A Slight Delay

Whenever an artist dies, someone’s always tempted to raid their notebooks, letters, hard drives, and anything else they can find in order to put out still more product to add to the canon. The results are highly varied, since for every unfinished masterpiece and every piece that hints at the greatness that could’ve been, from sources as varied as Douglas Adams, Jeff Buckley, or Charles Dickens, there’s a slew of stuff that was probably best left to the cutting room floor, and that’s of interest only to completists (think, for instance, of the flood of Tupac Shakur marginalia that began just as the body was cooling, and that continues unabated to this day).

Flying to America: 45 More Stories, by Donald Barthelme, lands with a meaty thump between those extremes. While it’s not the best of his output by any means–and I’ll leave the debate over the merits of specific works to others who are more inclined than myself to take it up–it’s still a worthy addition to the artist’s body of work. Read the rest of this entry »

You know the little warning stickers on pill bottles about taking the medication only on a full stomach? That goes double for Man Eat Food. Entry after entry will leave you either salivating, or listening to your growling stomach (or both). What I like about the blog is its catholic quality. This is clearly someone who loves to eat–no arguments from these quarters, certainly–and who, though he loves good food, isn’t a snob about it. It’s a nice antidote to some blogs I’ve seen written by self-proclaimed “foodies,” where the simple pleasure of a good meal gets lost amid the stuff calculated to impress the other foodies. Hold onto your napkins…

I keep wondering when summer will start this year. I know that on the calendar it starts on June 21, same as every other year. The problem is, that’s not when summer starts for me.

For quite a while now, I’ve always pegged the start of summer to a single auspicious occasion. The bloom of a particular flower, perhaps, or the song of some bird? Oh, no, that’s far too pedestrian. The only thing that will do (for me, anyway) is the first warm day that I hear “The Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy on the radio.

And it has to be the radio. No CD’s or MP3’s. That would be cheating, since I own “Dedication” on disc, and ripped the song to MP3 long ago. So it has to be the radio. It’s a bit of a crap shoot–sort of like figuring out springtime by a groundhog, for instance–but when you get those goosebumps when Phil Lynott sings… That is a summer day, and a damn good one, at that.

 Kurt Vonnegut’s career–at least the most visible part of it–has been  bookended by Dresden. After being captured during the Battle of the Bulge, the author spent time in a POW camp in that city, watching it transformed literally overnight from a lively and lovely European city to a smoldering wasteland, incinerated by American bombs. He would return to Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five, the novel that made him a household name, and its streets and ghosts would return periodically to haunt his writing.

War and peace similarly stalk the pages of Armageddon in Retrospect. At its most effective–as in the photostat of a letter that Vonnegut wrote to his family at war’s end–it’s a snapshot of the fury and futility of war. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, here’s a review that will probably be useless to a lot of people. I’m posting it mostly for the handful that may find it useful.

As someone who goes bald (voluntarily) from time to time, I find the HeadBlade to be a pretty handy little item. Traditionally, a straight razor is supposed to give the best shave, but to be honest, the prospect of using one gives me the willies; I think my head would end up looking like a well-marbled New York strip steak, which wouldn’t be a good thing. That’s where the HeadBlade comes in. There are two designs: the Classic, which uses standard 2-blade Atra cartridges, and the Sport, which uses a triple blade, and comes with a set of little wheels (somewhere there’s an awful lot of Matchbox cars on little tiny cinderblocks). It’s thoughtfully designed, a hell of a lot easier to use than a conventional razor when you’re trying to de-fuzz your dome. Read the rest of this entry »

I think I’m ready for Pamplona now. The city, in the northeast of Spain, is the annual host to the San Fermín festival, known to the rest of us mainly for the running of the bulls. Never mind that I normally root for the bulls; it’s time.

And what, you might ask, qualifies me for this feat? Agility? A spry physique? Monumental derring-do? Not so much. I live and work in New Jersey, and I’m a commuter. ‘Nuff said. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, break time’s over (mine, anyway). A quick take on another tasty, addictive snack, this one from the good folks at Calbee. Well, I’m assuming they’re good, fine people. There’s nothing to indicate that they’re not. I don’t think that they use whales or baby seals in their snacks, so…

Where was I? Oh, yes. Their “Snapea Crisps.” Texture: think Cheez Doodles. The puffy kind, minus the annoying orange stuff that gets all over your fingers, and could easily substitute for a dye pack in your local bank (”Suspect was apprehended when he was spotted licking his fingers a block away from First National.”). Taste: Think peas. ‘Nuff said. If you like peas (lightly salted) and Cheez Doodles, this should be right up your alley. They also come in a Caesar flavor, which I haven’t tasted.

I’ve found a new obsession (and, unfortunately, can’t find a picture of the package). The brand name, or maybe the name of the product itself, is Nori Hineri Norisuke. For all the Japanese I know, that could well translate to “You’ll eat half the bag before you know it.”

The closest thing I could think to compare this to would be Rice Krispies, if they had grown to mutant size (i.e. something likely to be found in Godzilla’s cereal bowl), were crinkle cut, and were delicately seasoned with nori (seaweed) and wasabi. It’s an interesting taste… savory, with a hint of malt and just the right amount of heat (not so mild as to be an afterthought, but less wasabi than you’d find in wasabi peas). I do not, however, recommend putting them in milk, unless you’re an enormous green fire-breathing lizard with a phobia over high-tension wires, in which case you can go right ahead and do as you please.

It’s now five years to the day since President Bush unilaterally declared an end to the Crusade War On Terror  Fight Against Global Extremism Glorious Struggle Against Islamofascism War in Iraq, which was meant to find Osama Bin Laden democratize the Middle East bring peace, prosperity, and democracy to Iraq  wait a minute. What in the hell are we doing there again? The names, faces, and rationales have shifted as if in a sandstorm, or have become lost in the fog of war; each promise, and each benchmark, has been broken, rationalized, and ultimately replaced, with the administration fervently hoping each time that nobody remembers the rationales of days gone by. Read the rest of this entry »

The Apostate ran a post today titled, simply enough, Sean Bell is Not A Feminist Issue. While I can’t find much to fault in the title, the substance of her essay is something else again. In it, she takes to task both Feministe and Feministing for framing the Bell shooting in feminist terms. Commence the disagreement. Read the rest of this entry »