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Let them have Cake
Posted:21 Apr 2011 17:41 +0100
This renowned phrase attributed to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette">Marie Antoinette</a> is commonly used to illustrate the arrogance, naiveté and spoiled nature of aristocrats and monarchs in pre-democratic Europe. Yet thinking of it today, I wonder to what extent we can really consider this utterancestupid. It seems to me it has been taken quite literally by modern day politicians and industrialists and applied to the freedom-loving denizens of the Western world. Did our forebears rebel against the former ruling class because they hoped their descendants would thus have the luxury of choosing between 500 brands of washing powder and be able to purchase flimsy items made from non-biodegradeable materials by children in sweatshops on the other side of the globe? Possible, yet doubtful. I will assume the majority of them lacked the imagination to even dream of such wonders. Probably they were more concerned with achieving an equal distribution of wealth and possibly education and healthcare for everyone, pretty basic human rights, really. Modern western society revolves around a very basic concept of freedom. The freedom of consumer choice, or, frankly, to have cake. Yes, I realise that when quoted, the phrase having cake is meant to imply she did not fathom the concept of actually having nothing, so naively suggested if the peasants have no bread, they should eat yeast cake. But it could be taken otherwise, as in, give them cake and they will be distracted and shut their traps; like we do now. We are like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi">Chinese vampires</a>, held up by grains of rice thrown in front of us, except we are not counting them, we are drugged by what we interpret as their beauty and excitement, and we mistake our liberty to gaze at them and purchase a few with what remains of our wages after donating most of them to a government we did probably not vote for, for them to spend on things we don't consider necessary -- as freedom.I anticipate those reactionary minds who will be thinking, Well, lil' girl, you go back in time and live as a peasant and see how you like it. But that is not the issue here. The issue is that we have collectively sold out. We have traded social development and idealism - for cake!And so I will now provide a recipe for a cake which really everyone can make, have and eat, regardless of their morals, potential allergies or anything else. It is even vegan. Obviously the alert and inquisitive reader will now loudly demand: why vegan? And since he or she is reading this on a modern portable device while engaged in some other activity, probably in a social context such as travelling to or from work, his or her peers will look up at her or him inquisitively or disapprovingly, momentarily distracted from their cupcakes, blackberries or apples. Puns intended, and can I just sayhefrom now on? Because being politically correct can be a right old bore, and frankly, who cares if both hes and shes are meant when people use the words he or him? Is it that relevant to life on earth? There are more pressing matters, surely. Such as making an informed decision as to which is the best anti-frizz shampoo.Q: So, why vegan?A. Dairy products are over-rated. Running the risk of being hung, drawn and quartered by paediatricians foaming at the mouth and stoned to death by people related to sufferers of osteoporosis*, I will just say that mammals are not designed to consume milk their entire lives and certainly not in vast quantities, even were one to argue that carnivores might indulge from time to time. Milk is there to feed babies, in the human case this would be for six to 24 months, not 60 to 80 years, or whatever our average life expectancy is nowadays. Additionally, humans, being as we all know terribly superior to other species, cannot be dependent upon another species to provide us with milk for our entire lives, hence, logically we do not need milk unless we provide it for ourselves, which brings me to the human milk factor. Normally one hears people making utterances to the effect