Matthew Rowley

Me: MERRY FUCKIN CHRISTMAS TO ME *Shoves face back into pillow* Above a line drawing of a bald man with hands to his face among clouds, a nest of pillows behind him

Insomnia night. ‘Tis the season. Ferociously, monumentally wide awake—a catastrophe of awareness—since 3am. Chasing a few ZZZs when the contractor called to say: no action today.

The table right there is great. I’m envious: I’m forever having to haul books from the library rooms to tables.

I’m considering built-in shelves, floor to ceiling, but with kickplate drawers at the very bottom for flat pieces: posters, broadsides, office supplies, etc.

Sigh. $$$

Ambrose Everett Burnside–arms manufacturer, politician, and Civil War general–whose surname, inverted, gave us the term “sideburns.”

Game, you say? Is ludicrous facial hair a game to you, sir?

Digital versions are…ok. They’ll do in a pinch. Even my own books are available as digital copies— some people prefer those for any number of reasons. But my brain works better with actual, proper, physical books.

I’ll take it. Thank you.

In the height of her acquisition days, my mother was a fiend for buying the entire contents of, say, a butcher shop or a market going out of business. She’d sell most of it, but keep some truly massive equipment. “Would you like a meat slicer?“ she’d ask. Well, yes. But where to park it?

You can’t tell from this photo, I think, but most of those shelves except for the top one are two deep. There’s another side to that office, there’s another room filled. Space is becoming…not a problem, exactly, but an issue.

Oh, I do, too. I just don’t need it.

I’m happy after weeks on the road coming home and having all the clothing options. I do, however, pack clothing that is reaching the end of its life so I can discard it as I travel. Good enough to wear, just not my favorites. Makes room for books. Or new clothes

Everyone Call Ogre STUpID and it TRUE! Ogre barely even Literate! Ogre finally finished reading ULYSSES, As but Ogre only Can identify surface level themes like Religion and Nationalism and ULYSSES Can't Comprehend deeper JAMES SOYCE ideas like the "Remorse of Conscience" that make James Joyce's novel a Modernist Classic! Ogre so dumb, it make Ogre sad! At this vate, Oare will never understand Finnegans Wake!

You’ll get to know me, and you will find that that is true only in a very, very limited sense.

Coming along just fine. Brushed this residue off with a vinyl brush (metal would scratch) and worked out some of the recalcitrant bits with a toothpick. I’ll season them like a cast-iron pan after a vinegar bath to get off a bit of rust.

Man’s hand holding a cast-iron coat hook with worn layers of ancient paint over a faux copper pot

Stripping cast-iron coat hooks from my grandfather‘s workshop.

Spent $4 at a Goodwill store on a pot I didn’t mind getting janky, scattered a handful of baking soda/bicarb in it, poured in boiling water from the kettle, and let them simmer 15 minutes.

Lover Boy @gilineezy Does anyone else pack underwear for a trip like they're planning on shitting themselves twice for every day they're gone?

I always, always overpacked when I was young. I’ve gotten better at understanding how much clothing I will actually, truly wear given where I’m going and what I expect to do there. And schlepp a laptop? Yeesh, took me years to realize almost everything I want to do on a laptop I can do on the iPad.

It was, as gumbos tend to be, very good.

I tend to listen only on long car drives. There’s too much going on at home or in the office for me to pay attention. A few friends listen to 30+ hours a week of podcasts, yet seem no more knowledgeable of the world than if they’d spent the time playing Smash Bros or painting acorns.

12 kilos of luggage total, @kavey.bsky.social? Christ on toast, I can travel lightly when I need to, but I’ve bought that much and more in books alone when traveling internationally.

Most of what I have at the house are culinary books. Cookbooks, but also histories, trade manuals, essays, symposia papers, industry texts, etc. I know what’s in most of them and think of them spatially when recalling certain info. “Oh, that’s in this book halfway through on the upper left side.”

Single panel from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The tiger Hobbes dangles upside down from a rope, munching a sandwich. “We’re kind of stupid that way,” he says.

That does it. I’ll track down a copy. After all, why own a single book on a subject when one can own them all?

Turkey wishbone on a quartzite countertop

Let's get this bone,
an unhinged joint
between appetite and omen,
between juke and jive.

It was a grim discussion. They want to keep doing the work, but understand that they’re going to be underbid by AI-using competitors who won’t have to use location scouts, send crews, spend money on high-end cameras, or charge meals an entertainment while on site.

Had dinner with creative agency folk last week. They do high-end travel film for gov’t agencies. Seemed resigned that if they don’t switch to using AI to generate travel videos, they’ll be out of business in two years. Imagine being in a creative business and never again creating anything.

Lyon, shank with greens, fenugreek, black lime, garbanzo all snugged up on a plate of tahdig. Leila, 30th St, San Diego

Lil tahdig and lamb shank never did any harm.

Well, sure. To the lamb. Obviously, to the lamb.

Pair of German kitchen shears resting on a double-faced 1000/6000 whetstone (King KW65). The stone is on a grubby old kitchen towel. In the background: a blue enamel bowl holding water.

After 25+ years of sporadic odd jobs, my old German kitchen shears had grown dull, lost their lustre, and taken on a blush of rust. Eight minutes and a few licks on Japanese whetstones brought back their sparkle and edge.

As long as the stones are wet, I might as well touch up a few knives.

I have not seen a physical copy, but I’ve read very mixed reviews. It’s on my short list, but I want to get it in my paws before I decide whether it goes on the shelf.

Same here. I have some old/rare/expensive/inscribed fiction as proper, physicsl, but I’m content with most of that as digital. I find cookbooks don’t lend themselves as readily to that kind of reading, so those are all real books. Very…very heavy real books.

I really liked it when I bought it. An American G.I., who had served in Japan sold it to me, along with a naval officer’s katana, for far less than either was worth.

A video showing more of the same.

I have almost certainly reached the halfway point of my life. Maybe a week ago, maybe 30 years ago. But an accretion of these sorts of collections makes me realize I should probably find a home for these.

Curved wooden netsuke in the shape of an octopus

I used to collect netsuke, little Japanese carved toggles. Here’s one in the form of an octopus. I was once about to buy one made of ivory that cost as much as a car when I realized…these serve me no purpose. I like them, sure, but it’s a stretch to say they bring me joy. Never bought another one.

No, not at all the same thing. And it behooves the cook to understand the distinction