“I do go on, it's true, though not merely as a facet of an idiosyncratic disposition when I can give myself leave to do so. I do go on, especially with something like a recipe, because another equally compelling (to me) facet of my I.D. is essentially pedagogical in nature, and I want to give people reading the recipe occasion to think about what they're doing as they do it. Not for the insights about me, necessarily, because when it comes to food, I'm not very interesting (and yes I know even older fowl can be tenderized by allowing to braise long enough in savory fluids). But because if they're a little uncertain, or untried, or timid, or in any way recessive in their confidence about their food preparation skills, it helps to know why you are doing something, what happens when you alter the variables (usually in the case of ingredients in a recipe, the volume, the age, the hydration, freshness, temperature, the sequence of introduction to the mix of all ingredients, and the duration of exposure to added heat or extracted heat in the course of preparation from start to consumption). …”
The above, as promised, the first Herschel Adams post.
A response to my earlier Chicken Stock post.
I am very proud of Herschel.
I am honored that he recognized me with a detailed, thoughtful, academic piece that is his style.
The whole piece is too long to ‘Daily Post’ although I included this single paragraph as the “Thought for the Day” to give you a sense of the quintessential genius that is HA.
Find his entire post in the Contributing Writers section of the blog, "Herschel Adams."
Today is Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-fifth consecutive daily posting.
It is 6.22am.
On TV: “Tuttles in Tahiti,” with Charles Laughton.
Another gorgeous day in store for us New Englanders. We deserve it.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is Bouillabaisse (left over) and Chicken Salad.
Web Tweaks
Some tweaks to the Roasted Duck recipe.
Some vintage pictures posted of the 1970s North End, including a lovely one of my restaurant interior.
Today’s post
An excerpt from Conflicted, a Saga.
Diana, just after her rescue from a five-week captivity in which her kidnappers forced heroin on her, is disoriented. Tells a story to her rescuer, a character the reader doesn't get to know fully, of Diana's ‘mano a mano’ duel with and victory over a strange creature. Real or imagined we don’t quite know. The chapter ends with an angry Diana entering a recovery house, in pain.
Author’s Note: The writing is devoid of any form of the verb 'to be’' as it is from the word 'said.' The story moves more quickly without them and the reader adjusts to the unusual style within two or three pages. Promise.
CHAPTER ONE
9.00pm, Monday, 30 January, 2017
Startled awake by the bone-chilling cacophony, she shot erect gripping the edge of the car seat: hundreds of bugs of every shape, size, and color slow-motion creeping and crawling, singing, screaming, and screeching; multi-layered, covering the front and rear windshields and side windows inside and out. More hundreds clambered across the interior car roof, falling, jumping, or pushed onto her hair, face, and shoulders – water scorpions, bed bugs, and other blood-suckers crawling under her shirt, squabbling over territory, stinging, biting, drawing blood, her red-dotted clothes and torn skin evidence of their savagery. From the floor, a solid flow of bugs climbed her legs, the avant garde already past her knees.
Suppressing a wave of nausea, Diana sucked in a breath and screamed, helicoptering her arms and rapid-stamping her feet against the invasion. She pushed open the car door but the seatbelt pulled against her torso and someone standing outside the car yanked the door from her hand.
Demanding her attention, pincers clamped her cheeks hard against her teeth locking her head, while a lilac-waft and a familiar encouraging whisper pierced the insanity, contradicting the insect attack. “Diana, Diana!” Ivy leaning in, nose-to-nose, “They’re gone, my dear. All of them gone,” releasing her grip, backing off.
Frenziedly finger-combing her hair, darting eyes confirming they indeed all gone, every last one of them, Diana looked up at Ivy’s familiar face and calmed, dropping her hands onto the seat by her thighs and slumped back. She took the handkerchief that Ivy offered and wiped the sweat off her face. Clutching the linen in her right hand, she slumped back again and closed her eyes, feeling the winter come through the open door.
“Close it.” Ivy did.
Diana opened her eyes, turned her head, and looked out the passenger’s-side rear window, past Ivy. The darkness obscured almost everything, but Diana saw enough to know that she didn’t recognize the place; and to know that she didn't like it, wherever. Yet, Ivy here, Diana feeling safe; even comfortable.
