GASTRONOMIC ADVENTURES
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Doors 7:30 p.m. Show at 8 p.m.
The Jellyfish Gallery, 1286 Folsom St., in SF
Admission is $10

*********
This month’s theme explores the wonderful world of food … aaand things that maybe shouldn’t be food, but somehow find their way to the dinner table. Whether it’s fantastic gastronomic experiences or the eating of things that one really shouldn’t, we’re leaving this theme open to interpretation. This will certainly make for an entertaining night of storytelling. Come hungry, or … not.

For posterity’s sake and because it makes me laugh, here’s my bio that I submitted to Fireside for the evening:

Colin is a designer, developer, medical illustrator, artist, lover of tomfoolery, and aficionado of anything brewing with mirth trouble. He is known for promoting the joy of diminutive creativity and 1/16th scale pyrotechnic destruction. Also, he gets great pleasure in having convinced people that wearing heavy scratchy dapper wool attire while cycling is both fashionable and sane. In the main, all his creative output is dedicated toward continuing the Fahrion family tradition of being kinda sorta famous with little monetary rewards to show for it like his wonderful and talented mother, the inventor of Strawberry Shortcake.

Relately, I’ve been on a autodidatic learning binge lately with mobile first responsive design. I’m also currently developing a new front end framework and boilerplate for my webdev work that incorporates the new best practices of mobile responsive design and uses Less CSS (or SASS) as it’s basis. There are of course tons of frameworks out there but I find most are bogged down with unnecessary crud which is hell for page weight — an issue that has become important again in this mobile web era.

Over the next few months, I will likely be writing about and responsive design tips and tricks. Also, expect this site is going to get a huge overhaul soon.

I’ll leave you with this…

The best fix I have figured out for the annoying iOS zoom orientation bug: https://github.com/catcubed/ios-zoom-bug-fix

Still something felt missing for me that I couldn’t put my finger on at first. Few if any of the songs off of “Eureka” pulled me in as some of their prior songs have. One of my favorite aspects of Mother Mother has always been their visually rich lyrics full of metaphors and stories and it wasn’t until my second listen that I realized “Eureka” was missing this. Their older songs like “Hay Loft” and “Neighbour” plainly lay out a story, and songs like “Train of Thought” and “Wrecking Ball” very effectively use visual metaphors to suck you in. The “Eureka” album has a few songs that still have this quality, namely “Carve a Name,” “Baby Don’t Dance,” and “In The Wings.” However, if you are like me and like your music to tickle your visual cortex and also occasionally engage you with a story then you may find this album somewhat disappointing.

Also, overall I feel the album is too studio. There are a number of songs that could use an injection of the raw energy they put into their live shows. The album version of “The Stand” is emotionally flaccid in comparison to when I heard it live during their recent appearance at the Rickshaw Stop. Live you could really hear the frustration and disgust in the chorus line: “I can hardly stand the sight of it all.” Whereas, on the album it just sounds cute and a little funny. The track “Aspiring Fires” is especially bad in this regard. For a song about being so crazy that people “run for their life” it feels rather tame without even a hint of malice hiding in the nooks and crannies. There are exceptions to this such as the song “Problems” where all three singers belt out the chorus line like a fist: “I’ve got problems! Not just ones that are little.”

That said it can be hard to capture that energy in the studio and many of their older songs are also better live. They put on a great show as the band has an excellent charisma that really shines through on stage and they are rock’n booty shaking fun.

But don’t take my word for it. You can listen to the album in it’s entirety streamed below via Soundcloud. Or just buy it. The digital version of “Eureka” is currently only $7.99 on iTunes (while Amazon has it only for $5.99, their version is missing  the bonus tracks which I think are some the best songs). I may be critical of the album but there are enough fun rocking catchy songs on there that it’s worth having and they are a great group that I feel are worth your hard earned cash — especially at that price.

