quarter to three, 21 june. due north

I always forget this time of year just how far north we are. Until the sun sets at 11 p.m. and then decides he forgot his keys at some all-night bar, or thinks maybe just one more, and then, really, I'll head to bed. Or not.

no joke

I know it's not nice but it had to be done.

where we were when history happened

and how great that we were.





(Photo: RFM)

nye, berliner art

that time of year

When it's dusk at three and the 100-year-old windows weep. And there's snow, crisp and feathery and as fleeting as a native Berliner's smile. Which only comes out when there's snow.

flashback

Anyone remember this? Eminem's "Mosh," a video to get out the youth vote. Just four years ago, but seems a lifetime. I still think it's great.

gigondas journal

This time last year I had my first dose of peasantry, doing some dirty work for a Hessian prince. This time around, I opted for more mountains, less royalty. This is the Dentelles de Montmirail, at the foothills of Mont Ventoux, in Provence-Cote d'Azur. Southern France, kids, is where the grapes are. (Too bad they're not terribly ripe quite yet. But that's another story, for later.) I'm staying here for two-ish weeks as a shadow cellar rat -- that's a person who cleans a lot of sticky equipment and maybe, if I'm good, get to climb in large vats of grapes and push them around a bit -- and general go-to girl for a very cool female winemaker in the Beaumes de Venise. But why is this place cool? Refer to mountains. If you've got to be a grape-picking peasant (or rat, as the case may be), this ain't a bad place to be.

Today I got tartaric acid in my eyes. Hurt. Tomorrow, cleaning vines of nasty grapes that either haven't ripened yet or have rotted beyond hope. I hope there's no spiders.