THE VALUE OF HANDWRITING: 曾鞏《局事帖》A BRIEF NOTE ON THE BUREAUCRATIC WHIRL

A letter from a an eleventh century Chinese scholar recently fetched a top price at an auction. And deservedly so. Not only was Zeng Gong (曾鞏 'Jang Gung') a great essayist -- one of the eight masters of the Tang and Song dynasties -- but he was also a calligrapher whose pen produced that which is pleasing to the eye, as the example below shows.


局事帖
Guk Si Tip: a note about events, a casual scribble mentioning the hurly-burly of life at the writer's current posting (in some provincial burg).
A friendly message from one scholar to another.

[Copied from the BBC, who got it from China Guardian/Weibo.]

The characters are balanced and elegant. What particularly catches my eye is the regularity of the diagonal down-left strokes, which form a rhythm, as well as the contrast with the down-right strokes, often shorter, and weighted near their termination, giving a springy vibrancy.
The overall stroke-patterning is lively.
The ink-weight is even.

No, I do not expect you to understand that; there is no real terminology to describe Chinese calligraphy in English.


Paraphrase: Life is okay, rather uneventful, but I do feel isolated and out of it. My three year assignment here is coming to an end soon, and I can hardly wait, even though my reviews have been rather unfavourable and there might be hell to pay. I'll be passing by your neck of the woods in Autumn, and expect to see you then. Hope that everything is going well for you and that you are healthy (and if you could put in a good word for me should that prove necessary, I would be very much obliged, by the way).
Toodles!

[Please note: what I have translated as 'toodles' (再拜 'joi baai') is actually much more formal: to bow or reverence, as one would to a superior.]


One imagines the brush held in the skilled hand skipping evenly and consciously down each line, holding pace with thought.

I wish I could write like that.



Alas, my best calligraphy is on cocktail napkins.
Frequently whisky is a requirement.
In modest quantity.





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VIRTUE RIVER FLUTTERS IN

The former Crown Colony is a bit tense right now, due to the visit of a top-ranked Northerner, who is well known to be a leading hands-on trouble shooter for Peking. Security is on high alert, and all the members of the constabulary are on duty. Authorities fear embarrassing incidents and confrontations.

They need not worry. Mr. Cheung Tak-kong is merely doing a spot of shopping. Possibly all of the boutiques in the capital are fresh out of his favourite bourgeois consumer goods.

Quite likely he and his lovely wife San Syu-sam also plan to enjoy some fine cooking, as good food is seriously hard to find among the Mandarin speakers, unless one heads to the expat hang-outs where all the drunken foreigners gather. There are plenty of drunken foreigners in Hong Kong as well, but most of them party and vomit near Lan Kwai Fong (蘭桂坊), rather than in the splendid seafood palaces, and in any case are not politically inclined, what with being rather apathetic and a-moral.

You will not find many 佬番 at 明閣。
香港 旺角 上海街 555號
朗豪酒店 6樓。



Naturally the natives are agog and atwit over the visit. Much like the employees in the bath house in the movie Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し / 千與千尋) when NoFace arrived. They wonder what he will buy, where he will dine, which karaoke club he will patronize.
And at which cigar lounge he will light a Havana.

One fully expects that new trends will be set, restaurants and bars will carefully note what he consumes for showcasing after he leaves, and countless happy locals will wish to have their picture taken with him.
Why, it will be huge! Positively Trumpesque!
A fabulous extravaganza!

There will be special commemorative chopstick sets.
As well as Franklin Mint plates.


Anyhow, I hope he brought lots of money; the loot in Hong Kong costs more than a simple bureaucrat can normally afford.
Or should be able to.





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BRACCOLI, BROCOLLI, BROCCOLLI ..... HOWEVER YOUR SPELL IT, IT'S STILL WRONG!

This man has never understood why anyone likes broccoli, which is, very arguably, the world's most repulsive vegetable. It suggests a weakness in the head, as well as a lack of taste. Not major flaws in most folks, but it does make one doubt the individual.

I doubt my apartment mate. Inexplicably, she likes it.

Just a peculiarity. One of very few.


When I came home the apartment reeked of it. She's cooking enough for her boyfriend to eat broccoli for an entire week. And little else. He's a man of limited tastes and picky to boot, and I've heard he can't cook.
His wheelchair has nothing to do with it.
He's just very very white.

My apartment mate and I seem to have a cultural role reversal going on as regards cooking. She's Chinese, but cooks white style -- please see the aforementioned nasty vegetable -- whereas I am rather white (there's a Native American somewhere in the family woodpile on both sides, several generations ago) but tend toward southern Chinese cuisine and ingredients, Indonesian dishes, Filipino food, and the occasional Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, or Thai specialty.
Sometimes, rarely, something Dutch, French, or Eastern European.
None of this is part of mainstream white cooking.
Foreign muck, basically.

I am extremely fond of Foreign Muck.
I could eat it every day.
I do.


HRÆÐILEGT SPERGIKÁL TO YOU, SIR!

