I’ve been wanting to see the 87-minute documentary on “The Making of Tampopo” ever since I first read of its existence perhaps fifteen years ago. And now – or soon, anyway – I can. A German special edition Blu-ray of “Tampopo” by the fantastic director Jûzô Itami has been released that includes it. I checked to be sure and it does have English subtitles on the disc, not just German. I found out about it while idly reviewing search results for “Tampopo” shortly after I watched it yet again last night.
Here’s the trailer for the film, which was first released 30 years ago in Japan:
I just ordered the new Blu-ray release from a fellow in Germany, but I’ll have to wait a while before viewing it. While my current internationally modified (read: electronics hacked) LG Blu-ray player can play all DVD regions and convert PAL/SECAM to NTSC, it can only play Blu-ray discs for Zone A; this disc is Zone B. I just found a modified Samsung all-region DVD, all-zone Blu-ray player with PAL/SECAM converter; support for DLNA/NAS/Internet play and search; data discs on CD/DVD/BD-R; support for AVI, WMV, MP4, MKV, MP3, and other files; and DivX, Xvid, WM9, and other formats. All for US$20 less than my modified LG player cost four years ago, but I will resist the temptation to use credit and again practice delayed gratification until I have the cash to get it – possibly in the next two to six weeks.
“Tampopo”, the only film I’ve watched more times than “2001: A Space Odyssey” – that equates to ‘a heckuva lot’ – for the first time in full high definition and with dts-HD audio, plus its “making of” documentary…it’s a dream come true.
An excerpt from a speech Mark Twain gave at a dinner in his honour hosted by Lord Mayor John Japp at the Liverpool Town Hall, 10 July 1907:
Home is dear to us all, and now I am departing to my own home beyond the ocean. Oxford has conferred upon me the highest honor that has ever fallen to my share of this life’s prizes.¹ It is the very one I would have chosen, as outranking all and any others, the one more precious to me than any and all others within the gift of man or state. During my four weeks’ sojourn in England I have had another lofty honor, a continuous honor, an honor which has flowed serenely along, without halt or obstruction, through all these twenty-six days, a most moving and pulse-stirring honor – the heartfelt grip of the hand, and the welcome that does not descend from the pale-gray matter of the brain, but rushes up with the red blood from the heart. It makes me proud and sometimes it makes me humble, too.
Many and many a year ago I gathered an incident from Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast. It was like this: There was a presumptuous little self-important skipper in a coasting sloop engaged in the dried-apple and kitchen-furniture trade, and he was always hailing every ship that came in sight. He did it just to hear himself talk and to air his small grandeur. One day a majestic Indiaman came plowing by with course on course of canvas towering into the sky, her decks and yards swarming with sailors, her hull burdened to the Plimsoll line² with a rich freightage of precious spices, lading the breezes with gracious and mysterious odors of the Orient. It was a noble spectacle, a sublime spectacle! Of course the little skipper popped into the shrouds and squeaked out a hail, “Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?” In a deep and thunderous bass the answer came back through the speaking-trumpet, “The Begum, of Bengal – 142 days out from Canton – homeward bound! What ship is that?” Well, it just crushed that poor little creature’s vanity flat, and he squeaked back most humbly, “Only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for Kittery Point – with nothing to speak of!”³ Oh, what an eloquent word that “only,” to express the depths of his humbleness!
That is just my case. During just one hour in the twenty-four – not more – I pause and reflect in the stillness of the night with the echoes of your English welcome still lingering in my ears, and then I am humble. Then I am properly meek, and for that little while I am only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out, cargoed with vegetables and tinware; but during all the other twenty-three hours, my vain self-complacency rides high on the white crests of your approval, and then I am a stately Indiaman, plowing the great seas under a cloud of canvas and laden with the kindest words that have ever been vouchsafed to any wandering alien in this world, I think; then my twenty-six fortunate days on this old mother soil seem to be multiplied by six, and I am the Begum, of Bengal, 142 days out from Canton – homeward bound!
—
¹Twain was awarded a Doctorate of Letters by the University on 26 June 1907.
²A line on the hull indicating the maximum safe draft.
³Kittery Point is not actually mentioned in Richard Dana’s book, but Twain’s good friend William Dean Howells had a summer home there.
In the last few years, I’ve noted a small but noticeably growing trend of people wearing no winter clothing on the coldest of winter days – trousers and shirts, sure, but no coat of any kind. I usually see them in shopping centre car parks, but have noted them in other places as well.
Because they used to be rarer sights than they are now, my theory used to be that they were just running a quick errand and were in a hurry. Now I see them – almost always male and usually younger, I should point out – often enough that I think it may be reflective of a time where many simply never go outdoors for more than a run to the store for something, some of them perhaps thinking of frigid weather as a sort of annoying feature of the non-online game of life that never needs to be thought of in terms of anything but several minutes.
