Despair doesn’t begin to describe the feeling one has when faced with the possibility that one has moved to a country that simply doesn’t enjoy fine sushi. By fine,I don’t mean anything particularly special —I mean only that the sushi must be of premium quality,made by itamae steeped in Japanese tradition,and presented with unflagging knife skills,in a manner that pleases the eye well before it satisfies the palate.
Kiwis in Auckland seem convinced that the epitome of sushi is rolls with salmon in it,or nigiri with salmon on it,or any roll with cooked fish or chicken in it. In short,mall food. It’s everywhere and is incredibly popular. Alas,it’s also disgusting,low-class garbage that no self-respecting sushi connoisseur would deign to eat.
Enter Cocoro. Located in fashionable Ponsonby,Cocoro is a restaurant I happened on while riding my bike down a nondescript side road. While it certainly doesn’t have the variety of fish one finds at Ebisu in San Francisco,it is the closest thing I’ve found so far to a top-notch Sushi restaurant.
I’m not sure if I qualify among true-blue nudists as a nudist,but I certainly enjoy being nude and being nude around others. You would never know this from my time in cold and windy San Francisco (nudity + wind + cold = no way,Jose),but in a warm climate,in general solitude,I’m the first to take of all my clothes,like a spirited 2-year-old who refuses to keep his threads on.
Late last year,my boyfriend,Jeremy,sat with a terrific local photographer,Ryan Scott,for a nude series. As you can tell from this photo,many skills in front of and behind the camera are in evidence.
Back in September,2003,in Part XI of PWSBK,I railed about the vile nature of people who eat with their mouths open. These people are so poorly mannered,so hideous to behold,that they deserve a new —a second —shout out for their killing.
I’ve spent the last two or three weeks eating and working at a local coffee shop/restaurant called Morning Due,in San Francisco. I’ll sometimes spend four or five hours during the afternoon sitting there (here) getting stuff done. The place seats about 25 people;at peak times,it’s packed with hungry hippos,eager to enjoy Due’s delicious fare.
The number of people who eat with their mouths open is astonishing. I haven’t seen or studied enough subjects to draw statistically sound conclusions,but I know this:an awful lot of people are ill-mannered pigs.
It’s not a generational thing,since I see an even distribution among young and old eaters. It doesn’t seem to be terribly socioeconomic,since I see dapper,well-educated professionals and alleyway schlubs exhibiting their disastrous etiquette. There is also something culturally revealing about the fact that a lot —but by no means all —of the chewbreathing involves people talking at each other. I say culturally because it’s clear that getting your tedious little thought out in the open is far more important than chewing and relishing your mouthful of food.
You might conclude that this isn’t really an important thing,but it is. Like bad breath,picking your nose,or digging your underwear out of your butt,eating with your mouth open is utterly and supremely disgusting. It says a lot about you and your self-image (or lack thereof). It says a lot about how you were raised. It says a lot about how little you care that you are offensive to behold.
So,I implore those of you who have to sit across the table from a socially repugnant chewbreather. Put down your fork. Put down your spoon. Pick up your knife and put the pig across the table out of his or her misery.
It's so easy to resist infringements on our rights from the safety of a cushy chair and a laptop,eh?
I ran into this story on Wired today and was encouraged by 21-year-old Aaron Tobey’s sense of resolve. Honestly,I am encouraged by any ordinary person in the U.S. who does not appear to be domesticated by federal and state policy (they are legion).
When we’re young and educated,we tend to be dreamers,activists,often nonsensical in our political passions. We believe that nothing is impossible until later,when,after years of disillusionment and disappointment,we start to wonder if human nature is antipodal to the inalienable and fundamental rightness of individual liberty —and government’s constant,tax-funded assault on it.
So,when I hear stories like this —where common sense and what I can only assume is a genuine intellectual resistance bubble up to the surface —I can only get excited.
All of my books are packed in boxes stacked in a container sitting on a cargo ship enroute to New Zealand. I’ve been pining for a good read and can’t stand the idea of staring at my iPad screen reading reformatted Kindle pages. I stopped today at Borderlands,the sci-fi and fantasy book store in San Francisco that has enjoyed the sort of niche success that The Stars Our Destination enjoyed so many years ago in Chicago.
I went looking for some Lovecraft,although I probably own more duplicate works of his,in numerous gorgeous editions,than I should. When I walked in,I saw a man sitting at a small table with two small stacks of new books. I heard him say to a patron,“Hi,I’m a local author and I have a new book that might interest you.”Keep reading →
Gareth Thomas,a famous rugby player for Wales,came out of the closet after years of lying to himself,his team mates,and family (including his wife). He has decided to become the model for young people that he never had. This is his moving video short talking about how things “get better.” He’s a courageous man;I admire him greatly.
I watched the most unusual movie the other day. It’s called Monsters,and it involves,well,enormous monsters from outer space. But it’s not a single-minded monster movie,not in the way that,say,Cloverfield is. Instead,it lives in a rather underpopulated genre of its own:the dramance,guest starring monsters. It’s also an incredibly obvious allegory for the ugly immigration debates that have occurred in America over the last few years. That would normally be a weakness —such obviousness —but the injection of truly gorgeous creatures in a beautifully realized north Mexican wasteland turns this into a terribly interesting tale.
Gigantic aliens crash landed in north Mexico 6 years before the start of the film. They have since spread throughout Baja California,Sonora,Chihuaha,Coahuila,Nuevo Leon,and Tamaulipas —former Mexican states now known as the infected zone. The area is under military quarantine,with explosive border skirmishes and bombing missions into the zone fairly common. There are a lot of interesting plot details I won’t ruin,but the long and short of it is that two Americans in Mexico south of the infected zone need to get north —back to America. Drama and monster-osity ensue.
I learned after seeing the film that it was made for $15,000 and had a crew of 2. This makes the movie even more impressive:while I watched it,I thought it was in the same class of effects,sound,editing,and cinematography as Cloverfield or District 9. I have no idea how they did it.
There are times when the drama aspects drag the movie into a lull —the relationship between characters played by Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able is interesting,but not always thrilling enough to warrant the amount of time director Gareth Edwards spends on it. Scoot McNairy is very charming. He’s apparently been in dozens of TV shows and movies,but this is the first time I’d seen him,and I quite liked what he brought to the tale.
Now that I know Monsters was made for 0.0006% of Cloverfield‘s budget,by fewer people than it takes to fit in a minivan,I’ll have to buy and watch it again. I’m always happy to reward that kind of resourcefulness and imagination.
Checked in to my Flickr account today. Someone had taken advantage of my Creative Commons permission for reuse and remixing of any image in my collections. When I clicked on the link,I was pleased to learn that Darwin is now an unpaid spokesperson for commercial floor cleaners in Boise,ID.
Today,Jeremy and I enjoyed omakase lunch with Isa at Ebisu. I urged Isa to hew freely from my normal sashimi requirements. He delivered several tasty,bright,and colorful plates,including this one. Clockwise from top:ikura and uni in a shiso bed,sprouts and daikon radish,scallop,crunchy and very fresh clam,umi masu (ocean trout) at 6 o’clock,ankimo (monkfish liver),and orange slices. A great collision of textures and flavors.