Diana opened her window and breathed deeply, liking the cold and salty air blowing in, as well as the rhythm of attacking and retreating waves lunging over the sand or smashing against the breakers stabilizing the not-too-distant seashore off to her right.
“But where?” thinking, trying to penetrate the darkness, saying, "Where are we?" Diana’s own voice alien to her: how long since she last spoke aloud?
"A friend has made his home available to us for your recovery."
“Where-in-the-fucking-world-are-we, you moron?” Diana stiffening erect, eyes firing darts at her caregiver.
Through the open window, Ivy, “We’re at a private home in Truro, Cape Cod,”
Barely, but Diana did now make out the blurred mass of a large residence sitting at the apex of a horseshoe-shaped, crushed-oyster-shell driveway thinly outlined by a set of Christmas lights raised two inches above the ground, her eyes following the white autopath leading from their car, semi-circling past the front of the house, exiting the property forty-five feet in front of where they were parked.
"Who gave you permission to take me here?"
"Your parents, my dear. Five minutes after we drove from that cursed cottage in Hyannis you fell asleep. I took the moment to call your parents in Tyngsborough. When your mother answered. I told her who I was and that you were safe; with me. She was totally thrilled, crying and screaming out to your father, ‘They found Diana.’”
“So they don’t know…”
“Before my call they knew only that five weeks ago you left a note saying you’d be right back. Instead, going missing for these several weeks. I told them that you were safe now – rescued from a kidnapping. Told them to wait for more details until tomorrow when you wake up. I think their relief trumped their curiosity.”
“Who picked this place for me?”
“I took it on myself.”
“A locked facility?”
“No. Your choice to go in or not. Once in, you can walk out anytime you want. It’s far from being a facility, however. Certainly, it’s not licensed. It’s just a house temporarily staffed with a half-dozen professionals brought here specifically to take care of you.
“But if you prefer, we will drive you back to your parents right now. Your choice, Diana.”
No response for a hundred and twenty count after which Diana smacked the headrest in front of her with the side of her fist still clenched around Ivy’s hanky, and wrestled the door-handle to a draw. The football player-sized driver, in dark suit and tie, released Diana’s door lock from the array of buttons on his door, saying, “One second. The handle sticks.” He got out of the car and walked around the front of it to Diana’s door, opening it, proffering his hand.
She noticed his elegantly long and perfectly manicured fingers, just like Ivy’s; he tall and lean like her, too. Diana looked up into his face, gorgeous but unsmiling. She thought of her own filthy, unkempt condition and thrust her head at him, “Will you just keep the frig away from me? That too complicated?” she waiting until he walked to the front of the car before getting out.
She used the car door to pull herself to her feet and, crunching into the oyster shells, she took two wobbly steps before closing the door. With her left hand, still holding onto the hanky, she steadied herself on the car roof, taking in the sand, the grass, and the bushes surrounding the home, listening to the sounds of the seashore beyond, saying, “The time? The hour, I mean.”
“Nine o’clock, Monday night, January 30, 2017,” Ivy’s feet soundless as she stepped to drape a winter coat over Diana, she wearing only a jersey and jeans. Diana noticed Ivy’s skin devoid of pigment, almost translucent in the darkness; and her pixie-cut hair, looking closer to white than straw; and her gossamer dress; and the floral envelope that encased her; and Ivy’s delicate grace.
Diana waved her away – she hadn’t showered or changed for five weeks. “Do I stink? I must stink. Especially to you.”
“You’re fine, my dear. But whenever you do feel the need, you have your own shower inside.” No response, Ivy continued. “Diana, you’re going to find this place perfect – staffed with well-trained medical people, including a doctor just fifteen minutes away who can prescribe something to ease any pain or craving.”
Diana stared away from the house into the pitch, “Pretty moronic, don’t you think? You want to free me from my heroin addiction by addicting me to some other drug? Then what? Go through another withdrawal from my new addiction? One’s enough, thanks. We’ll do it right the first time. The hard way.” She turned to face Ivy, “What about protection?”
“I’m sorry. From what?”
“From what? What’s the matter with you? How do you think I got here in the first place? I need twenty-four/seven protection, starting immediately,” Diana clenching her fists, “For crying out loud! Ivy! They chloroformed me, held me for five weeks, stuck me four times a day with enough friggin’ heroin to choke a horse.
