When the “junk heap” is steadily deteriorating

Wastewater analysis suggests increasing recreational drug use among New Zealanders. (Although there are some problems with the data.) But this isn't an issue confined to our small islands.

This is of course when recreational drugs are illegal. So drug consumers are willing to pay more to gangs for a riskier product to get their chosen high.

Two questions always come up when one advocates for drug legalisation. 

The first is that legal drugs will make drug consumption more prevalent and more sordid. This goes against both evidence and theory: Milton Friedman for one arguing that the Iron Law of Prohibition actively encourages the escalation of more virulent pharmaceuticals, to make any drug problem worse.

But the other question is this: 

Why do many people want to abuse drugs and alcohol? Why is this such a persistent problem in our culture — and would it still be a problem in a more rational culture?

Good question. And Stewart Margolis takes a good stab at answering it, beginning by drawing a distinction between drug use and drug abuse. Because clearly there are many well-functioning adults happily consuming recreational drugs including opium, alcohol and caffeine -- and if we trace the history, have been doing so since the first fermented berries were found several thousand years ago.  Indeed,

Archaeologists have found evidence of opium use in Europe by 5,700 BC, and cannabis seeds have been found at archaeological digs in Asia from 8,100 BC.

So it seems at least some adults have discovered a rational way to use mind-altering substances. A decent martini before dinner for example being one of the best ways to shake off the cares of the day.

There may be some that are simply too dangerous to ever be used, but that would be a scientific question rather than a moral one. 

But some adults won't, can't or don't want to be rational about it. If we discount the obvious (that some people are prone to addiction; that there might be genetic factors increasing susceptibility to substance abuse) we're left with the nagging idea that there might be more to it than that. 

Margolis makes the case that the problem is fundamentally philosophical:

Of course, a worldwide problem like this undoubtedly has multi-factorial causes, but I think at root drug abuse is an attempt to escape reality. 

Materially, the world has never been richer, so what are so many people eager to escape from? Despite our affluence, I think we are experiencing a philosophical crisis. 

Ayn Rand pointed out that humans need a philosophy in order to live. In “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” she wrote, 

“Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalisations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt.”

 I think Rand was spot on, and the increase we are seeing in drug abuse is the result of the self-doubt brought on by people who have assembled a “junk heap” of often contradictory ideas. This has always been a huge problem, and has always resulted in a tremendous amount of suffering. So why does it seem to be worse now?

I think it’s because the quality of the ideas in the “junk heap” has been steadily deteriorating. 

When ... [common sense and] enlightenment ideas were widespread in the culture, average, unthinking people could randomly pick up a pretty workable set of ideas, which would allow them to prosper and attain a measure of happiness. They were not as happy and prosperous as they could have been, had they done the work of choosing and integrating the right ideas, but they could do all right.

But today, many of the ideas floating around in the cultural are anti-enlightenment. If you unthinkingly accept a collection of these ideas, you are unlikely to prosper or find happiness.

It's perhaps also the case that governments' increasing  economic mismanagement has been making it increasingly difficult for younger folk to get ahead economically -- they can sense that even if they can't see that explicitly -- so that there's part of of them ready to give up on the "old" idea that hard work will pay off.

You [might] notice that you’re not doing as well as your parents did, either economically, romantically, or socially. As a result, you will be filled with doubt, with dread, with a sense that something is wrong with the world — but you don’t know what or how to fix it. I believe this is the feeling that people desperately want to escape — and so they turn to drugs that numb or relieve these feelings, at least temporarily.

While I’m sure there are benefits to be found in a variety of drug and alcohol treatment programmes, I don’t think we’re likely to make much progress on substance abuse until people deal with the underlying philosophical crisis driving the abuse. 

In the meantime, though, making drugs legal would provide a huge benefit, both to those struggling with abuse issues, and more importantly, to those of us who don’t use drugs or who are able to use them responsibly.

The Perfect Martini

 

Pic from Spruce Eats

I JUST REALISED THAT it's been a while since I posted my recipe for a perfect martini (as opposed to a Perfect Martini, a specific drink which has two kinds of vermouth, and both bitters and a sweetener!)

First thing to say (and I'll say it again later) is that a martini does not have adjectives – except words such as “cold,” “dry, or “perfect.”

It most especially does not have adjectives like “apple” or “espresso.” If you must order that last ill-named sugary drink, I implore you to call it by its proper name, a vodka espresso, instead of the name intended to  steal the lustre of this real drink, the martini.[1]

Second thing to say then, is that we all have our own favourite, and only one of us is right. (Best tip when getting lost in the bush is to first get out your martini-making equipment and begin stirring, at which point someone will inevitably emerge from the bush to say "That's not how you make a martini!" And you can then ask then the way out.)

The main thing, however, is that the martini is not something to drink alone. The perfect martini starts therefore with ordering up the perfect friends with whom to take the bark off. Shouldn’t be too hard, since who wouldn’t want to share a perfect martini with friends. (And if they don’t, they shouldn’t be your friends.)

The martini itself is three drinks in one. Get each part right, and you have what HL Mencken once described as “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” In other words: the perfect drink.

The first third of this perfection is about that cold breathe of alcohol on your throat and nose as you take your first sip. So start your drink the day before by putting your glasses, mixing jug and your gin in the freezer.

You can use vodka for that strong alcohol hit, but the vodka martini is like an empty soul in the middle third of your drink just when you want to taste your base ingredient. (This, by the way, is why Ian Fleming chose it for his wounded hero.) So use at least a Bombay Sapphire gin for flavour, or a Sipsmiths to be extra dry, to make sure your middle third tastes right. And do make sure you freezer it, 'cos you care (if you're visiting cocktail bars that don't, then they don't), and because you want to keep the drink cool all the way through.

