Well, that was my longest absence from this blog by far (eight months!). I apologize for the lapse. It got out from under me. I will return with some riveting content shortly, but for now I would just like to say: hello friends, I am back.
Even when I last posted, I hadn't caught you up on the juicy contours of my dating life or the state of American politics, and I certainly hadn't finished annotating and posting backlog playlists made for friends and lovers. I promise this and more if you stay tuned.
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Making the Classics
When I wrote my first comprehensive cocktail post I figured I needn't post how I made those classic cocktails. I mean, they're classics, right? Two years experience being over twenty one and I know differently. I don't go to bars very frequently, but I've ordered two Martinis. First of all I had to specify and confirm that I wanted them made with gin. When I finally got my Martini, not only was vermouth almost nonexistent, but the drink was iced so thoroughly that instead of tasting like uncomplemented gin it tasted mostly like ice water. That's for both instances. One of those was from Sophia's and cost $7. Their Mojito was also off-balance (mostly mint and soda water). At a bar in Dublin (CA) I ordered an Old Fashioned and was similarly displeased.
It seems to me that bartenders accustomed to "pinky up" drinks that are incredibly hard to mess up are now ruining the last respectable cocktails on the house books. Fine cocktails are difficult to balance and I suppose bartenders have incentive to make drinks as quickly as they can, but I don't mean it lightly when I say they were nearly undrinkable. All of those drinks were travesties. I know there are good bars out there that still take cocktails seriously. I've promised myself to investigate one sometime when I have the extra arm and leg required to pay the tab. Until then, I'm going to err on the side of beer. They still haven't figured out how to mess that up.
Those of my readers who've been around the block are welcomed to weigh in here. I could be totally off-base. For those pinky-uppers and non-cocktail-drinkers among you, don't hold bar failures against a good cocktail.
The Martini was the first cocktail Brandon and I got into. It took us awhile to get the proportions right and it took us awhile to figure out how to drink them properly (small sips, guys). Though we did the vermouth by eye, we learned quickly enough what amount made a good Martini. That amount ended up remarkably close to IBA specifications: one shot gin, one quarter-shot dry vermouth. When done right, as you roll the fiery liquid around your mouth, you can bask in the divine balance of sharp juniper with the nutty/fruity/spicy flavors of vermouth.
Since our early days using Seagram's Gin for our Martinis, Brandon and I have moved to "swanky" gins, which really comes down to deciding between Bombay Sapphire and similarly-priced Tanqueray. I'm partial to the latter as it tastes more like gin. I don't think the flowery flourishes of Bombay Sapphire lend themselves to Martinis, though they work better in Gin and Tonics (one of the more foolproof cocktails, fyi).
So, my rules for Martinis are as follows:
-When left unspecified, a Martini is made with gin, not vodka.
-"Martinis", as a category, includes various vermouth-containing cocktails such as the Vodka Martini and the Dirty Martini, which is to say "Martinis" do not include most cocktails served in martini glasses or with the suffix "-tini". Too many times have I heard beer or whiskey snobs refer derisively to "Martinis", alluding to their syrupy ways, and it gives me a sad.
-Vermouth should make a 1:4 ratio with the gin unless specified "dry" or "wet", which I do not recommend and I certainly don't recommend starting off with.
-The gin should be shaken or stirred with ice straight out of the freezer and for a short period of time. The primary ingredient in a Martini should be gin, not melted ice.
Brandon and I also took the foundation for our Manhattans from the IBA via wikipedia. I've found the ratio of vermouth to liquor is a little more forgiving than with Martinis (unlike dry, sweet vermouth is pretty good on its own). We ended up eyeballing about the same amount of vermouth for both Martinis and Manhattans.
My dad serves Manhattans on the rocks without bitters rather than the IBA-recommended straight up. He's also a fan of a variant he picked up from my Wisconsinite maternal grandfather, Grandpa Pee Wee, which uses sweet white vermouth aka Bianco. Between the ice, the lack of bitters and a more liberal application of vermouth, the whole thing comes out much milder than my don't-shake-it-too-long-or-it'll-be-watery Martinis and Manhattans. Personal taste aside, my dad makes an excellent Manhattan, which I guess is a testament to the drink's flexibility.
I'd also like to mention the Sazerac, which is reputed to be the oldest cocktail and the catalyst for the first time I stocked a bar. It's how I got into rye whiskey. While there is no IBA-official recipe, I'm very happy with the Wikipedia recipe. I often simplify the process to resemble how I make Martinis/Manhattans (though the Sazerac is more complex), but I've found that it is absolutely necessary to first add the Absinthe/Herbsaint (or Pastis or any anise-flavored liquor) by coating the glass. I've also found that releasing the lemon peel's oils onto the drink is essential for the overall effect.
Other, also respectable, cocktails that lean harder on water and sugar are more forgiving to make and more approachable for those with weak palates, but there's nothing like classic straight up cocktails with that heady mix of spices, fruits, herbs and aromatics only they have to offer. Nothing else takes the taste of alcohol to such a pure, high glory.
It seems to me that bartenders accustomed to "pinky up" drinks that are incredibly hard to mess up are now ruining the last respectable cocktails on the house books. Fine cocktails are difficult to balance and I suppose bartenders have incentive to make drinks as quickly as they can, but I don't mean it lightly when I say they were nearly undrinkable. All of those drinks were travesties. I know there are good bars out there that still take cocktails seriously. I've promised myself to investigate one sometime when I have the extra arm and leg required to pay the tab. Until then, I'm going to err on the side of beer. They still haven't figured out how to mess that up.
Those of my readers who've been around the block are welcomed to weigh in here. I could be totally off-base. For those pinky-uppers and non-cocktail-drinkers among you, don't hold bar failures against a good cocktail.
The Martini was the first cocktail Brandon and I got into. It took us awhile to get the proportions right and it took us awhile to figure out how to drink them properly (small sips, guys). Though we did the vermouth by eye, we learned quickly enough what amount made a good Martini. That amount ended up remarkably close to IBA specifications: one shot gin, one quarter-shot dry vermouth. When done right, as you roll the fiery liquid around your mouth, you can bask in the divine balance of sharp juniper with the nutty/fruity/spicy flavors of vermouth.
Since our early days using Seagram's Gin for our Martinis, Brandon and I have moved to "swanky" gins, which really comes down to deciding between Bombay Sapphire and similarly-priced Tanqueray. I'm partial to the latter as it tastes more like gin. I don't think the flowery flourishes of Bombay Sapphire lend themselves to Martinis, though they work better in Gin and Tonics (one of the more foolproof cocktails, fyi).
So, my rules for Martinis are as follows:
-When left unspecified, a Martini is made with gin, not vodka.
-"Martinis", as a category, includes various vermouth-containing cocktails such as the Vodka Martini and the Dirty Martini, which is to say "Martinis" do not include most cocktails served in martini glasses or with the suffix "-tini". Too many times have I heard beer or whiskey snobs refer derisively to "Martinis", alluding to their syrupy ways, and it gives me a sad.
-Vermouth should make a 1:4 ratio with the gin unless specified "dry" or "wet", which I do not recommend and I certainly don't recommend starting off with.
-The gin should be shaken or stirred with ice straight out of the freezer and for a short period of time. The primary ingredient in a Martini should be gin, not melted ice.
Brandon and I also took the foundation for our Manhattans from the IBA via wikipedia. I've found the ratio of vermouth to liquor is a little more forgiving than with Martinis (unlike dry, sweet vermouth is pretty good on its own). We ended up eyeballing about the same amount of vermouth for both Martinis and Manhattans.
My dad serves Manhattans on the rocks without bitters rather than the IBA-recommended straight up. He's also a fan of a variant he picked up from my Wisconsinite maternal grandfather, Grandpa Pee Wee, which uses sweet white vermouth aka Bianco. Between the ice, the lack of bitters and a more liberal application of vermouth, the whole thing comes out much milder than my don't-shake-it-too-long-or-it'll-be-watery Martinis and Manhattans. Personal taste aside, my dad makes an excellent Manhattan, which I guess is a testament to the drink's flexibility.
I'd also like to mention the Sazerac, which is reputed to be the oldest cocktail and the catalyst for the first time I stocked a bar. It's how I got into rye whiskey. While there is no IBA-official recipe, I'm very happy with the Wikipedia recipe. I often simplify the process to resemble how I make Martinis/Manhattans (though the Sazerac is more complex), but I've found that it is absolutely necessary to first add the Absinthe/Herbsaint (or Pastis or any anise-flavored liquor) by coating the glass. I've also found that releasing the lemon peel's oils onto the drink is essential for the overall effect.
Other, also respectable, cocktails that lean harder on water and sugar are more forgiving to make and more approachable for those with weak palates, but there's nothing like classic straight up cocktails with that heady mix of spices, fruits, herbs and aromatics only they have to offer. Nothing else takes the taste of alcohol to such a pure, high glory.
Monday, September 12, 2011
The Coca-Cola Fiend
Back in the 80's, Coca-Cola tried to change their formula to so-called "New Coke", the fallout of which is why, until the last couple of years, cans of coke were labeled "Coca-Cola Classic". The rather compelling story of "New Coke" can be found on Wikipedia (of all the unlikely places to find a compellingly-written story).
I have said previously on this blog that Coca-Cola is awesome and I am here to say it again. Coca-Cola is fucking awesome. I'd like to elaborate on that starting premise.