She's also cooking Cauliflower at present, which is quite edible. Unlike broccoli. You probably never realized this, but broccoli is actually a race of space aliens who cleverly disguised themselves as harmless tree-like green things, and go rigid whenever they see a human. They came to take over our planet, but unfortunately for them, human beings eat almost anything. That's why they have never reached critical mass, despite proliferating like the pests that, as a food-related substance, they are.
All of you stupid people keep eating them!
They will never win.

Maybe you folks are useful after all.
Despite your horrid natures.


Evenso, I, for one, would welcome our alien overlords. If all of you stopped cooking them. You are all heartless!


Broccoli is a karmic laxative.




UPDATE AS OF 9:10 PM

At present I am waiting for her to get out of the kitchen so that I can prepare some kryddaður geitakjöt koftur með blandaða grænmeti hrísgrjónum for dinner. What the rest of you should know as mishrit sabji pullao aur masaledara bakrigosht ke kufta. It will get the stench out.




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DELICATE BLOSSOM

There are some people out there who mis-apprehend that Chinese girls are demure little Asian flowers. And, seeing as my apartment mate is a Chinese girl, they sometimes have completely the wrong idea.

Yes, she is little, in that she is fine-boned, shorter than me by about four and a half inches, and weighs considerably less than the average white or black woman of her age (forties). And if by 'demure' you mean 'anti-social' (not a people person), then yes that too; demure as all git-out.
But in some ways she's a giant.

Man o man, her mouth.


"I've had it up to here with old Chinese arse!"


Recently she did some regularly scheduled volunteer work with a local charitable organization that deals with elderly Chinese. Whenever she does that, I can expect to come home to a vitriolic accounting of something one of those creaky delinquents pulled.


"Don't use onions, you'll fart like white people!"


My cooking sometimes disturbs her. She's known me for years, but still presumes that white people can't cook worth blazes, which is a mostly subconscious belief to which I likewise subscribe. Most white people, in the United States. I've been cooking since I was in my single digits, and read the Larousse Gastronomique cover to cover in early adolescence.
But many Wasps in this country are "special".
Do not allow them into the kitchen, they'll hurt themselves.
I had never heard the fart thing before.
That's a new one.

Apparently we white people fart a lot
Something unique.


"Aaaack, oh shit! Tell him I'll call back!"


She was in the bathroom when she said this. Earlier she had been speculating about the effect of over-ripe fruit on the digestive system. Her boy friend called while she was taking a powder.

I quoted her verbatim, of course, and explained the circumstances prior to her loo-visit, as I do not want him to ever think that she is a demure little Asian flower, all delicate and sh*t.


"It's lobster time, bitches! In your face!"


Her annual check-up proved that she is healthy as a horse, trim and fit, and has exceptionally good cholesterol levels. Despite consuming milk and cheese in great proportion. As well as bacon, butter, icecream.
Crustaceans are bad for your cholesterol.
And so are animal fats.
Plus dairy.

But nope. Time to celebrate.


"Gluten-free tastes like crap!"


Crap was not actually the word she used.
And she is absolutely right.
It does.



She's a very sweet woman.
And extremely considerate.




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BOGGITY TYPE STEW

No, I did not participate in the SF Bay to Breakers race -- also sometimes jocularly called "Beer for Breakfast" -- which took place today, primarily because I'm not a stupid drunk or exhibitionist. It is absolutely uncivilized to pote alcoholic beverages significantly before tea-time is over. Tea-time starts at three, and continues till five. You may have glass of sherry toward the end of it.


Swilling large quantities of sh*tty beer in the A.M. is a sign of depravity.
And that's all there is to that.


Properly raised people do NOT get blitheringly drunk before lunchtime, unless they are lushes, and there are both holding cells and twelve-step programs for that.


I had two drinks late last night in good company, one of whom was teasing the lone French person present by making longwinded and outrageous statements in an accent twixt Inspector Clouseau and the French soldiers who catapulted livestock at King Arthur and his silly English kniggets in Monty Python And The Holy Grail. The rest of us simply sat there with stunned looks on our faces, drinking it all in.


SONS OF A SILLY PERSON!

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yjNbcKkNY.]


At this point, I really must insist that the Dutch are NOT terrible cheese-eating bog-types with pallid sausages. And we are not necessarily neck-high in boggityness, nor do we ever say "ooh arrr", or hold up signs with that phrase. This is a canard.

We do not rip out people's brains and eat them during picnics.

On the other hand, French people very well may tenderize their sheep and lambs by tossing them drunk into the schoolyards.
While not wearing any clothes.



NAVARIN
French lamb stew with turnips.

2 Lbs. boned lamb shoulder, cut into large chunks.
1½ cups white wine.
Three carrots chopped into large pieces.
Four or five turnips, peeled and chopped into large pieces.
Three tomatoes, skinned and chopped.
One onion, chopped small.
Five garlic cloves, peeled and crushed.
One TBS sugar.
One TBS flour.
Very generous pinches nutmeg or mace.
Pinches thyme, rosemary, and such like.
Two TBS butter or rendered bacon grease.
Two TBS olive oil.
Salt, pepper.

