The Consummate Dabbler

3 Edgars

2011-06-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

As you can see it's a series of pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, but something funny's going on--that's his regular portrait on the left, but the pictures in the middle and to the right are altered:

The middle face is made up of two right sides pasted together and the far right face is made up of two left sides pasted together. Weird, eh? They're both recognizable as Poe, of course, but--and here my pop-culture saturated brain will steer me into a Star Trek reference--they are like the two Kirks in that one episode where he gets split into two beings by (if I remember correctly) a glitch in the transporter. You know, aggressive, but self-confident Kirk v. passive, self-critical Kirk? Middle Poe is fierce, a force to be reckoned with, and a little scary. Far-right Poe is pathetic, maudlin, and full of self-doubt. None of this really means anything, but it fits neatly into the kind of pop-psychological silliness that is often foisted upon poor Edgar.

Meh...

Toot toot!

2011-05-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

Here's an annoying press release from Amazon which tries to argue that the nation's "best read" cities are those who buy the most reading material from Amazon. Umm...think there might be a fallacy at work here? Is shopping for reading matter at Amazon really an indication of how well read a city's population is? Portland is 19th on the list, I see. But I know that I, as well as many other Portland residents, like to shop at Powell's City of Books and prefer to buy a book from there rather than from Amazon if I can help it. Not to mention the fact that many readers simply borrow their materials from libraries or read from free online sources. All Amazon has done here is shed light on the shopping habits of some residents of some American cities. Oh and toot their own horn a little in the process. How silly.

Cavity Search

2011-05-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

If you can swing it, go and see Werner Herzog's new documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams." It's all about the Chauvet caves in southern France where, in 1994, numerous cave paintings were discovered that may date back some 30,000 years. The film is in 3D, a form well-suited to the subject matter (somewhat surprisingly). Herzog's usual dry-wit, understatement, and general quirkiness are scaled back here, and one gets the impression that the subject so overwhelmed the filmmaker that he was often at a loss for words. He mostly lets the pictures do the talking--and boy do they.

Visit the French Ministry of Culture's site on the cave here and the site for Herzog's film here.

K and I viewed it at Portland's Livingroom Theaters on 10th downtown, a place where you can have wine or a glass of beer (and I'm not talkin' no paper cup) and sit in comfy chairs with little tables. Well, we were a tad late, arriving during the previews, and couldn't find two seats together. The nice waiter brought in a chair for us so we could sit together in the corner. K sat and found her seat cushion soaked (and thus her bottom), and as she jumped to her feet again she kicked over her glass of wine and shattered it. The nice waiter fixed everything (except K's bottom) and we were able to settle in just as the film began. All in all, it's a cool place to see a flick. Check it out sometime. And right across the street is Clyde Common, an excellent place to have rack of pig, spaetzle, and more wine after the film. 'Twas the first "civilized" evening we've had in quite a while.

CD

and I feel fine...

2011-05-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, I stole this from the letters after an article on Salon this morning. It was about today's rapture, naturally, scheduled for 6 pm (no matter the time-zone). Probably the best comments I've seen yet on this event:

The world has already ended.

Only those with Jesus in their heart can perceive that the world is being gradually destroyed. Everything from climate change to disease to war which is happening now is evidence of the tribulations that are stripping away the material world we knew.

The rapture was not a physical event, but rather the final salvation of the souls of the righteous. The raptured walk among us, but remain untouched by the apocalyptic forces besetting the world.

Are you raptured? If you are, you will believe you are sincerely, with no shred of doubt within you. Let the holy fire of armageddon be the crucible that purges the impurities of doubt.

Of course, should misfortune befall you, it will mean you were not raptured.

That's my new apocalyptic Christian cult idea. What do you guys think? It deals nicely with the whole prediction problem, and it really isn't that different from Calvinism.

Should I declare for tax exemption?

—psalmanazaar

And now I shall write no more forever about this sad instance of mass delusionality.
CD

the bird is the word

2011-05-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Portland chef Gabriel Rucker (of Le Pigeon and Little Bird fame) for winning the 2011 James Beard award for Rising Star Chef (or whatever it was called). If you've never eaten at his restaurants, please do. Investigate here: http://www.lepigeon.com/.

I'M BACK!!!!!!! Ha hA ha HA!

2011-05-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

thnx 2 melo-d

2010-12-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

I frequently find reviews by laypersons (non-writer/critic types) that just bust me up. Found this "review" of Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete on netflix. Enjoy:

Beautiful!! Im 47 & I never knew that this movie existed.When I get 2 heaven,Ive gotta chicken 2 tweeze w/my mom.If I could live in fairy-tale land..This is where I wanna live.Everything is wonderful about this film,tho I must say,I dont want my prince 2 look like a dorky-nerdy dweeb in tights.My jaw hit the floor when I saw him.Yuk! Id rather stick 2 being w/la Bete.Hes much more masculine even tho he looks like,oops,Im gonna say it, chewbacca or toto all grown up w/a bone-er.Id just give him a good waxing! I loved the sets so much!The Doors were 2 die 4,& the statues..omg,& magnificent was magnificent! I am so doing my bedrm just like Belles.We should b able 2 post pics on this site.I wanted 2 punch the sisters,grrr.I loved Belles dresses.I want 2 dress like her every day! I agree w/most.I didnt feel the love,I felt her guilt.Dad was great,but the brother reminded me of the modern day crack-head.The editing was a little off,but who cares?Im glad its in bl&wh.Evey1 looks more beautiful that way.2morrow,I start wking on my candleabras! This film will remain in my life.omg..Ive a new fav cinimatic fairy-tale! How luck does strike from time 2 time! & being a pro-dreamer,Ive found a great 1.A must see! If I could give it more stars..I would.If I didnt go 2 stevie Nicks web-site,I never wouldve found this beautiful & magical masterpiece.Thanx stevie 4 the lead 2 this awesome film & thanx nflix 4 being here so I could do so.Beautiful dreams 2 all my movie buff friends!Nighty-night! Melody. o_o

Excuses excuses...

2010-12-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

It's been over a month since my last post, but I have a gooood excuse: Claire Anne Finley, b. October 30, 2010, 10:58 pm. 8 lbs. 4 oz., 20 1/2 " long. Here are some pictures:

Before...

After!

She sure looks good on me.

My two lovelies.

She looks even better on you.

Weighing in at 8 lbs. 4 oz.

First car ride: 2007 Subaru Outback. Whoopee.

Arriving home and looking fab (Claire too).

Ian, Claire; Claire, Ian.

Wanna play paddle-ball?

G'ma gets some love.

Love Love Love.

Ciao, CD

A Hallowe'en Read

2010-10-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'm about halfway through my first Dennis Wheatley novel, To The Devil--A Daughter (1953), a rather silly (so far) but fun occult thriller. Wheatley was an English writer who lived 1897-1977 and wrote some 50+ novels, mostly thrillers like this, although he wrote crime, espionage, and historical fiction as well. Hammer studios made three of his novels into decent films: the aforementioned title, plus The Devil Rides Out and The Lost Continent (aka Uncharted Seas). The novel, so far, is a bit chatty and full of midcentury English and French stereotypes (the English are tweedy, chivalrous, and full of derring-do; the French are untrustworthy, decadent, and sensual), and everyone, hero and villain alike, is given to speechifying about the perils of socialism. Even so, like I said, it's fun if you don't take it too seriously (how could you?) and just let the story take you away to the French Riviera where, despite the fact that a young demon-possessed girl has just been smuggled aboard a yacht by Satanists determined to overthrow Western Civilisation, there's always time for a pastis, a plate of oysters, and a lecture on occult symbolism.

The book I'm reading was purchased for 30p in a cozy little bookshop in Hastings, England, called Old Town Book Centre (now no longer in existence, I'm afraid), a stone's throw from the famous Mermaid fish & chips shop (now under poor management, I'm afraid). My buying it is connected in my mind with a lovely visit to my dear, dear friends Barry and Jacque, who lived in the nearby town of Denton at the time (about ten years ago). Actually there were two books--the other was The Devil Rides Out--but it has gone missing, probably a casualty from a few months back when I did a little sell-off of unread and unwanted paperbacks from around the house. It's a shame, for according to a website I happened on the other day, they may be from a somewhat collectible series of editions. These were the Heron editions, paperbacks produced in the style of their hardback counterparts--a pseudo Morroco leather soft cover with gilded lettering and framing. (Read about them in as much tedious detail as you could ever want here.) My copy of To the Devil--A Daughter from 1972 is badly abused, unfortunately, (I think Ian had a go at it--the cover's ripped and there are teeth marks), and I believe it was for that reason it survived the purging from some months ago. Here's what it should look like:

But perhaps the most interesting thing about my book are the illustrations by French artist Michel de St. Ouen. There's only three, but they've intrigued me enough to seek him out online. It seems he's a fantasy illustrator/artist whose new-agey pictures--by turns sexy, eerie, ludicrous--have a certain mystical quality, hard to describe, that draws me in. There's some good representative images online if you do a simple Google search. Here's a site he's involved with, the Society for Art of Imagination, which features some of his pictures and those of others like him. As for my book, check these out.. As I said, by turns...

...sexy (the nude woman, not the Tor Johnson look-alike with the man-boobs):

...eerie (seriously):

...and ludicrous (does this not look like something a Twilight nerdette drew on a Pee-chee?):

But they're perfect for this kind of a book, a goofy thrill-ride. As I told K, it's like spending loads of time inside a good, full-blooded Hammer film from c.1965., and perfect for the season.

Happy Hallowe'en!
~CD

Made in Portland

2010-10-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

While blogging yesterday, I hit the "Next Blog" button at the top of the screen and was whisked away to a random blog. It turned out to be some person, not unlike myself, with a penchant for sharing oddball items for no good (or bad) reason. He had on there a link to a project by Aaron Trotter, a Portland artist who is seeking financial support for an art project--a deck of playing cards featuring his own drawings of Portland city scenes. He was looking to raise $500 for the venture, and the blog featured a video explaining his project and displaying a number of his prototypes. I liked his drawings, generally (especially the two of PDX bridges), and was intrigued enough to explore his work further on the Net today. Before I had the chance to, however, I had some errands to run with K. I dropped her off for an appointment and then drove up to Alberta street to kill an hour by having a coffee and taking a walk down the street to see what's new (a great "art street"). Amazingly, I came across one of Trotter's prints in an art studio/shop window: a drawing of the "Made in Portland" sign in Old Town! I wasn't sure it was his until I got home again and researched it on the Web. Now I'm generally not a superstitious fellow, but I do sort of half-believe in the notion that if something is consistently making itself known to you without your consciously seeking it out, you should probably pay attention to it. Soooo...here's a link to his own website on which he discusses his project: http://www.aarontrotter.com/. Spend some time there. He's got all sorts of crazy things--but I especially like his abstract drawings and paintings (most of them). There's something good a-happening there...

~CD

Soon to be Viewed!

2010-10-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to blog about this, so here goes.

The Mystery of Oberwald arrived in the mail recently, and I'm going to view it very soon (I'll explain). It's a 1980 film directed by my one of my cinematic heroes, Michelangelo Antonioni, and starring his former wife Monica Vitti, certainly my favorite Italian actress (sorry Sophia). The two had long since separated by 1980, but they saw fit to team up one last time to give this project--an experiment, no less-- a whirl. Get this: it's based on Jean Cocteau's play "The Eagle with Two Heads," an historical melodrama (way out of MA's alley) about a 19th century noblewoman who falls in love with the agent sent to assasinate her. Antonioni eschews his usual celluloid for a new-fangled technology: videotape! Yes, he videotaped the entire film, eager to see what innovations might come through tape--speed of production, costs, coloring, and general texture. Most reviews have been lukewarm on the film, though it's never panned; it's got so many intriguing elements at play I can't wait to see it. Now, I just need to find me a VCR...

The cassette came from Facets Video in Chicago (who are also the distributers, apparently), a favorite haunt of mine when we lived there. The second best video rental place in the country, I think. Those of you who live in PDX know very well who number one is.

~CD

Another Recent Read

2010-10-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda: My Life with the Three Most Beautiful Women in the World. Roger Vadim. 1987.
What a guilty pleasure this was! This kiss 'n' tell by film director Roger Vadim is funnest, for me, when he's not describing bedroom antics so much as the European filmmaking environment of the 50's, 60's, and 70's. Vadim claims that he wrote this to set the record straight for his children and grandchildren--so there would be something to counter the other biographies, news-stories, and general gossip. Still, he comes across as a chauvinist whose narcissism (at times I wondered if he was even sociopathic) makes for a sick but enjoyable read (in a seedy, Eurotrashy sort of way). Best if read out loud with a thick French accent and Serge Gainsbourg's Comic Strip playing in the background. And a pack of Gaulois cigs on your bedside table. **

Here's a link to a discussion of the book and of Vadim et al. Quite an interesting site. I'll put it on my blogroll: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/001948.html.

Au revoir,

~CD

Recent Reads

2010-09-29T17:46:00.001-07:00

The Blunderer. Patricia Highsmith. 1956.
One of the earlier Highmiths and a decent companion, of sorts, to Strangers on a Train. It involves a wife murderer (undiscovered) and a man who "stalks" him, in a manner, and fantasizes about being a wife murderer himself. As with Strangers, the tense relationship between the two men drives the narrative into the strange, cruel world one expects in a Highsmith psychological thriller. I'll admit that I found this to be one of her lesser efforts--gripping at times, certainly, but also tediously bogged down by the main character's foibles and witless behavior. However, I always love the Highsmith "plain-style" of writing--spare prose, studded with gritty details and precise descriptions. ***

Famous Last Words. Timothy Findley. 1987.
A hugely entertaining historical fiction made up of multi-layered narratives and featuring an impressive cast of characters (including Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, von Ribbentrop, Charles Lindbergh, Hitler, and Rudolph Hess). The plot concerns the rise of Italian and German fascism and the various fascist sympathizers in European high society. What's more, Findley throws in a cabal of behind the scenes Euro power-brokers who go by the codename "Penelope," a kind of Priory of Sion who plans to use the fascists as a scourge to scrub Europe clean before setting up their own pan-European Emporer and Empress--the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Most of the story is told from the point of view of Hugh Selwyn Mauberley--Ezra Pound's fictional character (here a real guy: a wonderful move!), a fascist sympathizer who turns against "Penelope" and pays the consequences. All in all, a real tour de force. ***1/2

Solar. Ian McEwan. 2010.
McEwan's latest about a Nobel Prize winning physicist who plagiarizes from a newly dead protege to keep himself relevant. The story follows his tumultuous love-affairs (five wives and countless lovers) and his rotten business dealings and pathetic post-Nobel professional life. He's a rotter in almost every respect--selfish, hypocritical, cruel, and amoral. He outdoes himself when he frames one of his wife's lovers for the murder of another of his wife's lovers! Yes, this is a comedy--and at some points it is laugh outloud funny--but it's hard to spend time with this character and not feel a little slimy yourself. As usual, however, McEwan's writing is flawless. What does it mean that you keep reading simply because the book is so well-written? ***

Vaux's Swifts

2010-09-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night we went to the Chapman school on 25th and Pettygrove in Portland to see the Vaux's swifts come in to roost in the chimney. This is an annual ritual here in PDX: this particular species of swift will find, during its autumn migration, a safe roosting place en masse--usually a hollow tree, but in this case, a tall chimney. They come in by the thousands at sunset. After filling the skies in the vicinity of the school for a couple hours, they start to work their way down towards the chimney in great whirling funnels, cylinders, and ribbons. At last they start to descend down into the chimney to find a roosting spot, sometimes flapping back out for another go. But by dark, they're all in. Hundreds of people gather on the school's lawn to watch this spectacle (along with a hungry hawk or two), which happens every night for about the entire month of September. When chillier temperatures arrive, the swifts begin to move further south. (Credit goes to Steve Warner and Portland Upside for the photo above.)

Read about this amazing phenomenon here: http://audubonportland.org/local-birding/swiftwatch

Take a look at this video of Vaux's Swifts roosting in a Eugene, Oregon, chimney. It's exactly what you'll see at Chapman school, but this particular footage is so outstanding that I had to link you to it: http://www.formula1movies.com/video/1TT07lAdNaM/Thousands-of-Vaux-s-Swifts-Roost-in-Eugene-OR.html

And enjoy this artist's rendering of the scene (second row down); I must say he captures the mysterious beauty of it well: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32310833@N06/page5/

Adios,
~CD

Boardwalk Empire and some Articles

2010-09-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

I watched the debut episode of Boardwalk Empire yesterday, HBO's new gangster drama about the life and times of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, an Atlantic City kingpin. I'd read great things about it and was looking forward to it immensely. Perhaps it had been a bit over-sold: I liked it, but felt it didn't take me any place especially new as far as mob stories are concerned. But perhaps that's because we've been saturated with mob stories over the last 50 years and there literally isn't any place new for the genre to go. Once we've visited the whole spectrum, from Mean Streets to the Sopranos, it all just seems like a retread. Steve Buscemi is a new take on an old type--he's hardly the "heavy" one expects--but even so, I'm not sure he has the gravity for the part of Nucky. I'll keep watching, however, and perhaps it'll suck me in. Lord knows True Blood has, so you know I haven't too high of a threshold!

Here are a few cool articles I've recently read. One on the much maligned but undervalued technique of rote memorization: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19fob-medium-heffernan-t.html?_r=1, one on how a burglarized writer tracked down the thief via the internet: http://www.salon.com/life/life_stories/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/09/20/tracked_down_my_thief, and one on what happens to the libraries of famous authors after they die: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/09/19/lost_libraries/?page=full.

Enjoy!
~CD

Them Two

2010-09-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to an excellent three-part article on the songwriting partnership between John Lennon and Paul McCartney: http://www.slate.com/id/2267342/entry/2267343/.

Just thought I'd throw it on here because I found it so damned interesting. I do realize that so much has been written about these two that many might just roll their eyes at such a thing: "Oh, another one about how John was edgy and Paul was all glitter, great." But, in fact, it goes well beyond such simple equations--even refuting them to a large degree. Read it and see. For me, it was just fun to read an intelligent, nuanced analysis of the ins and outs of the creative process. The writer, Joshua Shenk, really gets it.

Enjoy.
~CD

Going Coastal

2010-09-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

We went coastal a couple weeks ago, meaning, of course, that we paid a weekend visit to the Oregon coast. We stayed in Newport, one of my favorite coast destinations (been going there since the 80's). We stayed our first night at The Waves Motel (not recommended) and then driven by mildew, a lack of an elevator, safety issues, and general shabbiness we spent our second night at the Greenstone across the street. Much better--clean, new, tasteful, pleasant views, covered parking, and an elevator. And it didn't cost too many $ more.

We met my friend Lynn Jeffress and ate at Local Ocean, a newish place down on the waterfront. Clearly the best restaurant in town--everything's fresh (purchased from the marina each morning), the place is always packed, and it's very family friendly. Ian fell asleep on my shoulder and stayed there the whole meal (he'd had a big day at the beach!). We also enjoyed Panini's for coffee and morning treats and Nana's, an Irish restaurant/pub with fabulous authentic Irish breakfasts.

All in all it was a low-key trip. We mostly went to see Lynn, frolic on the beach with Ian, see the Oregon Aquarium, and enjoy the Labor Day weekend. Great weather too. Here are some pics:

Ian found a kelp "whip":

...and he and Lynn decided to make a jump-rope out of it:

At first, I was a little uncertain but then thought, What the heck!:

Oh...umm...er...

Oh yeah, I still got it!:

Here's K and Ian at the old Yaquina Bay lighthouse (K looking fabulous if I do say so myself):

Here they are at the front of the lighthouse:

And here they are at the back of the lighthouse:

And here's the Spanish Inq--no, I mean Ian and I gazing at the waves. He had just warned me that I was starting to get red (sunburned) on the place where my "hair is missing":

You ate sand?

We ate sand:

Adios.

~CD

August Round-up

2010-09-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

A round-up of bloggolicious things that have gone down lately:

Saw the B-52's at the zoo on August 13th. We sat on blankets on the lawn waaay in the back. We occasionally caught glimpses of the band. Ian and his friend Jackson (and his parents) were all on hand. We had a moderately good time. The band played more of their latter-day offerings than the stuff I was familiar with, that is, the first couple albums. But it was definitely fun to hear "Planet Claire," "Rock Lobster," and "Private Idaho" live. I can also now check-off the list another band I never had the chance to see in their prime. (Along with The English Beat, Squeeze, and The Knitters.)

Discovered the 19th century Brazilian writer Machado de Assis. The proprietor of Post-Hip CD's (and Books) in Multnomah Village gave a me a copy of Dom Casmurro for free, telling me I simply had to read it. I loved it and read Epitaph for a Small Winner soon after. Great tragicomedy of the Flaubertian variety, with a strong dash of Laurence Sterne. How did I grow up not knowing this writer? I can see a little more clearly now where some of the 20th century South American writers drew their inspiration.

On Aug. 22 I went up to Lake Coeur d'Alene for, probably, the last time this season. Met my brother Scott and my poet friend Tod Marshall (see "You Should Know About" for details) for a day of fishing in CDA, Lake Chatcolet, and up the St. Joe river a bit. Caught a fair number of Kokanee (land-locked sockeye salmon) and a few pan-fish. Scott smoked the Kokanee and, boy, were they good on a bagel with cream-cheese. Here's some pics.

Beautiful Rockford Bay, Lake Coeur d'Alene:

Our trusty fishing boat:

A moose chomping on reeds at the mouth of the St. Joe River at Lake Chatcolet:

Our harvest: smoked Kokanee. Note the bagel. Note the coffee cup: it's been in the family for nearly fifty years.

Alas, September is now here, and with it come late summer rains. Sniff.

But here's something perfect: Alan Greenspan's reaction in an interview to a question asking if Stan Getz playing sax at the age of 15 was really so good as to discourage Greenspan from seeking a career as a jazz musician:

"Oh, my God."

Here's the link to the fascinating little curio I found that in: http://www.stangetz.net/world_financial_crisis.htm

~CD

Cue The Stranglers...

2010-08-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago on a hot Saturday, we went peach picking on Sauvie Island (Sauvie Island Farms). We picked 30 lbs. of peaches which K and her mom canned the next day. Here are some pics to document the fun we had.

Luscious fruit:

G'ma with a good un. K in the background in classic pregnant lady pose:

Box of peaches at the edge of the orchard:

Ready for the pickin':

Glowing in the shadows:

Nothing better:

~CD

Now Spinning

2010-08-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

As you know, I love soundtracks. Two more I've acquired recently are from the films Vampyros Lesbos and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The former, a fun but somewhat sleazy Spanish exploitation flick directed by Jesus Franco and starring Soledad Miranda, has a surprisingly good funky/jazzy/psychedelic pop score composed by Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab (the latter a quite prolific German film scorer and jazz musician). The Life Aquatic soundtrack is, for the most part, your usual Wes Anderson mixtape of British invasion, folk rock, punk, and new wave (Bowie, Stooges, Baez, Zombies, Devo, etc.) The real reason I got it was to hear the Bowie covers by Brazilian singer-guitarist Seu Jorge--you know, the guy who's constantly noodling on his guitar in the odd corners of Zissou's boat The Belafonte? I quite like Bowie unplugged and in Portuguese. Apparently, Seu Jorge has released a whole album of these covers, but about half are captured here on the soundtrack. The other good reasons for getting the CD are the pieces by Sven Libaek and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh. Libaek is a Norwegian film composer living in Australia who, according to Anderson's liner notes, wrote the airy jazz pieces which appear on the CD for a real underwater documentary film called Innerspace. Mothersbaugh wrote original pieces for the film using what sounds like a Casio. They are light electronica with catchy melodies; my fave is "Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op"--it somehow brings me back to a simpler time of Atari video games, terry-cloth shirts, and fondue night.

~CD

Cue the Kinks...

2010-08-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

When K and I need to touch foregn soil but we haven't got the time or cashola (or both) to spare for a major trip, you know what we do? That's right, we drive to Canada. Or in this case, drive four hours up Highway 101 across the Olympic Peninsula, leave our car in Port Angeles, and take a 90 minute ferry ride to Victoria, B.C. It's what we did this last weekend and, if you can do it, you should to.

We arrived on August 6th in the evening close to 7:00 pm, and walked with our rolling luggage along the pleasant waterfront to the fine old Edwardian hotel, the Fairmont Empress (built 1908). The Black Ball line docks, literally, 300 yards from the hotel. It was a nice sunny evening and in the upper 60's. We checked in and made a late dinner reservation at Aura, a restaurant in a hotel on Laurel Point that we'd read about in Fodor's. It was a mere 15 minute walk along the Inner Harbor. Strolling back after a pleasant dinner (J: duck, K: mussels) we passed in front of the Houses of Parliament, all lit up (the houses that is). The next morning, after breakfasting in the gorgeous Empress Room (English style sausages, yesss!), we booked our bus trip to the Butchart Gardens despite the steady rain (glad they had bushels of umbrellas located everywhere). We spent several hours enjoying the various features there, especially the Sunken Garden (developed out of an abandoned quarry), the Japanese Garden, and the Italian Garden. Back in town, we shopped a little before having afternoon tea at the Empress--a 100 year old tradition at the hotel. In the evening we went to dinner at Matisse, a small French restaurant on Yates Street that served wonderful Char for me and scallops for K. I would have called it a "quiet little French restaurant" if a table full of cruise-ship Texans hadn't been next to us. In the morning we breakfasted again in the Empress Room (can't get enough of those sausages, or the amazingly ornate interior--all carved wood, panels, and turn of the century oil paintings) then boarded our ferry at 10:30 for the easy crossing back. All in all, a delightful little jaunt that gave us that wonderful feeling of taking a big trip without having to go far at all.

Here are some pictures.

Saying farewell to the U.S. (Olympic Mts. in the background):

K, en route:

J, en route and doing some preparatory reading:

Our ferry:

Arrival:

Approaching the Empress:

Houses of Parliament to the right:

A window into the Sunken Garden at Butchart:

Sunken Garden:

K and I at the Sunken Garden:

Pond in the Sunken Garden:

A random gate, Butchart:

The Japanese Garden:

The Star Pond (Butchart):

Gate into the Italian Garden:

Totem Pole at the Fireworks Overlook, Butchart:

An alcove in the Empress lobby (all Goth'd up):

Farewell to the Empress:

Didn't I tell you it was about 300 yards away? An easy stroll for a pregnant lady:

~CD

Food Round-Up

2010-08-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

Food round-up. Been to some of my favorite PDX restuarants of late. If you're visiting, here are a few recommendations:

For breakfast go to the Bijou Cafe on SW 3rd and order yourself up an oyster omelet. No, don't argue, just do it. Thank me later. For lunch, go to Kenny and Zuke's on 10th and Stark and order a reuben. Pastrami or corned beef--doesn't matter. If you're currently in danger of becoming a vegetarian, this will save you. If you'd like to do breakfast and lunch simultaneously (a thing we call blunch), you will go to Screen Door on NE Hawthorne. There you will order a breakfast corn-dog (with sorghum dip), fried chicken and waffle (they come impaled on a knife and stuck in the waffle), and a side of maple-pecan bacon. Yes, you may have a mimosa. And for dinner, get yourself to Toro Bravo on NE Russell. Just about anything on the tapas menu is worthwhile, but you will find the boquerones on toast, charcuterie plate (esp. the chicken liver pate), French kisses (prunes stuffed with foie gras), seared scallops, jamon and fava beans, North African sausages, and a glass of sherry just about perfect. Or you may just order the tasting menu. And a glass of sherry. Perfect.

K&Z's Reuben:

~CD

Some Art o' Mine

2010-07-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Thought it might be high time I posted some of my pictures here. One of the things I dabble in is sketching and oil and acrylic painting. First up are a couple small fruit studies 4x6 tomato (acrylic on canvas), 5x7 pear (oil over acrylic on canvas board):

Here's a bowl of tomatoes I did about 4 years ago. 12x16, acrylic on canvas, if memory serves:

A nude copied from a figure drawing text book. Artist escapes me:

Ditto:

Copied from a Cezanne, one of my heroes (oil on paper):

Don't remember what the inspiration for this was. From a drawing book, I think. And then I oiled it as an experiment. I think it works (oil on paper):

Cezanne again (oil on paper):

From a model in Arvie Smith's studio class. The first nude oil painting I really like. 20x20, oil on canvas:

A still life I set up myself. (In progress, oil on canvas):

Cezanne yet again (oil on paper):

I'm only out to please myself with all of this, but if others like it too, that's even better. I have no theories, no particular schools or "-isms" that I throw in with. I like Degas, Cezanne, Maillol, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard, Bonnard, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, and many more. I guess that makes me a follower of Post-Impressionists, but as with all my artistic interests, I consider myself a generalist, if anything.

Hope you enjoy!

~CD

Nowwe Spynninge

2010-07-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Okay. This is probably going too far, but I bought the CD that accompanies the Mordicai Gerstein kid's book version of "Beauty and the Beast." It's basically the soundtrack from the little film version--a 30 minute animated one narrated by Mia Farrow. The CD is fun for a couple reasons: one, it has the book's text (narrated by Farrow over the musical soundtrack--basically what you'd hear if you closed your eyes while watching the film), good for playing in the car for the boy; and, two, it has a track with just a fully orchestrated musical score by Ernest Troost. It's a good listen, though it's a bit heavy on the Renaissance Faire elements (it's for a fairytale, afterall). The main motif is a very pretty melody that feels like something Henry VIII might have written. Troost, by the way, has had an interesting career composing for TV shows, specials (esp. for kiddies), and B movies (Tremors is the most recognizable). He's won a number of Emmys too. Fun.

~CD

Art, Food, Art

2010-07-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Three good things to note.

First, "Plover" recently responded to this blog (entry from 4/10/09) offering me the name of French painter Andre Lauran's wife, also a painter: Veronique Veron. Lauran passed away in 2008; Veron is still living. Here's an example of her work nabbed from the Web:

Thanks, Plover.

Second, K and I went with our friend N out to dinner on Saturday night to Gruner (put an umlaut on that U) on 12th and Alder in Portland. We all had an excellent dinner. Appetizers: Pickled deviled eggs, juniper cured Chinook salmon, shaved radish salad with pumpkin seed oil, charcuterie sampler. K: mixed grill--herb stuffed quail, duck boudin sausage, spring onion, green lentils, pancetta mustard sauce; N: grilled golden trout, herb salsa verde, green beans, toasted almond, yukon gold potatoes. J: (special) beef tokany with potato dumplings. Desserts: Dutch baby pancakes with blueberries and something like sugar dusted ebelskivers with apricot filling. Everything was excellent--food, service, atmosphere. The cuisine is east-central European, that is, it contains elements of German, Austrian, Hungarian, Italian, and Czech cooking. Thankfully, the decor is sleek and modern--not a beer stein in sight (although waitresses in Heidi get-ups would always be welcome.) Highly recommended. Visit: http://www.grunerpdx.com/

Third: If you're in Portland, go to the Northeast Community Center on (about) 38th and Sandy and view Jane Erskine's paintings. She's there all month. More about it and her here: http://www.necommunitycenter.org/necc_artist_lobby_display

That's all for today, Ciao,
~CD

Rob Ramage

2010-07-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening K, Ian, and I went to Portland's First Presbyterian Church on 12th and Alder downtown and attended the reception for a show by artist Rob Ramage: Earth and Mind, A Bilateral Balance. Rob was one of my fellow classmates in Arvie Smith's studio figure painting classes. His work in this show is all landscapes--pastel, monotype prints, and oils. It's a wonderful show and in a pleasant space. While you're there, check out the church's 110 year-old sanctuary--all beautifully carved would. The pipe organ is massive!:

Here's a link to Rob's website: http://robramage.com/
Here's a link to 1st Presby: http://www.firstpresportland.org/

~CD

Stirred but not Shaken

2010-07-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

Another one of the movies I picked up for cheap at my now defunct neighborhood Hollywood Video store was On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the black sheep of the Bond canon--by turns underrated and overrated by fans and critics alike. When I first saw it on TV in '70's, I was already a Connery fan and therefore found this interloper--George Lazenby????--wholly inadequate to the part. As the years went by, the film grew on me a little, mostly due to a gradual warming appreciation of its other characters (Diana Rigg was so hot and Telly Savalas so evil), its awsome sets and locations, its fashion and decor (Bond's first real forays into genuine grooviness), and its rather good musical score. I began to see, too, that the film was gaining in reputation--some fans "in the know" were calling it the best of the Bonds. I wasn't ready to go that far, but I was willing to cut it some slack. Now, having watched it again the other day, I have to say it's a pretty mixed bag--far from "best" but certainly not a failure. I can see better now what was really going on. Connery had bailed on the series after You Only Live Twice (a lesser Connery, I'm afraid) and the producers were faced with the task of replacing Connery and freshening up a series that was beginning to lose some of its luster in the age Swinging London. They chose George Lazenby because he wowed them in interviews and looked great, but he was clearly a mistake. He looks the part okay--he's handsomely ugly in a Clive Owen sort of way--but he can't act. Period. He acts just as you would expect a male model (which he was) to act: he's well built and impressive in action sequences, but whenever he speaks he sounds like he's delivering an endorsement in a TV ad. Part of it, too, is the horrible script--it's certainly the worst writing of the 60's Bonds. But at the end of the day he had to fill Connery's shoes and he just couldn't do it. So, here's a list of the likes and dislikes of this film (in lieu of a belabored review that I don't want to write and nobody will want to read):

Likes:

Supporting cast: Diana Rigg, Gabriele Ferzetti, Telly Savalas, Joanna Lumley (though she's fleeting).
action: ski chases, car chases (on ice, no less), and some of the stunts and fights.
aerial photography (really fab).
groovy clothes (though, I realize, this is subject to change).
groovy sets and decorating.
wonderful Swiss locations.
groovy cars (though edging into late 60's early 70's muscle-mobiles which I don't find nearly as cool as the trim mid-sixties roadsters).
music (no lyrics?? s'okay, two of my other faves don't have them either--Dr. No and FRWL [well not in the opening credits anyway]).
an emotionally vulnerable Bond (quite a risk, that, but it works and it was a good attempt to freshen up the character even if it didn't stick).
and no gadgets! thank God.

Dislikes:

Lazenby--acting, and even more so, his jaunty Aussie swagger (sorry for the bigotry); I find him irritating to watch; about half the time he doesn't look comfortable--in fact, he looks like what he is, somebody who's crashed the party and is trying a little too hard to act natural.
Bond leering at a product-placement Playboy (he wouldn't bother).
bad puns and "witticisms" (they should be groaners not cringers).
the uneven pacing--revamping things with lovey-doviness is fine, but don't let it become a thrill kill (really, a lovers montage???).
the plot with the international babes, infertility, etc. --well, I suppose it's more creative than just stealing an atom bomb.

So then, how does it all balance out? I'll rank it 8th in the series, which I'm beginning to think is too generous:

1. From Russia With Love

2. Goldfinger

3. Casino Royale (Craig)

4. Thunderball

5. Dr. No

6. Quantum of Solace

7. Live and Let Die

8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

9. Man with the Golden Gun

10. You Only Live Twice

11. The Spy Who Loved Me

12. Diamonds Are Forever

13 + all the rest that I can't really be bothered with trying to rank...

That's my list for now. Always subject to change, of course.

Ciao,

~cd

Now Spinning: Perfecto!

2010-07-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

My quest for a perfect cinematic easy listening experience is over as I've now discovered Easy Tempo: A Cinematic Easy Listening Experience, Vol. 1! Get this: it's all Italian cinema music from the late 60's and early 70's. And I'm not talkin' Rota or Morricone or Delarue. I'm talkin' Plenizio, Ortolani, Trovajoli, Cipriani, Piccioni, Martelli, Ferrio, and de Angelis--yes, that's Guido E Maurizio de Angelis.

And the films? La Gatta in calore, La famiglia Benvenuti, Mark il poliziotto, Bora bora, Tiffany memorandum, La morte accarezza a mezzanotte, Sesso Matto, La Polizia incrimina, la legge assolve, Big Guns, and my favorite, Confessione di a commissario di polizia al procuratore della Repubblica (how it runs trippingly on the tongue).

Dio mio, there are 10 volumes in this series. It's a fantastic compilation (from what I've heard so far)--by turns jazzy, rockin', dazzy, even stringy in spots. Pinging cymbals, runaway bass lines, and wah-wah pedals to the metal. All of it 100% mind-blowingly groovy. This is the perfect soundtrack for riding around in that '67 Alfa Romeo Spider you've been keeping wrapped up in your garage.

~CD

Gizzi Listening

2010-07-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Almost two years ago I wrote about my search for music by Claudio Gizzi, the man who composed the score for Andy Warhol's Blood for Dracula. Nothing has come up as far as available recordings (other than the anthology album Delirium of the Senses, which contained only one Gizzi track [I wrote about it 7/21/08]). But I have located some interesting stuff via Google and Youtube. Here's a clip of the opening credits of the film, with the incomparable Udo Kier as Dracula applying make-up to his undead face; the music is the film's main theme, a beautiful piece called, I believe, "Old Dracula"--so beautiful it steals the show, I think. The exploitive, campy film it's embedded in (though a fun time) hardly seems worthy of it!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjqD3aLnPrY

And here's an interview with Gizzi by Chris Alexander (Fangoria) in which the composer discusses that piece and his inspiration. What a breath of air this is! I like it when artists talk directly and ungaurdedly about their art, their craftsmanship, and their inspirations:http://chris-alexander.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144:exclusive-interview-composer-claudio-gizzi&catid=47:interviews

My favorite bits:

CA: With BLOOD, you created one of the most gorgeous pieces of music ever used in a horror film....that overture...haunting. Was that composed while staring at Udo Kier's face in post production or was it composed before the film was edited?

CG: Effectively this theme for Dracula (especially in its version for solo piano) is one of the most complete and efficacious things of my career. This is a demonstration that the simplicity and power of melody makes it superior and the most important thing in the musical world. I remember that this theme was born spontaneously by the magnificent images of the titles of the film while they were being shown on the screen. Udo’s sadness, composure and elegance in front of the mirror really struck me and guided me towards this musical experience…)

CA: Have you recieved letters and love for these scores over the years?

CG: In fact, I received a great number of messages of approval and enjoyment from all over the world, especially from the U.S.A. There were also some people who wanted to have the score and to some of them I sent a score that I had written and signed. I hope I have made someone among my admirers happy....Basically, music is a wonderful, universal language which unites us and creates friends.

And here's an oddball video of some freakazoid named "King Baldwin" playing "Old Dracula" for us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W2FzWNU6eU&feature=related

And, because I can't help myself, here's a link to a slideshow about overlooked vampire movies that Twilight fans should track down and see. Hell, I should track some of them down too, since I hadn't heard of a few. Naturally, Let the Right One In is featured, perhaps the best vampire film I've ever seen. If it were my list I might add Romero's Martin, the Vrdolak segment from Bava's Black Sabbath, and Dreyer's Vampyr. Drink up!: http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/vampires/index.html?story=/ent/movies/film_salon/2010/07/02/vampire_movies_twilight_fans_should_see

~CD

The Wild Boy

2010-07-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

Several posts ago, I featured a children's book version of Beauty and the Beast retold and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. Some days ago, I ordered a copy of another book written and illustrated by him called The Wild Boy (1998), a retelling of the story of Victor, the wild boy of Aveyron. It has arrived and is as marvelous as I had hoped it would be. Here's a taste:

The frenzied energy of the drawings, their emotional wallop, and their essential grasp of the story's mystery draw me to this book. These stories of people who are confused with animals--psychically, spiritually, or physically--always fascinate me. (The Elephant Man, Raging Bull, The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lycaeus, the Yeti, etc.) If you've got a kid who's between 2 and 5, get this little book. It won't disappoint.

~CD

Three is a Charm

2010-06-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Three cool things have gone down lately:

(1) Ian saw his first movie in a movie theater! That's right, at the ripe old age of 2 and 11 mos. We caught a matinee last Saturday of Toy Story 3 (in 2D) and he loved it. Sat through it entranced, and with hardly a moment's fidgeting. Had his first taste of movie theatre popcorn, too. G'ma was there to document the occasion with photos. Luckily there was only a handful of people in the theatre to be annoyed with the flash (we waited until the credits.) I loved the film, by the way. The ending packs a surprisingly emotional punch. ****

(2) I stopped in at the Portland Art Museum's exhibit featuring R. Crumb's comic book rendering of The Book of Genesis. What a mindboggling work that is. The most fascinating thing is he depicts it with (as you would expect) unflinching honesty and without the faintest touch of ridicule. I know there will be loud detractors from every critical vantage point on this, but I for one found it mesmerizing--even awesome. The scope and ambition of the project and Crumb's integrity are impressive. Go and see this. Every page of Crumb's book is framed and on the wall, and every word of every chapter of Genesis is there to read. And while you're there, go to the basement and see the masters' drawings exhibit. Ingres, Rembrandt, Durer...can't do better than that.

(3) Had lunch with K at Creme de la Creme, a French food cart fashioned from an old school bus, parked up in an alley near 33rd and Hawthorne. It's connected to a Seattle restaurant/bar called Gainsbourg, run by an old Spokane acquaintance of mine JJ Wandler. K had a brie and cucumber sandwich and I had a yummy croque monsieur. Check them out sometime.

Here's a taste of Crumb's Genesis work: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/18/arts/20091018-SALK_index.html

& here's his official website:http://www.crumbproducts.com/

Here's Creme de la Creme's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portland-OR/Creme-de-la-Creme/119698068062042#!

And here you can explore other facets of the Portland Art Museum: http://portlandartmuseum.org/

~CD

Now Spinning

2010-06-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Giovanni Fusco. Music for Michelangelo Antonioni. 2006.

I love Antonioni's films--even the ones like Zabriskie Point and Beyond the Clouds that nobody else seems to like--and, though I know he's not known for electrifying soundtracks (with the exception of Blow-Up) I thought I'd get this CD of music drawn from three of Antonioni's films: L'avventura, L'eclisse, and Deserto Rosso. The pieces range wildly from simple mood melodies to larger orchestrated stuff--always interesting if not inspiring. The poppier pieces are quite fun, especially "L'eclisse Twist," the opening tune from that film--very wild, even campy. Completely out of tune with the film's action and story and, therefore, somehow--I know not how--completely appropriate. The liner notes to this are by Michael Talbott, a SF area musician with a band called The Wolf Kings. The notes are remarkable for their free dissing of the filmmaker and the hyperbolic assessment of Fusco's importance as a film music composer ("equally essential" to Antonioni? I think not.) I looked up Talbott's band, by the way. They're good but would be more impressive if Nick Drake had never existed. ***

Herbie Hancock. Takin' Off. 1962, remastered 2007.

Wonderful debut. I'm exploring this stuff more deeply now. Everyone knows "Watermelon Man," but the pleasures of this record go well beyond that. ****

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

2010-06-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I can't call myself a "consummate dabbler" if I don't dabble in things now and again. So on Wednesday my friend Sasha (see the "You Should Know About" link to the right to view her fine jewelry and paintings) joined me to make CHEESE! This meant that, first, I'd have to drive out to my mother-in-law's farm 40 minutes away in Warren, pick-up two gallons of fresh goat milk (Ada is the goat's name, a beautiful nubian) bring it home, and pasteurize it--itself quite a process. That done, we decided to make one gallon into "farmer's cheese". We cooked the gallon, bringing the temperature up to 180 degrees, pulled it off the heat, then added lemon juice to make it curdle. We ladled the curds into a colander lined with cheese-cloth, allowing the whey to gather in a bowl under the colander. We then tied up the cheese-cloth corner to corner and hung it from a short wooden rod over the sink, allowing the whey to drip-drip-drip for a couple hours. At the end of it, we had a nice, tightly curded, creamy chees not unlike ricotta. We left one container plain and added assorted herbs to other batches. In the evening we ate it on crackers with a fig tapenade to die for from River Wave Foods (purchased at a local farmer's market) and an orange fig spread imported from Croatia. The other gallon we are reserving in order to make it into chevre one of these days. Great fun!

