text:
It Starts with the Words: A Conversation Between Steve Taylor and Aaron Belz
Art House America
February 12th, 2015 1:20pm
© 2015 Art House America
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Sometime during 2012, improbably and to my great delight, Steve Taylor followed me on Twitter. Steve Taylor, the legendary rocker, the guy I'd been trying to get in touch with for several years, followed me--so I followed him back and then fainted on the couch. A few months later I direct-messaged him an interview request, and voilà! His reply was something like "Of course! Come stay at our house! Bring your kids! We will feast and dance and so on!"
When I was a teenager in the 1980s I owned all of Steve Taylor's music. It existed in the form of blue plastic Sparrow label cassettes, and summer after summer I wore them out in my Walkman. Steve had something no other artist labeled Christian had: a sense of irony. While Amy Grant brought us to tears with "El Shaddai," Steve attacked the racism, consumerism, hypocrisy, and self-righteousness of our evangelical communities.
The first time I met Steve Taylor was at a mall food court in Nashville circa 1991. I interviewed him then, too, for my college newspaper--and later met him in London where his band was opening for Squeeze. But those are tales for another day. For now, here's what happened when I took my daughter Natalie (13 at the time) to Steve Taylor's house to discuss rock, art, creative process, and a bunch of other stuff on April 27, 2013.
This interview was generously transcribed by Hannah Vanbiber.
Aaron Belz: Well, let's talk about music a little bit. I think my most natural questions are questions of process and origins. Like where you first started making songs. I started with drawings when I was in fifth or sixth grade.
Steve Taylor: Really, that was your first artistic endeavor?
AB: I had Koh-i-Noor pens and blue pencils so I could do cartoons for the school newspaper in ninth and tenth grade. And that's definitely connected with my creative process, like sitting at my little desk upstairs in my room. Because where it started was visual, and then I got into verbal stuff. But where did you start?
Photograph by Frank Ockenfels
ST: Just this week we were in the studio and my bandmate John showed me a bootlegged version of Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story--I think it was the first film by director Todd Haynes and it was all shot using stop motion Barbie dolls.
AB: Oh, really?
ST: Yeah, he ended up doing I'm Not There, the Dylan thing, and--
AB: Oh, yeah!
ST: So he's showing me this ultra-quirky short film, and we started thinking about the Carpenters and then I remember, when I was in seventh grade, the assignment in English class was to write a parody--like, take a popular song and do a parody of it. I ended up using "Close to You." I did a song about Howard Cosell, who was a famous sports writer at the time.
AB: Wait, "Close to You" by The Police?
ST: No, by The Carpenters.
AB: Oh! "Close to You!" That one! Yeah!
ST: [Sings] "Just like me, they long to be, close to you." Right?
AB: That's in Dumb and Dumber, too. Eminently parodyable.
ST: Yeah, it's so easy. So I wrote a parody about Howard Cosell--it came fairly easily and I thought, "I think this is good!" But my English teacher flipped out over it. She couldn't believe it. I don't think she was convinced that I had actually written it. And that might've been the first time where it's like, "Oh!"
Natalie Belz: Where you realized you were awesome.
[Everyone laughs.]
ST: Yeah, yeah, let's cut to the chase.
NB: Everyone has those moments.
AB: Yeah, we all realize that we're awesome at some point.
NB: That's when we try to do stuff.
ST: [Still laughing] I wouldn't quite put it that way, no. But, you know, it came fairly easily and it made people laugh, and, well, you know about this--the thrill is when people laugh. When you do comedy, there's no better experience than making people laugh.
AB: Probably not.
ST: It's way better than applause. That's all fine--that's all gratifying--but when you make people laugh, that's like a drug. Of course when you write songs, you don't get people to laugh out loud, but the thought of doing something that was maybe clever, or that amused people, or was something that they'd want to tell other people about or quote. That was appealing.
AB: Yeah, you did move into that stuff. So it started out sorta verbal.
ST: It did. And when it came to music (I've got a degree of musical talent that I don't want to be disingenuous about because I think it's there, it just did not show itself until later), when I was playing the trombone in junior high and high school, I was no prodigy. In fact, I remember specifically--I think it was in 10th grade--the very moment I realized, "Wait a minute, the goal is not to put the slide in the right position and hit the right note. It's not math. I'm supposed to be making music here." Over the next few years I excelled at music theory and composition, and when I got to college, even though I could barely pass piano proficiency, I picked up college level theory and composition quickly. So making music followed the verbal art of lyric writing. It was a way to extend it.
AB: So, in high school, you started with words. That's what I really wanted to get to. That's really cool to know. Because that comes through quite a bit, like your songs are very language driven. Which may be one thing that really appealed to me about them--that there was such quick movement in the language. I kept saying to Natalie, "Cloneliness is next to godliness." There's puns and stuff in there.
ST: Yeah.
AB: You ripped 'em with puns. Well, I interviewed you in 1991 in Nashville. Here.
ST: In where--what was the context?
AB: We met somewhere.
ST: 'Cause you were in England?
AB: I was at Covenant College. With Chagall Guevara.
ST: Okay, that's right!
AB: We had you guys come down and play. That was my initiative. So I came up and interviewed you, and put it in the student paper before the concert so that students could read a little bit about you.
ST: Yeah, right! Where did we meet? Did we meet at my house?
AB: It was at a food court or something. It was '91--that was a long time ago.
ST: That was a long time ago. Dang.
AB: I asked you about some of your influences and you said, "Bowie." I said, "I don't know that much about Bowie," and you were like, "WHAT?!"
ST: Right.
AB: That was pretty great. But I never put my stuff into music. I wrote a couple of songs, but they're just so silly.
ST: Were you starting with words, too?
AB: I write verses, but I don't know how they become songs and I don't know that they need to be. So you started in college. Were you developing songs, were you making songs? Did you have a band in college?
ST: I actually did. My family is middle class but I was a really good student and won a scholarship to go to Biola College in Southern California. I somehow got into a pretty good rock band with some other students. We did like one gig, but I was such a bad bass player--I think they were too nice to fire me, so they opted to break up the band instead. I just never had the playing gene, you know? I lost my scholarship after a year--I couldn't maintain the grade point average. So I came back to Denver and enrolled at Colorado University in Boulder where tuition was much cheaper.
AB: I thought you grew up in California?
ST: I was born in California but we moved to Denver when I was five. There was a lot of music in our church, of course. And when I returned to Denver to finish college, I always had a couple of bands going, and typically I would play bass. I discovered The Clash when I was a sophomore in college, and that was a big moment because I loved their lyric sensibilities and I loved that they were able to form a band even though most of them could barely play their instruments. So the thought that you could have a rock band without being able to play was very appealing.
AB: Yeah, we talked about that, too. I didn't have London Calling yet--all I had was the second one. And then I got London Calling and now of course it's one of my top five albums. That's the kind of album where during different parts of your life, certain songs become more important. Spanish Bombs is threaded through the last fifteen years of my life. They made really pretty music, singable. It's a little bit like Bowie in how satisfying across the board it is. Like when Bowie's on, you can sing it, you feel it.
ST: Yeah, it goes deep. I mean, that's the thing about music. That's the appeal. We were talking about comedy earlier, which makes people laugh, which is a great feeling and it's immediate. But there's something that happens when music connects with you in a way that goes deep into your soul. That's probably why music has always been the touchstone.
AB: Yeah. It somehow brings out something in us that's most basically human. When it's good, it's definitive, like it defines moments and periods of time.
ST: Right, right!
AB: And also in a bad way. One of my students came to class and she was crying. I said, "What's wrong?" She said, "We broke up. After a year," or something. A couple months later, I was like, "How are you? You doing better?" She was like, "Yeah, I just had to burn my iPod, but I'm fine."
ST: Wow.
AB: I realized that if you share music with someone, how can you listen to it again?
ST: Like you've lost that music, too.
AB: Okay. I want to hear about space, equipment, and process. So, where do you work? Where do you work best? Do you write here? Do you write in a studio?
ST: When I write music, I'll write in some kind of a workroom. But when I write lyrics, I either have to be in a place where there's noise, like a coffee shop, or I have to be traveling. So, the Natchez Trace is 25-30 minutes away, and it's a beautiful, winding parkway that goes from Nashville all the way down to Natchez, Mississippi. There's no signage or commercial traffic, so I'll often just drive along at 50 miles per hour and speak into some kind of voice recorder.
AB: So you speak them?
ST: Yeah. I think my process has changed in some ways in that when I was a recording artist, the music and lyrics would typically come at the same time. But it's been 20 years since my last album, and since that time almost everything I've done musically has been producing or writing lyrics for someone else's melodies. So a lot of my lyric writing is more craft-driven, and it's more difficult, I think, than when the music and lyrics develop simultaneously. I just started working on a new album, so I'm going back to the old process.
AB: It's seems like even when you're not writing something toward an end, you still want to keep up the practice of making those things. So making a three minute or four minute pop song--some of your great songs are two and a half minutes, not very long--you could do that, you could! Or like Daniel Johnston. Just make a lot of songs.
ST: It's funny you mention him because one of my happiest moments was when Sixpence played South by Southwest, opening for Daniel Johnston right when the Kiss Me record was blowing up.
AB: Wait, that was how long ago?
ST: That was '99 I think.
AB: Oh, cool because a friend of mine just opened for him at South by Southwest. During this most recent one.
ST: No way! Who was that?
AB: His name is Jason Russo--he plays for a band called Common Prayer. He also plays and tours with Mercury Rev.
ST: That's crazy! There was a woman who wanted to do a documentary on me and during her pitch, she mentioned that she was Daniel Johnston's niece, and I'm like, "If you get me a signed T-shirt, I'm in!" She sent me two of them and she sent me a photo of Daniel signing them. I like Daniel Johnston a lot.
AB: Well, the way that you write isn't the way that Daniel Johnston writes. Because he just drools songs.
ST: Right, yeah.
AB: People are kind of envious of those guys.
ST: I am.