I’d be willing to bet that some of them don’t even own a coat – I mean, why would you not take five seconds to don one if you did own one, other than thinking, “How could there possibly be any consequences of dressing for balmy weather in the dead of winter?”
My puzzlement with this has only a little to do with the old admonition to “Bundle up or you’ll catch your death of pneumonia!” It’s more to do with the baffling optimism of someone who’s totally unprepared to spend more than a few minutes in an environment where the phrase “died of exposure” crops up with fair frequency in news reports. Will their car never break down or slide into a ditch? Will they never lock themselves out of their house? And will their mobile’s battery never hit 0%? To me, it’s akin to parents refusing to vaccinate their kids, rationalising “Oh, what are the chances they’ll ever get exposed to that. Anyway, we bleach every surface in our house and that will protect them just fine.” Such levels of optimism imbue the world with a gentleness and harmlessness that, on average, it simply doesn’t possess.
Here’s part of the narration from National Geographic’s catfish-hunting leopard programme, a co-production of National Geographic Wild and BBC. It originally aired last November on NGC and I viewed it back then.
“Take three, and she nails it. Having watched her, the rest of the family soon follow suit and gets in on the act. Before now, it seems no one has seen leopards pouncing on live fish.” [at 2:35 in the linked clip]
BBC Natural World, who just aired the programme for the first time as “Africa’s Fishing Leopards”, appears to have fact-checked that claim, as I did myself back in November. From its narration by Sir David Attenborough:
“Take three, and she’s got it. Having watched her, the rest of the family are soon following suit and getting in on the act. While leopards are known to collect fish from drying rivers, to actually hunt them when the water’s high is something rarely witnessed. Certainly, after a lifetime in the African bush, it’s behaviour that Brad has never seen before.”
Apparently, the folks over at National Geographic Channel lack the internet access the BBC enjoys. The video below was posted in 2009. I found it back in November with a search for leopard fishing. It was the first result. What I would enjoy saying to an NGC producer’s face: “Hmmm.”
The best things in the long-defunct National Lampoon magazine were the “Timberland Tales” and “The Appletons” strips by B.K. Taylor. Slapstick isn’t easy to do well live, never mind in comics.
Edited July 2019 to add: B.K. Taylor is releasing a book of the collected “Timberland Tales” and “The Appletons” strips in March 2020. See this post: https://finleyquality.net/sakrafise/
A local weatherman the other day: “All I can say is, take comfort in the fact that next winter will be nothing like this winter. I will guarantee that.”
This view is after another blizzard dumped 12-20 inches on Eastern New England last Saturday night into Sunday. It was fifteen inches at my house, bringing the three-week total to a number too enervating to type, utter, or contemplate.
Click for a more enervating view
The second image shows the snow-covered northeastern states as observed on Feb. 16, 2015, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Cloud streets over the Atlantic Ocean in both images hint at the potent winds blowing across the East Coast from the Canadian interior. Following the blizzard, temperatures dropped as low as -30 degrees Fahrenheit (-34° Celsius) in parts of New England.
Fill a 9×13″ pan with some seared ground beef seasoned with salt, pepper, and rubbed sage; its fond deglazed with a little beef stock; a few tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce; some Trader Joe’s frozen roasted sweet corn; a boatload of buttery, creamy mash; and a veneer of coarsely grated strong cheddar.
Bake at 375F/190C for 50-55 minutes until it’s piping hot and the cheese is coloured perfectly, comme ci.
Eat in front of fireplace.
Make monosyllabic comments sprinkled with grunts to taste.
1. Click for a larger view 2. Try not to become fixated.
The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.
– W.C. Fields
Click for a larger view
On a day off with a friend, slow-cooked bacon, eggs sunny side up for me, and pancakes – recipe here. The keys to scrumptious diner-style pancakes: gentle and only brief mixing of the dry into the wet ingredients, malted milk powder, and medium-low on the burner, which will give you 325-350F/160-175C in the pan and result in pancakes that are beautifully caramelised and soft, not crunchy.
Excerpt from “A Reporter at Large: Firewood” in The New Yorker, 25 March 1974. The full essay is in McPhee’s collection Pieces of the Frame.
Science was once certain that firewood was full of something called phlogiston, a mysterious inhabitant that emerged after kindling and danced around in the form of light and heat and crackling sound – phlogiston, the substance of fire. Science, toward the end of the eighteenth century, erased that beautiful theory, replacing it with certain still current beliefs, which are related to the evident fact that green wood is half water. Seasoning, it dries down until, typically, the water content is twenty per cent. Most hardwoods – oak, maple, cherry, hickory – will season in six months. Ash, the firewood of kings, will season in half the time. When firewood burns, it makes vapor of the water. The rest of the log is (almost wholly) carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen – the three components of cellulose, also of starch and sugar. When a log is thrown on the fire, the molecules on the surface become agitated and begin to move vigorously. Some vibrate. Some rotate. Some travel swiftly from one place to another. The cellulose molecule is long, complicated, convoluted – thousands of atoms like many balls on a few long strings. The strings have a breaking point. The molecule, tumbling, whipping, vibrating, breaks apart. Hydrogen atoms, stripping away, snap onto oxygen atoms that are passing by in the uprushing stream of air, forming even more water, which goes up the chimney as vapor. Incandescent carbon particles, by the tens of millions, leap free of the log and wave like banners, as flame. Several hundred significantly different chemical reactions are now going on. For example, a carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, coming out of the breaking cellulose, may lock together and form methane, natural gas. The methane, burning (combining with oxygen), turns into carbon dioxide and water, which also go up the flue. If two carbon atoms happen to come out of the wood with six hydrogen atoms, they are, agglomerately, ethane, which burns to become, also, carbon dioxide and water. Three carbons and eight hydrogens form propane, and propane is there, too, in the fire. Four carbons and ten hydrogens – butane. Five carbons…pentane. Six…hexane. Seven…heptane. Eight carbons and eighteen hydrogens – octane. All these compounds come away in the breaking of the cellulose molecule, and burn, and go up the chimney as carbon dioxide and water. Pentane, hexane, heptane, and octane have a collective name. Logs burning in a fireplace are making and burning gasoline.
The next storm is on the schedule and it’s to be another blizzard Saturday night. Old Probabilities is saying it may bring the twenty-day total snowfall at my house to…oh, I don’t know exactly, but somewhere around seven-and-a-half to eight feet – well more than an average year’s snowfall in just under three weeks. I’ll do some errands in the afternoon, return home, don my sheepskin slippers, turn down the lights, open the blinds, look out at the snow as I cook something piping hot and comforting for dinner, and feel a little better about winter now that my Multi-Fire XD electric fireplace is in its permanent home as of last night. It’s quite relaxing, indeed all the way to soothing.
A friend was going to help assemble the flat-packed Windham media console but his kid was sick, so I put the 140-pound behemoth together on my own. The instructions were perfectly clear, but the weight and size of the pieces made the job awkward for one and the somanabatch took two-and-a-half hours to build.
Click for a larger view
I selected the Windham because, like my old media console, it has a raised glass platform for the telly that allows me to have the set perched on a turntable – the rectangular piece under the four legs at the top – so I can easily rotate the TV 75 degrees counterclockwise to watch while I work in the kitchen that’s off to the right, and have my soundbar – the 40″ wide black bar underneath the glass – in a position where it won’t get knocked off when I swing the set around.
I imagine a multi-watch/warning/advisory map like this morning’s is akin to foreplay for professional weather people. All of the items on the right are in effect for various parts of the state and shoreline; the colours on the map side reflect only the most important warnings for each area.
“Oh, baby.”
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
1057 PM EST FRI FEB 13 2015
…WINTER STORM WILL BRING BLIZZARD CONDITIONS TO EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS THIS WEEKEND AND HEAVY SNOW FARTHER INLAND…
MAZ005-013-017-018-020-021-023-141200-
/O.EXT.KBOX.BZ.W.0002.150215T0000Z-150215T1800Z/
CENTRAL MIDDLESEX MA-WESTERN NORFOLK MA-NORTHERN BRISTOL MA-WESTERN PLYMOUTH MA-SOUTHERN BRISTOL MA-SOUTHERN PLYMOUTH MA-DUKES MA-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…FRAMINGHAM…LOWELL…FOXBORO…NORWOOD…TAUNTON…
BROCKTON…FALL RIVER…NEW BEDFORD…MATTAPOISETT…VINEYARD HAVEN
1057 PM EST FRI FEB 13 2015
…BLIZZARD WARNING NOW IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM SATURDAY TO 1 PM EST SUNDAY…
* LOCATIONS…EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS INCLUDING MARTHAS VINEYARD.
* HAZARD TYPES…BLIZZARD CONDITIONS…INCLUDING HEAVY SNOW…POOR VISIBILITIES…AND STRONG TO DAMAGING WINDS.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS…8 TO 10 INCHES. SNOW DRIFTS UP TO A FEW FEET CAN ALSO BE EXPECTED.
* TIMING…SATURDAY EVENING INTO SUNDAY.
* IMPACTS…TRAVEL WILL BECOME NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE AND POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING DUE TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AND BITTERLY COLD WIND CHILLS….ESPECIALLY ALONG AND INSIDE ROUTE 128. CONDITIONS WILL REMAIN DANGEROUS FOR TRAVEL WELL INTO SUNDAY DUE TO BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW…REDUCED VISIBILITY AND DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILLS.
* WINDS…NORTH 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 60 MPH.
* VISIBILITIES…ONE QUARTER MILE OR LESS AT TIMES.
* TEMPERATURES…AROUND 20.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A BLIZZARD WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS OR FREQUENT GUSTS OVER 35 MPH ARE EXPECTED WITH CONSIDERABLE FALLING AND/OR BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. TRAVEL MUST BE COMPLETED BY LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON. THOSE VENTURING OUTDOORS MAY BECOME LOST OR DISORIENTED. STAY INDOORS.