“You think you rescued me and game over? They’re giving up? Ivy, protection! Twenty-four/seven. They’re only waiting for me to let my guard down to attack me again.” She balanced herself and took three unsupported steps away from the house relying on muscle memory to stay on her feet. Clenching her fists, she shouted into the deep dark, “And I can’t wait. Come on! You freaking slime! You fu…” She turned her head down and to the side and, her voice breaking, “You creeps,” stepping back to the car, leaning heavily against it. She saw Ivy’s surprise.
“What? You thought me an American Girl doll? Dainty?” Diana pushed herself from the car to a ready position befitting her aggression, again facing the deeper dark away from the house, Ivy to her left. “A moment ago it seems, but a few weeks, I know, I was face-to-face with a four-hundred-pound monster that had just destroyed an army, covering the ground with body fragments and intact bodies of good people, dead, dying, and injured they, filling the air with the smells of rot, blood, and scurf, and cluttering the airways with pitiable, cacophonous cries for help.
“Help not coming, Ivy, just me in this white, designer holiday dress,” Diana hooking the material under her shoulder. “Of course, at that moment, the dress crisp and spotless, me in it, standing unnoticed in front of him, he sheathed in armor. My hundred and fifty pounds to his four hundred; my six feet to his nine – he had to bend his head to find me. I drew my sword, holding it up to challenge him, mano a mano. He pointed at me and laughed, looking around for his allies to join in the merriment, and they did, half the battle field; the other half despairing.
“Only halfway through the ridicule when he looked back at me, Ivy. Then! That moment! When I thrust my sword grating through his armor breastplate, cracking through his hard chest bones, muffling into his soft tissue, penetrating deeply into and through his heart.” As she spoke, Diana’s oversized left fist clenched and her arm jabbed upwards into the air, she holding it extended, focused at the tip of her imagined sword.
“We stared at each other, Ivy, the victor, that would be me, and the fallen, him. Surprised he, then, Ivy, just like you, now. But that surprise his problem.
“For me, I clenched my sword in place, watching him watching me watching him gurgle and fall to his knees.” She glanced at Ivy, still attentive. “Closer I stepped, my elbow bending, but the sword neither penetrating more deeply nor withdrawing an iota. I leaned over him as he toppled, leveraging the sword to roll him on his back, feeling his body freeze around the blade, watching his stiffening feet stretch themselves straight up to the sky, me unmoving, my feet anchored into the ground and my arm turned to stone.
“Deed done, me at ease.” Diana put her foot on his imaginary body, pulled out her imaginary sword, and threw it to the ground. Using the hanky, she wiped her face clean of imaginary sweat. And looked at Ivy. “You think freakin’ manners concerned me, Ivy? Not a freakin’ whit! I wanted him dead and I killed him. Dispensing death: what I do. What I’ve become.”
Her shoulders slumped and she took a step to stand erect. Instead, the movement precipitated vertigo and she wobbled in place taking short-steps describing a full circle before banging against the car and sliding to the ground to a sit. Her teeth chattered and she shuddered violently, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. She buried her face in her handkerchief and cried until her tired hands fell into her lap. Ivy, too late to prevent the fall, draped the coat over Diana’s chest, tucking it between her shoulders and the car.
Diana’s voice two octaves lower, “They destroyed me Ivy. They gave me a desperate craving for heroin, needing some right now.
“But that’s not the harm. They destroyed me. Forced me to be what I’ve become; who I am: a killer; a monster,” Diana studying her feet.
“I remember being a nice girl, Ivy. Receiving First Communion, hands folded in prayer. I loved my mama; and Jesus; and America, too. I showered every night – used my mother’s cologne. She let me. And my aunt always combed my hair and put ribbons in it. She did it for my girlfriends, too, they always with me. Every year Aunt Clara designed holiday dresses for us, Ivy, always identical.
“I was spoiled, Ivy. But I was nice. I helped people. People liked me.” She went silent.
Ivy, “Diana, you can’t get down on yourself. Everyone is in awe of the things you’ve done and the suffering you’ve endured. We all love you. But right now? It’s too cold for you out here. Let me have our escorts…”
Diana continued sotto voce, “But even that’s not the harm. What they destroyed is my spirituality. I crave drugs. So bad. So bad. More than I love God. Heroin is my god. That strange god as in ‘Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.’
