Apocalypse Now? (And if Not Now, When?)

Today’s Font: Book Antiqua, in honor of the illuminated manuscripts (re)-visited at the Huntington Gardens yesterday…

It’s Spring and it’s been raining a lot in California. This observation alone has led me to ponder the burning (literally) question:

Is this the apocalypse?

So hear me out on this one. Normally, I’m not the sort to look at a little bit of hugely excessive rainfall in what is allegedly more of a desert-chapparal sort of ecosystem, and think that some sort of disaster is nigh. A few raindrops do not a cataclysm make.

And yet, I’ve been having recurrent dreams lately. Maybe it has something to do with our “president’s” saber-rattling in the direction of Iran. In my nightmares things go “nucular” in quite a horrible manner, and just as soon as the scary bomb in my dream is about to explode, I wake up terrified.

Further, it ought to be noted that nearly all of the world’s major religions are in agreement on the notion of the world ending in some sort of horrible, icky sort of cosmic-planetary-disaster-type thing. Ragnarok, Doomsday, the end of Kali Yuga, you name it, it’s all just a matter of when.

So, in honor of possibly impending, multidenominationally supported doom, and in the public interest I will begin noting here, as part of an ongoing series...

Signs of the Apocalypse

1. Gasoline rises above $3.00 a gallon –Unholy! Is this the Angry Almighty’s way of limiting travel so that it’s easy to pick out who’s naughty or nice? And is there any sort of service that can help one relocate to where all the saved people will be? Kirk Cameron? Anyone?
   
   
2. Mamie van Doren at 75 years old looks like this. Really. – (And I’d be lucky to look that good, like, ever…). Fun family game to break up interparental arguing: I conducted a blinded experiment in which my parents tried to guess her age from the local newspaper clipping. The oldest age they came up with was “nearly forty?”

Then they shrugged and went back to arguing. But for one moment…bliss.

Gotta go and get my apocalypse survival kit ready. Item number one: comfy shoes. ‘Cause fire and brimstone are absolute hell on the feet! (rim shot).

I Will Survive

So the font of the day is Sylfaen.  Pretty-ish sort of font, isn’t it?  With the added advantage of having a romance novelly sort of name (“Oh syl-FAEN, you shouldn’t have come!).  (And now I’m hoping this font wasn’t named after someone’s deceased relative or something).

Decorating Monster has been duly chained and dungeoned at the moment, where she will remain until a more suitable time.  

For, as Butters from South Park frequently says, “I am fuh-REAKING  out!!!”  

Feline mascot at home is somewhat ill, not in a dangerous way, more in a gastrointestinally challenged kind of way.  The less said, the better…

Meanwhile, slightly more sane, rational me has come on board, and I feel like I’m back in college writing a paper with a deadline.  I’ m studying, house hunting, and generally panicking.  Time to grab a bottle (of water), hunker down in front of my computer and pray for daylight.  

One semi-relevant question before I go—so what’s the origin of the phrase “hunker down and pray for daylight?”  Before “Will &  Grace” I mean.  Was it in a movie or something?  

Possibly something to post to the massively addicting, and somewhat MySpacecadet-y Yahoo! Answers.   Ah, if only I had points enough and time…



    

HGTV on my brain

Ok, trying out a new friendly font here. Perhaps a “fontest” (get it? rhymes with contest?) will be in order for the friendliest font, once I try out some more…

Yes, so onwards with the list of very good things indeed that have happened to me.

Good thing #2: Got the job I wanted!

Yes indeed! Beyond all my wildest expectations, I got a job that I desperately wanted. I suppose “the world is too much with me,” but after much fine whining to many, many people--“far, far too many to thank, but I’ll start with my agent” perhaps I should say--and after a sort of slump, I was lucky enough to get it! Which leads me to:

Good thing #3: Relocating, and of course, REDECORATING!!!

Lowes has created a monster (i.e. me). So after realizing that where I’m moving to necessarily means more apartment living for myself, I began by thinking of some color schemes. I want it to be cheery and bright, but still professional looking, so I thought maybe some pale blue or blue-green, and a really pale bright yellow. Or maybe something in a peach? Which led to…

Potentially bad thing #1:

Then it happened. I turned into DECORATING MONSTER!!!

Decorating monster is bad. She can’t settle for a nice paint job and moving her old stuff in, perhaps cleaning up a bit. No indeed.

Decorating monster has to have a “theme.” And it can’t be something like “Country Kitchen,” or “Modern-y living room with comfy couch.”

