Category: Journal

Last week, I tweeted a question asking if readers could more easily list their top ten films, books, albums, TV shows, or restaurants. Since I miss LiveJournal and love making list, I thought I’d share mine. All of these lists are subject to change at any moment, and they’re personal favorites as opposed to what I think are the “greatest” works in the media. We’ll start with the films because we have to start somewhere. In no particular order: Trainspotting I’ve never seen music used as well in a film as in Trainspotting. The whole film has a filthy energy to it and somehow makes heroin look horrible while at the same time making it look like a perfectly reasonable alternative to living without it. The performances are uniformly amazing. I’ve seen Trainspotting dozens of times and I’ve never grown tired of it. The Princess Bride If I had to recommend one film to a person I’d never met, it would be this one. It has a little something for everyone. It’s sweet without being cloying, it winks without taking you out of the story, and everyone seems to be having a marvelous time. How was Cary Elwes not the go-to lead for romantic films for the next decade?  Brazil I had to see Brazil three times before I understood what had happened at the end. It’s darkly hilarious and utterly brutal. Funny thing is that the themes are not totally dissimilar to those in Atlas Shrugged, but the telling of the tale couldn’t be any more different.  The Shawshank Redemption For sheer storytelling, this is as good a film as I’ve ever seen. Frank Darabont’s laconic pacing is perfect, letting the story unfold slowly and powerfully. Instead of just painting by numbers, every emotion and every plot twist is earned by laying painstaking groundwork. It’s a work of quiet genius. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Whether or not the quirky style is your cup of tea, this is an unflinchingly honest look at the bravery required in relationships. I happy to love Gondry’s unconventional way of telling a story, so this one is a win/win for me. Princess Mononoke The art isn’t quite up to the standards of Spirited Away, but the story is stronger and the message is incredible. As a child, I don’t think I ever saw a story where the hero’s task was to bring about a conclusion that serves all parties. No, the stories I was given were all about overcoming evil. This is a better fable and I wish I’d been exposed to it as a youngster. Bottle Rocket When you’ve seen everything at your local Blockbuster, back when they still rented VHS tapes, you sometimes have to reach for something you know nothing about. I’d never heard of Wes Anderson or the Wilson brothers before I saw Bottle Rocket. This is probably the least “Wes Anderson” of the Wes Anderson canon, but it’s still a marvelously unique and funny film. Babe It should have been cloying, but it wasn’t. It starts with a sweet, grandmotherly voice narrating a sweet tale of porcine mythology over images of a slaughterhouse, so you know immediately that this isn’t going to be just any children’s film. It’s just dark enough to make the peril seem real and the triumphs that much more triumphant. Dr. Strangelove Funniest. Apocalypse. Ever. It turns out that I have a thing for black comedy. Who could possibly have seen that coming? Star Wars There is only one Star Wars. There will only ever be only one Star Wars. The other films come and go, but Star Wars is eternal. We’ll never see anything like it. This film was still selling out shows more than a year after its release. There were two things in my life when this came out: Star Wars and not-Star Wars, and I tried to spend as little time on not-Star Wars as possible. Looking back on it, most of my top ten are films that left some sort of a mark on me. I wanted so badly to put Lawrence of Arabia on this list because it’s a much better film than most of these, but in the end, it didn’t stick with me the way any of these did.  Movies were easy. It turns out that if you change the number, different categories get easier or more difficult (thanks Fred!), but ten is “about right” for me in terms of films. We’ll pick up the other categories…soon. -RK

I managed to sneak away for a few hours to read the just-released third collection of Kieron Gillen’s and Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram, “The Immaterial Girl.” It’s as brilliant as the first two and it left me in a seriously altered state that I can’t shake. Even though it has the least-sad plot of the three collections, it’s the most melancholy because it feels like a passing of the baton to the next generation. There may yet be more Phonogram, but it will inaccessible to me and I won’t get the references without reading the glossary at the end (and, seriously, if you buy these books, read the bits at the end because they’re fantastic.) Introverts and extroverts are currently defined in terms of energy. If you get energy being around people, you’re an extrovert, and if it drains you, you’re an introvert. At least, that’s my understanding of the state of play. Doesn’t matter if I’m correct or not; just go with it. It’s an interesting way of describing dichotomies and I wonder if it’s a very limited case of a more general truth. Phonogram’s phonomancers are people who get their strength from the music. I can relate to that because I have different playlists for different moods and I swear there are times I feel so tapped in to the music that it feels like I can wave my hand and scratch the air*. My point, before I got distracted, is that it strikes me that “people who get energy from X” vs. “people who don’t” is a distinction that probably applies to more than just introverts and extroverts. I don’t know yet what to do with that idea, but it seems both true and important. Probably not novel, mind you, but it’s new to me.  Anyway, go get the book. It’s the best work of pop culture on pop culture I think I’ve ever experienced. Double-plus points to Mr. McKelvie, who I’d thought might be something of a one-trick pony. He’s always done amazingly clean lines and marvelous facial expression, but he went way beyond that with Phonogram. The man’s an incredible artist with way more range than I originally gave him credit for. ————– On a slightly unrelated note, I’m writing this in a coffee shop where a band called All The Bright Lights is playing. I’d never heard of them, but they sound like what would happen if Explosions in the Sky hung out with Sigur Ros and that’s a fantastic combination. Earlier this week, I bumped in to Wolf Alice on the radio. They’re another band with a sound that sounds very familiar to me, but I can’t quite place it. I really dig it, though. Loud, chaotic, and fierce. I’d been struggling to find new things to listen to, but apparently, I wasn’t struggling hard enough. That said, I’ve been listening to the re-issue of Tony Banks’ second solo album, “The Fugitive,” over and over for a while now. The 80’s revival of prog will always be with me. That was a funny time, and it’s a part of the 80’s that doesn’t get a lot of ink. Several of the late 60’s/early 70’s progressive stalwarts had their greatest commercial success in the 80’s by paring down their sound. Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” was by far their biggest hit. King Crimson never sold well, but their three monocrhomatic albums (“Discipline,” “Beat,” and “Three of a Perfect Pair”) were as commercial as they’d ever get. Even the Moody Blues finally had a few hits. Plus, of course, Rush, who were progressive even if no one dares call them that. And, of course, Genesis got bigger as the band got smaller. Both the old and new singer sold tons of records. Kind of weird if you think about it: This era known for big hair and sparse arrangements was fertile ground for the bands who had songs that ran an entire album side or longer. Anyway, Tony Banks was always a hero to me. He’s why I’ve always had at least a couple of synthesizers in the house. Check out this instrumental gem, some of which may or may not have turned into “Second Home By The Sea” on the next Genesis record.   ——– Here’s a quick update on my health: The good news is that my chronic skin condition is slowly, slowly getting under control. Other than having to wear hippie clothes and an occasional application of external steroids, I’m good. I’m probably not going to be wearing shorts any time soon, but I’m not sure anyone would want to see me in shorts under the best of circumstances. This marks a huge improvement over the last couple of years, when I was on a semi-regular string of steroid injections. So,  huzzah! Things are getting better. Of course, every silver cloud has a dark lining. Steroid shots are magical. They give you energy, they help you heal, and, here’s the important bit, they put an end to almost any allergic reaction. In the past, this time of the year has been brutal as I have issues with oak pollen. I’ve actually lost my vision due to my eyes turning an opaque yellow when exposed to oak pollen. The previous two years have been heavenly in that respect as I was on steroid shots and suffered no reaction to the pollen whatsoever. I am no longer on steroid shots. My skin is getting better, but I really didn’t miss the sneezing, the burning eyes and throat, the feeling like the inside of my head grew two sizes too large for my skull every morning. Coffee being magical, I can function, but I do it with thoughts of violence towards the shameless public reproductive acts of trees in general and oaks in particular. Last night I dreamed I owned an ax, and it was one of the better dreams I’ve had of late. -RK * Peter Gabriel’s second solo album’s cover, in other words. Some of Hipgnosis’ finest work.          

I spent the last week working from home. Working from home is weird. Even though I’m just barely adult enough to actually work when I’m working from home, it’s not something I’d ever want to do on a regular basis. Office work, good old-fashioned corporate office work, is an underrated thing in my opinion. Being able to walk down the hall and talk to people is important to my being able to do my job, or, more accurately, to do my job well. Pictured: My work uniform last week. So it was a strange week. My sleep schedule got badly out of whack; I woke up at my normal time but wound up working far later than I normally would have and didn’t get to sleep until late. I’m sure it’s something to do with separating your work space from your living space and enforcing those boundaries but I’m a little limited in my options, space-wise. I wore the same type of shirt and yoga pants* every day and somehow drank even more coffee than my normal, disturbingly large, intake. No matter how much work I did, I felt like I needed to do more or document or something since no one was there to see me working.  On the plus side, I managed to get my Hugo nominations completed and submitted almost two weeks before the deadline. The nominating is a good deal more time-consuming than the actual voting since there are so many more works to choose from. I was a little disappointed in the options in the novel category. I think last year’s crop was strong, which makes the act of vandalism against the awards that much worse.  For me, the tough one was deciding whether or not to put Seveneves on the list. If the book had ended after the second section, it would have been not just a no-brainer nominee, but the likely winner. The last third of the book was just such a mess that I wound up leaving if off my list. Is 2/3’s of a brilliant novel followed by 1/3 “um, what were you thinking?” enough for a Hugo? I understand why people would nominate it, but for me, it just wasn’t there. Speaking of terrific writers and science and the future, let me go into full-on shill mode and tell you that if you’re not currently subscribed to Warren Ellis’ Orbital Operations newsletter, you’re missing out. Here’s a taste from today’s installment: Maybe the chase for engagement metrics just encouraged toxicity. Maybe there’s very little maybe about it. Comments sections told the story fifteen years ago. It’s just that Twitter etc made it obvious. But perhaps it was just a bump, as audience/artist interaction was in the Sixties. Perhaps these are early signals of a return to plain old top-down broadcast.  Even the platforms that previously sold themselves on engagement want you to sit quietly and watch exclusive video. Wouldn’t that be a thing?  The interactive, engagement-seeking digital world falls down because people are generally just fucking horrible. For someone who can do amused cynicism so well, Mr. Ellis can be as positive and hopeful about the future as anyone other there (read Orbiter if you want an example.) I’ve been reading Ellis in all of his multi-media incarnations for a long, long time, and he’s yet to bore me. Anyway, you can sign up for the newsletter here.   Back to work on Monday. I’m looking forward to it, if only to get my schedule back on track. It turns out that I like some structure in my life. Who knew? * The Prana Sutra men’s yoga pants are the best pants I’ve ever owned. They’re comfortable, sure, but they’re very, very durable and the hemp/cotton blend won’t wrinkle no matter how hard you try. 

This image is super important for about five minutes and is then completely forgotten. It is also a terrible painting. We’re almost through the first two (of three) seasons of Under The Dome on Amazon and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why we keep watching. I’ve now invested something around 25 hours in this show and I feel like I need to talk about it. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a Brian K. Vaughn-created series based on a Stephen King novel and it stars Dean Norris, so it could have been pretty interesting or even, you know, good. It is not. It is the other thing, the opposite of good. It’s tough to do a dramatic show based on a novel.  You can follow the novel’s arc, which means you have a built-in endpoint for your show. You can just set your show in the novel’s “world,” and use it as a framing device for other stories. Or, you can do what Under the Dome does: Just make it up as you go along without any idea of where it’s going*. It’s not just that the plot meanders and switches back and doesn’t make any sense; the characters form and break alliances over the course of hours. Characters can go from murderous fiends to trusted friends and back over the course of a single episode. Have you ever played that storytelling game where you only see the final sentence of someone else’s paragraph and have to pick it up from there, and then the next person only sees the last sentence of your paragraph, and so on? That’s Under The Dome. Even worse, characters seem unable to pick on obviously hints that someone is lying to them. Norris’ character tries to convince the townspeople that Character A shot Character B, even though Character breaks Character A out of jail in front of everybody, which is a pretty strong hint that Norris is lying, but no one even thinks to question it. It’s like that, week after week, for the entire hour. I’ll give Norris this: His character is the only consistent one on the entire show. Unfortunately, that means that he’s descended into self-parody. If I hear him say “Everything I do, I do for this town/family/my son/whatever” one more time, my eyes may roll out of my head. It will certainly happen five minutes in to the next episode. It could have been a good show. I’d even go so far as to say it should have been a good show. If they’d had a clear idea of when and how it would end, then the stories leading up to that conclusion might have had a direction or at least a point. As an open-ended story, though, it fails except as unintentional comedy or cautionary tale. I’d wager that this is not what the writers had in mind, but, with one season to go, I don’t have any idea what they did have in mind.    * AKA the “Lost” method.

