Infinite Monkeys |
|
|
|
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Snopes.com is a great place to find out that stories that sound ridiculous (Target hates veterans, Mussolini made the trains run on time) and are. But sometimes it's great to read the true ones, like this on Bush's visit to Iraq. Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Philip Michaels over at TeeVee is consistently hilarious. Don't tell him - I hear he's better when he's insecure about it. Anyway, for those of you who can't get enough of people poking fun at "The Lord of the Rings", saunter on over there for today's entry: Anyhow, they're surrounded by every orc in Mordor, so he shoots Aragon a look like, "This was your f***ing plan? Ride out to Mordor and get surrounded by orcs? That's some nice strategy there. Really nice. You are the worst king ever!" Sunday, December 28, 2003
I'll second Brad's referral, encouraging you to go all the way to the Volokh post. I've ground this axe before, but it's not enough to have the opportunity to send your kids to private school (as R.B. does) or to homeschool them (as I, er, actually my wife does). The government TAKES OUR MONEY to pay for the indoctrination of our children. And, in some states, if you can't afford to send your kids to a private school, you are effectively required to submit your children to this indoctrination, because of the combination of compulsory education and the extremely difficult hoop-jumping required to homeschool. There is no more straightforward way to say it: The government has no business running schools in a free society. Thanks, Mitch. UPDATE: Hindrocket is Saddam Hussein. < cartman >Kick aaaasssssss.< /cartman > UPDATE 2: I went back and took the longest (45 question) version of the test, and got the same results. "Bo-ring." Somehow, however, when I take the shortest (9 question) version of the test, I wound up being Mother Theresa. "a people-loving Macedonian dwarf". WTF??? UPDATE 3: Oooh! Now here's a good one. On the same site, with almost the same questions: Friday, December 26, 2003
Our mail has dropped off a bit, so I thought I'd poke the "Lord of the Rings" bear again: I saw "The Return of the King" last weekend. Yes, WEEKS after The Chosen Monkey. We grovel before his press pass. I feel like I need to see it again to figure out if the things that bugged me about this film are serious flaws. But here's my "first viewing" criticism: *** Major Spoiler Warning *** Here's the thing - there are magnificent parts in this film. The battle of Minas Tirith is simply freaking amazing, with "stand up and cheer" (if you're inclined toward such things) moments throughout. And Shelob is rendered more realistically than I could have imagined. It IS, as James said, a surprisingly emotional film. Nonetheless, I was let down. The biggest frustration, I think, was the inevitably anti-climactic destruction of the Ring and defeat of Sauron. After eleven hours of build-up, it is most likely impossible to convey a sense of victory that satisfies the tension that has built up. An alternative would be to portray the emotional effects of the audience's anti-climax in the characters themselves, but the film doesn't really do this, either. My second "disappointment", and this is not really any fault of the author or filmmakers, was the fact that it's "over". I finally understood, after seeing this movie, why so many epic stories end with the death of all of the characters. It's easier to walk away from something like this if you know there really is nothing else to the story. But almost all of the main characters live. Amazing, really - of the original members of the Fellowship, only Boromir dies. So, apart from tens of thousands of nameless orcs, elves, goblins, men, etc., you can count the deaths of major characters on one hand: Boromir, Gollum, Sauron, and...that's pretty much it. What happens to all of the rest of them? Do Frodo and Bilbo get bored living forever with the Elves? How many times does Aragorn have to sleep on the couch because Arwen doesn't like the way Eowyn looks at him? Can the elves and dwarves do anything bitchin' with their rings now that they aren't ruled by the One Ring? Are the clearly homoerotic overtones in the relationships between Merry & Pippin and Legolas & Gimli ever consummated? Next, I experienced some frustration associated with the way the movies were broken up. You see, my ritual for each part was to watch the theatrical release, THEN read the book, and finally watch the extended DVD version. This allows me to enjoy the movie for what it is, without being bummed out about what they left out from the book, or what they chose to do differently. Unfortunately, almost an hour of this movie was actually material from the book "The Two Towers". The additional material on the "Towers" DVD was, with the exception of the whole Denethor/Boromir/Faramir conflict, pretty faithful to the book. But there were several places where the third film fiddled with the end of the second book, and I probably would have been able to deal with it more easily if I had seen the film first. Instead, I was agitated when, for example, Frodo enters Shelob's tunnels without Sam. I had JUST FINISHED the book 6-8 weeks ago, so the encounter was fairly fresh in my mind. Similarly, the absence of a final confrontation with Saruman was disappointing. One final weakness of the third film was, again, probably inevitable, but quite annoying. Because of all of the story lines that had been developed over the previous eleven hours, and the fact that there is (hopefully) zero chance that this will be turned into a series on the Sci-Fi channel, they had no less than twenty minutes of "and I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow" at the end of the damn film. Every time you thought it was over, there was another round of bowing and/or hugging. And some of it is just so amazingly saccharine. You hate to WANT a film to end, and about half way through the goodbyes, I did. It was three very long films' worth of denouement, and that's hard to swallow all at once. I wonder if the extended version of this film will correct any of these weaknesses. I kind of doubt it, but I would like to see the movie again and see if I can appreciate the strengths of the film more now that I know what to expect from the weaknesses. Current Song: "Misty Mountain Hop" from the album Box Set by Led Zeppelin My Emily is about the same age as his Gnat. She and her "big sissy" have a herd of My Little Ponies that rivals all of Rohan, and she received the very same castle last month for her birthday. And between that birthday and Christmas, my fingers are numb from untwisting little wires that secure a thousand tiny plastic accessories to their cardboard packaging. And the hair! This year, the girls received three "princess" ponies with extra long manes. Gah! Oh, by the way, Emily made it home from the hospital on Christmas Eve and appears to be feeling much better. She's still on "soft bland foods", but there were no major problems, thank God. Erika's short-lived 102 temperature also appeared to be short lived. Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Well, we're down to two Monkeys now. Dave's gone, Brad's got a sick four-year-old, and now both of my girls are out of commission: Emily, my own four-year-old, just came off an EIGHT DAY bout with the flu. After 40 hours fever and symptom free, she complained of abdominal pain this morning - okay, "my tummy hurts" was the exact quote. Early this afternoon, it was off to the doctor, and from there to the ER. They ran an abdominal CT and now she's checked in at the hospital because her small intestine won't move. Rats. Her six-year-old sister, Erika, stayed with grandma while we dealt with Emily. As of 8:30pm MST, grandma reports that Erika, who we diligently kept away from her contagious sister for eight straight days, now has a 102 degree fever. Double rats. Hopefully Ben and James will take up the slack (I've been pretty remiss in my posting as it is) while Brad and I deal with our sickies. I leave you with this: Scottsdale Healtcare kicks ass. If you're in the Phoenix area, and you're going to get amazingly sick, have a baby (or two), or have your vas deferens severed and/or your uterus removed laproscopically, I heartily recommend the North campus. Monday, December 22, 2003
Mitch Berg quotes this New York Times article about the Navy seizing a shipment of hashish from dealers with ties to Al Qaeda. Note to Bush Administration: If the "War on Terror" is such a priority, then end the hopeless, wrong-headed "War on Drugs". Legalize all of it. Every damn pill, leaf, poppy, and chemical any fool wants to pump into their system. College kids wouldn't be buying their drugs from Osama Bin Laden if they could just grow it on their back porch. Demand reduction doesn't work. Seizures don't work. Zero tolerance doesn't work. And while you're at it, stop making me get an appointment with my doctor just so I can buy cough medicine that actually works. Friday, December 19, 2003
Just a quick comment before I leave for Phoenix--this Libya announcement is big, much more important than catching Saddam (this one is a lot more likely to make it to the history books in a discussion of the Bush Doctrine). I look forward to seeing Dean try to downplay this one...(prediction: he'll try to give the British credit, or Powell, but not Bush). My daughters are cool. Very ill right now, but they have excellent taste in children's television programming. Arrrrrgh, I be just a painting of a head! The Canon's Thunder Professor Bainbridge has a great Wine Canon recommended reading list. I'd add two works to this list, however: Wine For Dummies by Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson Yes, yes, I know how annoying those "Dummies" books are. But this one is great. And the Wine Atlas is mainly because I love maps, but the text by Robinson is also wonderful. (By the way, both of the woman authors above are Masters of Wine). Thursday, December 18, 2003
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
1. Spinoza (100%) 2. Kant (94%) 3. Aquinas (93%) 4. St. Augustine (85%) 5. Ockham (83%) 6. Prescriptivism (81%) 7. Jean-Paul Sartre (81%) 8. John Stuart Mill (74%) 9. Jeremy Bentham (64%) 10. Epicureans (59%) 11. Stoics (53%) 12. Aristotle (51%) 13. Ayn Rand (50%) 14. Nietzsche (45%) 15. Nel Noddings (43%) 16. David Hume (32%) 17. Plato (24%) 18. Thomas Hobbes (23%) 19. Cynics (19%) Greg's gonna kill me about the Spinoza thing. Sunday, December 14, 2003
The joy I feel about capturing Saddam is again tempered with sadness that we haven't captured Osama Bin Laden. I say out loud that he's been neutralized so it's irrelevant, but I know in my heart that I want to see him in chains or in a pine box. I remember the horrible feeling of sitting in the Rainbow Room in October 2001 and looking south to the eerie glow of the search crews working on the still burning devastation of Ground Zero. I want Osama to pay for that. The realistic assessment is that it took eight months to find someone in a country we control a lot more than we do Afghanistan, more than we do the U.S. (witness bomber Eric Rudolph's more than five-year run), and certainly more than the places Osama is likely to be. But the optimist in me remembers what we learned again today: all it takes is one person coming forward with the information. There may only be two or three people who knows where Osama is, but if one of them does something that clues someone else in, who tells someone...there is hope. If you want to truly experience the sheer joy of the capture, go to Snoop Dogg's helpful translator and type in your favorite news site. For example, here's the translated CNN news: "We Got the Dude's Ass." President Big Baby Bush: "A dark 'n painful era is over n' shit. A hopeful day has arrived, know what I'm sayin'?" Former Iraqi president wuz wearing pistol but did not fire that shiznit. Saddam wuz "hella disoriented" at da time of tha dude's capture. "The former dictator of Iraq will face da justice tha dude denied millions," President Big Baby Bush be like in a short televised address from da White House, "For da Baathist holdouts responsible fo' da violence, there will be no return da corrupt power 'n privilege they once held, know what I'm sayin'? It's time for me to make my initial admissions about the Saddam capture: 1. I'm surprised they caught him. 2. I'm REALLY surprised they didn't kill him. Not a shot was fired, they're saying. How does that happen? 3. I'm a cynical bastard, so I'm fairly surprised they captured him today and not tomorrow, when the administration could milk the herd politics of having everyone standing there at work with all of their peers when they heard the news. I still think going to war with Iraq was wrong, and I still think King George is a bad guy, but I've got to give serious props to the military on their execution of this thing. If you're going to invade a country, killing people and breaking things, then this is the way to do it. Amazing that we have the technology and patience to execute a war with so little collateral damage. It's been a long time since we held a war crimes tribunal. Here's hoping we hang the guy in the public square. Saturday, December 13, 2003
Just got back to my hotel room after the show, and it was quite a whirlwind experience. Here's the skinny: At about 10:45am Phoenix time my plane finally lifted off the runway, 30 minutes late. A few hours later I was landing on runway 12 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Runway 12. I had no idea there was such a big airport up here in the tundra, but there you go. I mean - San Francisco International only has four or five runways. Anyway, I took the shuttle from the airport with a couple people who, I swear, were extras from the movie "Fargo". "Well, jeez, that sounds like a swell show you're gonna see, uh huh." I was prepared for one of those "more stereotypical than the stereotypes" experiences. At 5:00pm Minneapolis time, Atomizer and the Atomizerette picked me up from my hotel in Mendota Heights. We had a nice chat on the way to the show, and at 5:30 we met the entire Fraters Libertas crew at O'Donovan's Irish Pub, right across the street from the club where we were going to see the show. The Elder, who knows more about baseball than anyone else I've ever met, brought Mrs. Elder along to the show. St. Paul and JB