Stew au Poivre

... Not Steak au Poivre. I didn't want to spend $6/lb on filets mignon of questionable quality, and didn't want to wait for a better selection, so I improvised this dish from regular stew meat, presumably chuck, and I do believe it is at least a promising beginning. The inspiration for this came from Alton Brown's Steak au Poivre, which I have made before, and used way too much pepper. It was pretty tasty anyway.

This recipe could be emboldened, I think, is how President Bush would say it. For instance, allspice is like a conservative cook's clove. You could go all in with clove, perhaps. Also, heavy cream is what Alton Brown actually calls for in his Steak au Poivre, not half-and-half, but that's a bit too rich for me, and we're using a pint of half-and-half, which theoretically does contain 1 cup of heavy cream (two cups in a pint), which is the amount he uses.

The taste of the cognac is really subtle, even though it seems like we use a lot. I like the amount of attention it receives in this recipe, but if you're completely crazy for that flavor, just add more at the end.

There are no doubt other spices we could add to complement the cognac, but I would have to perform a more in-dept olfactory, and perhaps gustatory investigation, to be completely pretentious.

This recipe requires:

1 lb of stew beef (a.k.a. top round, bottom round, or chuck cut into bite-size pieces)
2 yellow onions
2 red potatoes
1/2 stick of butter
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
4 cups of flour
32 oz. vegetable stock
1 pint half-and-half
1/2 cup whole black pepper corns
1 tsp allspice
About 4 cups of Courvoisier (could substitute with more veggie stock)

Crush the pepper corns into very coarse pepper (like the pieces should be about 1/4th to 3/8ths of a pepper corn) and set aside. I do this by putting the whole corns in a little pile between two paper towels and beating them with a rolling pin, then separating out as well as possible the big pieces. We want about 2 tablespoons of the big pieces. The dust can go away.

Cut the butter into pieces and put in stainless steel stock pot with the olive oil. The oil is primarily to keep the smoke point of the butter down, so use however much you feel is necessary.

Thoroughly coat the beef with flour and shake off excess. Put it in the pot to brown. You want it to brown on all sides at a high enough temperature to create some crust on the bottom of the pot. While it's browning, chop the two onions and dust them in flour the same way, shaking off any excess.

Once the meat is browned, remove it from the pot and put in the onions and the pepper. Sauté the onions over medium heat, then remove and put aside with the meat.

Now there should be a lot of brown crust in the bottom of the pot. I hope it did not actually burn black. It should be dark brown, but not burnt. If it actually burned, you either had the heat too high, or you need a pot with a thicker bottom that distributes the heat better. My pot has a paper thin bottom, so I have to be careful about the heat.

Now comes the deglazing. Open the Courvoisier and turn the heat up to high. Let it get hot for a few seconds, then pour in the cognac. I don't really know how much to tell you to pour in, but about 1/2 inch or so deep. That will come to a boil. Back off the heat to where it's boiling, but not like crazy, and stir as much as possible, trying to loosen up any pot crust that didn't deglaze immediately. Do that until it thickens, then add the vegetable stock.

Cut up the two potatoes into bite-size pieces and add to the stock, along with the meat, the onions, and the allspice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and let simmer 20 mins. Then remove the lid and let reduce for another 20-30 mins, until all the ingredients are showing because the liquid is so low.

While it's reducing do NOT stir it too much. You'll cause the potatoes to break down making it too starchy. Or maybe you like it that way, I don't know. You could also just add the potatoes 20 or so minutes after you've started the simmer.

How long should you let it reduce for? Well, you're about to add a pint of half-and-half, so however much you think would be sufficient to maintain a thick consistency after that happens. I would say let it reduce by about 1/3rd.

Turn off the heat and let cool for a minute or so, stirring gently. Pour in the half-and-half and one tablespoon of cognac. Mix thoroughly. Serve.

Republicans and Unemployment

The national unemployment rate is currently 6.1%. When Bush came into office it was 4.0%

Looking at this chart of unemployment, which ranges from 1950 to 2005, there seems to be a pretty clear correspondence between republican administrations and increases in unemployment. The blue parts are democratic administrations. With the exception of the Reagan administration, all Republican administrations trend sharply upwards.

With a little under three months to go, and teetering on the brink of economic disaster, you have to wonder what this chart will look like in January.


I found this image on the Wikipedia page for Unemployment.

Yo mamma...

Yo mamma is so fat, her measurements are more easily represented by converting them to spherical coordinates.

Who should get the bennies?

According to this article on cnn.com, iReporter and mortgage broker Margaret Lopez thinks we should use the $700 billion to bail out citizens who were sold these bad mortgages.

Sounds like a great idea to me. If banks need the bailout because the mortgages they invested in turned out to be bad, then we should be ensuring the mortgages get paid, right? $700 billion should cover it.

Right? I mean who should get tax dollars? Banks who made bad investments, or tax payers who made bad investments?

Obviously people should not have their mortgages bought outright. There should be a review process where their payments are reduced, possibly to pre-balloon rates, and their years extended to some large number that means they'll have difficulty building equity in the home because they'll be paying 99.9% interest for a long time, and their credit rating should reflect their poor judgement, but after all that, they should be able to keep their house and make the payments, just like the banks need, and everyone's less scared and a little wiser.

The bald faced hypocrisy

Check out this story about Obama and Biden voting FOR the "Bridge to Nowhere" legislation not once but twice. The best part is the last two paragraphs:

"CNN asked Biden's campaign whether it could ask the senator about his earmark requests and his votes on the Bridge to Nowhere.

"In response, a staffer e-mailed, 'You've interviewed Gov. Palin re: her completely made up position on the Bridge to Nowhere right?'"

Wow, what a great response.

Also important to note is his flagrant opportunism and betrayal regarding the coal industry. On Sept. 21st, Biden spoke to the UMW in southwestern Virginia, saying "I am a hard-coal miner, anthracite coal, Scranton, Pa.," yet in this Youtube video, Biden clearly says "We're not supporting clean coal," and "no coal plants here in America."

Un-American bailout

"This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American."

Thus spoke Senator Jim Bunning today about the so-called Paulson Proposal, and I couldn't agree more. Why would a republican-led congress coupled with a republican administration even consider a $700 BILLION plan to resuscitate our failing banks? Republicans are supposed to be for DE-regulation, free markets, free enterprise, and less government intervention. That is the FUNDAMENTAL set of ideals that makes their party attractive.

The United States market system is based on the principles of a free market. It's that simple. Sure, there must be some oversight and regulation, but in general it should be only as intrusive as it absolutely must be to ensure FAIRNESS. Injecting $700 BILLION into Wall Street to float banks that would otherwise auger violently into bankruptcy is about as far from free market as you can run.

"The situation is very fluid."

That's what I keep hearing from our best economic minds today on the radio. That's a euphemism for nobody knows what the fuck is going to happen.

Why the bailout? Because a resuscitation is exactly what it is apparently to be. Our market system is not just ailing, it's feeling the icy touch of death's hand on it's shoulder, and it's freaking out big time, because there's really nowhere to run. If we let this thing play out, as free market principles mandate that we do, the so-called "adjustments" could set the world back for years. Markets around the world would seize. The import and export of goods would halt because credit would not be available, which would slow the movement of goods, since nobody can trust each other (that's what BANKS are for - uniting buyers and sellers), massive job loss, starvation, you get the idea.

Ahmadinejad is laughing his ass off. I can't stand that douchebag.

Of course, the adjustments would take place, and from the moldering carcass of our financial system would rise something more robust and powerful, presumably, if our nation could maintain cohesion through it all, which we have done before (see Great Depression).

But my favorite bit of news today was hearing Treasury Secretary Paulson slyly rest blame on the American people:

"There is a lot of blame to go around - a lot of blame with big financial institutions that engaged in this irresponsible lending ... blame to the people who made loans they shouldn't have made, people who took out loans they shouldn't have taken out,"

Dude. I'm sorry, but if you honestly believe that the number of people making $60,000 per year (the median US household income), who would knowingly risk their family's livelihood on some shady mortgage, amounts to anything more a negligible percentage of all home buyers over the past 10 years, you do not represent us.

So, if the American citizen is such an ignorant stooge when it comes to personal finance, the biggest question in my mind is WHY!? We are citizens of the United States, the (for the moment) world's largest, most powerful, enlightened economy! WHY don't we learn anything about it in school?

All US high school seniors should be required to know the difference between an ARM and a fixed rate mortgage. I mean they all plan on buying homes at some point, so why not teach kids how to create a budget, acquire and pay off a loan, invest in the stock market, RESEARCH A MORTGAGE!?

That question has bothered me for many years, and I finally found a reason to blog about it. In fact, I believe it is this fundamental lack of economic knowledge that contributes to persistent poverty in the United States. If schools would teach poor students how to wisely manage money, perhaps some of them would see the light, and find a way to break the cycle.

You can be ABSOLUTELY SURE that if every American home buyer of the past decade knew the difference between an ARM and a fixed-rate mortgage, and what the risks and consequences involved in using those tools are, we would not be in the situation we're in now.

IF EVERY American student was educated in the ways of the American market, don't you think that our country would be stronger because of it? Don't you want a country of informed investors?

How embarrassing is it to be the Secretary of the Treasury, and blaming the failure of your country's financial markets on citizens whose greatest sin was believing they could afford a house? As the Secretary of the Treasury, you should be taking a very hard look at yourself and wondering what is wrong with the system you've helped supervise.

Oh wait, let me go ahead and tell you, so you can get on flushing our money away: It's not the fault of citizens you dipshit, it's your fault. You stood by and watched as millions of ignorant Americans were preyed by silver tongued jackals who sold them into the possibility of owning homes they couldn't afford. YOU had the power to do something about it then. You and your ilk.

You're the asshole, Paulson, not us.

Save Hidden Valley!

It's heart breaking and mind numbing and enraging. The only ski resort in the St. Louis region may be closing. I've come to love this hill and the people I've met there. With a roster of about 50 kids, the Hidden Valley Ski Team is producing some amazingly talented racers who compete strongly on the USSA, WIJARA, and FIS circuits, ages 6 to 18.

The problem is between Tim Boyd, the owner of Hidden Valley, and the City of Wildwood, where Hidden Valley is located. Mr. Boyd requested that the city issue HV a building permit to construct a 250-space parking lot on HV property. The new parking lot would accommodate visitors to a planned $1 million tubing park. The city responded by requesting a $251,000 fee, more than 5 times the cost of the parking lot, and requested that HV shut down the lifts by 11pm each night.

Besides the outrageous nature of the permit fee, Hidden Valley stays open until 3am on some nights, which Mr. Boyd says results in 20-25% of HV's revenue.

The City Council and Mr. Boyd have not been able to find an agreement. It is not clear if either party is making much of an effort. If Hidden Valley closes, Mr. Boyd will build a subdivision, and Wildwood will have a new property tax base.

In the end the only losers will be St. Louis area skiers and snowboarders.

Scott Baker has started a website at savehv.com in an attempt to organize people interested in saving Hidden Valley.

If you are interested, please attend the City Council meeting on the 22nd!

What about old home construction?

This country's very solvency is being threatened and it all comes down to this subprime mortgage crap: Citizens who have bought more than they can afford using ballooning mortgages which were sold to them by conniving lenders. It all comes down to INSTANT GRATIFICATION. For the lender: another sale, another commission. For the buyer: a big house with a big yard, just like the ads say they deserve. The REAL cost is now being presented.

One of our biggest problems now is called investor fears. Investors get freaked out by pretty much anything these days, but that's because many markets have become so fickle. I mean the price of gas may jump $.20 on the report of someone sneezing in Arkansas. What makes investors happy or sad? Indicators. One of their favorite indicators of late is the rate of NEW HOME CONSTRUCTION.

What's up w/the rate of new home construction? What about old homes? What's it like where you live? Because where I live, there are a lot of old homes, and especially loft apartments, that are being renovated and purchased by home buyers. Those renovations require labor - much the same labor required to build a new home, although there's usually a lot less vinyl siding purchased, but I don't think the vinyl siding industry is the backbone of the US economy. Why don't investors latch on to something a little closer to the bone, like the rate of new primary mortgages assumed? Isn't that the number we're ultimately after here?

What do we care if some developer just erected 30 units? Isn't it only relevant if the units were sold? I mean if it's actually the act of construction itself that is supporting our economy, then perhaps this realignment is overdue, because that's not a sustainable path anyway. What happens when the whole country is paved over with subdivisions? No more new homes to build! They're all built! Time to start building out oceanic platforms? I can imagine the names now... Wavewood, Dolphinwood, Kelpwood, Jellyfishwood... Scallop Terrace, Plantation Reef, Tidehurst... we could just update the random subdivision/housing development/rest home name generator with some seafarin' speak.

Anyway, the question is why aren't old homes being sold to new families included in the list of economic health indicators? I believe there is a boom in old home renovation right now, including the aforementioned loft apartments... why no mention of that in the media? Is it because the sale of homes isn't really important, but the act of building them is?

Answers are welcome...

Want a job?

I have just discovered online freelancing websites!

http://www.guru.com
http://www.elance.com
http://www.getafreelancer.com

Apparently, if you are ambitious and can manage your own time, you could earn a lot of money by taking jobs from online freelancing websites like Elance, Guru, and GetAFreelancer. I think you basically pay a monthly membership fee, then submit bids for work requests you find on the website. If your bid is chosen, then you go to work! Awesome!

This whole post totally sounds like a "want to be your own boss?" ad, but this is obviously the real deal.

Want to write for a living? How about programming? Graphics design? Accounting? Transcription? Whatever! What the hell, do it all! Just go and look. What a great thing to know about.

If I'm stuck in a rut and can't find a job, I could hopefully find work there. It could also be a great way of making secondary income, although I personally am already busy enough and would like more free time, but maybe someday I will need money more than freetime.

STLtoday.com: Worst Website Ever

If you know of any good sources of local news for St. Louis other than stltoday.com, please let me know.

I was a loyal reader of stltoday.com for my local news ever since they started. In recent months the website has become a Class VI Unnavigable Catastrophe with invasive Flash adds, pop-up ads, and ridiculous Javascript menus.

I sent them an email this morning expressing my concerns for their website, suggesting that they consider an ad-free subscription program or at least less time consuming experience, since it takes like 5 seconds to click through the stupid ads to get to the content. Guess what they sent me in return... "Thank you for taking the time to write..." blah, blah, blah. Standard boilerplate response. They didn't even take the time to read my email.

Nothing grinds my gears like when I get brushed off by a company after I took the time to submit some well thought-out feedback.

After looking around Google, I quickly discovered that I am not the only person to think their website is a disaster. I found many in agreement in the 206 comments for the Redesign FAQ, and here in the 68 comments for this Redesign Update article. Unfortunately, comments for both articles are closed now, or I would chip in my ire. The design disaster is also discussed in the Urban St. Louis forums.

Things that suck about stltoday.com:

1) Doesn't work on a mobile phone. I mean are you serious? It's 2008. You redesigned you website in 2008, and it doesn't work on a mobile phone, and like everyone has broadband access on their mobile phone now.

2) The gigantic Flash ad that takes up about 70% of the screen and tries to appear as a page being folded over from the upper right hand corner of my screen that I have to click "close," once it's done loading, to close before I can see the rest of the page.

3) The colors. Teal + red + white = craptastic.

4) The Big Fat Navigation Menu at the top of the screen. Seems like every time I move my mouse this monstrosity drops down over where I'm trying to navigate to, so I have to move the pointer all the way to the side of the window to get it to go back up... bleagh.

Sheriff Justus

This is Sheriff Mearl J. Justus. Just soak that in for a minute.

OK, I'm serious, this is the St. Clair County Sheriff. Not only does this man look like his swagger alone would knock over chairs as he walks through a room, but he is in fact quite an innovative law man.

There's an article in stltoday.com today about his idea of hanging wanted posters over the urinals in the Sheriff's department. It's apparently been a pretty successful project.

In 1990, according to the article, he set up a fake shoe store and sent out letters to the last known addresses of people on his list of wanted, saying they won a free pair of shoes. He bagged 33 bad guys that day! Holy cow!

Wait a minute... criminals read their mail on a daily basis? I'm unlikely to read mine once a week. And they showed up on the right day? That's almost as amazing as the idea itself!

Other fun facts about Mearl is that his department's homepage is at http://thebadge.us. And he has a blog at http://www.mysheriff.us. This guy's awesome!

You Can Awesome! episode 3

This one is also about a year old, but still one of my favorites...

Especially 1:30 - 2:30.




Their 80s style sensibilities were ahead of their time last year.

Watley goes to Vegas

This scene literally never gets old...

Back to thought

When I find myself in one of life's valleys, I can always find peace and inspiration in the pursuit, or rediscovery, of new avenues of thought. Specifically I am talking about philosophy. I mean really, just the thought of opening up my copy of The Portable Nietzsche gets me excited. That book has never failed to provide inspiration for me in the 16 years I've owned it. Whether or not you agree with Nietzsche's philosophy is practically irrelevant, because he is one of the most exciting writers you will ever find.

But, rather than go to old faithful, I've (re)started reading Jacques Derrida (WAH wah). I tried to read one of his books a few years ago (Archive Fever), but couldn't stay awake long enough to finish it. Seriously, it was like Sleepinol. His writing is so dense and pedantic, it's a chore to follow. The introduction for that book actually notes that he even writes in a style that makes it difficult to translate into English. What a dick! However, he is noted as the founder of the philosophy of deconstruction, which is heavily referenced by most of the important modern architects, specifically in deconstructivist work, so I figure it is worthwhile to try to understand him.

My brother made me a t-shirt with a montage of work from Lebbeus Woods's Radical Reconstruction. I fell in love with Woods's work as soon as Sean introduced me to it a couple years ago, but I had forgotten about it until that shirt arrived in the mail. Thanks, Sean!

Sean pointed out to me today that Lebbeus Woods has never been known as a deconstructivist, but, in his words (Sean's), certainly a futurist, and maybe, if you had to label him, we'd call him a post-functionalist.

Lebbeus Woods has a blog! Yes!

If I can derive anything useful in my study of Derrida, I'll be sure to post something about it.

Here's a picture of me with a disembodied light bulb hanging from a string. This whole post is really just a bunch of words surrounding this picture. It's a deconstructivist picture in a room that's been partially de-constructed... and I'm wearing a shirt that's disintegrating. Oh yeah, that t-shirt is like as old as my copy of The Portable Nietzsche. I treat it like a priceless artifact. It's sooo comfortable, it's almost as light as air, and as soft as a newly shorn lamb.

Shanghai

I didn't post anything while I was in Shanghai, because I didn't have much downtime, but I feel compelled to describe at least this one outstanding thing that happened to me there, which happened during dinner on Thursday night with two of my Chinese friends. We were eating at an Indian restaurant, all you can eat and drink, it was totally awesome, but that's not the point. We were talking about difficult life experiences, and after telling a story of mine, one of my friends asked me, "Do you know the show Growing Pains?"

Smiling broadly, and doing my best to contain intense gleeful laughter for what was about to transpire, I of course conceded that I do. He then related to my story by describing an episode of Growing Pains where a young Mike Seaver dealt with an experience similar to mine. I could barely contain the wondrous, disbelieving guffaw I felt for his choosing to empathize with me through Growing Pains. All I could think was how Jason Bredle would've shit a solid gold capybara if he could've been there to hear it. And are they still airing this show in China? And I can't believe the world has shrunk so much that this scenario is even taking place!

I mean, when was the last time you even thought about that show? For me it was when I discovered the afore-linked Bredle poem, which was only a couple months ago, but before that I mean really, maybe what, 14 or 15 years? But then my friend made the most astute observations about the show's impact on Chinese society, and I was forced to step back and consider the changes it affected on American society. He noted how shows like it and Family Ties made it OK for the family's patriarch to show emotion, and openly love his family. Shows like that made it clear that family is the most important thing of all, and it's OK to hug your son. Their popularity pushed important social issues into every family's living room, especially issues of social equality and forgiveness.

Of course, they pushed them out in perfectly formed chunks of happy shiny entertainment, easily digestible, devoid of the ugly spurs and splinters that make coping with real life quite a bit more challenging and time consuming, but nonetheless, I had never actually given that show any importance until he forced me to consider it.

I can't upload pictures to this post for some reason. I'll try to put together a stream sometime.

For Food Fanatics

And alliteration advocates...

I have eaten many dishes, some fantastic, some scary, some hot, and all delicious.

Some fantastic: You've already seen that glorious clay pot [ed: Glorious clay pot? I must be channeling Lynn Rossetto Casper...], but the hotel's kitchen has produced something else wonderful for me. I've discovered their "traditional club sandwich." It had a fried egg on it, at about the third layer of the second layer, and egg foo young, like a multi-layer St. Paul sandwich! It's a bit of home! Sorry, but no picture.

Some scary: Monday night I ate at the Red Passion (yes, haha, it's actually a very upscale restaurant) with the auditors, and we had one dish called Begger's Chicken. It was whole chicken wrapped in a thick layer of lotus leaves, and then a hard pastry shell, pictured here near the end of the meal. (Yes, those are French fries in the background. I don't know who ordered them, but they were darn good. The ketchup was extra sweet. Also, I didn't take that picture.) The interesting thing about that chicken is that every time I stuck my chopsticks into that mass of food, for the first four takes, I came out w/a surprise!

The first time I ventured in, I didn't know how to approach it, so I just retrieved a piece of lotus leaf and started ruminating. I was informed that that was not for eating. OK! Too late. It was rather fibrous. My second attempt I thought I was getting some shredded meat, but actually it was a mass of dark meaty strings, which I know from previous experience eating similar food is actually like, well, intestines. The third time I went in, I thought I had seized on a nice big lump of dark meat, but as I pulled it back to my plate, I recognized a beak, and vacant eye sockets!! The shock repulsed me from the table, and the baked head fell to my plate.

I gathered myself and tried once again to pull out another piece of meat, but that bird's bony red face was staring at me, so I had to put it back on the platter, and cover it with a napkin. Yes, everyone at the table was having a hearty snicker at my expense.

Some hot: Very hot. Two nights ago I had the very special honor of being the first měiguó rén invited by the A-B IT staff to dine at a particular restaurant that specializes in Szechuan cuisine! Dude, I mean just look at all the peppers on this plate! The dark parts are salty, hot pieces of fish. That picture is from the very beginning of the meal. There were MANY more dishes, and almost every one seemed to be 50% red peppers. I was actually buzzing from all the peppers... and the many bottles of Bud. They also said I am the only American they have seen eat the dan dan noodle. Of course, they did order everything on the most mild setting, but trust me it was hot! They even gave me a Chinese name. That meal was very special for me.

After that meal we all went for foot massages. I've never had a foot massage, and I can be pretty sure I'll never get to have one like that again! For the first phase, they brought in foot baths with tiny African fish in them (don't know the species) that looked like minnows. The fish eat your feet! Serious! I have pictures, but, of course, the stupid laptop won't read them. I'll have to wait to get home to download them using my Linux box. That was pretty fun though. The massage therapists were amazed at how white I am, but of course my friends were too polite to tell me that at the time. I learned later. I had a feeling it was either that or my apparently soft feet which couldn't really handle the full force of the massage.

The next morning (yesterday) Jarod Li took me to Hu Bu Xiang street, which has a whole block of small eateries that specialize in different types of traditional Chinese breakfast food. We had three different types of dumplings (dim sum) that I had never tried before, a sticky rice pancake that is considered local food, and some rice noodles in a very peppery gravy. I've very sorry that I have no pictures of that either, because my computer won't read those from the card for some reason. I even have a picture of two cooks making soup dumplings and one of another cook making a gigantic sticky rice pancake.

I also had the best cup of green tea I've ever had in my life. The IT department was given a large bag of homegrown, home processed, completely organic green tea, and it was amazing! I can at least provide a picture of that. Also that day they introduced me to a fruit I've never had called longan (lóngyǎn), which actually means dragon's eye. You can see why from the picture. You just pierce the hard outside with your fingernail, and it peels easily. They tasted a bit different from grapes, but that is the closest comparison. They were very good!

Yesterday Jarod also took me to a tea market. At a Chinese tea market, you are invited to sit down and sample the various types of tea before buying. The shopkeeper prepares the teas for you, and it is an extensive process that includes warming the cups with hot water, pouring out the first cup, and then finally serving the tea in small Chinese tea cups. You are given many many cups. I finally purchased about 1/8 kilo of the best oolong tea I've ever tasted. It had a slightly sweet aftertaste which was surprising and delicious. There was nothing in it but the brewed liquor from the leaves.

My work is nearly complete here, and it went very well, to my substantial relief. Tomorrow I leave for Shanghai.

The rest of the weekend

Saturday night I was anxious to go out and see the Wuhan nightlife, so I asked the doorman, Kenny*, where he recommended, and the waitress inside, and between the two of them I had a few ideas.

It took me a little while to build up the nerve to explore this radically foreign city alone at night, but I'm glad I finally did. About two blocks north of the hotel, I came to a corner where people were crowded around, and as I got closer, I realized there were about 10 musicians there playing traditional Chinese music!! What an unexpected treat! There were about 4 or 5 men playing the erhu, one or two playing wooden flutes, one was playing a large percussion instrument that looked like a yangqin, I think a couple of small drums, and there were three singers, one woman and two men, and they took turns singing from song to song. IT WAS AWESOME!

It seemed like a neighborhood thing, but I mean these people were really talented and organized. I guess they've been doing it for many years. I tried my best to kind of hide behind some people, because who knows what kind of awkward hilarity would await me if I didn't. Of course, after the first song, the man who was MC said something to the microphone and everyone turned around and smiled at me expectantly. Haha! I just smiled like an idiot and waved. A man next to me said "they are welcoming you," so I meekly mumbled thank you in Mandarin.

I stuck around for about 3 songs and then headed on down Taibei Lu, which was my original mission. I didn't find much on Taibei Lu, which was the waitress's recommendation, that looked inviting, so then I took a cab to Jianghan Lu, which was Kenny's recommendation, and that was pretty exciting, like Nanjing Lu in Shanghai, but, like Nanjing Lu, it was all shopping, not clubs, so that was kind of a wasted trip too. Now I wish I had just stayed on that corner with the locals listening to the live music.

Really, what a dumbass I am. That was a priceless experience that you will not find on a tourist map, and nobody will tell you about (if they even know) because the young people here I told about it looked at me like I had antlers growing out of my head, like "you like traditional Chinese music??" Well, I mean how could I? I've never heard it before! There I was, reaping the benefits of having the gall to explore Wuhan at night alone, experiencing a bit of culture that could very well become extinct over the next 20 years, as China discovers the trappings of globalism and modern society, but I just had to break off and go find "nightlife." I hope dearly they will be out next Saturday night. I will bring a camera and not be shy.

Sunday I went to the Hubei Fine Art Museum, and then the Hubei Provincial Museum. Both were fine museums, but the Hubei Provincial Museum was huge, spanning like five buildings, and packed with cultural treasures. I got to see the Sword of Goujian, the most famous Chinese sword of all (2500 years old and not a speck of tarnish)!! Evidently it is one of the most important museums in China. I tried my best to see all of it, but after walking so much the day before, I was ready to collapse. Really, you need about three days to explore that museum. I think I gave it about 3 hours (that was after about 2 at the Fine Art Museum), and then just tried to find the Sword of Goujian.

The funny part is it took me like another hour to find that darn sword, but I wasn't leaving until I saw it. I started asking museum security at like every corner, "Jian zai nar?" (The sword is where?). They would point and say something back to me, and I would move a little closer. Building to building, room by room, I moved closer. Finally I found it, and the quest actually pulled me through every single exhibit that I hadn't seen already anyway. Ha!






*Kenny is his "English name," which is something most young people take for themselves to make doing business with English speakers easier. They often pick names that make you think 'why?' I also met his classmate, also a doorman, name of Jordan, "like Michael Jordan." They are both undergraduate students at a local university for hotel management. They are also both fluent English speakers and very eager to ask me questions about America. I appreciate the opportunity to ask them questions about Wuhan and the Chinese language.

I am tourist! Hear me babble something in broken Mandarin!

So, the secret to getting me up at 6:00 in the morning is simple: just send me to the other side of the planet. I had showered, eaten a leisurely breakfast (French toast and three cups of coffee), researched some places to check out, and hit the street before 8am. Oh man, let me just say first that I used every single bit of Mandarin I know today, and then some. It was pretty fun.

About 1 in every 10 people I passed today just outright stared at me. Last time I was in Wuhan it was a bit unnerving, but this time I was able to pretty much ignore it.

I spent the first couple hours exploring a large swath of the downtown area, and taking pictures. The most interesting discovery was when I came across a huge tea market. The entrance to it was not very obvious, but as I walked through, I realized it occupies about half a block! Inside are dozens of small tea shops specializing in either tea or tea accessories. If I could read Mandarin, I would probably be very happy with myself for discovering it, but instead it's kind of out of reach for me, because there didn't appear to be many English-speaking Wuhanese in there. I may have to get brave to take advantage of it before I leave.

The picture above is from where I very first walked in.

I located the place that I got the Ya Bozi last time (see previous post), but my stomach wasn't up to it at the time, so I just took a picture and noted the location. Then I took a taxi to the Guiyuan Temple. It is a beautiful old Buddhist temple with many altars, statues, and courtyards. I would have a lot more photos of the amazing woodwork there, but unfortunately, the most beautiful rooms prohibited photography.

The second picture is one of the courtyards at the Guiyuan Temple, where people were putting coins into the mouths of the little dragon heads jutting out from that bronze piece.

After that I went across the street to a funky little museum called the Wuhan Chinese Rare Stone Museum. My impression from talking to one of the English speaking employees there is that they obtain the most interesting stones that are excavated during construction, and have made a museum of it. I love museums with weird themes. I had to give it a try. Oh yes, it was interesting. They had some fossil collections in there that seemed to take some liberties. I saw a fossilized head of something that looks like some kind of cow with antlers, but not like any antlers I've ever seen. I suspect someone took some creative liberties with the fossil collection...

I can't resist including at least one picture from that strange museum. What do you think? It was labeled "Cervus Linnaeus."

But they did have some souvenirs unique to Wuhan, so I was told. They are what's called Chrysanthemum Stone pieces, which are black and white stone pieces where the white part is a quartz/calcite aggregate, and the black part is volcanic rock. They are very pretty, but heavy, so I bought just a small bowl.

Next I went by foot to the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. Oh man, that was a longer walk than I thought it would be. Then I went below the bridge to Lotus Lake Park, which is a truly beautiful municipal park. Then took a cab back to the hotel for MUCH cheaper than the previous cab... but eh, whatever, the other one was less than $6, so it was still much cheaper than US cabs. From now on I know to just ask for the meter instead of letting the cabbie offer me a flat fee.

Got back to the hotel and ate lunch. Wow, it was awesome. Clay pot rice w/a special sweet Cantonese sausage, chicken, wild mushroom, and some kind of vegetable. Exactly what I needed. I was so moved I took a picture.

Hobbled up to my room to find that they were in the process of installing a new flat panel HD TV in my room. Sweet! Helped them install it, then collapsed on my bed, kicked my shoes off, and watched Gold Medal Ping Pong Tournament. Definitely getting the full Chinese treatment. Love it.

24 Hours Later...

Left the house at 5:15am. Exactly 24 hours later, I was checking into my hotel room in Wuhan. This picture pretty much sums up the last 24 hours of my life. It is the view from gate C53 at Shanghai Pudong International Airpot, as I waited for my third and final flight to Wuhan. As you can see, it's a very nice airport, albeit spacious beyond all reason. I think I must've walked about 2 miles between the time I landed there and when I finally approached that gate.

The taxi ride from the Wuhan airport to the hotel brought back the memories and the fear.

No seatbelts: check.
Broken speedometer so you can't tell if you are in fact approaching the sound barrier: check.
Complete disregard for lines on the road: big fat check-a-roonie, especially in crowded urban areas.

I believe you must be at least a level 20 Zen Master to get a cabbie license in China.

Last time I came to China the road from the Shanghai airport to Shanghai was a gorgeous, lush, carefully planted and maintained road, but the road from the Wuhan airport was not. This time, Wuhan's airport highway also has the landscaping. Really, like 10-15 miles of heavily landscaped median and shoulder. Wuhan's is mostly composed of shrubs and trees, whereas Shanghai's highway had a lot of flowers, but still it puts every American highway I've ever seen that connects an airport to shame. I tried to get a picture of it, but... eh, the pictures don't really do it justice. Mixed in were what I think were pink azaleas and white yuccas, but they don't show up in this picture.

Now I have two days to get situated before work on Monday.

Leaving St. Louis

There's a full moon out tonight. That can mean only one thing: it is time that I board the sky ship and fly east... far east. I am off to the land of Qin, the Middle Kingdom. I will span the great Yangtze River to the land peopled by the Han, and I will behold the ancient civilization that brought paper, gunpowder, printing, and the compass to the world, and I will eat delicious spicy duck's neck (yes folks, it's that good).

I will install many hard drives and migrate a multitude of data from one medium to another, and lo: I will take pictures.

And when the moon has nearly waned, I will fly to the river's delta, to the city Above the Sea: that towering cosmopolis that is home to the most wondrous and the most ancient of structures, and lo: there will be many dumplings eaten.

Groundhog

I was going through my old high school papers, and I found the lyrics to two old folk tunes. I have little idea where they came from. I think they were handed to me in either a high school or college writing class. Those papers are a little mixed up, so it could've been either. They are remarkable pieces for their pure Appalachian sound. I will transcribe them here as they're written on these pieces of paper.

GROUNDHOG

Shoulder up yer gun and whistle up yer dog
Shoulder up yer gun and whistle up yer dog
Goin' up the holler gonna catch a ground hog... Groundhog

Down in the hole all thick and stout (x2)
Cut me a stick and twist him out...

Skin that whistle pig and tan his hide
Make the best bootlace you ever tied

Cut him up in pieces and put him on to boil
Smell him cooking a country mile

Up comes Vester from behind the plow
I want some whistle pig I want it now

Here comes Sal with a snicker and a grin
Groundhog grease all over her chin

WILD HOG

There's a wild hog in yonder woods, diddle-o-down, diddle-o-day
There's a wild hog in yonder woods, diddle-o-down-o-day
There's a wild hog in yonder woods, cut his throat and drink his blood
Cut him down, cut him down, kill him if you can

There's a wild hog in yonder mast...
Cutting his way through oak and ash...

