1. mexican spiced chocolate milk
and a mountain
of mini-marshmallows
tumbling over paper plate

2. every shade of rust
rolling past
out 4-year-old kindergarten window
wisconsin central rail

3. how i ache
at the sight
of houses built before
the 50’s
and the evidence
of public transportation

4. tracing hands
on brown construction paper
for reindeer antlers

5. calhoun road cornfield
behind barbed wire
in a sea
of strip malls
telling the same story
the last buffalo did

6. how is it
i do not know things
like my sister
volunteering
for the fair housing council
for 15 years
until
15 years
have passed

7. the story of a cousin
who is a pilot
in the airfoce
dropping bombs
from planes
by pushing buttons
on something that probably looks
like a video game
in a room
at a desk

haunted
by this level of removal

8. grade school gymnasium
200 sing-screaming voices
landing freethrows
in basketball nets
climbing knotted ropes
bouncing against clock cage
rudolph
silent night
12 days of christmas with choreography

9. how the nuances of an all-gray sky
with snow
differ from
the nuances of an all-gray sky
with rain

10. color-scribbled
VIP pass
to isabel’s room
tucked
in back pocket

11. a refusal
to show the needles
that i can’t help but link
to our mother tongue
of a million hushes

12. mom and i
winning team
it was professor plum
in the study
with the wrench

This time, I admit it. I thought of the headline first. “YULE (git it) TIED.” So, now let’s try to make this blog copy relevant to Holiday 2009 without smirking about bondage freaks.

How about: There’s a great FREE rope trick video with which you could impress your young, yuletide guests. And, to keep things Southern, there’s also the Devil’s Rope Museum.

That “yule tied” rope museum is in McLean, Texas. Git this, it’s “The Largest Barbed Wire HISTORIC Museum in the World.” Apparently, there’s a really large barbed wire ART museum somewhere else. Isn’t The South fun? As my rootin’-tootin’, fearless, filmmaker niece, Bess, would say, “Heck Yeah!”

Happy SEMISEPTCENTENNIAL Christmas Y’all,

Ben South

Southernness

.

WARREN LAND

SPRING CLEANING

by Samuel Warren

The December sun created a beautiful day. There was no bone chilling nip in the air, which is normal for this time of year in southwest Missouri.

Sipping my coffee, I looked out the picture window at my blue U.S. Air Force flag flicking at the slight breeze.

Today would be a great day for Spring Cleaning.

I bundled up like I was embarking for an expedition to the Artic Circle. In Missouri, Old Timers say: “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes; it will change.” It might be a sunny day, but, it is December and Mother Nature enjoys messing with Missouri’s weather, especially in the winter..

I grabbed my camera and my rake. My two loyal cannine assistants, Sarge and Goldie raced past me and did a low crawl under the gate.. I stroll into the pasture trying to decide, which trail should I follow down into the holler. The dogs and I walk past the pond. The perimeter fence surrounds Warren Land.

It is a woven wire fence with a strand of barbed wire to keep the cattle inside.  The Fence Line Tree represents the boundary of Warren Land. The land beyond is DeLong Land that is now owned by a neighbor. Uncle Richard had owned the DeLong Land that rests on this side of State Highway 176.

The holler on DeLong Land flows under the perimeter fence on to Warren Land. The uniform blanket of leaves hides any hint of a vein of water.

At least, a half century worth ’s  of leaves lie in the holler and conceal the spring from sight.

Photo by Samuel Warren

I rake away at the leaves beneath the fence line  . Raking back the dead brown dry leaves, I discover the saturated black leaves that have clogged and absorbed the spring’s water like a sponge.

A small wet patch of earth under the tree root indicates the

presence of the spring.  Photo by Samuel Warren

Sarge hears something in the distance and rushes off to investigate. Goldie sits down on the trail to watch me.

Goldie sits on the trail and watches me rake leaves.