“They destroyed me. Because I’m stuck. I can’t just say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I can’t. Because, guess what? He’ll say ‘Okay.’ But it’s not okay. I did wrong. Very serious wrong. ‘I’m sorry,’ doesn’t cut it for me. I deserve severe punishment. But who’s going to punish me?”
Ivy’s face concerned – Diana turning blue – and she bent over offering her hands. “Let me help you inside.”
Diana looked around, unseeing, but gathering herself for the imminent ordeal.
“Hands.” Diana took Ivy’s hands and pulled herself up, shrugging Ivy away.
Ivy tried to slip her arm around Diana’s waist. Diana slapped her hand away, screaming, “I hate this place, Ivy. I hate you. Just stick out your arm.” Clutching Ivy’s arm with her left hand, still clenching the hanky, Diana tread cautiously.
The door opened as they reached it and they stepped into an alcove crowded with a free-standing clothes rack and a wooden desk that, after spending three generations servicing grade school kids armed with whittling knives, looked ready to give up the ghost, the pair stepping inside just far enough to permit the unsmiling thirty-year-old woman in traditional nurses’ whites, sans cap, to close the door. A large mat defending against snow and mud partially covered the glossy, lightly-saturated yellow-stained pine board flooring that ran throughout the house. Diana ignored the nurse’s outstretched hand saying to Ivy, “Who is she? Why is she here?”
Walking behind the desk the six-foot robust nurse with a Dragon-Tattoo haircut and no makeup, her deep voice incongruently Boston accented, looked directly at Diana, “I am Anna, a registered nurse specializing in addiction recoveries. I do the overnight stretches, seven-to-seven. I have a land phone and a cell phone, and am licensed and well-trained to carry and use this,” pulling a revolver from the desk drawer, her three middle fingers and thumb displaying it for Diana’s benefit, before returning to the desk and sliding the drawer closed. “I’ll see to it that the doors and windows are always securely fastened. When I’m needed, I’ll help Ivy tend to you.” Diana didn’t hide her disinterest.
While Ivy spoke with Anna regarding a round-the-clock double-police detail to patrol the outside, the aroma of the steaming coffee on the nurse’s desk titillated Diana, conjuring up homey memories of semi-illicit tastes of the brew stolen from her benignly neglectful parents’ cups, before interrupting Ivy, “Anyone else here?”
Anna, “Several other staffers, all well known to each other, to provide support services. We’re a team; you our only patient. For your recovery, your friends have put unlimited resources at our disposal.”
Diana turned to Ivy, “What about you?”
“I’m staying.”
“For the whole time?”
“Yes. Of course. Your body is already feeling the first effects of withdrawal. You’ll suffer some very bad moments. I’ll be here every time you look up.”
“You won’t leave?” an order.
“No. You’re stuck with me for the duration.”
“Because you go, I’m gone.” Diana took a deep breath, following it with a long exhale. She turned, “Listen. Anna. The rescue was a complete surprise to me, caught me totally off guard, unprepared. Before we start, I need a last hit; something to transition.”
For thirty seconds neither caregiver either spoke or looked at Diana while she looked from one to the other failing to making eye contact, Diana ending the standoff by smacking the paper cup on the desk sending lid, contents, and cup flying, the hot brew nailing Anna and Ivy both. Diana used her filthy white dress to wipe coffee droplets from her hand.
Framed in light oak, six prints of birds from Audubon’s Birds of America, a Diana favorite, in folio size, 18” x 24” by Diana’s measure, lined the staircase wall. Auspicious beginning. She slowly mounted the pine-board stairs, her right arm pulling on the shiny dark-stained bannister, releasing, taking hold again, pulling again as she climbed. She ignored the four closed doors on the second-floor hallway to the left of the stairwell, right-turning to the only open door on the floor. Despite the deliberate pace, the exertion from the ascent forced Diana to stop at the threshold of the room to catch her breath.
From the doorway, she looked inside the room – to her left, a small fire quietly danced a welcome. She watched. Appreciative. Brilliant. Two Shaker-woven rockers with matching footstools and Shaker side tables, and two Tiffany-styled floor lamps filled the fireplace’s surround – the whole an inviting nook perfectly-sized for the large bedroom. Directly opposite Diana, Venetian blinds and an abundance of curtains decorated the four large windows. Taupe floral wallpaper, neutral enough to backdrop six more prints of the Audubon bird series, covered the other walls.
