5 Things about The Impending Hurricane

An alternative storm progress model my friend Wh-i-gle came up with.

1. The anticipation of it is almost worse than the aftermath (provided you don't suffer catastrophic effects of course. I don't mean to sound calloused to those that have suffered intangible losses in the past) I'm just saying we are expecting trees down and power outages and not much more in Baton Rouge, and it is a lot of little trips to the store that are increasingly crowded and bare and about to close and you have to fight the urge to buy things like a case of Spagettios. No one likes Spagettios, especially after the power comes back on in a few days. Spagettios are stacked in your pantry as a monument to folly until you clean the cabinet out or there is a show that is half-price with canned goods. Like I told a friend who answered his phone in line at Whole Foods buying water and corn chips as I was planning my own trip to Wal-Mart after work, there is no better solution to any problem than throwing money at it.
2. I started to wish that gorgeous giant Ansel Adams grade oak tree in the front yard had been cut down to a brutal stump by the electric company. The incomprehensible magnitude of a hurricane, existing as a giant bloody smear the size of the Gulf on Doppler weather radar before it arrives, screws with your sense of scale.
   
3. A hurricane fucks with the Nietzschean resolve that usually gets me through the day. That which does not kill me only makes me stronger doesn't really hold water because this is one of the rare times that "That which" actually sorta can.
4. Also, a hurricane makes one unnecessarily eschatological. Like there is a temptation to read The Road or Revelations in a lawn chair in the backyard until the wind blows the book out of my hands. I can't imagine what a grand bummer a hurricane must be to real doomsayers - black clouds are best framed by a sunny sky. Survivalists and guys that dress in armor and have lots of swords, however, are likely and rightly very Game Day about this shit.
   
5. The overriding unpredictability of the situation makes everybody a pesky expert and competitor in the preparation Olympics. I think tanking up cars and buying cases of Spagettios is to some degree, the hurricane equivalent of making the men go boil some water while the baby is being born - it keeps them occupied and out of the way of people who really do have something important to do right now. I was joking the other day with my wife, making up things I would do to prepare: "I'm gonna hard boil all the eggs!" only to find that my mom did that very thing before coming up here, and I just ate one, so who knows what all that says. I do know I'm hearing helicopters a lot today, which was the sound of Katrina in Baton Rouge, a subject succinctly and poetically explored by my boy Dave, and that is when things start to feel really real to me.
   

But what about pictures?

You have a Picture Mail from acook1009@pm.sprint.com

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This is a test to see if I can blog from my phone.

5 things about The People

image lifted from here

1. The Post Office is a startlingly anachronistic thing. I get that not everyone has a computer, and it is still necessary, but it seems all a bit forced to me. Like it's a back up plan being pushed to the forefront. I'm sure I'd think differently were I not electronically connected to the entire goddamn world at all times, and I find the concept of mitigating contact through the barrier of paper appealing, on paper at least, but standing in line to get two stamps seems Beckettian at best. Were I a Better Prepared Person, I wouldn't be in this mess.
   
2. Despite having just paid off a hefty tax bill, the two stamps needed to finalize the process was why I was even there, I think I might be a socialist, or more correctly, an anarcho-socialist as defined by Wikipedia - The People's Definitions. I used to think I might be libertarian, but I find libertarians to largely be wet blankets of privilege recasting their winning status as an idealism. Which is a picture of me, politically speaking. The feeling I get about anarcho-socialism is that we should all take care of each other, lift each other up but not make it our life's work. But again, maybe this feeling stems from my not being Better Prepared Person. BPP's generally eschew concerns for their fellow human because they got their shit covered, where I always keep half an eye on the ground to make sure I don't step in mine.
   
3. And though I am nibbling on this half-baked love of The People, I wish the mass of them newly ensconced on campus would get off the wireless network so Rhapsody would work. I am so ready to be all post-object about music, embracing the technology of license and access when it works, but like any great technological advancement, or system in general, it gets bogged down when people start using it. It explains why BPP's are generally conservative folks who don;t latch on to new things readily.
   
4. Because of this break in the chain, I have been trolling the loosely curated halls of internet radio and while WFMU is always a marked hit or a distinct miss depending on when one lands there, I have been perplexed by Edible Landscapes on London's Resonance FM, a field recording-y week-long gentle stab at a qualitative auditory assessment of what cultures in the North Western hemisphere of the globe might be listening to as part of their daily grind in the built environment. Basically it sounds like someone's phone accidentally dialed you while they sit in a cafeteria. It vacillates between soothing and maddening, but with sine wave smoothness. It's like John Cage's noisy notion of silence, except mediated, chained up. I'll say it is not an unpleasant substitute for listening to precisely what one wants. I'm sure the tape jockeys behind Edible Landscapes would be thrilled with that ringing endorsement.
   
5. The difference between art and subject, though, was deftly illuminated by my experience going to the cafeteria upstairs from the post office. It's crowded with new students and is generally a loud echoey place anyway, but sitting there, mildly bemoaning the breaking of the little connector that allows me to listen to music on my phone through headphones, I was overwhelmed with the din of people in there, and found it oppressive and a little depressing, whereas moments earlier, I found the broadcast of a similar soundscape curious, or at least ponderable. Which is why I temper my declaration of socialism with a "might be" and look with trepidation (and a little envy) at Better Preparedness.
   

[Country Roads] Bent on Bento

in the September 2008 issue of Country Roads

Upon entering the workforce, I quickly discovered that lunch was often a mixed blessing—a daily break that quickly gives way to a dull ritual of eating the same things with the same people going back to the same office. Usually you have the requisite sandwich place, lackluster Americanized Mexican restaurant, maybe a Chinese buffet within the radius, a brown bagged sandwich or the remnants of last night’s meal congealing in a Styrofoam box as your options. To those of you left unsatisfied with those options, allow me to introduce you to a new word: bento.

Bento is a tradition of Japanese lunches that stretches back to the Kamakura Period in the twelfth century, when Hoshi-ii, a kind of ready to eat dried rice, was developed and stored in small bags for consumption on the road. Over the years, the content and style of bento evolved into the ekiben, or “train station bento” where some form of rice dish, pickled vegetables and dumplings are artfully arranged in a sectioned box which allows easy consumption and separation of sauces and flavors.

The yellow tail roll was simple, just rice and tuna wrapped in nori, but that simplicity trumps the showboating of ornate specialty rolls that are often the stars of a sushi meal. The real winner, though was the crunchy roll, rice stuffed with tempura battered shrimp dolloped with a rich tangy sweet, smoky sauce, almost like teriyaki sauce but thicker and more refined in tenor. It was the rare meal eaten in the Louisiana summertime that I actually felt refreshed after eating. Dessert was a couple scoops of red bean ice cream, another Japanese specialty difficult to sell. It does taste like red beans, but the savoriness that we associate with the Monday night staple of New Orleans is bypassed, bringing out the faint sweetness in the bean. It is a little heartier in texture and less creamy than what you associate with ice cream, but it, like the rest of the meal, it was an example of refinement of ingredients, thoughtful array of textures and flavors and rarified delights, available right around the corner.

The first bento was allegedly sold at the Utsunomiya train station in 1885, and as the trend continued, a family’s wealth could be determined by how elaborate one’s bento was. In the 1920s, the Japanese government sought to ban the practice of bento in schools because it illuminated the economic disparity between the classes, and around the time of World War II, the practice started to disappear.

The advent of the microwave brought the practice back into vogue and with it came the ornate arrangements that characterize the meals today. This trend is not limited to Japan—one only need glance at the BentoLunch LiveJournal group, (http://community.livejournal.com/bentolunch/) where parents proudly display and slyly compete with their dazzling creations. The site offers a bento buying guide should you wish to roll up your sleeves and start shaping rice into molds cute enough for your children to eat and suitable for bragging rights.

