Sunday, August 07, 2005
A Belle the Cat Production * Summer 2005 * Volume Two * Issue Two
A word from S. Morgan, editor
“F I N D”
I am analytical. When I have a decision to make, I want to concentrate on it, weight all options and choose as wisely as I am able. If I don’t think I have enough information, I can put aside a purchase or trip for years, even if it isn’t life changing or even seemingly that important. I will pour over Consumer Reports, research numerous websites, talk to people and visit stores or dealerships in my quest for everything from a new car to an environmentally friendly cut of fish.
In some ways, it’s the proverbial burden / curse. I am careful, I am more or less accurate, and once I reach my decision, 9 times out of 10 I am happy. But I must admit that I am inherently lazy and would so much rather think my way out of a situation than practice at it. This makes me annoying as hell to play golf with. I have such a hard time giving in to making costly and time consuming mistakes. I stand there on the tee
keeping my eye on that little white ball, determining just where to hold my club, which elbow to bend, how far back to swing, holding my head just so, judging the wind and the distance and the thickness of the grass and how close I am to water hazard and the trees, that by the time I’m ready to take my first practice swing, the rest of my party makes me desert my post to let the impatient group behind me play through.
After I reach my decision, I don’t take well to criticism. I worked hard to finally get to the point where I could comfortably buy this fillet of tilapia, damn it, who are you to tell me grouper tastes better!
Why do I do this? Who knows? There is an inane and stubborn part of me that believes, however foolishly, that life should not be easy. I make things hard on myself, but I also can’t admit that I make things harder than they have to be. Timesaving devices can be grand, progress can be helpful, and some things really are as simple as they seem. Still, it seems that a lot of things I took for granted at one time - clean lakes to splash in, fresh omelets for breakfast etc. have been overlooked by too many people, and suddenly I’m affected, with sewage-ladened water and runny, thin shelled factory farmed eggs.
Okay, so how can I find the right path? How can I make sure that the things I am spending so much time thinking about are not a waste of my efforts and resources? Again I must plead ignorance. There are a huge multitude of choices a person is given each day and, like butterfly wings fanning typhoons, they can all be traced to an eventual end. I am intrigued by people who seem to be able to make the right decision in a snap, or to choose the correct path to lead their troops or followers down. That is one of the traits that makes a good leader, and that is what this world is sorely lacking - people not only with the courage to lead their followers down the path, but with the talent to see down those paths to the end.
:: Belles-let-tres/ bel lettre/ n. writings that are valued for their elegance and aesthetic qualities rather than for any human interest or moral or instructive content, French, literally "fine letters" belletrism, belletrist.
Belle Lettre – Volume II, Issue 2. July 2005. All material contained within remains the property of the creators, copyrighted at creation. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers assume responsibility for actions or decisions they make as a result of reading this publication. Prose, poetry, artwork, comics and photography are always being accepted. Send to Belle the Cat productions 1508 Lincoln Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107, goatmaiden@uwalumni.com
or go to the website: bellelettre.blogspot.com
Submission does not guarantee publication. Belle Lettre reserves the right to edit all material for clarity, length and content.
Originals will not be returned without a self addressed, stamped envelope.
The Killing Fields
The Dark Side of Conservation
Once upon a time, I had dreams of saving the world. This was before I realized that the Earth doesn’t need saving, but I think it does deserves protection to keep it in a state of recognition. Perhaps it is “natural” that the animals with the biggest brains are overrunning the planet. But I decided that I would rather live in a sustainable way, fighting to keep the Earth in a condition that supports freedom and freshwater muscles alike.
And it is a fight. There is a dark side to keeping wild areas wild, and I’m talking about more than just the primitive horrors of predator/prey relationships. On Saturday May 21, I headed one hour southeast of my house into the bright morning sunlight to enlist in the Nature Conservancy natural guard. I joined the Nature Conservancy in 2003 in part because a couple of conservationist I truly respect always had NC literature in their bathroom. I’d read the “Landmarks” quarterly report, a newsletter that contained a paragraph for each state highlighting some major land acquisition or partnership that had recently been formed. I did some research and determined that the organization was one I wanted to support.
I tried two other times to volunteer to remove what are known as invasive species from Nature Conservancy protected areas, but each time I had either gotten lost or arrived too late. This time I was late, but thanks to the poisonous concoctions being mixed in the gavel parking lot, the crew had not yet ventured into the reserve known as Herrick Fen.
