MEDIUM-RARE

Yesterday, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I had a few errands to run in midtown Atlanta.

We had to make a stop at Star Provisions, a fancy-pants provender shoppe, in order to score the English Cheddar for this evening’s Aubrey-Maturin Dinner. Toasted Cheese is on the Bill of Fare, of course, in keeping with the traditions established in the Patrick O’Brian novels.

I love going to Star Provisions, even though I can’t afford most of the stuff they sell there. That’s where you go if you want prime Allen Brothers dry-aged strip steaks (at $33/pound) or Kobe Wagyu beef (north of $100). Or exotic meats like...like...a whole duck foie gras! But you can get a fine hanger steak for only $9.50/pound, and it is well worth it. Seriously.

The cheese selection there is the most comprehensive in the city. My only caveat would be to avoid arriving there right after a shipment comes in, because it perfumes the air of the entire store with a fecal pong that is not to be believed. Happily, that was not the case yesterday, and we were able to purchase a couple of fine Cheddars - one from Somerset, the other from Tasmania (!) - and be on our way.

As I was perusing the cheese selection, SWMBO was looking at the voluminous Tchotchke Collection offered by the fine folks at the Star. And she found something that we could not resist: Heroes of the Torah juice glasses! Coasters, too! We got the whole set of four.

[Folks, you really cannot make this shit up.]

Our next stop was at a little place close by Star Provisions, a new joint that calls itself “Flip Burger Boutique.” It’s the latest brainchild of Top Chef finalist Richard Blais, creator of the foie gras milkshake (really!), and it appears to be an attempt to reinvent that most classic of classic American dishes, the hamburger.

With that frou-frou name, you expect something a little beyond sliders, and Blais delivers. We started with Caesar salads, which came with a smoky vinaigrette dressing and were topped with batter-fried white anchovies and chile threads. On to a plate of crisp onion rings served with a house-made honey mustard dressing on the side. The honey was from locally-raised bees; the mustard was grown in a hothouse behind the restaurant, fertilized with the chef’s own personal dung. Superb.

I had a lamburger, freshly ground from a lamb slaughtered by anal electrocution, and served with house-made raisin ketchup and mint. SWMBO does not eat lamb of course, no matter how humanely it is dispatched; thus, she ordered a felafel burger, made with free-range chickpeas, batter-fried, and served over red pepper tahini sauce on its own hand-baked low-carbon-footprint bun.

Because the burgers are modestly sized, we elected to order a third to share: a Philly cheesesteak burger made with Cheez Whiz that had been foamed with liquid nitrogen. It was surprisingly tasty.

We decided to forgo having a milkshake. Flip offers several interesting milkshakes, all utilizing ingredients that are flash frozen in liquid nitrogen and ground into powder. The Krispy Kreme doughnut milkshake sounded good, but we didn’t need the extra calories...not while we were staring down the barrel of tonight’s Aubrey-Maturin dinner.

Our next stop was The Big Blue Box (AKA IKEA), where we picked up a few economy-sized bookcases to accommodate the overflow from our upper floor. I love IKEA because it affords me the opportunity to act ridiculous, talking in my outrageous Swedish Chef accent and poking fun at the (mostly) Nordic-style names of the products while we shop for our FUKNKRÅPP.

And for once, with those Bizarro-Burgers banging around in my kishkes, I did not hear the siren call of the Swedish Meatball. We arrived, bought our stuff, and left without me picking up an armload of strange Swedish comestibles. And it’s just as well. Who really needs lingonberry bread mix...or blueberry soup...or fish balls? Mnyeh.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

It’s Friday. Not just any Friday, but the last Friday of 2008...which makes this the last Friday Random Ten post of the year. Whoop-de-do.

It’s quiet at Chez Elisson. Almost too quiet. After having our nephew William and niece Madison here for the greater part of a week, the house seems empty and desolate after their departure an hour ago.

Perhaps some Randomly Selected Tunage will help fill the void. Let’s see what the iPod d’Elisson is pooping out this week:

1. Three Is A Green Crown - The Incredible String Band
   
   It’s hard to explain The Incredible String Band to anyone who wasn’t around in the late 1960’s...and even to those who were.
   
   Not with the lips of skin
   Nor yet with the lips of dark snow
   But let the white dove sing
   Of the body of life
   Of the lover whose love is complete
   Hold hands out to greet, ah
   Let not the swan be brought low
   
   For all that is moving is moved by her hands
   She is mirrored forever in the life of the lands
   In the building of thoughts in the shifting sands
   
   Life life remembering
   
   Well here you are now, O now you are here
   Well how has it been so far
   The hair and the fur
   Lemons, frankincense, and myrrh
   
   For all that is moving is moved by her hands
   She is mirrored for ever in the life of the lands
   In the building of thoughts in the shifting sands
   
   Let the cracked crystal raindrop be merged in the sea
   Silent shining thoughtless free
   But close your eyes to find the golden flower
   And open them to see the sunshine shower
   Where the flowers are free and the fishes ask
   Ah what can water be
   
   She beareth thought, she beareth visions
   Speaking truth in contradictions
   Dreams of pain, dreams of laughter
   And every action follows after
   
   O second self, O gate of the soft mystery
   I’ll love you if you’ll love me; O guide me
   With the gold of Gabriel’s wing. Grant me the tongue
   That all the earth does sing
   Vibrating light forever one the sun
   The book of life is open to us
   There’ll be no secrets left between us
   
   
2. Uf Dem Anger - Chramer, Gip Die Varwe Mir - Christian Thielemann, Orff: Carmina Burana
   
   
3. Buy, Buy American Pie - The Capitol Steps
   
   
4. Levine Mit Zayn Flying Machine - Charles Cohan
   
   The story of the other guy that crossed the Atlantic.
   
   
5. Bukharester Bulgar - The Klezmer Conservatory Band
   
   
6. Holy Ground - The Klezmatics
   
   
7. Chop ’Em Down - Matisyahu
   
   Matisyahu: a most appropriate artist for the season.
   
   
8. Us and Them - Frankie Paul
   
   From “Dub Side of the Moon,” a reggae tribute to the similarly-named Pink Floyd album.
   
   
9. There Is Life Outside Your Apartment - Avenue Q, Original Broadway Cast
   
   
10. Fugue #7 in E flat major (from The Well-Tempered Clavier) - Wendy Carlos
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

COMPU-KITTY

Hakuna shares rug space with the Computer d’Elisson.

What with all the work on our floors this past week, many of our possessions have been temporarily relocated from their accustomed places. Depending on one’s point of view, this either creates exciting new landscapes to explore, or terrifyingly unfamiliar surroundings.

Here, Hakuna parks herself near a familiar object in an unfamiliar place: the CPU in the sunroom.

Update: Friday Ark #223 is afloat at the Modulator.

This Sunday, be sure to stop by Cat Blogosphere and visit the 250th edition - that’s a quarter of a thousand! - of Carnival of the Cats, the final CotC of 2008.

Update 2: CotC #250 is up.

A PSALM, APPROPRIATE TO THE DAY

Not for us, Lord, not for us
But for Yourself win praise through Your love and faithfulness.

Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Our God is in heaven, doing whatever He wills.

Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
They have mouths and cannot speak; they have eyes and cannot see.

They have ears and cannot hear; they have noses and cannot smell.
They have hands and cannot feel; they have feet and cannot walk;
Their throats are silent.

They who make them become like them - all those that trust in them.

Let Israel trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.

Let the House of Aaron trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.

Let those who revere God trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.

- Psalm 115: 1-11, recited daily during the eight days of Chanukah.

Christians are also familiar with this Psalm; it is part of their Holy Writ. Old-school Catholics, in particular, know it as “Non Nobis Domine”:

Non nobis, Domine, Domine
Non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini, sed nomini
Tuo da gloriam

All of this is a long-winded way of saying Merry Christmas to my Christian friends! May your day be happy; may it bring peace, health, family warmth and love, and good fellowship.

CHANUKAH ROCK

One of my personal frustrations during the Holiday Season is what I call asymmetrical musical juxtaposition. That’s a lot of fifty-cent words, but they describe the feeling I have when I’m walking around the local Shopping Mall and I hear “O Holy Night” - a beautiful hymn to the birth of the Christian Savior:

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.

And then, immediately afterwards, thanks to modern cultural sensitivity and ecumenism, what do we hear? The Dreidel Song.

The fucking Dreidel Song.

Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel
I made it out of clay,
And when it’s dry and ready,
Then dreidel I shall play!

Lightweight stuff. Of course, so is “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” but where is the heavyweight material? What do we have that corresponds in gravitas to “Adeste Fidelis”?

