Good Thing #3: The Bicycle Wheel

Today I celebrate the bicycle wheel. It's an amazing work of art. It should be put on a pedestal and put on display in an art gallery. Oh, wait:

Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913

Duchamp may not have had the same intention as I woud for putting a bicycle wheel in an art gallery. Most likely he was using it to critique the essential concepts of art. I, however, would do it to celebrate the bicycle wheel.

As the story goes, Ben Franklin was speaking to a Revolutionary assembly. He held up an arrow and broke it in half. Then he held up a bundle of arrows and tried to break it, and couldn't, and it was something to do with how if they were united they'd be unbreakable. That's just because the bicycle wheel hadn't been invented. 

If you pick up a bicycle spoke on its own, you can easily bend it with one hand. The rim is a bit sturdier, but you could bend the rim fairly easily if it hasn't been built into the wheel. Once the various parts of the bicycle wheel are combined and tuned properly, it's a wonder. Together these parts that are weak on their own can now withstand tremendous impacts with ease.

How the wheel works is not what you'd logically expect. The spoke attaches to the rim and to the hub and it's under tension. Every spoke is pulling the rim towards the hub. So when the rider is on the bike, the ground pushes up on the wheel and tension of spokes at the bottom reduces. When you're riding, you're actually suspended by the spokes at the top of the wheel, while the spokes at the bottom are relaxed and able to absorb impacts. 

Look at the wheel Duchamp displayed and compare it to one of today. The design is very similar to the ones of today. Every so often they'll try something new, like a disc or a blade, and it'll be around for a little while before people realize they really couldn't improve on perfection.

Good Thing #2: Singin' in the Rain

Is there a finer movie than Stanley Donen's 1952 movie Singin' in the Rain? No. There may be other movies that are as good, but none better.

First of all, it's really funny. I wouldn't have thought that a sixty year old musical comedy about the birth of talking motion pictures would ever be that funny, let alone that the jokes would still work today. But the setup and the timing are impeccable, and the range of humor, from slapstick to one-liners to complex gags set up over multiple scenes. There's an entire genre called musical comedy. This one is actually funny. 

The composition of every scene is gorgeous. Nothing is taken for granted. Every color is carefully chosen, and the placement of everything and everyone in every scene is perfect. You could print any frame of this movie and hang it on the wall. And yet it never calls attention to itself. I didn't even notice until after I'd watched it a few times.

Everyone has personality. Even with characters who only have one line, you get the sense that they thought about that person. They have a story that began before that line, and continued after the camera moved on Even characters who only appear for a second are still memorable. The main characters we fall in love with, or hate. 

Cyd Charisse does a dance dressed in green. She's only in the movie for one dance number, and has no speaking lines, but in that short time she manages to be the sexiest woman in the history of sexy. 

There's the Broadway Melody sequence. Just watch it and remember that they made this 60 years ago. They build sets for all of it, and actually did what you're watching. It's not greenscreen (except for a second or two).

I could go on and on. There's just so much to love about this movie. I'm happy it exists. 

Good Thing #1: Carbon Steel Spatulas

Carbon steel spatulas haven't been made in years. The ones that we have are probably 50 to 100 years old.

The bad thing about a carbon steel spatula is that it rusts if you leave it wet. Manufacturers think Americans are too lazy to clean their cookware after they use it, so now all spatulas are stainless steel or plastic. If you don't see washing a spatula as a huge inconvenience, you're rewarded by getting to use a finely crafted kitchen tool. A carbon steel spatula is much thinner and more flexible than plastic or stainless steel spatulas. The edge is knife-sharp. This means you can slide it under the most delicate food without pushing it. It also means that if you accidentally scorch your food and it sticks to the pan, you can cut it away from the pan, leaving the scorched portion still attached to the food instead of ripping it away from what you're cooking.

It's a little thing, but you know, it's a spatula that works the way a spatula is supposed to work. Every time I fry something, the process is more enjoyable because I've got these antique spatulas.

Good Things

I've got a special project for this old blog. I'm making no promises to stick with it. I'm not sure if I'll even tell anyone about it. Since this was my former "thing a  day" type blog, it seems an appropriate place. 

Things haven't quite been going my way lately. I think it started about a year ago, last March, with the liver surgery. The surgery itself was a good thing. It was a planned donation to save a friend's life. That friend is thriving now and I'm grateful I had the opportunity to save a friend's life. Too often when we've got a dying loved one in our lives, all we can do is try to be emotionally supportive, but there's rarely more than that. But for once I could do something to make a difference. So I don't regret that surgery for an instant. However, the recovery from that meant half a year of not operating at my fullest. Not really in any sort of pain after the first 3 months, but just tired all the time. Just barely able to fulfill commitments, not really feeling enthusiastic about doing things that would usually excite me. Yeah, depression, basically. 

Then, just as I was finally recovering from that, our son died 5 months into the pregnancy. I must confess, I never really understood this before it happened to me. I've always been sympathetic to friends who lost children during pregnancy, but it didn't seem like all that big a deal. After all, they never really knew their child. I shudder to think that I used to feel this way. But I guess unless you've lost a child that way, you never really know what that kind of pain is like. I hope you never do. 

The pain from that was almost paralyzing. I'm not quite sure how we kept moving forward, but we did. The depression was worse than anything from the liver surgery. Then there was a whole series of misfortunes. I don't want to get into all those, but it just seemed like whenever things started looking positive, there was something else bad happening to knock me back down. 

But we were getting through it. We've got a daughter on the way now, and all the tests and scans indicate that everything is A-OK. I'd started feeling more confident, excited by the future, feeling like things were going to turn out fine.

Then a routine surgery turned into a 3-day hospital stay with a six week recovery. While full recovery is expected, it's been extremely painful and debilitating. I've been in near constant pain for a month now. It's worse when I laugh. Or cough. Or, really, do anything besides sit around. 

And yes, the depression is back. I'm starting to feel like a Smith's song:

Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad

So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time

Depression is a tricky beast. Once you've got it, it's almost like a living thing that tries to keep perpetuating itself. It will make it so you don't notice the good things in your life (and there are many good things in my life. I know this intellectually but knowing it and feeling it can be two very different things). Depression will also make you do things that ensure you have things to be depressed about. Like make a deadline seem so overwhelming you don't even try to meet it. Or make you terrified of your email in box, so a simple problem that could be solved with a "yes" or "no" turns into a problem so big it needs a committee meeting to deal with. Or turn an normal, healthy dialog into something that seems like a painful confrontation.

You know what? I've got better things to do. I've got a daughter on the way who I want to welcome into the world with boundless joy. I have a wife who makes me feel lucky to be married to her every day. I have a family I love and get along with more often than not, and a life filled with interesting people, exciting opportunities and so many other things that should be making me happy now, and will again.

So here's what I'm going to do. Every day I'm going to write about one good thing. Yes, I know it's not an original idea (see the 1000 Awesome Things blog, for example). Yes, I know I've complained about how contrived and banal books like the "Things to be Happy About" series are. But you know? I don't care. This is for me. Every day I'm going to carve out a few minutes to recognize that there's something good in my life. I'm going to do it for as long as I can, even if that doesn't last past the end of the week. I'm not going to try to be profound. I'm just going to do it. 

Kittery

I'm seeing new creative possibilities with this iPhone thing. Maybe it's time to start this again?

More Good News: Coffee may be good for the heart!

