The Finger

I had the original idea for this back at San Diego State (so 20+ years ago). Never could figure out how to turn it into a full-blown story. Many false starts. Like this one.

"Where was it?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Under my bed."

"You don't seem very, I don't know, worried. Concerned," said Vicky.

"It's just a finger. Not like I found a whole body under there."

"It's still someone's finger."

"Yeah, but it seems pretty old. Probably some numbnuts cut it off with a Sawzall."

"And just forgot about it? What if it wasn't an accident? What if that's the only part that survived?"

"Survived?" Jimmy looked amused.

"Yeah. You know. This guy gets killed and his body chopped up into little pieces. But the killer loses the guy's finger. "

"Uh huh. And just how does this lost finger end up under my bed?"

Vicky nodded towards the closed door at the end of the hall.

"What? Stan? You think my roommate did this?"

Vicky shrugged. "You don't know he didn't."

Copyright 2007, Gary Piserchio

Cool Things I've Noticed

Here are some cool things I've seen recently:

• The Phoenix Mars Lander makes a controlled landing on, you guessed it, Mars.
  
  
• This is supposedly a photo of a tribe in the Amazon that's never had contact with the "outside" world. Experts think it's legit. They say the tribe was shooting arrows at the airplane as it flew over. Click here to read the story.
  
  
  
  
• When Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, Sean Connery was 59 years old. When Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, Harrison Ford was 66.
  
  
• A lost parrot in Tokyo told a vet its name and address.

Tasty Tip 6

The Manhattan.

Image taken from Plan59, click here to go there.

I didn't like Manhattans when I first tried them with Makers Mark bourbon. Then Chuck ordered one at a hotel bar with Jack in it. All of a sudden, I was a Manhattan guy. I like it with Jameson and with Jack. Heck, I'd probably like it with Makers Mark if I tried one that way again now that I've acquired a taste.

Now there's some debate over the recipe. An older Mr. Boston bartender and party guide (from the 80s) says to make it with sweet vermouth and bourbon, and that's it. But a bartender awhile back said they've started making them with bitters. Well, I checked my more recent Mr. Boston (that Keith and Cathy gave us as a housewarming gift) and it says to add a dash of bitters (bitters is a preparation of herbs and citrus dissolved in alcohol or glycerine with a bitter or bittersweet flavor ... click here to see the wiki page). Personally I don't find it bitter. But I do like the subtle flavor change it makes to a Manhattan. So here's the recipe, with bitters, from the 2006 Mr. Boston:

2 ounces whiskey (rye or bourbon)
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth (or dry vermouth if you want a dry Manhattan)
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry (or, it says, with an olive if you're using the dry vermouth).

Turkey Legs

So when my grandpa was a young man there was a train accident in Pueblo, Colorado. At least one of the cars was carrying turkeys for market. He and a couple of his brothers (he was one of nine children) went to check it out. I won't say they went to scavenge, but when they discovered the car of turkeys, they talked themselves into taking parts of the turkeys. Parts? Yep. They took the turkey legs. Why just the legs? Grandpa said it was easy to reach into the crates (or boxes or whatever the turkeys were riding in) and pull off the legs. He also said the legs were their favorite part. You know what I didn't ask grandpa about this story? Were the turkeys recently deceased? In other words, had the car contained live turkeys that may (or may not) have perished in the accident? Or were they all dead turkeys on their way to market? I've always assumed dead turkeys, but it does make me wonder.

So as they pulled the legs off the turkeys (please let them have been dead turkeys), they got caught. They were told to stay until, I assume, the cops or official train-type people showed up. One man was left in charge to watch the three brothers. Well, some quick math later, the brothers realized they outnumbered their sole watcher and bid him a fond farewell, taking the turkey legs with them.

The epilogue? They sent some of the turkey legs to their sister Katie who was going to school up in Greeley (it wasn't called the University of Northern Colorado at that time, but I forget just what it was called). They received word that her friends thought the family must surely be of means to send such a fine feast.

Painted Stairs

I've been playing around with painting styles/brushes in Corel Painter X. Here's an "impressionistic" version of the stairs in the Arc.

click to embiggen

The First Third

At Shakespeare and Co. in Paris I bought Neal Cassady's The First Third. It seems to be a partial memoir that covers from about age 7 thru 10 (or thereabouts). For those not sure, Neal was friend and hero to Jack Kerouac.

Neal (left) and Jack

His memories of being young are much better than mine. I've always wondered that about memoirs. There's so much detail. How much is fact and how much is embellishment? Or do these authors just have much better memories than me? If I were to write what I actually remember, my memoir would be very sketchy.

Neal grew up in Denver. If there's anything wrong with his writing, it's that he overdoes setting description. But that's part of what I liked about the book. Being from Denver, reading what it looked like in the 1930s was very cool. As great prose, however, it was too much. In the foreword, the editor pretty much apologizes for Neal's writing. I don't see why. It might not be great, but it was certainly solid.

