I know this isn’t normally our bailiwick here at OA but I have recently been spending every minute I can spare watching Werner Herzog documentaries, largely for the sheer hilarity of the voice overs. My favorite so far is My Best Fiend, an exploration of his relationship with Klaus Kinski. The man is, I think, as funny as any comedian living today.  If you’re not a fan, become one.  If you are a fan here is a great mock voice over done Herzog style to the Curious George creation story.

ps. The new Curious George art sucks.

I recently got back from a trip up to northern Michigan and on the way we drove through a few small towns built on the shores of lakes. It drifted me back across the frozen landscapes of my childhood, staring out at tiny little houses dotting a barren white expanse, hard water as they call it. In South Dakota and Minnesota, where I grew up, this time of year ushered in a whole new season of sports, not of the exciting alpine variety but more of the head shaking, why the hell would anyone do that variety. There was snowmobiling, which is fun and makes sense if your not drunk and its light out, guidelines when not followed result all too often in decapitation by barb wire fence. I’m not kidding, nearly happened to two kids in my high school but luckily they both lived to tell the story of the rakish scars across their neck.

Here’s a pretty rad video of a guy carving like crazy on a snowmobile:

There were other stranger sports like trapping, which could be quite frightening.

The traps are generally set in places that are hard to both see and reach and are often occupied by understandably upset woodland creatures. If their not, than your not a good trapper. The all to common result is that you end up lying on your belly in three feet of snow, reaching under a fallen tree on a frozen creek and running into a pissed off and dying skunk. Believe me it’s a bad scene and hard to understand what makes it worth it.

There was also ice racing. Something I never did but a lot of the burnouts who used to beat me up in high school swore by it.

Basically it’s just racing with real long spikes on your tires. I think it comes in all sorts of classes, motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile etc. I suppose it’s fun but it strikes me as absolutely nuts to be racing at top speeds on ice with what essentially amounts to little spears on your wheels.

Really the only sport I ever got into much was ice fishing, more on tht later.

Just finished watching this documentary “Beautiful Losers” about the group of artists that rose out of the Alleged Gallery on the lower east side in the early nineties.  Some of them I knew by name, Shepard Fairey, Harmony Korine etc., but I recognized the work of all of them.  It’s really good stuff and a reasonably interesting and inspiring documentary.  It chronicles how they grew out of the skate and graffiti scene to became influential artists and culture makers branching out into advertising, graphic design and film making.  Any way, check it out, it made me get excited about painting again. Incidentally, Beautiful Losers is also a beatnik novel written by a young Leonard Cohen, you can pick it up for $10 on Amazon, it’s been eighteen years since I read it but I remember liking it.

Oh and Beautiful Losers also led me to this pretty rad Mark Gonzales skate video, dig it:

So this year I’m making my first ever Christmas Goose. Above is a before picture. I will then put it through the paces using a combination of recipes from Jacques Pepin, Julia Child and this recipe from Bonny Wolf of NPR which Brian sent me yesterday. This one is particularly interesting because of the information it provides on the delights of goose fat and the history of the goose on the American table.

This got me digging around to figure out exactly what has made the goose such an Icon of the European and to a lesser degree the American holiday table. Here’s a brief look at the mythological significance of the goose in ancient cultures:

