Feijoa

These little guys are falling out of a tree in the backyard - the internet instructions for harvesting say "Shake the tree every couple of days" - well let me tell you they hurt when they fall on your head. Gravity it gets you every time. And so here they are - Feijoas - something I can't pronounce that are edible but odd. It's like that OScar Wilde's quip about fox hunting - the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. In this case it's literally unspeakable and it's vaguely edible.
The garden in general is filled with things to eat - figs, avocados, lemons - but a lot of it is poor quality. I don't know if that's because none of it has been tended, fertilized, taken care of, or if it's old and ready to go. We shall see. But the Meyer Lemon, which the Beloved C. has it out for, has the most lovely smelling flowers and yet the lemons seem to never ripen.

Wine-O-Mat

I've got a new thing to take people to when they visit us in L.A. - the wine-o-mat. Like the automat - a vending machine for food that was popular during the depression, the wine-o-mat is a wine vending machine. So you can sample wines at the wine store. You buy a ticket with a pre-approved amount of money on it and you taste your way through a few wines and so you can try before you buy. And of course, you can try things that you would never actually buy because some wine is just way too expensive. It was totally fun to do. So now you know what you'll be doing if you come for a visit.

Bill T. Jones - Blind Date

So the beloved C. and I went to see the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane dance company perform Blind Date at Royce Hall. The parts of the dance were thrilling, the athleticism of the dancers was fantastic. Part of the war/anti war message was lost, but it was great to go out and see old Bill - who can still move.

I would expect this from Huckabee's Wife

A Photo in the LA Times today showed the presidential candidates wives at the Conference on Women that Maria Shriver puts on every year in California as part of Maria's first lady of Cali act. The photo showed Mrs. Thompson (a blonde trophy wife), Cindy McCain (blonde trohpy wife - slightly older version), Mrs. Romney (Mormon version of blonde trophy wife), Elizabeth Edwards (who is also blonde and a real trophy if what one values is guts and intelligence) and Michelle Obama. Michelle was wearing a houndstooth frock that I don't think really suited her.

Anyway the LA Times quoted Elizabeth Edwards as saying:

Scanning the tall, thin women arrayed beside her, Edwards said she was reminded of the "Sesame Street" song lyric:

"One of these things
Is not like the others."
"Everyone is so beautiful," Edwards said. "Which one doesn't belong?"

Okay, so I have to say that I am truly offended by this. They are really going to have to reduce Elizabeth's pain medication if they want her on the campaign trail.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-wives24oct24,1,4418492.story

Global Fires

There was a couple of interesting items I thought in the New York Times this week. One was the cover article of the magazine - drought and global warming in the Western U.S. and the other was the Op-Ed piece about how the "greenest" thing you can do is elect leaders who will actually pass laws that will change behaviours on a large scale. It all dovetails rather nicely with the firestorm that is happening right now in Southern California. It is smoky and hard to breathe and I'm not near any of the fires, being smack dab in west L.A..

Yosemite

Don't you think that people who SPEED through scenic routes have no soul? I mean - why speed on the windy mountain roads that lead you into one of the most glorious places on earth, the Yosemite Valley? What part of wonder about life, the universe and everything are you missing?
That was what I realized when we went to the Valley for a short vacation. It was a glorious vacation - just my speed. We hiked all day up and down mountains in glorious scenery and we then came back to a hot shower and a good meal with a nice bottle of wine. Great way to deal with nature. This deer was feeding in a meadow underneath half dome. As I took a picture of the deer (Look, Honey! Nature!) I realized that it was a stupid photo to take (which was really apparent at dusk with other tourists on the path with tiny cameras far away from the subject and the little tiny flash bulb of knock about snapshot cameras. The little insignificant flash would illuminate about three feet of air and since the deer was far away it was a rather futile exercise. Totally futile. Especially since the next day I realized you could walk up to the deer they were so unafraid of humans and get a really in depth close up photo.)

