Author Archive: Christopher Waldrop

Acquiring Taste.

Author: March 17, 2016 4 Comments

hotdogs

Take ’em out of the wrapper first!

When I was a kid I had a lot of food aversions. They weren’t allergies. I’ve been lucky to go through most of my life without any allergies until recently I discovered I can’t take the drug Fioricet which most restaurants only serve as a garnish. Mostly I didn’t like condiments–ketchup and mustard especially–although years later a combination of poor sex ed and fear of STDs would cause me to embrace condiments with relish. I even put ketchup on baked potatoes, and even still, well, you know the joke about Buddha going to a hot dog stand and saying “Make me one with everything.” Hot dogs especially were an issue for me. When my best friend Paul invited me over for lunch one day I wasn’t happy to learn we were having hot dogs. I was four years old and even though that’s young I’m pretty sure I’d had hot dogs before then, and yet I’d never really looked a hot dog in the face. Or rather the eye. I’m probably not going to win any endorsements from the Hot Dog Association of America here even though I went through a phase in college when my diet consisted of nothing but hot dogs and, out of necessity, the occasional bowl of bran flakes, but anyway at Paul’s I looked at the puckered end of my hot dog and just couldn’t take a bite. It’s not as bad as you might think. I felt like it was staring back at me. And this went on for years. I really didn’t like hamburgers either which I know drove my parents and teachers nuts, and to make it even worse I’d later learn one of my teachers had an undiagnosed nut allergy. All the adults in my life thought hamburgers were a special treat. Most kids I knew felt that way too. I was weird. It’s a lucky thing I wasn’t born a couple of generations earlier when there would have been something deeply suspicious about a kid who wouldn’t eat frankfurters and hamburgers while we were fighting the Germans, but that’s another story.

I realize there are some children who have genuine food issues, who may have allergies or other problems that cause an aversion to certain foods, and then there are kids like me who are just weird. Eventually I would come around on hot dogs and hamburgers, fortunately before I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I don’t know when exactly it happened or how but something just changed and I was fine not only with what, where I grew up, were everyday foods but also with trying new foods. When I was a teenager I tried sushi the first chance I got which horrified my parents even though they’d spent years telling me to eat whatever they served for supper. Then again it was the middle of August in downtown Nashville and the sushi was being served from a sidewalk stand which might not have been the best place to keep raw fish, but it was okay. Actually it was really good. Years later on one of our first dates my wife would reintroduce me to sushi and I think one of the things that confirmed for her that I was worthy was that I didn’t say, “Back home we call that bait” when she offered me a California roll even though there is a long and venerable family tradition of avocado fishing.

What brought all this to mind was thinking about tastes, how we acquire them and even how they change since I don’t think they’re hardwired at birth but evolve and change as we get older. I’m still not a huge fan of tomatoes or green bell peppers but I’ll eat them now even though for most of my life I looked at them with the same sort of revulsion I once felt for hot dogs even though vegetables have only stared back at me on very rare occasions. And I think our tastes are largely cultural even though we assume they’re deeply personal, which may be why we have a hard time accepting that other people don’t like the same foods we like. Some people even take this really personally. It’s weird. A conversation about movies might go like this:

“Hey, wanna watch Bloodbath At The House Of Death?”

“No, I don’t like horror movies.”

“Okay.”

Whereas a conversation about food might go like this:

“Hey, want a slice of zucchini?”

“No, I don’t like zucchini.”

“Have you ever tried zucchini?”

“Yes. I don’t like it.”

“No, your problem is you’ve just never tried a good zucchini.”

Food prejudice might be one of the most pervasive and invisible of all prejudices. Personally I’m fine with it if you don’t like zucchini or bacon or chocolate or sushi or whatever. Some people will go to culinary school and open their palates and plates to new tastes until they learn those hamburgers they loved as a kid really taste like greasy cardboard and some people will learn not to pick the green bell peppers of their pizza. As we grow we sometimes learn to hate things we loved and love things we hated, and while there’s nothing wrong with being willing to try sushi from a tent on a sidewalk in the middle of August there is something very wrong with looking down on anyone who wants to.

 

The Weekly Essay

Please Drink Responsibly.