The vermouth and the garnish dominate your drink’s final third. So don’t stint on either. And do make sure you refrigerate both --first off so they're cold; but mostly because vermouth, a fortified wine, starts to go vinegary once it's opened.

And always (always!) use extra dry vermouth. On that much everyone agrees. And most can agree on the brands -- Dolin being good; Noilly Prat being better than good; Martini brand being barely good enough. But the proportions of gin to vermouth are as controversial as a roll of sandpaper in an Australian cricket bag. My own view however is that this is very much up to your own taste, and your own taste will change over an evening, over a year, over a lifetime.

You need more than just a shot of light through the vermouth bottle, but 25:1 can be a fine drink on the right extra-extra-dry occasion, even if the hint of vermouth is barely detectable. This drink (what Hemingway called a “Montgomery” because of the general’s alleged liking for that kind of numerical superiority before mounting an attack) goes perfectly with either cocktail onions or a lemon peel garnish, with that lemon peel being expressed over the top of the drink before serving.

But unless you like what’s called an “upside-down” martini, you wouldn’t want to go over 2:1 – a drink that goes perfectly with three unpitted olives on a toothpick, with just the tiniest dash of brine in the glass before serving. This was how FDR is said to have served his martinis.

My own preference at present is around 6 to 1. But that’s for a variation called a Vesper, perhaps the most perfect martini yet invented (the creation of the aforementioned Mr Fleming) while not actually being a martini at all. So if I were tied up and held down and had a very cold very dry martini forced upon me, today’s preference would be for around 5:1, with cocktail onions. In bartender terms, since you’re ordering, this drink is called a Gibson.

So for each person, if you’re making my Gibson, start by putting into your chilled jug a handful of very coarse ice and a generous half-shot of vermouth for each drinker, swirl it to coat the ice, and let it sit to chill while you prepare your garnish, and your glasses.

Now, each decent martini is around three-and-a-half shots. Make sure your glass will hold this and no more. (Too big a glass looks like meanness when you’re pouring, and like gaucheness when you’re drinking.) When all is ready, add to the jug around three shots of your chosen gin. And then stir gently for about twenty-five seconds, when cold martini-odour begins to effuse. 

Did I say stir? I did, sir. You may shake, if you want a cloudy and more watery drink, but stirring is preferred. Yes, Ian Fleming does have James Bond order a vodka martini "shaken not stirred," but this is intended to tell us about his character, not about an ideal drink. (Contrast its icy, frozen, tasteless heart with the Vesper he drinks earlier in the first book, before his first love betrays him.) 

So shake if you must, and shake well, but not extensively. (No more than 15 seconds.) And to a waltz rhythm. The aim is to make the drink ice cold, not a drink made mostly with ice chips.

And when the stirring or shaking is done, pour and enjoy.

THE MARTINI IS ALL ABOUT the ritual, so make you get your time right (before dinner, at the Cocktail Hour), and your artefacts correct. Garnish: fresh and clean. Toothpicks: simple and unobtrusive.  The jug: crystal, not plastic. The glasses: not buckets, but just large enough to hold the drink; and simple and elegant – if they look like a good match for an umbrella, they’re not a good home for your martini. 

Ice is important – maybe more than you think. This is because ice becomes one of the drink’s four main ingredients. Chipped ice melts especially fast in a shaker, diluting the drink too much. Coarse ice is better, either stirred or shaken, and it very much must be clean, and without assailing fridge odours!

And so is music. A martini is best served with music that creates elegance and supports conversation -- something without vocals (which competes with your talking), with lots of melody (so you can keep track while you're talking) and plenty of space between the notes within which to converse. Something like the Benny Goodman Small Groups is ideal, with Benny out front on clarinet, and Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson and Charlie Christian supplying the endless melodic invention in support.

And finally, two words of warning. The first is this: a reminder that the only adjective that should be put in front of the martini are words like “perfect,” “cold,” “exceptional” and “damned fine.” Adjectives before it like “espresso,” “apple,” “pear” or “bikini” however do not denote a martini, but someone’s excuse to douse you in flavoured sugar. Avoid such persons.

The second word of warning about your martini is this: Respect it. Above all, treat it gently. You are drinking a glass without a mixer, while still aiming to be one yourself. The almost-great Dorothy Parker observed 

"I like a martini, 

Two at the very most, 

After three I’m under the table, 

After four I’m under my host.”

Dorothy is often a good guide.

* * * * 

[1] Yes, there are plenty of variations on the martini. John Doxat suggests around twenty. Frank Moorhouse in his Martini memoir offers nearly forty variants (from the Kangaroo, i.e., made with vodka instead of gin, to the Black Thorn Faux Martini, which “only sounds like a martini”) along with an additional  five “crazy drinks” (from the Flirtini to the Times Square Tootsie). But don’t confuse the crazier drinks for the real thing.

That boon to mankind: The (not-so humble) drinks trolley

 

Did you know that one of the twentieth-century’s greatest inventions didn’t appear until 1938?

I’m talking about that essential addition to any real home: the drinks’ trolley. What domestic cocktail hour would be complete without one? (And what home without a cocktail hour or two?)

In the 1940s, the barcart when you had one was merely an adapted tea trolley¹, but the designer of the original dedicated drinks’ trolley, bless her, was modernist Hungarian designer Susan Kozma, who designed this boon to humanity (above) for the fit-out of Budapest apartment of Eugene (Jenö) and Elizabeth Schreiber. Kozma’s trolley was a sober-serious sort of affair.

Basically a timber box on wheels with a chrome handlebar the only ornamentation when closed, it opened up to reveal bottles in its well and swing-out shelving for glasses, the top and sides opening out to form cutting boards for the necessary garnishes. As Frank Moorhouse describes it in his book Martini: A Memoir, “in fact, it was a mobile cocktail cabinet.”

The wheels were crucial. It was built to be moved to the room’s very centre of pleasure. Talking to Moorhouse decades later in her Sydney home, Kozma recalled.

The living room had a divan, chairs and this drinks’ trolley and a number of pieces of built-in furniture [she tells Frank Moorhouse in his book ‘]. In keeping with modernist principles of the times, that which was not built-inwas made to be easily moved, so the room was open and flexible – you could rearrange the room easily according to what was happening in it that day. If the room was to be used for cocktails you could move furniture to make an appropriate space, and so on.

The drinks trolley in your own home must have at least this amount of style, but need be neither this elaborate nor as simple. Nor, if it is an open arrangement, should it become the repository of frivolous gadgets, undrunk exotic gift bottles, and sundry and tedious bar novelties. ‘'These items have no business on your drinks trolley,” says Voltz, Moorhouse’s alter ego and martini correspondent, who reckons that for the martini drinker especially,

‘It detracts from the dignified simplicity of the martini to serve the martini from an array of miscellaneous bottles on a drinks’ trolley, that is, presenting it as just another drink among many. The martini needs a clear stage. That’s all I’m saying. …
    ‘If I recall correctly, all James’s Stewart’s lovelorn artist pal had n her drinks’ cart in Vertigo was a bottle of Scotch and a few cafetaria-style water glasses. That is correct style.’

Another of his friend’s advises:

‘The martini, for you, is the maypole of your trolley. The second, bourbon. The rest – champagne, bitters, wine – or all those other things that please guests, are secondary, and the trolley should only be burdened with them temporarily to coincide with entertaining other than one’s self.’

These things are not trivial. So choose your own maypoles wisely.

The original trolley is now in London’s V& A Museum, who have this story to tell.

[Pic by V& A Museum]

NOTE

1. In the screenplay for the 1948 film The Big Sleep, for example, “Norris enters, pushing a teawagon bearing decanter, siphon, initialled ice bucket.”

.

The Martini Nazi

The “Martini Nazi” was San Francisco’s somewhat equivalent  to Jerry Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi.  But the San Franciscan, Bruno Mooshei, was real.  And infinitely more benevolent.

For fifty years Bruno ran the Aub Zam Zam bar—ran it with his own unwritten rules.

Break the rules and you wouldn’t even get service.  But follow his rules, say former patrons, and you’d be rewarded with the world’s best ever martini.

Because the only order that was the right order in Bruno’s bar was a martini.

My kind of bar.

[Hat tip Sam P.]

Beer O’Clock: Literary Cocktails, by Liz Upton [updated]

I enjoyed finding out about Raymond Chandler’s gimlet so much that I wanted to learn more about authors and their drinks.  So here’s the very thing: a guest post on ‘Literary Cocktails’ by Liz Upton from Gastronomy Domine. Everything you ever wanted to start to know about writers and their cocktails (and if it’s Wellington Beervana news you’re after then it’s Neil’s Malthouse blog you’ll be wanting, and the Twitter feed you’ll be needing ).  Take it away Liz, direct from a night out at the River Bar in Cambridge, England . . .

     I am female and approaching 30 at a headlong rush. This means I like cocktails. I am fortunate, then, in living near Cambridge, where the River Bar and Kitchen perches above the river, over a gym whose window gives a splendid view of a hot tub full of svelte ladies which you have to sidle past to get to the bar.
    The Kitchen part of the River Bar and Kitchen is not as glorious as the Bar part, so I'll gloss over it; I ate there with some friends a couple of weeks ago and was rather disappointed (dry meats, vinegary preparation, identikit saucing). The cocktails, though, are well worth a visit.
    A few months ago, gurgling happily over a Manhattan (equal measures bourbon and vermouth, with a cherry and some orange zest and a dash of bitters), I was told by a friend with something pink and creamy on the end of her nose that I only like pretentious grown-up cocktails. I think this means that I prefer cocktails which aren't sugary and full of things squirted out of a cow, but I will admit to a certain mental frailty - I get a tiny kick (OK, a massive one) out of the Literary Cocktail. Knowing which brand of lime cordial you should use to make a Gimlet like the kind Philip Marlowe enjoyed, and being able to argue with the barman about it. That kind of thing.
    The drink at the top of the page is a perfect example of pretension in cocktail form, and it's my very favourite cocktail, the alcoholic drink I would happily forgo all others for; a Vesper Martini. This is the original Martini James Bond creates in Casino Royale (1957, the first Bond book), named for Vesper Lynd, Bond girl and double agent. He instructs the barman:
    'In a deep champagne goblet . . . Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.'
    Bond [or Fleming] knew what he was talking about; this is a beautiful cocktail.
    Kina Lillet is a vermouth, and the guy at the River Bar uses only a tiny breath of vermouth; he says tastes have changed since the 50s. (They certainly have; Tom Lehrer sang about 'Hearts full of youth/Hearts full of truth/Six parts gin to one part vermouth' in Bright College Days, and this is a very vermouth-y Martini indeed to my youthful, truthful tongue.)
    My next Martini was a Zubrowka (a vodka flavoured with fragrant bison grass, which is added during distillation) one. I have a great love for W Somerset Maugham. In The Razor's Edge, Isabella says:
    'It smells of freshly mown hay and spring flowers, of thyme and lavender, and it's soft on the palate and so comfortable, it's like listening to music by moonlight.'
    Even though her ultimate aim in rhapsodising about the stuff is to drive another character to a sodden alcoholic grave, I can't help but feel Maugham himself must have been pretty keen on Zubrowka too. (Another Somerset Maugham favourite was avocado ice cream, which is, you may be surprised to learn, absolutely divine - watch this space.)
    For some reason I can't fathom, some apple schnapps and other fruity stuff found its way into my Martini when I wasn't standing at the bar to keep a firm hand on the barman (there really shouldn't be anything other than gin or vodka and vermouth - find me the man who invented the chocolate martini and I will show you an man without tastebuds but with an uncanny understanding of what drunk women will pay for), but it was still pretty fabulous. Excuse the lipstick on the rim in the photograph. It is hard to remember to photograph your Martini before drinking it when you've already had a few.
    My friends were now on the champagne cocktails. In the back here is a Carol Channing. Those who have seen Thoroughly Modern Millie, a glorious film with Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, James Fox and a biplane, will remember Carol Channing's dance with the xylophone and her habit of shouting 'Raspberries!' A Carol Channing is made with muddled raspberries, sugar syrup, Chambord and raspberry eau de vie, topped up with champagne.
    In front is a proper champagne cocktail - that is to say bitters soaked into a brown sugar lump, with champagne poured on top. A lovely drink, and a very, very old fashioned cocktail; it first pops up in 1862 in Jerry Thomas's How to mix drinks. (Click the link for an online facsimile of the book.) There are only a very few true cocktails in the book (the other recipes are flips, juleps, punches and recipes for flavoured syrups and so forth), and the champagne cocktail is the only one you're likely to recognise in 2005.
     Somebody (as the evening wore on I lost track of who was ordering what. Can't think why) ordered a Mojito (muddled mint and sugar, rum, lime and soda water). A Brazilian friend has special mint-muddling pots and sticks, like a conical mortar and pestle, for making these; she brings cachaça, a Brazilian rum, home to England when she visits her family, and uses it to makes the best Mohitos and Caipirinhas (lime, soda, cachaça and sugar) I've tasted.
    I should wrap this post up. ‘Mr Weasel’ is on his way home from the supermarket; he has gone to fetch a bottle of Big Tom's tomato juice, which we will adulterate with some vodka I've been steeping chilis in for a few months. I love weekends. Those wondering about the Philip Marlowe Gimlets, by the way, should read The Long Goodbye, where Marlowe informs us that 'A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice, and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.' He's right; Rose's is the only one made only with real, fresh limes. Try it some time - cut down on the Rose's if you find it too sweet. [And if you really want to know even more, then try A Gimlet for Mr Chandler.]

