Been a long time since I've added any of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
8. Old arenas. I just love 'em.
Tonight marks the very last regular-season NHL game in Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, known officially for the last decade as "Mellon Arena," because Mellon Bank (now Bank of New York Mellon) bought naming rights, but which the cognoscenti know is really the Igloo. The Penguins will play the New York Islanders. (Since the Pens are in the playoffs, this won't be the last NHL game played in the Igloo.)
Originally opened for the Ice Capades in 1961, the Igloo is the oldest arena in use in the NHL. All the old rinks have been replaced. It started in 1980 with Joe Louis Arena replacing the old Detroit Olympia. Joe Louis is sleek, ultra-modern, and therefore dated (ESPN's John Buccigross recently compared it to a K-car, which is apt). The Red Wings have been terrific in the Joe, so that's built some degree of atmosphere for the place, but in general, the modern arenas are soulless. Maple Leaf Gardens, the Forum in Montreal, the Buffalo Auditorium, Chicago Stadium - all replaced with these big box places.
I only attended one Penguins game at the Igloo, despite living there 8 years (and that's a whole nother story), and it was after having lived in California longer than that. We had seats in the very last row, right under the dome. Sound from the ice and from loudspeakers got kind of swallowed up, up there, but the feel of the place was still somehow intimate (compared to the San Jose Sharks' home arena, where a similar seat, costing a similar amount, is actually located in a virtual space stored on a series of servers distributed mainly in Quincy, Washington).
7. Post-punk alternative bands. I just love 'em.
My most recent obsession is with a band called Land of Talk. They are also yet another Canadian band (which has been a weird trend for me lately - New Pornographers, Feist - what gives?). As far as this kind of band goes, Land of Talk has some fairly predictable characteristics: high energy; discordant, angular guitar sound; occasionally screechy vocals; lots of angsty lyrics. This kind of thing can be done very very badly. Very. But when it's done well, and I submit that Land of Talk do it very well, it stomps up and down on several very important buttons in my brain. Very good accompaniment to a drive to the recycling center, for instance.
Showing posts with label top 100. Show all posts
Showing posts with label top 100. Show all posts
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Sunday, October 04, 2009
one thing
It's been quite a while since I added an item to my ongoing series
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
11. Melons. I just love 'em.
This morning I cut open what will likely be our last melon of the season. It's a small, "seedless" watermelon. It's been in storage a while, I can tell, because it's not as bright, the flesh isn't as clean and smooth, and there's just a hint of the beginning of fermentation in the sugar. Still, a good, sweet watermelon, on October 4, is nothing to dismiss.
I believe there are more than a dozen common melon varieties, many hybrids created from the basic melons. As a kid, I knew two, and only two: cantaloupe (which my mom always called "musk melon") and watermelon. I didn't encounter honeydew until I was in college. My favorite has always been watermelon. In fact, I don't understand people not liking watermelon. They make me wonder.
Lately, we've been alternating melons: watermelon one week, cantaloupe the next, then another watermelon, an orange flesh melon (which I think is a cantaloupe/honeydew hybrid), then watermelon, then a sharlyn, then another watermelon,... Occasionally, we'll grab the odd canary or crenshaw, or even a yellow watermelon.
One of the best things to do with melon is to cut them open, scrape the seeds out (of the "true melons"), and stuff your face with them. Another good thing to do is to carve them with a melon baller, then wrap each ball of melon with prosciutto, put them on a stick, and drizzle them with a reduction of good balsamic vinegar, a little sugar, and perhaps something like ruby port (all reduced to a thick syrup). Then stuff your face with them.
10. Fruit stands. I just love 'em.
Our local favorite fruit stand has already undergone its annual metamorphosis from summer fruit-a-rama-thon to pumpkin oasis, which is the first signal that they'll be closed for the season all too soon. We stop by for fruit generally twice a week from May to October, and essentially don't buy fruit from anywhere else except a farmers' market during that period. Then the bastards shutter up and go away from Halloween on, and we enter that dark, desperate period during which we plod hopelessly up and down the produce aisles, looking for anything that resembles actual food.
But don't cry for us, those of you living in climates that don't grow fresh fruits and vegetables for roughly 10 months of the year (except that, really, we can grow vegetables the other 2 months, too). We make do, somehow, with our recent memories of fruits gone by.
Ah, watermelon! We hardly knew ye!
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
11. Melons. I just love 'em.
This morning I cut open what will likely be our last melon of the season. It's a small, "seedless" watermelon. It's been in storage a while, I can tell, because it's not as bright, the flesh isn't as clean and smooth, and there's just a hint of the beginning of fermentation in the sugar. Still, a good, sweet watermelon, on October 4, is nothing to dismiss.
I believe there are more than a dozen common melon varieties, many hybrids created from the basic melons. As a kid, I knew two, and only two: cantaloupe (which my mom always called "musk melon") and watermelon. I didn't encounter honeydew until I was in college. My favorite has always been watermelon. In fact, I don't understand people not liking watermelon. They make me wonder.
Lately, we've been alternating melons: watermelon one week, cantaloupe the next, then another watermelon, an orange flesh melon (which I think is a cantaloupe/honeydew hybrid), then watermelon, then a sharlyn, then another watermelon,... Occasionally, we'll grab the odd canary or crenshaw, or even a yellow watermelon.
One of the best things to do with melon is to cut them open, scrape the seeds out (of the "true melons"), and stuff your face with them. Another good thing to do is to carve them with a melon baller, then wrap each ball of melon with prosciutto, put them on a stick, and drizzle them with a reduction of good balsamic vinegar, a little sugar, and perhaps something like ruby port (all reduced to a thick syrup). Then stuff your face with them.
10. Fruit stands. I just love 'em.
Our local favorite fruit stand has already undergone its annual metamorphosis from summer fruit-a-rama-thon to pumpkin oasis, which is the first signal that they'll be closed for the season all too soon. We stop by for fruit generally twice a week from May to October, and essentially don't buy fruit from anywhere else except a farmers' market during that period. Then the bastards shutter up and go away from Halloween on, and we enter that dark, desperate period during which we plod hopelessly up and down the produce aisles, looking for anything that resembles actual food.
But don't cry for us, those of you living in climates that don't grow fresh fruits and vegetables for roughly 10 months of the year (except that, really, we can grow vegetables the other 2 months, too). We make do, somehow, with our recent memories of fruits gone by.
Ah, watermelon! We hardly knew ye!
Monday, August 03, 2009
back to things
12. Crosswords and other word games found in newspapers. I just love 'em. Back when I subscribed to the Modesto Bee (their motto: One Of America's Newspapers?), I did the crossword, the Jumble, the cryptogram, and the anagram games every day. Now that the Bee is far less a part of my life - which is almost entirely a good thing - I do the online crossword from the San Francisco Chronicle (their motto: San Francisco Is Hipper Than Anywhere Else, And Even Though There Is No Real Proof Of This, And Indeed A Lack Of Evidence Showing It's Any Hipper Than, Say, Portland, We Will Continue Our Policy Of Smug Use Of The Phrase "The City" To Refer To San Francisco, As Though No Other Place Even Qualifies As A City. I know - unwieldy, ain't it?). I've looked but cannot find any other of the daily word games online.
13. Strawberry tarts. I just love 'em. I happen to make a mean strawberry tart, and I happen to have made one yesterday, which we sampled last night as dessert. Boy, howdy. (I'd post a picture to brag and to create envy/hunger, but we left our camera in Hayward.)
Whenever I make a tart, we run lines from an old Monty Python sketch, in which a Pepperpot (a Python in drag) offers her husband a series of desserts all including rat as an ingredient, ending the list with "strawberry tart." It turns out the strawberry tart also has rat in it, three of them, so the husband asks for a slice "without so much rat in it." Subsequently, a church police officer (it's complicated) refers to it as "rat tart," which is funny, but also the more accurate description of any strawberry tart with three rats in it. Consequently, we refer to strawberry tart as "rat tart."
13. Strawberry tarts. I just love 'em. I happen to make a mean strawberry tart, and I happen to have made one yesterday, which we sampled last night as dessert. Boy, howdy. (I'd post a picture to brag and to create envy/hunger, but we left our camera in Hayward.)
Whenever I make a tart, we run lines from an old Monty Python sketch, in which a Pepperpot (a Python in drag) offers her husband a series of desserts all including rat as an ingredient, ending the list with "strawberry tart." It turns out the strawberry tart also has rat in it, three of them, so the husband asks for a slice "without so much rat in it." Subsequently, a church police officer (it's complicated) refers to it as "rat tart," which is funny, but also the more accurate description of any strawberry tart with three rats in it. Consequently, we refer to strawberry tart as "rat tart."
Monday, December 22, 2008
a quick one
And now, a seasonal entry from
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
14. Jazz versions of Christmas tunes. I just love 'em.
By jazz versions, I here mean a fairly wide swath in the territory from blues to swing to big band to crooner to hard bop.
A few of these are well-known, of course. For instance, I think most folks know (and if they don't they should) Louis Armstrong's Zat You, Santa Claus?". Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Etta James, Ramsey Lewis, and dozens of other jazz or jazz-influenced musicians have recorded joyful, swinging, spiffy X-mas numbers.
We own copies of two of the best jazz holiday albums, Jimmy Smith's rollicking, and sometimes overwhelming Christmas Cookin' and Vince Gauraldi's soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas. I've yet to pick up a new Christmas jazz album this year, but I know which one I want: Joe Pass's Six String Santa. Might need to look that up on iTunes.
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
14. Jazz versions of Christmas tunes. I just love 'em.
By jazz versions, I here mean a fairly wide swath in the territory from blues to swing to big band to crooner to hard bop.
A few of these are well-known, of course. For instance, I think most folks know (and if they don't they should) Louis Armstrong's Zat You, Santa Claus?". Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Etta James, Ramsey Lewis, and dozens of other jazz or jazz-influenced musicians have recorded joyful, swinging, spiffy X-mas numbers.
We own copies of two of the best jazz holiday albums, Jimmy Smith's rollicking, and sometimes overwhelming Christmas Cookin' and Vince Gauraldi's soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas. I've yet to pick up a new Christmas jazz album this year, but I know which one I want: Joe Pass's Six String Santa. Might need to look that up on iTunes.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
an item from the ongoing series
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
15. Collective actions. I just love 'em.
I've spent the better part of the semester, and particularly the better part of the past week, involved in one collective action or another. Most of these were efforts to resist draconian budget cuts at the university - mostly in response to the local administration's decision to cut $1.5 million from the base budgets of academic departments to balance a budget they have been anything but forthcoming about. That effort has apparently led to the restoration of (at last count) about 80% of that budget.
Today I spent several hours helping to gather signatories to faxes to be sent to the governor and party leaders in both houses of the legislature. The university still faces the prospect of around $98 million in cuts during this academic year.
The faculty also face a re-opener of the contract we finally settled after 2 years, and the administration's opening offer was to eliminate the salary raises we spent so much time and effort winning. More collective action on that front, I figure, to follow.
Last Saturday, to take a break from all this, we went to a collective action in Modesto to protest Prop. 8. Apparently, it was the biggest such rally in Modesto over the issue of sex-based marriage discrimination. It seemed like the number of people honking car horns and yelling and whooping favorably was about two to three times higher than the number flipping us off or yelling insults.
We may lose all these fights. The Board of Trustees may vote to raise student fees, blame faculty raises (that we may not even receive) for the fee increase, and turn around and raise executive pay. Prop. 8 may stand, despite what seems like obviously unconstitutional discrimination. But what else can I do? Even if I'm going to lose, I have to fight, because there just isn't any other way to try to defend myself and what I value. Grim hope, I suppose.
15. Collective actions. I just love 'em.
I've spent the better part of the semester, and particularly the better part of the past week, involved in one collective action or another. Most of these were efforts to resist draconian budget cuts at the university - mostly in response to the local administration's decision to cut $1.5 million from the base budgets of academic departments to balance a budget they have been anything but forthcoming about. That effort has apparently led to the restoration of (at last count) about 80% of that budget.
Today I spent several hours helping to gather signatories to faxes to be sent to the governor and party leaders in both houses of the legislature. The university still faces the prospect of around $98 million in cuts during this academic year.
The faculty also face a re-opener of the contract we finally settled after 2 years, and the administration's opening offer was to eliminate the salary raises we spent so much time and effort winning. More collective action on that front, I figure, to follow.
Last Saturday, to take a break from all this, we went to a collective action in Modesto to protest Prop. 8. Apparently, it was the biggest such rally in Modesto over the issue of sex-based marriage discrimination. It seemed like the number of people honking car horns and yelling and whooping favorably was about two to three times higher than the number flipping us off or yelling insults.
We may lose all these fights. The Board of Trustees may vote to raise student fees, blame faculty raises (that we may not even receive) for the fee increase, and turn around and raise executive pay. Prop. 8 may stand, despite what seems like obviously unconstitutional discrimination. But what else can I do? Even if I'm going to lose, I have to fight, because there just isn't any other way to try to defend myself and what I value. Grim hope, I suppose.
Monday, September 22, 2008
some of these things are not like the others
Two timely items from the ongoing list of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
18. Live theatrical performances. I just love 'em.
As advertised, we saw Cabaret in San Francisco Saturday night. It was terrific. At the end of August we hit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello, which were also terrific.
But indeed, I have a history of enjoying theatrical performances even when they're not any good. Way back in college, UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival every summer - the only free professional theater in the US at the time. Mainly the plays were excellent, the performances excellent, but every once in a while there was a stinker. There was a completely useless and bizarrely inept staging of a Tennessee Williams play one summer that I probably should have been thrown out of. It was great.
Live theater always gives you something. Sometimes it's of questionable intrinsic quality, but you still get it. And it's all happening right there in front of you, so if it's a train wreck, it's a train wreck, and nobody can stop it. That's thrilling.
17. Ironic political comeuppances. I just love 'em.
Turns out that John McCain's chief of staff is gay. So McCain, who is in favor of states passing constitutional amendments forbidding same-sex marriages, and whose choice for vice-president is a devotee of a bizarre hate-mongering religious cult, apparently either doesn't know, or doesn't mind that Mark Buse, his chief of staff, is gay. (It's unlikely he doesn't know, if, as has been reported, McCain has attended dinner parties thrown by Buse and his partner.) It's a level of hypocrisy that most people find objectionable, and frankly difficult to reach. But McCain is a talented guy.
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
18. Live theatrical performances. I just love 'em.
As advertised, we saw Cabaret in San Francisco Saturday night. It was terrific. At the end of August we hit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello, which were also terrific.
But indeed, I have a history of enjoying theatrical performances even when they're not any good. Way back in college, UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival every summer - the only free professional theater in the US at the time. Mainly the plays were excellent, the performances excellent, but every once in a while there was a stinker. There was a completely useless and bizarrely inept staging of a Tennessee Williams play one summer that I probably should have been thrown out of. It was great.
Live theater always gives you something. Sometimes it's of questionable intrinsic quality, but you still get it. And it's all happening right there in front of you, so if it's a train wreck, it's a train wreck, and nobody can stop it. That's thrilling.
17. Ironic political comeuppances. I just love 'em.
Turns out that John McCain's chief of staff is gay. So McCain, who is in favor of states passing constitutional amendments forbidding same-sex marriages, and whose choice for vice-president is a devotee of a bizarre hate-mongering religious cult, apparently either doesn't know, or doesn't mind that Mark Buse, his chief of staff, is gay. (It's unlikely he doesn't know, if, as has been reported, McCain has attended dinner parties thrown by Buse and his partner.) It's a level of hypocrisy that most people find objectionable, and frankly difficult to reach. But McCain is a talented guy.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
blogging for dummies
Tomorrow my classes start. It'll be 103, so I'm not walking to school, which is very disappointing, because I like walking to school.
In the meantime,
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
19. Picnics. I just love 'em.
Food, the outdoors, people you like - what could be better? My favorite picnics involve fresh bread, cheese, fruit, and wine, but excellent results are obtainable with PB&J, a bag of mini pretzels and bottles of water, or really just anything that's eatable outside. A body of water nearby is a huge plus, and available shade, preferably from trees, is a sine qua non. Having hiked helps, too.
Saturday is the annual university labor unions-sponsored picnic. It's gonna be big this year, I hear: 250 or so have RSVPed. It's gonna be 103 Saturday, too. Apparently, CFA has rented shade for the day, and it's going to be near the pond on campus I call "Projectile-vomiting Goat-head Lake," but I think hiking is out.
I've picnicked in all kinds of weather, including some weather that strongly contraindicates picnicking, so this is nothing new.
20. Internet time-wasters. I just love 'em.
I'm always grateful when bloggers link to online quizzes, personality surveys, IQ tests, trivia games, and other goofy crap like that. I don't spend an inordinate amount of time on them, but occasionally one finds oneself enraptured by them. I think the most dangerous is Lolcats. Damn, is it easy to spend an hour on Lolcats.
I've also recently been digging image generators that let you do stuff like add cartoon speech or thought balloons to images, for instance:
Or book covers:
In the meantime,
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
19. Picnics. I just love 'em.
Food, the outdoors, people you like - what could be better? My favorite picnics involve fresh bread, cheese, fruit, and wine, but excellent results are obtainable with PB&J, a bag of mini pretzels and bottles of water, or really just anything that's eatable outside. A body of water nearby is a huge plus, and available shade, preferably from trees, is a sine qua non. Having hiked helps, too.
Saturday is the annual university labor unions-sponsored picnic. It's gonna be big this year, I hear: 250 or so have RSVPed. It's gonna be 103 Saturday, too. Apparently, CFA has rented shade for the day, and it's going to be near the pond on campus I call "Projectile-vomiting Goat-head Lake," but I think hiking is out.
I've picnicked in all kinds of weather, including some weather that strongly contraindicates picnicking, so this is nothing new.
20. Internet time-wasters. I just love 'em.
I'm always grateful when bloggers link to online quizzes, personality surveys, IQ tests, trivia games, and other goofy crap like that. I don't spend an inordinate amount of time on them, but occasionally one finds oneself enraptured by them. I think the most dangerous is Lolcats. Damn, is it easy to spend an hour on Lolcats.
I've also recently been digging image generators that let you do stuff like add cartoon speech or thought balloons to images, for instance:
Or book covers:
Thursday, July 31, 2008
jokes
Brought to you by random coincidence,
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
22. Jokes. I just love 'em.
Apparently, the world's oldest joke is a Sumerian fart joke, which I don't find particularly funny.
I just saw this this morning, which is timely, because last night my loveliest Lauren was regaling self, Christina and Guerin (on the occasion of X-ina's birthday) with jokes. She's a really good joke teller, and, when pressed, can dredge up absolute oodles of 'em. My friend Imj can also tell a joke like nobody's business, and, without any instigation at all, will launch gag barrages at innocent bystanders.
I cannot tell jokes. I have no head for them. I can write satire, but mainly I can interject what Imj described once as "cognitive dissonance." Still, I'm evidently funnier than the ancient Sumerians.
21. Multiple-course dinners. I just love 'em.
Speaking of birthdays, I'm planning a gigantic dinner party for mine, coming up in a couple weeks. At present, I'm sure of only one of the amuses gueules and nearly certain about an entrée.
