There are two superpowers, locked in eternal conflict. But you will be glad to know that the United States, as always, is far, far better than the other side. We're just bigger. Got more oomph.
Our rivals do not even come close.
We've got 428 million.
They've only got 187 million.
England has fifty two million.
Germany has eight million.
Australia: two million.
But we have, at 428 million, 60% of all the porn pages of the world. We're the biggest. And most of those are hosted in California. Dudes, we rule!
[Source: http://www.emerce.nl/nieuws/nederland-virtueel-rosse-buurt.]
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
The Netherlands, with 187 million, hosts 26 percent of the total, which is impressive for such a small country, but it doesn't even come close. Still, compared to the others, those Dutch are a smut superpower.
The Japanese, with a population seven times their size, are only a surprising 0.27%, barely one tenth of their number. One would've expected it to be much higher, but Dai Nippon probably outranks them in quality.
However, at 428 million, sixty percent of all the nasty business on the internet, that means that we have more harshly-lit pimplous backsides moving in absurd ways and inglorious technicolour than anybody else in the universe.
Given that around ninety percent of all smut produced in the United States comes from San Fernando, the great state of California hosts both Silicon Valley AND Silicone Valley.
It's something to be proud of.
Tell the governor.
ADDENDUM
We only produce one fifth the amount of methamphetamine than the Midwest, so there's still some work to be done. And the Netherlands is also a world leader in that field -- due to a combination of technical knowhow ('vernuftigheid') and that well-known mercantile drive of theirs -- so we may be vulnerable.
Still, we've got pot and tattoos!
And, due to immigration, far more stupid people from the Atlantic States than the Atlantic States. Or any other part of the country. Yay!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
THE PROPER CONDIMENT FOR INDIGNANT UNDERWEAR
In Germany, an organization of Sinti and Roma activists have got their unwashed undies in a bunch over a product sold as "Zigeunersauce". Gypsy sauce.
They feel that it reflects a stereotype and encourages discrimination against them, due to negative connotations of the word "gypsy".
Given that the primary exposure Western European nations have of the travelling folk is that they travel to Western Europe to live on the dole, creating little pockets of filth and squalor, and extorting money from local municipalities, it is high time that that sauce be renamed.
[Yes yes, I know that Gypsies are unfairly maligned. Simply going by what the European government agencies report, and clearly they're overlooking the vast numbers of Sinti and Roma surgeons, engineers, lawyers, and prize-winning novelists. Kindly stop hitting me over the head with that damned guitar.]
According to Wikipedia:
"Zigeunersauce (Sauce zingara) ist eine Champignon-Tomatensauce der klassischen Küche, die heute in der Regel nur noch in einer stark vereinfachten Variante zubereitet wird.
Die klassische Zigeunersauce besteht je nach Rezept aus einer Basis aus gedünsteten Tomaten, Paprika, Zwiebeln, Weinessig, Weißwein, Champignonfond und Kraftsauce oder aus Bratenfond, Weißwein und Tomatensauce, die mit gepökelter Kalbszunge, Kochschinken, Champignonscheiben sowie gehobelten Trüffeln und Cayennepfeffer ergänzt wird. Sie wird z. B. zu Kalbskoteletts oder Roastbeef serviert.
Bei der heute üblichen, einfacheren und kostengünstigeren Zubereitung wird die Sauce aus Gemüsepaprika, Champignons, Zwiebeln, Tomatenmark, Rotwein, Brühe und Ajvar hergestellt, oftmals mit Gewürzgurkenstückchen angereichert, mit Essig gewürzt und mit Stärkemehl gebunden. Diese Sauce ist auch als Handelsware erhältlich."
[End complete cite.]
That sounds completely appalling. Damn those French. I too would be hideouslyoffensive offended if such a miserable product were named after my ethnic group. Fortunately there is no 'Dutch-American Sauce' yet, although it would make complete sense to call ketchup thus. Tomatoes boiled with vinegar and sugar? Very Dutch-American. Watery mayonnaise is of course the national condiment of the Netherlands, where it is refered to as "friet saus" (glop for your French Fries), and Sauce Hollandaise is a misnomer, seeing as the Belgians invented it.
Gypsy Sauce: boiled tomatoes, peppers, onions, wine vinegar, cheap white wine, mushroom broth, and heavy stock, with brined tongue, chopped ham, sliced mushrooms, truffles, and cayenne pepper.
Throw in some pickled pigs knockers, why don't you.
Can't get any more frightful anyway.
Feh. And ick poo.
Here in San Francisco, we don't have 'zigeunersauce', but we do have some gypsies. Not all of them are fortune telling con-artists draining the funds of weak-minded suckers and senile old ladies.
Some of them are brain surgeons.
So please don't call your nasty ragoût after them.
Stupid Germans.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
They feel that it reflects a stereotype and encourages discrimination against them, due to negative connotations of the word "gypsy".
Given that the primary exposure Western European nations have of the travelling folk is that they travel to Western Europe to live on the dole, creating little pockets of filth and squalor, and extorting money from local municipalities, it is high time that that sauce be renamed.
[Yes yes, I know that Gypsies are unfairly maligned. Simply going by what the European government agencies report, and clearly they're overlooking the vast numbers of Sinti and Roma surgeons, engineers, lawyers, and prize-winning novelists. Kindly stop hitting me over the head with that damned guitar.]
According to Wikipedia:
"Zigeunersauce (Sauce zingara) ist eine Champignon-Tomatensauce der klassischen Küche, die heute in der Regel nur noch in einer stark vereinfachten Variante zubereitet wird.
Die klassische Zigeunersauce besteht je nach Rezept aus einer Basis aus gedünsteten Tomaten, Paprika, Zwiebeln, Weinessig, Weißwein, Champignonfond und Kraftsauce oder aus Bratenfond, Weißwein und Tomatensauce, die mit gepökelter Kalbszunge, Kochschinken, Champignonscheiben sowie gehobelten Trüffeln und Cayennepfeffer ergänzt wird. Sie wird z. B. zu Kalbskoteletts oder Roastbeef serviert.
Bei der heute üblichen, einfacheren und kostengünstigeren Zubereitung wird die Sauce aus Gemüsepaprika, Champignons, Zwiebeln, Tomatenmark, Rotwein, Brühe und Ajvar hergestellt, oftmals mit Gewürzgurkenstückchen angereichert, mit Essig gewürzt und mit Stärkemehl gebunden. Diese Sauce ist auch als Handelsware erhältlich."
[End complete cite.]
That sounds completely appalling. Damn those French. I too would be hideously
Gypsy Sauce: boiled tomatoes, peppers, onions, wine vinegar, cheap white wine, mushroom broth, and heavy stock, with brined tongue, chopped ham, sliced mushrooms, truffles, and cayenne pepper.
Throw in some pickled pigs knockers, why don't you.
Can't get any more frightful anyway.
Feh. And ick poo.
Here in San Francisco, we don't have 'zigeunersauce', but we do have some gypsies. Not all of them are fortune telling con-artists draining the funds of weak-minded suckers and senile old ladies.
Some of them are brain surgeons.
So please don't call your nasty ragoût after them.
Stupid Germans.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 16, 2013
DIET TIPS FROM AN EXPERT
A few days ago comments underneath a Dutch newspaper article online indicated that many Netherlanders were fed-up with sliced cucumber on, or next-to, nearly everything.
Damn those sliced cucumbers, they're ruining our lives!
Why do they have to be everywhere!
There are worse things in life.
British food, for instance. The two national dishes of England are Chicken Tikka, and Vindaloo made with mystery meat. Add mushy peas, limp fries, mahogany deep-fried dough pouch filled with canned stuff, baked beans, Spam fritter, and a glass of luke-warm beer, and you have a feast!
Replace the beer with tea, and you have breakfast.
But we Yanks aren't very much better. There are foods within a few blocks of me right now that, if I were to ever eat them again, would give me nightmares.
We have junkfood that both defies description AND digestion, and fatty snacks that contribute mightily to epidemics of bloat, gastro-intestinal failure, and heart disease.
There's an entire aisle at the drugstore devoted to stomach medicines.
It's larger than the hair-care section.
That says something.
On the other hand, fresh chili peppers are full of fibre and vitamins.
So theoretically, even a plate of nachos is good for you.
Especially late at night.
Pile it on.
AFTER THOUGHT
Bacon, cheese, and chilies on everything. It's the great American taste treat.
The veritable yumminess that defines our nation.
Hot dogs? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Pizza? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Burgers? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Steak grilled medium rare? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Pancakes and maple syrup? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Apple pie? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Damn those sliced cucumbers, they're ruining our lives!
Why do they have to be everywhere!
There are worse things in life.
British food, for instance. The two national dishes of England are Chicken Tikka, and Vindaloo made with mystery meat. Add mushy peas, limp fries, mahogany deep-fried dough pouch filled with canned stuff, baked beans, Spam fritter, and a glass of luke-warm beer, and you have a feast!
Replace the beer with tea, and you have breakfast.
But we Yanks aren't very much better. There are foods within a few blocks of me right now that, if I were to ever eat them again, would give me nightmares.
We have junkfood that both defies description AND digestion, and fatty snacks that contribute mightily to epidemics of bloat, gastro-intestinal failure, and heart disease.
There's an entire aisle at the drugstore devoted to stomach medicines.
It's larger than the hair-care section.
That says something.
On the other hand, fresh chili peppers are full of fibre and vitamins.
So theoretically, even a plate of nachos is good for you.
Especially late at night.
Pile it on.
AFTER THOUGHT
Bacon, cheese, and chilies on everything. It's the great American taste treat.
The veritable yumminess that defines our nation.
Hot dogs? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Pizza? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Burgers? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Steak grilled medium rare? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Pancakes and maple syrup? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
Apple pie? Add bacon, cheese, and chilies.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 15, 2013
FRIDAY IS THE BEST DAY TO BURN A CHURCH
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has called for a massive day of rage to protest their defeat at the hands of the army yesterday. Which is guaranteed to lead to more bloodshed, seeing as many of their members are armed, and others are Libyan and Tunisian agent-provocateurs.
What it also means is that a huge number of churches in Egypt will go up in flames, because torching churches is something Muslim Brothers do exceptionally well.
They can't run a country, or keep their hands off women in public, but oh boy can they burn churches.
Expect the violence and arson to begin as soon as howling mobs leave their places of worship after Friday prayers. Angry khatibs and imams will have whipped them into a frenzy, and all the necessary gasoline will have been stocked up in advance.
They're experts at burning churches.
Did I already mention that?
Meanwhile, the governments of the Western World are wringing their hands over the crowd-control techniques that the Egyptian authorities are using. Because live ammo is no way to deal with murderous mobs of peaceful protesters. Who rape, loot, and pillage. Then shoot at police officers, firefighters, and soldiers from rooftops.
Besides setting fire to churches.
It's just not done.
By the way, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has the financial and tactical support of the Qataris and the Turks. Who obviously have no problem with the regular destruction of churches. After all, it's what Muslim Bros do best.
They're opposed by the Saudis, who have clearly grasped that encouraging insanity is likely to prove risky in the near-term, and deadly in the long run.
The U.S. administration and the European governments should take note.
And advise Navi Pillai to shut her pie hole. Seeing as she. Can't. Say. Bugger. All. About. The. Burning. Of. Churches.
Here's wishing a 'happy and productive Friday' to the Egyptians.
And the Qataris. And the Turks.
As well as all the concerned individuals from Libya and Tunis.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
What it also means is that a huge number of churches in Egypt will go up in flames, because torching churches is something Muslim Brothers do exceptionally well.
They can't run a country, or keep their hands off women in public, but oh boy can they burn churches.
Expect the violence and arson to begin as soon as howling mobs leave their places of worship after Friday prayers. Angry khatibs and imams will have whipped them into a frenzy, and all the necessary gasoline will have been stocked up in advance.
They're experts at burning churches.
Did I already mention that?
Meanwhile, the governments of the Western World are wringing their hands over the crowd-control techniques that the Egyptian authorities are using. Because live ammo is no way to deal with murderous mobs of peaceful protesters. Who rape, loot, and pillage. Then shoot at police officers, firefighters, and soldiers from rooftops.
Besides setting fire to churches.
It's just not done.
By the way, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has the financial and tactical support of the Qataris and the Turks. Who obviously have no problem with the regular destruction of churches. After all, it's what Muslim Bros do best.
They're opposed by the Saudis, who have clearly grasped that encouraging insanity is likely to prove risky in the near-term, and deadly in the long run.
The U.S. administration and the European governments should take note.
And advise Navi Pillai to shut her pie hole. Seeing as she. Can't. Say. Bugger. All. About. The. Burning. Of. Churches.
Here's wishing a 'happy and productive Friday' to the Egyptians.
And the Qataris. And the Turks.
As well as all the concerned individuals from Libya and Tunis.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
ARE YOU ALONE RIGHT NOW?
