Something fishy.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit the campus of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. It's a beautiful campus, a former Jesuit novitiate on the Hudson.

I was thinking about the place after seeing a clip of the Franz Kafka sculpture in Prague, the one that moves and reforms (the "Metamorphosis Sculpture," it's called):

I like a clever idea, but it must be well performed. If the Kafka head looked like any old dingdong it wouldn't be so great, but it is a good likeness of the man, at least when it's at rest.

I was equally impressed with the sturgeon sculpture on the CIA campus, "Old Diamondsides":

So... it's a good 12-foot likeness of an Atlantic Sturgeon, right? The former staple of the Hudson Valley diet? What does it do, jump in the air? 

No, my tiresome inner voice. It doesn't do anything. It's what it's made of that counts:

John F. Sendelbach made the sculpture out of 1,700 old forks, knives, and spoons, as you can see on this official close-up (my picture wasn't as good). All those scales and fins are made of common eating utensils. The eyes are hand-blown glass. 

When I came across it I didn't know what it was---I actually had gotten lost on the way back to my car---and when I went in for a closer look I was stunned to realize that forks composed the shimmering scales I was looking at. It was one of many little gems one encounters at the CIA, and one of my favorites. 

I applaud the artist and the CIA. On its own this would have been a well-depicted fish, but the way it was put together makes it wonderful. And in keeping with its surroundings, it is appropriately a work of art done in good taste. 

Packaging issues.

A couple of What-The-Heck moments in the world of food packaging:

Concealed within a 2-pack of Ritz Peanut Butter Cracker Sandwiches (8 ct. ea.), we discovered that one of the 8 ct. ea. packs was actually a 7 ct. ea. pack. The photo above shows the pack before the plastic wrap was pierced. Ritz is holding out on us! Dude, WTF?

Someone obviously slipped up. The 2-pack is opaque, and so quality inspectors would not have been able to see how many sandwich packs were inside as it left the factory. Maybe another consumer got a 9 ct. ea. pack, although I'm not sure how a ninth pack (6 cracker sandwiches ea.) would have fit in there.

C'mon, Ritz. You owe me.

At least that was most likely an honest mistake. This is malfeasance on purpose:

Why are Elsa and Anna from Disney's Frozen on a can of Green Giant corn?

They have nothing to do with the product. There are no Olaf-shaped kernels inside. There's no Frozen-related special offer. There's no recipe for iced corn. It's not a special collector's edition. There's nothing else about the film on the can except that picture and logo.

I might have even excused it if it were on the frozen corn rather than the canned.

Was this some stupid idea for getting children to demand corn? Some kind of Dada project? How much did Disney make off this can for doing nothing?

Miscounted sandwich crackers, boneheaded labeling... Our supermarkets are hovering near anarchy, people! Demand reason and accountability!

Weird Monday.

Yesterday was a very odd day. I'm sure you're keen to find out why!

1) Dog was very fussy early in the morning. I took him out for Walk #1, to get some exercise and get that ol' poop going. We were barely off the block when he sniffed out something from a neighbor's lawn and ate it.

I thought it was a piece of wood or something, but he's at the age where he knows the difference between food and non-food. This thing, he was eating. We've taught him "Drop it!" but he decided I meant "Swallow it!" So back home we went and a time-out. I lectured him about eating things off lawns, how it killed the puppy of a friend of mine whose neighbor had put out rat poison, but he didn't listen. After that the poor night of sleep I got caught up with me, and we both conked out for a while.

2) Walk #2 followed the nap, and the weather being cool, was the best walk we'd had in a while. Following that, and the accompanying bowel movement (his, not mine), I settled down to work on a freelance project. I'd been working on this and others all weekend, though, so I was ahead of the game; with the nice weather I had an eye on the clock, planning to get out and cut the grass.