Overall results showed that consuming more than six cups of tea per day was associated with a 36% lower risk of death from heart disease compared to consuming less than one cup of tea per day. There appeared to be no such protective effect of tea-drinking at any amount for risk of death from stroke. Among coffee drinkers, more moderate consumption levels (2-3 cups per day) were associated with the greatest risk reduction for death from heart disease (21%) compared to drinking less than one cup of coffee per day.

Read more at FYI Living: http://fyiliving.com/nutrition/special-diets/why-our-heart-loves-coffee-and-tea/#ixzz0uDaNpy9B

What Caffiene Actually Does to the Brain

Excellent article on the effects of caffeine.

How to brew a good cup of coffee!

This is a truly impressive way to make coffee:

How to Brew a Good Cup of Coffee from Ben Helfen on Vimeo.

Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not convinced it's not a prank.

Coffee Improves Athletic Performance

According to the New York Times:

Starting as long ago as 1978, researchers have been publishing caffeine studies. And in study after study, they concluded that caffeine actually does improve performance. In fact, some experts, like Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University in Canada, are just incredulous that anyone could even ask if caffeine has a performance effect.

“There is so much data on this that it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s just unequivocal that caffeine improves performance. It’s been shown in well-respected labs in multiple places around the world.”

I start my day with 20 ounces of coffee before biking 7.5 miles into work (weather permitting). I thought I was just being stubborn & not willing to give up my coffee addiction. Growing up I always heard about how bad coffee was, and how it dehydrated you and was bad for athletes and all that. It's nice to know I'm doing something right!

Coffee fights Diabetes

According to the Archives of Internal Medicine:

Individuals who drink more coffee (regular or decaffeinated) or tea appear to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the December 14/28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

If this keeps up, I'm going to be superhuman!

Coffee could help cut prostate cancer!

"It found the heaviest consumers had a 60% lower risk of aggressive tumours than men who did not drink any coffee." Good news!

Drinking Coffee Reduces Alzheimer's Risk

Good news from Finland:

"Middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease by between 60 and 65 percent later in life," said lead researcher on the project, Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the University of Kuopio in Finland and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

The high price of bad coffee!

I'm sure when pundits talk about how we need to return to good old fashioned values, this is exactly what they mean.

You know your coffee is strong enough when...

A great image found at ffffound. I wish I knew who did it so I could credit them!

Callithump! New issue! New website!

The latest issue of Callithump! is now available in the Lord Hall entryway. This time it's totally buttons, at a special 50%-off price of 25 cents! Why all buttons? Lots of reasons, but basically, because we love buttons. I also wanted to challenge myself to see if I could come up with 1,000 different designs in a short period of time, and the 7/8" button format was a fun medium to work in. Yes, I can come up with that many designs, I'm happy to say, but it did require incorporating a whole lot of public domain work. I'm pretty happy with the results. You should check them out yourself at the Art Department in Lord Hall at the University of Maine in Orono.

To celebrate the launch of the new issue, we also have a new website, Callithump.org. We're finally breaking down and letting people buy Callithump! content online, so people who aren't near Orono or Belfast can get in on the fun. The store doesn't have much in it right now, but it will!

Coffee protects the brain!

This just in from the BBC:

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.A vital barrier between the brain and the main blood supply of rabbits fed a fat-rich diet was protected in those given a caffeine supplement.UK experts said it was the "best evidence yet" of coffee's benefits.

Read all about it here.

The Best Audio

Up until the 70s, the efforts of home audio manufacturers focused on creating the best quality sound possible. Since then, the efforts of the mainstream have focused on making things smaller while adding more and more features. So now you can get something the size of a pack of cigarettes that holds months worth of music on it, lets you watch movies, make phone calls, check your email and so on. All that's fine, and I'd have an iPhone if Belfast was in the service area too. At the same time, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. For all the advances in technology, sound quality has actually gotten worse.

There are alternatives, though. There is the audiophile route. While most of the industry went towards making things flashy and small, a niche market of audiophiles have continued to try to make the best sounding equipment possible. So it's still possible to find audio equipment that sounds incredible, that will make you realize that the music you're listening to on your MP3 player is just a pale imitation of real music. There are problems with this approach, though. First, you have to deal with audiophiles. There may be some audiophiles out there who aren't elitist jerks, but I haven't met them. Secondly, audiophile gear is expensive. There are speaker cables that run into 5 figures! Of course, you don't have to spend that much to get great sound, but the problem that to determine what is inexpensive and good vs. what is cheap crap, you have to talk to audiophiles. Further complicating things are unscrupulous companies like Bose, who sell cheap crap at enough of a markup that the people who buy it think it's good. It's not. It's awful plastic garbage.

A much better alternative is to go retro. Keep your eye out at yard sales, pawn shops, flea markets and you can still find pre-80s stereo gear. I've found vintage receivers for $2 that blew away anything you could get at BestBuy for hundreds more. It was a very different design paradigm back then. Technology was an investment you expected to be using for decades. If something broke, you'd get it repaired. So pre-80s equipment can still be going strong, while we only expect to get a few years of use out of what we buy today. The reason that people put this stuff into yard sales is usually not because it's bad, or stopped working. They just want something smaller. But if you have the space for it, you can pick up something that sounds fantastic for a few bucks!

In general, when you're looking at old gear, there are two things to look for. As a rule of thumb, the heavier it is, the better. If you pick up an old receiver and it's heavy enough to warrant the "lift with the legs, not with the back," rule, chance are it's got some solid state equipment in there. Secondly, look for "real" materials. Things made out of metal, instead of metallicized plastic, or wood instead of laminated wood grain veneer, will sound better than things that aren't.

The Best Dessert Ever

When the rest of the family was away, Mom used to make treats for just the two of us. Hot fudge was one of my favorites. Hot fudge, same as what you'd put on ice cream, only made from scratch. And without the ice cream. Just a big cup of hot fudge, sometimes with a dollop of peanut butter melting on top.

But the best treat she used to make is still one of the best desserts ever.

Get a box of fresh strawberries. Wash them and let them drip dry. Leave the stems on.

Scoop a dollop of sour cream into a bowl.

Get another bowl, and will it with brown sugar. Fluff the brown sugar with a fork and break up any lumps.

Holding a strawberry by its stem, dip it into the sour cream, then into the brown sugar. Then eat it!

It's one of the most delightful taste sensations you'll ever have, and it's oh so simple.

I worked at one of the most expensive restaurants in Portsmouth, NH. It was called The Blue Strawberry. It's not around anymore, but in its time it was the place to go. You'd expect to spend around $70/person to eat there (unless you ordered drinks). This was in 1980s money, too. Their signature dessert was strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar. Of course they arranged it all preciously on fine china, but otherwise, it was the same dessert my mom and I used to eat. One time a friend went there for dinner and she absolutely raved about the amazing dessert she'd had. She just wouldn't believe me when I told her she could make it herself. "No, they use special brown sugar or something." They didn't. I worked in the kitchen. The got the strawberries from the supermarket, and the brown sugar was the extra cheap bottom shelf big plastic bag o' brown sugar.

Try it for yourself! Use your finest china if you want to impress your date. S/he will think you're a fine gourmet!

Sexy Knock Box?

To spite the name, a knock box is anything but sexy. It's just a box with a padded bar across the middle that you knock your portafilter against to clear the spent coffee grounds out of it. It's just a customized waste receptacle.