Photo by Samuel Warren

I feel a slight breeze and hear two different chain saws buzzing in different directions beyond the horizon. I uncover the black damp leaves and once again sunlight reaches down and finds the puddle of water that flows over the rocks and underneath the leaves.

The Spring flows under the leaf bed, which burns giving off a thick column of

white smoke that flows along and up the holler.

Photo by Samuel Warren

I rake a grave-size mound of leaves into a leaf bed on top of the concealed spring. I hunker down with my cigarette lighter.. The flame catches like a rumor and spreads just as quickly.

Whoosh ! The flames ignite the leaves as quickly as a working man’s

paycheck on payday.

Photo by Samuel Warren

Like a losing politician on election day, in a matter of minutes the dry leaves are gone. Smoke flows along and up the holler. The large black mound of wet rotting leaves are left to smolder in the sunlight on the spring bed.

I go up the hillside and rake more leaves down into the stream to burn. Left behind on the hillside is the naked earth showing her exposed flesh of topsoil. The rich black soil has been hidden from the sunlight by years accumulation of leaves clinging to the hillside.

Rake away the leaves and you see rich, black topsoil on the hillside.

Photo by Samuel Warren

Over time, a great deal of time, the leaves would of rot away. The Catch 22 situation ,of course, is before the leaves can rot away, the trees will shed even more leaves,which stack layer upon layer of leaves on the landscape.

I’ve played in these hills and hollers as a kid, so I’m aware of the changes that have occurred to the land over the years. The leaves that I raked into the spring bed have been lying on the hillside since the 1960s,that’s a half century’s worth of leaves that had their decaying process abruptly sped up.

The decaying leaves have added ingredients to enrich the topsoil.

Photo by Samuel Warren

I spend a couple of hours in the holler raking and burning the leaves. Now, the spring can carry away the ashes and the cattle will have another source of water readily available.

This section of burnt, smoldering leaves in the holler only represents a small step along the course of this spring’s bed. Whether Spring Cleaning is done in April or December: it takes times. The challenge of Spring Cleaning the spring beds on Warren Land is it involves more than dusting or moving furniture.

My overall plan is to continue to try and clean away decades of leaves along the spring beds. Cattle like people drink a lot of water.

Death – Man ripped apart by magical hooked chains on hospital bed.
Death – War Dream/Flashback – 2 men shot in chest
Death – Girl – Skinned alive and eaten by statue
Death – man – stabbed through head with chains and poles from statue
Death – Man sequered in stomach by pole
Death – Girl stabbed in mouth by wierd ice spike thing
Death – man head rapped in barb wire
Death – Chain through back of girls head
Death – man – head sliced up by flying CD’s
Death – 4 people stapped by chains in head and hung up
Death – 1 girl throat cut open vertically
Death – Chain stabs 2 people through eachother in neck and face
Death – man – stabbed through forehead with demon camera eye.
Death – Man – CD thrown into face
Death – cop man – CD thrown into nose
Death – 2 cops – killed by exploding cop car

Nude – Topless sex scene lady

These are not normal telephone poles. Instead of transmitting voices over wire these lines transmit the golden glow sunset from one horizon to the next.

 Nature in undisturbed state is amazing.  However, there are times when man-made objects bring my eye’s attention to the natural environment in a whole new, and interesting way. 

These cranes may look old and dilapidated, but come night time they come to life and rearrange the mountains in the distance.

It's fun to listen to and caress, a big, warm, cylinder of steel.

These barbed lines lace the hills like contour lines.

#DS28: “Sunday challenge time: Break out a bigger camera if you can and use a wide aperture to work with DOF and bokeh!”

I love messing with DOF.  Thought of using  this for the DOF assignment while I was taking pictures of the creek on the other side of the fence.

