on THE TAPHANDLE

Lagunitas India Pale Ale by Lagunitas Brewing Company

12 ounce bottle. This is not bad, but there is also nothing to recommend it. On the pour it looks like a glass of apple juice. It even smells somewhat like it. The aroma is a combination of orange, apple, and grain. It is less flavorful than many India Pale Ale's. The taste tends more toward orange than grapefruit, with a slight hint of apple and lightly roasted grains. The disturbing part of the experience was the small bits of sediment floating everywhere. I can't say I have seen that in an IPA, to date. Most of the bits didn't settle, either.

This accompanied the wife's dinner omelets. It would have been a good match if the beer was only slightly better.

MORE TRAP

TRAP (TIGER RECLAMATION & APPROPRIATION PROJECT)

It began simply enough. The child and I were wandering about in the park. It has quite a few outdoor sculptures. We had a plastic tiger mask from a Shrove Tuesday celebration. Soon, any lifesize figurative sculptures were wearing the mask and being photographed. The pictures look as though they have digitized tiger masks "pasted" upon them, when the various sculptures are wearing an actual mask. (Which is one of the reasons the mask intrigues me—it is so artificial!) The child and I were getting some great looks during this phase of what has become a collaborative art project: TRAP (Tiger Reclamation & Appropriation Project).

Inspirations were, in no particular order: the tiger mask, the child's new worry about crocodiles getting us, the concept of crocodiles as "monsters," my own thoughts on what constitutes art, the short stories of Karen Russell, recycling, the Surrealists, the Dadaists, a certain playfulness, the way the child sees the world different than I, the Jim Campbell exhibit Quantizing Effects: The Liminal Art of Jim Campbell at the Museum of Glass, image consumption in a visually-overwrought culture, my own mortality, and an attempt to break writer's block.

The second phase involved the child and I finding everything we could in our home that involves tiger imagery. More photography ensued.

Neither the child nor I knows where this is heading. We will just have to wait and see...

MELANCHOLY

"I got sick from painting, because I stared at landscapes in the sun. And that's why I got sick, I'm sure of it. And I cant' sleep either. That's also probably why I got sick. I listen to the seagulls. I watch the seagulls."
—page 187, Melancholy by Jon Fosse

Lars Hertervig is having a bad day. He is stuck in his obsessive thoughts. He repeats scenes over and over in his head until they become overwhelming, paralyzing. Then the black and white clothes come floating toward him, surround him, close in and smother him. The clothes move back ever so slightly and move in again. They depart when Lars begins to gain some control over the thoughts. He begins to obsess over the same thoughts, the same scenes again, with only slight variation. He does progress through the thoughts, however. It is just that he plays them out so many times in his head that we see them from angles that are just slightly askew from one another. It is like a kaleidoscope of thought, and we are moving through his mind with him.

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"There are readers who simply can't get enough of novels with unreliable narrators, beautiful sentences packed with vivid, poetic prose, and lofty themes about the power of language and society's collective ennui. And there are other readers who prefer a nice, juicy murder."
—Chris Bolton, in his review, "Guilt-free Pleasures," of The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction by Patrick Anderson, on Powells.com

I am the former type of reader. Melancholy is the former type of book. Jon Fosse's book, as translated from Norwegian into English by Grethe Kvernes and Damion Searls, is "beautiful sentences packed with vivid, poetic prose." Sentences alternate between those that are short, staccato, and those that gather up pieces from the short into a longer passage. This rhythm keeps us in the disturbed mind of Lars, without drowning us in Lars's own paranoia and obsession.

The first portion of the book takes place on a single day in 1853 Düsseldorf. Not much happens as far as movement is concerned. Lars is supposed to meet up with his mentor, the painter Hans Gude, at the studio where Lars paints as part of a school of painters. Instead, he gets thrown out of the room he rents because he has fallen in love with the fifteen-year old girl from whose mother he rents the room. He wanders down to the bar, Malkasten, where the other painters hang out. Then, after a while he wanders back to his former place of residence, only to be escorted in police presence.

