Thread: Ode to a Grape

After planting some Catawba vines here on my 20 acres in SW Missouri,
and searching on the subject to find this delightful ode of Longfellow
(see below), of course I thought to share it with some fellow
afficionados of the vine at alt.food.wine. Alas! it was to no avail,
but true indeed to my impression that there is a disproportionate
degree of (ill-deserved) snobbery afoot amongst such a coterie of
connoisseurs. Well then, thank you very much! Such a snob as I should
find myself right at home here, indeed. But might you say, "ill-
deserved"? Would I suggest that some "deserve" to be snobs, whereas
others do not? Let us just see . . .

I believe that I have found an absolutely lovely little Pinot Noir,
that for no more than $7.49 off the shelf at Wal-Mart, stands up to
most of my highly conceited requirements for a Pinot Noir, which in
the main amounts to less than that Pinot Noir must actually TASTE like
a Pinot Noir, as they make it at even the least of the maisons of
Burgundy. And I have in my time enjoyed some of the biggest and best
of Beaune, let alone other of the fine appellations of the Côte d'Or.
This, which I bring to your attention is a Pinot Noir imported from
Pfaltz Germany by E & J Gallo's Turning Leaf vineyards. Do I hear you
chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? See here . . .

Granted, it is pale and somewhat anemic due to the far northern clime
in which it is grown, but at least, unlike every Pinot from California
that has without exception put pimples on my palette, and left my
uvula (that hangy-down part) cringing, shivering and shrinking in
disgust; this from Turning Leaf, unmistakeably has the taste of the
grape: it does not have utterly ALL the excruciatingly delicate charm
tortured out of it by a cruel and sadistic, sort of S & M indulging
U.C. Davis protocol of wine-making that is all pseudo-science and no
art. Though that is not all of what's wrong with those ambrosial
Burgundy grapes being, in Napa, so crassly debauched by stainless
steel, corrupted by injections of oak extract, adulterated by toxic,
diarrhea producing, flavor destroying dollops of sulfides--but it's
quite enough! Mais Oui! For it is only to make you ask how those
vintners were ever able to make do without the stainless and the
chemicals as for example in Napoleon's day when it is said he so
famously refused to go into battle without so many casks of Chassagne-
Montrachet as he had of gun-powder?

Now, the question as to this snobbery of the vine, of yours and mine,
is this: shall the one be proved to be altogether so "ill-deserved" as
the other? Again, I establish and amplify the character of what has
my nose up at such a tilt, all the more by saying that there is no
such thing as a Pinor Noir from California.

Tell me I'm not the Chief Bull-Moose Snob of the Vine around here, and
I'll eat my brie with a jug of Two Buck Chuck. But my genuine,
imported from Ecuador, Panama hat, I do not bring to the table, thank
you very much.


On Jun 23, 12:36*am, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> CATAWBA WINE
> by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
>
> * * This song of mine
> * * Is a Song of the Vine,
> To be sung by the glowing embers
> * * Of wayside inns,
> * * When the rain begins
> To darken the drear Novembers.
>
> * * It is not a song
> * * Of the Scuppernong,
> From warm Carolinian valleys,
> * * Nor the Isabel
> * * And the Muscadel
> That bask in our garden alleys.
>
> * * Nor the red Mustang,
> * * Whose clusters hang
> O'er the waves of the Colorado,
> * * And the fiery flood
> * * Of whose purple blood
> Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
>
> * * For richest and best
> * * Is the wine of the West,
> That grows by the Beautiful River;
> * * Whose sweet perfume
> * * Fills all the room
> With a benison on the giver.
>
> * * And as hollow trees
> * * Are the haunts of bees,
> For ever going and coming;
> * * So this crystal hive
> * * Is all alive
> With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
>
> * * Very good in its way
> * * Is the Verzenay,
> Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
> * * But Catawba wine
> * * Has a taste more divine,
> More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
>
> * * There grows no vine
> * * By the haunted Rhine,
> By Danube or Guadalquivir,
> * * Nor on island or cape,
> * * That bears such a grape
> As grows by the Beautiful River.
>
> * * Drugged is their juice
> * * For foreign use,
> When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
> * * To rack our brains
> * * With the fever pains,
> That have driven the Old World frantic.
>
> * * To the sewers and sinks
> * * With all such drinks,
> And after them tumble the mixer;
> * * For a poison malign
> * * Is such Borgia wine,
> Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
>
> * * While pure as a spring
> * * Is the wine I sing,
> And to praise it, one needs but name it;
> * * For Catawba wine
> * * Has need of no sign,
> No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
>
> * * And this Song of the Vine,
> * * This greeting of mine,
> The winds and the birds shall deliver
> * * To the Queen of the West,
> * * In her garlands dressed,
> On the banks of the Beautiful River.
> --
--
JM
http://jpdavid.blogspot.com/

On Jun 27, 5:56*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:


> Do I hear you
> chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? *

Now see here, Jerv. I actually got *this* far.

On Jun 27, 6:56*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do I hear you
> chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? *See here . . .

Pish. I like Egervin Egri Bikavér, which is just as cheap.

On Jun 27, 6:44*pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
> On Jun 27, 5:56*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Do I hear you
> > chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? *
>
> Now see here, Jerv. *I actually got *this* far.

Oh, dear. Well, try to visualize "ignorance" as just another synonym
for "wisdom" and you ought to be able to get along just fine.
--
JM http://bobbisoxsnatchers.blogspot.com

On 6/27/2009 5:56 PM, Just Me wrote:
> After planting some Catawba vines here on my 20 acres in SW Missouri,

You silly old dickhead. Who gives a **** what you do or think?

SW Missouri, home of the methlab, the fundamentalist conman and jerkis
the hasbeen, is just the place for you; but don't let them know what a
fey old fart you are.

FTP

On Jun 28, 12:15*am, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 27, 6:44*pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 27, 5:56*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Do I hear you
> > > chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? *
>
> > Now see here, Jerv. *I actually got *this* far.
>
> Oh, dear. *Well, try to visualize "ignorance" as just another synonym
> for "wisdom" and you ought to be able to get along just fine.

Look, I was in awe of purple pimples on your palette
and I think *I* am due credit for recognizing your immense
talent. Anyone can kiss ass, but it is the rare
man who can touch his own butt with his tongue.

On Jun 28, 1:07*am, fittoprint <f...@fy.org> wrote:
> On 6/27/2009 5:56 PM, Just Me wrote:
>
> > After planting some Catawba vines here on my 20 acres in SW Missouri,
>
> You silly old dickhead. Who gives a **** what you do or think?
>
> SW Missouri, home of the methlab, the fundamentalist conman and jerkis
> the hasbeen, is just the place for you; but don't let them know what a
> fey old fart you are.
>
> FTP

There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.

But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.

So now let us see, where were we before the hippy-hoppy boom boxes
drove up in hotrod Hondas gassed and lubed on biofuel of saved up
pimple juice? Ah, yes. Here it is in it's lately revised, more souped
up, super-charged and fuel injected edition . . .

"God damn! But I declare, Have you seen the like?"
--Robt. Hunter/ Jerry Garcia

After planting some Catawba vines here on my 20 acres in SW Missouri,
and searching on the subject to find this delightful ode of Longfellow
(see below), of course I thought to share it with some fellow
afficionados of the vine at alt.food.wine. Alas! it was to no avail,
but true indeed to my impression that there is a disproportionate
degree of (ill-deserved) snobbery afoot amongst such a coterie of
connoisseurs. Well then, thank you very much! Such a snob as I should
find myself right at home here, indeed. But might you say, "ill-
deserved"? Would I suggest that some "deserve" to be snobs, whereas
others do not? Let us just see . . .

I believe that I have found an absolutely lovely little Pinot Noir,
that for no more than $7.49 off the shelf at Wal-Mart, stands up to
most of my highly conceited requirements for a Pinot Noir, which in
the main amounts to no less than that Pinot Noir must actually TASTE
like a Pinot Noir, as they make it at even the least of the maisons of
Burgundy. And I have in my time enjoyed some of the biggest and best
of Beaune, let alone other of the fine appellations of the Côte d'Or.
This, which I bring to your attention is a Pinot Noir imported from
Pfaltz Germany by E & J Gallo's Turning Leaf vineyards. Do I hear you
chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? See here . . .

Granted, it is pale and somewhat anemic due to the far northern clime
in which it is grown, but at least, unlike every Pinot from California
that has without exception put pimples on my palette, and left my
uvula (that hangy-down part) cringing, shivering and shrinking in
disgust; this from Turning Leaf, unmistakeably has the taste of the
grape: it does not have utterly ALL the excruciatingly delicate charm
tortured out of it by a cruel and sadistic, sort of S & M indulging
U.C. Davis protocol of wine-making that is all pseudo-science and no
art. Though that is not all of what's wrong with those ambrosial
Burgundy grapes being, in Napa, so crassly debauched by stainless
steel, corrupted by injections of oak extract, adulterated by toxic,
diarrhea producing, flavor destroying dollops of sulfides--but it's
quite enough! Mais Oui! For it is only to make you ask how those
vintners were ever able to make do without the stainless and the
chemicals as for example in Napoleon's day when it is said he so
famously refused to go into battle without so many casks of Chassagne-
Montrachet as he had of gun-powder?

Now, the question as to this snobbery of the vine, of yours and mine,
is this: shall the one be proved to be altogether so "ill-deserved" as
the other? Again, I establish and amplify the character of what has
my nose up at such a tilt, all the more by saying that there is no
such thing as a Pinor Noir from California.

