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Simple social stuff
Aug. 12th, 2003 01:06 amI don't write enough about my actual life. Usually this is because I don't have that much to say about it, but there are a few things I'd like to mention.
I was delighted to attend a mini-bloggerfest in New York on Sunday night. Patrick Nielsen Hayden e-mailed me on Saturday to let me know that his band, Whisperado, had a gig on Sunday at a Lower East Side bar called "Otto's Shrunken Head", and, oh, by the way, Jim "Unqualified Offerings" Henley and The Talking Dog would both be there, and that there would be drinks and chatting afterward.
So I hied my heinie down to the fringes of Alphabet City, surprised myself by finding parking relatively easily, and had a great time. Whisperado play what used to be called "rock and roll" and is now mostly not called anything at all. Jim opined that they reminded him of X; my own sense of the sound was more convoluted, and I finally settled on a composite of Jefferson Airplane without the psychadelia, early Bruce Springsteen without the Dylan wannabee, and George Thurogood without the celebration of stupidity. (This last occurred to me before they performed Thurogood's "I Drink Alone".) Good stuff.
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agrumer notes, most of his posse was in attendance as well, as was Teresa Nielsen Hayden. We introduced ourselves by our various blog-names ("Yo! Unqualified! Meet Bugsybanana!") and a good time was had by all.
Dinner followed at the 2nd Avenue Deli, where I had my usual bowl of cholent and a great mass of coleslaw and pickles. (Cholent is one of my comfort foods--it's a traditional Eastern European Jewish dish, a thick, slow-cooked meat-and-bean stew. It became a comfort food for me on first taste, because it reminded me of good old North Carolinian Brunswick stew, which in turn became a comfort food for me in college because my favorite diner in downtown Durham made a kick-ass version. Alas, that diner is no longer.)
Jim does make the point that we spent altogether too much time bashing libertarianism, but then, he was obviously having fun needling us commiesymps by dropping names from his list of "The Most Evil Americans of All Time", such as FDR.
My favorite moment: It transpired that the 2nd Avenue Deli serves cola by the pitcher much less expensively than by the can, but the cola in pitchers is RC, which is mostly despised by people who care about such things. I noted that it's sweeter than either Coke or Pepsi (which is why it actually does very well in blind taste tests). Patrick then mentioned that you can still get Coca-Cola made with cane sugar in Canada. (We didn't, surprisingly, branch into a discussion of the evils of Archer-Daniels-Midland; perhaps we all knew that it could be taken as read that ADM's bought-and-purchased US government policies which make cane sugar 500% more expensive in the US than in the rest of the world were approved of by none at the table.) I noted that it was, of course, possible to get sugar-sweetened Coke in New York City, around Passover, because of course you can't drink corn syrup then. Teresa's eyes grew big in wonder, and she asked, "Why can't you drink corn syrup at Passover--and why am I asking you?", since of course she was sitting directly across fromladymondegreen, who actually keeps kosher. The obvious answer to the first question, provided by at least two people, is that corn syrup doesn't split the hoof, though it does, of course, chew the cud; the answer to the second is just one of those mysteries. (Perhaps one of the as-yet unrecognized Bogus Mysteries of the Rosary.)
I was delighted to attend a mini-bloggerfest in New York on Sunday night. Patrick Nielsen Hayden e-mailed me on Saturday to let me know that his band, Whisperado, had a gig on Sunday at a Lower East Side bar called "Otto's Shrunken Head", and, oh, by the way, Jim "Unqualified Offerings" Henley and The Talking Dog would both be there, and that there would be drinks and chatting afterward.
So I hied my heinie down to the fringes of Alphabet City, surprised myself by finding parking relatively easily, and had a great time. Whisperado play what used to be called "rock and roll" and is now mostly not called anything at all. Jim opined that they reminded him of X; my own sense of the sound was more convoluted, and I finally settled on a composite of Jefferson Airplane without the psychadelia, early Bruce Springsteen without the Dylan wannabee, and George Thurogood without the celebration of stupidity. (This last occurred to me before they performed Thurogood's "I Drink Alone".) Good stuff.
As
agrumer notes, most of his posse was in attendance as well, as was Teresa Nielsen Hayden. We introduced ourselves by our various blog-names ("Yo! Unqualified! Meet Bugsybanana!") and a good time was had by all.Dinner followed at the 2nd Avenue Deli, where I had my usual bowl of cholent and a great mass of coleslaw and pickles. (Cholent is one of my comfort foods--it's a traditional Eastern European Jewish dish, a thick, slow-cooked meat-and-bean stew. It became a comfort food for me on first taste, because it reminded me of good old North Carolinian Brunswick stew, which in turn became a comfort food for me in college because my favorite diner in downtown Durham made a kick-ass version. Alas, that diner is no longer.)
Jim does make the point that we spent altogether too much time bashing libertarianism, but then, he was obviously having fun needling us commiesymps by dropping names from his list of "The Most Evil Americans of All Time", such as FDR.
My favorite moment: It transpired that the 2nd Avenue Deli serves cola by the pitcher much less expensively than by the can, but the cola in pitchers is RC, which is mostly despised by people who care about such things. I noted that it's sweeter than either Coke or Pepsi (which is why it actually does very well in blind taste tests). Patrick then mentioned that you can still get Coca-Cola made with cane sugar in Canada. (We didn't, surprisingly, branch into a discussion of the evils of Archer-Daniels-Midland; perhaps we all knew that it could be taken as read that ADM's bought-and-purchased US government policies which make cane sugar 500% more expensive in the US than in the rest of the world were approved of by none at the table.) I noted that it was, of course, possible to get sugar-sweetened Coke in New York City, around Passover, because of course you can't drink corn syrup then. Teresa's eyes grew big in wonder, and she asked, "Why can't you drink corn syrup at Passover--and why am I asking you?", since of course she was sitting directly across from
ladymondegreen, who actually keeps kosher. The obvious answer to the first question, provided by at least two people, is that corn syrup doesn't split the hoof, though it does, of course, chew the cud; the answer to the second is just one of those mysteries. (Perhaps one of the as-yet unrecognized Bogus Mysteries of the Rosary.)
