Neighbors and Dreamtime

I took my River Forest Road walk this afternoon, enjoying the warm sun and a chapter of The Far Side of the World. At one point, I rounded a corner and was brought up short. Before me stood the most gorgeous blossoming tree. (A cherry?) I wished I had taken my camera.

A sunny Sunday in March means yard work, and that’s just what Kris and I did yesterday. Kris did lots of little things, many of which escape me; she was busy all day long. In the mid-afternoon, she planted the asparagus. She dug a foot-deep trench one-foot wide, and buried nine asparagus crowns. They’ll live for eight to ten years, producing their first edible stalks a couple of years from now.

Yum.

While Kris worked on the asparagus, I edged the entire length of the garden, ripping out sod and hauling it back to the compost heap. Back next to the rotting eggshells and coffee grounds, I met another neighbor.

Harvey is the first black man I’ve met in Oak Grove. He and his wife moved into the house behind ours nearly thirty years ago. They’ve been married for thirty-three years and have eleven children, one of whom (Joshua, approximately eight years old) sat and listened to us as we talked.

Harvey’s a good guy. When he moved to Oregon from North Carolina, Harvey worked as a chef. Since then he’s gone into business for himself, installing refrigeration units for restaurants. His wife Becky is actually the daughter of Tom’s first wife. (Tom being the neighbor we know best, the friendly guy next door who, at nearly eighty years old, is building his dream home.) When the former owners of our house installed their high fence with barbed wire, they placed a gate between Harvey’s yard and our yard. When the former owners died, Harvey chained it off. Yesterday, he got out his bold cutters and he cut it the chain off. He installed a new lock and gave us a key, re-establishing open communication between the two yards. I think this was primarily a symbolic act, but I liked it.

We’ve now established contact with nearly all of the neighbors. (We still haven’t met the other backyard neighbors, the ones wholly hidden from us by the laurel hedge.) We know Tom and Roberta best, and are grateful for the kindness they’ve shown us since we moved in. (They’re the source of our grapes and blueberries, for example.)

John from across the road is a character: gruff and frank, but generous. (He invited us to glean his Concord grapes, and he donated lumber for us to construct our own grape trellises.) John spends most of his time in Alaska and New Zealand, so mostly his house is occupied by a series of housesitters.

Kurt and Tammy next door are friendly, too; they greeted us on our first day in the house. They’re closest to our age, and easiest to talk to. They live across from Cyril and Helen, an older couple who moved into their house in 1948. Cyril’s great: he has an opinion on everything and is not afraid to share it. He reminds me of Jeremy.

It’s strange that after nine months we already know most of our neighbors. In Canby, we barely knew the people around us, and we rarely had any interaction with them. It’s not like we spend all our time with our new neighbors, but at least we’ve met them, and we carry on conversations with them when we see them. With Tom and Roberta, especially, I’ve had a lot of talks.

It’s nice.

Last night I woke from a truly terrifying dream:

I am standing in a bus shelter with Mac and Andrew. Outside it is stormy in a wintry kind of way. Looking through a window into a coffee shop, I see Joel, all wild arms and crazy faces, telling a story to some stranger. I keep meaning to tell Mac and Andrew that Joel’s here, but they’re engrossed in conversation, and I do not want to interrupt. Eventually, Joel sees us and comes outside and plants a great big juicy kiss on Mac’s lips. “You gonna give me a ride home?” he asks Mac. Mac is hesitant because he’s promised to drive me home, but Joel goads him until he agrees to go. Andrew goes with them.

I take off by myself, in a car, driving to our new house, which is apparently now located on a hillside, up a winding, narrow road. The road is more icy than slushy, but I’m managing.

And here’s a strange part. For a short time, the dream changes scenes and I am no longer in the action. I cannot recall this ever happening before. Instead, Joel and Mac have arrived at their destination, and Joel is all wild arms and crazy faces, telling a story, but Mac is morose. “I should have taken J.D. home,” he says. “He hates to drive in this stuff. He’s no good at it.”

Indeed, I’m not (at least in the dream). I’m driving up the winding, narrow roads, only no longer in a car but in my pajamas. (WTF?) I take great long runs and then skid on my stomach. And this all seems perfectly natural in Misty Dreamland.

At one point, I accidentally turn onto a logging road. I can’t tell at first because it, too, is a winding, narrow road. Eventually, however, I realize that it is too winding and too narrow. In fact, the trees and shrubs have squeezed in all around so that I am only crawling now. I am very scared. Very scared.

I think of wolves. I think of bears. “This isn’t right,” I think to myself. “My house is on a big road.” And so I turn around and begin to retrace my path, but this time I’m panicked, believing I will be eaten by snowsharks. (WTF?)

My dream ends when I wake, in a fair state of terror, to go to the bathroom at 11:16.

At least there’s this: if I was dreaming — which I did all night long — I was not snoring!

Comments


On 14 March 2005 (09:53 PM),
Kris said:

While Jd was on his walk, I made a feeble attempt to give the camellias their semi-annual feeding. We think we have twenty-three beautiful camellia bushes here at Rosings Park, but it’s hard to be sure, since some of them blend together into one long hedge and others are so tall (15 feet?) they may be several intertwined. Anyway, the fertilizer instructions read: “drench soil around bush’s dripline. In general, 1 gallon (of dilute fertilizer solution) will be sufficient for 1 plant.” Somehow, I do not think they had our camellias in mind when they wrote those. In the end, I filled the two-gallon bucket up 16 times before I ran out of fertilizer granules, and I’m sure I’ve just whetted their appetites.



On 14 March 2005 (11:16 PM),
tammy said:

Hmm, Kris, maybe I need to fertilize my camelia. I hadn’t even thought of it. That’s exactly what I’ll do tomorrow. Greg bought a new mower. It’s self propelled. I’ve never had a self propelled mower. I’ve always had to strong arm my mower through thick stands of clover in our spare lot. I’m not sure how a self propelled mower will do in that sort of situation but we shall see. I’m looking forward to working outside tomorrow.

By the way is there anything we’re suppose to be doing to those roses this time of year? Pruning? fertilizer? Anything? Mine have all leafed out beautifully! I can’t wait to see them blooming!



On 15 March 2005 (06:44 AM),
Joel said:

I think Mac did the right thing in that dream. Between the two of us, I’d probably be more of a danger to the public if I had to drive on those icy roads. Attaboy, Mac, you’re a great kisser!



On 15 March 2005 (08:02 AM),
Steve said:

JD:
We must be neighbors. One of our favorite bike rides is down Oak Grove Blvd. and down River Forest Road. (We’re on Laurie Ave.)
If we can ever scrape together enough money, we’d love to live on the river. I grew up on a river in NH, and I miss being that close to the water. I think in the meantime I will just have to buy a boat so I can take advantage of my proximity to the boat launch at the end of Oak Grove Blvd.
There is a 5 acre lot w/ river front for sale right now at the end of Laurie Ave. (I posted some pictures on my Blog.) It used to be some kind of greenhouse/nursery, but everything is in ruins now. I think the property is listed with Windemere, but I haven’t seen how much they want.
Well, I’ve babbled on for long enough; time to chase the children off to school.
Steve



On 15 March 2005 (11:55 AM),
Courtney said:

I had a bad dream the other night. To make a long story short, I witnessed a murder and ended up in some sort of warehouse. Joel was there, too, and we hid in a dumpster full of cardboard. Why does Joel show up in these weird dreams I wonder?