In a heavy enamel casserole or stew pot heat the olive oil. Add the pieces of lamb to brown, turning as needed. Remove the meat from the pot and drain off all but one tablespoon of the cooking grease.

Return the lamb to the pot on medium heat. Sprinkle with the sugar and stir, then sprinkle with the flour plus a sprinkle of salt and a grind or two of pepper, and cook while stirring for a few minutes. Seethe with the wine and add the chopped tomato, plus garlic, pinches of herbs, and nutmeg or mace. Add water to barely cover, bring to boil, turn low, and simmer for an hour. Stir occasionally.

In a skillet cook the carrot, turnip and chopped onion with the butter or rendered grease till softened, then turn off heat. Add this to the lamb after an hour, simmer it all for about thirty minutes longer.
Taste, and add more salt if needed.


Many French people add legumes, such as fresh peas, to the pot, because they like the flavour. I do not. Peas bore me.


I would accept this as a decent breakfast, at a civilized hour (say, ten or eleven o'clock). American beer and whatever it is that naked drunks eat at five in the morning just will not do.

Bunch of heathen sots.





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IT'S NOT THE FAULT OF THE TAPIOCA!

It's bad for you! This utterance pursuant ice-tea drinks with bubbly stuff included. The speaker was talking about food-poisoning, indigestibility, and contamination at the factory.
Which, if you are confident about the point of origin AND chew the damned things, is not really an issue. And anyway, seeing as I do not like big-ass tapioca balls, I wasn't really involved in that conversation.


"So good it makes you scream in your panties!"


Okay. NOW you've got my attention. All of it. Every shred. Except for the part in my brain involved in keenly imagining some young tapioca pearl tea drinking miss doing precisely that.

Maybe I need to start hanging out at a bubble tea bar.

If need be, I can drink a few buckets of honeydew melon and passion fruit green tea cocktail with pudding slivers, or something like that.
Because lord knows I don't wish to scream in my panties.

Come to think of it, I'm not wearing any.

Shan't put them on today either.

What with being male.

Unsuitable.

Yes?



Also, I'm not Chinese, so the consumption of big-ass tapioca balls is hardly likely to make me scream in my panties in any case.

It's one of the drawbacks of being white.




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IT DOES NOT TASTE LIKE ROADKILL

Imagine, if you will, a long table surrounded by old geezers of all ages.
That being the monthly meeting of the Golden Gate Pipe Club, consisting of the gregarious portion of the San Francisco and Marin pipe smoking crowd. The rest are somewhat anti-social, and don't meet, ever, except to growl and snap over decomposing roadkill carcasses.
Or maybe they are too busy to attend.
How very sad.

There are some customers I see occasionally who smoke the same briar until it is filthy, sopping wet, and thoroughly plugged (they never use pipe-cleaners, those are for sissies). They will then bring in the slimy gunked-up bastard, and either claim that it is defective, or ask me to ream and clean it good. Usually their tobacco of preference is Captain Black or 1-Q.
Or, lordelpus, Blue Note
These folks do not join pipe clubs. They've been smoking since they were in grammar school, they know everything there could possibly be to know about pipe smoking, and they refuse to consider that 1-Q hotboxed till the sodden residue in the shank boils may not be the optimum way to enjoy what could very well be a pleasant habit.

Honestly, we would welcome them. I would.
Their company might prove enjoyable.

What I would REALLY enjoy, however, would be the company of female pipe smokers. There are far too few of them, and unlike the brazen hussies who once in a blue moon venture into the Oxxy in downtown SF to amateurishly wave around a stale corona while ogling the talent, female pipe smokers are strong-minded women of taste and discernment, whose character and intelligence cannot fail to charm.

[And at this point, I would like to warmly congratulate Mary Walters, who recently joined Smokingpipes.com as a customer service representative. Despite a queer pumpkin fetish, she's a splendid example of the female pipe smoker, with a marked fondness for snazzy Italian pipes. She also speaks French, and once dressed up as Xena, Warrior Princess.]



We had our monthly meeting two days ago.
No female pipe smokers present. Dammit.

There was cheese however, along with wine and port, and some tasty preserved meats, plus chocolate bonbons. Naturally I spent the entire time in the background, occasionally making a snotty comment, and glowering at Nick, who at nearly eighty is still a chick magnet. Probably because he just looks so huggable. William and I informed the crowd of the time a lively young lady glued herself on to him and cleaned his ear, before Curtis threw her out of the bar.
She spent the better part of the next half hour trying to get back in, to no avail.

Nick is shorter than me, clear skinned, puckish, and has an impish grin. He's warm, charming, and witty. And he's already married, bitches!


Various Virginias were smoked. Some Oriental blends too.

We did NOT snap over roadkill carcasses in any way.

The preserved meats sated our bestial appetites.

