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My favorites:
Illumination
Everything is golden now
Extravagance and futility
I need to stop it with the pompous titles (but as Eddie would say... "Oh come on, it's so much fun though")
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Last night, I dreamt that I was cruising on a highway through Shanghai; neon lights streaking, wind flaring, car rushing past the infinite columns that overwhelm the ancient landscape and attest to the rise of the fastest growing economy in the world. Shanghai Restoration Project, itself an awkward child embracing old and new, was pouring forth from the speakers. The millions of people who carry out their lives amongst these skyscrapers, amongst this insomnious, vibrant city... what were they doing at the moment I passed them? What were their consummate aspirations as they live out their lives? How did they contribute to the collective pool of karmic suffering and euphoria called humanity? But none of that concerned me now. I was escaping to my own inner serenity. As I drove off into the distance, wind still beating against my face, I stood up, eyes fixed on the horizon, and began to take flight.
Last night, I dreamt that we had each found our own sense of peace.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
And I thought Aerospace Engineering was Difficult
But I'm so glad I'm not a pilot trying to land at these airports:
http://worldaviationjournal.blogspot.com/2008/03/top-10-most-dangerous-aircraft-landings.html
(P.S. If you're bored, log into Google Earth, search one of these places, and then log into the flight simulator (version 4 or later) and try to land at them using the F-16.)
http://worldaviationjournal.blogspot.com/2008/03/top-10-most-dangerous-aircraft-landings.html
(P.S. If you're bored, log into Google Earth, search one of these places, and then log into the flight simulator (version 4 or later) and try to land at them using the F-16.)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Whew!
I've survived through another "most dreaded day of the year" intact! (with just a couple jabs from my parents how they want grandkids / jab from my grandmother on how she wants great-grandkids. Pesky family.)
Hurrah!
Hurrah!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Ale Mary Full of Taste
Great article in the New Yorker detailing the rise of craft brewing in the United States.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger
Notable Quotables:
"[Dogfish Head Brewery] is to Budweiser what Bouillabaisse is to fish stock."
"The King of Beers, once served in splendid isolation at many bars, is now surrounded by motley bottles with ridiculous names, like jesters at a Renaissance fair: SkullSplitter, Old Leghumper, Slam Dunkel, Troll Porter, Moose Drool, Power Tool, He’brew, and Ale Mary Full of Taste." (Reminds me also of Palin and her kids' names.)
“When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life—are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had—are you man enough to eat it?’ ”
"His forefathers worked hard making wine, he recently wrote, 'so that I might have the opportunity to produce a superior beverage.'"
"He made a stout with roasted chicory and St.-John’s-wort ('The world’s only antidepressant depressant,' he called it). While other brewers were dyeing their beer green for St. Patrick’s Day, Calagione brewed his with blue-green algae. 'It tasted like appetizing pond scum,' he says. 'The first sip, you were like, ‘Wow, that tasted like pond scum. But you know what? I kind of want a second sip.’ '"
"When he and Calagione aren’t making beer, they sometimes perform together at the pub as a beer-themed hip-hop duo called the Pain Relievaz (sample lyrics: 'You’re the barley virgin that my malt mill will deflour')."
“At the same time that they’re making this relatively hoppy wanna-be craft beer that exists only to confuse the consumer—so that they can be culture vultures—they are running ads that say that the darker a beer is the more impurities it has. It’s beer racism.”
"I saw signs for beers called Goat Toppler, Chicken Killer, and Old Headwrecker, Incinerator, Detonator, Skull Annihilator, and the Obamanator."
"Every beer is a brewer’s invention to some degree—a combination of ingredients that could never be found in nature. A barrel of crushed grapes, left to its own devices, can turn into a crude sort of Beaujolais nouveau. The winemaker’s job is mostly to prod the process along. That isn’t true of beer. For grain to turn into an ale or lager, it has to be malted, cooked, strained, cooked, strained, fermented in a barrel, and sometimes again in a bottle. 'Mother Nature makes wine,' Calagione likes to say. 'Brewers make beer.'"
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger
Notable Quotables:
"[Dogfish Head Brewery] is to Budweiser what Bouillabaisse is to fish stock."
"The King of Beers, once served in splendid isolation at many bars, is now surrounded by motley bottles with ridiculous names, like jesters at a Renaissance fair: SkullSplitter, Old Leghumper, Slam Dunkel, Troll Porter, Moose Drool, Power Tool, He’brew, and Ale Mary Full of Taste." (Reminds me also of Palin and her kids' names.)
