A Luminous Halo

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." --Virginia Woolf

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Location: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States

Smith ’69, Purdue ’75. Anarchist; agnostic. Writer. Steward of the Pascal Emory house, an 1871 Second-Empire Victorian; of Sylvie, a 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL; and of Taz, a purebred Cockador who sets the standard for her breed. Happy enough for the present in Massachusetts, but always looking East.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Slainte!

I've decided that 2008 will be the year of whiskey for me. Not that I drink very much at all, but I am, after all, a licensed bartender, and as such I should have a personal preference. When I find myself in a social situation where drinking is involved, I usually order a gin and tonic from force of habit. I like g & t because it glows in the dark under black light (pretty cool in a night club). But whiskey is a more interesting and sophisticated beverage.

Learning about whiskey (as opposed to actually drinking it) is like collecting stamps: in the process, you'll learn history, geography, biology, chemistry, even a little foreign language. For those who are unsure how to pronounce Scottish words like "Laphroaig" or "slainte," here's an interesting web page with audio clips:

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/sounds/

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