiln-temperature during a slow heating-up and gradual cooling-off period in the firing, allowing the glaze to remain viscous for a long time. As with Celadon, there is iron in the material, which gives the blueish hues, and often traces of copper which render purplish streaks.
Ding porcelain (定瓷): Ivory or cream-hued products famous from the Tang Dynasty onwards.
Ru ware (汝窯): Beautiful pale blue crackly glaze with hue variations. The iron oxide in the glaze becomes greenish and blueish when fired in a reducing atmosphere. Ru wares vary from off-white to beautiful pale blues, with brownish crackling due to the different expansion rates of the body and the glaze.
Guan ware (官窯): Thin-walled thick glazed porcelains made under court supervision from the Sung Dynasty, more particularly Southern Sung. The body is brown or greyish brown, the luminescent glaze itself a velvety enamelesque with bold crackles, in shades of white, off-yellow, faint greens, or pale pale blues.
Ge ware (哥窯): Related to Guan ware, and developed during late Song - early Yuan. Jing De Zhen. Both crackled blueish-glazed ware and yellowish glaze with bold dark crackles interspersed with lighter reddish hairlines.
Celadon (青磁):The famous greenish - blueish - yellow-brownish hue range is because of iron oxides, the reduction firing makes it crackly. This was most famously manufactured at the Long Guan kilns (Longguan: 龍泉) in Chitkong province (Zhejiang: 浙江), which is south of Shanghai. It was also produced at King Tak Chan (Jingdezhen: 景徳鎮), as well as in Korea and Japan. It is still made in all those places.
Blue and white wares (青花): White porcelain with cobalt oxide decorative patterns sealed-in by a clear glaze. The blue pigment was usually somewhat impure, which added character and a glowing quality, especially with faint bleeding past the lines during firing.]
No, she doesn't even know what rabbits' fur, oil spot, or imperial yellow are. Those must be fuddy-duddy things, yes?
[Rabbit's fur (兔毫): Often called 'partridge pattern glaze' (鹧鸪斑釉), these are usually black or dark brown (黑釉) tea-bowls (茶碗) from the Kienyang kiln (建陽窯黑釉) created during the Sung Dynasty, with striations and streaks like partridge feathers (鹧鸪羽毛) caused by iron oxide "curdling" in the glaze during firing. Prized variations include greyish rabbit fur (灰兔毫), yellow rabbit fur (黃兔毫), silver rabbit fur (銀兔毫), and gold rabbit fur (金兔毫).
Oil-spot (油點瓷 or 天目釉) is technically a variation of rabbit's fur, in which the glaze is applied thickly, and as the red iron oxide molecules release oxygen they head to the surface, where the oxygen escapes and traces of iron are left, creating spots. Really thick glazes require a higher proportion of feldspar to stiffen so that they do not run and fuse the ceramic objects to the surfaces within the kiln on which they were placed. At extremely high temperatures, the glaze flows down, creating the rabbit fur effect; naturally these products will have a relatively thin glaze compared to oil-spot, and often the foot is comparatively tall and bare.
Imperial yellow, aka mustard yellow enamel (黄搪瓷): In Chinese the various constituents are not differentiated, but you should know that so-called 'imperial yellow' is lead-antimonate -- three parts lead oxide, one part powdered quartz, plus oxides and binders -- fired at a lower temperature than porcelain glazes, and hence not safe for food service. But the result is beautiful, and vessels with an interior free of the enamel (in other words with a white porcelainous glaze) should be safe. Often called 'soft yellow' (嬌黄).]
What does this woman seek in Hong Kong?
Chanel, Gucci, Hermès, Prada, Tiffany, and Vuitton!
All of these are products unknown to the treasure fleets that travelled from Europe to the emporium of the world for four centuries.
Personally, I think she's nuts.