That, and the excellent examples of vintnery.



AFTER WORD

I'm still smoking one of my own blends, by the way. Personally, I think when it comes to pipe tobacco my stuff is pretty darn good (I'm a ruddy genius), but due to "club blend" resistance at the corporate level from a certain tobacco company whose owner I used to know (but who, alas,
is no longer with us), it will never be produced commercially.
That's fine by me. Really, that's fine. No problem.
I'm okay with that. It's fine.
Yep.

TOBACCO INDEX


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VOTING GREEN

It used to be that I could josh the lads in the lounge about their party, they would laugh, and everyone would have a great time. No more. The giddy lightheartedness they had when there were still over a dozen clowns that had erupted from the VW has given way to a sad, disheartened realization that with only one candidate left in play, it is now earnest.
The reality of Trump is smacking them in the face.
Quite fiercely, too.

In fact, both sides in The Great American Exercise In Vote Weaseling have veered towards the far fringes, and moderate sanity has long fled the arena of discourse.

What I mean by that sentence is "you are all nuts".
And have become dangerous extremists.
Rather nasty people.


MR. CLEESE EXPLAINS IT


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4.]


When I returned to California from Europe, I realized that my vote did not mean much. The state would back the Democratic candidate as it has always done, and whether I supported a drag queen, a tentacled Martian, or a senile drooling and gibbering ape really made no difference: all of California's Electoral weight would go in one direction only.
The correct direction, as we all know.
But it was an inevitability.

So I scrawled "Kermit the Frog" on my ballot in crayon.

It is now several years later, and I still think Kermit the Frog would be a most excellent president. He has vast scads of experience, a sound head, and is both rational and diplomatic.

Altogether the very best possible candidate.

Even if there were other good ones.

Which there really aren't.



I'm taking a crayon to the polls in November.

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DE OMNI RE SCIBILI, ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS

A friend with a fascination for piyyutim is now a doctor. Kol hakavod. The journey took over a decade, and went through several twists and turns; during most of that time he was either invisible or self-veiled in obscure fogs.
Most of his visits to this blog in that long interval have been very much like things that go bump in the night -- entertaining at times, frustrating on occasion -- and his comments indicated fiercely burning fascinations, but attempts at anonymity did not hide his personality.

I'm still not sure what he thought about the three blithering posts which discussed the Keter Aram Tzova, or the time that we did not encounter each other at Kikar Safra (I have, alas, completely forgotten who originally spread that rumour).

He's still an odd fish...
But he's now a fish with a PhD.

Time for a joyous song of congratulationality!


DE BREVITATE VITAE


[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCZQPIRSKTY&feature=related.]

'Tis the season for graduates. The academic year is coming to an end, great achievements receive recognition, degrees cap years of effort. Dusty bookworms and ink-stained wretches are rewarded for their singleminded dedication. Perhaps they finally blink in sunlight again.

Laßt uns deshalb fröhlich sein.




AFTERWORD
[Yesterday I smoked eight pipes full. Please imagine all of this in a raspy croak in consequence.]

Today I have a hangover, having spent a while at the Oxxy with other pipe smokers after the monthly meeting. With bleary eyes I stumbled about fixing coffee, my mind being somewhat abstracted by the flicker of exaggerated memories. The very first thing I saw on Facebook was a mention of the gentleman who is the subject of this post.
There is much reason to congratulate him.
It is an admirable achievement.
Herr Doktor W.
Hot dang.





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THEY ARE SO FULL OF ENERGY!

According to two maps I saw recently, San Francisco is solidly within the range of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which puts us at a higher risk of certain diseases, such as Zika, Dengue, and West Nile. Yet if you step outside, you will scoff. Summer has started early, bringing with it a bone-chilling quality people elsewhere associate with fall and winter. Because of cold winds in late afternoon, the usual volley ball players avoid the Willie 'Woo Woo' Wong Playground.
At least, that's what I think it is.

The only people on the court were three little girls energetically playing in the freezing gale. Cantonese girls are smaller and thinner than white girls of the same age, but clearly much hardier and healthier.

Or at the very least, they are smaller and thinner but hardier and healthier than me.


I should have brought a sweater and a blanket. I could barely smell my own tobacco because my nose was numb.


This is the kind of weather in which you want to hunker down under a feather comforter eating bacon, preferably in front of a roaring fire.

A nice down comforter I've got.

Bacon can be arranged.

No fire place.

Darn.



AFTER WORD

The dinner special yesterday evening at the "Capital Metropolis Dining Establishment" (京都餐館) was steamed chicken chunks flavoured with Lentinula edodes and Chinese sausage: 冬菇臘腸蒸雞 ('dong gu laap cheung jing kai'). Juicy and delicious.

Lunch, which I was far too late to request, had been black pepper beef (黑椒牛肉 'hak jiu ngau yiuk'). One of these days I'll have to get there around noonish.

Lentinula edodes (冬菇) è un fungo basidiomicete di origine Asiatica ed è attualmente il secondo fungo commestibile più consumato al mondo.

