More Memes: It's Yer Birthday!

I haven't done anything meme-y in a while, and my running plan has been sidetracked by a thunderstorm. My dishy friend in Miami issued a public tagging on me today, so I must comply. My instructions:

1. Go to Wikipedia.
2. In the Search box, type your birth month and day (but not year).
3. List three events that happened on your birthday.
4. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
5. One holiday or observance (if any).

So here goes. Interesting dirt on December 12; my comments in brackets:

Three Events
627 - Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeated Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh.

1098 - First Crusade: Massacre of Ma'arrat al-Numan - Crusaders breach the town's walls and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. After finding themselves with insufficient food, they resort to cannibalism.

2000 - The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore [and the U.S. officially starts circling the drain in the eyes of the rest of the world]

Two Important Birthdays

1915 - Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (d. 1998) [Chairman of the Board--aww, yeah!]
1940 - Dionne Warwick, American singer [and psychic friend]

Interesting Death

1569 - Metropolitan Philip of Moscow (b. 1507) [I have no idea who this is. I just like his name.]

Holiday or Observance

Kenya - Jamhuri Day: Independence Day (from Britain, 1963) [pickins are kind of slim this time of year; nobody wants to compete with Christmas]

I won't tag anyone specific, but take it and run with it, kids!

The Eating: Food on a Stick

We've been invited to a cookout next week with a kebab theme: The hosts are providing snacks, drinks, skewers, and grill. Guests are bringing food to be impaled. Neither Will nor I were much in the mood to work today, so we had a spirited e-conversation to determine what our contribution will be. We came up with a lot of good ideas, so I thought it would be fun to provide an abridged transcript here to give my readers some ideas for their own summer suppers:

Will: I want to create a shish kebob that has pineapple on it. Pineapple gets yummy and caramelized when you grill it.

Red Squirrel: Mmm--the cliched pairing would be pork, but I think beef and red onions would be a nice twist. Maybe even shrimp--or how about a shrimp and mango skewer?

W: Great. Steak, red onion, and pineapple; shrimp, mango, and ______. I'm trying to think of something that would harmonize not only in flavor, but also in texture and appearance. Perhaps something with a little kick--what about a mild chili pepper?

RS: I was thinking the same thing. Maybe poblano? That's my new favorite secret ingredient. For both combos, I think a basic lime-garlic-cilantro marinade would be nice.

W: I think lime, garlic, and a little olive oil would be a good marinade for both. For the shrimp, we add cilantro. But for the steak? Tarragon. Yup, I said tarragon. (Or should it be chervil? Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs used to say that chervil was the funniest herb. After much back-and-forth, he agreed with me that fenugreek is the funniest spice.) Actually, a little red wine in the steak marinade might be nice, too. And Pernod for the shrimp!!

RS: No, I don't think red wine would be good--think of the pineapple! Tarragon might work as the herb--it goes well with fruit (surprisingly yummy with fresh figs). If you want some alcohol in there, how about tequila in the shrimp marinade or rum in the steak one? Whoa--if you're thinking shrimp + Pernod, how about making shrimp, fennel, and mango?

W: The shrimp combo is rock solid w/fennel and a citrus/Pernod marinade. Done and done! Now what if we moved the poblanos over to the pineapple and steak? Would that be too conceptually cluttered? I think you're probably right about the booze.

RS: I think the rum should be nixed if we put poblanos on the steak skewer. Somehow I think that would be a weird combo. But I'm digging the idea of steak/pineapple/red onion with rum/lime/garlic. No herbs.

W: Fair enough. What kind of rum? A dark rum would impart more flavor once the alcohol evaporated off. Or what about bourbon?

RS: Hm, that's intriguing--bourbon or dark rum would work equally well, depending on whether you're going for a tropical or American flavor. I think tarragon should go back in the mix if we go with bourbon. Or how's this for a kooky mix: steak, fresh green figs, and red onions in a bath of bourbon, tarragon, and garlic?

W: I like your kooky mix. Sounds fun, plus we Greeks dig the figs.

RS: Oh, and a final tweak to the shrimp idea: shallots instead of garlic in the marinade. I think garlic would fight too much with the Pernod.

W: Nice. Shallots will be good. So it's

- Shrimp, mango, and fennel marinated in Pernod, lime, and shallots
- Skirt steak, green figs, and red onion marinated in bourbon, taragon, and garlic

A little olive oil in both marinades?

RS: Yes on everything, except I think the steak combo should also have shallots instead of garlic. Ooh--maybe toss chives into the shrimp marinade, too?

[...]

W: We got excited about shish kebobs.

RS: I'm hungry.

The Collecting: Cigarette Cards

Back in the day, it seemed that every product had trading cards attached to it. The most famous, of course, are baseball cards, which inspire nostalgic fervor among most American men. Will is among that group--he's not a "serious" collector in the sense of seeking out especially rare or valuable cards. He simply likes to keep a variety of cards representing different brands, eras, and trends in baseball and will pull out a box or binder of them when he's feeling blue. Inspired by how much poring over his baseball cards cheers him up, Will recently made me the thoughtful gift of my own set of cards. I know almost nothing about baseball, but I know a lot about gardening, so he presented me with a small stack of Wills's Tobacco Cards from their Gardening Hints series of the late 1930s. Each one is a bit smaller than a standard business card; the recto side has a four-color illustration depicting a garden chore, and the verso carries helpful instructions for, say, building a dovecote. So now, when I'm blue, I can pull out my little cards and dream of building my perfect English garden.

The Playing: Progressions

Week 3 of my quest to become a guitar goddess brought me three new chords (E minor, C, and D7), to bring me to a grand total of six chords, which is shocking. I can actually remember them all. We also learned the classic G-Em-C-D7 progression, upon which a surprising number of songs are based. Our new tablature piece was the theme from Peter Gunn. Bleh. I know it's good to practice those pieces to build dexterity, but I have very little interest in fingerwork at this point. Speaking of which, my calluses aren't quite there yet. Fingers hurt. I think I should be toughened up properly in about one more week.

The Watching and Listening: World Cup and Rockabilly

So this was an eventful Sunday. Following brunch, we met up with some out-of-town friends to watch the Portugal vs. Netherlands World Cup match (I'm participating in a pool and both of my choices won today, go England and Portugal!). After we parted with said friends, we headed back to Brooklyn to catch some of the day-long fest of rock and sausage at Hank's Saloon. I haven't seen so many Bettie Page 'do's and duck's-ass pompadours in one place in a long time. I also got to clean out a stranger's wound with a shot of vodka and then apply bacon-strip bandages to her foot. I left Will behind the bar with John, the owner, about an hour ago. Let's hope he gets home in one piece.

The Listening: Aerosmith Ruled

"Riff & Roll," a nice, sloppy 1981 Aerosmith studio jam in this folder.

I'm not saying it's the pinnacle of their artistry. But their follies over the past 20 years have made people forget how sweet they once were. The Pandora's Box box set, 3 CDs of stuff from 1968-1982, is a great reminder.

The Reading: You Can Take the Old Man out of Georgia...

There are many reasons I left Georgia for New York almost two years ago, but for the most part I have nostalgia and still feel strong ties to the medium-sized Southern city that was my home for 13 years. I still occasionally read the online version of the Athens Banner-Herald (kindly provided in daily digest form by a friend) to keep up with the big, small, and silly issues that affect the community. The guest columns fall into the silly zone (silly as in stupid, not humorous), but I still can't stop reading them. Mr. Loran Smith is one of those; every week, he devotes a few hundred words to extolling the virtues of porch-sittin' or biscuit-eatin', but I've never gotten the impression that he was ignorant or unsophisticated. Just corny, kind of like your grandfather might be when reminiscing about the Good Old Days and the Simpler Things in Life. This week, Loran went out of his comfort zone and decided to take on the big, bad, evil war zone of urban blight that is Brooklyn. For those of you (cough *dad*) who find it too tedious to click through and read the column, here's the money quote:

Now [Brooklyn] is a locale where murder has taken place in broad open daylight. Triple dead-bolt locks on doors have become standard. Gangs and drugs; broken-down buildings and emotionally nauseating debris. Few cities know more blights than Brooklyn.