Well, the Grindenstein Knock Box got great reviews on CoffeeGeek, and I got tired of fishing my filter basket out of the trash, so I ordered one. $28.95 delivered from Australia! I ordered it because it's small, cheap, has good reviews and isn't hideous. But sexy? Well, no.... but here's a great add from Grindenstein to make me think differently!

A good excuse!

Yeah, it's been an age. I've been busy. Very busy! But it's a good excuse this time, in case you hadn't heard...

We're opening up our own coffee shop!

After searching for the perfect coffee drinking experience, I finally decided we'd just have to open up our own place to create that experience.

The past few months have been filled with meetings, trips to other cafés, research, research, a little more research... working extra hours as a freelancer at L.L. Bean to fund the project, letting folks at the University know I'm not teaching there anymore... more meetings...

This isn't going to be a typical coffee shop by any means. Of course, we'll have the best coffee & espresso in the Maine (of course that's sort of like being the best dressed person at a nude beach), and a few good things to eat (vegetarian and vegan, of course). But beyond that, well, for starters, it's going to be non-profit, part art gallery and part performing arts venue. The coffee and food, while we're committed to offering the best we can, is really a means to an end. We're out to help develop and grow and sustain the Belfast area's creative community. Some of the most important political and cultural revolutions of the past few centuries have been born in coffee houses, and we want to create just such a revolutionary environment. The setting is very creative too. It's the basement of the Waterfall Arts Center, right here in Belfast.

In many ways, this is a culmination of my life's work. I'm an artist at heart, and the technology has always been just a means to that end. For years I've been teaching others ways of creating art. Now I'm creating a space for artists to flourish. It's a much more direct, active and personal role than I've had before, and I'm thrilled! I'll try to keep you posted!

Things I've Learned...

I'm planning a new feature, but considering that it's been 10 months since I wrote any sort of real entry, who knows when and if I'll actually do it. Writing more entries is one of those new years resolutions I said I wasn't going to make, but I'm pretending like I'm going to write more anyway. Looking at my free time over the next few months I have to say, "Not a chance!" but you never know...

Anyway, my new project for this blog, should I ever get around to it, is to take what I learned from the 100 Cups of Coffee project and apply it life as a whole.

I started 100 Cups of Coffee as a way of coming to terms with my coffee addiction. I'm still an addict, but I feel like I have it under control. I'm sure there are lots of people addicted to other substances who feel the same way. Maybe I'm in denial as much as they are! I'll tell you the difference and let you decide. Before I started the project, coffee was just maintenance. It's what I needed to keep myself going, and I'd drink it from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. If I enjoyed it, that was just a incidental. But photographing it and writing about it led me to a deeper appreciation of coffee as a wonderful, magical thing unto itself. It became a pursuit for the best cup of coffee I could find, and the best cup I could make. This led me to learn about brewing methods, what makes for the best coffee beans, and much more. Learning what constitutes the best cup of coffee is like pulling on what you think is a single thread and discovering it's connected to everything else in the world.

On a typical day, I have just one cup of coffee, made with pure water, organic, shade grown Deans Beans, in a Planetary Designs French press, with a splash of organic half & half. I sip and savor it. I wake up an hour earlier than I'd need to if I just poured my coffee into a to go cup and ran out the door, just so I can have time to ease into the day with a cup of great coffee. If I need a little something to keep me going, I'll make myself an espresso, which has more flavor but less caffeine than coffee. If I'm really overworked, I'll make a cup or two in the afternoon in an Aeropress (an entry unto itself on another day).

The important thing here is that by focusing on quality and trying to have the best, most pleasurable experience possible, I consume less and enjoy more what I'm doing. In this case, it's drinking coffee. I think this applies to a whole lot more than coffee, though. So, in future entries I'll be going beyond coffee and looking at the best things in life, which aren't always free but aren't necessarily the most expensive either.

I've got a whole lot to write about! Check back later to find out if I actually do anything with this!

Coffee could slow mental decline in old men

A new study from Austria shows that drinking coffee can slow cognitive decline significantly. Yay! I must increase my intake!

Dean's Beans

I'm just having so much fun with my new lightbox! I've tried to get good pictures of coffee beans before, but I've never been able to capture their sensual beauty. I decided to have give it a go with my new lightbox:

Yeah, that's a little more like it! Still a little too light, though. Dean's Beans Ring of Fire is a very dark roast, and this looks like a medium roast. So a little rearranging of the lights, and here we go again:

There we go! True coffee porn. Doesn't it just make your mouth water? Click here for the real money shot.

Planetary Designs French Presses

Planetary Designs French Presses
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

A while ago I gave a glowing review to Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press. Since then I've added two more items from them, the 20oz Table Top French Press and the Desk Press Iris.

Planetary Designs liked my review of the Double Shot so much they sent me the Table Top. While the Double Shot had been my favorite mug/press, that spot was instantly usurped by the Table Top.

I've been through about a dozen French presses in my coffe drinking life, and the Table Top is far and away the best I've ever used. It is stainless steel and will never break, unlike my many other ill-fated press pots. It is insulated as well as the best thermos. This solves a key problem with press pots. They lose their heat too fast. The insulation in the Table Top (and the rest of Planetary Design's French Presses) ensure optimum brewing temperature for the necessary four minutes, producing the best pot of coffee a presspot can make. The filter allows the least amount of sediment in the cup of any French Press I've used. Sediment is a complaint lots of people have with French Presses, and many stop drinking before they reach the bottom of the cup. I don't have to do this with coffee brewed in any of Planetary Design's presses. So here's a long overdue thank you to Planetary Designs for the Table Top. I use it every day!

Unfortunately, in practice, the Double Shot, while great in theory, didn't hold up as well in practice. This is not the fault of the product, but with the University's water supply. It is so awful that coffee brewed with it is undrinkable. So while the double-shot let me stash some ground coffee for later use in the base of the mug, I gave up after a few tries and bought a Desk Press Iris. This gives me a portable 20 oz. of coffee I can leave home with, enough to get me to campus. The insulation keeps it hot for the hour-long drive to school and well into class.

Needless to say, Planetary Design's products come with my highest recommendation!

Victrola Coffee

Victrola Coffee
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Jessie just got back from her whirlwind west coast adventure, from Seattle to Las Vegas to LA. In Seattle she stopped by Victrola Coffee Roasters, where she had the best cappucino she'd ever tasted and lovingly picked me up two bags of coffee. First is the Bolivian, a #1 Cup of Excellence award-winning coffee. My goodness, what a good cup of coffee! It tastes like a lazy summer thunderstorm. Like those days when it is so hot that the thunderstorm is welcome and you sit on the porch and watch the lightning strike and the raindrops splash off the ground, and listen to the deep, distant rumble of the thunder. The Bolivian tastes exactly like that, deep bass rumbles blending with bright, constant patter, a complex blend that you can hold in your mouth and taste new and different things for minutes on end. Jessie also picked me up bag of Streamline Espresso. This is the first time I've ever actually used coffee that was specifically created for espresso. Frustratingly, I can't buy espresso blends around here. This was pretty amazing, too. The crema was the thickest I'd ever been able to make. The taste? It was a little distressing at first. As a straight shot it had me worried. It was a bit too bitter for my taste. But when I layed foamed milk over it for a macchiatto it opened up and became smooth and sensual and wonderful. I've been making even more espressos than usual, and Jess, who usually stays away from coffee, has been asking for them also.

