thanksgiving and the weekend and heavenly beer

We had our first thanksgiving,

 

 

 

and it was interesting a non secular Christmas day without the gifting, generally a good experience with our Germerican friends. In general we are still waiting for summer.  as you can see I am re-enacting the pilgrim claiming his land and receiving food from the Natives. I can see why it is such a popular holiday in the US of A. It is a non religious holiday that can include all those of different faiths, denominations and likewise to give thanks for that there is to give thanks for.

More importantly thanks to a beer book, written by a Woman … Yes can you believe that No seriously.. yes a beer book written by 2 not 1 women. It is fantastic, it is called “ The Naked Pint” and I bought it new.. It is a Fantastic read, it gives a an unadulterated guide to craft beer.  What amazes me the most is the variety of beers that are made around the world, this is mostly written about barley/wheat based beers and not about other fermentable though, so nothing about sorghum beer.  To return to the book, it gives a refreshing view on all the worlds different beers and their histories. I think it is well worthwhile reading if you are a fledgling home brewer to learn about the depth and breadth of the beer varieties world wide. There are a plethora of beer styles with an insane tapestry of history woven into them. One of the most intersting, well i will poke into at least 2 for now are the Trappist beers made by Monks and the Lambics. Both interesting for different reasons, and if I dont run out of stream the sour beers (wheat beers fermented with a combination of yeast and Lactobacilli) . Firstly the Trappist beers, they are only brewed by 7 9 6 monasteries (varying number), and only by monks and for no financial gain and only with specific age old recipes.. damn interesting.

from wikipedia :

• The beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery, either by the monks themselves or under their supervision.
• The brewery must be of secondary importance within the monastery and it should witness to the business practices proper to a monastic way of life
• The brewery is not intended to be a profit-making venture. The income covers the living expenses of the monks and the maintenance of the buildings and grounds. Whatever remains is donated to charity for social work and to help persons in need.
• Trappist breweries are constantly monitored to assure the irreproachable quality of their beers

Nonetheless, the long and short is this is amazing, and apparently the beers are heavenly on a number of levels. This Does not include the Abbey beer which is similar but not quite as strict but also a limited pathway to heavenly delights . I see now there is a plethora of new semantics to learn and become fluent in when it comes to the world of beer and more specifically craft beer. It seems as if there is a beer for every possible day or celebration. I wills top now before I wax lyrical, but it is inevitable after the bread commith the wine beer.

 

One thing that it does give me is something else to obsess about in my spare time, one more thing to do, make beers, wines, meads and the likes. It returns me to the thought of the Viking new year celebration or at least the colloquial or version i have in my head from many years ago, the details have most probably changed a lot. All I can remember is that it involved drinking mead and then telling the world about “how cool you are in front of your Peers and country folk” a fantastical idea. I will have to investigate the origins of this. I have after looking found what i had heard many years ago, it is vaguely as I recollect : “In Theodism or Anglo-Saxon neopaganism in particular, the symbel has a particularly high importance, considered "perhaps the highest rite" or "amongst the most holy rites"^[11] celebrated. Symbel consists of rounds of ritual drinking and toasting, and invariably takes place within an enclosed space of some kind.^[12] It is usually inaugurated by three formal rounds, as determined by the host; often led by toasts in honor of the Gods, then ancestors and/or heroes, and then a general or personal boast. Other boasts may take place as necessary. Symbel is always formally closed once the formal boasts are completed, in order that the symbel might maintain its dignity and not degenerate into "mere partying".^[13] The two types of boast are the ȝielp (pronounced 'yelp') and the beot (pronounced 'bayawt', but as one syllable). The former is a boast of one's own worthiness, such as one's accomplishments, ancestry, etc. The latter is a boast of an action one plans to undertake. In order to protect the luck of the hall, such boasts are subject to challenge by the thyle, whose job it is to make sure that unlucky boasts do not contaminate the luck of all present.” --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbel 

 

After reading a few more of these articles on the sumbel it appears that one of the key things is that it is a praise and a ritual toast to Gods/Godesses (you can chose and insert your own deity here), dedication to friends/heros/ancestors others, some form of boasting and oaths. So it does seem that there is alcohol involved and that it is a slightly sombre even and that it is about giving praise and giving some self praise, But very importantly also about making an oath about something you will do? Possibly a historical origin of new years resolutions? Wild leap there, but is is possible. I suppose what this does point out is the way we remember a piece of something in a way we want to remember it. We make it our own and remember what struck as being important.  The human mind in its absolute fragility only remembering limited things of a limited scope that does take history and things into consideration.