Careful as a naked man climbin’ a barbed wire fence.
~ Proverb

About the photo: Went out to shoot some nature but ended up with this

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Work with dignity for women and men - Labor Mural - Seattle, WA © Frank H. Jump

El trabajo dignifica al mujer y al hombre - Labor Mural - Seattle, WA © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

• Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless
• Seattle General Strike Movement
• Unions dot org
• Sound Mental Health – Seattle

 

Weeping Barb (323/365 11-19-09)

Originally uploaded by CarusoPhoto

I was photographing this barbed wire when I noticed the drop on one of the barbs…and that’s what made the photograph for me.

Though i’m not a huge fan of Princess Riri, here’s the official music video for the formulaic boring muck” Russian Roulette” for the loyal readers  whom care.

I was feeling walled in, so I went Walden and wandered off the usual roads today.

What did I find?

A  foggy golf course, barb wire fences protecting nature, a squirrel, a garbage dump, a bunch of farms, and a few junker businesses.

I was Thoreauly surprised.

note: this bus was the most interesting thing I saw … but it was all interesting really … but I kept my composture.

double note: I had to get in the “LADIES” door. The “GENTLEMEN“’s door is at the front, but partially hidden.

triple note: Did I mention that I saw a squirrel?   oh … okay.

.

notes to myself #56

You will always be easily amused. …… I knew you would find that amusing!

can we survive more poppies?
accept them?
entwined with barbed wire
with the death of millions
afghanistan
to flanders field
to antietam zululand jerusalem
afghanistan over and over
china rome everywhere
to prehistory
human kind proves its insanity
expecting
something different?

remember?
“all we are saying is give peace a chance”

It wasn’t until just recently, like in the last couple years, that it finally occurred to me ”bob-wire” was actually  barbed wire.

All my life, it’s been bob-wire. 

…Just like my mother was a li-barian who worked at the li-bary.  (I remember, distinctly, when I was 12, I met some new friends from Pennsylvania while on a Caribbean cruise.  They cornered me one afternoon and made me say words like, “li-bary” and “sodie-water.”  I’m thinking they were making fun of me, no?)

My freshman year in high school, I was told that my high school had, many years earlier, voted to rename our mascot, “Jagger.”  No, that was not the mascot’s new name, like Big Jay (KU Jayhawks) or Bevo (UT), or Bruiser (Baylor!!)… it was a renaming of the animal. 

You know, a Jaguar.  

It was always so great when we would go to an opposing team’s football field and the announcer would introduce us, “And, now, please join us in welcoming our opponents, the Jaguars.”  To which the folks from my school would yell, “It’s JAGGER!!!  Don’t you know nothin’!?!” 

Over the years, my mother would say, “Now, you understand, right, that when you leave high school, you will stop saying ‘Jagger.’  Right?”

Well, I don’t say “sodie-water” anymore, nor do I say, “li-bary,” for which my mother is eternally grateful.

Though, I will say, when I return for my next high school reunion, I will most certainly cheer for the “Jaggers,” again, because it’s what you do.  It’s the right thing to do. 

…Just like calling barbed wire, bob-wire.   It’s the right thing to do.

Off to mend fences,

E.

When I took Stinky and Little One on our walk yesterday, I got some pictures that I really like. I don’t take a lot of pics without people in them, but these make me happy so I’m sharing them with you. Along the path we were following, at one point there was a field surrounded by a fence. That’s where I took these shots.

Hope you enjoy!

Isn’t it awesome how even the smallest, most commonplace things can be beautiful?

Did an online search for barbed wire for today’s CSOTD and wow, there sure are a lot of those arm tattoos out there …

Wire Spine

As some of you may know, this year I am in a photography class that I had to take for my major, Agricultural Communications.

This class has pushed me, and it has pushed me hard, to go outside my boundaries to get photos that I may have never seen or tried to get.

This photo I took for that class during the Rural America assignment. I live in the middle of Rural America, every were you look in Stillwater you see rural.

I didn’t want to shoot that though, I wanted something different, i wanted to see something I had never seen before. So I talked to my Boss, Todd Johnson the best photographer I know, and asked him if he had the assignment where would he go.

