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Edinburgh: Haggis Can Fly!

August 31, 2009

Edinburgh, frosty Edinburgh! Land of the incredibly uniform architecture, land of the loathing of green vegetables!

Here is a “gourmet Scottish breakfast” I ate. The mound in the front is haggis.

I should like to point out to any international readers or readers under some certain age — many Americans best know haggis from its numerous mentions in the 1993 romantic comedy classic So I Married an Axe Murderer. From the memorable quotes page:

Harriet Michaels: Do you actually like haggis?

Charlie Mackenzie: No, I think it’s repellent in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

Venison sausages, mash, mushy peas.

After 3 days, I just couldn’t take the incredible quantities of animal fat. The vegetarian breakfast was a huge improvement (if you like mushrooms).

I especially enjoyed this sign at the airport.

I especially enjoyed the poolside-style chairs at the airport. Can you not see my happiness from the appearance of my nose in this photograph?

And finally, let us travel back to 1993, and hear Mike Myers call his inamorata a “hard-hearted harbinger of haggis” (the second poem — wait for it):

In Edinburgh, Where “Pudding” Means “Congealed Blood”

August 26, 2009

A typical Scottish breakfast. The Wikipedia entry for black pudding is like an advertisement for veganism: Black pudding or blood pudding is a type of sausage made by cooking blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.

Whisky ice cream: too much ice cream, not enough whisky.

Scottish beer continues to taste like dunking one’s head in a barrel of toffee. That reminds me: I did see fried Mars bars for sale.

I stand in front of castles. It’s this new thing I do. Whenever there’s a castle, there I stand.

Edinburgh is gorgeous, but so fastidiously well-planned as to appear to be the result of someone’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. All the buildings are remarkably uniform. Resultantly, if you’ve seen one picture of Edinburgh, you sort of get the whole idea. Sometimes, a picture’s worth a thousand pictures.

I see a red door and I want to paint it … hmmn, I wonder what color would be nice? How about black?

Oh, and I saw some shows at the Fringe Festival. And ate more haggis. Weirdly, a couple of weeks ago I was hired to write a food quiz for City Scoops magazine, and that food quiz mentions haggis and its subsidiary neeps & tatties. Which are vegetables, but sound like childish words for breasts.

Check back tomorrow for further adventures in beer, architecture, and meat products commentary!

I’m in Edinburgh!

August 25, 2009

Here is my head in front of a window. I am not so talented at photo composition. I thought this might be more interesting than either my head alone, or a window alone. I also made sure buildings were visible through the window, because an opaque Scottish window wouldn’t actually be that exciting. I hope you appreciate my photographic efforts.

Edinburgh is full of things that look like this.

The cab driver suggested I try the cullen skink. He pronounced it more like “skank.” It’s chowder. It contains mackerel. If you’ve ever been to New England, you get the idea.

Scottish beer Innis & Gun promises “Hints of Toffee and Vanilla,” but seriously, Innis & Gun’s idea of a “hint” is like dipping your entire head in toffee and swishing it around. It tastes more like toffee than like actual beer. So if you need to trick any junior high school students into getting drunk … oh wait, did I just say that?

I have eaten the haggis. The haggis part is located in between the turnip part and the potato part.

And finally, whisky condoms for sale in the bathroom.

DO NOT DRIVE WHILE USING THE WHISKY CONDOMS. This should go without saying to anyone familiar with either whisky or condoms. For instance, you should not drive while reading Pushkin, and you should not drive while murdering someone. Therefore: DO NOT DRIVE WHILE MURDERING PEOPLE WITH A COPY OF BORIS GODUNOV.

Gratuitous Cat Photo

August 24, 2009

All the cat belly you ever wanted to see:

(Yes, my apartment has a balcony with a hammock on it. Don’t hate. Cow says “Mrwh?”)

Your Manhood Has Expired

August 22, 2009

I took too long to check out on the Victoria’s Secret website, and this lingerie model informed me, with a withering look: your session has expired due to a long period of inactivity.

It’s like you’ve been married to her for eight years and this time you finally just fell asleep on top of her.

Nerds in the News: Heidi Pratt Edition

August 21, 2009

“If women aren’t jealous of you, talking about you and cutting you down, then you’re a nerd, and I would never want to be that.”

- Heidi Pratt (née Montag)

Sigh. To be clear about Heidi Pratt’s value to society, she does have the most gorgeous set of fake knockers a doctor can stuff into a sliced-open human torso.

And she has such charming opinions!

It took this paparazzi-courting, E-list, Republican tanbot to point out that being a nerd is, apparently, an act of sisterhood. If we could all be nerds, we wouldn’t have to be jealous, slanderous, and vituperative. I feel a Lennon-esque nerd anthem coming on. Imagine all the people … living life as nerds.

Canada Part Seven / Le Canada Partie Sept (Ninja Edition)

August 20, 2009

My 11:15 am return flight from Toronto to LaGuardia was canceled; since I had planned a five-hour gap between when my flight was scheduled to arrive in NYC and when I needed to be somewhere, I blithely stood in the check-in line, reading a book, relatively unconcerned.

When I got up to the desk, however, I was told that, while TO -> LGA flights do in fact leave more or less on the hour, I couldn’t be booked on any of the flights before 3:45.  This was not acceptable.  I politely but firmly explained that I had to be at work, and that if I did not get there, the amount of money I would lose would be greater than the entire cost of the flight.  I made numerous suggestions for how I might be satisfied.  A supervisor was called.  Just before he arrived, I realized I was wearing a t-shirt that said, “I kissed a ninja because I’m sexy and I do what I want.”