Author: March 17, 2016 5 Comments

guinnessIt’s St. Patrick’s Day, a day some Americans commemorate by dyeing beer green and drinking it, as opposed to the other 364 days when they just drink un-dyed beer. I’m tempted to make a cheap shot about the poor quality of American beer but I’m not going to because American beer is not what it was when I was growing up. When I was growing up it was all thin, watery pilsners. The joke “Why is American beer like sex in a canoe?” wasn’t funny because it hit so close to the mark.

When I was four or five my father let me try a sip of his beer and I said I liked it because I thought beer was a grown-up thing to drink, sort of like coffee, which I also pretended to like because I thought it was a grown-up thing to drink. At least with coffee I could get away with adding three or twelve heaping spoonfuls of sugar but if you try that with beer the guys look at you kind of funny even though deep down we all know it would improve the flavor greatly.

I’m a fan of beer now as my friends and waist can attest, and for once in my life I was actually slightly ahead of the curve. It was Ireland that made me love beer and specifically Guinness that started it all. I was in a pub in the fair city of Dublin and a friend who’d been exasperated by my avoidance of beer said, “Chris, you’re in Dublin, capital of Ireland, the emerald isle, home of Yeats and Oscar Wilde, of Cuchulain, a land of sweeping history, great beauty, of magic and fairy tales, and some pretty damn good beer.”

This was the same guy who, earlier that same day, convinced me to go into the Judge Roy Bean Tavern—which is apparently still a going concern in Dublin–and eat nachos and drink tequila, but that’s another story. I like to think it was the Guinness that made him change his tune from Home on the Range to Molly Malone.

Anyway I tried a sip it tasted like very bitter, burnt coffee. I was looking for the sugar when he said, “Take a large drink.”

I took a gulp and it was good.

For weeks afterward I only drank Guinness. I still labored under the impression that there were only two types of beer in the world: Guinness and thin watery pilsners. I was oblivious to the fact that Britain and Ireland had done for beer what the French did for cheese. Not to mention what Britain and Ireland have done for cheese. Seriously. Stilton is delicious.

Then one night the same guy and I were in Edinburgh, in a pub. They didn’t have Guinness.

“Chris,” he said, “you’re in Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, land of the kilt and thistle, of Robert Burns, the Scottish crown jewels, of your own ancestors the Murrays, sweeping history, great beauty, magic and fairy tales, and some pretty damn good ale.”

He handed me a pint of Scottish ale. And it was good. My eyes and throat were opened. After that my answer to the question, “What’ll you have?” was usually, “Whatever I haven’t tried yet.”

So I’m thrilled with the whole craft beer movement, and happy to be in one of the top ten cities leading the way.

Today, though, out of respect for Irish tradition, should be celebrated with Guinness.

Or coffee, if you want something you can add sugar to. Or some cheese. You can have anything you like, really, as long you don’t need to add dye to it.

Guinness posters adorn JJ's Coffee Shop. You can also get beer there.

Guinness posters adorn JJ’s Coffee Shop. You can also get beer there.

Ramble With Me.

The Time Change Brings Out The Worst In Me.

Author: March 15, 2016 12 Comments

jupiter

Source: Weather Underground

Twice a year I get thrown off by Daylight Savings Time, and the whole “spring forward, fall back” mnemonic doesn’t help me a bit because I can never remember whether “forward” means add an hour or subtract an hour and the same for “back”. Or “fall”. As we all know time isn’t really linear bit a wibbly wobbly ball of timey wimey stuff, but that’s another story.

There is one advantage and that is that for a few weeks at least I’ll be getting up in the dark again. That may not sound like a good thing but on days when the sky is clear I can look up and see the stars of the Milky Way, which is the galaxy where we are, galaxies being big strandy bandy balls of starry warry—yeah, that’s getting away from me.

Right now when I go out and look to the southwest early in the morning I can see Jupiter and that reminds me of something I wonder about every time I look at it. How did the Romans know to name it Jupiter? It’s the fourth brightest object in the sky. First is the Sun, the Moon, and Venus is third. How did they just happen to know Jupiter was the largest planet in our solar system? Doesn’t Venus obviously look bigger because it’s brighter? Maybe Venus was called “Jupiter” for thousands of years because it looked bigger. And maybe Jupiter was called “Venus” because it’s the setup for a joke I’m about to make in the next few sentences. Maybe when Galileo discovered four moons around Jupiter he didn’t name them Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto after some of Jupiter’s lovers but instead named them Adonis, Phaeton, Anchises, and Richard Burton.

And all this was covered up by modern astronomers, although why they would care about the accuracy of the Greek and Roman astronomical names is beyond me since they’re all pretty much hit or myth anyway.

 

Submitted For Your Approval.

Hey, Happy Birthday Carrott!

Author: March 14, 2016 8 Comments

On my first trip to Britain I flew British Air. A lot’s probably changed since then but the amenities were unbelievable, even compared to other airlines at the time. The seats were comfortable, alcohol was free, and it was impossible to sleep because every ten seconds somebody was coming by to offer me tea and biscuits. And the crazy thing is this was regular coach. What did people in first class get? Four star meals? Individual hot tubs? Massages? I’m not sure I want to know. It’s even more incredible to look back on it now when airlines nickel and dime passengers in a dozen different ways—although I guess British Airways shillings and bobs them, but that’s another story—and are looking for ways to pack in even more passengers.

Anyway the most surprising feature was the airline radio. If you’re of a certain age you may remember that some airlines had a headphone jack in the armrest and you could tune it to a small number of stations: easy listening, contemporary jazz, light rock, death-techno-thrash-metal, and, of course, an endless loop of babies crying. I remember some airlines made you pay for the headphones. I’m pretty sure British Air would have given them away for free but since this was the early ‘90’s and I was a college student I had a Walkman and my own headphones. To save the battery and to enjoy the soothing sounds of sobbing toddlers I plugged them into the armrest and discovered that in addition to the music stations British Air had a comedy selection. The whole thing ran about an hour and was composed of short bits from various comics, most of whom I knew. And then this guy started talking about a mole problem. If the seats hadn’t been so wide and comfortable—I swear I’m not being paid by British Air which is probably bankrupt now for being so nice anyway—I’m sure I would have disturbed everybody around me because I was laughing so hard.

The comedian was Jasper Carrott, whose birthday is today. My British friends were pleased and a little surprised that I liked Carrott so much and the local video store provided several of his performances, including American Carrott. He’d been to America. I wonder what his flight was like.

Here’s the mole story.

Adventures In Busing., Happy Birthday.

Fill In The Blanks.

Author: March 12, 2016 36 Comments

fillintheblank1It’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing but I like the way this work works on my imagination. This isn’t really an example of pareidolia but there’s just enough there to imagine a face to go with the hair and eyebrows. And I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be Steve Martin’s face. That’s based on the fact that person or persons unknown has painted Steve Martin’s face on a wall along I-40 (which I wrote about previously) and placed metal cutouts of his face on various bus stops around town. I don’t know why they picked Steve Martin although he does have a bit of history here in Nashville and even mentions Exit/In in his autobiography Born Standing Up, but that’s another story.

What really intrigues me about this particular work though is its placement. It was hard for me to get a picture that would give you a good idea of how unusual its placement is but it’s on a solid concrete wall next to a fast food place. It’s just off Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills, a pretty affluent area of town that’s known for its massive traffic snarls. At almost any time of day if you go to Green Hills you can count on a lot of time just sitting around in traffic. For the record I did not take this picture while driving but parked and was standing on the sidewalk across the street.

In the midst of all this overcrowded space someone saw this stark empty wall and decided to add something to it, and what they added encourages us the viewers to think, to imagine, to fill in the blanks.

Seen any graffiti? Send your pictures to freethinkers@nerosoft.com. You’ll get full credit. Or not. It’s up to you.

American Graffiti.

It’s Always 5AM Somewhere.

Author: March 11, 2016 17 Comments

coffeeDo you think you know all there is to know about one of the world’s most popular and frequently overpriced beverages? I’ve been up for a hundred and eight continuous hours researching coffee just to bring you the following little known facts.

Nine Things You Didn’t Know About Coffee

  1. No one is entirely sure how coffee was discovered.

According to legend cited by many scholars an Ethiopian farmer discovered coffee when he noticed his goats becoming extremely active after eating beans from the coffee plant (genus Coffea). Some scholars dispute this and cite an alternative legend that the pyramid of Cheops was built by a single man who’d been drinking water from a stream that coffee berries had fallen into. The first scholars are very annoyed by this legend and point out that the berries would have to be heated for enough of the qualities of coffee to enter the water and the second scholars reply that maybe there are undiscovered geothermal spots in Egypt and the whole thing pretty much spins out of control from there.