AB: But they're not all great because there's not a lot of pressure on each one. Similarly, like Mountain Goats, or Guided by Voices. Robert Pollard made all of these tiny songs--Alien Lanes has 28 songs on it. And they're beautiful, but they're so small, fragmentary, kind of like "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road. That quick little melody. So do you ever just do that? Because it seems like you have so much firepower in what you want to craft.
ST: That's a good question. I haven't done a lot of that. I think I end up putting a lot of self-imposed pressure on achieving--if not a sense of forward motion, at least a sense of minimal competence. I just had a band send me a song and they needed verses for an existing chorus. I didn't mean to sound like a snob about it, but I just said, "There's no way I can have my name attached to this chorus. I'll be glad to write a whole new lyric, but this chorus is demonstrably bad. I don't know who wrote it, I don't want to trash anybody's lyrics, but I wouldn't want people thinking I wrote this chorus."
There are times when I like the challenge of having to come up with verses for a preexisting chorus because I like the craft challenge. Probably the hardest thing I ever did was when Veggie Tales were doing their second movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. You know how a lot of those movies have a montage in the middle where something significant in the story changes? They had originally wanted to use a cover version of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" that I'd recorded with Relient K, but when they showed it to Universal, the studio didn't think the song worked for that section.
So they gave me this three and a half minute stretch of animated story--it's set in stone--and asked me to write a new song that fit with the montage.
It was the hardest assignment I've ever been given. It had to be a certain length. It had to work musically with the tone of the visuals. It had to comment on what was going on onscreen without describing it, so it had to add subtext. I loved the challenge, and I'm still really happy with the final product. Auden claimed to have written a poem in every meter style that had ever existed. And if someone came up with one he hadn't heard of before, he'd write it down and try to create a new poem in that meter. Pure craft, right?
So I like the craft of songwriting. And I like the challenge of creating lyrics that are hopefully poetic but also singable, which is the hardest thing about writing lyrics in that you have to create something that can be sung by a human voice without sounding forced.
AB: One thing I understand about your career is that for the first ten years or so, you were much more like an individual artist making albums and songs. Then you had a little transition with Chagall Guevara, and then you came back with Squint and since then you've been doing a lot of production of other people and mentoring of other people.
ST: There was a short period, right before we started Chagall, where I produced a band in England.
AB: So then you moved to the studio more. Out of the hot seat a little bit.
ST: Right.
AB: But what interests me is the part of your career that's more relevant to me. That's what my touch point was, even beyond the film stuff, which is your passion now. So I know it may be old news.
ST: I haven't thought about it for a long time so it's new news.
AB: Is making songs--making your own new songs, from music to lyrics to production--at all in your future?
ST: Yeah, it is now because the process of getting the Blue Like Jazz movie funded was so long and frustrating that after three years of failure, I remember thinking, "Hey, I used to do music, and compared to movie-making it was instant gratification." You go to a studio and you come out with an album a few months later. Whereas with a movie you could be working on it for seven years, which is not atypical. The initial part of filmmaking--screenwriting-- is collaborative because I'm working with co-writers, but a lot of the rest of it prior to production is on your own: imagining scenes, making pages of notes, storyboarding, etc. And I was just ready to get back in the studio and start hanging out with friends and making music. So we actually started recording a new album and got pretty far along and then this Kickstarter campaign happened, which kind of came out of the blue. And we were actually in the recording studio watching the Blue Like Jazz campaign take off. We were probably two or three months away from having this album done and then the movie got funded and from that moment on--two and a half years--it's been movie non-stop. So now we're back in the studio getting this project finished up. I have no idea if there's any demand for it or if anybody will care.
AB: With any of the same guys?
ST: It's with the same three guys I was with before the movie got funded: John Painter was in a band called Fleming and John and I've collaborated with him many times over the years, and he's probably the best musician I've ever worked with. Peter Furler, of course, was the lead singer and main songwriter in Newsboys, and he's playing drums. And then Jimmy Abegg has been a friend for a long time. He's also a visual artist but I knew him from back in California when he played with Charlie Peacock and was in a band called Vector. But yeah, it's the four of us collaborating on the music and then I write the lyrics and sing. I think it's good! I believe it was Randy Newman who said something like, "The goal, as you get older, isn't necessarily to get better--it's just not to get way worse."
AB: Not everybody hits that goal.
ST: Well, that's the drag. Think of all the recording artists you love--most of them have just gotten way worse. I don't wanna trash Bowie on the record, but has Bowie made a good album recently? The new one has got a few moments, but ...
AB: Just keep listening to Ziggy Stardust ... I guess maybe that's different in different kinds of arts. Because people in the visual arts, I don't know that there's a fallowness that sets in.
ST: No, I think that they arguably get better and better.
AB: Could it have something to do with the social and energetic side of popular music? Once you become less social and energetic, and more settled, your imagination follows?
ST: And certainly most of the people we know, we know because they became really successful.
AB: You lose the hunger?
ST: Definitely.
AB: That's why poets don't ever have that happen because they never have success. They just keep pursuing the poem. I think more in terms of the poem. I like to give readings and I like approval--I love a big audience listening, there's nothing like it. But that happens a couple times a year. Usually it's just me and my study. And Natalie making tea in the living room. It is a lot more about the product. Very much product-oriented. So that's why my questions are skewed that direction. Because I was always just giddy about your product. It doesn't seem confined to youth or thirties, I think because of the way your brain works and the particular view you have of the evangelical Christian world. Which to me sounded like you came from a little bit of a fundamentalist or Baptist background.
ST: Yeah, it was Baptist.
AB: But then that turned into a kind of healthy cynicism and righteous anger about hypocrisy--particularly American hypocrisy. I don't know if I'm explaining that right.
ST: No, that's pretty good.
AB: That editorial sense of your early work--you still probably have those feelings, right?
ST: Yes. For the most part.
AB: So you've got all the pieces. I just listened to older U2, it was the one that has "In a Little While."
ST: Was that the one with "Beautiful Day" on it?
AB: Yeah. All That You Can't Leave Behind. I got a little obsessed with "In a Little While" and then I read about how they wrote it--they had been drinking and they were just sitting around jamming and wrote it as a group. I don't have a sense of that, writing as a group. I'm very protective of my page. I've only once or twice collaborated with people. But I will roll out five or six poems in a day and just keep one or two a week.
ST: Throw that many away! Oh, really? Wow.
AB: Yeah, because they're just too much. Maybe I should say this and see if you connect with it at all: It seems like your process is much more produced, elaborate. Like when you write a song you want it to work on all levels. So you can't just make a little crappy Daniel Johnston song.
ST: Right.
AB: But the virtue of being Daniel Johnston is he can make fifty of those and one of them everybody loves. So it's just a totally different paradigm. That's mine. Mine's much more like Daniel Johnson. I write junk. Some days I even make a goal of writing bad poetry. Which is kind of arrogant because I'm arguably already doing that. But I'm always lowering the bar. Like I want to get the bar as low as I can get it.
ST: Let's say you wrote forty poems in a week--
AB: That would be unusual, by the way.
ST: So you're doing your editing after you've written the poem and it's the end of the week and now you're deciding, I'm only going to keep these two. So you're still editing.
AB: Well, sometimes I give a few readings and I try them out. Honestly it's been a bad couple of years. The last two years have been tight. I've got time but I've lost some of that magic. I was writing from '99 through 2000 to 2008 or '09. I could write a lot of stuff. Because my mind was like a big bowl of jelly --I don't know what was going on. I could just sit down and pick poems out of it. Now I sit down and I'm like I gotta write a letter and I wanna take a nap. And I'm kinda mad. I've written some stuff though, but it's a little bit different. I don't have the same freedom. But I know that's what works well for me, is to sit and say, I'm gonna try this out, tercets, I'm going to write in threes.
ST: So you start with a form.
AB: Sometimes. Or I like to write a crazy sentence to start with. Usually the poems are an argument for the first sentence. The poem is a case that the first sentence makes sense. And trying to contextualize it in a way that is plausible. So I have my own little gears and wheels of how that works. But back to U2, when I hear about them writing "In a Little While," which I admire, I would like to have a community setting where more people could be making something. And I felt like I could do my little virtuosity as part of it. And I don't know how that works for me.
ST: Yeah, I can't imagine how it would. Writing poetry seems like a singularly solitary process. Whereas, you know with Chagall Guevara, those lyrics were a collaboration between Dave and Lynn and me, and we'd sit in a circle and just keep working the lyrics. Sometimes one of us would go away and refine something but it had to go through the mill.
AB: So you'd write the music first?
ST: Yeah, I think the music always came first. Maybe the music and the title.
AB: Ah, because the music sounds like what it's about in a sense. I'm thinking of "Monkey Grinder"--that sounds like it's got a little carnivalesque element, a mysterious element like a magic show and something is starting to happen.
ST: Yeah.
AB: I saw a very successful collaboration between two poets where they had each taken turns writing a line. But they were like lovers or something. Both completely bizarre, avant-garde poets, so you could see how this weird chemistry between them was turning into these beautiful poems. And I kinda liked it but I didn't find them very appealing as people. So, do you have a band name for this group?
ST: No, we don't.
AB: Do you have songs that you've recorded?
ST: Yes. Nothing's mixed, but I think it's good. If you were familiar with my past recorded output, you would pick up similarities to it. But a lot of my songs from earlier recordings are pretty topical. These songs are not as topical.
