burnunit

this is ripe for a space lounge poster next year

Joel Robuchon appeared on Top Chef recently and I had a sudden heightened understanding of something that's nagged at me for a while. I put this in a comments thread on facebook, but I wanted to capture it here in one place.

Robuchon was tasting what a chef called "deconstructed bernaise" and was praising the dish. But he used the word "décomposée" for the sauce. It would seem that the French, who know a thing or two about Deconstruction (a Frenchman having invented the concept), use the phrase "décomposée" to refer to the action American chefs call "deconstruction," the breaking down and recomposing a dish from its elements in order to evoke both the original form and delight the diner with something different . Bryan and Mike I. did a wonderful job on the "deconstruction" (here is the recipe)

But what Everyone Else calls "deconstruction" the Chef of the Century calls "décomposée." This should Not be overlooked!

It is a significant reframing of a major culinary trend of the last several years: chefs are Not performing deconstruction, because Deconstruction is a literary and philosophical movement, not a culinary one! Deconstruction concerns itself with identifying the logocentric nature of texts (and granted they extend "text" to all corners so that a recipe Could be a text) and shearing the words off from each other as the dominant center becomes alienated from the peripheral Others.

Decomposée on the other hand does almost the Opposite of deconstruction because while it identifies a center—in last night's case Bernaise sauce—its intent is to actually reify that center through the constituent parts. Décomposée as performed by chefs reaffirms the primacy of a recipe and invokes its core emotional impact through the reframing of its ingredients. Deconstruction deliberately sets out to imbalance and overthrow the center, and is, as currently used by many cooks, inappropriate for culinary context.

I've never been able to put my finger on why "deconstructed" has felt like such an inadequate—inaccurate!—term in the mouths of chefs. Until Robuchon showed me the way by his fundamentally more accurate description using the term "décomposée."

I believe I lack the cooking skills to conceptualize how one might deconstruct a dish the way one might a literary text. I mean I barely understand basic concepts of literary deconstruction! But it would be an exercise worth considering. I'd like to eat some more foods done décomposée, but I'd also like to see someone take the dare of trying actual deconstruction.

Perhaps for starters it would be very difficult to do properly in a fine dining context because once you start the deconstruction process, you're going to rapidly run into the cultural price paid to enjoy the surroundings . . .

I was all set to embrace Joe Wilson's apology.

Joe, you are a complete asswipe if you think we are going to take you at face value when less than 24 hours after you apologize you go on Sean Hannity to get your ego stroked and post videos about how you're going to "keep fighting."

To me, your behavior counts, and your behavior is that of a person who A) acted like a BABOON, then B) made an apology for acting like a BABOON, then C) imfuckingmediately went on a right wing talk show to talk about how you're going to keep on fightin. This is hipocrisy, and it renders your apology completely disingenuous. Fuck you Joe, I'm going to "keep attacking" like the rest of the so-called "Left." Fuck you.

At heart, I'm an immature teenage boy. Thank you Joe, your behavior permits me to let this part of my id continue to act like one in your direction you warthog-faced buffoon.




"There has also been a proposal for a tax credit that would help people buy coverage from the exchange who couldn't otherwise afford to do so. But the House bill specifically says illegal immigrants aren't eligible for that credit, and despite Republicans' claims, there are mechanisms in place to enforce that restriction." -Salon article, emphasis mine.

Joe's apology-cum-defiance is the moral equivalent of the following:

I love the elderflower liqueur St. Germain. We recently tried their own recipes for the
French Gimlet
2 oz. gin
1.25 oz. st germain
.5 oz fresh lime juice

and the
St. Rita
1.5 oz. tequila
1.5 oz. St Germain
.5 oz fresh lime juice

Both very fun twists on the original. I also use it lightly in several other cocktails. It's quite sweet, almost cloying. But right now the big news is that Liquor Barrel in Golden Valley has St. Germain for about NINE DOLLARS less than the cheapest places I've found in the Cities. Get thee there to try this gorgeous, unique spirit. The fin de siecle bottle alone is worth half the price!

1 oz. light whisky (I used Powers Irish)
1 oz. akvavit
3/4 oz. fresh orange juice (may go as low as 1/2 oz)
1/2 oz. dry vermouth (may also use lillet blanc)
1 dash peychaud's bitters

Shake with ice, strain over a few cubes of ice in an old fashioned glass.
Then I used a syringe to gently dress the drink with
5ml Macallan's Fine Oak scotch

Enjoy.

I feel like I finally got the balance right on this one. Other variants included 1.5oz akvavit (too much) and subbing rye for the irish (imbalanced), more bitters (2 large dashes was too much) and the original left out the scotch. However, stealing from the Bradstreet the use of a scotch to insert some interesting aroma and other elements.

Completely oblivious to our own simultaneously hilarious and horrifying stumbling and staggering around, unable to keep basic facts straight, ready to do anything—even, and especially, to lie—to get some mean little satisfaction. Madness. Every president talks to kids. Bush I made an address to the schools. Bush II liked to read them stories. Come on, America, sober up and calm down.

The distance between fornication (of any kind) and sexuality is almost so vast as to be immeasurable. The ferocity of our doctrines are simply not reflected in the deep lacunae of our scriptures, despite efforts to make them so. The scriptures do repeatedly condemn all manner of actions. Time and again, and with an almost calculable glee, the bible in many iterations attacks and describes the wrack and wreckage of God's devastation and condemnations of abomination.

They are silent like the stilled storm, however, on the subject of the whole person who has a sexual identity. Identity in our texts is a much broader, deeper wellspring: people of God, chosen, called, redeemed, shibbolethed and circumcised, numberless like the stars. Old Adam and New Adam, killed by letter and made alive by spirit, dead and alive, sleeping and awake, first and last. Eschatologically entitled Son of Man. These are the threads of identity the scriptures spin, which we are summoned to weave.

We are graced with skilled hands to do so, and set to our painstaking work by a Spirit that demands—and creates a faith to receive—no less than total. faithful. action. to make incarnate the reality that there are no accidents, there is only a love that makes reality real which is itself determined to love the littlest and least, so determined that it would rather not exist than exist as anything but love for you. That work is so deliberate sometimes, and so many grow so impatient with our fumbling fingers.

Forgive our delays, brothers and sisters. We were staring into the void, and we forgot who we were.

I'm in a much different place than I was six months ago. This is a big year, and our marriage is in a much better place than it was. This is not bragging, this is an acknowledgement of facts. (the bragging comes later) Anyway, it's kind of been the best year of our marriage. I hope we make it at least thirteen more, gawsh! (I'm hoping for at least four more 13s. With medical science, maybe six!) I'm really excited about all this.

This is not an official announcement... (that's already been made)
You might have heard there was a big change in CONvergence and MISFITS' relationship. You heard right—we voted unanimously (that is, 12-0) as a board of directors to spin off CONvergence from the Minnesota Society for Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy (MISFITS) into its own 501c3 organization. The details of these changes will be worked out by January 1, 2010. A set of changes to the bylaws have been officially submitted to the organization (it requires 30 days minimum review before such changes are completed). After 1/1/10, management of each organization will no longer be overseen by the board of 12. Revenue donation will continue at current levels at least through the 2011 convention cycle .

Someone asked me (in private so I won't say who) what the "party line" was going to be on this decision. There is no party line, only a decision by each of twelve different directors, very likely each for their own reasons.

Instead of feeding you any party line, I'll tell you the truth: 1) I made the motion to divide into two and set the timeline; 2) I submitted the draft revision of the bylaws; 3) I not only voted for the motion (obviously since it was unanimous), I spoke passionately in its favor. I'm not trying to take undue credit, I just want it known where I stand.

This is going to be big, people.

I keep saying how I haven't watched many movies in the last several years, but this year is different. I have gotten to watch more thanks to Netflix.

I haven't kept studious track like my friends do (like with #s and everything? jesus, you guys!) but it's gone up. And I've gotten to be fast and loose with it too--some serious shit, some crazy shit.

Like today. Today I watched The House Bunny. It was exceedingly predictable and formulaic. You know what? I didn't care. You know why? Anna Faris. a) she's super talented. She did some really tremendous acting with her face, her commitment and her voice. and b) she's pretty smokin hot. But she's not alone. I'm really quite charmed by Tom Hanks' kid, and that Emma Stone gal who was also in Superbad. So on the balance, worth netflixing.

This is good. I feel like I'm sorta...human again...

Pedras e Nuvens
1 oz. cachaça
1 oz. gin
1/2 oz. St. Germaine
1/4 oz. maraschino
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
3 dashes orange bitters swirled in cocktail glass
stir with ice until chilled, pour into glass

Light, fruity, nice balance of rough & smooth, earthy and floral. might try with different citrus and/or more flavorful gin (might work loverly with one of those novelty lime gins or with Hendricks--which is not to be thought of as a "novelty gin" I realize)

I was thinking of The Sugarloaf since there's a granite & quartz mountain in Brazil, which appeared in Moonraker I believe. Or The Corcovado, which is the mountain where the Christ the Redeemer statue stands in Rio. The Corcovado would reflect the Brazilian character of the cachaça as well as the light airiness of the drink (and I suppose the clouds and pristine stone of the statue). The evening started as further exploration of The Aviation, remember...

Please consider joining our conversation about the next possibilities for our diverse community. This touches the participants in CONvergence, Anime Detour, MISFITS, Marscon, Minicon, Gaylaxicon, Mn-Stf, Omegacon, and more and more. . .

http://leagueofwonders.wordpress.com

We began talking about big inter-community projects this year. There have been conversations at MN Society for Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy open meetings. There have been conversations at closed meetings too. There was a wonderfully interesting panel at CONvergence last week on the subject of a "geek community center." That panel will likely make an appearance at other conventions.

Well we also want to have a public conversation with the members of the communities in which we are active. About joint efforts, about structure, about autonomy and interdependence, and about where we go from here. About what we could do if we start dreaming out loud.

That conversation lives here for now: http://leagueofwonders.wordpress.com and I invite you to take part. Share this info with others and get in on the action. Today!

Okay! So, I suppose if I find the time, I'll write more than one of these types of posts, expanding on my issues, over the next several days. The usual disclaimer applies: YES, I am a director of the CONvergence convention. NO, my statements below do not represent official CONvergence policy. YES, I recognize that this does not absolve me of making misstatements or troubling claims. But you must know that the following is not official. Not by a long shot. Yet.

( CONVERGENCE IS DEAD. Long Live CONvergence! )
If high unpredictability and ambiguities really truly will not work for you... honestly? This is probably not your convention.

But if you really think CONvergence is broken? If you so don't like something that it shatters for you any possibility of our con being a good con? Well giddyup and make a choice from at least these three options: Work to change it, examine your own expectations, or go somewhere else.

27 days until CONvergence

This is the one.

CONvergence.

Tell your friends.

The MinnPost listed this address in an article recently where they said "He even said there's the public to advise him: People can send their thoughts on what should be cut to budgetideas@state.mn.us." So I did. Here's what I just sent to the address in question:

Governor Pawlenty,

Here's my ideas
1. Cut the governor's pay
2. Remove the governor's motor pool
3. Eliminate the governor's health insurance
4. Reduce any matching funds for the governor's 401K or other retirement accounts
5. Restrict the governor's travel allowance
6. Reduce the governor's paid vacation days
7. Reduce the governor's paid illness days
8. Reduce the governor's staff
9. Eliminate exterior lighting on the governor's mansion
10. Eliminate the governor's mansion entirely and request that he telecommute.
11. Ask Grover Norquist for a loan, he apparently is writing the rest of your policy decisions, so he must be very important and therefore wealthy.
12. Replace the governor with the current Secretary of State

Governor, I really loathe your policies and I hope this is the end of the line for your political career.

Jon Olsen
Minneapolis

I pictured the boys there, bodies heaped, sweat and dirt and flecks of bright young blood on their clothes. I could hear Blackbird and Robin gasping, crying. Above them Wren and the others breathing hard, the great silence of the north reaches, the unpopulated houses and the broken City streets.

The whole pathetic arc of it stirred me, I laid a hand on Blackbird's arm. He smiled. Kiki finished the drink, the sun finished its fall. The evening wrapped us up. Which one of us stood first I'm still not sure. We were all together before long, looking away from the sunset, now toward the darker places. Past those pools of orange, down the hill and across the low roofs and lawns here to stare at the ruined Broad Way.

"All right. Let's get in there."

when the gems of midmorning would wound us and we'd swoon with the pure bitter bite of the drinks, the dazzle of the golden liquor.

What we were doing was toasting ourselves at the edge of the faultlines, toasting our sweet ironies and haute exclamations. But we didn't enter. We hovered at the periphery, again at the periphery, while the City smoldered slowly then burnt right through.

"I want to tell you—" Blackbird began.

Kiki interrupting bored, hostile: "This isn't going to be another Spider story, is it?"

Blackbird answering, all simmer and patience: "I want to tell you what I remember from the places I lived, the northern reaches of the City."

"Up...uphill?"

"Uphill of the Market, yes. Some nights I remember every rowhouse, every turn and every terrace. Because they were all the same, you see. Brown upon light brown. White. Red roofs. Or green? This is not one of those nights--"

--snorts of laughter from us.

"--this is more a night of remembering how we moved in the City, when the sun was up. And then how we moved in the moonlight. The further north, the more moon you could see. The houses were lighter and lighter, until nearest the wall of the City it was a great canyonmaze of bone heaps laid before the cobbles. Dotted with concrete scoria ejected into the earth from dead projects, forgotten pilings. Weren't these the newest constructions? I wondered. But it was the dirtiest, and worst kept.

"There we moved more boldly. Caution always marked the start of any of our walks, but we accelerated toward the wall, pulled to its shadows. It was me and the rest of the boys, and we liked to slink among the broken buildings, playing at secret struggles."

Kiki snickered. Thin smile. Sip. Deep breath.

Blackbird went on, "Robin was a climber and he reached the high tip of a pylon crested with rebar, thrust his chest, cried, 'We are kings!' I trembled always, watching him. And this time he fell. None of us breathed while he hung there for what felt like hours. In a moment we realized that he did hang there: his shirt had hooked one of the spikes of rebar, and he dangled by it, legs kicking!"

"Oh god."

"Right! We gathered around the base, a perverse kind of maypole dance, hollering up at him while he struggled. We realized too that he was starting to choke, strangled by the collar. My boy Wren (such pretty eyes he had) searched crazily among the trash for some kind of stick, something to lift him off there. We tried to leap up and grab Robin's legs, they hung just above our hands, kicking. Wren found a length of aluminum, and we held it above our heads, tried to jab into the shirt. To lift Robin I suppose? We didn't exactly know, but we scraped his back and he cried out. We jabbed it into the shirt and finally the strain began to tear the fabric. It gave way and Robin fell directly on me. We collapsed to the dirt, sobbing."

Well, I finally despaired of squeezing any more humor out of Marv Ellis from US Data Corporation, the artist formerly known as [redacted sales guy] and called his boss. Boss gave me his email address and I just sent off the conversations. Maybe they'll make it right. We'll keep you posted.

Kelly,
Per our phone call, attached below are the email exchanges I had with Marv in late April. I hope you can see where my concerns are. If opportunities present themselves and if we are a good fit with my clients' needs, I can probably still hear your pitch.

Best,

Jon Olsen
jon@raygunbeliever.com


Here's the whole email chain (which most of you have already seen) ( beneath the cut )