It has to be Moulin Rouge Decadence meets Rajasthani Village folk art. It’s French! It’s Indian! It’s French AND Indian,” says Decorating Monster. “Hey, just for kicks and giggles, why not throw in a picture of Chief Joseph in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec?!? Ironic, yes! Stylish?...dare I say oui? BWAHAHAHAH!!!”

(It must be understood that Decorating Monster speaks and walks in loudness, talking frequently to herself in a booming yet annoyingly musical voice.)

My specific version of Decorating Monster hit the slippery slope when she started with the idea of stick-on crown molding. Then she,I suppose, mogulled on down the thing once she started thinking more about blue and yellow.

“It’s, like, the sky! And the sea! Say what about some sand colors! It’s like a freakin’ beach! Maybe some retro stuff?!? It’s all “Sur la Plage meets modern chic”! Say, what about a painted screen, and vintage phones and typewriters, and a lounge chair covered in canvas?!? It’s witty, it’s urbane! BWAHAHAHA!”

And then I started looking for antique phones and typewriters. Because at this point, I had developed a whole backstory for the room.

“Ok,” Decorating Monster says to herself. “Get this. It’s like a frustrated 39 year old early 20th century British writer—Alistair, shall we say-- runs away to the French Riviera. He only carries his steamer trunk and his spectacle case along with a clean white suit and his trusty Regal typewriter. He spends countless hours lounging on the beach in his straw hat, as he gazes at the beach, sits at countless cafes, knows all the waiters at all the cafes (all of whom he charmingly names “Jacques,” which makes them all want to chuck him playfully in the chin and get him another baguette). He falls in and out of love with many women, especially blond ones in nice red dresses with tiny sprays of flowers on them (AKA ‘this little old thing?’). All in the name of writing the next great British Novel before the war hits. Not that he knows about this yet…”

As if this weren’t scary enough, here’s the thing. This room, decorated with a completely different person other than myself in mind, is a room I want to be in—not with Alistair, not conversing with or imagining that I’m in some romantic getaway--but simply imagining what it would be like if someone like this were to be there. Alone. Eating toast. Reading the paper. Writing stuff.

Still scarier, it seemed that my dad, out of nowhere, read my antique typewriter/telephony thoughts. We had the following exchange in Tamil and English.

Dad: (from another room) Romba samaan vaangaathae. (“Don’t buy that crazy period crap.”)

Me: (surreptitiously changing browser from “EBAY: CHEAP VICTROLA KNOCKOFFS!” to the New York Times). Dad, what makes you think I’ll buy tons of stuff that I don’t need?

Dad: (sighs) Apparum, veetilla romba space illama irrukam (“Because my Favorites list now has a zillion links to Craigslist!”)

Me: Ayyo kadavule! (Oh, whoops.)

Ok, maybe I took a few liberties with the translation there…

Lucida, Sans Typewriter

So I’ve been on a teensy posting hiatus—just long enough to forget what my posting font is. All I remember is that it was something “friendly and open.” Oops.

But lots of good stuff has happened, and it’s about time I wrote about it. So here goes.

Good Stuff #1: (and at this point I have to ask myself, how does one refer to an individual item in “stuff?” Is stuff the singular? I know there’s “stuffs” as in “foodstuffs” and quite possibly fabric. Maybe it’s all about the whole “amount” vs. “number” distinction…Ok, so to prevent any grammatical confusion let us proceed directly to…)

Good Thing #1: I bought the Casey Burns flute that I described in a previous post (pics forthcoming—I’m not feeling that industrious)! It’s the ergonomic standard, keyless, silver rings and tuning slide in African Blackwood/Grenadilla. I’ve had the pleasure of breaking it in with the cycle of playing and bore oiling, and keeping it at the right humidity and what not (which my dad described as “babysitting the flute”).

As a result, it plays even more beautifully than when I tried it out at the store, and its dark black body has been slowly replaced with a lovely dark chocolate brown undertone with even darker wood swirls that weren’t visible before.

My incredibly loving, but also incredibly South Asian parents haven’t been particularly thrilled about my foray into Irish music (“What’s wrong with Indian music”?) or with my desire to get an Irish flute (“Can you play Indian music on this flute?”).

But they’re coming around. Ever since I’ve bought it, tried out a few tunes, and now practice on it, my dad admits, “Western music can be good too!” (Which conclusion, realistically, Daddy already came to about thirty years ago, what with his stunningly enormous collection of 70’s era records from people like Englebert Humperdinck and The Ventures. Still none of which I’m allowed to touch).

Almost immediately after I started playing my new flute, he started getting hooked onto the Andrea Bocelli concerts on PBS. Mind you, I dug the Barilla commercials, and “Time to Say Goodbye.” But, I don’t know, I’m just not that into Bocelli.

Listening to Andrea Bocelli makes me nervous. I keep expecting Sarah Brightman to pop in from nowhere, Deus ex Machina style, in something diaphanous, and wearing none-too-flattering pale blue makeup, singing the heart out of the vowels of the lyric, her mouth turning into an ever rounder “o”.

But my dad—has turned into the biggest Andrea Bocelli fan I’ve ever seen. He kept playing the PBS special for a couple days, and then when I started to complain, making some rather unfair and ungrounded comparisons to Yanni, he took his “scene” upstairs to his room, and closed the door, and basically listened to it all night.

Somehow, I feel our roles have changed.

Good Thing #2: I’ve run out of time blathering on about “Good Thing #1.” Indeed I’ve almost forgotten what Good Thing #1 was (Oh yeah! The flute!). Will post later!

O rare Arugula!

New buzz from pemberley.com "Posh Nosh" (on BBC2) is finally showing in the US on selected PBS stations!

Apparently our local station's strictly NOTOFD ("Not our type of foodies, dear"), so we'll have to wait a bit.

This comedy series is an oh-so-timely sendup of the stereotypical gourmet cooking show, with as much pomp and non-circumstance as can be sliced, canned, and checker cloth-bottled into its time slot. Richard E. Grant and Arabella (Arabella?) Weir as the (shall we say, mismatched?) couple Simon and Minty Marchand "from Reading" who've somehow made their way into the galaxy of gourmands, and are desperately trying to keep things upmarket.

The website has tons of realaudio clips (none of which, alas, play on my computer for some mysterious reason). The text on the site is almost as good.

Favorite quotes:

Simon Marchant:
"Since childhood, I've had to listen to vegetarians banging on about killing baa-baas. As if the pears they serially slice mean nothing."

Minty Marchant: (from the section on "Architect's Fish and Chips")

"Breathe on your Sturgeon Fillet till it defrosts. (Allow 1-2 days.) Pour hot-bubbling water over the fish till it's nicely completely nice. Blade-run a knife under the skin till the fish is thoroughly ashamed. Rest in space.
Pillage the fish bones and flay the skin. Plunge them into happening water with your bay leaf, celery, thyme, carrot and onion. Annoy the stock for about 26 minutes. Strip the fish and down it in the strained, vexed stock. Re-annoy till tender. Condimentalise."

I won't even begin to mention the bit about placing the fillet on a "duvet of rice."

Achoo! (And that's not a reference to "Men in Tights"...)

I'm a bit under the weather for the moment, but do check out my new Flickr.com pictures. I have more to add to the photostream, but I'm already near my quota limit. Oh well, have camera, will travel (Or rather, have travel, will camera!) :)!

Relatedly, I'm starting to find that photos for my "Garden Art Gone Bad" tag are astonishingly easy to find. What is it about gardens that seems to turn people with otherwise average taste into faux Grecian art-loving, excessive sundialling, pink flamingoing maniacs?

In my recent travels I've had the joy of trying out some of Casey Burns's flutes in a music shop. Burns is a wooden-flute maker who works out of Kingston, Washington. My take on his best known models:

The Folk Flute: Made of Mopane wood. I tried two of these. This is a very reasonably priced flute, and is a popular suggestion for beginners. I found it to be extremely responsive, which means it's a relatively easy flute to start off on if you're new to sideblown flutes. It has a lovely woody sound. The downside--I think there's a significant difference between Mopane and African Blackwood flutes. The former has what I can only describe as the earthiness of wooden flutes, without the "reedy" sound that I happen to personally prefer. (Burns and others do make a point of describing this as a beginner's or student flute).

Which takes me to the next flute that I tried.

The Casey Burns Ergonomic Pratten: A flute made in the style of the Boosey and Hawkes "Pratten Perfected" flute, and an absolute dream to play! The flute I tried was made in African Blackwood (aka "Grenadilla"--the wood commonly used for making clarinets). Apparently the kind of Blackwood used to make instruments is becoming a limited resource. which, as a non clarinet-person, makes me think the fault lies on the Clarinet side and not the Irish flute side!

The Pratten (as opposed to the "Rudall and Rose"--known for its sweetness and its ease of expressiveness) has a rep for being a loud flute with a "honking" sound.

Personally, I think it's just fine for volume. Then again, perhaps I'm not one to judge, since it was my goal in high school marching band to master the art of loud flute-playing in the middle register. Seriously though, if you actually want to be heard at a session, above the talking (some of which is guaranteed to be loud and tipsy), this is a terrific flute to have.

Additionally, it has what people describe as a "honking" quality--more of a rasp if you ask me, (or a "chiff" if you're talking tin whistle) and absolutely lovely in Irish music.

Back to the flute that I tried. Basically, the store had to pry this flute out of my hands. It's a little less responsive than the Folk Flute, so I think beginners would need to practice to get a proper note out (then again, that's how it was when I was starting, and I did fine eventually, so everyone else must suffer too!!! ;)).

But if you can play a few notes and test drive it up and down some scales, etc.--amazing. Something about the combination of blackwood, and Burns's fine workmanship on this model made it absolutely delicious to play. It had a wonderful weightiness to the sound. I could imagine myself with session players around me.

Only problem--I'd probably be an overprotective flute mom and never let it out of my house, much less a humidor.

The icing on the cake--the non-folk-flute models come with Casey's seal: a lovely little starfish, reminiscent of coastal Washington.

So that's my spiel. Time for dinner!

d is for d flute (also "drool"): part of an ongoing series

I've been in search of a nice d-flute for the past several months. The phrase "d flute" is misleading--it's d tonic, meaning that it's still keyed in c (no transposition) but that the note that plays when all fingers are off is a d natural.

What makes buying a d-flute so much trickier than buying your usual metal orchestral (C-) flute is that there are so few opportunities try the d-flute out. Flutes, particularly wooden flutes (and that's the kind I'm looking for at the moment) can be quite temperamental and seem to work better for some players than others (i.e. "good" vs. "bad" players ;) ). Actually, some flutes are better for certain embouchures, and no two flutes are really alike.

More on this later...

The Green Vortex

You are entering a dimension. A dimension not only of space and time but also of mind. And, um, wooden flutes and tin whistles. Not to mention bodhrans and the occasional shakuhachi. In other words...

Oh dear. I think I'm becoming addicted to Celtic music, Celtic flutes in particular. Here’s how it happens (for the uninitiated).

1. Innocently listen to Frankie Kennedy on an Altan track playing on the BBC radio Scotland website. Determine that “Pretty Peg” is the best tune you’ve heard. Ever.

2. Also decide that you want to sound just like Frankie Kennedy (former flutist of Altan whose recent death in 1994 was and is a tragedy to the music world ).

3. Also also start listening to Matt Molloy, and everything you can get your ears on from the Green Linnet label.

4. Get a tin whistle. Mine’s a Feadog, with a green fipple (that's the green mouthpiecey part, or more specifically, a part of that part. I think.)

5. Use words like “fipple” in normal conversation.

6. Learn taps, cuts, rolls, and crans. Remember: A tap is not a grace note (though it may attempt to play one on TV). Naughty tap!

7. Figure out how to mess with your tin whistle so that it plays in tune. As I have recently learned from a more experienced musician, this will involve placing my tin whistle in nearly boiling water, and heating the glue off so that my nontunable Feadog will be a slightly more tunable one.

WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. AND IF YOU DO, DO NOT BLAME ME FOR THE CONSEQUENCES!

Because, as a sensible musician pointed out, “placing your tin whistle in near-boiling water may cause your fipple to melt off.”
(And, ahem, nobody needs that.)

8. Play more, listen more. Try not to look like a poser in sessions.

9. Force family members to listen to Celtic music. Because this is most certainly not just “your thing.” EVERYONE MUST LISTEN. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! And you too, kitty! The fact that you are a feline does not excuse you from this!

10. Spend hours (and HOURS) trying to figure out what sort of D flute you want. M&E? Seery? Casey Burns? An Olwell bamboo? Does Olwell still make bamboo flutes? Cocuswood or African blackwood or plastic polymer? Very Hogwartsy.

11. Acquire CDs and instruments.

12. Play.

13. Listen.

14. Repeat steps 12 and 13 until you are well and truly mental (if not so already).

Et voila! You have entered: The Green Vortex (dum da DUM...da da dadada DAH).

Note: The Green Vortex is not to be confused with any sort of TV series. Definitely not the Twilight Zone. Because I am not by any means alluding to the theme song here. Not at all! No allusions here! Nope! None whatsoever to any series, and certainly not any show starring Rod Serling and his eyebrows (credited separately).

Hellooo!

Welcome!

One day, in the not-so-far distant future, this blog will feature a refreshing "orange"-toned background (in deference to the Noble Kumquat).

In the meantime, enjoy the less citrusy (yet still refreshing) generic background!

And have a nice day!