Bits and bobs

leftover surprise

(Christina Crawford prepares to eat her leftover steak, which her mother has reminded her is “rare, not raw.” En-smallened to obscure texture.)

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I have two weeks to pack my house and make sure my apt. is flood-renovated enough for me to move in (I finally sold my house near Burlington, thank goodness).

So posts are gonna be leftover meals—a bit of this, a bit of that—until life calms down. Here’s today’s leftover casserole.

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Musical Taste

When you spend years trying to be a cosmopolitan sophisticate as I did, you believe that “liking” complicated/avante-garde/uglified/”challenging” foods, arts, and letters is what makes you a . . .what? A person of good taste? A social superior?

Turns out I’m much more of what my former circle would call a philistine than I knew. And I think I always have been.

Take music. I like simple, pure music. What I want out of music is pure emotion, from elation to despair. No other form of sensory input plucks directly at my emotions, and I’d say that’s probably true for humans generally.

I want melody and harmony. In an age of “beats” and aggressive, atonal percussion set to spittle-flecked spoken word (this is not, in fact, music, by any definition), we’ve let go of what makes music what it is.

If I were a believer, I would characterize melody and harmony as an expression of God and the divine. It sure feels that way to me when my skin ripples and my eyes well up over a chord change.

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Misapprehending the goal

Outspoken and blunt people frequently get this kind of criticism from those who don’t like blunt outspokenness:

“You’ll never convince [X person/identity group] with that tone of voice.”

They misunderstand the goal.

I’m not trying to convince X person/identity group of anything. I’m trying to circumscribe their cultural power.

I don’t want to be their friends. I don’t care if they like me, and I don’t care if the people who are on their side dislike me.

Having been someone who changed his mind radically (I went from left to right, generally speaking), I didn’t do it because someone cooed at me and cousined me into agreeing with them. I don’t think that’s how it works most of the time.

I had to come to my own conclusions after watching and participating in all kinds of conversations. Staid conversations, online brawls, and everything in between.

No one could have persuaded me to change my mind because my emotional commitments didn’t permit that (I had to work on those on my own). A lot of people are like that. Most people are emotionally driven on policy and politics, not “facts and data driven.”

TLDR; I’m not trying to make friends or colleagues with feminists/trans lunatics/black supremacists. I’m trying to limit their destructive power in politics, culture, and public policy. I don’t want to be their friends.

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Can’t-fail chicken

This is so basic and stupid it’s not even a recipe. You only need two things:

-Skin-on, bone-in chicken parts (thighs are best)

-This stuff

Remember that chicken is not properly seasoned unless you season under the skin as well as on top of it. So loosen the skin from the meat with your finger, season inside and then outside with this stuff (I recommend adding MSG, too, but you don’t need extra salt).

Bake at 425 degrees for a half hour-ish.

It’s always tasty, no matter what. And it’s a supper cheap as homemade sin.

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Thank you. . .

. . .to all of you who read Disaffected! Special thanks to the paying subscribers who help me make my mouth bring home some money, too. Cheers!