Friday, 31. October 2008, 01:55:35
Spokane, Culture, True Crime
We're kinda used to animals coming into Spokane -- moose, bears, even
the occasional mountain lion. But now it seems we've got a wild turkey
problem.
Perhaps frightened by the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving, about 20
wild turkeys have been running through a neighborhood in northeast
Spokane, an area known somewhat facetiously as the Republic of Hillyard.
The escaped turkeys have been "blocking traffic and loitering and
defecating in yards" and in general showing what a pain in the ass
they can be when running loose.
The turkeys, who can fly up to 200 feet, obviously had no problem with
the low fences or other barriers in the neighborhood.
The turkeys are scheduled to be rounded up on Friday. Supposedly.
Saturday, 25. October 2008, 18:55:44
Culture
This monster truck is excellent for running
over other vehicles and small animals.
My new dog, Sasha, is a little on the agoraphobic side. I take her out
on her leash to the front of my apartment building, hoping she will
pottie outside, but she always balks. Sometimes she will sniff the grass
a bit. This usually lasts a maximum of one minute. Then she starts pulling
me back to the front steps, wanting to go inside. Let me rephrase that --
whining and insisting that we go back inside.
I took her out this morning, as always hopeful that she would do better
with the outdoors. We weren't out in the yard more than 30 seconds when
this big-ass truck went by -- the type with the oversize wheels and the
engine that sounds like an old fashioned railroad locomotive.
It scared the hell out of her. She is scared even of normal automobiles
and motorcycles, let alone something like that.
I guess I never really thought of it before, but you know, those big
trucks are just stupid. I'm sorry, but I call a spade a spade when I run
into it. They are noisy, dangerous to other vehicles if involved in an
accident, and it takes the creation of about two new off-shore oil wells
to fuel them for a year.
Umberto Eco said it best I think, in his essay "Travels in Hyperreality."
America is obsessed with Bigness. If there's More Of It, we're All For It.
If trucks are good, then huge trucks are better. If you want a burger, why
not go for one so big that you can't even get your mouth around it. And,
strangely, if you want to live nicely, then living richly is even better.
And we wonder how we get into such messes as the current real-estate/banking
fiasco. It might pertain to blame Wall Street and the banking industry. But
they are really only reflecting our culture of conspicuous consumption.
(Richard has written well of this in a recent post.)
Well, I do know one thing. Monster trucks can scare the hell out of puppies.
I don't like them. I wish they'd just go away. Fall into some strange time-
warp thing back to the 50s.
Friday, 17. October 2008, 20:06:57
Culture
Versace. It's to die for.
While looking for a photo for my last post I ran across a
blog called Avante Garde Fashion Photography and Design.
I really don't know anything about this blog except that
it is run by a woman named Tuna (seriously) and seems to
have been defunct since August 2007.
But it still has a collection of very novel photographs
if you care to go through the archive.
By pooling their money, the friends were
able to buy one Dolce and Gabbana suit.
Yamamoto. Think inside the box.
Monday, 13. October 2008, 17:47:48
Culture
The ancestors of these Chukchi men may have
been among the first humans to arrive in the
Americas, crossing the Beringia ice bridge
c. 13 000 years BP.
To all of our paleolithic human ancestors who
fought the elements coming to America, I would
just like to say -- great job!
We would also like to thank Leif Erikson and
Christopher Columbus for helping out down the
way. In fact, if it weren't for Columbus we
here wouldn't have the benefits of "modern
civilization," which gave us mechanized war,
greed and religious insanity.
Of course, we did have the Mayan-Aztec culture,
who were pretty good at that kind of thing
themselves.
On the up side, I guess that without all of that
the Chukchi men you see in the above photo wouldn't
have had those metal cups. So thanks a million for
the metal cups.
And I guess I wouldn't have this nifty internet
thing either, so you wouldn't be reading this.
Some pretty modern day Chukchi girls.
Fur is definitely "in" on the Chukchi peninsula.
Friday, 10. October 2008, 17:13:33
The Four Seasons, Culture
I didn't even know what orzo was until I looked
it up. Turns out it is tiny, rice-sized pasta.