of animals are dirty, frequently they will involve opinions that animals will pass on various diseases and illnesses to us, although at the end of the day, we are the ones who most frequently pass illnesses on to each other. Or when was the last time you had kennel cough? However, when it comes to milk, suddenly animal milk is safe and human milk is the major no-no, unless one is a baby, of course. Everyone is against the consumption of human milk for anyone over 2. Recently the London ice-cream parlour who created <a href="http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/24/london-ice-cream-parlor-creates-baby-gaga-flavor-from-human-br/">Baby Gaga</a>, an ice cream made of human milk, had their stock <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12615353">confiscated by the authorities who were concerned about the possible health hazards involved</a>.And this leaves me wondering, why are animals considered contagious, except in the matter of milk, where suddenly humans are worse? And why does humanity consider it good and necessary to consume milk -- unless it is human? Isn't our distaste of human milk the natural reaction to something we are not meant to consume as adults? Maybe unemployment would be less of an issue if lactating women were allowed to sell their milk, and why when we are a race so prone to intolerance, à la "the immigrants are stealing our jobs", do we not bellow in disgust at the thought that animals are stealing our jobs, after all, human women can make milk too, and in all likelihood it would be more becoming and less prone to cause adverse reactions such as milk protein allergies or lactose intolerance, since mammals produce milk designed specifically for the needs of the young of their own species. Maybe we just don't trust one another as a race. Commercial milk may be saturated with hormones and antibiotics, but at least cows don't shoot heroin or smoke crack. Having said that, human milk naturally contains beta endorphins (opioids). I could go on, but I really ought to return to the matter in hand before you get to work or your lunch break is over, so in short, dairy products are, in my humble opinion, quite overused, hence my anti-materialistic cake uses oil as opposed to butter, and no eggs. Why no eggs? You will now ejaculate, spawning further disapproval from your fellow travellers. Well, why eggs? I retort. Eggs too are in far too many things. As a concept they are really fairly repellent, and frequently nowadays they hit the news headlines being contaminated with dioxins and other dodgy things, hardly surprising since chicken feeding is now a commercialised science. Whatever happened to the yard bird fed on grain? I guess they just don't generate enough profit for enough people. In an eggshell, I think we can do without having eggs in cake, so no eggs. I dreamt I laid a blue egg once, but we won't go into that.Ceci n'est pas une Brioche, or Marie Antoinette's P(l)easant Cake100 ml oil of choice, if you use olive oil, keep in mind it has a strong taste which some people may find alienating in cake140 g sugar (make it brown, be a devil)Egg replacer for 2 eggs (use instructions on packet). Don't resort to some alternative method like crushed linseeds, it won't taste right.Dash of lemon juice/lemon peel (from untreated lemons) to taste125 ml soya milk/rice milk/oat milk whatever200 grams flour or spelt flour, or any gluten-free flour if you have a gluten intolerance/allerg2 teaspoons baking powder1 punnet raspberries (200 g)Grease a cake tin of your choice and preheat the oven to 180 CMake egg replacer according to instructions on packet.Blend with the sugar, oil and lemon juice. Use a blender :PAdd the flour and milk.Pour mixture into the cake tin, sprinkle the raspberries on top (they will sink).Bake in oven for approx an hour or until a fork or skewer comes out clean (try not to hit the raspberries as that won't tell you if it's done).Note that cakes baked with oil go stale less quickly than normal cakes, so you don't have to eat it all at once.Now, chew on that.* My grandmother suffered from osteoporosis, yet her diet was saturated with dairy products, as are the diets of most people nowadays.
