Someone who could care less about blogging
Sunday 13 January 2002
Sunday 20 January 2002
Flapjacks
Since I am not an accomplished cook I stick to a few tried and tested recipes. Here’s a foolproof one for flapjacks, from The Whole Wheat Heart of Yasha Aginsky (by Yasha Aginsky).
3 farm fresh eggs
1½ cups of milk
½ teaspoon of sea salt
1/3 cup of sunflower oil
3 tablespoons of raw honey
2 cups of whole wheat flourBlend everything together and chill until ready to use. (The batter will keep in a jar in the refrigerator for a week.) Bake on a hot, oiled griddle until browned on both sides. Serve topped with raw honey, pure maple syrup, or a mixture of yoghurt and stewed apricots. (Natsuko likes a topping of fresh fruit salad and maple syrup.)
The recipe works perfectly well with normal eggs, salt, and honey too. Unfortunately the cookbook is out of print; though at the time of this post there was a secondhand copy at Powell’s in Portland, OR.
Friday 25 January 2002
eczematic, beermeister extraordinaire
. The pub across the street from the New Wok in Town where I ate dinner tonight has this beautiful glowing Cooper’s sign in one of its windows. I was sitting in the restaurant drinking a Cascade Premium Light. I’d actually ordered Cascade Premium Lager but the new waitress brought me the light beer by mistake and it didn’t seem important enough to make a fuss about. As soon as I looked up and saw the sign, I wished I’d ordered a Coopers Best Extra Stout instead. Except that the New Wok doesn’t stock Coopers.
All of which is just a preamble to writing about this terrific beer site I discovered: RateBeer.com. (Over 44,000 real user ratings of more than 11,600 beers!) The range of beers rated is astonishing and, while the quality of the ratings obviously varies, the knowledge and wit of some users is impressive. I looked up Cascade Premium Light and found this gem by eczematic:
Drank some of this last night when we ran out of anything else. Better than some light beers, having a reasonably pleasant hop aroma, and some cleanish barley grain in the body, but I still get the feeling that I’m a victim of some practical joke where the brewers piss into green bottles and see how many people will buy it because it says “premium”. I think the accelerating drunkenness versus sobering over time graph will show that this stuff actually sends you backwards - it’s the antimatter of the beer cosmos, and should be annihilated.
He gave it a score of 1.4 out of 5. He rates Coopers Best Extra Stout at 4.5. As a point of reference, he gives Anchor Steam Beer a score of 3.6, describing it as the best American beer he’s had. When I checked eczematic’s user profile I discovered he’s only been a member since September 25 last year and in exactly four months he’s rated 552 beers! Each member profile page shows a distribution graph for all the beers rated and there’s a spike in eczematic’s down at 0.5. He’s not xenophobic—his worst ten includes four Australian beers but, I’m pleased to say, Schlitz Red Bull and Schlitz Ice occupy the two spots at the absolute bottom of the barrel. I’ve tasted some wonderful American beer over the years but nothing can erase the memory of two mouthfuls of Schlitz I drank in Vicksburg, MS in 1981.
The really good news is that eczematic lives in Sydney. I’m going to suggest to Garth that the three of us get together and talk drink beer. We might even be able to talk eczematic into starting a beer blog—though given his strenuous tasting schedule he may not have the time.
Friday 08 February 2002
Brian
On my way home yesterday afternoon I photographed Brian outside the supermarket, where he sells The Big Issue most days, apart from Mondays and Fridays when he switches his beat to Newtown railway station. The Big Issue, an Australian offshoot of a UK publication, is an “independent current affairs magazine with a sense of humour sold by the homeless and longterm unemployed on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.”
Brian is no longer homeless though he does have a great sense of humor and he has been “unemployed” for a number of years—if you define unemployed as selling his magazines for six to eight hours a day, thirteen days a fortnight. He receives half the cover price of AU$3 (US$1.52) for each copy he sells. He’s invariably cheerful and ready for a chat. I tease him about his smoking (he keeps promising to quit), I threaten to report him for not wearing his badge (on the cover of the magazine it says “Please buy from badged vendors only”), and I pretend to have bought the magazine from another vendor. It’s all water off a duck’s back.
Late last year I saw him on a Saturday afternoon selling sausage sandwiches outside the supermarket. I assumed he’d come up with a way of supplementing his magazine income but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. It turns out the supermarket chain was running a promotion for the Childrens Hospital and the manager had decided on a sausage sizzle. Brian saw him selling “about three in half an hour” and offered to take over. Through the course of that afternoon and the next, Brian sold enough sandwiches to his regulars and other locals to raise $1000 for the hospital.
Australia is full of people, rich and poor, who complain about the hand they’ve been dealt. Brian isn’t one of them. When I saw him yesterday, he had two reasons to be happy—there’s a story about him in the magazine (that’s his photo on the page he’s holding open) and today is his birthday. This afternoon he’ll be outside the station when I get off the train. I’ll look forward to seeing him so I can give him a gift, which won’t come close to repaying him for all he’s taught me. Brian is someone we call in Australia a “battler.” I’m lucky to know him.
Saturday 16 February 2002
Couldn’t disagree with you more
Victor offers a suggestion “to revolutionise American popular culture—it would be to use a much thinner mug for serving coffee at breafast time. The thick white mugs that are used in many establishments are guaranteed to turn that first cup of coffee stone cold.”
The thick white mug is an essential component of the American coffee experience (in a diner at least, I don’t know what kind of mugs they have at Starbucks). I drink my morning coffee out of a thick white mug and the heft and feel of it more than compensate for a slightly lowered temperature.
Sunday 17 February 2002
The woman of my dreams
“A Melbourne woman today celebrated the opening of a new Starbucks store in her home suburb of St Kilda. ‘I have always hated the taste of coffee, so it’s great that I can now get a coffee without any taste,’ she said. (The Chaser News via Meryland)
Thick coffee mugs
This is the kind of thick white coffee mug that so greatly distresses Victor. I suspect that he would find Dave’s coffee mug perfectly acceptable (Dave’s mug is made of thinner, whiter china than mine).
I’ve had this mug for more than twelve years and would be terribly upset if I accidentally broke it. Each time I travel to the US, I tell myself that I should buy a spare or two but I never seem to get around to it.
I just tried to find a supplier via Google and all I could turn up was the Jack Rabbit Coffee Cup (“A great thick coffee cup with the Jack Rabbit Trading Post Logo on the cup.”). One wonders where they could put a logo other than on the cup.
Sunday 28 April 2002
Dishmatique
I’m not sure what this reveals about my personality but one of things I loved about being a photographer was having different camera systems, with all kinds of accessories that screwed or snapped together with satisfying clicks. Though not anywhere near as tactile, computers are similar: I have lots of SCSI, USB, and Firewire devices hanging off both my desktop and notebook PCs.
I like the Dishmatique washing up system for the same reason: not only does it have replaceable sponge/scouring heads, but you unscrew the cap on the end and fill the handle with dishwashing detergent, which the Dishmatique automatically dispenses as you clean!
Each scouring head has a kind of bayonet mount with a safety catch to ensure that the head cannot work its way loose—no matter how vigorously you scrub.
Best of all, two kinds of interchangeable sponge/scouring heads are available:
- Non-Scratch White (for delicate china and non-stick cookware) and
- Heavy Duty Green (for stubbon stains and cast-iron pots and pans).
Given that the Dishmatique is made in England, it amazes me that a Google search on “Dishmatique” yields only two sites: Maria in Finland and Kron International in Sweden.
I can’t imagine facing a pile of dishes without my Dishmatiques (I have two, so that I don’t have to switch heads in mid-wash). I’ll be interested to hear if they’re available elsewhere in the world.
Wednesday 01 May 2002
The glory of pho
Last week, taking a break from moving my Radio site to Movable Type, Herman Coomans and I had lunch at Pho 236, a Vietnamese place in Newtown, where I live.
Today I had lunch there again with my friend Gerrit Fokkema. We started with a serving of Goi Cuon (cold spring rolls) followed by Pho (noodle soup) with seafood rather than the traditional beef.
If you’ve never had pho, you should run immediately to the closest pho restaurant and order a bowl (it doesn’t matter what time it is, pho can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner). Both Herman and Gerrit were struck by the delicious flavor, the freshness of the ingredients, and the feeling that you’ve eaten something really healthy. Just writing about it like this makes me want to return tonight, but I’m having dinner at Linda and Jane’s place so I’ll have to wait.
