DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

One of my favorite bands, Camel, is relatively obscure, at least compared to Britney Shania Mariah Lavigne Aguilera, which is a big fucking crime when you stop to think about it.

Anyway, Camel’s landmark 1974 release Mirage, which I’ve mentioned before because its (arguably) best song is the last one on the album, contains a track that was inspired by the writing of Tolkien. The song title is “Nimrodel/The Procession/The White Rider.”

Led Zeppelin is another band that found inspiration in Tolkien. I got to thinking that there must be dozens of artists who have written songs in this vein. And I got to thinking that maybe I should compile a list.

This being the Web, somebody already has. Google being Google, finding the list took 0.19 seconds. Here it is: The Tolkien Music List.

The purpose of this site is to provide an exhaustive discography of musical works inspired by or referential to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth (the world of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion).

The influence of Tolkien’s mythology on art and popular culture is far-reaching, and music is no exception. Thus far, a total of 759 artists (boasting over a thousand musical works) have been documented and assembled on this list.

759 artists?! I’m glad I didn’t start the list. I couldn’t sustain my interest in the topic for 759 artists. I’m having trouble sustaining my interest even long enough to finish this article. I hope you’re doing better than I am.

I skimmed through the 759 artists. How many had I heard of? Were there unremembered, hidden pockets of Middle Earth in my CD collection?

About a dozen of the bands were familiar, at least in name. Many of the rest seem to be obscure — and I don’t mean “obscure” in the sense that Camel is obscure, but obscure in the sense that JAR is obscure, i.e., some of those bands would seem to have about as many fans as JAR did, which at last count was 10.

I found two surprises: Rush and Styx. How did I not think of Rush? I have nearly their entire discography on my shelf and I never made the connection.

Two bands surprised me by not appearing in the list: Genesis and Marillion. Marillion is an odd exception, in that they named the band after a Tolkien book, but managed not to write any songs about it.

My recipe for multigrain sourdough is a variation on a recipe from Artisan Baking. (I generally pattern my recipes after something known, so I don’t have to guess at the amount of salt. I could calculate it at 2-2.75% of the flour weight, but my kitchen scale isn’t accurate enough to weight such small amounts of salt.)

The original recipe is for Kalamata Olive Bread, contributed to Glezer’s book by Thom Leonard of the Lawrence/Kansas City area. I’ve made these basic changes:

• Doubled the recipe.
• Increased the amount of starter within the recipe by 50% (reducing other ingredients to compensate).
• Omitted the olives.

To succeed with this recipe, you’ll need several tools, many of which are listed in my pizza tools article: a mixer, parchment paper, a pizza stone, and a peel. Also, you’ll need:

• KitchenAid grain mill. Attach this to your mixer to custom-grind your own grains. This is essential for making wholegrain breads, because it allows you to vary the coarseness of the whole grain.
• A steam pan — an old pie plate or cookie sheet that you can throw boiling water into to create steam in the oven during the bake. The temperature changes will warp this pan over time, so you should not use your nice new nonstick bakeware.
• Two round brotforms, 9 to 10 inches in diameter.
• A kitchen scale, to weigh flour. (Compaction and humitidy affect flour volume, so it’s safest to measure by weight.)

The following recipe is more of a guideline for intermediate to advanced bakers. I’ve provided the general process; you’ll have to apply your own experience to judge proper hydration, timing, and handling.

Days 1 and 2

• Refresh your sourdough starter, leaving it at room temperature between feedings. This recipe calls for a firm starter in the French style. The process for creating and maintaining such a starter is well-documented in Artisan Baking.

  I refresh my starter at least 3 times, preferably 4, before beginning the breadmaking process. I wait 8-12 hours between refreshments. I blend the flours used for refreshments, mixing about one-third whole-wheat with two-thirds unbleached white.

Day 3, morning

• Refresh the starter one last time. You’ll need 75g for the bread and 10g more to keep the starter going, so you should make sure the refreshed starter weighs at least 85g.