2011, Black Abbot Beer Chocolate and other Banter
Posted:5 Jan 2011 17:33 +0100
<center><a href="http://www.coppeneur.de/cms/front_content.php?idart=75"><img src="../img/Schwarzbier_Sch.jpg" alt=""></img></a></center>Hopefully everyone survived the so-called "Holiday Season" and their new year's initiation, and is looking forward to a 2011 bursting with pseudo revelations on the despicable nature of the world and the human race. AJ, Anton, Wolf and I wish you all a joyful year to come. Well, they probably don't, but they have no say in the matter. My plans for the new year are to continue putting the final touches toDeathscent, the long awaited novel by dead poet Wolf Rabenhorst. I am also working on a fantasy novel featuring Gilles de Rais, the Pied Piper, and Poppy de Vine (yes, spelt like that), which promises to be more accessible than my poems and short stories, and which will hopefully be completed within the next few months. Other than that, I will hopefully record the remainder ofHeart:Scatter:Logical for release as downloadable sound files, a project that is in limbo due to a cold I got a few months ago that developed a clingy relationship with my throat lining. AJ is planningHeart:Scatter:Logical vol.2, and I hope to publish my children's storyThe Seven Belly Buttons; sadly no one with artistic talent can be found to illustrate it.Don't forget that signed copies ofHeart:Scatter:Logicalcan be ordered from <a href="http://aj-books.com/">aj-books</a>. Those that are boycotting Paypal and/or prefer real shops can now get it from Freedom Bookshop in London.(Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX, City of London, United Kingdom). My sister SIG is having an exhibition there too, starting tomorrow 6. Jan, so don't miss that if you live in London or are in the area.Click below to get to the event:<a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/event.php?eid=185694154790465"><img alt="" src="../img/Almanac-of-the-Discarded.jpg"></img></a><a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#%21/event.php?eid=185694154790465"> </a>On a ridiculous note, anyone playing Cityville who is friends with me on Facebook can get their own Sweet Oblivion tavern in their town, just ask :PI will now resist the urge to devour more Schwarzer Abt chocolate and go and cook something as I am seeing triple.Sweet, Sweet Oblivion Let me forget The things I''ve done. Let sleazy, Sugary, Queasy Nightmares Divide my mind From the things inside. The thoughts as acid As anthrax; The memories as divine As disease. Dissect my unconscious fear Of all things near Of all things dear Dear Darkness Come. To sweet, sweet Oblivion.
Left off Center
Posted:26 Aug 2010 17:05 +0100
<center><iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" src="../heart-scatter-logical/hsl-amazon.html"></iframe></center> I adore my hoover. It is a Dyson Animal Pro, metallic orange and grey plastic. It sucks the life out of everything living, but no doubt could be used in reverse manner to resuscitate the suicidal among us. Recently I have felt like I have been sucked up inside that hoover, whizzing around inside with chunks of filth, hair and glitter. A bit like the baroque mystic concept of people being lost in a concentric whirlwind, failing to hit the spot in the middle where peace of mind lives. I did intend to put some nifty link to great wisdom there, but after getting sucked into a seventeenth century tornado of ranting about how god is in me if I am in god, but to be god I have to cease to be, Death, Satan, and the abyss, my mind began to buzz like a fish, my stomach to roar like a despot, my knee to grind like unwashed lentils ... and my gullet to clamor for Pernod. So my quest for the epicentre, or at least its documentation failed. I should have sought spices instead. Aniseed maybe. And so here I wonder, wander and meander, avoiding my point as if it were either infectious or too perfect to bear looking at. In fact it is neither. And neither here nor there. It is evasive, like everything I have failed to touch of late. I seem to be caught in slomo, grasping at the strings attached to balloons all floating off in random directions.And my cat ate my photographs, memories of my youth. In the dead of night. Logically, to add to that waxing confusion, Heart:Scatter:Logical has finally hit print. Anyone wishing to purchase a copy can do so from the following places: <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Heart-Scatter-Logical-Uta-Lotharingia/dp/0956170226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1282227604&sr=8-1">Amazon.co.uk</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Heart-Scatter-Logical-Uta-Lotharingia/dp/0956170226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1282227604&sr=8-1">Amazon.de </a><a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Heart-Scatter-Logical-Uta-Lotharingia/dp/0956170226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=english-books&qid=1282228628&sr=8-1">Amazon.fr</a> <a href="http://www.aj-books.com/">aj-books</a> Or, request a signed copy from me from approximately 10 pounds sterling, I will keep the doting masses posted when I finally manage to get my calculations done, it is proving difficult whilst inhaling hoover dirt and watching balloons. The Spice of the Knife. by ~Lotharingia She rummaged through the cutlery drawer, removing one knife after the other, running her index finger along the blades sceptically. Sighed. Put them all back, left the drawer open and wandered off, twisting one hand in her nest of unkempt hair. The winter sun shimmered reluctantly through the windows. Pure, crisp and yet lethargic. She climbed on the window sill, squinted out. People passed by, looked. Looked away. She wondered why. If she had not been there, they would have pressed their greasy noses against the panes, commenting loudly in foreign languages or in indecipherable words. She went back to the kitchen, turned the radio on. It was badly tuned, wisps of By the Rivers of Babylon intermingled with a voice crackling French like and interminable hailstorm and pulsating balalaika tunes. She took all the knives from the drawer, sharpened each one in turn with slow determination and placed them, neatly arranged, on a clean but crumpled tea towel covering a tray. She painted their blades with liquid honey using a pastry brush, sprinkled each with a different spice, ginger, chilli, cardamom, turmeric, cumin, coriander. Having deposited the tray on the kitchen table, she sat, legs crossed, the fingers of one hand again twisting her hair. With the other hand she took the knives, one at a time, licked off the sweetness and the bitterness, feeling a warm liquid pearl down her chin and spatter on her dress.<center><img src="../img/hsl.jpg" alt=""></img> <object height="300" width="400"><param value="true" name="allowfullscreen"></param><param value="http://www.facebook.com/v/450487657677" name="movie"></param><embed height="300" width="400" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.facebook.com/v/450487657677"></embed></object></center>
The Fe-Lie
Posted:8 Aug 2010 12:11 +0100
While exposing my submarine skin to the churlish sunlight this afternoon, my mind wandered to wonderland, where it met Puss-in-Boots. Clad in his usual smartarse cat attire, he eyed me sardonically while I eyed him critically, cynically and finally downright cataclysmically.Folklore will generally have it that intelligence is superior to violence or standard social norms, as in, he who is clever will succeed. But on closer inspection, are the protagonists of these tales truly intelligent, or is there a more sinister moral to these stories?If we take, for example, the story of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Valiant_Little_Tailor">The Valiant Little Tailor</a>, what do we have really? Do we have a champion of intellect, an amazing entrepreneur, a dedicated scholar? Do we have a character that represents any of the standards Christian morality teaches us to nurture? Modesty, generosity, tolerance? The answer is, no. The tailor is nothing more than a cunning and very manipulative trickster; A master in the art of fooling others to do his bidding at incredibly little effort, his talents lie in lying and mind control. Everyone believes that<q>Seven at one Blow</q>, which he stitches proudly onto his belt, refers to seven men he killed in one blow, but in truth he is referring to flies he swatted while they mobbed his open jam sandwich. He tricks a giant into believing he has gargantuan strength by squeezing whey from cheese while the giant squeezes water from a rock and completes all the challenges posed by the king again through cunning trickery. Two giants are made to kill each other by the tailor throwing stones at them in succession from a tree and letting them believe they are hitting one another, for example, and as a result he ends up wedding the king's daughter and thus inheriting the kingdom.But what folklore is teaching us here, is that it is not morals or conforming that pave the road to success, nor does it require extraordinary learning. All that is needed is self-confidence, a sharp wit as to assessing and abusing others lacking perception and an absolute absence of conscience. Manipulations of the truth and deception are what is required to succeed, in essence we are dealing with the description of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath">psychopath.