DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Updates will be sporadic over the coming weeks.

I’ve found myself decreasingly able to provide fresh content for this space. I need a change of mental scenery. The idea that with each passing day, dozens of people visit this page only to see the same thing they read last week, creates simultaneously a desire to write more and an inability to do so well. There have been days when I’ve been inspired by lint… and other days when entire life philosophies come crashing down around me and all I can manage to write about is what my urine smells like.

Not that there’s anything wrong with essays about my urine, of course.

So I have a couple of longer pieces in the works, and a list of topics that await lint-esque inspiration. Anything could happen. It probably just won’t happen every day.

(Source: Harold McGee’s seminal work on food science, On Food And Cooking)

An odd side effect of asparagus has been known for centuries. As the learned Frenchman Dr. Louis Lemery put it in his Treatise of All Sorts of Foods (1702, in a contemporary English translation), “Sparagrass eaten to Excess sharpen the Humours and heat a little, and therefore Persons of a bilious Constitution ought to use them moderately: They cause a filthy and disagreeable Smell in the Urine, as every Body knows.” From 1956 until 1980, it was thought that the excretion of odorous methyl mercaptan after eating asparagus was a dominant genetic trait; if you had the particular gene, you were a “stinker.” But a recent study found that all asparagus eaters excrete methyl mercaptan; it is the ability to detect its odor that varies from person to person.

The Asparagus F.A.Q. describes the characteristic odor as smelling “funny,” which leads me to believe its author is not as skilled in the detection of methyl mercaptan as I am. (Around here, asparagus nights are accompanied by the sound of the bathroom fan.) Regardless, I’m amused that they address the issue at all — I’d bet not many official vegetable websites contain references to urine.

The Blue Man Group recently released their second CD, entitled The Complex. Following are four of the many highlights on the disc. Song titles link to mid-fi MP3 excerpts.

“Sing Along” features Dave Matthews on vocals. The lyric is deceptively simple, yet it makes me think; the Blue Man Group has a knack for packing lots of ideas into few words. Matthews’ performance is a perfect complement to both the lyric and the music. His vocal control allows him to inject the maximum amount of soul into a minimal vocal track.

The MP3 excerpt contains a line of scat singing, which is an inspired accompaniement to a band that’s essentially a percussion ensemble and a song that has few lyrics. That is, rather than sing more words when none are necessary, Matthews uses his voice as an instrument, providing the sound of a vocal without the baggage of text.

In the second half of the excerpt, Matthews takes the concept of instrumental singing a step further as he sings an ascending scale to introduce a harmony vocal part. The brilliant thing is the timing. He’s singing three-over-four (twice), so that the notes come on the e of 1, 2, a of 2, + of 3, e of 4, or in other words, every third 16th note. He starts the pattern one-sixteenth after the downbeat, so it resolves on the downbeat (15 16ths later) when the harmony vocal comes in. This is art!

“Shadows Pt. 2” features Tracy Bonham on vocals. Conceptually, this piece is similar to “Sing Along”; Bonham’s voice takes the part of a string section as she sings a high melody (with no words) above the groove. The second half of the excerpt showcases a surprisingly musical exchange between Rob Swift’s scratching and the Blue Men’s airpoles. I admit I’m a sucker for call-and-response, but even with that bias I think this passage is a lot of fun. I’ll also admit that I didn’t realize I was hearing two musicians playing off of each other until I saw the video (included on the CD), because the two instruments sound similar. It’s all white noise, created by black and Blue men, and it’s exceptionally cool.

“Persona” is a straight-ahead rock tune, with Josh Haden on vocals. The lyrics are simple and haunting, as is characteristic of the album. The tone of Haden’s voice matches the dark mood of the song; the result sticks in memory. It’s a Monday sort of song.

“White Rabbit” is of course a remake of the Jefferson Airplane classic. I believe the Blue Man Group stage show includes a few moments of this song. Hearing this full-band orchestration was shocking, though, because the build into that opening verse is one of the greatest musical passages on the record. This is a song you’ll play loud and repeatedly, assuming you have ears and a pulse.

There is a comedic aspect to a Blue Man performance, and although this is a serious album, in fact a somewhat dark and introspective album, there are moments of light which I won’t overexpose here except to mention that one of the videos on the enhanced CD made me laugh out loud.

All in all this is a rewarding, enjoyable CD. It’s different from their first release (Audio), although if you liked that one you’ll probably like this one too (even if the reverse is not necessarily the case).

See the Amazon link below for additional song samples.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon

Pictured is my favorite spot on the trail to Bullfrog Pond. The 180° wrap-around view reveals nearly no sign of civilization. Within California’s borders are millions of acres of local, state, and national parks; from this perch I can see several thousand of them.

Anyway this is an ideal spot to stop and inhale a processed-food bar.

This is my mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice how “recycle” comes at the end of the chain, implying that it is the least important of the three.

It is better to consume less, because everything you consume puts a strain on the environment: manufacturing, transportation, packaging, etc. For those things you do consume, it’s better to consume them completely than to use them once and then send them to the landfill.

But when all else fails, the minimum thing you can do is recycle. Think about the amount of paper you consume in a day: the morning newspaper, the carton of orange juice, the paper towels and napkins and toilet paper, the insulation ring around the cardboard cup of coffee, the sack your lunch comes in, the Post-Its stuck to your monitor, the stack of magazines and junk mail… You’re awash in paper products, and at the end of the day I bet you’ll have discarded 90% of it. Would you want the paper companies to chop down another tree to create the paper you’ll want tomorrow? Or would you rather someone found a way to reuse the stuff you threw out today?

So, anyway, I recycle just about everything because it makes sense to me to do so. I’m cognizant of the costs of recycling: machines sort the refuse… trucks haul sorted refuse to processing plants… more machines chew up the used paper or plastic or aluminum, etc., into small bits… chemicals are added; fumes are released… Recycling is not the best thing that ever happened to the planet, but considering our lifestyles, recycling is a sensible mechanism for coping with the enormous amounts of waste we produce.

Remember how far we’ve come. Why is it easier to recycle now than it used to be? Maybe it’s because people demanded it. Demand creates an economic force. At some point somebody invented more-efficient ways to recycle, so now it makes economic sense to do so. Now imagine what would happen if twice as many people were recycling their paper, plastic, and aluminum waste. Isn’t it reasonable to believe that new efficiencies would be discovered, costs would be lower, impact on the environment would be reduced?

Today I gave the effort a tiny push. I picked a grocery item that I buy in quantity, and wrote a letter to the manufacturer requesting that they begin using recyclable packaging. The solution may be as simple as stamping the plastic bag with the appropriate resin code.

Next, I wrote a letter to the local warehouse chain — the place that sells probably 75% of the paper towels used in the state — requesting that they carry recycled paper products. This particular effort could have a huge impact, because the store has millions of customers, many of whom would happily pick the greener product if it was convenient.

If you have 120 seconds free, you could help with this effort by sending an email requesting recycled paper products to your local warehouse club:

• Request recycled paper products from Costco
• Request recycled paper products from Sam’s Club
• Request recycled paper products from BJ’s Wholesale