The Victrola is where Tonx works. I've sung his praises more than once in this blog, for his espresso porn and latte art photography. This is where I first heard of the Victrola. Someday, I'll make it out there myself!

Perry Bible Fellowship

Perry Bible Fellowship is one of the all-time best comic strips ever!











(click comic for full-size version)
From Perry Bible Fellowship.

Macchiato

Macchiato
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

This is what I'm really hooked on, macchiato, espresso with a dollop of steamed milk on top. The key is to lay the milk gently on top of the espresso so that it doesn't mix. Then you're sipping the espresso through the milk and it blends in your mouth. It's much more intense than a cappuccino, but the milk takes some of the edge off the espresso. I put a light shake of unsweetened chocolate on top. Not enough to change the flavor, but as you sip, you breathe in a lovely mocha smell.

I want to know the secrets of the barristas! It took me three tries to get this shot. The first two I threw away. I thought I did everything the same as usual, but I guess the grind was too fine because the first two trickled out in a sticky sludge. The third was pallatable with the foam on top of it, but would have been undrinkable without it.

I could blame the equipment, but I know that a good barrista can pull a better shot from a cheap machine than I could from a $40,000 maker. Are there camps for people like me? You know, like Space Camp, where you can go get astronaut training even if you don't intend to become an astronaut. Are there barrista wanna-be camps?

the best things in life

Whoever said the best things in life are free probably had a lot of money, enough not to even give money a second thought. Or they were in denial and trying to make themselves feel better. Sure there's lots of nice things in life that don't cost anything, but some of the best things in life cost a whole lot of money. The best coffee, for example, tends to cost more that bad coffee. A decent car stereo can set you back hundreds, even thousands.

However, some of the best things in life aren't necessarily the most expensive. Illy cups, for example, are the most collectable espresso cups in the world. Some of those can set you back hundreds for a single 2 oz. cup and saucer. They're pretty cool, and I'd love to have some (especially the ones designed by David Byrne!) but somehow I doubt that espresso tastes any better in them than in the generic cups I got at TJ Maxx for a buck a piece.

I don't know if my Bodum Pavina cups are the "best" in the world, but they certainly are the coolest. Interestingly, at $15 a pair, or less, they are among the cheapest. Expect to be seeing them all over the place on television because they're so excellent from a design standpoint. They're double-layered class, such that the inside layer holds the liquid, then there's an empty space before the outer layer. They're like tiny thermoses! They keep your hands from burning while keeping the contents hot for a good long time. They're beautiful too, like some artist's vision of what we'll all be drinking out of in the future. Curvaceous and minimal and smooth, and a pleasure to hold, like cupping a glass breast.

Now if only I could figure out how to make a proper cappuccino to fill it with!

What it's supposed to look like

shot of shots
Originally uploaded by tonx.

I look at this and I just despair. This is what the crema is supposed to look like! And I get excited when I have just a few millimeters of crema. Admittedly, this is done by true barristas at the Victrola in Seattle. Oh well, it is something to aspire to!

Fear of a Blank Page

Sketchbook
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

So I'm trying to learn to draw again. It used to be something I was great at, but as soon as I discovered digital, I abandoned traditional mediums. Now I'm trying to get that back and I'm finding it much more challenging than I thought it would be! Where's the Undo button? Oh, that's now called an eraser, but I can't just erase my recent mistakes without erasing the lines underneath it. And getting my hands to draw what my eyes are seeing... it is so frustrating. I mean, I know what it looks like. I can see the shapes, but getting my hand to move in a way that recreates that shape... It is so frustrating! You think you have control over what your body does, but when it comes right down to it, most of us can only make rough gestures. I've tried to fall back to other solutions. On the computer when I can't do something, some sort of technological upgrade will do the trick. So I tried buying more and different pencils, a nicer pencil sharpener, a nice Moleskine sketchbook, but it hasn't worked. Drawing ability is something you have to build. You can't buy it.

So I'm trying to relearn what used to come naturally. Why? It seemed like a good idea at the time. I just feel like I'm out of touch with my visually creative side. Drawing used to be one of the things I loved to do the most but I haven't done it for almost 15 years. It is a different kind of creativity from doing things on the computer. It involves the brain and body in ways that digital art or photography doesn't. And I like a challenge.

One of the biggest challenges is intimidation. There's something terrifying to me about seeing blank page and knowing that it is all up to me to fill it up with things of my own creation. It is like being naked. Everything you see on the page is part of me. And I'm flabby and out of shape.

Nicely though, the new music room turns out to be a great drawing room too. I can put on the Vivaldi or the Tartini and be blissed out to the music while I draw. It really helps to focus on the art.

The subject matter of what I'm trying to draw also seemed like a good idea at the time, but is turning out to be far more difficult than I thought it would be. We found this amazing dead crab sculpture on a trip to St. Andrews, Canada. It turns out that dead crabs are hard to draw! What at first glance seem like clearly defined parts turn out to be built up of subtle shading. Things that are defined by their highlights are challenging to pull off in pencil. I'm going to have to try it in charcoal, making the whole page dark and erasing the light tones.

And, of course, once I got all set up this morning with my sketchbook, pencils and coffee, Dash decided she deserved a dairy treat and I had to move everything quickly so she didn't knock it off. Jessie thinks I spoil her, to which Dash responds, "You're not getting spoiled if you're just getting what you deserve!"

Gentleman Junky

Double Shot
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I just can't stop myself! Espresso is so good! I have to restrain myself. Four double-shots a day is probably excessive. But it's more than just the taste. It's the challenge! When I pull a good shot, I immediately want to pull another, trying something a little different to see if I can pull a better shot next time. And so I keep doing shots of espresso until I'm jittery and confused. But I'm having so much fun!

music and life

New Routine 2
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I am ashamed to admit I let this happen. Music is one of my great passions in life. For the past 15 years I've been working to build the best stereo system I can. I discovered how to do it on the cheap. High-end audiophiles have upgrade-itas and they're always selling their old stuff at a fraction of what they paid for it. Quality hifi doesn't become obsolete the way other electronics do, so a 40 y.o. piece of gear can sound as good as it did back then. So I've got an incredible sounding system made from people's leftovers. It's the sound I care about though.

And yet when we moved into our new place, I half-heartedly hooked it back up, and then I needed to borrow the line conditioner for the TV, so basically the system has been just taking up space for almost a year.

What a waste! How could I abandon my love this way?

I realize now that I was doing the thing that I find so distasteful in others: trading convenience for quality. I've got my iPod and I just load that up with music, and I can listen for weeks without having to do anything but hit play.

But the difference between an iPod and a finely tuned hifi system is the difference between a McDonald's Happy Meal and a meal prepared by a gourmet chef in a 5 star restaurant. The iPod fills a hole. It's good for background noise, blocking out the distractions of the world to make whatever else you're doing a little more pleasant.

And that's what music has been to me for more than a year now. Just background. Not something I really listened to.

While rearranging the apartment, I hooked the stereo up properly and I remembered my lost love. With a good system you can hear the things that are lost, like John Coltrane taking a quick breath between notes, or musicians turning the pages of their sheet music. Things that remind you that these aren't just notes, but they're real people playing them on real instruments. You hear the size and shape of the room the music was recorded in. You hear heights, depths, resonances you never knew were there.