Look, comparing Christmas (a major-league Christian holiday, one of the Big Two) with Chanukah (a minor, post-biblical Jewish observance) is like comparing apples and oranges. Better: like comparing elephants and mice. Despite the fact that Chanukah commemorates an historically significant event with implications for the cultural development of the entire Western world, its music - at least, the music with which most people are familiar - comes off as strictly trivial.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. For there is a beautiful Chanukah melody that has nothing to do with the holiday’s external trappings - no latkes and dreidels - and everything to do with its fundamental meaning, which is the victory of the Jewish rebels led by Matisyahu and his son Judah Maccabee over the Seleucid Greco-Persians - a victory in which the Eternal delivered “the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the corrupt into the hands of the pure in heart, the guilty into the hands of the innocent.”

Ma-oz Tzur (Rock of Ages)

Ma-oz tzur yeshuati,
L’kha na-eh l’shabei-ach.
Tikon beit t’filati
V’sham todah n’zabei-ach.
L’eit takhin matbei-ach
Mitzar hamnabei-ach
Az egmor b’shir mizmor
Chanukat ha-mizbei-ach.

The music? Stirring and powerful, able to hold its own against the most Christmassy of Christmas music. The popular English translation fits the meter of the original:

Rock of ages, let our song
Praise Your saving power;
You, amid the raging foes,
Were our sheltering tower.
Furious they assailed us,
But Your arm availed us,
And Your word
Broke their sword
When our own strength failed us.

The literal translation is a little more violent, but it gets the point across. Let’s not forget that the holiday celebrates a military victory:

O mighty stronghold of my salvation,
To praise You is a delight.
Restore my House of Prayer and there
We will bring a thanksgiving offering.
When You will have prepared the
Slaughter for the blaspheming foe,
Then I shall complete with a song of hymn
The dedication of the Altar.

Dreidel, schmeidel! Jingle bells, schmingle bells! Let’s hear more “Ma-oz Tzur”!

ANGELS AND DEVILS...

...can sometimes reside in a single personality.

Witness our niece Madison, who at the ripe age of two embodies both the most angelic and the most devilish: the two extreme ends of the Spectrum o’ Goodness and Evil.

And I have photographic evidence. Lookee:


The angel. Check out them wings!


The devil. Check out that shirt!

THE PLUSH RELIQUARY

Before the Carpet Installers yanked the carpet out of our bedroom last week, we had to remove all of the books, knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, paddy-whacks, and related crap, so that the large items could be schlepped out easily.

“Easily” is a relative term, of course, given that our dresser is made from a wood so dense that, like Aretha Franklin, it has its own measurable gravitational field.

When you move Big Furniture - especially Big Furniture that you do not move often - you find all kinds of surprises. Items that have fallen behind the dresser or under the bed. Horrifying amounts of dirt.

Hey, if you don’t see it, then it isn’t there, right?

When we dismantled our bed, however, we were unprepared for the sheer volume of schmutz we found. And a lot of that schmutz was hair. Cat hair.

Matata hair.

It was unmistakeable, that all-too-familiar grey with hints of tan. And both of us had to choke back a tear. It wasn’t the stirred-up dust that was making our eyes water.

“Should I add it to the ‘Kitty-To-Go™’?” asked She Who Must Be Obeyed.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. For what we were looking at was not pristine Kitty-Hair, freshly brushed our of our kitty’s pelt, but an amalgam of hair, dust, and miscellaneous under-bed filth. Ecch.

A carpet is naught but a Plush Reliquary. It gathers up all of the lost hairs, misplaced toenail trimmings, desiccated boogers [Did you know that boogers turn into powder after about three days? Don’t ask me how I know this], scabs, and sloughed-off skin cells, holding them in its rugose matrix for safekeeping.

Now, the collecting begins anew...and we bid adieu to the last relics of our beloved Matata. Now all that remains of her are our memories - assisted by a pile of photographs and blogposts - and a small canister of ashes residing on our bookshelf. And that is as it should be.

THE LITTLEST GONIF

William and daddy Morris William.

Yesterday, in preparation for the annual Momma d’Elisson Memorial Chanukah Dinner, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I went to the Food-Store to assemble the requisite provisions, among which were a huge sack of Idaho russet potatoes and a drum of peanut oil.

Accompanying us was our nephew William, who, along with his kid sister Madison and daddy Morris William (SWMBO’s brother), arrived at 2:30 am after a 14-hour drive from Denton, Texas.

William is a typical six-year-old, full of energy and curiosity...and a talent for Kidly Duplicity.

As we worked our way through the store’s aisles, William would find various Food Items and bring them to SWMBO’s attention.

Pringles potato chips, Cheddar Cheese flavor.

“Those are really good. We get those all the time.”

Entenmann’s mini-muffins.

“We have those at home.”

Entenmann’s chocolate-covered mini donuts.

“Those are made with oil. We should get those for Chanukah.”

Oscar Mayer bologna.

“That’s what Mommy uses to make my sandwiches.”

Of course, I knew he was bullshitting us - except, possibly, for the bologna - and I suspect SWMBO knew, too. But we were playing the roles of Indulgent Aunt and Uncle, so we let him throw all that crap in the basket. When we got it all home, Morris William was simultaneously horrified and amused. Pringles?

The dinner - with 35 guests, possibly the biggest of its kind - was a lot of fun for everyone. SWMBO cranked out her world-class quality potato latkes, frying them up in two huge skillets, and I kept the Chinese food coming, making not one but two (count ’em!) trips to the local Asian eatery.


SWMBO (“Aunt Jew-Mima”) with the makings for a passel o’ fresh, hot latkes.

As things began winding down, we broke out the No-Limit Texas Dreidel kit and a pile of chocolate coins. Waaaay more fun than traditional dreidel (which is about as exciting as watching paint dry), No-Limit Texas Dreidel is, as you might expect, a mash-up of dreidel and Texas Hold ’Em poker. The money quote: “I got a full boat, gimels over nuns.”

Mom would have been proud. And she would have gotten a laugh from the Littlest Gonif, conning us into buying his Illicit Goodies. Chocolate donuts, anyone?

A CHANUKAH EDITORIAL

[If Dear Abby can get away with reprinting the same frickin’ Holiday Columns every stinking year, why not Blog d’Elisson? We are therefore pleased to offer this previously published Editorial Response, one that is both timely and appropriate to the season. Chanukah begins at sundown on December 21 this year.]

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the electronic-mail communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of Blog d’Elisson:

“I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there was no Judah Maccabee and that Chanukah is a load of crap. Papa says, ‘If you see it in Blog d’Elisson, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, was there a Judah Maccabee?” - Patty O’Furniture

Patty, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All they care about is that fat red-suited guy who schleps presents to Yenemvelt and back. All minds, Patty, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, goornisht, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Patty, there was a Judah Maccabee.

He existed as certainly as dedication and courage and devotion exist. He kicked some serious ass back in the day, Judah did, throwing the Greco-Syrians out of Judea and reclaiming the holy Temple. His struggle was a struggle against assimilation, against those who would be seduced by the pop culture of the day. He fought his battles so that we Jews would retain our cultural identity and not be swallowed up in the prevailing pagan mainstream. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there had been no Judah Maccabee! It would be as dreary as if there were no Pattys. (Or furniture.) There would be no candle-lighting then, no singing Ma-oz Tzur (or even those stupid dreidel songs), no commemoration of the miraculous rededication of the Temple. No Judah? We would even today be schmearing ourselves with olive oil and burning pig hearts as sacrifices to Zeus. And our Christian friends would have no Christmas - for the culture that gave rise to Jesus would have been wiped out. The eternal light - the ner tamid - with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Judah? You might as well not believe in fairies. Or the Matzohball That Does Not Sink. Or Eliyahu ha-Navi. You might get your papa to hire men to watch all the seder tables of the world to catch a glimpse of Eliyahu, but even if you did not see him, what would that prove? Nobody ever sees Eliyahu ha-Navi drink his wine at the Seder table, but that is no sign that there is no Eliyahu ha-Navi. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. (Although those footprints in the grass were more likely made by your Papa as he tried to sneak back into the house with a snootful of booze after the office Xmas party.) Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You can tear apart the knish and see the tasty filling inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Patty, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Judah Maccabee? Thank G-d he lived - and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Patty, nay, 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to chase the Greco-Syrians out of Judea and combat the forces of cultural assimilation, making glad the heart of childhood.

Happy Chanukah!

[Originally posted on December 25, 2004.]

THE PERFECT GIFT

This time of year, many of us spend inordinate amounts of time shopping for gifts, impelled by both the spirit of the Christmas season (and for us Jews, the unfortunate conflation of the Big Christian Holiday with the minor-league postbiblical celebration that is Chanukah), and the lashing of the merchants’ Advertising Whip.

For many of us, the most difficult part of the whole process is not the expense, nor is it the hours spent schlepping packages through a crowded shopping mall, nor is it wrapping everything up in nice shiny paper that will be shredded immediately upon opening.