I started taking cooking seriously years ago, to give myself something to make the world seem right when nothing else did. I've put together a handful of huge food orgies, including a 9 course dinner, that I'm going to try to surpass, at least in tastiness, this time. It takes hours and hours to eat that amount, so you really have to prepare people ahead of time and be realistic about the size of each course. We're starting at around 3, but I figure the main course won't be until 9.
But man, it's fun cooking that much stuff, matching dishes, giving the meal a real sense of direction.
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
22. Jokes. I just love 'em.
Apparently, the world's oldest joke is a Sumerian fart joke, which I don't find particularly funny.
I just saw this this morning, which is timely, because last night my loveliest Lauren was regaling self, Christina and Guerin (on the occasion of X-ina's birthday) with jokes. She's a really good joke teller, and, when pressed, can dredge up absolute oodles of 'em. My friend Imj can also tell a joke like nobody's business, and, without any instigation at all, will launch gag barrages at innocent bystanders.
I cannot tell jokes. I have no head for them. I can write satire, but mainly I can interject what Imj described once as "cognitive dissonance." Still, I'm evidently funnier than the ancient Sumerians.
21. Multiple-course dinners. I just love 'em.
Speaking of birthdays, I'm planning a gigantic dinner party for mine, coming up in a couple weeks. At present, I'm sure of only one of the amuses gueules and nearly certain about an entrée.
I started taking cooking seriously years ago, to give myself something to make the world seem right when nothing else did. I've put together a handful of huge food orgies, including a 9 course dinner, that I'm going to try to surpass, at least in tastiness, this time. It takes hours and hours to eat that amount, so you really have to prepare people ahead of time and be realistic about the size of each course. We're starting at around 3, but I figure the main course won't be until 9.
But man, it's fun cooking that much stuff, matching dishes, giving the meal a real sense of direction.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
heroes
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
23. Heroes. I just love 'em.
George Carlin's death has me thinking about heroes, strangely, because in the grand scheme of things, Carlin wasn't a hero of mine, though he was close. I respected him a lot, and to me, he was incredibly funny. He was at the center of a landmark free speech/obscenity case, but wasn't really a participant - more the occasion or object.
I don't tend to regard heroes as paragons of virtue, or necessarily morally righteous. This is lucky for me, because I don't think any of mine would pass a virtue/righteousness test. I'm just whipping this out, so I might glaringly omit someone, but let's see if I can list them.
Lenny Bruce. Lenny was not only involved in a landmark free speech/obscenity case, but the only person ever convicted of obscenity in the US for any performance or publication not containing pornographic images (depending on your perspective, I suppose). His final appeal was granted posthumously. In any case, Lenny's act, and to a large degree his everyday behavior (if reports are, in the main, honest), focused on the moral contradictions of American culture and social life, by which he was in turns amused and horrified. And he made it all funny, until he stopped being funny. Lenny Bruce is such a hero to me, I even like his stuff after he stopped being a comic and became Lenny Bruce instead.
John Fahey. For my money, Fahey's guitar playing is the weirdest there could be, not because his playing techniques were particularly odd, but because his musical sensibilities and impulses were fundamentally crackers. I wouldn't say I aspire to play like Fahey. I don't think I'll ever be as good (even though Fahey wasn't really a technical virtuoso), but I'll never be that creative. Fahey also wrote bizarre, if not actually insane, rambling quasi-autobiographical screeds, some of which are published as a book called How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life.
Frank Lloyd Wright. Almost everything Wright said about architecture, especially his own, was either an outright lie or self-promotional puffery. I don't care. He was reportedly mercurial in his relationships with other people, often instantly enraged by loved ones, employees, and employers. I don't care. He blithely ignored clients' design requirements or preferences, and imposed his own style, proportion, and uncomfortable furniture on them. I don't care. His places are drafty and they leak. I don't care. I can't go near or into a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright without feeling whole, solid, ready, aware, lively, and inspired. They don't have to be particularly similar for this to happen, either: Fallingwater packs a huge wallop, but I feel much the same at the Marin County Civic Center.
Julia Child. I cut my teeth on Julia Child's cooking shows on TV when I was a kid. One of my earliest satirical ideas was a spoof of her shows, combined with Monty Hall's old joint, to be called Let's Bake A Seal. Her actual life story is pretty amazing. She was a defense intelligence agent after World War II, fell in love with another defense intelligence agent, who ended up stationed in Paris (I think under cover). So she played housewife awhile, got bored, and went to the Cordon Bleu cooking school. They came back to the states, and eventually she started teaching people to cook on TV. She made mistakes, she dropped stuff, and she wrote and showed you how to fix things when things went wrong. She was a brilliant cook, fearless but not flawless, and her recipes always work (even if they cheat somewhat).
John Meyer. After a year of being thoroughly bored in eighth grade, my junior high school put me in the higher level courses, which I think were called GT classes, for ninth. So it was that I had 9th grade US history with John Meyer, late morning, in a trailer out behind the main classroom building. In that trailer, he taught a lesson one particularly stifling hot, humid late spring morning, by turning the classroom into a sweatshop, dividing the class into production lines, and requiring us to manufacture "Happy Books." This was too much for the upper-middle-class white girls to handle, and the complaints came in from their folks. They hated him. I had a sudden realization that I wanted to teach for a living. I had AP European History with him in high school, which wasn't as revelatory, but was still one of a handful of classes that were taught by people who showed any respect at all for the emerging intellects of the students.
Tom Waits. If I could write lyrics like anybody I chose, it'd be like Tom Waits (and I suppose Kathleen Brennan, since they write most things together). If I could make music any way I liked, I would make music like Waits' - not the particular style, not all the racket, but the sheer fuckitity of his approach. He described what he started to do with music around 1990 or so as taking away all the stuff that's obviously musical, and making music out of what's left over. I admire the bejezus out of that. I wish I could do that. (Sometimes it happens when I teach, I think. It's cool as hell.)
Of course I've had other heroes, mainly hockey players like Mike Palmateer, but that was as a kid. I suppose some people outgrow having heroes at some point. I haven't, and I don't think I will (Fahey just became a hero a couple years ago).
23. Heroes. I just love 'em.
George Carlin's death has me thinking about heroes, strangely, because in the grand scheme of things, Carlin wasn't a hero of mine, though he was close. I respected him a lot, and to me, he was incredibly funny. He was at the center of a landmark free speech/obscenity case, but wasn't really a participant - more the occasion or object.
I don't tend to regard heroes as paragons of virtue, or necessarily morally righteous. This is lucky for me, because I don't think any of mine would pass a virtue/righteousness test. I'm just whipping this out, so I might glaringly omit someone, but let's see if I can list them.
Lenny Bruce. Lenny was not only involved in a landmark free speech/obscenity case, but the only person ever convicted of obscenity in the US for any performance or publication not containing pornographic images (depending on your perspective, I suppose). His final appeal was granted posthumously. In any case, Lenny's act, and to a large degree his everyday behavior (if reports are, in the main, honest), focused on the moral contradictions of American culture and social life, by which he was in turns amused and horrified. And he made it all funny, until he stopped being funny. Lenny Bruce is such a hero to me, I even like his stuff after he stopped being a comic and became Lenny Bruce instead.
John Fahey. For my money, Fahey's guitar playing is the weirdest there could be, not because his playing techniques were particularly odd, but because his musical sensibilities and impulses were fundamentally crackers. I wouldn't say I aspire to play like Fahey. I don't think I'll ever be as good (even though Fahey wasn't really a technical virtuoso), but I'll never be that creative. Fahey also wrote bizarre, if not actually insane, rambling quasi-autobiographical screeds, some of which are published as a book called How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life.
Frank Lloyd Wright. Almost everything Wright said about architecture, especially his own, was either an outright lie or self-promotional puffery. I don't care. He was reportedly mercurial in his relationships with other people, often instantly enraged by loved ones, employees, and employers. I don't care. He blithely ignored clients' design requirements or preferences, and imposed his own style, proportion, and uncomfortable furniture on them. I don't care. His places are drafty and they leak. I don't care. I can't go near or into a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright without feeling whole, solid, ready, aware, lively, and inspired. They don't have to be particularly similar for this to happen, either: Fallingwater packs a huge wallop, but I feel much the same at the Marin County Civic Center.
Julia Child. I cut my teeth on Julia Child's cooking shows on TV when I was a kid. One of my earliest satirical ideas was a spoof of her shows, combined with Monty Hall's old joint, to be called Let's Bake A Seal. Her actual life story is pretty amazing. She was a defense intelligence agent after World War II, fell in love with another defense intelligence agent, who ended up stationed in Paris (I think under cover). So she played housewife awhile, got bored, and went to the Cordon Bleu cooking school. They came back to the states, and eventually she started teaching people to cook on TV. She made mistakes, she dropped stuff, and she wrote and showed you how to fix things when things went wrong. She was a brilliant cook, fearless but not flawless, and her recipes always work (even if they cheat somewhat).
John Meyer. After a year of being thoroughly bored in eighth grade, my junior high school put me in the higher level courses, which I think were called GT classes, for ninth. So it was that I had 9th grade US history with John Meyer, late morning, in a trailer out behind the main classroom building. In that trailer, he taught a lesson one particularly stifling hot, humid late spring morning, by turning the classroom into a sweatshop, dividing the class into production lines, and requiring us to manufacture "Happy Books." This was too much for the upper-middle-class white girls to handle, and the complaints came in from their folks. They hated him. I had a sudden realization that I wanted to teach for a living. I had AP European History with him in high school, which wasn't as revelatory, but was still one of a handful of classes that were taught by people who showed any respect at all for the emerging intellects of the students.
