Ploafmaster General

This past week I was fortunate enough to experience two inventive foods - each from two of my favorite Richmond food establishments.

First off was the pork/pistachio/truffle sausage from the Belmont Butchery. When Tanya suggested this initially I decided to try a link mostly out of curiosity, but I was completely taken aback by how well the components blended, particularly the pistachio and the pork. The black truffle shavings were so spare as to have only a small influence over the complete flavor, but they certainly rounded out the whole thing.

The second was this evening at DeLuca Gelato. While Valerie was deciding which flavors of sorbetto to combine, the proprietor offered me a taste of a new flavor: Balsamico Estasi - Balsamic Ecstasy. Here were raspberries steeped in quality aged balsamic vinegar mixed into a rich base of gelato with shavings of chocolate. Now chocolate and raspberries are a no brainer pairing if you already like both, but the balsamic provided a subtle fruity complexity and tanginess.

Richmond may not have a larger city's profusion of top-notch food outlets, but we sure do have our share of inventive places to chow. This week's surprises confirm that, and reinforce my love of eating here.

This is my favorite shot off my first roll for the photography class I'm taking. I'm pretty happy with it as is, but I'm also interested to see how some of my prints turn out. If I get a decent one off of this negative, I'll post the two side-by-side for comparison.

This is probably one of the most clever song covers I've seen. Old electronics used to play "Nude" from Radiohead:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1109226 w=580&h=326]
Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

(via kottke)

Blankenship blogged about Plainview. Gruber blogged about 280slides. I decided to see how it would work putting the two together.

The result is a little slow on my 2006 Macbook Pro, but the concept and the possibilities are pretty amazing. Combining the two tools, you have a (so far) totally free solution for creating and presenting slide shows by way of a web-based tool and a small desktop application. Both Plainview and 280slides only released this week, so there's plenty of room for improvement, but they each seem to be off to good starts.

Sweet vindication!

Bruce Schneier writes a piece for The Guardian debunking the ridiculous notion that terrorism makes regular use of photography.
(via Daring Fireball)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if four vegans were lost while hiking on a mountain of meat? No? That's okay, because David Henne, writing for McSweeney's, lets his imagination answer the question that nobody asked.

This is, hilariously, for real...and not the first year his has happened, either:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITq-38X2UTY&hl=en&w=580&h=485]

In what was, in my opinion, one of the most beautifully filmed and cleverly directed movies of 2007, Julian Schnabel adapts Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography The Diving Bell and The Butterfly with startling emotional force.

The camera shots are at first simply disorienting and discomforting, representing Bauby's waking from a coma. This transitions to an even more unnerving choice of camera work; the majority of the film proceeds as a series of static camera placements moving slowly about each set like the single functioning eye of this paralyzed man, occasionally "blinking" for Bauby's communication. I've never felt so trapped in place from watching a movie, and I've never experienced film direction so effective at generating audience empathy.

It certainly helped that the acting was excellent all around, the screenplay was well done, and the soundtrack was full of fine choices. This is highly recommended to anyone who appreciates the artistic side of film making, and doesn't mind reading subtitles.

Five stars out of five, and I may have to add this to my collection.

Today Weezer released their third self-titled album (the so-called "Red Album"). I decided it'd be quicker, considering my busy after-work errand schedule, to simply hit the 30-second samples on iTunes.

Yup. They still suck hard. Probably harder, in fact.

Steven Hyden over at The A.V. Club sums it up for is:

The breathtakingly stupid Weezer begs the question: Is this for real? Or are the over-processed hooks and lobotomized lyrics intentional self-parody? When Rivers Cuomo sings, "So turn off the TV, 'cause that's what others see, and movies are as bad as eating chocolate ice cream," is he a comic genius feigning creative bankruptcy?

CNN Money has a story on GM's plans to close several truck plants and other dramatic changes as it continues to deal with the changing auto industry at a snail's pace. Such a piece would typically warrant little of my attention, except for this: "Wagoner also said GM is looking at possibly selling its Hummer unit as part of a strategic review of the SUV brand based on military vehicles."

Maybe they can sell it to a military contractor and call it a day. I won't cry at the loss of such an egregious symbol of consumption and hubris on our roads.

Tonight's class, being the first, was a bit shorter than the scheduled time but still full of useful information. The first half of the evening was, as I expected, a review of basic manual camera functions and photography concepts. There wasn't really anything new to me in this section, but the second half picked up with an introduction to the darkroom, developing, enlarging, and printing basics. Let me tell you: watching an exposed piece of photo paper develop in that Dektol bath is way cooler than an emerging Polaroid image.

So here's a rundown of my assignment for the week:
I have to shoot two 24-exposure rolls, 400 speed (B&W of course), of anything I want. I'm to have one processed, uncut, and leave the other undeveloped. This will give us one roll that's sure to be useful for prints, and one to develop ourselves.