Alberto Gonzalez is a BIG FAT LIAR

And it's about time somebody did something about it. This whole administration is a pack of perjurers, I can't believe no one's done anything about it. If the Dems don't have the balls to impeach both Bush and Cheney then at the very least we can TRY THEM FOR PERJURY. Start the special counsels NOW!

Partners in so many things

Still working analog.

So have I mentioned that we're buying a house? Have I mentioned don't use Redfin?
No? Well, I don't want to dwell on the negative.

The mortgage broker, J. called. The bank - owned by chinese californians wouldn't lend to us because we were in a partnership. They don't lend to partnerships, or trusts or corporations or companies. They do home loans for individuals and couples - you know married couples. But since we were in a domestic partnership, they wouldn't loan us money. Because they don't loan money to companies - particularly ones who provide domestics.

J. had to gently bring them into the 21st century.

I've been working analog lately.
And I've been buying a house.
Don't use Redfin.

Big Dog

Dogs

It is good to roll!

Swinging on the old world

Weeeeee! It's fun to swing upside down, as A., a fellow swinger-upside downer shows here.

I lost my tasting notes but the last wine class was about THE OLD WORLD. And wine\food pairing. Hmmm.

So here is what I now know, France, there was a reason people thought Wine = France. Because they make good wine. Here's another thing I know, often after a broad overview class if you want to learn more you are told to pick one small thing and learn more in depth about that. A large overview class of art history - want to learn more - check out the cubists or Spanish artists. A large overview of wine - select a varietal or country to learn more. You know, pick a vertical. Well here's a vertical I'm never going to find more about German and Austrian wine. Dear lord. I was all willing to give up my prejudices against Riesling and such, but our instructor had a sweet tooth on him and so we were served sweet, sweet Rieslings and other items that we were told were artisanal and filled with terroir, but I couldn't help feeling I was drinking soda pop - soda pop with a nice acidity but soda pop nonetheless. And I thought "Give me a nice fruit forward oaked cabernet please!"

Even though I did learn that oak was not food friendly, and now I notice that it isn't if I drink oaked wine with dinner. However a nice bit of oak in a wine that you're sitting out on the patio watching the sunset NOT eating is not a bad thing. And a little oak in a tannic red is not a bad thing as well.

However a nice sparkling burgundy is cheaper than champagne but just a nummy, and that's a good thing to learn.

Well wine is over and I'm just back to two classes. Photography and circus acrobatics.

Weee - it's fun to swing upside down!

The Brave New World is Full of Oak

I just have to say that I've always been glad about living in California because I can buy local and still drink world class wine. Unfortunately, I now know that not all California wine is world class, particularly in my "Night Train House Swill" price range. Oh the mis-use of Oak! There is no excuse for cutting down French and American oak trees to put grape juice in it. No no no, as Amy Winehouse would say.

Class Three was a whirlwind tour of the New World wines. Our professor has a bit of a sweet tooth so this class was remarkable for NOT having disgusting sweet wine in it , say what you like about old world terroir but I like a dry wine and there's dirt in New Zealand as well.

Enough! We started with a golden 75% pinot noir method champenoise wine from Meriwether, Cuvee Wm Clark Brut in Oregon, where they disgorge the wine to order. YUM! It smelled of apples and toast and was DELICIOUS. Why spend the dinero on champers from Champagne when you can get this lucky ducky. And it is local to my friend T., so it's good for the world.

Next up was a flight of American Whites, the Eroica Chateua St. Michelle - a reisling made in partnership with a german wine maker and a Viognier the Surh Luchtel Fortunati. Well the Eroica is a riesling but not an offensively sweet riesling. It smelt crisp and a little of apple and raisin pie; it had an appealing acidity that made it crisp on hte tongue. The Viognier was icky.

Next we had a flight of American Reds, a 2004 Daedalus Labyrinth Pinot Noir and a 2004 Nalle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. The Daedalus Pinot looked like rubies in your glass, smelt earthy and had peppery cherries on the tongue. Lovely. The Nalle Zin was a darker ruby - almost crimson a bit of green herb amid the cherry in the nose and was GORGEOUS.

