Hello. This is my first post. For years I've been wanting to join a book club... but who has the time? For years, I've been wanting a good night's sleep... and apparently there's a lot of time to stay up late, tossing and turning, going into work bleary-eyed and grumpy. So anyway, last week the news saved me! After reading that red wine contained melatonin, I decided to put that into the grocery cart and pair it with a book of the week.
This is actually week three of the experiment and it's working great! The wine gets me off of the computer, onto the book and onward to bed at a decent hour. The first two weeks, I read poetry, a little history, but now I'm onto a book of short stories by Phillip Dick: Minority Report. I generally read lit fiction and don't like the sci fi writers, but when I flipped through a few pages of this short story collection, I knew I could work with it.
The first short story was Minority Report... yeah, right the same one as the movie with Tom Cruise. I liked the movie better... but it was fun to read the lingo: precrime, time-circles, time path, intersystem transports. Makes you think about our level of technology, the way we organize our societies.
I paired it with a red wine from Australia. A Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon. It was inexpensive and quite nice. The label said it had a hint of oak. I'm still searching for the oak. I got a bit of acorn, but no oak. Oh well... but it accented the story, helped to make the 42 pages flow into one. I was especially pleased that the robust taste, warm glow helped to camoflauge the occaisonal clumsy sentence construction such as... "Smiling with forced aimiablility..." Hey don't try that at home, folks! Also the wine obscured the occasional use of superfluous adverbs such as "Shakily, Anderton lit his pipe."
The story was a thriller and this was an interesting interaction... the brain processing the fast-paced plot and the brain processing the slow ooze of melatonin, flavonoids and a glug glug of tannins. The whiz-whoa was a beautiful combo and the next morning I went into work well-rested. The End.
Cabernet posted on Aug 18, 2006
| views: 225
Comments
-
silverwhisper said on Aug 19, 2006....
cabernet: i loved that line about getting acorn, not oak! :>
so wait, how's this book club thing work?
ed
-
Cabernet said on Aug 19, 2006....
heh, I was thinking about that last night, after I signed off... When I post I might put up the next week selection... and then again, maybe I'll take suggestions. My main goal with this club is to read what's on my shelf, but if I get a suggestion and I can find it, that would be great! I think I'll be finished with the Phillip Dick stories this weekend, so I'll be looking for something else... I'll look around the house and will see if I have something that everybody can get to... Hey thanks for the interest in the book club! I figured I'd have to get my friends over here....
-
silverwhisper said on Aug 19, 2006....
my interests are diverse and wide-ranging, but certainly do include literature of all stripes. :>
ed
-
secretlife said on Aug 30, 2006....
ok, so i'm laughing over the acorn remark.
that's really funny!
I'm not a wine drinker, I laugh about the descriptions of the tastes....i mean, when was the last time you tasted oak or acorns for that matter?
Red wine makes me sleepy......
I like the idea of the book club too!
-
Cabernet said on Aug 30, 2006....
Hey Secretlife! Nice to meet ya!
heh, I've never been a wine drinker either. This is a total experiment. I've been having probs with insomnia and after reading how good white wine is for you, I decided to drink a little bit... and pair it with the book. It gets me off of the computer and into the book, so even though I'm not that into the taste, I thought I'd give it a go.
Just yap along with me if you want to read something. Sadly I'm obsessed with Phillip Dick lately, but I'm going to try to broaden my horizons... er... somehow...
-
secretlife said on Aug 30, 2006....
my father read about all the health benefits of drinking red wine, so he would drink 2 glasses every single night.
I'd buy it for him for gifts since he went thru tons of it.
He liked the cheap stuff.
If you spent more than $10 on a bottle we knew not to tell him because it would spoil the taste immediately!
I'm reading this total 'junk' book now "Natural Selection" by Dave Freedman. It's about the biological discovery of a previously unknown predatory species that is being forced out of it's undersea world and into ours.
It's touted as a 'great beach read', so you know just how much thought I'm putting into it.
Sometimes you just gotta read for entertainment!
Anyway, nice to meet you!
-
Frlncwrtr said on Aug 31, 2006....
Cabernet:
I wanted to check out your posts so I started with the first one. I hadn’t realized that you also were new here. Welcome to Soulcast!
I happy to hear that your little experiment is working great! Thank God for red wine and melatonin. Where did you read about that?
I haven’t seen the movie or read the book, Minority Report, and at this point I know that I won’t be seeing the movie since Tom Cruise is in it.
I’m glad to see that the acorn is working for you. That was funny! It should be inexpensive if they are going to leave the oak out of it!
From the sound of your last paragraph, it seems that you have found the perfect combo. Good luck, I hope it keeps working.
-
Cabernet said on Aug 31, 2006....
Hi SecretLife!
Heh, I like your father! I totally get his wine philosophy! My father (he's passed away) loved his whiskey and just drank wine for my sister's benefit, who is/was a real wine drinker. She has to have dry red wine and can't handle anything cheap... and my father hated dry and loved blush Chablis... well, anything that started with blush. He started buying his wine at a gas station. Ha!
The book sounds interesting! I love beach reads! That's why I'm enjoying Phillip Dick. I like reads of varying intensities... you just can't live on lit fiction alone, you know?
Although I may have to give up PD temporarily due to nightmares lol. Ooh I had a doozy the other night!
-
Cabernet said on Aug 31, 2006....
thanks for the welcome Frincwriter! Yep, I'm enjoying Soulcast. Some nights instead of reading, I just go and read blogs of various people.
The news about red wine and melatonin has been on a few blogs lately. I go to several health and fitness blogs... about once a week, and after reading here and there, I decided to take the idea for a spin. It's really working for me. I seem to feel a lot better... mainly because the wine relaxes me and the book tires me out. My house creaks a lot at night and I had a mouse a few months ago, so my sleep has suffered lol. But... now I don't care--ha!
Ew, Tom Cruise. I almost didn't see Minority Report because of him. I wouldn't today. I am so sick of him and am hoping that his latest demotion will get him out of the news for a few years. He's moved into Howard Hughes/Michael Jackson territory.
Thanks for stopping by!
-
Frlncwrtr said on Sep 02, 2006....
Cabernet:
You are welcome! I’m glad that you’re enjoying Soulcast.
I might have to give the melatonin/wine combo a try. I’m glad it is working for you. As long as you don’t care, the mouse won’t bother you. hahaha
I hope you are right about Tom Cruise, I’m so sick of seeing his face and listening to his bullshit!
Comment on "A Combo of Sci Fi and Red Wine"
Related Posts:
wishyouwerehere
posted 6 days ago
| views: 90
|
I am drowning my sorrows in a bowl full of kid's cereal - Cookie Crisp, dinner of champions. I could have easily made a case for eating cookies for dinner, but at least this way I can pretend to have eaten real food.What I'd like to know is... read entire post
pickersplock
posted 1 day ago
| views: 41
|
Or does Aaron Neville.................. read entire post
uniquely-ironic
posted about 12 hours ago
| views: 2126
|
Last night Sweetie and I drove to San Jose to have dinner with my niece.... read entire post