<edited>For those who want to know more about pho, Mai Pham, the owner of the Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafe in Sacramento provides a complete history of the dish plus a recipe in this marvellous SF Gate essay.</edited>
Here, she discusses pho’s origins:
Some theorize it was the French who triggered pho, popularizing the use of bones and lesser cuts of beef to make broth. After all, in a society that wasted nothing, what was one to do with all the bones carved from biftecks? In fact, they believe perhaps it was first created when Vietnamese cooks learned to make pot au feu for their French masters. The name pho, they suspect, might have even come from feu. But others argue that while the French can take credit for popularizing beef, it was actually the Chinese who inspired the dish with ingredients like noodles, ginger and anise. Then there are still others who claim it was the Chinese, and the Chinese alone, who instigated this culinary wonder.
But regardless of the origin, Chinese or French or both, once at the stove, the Vietnamese were quick to interject their own ideas. They concocted an exciting dish, using ingredients inspired by their foreign rulers but customizing it to include nuoc mam, or fish sauce, the defining characteristic of the local cuisine.
In the 1930s, in part spurred by nationalistic sentiments, some Hanoi scholars wrote passionately about pho, a food that not only cleverly provided all the necessary nourishment in one convenient bowl, but one that also symbolically freed the Vietnamese. At last, the Vietnamese succeeded in their fight for self-determination; finally they were free to express themselves, if only through their pho.
<edited>Now I feel that in ordering seafood pho I haven’t had the authentic pho experience. I’ll make up my mind about that tomorrow. And if you take the time to read Mai Pham on pho, you won’t be able to resist trying a bowl.</edited>
Thursday 02 May 2002
An American Dishmatique
There have been some very exciting developments in the worldwide hunt for the Dishmatique. Kevin Laurence added a comment to the original story, noting that in the UK, three scouring heads are available: White, Green, and Orange. “The orange one is less abrasive than the green and not as smooth as the white,” explained Kevin, adding that the Dishmatique system might be available in France too.
Then tonight, Jeff Cheney emailed me the news that he’d found the American equivalent—the Scotch-Brite Dishwand with Scrubber Brush—at Walgreen’s on Market Street in San Francisco.
It’s clear to me at least, from the picture Jeff included, that the American version is superior to the British models we use in Australia. Not only is the scouring head tapered (allowing better access to gunk-filled nooks and crannies) but the handle is calibrated (so that you can add water and detergent in the correct proportions—if you favor diluted detergent for environmental or other reasons). Once again, American know-how transforms excellence into perfection.
<update>Jeff Cheney sent photographs of two more Dishmatique clones that he found at a local Safeway grocery store. “I’m not sure what’s ‘automatic’ about the first one,” he writes, “but I like the aggressive brush on the “Squeeze & Wash” model. Jeff adds that he thinks the Dishmatique “still wins for the best name.” I can’t see how anyone would disagree. Though I do prefer the interchangeable sponge/scourer head to the bristles on the Squeeze & Wash.</update>
Saturday 11 May 2002
Washing dishes at the University of Blogaria
AKMA writes that reflecting on Carol Carbone’s supplemental addition to DSM-IV (on Identiopathic Personality Disorder) while washing the dishes led him to ponder “the difficulty of thinking critically about the church from within the church.”
Although he has promised to send me a dishwashing photograph, I already know that AKMA does not use the Dishmatique or any of its American variants, since the technical complexity of the Dishmatique discourages any speculation other than Should I switch to the Non-Scratch head for this china salad bowl? or Do I need to top up the handle with detergent?
I remain alert, however, to the possibility that AKMA has developed a postmodern dishwashing method that amplifies one’s capacity for free associative thinking and critical analysis while guaranteeing spotless dishes and utensils. With AKMA’s permission, I will publish the photograph as soon as it arrives.
In a post titled Hands Off My Saint, AKMA responded to what he perceived as Jeff Ward’s unfair slur (since retracted) on St Augustine. I could only barely make sense of the paragraph that Jeff quoted (from On Christian Doctrine) but AKMA pointed to two sources of difficulty: Latin syntax sometimes results in sentences that translate badly into English while the quality of the translation is crucial. AKMA provided two alternative translations, each of which made much better sense (I preferred that of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers to Edmund Hill’s).
Does not AKMA’s description of Jeff Ward as Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Blogaria imply the existence of other professorial vacancies? I have no objection to AKMA’s appointment as Chancellor of the university as long as fund-raising for the institution is placed in the hands of the Happy Tutor, whose intimate connections with the rich and powerful would surely result in a steady stream of endowments.
Unencumbered by any sense of false modesty, I nominate myself for the Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon Foundation Chair in Early Japanese Literature at the University of Blogaria.
Sunday 12 May 2002
The dishwashing theologian
True to his word, AKMA has furnished photographic evidence of his commitment to the highest standards of dishwashing excellence.
Although, as he admitted in a previous post, “the snap-on sponges lack that scrubbing surface that would make the product ideal,” the Liquid Detergent Dish Washer does in fact meet the criteria for a Dishmatique-style product:
- a handle that is filled with liquid detergent; plus
- snap-on replaceable sponge heads.
The scouring surface on the snap-on sponge (available in one level of scouring intensity in the USA, two in Australia, and three in the UK) is generally accepted as a refinement rather than an integral part of the design.
Accordingly, I must offer my abject apologies for doubting AKMA’s dishwashing bona fides and, at the same time, express my unbounded admiration for someone who can engage in inner theological debate whilst using a complex dishwashing implement.
(I reject all suggestions that my humble demeanor is related in any way to AKMA’s influence on my recent academic appointment.)
Ralf added a comment to my original Dishmatique post, saying that although he likes “the idea of washing dishes with more or less clean hands” he despairs of finding one in Germany where he lives. The fact that the Dishmatique is available in Sweden and Finland suggests that dishwashing standards may be higher in Scandinavia than in other parts of the European Union (the UK, of course, excepted).
“Maybe someone is willing to send me a box full of dishmatiques with replacement heads (after I sent the money, of course),” adds Ralf.
Having asked for, and received, a tenured professorship at U Blog (without any money changing hands), I am prepared to act as a Dishmatique supplier of last resort. However, I do urge Ralf and anyone else who lusts after the Dishmatique to try a few different supermarkets—after all, Jeff Cheney located three variants in San Francisco in less than 24 hours and AKMA found a fourth in Evanston, Illinois (although in AKMA’s case we cannot discount the possibility of divine intervention).
Sunday 14 July 2002
Eat a peach
Inspired by Burningbird’s excellent post On Being a Sensualist, I’ve just eaten a sun-dried peach (the one in this photograph actually—just like Edward Weston who would photograph a green pepper in the morning then slice it up in the salad he and Tina Modotti would eat for lunch). I’d love to eat another, but at AU$39.95 a kilo I’m rationing them so that the five I bought this afternoon will last until the end of the week. (Don’t think I’m not aware that the true sensualist would have no truck with rationing.)
I like dried fruit. Over the years I’ve eaten dried fruits of every description—apricots, sultanas, bananas, raisins, prunes, figs, dates, muscatels, apples, currants—but until last Saturday I’d never had a sun-dried peach. I was at the greengrocer’s, buying some more California cherries, and I’m sure the woman behind the counter must have thought to herself: Anyone who’ll pay $21.95 a kilo for cherries has to be ripe for an upsell to sun-dried peaches.
“Have you tried these?” she asked me innocently, reaching across and plucking a fat, juicy, sun-dried peach from the box. Cherries, peaches, tamarillos… in that order, my favorite fruits.
“Well, to be honest,” I replied, “these cherries are already stretching my budget.” (Surely an authentic sensualist doesn’t know the meaning of the word “extravagant.”)
“Try one,” she said. “On me. Because you’re a good customer.” As they say in the drug business, the first taste is free. And indescribably delicious.
I held out yesterday but today I was back, asking for “just a handful.” Now I’m hooked.
Monday 22 July 2002
Beautiful
Staff on Sydney trains are typically taciturn and uninformative but on the 8:19 from Newtown to the city this morning we had an unusually talkative conductor: a young woman with, from the sound of her voice over the intercom, a Middle European accent.
“We are waiting for red light to change,” she informed us—with a hard “g” at the end of “waiting”—as the train was briefly delayed just beyond Macdonaldtown station. “We will be going again shortly.”
