Bitters of the Month: Peach

Peach bitters, compared to others we've tried, is surprisingly strong in flavor.  I haven't played around with peach drinks much - surprising in light of the fact fuzzy navels were what launched my interest in mixed drinks back in the day.  As we shall see, later in the month (Spoilers!), peach holds up better in a cocktail than I would originally have thought.

On the Coffee Table: Winning Chess Combinations

Title: Winning Chess Combinations

Author: Yasser Seirawan

via Amazon

Chess combinations are better known to those outside the chess world (self included) as sacrifices.  For example, you sacrifice your queen - the most powerful piece on the board - for a quick checkmate, winning the game.  According to Seirawan, combinations come up in every chess game, whether executed or merely pondered.  As such, learning to see them (for one's self), avoid them (in the case of one's opponents) and recognize favorable conditions for them is essential to chess mastery.  Sounds good to me.

By the author's own admission, this book targets a slightly higher skill level than the others in his Winning Chess series.  I readily acknowledge that most of it was over my head.  I grasped the general principles but merely skimmed most of his deep analysis.  Thank goodness for the final chapter which provided a succinct summary of the highlights of the previous eight.

So, now I am faced with a question: where do I go with chess from here?  There are no more chess books on my overflowing TBR shelves, nor do I have immediate plans to add any.  The truth is, as much as I admire the game, I don't play much.  I play tabletop games all the time - with my wife on weekends plus two groups of friends online during the week - but not chess.  There was an online chess tournament at school over the summer.  I play against a computer occasionally.  But it's been years since I actually sat down at a real chess board with a fellow human being.  

And yet, I truly would love to get better.  Seirawan's books are helpful but I know perfectly well as a musician that what I truly need is practice: regular, structured, rigorous practice.  I could make that happen, and really it wouldn't take much to be better than I currently am.  But there are so many other things I want to do, too.  So, what to do with chess?

For now, it's a rock solid I don't know.

Marvel Immersion Project: Captain Marvel #30-34, Iron Man #55

Jim Starlin was the primary creative force behind The Life and Death of Captain Marvel, serving as both lead writer and lead artist for a time.  In fact, this might be his most famous work.  He was born October 9, 1949 in Detroit, Michigan.  He was the co-creator of Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora and Shang-Chi.  He has done extensive work for both Marvel and DC and won numerous awards.  He makes a cameo in Avengers: Endgame as a member of Steve Rogers's support group.

via Wikipedia

Starlin is a Steve Ditko fan and the Doctor Strange influence on this arc is particularly obvious.  

My Recent Reads

Captain Marvel #30

Originally Published January 1, 1974

Writer/Artist: Jim Starlin

• The Controller is back.  
• The newly reinvented Captain Marvel wins the rematch.  
• Disappointed, Thanos destroys the Controller.

Captain Marvel #31

March 1, 1974

Jim Starlin

Moondragon via Marvel Database

• Captain Marvel, accompanied by Moondragon, goes to Avengers' Mansion to enlist their help in the fight against Thanos.

Mantis via Wikipedia

Swordsman via Marvel Database

• Among those present are Mantis and Swordsman.
• Thanos reveals that his dreams of universal conquest are driven by his love for the character Death, who, I realized for the first time in this story, is female. [Thanks to my buddy Mock for the heads-up on that one.]
• Thanos plucks Mar-Vell, Iron Man, Drax and Moondragon right out of the mansion and brings them directly to Titan, to be held in stasis along with Mentor and Eros.
• They get our of stasis and battle Thanos.
• Not only does Thanos win.  He transforms himself into a god.

Captain Marvel #32

May 1, 1974

Jim Starlin

• The battle against Thanos and his minions continues.
• We get origin stories for both Drax and Moondragon.

Captain Marvel #33

July 1, 1974

Writers: Starlin and Steve Englehart

Artist: Starlin

• At long last, the Thanos War comes to an end. 
• First, Mar-Vell is defeated, though he rallies back to victory after he is reminded of his new Cosmic Awareness.

Captain Marvel #34

September 1, 1974

Starlin and Englehart/Starlin

via Wikipedia

• On the orders of The Lunatic Legion, Nitro steals a top-secret, government nerve agent, Compound 13.
• Mar-Vell defeats Nitro but at great cost.  The gas canister is ruptured and Mar-Vell breathes in some of the fumes, a fact which will have dire, long-term consequences.

Iron Man #55

February 1, 1973

Starlin and Mike Friedrich/Starlin

• Jumping back, at this point effectively a prequel to the Captain Marvel run I've been reading.
• Thanos, Drax and the Blood Brothers are all introduced in this issue.