To pad out the book, the publisher added a prologue that Neal wrote, which detailed his dad (Neal, Sr.) growing up (again, a lot of detail for information that could have only been provided to him as sketchy oral history from his dad, right? Is it just assumed that memoirs and biographies are mostly fiction?). And in the back are letters written to Jack and to Ken Kesey as well as prose fragments. In all, it's an interesting bit of personal history about a man so integral to the Beat Generation.

Kara Flyin' High

Well, I got bored with Supes, so I went with his cousin, Kara. Here's Supergirl in a Darwyn Cooke kinda style (or at least, that's what I was shootin' for). I think I screwed up her skirt as I now think there's not supposed to be gold trim on it. Such is life. As always, used Corel Painter X.

click to embiggen

Partial Supes

Feeling antsy today. Started several art projects. This is one of them. When I'm feeling antsy it's difficult to finish anything. Maybe it's my ADHD-M-O-U-S-E. I dunno. So here's my partial Supes I was drawing in Corel Painter X. If I ever finish it, I'll throw it up here.

For the Ladies

I did a quick "painting" of my wife's new Louboutin shoes using Corel Painter X. She took the original picture from which this is based.

click to embiggen

12 Sisters Pointing

For those who may have forgotten how to count.

Groovy Pics du Paris

Because my brain still isn't working properly since flying home from Paris I'll just hand out some pics for all y'all. Hope you enjoy. And to see even more pics, visit my wife's funky blog.

One of my favorite pictures. The stairs leading down in the Arc.

Green man says, "Walk!"

A picture for the ladies.

Gelato.

Outside Notre Dame.

Inside Notre Dame.

A random window treatment.

A famous bookstore for English speakers (and readers).

Parisians got mad parallel-parking skillz. How they get cars much bigger than these into tiny little spaces is simply amazing. However, part of the skill required means there is not one car in Paris (not one) without scratches on front and rear bumpers.

A foot bridge that becomes a nighttime picnic area. Tre cool.

Nothing says Paris like Silver Robot Babe (SRB). What's the internal dialogue you have with yourself on deciding to paint yourself silver and stand around Paris?

Oh, Mickey, you're so fine. You're so fine you blow my mind. Consider your mind blown.

Yep, rent-a-bike. You can buy one-day, one-week, and one-year passes to grab a bike at any of the handy bike outlets. We didn't have the guts to ride a bike on the mean streets of Paris.

One of those mean streets. Rue Jacques Callot. Our apartment house is up on the right about midway. It was built for servants about 300 years ago.

Don't drop the camera, Gary.

Some kind of dessert (we think they were custards). Didn't taste bad.

Inside the Orsay Museum looking out through its clock face.

The flag under the Arc.

Mixed Feelings

If my wife's month here went fast, think how fast my week has gone (click here to read her very cool post about leaving). I'm torn. I'm ready to go home (and get rid of my Paris cough) but I could easily spend another week here without batting much of an eye (especially with finally having a working toilet again).

Some observations. It's not a stereotype to show a Parisian with a baguette. With boulangeries on every block, people are walking around with 18-inch baguettes quite often.

The Parisians I came in contact with were not impolite. The waitstaff is taught to be unobstrusive. If you want something extra, you have to flag down your waiter and ask for it. They do not hover around your table asking if you need anything. It's just not done. But everyone smiled and welcomed you and thanked you. The few people I actually met were very nice and genuine.

If you're walking in a crowd, you better be assertive and WALK or the mass of people will sweep you to the side. However, even with the devil-may-care of walking in crowds (or driving their cars/scooters) there's very little jostling.

I am very surprised I did not witness a car/scooter/pedestrian accident at any time while here. That truly is a mad game and I don't see how Americans can rent cars and drive around the city. Yikes, people.

The food was okay. Nothing special, though the pastries are a cut above what we normally find in any given restaurant back home.

It's amazing to see so many galleries. How do they all survive? The same with all of the micro boutiques. They're everywhere. These shops that sell niche products in such a small area (some shops are hardly larger than a walk-in closet). They never seem to have customers, but they must get by, right? I don't know how they survive, but it's one of the cool things in this city, adding to all the things you can look at.

Paris could use a whole lot more public restrooms. But it's amazing that this city could build any type of plumbing and electrical infrastructure seeing as how so many buildings are hundreds of years old. Imagine retrofitting all of these buildings with phone, cable, electrical, and modern plumbing. It boggles.

Le sigh. I will miss it here, but I am also looking forward to being home with the puppies and my 50" TV. Ah, priorities.

A Perfect Moment

I went back to l'Heure Gourmande for lunch. Shannon was taking a little nap. I was hungry, but also determined to try their hot chocolate.

It's overcast and sprinkling today. When the sun is out, they have a crowd of tables outside filled with people. But the cafe hasn't felt congested. It has a healthy number of diners, but not so crazy as to turn off this American (some cafes are a riot of people, and are not appealing for that reason). To remind you, this is the cafe where this table exists.