</a><a target="_blank" href="http://media.photobucket.com/image/master%20and%20margarita/stareblade/behemoth.jpg?o=1"><img border="0" src="../img/behemoth.jpg" style="width: 198px; height: 290px;" alt=""></img></a>So what of Puss-in-Boots? Puss takes this a whole step further. We are confronted with a naïve young man who finds success by listening to the advice of a psychopathic feline. I.e. we are dealing with a psychopath with zoomorphic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder">dissociative identity disorder</a>, where the<q>guilt</q>is transferred to an animal who has to take responsibility for the protagonist's amoral behavior. Again, success is achieved by trickery and deception, with the miller's son finally attaining great wealth when his cat fools a magician into turning into a mouse and then eating him. The Satanic imagery is evident. Black cats symbolize black magic, and here the cat, i.e. the psychopathic aspect of the candid boy's persona, indulges in cannibalism. The ultimate prize is the king's daughter's hand in marriage, and the lesson the reader learns is that Machiavellian defiance of social and moral norms is a worthy course for those who wish to attain success and happiness, and these can only be achieved in life via anti-social egocentrism and extreme mental illness, or simply an alliance with Satan. Those of us who do not select that course, be it through choice or a deficit in the required talents, are left with a sickening neuroticism born of this set of paradoxical values. This is where hell becomes the others, the world a stage and life a laughing gas.Einstürzende Neubauten - Selbstportrait mit Kater (Selfportrait wit Tom Cat / Hangover)<object width="425" height="344"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CYt-7Um5OFs&hl=de_DE&fs=1?color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" name="movie"></param><param value="true" name="allowFullScreen"></param><param value="always" name="allowscriptaccess"></param><embed width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="flash-selbstportrait"></embed></object>
Words
Posted:19 May 2010 17:56 +0100
<center>W o r d s</center>2day the author, who has been perusing "<a href="http://www.abbreviations.com/acronyms/CHAT/78">chatspeak</a>" in an online glossary, feels like being obvious. And the most obvious subject to write about after observing the tragi-comic modern demise of written communication into a jumble of apparently incoherent letters and numbers, is words. Proper words, that is, and the most obvious way to start talking about words would be to quote St John and the somewhat absurd primary statement of his gospel,<q>In the beginning was the Word</q>, for how could the word have existed before language?Inevitably, the next place the mind wonders to is the <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGolem&ei=rWL1S86hIYaZOM_ulZQJ&usg=AFQjCNEaJcQQmSzgZ9z8w3vY6Ii7dVBHIQ&sig2=k3eHjCqs6wPYfxCsQ9-Nig">golem</a> myth, that bulky, blundering, post-clay beast that comes to life when you place The Word in his mouth, or by writing the word <a href="http://www.hebrew4christians.net/Glossary/Word_of_the_Week/Archived/Emet/emet.html">emet</a> (truth),on its forehead. It can be deactivated by removing the word from its mouth, or by erasing the aleph (e) from the word emet, creating the word "met", meaning death.* Note that Aleph is the first letter of the semitic alphabet, inspite of being referred to as "e" here.In Jorge Luis Borges's short story <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aleph_%28short_story%29">The Aleph</a>, (this first in the collectionThe Aleph and other Stories(1949)), the aleph is an object that contains infinity allowing anyone who views it to discern space and time in complete detail, this is contrasted to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zahir">The Zahir</a> (the final story), which exists on the other side of the spectrum, an object that essentially negates infinity by making the viewer become obsessed with it alone until the rest of reality ceases to exist.The word is the beginning, and as the beginning it must also be the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the aleph and the zahir, the a and the zed. That is why, who can deny it, the Apocalypse was written by Saint John, and also why St John's Wort is called St.John's Wort, for the<q>Wort</q>is not a viral carbuncle which can only be eliminated by getting a virgin to urinate on it at full moon. Oh no! It is the German word for word. So since St. John's Wort calms the nerves, one could assume it refers to the hypothetical word at the end of The Apocalypse, i.e. serenity, or oblivion. So this apparently randomly named herb has more depth to it than anyone would have dreamed of: What's in a Word? A Wort by any other name would smell less sweet (especially afteradministering the traditional method of treatment mentioned above). And, yes, of course words smell, and taste, and anything else we want them to do, for words have the power to bring anything to