Tom Waits. If I could write lyrics like anybody I chose, it'd be like Tom Waits (and I suppose Kathleen Brennan, since they write most things together). If I could make music any way I liked, I would make music like Waits' - not the particular style, not all the racket, but the sheer fuckitity of his approach. He described what he started to do with music around 1990 or so as taking away all the stuff that's obviously musical, and making music out of what's left over. I admire the bejezus out of that. I wish I could do that. (Sometimes it happens when I teach, I think. It's cool as hell.)
Of course I've had other heroes, mainly hockey players like Mike Palmateer, but that was as a kid. I suppose some people outgrow having heroes at some point. I haven't, and I don't think I will (Fahey just became a hero a couple years ago).
Sunday, June 08, 2008
what's that thing?
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
24. Clean kitchens. I just love 'em.
We're down in LA to visit, just around my loveliest's ma Allison's birthday. I roasted a leg of lamb with some potatoes for a belated birthday dinner tonight, and just spent a few minutes scouring the roasting pan. Cleaning a kitchen is satisfying work, for me, because I spend a lot of time making kitchens need to be cleaned. But mainly, I love a clean kitchen.
The roasting pan in question I had propped up in the sink to soak several hours ago. While generally tidying up after our 6th pinochle game of the weekend, I decided to clean the last of the dinner stuff, including the roasting pan. I needn't have. But sitting there on the edge of the sink, it gave me a look that said "Tomorrow morning, I'll be sitting in this sink, and someone waking up - maybe you - will see me sitting here, and I will look so forlorn, so filthy, so recalcitrantly in the way of the faucet, that you'll regret ever having roasted that so-called leg of lamb in me." So I Brilloed the heck outta that roasting pan, leaving the sink, if not clean, at least emptied of dirty dishes and pans.
I especially love a clean kitchen as a thing to walk into in the morning, in search of some form of caffeinated beverage and some form of bread product to call breakfast. Things in place, things clean, things ready to go - this is a special kind of bliss.
24. Clean kitchens. I just love 'em.
We're down in LA to visit, just around my loveliest's ma Allison's birthday. I roasted a leg of lamb with some potatoes for a belated birthday dinner tonight, and just spent a few minutes scouring the roasting pan. Cleaning a kitchen is satisfying work, for me, because I spend a lot of time making kitchens need to be cleaned. But mainly, I love a clean kitchen.
The roasting pan in question I had propped up in the sink to soak several hours ago. While generally tidying up after our 6th pinochle game of the weekend, I decided to clean the last of the dinner stuff, including the roasting pan. I needn't have. But sitting there on the edge of the sink, it gave me a look that said "Tomorrow morning, I'll be sitting in this sink, and someone waking up - maybe you - will see me sitting here, and I will look so forlorn, so filthy, so recalcitrantly in the way of the faucet, that you'll regret ever having roasted that so-called leg of lamb in me." So I Brilloed the heck outta that roasting pan, leaving the sink, if not clean, at least emptied of dirty dishes and pans.
I especially love a clean kitchen as a thing to walk into in the morning, in search of some form of caffeinated beverage and some form of bread product to call breakfast. Things in place, things clean, things ready to go - this is a special kind of bliss.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
landmark 361st post
Last night, the kittoises slept almost through the night. When I woke to the alarm (a cd player alarm; the Monkees, I swear to it), they were curled up on us, sweetly sleeping. As usual, Alexander immediately woke when he saw me moving, and as usual, Arthur was the first one downstairs in the kitchen to beg for breakfast. But they didn't wake me up, at 5, or 4:30, by jumping up and down on top of us wrestling and biting each other (and us). This morning is also the first morning in the past week when it was actually chilly (we've had record temperatures until yesterday).
From this I conclude: the kittens are heat-activated.
But that's not what I meant to write about. No, that would be
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
25. Notes sung in the "dog register." I just love 'em.
Last night we went to the Cow State Santa Claus Chamber Singers (a.k.a. Daniel Afonso's Elite Republican Guard) concert. These are the top-shelf choral singers on campus, and they never fail to impress. Last night they were a little bit impressiver than usual, particularly the altos. Altos tend to sound weaker in choral groups, in my experience, but this group are quite strong. My loveliest (a one-time soprano-trapped-in-an-alto's-section) suggested that it's hard to find traditional college-age students who are strong altos, because altos develop later as voices deepen.
In any case, a couple of the numbers featured extremely high notes from first sopranos, which is just about my favorite thing that ever happens in choral music. The more the sopranos have to reach, the more I like it. They weren't hitting Ds or anything, but there were definitely a few As, and I believe a B or two.
I don't know what it is, exactly. I feel those dog notes in my bones. Perhaps I'm a dog. Perhaps, as Afonso once suggested to me, I have a sadistic urge focused on sopranos. Well, so did Mozart, so neener-neener, sopranos!
24. Musical dissonances. I just love 'em.
There wasn't as much of this as there sometimes is, but there was a smattering in Eric Whitacre's "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine," an uplifting (hah!) modern piece in which the choir evokes dreaming, flying, wind, and machines, and the siren call of the will to fly.
Dissonance may not be a word Whitacre, or anybody who knows anything about music, would accept as a description, but by it I mean a tonal tension that sounds like something weird has happened to the piano. I love those moments because I love the feeling of being on the verge, or about to be shoved off the cliff, or about to let go of the rope. I only love that feeling in music, art, literature, philosophy, and theater, and I don't just love it, I have to have it, or I don't feel like anything very important has happened.
Like the Bach piece they did last night. Bach, it struck me, is just like Leibniz. Music is a universal language, Bach's concertos and whatnot are generated by a Leibnizian calculating machine, and each piece in Bach's Werke is the perfect solution generated by the machine. Bach is just the mechanic. Contrast Mozart, who is just like Kant: everything perfectly rational, but also sublime and beautiful, and he swears up and down that's the same thing, and he can prove it, if you'd only sit down and listen, honestly, he's got the whole thing worked out, it's, you know... this!
Okay, seem to have wandered a bit. Last day of classes. Wooo!
From this I conclude: the kittens are heat-activated.
But that's not what I meant to write about. No, that would be
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
25. Notes sung in the "dog register." I just love 'em.
Last night we went to the Cow State Santa Claus Chamber Singers (a.k.a. Daniel Afonso's Elite Republican Guard) concert. These are the top-shelf choral singers on campus, and they never fail to impress. Last night they were a little bit impressiver than usual, particularly the altos. Altos tend to sound weaker in choral groups, in my experience, but this group are quite strong. My loveliest (a one-time soprano-trapped-in-an-alto's-section) suggested that it's hard to find traditional college-age students who are strong altos, because altos develop later as voices deepen.
In any case, a couple of the numbers featured extremely high notes from first sopranos, which is just about my favorite thing that ever happens in choral music. The more the sopranos have to reach, the more I like it. They weren't hitting Ds or anything, but there were definitely a few As, and I believe a B or two.
I don't know what it is, exactly. I feel those dog notes in my bones. Perhaps I'm a dog. Perhaps, as Afonso once suggested to me, I have a sadistic urge focused on sopranos. Well, so did Mozart, so neener-neener, sopranos!
24. Musical dissonances. I just love 'em.
There wasn't as much of this as there sometimes is, but there was a smattering in Eric Whitacre's "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine," an uplifting (hah!) modern piece in which the choir evokes dreaming, flying, wind, and machines, and the siren call of the will to fly.
Dissonance may not be a word Whitacre, or anybody who knows anything about music, would accept as a description, but by it I mean a tonal tension that sounds like something weird has happened to the piano. I love those moments because I love the feeling of being on the verge, or about to be shoved off the cliff, or about to let go of the rope. I only love that feeling in music, art, literature, philosophy, and theater, and I don't just love it, I have to have it, or I don't feel like anything very important has happened.
Like the Bach piece they did last night. Bach, it struck me, is just like Leibniz. Music is a universal language, Bach's concertos and whatnot are generated by a Leibnizian calculating machine, and each piece in Bach's Werke is the perfect solution generated by the machine. Bach is just the mechanic. Contrast Mozart, who is just like Kant: everything perfectly rational, but also sublime and beautiful, and he swears up and down that's the same thing, and he can prove it, if you'd only sit down and listen, honestly, he's got the whole thing worked out, it's, you know... this!
Okay, seem to have wandered a bit. Last day of classes. Wooo!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Dyson
People who read this blog (I could name approximately 3) know of my predilection for freshly-vacuumed carpets. With a fluffy cat and two long-haired hippies living in the house at the time, vacuuming was more than a hobby.
A couple months ago a pair of Kirby door-to-door hacks came by, gave us a demo of the honestly astounding cleaning power of the Kirby, and tried to sell us a Kirby do-it-all machine for the bargain price of$1500 $1200 $1000 cash. They were competing, they said, to try to win Kirby vacuums for themselves, to advance in their salesforces, and to compete for a vacation prize. This, it turns out, is a scam: the vacuums they sell door to door, the demo models, are generally rebuilts, and their stated sticker price, which ranges from $2000 to $2500 (our dudes said $2500), are huge premiums over Kirby's suggested retail of around $1200.
Anyway, the machine impressed, though we made a quick Google search of the vacs while the demo guy was shampooing our living room carpet, found out the scam, and didn't bite. We did, however, come to a chilling realization of the gross inadequacies of our Dirt Devil Jaguar. More research suggested that Dyson's machines are at least in the running with Kirbys for performance standards. My loveliest's family swears by them. So we've been talking about getting one.
Doc Nagel's Heap of Things
26. Dyson vacuums. I just love 'em.
Last weekend we saw the Dyson Slimline on big big sale at the local Kohl's, while there looking for something completely different (I wandered a bit). They were out. We got a rain check. I was disappointed, but whattayagonnado?