During all of this, Lars fears meeting up with Hans Gude because he fears how Hans will judge his painting. Lars is sure he will be sent back to his hometown of Stavanger to end up as a house painter. Yet, Lars also insists to us that only he and Hans and one other painter, Tidemann, can paint. Lars obsesses about the girl Helene, even though their only contact has been the two of them hugging, perhaps twice, and him smelling her hair. Yet, Lars is ready to marry the girl. The other painters at the bar take advantage of Lars, or so it seems. They may be joking with him and he simply doesn't know how to handle it, to process it.

The stability of Lars's mind is certainly questionable since he inflates and deflates events and scenes into things they may not necessarily be. I guess one question for me is: what does it say about my own mental state, when I can empathize with Lars at many points? And another: why is this book so compelling? I know that one piece is the rhythm of language that is sets up. It is hypnotic. But, there has to be more to it than that. Perhaps, Jon Fosse has tapped in to pieces of obsession and insecurity that we all, or at least I, possess.

I will let you know more after part two of the novel...

THE SIMULATION OF MOVEMENT

"[Siegfried] Kracauer wants films to be as little as possible like dramatic stories and as much as possible like photographs that move."
—page 41, The Material Ghost: Films and Their Medium by Gilberto Perez

"Glass plates were not usable for motion pictures since there was no practical way to move them through a camera or projector."
—page 452, Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson

A darkened space. A frame of light. Blurred images move across the frame. They float. They glide. They hesitate. Time freezes. Time accelerates. Time collapses. Temporal and spatial ghosts. Ephemera.

It is nearly impossible to describe the pieces of art in Quantizing Effects: The Liminal Art of Jim Campbell at the Museum of Glass. The concepts seem rather simple, but are actually philosophical, and become more complex the more you think about them. The execution and construction of the pieces seem rather simple, until you realize that Jim Campbell is doing things with the materials of his pieces that have not been done before. He is actually revolutionizing electronics in the same way that Eadward Muybridge, Étienne-Jules Marey, and Thomas Edison revolutionized the motion photography that became early cinema. Jim Campbell is changing the way we view video images. In fact, he holds many patents on the way that video images are processed.

The pieces that I found most intriguing were what he collectively calls Ambiguous Icons. Many consist of a grid of LEDs that are set behind a plate of glass or plexiglas. The glass plates are of varying distances from the LED grid, are of varying thickness, and are of varying translucence (running the gamut from nearly opaque to nearly transparent). The "flickering" of the LEDs and custom electronics produce images on the "screen" of glass. These insubstantial ghost images move across the screens, some with great deliberation, others with great abandon. Most of the images are indistinct enough that we cannot individualize them, but distinct enough that we can generalize them. One represents a face, another a human figure in motion, another cars and pedestrians moving in front of a stationary "viewpoint" on a street. Yet, when you get up close and look at the piece you realize that it is a grid of programmed LEDs and a plate of glass! (What is it that we are bringing to the piece?)

These pieces haunt me. I keep thinking of the early work in studying, attempting to understand, and trying to capture in images, the movement of animals and humans that Muybridge, Marey, and Edison were involved in. Their inventions radically altered the way that we view photographs and ushered in the age of cinema, as well as the subsequent video age. I believe that Campbell is doing something similar in his work. His roles of inventor, engineer, artist, philosopher, and observer have overlapped in his work. These pieces of art are unlike any others I have seen. They disturb in some sense. They are unconscious of us as viewers, and yet somehow seem aware of our presence. They bring past, present, and future together.

I will have to wander back to view them again, this time alone. The child was intrigued by some of the pieces that involved memory and lights, but ultimately moved too quickly from piece to piece, needing to move, to be stimulated. I need time to stand still, to observe, to process, to commune.

BOREDOM ADDENDUM

It seems there are antidotes other than grief to alleviate boredom. Recent experience has shown the Work Table that anxiety (such as "where is the squirrel in the house now?") and fear (such as "the squirrel just grunted and lunged at me again!") are effective ways to remove boredom from one's life. This shouldn't be news to anyone. It simply highlights the difference between the rational, the intellectual, and the irrational, the experiential.

EXILE

The squirrel was reintroduced into the wild (with Troy's Work Table doing the honors, as pictured above). The chimney was covered with a grate before the squirrel was released. The wife, the child, and I all celebrated at dinner with a prayer that it never visit the inside of our home again and a toast that it is indeed gone after 48 hours of residence within our humble abode.

I have never seen a squirrel run so fast as this one did when it realized the trap door was open! Good riddance, O squirrel friend, good riddance.

SPOILS OF WAR

In this case, the spoils of war are (1) a brief incarceration; (2) having one's picture taken; (3) having one's picture posted on the Work Table for all to see.

Remember that this "cute" creature chewed through wiring in our furnace, which led to the furnace functioning improperly due to shorts, potentially leading to a house fire. It also urinated and defecated all over the floor when I approached the cage for transport to the great outdoors.

I am going to send the squirrel the bill for the furnace repairs we had to have done, as well as for the cage trap.

CAPTURE

The Havahart 1030 works magnificently.

The wife goes to work. The child and I leave for the day. The cat is napping upstairs. The house is quiet.

Squirrel recognizes silence. Squirrel is hungry. Squirrel ventures forth. Squirrel spies peanuts lying in glob of peanut butter. Squirrel enters the Havahart 1030 Skunk Trap. Squirrel steps on trigger plate. Havahart 1030 closes its doors and locks them.

Picture of squirrel is posted on blog for all the world to see. Squirrel is shamed.

SIEGE AT FORTRESS WORK TABLE

The furnace is repaired and works better than ever. The furnace room is temporarily sealed off from the bedroom. The trap was triggered yesterday afternoon, but there was no sign of the squirrel. There was no more growling or activity. We thought the squirrel had died.

After a quick check this morning, and a prod with a dowel into his last known location, the squirrel responded with a growl. The squirrel is still under the floorboards in his small, nearly inaccessible crawlspace. The Havahart 1030 awaits the squirrel's hunger to bring it forth for the joy of peanuts...

INSURGENT ATTACK!

The squirrel is back in my headspace now. It did some extensive damage to wires in the furnace. Some were shorting out. Were we close to a fire? Who knows? But, the squirrel shows its resilience.

The squirrel is still hiding out. The cage is still waiting...

COUNTERATTACK!

Now in place: the Havahart 1030 Skunk Trap, which is intended for the live entrapment of skunks, rabbits, and large squirrels (of which our squatter qualifies). It is baited with Jif Extra Chunky Peanut Butter and two peanuts. The waiting begins...

SQUIRREL ATTACK!

The wife calls me at work. The wife informs me that we need a chimney cap. Something is in our furnace. She says it is growling at her. Long story short: she opens the furnace and out comes a very upset squirrel. The squirrel is in the house. Eventually, it ends up under the bed. It is hopping about, rather crazy from being trapped in a furnace and then subjected to the company of humans in their home, when it simply wants to be outside eating hazelnuts. The squirrel retreats to a very shallow crawl space under the floorboards adjacent to the bedroom of the wife and I. It is growling quite loudly when we approach. I can see the squirrel, but it is right behind both our water heater and a good size block of wood, and it is staying put.

Needless to say, we are sleeping in the living room because there is no way to keep it from coming into the bedroom, if it so desires. The wife is on the couch. I was on the floor, but am now awake waiting for home improvement stores to open so I can go and purchase a squirrel trap. I believe that this is one of those times when I am reminded that nature always finds a way of letting us know that it is ever present.

BOREDOM

An empty box
An open space
A single thought
Leaves a trace
—from "Minimal" by the Pet Shop Boys, from the album Fundamental



"Learn to be satisfied with little—will you deny that this is much?"
—page 211, Provocations by Søren Kierkegaard

What is boredom? Failed imagination? A lesser relative of depression? A vacuum of stimulation and entertainment? Sometimes, I find it difficult to tell if I am depressed, fatigued, or simply bored.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fifth Edition defines boredom as "tedium, ennui." It defines ennui as "mental weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of occupation or interest; boredom." I find much to occupy myself with. I am not sure that I find all of it interesting. Perhaps Kierkegaard is right: simplification is in order. Perhaps the architect Mies van der Rohe is right: less is more. I do often find satisfaction in the simple things of life. A good beer. A nice meal. An hour of quiet to read. Time spent just sitting with the wife and child. Watching birds jump around in the garden or hanging on the bird feeders. Walking outdoors without purpose.

So, what are my complaints? Are my expectations set too high? Do I let culture dictate how I live my life moreso than I am willing to consciously acknowledge?

For me, comfort comes in knowing that I am not alone in my restlessness. Ghita Schwarz has an essay, "A Case of Boredom: A Rigorous and Lyrical Examination of a Relatively New Illness," in the February 2007 issue of The Believer that helps to ease my mind. She discusses boredom settling in during a difficult time in her life: as her father slowly dies over a period of years due to debilitating cardiac illness. She finds herself restless. She aimlessly surfs the Internet in search of celebrity gossip at work. She finds all food to be bland. She finds sex to be routine and unfulfilling. She questions her own sanity. In her suffering through boredom, I can recognize glimpses of my own life. Some of our symptoms are the same; some are different. Her frustration at where to turn for help feels palpable to me, though; I know her predicament. She also discovers that others around her don't understand her. They see her as unstable or don't know how to deal with her.

She also leaves no solution for the reader of her essay. Her boredom disappears (although, I am certain it will return) with the death of her father. As she writes: "Why did it go? Boredom didn't leave a note, so I can only speculate...grief beats boredom."

Her answer may not satisfy, but it seems truthful. Most states of being involve endurance and tolerance. Maturation only comes in the midst of suffering that is lived through. In the meantime, one can wander, searching, looking for satisfaction in the quotidian and the simple and the small.

on THE TAPHANDLE

Foret (aka Moinette Biologique), a Saison by Dupont Brasserie

25.4 ounce bottle. My second saison. This is a style I definitely enjoy. The pour is cloudy, translucent, and the color of a butterscotch candy. A generous white head stays through completion and leaves behind good lacing on the sides of the glass. The taste is floral and spicy. I smell and taste cloves, caraway seed, and coriander. These emerge from a background of flowers and pear. Foret is pleasant on the palate, sweet with a light hoppiness. Light alcohol flavor keeps the finish going, although diminished, pushing the spices to the forefront as it progresses. This is a sipping beer, and one with which to enjoy the company of good friends.

This was a great pairing with the wife's chicken piccata, served over a bed of orzo.

WANDERINGS

In Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park, clockwise from upper left: (1) Wake, 2004, by Richard Serra; (2) Neukom Vivarium, 2003-2004, by Mark Dion; (3) Love & Loss, 2005-2006, by Roy McMakin; and (4) Perre's Ventaglio III, 1967, by Beverly Pepper.

The child and I were planning on visiting SAM's recently opened Olympic Sculpture Park next weekend, but with good weather and time for wandering we went this morning. The day was slightly warm winter weather, almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and partly cloudy. The Olympic Mountains, namesake of the park, made a wonderful backdrop for the sculptures, the scenery, and the trails that snake around and within both. The child was fascinated by ducks that dove beneath the surface of Puget Sound only to pop back up a few moments later.



I was intrigued by many of the sculptures, but kept finding myself pulled back to Typewriter Eraser, Scale X by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. First, this sculpture is visually stunning. The bright red of the eraser, the metallic gray of the metal wheel, and the brilliant blue of the brush stood out against the more muted blue of sky, gray of concrete, and red-tinged ground cover. Second, it is so absurd as to be something that shocks. I remember selling typewriter erasers when I worked for a stationery store, but they were almost obsolete even then. The computer age has now relegated them extinct. It is almost an artifact of a long-lost age. Third, this was one of only a handful of the sculptures that was figurative rather than abstract. There is no having to guess what this represents. It is a typewriter eraser writ large!

The child and I will be returning to explore further when SAM completes all of the work on the park, and as the weather becomes more fair. Next time we will also picnic in Myrtle Edwards Park and make a day of our wandering.

WANDERINGS

A walk in Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park and Myrtle Edwards Park. Clockwise from upper left: (1) Tree and building, Myrtle Edwards Park; (2) Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, 1998-1999, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; (3) Split, 2003, by Roxy Paine; and (4) Eagle, 1971, by Alexander Calder.

on THE TAPHANDLE

Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA, an Imperial/Double IPA by Dogfish Head Brewery

12 ounce. Pours the color of a newly minted penny. The head is a light cream color, frothy, an inch thick, and leaves sheets of lacing behind. Lively carbonation fuels smells of sweet, summer grass; citrus; other fruits; lightly buttered, toasted grain; and a hint of alcohol. The flavor is complex and balanced. Orange is primary, with a grapefruit edge. Just slightly acidic. The flavor mellows as it progresses, but lasts. For a high "alcohol by volume" beer (9%), there is surprisingly little alcohol flavor on the finish.

This Imperial India Pale Ale is not quite as "harsh" on the initial draught like some IPAs. It is acidic, but not overly so. Excellent. I could just keep drinking this.

on THE TAPHANDLE

Pipeline Porter, a Porter by Kona Brewing Company

12 ounce bottle. The pour is a dark brown, almost black, ale with a tinge of ruby at the very edge. The head is frothy and light brown. The bottle claims that this limited edition porter is "made with 100% Hawaiian Kona coffee," and that is apparent in both aroma and flavor. In addition to the coffee, which is the leading flavor, there is also a slight biscuity base and dark chocolate tones. The coffee is an intense, strong flavor, really more like eating chocolate-covered espresso beans. The flavor is mostly bitter with minor sweetness to offset. The bitterness is driven by both hops and coffee. The porter is thick with a light oiliness on the tongue and palate.

I enjoyed this, but wouldn't be able to drink it all the time. I am just not a coffee drinker. I appreciate this porter for what it is, and highly recommend it as a "must-drink" for coffee lovers.

PHYSIOLOGICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESSORS

I have a phrase stuck in my head: "physiological manifestations of psychological stressors." I don't know where the actual phrase came from, but I do know that it was triggered by something I read in Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence by Richard Halpern. I cannot locate the actual paragraph that triggered the phrase, but remember Halpern talking about the fact that things that occur in the psyche have a way of affecting us physically—arthritis, ulcers, wounds. I wonder if much of what has been touted as stigmata is primarily psychological in nature. It obviously doesn't change the end but does change the means, which could have implications for a "cure" for stigmata.

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Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence was a nice change in tone of reading material. The killing fields of Sudan from What is the What and the claustrophobic nightmare of Red the Fiend were left behind as Richard Halpern examined some of the works of America's premier illustrator, Norman Rockwell. Halpern spent a good deal of time delving into the social "psyche" that fuels Rockwell's work. Therefore, Halpern's discussion centers not only on what Rockwell brings to the canvas or magazine cover, but also how it reflects the society that Rockwell paints for and lives within. The elements of nostalgia and innocence in Rockwell's work turn out to not be quite so concerned with the past or with purity. They are ways of masking the foibles and flaws, the sexuality and violence, the gaze and voyeurism of painter and audience, that pulse just beneath our conscious acknowledgement.

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The completion of one book brings the start of another. This time, I take another foray into fiction. Melancholy by Jon Fosse was a Christmas gift from the brother-in-law and the sister-in-law. If I thought the world of Red was claustrophobic then that of Lars Hertervig is even moreso. I am only fifty pages into the story so far, but am trapped in the head of Lars, and he is obsessing over the same couple of issues, while slowly working in a few more. I don't know what his overall psychological makeup would be, but obsessive-compulsive and high anxiety would be good guesses as to some of its components. The interesting thing is that the language (and it is an English tranlation of Norwegian) is that the rhythm of the lines does as much to pull me into the story as does the content of the story. The obsessive thought of Lars builds a litany of repetition that compels one to "get inside" the head, the thoughts, of Lars and want to stay.

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The wife and I recently watched two movies on DVD. Last week, we saw Little Miss Sunshine; last night, we saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Although Little Miss Sunshine was somewhat funny, all I could think of at the end was that regardless of how "screwed up" the characters were, this was really the plot of National Lampoon's Vacation with the Abba karaoke scene of Muriel's Wedding tacked on as it's ending. I guess I had hoped for more.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a much more fulfilling and enjoyable experience. The world of the movie was strange yet amazingly self-contained. In other words, it works. Bill Murray gives one of his best performance, along the lines of those given in Lost in Translation and Ed Wood. Steve Zissou may be psychologically unstable, quirky, and unstable, but he felt more real than all of the characters in Little Miss Sunshine combined. Perhaps, it is because Little Miss Sunshine felt dark and somewhat hopeless, with a sugary, Hollywood-style ending added for good measure and closure, whereas The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou felt hopeful even in the midst of all of the loss and suffering that Steve and the crew of the Belafonte experience.

The characters in Little Miss Sunshine feel rather disposable to me. I will not, however, soon forget Bill Murray's Steve, Owen Wilson's Ned, Angelica Huston's Eleanor, or Willem Defoe's Klaus.

on THE TAPHANDLE

I was notified by RateBeer.com that a new bottle store opened in Federal Way on January 20. That meant that the child and I had to make a trip to 99 Bottles to see what it entailed.

99 Bottles is a small space that is clean and inviting. The walls are painted a mustard yellow that is nicely accented by light cherry-colored wood shelving and counter; laminate wood flooring; bright, strategically-placed lighting; and well-stocked walk-in coolers. The current selection of beer lacks the breadth and depth I was hoping for, but the shop's willingness to special order and cater to customer requests will add to their initial stock. And, don't get me wrong, because this is one of the best things to occur for South Puget Sound craft beer enthusiasts in a long time. Top Foods of Federal Way and Puyallup both have more styles and brands of beer at this point, but I believe that will soon change. The main advantages of 99 Bottles are (1) that they have a slightly more "independent streak" in their selection, and (2) that they sell by the bottle and encourage "making your own six-pack." Which is what I did, and then some.

The child was intrigued by this shopping trip and was made the official "bottle master." This entailed the child taking the bottles I selected and carefully placing them into a cardboard carrier. The child also occasionally pointed out bottles that intrigued her, a couple of which also intrigued me and were therefore selected. My acquisitions were mostly centered around the idea of a "mini-IPA fest" at home. The other ales were chosen to explore a couple of other styles I am interested in.

This trip to 99 Bottles meant the purchase of
*Gale Force IPA, an India Pale Ale by Scuttlebutt Brewing Company
*White Hawk IPA, an India Pale Ale by Mendocino Brewing Company
*Lagunitas IPA, an India Pale Ale by Lagunitas Brewing Company
*Hop Ottin' IPA, an India Pale Ale by Boonville Brewing Company
*Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA, an Imperial/Double IPA by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
*Huckleberry N' Honey, a Fruit Beer by Lang Creek Brewery
*Pipeline Porter, a Porter by Kona Brewing Company
*Foret (aka Moinette Biologique), a Saison by Dupont Brasserie

Now, it is time to indulge...