Month: December 2004

Product Review: Moderately-priced Rioja

Bookdwarf and I have been drinking a series of moderately priced Rioja from my new favorite liquor store, Downtown Wine and Spirits in Somerville, MA. (Note that the Flash animation wait message is “Getting Loaded…” and that they give a great case discount on full and half-cases).

The Rioja contestants:

Lan Rioja 1998, $10: Friendly, warm, good value. Tannic but not harsh.

El Coto Rioja 2001, $11: The most well-rounded of the group, and the one that made us decide to go try a bunch more Rioja. Earthy, not fruity or sweet, but still easy to drink. We picked up a couple bottles of this one.

Palaciego Rioja 1999, $12: Rioja in general is full-bodied and earthy, and most of the ones we’ve tried also have somewhat harsh tannins and rough edges. This is much smoother and silkier than the rest in the group.

Cerro Añon Rioja 2001, $14: Big, smoky, and not at all sweet or fruity. Bookdwarf liked it more than I did, but both of us agreed that it was overpriced.

Cortijo III Rioja 2003, $10: I was immediately attracted by the bright orange label, and it turns out that this is one of the featured selections at Best Cellars as well. However, we didn’t really like it. Bookdwarf’s notes say “Nothing special, not even that good a deal. 5.5/10”

Darien Rioja 2002, $10: This one confused me. It was a little too wood-and-mineral flavored, and so acidic I was almost tempted to say it was spoiled. Perhaps we got a bad bottle? Or maybe it needs to be left in the dark for a couple years? I can’t tell. My guess is that we got a bottle that had been improperly stored.

Rioja-style Spanish wines that are not technically Rioja:

Lacatus I vino de mesa, (n.v.) $8: Not actually a Rioja, because it’s not 100% Tempranillo grapes, but very much in the same style. Definitely rough around the edges but not harsh, and quite full-bodied and a great deal. The other Lacatus wines (Lacatus II is a white table wine, and there’s also a Cava) are also great deals.

Estío vino de mesa 2003, $9: 70% Montrastell, 30% Tempranillo, great bargain. Smoother than the Lacatus and many of the other less-expensive Riojas.

By comparison, two bottles of completely different varieties:

Francis Coppola Rosso Shiraz 2003, $14: more expensive than all but one of the Shiraz bottles we bought, and completely opposite all of them: almost absurdly fruity, and pretty sweet.

Mont-Pelier Merlot 2002, $8: OK. Easy to drink, medium-bodied, not too sweet, definitely a good deal if not a great wine.

Meat in St. Louis

My sophomore year in college, my girlfriend at the time wrote a paper to the effect of “what’s the deal with gay men and Judy Garland?” This entailed, for the most part, watching Meet me In St. Louis repeatedly. I mean repeatedly. But I learned something from it: the way that Judy Garland represented, for a certain time, a certain barely repressed spirit to certain segments of the population.

And the original lyrics to the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Places like Carols.org.uk describe it as the saddest Christmas song, but they totally miss the reason. They have the lyrics as

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

That is how it’s been popularized and is the more common version. But the line “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” is totally out of place, because it’s been put in to make the song less sad. The original is “until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”

The song is about being separated for an indefinite amount of time from everyone and everything you love, and having to find what happiness you can now; it’s about everyone around you completely ignoring your emotional needs, about celebrating even though you’re desperately unhappy, and having to hide that unhappiness from everyone around you. That’s why it’s the saddest Christmas carol.

And the fact that Judy Garland got roles where she sang regretful torch songs covering that same sense of alienation was what made her so popular with legions of alienated people, gay and otherwise, through the forties and fifties. I have no idea what turned her into a gay icon.

But I do know that, ever since that fateful week, I’ve had the complete lyrics to all too many of those songs burned into my memory. Including the parodies, like Beat me In St. Louis.

Dakar Noir

The Dakar Rally 2005 begins on January 1st, this time in Barcelona. Sixteen days, six and a half thousand miles by car, truck, or motorcycle, on roads, mountains, forests, and deserts, through Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, and Senegal. And for significant portions of the race, the route doesn’t provide much evidence when you leave it: they post the coordinates of checkpoints, and contestants are expected to navigate from one to the next. Even with a GPS, people tend to get lost. Two of the eight American competitors are from my area. Total competitors: 230 bikes, 165 cars, 70 trucks. And a lot of support vehicles.

Firefox is Popular

A propos Luis mentioning his sister’s browser preference: Christine and Pete and Lucia and I were in a conference room thinking of personas for NLD 10 and the thermostat was broken and it was like 80 in there. So the maintenance and HVAC guys came in and fixed it, and said they hoped we weren’t bothering us, and we said, no, no problem, we’re just thinking up imaginary people to sell software to. And they said, what kind of software? Do you guys use Mozilla Firefox? I’m telling you, get rid of Internet Explorer, I won’t touch it.

We were greatly pleased.

Comments back on

Comments are now working on the blog. Chatter away. Today’s topic of discussion:

Telling children that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc. exist sets them up for an ultimately disappointing revelation that their parents have lied to them, and their universe is not as safe and comforting as they once believed. Some argue that children may come to the conclusion that their parents have lied to them about the existence of God as well.

If this is true, should parents:

  • Tell their kids that Santa exists, in order to teach them the hard lesson that adults are not to be trusted and God does not exist?
  • Not mention Santa or treat Santa as a fairy tale, assuming that the kids will learn eventually that adults are merely human in some other way.
  • Tell their kids that Santa exists, because it’s fucking hilarious to play that kind of trick on people, nobody but your own kids are gullible enough to fall for it.

Handbasket

I was surprised to see the Vatican offering new courses on demonic posession, since it’s a topic that’s more traditionally associated with the days when the line between spiritual ecstasies and demonic horror was unblurred by talk of schizophrenia, brain tumors, or whether women should be allowed to read.

Then again, when your art supply store will sell you squirrel feet by the half-dozen you may feel that there’s plenty of room for a little concern about the arcane inquiries of your young.

News Quiz: Bad Reviews vs. Bad Economic News

Which of the following comes from Pulitzer-prize winning automotive critic Dan Niel’s incredibly vicious review of the Mercury Montego, and which one comes from Slate columnist Timothy Noah’s coverage of Bush economic policy:

a) “… like feeling the icy hand of death upon you.”
b) “… like a weatherman covering a blizzard and never once mentioning the word snow.”
c) “on paper, [this] has much to recommend it, which would be fine if [it] were made of paper.”
d) “Can [these guys] get the notes from someone else in the class? … Over and over, [it] fumbles the fundamentals.”