THOUGHTS ABOUT LIME JELLO

A couple of years ago I had an appointment with a nutritionist right before her lunch time, at her office in the middle of Chinatown. She probably remembers it as a disaster. Quite nightmarish. And may have resolved to never have nutrition-related conversations with Caucasian foodies again. Seeing as I described in great glorious detail all the wonderful establishments within two blocks of her at that moment, who would be keenly welcoming and ready to serve, for instance, baked porkchop over spaghetti with tonnes of melted cheese on top. Which is very Hong Kong. Or roast duck and rice in THREE directions from her office. Little egg tarts, little chicken pies, flaky charsiu turnovers, deepfried puffs, or CAKE, as dessert.

[The nutrionist's appointment was on the strong recommendation of my doctor, a sensible man to whom I listen. One of the reasons I've had all my vaccinations. He's Indonesian Chinese. We can talk about food.]

She seized upon my mention of the cookies in the teevee room between my apartment mate's computer and mine and we agreed on tiny baby steps: cut down somewhat on the cookies.

I'm not nearly as bad as most of her clients, who are Chinatown Toishanese. These are the people who will swap out their relatives carefully balanced and considered dinners when they are in the ICU, for salt fish pork, and eggplant cooked with fatty meat, because no one has an appetite for the muck served at medical facilities, and you just can't get better eating that crap. Even if grandpa is in there because of problems caused by eating salt fish and fatty meats all of his life.

Grandpa happily tucks in, and his granddaughter will eat the boiled vegetables two ounces plain cooked chicken no skin and cup of hospital lime jello so that food doesn't go to waste.

What the granddaughter won't do is wheel him out to the alleyway later for a smoke.
Smoking is bad; she knows that. And so smelly!

If he's able, he'll sneak out on his own, because a ciggy aids digestion.

And it's beneficial to the mental state.


There are two alleys right near the hospital. I shall imagine a whole flock of orderlies detailed to wrangle the rebellious sick old men in hospital gowns disobeying the nursing staff and out there in the middle of the night splitting a pack of Marlboros. Which I've never seen, because I am a sensible man, despite being very Caucasian, and am rarely in Chinatown in the middle of the night searching for ciggies after my salt fish and pork.

I smoke a pipe.

Chinese women, especially when related to Cantonese men, mostly disapprove of smoking. White women are far less biased in that regard; they disapprove of it no matter the ethnic derivation of their relatives.

It has been my experience that in environments where smokers gather, you will seldom see women, except for the occasional white female searching for a rich lawyer to reform. Or, in one case, a middle aged wife fiercely protecting her cigar smoking husband from the hot party slags lying in wait. There was one time Nick suddenly found a curved person on his lap trying to stick her tongue in his ear because he was so HOT (he's in his seventies and rather elfin looking), but as this got in the way of tamping his pipe he persuaded her to do something else, and management soon threw her out.


Anyhow, after the nutritionist's appointment, I went out and had a fabulous meal, while she may have wept into her boiled vegetables two ounces plain cooked chicken no skin and lime jello.
I feel sad for her. She has her work cut out.

Today I intend to do much the same. I shall head over to Chinatown, early to mid afternoon, where within several block of her office at the hospital there will be many good things to eat. Don't know what yet. It's a day off, so I need some real food after working in Marin County with all the health freaks and their salads, boiled vegs, no chicken at all because meat is murder, not even any blasted lime jello -- also, the convenience store nearby has stopped carrying Sriracha because they don't want to encourage "those" people -- and tasty stuff beckons. There's at least one place open for inside dining where I can get baked porkchop over spaghetti with tonnes of melted cheese .....

I'll probably have something healthier instead. Fish with lashings of sambal, for instance. Or roast duck rice. Or steamed pork patty with salt fish and ginger shreds.

Ginger is a vegetable.
And so is sambal.
Healthy!

Followed by a pipe while wandering the alleyways.
Good for digestion and mental states.


I often smoke a pipe after eating lunch in Chinatown. No one has ever stuck her tongue in my ear there. It just doesn't happen. For one thing, I am not in my seventies and elfin looking.
And for another, I seldom if ever consume lime jello.
That must be it.

