Some Rules

I realized that I do not provide enough guidance for you, my dear readers.

Navigating the world is difficult, and you look to me to help you for those most difficult moments. Even though you have trouble saying this, I know it to be true, and I realize that when I don't offer these little tidbits, I am letting you down.

So, here are some rules that will help make digesting pop culture easier for you:

1. Any pop song that has the phrase "I believe" in it is crap.

2. If you want to have a hit, write some song that captures, in some way, the feeling of Katrina and the Waves. Audiences are particularly ripe for that sort of thing.

3. Or hint at the mood of "What a day for a daydream." Be sure to whistle. Forgive me if I don't forgive you for it.

4. The Dave Matthews Band is boring.

5. One can listen to pop music for only so long before one wants to bang one's head into the wall to make it stop, or until one becomes a mindless zombie, whistling down the road to some Hall and Oates copycat.

6. The only good whistler is James Abbot McNeill. The rest should go to prison camps.

That is it for today. Too busy for more until later, perhaps.

The best yet!

Somebody found this site with the google search for "singing turd."

The possibilities for animation are endless. I can only imagine.

Papier Mache

I had forgotten about how much fun papier mache is. We recently made a scarecrow head out of it, and I keep looking at that pot of glue (easily made with flour and water), and thinking up fun creations. If anything comes of it, I will post photos.

Overheard Chez Keilholtz

Amalia (in response to Melanie's tinkering with her hair): I look ridicleous!

Erik: Did I just hear Tigger up there?

Amalia: But I do look ridicleous!

Carbon Tax?

I was going to comment on this article, but I try to refrain from posting long streams of obsenities aimed at elected officials.

Talking on the phone to the Latinist who corrected my typo (as if I don't know that it is ad nauseam and not ad nausea), he made an error...and corrected it with the following exchange:

Latinist: "Ah, it should be 'me' not 'mihi'."

Me: "Hah hah! I should blog that. The smug Latinist makes an error in conversational Latin!"

Latinist: "It's from hanging out with that St. Eisenhower's crowd. You know...insist on Latin purity, while getting it wrong"

A funny thing...

They tell me that the World Series is going on. That's interesting. I had completely forgotten about baseball sometime in September. Who is in it?

Oh, the BoTox again? OK. The curse is broken. Yawn. Can they please climb back down into the cellar, to keep the Cubs company?

Cardoni!

For my Bay Area readers, please note that on Friday, Monterrey Market in Berkeley had the best cardoni I have seen in a long time for 39 cents per bunch. Last night I trimmed and parboiled (in water with key lime juice and kosher salt) two bunches. Today I coated them in olive oil and grilled them. I finished them with seaweed salt (from Cost Plus). They were very tasty, at least to my Tuscan tastes.

In Tuscan dialect, they are called Gobbi, by the way. Gobbi, Cardoni, Cardoons, whatever you call them, they are delicious.

They Need a Survey To Learn This?

I could have told them this without them having to go to all the trouble.

The thing is, there are individual Englischers who are tolerable folks (why, some of my best friends are Englischer). I have nothing against the people, rather against their culture. The poor benighted folks have just been warped by the culture. Give me dictatorial powers over that island and I will turn them into the best folks in the world in ten years.

Tammy Wynette on YouTube!

Tammy Wynette and George Jones! On Hee Haw! They sing together, and then clown around a bit, and then Tammy Wynette sings solo. It doesn't get much better than this:

While we are listening to Tammy Wynette:

And, finally, Tammy Wynette with Loretta Lynn:

Liza

Mark Shea has a concise breakdown of the Englisch problem. Now, Mr. Shea is a decent and nice sort of fellow, so I am sure he doesn't share my final solution to the problem (Ah, London! Best viewed through the window panes of my Stuka cockpit!), but he gets it with the Englisch.

Anyway, I got very little sleep last night, as I was working until 4am. I thought good books were bad! Working on a deadline is even worse. Fortunately the Good Lord invented coffee and gave coffee to men. And eventually it came to the Italians who perfected it by inventing espresso. I could go on for days waxing on the glory of espress, and I have, so I will spare you now, when my self-control has been weakened by lack of sleep.

