lookin

Clearing his inbox for the zillionth time, OZ grows nostalgic for Saudi Arabia

Sorry for the tardy response, and I can’t say for sure when that picture was taken, but it’s included in a review of the place written in 2002. I was there a couple of years before that and it looked just the same. If I recall, I made the professional acquaintance of a cutie from Southern Europe in an adjacent room. If that was you, wowsa!, and thanks for a lovely time! Speaking of cuties and old recollections, my first foray into that erstwhile establishment was the downstairs Why Not bar in the late sixties. In those days, everybody I ran into was giving it away for free though I do recall a young German boy sitting at the bar who would have looked right at home in one of Baldur von Shirach’s weekend encampments. There were a number of Dutch daddies clustered around him and only a fleeting exchange of gazes suggested that he might be mine for the asking. I believe the word ’twink’ was invented specifically for him later on that summer. In those days, the only thing more appealing to me than German twinks was German electronics and, as luck would have it, the next day I met a Dutch guy with a scooter who offered to take me to the European Electronics Expo in neighboring Amstelveen. He cooked too, and the next few days were a busy blur. Speaking of Amstelveen, I had occasion to go there by streetcar some thirty years later, again in search of some oddball electronics, and was fascinated by a guy sitting in the front of the car, rat-haired, wild-eyed and muttering to himself in Dutch. It was only when I got off at my stop that I realized he was the conductor. Thanks for indulging the trip down memory lane, and sorry I couldn’t be of more contemporary assistance. Pretty sure, though, that you’ll have to work at it not to enjoy yourself in Amsterdam.

What did he say? . . . He won’t ban us though. He says we piss people off. That pisses me off.

But what eats the bacteria, if you don't mind my asking?

How young we were then! Just think how far we’ve come! My, my, we sure have picked up the pace! What a difference nine years makes! We’re so much more urbane! More interesting topics nowadays! I’d give half my widow’s mite to see another post from StuCotts.

JD, I haven't followed all the twists and turns of your experiences, and I know that mine are not the same as what you had to put up with, but I also had to swallow some shit from clients when I was starting out in sales. There weren’t many, thank goodness, but there are in this world some folks who take pleasure in exploiting power imbalances in business relationships in order to feel better about themselves. The one thing that worked for me was to always remember that they were the ones with the problem, and that there would come a day when I was more successful than they were. It’s tough to endure any kind of emotional abuse, but try to remember that they’re living a life that is going to be a lot unhappier than yours. If you can take your revenge that way, I think you’ll have a happier and more peaceful life. If there’s anything in my experience that might be helpful in your situation, it would be to avoid giving those people any more power than absolutely necessary, and to place much more value on your success than on their failure. My goal was to see a happy face smiling back in my mirror, and to let them deal with what they saw looking back at them.

Another EOY contest?? What could possibly go wrong?

Never one to lose his head, Oz sneaks his Venezuelan boy toy back to the apartment

Thank you too much, AdamSmith! Never imagined the whole shebang would be mine for the streaming. I’ve got my weekend planned! I saw the first one, The Abominable Dr. Phibes twice, but the second one, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, only once and had forgot it was the River of Life he and his late, soon to be not-so-late, wife were sailing down. MsGuy, not sure how to convince you the Phibes films are worth seeing, but TownsendPLocke hits the nail on the head when he says they were campfests. I guess it’s possible that camp is not to everyone’s taste but, when I see snippets from Wikipedia’s definition that include banality, artifice, mediocrity, ostentation, and naive middle-class pretentiousness, I know I’m in the right place. I’d also heard somewhere that additional sequels had been planned, as Vincent Price so enjoyed playing the character. Found this article, which gives them names: Dr. Phibes In The Holy Land, The Son Of Dr. Phibes and Phibes Resurrectus. Price always had a knack for hamming it up and, with the Phibes character, he does it with immobile face prosthetics and a voice synthesizer that cuts off frequencies even Edison’s wax drum let through. The murders sound so pedestrian as listed, but each one is horrible yet funny and quite creative at the same time. The snake under the pool table is my favorite, and all the more enjoyable because it’s imagined, planned, and implemented by a man with limited mobility and a mute assistant named Vulnavia. Vulnavia!

A terrific find! Good to know that Vulnavia waits just across the River Styx. Also a pleasure to see movie credits rolling by in less time than the film itself, with just the basic info one wants. I've made peace with learning the names of the gaffer and best boy, but draw the line at finding out who catered the second production unit. Let alone the name of the insurance underwriters. By the time the screen finally goes dark, I feel like I've long overstayed my welcome.

A clerihew artiste Seems not all that different from a public fartiste. He gets stuck in the middle without really knowing Whether to wrap it up now or try and keep going.