TOBACCO INDEX


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MY SEASONAL CHEER

Quote: "Sometimes the English are so whimsical that you just want to slap the sh*t out of them". This pursuant the musical and movie 'cats'. Which neither of us have any inclination to see. My apartment mate read about it today. I had already read Elliot's poems, and thought them frightful twaddle. Scenes from the movie and musical are creepy as heck, enough to make you gag, and too damned twee to even consider wasting time and money on being tortured by this crap.

So, of course, it would be stellar on ice during the holiday season. Make the entire family suffer. People dressed as cats in skin-tight bum glitter, swooping while vocalizing balderdash.
Quite as nasty as that nutcracker shiznit.


Modern Christmas decorative ideas are repulsive.


I used to work in the toy industry. Christmas starts in July, the first shipments hit warehouses in late August or early September, and plastic crap is on it's way to stores well before Hallowe'en. That Holiday pumpkin-spice flavour pecan brickle? Probably made by poor starving orphans in Florida back in May. Same time the herds of frozen turkey were slaughtered, after roaming the outback for three months feasting on growth hormones.

Having you considered ordering a nice fresh tofurkey from your local Vegan freaks instead?
At least the beancurd and food-grade binding agents are fresh.
They don't believe in freezers.

FESTIVE REINDEER WITH X-MAS LIGHTS

Save the animals; slaughter a tub of white stuff instead.
Like turkey it can be deep-fried.

Next weekend we're decorating for Chistmas at work.
Bah humbug.


Nothing says 'Christmas' quite like a case of tetanus from sparkly lawn statuary.
I've had my shots and I'll take my chances.
I am ready for the season.



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TALKING TURKEY

In the few days remaining before Thanksgiving, all talk naturally turns to plans for the holiday. Many people last year and for this one have more limited plans, because of the pandemic. No extravaganza with hundreds of family members, followed by stuffed male stupor in front of the television and all the women of the family, from the two month old noisy one to great grandma on crutches, descending upon the local shopping mall, like a flcok of piranhas, and stripping it bare, leaving a few shell-shocked security guards limply stumbling about wondering what the heck just happened were those the vikings?

It is traditional after the turkey has been eaten and is still being digested to have pitched battles in retail areas. Somehow, clobbering a fellow American for the last electronic device makes consuming dry stringy gobble-gobbles worth while.

The first dulcet strains of 'Little Drummer Boy' are cleansing.


Seeing as I grew up before video games were invented and have not celebrated Thanksgiving in a very long time, the entire phenomenon means little to me. But as I understand it, that X box symbolizes the one true cross for you people, and the entire celebratory cycle isn't completed until sanctified teams battle each other at the bowl of roses in Pasadena on New Years Day, heralding the rebirth of normalcy.

From a safe distance, I admire the fervor of the faithful.

Your pilgrimage to Macys is appreciated.

May the best man win.




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RIOTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

In several Dutch cities, people have rioted over covid lockdown measures. The authorities are treating them with kid gloves. Even though these are mostly self-indulgent entitled young men who simply want to go out and get stinking drunk every night as usual, and will gladly piss in the common pot just to make their whiny voices heard, regardless of what it says about them and their mores.

But there is a simple solution.

Call out the army, and impose a curfew.

Shooting a few dozen of those oproerkraaiers and dwazen would soon calm the situation down. The only ones who would miss them would be bar owners.

Many youth in the Netherlands are profligates, and degenerate.
Velen van hun kunnen wij zeker zonder doen.
Het lijkt daarginds wel Texas.
Rechtse klootakken.
Verdomme.



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SAY NO TO CRANBERRIES

Here's what every one has been waiting for, the updated list of shithole states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michichigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

You can probably guess why Wisconsin was added to the list.

If I tell you, Tom Cotton will demand that I apologize.

Tom Cotton hails from one of those states.



If I write what I think, I'll get banned from Facebook. If I write what my apartment mate said, I'll get banned from Facebook. If I say what I think we need to do to get a functioning system in this country, I'll get banned from Facebook and the FBI might have questions.



In any case, the two solid conclusions that can be drawn are that if you are going to protest, go heavily armed and shoot first, to avoid getting Kyle Rittenhoused, and avoid gatherings with young white males, because they're the most likely to go psychotic.



