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Wine: Books:
Poe-etic
Justice From his brilliant, bitter mind, the great Edgar Allen Poe spun the tale he titled "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842, a nasty little allegory about how the wealthy and powerful respond to mass suffering. Goes like this: Through the cities and across the countryside the Plague (the Red Death) rages, killing all in its path. The rich autocrat Prince Prospero gathers his friends into an abbey and has the gates welded shut. Supplies have been gathered sufficient for a months-long self-imposed quarantine. While many people, trying to escape the Plague, plead for admittance to the sanctuary and are turned away, the Prince and pals contrive a grand party, a "masque," a costume ball, with lavish bounty of food and wine (sharp contrast to the mass starvation outside the walls) and exotic decorations for the pleasure and amusement of the guests (contrasting the decaying cities and dying villages outside). All dance, drink, disport themselves. Poe, of course, guides readers and party-mongers through "much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm" to the ominous presence of an uninvited guest, a "spectral image," Red Death itself: "And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel ... and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." OK, Poe's style is romantic, distinctly pre-industrial, but his lesson is clear: Whatever the troubles of the world, the rich believe themselves exempt. (By rich, I don't mean poor schmucks who earn six figures by grinding out 60-hour weeks; such folk might think they're rich, might identify with the rich, might be Republicans, but they're just laborers.) War in their country? The rich do not go to war, they just move away from it. Famine in the land? The rich dine elegantly when others starve: "M'lady, the people cry they have no bread." "Well, let them eat cake." If the economy crashes here, the rich fly there (tap the untaxed 11.5 trillion dollars currently stashed in offshore banks). Bankruptcy? Please; read the new law. Rebellion, crime, turmoil in the streets? Retreat behind high walls in fortified bastions with private armies. If the "Clean Air Act" poisons the atmosphere, the rich will breathe pure oxygen in their limos and mansions. "Nucular" war? The rich are pre-ticketed to impregnable shelters. Global warming? "Adapt," responds His Georgeliness. Whatever the ills, the rich are exempt. (Note: Not all the rich lack conscience, and some are wonderfully generous. Pity there aren't more such.) But now and then, the arrogance goes too far, and the camel won't pass through the eye of the needle and even mighty Ozymandias lies a broken ruin half-buried under desert sands. But what about wine, you ask. One law and two odd corollaries: First Law, the rich are exempt from bad wine, except when the cork goes funky. First corollary, the rich rarely pay full retail, can afford to buy futures or at discounts. Second corollary, the rich prove their status and exclusive access (you can't have any) by being ripped off for absurd prices (a thousand bux for one bottle of top-shelf Burgundy). Weird, no? Well, for the rest of us for whom wine is not a luxury product but an essential food, we're lucky (sorta) that's there's gobs of good wines at affordable (kinda) prices. Crab season trembles on the brink of closure, but there's still time for viognier (vee-o-nyay), lovely French grape, which sings arias with Dungeness. Try Cline 2001 Viognier ($10) from Sonoma County, rich, round and ripe with distinctive melon flavors backed by mineral notes. Roadtripping the dazzling Columbia Gorge? Cross Bridge of the Gods, drop in on the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Museum (fun history — did you know the river used to have salmon by the millions? And native peoples lived there?), pop into quaint burg of Stevenson, shop A&J Select market for local wines, grab up Maryhill 2003 Columbia Valley Viognier ($12), lush, juicy with ripe pear fruit, white flowers, river rock — dayum! Might spot some fine local merlots that don't get out of the area; pick up Wind River 2001 Merlot ($16), soft and fleshy with nice blueberry, cherry, cedar notes. Yearning for good pinot gris? O'Reilly's 2004 Pinot Gris Oregon ($10) scores again, just so pretty, crisp, clean, satisfying. But for a few dollars more, try a classic Alsatian rendition, Bott Freres Tokay d'Alsace 1999 Pinot Gris ($13.50), flawlessly balanced, nuanced expression of fruit, flavors of pear, quince, apple lingering in the mouth, yum. We're nearing salad time, which calls for oddities: Abiqua Wind 2003 Chloe's Breeze Muller-Thurgau Willamette Valley ($9.50, charming little white, low alcohol (11.5 percent), touch of sweetness, decent acidity, catchy lime/kiwi flavors, makes a nice hook-up with fresh greens. So let us, the merely human, take comfort while we can in the simple, rustic pleasures we are afforded. And if cruel and avaricious policies of the obscenely rich finally succeed in increasing the common world's suffering, then let us have the courage to endure and the will to struggle. We might not be exempt, but maybe no one really is. As exclusive as the party might seem, we can never be sure who'll show up.