Day 3, afternoon/evening

• Chop 75g of the starter into small pieces. Dump them into 1.5 cups lukewarm tap water. Let the dough bits soak for a few minutes to soften. Then stir in 345g of mixed wheat flours. I use half to two-thirds high-protein unbleached white bread flour, such as Giusto’s Organic Ultimate Performer, and one-third to half whole wheat flour. Stir well, making sure to smash and combine all the lumps of starter. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter overnight (12-16 hours).
• Measure 440g of spelt berries and 60g of rye berries. (Feel free to adjust this ratio, or incorporate wheat berries or whatever is on hand. You’ll need 500g total.) Pass the berries through the grain mill, grinding them to your desired coarseness. Combine with 1.75 - 2 cups water; stir to mix. All the grain must be wet. This is especially important if you used a course grind, because you don’t want under-hydrated berries in the bread.
  Pictured are the soaker (foreground) and starter (background), 12 hours after mixing. Note how the starter has risen. The soaker, of course, will not rise.

Day 4, morning

• Briefly combine the starter, the soaker, and 445g flour (primarily or entirely high-protein bread flour), plus up to 100g of other dry ingredients (rolled oats, oat bran, wheat germ, ground flax seeds, cooked brown rice, semolina, etc.). Add water only if necessary. The total grain weight should be 1290 - 1400g.
• Let the loosely-mixed ingredients stand for 10 minutes while you clean up the kitchen.
• Add 2T salt to the dough and mix with the dough hook on slow speed for 7-10 minutes total. Drizzle water into the bowl if the salt isn’t getting mixed in. Also, pull the dough out of the mixer and fold it by hand a few times to ensure that the salt gets mixed in thoroughly.
• When the dough feels right (yes, you have to judge for yourself), pull it into a tight ball and transfer to an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 4 hours.
• Turn out the dough carefully, split it in two, and form each into a tight ball (without deflating). Prepare the brotforms by liberally coating with brown rice flour. Set one dough ball into each form, cover loosely with plastic wrap, then a clean kitchen towel, and then a plate. Let rise for 3-6 hours (depending on temperature).
• One hour before you estimate the dough will be ready, put the stone and steam pan in the oven and heat to 500°F-550°F.
• My bread is usually under-risen at this point, but I need to bake it anyway because dinner guests are already getting dressed. You can see how small the risen dough looks in the form. Baking at this point ensures a great oven spring, but the finished bread will be smaller and denser than if the dough was given time (and/or temperature) to complete its rise.
• Boil water. You’ll need it to make steam in the oven.
• Flip one loaf out of its basket onto a piece of parchment paper. To do this, lay the parchment across the top of the brotform. Hold the form in your hands, thumbs underneath and fingers on the rim holding the parchment against the rim. Carefully flip the assembly upside-down. If you have used enough brown rice flour in the form, the dough will drop out of the form without prodding.
• Scrape some of the excess rice flour off the dough with a razor or brush (but take care not to deflate the dough). Score the raw loaf with a razor. You can use a tic-tac-toe pattern, a spiral, or an asterisk.
• Use the peel to transfer the dough onto the hot pizza stone, and immediately dump a half-cup of boiling water into the steam pan. Apply steam again in 30-60 seconds.
• After 10-15 minutes, reduce heat to 425°F, and spin the loaf front-to-back.
• Bake until the crust is deep golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when thumped.
• When the first loaf comes out of the oven, re-heat the oven to 500-550°F. Give it 10 minutes to come up to temperature, then bake the second loaf.
• Let the loaves cool for 45-60 minutes before slicing.

If you’ve baked your bread before it was fully risen, and if you’ve scored it deeply enough with the razor, you’ll get a big oven spring. As pictured, the loaf may even spring out of round. This is a sure sign that the dough could have been given more time (or a warmer place) to rise.

The crumb on a mixed-grain bread, especially a bread with such a high percentage of home-ground whole grain, tends to be tighter than what you’d get from a bread made of refined flours. Pictured is a typical result. The irregular hole pattern is characteristic of breads leavened with wild yeasts, and occurs here even though the rough grain pieces prevent the holes from being too big.

Thanks to C-SPAN, I heard and watched part of Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 committee on Friday. It was an intellectual battle. People on both sides of the issue feigned cordiality, but once the questions and answers got rolling it became apparent where the hostilities lay.

BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, Dr. Rice.
RICE: Good morning.
BEN-VENISTE: Nice to see you again.
RICE: Nice to see you.

I think it’s safe to say both Ben-Veniste and Rice were lying. Within a few minutes, the questioning became tense.

BEN-VENISTE: Did you tell the president, at any time prior to August 6th, of the existence of Al Qaeda cells in the United States?
RICE: First, let me just make certain…
BEN-VENISTE: If you could just answer that question, because I only have a very limited…
RICE: I understand, Commissioner, but it’s important…
BEN-VENISTE: Did you tell the president…
RICE: … that I also address…
(APPLAUSE)
It’s also important that, Commissioner, that I address the other issues that you have raised. So I will do it quickly, but if you’ll just give me a moment.
BEN-VENISTE: Well, my only question to you is whether you…
RICE: I understand, Commissioner, but I will…
BEN-VENISTE: … told the president.

And within two minutes, Ben-Veniste forced Rice to reveal the classified name of a classified document that Rice and Bush would prefer had never been made public. Rice wanted to elaborate, to diminish the impact of the damning title, but Ben-Veniste wanted to stop her.

BEN-VENISTE: Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Now, the…
BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.
RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste…
BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the…
RICE: I would like to finish my point here.
BEN-VENISTE: I didn’t know there was a point.
RICE: Given that — you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.

The spin on this document is remarkable. The title of the document is a smoking gun, but the contents are a lot less interesting.

If you want to accuse the Bush Administration of not being prepared for a terrorist attack, this document serves as clear evidence: four weeks prior to 9/11 Bush received a briefing document titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” What more evidence would you need? The Guardian took this approach in a piece unambiguously called, Bush given hijack alert before 9/11

Fox News took (to no one’s surprise) a different approach. They focused on the Bush Administration’s official stance, in a story called Bush: Terror Memo Lacked Specifics. This story contains the damning PDB title, but it’s stuffed down in the 4th-last paragraph.

The news media is not impartial. Simply compare the headlines above.

To some degree, news consumers gravitate toward media sources that are compatible with their own views. Others consume whatever is convenient.

I’m not immune, of course. I read the SF Chronicle because it’s local, and because its coverage of political issues seems balanced — a sure sign that it’s not.

I don’t read Fox because I usually read the news at breakfast, and reading Foxnews.com often makes me ill.

Fortunately, in the case of this specific Presidential Daily Brief, the entire text has been made public, so everyone can make up their own minds about whether its warnings were “actionable.”

Actor Billy Bob Thornton and two others from the cast of The Alamo went out for celebratory tattoos. There was a mishap.

So I went to a tattoo parlour in Austin. I took Kevin Page, who plays my right hand man, Micajah Autry, and another actor, Robert Prentice. And Kevin kind of became the Charlie Brown of the group because the guy messed up one of the letters on his. He was showing us the tattoo and it says ‘Rememler the Alamo.’ The rest of the shoot, we’d say things like, ‘Hey, is your birthday in Septemler?’

I can imagine getting a tattoo. But I can’t imagine getting one with a typo. That has to suck.

This panorama of San Francisco was assembled from 14 photographs, taken from the shore of Treasure Island last weekend. I wanted to capture the entire skyline, from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was an overcast and somewhat gloomy day; the original pictures turned out dismally flat. I stitched them as-is, then corrected the resulting panorama.

The large number of input images made the assembly difficult. ArcServ’s PanoramaMaker 2000 could not cope with the task. A newer version (PanoramaMaker 3) fared better, but still crashed during output — just after saving the TIFF, fortunately, given that the assembly and tweaking took an hour. The TIFF measured 63 MB.

An aggressive curve correction in Lab mode restored color, removed much of the haze, and corrected the red cast that is annoyingly typical of my CoolPix 995. At this point, the image seems too blue and too dark, but not offensively so.

The biggest problem is that it’s much too wide to be of any use — nearly 9:1. If I were to print it three feet wide, it would be about as tall as a postcard. At a height suitable for mounting, it would span a wall (and cost a fortune).