Gadgets

I found time to play with two new gadgets this morning: the inexpensive iMic and the not-so-inexpensive Nikon D70 digital SLR.

I woke early. The sun had just risen. I could hear the birds outside. (In the summer, we sleep with the french doors open in the bedroom, and we cannot help but be awakened by bird song; this time of year I have to strain to hear it through the doors.)

Grabbing my iBook, I headed outside to sit in my pajamas and slippers, listening to the jays and the crows and the little songbirds greeting the morning. A woodpecker peck peck peck peck pecked somewhere up the hill. I tried to record some of what I heard with my new iMic and a cheap microphone (actually a remnant from my very first Mac fifteen years ago). I need a better microphone. I was able to record some birdsong, but only faintly.

The female flicker provided the best sounds:

flicker call one (994kb mp3)
flicker call two (240kb mp3)

At one point, Nemo sauntered by to see what was up:

Nemo squeaking (84kb mp3)

It was yet another beautiful day. We spent most of it outside, working in the garden. The cats helped. Sort of.

Nemo showed his might:

Simon played mind games with Flash:

Later in the evening, Simon sat outside the library window, politely asking to be let inside:

I admit there are sections in the above photos that are pixelated. This is not a result of the camera. I’ve saved each of the above as heavily compressed JPGs. In fact, they’re set at 10% quality in Photoshop Elements.

The D70 produces digital images of astounding quality.

Expect a full review of the D70 after I become accustomed to all its features and functions. It’s an overwhelming device, and it’s going to take me several weeks (at least) to learn.

For now, here’s an example of what six megapixels can do when coupled with a large CCD. (The CCD is the charge coupled device, the actual component of the digital camera that records the image. It’s far, far more important to image quality than the nominal size of the photo produced.)

Here’s a full-size detail of the above image. (Meaning: this is the actual size at which the image was recorded. The above photo was reduced drastically to fit the confines of this weblog.)

And here’s a detail of the above, magnified four times.

This final image is a detail of the above detail of a detail. It has been magnified another four times, or sixteen times the actual recorded image size.

Given that the topmost image in this series, the one that shows Simon in the window, was reduced to a little less than one quarter sixteenth of its original size, this final detail has been magnified over sixty-four 256 times! (Or, put another way, Simon’s nose in the final photo is sixteen times as wide and sixteen times as tall as it is in the first photo. In theory.)

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

Comments


On 13 March 2005 (09:06 PM),
dowingba said:

That is impressive. Up until a little while ago, I thought 4 megapixels was the max, and I had heard people claim nobody would ever need more than 4. But earlier today I saw an ad or something for a 16 megapixel camera. Imagine how much you could zoom with that.



On 13 March 2005 (09:49 PM),
J.D. said:

The number of megapixels in the final image is only one part of the equation. It’s not much good to have a 16megapixel image if the CCD is small. The CCD is what is used to actually “grab” the light in the first place. The larger the CCD, the more light grabbed, and the higher resolution the image, regardless of the number of megapixels. What’s ideal is to have a large CCD *and* lots of megapixels. :)

Your earlier point remains essentially correct, however: film does have better resolution right now, and probably will for the forseeable future. Still, quality prints can be achieved from digital photographs, especially at 4×6 and 5×7 sizes. In theory, the D70 ought to be able to provide crisp, clean images up to 12×16 or even larger. That’s certainly good enough for me.



On 14 March 2005 (08:06 AM),
Tiffany said:

You know how much I love your cats, but I never need to see cat snot that large. :)



On 14 March 2005 (08:32 AM),
Lane said:

In my office, I have a 10×15 print from my D70, printed at 300 dpi at (www.whcc.com). I did some basic interpolation during post-processing in Photoshop. My photography-centric friends at work, upon first viewing, can not tell if it is from film or digital. If you have any questions, let me know.

Cat Pictures

Today this space features photos of my cats. Isn’t that what weblogs are all about?

I think the cats loved this unseasonable February even more than Kris and I did. Simon, especially. He took every opportunity to lounge about the yard, to hide in the bushes, to chase birds and squirrels, and to climb his tree.

I think that, left to his own devices, Simon could perch in this tree for hours. There’s so much to see. Like the woman walking her dog down the street.

Dogs are scary.

Of course, Nemo likes attention, too. Unfortunately, I still haven’t got the hang of the new digital camera, so when I’m trying to capture action in low light with an unfamiliar camera I get blurry shots.

Although Nemo craves affection, he’s a lot more fidgety than Simon. He won’t sit still. This makes him difficult to photoraph.

Simon likes to sit in the tree, but he loves my workshop more. When I’m out there, he often scratches on the door until I let him in. He then lounges around the shop, exploring the dark corners, until he decides that he needs attention, at which point he becomes Mr. Super Affectionate (which is strange, because he’s not all that affectionate otherwise).

On Sunday, I left the workshop door open while I carried things to-and-fro. Simon decided that, despite the sunny day, and despite the attractive tree limbs, he’d rather spend his time inside the workshop, sitting on Joel’s old desk, watching the birds through the window.

Goofy cat.

Nick, giving tremendously practical advice: “Cats are worthless! Get a dog — you could train it to hunt pythons.”

Comments


On 01 March 2005 (08:35 PM),
Jethro said:

Good old Gordo. He’s still the best cat ever, even with a goofy name like Simon. :-)



On 02 March 2005 (05:25 PM),
jenefer said:

Am I losing my mind? Or were there more pictures yesterday?



On 02 March 2005 (08:03 PM),
tammy said:

Nope there were more pictures yesterday. He had more of the cat in the window.



On 02 March 2005 (08:05 PM),
J.D. said:

I’m practicing my editing techniques, particularly my photo editing techniques, as suggested by the link in the flotchbar…



On 02 March 2005 (08:31 PM),
Joel said:

Ooooh, Oregon looks so warm and green… hold on warm snap! We’re a-comin’!



On 03 March 2005 (11:57 AM),
Amanda said:

Yay! More kitty posts!!!



On 03 March 2005 (12:30 PM),
Tiffany said:

What, no photos of Toto?

Garden Science

How useful is your college degree?

I often joke with my friends who have Hard Science backgrounds, ridiculing them for not studying something more useful: a social science perhaps, like psychology. This is all ironic, of course, since there are few degrees more useless than psychology and few more useful than a Hard Science.

Sometimes my lack of Hard Science education thwarts me in unexpected ways. I have a fundamental lack of understanding about electricity, for example, meaning that when I’m rewiring the house, I’m undertaking a leap of faith. I have a poor grasp of rudimentary physics concepts. Biology is basically a grand mystery to me. I may be able to tell you all about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or to discuss the fascinating merits of Gestalt theory, but I cannot tell you where the pancreas is located.

