Every once in a while Carrie & I look around us and realize, y’know, we’re just a little too old for this. Oftentimes those moments happen courtesy of Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount.
An example: Hempfest. Yeah. We didn’t really feel like we fit in there so much.
Last weekend was our 7th wedding anniversary, but there was way too much going on to do anything about it then. So the weekend before that we decided to celebrate. We learned that JM+FFD was going to be doing a little outdoor festival along with The Jesus Rehab and Terrapin Productions. So that sounded like fun. Only thing: it would be a camping trip.
I don’t camp. I’ve never enjoyed it. I worked hard for my amenities and my comfortable mattress, and I’ve never understood the appeal of roughing it. But Carrie loves it, and we gathered enough comforts (like a tent and a cushy air mattress and a sleeping bag) from camping-oriented friends that I thought I would give it a try.
So we set out for the mountains (with a stop at Scott’s Dairy Freeze in North Bend for lunch—yes, the North Bend where they filmed a bunch of Twin Peaks).
When we got to Roslyn (yes, the Roslyn where they filmed lots of that Northern Exposure TV show), we thought we might walk around for a bit. But it was so frikkin’ hot that we decided just to get back in the air-conditioned car and try to find the venue.
The “festival” was very vaguely organized; we didn’t even learn where it was until the night before. There was a guy at a gate who said that the person running this “festival” was supposed to have provided him with a list of guests, but never did. He just let us in and directed us to drive to another point farther into the forest with basically a “good luck.”
So when the pavement turned to dirt we had to back up a bit until we got cell phone reception and were able to call Julia to get directions the rest of the way. This involved driving past a shirtless man named “Troy” who asked us for our email addresses before giving us directions the rest of the way to an uneven clearing with a wooden stage (still under construction) at one end and an outhouse at the other.
This was about when Carrie & I had that “we’re too old for this” moment.
Fortunately it actually turned out to be quite a bit of fun hanging out with JM+FFD and Jared and Neighbor Gary, even though Carrie & I were practically the only people in attendance who weren’t a member of one of the bands… and a lot of the bands were much more metal \m/ than the bands we usually see. And the camping was actually pretty comfortable. Who knows; I might try it again some time.
The next morning we couldn’t wait to get outta there, though. We had breakfast at the Roslyn Café then headed back home.
Here are some very blurry pictures taken from my phone:
Last weekend I went to the Northwest Pinball & Gameroom Expo 2011 with my brother and Neighbor Gary. It’s a very cool event, which you can learn more about at their Website.
I took photos of the games that I played/enjoyed the most while I was there. Click on a photo for more info about that particular machine!
It’s Mardi Gras! This year was the first year of my life wherein I participated in a particular Mardi Gras tradition: a series of King Cake parties. Point of fact: I’d never actually heard of a King Cake party before this year, when a new friend (who just moved here from Austin, TX) decided to start up the tradition.
In a nutshell: You throw a party in the middle of January (it generally coincides with Twelfth Night/Epiphany, though in this case it was later — January 22nd or so). Whoever hosts that party bakes a cake — a King Cake: traditionally a ring-shaped cake similar to brioche, with green-and-purple frosting/sprinkles. Hidden somewhere in the cake is a small figurine, often a Baby Jesus. Whichever guest at the party gets the piece of cake containing the figurine is the “King” for that week and has to throw the next King Cake Party the following weekend. This continues every weekend until Mardi Gras!
I actually probably would not have become a part of this tradition (indeed, I missed the first party entirely) had it not been for the fact that Marvel’s X-Men’s female clone of Wolverine X-23 won the first King Cake Party and got to throw the second one at her place, just up the road from me.
It was a fascinating several weeks. Carrie & I got to meet a tonne of new people, as whoever hosted the party invited not only the people who had been at previous parties, but their own friends as well. We also got to go to some places we’d never been before, and experience fascinating things like wood-fired saunas and hot tubs, and all manner of cooking. Not even the King Cake itself was consistent; many of the participants put their own spin on the tradition by serving the figurine in other types of baked goods — even an Apple pie once.
Carrie & I had to miss the next-to-last King Cake Party, but we delegated our participation, and — guess what? — we won by proxy!
For our King Cake, Carrie decided to go old-school: a northern French Galette des Rois (French for “Cake of Kings”). She used a slightly-modified version of the recipe from Zen Can Cook:
For this recipe you will need:
1 puff pastry sheet
8 tablespoons soft butter
1 cup slivered almonds
2 eggs
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon milk for eggwash
Powdered sugar for glazing
* Preheat oven to 425′F. Cut out two 9-inches circles of puff pastry. Prick one of them with a fork. Place on a tray lined with a silpat. Refrigerate.
For the frangipane (almond filling):
In the bowl of a food processor combine the butter, 1 cup almonds, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, pinch of salt and almond extract if using. Process to obtain a smooth paste, add the flour and pulse to incorporate (Carrie & I don’t have a food processor, so we just used a Magic Bullet and made the frangipane in batches).
For the galette des rois:
Spread the almond frangipane in the center of the pricked puff pastry circle leaving a 1-inch border. Brush the border with eggwash and top with the second circle of puff pastry. Seal the edge with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Brush with the eggwash. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Bake at 425′F for 15 minutes then lower the temperature to 350′F and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
Dust with some powdered sugar. Cool. Serve at room temperature.
Busdriver started his set with a very cool visual effect: all the lights were off, but he had a blacklight that also emitted lasers in such a way that they made a starfield on the background. Then he stood in front of the blacklight and starfield wearing all white. He made Tangentbot very happy by rapping over an Aphex Twin song for his encore.
Two of the opening acts were women hip-hop artists, Night Fox and Katie Kate. They were both very good, though I kinda liked Night Fox’s energy a little more. They were unlike many women hip-hop artists that I’m used to, in that they weren’t full of “even tougher than a man” bravado (even though there was a fair share of cussing). Night Fox’s voice periodically had an almost-Billie-Holliday warble in it, and at times sounded like an American Miho Hatori. Plus she was tiny and kinda adorable. Katie Kate was a much more polished performer and technical musician — I learned later that she’s a classically-trained pianist and graduated from Cornish with a music degree! Anyway, the point is they had a really fascinating style of hip-hop. I almost want to call it “Cutesy Hip-Hop” but that sound a little degrading. The point is, it was fun and inviting instead of angry and aggressive.
As for the Chop Suey show the next week, Threeni & T-Bo (as they will now be referred to in the rest of this post because it sounds awful) were the opening act for the Fake Four tour, which is the same tour that Open Mike Eagle opened for last year. Good company! And Carrie actually got to come with me because for once she didn’t have to teach on a night where there was an awesome music show!
They completely killed their set. The highlight of the whole night was when Threeni and T-Bo performed an absolutely epic cover of Jewel’s “Foolish Games.” For realsz! Ch-ch-check it out!
Like what you heard there? About to commit seppuku because you missed it? Stay your blade, I say! For Three Ninjas & Tangentbot will be performing a Mardi Gras party at the Skylark Café on Tuesday the 8th! THAT’S TOMORROW, HOMESLICE!
Carrie & I didn’t stay for the whole show because:
We live in Tacoma
I had to be at work at 8:00 the next morning
We’re old
But another excellent act that we got to see was Abadawn, a rapper with an extremely young countenance (he looked like he was 15) and a fascinating style. He had two vocalizations: a hip-hop voice that had inflections and flow that reminded me somewhat of Eminem, and a full-on death-metal screech/growl voice. He switched freely between them. Also, his songs were short, which I really appreciated (a couple were only like 45 seconds long, I swear). They were like a little nugget burst of energy, like a hip-hop haiku of rage.
So on Thursday I went with my museum buddy, Marvel’s X-Men’s female clone of Wolverine (X-23), to the Tacoma Art Museum to see their “Edo to Tacoma” exhibit of Japanese woodblock prints. I thoroughly enjoyed that experience. It’s one thing to see reproductions of prints, but its another to see the original paper from the 1600s with the original ink on it.
In case you didn’t know: woodblock prints involve carving a block of wood for EACH color. So a ten-color print (including black but excluding white) takes ten separate woodblocks to print. And these prints are generally no larger than an 8.5″ × 11″ piece of paper. So the carving work is incredibly intricate. It’s also a fascinating process in that practically off of the prints are commissioned by a publisher who hires the artist to draw something. Once the publisher approves the drawing (and the colors), it’s handed over to the carvers who do the actual carving work. Then the prints are mass-produced and sold, sometimes bound in a volume, especially the “series” works (like the 100 Famous Views of Edo and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series (which contains “The Great Wave off Kanagawa“) of prints). So it was really a commerce-driven industry, not artist-driven.
I got this swell postcard!
After leaving the museum, we swung by the Fulcrum Gallery in Hilltop to see their latest exhibition, “Seasonal Affective” by Sean Alexander. Mr. Alexander (who has a very sparse website) suffers from seasonal affective disorder (which is pretty common here in the Northwest), and allows it to inform his art. His artwork is intensively, minutely detailed with excruciating and teeny-tiny linework. Like this postcard I picked up at the gallery:
So if for some reason you find yourself in the area during Fulcrum’s business hours, you should definitely pop in and look at them up close. And then after that I came back home.
This year’s Halloween I decided to integrate my costume and my pumpkins. Here’s my costume:
ASTEROIDS!!!
I went as the ship from Asteroids. It was fun! I went to Home Depot and bought one of those swivel joints that you’d use to make a lazy Susan. Then I made the ship out of black foam board. The outline of the ship is just a couple of layers of masking tape. I mounted the ship to the lazy Susan joint (with three layers of foam board padding to push it farther away from my body for easier swiveling) with some screws and hot glue. And I attached the other side of the lazy Susan joint to another three layers of foam board that I attached to my body with two belts (one above the joint and one below).
I also made an asteroid outta foam board and masking tape, with two smaller asteroids. I glued some velcro to the backs so that the little ones could attach to the big one out of sight. I also got a handful of ping-pong balls to use as the ship’s bullets! I had a friend slowly attack me with the larger asteroid while I threw ping-pong balls at it. When I hit it, he disengaged the smaller asteroids and dropped the big one. Just like in the game!
My punkins were carved to match:
And just for fun I also threw in the UFO:
Pretty much everybody agreed that it was the best of the Fools’ costumes at this year’s Fools Play Trick or Treat. But the competition wasn’t really that stiff…
That’s Jamie the Ginger Fool as “Batman,” me, Geoff the Yellow Fool as “Harry Potter” (really), and Mike the Blue Fool as Zordon from Power Rangers.
James won the best costume in the audience competition as a red knight from Castle Crashers. It was very good, though I didn’t get a picture of it. Tia went as a 1960s-style alien space babe, with a beehive hairdo and fantastic boots and silver ray guns and everything. Pretty awexome.
Hween night was spent in the traditional way: Wii Bowling and making a metric tonne of Reuben sammitches and eating my wife’s Russian potato soup with sauerkraut. But I don’t have to tell you about that myself. Our good friend the Unintentional Housewife was there, and she blogged all about it! So go read her posts about my Reuben process and about my wife’s dee-licious soup. Also, Marvel’s X-Men’s “X-23″ was there, and she brought some apple crisp, which was also delicious. Saves me the trouble of having to write about it myself!