Hospital food has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back in 1965-6,
hospital food was bland, pretty much tasteless stuff that didn't really
make the whole experience of eating very pleasurable. And when you
consider that in the hospital eating is one of the few things to do
with your day, then unpleasant food doesn't do much for your spirits.
But that was then. This is now. And today most hospitals have changed
their whole philosophy with regard to food. Dieticians now realize that
serving a patient healthy food doesn't mean that it has to taste like it
was made in a mobile army field kitchen.
When I was in Deaconess Hospital back in August, they actually had a
menu. Yes, a menu, like in a restaurant. All you would have to do for
breakfast, lunch, or dinner was to make your selection from the menu,
get on the phone and dial the kitchen extension, and tell them what you
wanted. In about half an hour it would be delivered to your room by
special catering people. And if you decided to skip a meal, or if you
would forget to call down for one, you didn't have to worry: You'd be
hearing from the kitchen in short order.
"Mr. Piercy, did you want to order lunch?"
"Why yes, I spaced out entirely. I will order lunch."
If you decide that you aren't hungry, they notify your nurses. Doctors
like to keep track of stuff like lack of appetite.
The food is pretty good. Pretty much the equivalent of what you would
get at a medium priced restaurant. In fact when I was at Deaconess in
August my sister loved coming to visit me, one reason being that she
loved going down to the cafeteria.
They did screw up my order once, bringing me pork instead of meat loaf.
I called down and told them, and they brought me up another dinner.
Considering they serve a couple thousand people within a few short
hours, it is impossible to be angry over a thing like that.
Patient food isn't the only thing that has improved over the years. The
food in hospital cafeterias is much better also. In fact I've always told
people that Sacred Heart Hospital cafeteria is one of the best kept dining
secrets in town. I suppose that because doctors and other hospital staff
frequent the cafeterias on a regular basis, they tend to keep the price low.
It costs about $9.00 to eat lunch or dinner downtown these days, plus your
drink and maybe even a tip. At Sacred Heart Cafeteria, which is like two
blocks from the downtown area, it costs less than half of that. And no tip
involved.
The other day my mom had to go over for a doctor appointment at Sacred
Heart, and afterward she stopped at the cafeteria. She didn't eat, but
she did bring home a weekly menu.
I won't give the whole menu here. But I will give a few examples of their
fare:
Thursday 9th
Breakfast:
- Denver Skillet breakfast
- Berry Strata
Lunch and Dinner:
- Sante Fe Salad
- Lemon Pepper Tilapia
- Seasoned orzo
- Meat lasagna
- Veggie lasagna
- Papa Murphy's pizza
- Burritos
- Poorboy sandwich
- Mushroom and brie bisque
- Azteca Chicken & Rice soup
Sounds pretty good. There's one they serve on Wednesdays called Sweet
Thai Chicken Chili that I would like to try sometime.
I've stayed at Sacred Heart, but more recently I've stayed on the
cardiology floor at Deaconess. The floor is all private rooms, and given
that you are on the 7th floor most of the rooms have a nice view. I've
always said that I feel a little bit like Howard Hughes when I stay
there -- a private room, cable television, and (mostly) anything I
wanted to order from the food menu.
It's always nice to feel pampered a bit. Especially when you are in the
hospital. Or are visiting someone in the hospital, which isn't easy
either.
Thursday, 2. October 2008, 13:15:57
Culture, Movies, Music
The rather intimidating Catherine Weaver
of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I was watching an episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles the week
before last, the season premier of the show, when I came across a face
that seemed very familiar. I had never watched the show before that, or
looked into it on its web site or whatever, and knew pretty much nothing
about it other than the obvious fact that it was a Terminator spinoff.
The actress who had caught my attention plays the character of Catherine
Weaver on the show. She has red hair, is definitely a fox, and has this cold
and vaguely threatening air about her. In fact I find her more intimidating
than any of the evil androids on the show. Between an evil android who
can crush your skull in two seconds or a redhead giving you "that look,"
I would prefer the evil android. In any case, to present that type of
character well takes some pretty good acting ability as well. And as I
mentioned, she looked very familiar. There was just something about that
face.
So I found the show's web site and looked her up. Turns out the actress
is Shirley Manson, singer for the rock group Garbage. And in fact I had
just seen her and that group in 2007 on a segment of Soundstage.
They say that the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.