He told me he’d head out to Pawnee Oklahoma. If you’ve never heard of Pawnee, Oklahoma don’t worry because your in the majority. This town is a diamond in the rough. It is beautiful, and at one time in its long life was rocking little town.

If you ever get the chance to get their I highly suggest it, and Click’s Steak House is where’d I’d stop to eat if I were you. I had the best Ribeye steak I had ever had from an eating establishment and the waiting staff was amazing.

I shot the town at sunset, and then headed to the country outside of town. I picked up this sillouhete of barbed wire in the middle of no were but it keeps dragging me back to it.

I love how barbed-wire has one job, and one job only. That is to stay tight and keep animals in. Photographers, and people in general, don’t have one job so it’s hard to stay strong and tight.

Unlike barbed wire we need to bend, we need to stretch and we need to get outside are general idea of life. This photo class has not only helped me as a photographer, but as a person.

If your stuck in a rut, or all you do is one type of photography stop doing it for a day, and just drive. Drive out of the city, drive out of your town or if your from the country maybe drive to the city.

Find something your not used to, and shoot it. You’ll be amazed at what you find. You may find a Click’s steak house or something else that you may have never found without a little trip outside the box.

Alright I’ve said Stay Classy in every post, and I’m getting tired of it, so I’m looking for a new line if you have any ideas let me know, but untill then.

Stay Classy,

Mitch

This barbed wire fence vanishes into a fogbank along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.

© 2009 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts http://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

I’m here! And so-fari so goody!

I arrived in Nairobi late last night feeling extremely dazed and disorientated. I quite enjoyed the flight as I got a birdseye view of the Sahara and the Sudan and BA also gave me free socks which made my feet very comfy indeed. I’m so used to flying Ryanair now that this seemed like a real treat.

Fortunately everything went smoothly at the airport and none of my concerns like baggage going missing or my driver not being there came to fruition, and I managed to clear immigration in a matter of minutes. On the drive to Helen’s apartment I obviously couldn’t see a whole lot as it was dark, but we did cut through the centre of Nairobi so I got to see what the downtown area looks like.

Helen’s sister greeted me at the apartment and showed me around.  After she left, I rather mournfully ate the sandwiches I had bought at Manchester Airport yesterday morning, unpacked, and unsuccessfully tried to connect my laptop to the internet. It’s very cosy here and three stories up which makes me feel quite safe. Nevertheless, the strange new noises kept me awake for a while last night until I managed to establish that none of them were coming from inside the apartment.

Despite feeling lonely and bit homesick, I slept like an absolute log last night and awoke this morning to find that Helen’s husband Alex had arrived back from Johannesburg. He was extremely friendly and laid back and sorted me out a taxi to take me the Giraffe Centre and the Karen Blixen Museum this afternoon. He also helped me connect to the internet and warned me that the boys living upstairs were extremely noisy (although I had already discovered this during the night).

The taxi drive did not help me to feel any less overwhelmed about being in Africa. The first and most obvious thing I noticed was that people here seem to be less keen on sitting indoors and even if they aren’t doing much, they just seem to hang out on the street. There are people everywhere and colourful stalls and outdoor shops all over the place as well. Animals graze freely on the sides of the road; some of them, I must add, looking very frail and bony.

Another thing I could not help but notice are the masses of barbed wire and ten feet plus walls that surround many of the properties here. The apartment complex I’m staying in is gated and has a security guard, but it has no barbed wire on the walls; then again it is not particularly showy and glamourous. I must say that I am surprised how conspiculously the rich people do display their wealth here. In the upmarket suburbs I travelled through today some of the houses were extremely extravagant, even by British standards, and probably need all the barbed wire and security and guard dogs they can get.

