Soup Diary 111014

My friend Steve invited me to join him on an airport run to Missoula the other day, creating a rare non-weekend out-of-town dining opportunity. I had a fantastic pork chop sandwich (a transplanted Butte specialty), but the soup was only average. It was black bean, which I usually like, but this version was a bit too spicy hot, so much so that it overwhelmed the creamier features of the soup. In fact I had to do something that I rarely resort to: I dumped in a whole bunch of oyster crackers to dilute the heat. To be fair, this was a sports bar on Monday night, so I'm sure the clientele was inclined to favor the spicier fare, and maybe it wouldn't have bothered me if I was there to watch football too. But we were visiting (Steve's friend Chandra is a Nepali outdoorsman in the US to promote his wilderness leadership institute), and so a burning tongue was a bit of an impediment. Oh well, the company was good (even better than the sandwich).

More Friday Family Blogging

This is a "rescued" picture of Tom and Sara-- taken at the family reunion in Pennsylvania a few years ago. The original was much larger, and considerably busier. In cropping in on these two, I had to blow up the image, creating substantial fuzziness. After applying a couple of filters, I think it turned out okay-- but what do you think? Did it turn out okay?

Friday Family Blogging

Maria and Helen at the Fantasy Island water park back in the summer of '08. It seems like only yesterday... but then we all were there this past summer too.

Friday Philosophy

Here's something to think about from the French novelist Albert Camus (1913-1960):

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of a murderer is blind: and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.

Great Song

I really love this song-- classic punk rock from the Buzzcocks circa 1978. The only thing wrong with this song is that it's only just a bit over two and a half minutes long...

Toonerville Thursday

Poor Skipper-- he has to endure more trials than most of us can imagine, and yet he just keeps plugging along.

Thursday's Thoughts

Here's an idea worth keeping in mind, from the noted linguist and activist Noam Chomsky:

"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in
freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels
was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked.
So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech,
that means you're in favor of freedom of speech
precisely for views you despise."

Classic Motown Sound

Jr. Walker and the All-Stars were not the biggest stars in the Motown stable, but they put out some great music nonetheless. Here's a bunch of mostly random (to me) pictures set to what I think was their greatest hit:

More Bannack in Black & White

Let's call this sequence "variations on a theme." These are among the shots I took last week in Bannack. My primary goal was to keep testing the new fixed length lens I recently bought, but each of these also represent some experiments I've been doing in converting color shots to black and white.

So, despite the content and compositional similarities, I'm mostly pleased that I'm getting better at making details somewhat crisper, and capturing some midtones without losing rich black features and mostly true whites (like in the cloud above). I may not be totally there yet, but I think I'm getting closer.

Also, I'm captivated by doorways and windows. After quite a few visits to Bannack (I was actually there again yesterday with one of my classes), it's only been since I started seriously taking pictures there that such features started jumping out at me as some of the most unique characteristics of the town. So you may be seeing more of this kind of shot posted here in the future.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

I would call this a very astute observation from the famous journalist Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960):

"When a man you like switches from what
he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is
a broad-minded person who has courage
enough to change his mind with changing
conditions. When a man you don't like
does it, he is a liar who has broken
his promises."

Power Pop Classic

Blue Ash were never as big as the Raspberries or as respected as Big Star, but they made music nearly as good as either of those contemporary groups. Here's an example from way back in 1973:

More Pictures of the Pioneers

It snowed up in the mountains last weekend, so I once again headed up with my camera. My goal was the Coolidge ghost town, and I'll probably post some pictures from there in the next few days. But before and after I got some good shots of the area on the cusp between autumn and winter-- some nice colors augmented by the white of snow.

Actually, but the time I got up there, the snow was already starting to melt, so walking through the woods was kind of a spooky experience, as I would periodically hear clumps of snow smacking into the ground as it dropped from the tree branches.

Personally, I'm hoping that winter is still a few weeks-- make that months-- away. I prefer the sunshine and warmth. But I have to admit that the snow adds a nice highlight to the scenery.

The final picture was taken a bit later in the afternoon, and a bit further north in the Mount Haggin Wildlife Refuge. It almost looks summery, if it weren't for the multi-colored leaves dotting the gully.

This Week's Top Five

This is actually a "classic" edition of the Top Five List, from an episode of Dr. John's Record Shelf back in 2008. But I think you'll find the topic fairly timeless in nature...

Tuesday's Quotation

Speaking as a historian, I see nothing but great value in this comment from the eminent Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616):

"For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause them to swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instruction of the present, the monitor of the future."

Cool Eighties Tune

Here's a live rendition of the great Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' song "Rattlesnakes" from way back in 1984 (it seems like only yesterday...). You gotta love any song that namechecks Eva Marie Saint, don't you?

Sunday Funnies

From the I Love Comix Archive, here are four classic examples of the Blondie strip drawn by creator Chic Young from 1951. I can't think of another strip that has lasted as long and continued to be entertaining, all without drifting too far from a handful of recurring set-ups that have been evident almost from the start (and the strip was about 25 years old when these were first published!).

Sunday's Quote

There's something reassuring in this comment from the humorist Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936):

"The world is not growing worse and
it is not growing better - it is just
turning around as usual."

A True Classic

So "Louie Louie" was written by Richard Berry back in the late fifties, and has been recorded hundreds of times by now, by hundreds of different performers. This version, by Iggy Pop, must be near the top of the list of greatest covers, and it seems especially relevant in relation to the current protests occurring on Wall Street and elsewhere:

Saturday Morning Cartoon

I'm teaching the History of the American West this block, so naturally I've been thinking quite a bit about Quick Draw McGraw. Well, not really, but as long as I need something to fill the cartoon slot this week, why not post an example of the greatest of western-themed animated features? Here it is:

A Quote for Saturday

Daniel Boorstin (1914-2004) was a very astute historian and social observer, probably best known for his book The Image. Here's a comment he made with which I agree:

"I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever."