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Four bottles (2 California Pinot Noirs), one Series 7 exam and making the writing thing more disciplined with NaNoWriMo

November 6, 2011

The Negress has been in the midst of a whirlwind of food poisoning, medication titration, power knitting, yarn shopping, concert going (which led to booty shaking) and some more career whipsawing. There’s been a little time for wine and since she wants to get these empties out of the house, she’ll start there. Ordinarily, the Negress had been avoiding California Pinot Noir for a while since, post-Sideways, many producers got into the Pinot business as though delivering a delicious version of this persnickety grape required the same skill that it takes to make Kool Aid. The Golden State was awash in oceans of indifferent Pinot. It made the Negress want to smack Paul Giamatti in the mouth even though it was not his fault at all. However, thanks to her ongoing association with the Cellars of Sonoma wine club, she was able to quaff a pair of fabulous Pinots recently. The first was 2008 TR Elliott Three Plumes Pinot Noir (abv 14.6%) from the Russian River Valley. Winemaker Teddy Elliott put together five barrels from his Hallberg Vineyard and one barrel from the O’Connell Vineyard. The best Pinot Noirs whisper and the really good ones whisper dirty little nothings to your palate. Three Plumes is one of the good ones and, at $42, is a lovely special occasion wine that doesn’t require a credit default swap.

Johnny Oduya, one of my hockey future ex-husbands, now with the Winnipeg Jets

Johnny Oduya, on the hockey part of the future ex-husband list and my NaNoWriMo inspiration

Before moving on to next Pinot, this is a good spot to announce that I failed the Series 7 securities license exam by 4 points. This ended my pre-employment journey with an excellent financial services company, but it also put me on the road to somewhere very different. More about that as it develops.

You should love the James Family Cellars 2008 Stony Point Vineyard Pinot Noir ($35 but some discounted supplies remain, 13.8% abv) as well. This is a richer Pinot that will likely be enjoyed by those who like big fruit wines. Normally, when Pinot Noir gets artificially engorged by crafty vinification, things can get ugly. The James Family, who should not be mocked for using the words “world-class” and “artisanal” on their labels, walked a tightrope here and landed gracefully.

One of the better-kept secrets among wineaux is the loveliness of Merlots from the North Fork of Long Island. Much of that region suffers a bit from economies of scale — in short, most of the wine is pricier than its quality merits. But exceptions should be made for just about all the Merlots I’ve tried. My favorite is the Bedell Cellars Reserve Merlot. The 2006 vintage (13% abv, only available in minute quantities through the wine club) benefited from it being a warm year. This wine is ripe without being overblown. Think Lena Olin, not Anna Nicole Smith.

The Negress also lucked onto a surprising wine at her local WineStyles (small national chain of wine stores; some of which do online shipping).  The 2009 Finca La Linda Bonarda (14.3% abv) was going for $10 a bottle at last count. This one hails from the Mendoza region of Argentina. Bonarda is a bit like the Petit Verdot of Argentina. It rarely shows up alone. Too bad. This one is a little figgy with some red fruit. It went well with some spicy foods and drank well without food, although the Negress avoids doing that lately.

The blog has been quite of late, and it will remain so for the rest of this month. The Negress has thrown her lot in with the folks at National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo, so she’s hoping to have a 65,000 word draft for a memoir by Thanksgiving. She and the members of the ChiWriMo region are busy when they aren’t knitting. Stay tuned.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Fleet Foxes at the Chicago Theater and a perplexed Negress

October 3, 2011

The Negress decided to go see the Fleet Foxes at the Chicago Theater Oct. 1 because she still does love music and the band kind of confuses her. She is trying not to be one of those bipolar cynics, swinging wildly between youthful disdain (I’m too cool for all of this so it all sucks) and ancient weariness (I did all this stuff the first time so it all sucks). Besides, she sings tenor in her church choir (when she goes to practice) and she likes harmony singing because it’s gorgeous when done well. As mentioned in a previous post, she had been in New York mixing it up with the other members of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee. The committee is a bit like Fight Club in that we don’t talk about we do and then get vilified and bitched about when the ballot comes out. The Negress has only one public observation about the ballot: Hip-hop is nearly 30 years old and is a grandchild of the blues’ baby, rock ‘n’ roll. Also, rock has influenced and absorbed pop and dance music so don’t assume it’s all guitar bands with white men. Rock’s going on 60, which also means some of these idiots should take a page from REM’s book and break up and stop touring.

The obligatory cell phone camera show of the show marquee

The obligatory cell phone camera shot of the show marquee

Sorry. Back to the Fleet Foxes. First of all, the Chicago Theater is a great venue for good singers because it’s majestic acoustically as well as architecturally. The Foxes can sing, but they sound like sexless angels (we can save the debate on sexuality of heavenly beings for another post, preferably fueled by a good rye). Also, the best harmony singing requires impeccable diction, and these guys are more pre-pebbles Demosthenes than show choir.

With that said, the Negress was lightly mesmerized. Part of the lack of full embrace of the music was due to a small belligerent contingent at the show seated near her. She counted at least three fights that broke out during the set, and considering this wasn’t GWAR, that was just weird and distracting. Also, the band played under a huge film screen backdrop that alternated between a film loop of falling snow and some geometric patterns that could best be described as Not-So-Angry Quilting.

So, since the band has been compared to Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby Stills and Nash and other outfits with memorable vocal blends, what do they sound like? Someone suggested Neutral Milk Hotel but that’s just plain wrong (a trip to Spotify confirmed what had just been a hunch before). The Hotel people (doesn’t the name sound like a safe house for La Leche? Honestly.) have a unique sludgy underpinning to their vocal mix, and they seem to sing less harmony and more off-pitch unison. Also, her Neutral Milk Hotel is not your Neutral Milk Hotel so the Negress tries to avoid comparisons of the it’s-like-(band A)-mixed-up-with-(band B)-in-a-blender-on-acid variety.

What Fleet Foxes does make her think of is church youth group singalongs, a signifier she suspects is not big with the Pitchfork crowd. The best example of this is “White Winter Hymnal.” The Negress could visualize the youth pastor in a turtleneck strumming away while the kids scarfed down the pizza and sang well enough to keep their folks happy. Picture the United Methodist Youth Fellowship and you’ve got it. But she’s a sucker for a round so she succumbed  happily. They do kick this stereotype in the teeth with “The Shrine/An Argument,” which throws in a bit of dissonant sax playing, but that only happened once all night.

The Negress enjoyed the show as much as the nearby fisticuffs would allow, but she thinks she did find the key thing that keeps her from going all in on this band. The most memorable live shows are paced impeccably, building almost unbearable tension before a final amazing burst of, well, something. The Foxes seem to have a handle of this dynamic within individual songs (see “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” or  the show finale “Helplessness Blues”), but the kids are still getting feel of pacing a whole set. If they get handle on that, then the downloading will commence.

Openers The Walkmen grabbed a lot more of the Negress’ heart than she was willing to admit. Besides, you gotta love a band that worships Johnny Cash and the Pogues (blender and acid optional) and a singer, Hamilton Leithauser, with rockstar lung power. She even got over the triangle they pulled out on one song (that instruments conjures up visions of wriggling kindergarteners and a teacher playing “Mr. Whole Note Takes a Walk”) The word “rockstar” has been devalued of late (inept Iraqi spies, energy drinks and outlaw Wall Streeters have devalued the word without permission), but this guy has what it takes. The band favors old-style instruments but their music is timeless. It’s been growing on the Negress with each listen. They’re next up on Spotify after the Series 7 exam.

Fleet Foxes likely set list from the Chicago Theater Oct. 1 (from the always reliable Interwebs)

The Plains / Bitter Dancer

Mykonos

English House

Your Protector

Battery Kinzie

Bedouin Dress

Sim Sala Bim

White Winter Hymnal

Ragged Wood

Montezuma

He Doesn’t Know Why

Lorelai

The Shrine / An Argument

Blue Spotted Tail

Grown Ocean

Encore

I Let You (new song)

Sun It Rises

Blue Ridge Mountains

Helplessness Blues

Posted in Knitting and Feministing, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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NLGJA, Hurricane Irene and trying to sort things out

September 13, 2011

For a Negress who is supposedly leaving full-time journalism behind, let’s just say this farewell tour may be longer than Cher’s. She came to Philadelphia for the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association convention. Does this mean the Negress is coming out in some sense? Yes and no. Her history is bisexual, and she’s beginning to realize the spectrum of gender and sexuality is fairly fluid. She has several transsexual friends and believes in safe bathrooms for all and no stupid questions about shaving.

NLGJA is a very welcoming organization so she is proud to be a member since she knows she will never stop writing or being curious about the world. Plus, she had never spent a lot of time in Philly so it seemed like a good idea.

