The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Grumpy's World

I'm not a grumpy old man yet. But I will be eventually. The following is yet another in a long line of little tiny reasons why. (I should point out, lest ye misunderstand me, that the young lady was very friendly and cheerful, and I was very polite to her. And we were each patient with the other...all things considered.)

Me, in the drive-thru [sic] buying tacos: I'd also like some hot sauce with that. I just need four packets of...well, I don't know what you call it. Just the regular sauce, the kind in the middle.

Friendly drive-thru clerk, cheerfully holding out a giant wad of sauce packets: How about a whole handful!

Me: No, no thank you. I only need four.

She: That's okay, you can have them!

Me: No, really, that's very generous of you, but I'd just throw them away. I really only need four.

She, taking the rest back and extracting four: Okay.

I gave you the mild.

Me: No, thank you, I don't want the mild. I want the medium.

She: We don't have any medium. Do you want hot sauce?

Me: No, not the hot kind. I just want whatever the one in the middle is. Whatever it's called. I'm sorry, I don't know the name for it. Not the hot, not the mild, just whatever's in between.

She: Well, we don't have anything like that. Just the mild and the hot.

Me: Are you sure? Because you used to have three kinds—there was one mild, one hot, and one in the middle.

She: Sir, I'm sure! We just have mild and hot.

Me: Okay, then give me the hot.

She: Well, we have the fire, but you don't want that.

Me: What?

She: We have the mild, the hot, and the fire.

Me: I see. So the fire's the hottest?

She: Yeah.

Me: And the mild is the mildest.

She (laughing): Yeah!

Me: So the mild is the mildest and the fire is the hottest.

She: You've got it.

Me: So that would mean that the hot is the one in the middle.

She: Yeah.

Me: So I'll take four packets of the hot, please.

She (laughing again): So now you do want the hot. Sir, do you find you have a lot of trouble making up your mind?

Me: I guess I do.

But just out of curiosity, why didn't you tell me about the fire in the first place?

She (still cheerfully): Because, Sir, you said you didn't want the hot! Don't you remember telling me you didn't want the hot? So if you didn't want the hot, you certainly wouldn't want the fire, because the fire is hotter than the hot!

Me: Okay. I think I get it now. Four packets of the hot will be just great. Thanks a lot!

She (laughing and shaking her head): Have a nice evening, Sir!

Me: You too!

The day isn't here yet. But it's coming.  :-)

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic packets of not-too-hot sauce that appear often, but not always, on Sundays.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Brian: "A middle aged man and a young female clerk overheard in a grocery store several years ago: Man: Excuse me, where's the delicatessen? Clerk: The what? Man: The place with meats and cheeses, where they make sandwiches. Clerk (reprovingly): That's in deli."

Featured Comment by Edd Fuller: "You have to admit the girl was technically correct.

"That reminds me of this story: a helicopter pilot was lost, so he flew up beside a tall building and held up a sign: 'Where are we?' Inside the building someone held a sign up to the window: '12th Floor.' The pilot flew off, satisfied. His passenger asked how he now knew where he was. 'Simple,' he replied. 'The information on the sign held up at the window was technically correct and utterly useless, so I knew we were at the Microsoft building.'"

Featured Comment by Hugh Crawford: "It's a good thing you didn't ask for a medium olive. The standard olive sizes are: Bullets, Fine, Brilliant, Superior, Large, Extra Large, Jumbo, Extra Jumbo, Giants, Colossal, Super Colossal, Mammoth, and Super Mammoth."

This Isn't a Post

I woke up this morning thinking...there's some sort of sporting contest on today. Indy race? Horse race? The Masters?

Oh yeah. That.

I think I should just watch a tape of last year's. I'd know how it ends, but that would be a good thing.

Meanwhile, a significant number of TOP readers (roughly 40%) aren't from here. If yer furrin and curious as to why this is a big day for those strange Murkins*, this year you can watch the Super Bowl online. Just thought I'd mention it.

Kickoff is 6:30 USA Eastern Time, give or take. (Indiana, where I was born, is weird when it comes to time. Apparently, different communities decide what time zone they want to be in. Indianapolis is in the Eastern time zone, but there are patches of the State in both the northwest and southwest that are in the Central zone. Every few years they make noises about integrating the entire State in one time zone, but nothing ever comes of it.)

This isn't a TOP post, by the way, so please pretend it isn't here. We've been getting some blowback recently for having too many off-topic posts, and we're determined to renew our vows with our first love in the weeks to come. Speaking of which, don't you think it's about time for Round Two of the Reader Print Offer contest? (Note: Do not submit yet!!)

The standard line with the Super Bowl is that the hype is everything and the game itself is a letdown, but the last time these two teams met, the underdog Giants spoiled the Patriots' perfect season and experts agree it was one of the best Super Bowls ever played. That's why they're calling this one "The Rematch." Fans actually have hopes of a decent game to watch along with all the commercials.

In the Consolation Prize Dept. for Yr. Hmbl. Ed. and the rest of us cheeseheads from 'Sconsin, Aaron Rodgers walked away with the NFL Most Valuable Player Award last night. He was graceful and modest except for another dig at the 49ers (he's still resentful that they drafted Alex Smith instead of him).

And if you're wondering, the switchover to Lion these past few days went...okay. It was my worst-ever experience with an Apple upgrade, but that's still not very bad. (I still can't get Exposé to work, though.) The switchover to the Airport didn't go so well, but that's on me. Did you know that one reason I got into photography was that I knew I wasn't good with computers? True story. You know what they say: "Oh well."

Enjoy the game, wherever you are. There won't be any posts here today, but we'll be back tomorrow.

Mike

*People who live in Murka.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

OT: The Art of Tea (for Two)...Pu Erhs

By Ctein

When I first wrote about the art of tea, I mentioned pu erhs, and several people asked me what they were.

It's no wonder. Pu erh teas have only been freely available in the U.S. for a score of years, and so are little-known and even less understood. Some of them have a unique flavor most commonly (and accurately) translated as "dirt," but describing all pu erhs that way would be no more accurate than describing all cheeses as being cheddary. The variety of flavors available in pu erhs makes them perhaps the most diverse of the groups of teas.

A new pu erh may be drinkable, but it is as likely to be bitter or astringent. Pu erh teas, though, are not merely dead dried leaves; they are chemically and biologically active. Pu erhs are supposed to age. Think cheeses and wines. The leaves continue to undergo oxidative and enzymatic changes, and they harbor microflora that further digest and ferment them. Pu erhs are eminently drinkable within a few years, but it can take anywhere from 10 years to 60 years for them to become truly brilliant. And, just as with cheeses and wines, many of them become totally forgettable.

Pu erhs come in four major types. Each type has its own broad flavor characteristics. Uncooked is traditional. The leaves are packed together, either loosely or compacted into bricks and bings (discs), where they start to age. Over the long run, uncooked pu erhs are more likely to produce the most spectacular teas.

Cooked pu erh is either gently heated or allowed to heat more from fermentation. This greatly accelerates the aging process producing a mature beverage much more quickly, but also denatures some of the chemical/biological components, so a cooked pu erh ages much less later. Like the uncooked versions, it can be aged as loose-leaf or compacted.

When it comes to brewing, pu erhs are practically bulletproof and thrive on vigorous brewing. They are one of the few teas where the universal recommendation is to start with boiling water. Brewing times range from 1 to 5 min., typically, but it's pretty much impossible to overbrew these teas. A half hour steep may produce a brew stronger than one would like (and so need a bit of dilution), but it will be flavorful, not bitter.

Pu erhs are designed for multiple infusions. I had one very nice pu erh that was only good for three brewings and I felt kind of, well, cheated. Another one was still doing well on the eighth pot. The flavor can change with each successive brew. A pu erh may be intensely dirty and smoky on the first pour and by the fifth be so grassy and fragrant that you'd think it was a floral tea. I can have one pu erh pot that I'm drinking from for the entire day, and it's like I'm drinking a whole bunch of different kinds of tea.

This unique characteristic, combined with the wide variety of flavors that pu erhs have to begin with, makes it pretty much impossible to characterize them as a group.

The ongoing aging process that makes pu erhs so fascinating is responsible for my comment last time that they are simultaneously some of the best bargains you can buy and an easy way to go bankrupt. For proper aging, the leaves are kept slightly warm (room temperature or a bit above), definitely dry, away from light, and open to air, because many of the reactions are aerobic ones. Paper's a common wrap. If you find a bing that is sealed in airtight plastic it's likely to be very cheap and of low quality.

Do not judge a bing by its cover. These are all very cheap pu erhs, colorful boxes notwithstanding. Entirely drinkable, entirely uninspiring. But with time, who knows?

Low grade but entirely drinkable bings in the 12 ounce range are available for prices between $5 and $15 in many Chinese markets. At that price, one can afford to experiment. Jon Singer picked up a very cheap bing in a market a dozen years back. Some of it was put aside and forgotten until about a year ago. When brewed up, it was so complicated and subtle that Jon and I couldn't describe it. We could pick out a slightly lemony flavor note, but it was like trying to pick one single instrument out of a large orchestra. It was as far from smoky and dirty as you could imagine.

Jon sent me a couple of these very cheap bings. They are drinkable, if uninspiring, and I've put one of them in the back of the cupboard to see what it is like in another decade or so. It'll probably be lousy, but what the heck, it was $6.

Three excellent and promising pu erhs. The two on the left came from Cha Guan and are no longer available, while the small bing on the right is one I just acquired from TeaSource.

Excellent bings and bricks go for $30–$60 when relatively young; my absolute favorite pu erh is a 500 gram brick that cost me $40 (that's enough for the better part of a year's worth of steady tea drinking). Daniel at Cha Guan (see my earlier tea post) was so proud of this find that he made it his shop's signature tea until it ran out. It's so smoky on the first pour it's like drinking a campfire, and it changes wonderfully with successive infusions. I was suffficiently impressed that I ordered a second brick and that is in the back of a cupboard. I'll see what happens to it in another decade. Truth is, I'm only a third of the way through the first brick after a year and a half.

Here's where financial madness can set in. You can acquire huge numbers of bings at individually reasonable prices. Before you know it, you have a substantial fortune tied up in dried camellia leaves (with the risk of finding down the line that you have the caffeinated equivalent of vinegar.) Happily, I do not have the collector allele in my genome. Still, one is tempted, especially when someone like Roy Fong comes back with a taster's set of eight bings, designed to appeal to a variety of palates and situations and which he has even greater hopes for when aged. A mere $350. I resisted. But I thought about it.

You don't want to know what will happen to the prices of some of these when they are fully aged, if they turn out to be as good as hoped. Really, you don't. Small amounts of the very best aged pu erhs sell for princely sums. I've never tried them; I never expect to. Fortunately, I am entirely happy with my modestly priced, delicious brews.

Ctein

Sometimes, Ctein's off-topic columns on TOP grow on you, and get better with age. If you don't like them now, set them aside for a little while. Who knows what might happen?

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Mano: "Here in China (hello from China), puer tea is widely considered to be top dog, though a few years ago there was a scandal that this prized symbol of Chinese culture was actually being produced in Africa and sold in the country with fraudulent credentials. Back then you could spend the typical worker's entire year salary on a quarter kilo brick of the tea; after the African issues and other problems with hoarders and speculators the price of the tea dropped like a rock. Now anyone can get a decent aged tea for an affordable price, and it has become very common. In fact I may have a few bricks of it sitting in the back of some cupboard in my kitchen. People like to give it to each other as gifts, which get given again to other people because no one can drink all of it."

Featured Comment by Fabian: "I will check back in a decade or so, to see if I hate this article by then. Today, though, I found it to be a very interesting and inspiring read. 'Drinking a campfire' certainly sounds like something worth testing! Thanks, Ctein!"

Featured Comment by Bob Rosinsky: "I never did get the 'tea' thing. My grandfather used to drink Lipton Tea. He'd plop the tea bag into a cup and add a couple of little saccharine tablets to it to sweeten it up. He was an odd man."

Featured Comment by Jerry Lewis-Evans: "Pu erh, or a phrase sounding phonetically similar, was a phrase that cropped up on various live Frank Zappa albums. It seemed to be one of those band 'in' jokes, but being from England I always took it to be a phrase that you would say while holding your nose to indicate an unpleasant smell! Maybe he was just indicating that it was time for a tea break!"

Open Mike: Coffee 'n' the Car

Coffee
I won't be writing a lot more on coffee, and there's a reason for that.

I've raised my game considerably when it comes to my morning cup: I'm now roasting all my own coffee; I got myself a good burr grinder (the #1 most important purchase if you want good coffee), and I've put together a small "personal library" about coffee and learned an awful lot about it. As with most subjects, it's much more extensive than meets the eye, and much more fascinating than you'd think, once you get into it.

Aye, but here's the rub: I can't be a coffee connoisseur. Why? A very good reason: I can't smell. (I was going to say "I don't smell good," but hey, I shower.) That is, I don't have a good sense of smell.

They say that dogs' sense of smell is ten to 100 times as good as ours, but that they can't taste very well at all. Food is all in the nose for them. It's long been known, anecdotally and scientifically, that for humans, too, the most exquisite and sophisticated appreciation of flavors is a confabulation of taste and smell. Well, I've become convinced that half of the appreciation of coffee, if not more, is in the nose as well. And I just have a very poor sense of smell.

