Food for the Spirit and the Soul

Time to Stop Horsing Around: Two Wine Recommendations for Christmas Presents

A Painting of Some Joseph Phelps Vineyards

Cinematic propaganda to the contrary, as every astute person knows, the best Christmas gift anyone can receive is not a BB gun, but a pony. If Santa Claus accidentally forgets to bring me a horse this year (as he has for the past thirty years or so), then I hope that he will bring me some good wine, and two bottles from Joseph Phelps Vineyards are right at the top of my Christmas gift wish list.

Most wine lovers know that the 2007 vintage in California was remarkable and that it produced some of the greatest wines in the state’s history. However, it is not as widely appreciated that the 2008 vintage was nearly as good, and as evidence in support of this contention, I offer Joseph Phelps Vineyards 2008 Napa Valley Insignia ($200), the most incredible wine that I have tasted in the past year. Blended from estated-grown Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, and Merlot, 2008 Insignia has seductive dark berry, mocha, and mint aromas that lead to richly complex and beautifully orchestrated flavors that include blueberry, cassis, plum, and sweet oak, with hints of coffee, mineral, and cedar lingering in the background, all of which close in a long, resonant, polished finish.

For many years, I have had the same white wine with my Thanksgiving repast, and this year was no exception, because Joseph Phelps Vineyards 2010 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc ($32), like its predecessors, is one of the most versatile and delectable dinner wines available. This wine’s attractive lemon and tropical fruit aromas precede ripe melon, citrus, and guava flavors that are accompanied by a creamy texture and which find closure in a crisp finish. Joseph Phelps Vineyards 2010 Sauvignon Blanc would perfectly complement most dinners featuring poultry or fish, and it would go equally will with oysters.

If there are people on your holiday gift list who love good wine, I strongly recommend giving them one or both of the Joseph Phelps wines described above. I know that I would certainly be delighted to find them under my Christmas tree, though I would also really (really) like to get a pony this year. Looking over my behavioral ledger for the past twelve months, I find that I have been almost perfectly nice, and I assure everyone that to construe any of my behavior as naughty would be a grievous error most likely caused by either misunderstanding or mistaken identity. It’s enough that I have to contend with an obvious ideological bias on the part of elves, many of whom are clearly afflicted with an anti-equine fanaticism that has influenced Santa to bring me socks and shirts every Christmas instead of a pony. In any event, I remain hopeful that this will be my year, and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Please, please, please . . .

The Scrooging of America

19 December 1843 – Charles Dickens publishes “A Christmas Carol”

While watching the most recent Presidential candidate debate, I suddenly realized how badly I have misjudged Ebenezer Scrooge. It is now clear to me that, far from being a greedy, heartless, exploitative miser, Scrooge is merely a pragmatic businessman competing in the marketplace with his peers, and since he is aggressively vocal in his support of housing for the unemployed (prisons) and jobs for the destitute (workhouses), he is best understood as a “compassionate conservative.” In short, Ebenezer Scrooge was a good Republican, and if you have listened to Bachmann, Paul, Gingrich, Romney, Perry, and Santorum, I’m sure that many of you share my wish that they could all be transported back to mid-nineteenth century London, a time and place more suited to their economic and political humbug.

Ask Dr. Santa: A Christmas Movie

The Founder of the Feast

Dear Dr. Santa: What is your favorite Christmas movie? Ebenzer S

Dear Ebenezer: To get myself into the proper seasonal mood, every Christmas Eve I watch “A Christmas Carol,” starring Alastair Sim. Of course I always run the movie backwards, because Dr. Santa loves a happy ending.

Wes Studi and the Rules of Cinematic Greatness

Wes Studi

Born 17 December 1947 – Wes Studi, a Cherokee actor who has received much-merited praise for his screen portrayals of Native Americans. Studi has appeared in “Dances with Wolves,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Geronimo: An American Legend,” and “Pow-Wow Highway.”