Now that my system is back together, I find myself doing something I haven't done in a long time: listening to music. I mean really listening. Eyes closed, doing nothing but sitting back and really hearing the notes.

Of late my morning routine has been to drink my cup of coffee listening to music while Dash keeps me company. It is a great way to start the day!

New Routine

New Routine
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Dash must have her morning half & half, though 5:18 is a little early to be getting up. Hitting the snooze button means knocking her off the bed. She'll leave me alone for 7 minutes before jumping on me again. Oh well, I need to be up anyway...

Coffee Station

Coffee Station
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

While Jessie's away for her bachelorette party out in Vegas, it is time to do some rearranging! We now have a music room in an area that was just storage. I didn't really mean to do it. I just needed to hang something on the wall and there was a piece of furniture in the way.

Jessie & I are both packrats, though, so really, there's something everywhere in this apartment. Moving a piece of furniture isn't as simple as it sounds, since that means moving something to create a place for what I'm trying to move, and then that thing needs to be moved and so on.

So when all was said and done, I'd moved a bookshelf from the kitchen into the laundry room, a plant stand from the library to the new music room (formerly a storage area), plants from the kitchen to the music room. Then it hit me that we had a little table rotting away on the porch that my grandfather built out of scraps he salvaged when he was working as a carpenter at the University and I refinished sixty years later. It is pretty and has historical and sentimental value while we've got worthless crap furniture inside. So I brought it in and, with a little more rearranging, set up a coffee station.



It is great! I've got all my gear in one spot, and I don't need to move anything or unplug anything in order to use it. The only catch is that it is way too low. I have to kneel down to use it. It looks like I'm praying to the coffee gods.

I guess that's not too far from the truth!

The Scale

The Scale
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I'm using Jessie's bathroom scale to measure the tamp (the amount of pressure I push down on the ground coffee with). 30 lbs is the target. I don't know why she gets so upset about me getting her scale all dirty, though. It's only her feet that touch the thing anyway!

My First Crema

my first crema
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Making good espresso comes down to just a few variables. Why is it so challenging?

A couple of them were easy to knock down. Water, of course, will make or break an espresso shot, but once you lock in the right water you don't need to think about it again. Preheating the portafilter, yeah, just run a blank shot through the empty filter. After that it comes down to three things:

The choice of coffee.
The grind of the coffee.
The pressure you tamp the coffee down into the portafilter with.

At first I started with medium roasts, Dean's Beans Aztec 2 Step and Uprising! I was able to pull shots that were drinkable with enough steamed half & half, but these were nothing close to the rumored "God Shots" that taste so good that you wouldn't dream of adding anything to it.

I just couldn't get it right. The goal is to get a shot that takes about 25 seconds to stream 1.5 ounces. Less than that and the coffee is underextracted and weak. More than that and it is overextracted and bitter. But at the magic amount of time you get the great espresso taste, and you're rewarded with crema. The coffee pours into your shot glass like Guiness, dark with a smoke of bubbles that slowly rise to the surface to create that creamy brown head. For espresso, that head is called crema, and the more crema, the better.

I was getting no crema, and the shots were coming out too fast or too slow. I just couldn't get it dialed in. I tried changing the grind. The finer the grind, the slower the extraction. I just couldn't get it spot-on though. I tried a finer grind and a lighter tamp, because the harder you tamp it down, the harder it is for the water to get through. You need to use about 30 lbs of pressure when you tamp. I appropriated Jessie's bathroom scale and put the portafilter on top of it so I could see how much pressure I was using.

And then, one weekend I ran out of medium roast and all I had was Marakkesh Express, Dean's Beans darkest roast. I'd been avoiding dark roasts for the espresso because the oiliness seemed like it would be a problem, but it was all I had.

Somehow it all clicked. The grind, the pressure, the coffee... the shot streamed out in the dark tan "rat tail" I'd heard about. It "Guinessed" in the shot glass, and the crema was a centimeter thick. I ran to get my camera but the batteries were dead, so by the time I got the picture, the crema had subsided a bit. Still it was gorgeous.

My shots have been consistently decent since then, but not quite as good as that one. Still, I know it is possible and with a bit more practice I'll get it right.

The problem is that now I've become an espresso junky, sometimes having 3 or 4 shots in a day, because I'll be like, "Okay, that was close, what if I tried with just a little more pressure..."

Furry Alarm Clock

Dash has taken to waking me up every morning at 5:45. I usually get up around then anyway because I like to see the sunrise, so I' glad that she does this. It is so much more pleasant than waking up to an alarm clock!

She'll jump up on my feet, then walk up my legs up to my shoulders. Then she'll jump off and sit beside my head and purr loudly while she knocks things off my bed stand. If I don't get up, she'll jump off and start at my feet again. She only does this to me. Even if Jess is sleeping with a leg or arm draped over me, Dash will carefully avoid Jess's body parts.

After I get up, Dash waits patiently for me on the couch while I make coffee. Then she jumps over to the hassock while I drink my coffee and she laps half-and-half out of a plate. She only wants about half a teaspoon-full and she'll only drink Organic Valley's Organic Half & Half. She's by no means a model of feline grace about it, either. She splatters half & half EVERYWHERE. On the coffee table, on me, on herself. I need to keep towels handy. But she has to have her morning half & half, just as I need my morning coffee. At least I'm a littler neater about it!

It has become my new morning ritual!

Coffee consumption may ward off liver cancer, says Japanese study

Coffee consumption may ward off liver cancer, says Japanese study
More good news about coffee!

"A Japanese study has found that people who drink coffee are less likely to develop liver cancer than those who abstain. Studying 61,000 people between 1984 and 1997, the study found a significant difference in liver cancer rates among those who drank more than one cup of coffee per day. The researchers hypothesize that chlorogenic acid, found in the coffee bean, may be the cancer-fighting agent responsible."

New Scientist Breaking News - Coffee's effects revealed in brain scans

New Scientist Breaking News - Coffee's effects revealed in brain scans

"Coffee improves short-term memory and speeds up reaction times by acting on the brain’s prefrontal cortex, according to a new study."

See, coffee is good for you!

Stress & Coffee

Originally posted by Coriolinus.

Matt Makes Espresso part 1

I've been searching for a way to take things to the next level. I decided it was time to learn more, so for the past few months I've been reading, researching, trying to find new ways to enjoy coffee. I've learned a lot and I'll share it with you in time. One of the results of this research was that it instilled within me a desire to make espresso.

Quite frankly, I'd never been impressed with espresso. It just seemed like a yuppie drink. Overpriced for a small amount of strong coffee that still had a fraction of the caffeine of a real cup of coffee. But then I read all sorts of people waxing poetic about espresso, and the transcendend experience it can be when done right. But there are a lot of conditions to doing it right, and somehow I don't think the stoned teenagers that staff the coffee shops where I'd gotten my espressos before really put the time and talent into doing it right.

So I decided I'd have to do it myself. It might take years of practice, but ultimately I'd be able to "pull a God shot," as the espresso fanatics refer to it as.

I did some more research and ultimately settled on the Rancillio Miss Silvia espresso maker and Rocky grinder combination. They have such a cult following. There are even websites devoted to modding the Miss Silvia, and people write eloquently about how much they love the pair but...

I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Miss Silvia, I'm sorry to say, is butt ugly. There's no design going into the exterior. Just a big ugly cube of stainless steel, trying to be osequious and hidden in spite of the general ostentatiousness of espresso. And the cult following and people anthropomorphizing their devices was a turn-off, even if the idea of a community I could go to for more information was nice.

Then I found it. The Francis! Francis! X5. It was at TJMaxx for almost $400 less than the retail price.

It is heavy. It is really ugly in an almost beautiful awkwardness like a Stealth bomber painted pink. Pink! This color does not exist anywhere in my house for a reason. But for $400, I'd deal with it. And you know? It isn't bad. Somehow the fact that it doesn't try to blend in makes it easier to ignore. And pink is the new black anyway, so I can just pretend.


















Still, there's something I like about the Francis! Francis! in-your-face attitude. Not many companies manage to work two exclamation points into their name. Not many company owners would have a picture of their daughter sticking her tongue out as their company logo.

I've only tried making "real" espresso twice. I've been using up the free package of Illy pods that came with it. The pods are disgustingly convenient. They're little hocky pucks of coffee, ground, compressed and wrapped in a paper filter. You pop it in, make the espresso, pop it out and throw it away. The espresso made this way doesn't taste nearly as good as the shots I ineptly made using my own freshly ground coffee, but they're soooooo easy. Soon, I'll have a proper tamper though (the tamper was missing from the box, unfortunately, so I had to order a new one) and I'll start working on that "God shot." I'll let you know how it works out.

how much is it worth?

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

... but I'll take $2000 for it...

Honestly, I have no idea how they come up with that number. It seems very generous to me.

Hot Lunch!

Sorry everyone. Right now I'm taking the equivalent of 4 grad level classes, while teaching 3 college classes. My bloggery will be sporadic until next year at the soonest, if I don't kill myself with overcommitment & stress. Drinkng shot glass of Aloe Vera gel twice a day keeps the stomach ulcers within acceptable parameters. Guess I should see a doctor about those... but he'll just tell me to cut down on the coffee. Yeah, that'll happen. My plan is to get an espresso machine as soon as I'm not poor. Espresso, while tasting stronger, extracts less caffiene. The caffiene is what's hard on the stomach. Then I will regale you with tales of learning to make coffee!

In the meantime, get your food writing fix at the wonderful Hot Lunch, where my friend Dustin and his friends write about what they're eating.

Naked Coffee

In the introduction to his book Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs says, "The title means exactly what the words say: NAKED Lunch - a frozen moment where everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."

Sometimes the "fork" is a cup of coffee. I was down in Guatemala a decade or so ago. There I learned that average Guatemalans don't ever get to drink their own coffee. It is too expensive. Less than 1% of the population makes more than $500 a year. American importers have paid as high as $2 and as low as $0.30 a pound for the coffee. Even 30 cents is a huge amount for most Guatemalans. That really floored me. I just couldn't believe that they didn't even get to enjoy their most famous product. Then I saw something else. A man heading out to work to spray pesticides on the coffee plants. He had a big vat of poison strapped to his back with a spray hose attached. He was just wearing plain clothes. Just a cloth t-shirt and pants. No protective gear of any sort. No respirator. There's no OSHA in Guatemala. I'm sure he'd never been told that the chemicals he was carrying were harmful to him as well, or been given any instructions on how to avoid getting those chemicals in his community's drinking water...

Naked coffee... that frozen moment where you see exactly what is in your cup. Maxwell House, Folgers, Starbucks... these companies pay the barest minimum they can for their coffee, and they knowingly encourage practices like unsafe pesticide use. Lest you think this is somehow justified, consider that a few years back, growers were getting around $2 a pound for their beans, but due to changes in the market they now make around 30 cents a pound. Are you paying 85% less for your coffee than you were a few years ago? No, because the consumer is getting exploited along with the grower. While corporate coffee gets a huge increase in profits, the consumer gets screwed, and the growers get less than they need to survive. If you buy coffee from these companies you're paying for this to continue.

My new hero is Dean Cycon. Dean makes it really easy to make a moral stand in a cup of coffee. Dean ONLY sells fairly traded, organic, shade grown coffee.

A quick explanation of what that means. Fair Trade sets a minimum price cap on what the grower gets paid (currently $1.41 for organic, as opposed to the 30 cents Starbucks etc. pay). That's just the start of what Fair Trade does, but essentially it means if your coffee has the fair trade designation, you can be reasonably sure that the growers aren't being exploited. Organic means (and here there are many standards and definitions, but generally speaking...) that the coffee was grown without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. It is good to see because you know the grower wasn't poisoning themselves or their community to grow the coffee, and you know you aren't drinking trace amounts of pesticides. Shade grown does organic one better. It means the coffee is grown while disrupting the local flora and fauna as little as possible. It means growing with the environment. Just because something is organic doesn't mean there wasn't a forest clearcut to create a field to plant the coffee in.

As I said before, though, Dean makes it easy to be moral. You should be buying nothing but organic, shade grown, Fair Trade coffees because it is the right thing to do. But sadly, too many people don't really care what's on the end of their fork. As long as something is cheap and convenient it really doesn't matter who suffered to get something into your mouth. And to be honest with you, even though I've seen that suffering first hand, I need that cup of coffee. If Starbucks is the only thing around, I'll get my coffee there because caffiene withdrawals will render me nonfunctional if I don't. And if money is tight, I'll go with the non-organic products to save a buck.

But Dean's Beans don't cost any more than other specialty coffees, at least at the Belfast Coop where I shop. And if one cares nothing about the rest of the world, and only about one's own pleasure, they still win with Dean's Beans. You can compare for yourself. Take any brand of coffee that has organic and shade grown versions and do a taste-test with the non-organic options. Organic coffee tastes better than non-organic. It is noticably richer, fuller. Shade-grown coffee tastes that much better again than ordinary organic.

Dean's Beans make the best coffee I've ever had. Nothing else will do for me now. I had a few pounds of Alta Dena, which is darn good coffee, but I gave that to my sister. I even carry some ground up beans with me when I leave town so I can make my own when I'm away from Belfast (in the base of my Planetary Designs French Press mug, of course!). If you're a friend, relative or student of mine, let me know and I'll be happy to pick some up for you. Otherwise, you can find a Deans Beans reseller near you, or order beans here.

Hurricane Katrina did a number on New Orleans. Although we didn't here about it much in the news in the US, Hurricane Stan has done much, much more damage to Guatemala, El Salvador and other Latin American countries than Katrina did to NOLA. Sadly, I think many of us have overdosed on compassion, and don't have much left over. But just by buying Fair Trade coffees exclusively you are doing something. You are helping. At least it's a start!

My new favorite thing: Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press

I love gadgets and spend an inordinate amount of time and money on them. Very few of these things, however, have altered my life on a day-to-day basis. Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press Mug, however, is one that has.

I'd passed by the Double Shot, sold at the Belfast Co-op where I do my shopping, many times before and never really gave it much attention before. It seemed just a little gimicky to me. But a few weekends ago friends Dustin and Hillary were visiting and Hillary just couldn't stop talking about how cool it was, so I gave it another look. Thanks, Hillary, for making me notice!

The idea is pretty simple. Take an insulated coffee mug and build in a French press, thus making it portable. Not a bad idea, really, since French presses tend to be made of glass, and are easily breakable. Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press Mug is more than this. It is a design masterpiece. Bodum gets the credit for making the best French presses in the world, but after having the Double Shot in my life for a couple weeks, I have to wonder if Bodum's more honest claim is just that they have the best marketing. My Bodum press has been sitting on the counter since I got the Double Shot, even when I'm not taking my coffee on the road.

