I was always among the shortest and definitely the scrawniest kid in my class while growing up. However, my brother, six years older than me, was probably the tallest kid in his class, and my dad consoled me that he himself had grown several inches his senior year of high school, so I always assumed I’d get taller. This must be why, beginning my freshman year of high school, I started wearing size 10-10.5 shoes. I felt like I needed some room in the toe to grow into.
Unfathomably in retrospect, I was on the basketball team through tenth grade. I was spindly and awkward, and the other kids tormented me with near-daily wedgies (pulling my underwear elastic up over my head), flushies (lifting me upside-down by the ankles and flushing my head in the toilet) and locking me in the tiny lockers. It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. But perhaps the most beguiling part of basketball was that I was the slowest kid on the team except for my closest friend Eric, who ran like a wounded walrus. I could never figure this out, but suspected it had something to do with my shoes.
My family couldn’t afford or weren’t willing to waste money on the fancy Air Jordan’s that the other kids had. While running, I could feel my shoes slipping around. At the time, I blamed it on the traction. I sometimes considered it a blessing that the dry gymnasium air often gave me nosebleeds so that I could lean over a trashcan holding toilet paper to my nose and spitting out clots while the other kids ran.
I have a hard time appreciating or trusting anybody that speaks fondly of high school. When others talk about returning for reunions, my jaw simply drops. The people from my high school are literally the last people I’d ever want to see again in my entire life. I’m the same size as I was back then, and I envision them zipping me into a duffel bag and kicking at me for old time’s sake.
I still can’t afford overpriced shoes. Today, however, I wear size 8-8.5.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Single Malt Scotch
Although I had enjoyed the occasional single malt scotch I had imbibed over the years, my obsession with the “water of life” was triggered by my purchase of a bottle of 12 year Caol Ila. Its deep, smoky aroma; oily mouth-coating consistency; subtle yet confident personality and long, peaceful finish intrigued me immensely. Caol Ila is a single malt scotch from the north side of the somewhat notorious island of Islay in Scotland.
Islay is known for its peaty single malts, although in my experience, the whiskys from the south side of the island are much more intense. Peat is, roughly, combustible dried compost. In Scotland, peat is usually cut from the soil and used to heat the kilns which arrest the germination of barley, creating malted barley. There is an identifiable “peat” taste in some Scotches, and although I’ve never eaten Scottish dirt (the first thing I plan to do should I ever get to Scotland is shove my nose into the ground), the first time I understood what was meant by peat taste I exclaimed, “Oh, it’s the seaweed flavor!” That’s a part of it; but essentially peat is the taste of the bog. It has sweat, grass and campfire tones. Smokiness is a characteristic of peat, but a Scotch can be peaty and not very smoky. I think the berserker enraged 10 year Talisker is a good example of this.
Scotland’s Highland is known for its heathery single malts. (The area within The Highland most known for its Scotch is called Speyside, which became a popular place to distill because its terrain made it impossible for the authorities to get to.) Heather is a native flower whose fragrance, most say, is imparted through the spring water that makes up one of the three ingredients of single malt Scotch whisky. I don’t know what Scottish spring water tastes like, but it must be sweet. One of my current favorite Scotches is 15 year Dalwhinnie, a lively, full-flavored Highlander that is very perfume-y, which the experts all call heathery. It also has sherry in its nose (along with vanilla, honey and cinnamon) and its finish (along with chocolate, nougat and visceral contemplation); although I don’t know whether this specific Scotch is aged in sherry casks (I’ve noticed that the experts’ descriptions often conveniently echo what they know of how and where it was made, which I think is cheating and refuse to do). Like wines, a huge range of familiar flavors can be tasted in Scotch. The origins of some of them can be explained while others can’t. For example, 10 year Abelour’s peat is nicely balanced by a very distinct pear flavor.
Obviously, there’s more to whisky than malted barley, spring water and yeast (unlike in America, Scots do not use sour mash as their yeast). Whisky is made from a “wash” of fermented malted barley that is distilled twice using handmade copper pots. The shape and size of the pots will influence the whisky’s characteristics. The oak barrels in which Scotch is matured for a minimum of three years, but almost always much longer, also impart a lot of the characteristic, including the color (all things are clear after being distilled) of the drink. Unlike most other whiskeys, Scotch has no rules regarding what kind of oak barrel can be used. Bourbon casks must be charred new white oak; Canadian whisky must be used bourbon barrels (gotta love that symbiosis); Irish whiskey barrels must have been previously used from any source (usually Scotch, sherry or bourbon).
The location of each barrel in the warehouse containing the aging whisky will affect the aging process. To compensate for this, the barrels are occasionally rolled around to different parts of the warehouse, and after it has matured (malted barley takes longer to mature than other grains), the barrels from the same batch are vatted (mixed) so that the final product is consistent. American bourbons, on the other hand, revere “small batch” and “single barrels,” which allow for more variance within the product line.
I’ve been enthralled lately by the effect the drinking glass has on the flavor. I splurged for a couple Glencairn whisky glasses which I adore. The nose (smell) and flavor that come out of that glass is drastically more “pure” than the same Scotch out of the other glasses (including brandy snifters, which are traditionally used) I own. Here’s how I drink scotch: first I swish it around in the glass, looking at the color and viscosity, then I give it three sniffs; the first acclimates the nose, the second has the dominant body, the third contains the fruit tones. Upon drinking a small portion, I chew it for five or six seconds, savoring its tingle and how and where it fills my palate. Finally, I pay attention to the development of the drink after it’s been swallowed.
Islay is known for its peaty single malts, although in my experience, the whiskys from the south side of the island are much more intense. Peat is, roughly, combustible dried compost. In Scotland, peat is usually cut from the soil and used to heat the kilns which arrest the germination of barley, creating malted barley. There is an identifiable “peat” taste in some Scotches, and although I’ve never eaten Scottish dirt (the first thing I plan to do should I ever get to Scotland is shove my nose into the ground), the first time I understood what was meant by peat taste I exclaimed, “Oh, it’s the seaweed flavor!” That’s a part of it; but essentially peat is the taste of the bog. It has sweat, grass and campfire tones. Smokiness is a characteristic of peat, but a Scotch can be peaty and not very smoky. I think the berserker enraged 10 year Talisker is a good example of this.
Scotland’s Highland is known for its heathery single malts. (The area within The Highland most known for its Scotch is called Speyside, which became a popular place to distill because its terrain made it impossible for the authorities to get to.) Heather is a native flower whose fragrance, most say, is imparted through the spring water that makes up one of the three ingredients of single malt Scotch whisky. I don’t know what Scottish spring water tastes like, but it must be sweet. One of my current favorite Scotches is 15 year Dalwhinnie, a lively, full-flavored Highlander that is very perfume-y, which the experts all call heathery. It also has sherry in its nose (along with vanilla, honey and cinnamon) and its finish (along with chocolate, nougat and visceral contemplation); although I don’t know whether this specific Scotch is aged in sherry casks (I’ve noticed that the experts’ descriptions often conveniently echo what they know of how and where it was made, which I think is cheating and refuse to do). Like wines, a huge range of familiar flavors can be tasted in Scotch. The origins of some of them can be explained while others can’t. For example, 10 year Abelour’s peat is nicely balanced by a very distinct pear flavor.
Obviously, there’s more to whisky than malted barley, spring water and yeast (unlike in America, Scots do not use sour mash as their yeast). Whisky is made from a “wash” of fermented malted barley that is distilled twice using handmade copper pots. The shape and size of the pots will influence the whisky’s characteristics. The oak barrels in which Scotch is matured for a minimum of three years, but almost always much longer, also impart a lot of the characteristic, including the color (all things are clear after being distilled) of the drink. Unlike most other whiskeys, Scotch has no rules regarding what kind of oak barrel can be used. Bourbon casks must be charred new white oak; Canadian whisky must be used bourbon barrels (gotta love that symbiosis); Irish whiskey barrels must have been previously used from any source (usually Scotch, sherry or bourbon).
