Lately, I've been really interested in Magnificent Bastard. I linked to it in my "Neck for Green" post on 12/8. I like their blog for fashion advice, certainly, but also as a good diversion when work gets slow. Aside from direction on sartorial splendor, MB has an entire lifestyle, Artful Dishevelment, in mind. This certainly manifests in alcohol consumption.
(If you're looking for another great blog, one strictly devoted to fashion, I'll suggest The Sartorialist. Special thanks to Kathy for opening my eyes to it.)
I'm not exactly a party animal, but as any twenty something might, I enjoy an adult beverage now and then. During the summer, I'll pay homage to my British blood (Welsh, specifically) and defeat the stifling heat through a powerful concoction of gin mixed with tonic, topped with fresh lime. As the weather has turned, though, I've been less assured. I could always turn to my old friends Stout and Porter, but what is an aspiring Bastard to do when he feels the need for a proper cocktail as the snow comes down? The advice, it turns out, is to call for a Manhattan.
My friend Dan keeps the bar at a great Italian trattoria called Radda here in Boulder, and we've been comparing notes recently on how to prepare a most Magnificent winter drink. Dan suggests mixing your favorite Kentucky whiskey with Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, select bitters, and bourbon soaked cherries. I, in turn, suggest you follow Dan's suggestion. My only addition? Keep your barware and booze safe from harm. I've recently paid a hefty price for my ignorance of this pressing issue.
Forget Copenhagen, health care, or a soaring deficit that will eventually cripple the financial viability of America. The real killer at the end of 2009 is an immutable notion that scientists, such as myself, call gravity. I'll spare you the technicalities and acceleration rates (and save myself countless trips to Wikipedia, er, my expensive collection of scientific texts. Perhaps you've heard of the classic treatise, "High School Biology"?)
Over the past few years, I've been accumulating supplies for a proper bar that any young gentleman could be proud of. Certainly some of these details came in the form of gifts, as was the case for my wine glasses. My father is an aficionado, and I believe took great joy from passing along glasses that would diffuse the subtle aromas of Pinot, Bordeaux, or Nebbiolo. My stepbrother has been kind enough to keep me well stocked with fine gin. I've supplemented with various bottles and other glassware, and most recently, I was given four fantastic low ball old-fashioned glasses that looked perfect with three cubes of ice, and two fingers of liquor. The combination left me one happy Bastard.
To celebrate this final touch, I had Dan to the house on Saturday night for a drink after he finished a shift at the restaurant. I'd been keeping this collection up on a shelf about 15 feet inside the front door as a welcome to any guest. Dan arrived and saw the new glasses, nodded his approval, and we took down the necessary pieces for a great Manhattan. As we sat around catching up, I felt myself almost detach from the conversation in an attitude of contentment. This is exactly the situation I'd hoped would accompany my bar; the facilitation of friendships, and their solidification over good cocktails.
I awoke the next morning having hatched a plan to go climbing with Dan up at the Industrial Wall, our second trip in as many weeks. I was in the kitchen, making breakfast and preparing for my day outside when I noticed the two glasses from the night before, now dry, on a towel near the sink. I returned them to their spot on the top shelf, reaching past the coffee beans, grinder, and tea on the shelf below. I looked at my roommate Brian and told him that I thought the bottom shelf was looking a little haggard.
"We'll be fine if that one falls off the wall, I guess, but if the top one goes, we're hosed."
Some things you can't take back, once uttered. I should have kept my mouth shut. Not more than 5 minutes later, coffee still hot and cereal still crisp against the milk, there was a crash. Not the innocuous clattering of caffeinated beans over tile, or even the shrill clank that our aluminum stove-top espresso maker would have sounded. This was the unmistakable violence of glass. And then, the incredulous silence of two roommates wondering what the hell had just happened.
Damnit. I've been picking up shards of glass for days.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
A Hero's Journey
On Sunday, I slogged up the hill to The Industrial Wall with my buddies Dan and Kate. The forecast was enormously optimistic, calling for partly sunny skies and temps near 50. That sounded like a Spring Break foray to Cancun after the sub zero ice-fest we've recently had in Boulder. Dan wanted to work on a route called Vogue and I was game to get outside after being resigned to the gym ever since returning from KY. Kate didn't necessarily want to climb, but she'd been out of town for the past 10 days and was psyched to cheer her boyfriend on the super-project.
