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!