“Feasting on geese has long been a tradition in the Old World, as is clear from ancient mythology. The prevalence of goose gods in numerous cultures attests to the ritual importance of geese and to the fact that these rituals date back to antiquity…The goose feast that came to characterize holiday celebrations in later times arise as a modern-day derivative of these ancient rites and sacrifices. People in Europe, Central Asia, North America, and North Africa customarily sacrified geese, particularly at the turn of the seasons. Like other migratory fowl, geese appeared and diappeared at crucial times in the yearly cycle, so eating them customairly accompanied ceremonial events in the solar and agricultural year. People have linked geese to the changing seasons for so long that originally the goose served as a sacrifice to the spirit of vegetation, in thanks for the harvest. After the goose was ceremonially killed, participants in the sacrifice feasted on its flesh in a ritual that they believed would ensure the regeneration of the Earth…Goose was served at the Celtic Samhain, or Halloween; the Germanic Yule, originally the first day of the new year; and Michaelmas, the ritual feast of the winter solstice. The Michaelmas feast is probably the most famous goose feast, apart from that at Christmas dinner…Turkeys, native to the New World, were more plentiful than geese during the period of early settlement. American settlers served turkey at Thanksgiving, making it the seasonal feast bird. In much of the Western world today, turkeys have replaced geese also at the Christmas feast; but for all practical purposes, these two birds share the same symbolism. Just as the people of the Old World connected geese to the sun, some of the North American tribes connected turkeys to the sun.”
—Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 105-6) You can find more history on this site should you desire it.

As far as beer pairing is concerned with goose it seems that dark rich beers are generally favored. According to this pairing chart Porters, Doppelbocks and Trappist beers all work well. I think I’ll likely pick up a Teufel Bock from Atwater Brewery out of Detroit. Had one of these a couple of months ago at a local joint, Jak’s tap in the west loop, and found it quite delightful. I’ll probably add a Trappist as well, possibly Chimay as it’s a popular beer which I rarely drink and am interested in trying again. That, however, is a decision that remains to be made.

I will also be composing a song and a prayer to the goose. I’ll let ya know how that works out. I leave you with what will hopefully be an after picture.

Merry Michealmas!!!

Remember being a kid and watching filmstrips about how robots were going to change our lives and free us from mundane tasks. Well, this isn’t exactly Johnny 5 but it is remote controlled and looks like a robot. What’s more you can build it yourself and best of all it makes drinks. The plans don’t seem terribly difficult or expensive and are fairly well laid out.
Here’s the official site, it’s got great pictures of all the materials used. It brings a tear to my bleary eye to see this perfect marriage of innovation genius and leisure. As the great Yakov Smirnoff would say, “America: What a country!”

Here’s a video of BAR2D2 in action

BAR2D2’s creator is continuing to tweak his invention. he recently added an automated drink maker so you can choose from a variety of drinks and have it made for you.

Woke up this morning early, without a hangover, a rare Saturday occurrence.  Thought I’d try and get some work done and in the process ran across a story I’d started just after we got back from the Lake Vermilion fishing trip. Well, one thing led to another and before I knew it I fell into a fly fishing hole. After a few hours of internet research I am now thinking that the time may be nigh to begin exploring this beautiful art that has intrigued me for years.

The thing about fly fishing is that aside from the end goal of landing a fish, it holds few similarities in either technique or equipment to the rod and reel fishing I’m used to. Here’s an illustrative video:

It seems to me that the most important place to start is understanding the equipment necessary for the task at hand, so far Fly anglers Online has been the best resource I’ve run into, they do a real nice job of taking you through the whole process from choosing equipment to tying flies and landing fish.

Fly fishing certainly seems to be the sort of thing you want some helpful one on one advice and how to’s on. Luckily that information is available right here in Chicago. I think my next step will be to walk into The Chicago fly Fishing Outfitters, admit my total ignorance and see where that leads me. Place seems pretty cool and they offer classes on tying your own fly’s as well as sweet gear.

I’m aware that Danny Macaskill isn’t exactly a underground legend anymore but man this kid is ridiculous, if anyone has yet to see him work this should be a treat.  Also this second video while not as impressive all around has a couple of sick tricks in it that I hadn’t seen before.

I was searching the internets, digging around for great beer themed vacations when I hit beertravelers.com and stumbled on a tradition from the small South Dakota town I grew up in, Brookings.

Brookings was generally not a very exciting place, just a regular little prairie town filled with good hearted honest folks of a mild temperament.  However, once a year in late June or early July Jim’s Tap, the best bar in town, hosts a Harley Ride Through Night when a bunch of bikers come to town and ride their bikes from the back beer garden through the bar and out onto main street.  I think it began as a stopping off point for folks on their way to Sturgis but the dates seem a bit early in the season for that these days.