Flight Data Recorder chart from the TransAsia flight that crashed in Taipei:
I’ll amend this later if I’m reading that chart incorrectly, but it seems to indicate that they initially had a master warning that engine two flamed out. Engine two auto-feathered, meaning it automatically turned the propeller blades parallel to the airflow to reduce drag. The crew mistakenly powered back engine one (PLA is Power Lever Angle) to 35%, just above Flight Idle, and then shut its fuel off (CLA – Condition Lever Angle set to FSO). As they lost altitude, they realized their mistake and tried to restart engine one – at first, failing to restore its fuel supply – but they were down to 500 feet AGL by the time they restored the fuel and it was too late to recover. It hit the bridge sixteen seconds later.
The driver whose taxi was hit, seen exiting the vehicle in the second picture below, did spot the aircraft coming. The instant he applied his brakes is shown below. His quick reaction and that one-tenth of a second or so of slight slowdown almost certainly saved his life and that of his his passenger. Had they been just one foot farther forward, there would have been a different ending for them.
A late breakfast today, with slow-cooked hickory-smoked bacon – or thinly-sliced pork belly if you don’t call this bacon – homemade buttermilk waffles, and a couple of eggs over easy.
The remaining waffles will freeze nicely – about four times nicer than supermarket frozen waffles, in fact.
Slow-Cooked Bacon
With a little experimentation some years ago, I determined that this is the best way to slow-cook bacon: Preheat your oven to 275-285 F (135-140 C). The reason for that temperature? Not just to go slowly, but because the curing salts used in bacon production begin turning bitter at about 300F/150C. Line a large sheet pan with aluminum foil, taking care not to rip it or get holes in it (for easy cleanup). Put a fairly close-mesh wire rack in the sheet pan, then place your rashers on the rack in a single layer, just touching each other. A half-sheet pan will hold about 3/4 lb, 1/3 kilo, or 11-16 rashers of regular cut depending on their width, which varies considerably from package to package.
You can cook more than you need, because these will reheat very nicely with 30 seconds in a microwave. I use a regular (not thick) cut, cured, hickory-smoked bacon for this method; smoked or not is a personal preference, but I’ve found uncured bacon doesn’t work as well. Now, slow-bake it for 90 minutes – yes, 90 minutes. (Because bacons vary considerably, you should start taking a look at the 75 minute mark and maybe every 5 minutes thereafter so it doesn’t get too dark. I also look at the wetness: When the rashers start to look not completely dry but more dry than wet, they’re perfectly done.) What happens is magical. You end up with slices that are about 90% of their original size and about one-fifth of their original weight, and about a half-cup of perfectly clear bacon drippings in the (lined) pan. The bacon is a deep color with no burned parts at all, has very little grease (it’s all in the pan), and absolutely melts in your mouth. In fact, the cooked bacon is so delicate and wafer-like that some pieces will probably break in two from their own weight when you remove them from the rack to paper towels to drain.
The best part is that the bacon is now reduced to almost pure flavour, and it will be the most intense bacon flavour you are ever likely to encounter. It may be difficult to restrain yourself and actually make the rest of your breakfast or BLTs instead of scarfing down the whole lot straight out of the oven. It’s also probably a bit healthier for you, since 80% (or so) of the fat is gone and sitting in the pan.
Click for 1920×1080
You can bake chicken skin in a similar low-and-slow manner, but between layers of parchment paper, with a second pan sitting on top to keep it flat.
This sort of inclusion in a news article is pointless and maddening:
This has created a storm of criticism against this TV pundit known for her strong and often extreme opinions, but more than 11,000 people have pressed the “Like” button for this blog article on [Dingleface].
Well, sure, but worldwide, I’m certain you could easily find 11,000 people who would “Like” the idea of smashing your own thumb with a hammer, or feeding ground glass to dinner guests, or dropping toddlers off in the centre of a highway at naptime. Why not instead tell the truth?
This has created a storm of criticism against this TV pundit known for her strong and often extreme opinions, but, unsurprisingly, more than 11,000 trolls and/or mentally ill people enthusiastically supported her as they sat in mostly dark, unkempt rooms, mostly in their pants, in another of their series of feeble attempts to be noticed by someone…anyone. Such is the world.
The great majority of media outlets seem to believe that antisocial media totals gathered at filing time make their stories more relevant, maybe more in tune with the younger demographic, but these might-as-well-be-random numbers only make the articles more superficial and trivial. They’re the news equivalent of packing peanuts, but a little less so: They’re light, fluffy, and perhaps useful as filler when one needs to reach that word count, but in the long run, they will not protect the media jobs within.
It was on this date in 1863 that Samuel Clemens first signed ‘Mark Twain’, in his reporter’s letter from Carson City, Nevada to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. I’m currently rereading Life on the Mississippi, and happened to read of the pen name’s origin in chapter 50 last night:
I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner’s discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.