I did take astronomy in college, for what it’s worth; yet, having astronomy as one’s lone physical science isn’t particularly useful.

Usually.

Our newly tilled garden (can you believe I tilled the garden plot in mid-February?!?) is currently completely shaded by the arborvitae hedge to the south of our lot. I’ve planted peas along the fence, next to the hedge, but I have little hope that they’ll germinate without the warming rays of the sun. When will they get the sun? We know that the garden plot received full sun during the summer, but we haven’t really paid attention to it since.

This sounds like a job for Astronomy Man!

I tried to work this out in my head as Kris and I were driving home the other night: “So if Portland is just north of the 45th parallel, that means the sun is about 45-degrees high in the sky at the Vernal Equinox, right?”

“I don’t know,” said Kris, my wife, upon whom I generally rely to answer all of my Hard Science questions. She’s not so good at astronomy, though.

“I think that’s so,” I said. “And we know that the sun ranges 46-degrees from solstice to solstice, right? The tropics are at 23 degrees north and south latitudes. That means the sun must move approximately eight degrees a month. Give or take.” — I figure the sun’s apparent trajectory must “flatten” near the solstices and “accelerate” between them — “So, in theory, the noon-day sun must sit at 22 degrees above the horizon at the Winter Solstice, and it must be at 68 degrees above the horizon at the Summer Solstice. Our garden plot is ten feet wide and is only now just in complete shade. When will it be in full sun?”

I knew how to frame the problem, you see, but then I ran into trouble. I could not determine the proper geometry formula to work out in my head. Even now, I’m not sure I have enough information. I know the approximate angle of the sun at one-month intervals, and I know the length of the shadow cast by the arborvitae on Feb. 21st, so can I determine the position of the shadows one month from now? Two months from now?

I don’t know.

But I’m going to have fun trying!

(This problem would be a whole lot easier with visual aids. This web site may help.)

Comments


On 21 February 2005 (09:54 AM),
J.D. said:

I know that after my entry on learning Latin, some of you were asking yourself, “Could this weblog possibly get any geekier?”

This entry is my way of saying, “Of course! It can always get geekier…”

:)



On 21 February 2005 (10:23 AM),
Amanda said:

To answer the question posed, a Humanities degree is not useful at all.

I need a sign that says, “Will think for food.”



On 21 February 2005 (10:34 AM),
Anthony said:

I resent the comment that this is a geeky subject (even geekier than Learning Latin, which is by implication even geekier than spending hours comparing and contrasting the merits of various imaginary superheroes).

This is a Real Subject, investigating something that affects you directly, the understanding of which will enable you to actually make better decisions about the Things that Matter.

If most people are not at all interested in such things, it is their privelege and their loss.

I am well aware that my tastes do not represent those of the average reader of this blog, but I would be pleased to see more entries like this one.

I don’t think I know how to figure that problem either(anyway, I don’t feel like trying right now), but I want to hear what you figure out.



On 21 February 2005 (10:41 AM),
Anthony said:

a Humanities degree is not useful at all.

This reminds me of a quote from Wendell Berry.

“The so-called humanities probably do not exist. But whether they exist or not or are useful or not, they can sometimes be made to support a career.”

Apparently the key word is “sometimes.”



On 21 February 2005 (11:05 AM),
Courtney said:

J.D., just cut down the arborvitae and voila! there’s the sun! You don’t even have to go to the trouble of figuring out the astronomy stuff. Then again, the arborvitae stumps are a pain in the ass to dig up. Just ask Andrew!



On 21 February 2005 (11:08 AM),
Doug said:

In a previous entry, you mentioned listening to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. Did you ever hear Garrison read the poem about the kid in 5th grade who mis-pronounced “Des Moines”? Do you know the title/author of the poem?



On 21 February 2005 (12:43 PM),
J.D. said:

So, Nick and I spent some time this morning puzzling all this out. We used handy trig tables to determine the approximate shadow lengths at one-month intervals, but there’s a problem with our calculations.

“Isn’t your lot on a slope?” he asked.

And it is. All of our assumptions assumed a right-traingle when there’s no right-triangle to be had. (Which is not all bad. The error is in my favor, meaning we’ll get more sun than I calculated, not less.)

We came up with a technique whereby I can measure the approximate slope of the lot (at least near the garden) in order to arrive at a more precise measurement.

“You’re just doing all this to be goofy, aren’t you?” he asked after a particularly brain-wracking calculation.

“Not at all,” I said. “This has very real implications on our garden and when we can plant things. Also, I talked with the neighbors and they said we can prune the hedge” — the hedge is on their lot, Courtney, so we can’t just cut it down — “and by working this stuff out we can figure out how much we’d have to trim it in order to get sun where we want it when we want it.”

Garden science, that’s what this is. In fact, I’m going to change the entry title to reflect this! :)



On 21 February 2005 (05:44 PM),
Paul J. said:

Arborvitae=evil
Arborvitae=yucky

KILL THE ARBORVITAE!



On 21 February 2005 (07:02 PM),
Kris said:

Boy, some very hostile gardeners out there! I agree that arborvitae is none too pretty, nor does it bloom, bear fragrant leaves, provide food for native species or turn fabulous with fall foliage. But, it does have its place. In this particular case, the neighbor’s arborvitae hedge is a welcome barrier between our yards. Since it’s theirs, and we want it there, but not overgrown, we have volunteered to give it its annual shearing. A good deal all around.
Now, don’t get me started on forsythia– I can’t stand the stuff!



On 21 February 2005 (09:46 PM),
Lane said:

Quince was the bain of my existence… I paid someone to rip out a giant ‘growth’ in my yard. Beautiful, but painful … literally. The little red flowers did not last long enough for the price of all the suckers and the rapier-like thorns.

And I like my Forsythia.



On 21 February 2005 (10:18 PM),
Dana said:

Richard Feynman said:

The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things…

(relurk) =)



On 22 February 2005 (10:53 AM),
J.D. said:

A quick update on my garden-based astronomy. I calculated the approximate shadow lengths for the next several months, and it seems that the area next to the fence will never get sun, which makes sense, but doesn’t mesh with what I remember from last summer.

Also, most of the garden will be in full sun by the end of April, despite the fact that none of it is in full sun now. A sizeable chunk will actually be in full sun just a month from now. Trimming the neighbor’s arborvitae will help, of course, but not as much as you might think.

Also, Nick suggested that we measure the slope of the yard, so yesterday afternoon Kris and I took a board and a level and went to work. We figure that in the 83 inches of the board’s length, the ground dropped about 4-1/2 inches. Not much of a slope (so little that I didn’t actually perform additional calculations), but enough to buy us a few extra inches of sun, probably.

I’m sorry, Anthony, that I’m not feeding you precise numbers here. I left them all at home. Suffice it to say that I worked out the precise angle of the sun on the 21st day of each month, and plotted that against the height of the hedge. I used the cotangent to find the approximate length of the shadows.