Star Trek: A Matter of Perspective

Episode: "A Matter of Perspective"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 3, Episode 14

Original Air Date: February 12, 1990

via Memory Alpha

Riker is accused of murdering Nel Apgar, a prominent Tanugan scientist.  Picard must decide if he will allow his First Officer to be extradited.  To that end, he directs Data and la Forge to recreate the circumstances of the crime on the holodeck in accordance with witness testimony.

"A Matter of Perspective" is a Rashomon-inspired story, not to mention a Rashomon-inspired title.  One of filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's numerous masterworks, Rashomon - based in turn on two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa - tells the story of an alleged rape from multiple perspectives.  So too is Riker's story complicated by his interactions with Apgar's wife, Manua.  She alleges an attempted rape.  He claims she was the one who made unsolicited advances.  A third witness believes it was mutual consent.

Let's be honest about all of this for a moment.  It's icky.  The film is icky, too.  All adaptations of Rashomon are.  Real-life rape cases are exactly like this: one's word against the other and the assailant gets away with it for lack of conclusive evidence.  As much as we want our man Riker to be the good guy, it's clear Manua sees things in a different way.  Even Deanna acknowledges Manua believes she's telling the truth.

Take another step back and the episode has a lot going for it.  The interstellar legal considerations are inherently interesting.  This particular use of the holodeck is novel and the explorations of its potential impact on the physical world signify a narrative groundbreaking.

Still, it's icky.  I have a hard time getting past icky.

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Craig Richard Nelson played the role of Krag, the Tanugan investigator.  Nelson was born September 17, 1947 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He went to the University of Utah as an undergrad, then NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for graduate school.  His first gig after getting his MFA was a Tony award winning, musical production of Two Gentlemen of Verona on Broadway.

Big screen credits include The Paper Chase, Quintet and My Bodyguard.  This was the first of two Star Trek appearances.  Other television credits include Square Pegs, The Golden Girls and Home Improvement.

Squid Mixes: Les Chroniques du Champs-Élysées

Now that we've sorted out our Manhattan preferences, it's time to move on to other cocktails.  We begin with The Champs-Élysées, a relatively recent discovery.  Ingredients: Cognac, Chartreuse, lemon juice, simple sugar syrup and lemon peel garnish.

To be honest, there's really only one ingredient worth battling over: the Chartreuse, green vs. yellow.  There's only one Cognac on Vermont shelves within my acceptable price range, i.e. under $30 for a 750 ml bottle: Salignac.  My wife is inclined to push the limit up a little but particularly in light of how expensive Chartreuse is, I feel one should be more frugal with the other ingredients.  If we start drinking Cognac straight, I might feel differently.  With lemons, I'm not likely to go beyond what we already have on hand.  With syrup, I could futz around more with making my own but I've found most of what I make gets tossed for lack of use.  The store-bought stuff tastes fine and is also more shelf stable.  So, the Chartreuse battle is really the only one we need...

Chartreuse Battle: Green vs. Yellow

As discussed in my previous post on the cocktail, there are substantive differences between green and yellow Chartreuse, beyond the color.  The green has a higher alcohol content at 110 proof.  The yellow is sweeter and weighs in at 80 proof.  Side by side in the drink, both are perfectly lovely.  The added sugar content of the yellow is definitely noticeable.  We both gave the green a slight edge because less sugar allows for a more complex flavor, truly the whole fun of Chartreuse to begin with.

Winner and Champion: Green Chartreuse

Here's our all-star lineup for The Champs-Élysées:

Solignac Cognac

Green Chartreuse

Stirrings Simple Syrup

Lemon

Next up, sidecars!

On the Coffee Table: The Gifts of Imperfection

Title: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Author: Brené Brown

via Amazon

I last discussed Ms. Brown's work in regards to this book.  The Gifts of Imperfection goes back about eight years in her oeuvre.  Here she shares her ten guideposts on the power of Wholehearted living: "engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness."

For me, this is a read a little, think a lot, read a little, think a lot sort of book.  So, 126 pages took me longer than it probably should have.  I thought of doing a full, self-examination run down for all ten guideposts but that seems tedious.  Instead, I'll focus on strengths and areas for growth...

Strengths

#1 Cultivating Authenticity:  In truth, I've never been good at pretending to be anything I'm not so I suppose this comes naturally by default.  I never took to acting, for instance, despite some early success, and I think this is why.  It just doesn't feel right.  Of course, as a teacher, I've come to see theater through a different lens.  You're not pretending to be someone else.  You're helping to tell a story.  But that's for another time...

I especially like middle age in this regard.  I am who I am.  All need to prove I am anything else is comfortably in the past.

#7 Cultivating Play and Rest: I'm doing it right now.  There is no practical purpose for my blog.  It's just fun.  I began with visions of catapulting it into something more serious but that went by the wayside years ago and that's all to the good.  What's more, I use it to keep myself going with the other fun things in my life.  Easy win.