That isn't just the way I was born: I had chronic sinus infections for years, acquired a dependency on nasal spray for a time, and finally had to have an operation on my sinuses in 1988. I've probably had 80 to 100 sinus infections in my life, and used to have to get my sinuses flushed regularly. (Stop me if this is too much information). I breathe clearly, now, finally, but can't smell worth a damn.

The bottom line with coffee is, I can't appreciate the nuances. I like the good stuff, and I can tell the difference between what I like and what I don't, but I'm convinced I'm not getting the whole picture. So I figure I'm just not suited to be a coffee connoisseur. That fits with what I've long known about myself: I like good coffee, but I don't really mind bad coffee all that much. It has to be really bad before I can't drink it.

However, I have discovered that roasting your own is very easy—almost too easy. The roaster I bought is easy to learn and simple to use, although it takes up a significant amount of room and you need a Shop-Vac to clean up with. It's only as big as a large toaster oven or small microwave, but it needs clear space around it when you use it. Cleanup takes 30 seconds if you do it slowly, so don't be put off by that. They say it can be expected to last for 2–3 years of regular use, but green coffee beans cost 1/2 to 2/3 what roasted coffee costs, so I figure, for me, the roaster will pay for itself 1 1/2 to 2 times over before it goes to the big roastery in the sky. If you drink a lot of coffee and have the space, the money savings alone could be reason enough to learn to roast.

And even I can smell the aroma of roasting coffee.

The car
I'm frankly astonished by the Subaru-Toyota sports car that's just been introduced (and that I've been writing about). See if you follow: Subaru's version is called the BRZ, which, among other things, is Serbian for "quick"—or so I've heard; Toyota's version is called the FT-86, but will be sold as the Scion FR-S in North America, Scion being Toyota's budget brand targeted at young people. The two companies' cars are mechanically the same, but have different styling, tires, and options lists, and, more importantly, different suspension setups. Toyota did the styling and contributed some engine technology, but Subaru did the engineering and is building all of them.

Why astonished? Despite being talked about since almost forever, this thing comes completely out of left field. To begin with, it's small, and it's light, at least by today's standards—Ron Kiino in this month's Motor Trend calls it a "Miata coupe," and he's not far off, except that you can't get 200 hp and 150 pound-feet of torque from any known unblown Miata engine. And Mazda no longer sells a blown Miata. Yes, the Subaru-Toyota has a stick shift and the all-important rear-wheel drive, which are getting uncommon, and the engine's just a four-banger, albeit a boxer like in a Porsche. I love four-cylinder engines. Give me one any day, as long as the car it's in suits it.

All business: the BRZ from the helm. Photo courtesy Motor Trend.

Made by Subaru, you did get that? Subaru, which virtually forged its identity on full-time all-wheel-drive cars long before they were so common (remember when AWD vehicles were called "4x4s" and you had to switch manually into four wheel drive whenever you needed it?) And it significantly bucks some some very pervasive trends: the engine (at least for now, as introduced—the enthusiast base is already salivating for the inevitable STI version) is naturally aspirated, when everybody and his uncle is building turbos and putting them in everything (have you heard the one about the Turbo Chevy Sonic? It's true, and is reportedly a great improvement). It's dedicated to handling, in this day of horsepower über alles, when luxury carmakers will drop in engines that are too big even to the detriment of handling. (Mercedes AMG, I am talkin' 'bout you.)

No CVT, no turbo- or supercharger, no cylinder management, no AWD, no keep-up-with-the-Joneses horsepower for guys who are afraid their masculinity will be threatened if they don't cart around a whacking big thirsty engine they never need.

Yeah, it will have sat-nav available and a nanny or two. But it's not loaded down with a bunch of features. For the most part it's just basic, pure, old-fashioned sports car.

If you've been reading me on cameras for any length of time, you know what a breath of fresh air this is to me. I mean, BMW should really be ashamed of itself for not abandoning that old tagline "The ultimate driving machine." (Although it does seem to be gradually replacing it with "Sheer driving pleasure," which is more accurate.) Did you know that there's actually a BWM that has a cabin so well insulated from sound that buyers complain they can't hear the V8 well enough—so BMW actually pipes fake V8 engine noise into the passenger cabin through the stereo system when the car is switched to "sport mode"? I am not making this up. They're nice luxury cars, and I'm not slagging you if you own one, but, really, the days of the "ultimate driving machine" are completely over and gone even at BMW. Everything's market driven and the market is focused on "luxury" to a fault or "economy" in the breach.

And now here comes a pure driving machine, a Miata coupe with the engine Mazda won't give us. And it's been engineered from the ground up. All new. Any idea how uncommon that is, in this day and age? You can count the number of clean-slate cars on your fingers and toes, and if you lop off the one-percenter end of the market you won't need your toes.

It's like a camera coming along that had a 6-MP full-frame sensor, no viewing screen, no JPEG engine, buttons and knobs assignable by loading in third-party apps, and that had a viewfinder like an OM-4T*. And that was made of metal with leather gripping surfaces. The whole photography world would do double-takes. No, triple-takes. We'd all be shaking our heads and wondering, from what alternative universe did that thing come? 

That's the BRZ. I can't wait to drive it. This, you will probably hear about from me again.

Mike

"Open Mike" is your host going off-topic and astray. Sundays only.

P.S. Here's my coffee library:

Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival by Kenneth Davids. The basics of home roasting. Contains most of the information found in his more basic Guide to Buying, Brewing, and Enjoying.
Everything But Espresso: Professional Coffee Brewing Techniques by Scott Rao. The science behind brewing the perfect cup (essential). There's a companion volume for espresso if that's your interest.
The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer. (You might have to buy this one used!)
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergrast. The history of coffee from its mythological origin-story to the advent of Starbucks; some overlap with the title above, but a different focus.
Javatrekker: Dispatches From the World of Fair Trade Coffee by Dean Cycon. On-the-ground view of direct trade and fair trade. Entertaining. Coffee is the world's second most valuable legal commodity, after oil, so the economics of it are important.

There's also a lot of information on the web, of course, although a lot of it is pretty far-flung.

*Don't say B&W-only, Mike. Don't say it. Don't say anything about a square sensor. These things will just make people crazy. Do not make people crazy.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Karl: "To be honest, I'm not crazy about the body styling. After driving one it might well become beautiful, but as I see it now it looks a bit over- styled. The sculpture to it feels a little forced, a bit too much. The line is clean then broken. Just my opinion."

Mike replies: True, its looks are only so-so. But then, the major requirement in terms of appearance is to, let us say, keep the lack of appeal at bay, which they've more or less done. I mean, look at the parentage here: Subaru, whose WRX is one of the strangest of modern designs, to put it politely; and Toyota, whose previous sports car was the MR2. Considering that lineage, it's pretty amazing that the new baby isn't quite a bit...er, less attractive.

Featured Comment by Earl Dunbar: "Oh man, the new OM-D is going to be a sexy OM-4T with a big B&W sensor! Yaaaa hooo!!!"

Mike replies: I know nothing. Unfortunately, I mean that un-ironically.

Featured Comment by JH: "When I read that BMW was using this sound system to pipe in engine noise for the new M5, I collapsed in laughter. When I had a E46 M3 and was a BMW Club Instructor for track days, I cornered the M brand manager at a club gathering and gave him an earful about the car being so quiet. He calmly explained they could not make loud exhausts or engines because of the European laws regarding noise. So I suggested, jokingly, of course, the could at least put the noise through the sound system (which is networked with the engine management system). Oh my god, am I responsible for this travesty?"

Mike replies: Oh, so you're the guy!

Awwww...

Doppelgang, 2001–2012

There are few things in life better than a good dog. Years ago, my mother decided to try a small dog in her small Georgetown home, so she went to a breeder and got a miniature long-haired silver-dapple Dachshund with one blue eye she named Wolfgang. Maybe ten pounds soaking wet, Wolfgang was an outsized character, a little Napoleon, brash and full of himself, never afraid to challenge dogs four times, or even eight times, his size. By the time Wolfie got old—spirit undimmed—my mother had gotten remarried, and my stepfather also had grown very fond of Wolfie. So they went back to the same breeder and got a puppy who turned out to be Wolfie's great-great-great-great-great-grand-nephew—also a miniature long-haired silver-dapple Dachshund with, yep, one blue eye. Although his temperament was completely different, he looked just like Wolfgang. So of course they named him Doppelgang.

(The joke, if you're not familiar with the word, is that doppelgänger—which I think means "double walker" in German—means a double, lookalike, counterpart, or alter ego—in literature, sometimes of a ghostly nature and occasionally sinister, although that last doesn't pertain here.)

Alas, today will be Doppie's last day on Earth. Wolfgang died with his boots on, so to speak, in a spectacularly catastrophic car accident that miraculously spared his owners and the younger dog; Doppie, in keeping with his milder nature, will go to sleep for the last time today at the vet's. He has been ill for some time.

I once said the only thing wrong with dogs is that they don't live long enough; my mother's cousin Ham Schirmer answered, "That's just god's way of making sure you get to know more than one."

My sympathetic condolences to Jane and John, and everyone else who knew their dear little Dopp, who really was very sweet. He gets blessed on his journey with that highest of compliments: "good dog."

Mike

P.S. If you've never seen the Nova show "Dogs Decoded," I highly recommend it—I've seen it twice now and found it completely fascinating. It's available for streaming on Netflix and from iTunes as well. Plus, they rerun it on Public Television now and then, so you could just keep a lookout.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Open Mike: Inflicted Music

Just a brief off-topic post today before all the football starts.

After sitting around waiting for my son at the doctor's office two days ago, I've finally come to the conclusion that human beings, institutions, and establishments of business should never inflict music on other human beings.

I feel it's a violation of my rights, y'see. Specifically, my right to avoid alarmingly horrible music should I choose to do so.

Inflicted music is a form of discrimination...against the minority of people who are actually sensitive to music and actually listen to it. And, I must ruefully admit, often have to listen to it, if it's playing, even when we'd much rather not.

Seriously, covers of Air Supply and ABBA and George Benson? What, the originals aren't torture enough?

Some of us are what's called musical. The great tyrannical majority don't understand us, I know. They're the ones who say, "Oh, I never notice it. I just tune it right out."

My momentary impulse to do violence to those people passes, fortunately.

Inflicting music involuntarily on people who don't want to hear is also a form of abuse. If you don't understand why, just imagine that you are, say, a Christian, and were forced to listen to atheistic, anti-religious broadcasts while you waited for the doctor. Imagine that the most obnoxious sort of political talk radio of the viewpoint that most opposes your own is blaring in your ears while you innocently sit in a place where you have to be.

I could think of much worse examples here, but I'm being considerate—I'm not inflicting more gruesome mental images on you.

Institutions and business establishments can't possibly choose music that appeals to all people. It doesn't exist. They should just turn it off.

Midway through my son's appointment, the office closed, and the music stopped. Mercifully. My relief was immediate. The waiting room suddenly became a much more tolerable place to be. Silence might not be golden, but at least it's equally inoffensive to everyone.

At any rate, in this day and age I think I should have a right to manage my own musical experiences.

Maybe we should start an advocacy group: NO MORE INFLICTED MUSIC! 

Our slogan? That's easy. "Make it Stop."

Please.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts inflicted on TOP readers on Sundays. If you don't like it, at least you aren't forced to be here—we've been told there are actually other things on the internet.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Mark Cotter: "Here in the U.K., there is an organisation called Pipe Down that exists to promote the removal of muzak from public spaces. Perhaps the U.S. needs an equivalent organisation."

Featured Comment by Martha Benedict: "I feel this way about perfume. It's a more intimate instrusion than music."

Featured Comment by R. Edelman: "And then there is 'music on hold.' As a physician, I am forced to listen to the same crappy 'smooth jazz' riff that the hospital insists on playing while I am waiting to talk to whoever paged me. Unless I am alone, I cannot switch to the phone's 'speaker' mode, lest I disturb others who are present, so I am forced to hold the phone up to my ear and listen. To make matters worse,the same riff has been on that phone system for years; it never changes. Alas, this torture continues despite my protests to hospital executives. The worst was some electronic music that sounded vaguely like harpies that was on another hospital's system. I absolutely could not stand to listen to it. I had to hang up and have them call me back. Forcing someone to listen to music can be a powerful weapon. Speakers blaring loud music were used to coerce Manuel Noriega to surrender during the United States' invasion of Panama in 1989."

Featured Comment by Larry Roohr: "A judge here in Colorado was sentencing teens with noise ordinance tickets to a couple of hours locked in a small room with Wayne Newton singing 'Danke Schoen' turned up loud on a cheap little cassette player, over and over and over again. It made the news; those kids looked genuinely distressed in there. Perfect."

Mike replies: Reminds me of the old story—apocryphal? I don't know—of the drive-in that was having trouble with teen loitering. They started broadcasting Mozart in their parking lot, and the problem went away.

Featured Comment by Philjel: "I'd like to extend the idea to inflicted sound. Waiting rooms from car repair and banks to doctor's offices have to have a tv tuned to the lowest common denominator shows. Why do you have to have wall-to wall party music and inflicted dancing at an NBA game? Who decided that all sports reporting has to have mock-metal in the foreground?