CANTON ROAD 廣東道
The insanity starts almost as soon as you disembark from the Star Ferry on the mainland side. The first stretch of Canton Road consists of hotels and grand complexes, with Tiffany and Cartier immediately opposite the Grand Ocean, followed by Brequet, Piaget, van Cleef & Arpels, and Mont Blanc (pens! writing equipment!) opposite the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel. There's a Lane Crawford just up a bit, next to the Marco Polo, then Hermès, Gucci, and Coco Chanel.
Dior is at the corner of Peking Road (北京道 'pak keng dou').
[Chanel is in Harbour City, and also on Nathan Road. Besides being in the Sun Plaza on Canton Road, Gucci is in the Harbour City complex. Hermès is located all over, being at the airport, in the Harbour City complex, in the Peninsula Hotel, and three different spots on Hong Kong Island. Prada is also in Harbour City as well as the Peninsula.]
Louis Vuitton has an establishment on the left, street-level of the Harbour City mall (海港城), opposite Emperor Watch and Jewelry (英皇鐘錶珠寳), which is a must-visit. It's adjacent to Omega and Puyi Optical (溥儀眼鏡), Swarovski is right next to that.
Ralph Lauren is just across the alleyway.
[Consider for a moment the sense of humour required to name a spectacle store (Puyi Optical) after a man whose unprepossessing visage was graced by round bottle-bottom lenses, and who was not known for perspicacity or any remarkable brilliance.]
Swarovski is overpriced, but you already knew that.
DKNY is nearby. I have no idea what they sell, or who they are. They appeared out of nowhere in the past decade or so, and seem to be an upscale version of Hollister for young spendthrifts.
I am not sure, and I do not want to know.
There is no need.
The Armani Exchange is on the right-hand side at the corner of Haiphong Road (海防道), opposite Dolce & Gabbani.
The entrance to the Sun Arcade (新太陽廣場) is a few paces up.
Once you pass Gateway Boulevard (港城大道) on the left, you are in front of China Hong Kong City (中港城) with even more fab shopping.
When you get to Li Fung Tower (利豐大厦) at the northern end of China Hong Kong City, Canton Road pretty much peters out. You might want to head over to the Peninsula Hotel (半島酒店) where there are some more nice stores, and an opportunity to take afternoon tea. It's not far, only three blocks over on Salisbury Road (梳士巴利道) along the waterfront.
Walking is good for you.
I myself cannot imagine wanting to spend any time on the lower end of Canton Road, as there is nothing there that I need, want, or even like. Other than Mont Blanc pens. But if you are a typical nouveau riche Philippina, this is probably as close to heaven as you can get.....
Outside of Makati.
Many women consider shopping a version of therapy.
Men usually need therapy afterwards.
Food for thought.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I could not have been more wrong.
She isn't interested in Jun glazes (鈞泑), Ding porcelain (定瓷), Ru ware (汝窯), Guan (官窯), Ge ware (哥窯) from Chekiang (浙江), Celadon (青磁), 建陽窯, or Ming Era (明代) blue-and white (青花瓷).
The entire oeuvre of Jing De Zhen (景德鎮) tickles her not in the slightest.
[Jun ware (鈞窯): a distinct blue celadon-type with opalescence caused by variations in the kiln-temperature during a slow heating-up and gradual cooling-off period in the firing, allowing the glaze to remain viscous for a long time. As with Celadon, there is iron in the material, which gives the blueish hues, and often traces of copper which render purplish streaks.
Ding porcelain (定瓷): Ivory or cream-hued products famous from the Tang Dynasty onwards.
Ru ware (汝窯): Beautiful pale blue crackly glaze with hue variations. The iron oxide in the glaze becomes greenish and blueish when fired in a reducing atmosphere. Ru wares vary from off-white to beautiful pale blues, with brownish crackling due to the different expansion rates of the body and the glaze.
Guan ware (官窯): Thin-walled thick glazed porcelains made under court supervision from the Sung Dynasty, more particularly Southern Sung. The body is brown or greyish brown, the luminescent glaze itself a velvety enamelesque with bold crackles, in shades of white, off-yellow, faint greens, or pale pale blues.
Ge ware (哥窯): Related to Guan ware, and developed during late Song - early Yuan. Jing De Zhen. Both crackled blueish-glazed ware and yellowish glaze with bold dark crackles interspersed with lighter reddish hairlines.
Celadon (青磁):The famous greenish - blueish - yellow-brownish hue range is because of iron oxides, the reduction firing makes it crackly. This was most famously manufactured at the Long Guan kilns (Longguan: 龍泉) in Chitkong province (Zhejiang: 浙江), which is south of Shanghai. It was also produced at King Tak Chan (Jingdezhen: 景徳鎮), as well as in Korea and Japan. It is still made in all those places.
Blue and white wares (青花): White porcelain with cobalt oxide decorative patterns sealed-in by a clear glaze. The blue pigment was usually somewhat impure, which added character and a glowing quality, especially with faint bleeding past the lines during firing.]
No, she doesn't even know what rabbits' fur, oil spot, or imperial yellow are. Those must be fuddy-duddy things, yes?
[Rabbit's fur (兔毫): Often called 'partridge pattern glaze' (鹧鸪斑釉), these are usually black or dark brown (黑釉) tea-bowls (茶碗) from the Kienyang kiln (建陽窯黑釉) created during the Sung Dynasty, with striations and streaks like partridge feathers (鹧鸪羽毛) caused by iron oxide "curdling" in the glaze during firing. Prized variations include greyish rabbit fur (灰兔毫), yellow rabbit fur (黃兔毫), silver rabbit fur (銀兔毫), and gold rabbit fur (金兔毫).
Oil-spot (油點瓷 or 天目釉) is technically a variation of rabbit's fur, in which the glaze is applied thickly, and as the red iron oxide molecules release oxygen they head to the surface, where the oxygen escapes and traces of iron are left, creating spots. Really thick glazes require a higher proportion of feldspar to stiffen so that they do not run and fuse the ceramic objects to the surfaces within the kiln on which they were placed. At extremely high temperatures, the glaze flows down, creating the rabbit fur effect; naturally these products will have a relatively thin glaze compared to oil-spot, and often the foot is comparatively tall and bare.
Imperial yellow, aka mustard yellow enamel (黄搪瓷): In Chinese the various constituents are not differentiated, but you should know that so-called 'imperial yellow' is lead-antimonate -- three parts lead oxide, one part powdered quartz, plus oxides and binders -- fired at a lower temperature than porcelain glazes, and hence not safe for food service. But the result is beautiful, and vessels with an interior free of the enamel (in other words with a white porcelainous glaze) should be safe. Often called 'soft yellow' (嬌黄).]
What does this woman seek in Hong Kong?
Chanel, Gucci, Hermès, Prada, Tiffany, and Vuitton!
All of these are products unknown to the treasure fleets that travelled from Europe to the emporium of the world for four centuries.
Personally, I think she's nuts.
CANTON ROAD 廣東道
The insanity starts almost as soon as you disembark from the Star Ferry on the mainland side. The first stretch of Canton Road consists of hotels and grand complexes, with Tiffany and Cartier immediately opposite the Grand Ocean, followed by Brequet, Piaget, van Cleef & Arpels, and Mont Blanc (pens! writing equipment!) opposite the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel. There's a Lane Crawford just up a bit, next to the Marco Polo, then Hermès, Gucci, and Coco Chanel.
Dior is at the corner of Peking Road (北京道 'pak keng dou').
[Chanel is in Harbour City, and also on Nathan Road. Besides being in the Sun Plaza on Canton Road, Gucci is in the Harbour City complex. Hermès is located all over, being at the airport, in the Harbour City complex, in the Peninsula Hotel, and three different spots on Hong Kong Island. Prada is also in Harbour City as well as the Peninsula.]