I have yet to see much of life at the other end of the spectrum, although you sense poverty lingering here. I did catch a glimpse of the Kibera slum today out of the back window as we sped away in the opposite direction though…I’m sure there will be more to come on this subject later. We did have a few hairy moments on the road today as well, where no rules seem to apply and matatus jump all over the place, leaving you with the sense that a collision may well be imminent. Matatus are Nissan minibuses and the main form of public transport here. They are painted with crazy designs and often have music pumping out of them. To be honest, they scare the living daylights out of me, but as I will be here for quite some time, I really need to learn to use them. Im sure there will be more to come on this subject as well…

My taxi driver wasn’t the most talkative in the world and there were no seatbelts in the back of the taxi but he waited for me everwhere I went which was pretty good. First I went to the Karen Blixen Museum which I quite wanted to see, although I wasn’t that fussed about. According to Lonely Planet it was only 200 KSH (about £2) so I thought I might as well go, but when I got there I found it was 800 KSH! For this, a tour of the house was included and there was a huge Kenyan wedding going on in the grounds which created a lovely atmosphere, but overall it was still a bit of a rip-off as there was not that much to see. My tour guide was a very friendly guy, as was the house security guard who took a picture of me in front of the house and also tried to find a chameleon in the garden for me to look at.

The Giraffe Centre was an absolutely charming place where, if you were prepared to be slobbered on, you will have an amazing time. This too cost more than Lonely Planet stated (I’ll be throwing it in a dustbin sometime soon) at 750 KSH, but it was well worth the money. Giraffes are without a doubt one of the world’s funniest creatures and there were many at the centre ranging from very tiny babies to huge adults. Not all of them came over to be fed, but even just the sight of them swaying through the trees around Giraffe Manor (easily one of the world’s best located hotels) was magical in itself.

Feeding the giraffes was a brilliant experience. They reach out their tongues and curl them around the bits of food you hold out to them, although some of them are more adept at this than others and the less skilled ones don’t seem to be able to do it without getting your whole hand in their mouth first, which is certainly an interesting feeling. The guy that supervised the feeding showed me some tricks to get good photo poses and took pictures of me hugging and kissing the giraffes. He was a very happy guy (probably because he had a really great job) and chatted to me about what I was doing in Nairobi and the giraffes which was nice. There was also a warthog (another hilarious animal) mooching about and picking up the food that fell out of the giraffes mouths, which it could only do by crawling around on its elbows. As soon as one of the rangers went close to it however, it pelted off rather comically into the forest.

So on the way back, we passed the shopping centre that Helen’s sister told me about, and it is literally 200 metres down the road. Still, I have yet to gather the courage to venture out! My couscous and loaf and bread is not going to keep me going for much longer however, so I am going to force myself to get up and go tomorrow morning. I feel very self-conscious at the moment but need to get over it very quickly and learn how to do things for myself! There were a lot of men hanging round the gate of the apartment complex earlier and one of them stopped my taxi driver and clearly said something to him about me in Swahili, but I obviously have no idea what it was. They were still there when we got back and I didn’t really want to have to walk past them alone, which was why I didn’t go to the shopping centre…how very cowardly of me!

Anyway, I’ve been back at the apartment ever since and there is plenty for me to do here, especially now I have internet connection. I think I may be suffering a little bit from jetlag as I had to have a nap before and keep getting that overwhelming feeling of needing to drop off…actually nothing unusual there! It has been very noisy this evening, with music playing and people shouting and talking and singing happy birthday. I can also hear the crickets and some interesting bird noises that I’m not used to, so I will have to keep an eye out of the window for things fluttering around in the trees.

So finally, the weather has been good so far, and the temparature is around 19-22 degrees which is really just perfect. There has been the odd smattering of rain but it has only lasted for a couple of minutes each time and hopefully it will continue that way.

I’m off now to have couscous and tear up my Lonely Planet guide, but hopefully I’ll get another chance to write again soon!

Photographed by Robb North

from far gone days, when things were needed to be fenced in fields.
rolls of Barbed wire were delivered, yet never used.
still they silently sit….waiting.

– License

Icelandic Menu Too Pricey?

