Truth

Important Note: Don’t workshop this version!  Click on Week 5 Pieces over there on the right so you can see the versions with weird paragraph alignments an’ stuff.

She was my Americano:
Piquant ruby, orange twist
Shudder upon the lips.

Thought I was her Aviation:
Subtle citrus, baby blue
But somehow never knew.

How could anyone know?

Frank Mars dreamed up the Milky Way
After bailing his estranged son out of jail
For vandalizing storefronts
With cigarette ads.

Then young Forrest plunged a dagger through his father’s chest.

Begging your pardon
It would seem
I’ve poured vermouth in your Martini
Because like it or not
That’s where it belongs.

 

Dobra Tea Shop Review – Afternoon 01/22

Burlington’s Church Street has long stood in my mind as the quintessence of two Vermont aesthetics.  There’s the rustic and natural – this flirtation with the singular Americanity of stone fences, Henry David Thoreau, and apple cobbler.  Then there’s the collegiate bohemian – a peculiar alliance of eccentric individualism and corporate spit and polish.  Nestled amidst these whirling images, Dobra Tea Shop nonetheless exists in an entirely different space.

Much like its tea selection, the Dobra’s décor is a vibrant collage of Indian, Asian, and Eastern European styles.  A dented copper lantern casts complex patterns of shadow and light across the west-facing wall; notices for upcoming Zen meditation sessions held with a single tack flutter eagerly from the bulletin board as patrons pass; the burgundy Turkish carpet is worn down to threads in the spot before the counter where waiters collect and deposit trays laden with a wild array of colorful pots and cups.  For me, such cultural incoherence actually helped weave these disparate elements into a singular experience.  Through beads, tapestries, and everything else, Dobra attempts to transport patrons from the mundane to the fantastical – divorced from the troubles of the world outside; the ideal spot for drinking tea.

On this particular occasion, my companion and I both elected to try a Dobra original: “Memories of Prague,” an Assam black tea infused with cacao.  Just a few minutes after ordering, our waiter arrived with a small round tray of dark wood, upon which perched two square stoneware teapots with gently fluted corners and spouts mimicking the elegant curve of a swan’s slender neck.  The cups matched this in both style and color, and their interiors were glazed a light cream color that accentuated the burnished copper color of the tea itself.  Nestled between these were a small pitcher of thick, fresh milk and small bowl of golden honey, both organic.  Off to the side, four small sables pressed into the shape of oak leaves had been arranged artfully on a napkin.  These were heavenly in both taste and texture: buttery, subtly flaking, and mildly sweet.  Dry, they snapped enticingly between the lips; dipped into the tea they became moist but not soggy, and instantly collapsed into a smooth paste upon the palate.  The “Memories of Prague” was as its name suggested – deep, languid, and rich, but without the stimulating energy implied by robustness or piquancy.  It lent itself perfectly to contemplation.  Chocolate dominated the nose over a base of subtle earthy notes.  Each sip revealed a simple, smooth black tea flavor not unlike good Darjeeling that slowly melted into bitter chocolate on the finish.  This bitterness isn’t the harsh sort, but rather a calming dryness and astringency slowly creeping across the palate.  A touch of honey diminished this quality somewhat, but concurrently revealed even smoother and more fragrant dimensions of enjoyment.  Unfortunately, although fresh and lovely alone, the milk only seemed to detract from this already rich and balanced tea.  But we didn’t become upset.  Dobra wouldn’t have allowed it.  We lingered for hours, lost in conversation and subtle contemplation of the drink between us, perfectly in keeping with its presentation and the atmosphere in which it is served.

 

First Sonnet for an Alpine Parrot

O Nestor Notabilis, O Trickster of the South,
Why does humankind not regard your species with greater derision?
When you eat all that fits beyond your beak into your mouth,
And borrow our effects without permission?

What if you squandered your final chance
When you feasted on Simon’s windshield wipers?
Could it be that your silly hopping dance
Won’t atone when you next slash Adrienne’s tires?