I was happy as a clam till I left.

Then the cold air smacked me.

Positively Siberiatic.

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SAY IT WITH FIBRE!

There are times when you necessarily would rather have a different person at the table. And sometimes, no one at all. This was evident from the two women diners nearest me yesterday at the chachanteng. The first one had a very enjoyable meal all by herself: a big bowl of wonton in broth, and a plate of Chinese broccoli with a drizzle of oyster sauce. She looked perfectly happy and at peace during and after, and may have had an altogether splendid time.

The second one was accompanied by her two sons. Who, as little boys are wont to be, were a fractious handful, and had they been unsupervised would have poked each other with sharp sticks or found a way to break things.
This morning I realized that that precisely is a key difference between male children and female children. The tiny man-brats engage in one-upmanship and vying for rank or downright supremacy in the pecking order, often by pushing and shouting, or demanding attention; little girls are more likely to attempt a form of co-operative social interaction.

This is probably an over-simplification.

Still, they were annoying.


唓！住嘴啊，你！
['Che! Jyu jeui ah, nei!']


When their mother went to the bathroom, I leaned over and hissed "m-sai gam taai seng ge, sai-seng di, ho m-ho" (唔使咁大聲嘅，細聲啲，好唔好); 'it is not necessary to be so loud, how about toning it down a bit'.

It pleases me no end that the smaller and more obnoxious one didn't say a single word from then until I left, the small google-eyed monster.

I really do not like loud shouting.


One other thing that stood out of all the people there was the difference between women's snackipoos and what the men were having.
The men were eating pastries or mostly meat dishes.
The women were having much more fibre.

What I ordered was great greasy gobs of goodness: baked Portuguese chicken rice (焗葡國雞飯 'guk pou gwok gai faan'). Chicken bits and potato chunks on top of egg-fried rice en casserole, a mild coconut curry sauce poured over, and both grated coconut and shredded cheese strewn on top. Then into the oven till the cheese melts and the surface bubbles. Not exactly the epitome of healthy eating, but so, so good.

What I should also have had, but it would have been far too much for one person at that point, was a plate of stirfried Chinese broccoli or mustard stalks with a drizzle of oyster sauce on the side.

But I was not dining with a woman, you see.
So it was just not a possibility.

We could have shared the two dishes.
And been perfectly happy.




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BE SUSTAINED BY MY ANALEPTIC CHARM!

In all honesty, crazy people scare me. I'm afraid that they will recognize me as a strong, nurturing, and supportive individual, and talk to me. Consequently I cultivate a stern Germanic attitude when the obviously unbalanced approach.

It doesn't really work. There are far too many loonies for comfort in Portsmouth Square. Too many for my comfort. And I almost never walk in North Beach during daytime anymore.

Clearly, I am too warm and sociable for my own good.



Fortunately the tourists recognize me as unwholesome and threatening, especially when they are acting stupid and obnoxious.
It is small consolation.

Hello, Italians, Scandies, and visiting Mainlanders barking in Mandarin!
Thank you for coming to San Francisco and spending money!
Now kindly piss off!

Same goes for all the badly dressed goobers from Flyoverstan.
But without the hearty (and sincere) welcome.

All of you, stop taking photos.


If you want directions, please ask the hairy screaming savage there. Yes, the one who just took off his shirt and flung it at the children.

He's a native, and he speaks your language.

You're wearing shorts.

Feh.



When I came home today, my apartment mate told me that I smelled bad and ate too much. She may have been channeling for someone.
I don't know. But I have no intention of asking her.




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LET US SOAK

Years ago, when I lived for a while in a residential hotel in North Beach with all the weirdos -- a necessary stage in my development after my dad had sent me back to the States for an education -- I picked up conversational Cantonese. There were five active Chinese movie theatres in the area at that time, and I learned the language by absorbing what the dashing criminals and polished charlatans on screen were saying. Context would often clarify the meanings, and the Cantonese love watching tales of derring do, or derring darn well everything.

Eloquent rogues getting away with staggering chicanery and unbelievable bluff will naturally make hearts beat faster.

None of the Triad members or lone wolves in those movies was a plumber. Or dealt with plumbing in any way. Or was ever confronted with a slow dripping leak from a tap, or a drain that was plugged beyond all hope of redemption. Pipes, sinks, and tubs, showerheads, faucets, and cisterns; seemingly none of these affected their lives.

There were no hairballs at all.

Consequently, while I could lisp like a rancid old pervert, talk smack with juvenile delinquents, flirt with lovely girls, and snarl curses with the best of them, I had no vocabulary whatsoever for the bathroom.


This became an issue when a co-tenant had a problem with his sink.

And I was the only non-monolingual person on site.

The building manager was Chinese.


WORDS I DID NOT KNOW THEN

Follows a list of vocabulary items that would have been extremely useful at that time. As it was, I was reduced to making bold declarations that roughly translated to "water bucket thingy all buggered-up, it's wet everywhere, he's totally hosed, poor sod, alas, what bad luck!".
That, and "moist mess", had to suffice until the plumber came.

