Category: Life

Oh, you know, the usual…

The Savoy Variations: Doctor Cocktail

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Doctor Cocktail

[p.61]

This one surprised me a bit, for two reasons: 1) with only two ingredients, this cocktail is far simpler than most in the Savoy; and 2) seeing Swedish Punsch as an ingredient — it’s a bit of a niche liqueur.

Easy enough: 1.5 oz of Kronan Swedish Punsch, .75 oz of lemon juice, et voilá:

It was delicious, hands-down: sweet and tart, very sippable. I made a scaled-down second one using lime juice — equally delicious. I added it to my bar book.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

  • Savoy: 6
  • Dale: 2
  • Sink: 4

The Savoy Variations: Morning Cocktail

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

The Mule’s Hind Leg Cocktail

[p.110]

I had bookmarked this cocktail some time ago and decided to tackle it, finally, last night.

Ugh. Way too sweet, cloyingly sweet. I tossed it.

I had interpreted the “1/5” to be 1/2 oz, so I revisited the proportions, bumping the gin up to a full ounce and reducing the Bénédictine, syrup, and apricot brandy to 1/4 oz (leaving the applejack at 1/2 oz).

It was still gross. Into the sink.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

  • Savoy: 4
  • Dale: 2
  • Sink: 4

So I backed up a page.

Morning Cocktail

[p. 109]

Here I took “1/2” to mean 3/4 oz, and I actually measured the dashes. (One dash is 1/8 tsp, so the 2 dashes were 1/4 tsp — a lot easier than whacking the bitters bottle over the admixture and hoping for the best.)

I wasn’t expecting much from the drink, since I am not a big fan of dry vermouth, and absinthe is always a bully in a cocktail. (“Bully” is an actual cocktail term!)

But incredibly, this drink was very drinkable, with enough layers of flavor to keep it interesting. For once, the absinthe played nicely with its neighbors. I will give this drink another whirl.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

  • Savoy: 5
  • Dale: 2
  • Sink: 4

I wish to make a complaint.

Posted on by Dale

This morning I headed to Target to buy a shower mirror for our newly renovated shower. As I walked toward the store, this is what I saw:

Very new-looking Dodge, one of those vehicles I call “cockroach cars” because of their tendency to be zooming from lane to lane in speeds far in excess of me, who is already speeding. I am predisposed to dislike anyone who drives one, but I mean, WHAT THE HELL, ASSHOLE?

Let us assume for a moment that this car is incredibly precious to you. I can see where it might far exceed your normal income level to have bought it, and you are particularly anxious that it not be dinged by some negligent person parked next to you, and so you deliberately park directly on the line to provide that necessary space.

Fine. I get it. But here’s the deal, ASSHOLE: a decent person would have driven to the far end of the parking lot to pull that stunt and walked the extra dozen yards to the store. Your cockroach car would have been safe, and you would not have proclaimed yourself as an ASSHOLE to everyone around.

But you’re not a decent person, are you, ASSHOLE? You deliberately blocked a handicapped space merely to protect your cockroach car. To put it extremely simply, you have no sympathy for other human beings. You and your material possessions come before any other person’s needs or rights, isn’t that right? Screw any handicapped person who needs that space — your need to keep your cockroach car new and shiny, plus your desire to park as close as you can so as not to inconvenience yourself, trumps any other human’s needs. You’re basically a MAGA Republican, in spirit and deed if not in party alignment.

I made my purchase and was about to leave, but my conscience made me go back and report this to the cashier, who was as appalled as I and who called their security.

As I exited the store, however, there was the ASSHOLE driving her precious cockroach car away. I should have reported it when I went in.

By the way, ASSHOLE, I have done you an incredible favor of blurring out your license plate, although nothing would give me more vindictive pleasure than to publicly shame you. If you are in fact capable of shame.

ASSHOLE.

Post-Dishevelment Update

Posted on by Dale

Yesterday morning, I looked like this:

From the back:

By 10:30 a.m., I looked like this:

My Lovely First Wife said I look like a banker from the 80s. Nu?

So things are different now. For one thing, my hats don’t fit. I have a small skull anyway so I’m always having trouble finding hats that will not swallow my ears, but the hats I’ve bought over the last couple of years apparently needed my manbun/ponytail thing to keep my hats snug. Without that bulk, I could barely keep my hat on yesterday walking back from the stylist. (I’ve ordered hat tape, the foam strip that you put inside the sweatband to make it snugger.)

I find myself reaching up to run my fingers through my hair, but of course it’s not there anymore. I remember the first time I ran my fingers through and lifted my hair up like a common Brigitte Bardot — it was a thrill. Oh well. The joys of life come and go, ne-ç’est pas?

In that same vein, last night I found myself reaching to pull my hair through the elastic bands that hold my CPAP mask on, and laughing because I don’t have to do that anymore. I suspect I’ll be reaching for that hair for a while.

And of course, I’m not shedding like a Golden Retriever or having to pull an errant strand out of my mouth or beard or glasses.

So the hair goes into the mail today so that the Longhairs will get it in San Diego in time to count in the roundup. I’m not sure how helpful it will be; after all that time, it was a pitiful little strand that couldn’t weigh more than an ounce, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Dishevelment Update, the final chapter

Posted on by Dale

Here we go.

PREVIOUSLY ON DISHEVELMENT UPDATE:

In March of 2020, I had not had a haircut since late January or early February. Since I was having to play the role of octogenarian Adam in As You Like It, I decided not to get it cut until the show was over and I was cruising down the Rhine River.

One week before opening, As You Like It — and the whole world — shut down, and there was no opportunity to get my hair cut.

By June:

Not bad. As I’ve been telling people for four years, at first I couldn’t get a haircut, and then I was just being stubborn, and then I went feral.

A year later, spring of 2021:

You wish you were this sexy.

Which brings us to today:

All washed and dried…

I’ve loved having long hair, but today, finally, I am getting it cut. The Longhairs is a company of longhaired surfer-hippie-dudes in San Diego from whom I buy my hair products — and on March 16 they will attempt to break their own Guiness Book world record of most hair collected (by weight) in a 24-hour period. Their Great Cut is a fundraiser; their cause is kids with hair loss, which they support year-round with portions of each sale. (Obviously, the collected hair is going to companies who supply wigs for kids with hair loss.) I love their goofy, open, and positive style; I will miss buying hair ties from them.

Since I cannot be in San Diego on the 16th, I have to mail mine in by March 1 to make sure it’s there in time to be counted. I’m not sure at all that any child wants this ultrafine gray wispy stuff, but even if they end up tossing it I will have done my part to support the effort.

I will post an update soon.

More Adventures in Hoarding

Posted on by Dale

Having emptied out our storage unit, we are now faced with dealing with the boxes of personal papers that we stuck out-of-sight-out-of-mind for twenty years. (There’s also a bunch of furniture as well, but that is not my concern at the moment.)

You will recall that I came across a box of materials from our 2007 William Blake’s Inn workshops, and I actually took that to a meeting on Friday with potential collaborators to show exactly what I mean by workshopping the world premiere.

There were also two boxes/tubs of empty three-ring binders, and given that we now live in the space science future I’m having a hard time re-homing them. But look at these:

These held the scripts for some of the very first shows I directed in Newnan. (Time’s Wingéd Chariot alert: The first show I directed was Georges Feydeau’s Hotel Paradiso, in the summer of 1975. I will spare you the mental math — that was 50 years ago.) Of the actors involved in these shows, several are still doing theatre, and one ended up on Broadway.

Then there was this:

It was attached to the script for the “Epilogue” of William Blake’s Inn, and I know it had nothing to do with my magnum opus. But I have absolutely no clue what I was working on that I would need this quodlibet of songs — and what’s with the ? on p. 12?

In the storage tub of music that I was surprised to discover in the back of the storage unit, there were all these notebooks:

BACK IN MY DAY, WE HAD TO SCRIBBLE OUR MUSIC ON ACTUAL PAPER AND JUST HOPE IT SOUNDED RIGHT. I actually had a music pen, a fountain pen with a broad nib that allowed me to write noteheads and staves and flags and rests that looked almost like real music.

Eventually, though, I used pencil and paper to scribble ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS before transcribing them into Finale and beating them into shape. Here’s the sketch for “Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, and Believe,” from William Blake’s Inn:

What else was in those notebooks?

IYKYK.

The real treasure trove?

My manuscript copies of William Blake’s Inn. I’ve put them in a portfolio binder, and I seem to be missing “A Rabbit Reveals My Room,” “The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives,” “Two Sunflowers Move Into the Yellow Room,” and the above-mentioned “Make Way.” I don’t know whether I ever created an actual manuscript for those pieces; they may be in that tub or in the study somewhere.