“When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life—are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had—are you man enough to eat it?’ ”
"His forefathers worked hard making wine, he recently wrote, 'so that I might have the opportunity to produce a superior beverage.'"
"He made a stout with roasted chicory and St.-John’s-wort ('The world’s only antidepressant depressant,' he called it). While other brewers were dyeing their beer green for St. Patrick’s Day, Calagione brewed his with blue-green algae. 'It tasted like appetizing pond scum,' he says. 'The first sip, you were like, ‘Wow, that tasted like pond scum. But you know what? I kind of want a second sip.’ '"
"When he and Calagione aren’t making beer, they sometimes perform together at the pub as a beer-themed hip-hop duo called the Pain Relievaz (sample lyrics: 'You’re the barley virgin that my malt mill will deflour')."
“At the same time that they’re making this relatively hoppy wanna-be craft beer that exists only to confuse the consumer—so that they can be culture vultures—they are running ads that say that the darker a beer is the more impurities it has. It’s beer racism.”
"I saw signs for beers called Goat Toppler, Chicken Killer, and Old Headwrecker, Incinerator, Detonator, Skull Annihilator, and the Obamanator."
"Every beer is a brewer’s invention to some degree—a combination of ingredients that could never be found in nature. A barrel of crushed grapes, left to its own devices, can turn into a crude sort of Beaujolais nouveau. The winemaker’s job is mostly to prod the process along. That isn’t true of beer. For grain to turn into an ale or lager, it has to be malted, cooked, strained, cooked, strained, fermented in a barrel, and sometimes again in a bottle. 'Mother Nature makes wine,' Calagione likes to say. 'Brewers make beer.'"
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Black Man in the Great White City
(click on the picture for full size)
A collage of pictures taken in D.C. (mostly Georgetown store windows) celebrating Obama's victory.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Un millar de ángeles caerán del cielo
My friend Marc Costa I Sitjà keeps a great blog in which he discusses the intricacies of life and being human in such wonderful prose that it makes me want to go learn Spanish. His most recent post is gorgeous; I'll post the original Spanish as well as English translation here:
El placer de repetirse; ponme cuatro notas Johnny, y dale, dale, dale, dale, otra vez; somos animales. De pequeño me gustaban mucho las ballenas. Un día como hoy, después de darlo realtivamente duro a la piscinal, no vayamos a sentirnos grandes y exagerados. Uno se retira a la otra, una espécie de piscina tranquila, calmada con agua más caliente, uno se tumba, y poco a poco se introduce en el agua; me ahogan los pensamientos.
Vivimos en un mundo en el que la gente cada vez canta menos y gritar en un mundo lleno de Ipods sigue siendo un absurdo, la cuestión es que a diferencia de la palabra vulgar, la palabra cantada tiene una propiedad perturbadora, que deja inquieto; se nos puede narrar la historia más triste jamás escrita y contada, pero si la melodía es alegre... ¿Cómo se nos va la letra de la cabeza? ¿Porqué somos tan humanos si luego la música se lleva la letra a paseo? No en vano bajo el agua viven las ballenas y no hablan, cantan, dejarían de hablar algún dia al ver que lo de cantar surgía más efecto. Además, resulta que debajo del agua el sonido tiene una mayor velocidad que en el aire. En vano gritaremos en el agua; una de las pocas cosas que nos diferencian de las ballenas es que sus cuerdas vocales calzan para mojado y las nuestras para seco, y eso de la interfase es demasiado complicado; mejor no probarlo nuestros gritos, como nosotros; se ahogan.
Y allí estás mientras -tanto, mientras todo este tanto, sólo tienes fuera del agua la nariz y los ojos. Notas como el agua es más cariñosa contigo que el cariño que nos puede dar una madre, una madre sólo tiene diez yemas de dedo, el agua tiene tantas que no queda pliegue de nuestra piel que no toque que no mime. Y entonces la sientes....
...Es la vida de nuevo, aquí con una pizca de cuerpo fuera del agua, aquí sí hay que respirar, se te incha el pecho, sientes la presión del agua, y sientes como dentro de tí, hay aire y en otro vaivén como ese del corazón que a veces por la noche nos hace sentir tan vivos, lo hace de nuevo.
En el cielo están con el cuello en el agua.
English translation (with the help of Marc): (The bracketed words are inserted for the ease of understanding the translated version)
The pleasure of repetition (play me four notes Johnny, come on, come on, come on, come on, again); we are [all] animals. When I was a child I used to like whales a lot. A day like today, after having relatively given it all in the swimming pool, I am not feeling great and, [rather], enormously overstretched. I retire to a kind of pool with quiet, calm, and warm water. I little by little ease myself into the water. I drown in my thoughts.