Speaking of coffee, a little bird told me of a possible return of the Ethiopian Super Natural coffee at Peet's. If it is true, and you are an espresso freak, mix Ethiopian Super Natural with Garuda blend, fifty-fifty. It will transport you to a time when all was good, when Franco was in office, and Pete Seeger on a blacklist.

Poor Pete. It almost seems mean to pick on him, now that he is in his nineties. It is just that, well, he is such a bastard, I really can't resist. I try (whereas I don't resist bashing that commie, ham-actor, minstrel singing turd Paul Robeson), but it is very hard. I still like his voice and even listen to some of his records. And I do understand that he is merely the faint shadow of the evil that was Charles Seeger. But there is something about his combination of smugness, Stalin sympathies, and half-assed denial of his own Party ties, that just makes me just about willing to consign him to the hard labor camp, even at his age.

"Well, this is a work song we sing as we chip rock...I learned it from Leadbelly, and, well, I thought I'd just go teach it to you!"

Anyway, this concludes this episode of Your Lunchtime Anti-Communist Rant. Join us tomorrow as we take on (that commie, ham-actor, minstrel singing turd...no, not him again, this time)...

Nick Nolte? Sean Penn? Juan Carlos? Stay tuned!

Actually a recipe (requested, so I better get it up here), will come shortly. Today, tomorrow, sometime.

Here's some more fun stuff...A Tribute to Archie Campbell and Buck Owens

This was from Hee Haw, but someone has set it to a 1934 Betty Boop cartoon of Cinderella. With no further ado, we bring you the story of Rindercella:

Pfft, There You Go...with a young John Ritter, Billy Carter, and who is that man in black towards the end? The sound quality is low, but it is worth watching. Sit close to the speakers:

OK, this isn't Archie Campbell, but it is Hee Haw at its very finest: Buck Owens and Ray Charles doing "Crying Time":

And this is a pleasant diversion. I have no idea where it is from, but it is funny:

I have idea what the computer animation is all about, but the interview is great:

And, well, another Buck Owens, but it is very good:

OK, this is becoming more of a Buck Owens tribute, but that is what happens sometimes. So, first go read about Archie Campbell here and then take a gander at this:

With, well, I won't say. There will be a moment of shock...

And here is a better version, with Don Rich...

He's Got a Tiger by the Tail!

Espartaco

It has been awhile since I posted something of taurine interest, so enjoy this:

Watching a Lizard

I have been reading too much these last few days. I pick out a good evening book, and go sit out on the porch and read and think, "well, just one more chapter" and read some more, and think, "well, just one more chapter," and so on and so on, and Yippeee! it's 2:30am. I have been doing this with alarming frequency recently. I have also been reading a tremendous amount (last night I read Pete Dexter's Paris Trout, a good book, but could have used some editing).

The problem is, one can only stay up that late so many times a week. You go over your tolerance level and you start to feel a little woozy. You have strange cravings ("Erik, have you seen that large block of chocolate you bought the other day?" well, yes. I saw it. It's not down there. In fact, it's not in the kitchen. Well, actually, it doesn't exist anymore. Sorry). When I have not been sleeping, I get ravenous at about 10 or 11 in the morning. I know from experience that if I simply avoid between meal snacks I can eat whatever I want during my meals and lose weight. So, when I find myself feeling heavy, it means that I am eating between meals. I eat between meals when I am not sleeping enough.

I also lose my legendary immunity to all sorts of bugs.

Sniffle. Sniffle. We all have it. I shouldn't have it. I don't get these things...unless...curses!

So, I will have to switch to duller reading matter. Perhaps a book by the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner! No, nothing that bad.

So, when I am in a daze, sniffling and wondering why I am maddeningly hungry, I like to sit and watch the lizard. The lizard has a great way of moving, of stalking prey, of basking. There are moments when I feel like a lizard, but usually more of a marine monitor than a leopard gecko. I want to fill my belly full of yummy seaweed and then bask on a hot rock, letting the sun cook my greens in my belly. Well, not really, but at times it sounds fun.

