The Furnace

Remortgaging the future on the bet of stability has meant owning a furnace again. There is a lot to be said for living in an apartment building big enough to warrant a super…not to mention a pool. We never seem to move from one sort of place to a similar one. Just as the move from a century old farmhouse on two-acres of onions and grass to a hundred plus unit mid-rise was a re-education, so too is moving into the 1960s suburban dreamscape. One friend who bought into the modern suburban dreamscape looked at our tree filled streets and yards the other day and was immediately ticked: “great, now I get to come over and think about how great our place will look in 2037.”

But every thing comes with a cost and that means we now have our own furnace to tend…and water heater and laundry and air and other things I really don’t understand yet. At least we don’t have a well and a septic system. Nothing feels better than cutting a cheque for $5,500 on a new poo treatment facility on your mini-farm. A poo eating machine. Because they are all machines and a house is just a stranded ship filled with machines.

Before the farm out east, we rented the upper story of an Ottawa Valley lumber barons whome from a couple of pals who lived on the main floor after dividing it into three apartments as an investment. We ended up with the two upstairs ones for a year and a half. Ten or more foot ceilings, two kitchens and more than eighty paces from the front door to the TV. That place was an ocean liner, two hulking metal boxes in the basement the size of mini-vans providing the heat. They needed tending…for if you didn’t anticipate the effect of impending shifts in the continental low and high pressure systems upon the inert thing that is a 30 by 50 by 100 foot, twenty room house of stone built for a rich dreamer in around 1890, you (and your thoughtful tenants upstairs) roasted or froze – depending on the whim of the season – usually for two days and usually at solstice but magnified during a quirky thaw, intense heatwave or summer coldsnap, as the furnaces were stroked and stoked, as the pipes creeked and coaxed hot water radiators to convey more or less energy into the mass of rock that encased our families, landlord and tenant in equal subjugation to the laws of thermal dynamics and Victoria home engineering. Men who knew not enough and knew they knew not enough worried over these machines at such times. Worried and drank beer in the basement, watching.

Apparently the new furnace, air cooling and water heating matrix in the new dark room down there is in good shape and has been well tended. I have some time.

Writing Myself Into A Blob

It has been a bit of a blur recently. Much of what I do at work boils down to reading, writing and editing. I get up and read and write – and sometimes edit – here. And recently I was asked to write two beer related bits, one 500 words and one 5000, which means I have been pretty much writing for a few weeks from getting up to going to bed. It is a very blobbifying gig. So I bought weights. The place we just left had a pool and that was grand. Swimming is the opposite of writing. It takes more effort than you feel like you are giving. You can dive under and contemplate for a few seconds what it would be like to be a fish. Writing does not give you that – with its incessant clatter and the need for others to receive the printed word. I suspect hoisting weights will not be like pretending to be a fish either.

Cyclops – Perhaps The Worst Idea Ever

Describing taste in words is funny business but making the effort is worthwhile as it provides you with a mechanism through which you can record your experiences with food and drink, and especially craft foods like real ale. We each take in the esters, phenols and other organic elements and recreate their interconnection in our own minds as we sip, sometimes discovering what the brewer intended and sometimes finding out new nuances never expected. Then you use your words to frame your experience. Do it often enough and you develop your own descriptors that make sense for your experience.

So it is inordinately shocking, then, to learn about what may be the worst idea in the craft beer movement I have ever heard of – a standardized system of beer description not unironically called Cyclops:

Cyclops, the new scheme launched today at the Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court in London, has the backing of 14 real ale breweries. Under the scheme, the brewers have agreed to follow a standardised template on all promotional material, describing the style, smell, look and taste of their beers. Bitterness and sweetness – the two main measures used to describe real ale’s characteristics – will also now be scored from one to five.

Cyclops follows a pilot scheme introduced by Leicester brewer Everards, which simplified the language used to describe real ales on promotional materials so customers knew exactly what to expect. A Campaign for Real Ale spokesman said: “Real ale is an incredibly complex drink with an enormous range of styles and tastes. Cyclops will demystify real ale so drinkers will know what a beer will look, smell and taste like before they part with their cash at the bar.”

This is tragic. And it is stunning that CAMRA supports such a thing. It is important at this moment in time that the most famous Cyclops, Homer’s Polyphemus, was blinded for life by drinking strong wine and ate people. This is hardly the making of a good brand. But even when he had one good eye he saw things…like he was born with one eye in the middle of his forehead – as in without particularly strong ability to see things from other perspectives. Plus, as man eating giant shepherds who get tricked a lot, they sort of fit the images of a rural rube caricature, kinda like in the satirical play by Euripides

And that is sort of what the program takes the craft beer lover for in presuming to tell you how to taste – it takes you for an ignorant oaf. It will create one recommended way to look at things and a snobby attitude to those who find their own way. Reject such mecho-branding systematic standards that will homogenize response patterns and trust yourself. If you think a beer tastes like the armpit Polyphemus after a long night in the cave (if you know what I mean) while the brewer tells you something like “it is a 5 (bitter), 3 (waterhardness), 3 (maltiness), 2 (mouthfeel) and 4 (overall) pale ale” then you just trust yourself and know that is likely tastes like that armpit.

¹…which would have been funnier if, instead of saying he was called “No man” thus leading to lots of punning hi-jinks that confused the big old dope, Odysseus had actually called himself “Norman” which would have led to a lot less confusion and likely the eating of Odysseus in the first few scenes thus saving thousands of undergrads the misery of figuring the whole thing out.

Margaret Elizabeth (Browning) Dawson

A single post today as a good friend’s mother, the lady I knew as Bronte, has passed away and, as she was a great fan of the web, I have been asked to create her Book of Condolences here.

Margaret Elizabeth Dawson née Browning

July 22, 1932-July 28, 2006

Bette died at home with dignity, as was her wish, after a four-month illness. Predeceased by her father, Earl George, mother Margaret McKirdy (née Wilson), brother Norman and infant son David. Loyal friend and neighbour, ardent feminist, environmentalist, proud employee of P&G, CBC listener and TTC patron who enjoyed the poetry of Robert Burns, military history and genealogy, but her passion was raising her children: Trevor (Dawn Zubrisky) and Laura (Wally Archibald) and cherishing her grandchildren: Jacob, Hayley, Samuel, Graham and Simon who will miss her many acts performed “with love”. She will be deeply missed by caring siblings: Marion (the late William Duffy), Irene (Jack Hammond), Bruce (Joan), Don (Shirley), Bill and many nieces, nephews and cousins. Peter has lost the greater part of his life with the passing of his devoted wife of 48 years.

Everyone who knew “Bronte” knows that her Legacy is Love. Rest in Peace.

Internment will take place at St. James Cemetery in Toronto where Bette will be reunited with David. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the charity of your choice. “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of her favorite poems and will be read as part of the service.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For through from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Please leave your thoughts and recollections for the family by clicking on the word “reply” above, entering your message and then clicking on the word “post”. Please email me at the email address genx40@gmail.com if that is easier or you have any digital photos you wish to share. I can add them to the comments on your behalf. This page will continue on the Internet as long as the family requests so that your comments can be shared with others who knew Bronte.