Missing from the above is the rhubarb pie. I've seen rhubarb products in most boulangeries. Today I ordered what I hoped was chicken with a little side salad. Well, it was chicken, but it was stacked with eggplant and peppers, which would normally be fine, except that to hold it all together they used clear gelatin. There was nothing wrong with the flavor, though I was quite fearful of finding bits of internal organs ala head cheese or the like, but it appeared to be simply layers of thin-sliced chicken with the aforementioned vegetables. Once I got past the uncomfortable gelatin-ness of it, I found it tasted pretty good. For dessert I ordered the hot chocolate, which created this perfect little moment in time.

The chocolate was extremely rich. Like velvet (it was pretty much the equivalent of drinking the chocolate torte on the table above, without the crust, of course, because that'd just get all gummy). The French do not seem to believe in chocolate with anything less than 70% cacao (at least I haven't seen any since being here). I like dark chocolate, but I am looking forward to a little less bitter chocolate when I get home.

Le City From on High

The city sprawls in a series of connected spiderwebs. There are not many east-west and north-south roads here. I've counted as many as twelve streets coming off one roundabout. You would need a detailed compass to accurately give the direction of any one of those streets. Local cabbies must use maps to find little-known streets, such as our own rue Jacques Callot. And the city "blocks" are not symmetrical. Each one has one side longer than the others. For some the block becomes a virtual triangle or as with the block just around the corner, a literal triangle, with the buildings coming to three sharp points. And once off the main streets, with their loose guidelines of lanes, the side streets are barely wide enough for a car. It's impressive to see a big city bus rumbling down a narrow cobblestone street and turn a corner at some acute angle while bicycles and motor scooters whiz by in a nonchalant disregard for their own safety. From what I've seen, it's like this throughout Paris. A vibrating tumultuous world of spiders riding the thin threads of their webs.

The Tower All Lit Up

You'll have to turn your head to the left like ya just don't care ... until I get home and can rotate the video. This was last night.

Le Food

And now for that post that some of you have been waiting for. A quick story about the food of Paris. Ah, but not just any food. I am of course talking about McDonald's, Starbucks, and Subways ... all three found in abundance in Paris.

I kid, I kid. I have not eaten at any of them. Promise. But now feast your eyes on the following. In a normal day's adventure you walk past many shop windows that look much like this one.

We went to a small cafe not too far from our apartment (l'Heure Gourmande). It's a wonderful and quiet place. The first thing I noticed, of course, was this table of pasteries.

For lunch we had salads. Shannon got something with tuna on it (strips of cooked tuna) and I got a Ceasar's with thinly sliced cuts of chicken. Both were pretty good. But then for dessert, Shannon got the chocolate cake in creme anglaise. The "cake" was a very rich dark chocolate that had almost the consistency of fudge, which of course went well with the creme anglaise.

I got the chocolate torte with whipped cream. Both desserts were dotted with pistachios. The torte was also a dark chocolate with a velvety texture and a crisp shortbread-like crust. We plan on coming back to this cafe for the apple cinnamon torte.

On another day, at the famous Cafe de Flore (the hangout for Sartre and Simone du Beauvoir), Shannon had a salad with ham and I had an omelette with ham and cheese. For dessert, she had Le Cafe de Flore (which was really spumoni with strawberry, pistachio, and chocolate ice cream).

I had the profiteroles. This was covered in a real chocolate ganache (served warm - no freakin' Hershey's syrup like most places in Denver), with freshly baked puff pastry that was quite crispy and stuffed with vanilla ice cream (yes, French vanilla). The sauce was so rich that I almost had to force myself to finish all three. One puff pastry and ice cream is more than enough.

This next one if pretty much unrelated, but we went to an open market that had this table of candy that looked cool.

Small and Cozy

A little more sober this time, though that should change at any moment (it is amazing that there's no hangover when drinking the wine, here. Back home I'd have a goodly headache the next day. None of that, here). So today I'm taking you on a tour of the apartment. It'll take longer than you think because I've taken a lot of pictures.

Ah, here we are at the entrance to 3, rue Jacques Callot.

Entering the top-secret code, you find yourself in the vestibule.

At which point you have the daunting task of lugging your luggage up three flights of stairs.

But the prize at the top is this quaint door. You simply knock and my beautiful wife answers immediately!

The door doesn't seem very solid, but take a look at it from the inside. We're living in a safe.

Then we pan around to the living area. Don't tell Shannon that I'm showing it with a diskempt bed.

And now, the bathroom, which was added just recently. For centuries (yes, centuries) people living here used a water closet between floors, maybe one WC for every two or three floors.

Ah, and breakfast at our little table.

Looking out our window at the street below.

Looking at the building across the street.

And finally looking from the street up at our colorful windows.