The location of each barrel in the warehouse containing the aging whisky will affect the aging process. To compensate for this, the barrels are occasionally rolled around to different parts of the warehouse, and after it has matured (malted barley takes longer to mature than other grains), the barrels from the same batch are vatted (mixed) so that the final product is consistent. American bourbons, on the other hand, revere “small batch” and “single barrels,” which allow for more variance within the product line.
I’ve been enthralled lately by the effect the drinking glass has on the flavor. I splurged for a couple Glencairn whisky glasses which I adore. The nose (smell) and flavor that come out of that glass is drastically more “pure” than the same Scotch out of the other glasses (including brandy snifters, which are traditionally used) I own. Here’s how I drink scotch: first I swish it around in the glass, looking at the color and viscosity, then I give it three sniffs; the first acclimates the nose, the second has the dominant body, the third contains the fruit tones. Upon drinking a small portion, I chew it for five or six seconds, savoring its tingle and how and where it fills my palate. Finally, I pay attention to the development of the drink after it’s been swallowed.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Rushmore
Wes Anderson’s second movie, Rushmore (1998), isn’t for everyone. It is for cynically passionate, unconventionally clever, emotionally immature individuals struggling to understand themselves and find their niche. People who don’t spend their days laughing aloud about the ridiculousness of humans, humanity and the human condition might not get the joke. Needless to say, I really, really like this movie.
Max Fisher (Jason Schwartzman) is an enterprising young man who has won an academic scholarship to attend Rushmore, a prep school that he wouldn’t have been otherwise able to afford to attend, by writing a screenplay. He works and postures hard to prove himself worthy of his enrollment, throwing himself into every extra-curricular activity the school offers. Unfortunately, the fundamental basics of the educational system, especially (and fittingly) math, elude him.
Max cannot allow himself to be distracted by such things as practicality, appropriate behavior and his peer group. At first, his lone friend is Dirk Calloway (Mason Gamble), a boy several years Max’s junior who is an interesting balance of impressionable yet stubborn; although Max not-so-subtly regards the most interesting thing about Dirk to be his gorgeous mom. Then Max befriends Herman Blume (Bill Murray), a Rushmore alum who owns a successful metal working company, after being inspired by a commencement speech Herman gives in which he encourages the less affluent students not to let the spoiled ones, including his own twin sons, have more success than them.
Soon after, Max discovers Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), an elementary teacher with an affinity for fish. To impress her, he immediately takes up smoking, prevents Rushmore’s Latin program from being dropped (because Miss Cross wrote her thesis on Latin American economic policy) and begins planning to have a giant aquarium built, borrowing money from Herman to do it. When he chooses the location for the aquarium and starts digging up the baseball field, Max gets kicked out of Rushmore.
Once Max gets an idea into his head he runs with it without ever asking whether the idea is possible to achieve or worth achieving. Max believes in the cinematic idealism whereby the good guy always prevails. Max’s passion is exactly what Herman lacks. Herman hates himself and everything about his life. He has wealth, but nothing he wants to spend it on. He’s pathetic and he knows it. But he can’t keep himself from falling for Rosemary. Max and Herman are initially attracted to Rosemary in part because she seems to have things together, but are stymied by the fact that she is struggling to deal with the death of her husband. We never find out much about Rosemary and Herman’s relationship, but we don’t really have to because we know it’s never going to last. Herman, like Max, wants someone to take care of him. As it turns out, so does Rosemary.
Dirk finds out Max’s coy lie that he got kicked out of Rushmore for getting a handjob from Dirk’s mom and gets his revenge by telling Max about Herman and Rosemary. Now alone in this world without even Rushmore to distract him, Max has to learn to come to terms with his new school, being ashamed of his father (an unassuming, affable barber), the death of his mother, the betrayal of his friends and, most of all, that emotion we call love.