To the right, fluffy country-bedding covered two full toe-to-toe beds separated by a four-foot aisle, each bed with a bureau, side table and lamp. She noted a closed door, a closet, probably, and a door ajar showing a large bathroom, clean and bright, with a tub, shower head, floral shower curtain, floor mat, and shelves of white fluffy bath towels. Diana crossed the threshold into her own Laura Ashley universe to rule for the next several days.
She commandeered the bed nearer the door, propped one of the two pillows against the headboard, tucked the wrinkled handkerchief under it, and sat. Swinging her legs onto the mattress proved challenging, each of her ankles seemed weighted with twenty-pound barbells.
Five minutes later Ivy walked in. “Can you get me some water?”
With an ‘Of course,’ Ivy returned downstairs.
Hands on thighs, Diana closed her eyes. “This is the way the world ends”...imagining him writing that… imprisoned in this very room…lying on this…
Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox?
Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to comment on a posting?
Mail the comment to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to view the blog?
Existential Auto Trip: www.existentialautotrip.com
God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
dom
Existential Auto Trip
www.existentialautotrip.com
___________________________________________________________
Anxiety seems to be a recurring enemy these days.
It's like when the world starts spinning (literally)--just put your foot on the ground and focus on that and things will settle.
I think the key is to focus on the ground beneath your feet and the very concrete things in front of you. That helps me to summon gratitude for the soft bed I just got out of, the family I have, the fact that war is not raging outside my door.
The people online, connect via email, in our minds and in the ether can't reach us when we are in that moment focusing on our two feet on the floor.
Good health to you Dom!
I hope your dinner went well last night. I'm sorry I had to miss it, but was grateful to meet some new lovers of art at the Wakefield Cultural Council grant reception last night:)
Cheers,
Colleen:)
http://www.theroomtowrite.com/
I am pleased to share the above letter Colleen sent recently re: my anxiety in producing the daily posts in a timely fashion
Colleen Getty, active in writing forums, symposiums, workshops, and writers’ groups.
Has developed a monthly writer’s workshop of which I was, and hopefully, will return soon, a happy member.
She’s knowledgeable, organized, personable and kind.
Did I mention she's a great writer?
I have her permission to open a page with her name attached in the Contributing Writer’s section of our website, see Room to Write.
Today is Monday, May 21, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-fourth consecutive daily posting.
It’s 4.11am.
On TV, muted with my earphones, “Tarzan and His Mate,” the second in the series and the most culturally probing. It was released with an adult audience in mind: an unmarried couple walking, swimming, and cavorting in the nude.
A glorious day in store: sunny and mid-seventies.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is Roast Chicken which I covered with a slurry of baking powder and salt to dehydrate the skin to make it easier to brown. I put the 3.2lb chicken in a 200* oven at 4.00am and will take it our at 5.32am, about the time I finish this blogging.
I tossed about so much last night I finally gave it up and made my coffee @ 2.30am.
Read a nice section of Bruce Catton’s classic Civil War piece, “Grant Takes Command.”
US Grant was truly a remarkable general.
Readers’ Comments
Here’s an excerpt from a letter from Sally re: Did my son prevent a school shooting? See Sally’s complete letter on her page in the blog: Contributing Writer’s: Sally’s Corner.
Dear Dom,
We can never know what may or may not have happened as a result of our embracing of those less fortunate. There are those proverbial ripples from the stone thrown into the pond. Thinking and speaking out about these things can only remind us of how the smallest acts may have the biggest effects to others – positively and negatively. Thank you for your compassion for “John.” It’s a lesson your son no doubt absorbed, consciously or otherwise.
Sally
___________________________________________________
And a letter from a dear friend and great artist, B. D’Amore:
Hi Dom,
A thoughtful, beautiful and timely sharing.
Thank you,
B :)
B. Amore
Artist, writer
__________________________________________________
Website Tweaks
Finally brought the navigation page up to date.
Got a photo of Herschel Adams on his page.
Will introduce him formally in tomorrow’s posting.
And a banner day for content. An old friend, SV, has just mailed a half dozen stories of Boston’s formerly-Italian North End. They are so off-the-wall that the reader will have an insight to growing up in a ghetto rarely seen. I’ve started a new section under pages to accommodate the stories: Boston’s formerly Italian North End.