"It's all about the signal to noise ratio. I like a low noise floor.

"Worst for last. Hold me down when an ice cream man decides to include my neighborhood on his route.

"I am a musician and I inflict noise for a living and I approve of these comments."

Mike replies: Oh my god, the ice cream truck...I wanna kill...I wanna kill...dead, burnt babies...veins stickin' in my teeth....

(Lyrics to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant," I hasten to add, lest anybody who doesn't recognize the reference be offended.)

Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the Thirteenth! That's the name of the old Thelonious Monk composition that first appeared in 1954 on the great album Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins and that has been covered many times. This is the Steve Lacy version, with Roswell Rudd wah-wah-ing away, from the 1982 album Regeneration that All Music Guide to Jazz calls "the consensus album of the year in 1983." I assume they just mean jazz albums, because of course Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks came out that year. The CD isn't available new, but the album is available at the iTunes store for $5.94. Bob Burnett had this waiting in my inbox this morning, making a perfect start to the day.

Let's have a listen then.

Mike
(Thanks to Bob)

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Wm. Mitchell: "Thank you for sharing. This made my afternoon! This is my first comment on your blog, but I am a longtime reader. I have the Monk and Rollins version on LP and CD and had not heard this recording. I feel refreshed."

Featured Comment by Paul Van: "It's bad luck to be superstitious."

Featured Comment by Pascal Suavé: "First time hearing that song. It's a brilliantly arranged dissonant piece but I'm still chuckling hours later since it kinda sounds like a really drunk New Orleans orchestra playing 'moody' music for yet another Twilight movie. P.S. Love the really blatty trombone—hilarious."

Open Mike: Smiling About the Weather

From all appearances so far, winter is not going to come to Wisconsin this year. If it does, it's going to be very late indeed, because it already is. We've had one minor snow and a few cold days so far, and this morning it's like a pleasant early Spring day.

I think I'm now officially freaked out by this freaky non-winter. It reminds me of something the poet Richard Hugo once said about flying. He turned to the fellow next to him as they were strapping themselves into their seats on an airline flight, and remarked that there was something he didn't like about flying. "Yes," the other passenger replied, "it's not natural." A non-winter in Wisconsin in the wintertime just doesn't seem...natural.

Of course, this weather could be entirely unrelated to the climate trends that are melting mountain snowcaps and the icecaps of the polar regions—it could be a perfectly normal winter that would have happened exactly the same way had the entire human population of Earth consisted of 20,000 hominids dressed in animal skins, hunting with spears for a living. There's no saying.

I've got several relatives who are "global warming deniers." Personally, I've come to a policy regarding them: complete tolerance and total understanding. Anyone who wants to deny global warming has my full and complete blessing. I understand totally.

Not long ago I tried to read a book called Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Granted, McKibben is one of the most extreme of the climate change alarmists—on the opposite end of the spectrum from blustery radio demagogues and televangelists who says ridiculous things like "and I quote" when relaying what they claim God told them the last time they talked. But still, I had to stop reading Eaarth. It's too terrifying. Scariest book I ever picked up.

It's so scary, in fact, that anybody who wants to deny what McKibben says is on the way is fine by me, brother. Power to 'em. I'll say the same thing to them I said to my global-warming-denier nephew: I sincerely hope they are right. I don't think they are, but I sure do hope they are.

Maybe I should have kept reading. According to the reviews, McKibben's book takes an optimistic turn in its second half, when he outlines how we can adapt and adjust to a changing "Eaarth" (it's his term for the new planet that only resembles the old Earth but is already permanently altered). Whatever.

One comfort I have about this is that human beings have had apocalyptic fears in every age. People in medieval times (and the medieval-minded even now) fear religious apocalypse; in the 1950s the pessimists foresaw nuclear armaggedon; so now it's plantary catastrophe caused by climate change that some think is going to bring on the end. Nothing's new.

It puts me in mind of reading big treasuries of old New Yorker cartoons when I was a kid at my grandmother's house. One of the commonplaces of those cartoons were long-haired, bearded self-proclaimed prophets in robes standing on street corners holding signs on sticks that said "The World is Coming to an End." That made me reflect, even as a child, that everyone who ever said such a thing is of course correct. Because—whether you believe we simply cease to exist or that death is merely a departure on a further voyage to heaven or hell or wherever—the world does end for us all, after our alotment of years is up. So maybe apocalyptic fears are just another expression of the natural fear of death that's an indivisible part of every conscious life.

Another thing strikes me as curious. All of my life I've been reading the phrase "delicate balance" applied to the planet's ecology. A stone cliché, it seems to me, if ever there was one. So if we're all so convinced that Earth exists in a delicate balance, why would we be so ruthless and heavy-handed in destroying that balance, and why wouldn't we do more to prepare for changes that even the most optimistic among us concede are occurring? Do we just think we'll have to deal with the upheavals when they get here, and that preparation is pointless?

I don't understand that, but then I think I understand our species as a whole. We're not preparers—we're reactors. We deal with problems once they arise. It's no fun to take preventative measures. A hero can't "save the Earth" unless the Earth is clearly threatened.

I remember hearing the term "suicide prevention" with a friend who argued that there could be no such thing. Because, he said, if you prevent it, how do you know it was going to happen? The only thing that proves it would have been a suicide is if it happens, and by then, by definition, it's too late to prevent. So "suicide prevention," according to him, is a permanent, unsolvable conundrum, akin to a nonsense phrase.

Maybe he's right. But it seemed to me like a good thing to work toward anyway (we were both high school teachers at the time).

Meanwhile, human nature being what it is, most people around here seem to be smiling about the weather. Like it's a good thing. Unlike me.

Here's hoping—fervently—that the global warming deniers are 100% correct. And if they're not, let's hope that not too many among us consider suicide prevention a pointless concept.

Mike

P.S. What, me worry? I'm off to watch football.

Photo: Just before dawn last Thursday. Panasonic GF1 and 20mm ƒ/1.7.

"Open Mike" is a series of warming off-topic editorial posts by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that come around most every Sunday.

ADDENDUM: I should probably add that pretty much everybody is in agreement that single specific weather events or effects should not be ascribed to overall trends. It's true that this might just be a mild winter. (It's also true that last year's more severe winter didn't mean that global warming isn't happening.)

NOTE (Monday 9 a.m.): I tried to close the comments to this post last night, but unfortunately I must have made an administrative mistake and inadvertently opened them again. I have a basic internal guideline that I close the comments after I've had to disallow three—it seems unfair to those whose comments have been quashed to allow the discussion to continue, often in the direction they didn't want it to go. They feel singled out for censorship, perhaps justifiably so. By closing the comments altogether, at least everybody is censored equally. In any event, the comments to this post are now closed, and I apologize to anyone who wrote any comment (there were several inoffensive ones) between the time I originally meant to close the comments and now. I have not judged any of those on their merits but simply didn't publish any of them.

In my judgement, what characterizes a forum-style exchange is when commenters stop responding to the original post and start responding directly to each other, especially when they start casting aspersions on each other's motives or intelligence and so forth. The point I close things down (which only happens rarely) is when this tendency seems to be becoming general. I know there are those who want to hold that kind of discussion, but I don't run a forum here.

My apologies again for my mistake last night.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Kevin Shoenmakers: "On climate change, I can recommend NYT columnist Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America. One of the best arguments he has in arguing the U.S. (and everyone else) needs to Green up, is because, climate change or no climate change, when all our fossil fuels have been used up/have become too expensive, wind and solar is all we have left. Now, we wouldn't want the Chinese (or the Germans, or the Danes) to beat us at that game, would we? This argument is, I hope, compelling to deniers as well, which makes it so powerful."

Featured Comment by MarkB: "'Nihil sub sole novum'—I remember and ponder this phrase (from my early Latin classes) whenever something seems scary or threatening, and is out of my direct control. It also helps put political attack ads in their proper disregard.  ;-) ." [For those few of you who don't speak Latin, that's from Ecclesiastes 1:10—the Vulgate version, from the original Hebrew: "Nothing new under the sun." —Ed.]

Featured Comment by Steven Ralser: "You should read Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It shows how a relative few (often the same few) are influencing debate on a variety of topics including that smoking is good for you, second smoke is not harmful, climate change is false, etc. It's a very inciteful [sic] read. I'm sending a copy to my brother in Australia who is a climate change denier."

Featured Comment by Bruce Robbins: "I remain unconvinced one way or another about whether or not man-made CO2 has caused the small global temperature rise we've seen. However, what I do know is that there is no empirical evidence to support AGW [the A stands for anthropogenic—i.e., man-made. —Ed.]. The 'warmist' camp relies entirely on computer model projections to support its hypothesis but the models have been shown to be wrong on so many occasions that I don't think we should be basing energy policy on them. The reason the debate rages so fiercely between warmists and sceptics is precisely because neither side can prove its case, despite claims to the contrary. As soon as it becomes provable one way or the other the debate will end."

Featured Comment by Geoff Wittig: "Global warming, or anthropogenic climate change, is different from all other science-related controversies. Scientists, by and large, are a very cautious and conservative lot. (Conservative in the philosophical sense, not the political.) We tend to weigh evidence carefully and at great length, and become concerned only when the weight of evidence is so overwhelming that it is beyond refutation. Consequently, scientists tend to lag well behind popular opinion and culture when it comes to being alarmed. Global warming is the exception that proves the rule. Climate scientists are basically terrified by what they're seeing in the data. There is no 'controversy'; at least 97% of active climatologists are in agreement that the earth is experiencing basically unprecedented warming, and nearly as large a majority concur that human activity is the main factor. And they are far more worried about what's coming than our political leaders. The disconnect is mind-boggling. A century hence, our descendants are likely to regard global warming denialism like we currently see phrenology, or the acceptance of slavery. But the consequences of this willful ignorance are likely to be far more dire."

Featured Comment by Claire: "I am a winter lover...and it seems to me that winter is not as snowy as before. Might be a case of false childhood memories (in a positive way...or, is it?) Speaking of snow and ice and winter and global warming and all, I've recently discovered the photography of Ragnar Axelsson. What a treat! Well...at least, for me. So, if you want to see the snow and its people, have a look at his website."

Mike replies: Always happy to point to Ragnar's website. I've visited a number of times and enjoy it every time.

Open Mike: Spend Some Quality Time Multitasking

I got a bit of sardonic amusement from a commenter the other day who was worried that I'd turn TOP into an iPhone-only website. Right—like I could stay interested in just one thing. I can't even confine myself to just photography, and that's a pretty big tent.

If Apple came along and said, "We'll pay you $50,000 a year if you write about nothing but Apple products," I'd get called on the carpet within two months and fired within six. I couldn't write about iPhones exclusively if I had to.

One comment about the iPhone, though: Angry Birds bad. Angry Birds very, very bad.

People should realize, too, that my unfamiliarity with cellphones is no accident. I do enjoy the occasional telephone conversation with friends; there are a number of people I enjoy talking to (my friend Peter Turnley is a particularly companionable telephone conversationalist...in fact I think I've learned from him how to be better at it). But I often keep my home phone (my land line) turned off, and I don't intend to give my iPhone number to anyone but my son.

Perhaps this will be more explicable when you consider this: I like to concentrate.

Every age of humankind has stupid ideas and boneheaded conventions. Two of ours, in my opinion, are the ideas expressed by the words "multitasking" and "quality time." Both are complete B.S. in my opinion. "Quality time" is simply the answer to the question, "How do I feel better about not spending enough time with my kids?" The important thing with young kids is not quality time—it's time. Spend time with them even you think there's no purpose to it or there's nothing at all to do. Just being in their company counts. If you're on a drive with your kid and your attempts to make conversation fall flat, be comfortable riding along with them in silence. It's enough. The hell with the debased notion of "quality time" and all it really stands for, I say.

And as far as "multitasking" is concerned, I know it's a concept that's greatly beloved of those who like to feel busy and constantly in demand, and I'm not in charge of their lives or their outlook. But I say, don't multitask—do one thing at a time, concentrate on what you're doing, do it well, and then move on to the next thing. "Multitasking," to me, is another way of saying distracted, fragmented, and unfocused.

Anyway, you can probably imagine, given the above views, how I feel about carrying a cell phone and letting anyone who wants to do so interrupt me at any time no matter what I'm doing. To me it's like asking for junk mail or arranging for a parade of salesmen to come to my door and ring my doorbell...while I'm sleeping. An emphatic "no, thanks" to that from me.

Likewise, the suggestion that I could blog from a smartphone is almost...well, an insult. Writing anything, even something as trivial as a blog post, isn't a technical problem; it's a mental state. I could do the work with a pencil and a piece of paper if all the other conditions I require were met. The idea of doing it poking at a tiny glowing screen with one finger while I'm out driving or shopping is ridiculous. Does anyone really imagine so little effort goes into writing well?

/rant.

Java
So anyway. Back to a far-off-topic topic.