Just look at what is still in the tub:

I see at least three never-finished projects there, and there are scraps of ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS littered throughout. My current plan is to take this tub with me on the Lichtenbergian Retreat in a couple of weeks and go through all of them, transcribing bits that are still only on paper and cataloging them all. And then?

I don’t know. Put them back in the tub. Store it in the basement or something. Wait for the biographers to show up.

Adventures in hoarding

Posted on by Dale

In order to make our transition to the hoarding lifestyle more efficient, it was decided[1] that we would take our basement playroom and turn it into a storage unit.

Part of that impetus was having to clear out my mother-in-law’s room at her retirement facility after her move to a rehab center; we had to have a place to store that furniture, some of which are “family pieces.” But it was also decided[1] that we would shut down the storage unit and bring all that stuff home as well. [To be sure, this was the correct decision.]

We did at least hire the sturdy men of A Better Way Moving to do the heavy lifting, i.e., all of it.

So here are some thoughts.

The storage unit contained not only furniture (“family pieces”) but also boxes of papers and files and certificates from our two careers. (Obviously we were paying to store a bunch of stuff that only our biographers in the multiverse would ever want to go through.) I decided that I would load all my boxes into my car and deal with them myself.

The first box I pulled off the shelf was full of drawings and stuff from the 2007 William Blake’s Inn workshop. (Also, since I haven’t really announced it on this blog, look!)

So we’re going to regard that as a positive omen. And then, in a box of empty notebooks, the first one I opened had this:

The script of the “Epilogue” from that 2007 performance. It’s enough to make you believe in fate.

What else did I schlep home?

I had this box of empty notebooks as well as a larger plastic tub of them. Why?

And the plaques/awards… Many are framed certificates — STAR Teacher awards from the school, system, and regional levels, that kind of thing — and can be removed and filed. (Hold that thought.) There were one or two awards I don’t remember winning. Innovative teacher of the year? I suppose I was, but I don’t remember achieving that.

The plaques themselves… What do you do with them? You can’t burn them. More work is required, but I can’t see any use for them other than maybe take a photo for the historical record and then dump them. (Full disclosure: I currently have in our bedroom awards acknowledging my contributions to the State STAR Student program; the Governor’s Honors Program; and the general well-being of our community in the form of the Richard Brooks Visionary Award of Distinction, a tale full of giggles if you only knew. Somewhere in the house is a plaque from the Newnan Theatre Company.)

I also brought home some antique technology:

l to r: My father’s 8mm film projector, my SE/30 Macintosh, and my PowerBook 190 (my first laptop). Whatever am I supposed to do with these?

There is also a tub of music, which surprised me since I thought I retrieved all my old scores months ago. I’ll report back when I’ve had time to go through those. Otherwise, there’s a box of 8mm home movies from last century, and a tub of GHP material which I will have to go through.

Then, in a stack of larger framed items, there was this.

This unprepossessing piece of art was actually an award from some art show when I was a youth. My art teacher, the unforgettable Tom Powers, was always over-the-top in his descriptions of pieces that he would bring in for us to see, and his description of this was in that vein:

Transcription: “PEARS” / Original ink painting by…. / LILI RENE’ / Famous French artist whose work has been exhibited all over the world and sold for some of the finest collections….Known for the boldness and originality of her work… / Market Value….. $25.00

More than 50 years ago, children, a $25.00 painting was kind of a big deal.

Still, I never really liked it, and I’ve never had it framed or displayed. I mean, “bold and original”? Even at 14 (or whenever) I thought it was mediocre. It was consigned to the storage unit.

But my curiosity was piqued: Who was this Lili René? If she was in fact a famous French artist whose work was exhibited all over the world and included in some of the finest collections, we ought to be able to track her down on the intertubes, oui? Mais non, mon cher, the googles failed us. If you search “lili rené” without the quotation marks — fun fact, if you put your search term in quotation marks, search engines search for exactly and only that term — you find Lily Reneé (Phillips), an Austrian-born American artist who was a famous comic book artist.

As tempting as it is to try to make that work, I don’t think this painting is by a world-famous artist. For one thing, I don’t think Tom Powers would be confused about Lili’s nationality, and Lily was in no way French. For another, Lily would have been substantially well-known at the time I was awarded this painting, and I think Tom would have spelled her name correctly if not outright acknowledged her actual claim to fame.

