wine posting

Because it's very cumbersome to scroll up and down and up and down to read the wines:

here's the list so far with the initial query

mary: request:

i am seeking recommendations of cheap ($5-10) red wines. i would love to see a post on this. i have a tendency to pick the ones that taste like liquid cat excrement.

Courtney:

I know a really good $12.00 bottle of merlot - Blackstone Winery California Merlot

Jeremy:

ravenswood is nice but it's between 12 and 15

Jeremy:

(ravenswood zinfandel that is) KWV (a south african wine, is really nice wine for 7-10 dollars)

Jeremy:

black opal (cab-sav/merlot mix, i believe) is a nice 6-7 dollar wine; that is drinkable

Jeremy:

borsao campo de borja is an excellent, excellent spanish wine for 6-12 (it depends on where you get it), borsao tres picos also stellar but right around 15

Jeremy:

domaine la garrigue is a great french for 9-10 bucks

Jeremy:

rex goliath pinot noir is a great pinot noir from california for 9 bucks with a great logo

Jeremy:

fat bastard is a really nice wine for under 10 with a really bad name (australian, i believe)

Courtney:

Got a couple more merlots (both under $10 here in Cali) for you: St. Francis and Boggle (another good wine with a bad name).

posted by Jeremy at 11:26 PM

jock up close and personal

this is a test

posted by Jeremy at 9:56 AM

Thoughts on TL course

First, as you know, most travel writers aren't Michel Butor. Nor are they whats-his-name who won the Nobel prize a couple of years ago. Like Mark Twain, many got paid by the number of words they wrote, not the quality of them, so their narratives are a gazillion words long. You're reading journals and letters too? Same thing. Unless they're reading (dense?) poetry for that week, 60pps per week in English for a class that meets one time per week is too few pages! They gotta learn how to read these texts both carefully and fast. I'd say 150pps for a basic newspaper/magazine narrative, maybe more for a journal (e.g. Lewis & Clarkwhich you'd select the items anyway).

Second, have you met Friedrich Gerstacker? Very nice travel narrative of his time hunting in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Third, I ought to as well give you what work I did toward my comps before I quit. The annotated bib, though incomplete, ought to ID some good possibilities. I was focusing, after all, on both American travelers and travelers to the Americas.

I'll try to think of some other possibilities, too. What kind of transcultural interactions are you wanting to emphasize, by the way? empire-empire (English-Spanish, Spanish-French, English-French, Spanish-Inca, etc.), or empire-colony, or empire-indigenous cultures? (Washington Irving's pretty interesting for all of those.)

posted by Greg at 7:47 AM

blankies rock!

so, i couldn't wait. we may have to wait a whole 3 weeks for bellsouth to add a new portal so that we can have fast access.

at the moment we are not very big fans of the aforementioned company since it told us we'd be cruise the information superhighway in our pimped-out 500 a full week ago.


[chris's note: for some reason it looks like i posted this post, but it really was dr. banaloblogger, parent of pictured infant.]

posted by Chris at 12:59 AM

American Itinerariesa course description

American Itineraries: Travel Literature and the Americas

Whether it be Columbus' letter announcing the "Discovery" of the Indies in the Western Ocean, Lewis and Clark's expedition into the Northwest U.S., Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley", or the concluding section of Vasconcelo's "The Cosmic Race," America (North and South) has understood itself and been understood by others in and through the literature of travel. In this course we will examine a variety of travel textsletters, briefs, essays, memoirs, fiction, poetry, maps, illustrations, filmin order to better understand America and how America has been understood both by others and by itself. The readings, viewings and discussion will follow a roughly chronological order and we will focus on 4 types of travelers: the European traveler in the Americas the Anglo-American colonist, settler, citizen in North America the Latin American conquistador, criollo, citizen in Latin America and the Anglo-American traveler in Latin America and the Latin American in Anglo-America.

This is part of a proposal for a "Perspectives" class. It's a "sophmore level" course that attempts to be "interdisciplinary" (read empty buzz word) and multi-cultural (read empty buzz word). The class itself will meet once a week for two hours. It will be a large lecture class (max enrollment of 60 students).

I will currently leave off the names of those people i am thinking of including...mainly so as not to bias you...Any suggestions on essential reading?

Also, is 60 pages (english) too much to ask of students?

posted by Jeremy at 12:22 AM

the thing in action!

thanks, mgb & kl, for the thing! your creativity is appreciated by the three of us!

posted by Chris at 8:35 PM

His name is

John L. Stephens

posted by Greg at 12:29 PM

Reason to Swear off Fast Food #2

There's a Lizard in my Fajitas: Appleby's, Dept. (ref. a post from several years ago)Since kl's been a vegetarian for going on fifteen years, when we got married we had a basic understanding that I wouldn't bother cooking meats in the house. She didn't prohibit carnivorousness, but I didn't insist. When I was single my cooking was more brake against starvation than it was open up the gustatory throttle. I cooked recipes I knew from heart in large batches which I would freeze and thaw every meal for the next week. Sloppy Joes, Tuna Helper, biscuits, stews. If it was simple I cooked, I ate. Sometimes I would broil a large hunk of Iowa hog flesh, but for me it was for the novelty of it: I could never get the porkchops in Arkansas that I could in Iowa. So I gave it up at home. I would order a hamburger when we went out to eat and that was fine with both of us.

Still, since it was so easy to give up trout for tofu, beef for brocolli, I've flirted these several with the idea of giving it all up. The restaurants we get to eat at aren't about serving well-cooked things. They're about serving things, period. I was especially taken with the idea of giving up fast food. But I resisted, and I resisted, until this year, when I finally took the half-hearted plunge. My New Year's resolution was to swear off all meat that wasn't organic. And I've succeeded pretty well at it. Sometimes I've missed a good burger at the Hamburg Inn. Sometimes, because it was my favorite and because our laundromat is across the street from it and I would smell the endless conveyoring of meat patties and folding of paper foil around the buns, I would miss Wendy's. But today I think I will be forever cured of that desire.

posted by Greg at 7:46 AM

On the block

It is with great excitement and anticipation that I say, Chris, this afternoon, if I can get to the Post Office in time, I will mail your thing to you. Jeremy, you too are slated to receive a thing from the same mailing. Your thing is like unto Chris's thing. These things are gifts from Kathy and myself. We believe you, your significant others, and your daughters will rejoice to have these things. But do know that if I do not make it to the Post Office then the thing will not be mailed today.

What follows is a bit of a laundry list of observations and questions I had today. First, from the world of fast fading book, via Slashdot, Google's efforts to replace Harvard's Widener library with itself is already coming to fruition. Try it yourself. Search for a book you want to read, say, Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face or Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. If it's public domain, then the book is full-text readable and searchable. If copyrighted (like both Grealy's and Weber's it seems) then you get portionseven pages, I think. Isn't that nifty?

Not incidentally, I recently met a man who used to chastise Grealy for not being sexually experienced enough. He would berate her and encourage her to sleep with other men. He's 60 years old now but still as profane as all that.

Second, given that I was all of less-and-more-than ten years old during the Nicaraguan revolution, Jeremy, can you supply some story to this fun controversy over Dora Maria Tellez?

I'd write more, but I must be off to go to work!

posted by Greg at 7:53 AM

This Swap Shop Stocks Socks

My time this week has been spent on eBay. It seems one day my mom received a large collection of costume and fine jewelry. She no longer wants it, so she sent it to me to sell. My days are spent in intimate relations with a digital camera, a large unregulated marketplace, and an obsessive desire to sell, sell, sell, SELL. Unfortunately, I have no evidence that ridiculous copy such as is in that listing actually helps sell anything.

But for part of the day today I must do something different. Last night when I was getting ready for bed I heard a CRUNCH. I thought, "Somebody just hit a car." Then I asked, "Where is our car parked?" When I finally made it to the window, whoever had done the hitting was already at the corner. I went outside to see what you see, only last night it was dark. The police officer said, "Call your insurance agent!" So that is what I must do today.

I usually am not distressed over hit-and-runs unless what is hit was alive. When you must park on the street like we do, small scrapesespecially on the bumpersare the order of any day. A car is only a car, after all. It may be expensive to fix, but so are many more important things expensive to fix. I remember when my grandmother hit a parked car in the Alco parking lot. She scratched the car's paint. We sat there an hour waiting for the owner to return. It was not remarkable what she did; in fact, it was right. With no pride at all I also remember one night when I didn't wait for a car's owner to return. That is a story deserving its own story. But in general, even though my sympathies lie with the thing hit, I I can understand such a driver. But last night gives me a taste of bile. Sure, it was St. Patrick's Day. But our car was hardly asking to be hit. Other people were parked on the street too and near us. The driver probably took his or her eyes off the road. The times I've had to deliver sermons at my church recently make me feel like I must turn that observation into a homily. But I will resist that homilitic urge. Today I must speak with the insurance man.

PS: Chris, could you email me your mailing address? I have a thing to send to you.

posted by Greg at 8:26 AM

83.-90.

83. Any man who is able and willing to work hard has a good chance of succeeding.
false. it really depends upon what he is trying to accomplish. while we are at it, why don't we care about any woman who is willing to work hard?

84. These days I find it hard not to give up hope of amounting to something.
true. i have no hope that i will amount.

85. Sometimes I are strongly attracted by the personal articles of others such as shoes, gloves, etc. so that I want to handle or steal them though I have no use for them.
true. i like to touch shiny things, but i never really want to steal things.