When last we left our discussion about coffee, I had bought a new coffee grinder (this one) and come to a new appreciation of the art of grinding. However, as my dear friend Gabi says, "coffee and OCD go together like bread and butter," so naturally I couldn't stop there. Right now I'm drinking a wonderful cup of faux "Mocha Java" that consists of Yemeni Mocha Harazi and Sumatra Mandheling Gayo Mountain Organic. The latter does a good job of approximating Java coffee. Very little arabica is grown on the Indonesian island of Java, the world's most populous island (yes, that takes into account Great Britain and Japan) since a rust plague killed off most of the original coffee stock in the 1880s. And the coffee I'm drinking was roasted 23 hours ago...by, um, me.

It turns out that coffee is very "darkroomy." It's really very similar in its craft aspects to darkroom work: you work carefully to stabilize some variables so you can usefully vary others according to your own tastes and aims. Ken Davids says that the difficulty of roasting your own coffee is "somewhere between boiling water and making a white sauce." Being no sort of cook, I'm not even quite sure what a white sauce is, exactly, so I'd say it's closer to boiling water. It's almost disappointingly easy.

Not being made of money, I bought a Behmor 1600, a coffee roaster invented by a guy named Joe Behm that's based on a Ronco rotisserie. Assuming small batches and medium roasts (both of which suit my preferences), there's nothing to it: you just watch the color, pay attention to the smell, look for smoke, and listen carefully to the beans, and it's easy to tell when they're done. I bought a Variac voltage regulator so I could be assured of a constant 120V, but I don't even think that's necessary unless you insist on roasting whole pounds, which I won't be doing. Cleanup takes less than two minutes.

Rates of extraction and total dissolved solids
Brewing coffee turns out to be highly susceptible to scientific analysis: the variables are the consistency of the grind (the finer the grind, the faster the extraction; the coarser the grind, the slower the extraction) and the extraction yield. The ideal ratio of coffee to water is well established at about 1:17, with a small range of variability according to taste and preference, and the degree of extraction is likewise well established: virtually everyone agrees that a cup of coffee tastes best when the percentage of extraction is between 18 and 22% (less, and the coffee tastes flavorless, more, and it tastes bitter) and the amount of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the cup is somewhere between 1.15 and 1.35% (less, and it tastes weak; more, and it's too strong).

Where within that window your own tastes lie is your own adventure, but I'm not going to sweat it. It's coffee: you drink it, and then it's gone.

One hitch is that a refractometer, which is the device you would use to measure TDS, costs about $285. I'm obsessive, but I'm not that obsessive. Fortunately, extraction yield and TDS are closely linked, and the coffee tells you when the TDS is "about right."

Finally, it turns out that brewing methods essentially describe a spectrum that goes from most flavor clarity and least body (the vacuum method I linked to two weeks ago is down at that end) to least flavor clarity and most body (French press is close to this other end). You make your pick along the spectrum according to your own taste—I'm currently using an AeroPress, which, interestingly I think, was invented by the same guy who invented the Aerobie.

I have to admit that I got so enamored of the Quest M3 coffee roaster made in Taiwan that I almost left the Behmor sealed in its box when it got here—I mean, really, the Quest M3 must be the Nikkormat FT3 of coffee roasters—but as soon as I got my tenth or twelfth roast with the Behmor the urge had faded to nothing. The Behmor just works fine, and I don't need anything else.

Quest M3, the Nikkormat FT3 of coffee roasters. Photo courtesy Coffee Shrub.

The only problem with all this? Just that two mugs of coffee every morning is still my limit, because I get overcaffeinated otherwise.

And I wouldn't want that, because being overcaffeinated affects...yep, my ability to concentrate.

Mike

P.S. Much of the information in this post, although it can be found in many places including various websites and web videos and published books, is usefully summarized in the slender volume Everything But Espresso: Professional Coffee Brewing Techniques by Scott Rao. He has another book that is mainly about espresso (but that also includes brewing techniques for tea), hence the title.

Open Mike is a series of Sunday posts by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that wander far afield. Or farther afield than usual.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Rene Theberge: "I was happy to see you referencing Scott Rao's book. I first met him when he opened his now locally famous coffee shop where I live (Amherst, Mass.). Since I was a regular there, we got to know each other a little bit and a more knowledgable person about coffee would be hard to find. After he sold his business, he went on to help others in the area start their own places."

Featured Comment by John Krill: "Last time I tried to multitask I walked into a lamppost. And that's the truth."

Featured Comment by Dave Chao: "I think you'll be happy to know, or you know already, that your rant about multitasking and it's effect on cognitive function has been scientifically backed up for the past 20+ years."

Featured Comment by James Liu: "Mike: A refractometer is the densitometer of coffee. Happy coffeeing. Keep me up to date."

Featured Comment by latent_image: "Absolute worst place to multi-task is behind the wheel of a car.

"Years ago I heard on the radio a driving safety instructor suggest that people turn off the car radio and stereo and curtail other distractions in order to drive with full attention. It's what I've done ever since, and I actually find it more relaxing. Sure, I might have the radio or stereo on softly on an uncrowded highway in good weather, but otherwise it's a damn fool who doesn't give full attention to the fact they're wrapped in a couple of tons of moving steel with the potential to create extreme mayhem in a split second. When I see a multi-tasking driver, I think: there goes someone who really doesn't give a damn if they run over a little kid in a crosswalk."

Mike replies: I'll go further: no food or drink in the car, ever. In fact I can go even further...I'm convinced I'm a better driver when I'm driving alone. Just slightly, but noticeably.

Featured Comment by beuler: "When my four-year-old asks me to play with him, he does not let me touch any of the toys. I just have to sit there and watch what he does. That's his idea of quality, and I can't disagree based on my own childhood memories."

Featured Comment by Antony Zmyślony: "A Zen master used to tell his students to be mindful of what they do, and his instructions are simply, 'When you read, just read. When you eat, just eat.' One day when his students came down to the breakfast hall, they saw their Zen master reading the newspaper over breakfast. One horrified student approached the Zen master and asked, 'Master, how can you read the paper while having breakfast? You always teach us, "When you read, just read. When you eat, just eat"?' The Zen master smiled and said simply, 'When you eat and read, just eat and read,' and then went back to reading the paper over his breakfast. (Via this link.)"

Featured Comment by David: "Hey—if it weren't for multitasking I'd never have time to read this blog! (What? No one wanted to say it?) ;-) ."

Featured Comment by charlie: "That is the fastest transformation to coffee nerd ever recorded. I might need to try the Aeropress. Happy New Year Mike and everyone...."

Where Are They?

By Ctein

Okay, so my "keeping the 'X' (as in, the unknown) in 'Xmas'" column normally appears the week of the solstice. There's a good reason it's a week late this year.

I forgot.

When I did remember, I had already done my "Art of Tea" column and didn't want to run two off-topic columns in a row, so I put this off another week. Consequently, a somewhat delayed Salubrious Solstice to you all. Now off we go, into the wild blue yonder.

The title of this column is a quote from Enrico Fermi, infamously referred to as the "Fermi Paradox." The infamy lies in the fact that it is not anything like a paradox; it is simply a statement of utter ignorance. Why that is so will be the topic of this week's column.

The Fermi question concisely goes like this: there are tens of billions of planetary systems in this galaxy alone, thousands of quintillions in the observable universe. Even if only 1% of those develop life, even if only 1% of those life bearing planets develop intelligent life, even if only 1% of those intelligent life forms develop advanced technology, that's a heck of a lot of technologically-advanced, intelligent species out there. Furthermore, based upon the single data sample we have, it takes less than one third the age of the universe to go from a coalescing cloud of gas to an advanced technological intelligence. There's been plenty of time for other intelligences to evolve, several times over, and to advance far beyond us.

So far, though, we've seen no broadly-convincing evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence—and it ought to be pretty obvious. Hence the paradox.

Except it's not really a paradox. That word assumes we understand the situation well enough to see a logical contradiction. Let me illustrate. If I become reasonably convinced that millions of people every year travel by airplane, but every airport I visit and every airplane I inspect is empty of people, then I've got a logical problem. I understand air travel well enough to know that these two observations—millions of travelers, and empty airports—aren't compatible. Something must be wrong in my assumption.

But try this one on: if a god (or gods) exists, she can certainly work miracles. Yet, as I walk through the world, it does not seem to be lousy with self-evident, irrefutable miracles. So, obviously there are no gods.

Well, anyone above the grade school level can poke holes in that logic. It assumes you actually have some idea of what a god would think, what she would want to do, what would be her motivation for having created the whole shebang in the first place, etc. Most everybody with a lick of sense, whether or not they believe in a god(s), full well understands that there is no possible way they could have any idea how a god would think. You can't disprove the existence of deities by looking at an absence of miracles, because you have no way to conclude that commonplace miracles are an inevitable consequence of godhood.

The Fermi question is much more like the second than the first. To assume that advanced technological intelligence leads to either a signal, or interstellar travel, that we would recognize as such (that's important) requires making a huge number of unproven and untested assumptions about the physical universe and about what intelligence wants and does. You can create almost any scenario you want to imagine to explain the lack of observable data and at our current level of knowledge it is just as probable as any other scenario. Anything could be true. No thing in particular is very likely to be.

There is one data point we do all know something about: almost everything humans do makes no sense in any abstract, logical way. The overwhelming majority of our time, energy, and resources go into activities that cannot be explained as a consequence of intelligence. They aren't even behaviors that are typical of all species on Earth (although they aren't necessarily unique to ours). We are chock-full of species-specific behaviors that can be explained after the fact but couldn't be predicted purely on the basis of intelligence and certainly weren't inevitable on the basis of biology or evolution. They are just how we work.

Not every human being is subject to all these impulses. A sufficient majority are, across time and space, that it's pretty safe to say they're characteristic of human beings as a species. Individual exceptions noted: Dear Reader, this is not about you. Let me regale you with a short and highly incomplete list. (I intentionally leave out a couple of very obvious biggies, because I don't need them to make the point; I can do it entirely with "trivialities.")

1) Body ornamentation and decoration. Not limited to such things as jewelry or tattoos; includes hairstyling, makeup, clothes or fashion sense of any sort, whatever. All the stuff that goes into making you decide that you "look good" when you face other people.

Imagine how much time and money are expended by every man, woman, and child because they don't feel it is sufficient to simply wash up occasionally and throw on a gunnysack.

2) Food "composition," for lack of a better term. Cats find food that they can play with appetizing, but they sure don't seem to care much how it looks; we'd rather it sat still but are terribly sensitive to the aesthetics. At the high end we have things like sushi; that the low end we have the wonderful cliché movie images of slop being splashed into a tray in a military mess or high school cafeteria line. Makes you lose your appetite just thinking about it, doesn't it?

3) Acquisitiveness. The packrat instinct. Collecting, acquiring, hoarding of any sort far beyond what one can reasonably use within a reasonable period of time. It may be all those books you don't throw out, even though you're hardly likely to read them again. Or all the music you own, regardless of form and format; videotapes, DVDs, stamps, coins, barbwire, cameras or lenses that you haven't picked up in years but you might, you think. Clothing you never wear, furniture stored in the attic along with an extra set of dishes because, well, you never know. Think of how much smaller (and less expensive!) a living space you could dwell in if you limited your ownership to things you might reasonably need in the foreseeable future.

4) Pets. 'Nough said?

5) Real property/territory. Lots of species seem to do just fine without the concept of my/your real estate. Not humans. (Yes, a minority of cultures have explicitly rejected the concept of land ownership but (a) they are not the norm and (b) if the impulse weren't there, there wouldn't be a need to reject it.

6) Religious impulse. Note that this is not the same as theology. The existence (or not) of gods and the inclination to believe in (or not) gods are entirely separate. Humans are intelligent and humans have religious impulse but we have no special reason to think that one is a consequence of the other. It just is.

Now tally it all up. How much of your life, of the totality of society, is consumed and defined by satisfying one or more of these species-specific impulses?

Overwhelmingly, almost every aspect of our lives is driven by this arbitrary set of inclinations that have no connection we understand to technological intelligence. We imagine that the nature and actions of hypothetical advanced civilizations can be rationally discussed and analyzed, yet most of our own is based upon characteristics that have no rationally-predictable basis for existence. They simply are.

We think we can even start to talk sensibly about the Fermi question as being a "paradox?" We don't know enough to make sense out of ourselves. We certainly don't have clues about anyone else.

To paraphrase Pogo, "We have met the X and he is us."

Ctein

Every year around this time, TOP columnist Ctein (it's his only name, and is pronounced "kuh-TINE") puts the X in Xmas.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by icexe: "Our great advancements in intelligence and technology might simply be meaningless to any far more advanced civilizations out there. Here's an example: There may be a colony of ants living under a rotted tree stump somewhere in the Amazon jungle who consider themselves the master of all they see around them. They have conquered and controlled the world they know. They may even be on a quest to find other 'intelligent' beings like themselves, but so far to no avail. Yet, unbeknownst to them, they share an entire planet with humans, who are thousands of times more intelligent and advanced, who are fully aware that such a thing as ants exist, but who simply don't care enough to ever bother looking for more of them under some random tree stump in some random corner of the world. And even if by the greatest of random chance some humans did stumble upon their nest, any attempt to communicate would be on a level completely unknown and undecipherable to both humans and ants."

Featured Comment by Alastair Smith: "As so often, XKCD put it nicely."

Featured Comment by Trevor Small: "No paradox. The reason we've seen no signs of intelligent life is that Earth is under quarantine. Out there, somewhere, is a whopping great sign that says 'KEEP OUT. INFECTIOUS DISEASE RISK. EARTH HAS HUMANS. HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS.' Or the alien equivalent. Kind of makes you feel proud of our virility, doesn't it."

Featured Comment by Mark L: "There is no doubt that there are more advanced civilations. The odds are stacked against this not being the case. The only questions are: 1) Do they know we are here and 2) what will their intentions be when they know. Let's hope that deep fried human being is not some advanced alien delicacy. And hope that a Canon 1DS can split their exoskeletal big cranium in half if they come for us!"

Featured Comment by Zeeman: "Since this is a photography site, the following begs to be added to Ctein's list of human impulses: 7) The aesthetic impulse, which drives us every day to seek or create what is beautiful. However, given the acquisitiveness of current shutterbugs, it might be that this will eventually converge with #3. Also, given the propensity of acquisitive shutterbugs to worship one among a limited pantheon of deities named Canon, Nikon, etc., the aesthetic impulse might also be headed towards convergence with religion. Now that is scarier than most alien invasion stories."

Featured Comment by Wil: "Jeez, I read to the end of that long article only to find, I don't give a damn."

Featured Comment by Skip Davis: "Sorry I am so late to comment, I was just so taken by this post that I had to think on it a bit. This one post was worth reading this site all year.... There are a lot of things to think about because of it. I am going for a long bike ride today just to enjoy this paradox called life."

Music Notes: Worst Album Covers of 2011

Reblogged*. If you're a visual person, which I was certainly born as, all manner of visual things matter to you. Art, the world, animals and people, on and on, can't escape it.

Here's the link—it's on Brightest Young Things and was written by John Foster of Bad People Good Things, and comes to me via my eFriend-I've-Never-Met Bob Burnett of GVI.

It's indulgent to criticize the worst of things and more difficult to showcase the best—but still fun. Shown up top is, well (damn), the winner. We all love Kate Bush, and we're happy she's back once again, and I admire the chutzpah of a comeback album on which the shortest cut times in at 6:48 (the longest is 13:32—Kate's recent influences must include Joanna Newsom's ya-love-it-or-ya-hate-it "Ys" [which has a great album cover—fits the music perfectly]. Talk about your meanders.) But a half-snowman/half-man eating the face of a supplicating female rendered in snow has got to take the palm for most excruciating idea in music graphic arts for 2011, and possibly a handful of years on either side. I mean, can we give it the Worst of 2012 and 2013 award too? One can but hope.

eFriend Bobby B. is never not interesting. Merry merry, spry young atheist.

Two perfect piano sonatas
Having stayed up way too late last night making close comparisons of numerous Beethoven piano sonatas (not a usual preoccupation for me, although I've been listening to classical piano music for many years now), I thought I might take a moment, while we're on "music notes," to add a recommendation for two of the most dazzling, transcendent Beethoven sonata recordings ever made. Two that no one should miss. Might be useful to people who don't normally listen to Beethoven. Or classical music.

The first is Emil Gilels' "Waldstein" sonata. Just one of the most amazing piano performances ever caught on tape. I don't really like the other two performances on the record—Gilels' Appassionata is a bit suspect, almost ugly in places—but if there was ever a more flowing, virtuosic Waldstein, I have yet to hear it.

Now that's a great record cover**.

The second is Alfred Brendel's "Pathétique" sonata. Brendel is not the first pianist one thinks of as a Beethovenian, I realize. And Beethoven's piano music has been described as "better music than can be played***," which I think is just another way of saying it doesn't really lend itself to being played well. Sample a whole bunch of recordings by various candidates, and that becomes obvious. When a great pianist judges it just right—and it happens all too rarely—is when the magic in the art is revealed.

I should add that while I know there are great historical performances of both of these sonatas, I just prefer to listen to good modern recordings of piano sound—old, scratchy, distant, fluttery transfers from shellacs or whatever just don't do it for me, no matter how allegedly important the performance. There, predudice confessed.

Both are also available on iTunes, and probably elsewhere as well.

Mike

*The only word in English uglier than "blog."

**That picture says, "world-renowned artist—or the sketchy quiet guy who lives in the basement apartment two doors down?"

***Which might be literally true of the "Appassionata" sonata.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Open Mike: Food and Drink

When I posted about my failed 2011 New Year's Resolution the other day (in Tea, or Coffee?), various people asked me about the progress of my great diet experiment. It's a trifle excruciating—seems arrogant, even—to presume anyone is interested in such a quotidian personal issue, but people are asking, so here's the update anyway.

OT: Syphon Brewing Coffee

I've been geeking out over coffee since yesterday, which is fun. The coolest thing I've been finding out about is vacuum-brewing or siphon- (also spelled "syphon-") brewing. There are a lot of bad videos of the process in action. In this good one, Chris Owens, a barista at Intelligentsia in Venice, California, demonstrates the process, which, you have to admit, has a pleasing mad-scientist aura about it.

Syphon, Intelligentsia from The D4D on Vimeo.

Vacuum brewing was invented in Germany around the same time photography was invented, and became very popular in America in the middle of the 20th century. (There are many antique siphon sets available on eBay.) It fell mostly out of favor because instant coffee and drip machines with hotplates were (what else?) more convenient. It's been making a modest comeback lately, or so I've read.

And, on topic, the video was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II.

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Jon Peterson: "I use a siphon at home, and a French press at work. The siphon is a beautiful design, works great—and is not for the clumsy, as the glass portions are, well, glass. It produces a cleaner cup than the French Press, ideal for some of the bright, fruity African beans. "For me, coffee drinking is all about the chase. About a year ago I bought a pound of Rwandan coffee that was by far the best coffee I've ever had. I roasted it myself, using most of my stash to dial in the perfect roast. And when that was done? Rather than mourn the loss of a perfect cup, the chase starts again! At the moment I'm working through a batch from Kenya. Only so-so, meaning it's only a hundred times better than Starbucks.

"Oh, and the time commitment for this pleasure? Twenty-five minutes a week to roast (including setup and cleanup), plus the time to grind and brew each cup. Life is good."

Mike asks: How do you roast your beans? (That sounds like the setup for a punchline, but it's not, I'm just curious.)

Jon replies: "I use a Gene Cafe air roaster. Recommended by the good folks at Bull Run Roasting in Minneapolis. They do wholesale stuff, but there was a brief period when they were selling to the public. I figured if it was good enough for home use by one of the roasters, it was good enough for me!"

Featured Comment by Zalman Stern: "Two thirds of the core Adobe Camera Raw engineering team roast their own coffee and the other third is extremely serious about tea.

"I roast with a Hot Top miniature drum roaster, which is a very well made appliance but on the high end side for home roasting. Previously I wore out an iRoast 2, which is like a heavy duty version of one of those air pop popcorn poppers from days gone by and roasts the coffee in a stream of very hot air. One can also roast on the stove in a cast iron frying pan or use one of many homemade roaster designs. In any event, one needs very good ventilation or a way to do the roasting outside.

"Sweet Maria's Coffee sells roasters, green coffee, and has a ton of info about the process and art of coffee roasting. (They also sell a variety of coffee makers, though they use the term 'vacuum brewing' rather than 'siphon.') The best part for me is I always drink freshly roasted coffee and can switch to a different 'varietal' every few days. Green coffee lasts for about a year so one can arrange to never run out as well, which I find important :-)

"Per Jon's comment, the Rwanda Gkongoro Nyarusiza from Sweet Maria's was the best best coffee I've ever had."

Featured Comment by Ruud van Ruitenbeek: "I fail to be convinced that there is a difference between the cafetiere [сafetière à piston, or French press —Ed.] and the syphon method. If someone can give me a scientifically argued case for the syphon I might be tempted, as I like the laboratory look!"

Mike replies: I'd guess that French press lets more sediment through, which is the reason I don't like it—I'm averse to sediment in my coffee. But I'm with you anyway Ruud—I don't see why the siphon method is fundamentally any different than pour-over in a paper cone in filter holder, which is what I've always used. You mix the coffee and the water and then strain the grounds out, right? So why are vacuum methods any different in terms of the final result?

I can see siphon or vacuum brewing in a glass coffeemaker as being an entertaining conversation starter at a small table of a few friends, but beyond that, like you, I'm mystified as to the appeal.

Reply from Dan: "Allowing an analogy to audio systems, siphon brewing creates a 'frowny-face' EQ—coffee that has its acidic, bright high notes and dark, bitter low notes muted, leaving a mellow and fruity middle. It's best suited for light to medium roasted beans—beans that have barely started the caramelization process that is the signature of a dark, Italian or French roast. You can achieve similar tasting coffee with a simple pourover paper drip brewer.

"As other commentators have noted, you won't get the dark, punchy coffee you would get with a French Press—siphon coffee is very 'polite.' It's the method you use when you want to impress your friends—though they may expect more from the resulting cup."

Featured [partial] Comment by Zeeman: "Like cameras, the best brewing method is the one you actually use."

Featured Comment by Robert Spoecker: "Geez, I make my coffee by putting a decaf coffee bag into a cup of cold water and microwaving it for about two minutes. Please don't tell Chris Owens."

Featured Comment by David Hassler: "If you don't want to go the self-roasting route, Chris Owens and Michael Phillips left Intelligentsia to start their own roaster, Handsome Coffee [in Los Angeles —Ed.]. They are doing an amazing job with the roasts. Me, I've stuck with the Aeropress, instead of going full-crazy with something like the siphon. I find a great amount of pleasure in brewing a cup of coffee that has a completely unique flavor from anything I previously tried."

Featured Comment by Paul Glover: "I'm already shooting medium-format black-and-white film in a 52-year-old Yashica TLR and considering trying some of the Adox/Efke old-school emulsions. I'm trying really hard to not get back into having a record collection on vinyl. Now you hit me, in short succession, with tea geekery and coffee geekery. Like I need any more geekery! Seriously though, an interesting topic. There's more to coffee than the stuff you buy at the supermarket.

"As for instant coffee, the only use for it is as a component in Caffenol."

[Editor's note: Caffenol is a coffee-based film developer. Apropos of that, I think I published the first modern article on coffee developers, in Photo Techniques, when I was editor there. The article was written by the wonderful Patrick Gainer, who would periodically blow things up on his wife's kitchen stove in their house high on a mountaintop in West Virginia. Pat also experimented with modern vitamin C developers before almost anyone else in remotely contemporary times was doing anything with those. Great guy. And not a half bad photographer, either. —Mike]

Featured Comment by Stan B.: "Always found it amazing how the cappuccino throughout Italy is a veritable holiday within itself. Don't think I ever had a cup there that wasn't beyond belief, whether in a café, a railroad station, a neighborhood dive—it always made you pause and give thanks."

Featured Comment by Jim Henry: "I have a friend who owns Metropolis Coffee in Chicago. They do their own roasting and blending, make trips overseas to coffee growers to get the right beans and do the right thing, etc.

"You can order a variety of types online and they will ship it to you that day or the next.  So you are brewing your coffee within 2–4 days of its being roasted.  This, I am told, and believe, is more important than the details of whether you are pushing or pulling the water through the coffee.

"I use a French press and you can see the freshness of the coffee as the hot water hits the grounds and an active bubbling occurs.

"Try them if you're curious.

"That's my friend Jeff (owner) in the middle picture on the home page, holding the beans in his hands. I get no commission and I order from him regularly."

Featured Comment by Bill Mitchell: "The only really important siphon is the Kodak Tray Siphon."

OT: The Art of Tea

This is my tea shelf. You can only see about half of what I have; the jars are ranked three rows deep. The cardboard and paper packages contain my
pu-erh bings; the rest are various looseleaf teas in airtight jars.

By Ctein

Once again, we wander far afield from photography. If my off-topic columns are not your cup of...(oh, I can't say it), skip this column and tune in again next week.

My off-topic topic is tea. Expect several columns on this, because I'm a real tea geek. No, I'm not an expert, just a geek. I do not have a seriously refined palate and I don't know most of the descriptive vocabulary. I just really, really like my tea, and I insist upon good tea.

Tea's my major extravagance (other than living in the San Francisco Bay Area). I live on the stuff. Don't like coffee (except iced, when it's hot out). I can't abide the taste of alcohol, I don't smoke, and I've not used any drugs except theobromine. I am an effete, intellectual, elitist teetotaler, and I raise my pinky in your direction.

Lipton's, or one of its brethren, packaged in little tissue paper bags, thrown in a cup, boiling water poured over it, and steep until it's dead? That's the tea equivalent the coffee that's been sitting in the pot at your local gas station since ungodly-A.M. in the morning. It's no wonder you have to load it with mega-amounts of lemon or milk and sugar to make it palatable.

Good tea, properly brewed, is another matter. For a start, "properly brewed" generally means no boiling water (unless it's a pu-erh). Pouring boiling water on tea is a lot like making coffee by tossing the grounds in a saucepan of boiling water and cooking it for a while.

Depending on the tea, the proper brewing temperature may be anywhere between 140 and 190°F (60–90°C). Not that there's one right way to make tea. In my various books, I've seen brewing instructions for the same delicate green tea that went from 140° for 90 seconds up to 165° for 3–5 min. Still, a far cry from boiling water.