We had enough volunteers so that people got to choose which invasive they wanted to help eradicate. The buckthorn people were armed with “The Glove of Death” which went like this: a cotton glove was worn over a rubber glove. The volunteer dribbled a blood-red concoction onto the outer glove, soaking it in concentrated Round-Up. They would then sneak up on the unsuspecting buckthorn, a bushy weed that takes over wetlands from the meeker natives, and coat the base of the stem with the poison
You have to believe that you are on the right side when you are out killing things, even just plants. Two college girls where obviously not comfortable with using poison, even if it was for the greater good. One girl claimed she could taste the blue spray in her lungs, and later mumbled to her friend “I don’t feel that I’m conserving, do you?”
But war is never a feel-good, fuzzy thing. It’s work. There are uncertainties. There are doubts that even the seasoned veterans admit. When we sat down for lunch, it was interesting to note that not everyone was eating organic, fair trade, vegan fare (though everyone did bring their lunch in a reusable or recycled bag). A lady joked that she brought some wine and one man said “vineyards are very polluting and erode the land. They also use up a lot of water.” Everyone paused, contemplating this, until the lady said, “yeah, well, that could be said about just about anything now a days.”
THE SHELF
Eclectic review….
“Understanding Comics”
By Scott McCloud
Book
There is a book that keeps staring at me from the library shelves (in my local library, they put the graphic novels right at the entrance so you can’t help but see them when you come in.) Anyway, it’s called “Understanding Comics,” and it has this little goggle-eyed guy on the front that just seems to be looking through you in a vaguely patronizing way. Once you start to read the book you realize that he isn’t so vague.
The author, Scott McCloud, has taken way too much of his time to explain how comics work and why they should be considered an art form. I’m not saying he doesn’t have some good things to say, but he rambles in a way that is utterly distracting and unnecessary in a genre that relies on pictures to get a point across. Pretty much he says, “comics are more than DC and Marvel.” Yes, who doesn’t know that? Probably not anyone who would pick up your book. It did make me want to start writing my comics again, thought.
“Black Devil Doll from Hell”
Movie
Bad, bad, bad, hilariously bad. The title alone makes me laugh. This tinny piece of shot-on-video schlock is about as cheep as they get. If you can stand sitting through the excruciatingly long and boring non-puppet scenes, the laughs you’ll receive may be worth your while.
After our prudish and puggish heroine, Helen, adopts a crude Blaxploitative dummy, he comes to life, conks her on the head, and ravishes her in a raunchy, jive-speak filled bedroom scene. Helen is reborn as a badass, throws Jesus out the window, and takes to whoring herself around town. While this video may seem to be a smirking morality tale, the real moral of the story is do not EVER purchase a ventriloquist’s dummy, especially a used one, and especially if you have been warned that it is CURSED. But hey, when you rent a movie called Black Devil Doll from Hell, you’re probably not looking for Matrix-ian plotlines.
“Three Men in a Boat”
Jerome K. Jerome
Book
Published in 1889, you might think that this slim volume is nothing more than an anachronistic trifle. In part you’d be right, but after you get through the first chapter and into the swing of the very readable text, you too may find yourself chuckling out loud at the adventures of George, William Harris and the author J. during their boat ride down the river.
The story starts with our narrator deciding after reading a book at the British Museum that he has contracted every single disease ever discovered save housemaids knee. His doctor writes him a prescription that reads:
“1 lb. beefsteak with
1 pint bitter beer every 6 hours.
1 ten mile walk every morning,
1 bed at 11:00 p.m. every night…………
and don’t stuff your head
with things you don’t understand.”
This is simply the most wonderful recipe for living a simple life in any age.
Each chapter starts by telling you exactly what will happen in the following pages, such as
“Capter 3 - Arrangements settled - Harris’s method of doing work - How the elderly family-man puts up a picture - George makes a sensible remark - Delights of early morning bathing - Provisions for getting upset.”
And lest you believe that such description leads to some Pollyanna, Jane Austin-esque sap, this quote might change your mind: “Camping in rainy weather is not pleasant... Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper. The bread is two thirds rainwater, the beefsteak pie is exceedingly rich in it and the jam and the butter and the salt and the coffee have all combined with it to make soup.”
Each chapter has pages and pages of read-aloud humor on such topics as “Advantages of cheese as a traveling companion,” “Cussedness of toothbrushes,” “I forget that I am steering - Interesting result,” “How Harris sings a comic song (“Harris never sees what an ass he is making of himself and how he is annoying a lot of people who never did him any harm”) and “Difficulties in the way of the musical amateur” (“you want to be in good health to play the bagpipes”.) Plus, add to this the fact that one of the characters is a dog, a detail you may fail to realize until well into the first half of the book, and you have what may just be one of the great historical pieces of British comedy, or at least a great summer read.
“A Nun in the Closet”
Dorthy Gilman
Book
Two nuns set off from the incredibly cloistered Abby of St. Tabitha to explore a mansion mysteriously bequeathed to their order. Sister Hyacinth is pessimistic, her main talent lying in exploring the herbal properties of various plants, where as Sister John is optimistic, personable and “terribly brave.” After discovering a man with three bullet wounds hiding in the closet (whom they christen Sister Ursula), a large quantity of money in a suitcase down a well, and jars of “sugar” in the pantry, they begin to wonder if the generous donation is a blessing or a curse.
Even more interesting than the goofy mystery of naive nuns discovering a crime is the addition of the group of hippies living out of their van just down the road from the mansion. There’s Brill and his book of radical thought, Naomi and her chickens, their guru Bhanjan Singh, and Alfie, who near the end of the book explains why, despite his college education, he decided to forgo a paycheck to grow beans. “We’re leftovers from the 60s, from assassinations and an undeclared war. We’ve been shot at and we’ve been clubbed and we’ve been arrested… And the hell of it is we were right about the hypocrisy and the corruption. It’s terrifying to be right before you’re even old enough to vote.” Published in 1975, it is terrifying to realize that these problems still exist 30 years later.
Dragon Warrior III
A transcription by TEA
Introduction:
“The New Hero of Aliahan”
“Hiro! Time to get up and go!”
I peeled my eyelids back into my head and looked up to find my mother bustling about laying out my clothes.
“Mom, I can do that…” I started to say, but she just waved her hands and shook her head and made little ‘mom’ noises at me.
“Hurry up and get dressed. I want you to have breakfast before you go,” she said and hustled out the door.
I just smiled after her and stretched.
As I came down stairs there was a knock at the door.
“Come in!!” I shouted.
“Hiro! Don’t be rude; answer the door,” Mom scolded me.
“It’s just Miharu,” I protested.
“Yeah, It’s just me,” Miharu said sarcastically. “Happy Birthday, kid,” she said, messing up my hair.
“Oh, please! You’re what? Three months older than me?” I argued, fixing my hair.
“That’s still older,” Miharu laughed and seated herself at the table for breakfast.
Miharu came to breakfast every day. We had been best friends since before we could remember. It was only recently that I had noticed she had breasts, which was kind of a let down. I had always considered her as a cool dude with long blonde hair. She thinks I’m just being silly, but I feel like her protective brother now.
“So are you ready for your big day?” Miharu asked.
“Sure,” I said nonchalantly. "I've been to the palace before. I’ve even met the King before… with my father…"
“Oh, listen to Mr. Cool over here,” Miharu teased. “Come on, you don’t want to be late.”
We didn’t talk much on the way to the palace. I guess Miharu knew I really was a little nervous. As we walked through the halls and towards the stairs, we were bombarded by young fighter trainees asking Miharu for tips and training sessions. I just shook my head in awe. How the scrawny little neighbor girl came to be one of the best fighters in the palace guard was beyond my comprehension.
“I got it from here,” I told her and she let the wave of trainees wash her away. I climbed the stairs to the throne room where the guards nodded at me and swung the huge, ornate doors open.
“Announcing Kojima Masahiro, son of the Great Hero of Aliahan: Kojima Ortega,” a booming voice filled the grand throne room.
I immediately bowed to one knee until I was instructed to enter. Then I made the walk down the plush carpet to the foot of the throne and bowed again.
“Your Majesty…” I started to say but the King hopped, literally hopped, down from the throne and told me to rise.
“Oh that’s enough official-ness! Let me have a look at you. My you’ve grown! You look just like your father,” the energetic old King said.
All I could manage was an awkward “Thank you, your Majesty.”
“Hiro, now that you’re eighteen, I need to tell you,” the King suddenly became serious. “There are a few things you don’t know about your father… He was my friend and, well, he did not die as you were told.”
I knew it! I was told that he had been battling a dragon on a volcano. When he slew the dragon, it dragged him into the volcano’s mouth. It was a very brave sounding death, but I could never really let myself believe it.
“He was sent, on my orders, to defeat Baramos. I was a fool to have let him go alone. Your friend Miharu’s father was going to go with him, but that was when he fell ill. Ortega refused to travel with anyone else,” the King fell silent for a moment and shook his head. “We’ve heard reports of Ortega passing through almost every castle and town in The Realm of Light on his quest,” the King continued quietly. “However, Baramos still threatens this land.”
Still standing on the carpet before the king’s throne, I shifted my weight anxiously.
“Kojima Masahiro,” the King said in a stately voice, “As King of Aliahan, I hereby place upon thee the title of Hero,” he unsheathed his sword, and I bowed my head. But instead of knighting me as I thought he would, he swung it around and presented it to me, pommel first. Stunned, I reached out and slid my numb fingers around the handle. “And as Hero, you are commissioned to seek out and defeat Baramos.”
The King placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Good luck, son.”
Abruptly, he turned and left the room. An attendant gave me a pouch that chinked like gold pieces, and told me something about meeting ‘my party’ at Luisa’s Place in the village. My ears buzzing with excitement,
I barely heard him.
“Hey, Hero Hiro!” Miharu called as she caught up to me in on the way out the palace.
I laughed at my ‘new’ title. “Leave it to you, Miharu, to bring me right back to reality.”
“I always knew this was going to happen. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to be able to say that?” she asked seriously.
“How long?”
“FOREVER!” she shouted.
We laughed and made our way towards town.
“We have to go to Luisa’s Place to meet our party,” I told her. And in response to the raised eyebrow I got from her, I said, “Oh come on, I know you’re coming along. That’s a given.”
She just smiled and shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“I wonder what they’ll be like,” I said. Famous last words…
To be continued…
Chapter 1: “Let’s Get This ‘Party’ Started!”
“A BRAVE NEW WORLD”
Recipe from HP -
Come summer, your thoughts may turn to the great out doors and all it has to offer: hiking, backpacking, camping. A staple food of such backcountry exploits is the all purpose beef jerky. Use it for sustenance, use it as bait, use it to mend a hole in your boot. But many would-be hot weather pioneers find the cost of said jerky prohibitive. Therefore, may we suggest:
HOME CURED BEEF JERKY
2# FROZEN London broil steak, thawed ‘til just crunchy
10 Dried Indian peppers, crushed
¼ tsp. Cracked black pepper
2 tsp. Garlic powder
4 oz. Worcestershire sauce
4 oz. Low-sodium soy sauce
1 Tbs. Liquid Smoke flavoring
3 Sliced scallions or “to taste”
Slice London broil against the grain with an electric knife. Slice should be approx 1/8” thick. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a food processor. Don’t take a deep inhale of this, it’s pretty abrasive on the nasal passages.
Put thawed meat in a large heavy duty zip loc bag. Pour liquid from food processor on top of the meat. Seal bag, releasing most of the air. Mush the meat and liquid together with your hands until meat is covered with the liquid goodness.
Marinate for at least 6 hours in the fridge. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can mush the meat/liquid combo after 3-4 hours to redistribute the goodness.
Set oven to warm, place aluminum foil over top of both oven racks. Place wire racks, the kind you use to cool cookies, on top of the foil. Use tongs or long fork to carefully organize marinated meat on the cookie racks. Meat should be one layer thick…it is A-OK if the slices of meat touch!
Keep oven on warm, let “cook” overnight or for at least 8 hours. Keep oven door open a crack so steam, from the liquid goodness can escape. Setting the oven on warm allows the meat to dehydrate and the liquid goodness to impart wonderful flavors in the dried meat.
Store in airtight container. Jerky keeps for up to a year. Let me know if you can keep it around that long. One batch usually lasts a day or two at our home! ENJOY!!
More from the Mad Cow Cookbook -
FRIED EGG CHILI SAUCE AND CHUTNEY SANDWICH Inspired by the taste treat described in the British comedy Red Dwarf, and motivated by the need to find a use for Mom's homemade peach and cranberry chutney, I discovered that this sandwich was much more than just “a cross between food and bowel surgery.” It actually tasted good! I just wish there were more things in the world to eat chutney with. It’s such an exciting food. It would taste extra good with cream cheese on crackers (and perhaps just a touch of hot sauce). Butter
2 Eggs
Pepper
2 Slices white bread
1 T. Chili sauce
2 T. Chutney
Fry eggs in hot buttered fry pan until the yolk is cooked through. Pepper to taste. Top one slice of bread with eggs. Spoon chutney onto eggs, top with chili sauce. Place other slice of bread on top and attempt to eat before the sauce dissolves the bread.
Add-ons:
Second slice of bread (placed between eggs)
1 slice sharp cheddar cheese (on top of eggs)
1 tsp. mayonnaise (on bottom slice of bread)
Defibrillator (apply to chest)
ADVENTURES Eating across portlandia
Notes from the in-flight magazine:
- Sake no sakana = nibbles to have with sake.
- Tsukeru = to soak in a bath (to be pickled).
Observations from 30,000 feet:
We accept that clouds exist, are real, just “are”. But imagine being an alien looking for the first time at these immaterial castles towering into the heavens, these wispy demons darting over the horizon. Has the makeup of clouds changed throughout the years?