Cranberries, by the way, are crap. The devil's haemorrhoid globules. They're a disgusting plot by mediocre cheese-snarfing German and Scandinavian societal rejects to poison America and drain her manhood. They have no place on a civilized dining table, and should be avoided at all costs. If there's any reason for arson in this world, it's that your hosts misguidedly served a cranberry compôte with the dry tasteless bird despite your sincere and benevolent remonstrance. And watching the Packers causes psychic harm.




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HOPPING CORPSE

Yesterday was a real slice. The mind said "carry on, maintiendrai, sally forth with confidence!" The body, however, said "no way" and "get bent, old guy". And proceeded to feel wrecked for most of it. Achy. Tired. Result of the third shot. Which makes three prophylactic injections to prevent Covid. Because unlike Florida or Texas, this blogger has a brain.

Still, better than the old guy who took a tumble on Jackson street opposite Hue An.
I've seen him around the neighborhood. He dodders.
But kudos for ambulating!

Hue An is up the street from the old Washington Theater. Which closed down years ago, after a long run of really mediciocre and downright questionable films. The antique gentleman probably went there back in the day, when he was still young and sparky.
Jack, whom I met twice yesterday -- once because he ate at the same chachanteng, the other time as a fellow witness to the old gent's slippage -- sadly remarked that the neighborhood had changed, every body he knew was dying.
Well, in a way, yes. But there is still lots of life in the old gal. Little kiddies are everywhere, plus vibrant and rather well-behaved teenagers, younger entrepeneurs, fairly recent immigrants .....

I saw 'Mr. Vampire' at that theatre. And I like change; it isn't a bad thing.
Although I do miss the coffee shop where I used to have snacks.
Before I'd head up the street for cinematic entertainment.

It seems so innocent, doesn't it? Coffee, slice of pie, and a Hong Kong movie.

But things are looking up.





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YORKSHIRE PIZZA?

A few weeks ago a friend asked about the dialect of Dutch spoken in Brabant. Of which there are multiple varieties. What the street spoke outside our house was a bit of a mess, as there are several isoglosses that fall right where Valkenswaard is located, meaning at it's simplest that the local language was somewhere between Antwerpian (Western Netherlandish) and Limburgian (Eastern Netherlandish). But included words that derived from other places, as the natives had, historically, been travelling traders and small craftsmen who ranged very far abroad between the planting and harvest seasons. Additionally, local industry, when it finally developed, was dependent on materials and products from elsewhere, including the tropics.

In short: goofy Dutch.

Thank providence for the national literary language. As represented in comic strips, novels, and the newspapers. Not in poetry, because although there is a huge amount of Dutch poetry, it sometimes seems that every versifier has invented his own version of the language.

My mother, who had three master's degrees in dead languages from Berkeley, spoke Dutch badly and often relied on English. Her circle was the more limited for it.
She had given up on intelligent life in Brabant.

I'm not sure that local languages are really worth protecting. Given that, insofar as they have an "educated" vocabulary, it is often if not always a backformation from the national language, all words with a "new" old pronunciation according to recognized sounds shifts. Which is quite artificial. As was demonstrated by the comments underneath an article in a Limburgian paper years ago in which the author argued that there was no such thing as a Limburgian language. The readers disagreed, at inordinate length (five hundred plus responses), proving by their attempts to write what they thought was Limburgian that in fact he was entirely right; village gibberish with predictable coinages.

Is there really any value to not being able to communicate effectively with someone from ten miles away when all you would talk about anyway is horse dung, cow pastures, and the price of coal? Wouldn't your inane and superficial thoughts be better expressed if more people could make sense out of them?

Cultural map of Mordor

Having said that, you will understand that I warmly encourage the people in Great Britain to finally, after all these centuries, learn English, so that their moronic thoughts about bogs in Yorkshire and doggerel by Bobby Burns are available to a wider audience.
Same goes double for New York and Philadelphia.
All of you sound like gumbies.
Ooh arrrr.



By the way: the closest thing to a "Yorkshire Pizza" is standardized toppings on a crust made from Yorshire pudding dough. Which I damned well refuse to even consider. It's very American. What the heck is wrong with you?