It’s finding the Perfect Gift.

Any slob can give someone a present. At the very least, it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to pick up a gift card at Crate and Barrel...or any other retail establishment. I’ve often wondered at the appeal of gift cards. Instead of writing a check - a gift that says, “I want to show you I care about you, but I have absolutely no imagination and/or desire to spend time actually shopping for a gift for you” - you buy a gift card, locking the recipient into spending money at a specific retailer before the card expires. The gift card announces that you cared incrementally more than the person who simply stuffed some bills in an envelope...but cash, at least, is good everywhere.

For those who actually want to buy something, there are plenty of items on the shelves that seem to show up during the Christmas season...or just before Father’s Day. Stupid-ass gifts, like golf-ball polishers. Decorative items, such as plastic reindeer with electric noses. If you like tchotchkes, this is the time to go wild.

But the best gifts are those that come from the heart, the gifts that you instinctively know are right. They may be costly, but they need not be in order to be precious to the recipient. The bottle of Château Lafite 1945 for that wine connoisseur...the symphony tickets for that couple who are always humming operatic arias...the box of matches and can of unleaded for the unshaven arsonist who lives under the freeway.

To be able to give the perfect gift, you must know someone well enough to know what is in his or her heart. Their deepest passions, their most closely-held secrets, their emotional cores. It is the mark of true friendship.

I think, for example, of the thin volume of Robert W. Service poems that Eric pressed upon me several months ago, a vintage copy of The Spell of the Yukon. Eric knew of our shared interest in poetry, sure - but what impressed me the most was not only that he knew I would take pleasure in the gift, but that it was something he himself loved...and yet, he was willing to part with it for the sake of giving a friend the Perfect Gift.

There is no more sincere gift, I believe, than the one you would want someone to give to you.

In that spirit, in the event you are casting about for a gift for Eric this Christmas season, you can take the easy route and simply buy a bottle of fine Single Malt...or you can select something more personal, something that speaks unto the very soul.

The choice is yours.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Houston Steve for the link.]

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

It’s Friday, time once again for this week’s Random Selection o’ Choons as pooped out - randomly, of course - by my Little White Choon Box.

That random element results in some jarring musical juxtapositions, but every so often I discover that two songs that have little in common segue nicely into one another. Like life, the Random Ten is fulla surprises.

The past couple of days have been busy here, what with all the carpet installation activity and all. Of course, anything that forces you to move everything around will have the side benefit of stimulating the Spousal Brain Cells...resulting in all kinds of repositionings and reimaginings. Which means a lot of Moving Yet More Shit Around.

But all of that Shit-Movage will need to be accomplished on a short time line, for Sunday marks the start of Chanukah. And that, in turn, means that we will have a houseful of friends over to enjoy our traditional first night activity: The Momma d’Elisson Memorial Chanukah Dinner.

The menu, as always, will consist of potato latkes and Chinese food.

But before I start schlepping books, boxes, and furniture...and reconnecting all of those pesky electronics (a job I dread), let’s go see what’s on the box:

1. Spanish Key - Miles Davis
   
   
2. Speed Racer - Devo
   
   I’m speed racer and I drive real fast
   He’s speed racer and he drives real fast
   I drive real fast I'm gonna last
   
   I’m a big pirate and I like to steal
   He’s a big pirate and he likes to steal
   I like to steal and I like to kill
   
   Go go go speed racer
   
   I’m a Barbie doll but I got brains
   She’s a Barbie doll but she’s got brains
   I’ve got brains and I like sex
   Lots of brains and she likes sex
   
   I’m your doctor and here’s the bill
   He’s your doctor and here’s the bill
   Doctor steal and here’s the bill
   He likes to steal so here's your bill
   I’m speed racer and I drive real fast
   I’m a big pirate and I like to steal
   I’m a barbie doll but I got brains
   I’m your doctor and here’s the bill
   I drive real fast I’m gonna last
   I like to drink and I like to kill
   Lots of brains and I like sex
   Like to steal here’s your bill
   
   
3. If You Fall - Azure Ray
   
   
4. Tales Of Brave Ulysses - Cream
   
   
5. Maggie Mae - The Beatles
   
   A throwaway track, not to be confused with the similarly-titled song by Rod Stewart.
   
   
6. Drink To Me Babe, Then - A. C. Newman
   
   
7. The Money Song - Original Broadway Cast, Avenue Q
   
   
8. Inner Mounting Flame - Mahavishnu Orchestra
   
   
9. Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got - The Four Tops
   
   Levi Stubbs’s recent passing marked the end of an era. “Feed me, Seymour!”
   
   
10. Anyday - Derek and the Dominos
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

FUZZY FRIDAY

Come sail the Bloggy-Sea with me,
Keep company with Bird and Bee
And Platypus, and Snake, and Bat
And (last, not least) the purring Cat.

Friday Ark #222 is up at the Modulator.

Sunday, Carnival of the Cats wends its way over to Nikita’s Place, AKA Musings of a Mad Macedonian...just in time for the start of Chanukah. Latkes and kittehs!

Update: CotC #249 is up.

FOOTUS

News from the world of medicine has become increasingly bizarre lately. Why, just this morning I read about a woman who is having a face transplant...not in order to look like Paris Hilton or any such crass purpose, but to be able to live a reasonably normal life. This is a Good Thing, as Martha Fucking Stewart might put it.

But what really grabbed my attention was this article about a baby with an unusual brain tumor. Unusual? that ’s putting it mildly, for the tumor consisted of a fully-formed foot. Yeef!

[Dr. Paul] Grabb said that while removing the growth, he discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh.

Bedam! A partial homunculus! Perhaps even a baby brother, engulfed and digested! It has happened before, as long-time Esteemed Readers will attest. Fetus in Fetu!

Happily, little Sam Esquibel should be able to go on to live a normal life. And I have a sneaking suspicion as to what his eventual career is likely to be.

He’ll be a podiatrist, of course! Who better suited to the task than a child born with feet on - nay, in - the brain?

NESTLED

Hakuna curls up in her very own bed.

As expected, Hakuna has made herself scarce while the thudding and banging of carpet installation proceeds apace. My guess is that she’s in Elder Daughter’s room, holed up inside the bed’s box spring...her favorite hidey hole for periods of Extreme Kitty-Angst.

I am sure that angst started when we started moving boxes and furniture around, creating an alien landscape of partially empty rooms. It could only have gotten worse when the installers came in, moved out the rest of the furniture, and ripped out the existing carpet and padding.

When it is all over and done with, will she recognize her new surroundings? The new, plusher feeling underfoot - will it throw her for a loop?

I doubt it. After all, this is a cat that, we’re convinced, has a mental Reset Button. As with the Drew Barrymore character in 50 First Dates, her memory seems to get erased every night so that she needs must reacquaint herself with us anew every morning.

FLOOR PLANS

Phase II of the Chez Elisson Floor Renewal Project is underway.

Yesterday, we schlepped furniture, books, and fifty billion miscellaneous tchotchkes out of their accustomed locations, in order to clear the way for the carpet installers. It’s like moving, except without quite as much paperwork or aggravation.

All this...and in three days, we’ll have a house full of people to entertain on the first night of Chanukah. Which means we will have to put everything back. Oy.

But I will say this: Nothing will make your existing carpet look as shabby as the knowledge that a brand-spanking-new replacement is imminent. And this will be Quality Stuff with good padding, not the builder-grade crap we’ve lived with for the past ten years.

I’ve already warned Hakuna, whose excessive affection for the existing broadloom has resulted in a lot of shredded corners and margins. I love her to death, but I’d better not catch her chewing at the carpet edges ever again...or it will be permanent exile to the sunroom.

Meanwhile, our DSL modem and router have been temporarily located. At least we still have a connection!

Update: One of the things I dreaded about this whole thing was the need to dismantle our TV/DVD/surround sound/VCR/CD/turntable/cassette deck/receiver setup.

I did not photograph the massive tangle of wires and cables, but I found a pretty accurate depiction, courtesy of Erica.

Figuring out how to put it back together will require a lot of patience, Scotch, and the kind of engineering knowledge I haven’t bothered to maintain in over 35 years.

THREE BIRDS WITH ONE PAN

Turkey leg confit.

You see here a pan of turkey leg confit: turkey legs cured for a day in a dry rub of salt and spices, then slow-cooked for several hours in an ocean of schmaltz. [You can find the recipe here.] Conveniently enough, I had a whole mess of duck and goose schmaltz sitting in the freezer for just such an occasion.

Turkey, duck, and goose. Kind of like a turducken, but without the necessity of jamming one bird inside the next to create a poultrified Matruschka doll. Instead, you have turkey legs buried in solidified Bird-Grease like some woolly mammoth in the La Brea Tar Pits.

Mmmmm, Bird-Grease.