Donald Trump Has a large odious rump. On a day that was misty, He hauled it alongside one belonging to Chris Christie.

Here, unless I miss my guess. The word indeed trails a body. Also in the why-not department: AdamSmith With wit and pith Lays bare the art Of filtering a fart.

I broke wind at the sauna one day, With some guys who were all gay-for-pay. It began as melodious, Then quickly turned odious And drove the garotos away.

Adding my best wishes for a full recovery. Thanks to those who are keeping in touch.

Well, I must admit I used the word 'heritage', rather thoughtlessly in retrospect, to mean old-fashioned and retaining its traditional flavor. If I'd thought more about it, I might have used the word 'heirloom' and meandered into even deeper furrows. Not sure whether 'heirloom' would apply to these seeds or not. Even if it did, there's no guarantee the tomatoes will taste like the originals. According to Wikipedia: Most, if not all, hybrid plants, if regrown, will not be the same as the original hybrid plant . . . And the Rutgers scientists started out regrowing two-hundred fifty hybrids, before winnowing them down to a final three. I don't know where the 'taste memory' would reside to tell them they hit pay dirt, or what other records and data they have available. But my guess is they'll call it something different and stay out of the 'heirloom' battle. Still, it is scientists who are leading the project and the seeds they started with are genetically much closer to the originals and have eighty years less commercial breeding under their skins. So they should be much closer to the originals than anything we're getting today.

No, not the tasty tease above, but the mouthwatering honest-to-goodness tomato developed in 1934 at Rutgers University for the Campbell's Soup Company. In those days, taste was paramount and growing fields were not far from the plant where the soup was made from fresh tomatoes. Over the years, flavor took a back seat to high yield, pest-resistance, and ship-ability. Production was moved from New Jersey to California and tomatoes were processed into a standardized paste from which the soup was eventually made. The idea to resurrect the Jersey tomato was actually sparked by a woman from Campbell’s, Dot Hall, who had headed up the company’s soup product development. She was at a tomato tasting sponsored by food scientists at Rutgers about five years ago when she made the suggestion. As it turns out, Campbell’s had retained seeds from the two varieties used to create the Rutgers tomato. They were the Marglobe and the JTD, named for Dr John T Dorrance, a chemist who served as Campbell’s first president and invented canned condensed soup. . . . Campbell’s had kept the seeds in an archive because its research group would periodically plant different seed varieties to see if it could improve the yield and health of the company’s tomatoes, which are now grown in California. The company was also concerned about taste. “You’d hear people say, ‘The tomato soup doesn’t taste as good as it used to taste,’ so we’d go back and plant plots in California to see if we could improve the taste,” Hall said. “But our goal was to get tomatoes that were higher yield. Flavor wasn’t necessarily an attribute we were trying to improve.” Hall also believes Campbell’s soup doesn’t taste like it used to, but she says it’s partly because they no longer use fresh tomatoes that have been recently harvested. They now use a tomato paste made from tomatoes that have been preserved in sterile packaging. After Hall’s conversation with Rutgers, scientists began planting Marglobe and JTD seeds from Campbell’s archive. The two varieties were then cross pollinated again, as they were in 1934. Simply put, pollen from a male flower of one variety was used to pollinate a female flower from the other variety. When the cross-pollinated plants bore fruit, the seeds were taken out and used to create about 250 new plants. . . . Scientists narrowed the 250 plants down to about 20, then 10, then five, and now three. They’ve been holding taste tests across the state, asking residents to rate the tomatoes based on their sweetness, flavor, acidity and texture. The final taste test will be in a week or two, as scientists sort through the data. They hope to have a winner next month, in time for Rutgers’ 250th anniversary next year. The seeds of the winner will be available for sale in January. Personally, I'm a big fan of recapturing the taste of food as it used to be before profits began to trump nutrition and flavor. I doubt Campbell's will change its sourcing and production protocols in the interest of better flavor and nutrition, but the presence in the marketplace of one more heritage product is welcome news.

Perhaps the Groom of the Stool let something drop.

I learned that, just when things are starting to bubble, Oz will swing by and give them a stir.

Ah! Thanks for the def. I'll say courgettes then. I'm pretty sure I know what marrows are, but will not google them until I post my answer. After which, I reserve the right to sneak back and change my answer beyond all recognition. (I'll take the long way too.)

In search of a chuckle, Oz descends into Post Purgatory. The sweet scent of nitre signals he is getting close.

He worked incredibly hard. He had personal integrity. He had unbending moral purpose. He didn’t lie. I don't need it any better than that.

The key would be a place for everything, and everything in its place. No room for messy, that's for sure. Perhaps he could use some light housekeeping.

Well, not everybody.