Then, as the train approached Central, the first station on the inner city loop, she made another announcement:
“Next stop is Central. It is beautiful morning, we are living in beautiful city. All the passengers are beautiful, life is beautiful. I wish you will all have very beautiful day.”
Wednesday 31 July 2002
Joy in dishwashing
Am I wrong in believing that AKMA is the only Blogarian who blogs doing dishes? As in:
After I collapsed in a heap to nap for the afternoon, I went to the store for Margaret, ate a delicious dinner of gluten-free quiche (with a crust you could never tell was gluten-free if you didn’t already know), washed dishes, and then we headed to the Evanston Megaplex (which is why I haven’t had time to blog today).
(Or could it be an oblique way of saying that he really loves using his Dishmatique?)
Sunday 11 August 2002
Sorry, no Twinkies
The 1000th Comment Contest winner, Mahesh Shantaram, has claimed his prize by providing me with a shipping address. Although I included photographs of the Dishmatique and a pair of Tim Tams in the contest announcement, Mahesh wrote:
Anyway, I hope to expect this Tim Tam thing, whatever it is, in my snail mail box someday…
But he appears to have figured out that Tim Tams are biscuits/cookies since in a followup email he wrote:
Say can I get Twinkies instead? We don’t get Twinkies in India and I’ve heard so much about it :`(
I don’t think we get Twinkies in Australia (Allan, Victor, or another Australian resident might correct me on this). So it looks like it’s Tim Tams for you, Mahesh. Just make sure you refrigerate them as soon as they arrive.
Thursday 15 August 2002
The Gemco Li’l Scrubber
Thanks to Burningbird for pointing me to what looked like one of the most exciting developments in dishwashing technology since the original Dishmatique.
Eric Grevstad used his Gemco Li’l Scrubber (apparently not to be confused with the same company’s Li’l Scrubby) as a test subject for a Hardware Central review of the Toshiba PDR-3300, which he describes as the best value he’s seen in a digital camera (a compact 3-megapixel, 2.8X-optical-zoom model, for the low 2-megapixel price of US$349).
As much as Eric might like the PDR-3300, I was far more impressed with the Li’l Scrubber. But Eric cautioned me in an email that the Li’l Scrubber is designed quite differently from the Dishmatique and, as a result, suffers from operational problems:
…you pry off the top to pour in and then push to release the soap — actually not my favorite design, since it’s hard to scrub without squeezing the soap trigger.
I realize now that I got carried away by the appearance of the Li’l Scrubber, as well as by its artful placement with the scourer in the porcelain dishwashing apparatus stand. And, having read Eric’s comprehensive review of the Toshiba camera, I’d be a fool not to trust his evaluation of the Li’l Scrubber.
But another part of me just hankers after one. I think that before trying to obtain my own Li’l Scrubber by mail order from the US, I’d better get a second or third opinion as to its potential. (At first glance it looks as though it would be vastly superior to the Dishmatique for cleaning my Le Creuset cast iron skillet grill.) AKMA and Dorothea Salo’s husband David spring immediately to mind as dishwashing enthusiasts. It’s been a while since we’ve seen David’s byline on a Caveat Lector post—this could be the opportunity he’s been waiting for. Naturally I’ll be most interested in any other first hand experiences with the Gemco Li’l Scrubber.
Tuesday 20 August 2002
Make that a soda
Mark Pilgrim visualizes having too many drinks at his wedding reception:
This is how it goes, until a full-body numbness mixes in with the adrenaline and the lack of sleep and the awful awful music that I specifically asked the DJ not to play and the general oh-my-God-ness of actually being in the middle of my own wedding, and at this moment I suddenly realize that I’m feeling a little bit tipsy. It is this moment that you must understand, this moment that you do not understand, because you have lived this moment in your own way but never in the way that I have lived this moment, the way that I always live this moment. This is the moment that sets us apart, you and me, husband and wife, alcoholic and not. This is the moment where you switch to soda, but I do not.
When I read Mark’s post, my immediate response was: “Whoa, how are the wedding guests going to handle the “non-alcoholic bar”? But what I was really thinking was: “Whoa, how would I handle a non-alcoholic bar?”
I’d handle it fine, by flicking the switch in my head from “drinking” to “not drinking.” The problem is, though, that the switch can be somewhat stiff and difficult to flick at times.
Truthfully, it shouldn’t be a matter of “handling it.” Because “handling it” implies that “it” needs to be “handled.” It equals alcohol, and handling equals making sure everything stays under control. Which inevitably means rules: don’t drink before the sun has set, don’t drink on weeknights, don’t drink alone, don’t mix your drinks, don’t drink more than two beers and one glass of wine (or one beer and two glasses of wine), drink only low-alcohol beer, stop drinking when your face feels numb… the inexhaustible strategies of the addictive personality. Simpler not to drink at all. But that’s a big ask—when you like the taste, and the comfortable numbness, and the physical act of sipping your drink (I imagine that smoking offers similar pleasures and more).
But, at the wedding reception, I’d drink soda (lemon, lime, & bitters, actually), I’d watch and listen (and be far more present than if I’d had a drink or three), I’d talk and laugh and dance, and I’d be grateful to a host who respected his new wife and himself, and who—in demanding the best of his guests—had offered us all a remarkable gift.
Friday 23 August 2002
A cat’s tale
In response to repeated demands for photographs of my new cat, here she is:
I didn’t give her a name until a couple of days after she arrived and, unfortunately, the name I chose hasn’t really stuck. It’s a Japanese name that begins with an “R” and I realize now that only Japanese speakers will pronounce it correctly. More seriously, a Japanese friend pointed out to me tonight that the name I chose is associated with a tall, elegant, somewhat aloof style of Japanese beauty, whereas this little cat is short, somewhat tubby, and endearingly friendly. My friend thinks I should call her Hanako or Momoko (flower child and peach/pink child, respectively). I’m not so sure. She’s a gray and white cat. I did manage to take a nice photo of her, but I’ll hold off posting it until she has the right name.
Monday 26 August 2002
Introducing Reimi
This is Reimi. I decided to stay with the name I gave her when she first arrived, notwithstanding the problems I mentioned about its pronunciation and meaning. When I consulted an internationally renowned expert on naming animals, she advised me that:
animals, in particular cats and dogs, respond more positively to names that end in a long ‘e’ sound, such as Zoe. If possible, you want to name an animal a two syllable name, ending with the long e sound, such as Joey, Sammy, Kimi, Baby…
That nixed Hanako and Momoko.
So I considered all the Japanese female names I like that end with a long ‘e’ sound, such as Nami, Fumi, Kimi, and Mami but soon realized that I think of her as Reimi (technically, three syllables in Japanese: re-i-mi). My friend Natsuko got around the fact that she’s not a tall, elegant, aloof cat by suggesting an alternative kanji for rei. So now her name means lovely/companion (rei) and beautiful (mi).
Pronunciation remains a problem. After hearing Natsuko say “Reimi,” my sister Louise asked: “Does it start with an ‘R’ or an ‘L’?”
“Both,” replied Natsuko. Or, as Jack Seward explains:
To a layman like myself, the Japanese r sounds like a blending, in equal parts, of the l, d, and r of English. To a scholar of phonetics, it is a single-tap r with the tip of the tongue hitting briefly against the ridge behind the upper teeth and immediately descending. Try saying the English name Eddy, pronouncing the dd only very briefly and touching the tip of the tongue to the ridge behind the upper teeth only very lightly. This should give you a close approximation of the Japanese word eri, meaning collar.
Interestingly, research Professor Patricia Kuhl has conducted over the last 25 years at the University of Washington reveals that, at six months of age, babies of all nationalities can differentiate between sounds no matter what the language. “But over the next six months of life,” as Gregory Roberts writes in this story for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
the babies get even better at perceiving the changes in sounds from their “own” language, the one their parents speak — yet they gradually lose the ability to recognize changes in sounds that don’t exist in their native tongue.
As an example, Kuhl cites the English “r” and “l” sounds, which distinguish between words such as “rake” and “lake.” In the United States, babies from English-speaking homes detect the change from “ra” to “la” when they are 6 months old and get better at it by 12 months.
But in Japanese, there is no such “r” and “l” distinction. In Japan, where babies at 6 months perform as well as their American peers with the “r-l” shift, they can’t tell the difference at a year old.
As for Reimi-chan, she doesn’t seem to care how her name is pronounced, particularly when she’s being called for dinner.
Sunday 01 September 2002
A Bottlematique?