So Lili René remains a mystery.

Let’s have a quick look at the rest of our hoarding, and then I have a point to make.

In the hall:

These will actually go back into the guest bedrooms, but one of those is cluttered at the moment from stuff we had to move out of our bathroom to have the tub converted into a walk-in shower. Hi ho, the hoarding life!

In the playroom storage unit:

You can’t see them, but there is a second row of shelves behind the visible ones. Very tidily done, I must say. Plans are to make the family pieces available to family, and then to our neighbors, and then…

There’s some emotional baggage as well, of course. First and foremost, you cannot help but consider the reduction of a life as you move your mother-in-law’s much-reduced possessions out of her retirement facility apartment — itself a reduction from her suite here in our house, which was another reduction from my in-laws’ comfortable house in Abingdon, VA, and yet still more expansive than her current bed in the rehab center.

Then it dawns on you that you’ve started the same process. We jokingly call it “death-shedding,” our version of Swedish death cleaning, and that’s what it comes down to. I have all these memories stuck in boxes: files, scores, lesson plans, thank you notes, encomia, official documents, photographs… Where do they go? It’s not as if any university or think tank is waiting to receive and preserve them. At some point they must go to the landfill, right? Why not now? …

Ah, the musings of the agéd — how does one choose to reduce one’s own life? In The Lion in Winter, Henry II’s sons are in prison awaiting what they are sure is going to be a death sentence. Richard is fretting about his final image, and the cynical Geoffrey sneers, “As if the manner of one’s going matters!” To which Richard replies, “When the going is all there is, it matters.”

That was meant to be deep. Your mileage may vary. At any rate, I’ll keep you posted on our adventures in hoarding.

—————

[1] Passive voice used deliberately.

Cocktails: The Chartreuse Test

Posted on by Dale

If you’re into craft  cocktails at all, you know that green Chartreuse vanished during the pandemic and is now slowly returning to the shelves, albeit at horrendous prices. It seems that the Carthusian monastery that has made it since 1737 had a literal come-to-Jesus meeting and decided that they would dial back their commitment to supplying the world with one of its essential liqueurs. Ergo, supply < demand = higher prices. Like $100/bottle prices.

Naturally, our brave bartenders and cocktail writers have been feverishly writing articles about the Next Best Substitute for green and yellow Chartreuse. In my bar I already had Boomsma Cloosterbitter, and on a recent jaunt to Little Five Points in Atlanta I popped into the package store there and was stunned to see the Faccia Brutto Centerbe — I had heard that it was as hard to find as the real stuff.

So the other night I had a direct taste test, making a small Bijou[1] out of each one.

How small? I used only .25 oz of each ingredient — no way was I going to either 1) drink three full Bijous; or 2) pour out a drink containing green Chartreuse, what, are you crazy??

Above you see a quarter-ounce of each liqueur: Centerbe, Cloosterbitter, and Chartreuse. The Cloosterbitter is actually a little greener than the Chartreuse. Flavorwise, Centerbe and Cloosterbitter are very similar to Chartreuse. There are subtle differences, but on the whole I think we’ll be fine using the other two in most cocktails calling for Chartreuse.

Here are the three mini-Bijous, identical in appearance, and again, pretty much the same in taste. There were very subtle differences, but my palate is not that refined (nor am I that driven) that I’m going to nail those differences down when all three cocktails were perfectly yummy. If I handed you the Centerbe or Cloosterbitter version, you wouldn’t know it if I didn’t tell you.

Last night I tried my own Smoky Topaz: 1.5 oz barrel-aged gin (Tom Cat preferred), .75 oz yellow Chartreuse, .25 oz green Chartreuse (Cloosterbitter this time), .75 oz Averna Amaro.

Again, as tasty as with actual green Chartreuse.

But you have already spotted a weakness in my plan: All this time I’ve been hoarding green Chartreuse without giving a thought to the yellow… and now I’m about to be out of yellow Chartreuse with no backup.

More work is required.

—————

[1] Bijou: 3/4 oz each of gin (I prefer barrel-aged for the Bijou), sweet vermouth, and green Chartreuse

A lovely little ritual

Posted on by Dale

Several years ago I downloaded an app called Sundial onto my iPhone, and it has created a lovely little ritual for me.