Bangum will you hunt him right...
Sword and pistol by your side...

Bangum hunted day and night...
Swore he'd take that wild boar's life...

Bangum went to the wild boar's den...
Found the bones of a thousand men...

Fought three hours on that day...
The wild hog shied and he ran away...

Bangum threw his wee pen knife...
That was the end of the wild hog's life...

Tom Waits

I got to see Tom Waits play in St. Louis on Thursday, June 26th, 2008. I was seated just far enough away that I couldn't make out the details of his face, but I could see him just fine. Even more importantly, I could hear him.

It was awesome.

The show opened with Tom standing on a small riser, only about 5'x5'. The main limelight shined down on him while the rest of the stage was dark. He started singing Lucinda, from the Orphans album, as the lights came up on the rest of the band. Then he would lift his leg up in air and STOMP down on the riser, causing a puff of dust to rise. STOMP again! The dust would surround him and float away.

The musicians were all consummate professionals. One man for horns (many, many horns), an upright base player, a keyboardist (except when Tom played the piano), and, of course, Casey Waits on percussion. The show was very well rehearsed, and all the songs were played completely differently than they are on the albums. And they were BETTER!

How often does it happen, where a musician plays your favorite song live, completely different from the way you know it, and you actually like it more? For me, not often. But seriously, Get Behind the Mule was far and away the best song of the night, and it was swinging, like Waits was channeling Buddy Holly. Turns out the reviewer in stltoday.com agrees with me on Get Behind the Mule being the best.

His cover of Way Down in a Hole was second best, I think, and so strange from the album version, I didn't even realize what song it was until well into it. The venue, the Fabulous Fox Theatre, was gorgeous, and it was the first time I had ever been there.

At one point I was just sitting there, barely able to contain myself, thinking man, I am sitting in a room watching Tom Waits put on an amazing show. I've been waiting for about 14 years for this. In fact, it was 14 years ago that Damian introduced me to Tom Waits. The greatest thing about this concert? Damian was there too, with Kate, just married, all the way from North Kakalaka!

The cover of 16 Shells from a 30-06 was good, and you know it would be, with all the crazy percussion needed. Tom would step over to the corner of his soapbox and kick down on a drum pedal with a hard mallet that would connect with a brake drum, or something, to make one of the bell sounds. So cool.

Oh man, the very last song he covered, the last song of the encore, with Tom at the piano, was Innocent when you Dream. After he sang the first verse, he said "Sing with me!" The whole theater was singing along. Tom was like "That's really beautiful." It was.

The set list was (in case that stltoday.com article goes away some day):

1. "Lucinda" ("Orphans")
2. "Way Down in the Hole" ("Frank’s Wild Years)
3. "Falling Down" ("Big Time")
4. "Black Market Baby" ("Mule Variations")
5. "All The World Is Green" ("Blood Money")
6. "Heigh-Ho" (Orphans")
7. "Get Behind The Mule" ("Mule Variations")
8. "Day After Tomorrow" ("Real Gone")
9. "Cemetery Polka" ("Rain Dogs")
10. "Hang Down Your Head" (Rain Dogs")
11. "Lucky Day" ("Black Rider")
12. "Johnsburg, Illinois" (Swordfishtrombones")
13. "Lost In The Harbour ("Alice" soundtrack)
14. "Make It Rain ("Real Gone")
15. "Lie To Me" (Orphans)
16. "The Other Side Of The World" (Night On Earth" soundtrack)
17. "Singapore ("Rain Dogs")
18. "Dirt In The Ground" (Bone Machine")
19. "What’s He Building In There?" ("Mule Variations")
20. "16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six ("Swordfishtrombones")
21. "Rain Dog" ("Rain Dogs")

ENCORE

22. "Goin’ Out West" ("Bone Machine")
23. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" ("Rain Dogs")
24. "Innocent When You Dream" ("Frank’s Wild Years")

Show me state, and I'll show you idiocy

This is the new license plate design for the great state of Missouri. Glorious, isn't it? Note the upside-down horizon, miniature bird perched precariously on the edge of the frame, and of course the incorrectly written nickname, "Show Me State."

Mmm hmm.

For starters, it should read "Show-Me State." Note the hyphen. This error has already been noted publicly, but the Department of Revenue has decided not to correct it.

"Show Me State" is an imperative sentence. It commands all who read it to show the driver state. Missouri drivers may find themselves being confronted with examples of state, such as gases, solids, and liquids. Some clever passers-by may be tempted to draw a finite state machine, and hold it up to the window.



Of course, any self-respecting English major, lover of the language, or sharp observer who is issues one of these embarrassments will immediately break out a Sharpie and fix it themselves. It will at least be a good way of determining if the driver in front of you is linguistically adept.

Then there's that bluebird. I haven't seen visual imbalance like that since the time I tried to make a 1:1 scale sculpture of Atlas holding up the Earth.

It was basically just a sculpture of Atlas doing a hand stand.

Anheuser-Busch vs. Inbev

Well, those who know me know this is an issue that affects me. You may be wondering how I'm dealing with the news. The outlook is pretty dire. I have no control over that situation, so there is only one thing I can do.

And here it is.

Responsible Urban Renovation

St. Louis city has many excellent characteristics, including a very strong urban renovation movement. Many old neighborhoods have survived the hard times of urban decay, many have been successfully revived, at least one has been completely bulldozed over (Botanical Heights, nee McRee Town), and some have continued to decay, falling further downward into the spiral of crime and poverty.

Until recently, North St. Louis has received the least amount of attention as far as renovation goes, but in the past few years that trend has taken a wonderful turn, thanks to some dedicated groups of people. Now that momentum has picked up in Old North St. Louis (ONSL), the movement has come to a critical crossroads.

Have you ever heard of New Urbanism? Well, if not, you can read the Wikipedia link. Anyway, there is this guy, Paul McKee, Jr., who has bought up a whole bunch of parcels in North City, and even managed to get legislation passed at the state level to assist him in his mysterious plans. He may or may not be planning to implement New Urbanism in the form of this Blairmont project, which has urban activists very nervous due to its scale and his company's record of displacement and neglect. Basically, McKee's Blairmont project has, so far, been the poster child for the worst form of gentrification.

Everyone wants to make St. Louis city a better place, right? And of course everyone has their own ideas about how to accomplish that, but when you buy up millions of dollars worth of contiguous properties and then let it all decay, refusing to divulge any details about your plans for that property, it tends to make people freak out. Yeah, it does.

Well, finally, a group of concerned citizens has formed a group called the Develop with Dignity Coalition, prominently placing themselves in the fray with McKee, hopefully forcing the Mayor to get off the fence w/r/t the Blairmont project. The Vital Voice has published an article describing the coalition's emergence, and potential influence on the situation.

This is pretty exciting stuff if you love this city and/or care about urban revival. Some might say McKee should not be alienated because few people have the money or desire to attempt a large-scale residential development in North St. Louis. On the other hand, the ONSL project has proven that traditional rehabilitation efforts coupled with an energized, enthusiastic segment of citizenry can accomplish great things!