For starters, look at the heart of any French press, the plunger mechanism. It is a patented design, far superior to any I've seen. It has a plastic flange with a built-in spring to ensure that it is constantly pressed against the side of the mug. Some French presses just use a solid plastic disc. The Bodum uses the slightly better method of coiled spring to press the screen against the side of the carafe. The problem with these methods is that if the plunger tilts you wind up with coffee grounds in your drinking coffee. Planetary Designs provides the best seal I've ever seen, far more effective than Bodum's, and it is also very forgiving. No grounds even if the screen tilts. And yet it is a simpler mechanism. The screen just has one part as opposed to Bodum's three, making it much easier to clean.

The lid is also well thought-out. It actually has a rubber O-ring that completely seals the lid to the mug. There's an additional screen where the coffee comes out. I'm not sure if it is the addition of this second screen, or if both screens use a finer mesh than Bodum and other French presses do, but the end result is that you can actually drink your coffee down to the last drop. Fans of French presses know that you have to avoid that last swallow of coffee in the cup. That's the one drawback to brewing coffee using a screen instead of a filter. You wind up with a certain amount of sediment at the bottom. It is a small price to pay, but even still it catches me off guard when I'm hurriedly quaffing my last bit of coffee before running out the door and wind up with a mouth full of grounds and powder. This isn't an issue with the Double Shot.

The Double-Shot is made with marine-grade stainless steel (whatever that means) and is insulated. Insulated mugs are something I tend to avoid for around-the-house use. They're fine for traveling, but (and of course this could just be my overactive imagination because stainless steel is supposed to be nonreactive, so there's no way this could be true... could there?) I find that even in stainless steel travel mugs the coffee tastes different to me. Not as good as it would taste in a ceramic mug. Maybe it is the "marine grade" stainless steel that makes a difference, but coffee in the Double-Shot tastes just as good as it does if I made it in my glass French press. Even better, since it doesn't have the sediment and the insulated cup keeps the coffee consistently hot, seemingly for hours, giving me time to savor the taste before the coffee goes cold.

I was initially resistant to the directions that came with the cup which said to add the cream to the coffee grounds BEFORE pouring in the hot water. Usually the cream is the thing that cools the coffee off enough to drink so you don't have to wait, so I worried that adding it before brewing would make the water too cool to brew a decent cup. The insulated mug, however, more than compensates for the cooling effect of the cream.

All this is cool enough to justify the price ($28 online from Liquid Planet, $22 at the Belfast Coop if I remember correctly. If you're a friend of mine let me know and I'll pick one up for you...) but the Double Shot still holds one feature that'll make you say, "Oh, that is SO COOL!" Pull off the bottom (sealed with another rubber O-ring) and inside that is an air-tight cannister that will hold enough ground coffee for two more cups (or secret documents or whatever other contraband you need to smuggle). You know, I've always hated those people who, at the coffee shop or restaurant say, "Can I just get a little hot water for this?" and pull out their own tea bag they brought from home. It's always seemed like a totally cheapskate thing to do. But with this massively cool hidden canister thing I may just be losing cool points this year.

So, there you have it. My latest "all-time favorite thing EVER!" I'm sure I'll have another one shortly. I usually do, but I'll be enjoying it with my Double Shot in hand.

yeah, yeah

Obviously, it "didn't take" this time around. I blame the weather. It has just been too beautiful. Turns me into an airhead. I need the cold, gray days of fall/winter/spring to get anything done. You should visit the Castles journal though. I've actually been writing there, and it is way more interesting than 100 Cups of Coffee anyway.

cup 14

cup 13

cup 12

cup 11

cup 10

cup 9

cup 8

cup 7

cup 6: Beach Pea

Where: Beach Pea, Kittery, ME
When: 8 am
Who: Ethel LeClair
What: house French Roast

cup 5: only half a cup?

Where: Curti Residence, Kittery, ME
When: June 29, 8 am
Who: Chip and Ernie
What: Equal Exchange

No chance for a picture this morning. Sorry. I should have known. Mom said she'd pick me up at 8:30 am to go to Brenda's, but of course she showed up 45 minutes early, and I only had time to chug half a cup of coffee before she wanted to leave.

Brenda's was remarkable, as expected. Brenda is the self-proclaimed "Bag Lady of Lee." She is the queen of, well, stuff. She goes to yardsales and picks through trash at the dump to find things of questionable value and then finds ways to give them value. Today she had a case of what appeared to be 8.5" x 11" paper cut into thirds, the long way. She was trying to find a way to make these 7500 2.8" x 11" sheets useful. She'd tried glueing then ends of stacks of them together with a hot glue gun with acceptable results only to realize that just one pad was enough to take down all the phone numbers and create all the shopping lists you'd want to for years to come. So she was looking for other uses. Mom needed a stand for her new apartment so we went through the basement and the shed looking for furniture. So much stuff! Floor to ceiling of years are yardsale finds. There's one room devoted entirely to McDonald's Happy Meal Toys (just McDonald's, other fast food toys are in a different area). Another room is just for Legos. An area of the shed has so many baskets hanging from the rafters that you can't see the ceiling, and there's another area devoted entirely to prints of every sort. The stuff goes on and on.

Brenda has rules when going to yardsales: You can never pay asking price for anything at a yardsale. You can never leave a yardsale empty-handed. The latter rule has led to some interesting collections. Brenda let me in on the secret to never leaving empty handed. You choose something to collect every yardsale season, and make sure it is something that most people would consider so worthless that they wouldn't even put it in the yardsale. One year she choose plastic flowers. At the end of the summer she made a giant mountain of flowers to engulf her mailbox. She left it like that for a while, then sold all the flowers at her own yardsale the following summer. She's more selective about her fake flowers now. She gets very realistic ones, and matches the flowers to whatever is in season outside, leaving them up only while the real flowers are in bloom outside and changing them to match the changing season. She delights in fooling people into thinking the fake flowers are real. It is important to note that she often has the real things growing right outside the door and could go out and cut the same flowers to have inside, but that wouldn't be as fun. Now Brenda is acquiring fake fruit. She doesn't know exactly what she's going to do with it all yet. That is half the point of getting it, though. When she has enough, inspiration will strike her and the fruit will take its place in the grand scheme of things.

Sadly, this trip, coming so soon after my big move, I wasn't so much in the mood to acquire more stuff. I think in a couple months I'll take a trip down again. I did manage to find a candy dot maker in amongst all the stuff. Seemed like a perfect way to use some of those 7500 strips of paper.

On returning to the Curti house, I found the remaining half cup of coffee sitting on the counter where I'd left it. I took a swig. Yeah, it had been sitting on the counter in 90 degree heat all day, but the acid in coffee will keep cream from spoiling (I think) so as long as it doesn't tast bad or have chunks, you're OK. Unfortunately, there was a chunk, and I had a brief moment of "swallow or spit?" thinking it might be just a breadcrumb. I spat it out into the sink and it tried to crawl away. A black and had found its way into my coffee. I was pretty grossed out by now. My addiction must be somewhat subsided now, because I dumped the rest of the coffee out and didn't make any more.