Hills look soft from above, irrigation turning green crop circles in the fields, and the mountains are merely crackled earth that cast shadows.
Octogenarian Passenger sitting next to me, watching the badly computer animated flight safety video: “Ooh he’s an attractive fellow. He’s got a square head that one has!”
***
My first day in Portland Oregon was exhausting but amazing. I was whisked in a rental car to the artsy area of Alberta Street. A festival/parade/sidewalk sale was in full swing, and I was lured like a child of Hamlin to follow the band March Forth as they rollicked their way down the street. March Forth is a new-age marching band consisting of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, drums, a bassist, dancers, and stilt walkers in colorful modern industrial gypsy-cum-goth garb. And they are as impressive as all get out.
The street was an amalgamation of cafes and ethnic restaurants interspersed with a few pubs, along with art galleries and shops. One storefront I stopped in, like a building out of Brigadoon, did not seem to be altogether there. There was a patio which led you straight through the fourth wall and into a gallery. If you wanted a smoothie, you had to exit the building and order out of an ancient Airstream camper in the back.
Later that same day, I sampled a Fat Tire beer which was quite tasty. I did not try the “Pabstini,” a concoction that, according to the diagram on the wall, consist of Pabst beer with olives floating in it (Oregonians appear to have somewhat of an obsession with PBR). At a small restaurant, I had some uninspiring Spanish fare that consist of a small plate of chopped peppers, cilantro leaves, and sliced tomato served with pickled cactus strips, rubbery tortillas and runny salsa. Add to that the tiny wine glass of a Margarita and one might think the place was a bust. Still, my friend had a tasty fried tortilla stacked with refried beans, grilled marinated chicken, thinly shredded cabbage, tomato, salsa and sour cream that she graciously shared with me that more than made up for my skimpy meal.
5/15 - From a book in our host’s house:
“Power is the currency of social exchange.”
***
While in Portland, a part of me felt like I was a little bit of everywhere: my friend’s house in the Wisconsin countryside, Madison’s Willy Street neighborhood, Cleveland’s Coventry, Washington DC, and yet, it is somewhere else entirely. The birds sing a different song.
My second day started with a meal at a trendy hidden breakfast nook, where I am sure my goat cheese and mushroom omelet was just lovely, but it was overshadowed by the story I was told by my host about the Infamous Pizza Bandit of Salt Lake City. We moved on from there to Paul’s Books, a truly awesome store where I discovered the inspirational tome of dirty paper folds, “Pornigami.” We lunched at Salvador Molly’s, a pirate themed tapas bar known for it’s Great Balls of Fire - eat five of these habanero cheese fritters with the sauce and get your picture on he Wall of Flame. We also climbed Mt. Tabor, a park that is actually an extinct volcano but that looks more like a lookout bluff. However, all the benches set around that normally would look out over sweeping vistas or over the skyline of the city, had their views interrupted by the ever-present trunks of pine trees. That night we played pool and drank more Northwestern brews; Top Down was terrible and tasted of mold (may have been just a bad line leading from keg to bar), but Moose Drool was full of heavy, malty goodness, and Rainer Beer was just as good only lighter. Ended the night tipsy, listening to jazz at Laurel Thirst (in the Laurel Hurst community, another indication of the quirky humor of the city) and drinking Shiner Bok.
5/16 - Book made into a movie recommendation: Off the Map by Joan Akerman
***
Started with a sumptuous breakfast of smoked salmon, mozzarella, scallions, green onion and tomato omelets with a slice of avocado, toast, coffee and orange juice made by our awesome host. Visited the Oregon Zoo where we saw a Stellar’s sea lion that was as big as a whale. Then on to the Japanese Gardens, which were very nice. The funny thing was that, where a bench sat for meditative purposes, it always looked out onto some strange and interruptive object. Near a bubbling brook and a pair of beautiful stone lanterns, a water spigot sprouted. In a hidden grove of gently swaying trees, a sign directing one to “STAY ON PATH” blighted the area. Add this to the Tabor Park benches, and I think the city’s Manager In Charge of Views must have been laid off. Still, as one meditates on the intrusive items, one may glean some inspirational insight (and actually, the sign held a deep message).
We failed to find an affordable seafood restaurant or any of the fabled floating homes of the area. We settled on Thai food and munched up some delicious tempura veggies and shrimp while we waited. The shrimp curry was sweet and spicy with green and red peppers, curry leaves, lemon grass, coconut, and at touch of orange. We ate it with a wonderfully mismatched bottle of red wine.