He sent his letter by stage to the paper on Saturday the 31st; it arrived on Sunday, the typesetters’ day off, and was published in the next edition on Tuesday, 3 February 1863.
The letter:
LETTER FROM CARSON CITY
January 31, 1863
EDS. ENTERPRISE: I feel very much as if I had just awakened out of a long sleep. I attribute it to the fact that I have slept the greater part of the time for the last two days and nights. On Wednesday, I sat up all night, in Virginia, in order to be up early enough to take the five o’clock stage on Thursday morning. I was on time. It was a great success. I had a cheerful trip down to Carson, in company with that incessant talker, Joseph T. Goodman. I never saw him flooded with such a flow of spirits before. He restrained his conversation, though, until we had traveled three or four miles, and were just crossing the divide between Silver City and Spring Valley, when he thrust his head out of the dark stage, and allowed a pallid light from the coach lamp to illuminate his features for a moment, after which he returned to darkness again, and sighed and said, “Damn it!” with some asperity. I asked him who he meant it for, and he said, “The weather out there.” As we approached Carson, at about half past seven o’clock, he thrust his head out again, and gazed earnestly in the direction of that city – after which he took it in again, with his nose very much frosted. He propped the end of that organ upon the end of his finger, and looked down pensively upon it – which had the effect of making him appear cross-eyed – and remarked, “O, damn it!” with great bitterness. I asked him what he was up to this time, and he said, “The cold, damp fog – it is worse than the weather.” This was his last. He never spoke again in my hearing. He went on over the mountains, with a lady fellow-passenger from here. That will stop his clatter, you know, for he seldom speaks in the presence of ladies.
In the evening I felt a mighty inclination to go to a party some where. There was to be one at Governor J. Neely Johnson’s, and I went there and asked permission to stand around awhile. This was granted in the most hospitable manner, and visions of plain quadrilles soothed my weary soul. I felt particularly comfortable, for if there is one thing more grateful to my feelings than another, it is a new house – a large house, with its ceilings embellished with snowy mouldings; its floors glowing with warm-tinted carpets; with cushioned chairs and sofas to sit on, and a piano to listen to; with fires so arranged that you can see them, and know that there is no humbug about it; with walls garnished with pictures, and above all, mirrors, wherein you may gaze, and always find some thing to admire, you know. I have a great regard for a good house, and a girlish passion for mirrors. Horace Smith, Esq., is also very fond of mirrors. He came and looked in the glass for an hour, with me. Finally, it cracked – the night was pretty cold – and Horace Smith’s reflection was split right down the centre. But where his face had been, the damage was greatest – a hundred cracks converged from his reflected nose, like spokes from the hub of a wagon wheel. It was the strangest freak the weather has done this Winter. And yet the parlor seemed very warm and comfortable, too.
About nine o’clock the Unreliable came and asked Gov. Johnson to let him stand on the porch. That creature has got more impudence than any person I ever saw in my life. Well, he stood and flattened his nose against the parlor window, and looked hungry and vicious – he always looks that way – until Col. Musser arrived with some ladies, when he actually fell in their wake and came swaggering in, looking as if he thought he had been anxiously expected. He had on my fine kid boots, and my plug hat and my white kid gloves (with slices of his prodigious hands grinning through the bursted seams ), and my heavy gold repeater, which I had been offered thousands and thousands of dollars for, many and many a time. He took these articles out of my trunk, at Washoe City, about a month ago, when we went out there to report the proceedings of the Convention. The Unreliable intruded himself upon me in his cordial way and said, “How are you, Mark, old boy? when d’you come down? It’s brilliant, ain’t it? Appear to enjoy themselves, don’t they? Lend a fellow two bits, can’t you?” He always winds up his remarks that way. He appears to have an in satiable craving for two bits.
The music struck up just then, and saved me. The next moment I was far, far at sea in a plain quadrille. We carried it through with distinguished success; that is, we got as far as “balance around,” and “halt-a-man-left,” when I smelled hot whisky punch, or some thing of that nature. I tracked the scent through several rooms, and finally discovered the large bowl from whence it emanated. I found the omnipresent Unreliable there, also. He set down an empty goblet, and remarked that he was diligently seeking the gentle men’s dressing room. I would have shown him where it was, but it occurred to him that the supper table and the punch-bowl ought not to be left unprotected; wherefore, we staid there and watched them until the punch entirely evaporated. A servant came in then to replenish the bowl, and we left the refreshments in his charge. We probably did wrong, but we were anxious to join the hazy dance. The dance was hazier than usual, after that. Sixteen couples on the floor at once, with a few dozen spectators scattered around, is calculated to have that effect in a brilliantly lighted parlor, I believe. Everything seemed to buzz, at any rate. After all the modern dances had been danced several times, the people adjourned to the supper-room. I found my wardrobe out there, as usual, with the Unreliable in it. His old distemper was upon him: he was desperately hungry. I never saw a man eat as much as he did in my life. I have the various items of his supper here in my note-book. First, he ate a plate of sandwiches; then he ate a handsomely iced poundcake; then he gobbled a dish of chicken salad; after which he ate a roast pig; after that, a quantity of blancmange; then he threw in several glasses of punch to fortify his appetite, and finished his monstrous repast with a roast turkey. Dishes of brandy-grapes, and jellies, and such things, and pyramids of fruits, melted away before him as shadows fly at the sun’s approach. I am of the opinion that none of his ancestors were present when the five thousand were miraculously fed in the old Scriptural times. I base my opinion upon the twelve baskets of scraps and the little fishes that remained over after that feast. If the Unreliable himself had been there, the provisions would just about have held out, I think.
