Yesterday was salad day. Dipped into the Millennium Cookbook for some inspirations - as usual, 50% of the recipes contained wierd, wonderful and American-named ingredients which I couldn’t get hold of, but I managed all sorts of things (thinking of making myself a little food website, with American-English translations, like Cilantro -> Coriander, Arugula -> Rocket, Scallions -> Spring Onions etc., and with some nice pictures and tips. One day). I roasted some chunks of butternut squash and tossed them in the delicious creamy green peppercorn and dill dressing (liquidized tofu, soya milk, honey, garlic, lemon juice, dill… with green peppercorns and capers pulsed in at the end - scrummy), made a marinaded cabbage and carrot salad which, with its dressing of lemon juice and salt, had a very Indian or Mexican tase, not 100% sure whether I liked it but… it was a change. Also made some stuff for keeps - pickled ginger slices, quince chutney. And when I was at Beanies buying for all this stuff I found some more rhubarb, so it’s back to Nigella tomorrow…
Archive for January, 2002
Well, I didn’t manage too well on the last sanity test I took. And I failed completely on this one.
After writing that last piece, I took a look through John Lurie’s/Lounge Lizards website, strangeandbeautiful.com. I’ve always love the term Strange and Beautiful as a description for music - I heard it a long time ago, though not sure whether it was in relation to Lurie or from somewhere else (for some reason, Sun Ra comes to mind) - and I was interested to read how Lurie came up with the name for his label. I loved this quote, and it brought back memories:
Lurie considered a myriad of names for the label. "But every time I came in with a name that I was excited about, somebody in the office would say ‘Eeewww, I don’t like that,’" he says. "I became so exasperated that at one point I was going to call it I’m Naked Records so that the people who worked there would have to answer the phone, ‘I’m naked, can I help you?’ It came really close to that.
When I worked at G-Spot, Mark and Keld hired Joy, an approaching-70 cute granny-type woman, to work as our receptionist. It was wonderful to hear her answer the phone "Joy at G-Spot, how can I help you".
And this I just have to see:
The New York-based label will also release the marvelous soundtrack to Lurie’s TV comedy series Fishing with John, a loopy take on early morning fishing shows. Fishing with John features Lurie going to Jamaica to fish for red snapper with Tom Waits, shark fishing in Montauk with director Jim Jarmusch, ice-fishing in Maine with Willem Dafoe, stalking snook and tarpon in Costa Rica with Matt Dillon and hunting for the elusive giant squid in Thailand with Dennis Hopper. Fishing with John debuts on the Independent Film Channel this June.
When I was younger, I used to have a tape called "Peace Party" - it cost me about £2 at the 1984 Glastonbury Festival, and was a compilation to raise money for CND. The cover was a photocopy onto colour paper (orangey-pink I think, the uniform colour of coloured photocopy paper in the 1980s, along with faded blue and limp-mint green), and coloured with rainbow crayons.
Among the highlights were the Special AKA singing Free Nelson Mandela, Redskins singing Lean on Me (and possibly also Keep on Keeping On), a band whose name I’ve forgotten (but if you mentioned it now I’d slap my forehead and say “of COURSE!”) singing Good Technology, the Poison Girls singing… er…. ah… oh, come on now, what was it, tum ti tum… Are You Happy Now?, and some wierd jazzy track which didn’t quite seem to fit in with the rest, but I loved nonetheless, called Harlem Nocturne by a band called the Lounge Lizards. Little did I know that almost 10 years later, John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards would be close to the centre of my lower-east-side-NY-avant-Jazz world, and the eponymous album containing Harlem Nocturne would be one of my favourite of all time (and would also, via their incredible cover versions of Well You Needn’t and Epistrophy, introduce me to probably my favourite pre-60s jazzer, Thelonius Monk). Anyway, back to Peace Party, in between the tracks were little soundbites, recordings from news events and snippets like “tranquility base here, the eagle has landed” which at the time sounded like gobbledigook to me but in later life were replayed from many different sources.
So why am I talking about this in the first place? Well, about 10 years ago I recorded over that tape - I forget why, perhaps there was something on the radio which I wanted urgently to take a copy of, and there were no other tapes to hand, although I somewhat suspect I felt I had outgrown the tape and used it to make a copy of something from the record library like Jaco Pastorius, which I have never listened to since. I do remember that when I did it I had slight twinges of guilt, wondering whether I could really do without that tape for the rest of my life. Whatever the reason, the answer to that question was no. Many’s the time since then when one or other track has sprung unbidden into my mind. This morning, just after dropping Rowan at school, it was the Redskins (in fact, I think it’s usually the Redskins - their songs are so lively, uplifiting, perfect political pop with a punch, or something alliterative like that). Lean on Me pounded in my head - it often does when I’m happy and walking at a pace. And I longed to go home and listen to it - but alas, that was not to be. Ah well, there’s always Kazaa…. and I did got home and listen to the Lounge Lizards instead, just to cheer myself up.
Just for a change, the latest set of life pictures are by Gill - she took these wonderful pictures at Magna, much better than my own attempts at capturing the same location, but then… mustn’t grumble.