life; and we can make soup out of them. Or if we are German, salad.Wortsalat, is just another term for gibberish, and eating words certainly would save money. Words are creation, the lifeblood of existence. So much so that, as we established, they existed before themselves, they create and negate. Beat that, as my nephew Sky would shrewdly add.That inevitably takes us to the realm of the poppy, the sleep drug: opium, the portal to oblivion. Paradoxically, St. John's Wort, when taken by a body in opiate dream, instigates cold turkey. And that too, has meanings beyond the superficial appearance. Life (opium) is the dream, death (St. John's Wort) ends the dream. But if the dream (opium) is happy, the afterlife (St John's Wort: comedown) is unpleasant; and if it is unhappy, the afterlife (St. John's Wort being taken to numb depression) is a relief. How very Ying Yang.But talking of heroin, the German word for Cold Turkey is<q>Affe</q>, meaning monkey. I have often wondered what on earth could be meant by that. The English term clearly refers to those glum post Christmas days, when people crawl around with that rainy, dissolute feeling, invariably hung over, if only due to relative overdose. But monkey? During my youth in Wales, people would make utterances à la<q>My mum went ape, she did</q>, meaning she was angry. Maybe like a mad gorilla. Do people coming down from heroin throw oranges at passers-by? They sweat and <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1yfvq_cure-lets-go-to-bed_music">shake like milk</a>. I've never seen a monkey do that to date. Not that I spend a lot of time engaged in monkey-observation, but still. The most effective way of describing cold turkey in German would surely be<q>Ich hab Affe wie Sau</q>,<q>I have monkey like sow</q>; note the acute use of animal references in all these terms.<object width="425" height="344"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-sg5c9Kc4m8&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" name="movie"></param><param value="true" name="allowFullScreen"></param><param value="always" name="allowscriptaccess"></param><embed width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="flash-gone-1"></embed></object>The oranges monkeys throw are round, like words. Words are round because like eternity, or eggs, which are another subject altogether, they have neither beginning nor end. I dream of a world in which monkeys bombard us with eternity and heroin addicts find infintiy in eggs, but at least this world contains the song<q>Ich hatte ein Wort</q>, in which <a href="http://www.blixa-bargeld.com/">Blixa Bargeld</a> tells us:Ich hatte ein Wort ein rundes, rund wie eine Orange es hat mitunter, mitternachts, den ganzen Innenraum mir erhellt die Frucht war nach der Natur bewachsen einem Foto des Mondes neben dem BettI had a worda round one, like an orangesometimes it lit up my complete interior at midnight its fruit was overgrown as in naturea photograph of the moon next to my bed His word is round, like and orange, like the moon, symbol of the eternal cycle of things, life and death. So next time someone tries to pretzel your brain with the annoying cliché:What came first, the chicken or the egg? Just ask: What came first, the pretzel, or the brain? or: Did the moon wax before it waned or wane before it waxed?The verb<q>to wax</q>is directly related etymologically to the German<q>wachsen</q>, to grow. Who knows why wax is wax in English and Wachs is wax in German, but as long as we can wax lyrical and our words are dynamically overgrown, who really cares? One word makes many words, and yet all the words ever coined are still sometimes never enough to describe the simplest things, like the termites that raid the pit of your intestines when smitten, leaving your tongue lashing to articulte your emotions like an inebriated tadpole. And that is why the Word is God, for The Word is no word at all, in the end.<img src="../img/love-god.jpg" alt=""></img>* Met is mead in German:Care to come round for a cup of death?
The Teutonic Wasabi Dream
Posted:14 May 2010 16:56 +0100
<center>The Teutonic Wasabi Dream</center>We are all familiar with the culinary crazes that have begun to flourish one after the other, like summer flowers bringing color into our wintry lives. Some die down after a period, others linger a while, or even become permanent. One such mania that has taken hold of the German nation recently is a rapidly growing obsession with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasabi">wasabi</a>.Wasabi, or Japanese horseradish as it is otherwise known, is a root traditionally used to spice foods in Japan. Its bite is sour, mustard like, and blazes up through the palate and into the nose.In Germany, so-called Wasabi nuts or peas used to only dwell on the shelves of Asian groceries, hidden coyly amidst endless variants of soy and chilli sauces. But in recent years, the nuts have become increasingly abundant amongst the more traditional snacks offered in German supermarkets: namely miniature pretzels, so-called Salzstangen (pretzel sticks), and almost invariably paprika-flavored chips. These peanuts are coated in a beautifully perfect ovoid shell of dusty peagreen crunchiness. On entering your mouth, they will make your senses contract, and sometimes result in tears, or at least a cherry red complexion. The nuts, I will add, are an almost pleasant type of gustatory torture: you tend to go back for more.