 

and yes, I know Wikipedia does not constitute research, these are just nice summary pages on the topics for you to wet your lips on, and i do like including something that is actually half way factual based on what i read in other sources, I do not want these to look like a journal reference, this is a rambling and is not always accurate as it is my musing and not reality.

On a slightly different note, I was thinking a few days back I wonder what books I have that I still want to read and possibly reread and why?

I might go through my book shelf and evaluate them and consider what and why, also possibly what books and authors I would like to read? Here I am more than willing to accept possible suggestions of books and authors from any of my recent and current and future readers?

There are always those books you buy. borrow, steal, get gifted or just mean to read, should read, possibly I need to go through the good Prof’s reading list and start again?

1600 words and the spitefull god

I realised today that the ^a god is a spiteful god, here, Today in godzOwn or as the rest of you know it Aotearoa, interestingly I never knew that it had been labelled such for almost a 100 years.. we learn something new every day. Last bit if trivia is that it can be attributed to Thomas Bracken through a Poem he wrote. Just writing this diveri-forms the thoughts in my brain. You may ask what diveriforming is, well it is a word i made up by combining the General term for certain plants here in NZ and in many other countries where the plants are seen as Diveriform, or having very knotted and messy hair not unlike dreadlocks or my hair if i don't keep it cut really short, or alternatively my beard. Back to the spiteful god, if Logic abides as above where we are in Gods own land and it is spring it is a frigin spitting and rainy spiteful spring day, which follows on a weekend that would toast your marshmallows? Key to multi-questioning thing above drives me towards the question of HES and his book, his handwritten book done by his hand using his Mont Blanc pen? Has it started? How far along the way is this book? after listening to the podcast a few days back about Tom wolf, one point that struck me and reminded me about HES was the notion of handwriting a book, tom wolf choses to handwrite the book mainly because he cannot get spare parts for his typewriters. I suspect it has to do with some form of haptic feedback. you may question, why the sullen pic of me staring at the camera in apparent disdain? multiple reasons abound, one to show the wonderful spiteful vista behind me, partially obscuring the wonders that abound in that which is so quaintly called the inlet. Further in the distance is the Plimerton vista and marina where I often fish, deep in the foreground is the beard, which grants warmth and other social interactions. Interestingly as part of a my current social exercises I have noticed that a beard does change the way people look at you, and no (and yes the comma and the and) it does not hide you in society nor give you a facade to hide behind. In contrast it actually makes you more visible, I am not sure at what length it again begins to hide you. It is a strange thing a beard, it feels almost alien and not part of me, this is especially at its current length which is way longer than before., or maybe not as long as it was when I got married for example?

Thanks goodness, I managed to finish the space next to my beard and fill it with words, mostly meaningless words. On to the next thought for the day? I was attempting to brew at home last night in the week after work, one should not attempt to much in such a short time, this in between bottling the children’s home made ginger beer in between the pumkie’s book club meeting at home last night.  Id decided i would do a fruit~ish beer, but this all turned to proverbial pie.. the blender broker during me grinding the grains, i could not find a way to grind, half way through the mash, i then found the boysenberries were not boysenberries and were black currents.. Then i miscalculated the amounts needed for a good starting SG, then the temperature would not drop in the fermenter till the next morning.. what a mission. But we tossed the Yeast in this morning, lets hope it grows, I now have a few more days to work out what I can do for the secondary ferment and need to get a little more industrial in my attempts and methods in dealing with some of the technical challenges. I then remember we need to also supply a corn bread for our meeting with the pilgrims in the new land where we will give thanks for what we have. Oh and the other reason for the photo of me, is t avert my self consciousness's.