From Nantucket, AKMA advises me that his Aunt “has a dishwashing device, evidently designed specifically for bottles, that might make a helpful adjunct to the Dishmatique.”
Naturally I’m anxious for details. A photograph, particularly, if AKMA can turn his attention from “looking for a cafe with an open wireless access point” to picking up his digital camera and taking a snap of the bottlewashing implement. You did take your digicam to Nantucket, AKMA, didn’t you?
The abundance of dishwashing devices around the world has suggested a business opportunity. (The US, not surprisingly, seems to have the greatest variety but on my next trip to Japan I’ll spend some time investigating Japanese dishwashing technology. A quick trip to Tokyu Hands in Shibuya should turn up some gems.) I’m thinking about putting together custom dishwashing kits and selling them on the Web. So that someone who (for example) is a home brew enthusiast with lots of cast iron cookware and an aversion to Teflon surfaces could order a bundle consisting of a standard Dishmatique, a Li’l Scrubber, and the bottlewasher favored by AKMA’s Aunt.
Update. Mark Pilgrim returned from his trip to Cupertino to discover that his beloved fianceé had bought and installed a sponge organizer in their sink:
Upon wondering aloud—in a roundabout sort of way—whether this was an example of suburban consumerism run amok, I was informed in no uncertain terms that sponge organizers are specially designed to allow sponges to dry more quickly, and are therefore good for the sponges’ health.
Mark doesn’t make it clear whether said sponges are used for actual dishwashing or merely for wiping down the sink and benches. If even one of the sponges is regularly employed in washing dishes, then I’ll have to add sponge organizers to my online catalog.
(One of the advantages of the Dishmatique is that if you store it on end, the detergent drains to the bottom of the handle and the sponge/scourer head is exposed to a constant flow of air.)
Tuesday 03 September 2002
Reimi says: “Thank you, Mark!”
In honor of Reimi, my new cat, Mark Pilgrim started a weblog category for cat pictures.
When I just told Reimi, she said that she was honored to be the foundation cat in Mark’s cat pictures category, then asked if there was any kind of prize involving food. I said, not as far as I know, but gave her a handful of Whiskas Cravers Chicken Delights (The crunchy soft centered snack).
Sunday 08 September 2002
The Tim Tams have landed
From Mahesh Shantaram comes news that his prize for making the 1000th comment on my weblog has finally arrived—happily on his 25th birthday. In a gracious thank-you message, Mahesh told me that my timing impressed him just as much as the Tim Tams:
Given the inherent inefficiencies and sheer unpredictability of all physical postal systems in the world, this is a remarkable feat. You’ve simply outdone my 1000th comment performance.
I have a feeling that Mahesh’s wife may be the main beneficiary of the Tim Tam prize since women consume considerably more than 50% of the Tim Tams produced by Arnotts in Australia. (Tim Tams advertising is directed exclusively towards female consumers.)
Nevertheless, I believe that in the long term Mahesh’s wife would have benefited more if he’d chosen the Dishmatique prize. Once a man falls under the spell of modern dishwashing technology, his loved ones need never again plunge their hands into sudsy water.
The full dishwashing monty
AKMA reports from Beantown:
Good news for Jonathon: I grabbed snapshots of Si manipulating the Bottlematique. Another dishwasher for the Sudsy Studs of Cyberspace Calendar!
Does the imagination of our peripatetic pastor know no bounds? First he organizes the intellectual blogging elite by establishing the University of Blogaria; now he’s figured out how to commercialize the Blogarian male’s fascination with dishwashing implements. The Sudsy Studs of Cyberspace Calendar, on sale at a quality bookstore near you.
Twelve slots to fill, guys. Plenty of freshly scrubbed hunks to choose from: AKMA, Si, Jeff Cheney, Kevin Laurence, Eric Grevstad, Steve Himmer, myself… nominations are now officially declared open. I assume we’ll all have to appear nude, with sudsy substances deployed in the necessary places.
But David Salo will have to make a stronger commitment to dishwashing modernity than a dishcloth and couple of nylon scrubby pads if he has any expectation of appearing as Mr August.
Saturday 14 September 2002
Bottlematique?
AKMA’s son Si has auditioned for the forthcoming Sudsy Studs of Cyberspace calendar by demonstrating an “anonymous bottle-cleansing device” that AKMA has christened—“for no good reason,” he says (somewhat disingenuously)—the “Bottlematique.”
When AKMA first mentioned the Bottlematique, I had no problem with the name; now that I’ve seen the photographs, I have some doubts. As the acknowledged international authority on the Dishmatique, I’ve always assumed that the “matique” suffix connotes automating the manual dishwashing process in some way—most obviously by dispensing detergent from a hollow handle (see also Li’l Scrubber).
AKMA’s and Si’s “Bottlematique” appears to offer no such automating potential. On the other hand, AKMA might argue that the “matique” suffix may be ironically conferred on any unusual dishwashing device—so perhaps he’s using “Bottlematique” in this post-modernist or post-structuralist sense. Despite my ancestry, I have little enthusiasm for French theory. Rather, my theoretical allegience lies squarely with Adorno and the Frankfurt School.
If it wasn’t late on Saturday night and I wasn’t itching to watch Kate Winslett in Enigma, I’d spend some time searching for an apposite quotation from Adorno’s Minima Moralia. I guess that means that Bottlematique it is. (Though Si wouldn’t even be allowed to buy the calendar I had in mind, let alone appear in it.)
Tuesday 17 September 2002
An abundance of -matiqueity
AKMA conceived the term “-matiqueity” while simultaneously agreeing with my theory that its essence lies in the device’s “automating the manual dishwashing process in some way—most obviously by dispensing detergent from a hollow handle.”
This breakthrough in the semantics of dishwashing seems to have precipitated the discovery of two more devices, one of which extends the power of matique technology outside the kitchen.
Just when I thought the UK might be losing ground in the washing gadget wars, my wife spotted the Easy-Do Bathmatique in our local hardware store (could the Sudsy Studs Calendar have been her motivation?).
For the sake of your marriage, Kevin, let’s rather hope that she was motivated by a selfless desire to raise her husband’s matique-cred.
Kevin is correct in assuming that, by virtue of its being fillable, the Bathmatique qualifies as a true “matique”. Intriguingly, as well as coming in “at least two colours,” the Bathmatique can be switched “on and off by rotating the sponge head by 45 degrees.” (From the product packaging, it looks like the sponge head might also be topped with a non-abrasive scourer.) I can only assume that the ON/OFF switching controls the detergent flow. Fillable, switchable, available in two colors, designed to clean an entire bathroom—it would appear that, with the Bathmatique, the UK has returned to the forefront of matique technology. Only fitting, many would say, since my own Dishmatiques are proudly labelled “Made in England.”
As we await Kevin’s photographs of the Bathmatique in action (preferably in the bathroom and the kitchen), Steve Himmer brings news of an American matique device called the Quickie. Steve describes it as “a hollow, transparent plastic handle with a screw-cap at one end and a sponge at the other, perpendicular to the soap-filled shaft.”
Gadzooks, indeed. The hollow handle, screw-cap, and sponge immediately qualify the Quickie as a genuine matique product. But it’s the perpendicular relationship of sponge to handle that’s really exciting: imagine the force you could apply to a dirty surface by pushing perpendicularly instead of pressing laterally. Steve has also promised photographs of the Quickie. My dream of selling dishwashing kits online is looking more and more practicable.
Sunday 06 October 2002
A stunning new Dishmatique
In a nostalgic post about memories past, Burningbird fondly recalled late April, 2002—mentioning me in the context of two of my favorite tools:
That was the time that Jonathon started his Dishmatique craze, leading to the Sudsy Men of Weblogging. I beat Jonathon’s rollout to MT by a couple of hours, and it seemed like there was a virtual cascade of webloggers switching to Movable Type at that time.
Today, as if on cue, Allan Moult discovered the Dishmatique Flex, the most significant advance in dishwashing technology since the original Dishmatique. Get rid of the Scotch-Brite Dishwand with Scrubber Brush, discard the Liquid Detergent Dish Washer, jettison the Gemco Li’l Scrubber, ditch the Bottlematique, dispense with the Easy-Do Bathmatique, abandon the Quickie… consign them all to the dustbin of dishwashing history.
But I’m not going to steal Allan’s thunder. Let him tell you the whole story.
