Archives: December 01, 2004

Drink of the day: Black Orchid

Monday, 27 December 2004 11:02 PM

I have already had more than enough alcohol for 2004, but if you haven't you might consider this:

Black Orchid

1.0 oz Vodka
1.0 oz Chambord
splash cranberry juice

Pour vodka and Chambord over ice. Splash cranberry juice over all. Serve in a 9oz glass or as a shot (chilled).

(Recipe from iDrink.com)

All work and all play

Monday, 27 December 2004 10:58 PM

After two weeks of self-indulgent holiday excess, I am pooped. Having few original thoughts to share, I offer instead these links to recent and not-so-recent items elsewhere:

Surprising news: Mimes can be useful. More surprising are the changes a mathematician/philosopher turned politician has effected by combining unconventional methods with appeals to common sense and human courtesy. (link via BoingBoing)

Unsurprising news: Southerners can't drive in snow. I can attest to this. When I lived in northern Virginia, even the lightest dusting would cause general panic. Schools sent home children early, cars skidded down highways ramps. That my town seemed to have only one snowplow didn't help. All the same, it was no worse than dealing with San Francisco drivers in the rain. (Link via Fark)

And speaking of snow, I should mention how extremely glad I am to have a garage. (529 kb movie file)

Thirty-some years too late, someone has invented my perfect childhood toy. When I was a wee tyke, my mother could park me on my rocking horse Macaroni and leave me for hours. It sprang around, suspended by springs from a metal frame, which allowed me to make it bounce back, forth, sideways (a little), and just all over. But if they'd been able to hook up a video interface so the movement controlled the visuals, I'm sure I'd still be riding it today.

Still lacking a date for New Year's Eve, apparently I need to spend more time in bookstores. (Link via Return of the Reluctant)

A clever someone created a charming animation highlighting the power of procastination. Of course, he's not the only one to see the humor in such situations. And not the first by a long stretch. (Animation link via Screenhead)

As close as this site comes to knitting news

Thursday, 16 December 2004 04:28 PM

Unlike many others, I'm not skilled at creating things with yarn. But if you are, you might like to try out this nifty crocheted item: a crochet model of chaos. That is, they've made a thing that uses "25,511 crochet stitches to represent the Lorenz equations."

The idea for the "Lorenz manifold" model came about during the Christmas break two years ago.

Dr Osinga, who learnt to crochet when she was seven, was relaxing by crocheting some hexagonal lace motifs.

Prof Krauskopf asked her: "Why don't you crochet something useful?"

Eighty-five hours of work and some supporting steel wire later, they had something almost a metre across which looks not unlike a big Christmas decoration - which is what they are using it as.

The part I most love is the clause "relaxing by crocheting some hexagonal lace motifs." Clearly these people have not only a lot of time on their hands, but also a very different idea of "relaxing" than I do.

(Link via we make money not art.)

Wishing you a swinging holiday

Thursday, 16 December 2004 12:55 PM

On my mini-iPod right now, I have 344 holiday songs. Some are duplicates -- every lounge-style holiday album seems to include Dean Martin's version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and if it doesn't it should -- but even so that means about 18 hours of tuneful holiday spirit.

I can pull up any of 12 different versions of "Jingle Bells" in an instant, and any of 10 versions of "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (eleven if you count Los Lobos's "Rudolf the Manic Reindeer").

I understand that many people don't share my fondness for Christmas music, but honestly it takes up about all of my holiday spirit. All year I look forward to it: I make myself wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start playing it, and I stop playing it by New Year's Day.