When it comes time to eat this stuff, I’ll warm it up enough to melt the legs out of the sea of congealed fat in which they are embedded, then roast ’em at 500°F for about 20 minutes. They’ll get nice and crispy, yet they’ll still be succulent owing to that long, schmaltz-ridden visit to Mr. Oven. The flesh, carefully dissected from the bones and cartilage, makes a great addition to Boston baked beans - a kind of Yankee Cassoulet. It can give a meaty punch to a salad...and I’ll bet it kicks ass rolled up in a taco.

Don’t even think about how many calories are in each one of those legs.

Best yet: I get to save the schmaltz and use it again! Pommes sarladaise, anyone?

Update: I just removed one of those legs from its bed o’ Ducky-Goose Grease in a maneuver reminiscent of when Han Solo was extracted from that slab of carbonite in Return of the Jedi. Return of the Turki?

The shredded meat made a fine Turkey Leg Confit Salad when placed atop a pile of mixed lettuces and dressed with a hazelnut-shallot vinaigrette...almost obscenely tasty.

DEAD FRUIT, DRESSED UP

Sound the trumpet; blow the bugle -
SWMBO’s gone and made a kugel.
Bereft of magic like a Muggle?
There’re charms aplenty in SWMBO’s kugel.

[Actually, “kugel” rhymes with neither “bugle” or “Muggle.” Depending on the regional variation you choose, you can pronounce it koo-g’l (with the oo pronounced as in book), or ki-g’l (to rhyme with “wiggle”).]


SWMBO’s apricot kugel, hot out of the oven.

Those who attended the Hysterics at Eric’s this year had a chance to sample the Missus’s apricot kugel...an exotic, never-before-experienced Eastern European treat to almost all, with one notable exception.

No, I won’t post the recipe. When She Who Must Be Obeyed received it, she was sworn to secrecy. What I can tell you is that it contains egg noodles, sugar, eggs, apricot preserves, cream cheese, cottage cheese, and sour cream - with dried apricots for decoration. The proportions...and the secret spices? You’ll have to guess.

Perverse as I am, I can’t help but imagine a Bizarro World version of this delicious dish, a version made with prune jam (AKA lekvar) and pitted prunes in lieu of the apricot preserves and dried apricots. SWMBO is both horrified and repulsed by this idea...but what do you think? Does a Prune Kugel sound appetizing? Or would it make you run for the hills? Or toilet?

One thing is for certain. If I ever do make it, the Missus will kick my ass for desecrating her recipe. And I wouldn’t blame her. But it’s a risk I may have to take as I go in search of Pruney, Kugelly Goodness...possibly inventing the ideal brunch dish for the maturing Baby Boom generation.

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN

Any reasonably intelligent parent will tell you: Children are not born with a fully-functioning set of social skills. As parents, our Prime Directive is to instill those social skills...the necessary tools that allow people to live together happily in a civilized society.

David Bogner understands this, as is evident from this post in which he tells a story of teaching his five-year-old son Yonah a few basic telephone manners. Is five too tender an age for such a lesson? David and I both agree: No.

When I read David’s post, I thought back to a little incident this past Friday morning as Houston Steve and I were taking our leave from breakfast at the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium.

As we headed for the door, we saw an acquaintance sitting at a table with his thirteen-year-old son. Said acquaintance - let’s call him Bubba - proceeded to introduce us to his son - let’s call him Danny - as any father might do.

That’s when I saw the iPod Nano in the young man’s lap...and the earbuds jammed firmly in his ears.

I reached over and gently yanked the earbuds out. “Here’s how this works,” I said. “Your dad is going to say, ‘Say hello to Mr. Elisson.’ You’re going to shake my hand, and I’m going to say, ‘Nice to meet you, Danny.’ Then you’re going to repeat the procedure for Houston Steve, here. And after that, you can stick those earbuds back in. But for right now, you’re going to pay attention to the people around you. It’s a valuable social skill - one day, you’ll thank me.”

And that’s pretty much what happened. Bubba didn’t say a whole lot, but his eyes called out a silent message of appreciation. And Houston Steve and I had a good chuckle as we headed out into the parking lot.

Folks, kids don’t learn by osmosis. They learn by example, and by instruction. Make sure you provide both.

My friend David Bogner surely would agree.

CLICHÉ-O-MATIC

One of my old Blog-Buddies, happily returned from a nine-month hiatus several weeks ago, has come up with an invention so wondrous... so perfectly suited to our times... so necessary... that I am gobsmacked with awe and delight. Spittleflecked, if you will, with profound amazement and amusement.

Esteemed Readers, may I present Charlie Hatton and his Cliché-O-Matic™.

No longer must you use tired, worn-out old expressions and catchphrases. Be the first one on your block to use sparkly new expressions and catchphrases!

Fame may elude you - after all, who remembers the person who first uttered “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” or “Klaatu Barada Nikto”? But you will feel the pride of Electronically Assisted Creativity. Try it today!

THE KRINGLER RAV

This morning at minyan, Lou, who has led Tuesday shacharit services since time immemorial, yielded the bimah to another: It was clearly a Special Occasion.

Afterwards, I congratulated the gentleman on his fine davening skills. “You seem to know what you’re doing up there. If you’re looking for a full-time gig, perhaps I could hook you up,” I told him.

I was, of course, being a Smart-Ass. For the gentleman in question was our very own Rabbi Loomis [note: not his real name], who was celebrating his sixtieth birthday.

After services - and a small tot of Chivas - we headed off to the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium, where the Rabbi treated us all to breakfast, as dictated by local custom. Houston Steve and I enjoyed a bit of sable and kippered salmon with our Toroidal Breadstuffs as we watched our host blow out the candles on his cake whilst wearing a silly hat. Not as silly as a colander, perhaps, but it got the job done.


Our Rabbi celebrates. The sign reads, “CAUTION! 60 year old having a senior moment.” And check out that fancy yarmulke!
[Photo credit: Houston Steve]

With his moderately portly build and with his snow-white hair and beard, Rabbi Loomis could conceivably be mistaken for a popular Seasonal Personage. Who knows? If the economy gets really rocky, imagine the possibilities for a side income...

THE ELISSON BOOKSHELF

Being yet another installment in a series entitled “What I’ve Been Reading Lately.”

My last Bookshelf Post was, appropriately enough, on April Fool’s Day, over eight months ago. And now, what with all of the holiday gift shopping going on in these short weeks before the year-end frenzied confluence of Christmakwanzakah, it’s an excellent time for me to stand here in my Bully Electronic Pulpit and pontificate about what I have been reading. Who knows? Perhaps you may be influenced by my impeccable Literary Selections unto the point of purchasing them for yourself...or giving them as gifts. Or picking ’em up at the library, the most economical alternative.

Here’s what I have read since early April:

April

• The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America - David Hadju
  
  A look at the world of pre-Code comics and the paranoid cultural struggle that led to their replacement by the sanitized tripe with which we are all too familiar. Carefully researched and entertainingly written.
  
  
• Lost Horizon - James Hilton
  
  The book that gave us the term “Shangri-La,” this was the first novel ever to be published in paperback.
  
  
• Fail-Safe - Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
  
  Another golden oldie, I remember this being an extremely popular and topical novel during the height of Cold War paranoia. It was released in October 1962, the same month as that monumental exercise in brinksmanship, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even as a mere ten-year-old, I was fully aware that my world was on the verge of going up in nuclear flames. What I didn’t know was just how close a call we had...and that there were nuclear warheads sitting in Amityville, just one town to the east, which made us a primary target.
  
  
• Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
  
  Practically everyone I knew read this book while in college. I waited. But I read it in Japan, in a traditional Japanese ryokan in Kyoto, the perfect setting for a story about a man’s lifelong search for enligtenment.
  
  
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan
  
  The story of where our food comes from...and why, if we are what we eat, we Americans are really nothing so much as giant ambulatory corn chips. Fascinating, entertaining, depressing, and enlightening.
  
  
• Kindred - Octavia Butler
  
  A masterful novel from the late writer, one of the rare People of Color writing in the SF field.
  
  

May

• The Shell Game - Steve Alten
  
  Oil industry thriller, rife with spelling and usage errors to the point of being unintentionally humorous.
  
  
• Duma Key - Stephen King
  
  King’s best novel in years. Boogitty boogitty!
  
  Rant - Chuck Pahlaniuk
  
  This guy’s novels are in a bizarre class by themselves.
  
  
• Who Stole The Funny? - Robby Benson
  
  A story set in the world of television, hysterically funny despite being peopled exclusively with one-dimensional characters.
  
  
• In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto - Michael Pollan
  
  A follow-up to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, this book is more prescriptive and less entertaining, with a message that can be condensed into seven short words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Words to live by.
  
  

June

• Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, And the Creation of the Superhero - Danny Fingeroth
  
  Fascinating topic; alas, the writing is repetitious and dull.
  