Here's a link to River Wave Foods: http://www.riverwavefoods.com/

F for Father

2010-06-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

Had a fantastic Father's Day on Sunday, despite lousy PacNwst June weather--sheesh, when will summer get here?. K gave me the Wild Wild West box set (man, did I marry WELL!) and Ian gave me Orson Welles' F for Fake. I suppose the first needs no introduction, other than to say it was the COOLEST EFFING WESTERN EVER TO GRACE THE SMALL SCREEN (not to mention it was the godfather of steampunk). The second, of course, is an oddball film "essay" on the art of fakery featuring master art forger Elmyr de Hory, master literary hoaxer Clifford Irving, and master cinematic smoke and mirrors man Orson Welles. It's too confusing a film to explain so I'll just refer you to wikp and let you sort it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_for_Fake. I should say, however, the DVD extrees are fabulous--a documentary on de Hory, a documentary on Welles' unfinished films, a 60 minutes interview with Clifford Irving, and audio segments of the Howard Hughes televised phone interview exposing Irving's autobiography hoax. What a smorgasboard! After turning in grades on Monday (what a horror-show that was!) I went directly home and geeked out on Welles et al. until a certain mysterious mooing sound was heard at the front door.doop-doop, doop-doop, doop-doop DEE doop dee doop doop-doop....
~CD

Tasty n Sons

2010-06-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ian was off to the zoo today with his pre-school buddies on a special Saturday outing. This left K and I to do what all Portlanders love to do most: Go out to breakfast! We chose Tasty n Sons on NE Williams, a weirdly named offshoot of Toro Bravo, a fine Spanish restaurant up on NE Russell. We ate tapas, essentially: potatas bravas w/fried eggs, bacon wrapped dates, candied yams, sweet biscuits w/ strawberries and cream, and shakshuka (a red pepper and tomato stew with baked eggs). All was swell except that they left the lamb sausage (optional) out of the shakshuka. However, to compensate, they removed the dish from our bill, which was much appreciated. We quite liked the place--typical of new NE Portland (I will not call it NoPo!), with its neo-modern/industrial decor. If you go, prepare for a wait. Luckily there are coffee shops and boutiques in the immediate vicinity, including Pix, an excellent bar/dessert/coffee place.

Here's Tasty n Sons' page: http://www.tastynsons.com/. Why oh why would anybody put even an ironical "n Sons" in the name of their restaurant? Puts it in a league with TGI Fridays, Corky Romano's Macaroni Grill, and Stiffy McFriggin's Wiener Emporium. Are there not enough wonderful Spanish expressions to choose from? Or is it that the pretzel-knotted ironies of uber-hipness have finally brought us to a kitschy appreciation of the stripmalls we so loathed back in the 80's?

~CD

Pee, Poo, Belly, Bum, Drawers!

2010-06-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun article on British rudeness from John Walsh in The Independent. Officially, he's writing about "Rude Britannia," a pop art show at the Tate Britain, but the article meditates, generally, on the nature of British bawdiness. The writing is awfully funny, and the author registers, finally, a phenomenon I've been commenting on for years: The peculiarly British fascination with bums! Here's my favorite bit:

God we're rude, aren't we? The British are so rude. We're obsessed with bums, tits, willies, lavatory humour, vicars, knickers, smells, foreigners, fat tummies, fat slags, Fat Les, fat wrestlers, Benny Hill, Carry On Up The Khyber, Viz, Private Eye, men dressed as laydeez, women dressed as anarchic schoolgirls, sitcoms that offer howling tsunamis of verbal abuse, from The Young Ones to The Thick Of It. We love to see an irate, fictional British hotelier smacking his Spanish waiter around the head. We admire the host of BBC2's Newsnight when he roasts politicians with scarcely believable belligerence. We quiver when a middle-aged, redheaded quiz-show hostess tells her guests how thick, ugly and badly dressed they are. We lap up radio shows in which grouchily opinionated men insult members of the public who hold views contrary to their own. We celebrate Christmas by buying our loved ones "lavatory books" with titles like Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Complete Shit In Pants?

Never mind the buttocks. Enjoy it all here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/naughty-by-nature-why-has-britain-become-so-rude-1995950.html.

~CD

Something I didn't expect to hear today:

2010-06-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

"Oh no, clouds! How am I going to tan? I'm, starting grad school next week."

A Little Dylan Thomas

2010-06-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

I read "Fern Hill" aloud to my literature students today and nearly burst into tears. More proof that as we get older and our life experiences change and evolve, our relationships to works of art change too. You know, you may have read "Fern Hill" dozens of times in your life, and you may think you know it, but that's not how poetry works. What you knew two years ago about the poem and the world is not the same as what you now know. There's no "been there done that" (bleh) for great art. It's always there offering you something new if you care to look.

So...here, look again: http://sss-mag.com/fernhill/poem.html

Or, if you like, have a listen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XG1B_7r4y8

Enjoy.

~CD

SATC2

2010-06-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've never been a SATC watcher to any extent, but I know enough to know I'd probably hate it. I can't imagine how awful this new film must be--but that's just based on reviews, of course. Here's a review of it that takes film reviewing to a whole new level of high art. Enjoy. (Thanks to JP for the link).

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715

~CD

Bourdizzle

2010-06-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Quite liked this interview with Anthony Bourdain. At times his TV persona grates on me, but here he shows us how intelligent, insightful, and articulate he really is. Who knew?

Enjoy: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/thewrongstuff/

Thanks to Dr. Dentriticus Minimus for this blog's title.

Recent Viewing

2010-06-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

Baba Yaga (1973). Directed by Corrado Farina.

I saw this some ten years ago, back when we were living in Chicago and frequenting the amazing Facets video store. (Now we live in Portland and frequent the even more amazing Movie Madness!) So when I happened by a closing Hollywood Video store the other day and saw they were selling their stock for cheap, I rummaged around the racks and found this (other finds: The Passenger, Nostalgia, Le Boucher, The Piano Teacher.) Baba Yaga is based on one of Guido Crepax's 60's-70's "Valentina" comics which feature his fashion photographer cum sexual adventurer (and Louise Brooks look-alike) Valentina; in essence, the stories are something like Barbella meets Blow-Up. In any event, this film is a horror-mystery-thriller featuring Carroll Baker as the titular Russian witch/lesbian who seeks to make Valentina one of her minions (or something--it's never exactly clear). The film is largely silly, but it's fun to look at and listen to--cool jazzy rock, sexy dream sequences, funky clothes, great 70's interior decorating. The DVD's extras are better than the film: a cool short on Crepax and Freud, and a fun interview with the director who has the audacity to dis Danger Diabolik and Barbarella--two much better films. Euro-trash horror of fine vintage. **1/2

Here's Crepax's Valentina (with clothes on, which is unusual):

~CD

Recent Viewings: Hancock

2010-06-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

Hancock (2008). Directed by Peter Berg.

I’m late to this film, but such is the life of a (relatively) new parent. Hancock is the story of a down and out, alcoholic, and generally ass-holish super hero (Will Smith) who is reviled by the public whom he once served honorably. Hancock has Superman-like powers, but none of the good PR. When he crosses paths with a hapless PR agent (Jason Bateman), Hancock agrees to a program of rehabilitation—both of his personal and public life. Complications ensue, of course, for it is soon revealed that the PR agent’s wife (Charlize Theron) has, how shall we put it, a “history” with Hancock. I won’t spoil the fun. It’s a good little movie—very funny at times and a good chance for Will Smith to play another grouchy part (he’s been doing a lot of that lately, but this is far far more entertaining than the dreadful I Am Legend [shudder].) Yes, we’ve seen stories like this before--the once novel notion of wayward super heroes is par for the course these days-- but the film is saved by fine performances, action sequences that complement rather than dominate the story, and strong laughs. *** ~CD

RIP, Dennis Hopper

2010-06-01T18:30:00.001-07:00

Rebel without a Cause, Giant, Easy Rider, Cool Hand Luke, True Grit, Apocalypse Now, The American Friend, Blue Velvet, River's Edge, Hoosiers...

Easy Rider alone woulda done it, eh? What a loss. Thanks for the memories.

Trivia: Favorite quote? "Fuck you, you fucking fuck." (Bet you can't guess that one!)

CD

Look at what I found!

2010-05-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

An ordinary 1837 volume from the collected works of Samuel Johnson, bought at a fundraiser book sale at my college for about a dollar. Ho hum...

But...but...look! While flipping though the pages I found a letter!

It's from a London law office and was penned in 1864!

And here is what it says:

5 Grays Inn Square

14th Sept. 1864

Dear Sir;

Yourself ~ Nash

Mr. Johnson is out of town but

is expected back in a day or two

when he will see Mr. Thistlethwaite

and come to some arrangement

with him if possible.

Yours Truly,

S.W. Johnson

per [CL?] Osborne

[unclear] [unclear]

Ridgway Villa

Torquay

Fabulously exciting I know. I investigated on the Net a little and found a lawyer named Saffery William Johnson operating at 5 Grays Inn Square in the 1850s-70s, part of the firm of Johnson and Coote. The Osborne writing the note must have been a clerk for Johnson (perhaps the CL that seems to be in front of his name indicates this); Nash, the note's apparent recipient who lived in Torquay, I have not nailed down. Was the copy of Johnson's works owned by Nash? It seems likely. What fun!

Beauty and the Beast continued...

2010-05-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Some days ago I mentioned watching a short animated film of "Beauty and the Beast" (1989) with Mia Farrow narrating. I sent for the book version, illustrations by Mordicai Gerstein (the same man who supplied the images for the film). I quite like the book and here are some snaps of some of the art work (fuzziness due to a dirty lens!):

Beauty gazing at the Beast's symbolic birdcage:

A stand alone image from the book's front matter of the Beast brow-beating Beauty. I especially like the conception of the Beast--ram's horns, boar's face, monkey's body (and tail), ostrich's feet:

Details of Beast's palace--octopus chandeliers!

Fantastical beasts are everywhere in the decor, by the way. And here's the most marvelous of all: a horned sperm whale with wings and human legs.

Ian loves the story, too, which delights me no end. One of these days he'll see the Cocteau film and, here's hoping, a whole new world will open up to him. But if not, that's cool too.

Proceedings of the Old Bailey

2010-05-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was investigating some matters of Pacific Northwest history and, while doing some internet searches of names of historical figures, I encountered a site which presents the records of the "Old Bailey," London's Central Criminal Courts. I was skimming down through a case that caught my eye--one from 1850 in which a man in his 70's, a certain Dixon Dawson, was being prosecuted for trying to cash a fraudulent check--and found this statement of his history (an account meant to mitigate his guilt):

The following written statement, put in by the prisoner before the Magistrate, was read:—"My Lord, your humble petitioner is a poor wornout seaman, being many years fighting for his country during the late war, which the Lords of the Admiralty, for my services that I done for my country, sent me down to that noble asylum, Greenwich. My Lord, I was in the battle with Nelson when he lost his life; I am now turned seventy-one years of age; I have been sorely wounded in the head, that I am at times in a deranged state of mind. My Lord, I am innocent of the crime laid to my charge; I have only been six weeks discharged from the strong-room in the Infirmary of Greenwich Hospital, which can be proved by Sir John Liddell, the doctor of Greenwich Hospital; I trust in God, my Lord, you and my prosecutors will show me mercy, and send me down to Greenwich, and they will keep me confined at the hospital; I have an only daughter; I am afraid it will break her heart if I am sent to prison; I hope, my Lord, you will show me mercy for God's sake, as we all expect mercy from God; I can assure you I know not what I have done, or what has been done.—Your humble petitioner, Dixon Dawson. My Lord and Gentlemen, your most humble petitioner states that it is upwards of sixty years ago since I first went to sea; the first engagement I was in was the landing of the British troops in Egypt, in 1801, when Sir Ralph Abercrombie lost his life; the next was in the year 1803, in cutting out of Cape Legat a large armed schooner full of Spanish and French troops, and I received many severe blows on the head, which caused me to be in a deranged state of mind now I have advanced in years, and at times to be very troublesome; I likewise was on board the Victory, in the battle of Trafalgar, with my Lord Nelson, when he fell wounded; I likewise was wounded at the same time, and fell close to him on the quarter-deck of the Victory, on that glorious day, 21st Oct., 1805; and in 1807, I was in Gaeta, in Italy, when the French army stormed the fort I was in, and there I was slightly wounded in four places; and was at the taking of the Island of Capua, the mouth of Naples Bay; from there went to land Generals Moore and Fox on the Calabria shore, and beat the French army back into Naples; from there I was sent with Sir Samuel Hood, to take Madeira, which we did succeed; and was engaged off Guadaloupe, in the West Indies, with two frigates, French, and seven batteries on our ship for two hours and forty minutes; and likewise burning two frigates belonging to the French, and taking the island of Martinique, in 1809; came home to England, and was sent on board the Fatale Minotaur, seventy-four guns; I was one of the first men on board the eleven Danish gun-boats, that our ships destroyed by fire under the batteries of Copenhagen. In coming to England our ship was lost, and 600 men with her; I had to swim three miles, and was two hours and three-quarters in the sea before I got on Camperdown, made prisoner-of-war of, and sent to France; remained nearly four years in Valenciennes, half-starved, and when the French were in full retreat from Moscow we were marched 600 miles in that dreadful winter in 1814, through frost and snow, and almost naked, and nearly starved. My Lord, I was never in prison in my life for any crime till now; I hope and trust in God that some humane gentleman will come forward and plead my cause, and snatch two human beings from the brink of ruin; the daughter from a broken heart, and the father that will never be able to look up any more through disgrace; if Mr. Hawes is in Court, I call on him to be so kind as to give me a character since 1816 to July, 1850, and I will for ever pray for all. My Lord and gentlemen, I hope you will help me in the means of procuring a gentleman of the law to plead for me; I am afraid, if I am found guilty, of losing my home for life."

What an amazing life-story--if even half of what he says is true. As it is, I have found documentation that lists him as a survivor of the Minotaur--a well known (and well documented) tragedy. As to his being near Nelson when he fell or any of the other events, who can say? I've found nothing that supports his story. But what a story, eh? Even as a bold concoction! Here, knock yourself out at the Proceedings of the Old Bailey: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/.

Here's Turner's depiction of the Minotaur sinking:

Lost: A Shaggy God Story

2010-05-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit, I stole that line from a review of "2001: a Space Odyssey"--but it's apt, is it not?

I was a "Lost" devotee for most of the series. But, for me, it really peaked with the revelation at the end of Season 3 that Jack, Kate, et al. had escaped the island--shown to us through some mysterious "flashforwards". That was some thrilling TV story-telling. However, within a few episodes the plot (already wonderfully loopy) began to strain under the influences of time-travel twaddle, quantum-mechanical claptrappery, and metaphysical hokum. It was often still entertaining and "oh-just-go-with-it" fun, but in the main the story arcs became too cluttered with mysteries--almost every one of which was fuel enough for a series itself. I grew fatigued. Generally, I like ambiguous storytelling, challenging narratives, and formula-busting scenarios, but this just started to feel out of control. By the end of Season Four I was beginning to see it all as a shaggy beast that would inevitably succumb to heat-exhaustion in those equatorial temperatures. Not unlike a polar bear who finds itself running loose in a tropical island forest...oh, never mind.

Last night's series finale was rather disappointing. I had held out some last desperate hope that the writers might pull a rabbit out of a hat. I didn't expect every mystery to clean up nicely, but I sort of thought they'd have an exit strategy that would supply us with a strong, smacking, "whoa!" of a finish. It didn't come. The "sideways" reality turned out to be a purgatorial holding-pen for islanders and friends who, evidently, made it into some kind of clique. The antics on the island reached a new level of silly what with Desmond, quite literally, pulling the cork out of the island and Jack sacrificing himself to put it back. So much scurrying around. Such murky motivations. Such silly and improbable turns of event. There were good moments--Jack closing his eyes in the bamboo forest, Vincent beside him; the promise of Hurley as the island's protector; the cliffside battle between Jack and "Smocke" (credit goes to Lynn Nolan for that handle); the resolution of Jack's daddy issues with the most emotionally authentic embrace of the series; Hurley's stupid grin at meeting Charlie again...there are many more. But they're singular pieces to me, not links in a strong narrative chain.

