AnimaMundi

The Greening of America

The American front lawn : a symbol of prestige, cleanliness, efficiency, pride and...useless consumption. Most Americans don't use their front lawns for anything. It's just there for admiration and advertisement. When a friend of mine built a home in Boerne, TX, he told me that the town discouraged him from cultivating a lawn. Now one would think that with the jump in fuel costs, Americans would try to eliminate some lawn and plant other things that don't require mowing. Like stone and ornamental grasses, flowering perennials. Stone doesn't require a lot of care. You don't have to fertilize them with petrochemically concocted mixes. You don't have to mow them with $4+ a gallon gas. The same with ornamental grasses. The grasses also provide some privacy when they take off and begin to flower.

From "Why Mow?" by Michael Pollan

“Lawns are nature purged of sex and death. No wonder Americans like them so much.”

A lawn may be pleasing to look at, or provide the children with a place to play, or offer the dog room to relieve himself, but it has no productive value. The only work it does is cultural. In Downing’s day, the servant-mowed lawn stood, eloquently, for the power structure that made it possible: who but the very rich could afford such a pointless luxury? As mechanical mowers enabled middle-class suburbanites to cut their own grass, this meaning was lost and a different one took hold. A lawn came to signal its owner’s commitment to a communitarian project: the upkeep of the greensward that linked one yard to the next.

 

Summer Quaffs

Since the summer here in the great Northeast has been so damn hot, we have been drinking more rose and white wine. These are some of our favorites to date.

WHITES

2006 Vesevo Greco Di Tufo ($17): ancient name for Vesuvio, excellent minerality and acidity coupled with depth and an elegant finish. The 2006 Vinosia Greco Di Tufo ($25ish) did not have the acidic edge that the Vesevo had. I found it to be a little lackluster.

2007  Le Petit Chambord Cheverny Loire ($15): edgey tangy acidity, bright, clean, vibrant

2007 Le Fournier Sauvignon ($10): very good value, crisp, good acidity, fresh

2004 Pazo de Monterrey ($14): excellent QPR Spanish wine with good acidity, clean, sharp lines, rounded fruit

ROSE

2007 Chateau du Rouet Cotes de Provence ($14): dry, crisp accented acidity, balanced

2007 Les Lauzeraies Tavel ($11): full, dry, good acidity, good QPR

As for sparklers, I'll try to list some later. Peter Laurent Rose Champagne ($30) is the standout so far.

Black Bull Sarcophagus

Last Tuesday, on the island of Bali, the head of the royal family of Ubud named Agung Suyasa was laid to rest in a rare, spectacular Royal Funeral - the largest in decades. Suyasa, two other members the royal family, and 68 commoners were cremated in a large Hindu ceremony - their bodies having been previously preserved, awaiting cremation, which is traditionally believed to free their souls for future reincarnation.

Barack Bhangra

Just when you thought that politics couldn't become any more boring, along comes Barack Obollywood! Bhangra, baby.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake or Money Ain't Getting Any Cheaper

When I mentioned the cost of living to my next door neighbor the other day he replied, "Oh, it's not as bad they make it out to be." There are four people in his family and they own five cars including one brand new Honda truck, a six cylinder that gets about 15 miles a gallon. He just downsized from an 8 cylinder truck that guzzled 15 gallons per mile.

Hummers, bummers, summers, gas fillups,

oil bills, AC bills, groceries, outrageously expensive super-duper cult wines 

and just about everything else. On a brighter note, we have a gift certificate to John Andrews on Saturday night. Santa paid for the gift certificate. K. has been in high intensity knee pain for a while and she needs it, badly. We will drive to New Lebanon first to meet up with friends and admire their gardens. They have expended lots of money and sweat tilling the earth. I'll take pictures. I promise. Their gardens make our yard look like desolation row. In driving there and back, we'll probably spend more money on gasoline than on the meal. From New Lebanon to South Egremont we'll ride in their new Mini Cooper club car.

Things have changed dramatically, but the average American does not want to admit it. They have been accustomed to a certain standard of living that they refuse to concede. This attitude is part of the reason that we are where we are today. It's a persistently arrogant image and I don't particularly like it.

"To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood."
  - George Santayna

Paging pathology, please. It's not all gloom and doom. But remember those Sunday afternoon drives in the country?

Up a similar avenue, my friend Alfonso has some car and consumption images for you and his thoughts on the situation as it affects vino Italiano.

How about an Italian wine that doesn’t suck all the spare change out of the glove compartment, something we can drive around our dining rooms and still be able to put pasta and salad on the table as well?

This 5 year old Spanish red, one year in oak, from Don Quixote land is one of those wines that reaffirm my faith in decent wine at a fair price. A great wine, no. A good QPR wine @ ten bux before case discount, yes.

After all, it is a dog's life.

This One is For Ashley Morris

Whether it's a Sazerac or a Ramos Gin Fizz, this one is for Ashley Morris. I mentioned Tesla

 

to Ashley once and he informed me about Tesla's knowledge and his under appreciated place in history.

 

Vonnegut Style

First there was Strunk's "Elements of Style", then came Kurt Vonnegut.

For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, in a more technical sense, I recommend to your attention The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. E.B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.

You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.

The New Yorker Cover & OWLS

Here I go again. Politics. The latest cover of The New Yorker has caused a bit of noise. This pretty much sums it up.

"See, the Rude Pundit's problem with the whole Barack-as-Muslim and Michelle-as-Black-Panther plus burning flag and bin Laden's picture in the Oval Office isn't that it's particularly offensive. It's that it's just not very funny. It's not even enough to make you go, "Hmmm." You glance at it once and think, "Yeah, some people think that, don't they? That's a shame." And there the whole joke ends. There's no more levels to it. It's like an Upper East Side version of South Park, an elitist attempt at crude humor, like an ironic fart at a wine tasting."

Fedora Tip Gastriques

Greg of Suspect Device also says it quite well.

And then there's Victor LaValle's take over at Maud Newton's site:

One dear friend in particular has been privy to a certain kind of dinner conversation. She’s in her mid-30’s but she dines out with Older White Liberals sometimes. And at those dinners the OWLS all say the same thing whenever the question of Obama’s Presidency arises: “I just don’t think the nation’s ready,” they say. “I mean I’m ready, I’d just love it. But I don’t think the nation’s ready yet.”

Inevitably these folks are over 50, generally well-off and liberal to a fault. And yet, now that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for President they just can’t seem to get behind him. The last thing they’ll say on the subject is, “I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about him that I can’t get behind.”

"But still, truth is truth. While much has been made about the fears of working-class whites in Pennsylvania and, of course, the white South, this New Yorker cover is the product of a different but just as panicked constituency, the unassailable Upper West Side."

It's a friggin' cartoon, peoples.

Music That's Difficult To Listen To

David Byrne writes about Modern Music and Die Soldaten:

"In one scene, a group of bourgeois businessmen in pig masks lurch along the runway followed by two guys in Santa outfits, one of whom rapes a young woman screaming ceaselessly. When I saw the approach of the evil Santas, I got all excited — we’d suddenly descended into slasher movie territory. Killer Klowns: The Opera! The folks around me did not seem amused; I’d never seen so much seersucker in one place in my life."

"As classical music followed this bizarre, perverted road for some half of the 20th century, the audiences left in droves. I hope the composers were pleased, because it seems they got what they wanted in that respect. Their compositional ideas live, and even thrive in movies; but as a form of music and music-theater, they simply died — rumbling and roaring all the way."

Nature's Bounty, Saratoga Springs and The Horse

We drove to Saratoga Springs yesterday. The Northway was heavy with weekend warriors on the asphalt path. The farmer's market in Saratoga Springs is one of the best in the area. The produce is beginning to blossom with more than just lettuce and greens. Just lettuce and greens is what I would wish for in the middle of January. The track will open shortly and the smell of horses is in the charged air. In fact, when we return from a day trip there, our allergies go haywire. Literally. For where there are some of the most polished thoroughbred horses on the planet, there is a lot of hay. "And they're off!" is upon us. As a friend is fond of saying, "winter begins at the finish of the first race."