There are still phone solicitors in this world, despite almost everyone now having cellphones and screening their calls. Somewhere in the Midwest, trailerparkers and residents of a minimum security prison or football college are tasked with dialling random strangers and either harassing them for money for the good cause to end all good causes (The Podunk Firemen's Annual Charity Ball and Barbecue), or selling the one sure-fire method for losing weight while achieving psycho-sexual satori.
Psycho-sexual satori does sound very tempting. The only part of that combo with which I am currently familiar is 'psycho'.
I live in San Francisco.
And I'm single.
Never-the-less, I am not inclined to buy the eighteen part course, nor the six work-out tapes that come with it. Or the high-stress yoga-mat (made to EXACTING specifications!).
I am lonely at times during the day, however. So your call came at an opportune time. I am glad to hear from you, it's a welcome distraction.
Are you naked?
No no, it's a serious question; I only wish to talk to a Midwesterner if he or she is naked. The success of your sales call depends on it. Please disrobe immediately, and describe each garment you are removing as you do so.
Stop talking about the eighteen parts and six tapes for a moment, we'll get to that in good time. The garments, if you please. Just the garments.
Sizes? Textures? Attractive shapes and hues?
Sniff deeply.
I am NOT interested in your fire department's kindly balls. Unless they too are naked. Except, perhaps, for heavy tool belts with necessary equipment, that leave red red welts on their manly flesh. Because one must be prepared at all times, in case there's an emergency.
Let us both imagine them sliding down poles at the fire-house. Which must be greased with hog fat, so that they do not get rope burns on their front. Pole burns. Front. Painful.
It probably smells like barbecue when they do.
Hello?
Thank you, please call again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Psycho-sexual satori does sound very tempting. The only part of that combo with which I am currently familiar is 'psycho'.
I live in San Francisco.
And I'm single.
Never-the-less, I am not inclined to buy the eighteen part course, nor the six work-out tapes that come with it. Or the high-stress yoga-mat (made to EXACTING specifications!).
I am lonely at times during the day, however. So your call came at an opportune time. I am glad to hear from you, it's a welcome distraction.
Are you naked?
No no, it's a serious question; I only wish to talk to a Midwesterner if he or she is naked. The success of your sales call depends on it. Please disrobe immediately, and describe each garment you are removing as you do so.
Stop talking about the eighteen parts and six tapes for a moment, we'll get to that in good time. The garments, if you please. Just the garments.
Sizes? Textures? Attractive shapes and hues?
Sniff deeply.
I am NOT interested in your fire department's kindly balls. Unless they too are naked. Except, perhaps, for heavy tool belts with necessary equipment, that leave red red welts on their manly flesh. Because one must be prepared at all times, in case there's an emergency.
Let us both imagine them sliding down poles at the fire-house. Which must be greased with hog fat, so that they do not get rope burns on their front. Pole burns. Front. Painful.
It probably smells like barbecue when they do.
Hello?
Thank you, please call again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
WHERE'S YOUR LOCAL NOW?
On Monday evening, while it was still light outside, the fog enrobed the city with a cloak of invisibility. From Polk Street the tops of Nob Hill was where the world ended, the buildings that one knew to be there were quite erased by mist. Less than ten minutes later the reverse was true.
I wandered across the hill and down through Chinatown in silence for the most part, till I came to Waverly, where the happy chatter of tourists speculating about the Szechuanese restaurant that had magically appeared before them broke the reverie. Given that Chinatown was founded by the Cantonese, and serves as the service district and social centre for people of primarily their language, you can understand that the French (the tourists) and Szechuanese (the restaurant) are equally foreign there.
But the Cantonese put up with outsiders gracefully.
They're quite fascinated by other people.
Even weirdoes like Szechuanese.
A few blocks later I walked into the cigar bar on Pine Street. Which is the only place in San Francisco where one can smoke indoors.
Often it's a zoo at that time. Out-of-towners and locals alike yelling animatedly at one of the screens as the big spandex-covered rears of professional football players perform a gay fandango for a home-town crowd, or baseball players swing wood at flying objects before running quadrangularely.
Businessmen from points east boast about their favourite roll of dead leaves, programmers make snarky comments, and strange fish gulp happily of the sooty air.
Evolution has slowed down there.
Sometimes there are pipesmokers on the premises.
Not very often, as we aren't into spectator sports, and would actually prefer a quiet place where we could read the newspaper, for instance the Frankfurter Algemeine or the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, while we contemplatively puff our pipes and munch a red-bean pastry. Perhaps with a tall glass of hot yin yeung. Brought to our table by a bright and intelligent mathematical genius who is not blonde.
Yes, the yin yeung is heung heung gwat gwat. Precisely as we like it.
[Yin yeung: Mandarin ducks (鴛鴦), also the name for a mixture of coffee, tea, and condensed milk (lin naai 煉奶) popular in Hong Kong and Chinatown. Heung heung gwat gwat: Fragrant fragrant slickety slick (香香滑滑), as all hot beverages should be. Really, I do not know WHY everyone is drinking that Starbucks crap. And non-fat soymilk decaffeinated ventis are strictly for the gwailos.]
There used to be more bakeries and coffee shops in Chinatown. Their number has reduced over the past several years, but you can get that nasty bubble tea muck all over the place now. Finding a decent pastry at eight in the evening is impossible.
As I do with nearly everything else, I blame tourists, republicans, vegans, and anti-smokers for this sad state of affairs.
There are no Chinese bakeries or coffee shops between Powell Street and Polk Street. Which is very sad.
Having a favourite coffee shop where one can sit for hours reading and smoking, or, if one is a young person, doing one's trigonometry homework while getting swacked to the gills on caffeinated beverages, is one of the great joys in life. The over-priced steamcoffee joints with WiFi which are so popular with yuppies, or the Italian places in North Beach which are infested with tourists and hipsters, just don't suffice. One needs a roomy space, with a selection of cheap eaties, and bright lights for reading. No loud music, no jukebox or sound system, no poetry readings or blaring headphones allowed.
An establishment, in other words, precisely like the two or three places in Chinatown where adults hang out for a while before going home. They close at six or seven.
The local café should be the neighborhood living room.
Not a nest of East-Coast yuppie WiFi vipers.
Or alcoholic sportsfans.
Oh, and smoking should be allowed, but I'm willing to compromise.
I'll gladly sit out on a terrace in the fog wearing a sweater.
Foreign newspapers are hard to find now anyway.
Except for the Wall Street Journal.
Which I do not read.
Smoking around children doing homework and elderly gentlemen reading newspapers has been illegal in California since 1998, and soy milk contributes mightily to horrid karma. That's why everyone in that smarmy Seattle-type coffee shop looks sour and pallid.
The cigar bar is as good a place to visit for a smoke as any, and on nights when the shiny pants models of professional sports aren't performing their crypto-erotic pirouettes, it can be pleasantly peaceful there. Especially later, after the suburbanites leave.
The fog will swirl and eddy outside on Pine Street, happy diners from Belden Alley nearby will wander in for a post-prandial smoke, and young ladies will take one sniff of the place before whining "it's too smelly!", and pulling their gentlemen friends away from the door.
I had three bowls of flake, and strolled back over the hill in darkness.
The music had not been too loud, no one misbehaved.
Up near Grace Cathedral I lit a fourth bowl.
Nob Hill can be beautiful at night.
It's a very private place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I wandered across the hill and down through Chinatown in silence for the most part, till I came to Waverly, where the happy chatter of tourists speculating about the Szechuanese restaurant that had magically appeared before them broke the reverie. Given that Chinatown was founded by the Cantonese, and serves as the service district and social centre for people of primarily their language, you can understand that the French (the tourists) and Szechuanese (the restaurant) are equally foreign there.
But the Cantonese put up with outsiders gracefully.
They're quite fascinated by other people.
Even weirdoes like Szechuanese.
A few blocks later I walked into the cigar bar on Pine Street. Which is the only place in San Francisco where one can smoke indoors.
Often it's a zoo at that time. Out-of-towners and locals alike yelling animatedly at one of the screens as the big spandex-covered rears of professional football players perform a gay fandango for a home-town crowd, or baseball players swing wood at flying objects before running quadrangularely.
Businessmen from points east boast about their favourite roll of dead leaves, programmers make snarky comments, and strange fish gulp happily of the sooty air.
Evolution has slowed down there.
Sometimes there are pipesmokers on the premises.
Not very often, as we aren't into spectator sports, and would actually prefer a quiet place where we could read the newspaper, for instance the Frankfurter Algemeine or the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, while we contemplatively puff our pipes and munch a red-bean pastry. Perhaps with a tall glass of hot yin yeung. Brought to our table by a bright and intelligent mathematical genius who is not blonde.
Yes, the yin yeung is heung heung gwat gwat. Precisely as we like it.
[Yin yeung: Mandarin ducks (鴛鴦), also the name for a mixture of coffee, tea, and condensed milk (lin naai 煉奶) popular in Hong Kong and Chinatown. Heung heung gwat gwat: Fragrant fragrant slickety slick (香香滑滑), as all hot beverages should be. Really, I do not know WHY everyone is drinking that Starbucks crap. And non-fat soymilk decaffeinated ventis are strictly for the gwailos.]
There used to be more bakeries and coffee shops in Chinatown. Their number has reduced over the past several years, but you can get that nasty bubble tea muck all over the place now. Finding a decent pastry at eight in the evening is impossible.
As I do with nearly everything else, I blame tourists, republicans, vegans, and anti-smokers for this sad state of affairs.
There are no Chinese bakeries or coffee shops between Powell Street and Polk Street. Which is very sad.
Having a favourite coffee shop where one can sit for hours reading and smoking, or, if one is a young person, doing one's trigonometry homework while getting swacked to the gills on caffeinated beverages, is one of the great joys in life. The over-priced steamcoffee joints with WiFi which are so popular with yuppies, or the Italian places in North Beach which are infested with tourists and hipsters, just don't suffice. One needs a roomy space, with a selection of cheap eaties, and bright lights for reading. No loud music, no jukebox or sound system, no poetry readings or blaring headphones allowed.
An establishment, in other words, precisely like the two or three places in Chinatown where adults hang out for a while before going home. They close at six or seven.
The local café should be the neighborhood living room.
Not a nest of East-Coast yuppie WiFi vipers.
Or alcoholic sportsfans.
Oh, and smoking should be allowed, but I'm willing to compromise.
I'll gladly sit out on a terrace in the fog wearing a sweater.
Foreign newspapers are hard to find now anyway.
Except for the Wall Street Journal.
Which I do not read.
Smoking around children doing homework and elderly gentlemen reading newspapers has been illegal in California since 1998, and soy milk contributes mightily to horrid karma. That's why everyone in that smarmy Seattle-type coffee shop looks sour and pallid.
The cigar bar is as good a place to visit for a smoke as any, and on nights when the shiny pants models of professional sports aren't performing their crypto-erotic pirouettes, it can be pleasantly peaceful there. Especially later, after the suburbanites leave.
The fog will swirl and eddy outside on Pine Street, happy diners from Belden Alley nearby will wander in for a post-prandial smoke, and young ladies will take one sniff of the place before whining "it's too smelly!", and pulling their gentlemen friends away from the door.
I had three bowls of flake, and strolled back over the hill in darkness.
The music had not been too loud, no one misbehaved.
Up near Grace Cathedral I lit a fourth bowl.
Nob Hill can be beautiful at night.
It's a very private place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HOW ABOUT A CUP OF COFFEE?
The person who lives in the other room will leave the building within an hour. At present her splashing noises tell me where she is, and I am gallantly avoiding that part of our apartment, so as to guarantee her a measure of privacy. This despite the fact that she has a nice body of which it is well worth catching a glimpse.
I myself will probably not bathe till just before nine thirty, when there is no one here who could wish to catch a glimpse of my nice body. My privacy is a fore-gone conclusion.
I'm still on my first cup of coffee. At some point soon I shall head into the kitchen and spark a cheroot near the open window. While not thinking about nice bodies. And you will no doubt understand that my definition of nice bodies is not the same as yours. The kitchen is not a place for nice bodies.
Naked and wet or not.
Darn.
I am not fully awake yet. The mental concept "naked body" does not require one to be fullly alert. A normal man can dwell upon entirely imaginary nice nakedness even when nearly asleep. It's a keenly honed skill which the other gender (often referred to as "nice naked body") does not grasp.
At this hour of the day, nice bodies (the other gender previously referenced) are contemplating breakfast. A woman wakes up with food on her mind, a man wakes up with dirt on his.
This probably explains why breakfast places always seem to have a feminine touch, and there are no naked men to be found.
I think I'm ready for that second cup.
I'll be naked around nine thirty.
No one else will be here.
A very great pity.
Coffee.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I myself will probably not bathe till just before nine thirty, when there is no one here who could wish to catch a glimpse of my nice body. My privacy is a fore-gone conclusion.
