The first of the Arizona travelogues was yesterday’s post on Kelly Houle’s art, which I saw when we visited the home she shares with her husband Ken and her son Benny in Mesa. After looking at the art, we took the short drive to Tempe to pick up Ben Goren. The thermometer in the car gave the outside temperature (top right): 113° F is the equivalent of 45° C! That temperature is not unusual for the Phoenix area this time of year, but oy, was it hot!
Here’s Ben, posing (at my request) next to his 1968 Volkswagen Bus, the vehicle that all of us in who hitchhiked in the 1960s prayed to see coming down the road. VW buses were always driven by hippies: a guaranteed ride when you were thumbing. Ben says this vehicle has about 750,000 miles or more on the original body, though the engine has been replaced several times and a bit more work has been done.
Ben’s trumpet, carefully ensconced in a foam-lined plastic case:
We all know that Ben allows Baihu to scratch and bite the hell out of his arms, the sign of true fealty of Cat Staff. Here’s a photo of some of the damage:
The Dewey-Humboldt home of Karen and Mike Houle, Kelly’s parents, where we spent a pleasant three days and nights chewing the fat, both literally and figuratively, and hanging out on the front porch (not shown), watching the sun set and Venus and Jupiter appear.
An “appetizer” before the first night’s Italian meal. (Karen is of Italian descent.) Just the ticket with the nice Rioja I brought. Best not to eat too much, as plenty more is coming (see below):
A family style Italian meal: pasta with sausages, bread, salad, and Italian wine. From left to right: Kelly, Ken, Karen, Mike, and Ben. This being a table full of heathens, there was no grace, just occasional discussion of the follies of believers.
And breakfast with bagels, and italian vegetable-and-egg scramble, English muffins, homemade raspberry jam, fried ountry ham, great coffee, and orange juice.
Ben considers himself a secular Jew, although only his dad is Jewish. When I told him that his mom had to be Jewish for him to be considered Jewish under THE LAW, he said that he underwent a “conversion” when he was young. I’m not sure that such an act is possible.
I told Ben that if he wanted to violate Jewish dietary law in the biggest way possible, he should eat ham and cream cheese on a bagel. That violates the “no ham” law as well as the “no mixing meat and dairy in one meal” law. He proceeded to do just that. He said it was good, but I prefer lox on my bagel with the schmear.
Mike Houle is an accomplished woodworker (he made the box for Kelly’s book that I highlighted yesterday), and has an immaculate and well-appointed shop in a separate building. Here it is: I’m sure Kelly inherited (culturally or genetically) Mike’s artistic abilities, craftsmanship, and penchant for order.
Here’s a pine knot he carved into a grotesque figure:
Ben with his BIG LENS photographing the goldfinches at the birdfeeder. You can see the photos in this morning’s “readers’ wildlife” post.
As Kelly is interested in typesetting her miniature books, we stopped in to see Schuyler (Sky) Shipley at his Skyline Type Foundry in Prescott, one of the very few places in the world that still handcasts metal type for use in printing presses. Sky is a fascinating character: he flew 747s as a commercial pilot, and, after retirement, took up making type and collecting and using antique machines connected with printing. He also flies a restored Lockeed P-38 Lightning training plane, and plays bass in a local jazz band. The man is a polymath.
Here’s one of the machines Sky uses to make type. I believe it’s from the late 19th century. It’s very complicated and requires exquisitely manipulated tuning to make usable type. The hopper in the top is where the metal (a mixture of lead and other metals) is kept molten.
The end product is superb. I believe Sky can make about 2000 different kinds of type. Here’s one set, which of course has multiple copies of most letters, necessary for setting entire lines of type. The price is remarkably low: this hand-made set goes for about $30.
Here’s Sky’s collection of antique printing machines, most of which he uses. They range in size from tiny ones (perfect for Kelly’s miniature books) to big ones good for printing newspapers.
A linotype machine, which replaced time-consuming hand setting of letters with a typewriter-like scheme in which each slug was set by typing a key (you can see the tricolored keyboard at the bottom). This was the way most newspapers were printed until a few decades ago, when offset printing run by computers eliminated the need for metal type. Sky wants to keep the old craftsmanship going.
Sky’s Foundry is filled with weird geegaws that he’s collected, like this miniature electric chair in a bottle. He was told that it was made by a prison inmate, but doesn’t believe it.
Sedona, the Woo Capital of America (and also the home of rich people who go there in winter) is in a superb setting of red rocks, hills, and outcrops. It’s very New-Agey, with stores selling crystals claimed to have various healing powers, and much palaver about “conjunctions”, “vortexes,” and “harmonics.” There are also many ritzy art galleries catering to the tourists who flock here.
