The Bell Museum, Minnesota's natural history museum on the U of M campus is showing a few campy old sci-fi movies outside and last night they showed the 1953 thriller The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.  Well, this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, so I decided to make an afternoon of it. I rode my bike to campus where I had coffee and read my book for a couple hours - delightful.  Around dinner time I rode to the downtown Minneapolis Farmers' Market, bought a VERY tart apple and some pull-apart bread then rode back to campus to find a grassy area to sit, eat, read, and maybe nap.

I had forgotten just how many squirrels there are on campus.  In one 360 degree sweep I counted 11 squirrels.  No wonder there have been rumors of a squirrel conspiracy to take over.  I've heard stories of squirrels on campus running onto people's legs and even grabbing at bags people were carrying.  True?  I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.  I have no love for those fuzzy-tailed rats.

It was cooling off, so I decided to spend the last hour before the movie started in Espresso Royale Cafe.  I spent tons of money and time (and as much time studying as not) there in college.  I was amused to see a couple people there that were there nearly every evening ten years ago.  One of them was reading Applied Somethingorother Geometry.  A riveting read, surely.  I like that shop.  Laptops seem to have made the place a little less inviting, but it's still a decent coffee shop.

Then it was on to the movie.  Since it started sprinkling, they moved it inside.  Here's the plot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms:

• Nuclear test (Project Experiment) in the Arctic awakens a dinosaur
• The one surviving scientist who sees it is called crazy
• Nobody believes him except the pretty young paleontology professor's assistant
• They find another person who saw the beast after it attacked a boat
• The beast has an appetite for buildings and boats... 'cause it destroys/eats them
• This is enough to convince the professor and they figure it is heading for New York City
• Chaos and destruction in New York.  Eats people, buildings, and cars
  
• After shooting it, the army learns its blood has a lethal pathogen, so they can't blow it up.  Oh no! 
  
• Fortunately, the scientist from scene 1 is a nuclear scientist and he says that they can kill it by shooting it with the radioactive isotope
• The beast appears in an amusement park and is somehow stuck inside the track of a roller coaster... so proceeds to eat it.
• The radioactive isotope arrives, and is conveniently shaped like a little missile to fit on the end of a rifle.
• The scientist and a sharpshooter have to ride to the top of the roller coaster to shoot the beast
• They escape before the coaster burns.
• The beast destroys the roller coaster and collapses.
• The end.

I would love to know how audiences received this movie in the 50's.  It was pretty goofy and got lots of chuckles from the audience.  It was a pretty good time.

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Now I'm off to the state fair.  Since I have more of an appetite for wandering around for hours, I'll go and spend the morning there and Sarah will meet me in the afternoon.  I think I'm going to take in a live show of Midmorning with Gary Eichten and his guest, Senator Klobuchar.  Should be fun... yes I am a news and public radio geek.

Simple pleasure - goofy dreams
Peace

It is a little funny  that the couple days that Sarah gets sent to Texas for work (which she was quite excited about for warm running weather) Dallas and the surrounding areas has gotten 1 to 9 inches of snow.  Sucks for her, I know, but what are the chances?  Oh well.  It should be warmer here in a few days than it was for her down there... never mind that it will probably be much warmer by then down there.

Eh, whatcha gonna do?

• I made cardamom bread yesterday evening.  I really like the process of opening cardamom pods and the grinding up the seeds in the mortar.  It smells really good while baking too.  I searched the kitchen for something tasty to put on th bread when I found some blackberry jam that Sarah brought home from Oregon.  The fragrance of the cardamom works so nicely with the bittersweetness of the jam.  What a treat.
• I played poker at the Kom-On-Inn.  It is this dive bar in west Duluth that has been patronized by the working-class folk of that area for decades and decades.  The great part of the bar though, are the big panels around he walls that have paintings of many of the old mills and factories of the town - steel mills, ore docks, refrigerator plant, the cement plant, etc. - many of which have long since been torn down.  That bar, though perhaps lacking in refinement, is a historical treasure to Duluth.  My poker playing wasn't great, but drinking cheap beer and talking with the locals was pretty great.
• We were given the soundtrack to "Once."  It is a great movie, and the soundtrack is wonderful - great Sunday morning music.  If you haven't seen this movie, do it.  Do it soon before you forget about it.
• My baby sister has mono.  She wasn't able to go to school all last week, and even had to miss out on some of the homecoming funness I guess.  Poor girl.  She looked miserable.  Boo.
• It will be in the 30s today.  Sarah suggested that I go biking outside today since I complained of horrible boredom after my ride on the trainer in the basement.  I really want to ride outside, but I don't want to deal with cleaning the bike, nor with being so cold since I don't have much for cold-weather bike gear.  Maybe I'll go anyway.  My bike needs some cleaning anyway.
• It is good to be home after being in Seattle (a post for later) early this week and then going straight up to Wrenshall.  I'm glad I got to visit family, but it is good to see my wife and have a quiet morning with her in our home.
• Yeah, this soundtrack is really good.  It gets extra points for having several songs in 3 and even at least one song in 5.

Simple pleasure - sitting by the wood stove in Burnell's A-frame and visiting with him amid the sawdust and building materials
Peace

Note:  I wrote this at school this morning between about 8 and 9am during my prep periods.  I don't particularly feel like reading it over right now, so there's a good chance it's a bit rambling, but it is also genuine.

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I am worried.  This is not something that I say lightly because I generally don’t think worrying serves much of a purpose.  If you can do something about what you are worrying about, then do it.  If you can’t, then don’t worry about it.  Simplistic, maybe, but it is generally how I operate.

 That being said, I am worried about the economy and the greater state of global economic affairs and there isn’t one darn thing I can do about it.   

 Locally, I am worried about how an economic downturn will affect Sarah and I.  We are doing better than many, but that doesn’t mean that we are necessarily all that far from money trouble.  Mortgage, a big-assed pile of student loans, paying off a new (to us) car, driving another car that is definitely showing its age, plenty of other monthly bills… it is quite a lot of money that is leaving our pockets.  I/we have been looking forward to the day that I get my own teaching job.  When that happens, I will easily be making more than I ever have and will more than double what I am bringing in now.  But if we suffer a serious economic downturn, could that reduce my chances for a job?  It probably wouldn’t, since kids will still need to be taught, but it is something of a concern.  Could it jeopardize Sarah’s job?  I don’t know.  I will leave it to Sarah to talk about her company should she choose to do so.  But should something happen to her job or mine, that could spell trouble.

 All signs right now are pointing to recession.  This morning, the Fed announced a .75% reduction in interest rates when no meeting for the Fed was scheduled.  This follows a weekend where the international markets have tanked.  It sounds like the U.S. markets are going to probably follow their example despite the interest rate cut.  So it looks as though the economy is going to slow even more.  Combine that with a huge rate cut and it appears we have a recession combined with a good chance for inflation.  Splendid.  Just what we need, higher prices for our consumables. 

 I am listening to NPR right now and they’ve got it right in analyzing what the Fed is thinking.  They have two worries, inflation and growth.  With this rate cut they are saying that they’ll worry about inflation later ‘cause growth is more important in getting the economy on track.  This is where my quieter, yet more ominous worry lays. 

 Our economy is based on consumption and growth.  Says the market news, “GigantoCorp’s stock went down fifteen percent today because their quarterly earnings didn’t meet projections.”  The U.S. was built on the foundation of the marketplace and growth.  Our prosperity is based on buying cars, and MP3 players, non-stick fry pans, Go-gurt, designer clothing, McMansions and Levitra.  If we don’t continue to buy, the economy suffers.  So we buy more and more and more, often times crap we really don’t need.  But we buy it ‘cause we are told to buy it and because we feel it will make our lives better.  The problem is that an economy based on growth is an awful lot like a pyramid scheme, it can only grow so much before it collapses.  It is remarkable that our economy has grown as much as it has in the last 500 years, but it just can not continue.  We are approaching a point where more Best Buys can not be built, more oil can not be pumped, and more bauxite can not be mined ‘cause there just aren’t any more consumers and there is a finite amount of raw resources.

 One of my concerns is that we have reached too far, economically.  One of these days I believe there will have to be some serious pruning of our recent growth, or it may die back in ways we like even less.  I believe that despite our amazing economic history and growth we wrongly went down the path of capitalist and growth economics long ago.  Not that it probably seemed like there was any other option at the time, but those smart choices in the past have lead to the unsustainable economy of today.  In the last ten years or so as I learned more and more about economics, resources, and the state of affairs I have believed that this capitalist system needed to change. 

 My worry is that even though I want a revolution to come, I am comfortable where I am.  Changing our economy away from growth and profit to something more sustainable is impossible, in my view, without supremely painful changes that probably wouldn’t be resolved for years, if not decades.  I can’t even imagine what it would take to change our economic system away from capital and growth to something healthier.  That change would take a near reversal of attitudes by everyone.  I don’t want to give up my bike and outdoors gear any less than the folks in suburbia want to give up their Audis and Prada.  It’s going to happen one way or another though… whether it happens tomorrow, ten years from now, or whether it is somehow postponed for a hundred years.

 I’m not sure I want to see the likely anarchy that would result.  I suppose I will put on a mask of ignorance like everyone else.  I suppose I will buy into the stimulus package that the president, presidential candidates, and congress all support to stimulate more consumption and march blindly towards the precipice. 

I wish I knew how to grow and hunt for my own food and build my own shelter.

Saturday afternoon Sarah and I went to go see the Minnesota Sinfonia at the Basilica of St. Mary, downtown Minneapolis.  This is a great organization that gives free concerts throughout the year and also spends a lot of time going to schools to play for students and to talk to students about music.  We've been to a few of their concerts before and always enjoy ourselves.

While they were playing, I looked at the program and read the bio of the guest cellist (a 13 year-old kid who won a state-wide contest for the right to appear with the Sinfonia).  He played very well on a cello that was over 200 years old.  This struck me as a little odd, not that that he played an old instrument (as many strings musicians do), but rather that unlike so many other examples of technology these old instruments are often preferred over newer ones.  Except for the reasons of nostalgia or simply or the sake of being old, I couldn't think of any other item where something so old is still preferred over something newer.  Along those lines, it is amazing that a technology was essentially perfected hundreds of years ago and really hasn't changed.  The only examples of things that haven't changed in so long that I can think of are things like candles and pottery (though perhaps I just believe that because I am ignorant of modern ceramics).

In a way, the unchanging technology extends (though not quite as well) to conceptions of the height of musical refinement.  Not to ignore the talent and innovation of people in modern music and the importance of "new" styles of music (jazz, blues, folk, you name it), but some of the most important music written is, like the instruments that play them, pretty darn old.  This example doesn't hold up quite as well as the the same phenomenon in instruments, but there is something to it, I think. 

So I have to wonder, why is this the case?  My thought is that it has to do with money and class (am I a commie or am I a commie?).  It wasn't the farmers or miners that were the fine musicians back in the day.  To be a musician (or a scholar, or a painter, etc.) a person needed to have money for training and instruments, something that was surely in short supply among the working classes.  This is not to say that there weren't musicians since people have always and will always make music in one way or another.  It was the upper classes who produced and enjoyed the music and saw its resulting magnificence and proclaimed it good.  Perhaps the upper classes later on were focused on the past and thus requiring the same old types of instruments to be used.  Though "classical" music has changed, the instrument hasn't.

I don't know.  I do know that new instruments have been developed (reed instruments such as the saxophone, electric instruments, etc.), but that good string instruments of today are pretty much identical to the string instruments of hundreds of years ago.  Technology marches forward at an astronomical pace yet the most revered instruments were from before the industrial revolution.  Strange.

My head is befuddled.  Maybe someone has a better analysis of it all than I do.

Simple pleasure - doing holidayish things
Peace

This was a relatively lazy weekend in terms of productivity.  We didn't do any big projects around the house.  Sarah did some cleaning for a while yesterday evening, but aside from that we didn't do a whole lot that would be noteworthy of a busy weekend.  We didn't just sit around the house though - although we did sleep in on Saturday and watch a fair amount of cooking and travel shows in the am.

On Sunday we drove first to Stillwater and then to Taylor's Fall.  We stopped at Aamodt's Apple Farm in Stillwater and picked up a pile of apples, some cider, and a few very good apple donuts.  Sadly, that will probably be the last time that we will get to go get freshly picked apples.  At least we have apples to make some sauce and maybe a pie with now. 

After feeding the goats at the apple farm, we made the very pretty drive north to Taylor's Falls.  We stopped and had a picnic on top of a big rock above the rapids in the St. Croix.  Sometimes it seems like a meal of fresh fruit, bread, and cheese is the best meal there is, especially when you're surrounded by beautiful trees, a nice tannin-brown river, and some good company.  After lunch, we crossed the river and did a little bit of hiking in Interstate State Park. 


You know, though I am ready to get out of the Midwest before too long, we've really got it pretty good here in Minnesota.  Nice parks, nice little farm towns, nice cities, bike trails, a decent education system, appreciation for the environment.  Yeah, Minnesota is nice.  I am sure we will find ourselves living in another time zone, or even another country, but I will probably always call myself a Minnesotan.

--------------------------

Sarah will be home soon, which should be just in time for dinner.  Today has been the coldest of the fall, with some strong winds and our first snow flurries, so it seemed like a good day to make some soup.  Here's what I made (more or less):

Lentil Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

    1 lb lentils
    1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
    1 cup diced onion (Vidalia if available)
    3-4 stalks celery - sliced
    32 oz vegetable broth
    3 - 4 cups water
    (optional - other soup vegetables)
    1 tbs+ oil (I use Canola)
    organic raw sugar (to taste - 1-3 tbs.)
    2 teaspoon salt
    basil to taste

Directions:

Sauté onions in oil until soft. Add all other ingredients and bring to a boil.  Simmer until tender (about an hour).  This soup tastes best if left to sit on the stove a couple of hours before serving.

The vegetables tend to disappear in this soup so if you prefer them more firm, add them 1/2 hour after the lentils.

Preparation time: 1 hour+

EDIT:  I added some cinnamon to the soup as well, and that was a really nice addition.

Yum yum!

Simple pleasure - bay leaves!
peace

I just finished watching the first part of the new Ken Burns documentary The War.  Wow.  I am having a hard time processing everything I saw.  About the only conclusion I can draw so far is that the Second World War was scary.  Profound, huh?  Sure I know the basics of what happened, but it is all vague and abstract to me.  This documentary is very good, but hard to watch.  It is difficult to wrap my mind around what happened.  Thousands dieing in a single attack.  Tens of thousands dieing over a couple week period in conditions that are unfathomable.  How am I supposed to teach about the war?  I can't possibly do it justice.  How can anyone even appreciate the enormity of it all?

I don't know.  Thinking about it just kind of hurts.  How can people do that to one another?

There is a problem that on a good weekend I don't mind facing.  It is these weekends where there is nothing on the agenda for several hours into the day, where if an alarm is set, it is probably set for a time after I am likely to wake up naturally.  Here is how one of these weekend mornings typically unfolds.

• sun comes up, we still sleep
• the cat gets crazy, runs all over the place, jumps up and down off the bed, and one of us kicks her out of the bedroom, closes the door and climbs back into bed
• one of us wakes up a little bit, maybe gives the other a kiss, and then becomes either the big or little spoon for a while
• I will turn over my pillow so I don't have to lay on the place where I drooled
• fall back asleep
• wake up a while later, kiss the wife, stay in bed
• turn on public radio and half listen for a while while we're half awake
• switch spoon sizes
• fully listen to public radio when fully awake
• talk about this or that before stumbling downstairs for breakfast and coffee

So here's where the dilemma comes into play.  I love a  few couple leisurely cups of coffee in the morning, but what coffee cup should I use? 
Life is full of difficult choices.  For an indecisive person like me, it can delay my enjoyment of coffee on a lazy weekend morning by a few moments.

That's ok though.

simple pleasure - harmonica
peace

I have a love/hate relationship with the U of M.  Ok, maybe it's not hate as much as antipathy.  And maybe it isn't love as much as strong liking.

