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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Early Morning Open Thread: Solstice

Early Morning Open Thread: Solstice

by Anne Laurie|  December 21, 20135:11 am| 44 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Per the Washington Post:

At 12:11 p.m. EST on December 21, the sun appears directly overhead along the Tropic of Capricorn, at 23.5 degrees south latitude. With the Earth’s north pole at its maximum tilt from the sun, locations north of the equator see the sun follow its lowest and shortest arc across the southern sky. For the next six months, the days again grow longer as the sun spends more time above the horizon….

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the days will start getting longer, even as the weather (probably) gets worse.

I’ve already screwed up the start of the weekend by not posting TaMara’s Recipe Exchange on time, and now I have to decide whether to post it this afternoon or save it for first thing Sunday.

Apart from such teacup dilemmas, what’s on the agenda?

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Reader Interactions

44Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 5:27 am

    Something about describing my bak yard project has my post marked as spam?

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    December 21, 2013 at 5:29 am

    Finally going to bed after passing the baton to the morning shift. I went down the YouTube hole after the last thread (as usual) and finished up the night by listening to Van Morrison’s Moondance all the way through. Probably will pick up the recent deluxe edition of that.

    Okay, I’m dragging the housecat to bed. She has stayed faithfully by my side, dozing on the microfleece throw beside the computer with the heating pad set to 3 (“low simmer”).

  3. 3.

    Steeplejack

    December 21, 2013 at 5:30 am

    @raven:

    Left something for you downstairs.

  4. 4.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 5:35 am

    @Steeplejack: God they were good. Bloomfield was so underrated, Nick could whale and Buddy. . . damn! Combine that with “Child is the Father to Man” and you have two extraordinary pieces of music.

    thanks

  5. 5.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 5:36 am

    @Steeplejack: Try Hard Nose the Highway” some time.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFjq0Te-9Qo

    And the pancake house is always crowded
    Open 24 hours of every day
    And if you suffer from insomnia
    You can speed your time away
    You can speed your time away

    Snow in San Anselmo
    My waitress, my waitress, my waitress
    Said it was coming down
    Said it hadnt happened in over 30 years
    But it was laying on the ground
    But it was laying on the ground

  6. 6.

    WereBear

    December 21, 2013 at 5:59 am

    Very few are the Van Morrison songs I don’t like. To me, he is Van the Man.

  7. 7.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 6:05 am

    @WereBear: I know a guy here that was on his crew. Apparently he’s a real asshole. Not on the level of Zevon but a jerk nonetheless.

  8. 8.

    TheMightyTrowel

    December 21, 2013 at 6:07 am

    Went for pizza with some friends and a great debate was had: should pizza with shellfish (in this case shrimp) have cheese on it. I say never, Mr. Trowel says always.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    December 21, 2013 at 6:30 am

    @raven: I’ve heard a lot of conflicting stuff; that view, indeed, was one of them. It does not rise to the point of interfering with my enjoyment of his art, though.

    Like my encounter with Harlan Ellison.

    He’s one of the most INfamous of all obnoxious celebrities; in fact, when I was tapped to interview him for a documentary they apologized for offering it to me. I was so looking forward to it, but there was a schedule conflict and I could not.

    However, I wound up sharing a ham sandwich with him, briefly, and after the seminar involved, I thanked him.

    And I got such a LOOK; of shyness and huge feeling and automatic defense; and I look at all his antics afterward in that light. That people are always demanding around him, and the stories are about him trying to cope with that along with his fierce, uncompromising, vision of what things should be.

    Don”t know if Morrison falls in that category. But I understand his stage fright is severe. He usually performs with his eyes closed throughout!

  10. 10.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 6:37 am

    @WereBear: Food for thought. The one time I saw Miles he spent the entire show playing with his back to the audience.

  11. 11.

    Mustang Bobby

    December 21, 2013 at 6:53 am

    I am grieving and weeping for my friend Brian in Albuquerque who had to put his good friend and companion Marty to sleep yesterday. She was a beautiful and loving dog, sweet of face and temperament, and there will be a big hole in his life for a long time.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    December 21, 2013 at 7:09 am

    @Mustang Bobby: We always miss them. She had a wonderful face.

  13. 13.

    IowaOldLady

    December 21, 2013 at 7:26 am

    Thanks for the Annie Lennox song. It was beautiful.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    December 21, 2013 at 7:33 am

    Anne, If Tamara doesn’t mind, post the recipe thread in the morning. Then I’ll have time to savor all the recipes. Yum! Of course, I’m being selfish but what the heck.

