Chocolate Review: A. Korkunov

Dark Chocolate, 72% Cocoa.

...Is Russian dark chocolate, nyet? This has got to be the creamiest dark chocolate I've ever tasted. At first, I didn't care for it. Dark chocolate shouldn't remind you of...not dark chocolate. Very rich, but no bite to it, well, relatively speaking. But then I tried it again, and I had to change my mind: it's very, very good, just not what I'm used to. 4 out of 5.

Carrie Newcomer: May 4

It's hard to write about Carrie Newcomer; there's so much backstory.

Lee first heard Carrie sing in West Lafayette, Indiana -- Purdue country. He was living above a variety store called Von's (I think it was about that time) around what had to be one of the world's most intense nest of gamers. Aside from some great people he knew, in a lot of ways, his life was a mess (sorry, sweetie -- but there you go)...a lot of gaming, a lot of parties, a lot of girlfriends...but nothing really solid to hold onto. And, as I've discovered, he likes solid things.

She was singing with a group called "Stone Soup."

I think it would be safe to say she changed Lee's life. Not right away. But by the time I met him, he had a solid core of melty goodness, like iron fondue. He played Carrie's solo albums (Visions and Dreamers and Angel at My Shoulder) for me. I passed. I guess you could say she changed my life, too, second-hand. I stopped being so cynical and logical. More innocent. More puns.

Years went by...my first Carrie Newcomer concert, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Carrie had split from her husband (one of the Stone Soup guys) and was with Robert Shannon Meitus, then leader of the Dorkestra. Robert was on tour with her, and they played all kinds of completely nutty, fast, funny songs. Heartwarming songs. Songs that were the equivalent of a smoothie, refreshing, tasty, and good for you.

After that, she turned away just a bit from what she'd been doing before and tried heading up the path to Country-Western Stardom. She had a single, "What Kind of Love is This?" (on My True Name) that did okay. But mostly she was beating her head against the wall: c-w radio isn't interested in anything that doesn't fit a very strict mold. And, fer goshsakes, Carrie's kind of bent towards liberalism (she's a Quaker), and c-w has been worshipping at the conservative altar for quite a few years now, nonwithstanding the Dixie Chicks.

But that didn't last too long, and Carrie decided she would be something like a modern-day troubadour, traveling around, singing songs, and making people happy. Her music all of a sudden became much more mature -- less naive -- but none the less optimistic, hopeful, and spiritually pure. The very next album after that, Age of Possibility, has my current favorite Carrie song, "Bare to the Bone." (I usually end up at least tearing up whenever I hear this song.)

So. The concert on May 4th.

It was at the Colorado Springs United Methodist Church, which has a concert series every year for "spiritual" singers. (Not gospel.) The place has been built in an old Spanish-type style, nothing as grand or chiarcoscuro as the cathedral in Santa Fe, but always someplace I've wanted to duck into on a hot day. There's a courtyard in the front with wrought-iron gates. Inside, there are all the normal things you find in a church, as well as a library and a gift shop. (I had to laugh.)

The church itself has a beautiful pipe organ and a lot of room for the choir. Right up in front, where they should be. I note this; they apparently really like music. The seating is not that of your average church, either: it's theater-type seating, so everyone can hear and see. Maybe it's just that Catholics don't go for that sort of thing, but I've never seen anything like it. And it's such a "well, duh."

The audience was small. The MC encouraged everyone to move to the front, even though we had assigned seating.

Carrie walked on. Instead of a gaggle of musicians, it was just her and a pianist who normally played jazz. She had a new dress on. (She has this thing about new dresses.) It's some kind of prairie-style thing, two colors of brown, with an odd split up the back (which works out well when she sits on a stool to play guitar).

She makes bad jokes ("We sell folk bowling balls," she says. "They all lean a little bit to the left.") and laughs like a five-year-old: unselfconsciously and dorkily, haw, haw, haw! We make our way through the set, old favorites, new stuff from Regulars and Refugees, "Bowling Baby," some songs from a new album, Wilderness Plots, which is different artists's renditions of the short stories of Scott Sanders. She calls Robert her "sweetheart" and Lee and I smile at each other: we like Robert. Not that we've met him. But we approve.