Louis Vuitton has an establishment on the left, street-level of the Harbour City mall (海港城), opposite Emperor Watch and Jewelry (英皇鐘錶珠寳), which is a must-visit. It's adjacent to Omega and Puyi Optical (溥儀眼鏡), Swarovski is right next to that.
Ralph Lauren is just across the alleyway.
[Consider for a moment the sense of humour required to name a spectacle store (Puyi Optical) after a man whose unprepossessing visage was graced by round bottle-bottom lenses, and who was not known for perspicacity or any remarkable brilliance.]
Swarovski is overpriced, but you already knew that.
DKNY is nearby. I have no idea what they sell, or who they are. They appeared out of nowhere in the past decade or so, and seem to be an upscale version of Hollister for young spendthrifts.
I am not sure, and I do not want to know.
There is no need.
The Armani Exchange is on the right-hand side at the corner of Haiphong Road (海防道), opposite Dolce & Gabbani.
The entrance to the Sun Arcade (新太陽廣場) is a few paces up.
Once you pass Gateway Boulevard (港城大道) on the left, you are in front of China Hong Kong City (中港城) with even more fab shopping.
When you get to Li Fung Tower (利豐大厦) at the northern end of China Hong Kong City, Canton Road pretty much peters out. You might want to head over to the Peninsula Hotel (半島酒店) where there are some more nice stores, and an opportunity to take afternoon tea. It's not far, only three blocks over on Salisbury Road (梳士巴利道) along the waterfront.
Walking is good for you.
I myself cannot imagine wanting to spend any time on the lower end of Canton Road, as there is nothing there that I need, want, or even like. Other than Mont Blanc pens. But if you are a typical nouveau riche Philippina, this is probably as close to heaven as you can get.....
Outside of Makati.
Many women consider shopping a version of therapy.
Men usually need therapy afterwards.
Food for thought.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, April 11, 2013
BEAUTIFUL BRASSIERES
Right around the time that Savage Kitten and this blogger broke-up (in the summer 2010), one of the best local antique stores closed down.
A pity, as I had enjoyed many hours there. It was quite a lovely place.
As an omen of a changing world, a fabulous new business moved in.
Specifically, a shop selling lingerie. Really very beautiful lingerie.
Obviously I cannot browse there, it would discomfit people.
My ex, however, does browse there.
Which discomfits me.
That's part of the neighborhood that I no longer visit. There are frightening things down there now. In addition to some very snooty places, for very snooty people. It just doesn't feel comfortable.
The nightmare part of Polk Street.
The Municipal Transit Authority and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are planning to remove streetside parking all along Polk Street, so that it will become a new urban bike corridor. The Polk merchants, of course, are up in arms. And I thoroughly sympathise with them, because bicyclists are, on the whole, arrogant pissants with absolutely no regard for us pedestrians or any one else who uses the public street. They really seem to believe that babies, cripples, absent-minded wanderers on sidewalks, children, and retired people, do not deserve to be out in the open.
I rather wish that there were no helmet laws, as anything that will diminish either the number of two-wheeled terrorists, OR frighten them into acting like civilized people, is a good thing.
But I'm okay with all streets within a several block radius of that lingerie shop being closed to vehicular traffic and any parking whatsoever.
I have no reason to support their commerce.
It's exceptionally beautiful lingerie.
The worst block of SF.
What would really improve that stretch is an antique store.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
A pity, as I had enjoyed many hours there. It was quite a lovely place.
As an omen of a changing world, a fabulous new business moved in.
Specifically, a shop selling lingerie. Really very beautiful lingerie.
Obviously I cannot browse there, it would discomfit people.
My ex, however, does browse there.
Which discomfits me.
That's part of the neighborhood that I no longer visit. There are frightening things down there now. In addition to some very snooty places, for very snooty people. It just doesn't feel comfortable.
The nightmare part of Polk Street.