Mother Mother – Eureka by RS MARKETING

What’s the plan? What’s the plan? Just go! Grab a tree and attempt to make it through—everyone at once and everyone for themselves. Some went straight, others zigzaged through the darkened streets. Left here, a right there, a few more blocks north hauling our post yule sacrifices avoiding the flashing lights. Then when the coast was clear hurriedly crossing the street and down to the beach.

A fire could be seen already underway to the south, but it was already thoroughly busted; so a second yule fire was lit where we stood. As it lit, a third fire could be seen sparking up further north on the beach by another rogue band of revelers. Those from the first fire came strolling to our fire looking for more Post Yule Time cheer. A couple more trees made it to the fire and there was brief lovely respite from authority who were too spread thin to even bother.

The fire died down, the last embers being shoveled over silently by a couple officers. The crowd dispersed, walking away from the beach, past the line of police cars. Sad looking lonely unburnt trees lay dropped everywhere, but it did nothing to dampen the cheerful mood. And so ended the 22nd annual Post Yule Pyre.

Post Yule Pyre (image by y3rdua)

* Up until 2006 it was legal to have bonfires on the beach. Since the ban went into place, they have steadily increased the police presence trying to stop the Post Yule Pyre tradition. As a result, Instead of one bonfire to clean up after there are several, not to mention the numerous dropped trees that lay scattered everywhere. The irony is if the authorities even quasi-sanctioned the event and didn’t chase people away, it is the type of crowd that wouldn’t be difficult to get enough volunteers clean it up.

Brandied Ginger Orange Cranberry Sauce

• 4 oranges (used to create fresh orange zest and juice)
• 1½ tablespoons of grated fresh ginger*
• 4 cups water
• ¼ cup of brown suger
• 3½ cups white sugar
• 2 tablespoona lemon juice
• 6 cups cranberries
• ¼ cup brandy*
• ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground clove*
• optional: ½ cup ground pecans (add during step 5)

*measurements for ginger, brandy, and spices used in step 5 are best guesses. I recommend adding slowly and tasting as you go.

1. Using a fine grater, grate the outside of the oranges to make fresh orange zest. Grate ginger. Squeeze the oranges to create orange juice.
2. Combine in a small pan 4 cups of water, all the orange zest, and 1 tablespoon of grated ginger. Cover and bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Using a strainer separate the liquid from the orange zest/ginger mix, keeping both.
3. Using the same pan, combine 2/3 cups of the reserved liquid with 1/4 cup of the orange zest/ginger mix (you can toss the rest). Add both brown and white sugar, 1 1/3 cups of orange juice, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes uncovered, stirring often (watch as it can easily over-boil!).
4. Add cranberries; increase heat to medium-high and boil for about 10 minutes or until the cranberries have popped and a small spoonful of sauce sets on a cold plate.
5. Remove from heat, stir in ½ tablespoon of grated fresh ginger, 1/4 cup of brandy, and then cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground clove to taste.*
6. The sauce can be jarred sealed and stored for up to two weeks in a refrigerator.

Makes about 5 cups of cranberry sauce. Yes it’s a lot but I like cranberry sauce! To make less, half all ingredients except for during steps 1 & 2: Combine 3 oranges worth of orange zest and 3/4 tablespoon of grated ginger with 2 cups of water. Drain and reserve 1/3rd cup of liquid and about 1/6 cup of orange zest/ginger mix.

If you feel strongly about this you need to protest now and write your representatives now when the media spectacle is high or else the WBI scanning will become mandatory like it is in the UK now and it will be hard if not impossible to go back. It’s important to note that if the WBI becomes mandatory you may still be required to receive the enhanced pat-down if they think they spot something on the scanner (a stray item in your pocket, strange clothing, etc.)

As I see it we have two choices:

1. We allow these new enhanced security requirements to stay in place in exchange for a small safety advantage.
2. Or we protest this trampling of our 4th amendment rights and accept that there is a remote but possible chance of death by underwear bomb.