Today, I decided to bring out the ol' Jag to clean up while Alexander and Arthur were at the vet's being neutered (successfully; Arthur is, of this writing, woozy as all heck and complaining, and Alexander is, typically, resigned to the whole thing). I wasn't getting any suction, which is the whole point, if you will, of vacuum cleaners. So, as usual, I assumed that a clog of cat fluff and human hair, along with Arthur's kittie-litter-redecorating detritus, had developed in the beast. I cleaned all pipes, tried again, and still nothing.
What I wish I had said: It's dead, Jim.
What I actually said: Well, it looks like you and Lancelot finally got your revenge against the vacuum. Good boy, Lance. A posthumous kill.
So, we plied the Internets looking for someone who would sell us a Dyson on the quick, and found out, to my surprise, that Target sells them, for competitive prices. Gots it. And boy, howdy. This thing sucks.
I vacuumed the upstairs, and the stairs themselves, and overfilled the dust tank. The stairs look like they're coming out of a terrible dirt hangover, all kinda disheveled but managing to stand up on their own and smile wanly at the sun.
Perhaps I take vacuuming a little too... existentially.
A couple months ago a pair of Kirby door-to-door hacks came by, gave us a demo of the honestly astounding cleaning power of the Kirby, and tried to sell us a Kirby do-it-all machine for the bargain price of
Anyway, the machine impressed, though we made a quick Google search of the vacs while the demo guy was shampooing our living room carpet, found out the scam, and didn't bite. We did, however, come to a chilling realization of the gross inadequacies of our Dirt Devil Jaguar. More research suggested that Dyson's machines are at least in the running with Kirbys for performance standards. My loveliest's family swears by them. So we've been talking about getting one.
Doc Nagel's Heap of Things
26. Dyson vacuums. I just love 'em.
Last weekend we saw the Dyson Slimline on big big sale at the local Kohl's, while there looking for something completely different (I wandered a bit). They were out. We got a rain check. I was disappointed, but whattayagonnado?
Today, I decided to bring out the ol' Jag to clean up while Alexander and Arthur were at the vet's being neutered (successfully; Arthur is, of this writing, woozy as all heck and complaining, and Alexander is, typically, resigned to the whole thing). I wasn't getting any suction, which is the whole point, if you will, of vacuum cleaners. So, as usual, I assumed that a clog of cat fluff and human hair, along with Arthur's kittie-litter-redecorating detritus, had developed in the beast. I cleaned all pipes, tried again, and still nothing.
What I wish I had said: It's dead, Jim.
What I actually said: Well, it looks like you and Lancelot finally got your revenge against the vacuum. Good boy, Lance. A posthumous kill.
So, we plied the Internets looking for someone who would sell us a Dyson on the quick, and found out, to my surprise, that Target sells them, for competitive prices. Gots it. And boy, howdy. This thing sucks.
I vacuumed the upstairs, and the stairs themselves, and overfilled the dust tank. The stairs look like they're coming out of a terrible dirt hangover, all kinda disheveled but managing to stand up on their own and smile wanly at the sun.
Perhaps I take vacuuming a little too... existentially.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
elections
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
28. Elections. I just love 'em.
We just got the info packet from the State for the Primary Election on June 3rd. I don't understand this. The State held presidential primaries in February, but apparently we have to have another one. In any case, there's some interesting issues on the ballot.
There's a recall campaign against our State Senator, Jeff Denham. I don't know much about him, except that he stood steadfast against the state budget last year, along party lines, and that he voted to cut school budgets. He also apparently made a public show of not accepting a salary increase, claiming that he was protesting the state's budgetary priorities (i.e., spending money on education), but then, later, took the raise.
There are two initiatives, 98 and 99. 98 would make it more difficult for cities to make eminent domain seizures for private development, which I like, but also would phase out rent control and regulations about returning security deposits to renters, which is a horrible idea. I've had enough trouble with getting security deposits back, and rent control is vital in places like San Francisco, where it's already too damned expensive to live. 99 would undo 98, approximately.
This happens a lot in California: two ballot propositions that are directly contradictory (or nearabouts) to one another. Often, they both fail, which is why people work to put the second, contradictory initiative on the ballot. It confuses voters, and they end up voting no. (Also, many of the ballot initiatives approved by California voters have been overturned by the state supreme court for being unconstitutional. I don't think anyone's tried that with Proposition 22 - The Defense of Marriage Act.)
There's a primary for the 19th District US House seat, currently occupied by George Radanovich, who thinkswe should pave Yosemite and turn it into a giant skate park environmental regulations should be based on traditional land use practices, which in the case of Yosemite would mean privatizing the park and running trains into the middle of the valley to reach vacation hotels. Obviously, he's a Republican, of the libertarian-except-for-social-policy variety. No one else has filed.
27. Wacky botanical facts. I just love 'em.
Turns out, according to Gardening How-To (my loveliest has a scrip), bananas are herbs. They're related to lilies, considered to be the largest herb plant. (No doubt we'll hear later of the discovery of some giant oregano covering 2/3 of Greece, since that's just how oregano grows, and this whole banana thing will have to be re-thought.)
I adore the fact that most "vegetables" are fruits or legumes. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, all squashes, beans, peas - all fruits and legumes! Hah!
And onions, garlic, and shallots are lilies.
And spider plants? No spiders involved at all.
28. Elections. I just love 'em.
We just got the info packet from the State for the Primary Election on June 3rd. I don't understand this. The State held presidential primaries in February, but apparently we have to have another one. In any case, there's some interesting issues on the ballot.
There's a recall campaign against our State Senator, Jeff Denham. I don't know much about him, except that he stood steadfast against the state budget last year, along party lines, and that he voted to cut school budgets. He also apparently made a public show of not accepting a salary increase, claiming that he was protesting the state's budgetary priorities (i.e., spending money on education), but then, later, took the raise.
There are two initiatives, 98 and 99. 98 would make it more difficult for cities to make eminent domain seizures for private development, which I like, but also would phase out rent control and regulations about returning security deposits to renters, which is a horrible idea. I've had enough trouble with getting security deposits back, and rent control is vital in places like San Francisco, where it's already too damned expensive to live. 99 would undo 98, approximately.
This happens a lot in California: two ballot propositions that are directly contradictory (or nearabouts) to one another. Often, they both fail, which is why people work to put the second, contradictory initiative on the ballot. It confuses voters, and they end up voting no. (Also, many of the ballot initiatives approved by California voters have been overturned by the state supreme court for being unconstitutional. I don't think anyone's tried that with Proposition 22 - The Defense of Marriage Act.)
There's a primary for the 19th District US House seat, currently occupied by George Radanovich, who thinks
27. Wacky botanical facts. I just love 'em.
Turns out, according to Gardening How-To (my loveliest has a scrip), bananas are herbs. They're related to lilies, considered to be the largest herb plant. (No doubt we'll hear later of the discovery of some giant oregano covering 2/3 of Greece, since that's just how oregano grows, and this whole banana thing will have to be re-thought.)
I adore the fact that most "vegetables" are fruits or legumes. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, all squashes, beans, peas - all fruits and legumes! Hah!
And onions, garlic, and shallots are lilies.
And spider plants? No spiders involved at all.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
starting tonight
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
29. NHL playoffs. I just love 'em.
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins begin the playoffs tonight in a re-match against the Ottawa Senators, who eliminated the Pens last year in 5 games. But that was last year. Both teams look and act a little different this year.
Actually, I both love and hate the playoffs. Hockey is a beautiful and brutal sport, and individual games, individual players, and individual plays can reflect either or both of those qualities. During the regular season, referees call penalties more carefully, but in the playoffs the mentality is to "let them play" (which has always struck me as idiotic, but that's another story). In any case, the effect of all this is that regular season games have more room for beautiful play, and the playoffs almost always immediately devolve into a cruel war of attrition. Nothing pretty happens. On the other hand, they reach a level of intensity that's just incredible. You can actually see the difference even on TV.
I realize this is the fourth-ish hockey-related Thing in a row. That's because other than kittens, kittens, classes, kittens, budget cuts, kittens, committee meetings, kittens, kittens, campus events, and kittens, life lately has had one main pre-occupation:kittens hockey kittens.
29. NHL playoffs. I just love 'em.
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins begin the playoffs tonight in a re-match against the Ottawa Senators, who eliminated the Pens last year in 5 games. But that was last year. Both teams look and act a little different this year.
Actually, I both love and hate the playoffs. Hockey is a beautiful and brutal sport, and individual games, individual players, and individual plays can reflect either or both of those qualities. During the regular season, referees call penalties more carefully, but in the playoffs the mentality is to "let them play" (which has always struck me as idiotic, but that's another story). In any case, the effect of all this is that regular season games have more room for beautiful play, and the playoffs almost always immediately devolve into a cruel war of attrition. Nothing pretty happens. On the other hand, they reach a level of intensity that's just incredible. You can actually see the difference even on TV.
I realize this is the fourth-ish hockey-related Thing in a row. That's because other than kittens, kittens, classes, kittens, budget cuts, kittens, committee meetings, kittens, kittens, campus events, and kittens, life lately has had one main pre-occupation:
Sunday, March 16, 2008
hockey related things
It's been a while since I updated either this blog or my list of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
32. Thrilling, close hockey games. I just love 'em.
A week ago Friday, we took in the Stockton Thunder game with our pals Christina and Guerin. The Thunder looked a little dazed in the first period, as Idaho ran up a 2-0 lead, outshooting the Thunder something like 12-6. It didn't look much better until midway through the second, when the Thunder got a short-handed goal, and in the third, absolutely took over the game. Superb pulling-together performance. Lots of hits, a couple fights, good passing (eventually) and brilliant puck-possession in the third by the Thunder. Good stuff.