Today’s Post
How boring can a post get?
I think I have achieved the summit with this one.
My techie friend, Tucker, has expressed interest in learning about wines.
This will cure him of that.
AN ESOTERIC DISCUSSION RE: ENJOYING THE LOOK OF THE WINE
I wrote this a long time ago and reworked it for the blog.
The rework didn’t help it.
It’s boring as all hell.
But for those of us who would like to learn about tasting wine, this series of notes will expose you, nay, overexpose you to the process.
We begin logically.
Our first sensory experience with wine is visual.
When we examine a wine with our eyes, we’re looking at its brilliance, color and body.
In this episode, let’s talk brilliance: the effect of light on the wine.
Brilliance is a summary word for the three ways light interacts with wine.
It’s absorbed by the wine and then radiates out of it (luminescence.)
It passes through the wine (transparency.)
It bounces off the wine’s surface (reflection.)
‘Clarity’ measures the wine’s freedom from impurities and obviously the less clear the wine the less brilliant.
Light absorbing particles are suspended in every glass of wine and are natural to it.
The number and the size of these countless microscopic particles not only determine clarity but enough of them will destroy the wine.
Another way of saying this: the quality of the light-play on the wine is a function of its clarity.
The truth?
Given the advances of wine-making techniques, we rarely find an overabundance of these particles.
But when we do, when we do, (Good Morning, Vietnam?) we’ll also find a reduction in the wine's reflective, luminescent and transparent qualities and a lessening of the brilliance of the wine.
We won’t.
Due to advanced filtration systems that modern technology has made available to wine producers, most wines on the market today are brilliant.
Filters exist which remove particles from the wine as small as microscopic-sized yeast.
But en route to producing consumer acceptable clarity, intense filtration can remove beneficial odorous and taste substances, inadvertently detracting from the wine's complexity and subtlety.
Many producers would rather lose some brilliance than sacrifice any flavors.
A wine lacking clarity is a faulty product.
Maybe the wine maker didn't filter well enough;
or maybe the shipper or dealer mishandled the wine;
or perhaps the person opening a bottle containing sediment was careless.
We’ve been gypped, and we want our money back!
(Ha! Try and get it.)
Patina.
Once in a great while, out of the experience of all but the most fortunate, read ‘wealthy,’ a wine will take on an added glow.
Much like old pearls acquire a patina that adds warmth to their brilliance, the finest red and white wines with age acquire a luster that transcends brilliance.
This lustrous sheen enrobes the wine with a glow that is both beautiful to behold and a happy portent of the wine's bouquet and taste.
Experiences such as this are unfortunately quite rare.
Wine-tasting vocabulary is imperative in discussing wines.
The wine terms we use to describe a wine's brilliance are measures of the size and quantity of the particles in the wine.
The Clarity Continuum, Positive terms:
A brilliant wine is devoid of any suspended particles; light reflects happily off the surface, bounces in and out of the bowl of the wine and passes through the wine without any impediments to stop or absorb it.
A bright wine contains more light reducing particles than a brilliant wine but still provides a happy visual experience.
A clear wine, while containing even more suspended particles than a bright wine, still refers to a wine that is an acceptable drink.
The Clarity Continuum, Negative terms:
A dull wine exhibits no attractive interplay with light.
A hazy or, worse yet, cloudy wine, contains visible aggregation of particles which absorb the light, substantially diminishing or effectively eliminating the reflection, luminosity and transparency which define brilliance.
Hey, wake up!
Lecture over.
Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox?
Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to comment on a posting?
Mail the comment to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to view the blog?
Existential Auto Trip: www.existentialautotrip.com
God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
dom
___________________________________________________
Did my son prevent a school shooting?
A long time ago.
Before they were in vogue in the alone-and-angry-for-it group?
Hearing the story, we’ll each develop our own opinion.
So my twelve-year-old son Dom appears at our house one afternoon, a friend in tow.
John, we’ll call him.
Nothing unusual about that.
The boys were always taking friends over unannounced.
The guests always stayed for Toni-Lee’s amazingly artful meals.
She never blinked an eye at an extra guest or two and the boys took full advantage of it.
Dom’s newest friend, John, was a polite and shy boy, who gratifyingly responded warmly to our welcoming.
