April 30, 2006

Recipe: Butterbeer!

What is this mysterious drink that child witches & child wizards drink? They occasionally are mentioned to have a lowered sense of judgment & an increased chance of snogging as a result of this perhaps mild magical intoxicant, as witnessed in J.K. Rowling's "Half-blood Prince" installment of the popular Harry Potter series. Ms Jenny Ruth Crawford had a revelation at seven in the morning two days ago, to mix one shot of butterscotch schnapps into a New Belgium 1554 Black Ale. Since then, I have done little else but sit in the spring sun on my balcony over Doolaga, & drink heavy amounts. It has left my judgment relatively unimpared, no snoggings have resulted, but, I must report, this perhaps mild magical intoxicant has produced a minimal "hangover". I assume that there is some way to actually brew a low-alcohol buttery ale, but until this reaches a popular market availabity, I offer this as today's recommendation.

Ideas: "Firewhiskey", which Hermione won't let Ron order at the Three Broomsticks?
Maybe add a dot of Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce into a scotch-on-the-rocks?
Or dissolve a cinnamon candy into a double shot of Jim Beam?

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Some song you don’t have to talk about; they just say it all:
“Mama get the hammer, there’s a fly on baby’s head.”

-Bob Dylan, on his new radio show, “Theme Time Radio Hour,” introducing a song by the Bobby Peterson Quartet.


Nobody should be playing rock & roll anymore - no exceptions. It’s about as urgently needed - as opposed to socially, culturally compulsory - as making papier-mache frog masks. It was possibly once needed, but that was before it was everywhere - when you didn’t hear it in supermarkets or coming out of every Mercedes at a stoplight - before ‘rock-surround’. What we need now is to turn it off. What was once liberating has become irredeemably oppressive. It exists to make you stupid - like sitcoms or the news or college football or your parents, for crying out loud.
-Richard Meltzer, critic, 1998


Hello Muscle palace Rupert's mail address it appears not to be being positively. nya The inside inside the cotton 3 all helped the mail does not see anh ass why .... And reply it entrusts certainly . I language ardency maybe too much without ? It peels anyhow and phyey the use method petty egg it lights and it gives. Only is like thatGoodbye
-posted on the Mugglenet Wall-of-Shame (bizarre & embarrassing e-mails sent to the Harry Potter fan site)
Also, there is a disgusting-sounding recipe for a non-alcoholic butterbeer at Mugglenet

UPDATE: There's an essay about the booze in Harry Potter, written after the Half-Blood Prince movie, HERE.

April 24, 2006

Two Thoughts while working a slow Fountain Shift


1) In this season of Mozart’s 250th birthday, which has seen the Classical world berated by his music & a sappy adoration of his life & work, I would like to offer a criticism. I have always loved the last movement of the Jupiter symphony (No. 41 in C Major, K. 551), which is mostly based on a beautiful four-note motif. (Madame Jean Wentworth, Mozart lover extraordinaire at Sarah Lawrence College, enjoyed to point out that the same four notes are figured prominently in the horn part of the second moment of his first symphony.) I have put this movement on a mix CD in honor of the 250th birthday, which has an interesting variety of his music from different genres & phases of his career. So after refreshing myself with some of this later stuff, it began to strike me as obnoxious how complex some of the development was. The virtuosic counterpoint goes on & on; the keys drift majestically to dramatic minors & triumphant returns. And of course, this complex development is what most music scholars love about his music, pushing the classical style to an involved maturity. And the dark turns in a C major symphony are what all those Romantics ate up. But this week it has been striking me as a bit much. I’m not saying I still don’t prefer this music to anything by Brahms. But as Bob Dylan said, “I don’t care how many letters they sent, morning came & morning went.”