  1. Espresso did not originate in Italy.

During a flour shortage caused by the Crimean War a Belgian scientist named Aloysius Beignet was working on an alternative way to make waffles. After failed attempts using mustard, chicken, cabbage, chalk, and bacon he discovered that the combination of high-pressure boiling water and coffee beans produced a potent beverage that would allow him to stay up all night continuing to find ways to make waffles. He would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Beverages just before the award was discontinued.

  1. There is one country where it’s illegal to drink coffee.

The tiny Pacific island nation of Spelata sits right on the International Dateline. The confusion among locals who find that if they set out from one end of the island on Tuesday arrive at the other end on Monday even though it’s a distance of less than three miles has made accurate time and date-keeping almost impossible. The jitteriness and sleeplessness caused by caffeine consumption have resulted in coffee and, in fact, all caffeinated beverages, being banned from the island. In 2003 a sailor was caught smuggling canned Kona coffee from the neighboring island of Yap and executed.

  1. I had a college roommate who ate dried instant coffee.

No, really, dude drove me absolutely up the wall when we were studying for midterms. He would lick his finger, stick it in the jar, and then put the dry coffee crystals directly in his mouth.

Instant coffee also contains no real coffee but is made from dried squid ink and a hormone extracted from racehorses. That’s a bonus thing you didn’t know about coffee. You’re welcome.

  1. Coffee nearly caused a historic church to split.

In 1947 the Brandeburgian Church nearly split in a schism over whether it was acceptable to add milk or cream to coffee during the post-service fellowship period. The problem was eventually resolved by the invention of non-dairy creamer although to this day there are lingering tensions caused by artificial sweeteners.

  1. Coffee has a rich history in classical music.

J.S. Bach composed the Kaffeekantate, a cantata that literally sings the praises of coffee. The work inspired many other composers, including Mozart, who composed an entire opera, Der Zauber-Wasserdampf. This has led to a legend that Mozart’s death was a murder ordered by a Berlin café guild.

  1. Drinking more than seven cups of coffee a day will not make you a lot of fun to be around.

Not you, anyway. I’m on my ninth cup now and I’m an absolute riot!

  1. The first frozen coffee beverage was invented by the ancient Romans.

The emperor Nero was known to be very fond of a coffee gratin created by freezing trays of brewed coffee and honey, scraping the mixture with a fork, and refreezing it. Sometimes milk was added. In 2011 Nero’s descendants successfully sued a well-known coffee chain for copyright violation. The result is the ridiculously high price of a Frappuccino.

  1. Coffee plants can live more than three million years and grow on the Moon.

You don’t think Americans went there just to beat the Soviets, do you? And the next time you enjoy a cup of café Americano remember how Buzz Aldrin got his nickname. That’s another bonus coffee fact. You’re welcome.

Not Non-Fiction, The Weekly Essay

Slowly Deflating Quiz.

Author: March 8, 2016 6 Comments

spoonRegular readers are familiar with the occasional pop quizzes I throw out. I try to make them fun and a little bit challenging but not too difficult because nothing annoys me more than trying to do a crossword puzzle and halfway through feeling like the antediluvian legal scholar who created it decided no one would make it past 42-across and just started making up words and I want to hunt him down and beat him with a dictionary.

Anyway I got an idea for a pop quiz while reading Sam Kean’s The Disappearing Spoon, which is a really cool book about the periodic table and the elements that comprise it. It’s not a heavy scientific text but full of interesting stories like how in 1915 the Germans covertly took over a Colorado molybdenum mine which gave them an advantage in World War I, but that’s another story.

And then I started writing the quiz down and realized I was insane. It relied on some pretty rarefied knowledge and the clues were such a stretch I think even most chemists would find it tougher than tungsten. The answers are all scientists who aren’t household names, with one exception. Think bushy hair and moustache and sarcastic synonym for “smart person”.

They are also all scientists who’ve had elements named after them which narrows it down but they’re mostly still obscure and to make it even worse all my puns are a real stretch. And this may surprise some of the laity but the naming of elements can actually be controversial. Dmitri Mendeleev created the first modern periodic table and realized there were a lot of undiscovered elements to fill the spaces. He named the gap elements things like “ekaaluminum”. “Eka” is Sanskrit for “one” and was the element Mendeleev predicted would sit under aluminum on the periodic table. He was right about there being such an element but the scientist who discovered it named it gallium. When Marie Curie discovered polonium  in 1911 she named it in honor of her home country, Poland, which was not at the time a bona fide country and fighting Germany for independence. Now while the naming is less political scientists still rush for naming rights and some elements have gone unnamed for years while who really found them first is sorted out.