What does Sundial do? It tells you everything you’ve ever needed to know about the movements of the sun and the moon: rise, set, peak, phases, length of day/night, solstices/equinoxes — you name it, Sundial’s got it.

I downloaded it so that I could find out when the times for the 3 Old Men labyrinth ritual at burns should be: solar noon, sunset, and an hour past. (You can set the date for which you need info, so it’s like time travel.)

There’s more: behind the front screen, you can set alarms/alerts for different events. I set an alarm for sunset, choosing a little owl hoot as the sound, so that now, every day, if I haven’t silenced my phone, there will come a soft, sweet double hoot, reminding me and anyone in hearing range that the sun has gone.

It’s a quiet reminder that this huge planet that I live on continues its revolutions and its orbit whether or not I’m paying attention — and it helps me pay attention. The days get shorter; the sun pauses for a few days, and then the days get longer, until the sun pauses again and we repeat the cycle.

Throughout the year, I am usually either cooking supper or having a cocktail or both when the sun sets, and in my circle we’ve started raising a glass when the owl hoots. Acknowledge the passing of time…

Germany 2023: Day 5 & 6 probably

Posted on by Dale

Yesterday in Munich, in the block where we ate lunch at a very good burger place, there was a movie theatre. This is what was scheduled for Sunday night:

The silent era masterpiece Metropolis with a live orchestra? Yes, please. My only consolation was that it was no doubt canceled because of the snow. Everything was canceled because of the snow that everyone seems to think is so pretty.

Otherwise, there would have been plenty to do in Munich of an evening besides wander the stalls of the Weihnachtsmarkt and sip glühwein. One theatre had a production of Cenerentola, for example, Rossini’s version of Cinderella and one of my favorites.

So when we last left our intrepid band, the cliffhanger was whether they would be able to escape Munich and make it to Stuttgart, the next stop on the tour. In a sequence worthy of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles they made it: four cabs to the bus station, and a 2-hour+ bus ride to Stuttgart (plus a subway ride to the main train station and a walk to the hotel).

Around Munich the snow was still thick:

 

But by the time we got to Stuttgart, there was no snow on the ground, Gott sei dank!

After a short break, we headed out to the Christmas market. I will state for the record that Stuttgart’s market is to be preferred over Munich’s. It seems more relaxed with a much broader selection of wares than Munich’s. I can state this with confidence because we immediately bought a bunch of stuff, which was not the case in Munich.

Here, have some photos:

Yes, that is a children’s Ferris wheel, with seats that look like Christmas tree ornaments.

We ate at the Alte Kanzlei, a well-regarded restaurant featuring Schwabian cuisine. It was very tasty. On the wall, one of my favorite glitches in the Matrix: the random use of English in another language:

Bottom line: Oldtimerturen durch Stuttgars Weinberge.

We explored the Market thoroughly, making some fun purchases because NEVER TOO MANY CHRISTMAS KENNETH, and then heading back to the hotel and its lovely gin bar.

How dedicated a gin bar is this bar? When I asked the bartender in this one if he could make a Manhattan, not only had he never heard of the drink, he had no idea what rye was. (They did have Bulleitt bourbon, so I used that to build on the young man’s knowledge base.)

WEDNESDAY

No real reporting for Wednesday, because I had a bit of an upset digestive system. Nothing Immodium couldn’t cure, but I realized it too late to take the meds and be settled in time to catch the train. I settled for a quiet day in Stuttgart while everyone else headed off for a charming day in Tübingen. (My Lovely First Wife found THE SHOES THAT CAN ONLY BE FOUND IN EUROPE KENNETH, so it was probably just as well that I was in the hotel reading Terry Pratchett.)

Have another glitch in the Matrix, a major one:

This is a sign on a store, one of several. The store builds wooden furniture and makes that fact its identity. But did you catch it? It’s a tree story. A freaking pun in English, and only in English. One’s head spins, it truly does.

Once everyone else was back, the two of us chose to go to Mauritius, a “beach bar,” where indeed all the cocktails are tiki cocktails in English: Zombie, Beachcomber, Sex on the Beach, etc. The food was good; we eschewed the fruity drinks.

Back to the parts of the Market we missed, including the great plaza with a light show:

The column in particular puts on a computer-sequenced show that’s delightful.

Very nice things at the section of the market we covered: antiques, quality goods, and this charming decoration:

The three discs turn, giving the illusion of skiers schussing down the mountain. Did we buy it? Not at all. But it was cute.