Friday Night Videos

John Mellencamp took up political activism around the same time he dropped the goofy "Cougar" moniker. I remember when the first singles from his Scarecrow album hit, and was hooked. So I bought it. And really, really was captivated by the semi-title track, "Rain on the Scarecrow." I suppose it was because I grew up in rural Texas on and around farms, not to mention that my dad was an ag teacher in high school. Then Mellencamp teamed up with Willie Nelson for the first Farm Aid, which impressed me as well. The family farm was a dying breed back then, and is even moreso today, driven out of business by market forces--namely the big corporate operations that crush the little guy with economy of scale. Growing up, I always saw open-range cattle wherever I went, and even today I see dozens (if not hundreds) of cattle grazing on my commute to work. But in supermarkets, all a person can buy is grain-fed, feedlot-raised animals. The dissonance is tough for me to grasp.

I can't help but recall that the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire came when the citizen farmers left their lands and moved to the cities because they couldn't make a decent living otherwise. Is the same thing happening in the U.S.? I have to wonder.



Now Playing: John Mellencamp Human Wheels

The Dying Earth

It may come as a shock to some of you, but there are gaps in my reading list. There are some landmark works and authors that I have not read. Heck, in all honesty, what I haven't read may as well be an ocean with those books I'm familiar with represented as tiny desert islands scattered far and wide. And I'm even less well-read when it comes to recent publications and authors. But that's neither here nor there, it just illustrates how large a disappointment I am to the reading geekdom.

So I have started reading Jack Vance's The Dying Earth series. I got the omnibus volume SFBC put out some years back, but had never managed to get around to reading it. That changed the other night, when I removed the shrink wrap (yup--it stayed in the wrapper all these years) and sat down to read.

It's not what I expected. I'm not entirely getting into it, but that's not necessarily the book's fault. Where I though I'd be reading some sort of odd, far future epic (ala The Einstein Intersection), instead I'm finding a story that's very episodic. My expectations have been confused by reality, and changing my expectations has proven more difficult than one would expect. In many ways Dying Earth reminds me of Simak's City, although the styles are very different. And at the risk of bringing a chorus of "Germans bomb Pearl Harbor" upon my head, I'm mostly struck by how much this work by Vance resonates with Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Were I a betting man, I wouldn't look too much further to pick a work that heavily influenced Mr. Wolfe.

Now Playing: The Kinks Did Ya?

New MEMORY

I've posted a new installment of my online serial Memory over at No Fear of the Future.

Last week, we saw the strange bird-serpent-insect hybrid Parric battered and broken by the even stranger, eight-legged otherwhereian creature responsible for killing Flavius MacDuff. Will Parric suffer the same ignominious fate as Flavius? Tune in and see!

Now Playing: Dr. Demento Show February 27-28, 1999

Wensleydale?

A call from the Wife:

Do you know what your son is doing now?

Well, now that you mention it, no I don't.

He's sitting on the kitchen floor.

Oh?

He's got the pepper grinder. He's grinding it.

I see.

And he's saying, "Cheese, Gromit!"

I laughed uncontrollably for about 10 minutes after that one.

Now Playing: Budapest Strings - Karoly BotvayRendezvous of Angels, Vol. 1: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons

Locus! Locus! Locus!

Locus magazine has posted its Recommended Reading List for 2007, and "The Final Voyage of La Riaza" made the list among novelettes. Trés cool. This is the first time--I think--that my work has risen to to Locus' notice.

Now, if I can just get "The Shoals of Cibola" finished...

Now Playing: Shakira Laundry Service

I've found my thrill...

Remember that batch of mead I started last month? Well, a month has passed and the initial fermentation has run its course. It's been almost a week since the last bubble popped up through the water lock, which means it's time for racking. Racking, for the uninitiated, involves draining/siphoning the mead from the primary fermentation vessel into other containers. This leaves behind old yeast, impurities and other solid matter which can cloud the mead and give it an off flavor if allowed to remain.

Racking time also presents the perfect opportunity to add things to the basic mead in order to give it flavor. I decided to add (a decision made well before I set this batch to fermenting, I must admit) nearly two quarts of blueberries and, separately, a pint of maypop/passion fruit pulp.



Yum! Don't those blueberries look delicious? They are. All picked fresh, although they've been chilling in my deep freeze since Christmas. I drained the six gallons of mead from my primary fermentation vessel into several smaller ones for temporary holding. I cleaned out the big one, then added the blueberries along with enough of the mead to bring the total fermenting there up to five gallons. I also added a dash of honey to help start the fermentation process back up.



You can't really see it in the photo, but the mead has a most wonderful blue/purple hue to it, and the smell is most excellent. The remaining mead I added to my smaller 1.5 gallon fermenter, along with a dash of honey and the pint of maypop pulp. The scent is strong on this one, but as the pulp of the fruit is pale yellow (dotted with the black of a few seeds I missed) the color isn't nearly as dramatic. I'm curious as to how these two batches will turn out--I deliberately started out with less honey this time out, so the finished product would be less sweet, with less honey flavor to overwhelm the fruit flavors (not to mention a bit less alcohol). I expect I'll let them do their things, unmolested, for another month before racking again and starting the whole clarifying/aging process. But I like to think I'm getting a little more sophisticated with my brewing techniques and may be close to producing drinks I won't be ashamed to give out as gifts, as opposed to drinking myself.

In other good news, I've potentially found a supplier of locally produced bee vomit. Will find out the ultimate quality of said product this coming Thursday. Will keep everyone posted.

Now Playing: Dr. Demento Show June 5-6, 1999

Friday Night Videos

Shakira isn't a singer I'd normally expect to like. When I first noticed her, I wrote her off as a Latin American pop tart import. But my opinion has gradually changed. Her songwriting on Oral Fixation is significantly stronger than on her English language debut, Laundry Service. Yeah, there are some clunker lyrics here and there, and a few songs are insubstantial and frothy. But still, she strikes me as a shrewd strategic and tactical thinker as far as her career goes. "Don't Bother" is an angry, jilted lover song in the vein of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," but it's a bit more sly with a touch of regret that Morissette's piece didn't have. The video's a good one too, combining Shakira's sexpot image with surprising vulnerability and an over-the-top revenge fantasy. Good stuff.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Love & Rockets.

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