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November 27, 2007
Random notes from a trip to Mexico City
Museo Nacional de Antropologia
Figurine from Isla de Jaina, Campeche, 600-800 d.c.
According to the Lacandón creation myth, the Gods were born from flowers.
*****
Self-Portrait from the author's papers at Princeton University
"There was once a lightning bolt that hit twice on the same spot; yet, he found that the first hit had caused damage enough, that he was no longer necessary, and he became severely depressed."
Augusto Monterroso
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"And, finally, the guide showed Palinuro a special section from the museum of what might have been and for which a number of experts and computers had calculated all eventualities and possible internal and external factors, including hereditary and environmental, somatic and psychic, nutritional and climatological elements that might have affected the bodies of numerous historical figures had they lived another ten years, thirty years, fifty and, on the basis of these results, created a series of wax figures giving the idea of the likely physical aspect of these individuals. And Palinuro saw that Jesus was a man of ninety years of age, stone death and with a sizeable nose and stomach. And he saw that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was sixty years old, bald and with wrinkled hands. And he saw Marilyn Monroe, who had passed the half century mark and was immensely fat as a result of a glandular malfunction. And he saw Popeye on a wheelchair and Tarzan who had gone blind and Batman who had turned into an old pederast."
---Fernando del Paso, "Palinuro de Mexico"
*****
Quesadilla de Huitlachoche
"Huitlacoche is the fungal, culinary delicacy Ustilago maydis that grows on ears of corn. Inhabitants of Mexico and indigenous people from the Southwestern United States enjoy this rich, smoky ingredient in foods like tamales, soups, quesadillas, appetizers, and ice cream. While farmers treat huitlacoche as an infectious affliction that ruins corn crops, it has a long history in the cuisine of Aztecs, Hopi, and Zuni.
The word huitlacoche, pronounced whee-tla-KO-cheh, comes from two words in Nahuatl, the language of ancient Aztecs occupying the area that became Mexico. "Huitlatl" means excrement and "coche" means raven. Europeans have tried to rename what they consider a grotesque word to popularize the unusual fungus by calling it Mexican Truffle, Aztec Caviar, or Maize Mushroom. Yet huitlacoche remains a regional specialty because it is best fresh, but has also been canned or frozen for export." --from Wise Geek
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Leon Trotsky's Dictating Machine
Trotsky's house, Coyocan, Mexico City
"By about 1910, the Thomas A. Edison Company (the name of the firm that made dictation equipment changed several times over the years) and the Columbia Phonograph Company split the U.S. market. About this time they began promoting their brand names; Columbia began to advertise its Dictaphone, while Edison countered with the Ediphone. "Dictaphone" would become the generic term for dictation equipment, to the chagrin of the Edison interests." -- from recording-history.org
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November 15, 2007
More Bourbon & Branch
 | The first time we se William Powell in the 1934 film The Thin Man, he's educating a nightclub's bartender on the proper way to shake cocktails: "Always have rhythm in your shaking," Powell tells them. "Now a Manhattan you shake to a fox-trot time, a Bronx to a two-step time and a Martini you always shake to waltz time." |
-- Eric Felten, "How's your drink? Cocktails, Culture and the Art of Drinking Well"
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Amuse Bouche: Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade
Old-Fashioned: Bourbon, Angostura Bitters, Lump Sugar and mineral water
Vanilla Mimosa: Orange juice, Navan, Sparkling wine (duly noted and transmitted to A. for our next party brunch)
****
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November 13, 2007
A visit to the SF MoMA - Aesthetical Ecstasy
Also, I finished reading Yasmina Reza's Plays. I love "Art":
The comedy, which raises questions about art and friendship, concerns three long-time friends, Serge, Marc, and Yvan. Serge, indulging his penchant for modern art, buys a large, expensive, completely white painting. Marc is horrified, and their relationship suffers considerable strain as a result of their differing opinions about what constitutes "art." Yvan, caught in the middle of the conflict, tries to please and mollify both of them. -- summary by the wikipedia.
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November 09, 2007
(answering Rui)
I'm currently reading 3 books - in english, alas - so here it goes:
From: "Imbibe! From absinthe cocktail to whiskey smash, a salute in stories and drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, pioneer of the American bar" by David Wondrich (more here).
"Early evidence is lacking, but by the early 1800's Sangaree (usually based on Madeira) is a constant feature in traveler's tales of the Caribbean."
No, I haven't gone alcoholic. These days, I'm fascinated by cocktail trivia and, if may say so, its culture.
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From: "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem (more here)
"We have plenty of time."
I usually don't read sci-fi but this is too good to be missed.
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From: "The Tempest" by Uncle Bill
"We are brought to the heart of the matter by the cantankerous assertion, spoken by Miranda, but obviously the thought and vocabulary of her father."
(unfortunately The Tempest is quite a short play so the above is from an essay by George Lamming which is included in my copy)
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November 08, 2007
Look! No fog!
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November 07, 2007
Aziza
"the kitchen & the bar have collaborated to develop an innovative moroccan inspired cocktail list attuned to the restaurant’s cuisine."
Moroccan Caipirinha (I still think they should come up with a name for this, El-Caipira or something)
Tarragon, Cardamom, Lime Cubes, Cachaça
Gin Cocktail that tastes like cough drops (which I love btw)
Gin, Lavender orange blossom honey, Lime
(Aziza on Geary Boulevard)
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The Premier Tequila Bar on Earth
Margarita - Pueblo Viejo Tequila Añejo
"Tommy's, at present, carries 18 Extra Añejo Tequilas. No one else can say this." -- Tequila 101
(Tommy's Mexican Restaurant on Geary Boulevard)
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November 06, 2007
Bar Drake
Bar Drake Manhattan
Woodford Reserve Bourbon, Port, Angostura Bitters, Maple syrup
The Heated Affair
Partida Añejo Tequila, hot spiced apple cider, whipped cream
(at the Hotel Francis Drake near Union Square - where the cocktails are like candy)
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November 02, 2007
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived from “idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean.
--Henry David Thoreau, Walking(1862)
****
The Last Clown, 2000, is an endless animated loop by the Belgian Francis Alÿs. Set to the music of Charles Mingus, a man strolls along a path, lost in his thoughts. A pratfall and a glance over his shoulder elicit laughter, after which he returns to his private world.
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"There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flâneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. it was also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. the flâneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them."
-- Walter Benjamin
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One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.
In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.
--Guy Debord
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November 01, 2007
To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of the dry martini. To be frank, given the primordial role played in my life by the dry martini, I think I really ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin's hymen "like a ray of sunlight through a window — leaving it unbroken."
--Luis Buñuel's autobiography, My Last Sigh
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Erte, Cocktail party
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The reason I like Edna St Vincent Millay
Is that her name
sounds like a basketball
falling down stairs.
The reason I like Walt Whitman
Is that his name
sounds like Edna St Vincent Millay
falling down stairs.
David Mamet
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