Doubtless were, like me, going stag. Or perhaps they were "together", but that is simply wild and unsubstantiated speculation that has no business in a respectable weblog. O'Donovan's was a gabfest. I have to admit that I was a little bit wary about meeting the Fraters, as I'd only corresponded via e-mail, and I can be pathologically introverted, so I was quite relieved that we all had much to talk about and the conversation was not "forced" at all. I had two Power's Gold Label Irish whiskeys, on the rocks, and I also enjoyed O'Donovan's Irish Breakfast (eggs, sausages, Irish bacon, black & white pudding, fries, and grilled tomatoes) since I hadn't had much of anything to eat all day. The rest of the gang had a combination of beers (mostly stouts - Guiness and Murphy's) and Irish whiskeys, and the Atomizers had some delicious-looking potato soup. A little after 7:00, we walked across the street to the First Avenue, a famous Minneapolis nightclub, and I received multiple chastisements for never having seen Purple Rain. The club was horribly crowded, but we were committed to having a good time. I was advised to buy a very large beer, as it would be difficult to get back to the bar once we were down on the floor. I took the advice, buying as large a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale as possible. I would have purchased Fat Tire or some other better ale, but Newcastle was as good as the establishment could offer. The show started with The Flops, an acoustic band consisting of John Munson and Matt Wilson, both Trip Shakespeare alumni. Semisonic leader (and Matt's brother) Dan helped out on several songs as well. They opened with a very old Trip Shakespeare track, "Two Wheeler, Four Wheeler", and followed it up with "Drummer Like Me" from Trip's "Across the Universe" album. John and Matt then proceeded to play several Flops originals and a couple of Matt's solo songs. At the end of the set, Dan joined them again, and then performed several pieces of his own solo material. After the "acoustic" portion of the show, the screen was dropped while the crew prepared for the second half. When the band took the stage again, the electric guitars were out in force, and they ran through several Semisonic classics, including "Singing In My Sleep", "Down in Flames", "One True Love" and, of course, "Closing Time". They only played about 30-40 minutes of Semisonic material, surprisingly (since Semisonic was technically the headlining band). Matt joined them on second guitar for many of the songs. They did not leave the stage, but after "Closing Time", the band was transformed into Trip Shakespeare, the band who I had come to see. Unfortunately, Elaine Harris (Trip's original drummer) could not be at the show, but Semisonic drummer Jake Slichter did a fantastic job in her absence. They proceeded to play about 80-90 minutes of Trip Shakespeare material, including great classics like "Toolmaster of Brainerd" and "Unlucky Lady". They played "Reception", an older track that I was very pleased to hear them perform, and several other great songs. During the encores, they slipped in a couple of extra Semisonic songs, "Never You Mind" and "Across the Great Divide". I was sad that they didn't play "The Crane" or "Applehead Man", but was extremely pleased to hear as much Trip Shakespeare music as they played. I brought along a Sony Minidisc recorder and digital stereo microphone to attempt to record the show. I had sent an e-mail about a week prior to the band asking if they had any objections, and got no reply. I have many recordings by "taper friendly" bands, but this was my first foray into recording the shows myself. Unfortunately, early review of the mini-discs reveals that the microphone was extremely overdriven, resulting in virtually unlistenable levels of distortion. You live and learn - I'll have to figure out if there's any way to reduce the input volume next time. But the show was great - I got much more Trip than I expected, and it was great to see John, Matt, and Dan all on stage rocking hard to the classic Trip Shakespeare songs as well as Semisonic tunes. The Fraters guys were exceptionally gracious hosts and very pleasant to be around. More tomorrow - right now I'm completely exhausted. The Frozen Monkey Okay, I'm in my hotel room in Mendota Heights, MN, connected over free Wi-Fi to announce that Atomizer will soon be picking me up for the Semisonic show. It's very cold here. Full report later, but for now, you will be the falcon, and I will remain... The Frozen Monkey (hat tips to, in reverse order, Anthony in the comments section of Harry's Place, linked to by Matt Welch @ Reason Online, linked to by Instapundit) Friday, December 12, 2003
What do you do when your political opponent does something perfect, from every angle? Well, it's not pretty. (The obvious corollary question, "why is a supposedly non-biased reporter a political opponent?" is one I'm tired of even thinking about.) Thursday, December 11, 2003
I have long been weary of what seems to me to be "wishful thinking" on the part of a lot of Christians. I grew up in the church, I'm about the same age as most of the other Monkeys, and I certainly went through a lengthy phase during my "musical awakening" where I wanted to think all of the bands I listened to were secretly (or not-so-secretly) Christian bands. U2, The Alarm, Simple Minds, The Call, all of those bands that used a lot of Christian imagery or spiritual themes in their music. I hated (and still do) almost all "official" Christian music (except for Larry Norman, who still kicks ass), and growing up in Bible Church Youth Groups meant getting a lot of peer pressure to listen to the horrible Christian version of the horrible "secular" music that Top-40 radio played. If I could say, "But U2 ARE Christians", then I wouldn't have to listen to Farrell & Farrell, Sheila Walsh or Stryper. My "enlightened" friends and I would listen to "Declaration" by The Alarm and extract all of the (in hindsight, less-than-subtle) spiritual "messages" and think to ourselves, "If only more people understood the real message here..." Well, eventually, I'd like to say I got over that whole thing. I do think I became more honest about my real motives - Christian music, like most popular music, simply sucked, and was often extra bad because it was intentionally derivative of secular counterparts. That's still true, by the way - who can seriously argue that Rebecca St. James wasn't trying to be "The Christian Alanis Morrisette"? I liked The Cure, R.E.M., and Love & Rockets - not "Christian" by a long shot. Yes, I also really liked U2, but not really because they were Christians. Oh wait! This is a good place to stick this: Current Song: "If There's a Heaven Above" from the album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven by Love And Rockets Where was I going with all this? Oh, yes: Because of my intimacy with the "wishful thinking" experience, I am particularly sensitive to it when I see postmodern Christians "deconstructing" current media. A fantastic example is the reaction to the first "Matrix" movie. You can't throw a digital rock in cyberspace without breaking the window of some website reading WAY too much into a movie made by the same guys who wrote and directed "Bound". It's exasperating, primarily because I think relying on non-Christians to carry the Gospel into the world is asking a bit much. Now, I don't want to trivialize the importance of praising art that elevates our culture - we should praise "Chariots of Fire" and "Gods and Generals" both for their execution AND their message. But let's not get too mystical about the deeper meanings of "The Matrix" or "The Game", okay? This is where I actually meander back to "The Lord of the Rings": So far, I've absolutely LOVED the movies, and the books as well. In keeping with my general movie-book principles, I have refrained from reading "Return of the King" until after I've seen at least the theatrical release of the film. Because of this, I fully accept that I could be proven wrong about some of the things I'm about to say. But, based on the first two books and movies alone, I have to agree (in part) with James (um - I mean "The Chosen Monkey" - I think I'm gonna have to start referring to him as "TCM") that these are not predominantly "Christian" works. It is clear that that Tolkien's deeply Christian worldview strongly informs his work, but if you want to read fantasy that is Christian for the sake of being such, then read C. S. Lewis. Tolkien didn't like allegory, and he was trying to construct a kind of English mythology. I think it is telling that, at least in the first two books, nobody makes any direct reference to any God, creator, providential guardian, or ontological source of "good". You get extremely elliptical references to "secret fire" and things that are "meant to be", but none of the "noble" creatures - Elves, Hobbits, or even Men, seem to have or engage in any religion that directs worship at anything in particular. The movies actually seem SLIGHTLY more positively religious than the books: in "Fellowship", Aragorn on more than one occasion performs a little gesture that looks like a primitive version of the Catholic "sign of the cross". But there is little more than this to suggest that anyone believes in a transcendent, ontological source of "good". By contrast, the concept of "evil" as an ontological force is constant. Sauron is the embodiment of evil, and it seems like all evil flows from him and his Ring. This is not an "orthodox" Christian concept at all. In a truly Christian worldview, God is the personal, transcendent