bruit

I have just discovered the remedy for high heating bills.


It is a finger of Bourbon. Ten times harder to notice the cold. Its good for your heart, right? And who can’t help but want to drink out the news that provides a soundtrack to this sudden bitter cold. We're slated to slash our "beloved" social programs, give away more tax cuts to the wealthy, pass a MORE restrictive PATRIOT Act and they will probably drill the wildlife reserve as the year ends, just as an insult. Ouuch. Merry Christmas to you, too. Write Reps here, Senators here.

And speaking of religion, here is my favorite news item of the week so far: Rainbow family hippies and fundamentalists working together to feed a hurricane-ravaged town. Really!

Steve has been making beef stew on Thursdays, sometimes resulting in leftovers, which do not reheat well in the microwave. My favorite solution to leftover stew (or even curry) is the pastie, which I christened the “Piedegger” last year in the throes of U of C dementia (it is ready-to-hand).

Make a pie crust by cutting 1/2 cup of shortening into 2 1/2 cups of flour that has been mixed with about 1 tsp. of salt. Cut the fat in with two knives until the pieces are about pea-sized. Then sprinkle on a little ice water at a time, incorporating gently until the mix will bind together when pressed. Preheat oven to 350 (you can do this earlier if you house is cold). Press dough into a ball, adding a water as needed to get the last bits, then stick that in the freezer while you heat the leftovers gently on the stove.

For each meat pie, tear off a square of aluminum foil and throw a little flour on it. Take a good-sized handful of dough and press it out with floured hands into a circle. If you are feeling fancy roll it out, but it can be pretty thick. When it is about the same surface area as your hands placed side by side, put a scoop of well-drained stew a little off-center on the dough and crimp into a little half-moon, or fold into any little shape you desire--careful not to let juicy stews boil over open tops. Crimp the foil around the pie to a manageable size, then put the pie on a cookie sheet. Bake it until it is golden brown. Tonight I made this with a“ketchup” made from a clove of garlic browned in 1 tsp. butter, 4 canned plum tomatoes (crushed), 1 heaping tbsp. of tomato paste, 1 tbsp. brown sugar, a generous tbsp. (or more) of canned chipotle adobo and a very generous grind of pepper. Mmmm.

F for Fake


Work to do tonight, so I have to excuse myself from the second half of a pretty good Netflix pick. F for Fake is Orson Welles’ hard, bemused look at a successful scammers. The most entertaining of these is Elmyr, a top-notch art forger who floated through a bon-vivant’s life in Ibiza, ripping off the great museums of the world, making fools of the experts.

The “experts” have certainly been looking like fools recently. Could anything make you want to puke more than "fashion god" Michael Brown’s FEMAils? It is even more disturbing to think that cronies with little technical expertise are high-up in all our federal agencies, often foxes taking over for watchdogs in the hen-house. Yipes. The problem is local, too. Here in Chicago, cronyism and mismanagement at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center results in lots of already-troubled kids getting shit on.

Nobody is gets hurt by a fake Modigliani. Hell, I’d take one. But when we ask our government for accountability, it ought to extend to demanding officials and employees who know what the fuck they are doing.

The World Can’t Wait

When I read the flyer for today’s downtown Chicago public protest against the Bush administration, my brow wrinkled. I agreed with all of the claims they listed—I don’t need any convincing that the men in charge of our big, beautiful country are either soulless or blind, and maybe both. On the other hand, whenever lefties toss off casual comparisons to Hitler, or use the term “fascist” without a careful explanation of what it means and how it can—and can’t—be applied to our current situation, I want to scream. As if this top-level conflict isn’t enough, I also have some see-saw feelings about the public protest in this Age of Irony; what it does for the movement and for the opposition.

I went anyway, swayed by a radio clip from my main, main man Howard Zinn on the WCW website. The crowd was fuller than I had feared, with the usual mix of -types, veterans, boomer stalwarts, scraggly hippies and crusty punks, and lovely old ladies. I love those old ladies at the peace protests. They are in my top 5.

I stayed for about 5 speakers, 45 minutes. The organizers were in severe need of an editor, I am sad to say. Folks in the audience don’t need a reason to hate Bush: they need a foothold for hope, a spark for dialogue, and a sense of purpose. It would help if the calls to “drive out” the peanut-headed suckerleg toilet masters were more substantive, i.e., “We are going to speak courageously to help our friends and neighbors wake up to this wasteful and violent reality,” or “We will make it impossible for the powerful to insult the intelligence of the common person” or “We will reclaim democracy through actions X, Y, and Z!”

Nope.

I was still stirred, by the frank recorded statement of Dr. Quentin Young, who spoke of his regular med-school shifts at the bedsides of women whose wombs had been mangled in back-alley abortions, and by the awkwardly, explosively passionate words of Roberto Clemente High School student Emilio, delivered by a friend because the author was locked in his school to prevent him from walking out. Apparently, a school official told the organized students they “didn’t have the right to form their own opinions.”

And how. On my way back to work, I walked past a block-long row of cops in riot gear, big sticks swinging. Have you tried to look at this kind of cop in the eyes, like looking for someone you know, or like you want to ask them if they feel silly defending themselves against a bunch of little old ladies? It is kind of embarrassing all around, and nice.

Then, on the corner, most visible to passersby, there were three snotty art-school meatheads, holding crude signs and shouting slogans protesting four-blade razors and Brendan Fraser’s acting career. I couldn’t help myself, and asked them if they thought this was a joke. Essentially, they were mocking the act of protest, doubly insulting when you are seriously grappling with the issue. I couldn’t think of a better idea, and neither could they. Good thing none of them will ever die to get money for college. I told them they were pathetic. The tall meathead responded, “You’ve got us there.” At least he admits it.