Say Cheese!

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A Delicious Looking Piece of Stilton Cheese

Early in my adult life, I became a cheese-o-holic—particularly at breakfast time. I loved having hot Indian black tea with a couple cubic inches of cheese with crackers or bread.

Lately, I have taken to making my own Mexican quesadillas for breakfast using La Banderita soft flour tortillas, Monterey Jack cheese, and sliced pickled Jalapeños.

I usually have on hand Monterey Jack, Extra Sharp Cheddar, Parmesan, and a blue cheese, usually English Stilton. What I never eat is what is euphemistically called American Cheese or any similarly overprocessed “cheese food.”

Also excellent are sheep and goat cheeses. I remember visiting a wine and cheese shop in Amboise, France, that was built into the foot of the rock on which the Château d’Amboise was built. I must have tried a dozen varieties of goat cheese with local Loire wines. I was in hog heaven. I feel similarly about good quality feta cheese, especially in Greek dishes.

Once I open a packet of cheese, I always repackage it first in wax paper and then aluminum foil. It seems to last longer that way.

In terms of health, there are different points of view about cheese—as is true of almost any kind of food or drink. Despite the high sodium and fat content of cheese, my blood pressure and cholesterol are well under control. Consequently, I plan on continuing to enjoy cheese as long as I can.

The Horror Films of Val Lewton

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Lobby Card for Val Lewton’s The Cat People

The following is a repost from October 31, 2015. I had just saw The Leopard Man on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and started thinking (for the nth time) how great Val Lewton was as a producer—probably the only great film producer.

There are horror films, and there are horror films. They can scare you out of your wits, like Curse of the Demon (1957) and Poltergeist (1982), or they can make you understand that the world is both light and dark in equal measure, like Val Lewton’s great films of the 1940s, such as The Cat People (1942).

Val Lewton, born Vladimir Ivanovich Leventon in Yalta, Russia, was interested in making low budget films to compete with Universal Pictures’ highly successful Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy, and Wolf Man franchises. The title for The Cat People was assigned to Lewton by RKO, and Lewton went to work on a psychological thriller in which there is no overt violence. Perhaps the greatest scene takes place in a swimming pool in which a young woman is swimming all by herself at night. In the shadows, we imagine there is a black panther, but neither the swimmer nor we the viewers are absolutely sure.

Even though Halloween is just about over, I highly recommend all the following Lewton films:

  • The Cat People (1942)
  • I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
  • The Leopard Man (1943)
  • The Seventh Victim (1943)
  • The Ghost Ship (1943)
  • The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
  • The Body Snatcher (1945)
  • Isle of the Dead (1945)
  • Bedlam (1946)

All are great films worthy of being seen multiple times. They are short, thoughtful, extremely moody, and highly successful. Also available is a Turner Classics biopic about Lewton’s career called Shadows in the Dark narrated by Martin Scorsese. Martine and I watched it last night and recommend you see it.

In all of Hollywood’s history, Lewton was probably the only film producer who controlled his products as if he were the director. Even though Lewton directorial protegés Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise, and Mark Robson went on to have brilliant careers, when one is watching a Lewton film, one recognizes it as a Lewton film.

Fish Story

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Giant Grouper

With this lovely picture, I come to the end of my Hawaii posts. The same day that Martine and I had our disappointing visit to the zoo (The Problem with Zoos), we walked over to the Waikiki Aquarium, which is competently run by the University of Hawaii. The overall experience was better in every way.

It was another hot and humid day, so we sat down in front of a large tank in which the Giant Grouper swam up to the glass and looked at us balefully. There was a docent sitting near us answering questions. Now, I remember eating (and liking) grouper in Florida, but I had no idea they were so big. Apparently the ones in Florida are not quite the size of our friend here, but they are still pretty ginormous.

I like the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, but the place is always full of toddlers in strollers being pushed by zombie parents who aim at our ankles rather than our brains. It’s obviously a lot better endowed than the Waikiki Aquarium, but size doesn’t always count. Similarly, I much prefer the Santa Barbara Zoo to the enormous Los Angeles Zoo (again, those damned strollers).

Two Nightmares

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In his collection Seven Nights (1984), Jorge Luis Borges wrote:

I have two nightmares that often become confused with each other. I have the nightmare of the labyrinth, which comes, in part, from a steel engraving I saw in a French book when I was a child. In this engraving were the Seven Wonders of the World, among them the labyrinth of Crete. I believed when I was a child (or I now believe I believed) that if one had a magnifying glass powerful enough, one could look through he cracks and see the Minotaur in the terrible center of the labyrinth. My other nightmare is that of a mirror. The two are not distinct, as it takes only two facing mirrors to construct a labyrinth. I always dream of labyrinths or of mirrors. In the dream of the mirror another vision appears, another terror of my nights, and that is the idea of the mask. Masks have always scared me. No doubt I felt in my childhood that someone who was wearing a mask was hiding something horrible. These are my most terrible nightmares: I see myself reflected in a mirror, but the reflection is wearing a mask. I am afraid to pull the mask off, afraid to see my real face.

Winning Back the Streets

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Political Handout for Traci Park

An intense campaign is shaping up for Los Angeles’s City Council District 11 between two defense attorneys: Erin Darling, a Progressive Democrat, and Traci Park, probably a Republican. At stake is the proliferation of homeless encampments in the district.

On Saturday morning, Martine and I had a chance to see a debate between Darling and Park. We were unimpressed by both of the candidates—though we suspect that Park is more willing to enforce existing laws forbidding encampments near schools, churches, and public parks.

In general, there are two prevailing voter viewpoints regarding the homeless: On one hand, there are the Mother Teresas and, on the other, the Darth Vaders. If a homeless person is willing to observe the law and is seriously interested in leaving the street encampments, I am willing to join the Mother Teresas to assist them. For those who are mentally hill and are unwilling to obey rules regarding alcohol and recreational drugs, I prefer the Darth Vader approach: drive them off the streets, by force if necessary.

Political Handout for Erin Darling

Although Erin Darling is endorsed by the Los Angeles Times and several liberal politicians and organizations, I see that Traci Park is endorsed by the Fire Department and local Police Departments. I rather suspect that Darling is one of those Woke Liberals I dislike as much as Trump’s MAGA insurrectionists. At one point in the debate, he spoke glowingly of the skateboarding community. What, aren’t they all still in Middle School? Sheesh!

The older I get, the more I realize that we are rarely presented with candidates and issues which we can enthusiastically support. All Martine and I care about is cleaning the garbage piles off the streets (usually associated with bums living in tents); cutting down on petty thefts of bicycles, medications, food, and drink; and threats of violence from rampaging bums (which have affected both Martine and me).

The Problem with Zoos

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A Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis)

Martine and I have this problem with zoos, namely: empty cages. It seems that one never knows whether a particular bird or animal is in residence or just hiding behind a rock or tree. The only zoos where this is not so much an issue are the San Diego and Santa Barbara Zoos and The Living Desert in the Coachella Valley.

The Honolulu Zoo is noted for its “exhibit absenteeism”: It seems that some 40% of the cages were unoccupied and without any notices that the animal is sick. I realize that in approximately half the cases, the cage occupant is lying doggo. If I were in a cage, I probably wouldn’t want to be stared at by a bunch of tourists or school children.

On the plus side, I did like the Komodo Dragon—my first. I also liked all the banyan trees, which kind of take my breath away. Below is Martine twirling a plumeria blossom in front of one of the zoo’s stately banyans:

It probably didn’t help that the temperature and humidity were in the 90s (Fahrenheit, that is).

50-Pound Coconuts

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Look Out Below!

On our last full day in Hawaii, Martine and I visited the Foster Botanical Garden, just north of Chinatown in Honolulu. It was hot and humid day, but fortunately there were a lot of shady benches. One of the highlights of the garden was the double coconut tree (genus Lodoicea), a native of the Seychelles. Its coconuts can be as heavy as 99 pounds each (45 kilograms).