Tell me I'm not the Chief Bull-Moose Snob of the Vine around here, and
I'll eat my brie with a jug of Two Buck Chuck. But my genuine,
imported from Ecuador, Panama hat, I do not bring to the table, thank
you very much.


On Jun 23, 12:36 am, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> CATAWBA WINE
> by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
>
> This song of mine
> Is a Song of the Vine,
> To be sung by the glowing embers
> Of wayside inns,
> When the rain begins
> To darken the drear Novembers.
>
> It is not a song
> Of the Scuppernong,
> From warm Carolinian valleys,
> Nor the Isabel
> And the Muscadel
> That bask in our garden alleys.
>
> Nor the red Mustang,
> Whose clusters hang
> O'er the waves of the Colorado,
> And the fiery flood
> Of whose purple blood
> Has a dash of Spanish bravado.
>
> For richest and best
> Is the wine of the West,
> That grows by the Beautiful River;
> Whose sweet perfume
> Fills all the room
> With a benison on the giver.
>
> And as hollow trees
> Are the haunts of bees,
> For ever going and coming;
> So this crystal hive
> Is all alive
> With a swarming and buzzing and humming.
>
> Very good in its way
> Is the Verzenay,
> Or the Sillery soft and creamy;
> But Catawba wine
> Has a taste more divine,
> More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.
>
> There grows no vine
> By the haunted Rhine,
> By Danube or Guadalquivir,
> Nor on island or cape,
> That bears such a grape
> As grows by the Beautiful River.
>
> Drugged is their juice
> For foreign use,
> When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,
> To rack our brains
> With the fever pains,
> That have driven the Old World frantic.
>
> To the sewers and sinks
> With all such drinks,
> And after them tumble the mixer;
> For a poison malign
> Is such Borgia wine,
> Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.
>
> While pure as a spring
> Is the wine I sing,
> And to praise it, one needs but name it;
> For Catawba wine
> Has need of no sign,
> No tavern-bush to proclaim it.
>
> And this Song of the Vine,
> This greeting of mine,
> The winds and the birds shall deliver
> To the Queen of the West,
> In her garlands dressed,
> On the banks of the Beautiful River.
> --
--
JM
http://jpdavid.blogspot.com

On Jun 28, 7:26*am, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
> On Jun 28, 12:15*am, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 27, 6:44*pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jun 27, 5:56*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Do I hear you
> > > > chortle and snort in the ignorance of your conceit? *
>
> > > Now see here, Jerv. *I actually got *this* far.
>
> > Oh, dear. *Well, try to visualize "ignorance" as just another synonym
> > for "wisdom" and you ought to be able to get along just fine.
>
> Look, I was in awe of purple pimples on your palette
> and I think *I* am due credit for recognizing your immense
> talent. *Anyone can kiss ass, but it is the rare
> man who can touch his own butt with his tongue.

You are offering lessons? Obviously he is some kind of swami or guru
of the thing. But I'd like to see him come anywhere close to those
yogins of Benares who can actually do extract their own intestines,
entirely from out their buttholes to wash them in the Ganges.

The only thing I don't get is how they would get em turned inside out
to do any good? And how would they get them stuffed back iin?
--
JM http://vignettes-mackie.blogspot.com

On 6/28/2009 2:17 PM, Just Me wrote:
> On Jun 28, 1:07 am, fittoprint<f...@fy.org> wrote:
>> On 6/27/2009 5:56 PM, Just Me wrote:
>>
>>> After planting some Catawba vines here on my 20 acres in SW Missouri,
>> You silly old dickhead. Who gives a **** what you do or think?
>>
>> SW Missouri, home of the methlab, the fundamentalist conman and jerkis
>> the hasbeen, is just the place for you; but don't let them know what a
>> fey old fart you are.
>>
>> FTP
>
> There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
> Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>
> But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
> Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.
>
> So now let us see, where were we before the hippy-hoppy boom boxes
> drove up in hotrod Hondas gassed and lubed on biofuel of saved up
> pimple juice? Ah, yes. Here it is in it's lately revised, more souped
> up, super-charged and fuel injected edition . . .

You're an embarrassment to an entire generation, jerkis. Run on up to
Hornet, wait until dark and then move toward the light.

FTP

On Jun 28, 2:17*pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:



> There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
> Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>
> But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
> Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.

You'll have to admit the man does like his apostrophes.

On Jun 29, 4:13*pm, fittoprint <f...@fy.org> wrote:

> You're an embarrassment to an entire generation, jerkis.

Who is that thing? Or what, or which is it? Is there an Inspector
Clousseau in the house? Speak up! Do your duty! Who can solve the
mystery of this puss puddle oozing in under the door?

> Run on up to
> Hornet, wait until dark and then move toward the light.

WTF was that? It was like something that went scampering by on three
legs in the night.

Where the hell is the House Detective when you need one--and how many
damn times do you have to bang on the desk clerk's bell?

Jesus jumping . . . I mean it's like some scene out of Lolita, here.
It's Humbert Humbert sitting out on the verandah very pleasantly
minding his own business, when from out of nowhere, it's that same
anonymous stalker creep that turns up every now and again, only to
reveal yet another of his many faces, and yet it is always really
somehow the same as this, of the common garden variety hotel lobby
"deviated prevert"--if a literary allusion may be indulged.

CLUE: It is clearly some otherwise commonly known, semi-regular MW
denizen.

RIDDLE: Where does he filch it, this "Fit to Print" nym? Check it
out . . .

http://whosenose.blogspot.com
--
JM

On 6/29/2009 10:56 PM, Stratum101 wrote:
> On Jun 28, 2:17 pm, Just Me<jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
>> Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>>
>> But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
>> Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.
>
> You'll have to admit the man does like his apostrophes.
>

That went right over the old fart's head. It's typical.

FTP

On Jun 29, 10:56 pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
> On Jun 28, 2:17 pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
> > Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>
> > But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
> > Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.
>
> You'll have to admit the man does like his apostrophes.

Presuming that one would not know the difference between the
possessive "its" and the contractive "it's"? Is that your
presumption? Like so many things in this life, just because we know
what is right or merely correct, doesn't mean we will always do and
act accordingly.

See Iran, surrounded on two sides by the U.S. military, and while we
know it would be right to do something about the hell those valiant
souls are suffering as they strive to do right--nevertheless, we do
nothing; we don't do right. We let them be beaten, imprisoned and
murdered. We know what's right, but we do not do right.

So who are you to talk preposterously--of apostrophes? Think! Think
of the difference it would make for those daring Iranians if the U.S.
and Britain were to do no more than simply drive up to those borders
and camp without so much as firing a shot. Think of the pressure it
would take off those people being brutalized inside.

What a pack of despicable cowards this human race is comprised of, by
and large, that whenever there is a rare show of human valor anywhere,
the whole world goes screaming in terror the other way--telling
themselves lies about how brave and right they are for what they don't
do.

How I hate being marooned on this Planet of Apes generally being
referred to otherwise as "the human race". And I was just thinking,
only yesterday and today of what a mistake of nature Man is. Why,
very Nature herself must be counted suspect for allowing such a
defective mutation of an otherwise healthy primate gene pool, as once
this planet had before Man came along.

Oh, it's certainly the truth. And it is certainly absurd so much as
it is a fact, that Nature should finally evolve a creature that unlike
all the rest of creation, has built right into its genetic ****, not
only the capacity for, but the inevitable destiny to destroy the very
Nature that gave rise to him. What a mistake of nature, is Man.
--
JM http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://jesusexegesis.blogspot.com
http://mackiemesser.zoomshare.com

On Jun 29, 11:28*pm, fittoprint <f...@fy.org> wrote:
> On 6/29/2009 10:56 PM, Stratum101 wrote:
>
> > On Jun 28, 2:17 pm, Just Me<jpd...@gmail.com> *wrote:
>
> >> There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
> >> Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>
> >> But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
> >> Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.
>
> > You'll have to admit the man does like his apostrophes.
>
> That went right over the old fart's head. It's typical.
>
> FTP

Just something about the tone in that--know what I mean? It's like
something spoken between nibbles on a stalk of wheat, or whittles on a
stick, or spittles spewn to the snouse can. It is not the voice of an
educated man. And there would be nothing too sad or way bad about
that, given that he had sufficient native intelligence and virtue to
be a man about it, that he should recognize in all healthy humility,
that he only makes himself appear far more ignorant than he is, as he
puts on his silly competitive show of pretending to be more
knowledgable than the knowledgable, till he even winds up trying to
teach his ignorance as knowledge!

That is a very ignorant person of little virtue talking there. Either
you own the virtue to see it, or . . .

Hah. You agree with it. No?

God, I love living in such a world full of fools. Who the hell needs
Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges when you've got nearly all of
Humanity to keep you in stitches--if not the gas chambers?
--
JM
http://jesusexegesis.blogspot.com
http://mackiemesser.zoomshare.com

On Jun 30, 12:15*am, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 29, 10:56 pm, Stratum101 <j.coll...@cross-comp.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 28, 2:17 pm, Just Me <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > There it is, sure as road-kill, ants at the picnic, the Video
> > > Professor and Erectile Dysfunction.
>
> > > But that shapeless, formless mass must have it's say, sure as every
> > > Mexican hairless chihuahua has it's day.
>
> > You'll have to admit the man does like his apostrophes.
>
> Presuming that one would not know the difference between the
> possessive "its" and the contractive "it's"? *Is that your
> presumption?

Well, yes actually.

> [long rant]