Everybody loves the Farmer’s Daughter. She’s one of those great stock characters of literature (and the subject of more than a few dirty jokes, usually involving a Traveling Salesman). Depending in the needs of the narrative, she can be plucky, optimistic, and naïve, or seductive, manipulative, and dangerous.
I read a Stephen King story this afternoon, which put me in mind of Maine. Which is funny, since I’ve never been to Maine, and really only know it via fiction. Namely, Stephen King’s fiction.
It’s finally Fall, or so we discovered on our walk downtown this morning. Steelgray skies, the scent of rain in the air, leaves scattered on the ground. Halloween’s around the corner. And, of course, Petaluma’s autumnal bookends: the Antique Faire and the Petaluma Progressive Festival, were this weekend.
I’ve said it before. Put a dog on the label, and you’ve got my attention. Pale Horse Brewing Company, from Salem, OR, have done just that with their Hopyard Dog IPA, putting a handsome bulldog front and center. I picked this one up at Petaluma Market yesterday evening after a conversation with Jeffrey the Beer Guy about Oregon’s ubiquitous microbreweries (“And I though we had a lot of breweries down here,” confessed Jeffrey, having just visited Portland).
I spent the nineties running a record store. Some would say into the ground, but I insist it was those far above me who had chosen that trajectory with their hedonistic ways and questionable life/business choices. But that pretty much epitomizes the decade. You know what else epitomizes the decade? A record store that didn’t carry vinyl.
I wandered out to see Apollo 18 this afternoon and talk about H. P. Lovecraft and horror-as-escapism with David Templeton for his column in the Pacific Sun. The movie was fun, a found-footage monster flick with creepy creatures, government conspiracies, and outstanding lunar landscapes. I got home in time to watch the Giants beat the Dodgers, and am now settling in with a bit of reading, KCSM, and a FireHouse Hops on Rye, which sounds like a lost Dr. Seuss […]
A beautiful day. We wandered down to Walnut Park to check out Art in the Park (and may head back tomorrow), then came home, read awhile, and are now watching the Giants/Dodgers game, post-dinner. I’m having a Stone Japanese Green Tea IPA, a collaboration between Stone Brewing Company, Tashi Ishii, and Bryan Baird.
A lot of reading today, but still managed to fit in a couple of shorts. Today’s theme: Yellow: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Robert W. Chambers’s “The Yellow Sign.” Decadent, Yellow, madness. I needed to choose an adult beverage that hit a high mark.
A day spent bouncing between manuscripts, ending with a pair of short stories: Robert M. Price’s “Wilbur Whateley Waiting” and Robert W. Chambers’s “The Harbor-Master.” And now? Pizza, the Giants vs. Diamondbacks on TV, and a Lost Continent Double IPA…
“I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s, his hair was perfect!” –Warren Zevon It’s not often I find myself accosted by a werewolf while doing my grocery shopping. But I love a good gimmick, and this “blood red ale” from Newcastle had it all: clawmarks on the case, a lycanthropic logo, and “Escaped from Britain” on the label.
