Uncouth Reflections

Double Feature: “Hope and Glory” and “Queen and Country”

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I wrote here about Linklater’s Before . . . films, which examined two lives in more or less real time, covering 18 years in three separate films. And Fabrizio wrote here about Gett, the third film in a trilogy dealing with a deteriorating marital relationship between an Israeli husband and wife. Those three films were made over a ten year period and portrayed fifteen years in the relationship.

John Boorman has worked in similar terrain. His film Hope and Glory (1987) was a lovely and heartfelt memoir of what it was like for him to grow up during the Blitz in London. In 2014, 24 years later, he released Queen and Country, another memoir-film. This one takes place about a decade after most of the goings-on in Hope and Glory, with the Boorman stand-in character, Bill, now in training for the Korean conflict. Same person; vastly different world.

Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | 2 Comments

Eddie’s Spirit Chronicles: Atlantico Private Cask

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

Atlantico is a young Dominican distillery, not a decade old. Their range has found favor with, of all people, Enrique Iglesias, who is a partner in the business and makes promotional videos for them. This is the priciest of their three expressions: I tasted it at the excellent Canberra cocktail bar Highball Express, neat.

I would describe this rum thus: Strong aroma of vanilla. The flavors on the palate are vanilla, vanilla and vanilla, leading to a lingering aftertaste of vanilla.
Although Atlantico is very vanilla-ish (ya think?) it’s not like mainlining Da Vinci syrup, strangely. It has the gustatory equivalent of a complex Tahitian or Mexican vanilla extract, but in rum form. I cannot say how this would reward long-term sipping: one might get bored with the single-note flavor profile. But if you’ve got a sweet tooth, this crème Anglaise in a bottle might suit you well. Fumeheads who worship at the altar of Guerlain’s Spiritueuse Double Vanille or Indult’s Tihota may well have found their dream spirit. Don’t waste this nectar in cocktails: sip it neat to appreciate the magnificent vanillatude.

(Digression: Why has the word “vanilla” come to indicate boring conventionality? Vanilla is one of the lushest, sexiest, most multifaceted aromas on earth. A good vanilla can bring to mind comforting coziness and outrageous eroticism at the same time. Here’s to returning vanilla to its proper place as one of the few honest love potions on Earth.)

Alas, Atlantico does not appear to have a retail distributor in Australia, so ask your local well-stocked spirit bar. USA residents can find it at their local bottle shops or online.

Posted in Food and health, The Good Life, Uncategorized | Tagged atlantico, booze, eddies spirit chronicles, rum, spirits | 1 Comment

Free Harvard!

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I admire Ron Unz a lot, read his blog-paper daily and support his position on bilingual education. Alas I cannot warm all that much to his push to make Harvard tuition free. He is running a slate committed to that end for the university’s Board of Overseers.

Rather than froth here I will just cut and paste my comment on the subject over at Unz.

Continue reading →

Posted in Education | Tagged Harvard, ron unz | Leave a comment

Small Bluetooth Speakers

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Currently living out of suitcases in a small, furnished sublet far away from our usual city, my wife and I recently found ourselves craving a speaker. Earphone-listening is great but sometimes it’s fun to share music, and sometimes one wants a little music in the background when having friends over. Neither of us felt a need for anything extravagant or permanent. Something small — something not too expensive, as well as something we can travel with — would suit us fine.

So for the last week we’ve been treating ourselves to a lot of agonizing over which small Bluetooth speaker to buy. I read a lot of reviews and ordered up four of the most praised devices, ranging in price from $100 to $300. We’ve listened to all kinds of music on the gizmos, from Mento songs to Cecilia Bartoli singing Vivaldi; from Motown to Boulez conducting Mahler; from intimate jazz to historical opera recordings. We’ve been setting the speakers next to each as well as moving them around our rooms. It’s been an orgy of comparing and contrasting.

We’ve finally settled on a winner, which I’ll share at the end of this posting. But I can’t resist saying that what I found most intriguing about the process was less the conclusion than the getting-there. The main thing that took me by surprise about the process has been how much psychological (and not purely-audio) factors colored our reactions to the speakers. My wife and I both have decent ears as well as some background in music. Though we aren’t by any means hyper-picky audiophiles, we’re both capable of some fussiness and snobbery where sound and music go. That said, it wasn’t just the sound quality of the devices that led to our final decision.

I’ll run through the speakers in the order I acquired them.

Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Shopping, Uncategorized | Tagged Bluetooth, Music, shopping, speakers, technology | 7 Comments

Linkage

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

About those bonobos …
Women in combat? Great! But there seems to be one small problem …
Cool project.
Finally, a political cause I can get behind.
What to make of the cult of work?
Is it possible to fix the problems that carving freeways through cities has caused?
Is it already too late for Europe?
Should Europe admit that it’s at actual war with radical Islam?
Some nice ruminations about England and Ireland from Steve Sailer.
A great guide to the Alt Right.
As a lover of literary hoaxes I’m very eager to watch this documentary.
Do we still need music criticism?
How bad philosophy destroyed good music, by Roger Scruton.
A fun playlist of Mento songs. I’m very fond of Mento music and have been listening to the Jolly Boys a lot recently.
Figurative paintings are selling well.

Posted in Linkathons | Tagged bonobos, Islam, Jolly Boys, Music, painting, Roger Scruton, Steve Sailer | Leave a comment

Robert Stark And I Have a Yak

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Robert Stark interviews yours truly. Given that I spent much of my professional life interviewing other people, I found it a little bewildering to be answering questions instead of asking them. But Robert’s an interesting guy and we had a nice time talking anyway.

It’s worth checking out Robert’s entire archive of podcast-interviews, btw. He’s put together an impressive collection of talks with some very provocative figures.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tim Ferriss on (dot dot dot) Seneca

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

Over at a related Facebook page the question of podcasts was being tossed around and the name Tim Ferriss came up. Now Fenster he is at the point where he has to work hard to avoid knowing about a lot of things, like who Marc Maron is anyway. And Ferriss fell into this rather broad category. I’d heard the name but more or less made it my business to stay ignorant, which is a hard thing to do in this day and age.

But I took the plunge since I like a good podcast. I can’t say I regret the decision. Ferriss is an interesting guy who can give a good interview. But I must say I am just totally exhausted after listening to him for a few minutes.

I don’t hold it against him overly that he is well beyond my energy level–he is after all young and Fenster is, well, seasoned. But it’s how he is energetic–rewire your brain every second Tuesday and that will permit you to microdose your LSD so as to maximize your Bodily Strength Quotient every other week so that you can make the most of the Sophocles Reading Group on Thursdays so you can . . . oh, and remember those great running shoes! They got zest appeal!

Ferriss begins his podcasts with advertisements. I don’t begrudge that either. The man has to make a living and if you have lots of surplus energy why not use some of it for gain? But given his . . . energetic . . . ways, his long intro ads can come across a bit like Prairie Home Companion ads on an overdose of ADHD medication. They are also a little poetic if you choose to listen to them that way. So here is his recent intro (two intros actually, back to back) for a show on, of all things, the Roman stoic Seneca.

Continue reading →

Posted in Food and health, Philosophy and Religion | Tagged cricket bars, expensive sheets but of very high quality sold directly to consumers, seneca, tim ferriss | 1 Comment

Architecture and Color

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Posted in Architecture | Tagged architecture, color | 1 Comment

Arnold Arboretum Early Spring

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I thought the idea of Central Park with 100 foot glass walls was nuts but heck I suppose if you left the park intact it might not be so bad. Let the condo owners with the blocked views deal with it.

Then I read–no great surprise, really–that the cockamamie idea was all about Manhattan real estate. The idea is to dig down so that the 100 foot glass walls rise up to the current street level. The current condos keep their view of the park and we create a vast new swath of real estate to overlook the park, from the street level down.

But what of the park, you ask? In order to create the views from the units in the sunken wall Central Park is required to be scraped down to the bedrock.

You could argue I suppose that this is the true “natural” approach to park design, and that Olmstead was a hopeless romantic engaged in a giant con game aimed to simulate the natural world. Perhaps that is how the project won a skyscraper competition recently.

I really shouldn’t even write about this tripe since that process gives more weight to the notion than it deserves. It is essentially frivolous and I should not be distracted. And it gives the perfectly good word “tripe” a bad name to boot.

So to cleanse myself of the whole mess I decided to take a walk in another of Olmstead’s creations, Boston Arnold Arboretum. Here are some early spring shots. Get there before the excavation starts.