I think it would be fun for me to mark my predicted spots for the extent of the hedge’s shadow, and then to compare these predictions with reality during the next few months. At any event, we ought to note the sun’s location for future reference and garden planning…

Superman is a Dick

Remember that comic panel I love so much?

[Only you have the power to absorb all heat!] title=

Now there’s a site devoted to wacky covers: Superman is a Dick. (The site is down right now — it was overwhelmed by mass blogosphere linkage yesterday — but the forum thread that inspired it is still up.) Most of these covers involve Superman being a jerk in some way:

[another cover]

[another cover]

[another cover]

[another cover]

But this comic panel is my favorite item from the entire site:

[Batman laments his love for Robin]

So. Damn. Funny!

On a semi-related note, here’s a cartoon that Kris drew a couple of years ago. I found it when I was cleaning the workshop and scanned it in to share.

[a cartoon about cat vomit]

My wife actually draws quite well. She should do it more often.

Comments


On 09 February 2005 (01:26 PM),
Tiffany said:

Are those real comics?

Kris, that is great, I have the food that almost matches my tan carpet. It does make life easier.



On 09 February 2005 (04:52 PM),
Denise said:

Ha! Have you read the message on the SIAD site lately? 172 hits a second! There are too many geeks (me being one of them) with too much time on their hands.

That is absolutely amazing.



On 09 February 2005 (04:55 PM),
J.D. said:

“Robin, what have I done to you?”

Heh. Gets me every time. I want to know if this double-entendre is intentional? Was the writer aware of the hilarity in this panel?



On 10 February 2005 (06:21 PM),
bill said:

really a cute kitty cartoon! real tough act to follow! liked the funnie! lol

Sidetracked

I had grand plans for the weekend. I was going to study my Latin, finish a computer repair, do my chores, and maybe go see Sideways, one of the films nominated for Best Picture. I got sidetracked, though, and very little of that got accomplished.

Kris and I have been lamenting that our new house is too big for us. We have three rooms that sit essentially unused. It occurred to me the other day that we could reduce this to only two rooms if we moved all of our books downstairs. (This would have the added benefit of removing their mass from the oh-so-scary bouncy floor in the room where they’ve lived for the past six months.)

Kris agreed that this was a keen idea, and we decided that we’d work on that in the summer, after we finish the bathroom remodel.

Only we couldn’t. Once the seed was planted, the idea grew in my mind until I found myself hauling books and bookshelves downstairs. (We saw Celeste yesterday. She helped us move into this house; she was one of the army of laborers that carried endless boxes of books up the stairs. When we told her we were moving all the books downstairs, she was aghast. All her labor for nothing!)

Once I had been sidetracked by this task, I could not stop. I even took a vacation day from work so that I could stay home today and finish the job. (And all the jobs that I neglected this weekend in favor of moving the library.)

Now that the work is nearly finished, I’m mostly pleased with the result. Things aren’t perfect. They won’t be until I teach myself to build my own custom bookshelves, but I’m in no rush to do that. Maybe next year. Or the year after.

For now, we’ve added another usable room to the house, and that makes me happy.

Here are some photos:

[photo of main wall of books]
This main wall of books &mdash literature — is where the desk used to be.

[photo of reading chair]
This chair has moved only a little, but now receives soft light from the south-facing window.

[photo of chair and desk]
This is a nice sitting area now; the desk has replaced the loveseat.

(Note that these photos studiously avoid the elephant in the room. We have a reclining love seat that used to sit where the desk is in the final photo. That love seat is still stuck in the room. We can’t get it out. It’s big and bulky, and too much for us to handle by ourselves. We’d love to get it upstairs, but that seems impossible. If any of you want it, contact us — we’ll make you a deal!)

I still haven’t told the story of my craigslist swap for a new (used) digital camera. It’s the source of all my photos recently, and I can’t decide whether I’m pleased with it or not. There are things I like about it, but I’m concerned with the photo quality. I can’t seem to get the damn thing to focus properly, and often the colors seem bright and funky. I’ll have to play with it…

Comments


On 07 February 2005 (12:03 PM),
Tiffany said:

What is going to happen to the room upstairs where the books were?



On 07 February 2005 (12:07 PM),
J.D. Roth said:

That is a fine question, one to which I do not have an answer. We left the science ficton books in there, but other than that, we don’t know what to use the room for. Kris though maybe a craft room, and that sounds keen, but we’re open to other ideas.



On 07 February 2005 (03:08 PM),
pam said:

How about a karaoke room?? It would incorporate both your love of singing and cheesy 80’s music!



On 07 February 2005 (03:33 PM),
Joel said:

Cheesy ’80s karaoke on that bouncy floor?! Better doublecheck your homeowner’s policy.



On 07 February 2005 (03:54 PM),
Courtney said:

Why not make it a “World of Warcraft” room? Nevermind, I’d never see my husband. Sigh.



On 07 February 2005 (04:24 PM),
Jethro said:

Buy a pocket bike, take it upstairs, and ride it around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and…



On 07 February 2005 (09:54 PM),
Lynn said:

Collapse is covered – though I can’t say that means I condone a cheesy 80’s karaoke room.

signed…your quasi-insurance person…



On 07 February 2005 (11:21 PM),
tammy said:

I have no idea what to do with the other room. I spose you could have a kid and turn it into a nursery.

The real reason i paused to jot this note is to say how much I love the color of that red room. It’s been my favorite room from the start. I could totally sit in there all day.

Hey why don’t you open a weekend bed and breakfast?



On 08 February 2005 (06:42 AM),
Amy Jo said:

JD–

Thanks for helping us move on Saturday . . . I can’t believe you moved more books on Sunday . . .



On 08 February 2005 (06:42 AM),
Amy Jo said:

JD–

Thanks for helping us move on Saturday . . . I can’t believe you moved more books on Sunday . . .



On 08 February 2005 (08:17 AM),
sennoma said:

JD, almost all digital photos need sharpening — could that be your “focus” issue? I use unsharp mask (200%/0.3pixels for nearly everything) in Photoshop.



On 08 February 2005 (11:12 AM),
Tiffany said:

Layoff Tammy!
Why can you not respect the decisions that J.d. and Kris have made for their life?



On 08 February 2005 (04:31 PM),
Tammy said:

Tiffany, relax! Have you ever heard of teasing? Mercy! Jd has never once given me any reason to believe that it bothers him if I tease him about kids.

I totally respect their decision. People tease me about *having kids*. I don’t go around with my knickers in a twist over it. I never even thought to let it bother me. It’s all in fun.

Take a chill pill.

The Great Conversation

I once knew a man who claimed to have read every book in the English canon.

I took a writing class at Clackamas Community College in the fall of 1995. One of my classmates was an Hispanic man for whom English was a second language. This fellow loved to read and he loved to write, but felt his grasp on both was rather tenuous. How could he improve? He decided to read every great book in the western canon. To this end, he found a list of the hundred greatest books and, over the course of several years, he read them all.

