Overheard in Atlanta

From my balcony I observe some interesting things. Sure, the view is amazing. Looking down at the streets you can see the bums wandering around, sauntering back and forth in bitter rage. At night you can hear them singing, fighting, and snoring?

Right now they're yelling. I'm sitting out here, and a young punk is causing a riot. Six are within sight, mostly older men. By the volume of their voices and the swagger in their walk I'd say two of themare wildly intoxicated. The young guy has a packpack on; he slurs rapidly and walks withan artificial limp; the "street-hardened thug walk." He doesn't belong out here.

My friend Mitch is usually down there, but I know he's nowhere around. He wouldn't get mixed up with those guys anyhow. But if he were around I'd know right away; I'd be able to hear him. Mitch is the neighborhood street performer. On the corner of Ponce and Peachtree he plays the trumpet until late into the night. The yelling has ceased; now only the cars are audible. An occasional horn, siren, the wind.

Mitch plays dutifully, skipping rapidly from tune to tune. He'll never plays a song as it was written - each time he plays it a little different. Mitch will tell you that he just plays whats on his heart, which means changing the rendition. But I suspect he'd have trouble playing a peice perfectly - without changing a few notes. But who cares if he hits every note? He plays with a lively vivacity of soul that is encouraging, and entertaing.

Even talking to Mitch is enjoyable. If you walk by and say hi, he'll play anything you like. He'll never point or look at his money jar. But instead he talks about the music. He rarely talks about his situation; though I've been able to draw it out a few times. He loves the music - he could probably teach a class on jazz, or the blues...

Summer 2008 - Cooking

Today marks the 2nd consecutive anniversary of my "Learn to Cook" program. A mostly autodicatic curriculum, the program has consisted thus-far of two dishes. The strategy is simple; Sunday evening is the designated cooking night, and the meal will be used throughout the week for lunch and dinner, and heartily enjoyed until my budding tastes can no longer bear the sight of that food. Well, that's partially it. More reasonably, the idea is simply to cook food that will last me throughout the week. The first week was a pasta dish with shrimp, found here. It turned out surperb, though I'd like to have coated it with some parmeson cheese. The pasta was accompanied by french bread and a white wine - Francis Coppola Chardonnay to be precise. The meal was amazing and the pasta (which included a lb of shrimp) lasted an entire week - yes, nearly 7 meals, with some to spare. The downside was the cost, which amounted to nearly $35, wine excluded.

Today my wallet took another beating; this time for a shot at The Pioneer Woman's famed Lasagna. The trip to Publix set me back nearly $50, but keep in mind that I'm living in a new place this summer and as far and ingredients go I was starting from scratch. This included $6 for olive oil, $7 worth of ground chuck and sausage, $10 worth of cheese, and who knows what else. Yet, 3 hours and one meal later, I can testify that the expenses were gratified by the first bite. Mmmm! Delicious. The lasagna was better than I knew constructively possible - and I cooked it!!!

Tomorrow I may just take my lunch to work, again. And the next day? Why not!

Speaking of tomorrow - I'm scheming to make french toast, but this time with a jam/cream cheese filling. It's a strategy revealed over the weekend on a GPB cooking show. We'll see how it goes....

Summer 2008 - Reading

What's on the bookshelf this summer?

GMAT review guides excluded, my summer reading endeavors probably began as I stumbled across Ivan Panin's Lectures on Russian Literature. He traces through Puskin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy - comparing each to English contemporaries and documenting their fascinating progression of style. Thus came the obligatory trip to a trendy little used book store, where the acclaimed works of all but Pushkin were acquired.

But convenience found me digressing from these to a more intimate peice, one accessible on my Treo - I managed to put Adobe Acrobat on my phone, and randomly choose to loadJane Eyre. Since that day almost a month ago, I've read half the book during the commute to and from work - and at other sudden intervals throughout the day. I've become even quite adept at reading while walking.

But as this weekend proved lonely, I resolved to accelerate my progress and purchased the softbound book just two days ago. This allows me to highlight what I term "enjoyable phraseology." Charlotte Bronte has a way with words that anything from my limited reading experience has fails to parallel.

To excerpt on highlighted section - the emotion is amusing - Eliza's diatribe against Georgiana: "Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strenght; if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miseralbe. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon; you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered - you must have music, dancing, and society - or you languish, you die away..."

To which the reply from Georgiana eventually comes, "Eliza, you might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade."