Cup XLV: Smoke in the Water

Tea: Lapsang Formosa Alligator

Music: Daylight's for the Birds, "Worlds Away"

Time: Morning(s)/night

It's the rarest of posts for this tea-infused rambler. That's right -- it's about tea.

Scents and tastes take us back to where we've been. I smell rain and diesel together, and I don't care what my eyes and ears say -- I'm in London and it's 1986, about to turn to 1987. Lilacs and honeysuckle put me in the back garden of my childhood home. No matter where I taste it, a gyros sandwich reminds me of Missoula, Montana (that's where my sister once lived, and we were visiting her when I first tried it).

Man. Now I want a gyros.

Anyway ... all of the above, I understand. Scent (upon which taste depends) is the sense of memory.

But the smell and taste of this tea put me somewhere I haven't been before -- at least, not that I can remember. One taste and it's morning, autumn, in a pine forest. Someone has gotten up to make the fire, and the smoke hangs in the cool air.

I have no easy explanation for the phenomenon. That doesn't mean there isn't one. But ten hours after the last steeping, the whole experience remains vivid as memory, (un)familiar as a dream ... and the tea is gone now.

Tonight's story:

Ada Trevanion, "A Ghost Story"

Cup XLIV: And Reams to Write Before I Sleep ...

Tea: Earl Grey Bravo

Music: Suzanne Vega, "Tom's Diner (DNA Remix)"

Time: Morning

It's not quite deadline day, but the line is definitely getting its affairs in order.

I've an arts profile to finish, pitch letters to bat out to all fields, much audio to transcribe, and a double handful of fictional characters nudging me to move their lives (and afterlives) along.

So ... if I'm head down for a while, present in body but not in mind, don't fret. I've just stepped away for a while, and I'll be back.

But just because I'm pounding away on my own words and turning others' spoken vowels and consonants into ones and zeroes doesn't mean you should sit around and be bored.

If you're in Kansas City, get out and enjoy the glorious fall weather. Go to Loose Park, or wander among the outdoor sculptures on the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, or do some caffeinated people-watching outside at The Crave Cafe.

(But wait ... I have wireless and a laptop. I can get out of the house, too, so long as I get my work done while I'm at it. Permit me a short Charlie Brown dance of joy for technology.)

Today's story:

Robert Hitchens, "The Black Spaniel"

Cup XLIII: "Haiku!" "Gesundheit!"

Tea: Arctic Storm

Music: Guitarcraft Circle of Seattle, "Ikada Jima"

Time: Evening

Yet one more possibly significant development, as the days shorten and grow cooler: Haiku (the sensibility, not merely the form) seems to have re-entered my life.

It's a hesitant re-entry, one foot only halfway over the threshold. I get the feeling that if I move too quickly toward it, I'll scare it away.

It started in September, on the first day I sat in with the high school English class.

morning lessons;
crawling across my black boot,
a black cricket

And then, for weeks ... nothing. Not so much writer's block as insight block.

I used to get haiku moments much more regularly. Had a few of the results published here and there under the primary pen name, which was kind of cool, and took part in several online discussion groups on the topic.

Oh, and on the topic of 5/7/5 (syllables, that is): Used to write that way all the time. Still do sometimes. More often than not, I don't.

Then the moments ... well, went away. More likely, they were there and I just wasn't paying attention. But of late, I've tried to be more of the momentarian I used to try to be.

Last night, out of town and alone at dinner (except for the moments when my booth was co-occupied by the resident elf, who is six years old and likes Junie B. Jones and eats her dinner from her "funny bowl with a nose on it") , I began rereading "The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa," edited by Robert Hass.

(And yes, the funny bowl does have a nose on it. "What are you eating?" I asked. "I don't know," she said. "I've never had it before.")

I skipped Basho, although I'll go back to him later. I spent most of the time on Buson, then got about halfway through Issa. Three different styles, each with much to recommend it. I leave it to you to find your own favorite(s).

Then, I read a haiku-infused post in Midnight Anchorage, which is a young blog (and already one of my favorites) filled with words both old and new. Synchronicity.

Maybe it was the reacquaintance with the classics. Maybe I'm just paying more attention. But on the way to a harp concert this evening, there it was:

thin autumn light;
how will the squirrel stay warm
with half a tail?

If nothing else, it's good practice in awareness. If something else ... well, I suppose that's not entirely up to me to define.

Tonight's story:

Lafcadio Hearn, "Yuki-Onna"

Cup XLII: Inside, Outside, KSU

Tea: Earl Grey

Music: "Wabash Cannonball," arranged for marching band

Time: Afternoon

Another football game finds me back in professional observer/chronicler mode. College this time: Baylor at Kansas State, on a gorgeous (if breezy) afternoon.

I went to school here, several lives ago. Didn't finish, but that's a long story for another time. Most of the football games I saw here, I saw from the pressbox. But for a while, before and after that, I was a fan.

Kansas State was pretty bad in those days, save for the 1982 season (a pressbox year for me). Empty seats abounded, and games were largely social (read: drinking) occasions.

The football team's better these days, but one thing hasn't changed. The tribal color on Saturdays in Manhattan is still purple.

I don't wear either team's colors when covering a game. It's a professionalism thing for me. It also marks me as an outsider to both tribes, putting me in the odd position of feeling out of place in a town I called home for years.

It's not that people are unfriendly. It's more my own sense of not belonging (and my tendency to slip into observation mode, which isn't always a bad thing).

It's okay, though. I have my havens here. Hibachi Hut. The Dusty Bookshelf. Radina's Coffeehouse. There are others, but those three are my haunts.

I go to see my friends Gary and Cheryl (and Hannah, their schnauzer, who loves me because I speak her language and throw a mean tennis ball for fetching). We drink diet soda and talk about sports, about theatre, about literature and music and ... and ... and ...

Before games, the three of us -- and others -- meet at the house of another friend, Jim. (I once mistook his voice for God's. Remind me to tell you the story sometime. It's kind of funny.)

We eat hamburgers, usually. Today, there were bratwursts, too. We talk, often about the upcoming game but just as often about whatever strikes our fancies.

Christians (in which number I both count myself and hope to be counted) are often told, "This world is not our home." That has some value in reminding us that we don't get to take all of our stuff with us when we move on to the next world.

But taken to an extreme, it can lead to clubbiness and clannishness and the idea that the simple pleasures of this life are to be avoided because they encourage "wordliness."

For my part, I'm grateful for a place at Jim's table, a spot on the pull-out sofa at Gary and Cheryl's, for a cup of coffee and a bowl of gumbo and a new old book of someone else's words.

Speaking of other people's words, here's tonight's ghost story:

A.C. Benson, "The Slype House"

Cup XLI:I Know My Inner Fan is in Here Somewhere ...

Tea: Keemun Concerto

Music: Franz Ferdinand, "Take Me Out"; INXS, "Don't Change"; Lee Rocker, "Rockin' Harder"

Time: Mid-afternoon

You didn't know I was functional before 5 p.m., did you? Caffeine helps.

I couldn't tell you how many high school football games I've seen since my 16th birthday. (Yes, they played back then. Yes, the helmets had facemasks.) I can tell you how many I've seen for fun since turning 16, though:

One.

I was a junior in high school when I started covering our team for the local daily. (I suited up for two years, then decided I might be better at writing about the game than playing it.) When I moved back to the same paper in the late 1980s, I covered both the 11-man and eight-man versions -- first as a general assignment reporter, then as the area editor, then as the sports editor (a one-man department, I was, covering 14 high schools in two states).

I went to one game as a spectator over that span. It would have been in the early 1990s, but I don't remember the exact year.

I moved on to another Kansas newspaper for a little more than one year in the mid-1990s, covering high schools on Friday nights and the junior college team on Saturdays. Since 1997, I haven't seen a high school game for any reason.

But tonight, I'm going to a game with the junior daughter and sophomore son. Their school's team has been bad all year -- until the district part of the season. And in Kansas, that's all that really counts. Short version of the situation (because I'm not going through the rulebook to explain it all to you): Win tonight, and it's on to the playoffs -- and the 2-7 regular-season record be hanged.

I don't know any of the kids on the team. At least, I don't think I know any of them. It's a huge school, and my kids run more with the performing arts sets. But I'm looking forward to it. There's an atmosphere at high school games that can't be found anywhere else.

Plus, there's a light show afterward. Can't miss that.

And beyond that, this is a chance to engage with the larger world. Journalism prizes detachment, not engagement. I've played by those rules for years (and still have to play by them from time to time, as journalism work still pays a good chunk of the bills). But that's no longer the only rulebook in my life.

Will I be able to watch as a fan, and not analyze every play? Maybe not this time. But there will be others -- and other situations like this, other atmospheres to breathe in fully.

It's all part of learning to live more slowly, I suppose -- and as I do that, it seems that life opens up. Funny how things like that can work.

Today's scary story:

Robert H. Benson, "The Watcher"

Cup XL: My Child Won't Fit on a Bumper Sticker

Tea: Pu-er Poe

Music: Selections for high school strings

Time: Night.

Disclosure: The tea was steeped, and consumed, this morning. But tonight brought the events of note.

First, the junior daughter (not the younger daughter -- junior as in eleventh grader) was inducted into the National Honor Society. Yeah, I'm going braggy dad here. I'm proud of her, because she's shown a lot more dedication than I ever did in high school. I might have been the only National Merit Scholar in history never to make the honor roll. It's an accomplishment of sorts, but not exactly the right kind of sorts.

Then, I came home after the ceremony to find that the sophomore son had applied his goofy brand of charisma to charm friend/colleague/fellow traveler Seánan Forbes into writing not one, but two ghost stories for him to recite to his drama class. She's a professional storyteller, so I'd suggested he ask her for help. A few hours later, she had done far more than that. Not that I've gotten to read them. He gave me an evil grin and ordered me away from the computer. I think maybe the ghost gets me in the end.

The eighth grade daughter was asleep by then. No doubt dreaming up uses for her dry wit, which she reveals more and more every day. (She has her cockeyed moments, too. She insists I'm a frog, but won't say why or which kind. Some game she and Seánan dreamed up, when Seánan hied her away to New York for a night at the American Museum of Natural History. Yes, that's where the T-Rex mug came from.)

There's much I'm discovering about the kids. It's a grace and a gratitude that what I'm learning is good.