And yet, there you are. [Such is your place in life]. Meanwhile, and [by that] I mean all that while, nose and eyes are the only part of you [that must stick] out of the water. Note that the water is more affectionate than the affection a mother can provide; a mother can only embrace with ten fingers. Water envelops you so that there is no fold of skin left untouched. And then you feel it...
… it is that sensation of being alive again. As you re-expose a bit of your body outside the water, it is necessary to consciously breathe. You tighten your chest, you feel the pressure of the water, feel it within you: air fills and inundates the inside, it's just another pulse again just [as that of the] heart which sometimes at night makes us feel so alive; again, you grasp that feeling.
In heaven, all are submerged with their necks in the water.
El placer de repetirse; ponme cuatro notas Johnny, y dale, dale, dale, dale, otra vez; somos animales. De pequeño me gustaban mucho las ballenas. Un día como hoy, después de darlo realtivamente duro a la piscinal, no vayamos a sentirnos grandes y exagerados. Uno se retira a la otra, una espécie de piscina tranquila, calmada con agua más caliente, uno se tumba, y poco a poco se introduce en el agua; me ahogan los pensamientos.
Vivimos en un mundo en el que la gente cada vez canta menos y gritar en un mundo lleno de Ipods sigue siendo un absurdo, la cuestión es que a diferencia de la palabra vulgar, la palabra cantada tiene una propiedad perturbadora, que deja inquieto; se nos puede narrar la historia más triste jamás escrita y contada, pero si la melodía es alegre... ¿Cómo se nos va la letra de la cabeza? ¿Porqué somos tan humanos si luego la música se lleva la letra a paseo? No en vano bajo el agua viven las ballenas y no hablan, cantan, dejarían de hablar algún dia al ver que lo de cantar surgía más efecto. Además, resulta que debajo del agua el sonido tiene una mayor velocidad que en el aire. En vano gritaremos en el agua; una de las pocas cosas que nos diferencian de las ballenas es que sus cuerdas vocales calzan para mojado y las nuestras para seco, y eso de la interfase es demasiado complicado; mejor no probarlo nuestros gritos, como nosotros; se ahogan.
Y allí estás mientras -tanto, mientras todo este tanto, sólo tienes fuera del agua la nariz y los ojos. Notas como el agua es más cariñosa contigo que el cariño que nos puede dar una madre, una madre sólo tiene diez yemas de dedo, el agua tiene tantas que no queda pliegue de nuestra piel que no toque que no mime. Y entonces la sientes....
...Es la vida de nuevo, aquí con una pizca de cuerpo fuera del agua, aquí sí hay que respirar, se te incha el pecho, sientes la presión del agua, y sientes como dentro de tí, hay aire y en otro vaivén como ese del corazón que a veces por la noche nos hace sentir tan vivos, lo hace de nuevo.
En el cielo están con el cuello en el agua.
English translation (with the help of Marc): (The bracketed words are inserted for the ease of understanding the translated version)
The pleasure of repetition (play me four notes Johnny, come on, come on, come on, come on, again); we are [all] animals. When I was a child I used to like whales a lot. A day like today, after having relatively given it all in the swimming pool, I am not feeling great and, [rather], enormously overstretched. I retire to a kind of pool with quiet, calm, and warm water. I little by little ease myself into the water. I drown in my thoughts.
We live in a world in which people sing less; vocalizing and shouting in a world full of iPods becomes an absurdity. However, unlike the spoken word, the sung word has a property of disturbing us that can leave us restless. We can tell the saddest story ever told or written… but if the melody is cheerful, how can the lyrics just vanish in hidden corners of the mind? Why are we so human if the music is a vehicle to [mask the true intent of] the lyrics? Not in vain. Underwater where the whales live, they do not speak; they sing. We may stop speaking someday if we realized that singing had a greater impact. Moreover, underwater the speed of sound is faster than it is in air. Yet, we scream in vain underwater: one of the things that differentiate us from whales is that their vocal chords are fit for wet environments and ours only for dry -- and that stuff about interfaces is far too complicated; better not to try shouting: just like us, they would drown.
… it is that sensation of being alive again. As you re-expose a bit of your body outside the water, it is necessary to consciously breathe. You tighten your chest, you feel the pressure of the water, feel it within you: air fills and inundates the inside, it's just another pulse again just [as that of the] heart which sometimes at night makes us feel so alive; again, you grasp that feeling.
In heaven, all are submerged with their necks in the water.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
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