Cheers
Liz

UPDATE:  We’re enjoying a Cocktail Renaissance you know!

Content is copyright PC.BlogSpot.Com © Please contact author for permission to republish: (organon at ihug.co.nz)

Quote of the day: On alcohol and joy

“The timorous mineral water and “better not” attitude to life rather than the “why not?” attitude seems to be among the saddest of the health postures – a loss of joy, hedonism and self=exploration.”
                                                                   - Frank Moorhouse in his fine book Martini: A Memoir

Beer O’Clock: In praise of the eloquent insult

We have twin goals here at here at NOT PC Towers on a Friday afternoon. 

While raising our glasses we also wish to raise the standard of what’s in those glasses - and the quality of insults we hear while drinking from them.  Not for us the simple four-word epithet, not at least when a more silver-tongued sally could prove more devastatingly effective.

That, at least, is our goal.

To this end, why not shake up your martini and peruse the following.

The famous exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." He said, "If you were my wife, I should drink it."

Lord Sandwich to John Wilkes: "You sir, will either die on the gallows or of the pox." "That must depend, Sir," said Wilkes, "whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress."

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” – Tom Waits on wowsers

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr on an actor

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

“The trouble with the world is that everyone is two drinks behind.” – Humphrey Bogart

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

“A triumph of modern science – to find the only part of Randolph that wasn’t malignant and remove it.” – Evelyn Waugh on Randolph Churchill

“A difficulty for every solution.” – Herbert Samuel on the civil service

“I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.” Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes

“Do you pray for the senators, Dr Hale?”  “No, I look at the senators and I pray for the country.” – Edward Everett Hale

“Like being savaged by a dead sheep.” - Denis Healey of a verbal attack on him by Geoffrey Howe

“Is there no beginning to your talents?” - Clive Anderson to Jeffrey Archer

“Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he pleases.” - Richard Brinsley Sheridan, MP

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"In order to avoid the scandal of coquetry, Mme de Genlis always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."  - Mae West

“When they circumcised Herbert Samuels they threw away the wrong bit.” - David Lloyd George (attrib.)

“You were born with your legs apart.  And they’ll send you to the grave in a Y-shaped coffin.” – Joe Orton in What the Butler Saw

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"You have Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder to Cliff Osmond

“Five bowls of muesli looking for a spoon.” NME magazine on prog-rock group Yes

“Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed.” – Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

And finally, George Bernard Shaw who, when asked by the conductor of a restaurant orchestra if he would like to request the orchestra to play anything in particular, replied, “Dominoes.”

Afternoon in Grahamstown

Yes, I had a great weekend down in Thames with friends -- and thanks for asking. It was capped off with a phone call from another friend telling me Geelong (number one on the AFL table) had just beaten the Bulldogs (who are number two) by sixty points. Sixty points!

Thames has come of age. Just as myself and CP had decided that Thames very definitely isn't a 'martini city' in the manner movingly described by Voltz, when hey presto we stumbled upon a newly renovated "lounge bar" at the Grahamstown end of Thames called 'Nectar': the second-smallest bar in the country, which not only had great atmosphere, not only was open at the time in question (well, openable), but had the decency to allow me to play barman myself. You can't beat that.

In answer to the question, "Why visit Thames?" let me give you a simple answer. There we were in Grahamstown, Thames, and in just a few short steps we had an excellent martini in a friendly bar ('Nectar'), bought a book in a second-hand bookshop that I've long sought (the memoirs of Alexander Kerensky), and had the best afternoon meal I've had ever, at Sola Cafe.

Why wouldn't you want to visit?

How martinis refute basic economics

Dorothy Parker was no economist. She was a writer of quips, and an enthusiast for martinis -- admirable qualities in any human being, but insufficient to qualify her as any kind of economist -- but economists might note that in one of most loved quips she unwittingly refutes the marginal value revolution on which most of modern economics is based.