I had talked to Dan on Saturday night so we could make plans. I was optimistic, and knew that the wall only got sun from roughly 11:00 until 3:00, so we'd have to make the most of the warming daylight. I asked him, "Should I should swing by at 8:30, 9:00?" We planned for 9:30 and a full day of rock climbing. I went to sleep with my bag packed, and a building excitement for climbing at one of Boulder's premiere crags (just after Movement Climbing and Fitness). Then I woke up at 10:00 on Sunday morning.
Goddamnit. There are few things worse than waking up and already being late. There's no relaxed cup of coffee, no patient review of the headlines. There's running. There's rushing. There's poor sandwich making. And there's me, looking at my phone, volume turned to "Silent" in an attempt at restful sleep the night before, shaking my head.
I suppose the cold that I'd been fighting explains the fact that my body demanded, and ultimately received, a full 11 hours of sleep. At least I didn't require 13, because then I'd have really been late. My Subaru raced towards Dan and Kate's place in Eldo while I worked the Blackberry. I'd be there soon, I told them. Thanks for waiting, I apologized. Look, it's Blake, I exclaimed.
Blake was driving out of the canyon, away from the climbing. We waved each other down to a stop and our cars managed a full road block on the highway. No one else was driving there at the moment, so there were no fatalities, nor even honked horns. Blake was pissed and complaining, in large part due to two particular stimuli. First, he couldn't find anyone to climb with, Boulder being filled with such soft wankers. Second, that's what Blake does. It's almost endearing in its predictability. Gym ropes suck. Weather sucks. The job market sucks. I suck. Oh well.
I tried to alleviate his first source of irritation by inviting him to head up the hill with us. He figured it might be worth a try, and turned his car around. We met Dan and Kate, they seemed perfectly unfazed with my (and now our) late arrival, and we started the hour-long slog through the snow towards the train tracks high on the mountain above.
The Industrial Wall is about as remote a sport climbing destination as I'll visit. The first part of the hike is a road, and then there's some stomping through a meadow, and then you've got to head straight up the side of a mountain to some train tracks. That sounds easy, but after a couple of weeks of snowy weather, the path was anything but clear. Fortunately for me, I came armed with gaiters to ensure I looked like a jackass, and approach shoes with a tread as bald as Telly Savalas' head. These ensured I'd slip-slide my way in the general direction of "up" without much discernible progress. On the bright side, I only lost my footing and hit the ground once. Sad, thought, that this tumble ended with me in a yucca plant, blood oozing from three precise holes in my left palm. In their own sanguine language, they said three words:
Get. New. Shoes.
When I finally arrived at the train tracks, I smiled in the satisfaction that ahead was only a short train tunnel (one can just see the light coming from the other end), and then the crag. (Yes, there was the minor detail that I'd have to survive this dark walk, as trains have the unpleasant propensity to barrel through from time to time.) Dan and I waited and talked for a moment, each happy to wait for Kate as she, too, slogged up the final stretch. Blake had already come and gone, his general annoyance manifest as rabbit quick steps up the hill, his new boots allowing grip. Just as Kate was about to pop over the final steep bit and arrive for the home stretch, Blake walked back towards us, appearing like a ghost out of the tunnel.
He'd been through to the other side, looked up at the crag, and decided that it was too windy, too cold, and that the sun, in fact, had given way to snow. The weather man was a goddamn fascist prick bastard, and he was going home. Adios. On the bright side, an hour prior while we were still at the car he had seen my ski poles in my trunk, and used them to ease his ascent up the hill. I asked for their return to ease my pending descent, thereby completing my transition from Magnificent Bastard to dork. With my full regalia of backpacker nerditude, I waved Blake adieu and started through the tunnel, Dan and Kate just behind.
As we made our way up the cliff, it became apparent that in spite of the predictability of Blake's disdain, his observation was 100% correct. It was COLD! And snowing. And windy. And what-the-hell-we-shoulda-just-gone-to-Movement-this-really-does-suck. Watching the snow flakes come down with ever increasing ferocity, the three remaining rock pioneers resigned to finish our tea and call it a day. Dan held out some hope that the clouds were breaking, but Kate and I looked at each other and shook off his optimism. Our psyche was gone, and we were ready to throw in the towel. We headed back through the tunnel, risking literal train-wreck a third time. As soon as we popped out into the light, though, Dan looked up towards the hill and saw sun instead of snowflakes. "Guys!" Vogue looked like it might, in fact, be viable if only we'd believe, only give a little more. What was in it for Kate and Me? An allusion to JFK and McNamara, we'd come this far...why not throw a few more bodies at the problem. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
Dan and I both tried to do the warm up pitch with wooden toes and numb fingers, and Kate just slumped into a heap. An artist, her original plan was to sketch, but her fingers were too cold to even grip the pencil. Remember the light that was in such short supply? Well, it was fading. Nonetheless, Dan booted up and went to work on his project. He was in full Rifle mode; working the moves and taking an understandably-yet-painfully long burn. I was bundled in goose down, but even still, as he lowered to the ground after his climb, I was finished. Dan was roundly thankful for the team's sacrifice, and for that I'm appreciative. I don't mind giving up a day to a buddy, but it's nice when he notices.