Why does a dimple crease every cheek
At this ceaseless consumptive obsession?
What’s so charming about your brazen technique
Of ingesting and destroying possessions?

You swipe our lunches and wreck our cars
So more’s the shock, you’ve stolen our hearts.

 

Elaboration Upon the Birth of Bourbon

It smells like gangrene starting in a mildewed silo, it tastes like the wrath to come, and when you absorb a deep swig of it you have all the sensations of having swallowed a lighted kerosene lamp. A sudden, violent jolt of it has been known to stop the victim’s watch, snap his suspenders, and crack his glass eye right across.

-Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

First there was only whiskey – or perhaps whisky. Neither Irishman nor Scot will attribute its creation (or spelling) to the other. Fanciful tales of these early days abound; the Irish have suggested that Saint Patrick himself invented the stuff during the 5th century. Historical evidence, on the other hand, indicates that bourbon’s grandpappy actually appeared somewhere in Brittany around the advent of the 12th century, under the Gaelic moniker Uisge Beatha – the water of life.

The use of grain distinguished this crude liquor from the burnt wine – fruit brandy – so popular throughout mainland Europe. Likewise, its long aging process in oak barrels, which mellowed volatile notes and imbued both flavor and color, set it apart from British gin and Dutch genever. But beyond these characteristics, whisk(e)y distillation was subject to endless regional variation. Bringing this art across the Atlantic, then, brought about an entirely new strain of the spirit. Hardy and abundant throughout the early colonies, rye replaced barley as the dominant cereal. Plentiful timber allowed distillers to quickly toast that grain over a wood fire, rather than gradually desiccate it with the peat smoke that had provided Scotch with its characteristic flavor. The resultant distiller’s beer was then distilled twice, unlike the milder thrice-distilled Irish whiskey. And porous American wood conspired with temperamental American weather to subvert the entire aging process. Whereas European whisk(e)y slowly absorbed water and thus became more voluminous and diluted, the moisture-greedy American ether leeched water from alcohol. Early American distillers must have been mystified by this elusive thief, slowly sapping their aging spirits – not to mention stupefied by said spirits’ raw potency!

Then arose a bittersweet moment in American history: Alexander Hamilton’s tax on distilled beverages “as a measure of social discipline,” soon followed by the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Many Americans recall the image of Tom the Tinker and his ragtag band of farmers and distillers fleeing from George Washington and the whole of the Continental Army. Few of them recognize its reverberations throughout American agricultural history – and thus the history of whiskey. When these rebel farmers ran, they didn’t stop until they found themselves west of the Alleghenies, in what eventually became Kentucky and Tennessee. There, on frontier plots beyond the long arm of the law, they discovered the sweet, smooth essence of corn, plentiful corn, and promptly distilled the stuff. By the 19th century, a steady stream of barrels bursting with rough “corn likker” and stamped BOURBON were bobbing from Bourbon County, Kentucky to every port town along the mighty Mississippi – and so an American institution was born.

 

Zen and the Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
I didn’t hear – I hate baseball
Preferring to stare into the sun
Wondering what’s behind the door down the hall

I didn’t hear – I hate baseball
But perhaps I should have listened anyway
Wondering what’s behind the door down the hall
And obscure the radiance of today

But perhaps I should have listened anyway
Know the score and know the score
And obscure the radiance of today
It’s pulsing behind the aforementioned door

Know the score and know the score
Preferring to stare into the sun
It’s pulsing behind the aforementioned door
The Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won.

 

Ergonophobia

What’s she thinking about?

Audrey Hepburn smiles serenely from her apartment wall
Flannel strewn across the floor – all hers
For I’m not there and I never was
I pick apart an orange and slowly drift across the Pacific
The orange spits and sputters and I just
Lick my fingers

Someday I’ll move to the city where everyone always says exactly what they mean
Someday I’ll hold my head up when I remember who I’ve been
Someday I’ll spin Aerosmith records and collapse on the floor and laugh until I cry
Someday I’ll keel over and die

But today I pick apart an orange and listen to trains rumble past
Feeling like autumn – in monochrome
Maybe I’ll take up something new: Catholicism, smoking, or golf
Anything to strip away the ten thousand things she probably never thought
And finally answer the riddle that I’ve never dared to pose
Like a gunshot ringing through the soul:

How is my life today?

 

What Others Eat in a Week

My father sent me these pictures earlier today via email. I talked with Stacie about them and thus discovered that they’re taken from a Peter Menzel book called Hungry Planet. Feel free to discuss, if you’re so inclined!

The Manzo family of Sicily

Weekly expenditure on food: $260.11

The Melander family of Bargteheide (Germany)

Weekly expenditure on food: $500.07

The Revis family of North Carolina

Weekly expenditure on food: $341.98

The Casales family of Cuernavaca (Mexico)

Weekly expenditure on food: $189.09

The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna (Poland)

Weekly expenditure on food: $151.27

The Ahmed family of Cairo

Weekly expenditure on food: $68.53

The Ayme family of Tingo (Ecuador)

Weekly expenditure on food: $31.55

The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village (Bhutan)

Weekly expenditure on food: $5.03

The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp (Chad)

Weekly expenditure on food: $1.23

 

Week 3 Pieces: the Flagg Method

Heya! Here are my three pieces presented in the oh-so-convenient kflagg format. Please note that I’ve swapped out the “13 Ways…” exercise for “Snapshots from New Zealand.” Don’t worry too much about this, as the other two pieces have priority this week anyhow.

Jack’s Week 3 Pieces

Also note that from this point forward, my weekly piece collections will appear as separate pages listed above the custom header and within the sidebar for ease of access.  See y’all tomorrow!

 

Snapshots from New Zealand

Snapshots from New Zealand

Oyster

We strode boldly to the rocks, paying no heed to the squelching and groaning silt slowly oozing into our mangled gumboots. I paused to admire a circling shag howl and flash after some scaly treat beneath the waves. Zach swaggered on ahead, rusting oyster knife in one pocket, bottle of teriyaki sauce in the other.

Skate

Her friends eyed the plastic bag with obvious distaste. They had never cared to discover that with but two quick slashes and a flick of the wrist, the skate’s rubbery sheets of cartilage give way to thick cuts of sweet and succulent flesh. Maybe this explained why none of them could hold onto their men, she thought, and turned her head to conceal an impish smile.

Pavlova

“Pavlova,” she said with a flourish. “Invented by a Kiwi, eh? Nineteen-twenty-six or thereabouts right here in Wellington!” One of the Ozzie guests noisily cleared his throat. “Not true,” he began smartly. “On the third of October in nineteen-thirty-five, Bert Sachse at the Esplanade in Perth…”

As the patriots continued to squabble, we dug into the contested dessert and reached a consensus of our own. Pavlova never had anything in common with either Australia or New Zealand. This is why, whatever its origin, the dish’s namesake could only be a Russian ballerina: elegant, delicate, and lighter than air.

Feijoa

She couldn’t stand to eat this most visceral of fruits, for whenever she scraped its creamy pinkish pulp from bitter skin and frantically slurped the nectar before it gushed out onto her pretty chin, she momentarily believed that life must be a ferocious struggle – and thus she would inevitably remember her father.

Kumara

And they savored the kumara, slathered in salty butter and roasted among whole cloves of garlic, for no reason but that they knew it would be delicious, a nugget of burnished gold nestled within the dirt. And when the last fork clattered to rest, everyone sighed and went home to bed, for tomorrow would be Monday.

 

Week 3 Pieces

Hey gang!  Click on “Week 3″ under Timeframes to the right and you’ll be able to pick out my pieces for review.  I’d like you to focus on both “Making Sushi” and “Elegy for the Night Cafe” if possible as everything I’m submitting this week is rather short.  See y’all tomorrow or Thursday!