AB: So that's one thing I noticed between your earlier stuff when you were doing Chagall, and later. I said, 'This in some ways is better as music." Like the music is richer and has more muscle. But I can't explain what's important to me about each song. I know each song, but I can't explain it as well as I can explain what's important to me about "Sin for a Season." Because that was, almost in an elementary way, example, chorus, example, chorus--you almost would think "That's dumb," but it's so good! Like it's very effective. And I don't think it's just effective for a young person listening. That kind of simplicity--Auden did it, in "Refugee Blues" and others. I mean, he wrote poems that were really, really simple. Dylan does it. What do you think about where Dylan's gone?
ST: Well, of course I admire him.
AB: I mean, the most recent two albums--they're pretty Dixie, bluesy.
ST: I feel perfectly comfortable being critical of Bowie, but I fear criticizing Dylan. It's almost like he knows more than all of us. But I will say I saw him live recently, and it was excruciatingly boring.
AB: I keep waiting for something to really pop, that's anything close to Infidels.
ST: It's funny you said that because Infidels was, for me, his last great album. I really love that album.
AB: Speaking of, there's a really great documentary of Mark Knopfler's guitars. One of the other Dire Straits members made a 40 minute documentary of Mark Knopfler's guitars, beginning with his first one. He takes you to the shops where he got them--later in his career when he's got the money, you see the maker of the guitars. And they also play the music from that time in his career. And the later stuff just kind of tails off. But you go back to "Down to the Waterline," and it's crazy, just powerful.
ST: Yeah. And Infidels was part of the documentary?
AB: Oh yeah, Infidels was great for Knopfler being on it.
ST: Yeah, I love that album. I still listen to that album.
AB: Yeah, that's one of my go-to's when I'm really struggling emotionally. And recently Shot of Love has popped up. I didn't realize until I was shuffling Dylan how much a couple of those songs meant to me. There's like a sad gospel song that's almost a capella, and then it turns into "Saved," the second song on the album. It's a great song.
ST: I gotta pull that out again.
AB: It reminded me of the beginning of a Kanye CD. Where he introduces a kind of blues vibe and then he just punches it. Like I can't take this anymore.
ST: Speaking of topical songs like "Sundown on the Union," I mean obviously we know exactly what that song's about but it's still got a great punch to it, still fires me up when I listen to it.
AB: Has "I and I," though.
ST: "I and I" is so good!
AB: And "Jokerman."
ST: "Jokerman" is so good!
AB: The portraits of women in those songs are as compelling and unified as any portraits of women.
[Both start singing bits of Dylan songs.]
ST: Oh yeah, "What's a sweetheart like you doing in a place like this?"
AB: That song almost makes me cry, though. The one about "crawl across cut glass to get to you." See, his verbal abilities--he doesn't do that anymore. That comes from something inside of a person. The instinct to make those words in that pattern. That's a sweet spot for someone, I think. When was that?
ST: I think like in '80. Right in there. But let's switch to Leonard Cohen.
AB: Leonard Cohen's most recent album is awesome, though! How did he do that?
ST: I don't know. But that's where, when I see someone like Leonard Cohen, I see it is possible to keep getting better. So why don't most artists?
AB: What is it about Leonard Cohen? Because I don't think it can be replicated. You can't say, "You should be like Leonard Cohen."
ST: No, but it is possible to say, "You should be better."
AB: Well, first of all, there's a simplicity in Leonard Cohen. He's not trying to reinvent the wheel. He just keeps making the same wheel. He's not trying to be better than what he's been. He's just brutally honest about himself.
NB: Maybe he doesn't care.
AB: No, I think he cares. He's Canadian, sweetie.
ST: They're very polite and they care very much. That might be why.
I love his lyrics--I'm not crazy about listening to his music, though. I'm not a big fan of his singing.
AB: We were listening to Nick Drake today. We listened to two of his albums, I think his best two albums. The one that starts with "Time has told me you're a rare, rare find. A troubled cure for a troubled mind." Beautiful. So maybe what makes these songs great is their words. I don't want to sound like a poet, but ...
Okay, so Darkness--you haven't heard it yet?
ST: No. I've got Spotify, so I should just check it out on Spotify.
AB: Some people thought it was horrible. Oh, "Show Me The Place"--I don't know, is he a Christian? "Show me the Place" sounds like a Christian hymn.
ST: Well, he definitely knows something.
AB: Yeah. Going Home is another one.
ST: Do you guys need some more tea?
[Tea break where Natalie and Steve fix some tea and Aaron keeps looking up Leonard Cohen songs and reading lyrics from Going Home because he loves Leonard Cohen.]
AB: Other earmarks of this guy--I'm thinking of someone like Sting. I liked Dream of the Blue Turtles. But there were some things on Blue Turtles that I thought were like red flags. Like that Russian song--I was like, "I don't know man, that's not quite right, there's something wrong with Sting!" And the next one, he just lost me. So is it something to do with his celebrity and what his priorities became?
ST: I think that's part of it
AB: Because Cohen doesn't seem like a guy who's gonna host any award shows. He's kind of like an old curmudgeon.
ST: Right. I wonder if there's a humility to it that recognizes that the creative gift is still there but it requires work and effort and a certain amount of self-awareness. Also, a certain ability to step outside of yourself and try to look at what you're doing objectively. Another example is U2 who are still writing really good songs, and Bono, who started as a mediocre lyricist is now a really fine lyricist, and has gotten progressively better.
AB: But they seem unique.
ST: Well, they're an exception, certainly. It's a spiritual discipline almost, that recognizes that we're nothing special and that gifts have to be protected and nurtured. I think as a Christian especially, you're always hoping that the Spirit breathes life into something, but you also have craft involved. I'd like to think at the end of the day there's a spiritual component to all of this that makes it possible to keep doing good work. Because it requires humility on top of everything else. And that humility is what's most lacking with a lot of artists. Ultimately, what either destroys careers or destroys objectivity is the point where you think, "Oh, yeah! I'm successful because it's what I deserve!"
AB: I think the target is hubris. It must be that rock & roll is especially afflicted. Poetry's not as afflicted--someone like Allen Ginsberg, who was one of my teachers in the early '90s--
ST: What? You took a class from Ginsberg? At Boulder, at Naropa?
AB: No, it was at NYU. This was '94. It was really cool and he had guys like Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti come in and teach.
ST: Wow! That's wild! Was he a good teacher?
AB: Yeah, he was great because all he really did was read his favorite poems of other people and explain why. He also talked about process-- he taught us his process. We also challenged him because when I was in college we learned that he never revised. It was "first thought, best thought" that was the dictum from his group. And his work was very stream of consciousness.
ST: Did he ever change that idea, that theory?
AB: Well, we asked him about it because he wrote a poem on the board and then said, "I like it better like this" and changed some stuff. And we said, "What about first thought, best thought?" It was almost like there was a ten second rule. There's a little window for revision as long as it's happening now, it's still the moment. He would do all the work of writing and revising in that moment and then be done with it. But he was a celebrity poet. You look at some guys like James Merrill--he was in the tradition of Auden--poets that don't get seen as much, that are very good but lurk in the shadows. They have the opportunity to continue on. One of those French poets like Rimbaud or someone said the greatest privilege that he had was spending most of his career writing in complete obscurity and because he had freedom.
ST: Right, yeah.
AB: I guess we could look at exceptions to the rule and look at who made great stuff when they were 60+. I don't know, Paul McCartney?
ST: Right, it would be a pretty short list.
AB: Neil Young.
ST: Yeah? He's arguably stayed as good or maybe gotten better in some ways.
AB: Well, I don't know, it would be interesting to figure out. Maybe our faith can help inform that and fix it.
ST: Yeah.
AB: Because there is a calling. The calling is not to be successful but to have good stewardship of your skills and your gifts. I hope it's not to be successful.
ST: I have an inner dialogue going of: "Does this hold up?" "Am I still going to like this in 20 years if I'm still alive?" We're playing a couple of live shows this summer and so I had to go back and listen to all the old albums to figure out which old songs should be on the set list. I haven't done that in a long time and it was a reminder that certain things hold up really well and I'm happy with this one, and others it's like, "What were you thinking on this line?"
AB: You could fix stuff, too. Can you edit things even though it's been committed to vinyl?
ST: That's an interesting thought! Speaking of Auden, he did that a lot.
AB: Yeah, I studied Yeats--he notably wrote some very different versions, and the later versions are usually better with Yeats.
ST: What do you think of Auden, are his usually better?
AB: Nah, I haven't looked at Auden's.
ST: I think with music, people would be upset--I don't know why. Maybe it shouldn't matter, because it's a really good question. Maybe because they're fixed in a certain time, particularly, and they're attached with music--recorded music is hardly ever truly timeless. Certain songs become that way but they're very much of their time and they sound like their time typically.
AB: So they have to be stuck there?
ST: It seems like they do, yes.
AB: Joni Mitchell said in her song "Blue," "Songs are like tattoos / You know I've been to the sea before / Crown and anchor me." Once you get the tattoo, you can't go back. Jackson 5 can't go back and change "ABC."
ST: They should've started later in the alphabet.
AB: [laughs] It becomes like a parody. We listened to Weird Al Yankovic and I said, "You know, for some reason I associate Steve Taylor and Weird Al" ... and now you say your first song was a parody.
ST: Yeah, that's funny. I was never really a fan, but the times I listen to him I think, "I could do that better." Maybe it's because I started with parody. It's a stupid thing, but I get bothered by too many near rhymes. Well, I like Kanye a lot, but he's such a master that it doesn't bother me. But when lesser writers use a lot of near rhymes, it really bothers me.
AB: Well, I rarely listen to Weird Al, just so you know. I think there was just something of the spunky irreverence of Weird Al, that when you get back to some of your more bizarre-sounding songs they sound like wiggly.
ST: When I was living in California, I really didn't know their music at all, but I had a lot of people tell me I reminded them of Oingo Boingo.
AB: Oingo Boingo, yeah. We just got this great collection of the '80s, Left of the Dial, have you ever seen that? It's a 4 CD set ...
[Then Aaron goes to get the CDs, a dog comes in, people are offered cookies, people variously turn down and accept cookies, and the tape is over.]
Steve Taylor comprises one fourth of the rock band Steve Taylor & The Perfect Foil, whose debut album Goliath was released in November. He also moonlights as a film director--his latest movie Blue Like Jazz premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival and was released theatrically by Roadside Attractions. Steve lives in Nashville with his wife, the artist D. L. Taylor, and their daughter. You can follow him on Twitter @theperfectfoil and SteveTaylorPresents.com.
Aaron Belz's latest book of poetry is titled Glitter Bomb. He lives in Hillsborough, NC.


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Dining rooms happen to be my favorite spot inside a house and that, most probably, has to do with their multifunctional purpose (I guess I'm not the only one who eats, chills or studies on that big dining table). So while I'm preparing for my uncle's welcoming dinner at my mum's place, it's good to share with you some more inspiration of eclectic and easy going such rooms.
Image credits:
1.d' apostrophe design, 2.yatzer, 3.mixr, 4.Michael Bechara

subset: commoncrawl


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Storytelling Photography for Boston-Area Families
© 2018 Ashia Ray Photography, Newton, Massachusetts. Ashia Ray is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. |ProPhoto Photography Theme | Designed by Pretty Lovely Design


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WE, Frederick the Sixth, by the Grace of God King of Denmark, the Venders and Gothers, Duke of Slesvig Holsten, Stormarn, Ditmarsken, Limessborg and Oldenborg, by writings these make known and publicly declare, that whereas William Carey and Joshua Marshman, Doctors of Divinity, and John Clark Marshman, Esq., inhabitants of our town of Fredericksnagore (or Serampore) in Bengal, being desirous of founding a College to promote piety and learning particularly among the native Christian population of India, have to secure this object erected suitable buildings and purchased and collected suitable books, maps, etc., and have humbly besought us to grant unto them and such persons as shall be elected by them and their successors to form the Council of the College in the manner to be hereafter named, our Royal Charter of Incorporation that they may the more effectually carry into execution the purposes above-mentioned:--We, being desirous to encourage so laudable an undertaking, have of our special grace and free motion ordained, constituted, granted and declared, and by the presents We do for ourselves, our heirs and successors ordain, constitute, grant and declare:
1. That the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, and such other person or persons as shall successively be elected and appointed the Council of the said College, in the manner hereafter mentioned, shall by virtue of the presents be for ever hereafter one body politic and incorporate by the name of the Serampore College for the purposes aforesaid to have perpetual succession and to have a common seal, and by the said name to sue and be sued, to implead and be impleaded, and to answer and be answered unto in every court and place belonging to us, our heirs and successors.
2. And We do hereby ordain, constitute and declare that the persons hereby incorporated and their successors shall for ever be competent in law to purchase, hold and enjoy for them and their successors any goods and chattels whatsoever and to receive, purchase, hold and enjoy, they and their successors, any lands, tenements or hereditaments whatever, and that they shall have full power and authority to sell, exchange or otherwise dispose of any real or personal property to be by them acquired as aforesaid, unless the sale or alienation of such property be specially prohibited by the donor or donors thereof, and to do all things relating to the said College or Corporation in as ample a manner or form as any of our liege subjects, or any other body politic or corporate in our said kingdom or its dependencies may or can do.
3. And We do hereby ordain, grant and declare that the number of Professors, Fellows or Student Tutors and Students, shall be indefinite and that the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, shall be the first Council of the said College, and that in the event of its appearing to them necessary during their life-time, or in the case of the death of any one of the three members of the said first Council, the survivors or survivor shall and may under their respective hands and seals appoint such other person or persons to be members of the Council of the College, and to succeed each other so as to become Members of the said Council in the order in which they shall be appointed, to the intent that the Council of the said College shall for ever consist of at least three persons.
4. And We do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that for the better government of the said College, and the better management of its concerns, the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, the members of the first Council, shall have full power and authority for the space of ten years from the date of these presents, to make and establish such statutes as shall appear to them useful and necessary for the government of the said College, in which statutes they shall define the powers to be entrusted to their successors, to the Professors, the Fellows or Student Tutors and the other Officers thereof, and the duties to be performed by these respectively for the management of the estates, lands, revenues and goods--and of the business of the said College, and the manner of proposing, electing, admitting and removing all and every one of the Council, the Professors, the Fellows or Tutors, the officers, the students and the servants thereof, and shall make and establish generally all such other statutes as may appear to them necessary for the future good government and prosperity of the said College, provided that these statutes be not contrary to the laws and statutes of our realm.
5. And we do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that the statutes thus made and established by the said three members of the first Council, and given or left in writing under their respective hands, shall be valid and in full force at the expiration of ten years from the date of these presents, so that no future Council of the College shall have power to alter, change or vary them in any manner whatever and that the statutes shall for ever be considered the constitution of the said College. And we do hereby appoint and declare that these statutes shall be made and established by the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman alone, so that in case either of them should die before the expiration of ten years, the power of completing or perfecting these statutes shall devolve wholly on the survivors or survivor; and that in case all three of them should die before the expiration of ten years, the statutes which they have left in writing under their hands, or under the hand of the last survivor among them shall be considered "The Fundamental Statutes and Constitution of Serampore College," incapable of receiving either addition or alteration, and shall and may be registered in our Royal Court of Chancery as "The Statutes and Constitution of Serampore College."
6. And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare that from and after the completion of the statutes of the said College in the above said time of ten years, the said Council of the College shall be deemed to consist of a Master or President and two or four members who may be Professors or otherwise as the Statutes may direct so that the said Council shall not contain less than three, nor more than five persons, as shall be defined in the Statutes. The Council shall ever be elected as the Statutes of the College may direct, yet the said Master or President shall always previously have been a Member of the said College; and upon the decease of the said Master or President, the Council of the said College shall be unable to do any act or deed until the appointment of a new Master or President, save and except the appointment of such a Master.
7. And We further appoint, grant and declare, that the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, the members of the first Council, and their successors for ever, shall have the power of conferring upon the students of the said College, Native Christians as well as others, degrees of rank and honour according to their proficiency in as ample a manner as any other such College, yet the said Serampore College shall only have the power of conferring such degrees on the students that testify their proficiency in Science and no rank or other special right shall be connected therewith in our dominions. And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare, that after the expiration of the said ten years, the said Council of the College and their successors for ever shall have power to make and establish such orders and bye-laws as shall appear to them useful and necessary for the government of the said College, and to alter, suspend or repeal those already made, and from time to time make such new ones in their room as shall appear to them most proper and expedient provided the same be not repugnant to the Statutes of the College, or to the laws of our realm, and that after the expiration of these ten years any member of the Council shall have power to move the enactment of any new bye-law, or the alteration, suspension or repeal of any existing one provided notice of such motion shall have been delivered in writing to the Master and read from the Chair at one previous meeting of the Council of the said College, but that no such motion shall be deemed to have passed in the affirmative, until the same shall have been discussed and decided by ballot at another meeting summoned especially for that purpose, a majority of the members then present having voted in the affirmative; and in this, as in all other cases, if the votes be equal, the Master or President shall have the casting vote.
Given at our Royal Palace in Copenhagen on the twenty-third day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven, in the nineteenth year of our reign.
Under our Royal Hand and Seal.
June 12th, 1833.
1. Article the Third of the Charter granted by his Danish Majesty, having authorised the first Council of Serampore College in their lifetime to nominate under their hand and seal such other person or persons for colleagues or successors as may to them appear most proper, so that the Council shall always consist of at least three persons, their successors in the Council shall be competent in like manner to nominate in their lifetime, under their separate hand and seal, such person or persons as they may deem most proper to fill vacancies then existing or which may occur on their demise; members thus nominated and chosen shall succeed to the Council in order of their nomination.
2. It being fixed in the Charter that the Council must consist of the Master or President and at least two, but no more than four Members, and that on the demise of the Master no act shall be done until another be elected, the Master and Council for the time being shall appoint the next Master under their separate hand and seal. If on the demise of a Master no one be found thus appointed under the hand and seal of a majority of the Council, the Senior Member of the Council shall succeed as Master.
3. The Charter having given the casting vote to the Master, in all cases when the votes are equal the casting vote shall lie with the Master, and if there be no Master, it shall lie with the Senior Member of the Council.
4. Learning and piety being peculiar to no denomination of Christians, one member of the Council may at all times be of any other denomination besides the Baptist, to preserve the original design of the Institution; however, if on the election of a Master a number of the Council be equally divided, that part which is entirely of the Baptist denomination shall have the casting vote, whether it includes the Master or not.
5. The management of the College, including its revenues and property, the choice of Professor and Tutors, the admission of Students, the appointment of all functionaries and servants, and the general order and government of the College, shall ever be vested in the Master and the Council. The Master shall see that the Statutes and Regulations of the Council be duly carried into effect, and take order for the good government of the College in all things. His signature is necessary to the validity of all deeds, instruments, documents and proceedings.
6. "The first Council and their successor for ever" being authorised by the Charter "to confer such degrees of rank and honour as shall encourage learning" in the same manner as other Colleges and Universities, they shall from time to time confer degrees in such branches of Knowledge and Science as may be studied there, in the same manner as the Universities in Denmark, Germany and Great Britain. In doing this the Master and Council shall ad libitum call in the aid of any or all the Professors of Serampore College. All such degrees shall be perfectly free of expense to the person on whom they may be conferred, whether he be in India, Europe or America.
7. No oaths shall be administered in Serampore College, either to the Members of Council, the Professors and Tutors, or the Students. In all cases a solemn promise, duly recorded and signed by the party, shall be accepted instead of an oath.
8. Marriage shall be no bar to any office or situation in Serampore College, from that of the Master to that of the lowest student.
9. The salaries of the Professors and Tutors in Serampore College shall be appointed, and the means of support for all functionaries, students and servants be regulated by the Council in such manner as shall best promote the objects of the Institution.
10. It is intended that neither the Master nor any Member of the Council in general shall receive any salary. But any Master who may not previously reside in the College shall have a residence there free of rent for himself and his family. And if the Council shall elect any one in Europe or in America, whom they deem eminent for learning and piety, a Member of the Council, with a view to choosing him Master, should they on trial deem him worthy, the Council shall be competent to appoint him such salary as they may deem necessary, not exceeding, however, the highest given to a Professor.
11. As the founders of the College deem the belief of Christs Divinity and Atonement essential to vital Christianity, the promotion of which is the grand object of this Institution, no one shall be eligible to the College Council or to any Professorship who is known to oppose these doctrines, and should any one of the Professors or any member of the Council unhappily so change his views after his election as to oppose these fundamental doctrines of Christianity, on this being clearly and decidedly proved from his teaching or his writings, he shall vacate the office he previously held. But every proceeding of this nature on the part of the College Council shall be published to the Christian world, with the proofs on which it may rest, as an Appendix to the succeeding Report.
12. Members of the Council are eligible from among the Professors of the College, or from among any in India, Europe, or America whom the College Council may deem suitable in point of learning, piety, and talent.
13. Students are admissible at the discretion of the Council from any body of Christians, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, the Greek, or the Armenian Church; and for the purpose of study, from the Mussulman and Hindu youth, whose habits forbid their living in the College. No caste, colour, or country shall bar any man from admission into Serampore College.
14. Expulsion shall be awarded in cases of open immorality, incorrigible idleness, neglect of the College Statutes and regulations, or repeated disobedience to the officers of the College.
15. Any person in India, Europe, or America shall be at liberty to found any Professorship, or to attach to Serampore College any annual exhibition or prize for the encouragement of learning in the same manner as in the Universities of Great Britain, regulating such endowment according to their own will; and it shall be duty of the College Council to carry such benefactions into effect in strict consonance with the will of the donors as far as shall be consistent with the Statutes of the College.
16. It shall be lawful for the first Council of the College or their successors to make and rescind any bye-laws whatever, provided they be not contrary to these Statutes.
17. The Charter having declared that the number of the Professors and students in Serampore College remains unlimited, they shall be left thus unlimited, the number to be regulated only by the gracious providence of God and the generosity of the public in India, Europe and America.
"The rights and immunities granted to the Serampore College by Royal Charter of date, 23rd February, 1827, shall not be interfered with, but continue in force in the same manner as if they had been obtained by a Charter from the British Government, subject to the general law of British India."
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In conjunction with Clean Water Week, which is held during the third week of May, May 20 through May 26, the 16th annual Clean Water Week Poster Contest for students in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades from Warren, Fayston, Waitsfield and Moretown will take place.
Students should reflect in their artwork on what happens when it rains and the effects the run-off has on streams, rivers, lakes and ponds. All posters should measure 81/2-by-11 inches and use as many bright colors as needed. Students should remember that proper spelling is important. All entries should have the student's name, telephone number and school clearly written on the back of the poster. All entries should be the effort of one student per poster (no collaborating) and just one poster per student.
The posters should be submitted for judging to The Valley Reporter by 4 p.m. on Monday, May 14. The entries can be dropped off at The Valley Reporter office at the Mad River Green or mailed to The Valley Reporter, P.O. Box 119, Mad River Green, Waitsfield, Vermont 05673.
Winners will be announced in the May 24 issue of The Valley Reporter.
Prizes include a season ski pass to Sugarbush at Mount Ellen and a canoe trip for two. In addition, the school of the winning student will display the trophy, donated by Mad River Canoe, for the coming year. There also will be a prize for the school that submits the largest number of poster entries.
The Clean Water Week Poster Contest is sponsored by Adworks, Red Door Design, Clearwater Sports, Friends of the Mad River, Sugarbush Resort and <MI>The Valley Reporter<D>. The theme for this year's poster contest is "Nutrients and Sediments -- Clean Water Starts With You."
All questions should be directed to Elizabeth Walker @ 244-7424 0r email her at


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Adds extension options dialogs to the Tools and/or Titlebar menu. Includes toolbar icon - left-click on icon opens extension options menu, right-click opens Add-ons manager. Version 1.22 adds a hidden pref - extensions.ExtensionOptionsMenu.ShowAll. Go to about:config and set to 'true' to show all extensions in menus even if they don't have options dialogs. They will show up as a disabled menu entry.
Themes Menu
Adds a menu to the Tools and/or Titlebar menu to select theme. Includes toolbar icon - left-click on icon opens themes menu, right-click opens Add-ons manager.
Addon Update Checker
I didn't like Firefox updating my add-ons without my knowledge, so I turned off add-on updates, but I still wanted to be notified of new versions. So I wrote this extension. Things to know: if you change options while in the checking or found update states, the icon will be grey until the next check/restart. It does not know anything about the built in Add-on version checker. In other words, Firefox may check for updates and find one, but the icon for this add-on won't change until the next time the add-on checks. This add-on sets "extensions.update.autoUpdateDefault" to false. Otherwise is won't show the add-ons that can be updated - and breaks. If you uninstall this add-on and want to change it back, you can get to the pref from about:config, or on the Add-ons Manager click the gear dropdown near the search box. Select "Update Add-ons Automatically" to change to Firefox default.
Sidebar Auto Show/Hide
This is as a working version of the part of Optimoz Tweaks that I used. The sidebar auto open and close when the mouse touches the left side of the browser window. I rewrote the preference page to be inline and the way the preferences are read/written by the extension. I removed 'eval's and 'setTimeout's that generally aren't allowed in extensions for security reasons. I wrapped the everything in the extension in a variable and rewrote the way many functions are called (so they could be wrapped.) I eliminated several functions that were only called once or twice and were only one or two lines long. Replaces all 'var's with 'let's. I fixed the hand icon that can hold the sidebar open regardless of mouse position. Probably more too, but that's all I can remember. This extension does constantly check mouse position which can theoretically be a performance hit. I've never even seen 1% CPU usage when moving the mouse though.
Hide Tab Bar With One Tab
Hide the tab bar if there is only one tab.
Toggle Link Visited Status
Adds a right-click menu item to either mark a link visited or unvisited depending on its current state using the async history service needed by Firefox 23 and above.
Removed. Not e10s compatible. I don't use it. Too much work to fix.


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"Hat then" are religious epics of Long Poems, performed by the highland Tay and Nung minority groups. Those songs tell the story of the path to paradise to ask the Jade Emperor to settle troubles for the head of household.
"Hat then" performances are important ceremonial events, which unite the entire community.Long Poems consist of several chapters with different content lengths. A show usually involves two or three groups of singers, plus musicians. The epics last for hours and are devided into short and long chapters, which are often repetitive. Anyone planning to sit through a "hat then" ritual had best get comfortable; the longest epic contains 35 chapters and 4,949 lines.
In the ceremony procession, not only must the artist carry out elaborate religious rituals, but also act as a general actor singing, playing music, dancing, and making gestures to demonstrate the meaning of the sentence he is singing. Sometimes the artist also performs other activities such as chewing cups and other things.
Music is the main element that completely penetrates the performance. Sometimes the music is accompanied with song, and at other moments it serves as a background for dance or connecting parts of a song.The main musical instruments in the "Then" performance is the "Tin Tau" (a traditional stringed musical instrument resembling a guitar) and a chain of shaking instruments. Sometimes the band has a bell present.
All people in the Tay Nung community, regardless of ages, sexes, and religions are fond of "Then" songs. Some groups such as the Kinh Mooing in the same region have also been incorporating this kind of art in their spiritual lives.


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The ultimate comeback: 40 years after resigning, Nixon lives! (At least on Twitter)
If you believe the media reports, Richard Nixon suffered a stroke in 1994 and died days later at age 81. He is buried in his native Yorba Linda, California, silent as the country marks the 40th anniversary of his resignation.
But the many obsessives among the 7,000-plus followers of @Dick_Nixon couldn't be blamed for sharing the president's suspicion of reporters. The "Nixon" on this Twitter feed has never been more alive, sounding off on everything from the Russians to the Academy Awards, lashing out at old enemies and sizing up such possible presidential contenders as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
"He is a smart fellow. But he should stop swinging at pitches he can't hit yet," reads a recent tweet.
The @Dick_Nixon feed is neither tribute nor parody but an uncanny reincarnation that has some Washington insiders and political junkies marveling that someone could so well capture the phrasing, savvy, tenacity, profanity and world view of our 37th president.
"He has his voice and his mentality down cold. And he also makes me laugh," says Elizabeth Drew, an author and journalist whose Watergate-era book, "Washington Journal," was reissued in May.
"I never got to meet Nixon, so this is the next best thing for me," says author and journalist Robert Draper, who has written books about Congress and the George W. Bush administration and is the grandson of Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski.
Admirers have speculated that the account manager is a politician, a journalist or even a member of the Nixon family. But Twitter "Nixon" is, apparently, 33-year-old playwright and New York resident Justin Sherin, born years after the president left office. Drew has met him and befriended him. John Weaver, a Republican strategist who worked on the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain, said that he had spoken with Sherin. Both Drew and Weaver are among his followers.
During a recent interview at a bar in Grand Central Station, Sherin said that he had long been fascinated by Nixon and his "weird" and "convoluted" way of expressing himself. In 2008, he began tweeting excerpts from Nixon's taped White House conversations. Around four years later, he decided to bring the former president into the 21st century, combining historical and original material.
"I try very hard either to use something that he did say in a similar context or that I could argue he would have said when faced with such a situation," says the clean-cut, round-eyed Sherin, whose plays include "Mickey Mouse Is Dead," a 2006 off-Broadway production about McCarthy-era blacklisting at the Walt Disney studios.
The former president and his wife, Pat (also dead, or so we've been told), reside on Twitter, as they did on Earth, in Saddle River, New Jersey. The president makes occasional trips to Washington and vacations in Key Biscayne, Florida. Some messages are initialed by former White House press secretary Ron Ziegler, who supposedly joined the afterlife in 2003.
Nixon on Twitter is impressed with Hillary Clinton ("She is cold, cold, tough as hell. That is the good side") and dismayed by President Barack Obama. ("The current president strikes me as a fellow who is reading from a book written by a lot of Ivy Leaguers who've never been to Moscow"). He is grateful for his supporters, seething that he doesn't have a deal for his latest book, "Realism," and mindful of his eternal rivals, the Kennedys
"Teddy had the best political skills out of any of them. Jack would rather be in the pool, Bobby burned witches," he tweeted.
On the Nixon feed, you get the calculating Nixon ("The ecology thing is crap for clowns. But there's votes in it"). You get Nixon on gays ("Our granddaughter is an actress. So many people in that line are gay. We go to the plays, shake their hands. They seem happy"), and Nixon on American cities ("Have you been to Tampa? My God. Nothing but Cubans and houses of prostitution)."
"He seems to know everything there is about Nixon," Weaver says of Sherin. "He also has the president's keen political analytical skills, and he has that streak within Nixon that undid the president."
The newest Nixon is understandably preoccupied with the current anniversary. (Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974.) He has blunt words for his former aide and whistleblower, John Dean ("He knows how to lie. Why do you think we judged him effective?") and for the newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal, The Washington Post — now owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos — and star reporter Bob Woodward.
"Woodward still gets a check from the Post, you know," Nixon observed. "I was not aware that Bezos enjoys paying fellows who don't work."
Call him names, if you will. The president only gets angry with those he respects.
Just don't call him finished.
"All these bastards saying how young they are," he tweeted last month. "We're still here, by God. We'll outlive you all."


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A Kids Photo is a kid safe stock photo website. The website provides free photos for the general public but emphasis free photos for kids and teachers.
Free Clip Art Reader ReviewsThe following site reviews were submitted by readers like you. Discovered (or created) a cool site we should know about? Click here to add URL.
July 16, 2012 -- Submitted by Tiiu Roiser, a teacher from Canada - Ontario, who is affiliated with the site.
I was a teacher many years ago, who, due to an injury, can no longer work full time. I have time on my hands and a love of photography and I still want to contribute to students, teachers and the community. As a result, I have created a website on which I share my images completely free for any non-commercial project. There are a variety of categories which both students and teachers may find useful. I do not sell anything, all materials are completely free, I do, however, have ads to help support the costs of the site. Although the site has just gone "live", I have thousands more images that I am in the process of uploading daily. I will soon also be adding a series of PowerPoint lesson plans on a variety of nature topics appropriate for the elementary level.
Playtime Station
March 2, 2008 -- From Richelle, a reader, from Arkansas, who is not affiliated with the site.
Just 4 kids free graphics and animations. Everything is free at playtime Station.
Tim's Free Clip Art Drawings
July 20, 2007 -- From Tim, a parent, from Copenhagen Denmark, who is affiliated with the site.
Free cartoon drawings in black and white gif format for all to use and have fun with by a professional illustrator and cartoonist with 30 years experience in magazine and newspaper and advertising illustration.
June 1, 2007 -- From AnnieMation, a parent, from Reno, NV, who is affiliated with the site.
This site has numerous nature photographs and scans of leaves, seashells, and clip art free for use. They are mainly meant for 3D artists but they can be enjoyed by all. There is also a section for anyone interested in learning about 3D programs. A G-rated cartoon called "The Catpack" can also be found here.
Animation Playhouse
January 25, 2007 -- From Dave, a reader, from San Jose, California, who is affiliated with the site.
Free animated gifs listed in many categories.
Europe Photos: Pictures of European and Mediterranean Towns and Landscapes
July 31, 2006 -- From Christos Nussli, from Switzerland, who is affiliated with the site.
Europe Photos presents more than 500 pictures of European and Mediterranean cities and landscapes.


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By continuing to use this site, you agree to the cookies used, for example, to improve your browsing experience and to personalize the content of the Website. For more information and/or to change your current cookie settings, please refer to our Cookies Policy.
Please note that your departure or return flight may be operated by a carrier other than Air Transat.
You can check the name of the carrier operating the flight when you make your reservation and on your e-ticket
(see the line "operated by").


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Learn About the Law
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Mr. Assistant Attorney General Warren, for the United States.
Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Act of January 30, 1897, c. 109 (29 Stat. 506),1 makes it a criminal offense to introduce intoxicating liquors 'into the Indian country.' For violating that law, Soldana and Herrera were indicted in the District Court of the United States for the District of Montana. The indictment [246 U.S. 530, 531] charged that the liquor was introduced 'within the exterior boundaries of the Crow Indian Reservation' in that state, but upon 'the station platform of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company, at the town of Crow Agency' upon the right of way of said railroad. Defendants demurred, contending that the station platform was not within Indian country, and that, therefore, no offense was alleged. The District Court sustained the demurrer and discharged the prisoners. The case came here under the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907, c. 2564, 34 Stat. 1246 (Comp. St. 1916, 1704).
Crow Indian Reservation consists of nearly two and a half million acres located in the southwestern part of Montana. The government agency is at Crow agency which lies north of the middle of the reservation on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway, which runs through the heart of the reservation from north to south. The right of way is one hundred and fifty feet wide except where additional ground is allowed for stations. Whether or not the station platform is Indian country depends upon the construction to be given to the act of Congress granting the right of way. If the Indian title to the soil on which the platform stands was extinguished by that grant, the platform was not within Indian country. Bates v. Clark, 95 U.S. 204 .2 Did the statutes except from the reservation the land on which the railroad was built and extinguish the Indian title, or did they merely give to the company a right of way or other limited interest in the land on which to construct and operate a railroad? [246 U.S. 530, 532] The statutes to be considered are Act of May 1, 1888, c. 213 (25 Stat. 113) confirming the establishment of the reservation, and Act of February 12, 1889, c. 134 (25 Stat. 660), granting a right of way through the reservation to the Big Horn Southern Railroad. Whatever rights it acquired were transferred to the Burlington under Act of March 1, 1893, c. 192 (27 Stat. 529).
The act of 1888 provided that whenever, in the opinion of the President, public interests require the construction of railroads through any portion of the reservation, the 'right of way shall be, and is hereby, granted for such purposes, under such rules, regulations, limitations, and restrictions as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe.' The act of 1889 provided, by section 3, that 'the surveys, construction, and operation of such railroad shall be conducted with due regard for the rights of the Indians and in accordance with such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may make to carry out this provision.' Section 5 declared that the grant of the right of way was upon the expressed condition that the grantee and its successors 'wil neither aid, advise, nor assist in any effort looking towards the changing or extinguishing the present tenure of the Indians in their land, and will not attempt to secure from the Indian tribes any further grant of land or its occupancy than is hereinbefore provided: Provided, that any violation of the condition mentioned in this section shall operate as a forfeiture of all the rights and privileges of said railroad company under this act.'
Whether these acts should be held to have granted a mere easement or a limited fee or some other limited interest in the land (New Mexico v. United States Trust Co., 172 U.S. 171 , 19 Sup. Ct. 128; Northern Pacific Railway v. Townsend, 190 U.S. 267 , 23 Sup. Ct. 671; Rio Grande Western Railway v. Stringham, 239 U.S. 44 , 36 Sup. Ct. 5), it is clear that it was not the purpose of Congress to extinguish the title of the Indians in [246 U.S. 530, 533] the land comprised within the right of way. To have excepted this strip from the reservation would have divided it into two, and would have rendered it much more difficult, if not impossible, to afford that protection to the Indians which the provisions quoted were designed to insure. The case of Clairmont v. United States, 225 U.S. 551 , 32 Sup. Ct. 787, which is the basis of the decision in United States v. Lindahl (D. C.) 221 Fed. 143, relied upon by the lower court, involved a statute which extinguished the Indian title.
The judgment of the District Court is
[ Footnote 1 ] This repealed, so far as it was inconsistent, the Act of July 23, 1892, c. 234, 27 Stat. 260 (Comp. St. 1916, 4136a), which amended Revised Statutes, 2139, as amended by Act February 27, 1877, c. 69 (19 Stat. 244).
[ Footnote 2 ] Other cases giving criteria for determining the meaning of 'Indian country' are: American Fur Co. v. United States, 2 Pet. 358; Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 , 3 Sup. Ct. 396; United States v. Le Bris, 121 U.S. 278 , 7 Sup. Ct. 894; Dick v. United States, 208 U.S. 340 , 28 Sup. Ct. 399; United States v. Celestine, 215 U.S. 278 , 30 Sup. Ct. 93; Clairmont v. United States, 225 U.S. 551 , 32 Sup. Ct. 787; Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243 , 33 Sup. Ct. 449, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 710; United States v. Pelican, 232 U.S. 442 , 34 Sup. Ct. 396; Pronovost v. United States, 232 U.S. 487 , 34 Sup. Ct. 391.
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by David Crane [email protected] While we're on the subject of Russian firearms, we should perhaps also mention a pistol that looks really intriguing. It's manufactured by KBP (Equipment manufacturing Design Bureau) in Tula, Russia, and it's called the GSh-18. The KBP GSh-18 pistol basically appears to be a polymer-framed hybrid pistol that incorporates design and material aspects of previous pistols …Read More »
Tag Archives: gsh-18 pistol
Russian GSh-18 Pistol. 19 rounds of Armor-Piercing Firepower.
Modern Firearms web-site – a large online Firearms encyclopaedia out of Russia was recently updated with some new articles that cover numerous guns, including: – widely promoted Russian GSh-18 – a modern featherweight Glock-alike with great Armour-Piercing capabilities, or a poor-mans' Five-seveN. – Browning BDM, the only… true Double Mode pistol – Namby type 14. The WW2 relic from Imperial …Read More »
Latest Russian Small Arms Give Western Counterparts a Run for Their Money.
Russia's making some pretty neat stuff lately. DefRev found a page on Milparade's site that highlights some of the new weaponry. Weapons featured are the GSh-18 pistol(which looks a lot like the Steyr M/S series pistols and holds 18 rounds of 9x19mm in the magazine), RMB-93 forward-cocking shotgun(with magazine tube ABOVE the barrel), AGS-30 automatic grenade launcher, RPO-A Shmel rocket …Read More »