For years, you see, economists had been trying to solve what they called 'the problem of value,' or by some 'the water-diamond paradox.' Why, they wondered, was water so much more valuable to human life, but it is diamonds that are worth much more in money terms? (These are the sort of questions that still keep economists awake at night.) This was said by many economists to create an "irreconcilable contradiction" between use value and exchange value.

The problem wasn't left unreconciled for long, however. The idea of 'marginal value' was hit upon simultaneously by three different chaps, and in a flash it explained the conundrum. Put simply (well, as simply as an economist can) it states:

The ... importance or personal value that an individual attaches to a unit of any good diminishes as the quantity of the good in his possession increases.

 Put even more simply, however valuable something might be to our survival, then the more we have of it the value we place on each successive unit diminishes with each unit. Simple, yet profound. Since we generally have loads of glasses of water and very few diamonds to lay with -- however it might have been at Dorothy Parker's, that at least is the state of play around our house -- we find that your relatively rare professionally-cut precious stone is worth much more than our glass of water, even though it's the water and not the diamonds that it necessary to sustain life.

If we've just come out of the desert after losing our way, then our first glass of water will be worth our life itself -- and we'd be willing to pay whatever diamonds we've got to buy it. But by the time we're sipping our second or third glass we're starting to look around and wonder if we've paid too much, and by the third or fourth glass we're starting to wonder what we're going to tell the wife about where her diamonds went.

Here's another example. If we're stuck in a bush cabin with just five sacks of grain to last until the next harvest, then the most important sack is the one we've labelled "grain for survival," while the least important is the one further down the line that we've labelled "grain to feed the parrot." While grain itself is crucial for survival, you see, the value we place on our grain is contextual: the value is that of 'the last unit,' which in this case is equivalent to the value we place on feeding the parrot who keeps us entertained, rather than the value we place on eating to keep ourselves alive. (George Reisman draws more insights from this example here.)

All value comes from the margins, you see, with value diminishing with each successive unit. While this is a rule widely accepted by every school of economics since at least the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dorothy Parker's martinis pose a challenge to this. The value of martinis, she insists, increases with each subsequent unit. Here's her mantra:

I like a martini
Two at the most, after three
I'm under the table, after four
I'm under the host.

See, martinis actually get better with each drink! If our first martini is labelled "the martini I like" and the second "the martini I really like," then by the third we're up to "the martini that really likes me," and then -- depending on the value we put on our host -- by the last we might attach the label "a night of unrelieved pleasure." Let's just hope we can remember it afterwards, and to whom we need to send the diamonds to keep them quiet.

Economists are recommended to undertake the necessary empirical research forthwith to explain this particular paradox.

Tomorrow, the martini diet ...

Sunset - Fred Stevens, StudioNZ

Here's where I'm going to be for a few days over Christmas -- sipping martinis while watching sunsets exactly like this one over ... well, now that would be telling, wouldn't it.

I can't wait.

The photo is by Fred Stevens, from StudioNZ.

Beautiful, isn't it.

Beer O'Clock: Martini (again)

No Beer O'Clock posts from our resident experts this evening, so I'll update an earlier post with my own drink of choice for tonight...

After lengthy research, and many repetitions of that research, I have much pleasure in announcing that I can now reveal the recipe for the perfect martini. It exists, it is real, it can be yours!

The perfect martini (recognising of course that the way to make the perfect martini is hotly disputed) is made with vodka, not gin -- gin is for the English -- and is made with the best vodka you can either buy or bludge, or cadge from someone who has just come through Duty Free . Absolut and Stolichnaya are good choices. Smirnoff is adequate. And yes, the martini must be shaken, not stirred (can I hear some mumbling at the back from the purists?)

Now take your shaker and fill it with crushed ice. Let it sit for a second as you prepare three glasses (you just can't drink a martini alone); into each put an olive, a cocktail onion and about a teaspoon of brine from either olive or onion. Toothpicks are good, and give you some sport while drinking (and you can always judge a drinker by how they dispose of their toothpick).

Now, accuracy is important at this point: pour over the ice in the shaker nine measures of frozen vodka straight from the freezer and two measures of extra dry vermouth. Shake vigorously, pour into the glassware and enjoy its clear oiliness as it fills the glass.

The ideal serving accompaniments are at least one friend, and the Benny Goodman Small Groups CD on your player. The Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack is an acceptable alternative. Serge Gainsborough if you must.

I'll leave you with this brief thought, from writer Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most,
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under the host!

Cheers, PC

Let's get lost...

The other night while sitting out with friends watching the sunset and sipping a martini (vodka, extra dry, two olives with the brine) we began discussing holidays, how best to make a martini, and -- as you do -- what to do when you get lost on your holidays. As it happens, there's a famous martini joke that covers that very situation, and I take it from a book on martini lore that should be more famous: Frank Moorhouse's Martini: A Memoir.

Should you be lost in the forest, here's what you do:

"You do not panic. You do not walk aimlessly. You find a shady spot with a fine view, you sit down, you take out the cocktail shaker, the gin, the vermouth, and the olives from your back pack (which every sophisticated trekker carries) and mix yourself a martini. If there is a glacier somewhere nearby you chip off some ice to chill everything down.

You will not be lost for long. Within a few minutes someone will come from nowhere, tap your arm and say, excuse me, you are not doing that right -- that is not the way to make a proper martini."

By the way, our story-teller got it very wrong -- he should have been carrying vodka, not gin. ;^)

RELATED: Beer & Elsewhere, Humour, Books

Christmas Drinks: The Perfect Martini

T'was the week before Christmas and all through the house, all the creatures were stirring .... and tension did mount.

Stress? Tension? Reasons to kick back and to savour life? Time then for a Martini or two (for the perfect Martini usually has a Second Act). Mencken declared the Martini to be "the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet." Mencken was perfectly right.

There is dissension as to the perfect Martini. The perfection of Martinis shows the contextual nature of value judgements, you see. This man prefers a gin martini. This woman a vodka. James Bond, naturally, prefers his shaken, not stirred -- and he prefers his Martinis the same way. Everyone has their own view of perfection, but unlike other forms of Holy writ, these scriptures are not kept secret -- such pleasant fruits of hours of indulgence are freely shouted forth to the winds.

Owen prefers a gin Martini, and has the perfect description.

Personally, I prefer a vodka Martini, and I have the perfect recipe.

Tom likes a gin martini, but he prefers to drink out in search of perfection. If you're in Wellington, you can take advantage of his spadework in the pursuit of the perfect gin Martini. [Deadtree format here]

Shaken or stirred? Advice on that here.

The perfect Martini needs the perfect accompaniment. Good friends, good stories, and good friends telling their own Martini stories are always acceptable. If some of the stories are true, that's okay as well -- after the second Martini.

The ideal serving accompaniments for mine are at least one friend (or nearly sane person), and the Benny Goodman Small Groups CD on your player. The Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack or something by Nina Rota provides a very acceptable alternative.

Enjoy! (And in case you're wondering, the perfect present for a Martini-drinking friend (if they're not already in possession of the Goodman, that is) is a set of small Martini glasses -- small because the perfect Martini needs to be filled to the brim, and because you really want that first one to start the party, not to kill it.)

LINKS: The Martini gospel according to McShane - Straight Thinking (Owen McShane)
The perfect Martini does exist - Not PC
Wellingtini - Well Urban (Tom Beard)

RELATED: Beer & Elsewhere

A golden cocktail

Think some of the Beer O'Clock recommendations here recently have been expensive? Then consider this, Ireland's most expensive cocktail, "priced at a sobering €500 (NZ$1,009)."

The 'Minted' cocktail -- a vanilla and chocolate Martini on sale at the Mint Bar in central Dublin's Westin Hotel -- includes vanilla-infused vodka, 200-year-old cognac and flakes of 23-carat gold. The drink comes in a designer crystal glass with chocolate truffles served on the side.

Careful with that gold card.

LINKS: 'Golden' $1,000 cocktail for the rich - Xtra News

RELATED: Beer and Elsewhere

Weekend

I'm away to sip martinis up at Tutukaka, and to devour the latest 'Free Radical' magazine. Try and enjoy the weekend without me -- and maybe if you do get withdrawal you can rummage through the archives.

Have a good weekend. I'll see you back here on Monday.

Drink for yourself

STRESS: The condition created when the mind overrides the body's natural desire to choke the living shit out of some arsehole who desperately deserves it.

Stress. Anxiety. Boredom. Dealing with arseholes. Even days which are going great and you're 'in the zone' will still have their darker or lesser moments, and deliver idiots who do their best to get up our nose -- the more of a city dweller we are, sadly, the more such moments we're likely to experience. Just think for example how many times during the average day in the average city you have to override competely your natural desire to choke the living shit out of some arsehole who's just begging for it (or learn to repress such a thing for just a moment or two until you can safely get your hands around their throat unnoticed). Every day brings us these little (or large) repressions we need to exercise in order to get through the day productively, and intact.

The more such days we have, the more likely we are to get home, sit down and say, "Damn, I need a drink." And it's a damn good thing we do, because alcohol is good for us. Oh yes, there are studies galore showing the direct health benefits of red wine, and beer and so on, but alcohol has more than just health benefits: used properly, it helps us gently dissolve the essential 'shell' we build aounrd ourselves so we can get through each day with our soul and our emotions intact. Used properly and in the company of friends and the things that make life worth living, alcohol helps to enjoy life, and to truly savour our rewards for living: emotions.

Our emotional faculty is uniquely organised to give us our rewards for living well -- love, joy, passion, triumph -- and if enduring happiness is our aim then we have to ensure that faculty is not de-sensitised, and be able to fully enjoy and truly experience our emotions, no matter what sort of day we've just had and how many arseholes with which we've been confronted.

Alcohol helps us with that important work of shedding our outer skin, uncovering ourselves so we and our friends can get on and enjoy our real selves 'with the bark off.' If you want to see the unvarnished truth about someone, then get drunk with them. Works every time -- and it can be great fun.

Alcohol is one of the few things on which enormous effort and expertise is expended in order simply to produce something which gives pleasure. How 'bout that! And how much pleasure is there to be had in enjoying and savouring the hidden pleasures of each of these products of professional expertise. Fruity pinot noirs; peaty whiskeys; hoppy lagers; rich, dark stouts; crystal clear martinis ... beautifully crafted for the sole purpose of giving us pleasure.

But alcohol is dangerous, you say? Well, yes it is if you drink stuff that isn't well-made. Tui, for instance. Or Spumante. No, no, you say, doesn't alcohol make people violent, abusive and prone to getting off with people they shouldn't? Well, yes, it does with some people. Alcohol unveils the character of the person within; that person with all the bark off. If the person within is boorish, monstrous or criminally self-absorbed, then all will soon be revealed. Instant arsehole; just add alcohol. If that's you we're talking about, then leave alcohol to those who deserve it, and do something to sort yourself out.

Let the rest of us enjoy our drink in peace. And as it's almost noon, I'm just away to start mixing up a tall one. Cheers.

Links: Still flowing. Still in the zone. - Not PC

The perfect martini...

Mencken declared the Martini to be ""the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet." Arts & Letters Daily has news about a new book on cocktails that tells more about the noble drink, and prompts me to re-post an earlier Friday afternoon post on the perfect martini-- but not before sharing Abe Lincoln's view quoted in the article: "It has been my experience that folks with no vices have very few virtues."

And what about the age old question: should your martini be shaken or stirred?

Linked book review: Never argue with a bartender
Linked post: The perfect martini does exist

There's a first and last time for everything...