I did, however, turn up some fascinating information about the development of the Dishmatique Flex. Though the new device hasn’t yet been indexed by Google—it’ll be there next month, for sure—buried within all the weblog entries in the search results for “Dishmatique” was a case study by Hyphen Design, the company that designed the new model.
It took Hyphen four months to run the Dishmatique Flex—which they call the Easy-do Dishmatique—through the six design phases: concept generation, styling and ergonomics, concept model, feature innovation, engineering, and production assistance.
For a moment, when I saw Allan’s post, I’d fantasized that Easy-do had discovered our blogging conversation and used our ideas as part of their brief to Hyphen Design. It appears not, if you believe this [annotated] account of the design process:
Hyphen took an existing washing up brush [the Dishmatique] and added patented, marketable features [check Allan’s post to see what they are], while keeping the cost of manufacture low. The product is now selling in supermarkets worldwide [including Woolworths in Hobart], and we are working with Easy-do on a range of future products.
Daniel Neuman, Managing Director, Easy-do Products - “We work very well with Hyphen. They learned from our experience initially, then gave us the fresh ideas to take our product forward. We also have the confidence from the support when it comes to manufacturing.
There’s no Woolworths close to my home so I’ll have to wait until Tuesday, when I’m in the city, to find my own Dishmatique Flex. And, as much as I respect Hyphen’s design, I firmly believe that we could teach Easy-do a thing or two about the Cluetrain.
Friday 11 October 2002
I sleep, but my heart waketh
Strange… I was going to title this post To sleep, perchance to dream (Shakespeare) and I find that Burningbird got there before me. Lucky I chose a Biblical reference instead. Seems like Bb needs to sleep:
All I’ve wanted to do for the past few weeks is sleep. As soon as the sun goes down, I’m ready for bed. I’m ready for bed now, and it’s only 7:45pm.
Shannon Campbell slept (just the right amount too):
Woke up feeling rested after a solid six hours of sleep. (Anyone else ever hear that theory that you should sleep in blocks three hours? Something having to do with circadian rhythms, or some other nonsense that I failed in biology. [I once got a 13 on an AP Biology test. It was graded on a curve. Of 13.] Supposedly, if you can’t get nine hours, you should only sleep six. And if you can’t get six, you should only sleep three.)
I believe Shannon is out by a factor of two. You should sleep in 90 minute blocks. I know it’s true for me and I’ve tested the theory over the years whenever the topic of sleep comes up in conversation by asking people what time they normally wake up after going to sleep without setting an alarm. It’s always a multiple of 90 minutes (plus or minus 5 minutes): 6hrs, 7.5hrs, 9hrs, 10.5hrs, 12hrs.
If an alarm wakes you in the middle of a 90 minute block, you feel like shit. You’d have been far better off waking up at the end of the previous block—even though you’d have had “less sleep.”
Pierce J. Howard, Ph.D. sums up the research:
Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy. Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain-wave patterns. For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes: 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep; 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream); and a final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. The REM sleep phases are shorter during earlier cycles (less that 20 minutes) and longer during later ones (more than 20 minutes).
If we were to sleep completely naturally, with no alarm clocks or other sleep disturbances, we would wake up, on the average, after a multiple of 90 minutes—for example, after 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, or 9 hours, but not after 7 or 8 hours, which are not multiples of 90 minutes. In the period between cycles we are not actually sleeping: it is a sort of twilight zone from which, if we are not disturbed (by light, cold, a full bladder, noise), we move into another 90-minute cycle. A person who sleeps only four cycles (6 hours) will feel more rested than someone who has slept for 8 to 10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed….
In other words, the 90 minute sleep cycle is a scientific and medical fact.
For some reason I’m obsessed about proving this to everyone with whom I talk about sleep. It might be that I really love sleeping. Or, more particularly, dreaming. It’s almost as though I live a parallel life in my dreams. Themes recur, I visit the same locations over and again, I dream in Japanese, I meet up with dead friends, I sort out all kinds of problems…
Tonight in the Chinese restaurant, I asked Phoebe, one of the waitresses, how her art school studies were progressing.
“Only four weeks to go before I finish,” she told me, “but I think I’ll go on to do an honors year. The only problem is I have to specialize and I can’t decide whether to choose painting or photography.”
I’ve always thought it was a miracle that her (Chinese) parents allowed her to go to art school in the first place. There are two other waitresses and—as one might expect—one’s studying accounting and the other business administration.
I told Phoebe that every night from now on, when she turns off the light and rests her head on the pillow, she should ask herself one of two questions:
- “Which should I choose, photography or painting?” or
- “Which should I choose, painting or photography?”
(Best not to privilege one over the other.) Her unconscious already knows which path she should follow, it’s simply a matter of allowing her heart to awaken.
When Phoebe came back later with a pot of tea, she said: “I like your idea. I’m going to give it a try.” I thought about mentioning the 90 minute sleep cycle but decided to leave it go—she’s under enough pressure already.
Tuesday 29 October 2002
Dishmatique Flex
In acknowledgment of AKMA’s snazzy new domain name and in appreciation for his exegesis of the phrase “hallowed be thy name”—both in my comments and on his own blog—I thought I should review the Dishmatique Flex, first reported by Allan Moult a couple of weeks ago.
Imagine my surprise to discover in the dishwashing implement area of the Woolworths Metro store adjacent to Town Hall Station not just the expected Dishmatique Flex PowerPad but an additional device: the Dishmatique Flex Brush.
While both devices feature the classic hollow detergent-dispensing handle that epitomizes the Dishmatique approach to dishwashing excellence, the handles on the new models have been greatly improved ergonomically: broader and slightly flatter, the Flex handles sit more comfortably in one’s hand, offering a more comfortable grip.
Initially I was dubious about whether the silver non-scratch PowerPad could replace both the Non-Scratch White and Heavy Duty Green pads available for the previous model. But the PowerPad turned out to be tough enough for cast-iron cookware and gentle enough for the Teflon-coated bowl of my rice cooker. The Dishmatique Brush is perfect for cleaning the stainless steel strainer in my Panasonic Juice Extractor. Since the Flex devices use a different style of attachment, the old pads have been obsoleted. Such is the price of progress.
My only quibble is that the screw cap at the end of the handle has been replaced by a flexible rubber cap which forms part of the rubberized handgrip. While there is no longer any risk of losing the screw cap, I am concerned that the rubber may not stand up to years of heavy use.
Putting aside that minor reservation, I’m happy to report that with the Dishmatique Flex system, Easy-Do have taken a superb product and transformed it into an outstanding one. I confidently await their assault on the American market.
[I can’t resist the temptation to explain that, although I’ve been using Photoshop since version 1.0, it took me until today to figure out how to deep-etch the Dishmatique photos by using the pen tool and converting the path to a selection instead of laboriously selecting pixels with the lasso and magic wand tools. What a breakthrough!]
Tuesday 19 November 2002
The deconstructive soapy stud
When AKMA mentioned that he’d “be spending some time with Prof. Derrida next week,” the thought immediately came to mind that I should ask our learned chaplain to kick the old French fart in the shins for me (so deep is my loathing for pomo theory). Two quite different sources forced me to revise my opinion of Derrida.
The first—following a link from the comments on that post—was the essay by Christopher Norris in which he argues convincingly (to me anyway) that Derrida is not a postmodernist at all. The second, more persuasive text, was the Derrida movie (quoted by Jacob Goodson), which provides documentary evidence that the beloved philosopher does the dishes at home. A “deconstructive soapy stud” indeed. AKMA added:
If only he had the good judgment to take up blogging, we’d have a veritable supermodel for the “Sudsy Studs of Cyberspace” calendar. Speaking of which, Jonathon had better get working on the production end of it for it to be ready for holiday gift-giving. Maybe that’s what he’s up to now… .
I didn’t realize I’d been lumbered with the task of actually producing the “Sudsy Studs of Cyberspace” calendar. When I last checked we were bogged down on the issue of Si’s participation, given the level of nudity traditionally required in sudsy-style calendars.
But Derrida’s potential inclusion totally alters the commercial viablility of the project. Couldn’t we quickly set up a blog for him? An el cheapo Blog*Spot account would do. (I’ve just checked and derrida.blogspot.com is available—it might even be worth soliciting donations for a $5 a month Blog*Spot Plus account.)
I thought that Derrida might round out the dozen but currently the roster stands at eight (if we tone down the nudity to include Si):
AKMA, Si, Jeff Cheney, Kevin Laurence, Eric Grevstad, Steve Himmer, David Salo, myself.
