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Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

We Who Are About to Die…

Posted in Movies, tagged , , , , , on 16 Dec 2014| 5 Comments »

It’s a rare occasion when I’m wholly surprised by a movie. Rarer still is when I come across a star-powered film of which I’ve heard absolutely nothing. Rarest of all is a movie that combines both of these.

Morituri (1965) is such a film.

Before I stumbled across it while channel-surfing, I’d never heard of this WWII story starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. It was released in ’65 to middling reviews and box-office crickets. The title of the film was deemed the main culprit for this poor performance–audiences didn’t understand the title’s reference to the phrase Nos morituri te salutamus, or “We who are about to die salute you.”–but I think it also it was a matter of the public’s waning appetite for tense movies about the war. In the early ’60s, we saw a definite down-tick in the number of WWII films produced by Hollywood, alongside a shift to movies with more romance and humor (The Americanization of Emily, Ensign Pulver, Father Goose, and The Sound of Music– I mean come on…singing Nazis? ). We were still making great WWII dramas, to be sure; some of the greatest, in fact, came out of the mid-’60s, such as Judgment at Nuremburg and The Longest Day, but on the whole the WWII thriller was becoming less common.

Into this changing landscape steamed Morituri. (more…)

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Not All Here

Posted in Culture, tagged , on 03 Dec 2014| 2 Comments »

Dragons AheadI missed a post deadline (or two), and I’m going to miss some more.

Thanksgiving was interesting. The goose was…well…let’s just say I have a lot to learn about cooking birds that haven’t sat around in a cage their entire lives. Geese seem to have more bones than other birds I’ve parceled out, and they have less meat in some places while more meat in others. Add to that the fact that this free-range goose seems to have used her range quite freely. The meat was tough, leaner than expected, but it was also immensely flavorful. In addition to the meal, I was able to capture over a pint of goose schmaltz, and about ten cups of goose broth.

This was fortuitous, because the day after Thanksgiving, I came down with the worst cold I’ve had in a decade, and that broth is about all I could bring myself to eat.

I’ve been sicker, sure. Like that ruptured appendix I had. That was bad. Had a drain in my gut for two weeks–a suction tube, an aspirator, and a catch-bag–which I dragged around like some parasitic twin and brought out to frighten to sales staff at Fred Meyers. Then there was the Thanksgiving norovirus episode, where my entire family was taken down in a 5-hour period and my wife and I pretty much crapped our way the thousand homeward miles between San Francisco and Seattle. Good times…good times.

But as head-colds go, this one is a monster. First of all, we’ve both got it, and that is never a good thing. Second, it’s a fighter. I can usually kick a cold to the curb within 4 days and usually don’t have symptoms bad enough to warrant a sick day (I can work from home instead). This one, though, wowie-wow-wow. I’ve had it since Friday afternoon–nearly a week–and I don’t feel any better. Aches, pains, coughing, sore throat, runny eyes, bloody nose, headaches, and everything esophageal is so swollen that as soon as I lie down I begin to snore, waking myself up. It takes me an hour or so to fall asleep, and then I wake myself up with the pain and noise, only to repeat the process again.

I am not a happy camper.

Needless to say, this week’s plans have all been trashed as we sit around, sipping hot water and warm broth and honeyed tea, hear our stomachs growl and snarl but we have no appetite to feed them.

Yeah, I’m going to miss another post or two…

k

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Reinventing T-Day

Posted in Culture, Food, tagged , , , , , on 25 Nov 2014| 6 Comments »

Simple LivingI don’t like turkey.

This will come as a shock to my family, who as I grew up watched me order a turkey sandwich every time we went out to eat. It didn’t matter where we went or when–breakfast at IHOP, dinner at Denny’s, a special meal at Sabella’s–I always ordered a turkey sandwich. (I was also always served last, but that’s an entirely different story.) I would order the turkey sandwich, the club sandwich, or (in a pinch) the hot turkey open-face sandwich; it didn’t really matter as long as it had turkey.

I loved turkey. (more…)

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Taking a Breath

Posted in Culture, Low Tech, tagged , , , , , , on 18 Nov 2014| 4 Comments »

The weather has turned cold here in Seattle. Nothing like what most of the nation is experiencing, to be sure, but cold nonetheless. The leaves that haven’t fallen are withered and frostbitten on their stems, and the remnants of Autumn’s glory now lie in patches of brown detritus scattered across the gardens.

Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, WAOn clear, cold afternoons, when the sky is a robin’s egg blue and the sun has just melted the frost off the shaggy lawns, I hear the machinery of modern yard maintenance fire up. Mowers, blowers, strimmers, and edgers set up a whirring, sputtering rumble that blankets the neighborhood as homeowners take advantage of a rainless November day.