After supper, the dancing was resumed, and after a while, the guests indulged in music to a considerable extent. Mrs. J. sang a beautiful Spanish song; Miss R., Miss T., Miss P., and Miss S., sang a lovely duet; Horace Smith, Esq., sang “I’m sitting on the stile, Mary,” with a sweetness and tenderness of expression which I have never heard surpassed; Col. Musser sang “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” so fervently that every heart in that assemblage was purified and made better by it; Mrs. T. and Miss C., and Mrs. T. and Mrs. G. sang “Meet me by moonlight alone” charmingly; Judge Dixson sang “O, Charming May” with great vivacity and artistic effect; Joe Winters and Hal Clayton sang the Marseilles Hymn in French, and did it well; Mr. Wasson sang “Call me pet names” with his usual excellence (Wasson has a cultivated voice, and a refined musical taste, but like Judge Brumfield, he throws so much operatic affectation into his singing that the beauty of his performance is sometimes marred by it – I could not help noticing this fault when Judge Brumfield sang “Rock me to sleep, mother”); Wm. M. Gillespie sang “Thou hast wounded the spirit that loved thee,” gracefully and beautifully, and wept at the recollection of the circumstance which he was singing about. Up to this time I had carefully kept the Unreliable in the background, fearful that, under the circumstances, his insanity would take a musical turn; and my prophetic soul was right; he eluded me and planted himself at the piano; when he opened his cavernous mouth and displayed his slanting and scattered teeth, the effect upon that convivial audience was as if the gates of a graveyard, with its crumbling tombstones, had been thrown open in their midst; then he shouted something about he “would not live alway” – and if I ever heard anything absurd in my life, that was it. He must have made up that song as he went along. Why, there was no more sense in it, and no more music, than there is in his ordinary conversation. The only thing in the whole wretched performance that redeemed it for a moment, was something about “the few lucid moments that dawn on us here.” That was all right; because the “lucid moments” that dawn on that Unreliable are almighty few, I can tell you. I wish one of them would strike him while I am here, and prompt him to return my valuables to me. I doubt if he ever gets lucid enough for that, though. After the Unreliable had finished squawking, I sat down to the piano and sang – however, what I sang is of no consequence to anybody. It was only a graceful little gem from the horse opera.
At about two o’clock in the morning the pleasant party broke up and the crowd of guests distributed themselves around town to their respective homes; and after thinking the fun all over again, I went to bed at four o’clock. So, having been awake forty-eight hours, I slept forty-eight, in order to get even again, which explains the proposition I began this letter with.
Yours, dreamily,
You can read of Clemens’s hair-raising run-in with the depth of the river in chapter 13 of Life on the Mississippi.
“Three of the suspected men still in confinement at Aurora” Twain in 1863, flanked by Rep. William Clagett and Speaker A.J. Simmons of the Nevada Territorial legislature.
A friend was supposed to visit Monday and Tuesday this week, but those plans were cancelled due to the weather, which reminded me that Mark Twain had a similar problem a while back – March 1888 to be precise. Olivia, his wife, was to have joined him for a week in New York City, but it was not to be. From his letter to her dated 10 March 1888:
And so, after all my labor and persuasion to get you to at last promise to take a week’s holiday and go off with me on a lark, this is what Providence has gone and done about it. It does seem to me the oddest thing – the way Providence manages. A mere simple request to you to stay at home would have been entirely sufficient; but no, that is not big enough, picturesque enough – a blizzard’s the idea; pour down all the snow in stock, turn loose all the winds, bring a whole continent to a stand-still: that is Providence’s idea of the correct way to trump a person’s trick. If I had known it was going to make all this trouble and cost all these millions, I never would have said anything about your going. Now in the light of this revelation of the methods of Providence, consider Noah’s flood – I wish I knew the real reason for playing that cataclysm on the public: likely enough, somebody who liked dry weather wanted to take a walk. That is probably the whole thing – and nothing more to it.