With that, we slid back down the hill into the growing dusk. We threw a few snowballs and shared some stories of mountain lion attacks as we walked through the woods, eventually arriving back at my trusty steed, Abby the Subaru. Dan and Kate then had friends to their house, and any sacrifice I might have made during the climbing day was repaid in bourbon, ginger bread, and roasted chicken. The scales were fully made equal, and I smiled at the interesting friends I've made.
I had talked to Dan on Saturday night so we could make plans. I was optimistic, and knew that the wall only got sun from roughly 11:00 until 3:00, so we'd have to make the most of the warming daylight. I asked him, "Should I should swing by at 8:30, 9:00?" We planned for 9:30 and a full day of rock climbing. I went to sleep with my bag packed, and a building excitement for climbing at one of Boulder's premiere crags (just after Movement Climbing and Fitness). Then I woke up at 10:00 on Sunday morning.
Goddamnit. There are few things worse than waking up and already being late. There's no relaxed cup of coffee, no patient review of the headlines. There's running. There's rushing. There's poor sandwich making. And there's me, looking at my phone, volume turned to "Silent" in an attempt at restful sleep the night before, shaking my head.
I suppose the cold that I'd been fighting explains the fact that my body demanded, and ultimately received, a full 11 hours of sleep. At least I didn't require 13, because then I'd have really been late. My Subaru raced towards Dan and Kate's place in Eldo while I worked the Blackberry. I'd be there soon, I told them. Thanks for waiting, I apologized. Look, it's Blake, I exclaimed.
Blake was driving out of the canyon, away from the climbing. We waved each other down to a stop and our cars managed a full road block on the highway. No one else was driving there at the moment, so there were no fatalities, nor even honked horns. Blake was pissed and complaining, in large part due to two particular stimuli. First, he couldn't find anyone to climb with, Boulder being filled with such soft wankers. Second, that's what Blake does. It's almost endearing in its predictability. Gym ropes suck. Weather sucks. The job market sucks. I suck. Oh well.
I tried to alleviate his first source of irritation by inviting him to head up the hill with us. He figured it might be worth a try, and turned his car around. We met Dan and Kate, they seemed perfectly unfazed with my (and now our) late arrival, and we started the hour-long slog through the snow towards the train tracks high on the mountain above.
The Industrial Wall is about as remote a sport climbing destination as I'll visit. The first part of the hike is a road, and then there's some stomping through a meadow, and then you've got to head straight up the side of a mountain to some train tracks. That sounds easy, but after a couple of weeks of snowy weather, the path was anything but clear. Fortunately for me, I came armed with gaiters to ensure I looked like a jackass, and approach shoes with a tread as bald as Telly Savalas' head. These ensured I'd slip-slide my way in the general direction of "up" without much discernible progress. On the bright side, I only lost my footing and hit the ground once. Sad, thought, that this tumble ended with me in a yucca plant, blood oozing from three precise holes in my left palm. In their own sanguine language, they said three words:
Get. New. Shoes.
When I finally arrived at the train tracks, I smiled in the satisfaction that ahead was only a short train tunnel (one can just see the light coming from the other end), and then the crag. (Yes, there was the minor detail that I'd have to survive this dark walk, as trains have the unpleasant propensity to barrel through from time to time.) Dan and I waited and talked for a moment, each happy to wait for Kate as she, too, slogged up the final stretch. Blake had already come and gone, his general annoyance manifest as rabbit quick steps up the hill, his new boots allowing grip. Just as Kate was about to pop over the final steep bit and arrive for the home stretch, Blake walked back towards us, appearing like a ghost out of the tunnel.
He'd been through to the other side, looked up at the crag, and decided that it was too windy, too cold, and that the sun, in fact, had given way to snow. The weather man was a goddamn fascist prick bastard, and he was going home. Adios. On the bright side, an hour prior while we were still at the car he had seen my ski poles in my trunk, and used them to ease his ascent up the hill. I asked for their return to ease my pending descent, thereby completing my transition from Magnificent Bastard to dork. With my full regalia of backpacker nerditude, I waved Blake adieu and started through the tunnel, Dan and Kate just behind.
As we made our way up the cliff, it became apparent that in spite of the predictability of Blake's disdain, his observation was 100% correct. It was COLD! And snowing. And windy. And what-the-hell-we-shoulda-just-gone-to-Movement-this-really-does-suck. Watching the snow flakes come down with ever increasing ferocity, the three remaining rock pioneers resigned to finish our tea and call it a day. Dan held out some hope that the clouds were breaking, but Kate and I looked at each other and shook off his optimism. Our psyche was gone, and we were ready to throw in the towel. We headed back through the tunnel, risking literal train-wreck a third time. As soon as we popped out into the light, though, Dan looked up towards the hill and saw sun instead of snowflakes. "Guys!" Vogue looked like it might, in fact, be viable if only we'd believe, only give a little more. What was in it for Kate and Me? An allusion to JFK and McNamara, we'd come this far...why not throw a few more bodies at the problem. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
Dan and I both tried to do the warm up pitch with wooden toes and numb fingers, and Kate just slumped into a heap. An artist, her original plan was to sketch, but her fingers were too cold to even grip the pencil. Remember the light that was in such short supply? Well, it was fading. Nonetheless, Dan booted up and went to work on his project. He was in full Rifle mode; working the moves and taking an understandably-yet-painfully long burn. I was bundled in goose down, but even still, as he lowered to the ground after his climb, I was finished. Dan was roundly thankful for the team's sacrifice, and for that I'm appreciative. I don't mind giving up a day to a buddy, but it's nice when he notices.
With that, we slid back down the hill into the growing dusk. We threw a few snowballs and shared some stories of mountain lion attacks as we walked through the woods, eventually arriving back at my trusty steed, Abby the Subaru. Dan and Kate then had friends to their house, and any sacrifice I might have made during the climbing day was repaid in bourbon, ginger bread, and roasted chicken. The scales were fully made equal, and I smiled at the interesting friends I've made.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Risking My Magnificent Neck in Search of Green
Greetings, Voyeurs. Abaluba hasn't been very well connected to the home base in Boulder lately, with something like 90% of the recent posts coming from Kentucky. We're going to keep the peripatetic propensity alive with my first ever correspondence from the bustling metropolis of Alamosa. I'm holed up in the shadow of Colorado's southern behemoths, the Peaks Blanca and Little Bear. The San Luis Valley is typically bathed in sun, making it alternatively an agricultural breadbasket in the fields, and a replica of the Sahara along the shimmering sands of the Great Sand Dunes National Park.
That sun power is why I've driven down here, ironically through the teeth of a blizzard. A client has proposed a solar field just out of town, and I've come down to do some research in the courthouse. I'm psyched to help them get those electrons to market, especially since my Berkeley application referenced the work I've done in the realm of solar energy.
Legitimizing my resume wasn't the only reason to make the trek down from the home base. I've got bills to pay! Yesterday, I was out on Pearl Street grabbing a bite with my friend Dan when I walked past a great menswear store, Kinsley & Co. They are, or I should say were, right on Broadway at Pearl, and are (were) attached to the only Orvis retailer in Boulder. This shared retail space was practically the only reason I'd previously set foot in the place, though not for lack of desire for Kinsley's fine threads. In fact, I would lust. Sportcoats that boast tags with commas and cashmere wool from Italy are spendy, to say the obvious, and beautiful, to say the least. They are also just a bit beyond me. At least they were, until the economy went to hell and people quit buying things.
I'd been in the market for a number of wardrobe pieces for a long while. For the last couple of years, I've been looking for a dress coat, something in the overcoat or pea coat family. A blazer of sportcoat was also high on my list, and I recently realized the urgency even more pointedly when I got to the office sporting a tie (in homage to my Mad Men fetish) but only able to bundle in a ratty puffy coat still reeking of campfire. As Christmas lists are being put together this time of year, I figured I'd ask my folks, er...Santa, for some dough to offset the cost.
I had been consulting various sources to narrow down the search. First, my two gay uncles have provided plentiful insight. One talked me through some of his favorite styles, but then shed some light on a fashion blog called Magnificent Bastard. It's nice to get some unadulterated fashion advice that also happens to be pretty entertaining. During slow minutes at work, I'll check this website out and hope my picture doesn't make an appearance under the ultimate pejorative tag: Toolbag. So far, that space has been reserved for that bozo Jon, ex-husband to Kate, and father of eight.
Back at Kinsley, I had Dan the Man Mirsky with me. Dan's got plenty of style and swagger, so I was happy to have him as a source of confirmation for the stuff I was trying on. The owner and I began to talk about what I was looking for, and he took me to the rack of jackets. There were only two sportcoats in my size: 40 Long. The first one didn't exactly jump out at me, but he pulled the other off the rack and said, almost wistfully, "This is one of the nicest pieces I've ever had in the store." All the sales pitch I needed. He walked away, and I held a 100% cashmere sportcoat in my hands, its price tag reduced over a grand.
I pulled it on, looked in the mirror, and was instantly glad I'd waited to find the perfect jacket. It felt made specifically for my skinny torso, and the colors in the thread make it well suited for pants that run anywhere from jeans to gray, wool dress slacks. Thank you very much, Great Recession.
As I was walking towards the register, a rack of pea coats caught my eye, and I slipped on a beautiful import from Italy. I sure wasn't planning on filling the closet with the fur of pampered continental sheep, but someone had to do it, I suppose.
I may die a sad, painful death at the hands of a warmed planet and under the banner of a neutered ex-superpower, but at least I'll do so looking like one Magnificent Bastard.
That sun power is why I've driven down here, ironically through the teeth of a blizzard. A client has proposed a solar field just out of town, and I've come down to do some research in the courthouse. I'm psyched to help them get those electrons to market, especially since my Berkeley application referenced the work I've done in the realm of solar energy.
Legitimizing my resume wasn't the only reason to make the trek down from the home base. I've got bills to pay! Yesterday, I was out on Pearl Street grabbing a bite with my friend Dan when I walked past a great menswear store, Kinsley & Co. They are, or I should say were, right on Broadway at Pearl, and are (were) attached to the only Orvis retailer in Boulder. This shared retail space was practically the only reason I'd previously set foot in the place, though not for lack of desire for Kinsley's fine threads. In fact, I would lust. Sportcoats that boast tags with commas and cashmere wool from Italy are spendy, to say the obvious, and beautiful, to say the least. They are also just a bit beyond me. At least they were, until the economy went to hell and people quit buying things.
I'd been in the market for a number of wardrobe pieces for a long while. For the last couple of years, I've been looking for a dress coat, something in the overcoat or pea coat family. A blazer of sportcoat was also high on my list, and I recently realized the urgency even more pointedly when I got to the office sporting a tie (in homage to my Mad Men fetish) but only able to bundle in a ratty puffy coat still reeking of campfire. As Christmas lists are being put together this time of year, I figured I'd ask my folks, er...Santa, for some dough to offset the cost.
I had been consulting various sources to narrow down the search. First, my two gay uncles have provided plentiful insight. One talked me through some of his favorite styles, but then shed some light on a fashion blog called Magnificent Bastard. It's nice to get some unadulterated fashion advice that also happens to be pretty entertaining. During slow minutes at work, I'll check this website out and hope my picture doesn't make an appearance under the ultimate pejorative tag: Toolbag. So far, that space has been reserved for that bozo Jon, ex-husband to Kate, and father of eight.
Back at Kinsley, I had Dan the Man Mirsky with me. Dan's got plenty of style and swagger, so I was happy to have him as a source of confirmation for the stuff I was trying on. The owner and I began to talk about what I was looking for, and he took me to the rack of jackets. There were only two sportcoats in my size: 40 Long. The first one didn't exactly jump out at me, but he pulled the other off the rack and said, almost wistfully, "This is one of the nicest pieces I've ever had in the store." All the sales pitch I needed. He walked away, and I held a 100% cashmere sportcoat in my hands, its price tag reduced over a grand.
I pulled it on, looked in the mirror, and was instantly glad I'd waited to find the perfect jacket. It felt made specifically for my skinny torso, and the colors in the thread make it well suited for pants that run anywhere from jeans to gray, wool dress slacks. Thank you very much, Great Recession.
As I was walking towards the register, a rack of pea coats caught my eye, and I slipped on a beautiful import from Italy. I sure wasn't planning on filling the closet with the fur of pampered continental sheep, but someone had to do it, I suppose.
I may die a sad, painful death at the hands of a warmed planet and under the banner of a neutered ex-superpower, but at least I'll do so looking like one Magnificent Bastard.
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