Obviously, any such list of “the hundred greatest books” is going to be, by its very nature, somewhat limited and somewhat arbitrary. This is irrelevant. The point is this man had picked a pool of great books, had read them, and he was much the better for it. Of all my writing classmates, his stories had the greatest depth and texture. Was this solely because of his reading experience? Probably not, but I’m certain that his breadth of knowledge helped him.

How could it not?

I’ve come to view the whole of literature as a vast, interconnected web. Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, in their The Great Books of the Western World, termed this “The Great Conversation”, a dialogue between authors which spans centuries. (Millennia!)

If you are new to the classics, this great conversation is not immediately apparent. If, say, you pick up and read (as your first classic) Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, the book’s connection to the western canon is not visible. You don’t know what to look for.

The more classics you read, the more apparent the connections become.

Maybe you read a dozen more books, and familiarize yourself with the plots and details of twenty more. If you then pick up Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you’ll begin to sense tiny filaments connecting the novel to others you’ve read; you’ll note references to The Odyssey and The Tempest; or, looking forward, hints of things to come in Crime and Punishment and The Stranger. (What’s more, you’ll begin recognize connections to stories outside the canon — isn’t Disney’s 1978 film The Black Hole nothing more than 20,000 Leagues in space? Is this intentional?)

Eventually, you will have read a large portion of the canon. (Half, let’s say.) Now when you read a classic, the threads connecting it to other great works are obvious and everywhere. (They were there before, but you hadn’t the experience to note them.) You can not only see the connections to books you’ve read, but you can also sense connections to books you haven’t read. Sometimes you know where the connection leads (“Oh, a reference to Becky Sharp. Gosh, I need to read Vanity Fair sometime.”), sometimes you don’t (“I wonder what this whole thing about a madeline is…”).

Moreover, references to the canon abound in everyday life. (At least in my everyday life.) The more you are familiar with the great books, the more you notice these references, the richer your everyday experience becomes. Sure, an average issue of Harper’s or The National Review is laden with classical allusions, but even a copy of Time or Newsweek or — gasp — Entertainment Weekly contains several references to literature. The greater your familiarity with the canon, the more of these references you catch, and the richer your reading experience, even if you’re only reading an article that makes a passing comparison of Madonna to Becky Sharp.

Why the rhapsody about English Lit?

Last night we watched the recent film adaptation of Vanity Fair. Actually, to begin with, Kris watched while I used my laptop to surf the internet. I paid only a sliver of attention. As the movie progressed, I found myself drawn into it. Though it was obviously watered down, I could sense the “great book” quality beneath it. Eventually I was fully engrossed in the story, and I regretted having not paid attention earlier — how are these Crawley people related to Pitt?

By the time the film was finished, I was hooked. I want to read this book. The story seems so Dickensian, but without a happy ending; and, from what little I’ve seen of its story, Vanity Fair is completely entangled in the web of the western canon.

I’m downloading the book from Audible later today. Perhaps soon I’ll actually understand with perfect clarity when another great book refers to Becky Sharp.

The western canon is a very real presence in my life. I know this makes me sound even stranger than is usual for me, but it’s true. I have three books that contain reading lists constructed from the canon, my favorite of which is Clifton Fadiman’s The Lifetime Reading Plan.

Lisa and I discuss this book from time-to-time. We both like it, but we don’t like some of the recent changes. I have the third edition, and like its reading list, but I think Lisa has the fourth. While the structural changes to the list between editions makes sense (works are now organized chronologically rather than by type), we think the changes to the reading list’s content are more for political correctness than for quality.

(Tangent: I’m all in favor of an inclusive canon, one which represents of all genders, creeds, and colors, but not at the expense of quality. It is a part of our history that certain segments of the population were oppressed. The remedy to this situation is not to rewrite the past, to argue that works of lesser quality deserve a place in the canon simply because they’re written by someone who was oppressed at the time; the solution is to allow these people to craft a legacy now, to encourage them to create works that will stand the test of time. A stop-gap measure is one in common practice: the creation of specialized “mini-canons” featuring, for example, the best writing by women through the centuries, etc. I believes a rich cultural history is evident when one is able to look at the canon and see, with the advent of Jane Austen, the presence of women in the canon. This tells a story, and an important one.)

It’s surprisingly difficult to find comprehensive reading lists on the web. Some brief googling revealed the following:

Whichever list you choose, the important thing is to begin reading the classics today. Your life will be the better for it.

Tony stopped by to visit for a while yesterday. “Your weblog has been boring lately,” he told me.

“Boring?!” I said. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make it better.”

He grinned. “Write more entries that make you look like an ass.”

sigh

While these entries may be entertaining to read, they’re not pleasant to live through. Obviously I can recognize the humor inherent in the situations — drinking whiskey while making sales calls, crawling under the trailer to retrieve a dead skunk, leaving bean soup on the stove — and that’s why I post them. But I’d rather not actually experience them if I don’t have to.

“What about my entry on the birds?” I asked.

“I didn’t read it,” said Tony. “It looked boring.”

sigh

Comments


On 03 February 2005 (09:39 AM),
J.D. said:

What books are part of your personal canon? By that I mean, which books that you’ve read do you feel ought to be considered classics (whether they already are considered such or not)? I’m not asking which books are your favorites, but which books do you think are of sufficient quality, importance, and breadth of appeal that they ought to be read by others for years to come?

I’m going to try to compile a list of my own later…



On 03 February 2005 (10:39 AM),
J.D. said:

Here is a humbling list:

The ten greatest novels of all time
1) The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
2) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
3) Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
4) The Dream of the Red Chamber (a.k.a. The Story of the Stone) by Ts’ao Hsueh-ch’in
5) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
6) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
7) Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
8) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9) In Search of Lost Time (a.k.a. Remembrance of Things Past) by Marcel Proust
10) Ulysses by James Joyce

I’ve read part of #8 and part of #9. That’s it. And I don’t know whether these are the greatest of all time, but I do know that many of them are referenced constanlty by other books I read. There are Proust references everywhere. There are Ulysses references everywhere. There are Don Quixote references everywhere.



On 03 February 2005 (11:12 AM),
Janet Eder said:

Very interesting musing on books….I have realized this also over the years in my reading, but could never put it into words….thanks for doing it for me!



On 09 May 2005 (05:54 PM),
Chelsea said:

I’m doing a research project at the moment and was searching the web for some information. You are an icredible writer, I might add.

My paper is on examples of Great Works of Literature relating to Gods, characters, and events of The Odyssey.

What would you consider Great Works of Literature?
Do you know of any books that reference the Odyssey.

I would really appreciate if you could write back.
I also have a love of reading and writing. Although I am only 15 so I am not well acquainted with the classics.

Thank you in advance!!

Peanut Battle

There was a peanut battle outside our house yesterday. I took photos. (Some of these are blurry, or underexposed, or mangled by iPhoto. I apologize; I’m learning a new camera. Also, on my monitor at work, some of these photos are very, very dark. )

Every morning she’s home, Kris feeds the birds. She fills the seed feeder with millet and thistle. She puts peanuts and dried corn-on-the-cob in the squirrel feeder which hangs from the walnut tree. She places more peanuts in the feeder outside the kitchen window, along with a pile of birdseed and a new block of suet (if necessary).

[Photo: The scrub jays love the peanuts]

We’re not sure how the birds know to look for new food, but they do. Especially on Sunday mornings. The scrub jays are usually first to find the food, and they’re the noisiest about defending it. They love the peanuts. So do the other birds.

In fact, for a short time, our yard becomes the site of a great Peanut Battle.

We’re still puzzling out the rules to this war. Only one jay can be on a feeder at a time. If another jay swoops in before the first is finished, the newcomer is sent flying with a tremendous squawking chatter. However, if the jay on the feeder takes too long to choose a peanut (are some better than others?), a new jay can chase him off.

If the starling appears, the jays retreat. They’re scared of her. But the starling doesn’t really eat much; she simply likes to sit at the feeder, glowering at the other birds, challenging them to fight.

L: A jay lands at the feeder, R: The mean ol’ starling
 
 
L: The stupid band-tailed dove, R: The flickers perform their mating dance

A couple of band-tailed doves live nearby. They’d like to eat, too, but they can’t seem to figure out how. They see the other birds flying to the feeder, so they come over to join them, but they’re too stupid (and perhaps too big) to land inside where the food is. They land on the roof of the feeder and pace back-and-forth, staring stupidly at all the jays that have peanuts in their mouths.

While the big birds eat, the little birds wait their turn. Even the flickers — which are at least the same size as the jays and have deadly-looking bills — yield. They’re too polite. And besides, yesterday the pair that lives in our trees seemed more interested in each other than in food. They fluttered around the lawn, nodding and bobbing, circling each other. We think they’re preparing to mate.

[Photo: Jay getting a peanut]

It’s important to note that the jays don’t actually eat the peanuts. They take the peanuts and they hide them in the yard. They tuck them in corners of the flower bed. They stick them in the middle of the grass. They cover them with leaves. The jays think they’re planning ahead, storing nuts for later, but they’re really just extending the Peanut Battle.

When the feeding begins, the crows swoop in. They perch on the wires and in the branches of the walnut. They watch the jays tuck their precious peanuts away. When all of the work is done, the crows swoop down to undo it.

L: The crows work methodically in teams, R: They often find peanuts beneath leaves
 

It’s fascinating to watch the crows at work. They cluster in twos and threes, pacing the grass systematically. They snatch up leaves and cast them aside. They check the dirt. They find many peanuts, and they eat them instead of saving them. (In the fall, the crows gather walnuts. To open them, they fly above the street and drop the nuts over and over and over until the nuts crack.)

The picture below may not look like much, but that’s simply because I don’t have a long enough lens to show all the detail:

[Photo: a complex tableaux in which the Peanut Battle rages

That, my friends, is the Peanut Battle raging in full-force. In the left of the frame is a crow, picking through grass and leaves, searching for hidden loot. Up and to the right, you can see Filbert, the squirrel. The squirrels love the peanuts, too. (They dominate the feeder in the walnut tree; the jays yield to their mammalian nature, I guess.) Sunday morning, Filbert was scurrying around this little patch of ground looking for peanuts. He chased off all interlopers: the flickers, the jays, and and the starling. If you stare hard, you can almost discern the jay beneath the rhododendron, to the right of the squirrel. She’s hiding a nut. Clinging to the dogwood at the right of the frame is one of the flickers (the male, I think). He uses his woodpecker grip to hang from the tree while he waits for a spot at the feeder.

There are other birds around, too, of course, all playing some role in the Peanut Battle:

[photo: Steller's Jay] [photo: Northern Flicker [photo: common robin [photo: a Grosbeak?

The leftmost bird above is a Steller’s Jay. She likes to eat from the feeder at the walnut tree. She’s not as brazen as the common jays, and is much more skittish around humans. And cats. The next photo is another (horrible) photo of the flicker. We like our flickers quite a bit, and I look forward to getting some good shots of them eventually. The third photo is of one of the two birdbaths. These get constant use during a Peanut Battle, though we’re not sure why. In this case, the robin has no hope of winning a peanut from the jays, so he’s contenting himself with a five-minute bath.

The final picture above shows a mystery bird. This bird has made a couple of appearances lately, but we can’t get close enough to it to really note its markings. It seems to have a blood-red head. Its wings are dark, with a long white stripe. We can’t recall what its chest looks like. I say this bird is a pine grosbeak, but Kris is unconvinced. (Maybe it’s this house finch we once saw at Jeremy and Jennifer’s?)

We enjoy birdwatching. It’s one of the highlights of our new house. On Sunday mornings we stand in the kitchen window for ten minutes, or twenty, or thirty, and we watch the Peanut Battle unfold.

(We’re not the only family members who like the birds, either.)


Comments


On 31 January 2005 (07:39 AM),
al said:

Nice details and photos. My neighbor hand feeds peanuts to the scrubs, so I’m going to try it soon. They seem a little skittery, but he claims they’ll take the p-nuts right from his hand. How big is the mystery bird? It almost looks like a pileated . . .



On 31 January 2005 (08:04 AM),
J.D. said:

That’s amazing that your neighbor can feed the jays right from his hand.

Kris and both estimate that the mystery bird is about the same size (or perhaps a little smaller) than a jay. I’ve only seen it once, and that was from far away (as you can tell from the photo). As I say, it seemed to have a blood-red hood that didn’t end evenly around its neck. Its wings were dark with a white stripe. (Though from the photo, it seems almost as if perhaps it has a white breast.)

According to Sibley: a jay is about 11.5 inches long, a grosbeak is 9 inches long, and a pileated woodpecker is 16.5 inches long. We did see a pileated woodpecker once last fall, and this isn’t it. The head is definitely different.



On 31 January 2005 (08:17 AM),
Tiffany said:

This is only a little related to your bird watching story.
This weekend we went to Petsmart and were amazed by one lady that brought in her 5 cats to push around in the cart! I mean what cats like to travel in the car?
But far cuter, was a second lady that parked her cat, in a cart, right next to the bird cages. The cat was really enjoying the show from only a foot away.



On 31 January 2005 (08:54 AM),
Tammy said:

Jd, we have these too and I really think they are a red breasted sapsucker; a kind of wood pecker. Read this and see: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4030id.html



On 31 January 2005 (10:13 AM),
J.D. said:

Ding ding ding ding!

Tammy is absolutely correct. I’m not sure how I missed this in Sibley, but the mystery bird is a red-breasted sapsucker. The drawing in the book looks exactly like the bird I saw. (And it’s 8.5″ long, which seems exactly right.)

Based on the drawings, I would guess that the specimen in question is young male adult southern red-breasted sapsucker. (The red on the northern variety extends to its chest, whereas the red on this ends around its neck.)



On 31 January 2005 (10:21 AM),
Lynn said:

I loved this entry. My cat and I both love our birds and squirrels.

In the magazine Birds and Blooms they sell a cardboard person to be set in a chair, it’s hand extended, to get the birds used to feeding from it. Then you can just move the cardboard person and take its place, or so the theory goes.