Rushmore is funny, but only if you find humor in the absurd. We knew this about Murray, but young Schwartzman also turns out to be a natural at deadpan comic delivery. Anderson embraces a Shakespearean wit whereby two kids can carry on a perfectly rational and civil conversation that has been instigated by one shooting the other in the side of the head with a BB gun. Anderson’s style, which he has used to create a catalogue of movies with a consistency in quality matched only by a handful of other directors in the history of cinema, seems equally informed by Martin Scorsese’s sense of frame and action and Hal Ashby’s patient, aware, sophisticated humor. In fact, Rushmore makes enough subtle references to Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971) that halfway through you expect a Cat Stevens song to burst out. And then one does.
Max Fisher (Jason Schwartzman) is an enterprising young man who has won an academic scholarship to attend Rushmore, a prep school that he wouldn’t have been otherwise able to afford to attend, by writing a screenplay. He works and postures hard to prove himself worthy of his enrollment, throwing himself into every extra-curricular activity the school offers. Unfortunately, the fundamental basics of the educational system, especially (and fittingly) math, elude him.
Max cannot allow himself to be distracted by such things as practicality, appropriate behavior and his peer group. At first, his lone friend is Dirk Calloway (Mason Gamble), a boy several years Max’s junior who is an interesting balance of impressionable yet stubborn; although Max not-so-subtly regards the most interesting thing about Dirk to be his gorgeous mom. Then Max befriends Herman Blume (Bill Murray), a Rushmore alum who owns a successful metal working company, after being inspired by a commencement speech Herman gives in which he encourages the less affluent students not to let the spoiled ones, including his own twin sons, have more success than them.
Soon after, Max discovers Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), an elementary teacher with an affinity for fish. To impress her, he immediately takes up smoking, prevents Rushmore’s Latin program from being dropped (because Miss Cross wrote her thesis on Latin American economic policy) and begins planning to have a giant aquarium built, borrowing money from Herman to do it. When he chooses the location for the aquarium and starts digging up the baseball field, Max gets kicked out of Rushmore.
Once Max gets an idea into his head he runs with it without ever asking whether the idea is possible to achieve or worth achieving. Max believes in the cinematic idealism whereby the good guy always prevails. Max’s passion is exactly what Herman lacks. Herman hates himself and everything about his life. He has wealth, but nothing he wants to spend it on. He’s pathetic and he knows it. But he can’t keep himself from falling for Rosemary. Max and Herman are initially attracted to Rosemary in part because she seems to have things together, but are stymied by the fact that she is struggling to deal with the death of her husband. We never find out much about Rosemary and Herman’s relationship, but we don’t really have to because we know it’s never going to last. Herman, like Max, wants someone to take care of him. As it turns out, so does Rosemary.
Dirk finds out Max’s coy lie that he got kicked out of Rushmore for getting a handjob from Dirk’s mom and gets his revenge by telling Max about Herman and Rosemary. Now alone in this world without even Rushmore to distract him, Max has to learn to come to terms with his new school, being ashamed of his father (an unassuming, affable barber), the death of his mother, the betrayal of his friends and, most of all, that emotion we call love.
Rushmore is funny, but only if you find humor in the absurd. We knew this about Murray, but young Schwartzman also turns out to be a natural at deadpan comic delivery. Anderson embraces a Shakespearean wit whereby two kids can carry on a perfectly rational and civil conversation that has been instigated by one shooting the other in the side of the head with a BB gun. Anderson’s style, which he has used to create a catalogue of movies with a consistency in quality matched only by a handful of other directors in the history of cinema, seems equally informed by Martin Scorsese’s sense of frame and action and Hal Ashby’s patient, aware, sophisticated humor. In fact, Rushmore makes enough subtle references to Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971) that halfway through you expect a Cat Stevens song to burst out. And then one does.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Morality
It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully.