He stayed that way for the entire two years Dom remained in school on Cape Cod.
Within twenty-four hours of his first visit, I received a call from the Cape Cod school Dom was attending.
The gist of the call was a strong warning to me that Dom was spending time with this John, an isolated troublemaker from a problem home, some negative specifics following.
Point – Dom would be well-advised to stay away from him.
I thanked the school.
I didn’t mention the call to Dom.
All of his young life he had an attraction to strays.
We never had a negative experience with any of them.
I did ask the normal personal questions as any person would of another as we got more acquainted.
John’s answers were always in line with what the school had told me.
None of it prompted us, as parents, to warn Dom off.
For these couple of years John was a regular visitor; three times a week; a part of the family.
Enjoying family life as he had never seen it, from great food to great and loving conversation.
He fit in.
He always behaved well.
We loved him.
Two years later we moved back to Boston and the relationship drifted off into the past.
Today’s news, details of another terrible school shooting, this in Texas, brought Dom and John to mind.
Wondering.
Did Dom’s attraction to John’s hidden humanness strike a blow for love and assimilation?
Did his timely friendship divert a young man from an awful fate?
Save society another grim moment?
I don’t know anything about John after we moved.
Except he was never in the news as a shooter.
I’ve raised two generations of children and I speak with some authority when I say we can never put too much trust in our children.
As long as we closely watch the bastards.
Today is Sunday, May 20, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-third consecutive daily posting.
It’s 6.09am
On TV: “The Narrow Margin,” a great film noir with Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor.
A nice day today. In the 70s with a shower or thunderstorm.
Celtics got demolished at Cleveland last night. I refuse to watch any sports programs until tomorrow. Who wants to be constantly reminded of his failure?
I’m at my desk.
Dinner is with my returning heroine @ the Japanese restaurant, Douzo. Beautiful Katherine. Kat, will be leaving Swarthmore for Boston this morning.
Today’s post
I offer this this letter from Jim Pasto, a native Boston North Ender and a current teacher at Boston University and University of Massachusetts, Boston.
An example of a person really invested in knowledge and the civilized life.
See this letter after today on the Website on the page called Writing, Town and Gown.
I will also post it on the page called: Civilized.
_________________________________________________
Dom,
I loved this post – but then I love them all.
What hit me most was my own connection to “chromaticism.” I came to classical music through a girlfriend when I was in my mid-twenties. I grew up on the music of my generation – rock, Motown, with Sinatra, Martin and Lou Monte thrown in. I never heard much classical music till I lived with her. She had been a music teacher. She liked the famous composers, the usual: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, etc.
I started my classical music interest listening to these but then drifted into more neo-Romantic composers who brought in the chromatacism that you talk about. I discovered that there is a whole world of classical composers – dozens if not scores – who were famous in their time and wrote wonderful works, but who are just not played on classical music stations or widely promoted. I like many of them because of their chromatic elements, which makes them all the more interesting to listen to for me. I think the chromaticism is what evokes the deep emotion I feel in the music – for me anyone.
I noticed you had some Debussy (and Chopin) in the musical mix at dinner on Wednesday. It was lovely music by the way, and contributed to the harmonious atmosphere of the evening.
Here are some links to works you might appreciate that are very impressionistic:
Jean Cras – Four Impromptus for Harp: https://youtu.be/IJHOziU-w60
Joseph Jongen – Pieces for en trio for flute, harp, and cello: https://youtu.be/sZBxAX8QCCk
Arnold Bax – Elegiac Trio for flute, viola, and harp: https://youtu.be/tj7_XukxgK0
And here is another by Jean Cras, the fourth movement to his Piano Quintet. A lot of chromaticism – and he even goes to the pentatonic scale at about 2 minutes and 50 seconds: https://youtu.be/ppDn8uztKgc
Cras was an Admiral in the French navy. He wrote many of his pieces while at sea. His opera Polyphème is lovely.
You also spoke about food in your post, of course. I have so many fond memories of cooking and eating while listening to classical music, alone or with company. I have to say I consider myself lucky to have been introduced to classical music. It is not better than other music and all music can touch the heart. I just think it is a genre that many of us today do not connect with because we don’t give it the time that it needs to settle into our souls. Once it does…well, a new realm opens up.
Heaven to me is Italian food and chromatic classical music.
Your blog touches on so many things and touches the heart in so many ways. Thank you.