Speaking of brewing, here's a handy trick if you're caffeine-sensitive. My housemate, Paula, is very much so, as are several friends. They testify that this works. Take those unbrewed tea leaves and pour hot water on them for 30-45 seconds. Pour off that brew and toss it. Ninety percent of the caffeine goes away in that first infusion.

(Important: the results may vary considerably with the tea. While I have found this to work reliably, if caffeine is severely contraindicated for you for medical reasons, do not rely on this!)

My tea preferences lean towards the Japanese and Chinese teas, mostly greens, wulongs, and pu-erhs. Most of it costs real money. Tea prices have skyrocketed this century. Ten years ago I had an absolute upper limit of $100 a pound for tea. These days I often spend several times that, although I've discovered some wonderful and excellent teas in the $10–$50/lb. range.

Even at double digits per ounce, tea is still a remarkably cheap beverage. I describe it as an extravagance, but I'd be surprised if I spend over a dollar a day on tea and I drink about a liter a day. I need only a gram or two of high-quality tea in an individual infuser; 20 portions from an ounce is normal. I get anywhere from three to eight infusions from one portion. Compare that to the price of Starbucks, or even your local gas station coffee.

This just has to be the world's greatest tea infuser. The owners of Aroma gave me one after making a large purchase at their shop; it changed my life.

How do I brew tea? I am like a total fan of the individual PIAO 1 infuser. It makes brewing a fresh cuppa easy, no fuss and very little muss, and it's fun to play with. Measure in a teaspoon or so of leaf. Pour in water of the appropriate temperature. Let it steep for the appropriate time. Push the little button on the top and a ball valve at the bottom opens and filtered tea flows into the container. The leaf remains in the top part of the infuser.

Where do you get good tea? There are some good mail-order companies, especially ones that specialize in certain types of teas. For general offerings of all varieties and nationalities, I think Uptons is by far the best. Their catalogs are wonderful and informative. That's where I learned the decaffeination trick. You'll also learn what all the terms of art mean (Lipton's famous "flowery orange pekoe" is not some fancy varietal, it merely denotes a rather low grade of tea quality).

Unfortunately, while they're really quality teas, their tasters just don't have the same palette as I do. Consequently, I don't buy a lot from them. The very best thing about Upton is that they have small sampler packs (good for 2–3 pots) for just a few dollars apiece, so for not very much money I can try a whole lot of different teas. I regularly get samples from Upton to check out and every so often I hit on a winner, like their gyokuro kenjyo.

Most of my buying is from local fine tea shops that I visit, using the word "local" rather loosely. Here are my personal favorites:

San Francisco—Aroma—Haymen Da Luz and Ying Wu

San Francisco—Imperial Tea Court—Roy Fong

St. Paul—Tea source—Bill Waddington

Montréal—Cha Guan: La Maison du The—Daniel Ng

They all do mail-order, but the nice thing about shopping in person is that you can smell teas, often order a pot of something you want to try out, and discuss your tastes and preferences with the clerks and proprietors. Mail order, you're kind of working blind, until the proprietor gets to know your tastes. Look for one in your own city and you'll discover that a good tea shop is like a good bookstore; the proprietor will be knowledgeable, helpful, and enthusiastic about finding teas that you will especially like.

When I revisit this topic, I'll clue you in on those mysterious pu-erhs I mentioned. They are among my favorites. They were illegal in the U.S. 20 years ago and most people still don't know about them. They're simultaneously the biggest and most affordable bargains in the tea world along with being the easiest way to blow your entire family fortune. How's that for a teaser?

•     •     •

You must buy this holiday music. What does this have to do with the subject of the column? Well, Franks's first major album was "The Art Of Tea."

And now a quick free-associational, seasonal segue.

"The Art of Tea," from which I lifted this column's title, was jazzy singer-songwriter Michael Franks' second album. His "Watching the Snow" is my favorite.

Best. Holiday. Album. Ever.

Not even close to your usual psuedo-carolly, excessively-treacly fare. It plays well year-round. Check it out.

Ctein

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Emily Cartier: "Sad, we can't share a pot. I much prefer black teas. I'm not terribly fussy about which exact tea garden grew it. If it's black, chances are there will be interesting flavors, and I'll be happy to drink it. Maybe we could share some herbal tisane instead? I am pretty flexible in my tastes there as well, tho' I have an abiding fondness for chamomile."

Featured Comment by KeithB: "I would have thought that you would like 'Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.'" [The favored drink of Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." —Ed.]

Featured Comment by Benjamin R. George: "I have to take exception to this generalization that 'properly brewed' tea generally means no boiling water. Green, white, and oolong teas are often ruined by boiling water, but many non-pu-erh black teas are great with it. Since you don't drink a lot of black tea, this is of little interest for you, but your readers should know that your advice is not fully general."

Featured Comment by Roger Bradbury: "I have to have two cups of tea every morning to raise my I.Q. above single figures."

Featured Comment by Robert Roaldi: "Another good Holiday album is 'The Bells of Dublin,' by the Chieftains, on which they host many guest artists."

Featured Comment by Gavin McLelland: "Mmm..I prefer the darker teas—I have always loved Lapsang Souchong—the smokey flavour goes so well with dates. Quite a treat."

Featured Comment by Richard Man: "Ctein, as you may remember, I drink a lot of tea myself. I'm glad to see a refreshing cup of, um, article this morning :-). As for the vast fortune wasted on Pu Erh, that's indeed quite a story. I won't spoiler it. Capitalism at its 'finest.' There are lots of stories about tea of course, but this is a fun one: all the tea, whether it's green or black, are from the same species of the plant. Green is unroasted while black tea is roasted and sometimes fermented (pu-erh). One of my favorite is Jasmine gunpowder. Strong and bold flavor. I confess that there is one tea that I could not like—the Lapsang Souchong—too much like drinking burnt BBQ wood, which is pretty much what it is :-)."

Featured Comment by Arne Croell: "Throwing away the first short brew was actually the standard procedure during several tastings in Chinese tea shops (Shanghai and Tunxi) that I had last year. The explanation at that time was not the reduction of caffeine but that the first infusion has a rough taste and the best flavor comes out actually in the third steeping (both for green teas and Oolongs). We could taste test side by side the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th steeping of several teas and the change of the flavors was certainly there. Personally, after trying out many teas in the last 39 years (I became a heavy tea drinker at 15), I've settled on Darjeeling first flush teas from certain plantations as my favorites."

Featured Comment by Willem: "This book really was my cup of tea: The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide by Heiss & Heiss."

 

Apropos of Nothing

I wonder who's made the funniest one of these?

 

Mike

ADDENDUM: This seems to have confused a few people. Wikipedia is in the throes of its regular PBS-like fundraising drive. Lately, doubtless driven by research that says people are more willing to give aid when the the needy organization is given a face, it's been featuring a face at the top of the page—the face of the person that is supposedly making the pitch. The problem is that then, whenever you look up anything, the title of the article appears directly below the random imploring face, as if it were the caption of an illustration. Being visual by nature, I find it disorienting and irritating. I'd rather they put a flashing ad on every page and be done with it. 

I'm just sayin'...

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

An Afternoon at Soldier Field

From time to time I get to get out of the house and meet actual TOP readers in the flesh, which is always nice for a change. This year it's clearly my year for football; I got to attend the Perfect Packer Game earlier in the year, and this past weekend I was invited by a photographer and TOP reader named Michael McCaskey to attend a Chicago Bears game. That's where I've been these past couple of days.

Michael is obviously a true Bears fan; the depth of his knowlege about the team is pretty extraordinary. He must go to a fair number of games, too—it seemed like he and his wife Nancy knew a lot of the other people in the stands, and vice versa.

In fact, for a photographer, Michael seems to know an awful lot about football, period. Throughout the game, almost offhandedly, he would make these incisive comments about the the plays and the players that I just wasn't seeing—and he was right every time, seemed to me. It was almost like he knew the players personally or something.

Not only that, but for some reason he had a great deal of insider information about the design and construction of the new Soldier Field, too. (It opened in 2003.)

Soldier Field is radical enough architectually to have had its critics, but I feel certain that in time it will become deeply beloved as a civic landmark. Everything thought through afresh has its critics at first; you probably know John Rewald's wonderful accounts of the lovers and haters of Impressionism when that style of painting was new, and don't forget that the Eiffel Tower was excoriated as an "eyesore" by many Parisians when it was alien to the skyline they knew! I doubt many Parisians feel that way now.

The reason I like Soldier Field is in part that it stands 70 years of modern architectural tradition on its head. At least since Frank Lloyd Wright* it has become commonplace for "statement" architecture to ignore function in favor of form—buildings become, essentially, sculpture, and never mind what they're meant for. (this is my main criticism of the otherwise fabulous Calatrava Addition at MAM—Milwaukee's "landmark by the lake." It's great as bold civic symbolism and architectural sculpture; it's just not that great as a place to display art.) Michael wanted the new Soldier Field to be a great place to watch football, and it was designed with the fans in every corner of it foremost in mind. After it was built, Michael watched games from every section of the stadium to experience the game and talk to the fans there. Despite being at the other end of the spectrum from the near-antique and admittedly hallowed Lambeau, it gives up nothing in small size and closeness to the action—it's truly just as great a place to watch football.

(Granted, we had good seats. I was just bein' funny above, of course, as any football fan or Chicagoan knows already—photography is only Michael McCaskey's third career. In his first he was a professor at the Business Schools of UCLA and Harvard, and during the second he served first as President and then Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Bears. He retired last May.)

Nancy and Michael McCaskey and Mike J. at the Bears game.
Photo by Charlie Johnston.

Anyway, I now think any Chicagoans who still don't like the c. 2003 Soldier Field probably simply aren't "seeing" it yet. They'll come to love it as they experience it—as it was meant to be experienced, from the inside, watching talented guys in funny suits collide. I reserve the right to love Lambeau better (team loyalty is the first requirement of any football fan, isn't it?), but I agree with architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, who named Soldier Field one of the five best buildings of 2003. I think it's already become one of my favorite buildings. I like it as architecture, but it's when it's fulfilling its function that its truest beauty emerges. Perfect place to watch a game.

And as for the game? I suppose it could have been better—the Bears could have won. But, to paraphrase my Bears-fan brother Charlie (who came along too, at Michael and Nancy's invitation), "A bad day watching the Bears at Soldier Field is better than a good day doing almost anything else." Great fun. My thanks again to Michael McCaskey, photographer.

Mike

*Notoriously, the ceilings often leaked in Wright houses, and they were hard to live in in other ways.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by James Liu: "Mike, Team loyalty comes first. You're supposed to want the Bears to lose in almost all circumstances. And I say this as a Bears fan. Though this year, it hardly matters to the Packers what the Bears do. And photographer Michael McCaskey knowing a lot about the Bears? And having good seats at the Bears game? Ya think? For the record, I like the new Soldier Field too. It says so much about Chicago architecture, from Burnham through Mies and beyond."

Mike replies: Actually, I lived in Chicago for five years and rooted for the Bears. And Charlie and I have a pact: he roots for the Packers except when their success would be at the expense of the Bears in any way, and I root for the Bears except when their success would be at the expense of the Packers in any way. If the Packers were out of the post season and the Bears were in it, I'd call Charlie and say "I'm a Bears fan now." He's the same with the Pack, despite bleeding Bear blue. I was genuinely rooting for them on Sunday, sorry they lost—and very sorry Matt Forte was injured.

Featured Comment by ILTim: "I've been to two games since the renovation, seat one, row 1 on the 50 yard line (how I got those tickets, free, I'll never know), and one game from the very highest nosebleeds off in a corner.

"I don't like that they sold this as a kind of continuation of Soldier Field; the old digs are gone baby, long gone. But as a new stadium it is marvelous. I especially love how you walk in and find yourself on that main concourse, darn near on the field, sheer canyon walls rising high above blotting out the sky bristling with Bears fans.

"The nosebleed section is remarkably steep. I once grabbed the armrest because I turned my head too fast and felt like I was falling. I thought I'd fall flat on the field from where I was. The view was still darn good."

Featured Comment by Ed Hawco: "Regarding form for function, the Guggenheim in New York opened to much criticism, including complaints that the low ceilings could not accomodate large paintings. Frank Lloyd Wright supposedly retorted 'then cut them in half!'"

Open Mike: Treasures of iTunes

In the Great Digitization, it's become commonplace for great treasures from the vinyl age to suddenly appear naked and vulnerable to purchase by the blithest neophyte. Scratching the surface, here are just a few little-acknowledged masterpieces that once were the venerated objects of search crusades by those deep in the know but can now be downloaded for a mere few bucks by anybody.

Feel free to add to the list if you have your own candidates.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Will the Circle Be Unbroken. A seminal masterpiece of country rock, the real thing compared to the bands that merely used country to inflect their pop-rock, "May The Circle Be Unbroken" is the document of a legitimate summit—an attempt at reconciliation between younger bluegrass and country musicians soaked in the revolutionary hippie ethos and older, more traditional musicians who were conservative by nature and deeply suspecious of anyone with long hair. Originally a triple album on vinyl, the record documents a week-long meeting to make music, and most of the tracks were recorded on the first or second take on two-track, with no overdubs or splices. The two "sides" never really get over their mistrust, but they make great music together. Featuring Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, Brother Oswald, Doc Watson, and Mother Maybelle Carter. The mountain inflections are real, and the music has an authenticity that "country" music (which now mainly means "whites-only pop") now sorely lacks. At a time when the deepest rifts in America were generational, it was the first real country music that many younger rock fans had ever heard. Just as the once-popular vinyl was becoming really rare, the album made its way on to CD in 2002. You can find it here. 

