The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
The Great Deluge, by Douglas Brinkley
Book 29
I have read several first person narratives of the Hurricane Katrina experience. The Great Deluge is the closest thing to a definitive history.
Really. Well. Done.
Many of the stories I had heard before – Fats Domino, the SPCA, the retirement home. There were tons more. While the focus is primarily on New Orleans, Brinkley does not ignore the rest of the Gulf Coast.
The most shocking thing to me was the politics. We have all heard the debates about whether the government failures were carelessness linked to racism (I prefer to think it was carelessness linked to socioeconomic prejudices). What I hadn’t understood was how very much of it was playing politics. People who didn’t help other people unless they could take credit for it. People who didn’t follow advice because it came from the wrong side of the aisle.
Quick note: Apparently, the entire Bush Administration was on vacation that week. The one that willingly cut it short was Condi Rice, and that was only after she attended a Broadway show and was booed by the audience.
I don’t even want to talk about police.
There was an interesting illustration of the “looting” – both the people taking necessary supplies and those taking electronics and other luxuries. (OK, one thing about the cops – apparently they were taking Cadillacs.) The worst part of this was the people that were not only stealing, but trashing the stores. A common phenomenon was taking a dump in conspicuous places.
There wasn’t much follow up on The Aftermath, as it took 700+ pages to cover that one week. Of course, there is some question about when the history book can be closed on this one. But Brinkley (a New Orleans resident who evacuated with his family when there was time to evacuate) came as close to an objective view as one possibly could. This is worth the effort.
Alaska Wrap Up
A few more pictures from Alaska (before I board the next airplane):
Jill and I stopped at “Exit Glacier” in Kenai Fjords National Park. (I would have done Four Square Check In but my phone didn’t have service.) It was funny right from the start because as we were climbing out of the rental car – a Prius – we saw the serious people. With “gear”. I wasn’t even wearing real gym shoes, let alone hiking boots. So we decided to use the “handicapped accessible” trail. It doesn’t get you very far, so we continued for one more loop closer to the main event:
We didn’t actually “hear the crackling”.
We also took the Anchorage city tour by trolley. For 15 bucks, it worth taking the hour. I’d recommend doing it first to help get the lay of the land before doing other stuff. I did take this shot of the land drop after the 1964 earthquake. You can see how that would have trashed a lot of homes:
I also forgot I had this shot of a glacier lake – with more of the dead earthquake trees. I think it was on the way to Seven Glaciers Restaurant:
And finally, this is my best illustration of the “midnight sun” effect. I took it from my hotel window at 11:30 p.m.
Fashion Means Your Fur Hat is Dead, Mike Doogan
Book 28
Sub-titled “A Guide to Good Manners and Social Survival in Alaska” – I bought this used at the book store in the strip mall next to my hotel in Alaska. Loved that book store. And my copy is inscribed by the author.
The Rules of Etiquette are pretty funny. Lots of jokes about guns, booze, feuds and cheating on your spouse. Apparently, all arguments are settled by determining who has lived in Alaska the longest. A newbie is anyone who came in on an airplane later than yours. And all Alaskans are required to rescue strangers in need, regardless of how new or stupid they are. And you aren’t allowed to ask how they came to be frozen and alone in the tundra in the first place.
Oh, and I learned that people in Fairbanks despise people in Anchorage.
So that was fun.
Seven Glaciers Restaurant
The awesome day of touring ended with dinner at Seven Glaciers Restaurant at the Alyeska Ski Resort. This was the transportation that I neglected to mention to my mother:
And this was the view from the dining room:
So yeah. Good stuff.
The waiter insisted that my Appetizer & Dessert strategy would leave me hungry. “The chef portions the meals so that you can order a salad, an appetizer, an entree and a dessert.” So I ordered two appetizers and a dessert and still couldn’t eat half of my “Baked Alyeska”. I am told the steak was absolutely fabulous, though. Another thing: the waiter said that we had to order dessert when we ordered our entrees, claiming they take so long to prepare. I am sure there is some truth to Baked Alaska taking longer to prepare, but since it was obvious that my table would have ordered half as many desserts if we had waited, it seems like a marketing gimmick.
I am glad to have had the Seven Glaciers experience, but the next time I am in Anchorage, I will be returning to Moose’s Tooth.
Bare Distillery Alaska
After lunch, our group visited Bare Distillery Alaska, where they make Truuli Peak Vodka. They have a website, Twitter feed and Facebook page and I still had to add them to FourSquare!
