The Singapore Sling, it don't mean a thing

Nominalists and idealists might do well to choose the Singapore Sling as an example in their discussions, as it seems to TBA to be a drink that no two people make the same way. We've been known to spend a weekend ordering it in every bar we visit in NOLA, and getting a different drink every time.

Stumbling on the Esquire magazine Drinks Database (not a compendious collection by any means), we find yet another recipe we hadn't seen:

Ingredients
Singapore Sling

1 ounce London dry gin
1 ounce Kirschwasser
1 ounce Benedictine
club soda

Glass Type: Collins glass

Instructions

Stir well with 2 or 3 ice cubes in a chilled cocktail shaker, then pour unstrained into a Collins glass and fill to taste with cold club soda or seltzer. Garnish with the spiral-cut peel of a lime.

The lime peel looks nasty in the picture, and the ice cubes give us pause, but this is at least the simplest Singapore Sling we've seen. Most recipes we've seen call for cherry heering, not Kirschwasser, so we will have to give that a try.

... NMC in comments finds the same confusion. I should note, however, that one blog reports that David Wondrich, presumably the author of the above recipe, published something different in Esquire Drinks, but with much more plausible proportions ... AND with Heering not kirschwasser???:

2 oz London dry gin
1/2 oz Cherry Heering cherry brandy
1/2 oz Bénédictine

Stir all well with 2-3 ice cubes, pour unstrained into highball glass, and fill to taste with club soda (or ginger beer, if you're of a mind to).

I really wasn't buying the entire ounce of Benedictine, but now I'm of a mind to e-mail Wondrich and ask what gives.

Infantile tastes

Apparently, of the top-10 highest-grossing films of 2010 (I'm guessing this is U.S. & Canada, not world), only one, Inception, was not actually a movie made for children. No, I am not considering Iron Man 2 an adult film, however much I enjoyed it.

By contrast, 5 of 2009's top 10 were at least theoretically adult films (even if counting Avatar is questionable).

Judicial notice?

Sundown v. Tex. Dep't of Crim. Justice, Civ. No. H-07-1441 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 16, 2008):

The Constitution persists in requiring that the state not interfere with prisoners freely exercising their religions except as a direct, reasonably necessary, spiritually neutral consequence of its meeting other responsibilities. Prisons do not have unlimited space or guards for an infinite number of religious ceremonies. Religions prescribe days of the week and hours of the day as well as diets and dress. Those are addressed to civil society under normal circumstances. Nobody went to hell for missing Temple during the Blitz or not resting on the Sabbath during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

With all respect to the honorable Court: how does it know?

Books for Christmas

A nice thing about gift cards for Xmas is you don't have to wait for the stores to open ....

James J. Sheehan, German History 1770-1866. The exciting prequel to Gordon Craig's Germany 1866-1945!

Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (AD 354-378). The last great (well, kinda) Roman historian, mostly on the reign of Julian.

Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire. Sorry, Ammianus, you can't copyright a title.

Cicero, On Obligations & The Nature of the Gods. Philosophers glean clues about earlier philosophy from Cicero's books while denigrating him as derivative, which seems ungrateful. But I'm as interested in these for his incidental remarks on his contemporaries as for the substance.

FUCKING Dolphins, man.

Thank you, Chad "Interception" Henne.

Because after losing to the Bills at home, losing to the Lions at home is just that much easier.

(... And what were the Jets thinking exactly, punting down 4 points with only 5:00 left in the game? Normally of course I'm happy to see the Jets lose, but it's not like I have the FUCKING Dolphins to pull for in the playoffs.)

What the Dickens?

Hillary Keith complains about Oprah's book-club picks:

She has asked millions of people to follow her into some of the more difficult prose to come out of the nineteenth century ....

Goodness, not Moby-Dick! Or Sartor Resartus? The Sacred Fount?

-- No. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.

Give me a fucking break. How is Keith measuring "difficult prose"? She mentions "complicated syntax." Oh my word.

And this Keith person is "assistant editor" of TNR's book review page.

Via Bookslut.

Proof that DFW edited Infinite Jest

Newsweek posts some material that David Foster Wallace cut from Infinite Jest; I dunno how significant it is to someone who hasn't read the book, but I found it interesting (and not facially clear as to why any of it was cut).

Via the Paris Review blog.

"Is Batman a State Actor?"

And if so, do they not have 42 USC 1983 in Gotham?

I'm glad someone is raising these questions.

... And related issues.

A conversation about Heinrich Böll

Jessa Crispin corresponds with a publisher who's bringing Heinrich Böll back into print in English translation. Good stuff. I can second Crispin on Billiards at Half Past Nine, which very quickly becomes more interesting than you think it's going to be.

Thus flagged Anderson

Real life has begun to impinge upon TBA to an unprecedented extent, and it appears the best course is to suspend this occasionally humble blog indefinitely.

Many thanks to our 7.3 readers who disregarded the warning quotation from Montaigne in the sidebar. We commend to you the various blogs linked thereunder.

O'Donnell shocks audience with having read at least part of Constitution

Christine O'Donnell had a campus debate with her Democratic opponent:

"Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" an incredulous O'Donnell asks her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons. The audience is heard laughing in the background. "Let me just clarify, you're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

"Government shall make no establishment of religion," Coons responds.

"That's in the First Amendment," O'Donnell says.

O'Donnell is, of course, correct; the First Amendment does not say "separation of church and state."

She's weaker on the later amendments however:

Later, O'Donnell was asked if she would support repealing the 14th, 16th and 17th amendments. She knew the 17th Amendment, but could not remember the others. "I'm sorry, I didn't bring my Constitution with me… Fortunately, senators don't have to memorize the Constitution. Remind me of what the other ones are."

It's good she knew the 17th, since it's why she has even a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a U.S. senator.

The AP story gives some amusing commentary:

Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

Political scientists don't have to memorize the Constitution either, I gather.

This will be all over the conservative blogs as a "gotcha." Rightly so, I'm afraid.

... The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause does amount to "a separation of church and state." Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 719 (2005) (Ginsburg, J.). Justice Thomas's concurrence in that case disagrees:

Congress need not observe strict separation between church and state, or steer clear of the subject of religion. It need only refrain from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion”; it must not interfere with a state establishment of religion.

So O'Donnell should not be any more, or less, shocking than Clarence Thomas.

Maybe it evolved from his BMW?

North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre apparently can't remember who exactly gave him a dark blue 2010 Porsche Panamera.

... But come now, haven't we all sometimes forgotten where one of our Porsches came from?

(Political Wire.)

-- As NMC points out, people like Mayor Pierre are why Janis Joplin needed a Mercedes.

"Art World Relieved As Thieves Steal Pretty Terrible Late Period Renoir Work"

CHICAGO — The art world let out a collective sigh of relief Tuesday when it was announced that thieves had made off with one of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's more god-awful late-period paintings, 1919's The Great Bathers (The Nymphs). "The palette was too rosy, the brushstrokes were something out of a college art class, and Renoir's gift for capturing his subject's inner mystery seemed to have completely abandoned him--in short, it was garbage and I'm glad it's gone," said Malcolm Stewart, a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, which has done little to assist the police in their investigation. "This is the best thing to happen to Renoir's oeuvre since he painted his impressionist classic The Umbrellas, which was actually an inspired piece of art and not just decorative schlock." Stewart added that he wanted the thieves to know that Renoir's 1910 painting Jean As Huntsman could currently be viewed in the museum's front lobby next to several easily accessible exits.

... Actually, I think it is (was?) in Philadelphia, not Chicago.

Not a great painting, but I've always liked the playful figure on the right.

Or did The Onion mean this one?

'Cause yeah, that one sucks. Though it's in Philly as well. And 1918, not 1919.

Torture for fun *and* profit

We've often had occasion to report on the doings of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the architects of the American torture program. Their theory of "learned helplessness" derived in some part from the teachings of the respected psychologist Martin Seligman, a former APA president, who has "denied any involvement in the program, insisting that his contacts with Mitchell and Jessen were innocent."

Thus Scott Horton, who picks up on some news about Seligman: He's had a $31 million Pentagon contract dropped in his lap.

Army contracting documents show that nobody else was allowed to bid on the resilience-training contract because “there is only one responsible source due to a unique capability provided, and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.” And yet, Salon was able to identify resilience training experts at other institutions around the country, including the University of Maryland and the Mayo Clinic. In fact, in 2008 the Marine Corps launched a project with UCLA to conduct resilience training for Marines and their families at nine military bases across the United States and in Okinawa, Japan.

As Horton says, "it is becoming easier to understand APA’s awkward silence and inaction on the issue of psychologists involved in torture and acts of official cruelty."

Meanwhile, Dr. Seligman's most recent books appear to be Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment and (with a co-author) Character Strengths and Virtues.

"why did florida put brantley back in"

Your search - "why did florida put brantley back in" - did not match any documents.

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•Examine Urban Meyer's brain for tumors or injuries.

... Really, after that scoring drive after the half, I thought Florida had figured its game out. Apparently not.

Mississippi State is now The Best Bad Team in the SEC.