Anyway, good-bye "Lost" I loved you most of the time. Thanks for the great times. I'll get over the less than great, sure enough.

And here's a crazy thing: http://www.theackattack.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/FINALEFINALE_final1.png

Who can play Kesey?

2010-05-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my good friend Lynn Jeffress sent me a link to an article discussing the possibility of Gus Van Sant producing or directing a film based on Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." In the article there is speculation on who might play Ken Kesey. Jack Black's name came up, but I must say, as much as I like him, he doesn't strike me as a good Kesey. But that leads me to wonder, who would make a good Kesey? Here's my short list:

1. Matthew McConaughey
2. Woody Harrelson
3. Jude Law (if he'd be willing to bulk up)
4. That guy from "I Love You Man"--Jason Segal

(Sorry, Will Farrell!)

Here's a link to the article, and be sure and notice the accompanying picture of Kesey et al. aboard Furthur II. Guess who that is shivering under the orange blanket in back? And guess whose arm that is, clad in blue and white?

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/01/15/gus-van-sant-talks-electric-kool-aid-acid-test-casting-from-heath-ledger-to-jack-black/

That picture, as my friend has said, "really gets around". If I'm not mistaken, it was taken by Pulitzer prize winning photographer Brian Lanker around 1991 for a calendar Kesey was putting together. Here's a better view:

Cheers, everyone!
CD

Beauty and the Beast

2010-05-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

A cool thing from yesterday: I discovered on the On Demand menu on Comcast a 1988 animated short of "The Beauty and the Beast" that was originally featured on a TV series called "Long Ago and Far Away." The colored line drawings were done by Mordicai Gerstein and animated (rather creatively) by Jan Svojak (aka Svochak). Mia Farrow did the voice-over narration and the character voices (a good Beauty; a less than convincing Beast). From what I can tell, the version held very close to that popularized by Villeneuve and Beaumont--but I don't remember when (if ever) I read such a version! I'm more familar with Jean Cocteau's 1946 film "La Belle et La Bete," which is on my short list of films that I will drop everything I am doing to watch.

In fact, so enchanted was I by the film that I researched Mordicai Gerstein a bit and found a list of his illustrated books. I've ordered up a copy of "Beauty and the Beast" for Ian (and myself, I confess). His children's book "The Wild Boy" looks interesting as well, as it treats some of the same themes via the story of a much celebrated 19th century feral child, Victor, of Aveyron, France. (See film by Truffaut, "The Wild Child.") Trivia Q: What famous actress shouted "Give me back my beast!" at the close of Cocteau's film?

Here are some links to Mordicai Gerstein. Enjoy:

http://www.mordicaigerstein.com/

http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Gerstein/Mordicai_Gerstein_Gallery.html

Ian Pics for March 2010

2010-04-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some Ian pictures from last month. These were all taken at his day care--a place he's about to leave, sadly, in order to go on to his pre-pre-school.

Could he look any cuter?

Yes, in fact:

Or any more rascally?

Evidently, he likes to see if things fit on his head:

Often, things don't:

Often they do!:

Adios,
CD

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Wow! It's been about a month and what makes it particularly shameful is that for most of it I've been on vacation. Let us (royally) rectify it with a simple list of amazing, cool, stupid, and insipid things that have occurred:

1. Xmas shopping. Strollering Ian through the mall about a week before Christmas day I was pulled aside by a TV news crew and asked about "last minute shopping". I scoffed, "Last minute! This hardly qualifies!" And truly, a week before doesn't. But then I realized that this was precisely the sort of reaction they were looking for: they wanted a dude (preferably a shlubby dad) to do the shlubby dude dad thing and talk about how they are lazy sacks of crap and usually buy all their inadequate sloppy gifts on Xmas eve. In other words, they wanted me to be the Family Guy, or what have you. But when they turned on the camera and the lights and the lens was glaring me in the face I said the stupidest thing. When they asked me if I'd ever waited until Xmas eve to shop, my wits deserted me and I uttered the reprehensible cliche, "Been there, done that." UGGHH! How could I do it? And after they edited my interview down, that phrase, of course, was nearly all they retained. There it was on the 11 o'clock news! It's (almost) enough to make one sympathize with Sarah Palin...

2. Got out and saw TWO MOVIES! K and I have been out to the movies twice since Ian was born in July 2007, and here we were seeing The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Avatar within a week of each other. Fox I thought was the better of the two, if only because Wes Anderson actually respects his audience's intelligence enough to not beat them senseless with cliches. I liked the stop-motion animation too--always have, always will. Avatar was a visual feast and impressive as everyone has endlessly remarked (so there's no point in flogging it) but James Cameron still only seems interested in telling obvious, formulaic stories. He pushes all the right buttons and plucks all the right strings (more cliches! will it never stop?) so, yeah, you can let go and let the formula take you for a ride. But at the end of it, you feel like you've just gotten off another Disneyland attraction. To echo Hardware Wars: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss ten bucks goodbye. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_Wars

3. Read. A lot. And not student papers (yesssss!). In preparation for Paul Collin's Feb visit to Clark, I read The Book of William, Sixpence House, and Banvard's Folly. I think I've enjoyed the last one most of all--13 historical narratives describing people who dreamed big and fell hard--usually into complete obscurity. A fascinating visit into the alcoves of history. Started reading Dennis Wheatley's To the Devil--A Daughter, hoping it'd be as fun as its totally insane Hammer film version. It's not. It's terrible. Bad writing, bad dialogue, and worst of all preachy (in an anti-socialist, pro-orthodox Christianity sort of way). Unstomachable. And I'm so bummed.

4. Took Ian to see Santa Claus. We talked it up for weeks and when we finally made it to Christmas Land at Macy's he totally clammed up! I think he was a tad overwhelmed. He loved the robot reindeer and elves, though. He had to pet each reindeer's nose. Dasher wasn't in his stall, however. Ian concluded that he was taking a nap.

5. Ate, drank, and made merry.

Fair is Fowl(er)

2009-12-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

Found this article on the new edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage, a book I adore. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/72770362.html I completely agree with the reviewer, Liam Julian (what a pretty name!), on his take on what makes Fowler so readable and charming. My favorite bit:

"Fowler also saw no problem in placing and or but at the start of a sentence, nor in plopping a preposition at its end. While he could get hooked by crotchets — objecting to amoral, for instance, on the grounds that it was an ungainly combination of a Greek prefix and a Latin derivative — he was generally practical in his rule-making and rule-breaking. His abiding hope was to promote production of precise and pleasurable sentences, and if old prejudices stood in the way of that goal, they were knocked aside. David Crystal, editor of the rereleased first edition, writes that Fowler 'turns out to be far more sophisticated in his analysis of language than most people realize.' What’s more, 'Several of his entries display a concern for descriptive accuracy which would do any modern linguist proud.'"

CD

Another thing...

2009-11-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

I'm acquiring the above painting, "Autumn," by Hickory Mertsching (a name for the ages, I should think), which is currently hanging at Coffee Plant in John's Landing, PDX. See his stuff here: http://www.hickorymertsching.com/. This little picture doesn't do it justice, of course. It's quite big (30 x 40), the colors are vivid, and the draftsmanship very strong. God only knows where I'll hang it...

Round Up

2009-11-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

David Oates shared bits of his new book, What We Love Will Save Us, yesterday in the Cannell Room at Clark College's library. It was a pleasant hour of reading and discussion and I was glad to see him sell a few copies of the book. He took the odd turn of publishing it himself under his own imprint--Kelson Books--after several publishing houses rejected it. He felt the timeliness of the material warranted an immediate release: it deals largely with the effects of the Bush administration's brutality, narrow-mindedness, and criminality on the imaginative mind. But the experience of publishing has enthused David so much that Kelson Books is now working on releasing more titles. I'm eager to see what comes next.

Other news: Last week's whirlwind trip up to North Idaho to close down the lake cabin for the winter, though largely a chore, took us briefly through Spokane where we visited two new establishments that I can highly recommend:

First is Atticus, a coffeeshop and store located on Howard St. downtown (Bennett Block) in the space that has housed coffeeshops since time immemorial. It's owned and run by Kris and Andy Dinnison who also own and run Boo Radley's, a shop full of toys, books, games, and curios two doors down. I know Kris and Andy from way back when and I'm very happy to see them embark on a new project that so benefits downtown Spokaloo. Their dedication and devotion to Spokane is admirable. They poured me a great cuppa Joe too. Come for the coffee, stay to read the wallpaper: The entirety of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is pasted up on one wall!

Second is Madeleine's Cafe and Patisserie at 707 West Main, about two blocks away from Atticus. Our good friends Tod Marshall and Amy Sinnisterra recommended it for breakfast and it did not disappoint. I had french toast topped with whipped cream and berries (shared..no, GAVE them to Ian) and K had, if memory serves, something with cinnamon and apples piled on it. I need to return and explore their menu further. Here's their very attractive website: http://www.madeleines-spokane.com/ Koehler said he wants to make a Spokane North Idaho excursion down memory lane sometime this summer and I want to tag along. Maybe then, eh?

Speaking of Koehler, here's a link to his site and some pics from his book tour. The hand holding the mug of coffee is, predictably, yours truly: http://jeff-koehler.com/?p=286. The pear painting is mine too.

CD

Let me toss this on here for good measure

2009-11-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

The Columbia Writers Series Presents
Author and Clark College English Professor

David Oates

~ FREE: Thursday, November 19th, 12:00 noon, in the Cannell Room of Clark College’s Cannell Library

David Oates will read from and discuss SteelHead, a work in progress that presents the life story of Ranald “Tole” MacDonald, a half-Chinook, half-Scot adventurer who, in 1848, smuggled himself into still-closed Japan – years ahead of Commodore Perry's famous gunship "opening." From Fort Vancouver MacDonald had travelled halfway around the world searching for what he imagined was the racial/ancestral home of his own, vanishing, Chinook people. Welcomed, but imprisoned in Nagasaki, MacDonald taught fourteen of the Emperor's best scholars, so that Perry later found himself greeted by English-speaking Japanese – MacDonald's students.

In addition, Oates will be reading from his latest book, What We Love Will Save Us. In this collection of brief, intense lyrical essays, Oates finds wildness and grace breaking out in unexpected places – from city streets to mountain peaks – offering a crucial balance to his dramatically personal account of what it has been like to be a "citizen of the regime" during eight years of unprecedented propaganda, torture, waste, and war. What is the right response, when the government that belongs to us goes seriously off course? How does a person's private and creative life relate to the life we share in common? Readable, memorable, smart but straight from the heart – these essays give voice to our shared experience of a dark and frustrating time in the nation's life. This book is about keeping faith and experiencing darkness:

There's a random dangerous rightness abroad in this wide shining world. It's a rightness, not a correctness. We don't need so much to counter other people's errors as to bring the light and joy of that right and beautiful world: what we desire for our planet and ourselves. What we are doing instead of hating and denying and bombing.
Our job is to work on what we love. Daily. With precision and determination.

~About the author:
David Oates writes nonfiction and poetry about urban life and the natural world. Most recently he explored the urban experience in City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary. In his ground-breaking book Paradise Wild: Reimagining American Nature he challenged environmental sacred cows. His personal essays are widely read in newspapers, through Writers on the Range Syndicate, and in popular, environmental, and scholarly periodicals, including Creative Nonfiction, Earth Island Journal, Orion (forthcoming), High Country News, Northern Lights, etc. In Portland he teaches the Wild Writers Seminar and writing courses at Clark College, Marylhurst University, and (starting in Summer of 2010) Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Author's website: http://www.davidoates.info/.

~Praise from advance readers:
"What We Love Will Save Us is a journey. David Oates knows what kind of place he’s looking for—a place for hope and truth, imagination and renewal. What We Love Will Save Us is. . . compact and expansive, erudite and carnal, playful and angry and full of subjunctive dreaming and inescapable facts."
– Ana Maria Spagna, author of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: a Daughter's Civil Rights Journey and Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw.

"Personal honesty, humor, zinger endings. . . This is a stirring, creative collection of essays stoked with ideas, some of them urgently of our time and place, some timeless. People with regard for language will reread passages for their genuinely beautiful writing. I got a lump in my throat (and had to take a walk) after I read the final six words: 'Brief lists, perseverance, and long vistas.' AMEN. A mantra for our century."
– Jeff Gersh, founder and principal of NarrativeLab Communications

"There is a tightly wound lyricism to these very American essays, crafted out of bumps and bruises and sheer joys. David Oates is a writer companion you'll want to have as you hike across this beleaguered planet – testy on the switchbacks but more than congenial around the fire; at the end of the day, he always chooses the best campsite."
– Paul J. Willis, author of Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild.

More Days Like This One, Please...

2009-11-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

Many blogacious things to note here at the Dabbler. Hope I can remember them all...

Last Saturday (Nov. 7) was a perfect example of a great Dabbler day. K, Ian, and I went to our favorite French bakery in a.m., St. Honore (in Lake O [also in Nwst]) for coffee and almond croissants, then proceeded to George Morland's where we investigated faucets. Ian was in absolute heaven, fiddling around with all the fixtures, the rows of bath tubs, and the toilets with automatic seat lifters. We noticed, too, that there was a frame shop and gallery across the street, Katayama, so we ducked in there after Morland's and found it to be a wonderful place--great displays of Oregon artists both past and present (Hank Kowert, Maude Kerns, Amanda Snyder, James Lavadour, among others), and an excellent gallery attached, Murdoch Collections, exhibiting the works of NYC/PDX sculptor and painter David Hacker.

Here's wikp on him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hacker.
Here's the Murdoch site: http://murdochcollections.com/.
And here's a little something on Katayama: http://katayamaframing.com/. Love their front door!

Ian discovered Tinker Toys in a kiddie korner at Katayama and let us know in no uncertain terms that separating him from them was an atrocity unparalleled in human history. (We know what he's getting for Xmas!) After the wonderful Katayama visit , we wandered next door to the building's open garage and found a new--less than a month old--fish 'n' chips stand: The Frying Scotsman. We had excellent haddock and chips, served up by a freshly arrived broguing son of Alba.

But the big event of the day was the arrival of Jeff Koehler for his book party at Vino. He arrived mid-day with his folks, Joanne and Bill--great to see them. We met down at Vino, where he'd read later at 7:00, and visited with Bruce Bauer, Vino's proprietor, and ate tacos from Kiko's, the fab cart across the street. We then went home and let Jeff relax and settle in; we drank a bottle of Beaux Freres 2005 Pinot Noir, which was effing gorgeous. At close to 7:00 we were at Vino again and greeting people coming to the reading (many were friends and relatives of Jeff), sipping Bruce's wine, and flipping through the Jeff's book Rice, Pasta, Couscous. He gave his talk from 7:30 to 8:30, telling great stories about how the book came to be, the research process he went through, including travelling to many amazing Mediterranean locales, and reading some of the short narratives that accompany the recipes. It was a hugely entertaining talk and Jeff is a great storyteller. He sold 40 plus books, too.