For myself, I prefer to use manual tools when possible. The lawnmower, the strimmer, these I keep and use, but on bright autumn days I reach instead for the rake, the broom, and the shovel to tend my garden. I spend so much of my day working nothing but my mind–analyzing systems, cross-checking code, diagramming solutions, navigating interoffice politics–that the thought of surrounding myself with machinery and noise is abhorrent.

Before I step outside, I bundle up with scarf and gloves and quilted overshirt, but soon, as I warm to my task, these layers drop away. It takes me longer to tidy my garden than it does my more mechanized neighbors–yesterday, after a couple hours’ work, I only cleared out the patio and lower section of the back garden–but it’s a quieter time, and that’s what I want.

Peace. Serenity. Take in a clean, cold lungful of air and let it out in a frosty breath.

Repeat.

k

Typewriter

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Music for a Bad Week

Posted in Music, Seattle, tagged , , , , on 13 Nov 2014| 2 Comments »

Chairman MeowThe week started badly, and ended with a…  What? It’s only Thursday?

Well, Hell.

So, it’s been a trying week, so far. I’ve had injury (wrenched back), illness (rhinovirus), family issues (no comment), excitement (took our neighbor to urgent care after an accidental toddler-induced head-butt), day-job frustrations (left hand…have you even met the right hand?), and finally, last night, disbelief (I pressed the button to close the garage door and watched as the motor bucked, juddered, and then, with a thunking crunch, deposited bits of plastic, pieces of metal, and one long, greasy chain onto the top of my car).

And it’s only Thursday.

So, what’s a cowboy to do? Or, more apropos, what’s a crabby old fart with barely a scintilla of patience to do?

As I did before this wretched week started, I shall turn to music. (more…)

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Happy 35th 25th

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , on 10 Nov 2014| 2 Comments »

This weekend past, two friends celebrated birthdays. They’re both a good bit younger than I am, but that didn’t bother me. After all, a lot of people are younger than I.

This weekend past was the 25th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down. Yes, a quarter century since the end of the Cold War. But that didn’t bother me, either. It was a good day, full of joy, and easily remembered.

What did bother me was that, this weekend past, Rickie Lee Jones was also celebrating a birthday.

Her 60th birthday.

Wh–wha?

Sorry. Rickie Lee Jones is not 60 years old. Nope. Can’t happen. Can’t be true.

Rickie Lee Jones is twenty-five years old, always has been. Always will be. I refuse to concede the notion that she ages along with the rest of us, even if it means that I am now more than twice her age.

It’s not that I’m an avid RLJ fan. Yes, I do have most everything she’s recorded, but that’s it. I listen, I like, but I don’t “follow” or read up on her projects, her life. Nor do I have a mad crush on her or anything; I don’t, and never have. In fact, it is precisely because these things are not true that she remains unchanged in my mind. Were I to follow her career more closely, I would have been exposed to photos and interviews in which it was apparent that, yes, she’s no longer twenty-five years old.

But I don’t.

And so, RLJ is forever that smoke-filled-saloon-chanteuse, that beret-wearing finger-snapping retro-beatnik I first heard back in the ’70s. Rickie, the queen of slide-singing and the vocal fry, is the sound of my youth reverberating across the decades. Other voices from my past have aged along with me, but not RLJ. Her music continues to make me smile, make me cry; it fills my lungs with youthful air and lifts aged weights from my shoulders. I cannot have her music on in the background, for her voice always creeps forward, steals my attention, and holds me rapt as she sings her bittersweet tales.

So, happy birthday, Ms. Jones. Happy 35th 25th birthday.

k

Kanji character Raku: happiness, music, joy.

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A Milkstool Has Three Legs

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , , , on 30 Oct 2014| 2 Comments »

A blog post has been going around lately, in which Hugh Howey (bestselling author and book industry watcher) attempts to debunk some myths about publishing. Specifically, he addresses the standard tropes that the fast growth of the e-book market is  (a) materially damaging publishers, and (b) decimating the independent bookstore market.

His post (which is a good read) pulls together simple graphics from sources such as The New Republic, Bloomberg, and Harper Collins’ own PowerPoint slides, and lays it out clearly.

  • Publishers are making more money from e-book sales than from hardcover sales.
  • Independent bookstores are thriving in this post-Recession economy.

As evidence of the first item, Howey shows how the profit margins publishers enjoy from e-book sales is nearly twice the margin provided from hardcovers. Publishers’ profits are not on the MSRP of a book of course, but on the wholesale cost of the book. So, in the graphic I’ve linked to on the right, keep in mind that the 41% and 75% profit figures are based on the publisher’s share of the MSRP (which are $13.72 and $10.49, respectively). (more…)

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