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HALIFAX - The love of the Boston Bruins among Maritimers can run deep, bolstered by family ties, historic north-south loyalties and long-held passions for Bobby Orr.
As the Stanley Cup finals unfold, the Boston loyalists are increasingly spotted around the region in their jerseys, cheering for their rugged team against a suddenly disliked Vancouver Canucks squad.
The fan passion can run to extremes as the series switches to Boston.
Before each game, Nova Scotia Transport Minister Bill Estabrooks drops his front false teeth in his Bruins beer mug — part of his pre-game ritual in a den crammed with autographed player photographs that go back four decades.
Local sports broadcaster Cecil Wright, 56, isolates himself in his Halifax home, wearing his Milan Lucic jersey and forbidding any interruption as he watches a team he's loved since he was six-years-old.
"I don't watch a game of this magnitude in public," he said. "I don't want my eyes distracted."
And wherever Canucks fans go in Halifax, they seem to be confronted with the gold, white and black jersey.
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson found himself surrounded by several Halifax councillors sporting the jersey with the spoked wheel when he came to the city last week.
Coun. David Hendsbee was among those wearing a Bruins leather jacket alongside the Vancouver politician.
He says ties between Halifax and Boston are often tighter than with Montreal and Toronto, especially when it comes to sports.
"Sometimes Halifax is called the little Boston, or Boston is called a big Halifax," he said.
"If the Bruins win (the Stanley Cup), I will fly down that morning and stay up all night and get a spot somewhere to watch the parade and then come back home."
Wright says love of all things Boston is partly about family ties and partly about remembrances of greats like former defenceman Bobby Orr.
"There is nobody who was a fan of the old Bruins team who has ever jumped off of the bandwagon, believe me," said Wright. "We're still loyal, we're still passionate."
Like many Maritimers, Wright's father moved to Massachusetts to find work.
As a result, Wright grew up in Boston and Holliston, Mass., and followed the Bruins as Orr and Phil Esposito led the squad to powerhouse status.
When Wright moved back to Halifax he didn't leave the connection to the Bruins behind.
He also became aware of deep ties between the two cities.
Each year, a towering Nova Scotian Christmas tree is sent to Boston to grace its main square. The tree is in memory of Boston's assistance given in 1917, when a large portion of Halifax was flattened when a munitions ship exploded in the harbour.
To this day, Wright and many other fans watch Boston television and listen to radio broadcasts when the Bruins play, preferring what Wright calls "the home team" commentary.
As a boy, Estabrooks, 63, listened to the Bruins broadcasts on a transistor radio until late at night in his home near Amherst, N.S.
A huge fan of Orr, he has a large collection of Bruins memorabilia in his constituency office in Lakeside, including an autographed photo showing the defenceman sailing through the air after scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal in 1970.
"Now we're back," Estabrooks says of the current team.
Don't even suggest to Hendsbee, Wright or Estabrooks that Vancouver is a Canadian team.
"Give me a break," exclaims Wright.
He then lists the names of Maritimers on the Bruins squad, including forward Brad Marchand of Halifax and Adam McQuaid of Prince Edward Island.
As for the archrival Montreal Canadiens, a club that also has a deep pool of East Coast fans, Wright can't resist a little gloating after their exit from the playoffs at the hands of the Bruins.
"They're playing ping pong or something."


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By Gro Harlem Brundtland
World Resources Report
February 28, 2011
The most important challenge for today's political leaders is to safeguard the human environment so that our species can survive on this planet. I think the following three points are particularly relevant for any leader wanting to strike a balance between the pressing needs of today and the decisions necessary to secure our long term survival.
1. Base your policies on sound scientific knowledge
In my professional and political life, I have always wanted to build on the principle learned first from my father, who had a profound influence on me. He was a medical doctor who imprinted on me the importance of having a scientific and rational basis for opinions and actions. As I became a medical doctor myself, my resolve to base my opinions and actions on the best available evidence grew even stronger. So, first of all, we need to build evidence, and strengthen the knowledge base on which we depend when making decisions.
At the same time, we must never overlook how important it is to couple state of the art scientific knowledge with strong political commitment. Science must be translated into political action to be of relevance to society. This is true for gender equality, health policies, environmental policies and climate policy. Ideology and values play an important role when we set our goals. But when it comes to deciding on what we should do to reach them, they have to be inspired by sound scientific knowledge. And we must never forget that it is always cheaper to prevent than to cure, whether we focus on people or societies. Therefore, mitigation remains the best adaptation policy.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established 22 years ago, has provided increasingly robust scientific information on the causes, the impacts and the solutions related to climate change. They point out that the warming of the globe may reach 5-6 degrees by the end of this century if no action is taken. This would be devastating and totally unsustainable. According to the IPCC we must reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to a fraction of what they are today by 2050 to succeed in staying below 2 degrees temperature rise. In a fair and sustainable world, greenhouse gas emissions in all countries will tend to converge towards the same level, per capita, in the long run. This should be recognised by all country leaders, and they should start working towards it. This would show the spirit of responsibility so clearly needed in order to ensure a climate safe, common future.
2. Seek global cooperation
The challenge of climate change is not a question that can be left to the Minister of the Environment to deal with. As the most important issue facing any country, it has to be dealt with at the highest levels of government. And international cooperation is needed in order to achieve results.
Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) contribute to climate change. The effects are not primarily local, as with other forms of pollution, but are felt globally. Emissions in Australia on the other side of the globe are just as detrimental to climate in Norway as are local emissions in Scandinavia. No issue better demonstrates the need for global cooperation than climate change.
In order to deal with the challenge of climate change, a climate agreement will need to include most countries of the world, cover all major sources of emissions of GHG, and include concrete and long term climate goals in line with the recommendations of the IPCC.
It may be challenging to translate scientific results into practical policies on the domestic scene. It is even more challenging to reach an evidence-based agreement among nearly 200 countries. Especially when the measures to be taken come with a price tag and the distribution of initial costs has to be decided upon to reach an agreement. Distributing costs is difficult, even if we know they will continue to spiral if we do not agree. But this is precisely what we must do.
3. National and global redistribution is needed
Why do human beings destroy their planet by emitting unsustainable levels of GHGs? The reason is that this is a classic case of market failure. There is no price, no cost involved for the individual emitter, even though emissions result in the entire human race paying the ultimate price. What we need to do is to make pollution bad business. The key is to put a price on emissions. We need to secure cooperation between developed and developing countries on public regulation to correct this market failure.
What will have to happen first is that developed countries must demonstrate in concrete terms that low-carbon growth is possible. If the rich countries, who have filled up the atmosphere with CO2, and who are in possession of more resources than the developing countries, do not switch to a low-carbon economy, they cannot ask developing countries to do so either.
Once developed countries have demonstrated that low-carbon growth is technically feasible and economically viable, they must do what it takes to make low carbon growth the cheapest and preferred path to development for developing countries.
In the face of starvation and misery, growth and development tend to take precedence over almost all other considerations. Only when low carbon growth also comes across as the low cost way to development, can we expect poor countries to make sustainable and green choices.
The two defining challenges of this century are climate change and poverty. Our challenge is to find a way to deal with both, at the same time. We need to see rapid and broad based economic development happening alongside substantial reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.
The financial crisis has started even former free market champions thinking about the merits of redistribution, both within countries and between countries. They realise that it is not a good idea after all to have a system where one small group gets very rich, and willing to take ever more risks, by lending more and more to the larger group which gets poorer and poorer.
We live in times when it is particularly important to avoid bad investment decisions. My best advice is: whatever you do, make sure it contributes to the sustainable, low-carbon economy we will need in order to survive and thrive on planet earth in the future. Otherwise you will be wasting your money.


