BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE #16

 ON COOKING
                              “You have a map of flavors, and then you   
                                dance.”
 
     Ali El Sayed, quoted by David Kortava
      in The New Yorker (September 2, 2019)

 
 
 
THE LETHE MARTINI POEM
 
I have already forgotten what this poem is about.

**

COCKTAILS
 
DRINK/DRINKING
 
                   The right gin matters, not Bombay with its  overpowering 
botanicals and its sweetness, And a conical glass, though in an 
emergency  you can approximate a very dry one by 
removing a bottle of Tanqueray  from the freezer 
and swigging from the neck.
 
                    Sam Leith, on the Martini. The Spectator
                    (16 December 2014)
 
 An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks 
as much as you do.
                        Dylan Thomas
 
   Jacques (Feyder) seemed very impressed and insisted 
we go out afterwards and celebrate my success. Champagne 
was ordered at his behest  -- I knew he enjoyed drinking it,
 but I had never touched the stuff. As the champagne 
went down, my value as a composer went up. By the end 
of the second bottle I was better, according to 
him, than Beethoven had ever been.
 
    Miklos Rozsa.  Music For the Movies by Tony Thomas. 1997.
**
 
 
 
Dating back to 1862, these (CORPSE REVIVERS)  belong to 
the dubious category of drinks engineered, in a counterintuitive, 
vaguely  homeopathic way to vanquish hangovers, like 
other well-known hairs-of-dogs.
 
Rosie Schaap. The New York Times Magazine
(October 11, 2015)
 
 
 
COFFEE
 
American coffee can be a pale solution served at a temperature 
of 100 degrees centigrade in plastic thermos cups, usually 
obligatory in railroad stations  for purposes of genocide.
 
    Umberto Eco. How To Travel With a Salmon.
 
 
COOKING
Her  cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon noir.
  Leo Rosen
 
Drama is very important in life. You have to come on with a bang.
 You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have 
drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.
 
Julia Child
 
 
 
"Boiled cabbage a l'Anglais is something compared with which 
steamed coarse newsprint bought from bankrupt Finnish salvage 
dealers and heated over smoky oil stoves is an exquisite delicacy.   
Boiled British cabbage is something lower than ex-Army blankets 
stolen by dispossessed Goanese housekeepers who used them 
to cover busted-down hen houses in the slum district of Karachi, 
found them useless, threw them in anger into the Indus, where 
they were recovered by convicted beachcombers with grappling 
irons, who cut them in strips with shears and stewed them in sheep 
dip before they were sold to dying beggars.  Boiled cabbage !"
                                                                                   
 William Connor (Cassandra)  [ 1909 - 1967 ]
 
*
LANGUAGE MATTERS

ON HONKY-TONK (from Wikipedia)

The origin of the term honky-tonk is unknown. The earliest
known use in print is an article in the Peoria Journal dated
June 28, 1874, stating, "The police spent a busy day today
raiding the bagnios and honkytonks."[ The capitalization[
of the term suggests that it may have been the proper name
of the theater; it is not known whether the name was taken
from a generic use of the term or whether the name of
he theater became a generic term for similar establishments.
There are subsequent citations from 1890 in 
The Dallas Morning News,[1892 in the Galveston Daily News 
(Galveston, Texas)[(which used the term to refer to an
adult establishment in Fort Worth), and in 1894 in 
The Daily Ardmoreite in Oklahoma,[4] Early uses of the term
in print mostly appear along a corridor roughly coinciding
with cattle drive trails extending from Dallas and 
Fort Worth, Texas, into south central Oklahoma, suggesting 
that the term may have been a localism spread by cowboys 
driving cattle to market. The sound of honky-tonk 
(or honk-a-tonk) and the types of places that were 
called honky-tonks suggests that the term
may be an onomatopoeic reference to the loud, 
boisterous music and noise heard at these 
establishments.one theory is that the "tonk" portion 
of the name may have come from the brand name of piano 
made by William Tonk & Bros.,an American manufacturer 
of large upright pianos (established 1881),[ which made 
a piano with the decal "Ernest A. Tonk".
The Tonk brothers, William and Max, established the 
Tonk Bros. Manufacturing Company in 1873, so such 
an etymology is possible,[ however, these pianos were
 not manufactured until 889, at which point the term 
seems to have already been established.[9]An early source 
purporting to explain the derivation of the term
(spelled honkatonk) was an article published in 1900 by
the New York Sun and widely reprinted in other newspapers.[ 
The article, however, reads more like a humorous urban
(or open range) legend or fable, so its veracity is questionable.
**

The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace named 
after Benjamin Franklin, who invented it in 1741.
***

LA TRIVIATA #37

NOTE TO THE READER
 
All right, I know that more than a few of the questions 
in the various La Triviata quizzes  are unfair and often 
mpossible for many readers, to answer. But the point 
of a quiz is not to test intelligence or even cultural and 
verbal awareness. Not by a long shot. The point is to 
have fun, to pass some time pleasantly while picking 
up tidbits of useful and useless information. I hope it’s 
a good party game or a good quiz to share with a friend 
or two. Actually I hope it is just a good quiz. And 
sometimes a useful one. If you get 6 correct you are 
doing very good. If you get 9 or more correct you are 
in the Genius
Category.
 