Ray makes it through the concert, as busy as always. She dances. Then bugs. Then messes with her shoes. Finally, she falls asleep on my lap. The encores are this song about collective nouns (cleverly rhymed)...and "Bare to the Bone."

I teared up on some of the songs, but I cried all the way through "Bare to the Bone."

On the way home, Lee said something about how listening to Carrie sing live is like filling up a resevoir, and I realized it was something different for me: listening to Carrie is like taking off all the blinders you put on yourself. Living is hard; everyone dies; everything ends. You cry. But, in all innocence, the things you love and the things that love you make it work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bare to the bone

here i am without a message
here i stand with empty hands
just a spirit tired of wandering like a stranger in this land
walking wide eyed through this world is the only way i’ve known
wrapped in hope and good intentions and
bare to the bone

...

chorus
when i rise i rise in glory
if i do i do by grace
time will wash away our footprints
and we’ll leave without a trace
between here and now and forever
is such precious little time?
what we do in love and kindness
is all we ever leave behind

Book Review: Fine Prey

by Scott Westerfield.

Okay, I have a secret. I wasn't all that thrilled by Uglies. It was okay...but it wasn't my thing. Oh, no! Not a secret anymore!!!

But read Fine Prey today, and was happily engrossed. Now, most people are going to feel exactly the other way -- that Uglies is better than Fine Prey.

It's a disorienting book, and ultimately, it doesn't make sense. At the end, your brain is struggling. "Why?" "How did we get to this place?" "Why are there so many interesting scenes skipped during the interstices between the sections?" "I get that X was supposed to be significant, but I'm not smart enough to figure out whyyyyyyy!!!! Waaaaah!"

But that's okay with me. I left the book with my brain dancing. "And this idea hooks to that idea...right here...and then..." Stuff doesn't have to make sense in order for you to understand it, after all. The subconscious gets it and starts jamming along.

I can even pull some of the ideas back out to Uglies. A lot of Uglies fits that...not everything, but a lot. It's like someone said, "Great, Scott, now slow down for the rest of us, and I prooooomise you'll make enough to live off of this time. Really." But Uglies is a much better story, which makes it too solid, and I don't walk away from it with a big "aha!"

I categorize Fine Prey with Little, Big and Physiognomy. Not everybody's thing, I realize, but a book doesn't have to be, in order to be good.

Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society

by Trenton Lee Stewart.

I am not the right person to ask for any kind of objective review here. But I'm glad it's part of the permanent collection: Voted one of De's Most Likely Books to Drag Up to a Treehouse, If She Had One. This is also a Lay on Your Stomach and Kick Your Legs While You Read book. But then I loved Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and Princess Bride...I don't know, maybe not the next big children's classic or anything, but it ought to be, both for what it achieves and how it manages not to screw itself by getting altogether too big for its uncomplicated (which is not the opposite of complex) britches. Why haven't I seen this all over the place? Maybe there's just too much good kids' stuff coming out lately? Conspiracy? Too much TV? Too much TV! Auuuuggggh!

P.S. Oh, yeah--the artist, Carson Ellis, draws like a version of Edward Gorey abducted from an alternate universe where unmentionable Victorian-era tentacled creatures did not attempt to infect his brain.

P.P.S. Also, I didn't see the thing about Constance. But then, I often don't see these things coming. I like making puzzles far more than solving them.

P.P.P.S. Why didn't I write this book? Why? Why? Why?

New Mexico: April 28

We awoke, swam, breakfasted (sort of), packed, argued...and shook the dust of the Best Western off our feet. From thence to the Santa Fe Children's Museum.

Not open yet. We drove around until we reached St. John's College, which sported a trailhead in one of their parking lots. I forget what the name of the trail was, but this was a lovely, easy walk. We spent about an hour smelling sagebrush and walking on the stone retaining walls of the washout that runs across the trail. I was amazed with how clean it was and thought maybe nobody used the trail...until we passed a garbage can, which was stuffed to overflowing. People actually take cleanup seriously out here. Maybe litter control is as carefully controlled as housing design, I don't know.

We stopped at Ohori's Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate. I got an orange soda (Anarancito?) and Ray got hot chocolate. I questioned her, but she was sure: hot chocolate.

It was the best damned hot chocolate I've ever had. Ray and I ended up swapping drinks back and forth, because it was just too intense to drink the whole thing on its own. Neat pottery/mugs, too. We got a cute little monkey mug, over even the neat Japanese pottery.