- Maude (from Harold and Maude (1971))
- Maude (from Harold and Maude (1971))
Sunday, November 9, 2008
When I Write
I only write when I’m angry or sad or something because that’s when I just have to write, and I only will work if I absolutely have to. If I’m having a good time and I’m happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I’m doing to go and write about it at the piano?
-Fiona Apple (Interview on Late, Late Show)
-Fiona Apple (Interview on Late, Late Show)
Monday, November 3, 2008
Ann Redux
Ann assumes all humans are important and worthwhile. She enjoys meeting people, and although she doesn’t ultimately like everyone’s company, she is always kind, generous and thoughtful. Perhaps because of Ann’s rather conservative, Midwestern, suburban upbringing, Ann is especially attracted to unconventional, quirky people with outlandish senses of humor.
One of the most rewarding experiences a person can have is making Ann laugh. Her laugh is among the warmest and heartfelt I’ve heard, and some have been compelled to spend years trying to get her to guffaw to the extent that they become quickly concerned and even irritable when she doesn’t. This could become a burden for Ann if she realized it, and perhaps it does contribute to her preference to be surrounded by friendly, laughing people.
Ann herself manages to stay friendly and laughing, which in no small part can be attributed to her strong focus and self-discipline. Ann thrives on routine; not the repetitive, passive doldrums, but rather spirited, Carpe Diem inspired, goal-oriented pursuits. She feels life has a lot of good to offer, and keeps herself mentally and physically fit to be able to recognize and explore its natural beauty. She wakes up early in the mornings to run, and drives long hours on the weekends to walk up mountains. She loves traveling the globe and experiencing various cultures, and even spends her days helping children throughout the world do just that. While some prefer extravagant, modern societies, Ann gravitates toward poorer, more practical countries. Ann wants to make a real difference in this world, and anybody that knows her knows that she does.
Ann refuses to become lazy and indifferent. “I don’t want to like it,” she smiles. Cynics might claim she fears death, to which she’s retorted that cynics fear life. Negative people can use Ann as a barometer for how obnoxious they’re being. When she gives her husband the, “I swear to god one of these days he’s going to make me snap,” glare one knows it is time to back off. Another thing Ann doesn’t realize is that contemptible people depend on her warmth to get them through their own personal battles. Although her relentless optimism might incite them to lash out from time to time, for the most part it gives them hope that there are people in the world like her that make existence, at the very least, bearable.
One of the most rewarding experiences a person can have is making Ann laugh. Her laugh is among the warmest and heartfelt I’ve heard, and some have been compelled to spend years trying to get her to guffaw to the extent that they become quickly concerned and even irritable when she doesn’t. This could become a burden for Ann if she realized it, and perhaps it does contribute to her preference to be surrounded by friendly, laughing people.
Ann herself manages to stay friendly and laughing, which in no small part can be attributed to her strong focus and self-discipline. Ann thrives on routine; not the repetitive, passive doldrums, but rather spirited, Carpe Diem inspired, goal-oriented pursuits. She feels life has a lot of good to offer, and keeps herself mentally and physically fit to be able to recognize and explore its natural beauty. She wakes up early in the mornings to run, and drives long hours on the weekends to walk up mountains. She loves traveling the globe and experiencing various cultures, and even spends her days helping children throughout the world do just that. While some prefer extravagant, modern societies, Ann gravitates toward poorer, more practical countries. Ann wants to make a real difference in this world, and anybody that knows her knows that she does.
Ann refuses to become lazy and indifferent. “I don’t want to like it,” she smiles. Cynics might claim she fears death, to which she’s retorted that cynics fear life. Negative people can use Ann as a barometer for how obnoxious they’re being. When she gives her husband the, “I swear to god one of these days he’s going to make me snap,” glare one knows it is time to back off. Another thing Ann doesn’t realize is that contemptible people depend on her warmth to get them through their own personal battles. Although her relentless optimism might incite them to lash out from time to time, for the most part it gives them hope that there are people in the world like her that make existence, at the very least, bearable.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Oh Yes
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.
-charles bukowski
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.
-charles bukowski
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