Option 1 comes with a whole sort of problems including:

• The Whole Body Imaging (WBI) virtual strip search (which will likely be made mandatory as it is in the UK if we don’t protest this) which is uncomfortable for some with sexual trauma.There are also some possible minor detrimental health effects with backscatter x-rays.
• The enhanced groping style pat-down, which is required if they see anything on the WBI. This is definitely uncomfortable for people with sexual trauma; depending on how strong of a panic reaction they get they’ll either never be able to fly again or they’ll be able to get through it in an Ativan haze.
• Worse lines at airports (the WBI take longer than the metal detectors and the pat-downs take even longer)
• Higher infrastructure costs to pay for the technology and private screening rooms
• underwear bombs being replaced by clever luggage bombs, butt plug bombs, tampon bombs, or fat guy bombs covered by rolls of flesh.
• Allowing more of our 4th amendment and privacy rights to be handed over to Homeland security in the guise of safety.

In contrast, option 2 only comes with one problem:

• A possible successful underwear bomber.

For me the choice is pretty clear. I don’t want to be treated like a prison inmate every time I fly, nor do I want others to especially those for whom it would be a traumatic experience, and for this I’m willing to risk the small possibility of an underwear bomber being on my flight. In any case, I don’t see this as an increased risk of being blown up since anyone willing to fill their underwear with PETN would also be willing to fill a butt plug with it (actually that may be a better way to pack it) which the WBI won’t spot unless they have no ass.

I make this decision for the same reason I choose to bicycle even though it is potentially more dangerous than driving. For the same reason I eat sushi. For the same reason I recreationally shoot firearms and fireworks. For the same reason I do a lot of things.

This is an important security announcement for anyone who uses your laptop/iPad at coffee shops and other places with open wifi networks to surf the web.

If you are on an open wifi network and use a website that does not use https your login can be easily hijacked by anyone on the same wifi network.

What this means:

If you sit down at a coffee shop and use Facebook, Facebook sends a cookie (a bit of info identifying you as you). A nefarious person at the same coffee shop can snatch this cookie using a new hacker tool called Firesheep and immediately hijack your session pretending to be you on Facebook. Once they have access to your Facebook they can easily get the password, which is why it is recommended not to use the same password for all websites. Firesheep also works for any website that does not use https for login like Twitter, Amazon, yahoo, etc.

• Wifi Networks that are NOT secure: any open wifi that does not use a password, this includes networks that only use a browser password like many coffee shop wifi networks
• Wifi Networks that are secure: any WEP/WPA encrypted network.
• Sites that are NOT secure: any site that uses only http can be hijacked (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Flickr, Amazon, Yahoo, Yelp, Windows Live, NY Times, CNET, etc.)
• Sites that are secure: sites that use https encryption for everything are safe from being hijacked (bank and credit card sites, paypal, gmail*, ebay).

*Gmail may not be secure even with HTTPS. I’ve been told that it leaks the cookies possibly due to chat.

Open wifi networks have always been unsecure in this way but there hasn’t been a tool this easy to use before. The new tool Firesheep is so simple an 8 year old can hack your account. It should be noted that even WEP/WPA networks are not truly secure but they are at least secure from Firesheep (WPA2 Enterprise is a better solution).

How to be safe from being hijacked:

Obviously avoiding open wifi networks protects from all this, but if you are on a open wifi there are other ways:

1. The best solution is to use VPN. Firesheep cannot hijack your session if you are using VPN! This creates a secure tunnel to the web which goes through the UCSF network and works regardless of what browser you are using. It also protects all your traffic including email/etc.
2. Another solution is to force https encryption on sites using a browser plugin: this only works for Chrome and Firefox and while effective this breaks aspects of some sites such as Facebook’s chat, and Google maps. Also it is not always secure either as Facebook sends a lot of stuff unsecurely even if you force https.
   1. Chrome browser plugin KB SSL Enforcer download here
   2. Firefox browser plugin HTTPS Everywhere https-everywhere
3. Another solution is to use a SOCKS Proxy and SSH tunnel, which  is too geektastically complicated to go into here.