I'm still on my first cup of coffee. At some point soon I shall head into the kitchen and spark a cheroot near the open window. While not thinking about nice bodies. And you will no doubt understand that my definition of nice bodies is not the same as yours. The kitchen is not a place for nice bodies.
Naked and wet or not.
Darn.
I am not fully awake yet. The mental concept "naked body" does not require one to be fullly alert. A normal man can dwell upon entirely imaginary nice nakedness even when nearly asleep. It's a keenly honed skill which the other gender (often referred to as "nice naked body") does not grasp.
At this hour of the day, nice bodies (the other gender previously referenced) are contemplating breakfast. A woman wakes up with food on her mind, a man wakes up with dirt on his.
This probably explains why breakfast places always seem to have a feminine touch, and there are no naked men to be found.
I think I'm ready for that second cup.
I'll be naked around nine thirty.
No one else will be here.
A very great pity.
Coffee.
==========================================================================
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LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
THREE HUNDRED DEAD IN CAIRO
The Egyptian Army has moved against protestors at Rabaa el Adawiya and Nahda. The Muslim Brotherhood claims as of this writing that there are at least three hundred dead. The Egyptian Army, apparently, is using live ammunition.
It's a start.
Given the loathsome nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, this blogger cannot bring himself to feel any sympathy at all for them. With their thuggish behavior and retrograde ideas, there is no place in civilized discourse for them. Or their rabble.
Mohammed Morsi was a horrible mistake.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
It's a start.
Given the loathsome nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, this blogger cannot bring himself to feel any sympathy at all for them. With their thuggish behavior and retrograde ideas, there is no place in civilized discourse for them. Or their rabble.
Mohammed Morsi was a horrible mistake.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO IS PRESENTLY FULL OF PEOPLE SPEAKING GIBBERISH
In the first year that I was back in the United States some hosebag punched me in the face because of what he perceived to be an English accent.
I have never forgotten the incident, nor his ugly inbred appearance. And some day, if I run across him again, I hope to damage that republican's visage with a pick-axe.
Rather an odd thing to have in the bucket list, I know.
And actually, I do not even own a pick-axe.
Nor is it particularly likely that I shall ever run into him again, as I boycott Irish bars, and most of America's illiterates do not frequent places like bookstores.
Except in North Beach. One of my favourite bookstores is infested.
It's not just illiterates; the tourists are also swarming all over the place. Which I find baffling, as tourists are not profound readers. Judging by the miniscule tips they leave for the wait-staff at restaurants, as well as their inability to figure out maps that clearly show how to get from A (a random point) to B (another random point).
The tip thing is quite inexplicable. Prominently mentioned, in several places in absolutely every guide book, are the guidelines for tipping, as well as an explanation that servers cannot live off their salary.
Not in San Francisco, not in New York, not in Podunk.
But that is the paragraph they never comprehend.
They probably fall asleep while reading it.
At the Indian restaurant where I worked evenings for over a decade and a half, the arrival of tourists was NOT a blessed event. Most of them believed they invented food, and that somehow their presence alone was more than sufficient reward for the efforts of the waiters and the busboys. Surely some of their amazing grace and good karma would rub off?
It was because of them that when we reprinted the menus, we changed the phrase that said "management reserves the right to impose a 15% service charge on parties of six or more" to "management reserves the right to impose a service charge".
Which is a polite way of saying "we're sick and tired of you damned visitors consistently screwing the people who work here and pretending that you're so much better than us".
If you do not leave a decent tip after enjoying your meal, that smiling "thank you please come again" will really mean "kindly piss off".
The staff will not forget your face, and one of these days they may change your visage with a pick-axe.
It's a sincere desire.
We're all about sincerity in this city. The rest of us sincerely do not mind your mistakes -- it guarantees that we get excellent treatment in restaurants where we're known -- and we know how rare pick-axes have become. You can't find them in most hardware stores, so surely mayhem is not likely to happen?
Not that we've searched for pick-axes.
Thank you. Come again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I have never forgotten the incident, nor his ugly inbred appearance. And some day, if I run across him again, I hope to damage that republican's visage with a pick-axe.
Rather an odd thing to have in the bucket list, I know.
And actually, I do not even own a pick-axe.
Nor is it particularly likely that I shall ever run into him again, as I boycott Irish bars, and most of America's illiterates do not frequent places like bookstores.
Except in North Beach. One of my favourite bookstores is infested.
It's not just illiterates; the tourists are also swarming all over the place. Which I find baffling, as tourists are not profound readers. Judging by the miniscule tips they leave for the wait-staff at restaurants, as well as their inability to figure out maps that clearly show how to get from A (a random point) to B (another random point).
The tip thing is quite inexplicable. Prominently mentioned, in several places in absolutely every guide book, are the guidelines for tipping, as well as an explanation that servers cannot live off their salary.
Not in San Francisco, not in New York, not in Podunk.
But that is the paragraph they never comprehend.
They probably fall asleep while reading it.
At the Indian restaurant where I worked evenings for over a decade and a half, the arrival of tourists was NOT a blessed event. Most of them believed they invented food, and that somehow their presence alone was more than sufficient reward for the efforts of the waiters and the busboys. Surely some of their amazing grace and good karma would rub off?
It was because of them that when we reprinted the menus, we changed the phrase that said "management reserves the right to impose a 15% service charge on parties of six or more" to "management reserves the right to impose a service charge".
Which is a polite way of saying "we're sick and tired of you damned visitors consistently screwing the people who work here and pretending that you're so much better than us".
If you do not leave a decent tip after enjoying your meal, that smiling "thank you please come again" will really mean "kindly piss off".
The staff will not forget your face, and one of these days they may change your visage with a pick-axe.
It's a sincere desire.
We're all about sincerity in this city. The rest of us sincerely do not mind your mistakes -- it guarantees that we get excellent treatment in restaurants where we're known -- and we know how rare pick-axes have become. You can't find them in most hardware stores, so surely mayhem is not likely to happen?
Not that we've searched for pick-axes.
Thank you. Come again.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, August 12, 2013
THAT VICTORIOUS MORNING SMELL
Sometimes you sense that people are looking at you funny despite no one else being around. And it must be stressed: no. one. else. around.
Empty apartment. Not another person.
I hear no breathing under the bed.
Probably the stuffed animals. Their cotton-filled brains disapprove. Glass eyes glare in judgment.
No, I'm not Douglas MacArthur. But that IS a corncob.
Burley mixtures are excellent in cobs.
First smoke of the day.
No. 107 - HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
Cornell and Diehl, Inc.
Burleys, with a little red Virginia, touch of Perique. Not for folks who don't like Burley blends. Darn good product, wonderful tobacco. That's it. What else do you need to know?
There's was no well-photographed landing on the beach at Leyte this morning. And besides that, I have no clue what the general smoked. I'm guessing shoe-leather and drug-store syrup, he was that kind of man. The big Missouri Meerschaum he huffed was probably more a personal advertisement, much like Napoleon always sticking his right hand into his armpit before he greeted someone, or Wellington being secretive about his coming and goings. The quirk or foible by which the man may be known.
I do not have any quirks or foibles. Being a humble and realistic man myself. The corncob is a smoking tool, hardly an affectation. Burley blends are purely excellent in cobs, that's all there is to it. Haunted Bookshop is ALSO excellent in a regular briar pipe. My right hand smells of Burley leaf far more often than of left armpits; never of French oxster.
Burley stimulates, as it has more nicotine that most other tobaccos. Consequently it goes well with that first cup of coffee. The entrance to my apartment mate's room was firmly shut by 9:02 AM, and windows were open for ventilation. The tin aroma is of wine, of vegetation, and of villages in Autumn. Coffeeness and herbs.
Malty, cidrous, and lushly reproductive.
I am by no means crazy.
There's a fruit fly in the apartment.
NOTE: My schedule has changed. Baby-sitting the cigar smokers all weekend now. Mondays have opened up again.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Empty apartment. Not another person.
I hear no breathing under the bed.
Probably the stuffed animals. Their cotton-filled brains disapprove. Glass eyes glare in judgment.
No, I'm not Douglas MacArthur. But that IS a corncob.
Burley mixtures are excellent in cobs.
First smoke of the day.
No. 107 - HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
Cornell and Diehl, Inc.
Burleys, with a little red Virginia, touch of Perique. Not for folks who don't like Burley blends. Darn good product, wonderful tobacco. That's it. What else do you need to know?
There's was no well-photographed landing on the beach at Leyte this morning. And besides that, I have no clue what the general smoked. I'm guessing shoe-leather and drug-store syrup, he was that kind of man. The big Missouri Meerschaum he huffed was probably more a personal advertisement, much like Napoleon always sticking his right hand into his armpit before he greeted someone, or Wellington being secretive about his coming and goings. The quirk or foible by which the man may be known.
I do not have any quirks or foibles. Being a humble and realistic man myself. The corncob is a smoking tool, hardly an affectation. Burley blends are purely excellent in cobs, that's all there is to it. Haunted Bookshop is ALSO excellent in a regular briar pipe. My right hand smells of Burley leaf far more often than of left armpits; never of French oxster.
Burley stimulates, as it has more nicotine that most other tobaccos. Consequently it goes well with that first cup of coffee. The entrance to my apartment mate's room was firmly shut by 9:02 AM, and windows were open for ventilation. The tin aroma is of wine, of vegetation, and of villages in Autumn. Coffeeness and herbs.
Malty, cidrous, and lushly reproductive.
I am by no means crazy.
There's a fruit fly in the apartment.
NOTE: My schedule has changed. Baby-sitting the cigar smokers all weekend now. Mondays have opened up again.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
EAT THE SHARKS!
One recent visitor whom I do not wish to know personally, or even get anywhere near, found my blog by entering a phrase in his or her search bar that disturbs me.
The post they found was SHARK FIN SOUP IN SAN FRANCISCO - DELICIOUS DAWDLING WITH AN APEX PREDATOR.
What they we're looking for was "chinks and shark finning".
Apparently that word is still being used.
Other things that that person found:
Chink Shark Fin Soup Will Be Banned in CA - Topix
www.topix.com/forum/world/china/TLQVF7V653V6S3ALU
Aug 27, 2011 - Chink Shark Fin Soup Will Be Banned in CA. Posted in the China Forum.
Chef Ramsay exposing Chinese people's retarded fascination with ...
www.spurstalk.com › Index › More Talk › The Club
Jun 11, 2013 - 12 posts - 7 authors
In essence, eating shark fin is a status thing. So once again, the Chinks ruining the planet for themselves and their 2 inch dicks.
Stop consuming shark fin soup - Food in Mouth
www.foodinmouth.com/.../stop-consuming-shark-fin-soup-chinese.html
Aug 9, 2011 - Then you could show it to middle class chinks in commie-land (aka, China), that the cool Americans don't drink shark fin soup.
Page 1 of comments on Stop shark finning - YouTube
www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=eFQX04kERoI&page=1
This shark finning crap is nothing more than propaganda from mustache ..... i dont see enyone else doing this i only see japs or chinks so yeah STFU fag.
Shark Bait, Long line fishing – Gordon Ramsay | Pro Fishing Videos
www.profishingvideos.com/shark-bait-long-line-fishing-gordon-ramsay/
Mar 26, 2013 - 2. not all chinks eat shark fin soup they are mostly older generation chinks
Ummm.
When such blatant bigotry is coupled with sneering disapproval of other people's customs, the inevitable suspicion is that the driving idea is NOT saving the planet, or protecting the huggable fluffy animal symbol of the moment, but rather jumping on any convenient bandwagon to slag a particular ethnic group.
Using the word "chink" paints the writers as hopeless Neanderthals, and utterly devalues whatever point they were trying to make or cause they were espousing.
Consequently, this blogger will now resolve to have as much sharkfin soup as I possibly can during the remainder of my life.
Clearly sharkfin soup is better than any association with the anti-sharkfin crowd. Besides being utterly delicious.
Mmmm, yummy sharkfin!
Bitches.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The post they found was SHARK FIN SOUP IN SAN FRANCISCO - DELICIOUS DAWDLING WITH AN APEX PREDATOR.
What they we're looking for was "chinks and shark finning".
Apparently that word is still being used.
Other things that that person found:
Chink Shark Fin Soup Will Be Banned in CA - Topix
www.topix.com/forum/world/china/TLQVF7V653V6S3ALU
Aug 27, 2011 - Chink Shark Fin Soup Will Be Banned in CA. Posted in the China Forum.
Chef Ramsay exposing Chinese people's retarded fascination with ...
www.spurstalk.com › Index › More Talk › The Club
Jun 11, 2013 - 12 posts - 7 authors
In essence, eating shark fin is a status thing. So once again, the Chinks ruining the planet for themselves and their 2 inch dicks.
Stop consuming shark fin soup - Food in Mouth
www.foodinmouth.com/.../stop-consuming-shark-fin-soup-chinese.html
Aug 9, 2011 - Then you could show it to middle class chinks in commie-land (aka, China), that the cool Americans don't drink shark fin soup.
Page 1 of comments on Stop shark finning - YouTube
www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=eFQX04kERoI&page=1
This shark finning crap is nothing more than propaganda from mustache ..... i dont see enyone else doing this i only see japs or chinks so yeah STFU fag.
Shark Bait, Long line fishing – Gordon Ramsay | Pro Fishing Videos
www.profishingvideos.com/shark-bait-long-line-fishing-gordon-ramsay/
Mar 26, 2013 - 2. not all chinks eat shark fin soup they are mostly older generation chinks
Ummm.
When such blatant bigotry is coupled with sneering disapproval of other people's customs, the inevitable suspicion is that the driving idea is NOT saving the planet, or protecting the huggable fluffy animal symbol of the moment, but rather jumping on any convenient bandwagon to slag a particular ethnic group.
Using the word "chink" paints the writers as hopeless Neanderthals, and utterly devalues whatever point they were trying to make or cause they were espousing.
Consequently, this blogger will now resolve to have as much sharkfin soup as I possibly can during the remainder of my life.
Clearly sharkfin soup is better than any association with the anti-sharkfin crowd. Besides being utterly delicious.
Mmmm, yummy sharkfin!
Bitches.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, August 11, 2013
EN ROUTE TO CREMONA
It is only recently dawned on me that my habits worried my father. Though he hid it very well. By my mid-teens I was a confirmed pipe-smoker, reading Simenon, Kipling, and Nabokov. That last must've taken the cake. Most of Nabokov's settings and characters suggest matured and fermented depravity. My dad must have wondered whether I intended to make these men my models.
Certainly my discretion about my private life, and lack of evidence of any amorous interests, would have supported that supposition.
[In actuality, I was quite as heterandous as all teenagers, which I still am. But one must keep manifestations of such things firmly under wraps. Society does not benefit from public displays of hormonalist behavior.]
He need not have worried. After devouring four decades-worth of National Geographic Magazines, I entered Nabokov's world as an anthropologist. The mis-steps of Lolita and Ada were titillating, yes, but quite the most likable character was Pnin (the name sounds like a small explosion, or a sneeze), who taught Slavic Languages at a small East-Coast college. Timofey Pavlovich Pnin was a mature individual, whose life was marked by exile and discommunication. A young man with American English as a native language, isolated in a small town out in the Brabantine hinterland, surrounded by people with smaller and more monochromatic horizons, could empathize.
Those tight horizons were largely due to different reading material. My parents had a vast library, most of which was in English. My struggle with my high-school teachers was compounded as much by lively stubbornness from both sides as it was founded on entirely different literary backgrounds.
I still like professor Pnin. He would have felt quite out-of-place in the modern Bay Area. Having lived here for a long time, I have more-or-less acclimatized, but though he adapted to the United States, the Bay Area takes a leap of insanity to master.
He would have failed.
The city itself is fine. San Francisco has entrancing peculiarities, and there may be something in the water that spurs mental growth.
But the suburbs are almighty ghastly, and describing Oakland as a foetid non-place in between perdition and the Styx would be mild.
Berkeley, though charming physically, is filled with pretentiously opinionated pustules who are usually wrong about everything, and everything beyond Oakland and Berkeley shares their flaws, besides resembling all the places and societies where The Housewives Of come from. Outside from the centre, there is little culture, and what there is, is puerile.
We are less deep than we puff ourselves.
What San Francisco lacks is crows. Any place that has lots of crows cannot be all bad. Crows have personalities. They are intelligent, confident, curious, and eccentric.
Marin City, which is otherwise a pit, has a colony of crows. They live between the exercise fields and the shopping mall, feasting in early morning on the garbage from the chain restaurants and family stores. The tall grass along the freeway shelters small animals that expand their diet, the junk food chains unknowingly provide greasy scraps of excitement; glittering globs of rancid fat among the styrofoam.
I suspect that the crows in the bay Area are getting more intelligent. Evolutionary selection playing a strong hand in the survival of the clever individuals, thus enabling them to contribute more to the gene pool. Kind of the reverse of what is happening with the human population here. Eventually their talent for tool-use (well-documented at this point) will grow, and the little feathered thugs will figure out latches, locks, and cat doors.
No, Marin City is not civilization. But Marin County, like all suburbs, is hospitable to wildlife. Of which I wish there were more.
For reasons which I do not understand, seeing corvids reminds me of forgotten verbograms, bubbling back after a long absence. Nictitating. Pendule. Obfusc. Aureole. Pediment. Patella. Gladiolus. Muliebre. Secund. Myristica. Kepulauan. Kiss me, you fool. Tagus. Nysa. Oleaginous. Indehiscent. Lobule. Plastuś. Attraction. Hispid.
Strange glittering hoard-words among the falling leaves.
My memory, speaking in tongues.
It babbles.
Like all youngsters I was fascinated by secret knowledge; the entries in the encyclopaedia which my father kept in the room behind the hayloft, where over the course of several years I devoured data about engineering, explosive devices, illicit substances, human reproduction, the fertile cycle and its wax and wane, vehicular transportation, projectiles, liquids, and tactile sensations. This was before the discovery of Voltaire, several English authors, and expatriate scribblers.
Somewhere in those years, I also absorbed Netherlandish literature. Upon returning to the States, I spent hours in the university library compulsively rereading that material, in an attempt to regain places and words that had become so far away. By the side of the road were other writers, whose glittering treasure enchanted and embraced.
That, naturally, made me collect dictionaries.
Of which I have a few.
I fear I have not read the right stuff. At times my allusions confuse my conversationalists, as if I'm malforming material with which they assume they must be acquainted, at other times they stare with bemused good humour at the utterant. The train schedule I consulted has proven somewhat outdated.
I do not need another ticket. The destination is less important than the journey. And there are fascinating places along the way, teeming with creatures which are intelligent, confident, curious, and eccentric.
This is the Bay Area; it's all about garbage and glittery stuff.
I very much like the crows.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Certainly my discretion about my private life, and lack of evidence of any amorous interests, would have supported that supposition.
[In actuality, I was quite as heterandous as all teenagers, which I still am. But one must keep manifestations of such things firmly under wraps. Society does not benefit from public displays of hormonalist behavior.]
He need not have worried. After devouring four decades-worth of National Geographic Magazines, I entered Nabokov's world as an anthropologist. The mis-steps of Lolita and Ada were titillating, yes, but quite the most likable character was Pnin (the name sounds like a small explosion, or a sneeze), who taught Slavic Languages at a small East-Coast college. Timofey Pavlovich Pnin was a mature individual, whose life was marked by exile and discommunication. A young man with American English as a native language, isolated in a small town out in the Brabantine hinterland, surrounded by people with smaller and more monochromatic horizons, could empathize.
Those tight horizons were largely due to different reading material. My parents had a vast library, most of which was in English. My struggle with my high-school teachers was compounded as much by lively stubbornness from both sides as it was founded on entirely different literary backgrounds.
I still like professor Pnin. He would have felt quite out-of-place in the modern Bay Area. Having lived here for a long time, I have more-or-less acclimatized, but though he adapted to the United States, the Bay Area takes a leap of insanity to master.
He would have failed.
The city itself is fine. San Francisco has entrancing peculiarities, and there may be something in the water that spurs mental growth.
But the suburbs are almighty ghastly, and describing Oakland as a foetid non-place in between perdition and the Styx would be mild.
Berkeley, though charming physically, is filled with pretentiously opinionated pustules who are usually wrong about everything, and everything beyond Oakland and Berkeley shares their flaws, besides resembling all the places and societies where The Housewives Of come from. Outside from the centre, there is little culture, and what there is, is puerile.
We are less deep than we puff ourselves.
What San Francisco lacks is crows. Any place that has lots of crows cannot be all bad. Crows have personalities. They are intelligent, confident, curious, and eccentric.
Marin City, which is otherwise a pit, has a colony of crows. They live between the exercise fields and the shopping mall, feasting in early morning on the garbage from the chain restaurants and family stores. The tall grass along the freeway shelters small animals that expand their diet, the junk food chains unknowingly provide greasy scraps of excitement; glittering globs of rancid fat among the styrofoam.
I suspect that the crows in the bay Area are getting more intelligent. Evolutionary selection playing a strong hand in the survival of the clever individuals, thus enabling them to contribute more to the gene pool. Kind of the reverse of what is happening with the human population here. Eventually their talent for tool-use (well-documented at this point) will grow, and the little feathered thugs will figure out latches, locks, and cat doors.
No, Marin City is not civilization. But Marin County, like all suburbs, is hospitable to wildlife. Of which I wish there were more.
For reasons which I do not understand, seeing corvids reminds me of forgotten verbograms, bubbling back after a long absence. Nictitating. Pendule. Obfusc. Aureole. Pediment. Patella. Gladiolus. Muliebre. Secund. Myristica. Kepulauan. Kiss me, you fool. Tagus. Nysa. Oleaginous. Indehiscent. Lobule. Plastuś. Attraction. Hispid.
Strange glittering hoard-words among the falling leaves.
My memory, speaking in tongues.
It babbles.
Like all youngsters I was fascinated by secret knowledge; the entries in the encyclopaedia which my father kept in the room behind the hayloft, where over the course of several years I devoured data about engineering, explosive devices, illicit substances, human reproduction, the fertile cycle and its wax and wane, vehicular transportation, projectiles, liquids, and tactile sensations. This was before the discovery of Voltaire, several English authors, and expatriate scribblers.
Somewhere in those years, I also absorbed Netherlandish literature. Upon returning to the States, I spent hours in the university library compulsively rereading that material, in an attempt to regain places and words that had become so far away. By the side of the road were other writers, whose glittering treasure enchanted and embraced.
That, naturally, made me collect dictionaries.
Of which I have a few.
I fear I have not read the right stuff. At times my allusions confuse my conversationalists, as if I'm malforming material with which they assume they must be acquainted, at other times they stare with bemused good humour at the utterant. The train schedule I consulted has proven somewhat outdated.
I do not need another ticket. The destination is less important than the journey. And there are fascinating places along the way, teeming with creatures which are intelligent, confident, curious, and eccentric.
This is the Bay Area; it's all about garbage and glittery stuff.
I very much like the crows.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
SOMEBODY ELSE'S LIFE
The owners of a favourite hang-out in Chinatown are on vacation. The sign in the window states that they are gone from the eighth till the thirteenth. I noticed it the other day.
Good for them. I hope they're having a nice time.
Hard-working folks need to take a break.
Smell the roses, or whatever it is.
I now suspect that they are a couple. I didn't notice anything before that suggested it, as when she's behind the counter he usually isn't in, and when he works she's often not there. And of course there are no evident displays of affection. Chinese people seldom do that, and definitely not in front of customers.
If they are married, they are well suited to each other.
Same home-town, same dialect.
If they ever have kids, with her build and his gentleness the results would be rather nice altogether. Decent people.
I look forward to having some milk-tea and a pastry when they get back. Their place has a timeless atmosphere, and the customers are a nice lot. It's a comforting establishment.
Just a few more days.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Good for them. I hope they're having a nice time.
Hard-working folks need to take a break.
Smell the roses, or whatever it is.
I now suspect that they are a couple. I didn't notice anything before that suggested it, as when she's behind the counter he usually isn't in, and when he works she's often not there. And of course there are no evident displays of affection. Chinese people seldom do that, and definitely not in front of customers.
If they are married, they are well suited to each other.
Same home-town, same dialect.
If they ever have kids, with her build and his gentleness the results would be rather nice altogether. Decent people.
I look forward to having some milk-tea and a pastry when they get back. Their place has a timeless atmosphere, and the customers are a nice lot. It's a comforting establishment.
Just a few more days.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, August 10, 2013
THERE'S JUST A HINT OF THAT
It is Saturday evening. If you are reading this, you are not rutting with the common herd. Or perhaps you already have (in which case, kudos to you and keep up the good work). You are reading stuff on the internet at present.
Which is as good a thing to be doing on a Saturday evening as anything. And far less likely to give you cancer.
As kissing the thick layer of make-up on many faces would do.
This blogger disapproves of make-up. I have never grasped its appeal. If the face is expressive, and the eyes are more than passingly intelligent, it seems quite unnecessary.
Well, except for lipstick.
I have this fond yet probably absurd fantasy that at some point I will be sitting across the table in a restaurant from an intelligent and interesting person, who is wearing a dark blouse and a pale skirt. Her shoes are elegant yet sensible -- she can walk in them, instead of tripping and falling through plate glass -- and her jewelry is discreet. Perhaps pearl ear rings or a pearl necklace. The fact that she is sparklingly clean and well-dressed, and entirely devoid of trollop paint from Macy's basement, says much about her.
Of course that raises the question why she is with me. A dashingly foxy yet clearly depraved middle-aged man, who for all the world looks like he eats little girls for breakfast.
Looks can be deceiving.
I would rather offer little girls fine tobacco products and juicy steaks than eat them for breakfast. I'm not really a breakfast person. Breakfast in my world is coffee and a smoke. And, alas, my depravity is more in your imagination.
Dinner, and perhaps some wine. Coffee afterwards, and a stroll through darkening streets arm in arm. In deference to the sensibilities of the intelligent and interesting person with the pearls I shall not smoke. That is for later, when I am alone again. At which point her lingering perfume will mingle with the leaves, influencing the subconscious, and leaving potent memory seeds.
Truly a wonderful evening. The food tasted better for the company, the conversation kept me entranced for hours.
I'm rather good at imagining things. Which is what Saturdays are mostly about anyway.
Slowly a wisp of fragrant smoke curls skywards. On a hill in San Francisco a badger is dreaming.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
As kissing the thick layer of make-up on many faces would do.
This blogger disapproves of make-up. I have never grasped its appeal. If the face is expressive, and the eyes are more than passingly intelligent, it seems quite unnecessary.
Well, except for lipstick.
I have this fond yet probably absurd fantasy that at some point I will be sitting across the table in a restaurant from an intelligent and interesting person, who is wearing a dark blouse and a pale skirt. Her shoes are elegant yet sensible -- she can walk in them, instead of tripping and falling through plate glass -- and her jewelry is discreet. Perhaps pearl ear rings or a pearl necklace. The fact that she is sparklingly clean and well-dressed, and entirely devoid of trollop paint from Macy's basement, says much about her.
Of course that raises the question why she is with me. A dashingly foxy yet clearly depraved middle-aged man, who for all the world looks like he eats little girls for breakfast.
Looks can be deceiving.
I would rather offer little girls fine tobacco products and juicy steaks than eat them for breakfast. I'm not really a breakfast person. Breakfast in my world is coffee and a smoke. And, alas, my depravity is more in your imagination.
Dinner, and perhaps some wine. Coffee afterwards, and a stroll through darkening streets arm in arm. In deference to the sensibilities of the intelligent and interesting person with the pearls I shall not smoke. That is for later, when I am alone again. At which point her lingering perfume will mingle with the leaves, influencing the subconscious, and leaving potent memory seeds.
Truly a wonderful evening. The food tasted better for the company, the conversation kept me entranced for hours.
I'm rather good at imagining things. Which is what Saturdays are mostly about anyway.
Slowly a wisp of fragrant smoke curls skywards. On a hill in San Francisco a badger is dreaming.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, August 09, 2013
FLAKES: A BRIEF PERSONAL INTRODUCTION
In discussion with an internet friend the other day I mentioned flake tobaccos as memory aids, and also spoke of the fruit trees behind the Smeets house in Valkenswaard, the yield of which perfumed their orchard every Autumn.
Earlier in the year we had feasted on the crisp sour apples before they ripened, or braved the wasps for the sweet juicy pears.
I have never been stung by a wasp.
But I've eaten lots of fruit.
The memory of those pears got me thinking about the kind of person who settles on a particular pipe tobacco. But here's the problem: most pipe-smokers are more multi-faceted than that, and eventually explore other aspects of their personality, with other blends.
As an example, I will cite my friend Spiros, who is NOT a pipe smoker, but does sometimes indulge in cheroots. If he were a pipe smoker, he would probably have a fondness for Bracken Flake, by Samuel Gawith -- a dark pungent powerhouse of a blend sure to offend all strict Vegans and opinionated Bohemians. But with his occasional glass of Jameson's Irish Whiskey, he'd probably stuff his briar with Erinmore Flake, to be enjoyed ironically. Or something English, just to piss some other people off.
[Bracken Flake: Kentucky and Virginia leaf, pressed and steamed till heady. Do not change a light bulb while smoking this. Jameson's Whiskey: a remarkably fine product, even though it is becoming the drunkard's shot of preference in San Francisco, having knocked Jagermeister out of the top spot. Erinmore Flake: excellent Virginia and a touch of air-cured leaf, steampressed with a bizarre fruity topping that smells of pineapple. It is the quintessential Irish product, whose reek must compete with the frowst of a mildewed people in a soggy place. Quite good, once the pong wears off. Smoked slowly it will not poison your pipe. Smoked fast, it may poison you.]
You can see that there are multiple facets there. He reads Dickens in between obsessing over baseball literature, and to the best of my recollection eschews poetry.
Your tobacco might say something about you.
FLAKES
There are four companies that represent the genre, plus several exceptional oddments by other manufacturers. These prime four are Samuel Gawith, Rattrays, Wessex, and McClelland.
Not surprisingly, I have a number of tins representing their oeuvre stockpiled, as well as similar products from other companies.
I'm afraid I'm rather obsessive that way.
SAMUEL GAWITH
At the top of the heap is Samuel Gawith, a stodgy firm in Kendal, far from the modern world, which was founded over two centuries ago. Their products appeal to bright young individualists as well as antiquated old fossils.
Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake: A dark flake made fragrant with Tonquin oil, which must be smoked really slowly.
I have reason to suspect that the regular smoker of this product obsesses about panties. Spotlessly clean examples of feminine underwear, ironed, and mounted museum-style on acid-free board. With a tiny label, in flawlessly elegant copperplate script, telling the viewer something about each piece. Which is odd, because the collection will never be shown to anyone else.
I am fond of this, but do not smoke it often.
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake: Medium strength, with a note of richness, slight spice, good fruit. The smoker of this knows what he (or she) likes, and is not embarrassed by it. Probably has excellent taste in a number of other fields, but does not show off or puff himself (or herself) up. May have a fondness for red wine or Assam tea.
Studious, reads Russian and German authors.
Intense and delightful.
Samuel Gawith Saint James Flake: Top quality pressed Virginias and Perique. Full-bodied yet surprisingly smooth and pleasantly sweet.
The smoke for a dashingly daring individualist. What that mysterious person wearing the grey trench coat out at the far end of the field in the rain smokes, while observing the lads playing soccer and wrestling in the mud, in homo-erotic play as encouraged by all physical education experts.
The less said about high-school exercise classes the better. There is an offensive preening and smirking quality to its teachers. Ugh.
It's really darn good tobacco.
I own a trenchcoat.
Samuel Gawith Golden Glow: A thoroughly enjoyable brown flake made mostly from sweet Bright Virginias, but not a very delicate product. Possessed of a lovely Autumnal fruitiness combined with summery hay notes. Perfect for cold days in San Francisco, the aficionado of Golden Glow probably identifies in several ways with all of the most memorable characters in Vladimir Nabokov's oeuvre: Franz ('Frank') Bubendorf, Sebastian Knight, Charles McBeth, Humbert Humbert, Van Veen,
Charles Kinbote, Hugh Person, Mr. Vivian Badlook.
I am smoking it right now.
Delicious.
RATTRAY
Charles Rattray started a tobacco company in Perth over a century and a half ago, which to this day provides the gold standard of English style flakes. Despite it being of Scottish provenance, and its products now manufactured by an estimable set of Prussians over on the continent.
Mr. Rattray wrote a long and windy 'booklet on tobacco blending', the reading of which convinces me that I would not have gotten along with him. He may have been excessively opinionated and neurotic.
But his very fine flakes show a more feminine side.
Rattray's Old Gowrie: deeply earthy and fruity, the addition of Kentucky provides notes of chocolate. A broken flake. It is mellow, albeit not mild. Men who dream on Saturday afternoon.
An addictive pensive smoke
Rattray's Marlin Flake: Soft, smooth, oozing personality. Tangy and tart. Raisins, dark drupes. Slightly monochromatic, but that does not dilute its excellence. Long strips of pressed tobacco folded in the tin.
I find this strangely appealing.
Rattray's Brown Clunee: A fine but not complicated ready rubbed flake, that would be a good all-day smoke for someone who only lights up two or three bowls a day. It can have surprising character.
Rattray's Hal O'The Wynd: Peaty, fruity, herbal. Hint of hay. A red Virginia compound of great character, which can be over-indulged in, much like chocolate, caviar, and strong tea. Sensual, very much so.
It reminds me of my mis-spent youth. Which I wish were considerably more mis-spent. I'll have to open up another tin soon.
WESSEX
Kohlhase & Kopp, who manufacture the entire Rattray's line, also do Wessex, about the origin of which I know nearly nothing. The brand name suggests Marketing Department inspiration, the label art is quite uninteresting, but the products are stellar. This line is one that even a sour old grumpus could grow quite fond of, as certain younger grumpuses indeed have. I am not a grumpus.
Despite what you have heard.
But I like Wessex.
Wessex Brigade Campaign Dark Flake: Nutty and woodsy, fragrant and mild. Oaty. Slightly topped. It must be considered a medium -- an even balance between the sweet sweet darkness and a bit of nicotine whomp -- and is stylistically comparable to Rattray's Marlin Flake.
Verbose people will like it very much; it brings out their prolixity.
Wessex Brigade Classic Virginia: Red, red, red, and possibly a touch of something else. Hay, fruit peels, apples, a soft medium-bodied broken flake of middle-dark appearance.
Finding a tin of this is like finding a tin of orgasms.
Wessex Brown Virginia Flake: A middle-of-the-road product, which is not very complex, but ages exceptionally well. A solid product.
Late at night, when my tobacco-despising apartment mate is asleep in her room, I will light up a bowl while reading. Boruch Hashem she has a lousy sense of smell, and most of the year is allergy season. Latakia, dammit, she will notice even though deep in slumber. Virginias hardly invade her dreams, but to be on the safe side I will open the window.
If I ever end up in a relationship we'll probably need a far bigger space, so that the apartment mate can be not two but four or five rooms away. Together my companion and I will light our pipes at night, while the Savage Kitten falls asleep quite untroubled by the dense fogs perfuming the darkness at the back of the building.
A man can only dream; this product makes it possible.
I need to find a woman who enjoys a pipe.
Wessex Red Virginia Flake: Yes, this product is topped. No idea with what. But that does NOT detract from a fine tobacco. Earthy, toasty, tangy. Enjoyable, and you will find yourself going through the tin at a rapid clip. Share it with friends of the same bend.
It brings back memories; some quite perverse.
MCCLELLAND
For over a generation, McClelland Tobacco Company in Kansas City have been sustaining the desperate and depraved, who yearn for fine British Flakes as the market shrinks and venerable firms bite the dust.
The desperate and depraved are profoundly grateful.
McClelland wisely do not have a contact page or e-mail addresses. One does not want love-letters from the desperate and depraved.
Being neither desperate NOR depraved, I enjoy them for what they are: manufacturers of some of the best tobacco ever seen on this planet.
Blakeney's Best Bayou Slice: Small-sliced matured flakes with a noticeable Perique presence. It has more depth than you would think.
A fine product.
Blakeney's Best Tawny Flake: Medium brown Virginias, rather old-fashioned, not very complex. Perfect for Spring or Summer -- though not in San Francisco, where those seasons verge on a Caledonian nastiness, and the sun never shines.
Wait for Autumn, when the weather is better.
No.5100 Red Cake (bulk): All the fruitiness you expect from reds, but very satisfying. One of the most popular bulk tobaccos in the McClelland line-up. Figs and other vegetals, only moderately sweet. Appeals to bearded middle-aged gentlemen who lack the imagination to find their news on the internet. Surgeons and the like.
Decent old farts.
Dominican Glory Maduro: Dark cigar leaf pressed with reds and blacks. Once aged a bit, it is exceptional, as the maduro element will have learned how to play well with others. I would say that this is for peculiar bachelors and eccentrics, but I do like it.
Boston 1776: One of the club blends, this is a complex and busy patchwork of reds, brights, and everything in between. The end-result is a medium brown flake. Similar to Epitome, but needs a lot more age. It left me with a mouth that felt like shoe-leather, but that was because I kept smoking it wet. Bad move.
Not actually a bad product.
Needs more age.
Matured Virginia No. 24: A somewhat robust dark combination of Virginias with a touch of something Turkish or Greek. It is perfect for surreptitiously smoking late at night, when everyone else is asleep and will not scream that you should be out near the abandoned church one block away, with all the winos and drug-addicts. But it might be splendid there too, as it performs well outdoors.
Nicely pungent and bold.
Matured Virginia No. 25: Reds and blacks, with a smell that promises good times or adventures with someone you should've avoided.
Sweet, like the fragrance of baked desserts.
It delivers on the promise.
Virginia Woods: Reds, Blacks, Brights. Fully teased after processing. Malty, figgy, fragrant, and like pencil shavings. All in all a very nice ribbony smoke that inculcates reveries if treated nicely, and forms one of a continuum with other McClellands products like Arcadia (same reddish tastes), Yenidje Highlander (similar to Arcadia, without the stinky Syrian), and Orient 996 (buckets of the stinky Syrian).
All of these showcase the best features of red Virginia paired with black Virginia, but Virginia Woods is the palest of the four. Inexperienced smokers may suffer headaches and tongue bite, but people with a sense of humour will find it very pleasing indeed.
VW is the most unusual and likable of the four.
Good for an afternoon of passion.
Creamy
EXCEPTIONAL ODDMENTS
Firstly, I have to mention Greg Pease, known as 'The Dark Lord', by some sections of the pipe-smoking coterie, because of his huge spectrum of blends featuring Latakia. To many people all of his blends seem like Lat Bombs, and they disregard his talent for combining flue-cured leaves.
This is unjust. Greg understands like few others that no matter how Oriental the end-product, what holds it together and makes it distinct is the interweaving of different Virginias to present a splendid portrait. Over the past several years he has explored the flake world with a sense of adventure and finesse that speak well of the man, and sometimes makes one wonder at his sanity.
G. L. PEASE
GLP Fillmore: Complex, interesting, and well-made. Highlights the fact that Virginias are more than just sweet notes.
It is an excellent product.
GLP Jackknife Plug: Virginias and Kentuckys in a block that must be sliced by the smoker. This is an insane experiment gone frightfully right. Good for the brain, and deeply satisfying. This is NOT for dilletants or society hostesses.
Exceptional and unusual.
GLP Navigator: Predominantly red VA, with a touch of yellow, brown, and some aircured leaf. For Virginia smokers this can be quite alluring, addictive and seductive even. Medium strength, and refined enough that you will not notice till it is too late that you are drunk on nicotine, dusk has fallen, winds have picked up, and the attractive young lady has fled your embrace.
You wake up with a headache, and resolve to do it all again tomorrow.
Good stuff. I've stocked over a dozen tins.
GLP Stratford: One of his earlier Virginia and Perique blends, in a ribbon cut. A lovely offering worth keeping a few tins of on hand.
GLP Telegraph Hill: Once aged a bit, this is complex and exceptional.
GLP Triple Play: Another plug, with whole buckets of likeability. Mostly Virginias. Sweet, semi-full, intoxicating. Do not allow this man near your sister. She'll end up buying Charatans and Dunhills.
A clean pure tobacco compound, which I highly recommend.
It is not depraved, but it could be decadent.
I've stored several tins.
GLP Union Square: a medium flake that touches all the right notes. There was a sample tin at Telfords in Marin County, but don't bother heading over there to try it, as over the past few months I've "sampled" the heck out of it. There's none left. It was extremely nice.
I smoked all of it.
Hah!
CORNELL & DIEHL
Cornell & Diehl, who manufacture Greg Pease's blends to his exact specifications, also produce some might fine products of their own. Craig Tarler, alas, is no longer among us (passed away last year), but the company he created carries on, gloriously so.
A fitting memorial to a remarkable man.
C & D Opening Night: a lovely short thick flake that rubs out to fragrant ribbons, this is the perfect medium-mild Virginia.
C & D Exhausted Rooster: A peculiar compound sure to appeal to English public school boys, elderly degenerates, the decadent and depraved of any age and place, and nearly everybody whose company is thoroughly enjoyable.
Virginias, Fire-cured leaf, and Perique.
More full than medium-bodied.
C & D Kajun Kake: Heh heh heh.
Heh heh heh.
A solid square block of dark-pressed crumble cake of Cavendish and Perique that benefits enormously from a year or two of aging.
Better use someone else's best chef's knife to slice it.
It is rich, fecund, and surprisingly mild.
Delicious tinned perversion.
Recently, Cornell & Diehl have produced four new blends for Castello, a very well-respected Italian pipe maker.
The blends represent different styles of tobacco, to appeal to a full spectrum of smokers.
Castello Old Antiquari is a full English with a surfeit of Latakia. It will find plenty of fans.
Castello Collection represents a mild ribbony mix of red and bright.
Castello Sea Rock is a frightening Eury aromatic.
Castello Fiammata: A delightful sparkly Virginia and Perique flake, medium and reddish, which being the desperate degenerate that I am, I truly love for breakfast. I have several times smoked two bowls in succession, and been bright and vivacious afterwards. It tingles on the tongue. Tangy, herbal, slightly fruity, and very exciting.
Fiammata is a brilliant product, and a wonderful addition to the VaPer category. Both Cornell & Diehl and Castello outdid themselves.
Stockpile this one. Go utterly ape.
AUTRES
Other flakes worth experimenting with are Orlik's Golden Sliced (mild bright Virginia with a top-dressing), MacBaren's Virginia Flake (even milder blonder Virginia, hint of anise seed perfume), Stokkeby 4th. Generation 1855 (a partially broken mild-medium blonde flake with a lovely grassy note), Stokkebye 4th. Generation 1931 (sliced flake with an odd top-dressing that suggests something between a dedicated old fiend and a schoolgirl who wishes to be bad), as well as some of the Channel Islands tobaccos (Germain's Brown Flake and Germain's Medium Flake).
Capstan, a medium to full flake with a distinctive taste which had been unavailable for centuries in the civilized world, is back, now made by MacBarens. Quite a nice smoke. The sample tin is empty. The Golden Gate Pipe Club members devoured every shred of it, leaving nothing for anyone else. Damned animals.
Three Nuns is also back. Very tasty.
PERETTI
Lastly, I must mention the firm of L. J. Peretti in Boston. A fellow Dutch-American who hails from there has over the past few years introduced me to their fine products. Which might make me think of moving to Boston.
The climate, which is like a frigid San Francisco summer all year round, prevents me from even considering it.
Boston Slice: a mild offering, good for early in the day.
Cambridge Flake: not strictly speaking a Virginia.
London Flake: tangy, with a touch of Perique.
Oxford Flake: rich and robust, very rewarding.
Scottish Flake: full bodied, fruity top-dressing.
AFTERWORD
Most of this modest essay was written on Thursday afternoon. I had two bowls of Samuel Gawith Golden Glow while working on it, then followed with a bowlful of Luxury Twist Flake, and a load of Kajun Kake to finish.
Plus three strong cups of coffee, black.
I ended up high as a kite and woozy.
Nothing to eat till tea-time.
Breakfast is for wimps.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Earlier in the year we had feasted on the crisp sour apples before they ripened, or braved the wasps for the sweet juicy pears.
I have never been stung by a wasp.
But I've eaten lots of fruit.
The memory of those pears got me thinking about the kind of person who settles on a particular pipe tobacco. But here's the problem: most pipe-smokers are more multi-faceted than that, and eventually explore other aspects of their personality, with other blends.
As an example, I will cite my friend Spiros, who is NOT a pipe smoker, but does sometimes indulge in cheroots. If he were a pipe smoker, he would probably have a fondness for Bracken Flake, by Samuel Gawith -- a dark pungent powerhouse of a blend sure to offend all strict Vegans and opinionated Bohemians. But with his occasional glass of Jameson's Irish Whiskey, he'd probably stuff his briar with Erinmore Flake, to be enjoyed ironically. Or something English, just to piss some other people off.
[Bracken Flake: Kentucky and Virginia leaf, pressed and steamed till heady. Do not change a light bulb while smoking this. Jameson's Whiskey: a remarkably fine product, even though it is becoming the drunkard's shot of preference in San Francisco, having knocked Jagermeister out of the top spot. Erinmore Flake: excellent Virginia and a touch of air-cured leaf, steampressed with a bizarre fruity topping that smells of pineapple. It is the quintessential Irish product, whose reek must compete with the frowst of a mildewed people in a soggy place. Quite good, once the pong wears off. Smoked slowly it will not poison your pipe. Smoked fast, it may poison you.]
You can see that there are multiple facets there. He reads Dickens in between obsessing over baseball literature, and to the best of my recollection eschews poetry.
Your tobacco might say something about you.
FLAKES
There are four companies that represent the genre, plus several exceptional oddments by other manufacturers. These prime four are Samuel Gawith, Rattrays, Wessex, and McClelland.
Not surprisingly, I have a number of tins representing their oeuvre stockpiled, as well as similar products from other companies.
I'm afraid I'm rather obsessive that way.
SAMUEL GAWITH
At the top of the heap is Samuel Gawith, a stodgy firm in Kendal, far from the modern world, which was founded over two centuries ago. Their products appeal to bright young individualists as well as antiquated old fossils.
Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake: A dark flake made fragrant with Tonquin oil, which must be smoked really slowly.
I have reason to suspect that the regular smoker of this product obsesses about panties. Spotlessly clean examples of feminine underwear, ironed, and mounted museum-style on acid-free board. With a tiny label, in flawlessly elegant copperplate script, telling the viewer something about each piece. Which is odd, because the collection will never be shown to anyone else.
I am fond of this, but do not smoke it often.
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake: Medium strength, with a note of richness, slight spice, good fruit. The smoker of this knows what he (or she) likes, and is not embarrassed by it. Probably has excellent taste in a number of other fields, but does not show off or puff himself (or herself) up. May have a fondness for red wine or Assam tea.
Studious, reads Russian and German authors.
Intense and delightful.
Samuel Gawith Saint James Flake: Top quality pressed Virginias and Perique. Full-bodied yet surprisingly smooth and pleasantly sweet.
The smoke for a dashingly daring individualist. What that mysterious person wearing the grey trench coat out at the far end of the field in the rain smokes, while observing the lads playing soccer and wrestling in the mud, in homo-erotic play as encouraged by all physical education experts.
The less said about high-school exercise classes the better. There is an offensive preening and smirking quality to its teachers. Ugh.
It's really darn good tobacco.
I own a trenchcoat.
Samuel Gawith Golden Glow: A thoroughly enjoyable brown flake made mostly from sweet Bright Virginias, but not a very delicate product. Possessed of a lovely Autumnal fruitiness combined with summery hay notes. Perfect for cold days in San Francisco, the aficionado of Golden Glow probably identifies in several ways with all of the most memorable characters in Vladimir Nabokov's oeuvre: Franz ('Frank') Bubendorf, Sebastian Knight, Charles McBeth, Humbert Humbert, Van Veen,
Charles Kinbote, Hugh Person, Mr. Vivian Badlook.
I am smoking it right now.
Delicious.
RATTRAY
Charles Rattray started a tobacco company in Perth over a century and a half ago, which to this day provides the gold standard of English style flakes. Despite it being of Scottish provenance, and its products now manufactured by an estimable set of Prussians over on the continent.
Mr. Rattray wrote a long and windy 'booklet on tobacco blending', the reading of which convinces me that I would not have gotten along with him. He may have been excessively opinionated and neurotic.
But his very fine flakes show a more feminine side.
Rattray's Old Gowrie: deeply earthy and fruity, the addition of Kentucky provides notes of chocolate. A broken flake. It is mellow, albeit not mild. Men who dream on Saturday afternoon.
An addictive pensive smoke
Rattray's Marlin Flake: Soft, smooth, oozing personality. Tangy and tart. Raisins, dark drupes. Slightly monochromatic, but that does not dilute its excellence. Long strips of pressed tobacco folded in the tin.
I find this strangely appealing.
Rattray's Brown Clunee: A fine but not complicated ready rubbed flake, that would be a good all-day smoke for someone who only lights up two or three bowls a day. It can have surprising character.
Rattray's Hal O'The Wynd: Peaty, fruity, herbal. Hint of hay. A red Virginia compound of great character, which can be over-indulged in, much like chocolate, caviar, and strong tea. Sensual, very much so.
It reminds me of my mis-spent youth. Which I wish were considerably more mis-spent. I'll have to open up another tin soon.
WESSEX
Kohlhase & Kopp, who manufacture the entire Rattray's line, also do Wessex, about the origin of which I know nearly nothing. The brand name suggests Marketing Department inspiration, the label art is quite uninteresting, but the products are stellar. This line is one that even a sour old grumpus could grow quite fond of, as certain younger grumpuses indeed have. I am not a grumpus.
Despite what you have heard.
But I like Wessex.
Wessex Brigade Campaign Dark Flake: Nutty and woodsy, fragrant and mild. Oaty. Slightly topped. It must be considered a medium -- an even balance between the sweet sweet darkness and a bit of nicotine whomp -- and is stylistically comparable to Rattray's Marlin Flake.
Verbose people will like it very much; it brings out their prolixity.
Wessex Brigade Classic Virginia: Red, red, red, and possibly a touch of something else. Hay, fruit peels, apples, a soft medium-bodied broken flake of middle-dark appearance.
Finding a tin of this is like finding a tin of orgasms.
Wessex Brown Virginia Flake: A middle-of-the-road product, which is not very complex, but ages exceptionally well. A solid product.