Fortunately for me, Koi Japanese Cuisine opened at the north gates of LSU, next to Louie’s Café on State Street, just footsteps from my office, freeing me from the anxiety of competition. Koi has all the comforts one expects in a sushi restaurant, a microcosm of blonde wood and subdued lighting, small tables perfectly arranged along the walls and bar in the back, where one may observe the chefs crafting the precise rolls from their extensive menu. More importantly, they have a sashimi bento lunch for ten bucks.

The lunch comes in a box of lacquered polished wood with each item in its own section. First the miso soup in its small flat bowl sets the mood for the quiet, contemplative act of eating. Miso, a form of fermented rice or soybeans, is suspended in the thin stock, or dashi, in which bob a couple of tiny white cubes of tofu. Miso soup has one of the mildest discernable flavors—a slight saltiness, a wistful memory of mushroom broth at the perfect temperature for sipping. Personally, I like how the crushed miso swirls in the broth—it’s like watching the clouds drift in a spring sky.

The rest of the lunch continues this theme of subtle flavors and artful presentation. My crisp salad came with a shockingly yellow ginger dressing, icy with just a touch of citrus and sharp ginger tang to it. The California roll, rice stuffed with avocado, imitation crab and cream cheese had just the precise measure of sweetness and creaminess without turning it into deli seafood salad. The steamed gyoza dumplings, pork wrapped in thin dough, had the perfect textural balance—solid and hefty enough to allow the pork to saturate in the soy-vinegar dipping sauce yet light enough to leave room for the main course.

I have long given up on selling the rarified pleasures of sashimi, or raw fish, on the weak-willed—they are simply not going to eat it. I’m sure that they will somehow carve out a fulfilling existence without it, but for me, I crave it. Sashimi, when prepared right, is the cleanest culinary sensation one can have. The gorgeous cuts of tuna and salmon, lying seductively on a thin bed of rice, have a unique texture of bite and softness—it tastes uncannily pure. The secrets to great sashimi are freshness and cleanliness, allowing the quality of the ingredient to do all the talking while the chef merely arranges for the conversation to happen. Let’s just say the yellow tail and I had an enlightening little chat.

My wife is not a fan of sashimi, so we went back to sample the other items on the menu. They seated us with a complimentary apple seafood salad, the ingredients shredded and blended into a genius soft, slightly creamy slaw, setting the bar high for the rest of the meal. After a round of gyoza and some iced green tea, we shared a Sushi Roll Lunch B (California, snowcrab and crunchy roll), a Hamachi yellow tail roll and the Yaki Udon. The udon noodles were pan fried and smothered to the precipice of stickiness, and I wisely followed the waiter’s suggestion of getting a combination of chicken, pork and shrimp, which gave this dish a complex savoriness that changed slightly with each bite.

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[Country Roads] Angelle's Whiskey River Landing: A different sort of Sunday ritual

In Sept. 2008 issue of Country Roads

Thanks to the antiquated blue laws in East Baton Rouge Parish, Sunday’s are often a dead spot in the week of an adult, so much so that I forget that other places are open on Sunday’s until some mouth-agape out-of-town visitor suggests we go somewhere. Fortunately, the rest of the state sees fit to interpret the day of rest by having a drink on one’s hand, and a short drive can bring you to a bright vibrant kind of Sunday afternoon.

I took the Henderson exit off I-10, at the end of the Atchafalaya Bay Bridge that stretches between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and like every time I cross that expanse, I was struck by the difference a stretch of swamp makes. You quickly leave behind the art-deco bustle of downtown Baton Rouge and the steaming tangles of pipes that form the plants along the river and you are jetting across a still, alien horizon, with the stumps of cypress poking up through the water as if they are startled by the sound of the road. And then once you hit dry land on the other side, you are confronted by people who talk, dress, eat and live differently than in the place you left. I’ve grown up with Cajun culture in my back yard for most of my life, but to this day, I feel like an awkward but welcome visitor in it—and this is a good feeling to have. It is a reminder that the world is not about you.

I’d never explored Henderson more than a stop at the gas station for a fill up and some boudin, and could not quite wrap my head around exactly where this Whiskey River exists, outside of Willie Nelson’s discography. Technically, Angelle’s is on the south tip off Lake Bigeaux at a point dubbed Cypremort Cravasse on Google Maps, but for all intents and purposes, this is the mythical Whiskey River our friend Willy with the braids sings about—Angelle’s serves as a port of call for motor boats and party barges to depart for a drunken lazy afternoon in the swamp.
Under the auspices of this column, I like to find the places off the beaten path, but it’s rare that I end up at a place you can’t even see from the road—once you hang a right by the landmark lighthouse at Pat’s a wooden sign leads you up on a gravel road over the levee to Angelle’s insular world. Cars and campers are strewn in loose order in the grass surrounding the small club. An airboat was sitting in its trailer behind a white pickup near the wooden porch at the entrance. I don’t know if I’ve come up with a magic formula that would indicate how fun a place is from the outside, but I can safely say that the presence of an airboat in the parking lot is a good sign. As I marveled at it, a guy with an inspiring silver helmet of hair and a waxed moustache said “Ya’ll come on in.”

What I saw as I entered was a gargantuan screened back porch attached to the bar. Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys were playing on a stage on the water side, grinding away that familiar zydeco stomp groove under a wooden sign that had WHISKEY RIVER spelled out in holiday lights. For something as down home as this place was, it was rather fabulous. The dancefloor ebbed and flowed with each number as couples made their way around the room, igniting the air with their salacious moves. Compared to some of the more genteel settings, Whiskey River landing was positively libidinous in nature.

“People come out here to party, where there’s not going to be any trouble,” said Don Brasseaux, a furniture maker from Breaux Bridge and expert Cajun dancer. He also was a bartender at Whiskey River Landing back before it was a dancehall. “This was a swamp bar, and this covered deck was used for weigh-ins for fishing tournaments. Sometime in the early nineties, the bandstand was added and the porch was screened in, and the dancehall took off.” He confirmed that a lot of single people came out here to meet people in this relaxed fun atmosphere, that folks wander in to continue the party after an afternoon on the rented barges. “There’s a lot of freedom without it being a free for all.”

The moment that got me was when one of the rousing numbers from Jeffery Broussard slowly transformed into a gospel roll, just the accordion and washboard, punctuated by a stomp from the kick drum. It was an amalgamation of Sunday tradition, sacred and profane that had the room clapping, dancing and rejoicing on a cypress porch out in the swamp, people of all ages, races and states of inebriation coming together in this one place for a glorious moment. It seemed to me that this is what Sunday should really be about.

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[225] No words, four musicians, plenty of taste

When most people think of a song, the first thing that comes to mind is the lyrics. Not so for Man Plus Building. “The day we feel like a song of ours would be better off with lyrics, so be it,” bluntly declares Jesse Kees, guitarist for the instrumental Baton Rouge quartet. “The most honest answer is that none of us are even remotely talented singers,” admits drummer Joshua Nee. “We are all better at playing our instruments, so we stick with that. We have one song that has about 30 seconds of soft chanting, and we are terrified of playing that song in front of people.”

On debut album Because My Name Is Lion, the band often careens between slow contemplative passages and fiery moments, weaving between moods seamlessly, usually within a single song. It’s difficult music to describe without invoking contestable terms like post-rock and progressive rock. “The other day I was sub-genre-lizing in my head and came up with the term ‘compositional rock’,” Kees offers.

Nee agrees. “‘Compositional rock’ has a funny ring to it. I think I’ll go with that.”

The complexity of Man Plus Building’s songs can be traced to the diverse musical backgrounds of the members: Kees and Nee have gigged in the local jazz scene for years, guitarist Rory Ventress studied classical guitar at Southeastern Louisiana University, and bassist Mitch Wells has played with several local bands. The group draws on their experience when crafting songs, but avoids the elitist trap into which many seasoned players fall. “Our music might be a little more involved musically than that of a three-chord rock band, but those are some of my favorites,” Nee says. “Whether you thrash on two chords for a few minutes or write really orchestrated parts depends on the song. It just comes down to being tasteful.” myspace.com/manplusbuilding

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