After, we went to dinner with Bruce and his wife Wendy. Our reservation at Beaker and Flask got lost in the shuffle, so we ended up in the cafe section of Castagna, which was just fine. More wine flowed, conversation followed; I ate Alsatian sausages in a broth; K had coq au vin, Jeff a good ol' American hamburger, which he'd been craving.

All in all, what a terrific day: we got to discover new art and new food, see old friends, and hear great stories. What more could we ask?

***

In the a.m. Sunday, fueled by K's amazing rosemary buttermilk biscuits, Jeff and I visited Powell's where we surreptitiously snapped photos of his book on the shelves and planted advertising cards in various spots around the store. I bought 3 more of Paul Collins' books (more on this later, perhaps). We met Joanne and Bill again at the Pearl Bakery, and there I said goodbye to Jeff. He's off to SF and Seattle for more readings. He was going to see our old friend Tod Marshall read poetry in Seattle later that day. Good timing, eh?

Adeu,
CD

Here's a painting by Hacker. Somewhere in the DeKooning, Pollack, Johns, Dine universe, eh?:

What Cheer, My Love?

2009-10-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

A strange synchronicity occured yesterday that is worth musing over here. I'm fascinated by the little moment in 1.1.122 of A Midsummer Night's Dream when Theseus, having stood behind Egeus' stupidly selfish decision to force his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius or "die the death", says to his bride-to-be, Hippolyta, "What cheer, my love?" From the script we have no idea what he's responding to, but most directors make Hippolyta quite upset with Theseus over his standing up for the "law" rather than "justice". Presumably she is pouting or fuming or sighing or drooping or all of the above.

But as my thoughts were thus directed, I came upon the little crumb of poetic wit sent to me by Kate Scrivener and included in yesterday's post. I did a quick search of David McCord and found out what I thought was his pseudonym: "What Cheer"! This spurred me to wiki him and find related links. I looked up What Cheer but found no reference to McCord. I then Googled his real name and found that What Cheer was, in fact, the title of a volume of his poetry. Oops. (but wouldn't make a great pseudonym? Squirrel that away for safe keeping.)

But the wiki entry on What Cheer turned up this gorgeous bit of folksy numbskullery (I've found that if Wikp is good for anything it's as a kind of vast e-version of "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable"--a treasure house of the bogus):

"What Cheer (pronounced 'WAH-cheer') is a city in Keokuk County, Iowa, United States. The population was 678 at the 2000 census.

"What Cheer is named for a Native American greeting used in the area of modern-day Rhode Island during the 1600s. In 1636, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island who left Salem, Massachusetts to seek religious freedom, landed at modern-day Providence and was greeted by Narragansett Native Americans with "What Cheer, Netop". Netop was the Narragansett word for friend, and What Cheer was an old English greeting brought to New England by English settlers. Over time, the story of Williams' welcome was absorbed into the legend of Providence.
When the future What Cheer was founded, it was named Petersburg for Peter Britton, the settlement's founder. The What Cheer story and name was brought to Iowa by Joseph Andrews, a major and veteran of the American Civil War in 1864. Andrews was a native of Providence and offered the name of What Cheer for a post office in the town in 1866. Petersburg was officially renamed What Cheer on December 1, 1879."

CD

Link to a NYT article on Anglo-Catholics

2009-10-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a much more mature commentary from the NY Times on the Vatican's recent announcement regarding Anglo-Catholics than my snotty little post of a few days ago. (I still stand by my snotty little post, however.) In any case, read these pov's for a rounder sense of the issue than I'm capable of giving (at present, anyway):

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/why-the-vatican-wants-anglicans/?ex=1271822400&en=d4d612a417bd9745&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M120-ROS-1009-L1&WT.mc_ev=click#david

CD

What cheer

2009-10-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

This from my colleague and dear friend Kate Scrivener; she in turn quoting her dear departed mother Mildred Lucele Grotbek, who is quoting American poet David McCord (Portland native, btw):

“The decent docent doesn’t doze – she teaches standing on her toes.
The student dasn’t doze, but does – so teaching is and always was.”

CD

To Barry and Jacque: All my Love to You Both.

2009-10-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

God Be Praised!

2009-10-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

So the Vatican has decided to hand the Anglicans an absolute gift! It has been announced that any Anglicans dissatisfied with the Anglican Communion over the ordination of women or gays are now welcome to receive communion in the Roman Catholic Church, which will, in fact, now recognize Anglican-style worship as well.

Wonderful! Stupendous! Outstanding! Fantastic! Thank you thank you thank you!

Take all the misogynists and the homophobes! Take them, have them, clutch them to the bosom of mother church. They're yours!

Now the Anglicans can get on with Christ's work and not have to spend anymore valuable time and energy appeasing the conservative bigots in their midst.

As I said, a gift.

Come to Papa my little darlings! Come give Papa a kiss. See? I'm not so scary after all.

CD

As Promised: My Andouillette Story

2009-10-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Really, I admire the French. They've given the world champaigne, Chartres Cathedral, Edgar Degas, the French symbolists, Jeanne Moreau, and pommes frites. What more could we reasonably ask of them? So I'm not bitching, per se, about this meal--I've had thousands of bad meals in my life in places that weren't France and never blogged about any of them--but I must say, to have an inedible meal in France is tuly painful. To have it at a restaurant that you truly love is doubly painful. And I suppose to have it as your "one night out" in Paris sans baby is trebly painful.

The restaurant in question was Le Dix Vins, only a block away from the Hotel Innova, off the Blvd. Pasteur at 57 rue Falguiere (M: Pasteur). It's a place we ate at twice before on a trip in 2006 and loved. It's rated highly in most guides--an informal and affordable place with great food, pleasant service, and Parisian ambience. I still highly recommend it--they seem to do everything well. I'm sure they did what I ordered "well" too, according to French standards. But of course, I wouldn't really know because such food defies my simple standards of what is consumable. So, dear Dabbler reader, know that I'm not dissing Le Dix Vins itself, but the subculture which gave us this dish. And also know that I'm having trouble reconciling the exquisite French culinary tradition with, what I can only call, a French culinary outrage.

When I saw andouillette with mustard sauce on the menu I assumed it was a sausage similar to andouille--the smoky, rich, spicy sausage we get here in the states often enough. When I ordered it, the waiter--who couldn't (or wouldn't) speak a lick of Anglais--rolled his eyes a little and pointed at his stomach. Being a stoopid 'merikan, I thought he meant it would be a big portion and I'd better be hungry. Non, non, le andouillette, sill voo platt! Bring it! But after he'd gone, K suggested that he might have been trying to indicate the portion of the pig's anatomy the sausage came from. What, the intestine? I said. Well, I've had tripe and haggis and things like that plenty of times and it hasn't grossed me out. So, what of it? (I wasn't excited about my choice, I confess, but hey, it was France.) I'd love it.

My plate arrived--on it were a sausage covered with seedy mustard sauce and a couple lovely veggie sides. It looked wonderful. But lurking behind the mustard odor was something... something earthy, something musky, something...something...? Yes, the more I sniffed at it, the more clearly I registered it: The sausage made from a pig's intestine smelled a lot like the contents of a pig's intestine. My plate smelled, literally, like a barnyard.

But trying my best at being the open-minded, non-ugly American I so want to be, I said to myself: A barnyard, perhaps, but a French barnyard! And there's a big differance between a Tennessee barnyard and a Provencal barnyard, yes? I fortified myself with positive thoughts. I've eaten Rocky Mountain oysters, right? I've eaten beef tongue and chicken feet and steak tartare, right? I love stinky cheese, right? I've eaten cheese that smelled like old gym socks that'd been farted out of a goat, right? I can DO this.

I ventured forth. I took a forkfull in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed. I took another. Another...

And that was it. I'd met my match. No more thank you very much. Not for me. Nuh-uh. Care for a bite K? (She took a nibble.) No? Well, that's a first. K's met her match too.

It sat there stinking on my plate like a raw turd for the next half an hour. I drank a bottle of white wine to clear out the lingering flavor. Couldn't get rid of it. I ate the side dishes slowly, squishing food around my mouth, cleansing my palate. Nope, still there. The waiter came by and looked pityingly at me. I said with a chagrined chuckle, "Too strong." He gave a Gallic shrug and took the plate away. Thank effing God.

What more can I say? Research I've conducted since my arrival home has revealed that the sausage is made up of the lower portion of the pig's colon and that the reason it smells like pig shit is because the tissue there becomes infused with the enzymes that make pig shit smell like pig shit. For me, that's too close for comfort. I was informed also that there's an elaborate cleaning process for the sausage's contents prior to stuffing, which makes sense. However, I'd have appreciated knowing that as I went back to my room that night: I was deeply afeared that I'd actually eaten uncleaned pig anus and that I might give a midnight demonstration to my wife of a "technicolor yawn."

Curiously, the French have a society called (as if to heap absurdity upon absurdity) the A.A.A.A.A. It's the Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentiques: the Friendly Association of Authentic Andouillette Lovers. Apparently, this group accredits makers of andouillette for marketing purposes. I suppose it's nice to know that there's an organization out there making sure we don't eat shit-laced pig colon, but I'd like to see the criteria they follow when evaluating the quality of the dish they so love. Criterion Number One, Odor. Circle one: 1 Excellent: Smells like shit; 2 Good: Smells more like shit than food; 3 Average: Smells more like food than shit; 4 Poor: Smells rather like food; 5 Disgusting: This is simply food. Merde!

Adieu,
CD

Wordstock

2009-10-14T19:53:00.001-07:00

I attended the final two hours of the Wordstock festival last Sunday at Portland's Convention Center. There seemed to be fewer booths this year and fewer interesting ones (it's the economy, stupid!) and thus I was a little bummed. I did get to see the back of Sherman Alexie's head as he signed books for folks, and then I poked into the finish of the Shawn Levy reading--enjoying his Q&A session wherein he answered questions about his new biography of Paul Newman. What I was there for mostly, however, was Paul Collins' reading/presentation from his new book, The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World. He read some entertaining passages, told us some fun stories about his research process and some juicy tidbits about the world of Folio collecting, rare book auctions, and publishing in WS's day. Afterwards, I shook his hand and told him I was the emailer who invited him a couple days ago to Clark College for a reading in Feb. "Stalker!" he cried. "Help! Help! Police! This man has been sending me harassing emails and now he's here to steal my life! He claims that I'm living the life that was meant for HIM!: writing books which explore the obscure corners of the literary world and the lives of oddball characters from history, talking about antiquarian books on NPR, teaching at a Portland university, writing regularly for McSweeney's, and editing the Paul Collins library of rare and out of print books for them! Arrest him at once! Help!" Of course, it was minutes before the festival was closing and there was no one around to hear the muffled cries...

A New Who Review, Comin' Right At You...

2009-10-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

I often find amazing customer reviews on various shopping sites, but always forget to save them and share them. Here's one to savor: A review of The Who By Numbers, by "a kid". Enjoy:

"I have vivvid memoriess of my father playin sevral music record from his one collexion by the 70/80 poprock group Numbers. They were an american ensemble of four or five members and played to rock the place. I believe they had 3 or maybe 2 dics before the contract broke after illusory troubles. Anyway I found this CD of the band called The Who? A strangest title but I thought let's play it. Well my conviction is it is rather bad and stupid, totally unlike the discs my fathers used to have about Numbers. I am thinking it must be another group. This doesnot rock at all!!! The lirrics are undetectabe and sound silly and the purformance is really like bad. Avoid this bad music and search for good stuff by the original band Numbers."

Books and Writers Round-up

2009-10-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to websites discussing books by friends and acquaintances:

Lynn Jeffress, who I have written about recently in this blog, has a book available from Wild Ocean Press called The Dali Code and Other Paris Stories. Learn about Lynn, her book, and the press here: http://wildoceanpress.com/index.html

My friend and colleague David Oates' new book of essays, What We Love Will Save Us, is out now from Kelson Books; learn all about it here: http://www.whatwelovewillsaveus.com/. David, I should mention, is also scheduled to read at Clark College Thurs., Nov. 19, as part of the Columbia Writers Series. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Finally, I'm extremely pleased to have penciled in Portland State University professor Paul Collins for a reading at Clark sometime in winter term, probably February. Collin's new book, The Book of William: How Shakespeare's Folio Conquered the World, caught my eye at a bookstore the other day and compelled me to contact him to see if he'd cross the river for an appearance. I'm overjoyed that he's taken me up on the offer. You can find his books on amazon and references to him all over the net (even wikp), but a great place to begin with him is his blog, which can be found in my blog list: Weekend Stubble. Click there and enter the wonderful world of Paul Collins, professor, author, editor, radio personality, and antiquarian book lover. He'll be at Portland's Wordstock Festival, by the way, Sunday at 5:00 pm at the Powell's stage. I'm planning on being there...

Link

2009-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a fine article defending, sort of, a great American institution:
http://chronicle.com/article/Confessions-of-a-Middlebrow/48644.

I would love it for this sentence alone:

"We are increasingly ignorant, but we do not know enough to be properly ashamed."

CD

Three Recent Viewings

2009-10-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006). Jokes usually don't translate very well, but this little parody of a popular French spy series fares better than you might suppose. I won't burden you with the details of the plot, which are beyond absurd; just know that this is to the French what Austin Powers was to the English and Americans. **1/2

Bottle Shock (2008). This David and Goliath story tells of how a small Napa Valley winery beat the pants off their snobby French competition in a taste-off in 1976. It's long on pretty pictures of vines and California hills and short on story and interesting characters. Really, all we care about is the taste-test--The Judgment of Paris. Spare us the love triangle, the prodigal son subplot, the twitty Englishman fumbling around SoCal, the speeches from the self-righteous, Mexican-American with supernatural taste-buds (I paraphrase: "You people, you think you can buy your way into making great wine? You've got to have it in your blood, man!"). Chris Pine, who makes a fine smart-alecky Captain Kirk makes a pretty good smart-alecky prodigal son here but for the awful wig they make him wear. Why do filmmakers insist on wigs? **

Rocknrolla (2008). Directed by Guy Ritchie. If he'd never made Snatch and Lock Stock I probably would've liked this more. It's clear that Ritchie's intention after the misfire of Revolver (and whatever that movie with Madge was called) was to return to the darkly humorous Brit gangster world he inhabited so well in the earlier movies. However, this just seems like a retread of Snatch--the plot has the same circular structure as Snatch, but in this case a priceless (and never seen) painting stands in for Snatch's bazillion carat diamond. One could almost substitute the casts part for part--except for the one principal female part Thandie Newton plays: she's a Russian mobster's accountant, chic, cool, smart, and sexy as all get-out (Pencil skirts! Yowza!). Gerard Butler plays the hunk of haggis who gets to sleep with her. Ach! **1/2

Ciao,
CD

Some Photos

2009-10-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a small selection of photos from our recent trip in August and September. Our itinerary took us to London, Stratford Upon Avon, the Cotswolds (Stow on the Wold), Bath, Salisbury, Paris, and London again.