After sitting in the parking lot of the Children's Museum to finish our beverages, we went in. And then almost didn't leave. We would still be there if they'd had a concession stand or something. This was probably the coolest place in Santa Fe.

Most children's museums that I've been to (which, all told, hasn't been that many) are either lame or pedantic. This was neither: the kids just played. The first thing we did was to roll pool balls down plastic roller-coaster tracks to smack into each other or to bounce across the floor. Yes, pool balls (cue balls). As a kid, I totally spend a zillion hours studying momentum throwing pool balls at my brother each other. And then the full-body plastic pin thing where you push on one side and shapes pop out the other. And the tractor-tire bubble ring. And the pulley chairs. And the Gross Animal collection. And the subterranean birdhouse where you could dig for worms. And the jungle gym, where Mom sat under the plexiglass section and growled at kids when they went by...

(Oh yeah: I should note I spent about an hour and a half (not all at one time) trying to figure out how to make monster-sized bubbles, and finally pulled it off mere minutes before we left.)

We ate at McDonald's, eventually, because it cracked me up: even the McDonald's on Cerillios was adobe. Shootout at the McDonaldland Corrall...milk and cookies to follow. But it was actually the classiest McDonald's I've ever been to. The people behind the counter were polite, fast, and wore button-up shirts with...ties. The food was all fresh and hadn't been sitting there for a week. I ordered a Southwestern Salad, and there was...cilantro. Pinch me, quick!

We checked in to the Comfort Suites and swam a lot. Ray managed to do a little solo dog-paddling, the baby steps of swimming! Call me a proud mamma. Took a break, did some reading.

We ate supper at Los Potrillos (tr: the foals), a local Mexican place with hand-carved chairs with rearing, snarling horses, and painted tables (ours was chickens). Most of the people were hispanic: women with large hoop earrings and lots of cleavage. Men with noses of great prowess. Little girls with fluffy dresses that made Ray drool. We sat next to a booth full of very macho guys who had all ordered very macho bowls of soup. Bowls of soup the size of the communal salad bowl at Olive Garden.

Intimidated by the size of their bowls, I opted instead for the a molcajete (tr: mortar) dish with pork and pineapple. Ray wanted a cheeseburger, had to have a cheeseburger...we snacked on multicolored chips and salsa (and some kind of odd white sauce that was very good) and watched "El Vengador" (The Punisher?) on the TV.

The molcajete is a large mortar, of mortar-and-pestle fame. It looked to be carved out of volcanic rock, but what do I know? You put the filling in the white corn tortillas (no salt added, and the consistency of lefse (with corn rather than potato)), along with some pico de gallo: the molcajete keeps the filling hot all the way through the meal. God, was I stuffed. And I still took about half of it back to the motel (which had a fridge and micro). Ray ate the seasoned fries (how she fit that all in her body, I'll never know) and called it a night.

Heh. On the way back, we stopped at pd bean coffee house, because...well, because. The coffee was okay, the atmosphere was poor, but the chocolate cookie I got Ray was entirely, osmotically absorbed. (She was so full it lasted until we got back to the motel--check that out.) The owner is apparently a former local journalist, who strikes me as being the kind of guy who's slightly out of whack with the rest of the world, as in "I missed it by that much." I think about the great coffee shops I have known, and...it's just a little bit off. Not a bad place. But not Shelly's in Vermin, or The Purple Onion in Dinkytown, Java House (where the staff all wore "There is No 'X' in Espresso" shirts) or even Ohiro's (above).

Took a break, called Pappa, went swimming again (my arms hurt from those damn pulley chairs at the Children's Museum), goooooood night.

Review: The Original SoupMan

Ray and I stopped downtown for lunch before braving the doc's for her last chicken-pox shot yesterday and discovered a place called "The Original Soup Man"* was there...when it hadn't been there before.

Now, I like soup. I mean, a few days ago, I had to crow over the fact that I had completely surpassed Panera soups. (I hadn't eaten there for a while.) My current obsession is vegetable soups, with just vegetables. Maybe some rice. Some Parmesan on top. Croutons. Bread with butter...not as "life-restoring" as a homemade chicken soup, but soothing of all weariness and ennui, without being peppy.

