It's Time for a Visit to the Commonwealth

... the Commonwealth of Letters, that is.
"What's that?" you ask. Ah, it's the conceit of one incredibly fun novel: Silverlock, by John Myers Myers. (The author so nice, they named him twice?)


DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK!  

This is one of the greatest picaresque novels you'll ever read, bar none.  It's a romp through of the "Commonwealth" - the land where all the great characters of literature live.
The protagonist, A. Clarence Shandon journeys from our own dull world (he has a business degree from the University of Wisconsin, if you can believe it) to Greek myth (Circe) through Teutonic and English legend (Beowulf and Robin Hood) to places I'd rather not mention, so I don't spoil the read for you.  See how many of the folks he encounters you can recognize - this book will send you back to re-reading the classics, or inspire you to read them for the first time.

I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TOO HIGHLY - IT WILL REPAY EVERY EFFORT YOU PUT INTO FINDING AND READING IT.(I know that's shouting - I meant to shout.)

Really, I mean every word.

 

Vegage du Jour - 08 January 2013

I know I've posted about roasting asparagus here before, possibly more than once, but this one was worth an extra note.

As always, the roasting takes place in a fairly hot oven (375F this time), but rather than dropping the spears in a baking dish, this time it was in a skillet.

First, I got the skillet - non-stick with no oil or spray or anything - nice and hot.
While it heated, I cleaned and trimmed a small bunch of scallions and dried them with a paper towel.
Directly into the hot skillet went the scallions, being turned now and again to get a nice brown heading to a char on each side.
Once they were nicely coloured, they were moved aside, and the asparagus was added to the pan.
A drizzle of olive oil and a few good-sized pinches of Herbs de Leelanau went on the spears, and then the scallions were draped over them as well.

The skillet went into the oven where everything roasted away until done, and my goodness but it was tasty!

Highly recommended,
Enjoy!

Belgians and Buffaloes

Well, after decades of painstaking research, the mystery of why Belgians are called Buffaloes may have been solved.
It seems that back around the turn of the century (from the 19th to the 20th), Buffalo Bill Cody took his Wild West Show to Belgium (among other European countries), where the people of Ghent took to him in a big way.
The football team there - K.A.A. Gent - took as its nickname the Buffaloes, and their logo is an Indian chief in profile.
It seems that many of the Belgians moving to the Detroit area came from that part of Flanders, and brought their team affiliation with them.
A mystery neatly solved.

Don't miss this book

No, this time I'm not plugging one of my own.
I'm recommending A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr.

This is one of the most important works of Science Fiction I've ever read.  It's all there: Good, Evil, Art, Faith, Technology, Science, Politics, Life, Death, Redemption.
Don't miss this book; it's simply too good not to be read.

Spanning centuries during which we pass from post-nuclear holocaust Dark Ages through another Renaissance, another "Enlightenment", and eventually to the brink of another nuclear war, this novel examines human history from the viewpoint of a small religious community - and from the general viewpoint of the Church.
As stated above, don't miss this book; it's simply too good not to be read.

This cat can play

If you haven't read A Rune With A View yet (and for what are you waiting?), you probably don't know that Jerry Lombard is quite a fan of Eric Johnson. Well, so am I; so am I.

If you enjoy stunning guitar work, this is your guy - check him out via Pandora, or maybe just drop a few bucks at Amazon and get his CDs or MP3 downloads. You won't regret it.

Roast Doesn't Disappoint

Wow.
Michael Symon's Roast in Detroit has done it again.

We took Christian - home on leave from the Army in Alaska - for dinner last night, and his experience was the same as ours had been the first time we went there: it was simply the best food any of us had ever had at a restaurant.

Ambience, Service, Food, they've got it all. Oh - the Book Cadillac is a beautiful building too.

Highly recommended to all.

Another Way to Hear Your Music

There's a very cool utility I found today that takes MIDI files and tuns them into mp3 or wav or wma files automatically - and they actually sound good.

www.midi2wav.com is the place, and midi2wav is the program that does the magic.

It's not terribly expensive, and it works well and easily.

Check it out if you have any use for this kind of application. Highly recommended.

Cheers.