Curmudgeon

To watch artisans at work, weaving the silk that Benares is famous for.

I am interested in their efforts to improve the quality of the water in the Ganges River, for the sake of the 400 million people who live along the basin and depend on it for life.

We did not make it inside the Victoria Memorial, because it and ‘most everything else in the city was closed in observance of Gandhi’s Birthday. Still, we walked under black clouds from St. Paul's Cathedral up to the entry gate. We might have paid to enter the grounds, but it started to rain. We took refuge under a tree briefly, but the drizzle quickly became a downpour. We hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take us to Peter Cat Restaurant on Park Street, using Kidderpore Road, so that we might pass alongside Fort William. Instead, the driver took us all the way to Kidderpore (!) on treacherously flooded streets, made a U-turn, then took the most direct route to Park Street. Just one more unsolicited adventure in a city that dispenses them liberally.

We arrived at about 6:20 this morning on the train from Howrah. A silk importer/exporter who shared our compartment offered us a ride into Varanasi, thus sparing us the hassle of either getting ourselves onto another train to the Varanasi train station or securing a taxi into the city. The man traveled overnight from Kolkata, simply to add to his Durga Puja observances a dip in the Ganges, before boarding the train back to Kolkata. When he learned that I am a weaver (of sorts), he suggested I hunt down the community of Madanpura, where some of the famous Benares silk saris are handwoven by local artisans. I LOVE having projects like this!

A vast menu with only about 3 words that were recognizable to me. We asked the waiter for suggestions and ended up with fabulous dishes: prawns in a subtly-flavored green gravy, an amazing preparation of banana blossoms, moong dal with peas and cauliflower, and Basmati rice. My masala lassi was so thickly laden with fiery green chillies that I took to using my teeth and lips to strain them out as I sipped, leaving a scrubby green ring around the inside of the mouth of the glass. I will definately return before we leave Kolkata and will order the fish cooked in a banana leaf that I saw served at another table.

My Beloved and I arrived in Kolkata yesterday morning, hardly having slept at all for the day and a half we were in transit. In the early evening, we struggled to stay awake late enough to adjust to local time by taking a LONG walk south along J. Nehru Road from Sudder to the fountain in the Maidan that is south of the view of the Victoria Memorial. While we did not ride the Metro, we did descend to the station at Park Street, proceeded south underground for a block or two, then reemerged near the Asiatic Center, only on the other side of J. Nehru. We will probably use the Metro tomorrow to travel north to the neighborhood where artisans are busy at work making images for Durga Puja.

Great food! I had oxtails in a highly-seasoned pepian sauce (with a base of ground pumpkin seeds roasted until deep chocolate brown). My Beloved had tongue in a velvety tomato sauce. We passed up lots of intriguing options, so we’ll be back time and again, I can tell!

Reverend Billy Appears On Fox Business News!Preaching The Gospel Of BUYLESSNESS To The Rupert Murdoch Masses

These people in the commercial press—won’t it ever dawn on them that this economic downturn might be a good thing? Perhaps it must dawn on them like the FIERY DAWN OF HELL AND SHOPASMIC DAMNATION!

Children, yes there is pain and struggle now—but “Consumerism” is the Devil’s religion and its faith is called “Consumer Confidence.” The press acts like we are losing our nerve, or we’re conning them. No – Consumerism wants to control us with ads and debt and war and we’re catching on, that’s all. So if a glam company like Starbucks is stranded by a consensual boycott because of $4 lattes and sheer boredom with chain stores, that’s not an economy going down, that’s RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING! AMEN!

I preached on Fox Biz News last week – check out their response to the phrase “Capitalism isn’t necessarily the same as Freedom.” —Rev

I had never heard of this little park until yesterday, when someone described it to me and insisted I go. It sounds kinda hidden with few visitors on weekdays. Tranquil, with pools, a stream, and lots of lush foliage. Photos on flickr confirm the report. In turn, I referred my informant to the Meditation Garden Above The Shooting Range at the Los Angeles Police Academy.

We’d been walking past and through vast expanses of lupines elsewhere in the park, but the blooms were almost all spent. Then, as we approached Huckleberry Meadow, we came upon large patches of lupines still in full bloom. Different microclimate, I guess. Beautiful. Made me want to go home and plant the entire property in ‘em. Closer still to the meadow, we began to pass individual specimens of the very same plants that filled the meadow with color. I noted a pale yellow, pea-like member of the Lotus family that was akin to the vigorous grower that is currently taking over my little riparian bed back home. And at first I couldn’t clearly make out what the distant little orange dots were, until I found myself beside a miniature lily: bold and breathtakingly elegant. I nearly hyperventilated, realizing that THAT plant is also in my riparian bed, apparently on a very different bloom schedule than there in the forest.

So now in my head, I’m plotting a meadow-a 15’x2’ meadow, that is-on the little terrace outside the master bedroom. Yarrow and lupines, Lotus and the tiny lilies. It’s my understanding the Indian paintbrush does not transplant well, because it has a symbiotic relationship with some fungus or something in the soil. That fungus or something is either there or not. But it bears investigating, because the drifts of red-orange Indian paintbrush in the meadow provided the far end of the yellow-to-red spectrum, with the orange-yellow lilies and Galliarda filling in the midrange.

I’m excited to have a new garden project!