Now, it’s been a good fifteen years since I’ve seen the spectacle and, as I remember, it seemed to get less and less renegade with each passing year but the earliest memories are pretty strong.
Long lines of gleaming bikes up and down both sides of main street, turning the sleepy little drag into a river of steel. Scantily clad women with a wild streak, strung out on the back of choppers lifting their shirts up above the bald heads of barrel chested ex cons as they boomed down the boulevard.  Jeez, I should get a job writing songs for The Boss:

Just watched some videos on youtube of the ride through and its definitely lost the hard, sometimes frightening edge, but why shouldn’t it, the edge is a harder and harder thing to find in this world.

All the same, I’m sticking to my memories and am inclined to believe that they are mostly true. Considering this tradition was started in 1971, I think it’s fair to say that the early population of enthusiasts included some folks who chose the road less traveled.
For what it’s worth Jim’s Tap is also a damn fine bar for a South Dakota town. Ever since I was wee one they’ve offered what they call “around the world” where in a brave soul pays something like $20, probably a bit more now, and gets 12 different brews from different parts of the world.  If you finish it before getting kicked out you get a t-shirt to boot.  I remember it being a popular past time of the ball players when I was a bat boy.  Anyrate, enough of the maudlin reminiscence, if your ever in Brookings get drunk at Jim’s. Tell ‘em I sent ya, I’d be curious to know if anyone in the place would know who the hell I was.

Last night I was sitting around chatting with my roommate when he reminded me of a story involving a mutual friend of ours. As it happened my roommate and our friend were spending a fall evening at a local pub getting good and drunk. On the way home they we’re laughing riotously about something or other and our friend, out of jubilation, slapped a pumpkin off of its perch on a step, causing it to roll, unbroken mind you, into a neighboring yard. The two ruffians continued walking along until about half a block later they heard a commotion behind them and turned to see a barefoot and shirtless, mulleted and mustachioed man sprinting at them as he hurled insults and slurs. Before they knew what was happening the man was on top of them punching our friend repeatedly in the face and screaming that he wanted five dollars for the offense of knocking a pumpkin into his yard. Apparently there was some contentious haggling that followed but in the end the man did receive his five dollars and all parties went on their way.
The man clearly overreacted, something men are often want to do. It got me thinking about how men overreact, over engineer, over everything just about everything and how that applies to the season that is upon us and particularly Halloween. Here then are some results of my search:

This one’s a bit long but the idea is awesome:

While sitting at work today I, as is usual, began daydreaming about all of the fun things I will soon be doing that don’t have anything to do with work.  Which led me pleasantly, to the upcoming weekend and our annual excursion to the Music Box Massacre, a 24 hr horror movie fest held each year at The Music Box Theater here in Chicago.

This years line up is full of several delightfully gory flicks, but I am especially looking forward to Roger Corman’s:  A Bucket of Blood.  Here’s the premise, as described by our friends at The Music Box:

A busboy longs to be an artist and tries his hand at sculpting. When he accidentally kills a cat and covers it with clay, it becomes a celebrated work of art. Soon Walter has moved on to killing people and is the hit of the local art scene. Roger Corman’s little gem of black comedy has become a true cult classic.

This got me to wondering about meat sculpture.  Just what are the artists of today and tomorrow doing with those different delightful and coveted cuts of flesh?  Who among looks at dinner and sees a medium?  I am happy to report that there is much being done in the way of meat art. The contemporary scene seems as varied as the times and land in which we live.  It goes from the overtly political:

To the religious:

The functional:

I’m sure that works…right.

Even Interiors:

My tastes generally run nearer the outsider end of things.  I like the idea of a bored archeology major smoking too much dope and turning his munchies into a tribute to past cultures:

And for those of you who enjoy seeing that which can not be unseen, I direct you to Meatplug.