Ounce of Prevention

Yesterday I travelled from Portland back to the ranch in Nehalem with Sage and Brian, who had appointments in town. When I arrived here I was unmotivated to work, but so many lambs have been born that we are backlogged and had to dive right in to doing nuts, tails, and tags. On the subject of castrating, you may or may not know that the most common current practice is to snug a rubber band, called an elastrator, around the nutsack, using a stainless steel caliper. After a few days the nuts just drop off, and an open wound is less likely to develop. So it seems less torturous. As Brian said, "I'd hate to go back to the days when they were biting them off."

While I was absent, an odd medical condition led to a change in the regimen for newborns. Apparently the lamb known as Ann Bronte was suffering from rickets, but recovered with vitamin A/D treatment, so now it's a standard preventative treatment for new lambs in the form of a subcutaneous injection. If you're like me, you probably thought that rickets went out with English buccaneers in the 18th century. But no, a trio of factors - the lack of sun here on the Oregon coast, the leaching effect of grass (?), and the impenetrability of mothers' wool to what dim light is available - make young sheep susceptible to D deficiency and thus rickets.

Twit Crit - Nuevos Mutantes

A certain Tibetan meditation master wrote that the enlightened warrior does not need to read comic books to entertain himself. If this is the case I think that I am doomed to while out my earthly days in a dross of ignorance and confusion. I spent yesterday afternoon at a teahouse with a graphic novel from the library and I cannot think of a more enjoyable pastime. What follows are my thoughts on a Marvel Comics subplot from the 1980's, and you are fairly warned, dear reader, that if you don't want to geek out in that direction, maybe try another post?

The New Mutants are the young superheros who moved into Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters after their elders the X-Men graduated (cf. DeGrassi: The New Class). I was introduced to the series about eight years ago by my friend Kiril, who loaned me his copy of the Inferno saga, a convoluted multi issue crossover between the two teams. With this book I spent a few afternoons huddled in my room in Cloyne Court Hotel, reading obsessively and occasionally thrusting my torso out the window for a breath of fresh air. Later on I bought some back issues from Revolution Comix on Davis St. in Evanston. The title ran from about '83 to '90, a timeframe that commends it to my heart, on which more below. By the time I started reading Marvel, around '91, most of the heroes of the Silver Age - Spider Man, X-Men, etc. - had long gotten a bit stilted, and so deadly serious, bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. The writers were aware of this and deliberately brought out a teenage x team to freshen up the atmosphere. Reading the book I get the sense of youth and exploration. The finest Marvel characters continue to be embalmed and entombed in copious piles of celluloid. The fact the there will never be a New Mutants movie makes the team more ephemeral and endearing.

The character on whom many of the book's stories hinge is Ilyana, sister of X Man Colossus, teleporter, demon sorceress. The typical plot involves a villain coercing Ilyana, ever striving to be pure and good, into falling in thrall to her bad witch nature and then terrorizing her teammates, until they regroup and find a way to subvert whatever malefactor is pulling her strings. Her captors tend to display her in lurid poses, for example, wearing xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The repetitive scenario reminds me of the game of vacillation from good girl to bad that Britney Spears ran on pop music when I was in University. For whatever reason I relate to the New Mutants exploration of the madonna-whore more than I do the Mickey Mouse Club starlet, but I acknowledge that they are of a piece.

That's a'Spicy

Returning to omnivory has made me giddy to eat all of the delicious treats made from various parts of our farmyard friends that I denied myself as a vegetarian. My gut reaction, so to speak, is that I am overindulging in meat, and so I have to overcorrect with high fiber veggies. Nevertheless, Friday night, when I was just returned from a week in the field, found me eating an Italian hoagie at two separate Portland locations within a span of three hours.

The first stop was Michael's Sandwiches at 11th and Sandy Blvd. I read in the local press that Michael himself is a curmudgeon, and there are some officious signs tacked up around the place. But how much truck can you have with a guy who flies Cubs and Bears pennants in his restaurant and serves up authentic Chicago style Italian subs? Options are peppers, hot or mild, and onions, raw or sauteed. I was the only guy in line at 4:30 on Friday and my sandwich arrived practically before the order was out of my mouth. The beef is tender and savory with a fresh taste and aroma. There could have been a little more jus on the sub to lubricate the baguette. I ordered the half sandwich, and wondered why I had made such a paltry offering to my bottomless pit.

The reason for temperance became clear later when I found myself at the bar of the Brickhouse Pizzeria on northeast Sandy Blvd. I had just sidled up there to drink a few pints and watch the San Francisco Giants in what was ultimately a losing effort. But then I thought back to my eighth grade gym coach's advice on what a poor idea it is to drink on an empty stomach. So when the accomodating proprietor Thanna made a case for the Italian sausage, I ordered my second hoagie of the night. It was creamy meat with aromatic fennel. The taste took me back to youthful days of inhaling square-cut pies at kids' birthday parties, and the sausage compares favorably to any I can remember in classic Chicago pizzerias.

While I'm talkin' sandwich, I gotta give it up to the cubano at Bunk on SE Morrison. This is just a slab of pork belly (the uncured raw material of bacon) wrapped in a slice of ham and served with swiss and mayo on a baguette. Rolling pork in ham is the kind of audacity you need to distinguish yourself in the culinary playground of Portland, and I was patting my belly for hours after my trip to Bunk Sandwiches.

It is a joy to sample the fine cuisine that is available and to appreciate the many flavors that the earth and sunshine bring forth. But I feel that if I continue to binge in the way described I am at risk of the gout and midlife coronaries. So this morning I return soberly to rolled oats and the greenest bananas this side of Ecuador.