I have been meaning to write a post taking down all of these folks who think that it is EVER acceptible to vote for a Mormon. I will do this one, because it is important. However, I have work for a client that comes first, then I can rant about the Mormons. It is a good warmup for my annual meditation on "Why the Mayflower should have smashed up at sea, sending every man, woman and child of those Puritan creeps down into the drink," which is generally followed by my getting misty over Janet Reno's two moments of glory (reuniting that Cuban boy with his father, in spite of the snarling of the pseudo-cons, and scorching the Branch Davidians), and then a good giggle at her post-AG career, if you want to call it that.

But that will have to wait. Just keep in mind, that the Mormons are either stupid or evil. There can be no third position. There can be a mix, a conflict, the sort of fellow that I believe Orson Scott Card is. Stupid on this, while smart on other things. But more and more I think that people who are stupid for this Smithism are being deliberately stupid, and that is evil.

So, no, TSO, you cannot go around voting for Romney. He is a nasty piece of work. I trust him even less than I trust the Dishonorable Adolf von Kennedy, Gubernator of Kalifornia. who, by the way, almost makes me ashamed of my Austrian heritage. Almost. We still are destined to rule the world.

AEIOU.

Good Grief!

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for making a propoganda film?

Naturally, people are praising his "courage." A funny thing, courage. It used to apply to folks who did heroic things at great risk to themselves. Now it means that someone is willing to stand at the front of an enormous parade and beat the drum loudest.

Now you hear people praised for their courage for saying that AIDS is bad, for making raspberries at long dead conservatives, for whining about their own disabilities ad nausea, etc. If this is courage, I would hate to see cowardice.

Part of the problem is that courage has become to be such a universal good, that it is easy to forget that courage can also be foolish, wrongheaded, and even downright evil. You want to display courage? Go into a black biker bar in East Oakland and make a stump speech for the Klan. Stupid, yes. Wrongheaded? Yes. Evil? Sure? Courage? You betcha. It would take cojones.

The problem with Al Gore is that he can be in no safer position. He has enormous amounts of money, almost none of which was ever at any risk in this film (and if it was, he knew he would recoup because he is the darling of the most pathetic faction of the left, and that is the faction that is the fastest growing movement in liberal politics). His political career was otherwise finished (Democrats hate losers in their own party, even when they plead the case for a Convenient Untruth). As a public figure he needs the spotlight. It would almost be better for him to get arrested for DUI than to have a year pass without being in the headlines at least once.

So he takes a topic that is dear to the hearts of the left, namely the environment, and takes an aspect of it that is prone to hysteria, already played up as "the major issue", and nearly immune to criticism.

This is courage? This is worthy of half a $1.5 million prize?

Speaking of those moments when prize committees reveal themselves as has-been's: remember when Kara Walker got a MacArthur "Genius" Award? She seemed like a one-trick pony back then, and, guess what?

She still is.

Sometimes I expect a rhinocerous to come walking across the stage.

Happy Columbus Day!

It comes to no surprise that I completely support the celebration of Columbus Day. In fact, we ought to follow the example of our neighbors and use October 12th as the date for Thanksgiving Day, for it was Columbus who brought about the establishment of the Catholic Church in the New World (the first Catholics here were the Vikings, but they did not manage to get a diocese going here). It was Columbus who introduced the tide that broke the back of the demonic cult of the Aztecs. It was Columbus who made all further Christian settlement here possible.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: it would be a better thing to lose every crumb of native culture if it was the only means to wiping out their false religions. Yes, there are cultural riches that would be lost, a treasure trove of folklore and beautiful arts, folklore and art which, through their contact with truth and beauty, are most assuredly good. However, the animism and paganism of the savages still lingers on, and even makes in-roads among the children of Catholics.

So let us use this 415th anniversary of the landing of Columbus to call for the greatest culture on earth, the Western Latin one, to finish the noble task it began with the planting of the Spanish standard on these shores.

Our enemies are the same old enemies: paganism and other deviltry, protestantism and other heresies, especially Mohammedanism, as well as some new ones: Mormonism, Scientology, Liberalism, Falun Gong, and so forth.

The battle rages on, and the worst enemies of humankind are those who, blinded by faddish notions of "religious freedom" and tolerance, would abandon the hard and long task set before us, a task that was taken up with fervor and faith by Christopher Columbus and his Most Catholic Patrons Ferdinand and Isabel.

There have been islands of sanity since 1492: Francisco Franco, the Liberator of Spain and the Standard Bearer of the West comes immediately to mind, but for the most part the West has been, since the poisonous works of certain French scribblers, a long, nightmarish decline into Hell, with the way lined by smiling liberals who applaud each slip.

Believe!
Obey!
Fight!

It was just one of those days...

We had to get outside. Too much inside when it is a glorious autumn day makes your eyes get buggy and your brain explode.

"Hey, Amalia, wanna skip your music lesson and go for a walk?"

No argument there. I think she thinks her music teacher is a bit of a fascist.

So, walk we did. Birds chirping, golden and red and orange leaves, you know the routine.

I love this season.

Cathedrals in California

This blog about the Cathedrals of California looks interesting. Unforunately they include Anglitic barns along with real cathedrals (Catholic as well as Eastern Orthodox). Sorry, but you need a real bishop to have a real cathedral. However, for architecture, it is always amusing to see the golf-set's view of themselves.

Thanks to Don Jim for this one.

Rosie Breaks Her Silence!

I see on the headlines of the "News" page that Rosie is "breaking her silence."

I never realized that she was being silent. She always seems to be saying something or other, and I don't even follow this sort of thing.

What does she do for a living, besides being offended? I know she was on the Estrogen Hour show, but she was already famous for being a...what? Offended Person?

Same with that Gabor person: Zsa Zsa. What exactly does she do for a living, other than being famous and colorful?

At least Gabor seems to have a personality. Rosie, on the other hand, seems more like the typical loudmouthed drunk at the local wymmyns biker bar.

Anyway, you might think that I have some axe to grind against Rosie, and I really don't. She is fairly easy to ignore, even though she seems to pop up everywhere, as do Angelina and Britney, poor Britney. At the supermarket last Friday, Angelina seemed to be leading the count, although Britney gets more online coverage. And please note, that I don't read the articles, I am only noticing the headlines.

Furthermore, I am not all that interested in popular culture as some barometer or other. I know people who use that excuse to lap up the scandal du jour, but I have never been one to buy claims of irony or detached observation. I remember years ago someone pretending to be bemused while listening to disco and saying, "you are not detached. You really like this crap and you ought to be ashamed."

When she protested, I pointed out that deep down she realized that I was right, otherwise, why the pretense of detachment?

No, I am not attempting to gauge the culture (a five second glance tells us all we need to know there), nor do I have even an ironic interest in this crap. I just find it impossible to escape noticing it. It engulfs us.

You protest too much, Keilholtz.

Perhaps, and perhaps I should work up some indignation, the way I do when some twit plays Bach on the piano. But, you know, I cannot even get worked up over the tribute to John Lennon that I can hear on the radio next door.

"Imagine, there's no hippies.
It's easy if you try."

And that makes me think of my own arrangement to "If I had a hammer..."

"I'd hammer the hippies,
I'd hammer the commies,
I'd pound them aaaaaallllllll!"

Yes, yes, the weather is getting gray and cold. How'd you guess?

On the bright note, Amalia just got 100% on her math test. She will be crossing the mid-year point this week.

You see, one of the things that scared me about homeschooling was math. I was good at math. I just seemed to get it, and did not require a lot of explanation. Naturally, I feared that since no one had to explain the concepts to me very slowly, I would be a disaster at teaching math.

Well, usually life throws you curve balls, but sometimes they cancel each other out. My daughter seems to share my ability with math. And, when you think about it, math really is pretty easy to explain, when I have to (for instance, introducing a new topic). So, not only am I finding the teaching of math pretty easy, but I have a daughter who requires fairly little actual instruction to figure it out. Yippeee!

Now, art, that is something else. Teaching art petrifies me. Too many stories of artist fathers crushing the creative spirit. I will teach other kids, no problem, but teaching Amalia art is scary.

And speaking of which, lunch is half over, and I had planned on spending most of my own lunch hour in siesta. If I were to go now, I would only have half the lunch hour to take in the laundry and then maybe only get fifteen minutes of siesta, which would be perfect normally, but I was hoping for a half hour.

Alas. I have got to learn to put the book down at night (this particular book being Donna Tartt's The Secret History).

Painting Again!

Well, maybe not. At least I am drawing, which is the first step back.