Still with me? Here’s the quiz. Get one or two and you can feel really good about yourself. Get more than half and you can non-sarcastically call yourself a smart person. Get zero and you get the grand prize: you can hunt me down and beat me with a dictionary.

Name the scientist suggested by the following puns.

1. He would prefer to wade.

Additional clues: called the “father of nuclear physics”, he won the Nobel Prize in 1908

2. Hard common vowel.

Additional clues: an Italian physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project

3. Ocean-going Star Trek villain.

Additional clues: the only living person to have an element named after him he discovered or helped discover ten elements

4. Heal him.

Additional clues: the only woman to have an element named after her (so far), she discovered both polonium and radium

5. One big mug.

Additional clues: a real smart person with a reputation for absent-mindedness. Think bushy hair and moustache.

6. Edict wash.

Additional clues: invented the cyclotron

7. Repair Bulgarian currency.

Additional clues: created the periodic table and predicted the discovery of many additional elements

This clue is also so far out if you get it without the additional clues you are either a science historian, a chemist, or are working in the wrong field

8. Doesn’t ring.

Additional clues: has a prestigious set of prizes named after him and invented dynamite

9. Hire Hunger Games star.

Additional clues: German scientist (oh, like that narrows it down) who discovered X-rays

10. A real sleeper.

Additional clues: Danish scientist who created a popular atomic model.

Answer key:

physicists

And all this is really an excuse to share Tom Lehrer’s The Elements. If you’ve all been paying attention you’ll know that since he wrote it the news of a few new elements has come to Harvard.

 

Pop Quiz

Dances With Dogs.

Author: March 7, 2016 10 Comments

dogsMany of us have daily routines, but something I only realized recently is how often our routines are shaped by things we don’t control. I like to think I set my own routine but circumstances help shape it. This occurred to me when my afternoon walk home from the bus stop changed. Every day for years I walked by a neighbor’s house that had a fenced front yard. And every day two dogs would come running up to the fence. They had their names stitched on their collars in bold letters so I knew they were called Major and Minnie. Major was a gray and white mix of, well, who knows, but at least part Boxer judging from his broad head and muzzle which I think makes Boxers look very thoughtful and distinguished. And Minnie was at least part Labrador retriever, but she was small and leggy with a splotch of white on her chest. I’d say hello as I went by. Major would whine at me and Minnie would bark and jump on him, clearly saying, “Play with ME!”

One day I walked up to the fence and they both stood up on their hind legs and wagged their tails. I didn’t put my hand through the fence—never, ever do that, kids—but I did put it up flat against the fence and let them sniff it. This made them happy although I’m not sure why.

A few years later a For Sale sign went up in the yard in front of the fence. I didn’t really think about it until the house was sold and one day as I went by Major and Minnie weren’t there. Then the new owners tore down the fence, and that’s when I realized that not only were my canine friends gone but there wouldn’t be any others to take their place. They weren’t my dogs and I only saw them for a few minutes a few days a week but they were part of my routine—a part I looked forward to. I missed them.

And then as I was passing another house I heard barking from the fenced in backyard. He’s some kind of Terrier mix and I have no idea what his name is, and I’m not going to cross someone’s yard to get close enough to let him sniff my hand, but we say hello to each other. We’ve become part of each others’ new daily routine.

Adventures In Busing.

Hidden In Plain Sight.

Author: March 5, 2016 7 Comments

hidden1Placement of a work of art is incredibly important. Artists want their work to be seen and seen at its best. When Mark Rothko began working on paintings for the Mark Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas he worked to find ways to recreate the light in his New York studio. The project’s initial architect even left because of creative differences. Rothko simply refused to budge when it came to the specific quality of the light he wanted.

Anyway it’s a given that artists want their work to be seen, that they want their work to be as visible as possible, right?

So why then would three different artists put their work in a narrow space between a couple of buildings where it’s unlikely anyone would see it? It’s an even more difficult question when two of the works are especially elaborate. The third, in the middle, is by “UH”, whose tag I’ve seen in other spots around the city.

It’s especially frustrating to me because there’s just not enough space to get a decent picture.

hidden2It looks like they all also used the same color, a stark black. Maybe it was unintentional but it’s a reminder that nothing about art is as simple as black and white.

hidden3

American Graffiti.