Right--it's a place where marauding thugs will shoot you in broad daylight and the few good, honest folk who haven't fled to the suburbs scurry home to barricade themselves behind barred windows and a complicated system of chains and deadbolts. "Back then" it was a charming place where Dodgers played and apple-cheeked children ate ice cream. Mr. Smith managed to get this impression over dinner in upscale Brooklyn Heights. I guess I could waste a lot of space pointing out Brooklyn's virtues, but then it might encourage more visits. Maybe next year he'll tour the Bronx.

The Playing: Week 2

My second week of guitar instruction seems to be carrying things along nicely. I had a terrible day at work and was feeling more inclined to skip class so I could go home and spend an extra hour feeling sorry for myself, but I'm glad I didn't. I found that I'm keeping up with the class and am finding it easier to play. My fingers have almost stopped hurting, and we added a new chord (A7) and song ("I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"), plus began learning tablature (the "solo" theme from Batman). I'm still cranky, but definitely better off than when I started.

The Eating: Big Fat Sicilians

We decided to liven up a rather drab evening last night with a field trip out to L & B Spumoni Gardens, almost to Coney Island, for a few slices of pizza and a cup of spumoni. We had been there once before, back in the fall, but last night I think we experienced it as it's meant to be. This landmark restaurant serves up thick, gooey Sicilian pizzas (square), not too much cheese, and overlaid with a not-too-sweet sauce. They have a large patio area where we could smell the salt air and observe families and groups of teenagers socializing. We were far from the high-rises and trendy shopping and eating areas that most people associate with the city, but as Will observed, it was as much a classic New York place and experience as any. It was comforting to sit for a while in a place where people seemed to know each other and were enjoying a simple, pleasant summer evening (brief rainshower notwithstanding).

The Highbrow: Da Da Da

Thursday evening, a friend and I attended the opening of MoMA's new Dada exhibition. The sixth floor of the building has been turned over to a collection of hundreds of objects from the French, German, Italian, and American participants of the first truly conceptual art movement. I took issue with a few selections that I consider more to be in the Surrealist (Max Ernst) or German Expressionist (George Grosz) traditions, but overall it's a comprehensive and thought-provoking show. This was the first reception I've attended there; wine was flowing freely (best enjoyed while wandering around the sculpture garden), no food, but I have to give them props for the numerous full-size ice sculptures of Marcel Duchamp's famous "readymade" urinal. There was prime people-watching among the hundreds of guests: Upper East Side benefactor types, Williamsburg hipster types, Chelsea gallery types, even a few model types hanging on the arms of banker types. I'll be interested to see how the tourists receive this show--summer is one of the biggest seasons for out-of-towners in New York, and this show is somewhat out of the mainstream for the crowds who arrive for the sole purpose of looking at "Starry Night" and Monet's waterlilies. We'll see what they make of signed snow shovels and Duchamp in drag.

The Playing: Once More, with Feeling

Back in March, I posted about my foolish goal of teaching myself to play guitar. I was to have been able to play a basic song by, oh, about two weeks ago. A month or so ago, I gave it up as hopeless. Some people can sit down with a book and sort things out for themselves, but I'm not of that favored class. I need professional help. So I decided to sign myself up for a series of ten classes at a local guitar school to see if a structured curriculum, the stimulation of my peers, and a significant outlay of cash couldn't move things along a bit. Today was my first lesson, and I'm happy to say that I think this may do the trick. After one hour of instruction, my four classmates and I were playing--ponderously and awkwardly--a two-chord song (D and G, "Give Peace A Chance," for those of you keeping score). That's more than I was able to teach myself. I can actually switch between those two, slowly, without looking down. Again, more than I could manage on my own. Of course, the instructor has already managed to strike fear into my heart: Our "final exam" will be to play and sing a song for the class. Not so much looking forward to that, but I'll wait at least a month before I start stressing about it.