I was rather enthralled yesterday, I came across a  Google meetup with some photographers about inspiration and what drives it and what to do in lulls, amongst them was  Lotus Carrol  of I am Lotus fame. It is interesting to see the person in “virtual flesh after following them on flickr for a couple or more years seeing how they developed from something on the edge of obscurity to a mega social media success? One of the interesting things was how each of them had similar yet quite different drivers for their inspiration and each of them did have some overlap. One of the drivers in the most successful people was to do what they wanted, and the others were driven a lot more by perfection and their search for perfection, and in certain cases it was a drive for expression. A lot seems to depend on what you take photos of and why you take them? I suspect a lot depends on what you aim with your photography or your art, is it an expression or is it a capitalistic venture, each of them has different biases.

sometimes I stare up at the clouds and they look so plain at other times they look fantastical,strange same place similar clouds, more or less colour and scale.

we cant really know how we will feel the next day, unless we make the effort to be that person to have that outlook and be happy and smell the rain in the clouds, hear the birds chirping above the roar of the icy sub Antarctic gale blowing and chilling you to the bone, it can either stop you there and then in your steps and cut you down as if it were a scythe or it can inflate you with crystalline clarity.. bla bla sometimes the lyrical can run away a little. but there you go, be positive don’t see the crap in it, well that is what i try to tell my self I may be fooling myself but I try. there always seems to be some colour in the grey.. well some days.

Sometimes you see life zooming past you, today is the beginning of the year, soon it is Christmas, but it continues and changes and life runs at a million miles an hour, nothing we do can stop it soon it will be the end of the year and not long after that it will be a new year again. The seasons are more  apparent here and eventhough they blend into one long season of discontent and weather at least it lets you know that there are forces way greater than you all around you at every turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe we would all feel better if we had a flower like the little prince? I have a few in my garden, but they are being eaten by the snails? I wonder do you think the Little prince had to worry about snails? I am not sure,but i do love clouds, and Tiete had to throw that in, recently I was listening to some Tim Minchin clips on youtube, and amongst them he ahs a song where he is rather serious and intersperses this with man i love Boobs.. this reminded me of a friend who had a similar Mantra in south africa in our old life. I then question sometimes if Tim Minchin is as he seems? Is he erudite and clever or is it a cleverly constructed dialogue? Either way I enjoy the outcome of some of his diatribes and rants, somehow the word fountain is slowly drying up today? i have my doubts if I will reach the allocated number of words before i have to rush off again to the next meeting at a customer?

and the words stopped,

Shaken but not stirred (and the social experiment that failed, but is in fact a success

what is in a title, not to much, but what is apparent is that I have been significantly neglecting (i would prefer to use the word Neglectant.. but it appears that form is not commonly accepted.. don't get me started on that). But more important to impart that which is part of that which has past and is or isn't part of the present but does not pertain to present participles, WTF.. only half a sentence and I am off the rails already.

To return to the current idiom which is my life and the current view there upon and those people places and things that intercept it, not to unlike a Venn diagram in a child or adults webpage or notebook or facebook wall. And yes I know there was a divergence into more linear writing, but alas this is something of the past for a moment, as to much time has past and there are to many words trapped within,

to skip forward to the current, leaving out a whole lot fo the past for the moment time being,  not to be uninterrupted by this wondrous piece i saw today by Tim Minchen, not because it was new, but because it was what i Saw today.

I return to my tales of woe and disappointment of the reality of the life we live in, sounding a little like a Genesis song. a while back I proposed something to my General Facebookerati. This was aiming to try and Humanise my interactions with the people on my facebook account. This attempt was to get all(some/as many as i could) the people on my profile to send me a real letter which contained some printed photographs of themselves, their abode, some old photographs and a hand written piece of text, this was to then form part of an art work to be part of an exhibition that I am planning to do. I suspect it will be a very small piece of art then subsequently one of my Facebookerati then indicated that he would only send me something if sent it to him first and i was the point of change in the universe rather than the change coming from without to change the way we interact with those around us. I must admit I considered this as an option.. I will fulfil his request, which btw I have been very tardy with.. Which for I must apologise.

Actually I Apologise

But actually back to the current, i did consider a whole lot of things over the last while, amongst them are a whole span of things.

Time to Recap, what has passed since last entry in my online version of my life, i started with project BW (which will be released shortly online, this is a top secret project and needs to be kept under wraps for the interim. I have made an IPA and bottled in Recycled bottles (part of the Family recycle, reuse, repurpose campaign). I have replanted veggies a whole lot of times, almost the last time. I have mated more barley, wheat and dinkel for the next beer project. I have started with the first , or second or actually a few down the line, sculptures made out of drift wood and other pieces of flotsam from the beach.. taken its time.. it should be hanging somewhere soon. a large number of breads have passed from one end to the other of the process chain and to many others to mention.. oh other than the large Kahawai on fly .. which took some time to eventualise.

To intersperse current with future and past, unlike the chronological flow of life and reality which in no way mix, current future and past experiences.

To return to the proposal by the unnamed, facebookerati  and that I should  be the one to first send a letter to everyone, which then pre-supposes that I have all their addresses. which then points to the obvious dilemma that i do not which points to the fact that either they are not really my friends as per his other post on the span of our friendships which should be smaller and the other dilemma being that i would have to obtain these, and then of course the other issue is If i sent a letter to all my facebookerati (~300 ish people this would be financially fairly significant, but is this the cost of friendship?). I am not really trying to solve this in the short term. The other more pertinent question is more in the lines of  what the end goal is rather than method, or is the method the actual goal.  I must admit I cannot give a comment on that at this stage as I am not really sure?

It does bring me to a parallel concept though, which is moving to a subscription based model rather than a scatter gun approach? I was considering a form of bulletin rather than general random facebook posts which seem to have gotten broken recently, where the latest incarnation has changed the posting behaviour. That is before it was possible to anticipate how something would be seen and by who, where now facebook has significantly changed some of its algorithms. I saw that i was no longer seeing certain updates in my feed.. and others must be experiencing things similarly.  some years back I saw someone who had a weekly/daily journal style bb posting that was emailed to all the subscribers. this was not to different from the old style newsgroup bulletins, other than the fact that this was a html document with imbedded images. 

Possibly the old could become the new again? It might just all be a hoax..

On a totally different note i was listening to a podcast from philoosophos (philosophybites), which is very cool in small doses. this one in particular was an interview with tom wolf on his new novel and the death of civilized western civilization due to the death of God, and yes i am paraphrasing significantly.. go listen if you are really interested Actually after searching for the link in mediaMonkey, i realise with an element of mirth that this actually comes from uncommonknowledge (you may ask WTF is that?)

it is a podcast on the following topics : “Uncommon Knowledge is a production of the Hoover Institution, a public-policy research center devoted to the advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy — both domestic and foreign — as well as international affairs. Topics on Uncommon Knowledge range from the legalization of drugs to affirmative action to war to taxes to censorship on the Internet. Uncommon Knowledge is hosted by Hoover fellow Peter M. Robinson.”

we all learn something over here…the actual Podcasts discusses this : “ Tom Wolfe discusses the ideas and inspirations for Back to Blood, a story of decadence and the new America. In the book, Wolfe paints a story of a decaying culture enduring constant uncertainty. Heroes are spurned and abused, and values are dissolving; yet the message seems to be to stick with the good values.“

It was way more interesting that you could imagine, granted i was on the train, had time to kill, but nonetheless it has inspired me to listen to a few more of these podcasts.

But more pertinently what are we listening to now? Little cow

interesting, who knows i may listen to them again, or maybe not?

so where does this leave us in terms of the initial discussion? I am not sure? I am not sure of my level of commitment though?

this is bound to change and get resolved within the day or the week or longer, but in general the response to my social exercise is piss poor.  If we overanalyse this all we can come to a number of conclusions?  It is possible that I am over intellectualising this? Or not, it is in fact the state of society or the state of non society.

 

but before i forget, i red an article by a blogger that was posted on fb, which of course has been cycling through my brain. This has cycled extensively through my brain without returning a definitive answer to this poser?  I am sure if i had not immigrated I would feel totally differently about it? I wonder if I would feel more or less for or against this article? now there inadvertently through the course of the words flowing from my fingers i have increased the complexity n fold. I had read about this before and had read about other similar experiences, from others in the expats returning back home, but i do have to respond by saying that this is not as simple as it seems, and living in a grey high rise could not be fun, but on a similar track what if it was not in a high rise you find yourself, but a super peaceful and amazingly beautiful place .. how does that stretch your brain muscles?  there can be no replacing of friends, unfortunately. But I suspect once you have crossed the bridge to far, you can no longer return or that pillar of salt will be washed away with the angels tear drops. It is sad, but by moving and changing your perspective you have altered reality for ever and can never return things back to the way they were, either good or bad.  In many ways this doesn't answer or even elucidate or illuminate that piece or my response to it? It may take me long and in the end It might be a single yes or no or even a twenty page diatribe, nothing in life is necessarily in balance, just because Newtonian physics implies that there is always an equal on opposite force,does not mean we understand the implications of one flap of a butterflies wings and how something so simple can have profoundly insanely complicated  effect on our lives and that of others. To us there was a massive upheaval which has changed our fabric, to others we were just another lot of irritating rats fleeing a ship, to others they could not understand, others herald you in, others watch you in dismay, happiness, hope , others getting ready to follow.  There is no answer that is the problem…

well in a way I cannot complete this blog entry by today, and if i were to put in the drafts folder it could be weeks, neigh months before it is re-edited and actually posted, so you will have to live with this as it is..

 

I don’t feel to bad, after reading the previously mentioned blog, it turns out she (the author) writes professionally .. I don’t.  and as a postscript, i am not convinced .. maybe by then i will have an answer, in truth I can be sure I am more convinced by this…

 

oh and the point to the Tom wolf piece for me is that he set himself a target of n words a day, his was in the region of a 1000 words, I think i have surpassed that, so i should be happy. You the reader i imagine are saying, WTF.. inconclusive and just when we thought he would tie it all up and together he/she it stops .. Well this is just rambling, this is not a treatise, maybe tomorrow i will try to continue on from where i left off?

i hope to? i mean to, maybe by then i will decide how the social experiment will play out, maybe i will also give some insights into the other new adventures i am having? But that s tomorrows dilemma?

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is all feeling rather contrived

Sometimes when you say the same word over and over and over again, either you cannot pronounce it correctly or it starts sounding more and more insane and less and less like a word, sometimes taking photographs or doing certain things begin to give me a similar experience. It is not the the task of the photograph lose their intrinsic value, or even lose value to others, it just seems like I cannot see the proverbial bush for the trees, even the simple looks complex and the complex looks impossible, I cannot see no more..
I suspect it is not that I cannot see, but rather that what I wish to see is not there in the way I am wishing to see? Or that I cannot see it that way or it wasn't there to be seen in that way, or it is. How can it appear to be so different in moments apart . I was walking through the city over the last while serially observing and imaging everything I see almost as if I am on the lower edge of the bell curve, wondering around with a glazed outlook without emotion observing and snapping. Granted I am not void of emotion at all, it just at times seems to fruitless this wondering around the empty spaces. I have noticed the complex dichotomies and trichotomies and poliychotomies of existence in one moment in time.  So many different people’s lives coinciding in one space at the same time with different experiences and motivations and outlooks. Yes much of this is painfully obvious to us all, this is the fabric of a non homogenous society and it is to be expected. This does not make it any less insane looking in from the outside, It is at this point in the paragraph that the absurdity of it all just tends to collapse the discussion into nothingness and nothingness is all that is left and all that remains is an empty void. The thought of the primitive photographs i mentioned previously still haunt my thoughts  hourly.. I cannot decide and cannot confirm what it is that makes the images compelling, if the images themselves are amazing or is it the  process behind the images, both in terms of physical destructive and deconstructive process or is it the naiveté of the images underneath  the patina of the process?
I find it strange when looking at the various people I see during the day, how in one point in time the complexity and diversity can overwhelm my experience of the moment.
 
I sometimes stare at other peoples photographs wondering what it is that makes them good? is it the action of the photographer, the action of the photographed or the emotion of the person in the moment? I am mostly excluding posed and created images which fall into the realm of technical wizardry which is not really where my fascination lies. At times it has nothing to do with the underlying quality but rather the tone and texture of the moment being captured. I suppose there are those which are technically better than others, but do they always capture the essence of the situation or not? 
The deep forest, unlike the band by this name and the “donker bos by seeuleu leipoldt” is a place that fools the eye more than the camera, somehow the camera does not see what the eye sees or is it that the mind fills in the gaps dramatically.  I am not sure it is possible to see the wood for the trees, after 3 sustained years I am seldom happy with the photographs of the forests.. It might be a lifetime challenge to be totally happy with tree pictures?

Like most things, i suspect it is the photographers prerogative to be selfish and show things the way they see it..unless they are being paid for it, or looking for favour or adulation or adoration, it maybe that which is lacking in the photos that I take, that i neither take them for my self with total selflessness nor do i bow to the general opinion of the masses of photographers around us. It might be that by putting my photos on flickr and other places i may be doing myself an injustice by bowing to general expectations, whereas before i did not? The alternative is of course to learn from those around us, but can we learn from those around us when we do not be like them, but want to be like ourselves? It all starts sounding a bit like the sound of a tree falling in a forest when there is no one to hear it happen. If we take photos and show no – one are they still good, or are they as good as they are?  But i must admit, myself as a pure documenter I am different, i do not necessarily create, but rather re-capture what my eye sees in a way for me to remember what i saw, and sometimes see things that my eyes never saw? I cant say that i know? How certain are we that we are showing all aspects of our individuality and self or are we just shielding behind the facade of the cardboard cut out that is our persona. I know that the cardboard cut out can bold and brave looking, but it is a cardboard cut out, it holds off the rain and the sun and the wind for a while till the tattered brown insides start pealing out and getting blown away in the wind and rain. What remains is a mere shell.  That all just sounds so flaky to me, but I suppose such is life.
We have to ask where the next adventure is lurking? is it inside the box in the cupboard at the back of the garage, is it on the saddle of my bicycle, is it lying in pieces on a table in the cave.
But I do realise i miss the research, it has over time become more and more difficult not to research almost everything i hear or read   I suppose i Do not need to know a little about everything.. But I suppose we are getting there, I have totally lost track of what i was thinking a moment back. Soon i will be able to hide my own easter eggs. But there is still a thread inside there, I was reading(no not reading, scanning over some new info i found due to listening to a pretty awesome science podcast series from ABC (no not the American one, rather the Aussie one.. Damn interesting, I lose my focus once again, there is a title of a book and some discussion around a dude in the states called Jim Carter, who is a “Lay” person and has come up with a new treatise of the world and its Physical behaviour, as per my Social media quip a while back I might just have t add this to my growing pile of books to read.  I suppose after a lot of consideration it is the aberration and obscure and intrigue that interest me, it must have been the adventure books I read as a child? It is sometimes sad when we see how much we know about the world we live in, but at times there are sparks when i realise this is all from a specific perspective and that we actually still know very little about certain things. I think, stand aside from any weird explanations and theories that have limited substantiation there are still a whole lot of really amazing things we just do not know, amongst them are how the frig did they build the Pyramids and many other south American archaeological finds? Why did the Mammoth die out? Does the green spot actually happen, how amazing is a comet, how cool as the asteroids, the feeling of snow when you are not used to it. the sound of a thunderstorm, the smell of Ozone, red sand.. these are all amazing.. but at times it is sad not to be able to share them with others.. It might be through the photographs that there might be hope that through these images there might be a transference of that experience of the amazement I sometimes feel for seeing the most insanely amazing and sometimes simple things..  Enough of the yo-yo emotional rollercoaster that is our life.
I suspect the next step is getting back to work and not doing this now during my tea break, but rather focussing on learning something new.
On a different note , it is almost time to setup the next to do list of items, this is an on going process. I suffered disappointment this weekend, I went to fetch water from a natural spring to start making beer with, but then returned to start reading through the beer brewing starter pack that I got from the shop.. and to my horror I realised it was so un-artisan that even after going around and around i could not convince my self to make it.. it will have to wait till next weekend when i can get some real malt and ingredients, screw trying to do the safe option and do the starter kit, i have never done something like that before, it is all in.. and yes there are generally failures associated with this approach as there have been with the breads and food, but there have been moments of genius. It is not the re-creation of something existing that I want, but to rather experience that which is nature and man combining at its best and experience something mroe akin to the essene loaf in terms of beer.. yes i will bump my head but  that is what is expected..
Sometimes like i spoke about it before, when you start overthinking things you cannot do them.. typing on the keyboard is a little like that today .. just cannot type it is as if the kb is not in front of me and i am reverting to 2 finger typing…
well this is really to much crap and rambling.. way more than enough for 2 days..