3) A Yankees fan I know was demonstrating on social media why people hate the Yankees. Really, I don't have much against the Yankees, but their fans are famously awful. You'd think the great record of success they've had in the last century would give them quiet confidence, but it's quite the opposite; it enables them to behave like drunken peckerheads even when the team is sucking like a Dyson, as now. (Fourth place in the AL East, 44-44.) So after hearing his comical online abuse of my beloved Mets for a while (second place in NL East, 47-41), I cut him off. I wouldn't dream of responding in kind. I'm above petty abuse. All I'd say is:

4) Finally got to the lawn, and realized the neighbors had company. On Monday afternoon?! Still, I felt compelled to cut the job short, and skip the backyard for the time being. But before I even got that far, my wife came out with the dog to announce that he had just vomited in the kitchen. So it was awesome all around. I kept him on the porch and out of trouble until all was clean inside. I could not resist telling him "I told you so" but he didn't listen.

5) Showered, went back to work on the freelance job, but I just didn't feel right. Maybe allergies. Anyway, I worked until after five, and then Nap #2 was enforced. It's hard to resist that temptation when you're sitting in your home with a comfy sofa in front of you.

6) The one time my wife got the dog out, while I was making dinner, they ran into a really large fox. We've spotted this beast before, broad daylight as now, and my wife was awakened months ago by a fox mating wail, which if you haven't heard it is something else. The fox took off toward the house where a family we barely know lives, and so I, burgers on the grill and sides in the oven, was dispatched to warn the dad, whose small children were outside. Having delivered the Fox News Alert, I returned in time to flip the burgers.

7) And after dinner our dog, who had been feeling ill most of the day and sleeping, was wide awake and bananas until ten p.m. Then we all fell over exhausted.

So that was my day, and it could certainly have been a lot worse, but it just felt wrong all around. I'm not going to even talk about the news; I can't remember the last time it didn't make me want to throw things---or throw up myself.

Tuesday is going to be a potpourri of what I couldn't finish Monday. Unless the dog finds breakfast on the lawn again, in which case it could be even worse than Monday.

Recycle the usual suspects!

Last year I did a humorous report (well, I laughed) about the recycling practices of a fictional neighborhood.

Lest you think it was all just a gag, though, I would like to share with you some quotes from the town's recycling ordinance combined with pictures of the stuff our townsfolk put out for recycling.

ALL RESIDENTS MUST RECYCLE THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

MIXED PAPERS — NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, CARDBOARD, JUNK MAIL, BOXES, OFFICE PAPER, PAPERBACK BOOKS, & TELEPHONE BOOKS — Tie in bundles no larger than 12". 

Plastic Containers & Cartons—includes juice boxes, frozen food containers.

PLEASE DO NOT PUT CO-MINGLED ITEMS IN PLASTIC BAGS.

Tin & Aluminum Cans & Foil

Plastic Containers & Cartons—includes juice boxes, frozen food containers.

Brown craft cardboard must be flattened & tied. 

Plastic Containers & Cartons—includes juice boxes, frozen food containers.

PLEASE DO NOT PUT CO-MINGLED ITEMS IN PLASTIC BAGS.

Am I the only one who read the sheet? 

Actually, I'm not sure I did! I usually fail to bundle my papers, just leave them in the plastic container, loose.

Here is the only house I saw that had no violations of the ordinance---but you would have to believe the daily paper is the only recyclable material that goes into their home.

What must the town elders think of us people? "So they believe electric fans, McDonald's cups, and plastic toys count as 'plastic containers and cartons' -- interesting! And when we say 'no plastic bags' it means they think we want plastic bags. How counterintuitive!"

Here's the thing---I have never seen the trash men not take something that was put out on recycling day. I've seen worse than I photographed here. They take it all. I think I could put out a dead deer in one of those buckets and they'd take it. They exercise no judgment in the performance of their duties.

Which makes me wonder if any of this stuff is actually going into the single-stream recycling flow, or if it's all just going to the landfill anyway. They pick it up in a standard garbage truck. If there's food scraps and stains in the pizza boxes---and you know there are---that supposedly contaminates the paper fibers. Are garbage fairies really picking all this over after pickup day? "You're good; you're naughty; you're good...."

Some towns are a lot more serious about compliance to recycling rules. They issue tickets and summonses. I think in Oregon it may be a shooting offense. 

All this for what may be a load of crap anyway. Last year science writer John Tierney penned a scathing New York Times article on the practice. And the Guardian also ran a sad piece about it. Bonus: Absolutely no one wants your old TV. 