So THAT is why I only had half a cup of coffee today.

cup 4: friendly again

Where: The Friendly Toast, Portsmouth, NH
When: June 28, 8:30 am
Who: Jessica Brakeley
What: house

cup 3: pug ugly

Where: Curti residence, Kittery, ME
When: June 26, 7:30 am
Who: Chip & Ernie
What: Equal Exchange something-or-other

cup 2: The Friendly Toast

Where: The Friendly Toast, Portsmouth, NH
When: June 26, 8:30 am
Who: Jessica Brakeley
What: House blend

Cup 1: Marky

Where: The Bohemian, Brunswick, ME
When: June 25, 10:30 am
Who: Mark Leaman
What: Bohemian Uprising

Yes indeed, the Bohemian still exists. On my previous visit to Brunswick I got the mistaken perception that it was gone, replaced by Little Dog. Actually, it had just moved around the corner. Mark met me at Little Dog, then dragged me over to the Bohemian. It was the only place in town that met Mark's criteria at that moment: WiFi and air conditioning.

I'll probably get letters for saying this, but honestly, I liked the old Bohemian better. I can understand why it moved. The old place was crappy and falling down and had nowhere to sit indoors, but it was, well, bohemian. It felt like a West Coast coffee house, one of those places that existed before the masses discovered you could make money selling good coffee. The new place is about as bohemian as a Starbucks. It is crisp and clean and polished and air conditioned and wi-fied. The coffee is an order of magnatude better than Starbucks. BOHEMIAN : STARBUCKS :: STARBUCKS : FOLGERS, and the people watching is better also. The Bowdoin College crowd is just lovely to look at.

The Bohemian was a stopover on the way to my sister's, where I'd be spending the week looking after their pugs and chickens while the family vacations.... (more later, gotta run...)

home

home
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Home, Belfast, ME
When: 8 am, June 23, 2005
Who: just me
Coffee: Avalon Organic French Roast
Mood: happy

Welcome to my new home! This isn't particularly a good shot of it. I was trying to capture as much as possible of it, and include the coffee resting on my knee. To my right are peonies. There's actually a whole wall of them beside me and I can sit there and drink in the smell. The scent of peonies, I've come to realize, is the Platonic ideal flower smell. Every other flower scent is just a variation on this smell (well, except for carrion flowers...). Peonies throng the front window, too, and when the wind blows just right it is pure wonderfullness. Just above my knee is a lupine. "Pine cone and tassel" is the official state flower. Lame. It should be the lupine. This time of year the lupines are in bloom, and you'll be driving down the road and turn the corner and there'll be a hill or a field turned purple by lupines. The site is so magnificent I've almost gone of the road because of it. The patch of mud on my right is what will be a flower garden. I've planted a mix of short and medium annuals and perrenials. I need to find something tall for the back. These will grow and fill in, hopefully. Behind the hedge of lupines I've started a perrenial herb garden. Peeking out between the house in the middle and the trees is the Atlantic Ocean. That's right. I can see the ocean when I drink my morning coffee!

I'm loving this place!

Meanwhile, I wrapped things up in Pembroke last week, which, except for a few days in July, I'm on "vacation" until September. I'm going through withdrawal at the moment. After months of being on the go from waking in the morning to collapsing at night, I am free to do what I want. I feel like one of those poor saps in the Allegory of the Cave, though. I've been in the cave of constant work for so long that now I am out of it I am just dazzled by the light, paralyzed by freedom. The real world hardly seems real. The responsibility of choosing my own destiny, even if it is just deciding what I'll do this one day, is overwhelming. So I'm taking this week to chill, veg out, think no deep thoughts. Next week I'll start engaging with the real world again.

Meanwhile, here in a new town, I've realized that my relationship to humanity in general is pretty messed up. In a nutshel, I've forgotten how to make friends. It seems like I knew how at one point, but when you've been a workaholic for years you start making sacrifices. Making friends was something I cut out. So here I am in a new town and I don't know anyone but Jessie, who moved here with me, and our landlords, who live upstairs, and I'd like to meet new people and make new friends, but I just have no idea how. No idea.

So, I'm going to start another 100 cups of coffee. Sunday is my tentative starting date, but I've got a lot of driving/hanging out with friends & family that day so it might get pushed back. I hadn't planned to, but I'm feeling the need. The first time around was for artistic/learning purposes. This time around it is for personal growth. My whole life has changed. There's been a whole lot of endings in the past few months, and now, after an interlude, things are beginning. My therapist was always after me to write things down, but I really have a hard time writing without an audience. So please, join me as I live and pay attention and drink coffee and talk about it. Feel free to jump in whenever you want!

Oh, and you're all cordially invited to join me for a cup of coffee if you're in the area. Just drop me a line!

Interlude 2: Serenity

Thursday we woke up to the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean, and then noticed the sunlight reflecting off the ocean onto our ceiling. It was the first sunrise we've seen at our new home. It rained almost constantly for the month of may, so seeing the sun for the first time felt miraculous. Then it hit us: this is our home. We really, honestly have a plce with a bedroom that overlooks the ocean. And that is just one of the little wonders that keep catching us off guard. Things we knew all along, but there's a difference between knowing them as a fact and actually experiencing them. Like walking through the park that overlooks the bay and seeing that incredible view and realizing that this isn't just some place we're visiting, this is our home now. Or walking home from downtown along the ocean. Or discovering a vegetarian restaurant just four blocks away from our apartment. I didn't even realize there were vegetarian restaurants in Maine other than Little Lad's.

Wednesday was the first full day I'd been able to spend in Belfast. It was also our first sunny day in weeks. I spent most of the day outside in the garden, weeding, planting the handful of perennials I rescued from my former home in Orono. It was the first time I really started to feel like I was living in Belfast. The morning before I went to 17 Margin St., Orono, ME 04473 for the very last time, to help my mother finish packing and cleaning the last few things before the new owners took over. The past weeks have been heartbreaking. This has probably been the most difficult time of my life since my dad died. Letting go of Orono and the family home really has been like losing a family member, and losing part of who I am. The new owners had started moving furniture in before we moved out. Big, tacky, expensive leather crap that stunk so badly of cigarettes that I had to close the doors on it because it stank up the house. In the garage they left a HUGE bar, larger than I'd seen at most real bars. So my ancestral home will become a party house for rich kids whose daddy is buying them a house to go to college in. I really hoped for better for it. Tuesday was cold and rainy, a perfectly depressing day, a perfect day for endings. I stood in the cold after everyone left and wondered how I felt. I'd gone numb. "I'll just have to blog about it later, and then read the blog, and find out how I felt," I told myself, and drove away from 17 Margin for the last time.

I talked to my mother on Tuesday night, after she'd made it down to her new home in Kittery. "I'm not going to miss the place," she told me. "Too many bitter memories." She's right. We moved there because after my dad's brain aneurism he couldn't hold a job anywhere, and we needed a place to rent, and Nana LeClair rented us the top half of the house for cheap. But she was an absolute bitch, and dad kept getting sick again and again, the neighborhood went downhill, we had Faye the psycho lawn mowing neighbor...

A week ago I had Faye for the view out the front window. Now I have sunrise over the Atlantic. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Sometimes you can be holding onto something so tight you don't even know what you're holding onto. And then when you let go, there was nothing there at all. You just didn't realize it because you were clutching so tight. Suddenly I find myself in a place of beauty and opportunity where all I saw was loss and heartbreak, and all I had to do was let go.