The Future Has Arrived… I finished reading William Gibson’s The Peripheral a few minutes ago. I know it’s awfully late, but I couldn’t put it down. I have no idea if it’s the best William Gibson book, but it might well be my favorite. Stylistically, it’s Gibson at his best. He introduces readers to their world by making us listen to the characters and watch how they interact with the world instead of just telling us what’s happening. It’s risky, and not every author can pull it off, but when it’s done right, it’s thrilling to piece the puzzle together.  I think of Gibson’s novels as moving in the arc of a highly eccentric orbit. As the story approaches its climax, its perihelion, so much is happening so fast that you can’t really take it in as it happens. Instead, you see what took place at the critical moment clearly only in hindsight. With The Peripheral, I was as confused as the characters in some places, but what really makes the book work, for me, is the characters strong and relate-able. Gibson’s long been one of my favorite novelists, but The Peripheral is on another level, elevating his considerable-strengths to new heights.  It’s also a blast to read, which is probably the best thing I can say about any book. Fair Day Just like with China Mieville, reading William Gibson messes with your perspective. That’s especially true when your city is in the process of temporarily transforming itself into a carnival ground for arts and technology. Weirdly, some of the tech and arts installations overlap, but most do not, and there’s only so much space and even less time. This means that some spaces will be one thing on one day and then rebuilt into something else the next. In the past, this meant different tents with some cheaply printed vinyl signs featuring highly stylized logos for companies that didn’t quite exist yet or artistic properties that whose sphere of awareness could be measured in hundreds of yards. Now, though, we-meaning-humanity have become much better are creating temporary spaces which give the illusion of having always been there. Reasonable facsimiles of granite pedestals surrounding six foot cubes of LED screens appear overnight in parks and expensive-looking neon signs are set on the front of buildings which have been abandoned for years but are suddenly a physical beachhead of a web-based company’s corporate culture.  While the exhibitors have evolved an impressive ability to work with massive volumes on abbreviated timescales, the city is nowhere near up to the task. Let’s talk about burst infrastructure for a moment: When you are paying the outlandish convenience fees to get tickets to a show, what you’re paying for is the ticket seller’s having to maintain the capacity to sells tens of thousands of tickets in a minute or so when a big event goes on sale. The value they add is the ability to scale up their system by a couple of factors of ten for a what is probably less than one hour out of each month.  Most cities cannot do this. They cannot afford to build infrastructure that will only be needed for a few weeks each year. Roads are the first systems to fail, but law enforcement, connectivity (yes, even old landline phones but especially wireless), public transit, and even food and beverage distribution are disrupted. People who rely on these services are either forced to move elsewhere during the events, or else they’re severely inconvenienced. Some cities can get away with becoming convention cities and hosting events year round, thereby justifying (and, in theory, paying for) the increased capacity. Why yes, my office is at ground zero. Why do you ask? Rocket Talk Keith Law is one of my favorite media personalities. He’s best known as the only reason most baseball fans pay for Insider access on ESPN’s web site. He’s one of the few people I actually enjoying disagreeing with because Mr. Law is both clear and rational in both his thinking and his writing. When we disagree, oftentimes it is because I’m wrong, but even if I stick to my guns, I can understand and respect his position. In addition to his baseball work, he keeps a blog where he writes (mostly) about board games, books, food, and music. Not only these subject relevant to my interests, but I’ve found that our tastes are more often than not similar*. This is a long way of saying that if you find me at all interesting, you’ll probably like Keith Law and you can check out his blog here. So, you can imagine my delight when I saw he was going to be featured on the Rocket Talk science-fiction podcast. An hour of Keith talking about sci-fi books? Yes, please! There were some nice words about a couple of novels I read last year and enjoyed a great deal: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and John Scalzi’s Redshirts, an interesting bit on what the genre means, and Mr. Law’s progress towards his goal of reading all of the Hugo Award winning novels. It’s worth your time if you’re in to this sort of thing. It’s also interesting for what is hinted at but remains unsaid, which leads us to… I’m All For “Crying Havoc,” But… I’m a Hugo Awards voter again this year. I won’t be attending MidAmericaCon II, but I am signed up to vote. There should be significantly less catch-up work required when I get my voter’s packet this time as I’ve done a good deal more reading in the genre over the last year. I’m hoping that the ugliness that marred last year’s voting won’t be around this time, but I’m not holding my breath.  -RK   * I mean, he even had Gorillaz’ “19-2000 (Soulchild Remix)” on his top songs on the 2000s. That’s solid.

I keep looking around, expecting to see some sort of external indication that I’ve reached some sort of milestone, but for the life of me, I can’t see any obvious changes in the world or myself now that I’m fifty. Well, there’s the ominous-looking letter from the AARP on the counter, but I’ve been getting those for a least a decade so I’m not convinced that they’ve actually done anything different to mark the occasion. Nicole took me on a lovely getaway this weekend involving friends, family, food, and some absurdly fancy hotels. I didn’t do much in the way of reading or writing, but that’s only because I was kept busy enough that all of my downtime was spent napping (which, I’ll grant, could be construed as an indication that I’m not a teenager anymore.) We did tapas and pizza and a small brewpub and there was some football (Leicester moved five points clear at the top, which is absolutely as daft as it sound) and there may have been an adult beverage or two. It turns out that Lyft and Uber may not be quite as ready for prime-time as I’d been led to believe. I do think that micro-contracting is likely going to be a big part of how people work in the near future, but our experiences this weekend just made me wish things like “taxi cabs” and “effective public transportation.” Neither driver was especially familiar with the lay of the land, certainly not in the way a typical cab driver is. The both ran red lights and stopped at intersections where there was no need to do so and one of them decided to both run a light, then stop in the center of the intersection when they realized that there was something wrong, then ask us what was happening, and topped it off by almost backing in to a pedestrian.  This driver had a 4.8 out of 5 star rating. The food was fantastic, though. My diet was ignored because, c’mon, pizza. Not to mention oxtails, sweetbreads (twice), artichokes, gnocchi, and, I would like to emphasize, pizza. I’m pretty sure I only committed one deadly sin, but I seriously committed to committing it.   During the tapas dinner, I received a lovely gift basket which included the shy fellow pictured above. I have a thing about turtles (and tortoises.) They were my spirit animal before spirit animals were a thing (at least in this iteration of things being a “thing.”) During the drive home, we saw a tortoise on the shoulder of the road. I’ve seen a bunch of tortoises hit trying to cross the road, so I try to turn ’em around when I get the chance. We pulled off the highway, looped around, and stopped on the access road nearby. Unfortunately, when I got to the highway, I could see that the front of the shell was crushed and the tortoise was dead. There was a big streak of blood on the shoulder about four feet away. Some dumbass had swerved onto the shoulder to hit the tortoise. Apparently, this is something which people do.* I can’t imagine the sort of thinking that would lead one to do this sort of thing. Please don’t try to explain it, and if you do happen to be someone who kills tortoises for fun, please stop. Aside from that one thing, it was a near-perfect weekend. Thank you to everyone who was involved, as well as the other well-wishers out there. I hope everyone is in as good as place at fifty as I am. -RK * Yes, that’s a Fox news link. It was either that or HuffPo, and at least Fox pays their people.  

I just finished reading Kieron Gillen’s and Jamie McKelvie’s first Phonogram collection, Rue Britannia  and my head is still buzzing a little bit so please bear with me. It’s not quite the best book-as-drug I’ve read because Casanova is just too amazing to lose that title, but it’s a damn fine book that knocked me off my stride tonight. Which is good. I needed to be knocked around a little bit. I’ll sum it up as plainly as I can: It’s a book about music literally being magic, but it’s really about scenes and how our identities can be influenced by them. It’s about britpop, it’s about Blur and Oasis and Elastica and Echobelly. It’s about the consequences of staying connected to a scene that is no longer a scene. It’s about how the now simplifies the past, paring it down to a parody of itself. It’s about how revivals are mostly crap.  That’s heavy for a comic book about music and magic, ain’t it? We aren’t born with complete personalities. We may have some intrinsic traits, and we’re influenced by our families and the communities we grew up in, but eventually, we start making choices. We get to choose who we are, whether we’re aware that we’re doing it or not?  I remember in high school, I was desperate to figure out “who I was.” I tried on all sorts of costumes, but  none of them really stuck. I was a Beatles fanatic until I discovered prog, grew my hair out, started wearing silly clothes, and bought my first synthesizer*. Fortunately, almost no photographs exist of me from that time.  I bounced from scene to scene for the next thirty-odd years. In college, there was an honest-to-God college radio scene. Instead of Van Halen and Led Zep, the radio was chock full o’ R.E.M., the Smiths, and especially, the dB’s**. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops, wearing rap-around sunglasses and Chuck Taylors. Fortunately, I avoided the cigarette thing. After that, I did goth, industrial, punk, and finally back into the infectiously poppy mid-2000s indy thing. Archaeologists could take core samples of my discarded wardrobe and probably be able to guess the date of each layer with previously unheard of accuracy.  But what about now? There’s no musical scene I feel at all connected to. Most of what I’m listening to is either ten years old or sounds exactly like what I was listening to ten years ago. What’s going on now? Indie radio is a cruel joke these days unless you think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana as “cutting edge.” The hipper-than-thou web sites feel like they’re more interested in navel-gazing than getting me interested in new music. My radar’s just not picking up anything that gives me chills. There are, of course, non-musical scenes. After reading Neuromancer for the first (of many) times, I was about as “cyberpunk” as a waiter at a suburban chain restaurant could possibly be***. But, I just read a Neal Stephenson novel and I’m in the middle of a new William Gibson book, so I haven’t strayed too far from that territory. I’m not really a movies person, at least, not the same way I am about music and books. I did have a Trainspotting phase, but don’t even pretend like that movie wasn’t at least fifty percent music. I’m not in high school anymore. I don’t need a scene to crib my identity from anymore. But, I’m not going to lie: I kind of miss it. I dig that rush you get from discovering something new that speaks to you in a way that makes you feel like some artist out there is speaking a language that only you and the others in on the scene “get.” I don’t need a scene to be me, but I do want to swim in them sometimes to expose myself to new things that I might wind up loving and wanting to integrate into this little house called “me.”    * A Sequential Circuits Prelude, which I know is really just a rebranded Siel, but if you ran it through a guitar amp, it roared. The folks in the dorm above me probably learned to hate Yes’ “Parallels.”  ** No, really. The dB’s had just released Like This and the campus station was playing every track with regularity. It was an amazing record that will some day be recognized as the masterpiece it was. *** Books usually mess with my head in an entirely different way. My internal monologue speaks to me in the voice of the author or, sometimes, the main character. This can be horrible. I tried to go on a date after reading three of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan collections. It did not go well.

One diabolically cruel side-effect of this last illness is that terrible. I normally drink two pots of so of coffee, black and unadorned, every day, so I’m struggling a little bit. What normally tastes bitter and rich and bracing to me now has a salty metallic flavor. I can force myself to drink it just to avoid the very really and extremely painful withdrawal headache, but I can’t enjoy it.   This isn’t doing my mood or my energy levels any good.  In addition, I’m having a horrible time concentrating on any one thing in particular. Simple tasks feel insurmountable and frustrating. I always forget that the transition from “sick” to “well” is a mental as well as physical one, and the mental side is taking its own sweet time. I have just enough in the tank to get through work, but I’m pretty dull outside those hours. On the plus side, we found yet another city park which afforded us the illusion of being completely removed from the city itself. When the little piece of fluff between my ears isn’t working properly, there are few things that do me more good than going for a walk. There’s no magic to it; it’s just a matter of having fewer distractions, allowing your brain to chew on whatever it needs to at a more leisurely pace. Or something like that. Maybe it’s just pretty and the sun and air make me feel better. That would be more than enough. Finally, I have to mentions sports again because somehow my beloved Leicester City side are going to go in to March at the top of the table. At this time last year, we were at our lowest point: 20th place out of 20, 7 points behind 17th place Aston Villa. We were as good as relegated. Today, we were nowhere near our best, but we found a late winner against Norwich and we’re (briefly) five points clear of Arsenal and Tottenham. I won’t even both to try to explain how this has happened. It only barely seems real, and I’m going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.  Which, I hope, will be until after May 15…