Renegades
vs. Rangers NATURE NOIR: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra by Jordan Fisher Smith. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Hardcover, $24.
Jordan Fisher Smith overcomes the grown-up Boy Scout stereotype of park ranger as he shares his encounters with the users of the Auburn State Recreation Area and the history of his agency in an open, engaging manner. Smith expected his job to be primarily about protecting the natural assets of the park but soon discovered he needed to be an enforcer who collected fees from scofflaws and a cop who cleaned up after reckless, drunk, deranged or drugged human beings who endangered the peace and one another. Fortunately for the reader, Smith slips in brief passages that anchor the story (and his days and nights on the job) in the natural beauty of the park environs. You can catch up with Smith at 7:30 pm on May 10 at the Knight Library Browsing Room where he will read and sign books. As a law enforcement officer investigating illegal activity within the park, Smith disarms hostile individuals, collects evidence, talks to witnesses and files reports. But should a case be filed, judges and courts are not likely to find favorably on the public's behalf because the park itself inhabits a no-man's-land of legal uncertainty. The land near this part of the American River was condemned 25 years ago for a dam not yet built, the Auburn Dam, which some say will never be built. Smith's detailed explanation of the mixed geology of the area where the dam would be sited is a fine example of writing about a scientific subject in clear, concise, accessible language. The park's unstable legal status attracts contemporary outlaws who are not that different than the miners who flocked to this part of the California Gold Rush country more than 100 years ago, Smith points out. Smith and his fellow rangers deal with everything from drunken brawls and unlicensed firearms to out-of-season hunting, missing persons, renegade mining and logging operations, rape and murder. The park is laced with old mining claims, networks of tunnels and remote places, which make it easy to hide criminal activity and to bury the evidence. I like Smith's narrator through whose eyes we see the canyon walls, the river, the broken-back dirt roads, the littered campgrounds and overgrown trails. I can taste the dryness of the dust in my mouth, smell the resinous pine trees on hot days, feel sweat trickling down my back and welcome the sight of the cool, clear water. And I also like how he returns to hard facts to talk about dam construction and seismic factors that impact dam siting in this area. Without being argumentative, Smith makes a solid case for preservation and actual management of the area rather than innundation by the Auburn Dam. BOOK NOTES: Poet Gerald Stern reads at 7:30 pm on 5/5 in 182 Lillis, UO campus. …Clemens Stark discusses "Poetry As Spoken Art," at 6:30 pm on 5/5 at the Baker Downtown Center. $5-$10 donation. …Ted Cox (The Toledo Incident of 1925 ) reads at 7 pm on 5/5 in Tsunami Books. …Sue Monk Kidd (The Mermaid Chair) reads at 7:30 pm on 5/6, First Congregational Church, Portland. $12/ $8. …All day workshop "Conceiving Your Novel: Cognitive Steps to a Successful Fiction Project" with Nicole Mones, 9 am-3 pm 5/7, Baker Downtown Center. SOLD OUT. …Jordan Fisher Smith (Nature Noir) reads at 7;30 pm on 5/10 at UO Knight Library Browsing Room. …Rick Bass (The Diezmo) reads at 7 pm on 5/10, Broadway Books, Portland. …Natalia Rachel Singer (Scraping By in the Big Eighties) reads at 7:30 pm on 5/11 at Valley Library Main Rotunda, OSU, Corvallis. …Larry Brooks' "Four Corners" Approach to building the framework for a novel-length piece of fiction, at 5:30 pm on 5/12, Jackson's Books in Salem. Free. …Natalia Rachel Singer reading and workshop: "How to Use the Story of Your Life to Tell the Story of the Times" at 7 pm on 5/12 in Eugene's Mother Kali's Bookstore. …Talpade Mohanty (Feminism Without Borders) discussion at 11 am on 5/13, Knight Library, UO. …Poet Maxine Scates (Black Loam) reads at 5 pm on 5/14 in Tsunami Books. …Judith K. Berg (The Otter Spirit: A Natural History Story) signs at 1 pm on 5/14 in UO Museum of Natural & Cultural History. …William Sullivan (New Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades), 10 am on 5/15 at Mt. Pisgah Wildflower Festival. Donation… .Poet Marjorie Simon and fiction writer John A. Miller read at 7 pm 5/17 at Eugene Downtown Library. …Chuck Palahniuk, 7:30 pm 5/17, First Unitarian Church, Portland. …Deborah Dash Moore (GI Jews: How WWII Changed a Generation) reads at 7:30 pm on 5/18, Gerlinger Lounge, UO. …Bill Sullivan (New Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades), at 7 pm on 5/18, slide show presentation for Salem Audubon Society, First Methodist Church, Salem. |
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