The blizzard he refers to was the Great Blizzard of 1888, which paralysed the Northeast US, sank or grounded 200 ships, blanketed the countryside with 20-60 inches of snow, and killed 400 people – 200 of them in New York City. The supremely annoying “Weather predictions must be perfect! You made me stay off the roads and I didn’t have to! What about my Taco Bell dinner! Call 9-1-1! Waaaa!” people in that area would be well-advised to stick that in their collective pipe and smoke it. Those ubiquitous “Me, me, me! Outrage, outrage, outrage!” chowderheads regretfully now fully enabled by antisocial media remind me of the Italian government trying to jail earthquake scientists a few years ago. I’m happy to report that their manslaughter convictions were finally overturned last November.
The GOES-EAST satellite – GOES-13 at the moment – captured the genesis and follow-through of this week’s blizzard in exquisite detail:
GOES-13, known as GOES-N before launch, was built by Boeing Satellite Systems [PDF of GOES-N databook] and contains several other instruments in addition to its imager:
It’s about the size and weight of a large SUV:
The operational infrastructure behind – or perhaps I should say underneath – the satellite is rather breathtaking. Presented in both org chart and geographic styles here:
And now for the other Twain bookend. I’ve read dozens of his speeches, but his talk on New England weather is my favourite. His part begins several paragraphs into this article, at the subhead SPEECH OF MR. SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
From The New York Times, 23 December 1876
FOREFATHERS’ DAY.
NEW-ENGLANDERS AT DINNER.
THE ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF THE NEW-ENGLAND SOCIETY – SPEECHES BY HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, ‘MARK TWAIN,’ REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, REV. DR. JOHN COTTON SMITH, REV. DR. TAYLOR, AND OTHERS – INTERESTING LETTER FROM GEN. SHERMAN.
The New England Society’s annual dinner at Delmonico’s last night was one of the most brilliant celebrations of the kind that has ever been held in this City. The preparations were made with great thoroughness, and the addresses by the respondents to the several toasts were full of earnestness, good feeling, good sense, and good wit. The dining-hall was filled with seven tables, the President’s table overlooking six others arranged opposite to it at right angles. Above the head of the President was suspended against the wall the banner of the New England Society, flanked by silken national ensigns, and on the opposite side of the hall, before the orchestra balcony, was a national shield also draped with United States flags. the tables were elegantly and tastefully decorated with baskets and set pieces of flowers. Before the President was a design, in flowers of delicate hues, representing Plymouth Rock, and there were many viands in the feast that recalled to genuine New Englanders the plain and beauty fare of the land of steady habits. The guests entered the dining room just before 7 o’clock, and at that hour Rev. Dr. John Cotton Smith, at the invitation of President Borden, said grace. Among those present were Rev. Edward Everett Hale, ex-Gov. Edwin D. Morgan, Hon. George William Curtis, Rev. John Cotton Smith, Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain,) Mayor Wickham, Joseph H. Choate, Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor, Hon. Elliot C. Cowdin, Hon. Salem H. Wales, Commodore J. W. A. Nicholson, G. B. Loring, Hon. Isaac H. Bailey, Dexter A. Hawkins, Prof. Bartholdt, (sculptor of the colossal Statue of Liberty), District Attorney Benjamin K. Phelps, Prof. F. B. Sanborn of Dartmouth College, representatives of St. George’s, St. Andrew’s and St. Patrick’s Societies, Assistant District Attorneys Bell, Russell and Rollins, Parke Godwin, Clark Bell, Police Commissioners, Wheeler and Erbardt, and Prof. W. E. Chandler, the whole company numbering more than two hundred. More than two hours were spent at dinner, when, at 9:30 o’clock, Rev. Mr. Courtenay gave thanks. President Borden then rose, and having called the company to order, he announced that Gen. William T. Sherman had written a letter of regret, saying that in the present condition of affairs at Washington he was unable to leave that city, and William M. Evarts was also detained in Washington and was unable to attend, and that letters of regret had been received from ex-Speaker James G. Blaine, Gov. Tilden, Gov. Chamberlain, of South Carolina, Robert C. Winthrop, and Gen. John C. Newton.
Hon. George William Curtis was called upon to respond to the toast of “Forefathers’ Day.” He was received with prolonged applause, and by many of the company rising to their feet with waving handkerchiefs and loud cheers. His remarks were frequently interrupted by hearty expressions of approval, and his allusion to Abraham Lincoln as the development of the seed sown here two centuries ago by the coming of the Mayflower, was followed by vehement applause. His suggestions for the conduct of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the settlement of the political difficulties threatening the nation roused is hearers to the highest pitch of excitement, and evoked unanimous and prolonged applause.
As Mr. Curtis sat down, he was greeted with the heartiest cheers, which subsided only to be renewed with greater vigor. Cheers followed the announcement of the sentiment, “The President of the United States.” In reply to the “City of New York,” Mayor Wickham humorously arraigned a large number of City officers for alleged shortcomings, charging them with being New Englanders, and succeeding in finding so many against whom the charges were applicable, and indicated them so plainly, as to cause unbounded merriment.
Rev. Edward Everett Hale, in responding to the toast, “New England Culture,” made an address in which wit and wisdom were happily blended. Commodore Nicholson responded to the toast, “The Army and Navy.” Mark Twain provoked a storm of laughter by his rambling talk about “New England Weather.” Rev. John Cotton Smith commanded the fullest attention of the company by his response to the toast set down for him. Responses were made by Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor, Prof. Sanborn, and others.
THE PROCEEDINGS
The proceedings were begun by the President, Mr. William Borden, who said:
Gentlemen, will you give your reverent attention for a moment while I call upon Rev. Mr. Courtenay to return thanks?
Rev. Mr. Courtenay responding to the suggestion of the Chairman, offered prayer as follows:
“Most merciful God, and Father, in whom we live and move and have our being; Thou who can satisfy the desire of every living thing, we render Thee our thanks for the satisfaction of our bodily appetites, and pray Thee that what we shall now hear may be for the satisfaction of the higher appetite of our intellects and our reason for the sake of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
SPEECH OF MR. SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
The Oldest Inhabitant – The Weather –
Who hath lost and doth forget it?
Who hath it still and doth regret it?
“Interpose betwixt us Twain.”
– Merchant of Venice
“I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all, makes everything in New England – but the weather. I don’t know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the Weather Clerk’s factory, who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don’t get it. [Laughter.] There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger’s admiration – and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. [Laughter.] But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. [Laughter.] It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climes. I said, “Don’t you do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day.” I told him what we could do, in the way of style, variety, and quantity. [Laughter.] Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. As to variety – why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity – well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor. [Laughter.] The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing; but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about “Beautiful Spring.” [Laughter.] These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring. And so, the first thing they know, the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by. [Laughter.]
Old Probabilities* has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up the papers and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what today’s weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region; see him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then – see his tail drop. He doesn’t know what the weather is going to be like in New England. He can’t any more tell than he can tell how many Presidents of the United States there’s going to be next year. [Applause.] Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this: Probable nor’-east to sou’-west winds, varying to the southard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. [Loud laughter and applause.] Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: “But it is possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime.” [Loud laughter.]
Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it, you are certain there is going to be plenty of weather. [Laughter.] A perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first. You fix up for the drought; you leave your umbrella in the house and sally out with your sprinkling pot, and ten to one you get drowned. [Applause.] You make up your mind that the earthquake is due; you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and the first thing you know, you get struck by lightning. [Laughter.] These are great disappointments. But they can’t be helped. [Laughter.] The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing when it strikes a thing, it doesn’t leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether – well, you’d think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there. [Loud laughter and applause.]
And the thunder. When the thunder commences to merely tune up, and scrape, and saw, and key up the instruments for the performance, strangers say, “Why, what awful thunder you have here!” But when the baton is raised and the real concert begins, you’ll find that stranger down in the cellar, with his head in the ash barrel. [Laughter.]
Now, as to the size of the weather in New England – lengthways, I mean. It is utterly disproportioned to the size of that little country. [Laughter.] Half the time, when it is packed as full as it can stick, you will see that New England weather sticking out beyond the edges and projecting around hundreds and hundreds of miles over the neighboring states. [Laughter.] She can’t hold a tenth part of her weather. You can see cracks all about, where she has strained herself trying to do it. [Laughter.]
I could speak volumes about the inhuman perversity of the New England weather, but I will give but a single specimen. I like to hear rain on a tin roof, so I covered part of my roof with tin, with an eye to that luxury. Well, sir, do you think it ever rains on the tin? No, sir; skips it every time. [Laughter.]
Mind, in this speech I have been trying merely to do honor to the New England weather; no language could do it justice. [Laughter.] But, after all, there are at least one of two things about that weather (or, if you please, effects produced by it) which we residents would not like to part with. [Applause.] If we hadn’t our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries – the ice storm – when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top – ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; when every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the whole tree sparkles, cold and white, like the Shah of Persia’s diamond plume. [Applause.] Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms, that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again, with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold; the tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence! One cannot make the words too strong. [Long continued applause.]
Month after month I lay up my hate and grudge against the New England weather; but when the ice storm comes at last, I say: “There, I forgive you, now; the books are square between us; you don’t owe me a cent; go, and sin no more; your little faults and foibles count for nothing; you are the most enchanting weather in the world!”
THE OTHER TOASTS.
The other toasts of the evening were “The Clergy of New England,” responded to by Rev. John Cotton Smith; “Lafayette – who gave us himself and liberty; and Bartholdi – who gives us Liberty and Lafayette.” No. Response. “The Agricultural and Manufacturing Interests of New England,” Dr. George B. Loring, and “Our Sister Societies,” responded to by the Presidents of the Irish, Scotch, and English societies.
The proceedings terminated shortly after midnight.
*At the time of Twain’s speech, Old Probabilities was the widely-used nickname of Cleveland Abbe, first scientist of the American Weather Bureau, predecessor to the National Weather Service.