A cold snap finally brought seasonally-appropriate weather to our neck of the woods, accompanied by the sort of winds that inspire cliches about the beginning of March. The flu is nearly in the rear-view mirror,  but it’s going to be a while before I’m firing on all cylinders again. It would have been a lovely day to stay in bed, but my immune system seems to be work week-aware which has to be some sort of genetic deficiency. I can’t share the book I’m currently reading with you, so to make it up to you,  I’m going to share something very near and dear to my heart with all of you today. Tacos are a Very Big Thing in this neck of the woods and I’m not going to pretend that my recipe is the best, but it’s mind and it’s comforting to me, and now it’s yours as well: One can of kernel corn 5 poblano peppers* 1 head of garlic 1 yellow onion 1/4 pound asadero cheese (or whatever kind you like) Salt & Pepper Just enough vegetable oil to keep it from sticking (between 1 and 2 teaspoons) Really good tortillas (I like corn, but I won’t judge if you’re in to flour) Peel all of the garlic (I know, I know), peel the onion and chop it roughly into half-moons about 1/4-1/2″ in width. Chop the top off the peppers and remove the seeds unless you really like the seeds. Slice them into long, 1/4″ wide strips. Drain the can of corn. I’ve tried roasting an ear of corn, then cutting the kernels off of it, but I haven’t noticed much difference in taste, so I just buy the can. The key is to let it cook until the corn has slightly blackened bits on some of the kernels. Add a little salt and pepper to taste while everything’s still hot. That’s it for the prep. Heat a large skillet to the low side of medium heat and add the oil. Add the garlic cloves and onions and heat them slowly until the onions are transparent and the garlic is getting a little soft. Add the drained corn It’s still pretty wet, so mix it all up and let it cook down until it’s almost dry. Lastly, add the peppers. The next bit is a matter of personal taste. If you like the peppers a little crunchy, just let them warm up. I like them to soften and turn olive green so they’ll be a little sweeter. To each their own. OK, your filling is down. The next thing to do is to get your tortillas ready. You got good tortillas, I trust. If you didn’t, stop what you’re doing, get in your car, and get some good tortillas. Would you serve a Philly cheese steak sandwich on Wonder Bread?  Make sure they’re nice and warm and supple so they don’t crumble when eat them.  Scoop some of the taco filling in, add some grated cheese on top and you can squeeze some lime on there too. Eat your tacos. I get about 12-13 tacos out of this recipe. The whole mess takes maybe half an hour to put together. One of the main reasons I love this so much is that it reheats so well. If you’re a dedicated carnivore, add some thinly sliced skirt or flank steak when you add the peppers. I use about 1/4 pound for the whole thing, but again,  it’s a pretty versatile recipe. Those tacos have seen me through some tough times. It’s a tough recipe to screw up, although I’ve managed it a couple of times. They’re cheap, they’re filling, I think they’re pretty tasty, and you can make up a big batch in advance and just reheat as you go for several meals.  * Poblano peppers can be used instead of green bell peppers in almost any recipe. In fact, almost always should be used instead of green bell peppers, which are bitter and flavorless. If you can find a place that makes fajitas using poblanos instead of bell peppers, make it your home.    

Well, at least I recognized on Thursday that I needed to take Friday off and spend the entire weekend recuperating if I was going to be ready to go back to work on Monday. My reward for that prescience is, of course, that I get to go back to work on Monday. I’m not sure I thought this through properly. Anyway, a weekend of doing nothing but eating delicious chicken soup (thank you, Nicole), resting, relaxing, and reading gave me a chance to spend some quality time with Warren Ellis’ Gun Machine. I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoy reading almost anything Ellis writes*. He gets a lot of attention for just how twisted his imagination can be, but his craftsmanship as a writer is, if anything, more impressive. Gun Machine is lean and fast-moving and never anything approaching boring. Oh sure, it’s twisted, but compared to his first novel, Crooked Little Vein? Pffft. Anyway, it’s a terrific read and now I just have to twiddle my thumbs until he writes another one. Not much else to report from the last few days. One nice thing about whatever bug it is I’m incubating: It’s helping my diet. I’d rather be well, but there are worse side effects I suppose.     * Those early Excaliburs might be the only exceptions.