With all that comes a shopping list:
1. Negative sleeves
2. Photo paper
3. A whole mess of B&W film - I'll probably grab four rolls of Kodak 400TX from Richmond Camera for this week and next, but I'll likely throw a bunch of Ilford FP4+ in with my online order for the rest of the supplies to take advantage of the cheaper price while I'm already paying for shipping.

I have yet to figure out how to get some of my pictures online. You see, we'll be cutting our negatives for both rolls. This is fine for the roll we have processed before the class because I can have Richmond Camera scan to a CD as usual. But for the roll we develop in class, I'll be left with cut negatives, not yet scanned, and Richmond Camera charges a buck a frame for cut negatives compared to $5 for an uncut roll. Of course, a large point of this class is to make our own prints, and scanned negatives wouldn't necessarily represent the finished product accurately. I suppose if I have prints worth keeping I can have Richmond Camera scan those to a CD for me; this just means I'll have a bit longer delay than usual between when I make prints and when I can share the results online.

Well that's it for this week! I should have some pictures from the processed roll by the end of this week, but again - that will only represent scanned negatives. I may post some of those same pictures again if I get any nice prints out of them.

My boss, as he so often does, passed along an incredible clip from YouTube. This one shows a HUGE radio controlled B-29 Superfortress with working detachable X-1 (the rocket plane which broke the sound barrier). Absolutely amazing, and worth all seven minutes and change.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RVxSn9P568&hl=en&w=580&h=485]

With my photography class starting tonight (and me more jittery than a coke-addled Wall-Streeter), it should be no surprise that I'm pouring over photographs as much as I can. The above mind-blowing wonder comes from Hannah Elisabeth, presumably a UK-based photographer whose later work in particular is so incredible I can only stare. And stare some more. She seems to have extraordinary talent for composite pictures, and while I'm not sure whether the picture seen here fits that description, many of her other work does quite well. In my humble, amateur opinion, she really started to take off around February this year (looking at the "date added" on her pictures in Flickr), with nearly every snap leaving me speechless and gaping.

Big tip-o-the-hat to Michael Eades for pointing her out.

This morning I finally had a chance to stop by the 17th Street Farmers Market to check out Veronica Perez's macarons. She sells them under a little side business called Petites Bouchées, and after the free sample of the hazelnut with salted caramel (pictured above, I believe, from her Flickr account), it was an easy purchasing decision. Val and I bought two pleasantly-wrapped three packs including (between the two) vanilla with buttercream, pistachio with chocolate ganache (AMAZING), raspberry, and the aforementioned hazelnut with salted caramel.

A few important notes:
1. So far these are ideally found at the farmers market on Saturdays only. I believe she'll do Monday orders, but according to her website, I think they're only for out-of-towners (assuming I understood that correctly).
2. Because of today's heat, they were in a cooler instead of on display. The card attached to each packet recommends letting them come to room temperature before consuming. I whole-heartedly agree. I couldn't wait at first and ate one, and I was a little disappointed at the lack of the faint crisp skin I expected from the macarons in Paris. After I was home and they'd warmed up a bit, I had another and presto! Just like France. Delicious.
3. Unfortunately, she only seems to offer the min-sized pastries which are about the diameter of a quarter. Part of me wishes for the larger variety that were available in Paris - a single one is just the right size snack - but then I suppose she'd have to call these grandes bouchées :-)

Whatever the case, these are ALL delicious, and I highly recommend checking out her stall in the market. This week (and perhaps all the time?) she was in the center closer to Main Street, and it's important to note that she won't be there the next two Saturdays, but it's definitely worth waiting until later in June for these authentic goodies.

I have three new shots up on Flickr, and this one was my fave :-)

I'll be starting my photography class this coming Monday, and I fully intend to blog about my assignments, critiques, and results. My photography category is about to get more crowded...

One of the creators of The Venture Brothers spills the beans on his creative process, his characters, and connections to his own life. One of my favorite parts:

AVC: It feels like the show gives viewers a lot of freedom to choose who they respect or sympathize with.

JP: Right, right. [Laughs.] It's a little bit of a pop-cultural, generational thing, too. My generation has a hard time being genuine and enthusiastic. There's a lot of irony in our culture. In a way, some of it's toying with that kind of aspect of the culture. The characters who are genuine and get a little too excited about something geeky are made to feel foolish for it, but they're also seen in a better light than some of the characters who think they're too cool for everybody. For us making the show, there's that push and pull, too, because we're goofing on Johnny Quest and Marvel Comics and bands and stuff like that in the dialogue, but there's a genuine love for most of these things that comes out of us. We don't make fun of anything we don't love, for the most part.

Well well well.

I just returned from an early morning bagel run to Cupertino's N.Y. Bagel and Deli in the West End (do they actually have their own website?). This is my third visit including yesterday morning - investigation requires work, after all - and I'm convinced now that I've found something resembling a decent bagel shop in Richmond (and possibly even a good deli!). I've since had some more bagels (pretty good), a capicola and mozzarella sandwich on their fresh baked rye bread (not quite a deli-portion of meat, but it was DELICIOUS), and even some of that Boylan cream soda I dig so much. Next time I go over there (how soon is too soon?) I plan to hit up some of their fresh crumb cake in addition to some fresh cold cuts for the week's lunches.

Is this a true transplanted deli from the Northeast? Have I found my real bagels and delicatessen?

I'd say it's halfway - but that's very promising for my fair city. The bagels are certainly a cut above anything Einstein's or Panera has to offer. The fact that I can get capicola on a sandwich is rare (but not impossible) in Richmond. The fresh rye bread is fantastic, though, and tasted at least as good as anything I've had back in Jersey. My hope is that Cupertino's remains a busy so that other bagel makers see opportunity down here in the South.

Tip o' the hat to Tripp for pointing out the joint.

This morning I discovered a fairly absurd web comic called The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. How could I resist sharing that?

It's presented in comic book format with multiple pages, and is fairly well drawn and pretty funny so far as well. But I have to be honest...I just thought the name was pretty funny.

Oh - and on a side note. I tried Cuptertino's N.Y. Bagel and Deli this morning. Just a bagel so far, but I plan to return for lunch (Thumann's deli meat!), and maybe even an early morning bagel run tomorrow to get some fresh warm ones. I'll post a write-up after all that.

So a little further prodding provided me with a bit more detail on Beck's next release. It seems that:
1. The new album may (or may not?) be called Modern Guilt, and may (or may not?) release in June.
2. Danger Mouse (the non-singing half of Gnarles Barkley) may be responsible for much of the delicious sound.
3. This is Beck's last major-label contract album. I can't wait to see what he does after this...

Nicole Pasulka interviews painter Kehinde Wiley for The Morning News about his series, "Colliding Worlds," which unites classical portrait painting and contemporary imagery.

The images provided for the article are particularly enjoyable in their inclusion of the frames which, I feel, add a bit of extra character to these works. My favorite is "Tosin Otegbole" with its bold orange background and line-drawing-esque overlays.

As if I didn't already love The A.V. Club, I just read happy news on their site about upcoming albums from two musical acts which I dig.

Apparently Sigur Ros is dropping a new album on June 24th, and - this one really has me pumped - BECK is expected to release a new album soon with his new track, "Chemtrails," already streamable on his website (and it's an awesome song).

This could be a great summer for my music collection...

There's a story making the rounds on the Interwebs about Dunkin' Donuts pulling an ad in which Rachel Ray wears a patterned scarf. This scarf caused a furor because it apparently resembles an Arabic keffiyeh - a detail which enraged talking heads who are so xenophobically knee-jerk in their responses that they're practically kicking themselves in the face over this. Besides the corporate idiocy of Dunkin' Donuts' response, I'm pretty pissed that none of the apoplectic objectors bothered to look into what a keffiyeh actually is. But I guess that would require caring about people who don't look and dress like they do...

For the curious, the keffiyeh is cloth (plain or patterned) used by Arabic peoples to shield their heads from the sun. While it has become associated closely with prominent antagonistic Arabic figures, it's origins and meaning are no more harmful than a t-shirt.

So terrorists often wear sandals. Am I gonna draw angry stares from people here in the US because I sport a pair of flip flops? Puh-lease.

On this past weekend's episode of This American Life (the radio program) I caught two string quartet arrangements of some Led Zeppelin music - "Stairway to Heaven" and "Dazed and Confused" - so, naturally, I had to find out who performed the songs.

It turns out to be a group called The Vitamin String Quartet, which is part of the larger Vitamin Records. Now Vitamin is an oddity...they seem exclusively to pump out reimaginings of popular music in alternate genres, such as the "String Quartet to Led Zeppelin" (containing the aforementioned songs) and "The Lounge Tribute to Eminem: Chocolate on the Inside."

I'm conflicted about how to react to all of this.

On one hand, some of the arrangements on their products are very clever, and even enjoyable listens. On the other hand, these albums are pretty much in the same music-industrial flatus category of albums as "Now That's What I Call Music." I mean, c'mon! Do we really need an album full of new-agey U2 covers? This is the stuff hold music and grocery store white noise is made of.

As my trip to DE draws to a close I'm reminded that back home I've found a real butcher and some real pizza. Heck, I've even found real gelato.

But after having fresh egg bagels every morning here in Delaware reminds me that I have yet to find authentic bagels in Richmond, VA. Any suggestions people?

Maybe I can hope against hope for a serious deli, too...