Where do you guys purchase your birdseed, peanuts and suet? You mentioned once that you can find suet on sale for 50 cents each – cheapest I’ve found is about 80 cents.



On 31 January 2005 (10:39 AM),
Kris said:

Lynn–

Coastal Farm store occasionally has a case of 12 suet blocks on sale for $5.99. We stocked up and bought 2 cases last time. Good thing we have a cellar!

Thanks for the bird ID help, Tammy!



On 31 January 2005 (10:56 AM),
tammy said:

Happy to be of assistance, dear cousins.



On 31 January 2005 (02:20 PM),
Amanda said:

Great entry! Now I think I will just have to buy some sort of bird feeder. In Florida it’s not nearly as exciting as in Oregon, apparently. I might see some Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, Crows and the occasional Cardinal (or usually two).



On 31 January 2005 (03:39 PM),
John said:

Great photos. The squirrel vs. bird battles continue at our place. On Sunday, *everyone* was out in the yard battling for seed. Do you ever get the flock of those small finch-like birds? They descend on the ground eating seed. Also, been meaning to ask you: what’s up with the Save Kellog Lake from the Transit Center signs near River Road? Leftovers from last November?

The Power of the Internet

Here is a plain and simple story of how the internet has changed my life. (Whether or not it has changed my life for the better is open to debate.) The following is a typical occurrence; it is not unusual.

It’s Wednesday night. Kris and I are watching the goofy-fun Alias. Sydney and Vaughn, American secret agents, are posing as Russian secret agents wanting to pose as Chechnyan agents who will pose as typical Americans so that they can detonate an electro-magnetic pulse. To wipe out the stock market.

Or something like that.

A commercial comes on — I’m not sure for what — and a melancholy poppy synth piece begins to play. I catch the following words: “And all the things I had in mind for you and me, well say something new, say something new”.

I love the song.

I get up from the futon, walk three steps to the computer, pull up google and search on the lyrics. After one misstep (caused by overenthusiastic use of quotation marks), I find five matches to my search, all relating to a Swedish band called The Concretes. Most are reviews (1, 2, 3), but one is a page entitled Your Concrete Multimedia Experience. It features mp3 snippets and bits of lyrics from several songs.

I fire up Acquisition (a Mac file-sharing program — if you own a Mac, you should own this program) and search for songs by The Concretes. Before the commercials are over, before Sydney and Vaughn can resume their surreal existence, I am playing a song by a group I had never heard of two minutes before.

This is one way the internet has changed my life.

By the way, the song used in the commercial, “Say Something New”, is okay, but not as good as I’d hoped. “You Can’t Hurry Love“, however, is outstanding. (And not the song you think it is.) I’ve posted a full mp3 copy of the song here (right-click and “save as…” if, like Jeremy, you cannot get this to play with a left-click). If you like The Concretes as much as I do, I encourage you to support them by purchasing a CD (also available via the iTunes Music Store). I plan to.

(See? This is how file-sharing works. Or should work.)

Pre-Crash Comments

On 28 January 2005 (07:38 AM),
dowingba said:

It’s not how it should work, it’s how it does work. Despite what the record companies say, it has been proven beyond any doubt that file sharing actually increases record sales. The only thing hurting sales is the record companies’ own conduct, which has caused many people to completely boycott major labels.

On 28 January 2005 (08:20 AM),
Tiffany said:

Rich and I watched the new ‘Numb3rs’ show and after 10 minutes I still could not figure out where I had seen the actor playing the math genius. IMDB.com to the rescue. He played Wednesday’s boyfriend in ‘Adam Family Values’.

On 28 January 2005 (10:57 AM),
Paul said:

With much sarcasm Paul types:

The power of of the internet? I used email to contact you this summer to tell you about a great song “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Concretes. The internet could have allowed us to express your appreciation of the song and others like it on the new album. However, you were unable to capture that moment and I am left to read that some comercial on tv has turned you on, through some research of your own, to an “outstanding” song! Don’t worry about me, I will keep telling the ad executives to place those song snipets into the ads you see so that we can share our very similar musical tastes.

Look forward to hearing West Indian Girls and Kasabian in the future! BUT YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT FROM ME!

Viva KEXP!

On 28 January 2005 (11:12 AM),
Denise said:

We like sarcastic Paul! (At least I do.)

The internet reunited me with my old college boyfriend, who is now my fiancée and will be my husband on April 1st.

The internet also let me plan our wedding in 3 hours. Nice.

The internet reunited me with the AWL and his better half, Kris.

The internet has also allowed me to meet great people I really enjoy whom I would not have met any other way.

AND, after being laid-off for 8 months and applying for ANY job I could qualify or over-qualify for, I finally found my job from a job-posting I found on the internet.

I sound like I owe my whole life to the internet. Not quite, but my life is a whole lot better than it would be if there was no internet.

On 28 January 2005 (11:17 AM),
Jeremy said:

The mp3 doesn’t download.

On 28 January 2005 (11:20 AM),
J.D. said:

HA!

Paul is right. For once. :)

My man is on the musical vanguard, weeding out the chaff so I don’t have to. But I hardly ever listen to what he says. (To my loss.)

For the record, here’s the e-mail he sent me on Sept. 30th, nearly four months ago:

Citizen Cope – The Clarence Greenwood Recordings (Arista/RCA) Bullet and a Target is the best song of the summer of 2004!

Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South (New West) Alt.country done well

The Concretes – The Concretes (Astralwerks) female lead singer both sensual and tough

DJ Krush – Jaku (Sony Japan) Always good

Guided by Voices – Half Smiles of the Decomposed (Matador) Some good tracks from an old school garage band

The Prodigy – Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned (Maverick) Up-tempo!

DJ Shadow – In Tune and On Time Live! (Geffen) He keeps remixing his own stuff and it keeps getting better!

Kosheen came on to my radar screen this year and melded powerful female vocal and electronica.

PJ Harvey Uh Oh rocks, but not as an album. listen to it shuffled into similar music.

KEXP ROCKS!!!! Please support them with a check. It’s almost like listening to iTunes in my opinion.

I think what happened here is that I listened to “Bullet and a Target”, but didn’t like it. After that I let the rest of the list slide…

On 28 January 2005 (03:08 PM),
Jenn said:

If you are on a mac with only a trackpad you can hold down the option key and click on the above link to dowload the mp3 to your desktop.

On 08 April 2005 (07:55 PM),
WF said:

What a hoot! This blog was the first thing I found when searching for that same snippet of lyrics, having seen that same commercial (it’s for Target, by the way). Very helpful… saved me a lot of research.

On 08 May 2005 (10:55 PM),
ViciousMonkeyKiller said:

Ha! Ditto to what WF said.

On 11 September 2005 (05:45 PM),
krin said:

i feel compelled to tell you that i was just sitting here, surfing the net.. when that commercial came on and i thought “i must find out what that song is.” i did a search on google and found this. ha!

