More Wisdom from Cocktails

"Anticipation should not be underrated as an aspect of any aesthetic experience. It is as essential to a cocktail as it is to a good production of Cymbeline or Don Carlos or a cassoulet."

Good Quote

"...you shouldn’t present a persona of cultivated pretensionlessness. False modesty can be worse than arrogance.”

That's from David Mitchell. The New York Times profiles him here. Time to read one of his books, me thinks.

Mayan Art

From National Geographic

"December 13, 2005—Archaeologists today revealed the final section of the earliest known Maya mural ever found, saying that the find upends everything they thought they knew about the origins of Maya art, writing, and rule."

" A traveler to Oklahoma reported seeing a prairie dog 100 feet in the air... burrowing!" - Tulsa Daily world, March 17, 1935

The Six Characteristics of a Good Cocktail

It:

"must whet the appetite, not dull it."

"should stimulate the mind as well as the appetite."

"must be pleasing to the palate."

"must be pleasing to the eye."

"must have sufficient alcoholic flavor."

"must be well-iced."

From The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks

By way of this really great article on cocktails.

And I Have Come Upon This Place By Lost Ways

"There is an extraordianry story about a small delegation of Navajos that was invited to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. They were wandering from one exhibit to the next when they stumbled on a particular pavilion from Canada that struck their fancy. This exhibit was staffed by Indians who happened to be Athapaskans, and the Navajos to their astonishment, understood nearly every word these oddly familiar-looking Canadians said. Although they could carry on a perfectly intelligible conversation, the Athapaskans were not happy to see the Navajos. "We split up a long time ago," they warned, "and it is said that if we ever saw each other again, the world would be destroyed." The Navajo delegation was similarly unnerved by the encounter, and for their remaining three weeks in Chicago, they never again visited the Athapaskan pavilion."

As soon as he could, he made his way up to Taos

"The mountain village of whitewashed adobe houses some seventy miles north of the capital, and found the rough-and-ready life there much more to his liking. Taos would be his home, sentimentally if not in fact, for the rest of his life."

I'm finally reading Blood and Thunder and it's incredible. I love history written this way. I need to read more history on the places I travel and live. The experience is so much richer this way.