Tonight's story (in which I know I do not appear):

Perceval Landon, "Thurnley Abbey"

Cup IXL: One More Red Daydream

Tea: Joseph's Dream with Honey

Music: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Get Ready for Love."

Time: Night.

I've been driving all over northeast Kansas for the past week -- and it's not good for my neck. Not because of the driving, but because of this glorious red distraction along the roadsides and hillsides.

I don't know the name of the plant -- a hip-high shrub -- but its leaves are this color.

It's already starting to fade, taking on purplish undertones -- and that's its own kind of gorgeous against the yellow of the Flint Hills.

The world is going to sleep. The leaves are dying, and the grass is whispering of low skies and snow.

But it's a lovely sort of passing.

Tonight's story:

G.K. Chesterton, "The Hammer of God"

Cup XXXVIII: I'll Have What the Kid in the High Chair is Having

Tea: Vanilla Earl Grey

Music: Holly Cole, "I Can See Clearly Now"

Time: Night.

So I'm on a Holly Cole kick of late. But how can you not love her version of Johnny Nash's song?

This song has been through a rough, cold, rainy night. But wings aren't only for flight. Sometimes -- like this time -- they shelter. Then in the morning, when the skies clear ... it's time to take to the air once more.

And if the song isn't quite enough to cheer you up, this will. If it doesn't ... well, I'm sorry.

Tonight's laugher of a different sort (yes, it's Scary Story Time):

Damon Runyon, "The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew"

Cup XXXVII: Isn't That What Music's Supposed to Do?

Tea: Sour Kumquat Green and Raspberry bubble tea

Music: Holly Cole, "Make it Go Away"

Time: Night

Today, while I was waiting for a news conference, I went -- as I often go -- hunting for cool music videos on YouTube.

I'd never had any luck finding that particular Holly Cole song on the site, but I thought -- as I often think -- "Oh, what the heck. Might as well look one more time."

And there it was -- or there she was, I suppose. But the arrangement was different. Same singer, same melody, same lyrics -- but the versions don't feel the same at all.

The song I first fell in love with (and no, that's not too strong a word in this case) is an aching, running on fumes of fumes, two in the morning plea. It'll think about the next day when it comes -- if it comes.

This one's stronger, acknowledging its weakness but also its strength.

It says, "Yeah, I'm messed up, and hurting, and sometimes I can't see past the next minute. And yeah, I need you to get me through that. But we're going to get through this, and someday, when you're messed up and hurting and can't see past the next minute, I'm going to be there."

And you know what?

The feelings for the first version haven't diminished one bit -- but "love's" not too strong a word for this one.

Tonight's story:

Richard Middleton, "On the Brighton Road"

Cup XXXVI: Stories in Stone, Told by the Unlucky

Tea: Earl Grey Smokey

Music: Endusk, "Moth" and "Four"

Time: Night, and ages ago

Today, while watching a frightened black Labrador puppy being cajoled into a new -- and better -- life, I broke off a bit of yellow-gray rock.

It is full of fossils -- delicate ridged shells, narrower than the nail of one of my little toes. This part of the world is haunted by the stone ghosts -- the tiny and the titanic -- of an ancient sea.

I wasn't here the day this particular fossil bed was laid down. But most likely, something happened to flood the seafloor with mud, burying everything in its path. Over time, rock replaced bone and shell and exoskeleton.

We learn about the life of the past from the lives lost by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A chunk of the universe falls to Earth, and it's exit dinosaurs, stage left. A volcano in Idaho lets go, and a herd of rhinoceroses in Nebraska never knows what hit it. A sabre-toothed cat moves in on a mastodon, stuck in a sticky black trap, and both of them sink out of sight.

Like the gastropods and gorgosaurs, the tiny horses and giant beavers, none of us -- save, perhaps, those whose ends come at their own hands or at the state's -- knows the day or hour of our personal extinction events. The difference is that we know it will come.

This is both a shadow and an advantage. We can live each day in fear that it will be our last, and so not begin anything anew, or live so that if any day were our last, we would have begun something to last beyond ourselves.

My father was fond of a quote attributed to Martin Luther. As he and others have told it, someone asked Luther, "What would you do if you knew the world was going to end tomorrow?"

Luther's reply: "I would plant a tree."

I don't know if I could do that. But I do know that each of us has a chance to do something good and lasting each day. That means me, yeah -- so that if Yellowstone pops tomorrow, I can combine a sense of accomplishment with my futile screaming and running.

Here ends the pontification. Here follows tonight's story:

Sabine Baring-Gould, "H.P."

Cup XXXV: Variations on a Happy Theme

Tea: Jasmine Pearl

Music: Norah Jones, "One Flight Down"

Time: Night.

Long day. Good day -- in part because there is room at the inn, and there are good people keeping it.

Today's theme, in large part, has been that of happy interactions with good people.

First, I yielded the lunch ordering to friend/collaborator/consummate foodie Seánan Forbes -- who conspired with the server to have amazing homemade noodles (among a meal-long series of perfect bites) delivered to the table. Then, off to reconnect with one winery (and the warm people who run it) and introduce Seánan to another -- and to Concord wine. (Let the purists sniff and call it "jelly in a wine glass." The purists can bite me.)

Oh, and if you live anywhere near Weston, Missouri, and you don't visit at least once ... I shake my head slowly, sadly, pitying you.

Then across the street to dinner -- which, as did lunch, consisted of excellent food served by welcoming people.

It's been a good third day of what's been an odd work trip, a good day for hunting and finding story ideas, a good day for discussions -- both philosophical and practical -- about what good food/travel writing should be.

Would it have been as productive without the interactions along the way? Maybe. But it wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable.

(That's not counting the encounter with one person who heard, "He wants me to try x" and interpreted it as, "I should disregard that and give them y." Frowny face for him. Gold stars for everyone else.)

Tonight's spooky story:

Willkie Collins, "Miss Jéromette and the Clergyman"

Cup XXXIV: I Can Has Monkey Wrenches?

Tea: Earl Grey Smokey

Music: Trey Gunn Band, "Killing for London"

Time: Night of a lonnnnng day.

Much to and fro -- on foot, on wheels, in words.

No room at many inns.

This is me.

But there was bacon today. And bacon rocks.

Tonight's story:

John Kendrick Bangs, "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall"

Cup XXXIII: Agley (but That's Okay)

Tea: Spring Sprouting Jade

Song: Christian Langer, "Moonchild"

Time: Night

This was not the day I thought I would have. I had anticipated being out on the road with friend/collaborator/fellow traveler Seánan Forbes, who arrived today from New York. I had envisioned being here or here, possibly both, doing research for travel/food writing.

Instead, a more than minor glitch with one of the two family cars kept the two of us in the Kansas City metro area.

But you know what? We went here for lunch (yes, the same place from the first Foodspedition) and discovered new tastes (and new combinations thereof). We shared chocolate and conversation here and here. And there were fortune cookie moments, one of them leading to surprised delight on the part of a promising young writer, and they were good.

All of it was good. Better than.

Funny how things work out that way sometimes.

Tonight's story:

Eleanor F. Lewis, "The Vengeance of a Tree"

Cup XXXII: Words and Music, Found in Translation

Tea: Lokon with Tiny Orchids

Music: One cover song (or interpretation, if you will) after another.

Time: Evening.

My music collection looks as though it should belong to at least seven people, given its range. That's not a brag about how eclectically cool I am. It's a testament to my inability to fixate on any one act (No, I don't own everything by King Crimson. Surprised?) or musical style.

Given that fact, I suppose it's only logical that the cover songs in said collection run a wide gamut -- from straight-up homages to a bluegrass version of a jazz piece (and perennial pep band favorite) to all sorts of genre-bending variations on a progressive rock standard.

Then again, it seems to me there's a difference between "cover" and "interpretation" -- the former being truer to the letter of the original, the latter to its spirit.

(Note: I'm leaving out song versions performed by ensembles containing at least one member of the original performing group, e.g., the Brian Setzer Orchestra's "Stray Cat Strut," the 21st Century Schizoid Band's "21st Century Schizoid Man" and Steve Hackett's take on "In the Court of the Crimson King" (with co-writer/Crim co-founder Ian McDonald on flute).

In the "cover" camp, we have -- among others -- George Winston's straight-up presentations of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy," "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," et al., and also Go West's take on Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do for Love."

The "interpretation" subset includes Jerry Douglas' dobro-centric reworking of Weather Report's "Birdland," Johnny Cash's weary, beautiful version of the Beatles' "In My Life" -- and, yes, still more variations of "21st Century Schizoid man."

Two of those strip away the vocals, and one parses the song even more. The Crimson Jazz Trio plays the intricate middle sections close to letter-perfect, even if the instrumentation is different, but turns the verses -- the song's scary parts -- soothing. It fits, somehow. Then again, so does this trippy deconstruction by Jon Bernstein of Disparition, even though only parts of the original are easily recognizable.

Then there's Johnny G's Delta blues version, which really shouldn't work. After all, King Crimson (and especially Robert Fripp) have avoided basing any compositions on Western blues scales.

But it works. Why? Because the music and the words match, even if they weren't written to fit each other in the first place. Peter Sinfield's lyrical vision of disconnect and madness shifts handily from the shrieking proto-metal/jazz fusion of the original to the spare, dark sounds of six steel strings and one metal slide.

When a straight cover works, it's pretty much due to a gift for mimicry by the band doing the covering. When an interpretation works, it's a credit to the original material (and those who produced it) as well as to the interpreter(s).

It's because things match -- important for music, not so important for socks.

Tonight's original story:

Grant Allen, "Pallinghurst Barrow"

Cup XXXI: You Say 'Pain in the Neck' Like it's a Bad Thing

Tea: Ginger Peach Green.

Music: (External) Various selections for middle school orchestra and chorus; (Internal) Bruce Cockburn, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher"

Time: Evening

Okay, so maybe a rocket launcher would be a bit extreme. But tonight only served to reinforce my belief that some people (namely, I and others of my choosing) should be allowed to carry blowguns.

Nothing lethal, mind you. Tranquilizer darts only. A little "Pffft," a little sting in the neck, and someone annoying goes sleepy-bye for a couple of hours.

Tonight's middle school music concert would have been a target-rich environment.

The exuberant toddler who ran around between songs gets a pass. He was quiet during the music. But the person behind him who kept egging him on? Pffft!