Derrida would make it nine and Ray Davis has also expressed interest:
If you find your calendar one month short, I’m also an inveterate dishwasher, by the way.
Ray, your presence would be greatly appreciated, assuming you can provide photographic evidence that you are familiar with the latest dishwashing technology (i.e. a Dishmatique-style device). Derrida, on the other hand, gets a free pass—as does David Salo, even though he uses just a dishcloth and a couple of nylon scrubby pads. After all, “the guy who did the Elvish for the Lord of the Rings movies” need make no concessions to modernity.
That leaves two slots. Further nominations are eagerly anticipated (I’m hoping to hear from one of the Wealth Bondage team—the Happy Tutor or Dick Minim preferably, since not in my wildest dreams do I envisage Candidia Cruickshanks as a sudsy stud).
Saturday 07 December 2002
Progressive lenses for the hyperflexible personality
I need to wear glasses for reading: I have one pair for using the computer and and a slightly stronger pair for reading books. But since I’ve started to work on improving my Japanese reading skills I’ve realized that a single pair for both tasks would be more convenient. So I had my eyes tested today, by a new optometrist who’d been recommended by a friend.
He turned out to be a fascinating person. We chatted about reading foreign languages—I said I had no trouble reading Japanese from either left-to-right or top-to-bottom (the Japanese do both) but that I thought I’d have difficulty with right-to-left languages like Hebrew and Arabic. He told me that he used to be able to read and write Hebrew but that his writing skills had diminished for want of practice. He also mentioned the higher than average proportion of left-handed Israelis (compared to other countries), suggesting that the Hebrew writing system probably makes left-handedness more acceptable. If this is true—and, although a Google search yielded no references, I have no reason to believe it is not—then one would expect it would also be the case in Arab countries.
(I recall that in elementary school the nuns used to force left-handed children to write with their right hand by the simple expedient of tying their left hand behind their back with a length of coarse twine.)
Halfway through the testing procedure, which took nearly 45 minutes, I commented on the fact that I felt a degree of performance anxiety, experienced as a strong desire to provide the “correct answer” to each of the optometrist’s questions about the relative sharpness of individual test charts. He told me that this was quite natural, since I had such a strong emotional investment in the process. (He was right, of course: there are certain Japanese texts that I’m desperate to read in the original rather than as translations. I’d unconsciously linked the success of my Japanese reading project to having the right pair of glasses.)
He said that he listened very carefully to a patient’s voice while conducting these tests, in many cases giving greater emphasis to the emotional resonance of their answers than to the choices they actually made. Why? To avoid the risk of prescribing a lens that is stronger than necessary. He also factored this “emotional coefficient” into his choice of one kind of spectacles over another.
My friend had recommended this optometrist because he’d prescribed spectacles for her husband who, like me, needed to use a computer and read printed material on the desk in front of his monitor. So I went to the appointment expecting that he would recommend the same eyeglasses: progressive lenses, which would provide a smooth transition from intermediate to near. This was, in fact, his recommendation but out of curiosity I asked him about bifocals, segmented lenses with two distinct regions for—in my case—intermediate and near vision.
“I only prescribe bifocals for patients with rigid personalities,” he answered. “In other words, people who see the world in terms of black and white rather than shades of gray. Of course I wouldn’t be having this conversation with someone who needs bifocals.”
The optometrist as psychotherapist, I thought to myself, what an intriguing character.
He had another patient waiting so he took me to the frames department, where I selected a pair of thin black rectangular frames just like the ones I currently wear (chosen after seeing and admiring the spectacles the Wes Studi character wears in Michael Mann’s Heat).
My new eyeglasses should be ready late next week (the anti-reflection coating takes three days more). I’m looking forward to switching my attention seamlessly from screen to printed page, hyperflexible guy that I am.
Saturday 14 December 2002
A summer cold
I used to boast that taking Echinacea had protected me from colds and the flu for years. Since it’s generally accepted that it loses effectiveness after prolonged use, I’d break up my Echinacea usage by only taking the tablets from the first to the tenth and the sixteenth to the twenty-fifth of each month. But I’ve been careless about it over the past few months and on Thursday I came down with a severe cold. I tried taking a triple Echinacea dose for a couple of days but it was too late. I needed chemical, as distinct from herbal, assistance.
I haven’t taken Dimetapp for a long time and was happy to see that it was still available. It’s ridiculously expensive compared to the generic equivalent which is, no doubt, equally effective. But I love the DayGlo-colored capsules: bright orange (non-drowsy) for during the day and a kind of teal color for night time (with added Doxylamine Succinate to help you sleep). It’s one of the all-time great packaging jobs—Dimetapp overwhelms the surrounding cold and flu medicines on the pharmacy shelf and, when you pick up and flip open the package, those shiny fat orange and teal capsules look as though they’re bursting with chemical goodness.
So, that’s my cold and flu regime. Echinacea to ward away illness, Dimetapp to relieve the symptoms if I succumb. I guess you could call it the sublime and the ridiculous.
Sunday 05 January 2003
Dishappointing Dishmatique
According to Google, fellow-Australian Allan Moult and I remain the world’s leading authorities on the Dishmatique. Since Allan was the first Sudsy Stud to discover the Dishmatique Flex, I called him yesterday morning to ask how he was finding the “improved” Dishmatique after three months of use.
“I’m having a few problems with it,” he told me, a hint of disappointment evident in his voice—even all the way from Tasmania.
“Mine leaks detergent,” I confessed.
“From both ends!” he added vehemently.
A wave of relief washed over me. At least I wasn’t the only one having problems with the new model. We discussed the Flex’s shortcomings for ten minutes or so, agreeing that Hyphen Design may have been too clever by half in totally revamping the Dishmatique’s detergent delivery mechanism. Instead of a simple hole in the head of the classic—where the sponge/scourer attaches snugly—the Flex model has a complicated sprung-loaded sponge/scourer and a rubber washer in the head. When the Flex is stored head down, detergent leaks out. (Allan told me that he’d even tried reversing the washer, to no avail.)
Storing the Flex with its head up proves to be no more satisfactory since a stretch rubber end-cap has replaced the tight screw cap of the older model. I admit my initial review of the Dishmatique Flex was overly enthusiastic, given I’d only had it (and the Brush model) for a few days. But at least I foresaw potential problems with the end cap:
My only quibble is that the screw cap at the end of the handle has been replaced by a flexible rubber cap which forms part of the rubberized handgrip. While there is no longer any risk of losing the screw cap, I am concerned that the rubber may not stand up to years of heavy use.
I’ve retired my Dishmatique Flex and have gone back to using my classic Dishmatiques (one fitted with the heavy-duty green sponge-scourer, the other with the non-scratch white attachment). I still use the Flex brush for cleaning my juice extractor.
Allan and I also chatted about our long run at the top of the Google search results for “dishmatique”:
- my weblog occupies #1, #2, #7, and #8 spots;
- Allan has #3 and #4;
- Easy-Do (the manufacturer of the Dishmatique) is #5 and #6;
- DMPB (a direct mailer for Easy-Do) has #9; and
- Burningbird comes in at #10.
Easy-Do have significantly improved their ranking over the past year—when I started writing about the Dishmatique they barely made it into the top thirty. But a couple of small changes to their site design catapulted them into the top ten. And the fact that they’ve taken out a Google sponsored-link indicates their seriousness about playing the game. Even so, Easy-Do’s Dishmatique and Dishmatique Flex pages still illustrate perfectly how not to design with high search engine rankings in mind.
For the valuable consideration of a gross of classic Dishmatiques plus a gross each of heavy-duty and non-scratch replacement sponge-scourers (the three-packs, not the two-packs) I’m willing to consult with Easy-Do on how to get their site to the #1 spot on Google. If they come to the party on this, anyone who’s ever expressed interest in the Dishmatique or its imitators—either by posting on their own weblog or by leaving a comment in mine—can look forward to receiving a complete Dishmatique system in the mail.
Gemco Li’l Scrubber update
Turning to other dishwashing news, I received an email and an attached photograph from Norm Jenson (he’s happy for me to publish both):
Does this qualify as a dishmatique type device. Is it something new or perhaps there has already been a picture of this on your site. It would be easy to miss. I tried google but there are hundred’s of pages of posts by some Delacour Dude about this subject. I looked but didn’t find this exact model, though it certainly may have been there. I found it on my sink, I don’t know where it came from, but I suspect my wife. I tried it out and I like it.
