The Zen of Mission Impossible III

by Erik Olsen on

In the tragic wake of Tom Cruise’s dismissal from Paramount comes a hilarious story from the Washington Post on the misery cum bliss of watching the latest Mission Impossible installment. If you’re like me, then the idea of spending over two hours consuming this dreck is enough to make you choke on a piece of popcorn. But for writer Stephen Hunter the exercise in watching the film, as he puts it “five times. In a row . In a stinkin’ row!” apprently deadened his skeptic nerve, as I like to put it. The film apprently put him into a kind of religious haze as buildings exploded and cars zoomed, leading him to conclude (rightfully, I suppose) that “in any form, seen in any direction, in any language, no movie is as full of perfect Zen emptiness as “M:i:III.”

Amen brother.

Oxtail Stew

by Adrienne Wilson on

Over the weekend my mother made some delicious oxtail stew. I slurped up the soup/stew base and noshed on the oxtails quietly with an extreme amount of guilt. Normally I’d sling back oxtails like it were broccoli or brussel sprouts, but all my marathon preparation and running has me feeling as if oxtails don’t quite make winning race formula. I should be eating fish, veggies, chicken and avoiding the hard to digest red-meats, pork and oxtail according to training know-it-all’s. And I’ll tell you this – I can’t wait until the race is over so I can fire all the know-it-alls and sit in my mama’s warm kitchen guilt-free.

In the meantime I figured Oxtail Stew isn’t the kind of dish shared by all cultures and people, but anyone wanting to try eating or cooking can start with these two recipes. The first from Jamaicans.com includes an assortment of veggies along with butter beans where this second recipe is accompanied by one man’s tale on how he fell in love with the stew on chilly days in the Alps. Erik, who creates the recipe from memory, suggests having some Pilsner around to wash the oxtail stew down. The photo above comes from Jamaicans.com, but Erik’s descriptions (without pictures) make me want to try his first. Check out the two options and tell us about your first encounter with oxtail stew. Was it in mama’s kitchen or someplace like the Alps?

Yum.

The Paddling Glass Artist

by Erik Olsen on

What do paddling, glass and breasts have in common? Why, they are all the passion of the artist Steven Wrubleski. known as one of the best glass artists in the Northwest today. Glass art is such a Northwest thing. I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be the case. When I lived in Seattle, there were several stained glass shops there that taught the Middle Ages, um, age art of stained glass making. And of course, Seattle is home to the world famous, and famously irascible Dale Chihuly.

Well, Mr. Wrubleski (rhymes with Trubleski) is as I say an avid paddler, and manages, in addition to lovely breasts, to work water and paddling iconography into his work. He is also a big-time avid paddler, hence the reason why he made it in to the pages of Canoe and Kayak Magazine.

The story here talks about Wrubleski’s life, how he ended up in the San Juan islands, the boats he likes to paddle, his disdain for the fast-paced lifestyle and why he has selected glass as his artistic medium: “its similarity to water”. Good answer. It’s a nicely done profile about a guy you’ve probably never heard of but will be made slightly better for, well, having heard of.

Richard Wiese

by Erik Olsen on

A few years ago I produced a television piece about the Explorer’s Club and got to know its president, Richard Wiese. Richard is a very cool guy, some would say too cool, and his uber-handsome looks and surfer-dude demeanor rankled a lot of folks at the Explorer’s Club.

I got to go to the famed Explorer’s Club dinner and chatted with various folks there, big-time adventurer types and bona-fide scientists, who spoke disdainfully of Wiese. I more or less figured the venom was due to the fogeyness factor, that these hard-core old types just loved to grumble about anything that had the whiff of being hip…and of hair spray. I found Wiese engaging and a solid dude, and I think he was doing a fine job turning the Explorer’s Club into a place that welcomed younger adventure types, even if all these folks weren’t studying microbes at the top of Everest, the club was still the kind of place you could go and rub elbows with really smart, accomplished people. IT was, in a word, inspiring.

I’d heard that Wiese was no longer at the Explorer’s Club helm and wondered what happened to him. He is an avid self-promoter and has a face for TV, so I was pretty sure that’s the direction he went. I was right. I learned that and a whole lot more over at Outside Magazine, which ran a feature on Wiese last month. It’s a fine article and discusses many of the controversy I mention here about Weise’s reputation at the club. But it’s also a fairly sympathetic piece that lays out his contributions to the club during his tenure. I for one, hope he does well as he heads off on new projects, and I hope as well that the Explorer’s Club stays the course and remains welcoming to a broader audience.

Shanghai Neck-Licks

by Adrienne Wilson on

I’ve heard of French kissing and Kama Sutra, but the Shanghai neck-lick is new-new news to me and apparently to some of the residents in Shanghai as well. Now how’s that possible? The folks over at Shanghaiist discovered the maneuver and how it’s performed in a story from the LA Weekly about attending a punk rock show. Uh-huh. From what I gather Shanghai neck-licks involve a fair amount of groping and a massive amount of saliva across the neck all compliments of a drunken punk rocker.

Right— Shanghaiist was so intrigued by the use of this urban slang and phrase involving their city name they decided to take it a wee-bit further and created this nifty Shanghai language lesson. If you found the Shanghai neck-lick somewhat vulgar you may want to stop here. I repeat – you may wish to stop reading here, do not pass GO, and do not click on the language link. If you believe you can handle their list of very naughty Shanghaii terms like Shanghai Meat-bun, Shanghai Surprise and Shanghailarious; then proceed.