Anyway. Huge line of people, men in suits and ties and women with clunky jewelry and guaze jackets: the (semi) professional moo crowd, willing to work so much unpaid overtime their hourly wages work out to McDonald's-level, willing to line up placidly for anything as long it had "gourmet" in front of it and they could get back to their desks in fifteen minutes so they could log in to a conferene call. Stood in line behind a guy with a shiny flag tie, suit, and buckskin shoes (not moccasins) who tried to tell Ray he didn't learn how to read until he was fifteen. The soup looked expensive and small. At the head of the line, talking to a fifty-year-old woman:

"We'd like the lobster bisque and the ham and cheese sandwich, with cheddar instead of--"

"No."

"No?"

"The sandwiches are already made."

"Can we at least get it without mustard?"

"No."

We negotiated a different sandwich.

"What to drink?"

"Pineapple green tea for me, and milk--"

"We don't have any milk."

I pointed to the menu: Juices and Milk.

"We don't have any milk." She asked a coworker. "We don't have any milk."

"What do you have?"

"It's on the menu," she said.

Stupid customer.

"Milk's on the menu," I said.

Well, we negotiated our way through that, too. Paid up ($11 for a shared combo between the two of us), sat next to the overflowing garbage, and ate.

Gah! Delicious. I'd go there again...until I figured out how to make their lobster bisque, that is.

*Check out the Rules tab. Really.

New Mexico: April 27

(By the way, it's not that going to New Mexico is all that remarkable, like going to Scotland or Japan or something...it's just that I don't get out of town much.)

I had to stop three different places in the Springs in order to get gas...everyone was out! The third place only had 85 left, at $2.89/gallon. (New Mex was about $3.09, Dad, before you ask.) I had to stop at a different gas station to vaccuum the car and get a map. But I had hit upon a gas station with no maps. Huh? So I stopped at Borders. They had a map. The cashier warned me that there were no rest stops along the way. (One of my coworkers told me there were no road signs the day before, too.)

Sheesh...more karma?

The trip was pretty uneventful for two women with moderately-sized bladders and the ability not to leave the Interstate, although the jokes got a little much from the back seat at times. The landscape reminded me of Colorado at first, but became more and more like South Dakota (out by the Badlands), with sage. Lots and lots of sage. And round, tumbleweed-looking trees that looked about to roll over the landscape, this sinisterly cheerful invasion or infection of trees.

So. Santa Fe. My first impression was to laugh: it's so artificial. Adobe as far as the eye can see, even the bad parts of town...it wasn't until I went looking for a trailer park that I found one, albeit cleverly hidden behind a tall adobe wall. We found our way to a likely-looking motel and checked in. I may have to start looking closer at motels...the lobby was okay, but the room was creepy, water stains on the ceiling, no towels, an absolutely frigid swimming pool... (We left in the morning and went to a different motel, the Comfort Suites, and did fine there. The room at the first place was as expensive as the room at the second place. Both were overpriced, and I'm sure will be even more expensive after Memorial Day.)

But that first day, we lived with it. After pulling most of the stuff out of the car, we decided to find something to eat.

Here is my first major lesson learned regarding Santa Fe: do not, under any circumstances, leave without your camera or your map. Sure, the town is small. Sure, it's very much for show. Nevertheless, you will see stuff that tempts you to drive just a little further...and then the streets get very narrow, very tangled, and very much one-way in a very short amount of time. And, once you've miraculously found someplace to park, you won't be able to take a picture of the Cathedral Basillica of St. Francis at sunset, because your camera is still in the bag.

We spent, after leaving the downtown area, an hour and a half trying to find our way back to the motel, or to a restaurant, or to a gas station...after passing signs announcing that it would be a poor judgement call to stop for hitchhikers just outside a prison facility, we turned around yet again, found a gas station, asked for directions, and found ourselves only a quarter-mile from the hotel. We stopped at a Sonic and ate tater tots, because by then, even I needed a little familiar reassurance. (Please note: there were a sufficiency of signs; we just didn't know which ones we were supposed to be looking for. "Oh...you mean Highway 14 is Cerillios Road? Well, isn't my face just red.")

Nine o'clock. Back to the hotel. Called Lee. Yawned a lot. But of course there had to be swimming before bed; otherwise, the parental code of ethics (as in, "I promise you, no matter how lost we are, you can still go swimming before bed") would have been utterly violated. I talked to a nice couple from western New Mexico on their way to Las Vegas, New Mexico, who had decided they were giving themselves a night off. Ray is such the charmer that it's hard to stay shy.

To bed, feeling very much regretful of having coming all this way to get faked out, ripped off, and lost. But things were destined to improve...

Shoes.

After dropping off the car to have the little door that covers the gas cap fixed (even jamming the switch to "release" didn't do any good this time; I think the latch is broken, rather than the spring just bent out of place), I went shoe shopping. I don't do this very often. 2007 marks a record year: I have now purchased three pairs of shoes in one year. Two pairs of shoes in one day, in fact.

But the significance of the event doesn't stop there. I bought a pair of shoes that were both girly and comfortable. Not just "You know, after I break these in, I might be able to walk around in them all day, if I spend most of my time sitting down," comfortable, but "Damn! I could do everything from go hiking to dance in these suckers, in a foreign country if I had to!"

I also got a pair of Dr. Scholl's that look like my existing-but-slightly-exploded Sketchers, but I don't feel any need to link to them. They feel heavenly, though, like nursing shoes that look cool.

All three pair are, of course, black. I haven't totally lost my senses.

Solo's Restaurant.

Yesterday, we ate at Solo's Restaurant in the Springs. It's an aviation museum, with okay-but-not-memorable food; of course we sat inside the airplane and played with all the buttons in the cockpit.

Chocolate Review.

Cote d'Or Lait Intense, nuance de noir, Belgian Milk Chocolate Confection with a Dark Chocolate Filling

Note: This is milk chocolate, which I usually don't go for.

Yummy. I really didn't notice the dark chocolate, though. Very creamy, smooth, soothing...very much a comfort food. Nothing grainy or oversweet about it. However...not dark chocolate. To me, this straddled the line between chocolate and candy, trying to partake of both but not committing to either. Maybe I'm just never going to be a milk chocolate fan...say four out of five stars, with a confusion detractor.

Green & Black's Organic Espresso

Being on the decaf side of the cup, I couldn't eat more than a few bites of this. It's like eating chocolate-covered espresso beans without the unappealing aspect of actually eating a coffee bean covered in waxy, low-quality chocolate. Waaaaaaah! Two bites of the perfect chocolate-espresso mix, and I was up two hours past my bedtime. Five stars out of five, with a tiny tear to the side.

"If I had a brain...I wouldn't be stupid!"

We're watching The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. It's great. All three of us are giggling in a most undignified way.

"Hi! My name is DOROTHY."

"Trust no one. It could be a sign."
"Yeah, there's another sign. Danger, high voltage."


"...So I could marry the love of my life. Camilla."
"A chicken. Wierdo."

Gonzo (Tin Man) attaches a cell phone (his nose.)
Prawn (Toto) says, "Is that a cell phone? What are these?"
[Honk, honk!]
"Those are my nipples."
PRAWN OF HORROR!!!


Kermit: "I'm not so smart."
Gonzo: "I'm so empty inside I hurt inside."
Prawn: "And I'm so gosh-darn sexy I could cry."

Book Reviews.

Quickies again. I read more than this since the last time, but the hell if I can remember what they were.

The Keys to the Golden Firebird, by Maureen Johnson. Non-genre teen stuff is normally NOT MY THING. I mean, really NOT MY THING. I must now reconsider. I was too involved with this book to be jealous, even. I laughed, I cried, I'll read more of her stuff. Author's blog now listed under "mojo."

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine; read by Eden Riegel. Audiobook. The way people adapt books to movies always interests me. Good job here, both on the book and the movie, in my opinion (the book is better). Again, will be reading more.

I started re-reading Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures, forgot where I put the book down, and picked up The Fifth Elephant instead. While Terry Pratchett is always Terry Pratchett, there's a world of difference between these two books. In between MP (1990) and TFE (1999), something clicked: characters become engaging rather than purely funny; subplots fling back and forth and end up exactly where they should be (like the kind of folk dance he's always making fun of); the story has a meaning of its own that stands apart from satire. Hm...looking at his bibliography, I'd say the magic happened with the book right after MP, Reaper Man (1991). Hm...