I thought it looked like a cross between a Dishmatique and Eric Grevstad’s Gemco Li’l Scrubber, the one piece of dishwashing apparatus I still lust after (the Gemco has nylon bristles instead of a sponge-scourer).
And, as if cued by Norm’s message, Saundra Doty left the following comment:
Just got a Christmas present from my ex-husband’s present wife. It is the Li’l Scrubber by Gemco.
She presented it to all of us gathered at their home in Clermont, FL for our traditional feast and gift-giving Christmas celebration. She said it was so great that she wanted to share with all of us. She’s a gem and so is the Li’l Scrubber.
But….where do I get it. I live in little ole town of Brooksville, FL..some hour or so away from everywhere. Please help me…I’m in love with the Li’l Scrubber! I am wanting to share this will bugger with all my friends. any suggestions as to the closest place or if I could mail order? Thanks and Happy Holidays to the Sudsmen, whoever they are and if they are the inventors of Li’l Scrubber..God bless them and my hands bless them.
Eric’s no longer blogging, but perhaps someone else can advise Saundra (and me) as to where we can pick up a Li’l Scrubber.
And what a relief to find a female dishwashing enthusiast! When I read the opening paragraph of Tom Jaine’s Guardian review of Escoffier: The King of Chefs, it immediately occurred to me that men approach dishwashing in the same manner:
A wise old cook, veteran of work ruined by guttering fires and smoking chimneys, observed the essential difference between males and females in the kitchen. Men treat a meal as a problem to be solved; women as a series of things to be cooked. Men are preoccupied with tools, performance and manual dexterity. Women just press on. It’s the old antagonism of means and ends.
Happily, Saundra’s comment proves the existence of Sudsy Dames.
Sunday 12 January 2003
The “idealization of historical ignorance”
From Normative Shift by Coral Bell (The National Interest No. 70)
Whether 300 or 1,300 years in incubation, the conflict between the West and Islam has changed dramatically in the past thirty or forty years. For most of its history, this conflict was about power, land, and religion thought of as a creed armed rather than as a basic moral. Muslims and Christians alike had no argument with the bedrock code of the Hebrew Bible when it came to family, sexual and other fundamental moral obligations and assumptions. But in the last three or four decades, it is the West that moved rapidly away from these fundaments. Having so moved, the West then turned around and, mostly by media and commercial-borne inadvertence, begun exporting these new norms to the world of Islam—where they have caused no little trouble and resentment. The critical normative gap between us and them has widened because we widened it. And yet this obvious fact is hardly ever noted in the West.
From Fixed Opinions, or The Hinge of History by Joan Didion (The New York Review of Books, Volume L, Number 1):
There was much about this return to New York that I had not expected. I had expected to find the annihilating economy of the event—the way in which it had concentrated the complicated arrangements and misarrangements of the last century into a single irreducible image—being explored, made legible. On the contrary, I found that what had happened was being processed, obscured, systematically leached of history and so of meaning, finally rendered less readable than it had seemed on the morning it happened. As if overnight, the irreconcilable event had been made manageable, reduced to the sentimental, to protective talismans, totems, garlands of garlic, repeated pieties that would come to seem in some ways as destructive as the event itself. We now had “the loved ones,” we had “the families,” we had “the heroes.”
In fact it was in the reflexive repetition of the word “hero” that we began to hear what would become in the year that followed an entrenched preference for ignoring the meaning of the event in favor of an impenetrably flattening celebration of its victims, and a troublingly belligerent idealization of historical ignorance. “Taste” and “sensitivity,” it was repeatedly suggested, demanded that we not examine what happened.
From The Burden by Michael Ignatieff (The New York Times Magazine, 5 January 2003)
Until Sept. 11, successive United States administrations treated their Middle Eastern clients like gas stations. This was part of a larger pattern. After 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet empire, American presidents thought they could have imperial domination on the cheap, ruling the world without putting in place any new imperial architecture — new military alliances, new legal institutions, new international development organisms — for a postcolonial, post-Soviet world.
The Greeks taught the Romans to call this failure hubris. It was also, in the 1990’s, a general failure of the historical imagination, an inability of the post-cold-war West to grasp that the emerging crisis of state order in so many overlapping zones of the world — from Egypt to Afghanistan — would eventually become a security threat at home. Radical Islam would never have succeeded in winning adherents if the Muslim countries that won independence from the European empires had been able to convert dreams of self-determination into the reality of competent, rule-abiding states. America has inherited this crisis of self-determination from the empires of the past. Its solution — to create democracy in Iraq, then hopefully roll out the same happy experiment throughout the Middle East — is both noble and dangerous: noble because, if successful, it will finally give these peoples the self-determination they vainly fought for against the empires of the past; dangerous because, if it fails, there will be nobody left to blame but the Americans.
(Links via Arts & Letters Daily)
Wednesday 15 January 2003
Minky socks it to the Dishmatique
If anyone qualifies as the Sudsy Dame par excellence it must be Kevin Laurence’s wife: she discovered the Bathmatique (from EasyDo, manufacturers of the Dishmatique) and now she’s unearthed an even more revolutionary dishwashing product, the Minky Dishjet Powerpad!
Though I don’t want to steal Kevin’s thunder, I can reveal that the Powerpad does qualify as a true dishmatique-style product since it has a handle that one fills with liquid detergent plus replaceable sponge/scourer heads. So, why is it revolutionary? Because the Minky Dishjet Powerpad also has:
“an on/off switch built-in to the handle so that although it ‘Dispenses Liquid As It Cleans’, it also ‘Saves Washing Up Liquid.’”
No doubt Allan Moult will share my enthusiasm since both of us were shattered by the Dishmatique Flex leaking detergent problem.
Kevin has lots to say about the Minky Dishjet Powerpad including details of the Minky company’s secret weapon in the war of the dishwashing implements.
I’ve emailed Minky, asking whether they have an Australian distributor. Ain’t competition grand? (And to think I was upset with Apple for going with the KHTML rendering engine!)
Monday 27 January 2003
Too many babies?
I couldn’t help but think of Dorothea (“Oh, for Mung’s sake, there’s a <censored> baby in my office”) Salo when I called Ayame, one of Natsuko’s nieces, in Japan yesterday morning. No sooner had I offered my congratulations on the arrival of her new baby girl than Ayame informed me that her younger sister’s baby had been born the night before. That’s two new babies in just over a fortnight! Perhaps I should explain…
Natsuko’s sister, Emiko, has three daughters. The eldest, Nami, has a five year old boy and a four year old girl. The middle daughter, Ayame, has a boy (eighteen months) and a new baby girl, born a couple of weeks ago. Her younger sister, Mika, has a girl (also eighteen months) and now a boy, born on Saturday night.
If that’s not enough to send Dorothea into a tailspin, Nami and Ayame and their four children, plus Mika’s little girl are all staying at their mother’s house—Mika and the new baby boy are expected there as soon as she leaves the maternity ward. It’s not uncommon for Japanese women to go back to their mother’s house for a couple of weeks after their baby is born. And, since Nami is very fond of her younger sisters, she’s come along to make up the numbers, so to speak. If I had a copy of Visio, I could lay it all out in an org chart.
Where are all the husbands? With the exception of Emiko’s husband, who works a couple of hours away in Tokyo and lives there during the week, they’re all at their respective houses enjoying a moment’s peace, I imagine. How big is Emiko’s house? Not big at all. It’s a typical Japanese house with the living room, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs and three smallish bedrooms upstairs. Where will they all sleep? At a guess, Emiko will probably sleep in the smallest bedroom, Nami with her two children in another bedroom, and Ayame and Mika and their four in the largest bedroom.
Or they might all pile in together. Whenever I’ve been away with them—to a hot spring inn, for example—we’ve always shared one large room, with fourteen or fifteen futons spread out over the floor. This communal sleeping experience came as something of a shock to someone who likes his privacy but I rapidly became accustomed to it. It’s actually very pleasant to go for a bath and come back to find the evening meal laid out on low tables then to head off for a walk after dinner and return to find the futons laid neatly out in rows.
So it’s not the sleeping arrangements that pose any difficulty. The really pressing question is: How will the washing machine hold up under the strain?
Monday 17 February 2003
Now don’t you be dishrespectful
Sometimes, when you live in a time zone far removed from many of your blogging pals, you get the feeling that you’re missing out on important stuff—even though, as in my case, I’m currently anywhere between 16 and 19 hours ahead of my American colleagues (so things should happen to me before they happen to them).