We met Jeremy, who the website calls “founding manager”. He explained that they were in the middle of tearing the place apart because they just picked up some serious funding and were buying all new big equipment so as to increase their capacity by.. alot. But here is what it looks like now:
The stuff goes up into the thing and…forget it. I wasn’t really following. But Jeremy taught me one very important thing: you can make vodka out of pretty much anything – ’cause you are just going to distill it anyway. But they only make Truuli Peak with local barley, glacier water and honey.
It felt to me like Bare Distillery Alaska was a drunken frat house idea that someone had the moxie to launch. Which is awesome on several levels. No samples were provided (I believe there are rules about that sort of thing in this particular trade) so I can’t speak to the awesomeness of the product itself, but these guys seem to know what they are doing. Recipes on the website and everything. And seriously. Alaskan Vodka!
Alaska Potato Chip Factory
While in Anchorage, my group toured the Alaska Chip Company, a small, family owned potato chip factory. I was all excited to post my pictures, but when I went to their website, I found they have an online tour with more and better pictures than mine.
Well. They think they’re so great. But I’m the one that put them on FourSquare! (I seriously wanted that Check In.)
Mr. Carney, the proprietor, told us all about the process and I managed to take an action shot of the peeler/slicer shooting chips into the fryer:
He also said that he made the rookie mistake of thinking that he could save money by stirring the chips manually. Corrected that one pretty quick.
When they are done, they are lifted out and spread on to this thing where they are seasoned (lightly salted, bbq, sour cream and onion and jalapeno – all with kitschy Alaskan names):
Of course, we were invited to taste some. Awesome. Even though I think “lightly salted” is for pansies and chips should be heavily salted.
Then they cool off and are bagged:
Among our questions were, “How do you decide on the recipe for seasonings?”
Answer: “I eat a lot of chips.”
“How are these potatoes different from baking potatoes?”
Answer: “Less sugar. We want as little sugar as possible.”
And, “Are you considering a Baked line?” Answer: “The oil is really what makes it hold the flavor.”
“How do you distribute?” Answer: “We use a broker.” In fact, they can be found in Safeway stores in Alaska and The Midnight Sun Brewery served them with my grilled cheese later that same day. But I believe they said Washington state is the only place in the lower 48 where they sell retail. There is an online store.
Alaska Chip Company is now producing flavored pop corn and Mr. Carney showed us the ridged slicer he has been toying with. I was thisclose to whispering “dill pickle flavoring” in his ear, but that would be presumptuous.
If I lived in Alaska, I would absolutely be buying these. And if they ever start selling a dill pickle flavor, I might actually have to pay for shipping and order them. I am hoping they get in with one of the sandwich chains, like Zapp’s contracting with Potbelly. Oh, man. Alaska Chips and Jimmy John’s!
Until then, Alaska Chip Company, I will await your arrival in Chicago.
The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
Book 27
The Bean Trees is an early novel from Kingsolver, who wrote The Poisonwood Bible, which was a very serious book club favorite. Taylor is a recent high school graduate from Kentucky who packs up a beat up old car and heads west to find her fortune (or something. This is set in the 70s.) Taylor is pretty plucky, so you get the feeling she will be just fine.
Somewhere in Oklahoma, a woman drops a toddler into her car. She claims to be the child’s aunt, says the mother is dead and Taylor has to take the child. The child, nicknamed Turtle, has been through some serious abuse. Taylor takes her and keeps on driving.
They land in Arizona, and begin to build a life among a group of outcasts and exiles. So you can guess where that is leading.
Taylor is a smart-aleck, but she is also very open about her own ignorance and asks questions so that she can learn. One of the fabulous moments in the book is when Taylor discovers that her neighbor, a very kindly old lady, is blind. She never knew because her roommate, a particularly cranky old lady, is her eyes. Taylor has to reconsider every judgment she has made about these two women and their relationships.
I very much enjoyed the story and even skipped to the end because I couldn’t wait to see whether Turtle stays with Taylor in the end. And when I flipped back to LibraryThing to pull the cover picture, I discovered that this is the first in a series. That made me happy.
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
My trip to Alaska was only in Anchorage – I didn’t get up to Denali and I didn’t take a cruise. But not the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is not far away and it is awesome. Which is a good thing because I ended up going there twice – Jill and I stopped out there on our way to Seward on our free day not realizing that it was part of the group tour.
Some of the animals there are injured. Some are orphaned. Some are part of a project to build up herds of endangered animals. Some will be released and some are here for life.