source and definer of "good", and "evil" is any action or attitude that fails to live up to God's standard. "Evil" does not exist in a metaphysical sense - it does not have "being", nor does it have a "source" that has being. Sauron is profoundly more powerful and "real" (in the ultimate metaphysical sense) that Satan/Lucifer/The Devil in Christian orthodoxy. I have mixed feelings about embracing TCM's label of "humanist", though, at least based on the first two books/movies. You DO get the impression throughout "Fellowship" and "Two Towers" that Frodo (for example) is driven by a transcendent purpose that is higher than himself or his fellow creatures. You get all of those "you were meant to have the ring" moments. And Aragorn has a persona that is much more Arthurian than it is Humanistic in any post-Enlightenment sense. It's all so...English. It's Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology re-built. If the philosophy must be labeled, I think I would call it something like "Christo-pagan", if that isn't blasphemy. They're great movies and great books. They praise noble virtues, and they make the reader/viewer long to live in a world that is soaked with such beauty, horror, purpose, and rich inter-connectedness. They are not anti-Christian works, but neither are they "Christian", as I see them. And thank God that He allowed Tolkien's rich gifts to produce "The Lord of the Rings" rather than crap like the "Left Behind" books. Tuesday, December 09, 2003
What This Country Needs is a Good $10 Chardonnay Last year, some friends of mine had a wine tasting where everyone brought a bottle of wine or two, and put them in numbered paper bags. Blind tastings are a lot of fun, because sometimes you get surprised by something new. The "expensive" wines (more than $15) were on one table and the "cheap" wines on another, with a stack of scrap paper and little pencils to take notes. The winner in the expensive whites was finally revealed to be...Chateau Souverain Sonoma County Chardonnay. It was a ringer; it's available from Costco for less than $15. Chateau Souverain fancies itself a high-end Cabernet Sauvignon winery, and those wines are good, but this chardonnay is somewhat unique as a good low-end California chardonnay. It's a good thing it was a blind tasting, because my bias is that the primary thing wrong with California chardonnay is too much oak. Yes, it gives a nice vanilla note to the wine, but at the expensive of a lingering flavor of chewed toothpick. It's just not food friendly, and, man, is food my friend. I'll rant endlessly at parties that California should follow Australia's lead in producing unoaked chardonnay, like the beautiful Trevor Jones Virgin Chardonnay. I'm fun at parties. But the Chateau Souverain isn't like that. In fact, it follows more of the French model of only applying oak to the fuller, richer wines, and leaving the lesser wines unoaked. This wine can stand up to the oak, and delivers a beautiful, rich chardonnay fruit flavor, backed by layers of vanilla and crisp acidity. In fact, most of our tasting notes guessed it to be a white Burgundy. Great stuff, and perfect for the holidays, either with food or as a pre-dinner apertif. Now, I should caveat that I haven't tasted the current release, though I plan to soon. But checking around, it appears Chateau Souverain has quite a good track record on this wine. Now if only they could have someone fix all of the incorrect uses of apostrophes on their website... Update: I just tasted the 2001. Gone is the strange multi-sided bottle, which is sort of a shame, even though it was gimmicky. But the wine is very good; almost the equal of the 1999. It still has great acidity but the oak is less present. The flavors are more tropical, and there's still a great core of something another taster described as cashews. This isn't a heavy hitter, but its subtlety is its virtue. I paid $12.99 for it at Longs Drugstore (an excellent source for wines in Southern California, by the way, especially the one near Hi-Time Cellars in Costa Mesa or the one in La Jolla). Thursday, December 04, 2003
Check out these wonderful recommendations by Amazon customers for those considering Michael Jackson's new album. If there were a technical version of "Best of the Web Today", it might include the following couplet: Cisco exec: Wi-Fi ready for the enterprise Posted December 3, 11:53 a.m. Pacific Time SAN JOSE, CALIF. - Consumers have been quicker to adopt wireless LANs (WLANS) than enterprises, but issues holding back enterprise adoption have been solved, clearing the way for businesses to hop on the WLAN train, a Cisco Systems Inc. executive said Wednesday. Cisco warns of wireless security hole Posted December 3, 9:52 a.m. Pacific Time Cisco Systems Inc. is warning customers using its Aironet wireless access points (APs) about a security vulnerability that could allow attackers to obtain keys used to secure communications on wireless networks. (source: InfoWorld Wireless Report) Wednesday, December 03, 2003
The Pretender is I Professor Bainbridge, I'd like to be considered for the honor of joining your Council of Wine Advisors. I'm a committed cork dork, but no snob, and I would bring a different perspective on California wine. I believe California has tried so hard to produce wines equal to those in France--and it has, even surpassing them, as a Spottswoode cabernet I had the other night reminded me, or the Kistler chardonnay last night--but the low end has been neglected. One of the reasons Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" is so popular is that it's virtually alone in the low price bottled wine market, with its nearest competitors being over-oaked swill that's more cocktail than wine. California wine makers are starting to get it, planting grapes that do better in these lower latitudes than Cabernet and Chardonnay (I think it explains a lot about the French, by the way, that they are actually so far North around the 45th parallel--it makes them behave oddly, like Minnesotans). It's time for California winemakers to put aside their insecurities about being better than the French (as we've recently been reminded, a low bar indeed) and embrace making the best possible wine for everyone, not just the wealthy collectors on their mailing lists. I suggest nothing less than reinventing the wine culture in California, to re-embrace it as our own, like our cheese and our fresh cuisine. The image of chablis-swilling dilettantes must be eliminated (along with California "Chablis," for that matter). Our wine can be the best choice to drink with barbecue, to eat with the world's best cheese (from Humboldt), and to toast the resurgence of the GOP in Sacramento. To the barricades! Regards, David An interesting take on Bush hatred and media distortions from one of my favorite writers, Orson Scott Card. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan). Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Hugh Hewitt wrote, "I'd like to bring your attention to the state's most fun winery: Kaz Vineyard and Winery." Like much of what Hugh says about wine, this is not completely accurate.* The most fun winery in the country, and the funniest, and the one most suited to Hugh's intellectual tastes for that matter, is the Bonny Doon Winery. Co-monkey Brad feels their website is a good read even for those who don't give a rip about wine--heck, it looks like Lileks consulted on their site (save for the fonts). And how can you not love a winery who's winemaker has a degree in philosophy, and names wines things like "Critique of Pure Riesling," "The Heart Has Its Rieslings," and other clever (and less pun-filled) names? The labels are all great too. And the wine is very good, and fairly priced. * i.e., wrong. Monday, December 01, 2003
Quitting Disney I join Roy Disney and Stanley P. Gold in resigning to demand Eisner's removal as CEO of Disney. So I hereby resign my Disneyland Annual Passport. Note that this is a full two weeks before it expires. And, no, I won't be getting a new one, as much as I love the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion and the Muppets 3-D. Eisner must go! Wine is cool. No wine should be served at a temperature above 68 degrees. Period. For one thing, wines have a lot of volatile flavors that get lost in a warmer wine. Second, and far worse, is that wine served at higher temperatures accentuates the more bitter flavors from the tannins. “Room temperature” refers to the temperature of wines brought from a fifty degree cellar and left in the room to come to temperature—and we’re talking about a room in England or France before central heating. Most red wines should be served at 60-65 degrees. I’ve made waiters bring me ice buckets for red wines before, and I’m sure they think I don’t know anything about wine, but it’s actually their ignorance. By the way, the only time I’ve ever sent a non-corked wine back was in an Italian restaurant where it was clear that the wine was stored in the very warm kitchen. An ice bucket wouldn’t have helped, because the wine was clearly maderized. James P. in Folsom, CA says, "Mr. Hewitt knows as much about wine as he does about hockey (next to nothing), so he is certainly just as qualified to post about wine. "But drinking red wine almost chilled? You are a heathen! "Happy Birthday. Oh, and as to not drinking before noon, how can you drink all day if you don't start first thing in the morning?" Good point, that last one. Some support for my tastes comes from John W.: Not to worry, you're more right than you think. Fellow Monkey David has more to say, so I won't steal his thunder. |