The Municipal Transit Authority and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are planning to remove streetside parking all along Polk Street, so that it will become a new urban bike corridor. The Polk merchants, of course, are up in arms. And I thoroughly sympathise with them, because bicyclists are, on the whole, arrogant pissants with absolutely no regard for us pedestrians or any one else who uses the public street. They really seem to believe that babies, cripples, absent-minded wanderers on sidewalks, children, and retired people, do not deserve to be out in the open.
I rather wish that there were no helmet laws, as anything that will diminish either the number of two-wheeled terrorists, OR frighten them into acting like civilized people, is a good thing.
But I'm okay with all streets within a several block radius of that lingerie shop being closed to vehicular traffic and any parking whatsoever.
I have no reason to support their commerce.
It's exceptionally beautiful lingerie.
The worst block of SF.
What would really improve that stretch is an antique store.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
COMING UP FOR AIR
Since the weather has improved it is enjoyable to spend time outdoors. Yesterday I headed over the hill craving a red-bean pastry and a cup of coffee for my tea, after which I wandered around smoking. Passed the intersection of Washington and Grant without any incident other than a little girl bumping into me at full tilt, then staring up in amazement.
Wah, kweilo with a piece of burning wood in his beak!
How extremely peculiar!
The corner ladies handing out menus to tourists completely ignored me.
I suspect that stinky white dude is NOT the type of "guest" that their restaurant desperately wants. Imagine the smell. Very nasty.
It was a robustly full-flavoured mixture of Latakia, flue-cured leaf, and some air-cured. And it was utterly delicious.
Especially when I got some hot milk-tea (港式奶茶).
Mmmmmmmmmm! Can you say "oral heaven"?
Then now would be the right time to say it.
You know, I'm surprised that women have not discovered the combination.
The mixture of large glisteny brown tapioca balls with milk-tea and crushed ice is baffling, yet very popular among the gentler gender. All over C'town you will see girls anywhere between junior high and retirement age slurping on buckets of that horrid bubble concoction, never mind that enormous gluey globs of dense tapioca are quite indigestible, while it's so obvious that the best pairing for milk-tea (hot) is a pipe-full of excellent tobacco.
The sweetness and creaminess of the tea, how re-invigorating!
The smoky and resinous perfume of Latakia, divine!
And a touch of incense-like blonde leaf.
Just close your eyes in bliss.
Ladies, come on over to the dark side.
You'll be much happier.
If you need advice on which high-quality pipe goes best with that fake Louis Vuitton purse (Hong Kong status queen), or those ultra-high heels and the itsy skirt (if you're one of those Taiwanese pie-face girls that go slumming in C'town), or even what type of pipe tobacco suggests squealing childlike innocence despite the fact that you're over thirty (again Taiwanese), I can advise you. Heck, if you're looking for something interesting other than a full-flavoured mixture, there are some very nice Virginias -- Germain and Son produce nice Vapers, Rattrays of Perth are exceptional, also Sam Gawith Best Brown or Full Virginia -- and for those of you who crave something totally over the top, let me thoroughly recommend Bracken Flake.
Just remember, ditch the damned tapioca balls.
Yat pui gong-sik naai cha, m-koi.
Yit ge, mou bo baa.
一杯港式奶茶，唔該。
热嘅，冇波霸。
It was a wonderful tea-time. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Got home while it was still light out.
A brightness from the west.
Contentment.
By the way, tapioca is incredibly fattening, whereas Latakia slims you down. You should know this. It's useful information.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wah, kweilo with a piece of burning wood in his beak!
How extremely peculiar!
The corner ladies handing out menus to tourists completely ignored me.
I suspect that stinky white dude is NOT the type of "guest" that their restaurant desperately wants. Imagine the smell. Very nasty.
It was a robustly full-flavoured mixture of Latakia, flue-cured leaf, and some air-cured. And it was utterly delicious.
Especially when I got some hot milk-tea (港式奶茶).
Mmmmmmmmmm! Can you say "oral heaven"?
Then now would be the right time to say it.
You know, I'm surprised that women have not discovered the combination.
