No. More like Grape Soda. It’s comfortably fizzy, but not overwhelmingly so. I was worried it might taste like too-old fermented orange juice, but it doesn’t have that twang. Nope, after 48 hours, it’s tasty Grape Soda.
Mainly, I’m glad to have survived the experiment. The box says that if you leave it longer, it will get stronger and drier, so we’ll test that idea and keep you informed.
Halfway to wine
“Dude, you’re making Pruno. That’s what they drink in jail,” he said with a smirk.
I shook my head. “No man, it’s Federweißer. I looked it up in Wikipedia. It’s big in Europe. At least, I think it that’s what it is.”
“Big in European jails, maybe,” he replied.
Make wine in 2 days
That’s the claim of Spike Your Juice. We’re going to find out if it works. For $10 usd, you get an airlock that fits a 64 oz bottle of grape juice, and some packets of the wine yeast.
I bought some Welches Concord Grape, which always seemed to me to be unfinished wine anyway. It has to be 100% juice, and at least 20 grams of (non-corn) sugar per serving. Supposedly, the yeast strain takes 48 hours to make the juice into a fizzy, sweet wine. Waiting longer to refrigerate it increases the alcohol, and makes for a drier wine.
Instant winery. I don’t think I’ll be getting any French Oak overtones from the plastic bottle fermenter. As a longtime beer brewer, I was intrigued about this idea when I first read about Spike Your Juice online.
I notice the box says you must be 21 to purchase, but all I needed was a credit card. Hm. Kids, don’t try this at home. Anyway, will keep you informed of the progress.
A Praying Mantis
Spotted this critter meditating under the porch light this morning.
An eye-catching line from the Wikipedia entry on Mantis behavior: “The reason for sexual cannibalism has been debated.” Really? Apparently, I missed those debates. I wonder how they went, and who argued the pro-cannibalism side?
Bugs meditating. It’s ReallyRedding.
Jonsi in concert
Craig Padilla told me there was going to be an extraordinary video concert simulcast yesterday on NPR, of all places. Jonsi is the lead singer of Sigur Ros, a big favorite of mine. The concert did not disappoint. Hey, it’s still available to see for today only, at the NPR site. Well worth a view. Jonsi integrates art and music in a really different manner. Again like yesterday, its not ReallyRedding, but it is Really Interesting, and in the greater scheme of things, an online concert simulcast has no actual geographic location. The wolf and deer imagery was genuinely spectacular, and the final tune with the storm imagery had me by the throat. Jonsi’s singing is pretty unique. Check it out.
Fascinating Coachella concert video
Okay, so its not Really Redding. Really Coachella instead. Fascinating to watch though. This is a photographic effect with which I’ve experimented previously here. An artificial reduction in depth of field. It makes everything look miniaturized. They’ve combined that effect with a speed manipulation and the resulting concert video is mesmerizing. Check it out.
Coachelletta from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.
Catch and release
Among the memories of my youth, I very fondly recall catching lizards. Their reptilian stares, their colorful and varied skins of beady armor. Although I no longer wield the hand-eye speed I possessed in those magical days of jars and cigar box terrariums, It seems I can still catch an occasional lizard. And still let it go.
This critter is more serpent like.
He or she fades in among the local colors. Adios.
Catch and release lizards. They’re ReallyRedding.
Liu Xiaobo and his prize
I don’t think of ReallyRedding as a political blog. But in fact, every act of written expression is a political act in this world. The recent award of the Nobel Prize to Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo makes this painfully clear.
“The internet is God’s present to China
by Liu Xiaobo
Today there are more than 100 million internet users in China. The Chinese Government is ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, the internet is a tool to make money. On the other, the Communist dictatorship is afraid of freedom of expression.
The internet has brought about the awakening of ideas among the Chinese. This worries the Government, which has placed great importance on blocking the internet to exert ideological control.
In October 1999 I finished three years of jail and returned home. There was a computer there and it seemed that every visiting friend was telling me to use it. I tried a few times but felt that I could not write anything while facing a machine and insisted on writing with a fountain pen. Slowly, under the patient persuasion and guidance of my friends, I got familiar with it and cannot leave it now. As someone who writes for a living, and as someone who participated in the 1989 democracy movement, my gratitude towards the internet cannot be easily expressed.
I really enjoyed the exquisite weather this lovely Fall Redding weekend. I enjoyed the natural beauty, the freedom to travel freely about the Northstate.
I am enjoying the freedom now to write about this controversial subject. Liu Xiaobo is in jail for for 11 years for the crime of trying to enjoy the same basic freedoms we dare not take for granted. His wife is now under house arrest because of his new international recognition. Here are the words of the man who nominated him:
“The courageous men and women who are challenging tyranny in these countries are looking to the governments and leading non-governmental institutions in free countries for assurances that their fate, and the fate of their countries, depends on something more than the bottom line. To fail to challenge the Chinese government on Liu Xiaobo’s imprisonment is to concede this argument internationally, at enormous peril to peaceful advocates of progress and change not just in China but all around the world. “
You can sign a petition demand to free Liu Xiaobo at this link.
Or not.
Either way, you will be making a political statement.
Freedom of expression, the real prize. It’s ReallyRedding.
Saint Michael’s Catholic Church in Shasta Lake City
Here are a few images I took of Saint Michaels Catholic Church in Shasta Lake City yesterday. I found some information about this church at this website. Apparently it’s just over 50 years old, built when this area was called Central Valley.
It’s an appropriate looking architectural structure among the Digger Pines and Manzanita. Aspirational, yet humble. Saint Michael is a complex religious figure in Catholicism, and is shared with several other faiths. He is most often depicted in art with sword, returning to defeat the powers of darkness. Here is a Catholic prayer to Saint Michael:
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen
Amen indeed.
St Mike stands ready to help slay demons, both personal and otherworldly. It’s Really Redding.
Eye of the Storm
Here’s a recording from 15 years ago. Craig Padilla was asked to make a soundtrack for a video to be aired on Redding’s cable access channel. Local video artist Namaste had edited video footage he had taken of stormclouds moving into the valleys and mountains of southeastern Oregon and the Mt Shasta area into a longform video for his abstract series titled Meditate On This. In the studio, Craig came up with a few sequence structures on his ESQ-1, and then we riffed on a few musical ideas together about how it should go. Then we just turned on the (analog) tape recorder. It was played live, one-pass. No edits.
I regarded the piece as a “throwaway” sort of one-off. In fact, I didn’t even listen to it after we recorded it. Later, after a few auditions, the music just seemed to grow on me. It’s spare and stark, like the video imagery, but it was a surprisingly appropriate evocation of the high desert and sky. I don’t have the video, and I think I only saw it once, but the music remains. An artistic and beautiful reminder of an era and an artistic endeavor. Craig ultimately thought highly enough of the music to make it the centerpiece of his first professionally produced CD on the See Peace label in 1996, where it became the title track. BTW. Of the two of us, Craig is far and away the one most responsible for this music. I played some parts, and it definitely wouldn’t be the same without my contributions, but this is truly Craig’s talent and inspiration in full glory. This CD is still in print. The photo is one I took in Lassen Park last year.
Eye of the Storm by SkipMurphy
A time capsule of indigenous music from 20th century Northern California. It’s ReallyRedding.