Australians of my vintage began their wine journeys 50+ years ago with a local beverage called 'Porphyry Pearl', which was like alcoholic passionfruit pop only sweeter. More sophisticated palates favored 'Cold Duck', a sparkling Burgundy-like wine except that it tasted like sweetened cough syrup. As the years went by we progressed to proper wine in flagons - not even carbonated! - which in the famous Monty Python expression was best for laying down and avoiding.
Those were also the days when adventurous cooks began to experiment with exotic vegetables like zucchinis, and capsicums, and eggplants. "How do you cook them?" was a common question, this being in the primitive pre-internet era. My mother did make a few tentative stabs at cooking zucchinis, but they didn't respond well to her time-honored all-purpose bring-water-to-a-boil-add-salt-and-bicarbonate-of-soda-and-boil-rapidly-until-it-disintegrates way with veges. Well there's nothing wring with carrots and beans, really.
Well, after that commercial for wine for "night people", now all I can think of is Janet Weiss and the rest of the characters in Rocky Horror singing about creatures of the night.
1) I met Vincent price when I worked at a big bookstore. Lovely, lovely man.
2) it floors me about some of the descriptive terms used about wine. Hints of gravel? REALLY?!?!?
3) we still have a bottle of wine (dessert, so it has lasted) from our wedding 36 years ago. When we finally sell our house and clear our debts, we will celebrate with it.
is hint of gravel a thing or did you make it up? I laugh at hint of tobacco and that's supposed to be a good thing. Well even when I smoked, the taste of tobacco was disgusting.
You should read some of the whisky reviews. Example:
"Nose: Tropical fruit jam and buttery pastries; creamy haupia or coconut pudding and syrup, white gummy bears, hints of longan and rambutan— fruity flesh and woody pit; herbal and botanical with red ginger, ti leaf, and achiote (lipstick plant seeds or annatto).
Palate: Medium to full-bodied and viscous, tropical fruit jams and buttery pancakes with creamy haupia, white gummy bears, and macerated dried coconut on brown sugar donuts; sweetened hibiscus and passion flower tea, hints of freshly crushed cane and red dirt; fruitier pineapple tea toward the end with gentle tannins."
Neither my wife nor I is a wind snob, but one episode of "Northern Exposure" is seared into our memories. There was a group of wine snobs who were holding a tasting party for some incredibly rare and expensive vintage. But somebody dropped the bottle. No worries, said the girlfriend of the chief wine snob (who I think was the Adam Arkin character who was a master chef), she could reproduce the taste well enough to fool them by adding ingredients to cheap wine.
The thing we both have never forgotten is that the last ingredient was dirt.
The parodies of Orson Welles' commercializing still live in the memory. One such memory is from the brilliant but canceled critic adult cartoon. In that satire, wills is shown Hawking frozen vegetables. Mrs Paul's frozen peas, the Great artist says, are full of the essence of the vegetable, each bag generously filled with "green pea-ness."
If a pregnant woman is a chain smoker, quitting all together can be a problem. But giving them a goal to get down to 2 may seem more doable. "I can have one in the morning and one after dinner" is what they can tell themselves.
In Atlanta when we had really bad smog in the 90's and 00's, doctors would tell their patients to get down to 4 cigarettes a day. "That's about what everyone gets just breathing this bad air" was the reasoning.
I was thinking about this the other day, and what follows is not hyperbole, it's just the most obvious and commonly known reference point to compare this to-
when the Nazis (I warned you) were held to account, when the surviving engineers and perpetrators of the Holocaust were interviewed, they all had some excuse for what they did. Some, though few, argued what they had done was just and right and the thing they needed to do. More argued that they considered "doing their duty" to be a noble and decent thing and that- logically- if it weren't fucking horrible there would be no real credit to doing said duty. It's not considered noteworthy if your duty involves playing with puppies and eating ice cream. To be "duty" it has to be difficult to do- this was the logic Himmler used to explain the need for the Holocaust to the SS. "I was just following orders" was not that common an excuse, but "I was doing my duty" was. The point is, they realised they needed a justification or some kind of moral excuse for what they'd done, however unconvincing it was to anyone else.
People do that.
People who do horrible shit do that.
They try to wrap horrible shit in some sort of moral shroud (their horrible shit is inevitably morbid, their ethos inevitably moribund), and whether or not it convinces others or themselves still has some importance to them.
Then there's the Alitos.
They don't come up with a moral argument to wrap their horrid beliefs in because they don't believe anyone else has the right to judge them anyway. Insofar as they even recognise their critics exist, it is as lesser and therefore impertinent nothings. They don't need convincing or even logical defences of their beliefs because you don't have any right to question them. They could tell you they'd flown the flag because there are owls, and if you'd asked what the fuck they were talking about they'd have had the same melt down.
They are above you.
They cannot accept your criticism, because you aren't people.
Thank you for the well-thought-out and considered response. Sadly, I think you are right. On several levels. They don't think anyone but the rich are "people," and additionally they don't think liberals, Democrats, or leftists are "people." :(
I maintain that they do not care whether anyone--neighbor, media, or law--attempts to hold them accountable. They simply don't care. The Alitos, the Thomases, and perhaps others now on the Court, are committed to the Christian Nationalist Reich and are openly flaunting their commitment in the faces of anyone who would question them.
Schitt's Creek! SO GOOD. Thanks for this fun post, Robyn!
Peas grow there
this is my favorite post since the ken layne years.
cheers!
Australians of my vintage began their wine journeys 50+ years ago with a local beverage called 'Porphyry Pearl', which was like alcoholic passionfruit pop only sweeter. More sophisticated palates favored 'Cold Duck', a sparkling Burgundy-like wine except that it tasted like sweetened cough syrup. As the years went by we progressed to proper wine in flagons - not even carbonated! - which in the famous Monty Python expression was best for laying down and avoiding.
Those were also the days when adventurous cooks began to experiment with exotic vegetables like zucchinis, and capsicums, and eggplants. "How do you cook them?" was a common question, this being in the primitive pre-internet era. My mother did make a few tentative stabs at cooking zucchinis, but they didn't respond well to her time-honored all-purpose bring-water-to-a-boil-add-salt-and-bicarbonate-of-soda-and-boil-rapidly-until-it-disintegrates way with veges. Well there's nothing wring with carrots and beans, really.
Well, after that commercial for wine for "night people", now all I can think of is Janet Weiss and the rest of the characters in Rocky Horror singing about creatures of the night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x92ccvZCzlg
Yes, there are wines that are Okie. :)
https://discoveroklahomawines.com/find-a-winery/
Lovely. Many thanks, Robyn! 😊
1) I met Vincent price when I worked at a big bookstore. Lovely, lovely man.
2) it floors me about some of the descriptive terms used about wine. Hints of gravel? REALLY?!?!?
3) we still have a bottle of wine (dessert, so it has lasted) from our wedding 36 years ago. When we finally sell our house and clear our debts, we will celebrate with it.
is hint of gravel a thing or did you make it up? I laugh at hint of tobacco and that's supposed to be a good thing. Well even when I smoked, the taste of tobacco was disgusting.
You should read some of the whisky reviews. Example:
"Nose: Tropical fruit jam and buttery pastries; creamy haupia or coconut pudding and syrup, white gummy bears, hints of longan and rambutan— fruity flesh and woody pit; herbal and botanical with red ginger, ti leaf, and achiote (lipstick plant seeds or annatto).
Palate: Medium to full-bodied and viscous, tropical fruit jams and buttery pancakes with creamy haupia, white gummy bears, and macerated dried coconut on brown sugar donuts; sweetened hibiscus and passion flower tea, hints of freshly crushed cane and red dirt; fruitier pineapple tea toward the end with gentle tannins."
"Gym Socks in a Dorm Hamper in July"
Thank you for selecting Minnow’s photo!
I expect Hollywood’s animal agents to barrage me with offers…..
Our cats are internet famous too! Thanks, Robyn!
Who knew that it only takes a bottle of cheap domestic wine to bring on feelings of smugness and superiority?
https://youtu.be/YlHwxE6ilTY?si=FL-RV8h7E9HU2kUH
About those "notes of oak, etc":
Neither my wife nor I is a wind snob, but one episode of "Northern Exposure" is seared into our memories. There was a group of wine snobs who were holding a tasting party for some incredibly rare and expensive vintage. But somebody dropped the bottle. No worries, said the girlfriend of the chief wine snob (who I think was the Adam Arkin character who was a master chef), she could reproduce the taste well enough to fool them by adding ingredients to cheap wine.
The thing we both have never forgotten is that the last ingredient was dirt.
Love it love it love it. Great article.
The parodies of Orson Welles' commercializing still live in the memory. One such memory is from the brilliant but canceled critic adult cartoon. In that satire, wills is shown Hawking frozen vegetables. Mrs Paul's frozen peas, the Great artist says, are full of the essence of the vegetable, each bag generously filled with "green pea-ness."
Maurice LaMarche got a lot of mileage out of his Welles impression.
https://youtu.be/7uWW--w4SRs?si=lub5bfW4LgI95uVZ
Did you know that doctors recommend smoking 2-3 cigarettes a day while pregnant?
https://wonkodon.com/web/@tofugolem@mastodon.social/112503220449592964
When Mom was pregnant with me, Doc told her that she was gaining too much weight and should start smoking.
You know, to be like Jackie O.
If a pregnant woman is a chain smoker, quitting all together can be a problem. But giving them a goal to get down to 2 may seem more doable. "I can have one in the morning and one after dinner" is what they can tell themselves.
In Atlanta when we had really bad smog in the 90's and 00's, doctors would tell their patients to get down to 4 cigarettes a day. "That's about what everyone gets just breathing this bad air" was the reasoning.
Oh great. Like the country isn't already dumb enough. AI to the rescue!
Slapocolypse...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FAlpSp7RcXg
Now THAT is how it is done!
OT: OK, subpoena Alito's wife.
𝗡𝗲𝘄: 𝗪𝗮𝗽𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗼’𝘀 𝗪𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗹𝗮𝗴 – 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗗𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗜𝘁
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/new-wapo-reporter-got-in-screaming-confrontation-with-alitos-wife-over-flag-but-didnt-report-it/
The "signal of distress" story doesn't make any sense. She is angry at the neighbors so she sends up a "signal of distress"?
And apparently,... nobody came to her rescue 🛟...
It's more drooling MAGAt nonsense.
I was thinking about this the other day, and what follows is not hyperbole, it's just the most obvious and commonly known reference point to compare this to-
when the Nazis (I warned you) were held to account, when the surviving engineers and perpetrators of the Holocaust were interviewed, they all had some excuse for what they did. Some, though few, argued what they had done was just and right and the thing they needed to do. More argued that they considered "doing their duty" to be a noble and decent thing and that- logically- if it weren't fucking horrible there would be no real credit to doing said duty. It's not considered noteworthy if your duty involves playing with puppies and eating ice cream. To be "duty" it has to be difficult to do- this was the logic Himmler used to explain the need for the Holocaust to the SS. "I was just following orders" was not that common an excuse, but "I was doing my duty" was. The point is, they realised they needed a justification or some kind of moral excuse for what they'd done, however unconvincing it was to anyone else.
People do that.
People who do horrible shit do that.
They try to wrap horrible shit in some sort of moral shroud (their horrible shit is inevitably morbid, their ethos inevitably moribund), and whether or not it convinces others or themselves still has some importance to them.
Then there's the Alitos.
They don't come up with a moral argument to wrap their horrid beliefs in because they don't believe anyone else has the right to judge them anyway. Insofar as they even recognise their critics exist, it is as lesser and therefore impertinent nothings. They don't need convincing or even logical defences of their beliefs because you don't have any right to question them. They could tell you they'd flown the flag because there are owls, and if you'd asked what the fuck they were talking about they'd have had the same melt down.
They are above you.
They cannot accept your criticism, because you aren't people.
Thank you for the well-thought-out and considered response. Sadly, I think you are right. On several levels. They don't think anyone but the rich are "people," and additionally they don't think liberals, Democrats, or leftists are "people." :(
Can you finish your last sentence?
The excuse is reflective of exactly how seriously they take the idea that anyone is even vaguely calling for them to be accountable.
I maintain that they do not care whether anyone--neighbor, media, or law--attempts to hold them accountable. They simply don't care. The Alitos, the Thomases, and perhaps others now on the Court, are committed to the Christian Nationalist Reich and are openly flaunting their commitment in the faces of anyone who would question them.
They care- but only because they consider it offensive that anyone so far beneath them would consider they could tell them they were wrong.
The Death of "Rule of Law"...
At the hands of a cabal of corrupt jurists.
Life outside their bubble doesn't count. Sammy is going to make sure of it.
And they've had 3 fucking years to get their stories straight...
Why bother? Nothing will be done about it.
As The America First World Turns........
"Days of Our Lies."
- some Wonkette writer
A corrupt justice's extremist missus angrily obfuscating the 1st Amendment and intimidating a representative of the 4th Estate.
Sounds about Reich for this obscenely sick and twisted timeline...
She sounds sane.
That bitch is perfectly sane.
She is also power-drunk and damned dangerous.
Entitled and evil.
I.e., a Republican.
Tawdry.
Yep. All in like Magda Goebbels.
Do we know for sure that Magda Alito has never suggested that some dissident be exterminated?
It's not mental illness, it's being a reactionary. These things can look similar from the outside, but they aren't related.
I know, but it's a total dissociation from reality. We have a family friend who is a trumper, and it's like she lives on a different planet now.
They have been radicalized. Everything is suspect, nothing is what it seems, down is up....
Look who she's married to.
I can't even imagine. They are probably miserable AF.
Good.
Grant Wood did their wedding pictures.
And why wasn't this reported when it happened?
After all, Shitty Sam's all about "free speech"*...
*For Republicans and no one else
Do Ginni Thomas, too, while you're at it.
Ummm, phrasing?
Brain worms. Plastic in your testicles.
What is this world coming to?
It's payback time for the filthiest fucking animal on planet Earth.
I think you're being optimistic.
Ted Cruz is never going to get payback.
NEEDZ MOAR CAPITALIZM!!!11oneone
Uh, how on Earth ??? ?
We all consume microscopic plastic. It's in the air, and in our food.
Yay crapitalism.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/22/1252831827/microplastics-testicles-humans-health