The mixture of large glisteny brown tapioca balls with milk-tea and crushed ice is baffling, yet very popular among the gentler gender. All over C'town you will see girls anywhere between junior high and retirement age slurping on buckets of that horrid bubble concoction, never mind that enormous gluey globs of dense tapioca are quite indigestible, while it's so obvious that the best pairing for milk-tea (hot) is a pipe-full of excellent tobacco.
The sweetness and creaminess of the tea, how re-invigorating!
The smoky and resinous perfume of Latakia, divine!
And a touch of incense-like blonde leaf.
Just close your eyes in bliss.
Ladies, come on over to the dark side.
You'll be much happier.
If you need advice on which high-quality pipe goes best with that fake Louis Vuitton purse (Hong Kong status queen), or those ultra-high heels and the itsy skirt (if you're one of those Taiwanese pie-face girls that go slumming in C'town), or even what type of pipe tobacco suggests squealing childlike innocence despite the fact that you're over thirty (again Taiwanese), I can advise you. Heck, if you're looking for something interesting other than a full-flavoured mixture, there are some very nice Virginias -- Germain and Son produce nice Vapers, Rattrays of Perth are exceptional, also Sam Gawith Best Brown or Full Virginia -- and for those of you who crave something totally over the top, let me thoroughly recommend Bracken Flake.
Just remember, ditch the damned tapioca balls.
Yat pui gong-sik naai cha, m-koi.
Yit ge, mou bo baa.
一杯港式奶茶，唔該。
热嘅，冇波霸。
It was a wonderful tea-time. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Got home while it was still light out.
A brightness from the west.
Contentment.
By the way, tapioca is incredibly fattening, whereas Latakia slims you down. You should know this. It's useful information.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
SOCIAL OPTIONS FOR THE QUITE UN-HIP
I am on occasion flabberghasted that there are people who like spending time in my company. No, it isn't that rare that I should notify the papers, but it isn't entirely common either. Middle-aged dudes are not exactly the exemplar summum fastigium of sparklingly cool.
Especially not if they smoke pipes, despise tattoos, and don't do any drugs. People nowadays expect mature men to be knowledgeable in the ways of psychedelia, and assume that we're the quidem maxime inspiratum et simpliciter perfectus of punks from the era of the Sex Pistols.
You know, "old school".
When 'old school' was still excitingly new.
So sorry to bust your bubble. I never liked the Sex Pistols. As far as I was concerned, they were a bunch of vulgarians and poseurs.
Much like The Rolling Stones.
The best music from that age was what they played on the Muppet Show.
Trust me, that charming and perspicacious frog knew his artists.
Clean acts, with only one notorious stoner.
A freak named Floyd Pepper.
I despise drugs.
The only substances a person needs other than regular nutrition and water are caffeine, nicotine, theobromine, and capsaicin.
Coffee and tea, pipe tobacco or cigars, chocolate, and hot sauce.
Plus highly refined sugar.
Or perhaps some honey.
My Teddy Bear said so.
That's how you can judge strangers. Do they like a nice cup of tea, smoke good tobacco, love chocolates, and dump extra hot sauce all over their shredded jalapeño salad?
If the answer is 'yes', they're probably decent folks.
On the other hand, if the response to leading questions is "huh, I wasn't listening, could you repeat moss is a fuel source of profoun, profoun, profoun....., where are my shoes, I lost my damned shoes!", then you may well be dealing with a whacked-out pothead. And such people are a complete waste of time.
My idea of a wild party does not involve drugs. Rather, there should be a large heated urn of tea there, with milk and sugar for the ones that want it, as well as ashtrays and open windows.
And maybe a bowl of fresh jalapeños.
As well as a jar of honey.
No music.
