The Leaning Tower of Salt Glaze

Some bricks don't like it hot and salty.
Salt glaze firing: Ein hod, May 29

I don't go to the funerals of people I like

With Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and Norman Mailer gone, Gore Vidal, 82, is the last truly legendary figure from a golden age of American literature.
Like Oscar Wilde, he is celebrated for his epigrams, most famously: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies." Asked whether his first romantic encounter was homosexual or heterosexual, Vidal replied that he had been "too polite to ask". His conversation is precise and mannered to a point that you suspect this is a man who may still crook a finger when he drinks champagne. He speaks with an archaic, aesthetic tone that can be contagious: there's hardly an interview in his cuttings file where he doesn't elicit the word "exquisite".
There's an episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa holds up a book entitled Tome, with Vidal's name on the spine. "These are my only friends," she complains. "Grown-up nerds like Gore Vidal. And even he's kissed more boys than I ever will."
"Girls, Lisa, girls," her mother says, and it's probable that a majority of viewers were, like Marge, unaware both of the writer's name, and romantic reputation.
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מאסטרו בעין הוד Maestro in Ein Hod

Maestro is a non-profit association that promotes music and culture education in Israel and supports young local talents. The conference took place 2 weeks ago at the picturesque artists' village of Ein Hod and featured panels and screenings of music films, along with the other attractions
שיעורי מוסיקה הם דבר יקר, במיוחד לילדי הפריפריה. מפעל "מאסטרו" שהקימה אביבה, הופך את המוסיקה לנגישה. "כשילדים מבלים בתוך מרכז מוסיקה ויוצרים – לא נמצא אותם ברחוב", היא אומרת אביטל אילת-לובוב אולפן שישי (more on Maestro in Ein Hod מאסטרו בכפר עין הוד)

ein hod עין הוד

Einhod
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Danny's Ben-Arye presentation of Ein-Hod artists' Village, Israel, artists, Museums, guest artists, galleries, art work shops, Guided tour 972-4-9841126, Restaurants, B&B and much more.(read more about Ein Hod)

Bruce "Utah" Duncan Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008)

Legendary labor singer and IWW activist Utah Phillips died peacefully in his sleep on May 23, 2008. Labor Beat celebrates his memory with clips from video archives over 20 years.

Let me forge ahead to that point. I think there are people who make a living writing songs, and I think that's fine. I don't. I'm one of those who don't. That's purely subjective. That's because I'm at war with the state, and that's because of my experiences during the Korean War. And it supplies the state. It's like capitalism itself. It's one reason I despise the industry and won't do anything for it. But that's subjective. I'm not gonna try and talk anybody out of being a journeyman song writer and writing to the market, the way some painters paint to the market, you see. Go ahead and do it. At some point, the tradition is going to dry up, like a well, when everything is owned, you see.

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more of Utah Philips on the blog

Dan Cahn and Bud Powell Dreaming Cleopatra's Dream in Ein Hod

Live performance on February 2008 at Ein Hod, Israel. Dan Cahn on piano, Valerie Lipitz on contrabass and Danny Benedikt on drums.

I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony;
O, such another sleep, that I might see
Such another man!
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

In November 1947, Powell was admitted to Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where he stayed for more than a year, receiving electroconvulsive therapy which caused severe memory loss. The young Jackie McLean and Sonny Rollins became friendly with Powell on his release from the hospital, and Powell recommended McLean to Miles Davis. Powell suffered from mental illness throughout his life, possibly triggered by a beating by the police in 1945 after disorderly behavior. (Although he had a prior reputation for strange behaviour, the beating certainly exacerbated his problems.) He was also an alcoholic, and even small quantities of alcohol had a profound effect on his character, making him aggressive. Powell's continued rivalry with Charlie Parker, while essential to the production of brilliant music, was also the subject of disruptive feuding and bitterness on the bandstand, as a result of Powell's troubled mental and physical condition.(read more...)

Fight Cancer with Rosemary Steak

J. Scott Smith found out about rosemary’s strength against the compounds while researching ways to reduce them as part of a long-term Food Safety Consortium project at Kansas State University. Smith, a KSU food science professor, has been looking into the carcinogenic compounds known as HCAs (heterocyclic amines).
“Put a little bit on the surface,” Smith advised grillers. “Rosemary extracts shouldn’t have much of an aroma to them. Most people don’t want a rosemary-flavored burger. So if you get the extract you don’t really know it’s there.”
The presence of HCAs is a potential problem in cooked beef. The likelihood of their presence is influenced by cooking time and temperature. Previous studies showed that meat products cooked below 352 degrees Fahrenheit for less than four minutes had low or undetectable levels of HCAs. The HCAs would increase as temperature and cooking time increased.
“Some use real high temperatures quick on the surface, then they pull it out and put it in an oven to finish it,” he said.
The better way may be to use rosemary extracts so temperatures can be still be kept high. Rosemary’s antioxidant content makes this method possible thanks to the presence of phenolic compounds. Those compounds – rosmarinic acid, carnosol and carnosic acid – block the HCAs before they can form during heating.
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Her Handy Man: Alberta Hunter's 86th Birthday

"A good example of a double-entendre song is 'Handy Man,' which Alberta Hunter recorded. Several people recorded it, Ethel Waters included, but Alberta Hunter's rendition is wonderful. It really is just one double-entendre after another, and some of them are very clever. And as she sang it, even in later years, she kept adding new lines to it. It's the kind of song that doesn't stay the same. Nobody really knows who started that song."
MY HANDY MAN
(Andy Razaf / Eubie Blake)
Ethel Waters - 1928
Victoria Spivey & The Clarence Williams Blue Five - 1928
Helen Humes - 1973
Carmen McRae - 1987
- 1989
Also recorded by: Elsie Carlisle.

Whoever said a good man is hard to find
Positively, absolutely sure was blind
I've found the best man there ever was
Here's just some of the things that my man does

Why he shakes my ashes, greases my griddle
Chimes my butter and he strokes my fiddle
My man is such a handy man (oh yes he is)

He threads my needle, creams my wheat
Heats my heater and he chops my meat
My man is such a handy man

Now I don't care if you believe it or not
He's so good to have around
And when my furnace gets too hot
He's right there and turns my damper down

Why for everything he's got a scheme
You oughta see that new stuff he uses on my machine
That man is such a handy man (he's God's gift girls)

Why he flaps my flapjacks, cleans off my table
Feeds my horses out in my stable
That man is such a handy man, mmm yeah

Sometimes he's up long before the dawn
Busy trimmin' the rough edges off my front lawn
Yeah that man is such a handy man

Why you know he never has a single word to say
No, not while he's working hard
And I wished that you could see the way
He handles my front yard

Yeah you know my ice don't get a chance to melt away
Cause he sees that I get that fresh piece every day
My man, my man is such a handy man
And I ain't kiddin'!

(read more...)