Todd is jihad
Dec. 2nd, 2009 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersWent to the Big Time after work today to try this year's Old Woolly barleywine. A damn good brew, better than the past two years, I think. Not that they were bad; these things are all relative, no duh.
I started reading Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus too. Holy shit is she a great writer. Sensual intellectual slapstick?
At close quarters, it must be said she looked more like a dray mare than an angel. At six feet two in her stockings, she would have to give Walser a couple of inches in order to match him and, though they said she was 'divinely tall', there was, off-stage, not much of the divine about her unless there were gin palaces in heaven where she might preside behind the bar. Her face, broad and oval as a meat dish, had been thrown on a common wheel out of coarse clay; nothing subtle about her appeal, which was just as well if she were to function as the democratically elected divinity of the imminent century of the Common Man.
I also ran into Todd. Ron is probably the only one of my readers here who knows Todd. Back in the day, he was the Randian bartender working his way through school and flicking shit at all his drunken customers, who loved it. I've only seen him sporadically in the past decade, and this was probably the longest conversation we'd had since the old days. He told me that two and a half years ago, coming back from India, his wife left him, and then he got sick and almost died. He decided that he didn't mean that much in the great scheme of things, and it was time to help others. He went back to Thailand, where he had worked before, and learned of some young girls whose parents were preparing to prostitute them out to keep afloat. He is raising money now to help the girls go to school.
Todd hasn't lost his old Randian capacity to rant, but now he rants about how the ability of women to support themselves is a measure of civilization. He was off to a fund-raiser for the girls he's trying to help, dressed in a suit and tie. (He was a real bohemian in old times.)
Bless him! Who would have ever figured that Todd would end up doing something like this? He's certainly doing more for good than I am. Makes you think, just like Angela Carter.
I started reading Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus too. Holy shit is she a great writer. Sensual intellectual slapstick?
At close quarters, it must be said she looked more like a dray mare than an angel. At six feet two in her stockings, she would have to give Walser a couple of inches in order to match him and, though they said she was 'divinely tall', there was, off-stage, not much of the divine about her unless there were gin palaces in heaven where she might preside behind the bar. Her face, broad and oval as a meat dish, had been thrown on a common wheel out of coarse clay; nothing subtle about her appeal, which was just as well if she were to function as the democratically elected divinity of the imminent century of the Common Man.
I also ran into Todd. Ron is probably the only one of my readers here who knows Todd. Back in the day, he was the Randian bartender working his way through school and flicking shit at all his drunken customers, who loved it. I've only seen him sporadically in the past decade, and this was probably the longest conversation we'd had since the old days. He told me that two and a half years ago, coming back from India, his wife left him, and then he got sick and almost died. He decided that he didn't mean that much in the great scheme of things, and it was time to help others. He went back to Thailand, where he had worked before, and learned of some young girls whose parents were preparing to prostitute them out to keep afloat. He is raising money now to help the girls go to school.
Todd hasn't lost his old Randian capacity to rant, but now he rants about how the ability of women to support themselves is a measure of civilization. He was off to a fund-raiser for the girls he's trying to help, dressed in a suit and tie. (He was a real bohemian in old times.)
Bless him! Who would have ever figured that Todd would end up doing something like this? He's certainly doing more for good than I am. Makes you think, just like Angela Carter.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 03:49 pm (UTC)Though on the barley wine front I did have the almost legendary Thomas Hardy Ale on draught the other week. And had it again the next night. Which seemed a better idea than reading his books.
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Date: 2009-12-07 04:59 pm (UTC)I bought a couple bottles of this year's Old Woolly to age with the two bottles of the 2008 and the one remaining bottle of 2007. I may have to get some more bottles of this year's, although carl doesn't like it as much as I do. Sarah, who is one of the Big Time bartenders, on the other hand agrees this is a particularly good one.
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Date: 2009-12-07 05:19 pm (UTC)They've now decided it's too much effort and are giving up. I think this means that last year's was the last vintage and that the stuff I was drinking the other week was a year older than the last time I had it. It was bloody excellent either way.
I should pick up a couple of bottles before it all gets too expensive.
And if I should see a bottle of Old Woolly I'll get one of them too.