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THE SOUND OF A WET SQUISHY IMPACT

For years my apartment mate has called me "The Toad". It's meant affectionately, and in jest. There was something about me that seemed to her somewhat bloated and self-satisfied, like a brazen squatty amphibian surveying 'his road', 'his park', his fabulous 'dinner of coffee crunch cake with a hot caffeinated beverage'. This started long before she found out what had happened to my car when I still lived in Berkeley. And I am still "The Toad".

So it was with considerable quirked interest that I read that people smoke toad venom. Which is a psychedelic drug harvested from Colorado river toads (bufo incilius alvarius) and refined.


"The Toad’s whole purpose is to reach your highest potential."

"The Toad has taught me that I’m not going to be here forever."

"The Toad strips the ego."

"It takes you to a higher level. Once I tried it, boom!"

"You have to listen to the general; no second guessing."


------Mike Tyson


Apparently Mike Tyson is a notable toad freak.
Who knew?

No, I shall not show the article to her. She'd promptly accuse me of using my Dutch American jumbie hoodoo to twist the boxer's mind. Or bribing him. Because the toad is an irresponsible sort, with too much chutzpah for his own good, and she can see me doing precisely that.

Of course I didn't. But I would have.

The Toad has your best interests at heart. I am aware of calendars and time. Egos need stripping and repainting. Altitudes, and explosion or combustion.
As well as the sounds of things falling.
Listen to me. Ribbit.



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THE AGELESS AND UNDEAD

This is disconcerting. Not only do many Chinese people considerably older than myself ask me whether I am retired yet, but on the bus they will make sure to offer me a seat or point out that there is a convenient place over there please sit please sit. This all happens in Cantonese.

So apparently all of us Caucasians do not look alike (and they're starting to recognize me), but to their eyes I must look like a haggard old wreck.

What really disturbs me about this is that I do not look old. If it weren't for the salt and pepper, you would never guess that I'm over thirty five. Mm okay, forty, forty five. I think it's the cane. Which is actually just a walking stick suitable for clouting folks. If unmasked yobbos (tourists and other white people) come too close, they might regret doing so.
I am as ever vibrantly full of piss and vinegar.
And certain that I look like it.

Still, to Chinese people, all of us white people really do look like antique old fossils once we're past our twenties, too lumpy and textural, and when a white person carries a stick, AND glows in the dark because of that pallid unhealthy zombie skin-hue, they must be older than Jayzus and need to sit their rickety selves down.

A few years ago I went out to dinner with my apartment mate. Who is eight and a half years younger. And I could tell exactly what was going through the mind of the restaurant owner. "How delicious! Here's this sweet young thing fallen into the clutches of this dirty old man, who can't do what he likes because he's a creaky wreck and will fall asleep after eating!"
Eight and a half years. Only.

Anyhow, it was a good day. I got my booster shot today, after which I had some congee and an oil-stick in Chinatown (柴魚花生粥 'chai-yü faa-sang juk', 油條 'yau tiu'). If I've heard this correctly, I now have THREE nanochips inside of me, AND fifteen G!
Soon I can levitate to the mother ship.

I am probably glowing with "new cooler" magnetism.

Shopped for vegetables and snackies, putzed around, dawdled, and finally had milk tea and a little chicken pie at a familiar place. Tried to cram as many errands into the day as possible, because tomorrow I may be hors de combat from the Pfizers.

Smoked three pipefulls while out and about.

On the bus several times since morn.
Please stop offering me a seat.
We whites all look like this.

Muni Bus lighting just makes us look like withered cadavers. I am not old.

唔使客氣，真嘅 。

No, I didn't live through the 1894 Hong Kong plague.
Nor was I "brought over" many centuries ago.
I am "flattered" that you think that.



Honestly, I am somewhat weirded out by elderly people whom I'm fairly certain I haven't seen before addressing me in Cantonese. It's happened nearly a dozen times this week.