Open Season

The quarry's throat opens, and out spill scarlet berries, unripe and swallowed whole, garnished with tender green herb tips; harvest bouquet from a grouse's gullet.

Peter had shot a brace of two birds early one morning before we left for surveys. Strangled game in hand, he asked me if I wanted to clean them. I had never cleaned a bird before. This was his advice: "Take a few big pinches of feathers off the chest to expose the skin. With the skin exposed, tear it apart at the mid breast. Pull it off of the bird like a jacket. Hold both legs in one hand and break through the muscle with your thumb at the base of the breast, and then again at the top. Then just pull the two skinned breasts away from the body."

Without too much difficulty we got the breast and leg meat bagged in a ziploc. The evening found us at Lee's Gourmet Garden, fine Sezchuan cuisine, Oakridge. The Chef there is Jeff. He will cook anything you bring him: grouse, sturgeon, venison, mushrooms, etc. I never knew a restaurant to do this before, but it is not surprising for the former personal chef of the legendary Jackie Chan. Ours was served with pepper and black bean sauce, and it was delicious. If you are in Oakridge, see Jeff.

Destination Fat City

Peter and I will be working down in Oakridge, OR, this week. The town is notable for being a mountain bike mecca discovered by Gary Fisher during his freewheeling career. The adventure sport's influence is evident from the fact that, when I was there in the summer, about 1/3 of the people were disproportionately muscular in the lower body. It made me think back to teenage days when I aspired to be a fattire gearhead. The other thing Oakridge has in abundance is poison oak, so wish me luck not catching a case.

I will be camping with no computer access, so look for me again, dear readers, around the 10th of October.

Twit Crit

I am almost finished with R.L. Stevenson's novel The Black Arrow, a serialized yarn of youthful swashbuckling in the War of the Roses, 15th century England. What prompted me to read this book, which was gifted to me some years ago but lay uncracked and yellowing until recently, was a review of a new collection of essays by J.L.Borges that was lying in my parents' bathroom at my last visit. Borges was, apparently, a great admirer of Stevenson. The most striking remark that was quoted in the review was Borges' preference to write commentaries on long imaginary novels rather than writing the novels themselves. So in that spirit I offer my thoughts on some literary trivia that I encountered recently.

Last month, idling my time away in the library of the Shambhala Mountain meditation center, I looked through the book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which is a collection of pithy vignettes from the renowned east Asian tradition translated to English and compiled between the 1930's - 50's. Therein is contained a parable of a great general who told his reluctant, outnumbered troops that their victory was assured should a coin flip turn up heads. The toss was lucky and the party carried the day. When it was later revealed that the master had in fact used a double-heads coin, his comment was something like, "Destiny is irresistable."

The other two-faced coin thrower known to me in literature is Two-Face, the acid-scarred enemy of Batman who debuted in the 1942 and has been played recently onscreen by Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhardt. The coin used by this criminal is an heirloom from his father, who would tell the boy that he was only going to beat him if the toss came up heads. Grown up, Twoface scratched up one side of his dad's old doubleheads and would in fact give potential victims a 50% chance, but I think he used some true double coins as well.

While at first these two characters appear distinct or even opposed - the calm, resolute master of meditation and martial arts contrasting with the flashy, impetuous tommy gun gangster - in fact they share insoluble qualities - fierceness in command of subordinates, unwillingness to be swayed from purpose, etc. So I can only surmise that they are the same character, and the novel that I imagine and would comment on, in the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges is an historical transoceanic epic that fills in the gaps between Japan circa 1000 A.D. and Depression era Gotham City. My first thought sees Twoface as a bucaneer gambling with a slaver for his human cargo, rerouting the newly won ship and leading the men in the sack of a Mediterranean bank, and then losing both men and gold on an ill starred march through the Sahara. There are infinite possibilities for heroism, swagger, slaughter, composure, vanity, mercy, and brutality. Go ahead, think up your own.

P.S. According to Wikipedia Batman editor Bob Kane claims to have been inspired for Twoface by Stevenson's Jeckyl and Hyde, although he hadn't read the novel at the time of the villain's introduction.

Whatever Floats

There were some scenes from yesterday's kayak survey where I made mistakes and found myself in trouble. Two such instances. In both I was breathing hard with fear swelling up around my chest and head. Under such duress, I think that I did an acceptable job of staying cool and correcting bad situations as best I could. The physical risk to my person was not in fact very great, although some equipment was at significant peril. I came away without harm for which I am grateful.

Peter and I were surveying a stretch of Mill Crekk that runs past a minimum security correctional facility. It is one of three that the stream fronts in the area of Salem. The least prominent of the three, it sits a ways out of town and was in former times a 2200 acre working farm. Now much of that property has been sold. A smallish four story cellblock and a few acres of ungrazed pastue remain.

We were both stoked to be doing the survey by boat, and overall we had a lot of fun. It was sobering to float past guys looking down at us from the yard upslope. We both imagined that they felt a sense of longing to see two guys meandering and exploring the gravel bars.

The details of how I got in trouble on the water I am going to spare for now. Ask me about them when you see me. My experience in a kayak is limited, and the routine of hopping in and out of the boat in the shallows, conducting surveys, etc. was hard to get used to. The second go round will find me more proficient and confident.

We had a lovely float back down at the end of the day. I tried to let go of the stress and be in the flow. Riffling water, warm air, trees, sunlight. Keep your nose pointed downstream and you'll be alright.