Another ego trip that everyone's doing, and as I'm just a mindless follower:

TEN FIRSTS
First Best Friend: Mostyn Brown (neighbour). Lost contact when my family moved when I was six. He had a great cowboy outfit. :-)
First Screen Name: Organon.
First Pet: Tinky. Family cat.
First Piercing: Nope. Too fashionable.
First Crush: Um, when I was five, a girl called Lynette Crookes.
First CD Bought: First CD was Television's 'Marquee Moon.' But I was alive when records were the thing: first record was Hello Sailor's 'Gutter Black.'
First Car: MG Midget with a Ford 1600cc engine. (Okay, okay.)
First True Love: DJ
First Stuffed Animal: A stuffed elephant, I think.
First Words: Apparently it was 'bus.'
First Game System: Never had one.

NINE LASTS
Last Alcoholic: A Stella, last night
Last Movie Seen: 'Meistersingers of Nuremburg,' with Donald McIntyre. (Well, it is a film, right?)
Last CD Played: Charlie Christian, 'Good Enough to Keep.'
Last Bubble Bath: ???
Last Time You Cried: 24 August, 2005. Funeral.
Last Time You Laughed: Over beers last night
Last Time You Fell: When hit by a flying trolley in Raglan. Ouch. -/

EIGHT HAVE YOU EVERS
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: Nope. Too much like incest.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Nope. Harrassed a few times, but never arrested. Rule #1: the policeman is always right.
Have You Ever Been Skinny Dipping: Yup.
Have You Ever Been On TV: Yup.
Have You Ever Regretted A Kiss: Imagine regretting a kiss!
Have You Ever Been Drunk: D'you mean today?.
Have You Ever Slept For 24 Hours Straight: Sure have, after a few all-nighters meeting project deadlines.
Have You Ever Worn the Same Pants for 3 Weeks Straight: Nope; two weeks maybe... ;^)

SEVEN THINGS YOU'RE WEARING
1. Organon Polo Shirt
2. Jean Shorts
3. Underpants
4. Jandals
5. A smile
6. There is no six...
7. ...or any seven

SIX THINGS YOU DID YESTERDAY
1. Watched Roskill Saints win the Auckland Australian Football Grand Final.
2. Drank several beers.
3. Drank a martini on the beach while watching the sun go down.
4. Talked nonsense.
5. Heard about a friend's musical debut at the Kings Arms.
6. Listened to Benny Goodman.

FIVE HEROES
1. Frank Lloyd Wright
2. Duke Ellington
3. Ayn Rand
4. Robert Heinlein
5. Thomas Jefferson

FIVE FAVOURITE THINGS
1. Falafels
2. Google Earth
3. Tofu
4. The Rodin Museum
5. ArchiCAD

THREE CHOICES
1. Radio or CD? CD. Radio is chewing gum for the ears.
2. German chocolate cheese cake or vanilla bean cheese cake? Vanilla bean. Subtle cheesecakes are best.
3. Black or white? Black is the new black.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
1. Design at least one-hundred homes from which the owners don't want to leave.
2. Visit every Frank Lloyd Wright building still standing.
3. Attend several performances of the Ring Cycle at Bayreuth.

ONE THING YOU REGRET
1. Wasting seed capital and a year of my life on business partners who don't keep promises.

Unintelligent design, Part 3

Continued from yesterday.... Do you remember the Scopes Monkey Trial, which was immortalised in a play and two exceptional films titled 'Inherit the Wind'? Creationists in Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching of evolution in schools; when the law was challenged in court, both Creationism and its defenders were shown to be, as Bill Lawrie would say, completely lacking in logic.

The 'Intelligent Design' movement is in many ways a rearguard action against this embarrassing loss. ID attempts to move on from the obvious idiocies of Creationism by wrapping myth in an aura of scientism rather than poetry. Despite the aura, it is still a movement attempting to give respectability to stupidity. Tom Cruise's Scientology almost begins to look sane by comparison.

"Every living cell contains many ultrasophisticated molecular machines," says ID proponent Michael J. Behe. So? There is no logical connection, nor any shown causal connection, between naturally occurring complexity and a Creator that brought that complexity into the world. Just because machines of man-made complexity are products of intention and design is no reason to extrapolate this intentionality into naturally occurring entities or processes. Crikey, that's been pointed out since Greek scientists began their inquiries nearly 2,500 years ago. As Benny Hill used to say, "Why you no 'rissen!"

Ayn Rand pointed out there is a profound confusion in a claim such as Behe's: a confusion between things on the one hand about which there is some choice, that is, things that are man-made, that someone has chosen to design and to produce, and might very well have chosen to produce otherwise; and another class of things that in her words are "metaphysically given," that is, entities or processes that exist in nature, and whose properties are given by the nature of the entity, and about which neither choice nor free will can apply. The key to the difference between these two classes of entities is that human beings have free will, whereas nature does not.

Man-made things are generally as someone chose them to be (I exclude here my numerous failed efforts to produce a decent home brew); natural things by contrast are as their nature determined them to be (in the case of home brew, manifestly determined to piss me off).

Was existence itself brought into existence by a Creator? There's no evidence for that claim, and nor is there any need for it. Nor is there any evidence for the claim of there being a Creator -- and as I said Thursday, if you say that existence was brought into existence by a Creator then you have the 'infinite regression' challenge of explaining how the Creator who brought everything into existence came into existence herself. There is no evidence for a Creator; there is however abundant evidence for existence. That existence exists is axiomatic, meaning that no explanation is actually needed to explain its presence. As Ayn Rand put it:

"To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of Identity."

