convenience is the enemy

Have a great dinner tomorrow. We'll be on radio silence.

items from our catalog

Need a hunting bra for the dog... how about edible mocacasins? This has been out for over 20 years but our family still references the jokes. Does that say more about us than the quality of the humor...hmm not sure. But if you need something for your blind duck, or a blaze orange yamika? Then get this. By Alfred Gingold. A must have. Old copies available on ebay too.

usopen08 -10engines style

This is original, shot content btw incase there was any doubt, though music is the undervalued Pete Seeger: Coal Creek Marsh.

the wrestler -the trailer is up

via AppleTrailers. Unabashed Mickey fan here. We never left pal.

update on wine carbon footprint

Wine producers are listening and learning. Read more here. From Dr. Vino again.

drink green

There’s a “green line” that runs down the middle of Ohio. For points to the West of that line, it is more carbon efficient to consume wine trucked from California. To the East of that line, it’s more efficient to consume the same sized bottle of wine from Bordeaux, which has had benefited from the efficiencies of container shipping, followed by a shorter truck trip. In the event that a carbon tax were ever imposed, it would thus have a decidedly un-nationalistic impact.

From Dr Vino and the American Association of Wine Economists.

nostalgia -doctor who

Listen and understand why Daft Punk were so big in Britain...everyone born from 1960 onwards in the UK watched this (and some still can). The Doctor Who theme is perfectly retro/futuristic. You can def hear a seed for Queen's Flash Gordon in there too.

[update: re daft punk /uk. post 11/20 in NYT below.]


London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

tomorrow -beaujolais nouveau

Text paraphrased from an instructive article here by Brad Prescott.

At one minute past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun. Just weeks before this wine was a cluster of grapes in a growers vineyard. But by an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, all is ready at the midnight hour. The race from grape to glass may be silly, but half the fun is knowing that on the same night, in homes, cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and bistros around the world, the same celebration is taking place.

It is a triumph of marketing and promotion, mostly due to the efforts of Georges Dubeuf. [Well done George. ed.]

Boozers rarely need an excuse... but this one def' makes it onto our calendar. A classic.

[one major caveat, sort of like drinking water that was shipped round the world, remember this stuff was airlifted from France in glass bottles... carbon footprint rather heavy. great article here about all that.]

pumpkin pie

This was it going in. M is the queen of pumkin pie (graham cracker crumble is key). Family recipe stylee. There were no after shots as someone (who shall remain nameless) ate it all up!

analog to digital

Just got some film back from Cinelab, developed and transferred to tape. 300 feet of 16mm reversal b&w shot at the 2008 USOpen in March. "Is it really expensive to shoot film??" people ask me... "Sort of. Like standing on the front of your rented yacht ripping up 50 dollar bills" i usually reply... Clip will go up in the next few days.

pawlet game supper -update

4.59pm. Line starts to form.


In the door, first sitting.


Bingo. Not f'in around.

Chedddar goes with apple pie. What the hell... cheddar goes with everything!


Last weekend was the game supper in Pawlet, Vermont. I missed it (doing this instead, which was very worthwhile) but family was there and took some shots. Thanks Mike.

"In the venison and moose stews, nearly 30 pounds of meat was used. Another 120 pounds of meat was ground to make the meatballs and sausages. The roasted meats — bear, venison and moose — totaled 60 pounds. Most of the free-range meats are donated by hunters for the dinner, but some does come courtesy of the game warden."
Via a very slow link to the Rutland Herald.

miller x camo -in the wild

jayne's flowers -orange lillies

As reported before, big fan of this place, Jayne's. These are about 5 days old here, going strong.

watchmen -wow

New, riduculous trailer... watchmen.

update -that tiny shoe shop

From OMIL

"....I bought those boots from the local place. brogue boots, krampton boots, monkey boots. I'm sure the dude would have taken £200 on the nose by why squeeze the little guy? Those would've cost me elsewhere so I'm quids in. had a chat with the old guy .. proper cockney geezer, recounting tales of when he was a mod, getting into debt to buy a pair of mohair trousers, etc. and when was the last time someone who sold you a pair of shoes shook your hand?? eye contact alone usually passes for excellent customer service skills nowadays.... he even recommended a local tailor. love it."

Photos from the wild will follow.

pawlet game supper this saturday

Chicken pie and wild game to be served at the 40th Pawlet Game Supper.

Via the Manchester Journal. "Enjoy a taste of the wild and the not so wild at the 40th Annual Chicken Pie and Wild Game Supper at the Pawlet Firehouse on Saturday, Nov. 15. The firehouse is located on Rte. 133 in Pawlet. Serving starts at 5pm and the line forms quick."

The menu is bear roast, moose meatballs, venison sausage, venison stew, venison roast and chicken pie. There will also be vegetable salads, mashed potatoes and homemade pie for dessert. $12 for adults, $6 children under 12. If that isn't clear enough call Ellen at 325-3495.

Tip from us... it is BYOB so bring the cooler. You can also make like our smart (in point of fact they are rocket scientists...) cousins and bring a tupperware, buy 2 dinners and take one home. It is long tables and communal seating. Awesome.

The drive along Route 30 from Manchester/Dorset to Pawlet is fantastic, a big valley floor and dairy farms. Pic below from flickr, courtesy of tballred9873.

crackling

This whole thing is great. Marco Pierre White making crackling. Then off to make fish pie.
"Cooking should be a pleasure. If it's a job then get a takeaway." Bosh. Love it.

"Fish pie... is a great way of introducing children to eating fish." Could not agree more. Was mr mom on tuesday and the weeboy and i had codfish pie for lunch. Easy. i don't like cheeses melted in though. Love cheese in general just not mixed in things.

is there a turkey in your sitting room?

From mütter.

"On the basis that you always need a great title before you actually write the book...

The wretched thing used to wander into the breezeway and start nibbling plants!
After the unfortunate episode on the car ride (as pictured, cartoon from "The Message" circa 1978, when turkey held onto roofrack for drive into town... it fell off past the dump and the Merrills i believe phoned us to say it was in their bathtub...) - it never really recovered and did not survive to grace the Thanksgiving table. At least I made it into the local paper."

Loved that old station wagon. A white toyota fake woody with the full-swing rear door. Blood flecked from being parked near the chickens' chopping block hahaha.

tip -loakes

From our man in London (OMIL). "great find .. there's a creaky old shoe shop on Camberwell Road .. closed most days, never has any customers. always ignored it but was walking past in pishing rain today .. fkcin classic footwear at bargain prices .. knocking out Loakes brogues/boots for £90 sheets. £140 online. nice touch. Love the byline - brogued boot with a substantial goodyear welted sole

Time to stimulate the local economy = brogues + boots and see if I can get a nice price on an old pair of monkey boots (school keepers kryptonite - those black soles are lethal to nicely buffed gym halls)."

all thriller and no filler. thx OMIL.

rapha tweed softshell

i love city biking, but you get all steamy in your tweeds...not now. Thanks to, you guessed it, our man in London, you can snair a Rapha classic softshell in Prince of Wales check. "...£450 is just a tad on the steep side. still, beats the day-glo look anyday."

lambchop in london

Our man in London saw Lambchop last weekend at the Union Chapel in Islington and despite sitting right under a drip from the leaky old roof, says...

"they were superb. Wagner popped downstairs to sign some stuff afterwards so picked up a CD and shook him warmly by the hand. barely resisted the temptation to get a cheesey convention photo with us side-by-side. mad farm hand/trucker chic.
and what a voice..."

that long haul look -sis

Sis took the time to compile her long-haul travel look. There is a huge difference between brighten-you-up-pink and pinky-pepto-pukey-pink, and Helgs gets it right every time.

"Always wear birkies, comfy and no hassle for that take your shoes off security gate moment. Pashmina: doubles as a blanket for the chilly airplane and no need to use the scratchy airline blankets. Would love to just get on board with lounge pants, but don’t want to do a Paris in juicy-velour, so broken in jeans may be the order of the day, with a classic cardi and posh t-shirt. Not exactly the outfit to get you upgraded, but guaranteed non-wrinkle so you look fresh on arrival.

Bring snacks. They never give you enough. Perfect with that first G&T or ubiquitous Heineken (IBK – international beer of kitchens). They never have any fresh lime though, might have to start bringing those too. Hostess: keep them coming!

The latest celeb trash for entertainment and then something serious. New one, the history of Widow Cliqout. Perfect time to catch up on the things that really matter and then settle in for the long haul with some tunes (new and old).