Track to sample: "Dark as a Dungeon" (Merle Travis).

Can, Tago Mago. Holger Czukay's experimental German avant-garde band Can was never easy to find "on this side of the pond" as they say. My friend Kim, a legendary late-night dj on D.C.'s once-underground WHFS, introduced to me to this as he has introduced me to so much else. "Tago Mago" is Can's third album and one of its most accessible. Uncomfortably pigeonholed as part of the "krautrock" genre exemplified by early electronica bands such as Kraftwerk and Amon Düül II, Can never really fit the slot: their music is improvisatory, hallucinatory, atmospheric, constructed, always adventurous and probing. "Tago Mago" was influential on a wide variety of bands from The Sex Pistols to Radiohead, and yet might be more listenable now than it was back when it was hard to find. Note that the 40th Anniversary Edition of the CD is a deluxe production with many extras (including, unfortunately, a poorly recorded live CD you should ignore).

Track to sample: "Bring Me Coffee or Tea."

Sonny Stitt with Barry Harris, Tune Up! + Constellation (okay, this one's not actually on iTunes—I just thought it was—but it's on CD, and can be purchased here. I have the Gambit / Fresh Sounds Records reissue). To be controversial, I sometimes rate Sonny Stitt higher than John Coltrane in the pantheon of jazz saxophonists. There's a glint of truth behind that. Coltrane's vaunted "sheets of sound" never particularly moved me (I know it thrills some people to the bone), and I've never been 100% convinced by his tone. Stitt has nowhere near the reputation and rates a weak flicker on the cool-O-meter by comparison, but to me he's the true heir of Charlie Parker. The two Cobblestone records, "Tune Up!" and "Constellation," recorded late in his life and career, were a refreshing blast of "roots" bebop from a time when most jazz musicians, drowning under the rock tsunami, were trying anything to accommodate. These were once so rare that aficionados would spend years tracking them down.

Track to sample: "A Ghost of a Chance."

Sviatoslav Richter in the 1950s, volume 1. The great Richter has always had an elusive, legendary numen, despite being a protean recording artist, probably because he made such an impression when his recordings first emerged into the West from behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s—and because he disliked to travel. At his death perhaps no pianist had more artistic authority associated to his name. I can't speak for real classical collectors here, but before the rare Parnassus set came out in the 1990s, it was difficult for civilians to find an early recording of Richter playing the Seventh Sonata of Sergei Prokofiev, which Prokofiev wrote for Richter. Now? Anybody can click on it in iTunes. It's not even expensive, which seems just...wrong, somehow. The CD costs two and a half times as much.

Track to sample: the first (the Quarrel from Cinderella).

Neil Young, On the Beach. Neil Young is nothing if not quirky. For reasons that as far as I know have never been explained, for many, many years he refused to release "On the Beach"—one of the greatest albums of his early, depressive period and possibly the best single album of his career (the album is the middle of the so-called "Ditch Trilogy")—on CD. Some people have forgotten (and younger people may not know) how conventional it was in the early days of digital music, when CDs were still scarce, for people to say they wouldn't switch to CDs because "most of the music I listen to will never be available on CD." The opposite has generally been closer to the truth—CD, and now downloads, have rescued from the fathomless depths of record company vaults tens of thousands of recordings that would have gone in and out of print on vinyl only to become rare and sought after and fought over for years by the indefatigable collector. In this one case, however, the early vinylist was right. For twenty years, collectors hoped in vain to get this in digital form, and furtively traded bootlegs recorded from vinyl and encoded on homemade CD-Rs. Now? Available at a click on iTunes for eight dollars. Not even full price. You can get the CD, too. Of course, don't go looking for "Time Fades Away," another Neil Young standout from the same period that will never make it into digital form—Neil has bad memories from the tour it originated from, and, yep, refuses to rerelease it.

Track to sample: "On the Beach."

Tortoise, A Lazarus Taxon. Sometimes tiny, gem-hard kernals of criticism can be so true that you can never forget them again. Aforementioned friend Kim once said in passing that a band was essentially done by the time the first "greatest hits" album came out. I've never been able to forget that whenever I see a greatest hits package. Well, "A Lazarus Taxon" is Tortoise-speak for "greatest hits"—except it all hangs together surprisingly well; nobody does jazz-inflected experimental soundscape instrumentals more gorgeously than the Chicago-based Tortoise. So why does it belong on this list? Because it contains the entire "Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters," the band's out-of-print and hard-to-find 1995 release. The CD box is superbly done, includes a DVD, and as a bonus features photographs by Arnold Odermatt, whose book Karambolage we featured in these pages a few years ago. Of course both of those are out of print now.

But you can still find the music on iTunes. Sort of takes the fun out of the hunt, dunnit?

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Martin Sharman: "Not only are these once rare albums available for purchase on CD or download—all except Tortoise and some of the Richter are available for immediate stream on Spotify U.K.

"Despite a CD collection bordering on four figures, and less numerous but physically larger racks of vinyl, as soon as I took out a Spotify subscription, my listening and purchasing habits were changed forever. I haven’t bought a CD since. I really would never have believed it, but the whole concept of buying music to keep is starting to appear very old fashioned.

"The utter delight of being able to read a superbly-written article recommending great music (such as this one, or any quality printed music magazine), and be able to instantly stream it into my consciousness, even as I read, is unquantifiable. My listening has become far broader and my musical knowledge has never been increasing at such a rate.

"Given that one has access to a reasonably comprehensive streaming library, why would I wait a few days for my CD order from Amazon to ship when I can listen immediately? And paying for permanent downloads makes even less sense, given the inherently time-limited nature of digital formats and storage media.

"(The only format still worth bothering with is vinyl, especially now all switched-on labels offer free digital downloads with each vinyl purchase. A carefully-manufactured vinyl record can deliver a genuinely valuable ownership experience, and can increase in value in a way digital never will. It has to be admitted that the fact that entry into the vinyl-owning and -playing world is relatively inconvenient and expensive only increases its cachet as the format of choice for the serious collector.)

"However, I do sometimes worry about the transience of digital and its effect on my music consumption.

"Never again will I experience that thrill of Saturday afternoon record shopping; of having awaited a release from a favourite band and queueing to purchase; of having a shortlist of potential buying material in mind and browsing the racks, examining the cover, reading the liner notes, sometimes even asking for a sneak preview on the shop CD player before deciding, there and then in the shop, which to buy. How less romantic it seems to be able instantly to play each album in the comfort of one’s home; and when the decision has been made which of the shortlisted albums is the best—what then? No purchase necessary, just press play again.

"There is something about investing in a band with one’s own money that gives a psychological link; a virtual piece of ownership that a streaming service will never provide. And I do have qualms that my money isn’t being fairly distributed to the artists I listen to: the royalties per play are simply too small. But I won’t give it up. How else could I have drifted off to sleep last night with the dulcet tone of Stitt washing over me?"

OT: There's Ugly, There's Butt-Ugly, Then There's...

As regular readers know, I'm casually a car buff. Love beautiful cars. Occasionally am appalled by ugly ones.

Well, I think we have a new contender in the "ugliest car ever" contest. The Citroën Tubik MPV Concept. (I used a link to give you a choice—if you have delicate sensibilities you might not want to look.)

That thing makes an Edsel look elegant. A veritable silver turd. I am just sayin'.

Other car news
I probably should have saved this for an "Open Mike," but as long as I'm on the subject (cars), allow me to take another moment and fill you in on an unusual development in the automobile world, in case you're not yet aware.

Subaru BRZ Concept. Images courtesy of Subaru.

Meet the Subiyota. The long-rumored joint venture between Subaru and Toyota intended to fill out both companies' weak sports car portfolios. (Very long-rumored—both companies have been teasing this thing since 2007. Long enough for a man to grow a long gray beard literally, not just figuratively.) It's reportedly getting close to production now—Motor Trend even drove a prototype. (So did C&D.)

The picture shows Subie's near-production STI-style "concept" from the recent Los Angeles Auto Show. (More on that rear wing later.)

What is it? It's a front-engined, rear wheel drive 2+2 coupe that's small, light (~2,500 lbs. according to Subaru's estimate), and comes with a manual transmission. Optimized for balance and handling, not power. Mmmm.

Like simple, straightforward cameras and sealed box stereo speakers, it's a well-known formula...that virtually no one follows any more. (Find me a 2,500 lbs. car that isn't a tinny econobox with a toy motor.)

Toyota took the lead in the project and handled the design; Subaru will build the car, and did the engineering. It will be sold with different sheet metal as the Subaru BRZ and the Toyota FT-86 in most of the world. However, Toyota will badge its version as a Scion in the U.S., probably as an aspirational vehicle for the young, entry level buyers Toyota hopes Scions are appealing to.

Why's it different? It's an actual sports car, wonder of wonders, not an overpowered GT like everyone else builds these days. Not that those aren't nice; it's just that there are few places to wring out two-ton cars that have 450 horsepower V8s, and it's not that easy for most guys to find the 40–100 large those tend to cost. The BRZ's raison d'etre is handling, with an especially low center of gravity (it will have a purpose-built Subie Boxer flat four set five inches lower and more than nine inches farther back than in any other Subaru). It will reportedly come in at under $30,000. Although the price, along with a lot else (like confirmed horsepower) is not actually known yet.

As you might imagine, I have strong tastes in automobiles. As with virtually everything, my tastes are well defined—and more or less at odds with what the rest of the world wants. New cars that excite my enthusiasm don't come along very often. This is one.

But about that rear wing...
Not too sure about the styling, but then pretty is as pretty does. Sure about one thing—you can't see it in the picture, but that wing spoiler on the concept has the words

on it in day-glo paint. Just kidding, but let's just say I would not touch that honkin' wing with somebody else's ten-foot pole. (Hope I haven't just offended 100 guys with giants wings bolted on their trunklids. Forgive me. I did say I have strong tastes. But you cannot simultaneously like that thing and be older than 20.) I would wait for the convertible version anyway...yes, another rumor, supposedly to come along a year or so after the coupe.

The Subiyota will reportedly launch next Spring. Hope it fits lardasses. Now where is there a Subaru dealer near here?

Mike
(Thanks to Bryce Lee of Burlington, Ontario, Canada)

ADDENDUM: I'm sure most people got this, but I don't really care how the Subiyota is going to look. I care about how it's going to drive. My going-on-eleven-year-old Miata is still the most fun thing on four wheels, despite its obvious and increasing signs of aging. An 11-years-newer rethink of a sharp-handling lightweight RWD car with a 200hp+ 4-banger and a proper third-pedal shifter is what has me slavering, not the aesthetics of the thing...all I hope for regarding the looks is that they keep the stylists at bay with a whip and a chair so the thing doesn't end up looking too goony to be seen in. That's about all I ever hope for these days.

P.S. Oh, and I almost forgot—this pertains to both cars and photography. Spectators at the Baja 1000 are allowed to go wherever they want to take pictures. Check out the risk this guy took to get an unusual angle. The action's all in the first half of the video—the second driver sensibly refrains from heading straight toward the guy. (Wonder if the coroner would have had to put "alcohol involved" on the death certificate?)

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Scott Baker: "The Flyin' Douchebags second album represents a real departure from the staid predictability of their first."

Featured Comment by guillaumee: It will not make it look better, but the Citroën Tubik is actually a reference, in name and design, to a very popular van that was extrremely commonplace in the '60s and '70s (Google "citroen tube" for pics). It was the default choice for a lot of small businesse, the police, and even ambulances, in France and a few other European countries. It is a background feature in many movies, and has high collector value today. Ugly, for sure, but not without its particular charm....

Mike replies: I got ya, but that thing was utilitarian, down to the corrugated steel sides...the whatever-it-is at the link is ugly by intention, which I think makes it worse.

Featured Comment by Ray: "The BRZ reminds me of my old S13-era Nissan 240SX. Light but "underpowered" (Nissan shipped it to the U.S. with a torquey truck motor rather than the turbo that they supplied to the Silvia platform everywhere else in the world. So I got destroyed in a straight line many a day. But it handled like it was on rails. A four wheel drift was a complete non-event. And while that rear wing is a bit over the top, my wingless and heavier 240 got very light and floaty as speeds approached triple digits; I'd wonder if some form of downforce at the rear of the BRZ isn't actually required."

Mike replies: God, I hope not!

Featured Comment by Paddy C: "Someone's really trying for a Darwin award."

Featured Comment by Matthew: "My 19 year old son loves the wing!"

Featured [partial] Comment by Paul Glover: "That's high on the weirdometer even by the impressive standards of Citroën."

Open Mike: Peanut Butter and Jelly

By Mike Johnston

I quit eating sugar last April. Aside from a modest slip on Halloween, I haven't had any "overt" sugar since then. It's been an interesting experience.