Behold the moose:
And really, behold the power of technology, because cropping to get the close-up shot has gotten a whole lot better. See those trees back there? They died in the earthquake of 1964. Some combination of the ground dropping and the salt water tsunami rolling in. I saw a lot of those trees last week and I always stopped to stare at them.
On to the eagle:
This one has a broken wing and will live out his or her life at the center. I actually saw one eagle in the wild. Would’ve missed it, except another tourist had stopped his car and was pointing a camera right at it.
This was as close to any bears as I got:
Pretty close, but didn’t see any in the wild.
And finally, the mama reindeer and the baby. There were plenty of mamas and babies:
Oh, wait.I forgot the baby muskoxes:
The babies are always cute. If I lived in Alaska, I would totally be a member of this place.
Travel Day – Anchorage
I am sorry to tell you the pictures will have to wait. I refuse to upload to my work computer and that is the one I have here. I was asked to speak at a conference, which was awesome enough. But when I heard it was in Alaska..can I just say one more time that I love my job?
United made my day when I arrived at the airport because I’d been upgraded to First Class for the flight from O’Hare to Seattle. I’d already planned on using my club pass that day, so it felt all luxurious.
I’d been in the United Club once or twice before. I remembered it as free soft drinks, free snacks, open charging stations and quiet. So, it is pretty nice, but not worth paying for. So, yeah. I had some fruit and yogurt and ice water. The coffee was terrible.
The flight was delayed, but I had plenty of time to make the connection. The Seattle to Anchorage plane was one of the new ones, and I was sitting in Economy Plus.
I can’t imagine how bad it was, sitting in the back.
The first thing I noticed was everything was all nice and pretty, but the seats were terribly uncomfortable. The second thing I noticed was the TV screen above my tray table. The third thing I noticed were the signs for charging outlets. They seemed to be underneath our seats. Which I thought was great for half a second, then I realized: that much less space under the seats for carry ons. Beh.
So there are TVs at each seat. They were playing a golf tournament, but I saw someone in the row infront of me changing channels – it was DirectTV! I was all, “I bet there is an NCIS marathon on!”
Denied.
Which was ok because I found the Sox game. And it hit me that there have been a non-zero number of important games I have missed, in whole or in part, because I was on an airplane. tTis would be awesome.
Then I saw the fine print. The DirectTV was only a free preview. We’d get it for fifteen minutes or so, then have to pay for it. $5.99 for a flight of two hours or less and $7.99 for over two hours.
I would pay that for a Bears game, but not much else.
So the flight takes off and the preview ends and we non-paying losers get a stream of commercials running on loop. Not even the movie that we used to get. Just ads. I read my book. And then, perhaps 30 minutes later:
Message on the screen said, “We are leaving the DirectTV zone. But you will stil have access to..(somethingsomething).” The regular sit-com/reality TV/movie programming that you would see on any other flight.
They are sooooooo lucky I hadn’t thrown down that $7.99 for the Sox game. Instead, I spent 3.5 hours trying to sleep with a guy’s elbow in my side. And that was on a 737.
The Master, by Colm Toibin
Book 26
Colm Toibin is the Irish author of Brooklyn, a One Book One Chicago pick from a couple of years back. I liked it enough to pick up a couple more of his novels. The Master is a fictional study of several years in the later life of Henry James, the American author from a prominent New England family that spent much of his adult life in England.
The book opens with James’ new play bombing and being bumped for an Oscar Wilde piece. Then there was a brief sideshow with Wilde’s personal life and I was a bit afraid the novel would continue with an imagined rivalry. But Toibin is better than that.
Front and center are James’ relationships with friends and family, in which he is occasionally accused of being cold and aloof. Oliver Wendall Holmes himself seems to have called out James for being an ass as a beloved cousin lay dying. Some time later, his good friend Constance kills herself in Venice and James is left to wonder if his blowing off a visit to her might have contributed to her despair near the end. There is a suggestion – very subtle, but it shows up more than once – that James is a closeted homosexual that uses work as an excuse for solitude.
Toibin also illustrates James’ somewhat complicated relationship with his brother, the writer/philosopher William James. I could have read an entire book about that. But the most interesting aspect for me was the description of James writing Turn of the Screw, a novella that I saw on stage at Writers’ Theatre and subsequently read. Toibin asserts that it was developed as James’ response to his sister’s death. Alice had never married, had long been ill and was very tight with James. Her was the first (perhaps only) deathbed he attended.
This book is hardly action-packed, but Toibin does a heckuva job imagining and illustrating scenes from the life of a great writer.
The Next Dark Age 