pygmy has really made some great CDs for me. I was listening to another to and from the Arboretum yesterday, and it was great.
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/es/Images/2003.04/Arboretum/Arb_CapitolColumns.JPG
I'd wondered a little bit why there is this row of columns on a hill at the Arboretum, and I finally went to see them up close and read the signs- they used to stand in front of the US Capitol until 1958, when they changed the building.
I went to the Smithsonian art museums today. On the metro, I read some of The Book of Classic American Whiskeys by Mark Waymack and James Harris. I learned a lot about how American history is intertwined with alcohol. One of the 3 major taxes by England that caused the Revolutionary War and the creation of the US was the Molasses Act. See, Americans hadn't really developed whiskey yet and mostly were drinking rum from the Caribbean. They figured out that instead of paying for the rum, they could import molasses and make it cheaper. The English wanted to stop the import of it from non-English islands and created the tax. (This caused the odd practice of smugglers to hide their molasses from British sailors whilst carrying perfectly-legal slaves out in the open.)
By the time the US had declared independence, one of the first major threats to the existence of the US government was the frontier whiskey makers. The Whiskey Rebellion was a revolt by some gunmen against federal taxmen. (It was not as unreasonable as you might think; most frontiersmen had no money to pay the tax, as most people in the area existed purely by bartering.) It took Washington personally marching an army of 15,000 men to western Pennsylvania to end the violence.
This was not the only time established government was challenged by frontiersmen. The area that now makes up Tennessee used to be part of North Carolina; a group of men (many of whom were distillers) lead by Revolutionary officer John Sevier declared the land the sovereign state of Franklin, separate from US rule. The North Carolina government, unable to do much about this, turned the land over to the US, who declared the area as the US state of Tennessee but made Sevier the governor.
...and why is bourbon called bourbon? Most of the area we now call Kentucky was merely a big, sparsely-populated "county" at the end of the Revolution, and France was extremely popular in the south for helping with the war through the final battles down there (how times have changed). So the future-Kentucky-area became Bourbon County from the French royal name. The area eventually shrunk, and the Bourbon County that exists now in Kentucky has never actually produced any whiskey.
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/es/Images/2003.04/Arboretum/Arb_CapitolColumns.JPG
I'd wondered a little bit why there is this row of columns on a hill at the Arboretum, and I finally went to see them up close and read the signs- they used to stand in front of the US Capitol until 1958, when they changed the building.
I went to the Smithsonian art museums today. On the metro, I read some of The Book of Classic American Whiskeys by Mark Waymack and James Harris. I learned a lot about how American history is intertwined with alcohol. One of the 3 major taxes by England that caused the Revolutionary War and the creation of the US was the Molasses Act. See, Americans hadn't really developed whiskey yet and mostly were drinking rum from the Caribbean. They figured out that instead of paying for the rum, they could import molasses and make it cheaper. The English wanted to stop the import of it from non-English islands and created the tax. (This caused the odd practice of smugglers to hide their molasses from British sailors whilst carrying perfectly-legal slaves out in the open.)
By the time the US had declared independence, one of the first major threats to the existence of the US government was the frontier whiskey makers. The Whiskey Rebellion was a revolt by some gunmen against federal taxmen. (It was not as unreasonable as you might think; most frontiersmen had no money to pay the tax, as most people in the area existed purely by bartering.) It took Washington personally marching an army of 15,000 men to western Pennsylvania to end the violence.
This was not the only time established government was challenged by frontiersmen. The area that now makes up Tennessee used to be part of North Carolina; a group of men (many of whom were distillers) lead by Revolutionary officer John Sevier declared the land the sovereign state of Franklin, separate from US rule. The North Carolina government, unable to do much about this, turned the land over to the US, who declared the area as the US state of Tennessee but made Sevier the governor.
...and why is bourbon called bourbon? Most of the area we now call Kentucky was merely a big, sparsely-populated "county" at the end of the Revolution, and France was extremely popular in the south for helping with the war through the final battles down there (how times have changed). So the future-Kentucky-area became Bourbon County from the French royal name. The area eventually shrunk, and the Bourbon County that exists now in Kentucky has never actually produced any whiskey.
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bredoteau:
I really liked PP. I just didn't understand why everyone was so hung up on the supposed satire and Kimberly's puppeteering ways. What I found most interesting was the fact that they waited until the last minute to show what truly was going on beneath the surface of this alpha female. I found the last scene to be really, really moving. The NY Times called the last minute confusing, but for me, it really made the thing. In fact, I know people like the Kimberly character.
bredoteau:
Oh yeah, forgot to add: 2046 is the new one from Wong Kar Wai. It's kind of like the prequel to In the Mood for Love. Saraband is the new one from Bergman, and it is kind of like the sequel to Scenes from a Marriage. Exciting shit!