Here's a little relief in the wall at Hall's Croft in Stratford (once the home of Shakespeare's son-in-law, John Hall):

An arbor tunnel in the knot garden at New Place, the site where Shakespeare's house once stood:

K and Ian in front of the Stratford grammar school:

The knot garden at New Place:

Fosse Manor, our hotel in Stow on the Wold (we stayed in the carriage house in back--equally charming):

Ian and I at Bath, standing above the Roman Baths with Bath Abbey behind us:

Ian eating a Cornish pasty in a park in Bath and obviously loving it!

A lovely street in Salisbury:

Stonehenge, where the demons dwell / Where the banshees live and they do live well / Stonehenge, where a man's a man / and the children dance to the pipes of Pan!:

Salisbury cathedral:

The Eurostar platform at London's King's Cross / St. Pancras station:

Ian and K on a carousel in the Tuileries gardens in Paris:

Ian and ice cream cone in the Tuileries gardens. That's the Louvre behind him!:

Paris sunrise out of our window at the Hotel Innova on Blvd. Pasteur:

I'll post more one of these days along with a story or two. Wait until you here about my adventure with andouillette!

Some things I like and a picture of Ian. What else?

2009-10-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

It must seem as though I promote the same dozen places over and over again, but so be it. I have my routines and when I see something groovy happening at them I must tell the world! Coffee Plant in Portland's John's Landing has new art up on the walls (for Oct., I gather): Space Monkey Designs, featuring the visual stylings of Brian Kappel. They are a series of large wooden pieces made to look like vintage advertisements for nonexistent (I assume) taverns, businesses, and products. They are great gobs of fun and worth a look. Visit Space Monkey here: http://www.spacemonkeydesigns.com/main.html.

Ian and I dropped in at Chrisman in Sellwood the other day and saw Nate Praska's paintings, since we were unable to go to the opening last Fri. Excellent work, of course, with a (new?) emphasis on people--people milling around on the street or at the open air market, etc. It made me realize that he seldom depicted people in the other works I've seen of his. But my faves were the still-lifes and the two nocturnes hanging in the windows. Well done, Mr. "stretch your own canvas, build your own frames" Praska.

Here's a damn funny little essay from the lovable Mr. Stephen Fry: http://www.stephenfry.com/2009/09/18/a-tale-of-two-cities/

Here's a damn funny, "spot-on", would-be Trader Joe's commercial from someone: http://www.wikio.com/video/802090

And here's a cuter than should ever be allowed picture of Ian listening to the siren-song of gay Paree:

Adieu,

Lynn, Paris, Book

2009-09-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

As you know, I like to promote my writer friends, so allow me to direct you to this blog http://www.ipreferparis.net/ on which my friend and former "Caverns" comrade Lynn Jeffress published this piece: http://www.ipreferparis.net/2009/05/-new-monthly-feature-my-private-eye.html. We saw Lynn when we were in Paris on Sept 7-9 and visited the very Ile St. Louis boulangerie featured in the little article. It was all part of a couple of fun days wandering around Paris parks and streets. On this trip we hardly did any interior sight-seeing--we just kept out of doors (splendid weather) and loved the hell out of the place.

Lynn is currently stateside, too, and at the Oregon coast where we plan to see her tomorrow, in fact. She's excited about her first book of short stories, "The Dali Code," which is scheduled for release soon (she just finished editing the proofs). Look for it.

Here's Ian and K in front of a certain tall object made of iron.

Adieu,

Anglo-Saxon Find

2009-09-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd direct folks to this story: An exciting find of Anglo-Saxon artifacts in Staffordshire:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm

Amazing. And the best thing about it is that it was discovered by a lowly metal detector hobbyist--you know, one of those guys who likes to spend his weekends walking beaches or empty pastures looking for people's dropped jewelry. Well, read it and weep people. This man's going to be very rich indeed!

I think it's appropriate for me to quote They Might Be Giants at this point:

"'Cause I've got something to make you understand
Something hidden there underneath the land
My metal detector
Is with me all of the time
I'm the inspector over the mine
Metal detector, watch it shine

"Every seashell has a story to tell if you're listening
But underneath every shell there's a story as well if you've heard enough of the sea
Then everything on the top will just suddenly stop seeming interesting
So listen now to the sound of the things that are found underground"

Adios.

Koehler at Vino Nov. 7

2009-09-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

Jeff Koehler, author of the new cook book "Rice, Pasta, Couscous," will be in Portland November 7 and will make an appearance at Vino in Sellwood. Learn more about Jeff and his work in my link in "You Should Know About" over to the right, and learn more about Vino here: http://www.vinobuys.com/

I love it when I introduce my favorite people to each other and they hit it off. In this case, about a year ago I introduced Jeff to Bruce Bauer (of Vino) and they traded wine and recipes. Now they're coordinating an event together. How cool is that? Here is Bruce's blog too: http://wineguyworld.blogspot.com/

Ciao,
Jim

Plug and Pics

2009-09-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Think I'll also give a plug to an upcoming show at the Chrisman Gallery and frame shop in Sellwood. From Sept. 25 to Oct. 25 they'll be hanging works by hugely talented (and maddeningly young) Portland painter Nathaniel C. Praska. You can see his work at the Attic Gallery in Portland (look in the "You Should Know About" list to the right). He makes his own frames for God's sake.

Here's Ian and K in Trafalgar Square. That's 100% bronze lion fur behind him.

Cheerio, Old Bean!

I'm Back!

2009-09-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hoo-boy, that last post was wishful thinking. Many weeks since I last blogged. Now I'm once more poised on the brink of a new school year after an exciting summer of online teaching, travelling, and parenting. Maybe some of those summer activities will make the Dabbler; maybe not. For now, I'll just pick up as though I never left...

One of my favorite coffee spots in southwest Portland, Coffee Plant (in John's Landing), is currently featuring wonderful panorama photographs of Portland all done by Stuart Allen Levy, whose website, http://www.stuartallenlevy.com/file/Portland_Panoramas.html#25, features many of the Portland photos as well as some from Eastern Oregon and San Francisco. I'm quite impressed by them and encourage all Portlanders and visitors to stop in at Coffee Plant over the next month and take a look.

Other news: Food and travel writer (and friend of mine) Jeff Koehler will be coming to town in early November promoting his new cookbook/culture study "Rice, Pasta, Couscous". It looks as though he'll be setting up an event at Vino (SE 13th and Lexington in Sellwood) on the weekend of Nov. 7. Stay tuned for more info on that. In the meantime, visit Jeff's site, linked in my "You Should Know About" list over there to the right.

What else? Read Michael Gruber's book "The Forgery of Venus" while gallavanting around England and Paris between Aug. 27 and Sept. 10. I'll call it a beaching man's think read. Good fun to be reading it whilst seeing the Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery, London (that painting and the life of Velasquez is central to the book's plot). Is it too much (or too little...or too insulting? whatever) to call Gruber the American Arturo Perez-Reverte? That's my feeling at the moment.

Saw the current North Bank Artists Gallery show yesterday in Vancouver WA and quite enjoyed it, especially the two still lifes in the window by Char Fitzpatrick, friend of my colleague Don Erskine and his wife Jane. See some of Char's wonderful work here: http://www.northbankartistsgallery.com/fitzpatrick.htm.

Anything else? Probably, but I'l back off for now and leave you with an Ian pic. I took him strollering around London one day. He fell asleep on the tube and woke up in Trafalgar Square. Here he is enjoying his nap in Piccadilly Circus. Silly boy.

Ciao!

2009-06-08T13:16:00.001-07:00

Sorry to whomever follows this blog that I have not been doing much blogging lately. I swear, however, that once the term ends and the flood of papers has subsided I will be back in proper blogging trim. So many wonderful bloggeriffic things have happened over the past few weeks too: Obama's speech in Cairo; my (re)viewing of Logan's Run, King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong Escapes, Danger: Diabolik, and Barbarella; a new show at Beppu Wiarda gallery featuring paintings by my teacher, Arvie Smith; Ian's new strides in vocabulary--including such words as gobbysuck, e-daddy, tunno, and buppy-goggy; my spins of the album "Logan's Sanctuary" by electronica duo Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. and Brian Reitzell; and many many more things...

Until I come back, here's a photo of Ian to hold you over:

2009-05-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

Few things are funnier than watching conservatives implode. Read the following description of a National Review writer's mental disintegration:

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/05/27/pronouncing_sotomayor/

CD

My 100th Post! So enjoy this picture of Dolly:

2009-05-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

From left to right...

2009-05-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Brendon Fraser, Jimmy Kimmel, and Peter Sellers (in "What's Up Pussy Cat?")

CD

Eat them up yum!

2009-04-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

No, I won't apologize "in advance" for providing the following link to one of the most influential videos ever produced. Nor will I say "I'm sorry" for putting into your head a diabolical tune generated in the head of the known psychotic Larry "Wild Man" Fischer. Nor will I feel the least need to "defend" my exposing you to the earliest directorial work of the great Bill Paxton (he of "Aliens" fame--"Game over man, game over!"). Nor will I justify "in any way" my preoccupation with absurd connections, such as that between Bill Mumy (the kid from "Lost in Space") and the Lost Continent of Lumania. Suffice it to say, the following link will be both edifying and terrifying (often in the same split instant) and the sooner you get used to the idea, the better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpUVAcvWfU&feature=related

So there. No need to say "Enjoy!" because you won't. But you will thank me, in due time...
CD

Ian McEwan

2009-04-27T13:10:00.001-07:00

Here's a fantastic essay from James Wood writing in the London Review of Books on the work and methods of my favorite contemporary novelist, Ian McEwan: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n08/wood02_.html It's forcing me to re-evaluate my reaction to Atonement, a novel whose ending I, indeed, felt tricked by. My favorite bit (spoiler alert):

"On the last two pages of the novel, of course, McEwan lays bare his final secret: Robbie died at Dunkirk on 1 June 1940, and Cecilia was killed in the same year by a bomb in Balham. The lovers never united. Briony invented their happiness as an act of novelistic atonement for her earlier act of novelistic failure.

"Plenty of readers are irritated by this conjuring trick. But if Briony made it all up, so did we. If the desperation of both her guilt and her wish fulfilment stirs us, it is because, by way of McEwan’s delayed revelation, by way of his narrative secret, we have ourselves conspired in Briony’s wish fulfilment, not just content but eager to believe, until the very last moment, that Cecilia and Robbie did not actually die. We wanted them to be alive, and the knowledge that we too wanted a ‘happy ending’ brings on a kind of atonement for the banality of our own literary impulses. Which is why the ending provokes interestingly divergent responses: it alienates some conventional readers, who dislike what they feel to be a trick, but it alienates some sophisticated readers, who also dislike what they feel to be a trick; and I suspect that the estrangement of both camps has to do with their guilt at having been moved by the novel’s conventional romantic power. It shouldn’t be possible, but Atonement wants to have it both ways, and succeeds in having it both ways. It is Ian McEwan’s best book because it successfully prosecutes and defends – as inevitable – the very impulses that make McEwan such a compellingly manipulative novelist; and because it makes us willing, guilty, and finally self-conscious co-conspirators in that machinery of manipulation."

Enjoy,

Problems with Theory

2009-04-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a good little essay by Prof. Mark Edmundson concerning the dangers of constantly reading literature from strictly theoretical approaches: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i33/33b00601.htm

He articulates ideas that I have thought through many times (see my entry for June 24, 2008). My favorite bit:

"When you launch, say, a Marxist reading of William Blake, you effectively use Marx as a tool of analysis and judgment. To the degree that Blake anticipates Marx, Blake is prescient and to be praised. Thus the Marxist reading approves of Blake for his hatred of injustice; his polemic against imperialism; his suspicion of the gentry; his critique of bourgeois art as practiced by the likes of Sir Joshua Reynolds. But Blake, being Blake, also diverges from Marx. He is, presumably, too committed to something akin to liberal individualism; he doesn't understand the revolutionary potential latent in the proletariat; he is, perhaps, an idealist, who believes that liberation of consciousness matters more, or at least must precede, material liberation; he has no clear theory of class conflict. Thus Blake, admirable as he may be, needs to be read with skepticism; he requires a corrective, and the name of that corrective is Karl Marx. Just so, the corrective could be called Jacques Derrida (who would illuminate Blake the logocentrist); Foucault (who would demonstrate Blake's immersion in and implicit endorsement of an imprisoning society); Kristeva (who would be attuned to Blake's imperfections on the score of gender politics), and so on down the line. The current sophisticated critic would be unlikely to pick one master to illuminate the work at hand — he would mix and match as the occasion required. But to enact a reading means to submit one text to the terms of another; to allow one text to interrogate another — then often to try, sentence, and summarily execute it.

"The problem with the Marxist reading of Blake is that it robs us of some splendid opportunities. We never take the time to arrive at a Blakean reading of Blake, and we never get to ask whether Blake's vision might be true — by which I mean, following William James, whether it's good in the way of belief. The moment when the student in the classroom, or the reader perusing the work can pause and say: "Yes, that's how it is; Blake's got it exactly right," disappears."

Enjoy,

CD

What's In A Name?

2009-04-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I was sitting in a cinema watching the film "Prizzi's Honor," John Houston's darkly charming mob romance. At some point in the story, the old Sicilian mafia boss played by the great William Hickey, erupts with anger on hearing that one of his underlings is hiding out under the alias "Finley": "Finley? Finley?" he shouts with incredulity. "What kind of a name is 'Finley'!?!?" It was as though someone had flung a spit-wad in my face. My date sitting beside me melted into laughter.

So imagine my delight when I recently found out that an Italian pop group is my namesake? (Or rather NBA star Michael Finley's namesake, but no matter...) However, I admit I'm more interested in buying one of their T-shirts than one of their CDs.

Read about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finley_(band).

Visit them here: http://www.finley.it/ and here: http://www.myspace.com/finleymusic

Ciao!
CD

Recent Viewings

2009-04-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

More (1969). Directed by Barbet Schroeder. Last year, as I went through a pre-Darkside of the Moon Pink Floyd kick—a world of incredible music that I’d never explored very carefully until now—I found out about the Floyd’s soundtrack to a fairly obscure film called, simply, More. I loved the psychedelic sounds and grew interested in the film after reading a synopsis of it in the CD’s liner notes. It’s generally available now (I ordered it from Netflix) and I’m glad I saw it. A 60’s cautionary tale (I suppose) about the dangers of drug addiction, More tells us the story of a German youth who gets caught up with junkies and thieves in swinging London and then follows a gorgeous femme fatale (Mimsy Farmer--what a great name!) to Ibiza only to be drawn into the circle of a powerful drug dealer and fall under heroin’s spell himself. Though the plot is rather predictable and at times the acting seems amateurish and the dialogue dubbed (can that be Jenny Agutter's voice dubbed over Mimsy's? Naw...), the film is full of beautiful images and interesting music; the often gritty realism and honest depiction of drug use and addiction gets, if you'll pardon the expression, under your skin.