Along with a word that must not be printed.

Plumber: 水喉匠 ('seui hau jeung'); "water-gullet craftsman". Cantonese usage.
Plumbing (in general): 通渠 ('tong keui'); "pass-through drainage". Cantonese usage.
Plumber, plumbing expertise: 水瀧、水龍('seui lung'). Cantonese usage. 瀧 = rapids, torrents, gushing.

Bathroom, toilet: 廁所 ('chi so'); "lavatorial location".
Bathroom for bathing: 沖涼房 ('chung lueng fong', "bathing room"); 洗身房 ('sai san fong', "wash body room"); 浴室 ('yuk sat', "wash chamber").
Bath tub: 浴缸 ('yuk gong', "wash vat"), 沖涼缸 ('chung leung gong'; "steep cold vat"), 浴池 ('yuk chi', "bath pool").
缸 = vat, 池 = pool.
Bathing room, wash room: 洗澡間 ('saai chou gan').
Lavatory, loo: 盥洗室 ('gwun sai sat'); "wash & rinse room".
Drain pipe: 排水管 ('paai seui gwun'); "remove water tube".
Sewage: 廢水 ('fai seui'), 髒水 ('jong seui').
Sink: 水槽 ('suei chou').
Shower: 淋浴 ('lam yuk').
Toilet: 馬桶 ('lam tong'); "horse bucket".
Wash basin: 洗手盆 ('sai sau pun'); "hand wash basin".
Overflow, brimming over:滿溢 ('mun yat').
Plugged up, clogged: 堵塞 ('dou sak').
Spout, spray, spurt: 噴水 ('pan seui').
Leak: 淦 ('gam').
Unstoppable leaking: 漏不停 ('lau pat ding'); "leak not stop".

Overflow: 瀰 ('mei'); rarely used.
Billowing: 灎 ('yam'); what on earth is going on in your toilet?!?.
Sopping wet: 灦 ('haahm'). Good lord, it's a mess!
Swirling, eddying: 瀠 ('ying'); that's a very poetic description of the problem, don't you think?.


This came to mind this morning, as the bathtub hasn't been able to drain for five days or so. The plumber came -- it is finally my weekend, hence the necessary delay -- and snaked it. Took less than five minutes. He remarked that if the occupants of this apartment had been long haired young women (one of the words he used was "blonde"), it would have been much worse.
Hairy space aliens.


Anyhow, the tub now drains.


I am tempted to see if I can find someone to bathe with me.


Celebratorily, of course.


Yay.



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HOW FEMALE "ASTERISK" CAN BE RECONCILED WITH RABBI ELIYAHU SAFRAN

When this blogger came home and scoped out his Facebook page, it was to discover that not one, but THREE of his Facebook friends sincerely wished to direct his attention to an irate article in Crosscurrents about the rabbinic approach to female mast*rbation, authored by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran. Who disapproves heartily of the very concept of female mast*rbation. Considering that female mast*rbation might lead to female gratification, RATHER than doing holy stuff like being wives of frumniks.

Or frimnikim.


"We are mispallel for the day that Hashem will repair the pirtzos of Klal Yisrael."

------R. Eliyahu Safran

First Rabbi Safran preambulates with a general discription of bilboard and public advertisement immodesty, after which he attacks the meat of his subject, that being an insistence that sex*al shenanigans at all times should be clean and pure and inspired by religious reverence.
Or something in that vein.

"There is no place where the challenge of kedusha is more at risk than when it comes to sex*al behavior."

This implies, naturally, that kedusha should be foremost in your mind when your husband, lover, or boyfriend, is acting wicked. Quite a challenge.

He writes: "As reported in Lilith.org by Susan Schneider, JOFA is committed to “explicit and liberating sex ed*cation.” "

Rabbi Safran reads some fascinating stuff.

I have never read Lilith.org.

Or ms. Schneider.


Further worthwhile quote: "In the article, Ms. Schneider writes, “Bat Sheva Marcus, a sex ed*cator, has a new tool for enlightening not just the Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox women who are the base of her clinical practice, but the rest of the human race as well. She is the lively and genial — and often funny — co-host and resident sex*ality expert for a new podcast series, ‘The Joy of Text,’ a forum for rabbinic and psychological perspectives on sex*al behavior, from mast*rbation before (and during) marriage, to the use of sex toys, to whether fantasy can be a religiously approved aspect of sex*al behavior."

And also: "Bat Sheva Marcus is, after all, a woman whose doctoral dissertation in human sex*ality was on women and vibrator use! She takes great pride in telling high school students in Jewish day schools to intimately examine their bodies in a mirror and telling them to find the most pleasurable way to mast*rbate!"


Anyhow, I sincerely and heartily recommend that you read the article in Crosscurrents, entitled Holiness Does Not Have An Expiration Date. Whether you choose to then reread it obsessively, and collapse in a fit of giggles, or retire to the office men's room or women's room (or cross gender room) to frantically bevredig yourself, is totally up to you. If the picture accompanying the article gives you pleasure, so much the better.

That's one hell of a handsome frumnik. If you are into frumniks, then that is, in fact, emmes geshmak. This blogger tends to favour srugies, rather than six-panel velvet kippos, but even I will admit that it is colour co-ordinated, and goes well with the formal look he embodies.
And what an embodiment it is!
Gevaldik!


But ALL of that is beside the point. If you are a frimme woman, kindly keep your hands out of your crotch. And stop looking at that photo.

If you are NOT a frimme woman, become one at once.

If you aren't Jewish at all, al pi halacha, it is quite immaterial what you choose to do with your hands and your crotch, or when, where, or howsoever long, and neither I nor Rabbi Elyahu Safran care.

Well, he does, maybe. I don't.

As long as you're happy.




PLEASE NOTE: This essay presented ONLY as a public service, for the eyes of scholarly readers possessed of clean curiosity. All attempts have been made to avoid offending the pritzusdikkeit of frimme leite.
Hence the cautionary overabundance in asterisking.
My apologies if you required more.

A version even richer in asterisks is available.
Or you could asterisk yourself.




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GOOD MORNING, WORSHIPFUL CHEROOTISTS!

Yesterday this blogger came as close to sainthood as he is ever likely to get. Not only did he put up with at least three (!) gentlemen whose borderline senility/schizophrenia would have sorely tried Jayzis the Fictional himself, but he also dealt with sundry dithering, dipshittering, and doddering.
What the hell, I am a saint. I'm a total friggin' darn saint.
Praise me, mere mortals, or bloody well else.
I know where your cat is.


Nothing says "Mothers Day" better than a fine cigar.


Which, of course, explains why there was a whole boatload of people adulating Trump in the backroom. Because sometimes a cigar represents your mom, and you need to be slapped senseless for the stupid shizzle that comes out of your mouth, you very bad boy.

Plus a wall put around your sorry ass.

Fortunately, not all of the cigar smokers are like that. Just the ones with mother complexes on top of their penis complexes. Yes, I certainly do love my cigar-smoking fellow bipeds.
Oh golly gee.



Pipes, now there's a splendid habit. A pipe coupled with good tobacco speaks of clean living, solid values, intelligence, and good taste.
As well as, at times, sainthood.

Introduce your child to briar and Latakia or Perique at an early age, and they will become fine upstanding citizens who will never embarrass you. Instead of rum and Bourbon soaked dissipants, inclined to vote for the wrongest candidate, and screaming about some damned horse in Kentucky, plus the best way to cook alu gobi. Vociferously.

I am patient with weirdoes.

I am a saint.




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WATCHING THE MACHO KITSCH CHANNEL

The Godzilla franchise was pretty much a spent force by the late seventies. Probably a good thing, because the movies were never big on acting or continuity, and not a single character is worth emulating.
This in complete contrast to modern movies.

Also, the fighting between Godzilla and a whole series of other outré monsters was more than a little reminiscent of the Three Stooges.

While watching, I looked up gout on the internet.



痛風、蹠骨、尿酸
烤豬肝、蠔蒸、啤酒、熏肉包裹的蝦、龍蝦法國湯、等等。

Gout: 痛風殺死我啊! ('tung fung saat sei ngoh ah')
Literally: Painful wind kill dead me! "Bit of an ache, what?"
Metatarsal: 蹠骨疼得死了! ('jik gwat tung dak sei la')
Literally: Metatarsal bone hurted dead! "I am uncomfortable."
Uric acid: 尿酸我的天啊! ('niu suen ngoh dik tin ah')
Literally: Uric acid my heavens! "This is irritating."

As with all translations, construe, and figure out the best way to introduce the new term into casual conversation.

今日嘅天氣幾好 .... 。 The weather is rather nice today, isn't it ('gam yat ge tin hei gei hou ...' ).
係，痛風殺死我啊! Indeed, my gout is much better.
你想去游泳嗎？ Wanna go swimming ('nei seung heui yau wing maa')?
冇，蹠骨疼得死了。 I can't, I've got something else going on.
不如我哋食點心，啊？ Well, how about a quick snack then ('pat yu ngoh tei sik dim sam, ah')?
唉吖，尿酸我的天啊! I'm afraid that's out too, so sorry.

[係 = hai. 冇 = mou. 唉吖 = aaiyah.]

The dubbing for Japanese sci-fi movies is usually pretty inane.
If there are female space aliens, they hold plates.
Or fall in love with earthlings.
For no reason.


Gout is never a theme in Japanese movies, but is an almost constant undercurrent in English period pieces. Except, perhaps, for anything having to do with King Henry the Eighth. Who did not have gout, but was afflicted with a purulent and disfiguring leg abscess, very probably caused by a nasty French disease. He also had a paunch, body odour, and a bad temper, and was for his time quite the ladies man.

I should emulate him, I think. Better than Godzilla.