Nor gun nuts, drug addicts, artistic types, vegans, shop-a-holics, rock-and-rollers, punks, drunks, republicans, bankers, life coaches, tattooed lesbians or performers, brass poles, joints, little red pills, world music, tofu, tempeh, sustainable green crap, carrots, players, rappers, gangstas, spiritual people, caucasian buddhists, zen masters, disapproving stares, chihuahuas, yorkies, psychotics, jazz, coke dealers, meth-heads, cultists, mystics, crystal healers, channelers, crusaders, lobbyists, bankers, stock brokers, peta-members, tofu freaks, basketweavers, nudity, tie-dye, porn stars, ten thousand year old reincarnees of any sort, television personalities, heavy metal fans, sports enthusiasts, gamers, mountain climbers, surfers, health-club members, doll collectors, reality show competitors, deviants, city hall insiders, hysterics, neurotics, self-absorbed quasi-intellectuals, beatniks, poets, the glamorous people, wine snobs, aspiring movie stars, fashion models, amateur stage performers, exhibitionists, nicotine patches, electronic cigarettes, needles, small glass smoking devices, asthma inhalers, wheat allergies, flying saucer faithful, millenarians, excessive make-up, missionaries, and occultists.
Okay.
I think that leaves two people.
With my luck the other one is in a different time-zone.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Especially not if they smoke pipes, despise tattoos, and don't do any drugs. People nowadays expect mature men to be knowledgeable in the ways of psychedelia, and assume that we're the quidem maxime inspiratum et simpliciter perfectus of punks from the era of the Sex Pistols.
You know, "old school".
When 'old school' was still excitingly new.
So sorry to bust your bubble. I never liked the Sex Pistols. As far as I was concerned, they were a bunch of vulgarians and poseurs.
Much like The Rolling Stones.
The best music from that age was what they played on the Muppet Show.
Trust me, that charming and perspicacious frog knew his artists.
Clean acts, with only one notorious stoner.
A freak named Floyd Pepper.
I despise drugs.
The only substances a person needs other than regular nutrition and water are caffeine, nicotine, theobromine, and capsaicin.
Coffee and tea, pipe tobacco or cigars, chocolate, and hot sauce.
Plus highly refined sugar.
Or perhaps some honey.
My Teddy Bear said so.
That's how you can judge strangers. Do they like a nice cup of tea, smoke good tobacco, love chocolates, and dump extra hot sauce all over their shredded jalapeño salad?
If the answer is 'yes', they're probably decent folks.
On the other hand, if the response to leading questions is "huh, I wasn't listening, could you repeat moss is a fuel source of profoun, profoun, profoun....., where are my shoes, I lost my damned shoes!", then you may well be dealing with a whacked-out pothead. And such people are a complete waste of time.
My idea of a wild party does not involve drugs. Rather, there should be a large heated urn of tea there, with milk and sugar for the ones that want it, as well as ashtrays and open windows.
And maybe a bowl of fresh jalapeños.
As well as a jar of honey.
No music.
Nor gun nuts, drug addicts, artistic types, vegans, shop-a-holics, rock-and-rollers, punks, drunks, republicans, bankers, life coaches, tattooed lesbians or performers, brass poles, joints, little red pills, world music, tofu, tempeh, sustainable green crap, carrots, players, rappers, gangstas, spiritual people, caucasian buddhists, zen masters, disapproving stares, chihuahuas, yorkies, psychotics, jazz, coke dealers, meth-heads, cultists, mystics, crystal healers, channelers, crusaders, lobbyists, bankers, stock brokers, peta-members, tofu freaks, basketweavers, nudity, tie-dye, porn stars, ten thousand year old reincarnees of any sort, television personalities, heavy metal fans, sports enthusiasts, gamers, mountain climbers, surfers, health-club members, doll collectors, reality show competitors, deviants, city hall insiders, hysterics, neurotics, self-absorbed quasi-intellectuals, beatniks, poets, the glamorous people, wine snobs, aspiring movie stars, fashion models, amateur stage performers, exhibitionists, nicotine patches, electronic cigarettes, needles, small glass smoking devices, asthma inhalers, wheat allergies, flying saucer faithful, millenarians, excessive make-up, missionaries, and occultists.
Okay.
I think that leaves two people.
With my luck the other one is in a different time-zone.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
BALLS OF PSYCHEDELIC SKUNK FUR
One of my fellow-pipesmokers has a liking for Saint Bruno Flake, having spent some time in Old Foggy ('England') during his student-days. Being somewhat of a severe purist ('savage prude') myself, I cannot quite develop such an affection for the product, but generations of Englishmen have, as well as quite a few English women.
And naturally it's unavailable here in the United States. Where almost all of us pipesmokers are cast out into the outer darkness, which is cold, and where scant civilized company can be found. Smoking is something that we can only do when out in the shed at the back of the extensive garden when our children, helpmeets, and disgustingly irritating non-smoking neighbors are fast asleep.
A garden which might well look like the one in the video below, if you live in San Francisco where sixteen days out of every fortnight icy gales blow in from the ocean. Good lord it's buggery frigid here, no wonder we're surrounded by pushy do-gooders and wheatgerm snarfing earthmoms!
SLOW-BURNING SATISFYING ST. BRUNO
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aO-c4nq4yDE.]
Doesn't he look happy when the new supply of tobacco arrives? No angry Berkeleyite busybodies around, a tolerant and understanding canine who brings him tobacco, and a cosy garden shed far from the madding crowd.
Ah, peace at last.
Wouldn't be surprised if that sweater reeks a bit. Given that he probably spends a lot of time in the shed, where there is no running water (pipes frozen solid) and no washing machine.
But the dog probably likes it.
Smells like home.
Meaty.
Just for the heck of it, here's another.
THAT PRECIOUS CONDOR MOMENT
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7lbdq9sqP4.]
Makes you wonder how on earth our society ended up so blisteringly condemning and rigid, doesn't it? Oh, except for "medicinal marijuana", which that many Californians huff that the air all over Berkeley, San Fran bloody cisco, and San Raphael in Marin is so blue with tetra-hydro-cannabinolic allergens that normal people can't breathe without hacking up balls of psychedelic skunk fur.
It's "therapeutic".
Hmmph.
Medicinal, my aunt.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And naturally it's unavailable here in the United States. Where almost all of us pipesmokers are cast out into the outer darkness, which is cold, and where scant civilized company can be found. Smoking is something that we can only do when out in the shed at the back of the extensive garden when our children, helpmeets, and disgustingly irritating non-smoking neighbors are fast asleep.
A garden which might well look like the one in the video below, if you live in San Francisco where sixteen days out of every fortnight icy gales blow in from the ocean. Good lord it's buggery frigid here, no wonder we're surrounded by pushy do-gooders and wheatgerm snarfing earthmoms!
SLOW-BURNING SATISFYING ST. BRUNO
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aO-c4nq4yDE.]
Doesn't he look happy when the new supply of tobacco arrives? No angry Berkeleyite busybodies around, a tolerant and understanding canine who brings him tobacco, and a cosy garden shed far from the madding crowd.
Ah, peace at last.
Wouldn't be surprised if that sweater reeks a bit. Given that he probably spends a lot of time in the shed, where there is no running water (pipes frozen solid) and no washing machine.
But the dog probably likes it.
Smells like home.
Meaty.
Just for the heck of it, here's another.
THAT PRECIOUS CONDOR MOMENT
[Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7lbdq9sqP4.]
Makes you wonder how on earth our society ended up so blisteringly condemning and rigid, doesn't it? Oh, except for "medicinal marijuana", which that many Californians huff that the air all over Berkeley, San Fran bloody cisco, and San Raphael in Marin is so blue with tetra-hydro-cannabinolic allergens that normal people can't breathe without hacking up balls of psychedelic skunk fur.
It's "therapeutic".
Hmmph.
Medicinal, my aunt.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
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GRITS AND TOFU
Like most Americans, I have a list of people who should be peacefully retired from public service and thereafter kept away from their desks,...