Fortunately, I was wearing it under a rather smart trenchcoat, which I duly wrapped and buttoned before the arrival of the man who ultimately hit a lot of buttons and put me on the 2:15.

La Fin

Williamsburg Spelling Bee on NPR

August 19, 2009

Adults Put the ‘Bee’ in Orthography (streaming audio, 3:57) – from today’s Morning Edition on NPR.

Spelling bees are not just for kids, as more and more spelling bees for adults sprout up across the country. A bar in Brooklyn, New York, has been hosting one for about five years. That bee attracts people just looking for fun and those who really know their stuff.

Thanks to reporter Ben Calhoun! Shout-out to Carolyn D’Aquila, winner of the bee attended by Mr. Calhoun.

Canada Part Six / Le Canada Partie Six (Symbol Edition)

August 19, 2009

Translation: If your child is wearing a wheelchair hat, hold both his hands throughout your trip to the bathroom.

Canada Part Five / Le Canada Partie Cinq (Diction Edition)

August 18, 2009

If the service is “impeccable,” you can just stop there.  You don’t need to specify that it is also attentive and courteous. The idea is included.

Similarly, you don’t need to say that someone is “The hottest person in the world and also pleasing to the eye”; you can safely truncate “I murdered and injured him.”

Canada Part Four / Le Canada Partie Quatre

August 17, 2009

On previous trips to Kuwait, Argentina, and Sweden, I’ve posted photos of exotic things I’ve eaten. The thing to eat in Canada is poutine, fries with cheese curds and gravy. If you’ve ever had your hash browns at Denny’s “doubled, covered, and smothered,” you get the idea.

I walked down Queen St West to Poutini’s to eat this:

Salty. Tasty cheese. But basically: gravy fries. I ate about the top half of this, until the cheese was gone, and gave up. Others seemed to be treating this as a complete meal, which is wholly unhealthful.

At The Queen & Beaver (Canada, having been founded by unrepentant Loyalists/Tories, has plenty of British-style pubs and restaurants), I ordered a beef and kidney suet pie, topped with oysters. (“Kidney suet” is the hard fat from around the kidneys of beef or mutton). The suet was worked into the crust of this pie, which was then steamed.

It was predictably unpleasant. The British love to take the worst parts of animals and fail to mix them with any produce whatsoever. Steamed fat-pastry is not a good use of fat, pastry, or steaming.

Later, I went to La Palette and had escargot, and bison ribs with heirloom tomatoes. The escargot were hiding under mushroom caps, as though they had traded in their original shells for Alice-and-Wonderland style ones.

French-Canadians 1, English-Canadians 0.

Canada Part Three / Le Canada Partie Trois

August 16, 2009

After seeing Kensington Market and lots and lots of Queen Street West, where I purchased clever cloting and ate poutine, I went north to Yorkville, which is very posh indeed.

It’s good to know that Canadians can be just as shallow as Americans. In Yorkville, you can buy $1200 pumps and get laser resurfacing on any part of your person.

Many boutiques are housed in adorable Victorian houses. Dolce and Gabbana needed two. Here’s Dolce on one side of the street…

…and Gabbana on the other. Cute!

Canada Part Two / Le Canada Partie Deux

August 15, 2009

I went to Dr. Sketchy’s Toronto and hung out with impresario Brett.

Secret Sketchy Agent Jen.

I was drawing a model posing in a raincoat with a broken umbrella. It was too hard to draw the model’s head, so I drew a robot one instead.

Canada Part One / Le Canada Partie Un

August 14, 2009

I went to Toronto.  It’s kind of hard to explain why, but it’s all part of my master plan.

Toronto is a very short flight from New York, but you still have to go through Customs, of course.  When I arrived in Canada, a Customs officer asked why I was here.  ”Tourism?” I said.  ”Really?” he said.  ”Have a little more pride in your city!” I wanted to say, but didn’t.

I read in a local newspaper that Toronto is harboring a US fugitive — a female US soldier who didn’t want to go to Iraq.  Her asylum application was being reviewed; she claimed that if she returned to the US, she feared being “tortured in prison.”  This struck me as a bit melodramatic.  But, you know, it wasn’t her fault she was drafted … oh, wait.

Canadians recycle like motherfuckers.  Seriously, every street corner has a recycling station.  And I think there must be serious quotas on how much trash you can throw out at home, since the public trash cans all have little tiny holes you have to poke your trash through, and signs warning against dumping household waste. I went to a comedy show at the Rivoli, and heard jokes about a recent trash strike.

This sad strip club was right near my hotel. I say sad because, um: TOURISTS WELCOME! $4.99 ADMISSION SPECIAL. Whoa.

These Canadians really love hockey.

It is very weird for a New Yorker to exit a subway car, go up the stairs, and find that THE BUS IS IN THE STATION. Actually, it is a streetcar (it runs above ground on a track). I am not sure why a city would need both buses and streetcars, but it has them.

Toronto is a new city. Whenever you think you see a cool, old building, it’s actually a moderately new building based on the idea that an old building would have been nicer. Here is a Gothic revival church from the mid-1800s.

A friend from Facebook, Star, showed me around Kensington Market, which is relatively well-represented by this photo. I have never been anywhere to which Indians have not exported a bunch of crinkly long skirts for the local bohemians.

Here are some things that are out of business in Toronto:

You’d think that Canadians would spring for “polite” takeout, but apparently not.

Sad Voltaire! We have no time for you. Perhaps there is a thriving Diderot gallery on the other side of town instead.

Sold-Out Show!

August 8, 2009

Thanks so much to everyone who came!

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