Grab bag: Hurricane Steve

Grab bag: experiments

Grab bag: Rimbaud, currency psychology, symbolic violence

Late August

Tomatosauce

Ah, late August. The temperatures are still high (well, high by Boston standards, anyway–growing up, 83° was more like a warm fall afternoon) but you can tell summer is getting to be a little long in the tooth.

For starters, the tomatoes are starting to come in. We only have a handful of tomatoes on the plants this time around; I have no idea why, except that we didn’t spend as much time with the plants this year. So we’re supplementing with the big boxes of seconds that are starting to show up at Wilson Farm and using those for our annual tomato sauce exercise. The process looks something like this photo set from last year, except this year we didn’t have a big crop of cherry tomatoes so I diced the big ones by hand instead of using the food processor. We make about a dozen to 20 quarts every year, and they last all through the winter and into the high summer if managed right, even given our relatively high pasta and pizza consumption. Case in point–we opened the last 2010 jar just last week.

So I’m making sauce. Instead of mowing the lawn (it can wait a day) and instead of napping while my son naps, which I might regret later. But right now it’s feeling like the right thing to do. Because sometimes you have to take a look at the future and say, I want to be ready.

Liberal business

  • What they’re “protecting” us from – Anil Dash
    “So, who is this man? He’s the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He’s a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than “3”, and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.”Or, why claiming liberal values are bad for business is a complete crock.

    (tags: apple politics)

Earliest Virginia Glee Club concert program

I got a digital download the other day from the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. It contained what I’ve jokingly been calling my Historian’s Christmas present–high resolution scans of ten artifacts from the Glee Club’s archives, which have been donated to Special Collections over the years and have therefore been less accessible to Club. One of the items was of particular interest: the earliest known Glee Club concert program, dated December 1891.

Let’s put that in context for a second. This concert happened a mere 20 years after the Glee Club’s founding, and a few years before its first significant tours in 1893. It was before the authoring of the Good Old Song. It was before Thomas Jefferson’s original Rotunda burned to the ground. In fact, the concert was held in the Public Hall, which was the large auditorium in the Annex that was totally consumed by the fire and never rebuilt.

I had known that the concert program existed, because a scan from it was used to illustrate a library exhibit on American song. But that scan was only of the cover. The library digitized both sides for us, including the program and list of members. In doing so, it gave us one of our earliest full Glee Club rosters, and a rare glimpse at the repertoire performed back in the banjo & mandolin days.

Oh–I’ve also been able to do some mini-bios of the Club members listed as officers. See the articles on W. H. Sweeney, W. P. Shelton, W. S. Stuart, Charles L. DeMott, and O. W. Catchings. I particularly like the history on DeMott’s involvement with the founding of the Natural Bridge Appalachian Trail Club.

The Diamond Sea

I am often awakened these days at 4 am by our dogs. As I stumble over the pile of clothes I leave beside the bed for the early morning wakeups, our girl dog whines urgently. I take them outside in the early morning pearl-light and return to bed.

This day, like many, the next step is my son awakening at 5:15. My wife takes pity on me this morning and gets him, leaving me to unsettled dreams. I am just starting to get past the unsettled sleep schedule that has kept REM sleep at bay for almost a year, and my dreams crowd in resentfully when they are allowed.

This morning, after I rolled back over, I helped house guests down to our basement, where we walked through the tunnels that connected the house to Boston’s Red Line. Arriving a few stops later, we were in DC, where we walked past the Space Needle and along the booths of an outdoor festival. I spotted a pair of students from the University of Virginia, who helped me find graduation programs and band posters from the early 1990s. It struck me that it was like eBay but with sellers you could actually talk to. And then I woke up.

It seems as though the last 17 years, since I started as a young, know-nothing business analyst at American Management Systems, have flown by. It was only a few years after that that I picked up Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine and had the top of my head removed. I’m listening this morning to the uncut version of “The Diamond Sea,” and as always I’m floating in infinity, carried along by the interplay between Thurston and Lee. Then hits the point about 11 minutes in where the ripples have calmed and all that is left is the drone, until a new voice clusters around the second and diminished second in the chord. A storm has blown up. All I can do is hold on and ride.

QTN™: Gnomegang

When I read that American brewer-in-the-Belgian-style Ommegang was collaborating with actual Belgian brewery L’achouffe on a beer, I was a little nonplussed. But then I saw the name of the collaboration: Gnomegang. And it all made sense.

This is a remarkably, even dangerously, easy drinking beer at 9.5%. A shade lighter than the classic Chimay gold but darker than Achouffe stablemate Duvel, only the slight sour on the tongue flavor tips off the uniquely enjoyable threat lurking within. There aren’t too many Belgian styles that are just right for sitting by the grill, but this is one.

I had to hunt to find a bottle of this collaboration, but it’s totally worth seeking out.