Reference:

• firesheep-will-permanently-scare-you-from-hotspots
• even-forced-ssl-is-broken-for-facebook-google-twitter
• new_tool_automates_webmail (this news article says it works on gmail. This is wrong.)
• firesheep-in-wolves-clothing
• five-ways-to-shear-firesheep
• how-to-guard-yourself-and-your-mac-from-firesheep

Cannot express how grateful I am to have friends who, when presented with a new project, ignore “why?” and immediately dive into “how?”.

The nature of twitter encourages a certain level of me-too-ism.  The medium actively encourages agreement with quick and easy retweets. Also, it’s brevity makes back and forth debate difficult—if not completely discouraged. As a result, it was unsurprising that SFSlim’s post was responded to by a number of people in a typical “Hear! Hear!” sort of way. The first to respond was @ctpctp‘s who’s response focused on this as a marker for in/out group traits:

That’s been a dividing line I’ve used for a long time now. I’m ever wary of the ones who ask “why would you do that?”

What was interesting about these responses was the fact that SFSlim’s quip could be interpreted in a couple ways:

1. I am grateful that I have friends who understand the “why?” of my ideas implicitly.
2. I am grateful that I have friends who don’t care about the answer to the question “why?”

Also interesting was that most others latched on to the second interpretation. There was @yerdua‘s response:

I wonder how it is that we realized “why?” is often a useless and nihilistic question. “How?” leads to much more action.

And @nelz9999‘s brief reply which was posed as a question to those who ask “why?”:

“Why would you ask that question?”

And then another (who will go nameless due to their account being locked) channeling a slightly more articulate yoda:

There is no “why,” there is only “yay!” Yay yay! “Why” acts like “yay” should be rationed, but we know the spring is eternal. YAY

And from another:

Similar to an old t-shirt slogan “If I had to explain it, you wouldn’t understand”

Call me an old school art fag but I think the “why?” is important. To not care about the “why?” is to not care about meaning which—to directly disagree with @yerdua—is the definition of nihilism. Sometimes the answer to “why?” is something simple as “because it’s fun! yay!” or “because it makes me laugh” or “because it’s beautiful” or “because I wanted to challenge myself.”

I certainly had my hand in a number of projects with simple answers to the question of “why?” that I’ve enjoyed and loved. However, I have a deeper connection with the projects that have complicated answers; often these answers involve both the creator and the audience. Sometimes these answers came during the initial brainstorming and other times they were summoned during observation of the resultant project as it happened. Whether developed pre- or post-hoc, it is this meaning which, to me, makes a project Art with a capital A.

I know that SFSlim and several others grok what I’m saying here and most who responded were only caught up in the me-too-ism of twitter. In fact, many of these same people have created art projects with real depth and with clear answers to the question “why?” However, I also must ask why are these same individuals being disdainful the question “why?” I mean what is wrong about being able to articulate one’s reason for doing something? And more importantly do we only care about connecting with like-minded individuals or do we have something to say to outsiders who are brave enough to step forward and ask “why?”

So to all of you who responded to SFSlim, the next time you have a project that you are passionate about, I challenge you to come up with an answer to “why?”

“Lucky Shiner” straddles the line between moody downtempo and quiet-banger minimal techno with dash of glitchy idm thrown in here and there. Take the raw energy of Crystal Castles, minus the hipster irony and give it half a valium. Mix in a bit of Fuck Buttons repetitive marching drone, and then bring it up to a low boil using a minimal electronic stove top. While it’s simmering add a bit of spicing using Blockhead’s ethnic funk and contrast that with a dash of Autechre’s sheared beats. Finally bake it using Lemon Jelly’s infectious positive energy.

I love it you may not. I suggest you buy it direct from Ghostly International as you get an extra bonus track from them

Same Dream China by Gold Panda

You by Gold Panda

Snow And Taxis from Gold Panda on Vimeo.