  15. 15.

    magurakurin

    December 21, 2013 at 7:57 am

    @TheMightyTrowel: There are those who say that pizza should have nothing more than mozzarella, basil leaf and tomato sauce. But what do those guys in Napoli know?

  16. 16.

    Violet

    December 21, 2013 at 7:59 am

    Yeah mix it up a bit. Recipe thread on Saturday morning and gardening thread on Friday night. I love the gardening threads but by the time I wake up in my non-Eastern time zone the thread is over. Mixing up the times gives different people the chance to participate.

  17. 17.

    raven

    December 21, 2013 at 8:11 am

    @Mustang Bobby: Aw, Marty.

  18. 18.

    Ash Can

    December 21, 2013 at 8:12 am

    Second (third?) the idea of posting the recipe thread this morning. It gives people a chance to shop for ingredients today and cook tonight or tomorrow.

  19. 19.

    Yatsuno

    December 21, 2013 at 8:12 am

    @TheMightyTrowel: Italians would be aghast on any cheese with any seafood period. This makes sense when you consider how strong most Italian cheeses are. But coquilles St Jacques requires Gruyere, so it’s definitely a cultural background thing.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    December 21, 2013 at 8:21 am

    My pizza axioms:

    1) Bad pizza is better than no pizza.

    2) Pizza, in its infinite diversity and majesty, is not diminished by experimentation; thus, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to make pizza, only personal preferences, which, while occasionally interesting, are not dispositive.

  21. 21.

    bemused

    December 21, 2013 at 8:23 am

    Pizza makers should be free to express their tastes with whatever toppings they choose. This is America.

  22. 22.

    magurakurin

    December 21, 2013 at 8:27 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    1) Bad pizza is better than no pizza.

    come visit me here in Japan. I can change your mind on this one.

    As to 2, basically reasonable. I don’t disagree, and even in Napoli most of the shops have some toppings…some most emphatically do not. But I do believe, that simple is best. 3+ toppings on a pizza is just a hot round garbage lid to me. You are correct though, there is plenty of room for the wide variety of pizza tastes in the world

    except for the nasty things with corn, mayonnaise and ketchup that can be found here. pure crap.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    December 21, 2013 at 8:35 am

    @magurakurin: I saw a collection of Japanese pizza ads once with all kinds of outlandish (to me) toppings; I think one had cocktail sauce baked into the crust and shrimp draped over the edge. Sounds utterly insane to me. But I’ve been lectured on The One True Pizza by so many New Yorkers that I just say fuck it — pizza is personal. If someone wants mayonnaise and corn on it, it’s their look out and none of my business.

  24. 24.

    Burnspbesq

    December 21, 2013 at 8:37 am

    The rout is on at Anfield. Cardiff are doing their best, but they’re just being overrun.

    Right now, this month, Hannibal Suarez is the best player in the world.

  25. 25.

    Burnspbesq

    December 21, 2013 at 8:39 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    The Japanese are the mad geniuses of fast food. Wasabi French fries? Hell yeah!

    But the fact remains that God did not intend for pineapple to be a pizza topping. That’s a mortal sin.

  26. 26.

    magurakurin

    December 21, 2013 at 8:44 am

    @Betty Cracker: like I said, come visit. I can change your mind on that one. However, there is an absolutely excellent pizza shop in my town here. The are certified by the Vera Pizza Association in Napoli as the owner went to Italy to study and then came back and built a real brick oven. Really good stuff. And you can get a wonderful, wonderful pizza there for 980 yen, with fresh, natural ingredients. The cardboard, artificial garbage shit ones cost 3000 yen or more. And they really are shit. People are free to put whatever they want in their bodies, but that doesn’t make it any better.

    also,too, Dominoes is worse than no pizza. You might as well just eat the contents of your chemistry set. Probably tastes better. Experimentation in a real shop with all sorts of strange toppings is one thing, pre-processed, artificial, mass produced shit….is shit.

  27. 27.

    kc

    December 21, 2013 at 8:50 am

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    Actually, pizza should not have shellfish on it.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2013 at 8:53 am

    @Burnspbesq:
    When dear old Vincent sacks Mckay, he’s going to claim that losing to Liverpool was the last straw. It’s not as simple as putting on red shirts, Tan Sri!