I awoke this morning to learn of two critical developments in blogging:
- Google have bought Pyra, the developers of Blogger.
- I’ve been coopted—by virtue of my endorsement of the Dishmatique—into the Wealth Bondage free speech campaign against the stipulation that Harvard Weblogs be “respectful of Harvard”.
I’d have thought that being “respectful” would confer the kiss of death on any weblog but I never went to an Ivy League university—and, had I wanted to go, Harvard would almost certainly rejected an application from someone variously described as “half-witted” or “a three-quarter wit, and a little change to spare” (unless his parents had “change” in the order of ten or twenty million dollars to spare).
As for Google’s buying Pyra, I’m largely indifferent—at least until the reasons for the purchase become clear. I am pleased, however, that Blog*Spot users can look forward to more reliable hosting.
Even though, as AKMA suggests, one should “never presume to correct the Tutor,” I’m not at all indifferent to seeing my picture of the Dishmatique used without permission or attribution on the Wealth Bondage site (changing the file name from dishmatique.gif to dishmatique2.gif fools no-one, Candidia). And Tutor, you can tell Dick Minim to check every page on this site, but I can save him the time—he won’t find a Creative Commons logo anywhere.
Tuesday 08 April 2003
The raw and the cooked (Cetacean)
While the world’s attention has been focused on the Middle East, respected Australian environmental scientist, Dr Tim Flannery, has caused a furor by suggesting that “less intelligent whale species are much like sheep and should be sustainably hunted.”
In a paper about to be published in the Quarterly Essay, Dr Flannery, who is director of the South Australian Museum, accuses some “save the whale” campaigners of wooly thinking:
What people fail to realise is that the Cetacea (the group to which whales and dolphins belong) is an extraordinarily diverse group of mammals… It includes relatively large-brained hunters like dolphins and killer whales (which have the demonstrable intelligence of land-based hunters such as dogs) and tiny-brained filter feeders such as the blue whale. These leviathans are aquatic vacuum-cleaners, whose need for intellectual power is slight indeed.
If these animals are closer in intelligence to the sheep than the dog, is it morally wrong to eat them if they can be harvested sustainably? My view is that at present the anti-whaling lobby is frustrating the attempt to develop a sustainable industry based on these creatures, and is therefore frustrating good management of marine resources.
Arguing that it is these filter feeders—rather than the more intelligent hunters—that Japanese and Norwegian whalers target, Dr Flannery added insult to injury by suggesting that it’s the Japanese who are actually trying “to create a sustainable whaling industry.”
Needless to say, anti-whaling spokespeople were massively unimpressed. The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Michael Kennedy, director of Humane Society International in Australia, as saying: “Flannery’s argument only has friends in Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic circles.” Quentin Hanich from Greenpeace told ABC News Online that “even though blue whales might have small brains, there are only around 2,000 left and they need to be preserved.” He added:
“We don’t protect trees because of intelligence or any other vulnerable species because of their intelligence, we protect them because of their importance in the ecosystem and because of their biodiversity values,” he said.
“To me it’s totally irrelevant whether a blue whale is able to play chess or is a filter feeder.”
I might find Mr Hanich’s argument more persuasive if the anti-whaling lobby hadn’t worked so assiduously to persuade us that whales and dolphins shouldn’t be hunted because they are so intelligent. If blue whales are closer in intelligence to the sheep than the dog and if they can be harvested sustainably—as Dr Flannery suggests—then surely the argument against hunting them falls apart. (Although my case may be weakened or strengthened, depending on one’s viewpoint, by the fact that I’ve eaten sheep, dog, and whale—as well as snake, cat, crocodile, kangaroo, and emu).
For me the most logical position is to be either a carnivore or a vegetarian. Whereas I respect anyone who refuses to eat meat for ethical reasons, I’m happy to eat pretty much anything that’s put on my plate, as long as it’s not a protected species and it’s not still alive. That the issue is frequently discussed on the basis of emotion rather than logic was brought forcefully home to me in a conversation I had with a Chinese woman while I was living in Japan. She was horrified to learn I’d eaten kangaroo—“But they’re so cute,” she told me—while seeing no problem in eating live monkey brains. Accordingly, in Japan I feel OK about eating whale meat that has been legally harvested under the quota allowed by the IWC but won’t eat live lobster sashimi.
As Gregory Jackson writes in this old Asahi Evening News story, “whale still appears periodically on the menu at izakaya bars around the country, but not many restaurants specialize in it.” Kujira-ya (The Whale Restaurant) in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district offers a complete whale-based cuisine including the three dishes I tried: sashimi, steak, and tonkatsu (crumbed and deep-fried). Apart from suggesting the restaurant is difficult to find, which it’s not really—it’s in a basement, not far from the corner of the 109 Building and diagonally opposite the Book One bookstore—this BBC Science/Nature story, titled Dining out on a guilt trip gives an accurate account of the experience, concluding that:
All in all, it is a fascinating and delicious experience - but then I guess animal rights campaigners would say that while whale, veal and paté foie gras may all be tasty, they are also morally unacceptable.
It’ll be interesting to follow Dr Flannery’s suggestion for sustainable whale harvesting though my guess it will have little impact. Gregory Jackson notes researcher Anny Wong’s belief that the reluctance of environmentalists to give up the fight extends beyond whaling itself. As Wong herself says:
The ramifications may be even greater for those environmental movements than for the pro-whaling countries. The latter are fighting for a principle, while the former rely on the anti-whaling campaign for their image, credibility as an environmental group, and for finance. The whale icon is a powerful money raiser.
Thursday 17 April 2003
Carwash
What does this mean? That I arrive home from having my new car washed to discover that, while I was sitting in the carwash cafe, sipping a flat white and reading the last hundred pages of W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Burningbird was momentarily trapped in a carwash.
What an odd coincidence. I hadn’t owned a car and hadn’t been near a carwash since 1991; but last week a close friend of my mother gave me a 1990 Daihatsu Charade (you can see it in the photograph, beyond the tables—a man in a red coat is shampooing the seat covers).
I don’t really need a car, since I chose where I live very carefully: close to shops, restaurants, swimming pool, hospital, movie theaters, university library, parks. The railway station is a seven minute walk; eight different bus routes pass within five minutes of my house. Whenever I did need a car, I borrowed my mother’s or my sister’s or, most conveniently, Natsuko’s, since she’s only a twenty minute walk away. But Natsuko’s dilapidated Nissan gave up the ghost a few months ago and she’s been at me since then to split the cost of “a five thousand dollars car.”
The Daihatsu turned out to be a five hundred dollars car ($510 actually—US$314 or €287): $343 for some minor repairs, $37 to transfer the registration, $40 for a resident parking permit, and $90 for the deluxe wash, polish, and interior clean—including a “free” cup of coffee. The car seems mechanically fine, it just needed sprucing up.
Although the carwash manager told me I’d only have to wait an hour, the job wound up taking twice that long. I didn’t mind. I finished Austerlitz just a few minutes before he came to tell me the car was ready. For those couple of hours I was utterly content, for it’s the last part of the book with which I identify most strongly: Austerlitz’s visit to the Theresienstadt ghetto where his mother was interned, his journey from Prague through Germany to Paris, his failed relationship with Marie de Verneuil (and their unhappy sojourn at Marienbad), his obsessive viewing of the film of Theresienstadt made by the SS, his nervous collapse after visiting the museum of veterinary medicine in the grounds of the Ecole Vétérinaire, his attempts to find in the records of the Bibliothèque Nationale a trace of his vanished father. But, most of all, his yearning for Marie de Verneuil.
Sunday 19 October 2003
Spirited away
The magical moment of our ninety-minute trip through the Orient Cave occurred when the guide led us into a large chamber, turned out the few dim lights, and left us in the dark for a minute or so.
“Even if you stayed in here for a week,” he told the group, “you still couldn’t see a thing.” I knew he wasn’t exaggerating—it was almost as though one could feel the absolute absence of light.
Then, in an artfully arranged sequence, he turned on the main illumination, astonishing us with the beauty of the limestone formations.
I hadn’t been inside a limestone cave since visiting Ryūsendō （竜泉洞） in Iwate Prefecture in 1991. So I readily agreed to a suggestion by my friends Herman & Fiona that we make a day trip to Jenolan Caves—which I’d visited many years ago, when I was 11 years old. Jenolan Caves is three-and-a-half hours west of Sydney by