Time For Dancing With Myself, Pan Dancing With His Sweet Self, Trees Dancing In The Streets And The Great Sacrifice To Keep The World Turning And Spinning And Leaping.

I shiver with rapture; I soar on the wings of sudden joy!  O Pan, O Pan, appear to us, sea-rover, from the stony ridge of snow-beaten Cyllene.  King, dancemaker for the gods, come, so that joining with us you may set on the Nysian and the Cnosian steps, your self-taught dances. Now I want to … Continue reading Time For Dancing With Myself, Pan Dancing With His Sweet Self, Trees Dancing In The Streets And The Great Sacrifice To Keep The World Turning And Spinning And Leaping.

Thinking About The God Pan While Taking A Walk With Arthur Machen, Nick Cave, Genesis, Sean Carroll And The Cat In The Hat As A Deer Stock Back Home Bubbles.

Look close at a tree.  I mean, really close.  A tree is really, when you look close a bit alien, a bit other than you, if you’re human, and then again there’s something familiar looking back out at you.  Other and you.  Rooted to place and branching above, its skin is alive and revealing of … Continue reading Thinking About The God Pan While Taking A Walk With Arthur Machen, Nick Cave, Genesis, Sean Carroll And The Cat In The Hat As A Deer Stock Back Home Bubbles.

What Does The Great Stag See From The Forest At The Turn of A New Year? Björkar, Björk And Calf Liver Served With Fried Egg and Potatoes, While Contemplating The Good Resonance Of All Things.

It’s good to think of Hannibal as we leave the Winter Solstice behind.  Well, at least remember the Great Stag who witnesses Björkar.  Birches.  Member of the Betulaceae family.  Deciduous hardwood.  Dropping what is no longer needed.  The falling away of what no longer fits.  Dark horizontal lines on white, paper-thin plates.  You can peel … Continue reading What Does The Great Stag See From The Forest At The Turn of A New Year? Björkar, Björk And Calf Liver Served With Fried Egg and Potatoes, While Contemplating The Good Resonance Of All Things.

Turning And Turning In The Ardbeg Labyrinth, While Mulling Over Psychoanalysis And Alchemy, Distillation And Nuages, Yeast And An Equation, Pacific Northwest Forests And Weird Sisters, W.B. Yeats’ Visions, Haggis And Neeps, And Finally A Snake Devouring Its Own Tail Grooving To Funkadelic.

We’re told where we’ll end up.  In the warehouse surrounded by oak barrels aging smoked, fermented and distilled barley.  We’ll gather in a half circle facing our tour guide as she tells us what’s about to pass our lips.  Crossing through doorways, entering rooms and worlds we usually don’t see, usually don’t walk into and … Continue reading Turning And Turning In The Ardbeg Labyrinth, While Mulling Over Psychoanalysis And Alchemy, Distillation And Nuages, Yeast And An Equation, Pacific Northwest Forests And Weird Sisters, W.B. Yeats’ Visions, Haggis And Neeps, And Finally A Snake Devouring Its Own Tail Grooving To Funkadelic.

Eating Ulysses. Bloom Balls.

Though James Joyce’s Ulysses properly begins with, Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.  A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air.  He held the bowl aloft and intoned: —Introibo ad altare Dei . (3) … Continue reading Eating Ulysses. Bloom Balls.

Musing On The Heart With John Of The Cross, Dante Alighieri, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Sappho And Julia Child. A Most Monstrous and Wondrous Orgy With Recipe.

My devotion to offal, especially heart, has appeared frequently throughout this blog.  Recipes for this great, bloody muscle resurrect my body and spirit, piercing my tongue and thoughts with recipes revealing its divine aroma and taste.  I have worshipped lamb hearts.   I have worshipped smoked reindeer heart. I have smoked a heart myself. I have … Continue reading Musing On The Heart With John Of The Cross, Dante Alighieri, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Sappho And Julia Child. A Most Monstrous and Wondrous Orgy With Recipe.

A Bog In Saint Clair Shores Surrounds White Castle, While Danger Doom Stirs The Pot.

Time to cook for the family, which means sledging the bog, digging the swamp, pouring the fat. Off to Eastern Market to gather onions, carrots, parsnips, garlic, mushrooms, potatoes, herbs, and oxtails and short ribs. Yes, oxtails and short ribs. Produce from local Michigan farmers gleams aisle after aisle. All that grows in the dark … Continue reading A Bog In Saint Clair Shores Surrounds White Castle, While Danger Doom Stirs The Pot.

Goodbye To Two Thousand And Eighteen With Three Single Malt Scotch Bottles From The Southern Coast Of Islay As The Sky Burns Over Nacka And I Listen To Vic Chesnutt And Elf Power.

The sunset burns the sky.  Such mysteries occur all the time.  I might think the world’s on fire, a revealing and ending through flames silhouetting branches, trunks and needles; but no, sadly apocalypse will have to wait for another year.  Still, world-altering changes have taken place, at least for the family.  I moved with Gabriela … Continue reading Goodbye To Two Thousand And Eighteen With Three Single Malt Scotch Bottles From The Southern Coast Of Islay As The Sky Burns Over Nacka And I Listen To Vic Chesnutt And Elf Power.

Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

Outside the winter wetlands of Sweden continue to breakdown animal and vegetal matter into a rich loam feeding tree, deer, duck and wandering humans.  Inside, I continue to enhance the decay of the world in a pot. A crucial step in the final bog, that rich gumbo broth, occurs with the making of a roux, … Continue reading Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

Cooking The Bog. Day One.

Think of a community of the living and the dead, mingling together in water, jostling back and forth with each other; bones and flesh, blood and fin, and all sorts of vegetal matter bubbling and foaming, slowly turning into a dense red bog.  In the beginning however, ah, in the beginning, there’s the fishmonger Melanders … Continue reading Cooking The Bog. Day One.