Svo lengi mcdonalds kostar það of mikið að frábær stærð mig. That means “so long McDonalds. It costs too much to super size me.”  McDonald’s hasn’t been voted off the island, but it just simply can’t afford to stay there.  Seems that Mickey D’s has to import it’s materials from mainland Europe to supply its two franchises in Iceland.  Because of changing currency rates, that means that they would have to raise the price of the Big Mac to the dollar equivalent of $6.36 to turn a profit.  The Hamburglar must be doing pretty good in Iceland because that’s a crime.  And apparently the pooh-bahs at McDonald’s agree.  They are taking down the golden arches and leaving the island.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard thinks Icelanders will survive quite well without Ronald and the gang.  But, how does he know?  I mean, Iceland now joins Albania, Armenia,Bosnia and Herzegovinia and Vatican City as the only countries in Europe that don’t have McDonalds and I dont think any of those places are exactly economic powerhouses, though Vatican City has revenues of between $300 million and $400 million.

A DAY OF FIRSTS ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY!!!

Mary Dyer Taking Her Turn At the Gallows

So much for religious freedom:

On this date in 1659, two men gained infamy in the Boston Commons as the first Quakers executed in the New World for their religious beliefs. Mary Dyer and William Leddra soon followed. After that, those who were sentenced to death had their sentences commuted to simply being whipped out of the colony. Marmaduke Stevenson and William Robinson had left England to seek freedom of religion. Their first mistake was to settle in the Massachusetts Colony where the Religious Society of Friends, the formal name of Quakers, was banned with the punishment of practicing their Faith being death by hanging. Seems that the Quakers opposed a central church authority and preferred to seek spiritual counseling through local Quaker meetings. They stood for a truely egalitarian society in which there was equality between men and women and they opposed the notion of slavery. Oh…such dastardly people those Quakers. Robinson and Stevenson left a legacy of staying out of Massachusetts as others who followed found refuge in Rhode Island and other colonies. But, the legacy of Massachusetts lives on. While we are taught in school that Massachusetts was the cradle of liberty, we must remember the fate of the Quakers, those who were to be bussed to get equal access to schools in the early 1970’s, the tax system in the Commonwealth and of course, all of the anti-global warming folks who opposed windmills off the coast of Cape Cod because the clean-energy devices spoiled their view. Yes, indeed. Quite a history of freedom in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Barbed Wire That Closed the Open Range

So Much for the Free Range: On this date in 1873, Joseph Glidden applied for a patent on his version of barbed wire. He had seen the barbed wire of Henry Rose at the DeKalb County Illinois State Fair but he was not impressed. He came up with a new design that used two wires to hold the barbs firmly in place. His proved to be the first to be mass produced and his inexpensive wire fencing was up to 80 million pounds in production by 1880. By making it available to farmers en masse on the plains, it effectively brought to an end the big cattle drives because ranchers driving their cattle to market suddenly found their routes cut off by barbed wire fencing all across the plains.

If You Got Close Enough You Could See The Screen

So Much for Commercial Free TV

It all started on this date in 1946. Geographically Speaking debuted as a travel show on TV. It showed travel films. It was about as exciting to viewers then then as it would be today as it only ran until Dec. 1, 1946. Real clunker. But, it was the first TV show to have a sponsor, Bristol-Meyers. And we’ve had commercials on TV ever since.

 Today with everyone having a remote, advertisers have had to get more creative in order to keep us from changing channels during commercials. It’s called zapping. We see an ad and “zap” we change channels. That’s why so much money is spent on ads for TV in production. We need to be entertained as well as informed. It doesn’t work with me when there are various sports on.

Remember when cable TV first came out? It was initially promoted as the public paying for TV so we wouldn’t see commercials any more. Well, that quickly evaporated. Many of the original cable TV outlets were “superstations.” We thought it was so cool getting a New York station and a Chicago station and of course Ted Turner’s WTBS. But we quickly realized we were paying to see shows with other areas commercials. Now, we pay for cable networks so we can see more commercials. Some time when you have nothing better to do, look at the Weather Channel and count how many minutes in an hour are devoted to weather and how many to commercials. You’ll be surprised. Then you will get mad when you realize you are paying for the privilege of watching all of those commercials. At least ESPN commercials are funny.