Late at night, when my tobacco-despising apartment mate is asleep in her room, I will light up a bowl while reading. Boruch Hashem she has a lousy sense of smell, and most of the year is allergy season. Latakia, dammit, she will notice even though deep in slumber. Virginias hardly invade her dreams, but to be on the safe side I will open the window.
If I ever end up in a relationship we'll probably need a far bigger space, so that the apartment mate can be not two but four or five rooms away. Together my companion and I will light our pipes at night, while the Savage Kitten falls asleep quite untroubled by the dense fogs perfuming the darkness at the back of the building.
A man can only dream; this product makes it possible.
I need to find a woman who enjoys a pipe.
Wessex Red Virginia Flake: Yes, this product is topped. No idea with what. But that does NOT detract from a fine tobacco. Earthy, toasty, tangy. Enjoyable, and you will find yourself going through the tin at a rapid clip. Share it with friends of the same bend.
It brings back memories; some quite perverse.
MCCLELLAND
For over a generation, McClelland Tobacco Company in Kansas City have been sustaining the desperate and depraved, who yearn for fine British Flakes as the market shrinks and venerable firms bite the dust.
The desperate and depraved are profoundly grateful.
McClelland wisely do not have a contact page or e-mail addresses. One does not want love-letters from the desperate and depraved.
Being neither desperate NOR depraved, I enjoy them for what they are: manufacturers of some of the best tobacco ever seen on this planet.
Blakeney's Best Bayou Slice: Small-sliced matured flakes with a noticeable Perique presence. It has more depth than you would think.
A fine product.
Blakeney's Best Tawny Flake: Medium brown Virginias, rather old-fashioned, not very complex. Perfect for Spring or Summer -- though not in San Francisco, where those seasons verge on a Caledonian nastiness, and the sun never shines.
Wait for Autumn, when the weather is better.
No.5100 Red Cake (bulk): All the fruitiness you expect from reds, but very satisfying. One of the most popular bulk tobaccos in the McClelland line-up. Figs and other vegetals, only moderately sweet. Appeals to bearded middle-aged gentlemen who lack the imagination to find their news on the internet. Surgeons and the like.
Decent old farts.
Dominican Glory Maduro: Dark cigar leaf pressed with reds and blacks. Once aged a bit, it is exceptional, as the maduro element will have learned how to play well with others. I would say that this is for peculiar bachelors and eccentrics, but I do like it.
Boston 1776: One of the club blends, this is a complex and busy patchwork of reds, brights, and everything in between. The end-result is a medium brown flake. Similar to Epitome, but needs a lot more age. It left me with a mouth that felt like shoe-leather, but that was because I kept smoking it wet. Bad move.
Not actually a bad product.
Needs more age.
Matured Virginia No. 24: A somewhat robust dark combination of Virginias with a touch of something Turkish or Greek. It is perfect for surreptitiously smoking late at night, when everyone else is asleep and will not scream that you should be out near the abandoned church one block away, with all the winos and drug-addicts. But it might be splendid there too, as it performs well outdoors.
Nicely pungent and bold.
Matured Virginia No. 25: Reds and blacks, with a smell that promises good times or adventures with someone you should've avoided.
Sweet, like the fragrance of baked desserts.
It delivers on the promise.
Virginia Woods: Reds, Blacks, Brights. Fully teased after processing. Malty, figgy, fragrant, and like pencil shavings. All in all a very nice ribbony smoke that inculcates reveries if treated nicely, and forms one of a continuum with other McClellands products like Arcadia (same reddish tastes), Yenidje Highlander (similar to Arcadia, without the stinky Syrian), and Orient 996 (buckets of the stinky Syrian).
All of these showcase the best features of red Virginia paired with black Virginia, but Virginia Woods is the palest of the four. Inexperienced smokers may suffer headaches and tongue bite, but people with a sense of humour will find it very pleasing indeed.
VW is the most unusual and likable of the four.
Good for an afternoon of passion.
Creamy
EXCEPTIONAL ODDMENTS
Firstly, I have to mention Greg Pease, known as 'The Dark Lord', by some sections of the pipe-smoking coterie, because of his huge spectrum of blends featuring Latakia. To many people all of his blends seem like Lat Bombs, and they disregard his talent for combining flue-cured leaves.
This is unjust. Greg understands like few others that no matter how Oriental the end-product, what holds it together and makes it distinct is the interweaving of different Virginias to present a splendid portrait. Over the past several years he has explored the flake world with a sense of adventure and finesse that speak well of the man, and sometimes makes one wonder at his sanity.
G. L. PEASE
GLP Fillmore: Complex, interesting, and well-made. Highlights the fact that Virginias are more than just sweet notes.
It is an excellent product.
GLP Jackknife Plug: Virginias and Kentuckys in a block that must be sliced by the smoker. This is an insane experiment gone frightfully right. Good for the brain, and deeply satisfying. This is NOT for dilletants or society hostesses.
Exceptional and unusual.
GLP Navigator: Predominantly red VA, with a touch of yellow, brown, and some aircured leaf. For Virginia smokers this can be quite alluring, addictive and seductive even. Medium strength, and refined enough that you will not notice till it is too late that you are drunk on nicotine, dusk has fallen, winds have picked up, and the attractive young lady has fled your embrace.
You wake up with a headache, and resolve to do it all again tomorrow.
Good stuff. I've stocked over a dozen tins.
GLP Stratford: One of his earlier Virginia and Perique blends, in a ribbon cut. A lovely offering worth keeping a few tins of on hand.
GLP Telegraph Hill: Once aged a bit, this is complex and exceptional.
GLP Triple Play: Another plug, with whole buckets of likeability. Mostly Virginias. Sweet, semi-full, intoxicating. Do not allow this man near your sister. She'll end up buying Charatans and Dunhills.
A clean pure tobacco compound, which I highly recommend.
It is not depraved, but it could be decadent.
I've stored several tins.
GLP Union Square: a medium flake that touches all the right notes. There was a sample tin at Telfords in Marin County, but don't bother heading over there to try it, as over the past few months I've "sampled" the heck out of it. There's none left. It was extremely nice.
I smoked all of it.
Hah!
CORNELL & DIEHL
Cornell & Diehl, who manufacture Greg Pease's blends to his exact specifications, also produce some might fine products of their own. Craig Tarler, alas, is no longer among us (passed away last year), but the company he created carries on, gloriously so.
A fitting memorial to a remarkable man.
C & D Opening Night: a lovely short thick flake that rubs out to fragrant ribbons, this is the perfect medium-mild Virginia.
C & D Exhausted Rooster: A peculiar compound sure to appeal to English public school boys, elderly degenerates, the decadent and depraved of any age and place, and nearly everybody whose company is thoroughly enjoyable.
Virginias, Fire-cured leaf, and Perique.
More full than medium-bodied.
C & D Kajun Kake: Heh heh heh.
Heh heh heh.
A solid square block of dark-pressed crumble cake of Cavendish and Perique that benefits enormously from a year or two of aging.
Better use someone else's best chef's knife to slice it.
It is rich, fecund, and surprisingly mild.
Delicious tinned perversion.
Recently, Cornell & Diehl have produced four new blends for Castello, a very well-respected Italian pipe maker.
The blends represent different styles of tobacco, to appeal to a full spectrum of smokers.
Castello Old Antiquari is a full English with a surfeit of Latakia. It will find plenty of fans.
Castello Collection represents a mild ribbony mix of red and bright.
Castello Sea Rock is a frightening Eury aromatic.
Castello Fiammata: A delightful sparkly Virginia and Perique flake, medium and reddish, which being the desperate degenerate that I am, I truly love for breakfast. I have several times smoked two bowls in succession, and been bright and vivacious afterwards. It tingles on the tongue. Tangy, herbal, slightly fruity, and very exciting.
Fiammata is a brilliant product, and a wonderful addition to the VaPer category. Both Cornell & Diehl and Castello outdid themselves.
Stockpile this one. Go utterly ape.
AUTRES
Other flakes worth experimenting with are Orlik's Golden Sliced (mild bright Virginia with a top-dressing), MacBaren's Virginia Flake (even milder blonder Virginia, hint of anise seed perfume), Stokkeby 4th. Generation 1855 (a partially broken mild-medium blonde flake with a lovely grassy note), Stokkebye 4th. Generation 1931 (sliced flake with an odd top-dressing that suggests something between a dedicated old fiend and a schoolgirl who wishes to be bad), as well as some of the Channel Islands tobaccos (Germain's Brown Flake and Germain's Medium Flake).
Capstan, a medium to full flake with a distinctive taste which had been unavailable for centuries in the civilized world, is back, now made by MacBarens. Quite a nice smoke. The sample tin is empty. The Golden Gate Pipe Club members devoured every shred of it, leaving nothing for anyone else. Damned animals.
Three Nuns is also back. Very tasty.
PERETTI
Lastly, I must mention the firm of L. J. Peretti in Boston. A fellow Dutch-American who hails from there has over the past few years introduced me to their fine products. Which might make me think of moving to Boston.
The climate, which is like a frigid San Francisco summer all year round, prevents me from even considering it.
Boston Slice: a mild offering, good for early in the day.
Cambridge Flake: not strictly speaking a Virginia.
London Flake: tangy, with a touch of Perique.
Oxford Flake: rich and robust, very rewarding.
Scottish Flake: full bodied, fruity top-dressing.
AFTERWORD
Most of this modest essay was written on Thursday afternoon. I had two bowls of Samuel Gawith Golden Glow while working on it, then followed with a bowlful of Luxury Twist Flake, and a load of Kajun Kake to finish.
Plus three strong cups of coffee, black.
I ended up high as a kite and woozy.
Nothing to eat till tea-time.
Breakfast is for wimps.
TOBACCO INDEX
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, August 08, 2013
SURREAL? PERHAPS. BUT IT'S ANNOTATED!
Bachelors are well-known for doing depraved things late at night.
Bad decisions will be made, and regretted the next morning. Such as feasting on a peanut butter and salami sandwich on toasted sourdough, with a thick shmear of Indian pickle. It was supposed to be a French Dip, but there was no roast beef in the house, hence the substitution, and in lieu of jus (as in "au jus"), I simply used a bowl of Louisiana hotsauce.
It seemed like a really good idea at the time.
But I should've known better.
At three A.M.
I'm blaming the restaurant where I had breakfasted the previous afternoon. Being somewhat ravenous at the time, all constraints flew out the window, which was a pattern that continued throughout the evening.
Sometimes a plate of yi-min hits the spot. Really hits the spot.
Especially when augmented with SriRacha Hotsauce.
Which they have at that restaurant.
阿姨, 我好鍾意食辣嘅, 你可唔可以攞嗰個瓶辣醬畀我？
Ah Yi, ngo hou jung-yi sik laat ge, nei ho m-ho yi lo ko-go ping laat-jeung bei ngo?
["Auntie, I really like eating spicy food, could you bring me that bottle of hot sauce?"]
The great thing about yi-min noodles (伊麵) is the chewy texture, and dry-fry (幹燒 gon-siu) yi-min with roast duck (火鴨絲炆伊麵 fo-ngaap si mun yi min) is extremely satisfying. Little bits of juicy bird, chunks of baby bokchoi, and a big, big, BIG! sploodge of hotsauce (辣醬 laat jeung).
Sheer heaven.
Quite the perfect preamble to a night of smoking a pipe till three in the morning, and other constructive pursuits.
Which the poor German tourists at the next table did not realize. Or they wouldn't have had so much difficulty with the menu.
At one point, a courteous middle-aged Gentleman left his own table and came over, offering to help them and explain what all the listed items were, saying that the restaurant served home-style food, and the waitress wasn't entirely fluent in English. Which is more or less true, but she certainly wasn't the only one with that problem.
阿生啊，嗰啲德國遊客都唔識講英文。
Ah-sang ah, ko di tak-kwok yau-haak do m-sik-kong yingman.....
["Oh mister, those German tourists ALSO don't speak English."]
Their difficulties continued, as they were completely baffled by his sincere wish to render assistance and make their stay in Chinatown smooth and enjoyable, but they eventually ended up with a selection of good food.
And the two kids did a credible job with their chopsticks, utilizing more digits than just thumb and index.
Very fastidious and elegant.
Of course, they did not have yi-min. Glopped with SriRacha.
Very temperate of them.
The problem with dining alone is that possibilities are limited. Hence my choosing a plate of yi-min (伊麵) over a more balanced meal with greater variety. The hotsauce, you will understand, functioned as the vegetable component. It was chock-full of fibre and vitamin C.
SriRacha is excellent salad dressing, btw.
It's truly perfect for smokers.
We need vitamins.
I grasp that the two children probably don't smoke (yet), but their parents had that rascally European look, and without a doubt lit up ferociously after the children were asleep. Or even the moment they left the restaurant.