The couple who picked the start of the second orchestra's performance to make their entrance -- not slipping in silently, but clomping up the steps? Pffft! Pffft!

(Her t-shirt read "Goddess." Um, maybe this one.)

The parents who thought we were all there to listen to them blather sotto voce, instead of hearing -- oh, I don't know -- music? Pffft! Pffft! Pffft! Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!

I'm merciful, though. I'd let them go without radio collars and ear tags.

Tonight's mischievously spooky story:

Saki (H.H. Munro), "Laura"

Cup XXX: A Plastic Bottle of Parenthood Lite

Tea: Moroccan Rose/Mint

Music: Bobby Vee, "Take Good Care of My Baby"

Time: Night

There's a "baby" "sleeping" in the living room. I put both words in quotation marks because the object in question only simulates a dozing infant. The teenager sleeping in the living room is real enough, though.

The high school junior has brought home a "RealCare Baby" as part of her Child Development class. She's supposed to take care of it overnight -- responding to its programmed cries by (a) rocking it, (b) "feeding" it, (c) "changing" its diaper or (d) "burping" it, and not by (e) ignoring it or (f) doing bad things to it.

An array of sensors inside the "baby" record her actions -- the daughter's, not the "baby's." This is designed to protect the "baby" not only from abuse or neglect by its "parent," but from acts of outright sabotage by -- in this case -- the freshman "uncle" and the eighth grade "aunt."

(I'm supposed to say "she," not "it," for the pretend baby, which the daughter (following directions) has named "Hayley Joy." It's supposed to aid with bonding.)

The whole purpose of the assignment is to get teens to see that being a parent isn't glamorous. That's an admirable goal, but a misguided approach. Anyone can spend one night with a doll, even a cranky one, without it being a life-changing experience.

Well, almost everyone. The same friend who brought my youngest to New York and called her "child of my deepest heart" gleefully admits that RealCare Baby would have fared horribly on her watch.

"I would have found a great t-shirt for it every day, though, before it starved to death," she said.

But this isn't a realistic picture of single parenthood. It's Parenthood Lite.

This "baby" doesn't projectile vomit. It doesn't let fly with another load of sticky, foul-smelling toxic waste while you're changing its diaper. It doesn't develop colic and cry for hours on end. It doesn't leave you wondering how you're going to afford to keep it fed and clothed and healthy.

And let me repeat this: She only has it for one night.

It's not the first night at home with a new baby that threatens to devolve into madness. It's the fourth straight night with inexplicable screaming jags at 2 a.m. It's the gigantic glob of spit-up on the shoulder of a new shirt. It's the inevitable "It's your turn" arguments.

When schools figure out a way to simulate that, then perhaps bringing home a "baby" will provide a real, lasting lesson. As it is, it's just one more chant in a long litany of "If you pretend to be pregnant/homeless/a minority for a day, you will know what it is to be pregnant/homeless/a minority" foolishness.

You know who's learned the biggest lesson from RealCare Baby? The people who make it. They've figured out that no matter what you charge for a bad idea, you can get school boards to spend tax dollars (that's your money and mine, folks) on it if you can bamboozle them into thinking it's "good for the children."

Flawed (and expensive) though the assignment is, my daughter's taking it as seriously as she can. That's more a credit to her than to the concept. Even if she'd never held a RealCare Baby, when the time comes she'll do just fine taking care of a real baby.

Tonight's spooky story:

Frank R. Stockton, "The Bishop's Ghost and the Printer's Baby"

Cup XXIX: The Leaves are Turning Charlie Brown

Tea: Lapsang Caramel

Music: Vince Guaraldi Trio, "The Great Pumpkin Waltz"

Time: Late evening

I didn't grow up with Charlie Brown, but I grew up on him. I had all the paperback collections as a kid, wore the Joe Cool T-shirt in high school, wrote Linus and Charlie Brown into a very short story that's out there on the Web under one of my other names.

(And yes, that was me in the yellow shirt with the zigzag on the front a couple of Halloweens ago. So maybe I'm not all the way grown up yet.)

So, obviously, I'll read David Michaelis' biography of Charles Schulz once I get the chance (translation: once I get to borrow a copy, find it used or snag the eventual paperback).

It's already causing a bit of a stir, as evidenced by this review and this article, both from the New York Times. Short version: Michaelis apparently characterizes Schulz as melancholy.

Um ... gee, ya think?

Good art is rarely produced by the entirely well-balanced, in the first place (I will grant that maladjusts produce a lot of crap, by the way. Flaws are no guarantee of creative quality -- but they don't hurt.) I mean, look at David. Had his babymama's husband whacked, wrote the 23rd Psalm and most of the lyrics to U2's "40." Same guy.

Also, so much of professional humor is birthed by tension of some sort. Like a Louisville Slugger, it can be both defense mechanism and weapon. Hang around stand-up comics for more than a few minutes, and you'll see (and hear) what I mean. At its best, Peanuts managed the enviable trifecta of being sweet, funny and sad -- often in the same strip.

So if Schulz really was a moody, oft-inattentive grudge carrier ... he found a transcendent way of dealing with it, didn't he? Let that be his real legacy, whatever led him to produce it.

Speaking of maladjusts and misanthropes, here's tonight's tale of sweet, spooky sadness:

Ambrose Bierce, "The Moonlit Road"

Cup XXVIII: What's a Synonym for "Argh?"

Tea: Apricot Caramel with Honey

Music: Autumn's Grey Solace, "Falling Sky"

Time: Early Afternoon

It's raining today. Suits the feel of things right now.

Typing the phrase "kill your thesaurus" into a Yahoo search produces this result. AltaVista, same thing. In Google, it's only slightly more productive.

Something very wrong with that shortage. Because, despite the name, synonyms aren't. Words, as with any other coloring/flavoring agent, have separate and crucial shadings/tastes. Use the wrong one, and risk everything tumbling down.

It's a lesson even a word person (he said, looking in the mirror) needs to remember more often.

Today's story:

Fitz-James O'Brien, "The Lost Room"

Cup XXVII: Shah Mat

Tea: Joseph's Dream with honey

Music: Robert Fripp, "Starlight I"

Time: Night

Convergence of cool things tonight.

I won a chess tournament at Nighthawks. For that, I got a book (always a welcome prize for a wordperson). After that, I got to share a new taste with friends.

(Yeah, so the Coast and Center link is self-referential. Cut me some slack, it's late.)

And on top of that, my foot (tendinitis casualty du -- I'd say jour, but it's been more like a week) is doing much better. This is a very good thing.

And with that, off to dream.

But before that, speaking of chess:

I'd always heard that "Shah Mat" -- the Persian phrase that gives us "checkmate" in English -- meant "The king is dead." This article claims otherwise.

Not being an expert in such things, I make no claims to know which is right. I just like stirring the pot sometimes.

Okay, now it's dreamtime.

Tonight's spooky story:

Richard Marsh, "A Set of Chessmen"

Cup XXVI: That Which Passes, Comes Back Again ...

Tea: Oolong leaf, Wuyi Ensemble

Music: Selections from an eccentric English guitarist

Time: Midafternoon

I've loaded everything I own connected with Robert Fripp onto my mp3 player. Most of it is his solo stuff and work with King Crimson. But I also have snippets of other collaborations (Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Theo Travis) and ensemble work (the League of Gentlemen, the League of Crafty Guitarists, the Robert Fripp String Quintet).

Dangerous obsession, as I often mention the Frippster in Steep Thoughts posts? Nah. More a study in voice.

One man, six strings ... yet so many voices, both solo and in collaboration. And each voice -- the strident, the soothing, the subdued -- fits the material.

That's what I want to do with my writing, both singular and shared -- the poetry, the fiction, the essays, the articles on art and food and music. I am one writer, but I want to have more than one voice -- or perhaps to phrase it more accurately, one voice that remains true to its source, yet modulates and blends with the material at hand.

Okay, enough pontificating for one day. Time for a second steeping, a shuffle of the mp3 player and today's unsettling story:

E.F. Benson, "The Confession of Charles Linkworth"

Cup XXV: Swimming in a Pool of Memory, Walking the Floors of a Stranger's House

Tea: Arctic Storm, ginger and Sichuan peppercorn added

Music: Poe, "Haunted," on the player; Piano piece from "House With Pool," looping in my head

Time: (now) Night; (then) Several days in 2005

Occasionally, most often around the shift from summer into fall, I get a bit disconnected from present time and place. Not to where I can't function, mind you. It's more of a foggy, half-dreamy ab/distraction.

Today, the weather turned cooler -- and that, coupled with my slight addledness from my allergies and the medications I'm taking for them, created the ideal conditions for such a state.

The disconnects always come accompanied by music, vivid in my mind's ear. Tonight, it's the piano piece from "House With Pool," the looped video piece by Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler that played two years ago at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

I would sit in the broken dark, watching the film repeat seamlessly for hours. The piano piece appeared (sounded?) twice -- once abortively, once through to a climax auditory, visual and emotional. And each time, it was both new and familiar -- never got old, never seemed that I hadn't heard it before.

But as far as I know, there's no soundtrack to purchase. I'll never own this music. Instead, it owns me, in a way. I can't hear it, even internally, without feeling a pull -- tenuous and steel-strong as spider's silk -- to ... what? The past? Some memory I don't know I have? Something ahead, still?

Maybe it's all interconnected. Maybe it's just a matter of breathing and letting the memories/impulses tug me along to where I'm supposed to be at the moment.

Or maybe it's just the decongestant ...

Tonight's haunting story:

Elia W. Peattie, "The Piano Next Door"

Cup XXIV: Beauty and the Blend

Tea: Joseph's Dream (chamomile/grapefruit)

Music: Echoes of various selections, by various high school ensembles

Time: Evenight

The beauty of choral music eluded me for a long time, I must confess, even though I have been in several choirs over the years. My enjoyment was in making the music, not so much in hearing it. Even now, I still can't be in an audience hearing the "Hallelujah Chorus" without joining in under my breath.

It wasn't until the now-junior daughter hit high school, and I started going to her concerts, that I discovered how to be what Robert Fripp might call an "attentive audient." I say "might," because, well, he can be a bit Fripptic, as it were.

(Digression: She didn't join the choral department until her sophomore year, but has been in orchestra all three years. The winter concerts are blended, between choral and instrumental groups.)

I've just come from an all-choral concert at her school. The performances were all lovely, but not all perfectly so. The one exception was not for lack of beauty, but for too much of it in one place.

One ensemble -- not my daughter's -- is possessed of an alto with a strong, vibrant, powerful voice. Too strong, too powerful. It dominated the mix, especially in the portions where the sopranos and altos played off one another.

The teacher is good at what she does. I am sure the next time I hear the ensemble, it will be as an ensemble.

Still, it does give one an opportunity to think. There is much value in letting one's light shine -- God knows we seem to be headed toward a "Harrison Bergeron" world as it is -- but in a group setting, there's nothing wrong with minding one's wattage.

Scary Story: I could let the Vonnegut story stand, but the whole prescience thing makes it a little too creepy. Here's something -- well, not lighter, but you get the picture.

Robert W. Chambers, "In the Court of the Dragon"

Cup XXIII: The Green Man Turns Over a New Link

Tea: Green Sencha Overture


Music: Eddie Jobson and Zinc, "Turn it Over"


Time: Late evening


This blog, as you can see by now, is only rarely about tea. Most times, it's about music or mushrooms or mismatched socks, among a host of varied whatnots.


Tonight, it's about both. Well, sort of.


First, it's a plaint that I've never been able to find The Green Album, whence comes tonight's musical selection (located online from a link that no longer goes anywhere) on compact disc. I have it on vinyl, but the living room's cluttered enough that one more piece of stereo equipment would be noticed.


Check that. I have found the album on CD, but at the prohibitive cost of more money than I can justify spending on it. Oh, well. I have this song as an mp3, to tide me over, and two albums' worth of Jobson's progtastic keyboard and electric violin work with UK. That'll get me through, until such time as sufficient finances and aligned bright balls of gas put The Green Album back in my hands.



On to the tea. I was sent this link last night, and ... wow. Yeah, this blog is seriously about tea, and the places which sell and serve it. It's going to be a daily stop and a vicarious pleasure for me, I'm betting.

Tonight's story:
Alexander Harvey, "The Forbidden Floor"

Cup XXII: Coming-out Tea Party

Tea: Vanilla Lapsang

Music: Suzanne Vega, "Small Blue Thing"

Time: Late Afternoon.

As I sit at this wonderfully (other members of Clan Steve beg to differ on the adverb) cluttered computer desk, I turn my head to the left and see bags and bags of tea. Down a bit on the shelves, I see an orange notebook. Below that, more tea.

Eyes front: A paperweight, in the shape of the house-smooshed witch's legs and feet -- ruby slippers and all -- from "The Wizard of Oz." Eyes down a bit more, chocolate dipped ginger Altoids.

Eyes up, slightly right, and we find a small green stone, an eagle fetish, a Tibetan creativity symbol, two rubber ducks (one dead and one devilish) and a pen shaped like a cactus.

A bit more to the right, and more pens appear. One looks like a Holstein cow, one like a stalk of asparagus. Yet another has the Statue of Liberty atop, and it lights up when I press down to write.

So what do all of these things have in common (and in common, I might add, with the Suzanne Vega song)?

They all came to me from Seánan Forbes, who is -- in all conceivable orders -- friend, collaborator, co-conspirator, encourager (with both pushing and pulling connotations), and all-around undefinable kindred spirit.

Seánan is fond of saying that, "A good relationship expands worlds." My world, and those of my family and friends, certainly have expanded -- in all sorts of ways -- from this one. I can only hope that in some small way, I've been able to do the same in the other direction.

This is one way, I suppose. It's a daily note of acknowledgement, of thanks and of things for which there are no words.

Today's story:

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown"

Cup XXI: The Skin of the Earth is Moving, and the Continents are Adrift

Tea: Arctic Storm, ginger added, with honey

Music: Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers in a Dangerous Time"

Time: Afternoon

I'm still stuffed up, but the tea is helping. So are my Reed's Ginger Chews, a long-distance gift from a dear friend.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, musical references in post titles don't always match the musical selections in the posts themselves. Such is the case today, as it was here and here and here. Here, too.

Today's lyric is borrowed, slightly adapted, from the Rainmakers' "A Million Miles Away" -- not to be confused with the (also excellent) Plimsouls song of the same name.

Tomorrow will mark one month since I left my old job. Today would have been my tenth anniversary there. The fact that I wrote "tenth" instead of "10th" is an indication that I'm already comfortable with shedding some of the old ways.

Freelancing is a challenge. The hunt for story ideas, and for people who will pay me to put them into words, is a daily effort. But I'm glad I am where I am now. I've met good people, some of whom already have become part of my life.

Today's story:

J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

Just because.

Cup XX: If I Had a Million Dollars, I Would Buy a Lot of Kleenex

Tea: Blood Orange, ginger added, with honey (but no Dijon ketchup)

Music: Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had $1,000,000"

Time: Afternoon

Stupid allergies. My head's all full of junk, and tonight's First Friday. Can't miss that. Well, I could. But I'd miss the art -- even if there's not likely to be a Picasso (or a Garfunkel) on hand --and the chance to make contacts.

I'm turning into a schmoozer. Oh, well.

And on top of things, my tendinitis is back for its semiannual visit. Left heel, this time. So I'm using the tea to wash down a couple of ibuprofen, too.

Here's hoping everything kicks in by the time I head down to the Crossroads. If not, I'll be easy to spot (or hear) from a couple of blocks away. Just watch for the limping, listen for the sniffling. But if everything goes right, I'll be unstuffed and fully bipedal. In which case, you'll just have to look for the mismatched socks.

Today's creepy story, selected in haste because the annoyingly law-abiding junior daughter needs the computer for homework. (Doesn't she know Friday afternoons are for slacking?)

M.R. James, "The Mezzotint"

Cup XIX: Fire, but no Fireworks

Tea: Ginger Peach Green, with honey

Music: One fight song, one alma mater, a lot of drum line pounding

Time: Evening

Tomorrow's the homecoming football game for the high school where two of the kids go. Tonight was the bonfire, complete with burning of the opposing team in effigy.

Tried to convince the junior daughter to take along a bunch of Black Cats (no, not the animals), stuff them into the dummy (no, not the freshman son) and liven up said effigy-burning.

She refused, in a saddening display of good behavior. And by the time the freshman son got there -- looking quite dashing in his tuxedo, I must say -- the dummy was already in the fire.

Ah, well. Maybe they'll go out and TP someone's yard after the game.

I suppose tonight's creepy story should have something to do with fire, shouldn't it?

Here 'tis, then:

Edgar Allan Poe, "Hop-Frog"

Cup XVIII: Morning Has Broken (a Chair over My Head)

Tea: Arctic Storm (green tea with bergamot, lemon, red thistle and chile)

Music: Tegan and Sara, "Wake up Exhausted"

Time: Mo(u)rning.

My late father was the sort who woke up cheerful: "Good morning, Lord!" Not me. I'm more the "Good Lord, it's morning ..." sort.

My mother, who died when I was 17, was more pragmatic and disciplined. I'm not so sure she was all that thrilled about single-digit a.m. hours, but she got up and got after it.

The weekly teaching stint starts at 8 a.m. I'll be leading the senior AP English class' discussion for the first time. It's not until tomorrow, but I figured I'd better give myself a day of being at least semi-awake at this time of day.

And, of course, no good intention goes unpunished. Getting up earlier means I have more time to be lousy company, after the discovery in the basement.

During the good years between her first cancer surgery and the time the disease came back with reinforcements, my mother painted. Beautifully.

My father loved to fish. His favorite painting of hers was a photorealist piece of crappie in a net, on a stump over water. It was, in turn, her labor of love for him. I inherited it when he died, although it hung in my stepmother's house for a time as a reminder of him. I didn't mind. She was very good for him, and still is good to and for me and mine.

We'd been storing the painting in the basement, because there's been no place to display it properly in the main part of the house. Now it's picked up some mold damage. Not much, but noticeable.

I'm sure it can be cleaned, not so sure I can afford that before the damage gets worse.

I don't have many things that tie my parents together in tangible form. To lose this would be ... I can't think about it right now.

So I'll read, and make a lesson plan, and hope to return at some point today from the Land of Not Very Good Company.

In the meantime, here's today's creepy story:

Algernon Blackwood, "The Empty House"

Cup XVII: 'Tis the Season to Be Crawly

Tea: Renaissance, with honey
Music: My Cocteau Twins station on Pandora

Time: Afternoon

The tea smells like peach crisp with oatmeal -- a homey, comforting smell. And, of course, nothing says "home" and "comfort" like icy, ethereal dream pop and a really good creepy story.

Yeah, I'm weird. Don't act shocked. You know better.

It's October, and the trees are stripped bare of all they wear, what do I care? (OK, Bono, out of my head, please.)

So in honor of the thinning of the walls between worlds, each day I'll post a link to a tale of the uncanny, the unearthly, the uncopyrighted.

I slacked yesterday, for which I apologize. As atonement, I'll post two links today.

Short story:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Long story:

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Enjoy. And pay no attention to that shadow.

It's nothing, really ...

Cup XVI: Caffeine Cuisine

Tea: Vanilla Lapsang Souchong

Music: The Rainmakers, Flirting with the Universe

Time: Late afternoon

Much more than a cup today, but only one cuppa -- if you know what I mean.

I have a huge bag of vanilla Lapsang Souchong, hand-blended by the friend who sent me nearly all of the teas in my collection. I love the stuff, but it takes up a lot of room. So, whenever possible, I cook with it.

The second half of the first steeping went to soak dried shiitakes. The other half, still way too hot to drink, went over sliced pork tenderloin to half-cook it. Then I made a second steeping, drank part of it and put the rest of it over the thirsty mushrooms.

The pork and shiitakes (the latter drained and sliced) went into Wok No. 1 (I have three), along with slices of Japanese eggplant and red bell pepper. Then, in order: sweet chile sauce, a ginormous scoop of crunchy peanut butter, and the tea in which the pork marinated. Toward the end, two and a half zots of soy sauce. The whole thing went over rice noodles.

Vanilla Lapsang has this great smoky sweetness that plays really well with shiitakes and eggplant (which in turn gets along wonderfully with pork).

So, when you're looking to get creative in the kitchen ... all I am saying is, give teas a chance.