—LJP

  
 
1. On July 31, 1968 –  18 years after Charles Schultz 
Peanuts comic strip had been syndicated, the very first 
black child appeared (mainly because of the urging of 
Harriet Glickman, a teacher) as a regular character with 
Charlie Brown , Linus & others What was the name of 
this character?
 
   A) Thurmond Armstrong
   B)  Franklin Armstrong
   C) Malcolm Armstrong
   D)  Luther Armstrong
 
2. The name Rosa Kleb should bring to mind what popular 
novel by Ian Fleming?
 
3. Movie actor and stuntman Ben Johnson won an 
Academy Award for Best Supporting actor in 1971.
 At 9 minutes and 54 seconds, Ben Johnson's performance 
in this movie is the shortest to ever win an Academy Award 
for Best Supporting Actor. What was the film?
 
4. True or False: A person is more likely to be killed
  by a cow than by a shark.
 
5.  You are in The City of Saints, a  large city in
 North America. In what city are you in?
 
6.   What great American poet wrote:
 
      The fog comes
      on little cat feet.
  
       It sits looking
       over harbor and city
       on silent haunches
       and then moves on.
 
 7.  In English Society in the late 19th and 20th Century
      what was a Lion Tamer ?
 
8.  Iris, Ceres, Juno, Nymphs, and Reapers are characters
in what play by Shakespeare?
 
9. Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
 
The above is from what hit song? Who wrote it?
 
 
10. According to information on the inside of the bottle 
cap to my Snapple (Product placement people please 
take notice) what peoples invented lemonade in 1299 A.D.?
 
   A. Aztecs
   B. Spaniards
   C. Mexicans
   D. Mongolians
 
11 What is a xenobot?
 
12. Who was the first black entertainer to win an Emmy?
 
13.What   is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea?
 
14. What month is designated  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, 
Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month?
 
15. If you are dining outside you are dining “el fresco,”
       but what does “al fresco” mean in Italian?
 
 16.  In 1956, what world famous princess recorded 
the number one hit song “True Love” with Bing Crosby? 
( In 1954, this woman, before she became a princess 
won an Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance 
in The Country Girl.)
 
17. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy stated that 
this philosopher  was “the most important philosopher 
ever to write in English.”  Who was he?
 
    A. Bertrand Russell
    B. William James
    C. David Hume
    D.  John Dewey
 
18.  You have just purchased a new automobile – an
M G. What do the initials stand for?
 
19. When Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his
cap what did he call it?
 
 
20. What is the longest word in the English language to
     contain only one vowel used just once? (8 letters )
 

ANSWERS:

1. Franklin Armstrong
 
2. To Russia With Love

3. The Last Picture Show.
 
4. True.
 
5. Montreal. So-called because it has many streets named for saints.
 
6. Carl Sandburg
 
7. A Lion Tamer was a society woman who would convince 
a celebrity or celebrities to attend and lend an air of 
importance to her parties.

8. The Tempest
 
9. American Pie by Don McLean

10. (D) Mongolians
 
11. Xenobots, are synthetic organisms that are automatically 
designed by computers to perform some desired function 
and built by combining together different biological tissues.
 
 
12. Harry Belafonte
 
13. Sicily
 
14. June
 
15. the expression has a completely different 
meaning. 'Al fresco' literally means 'in prison.
 
16. Grace Kelly
 
17. David Hume
 
18. The initials stand for Great Britain’s automobile maker
Morris George
 
19.  Macaroni
 
20. STRENGTH

SELF KNOWLEDGE
Why are we are so interested
In that baggage of heartbreak
With ripped pockets
We carry around with us?
Shouldn't souls of others
Stir us to action?
Remember Gary Cooper
Walking the streets of High Noon?
Am I like him? Are you?
12 yrs old, & I was
Waiting for my parents
To get off from work.
I paid 25¢ to see
A good cowboy movie.
Missing the politics,,
High Noon, in 1950s slang,
Blew me away.
Who was I then,
Sitting by myself,
All alone in the dark,
Waiting for my parents
To drive me home.
Among motion picture archives,
Who are you? the Caterpillar,
As played by Ned Sparks,
Asks a very polite Alice.
Did Gary Cooper & Sparks
Become what we see on the screen?
Caterpillars become butterflies,
Sparks become fires.
Who do we become
When we turn our attentions to,
Let us say, Handel,
His Concerto No. II in B-Flat Major,
With its fourth movement
In 3/8ths time,
Must we sit on the couch & ask,
"Just where do I fit in all this,
What does it have to do with me?”
O myself, myself,
Do not forsake me, O my darling.
Louis Phillips