And in fact it seems that many musicians want to try the movie thing,
and many actors or actresses are drawn to the music thing. Which isn't
all that surprising. Most actors and actresses grew up listening to music
and, like most of us, wished they were a rock and roll star or whatever.
Just as a lot of musicians grew up watching movies and television shows,
and I'm sure thought about what it might be like to be in front of the
camera.
The list of these crossover gigs would be a long one. You have people
like David Bowie and Mick Jagger being featured in the occasional movie.
Some musicians, like Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, became serious
actors in their own right. Johnny Depp started out as a musician also,
though he didn't have all that much of a track record as one before he
got into television and film.
And then you have the actors and actresses who have gotten into music,
or at least who have tried to. This would be another fairly long list. The
one that pops into my head first, probably because I was just looking up
some information on him a couple of weeks ago, was actor Telly Savalas.
Savalas took his famous Super-Greek persona that was developed on the
Kojack series and managed to work it into a rather successful music career
that included a couple of albums and a few songs that made the charts.
Occasionally, you have someone who inhabits both worlds simultaneously
pretty much from the start. The one I think of most in terms of this was
Judy Garland. Bing Crosby also comes to mind. It's fairly difficult to really
separate Crosby's musical career from his film career. And of course there
were others.
Since the early 80s and the rise of MTV, the music world has become
tremendously video oriented. In fact it's almost impossible for a new
artist to break in these days without doing a music video. So today,
the two worlds are linked even closer.
Well, it's certainly great seeing Shirley again on the show. Though that
doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see Garbage come out of their "hiatus"
and do a new album.
And incidentally, I thought that there was some very interesting trivia
about Shirley listed on the Internet Movie Database. You might check it
out.
Shirley Manson in her Garbage days.
Thursday, 28. August 2008, 20:13:20
Culture
The annual Medieval Festival at Horsens.
A few years back, while I was in school, I did an independent project
with my teacher and mentor in cultural anthropology, Dr. Fred Strange.
My focus was on Greenland (Gronland) in the 19th century. I wanted to
look at a culture long-term, in the main because looking at a culture
over a number of years allows you to gauge cultural changes better. To
an anthropologist, the interplay and influence of cultures across time
is known as acculturation. And the study of culture by way of history
is the new sub-field of anthropology called historical anthropology.
Technically, then, that is what I was doing -- historical anthropology.
In this study my central text was Heinrich J. Rink's Danish Greenland:
Its People and Its Products, which originally was published in 1877.
Rink was one of the administrators in Greenland for Denmark, which at
that time (and to a certain degree still) held Greenland as a colony.
Rink was an amazing man; although he was a geologist, some of his views
on culture presaged those of anthropologist Franz Boas in the early 20th
century. Rink was also an avid photographer, and a very good one. Following
Rink's photography led me to the Danish Polar Center. The DPC is a fairly
large library containing thousands of books on the arctic. They also have
what is certainly the best collection of photographs of Greenland in the
world. The people at the DPC were very friendly. I e-mailed the center
once with a question relating to some of the photos, and they were good
enough to respond and answered my question fully.
Denmark. Perhaps not a country very well known to most Americans. But it
is the second oldest kingdom in Europe, going back some 1200 years. At
one time it encompassed all of what are today known as the Scandinavian
countries -- Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland (eventually), and the
Faroe Islands. I'm sure they had colonies during the age of exploration,
but about this I am ignorant and you will have to check elsewhere.
For Americans, who tend to be bad at
geography, here's a map.
In any case, if Denmark could produce a man like H.J. Rink, then it
certainly was a great country in my book. It was also the home of Hans
Christian Anderson, Soren Kierkegaard, and Niels Bohr, among others.
There is a lot of talk about the "Danish temperament." I don't know
what that is, exactly. But I am reminded of the old saying: The optimist
is most always disappointed; the pessimist is sometimes delightfully
surprised.
Here on the Opera community I have now met several Danes. Back in the
early days of the blog I met Allan (ricewood). You probably know Allan
already if you come to Opera at all. Recently I have met Nicolas (nopanic)
and Martin (Aqualion). A great group. I am privileged to know them
-- even if that knowledge isn't of the normal way of sitting across the
table. From Allan I almost would think that I had been to his town
of Aarhus. Nicolas works in Copenhagen, but lives in Elsinore -- the
legendary home of Shakespeare's Hamlet. And I'm not sure, but I think
that Martin is from Horsens, who are about to hold their wild (by all
reports) annual Medieval Festival.
Here in America we have what is called a "Danish," a breakfast pastry
that almost seems more like a dessert than a breakfast food.
We also have Great Danes. They are a dog breed.
I knew a Great Dane once. When I was a kid, we lived in suburb south of
Indianapolis. The people about six houses down from us had a Great Dane
named Bismark. For a child he seemed huge -- like a horse -- and I had
to look up a bit at this head.
Bismark was very friendly. He loved kids. Which, for a dog his size,
could sometimes be a problem as he could get a bit rambunctious. One day
I took a walk on the path edging my back yard and walked down behind all
the houses. I came to Bismark's house. He was out in the back yard. Glad
to see me, he charged at me. I became frightened and turned and ran. But
of course he soon caught up with me and, quite unintentionally, knocked
me down on my stomach. Then, he started giving me kisses. My fear
turned to laughter as he licked my face with his big wet tongue.
Here's what the American Kennel Club says about the Great Dane:
The Great Dane is one of the most elegant and distinguished of the
giant breeds. It is believed that the breed's origins can be traced to
Irish Wolfhound with mixture of old English Mastiff. The breed itself
having existed for over 400 years to serve as a Boar Hound in Germany.
Europe's erstwhile boar was one of the most savage, swift, powerful and
well armed, requiring a superdog to hunt it.
It sounds like the Great Dane is just as German as Danish. But given the
geographic proximity, that is not surprising.
They are magnificent dogs.
The Great Dane.
Monday, 18. August 2008, 17:53:55
Culture, The Olympiad
The Polish women's volleyball team is
certainly a very friendly group.
I've been watching the Beijing Olympics this past week. Not much
really, but a little bit. I watched part of the gymnastics, with the U.S.
doing well there. The trampoline gymnastic event was pretty wild,
actually. I never realized that the trampoline was a part of the
gymnastics program. I watched women from China and the U.S. and a
few other countries as they bounced, bounced, bounced up and down
on the trampoline. The heights they could achieve with their bouncing
were amazing, and eventually they would go into high-power flips on
the thing that would probably cause major spinal damage in an ordinary
human being.
I also watched some volleyball, some diving, some hurdle racing, and
a few other sports.
There's an old story. Back in ancient times, competitors who would
compete in the Olympiad would meet and in a sense register themselves
in their sport. The old tale concerns a famous Greek wrestler. All of
the wrestlers gathered together and, as custom had it since they would
be competing in the nude, they all took off their robes. But when the
competitors looked over at the famous wrestler and saw his incredible
size and musculature, they all picked up their robes and walked out,
taking themselves out of the competition. Unfortunately the story ends
there. But it seems to me that it couldn't have been very satisfying
for the wrestler to get the olive crown without even so much as winning
in one match.
These days, of course, that wouldn't happen. Because no matter what
the political or economic background that sometimes clouds the Olympics
today it really is about participating. With an athlete getting out there
and giving it their best shot.
In this Olympics, swimmer Michael Phelps won an unprecedented 8 gold
medals. If this were ancient Greece, Phelps would be considered a
demi-god walking the Earth. He would be able to travel over the entire
Greek peninsula, getting free meals and wine and a roof over his head
no matter where he went. They would throw parties in his honor, even
years later, and would cheer him.
Michael Phelps will, I'm sure, come out of Beijing doing pretty well
also. He will get a good number of endorsements, maybe even make a
few television commercials. He'll put his medals on a special shelf,
give interviews, and watch his bank account grow a bit.
But I think that the significant thing for Michael Phelps won't be all
of that. Or even the memory of standing on that high tier in front of
billions as the gold medals were put around his neck. It will come
somewhere down the line, months ahead, as he dives into a pool all by
himself, nobody around. Coming to the last breast-stroke he will hit
the wall, take off his goggles, and turn around and look at the empty
natatorium. And I think that at that moment all of it will just empty
out. He won't be a demi-god. But he'll perhaps be something very close
-- a man who has tried his best and, in that trying, achieved the top
of Mt. Olympus.
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