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Please note, this class is only available to current/previous Art & Wellness Participants. If you want to join our in-person Art & Wellness once the studio resumes classes, please contact email@example.com
All event times are listed in Central Time Zone.


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Teacher Shocks Students By Jumping Out Window
It's a safe bet this teacher made his point.
In this video from 2015 that is only starting to trend now, a teacher gives a safety demonstration to a class full of kids. While discussing what to do if a fire should break out in school, he does something very unexpected: he jumps out of the window, which completely captivates his audience.
Now, if you're like us, you're first thought was, "Was he on the first floor?" Because if he jumped out of, say, a fifth floor window, then this guy has some real issues. Fortunately for his bones, it was the ground floor and he quickly comes back inside to a class full of giggling kids.
They say teachers need to engage their students. Well, this teacher certainly did that. He took a serious subject and added some flare for a lesson these kids won't soon forget.


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Is Digital Payola Involved In Music Discovery and Recommendation?
By Taylor Lambert and Kevin Erickson for Future of Music Coalition.
In the age of on-demand streaming, it's common to hear people talk about music as "limitless"— something that flows forth endlessly like water. Indeed, musicians around the world release a huge volume of new music every day. But in practice, most consumers' exposure to the world of new music is extremely limited. It's one of the thorniest problems—if there's so much music out there, why do consumers end up being exposed to so little of it? Why should the music marketplace be a winner-take-all system?
Of course, whether or not you view this as a problem to be solved could depend on whether you're fortunate enough to be one of the "winners." Still, media critics have long pointed to the role of gatekeepers who exercise considerable control what music reaches audiences. From radio programmers to retail managers to talent buyers to music reviewers and beyond, the most powerful labels do their best to keep their offerings front and center—often at the expense of independents. Radio is the still the number one source of "music discovery," but commercial AM/FM radio broadcasters in this era of ownership consolidation tend to be highly risk-averse in their programming choices. Playlists are narrow and repetitive, as our research has documented. It has been the strong hope of the independent sector that online music services would be more democratic, allowing more artists to find audiences than was possible in the old-school media world.
Indeed, for many artists this certainly has been the case. It's easy to find success stories where musicians made an impact outside of traditional gatekeepers influence. But what's harder to see are the limitations of online music discovery, and the ways that the same powerful industry players dominate the space, replicating some of the very bottlenecks found offline. Even the counternarratives tend to be more complex than many imagine.
Remember that to bring any on-demand or download service to the masses, services must make deals with rightsholders. Typically, the major labels have incredible leverage in setting the terms of these deals. That's because they're able to use the presence or absence of their massive back catalog for leverage. Due to non-disclosure agreements, we rarely—if ever—get to see the terms of these deals, but it's fair to say they likely give the big guys better tools to drive listeners to their music. (Note that services like Bandcamp and Soundcloud that don't aim to have complete catalog are exempt from this dynamic, as are noninteractive services governed by statutory licenses that allow them to perform full catalog.)
In this context, how free are consumers to discover their own taste preferences? Consumers have no way of knowing whether recommendations and curated playlists are based on curatorial choices, or whether big money tips the scales. Practices and policies vary, but when you see an artist featured in a splash ad on your favorite service's homepage or a "personalized recommendation," it may be bought and paid for by a big label or offered as a pot-sweetener. And this could be true even if you're a subscriber paying for an advertising-free experience.
Part of this ambiguity stems from a lack of oversight. The Communications Act requires that broadcasters must disclose "if matter has been aired in exchange for money, services or other valuable consideration," making undisclosed payola illegal on AM/FM radio. But when it comes to online services, regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission have no jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising practices, but has very limited say over most of what goes on in a retail environment.
It's important to understand that this dynamic isn't new. Historically, in physical retail environments, large window displays and primo shelf space is afforded to releases where a label or distributor made financial arrangements with the retailer, not just because the staff of Sam Goody decided that they really liked Stone Temple Pilots.
But music services often encourage us to think of ourselves as the architects of our own online experiences. When making our playlists, to what extent do digital services really take our preferences into account vs. the preferences of advertisers?
When Spotify unveiled released its "Spotlight" feature last year, many commenters noted that it was an attempt to demonstrate the service's role in breaking artists. At the time Billboard wrote: "Spotify is using Spotlight to kill two birds with one stone. One is discovery. [Spotify's head of content Steve] Savoca says the company wants to be seen as a place for discovering new music…. And there's the industry relations aspect, too. Savoca says Spotify has 'wanted to make a clear proposition on value for quite a while.' Throwing its weight behind a small number of artists may demonstrate the company's ability to influence careers."
Far fewer noticed that all the artists involved were associated with major label Universal Music Group (hat tip to Jody Griffin from Public Knowledge, who first brought this to our attention). There's no way to know what deals are involved, but at the very least it stands to reason that the service could be building an evidence case to charge labels for this kind of promotional support in the future. Universal is likely to be happy with the results, as they saw a 75 percent jump in streaming revenue last year, outpacing industry averages.
Now that the latest Spotify "Spotlight" round has been announced, we see a slate of up and coming artists who will benefit from extra Spotify promotional muscle. For whatever reason, at least 7 of the 16 acts are signed to Universal Music Group subsidiaries.
Perhaps you find these recommendations easy to ignore. But just as the ratio of "organic" content to advertiser-driven content delivered on Facebook has shifted over time, it's easy to imagine some digital music services could move further in this direction. Will indie artists be able to cut through the noise? Will indie labels be able to afford to compete if digital payola becomes the new standard?
Solutions aren't easy to come by. We're aren't inclined to support top-down mandates, but it does seem fair to ask that digital music services be held to the same level of transparency and disclosure as AM/FM radio. At the very least, services should recognize that a recommendation engine and user interface untainted by paid placement might be something to brag about.
Photo: HAIM, one of the first artists in Spotify's Spotlight, by Bella Howard courtesy Big Hassle PR.


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Preventative De-scaling for the Gaggia Classic (and other single boiler, pump machines) - November 3, 2003
If your part of the country has hard water and you wish to prevent the premature death of your machine, you just may want to read on...
All of that steam capability of your espresso machine comes with a price. As soon as you hit the steam switch on the Gaggia, heating elements kick in to increase the boiler temperature well above the boiling point. However, all of the dissolved minerals in the water will start to precipitate out coating the valuable innards of your machine. Yes, you've got scale! Neglected for long enough, it will eventually clog your machine solid - the narrow passages of your steam wand, the heating elements and the inside of your boiler being the most susceptible to scale build up.
Unlike most other machines, the Gaggia has it's heating elements imbedded in the walls of the boiler, so scale on the elements themselves is not a problem. Most other machines do have their heating elements inside the boiler - a natural accumulation point for scale build up. If anyone has looked at the scale build up in an old kettle - you will know what it looks like. It's not a pretty sight.
So how can you prevent or even reverse moderate scale build up? Remember your high school chemistry class where you dissolved a piece of limestone with an acid? The same principle applies in removing scale build up. The acid solution dissolves the mineral deposits and washes it away.
What acids can we use to clean our espresso maker? Some have recommended such things as vinegar or lemon juice or various chemical descalers. Most agree not to use vinegar and how are you going to remove the lemon seeds from your boiler? Chemicals? - well, most espresso machines utilize some plastic piping of unknown composition, so personally, I wouldn't want to turn my machine into a science experiment. I would use the chemical acids only as a last resort.
You can definitely use those proprietary citric acid based descalers that the espresso machine manufacturers recommend, however the cheapest descaler to buy is citric acid. Citric acid is a naturally occurring fruit acid found in citrus fruits like lemons, grapefruit and oranges. Food grade citric acid can be purchased at health food stores or at winemaking supply stores.
This is not an exact science, so there are no strict guidelines as to how much citric acid to use. I believe that Jim Schulman recommends about 1 - 1.5 tablespoons to every liter (about a quart) of water. All espresso newbies should be forced to read his insanely long water FAQ. Go to google groups and search on the phrase "insanely long water FAQ". I would pay special attention in the FAQ regarding the extra TLC required for the Gaggia machines.
Here is how I would do a routine descale for my Gaggia (controls on other machines may work differently):
The Gaggia recycles wickedly fast, so I would be very careful not to flash steam a boiler full of citric acid! Therefore, I would turn the power switch on, hit the steam switch and immediately hit the brew/pump switch. The trick is to flush out as much scale from the wand as possible without superheating the citric acid solution. I would run the solution through the wand for maybe 10 seconds at a time or so - maybe a bit longer, however, I would not want the temperature ready light to come on! Turn off the steam switch after your purge. Contrary to the FAQ instructions, I think it would not hurt to flush the group a couple times as well. You may as well do a thorough cleaning by removing and cleaning the shower screen before doing this. Let the machine sit for about 20 minutes after each purge and repeat the procedure until the reservoir is just about empty.
Clean out the reservoir, fill with fresh water and flush it through the group and the wand. Don't forget to put back your newly cleaned shower screen. Brew a shot to season the machine and discard. You are set to go for your next brewing session.
Glenn lives and works in Southern Ontario as a senior financial advisor. His passion for coffee and espresso keeps him looking for the better brew. He has been a regular with the CoffeeCrew for several years now.
Goto Chapter Two of the Guide to Espresso Care and Feeding.