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2013 at 8:56 am

    @Burnspbesq:
    If you can do this with pineapple, you can surely put it on a pizza.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 21, 2013 at 8:59 am

    I don’t really care when you post it Anne, as long as you post the Recipe exchange.

    Funny how someone who doesn’t give a rat’s a$$ about x-mas finds himself roped into it year after year anyway that he almost missed the solstice. It’s raining anyway. The wife has knitted hats and scarves out of feathery (it glimmers!) pink or red or purple or blue or green yarn (depending on favorite colors) for the grand-daughter and the daughters of some friends (5, 4, & 4). My contribution is books. I love books. I love reading them to kids, I love making the voices and the sound effects and the faces. I especially like making the kids laugh or squeal or cringe…. But I live out in the boony woods and the only book store in town is a used bookstore that leans towards romance and sci fi. So today I have to drive to St Lou. Uck.

    On the way back I get to pick up the missing ingredients for Poteca. Tomorrow I will follow the old family recipe that came over on a turn of the century ship from Slovenia. It will be an all day labor of love. Most of the work is in the dough. If you do it just right, and pull it thin enough, you can read a paper through the dough. Anyway, it is a x-mas tradition. My mother made one every X-mas and every Easter. Now I do.

    On Monday we celebrate Xmas with the G-daughter. On the actual Xmas day I will probably make up for it and work. Then next wkend we head up to St Lou and my brothers for a family get together. My niece will be in town from Japan, then on Sunday (I think) we will get together with my buddy and his pod.

  31. 31.

    Botsplainer

    December 21, 2013 at 8:59 am

    Can’t talk about Solstice without this song.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1bGcd_hIhtQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1bGcd_hIhtQ

  32. 32.

    Pogonip

    December 21, 2013 at 9:11 am

    @raven: Warren Zevon was not a nice man? That’s too bad. Always liked the werewolf song.

  33. 33.

    Pogonip

    December 21, 2013 at 9:19 am

    By the time the winter solstice rolls around I’m delighted to see it, though I usually don’t notice an appreciable difference in the amount of daylight until early February.

    I think that Daylight Savings Time is administered backwards. If we must have these ridiculous semi-annual clock changes, turn the clock forward in the WINTER. That’s when it gets dark at 1700 in most U.S. latitudes, that’s when you want more daylight.

  34. 34.

    Burnspbesq

    December 21, 2013 at 9:40 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    That’s … interesting.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    December 21, 2013 at 9:40 am

    @magurakurin: Are you from New York?

  36. 36.

    Mike E

    December 21, 2013 at 9:43 am

    I’m pet sitting for a friend; two Maine Coons and Chow mix. I can see the attraction for those behemoths!

  37. 37.

    Mike E

    December 21, 2013 at 9:48 am

    @Amir Khalid: At my pizza shop years ago we made a “Hawaiian”: extra cheese, pineapple, and ham. Not bad, actually.

  38. 38.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    December 21, 2013 at 9:50 am

    It’s National Flashlight Day!

  39. 39.

    Pogonip

    December 21, 2013 at 9:56 am

    If you go to Target this weekend you get a 10% discount because of the data hack.

    Suggest paying with cash.

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    December 21, 2013 at 9:58 am

    I’m watching YouTube videos: The Easy German series, man-in-the-street interviews with random Münsteraner. Episode 41 is about cusswords. People are debating whether ficken is ruder than the English word “fuck”. I don’t know, myself.

  41. 41.

    Viva BrisVegas

    December 21, 2013 at 9:58 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    If you can do this with pineapple, you can surely put it on a pizza.

    Also too, pineapple fritters. Food of the gods.

    Around here the Supreme, the Pepperoni and the Hawaiian form our ur-pizzas. The pizzas from which all other pizzas are descended.

    The sacred fruit of the prickly pineapple must be worshiped, not mocked.

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    December 21, 2013 at 11:08 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Wonderful recipe, and site. Bookmarked it. The creamy chicken looks worth trying too.

    Here’s a site I love; haven’t cooked anything from it, but learn quite a bit.

    She Simmers. Thai cooking for the home cook, by a literate and most entertaining blogger.

    http://shesimmers.com/

  43. 43.

    magurakurin

    December 21, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @Betty Cracker: Philadelphia…that might be worse. Don’t even start in on cheese steaks. Just don’t go there.

  44. 44.

    Mike E

    December 21, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    @magurakurin: Mmm, Kobe rib eye sammiches…

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