Needless to say, Martine and I did not risk going under the tree and violently shaking its branches.

Curiously, while the coconuts are edible, they are of no commercial interest.

My favorite part of the gardens was the greenhouse with its collection of orchids. It was so warm and humid that the greenhouse door was left open.

Orchids at Foster Botanical Garden

Martine and I liked the garden so much that we resolved to visit several of the other botanical gardens in the Honolulu area or on whatever islands we visit.

’Elepaio Press

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Word Art at the Hawaii State Museum of Art

When we were in Honolulu, Martine and I paid a visit to the Hawaii State Art Museum across the street from the Iolani Palace. I was amused by art created by two Hawaiian brothers of Japanese ancestry—Richard Hamasaki and Mark Hamasaki—going under the collective name ’Elepaio Press.

Here are several more of their works:

It’s Not Nice to Play “52 Pickup” with the Alphabet

Favorite Films: Kill Bill 1 and 2

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Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo Wielding Her Hattori Hanzo Sword

Of the current batch of U.S. film directors, among the ones I like the most is Quentin Tarantino. Granted his films could be a tad violent, especially the two films in the Kill Bill series; but they are like bloody ballets. It also helps that the films star the lovely Uma Thurman, whom I had always thought was Swedish though she was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

Last night, I was surfing the Showtime channels when I landed around a quarter of an hour into Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004). Although I had seen both parts of the saga multiple times, I took the time to see Uma as Beatrix Kiddo kill several members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who sprayed bullets into her attempted wedding to an El Paso record shop owner. In Volume 1 (2-003) messy she had sliced Vernita Green, O-Ren Ishii, and the latter’s Crazy 88s gang into sashimi. In Volume 2, she sends Bill’s brother Budd and Elle Driver (played by Darryl Hannah) into a white trash trailer massacre followed by Bill himself—who dies by the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique at a Mexican beach resort.

Along the way, we have an interlude wherein Beatrix is taught advanced martial arts technique by a Chinese immortal named Pai Mei.

Pai Mei Astounds Beatrix Kiddo

This segment is almost a film in its own right, though it does show two things:

  • How Beatrix avoids beings buried alive in Barstow by Bill’s brother, who had shot her in the chest with two shotgun shells filled with rock salt
  • How Elle Driver had one eye poked out as a result of sassing Pai Mei

I don’t know how many more times I will see the Kill Bill films, though I bet I will continue to enjoy them.

In Praise of Minor Talents

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The Good Doctor Ruffled a Few Feathers, Including Mine

As part of my annual Halloween reading, I just finished the Oxford World’s Classics Tales of Terror from Blackwood’s Magazine. In the early decades of the 19th century, that’s where budding writing talents turned for examples of tales of horror. Among the most devoted readers were Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Browning, and—most particularly—Edgar Allan Poe.

Of the seventeen stories in the collection, I had only heard of two of them before: Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, a.k.a. the Ettrick Shepherd. The other writers (who were all new to me) were Patrick Fraser-Tytler, John Wilson,Daniel Keyte Sandford, John Galt, John Howison, William Maginn, Henry Thomson, Catherine Sinclair, Michael Scott, William Mudford, William Godwin the Younger, and Samuel Warren. All of their stories were first class.

Now I understand why Poe wrote him famous essay “How to Write a Blackwood Article.” And why Leigh Hunt wrote in 1819:

A man who does not contribute his quota of grim stories now-a-days seems hardly to be free of the republic of letters. He is bound to wear a death’s head, as part of his insignia. If he does not frighten every body, he is nobody.

Well, I could testify that I was frightened by this collection—by a bunch of “minor” writers who knew what they were doing. The credit for this collection goes to the two co-editors, Robert Morrison and Chris Baldick.

I was particularly entranced by the three selections from a long-running serial in Blackwood’s entitled Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician (appearing from 832-1837) by Samuel Warren (1807-1877).