"Congrats!" you say, "you finally got your studio in order."

Ha hah ahaaaa hahaha hahaha hahahhahhahaaaaaaa!

No. It is just that in the process of doing arts administrivia stuff, I realized that if I don't just paint, whether or not the studio is ready, I will end up with no new works.

Rocket science? Not at all. Yet still easily forgotten. You see, I am wanting to do a New Works pitch. I am sick of talking about the old ones and would like to bore myself and others with new ones, and that means either finding a treasure trove of forgotten older works (and experience has taught me that forgotten works are usually that way for a reason), or by, GASP!, actually creating new ones.

Oh, but the studio isn't ready. What am I to do?

Keilholtz, you used to paint in a single dorm room.

Oh yeah. But what about....

Aw, shuddup. Get to work.

And, speaking of lost works, I have some drawings that are numerous, and pretty good, but not really finished drawings, in that they were not created as final drawings, but as studies for larger works. In the passing of time, some of those larger works projects were dismissed as being one thing or another. As a result I have some pretty decent drawings that will not really be used for anything, and I am thinking of offering them as a one time deal on the blog alone. Sort of a special deal to my readers. I will still run the sales through the being-developed website, but I think it might be better just to offer them here. I don't know. I will think about it. I should have done it last week, since it was the Feast of St. Francis, and there are a lot of St. Francis drawings, but you know how that goes.

There are a lot of things that I should have done last...week, month, year....

Ah, but it is now time to get back to school. Recess is over. The student is having too much fun in unstructured activities. This is not the German way.

Happy Feast!

I know, I have been a bad blogger again. I have spent very little time at the computer these last few days, since I have been getting ready for the Lepanto League celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

It was a good feast.

I should be back at the blogging this week. Thank you for your patience.

Hah hah hah!

I just hit a button that deleted all comments that had been identified as spam. I scanned a couple of hundred of them, and, yep, all spam. So, there is a chance that I deleted some earnest, long-worked-on, thoughtful comment, and I certainly had no intention of doing that. If you posted something and it got eaten, I am sorry. I will probably not do it again.

But then again, if I go away for awhile and come back and find a thousand posts in the spam file, I will probably just nuke 'em. It is so easy. So painless. So fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

Now I have to figure out some of the tagging of comments, in terms of categories and the such. I might have a few of these silly test posts out there before the night is through.

The Update is Done!

Yippee! I am going to have to learn the new interface, and then the new changes that I am planning will take place.

Expect:

1. Less tolerance. Wait. That is not possible. I design work camps in my spare time. I probably have already assigned you a number.

2. More mercenary. Yes, more mercenary. I do not expect much to come out of this, but the occassional pitcher of margaritas supported by the blog will be good. By occassional I really don't mean more than once or thrice a week.

3. No new cosmetic changes for awhile. Perhaps at Five Years, we will do something different in terms of the look. Right now I like the Indian Red and Bullfight motif.

4. More food. I have been dropping the ball. It is fall. I have been cooking up a storm, as well as commenting on Mr. Riddle's literary foray into food. I should post this stuff here.

5. Spam. I am really hoping this change will reduce the spam I have to deal with. When I sit down with a post hot in my head, and then have to spend 20-30 minutes deleting spam comments, it gets tedious. The post then has to wait until I am in the mood. Less spam should mean more posts.

6. More pictures. I was having fun with the pictures thing, and just got out of the habit. I know that some have been awaiting my photoessay on Las Vegas, and I would like to post that. Also, speaking of things visual, work has started again on the Art Website. I hope to have it up and running soon. I will probably have a celebratory Art Sale, during which you will have a once in a lifetime chance to buy my art at prices that will NEVER be seen again. I am not kidding. I am not a salesman type, but I have a lot of canvases that need to get out of my house.

7. I dunno what else. Perhaps pictures of geology, as I seem to be taking a lot of pictures of rocks these days.

testing, testing

This is a test.

Upgrade Time!

Erik's Rants and Recipes is going to go lacking in new entries until it is updated to the new Movable Type. I am not sure when it is going to be finished, but rest assured that the brightest minds of the empire are working on it. Even as we sleep.

Stay tuned for the new and improved Erik's Rants and Recipes!