On 17 September 2005 (05:54 AM),
abby said:

yay! thank you! i was just searching the same song and i didn’t even have the lyrics right! horray for the internet…now i’ll go find it on itunes :)

On 04 October 2005 (06:27 PM),
D said:

“You can’t hurry love” is in the Elizabethtown soundtrack/movie. (I’m sure Cameron Crowe had the drop on it before anyone else outside of the industry did.)

On 04 October 2005 (11:11 PM),
ardvrk said:

Wow – haven’t any of you heard of AdTunes?

http://quidnunc.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=26

Google is great, don’t get me wrong, but you can narrow your search a LOT with AdTunes, and obviously the more people use it, the better it gets.

The internet is the best thing EVER. Don’t buy into their crap that it distances people, isolates them, etc. It brought ALL of us here to this site to discuss it, didn’t it? Because of a SONG? All of us, with our different lives, with our different politics, with our different computers. All united by a song – and the internet.

Best Hot Chocolate Ever

That’s right! Another recipe, and it’s a dandy: a hot chocolate meant to be savored.

Craig and Lisa invited us for homemade French onion soup last night. They also served a delightful salad, some tasty carrots, and, best of all, a rather odd dessert: a cup of hot chocolate (served with a slice of salty buttered toast).

But this is no ordinary hot chocolate.

This is:

Chocolat Chaud
(from It Must’ve Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten — adapted from Pierre Hermé)

Ingredients:

  • 2-1/4 cups whole milk
  • 1/4 cup bottled still water
  • 1/4 cup (generous) superfine granulated sugar
  • 1 100-gm bar (3-1/2 ounces) dark bittersweet chocolate, Scharffen Berger, Valrhona, or Lindt (see note, below), finely sliced with a serrated bread knife
  • 1/4 cup (1 ounce or 28 gm) cocoa powder, loosely packed, preferably Valrhona

Instructions: In a 2-quart saucepan, stir together the milk, water, and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the chopped chocolate and the cocoa and bring to a boil again, whisking until the chocolate and cocoa are dissolved and the mixture has thickened. Reduce the heat to very low.

Blend for 5 minutes with an immersion mixer or whirl the hot chocolate in a standard blender for half a minute, until thick and foamy.

Yield: Four 6-ounce cups of hot chocolate.

Note: I [Steingarten] use a dark chocolate containing close to 70 percent cocoa, though Lindt bittersweet also works just fine. The Mayans and the Aztecs considered the froth the best part. Today, five minutes with an immersion mixer or a blender accomplishes what a half hour of beating did long ago.

This stuff is delicious — a divine concoction. The food of the gods. It’s to be sipped, not quaffed.

Kris and I are preparing to venture out to find some good, high-quality chocolate with which to prepare this recipe for Jeremy and Jennifer tomorrow night.

The wikipedia gives us more on the history of cocoa.

The above is the fourth in my series of “Best Recipes Ever!” The other three are: Best Salsa Ever, Best Gingerbread Cookies Ever, and — my favorite — Best Clam Chowder Ever.

Sixteen years ago on this date, Kris accepted my application to be her sweetheart. We’ve been together ever since, happy and content despite our contrary natures. Today is the anniversary we mark, not our wedding anniversary.

Comments


On 24 January 2005 (07:59 PM),
jeremy said:

Happy Anniversary! Can’t wait for the hot chocolate. Will it go well with Lagavulin and a Macanudo?

On 24 January 2005 (08:19 PM),
J.D. said:

In Portland, Trader Joe’s has both Sharffen Berger and Valhrona chocolate bars, including a 70% cocoa Valhrona. They also have a house brand bar weighing 500g and containing about 70% cocoa. We’ll have try that, too.

We didn’t look for cocoa powder; Kris has some high-quality stuff she ordered from King Arthur recently. We’ll use that.

On 25 January 2005 (08:57 AM),
Amy Jo said:

Congrats to you and Kris! Paul and I also celebrate our dating anniversary more than we do our wedding anniversary. Seems more significant, seeing as we’ve been together for 15+ years now, but married for only seven.

I recommend trying Dagoba’s cocoa powder. Their hot choccolate mixes are also yummy. I especially like the Xocolatl, hot chocolate with chilies and cinnamon. It isn’t overly sweet and the chilies play off the chocolate nicely. I’ve made brownies with it and their Xocolatl bar–wowsa. Paul isn’t a dessert person and I am, but he looks at me like I’m crazy when I complain that a dessert is too sweet, especially a chocolate one. He fails to understand that too much sweetness detracts from the chocolate . . .

On 25 January 2005 (09:03 AM),
Amy Jo said:

I forgot to include their URL in my previous post:

http://www.dagobachocolate.com/

They have a few other nibs in their favor:

1) They produce organic chocolate
2) They are fair trade certified
3) Their headquarters is located in Central Point, OR (I think)

On 25 January 2005 (09:30 AM),
Courtney said:

Happy Anniversary! Cheers to you both!

On 25 January 2005 (09:56 AM),
Denise said:

Happy Anniversary – you are a great couple!

On 25 January 2005 (11:31 AM),
J.D. said:

Mini-blog:

There’s a brief respite here at work, so I was reading my brother’s weblog, specifically his entry on the Oscar nominations. It reminded me of a story I want to tell, but keep forgetting to.

Last weekend, the book group met for a field trip. We went to see the film adaptation of A Very Long Engagement, the book we just read. Despite having reserved our tickets via Fandango, we were scattered throughout the sold-out theater.

A few of us were seated in front of a woman who truly did not belong at this movie. (I picture her as looking/acting like the young blonde woman on Lost, but who knows?)

When the film started, and the credits began to roll, she gasped. Loudly. As if some super-shocking secret had been revealed. “Omigosh!” she said.

“What’s the matter?” someone asked her.

“Don’t tell me this is one of those movies with captions,” she said. I tried not to snicker, but just couldn’t control myself.

Then, fifteen minutes into the movie, her friend asked again, “What’s the matter?”

“I am so lost,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Somebody else leaned over and said, “Will you shut up?”

When the movie was over, most of our group headed over to South Park for late-night noshing. (I had the Farmer’s Platter — cheese, fruit, and sausage — with a glass of Aberlour; I was too cheap to spend the extra $3.50 to get Lagavulin.) We talked about the woman. We couldn’t decide whether the “shut-up” guy was with her party or not. It’s a mystery.

On 25 January 2005 (02:48 PM),
Amanda said:

Yay! Congrats!!!

On 26 January 2005 (06:32 AM),
Joel said:

Congratulations. And did you like the film?

On 03 March 2005 (06:11 PM),
J.D. said:

For the record, here’s the nutrition information for the chaud. The first number is for the entire batch; the second number assumes a 6-oz serving (one-quarter of the batch).

Calories: 1200/300
Fat: 60g/15g (40g/10g sat.)
Cholesterol: 80mg/20mg
Sodium: 280mg/70mg
Carbohydrates: 136g/34g
Fiber (yes, really): 12g/3g
Sugar: 112g/28g
Protein: 28g/7g
Calcium: 72%/18%
Iron: 40%/10%
Vitamin A: 12%/3%
Vitamin C: 4%/1%
Vitamin D: 56%/14%