Graphic Novels Are Books Too.

Promethea - Book 5, by Alan Moore et al. I read the rest of this series as the issues came out. It started out great! However, the plot devolved into enlightenment, and I left the series feeling saddened. But that's the way of it. If humanity craved enlightenment over plots, we'd all live in monastaries. Nevertheless, one of those things that needed to be done: a reminder to take a break from all the drama, step back for a moment, and realize life's not as serious as it looks. I think one way of talking about enlightenment is to say that life breaks the fourth wall. As does this series.

Batman: Detective No. 27, by Michael Uslan and Peter Snejbjerg (yes, I checked the spelling). On the one hand, great plot twist. On the other hand, this is supposed to be a mystery, dammit, and in mysteries, you have to play fair. (Life has no such requirements, so the revelation is at least plausible.) Decently done, if you don't like the mystery part of the whole detective thing. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Bigg Time: A Farcical Fable of Fleeting Fame, by Ty Templeton. This book must have had a really great pitch. A homeless guy, high on glue and shocked silly by the third rail in the NYC subway, suddenly sees his guardian angel, who hates him and has been screwing him over for most of his life. But...I hated the character. Granted, I wasn't supposed to like him, but...geh. Plot ending pretty predictable. Pretty fond of the art.

Lovecraft, by Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia, and Keith Griffen. Magnificently ugly, twisted, and quintessentially human. I loved it. I cannot say enough good things about this book.

Chocolate Review.

Hachez Cocoa d'Arriba, Strawberry & Pepper, 77% cocoa, "Suprerior Mild Dark Chocolate."

The other chocolate I had with pepper in it, I forget which brand, was somewhat of a joke. There were little bits of lemon rock candy in it, fer gosh sake, and I never did run across anything remotely peppery.

On the other hand, this stuff is good. Maybe not the 100-year-old red wine your great-grandfather kindly put away for you in the dungeon next to the dead bodies, but good. Strawberries, pepper, and dark chocolate. Who knew? Not quite up to the level of the Maya Gold, but pretty darn close. It probably actually is a little bit better, objectively speaking, but my tastes are prejudiced toward oranges and hints of creaminess.

Note: This is not gonna be everybody's thing. Don't eat this if you're looking for candy.

Chocolate Review.

My favorite chocolate right now is Green & Black's Organic Maya Gold: Bittersweet Chocolate with Orange and Spices. Creamy without being molten. The bittersweetness that lingers on the first kiss before the love affair goes south. The solidity: not too airy, not too chalky, not too smoky, not too earthy...mmmm.

Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Went to Pan's Labyrinth last night. What other people have been saying is true: this is an adults-only movie. That being said, I would disagree this is a fantasy; I see it being more of a horror movie. Remember Vincent Price? Those were horror movies. Pan's Labyrinth is a horror movie. The stuff we call horror movies now are mostly terror movies.

I had same the reaction I had after Schindler's List. This was a great movie...but not one I necessarily want to see again.

Book Reviews.

More book reviews...

The Grand Tour, Patricia C. Wrede & Carolyn Stevermer. Not as good as The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. For some reason, the authors chose to have the characters travel together and write diaries instead of travelling apart and writing letters...so, there's a lot of "my version of events" "your version of events." And the action occurs behind the scenes, too, so...not as good. Good characters, above-average writing...

Eight Days of Luke, by Diana Wynne Jones. A so-so Diana Wynne Jones book is better than an excellent book by pretty much anybody else. Loki is accidentally freed from prison by a kid...reminds me of a kid's version of Roger Zelazny. As always, Jones shines at cutting through the crap.

I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov. Every few years I try to reread Asimov. I want to read about what he's writing, but his writing style puts my hackles up. I was finally able to finish this without wanting to strangle him: I attribute this to working for the government. (My ability to restrain myself from strangling someone has been greatly increased). Writing typical of the era. Characters typical of the era. Dialogue and pacing typ--you get the point. But the ideas!

In other reading...trying to catch up on Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa: Resevoir Chronicle. The library had a copy of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles MacKay, but everything not directly related to economics was removed! Aaaagh!

Book Reviews

Behind again. Here are more book reviews:

Magic or Madness, by Julie Larbalestier. If you use magic, you use up life. If you don't use magic, you go crazy. First part of a trilogy -- I plan to read the rest of it. The writing is straightforward and good. YA.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. What a sexy romance should be -- an escape from everyday living (but not too far). A former WWII nurse is transported through time to 1743 in Scotland, where she's harassed by her husband's ancestor and falls in love with someone else entirely. Well, but not exceptionally written. Goes on as a series. May or may not continue with it.

The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Great book, deserves a page or two instead of a few sentences. Beware: if you hate post-modernism, several elements will piss you off. Remember the movie The Ninth Gate? Well, there you go. But the book makes more sense, even if Johnny Depp is so nice to look at. Definitely will read more of this guy's stuff; like Umberto Ego with a normal-sized ego.

Otherland, by Tad Williams. Verbose, and, in the end, doesn't pay off. A dissatisfying end to a series that wasn't all that and a bag of chips in the first place. Why do I do this to myself? Because he writes interesting characters that I care about. Damn me! Damn me!

Book Reviews

Quick reviews, because I'm behind:

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin. Very readable. Good insights, not only into the Austrailian songlings the book is ostensibly about, but about the human nature to wander and how people have to turn their enemies into beasts -- animals -- in order to fight them.

The Soup Peddler's Slow and Difficult Soups, Recipes and Reveries, by David Ansel. This made me miss college towns I have known. Lots of anecdotes about living in a strange little suburby place off Austin. The guy delivers soup to your door...Wah! Why not in Colorado, too?!? The soups look delicious, but I didn't make any before I took the book back. Has a website.

Perfume, The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind. This has been made into a movie; I haven't seen it. The story of a madman with a golden nose, and I'll say no more of the plot. Wonderfully written. "In eighteenth-century France, there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages."

Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. Don't read this book in large doses unless you have an incredible talent for digesting rich food (or like that guy who eats planes). One of the great comic novels of all time -- A Tom Jones of New Orleans. I read it at work and must say it was a great comfort, especially the parts about Levy Pants, to read while enduring the various nonsenses that go on there. The main character has a statue in New Orleans.

The Eight, b y Katherine Neville. Better than The Da Vinci Code by an order or magnatude or two, but I'm an Illuminatus! Trilogy girl. I loved Lily and her dog. I was hoping for a different ending, but the one written made a lot more sense.

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country, by Patricia C. Wrede and Carolyn Stevermeyer. Romance, magic, intrigue. Jane Austin meets Stephen Brust. Two pinkies gracefully extended!

Chocolate Review

Valor Dark Chocolate (Ghana, Panama, Ecuador) 70%

Again, this is just a little too dark at 70%.

Valor is a good, solid chocolate, but I can't say it has much to single itself out. This probably explains why, when I saw it at the store, it was more or less buried under the "flavored" varieties. Not too much smell to it -- while on the one hand, I wonder if that has to do with the fact that at 70% cocoa, there aren't as many oils to hold the sent, on the other hand, I remember the bar of 87% Schaffen Barger I got that smelled heavenly. The break of the chocolate was more of a click than a wooden shap -- less tough? Anyway, three stars for this one, too; there's nothing about it that would lift it above "not bad." I'm going to have to stop getting 70% for a while, I think.

Chocolate Review.

I've been on a "good chocolate" kick lately. I don't really know how to describe chocolate yet...but I'm trying to learn. There, you've been warned.

Santander Columbian Single Origin Dark Chocolate (70%)

The chocolate smells delicious, and would probably make a good Mexican-style drinking chocolate (that is, the kind you make with extremely hot water and chocolate...and maybe some sugar or hot pepper), although there is a bright kind of smell to it, too, that can get a little overwhelming after a bite or two. Some chocolate, when you smell it, settles into your stomach and spreads a feeling of contentment; this moves more up into your nose -- a little peppery, without smelling like pepper at all.

This is just on the edge of dark/too dark for me. With the first few nibbles, you're happy, but after that, the bitterness starts to get overwhelming. The chocolate gives a wooden snap! when broken, and doesn't really melt on your fingers or luxuriate on your tongue. It almost needs some kind of milk or cream to help balance the brightness and bitterness, although any more sugar and it'd just be bleah.

Not bad chocolate, but not my favorite. Say, three stars out of five.