So, now I have all of these “premium” channels that show no commercials and all movies. Of course it costs me another $15 a channel on top of the premium cable charge so I don’t have to watch commercials.
It all began on this date in 1946 on a crummy show. But, without advertisers, I’d be out of a job so by all means, frequent all of our advertisers and watch their messages. In fact, I’d recommend that, when you are tuned in to another channel and they show a commercial, zap over to channel 32. Odds are the commercial is just as good as the one you were watching and you know the news that follows will be much better…especially the weather!

Ruth Pitching 1914

So Much for the Curse of the Bambino:

On this date in 2004, the Boston Red Sox won that franchise’s first World Series since 1918. They had suffered from what is known as “the curse of the Bambino.” See, a young pitcher who was also developing as a slugger at the plate played for the Red Sox. His name was George Herman Ruth, known as Babe Ruth. He was a pretty good pitcher. He still shares the American League record for most shut outs by a left hander in a season with Ron Guidry with 9 white-washings. But, his hitting became apparent as he was hitting home runs when no one else was doing so at the time. By his 4th complete season, Ruth only pitched in 17 games but hit 29 home runs to lead the league…a new record at the time. The Sox won 4 world championships between 1903 and 1918. Ruth went to the Yankees in 1920. The story has always been that the owner, Harry Frazee sold him to finance a play. I think that is how all of the

Ruth Batting 1918

movies have portrayed it. But, other sources claim that Ruth had demanded a double in his pay to $20,000 and the owner refused. When he tried to trade him, the league president supposedly wanted to mess up Frazee’s enterprise and force him to sell so he talked most of the owners out of dealing with him. The White Sox though supposedly offered Shoeless Joe Jackson and $60,000 but the Yankees, who were terrible at the time, offered $100,000. Imagine what might have happened if Frazee took the White Sox deal? As it was, Frazee took the bigger wad of cash and the Red Sox never won another World Series until 2004. So, the team was cursed. But that’s not as good as the Cubs’ curse.

Billy Goat Bellies Up To the Bar

I think it was in 1945, when the owner of a tavern tried to bring his lucky goat into Wrigley Field for the
World Series. He was denied and he put a curse on the Cubs, who have not won a World Series since 1908. You can visit the Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Avenue right by the Wendella Boat Tours in Chicago. Get a cheese burger and ask for a coke and see what happens. Snow White went there and asked for fries. Try that out too. BTW, I hope the curse is never broken…Go Astros.

Friday Morning

Weather Bottom Line:  Okay…I took one on the chin.  I knew we’d get rain but I held out the prospect we wouldn’t see any until late in the day or the evening.  Only made it through midday and then the rain came. It was dreary.  The system will move out of the area leaving us with a good Wednesday and Thursday.  Thursday night, a system approaches and rain chances go up.  It still remains to be seen if we get any thunderstorms or possibly strong storms.   The convergence area is in the lower Mississippi Valley and will probably cut off any big stuff our way and the SPC outlook area goes that way with the severe risk area for Thursday night into Friday from around Memphis to the south.  Weekend looks good but with highs in the mid to upper 50’s on Saturday and near 60 on Sunday.

Sunday, October 25
Artillery Cocktail

Monday, October 26
Barbed Wire Martini

I made the Artillery Cocktail on Sunday evening.  6 parts gin, 2 parts sweet vermouth.  Not exactly a complicated mix.  Not exactly memorable either.  It was fine.  But just not … memorable.  Like some blind dates I’ve had, guys I’ve met off of Match.com or Yahoo Personals.  You kinda end the evening with a “yeah, give me a call,” and hope they’re not really stupid enough to actually do that or that you gave them a bogus phone number.  Nice deep golden yellow hue – attractive for a drink, bad for a urine sample – and not much beyond that.  It made gin more drinkable for me, I’ll admit.  I am of the unpure faith and prefer vodka martinis over gin, and straight gin for me is one of those things that will give me a face like I just sucked down half a lemon.  Or a stiff drink of Aquavit, another of my non-favorites. 