While most of these facts about Studi are well-known, few individuals recall that he was a cast member in one of the few indisputably great movies ever made: “Deep Rising.” I remind everyone that in order to achieve cinematic greatness a film must possess three elements: A devastatingly violent monster, a group of men with a variety of powerful weapons who nevertheless get murdered in graphic ways by aforementioned monster, and a cute Asian babe. These things are all present in “Deep Rising,” and it is therefore great.

And before people start complaining, please understand that I don’t make the cinematic rules, I merely enforce them.

Below – Uma Damon, Bestower of Cinematic Greatness, in “Deep Rising”

Ask Dr. Santa: The Joy of Giving

Dear Dr. Santa: Is it really true that it is better to give than to receive? – “Tiny” Tim Cratchit

Dear Tim: Yes, it is true – but only if kicks and punches are involved. 


Below – The Spirit of Christmas

Prophecies You Can Count On

17 December 1790 – The Aztec calendar stone is discovered in Mexico City. After two centuries of concerted effort, linguists deciphered it just this morning, and they discovered that it offers two dire warnings. First: “Never believe anything the Mayans say about an approaching apocalypse. They are the Chicken Littles of Mesoamerica – always forecasting a cosmic disaster and then, when it doesn’t occur, recalibrating the date. They might as well be doomsday Christians. The world will not be destroyed in 2012, because our Aztec astrologers have determined with unerring accuracy that in every meaningful way it will end on 3 February 1959, since that will be the day the music died.” Second: “Never invest political authority in anyone from Texas, since most of the elected officials in that sorry place have a shockingly weak allegiance to both reality and truth. In fact, we’re considering building a wall along our northern border to keep Texans from sneaking into our country and stealing Aztec jobs.”

Happy Holidays?

The photograph above, taken two days ago by someone calling himself “J.O. Elf,” shows a tank approaching the North Pole. This picture clearly proves that rabidly conservative pundits like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter are right – there actually is a “War On Christmas,” especially since this visual evidence is far more convincing than anything they have offered in support of their claim. And to think that until just now the only way that I would have placed the word “right” and those three names in the same sentence would have been in a line like “In matters relating to culture and politics, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter are far to the right of Benito Mussolini.”

Story and Metastory

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser
Keep that lovely thought in mind today as you go about the business of embellishing your personal narrative, because in some small but important way it is part of a much larger story. And remember this, as well: We can all be better “writers.” In Rukeyser’s words, “All the poems of our lives are not yet made.”

Muriel Rukeyser

“Boy Meets Girl”: Love Story or Mental Illness?

15 December 1973 – The American Psychiatric Association declares that homosexuality is not a form of mental illness. I find it interesting that the Association has never made the same declaration about heterosexuality. Given the multiple calamities associated with heterosexual relationships in the United States, including unhappiness, boredom, adultery, divorce, Sandra Bullock movies, Dr. Phil, and the deranged fantasies that attend Valentine’s Day, I suppose that psychiatrists are reluctant to deny something that is so painfully obvious – namely, that heterosexuals are clearly insane. Perhaps the same crackpots who think it possible to “pray away gay” can be enlisted to help “cure” heterosexuals with a similarly vacuous slogan – something like “don’t date a straight.”

It’s All Been Foretold

Born 14 December 1503 – Nostradamus, alleged French seer and one of the principal darlings of tabloid journalism, along with a few other odd creatures, including the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and Lindsay Lohan.
The so-called “prophecies” of Nostradamus are, of course, utterly baseless, but after every catastrophe that occurs on the planet, someone will find a passage in “Le Propheties” that foretold it. This exercise requires that the person explicating the text and those who consider the interpretation valid must all neglect the inconvenient fact that the same passage had been used countless times on previous occasions for different events. It’s what stupid, lazy people do instead of reading and thinking – rather like being a member the Tea Party, for example, or joining a religious cult, or watching Fox News. However, while it is tempting to ignore the obviously nonsensical Nostradamus prophecies, surveys unfortunately indicate that roughly 20% of “adult” Americans believe that they are credible – and these people vote. I suppose this depressing fact partly explains the otherwise implausible popularity of Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum.