The Raven

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Spocker Shocker

Most people think of Leonard Nimoy as an actor, but he is also known to be an environmental activist, Jewish mystic, singer, and photographer—a well-rounded kinda guy. In his last-named capacity, he's assembled a book of his photographs titled Shekhina, which in Nimoy's weltanshauung means "female beauty gives me a religious epiphany." Seems that he planned to present slides from his new photo book at a Jewish organization's fund-raiser in Seattle this month, but after they saw some samples, they set their phasers a few notches past "stun."

"Shekhina" comprises black-and-white photographs of women, some of them nude, and many draped in or wearing Jewish ritual items such as prayer shawls or phylacteries (small leather cases containing passages of scripture, and fastened to the left arm and head with leather thongs).

The Raven says, "it's all good," but the Rabbinical set weren't so amused. Perhaps he should have just sung his rendition of The Legend of Bilbo Baggins, which makes you pray that it would stop.

Cannery Row

I thought I'd left the "train-packers" behind when I left Tokyo, but according to Tim at Salonblogs' own Notes from Atlanta, we have a domestic breed right here in the States, working for MARTA:

Evidently, instead of putting a few extra trains on the track to expedite service and make riders happy, what they do is hire a few more people to force riders onto the few trains they have running.

Makes me nostalgic for the morning commute on the Yamanote line. Something tells me the MARTA boys don't wear the nifty white gloves, though.

The Doppio

There are a few people out there who write on the subject of food who really should be in another line of work. One such individual is Russ Parsons, a self-made font of culinary braggadocio who gives us an excruciatingly pedantic diatribe on "How to Make the Perfect Cup of Espresso" in a story carried by the LA Times and pushed today on Nando.

We've been drinking espresso for a long time, and can safely say that you don't have to follow Parsons's recommendations to get a passable blast of lockjaw-in-a-cup, but if you want to try his way, be my guest. Here he is, prepping his machine:

First you have to preheat the machine, starting it up about a half-hour before you're ready to use it. Turn on the steam valve to clear any water left over. Run hot water through the machine to warm the filter basket and the cups.

Ohfergawdsakes! It's a damn cup of coffee, not dialysis. But according to Parsons, your troubles are just beginning, because now you have to tamp the coffee into the filter basket:

Tamp it just right (between 20 and 30 pounds per square inch is deemed perfect—people practice on a bathroom scale to get it exact).

You get the idea. And don't forget, "the perfect espresso can only be brewed at precisely 203 degrees." It's people like this that ruin everything. Used to be, life was simpler, but the Parsons of the world lay an Aristotelian systematization on the Good Life until you need an encyclopedia to make breakfast. Trust me: Grind coffee, put in maker, push button, drink coffee. It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.

8:06:56 PM

The Hip and the Dead

Looks like Rob Malda and Jeff Bates, the creators of Slashdot, accomplished the online equivalent of the Grand Slam: They survived and are still making money. Can't say that about too many others. Slashdot's 5-year anniversary is noted in an irritatingly "ain't-we-hip" article in today's International Herald-Tribune that bristles with references to techies, geek cred, and geekerati. The story does ferret out a fact worth noting about the 'zine:

The secret to the online publication's moderate success? "They didn't buy a Super Bowl ad," joked Sean Bergeron, a fan from Virginia.

Their second secret? Merchandising. The Slashdot store offers all sorts of goodies for the wirehead set, with their logo available on T-shirts, caps, and all things caffeine, including... soap? "Apparently, our readers need caffeinated soap," Malda said. So a real geek is afraid of dozing off during bouts of extended hand-washing?

Dueling Agendas

Here's a weird juxtapostion of stories. First, a couple of schools in St. Louis have canceled planned assemblies organized by the Fenton-based Rage Against Destruction group. RAD has been on a nationwide tour visiting high schools and spreading the message that violence is "Bad News."

The 45-minute assembly is a high-tech, fast-paced production with huge video screens, full band, disc jockey and prizes like DVD players and athletic shoes. A motivational speaker talks about nonviolent behavior.

So far, so good. But then after the show, they hand out free tickets to something called "Firefest," which is "a two-hour concert by the group's band with more anti-violence talk and "a brief religious content" that lasts five to 10 minutes." This last bit would be the "Good News," one presumes. School officials were all set to go until they discovered the "bait and switch" evangelism. But contrast this with the following squiblet from Northern England, where the Northern Sinfonia orchestra has been stopped from peforming at St Willibrord, a Newcastle church.

A leaflet for the event entitled "Murder In The Cathedral" advertised "music murder, shouting, smoking, swearing, laughter and leathers."

Bishop Christopher Rogerson withdrew permission for the group to play, which is understandable since church members felt that the performance would amount to "sacrilege." The Raven suggests that Northern Sinfonia head for St. Louis, and have Firefest play at St Willibrord—everybody wins.

The Magnificent Obsession

Think it's sex? How about food? Physical fitness? The next three stories will have you wondering.

Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, an op-ed piece argues that the fifth Horseman of the Apocolypse is Gluttony. It's a fun read:

There are no locust swarms and no monster hurricanes, no Saddams or al Qaedas or exploding suns, no massive global nuclear war or poisonous swarm of drunken rampaging Bush daughters wielding machetes and Harken Energy-branded vibrators and multiple copies of The Rules.

No, none of the above. The enemy is our prediliction to gorge on high-calorie, low fiber diets. And the man has a point, when you consider that here in America we have fat-advocacy groups. So why, one wonders, are we as a culture so taken with food? Full marks for those who guess it has something to do with sex. This, anyway, is the thesis behind culture critic Steven Winn's article on the sublimation of sex for savory moments.

This makes sense, when you think of all the books and films that intertwine our urge to procreate ourselves with our desire to continue our corporeal existence. Sex and eating are both life-affirming activities, each in some way signifying the other.

History may show that the rise of the celebrity chef and the change in sexual mores over the past two decades are not unrelated phenomena. As sex became dangerous, in the age of AIDS, food became a form of glamorous sublimation.

Not altogether outre, as should be obvious to anyone who's watched a segment of "Emeril Live," and noted the vulpine gazes of the women in the audience who are almost quivering with Lagasse-inspired lust, wrapping the host like a blini in the assumption of his sexual prowess. So let's say you've given in to culinary libertinism. Now you've got a problem that requires a gym and a personal trainer to resolve. Which brings up a whole new problem, according to Jeannine Stein at the LA Times: the client-trainer relationship.

If dancing is a thinly veiled metaphor for sex, pumping iron at the gym is a direct synonym. You've got the thumping music, the mirrors, the tight outfits, the sweating and gasping—and that's just the changing room. Once you're out amid the machines, you have to contend with an attractive and perfectly sculpted trainer who cares about your body and wants to discuss it with you. Could this lead to carnal thoughts? There's no way that it couldn't.

Anyone who has spent time in a gym knows there are those trainers who seem to revel in a reputation that borders on skanky—the ones who touch clients that way and are all too happy to offer private sessions.

Like dating a co-worker or a teacher, a sexual relationship with a personal trainer (or a client) is fraught with complications, yet this scenario has garnered scant attention in the popular media despite its omnipresence. Thus we overconsume to satisfy one urge while subconsciously addressing another, and this leads to directly fulfilling the repressed desire in expiation of the subterfuge. Makes sense to me.

1:38:25 PM