  
• The Kill Artist - Daniel Silva
  
  The first of Silva’s Gabriel Allon series. Taut, fast-paced thriller, perfect beach reading. My friend Gary got me hooked on Silva’s books, and I started devouring them (as you will see). I can polish one of these off in a day or two.
  
  
• The English Assassin - Daniel Silva
  
  
• The Confessor - Daniel Silva
  
  
• 211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do - Tom Cutler
  
  A lot like The Dangerous Book for Boys, but much edgier. A somewhat abashed recommendation from David Bogner (Treppenwitz).
  
  
• A Death in Vienna - Daniel Silva
  
  

July

• When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
  
  More nutty essays. The title comes from hotel room instructions Sedaris saw while staying in Hiroshima. Imagine that: Entertaining Translations in Japan.
  
  
• Little Brother - Cory Doctorow
  
  A cautionary SF tale with political overtones, examining the consequences of having an overzealous Homeland Security organization.
  
  
• I Was Told There’d Be Cake - Crosley Sloane
  
  David Sedaris with a vagina.
  
  
• The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes - McSweeney’s
  
  

August

• Prince of Fire - Daniel Silva
  
  
• Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg
  
  
• The Messenger - Daniel Silva
  
  

September

• The Secret Servant - Daniel Silva
  
  

October

• The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection - Gardner Dozois (editor)
  
  Crammed full of excellent short fiction, it took me a full month to work my way through this tome.
  
  
• Final Theory - Mark Alpert
  
  
• The Man with the Iron Heart - Harry Turtledove
  
  In which Turtledove posits an alternative world where the Nazis prosecute an effective resistance post-WWII, echoing the real-world experience in Iraq.
  
  

November

• Ender in Exile - Orson Scott Card
  
  Card revisits his Ender series, this time writing a genuine sequel to the brilliant Ender’s Game
  
  

December

• Moscow Rules - Daniel Silva

Whew. Thirty books. Eight months.

Right now I’m in the midst of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (much darker than the stage musical version). Lots more books to read...and if I don’t figure out what to do with the old ones, the Missus may have me sleeping in the basement...

So: What have you been reading lately?

THE AFTERMATH

I imagine that a medieval peasant, upon returning to the smoking ruins of his village after Tamerlane and his hordes came through, raping and pillaging, would have felt much as I did early this afternoon.

The house was a shambles.

Ashtrays were piled high, overflowing with smoldering, lipstick-stained butts. The kitchen trash can was crammed with empty liquor bottles. Every horizontal surface bore drink rings. Puddles of vomit splotched the carpet; fortunately, it was almost impossible to see them thanks to the drifts of used condoms littering the floors.

Brassieres, most with unidentifiable stains, were draped over chair backs. One, notably, was stuffed into the downstairs toilet.

The Chalet Kristy after a three-day blogmeet was as clean as a freshly-fallen blanket of snow in the Canadian Rockies compared to this horror show.

Residual estrogen fumes lingered in the air, the natural consequence of having a gaggle of Vagino-Americans packed into a small space. I could feel the ol’ Twig-and-Berries shriveling under their concentrated hormonal assault. If I stayed much longer, the consequences could be serious. Man-boobs! A desire to watch “Dancing with the Stars”!

A guy like Eric may get the heebie-jeebies from thoughts of zombies, but you can take this to the bank: There is no horror to compare with the aftermath of a Baby Shower.

WRITER’S BLAG

The man may foam at the mouth when he writes...but boy, does he write. His take on the Blagojevich scandal, f’rinstance.

More fitty-cent words than you can shake a stick at, including the infrequently-encountered (yet oh, so evocative) “marthambles.” And I am always a sucker for the odd kidney stone reference.

Go thou and read.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Wow...is it Friday already? Why, so it is.

This promises to be an interesting weekend. She Who Must Be Obeyed is hosting a baby shower this Sunday, which means there will be all sorts of frantic cookage and cleanage disrupting my peaceful Saturday. The cookage I understand; when you have a horde of chattering wimmin in the house, you have to give them something to eat, lest they begin devouring the sofa cushions. But the cleanage? The house will be far filthier after they all leave...so what is the point, exactly, of cleaning it before they show up?

There are the kinds of questions only a Feckin’ Eejit would dare ask on a blog that his spousal unit reads.

And so, before the hammer comes down, let’s brighten things by taking a peek at this week’s Musical Miscellany, barfed out at random by the iPod d’Elisson. What’s playing today?

1. Tell Me Why - The Beatles
   
   
2. Canned Music - Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
   
   Canned music, canned music
   Playing on the radio
   Canned music, canned music
   Without a doubt it doesn’t go
   Favorites on the jukebox
   Are only half the show, when it’s
   Canned music, canned music
   
   A little before she left me
   I asked her what it’s all about
   She said I feel like dancin’
   I feel like stepping out
   I took her with the van
   Where the band was on the stand, playin’
   Live music live music
   
   She got us on the dance floor
   To me it was a sight
   I never seen my baby movin’
   Like the moves she made on me that night
   I did not have a chance
   The way that music made me dance
   It was some
   Live music, live music
   (It ain’t canned)
   
   Canned music, canned music
   Playing on the radio
   (It ain’t canned)
   Canned music, canned music
   Without a doubt it doesn’t go
   Favorites on the jukebox
   Are only half the show, when it’s
   Canned music, canned music
   
   The rhythm was all around us
   We was really steppin’ out
   My baby said I'm livin’ for this music
   I asked her what it’s all about
   She said I’m such a silly girl
   This stuff has got me in a whirl, ain’t it
   Live music, live music
   
   And that was the night she left me
   Danced herself into my memory
   My baby had to leave me for the drummer
   I guess I’ll never solve that mystery
   I think I’ve learned my lesson
   Just don’t get too near the band, when it’s
   Live music, live music
   
   A little before she left me
   I asked her what it’s all about
   She said she feel like dancin’
   She feel like stepping out
   
   
3. The Grotto - Bernard Herrmann, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
   
   
4. The Mikado, Act II: Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day - D’Oyly Carte Opera Company
   
   
5. Luna - Smashing Pumpkins
   
   
6. Samson and Delilah - The Barry Sisters and Jan Bart with Sam Medoff and the Yiddish Swingtet
   
   
7. King Kong: Suite - Charles Gerhardt / National Philharmonic Orchestra
   
   From the 1932 version of King Kong, the only one that matters. Max Steiner’s atmospheric score is such a perfect counterpoint to the action on the screen, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job of putting music on film...even the legendary Bernard Herrmann.
   
   
8. Animal Zoo - Spirit
   
   
9. Women and Men - They Might Be Giants
   
   
10. I Am The Walrus - The Beatles
    
    The first and last songs on today’s Random Ten list are from The Beatles. It is a continual source of astonishment (to me) that the same group could produce two songs so dissimilar, a mere three years apart...
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

FUZZY FRIDAY

Winter is icumen in
Yet animals won’t freeze,
Thanks to good insulation in
The Ark that plies the seas.

Friday Ark #221 is afloat, with our very own Hakuna in the Crow’s Nest.

This Sunday, be sure to stop by Artsy Catsy for the 248th edition of Carnival of the Cats. It’s Perfectly Catrocious™!

Update: CotC #248 is up.

ON CAKE, AND PERMISSIBLE DECORATIONS THEREFOR

No matter what form your celebration may take,
Remember one rule, for your sanity’s sake:
A rule that you never – nay, never - may break.
Don’t stick birthday candles in a Urinal Cake!

SNOW IN HOUSTON

The Missus and I were just watching the news only to find out that it has snowed in Houston.

In equally likely news, Hamas has agreed to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to cease all terrorist activities; NBC, ABC, and CBS have announced an immediate moratorium on the creation of new reality television shows; and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has apologized for being a Big Fucking Idiot.

[Well, it really did snow in Houston, anyway And it may do so here, too.]

THE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN

I am a long-time denizen of the American South, my adopted home...but once there was a time when I was unfamiliar with this part of the world. Hard to imagine, eh?

Aside from our annual trips to South Florida, I grew up with little exposure to Southern Culture. Not that South Florida was southern in any way - it was not, being packed with Yankees - but to get to and from it by car, we had to traverse great swaths of Southland. It was my chance to marvel at exotica like segregated water fountains and to enjoy my annual bottle of Dr Pepper.

That changed when I went off to college. Princeton University, that is, AKA “The Duke University of the North.” For in my freshman year, one of my roommates was an authentic Southern Gentleman.

He was tall, with a ruddy complexion and flaxen hair, David was, and he drove a Fiat Spyder sports car. Unlike many of us, David did not dress like some sort of fucking hippie. He wore Oxford shirts and tweed sport jackets. The effect was not quite professorial; I soon learned that it was vintage Good Ol’ Prep-School Boy.