Jim
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Website Tweaks
I had occasion to make some noteworthy changes to the Bouillabaisse recipe.
The juice of one large orange became 3oz.
I reduced the water amount to 3 ½ quarts, or 14cups, or 112oz
I added a special treatment for fresh conch and fresh octopus if we use those.
And I simplified the structure of the recipe.
Ann and Gary, I know you’re planning on making the recipe over the Memorial Day weekend so take particular note.
Also changed the Table of Contents to Navigation, and added brief descriptions of all the pages.
It’s clearer.
Check it out.
Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox?
Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to comment on a posting?
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God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
Dom
A favorite sports question:
If we could pick any player, who would we pick to build a team around?
The cook’s question:
If we could pick any staple, what would we pick to build a kitchen around?
A no-brainer: our own Chicken Stock.
The real thing.
Accept no substitute.
The sine qua non of culinary heaven.
Today is Friday, May 18, 2018
Good morning, my friends.
This is my forty-first consecutive daily posting.
It’s 5.49am
On TV: “Citizen Kane.” Don’t even bother: turn it off. “Rosebud” far too compelling.
Listening instead to Chopin, “Berceuse in d Flat, Op.57.”
From Wiki: A berceuse is "a musical composition usually in 6/8 time that resembles a lullaby". Otherwise it is typically in triple meter. Tonally most berceuses are simple, often merely alternating tonic and dominant harmonies; since the intended effect is to put a baby to sleep, wild chromaticism would be somewhat out of character.”
Also from Wiki: “Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism (the major and minor scales). Chromatic elements are considered "elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members".
I hope that clears things up.
Cool and cloudy today.
Surely somewhere in the world outside of New England people are enjoying the kind of weather that makes one happy to be alive.
I’m at my desk.
Dinner will be a simple Chicken Cutlet Milanese (a light bread crumb and grated cheese coating, fried) and served with a baby arugula salad with a basic vinaigrette (olive oil and lemon juice) and a single ounce of pasta with Marinara Sauce.
Website Tweaks
Tomorrow I’ll announce several additions and changes to the website.
Slowly it grows and organizes.
Blog Notes
Editing my work on wine tasting.
First post will be within a week.
Today’s post
The pot simmering for hours, extracting meat flavors from the fowl, sweetness from the carrots, celery, and onions, and fresh herb parsley; infusing the home with ‘takes me back’ aromas.
No salt needed.
No salt wanted.
Salt disastrous for health and use of stock.
Chicken stock in the freezer is the wind beneath the wings of every accomplished cook.
There is no canned, frozen, or dried stock that is a suitable substitute for a home.
What is so wonderful about such a chicken stock?
The knowledge of purity.
Absolutely nothing in our stock that we didn’t put there.
And the extraordinary taste and smell.
Just how useful is it?
Use it for a light meal or a snack when we want just a touch to eat; something to warm us up; to hold us over. Or when we’re too sick to eat anything else.
Grab a container of stock from the freezer and mike it.
Portion out a cup, add a bit of salt, and sip it slowly like coffee.
Or dress it up with fresh herbs, sliced scallions, rice or pasta.
Or whisk a beaten egg into a boiling pan of the stock.
Or add two or three little necks clams to the boiling broth and steam them open. Unlikely sounding? Delicious.
Use it as a base to make the richest, most delicious chicken soup we ever had. See under Recipes. Oops! Chicken Soup not posted yet. Hang on, I’m coming.
A chicken soup to embarrass Grandma’s emotionally-charged, legendary offering.
Don’t worry, Grandma. We still love you. Here, have a bowl of chicken soup to fill yourself with euphoria.
Because that’s what this soup will produce.
Use it in recipes for gravies, stews or braises or soups.
Use it to loosen casseroles like Baked Stuffed Pasta without thinning the flavors.
Use it as a base to make splendid the richest and most vegetables soups.
Chicken stock. No home may be without it.
Find the recipes for stock in the ‘Recipes’ section of the blog.
Post Scripts
Would you like this daily posting to arrive in your mailbox?
Just send the email address to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to comment on a posting?
Mail the comment to domcapossela@existentialautotrip.com
Or would you like to view the blog?
Existential Auto Trip: www.existentialautotrip.com
God bless!
Be good.
Be well.
Love you.
Dom