Well, if you must have a Catholic church, this one has a lovely setting, embedded right in the rocks.
Lunch at a local restaurant: typical New Mexican food, which is Hispanic but heavy on green chiles. I had a chile relleno (“stuffed chile”: a whole chile stuffed with cheese, or sometimes meat), then battered and deep-fried. This one was coated with a blue-corn batter, which was scrumptious. The chile relleno is one of the glories of Mexican cooking.
A kitschy kat in a local art gallery:
We then went into Prescott, a cute little town not far from Dewey-Humboldt. When we stopped in a brewery for lunch, Kelly revealed to my astonishment that she had never tasted beer in her life. Not a sip! So I inveigled her into taking her first sip (remember W. C. Fields’ “The Fatal Glass of Beer”?), and photographed that epochal moment.
She didn’t like it much. This was a local brew made with chocolate, which I thought was good, though far too rich to be a session pint.
Note the use of two hands to hold the glass, a sign of someone who’s not hoisted many brewskis:
We finally went home to drop off Ben and take me to my car, as I was headed for Las Cruces. When we pulled into Ben’s driveway, Baihu was sitting in the window with a most reproachful look:
Thanks to Kelly and Ken, and to Mike and Karen, for their generous hospitality.
That Sedona rock would be so much prettier without the Catholic church.
Yum…chiles rellenos!! Haven’t made them in ages….And now we can get decent fresh poblanos here…hmmm
Yes – How did they get planning permission?
That’s what I was wondering.
It’s a church, they went ahead without permission and asked forgiveness afterwards.
And by “asked” you mean “prayed”. 😉
I was always told that when you confess you must have a true feeling of guilt or remorse about the sin. So therefore, planning to commit a sin and then confessing it forgives the “meta-sin” of having planned to sin but only forgives the sin if you are truly sorry. In effect you’ve committed two sins. Now, what if you plan to plan to commit a sin to the Nth level but somewhere between the Nth level plan and the actualization of the plan, you decide to abort the plan? Are all the aborted meta plans equally sinful as the plan’s instantiation? If so, how does one confess this and what if you have an off by one error when you assess your memory? It seems to be turtles all the way down.
Yeah how thorough is god’s deinstall program?
$ sudo rm -rf /Users/${login}
b&
Is God powerful enough to create a program he can’t recursively remove?
He’s so powerful, he can simultaneously fail to create the program and be unable to execute it. He is, after all, omniimpotent.
b&
More importantly, is god so weak he needs to use sudo? Isn’t god already root?
I think the root has sprouted into the ground of being (beans?)
(Whew, when I mix metaphors, I get dizzy)
So…god is mashed potatoes and refried beans…?
b&
Potatoes are the root. You can’t get to the root without breaking the ground. All hail potatoes, the true Eye of God!
Can we put some garlic on it? Maybe some bacon bits too?
Gnocchi with a garlicky cheese sauce and some bacon bits? Should work.
b&
The Church of Bacon, the Eye of God and the Noodly Appendage, that’s a trinity I can support, but it sure is a mouthful when it comes to the blessing.
Why do you guys always talk really good food just when I’m heading off for bed??
Probably because it seems we’re constantly writing about food, so, if you’re reading just before you’re heading off to bed….
b&
just percentages, I guess;-)
Sure that all makes sense, but how do you explain the fact that the Earth just happens to be in a habitable zone, hmmmmm?
Hmmm…touch the potatoes with a noodly appendage and make some gnocchi, and I might go along with that….
b&
add a little sour cream and/or butter and/or cream cheese…
It fails with the blue screen of death but then resurrects itself.
First having sent a 405 error message…
I remember going to a newspaper once where my grandfather worked and watching him operate a Linotype machine. I was only about 7 years old so around 1957. He left behind a whole group of small tools that he purchased to work on the machines. Apparently running a Linotype also included knowing how to do the repairs.
A few years ago I did a little research on Linotypes for a class I teach, and found that there are still a few dozen in daily operation around the U.S. I discovered this through a company that repairs them.
They are amazingly ingenious machines. Operators used to need two years of training to become qualified.
This post brings back some memories for me.
I remember visiting local small town newspaper and seeing the printing press that uses lead type to print a few hundred papers for a week.
In the mid-1970s I wrote software for a company that was processing newspaper stories and printing them out on a Kodak 23″ x 12″ film on the drum to be printed later.
I drank exactly one and a half beers in my entire life. In 1968 I went to a friends house and the parents were not home. Several of us went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. I drink one down but didn’t like it. I opened the second one drink half of it, opened the back door stepped out and eliminated it. That was the last time I drink beer.
Wonderful trip. I envy you (except for the heat).
Now, I’m thinking how nice that Catholic church will look as an archaeological ruin.
The church was built to represent St Peter “The Rock” It was also purposely built right between 2 red rocks on a so-called Vortex spot. Double Woowoo.
You are quite the foodie, Jerry!! But have you ever had Tuscan lasagna? I’ll make you some next time you are in town. What part of Italy are Karen’s relatives from? Great pix! Love the vw van and printing machines!!
45 C! And this is why I don’t think I’d want to visit Arizona in the summer. (I had trouble with 30 yesterday here.) But it otherwise looks like a fascinating place.
As for violating various dietary laws, back when I used to buy cold-cuts, one of my favourites was ham on a bagel. Used to buy the two together in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, too, which some might know as being something of a Jewish area.
And to find people still doing old-style printing and font producing! Wow.
Just stay away from the big city…Phoenix. At Flagstaff or Prescott it would be very nice in the summer. Much more altitude.
Prescott is typically about 10°F cooler than Phoenix, and Flagstaff takes off another 10°F.
That’s daytime highs. Overnight, it cools off a lot more outside of Phoenix…we’ve got this really nasty heat island effect going on here…we’ve finally got a bit of a cooling trend going on where it’s not much about 80°F at sunrise…but, at the same time, the humidity is way up, so there’s not really any relief.
b&
Lightning in a bottle?
I’m up in Flagstaff – sorry to miss you. Would love to host next time you’re in the area!. I’m a devoted fan of your books, videos and blog.
Cheers
Wow, such interesting lives! If you visited me I would just say, “well I read WEIT in my spare time then go to work and get yelled at by a psychopath, firmly put said psychopath in psychopath’s place, help fix stuff, complain I wasn’t hired to help fix stuff, go home, repeat.”
There would be nothing cool to see.
Ick! Kelly tried chocolate beer? Did I understand that right?!
I’m guessing the beer was made with chocolate malt, which refers to the color of malted barley after it has been roasted (to a chocolatey brown). Different flavor profiles and colors come from the blend and roasting style of the malt. Kelly’s beer looks delicious!
No, the beer really had chocolate in it; I’m not sure in what form it was added. I found the chocolate taste rather pleasant, but it would be more of a dessert drink than a with-food drink.
What Jerry typed.
Almost had an hint of Hershey’s chocolate syrup…again, it pretty much worked but has plenty of room for improvement.
b&
“Achocolypse,” I think it was called. The name fits. Just glad Jerry didn’t post a photo of my expression immediately following this sip.
Don’t let that turn you off of beer. The varieties of tastes available is astounding.
I couldn’t stand beer until I was in my 50s. Then I discovered some of the dark beers. Great flavors, though I can only handle about 1/4 bottle;-)
I won’t. 🙂 After a few seconds it was actually quite good.
You were probably just drunker so cared less. 🙂
Ha!! You’re right. 🙂
Beer is too gassy for me – I can only drink certain kinds and I’m a big fan of rice beers because they don’t seem so gassy.
I remarked today that the older I become, the more I identify with George Costanza. In particular, when he wanted to bring soda pop to a party instead of wine because he liked Pepsi. I’d be that way with Diet Coke.
My mother as a diplomatic wife carried Cokes to cocktail parties on multiple continents for decades.
“there would be nothing cool to see”
What about the chipmunks?
Well yes the chipmunks are cute.
Our max temperature today was 13.9 and raining, sometimes Arizona might appeal.
I remember the demise of linotype over thirty years ago. I saw a machine that actually cast type and then set it for newspaper production. The electric melting pot was fed automatically from ingots of type metal as it was depleted. I was invited to cast scuba weights from the stock of type metal before the splendid machine went for scrap. I got about eighty kilos of them.
Really interesting post Jerry. 🙂
I’ve been coming to WEIT daily for the last year. Imagine my surprise today to see my friend Sky Shipley featured!
Although Sky casts type commercially, there are quite a few of us who preserve these machines and cast small amounts of type. We are in a loosely organized group called the American Typecasting Fellowship, and we have a convention every two years (with typically 60-70 attendees).
I have two Thompson casters (like the ones Sky uses) as well as a working Linotype and Ludlow. I recently cast a large quantity of 14 pt Kennerley for a new student-operated printshop at the University of Michigan.
Any chance you’re in the Arizona area?
Sky’s place was one of many highlights of the trip. Like a toy store for me, Kelly, and Ken; Jerry lapped it all up very eagerly as well, despite, best I know, little or no prior experience with typography and printing.
b&
Alas, I’m near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sky was formerly in Kampsville, Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis. I used to visit him there occasionally.
Ah, well. But you should at least have a local thriving arts community there….
b&
Beer was definitely an acquired taste for me. Now I like many varieties but have yet to come across a chocolate flavored one I find palatable. It just strikes me as a strange taste to findicate in a beer. It wouldn’t be my first option to suggest to someone who’s never had beer, but then again they always say there’s no accounting for taste. I know some people who love them.
Yeah it seems like a terrible combination to me too.
Actually sounds kind of tasty to me. A chocolatey Guiness, par example?
Blech!
I love Guinness, but not the chocolate infused one.
I just notice my phone Sarah Palin-ed my post. What the hell is findicate? Obviously that should have read, “find in”.
I was wondering…
In the future, don’t be afraid to refudiate words like that. And yes, my phone knows refudiate but I had to at one point add bloviate.
😉
Kelly didn’t let it be known that she had never tasted beer until after it arrived at the table (or, at least, until after the order had been placed). I only got it because I’ve never had anything like it before, and the brewery has a good reputation so I trusted them to not make something bad. It actually was a decent beer, though I would have preferred it with less sugar. It was only very slightly sweet, not overly done…but I think chocolate as a savory ingredient is seriously underrated. The same brew with no sugar would have been something especially noteworthy.
And, yes…probably better options for Kelly’s first tasting, but I don’t think this was such a bad example.
b&
Dark chocolate in chili – yum.
Exactly — mole poblano.
Hmmm…might need to experiment with chiles rellenos with (unsweetened) chocolate as one of the ingredients in the stuffing, or possibly as a sauce….
b&
Hey, gonna try that! chocolatish mole over the chiles rellenos. I’ve even got some homemade sauce in the freezer to which I could stir in a bit of cocoa powder, or melted unsweetened chocolate.
There are definitely worse flavors. Sam Adams released a summer beer a couple years ago that was blueberry flavored and in my opinion, gag worthy. As someone who enjoys a good stiff whiskey served neat, you’re probably right that it’s the sweetness that gets me with the chocolate beers. On the other hand, I do enjoy a sweet red wine when the mood is right so it’s not that sugar completely turns me off. Perhaps just when it’s in beer.
I’ve never been impressed with fruity beers. Not the right type of blending.
It might be possible in theory, I suppose…one of my favorite coffee varieties is from somewhere in Ethiopia, and the beans (and resulting brew) have a distinct and unmistakable (non-sweet) blueberry overtone. But I don’t think there’d be any practical way to get something similar that would work with a beer.
On the other hand, I’m sure you could make a lovely blueberry wine that would be well worth drinking.
b&
I agree. Fruit in beer seems pointless to me. It’s the malt and hops!
Yes, it’s the malt and hops, rotting away, ruining good fruit! 😃
Let’s make wine!
For the record, I, too, prefer lox with a bagel, but I would note that the ham was quite tasty and definitely worth a repeat.
b&
I like lox with cream cheese on a bagel, especially belly lox, which I can no longer eat, so I use nova and a slice of onion.
Whitefish salad on a bagel is also good.
Seeing the trumpet reminded me of Louis Armstrong’s first cornet, which is kept at the Mint (formerly a real mint, and now a museum) in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The cornet was given to him as a boy after he was sent to what was then the ‘Colored Waif’s Home for Boys’.
I also appreciate the photos of the type foundry, as I’m interested in doing letterpress printing again (I’m tired of doing everything on computers). I just went to a workshop here in New Orleans at the Southern Letterpress, and printed a postcard… the first piece I’ve produced on a letterpress since the mid-seventies!
The price for entire fonts from Skyline Type Foundry seem incredibly reasonable to me, so I will pass the info on to the letterpress community here.
Then you’d get a kick out of my own cornet: a Conn “Conn-queror” model made in 1904. My mom’s college girlfriend’s grandfather played it in the Barnum and Bailey Circus Band. Beautiful instrument. Not easy to play, but it actually sounds like a real cornet — more than worth the trouble.
The instruments in the photo Jerry took have a bit of history to them, too….
b&
Sky & friends – do you use Hempel Quoins? Just curious, as I just became aware of their existence, and as that’s my last name.
Some printers use hempel quoins, although most prefer high-speed quoins. The high-speeds are more expensive, but are easier to use as they are one-piece and come in different lengths.
Bet you didn’t have time to go on Schnebly Hill Road. Rough terrain but spectacular views. They say to use jeeps, but I’ve made the trip a dozen times in sedans and minivans.
No; we kept to the main drag, basically.
b&
Professor Ceiling Cat, you DO know how to roadtrip!
Welcome to Texas and to our little island of blue known as Austin.
Oops, wrong comment thread. I’ll go ahead and repeat myself over there.