Questionable Band Names

There are many, many bands out there with incredibly ill-advised names (a few are mentioned in my profile as an example). These guys, however, definitely make the short list. Let the jokes about hard rocking begin.

The Highbrow: Modern Art

This past November, I began volunteering at the Museum of Modern Art. It took a while to get on board there. I filled out their 10-page application and sent it in--more than a year ago. They pretty much told me that they'd get in touch if someone died, and so I forgot all about it. So I was a bit surprised when they got in touch with me in October for the first of two interviews to see if I was good enough to give up two Saturdays a month for free. After I told them I worked as a real museum employee for six years, they deemed me worthy to hand out stickers for their free gallery talks and now I have unlimited access to one of the world's finest museums. Since then, I've spent about seven hours each month wandering the galleries (and indulging in some world-class people-watching), and I discover something new each time. Right now, there's a new exhibition up of a recent bequest of a significant collection of American art made between the late 1960s and the present, a period about which I know very little. The two most "name-brand" artists in the show are Philip Guston and Mark Di Suvero, but some of the lesser-known ones struck me more strongly. The first was a simplified, iconic painting of a horse by Susan Rothenberg (I've posted a similar work of hers here); the second was an abstract painting titled "Room," by Jake Berthot (again, a similar image here). The best part is that these galleries are largely bypassed by the tourists bent on photographing each other in front of the Van Goghs and Picassos--nothing against them, but visitors stand ten deep at those paintings, which quickly becomes maddening. By contrast, the contemporary galleries are nearly deserted. I guess, being so crowd-averse, I'm in the wrong line of volunteer work, but the free admission is too good to give up.

The Lowbrow: Why I Can't Watch TV

Many people wrongly believe that I'm a non-TV watcher out of elitism. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love trashy TV, talk shows, reality shows, South Park, etc. I also have the unfortunate tendency to talk, and if properly provoked, scream at the tiny people on the screen. If I had regular access to television programming, I would quickly devolve into one of those shut-ins who spend their days in a crumb-covered La-z-boy shouting at the idiot box and composing threatening letters to news anchors. A prime candidate for sending me over the edge would be Ann Coulter. I've read about her, seen her photo and excerpts from her books, but have so far been spared the live version of this shrill, anorexic love child of Rush Limbaugh and Barbie. I guess she's on the talk-show circuit lately to promote her latest manifesto, and I was directed to a clip of her discussion with Matt Lauer on the Today show. This woman is certifiable and more offensive to my tastes than the most twisted pornography. My poor little laptop almost went sailing out the window to the courtyard below.

Update: I was chastised in the comments for expecting my readers to watch the clip and form their own opinion of Ms. Coulter, so I will explain why she offends me so much: I'm well aware that she rants against liberalism. I really don't care about that, since her way of expressing herself is so insane that it hurts her own cause. What set me off was her claim that the 9/11 widows are "enjoying their husbands' deaths" because now they can criticize Dubya all they want. I have neither the time nor the patience to get into how fallacious that is, but what really gets me is how callously she can dismiss the grief endured by thousands of families.

Also, in the interest of the "diversity" that I'm scolded for not supporting, here is a link (sorry, you'll actually have to read it) to a highly positive review of her new book, complete with excerpts. Read it and weep with laughter.

The Reading: Can't Rupert Afford Proofreaders?

I recently finished reading Bel Canto, Ann Patchett's best-selling and award-winning novel about a group of international businessmen and diplomats held hostage for months in an unnamed South American country. There were good and bad things about the story, but I enjoyed it overall. What bugged the crap out of me, however, was the fact the name of one of the principal characters was spelled inconsistently throughout the book. The fictional opera star Roxanne Coss, who sets the book's action in motion, is spelled with two n's on the back cover, but alternates between one and two throughout the text, sometimes on the same page. Now, as an editor myself, I know that sometimes, despite our best efforts, mistakes creep into a book: time is short, revisions are numerous, etc. That is what second printings are for. When it goes back on press, we have the opportunity to fix whatever small mistakes slipped past in the first round. I point this out because the copy I read was the second paperback printing of this book, which came out about two years after the initial release. Did no one at HarperCollins pick up on this mistake throughout the numerous hardcover printings and two paper printings? Either the people there are stupid or they're lazy--either would fit the NewsCorp (parent of HarperCollins) profile.