Then we were off to the Aussie-New Zealand, South Africa-America part of the globe.

Starting with Antipodes we had a Cloudy Bay Sauv Blanc - all grapefruit and cat piss and a Hewitson, Old Garden Mourvedre. This was a crimson wine with spice and leathery tannins and was lovely.

In the next flight we had a Warwick Sauv Blanc (South Africa) that was a bit sweet and spicy with nice acids for balance and would be lovely with food. Finally we had a Luigi Bosca Mallbec reserve from South America that was dark ruby with a tannin bite at the end. It was very interesting.

All in all the bubbly was a total find, I'd walk a mile for some of the reds and I wouldn't cross a finger for the whites.

Sacred Monsters

So the beloved C and I went to the U.S. premiere of Sacred Monsters a performance by Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem at Royce Hall. Well I just had to see the best ballerina of my generation.

So here was an example of how two traditional forms, ballet and kathak can be fused using the meta language of modern dance. And what a fabulous example it is. My word - so wonderful. Sylvie Guillem is very tall and you could see a movement start somewhere around her hip and snake up each elegant vertebra until it moved along and ended at a finger tip. And other times her movements were so spare and cohesive that you didn't realize how tall she was. It was like she could assemble and disassemble each movement depending on her whim. When Khan and Guillem danced together they were wonderful, elegant, wry and humorous. All in all, a wonderful night.

Vino Bambino

Just look at all these North Korean girl Sailors, they look like they've seen Madam Mao's "Red Detachment of Women" a little too often. Maybe Kim Jong-Il's current paramour and personal secretary, Kim Ok can come up with a model opera along the lines of Girls Goose Step on the Mizzen or HMS Kim Sailor Squad of Women.

Anyway their lock step motion would be a little amiss if they had access to the lovely and crisp NV 1+1=3 Cava that I tasted in my latest wine class. At 12.99 it's a great sparkler made in the methode champenoise way from Spain. Crisp, clean nice bubbles.

We also tasted a Gruner Veitliner (dear me, my spell check is going crazy, I don't know how the wine press stands it) a 2005 Nigle that was pale pale straw color, barely any color at all and with a spicy nose and nice acidity. It screamed out to be a food wine so I nibbled a little cheese, which had been sitting out for a gazillion years.

Speaking of faux pas, one of the students in the class brought an ice cold coke cola in with her and proceeded to sip from it, through out the class. Um, I may be a philistine but even I know that that is just bad form and even worse on the palate.

Our teacher's mantra is teroir teroir good - oak is bad. We had a landmark overlook chardonnay that was, as advertised by it's aroma, oaky and totally not worth the 23.00 you can get it for. Paired with that was a 2004 Hexamer Sobernheimer Marback Auslese, -7C. Which was a blonde ice wine with a bit of honey and minerals that was intensely sweet. But if you wanted to drink this with a bit of desert there you go. And of course, those sailor girls above would be tickled to drink it.

The 2006 Mas de Gorugonnier Rose looked like rose petals and had a tart cranberry and hibiscus flavor. After getting over the shock of it - I found it pleasant but didn't like it as well as the beloved C. did.

That followed with a 2005 Francesco Boschish Grignolino (From Italy) that was bitter and thin and that I did not like, but which the teacher thought was a far better example than the 2005 Ben Glaetzer Godolphin cabernet/shiraz blend from a famous Aussie wine maker that was inky inky opaque crimson in color with oak and berries in the nose. The taste has berries, grapes, pepper and oak (oak bad why drink wood?) with a tingly tannin finish. I rather liked it, even if it was a teeth stainer.

We finished the evening with NV Sandeman Royal Corregidor sherry that was dark topaz and smelled of leather and alcohol. It tasted like an old tweed study as well, with Morocco leather bound books and figs and sugar and tannin.