However, a couple of things happened. One, the Negress had her arthritic, bone-spur filled shoulder cleaned out arthroscopically Friday Aug. 19. She got the dressing removed the following Monday and headed to Philly on Wednesday. Yes she is sore. But she arrived in Philly on something of a mission — meet fun people and get a good cheesesteak. She accomplished those goals and got a couple of extra days in Philly thanks to Irene.

Some things she hopes NLGJA will do in the future: introduce a freelancer rate, add karaoke night (calling all sponsors), have a panel on racism in the LGBT community, have a productive panel on transgender issues (the one this year was dominated by a crackpot army of one) and stop asking Don Lemon about Anderson Cooper. The Negress adores Mr. Lemon and wishes him and his nice Jewish boyfriend well.

By the way, the Negress is still drinking wine but her Series 7 exam studies have seriously curtailed her consumption. Besides there are some other threads of her narrative fabric that deserve attention. So stay tuned. There are some stories to tell.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, World Travelling | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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In which the Negress drinks some Viura and wonders about her reader

June 6, 2011

The Negress often tries to imagine her reader. She is of the mind that every blog has one reader and that reader is not necessarily the blog’s author. She slogged through endless hours at the National Restaurant Show and almost rethought her entire relationship to food (vegan “chicken”: threat or menace?). She dithered and dawdled and saw one fine assignment

El Coto Viura from Rioja

Some juice for idle thoughts

evaporate but it was replaced by another that is pleasing but possibly not as lucrative. She also addressed her insurance career, spent some money and became secure but not exactly busy. She found a couple of new blogs – Babette Bakes and  Jewette. She fell in love with other people’s writing at the Chicago Lit Fest and felt the tug of the books inside her (they may explain her colon woes). Should she write them? So, while enjoying a nice Viura from Rioja (opened for cooking until she smelled the deadly perfume of expired chicken), she decided to think while wasting bandwidth. She figures her reader won’t mind so much if she tells said reader the name of the Viura (El Coto 2008. The Negress likes to be helpful.) She helped teach some people to knit and was reminded that she is not entirely impatient with teaching, but she likes teaching motivated, smart people. These are in short supply, especially as candidates for public office.

So, the Negress may do something about all of the above but the trick will be figuring out which wins out over the other — a return to life in the daily journalism world, the somewhat quixotic desire to try to be more political than she is now (there’s an extraordinary civil rights battle going on in this country right now and if you know anyone who is LGBT, you probably have some idea. If you think you don’t know anyone who is LGBT, you are delusional) or write books. Perhaps there’s room for all of the above. But, for right now, she’s getting some more Viura.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments »

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Alice Feiring and Robert Parker: Can we be saved from both?

July 9, 2010
2008 Trimbach Riesling

It's getting better all the time

The Negress has been busy clearing her heart and her calendar.  She’s off to northern California for ball games, good food, good friends and some wine. Heck, probably as much wine as she can consume without injury or driving issues. She had been laying off the grape while sorting out some diagnostics that ended happily. To celebrate she went with an old reliable 2007 Trimbach Riesling, which tasted like summer and stone with a touch of fruit. With a lot of waiting rooms and sleepless nights in the mix, she also did some reading. The Negress polished off  “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Theo Fleury’s “Playing with Fire” (learned a lot of Canadian expressions for being wasted and laughed out loud in some places where I probably shouldn’t have) and Alice Feiring‘s “The Battle for Wine and Love, or How I Saved the World from Parkerization.” I’m not a huge fan of the Bobster, mostly because he smokes cigars. The Negress suspects his preference for throbbing Frankenwines is due in large part to his cigar habit. A lot of the Bobster’s fave wines are great for drinking after you’ve burned your tongue on a hot beverage and if you don’t plan to eat with them.  Sometimes this is an experience I crave, though I could do without burning my tongue (I had to give up caffeine for some of this diagnostic work so I plowed through Starbuck’s and Tetley British Blend tea with a vengeance after the ban was lifted). Anyway there’s not much to add to the endless spew of verbiage about Parker, so let’s move on.

The Negress wanted to  like this Feiring woman’s book, but upon finding out she was a pescetarian who eschews various kosher no-nos, I was instantly bored.  She also seems like one of those “always” and “never” people.  She craves wines with terroir, which seem like the right things to crave but she’s so, well, evangelistic about it that my skin crawled. She likes Nicolas Joly’s wines, which are biodynamic. I’m fond of Joly’s wines too but they are above my pay grade right now. She also seems to think that “natural” wine making is always superior to any manipulation. The Negress’s limited sampling of a variety of wines doesn’t bear this out.

There’s a lot of arable land between Feiring and Parker’s countries. The Negress thinks she’s living there nicely, buying wines that are sometimes interesting, sometimes serviceable and sometimes devoutly to be avoided if she encounters them again. Her first stop in Cali will be Bonny Doon Vineyards in Santa Cruz. At the very least, that should be fun.

In the interests of full disclosure, the Negress is a medicated omnivore who takes about 25 prescriptions and supplements a day. She has not burned her tongue recently.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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Birthday Father’s Day the World Cup some old wine and a newly wounded heart

June 27, 2010
My mom grew these like weeds. I wish she could see this one.

Carrying on my Mom's tradition

There’s evidence that the Negress knitted in public on her birthday, which went well with some World Cup matches (one of Italy’s flameouts) and a lovely dinner treat from my pal Kathy. I got carded when I ordered the Casa Lapostolle Cuvee Merlot, which isn’t bad since I passed the a half century mark a bit ago. The NBA finals weren’t over by the time my birthday rolled around, but the Stanley Cup had ended satisfactorily (still can’t believe the Blackhawks traded my new future ex-husband Dustin Byfuglien) so much was well.

Then I was ambushed by Father’s Day and my heart. My father died in 1994 and getting e-mails from various commercial enterprises suggesting I buy stuff for him is unnerving. I guess I could have his Netflix subscription sent to the cemetery. I’d start with “Hoop Dreams” and “He Got Game.” He’d like those. He’d probably like the World Cup but the flopping and vuvuzelas would get on his nerves.

Having crappy blood conveyances killed my Dad after a pair of heart attacks, a quadruple bypass and then series of strokes in short order. I miss the smell of shoes being shined on Sunday while the Redskins played. I miss the excursions to the old Cole Field House where we would go to the Maryland state high school basketball tournament. We always bought peanuts from the blind vendor outside of the arena. My Dad disliked baseball enough to cancel his Sports Illustrated subscription in the summer, resuming at the introductory rate in the fall using another family member’s name. He was also sneaky about empowerment. I was told since I was a girl I wasn’t strong enough to hold the electric mower on the three terraces in the back yard. He was going to Hechinger’s (another Washington ghost) and he’d do it when he got back.

So, of course I mowed the whole thing before he returned. It became my chore after that as it became his chore to take me to hockey and baseball games. I saw Derek Sanderson when the Hershey Bears played the Baltimore Clippers  in the very old version of the AHL (this was the Eddie Shore being a nutjob in Springfield era). Now the Bears are the Caps top farm team. The world shrinks when you least expect it. My Mom, robbed of everything by dementia, could grow just about anything indoors or out. The Negress splits the difference, picking dead leaves off the violets between knitting baby sweaters and watching sports (The Tour de France starts soon. Can you stand it?)

But some of my Dad’s crappy conveyances are inconveniencing the Negress right now. The beta blockers are not as a bad as I thought and resumed exercising. I am still raising money to go to Napa but I am not walking the half marathon (the podiatrist is rejoicing since my ankles have tendonitis). But much is good so we soldier on.

In case you were wondering, the Negress didn’t win the Bloggie or whatever it’s called. It was nice to be a finalist and the winners are deserving, but the Negress  couldn’t go to Walla squared for the conference this year. Plus, the Negress knows she should link more and network more and act like this blog is the center of the known universe. But then the Negress would be an “acclaimed” wine blogger instead of a happy blogger who mostly writes about wine and takes time to knit and look for work and see my friends. That stuff is the best acclaim of all.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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Chronic Negress nominated for Best Wine Blog Writing

May 24, 2010

Wow this is one surprised Negress. I was voting for my pal lenndevours on the Wine Blog Awards voting site and there was this humble little blog Chronic Negress, nominated for best writing on a wine blog. I’m pleased, humbled and honored. Voting ends this week so please go for it. The link is in this post and my hearty congratulations to all the nominees. Also, you may notice the badge over there on the rail. You can click on it to vote too.

Posted in Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

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American Idiot: The colored girls and anomie

April 9, 2010

The musical based on Green Day’s American Idiot is in previews at the St. James Theater in New York. The Negress just happened to be in New York and scored a half-price ticket to see it. It’s a good sign that I am still thinking about what I saw and finding new layers with each passing thought. I am not sure this version of the show is locked — that is, done with cuts and re-jiggering — but I am betting it’s close (opening night is April 20). I am also happy to see a pair of my favorite young stage performers, Michael Esper and Rebecca Naomi Jones, in prominent roles in the production. What struck me about “American Idiot” is that captures so many of the contradictory impulses at the core of immaturity — hating everything about what came before you, being convinced that everyone else you know is living a cooler life than you, and finding really dumb ways to explore all of that. The show really rocks, unlike “Rent,” which was a grand thing but more in the show tune tradition than a lot of people gave its composer credit for. The staging is witty and owes more than it may want to admit to U2′s “Zoo TV” tour.  The movement is frantic and passionate without being too slick. It captures the frustration and anger familiar to anyone who has ever looked for a way out. All of our ways out are in us all along. It just takes sometime to find them.

Also, what I loved about “American Idiot” was its recognition that all of this anomie was not confined to white punks. Two of the three leads are paired romantically with women of color.  These are not Lou Reed’s “colored girls” thank Buddah, providing decorative support. The cast is mixed without a sense of self-congratulation. The Negress was a suburban middle class kid who found an outlet for so many of her longings in crazy, angry rock ‘n’ roll (also some twee, arty stuff to be sure). The plush sexuality of R&B and soul was not mine at the time. The show recognized that and felt great.

There are a few stumbles. A flying dream ballet between Tunny and his nurse lover (she’s dressed in a harem ensemble)  while he recovers in Iraq was pretty odd. It’s worth noting the last successful dream ballet was in “Oklahoma.” There’s a reason for that. Having druggy dreams comes with recovery. The Negress has some experience in this. But making those dreams concrete doesn’t always play out the way you want.

Also, the show runs an hour and 45 minutes without intermission. I suspect they could lose 10 or 15 minutes without ruining the  cacaphonous flow of the proceedings. If you saw the performance of “21 Guns” on the Grammys, don’t hate on the show because of that. That was a disembodied event without context. “American Idiot” is better than that.

Interesting aside:  “American Idiot” began at Berkeley Rep, as did Stew’s “Passing Strange (the Negress always thought she was the Negro Problem until she heard Stew’s band of that name).” Jones was in both productions. The woman knows how to pick ‘em. Spike Lee filmed “Strange” and it’s an excellent companion piece to “Idiot” for a sepia-colored take on anomie. I saw it three times when it was on Broadway.

Of course, I bought wine while I was here. As long as the Negress lives in Maryland, she will buy wine in New Jersey. Many thanks to my wine blogging pal 1winedude for turning me on to the 2008 Bastianich Vespa Bianco, an Italian white from Friuli. I’ll crack that when I get home and share the results.

Posted in Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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The Devils and the details

April 23, 2009

It’s possible to knit manically once you’re onto something. The Negress had picked on a pattern called  “Amelia” from the spring 2008 edition of the online magazine Knitty. The item is a seamless cardigan and it’s knitted together with the sleeves being joined to the body raglan style. The yarn in question? Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran. Much of this has been worked during the end of hockey season and the first round of the playoffs. The Devils have been playing in bipolar fashion, crazy with energy and forechecking one minute, lazily moving up and down the ice with no purpose the next. Through it all we knit.

But then, after a last second loss to the Hurricanes that tied the series at 2-2, we looked down at the sweater and realized something was very, very wrong. The simple explanation: I would have to reattach one of my arms to the middle of my back to wear it. One misplaced marker resulted in one misshapen garment. So, while various iterations of HGTV and “Law and Order” played in the background, the ripping commenced. The sleeves were detached, the markers were placed after triple checking the counting. This time we started the raglan shaping as soon as the sleeves were attached.

This relates to the Devils because they lost the game with .2 seconds left on a goal that got by Martin Brodeur, who was interfered with but also had no defenders around. He smacked his stick against the boards angrily. The Negress felt his frustration too. A pile of squiggly yarn, sore teeth and much use of crochet hook to fetch dropped stitches? I was so there.

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Knitting Noro

December 8, 2008

Before we dive into “Knitting Noro:  The Magic of Knitting with Hand Dyed Yarns” by Jane Ellison, a confession must be made. One day at the Connecticut Yarn and Wool Company in Haddam, we ran into a great yarn sale and some lovely hand-dyed yarn so we scooped up as much as we could fit in a bag (that was the deal) and went home and pumped up our yarn stash. Not too long after that, we opened this book and started drooling. Noro yarns are hand-dyed and run about $12 a skein. Some are mohair blends, which don’t suit me at all (you want hives with that?) but all are gorgeous. Ellison has collected patterns that bring out the beauty of the yarns and are easy to follow. There’s even an LYS guide in the back if you want to find the yarns locally plus YarnMarket, one of our favorite on-line retailers. The book will make a nice holiday gift for knitters who are ready for beauty without too much pain and suffering.

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