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Ghosts of War, Then and Now Composite Photos of World War II

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One of these days I'll have the fortitude to last through more than two attempts at following/experimenting with this dry martini technique:

via themanhattansproject:

Next up; the more sophisticated old school gin cocktail; the dry martini, often abused and never perfected. Careful instructions to be followed precisely, please.

Take a pint glass/boston tin/vintage martini vessel and fill it with ice. Let it rest so the ice is wet.

While that rests, polish your martini glass, pop a pinch of salt in the bottom, and fill with crushed ice and soda (or just water). The salt is there to help it get even colder, and to give a tiny lift to the gin flavours later.

Strain off any water that’s collected in your mixing glass and add a decent splash of dry vermouth. I use Noilly Pratt, but Martini or Lillet are perfectly acceptable substitutes. Stir this and make sure all the ice cubes get a good coating of vermouth.

Strain off all the liquid if you’re making a Montgomery martini, or throw the ice away if you want a Churchill (and replace with fresh ice). If it’s a ‘normally’ dry martini you’re after, leave a couple of teaspoons of liquid at the bottom. We’ll talk more about dryness shortly.

If you like it dirty, add a couple of teaspoons of your olive brine at this point.

Add 2-3 measures of your favourite gin; again, I’ve used the Blackwoods 60 here, but really anything above 42% is good. Gin at 37.5% is just juniper vodka, so avoid that unless you’re cooking salmon in it. With the 60% gin, you’re going to stir it for about twice as long.

Stir with your hand on the glass or tin until it is uncomfortably cold to hold on. This is probably about 30 stirs.

Throw out the ice and water from your glass, and strain the martini into the glass. Garnish with an olive or a lemon twist, to taste.

Relax, enjoy, and drink it *fast*. Martinis should be ice cold the whole way through or they quickly become hard work. Cold is your friend here; it gives the drink a lovely silky mouthfeel and most importantly means the distribution of gin and water isn’t even. The reason we avoid gin below 42% is because all the different botanicals (flavours) express themselves at different strengths between rough 42 and 38%; below that point, it really is just overpowering with juniper. So you’re actually trying to create something quite unlikely and difficult with a martini; stirred enough to be integrated, cold enough to maintain some viscosity, and at the perfect range of strengths that you taste every flavour in the gin in each mouthful. Done right, it’s transcendent, and done wrong it’s worse than paraffin.

What’s that? You don’t know what I meant by dryness above? Confusingly, this refers to how little dry vermouth you add; a more dry martini has *less* vermouth in it. Churchill used to be happy for the sun to have shone through his vermouth bottle onto the gin bottle, which is why his martini has effectively no vermouth. The Montgomery martini is the next step up, with about a 1/15 ratio of vermouth to gin (the amount of soldiers Field Marshall Montgomery lost compared to his enemies!), and for most people, about 10/1 is about right. You can even make it wet, leaving in enough vermouth for a 6/1 ratio.

Experiment with your martini; try different gins and different dryness…it’s an impossible drink to perfect, but well worth striving for.

#Gin #martini #cocktail #xl

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Chicken bibimbap with turnip, shiitake, broccoli rabe, & nori (Taken with Instagram)

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Gunbae! (Taken with Instagram)

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Having my joyful beer time! (Taken with Instagram)

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Robin & new Bat family member Bat-Cow, after a bad slaughterhouse experience (from post-"New 52" Batman Incorporated #1)

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My biggest regrets of the 80s were that I wasn't in my early 20s, British, and behind a synthesizer.

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Music is also contingent. The part of a song that is ‘‘musical’’ is totally up for grabs, and changes from society to society and age to age. The European tradition has tended to elevate melody, so we think of ‘‘writing a song’’ as ‘‘writing the melody.’’ Afro-Caribbean traditions stress rhythms, especially complex polyrhythms. To grossly oversimplify, a traditional European song with a different beat (but the same melody) can still be the same song. A traditional Afro-Caribbean song with a different melody (but the same rhythm) can still be the same song. The law of music – written by Europeans and people of European descent – recognizes strong claims to authorship for the melodist, but not the drummer. Conveniently (for businesses run in large part by Europeans and people of European descent), this has meant that the part of the music that Europeans value can’t be legally sampled or re-used without permission, but the part of the music characteristic of Afro-Caribbean performers can be treated as mere infrastructure by ‘‘white’’ acts. To be more blunt: the Beatles can take black American music’s rock-n-roll rhythms without permission, but DJ Danger Mouse can’t take the Beatles’ melodies from the White Album to make the illegal hiphop classic The Grey Album.

from Cory Doctorow's Music: The Internet’s Original Sin

Theft & Ownership of music - how is a song identified, by its beat or melody?

#music #law #theft

[rikaru]

I need this for my batmans.

Mini Batman Bat-Signal

[rikaru]

Little Boots mix tape from last month: Jubilee Disco Perfect summer sounds - it feels like a roller disco. A *sexy* roller disco. The best track so far, other than the opener (Little Boots' "Headphones") is the latest Ladyhawke single, "Sunday Drive". Especially the transition from that to Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgettin'" by way of Vanessa Williams' "Running Back to You" at the 23min mark. http://soundcloud.com/littleboots/jubileediscomix

[rikaru]

That's it. This video has sealed it. This is my official song of the summer: Charli XCX - You're the One.

Every pop star needs a gang of tough little girls backing them up. Not sure what the headlamps are for, but I wouldn't mess with them.

#music #video #Charli XCX

[rikaru]

So glad pop music is finally exploring glitch and witch house styles (at least visually, if not in the music itself).

Charli XCX - Nuclear Seasons [OFFICIAL VIDEO] (by officialcharlixcx,)

Directed by Ryan Andrews Video effects by http://www.crim3s.co.uk

#music #witch house #pop #glitch #video

[rikaru]

This is how you do stripped down pop songs, Mr. Bieber.

EP out in the US on NOW

https://www.facebook.com/charlixcxmusic https://twitter.com/charli_xcx http://charlixcxmusic.com

#music

[rikaru]

Smileboom’s Petit Computer, that neat DSiWare app that lets you code games right in your own handheld, is coming to North America this summer thanks to Go Series publisher Gamebridge, bless their hearts.

Some of you might remember us writing about this before, noting how users have re-created classics like Tiny Trek and After Burner with the BASIC programming app. This is the mkII edition that came out in Japan in February with new features like voice synthesis, SD Card saving, and QR code sharing for your games.

It probably won’t be as approachable as WarioWare DIY when it comes to making your own video game snapshots, but it’s perfect for making an epic RPG starring Tiny.

Buy: Nintendo 3DS XL Red or Blue,  Nintendo 3DS Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more   See also: Why the '8-Bit Summer' gives me home for the eShop

#game development

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Not sure which I like better, the lyrics, the flow, or the beats: Angel Haze - New York http://soundcloud.com/anoraklondon/angel-haze-new-york

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It’s as if punk had been reinvented for women ... I remember going to punk shows when I was 13, slam-dancing, stage-diving. It was a kind of reckless abandon, something you really couldn’t stop yourself from doing. If the girls weren’t just outright afraid of being in there, there was somebody literally shoving them out of the way. Now it’s exactly what was happening when I was young, but in reverse: the girls literally push the dudes right out of the middle. It’s just pure empowerment, physical aggression that’s not spiteful or vicious. I think it’s no accident that the slang term for a gay kid in New Orleans is ‘punk.’ It’s pretty rewarding.

DJ Rusty Lazer, talking about Bounce (specifically the bounce music performed by Big Freedia) in the NYT

#bounce #punk #music