Still learning after all these years

So I'm taking a class at UCLA (analog photography) and the teacher gave us all a handout at the end of the class. I got home and looked at it and it was the Wikipedia entry for Henri Cartier-Bresson. And I thought, um, I coulda done that. But if it's cheating if students cut and paste from the Wiki isn't it LAZY if the teacher just uses Wiki handouts?

Anyway off to a more fun, the beloved C and I are taking a wine appreciation class and it started this week. Here are some wines:

NV Mirabelle - eh, a crisp sparkler from CA but nothing really yummy.

1998 Montecillo Rioja Gran Reserva - this Rioja was lovely, tingly nicotine.

2005 Cortio 111 Rioja - this baby was young and yummy. It was also 7.99 and for that price it is a good value. It had enough tanin to give it a bit of a bite but not too oppressive and very pleasant mouth feel.

2005 Schoffit Gewurtraminer Cuvee Caroline - Yuck. Sweet. Had that typical Gewurtz nose, but thick and viscous on the tongue.

2005 Rombauer Chardonnay - oaky and buttery with malolactic fermentation, this is the kind of wine that gives chardonnay a bad name -yuck.

2004 Meo Camuzet Bourgogne - This smelled like good soil. There was a but of nicotine and dirt and fruit in the nose and on the tongue. I tasted it and thought "WOW" I really have never had any good Bugundies before and this one was something.

2005 Witness Tree Pinot Noir - this pinot from Willamette valley in Oregon was more fruit forward than the Burgundy above but it was wonderful as well, though it got a bit out of the dirt, reminding me of the Merce Cunningham saying about leaving Martha Graham's company - "I wanted to get off my knees!" Well this one wanted to get out of the dirt and it had flavors of cherry and blackberry and nicotine.

2005 Dr. Loosed Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese - this riesling was very, very sweet. It's apparently a wonderful wine, but so totally not to my taste, I thought it was ICKY.

Well isn't this a beautiful example of felting?
L. asked me to take a class with her at
Machine Projects called Felt&Circuits. So I did. On the appointed day I drove in an atavistic haze to Echo Park. It made me feel 20 years younger! In my nostalgic ennui I found a building that reminded me of my days in New York City. So I walked into the old store front, that was completely raw space and walked down stairs that weren't quite made and hadn't really any hand rails and were totally not to code into a basement where there were little card tables set up with lots of power strips in the aisle in the middle. There were vats of water boiling on hot plates. We were there to make FELT! And circuits, so we had to bring our lap tops and plug them into the power strips.

To make felt you stress raw wool by heating it up and agitating it. So the teacher was filling large plastic watering cans with boiling water and dragging them up along the aisle (where the power strips were) and we were pouring water onto our pieces of wool with vinegar and soap and agitating the hell out of them. All the while I was praying that my laptop would survive the oncoming electrocution. If one of us survived I wanted it to be my pc. That's how much of a geek I am. The week after we dyed our felt in boiling vats of water filled with plants and in little mason jars that we set to fermenting with nuts and berries and sunlight and pee. Yes, piss is a good natural dye setter. While we were boiling nuts and berries we were laying out our circuits on our laptops. Electricity, boiling water - these young artists today! My word, I just remember taking lots of drugs as part of that whole art thing, but I guess extreme sports now affects everything and so it isn't art unless possible scalding and electrocution is involved.

I liked the soldering, drilling and assembly of the circuit and chips though. But I haven't completed my project. My felt leaves me anxious and depressed. It doesn't speak to me. The high achievers in the class were making cute little animals with their felt and sticking their circuits in them. But I am not really a cute little stuffed animal teddy bear kinda gal. So one morning I woke up and said "Fuck this anthropomorphic shit! I'm making a cube!"

But I really don't like sewing and haven't gotten around to making my cube yet.

Your Tax Dollars making You Safer

Free Personality Quiz!

