Wonkosphere

I am absolutely exhausted and brain dead, having been up since 4:30 in the morning. Was it the full moon? The first day of school for DD#1? Stress about how to handle the coming weeks? The nanny who never came back from vacation? I don't know, but I did want to take a moment in between getting the kids to bed and before losing consciousness myself to link to an interesting site I stumbled upon earlier today called Wonkosphere. The site describes itself as "your listening post for the 2008 presidential election." It also has a nice blog. Genuinely non-partisan, they update every four hours with all kinds of info on all the Republican and Democratic candidates, from the so-called "first tier" establishment candidates (Obama, Giuliani, and Hillary) to those who have no chance whatsoever (John McCain) to those the mainstream media all but ignore (Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel), giving equal weight to all, although, of course, I found no reference to any third-party or independent candidates.

Gone-zales

I will post more on this later, but just wanted to quickly note my favorite reaction to the long overdue resignation of AG Alberto Gonzales. This, from Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL): "Alberto Gonzales is the first attorney general who thought the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth were three different things."

Russia Goes Ga-Ga for Topless Putin

Russian president Vladimir Putin made headlines around the world yesterday after he stripped off his shirt for photographers while on holiday in the Siberian mountains.

Is this a new trend for world leaders? Perhaps 54-year-old Putin was trying to show he is just as macho as French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently posed topless for the paparazzi while vacationing in the U.S. But Kremlin watchers are abuzz trying to guess just what sort of political message the pictures, which have been prominently displayed on the Kremlin website, might send. There has been speculation that the images of a vigorous healthy president are meant to appeal to voters, to enhance Putin's image in case he decides not to relinquish power at the end of his current term, as he is constitutionally required to do. Reportedly, Russian gay chat rooms and blogs have said that the pictures represent a plea for greater tolerance of homosexuality in Russia (say what?).

You have to admit he doesn't look that bad topless. While this must be driving W crazy, I am only grateful that I've never seen a photo of Bush or Cheney without their shirts on. And hopefully never will.

Grace Paley Dies

I was greatly saddened to read about this today. Paley was a huge influence on me in my attempts at writing short fiction, particularly her 1974 book of short stories called Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, which I read over and over again, utterly amazed at her mastery of dialogue: so spare yet utterly loaded. She used to teach at the City College of New York, which is where both my husband and I received our master's degrees in fiction writing, and, coincidentally, where we met. Paley had stopped teaching there a few years before I attended, but her presence was definitely felt, and we actually got to meet her after a reading she did at the 92nd Street Y in the early 1990s.

From her obituary in today's NYT: "Ms. Paley was among the earliest American writers to explore the lives of women — mostly Jewish, mostly New Yorkers — in all their dailyness. She focused especially on single mothers, whose days were an exquisite mix of sexual yearning and pulverizing fatigue. In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind."

In the coming days I'm sure I will be rereading her work.

Dweezil Zappa Rocks!

Went to see a great Zappa concert last night. “Zappa Plays Zappa” is Frank Zappa’s oldest son, Dweezil, and other musicians performing Frank’s music with the goal of bringing it to a new generation of fans. At times Dweezil was even accompanied by his father himself: Old footage of Frank playing guitar was synchronized audio-visually on a large video screen so that father and son could actually jam together. It was seriously amazing. In my opinion, this music benefits from having a state-of-the-art sound system behind it, as well as being performed live. I went to this show because my significant other has been a Zappa fan since his tween years. So I had heard plenty of Zappa music around the house before, but I never really "listened." After seeing this show I am now a fan. Dweezil is an amazing guitarist in his own right, and the music, considering how long ago it was originally composed, didn't seem dated in the least. In fact, one can really get a sense now of how far ahead of his time Frank truly was. Here is a clip of dueling guitarists Steve Vai (left) and Dweezil (on the right) from the ZPZ 2006 tour:



I also realized that one reason I never got into Zappa back in the day was simply visual aesthetics. By that I mean that as an adolescent girl I recall being a bit freaked out (no pun intended) by Frank's weird facial hair (hitleresque soul patch, 70s mustache) and bizarre fashion choices (particularly his penchant for performing topless). If Frank's appearance had been more Dweezil-like, I suspect he might have had a more gender-balanced fan base.

Here are the rest of the ZPZ tour dates. If you can make it to one of these shows, go. (Melkweg, anyone?) You won’t be disappointed.

Billions for War, No Health Care for Children

The Bush administration has just adopted new rules making it much more difficult for states to provide health care insurance to children of "middle-income" families. According to the government, if you are a family of four making over $20,560, you are officially not living in poverty. What century are they living in? I guess when your lame-duck presidency is imploding and you're busy killing, maiming, and torturing tens of thousands of people in an unpopular war halfway around the world, now is about as good a time as any to finally toss that mask of compassionate conservatism aside once and for all.

In Search of Constant Bliss

The cheese, I mean. After recently reading about the luscious virtues of a delectable cheese called Constant Bliss produced by Jasper Hill Farm, I decided to go down to the Cheese Board in Berkeley to sample some for myself. After my first attempt was thwarted due to the Cheese Board being closed for a summer vacation, I returned again last week to find that they didn’t carry this particular cheese, but they did have on hand another of Jasper Hill’s products: Bayley Hazen Blue, and I sure am glad I brought some of that home with me.

This was without a doubt the best blue cheese I’ve ever tasted. With some crusty bread and some sweet-tart apples from a friend’s tree (yes, apples are ripening in California in August), I was close to nirvana. This cheese literally melts on the tongue.

Jasper Hill Farm is a small family farm located in beautiful Greensboro, Vermont, run by brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler, which, since 2002, has been producing three varieties of raw milk cheese. According to their website, Bayley Hazen Blue is made with raw whole milk every other day, primarily with morning milk. Containing “an array of flavors that hint at nuts and grasses and in the odd batch, licorice… [the] texture reminds one of chocolate and butter.” Yum.

The cheese is actually named after an old military road commissioned by George Washington, which ultimately brought the town of Greensboro its first settlers, and is still in use today.

Fortunately I still have a small bit of this scrumptiousness wrapped and waiting in the refrigerator. In the meantime I am looking into other options for acquiring a hunk of Constant Bliss. I’ve never ordered cheese online before, but am considering it now. This artisanal cheese website looks promising. If anyone has a favorite cheese to recommend please post.