Friday, July 31, 2015

Suppose it were Friday cvii: Rainy day people






  I don't know anyone who doesn't
  very much like them - the rainy
  day ones. By definition, they
  wear so well, compared to the
  rest of us, habitually dependent
  on small talk's Nice day, isn't
  it, to cover a multitude of gaps.

  What is it about such weather,
  that they show us its mercies,
  just as fair skies might have
  yielded to some grating ex-
  ploitation? They tell me, an
  be in Florida today, to call
  for putting aside our past on
  Cuba. Nice day, isn't it, has
  never gained anything for the
  day, by being voiced. Yet who 
  resists claiming it, when it's 
  already given?

  Mind you, the prevailing tenden-
  cy to indulge the rainy day's ex-
  cuse for a nap, ensconced in its
  sympathetic acoustic blanket and
  not necessarily uncompanionably,
  at that, only elicits the genius
  of the rainy day person. Who can
  count, the rainy day people whose
  name it would have been tempting
  to know, selfless promises lost
  as well, in respectful silence?

  Such weather may come again, as
  much as we may grasp, it doesn't
  do anyone any good to expect it.
















Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Summer renovations and developments


By daring at all to open the
subject warned of, above, an
innocent seasonality in the
structure of the problem im-
mediately divides a reader-
ship already tested repeat-
edly by opinion, into halves
separated by the Equator.
We must allow, therefore, a
reasonably ambiguous portrait
of ourselves to launch this
impartial inquiry. We cannot
allow one man's Summer to
stand for another man's envy,
burrow as one may toward the
preferred hemisphere.





Who can know how much those
synchronised rotations of an
academic year have thrust us
upon the season of abandon-
ment to self-discipline, so
repeatedly, as to have endow-
ed that liberation with such
residual interferences of hab-
itual "achievement," as to o-
verlay our innocence with ac-
quired reflexes of guilt for
simple play? Do we ask if this
is fair; do we even remember
how?





There, one may find oneself,
turning a simple mushroom bav-
arois from the cookbook of Le
Gavroche - summer camp child's
play of yore (recipe to follow)
- in one of those ongoing fits
of renovation and self-improve-
ment which found us reading Ol-
iver Twist in childhood on the
sand or, dare we say, the snowy
slope. The inertia of competi-
tion with time, itself, is at
its most visibly extenuated in
Summer, needing to look good.
Still, Dickens on deprivation
pairs nicely in the mind loosed
upon a season of free-range re-
freshment, with its rarer del-
icacies.





Fitzgerald, usually our re-
liable guide to such distinc-
tions on either side of par-
adise, closed his Summeriest
of all creations with that
timeless reference to a beat-
ing back against the current,
which we come to identify as
the self-selected Summer syl-
labus. I hazard the guess that 
we revisit - relish - the con-
duct of those encounters for
their trials of our framing,
of desire and extrapolation.
We mean no betrayal of self-
improvement, to improvise ap-
proaches offering pleasure.

We are never reading one thing,
imaging one ingredient. I hap-
pen to have open Michel Roux,
and E.L. Doctorow, virtuosi in
the simplicity of superior cui-
sine. 


         .. I stood across the narrow street in the
         weeds and rocks overlooking the tracks and
         demonstrated my latest accomplishment, the
         juggling of a set of objects of unequal 
         weight, a Galilean maneuver involving two
         rubber balls, a navel orange, an egg, and
         a black stone, wherein the art of the thing
         is in creating a flow nevertheless, main-
         taining the apogee from a kind of rhythm 
         of compensating throws, and it is a trick
         of such consummate discipline that the bet-
         ter it is done the easier and less remark-
         able it looks to the uninitiated .. I was
         juggling my own self as well in a kind of
         matching spiritual feat ..





2.5 cups white button
  mushrooms, thinly
  sliced

salt, white pepper,
  nutmeg

3.33 cups cream

3 sheets gelatin

lemon juice

           Put the mushrooms in a saucepan, season well,
           add half the cream, and bring to a boil; the
           mushrooms will be cooked in two minutes. Soak
           the gelatin in cold water until soft, squeeze
           dry, and add to the mushrooms; purée until
           smooth. Let cool.

           When nearly set, fold in the remaining cream,
           lightly whipped, check the seasoning, and add
           a little lemon juice if needed. Cover and re-
           frigerate for at least six hours

           Using two tablespoons dipped in hot water,
           shape into quenelles and serve with toasted
           brioche.
























E.L. Doctorow
Billy Bathgate
Random House, 1989©

  Dedicated to his great
  editor, Jason Epstein,
  whose own Eating: A
  Memoir, 2009, belongs.

Michel Roux, Jr
Le Gavroche Cookbook
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003©











Tuesday, July 28, 2015

House ii


  To mark rmbl's fifth
  year, I happily turn
  to an admired compil-
  ation by J.D. McClat-
  chy which I've cited
  repeatedly over the
  years, without per-
  mission. One cannot
  claim authority, ei-
  ther, not to share a
  a generous creation.







      ..
      And suddenly now this small
    Unlooked for joy. Where did it come from,
      With these pale shoots
    And drooping lavender bell? Persistent
      Intruder, whether or not
    I want you, you've hidden in the heart's
      Overworked subsoil. Hacked at
    Or trampled on, may you divide and spread,
      Just as, last night,
    The wind scattered a milkweed across the sky.

























J.D. McClatchy
The Rest of the Way
  Weeds
  fragment: 2nd of 2 verses
op. cit.








Monday, July 27, 2015

Suggested, the Biden candidacy





    For the convenience of the reader-
    ship outside of the United States,
    whose interest I value greatly, it
    is enough to beg their indulgence
    in yet another domestic political
    comment, with repercussions, how-
    ever, of broader potential reach.

    It has become the responsible view,
    that projects under way in the cur-
    rent Presidency are of sufficient
    vulnerability to unravelling by a
    successor, even of the same Party,
    to favour one whose professional
    investment in them is unquestion-
    able, whose moral commitment to
    them may be trusted, whose sup-
    port of them will not subject 
    them to extraneous denigration,
    and whose capacity to shoulder 
    them is demonstrable.

    This therefore obligates those who
    concur with the first part, to sup-
    port the implication of the second.
    The only American politician defined
    by these criteria is Joe Biden.

    Let's see that he runs, and let's be
    ready to extend every encouragement. 




























President and Vice-President
of the United States, announ-
cing an arms control accord,
Washington, July 14, 2015

Getty Images©