Sunday, September 20, 2015

Komma

"Something cut off." Reading about The Oxford Comma, the serial comma, used before a conjunction. I go back and read a few pages carefully, and, of course, delete a few and add a couple. At the level of extreme nuance. There's so much in play that I get deeply engaged. Work and play. I spent most of the day thinking about separation and inclusion. What did you call your father? Dad, Pop, Father, Daddy? Couch to couch. I like listening to the Moth Radio Hour, more or less true stories, and I've always been around stories. I don't know what to believe anymore. When the blue-fish were running off Cape Cod I made a crude lure that could best be described as a piece of shit. A five inch piece of broom stick, with a small screw-eye, a swivel, and a treble hook. I'd tie on a feather. It looked exactly like a piece of broom stick with a feather tied on for effect. When the herring are flowing out to sea, the bluefish will strike at anything, I've caught them on gum wrappers. A ten pound bluefish, on medium tackle is a good test. Oily fucking fish, I like to smoke it, then revive it in Spanish wines. You can laugh, but I make these little fish balls that are absolutely superb. I like mackerel, for god's sake, I eat mullet. Large sardines, three to a can in oil, I eat with a very stinky cheese, a few pickles, a very coarse bread, and a wine that is aggressive and harsh but quite pleasant considering the meal. I love America's Test Kitchen on the radio. Sunday afternoon. Always a chuckle and usually a tip. I'll be cooking on the Stanley Waterford soon, when the nights cool off just a little bit more. Sad to see the end of great tomatoes, but I'm ready for beans and cornbread. I talked to the local pig guy, and he's willing to sell me raw fat back and a pig head quite cheaply. Curing salt-pork is incredibly easy, you bury the pork in salt, barrel it in a brine (12%) and it keeps for a long time. I have an old packing crate I use for curing salt-pork, completely salt-soaked. I take it to a car wash once a year and hose it out. You can't be too careful. But I've never disinfected anything, I was going to say, but I do disinfect almost everything. For one thing I try and stay away from kids because they are fucking vectors for disease; also I don't like going into public places, I'm claustrophobic, and elevators give me the willies. I've been trapped a few times, weather, generally, and you just do what you have to. Hiking slot-canyons is stupid, the flood that carries you away is not even on the radar. If you're a very good climber you might get to a ledge. But the slots are very beautiful. I watched one of these floods, from a safe vantage, and it was savage for about fifteen minutes, a raging three or four feet of water, and the canyon was dry again in an hour. You hear them before you see them. It sounds like a train, and you can feel it in your feet. The last day of summer and I am all over the check list. The mice are migrating, they want to move inside for the winter. I have a flat stone I keep in the freezer, maybe four by six inches, three/quarters of an inch thick. I freeze the mice, for the crows, and it makes perfect sense. You have a rock in the freezer on which you freeze mice for the crows. There. A perfectly good sentence without a comma. Mozzarella is a lot like tofu. Sun Gold Tomatoes, my god, and that hybrid apple, the Honeycrisp, I made a tart, and as a rule I don't make desserts.

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