I don't know what it is about personality quiz's it's a sure way to suck people in. Ever go to the mall and find the spooky scientology people asking you if you want a FREE personality quiz? Ever see an issue of Cosmo that didn't have a personality quiz? Well the CIA in an effort to attract high quality job candidates has put up an online flash based (aren't they hip?) personality quiz that asks such insightful questions as:
What Form of Transportation do you prefer?
Hot Air Balloon
Amphibious Sports Car
Horse and Buggy -- This is for the Amish Spies apparently
Submarine
Jet Pack

Reviews: Magritte, Tiajuana, Icons

Okay, how long did I say these slippers had a chance of lasting? Beso chewed the balls off them last night. He was playing with a ball and I had my slippers right next to me on the floor by the couch. Because I don't put shoes or slippers on the couch, because I was not raised in a barn. So he was running around and I was knitting a baby blanket for a friend and then suddenly he bounces in so happy happy happy that I know something is WRONG. Well somehow he had done it.

So, the beloved and I have gone to a few shows. The Magritte show at LACMA was beautifully arranged by John Baldessari, you walked on a carpet of clouds (how surreal!) but the Magrittes were you know, pretty Magritte-y and not very interesting. The work around the Magrittes by contemporary artists was actually very interesting. It was good to see some of Doug Hubler's Crocodile Tears series and some dynamic work by Vija Celmins, who is also having a major retro at the Hammer, which I haven't seen yet. But it wasn't really the best show I've seen and was rather disappointing. Though it will not be disappointing to the museum because it is one of those block buster shows that everyone takes their children to see. "Look honey the APPLE is a BIG as the ROOM!."

In contrast a more modest show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art does not disappoint. "Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana" was lively and engaging. It had some of the funniest video art I'd seen in a while. And there were some damn good paintings. SM Museum

At the Getty (Yes, we've been going going going in search of an art fix) there is a show of Icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine underneath Mount Sinai. The Monastery is the continuous monastery going and they had a lot of icons that need restoration. So the Getty conservators stepped in and did a damn good job restoring things but then they took them to California and put them on display here. I assume the icons are eventually going back, since the Getty seems to be returning things these days. Anyway I figured that I would never get my ass over to the Sinai peninsula to see these in situ, and I'd probably be struck down by angry monks if I did, so off to the Getty we went. So as Fellini and Bunuel have ever been fond of pointing out, there is something surreal about priests in their robes. But really nothing is more surreal than having 50 Eastern Orthodox Priests on a pilgrimage to the Getty Center in their medieval-man robes and large crosses and long, long, long beards. And like medieval-man, they haven't really discovered deodorant so they are au natural. But like people everywhere, you could tell who the cool monks were. They could occasionally make jokes. There is a tension, however, in the display of objects shown both as objects and as objects of veneration. These are religious artifacts that have been in continuous use for 1000 years and as such are wonderful examples of medieval art. And so there is tension between the use and purpose of the object when taken out of it's context and placed in a secular modern one. It's rather embarrassing to see people kneel and pray in an art museum. Especially the Getty that temple to Mammon.

Anyway the monks made a good visual along with the art. There was a portal of full length portraits of Moses and Aaron, dark curly hair on one, long white beard on the other, one was holding a tablet and the other a scroll. I thought the white haired bearded one was Moses -- even though he was holding the scroll, but on reading the text I found out he was Aaron! Moses was the cute dude with the curly dark hair holding the tablets. Upon finding this out I then stood around and watched people approach and then would ask them, which one is Moses? And everyone pointed to old white beard. So poor Moses has over the centuries been slowly becoming less cute in the popular imagination. Cause I'm telling you two thousand years ago, he was the hunk. Speaking of which, there is an icon of St. Catherine (or 97 icons of Catherine, the monastery is named after her) where she is gazing coyly at the viewer, seductively leaning against her wheel. Which I thought was what she was martyred on , but apparently she was going to be put to death on the wheel and her touch broke it, so she was beheaded instead and angels whisked her away to Mount Sinai and the monastery started. Who knew?