2) In England, you can always pay for a pint of beer with change in your pocket. The two pound coin, about what a normal beer costs, is worth about four-and-a-half dollars. You often have several of these in your pocket. In the U.S., one can take out one's wallet at a bar up to ten or fifteen times. I just spent a half hour counting the register at the Fountain Store here, & most of that was adding puny pennies & dimes. Meanwhile, the bills are all the same size & have dumb politicians on them. In England, they have thinkers & artists like Elgar, Darwin, & the Earl of Rochester. Of course, this is probably to make up for the mandatory image of the Queen. My point is, what the hell is going on with America’s currency. They advertise in Times Square for the new Twenty (a safe assumption that it will be a commercial success), but they can’t manage to reform it in any meaningful way, except fancier colors. Our coins are worth nothing. I suppose that the treasury actually makes money off of all the lost or discarded pennies, which must add up to a plentiful sum. When I was spending the night at the nuclear accelerator under Cornell University, I was looking at coins under their microscope, & have you ever noticed that you can actually see Lincoln in the center of the Lincoln Monument on the back of the penny. I also spent a portion of the evening sticking things in liquid nitrogen. Coke cans crackle & shatter in quite the dramatic fashion.

Dudlied I

I.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, on trains across salt flats & rocky mountains,
A man on a tall white horse, the perfect strength, blond with electric eyes,
Beaming beneath a tall white hat, traveling West across deserts & mountains,
Dudley Lawrence! The Perfect! The Cowboy Prophet! The Lover! The Searcher!
He seeks his wife as the roaming sun seeks its Pacific sleep!

Jewels & precious rocks adorn her cagings,
Her leaden gyves are gold! her chains are turquoise!
Reposing upon a couch, a comfortable poise
For one eternally imprisoned by war’s ravagings.
Cecelia Murra hears a holy noise,
A whispering of angels, semblances
Of mighty melody disturb her penance,
And thru the stone-encrusted bars she glances,
A mote of light can flash beyond the fence,
Or a chance of rain in a leprechaun's lens,
A gate of love, a strange change rouses any
Of the least somnambulant dozers from their bed,
The one is just a congress of the many,
So did Cecelia Murra raise her head
And squinted her auburn eyes towards the void,
Black oil on black, embroidered with henna,
An asteroid descending on a crater,
But all she saw was her reflection; later,
She cast a single penny out of her pen
Towards the distant harmonies, to sate her
Waxing curiosity, but black oil on black again
Responded to her isolated investigation.

Cecelia Murra! her lips are pale! her hair is a gown!
Bustles of dark red locks escaping from every gap in the bars!
Her hair is a gown of wine poured from a sacred carafe into a ground of mouths!
It is an agricultural fertilizer, it is the foundation of civilization,
Inside her entrappings, Cecelia Murra reposes on couches of crystal,
Her hair flows from the sofa, along the cage floor, & spills into the darkness,
Mystic doodlings of cherry strings blowing slowly in the void’s wind,
She cannot see the split ends, they recede into the distance!
Her horizon is her red hair vanishing to the night’s furthest reaches!

April 22, 2006

Two Songs Lyrics

Living in Lake Tahoe again for the past month, I have written two short songs. The lyrics are printed below.



Baby, Get It Down

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me tonight,
’Till the morning light!

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me today,
There’s no rent to pay!

Baby, get it down.
Baby, get it down with me this afternoon,
Fly me to the moon!

Pump up the volume on the Cadillac radio,
Drive to Lover’s Lane,
Soar like an eagle off the cliffs of commitment,
Then we’ll get it again & again & again & again!

Take a journey to God,
Take a journey to the city of the holy light,
Afternoon Delight!


Come Be My Love (The Passionate Californian)

Come be my Eden in the mountain,
Be my Jeffrey Pine of Life,
Come be my space between the oceans,
Be the moonglow’s boundless fountain,
Be my questions, be my naked desert wife,

Come be my nightlight & my new moon,
Be the fall of every leaf,
Come be the envy of the cougar,
Be the shapeless, sacred swoon,
Come anoint me, be the proof of my belief,

Come be the rocks of Lake Aloha,
Be the valley’s exultation,
Come be the cub to every mother,
Be the passage to Nevada,
Be my echo, be my silent annunciation.


April 11, 2006

E-Mails: Banjolele Tunings

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:25:34 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Rachel Eley" <________@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: the sound of one hand raised
To: "S. Sandrigon" <_________@yahoo.com>

How is a banjolali tuned?
We have acquired one.
r
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Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:09:30 -0800 (PST)
From: "James Welsch" ________@yahoo.com
Subject: Dude
To: "Rachel Eley" <_______@yahoo.co.uk>

banjo dictionary: http://www.pamelasmusic.co.uk/pages/Banjo%20dictionary.htm
possible tunings: http://www.irish-banjo.com/instruments/banjolele/tunings.html

Here's the deal with banjos: they are often tuned like guitars (or something with both fourths & thirds) for rhythmic purposes & making chords, &c. (like the baritone uke, the upper part of a guitar, which is d g b e) & making chords, &c. I recommend this approach. For melodic purposes, they are tuned like violins, violas or mandolins (in fifths; like for in Irish music or classical music, a banjo is tuned like a viola.)

My only experience with the banjolele is from an amazing group called the "Horse flies", which you should try & find their recording calld "In the dance tent". They play minimalist folk hippie dance jams. They use it percussively, such that it doesn't matter what notes are being played.

Peace,
James

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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:00:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Rachel Eley" <______@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: and three haggi came from the east and Mary said "yuk"
To: "S. Sandrigon" <_______@yahoo.com>

[...]

They took my banjolali away. Not Amanda and Michael, the Fates. It was recalled to it's former unloving home. Apparently the teenage daugther of the household has recently formed an obsession for Kenny Chesney, though why this requires the poor instrument I don't know. Just as I had worked out that "Suzanne" played with sufficient relentlessness was the key to making the world do as I say. A real shame.

Hope your radio silence is an indication of great activity and high times.

Love Rachel

April 06, 2006

Bourgeoisie Recipe!

Brie Bread

Cut Baguette lengthwise.
Spread with brie.
Sprinkle with minced garlic / garlic salt / garlic.
Maybe some miscellaneous Italian seasonings.
Broil in the oven for a couple minutes.

Ideas: add capers? caviar?

April 03, 2006

Quotes: Empire of Art


“Suddenly a strain of notes burst out
Like water splattering out of a fallen vase

Or horsemen riding among a forest of spears

She struck the four strings all at once

As if the silk curtains were ripped with great force.”

-Bai Juyi (772-846 AD), “The Pipa Song”, Tang Dynasty

“Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing, finding out about something & knowing what’s going on, our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered, they can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear, it’s always too late. It isn’t just that Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth, it’s above all that she’s aware that he’s committed a murder from the moment he has done so, she’s heard from her husband’s own lips, on his return: ‘I have done the deed’.”
-Javier Marías, A Heart So White (1992), trans. Margaret Jull Costa

The coast's determined, the mountains do not move;
Natural harbors and clear springs I find,
Shade trees and fruit trees, everything of its kind--

Even for an empire more resources than enough.”

-Elizabeth Bishop, Washington as a Surveyor (sonnet crossed out in her notebook).

“Ms. Vendler writes of one such poem, ‘Washington as a Surveyor, that it is ‘a rhythmically awkward and semantically inert Petrarchan sonnet.’ Making its publication ‘reprehensible,’ Ms. Vendler says, is the fact that Bishop had crossed out the entire poem in her notebooks. ‘Maybe it should have been printed in The New Yorker entirely crossed out,’ she writes.”
-Motoko Rich, “New Elizabeth Bishop Book Sparks a Controversy”, New York Times, April 1st, 2006

“I don't save my drafts, I just press delete, so the early work just vanishes into cyber void.
A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence you ever tried."
-Billy Collins (former U.S. poet laureate), ibid.

“No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence.
They use violence as a tool to do that."
-George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 22, 2006

“The foundation of empire is art and science.
Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more.
Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.”
-William Blake

“The United States is unique because we are an empire of ideals.”
-Ronald Reagan

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From:"Grâce MARLIER" <__________@hotmail.com>
To:"Dudley Fucking Lawrence" <_______@slc.edu>, "Rebekah Eve Goldstein" ______@yahoo.com, "Samual Tear Too Busy Amidon" <____@gmail.com>, &c.
Subject:
once only
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 04:42:20 +0000

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06