Our final word about beer, this year.

Just one sentence by Mr. Garrett Oliver – from the second paragraph of his editor's introduction to The Oxford Companion to Beer:

"Beer does not resemble wine so much as it resembles music."

What's plugging your bars?

For a short time, the fine people at Rivendell Bicycle Works have our favorite Nitto anodized aluminum bar plugs on sale, reduced from $16 to $11 the pair (in blue, gold, & red; for road (drop) bars only, not mountain bars).

(photo from 1/10/11; that bolt takes a 3 mm allen wrench)

2011's "rise of civic consciousness"

‎"A positive development that has gathered strength over the past year has been the rise of civic consciousness, the acceptance by ordinary citizens that they too must play a part in the process of change and adaptation. This is not so much protest against the inadequacies of government as recognition of the importance of balancing rights with responsibilities." 

- Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese politician and Nobel peace prize-winner


[from "A sense of balance" by Aung San Suu Kyi, in "The World in 2012" from The Economist Newspaper.]

Our 2011 Top Ten.

The top ten* NeuroCooking posts of 2011:

1. "Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot..."
2. Making Sense of Occupy Wall Street
3. Made in Japan by Mr. Shin-ichi Konno.
4. Those who Espouse Only Evidence Typically Lose
5. "ASH, WHITE"
6. e.g., "less hairy mothers would have to park their young"
7. "AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D"
8. Heart, Head, Hand, & Complexity
9. Something about a story is not a story.
10. The things we do...

Cherry tree from "Yesterday, in the early evening, we went out to shoot...", April 12. 

Tree tag from "ASH, WHITE", February 13.

Steers from "AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D", September 4.

Venn diagram from "The things we do...", February 6.

_____
*As ranked by number of pageviews, per google analytics.

Hey Porter!

The opening sentence of the four-page article on Porter, written by Horst Dornbusch and Garrett Oliver, in The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by Garrett Oliver:

"Porter, a type of dark beer that first saw life in the 1700s, built London's greatest breweries, slaked the thirsts of America's revolution-minded colonists, and then traveled the world, morphing as it went to meet the changing needs of time and place."

(Post title refers to this.)

Boxing Day Dog-Blogging!

(12/4/2011)

First annual mid-December NeuroCooking holiday gift recommendation!

Best gift for less than ten dollars for a lover of rock-and-roll:

"The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom" (2008) DVD. 

A superlative record of two gentlemen from Akron, Ohio, doing what they do so well.

Jung Slices His Brain.

An excerpt from "The Red Book (Liber Novus)" by Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961):


The Cabiri:  "We forged a flashing sword for you, with which you can cut the knot that entangles you."

I:  "I take the sword firmly in my hand. I lift it for the blow."

The Cabiri:  "We also place before you the devilish, skillfully twined knot that locks and seals you. Strike, only sharpness will cut through it."

I:  "Let me see, the great knot, all wound round! Truly a masterpiece of inscrutable nature, a wily natural tangle of roots grown through one another! Only Mother Nature, the blind weaver, could work such a tangle! A great snarled ball and a thousand small knots, all artfully tied, intertwined, truly, a human brain! Am I seeing straight? What did you do? You set my brain before me! Did you give me a sword so that its flashing sharpness slices through my brain? What were you thinking of?"

The Cabiri:  "The womb of nature wove the brain, the womb of the earth gave the iron. So the Mother gave you both: entanglement and severing."

 ______
Notes: 
Jung's Red Book was the most influential unpublished book, ever. Almost a century after it was begun, it was published in 2009 in a facsimile edition, edited by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani.
This passage appears on pp. 166-167.
The Cabiri were ancient deities.