My favorites, in no order:

"Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)" by Miles Davis (with lyrics and vocals by Bob Dorough of Schoolhouse Rock fame)
"Little Drummer Boy (Up the Khyber)" by the Hoodoo Gurus
"Jingle All the Way" by Lena Horne
"The Christmas Waltz" by Nancy Wilson
"Baby It's Cold Outside" by either Brian Setzer and Ann-Margaret or Dean Martin and some babe
"Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues
"We Want to See Santa Do the Mambo" by Big John Greer
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland (the most heart-breaking version)
"The Merriest" by June Christy
"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Billie Holiday
"Shouldn't Have Given Him a Gun for Christmas" by Wall of Voodoo
"Joy to the World" by Whitney Houston
"Song for a Winter's Night" by Sarah McLachlan
"Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
"Step into Christmas" by Elton John

If I could have but one Christmas album, I'd take "Hipster's Holiday" from Rhino Records. Jazzy, swinging holiday fun. Doesn't matter how cold it is outside -- when that CD is playing it's hot in here.

Think globally, rock locally

Tuesday, 14 December 2004 09:15 PM

As mentioned previously in these pages, local rockers The Faders ("original, intelligent alternative-pop in the vein of Elvis Costello, Crowded House, and Wilco") had their first brush with international stardom recently when they were chosen to be filmed by the BBC. Jon Ritz (vocals, guitar) reports on the gig:

It really was a good time. We had our typically small but lively turnout, and the film crew was a lot of fun to work with, including the "talent," an actress named Miriam Margolis (she played one of the profs in the last Harry Potter flick). We played a regular 45 minute set, then the director had us do two takes of two different songs -- one of our own and one cover -- while they took a lot of close-up footage. That was a little nerveracking, but I think we acquitted ourselves pretty well for a bunch of weekend performers.

The series is slated to run on PBS in about a year. We should be able to squeeze a little publicity out of it when it airs, though I don't have any immediate plans to quit my day job.

If you don't want to wait the whole year for the televised result, or if you want to be able to say you knew them when, catch the band at one of their upcoming shows:

Fri Dec 17. Cafe Bliss (Penn Ave, Point Breeze). George and Kim from the band Jack play from 8 - 9, and The Faders are on from 9 - 11. Cafe Bliss is a cool new venue, sort of a smaller, more intimate version of the Quiet Storm. They serve coffee etc., and it's also BYO.

Mon Dec 27. Starbucks (Murray Ave, Squirrel Hill). Singer-songwriter and adjunct Fader Patti Spinner plays from 8 - 9, accompanied by her sideman and number one fan.

Fri Dec 31 (New Year's Eve). Watercolors Gallery (9th and Penn, Downtown). The band is organizing a night of live music at the Gallery as part of the annual First Night festivities. Monongahela Sal and Her Allegheny Playboys kick things off at 8, and The Faders rock in '05 from 10 to 1.

Info, details, and bassist George Salamacha's recipe for veggie lasagna available at their website.

More articulate than you might expect

Sunday, 12 December 2004 03:38 PM

Welcome, readers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Sorry the place is a little messy -- been busy with holiday and end of the year activities. December is so hectic, don't you think?

Anyway, I'm quite glad that you decided to click on over, especially given how generally inarticulate I sounded in the quotes in the PG article. "Almost more flavor than people can put into a publication that's going to be sold"? Yick. This is why email interviews are preferable to phone interviews -- one can revise and improve upon the first wording. Although I'm now not sure what I was trying to say in the first place, so the best improvement would be to cut that sentence right out.

So let's see. Here's the entry on The Billy Nayer Show, with the link to "Ham." Here's a bit about Mr. Toast. He's really the property of my travelbug sister Laura and quite the world traveler in his own right. Look for him in the Burning Man photos.

I've not created a site description and I don't have particular favorite entries (except I do like the graphic in this one). So your best bet will be to wander around and see what you like. Share and enjoy.

Chewing gum is really gross

Friday, 10 December 2004 08:04 PM

I case you have not yet seen it: the first trailer for Tim Burton's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

(Link via Screenhead.)

Coffee, tea, or me?

Thursday, 09 December 2004 11:45 PM

I have a new gig. (Fear not, web clients, literature lovers, and theatre denizens: I have not forsaken you. This is in addition to my other current gigs. Or maybe, go ahead and fear all you want, as I seem to be piling more on my plate than ever. I’m not forgetting you though. I worry about you and my negligence of you hourly. More, even. I have you on my schedule and will attend to you before the year end. Honest. No, I mean it this time.)