<center><img width="214" height="300" alt="" src="../img/ueltje.gif"></img><img width="189" height="280" alt="" src="../img/chio.jpg"></img></center>What began as a tingling interest, is now burning the nation. Germany has literally entered Wasabiphilia. Jolly, fat bags of lime green chips burst out of every corner of the hypermarket. They are pretty as a Barbie doll is to a six-year old girl, so everyone has to try them at least once, and although they are utterly repugnant, I am sure many Real Men go back for more time and time again. At least two designer chocolate manufacturers have created Wasabi chocolate, one variant being vegan dark chocolate with wasabi, and another a wasabi and algae truffle produced by exotic chocolatier <a href="http://www.coppeneur.de">Coppeneur</a> (weird and wonderful chocolate flavors are another booming market here currently). That lurid green wedge of Edam style cheese I recently spotted reclining on the clinical crushed ice of the cheese counter, nestled cozily between the warm glow of the Tête de Moine and the frigid Provlone, was on closer inspection, not basil as expected, not sage à la Sage Derby, not nettle, or wild garlic, but Wasabi. And inevitably, the drinks cannot be missing, so of course there is a Wasabi liqueur, namely <a href="http://www.hardenberg-wilthen.de/default.php">Hardenberg</a>'s Kleiner Keiler Orange Wasabi & Vodka, available in mini bottles much like the more well-known <a href="http://www.kleinerfeigling.de/">Kleiner Feigling</a>.<center><img alt="" src="../img/wasabi-cheese.jpg"></img><img alt="" src="../img/coppeneur-schokolade-wasabi-algen.jpg"></img></center>So if your taste buds need some spring cleaning, why not set out on a quest to discover the Wasabi grail? Who knows, it may wake some long dormant desires, or at least satisfy an urge to torture unsuspecting guests.<center><img alt="" src="../img/kk_flasche_ow.jpg"></img></center>
Alfalfa and Omega 3; Relevantly
Posted:10 Mar 2010 00:30 +0100
For some reason I associate March with insanity. I think this is Lewis Carroll's fault, in fact I know it. This March is featuring the most hostile wind imaginable. The type that makes your nerves retract and leaves you stumbling around, bent quadruple like an arthritis-ridden bumble bee. I even purchased some bumblebee antlers as a makeshift disguise, figuring I would attract less attention that way, for unadulterated I would obviously look rather amputated, but my son destroyed them in a fit of male creativity. So, now only one antler remains. And don't even think about thinking that they are not called antlers! You know they are, deep in that shallow, gangrenous heart anchored uncertainly in the dilapidated harbor of your chest wig. <img width="300" alt="" src="../img/Great_Britain.jpg"></img> Yes, sorry, couldn't resist. Wigs, Wham!s and all other words starting with or without Siamese ewes, will nevertheless be swept away by those brave enough to venture outside, especially those very strange, inbred beings that wield umbrellas in order to furtively steal other people's eyes. I suspect it is them who stole the eyes of the wind and abducted his fianacée, and that's why he shrieks so lividly and scratches your cheeks on passing, hoping to find his lost love by the touch, but too high on his own hysteria to actually pay attention to what his nails come into contact with. March Hare:Boy, I sure hope this doesn't get into the private eye newsletter!<img width="300" height="261" alt="" src="../img/06_Fliegender_Robert.jpg"></img> But all cold things must come to an end. Thusly, as someone once said, they know who they are, so must the wind and this soliloquy. In anticipation of Easter, we can make it oval, and pretentiously refer to Joseph Roth who said mourning is like an egg, without beginning or end. So here is a Lewis Carroll inspired poem. The Mad Lovers' Song She thought she saw a poet With languid azure eyes: She looked again, and found it was A boy who'd lost his soul. "I'll help you on your quest," she said; But he thought that she lied. He thought he saw a princess That wove him nets of glass: He looked again, and found it was The image of his heart. "The one thing I regret," he said, "Is that it's such a mess!" He thought he saw an exit From his solitude: He looked again, and found it had A livid attitude. "If this is Maya's veil," he said, "It's an odd hue of blue!" He thought he saw a reaper grim That knitted knots of maggots: He looked again, and found it was A well without a rim. "Were I to sink in this," he said, "I doubt that I could swim!" She said she would wait anyway For the devil to decide: If he should stay or run away Or take some cyanide. "Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing! A demon needs no bride" "Poor thing," she said, "poor silly thing! You're just a boy disguised"
Elimination of Editor's Block
Posted:8 Mar 2010 16:50 +0100
Wo die Neurosen wuchern, will ich Landschaftsgärtner sein -Element of Crime (I want to be a landscape gardener where neuroses grow like weeds.)Well it is cold as heaven (hell is hot, ergo heaven must be cold, that's why angels disguise themselves as polar bears). The crocuses are probably not appreciating the divine climes, and shudder on seeing their breath freeze when they were so happily basking in the recent warmth, but nonetheless Spring is approaching. My house has reached an all time high on the pig sty front. The filth has acquired an advanced sense of pride which causes it to regenerate rapidly after annihilation. It must have learnt this from the trolls, for bite-covered, it rises from the dead. And I pity those who can detect the origin of that übernerdy reference. My clever dog trashed the place further the other day by dragging the tablecloth and its entire contents half way round the house, and I have begun to find myself grunting, snorting and getting lost on trips to other dimensions, ergo the filth mimicking trolls, er troll-micking filth. So what better time to brave the confused elements and inflict the final draft of my book on my unsuspecting publisher <a href="http://www.aj-books.com/">AJ</a>. After all, day follows night, so order must be born of chaos. Not that anything I write would involve order.So, Heart:Scatter:Logical is out of my delirious hands now, and hopefully not out to lunch with the person who abducted my brain yesterday during one of my dimension salad binges. When it returned, it claimed to have suffered a blackout, but reliable sources informed me it started imbibing red wine at lunch and was later seen embracing a pock-marked, Martini-swigging man in a postmortem crisis, who was clad in a fisherman's mac and exuding an olfactory aura of liver sausage and Sardinian Maggot cheese. I put my hands over my ears, shut my eyes and began to hum loudly when the informant threatened to continue relating these tragic events with onion relish. Hear no rebel, see no devil, smell no evil.Enough of my waffles. We have a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uta-Lotharingia/351614531575?v=info">fanpage</a>, a <a href="../heart-scatter-logical">webpage</a>, and talking of pancakes, I think I will go and make some of them now. Can't get enough of them really.
Abnormal Entities
Posted:29 Jan 2010 12:23 +0100
i'm here now, and what does it show?-- GodThe day began like any other day. I got up, far too early, and felt like the abominable snow man, minus the snow. I wiped the gravel from my eyes, cursed the sandman under my breath and wondered why I was still blind on the right eye. Descending the stairs proved as challenging as scaling Mount Everest would be for a shaven no-toed sloth, and that askew thought got me recalling Madd Worms and his toe theory, as he feels they are becoming defunct as evilution [sick] advances; I say dissolve the Fucker in bad Italian red wine and count your blessings, though in all likelihood, you have none, at least less than the sloth has toes. The Fucker is evolution, in case that wasn't clear, which I doubt it was, as few things are at such an early hour.So I fumbled around in that disgusting morning state that begins to befall us at age 18, becoming worse by the year, until at 30 we wonder if Death will be worse than this. By 35 we will have crossed the abyss of any and every measure, ranging from health freak binges to utter hedonism, depending upon our state of mind, and by 40 we will be convinced whatever path we chose was the righteous one, as we will no longer recall what it felt like to feel fresh as a god damn daisy, though most of them I see are in a miserable state. But, hell yeah, as they say. Or heaven no. Or heaven is waiting and let's burst into ancient tacky 80's indie numbers, maybe that will make future mornings more bearable. Worth a try, at least.<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/foAxh5N6CBw&hl=de_DE&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed width="425" height="344" src="flash-gone-2" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

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