Stay tuned, because successful development in North City could be a very positive catalyst for this city in terms of reduced crime and higher education levels, which results in reduced poverty, which results in reduced crime and higher education levels . . .

Jimmy Mo Mhíle Stór

A friend introduced me to this beautiful Irish song, Jimmy Mo Mhíle Stór. It just gets better with each listening.

The title translates poetically from Irish to "Jimmy My Thousand Times Beloved." Some translate it to "Jimmy My Thousand Treasures," which is an attempt at direct translation, but doesn't really make much sense. Or they drop the word mhíle altogether, and wind up with "Jimmy My Treasure," which is rough, but at least accurate to the original meaning of the phrase, if not precise.

The song is a monologue by a girl whose love has gone to the sea, and she waits every day for his return.



This particular rendition is my favorite of the ones I've heard. It is sung by Kathleen MacInnes. Her performance is incomparable. The song is a waltz, but the musical phrasing is constantly adjusted throughout the song, following the lead of the singer. Ms. MacInnes's voice has a genuine, natural quality that gives the song a vivid sense of personality. Her phrasing is deliberate and unchained, following the voice of the sea, or a desperate, inconsolable young woman who refuses to believe that her Jimmy is lost. Nothing in the song's lyrics actually suggest he is lost, but the very fact that she's lamenting his absence, and he at the mercy of the sea, urges you to that conclusion.

Somali wild ass born at Zoo

Yes, that is an actual headline from stltoday.com today.

"The St. Louis Zoo welcomed its first newborn Somali wild ass."

Whoohoo! I'm looking forward to a wild ass birthday party!

Word puzzles

These sentences are all grammatically correct. A friend of mine introduced me to the Buffalo buffalo one, and I found the rest in Wikipedia...

This sentence demonstrates lexical ambiguity. See if you can work it out before you read the Wikipedia article.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

This stream of words lacks punctuation. See if you can insert the correct punctuation to make sense of it.

James while Jon had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

And these are examples of Garden Path sentences:

"The old man the boat."

"The man who whistles tunes pianos."

"The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi."

Jason Bredle

I am exhibiting signs of early-onset Bredlemania, and I have Jason Bredle to thank for that. I have been practically glued to his work, what I can find of it on the Internet, ever since I discovered it on Friday.

I first learned of him while scanning through the online content of the Missouri Review. There are three of his poems posted there. His prosaic style and brilliant sense of humor captivated me. I immediately started scouring the Internet for more. Found his website, which pointed me to his blogs, which are hysterical, found Aurora Borealis Beard Fire Party, which made me laugh and enjoy the outstanding wordplays and rhythms, found The Crossfire, the Breathtaking Explosions, O, which is so complex, and so efficient in every line, that I haven't even found halfway of it yet, and then I found The Idiot's Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico.

This last one is probably the most intense, although I am probably only saying that because I haven't fully parsed any of his works yet, but this one I am starting to crack the shell of, and it is everything you could hope a work of art is: it is moving, it is sad, it is funny, it is refreshing, it's challenging, it's musical, it's weird, it's exciting, it's devastating, it's demanding, it's actually easy to relate to. It's all of these things and more.

A work of art is best when it entices the audience to explore it, and as they explore it, they are rewarded at every layer with new insight, emotion, and a feeling of intellectual accomplishment.

Bredle opens the poem with an ostensibly humorous stanza, which disarmed me into thinking this would be a fun piece, like the ones I read in the Missouri Review.

Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes

Note how the last word of the last line pulls you into the next stanza, while also providing a funny nonsequitur. There is plenty more to say about this stanza, like the surreal impression of someone checking the Bible every few seconds for anything, let alone the possibility of new information that wasn't already there, or the use of in media res, and there may be something going on with the s sound there, but I haven't figured it out yet, and the break on the second line is curious. Broken on the period, the rhythm is perhaps too conventional, makes the stanza soft, but...

My point is actually that even though I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of this poem, it is written so exquisitely, that I can't hold back from blogging about it already. It suddenly hit me today as I was re-reading it for the Nth time, o no, is he contemplating suicide? He has before? Is he grappling with his belief in God? Remembering someone who has died? Did they commit suicide? The language goes back and forth, creating paradoxes, I guess such is life, he is confused and, as the reader, I feel the confusion, and yet... The title of this poem is ...Faking Your Own Death... Is he joshing me? That would be kind of humiliating because I am really feeling empathetic for this author the more I am reading this, but perhaps the humiliation is intentional, like he feels it too. He can't believe his own thoughts, and feels astonished by them. He writes...

I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,

harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.

Ah, I have a lot more reading to do on this poem before I feel comfortable with my understanding of it, but I can surely tell you that it is art of an exceptional quality.

I checked Left Bank Books, but they didn't have Bredle's book, Standing in Line for the Beast, so I had to order a copy. Should be here before the week is done.

Wondergrrrl

Jason Bredle is a clever man, and he's into Unicorns, and stuff. Wondergrrrl is one of his blogs. You will not regret reading every entry in it. I recommend you actually start at the beginning.

The Washing of the Hands

I used to wash my hands less, but now I wash them more. Life can be such a wondrous journey.

This is a photo of my actual hands being washed. I felt compelled to wash them after changing the cat's litter. I think it raises some interesting questions: Am I washing my hands, or are they washing each other? Do other people refill their Softsoap containers, or do they just buy new ones? How exactly did I take a picture of my own hands? Is this appropriate content for the Internet?

I look forward to your comments.

International Violence Against Women Act

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I would like to urge anyone who reads this to take a moment to support the passing of the International Violence Against Women Act. It is a senate bill that would help to promote the equality of women around the world.

Use the Amnesty USA website to send emails to your senators urging them to support it, if they're not already co-sponsors, and if they are co-sponsors, thanking them.

If you prefer a more personal approach, please do write your senators letters to the same effect. Either way, it is important that we spread the philosophy of human equality to all reaches of this planet, especially those horrific places where women are treated as less than human.

Guatemalan Women

There was a documentary on the Documentary Channel a few weeks ago called Killer's Paradise, and I strongly urge you to watch it. It is on again tomorrow night. It details the current situation in Guatemala regarding the killing of women. It is an atrocity of an unimaginable scale. The documentary is chilling.

3,000 women and girls have been killed in Guatemala since 2000. Nearly all of the murders go without an investigation, and for the ones that are investigated, the forensic and investigative methods employed are horrifically inept, and they often boil down to a pile of languishing paperwork. There have been 20 convictions from 2001 to 2006.

The police themselves have been implicated in several of the murders, rapes, and mutilations.

One story is told by a father whose daughter was kidnapped from in front of their house. The neighbors ran over to tell him what happened, and offered him their car to chase the kidnappers. He and his son tried to search for them, then went to the police station to report it and ask for assistance. He tells how he begged them to send out an APB, put up road blocks, anything, and they treated him with complete disdain. Then he and his son went back out looking for her. Hours later they came back to the police station and asked if there had been any news. The sergeant looked at him and said, "What missing girl? You have not filed a report."