Pre-landing essentials: freshen up with Carmex."
[update: BTW, what the hell with people dragging huge carry-on luggage then being shocked, shocked that is wont fit in the overhead. The only joy of flying nowadays for me is that some else is carrying my bags...]

joan eardley (1921-1963)

Children and Chalked Wall 3

Considered by some as the most influential Scottish painter of the late 20thC, she depicted both the rural and urban sides of Scotland. Dramatic seascapes were painted out of doors in Catterline, a small east coast fishing village south of Aberdeen, and in contrast to this expression of nature she spent time in Glasgow depicting the children and tenements around her studio. The Eardley family runs a site here, from where i cribbed that text. More extensive history from ExploreArt.

This sort of stuff is right up my alley, and i was surpised and sort of shocked that i had not heard of her before. A BBC news article yesterday turned me on to her.
Catterline in winter
Beehives at Catterline

Tons of examples via GoogleImageSearch. BTW, the expressions for that type of writing (e.g. GoogleImageSearch) can be called camelhump, great word.

transformational change

Found the above at Callie Shell's site via Draplin. This is a man that knows the value of a dollar.
Hard to stop reading the news...

change

11:01 pm. McCain concedes. He is honourable; but drank the fkin kool-aid. There is going to be a ridiculous amount of ink spilled on this (the election). Your correspondent just says...champagne time.

that voting look

Gum boots, ancient Bean camo chamois, Johnson wool pants and Lee chore jacket. All perfect for a cool evening, standing in line, exercising my fifteenth amendment right to vote. It may be a long wait...so a little chew to pass the time. Feeling like that post 9/11 moment, remember when people for about 2 weeks after actually looked each other in the eye, and we said hello to our neighbours for a change...
[Update 9pm: WTF with D&C this morning, perpetuating a (GOP?) hoax that voting wont be till tomorrow? First time, long time, last time. Beyond the pale.]

tip -auction guides

These are nice little items, auction guides. Avaliable on ebay if you watch and wait for maybe $10-20 each. I have both already and they are serious eye candy for all the gadgets, props, pictures, posters...etc. These guides (Sotheby's and Christie's) make good coffee table reading; a fan of Damien Hirst? "Beautiful Inside My Mind Forever: 5 books in total, in a hard slipcase box with pull out pages and sticker sheets at the back." A snip at $152 now. Or how about something more louche, "Elvis Presley Memorabilia: presented in association with Bonhams. Softcover, 179 pages plus". A mere $10.

farmer in chief

An article in the NYT 2 weeks ago titled "Farmer in Chief" was crafted as an open letter to the next president by Michael Pollen. I didn't mention it then, but should have... it is worth reading. Barack read it, as noted by Treehugger here. Good stuff.

Snippet from the candidate; "...our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs."

[update courtesy of Kristin, listen to Michael Pollen break it down here.]

reform

"Conviction reformers begin with an imagined nirvana and work backwards through self-serving facts and draconian instructions. They are made ridiculous by their own unmovable orthodoxy. Pragmatic reformers start with the problem, not the solution, and make it better..."

This is actually referring to organic farming in the context of a restaurant review, and found in a slightly posionous column by the Times' (London Times chaps) restaurant critic AA Gill. Further reading.

More; "It (the organic movement ed.)invented the most illiberal, unegalitarian, two-tier food market. There was good, healthy Oxfordshire food, and then there was the poisonous, processed, cancerous muck that the rest of you stuffed into your toothless faces. The organic movement made food the distinction of class and privilege that it hadn’t been for a hundred years, and for that alone it should be eternally and utterly ashamed of itself."

Some truths here. The fact that healthy food is looked on as highfalutin is testamount to the fact that something has gone seriously wrong somewhere...

fix it

Don't you hate it when your suspenders (or braces if you live in the UK) lose their "grab". It is all the fault of the small flange under the buckle getting compressed too acutely. Open that angle back up with some pliers, and bingo. Snaps snap flat and tight again.

rope font

Love a good old rope font. Wrangler has relied on it, and Rockmont. Last trip to London i picked up this t-shirt from Carhartt Europe, rope font in full effect.


The Lee label uses a cow brand effect; pony hide example below.