Unrelated
1) It’s 39°C (108°F) outside; the cicadas sound like mass hysteria, and I think the dogs are melting.
2) The other night, we went to a local wine-tasting dinner at a nearby inn. We thought it would be fun. After an apéritif on the terrace, they herded us all inside, where the air was very still and not at all conditioned.
All of the other guests were stiff bourgeois men from the city and their perfume-soaked wives, and they used words like “woodsy mouth feel,” “decadent fruitiness” and “provocative” when speaking loudly of the wines. Some of them brought their miniature dogs along, not the least of whom was a moulting toy poodle named Casanova.
The dogs panted and whimpered a lot, were fed bits off the plate, and had fun tripping the waiters with their leashes.
Later, a fight broke out between two of the featured winemakers over the merits of cloned vines and whether it was acceptable to use screw caps. Then it got political. One of them had a very large handlebar moustache, and the other had a sort of combined mullet/perm thing happening. Both wore plaid shirts.
I learned that the greater the difference between daytime and night time temperatures during the growing season, the better a wine will be. I also learned that a menu makes a slightly better fan than a grape leaf centrepiece.
Several times during the evening, a storyteller rose to tell stories about pigs and grapes, and sultans with a questionable sense of humour. She gesticulated a lot and sounded like she was addressing the mentally retarded.
Our friend Noël grumbled a running commentary that made us laugh at all the wrong places.
By the third course, we couldn’t breathe anymore so left the party and took our plates and glasses out to the terrace where a diffident breeze came to inch its way around us. The sky was cobalt blue, the air smelled of pine and lavender and rosemary and quiet, and you could hear the flowers in the garden heave a sigh of relief before settling down for the night.
3) Ann Coulter is insane.
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Comment
- insane in a bad way
— steve Jun 22, 4:03pm # - Not a comment, but a link:
Ten modest proposals to help Ann Coulter get a date.
http://www.salon.com/media/feature/1999/06/25/coulter/
Funny as hell.
— APS Jun 22, 5:09pm # - Let’s not give the insane a bad name, shall we? —Ann Coulter is a traitor, not just to that which gives the United States whatever slim claim to greatness it might yet have left, but to that which makes a civil and decent society possible at all. She is a deceitful, spiteful, hateful person who worships nothing but a fevre dream of power, without even the wit and grace to work her evil well.
There is yet the thin slim shred of hope that she is nothing more than a lark; a long-term piece of performance art whose apotheosis will come at the height of the 2004 GOP convention, as Bush fils presides over the laying of the cornerstone for the new tower. Perhaps then Ann Coulter will stand up and suddenly pour chocolate sauce over her head, while screaming, “Courage! Bush is a noodle! What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Courage!”
Yes, I know. Unlikely and far-fetched. But one can dream. Can’t one?
— --k. Jun 22, 8:46pm # - > Ann Coulter is insane
Yes, but she has a grassy nose, is peppery on the tongue, and has a full, plummy finish. She is best served at room temperature and goes well with tripe, carp, or a steaming hot chili dog.
— Beerzie Boy Jun 23, 12:03pm # - Bloody regional blogging.
— Toi Jun 23, 8:11pm # - She’s insane for sure, but did I miss something she has done recently?
— Jackie McGhee Jun 24, 8:12am # - I’m assuming the ‘screw caps’ argument failed to fly. How did ‘cloned vines’ fare?
— Joe Williams Jun 25, 2:12pm # - Well, actually, it turns out that all the quality cork goes to the big name vineyards, and poor cork is detrimental to the wine. The argument against screw caps is largely esthetic and perhaps somewhat reactionary.
The argument against cloned vines was that they’re all identical, so if one gets sick, they all get sick; the upside being that they try to make them as resistant to illness, and as productive, as possible. Some wine growers are more emotionally opposed to clones than anything, and are trying to graft from old vines, but most of the new plants you buy are clones, apparently.
A lot of the controversy was over the fact that cloned grapes invariably produce high alcohol wine, made even higher by the new yeast products, so it’s very difficult to control the degree, and to still make an 11° wine, for instance.
All this is just what I heard between courses, so I make no claim to expertise. Both sides of both arguments were equally passionate (in a very French sort of way).
A few years back, a lot of growers were opposed to picking with machines, but most all use and praise them now.
So there you go.
— gail Jun 25, 6:12pm # - There’s a poem in all this:
The cicadas sound like mass hysteria
And the dogs of war are melting
While cool quiet nights of lavender and pine
Offer relief from the insanity…
(I hope you will consider this a tribute to the beauty of the original prose—I quite enjoyed reading of your observations.)
— Rana Jun 29, 7:30pm # - “the dogs of war are melting”
That’s great… and the rest is lovely.
Thanks, Rana.
— gail Jun 30, 1:14pm # - What’s wrong with using poly corks?
I don’t know Ann Coulter, but perhaps that’s a good thing.
I stop by here occasionally. I enjoy your weblog.
Cheers,
J.
— jesse Jul 1, 3:52pm # - Now I know who Ann Coulter is.
Yikes.
— jesse Jul 2, 2:48pm # - How is it that we (and by “we” I mean “you people”) can toss about perjoratives such as “insane” with offhanded glee, and yet fail to offer a SINGLE tidbit of specificity, not one quote that is lifted (in context) and refuted, not one bon mot that is not also an ad homenim slur?
Does is spoil the fun to ask for specifics to support our (and by “our” I mean “your”) festival of ugly denigration?
Is rational, intelligent opinion not part of the program?
When (and why) did the left wing become so ascerbic?
— george Jul 5, 4:07pm #
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