31. Lopsided wins for my favorite hockey team. I just love 'em.
This morning I woke to the Pittsburgh Penguins beating the tar out of the brain-dead thugs who beat people up while wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys. My hatred for the Flyers, as has been documented here, is unspeakable, deep, abiding, and the cause of a great deal of cursing. Today I recognized the fatal flaw in the Flyers strategy was that, when a team like the Penguins forces them to try to play hockey, they really can't. Penguins, 7-1. Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora had 2 goals and 2 assists, each. Zappo.
30. Long winning streaks for one of my favorite hockey teams. I just love 'em.
San Jose Sharks, 11 in a row. Zowie.
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
32. Thrilling, close hockey games. I just love 'em.
A week ago Friday, we took in the Stockton Thunder game with our pals Christina and Guerin. The Thunder looked a little dazed in the first period, as Idaho ran up a 2-0 lead, outshooting the Thunder something like 12-6. It didn't look much better until midway through the second, when the Thunder got a short-handed goal, and in the third, absolutely took over the game. Superb pulling-together performance. Lots of hits, a couple fights, good passing (eventually) and brilliant puck-possession in the third by the Thunder. Good stuff.
31. Lopsided wins for my favorite hockey team. I just love 'em.
This morning I woke to the Pittsburgh Penguins beating the tar out of the brain-dead thugs who beat people up while wearing Philadelphia Flyers jerseys. My hatred for the Flyers, as has been documented here, is unspeakable, deep, abiding, and the cause of a great deal of cursing. Today I recognized the fatal flaw in the Flyers strategy was that, when a team like the Penguins forces them to try to play hockey, they really can't. Penguins, 7-1. Evgeni Malkin and Petr Sykora had 2 goals and 2 assists, each. Zappo.
30. Long winning streaks for one of my favorite hockey teams. I just love 'em.
San Jose Sharks, 11 in a row. Zowie.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
things for the spring
It's spring here. Neener-neener-neener.
In any case, it's also the time of year when we celebrate a pair of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
34. Lucrative tax returns. I just love 'em.
I deliberately have more than my share of income tax withdrawn from my pay, in part because I'm anxious about the specter of having to pay big bucks to the government at tax time, but mainly because I have no head whatsoever for any of this money stuff, and the tax return windfall feels like I've managed to do something fiscally prudent. (It's not, of course. The best way to swing this would be to calculate close to the precise amount you'll ultimately owe the government, and pocket/save/collect interest on the rest. I'm no good at that.)
We got about 4 grand back this year. We've filed, but haven't got our scratch yet. Last year we got about the same, and spent a grand or so on our delightful loveseat.
33. Storage solutions. I just love 'em.
This year we spent $300 on storage for visual media, of which we have a ton. We've got oodles of media, truth be told, and it's all over the place. Lauren built us some super-keen boho pine-board-n-cinder-block shelves to store the DVDs and VHS tapes, which we eventually covered with the rainbow peace-sign flag I got Lauren as a surprise a year ago or so.
[rainbow flag video shelves. keen.]
But the new solution is, if you'll pardon the expression, heap better. These are Ikea "Billy" bookcases, with doors and extra shelves. Images courtesy of the new camera, by the way.
[Ikea bookcase media storage. a little keener.]
... and, just because you've been good ...
almond blossoms!
In any case, it's also the time of year when we celebrate a pair of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
34. Lucrative tax returns. I just love 'em.
I deliberately have more than my share of income tax withdrawn from my pay, in part because I'm anxious about the specter of having to pay big bucks to the government at tax time, but mainly because I have no head whatsoever for any of this money stuff, and the tax return windfall feels like I've managed to do something fiscally prudent. (It's not, of course. The best way to swing this would be to calculate close to the precise amount you'll ultimately owe the government, and pocket/save/collect interest on the rest. I'm no good at that.)
We got about 4 grand back this year. We've filed, but haven't got our scratch yet. Last year we got about the same, and spent a grand or so on our delightful loveseat.
33. Storage solutions. I just love 'em.
This year we spent $300 on storage for visual media, of which we have a ton. We've got oodles of media, truth be told, and it's all over the place. Lauren built us some super-keen boho pine-board-n-cinder-block shelves to store the DVDs and VHS tapes, which we eventually covered with the rainbow peace-sign flag I got Lauren as a surprise a year ago or so.
But the new solution is, if you'll pardon the expression, heap better. These are Ikea "Billy" bookcases, with doors and extra shelves. Images courtesy of the new camera, by the way.
... and, just because you've been good ...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
it's 10:04 - do you know where your things are?
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
36. High-tech toys. I just love 'em.
One of my great moral failings is my unseemly delight in electronic gadgets. We bought a Kodak digital camera today to replace the stupid old PukePix Shootslikecrap that we bought at Target several years ago. The Kodak is a mighty machine, and we armed it with a 4-gig memory card, which holds nearly 1600 images (at 8 megapixels per), or a ridiculous amount of video with audio (yep, does that). It has 6 different image capture modes. Gonna be a lot of fun.
While at the toy store, we saw the new Mac laptop that's 10 mils thick, the Air MacJordan or whatever the heck it's called. The Apple people, if I hadn't mentioned, are not allowed in the house. Evil, evil people. Of course we want one!
37. Block-buster NHL trade deadline deals. I just love 'em.
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins made a good trade for 6'7" defenseman Hal Gill, whose job description includes "beatdowns," as well as "getting all them buggers out of the front of the net." They need that.
But they also made the biggest trade of the season, with minutes to spare, for big-time goal-scorer Marian Hossa. Nobody expected this. In fact, their general manager, Ray Shero, swore up and down that he wasn't going to make a big deal.
They also got a useful player, Pascal Dupuis, who in addition to being French-Canadian, is also a decent checker. They had to trade away a promising winger, Erik Christensen, a potentially dynamite prospect, Angelo Esposito, and a huge fan favorite and teammate favorite, Colby Armstrong. Apparently, the Fox Sports Pittsburgh broadcast of tonight's Penguins-Islanders game included fan reaction: weeping over Colby leaving. Lauren is also very upset, because Colby and Crusher (Erik's nickname: everybody who plays hockey goes by a nickname, by international law) were two of her favorite Penguins.
Ray Shero isn't allowed in the house, either.
36. High-tech toys. I just love 'em.
One of my great moral failings is my unseemly delight in electronic gadgets. We bought a Kodak digital camera today to replace the stupid old PukePix Shootslikecrap that we bought at Target several years ago. The Kodak is a mighty machine, and we armed it with a 4-gig memory card, which holds nearly 1600 images (at 8 megapixels per), or a ridiculous amount of video with audio (yep, does that). It has 6 different image capture modes. Gonna be a lot of fun.
While at the toy store, we saw the new Mac laptop that's 10 mils thick, the Air MacJordan or whatever the heck it's called. The Apple people, if I hadn't mentioned, are not allowed in the house. Evil, evil people. Of course we want one!
37. Block-buster NHL trade deadline deals. I just love 'em.
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins made a good trade for 6'7" defenseman Hal Gill, whose job description includes "beatdowns," as well as "getting all them buggers out of the front of the net." They need that.
But they also made the biggest trade of the season, with minutes to spare, for big-time goal-scorer Marian Hossa. Nobody expected this. In fact, their general manager, Ray Shero, swore up and down that he wasn't going to make a big deal.
They also got a useful player, Pascal Dupuis, who in addition to being French-Canadian, is also a decent checker. They had to trade away a promising winger, Erik Christensen, a potentially dynamite prospect, Angelo Esposito, and a huge fan favorite and teammate favorite, Colby Armstrong. Apparently, the Fox Sports Pittsburgh broadcast of tonight's Penguins-Islanders game included fan reaction: weeping over Colby leaving. Lauren is also very upset, because Colby and Crusher (Erik's nickname: everybody who plays hockey goes by a nickname, by international law) were two of her favorite Penguins.
Ray Shero isn't allowed in the house, either.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Lulu's back in town (me too)
Puebla is gorgeous.
My doneness, on a scale from 1 to 10, is about 17. I think I taught classes today. I think they went well, too.
I'm watching a DVD of a 1993 Penguins-Rangers game, which is only important because it's the game in which the Pens set the NHL record for consecutive wins.
In any case, it's time for
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
37. Comidas tipicas de Puebla. I just love 'em.
One good way to visit a place is to eat the food. Especially if that someplace is Puebla. Oh, Moose alive, is the food in Puebla incredible.
Of course, there's mole poblano, the chocolate-based sauce that is best-known and most closely associated with Puebla. This is astounding. It's got something like 800 ingredients, and tastes like centuries, pepper, garlic, turkey stock, unspeakable herbs, blood, magic, with a hint of stardust.
But as incredible, as obviously the most vastly superior sauce any human has ever made as mole poblano is, I can't decide if I'm not fonder of pipian verde or pipian rojo . It's ridiculous.
36. Good conferences. I just love 'em.
We went to Puebla for the 10th annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Media. I'm the only person who's been to every conference, which is a point of irrational pride.
In recent years, SPaM (affectionately) has had some rough times. Conference papers have sometimes been weaker than they should have been, there's been strife of various sorts. But this year was stronger and gave me hope that the future is bright for us.
The hidden fact here is that the Society for Phenomenology and Media once gave me a reason to hope when I didn't have one. This year, again, it fit together well, it made sense, and the papers were very very good.
My doneness, on a scale from 1 to 10, is about 17. I think I taught classes today. I think they went well, too.
I'm watching a DVD of a 1993 Penguins-Rangers game, which is only important because it's the game in which the Pens set the NHL record for consecutive wins.
In any case, it's time for
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
37. Comidas tipicas de Puebla. I just love 'em.
One good way to visit a place is to eat the food. Especially if that someplace is Puebla. Oh, Moose alive, is the food in Puebla incredible.
Of course, there's mole poblano, the chocolate-based sauce that is best-known and most closely associated with Puebla. This is astounding. It's got something like 800 ingredients, and tastes like centuries, pepper, garlic, turkey stock, unspeakable herbs, blood, magic, with a hint of stardust.
But as incredible, as obviously the most vastly superior sauce any human has ever made as mole poblano is, I can't decide if I'm not fonder of pipian verde or pipian rojo . It's ridiculous.
36. Good conferences. I just love 'em.
We went to Puebla for the 10th annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Media. I'm the only person who's been to every conference, which is a point of irrational pride.
In recent years, SPaM (affectionately) has had some rough times. Conference papers have sometimes been weaker than they should have been, there's been strife of various sorts. But this year was stronger and gave me hope that the future is bright for us.
The hidden fact here is that the Society for Phenomenology and Media once gave me a reason to hope when I didn't have one. This year, again, it fit together well, it made sense, and the papers were very very good.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
two things for a bright springlike afternoon
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
38. Multi-purpose gag lines. I just love 'em.
Down in LA to get out of our place and our headspace for a couple days, we watched two excellent Penguins wins over the weekend (on Saturday against the very sad LA Kings, on Sunday against the vile and hated Philadelphia Flyers). During the Flyers game, which featured typical Flyers thuggery, it occurred to me just how little actual defense their defensemen play, especially Darien Hatcher. Hatcher can't skate, doesn't hit anybody, is often out of position, and I think he realizes this, so he makes up for it by simply cross-checking anyone he can reach. He's disgusting.
I thought to myself, if I played against the Flyers, I would feel stupider and less talented, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Thus was born our latest multi-purpose gag line. You can use it in all sorts of situations:
Political debates: Candidate A must hate debating Candidate Z. Every time they debate, Candidate A gets stupider and loses leadership ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Teaching critical thinking: You know, after reading this paper, I suddenly can't tell whether this is a valid argument or not. I've lost most of my logical ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Divorce proceedings: It's so upsetting to have to face my ex in court. Whenever I'm there, I feel like I've lost my capacity for empathy and human decency, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Committee meetings: It's no wonder bureaucrats talk like they do. They used to be able to communicate in plain English, but not after all those committee meetings. After all, nature abhors a vacuum.
39. Hockey sticks. I just love 'em.
We also bought hockey sticks. I haven't owned one in I don't know how long. Lauren's brother Zach had bought one, and that prompted me. It's not a big deal, I didn't get one of the $100 composite things that always snap, I just got laminated wood. We shot pucks around for an hour or two, and we bought a puck suitable for street use, so we're about to make tons of friends in the neighborhood with our rowdy hockeying activities.
38. Multi-purpose gag lines. I just love 'em.
Down in LA to get out of our place and our headspace for a couple days, we watched two excellent Penguins wins over the weekend (on Saturday against the very sad LA Kings, on Sunday against the vile and hated Philadelphia Flyers). During the Flyers game, which featured typical Flyers thuggery, it occurred to me just how little actual defense their defensemen play, especially Darien Hatcher. Hatcher can't skate, doesn't hit anybody, is often out of position, and I think he realizes this, so he makes up for it by simply cross-checking anyone he can reach. He's disgusting.
I thought to myself, if I played against the Flyers, I would feel stupider and less talented, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Thus was born our latest multi-purpose gag line. You can use it in all sorts of situations:
Political debates: Candidate A must hate debating Candidate Z. Every time they debate, Candidate A gets stupider and loses leadership ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Teaching critical thinking: You know, after reading this paper, I suddenly can't tell whether this is a valid argument or not. I've lost most of my logical ability, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Divorce proceedings: It's so upsetting to have to face my ex in court. Whenever I'm there, I feel like I've lost my capacity for empathy and human decency, because nature abhors a vacuum.
Committee meetings: It's no wonder bureaucrats talk like they do. They used to be able to communicate in plain English, but not after all those committee meetings. After all, nature abhors a vacuum.
39. Hockey sticks. I just love 'em.
We also bought hockey sticks. I haven't owned one in I don't know how long. Lauren's brother Zach had bought one, and that prompted me. It's not a big deal, I didn't get one of the $100 composite things that always snap, I just got laminated wood. We shot pucks around for an hour or two, and we bought a puck suitable for street use, so we're about to make tons of friends in the neighborhood with our rowdy hockeying activities.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
out of order
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
2. Lancelot. I just love him.
As I write this, he's dying.
He's my 15+-year-old domestic longhaired orange cat. I would like to tell his story.
My ex and I had a lovely tortie shorthaired cat named Morgan, who we thought would like a companion, since she had a cat friend when she was a kitten. We visited the county animal shelter in Pittsburgh a few times to try to find a healthy kitten to be her new friend. Those visits were heartbreaking for me. I adore cats, and the sight of all those doomed cats (not to mention the doomed dogs in the other room) was unbearable - a testament to unspeakable human indifference and stupidity, inflicting needless suffering and death, for no reason but contempt or flat lack of concern. The kittens all seemed terribly unhealthy, as well. We had agreed that the only criteria for our new kitten were that it should be healthy, short-haired, and not orange.
Finally, on a third visit, we saw a demon kitten hanging upside down from the rails of his cage, trying alternately to eat the bars or squeeze through them, wailing, drooling, frothing at the mouth. He had mounds of fluffy orange fur and whiskers a mile long. We pulled him out of the cage, and he was immediately quiet and peaceful, purring in our arms. He was clearly the healthiest kitten we would ever find at the pound, and he was also on death row. It was his second day there, late in the afternoon. They would euthanize him in the morning. So we took him home.
We paid the adoption fee, they told us he was probably around 10-14 weeks old, put the kitten in a cardboard carrier, and we started for home. Home at the time was Regent Square, a nice neighborhood in the east side of Pittsburgh. The shelter was on the North Shore, meaning that we had a car trip of about 7 miles, roughly 20 minutes, to get there. By the time we hit the Parkway East (the freeway from downtown), the kitten had chewed through the box.
We brought him home and, having read about how to introduce new animals into a household, let him out of the box in a neutral place - the large anteroom in the old Victorian house we rented the ground floor of. Then we brought Morgan into the room. He immediately approached her, and sniffed at her face. She hissed, swatted at him, and ran away, thus establishing what was effectively their lifelong relationship. We gave him a jingle-ball to play with, and she eventually stole it (she passed years ago, age 12, never having treated him better). We gave him some kitten food, and he vomited some of it, thus establishing his lifelong digestive dysfunction.
Days passed. He got stronger and stood up to Morgan a bit. I named him Lancelot because she was Morgan, and it just made sense. Back then, we let the cats out to play in the yard, because the neighborhood was quiet enough and they didn't roam. Our upstairs neighbor had two cats, and a couple times they escaped from her kitchen window, climbed down the fire escape, and would become belligerent. Once I heard a fight outside, came out to intervene, and saw Lancelot cornering our neighbor's cat, standing with his back arched, hissing and spitting, between her cat and Morgan. Morgan had a scratch on her nose; Lancelot had come to protect her. I grabbed the neighbor's cat, took it inside, then grabbed Morgan, then Lancelot, to get them inside. Lance started to calm down a bit. Morgan sauntered over and swatted him.
Back then he was a terrific and somewhat famous hunter. His specialty was birding. As a kitten he caught a blue jay that was practically the same size he was. He caught numerous sparrows and bluebirds, titmice galore, I think a couple of chickadees. He'd leave them for us on the porch, or roll on them, as cats do. One day he had caught a bird and was playing with it when a woman walked by with her little girl. The girl saw the bird and burst into tears. I came outside, hearing her mom explain that this is something cats do, and removed the bird. A few minutes later, I heard them walking past again, the little girl finally calmed down, and as I looked out the window I saw Lance leap into the air and nab a sparrow, right in front of the girl. She exploded in tears again.
The young boys in the neighborhood loved him. I once heard a boy regaling his comrades with tales of Lancelot's hunting prowess. I went to the window to look. They were standing on the sidewalk, petting him (as he always did with passers-by, Lance had trotted up to them to say hello), when he saw a bird somewhere in the front yard. He growled, dashed off, and snapped at it. The boy pointed and said "see? He's so vicious but he's so nice!"
I was completing my PhD program at Duquesne while living in that house. One of the steps is writing a comprehensive exam - at the time, three essays on historical subjects in philosophy and one thematic essay on a particular topic, randomly chosen from a list of 5 questions on each subject, one per day for 4 days. I wrote my comps along with two other guys, both of whom wrote every essay before the week of comps. I didn't, so that week I wrote 80 pages of essays, basically writing all day, sitting at an old Mac, with Lancelot in my lap. He was my working pal, and I was his heating pad. It worked for us. He was so affectionate and seemed to be really concerned, really listening, when I would read the essays aloud. Later, when I was writing my dissertation, and having late-night anxiety attacks, he was always there with me, purring, rubbing against me, getting me to sit down so he could lie in my lap and sleep.
It was then that he developed the habit of clawing my face. I was growing a beard, and I thought at the time that Lance thought I was a cat, since I was furry like him. He has never stopped doing it.
We moved to California, flat broke, when I took my teaching position at Stan State, almost ten years ago. I drove the rental truck, my ex drove our car. She had Morgan, I had Lance. We took five days to cross the country, stopping in the cheapest motels we could find along the way. We'd get out of the vehicles, get into the room, and Morgan would dive under the bed and hide for most of the night, and Lance would move from under the bed, to us, back under the bed, back to us, trying to give and get comfort to and from everyone. He hates being in moving vehicles, but he seemed to adjust to this weird lifestyle.