I am fairly trim and cheerful, bathe regularly, and most certainly do not have a syphilitic sore oozing puss from crotch to knee. So even without a kingdom and a tower, I am quite the catch.

I have a positive attitude.

Despite gout.



Sometimes, once every two or three months or so, I am struck with the affliction of genius, and my right metatarsal-phalangeal joint feels like Godzilla, but without the thick reptilian skin. It breathes fire.

I am Henry, and Anne of Cleves pleases me not.

"The Shobijin (小美人 Shobijin, lit. Small beauties) are two tiny priestesses or fairies created by Toho that first appeared in the 1961 film, Mothra. They accompany and speak for the monster Mothra."

Silly little fairies please me neither.

Stomp on all of them.

哥斯拉



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ANTIVAX DEMENTIA

Some Canadians are off their meds. Specifically, Joel Lord, crank, self-assumed lead antivaxxer, and founder of the Vaccine Resistance Movement.

Yes, the shmuck has a facebook page.

But if you really want to know more, don't go there.

It's filled with all kinds of batpoo.

Instead, go here:


DIPSHIT


It is because of delusional psychopaths like mr. Joel Lord that several diseases are coming back, and if your child ever gets measles, it will be because of evil sons-of-bitches like him.

Surely you remember polio?

He's in favour.



Parents who refuse to vaccinate should be clubbed to death.




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OYSTER ASSOCIATIONS

Shellfish are not kosher. But that is not why I have largely avoided them for several years. The absence of shellfish in my life is purely because of two factors, of which the main one these days is gout. Gout, marked by podal inflammation, can be brought on by several foods of which I am extremely fond, as well as beer, which I do not mind in moderation late at night once a week.

The three kings of the shellfish realm are lobster, mussel, and oyster. And crab. Four kings. Sorry. Four mighty and immortal kings, whose presence normally brings great pleasure.

All four of them ALSO symbolize venery.

Instead of venery, I have gout.

It's not the same.

GIRL EATING OYSTERS, BY JAN STEEN

Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague

Gift of Sir Henri Deterding, 1936

Inv. no 818 - See more at: http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/mauritshuis/818#sthash.R45PcAS7.dpuf

The first thing I noticed in this painting, I shamefully admit, was the wine jug on the table, which is majolica of a type that later became known as Delft Blue, and which shows typical clobbering, being provided with a lid to keep out the flies. Very common in that era. It was also done to porcelain imported from the Far East, notable Ming Dynasty blue and white, immitation of which led to the development of Dutch ceramics.

[My own pottery and porcelain collection is quite modest; mostly Californian ware, but it does include a few I-Hsing pieces of age and beauty, as well as a censer for the scholar's desk, crackled mustard glaze.
Some green glazes and yellows, plus tea bowls. No blue and white.]

By its juxtaposition, the wine glass also stands out. Containing probably a dry Rhenish white. Only then does the crimson of the woman's sumptuous bathrobe become noticeable.

And there's something goofy about the bread on the platter.
Aside from sponginess and dirt.

The painting above is called "Girl Eating Oysters", but it might as well be "Trot Having Lunch". Because the symbolism is all about sex.


I've always been fond of blue and white pottery and porcelain. Oysters didn't enter my life until my first trip to Paris, and while I found them tasty, I had no clue at the time of their connection to naughty business. Instead, I was frustrated by the unavailability in that most cosmopolitan of cities of anything to smoke other than Gauloises and Gitanes.
For a pipesmoker, it was a bit galling.

[Horrid pun omitted.]

Three things about Paris stood out at the time, in no particular order of precedence they are paintings, food, and moodily beautiful cityscapes.
Museums, many lovely restaurants, and the river Seine.

Plus café au lait, boiled eggs, and Gauloises.

[Why do French eat cold œufs for breakfast?
I haven't the foggiest idea.
They're odd.]


I was at that time blitheringly unaware that shellfish went hand in hand with lascivious stuff, being a teenager of somewhat blinkered perspective, but Paris was worth falling in love with despite being completely blind to the probably abundant opportunities for venery.

In the painting above, we are supposed to immediately draw a guilty link between the girl's calculating glance, the oysters, the flamboyant robe, and the brutalized bread. If that is Steenian porno, it is very subtle.
The one thing I want to touch is the wine jug.
It's a classic piece, quite nice.



As I said, I haven't eaten oysters in several years. But, if charming company were to insist on sharing a plate of steamed oysters (either with chilies and cilantro, OR blackbean sauce and ginger), I should have no objection. I also do a great Oysters Rockefeller, by the way.

I might not associate it immediately with venery, though. My primary focus afterwards would be on dreading any twinges, and hailing a taxi to take us home without me having to hide my podal discomfort.
Surely two or three oysters won't do any harm?



AFTERWORD

Paris will always be associated with oysters and langouste, Amsterdam with herring and mussels. Where that all intersects is Antwerp.
Which is where all the best seafood can be found.

There's probably venery there too.

I'm almost sure of it.





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