Coca-Cola, as declared by a paper airline napkin, is "zesty and refreshing on the first sip and full and rich on the last". It has an impenetrable depth of flavor that, far from being intimidating, tastes easy and approachable even as it dares you to bury yourself in it's complexity. It complements most food and liquor remarkably well (my favorite pairing being with Chinese food). It has mild medicinal effects. In short, Coke is everything I believe a beverage should be.
My fascination with Coca-Cola led me to discover that different countries have been permitted to tweak the original formula for local tastes. Despite Andy Warhol's rather inspiring quote, not all cokes are created equal. The Apple House tasting team had one of its more epic sessions comparing cokes from the US, Mexico ("Mexicoke"), France and Spain. I must be getting spoiled by all of the options available to me as a resident of a major US city, because I think there really should be a store/soda bar somewhere in San Francisco that sells Coca-Colas from every country that coke is bottled in.
I'd also love to be able to taste older formulations of Coca-Cola, particularly the very earliest incarnations that still contained modest quantities of cocaine. In fact, crazy as it may sound, I would like to see that oldest formula reintroduced. At low concentrations, there's no reason that such a soda would be particularly dangerous or addictive. Coca-leaf tea is still consumed all over the Andes without causing problems. It is treated like coffee is treated here-- as a mild stimulant to power people through the working day. Of course, I expect that this retro coke would have considerably more kick than the current formula.
Flavor-wise, coke holds up well against craft sodas, though there is a key difference in approach. Like a good second-day gumbo (gumbo is always better the second day), Coca-Cola's flavors are married such that the individual ingredients cannot be parsed out. This is ideal for easy drinking and culinary harmony, but it plays poorly with gourmets who've been taught to pick out flavor notes, as with wine. Excellent craft sodas like Virgil's Rootbeer and Red Bull's Cola make their concoctions' individual components as clear as possible in the tasting. To sip one of these sodas is to take a tour of the ingredients proudly labeled on the back of the container: nutmeg, cinnamon, anise, clove, cardamom, cassis oil, etc. While purported ingredients for Coca-Cola's famously secret recipes are similarly complex and exotic (neroli oil, anyone?), the difference is one of taste rather than of quality. Coca-Cola produces a more harmonious soda while the best craft soda makers sacrifice harmony for a more explicit complexity. With the notable exception of Coke's choice of sweetener, there are no culinary grounds to fault or marginalize the quality of Coke as a world-class soda. Anyone who has, as I have, made a point to compare every available cola must inevitably recognize the resounding excellence of Coca-Cola.
I have said previously on this blog that Coca-Cola is awesome and I am here to say it again. Coca-Cola is fucking awesome. I'd like to elaborate on that starting premise.
Coca-Cola, as declared by a paper airline napkin, is "zesty and refreshing on the first sip and full and rich on the last". It has an impenetrable depth of flavor that, far from being intimidating, tastes easy and approachable even as it dares you to bury yourself in it's complexity. It complements most food and liquor remarkably well (my favorite pairing being with Chinese food). It has mild medicinal effects. In short, Coke is everything I believe a beverage should be.
My fascination with Coca-Cola led me to discover that different countries have been permitted to tweak the original formula for local tastes. Despite Andy Warhol's rather inspiring quote, not all cokes are created equal. The Apple House tasting team had one of its more epic sessions comparing cokes from the US, Mexico ("Mexicoke"), France and Spain. I must be getting spoiled by all of the options available to me as a resident of a major US city, because I think there really should be a store/soda bar somewhere in San Francisco that sells Coca-Colas from every country that coke is bottled in.
I'd also love to be able to taste older formulations of Coca-Cola, particularly the very earliest incarnations that still contained modest quantities of cocaine. In fact, crazy as it may sound, I would like to see that oldest formula reintroduced. At low concentrations, there's no reason that such a soda would be particularly dangerous or addictive. Coca-leaf tea is still consumed all over the Andes without causing problems. It is treated like coffee is treated here-- as a mild stimulant to power people through the working day. Of course, I expect that this retro coke would have considerably more kick than the current formula.
Flavor-wise, coke holds up well against craft sodas, though there is a key difference in approach. Like a good second-day gumbo (gumbo is always better the second day), Coca-Cola's flavors are married such that the individual ingredients cannot be parsed out. This is ideal for easy drinking and culinary harmony, but it plays poorly with gourmets who've been taught to pick out flavor notes, as with wine. Excellent craft sodas like Virgil's Rootbeer and Red Bull's Cola make their concoctions' individual components as clear as possible in the tasting. To sip one of these sodas is to take a tour of the ingredients proudly labeled on the back of the container: nutmeg, cinnamon, anise, clove, cardamom, cassis oil, etc. While purported ingredients for Coca-Cola's famously secret recipes are similarly complex and exotic (neroli oil, anyone?), the difference is one of taste rather than of quality. Coca-Cola produces a more harmonious soda while the best craft soda makers sacrifice harmony for a more explicit complexity. With the notable exception of Coke's choice of sweetener, there are no culinary grounds to fault or marginalize the quality of Coke as a world-class soda. Anyone who has, as I have, made a point to compare every available cola must inevitably recognize the resounding excellence of Coca-Cola.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Beginning of Summer Update
Let me catch you up on my life:
I got fired from Monsanto in April. I agreed a month later to spend the summer in Louisiana doing property management for my family. In two days, I leave for southern California to visit (step-)family from South Carolina, then Saturday I leave for Wisconsin to visit maternal family for a week. From there I fly to Louisiana, where I will stay until the end of August (living without air conditioning or in-home internet access). When I get back I'll be moving to the Bay Area. With luck, I will have lined up a job there to start on. I've been dating Sarah for about six months now and she is presently looking for jobs in the Bay Area too. I'm unsure whether or not I will apply again to graduate school or indeed if I will remain in biology. I got fired because I essentially sucked at following molecular bio protocols.
This blog has been on my back burner for awhile and I apologize to you, my loyal readers. It's not for lack of ideas, but for preoccupation with life. Just as last September boasted a bumper crop of fresh material because I was freshly employed, had nothing to do and lots to write about, since April I have been unemployed and my future has been decidedly uncertain. I'd like to point out that this blog passed 5000 unique views and 100 posts a little while ago. This blog is not dying anytime soon, but be patient.
Oh, also, I just turned twenty four, so happy birthday to me. I definitely feel like I am in my mid-twenties at this point, which is something I couldn't say a year ago. According to my dad, I still have ten years before everything goes to shit physically.
I got fired from Monsanto in April. I agreed a month later to spend the summer in Louisiana doing property management for my family. In two days, I leave for southern California to visit (step-)family from South Carolina, then Saturday I leave for Wisconsin to visit maternal family for a week. From there I fly to Louisiana, where I will stay until the end of August (living without air conditioning or in-home internet access). When I get back I'll be moving to the Bay Area. With luck, I will have lined up a job there to start on. I've been dating Sarah for about six months now and she is presently looking for jobs in the Bay Area too. I'm unsure whether or not I will apply again to graduate school or indeed if I will remain in biology. I got fired because I essentially sucked at following molecular bio protocols.
This blog has been on my back burner for awhile and I apologize to you, my loyal readers. It's not for lack of ideas, but for preoccupation with life. Just as last September boasted a bumper crop of fresh material because I was freshly employed, had nothing to do and lots to write about, since April I have been unemployed and my future has been decidedly uncertain. I'd like to point out that this blog passed 5000 unique views and 100 posts a little while ago. This blog is not dying anytime soon, but be patient.
Oh, also, I just turned twenty four, so happy birthday to me. I definitely feel like I am in my mid-twenties at this point, which is something I couldn't say a year ago. According to my dad, I still have ten years before everything goes to shit physically.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
On the Persuasion of Words
My friend Rob prefaced a confessional story with a preamble about how the use of words is nearly always an attempt to persuade people to like us and love us. He explained that he did his best to use words for the greater good and ignore what light his confessional story might portray him in. This was my response, cleaned up for your reading pleasure.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
September Update
It's been a long and interesting month. I'm just starting to feel settled into my new living arrangement.
This September was immediately preceded by moving out of my old house and moving Jill to Santa Cruz, where we broke up. After a week chilling with my sister, I returned to my new house. My three roommates were near-perfect strangers, my room was too full of boxes to fit a mattress and Jill wasn't the only person close to me to have moved on from Davis, just the most recent.
I started work again with Monsanto on the seventh. I'd gotten the job on the basis of an excellent recommendation from my old boss Staci, who I worked under during my internship. I knew I'd be facing a cut in pay, responsibility and interest of work. I'll be doing a complex assay to detect disease contamination in tomato seeds all year. I recently told Staci that my erratic thought-patterns are sub-ideal for the rather meticulous job, but that I'd get the rhythm of it soon enough. The tediousness of the job is saved by the pleasantness of the work environment. Everyone there is very cool and the nature of the job affords us some opportunity to talk.
It also turns out I won the roommate lottery. Mike is a nerdy but affable guy of understated intelligence that I think I could eventually become good friends with. Mereb and Celeste have the master bedroom. I was concerned that their hippy quirks might drive me crazy, but they're really open-minded and not even vegetarians. They turned me onto an awesome beer made by Pabst called Olympia. It's just as good as PBR, but the flavor is corn-driven instead of rice-driven. I suspect they used Cascade-style hops, which is kind of cool. Everyone is interesting to talk to and has a surprising number of things in common with me. I finally have a player for my records, I got my butt handed to me playing Axis and Allies and we might even get chickens soon.
Most of my free time this month has been spent in long conversations with old friends and writing this blog (four thousand unique hits and counting). A few you who know more than how to count will observe that it's been my most productive month of blogging thus far.
I've also been dabbling in TV shows, music and bonding with my new people. Mereb picked up a ping-pong table this weekend. I'd forgotten how much I liked that game. I went to Fry's with Mike on Sunday to check out computers. Yesterday I went to Vacaville Outlet Mall with coworkers and picked up some new shoes (green and white plaid converse, fyi).
I went to a KDVS show last week in Sac with Kern that his band was playing at. He and I both loved one of the bands there (Fall of Electricity), which embodied an intense, proggy drummer/guitarist formula that I've seen work really well a few times (other notable examples being the two-person incarnations of Afternoon Brother and Lightning Bolt). I bought Fall of Electicity's cassette, but I don't have a cassette player, so I'm going to download the mp3's it entitles me to and give away the cassette to the first person who asks, as per the guitarist's suggestion.
Howard has reclaimed an old mini-fridge and is trying to splice in a thermostat so that we can temperature-control fermentation for making sakes and lagers. The plan is to start a doppelbock this weekend and have bottles of it ready for Christmas. I've been scurrying to put together a recipe worthy of my "North Swell Bock" concept.
I've been thanking my lucky stars that Howard ended up sticking around for at least a little while longer. New friends are great and phone friends are great, but having a concrete piece of familiarity is priceless. It's interesting to chat with Howard on a one-on-one basis too. I've hardly ever had conversations with him as personal and thoughtful as they have recently been.
I've kept in contact with Jill and I think there's a decent chance the friends-afterward thing will work. She visited me last Sunday, partly to drop off the next books of a series she got me addicted to. We walked to Borders and talked. We don't talk like nothing's changed, but the familiarity is still there and it's nice. The whole visit was intensely bittersweet, though. Our hugs were the stuff of poetry. After she left I took a nap to both sort out my thoughts and disrupt their endless flow. I was off balance the whole rest of the day.
For those of you who keep asking me why we didn't stay together, please go back and read this. The reasons haven't changed and I have yet to (seriously) reconsider the decision.
For those of you who keep asking me how I'm doing, I'm doing fine. I'm doing better with each passing week. I have my moments, but mostly I feel surprisingly okay and that's getting more true with time. I think the good terms we parted on and the constant talk with friends has helped a lot.
That said, I've been dwelling a lot on the past and it is occasionally depressing. It's not just Jill, it's everything. I miss college things like watching TV and drinking beer with Brandon, bullshitting late at night and John Lazur giving me dubious advice. My being disgruntled about change should be neither surprising nor worrisome to any of you. I never pretended to like change, just to know it's good for me.
This September was immediately preceded by moving out of my old house and moving Jill to Santa Cruz, where we broke up. After a week chilling with my sister, I returned to my new house. My three roommates were near-perfect strangers, my room was too full of boxes to fit a mattress and Jill wasn't the only person close to me to have moved on from Davis, just the most recent.
I started work again with Monsanto on the seventh. I'd gotten the job on the basis of an excellent recommendation from my old boss Staci, who I worked under during my internship. I knew I'd be facing a cut in pay, responsibility and interest of work. I'll be doing a complex assay to detect disease contamination in tomato seeds all year. I recently told Staci that my erratic thought-patterns are sub-ideal for the rather meticulous job, but that I'd get the rhythm of it soon enough. The tediousness of the job is saved by the pleasantness of the work environment. Everyone there is very cool and the nature of the job affords us some opportunity to talk.
It also turns out I won the roommate lottery. Mike is a nerdy but affable guy of understated intelligence that I think I could eventually become good friends with. Mereb and Celeste have the master bedroom. I was concerned that their hippy quirks might drive me crazy, but they're really open-minded and not even vegetarians. They turned me onto an awesome beer made by Pabst called Olympia. It's just as good as PBR, but the flavor is corn-driven instead of rice-driven. I suspect they used Cascade-style hops, which is kind of cool. Everyone is interesting to talk to and has a surprising number of things in common with me. I finally have a player for my records, I got my butt handed to me playing Axis and Allies and we might even get chickens soon.
Most of my free time this month has been spent in long conversations with old friends and writing this blog (four thousand unique hits and counting). A few you who know more than how to count will observe that it's been my most productive month of blogging thus far.
I've also been dabbling in TV shows, music and bonding with my new people. Mereb picked up a ping-pong table this weekend. I'd forgotten how much I liked that game. I went to Fry's with Mike on Sunday to check out computers. Yesterday I went to Vacaville Outlet Mall with coworkers and picked up some new shoes (green and white plaid converse, fyi).
I went to a KDVS show last week in Sac with Kern that his band was playing at. He and I both loved one of the bands there (Fall of Electricity), which embodied an intense, proggy drummer/guitarist formula that I've seen work really well a few times (other notable examples being the two-person incarnations of Afternoon Brother and Lightning Bolt). I bought Fall of Electicity's cassette, but I don't have a cassette player, so I'm going to download the mp3's it entitles me to and give away the cassette to the first person who asks, as per the guitarist's suggestion.
Howard has reclaimed an old mini-fridge and is trying to splice in a thermostat so that we can temperature-control fermentation for making sakes and lagers. The plan is to start a doppelbock this weekend and have bottles of it ready for Christmas. I've been scurrying to put together a recipe worthy of my "North Swell Bock" concept.
I've been thanking my lucky stars that Howard ended up sticking around for at least a little while longer. New friends are great and phone friends are great, but having a concrete piece of familiarity is priceless. It's interesting to chat with Howard on a one-on-one basis too. I've hardly ever had conversations with him as personal and thoughtful as they have recently been.
I've kept in contact with Jill and I think there's a decent chance the friends-afterward thing will work. She visited me last Sunday, partly to drop off the next books of a series she got me addicted to. We walked to Borders and talked. We don't talk like nothing's changed, but the familiarity is still there and it's nice. The whole visit was intensely bittersweet, though. Our hugs were the stuff of poetry. After she left I took a nap to both sort out my thoughts and disrupt their endless flow. I was off balance the whole rest of the day.
For those of you who keep asking me why we didn't stay together, please go back and read this. The reasons haven't changed and I have yet to (seriously) reconsider the decision.
For those of you who keep asking me how I'm doing, I'm doing fine. I'm doing better with each passing week. I have my moments, but mostly I feel surprisingly okay and that's getting more true with time. I think the good terms we parted on and the constant talk with friends has helped a lot.
That said, I've been dwelling a lot on the past and it is occasionally depressing. It's not just Jill, it's everything. I miss college things like watching TV and drinking beer with Brandon, bullshitting late at night and John Lazur giving me dubious advice. My being disgruntled about change should be neither surprising nor worrisome to any of you. I never pretended to like change, just to know it's good for me.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Berkeley and The Lost Coast
I visited Caius for his graduation ceremony and to go on a backpacking trip in the Lost Coast.
I finally got to meet his friend Claire, who's about as cool as I could have imagined. Caius's parents took us out to a delicious dinner and then we went home to Caius's coop and watched Carl Sagan, which was a campy trip. Saturday I had more interesting, thoughtful conversations in one day than I typically have in a month. I could probably write a handful of posts from what I discussed that day alone.
Caius's commencement that morning would have been pretty boring if not for his friend David, who I sat with. We chatted with his family afterwards at the reception. His graduation was extra special for the fact that Caius had dropped out of school for a year with no plans to return. Evidently his dad had promised to quit smoking if Caius ever graduated. Here's wishing him good luck.
That afternoon Caius and I took a nap and did yoga on his coop's roof. We checked out the "free pile" in the basement. We played dress-up for awhile, Caius picked out a shirt and I found a messenger bag in new condition. We also ate greek yogurt with honey in a broken, tilted couch hung outdoors on a rope that was reminiscent of a Dali painting. Caius and Claire and I had indian food for dinner accompanied by an intense discussion about the philosophical contrast between Pilsner and IPA. That night I chatted with Claire for a while and was *gasp* impressed by Stone IPA, which I guess has been due for another chance (John Lazur has called it his favorite beer). I got to meet another longtime friend of Caius's while we packed for our trip.
We left the next morning for the Lost Coast. We stopped along the way at a secret hot spring that's only accessible at low tide. About 500 feet down an incredibly steep bluff later we arrived to find about 35 mostly naked people crammed into the area of two VW bugs. I teetered a little, but I couldn't really imagine letting the opportunity slide, so I squeezed myself in. The spring had been dug out by hand and every day after high tide someone would siphon the cold seawater out. The temperature was perfect and everyone was friendly (you have to be when you're packed bare cheek to bare cheek). To top it off, an old guy passed out chocolate and strawberries to everyone.
The Lost Coast is breathtakingly beautiful. Most of the pictures I've found online were taken when it's sunny, but when we arrived at Shelter Cove, the mountains were wreathed in marine layer. The black sand in the cliffs and on the beach contrasted sharply with the deep green of the mountains. The pictures are courtesy of Caius's friend Kaija and you can find the rest of her photos from our trip here.
The vegetation ranged from fennel and cow parsley in the canyon openings to pine trees, ceanothus and manzanita up into the mountains. I've also never seen so much poison oak in one place. Poison oak was the one common denominator between all of the plant communities we passed through, from ridge-line chaparral to sand dunes. I got pretty good at dancing between branches with my frame-pack.
We were thirteen people, mostly from Caius's coop, Loth. All the food would be vegetarian, and the trip organizers had brought such luxuries as soy milk, broccoli and kale. I should note that every meal we had was incredibly delicious, partly because of the nature of backpacking, but partly because the food was excellent. No matter how crazy it was to bring something like kale or to forgo nutritious meat, our diet ended up being a lot closer to my at-home diet than my dad's summer sausage, nuts and dehydrated mashed potatoes. Also, despite my fears about all of the water and non-calories we were taking up, my pack weight was never enough to bother me much. I had much more trouble with the rocks and sand on the beach.
We camped the first night in Shelter Cove, not too far from our cars. We woke up to the sound of raindrops on our tents. That kind of set the tone for the day. We packed up and started walking down the beach. We found washed-up dead sea animals of enormous size, including an almost-fresh sting ray, two octupus, two chitons, a bunch of starfish and what looked like the remains of a grouper. The ten miles of beach that we planned on crossing that day were impassable at high tides, so we shivered for a couple of hours at a canyon opening for lunch while the wind did it's best to blow rain under our tarp and the tarp into the sky.
Lesson learned #1: It rains a lot in the Lost Coast.
Lesson learned #2: Waterproofed nylon isn't waterproof.
By the time we rolled into camp that night, everything I owned had been soaked through with rain. Actually, one thing was dry. A pair of socks I'd stuffed into my upside down camp cup was the only dry fabric I owned. Words cannot express my joy at finding those socks, which possibly illustrates how thoroughly demoralized we were by the end of that day. We huddled under our tarp, cooked and changed our clothes for any marginally drier ones we might have. Soon we shivered off to our tents and into our damp sleeping bags.
The next morning was cloudy and dewy, but the rain had finally stopped. We hung our clothes on trees that morning in hopes that they might dry, to little effect. Once we got walking, the dew on the grass quickly soaked my already wet sneakers to the point of squelching. We hiked up the canyon and forded the stream a couple of times. Thanks to my coop companions' liberal attitude towards nudity I managed to cross both fords without getting my clothes any wetter than they already were.
The next three miles were about the steepest switchbacks I've ever seen. You had to go slowly so your feet wouldn't slide back. I passed the time with a conversation about agribusiness and human rights (my answer was no, neither food nor technologically advanced seeds are or should be basic human rights).
That night the sky was clear and we crowded around the fire to dry our clothes by. It was pretty cool watching sleeping bags, shoes, socks and shirts all steaming away. A few of us decided to sleep on the ridgeline under the stars (who's perfect glory was only marred by my lack of glasses).
When I woke up, the sky had turned the faintest gray. I wondered if oncoming dawn had already obscured the stars or if those were clouds I was looking up at. A raindrop on the face answered my question. I yelled, "Wake up, guys, it's raining!". We hurried to pack our sleeping bags and scurried down the hill as the drops quickened and thickened. Soon we were in tents and fast asleep again.
By the time we woke up, things had progressed into a steady downpour. The hollow we'd camped in was slowly turning into a pond. We divided up our food for two groups: the one that would continue across the mountains to where we'd parked our cars (including Caius) and the group that had to turn back to get home for things (including myself and three others). Two long Caius-hugs later and the four of us were marching down the ridgeline against driving rain and gales that threatened to throw us off the ridge. Once again I felt the familiar sensation of my rain-jacket hemorrhaging water into my clothes beneath. The four of us tore down that hill at a near-run (quite a feat considering the precipitous angle).
We arrived at our first camp in the early afternoon. By that time, the rain had stopped and our clothes were just starting to dry, though both I and another had slipped in the increased river flow at the fords. Our goal was to camp in a canyon about four miles from where our cars were parked, but we were making such good time we'd started daring to hope we might make it to our beds by late that night. The tide forced us to break for dinner, but the sun came out while we were cooking, for the first time since our trip had started. It was amazing how quickly clothes dried under actual sunlight. The latitude pushed nightfall back almost an hour, but we still had nine miles of cobblestone and sand to cross.
The canyon opening we'd planned on camping in looked like something from a fantasy book in the twilight of sunset. We sat there awhile while the other Eagle Scout on the trip filtered fresh water. The trees arched over the stream to create a tunnel into the increasing darkness of the canyon, while the mist from the waves gave everything a hazy sort of aura about it.
As I think you might already suspect, we ultimately agreed to make our bid for home that night. I was pretty eager considering that my right ankle had settled into constant pain from all the abuse I'd heaped on it through the trip. I passed the time and pain of the final stretch again in discussion with postmodern socialists. By the time it was properly dark we'd finished with cobblestones and the moon had come out, so we never needed flashlights. The last couple of streams were too dark and too wide to completely jump, but we didn't really care because we knew we'd be able to take off our shoes soon enough.
A whirlwind of a car ride later and I was in Davis just before dawn broke. I took a long shower and curled into the warm bed I'd dreamed about all week.
I finally got to meet his friend Claire, who's about as cool as I could have imagined. Caius's parents took us out to a delicious dinner and then we went home to Caius's coop and watched Carl Sagan, which was a campy trip. Saturday I had more interesting, thoughtful conversations in one day than I typically have in a month. I could probably write a handful of posts from what I discussed that day alone.
Caius's commencement that morning would have been pretty boring if not for his friend David, who I sat with. We chatted with his family afterwards at the reception. His graduation was extra special for the fact that Caius had dropped out of school for a year with no plans to return. Evidently his dad had promised to quit smoking if Caius ever graduated. Here's wishing him good luck.
That afternoon Caius and I took a nap and did yoga on his coop's roof. We checked out the "free pile" in the basement. We played dress-up for awhile, Caius picked out a shirt and I found a messenger bag in new condition. We also ate greek yogurt with honey in a broken, tilted couch hung outdoors on a rope that was reminiscent of a Dali painting. Caius and Claire and I had indian food for dinner accompanied by an intense discussion about the philosophical contrast between Pilsner and IPA. That night I chatted with Claire for a while and was *gasp* impressed by Stone IPA, which I guess has been due for another chance (John Lazur has called it his favorite beer). I got to meet another longtime friend of Caius's while we packed for our trip.
We left the next morning for the Lost Coast. We stopped along the way at a secret hot spring that's only accessible at low tide. About 500 feet down an incredibly steep bluff later we arrived to find about 35 mostly naked people crammed into the area of two VW bugs. I teetered a little, but I couldn't really imagine letting the opportunity slide, so I squeezed myself in. The spring had been dug out by hand and every day after high tide someone would siphon the cold seawater out. The temperature was perfect and everyone was friendly (you have to be when you're packed bare cheek to bare cheek). To top it off, an old guy passed out chocolate and strawberries to everyone.
The Lost Coast is breathtakingly beautiful. Most of the pictures I've found online were taken when it's sunny, but when we arrived at Shelter Cove, the mountains were wreathed in marine layer. The black sand in the cliffs and on the beach contrasted sharply with the deep green of the mountains. The pictures are courtesy of Caius's friend Kaija and you can find the rest of her photos from our trip here.
The vegetation ranged from fennel and cow parsley in the canyon openings to pine trees, ceanothus and manzanita up into the mountains. I've also never seen so much poison oak in one place. Poison oak was the one common denominator between all of the plant communities we passed through, from ridge-line chaparral to sand dunes. I got pretty good at dancing between branches with my frame-pack.
We were thirteen people, mostly from Caius's coop, Loth. All the food would be vegetarian, and the trip organizers had brought such luxuries as soy milk, broccoli and kale. I should note that every meal we had was incredibly delicious, partly because of the nature of backpacking, but partly because the food was excellent. No matter how crazy it was to bring something like kale or to forgo nutritious meat, our diet ended up being a lot closer to my at-home diet than my dad's summer sausage, nuts and dehydrated mashed potatoes. Also, despite my fears about all of the water and non-calories we were taking up, my pack weight was never enough to bother me much. I had much more trouble with the rocks and sand on the beach.
We camped the first night in Shelter Cove, not too far from our cars. We woke up to the sound of raindrops on our tents. That kind of set the tone for the day. We packed up and started walking down the beach. We found washed-up dead sea animals of enormous size, including an almost-fresh sting ray, two octupus, two chitons, a bunch of starfish and what looked like the remains of a grouper. The ten miles of beach that we planned on crossing that day were impassable at high tides, so we shivered for a couple of hours at a canyon opening for lunch while the wind did it's best to blow rain under our tarp and the tarp into the sky.
Lesson learned #1: It rains a lot in the Lost Coast.
Lesson learned #2: Waterproofed nylon isn't waterproof.
By the time we rolled into camp that night, everything I owned had been soaked through with rain. Actually, one thing was dry. A pair of socks I'd stuffed into my upside down camp cup was the only dry fabric I owned. Words cannot express my joy at finding those socks, which possibly illustrates how thoroughly demoralized we were by the end of that day. We huddled under our tarp, cooked and changed our clothes for any marginally drier ones we might have. Soon we shivered off to our tents and into our damp sleeping bags.
The next morning was cloudy and dewy, but the rain had finally stopped. We hung our clothes on trees that morning in hopes that they might dry, to little effect. Once we got walking, the dew on the grass quickly soaked my already wet sneakers to the point of squelching. We hiked up the canyon and forded the stream a couple of times. Thanks to my coop companions' liberal attitude towards nudity I managed to cross both fords without getting my clothes any wetter than they already were.
The next three miles were about the steepest switchbacks I've ever seen. You had to go slowly so your feet wouldn't slide back. I passed the time with a conversation about agribusiness and human rights (my answer was no, neither food nor technologically advanced seeds are or should be basic human rights).
That night the sky was clear and we crowded around the fire to dry our clothes by. It was pretty cool watching sleeping bags, shoes, socks and shirts all steaming away. A few of us decided to sleep on the ridgeline under the stars (who's perfect glory was only marred by my lack of glasses).
When I woke up, the sky had turned the faintest gray. I wondered if oncoming dawn had already obscured the stars or if those were clouds I was looking up at. A raindrop on the face answered my question. I yelled, "Wake up, guys, it's raining!". We hurried to pack our sleeping bags and scurried down the hill as the drops quickened and thickened. Soon we were in tents and fast asleep again.
By the time we woke up, things had progressed into a steady downpour. The hollow we'd camped in was slowly turning into a pond. We divided up our food for two groups: the one that would continue across the mountains to where we'd parked our cars (including Caius) and the group that had to turn back to get home for things (including myself and three others). Two long Caius-hugs later and the four of us were marching down the ridgeline against driving rain and gales that threatened to throw us off the ridge. Once again I felt the familiar sensation of my rain-jacket hemorrhaging water into my clothes beneath. The four of us tore down that hill at a near-run (quite a feat considering the precipitous angle).
We arrived at our first camp in the early afternoon. By that time, the rain had stopped and our clothes were just starting to dry, though both I and another had slipped in the increased river flow at the fords. Our goal was to camp in a canyon about four miles from where our cars were parked, but we were making such good time we'd started daring to hope we might make it to our beds by late that night. The tide forced us to break for dinner, but the sun came out while we were cooking, for the first time since our trip had started. It was amazing how quickly clothes dried under actual sunlight. The latitude pushed nightfall back almost an hour, but we still had nine miles of cobblestone and sand to cross.
The canyon opening we'd planned on camping in looked like something from a fantasy book in the twilight of sunset. We sat there awhile while the other Eagle Scout on the trip filtered fresh water. The trees arched over the stream to create a tunnel into the increasing darkness of the canyon, while the mist from the waves gave everything a hazy sort of aura about it.
As I think you might already suspect, we ultimately agreed to make our bid for home that night. I was pretty eager considering that my right ankle had settled into constant pain from all the abuse I'd heaped on it through the trip. I passed the time and pain of the final stretch again in discussion with postmodern socialists. By the time it was properly dark we'd finished with cobblestones and the moon had come out, so we never needed flashlights. The last couple of streams were too dark and too wide to completely jump, but we didn't really care because we knew we'd be able to take off our shoes soon enough.
A whirlwind of a car ride later and I was in Davis just before dawn broke. I took a long shower and curled into the warm bed I'd dreamed about all week.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Articles of Faith
I tried to compile a short list of principles that underlie my actions and thoughts. It requires a good deal of "internal vigilance" to keep from using cliches and really get at one's core, because one has to strip every impulse down to its origin. I found that things like selfishness, love, peace, the greatest good or indeed, goodness itself, broke down upon extended analysis.
Faith itself, and as is implied by that, Risk.
Self-Love.
Human Cleverness, Individual and especially Collective.
Inwardly, Vigilance and Outwardly, Sincerity.
Common Humanity.
I assume that Faith would be found in anybody's complete list. The act of assumption is the basis for thought itself. Its corollary, Risk, is the basis for action.
Self-Love provides for a number of things including self-interest, the basis for human striving, and ego-centrism, which is an essential assumption for worldly understanding. Also self-confidence, which is the basis for intellectual assertion, power and leadership. Leadership is essential for people to organize into groups and institutions while intellectual assertion is essential for the expansion of human knowledge, so indirectly, Self-Love is instrumental in the creation of civilization.
This brings us to Collective Human Cleverness. My faith in religion, culture, media, science and vicarious wisdom of all kinds is grounded in a respect for the ability of humans to recognize the greatness of others' ideas. These ideas go through a process of dissemination and selective breeding that requires the conscious and unconscious participation of a huge number of individuals. Because of the imperfections, biases and stupidity of so many people this process doesn't seem perfect; yet it has a twisted sort of perfection analagous to the beauty of evolution. This blog plays a small role in contributing to that beautifully twisted mass consciousness.
Obviously, Individual Human Cleverness exists and can be considerable. However, I also have faith in a subtler, less explicit aspect of the human intellect: intuition. Let us not forget that for all our flaws, the simplest human mind puts even the largest supercomputers to shame in terms of both design and sheer processing power.
I believe in Inward Vigilance, which is to say I believe in skepticism, curiosity and clarity. About what and for what don't really matter as much, just do what's in front of you and try to limit the number of excuses you can make for yourself. It was inward vigilance that wrote this post.
Outward Sincerity is not something everybody adheres to. For many people sincerity is too much in conflict with the stronger principle of self-interest or even altruism. My sincerity is certainly compromised, but I am an earnest person, and where I am not sincere I strive to find ways that I can be so without too much damage to my other ideals.
I guess I kind of book-ended my list with gimmes. Common Humanity sounds as cliche as love or peace, but I can't think of a way around including it. Disagreements are either products of differing assumptions or of poor communication. That is to say, given the correct circumstances, I could be a terrorist, a member of PETA (as if there's a difference) or a fundamendalist Christian theocrat. This article of faith explains my keen interest in equivocating about Obama or Proposition 8.
So that's my list. I challenge you readers to try and distill your own articles of faith and post them as a comment. Don't tell me you are free of faith, because that's a boldfaced lie, and if you seriously write something as banal as "love" or "peace" without a thoughtful rationalization I promise you a swift kick in the rear.
Faith itself, and as is implied by that, Risk.
Self-Love.
Human Cleverness, Individual and especially Collective.
Inwardly, Vigilance and Outwardly, Sincerity.
Common Humanity.
I assume that Faith would be found in anybody's complete list. The act of assumption is the basis for thought itself. Its corollary, Risk, is the basis for action.
Self-Love provides for a number of things including self-interest, the basis for human striving, and ego-centrism, which is an essential assumption for worldly understanding. Also self-confidence, which is the basis for intellectual assertion, power and leadership. Leadership is essential for people to organize into groups and institutions while intellectual assertion is essential for the expansion of human knowledge, so indirectly, Self-Love is instrumental in the creation of civilization.
This brings us to Collective Human Cleverness. My faith in religion, culture, media, science and vicarious wisdom of all kinds is grounded in a respect for the ability of humans to recognize the greatness of others' ideas. These ideas go through a process of dissemination and selective breeding that requires the conscious and unconscious participation of a huge number of individuals. Because of the imperfections, biases and stupidity of so many people this process doesn't seem perfect; yet it has a twisted sort of perfection analagous to the beauty of evolution. This blog plays a small role in contributing to that beautifully twisted mass consciousness.
Obviously, Individual Human Cleverness exists and can be considerable. However, I also have faith in a subtler, less explicit aspect of the human intellect: intuition. Let us not forget that for all our flaws, the simplest human mind puts even the largest supercomputers to shame in terms of both design and sheer processing power.
I believe in Inward Vigilance, which is to say I believe in skepticism, curiosity and clarity. About what and for what don't really matter as much, just do what's in front of you and try to limit the number of excuses you can make for yourself. It was inward vigilance that wrote this post.
Outward Sincerity is not something everybody adheres to. For many people sincerity is too much in conflict with the stronger principle of self-interest or even altruism. My sincerity is certainly compromised, but I am an earnest person, and where I am not sincere I strive to find ways that I can be so without too much damage to my other ideals.
I guess I kind of book-ended my list with gimmes. Common Humanity sounds as cliche as love or peace, but I can't think of a way around including it. Disagreements are either products of differing assumptions or of poor communication. That is to say, given the correct circumstances, I could be a terrorist, a member of PETA (as if there's a difference) or a fundamendalist Christian theocrat. This article of faith explains my keen interest in equivocating about Obama or Proposition 8.
So that's my list. I challenge you readers to try and distill your own articles of faith and post them as a comment. Don't tell me you are free of faith, because that's a boldfaced lie, and if you seriously write something as banal as "love" or "peace" without a thoughtful rationalization I promise you a swift kick in the rear.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Birthday Time!
It's been a year now since I started the Dilettante. A lot has changed. I kinda expected my Senior year to be the best year of college the way it was the best year of high school. I mean, my last year of high school was really awesome, like if there were four beans and three were dark and one was shiny white, that would be my senior year of high school. So I went into this year with an expectation for it to be the best of college, but conscientious of the probability that this senior year wouldn't shine on the same order of magnitude as the last one.
And of course, that's exactly what happened. It was a good year, and this blog certainly played a role in making it good. What do you call it when the act of detection alters what you're trying to detect? Last summer I had every reason to be relaxed, happy, and optimistic. I had a research job that was pleasant and engaging, I'd just turned twenty-one and was exploring the world of alcoholic beverages with Brandon and I had plenty of free time to write blogs and do stuff to write blogs about.
This summer is different. In some ways it is better, but it certainly isn't as unremittingly pleasant as the last. I've got more free time, but it feels like less. I've got a girlfriend that I adore, but she spent the first month of summer in Spain and I missed her like crazy. And of course, there's the whole no-longer-being-a-student thing. I'm looking for a job this summer. I need something to support myself with and something to fill out my research experience for grad apps. That need has cast something of a pall on the rest of this summer.
Obviously my post rate hasn't returned to last summer's steady clip, but you're reading this, so obviously I've managed to keep this blog alive and limping along. Coincidentally, the Dilettante reached two thousand unique hits almost simultaneous with its birthday, so I think all in all I have something to be proud of here. I hope you're still enjoying my writing. I certainly am, when I get around to it. Remember to comment when you feel inspired. Feedback is essential to improvement, and it doesn't hurt my ego either.
And of course, that's exactly what happened. It was a good year, and this blog certainly played a role in making it good. What do you call it when the act of detection alters what you're trying to detect? Last summer I had every reason to be relaxed, happy, and optimistic. I had a research job that was pleasant and engaging, I'd just turned twenty-one and was exploring the world of alcoholic beverages with Brandon and I had plenty of free time to write blogs and do stuff to write blogs about.
This summer is different. In some ways it is better, but it certainly isn't as unremittingly pleasant as the last. I've got more free time, but it feels like less. I've got a girlfriend that I adore, but she spent the first month of summer in Spain and I missed her like crazy. And of course, there's the whole no-longer-being-a-student thing. I'm looking for a job this summer. I need something to support myself with and something to fill out my research experience for grad apps. That need has cast something of a pall on the rest of this summer.
Obviously my post rate hasn't returned to last summer's steady clip, but you're reading this, so obviously I've managed to keep this blog alive and limping along. Coincidentally, the Dilettante reached two thousand unique hits almost simultaneous with its birthday, so I think all in all I have something to be proud of here. I hope you're still enjoying my writing. I certainly am, when I get around to it. Remember to comment when you feel inspired. Feedback is essential to improvement, and it doesn't hurt my ego either.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
My UC Davis Graduation
I graduated friday from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Sciences in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. This Fall, I apply for graduate school, but right now I enter the troubled American workforce. I'm applying for lab-oriented jobs for the coming year in Davis to support myself and bolster my grad application.
However my fortunes turn out, I'm going to have a lot more time. Juggling heavy coursework, friends, worms, and romance has taken its toll on this blog. In the next few weeks I intend to post a series of college retrospectives.
However my fortunes turn out, I'm going to have a lot more time. Juggling heavy coursework, friends, worms, and romance has taken its toll on this blog. In the next few weeks I intend to post a series of college retrospectives.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
On Waste and Creativity
Happy One Thousand Views to my remaining loyal readers out there. I wish the Dilettante had arrived at this auspicious occasion in better shape. I wish my posting wasn't so infrequent as of late, but I assure you that my priorities are honorable and well-considered.
Today John Lazur and I sparred over the concepts of wasted time and uncaptured creativity. I will confess, the conversation struck a nerve in me.
It came to a head because I was in a bad mood. We humans are essentially empirical beings. Our actions generally follow trial and error rather than active thought. Moods are consequently essential for dislodging our path from false minimums. So though John had been harping on me for awhile, it wasn't until today that I brought the issue to a head.
One of the most haunting aspects of my college experience has been the dogged feeling that I have neither grown nor improved upon the flawed person I arrived at Davis with. This is partly a product of the wholesale romanticization of the college experience perpetrated by our elders. Many people recall their college years being formative ones that combined crazy adventures with dizzying intellectual growth.
There was nothing so depressing my freshman year as reflecting on how much I must have been missing. It was consequently with considerable joy that I discovered and embraced KDVS and music the next year. Having an organization to identify with and access to amazing resources, I felt that KDVS was the first thing in college that I was doing right.
The crash in my grades precipitated by this newfound outlet seems in retrospect to have been inevitable. The boundless possibilities that I was so keenly aware of suddenly came crashing around my head as I was forced to recognize my own limitations. This was exacerbated by my realization that Davis was short of interesting, intelligent people. Apparently those with the big ideas, those that could get themselves past the bullshit and hang-ups of pseudointellectualism, had been handily whisked away to better colleges. I knew such people existed because I had known them in high school, but I found that Davis students were overwhelmingly either depressingly stupid or depressingly tunnel-visioned.
I found exceptions, though. One by one I cobbled together a collection of outliers that transcended the Davis norm. These people were about as smart as me and nearly as unique. Leo Protas was witty and affable, though we never completely connected. Adam Kendall and John Lazur were hung up on their brand of militant atheism, but were otherwise fascinating individuals. Allison was of course perfectly stimulating, if inaccessible. The two girls I've dated in the last couple of years, Kylise and Jill, also were dynamic discoveries of mine as well as a few other individuals that I never capitalized on. These exceptions ended up being impossible to congeal into a group, but my essential needs for thoughtful conversation had been fulfilled through patience and a keen eye.
That said, it has been remarkable how few hijinks my roommates and I have gotten up to considering that we have no shortage of ideas. We never formed a band. We never got anything to grow but a bit of sad garlic in our double-size plot at the Experimental College Gardens. We never started a bike repair shop out of our apartment. We never syndicated a "modern art" chain museum with forged art by fictional artists. We never hosted a clandestine bike race. We never used the library computers to fake ad hits for revenue on Howard's blog. We never fixed the stable of abandoned bikes that we "reclaimed" from campus. We never dressed up as each of our favorite Starcraft units for Halloween. We never killed and ate a duck from the Arboretum. Verily, our active minds have been sorely wasted through our years at college.
I started this blog as an outlet for my creativity, but for every post on here there are two unused post ideas. The truth is that a terrifically low percentage of my creative ideas are ever brought to fruition. The process of creation is a painful, abortive one. Partly, it forces me to only try the most worthwhile among them, but there is also no process that reeks so desperately of waste as creation. Every nougat of inspiration that fails to connect, every plan too oversized for real life and every idea that doesn't receive due time weighs heavily on my mind.
I suppose that we must in hindsight content ourselves with the best we can do rather than the best we think we can do. However, I will be the first to advocate setting one's aim continuously above one's capabilities. Discontentment is the price we pay for productivity and it seems a minor one-- usually. When discontentment overwhelms us we must remind ourselves of the calculus we once made so carefully in plotting our life approach. We must remind ourselves that some variation in fortunes and morale are to be expected along the way, and that if we only trust to our former selves we will ride them out successfully. If we did our calculus correctly, there will be no bright sunlight on the other side, simply a manageable cloudiness. We will continue to take what solaces we may and we will march on into the future, bearing our continuing frustration as our continuing pride. Satisfaction is for the weak.
Today John Lazur and I sparred over the concepts of wasted time and uncaptured creativity. I will confess, the conversation struck a nerve in me.
It came to a head because I was in a bad mood. We humans are essentially empirical beings. Our actions generally follow trial and error rather than active thought. Moods are consequently essential for dislodging our path from false minimums. So though John had been harping on me for awhile, it wasn't until today that I brought the issue to a head.
One of the most haunting aspects of my college experience has been the dogged feeling that I have neither grown nor improved upon the flawed person I arrived at Davis with. This is partly a product of the wholesale romanticization of the college experience perpetrated by our elders. Many people recall their college years being formative ones that combined crazy adventures with dizzying intellectual growth.
There was nothing so depressing my freshman year as reflecting on how much I must have been missing. It was consequently with considerable joy that I discovered and embraced KDVS and music the next year. Having an organization to identify with and access to amazing resources, I felt that KDVS was the first thing in college that I was doing right.
The crash in my grades precipitated by this newfound outlet seems in retrospect to have been inevitable. The boundless possibilities that I was so keenly aware of suddenly came crashing around my head as I was forced to recognize my own limitations. This was exacerbated by my realization that Davis was short of interesting, intelligent people. Apparently those with the big ideas, those that could get themselves past the bullshit and hang-ups of pseudointellectualism, had been handily whisked away to better colleges. I knew such people existed because I had known them in high school, but I found that Davis students were overwhelmingly either depressingly stupid or depressingly tunnel-visioned.
I found exceptions, though. One by one I cobbled together a collection of outliers that transcended the Davis norm. These people were about as smart as me and nearly as unique. Leo Protas was witty and affable, though we never completely connected. Adam Kendall and John Lazur were hung up on their brand of militant atheism, but were otherwise fascinating individuals. Allison was of course perfectly stimulating, if inaccessible. The two girls I've dated in the last couple of years, Kylise and Jill, also were dynamic discoveries of mine as well as a few other individuals that I never capitalized on. These exceptions ended up being impossible to congeal into a group, but my essential needs for thoughtful conversation had been fulfilled through patience and a keen eye.
That said, it has been remarkable how few hijinks my roommates and I have gotten up to considering that we have no shortage of ideas. We never formed a band. We never got anything to grow but a bit of sad garlic in our double-size plot at the Experimental College Gardens. We never started a bike repair shop out of our apartment. We never syndicated a "modern art" chain museum with forged art by fictional artists. We never hosted a clandestine bike race. We never used the library computers to fake ad hits for revenue on Howard's blog. We never fixed the stable of abandoned bikes that we "reclaimed" from campus. We never dressed up as each of our favorite Starcraft units for Halloween. We never killed and ate a duck from the Arboretum. Verily, our active minds have been sorely wasted through our years at college.
I started this blog as an outlet for my creativity, but for every post on here there are two unused post ideas. The truth is that a terrifically low percentage of my creative ideas are ever brought to fruition. The process of creation is a painful, abortive one. Partly, it forces me to only try the most worthwhile among them, but there is also no process that reeks so desperately of waste as creation. Every nougat of inspiration that fails to connect, every plan too oversized for real life and every idea that doesn't receive due time weighs heavily on my mind.
I suppose that we must in hindsight content ourselves with the best we can do rather than the best we think we can do. However, I will be the first to advocate setting one's aim continuously above one's capabilities. Discontentment is the price we pay for productivity and it seems a minor one-- usually. When discontentment overwhelms us we must remind ourselves of the calculus we once made so carefully in plotting our life approach. We must remind ourselves that some variation in fortunes and morale are to be expected along the way, and that if we only trust to our former selves we will ride them out successfully. If we did our calculus correctly, there will be no bright sunlight on the other side, simply a manageable cloudiness. We will continue to take what solaces we may and we will march on into the future, bearing our continuing frustration as our continuing pride. Satisfaction is for the weak.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Makeup
This is part 2 of an adaptation of a letter written to Rob Rosenberger, a fellow blogger who lives in New York.
Rob is deeply opposed to makeup in general and particularly on women. His principal objection is that it recalls millenia of women's cultural subjugation. I contrasted his recent post concerning makeup with mine about face paint. I observed that I was recently elated by the power of makeup. Though makeup is frequently abused, I have no objection to its tasteful use.
I approach everything I can as an aesthetic endeavor. From a young age my artist mother taught my sister and I to approach pumpkin carving, snowflake cutting, clothing, house painting, gardening, etc., as an opportunity for self-expression. In addition, she and especially my dad instilled in me an abiding respect for tradition. Though I agree that makeup is a relic of subjugation, I differ on the weighting. In my opinion, that makeup is a product of different times serves to its credit as well as to its detriment. I love subtle points of continuity, even in the face of necessary change.
I'd like to get good at applying makeup if it was socially acceptable and if I had the time/patience. I think that while makeup manifests deep set elements of cultural male dominance, on a personal level it is consummately selfish rather than submissive. While I despise submissiveness, especially in women, I can only respect selfishness.
Unlike most people I don't see a conflict between selfishness and being a good friend or lover. Selfish friends are useful and I consider true love to redefine "self" to include those loved, just like land privatization once afforded the best care for land.
Rob is deeply opposed to makeup in general and particularly on women. His principal objection is that it recalls millenia of women's cultural subjugation. I contrasted his recent post concerning makeup with mine about face paint. I observed that I was recently elated by the power of makeup. Though makeup is frequently abused, I have no objection to its tasteful use.
I approach everything I can as an aesthetic endeavor. From a young age my artist mother taught my sister and I to approach pumpkin carving, snowflake cutting, clothing, house painting, gardening, etc., as an opportunity for self-expression. In addition, she and especially my dad instilled in me an abiding respect for tradition. Though I agree that makeup is a relic of subjugation, I differ on the weighting. In my opinion, that makeup is a product of different times serves to its credit as well as to its detriment. I love subtle points of continuity, even in the face of necessary change.
I'd like to get good at applying makeup if it was socially acceptable and if I had the time/patience. I think that while makeup manifests deep set elements of cultural male dominance, on a personal level it is consummately selfish rather than submissive. While I despise submissiveness, especially in women, I can only respect selfishness.
Unlike most people I don't see a conflict between selfishness and being a good friend or lover. Selfish friends are useful and I consider true love to redefine "self" to include those loved, just like land privatization once afforded the best care for land.
Pathological Honesty
This is part 1 of an adaptation of a letter written to Rob Rosenberger, a fellow blogger who lives in New York.
Rob's blog is driven by the principle of total honesty and, true to his word, nothing is off limits. I am intrigued by his philosophy, but I would have difficulty writing my blog in his style and I told him so.
Much of my deep self-insight resides wrapped in code or distorted by continuous processing. Around middle school I recognized the anthropological basis for lying and gained a respect for it. Thus in some ways my mind demonstrates rational self-deception laid over intensely honest underpinnings. I have also warped my original honesty to my own perverse ends. I use honesty as a weapon as well as an honor-based approach to unfettered communication.
Sometimes these things get out of hand. I can fool myself down wrong paths, cuttingly honest criticisms can continue unchecked or I sometimes encounter the "righteous" reasons for lying when I broach something that hurts all concerned. I think my ability to lie fluidly and rationally, morally or otherwise, may have been stunted by the extreme honesty of my childhood. I am gradually learning to tell stories and gloss over details to smooth flow, but there will always remain a component of me that remains pathologically honest.
Rob's blog is driven by the principle of total honesty and, true to his word, nothing is off limits. I am intrigued by his philosophy, but I would have difficulty writing my blog in his style and I told him so.
Much of my deep self-insight resides wrapped in code or distorted by continuous processing. Around middle school I recognized the anthropological basis for lying and gained a respect for it. Thus in some ways my mind demonstrates rational self-deception laid over intensely honest underpinnings. I have also warped my original honesty to my own perverse ends. I use honesty as a weapon as well as an honor-based approach to unfettered communication.
Sometimes these things get out of hand. I can fool myself down wrong paths, cuttingly honest criticisms can continue unchecked or I sometimes encounter the "righteous" reasons for lying when I broach something that hurts all concerned. I think my ability to lie fluidly and rationally, morally or otherwise, may have been stunted by the extreme honesty of my childhood. I am gradually learning to tell stories and gloss over details to smooth flow, but there will always remain a component of me that remains pathologically honest.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The Cast of Characters for a Thousand Eyes
In honor of The Dilettante recently passing five hundred unique hits, I decided to give a brief background to those individuals mentioned in my blog. The following are my six best friends:
Bri
My sister is two and a quarter years younger than me, three in school. She presently attends UC Santa Cruz. She is adored by everyone she meets. Not so haunted by internal demons, she is less overtly smart than me, yet she is my intellectual equal. Though we hardly look alike, we think in similar but complimentary ways. Where I was my father's student, she was mine.
During our childhood she was my worst enemy. In those years she defined "annoying". With our parents' divorce, we became the only people we lived with continuously. As age mellowed her out, we became as close as brother and sister can be. I love her more than anything or anyone.
Matt
I met Matt in preschool and soon we were best friends. In grade school our mothers had a falling out and we drifted away. We shared a common group of friends until I cut ties my junior year of high school. Just as I made my own way, however, our friendship rekindled. By senior year he was one of my three best friends and we again shared most of our friends.
Matt is careful, steady and in possession of excellent taste. He has been going out with Parisa since high school and will soon graduate UC Santa Barbara with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering.
Allison
Allison and I first met in preschool at age three. Though we continued to different schools, her's became our closest family friends. Those years I played with her brothers and she with my sister.
My Junior year I developed a huge crush on her. We became close through AIM conversations and dated briefly. After she rebuffed me, we returned to our lives at our respective schools. The summer before college we discovered that we were the only friends we had going to Davis. I was simultaneously overjoyed and horrified because I knew my crush was liable to kill me. True to expectations, I was haunted through much of college by my feelings for her. Things have been much simplified since I got over it.
Allison is an animal lover and a creative writer of savage wit. More than any of my friends she has endeavored to keep my ego in check. When we went to college she reinvented herself as the outgoing, friendly "Allie", but I will always see her for her thoughtful, bookworm self.
Marisa
In possession of a million best friends, a brilliant mind and a sterling work ethic, Marisa is the friend I most respect. Hardly wasting a spare minute of life and sleeping some fraction of that required by mere mortals, she is the most intense person I have ever met.
She befriended me my Junior year of high school and I have never enjoyed competing with someone more. We frequently discussed politics and she remains in my mind the epitome of the intelligent, articulate conservative. We became especially close after my friend Caius broke up with her. She approaches her Mormon faith with as much intensity as everything else in her life. She is presently on Mission in the Czech Republic.
Caius
Acquainted first at high school's outset, Caius and I weren't friends until our Senior year. Sophmore year he actually told me, "Go away. I don't like you." That crystallized why the year was my lifetime nadir. The next year, he epitomized the incredible turnaround in public opinion of me and we became close friends within weeks of Senior year's start.
Our friendship was founded on mutual fascination. He moved to California from Romania in middle school, but that cannot hope to explain the depth of his eccentricity. Caius is among the most mathematically gifted individuals I have ever met. He is an idealist with his head in the clouds, fascinated with nature, eastern philosophy and nineteenth century poetry. He found a natural affinity with the sometimes patently crazy residents of Berkeley's coops as well as apparently every hobo he has ever met.
Caius's European charm is such that he is quite the ladies man and he approaches his relationships and aspirations with remarkable passion. However, his passion is mitigated by his flakiness. He dropped out of school at Berkeley for a year, but has since returned to his studies.
Brandon
A consummate nerd and politico, Brandon passed out business cards with his name and facebook URL our first day in the dorms. At first, I didn't want to be his friend. Our interests made almost perfect overlap and I thought the inevitable comparison to his disadvantage.
That first year our discussions of religion and politics played a role in his decision to reject the Republican party (to my smugness) and his Jewish faith (to my horror). I decided to take him under my wing. He fast became my closest Davis friend and he proved at least as much an asset to me as I to him. Many if not most of my Davis friends can be traced back to him. His Junior year he joined and quickly rose to high position in the Davis College Democrats (DCD). That same year his grades tumbled and he is now attending classes at a community college. He has participated in two major political campaigns.
Brandon is the salt of the earth. He is affable, hard working and more talented in California politics, geography and music than I could ever hope to be.
In addition to the aforementioned, the following friends have also been mentioned on The Dilettante:
Howard Luong
I became friends with Howard almost immediately at college's start and we've been roommates with Brandon since we moved out of the dorms. He's a quiet and studious physics major and has been going out with Tammy Leung since almost as long as we've been friends. Though we laugh at his resemblance to a couple stereotypes, Howard is full of wild ideas. He's the brain behind our household's ghetto improvements and spends his spare time improving his Chinese and following the stock market.
Greg Webb
Greg is a Junior who joined us this year as our fourth roommate. He was originally a friend of Brandon's from DCD, and he's also intensely involved in our student government and a charity group called Circle K. He is running for ASUCD Senator as an independent and secured The Aggie's number one endorsement.
Elisa Hough
Elisa is a recent UCD graduate who remains a fixture at KDVS. She held the title of Publicity Director and edited KDViationS, the station's quarterly mag. This past summer she hosted folk acts in her backyard on a semiregular basis and they rocked everyone's socks off.
John Lazur
John works under my boss Richard at the Chem Dispensary and occasionally supervises me. He's a Penn State grad in his late twenties. We became friends talking about music, philosophy and East Coast/West Coast culture. Though disarmingly likeable, he's quite intelligent. He's also an accomplished rock musician.
Bri
My sister is two and a quarter years younger than me, three in school. She presently attends UC Santa Cruz. She is adored by everyone she meets. Not so haunted by internal demons, she is less overtly smart than me, yet she is my intellectual equal. Though we hardly look alike, we think in similar but complimentary ways. Where I was my father's student, she was mine.
During our childhood she was my worst enemy. In those years she defined "annoying". With our parents' divorce, we became the only people we lived with continuously. As age mellowed her out, we became as close as brother and sister can be. I love her more than anything or anyone.
Matt
I met Matt in preschool and soon we were best friends. In grade school our mothers had a falling out and we drifted away. We shared a common group of friends until I cut ties my junior year of high school. Just as I made my own way, however, our friendship rekindled. By senior year he was one of my three best friends and we again shared most of our friends.
Matt is careful, steady and in possession of excellent taste. He has been going out with Parisa since high school and will soon graduate UC Santa Barbara with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering.
Allison
Allison and I first met in preschool at age three. Though we continued to different schools, her's became our closest family friends. Those years I played with her brothers and she with my sister.
My Junior year I developed a huge crush on her. We became close through AIM conversations and dated briefly. After she rebuffed me, we returned to our lives at our respective schools. The summer before college we discovered that we were the only friends we had going to Davis. I was simultaneously overjoyed and horrified because I knew my crush was liable to kill me. True to expectations, I was haunted through much of college by my feelings for her. Things have been much simplified since I got over it.
Allison is an animal lover and a creative writer of savage wit. More than any of my friends she has endeavored to keep my ego in check. When we went to college she reinvented herself as the outgoing, friendly "Allie", but I will always see her for her thoughtful, bookworm self.
Marisa
In possession of a million best friends, a brilliant mind and a sterling work ethic, Marisa is the friend I most respect. Hardly wasting a spare minute of life and sleeping some fraction of that required by mere mortals, she is the most intense person I have ever met.
She befriended me my Junior year of high school and I have never enjoyed competing with someone more. We frequently discussed politics and she remains in my mind the epitome of the intelligent, articulate conservative. We became especially close after my friend Caius broke up with her. She approaches her Mormon faith with as much intensity as everything else in her life. She is presently on Mission in the Czech Republic.
Caius
Acquainted first at high school's outset, Caius and I weren't friends until our Senior year. Sophmore year he actually told me, "Go away. I don't like you." That crystallized why the year was my lifetime nadir. The next year, he epitomized the incredible turnaround in public opinion of me and we became close friends within weeks of Senior year's start.
Our friendship was founded on mutual fascination. He moved to California from Romania in middle school, but that cannot hope to explain the depth of his eccentricity. Caius is among the most mathematically gifted individuals I have ever met. He is an idealist with his head in the clouds, fascinated with nature, eastern philosophy and nineteenth century poetry. He found a natural affinity with the sometimes patently crazy residents of Berkeley's coops as well as apparently every hobo he has ever met.
Caius's European charm is such that he is quite the ladies man and he approaches his relationships and aspirations with remarkable passion. However, his passion is mitigated by his flakiness. He dropped out of school at Berkeley for a year, but has since returned to his studies.
Brandon
A consummate nerd and politico, Brandon passed out business cards with his name and facebook URL our first day in the dorms. At first, I didn't want to be his friend. Our interests made almost perfect overlap and I thought the inevitable comparison to his disadvantage.
That first year our discussions of religion and politics played a role in his decision to reject the Republican party (to my smugness) and his Jewish faith (to my horror). I decided to take him under my wing. He fast became my closest Davis friend and he proved at least as much an asset to me as I to him. Many if not most of my Davis friends can be traced back to him. His Junior year he joined and quickly rose to high position in the Davis College Democrats (DCD). That same year his grades tumbled and he is now attending classes at a community college. He has participated in two major political campaigns.
Brandon is the salt of the earth. He is affable, hard working and more talented in California politics, geography and music than I could ever hope to be.
In addition to the aforementioned, the following friends have also been mentioned on The Dilettante:
Howard Luong
I became friends with Howard almost immediately at college's start and we've been roommates with Brandon since we moved out of the dorms. He's a quiet and studious physics major and has been going out with Tammy Leung since almost as long as we've been friends. Though we laugh at his resemblance to a couple stereotypes, Howard is full of wild ideas. He's the brain behind our household's ghetto improvements and spends his spare time improving his Chinese and following the stock market.
Greg Webb
Greg is a Junior who joined us this year as our fourth roommate. He was originally a friend of Brandon's from DCD, and he's also intensely involved in our student government and a charity group called Circle K. He is running for ASUCD Senator as an independent and secured The Aggie's number one endorsement.
Elisa Hough
Elisa is a recent UCD graduate who remains a fixture at KDVS. She held the title of Publicity Director and edited KDViationS, the station's quarterly mag. This past summer she hosted folk acts in her backyard on a semiregular basis and they rocked everyone's socks off.
John Lazur
John works under my boss Richard at the Chem Dispensary and occasionally supervises me. He's a Penn State grad in his late twenties. We became friends talking about music, philosophy and East Coast/West Coast culture. Though disarmingly likeable, he's quite intelligent. He's also an accomplished rock musician.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Halloween Note
So October's been a wild ride and I wanted you guys to know that I haven't forgotten about you. I've got a political post or two in the works that I'll make sure to publish before Tuesday. I leave for Santa Barbara today at noon to see Matt Wingert and Co and their school's allegedly magnificent festivities. I plan to dress as a zombie, in case you're wondering. Either way now is a poor time to write a blog because I have a million and a half things to do, including packing, so I bid you adios.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Odds and Ends of Summer's End
There's been a noticeable cooling recently. The days are getting shorter and the air is getting gusty. Peaches are finishing up and apples went on sale at Safeway this week. It's become painfully obvious that summer is coming to a close and, as much as I have enjoyed the season, I feel ready to embrace the hustle that characterizes fall quarter.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Number One Hundred
The Dilettante passed one hundred unique hits today. I think the occasion merits a bit of retrospective.
The naming of my blog was the first subtle joke on the blog and the first of many to be largely missed. When I created my blog I figured it wasn't obvious enough and too few readers would even know what the word meant, so I provided a definition immediately below the title. What I should tell you beforehand is that I love to simultaneously use disparate definitions of a word, especially historic ones.
With a cursory knowledge of the word or a glance at the caption it should be apparent that the title is self-deprecating. Ha ha, it's funny cause it's true, etc. Clever enough for some. Read a little deeper and you will realize that the historic definition had a very positive connotation. Dilettante used to mean someone who loved learning for its own sake. It sums up the blog's philosophy as "Yes, I know dabbling is bad for me but I'm gonna do it anyways cause I like it and then I'll share my joy with you."
Imagine how happy I was with myself when I arrived upon a one-word title that was funny, subtle, and summed up the blog's entire credo.
The naming of my blog was the first subtle joke on the blog and the first of many to be largely missed. When I created my blog I figured it wasn't obvious enough and too few readers would even know what the word meant, so I provided a definition immediately below the title. What I should tell you beforehand is that I love to simultaneously use disparate definitions of a word, especially historic ones.
With a cursory knowledge of the word or a glance at the caption it should be apparent that the title is self-deprecating. Ha ha, it's funny cause it's true, etc. Clever enough for some. Read a little deeper and you will realize that the historic definition had a very positive connotation. Dilettante used to mean someone who loved learning for its own sake. It sums up the blog's philosophy as "Yes, I know dabbling is bad for me but I'm gonna do it anyways cause I like it and then I'll share my joy with you."
Imagine how happy I was with myself when I arrived upon a one-word title that was funny, subtle, and summed up the blog's entire credo.
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