For several years we lived in a rented house near Ceres, which made Lance very tense. The cats stayed indoors by then. Lancelot never seemed to sleep. He kept guard hours at a time, staring out the front or back windows. We saved a beat-up cat there who eventually ended up living with us, despite my and Lance's protests (this cat was one against whom Lance had been guarding us all that time). Then another. We bought a house in Modesto, and brought in another cat, who lived separately from the now 4 in the house. Then strays started showing up. Lance had had it. He started getting aggressive with the others, and with my ex. He peed on her dirty clothes (indeed also her clean clothes) on the floor.
Eventually I left my ex, and brought Lance with me, and he was never happier. He had a second kittenhood in the first apartment I shared with Lauren (which we called The Apartment of Earthly Delights). When we moved into the House About Town, he freaked out for an afternoon, but then took to bounding at top speed up and down the stairs, leaping up and off of windowsills, having a wonderful time. He was the youngest 13 year old cat you could ever meet. He was still clawing my face early in the morning, too, which led him to being kicked out of the bedroom most days.
I wrote him a song, which we recorded. He doesn't like it. Lauren started singing in various Stanislaus State choirs, and later in the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as a second soprano. He hates this. Apparently, not only is he not a music lover (which Morgan, incidentally, was), but his ears are hurt by soprano singing. He attacks her when she sings, except when she holds him up to her throat and face, and sings "Old Deuteronomy."
About a year ago, his 14 year habit of vomiting about every other day became more constant. We took him to the vet, who talked about the various possible causes, prescribed a liquid antibiotic, and sent us home to try that. Giving Lance drugs is incredibly dangerous, even when he's weak. We stuck to it, through his lacerations, and he got better. He put weight back on. A couple months went by, and he started vomiting again. We went back to the vet, started another round of antibiotics, reopened our wounds, and he got better again. Months went by, and it started again, this time with diarrhea, and for the past month he hasn't gotten better no matter what we've tried.
He spent the night on my chest last night, sleeping a little too quietly for my comfort. This morning he clawed my face, but I didn't kick him out. He sat up on my chest, shaking a little, while I petted him. He followed me downstairs as he always does, and I gave him some canned cat food and some cat treats while I made coffee. He ate a little of that, and he followed me back upstairs. He's lying in the windowsill, resting in the weak sun.
I simply cannot express how much this cat means to me, or how terribly I will miss him, or how awful it is to know it will be soon.
2. Lancelot. I just love him.
As I write this, he's dying.
He's my 15+-year-old domestic longhaired orange cat. I would like to tell his story.
My ex and I had a lovely tortie shorthaired cat named Morgan, who we thought would like a companion, since she had a cat friend when she was a kitten. We visited the county animal shelter in Pittsburgh a few times to try to find a healthy kitten to be her new friend. Those visits were heartbreaking for me. I adore cats, and the sight of all those doomed cats (not to mention the doomed dogs in the other room) was unbearable - a testament to unspeakable human indifference and stupidity, inflicting needless suffering and death, for no reason but contempt or flat lack of concern. The kittens all seemed terribly unhealthy, as well. We had agreed that the only criteria for our new kitten were that it should be healthy, short-haired, and not orange.
Finally, on a third visit, we saw a demon kitten hanging upside down from the rails of his cage, trying alternately to eat the bars or squeeze through them, wailing, drooling, frothing at the mouth. He had mounds of fluffy orange fur and whiskers a mile long. We pulled him out of the cage, and he was immediately quiet and peaceful, purring in our arms. He was clearly the healthiest kitten we would ever find at the pound, and he was also on death row. It was his second day there, late in the afternoon. They would euthanize him in the morning. So we took him home.
We paid the adoption fee, they told us he was probably around 10-14 weeks old, put the kitten in a cardboard carrier, and we started for home. Home at the time was Regent Square, a nice neighborhood in the east side of Pittsburgh. The shelter was on the North Shore, meaning that we had a car trip of about 7 miles, roughly 20 minutes, to get there. By the time we hit the Parkway East (the freeway from downtown), the kitten had chewed through the box.
We brought him home and, having read about how to introduce new animals into a household, let him out of the box in a neutral place - the large anteroom in the old Victorian house we rented the ground floor of. Then we brought Morgan into the room. He immediately approached her, and sniffed at her face. She hissed, swatted at him, and ran away, thus establishing what was effectively their lifelong relationship. We gave him a jingle-ball to play with, and she eventually stole it (she passed years ago, age 12, never having treated him better). We gave him some kitten food, and he vomited some of it, thus establishing his lifelong digestive dysfunction.
Days passed. He got stronger and stood up to Morgan a bit. I named him Lancelot because she was Morgan, and it just made sense. Back then, we let the cats out to play in the yard, because the neighborhood was quiet enough and they didn't roam. Our upstairs neighbor had two cats, and a couple times they escaped from her kitchen window, climbed down the fire escape, and would become belligerent. Once I heard a fight outside, came out to intervene, and saw Lancelot cornering our neighbor's cat, standing with his back arched, hissing and spitting, between her cat and Morgan. Morgan had a scratch on her nose; Lancelot had come to protect her. I grabbed the neighbor's cat, took it inside, then grabbed Morgan, then Lancelot, to get them inside. Lance started to calm down a bit. Morgan sauntered over and swatted him.
Back then he was a terrific and somewhat famous hunter. His specialty was birding. As a kitten he caught a blue jay that was practically the same size he was. He caught numerous sparrows and bluebirds, titmice galore, I think a couple of chickadees. He'd leave them for us on the porch, or roll on them, as cats do. One day he had caught a bird and was playing with it when a woman walked by with her little girl. The girl saw the bird and burst into tears. I came outside, hearing her mom explain that this is something cats do, and removed the bird. A few minutes later, I heard them walking past again, the little girl finally calmed down, and as I looked out the window I saw Lance leap into the air and nab a sparrow, right in front of the girl. She exploded in tears again.
The young boys in the neighborhood loved him. I once heard a boy regaling his comrades with tales of Lancelot's hunting prowess. I went to the window to look. They were standing on the sidewalk, petting him (as he always did with passers-by, Lance had trotted up to them to say hello), when he saw a bird somewhere in the front yard. He growled, dashed off, and snapped at it. The boy pointed and said "see? He's so vicious but he's so nice!"
I was completing my PhD program at Duquesne while living in that house. One of the steps is writing a comprehensive exam - at the time, three essays on historical subjects in philosophy and one thematic essay on a particular topic, randomly chosen from a list of 5 questions on each subject, one per day for 4 days. I wrote my comps along with two other guys, both of whom wrote every essay before the week of comps. I didn't, so that week I wrote 80 pages of essays, basically writing all day, sitting at an old Mac, with Lancelot in my lap. He was my working pal, and I was his heating pad. It worked for us. He was so affectionate and seemed to be really concerned, really listening, when I would read the essays aloud. Later, when I was writing my dissertation, and having late-night anxiety attacks, he was always there with me, purring, rubbing against me, getting me to sit down so he could lie in my lap and sleep.
It was then that he developed the habit of clawing my face. I was growing a beard, and I thought at the time that Lance thought I was a cat, since I was furry like him. He has never stopped doing it.
We moved to California, flat broke, when I took my teaching position at Stan State, almost ten years ago. I drove the rental truck, my ex drove our car. She had Morgan, I had Lance. We took five days to cross the country, stopping in the cheapest motels we could find along the way. We'd get out of the vehicles, get into the room, and Morgan would dive under the bed and hide for most of the night, and Lance would move from under the bed, to us, back under the bed, back to us, trying to give and get comfort to and from everyone. He hates being in moving vehicles, but he seemed to adjust to this weird lifestyle.
For several years we lived in a rented house near Ceres, which made Lance very tense. The cats stayed indoors by then. Lancelot never seemed to sleep. He kept guard hours at a time, staring out the front or back windows. We saved a beat-up cat there who eventually ended up living with us, despite my and Lance's protests (this cat was one against whom Lance had been guarding us all that time). Then another. We bought a house in Modesto, and brought in another cat, who lived separately from the now 4 in the house. Then strays started showing up. Lance had had it. He started getting aggressive with the others, and with my ex. He peed on her dirty clothes (indeed also her clean clothes) on the floor.
Eventually I left my ex, and brought Lance with me, and he was never happier. He had a second kittenhood in the first apartment I shared with Lauren (which we called The Apartment of Earthly Delights). When we moved into the House About Town, he freaked out for an afternoon, but then took to bounding at top speed up and down the stairs, leaping up and off of windowsills, having a wonderful time. He was the youngest 13 year old cat you could ever meet. He was still clawing my face early in the morning, too, which led him to being kicked out of the bedroom most days.
I wrote him a song, which we recorded. He doesn't like it. Lauren started singing in various Stanislaus State choirs, and later in the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as a second soprano. He hates this. Apparently, not only is he not a music lover (which Morgan, incidentally, was), but his ears are hurt by soprano singing. He attacks her when she sings, except when she holds him up to her throat and face, and sings "Old Deuteronomy."
About a year ago, his 14 year habit of vomiting about every other day became more constant. We took him to the vet, who talked about the various possible causes, prescribed a liquid antibiotic, and sent us home to try that. Giving Lance drugs is incredibly dangerous, even when he's weak. We stuck to it, through his lacerations, and he got better. He put weight back on. A couple months went by, and he started vomiting again. We went back to the vet, started another round of antibiotics, reopened our wounds, and he got better again. Months went by, and it started again, this time with diarrhea, and for the past month he hasn't gotten better no matter what we've tried.
He spent the night on my chest last night, sleeping a little too quietly for my comfort. This morning he clawed my face, but I didn't kick him out. He sat up on my chest, shaking a little, while I petted him. He followed me downstairs as he always does, and I gave him some canned cat food and some cat treats while I made coffee. He ate a little of that, and he followed me back upstairs. He's lying in the windowsill, resting in the weak sun.
I simply cannot express how much this cat means to me, or how terribly I will miss him, or how awful it is to know it will be soon.
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