So you might say that I have a strong liking/antipathetic (yes, I like this new word) relationship with my alma mater.  It struck me as I got off the city bus from work a little while ago that I was in a good mood as I was walking into one of the buildings... and that this is often not normal for me on campus.  It is not uncommon for me to be kind of crabby when I have to be on campus and that I get easily annoyed by things.  So being in  good mood while heading to a study area was a bit odd.

There are a number of reasons why I am less than warm towards the U.  Many of them have to do with my experiences, struggles, and my failure to fully take advantage of what was in front of me.

A bit of history.  I came to the U as a sophomore.  I transfered from Purdue (where I got super cheap tuition 'cause my father was a researcher there) because at age 18, I knew I had to be with the woman I was going to marry, and no we weren't too young.  Co-dependence, combined with natural introversion did not lead me to make many friends.  A failing relationship followed by a difficult year following the break-up only made things worse.  Undiagnosed and unrecognized ADHD was just a kick in the balls to top it all off.  I'll just say that my academic record as an undergrad isn't one to be the most proud of.  As I don't remember the name of a single classmate of mine either, the social scene just wasn't happening either.

My junior through super-senior years were spent trying to stay afloat with my classes and working for Housing and Residential Life.  My friends were the peers I worked with.  I certainly had fun with them and have some fond memories, but I certainly wasn't the great Community Advisor on earth.  Damn you, introversion.

Despite my issues, I managed to graduate.  And while life was often times difficult and sometimes painful as an undergrad I do also have some very good memories of my time here as an undergrad.  No, I wasn't a great C.A., but I had a lot of fun with my co-workers.  I took some great classes.  I got into backpacking.  Marching in band wasn't as social for me as it was for many, but it was also a lot of fun as well.  I made friends with the eccentric regulars at a local coffee shop.  My disdain for the two-party system and capitalism developed.

As more of an outsider now, different things kind of irk me about the U.  Skyrocketing tuition (though not really the university's fault) pisses me off.  Fighting hoards of undergrads - who make me shudder in so many ways - makes me crabby (maybe I'm just turning into a crabby old man).  Still being tied to the university due to my struggles to finish my damn paper is a constant irritant (this is a whole other issue I won't go into now).    And now and then the sting of knowing that I could have made so much more out of my time here hits me too. 

Living in the moment, I know that the university as an institution of higher education is a wonderful place.  Music, arts, academia, and the many ways that people and groups within the university reach out are wonderful.  The times when I am on a mission and getting good work done here (though it is on this damn paper) feels good and exciting.  Even though the gophers suck in so many ways, going to different sporting events is a lot of fun.

So yeah, ramble ramble ramble.  Point?  No, thanks.  I think I'll have a coffee instead.

simple pleasure - walking by the shoe tree
Peace

So I'm curious. What do you think it will ultimately take for the U.S. (and perhaps industrialized nations in general) to change course?

Background. After going to the anti-war rally yesterday afternoon, Sarah and I watched Who Killed the Electric Car?  Basically, the movie was about automakers developing plug-in electric cars for the mass market.  The cars were developed, leased by many people in California, and then the automakers let the leases expire and destroyed them all much to the chagrin of everyone who drove them.  The movie placed the blame for the demise of the plug-in electric cars on...
the oil industry (buying and killing the best battery technology)
auto companies (who would be forced to admit that all of their cars aren't good, if their new electric cars are so good)
the government (for being beholden to big business)
consumers (who are apathetic and will usually eat what is fed to them)
and
the hydrogen fuel cell (which is glamorous, but has plenty of issues, and though would be clean is ultimately [according to the movie] a less viable and efficient form of energy to power cars)
There may have been one or two other culprits they named, but I don't remember off hand, and these are most of them.

This lead to a discussion between Sarah and I that started with the question, "Why would a company kill a project that all signs showed would be very successful (not to mention the fact that it would be a huge step forward in combating global warming)?"



While I want to see the revolution come, I think the powers that be would be able to crush nearly anything that threatens the status quo.  I believe there will be worldwide (or at least continental-scale) calamity before any real changes come about, and at that point it may be too late.

So, what do you think it will take for us to change course?