Much later, after finding out that "English Crust" had gotten involved with a blonde woman several years older than him (老來嬌 lou loi kiu; refer back to bachelors being well-known for depravity after dark), K-chai and I discussed paneer, that being Indian-style cheese. It is made by adding an acidulant to warm milk, then pouring the milk into fine-mesh cheesecloth after it has curdled. The resultant loose lump of cheese will be squooze out and pressed under a weight for a few hours, before being fried and spiced. Either to be eaten as is, as a late night snack with that bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label that all Punjabis love, or added to creamed spinach (saag paneer), or even creamed mustard greens (sarson da saag). Delicious with hot buttered makki di roti and a big glass of whipped dahi.
Naturally there should be fresh chilies on the side.
Perfect bachelor food.
I was on my fifth pipe of the evening by then. K-chai was enjoying a Havana. Someone else was smoking a Rocky Edge Candela. I may have seen an Epernay Illusione elsewhere in the room.
English Crust was happy as a clam.
The bachelor life suits him.
Good cigars.
For some reason when I got home I was ravenous again. Something was gnawing at my stomach. I held off as long as possible, but five hours later I could not resist anymore. It's surprising how fast yi-min is metabolized.
Or whatever it is that digestive systems do.
Dried Italian Salami. Peanut butter.
Both kasondi and thokku.
Louisiana hotsauce.
Both the dream-state while I was sleeping, and the entire morning today, have been surreal. Flecks of movement at the edge of vision. Rumbling effects in the old bachelor digestive system. Twinges. A profound urge to stick myself in a bucket of yoghurt (dahi, thanda thanda dahi).
I envy those German tourists from last night.
And their smooth enjoyable stay.
Yoghurty to tha max.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Bad decisions will be made, and regretted the next morning. Such as feasting on a peanut butter and salami sandwich on toasted sourdough, with a thick shmear of Indian pickle. It was supposed to be a French Dip, but there was no roast beef in the house, hence the substitution, and in lieu of jus (as in "au jus"), I simply used a bowl of Louisiana hotsauce.
It seemed like a really good idea at the time.
But I should've known better.
At three A.M.
I'm blaming the restaurant where I had breakfasted the previous afternoon. Being somewhat ravenous at the time, all constraints flew out the window, which was a pattern that continued throughout the evening.
Sometimes a plate of yi-min hits the spot. Really hits the spot.
Especially when augmented with SriRacha Hotsauce.
Which they have at that restaurant.
阿姨, 我好鍾意食辣嘅, 你可唔可以攞嗰個瓶辣醬畀我？
Ah Yi, ngo hou jung-yi sik laat ge, nei ho m-ho yi lo ko-go ping laat-jeung bei ngo?
["Auntie, I really like eating spicy food, could you bring me that bottle of hot sauce?"]
The great thing about yi-min noodles (伊麵) is the chewy texture, and dry-fry (幹燒 gon-siu) yi-min with roast duck (火鴨絲炆伊麵 fo-ngaap si mun yi min) is extremely satisfying. Little bits of juicy bird, chunks of baby bokchoi, and a big, big, BIG! sploodge of hotsauce (辣醬 laat jeung).
Sheer heaven.
Quite the perfect preamble to a night of smoking a pipe till three in the morning, and other constructive pursuits.
Which the poor German tourists at the next table did not realize. Or they wouldn't have had so much difficulty with the menu.
At one point, a courteous middle-aged Gentleman left his own table and came over, offering to help them and explain what all the listed items were, saying that the restaurant served home-style food, and the waitress wasn't entirely fluent in English. Which is more or less true, but she certainly wasn't the only one with that problem.
阿生啊，嗰啲德國遊客都唔識講英文。
Ah-sang ah, ko di tak-kwok yau-haak do m-sik-kong yingman.....
["Oh mister, those German tourists ALSO don't speak English."]
Their difficulties continued, as they were completely baffled by his sincere wish to render assistance and make their stay in Chinatown smooth and enjoyable, but they eventually ended up with a selection of good food.
And the two kids did a credible job with their chopsticks, utilizing more digits than just thumb and index.
Very fastidious and elegant.
Of course, they did not have yi-min. Glopped with SriRacha.
Very temperate of them.
The problem with dining alone is that possibilities are limited. Hence my choosing a plate of yi-min (伊麵) over a more balanced meal with greater variety. The hotsauce, you will understand, functioned as the vegetable component. It was chock-full of fibre and vitamin C.
SriRacha is excellent salad dressing, btw.
It's truly perfect for smokers.
We need vitamins.
I grasp that the two children probably don't smoke (yet), but their parents had that rascally European look, and without a doubt lit up ferociously after the children were asleep. Or even the moment they left the restaurant.
Much later, after finding out that "English Crust" had gotten involved with a blonde woman several years older than him (老來嬌 lou loi kiu; refer back to bachelors being well-known for depravity after dark), K-chai and I discussed paneer, that being Indian-style cheese. It is made by adding an acidulant to warm milk, then pouring the milk into fine-mesh cheesecloth after it has curdled. The resultant loose lump of cheese will be squooze out and pressed under a weight for a few hours, before being fried and spiced. Either to be eaten as is, as a late night snack with that bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label that all Punjabis love, or added to creamed spinach (saag paneer), or even creamed mustard greens (sarson da saag). Delicious with hot buttered makki di roti and a big glass of whipped dahi.
Naturally there should be fresh chilies on the side.
Perfect bachelor food.
I was on my fifth pipe of the evening by then. K-chai was enjoying a Havana. Someone else was smoking a Rocky Edge Candela. I may have seen an Epernay Illusione elsewhere in the room.
English Crust was happy as a clam.
The bachelor life suits him.
Good cigars.
For some reason when I got home I was ravenous again. Something was gnawing at my stomach. I held off as long as possible, but five hours later I could not resist anymore. It's surprising how fast yi-min is metabolized.
Or whatever it is that digestive systems do.
Dried Italian Salami. Peanut butter.
Both kasondi and thokku.
Louisiana hotsauce.
Both the dream-state while I was sleeping, and the entire morning today, have been surreal. Flecks of movement at the edge of vision. Rumbling effects in the old bachelor digestive system. Twinges. A profound urge to stick myself in a bucket of yoghurt (dahi, thanda thanda dahi).
I envy those German tourists from last night.
And their smooth enjoyable stay.
Yoghurty to tha max.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
FRIGID PEOPLE
During the day I am the only one here, and can consequently dress however the mood strikes me. Or undress. With no one around to be shocked, I could if I chose swan around the apartment entirely in the buff, gloriously naked, nary a scrap nor any vestige of clothing whatsoever covering any part of my manly anatomy.
You'll just have to imagine it, however, because it's rather cold in San Francisco, what with it being the middle of summer and all.
Even after my apartment mate leaves for the day, I shall not take advantage of the moment to strip and swan.
I've got flannel jammies. They're nice and warm.
Got a bathrobe too, also N and W.
The best source of heat on a cold summer day is another person, whose hot hot body potently radiates warmth and silken comfort. This being San Francisco, and consequently cold and foggy, it is impossible to tempt another person into sharing their heat. It's too nasty for nudes.
Especially if, like this blogger, one reasonable suspects that the other person is either a degenerate or a nutball.
As so many people in this city are.
Life is too short for a rather civilized pipesmoker to waste time on wacky self-obsessed San Francisco moonbeams.
I like the concept of a naked person with a radiant dermis, but the logistics defeat me. So instead I will swan around in my flannel jammies and comfy bathrobe till it is time to soak in the bath.
After which I shall get dressed and do constructive things.
The moment will have passed, the opportunity gone.
Later I shall brave the blasting wind to smoke a pipe outdoors.
I shall not be naked (unless sorely tempted).
Nice warm sweater.
And a coat.
I love all the tourists who flock to the city in summer expecting this to be California, wearing their shorts and tee-shirts.
They look insanely desperate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
You'll just have to imagine it, however, because it's rather cold in San Francisco, what with it being the middle of summer and all.
Even after my apartment mate leaves for the day, I shall not take advantage of the moment to strip and swan.
I've got flannel jammies. They're nice and warm.
Got a bathrobe too, also N and W.
The best source of heat on a cold summer day is another person, whose hot hot body potently radiates warmth and silken comfort. This being San Francisco, and consequently cold and foggy, it is impossible to tempt another person into sharing their heat. It's too nasty for nudes.
Especially if, like this blogger, one reasonable suspects that the other person is either a degenerate or a nutball.
As so many people in this city are.
Life is too short for a rather civilized pipesmoker to waste time on wacky self-obsessed San Francisco moonbeams.
I like the concept of a naked person with a radiant dermis, but the logistics defeat me. So instead I will swan around in my flannel jammies and comfy bathrobe till it is time to soak in the bath.
After which I shall get dressed and do constructive things.
The moment will have passed, the opportunity gone.
Later I shall brave the blasting wind to smoke a pipe outdoors.
I shall not be naked (unless sorely tempted).
Nice warm sweater.
And a coat.
I love all the tourists who flock to the city in summer expecting this to be California, wearing their shorts and tee-shirts.
They look insanely desperate.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
A VERY SERVICEABLE ANIMAL
Badgers have short powerful legs for digging, which comes in handy when they're constructing a 'sett', that being a residence of several long connected tunnels and chambers, often underneath a hillock or hill-side. Digging, of course, is also useful when finding food.
Badgers are in the main carnivorous, and in some areas subsist largely on rabbits, which infest the same terrain.
Nobody misses the rabbits.
Sometimes badgers become tipsy after consuming fermenting fruit.
The Asiatic 'Stink Badger' ("panglurok") is nocturnal, and feeds on fish and crabs. Which are best prepared with melted butter.
Butter is hard to find over there.
The Panglurok is bereft.
We think.
Like crabs, rabbits are also excellent, if prepared with butter. Braised, with a bit of garlic and ginger, and then slow-simmered in sherry till surpassingly tender and delicious. Add a touch of cream to finish.
While on the bus the other day I was thinking of the badger diet after a passenger, surmising that the slow dense traffic was frustrating the bus driver, brought his pet rabbit up to the front and insisted that the driver pet it to relieve tension.
"Go on, pet it."
"No no, I cannot have this distraction, please step behind the yellow line."
"It will calm you down, you really must pet it!"
"Please! Step behind the yellow line, sir!"
"Pet the rabbit, dammit!"
Only in San Francisco.
It was a fluffy white rabbit. It looked terrified. Like me, the bus driver was probably also mentally reviewing various rabbit recipes at that moment.
If rabbits have any intelligence at all, it is probably only to telepathically feel the hunger of other animals, especially those who love to cook.
Somewhere in South-East Asia, a family of stinkbadgers (panglurok) are considering an extended vacation in temperate zones where there are lots of rabbits, and where butter is more often available than in Palawan, Kubotanggi, or Kalimantan.
They wish to know if you would rent out your sett to them for several months, while you are off in the tropics feasting on crab.
They promise they will leave it spic and span. You won't even notice that they were there when you return. The pile of bones out back will be nicely covered with fallen leaves.
And they won't touch your fermenting fruit.
They know it's very precious to you.
The rabbits will be gone.
If you're interested, let me know.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Badgers are in the main carnivorous, and in some areas subsist largely on rabbits, which infest the same terrain.
Nobody misses the rabbits.
Sometimes badgers become tipsy after consuming fermenting fruit.
The Asiatic 'Stink Badger' ("panglurok") is nocturnal, and feeds on fish and crabs. Which are best prepared with melted butter.
Butter is hard to find over there.
The Panglurok is bereft.
We think.
Like crabs, rabbits are also excellent, if prepared with butter. Braised, with a bit of garlic and ginger, and then slow-simmered in sherry till surpassingly tender and delicious. Add a touch of cream to finish.
While on the bus the other day I was thinking of the badger diet after a passenger, surmising that the slow dense traffic was frustrating the bus driver, brought his pet rabbit up to the front and insisted that the driver pet it to relieve tension.
"Go on, pet it."
"No no, I cannot have this distraction, please step behind the yellow line."
"It will calm you down, you really must pet it!"
"Please! Step behind the yellow line, sir!"
"Pet the rabbit, dammit!"
Only in San Francisco.
It was a fluffy white rabbit. It looked terrified. Like me, the bus driver was probably also mentally reviewing various rabbit recipes at that moment.
If rabbits have any intelligence at all, it is probably only to telepathically feel the hunger of other animals, especially those who love to cook.
Somewhere in South-East Asia, a family of stinkbadgers (panglurok) are considering an extended vacation in temperate zones where there are lots of rabbits, and where butter is more often available than in Palawan, Kubotanggi, or Kalimantan.
They wish to know if you would rent out your sett to them for several months, while you are off in the tropics feasting on crab.
They promise they will leave it spic and span. You won't even notice that they were there when you return. The pile of bones out back will be nicely covered with fallen leaves.
And they won't touch your fermenting fruit.
They know it's very precious to you.
The rabbits will be gone.
If you're interested, let me know.
==========================================================================
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,...