David eschewed the popular Recreational Medicaments of the time, preferring the drug of choice of the Southern Gentleman: Bourbon whiskey. This he would consume in vast quantities on the weekends as he made his rounds of the eating clubs on Prospect Street.

In the first few days of freshman year, David joined the rugby team. Getting banged up did not seem to bother him, and after a few weeks he was working on a nice cauliflower ear. I’m pretty sure he got through that first year with his teeth intact, but only because he made a strategic investment in a mouth guard. Wimp.

It was David who taught me about the Southern way of life. How to drink; how to party; how to talk to women; in short, how to be a Southern Gentleman. His lessons fell (mostly) on deaf ears back then, but I quietly took them to heart. They have served me well ever since.

We knew that he came from a moneyed family, but we did not know the extent of that wealth until we started visiting him in his native surroundings - a sprawling ranch house in Arlington, Virginia - over various vacations. During one of those visits made a side trip to Horsey Country: Middleburg, Virginia, a tony little village out in Loudoun County that (it turns out) attracts visitors from around the country and has the reputation of being “the Nation’s Horse and Hunt capital.” Fox hunting and steeplechasing! Tailgating! You can well imagine that I felt right at home. (A Gefilte Fish Out of Water was more like it.)

David was the second youngest of five children. There was a big age gap between the eldest three siblings and Dave; his brother Dick - a doctor, as were both Mom and Dad - was over two decades older than him. Next in line were two sisters, Jane and Sally. Then came Dave, followed by his kid brother Paul.

Dick, Jane, and Sally. Hmmm. Those names sounded familiar. But when I found out that the dog’s name was Spot and the cat’s was Puff, I made some sort of snide remark to Hal, our other roommate.

“It’s no coincidence,” Hal responded.

The original Dick and Jane readers had been written (so Hal said) by a family friend beginning in the early 1930’s. When he was casting about for names for his characters, he thought of Dick, Jane, and Sally...inspired by our roomie’s much-older sibs - who were old enough to have been the right age at the time.

Of course, the original Spot and Puff were long gone...but the names lingered on in their replacements.

“Bullshit!” you may cry. There’s no fucking way you went to school with Dick Jane, and Sally’s kid brother!

Believe it, Esteemed Readers. As much as I do, anyway...for that is how the tale was told to me, back in the spring of 1971.

And David? He’s still alive and well. Last time I saw him, it was by sheer coincidence, running into each other at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina about 25 years ago. Since then he has spent a good chunk of his career in the insurance business - at one point he was an executive veep at Aetna, and now he’s a director of an offshore holding company. I keep hoping to bump into him at Reunions...maybe 2009 (our 35th) will be the year.

BASKIN’

A tisket, a tasket
Hakuna in a basket.

We’ve all heard of chicken in a basket. But a cat?



She sure looks comfortable. Maybe I need to look for a human-sized version.

REVISITING THE NETHER-LANDS

[From my friend Dennis comes this bit of Internet folk wisdom. It’s especially apropos because I will be going in for my next scheduled Inspection of the Nether-Lands in just a few short weeks...]

A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his (predominantly male) patients while he was performing their colonoscopies:

• “Take it easy, Doc. You’re boldly going where no man has gone before!”
  
  
• “Find Amelia Earhart yet?”
  
  
• “Can you hear me NOW?”
  
  
• “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
  
  
• “You know, in Arkansas, we’re now legally married.”
  
  
• “Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?”
  
  
• “You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...”
  
  
• “Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!”
  
  
• “If your hand doesn’t fit, you must quit!”
  
  
• “Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.”
  
  
• “You used to be an executive at Enron, didn’t you?”
  
  
• “God, now I know why I am not gay.”

And the best one of all...

• “Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?”

Well, these may or may not be real...but there is one that, for sure, I know is real...because I uttered it myself the last time I had the Dreaded Procedure:

• “Am I gonna leave a vapor trail?”

At least, the Missus swears I said it. I was so ripped on anesthetic, I have absolutely no memory of anything. Which, in the case of a colonoscopy, is probably a very good thing.

What a month! Eye exam today, Brown-Eye Exam on the 30th. Oofah!

MAD DETECTIVE SKILLZ

We were out at dinner yesterday evening with our friends M. and S. and the topic of discussion shifted over, briefly, to the extensive remodeling work they are having done in their home.

“Extensive” does not, perhaps, do their project justice, since they are spending more on it than we did on our entire house. But when they are done, they will have a showplace.

Apparently, in the process of doing some work at the margins of the property – tearing out a fence, or some such task – their contractors discovered an old cache of empty liquor bottles. The supervisor speculated was that M. and S.’s kids and their friends may have been engaging in a little illicit partying, once upon a time, after which they buried the evidence at the edge of the yard where it wouldn’t be discovered.

There were several problems with this theory, the biggest one being that M. and S.’s kids never lived in that house – they were all on their own or away at college by the time it was purchased about ten years ago. “Did the neighbors have teenage kids?” asked the supervisor. Unlikely, answered S. – the neighbors on that side of the property were in their seventies, and no teenagers lived in any of the nearby houses.

Well, then, perhaps it was workmen, offered the supervisor. Maybe from when the pool was put in. He then dropped the subject, evidently getting tired of trying to figure out a plausible explanation for the Backyard Bottles.

She Who Must Be Obeyed had her own ideas. No, the culprits were not workmen, nor were they teenagers. The empties – all Crown Royal 1.75 liter bottles – were not what you’d expect a day laborer or high school kid in search of a boozy high to buy. Too big...and way too expensive.

No, what we were probably seeing was the hastily hidden evidence from an alcoholic homeowner – a previous owner or a neighbor, perhaps - who did not want the spouse discovering his or her quiet addiction. My guess would be the wife. Imagine her, living a life of suburban desperation, drowning her misery and rage in a sea of fine Canadian whiskey, then burying the empties in the back yard in a well-hidden spot before attacking the Listerine and waiting for hubby at the front door with a happy smile and glazed eyes.

A look at the actual bottles would help confirm the timeline, using clues such as label design, price tags, and the presence or absence of tax stamps. But, alas, the contractors tossed them out with the trash.

Ya gotta give the Missus props for her Mad Detective Skillz, though, eh?

PEARL

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.

Maybe it’s not the best day to have a Sushi Dinner, eh?

OBSOLESCENCE

This we all know: As time passes, new technologies replace old.

When I was of Snot-Nose age, I would watch “Lassie” on TV and marvel at the old-fashioned telephones. Why, they didn’t even have a dial! Now, the only evidence that telephones even had dials once upon a time is the verb we use: We still talk of dialing a telephone even though dials have gone the way of the buggy-whip.

What astonishes me - when I bother to think about it - is the number of technologies that were the Next New ’n’ Exciting Thing when they appeared within my lifetime, and that are now dusty relics. Some examples:

The Instamatic camera. Before Kodak’s easy-to-load Instamatic cameras appeared were unveiled in 1964, you loaded a camera by sticking a roll of film or a 35mm cassette in the back and threading the film through the camera and onto a take-up roll. But with the Instamatic, you just dropped a cartridge in and snapped the camera back closed. No switching rolls from spindle to spindle, no rewinding, no manual dexterity or thinking required. So what if the cameras were cheap pieces of crap that took blurry snapshots? They were easy to use. Now, the Instamatic is as obsolete as any other film camera in the Digital Age.

Flashcubes and flashbars. If you wanted to take flash pictures back in the day, you’d stick a flashbulb into the socket of your flashgun, then try not to burn the crap out of your fingers removing the hot, burnt-out bulb. One bulb was good for one shot...and once in a while, a bulb would explode, showering hot glass on your Aunt Tillie. Electronic flashes were expensive, the provenance of the Serious Photographer. And then along came the flashcube, four bulbs mounted in a cube that plugged into a socket atop your (what else?) Instamatic camera. You could take four shots in quick succession before having to change out the cube...and later, the flashbar would give you a half-dozen shots. Now, who uses flashbulbs? Who remembers flashbulbs?

Videodiscs. Pioneer’s Laservision discs made their debut in 1980, followed by RCA’s CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) system a year later. The Laserdisc was an LP-size platter (the audio LP being yet another obsolete technology, albeit one that was around before I was born) that eventually evolved into today’s DVD; the RCA discs were analog platters that, like audio LP’s, were played with a needle, but that had video encoded in them. The extremely delicate discs were encased in a plastic sleeve so that you never touched (or even saw) the actual disc itself when inserting it into the player. We owned an RCA system back in the early 1980’s, along with a pile of movies. Videocassettes killed off the RCA discs by 1986...and now they, too, are on their way out.

Eight-track audio cassettes. Need I say more?

Digital watches with red LED readouts. When these came out - in the early 1970’s, I believe, they seemed hella cool. But you had to push a button to make the numbers appear. Liquid-crystal displays killed this technology off.