No woman is safe in Guatemala. If a dead body is found, the woman is presumed to be a prostitute, and nothing is done. The injustice is so far beyond imagination, it is difficult to comprehend. The streets are crawling with rapists and murderers who openly admit what they have done. They practically brag about it.

The United States has sent forensics experts to Guatemala to train them on how to secure a crime scene and collect evidence, but nobody applies what they have learned, and the Guatemalan government does not provide funding for investigative resources.

The Senate has recently, on March 10th, passed a resolution expressing sympathy for the families of those who have been murdered, and to "encourage" and "urge" the Secretary of State, the President, and the Attorney General to assist the Guatemalan government in establishing law, order, and justice, with respect to these atrocities. We can all pray that it will help.

Some blogs on Amnesty USA have entries that tell more stories.

Miller, Vonn, Ligety Making it Happen

If you have not been paying attention the the Alpine Skiing World Cup, it is time to wake up and smell the victory! Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, and Ted Ligety are three Americans who are tearing up the World Cup circuit, and showing the world what US racers are capable of.

Miller and Ligety both grew up with access to fairly large mountains, but Lindsey Vonn grew up racing at Buck Hill in Minnesota. It's a relatively small hill that has produced many great US females, including Kristina Koznick, and more recently, Sterling Grant.

I'm getting off track, but I mention Buck Hill because it is a small hill, like our own Hidden Valley. On Saturday, we had a former Hidden Valley skier, Robby Reid, come to visit us. He is now the conditioning coach for the Norwegian National Ski Team (maybe you've heard of them). One of the things he stressed with us was that most of the Norwegian racers come from around Oslo, where there is nothing but small hills, like Hidden Valley. You don't need a big hill to build great racers if you know how to use what you have. In fact, Aksel Lund Svindal came from a small town 25 km north of Oslo, and he won the overall World Cup title last year.

So I guess what I'm saying is big time skiers can come from small hills. People like Vonn and Svindal prove it. Watch out!

Anyway, getting back to topic, Miller and Vonn lead the men's and women's overall World Cup standings by relatively comfortable margins (about 160 each), and Ligety just took the red bib for GS (meaning he's #1 in Giant Slalom).

Julia Mancuso is 7th in the overall points standings for women, which is outstanding, and Resi Stiegler is 39th, even though she hasn't raced since getting injured in December. She had already collected 111 points in slalom by that point. Watch out for her next year!

Ligety is in a tight race with Raich and Moelgg for the GS title, but if he can pull it off, he will accomplish what he set his mind to do at the beginning of the season. He said he wanted to focus on winning the GS globe. Let's hear it for setting a goal and making it happen!

If Miller can wrap up this season with the overall title, it will be his second, pushing him up the list of overall globe winners to join Stephan Eberharter and Lasse Kjus, who also had two overall globes.

If Vonn can tie it up, she will be only the second US female to win the overall title. The first was Tamara McKinney in 1983. A notable difference is that Tamara won hers in the technical disciplines, slalom and giant slalom. Lindsey is a speed specialist, and in particular, she is the standard for women's downhill, utterly dominating that discipline with 755 points! The nearest competitor is Renate Goetschl with 448.

Lindsey's downhills this season go: 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 5th, 1st, 2nd, 1st. Yeah, I call that utterly dominating. I'd like to also mention that she is totally hot.

Here come the Alpine World Championships!

The St. Louis Jesuits

The musicians at my parish, St. Margaret of Scotland, are so amazing, and fun to listen to, that they've actually made me rather fond of church music. Of course, if you go to church regularly, and you're a fan of music, you're going to eventually have some favorites, and I have several, but I've never gone out to actually purchase church music.

OK, so I guess you've figured out by now that I have recently purchased some church music. Yes, I actually bought a bunch of MP3s off of Amazon. I can pick and choose the songs I want that way, and don't have to buy a whole album. I credit St. Margaret's excellent Music Ministry. I walk home after mass singing the songs to myself, like We are Called, and We Remember.

For my family, growing up, it was songs like "Though the Mountains May Fall," "All the Ends of the Earth," "Sing a New Song," and "Lift Up Your Hearts." And now comes the reason I write this blog entry. It turns out all these songs I have just mentioned, and many others we liked, have a common set of authors. They are called the St. Louis Jesuits, and I just learned this today while surfing through Wikipedia.

Additionally interesting to note is that I now live about two miles away from SLU's campus. The music has gone full circle with me.

All those songs were brought to our parish when I was growing up in St. John Bosco parish in West Virginia. They were brought by a group of three guitar-strumming women who would vigorously belt out these great tunes with their 70s guitar straps and their capos. Their arms would swing fast and hard, interposing an extra strum here and there, and you could really feel the energy coursing through the pews. You always walked out of church with an extra kick in your step on those days. They would come during the summer weeks when Deanery Camp (church camp) was happening... or was it Camp Tygart? One of those.

So as I'm looking up all those old favorites online, and discovering that they're all written by the St. Louis Jesuits, I'm also finding that there is apparently a significant portion of conservative Catholics who feel that their music is "liberal" and inappropriate for mass. Ha! Their popularity has suppressed "the authentic sound of Catholicism." Are you kidding me? No, I am not. These people believe that Catholic mass should be accompanied by latin polyphones and Gregorian chants. I guess that's what they believe is the "authentic" sound of Catholicsm. Mmmkay.

You know, I think those guitar women were wearing sandals. Oh my gosh, were they... liberals!? Gasp! What would Jesus think!?

So, obviously I'm going to speak against that kind of draconian approach to liturgical music. Especially given that I have so many fond memories invested in the "liberal," "inappropriate" music of the St. Louis Jesuits. So here it is: why can't you have both? It's not like you can only have chants, or only have guitar pickin'. Shouldn't the music for each mass be chosen to suit the message of that mass? So if it's a meditative message, use meditative music. If it's a message of being called to service, sing We are Called. If it's a message of joyous celebration, then get to strumming that guit-fiddle!

One last thing before I wrap up this rant. I like to find out who composed each song that's being sung in church. It's just something I do. I notice that we sing a lot of music by Marty Haugens and David Haas. It turns out they are probably the two most prolific liturgical music composers for Catholic and Lutheran service in the past 50 years. The thing is, there are again some people who believe there should be a moratorium on their music. What!?

On the website for the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas, they quote a priest saying "What a shame for a young person to grow up thinking that Marty Haugen is the traditional music of the Catholic church!"

What young person grows up not knowing about historical Catholic music? That sounds like a failing in his education, not Marty Haugen's or David Haas's music. If you dislike a piece of church music that much, don't sing. It's just a song, dude. I don't like them all either, but I mean get a life.

One final thing... of all the songs I purchased today, one recording stands head and shoulders above all the others: Hosea (Come Back to Me) by Steve and Sarah Bell. It is outstanding. All other recordings I purchased were lacking in quality, musicianship, or just sounded too... um safe, I guess. There seems to be a pretty significant need for quality production in this genre. I like a more contemporary sound. I would love to hear Clannad cover some of these tunes. Could you imagine? Or Alison Krauss with Union Station. That kind of thing.