The Eating: Chocolat Bonnat

Over the past few months, I have had the fun of sampling several offerings of some of the finest chocolate I've ever tasted. This is saying something, considering the cocoa obsession and snobbery from which I sprang. In its ongoing race to become the next West Village, Park Slope is now home to the charming Chocolate Room, a combined cafe and confectioner, which makes its own candies and carries an assortment of esoteric varietal chocolates from around the world. On Valentine's Day, I received several bars of chocolate from this shop, including two by the Bonnat Chocolatier of Voiron, France. Hoo, boy, this is some good stuff. They offer eight varieties of bars, made from South American and African beans. The labels carry poetic descriptions of the subtle shadings of taste from one variety to the next, which I initially scoffed at. After tasting two side-by-side, however, I was convinced. Some are smoky, some are creamy, others are acidic, while still others are fruity. These are not for the faint of heart: 75% cocoa content is a LOT of chocolate, and not much sugar. However, for those who care about gourmet foods, these are well worth the investment of time and money.

The Bashing: Webster Theater Sucks Ass

Sorry for the vulgarity, but it's true. Last Friday, Will & Co. played what will be their final show for a while (as bassist Jake goes on paternity leave) at Hartford's Webster Theater, the city's "best" (cough, cough, *only*) music venue. We suffered 4 hours of driving rain and snarled traffic so the guys could open for The Radiators at this marginally converted movie theater. Management told them they had 30 minutes to play. For the privelege, the members of the band had to sell a certain number of tickets, which they paid for in advance. No other payment was forthcoming. This "pay-for-play" scheme is not only highly unethical and lazy (do these people not promote their events in any way? what if the band has no friends in fair Hartford willing to buy tickets like so many boxes of Girl Scout cookies?), but it is also probably illegal. Rest assured that local journalists are standing by to cover this story, as it's a crime that has been perpetrated against many, many other hard-working bands who justifiably never want to stop in Hartford again.

Anyhow, aside from the indignity of selling tickets for this crap venue and getting dozens of people in the door to spend more money on drinks and snacks, the band almost literally got the hook after about five songs. This had happened to the previous band, as well: They got to the end of one song, and as they were launching into the opening chords of the next, the lights went off and house music came on. Just like that. Will tried to forestall this by asking after a few songs how much time they had left. Ten minutes was the reply. After a 4-minute song, darkness fell and classic rock spilled out through the PA. Boos resounded. Birds were flipped. Jake was uncharacteristically angry (for those who know him, anything stronger than "dude, that wasn't cool" is practically a tantrum).

So if any of you in Hartford wonder why no good bands ever play in your city while they flock to smaller, more out-of-the-way venues, now you know. And if there are any entrepreneurs among you, the market is wide, wide open to create a better club; the bar is currently set very low.

The Reading: Franco-American Pride

I am not of that proud background myself, but I grew up in southern New Hampshire, in a mill city that was and still is heavily populated by French Canadians. The nuns in my Catholic elementary school taught us Canadian French from the first grade, and my schoolmates throughout my childhood had names like Paradis, Ouelette, Biscornet, DuBois, Cote, and so forth. Unfortunately, this large minority (and in many communities, the majority) became the target of ethnic stereotypes and slurs over the years (this is one of the whitest areas of the country, so I guess the meatheads had to find their targets elsewhere). Now it seems that New Hampshire's more enlightened eastern neighbor, also home to many of French-Canadian descent, has decided to celebrate its ethnic heritage. Let's see if Manch can follow suit...