America the stupid (vulgar, ugly, greedy, death-sucker)
I just can’t believe the idiocy of the American administration over the Taliban prisoners held in Cuba. Even 360 News, who I really respect, seem to consider the whole thing a matter of how the prisoners are treated. It’s not about how they’re treated. Like most people, I imagine that the Americans are keeping the prisoners in bearable, if not exactly luxurious, circumstances (although I had to laugh the other day - every news report on the radio said “the prisoners are being treated humanely - none of them has been summarily executed”… since when has humane treatment equated not killing somebody?)
The issue is the total disregard of the Geneva Convention. Sure, there are good arguments as to why the Americans can’t abide by the treaty in this case, but that’s not the point. The point is, if they can make up their own arguments as to why they get to ignore the treaty, so can every other Tom, Dick and Sadaam. In the same way that India and others have been edging towards war using the excuse that “we must stamp out terrorism”, where America goes others will surely follow.
In the few days after the September 11th attacks, I sensed a fresh understanding emanating from around 50% of Americans. This started with the questions “Why us? What have we done? Why does everybody hate us so?” Then it started to dawn on a great many people - citizens of other countries don’t appreciate the way that America has appointed itself world policeman. They don’t like the fact that America is always right, because America has set itself up as the judge of right and wrong, and what America says goes (and if it doesn’t, well hey, there’s nothing wrong with justified force, is there?) People started to realise that if you’re setting yourself up as an example, people might just follow you, and not neccesarily in the direction you thought - they might have their own justification for using force and bending rules. Well, for a few days back then I thought that out of this horrific event some lessons might be learnt, and the world might just change for the better.
No such luck. We’re back the the America the Stupid that so many people in the world have grown to know and hate. It’s business as usual back at the ranch.
AH POOK THE DESTROYER … BRYON GYSIN’S ALL PURPOSE NUCLEAR BEDTIME STORY
by William S. Burroughs
Itzama, spirit of early mist and showers.
Ixtaub, goddess of ropes and snares.
Ixchel, the spider web, catcher of morning dew.
Zooheekock, virgin fire patroness of infants.
Adziz, the master of cold.
Kockupocket, who works in fire.
Ixtahdoom, she who spits out precious stones.
Ixchunchan, the dangerous one.
Ah Pook, the destroyer.
Hiroshima, 1945, August 6th, 16 minutes past 8 AM
Who really gave that order?
Answer - Control. The ugly American. The instrument of Control.
Question - If Control’s control is absolute, why does Control need to control?
Answer - Control needs time.
Question - Is Control controlled by its need to control?
Answer - Yes
Question - Why does Control need humans, as you call them?
Wait, wait. Time, a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.
And what does Death need time for?
The answer is so simple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook’s sake.
Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook’s sweet sake,
you stupid, vulgar, greedy, ugly American death sucker.
Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook’s sweet sake,
you stupid, vulgar, greedy, ugly American death sucker.
Like this….
Bryon Gysin has the all purpose nuclear bedtime story.
The all purpose bedtime story, in fact.
Some trillions of years ago a sloppy, dirty giant flicked grease from his fingernails.
One of those gobs of grease is our universe on its way to the floor.
Splat
Delved into the old Nigella books last night (oh yeah, we also got How to be a Domestic Goddess for Christmas, to add to How to Eat which we got last year, and… wow… so much to bake! And those Supper Onion Pies!!!) because rhubarb is IN SEASON! Finally spotted some pink-tinged early growths at Beanie’s so I dashed back and grabbed Domestic Goddess - so many rhubarb recipes! Settled on Rhubarb Grunt - fill a baking dish with chopped rhubarb, smother it with sugar, dot with butter, then slap on top of it a dough made of flour, salt, sugar, and double cream. Bake at 180c for about 40 minutes… awesome! Like rhubarb crumble but with a scone topping. Can’t do anything after eating (too much) of it (cooled off with dollops of ice-cream) other than flop into the sofa and feel warm.
Polished off another book review for Brand Republic - branding@thedigitalage edited by Herbert M. Meyers, Richard Gerstman. What a pile of tosh. I have yet to find a brand-related book that comes anywhere near the wonderful 4-D Branding by Thomas Gad.
My Xmas night dream (after a lovely big dinner):
I went to see Hawkwind - expected it to be crap, but I really enjoyed myself. Contrasted with the recent Inner City Unit gig, which I thought I’d really enjoy but ended up being a bit uninspiring.
Ended up playing with Hawkwind - chatted to them about Philm and John and other characters from their past. And got dragged from venue to venue on tour with them.
I had to keep stashing all the leads from my stereo, computer, etc etc etc, somewhere they wouldn’t get nicked. I hid them in cubby-holes in seedy musical equipment shops lit by Tokyo neon blue TV screens. I never found anywhere satisfactory to store them.
And time and time again I tried to bury myself in the multi-everything book of philosophy/art/life that Guy had written, but I was always stuck on the same page. Something too perfectionist about it to me - and I couldn’t decide whether Guy was being too pernickety or I was being too slapdash.
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