86. I am certainly lacking in self-confidence.
true. i am socially anxious.

87. I would like to be a florist.
true. i think i would like it, except for the allergies. maybe i would get over that, though? either way, i'd probably rather be a baker, artchitect, or rockstar than a florist.

posted by Chris at 9:20 AM

75.-82.

75. I get angry sometimes.
true. more often than i would like.

76. Most of the time I feel blue.
false. most of the time i feel purple or pink.

77. I enjoy reading love stories.
false. i enjoy reading lots of stuff, but i don't have any particular interest in love stories per se.

78. I like poetry.
true. i do, but i wish i had more patience to try to digest it. poetry is not easy my short attention span.

79. My feelings are not easily hurt.
false. i get worked up.

80. I sometimes tease animals.
true. especially human ones.

81. I think I would like the kind of work a forest ranger does.
true. except that i would be scared of people running around with guns.

82. I am easily drowned in an argument.
false. i never argue while in water. i don't have much patience for arguments anyway. it is more efficient to present what one thinks and then let others decide what they think. with respect to serious topics, sarcasm, anger, and "wittiness" often strike me as dressing for regurgitated boilerplate. (sorry for the odd mixed metaphor.)

posted by Chris at 10:27 AM

70.-74.

70. I used to like drop-the-handkerchief.
false. i have no idea what this means.

71. I think a great many people exaggerate their misfortunes in order to gain the sympathy and help of others.
true. i think a great many others do not.

72. I am troubled by discomfort in the pit of my stomach every few days or oftener.
false. less oftener.

73. I am an important person.
true. so is everyone else.

74. I have often wished I were a girl.
true. girls rule.

posted by Chris at 9:30 AM

I dreamed of cigarettes

The summer I graduated from high school, I worked at a convenience store. Every day I sold Marlboro Lights in a box, in a soft pack, sometimes Kools, others Lucky Strikes, and to men who lived in the trailer park across the street, Basics. I never smoked but once, a few years ago, when a friend and I had some cigars the night before kl and I were married. Before that, however, I had an aversion to all vices. I avoided them not because I had decided with intellectual rigor that vices were vices because they would do me harm; rather, I avoided them because I was afraid. That year I spent selling smokes cured me of my fear somewhat. Then, one night, (I remember it was a full moon. Full moon summer nights were bright enough to drive by, which sometimes I did. Sometimes the moon would shine like a flashlight in my window, and it would wake me up. Never once on those nights did I wake to a demon asking me whether I would live my life over again or live in this moment forever.) as I slept, I dreamed I smoked Marlboro Lights. It was such a natural feeling. To pop the box on my hands to pack the tobacco, pull out a light, and inhale. Who can say what else the dream was about. Most importantly, to smoke was everyday, natural, unquestioned. When I woke the next morning, in a fog I pulled on my pants. I needed something. I grabbed my keys and was out the door before I realized it was smokes I needed. You don't smoke, I told myself, and I sat down on the walk to marvel at the morning. I had been on my way to the store to buy a pack of Lights. I could still feel the desire, so strong in me. It was desire that was hard to shake.

posted by Greg at 9:04 AM

65.-69.

65. I loved my father.
True. I continue to do so.

66. I see things or animals or people around me that others do not see.
True. I see turtles in our backyard. No one else saw them, until I pointed them out.

67. I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be.
False. I am at least as happy as others seem to be.

68. I hardly ever feel pain in the back of my neck.
True.

69. I am very strongly attracted by members of my own sex.
False. I am very strongly attracted by pizza. C'est tout.

posted by Chris at 1:18 PM

60.-64.

60. I do not read every editorial in the newspaper every day.
true. i don't read every editorial any day.

61. I have not lived the right kind of life.
false. i am not sure there is a single "right kind of life."

62. Parts of my body often have feelings like burning, tingling, crawling or like ?going to sleep?.
true. especially feet and hands.

63. I have had no difficulty in starting or holding my bowel movement.
true. if there is one thing in life i am good at...

64. I sometimes keep on at a thing until others lose their patience with me.
true. ask m.b. and daughter.

posted by Chris at 1:00 PM

56-59 (time to accelerate this junk)

56. As a youngster I was suspended from school one or more times for cutting up.
False. I was never suspended, despite punching a couple of different guys in the face (one in class and one outside) and telling my French teacher that I hated her.

57. I am a good mixer.
False. I have never mixed a drink, I don't mix well at parties, and I am not yet a competent DJ. However, I plan to work on the last of these in the near future.

58. Everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it would.
True. How could it not?

59. I have often had to take orders from someone who did not know as much as I did.
False. I don't know very much.

posted by Chris at 5:26 PM