Starting again -- I have a new gig: I am a barista.

Which means that I serve coffee of all varieties, drip-brewed and espresso-infused and beyond, plus also fresh-squeezed and -ground juices, and hot chocolates, and fruit yogurt smoothies, and ice cream, and muffins and biscotti, and whole and ground coffee beans. And chocolates of various variousnesses. It is quite complicated to be a java slinger these days.

I started this about four weeks ago.

As I’ve mentioned previously on these pages, I spend whole huge chunks of time at Cummings Candy and Coffee on Main Street in Butler (web page on the way). About a month ago, one of the morning coffee specialists quit on short notice, and Barry Cummings, who runs/owns the joint, asked if I would be interested in working behind the counter.

Some relevant facts: I have never worked in the food/beverage industry. Ever. My hourly rate working in web design is nearly ten times the hourly wage for a barista (even in small town America). Baristas make more in tips than you’d expect, at least in the morning shifts. Not that much more. I am on a smile-hey-how-are-you basis with much of the Cummings morning clientele. I’ve been friends with Barry for a few years. I get little that is constructive done in the mornings, but love to get up if it means hanging out with folks. I have been sorely in need of structure at my particular life stage. I love coffee and all its variants. I’ve long thought that I’d make a good barista. I know how to foam milk. I could use a steady source of income just now.

(On the structure bit: Working for myself and working for my family’s company, the thing I’ve missed most is accountability. There’s always the final accountability to the client, but I find that I like team efforts, group due dates, and reporting to other people at least now and then. Weird but true.)

So, I told Barry that I would like to give it a shot for two months. At the end of that period, he or I can say ‘enough’ and he’ll have time to find a more permanent replacement.

And so far it’s going terrifically well. I love the hecticness of the morning coffee shop atmosphere. The regulars order the same things every day. Many don’t even know what they’re ordering: They’ve been getting the same thing day in and out for years, and can’t say what size drink it is or even what it is. Others know exactly, precisely what they get, and make clear want they want.

I’m bad at remembering names, and the barista gig so far is much about names. It’s more about coffee drinks, but if one can remember names or at least details, one can cover for forgetting a drink.

So, people have been generally kind about my newness at the job. A few are tense at having their daily cup delivered by people who clearly don't yet know what's going on.

Barry, who bought the establishment from his dad and is fully committed to making it work, is cautious about adopting new stuff and fully committed to providing an excellent customer experience. He's also my age, and a rocking dude who makes the most of family and community commitments. It's easy to sign on to his plans.

People have had varied reactions to my new gig. Really varied. I’ll tell you more about that soon too.

I’ll continue to report on my experiences as they evolve, including the very interesting and (I think) gender-driven tipping protocol. But I must alert you to two other bits of coffeehouse reading:

Le Sonique highlights the barista perspective, wherein one acts as psychologist on a morning-by-morning basis, and

John McIntire of City Paper presents the latte-liberal viewpoint.

Bonus for subscribers to The Economist: an excellent article from last year about the role coffeehouses played in commerce in the 19th and 20th centuries.

You’re not going to sleep already, are you? I’m not tired at all. Hey, I wanted you to see this thing...where was it....Wait, have another cup while you’re waiting. On me.

Health begins with 'H' and so does Ham

Wednesday, 01 December 2004 11:30 PM

A blast from my San Francisco past: The amazing and incomprehensible Billy Nayer Show will be performing in Pittsburgh Sunday night.

Explaining The Billy Nayer Show is like the Supreme Court trying to define pornography: You can’t describe it, but you know it when you see it. Their specialty is a dark and sometimes cryptic sarcasm that encases a surprising core belief in the power of love. BNS is a band infused by an entirely unique, internal mythology outside and beyond any trends.

For example: Ham
Also: Apartment #5

I lost touch with their happenings when I left SF. Now they're here. This may even be worth missing the Steeler game.

Copyright © 2004 – 2007 Cynthia Closkey