Floppy discs. Remember them? I still have a pile of them, but there’s no point in keeping them because not a single computer in the house is equipped with a floppy disc reader. The hard-case 3½" floppy - the most popular format - appeared in 1984 and originally could hold 720 kB of data when formatted. One modern double-layer DVD can hold 8.55 GB - equivalent to 11,875 of those floppies. Of course, the entire field of Electronic Computational Engines is strewn with technologies that appeared, blossomed, withered, and crumbled to dust, seemingly within moments.

Beepers. I knew a guy who used to carry not just one, but two beepers...he had Beep Waiting. (Harh.) With cellphones and PDA’s as ubiquitous as they are today, there’s not much point in owning a device that someone would call in order to tell you to call him back. But that is exactly what the pocket pager is for. Of course, finding a pay telephone (another technology that is rapidly becoming obsolescent) with which to make that call may be problematic. Pagers are still around as they are more reliable than cell phones, especially in times of disaster...but their use is increasingly confined to emergency personnel.

I could go on and on. So many New Things have come along, only to end up on the dust-heap of history. You probably remember a few of your own. But who knew that we would see so many of them...and years later, wonder what happened to them?

DECEMBER GUILD EVENT

This evening, there will be a lot of Drinky Business at the Club Room at 1010 Midtown. Yes - it’s the December Guild Event!

Traditionally (not that I am in any way an expert on Guild tradition), the December event is a Champagne tasting. This one will be light on the food - mostly a bunch of fancy-pants hors d’oeuvres - so as not to detract and distract us from the Fizzy Wines.

Will Denny be there? Anybody’s guess, but my money is on “Yes”...and both Houston Steve and I will (space permitting) be joined by our Spousal Units, a first!

Here’s the Wine List:

Speaker’s wine
Domaine Carneros Brut 2004

1st Flight
Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Blancs 2004
Kluge SP Blanc de Blanc Brut 2004
Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc Brut 2005***

2nd Flight
Lanson Rosé Brut NV
Ruinart Rosé Brut NV
Moët & Chandon Rosé Nectar Imperial NV

3rd Flight
Bollinger “Vintage” 2003***
Moët & Chandon “Dom Perignon” 2000****
Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin “La Grand Dame” 1998****

Dessert
Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto d’Acqui 2007***

There will be food as well, an assortment of lah-di-dah Hors d’Oeuvres, to wit:

• Smoked salmon on hickory ham flavored crostini with Meyer lemon and tarragon yogurt
  
  
• Caviar on crisp fingerling potatoes with crême fraiche and wild chive
  
  
• Brie with toasted almonds on Sardinian flat bread
  
  
• Hand-cut smoked duck ravioli with sage brown butter and Parmesan
  
  
• Seared diver scallops with curry cream sauce

Oh, boy!

[Update: My favorites are highlighted with *asterisks.]

Hey, not to mess with the Highly Cultured Tone around here, but anyone know what you call a Fizzy French Wine Enema?

A Champagne in the Ass!

SIMPSON SENTENCED...

...to from nine to thirty-three years hard time.

D’oh!

DECEMBER 5...

...is her birthday.



She would have been eighty-one today.

Alas.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Friday? Friday? How did it get to be Friday so soon?

This week has seemingly flown by; the Holiday Season proceedeth apace. Right now, Chez Elisson is reverberating to the pounding of the Tile Guy, who is preparing our master bathroom for its brand-spanking-new tile floor. At the very least, it should make it easier to clean up those miscellaneous spatters of makeup, toothpaste, toenail clippings, earwax chunks, and Gawd knows what else. I hate to think of all the crap that has been trodden into that carpet after all the years we’ve lived here...

But you didn’t come here looking for Tales of Earwax and Carpet. You came here looking for the weekly Random Assortment of Music as disgorged by the Little White Choon-Box. And, so, let’s have a listen...

1. Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - Leonard Nimoy
   
   Created when Nimoy was riding the crest of his Star Trek fame in 1967, and when Lord of the Rings was being rediscovered by the Love Generation. The resulting tune is such a monumental Clusterfuck of Personal Mortification, I’m surprised Nimoy hasn’t slit his wrists knowing it’s out there on YouTube for everyone to snicker at.
   
   
2. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (from Bach Cantata #1 47) - Wendy Carlos
   
   
3. The Contest - Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd
   
   
4. Organic Love - Moonraker
   
   
5. Eminence Front (live) - The Who
   
   
6. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) - Green Day
   
   
7. Blackbird/Yesterday - The Beatles
   
   From the “Love” mashup album.
   
   
8. The Twelve Inches (with Tom Waits) - Frank Zappa
   
   Frank Zappa and Tom Waits. Gotta love it!
   
   
9. Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish - Captain Beefheart
   
   Captain Beefheart is, of course, Don van Vliet, a longtime Zappa associate. This piece of dadaist dub poetry is from the good Captain’s “Trout Mask Replica” album, one of the strangest pieces of vinyl ever created.
   
   Lucid tentacles test ’n’ sleeved
   ’n’ joined ’n’ jointed jade pointed
   Diamond back patterns
   Neon meate dream of a octafish
   Artifact on rose petals
   ’n’ flesh petals ’n’ pots
   Fack ’n’ feast ’n’ tubes tubs bulbs
   In jest incest injest injust in feast incest
   ’n’ specks ’n’ speckled speckled
   Speckled speculation
   Fedlocks waddlin’ feast
   Archaic faces frenzy
   Ceramic fists artificial deceased
   ’n’ cysts rancid buds burst
   Dank drum ’n’ dung dust
   Meate rose ’n’ hairs
   Meaty meate rose ’n’ hairs
   Meaty dream wet meate
   Limp damp rows
   Peeled ’n’ felt fields ’n’ belts
   Impaled on ’n’ daemon
   Mucus mules
   Twot trot tra la tra la
   Tra la tra la tra la
   Whale bone fields ’n’ belts
   Whale bone farmhouse
   Cavorts girdled ’n’ latters uh lite
   Cavorts girdled ’n’ latters uh lite
   Uh dipped amidst
   Squirmin’ serum ’n’ semen ’n’ syrup ’n’ semen
   ’n’ serum
   Stirrupped in syrup
   Neon meate dream of a octafish
   
   
10. Brazilian Stomp - George Benson and Earl Klugh
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

INTERESTING BUT USELESS

From Houston Steve comes this collection of interesting (but useless) information:

• It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.
  
  
• One human hair can support 3 kg (6 lb).
  
  
• The average man’s penis is three times the length of his thumb.
  
  
• Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.
  
  
• A woman’s heart beats faster than a man's.
  
  
• There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
  
  
• Women blink twice as often as men.
  
  
• The average person’s skin weighs twice as much as his or her brain.
  
  
• Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.
  
  
• If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
  

Women reading this will be finished now.

Men who read this are probably still busy checking their thumbs...

FUZZY FRIDAY

The animals, they all remember
How cold it gets in mid-December;
But on the Ark, assorted fauna
Gather ’round the hearth, where it is warma.

Friday Ark #220 sets sail this morning, ably captained, as always, by Steve, the redoubtable Modulator.

For those in search of an additional Kitty-Fix, drop by Mind of Mog Sunday evening for the 247th edition of Carnival of the Cats. Purrs for Pearl Harbor Day!

Update: CotC #247 is up.

DO THE (HIC) MATH

Riddle me this: At the Big New Booze Shoppe, a 750 ml bottle of Rémy Martin VSOP Cognac costs $28.99. A one-liter bottle of the same Cognac costs $64.99, more than twice as much for only 33.3% more drink.

How stupid do you have to be to buy this stuff in liter bottles?

[Giant Economy Size, my aching ass.]

A HOLIDAY TRADITION

One of our revered traditions here at Chez Elisson is that one known as “The Disposal of the Carcass.” For after we have eaten our fill of the Meat of the Turkey - in all its happy disguises - we have a frame of bones, gristle, and meat that must be dealt with.

Generally, what I will do is take a cleaver and hack the Turkey-Skeleton into manageable chunks. If there are any wings or legs left I’ll strip them of their meat and throw the bones in the Stock-Pot, along with a chopped-up yellow onion, a mashed clove of garlic, a couple of sliced carrots and celery stalks, some parsley stems, a bay leaf, and a few whole peppercorns. I add water to cover, then bring the pot up to a gentle simmer and just let it sit for a few hours, skimming the surface occasionally.

This Turkey Stock, once it is strained and cooled, is full of gelatin and rich flavor. It’s a fine base for all sorts of good things. Soup, f’r instance.

All you do is take any remaining turkey meat, cut it into cubes, and add it to the stock, along with a diced-up yellow onion, a sliced carrot, one minced garlic clove, a 12-ounce bag of split peas, and about six ounces of pearled barley. (Be sure to pick through and rinse the peas and barley before adding it to your soup, lest your bridgework encounter a stone.) Mushrooms? Up to you. I didn’t use ’em this time.

