I’ve
got Max de Castro’s eponymous album “Max Castro.” I fired up Rdio on this computer for the first time and was
taken to a page of “Heavy Rotation”, which I assume is a sorting of albums that
friends of mine with whom I’ve connected on this site, are listening to. "Max Castro was sitting there. Had
no idea what it was. Turns out to
be some techno samba jazz from 2005 that is filling me up this morning. I’ve got the noise reduction headsets
on and the mix is juicy, filled with all these tasteful hooks. The tune in me ears at the moment;
“Stratesfero” is a fine way to fly through the morning that has suddenly become
the afternoon. Mssr. de Castro doesn’t seem to have put anything out since 2006
and he appears to be alive. I
trust all’s well with him: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_de_Castro
Still working through computer repair mode. Down at the Apple store in San
Lin Tun yesterday. That’s a scene.
Packed, always, with Beijing’s well heeled entitled class prancing
about, next to aspirational window shoppers and everybody with an iPhone. There is a fascinating ying and
yang to ubiquitous staff. All the
Apple-helper people are smart, bilingual, capable and the security staff
marches back and forth scowling like silent brown shirts in black. These guards have a ritualized engagement with
the people standing outside who are hawking knock off phones for less. Clearly they have been told that as
long as they stand at least three meters from the store they are permitted to
accost people and not be accosted by the guards.
After about ten minutes, I wound up with a young guy from Hebei. We did the whole diagnostic in Chinese
and started talking about Beijing.
Polite, capable, inquisitive young gentleman, he spoke to the remarkable
service training this cohort must have gone through. Everyone makes you feel like you’re important and that your
problem will be resolved. There was a time, not long ago, when this simply
never occurred in a Chinese sales setting. As assumed, he told me that buying a place in Beijing on his
salary, was an aspiration-too-far.
Rather, he’d get a place back home in Hebei.
The 4:45PM Genius Bar appointment migrated into prolonged
diagnostic that lasted till about 8:00PM before I was done. I had this computer with me and left
the MacBook Pro to its reconfiguration fate. The nights are descending more slowly now and it is
wonderful to walk about a city’s Friday night promenade or find a perch and
watch the procession as you get your emails done.
Later, reconfigured Mac in hand, and a simple out door
dinner with a friend completed, we found ourselves at Beijing’s fancy mixology
emporiums, The Apothecary. Happy,
the moment I walk in, enveloped as I was by vintage West African funk, I asked
to see the classy menu. Mixed
drinks are invariably nifty to sip at and regrettable to confront in the
morning, on account of all the additives that are lovingly assembled and blended
in. Rather, I took it in my head
to do something I never do, which was order rye. Perhaps it was because my dear friend is Canadian and
I associate the place and the drink.
We sipped at two different specialty imports, the name of which, are
lost to the hum of the evening.
Rye’s all right.
I drink scotch in the winter and G&T in the summer, if I’m going to
have anything beyond wine. I hate
all but the most rarified of the bourbons I’ve had. I find Irish whiskey mostly too sweet for my taste as
well. But the rye I had last night
had altitude. There was an odd,
aromatic quality that, at least for these ones I sampled was complicated. The term itself stimulates something
Proustian as it evokes both the homophone “wry” which everyone should strive
for, and the next town over to Harrison, which I grew up in, Rye, New York.
I had a look and there is, alas a schism. In the U.S. to call it “rye” you need
to have 51% of the ingredient in there or you need to call it something
else. (The ingredient itself, was
a mystery to me as well. Looking
it is part of the wheat tribe, closely related to barley. ) This is not the
case in Canada and hence they can vamp on the recipe and still assign the rye
moniker if they like. They only
had four on the menu so I’ll have to go back and determine exactly what it was
I was drinking. Un-mixed, it was a
merciful ascent to the day and then the stratosphere this morning, and the memory
of the 琼浆玉液[1] remains.
[1] qióngjiāngyùyè: bejeweled nectar (idiom); ambrosia of
the immortals / superb liquor / top quality wine
No comments:
Post a Comment