Signs: Ye Coach House Curry

So in last weekend's New York Times Magazine they interview Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach the current FDA commissioner. He is asked about his predecessor, Lester Crawford, who resigned in scandal because he and his wife owned stock in FDA regulated companies. That is he was in a position to grant FDA approval to drugs for companies that he owned a financial interest. Um, this is obviously ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL, and Dr. Crawford is being sentenced next week. Asked about this, the new FDA head says: "It's very sad that these circumstances have occurred and that he and his family are facing this."

Now, I know that outrage is just useless in this administration, but wouldn't you want the new head of the FDA to say something against illegally profiting from companies that you are supposed to be policing? Like gee wow, I feel bad for his lack of judgment, but you obviously can't have the fox GUARDING the chickens. And I have set up my finances in a blind trust administered by so and so with the stipulation that all drug companies will not be assets in the blind trust. Dr. Von Eschenbach also said about his opinion as a cancer doctor about regulating nicotine as a drug he said "As cancer doctors, we have looked at the consequences of tobacco, of which nicotine is a component, but in which there are many other components." Well, gee, where do I start? First he didn't answer the question. And you can be against regulating tobacco and nicotine and also be against cancer. But he really sounds like he started out being one of those RJR shills - paid to obfuscate the fact that cigarette smoking and tobacco cause cancer. He may have looked at the consequences of tobacco, emphysema, cancer; but he seems mildly amused by them.

This administration's ability to find and promote complete amoral greedy people gives crony capitalism a new name. KBR not doing enough for Cheney's portfolio - let's have a fraudulent war!

Remoras

It is winter and the wood floors are cold and so in a post-holiday fit of consumerism (the terrorists, they have not won!) I bought a pair of slippers. Allegedly the whole wait-until-January thing is all about getting things on sale. But ahem, these were too fabulous to be on sale, and of course, they were really too silly for anyone to actually buy, so they should have been on sale. But they weren't. And I bought them and took them home and ripped open the package and put them on my tootsies.

Well the peebs like them too. They just latched on to those little puffs and sucked on them, one on each side as I walked around. Latched on just like remoras. So I started to shake one foot and then the other. And they started to get real mouthy all over my slippers and feet. So I started running, which made them follow me. What a great game! She put fuzzy chew toys on her feet! Weeeee! So I'm taking bets on how long they last.

Another Outrage

So apparently my two fans were complaining about my using my blog to test work media. Oh well. One of my fans suggested a romantic weekend getaway for my birthday. So I decided to look up some hotel costs. The Hotel Del Coronado for example starts at 540 a night, so it's making the dog motel built by the husband of a notorious con-woman and murderer in Palm Springs where we got bug bites look pretty good. But the thing that really startled me was this notation on the hotel room reservation: Bedding On Request.

I'm sorry, but for 540 bucks a night I EXPECT Bedding as the default.

Will it Nuke?

I uploaded this video at myspace.revvervideos and the sound didn't work, so I'm testing it here.

Baths

I just say you really haven't lived until you've been locked into a remodeled bathroom for an hour. You know, one that has a locking mechanism but no door handle and a window too small for your hips, and a dead bolt type tongue so you couldn't do ye olde credite carde poppe like you can in old bathrooms. The good thing about being locked into a remodeled bathroom is that it's nice. It would be much worse to be locked into an un-remodeled bathroom, one that looked like, say - the bathroom in Train Spotting. That would be desperate straits.
But I managed to lock myself into a nice clean newly remodeled bathroom, so I count myself lucky.

Abstinence of the Week

The New York Times interviewed Rhonda Arias, a woman whose life work is preaching to women who have had abortions and who have been emotionally harmed by it.

She has two daughters, who she raised up right, telling them about contraception - oops I mean - abstinence, saving yourself for marriage, keeping your virginity. She came home from a trip and her 17 year old had some news for her! Surprise!

She's quoted as saying:

"Abstinence works better than birth control, really. It's just that people don't do it."

Well really, Rhonda, that's the point people do do it!

Too bad she didn't tell her daughter about lesbians. That's the sure fire lifestyle to prevent unwanted pregnancy!