Ctein, Sugar and Cream, Ben and Jerry's, Vermont, 2010

In an increasingly industrialized food supply, sugar is the perfect industrial food. It's moderately addictive or habit-forming, in that heavy consumption triggers cravings; it has a high perceived value despite being easy and cheap to produce (astonishingly, more than half of the huge corn crop in the U.S. now goes to the manufacture of high-fructose corn sweetener); it can be used to "enhance" a wide variety of foods as an additive; it's easy to transport and store because it doesn't spoil; and most people are genetically predisposed to find it appealing, even when they're not aware that they're eating it.

The reason I quit eating it is that I have a horrible sweet tooth, and was eating way, way too much of it. Large amounts of sweets were a regular part of my diet. I was so bad that I started realizing that many of the "foods" I ate were essentially "sugar delivery vehicles"—they either had sugar in them or needed sugar put on them. I suffered excessively from the "insulin spiking" syndrome that is now well-known in nutritional circles and well documented in recent diet books: eating so much sugar made me feel bad.

If you eat a lot of sugar, not eating it stimulates mild withdrawal symptoms—principally cravings. Sugar cravings are weird in that they can make you crave non-sugared foods as well as sugary ones. Sugar cravings can make you anxious to eat more even when you're painfully full. The good news is that sugar is not really technically addictive, and the cravings subside quickly. The first three days are hard, but by the time two weeks have gone past, you won't crave it much at all any more. Especially if you're consciously aware of how bad it makes you feel when you do consume it.

In most diets, there are, in practical terms, two kinds of sugar, known as "overt" (obvious) and "covert" (hidden). Overt sugar is, well, sugar and sugary things—candy, desserts, pastries, cakes, puddings, doughnuts, milkshakes, sodas—anything deliberately made to be sugary and sweet.

Covert sugar—now largely in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, fructose being the worst kind of sugar for you to eat in anything but fruit—is a good deal more insidious. Say you want to prepare and eat a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Americans, at least, don't consider a PB&J sandwich to be a sweet or a dessert—it's food. It might be considered part of a normal meal—usually lunch. Especially for kids. Yet chances are good that unless you take deliberate steps to avoid it, all three ingredients in your sandwich are heavily laden with sugar.

Jelly's the most obvious source. Most jelly or jam that comes in jars starts with fruit that contains sugar naturally, but sugar is an essential added ingredient in traditional jelly-making, and some commerical jellies are spiked with even more. What many people don't realize is that most commercial peanut butters are also loaded with sugar. It's possible to buy "natural" peanut butters in many stores now (some of which still add sugar), but the worst peanut butters are virtually sugar paste.

And then there's bread. At our Farmer's Market a couple of years ago, I bought a loaf of homemade bread from two Mennonite girls at their family's stand. The girls looked unhappy to be there, as if the riverside market in our pleasant little town were the very heart of Babylon. Neither of them responded at all my my attempts at banter. Their bread turned out to be similarly stern and severe. I had been expecting an orgy of wholesome goodness, but the bread was bland and tasteless. The reason? No sugar. There were only four ingredients listed: flour, water, yeast, and salt.

If you buy bread in packages, chances are very good it contains sugar. The worst ones have the equivalent of more than a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar in every slice. And just try buying bread with no sugar in it. You might live in a "progressive" community with more options than we have here in the hidebound Midwest, but in most ordinary supermarkets, good luck. My supermarket has a whole wall full of breads, dozens of different brands and literally more than a hundred varieties. And not a single one with no sugar.

Most commercial breads, it seems, are "part cake." The Mennonite girls disapprove.

Thanks to covert sugars, that ordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich is really halfway between a food and a dessert. It can have as much as two tablespoons of sugar in it. Our ancestors before the era of industrial food would have considered that dizzyingly sweet.

Many foods are deliberately marketed to try to make you feel better about them, even though they're bad for you. Yogurt, for example, is widely believed to be a health food. Not so if you're avoiding sugars. Those little containers of yogurt you buy at the supermarket are loaded with huge amounts of sugar. Eating one is really very much like eating a similar-sized container of pudding. Even for people who are not trying to avoid sugar, a yogurt should be considered a dessert.

Many heavily sugared foods get away with it because in their pure forms they don't have any sugar. Brewed black coffee contains no sugar, but many of the concoctions you buy at Starbucks—even before you dump yet more sugar into them—are more heavily loaded with sugar than ice cream. I'm not joking—that's true.

Sugar, it turns out, is everywhere. The challenge in the supermarket is not in finding it hiding in unexpected places, but in finding anything without it. If peanut butter is a sugar paste, then ketchup is a sugar sauce: the typical ingredients in ketchup are tomato paste, vinegar, and sugar. (Vinegar and sugar go into sushi rice, too). Barbeque sauce is not quite like slathering your chicken in chocolate syrup, but it's not that far off, either. TV dinners (in fact, most food that comes in boxes and has a name), canned soups—all are garnished with a little (or a lot) of sugar before you even open them. The general exception seems to be foods that are either plain ingredients, or else mainly fat, such as cheese and mayonnaise.

Of course, small amounts of sugar occur naturally in many foods. Even Smucker's Organic Peanut Butter, with one listed ingredient—peanuts—contains a gram of sugar per serving. I just checked a can of no-salt-added green beans—7 grams of sugar! That's more than half a tablespoon. Natural occurrences aside, as a generality, the Western food supply is now hopelessly adulterated with sugar, with no end in sight. Sugar is everywhere, in everything. We eat huge amounts of it—even when we don't eat "sweets," but especially when we do.

I make an effort to avoid not only candy and anything overtly sweet, but covert sugars as well. I buy sugar-free jelly, sugar-free ketchup, sugar-free seafood sauce. But it's impossible to escape entirely. When I get cravings for sugar now, I recognize it as a signal that a covert sugar has crept into my diet from somewhere—it's only eating sugar that makes me crave it. So I go ferret out where the sugar is coming from and stop eating the source of it. Otherwise, I'm fine.

And I feel a lot better now.

Except on Halloween.

Mike

Open Mike is a series of off-topic posts by Yr. Hmbl. Host that appear only, but not always, on Sunday.

Send this post to a friend

Click here or the Editor gets it! B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Paris: "So you're saying that fructose is OK if you eat it in fruit, but 'the worst' if you eat it in anything else? How could that be? Are you sure? Absolutely agree with the premise of your essay, but that phrase set off my skeptic alarm."

Mike replies: Paris, That's according to the book Sweet Poison: Why Sugar is Making Us Fat by David Gillespie, which was recommended to me by Rob Grinberg. It's the book that inspired me to quit eating sugar last April.

Without getting into the science at all, Gillespie's thesis is that the body metabolizes fructose very differently than other sugars. In what evolutionary psychology calls "the ancestral environment," meaning the way humans lived 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, eating and nutrition was very much a feast-and-famine cycle. When the trees bore fruit, fruit was plentiful, but only for a short time—and you needed to eat as much as humanly possible while you could, to store up as much nutrition as possible for the lean times to come.

Evolution eventually selected for this property, because the individuals who pigged out on fruit when they could—and whose bodies converted the excess to fat storage most efficiently—had a survival advantage. The result is that fructose literally acts as a trigger for us to eat more—it's saying (chemically) to our bodies, "the getting is good right now—so get it while you can!"

The problem is that we've detached fructose consumption both from actual fruit and from the short period of a naturally-occurring fruit harvest—we can eat it all year long now, and there's fructose aplenty in everything from a Papa John's pizza to a can of root beer. But it still says to our bodies, "now's the time to eat to excess. Have at it." It's literally a biological trigger for overeating. According to Gillespie, anyway.

Hope that's not too simplified—naturally it's a bit difficult to sum up an entire book-length thesis in a few words.

Featured Comment by Sean Paul: "This video alone made me drastically change my eating habits in the same way. It's a lecture video from the University of California San Francisco where the professor indicates that the body's chemical reaction to sugar is akin to reacting to poison. It's a fairly well known segment as it went viral on a lot of social blog sites earlier this year. I've cut sugars out as much as possible (no candy, soft drinks, and even orange juice) now for a year and notice significant improvements in my health. And believe me—I loved sugary foods before this but the information in the lecture caused a complete shift in how I thought about sweet foods.

"And bravo for wading into this topic—it can be very divisive."

Featured Comment by Matthew Miller: "In our defense, Mennonites can—and do—also produce very delicious and healthy bread."

Mike replies: Matthew, I think my mistake was in buying the white bread. I should have gone with the real thing.

Featured Comment by John: "The whole fructose thing came home to me in the past couple of years. At the age of two, my daughter started having extended episodes of what seemed like diarrhea, but without any other significant side effects. She was eating fine, drinking fine, and gaining weight at a nice, healthy pace. But the weekly routine was four or five days of diarrhea, and if we were lucky, a couple of days without.

"Her doctor wasn't concerned: 'It's just a phase that some toddlers go through.' But we tried various allergy tests and elimination diets, to no avail. Through extended trial and error, we kind of had an idea of what to avoid, but we had no common link.

"Finally I happened upon the wikipedia page for fructose intolerance, and voila! There was the very list that we had been arduously compiling. Magic! Keep her away from fruits like red grapes, mango, cantaloupe, certain types of apples. Look for corn syrup… OH MY GOD IT'S IN EVERYTHING! ITS IN THE @#$! BREAD!

"Certain kinds of things set her off right away: bread with corn syrup (whether it's labeled HFCS or not), 'apple' juice, raisins. And yet still the doctor doesn't believe us, which is remarkably frustrating. I can show her a direct causal link, with a food/poop diary, and she just kind of shrugs. Just another couple of hysterical hippy parents, eh?

"Meanwhile, my wife has also eliminated wheat and is after several years finally able to spend a whole day without clutching at her gut. I've even started baking bread for her.

"Lucky me, though, born with a cast iron stomach."

Featured Comment by Shawn Barnett: "When you have diabetes, the massive quantities of sugar in our diet seems more like an assault. I now dread going to every kind of social function, because the primary snacks served are carbs and sodas, no protein at all. I went to lunch with my son last week at his school, and though they had a diverse menu for them, it was almost entirely carbs. My 'salad' included a sugary yogurt, a cookie, four slices of cucumber (thank goodness), a roll, and a cheese stick. No salad in sight, so that was misleading as well.

"I'm most particularly angry about HFCS. I remember feeling good about buying Hansen's 'Natural' soda back in the 1980s because it used High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of sugar. 'That's supposed to be good for you,' we thought. 'It's from fruit!' As one who carries around a blood glucose meter, I can tell you that my blood sugar goes up by ~100 points more if I've had HFCS in a meal; whether bread, crackers, or other snack, my reaction is double what it would be with even refined sugar.

"Good for you for becoming more aware of how we wealthy are killing ourselves in the name of convenience. Eat source foods, avoid things in boxes, cans, and bags as much as possible. While you're at it, read about AGEs, advanced glycation endproducts: the byproduct of cell metabolism and toasting or overheating just about anything. The Wikipedia article is probably good enough to get a grasp on the concept. It's the heat-caused chemical combination of sugars with protein. It's why toast raises a diabetic's blood sugar more than a slice of bread, and why instant coffee (thrice cooked) is implicated in diabetic foot ulcers.

"And of course, don't overdo underdoing sugar in your diet. Let the knowledge guide your choices, and the occasional indulgence will be soaked up by your healthy liver and kidneys."

Naturalism at the Movies

Actor Volodia Garin, whose life ended tragically before he even got to see the final cut of "The Return" in which he co-starred. Photo by
Vladimir Mishukov, from the film.

I'm working on a post for tomorrow about naturalism in photography, but in the meantime, thanks for your movie recommendations. Last night I watched "The Return" ("Vozvrashchenie"), a terrific 2003 Russian film written by Vladimir Moiseyenko and Aleksandr Novototsky and directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. It's a deeply enigmatic story that can be interpreted as allegory—but then, naturalism doesn't preclude allegory. It's not a particularly easy film to watch and not particularly entertaining, but it's emotionally resonant and deeply affecting and can key a lot of good thinking. The cinematography is superb and the film even has a photography leitmotif in the form of a rangefinder camera the boys use intermittently throughout the film and the (yes, naturalistic-style) pictures they take with it revealed at the end. (In reality taken by Vladimir Mishukov.)

Unmistakable allegorical implications: Above, Andrea Mantegna, The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, 1490; Below, Konstantin Lavronenko as the mysterious returned father the first time his sons see him. (It helps to know art if you're going to watch art-house movies....) The cinematography by Mikhail Krichman is a treat throughout the film.

Outstanding*, and I never would have found it without your help. Many thanks.

Mike

P.S. If you intend to watch the movie you probably shouldn't watch the trailer.

*Although not for those who like plots explained and characters' motives made plain.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Wayne: "I rented this movie several years ago. I was, and still am, spellbound by it. To this day I do not know why.... Humanity in the raw."

Featured Comment by ILTim: "I don't remember how I found this movie, but I sure remember that I did. It kicked off a revolution in my TV and movie watching habits. A strong trend I've noticed is that American films are remarkably superficial and slapstick (even the low-key drama types), always with focus on a neat tidy story. While foreign films on the other hand tend to be about people, avoiding the story or at least not bothering to begin and end it in the standard tidy template format. It's refreshing."

Featured Comment by Mike Plews: "We do worry too much about nice tidy stories. If plot was everything we would only watch 'Casablanca' once."