Quantum of Solace (2008). Directed by Marc Forster. What’s great about the Bond phenomenon is everyone has his or her own preferences and can claim expertise. Me? I’m a Connery man, especially the first four. After Thunderball? Meh, things get less and less interesting, culminating in some of the suckiest celluloid ever exposed: Moonraker. Timothy Dalton’s films had potential but each misfired, badly; Pierce Brosnan always seemed too pretty, but I liked him more as his face aged and creased (I’ve often thought his best turn as Bond was in The Thomas Crowne Affair). Weirdly, of all the post-Thunderball films, I think On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is probably the best. George Lazenby could have pulled it all off had he been in there before Connery. (Interesting alternative history thesis there…) But Connery set the character and was the only one to truly own it until Daniel Craig came on the scene in Casino Royale and, along with director Martin Campbell, and writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis, gave this tiredest of film franchises a blood transfusion. Quantum of Solace, the sequel to Casino Royale, is unfortunately rather inferior to its predecessor, but still probably better than anything from You Only Live Twice forward. Yes, the plot is a little awkward and hard to follow, the film rushes at break-neck speed, and you can count the number of times Craig smiles on one and a half fingers, but the re-imagined Bond still works for me—he’s more physical and resourceful than gadgety, more brutal than sauve and, ultimately, more cold bastard than horny one. But that’s the character I remember from the books: an assassin with a gambling habit and good taste in booze, women, and cars.

Little Fugitive (1953). Directed by Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin. God bless TMC for running Morris Engel films of late. I’d never seen this early indie and was fascinated by it: a 7 year-old who believes he has accidentally killed his 12 year-old brother in a shooting accident (a practical joke) spends a day and a half wandering Coney Island. The best thing about this film (among its many great qualities) is its documentation of the world of Coney Island in the 1950’s: the rides, the games, the beach goers, the boardwalks, the cotton candy, the cokes, the sun-burnt skin. It’s a great bit of Americana, processed through a neo-realist / cinema verite sensibility approximating Roberto Rossellini’s. See this! I've DVR'd Engel's other two films Lovers and Lollipops (1956) and Weddings and Babies (1958) and am eager to watch. TCM is also running two short docs, one about Engel and the other about his wife, the outstanding photographer Ruth Orkin. I've seen them both now and they're superb. I'll say it again, God bless TCM.

Ciao,

Andre Lauran

2009-04-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

I'm back in classes now after a two-week vacation: two comps and a Brit Lit, and they are all three off to a fine start. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems are teed up for Monday, and I'm eager to swing.

I wanted to mention a fine mid-century French painter whose work I saw while in Ashland last weekend: Andre Lauran. I came across his work in a little boutique, the name of which I can't remember, just about a block south from the Ashland Springs Hotel. The picture was a street or park scene with figures--rather expressionistic. The impasto was thick and the colors very challenging (at least for the likes of me)--lights on lights--creamy greens, browns, yellows, blues. Somehow it all worked. The proprietor showed me a little booklet in French published in the 1990's about Lauran. The plates were wonderful and I would have bought it off her if it weren't the only copy she had. Some online searches have turned up some of Lauran's work and he seems to be rather sought after these days (I believe he passed away quite recently). Here's an example, rather brighter than what I saw. From this you'd think he's carrying the torch for Les Nabis!:

Anyway, there are more images on the web, esp. on Flickr, so check 'em out if you're so inclined. Curiously, displayed right beside him was a painting by his wife, or so the boutique owner informed me. The name on the picture was Veron (or Veran?). The painting's style was so similar to the Lauran that anyone would have assumed the two paintings were by the same artist. My searches on his wife, however, have been fruitless. It would be helpful if I had a full name. I quite enjoyed her work too.

Ciao,

Tod Marshall

2009-04-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

I'm very happy to report that my friend Tod Marshall will be arriving in town this weekend for a reading at Powell's on Hawthorne. Tod is the author of two volumes of poetry, "Dare Say" and "The Tangled Line", and of a book of interviews with contemporary poets "Range of the Possible." He's also the editor of "Range of Voices," an anthology companion to "Range of the Possible." I first met Tod in, if memory serves, 1990, when he was an MFA student at Eastern Washington University. Since then we have been close friends despite his move from Spokane to Tennessee and back and my move from Spokane to Chicago to Portland. I deeply admire his poetry--what I can only characterize as serious, modern, and metaphysical. (Note--not postmodern.) I'm overjoyed that he and his wife Amy (a wonderful photographer) will be here. For more on Tod and his work visit Amazon and the link in my You Should Know About column. Also just Googling him turns up some interesting things, such as the following (which contains a copyright infringing duplication of one of his fine fine poems): http://dwitkowski.blogspot.com/2009/03/tangled-line-by-tod-marshall-from.html

Amy Sinisterra's work can be seen at her site: http://amysinisterra.com/. The kid photos are crazy good.

Come to Tod's reading, Monday, April 13, at Powell's on Hawthorne!

A sentence I didn't expect to hear today:

2009-04-08T12:33:00.001-07:00

Dude, an octopus can kick a tiger's ass any day of the week.

~CD

Of Camera Vans and Comedy

2009-04-06T14:15:00.001-07:00

K , Ian, G-Ma, and I just returned from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland yesterday. Saturday night K and G-ma watched "Macbeth" while I watched Ian (a kind of Scottish play all unto himself). Then Sunday K and I watched Giovanni Goldoni's commedia dell'arte-inspired "A Servant of Two Masters" while G-ma watched Ian (a kind of commedia all unto himself). A fine time was had by all. We stayed at the venerable Ashland Springs Hotel and between performances ate over-priced food and browsed through over-priced boutiques and bookstores.

I must say, I found "Servant" to be an absolute joy of a production. I haven't laughed so hard in the theatre in years and I highly recommend it. Here's a link to a review by Bill Varble of the MailTribune:http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090330/NEWS/903300310

The Ashland Independent Film Festival was going too, but we didn't attend any of the screenings or lectures (though I was sorely tempted to see Elvis Mitchell speak). However, the cinema next door to the hotel was playing several of the films (all?) and parked out front was a van covered with cameras--the Camera Van--a vehicle featured in the film "Automorphosis," a documentary about crazily decorated cars or some such thing. The filmmaker, Harrod Blank, was staying in our hotel, and I frequently saw him in the lobby. Here's a link to his website. Check out the van. I'll download pictures of it one of these days as soon as I figure out how to download from my camera phone: http://www.automorphosis.com/

Ciao,
CD

Of Cobbes, glossarial sex, and, ahem, open endedness...

2009-04-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a further "further note" on the Cobbe Portrait and Shakespeare's sexuality from Ron Rosenbaum at Slate. A good little article, well worth the time: http://www.slate.com/id/2214734/.

Here's a taste that I found particularly delectible:

"Partridge says—as if it's a matter of principle or honor for him—that Shakespeare was nothing less than 100 percent heterosexual, but that he had an idiosyncratic and unspeakable heterosexual taste.

"And in a hilarious and yet somehow touching passage of sexual bardolatry, Partridge proclaims Shakespeare was not only good in bed but maybe the best there ever was. Shakespeare, Partridge tells us swooningly, 'was an exceedingly knowledgeable amorist, a versatile connoisseur, and a highly artistic, an ingeniously skillful, practitioner of lovemaking who could have taught Ovid more than that facile doctrinaire could have taught him; he evidently knew of, and he practiced, an artifice accessible to few—one that I cannot becomingly mention here, though I felt it obligatory to touch on it, very briefly, in the Glossary.'

"Wow, a Shakespearean sexual secret that's too hot to handle, hidden in the glossary!"

Enjoy!
CD

Sharing the pain...

2009-04-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

God forgive me for linking anyone to this, but to echo one of the listed comments, I've had this stuck in my head for 13 years now and it's time you had it stuck in yours too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTrIeqMtEOg

Adios,
CD

Three More Recent Viewings

2009-03-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Tropic Thunder (2008). Directed by Ben Stiller. If for no other reason, watch this rollicking send-up of Hollywood big-budget malarkey to see Robert Downey, Jr. play an Australian method actor playing an African-American soldier in Viet Nam. When I first heard about this role, I, like everyone else, just shook my head, grimaced, and sung softly under my breath, "Oh when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?" But then reports started coming my way of how RD, Jr. took what could have been the most offensive role in modern American cinema and owned it. So I had to see it for myself. You should too. Oh, and Tom Cruise is in there too, somewhere, wearing a fat suit.

The Magus (1969). Directed by Guy Green (whose name sounds a bit like a Terry Southern character). One of those legendary “bad films” that everyone talks about (Woody Allen famously carped that if he’d have his life to live over again he’d change only one thing—he wouldn’t see The Magus again), and, yes, I too found it bad. But I’m not sorry I watched it. I mean, after all, it’s got Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Anna Karina, Candace Bergin, Mallorcan scenery (doubling as Greece), mystery, mayhem, mindfrigging, a groovy soundtrack, a script by John Fowles based on his own wonderful novel, and brief nudity. I mean, it's kind of like a mediocre Mexican meal--it may be a plate of unrecognizable goop, but if there's cheese, beans, shredded beef, corn tortillas, and chiles, it can't be all bad, can it? Here's a cool DVD review of the film with great pics of the actors: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/24562/magus-the/

The Naked City (1948). Directed by Jules Dassin. Another legendary film that has slipped by me over the years. A classic noir/police procedural starring Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald as an NYC detective working on the case of a murdered model. The film's unusual voice-over narration (by producer Mark Hellinger, who died before the film was released), location filming throughout the New York City streets, and striking photography make it a must-see, though the plot's a little unexciting and the acting often feels a bit forced. This is another one of those productions that serves as a fascinating nexus of various movie-culture currents (geek alert): The director, Jules Dassin, would later be blacklisted but find work in Europe directing the French noir classic "Rififi" and the Greek romance "Never on Sunday" (now try getting that tune out of your head!); the star, Barry Fitzgerald, acted at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and roomed with Sean O'Casey for a while--and in Hollywood was nominated for both Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor for the same role--Father Fitzgibbon in "Going My Way" (a feat unsurpassed in Oscar history); Fitzgerald's protege, Detective Halloran, is played by Don Taylor, husband of Corman lovely Hazel Court and director of "Escape from the Planet of the Apes"; and murder suspect Howard Duff is the grandfather of actress/singer Hilary Duff, she of "Lizzie McGuire" fame; even the title and concept for the film has an interesting pedigree: it gets its name from a book of photojournalism, "The Naked City" (1945), by Weegee, a pseudonym for Arthur Fellig, a Ukrainian born American photographer whose pictures of crime scenes, car accidents, and street life influenced not only the movie but a TV series of the same name (his own name, Weegee, echoes "ouija", and he was so nicknamed because his portable police radio gave him the "uncanny" ability to appear at fresh disaster scenes!). Finally, it's worth noting that Weegee's connections to Stanley Kubrick (presumably from the latter's photojournalism phase) brought him to the set of "Dr. Strangelove" to do still photography and to offer Peter Sellers a voice model for the titular character. Mein fuhrer, I can valk!

Whew!

2009-03-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, my second favorite show on TV came to an end Friday night. Of course, I'm talking about "Battlestar Gallactica" on the SciFi Channel. I had mixed feelings about this final season, generally, and I'm not surprised that I also had mixed feelings about the series finale. I believe the show got tangled up in its own plot lines in season four and got bogged down in excessive exposition, parallel story arcs that collided and conflated, and characters whose emotional rollercoastering grew tiresome. Yet, for all that the show was still a breath of air, often incredibly innovative, thought provoking, and (best of all) genre-busting. I can't say it any better than Laura Miller at Salon.com, so here, read her and enjoy:

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2009/03/21/battlestar_galactica/

Farewell, BSG. It's been a whole lotta frakkin' fun.

CD

A Further Note on Cobbe

2009-03-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

A further note on the recent Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare:

It ain't Shakespeare.

It's Sir Thomas Overbury.

Read about it here:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5931174.ece

And if you ain't convinced, look at this comparison between Cobbe and a portrait of T.O. This comes from an anti-Stratfordian. And even though he's mistaken about W.S. being someone other than W.S., he's probably right about this:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sYdL5ogDCXk/SbhnOymC-gI/AAAAAAAAAO8/sX7VHYytiX8/s1600-h/Cobbe-v-Overbury2.jpg

Cobbe is Sir Thomas Overbury.

for now...

Candyman

2009-03-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of Terry Southern's work and thus I was surprised and delighted to read this appreciation in the online mag Dissident Voice: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/strange-loves-magic-christians-and-so-much-more-an-appreciation-of-terry-southern/

Here's my favorite excerpt:

While some may think the U.S. has become a more open, more culturally sophisticated society since Terry Southern’s time, I have my doubts. Rather we often seem to me like weird masochists choosing to keep ourselves in cultural lockdown, breathlessly mouthing the words “individual freedom” and “creative potential” and “no limits” and what-not, while our corporatist system, looking metaphorically like the gruesome self-caricature of the late-period Mae West dressed in red-white-and-blue burlesque house lamé, gleefully and unstintingly whacks us with its Naugahyde cat-o-nine tails. Oh, Freedom™.

I couldn't agree more.

The Consummate Dabbler

3 Edgars

Toot toot!

Cavity Search

and I feel fine...

the bird is the word

I'M BACK!!!!!!! Ha hA ha HA!

thnx 2 melo-d

Excuses excuses...

A Hallowe'en Read

Made in Portland

Soon to be Viewed!

Recently Viewed

Another Recent Read

Recent Reads

Recently Viewed: Julie & Julia, Sherlock Holmes, Il grido

Vaux's Swifts

Boardwalk Empire and some Articles

Them Two

Going Coastal

August Round-up

Recently Viewed

Cue The Stranglers...

Now Spinning

Recently Viewed

Cue the Kinks...

Food Round-Up

Some Art o' Mine

Nowwe Spynninge

Art, Food, Art

Rob Ramage

Stirred but not Shaken

Now Spinning: Perfecto!

Recently Viewed: Shadowing the Third Man, Double Rainbow

Gizzi Listening

The Wild Boy

Three is a Charm

Now Spinning

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Recently Viewed

F for Father

Tasty n Sons

Pee, Poo, Belly, Bum, Drawers!

Something I didn't expect to hear today:

A Little Dylan Thomas

Recently Viewed: Intervista

SATC2

Bourdizzle

Recent Viewing

Recent Viewings: Hancock

RIP, Dennis Hopper

Look at what I found!

Beauty and the Beast continued...

Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Lost: A Shaggy God Story

Who can play Kesey?

Beauty and the Beast

Ian Pics for March 2010

Happy New Year!

Fair is Fowl(er)

Another thing...

Round Up

Let me toss this on here for good measure

More Days Like This One, Please...

What Cheer, My Love?

Link to a NYT article on Anglo-Catholics

What cheer

To Barry and Jacque: All my Love to You Both.

God Be Praised!

As Promised: My Andouillette Story

Wordstock

A New Who Review, Comin' Right At You...

Books and Writers Round-up

Link

Three Recent Viewings

Some Photos

Some things I like and a picture of Ian. What else?

Lynn, Paris, Book

Anglo-Saxon Find

Koehler at Vino Nov. 7