Simmer for a few hours. When the split peas have begun to disintegrate, it’s done. Add salt and pepper to taste...and a healthy dollop of fino sherry, if you like, and serve it forth. It’s traditional!

GIVING BIRTH

Gawd.

Now I have a vague idea of how it feels to be pregnant. Over this past week, I’ve been growing a serious Food-Baby...and soon it will be time to give birth.

I’'m hoping for an eight-pounder, at least.

OUR PERIPATETIC ELDER DAUGHTER...

...is, as I write this, on her way to South Africa for a two-week Bidnis Trip. She’ll be dividing her time between Johannesburg and Cape Town, and, at the recommendation of her Corporate Salt-Mine Overseers, she’ll be throwing in some vacation time as well.

Sweet.

Elder Daughter lives hundreds of miles away from us, so we are used to her not being under our roof...but there is another layer of Daughter-Missage when we know she is really far away. We will both rest a lot easier once she is back on familiar shores.

In the last eighteen months, she has been to Mexico, Egypt, Morocco, Uganda, and, of course, Japan. Now that she can add South Africa to the list, she is well on her way to out-traveling her Old Man.

Godspeed, Elder Daughter. While you’re there, try to remember that a “bra” is something you wear, and a “braai” is something you eat.

JUST A SLIGHT LEXICAL ADJUSTMENT

From the Fox News website:

Indian police have heard the first full account of what led up to the devastating attacks in Mumbai from the only asshole captured alive, who told authorities that he was ordered to kill “until the last breath,” the U.K.’s Daily Mail newspaper reported Sunday.

Azam Amir Kasab, 21, the only asshole to survive a raid by Indian commandos, told authorities that the attacks included 10 assholes in a heavily orchestrated plan devised six months ago, that hoped to kill 5,000 people — targeting mostly “whites, preferably Americans and British,” the Mail reported.

Kasab was captured after being shot in the hand by police in south Mumbai on Wednesday night, the Sunday Times of London reported. A policeman and one other terrorist were killed in the same encounter.

Kasab was captured after being shot in the hand by police in a standoff near Chowpatty beach, a popular evening destination for local families, in south Bombay, also known as Mumbai, on Wednesday night. A policeman and one other asshole were killed in the same encounter.

The assholes reportedly posed as students during a visit to Mumbai a month ago, to familiarize themselves with the city’s roads and to film the “strike locations.”

Kasab confessed to being a member of the Pakistani asshole group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani motherfucker group believed to be connected to Al Shithead.

Perhaps it would be helpful if news agencies adopted a new lexicon when dealing with events such as the recent attackes in Mumbai. To call these people “militants,” “gunmen,” or “fighters” gives them an undeserved legitimacy...and even the term “terrorist” is losing some of its stigma in a world grown numb to the most atrocious of acts.

So let’s start calling them what they really are, these cowards who kill innocent civilians.

They are assholes. Twats. Motherfuckers. Shitheads.

THE PERVERSE ACCOUNTANT

Did you hear about the perverse accountant? He was auditing a veterinarian’s practice, and they had to fire him from his job...

...when they caught him with his hand in the kitty.

UNDERFOOT

I wish that my room had a floor;
I don’t care so much for a door,
But this walking around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!

- Gelett Burgess

[Here’s a piece of useless trivia for you: Gelett Burgess coined the word “blurb” in 1907.]

The Missus and I need wish no longer. Soon our room will have a floor. Actually, our whole frickin’ house will have new floors.

The main driver for this project is the need to replace our carpet, which is showing major signs of age. It also does not help that Hakuna likes to scratch and chew the margins, resulting in a lot of places where bare carpet backing is visible.

The Missus is willing to bet that Hakuna will not molest a new, properly installed carpet. We’ll see. If I catch her scratching any spots on the new carpet, we’ll simply have to exile her to the sunroom - which has a hardwood floor.

As long as we’re replacing the old carpet, we’ll also correct a couple of things that have driven us nuts for the past ten years (And it’s a short drive.)

For one thing, except for the area right around the toilet, our master bathroom is carpeted. This is insane, considering the potential for stainage from things like makeup spills...not to mention the moist environment. Tile is the way to go...and that is what we’ll be installing.

Another thing is the dining room. For some completely mysterious reason, the builder installed hardwood in the living room/office and carpeted the dining room, the exact opposite of the way any rational human being would arrange things. The Missus suspects that the flooring contractors simply screwed the pooch, and that nobody cared at the time since the house was built on spec. So you have a room in which the carpet is especially vulnerable to damage from spills, ground-in food, et al.

Not any more. We’re hardwoodin’ that sumbitch, and we’ll stick an area rug under the dining room table.

When those new floors arrive, first thing I’m gonna do is take off my shoes and walk around barefoot, digging my toes into that nice, new pile and feeling that cushy padding. No. Second thing. First thing will be to wash my feet.

DODGING A BULLET

If you search this blog for posts that use the phrase “dodging a bullet,” you’ll find quite a few.

It’s a useful term, handy for describing a situations where one escapes relatively free of harm while others do not. Generally, it is the result of, for lack of a better term, good luck. Being in the right place at the right time...or, more appropriately, not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Aunt Marge and Uncle Phil know what it’s like to dodge a bullet. In July of 1996, they flew from Athens to New York on their way home from Israel. They changed planes to catch a flight to Miami, while the aircraft they had been on took off for Paris. It was TWA Flight 800...and as everyone knows, that flight never made it to Paris.

Israeli blogger David Bogner, who writes at Treppenwitz when he’s not guest-posting here, knows that feeling too. For he was just in Mumbai, returning home only five days before the recent terror attacks began.

He had stayed at the Oberoi Hotel, one of the hotels that would come under siege. And he had had dinner with Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, who, only days later, would be murdered in cold blood by the terrorists - targeted as Jews, a microscopically small fraction of India’s population.

A few days - or minutes - can be the difference between life and death. Ask anyone who was in New York or Washington on September 11, 2001.

I am grateful that my friend dodged that particular bullet and is home safe in the arms of his family...while at the same time my heart breaks for the victims of this latest terrorist atrocity. May their souls be bound up in the bond of life and may they rest in peace, while we do what we can to eradicate those whose twisted beliefs have made a god of death.

THAT (MINI) SINKING FEELING

Years ago, our family did something a little different from the usual: We took a vacation in Pennsylvania instead of Florida.

I should say “in addition to” rather than “instead of.” We did not forgo our annual trip to Florida to visit the Maternal Grand-’Rents; rather, we took a week-long trip to the Poconos with Aunt Zelda, Uncle Gerry (the Bro d’Eli Hizzownself), and our cousins.

It was August 1963, just a couple of months before my eleventh birthday. I remember the year only because I remember the cover of the Mad magazine I bought to read on the journey from Long Island.

That journey took, seemingly, forever. I recall sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike - in Secaucus, no less - as a violent thunderstorm played itself out over the spires of Manhattan to our east. We could see lightning strike the mast of the Empire State Building. Awesome!

Thanks to the storm-snarled traffic, a trip that should have taken two-and-a-half hours ended up taking closer to five. I’m sure the Old Man was fit to be tied by the time we arrived at the bungalow colony in Minisink Hills - hard by East Stroudsburg, at the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch country - that was to be our home for the next week.

We settled in for the night. The following morning, I made two discoveries: one good, the other not-so-good.

Not-so-good: The ’Rents had no intention of hanging out with us, having planned instead to deposit us in the bungalow colony’s convenient day camp. Their agenda was golf and tennis, and we kids were in the way. Today, I can sympathize...but back then, I was furious. I pitched a fit and refused to be encamped along with my brother and cousins. Miraculously, the parental units acquiesced. To this day, I think they were secretly hoping I’d drown myself in the swimming pool. A funeral would have been an inconvenience, sure, but at least they wouldn’t have me pestering them 24-7 to take me along on their golf outings at the nearby Tamiment resort.

Good: The Poconos were home to the richest, most addictive chocolate milk in the world. It was chocolate right out of the carton (no pain-in-the-ass mixing in Bosco or Fox’s U-Bet syrup), and it had the consistency of whipping cream.

In hindsight, it probably was whipping cream. Whipping cream with chocolate. You really had to cut it with milk (whole milk, of course - that 2% crap hadn’t been invented yet) to make it drinkable, so rich it was. I’m still carrying a few pounds around on my ass as souvenirs of that summer.

Years later, the Missus and I lived just a few miles on the other side of the Delaware Water Gap, in Hackettstown, New Jersey. It was a short drive to East Stroudsburg and Minisink Hills, but I never felt the burning desire to explore those places again. Some memories, I guess, are not to be messed with.

Sure do miss that chocolate milk, though.