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IN GOOD HANDS

In a few hours I will have not one, not two, but THREE nanochips! And 15G! Seeing as the big plan for today is the booster shot. Essential because I distrust my fellow Americans and don't know where they've been. Some of them are regular typhoid Marys. Getting the appointment was easy here in the civilized world where many people actually do believe in and trust modern medicine, but it must be a right bitch in places like Florida or Texas. I'm allocating tomorrow for side effects. The second shot knocked me out of commission for a day, and I had to call in sick.
This time, if that happens, it will be on a non-working day.

After the shot I intend to have a bite to eat, followed by a pipe.

I already know which briar I shall use. An old Italian jobbie.
With an English-style Virginia mixture.

Yesterday after a late lunch it was an English pipe, one of the Hong Kong few. Appropriate, considering that the meal was at a chachanteng (a typical HK style of restaurant), accompanied by a lovely cup of strong milk tea.

When I strolled into the place I was disconcerted by the number of non-Chinese there, because as previously mentioned I suspect many of my fellow Americans, especially the white ones, of blithely being typhoid Marys as well as irresponsible cretins -- this is based on experience and observed behaviours -- so I ended up sitting in a different section. One table away from a little girl wearing a cute mask. Who had absolutely lovely hands.

I've always been fascinated by hands. Can't explain it; but it's one of the first things I notice.

In Chinese eateries observing hands is particularly rewarding; the dextrous intelligent hand gets to succesfully eat, the clumsy stupid hand needs a fork in lieu of chopsticks to achieve anything at all. Some old men betray their upbringing and years of conditioning by the elegant way they handle chopsticks, and there's something graceful about an old lady lifting noodles from the plate. Some people simply show straightforward results-oriented tool use.

Hands have a beauty in how they are used.

The pipe I smoked yesterday while reading has an appeal to the eye, but feels delightful to the hand. The elegant curve translates to tactile joy, the digits find a favourite angle.

You should never lend another person your books or your pipes unless you trust them thoroughly. Their hands may be clumsy, they might not quite respect the item.

One of my fellow pipe smokers restores pipes because he enjoys doing so. I'm sure he respects the item. Good hands. Good man. And I know what he smokes.

He's had three shots.

TOBACCO INDEX


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THEY COULD BE WORM-FREE

There are people out there who have done their own research, and, if nothing else, strive to become succesfully ivermectinated. A news article details the misadventures of two of them. Because I am not a meanie I cite the article below, entirely without names, places, or sources, so that the offensive parties can't be identified. Well, actually I am a meanie, and I think they deserve what happened to them, but mentioning names, places, and sources would be invasive and serve no useful purpose.


Severely edited cite:
A woman who was hospitalized with COVID-19 died following her husband's unsuccessful attempts to force doctors to treat her with the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. She was middle-aged and spent several weeks in the hospital. She was not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Her husband sued the hospital over their refusal to administer ivermectin to his wife.

The lawsuit was rejected.

Overriding a doctor's recommendation would be a dangerous precedent.

The judge encouraged the woman's family to try to negotiate a deal on their own with the hospital. A doctor eventually agreed to administer ivermectin, though the family attorney said it was too low of a dose.
End of severely edited cite.


It was not mentioned whether she was free of intestinal parasites when she died. So we don't know if the medicine worked. This is important information for horse owners.

Christians, free spirits, and Republican dimwads protested outside the hospital regularly while she was in intensive care. She was a notorious anti-vaccine activist, and her treatment took away resources that could have been better used on a worthwhile human being.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for such people.



BTW: The attorney who represented them is a real piece of work, and probably deserves to be disbarred. I have exceedingly low hopes for him.

Further BTW: I am a total meanie. I support and encourage Christians, free spirits, and Republicans to have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension, severe allergic reactions, vertigo, seizures, and partial or complete cessation of brain activity.
Take the worm medicine, you know you want to.
Freedom!



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WHAT ARE BLINIS?

A friend posted a picture of the back of a little tin of Gentleman's Relish. Which is a spiced anchovy paste that, according to the label, is perfect spread on toast, crackers or blinis.
At one point in time British gentlemen were aquainted with blinis.
This is not the case any longer.


Someone asked "what are blinis?"