Proponents of 'Intelligent Design' completely fail to grasp that point. (And they aren't the only ones.) It is somewhat hard to grasp, it's true, but it's much harder to grasp the fact that otherwise intelligent people believe in an Intelligent Watchmaker who somehow brings order to the universe through his very will. Because here's the thing: if we do see an 'order' in existence, if things look orderly to us, then we might reflect that the 'order' is what we ourselves bring to the judgement of existence; existence itself is neither ordered nor disordered, it is just what it is, and it could be no other way.

That's right. Things couldn't be any other way than what we are -- there is no alternative existence in which all possible forms of existence were worked out; if anything were substantially different, if for instance the weight of the Hydrogen nucleus were something other than what it is, we would not be here to talk about it. Things would be different, and we wouldn't be here to talk about it over a Martini.

Further, to ask 'what caused existence' is itself a silly question. Existence does not require a cause; causality is inside existence, not vice versa. Causal explanations do back to what exists, not the other way around. The universe itself, meaning all that exists, has no cause -- if you insist on poetry, you might say that existence is its own cause. Nathaniel Branden summarises the point:

Existence is all that exists, the non-existent does not exist; there is nothing for existence to have come out of and nothing means nothing. If you are tempted to ask, ‘What’s outside the universe?’ recognize that you’re asking, ‘What’s outside existence?’ and that the idea of something outside of existence is a contradiction in terms; nothing is outside of existence, and ‘nothing’ is not just another kind of ‘something’—it is nothing. Existence exists; you cannot go outside it, you cannot get under it, on top of it, or behind it. Existence exists, and only existence exists: there is nowhere else to go.

So there you go.

In any case, who is this all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-perfect designer that ID proponents posit as the Prime Mover of it all, and that millions around the world worship? According to just some of the evidence produced by those who support the notion of a Creator, their personal choice of God is responsible in the past for razing entire cities to the ground in a fit of pique [Gen. 19:24], encouraging child rape [Gen. 19:8], and sending bears to kill the children of disobedient followers [2 Kings 2:23-24].

So, both all-powerful and all-loving then.

Indeed, if she does exist, then God has been busy since Boxing Day. The Asian tsunami killed 200,000 or so, and an all-powerful Being must also have designed -- or at least allowed to happen -- a series of weather patterns that devastated vast swathes of the God-fearing USA. What a great sheila, huh? What a Loving God. Or at least, what a creation, since the only place this entity exists is in the minds of those who need to believe in, or to explain, something they can't, or won't, understand.

Let's move on from the imperfection or unattractiveness of this 'all-perfect' God that's been created by some as a super-position of their own selves. Instead, let's examine the imperfections of her 'creation', the creation that Intelligent Design bunnies praise so highly: what about, for example, our own bodies -- those temples of perfection that God created in her own image and likeness. As an examination of either your own body or your neighbour's will demonstrate (put her down!), it's certainly 'irreducibly complex' (and decidedly pleasurable if you do it right), but WTF is the point of all those coughs, colds, cataracts, cancers, the appendix (what's with that?), gout and all those ongoing chronic spinal problems and arthritis as those bodies get older? What sort of bad design is all that anyway? Baaaad Watchmaker. And what's the deal with people being born with spina bifida and multiple sclerosis, and all those birth defects and congenital deformities? And what sort of way is that to give birth? Who designed the birth canal for goodness sake! Just who is this Creator trying to punish, and for what...?

Now, as sober reflection will demonstrate, there is no supernatural being 'punishing' anyone. The whole idea of a supernatural Creator is just absurd on its face; we are how we are because that is who we are. Our nature was not chosen for us by an Intelligent Designer; our nature is given to us by the Law of Identity: we are what we are, and once we understand that we can, if we understand how to do so, change some things, as long as we do so in a manner consistent with our Identity. There is no more evidence for a Creator or any supernatural Prime Mover than there is for green spiders on Mars, and the onus of proof for those asserting the existence of either is on those who assert that there is.

Nor do we even know anything about this Designer. Apart from the 'evidence' adduced above, all we have boils down to assertions she is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, immaterial, immortal, and infinite, and exists outside what we understand to be the universe. Frankly, this amounts on its face to nothing more than an embarrassing admission that we know nothing about this entity. To say that this is a useful description of the Chief Designer is an admission that 1) we don't' really know what she is specifically, but that she is unlimited in some way we're quite unable or unwilling to specify; and 2) that we're happy to accept the multitude of contradictions that these mutually contradictory descriptions require. The acceptance of the existence of a Designer demands faith, and it demands too the denial of reason.

Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if he died and found himself in Heaven, and God asked him why he was not religious during his life. Russell said he would reply, "Not enough evidence!" That's what this whole case boils down to. There's plenty of evidence that existence exists, but none at all for a Designer who created it all, and not a skerrick to suggest that the existence of which we do have immediate first-hand experience even needs a causal explanation. After all, wave your hand around and there it all is. Hard to explain all that stuff away, but hard to explain something about which there is not a scintilla of evidence, only a mountain of wishful thinking called faith.

***************************************

There is one single reason for the birth of the Intelligent Design chimera, and that is to smuggle Creationism back into American schools and so allow the continued indoctrination of impressionable young minds with supernatural nonsense. By giving equal measure to science on the one hand, and to faith on the other, its proponents hopes to give belief in faith and the supernatural some legs for a few more years. It's not intelligent, in fact it's completely transparent, and it amazes me that in the Twenty-First Century such stupidity still gets house room.

And that's my last word.

This is the last of a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Categories: Science, Religion,

Ken Burns: Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday yesterday was a great excuse to kick back tonight and watch the Ken Burns' 'Frank Lloyd Wright' biopic. I confess, I've seen it before. A few times. (In fact my copy is a well-used gift from a grateful client.) But it's so well done, and tells such a wonderful story -- and it plays so well with a few friends and a martini -- that repeated viewing is a pleasure.

The film is so well-crafted I personally recommend it - in fact, I already have: here's a review I wrote when the film first came to Auckland a few years ago for the Film Festival.