Beer Bread

Ingredients

2 cups self rising-flour (for guys who don't normally bake, do make sure it says "self-rising")
3 tablespoons sugar
1 12 oz bottle of beer
(and remember the old saying, better beer makes better batter)

preheat oven to 350
grease a breadloaf pan
combine ingredients in order listed in a big mixing bowl
begin stirring as soon as you start adding the beer--it's ok if its slightly lumpy when your are done
put batter into pan, then into oven
bake for 50 minutes
remove and spread butter on top
bake for additional 10 minutes
remove and cool loaf on cooling rack

There you go. Couldn't be easier.

Beer For Breakfast?

My wife sent me, from one of her coworkers, a recipe for beer bread. It was my first time making bread of any kind, and I have to say it turned out very well. I just had a slice with my eggs. It only has 3 ingredients, sp it's pretty hard to screw up. I used Amber Bock for the beer, which gave it an interesting flavor. Lenise said it wasn't that flavorful when her coworker made it. Probably used some abominable lite beer.

I hope my opening didn't make you think I'd joined this guy.

I've been reading The Vintage Book of Amnesia, ed by Jonathan Lethem. It just a collection of short works about memory loss. I'm only 100 pages in and I've already been impressed with many of these works. Some are excerpts from longer works, such as Lawrence Shainberg's story of a neurosurgeon who is suffering from gradual brain damage. A few things I had already seen, such as "Funes: His Memory" by Borges (a classic) and an except from Percy's The Second Coming. The msot extraordinary story so far, one which only tangentially deals with memory loss, is Brian Fawcett's "Soul Walker" which posits the idea that our souls can only travel at walking speen and that if we move around too quickly we leave them behind.

I guess he's back. (He being Scott Cunningham, if you don't immediate recognize the signs)

The blog addiction is not so easily shaken.

You can put that quote on my tombstone--if you buy me a very large one.

In the domain of music the importance and influence of its dissemination by mechanical means, such as the record and the radio--those redoubtable triumphs of modern science which will probably undergo further still development--make them worthy of the closest investigation. The facilities they offer to composers and executants alike for reaching great numbers of listeners, and the opportunities they give those listeners to acquaint themselves with works they have not heard, are obviously indisputable advantages. But one must not overlook the fact that such advantages are attended by serious danger. In Johann Sebastian Bach's day, he had to walk ten miles to a neighboring town to hear Buxtehude play his works. Today anyone, living no matter where, has only to turn a knob or put on a record to hear what he likes. Indeed, it is in just this incredible facility, this lack of necessity for any effort, that the evil of this so-called progress lies. For in music, more than in any other branch of art, understanding is given only to those who make an active effort. Passive receptivity is not enough. To listen to certain combinations of sound and automatically become accustomed to them, does not imply that they have been heard and understood. For one can listen without hearing, just as one can look without seeing. The absence of active effort and the liking acquired for this facility make for laziness. The radio has got rid of the necessity which existed in Bach's day for getting out of one's armchair. Nor are listeners any longer impelled to play themselves, or to spend time learning an instrument in order to acquire a knowledge of musical literature. The wireless and the gramophone do all that. And thus the active faculties of listeners, without which one cannot assimilate music, gradually become atrophied from lack of use.

Igor Stravinsky

I'm glad Chris has been taking the time to read Gatto and summarize for us. The book is available free online, but I don't have much patience with reading on a computer screen. This particular entry was quite powerful, but Gatto is always pretty strong. I was blown away the one time I heard him on NPR. Couldn't believe they would let someone that anti-establishment on the radio.

Breaking News!

Rather interesting article about textbook controversies in Russia.

A film by some folks I know. I really want to see it. The director of this film did a little acting with me for some film work for this years VBS last week. I'm Moses this year, and Josh and another fellow were playing the two fighting Israelites who ask me about killing the Egyptian. Was a lot of fun watching them throw mud at each other.

Maybe you can find Bill Harris more entertaining than me. I know I do.

I apologize to everyone except Valerie for how boring my blog has been lately. There's been a lot I thought about posting, mostly quotes from Samuel Marchbanks and such. It's just been a little difficult lately to put together enough time to both a) find interesting things and then b) write them up. Spending a fair amunt of time lately studying Russian, but beginning language studies don't make very interesting stories.

I DO enjoy being a father, and that takes up virtually all of my time. Unfortunately for y'all, I'm not very good at writing up cure baby stories. I can say generally, though, that J S has been very popular everwhere he has gone. I understand that on his recent zoo trip, the animals were tapping each other on the shoulder, saying, "hey, look at the cute baby."

You'll probably have to select a new option under view->character encoding to read the previous entry.

я сейчас могу писать по-русский

I can clear up this mystery by letting you know it isn't me.

Sometimes there are heart warming things about being a presbyterian. How do we get something like this started at our church? (Daniel?)

Also, I'm 36 today whereas I was not yesterday. Big public thanks to my brother for a lovely amazon certificate to help me clear out some of the books that had been clogging up my wishlist for a couple of years. It's down to 170 books, so if each of you will grab a few of them for me, it'll be light work :)

Show of hands: how many of you have ever heard your pastor throw the word "blogger" into a sermon?

Interesting story on media and politics in Ukraine. You have to figure that a similar action in the US would get someone fired and castigated, but then our situation is much different.

I don't want to hear any of you complaining about YOUR boss now.

Sink me, or What Would Percy Blog?