Little Russian pancakes fried in butter, served with sour cream (smetana) or fruit preserves. If you're Ashkenazi, you call them 'blintzim' and serve them on Shavuos. Which won't be good, because, sadly, you have a lactose intolerance thing going on ... you also stayed up all night studying Talmud, so what with stomach cramps, a headache from all the letters jumbling together, and not enough sleep, you regret eating blinis. Shavuos (pentecost) is all about dairy. Cheesecake is also part of the program. Gentleman's Relish does NOT go on cheesecake.


An entire holiday in which dairy plays an important part. Celebrated by people many of whom have lactose intolerance.



The other thing to note is that depending on your religion, your Pentecost falls on different dates. For Jewish people, it's fifty days after Pesach (Passover), and for Christians it's fifty days after Easter, because they changed the date of Easter to show the Romans that they weren't Jews. Eastern Orthodox Christians still use the Julian Calendar to show everyone that they aren't Romans. Mormons don't celebrate Pentecost, because they aren't Christian. Everyone else thinks all of the people above are out of their minds.

Pentecost (Pinksteren) is very important in the Netherlands, but their main celebration of that doesn't always fall on the right day because of the weather; sometimes it's shifted closer to June so that everyone can go outside and listen to rock music (Pinkpop, a three day festival). Religious people go to church on the traditional day (where there is central heating, unless you are severely Calvinist and disapprove of fleshly pleasures), and yet others perform rituals connected to their unmarried state.

Dairy is ALWAYS part of the programme in the Netherlands.
Butter and cheese isn't necessarily Pentecostal.

Perhaps they eat Gentleman's Relish?

A fine way to celebrate warm weather.


Note further that the Dutch use sour cream (zure room) on cold dishes when they use it at all (it wasn't a traditional part of their cuisine), and crème fraîche on warm dishes. Crème fraîche is also not historically part of their diet.


If you are wondering why I am mentioning the Dutch in connection with blinis, it's because although I am Dutch (New Amsterdam descent), I was raised by Edwardians. Buckwheat blinis, much a rarity in our house, were part of our intellectual world. Which would be with a savoury topping augmented with sour cream (at that time nearly impossible to find in the Netherlands, but mentioned fondly by my parents as something remembered from civilized life).
And that completes the link to Gentleman's Relish.


Gentleman's Relish is a smooth mildly spiced anchovy paste preparation for which more than reasonable substitutes can easily be made at home. It is an oddment from the Regency Era, still made today. Anchovies, butter, with mere touches of garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne and black pepper. Plus some thyme.



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BEE BEE GAA TZAAT

As you probably know, I am quite white. So perhaps you can understand why I am outraged that Facebook took offense at my using the term "stupid fu7#*ng white people" and banned me for thirty days two weeks ago. Firstly, I was not making a statement about all white people, just the idiots. And secondly, some of my best friends are white.

Obviously, not all of us are from Arkansas.
Or Montana.

And none of my FB friends are, so who the heck among my circle could possibly take my statement amiss? I hardly even know anyone who shops at Trader Joe's, which was the immediate target of my ire that day, because a huge segment of their target demographic consists of stupid fu%5!ng white people who would think that black rice in tofu kimchi soup, which looks like baby cockroaches, is a darn good idea, besides being meaningful, woke, and sensitive to the tastes and feelings of the more spiritually green unwhites of the world.
B B 曱甴

Black rice, in soup.
Good 你嘅 grief!
Dessert rice.

THE WHITES!

It's not like we white people are in any way endangered, not even the stupid f*5#%ng segment; there's a whole range, from Karen to Bubba, that f2%*3ng stupid as they are, thrives!


My apartment mate, Chinese American, bought the soup, looked at the stuff in the bowl, and threw it away. Hence the term B B 曱甴 (baby cockroaches). I myself, what with being silvery glowing white and all, had a bratwurst in Thai green curry with mustard greens and little red chilies, with toasted cheesy bread to mop up the juices, for dinner that evening. Very white food. My friend the bookseller -- the man who originated the phrase "stupid fe8$3!ng white people", by which he does not mean himself obviously, still uses the phrase but knows not to on Facebook, which often acts like stupid f8%^&ng white people who have gone all sensitive and sh8t and gets huffy beyond all reason, considering the contexts in which the expression "stupid 3ff!ng white people" would be likely to occur.

Pointless, in any case, because the folks most likely to take offense all watch Fox, have flocked to the dark web, or contributed the family fortune to right wing grifters and can no longer pay their internet providers, and can't spell diddly or have had their accounts hacked. Whatever, they've taken a scunner to Facebook. So they're NOT a significant demographic any more. Weren't to begin with anyway.

Tucker F7^5$ng Carlson and Donald f#4%6ng Trump.
Can't hardly get more @83&576^ "white" than that.

Except maybe Mark Zuckerberg.
He's so white it hurts.



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CORNELL & DIEHL HOUSE RESERVE 2021

This pipe (Kriswill, Liverpool shape, handmade in Denmark) is probably the perfect companion for reading 'San-ch'ü: Its Technique and Imagery' by Wayne Schlepp.

The current tobacco is Cornell & Diehl's House Reserve 2021, purchased recently. Consisting of both stoved and unstoved red and bright Virginias pressed and sliced. It sounded right up my alley, and I was curious. It's a pleasant mild flake, not heavily pressed. Smokes well, quite enjoyable, and it will probably age very nicely. The tin aroma is herbal and fruity.
As you would naturally expect from a Virginia flake.

I'll probably buy a few more tins.


Around tea-time I headed over to a bakery to which I have been going for many years. They've finally removed the boards in front of the windows that were there since early in the pandemic, and seem to be operating their regular hours again. Late afternoon business is still sparse, but earlier in the day the hubbub of elderly customers noshing on delicious pastries is steady.
Little children love their paper-wrapped cupcakes (紙包蛋糕 'ji bau daan gou').


San-ch'ü (散曲 'saan kuk'; "literary song") is a poetry category based very largely on popular melodies, which was particularly prominent in the long period between the end of the Song dynasty (宋朝 'sung chiu'; 960 to 1279 common era) up till the beginning of modern times.
The poems were more vernacular than classicly literary, but nevertheless were distinctly products of the literary or literati milieu.

TOBACCO INDEX


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BUN RAISE

Lord Bao (包公 'baau gung', actual name 包拯 'baau ching'; 999 to 1062 common era) was a famous magistrate and administrator during the Song dynasty (宋朝 'sung chiu'; 960 to 1279) known for his honesty, probity, and uncompromising ethics. In the centuries since then he has been the hero of operas and tales of valour.

So much so that the Bao of fiction dwarfs the Bao of fact.

What probably is true is that he stopped the practise of collecting extra tribute inkstones in the second district to which he was appointed (天長 'tin cheung' in Anhui 安徽 'ngon fai' ), was a key mover in the impeachment of Zhang Yaozuo (張堯佐 'cheung yiu jor'), who was an uncle of the favourite imperial concubine, and straightened out the civil administration of Kaifeng (開封 'hoi fung'), which had been corrupted by local gentry to a rare-thee-well.

In stage performances he is usually played with a dark face and a swirly pale birthmark on his forehead. This is partly so the people in the penny seats can spot him from their great distance, partly because he was an ugly man.

While in Duanzhou ( 端州 'duen jau') he wrote the following poem:


清心為治本 'Ching sam wai chi pun',
直道是身謀 'Jik tou si san mau';
秀幹終成棟 'Sau gon jung sing tung',
精剛不作鉤 'Jing gong pat jok gau'.
倉充鼠雀喜 'Chong chung syu jeuk hei',
草盡兔狐愁 'Jou jeun tou wu sau';
史冊有遺訓 'Si chaak yau wai fan',
勿貽來者羞 'Mat yi loi je sau'.

[Mandarin:Qīng xīn wèi zhì běn, zhí dào shì shēn móu; xiù gàn zhōng chéng dòng, jīng gāng bù zuò gōu. Cāng chōng shǔ què xǐ,cǎo jǐn tù hú chóu; shǐ cè yǒu yí xùn, wú yí lái zhě xiū.]


Honesty is a requirement for firm action,
The straight path is a life-long plan;
An elegant tree trunk becomes a pillar,
Refined steel is not used for mere hooks.
Mice and sparrows rejoice when the granaries are filled,
When the grasslands wither rabbits and foxes grieve;
The annals contain guidance from the past,
Do not leave shame for your descendants.