And yet, the town's noncompliance irritates me for two reasons: 1) I am easily irritated, and 2) Even if recycling is a crock of crap, it's one that's been put upon us because we believed it was important. So if we're going to do it, we ought to be able to follow some simple instructions. It's like we all enthusiastically agreed to put on this big kabuki dance but we refuse to learn the parts. 

If we can't comply, we should just throw everything in the garbage and the hell with it. If recycling is just virtue signalling, then burn it all for power and screw it. 

Guy Fieri's spit bucket.

For a long time I didn't see much of Guy Fieri on TV. Didn't watch his daytime cooking show, didn't watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. 

Of late we've had the latter show on, often just for noise, and I've learned three things of interest: 

1) There aren't any drive-ins. Are there any drive-ins anymore? Besides Sonic. 

2) Chipotle Gouda makes an awesome cheeseburger, which we tried after seeing a burger shop use the cheese. I'm sorry I forgot the name of the place. 

3) Guy Fieri does not swallow. 

Photo courtesy of Pictures of Guy Fieri Eating Food, which is the kind of Tumblr site
that inspired BuzzFeed to note Tumblr's obsession with the man.

I remember Larry Miller on his podcast discussing how you eat food while shooting a TV show or movie---you chew it, the director yells cut, and you spit it out. There's always a spit bucket nearby. And I got to thinking about that when watching the show.

If you haven't seen it, here's how it goes. Guy goes into a restaurant, watches the cook make something awesome while dropping comical remarks, and then tries the finished product, giving hunger-inducing praise, generally talking while eating. Guy Fieri Masticates would have been a good name for the show. But then I realized that we never actually saw him swallow. The camera would cut up close (chew), cut back (chew), cut again (chew), and then he would be talking without food in his mouth. No actual swallowage of the food was on film.

Now, I understand that even while filming unscripted shows, things can go wrong. And you ought to have a couple of takes, just in case something you didn't notice the first time is later seen in review. And having to swallow the food for every take could make you feel awful.

I remember this even from an episode of The Bill Cosby Show, in which Cosby's character was cast for a cereal commercial, and he didn't know you shouldn't swallow the cereal for real during the takes. He was sickened after many, many takes.

So I have to conclude that Guy Fieri is using a spit bucket. Worse, that means he is spitting up food in restaurant kitchens. What else would he do, hold it in his mouth and run out to the can? No way. He's got to be chewing and spitting it out right there in the kitchen!

I know these places are supposedly "dives" and whatnot (most of them look respectable enough to me), but even they have to obey local health laws, and health inspectors frown on spitting out hunks of food in kitchens.

Maybe they should change the title to Guy Fieri Contaminates Diners and Dives (No Actual Drive-ins Appear on This Show).

Critter freeze.

One of the odd things I've seen while walking about with Big Huge Dog is the reaction of prey species to my hairy galoot. We urban boys are used to things that scurry when confronted---rats, pigeons, cockroaches, stray cats, and the like. But out here in suburbia, they get very still.

Bunny? What bunny?

Nobody here but us lawn ornaments.

And the most confounding thing to me is, it works.

It baffled me, because I know ol' Supernose had to be able to pick up the scent of these animals, critters he would normally want to chase. But as long as they just stood still, he kept sniffing around as if there nothing interesting. And yet, I'd bet what he was sniffing was them.

Scott Linden, in What the Dogs Taught Me, says that dog's eyes "are built to detect moving objects more quickly. It's logical. Moving things equal prey. Motionless things are usually inedible." So it's a great advantage for them to be able to pick up the slightest motion, which is why my dog always spots the joggers before I do (and wants to go after them). Dogs can see things roughly 25 percent faster than we do.

On the other hand, when you see the dog snorting the grass in full hunt mode and the squirrel is just standing there, it gives people the idea that dogs are dumb, "Yo, Einstein! Right about ten feet in front of you!"

And the squirrel's thinking, Shut UP! It took us a million years to learn this trick and you're gonna BLOW IT!!

To date, my dog Tralfaz has not successfully killed anything, and I'd like to keep it that way. He tried very hard to kill skunks, but that did not work out as planned. The skunk, like the porcupine, does not need to stand motionless for self-defense. The skunk, like the porcupine, has just one trick, but it's dynamite.

Rolf pro.