So I give the Artillery a 3 stars.  Decent but hardly memorable, don’t think I’ll mix it up again anytime soon.

Now in continuing with our WWII theme, it seems only appropriate that tonight’s cocktail on my list was the Barbed Wire Martini.  Interesting name.  No idea where it came  from.  The Bible (our martini recipe book) gives the origins of a few drinks but not all  by any means.  I would be curious to know how this came to be called that.  I was personally dreading it.  I had one of the shittiest days on record thus far in my existence (okay, wait, let me clarify because I almost always say THAT) – maybe the shittiest day since being unemployed or definitely in the top 5.  Kids were slow-mo snails getting ready this morning, then after my son’s orthodontist appointment (first round of braces off, hooray!), I picked up his younger brother and we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening having ISSUES.  More issues than you’d find in a National Geographic boxed set.  Good lord.  If it wasn’t this thing that came up, it was something else.  So, despite my hesitation at the ingredient list, I was actually looking forward to the Barbed Wire by the time I got around to mixing it up, about 10 pm this evening.

The ingredients are hardly something I swoon over.  Pernod?  ICK.  It apparently came after absinthe was banned (wormwood tends to make people go crazy) and has the anise taste used in licorice and other similar flavorings.  Well, this rates an epic FAIL in my book.  I loathe licorice.  And Chambord?  Only reason I have any is a small bottle was a stocking stuffer from an old friend a couple years ago.   Black raspberry liqueur.  I have to say, I do love the bottle.  Always reminds me of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I felt like I should have chanted the whole ritual from the movie when I opened it up, but as I mentioned earlier, it was already 10 pm by this point.  Since I was expecting not to savor this cocktail, I used what I call the crappy vodka in my freezer.  Which it really isn’t.  It’s Prairie vodka, from the U.S., and is organic.  Probably costs close to the same as Ketel One, but I guess I’m a vodka snob and still prefer my Ketel over anything else.  I like to try other ones now and then just for comparison purposes.  So I mixed up the Barbed Wire:  6 parts vodka, 1/2 teaspoon each of Chambord and Pernod, 1 teaspoon sweet vermouth, lemon twist for garnish.  I got out one of my nice ZGallerie martini glasses and poured it in. 

Lovely gold color to it – I hadn’t realized the pernod was such a bright color (yellow) – I guess I was expecting it to be more like absinthe and it would be green.  Mixed with the dark red of the Chambord and light red of the vermouth it made for a beautiful drink.  I think a cherry would have been a nice garnish, too, to be honest. Except I’m not crazy about cherries either.  I took a sip. 

First swallow reminded me of a cross between horseradish and cough syrup.  That same suck-in-your-breath, throat and sinus-clearing sensation you’d get from either one.  Almost a minty taste, but not quite.  But it stuck with you.  I continued drinking it over the next 40 minutes or so of my evening, which consisted of straightening up the living room, unloading dishes, starting this blog, writing a couple emails.  It grows on you and I actually enjoyed it.  It was definitely distinctive and more interesting than the rather dull Artillery drink of the previous evening.  Would be interesting to pair it with some kind of swordfish or salmon, I think that would be tasty together. 

Only drawback, I noticed as I got further down in the glass, was that the damn drink knocked me on my ass.  Which made no sense to me, given the amount of vodka I used was no more than I typically used for a dry martini.  Until I remembered I’d been having a sneezing attack earlier and took a Benadryl around 9 pm.  Ahhh.  FAIL.  Bad combo.  Don’t think the Barbed Wire was entirely to blame in this case!  I think I will sample this one again, maybe even with the “good” vodka.  Four out of five stars, a memorable drink.

Cheers, Cathy