I was revisiting some old stuff this morning, hence this post.

Tribute ink stones: Stone dishes or slabs, often carved elegantly, are used for rubbing out sticks of ink with water for writing. Some types of stone are especially prized for their texture, and exceptionally fine specimens were sent to the court regularly as a form of tax from certain districts. In Tian Zhang local administrators collected far more of these than were required to use as gifts to officials whose good favour they desired. This was, of course, more than just petty corruption.



Note: the name of this essay is more or less a translation of Judge Bao's name. Bao (包 'baau') means wrap up, bundle, bag, packet, and bun. Zheng (拯 'ching') means raise, uplift, aid, assist, save. To a food conscious man, "bun raise" naturally springs to mind.
I apologize, no disrespect was intended.



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QUELLE HORREUR

The bus to work, once you have crossed the Golden Grate Bridge, passes scenic vistas and lovely rolling terrain, before gliding into Sausalito and proceeding toward Mill Valley on more level ground. It's biker country. On the weekends, many natives bike. There's always a gaggle of them near the public bathrooms in downtown Sausalito, as well as swarms heading north toward the salt marshes, where, presumably, they mate and die.

Amazon

California needs the rains. We've been parched for too long. Serious cold and wet cannot come soon enough.


In the evening, the bicyclists are invisible, because it's dark early.




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THE DAEMON IS IN THE DETAILS

At this point I have to admit that I don't do the "person" thing well. This may be an Asperger thing, or it may simple be the neurotic patterns common to Dutchmen, pipesmokers, certain types of people I shall not name because I do not wish to get into arguments with old friends who read this, or just kvetchy old men.

During the working day I have to "person", with a spectrum of other people.

Imagine eight hours plus of listening to Grandpa Simpson talking about the time he took the ferry to Shelbyville, called Morganville at the time, because his shoe needed a new heel, and in those days the ferry cost a nickel ... bumblebees, onions, the war ...
Good lord, man, shut the heck up.

After a full day of that, I just want to "unperson" for a while.
Basically, I want my total predictability.
I don't want their predictability.


Asperger folks will often try to explain everything in complete detail, but focussing on the details which to them make everything absolutely clear. Often only to them.


Hufflepuff; they're like the wanker ones who are never mentioned. Dweebs. I now know far to much about Hufflepuff. In great and totally uninteresting detail. Cold, wet, misery, starvation. Like a little dead bird. As a christmas ornament. It's the sentiment that counts. Hufflepuff.

The idea that Hufflepuff is the best house at Hogwarts is incorrect.
No skills, just hard work by unexciting untalented boring people.
A house filled with just plain average middle-class types.


This was exclamatorily expressed to me in several ways by a person who did not realize that the Harry Potter mythos bored me to tears. Repeatedly. At length, painfully, with much detail.



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OUR STRUGGLE AGAINST REALITY

Michael Flynn has interesting ideas. One religion? As a descendant of Dutch Calvinists, please try to imagine how extremely precise, narrow, and exclusionary, the correct split-off of the correct sect in the correct branch of the correct interpretation within the correct doctrinal tradition would have to be to prevent people like me from ever having to associate with the people whom I would not gladly tolerate. But on the plus side, y'all would have to learn Dutch. Because the Bible is in Dutch. As is the Psalter of Marnix van St. Aldegonde (Petrus Datheen's Psalter is wrong, of course, and both the first and second Statenberijming are from the fiery pit). And don't get me started on Ledeboerians, particularly adherents of van Raalte. I am verkrampt, please DON'T talk among yourselves (that way lies madness and heresy).

BTW: Good luck, Facebook political correctness commissars, in trying to figure out whether the statement above is offensive and if so which group(s) might be triggered. Martians?


We support the right of Loretta (Stan) to bear children even if he can't actually have babies, what with not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans; it's symbolic of struggle. We differ of opinion on which struggle it symbolizes, however.


There are probably four (maximum five) of us worldwide. We call ourselves 'The One True Church'. Everyone else is a heretic, and we shall look down our long snooty noses at them.

Baptists and Pentecostalists must be burned.




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