Browsing Archive: December, 2010
Posted by Roger Boylan on Friday, December 31, 2010,
Ath bhliain faoi mhaise, as they say in the environs of Baile Atha Cliath, formerly known as Dear Dirty Dub, shown above. Translation? Check the calendar. Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Wednesday, December 29, 2010,
Puzzling over the meanderings of great rivers, and the upsurges of unnamed mountain ranges, I watched the South go past below as I flew (not under my own power; US Airways provided the wings) from muggy Austin to the frozen North. At present, in Danbury in a quiet corner of Connecticut, I find myself a mile or so from the Charles Ives Center, on the campus of my part-time employer, Western Connecticut State University, near where Ives quietly despaired and composed his Three Places in New Eng... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Friday, December 24, 2010,
Merry Christmas!
Joyeux Noël!
Frohe Weinacht!
Buon Natale!
Feliz Navidad!
С Рождеством!
Nollaig chridheil agus bliadhna mhath ùr!
Etc. Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Tuesday, December 21, 2010,
I spent a short while behind the wheel of an all-electric Nissan Leaf a couple of days ago–a very short while, unfortunately, the actual drive time having been eaten into by a high-energy sales presentation from Nissan’s own Seinfeld-wannabe; I didn’t catch his name, and I ducked his pitch. I was there merely as an Autosavant, desirous of completing my trifecta of electric-car tests (see the Plug-In Prius hereand the Chevy Volt here.) I was impressed, but wouldn't buy one, a) because I... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Thursday, December 16, 2010,
‘“Shrunk to half its proper size, leathery in consistency and greenish-blue in colour, with bean-sized nodules on its surface.” Yes, readers, I am of course describing Ludwig van Beethoven’s liver.’
From "Go Easy, Mr. Beethoven, That Was Your Fifth!" by the late great British comic writer Alan Coren (1938-2007), describing the great composer's organ, pickled through a lifetime of boozing and preserved in a jar for scientists to hover over in rapt solemnity. What a fine coincidence it... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Tuesday, December 14, 2010,
On Christmas 1787, George Washington, for the entertainment of his guests, paid 18 shillings for a camel to temporarily live at Mount Vernon during the Christmas season. Twelve years later, on today's date in 1799, he died, narrowly missing stepping out of the eighteenth century, of which he was in so many ways the embodiment, and into the nineteenth, better defined by the likes of Napoleon, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Bismarck, and Lincoln.
A camel is again at Mount Vernon: Aladdin, a big hit w... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Monday, December 13, 2010,
Having just finished reading Lydia Davis's new translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way, I have old Marcel a bit on the brain, I think undestandably. The discovery of a literary masterpiece is always a bit of a life-changer, especially if you're a writer too and you're brought face to face with the fact that you'll never be able to do anything fractionally as good, even if you live 100 years. And my head's still swimming with this one: the steeples at Martinville, Swann the Vermeer expert, ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Sunday, December 12, 2010,
As temperatures temporarily tumble (nice alliteration there, sport) into true wintry realms here in the Texas Hill Country, and I mutter geriatrically and draw my muffler closer, let me remember where I misspent so many years of my childhood and youth: in the heartland of the Alps, in the suburbs of the noble city of Geneva, which sometimes, in December or January, wakes up clothed in ice, as in the photo above. A perfect excuse for a chocolat chaud followed by a vin chaud. Ah, jeunesse. Adie... Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Wednesday, December 8, 2010,
Happy 145th birthday to Jean Sibelius, musical conscience of Finland and one of history's great boozers ("alcohol is the only friend who has never let me down").
Here's the old boy's recipe for "black punch":
1 l water + sugar + jam + brandy or spirit.
Add 2 bottles of wine when everything is completely cold.
Add a few drops of Bergamot oil in a lump of sugar, which must be melted in the water.
He lived to 91. Cheers. Hic.
Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Tuesday, December 7, 2010,
It's 69 years since Pearl Harbor was attacked by forces of the Empire of Japan, which inadvertently set into motion the forces that would make the remainder of the twentieth century the American century. A perfect instance of the law of unintended consequences. Continue reading ...
Posted by Roger Boylan on Friday, December 3, 2010,
Tune out, all ye car haters. I'm sounding off about an auto again. The world's most promising electric vehicle, GM's Chevrolet Volt,was my companion this morning for a 75-mile drive through the most spectacular parts of the Texas Hill Country, some parts of which look so much like the Rhine valley that I found myself muttering in German, and I was quite audible to myself because there was no sound from the Volt bar the occasional whisper of wind.
Suffice it to say for now that this bet is GM'... Continue reading ...
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