#10 Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance [her Oxford comma, not mine - let's be real clear on that!]:  See top of blog.  That said, I should dance more especially.  I wish I knew how.  I wish I'd learned when I was a kid.  No one tells you when you're an insecure boy of the considerable benefits of being a 24-year-old man who knows how to dance!  All kidding aside, the arts bring us closer to our essential humanity than anything else we do.  I claim it as a strength but that doesn't mean I shouldn't strive to do more.

Areas for Growth

#2 Cultivating Self-Compassion: I do struggle with feeling unworthy, both personally and professionally.  I've gotten better over the years but I can't deny that it's true.  I compare myself unfavorably to others when it is unhelpful to do so.

#6 Cultivating Creativity: You would think, in light of #10 above and what I do for a living, that creativity would come naturally.  But I am always plagued by self-doubt in creative endeavors and it is my perfectionism that gets in the way.  I'll never write anything as good as Salinger's baseball glove paragraph in Catcher in the Rye or McCartney's bridge to verse transition in "Here, There and Everywhere" so why bother?  I would never say that to a student or - Sweet Jesus! - my daughter but I say it to myself all the time.

#9 Cultivating Meaningful Work: Don't get me wrong.  I have a deeply meaningful job.  Teaching music is awesome, even in the age of COVID.  However, I have struggled for years to feel comfortable in the job.  It doesn't always feel like me.  I wonder at times if I'd have been happier picking a different career.  I will give myself credit: my efforts to find myself and my purpose within the work have been tremendously gratifying.  Still, it's a tough gig.  Of course, I also wonder if teaching's truly easy for anyone.  And maybe it shouldn't be.

Lots to think about.  I would like to read more along similar lines but maybe someone beyond Brown.  I like her a lot but I'm ready for a new voice.

Marvel Immersion Project: Captain Marvel #26-29

The Captain Marvel arc stretching from #25-34 is commonly referred to as The Life and Death of Captain Marvel.  It is one of the most important stories in setting the stage for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly Infinity War/Endgame.

via Wikipedia

Mike Friedrich, the primary writer at the beginning of the arc, was born March 27, 1949.  He got into comics through the letters to the editor pages.  His own persistent writing eventually led to an ongoing correspondence with editor Julius Schwartz at DC Comics.  Schwartz first bought one of Friedrich's scripts, a Robin story, in 1967.  He has written extensively for both DC and Marvel, most notably as lead writer for Justice League of America and Iron Man.  He also published one of the first independent comics: Star*Reach.

My Recent Reads

Captain Marvel #26

Originally Published: May 1, 1973

Writers: Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin

Artist: Starlin

via Wikipedia

• As it turns out, Thanos was the one directing Super-Skrull and Skragg in the previous issue.

via Marvel Database

• Thanos has recruited The Controller to enslave Earth on his behalf.
• Captain Marvel and Thing (he of the Fantastic Four) are tricked into fighting each other.

via Wikipedia

• Death makes his first appearance in the Marvel Universe.

Captain Marvel #27

July 1, 1973

Starlin/Friedrich

• Captain Marvel goes to Titan to do battle with Thanos and his minions. 
• Featured:

Mentor and Eros via Marvel Database

• Eros (Thanos's brother) and Mentor (Thanos's father).  They're on Mar-Vell/Rick's side.

via Marvel Database

• Drax the Destroyer, defender of the Cosmic Cube which Thanos seeks.
• The Avengers join in the fun.

Captain Marvel #28

September 1, 1973

Starlin/Friedrich

• The Controller invades the Avengers Mansion and defeats them all, rather easily.
• Thanos battles Drax for the Cube.  Thanos wins.
• The Controller defeats Captain Marvel who reverts back to Rick Jones who then appears to have lost the ability to switch back and forth.
• Apparently Mar-Vell is still around, though.  The issue ends with a one-page prologue for the next.  The space entity Eon tells Mar-Vell that in order to defeat Thanos, Mar-Vell must die.
• Featured:

via Marvel Database

• Blood Brothers

via Marvel Database

• Kronos
• Page 14 of #28 is extraordinary, depicting a "sync-warp" in the very trippy, Ditko-esque battle between Drax and Thanos.  I want a poster:

via steemit

Captain Marvel #29

November 1, 1973

Writer and Artist: Starlin

• This is a major transitional issue for the character.  Not coincidentally, it's also the first on which Jim Starlin takes over as both lead artist and lead writer.
• Eon has summoned Mar-Vell while the latter's alter ego Rick Jones is trapped under the rubble of Avengers Mansion.
• Eon leads Mar-Vell through a series of visions to convince him of the evils of war.  To face the threat of Thanos, Eon encourages Mar-Vell to take on the role of protector rather than warrior.

via Marvel Database

• Mar-Vell accepts, getting a new costume and a new hairstyle as part of the bargain.