Camp Stoves

Approaching the checkout counter at the supermarket today, I realized suddenly that every item in my cart had a bar code. That's a rare event, but there's a simple explanation: we're going camping in the BWCA soon. Thus, my cart was full of things like M&Ms, raisins, spice drops, dried soup mix, powdered milk, freeze-dried peanuts, Quaker Oats Old-Fashioned granola, and a huge resealable bag of Asian hot-pepper cracker snacks. Non-perishables, I think they're called.  No meat, no produce.

Man, it's going to be fun.

I also stopped at Hoigaard's to pick up a new butane fuel canister,  and it got me to thinking about camp-stove technology. I'd like to announce that a revolution has taken place in that field, but if so, it has passed me by. All the stoves I've owned have been the same. Fuel spurts out, gets lit, and burns.

The oldest stove we have I never used. It looks like a glorified cigarette case, though in its day I'll bet it was the coveted possession of a small and privileged group of elite Alpine  trekkers.

The first stove we actually bought wasn't bad, except for the fact that the fuel canisters were only good for about one and a half meals. Before long, this unit vanished from the market. Maybe I bought the last one. (I still have it!)

For a while we tried to get excited about the Whisper-Light from Mountain Science Research. Ever popular with backpackers, this stove has the advantage of functioning with a wide variety of liquid fuels. This can be handy when you're in the habit of flying into places like Albuquerque and Reno, bringing your camping gear with.  They don't like pressurized fuel canisters on airplanes, for some reason, and it's a drag hunting down a sporting goods store to buy some fuel before heading off into the desert. Finding fuel for this little number is easier. Trouble is, it's the kind of stove you have to prime first, letting a trickle of fuel dribble into the pan and then lighting it with a   match. That's a real bother.

We thought we had a winner with the MSR Super-fly, a unit no bigger than my fist that could be threaded onto a butane canister. The problem with that one was that the collar holding the stove in place above the threads often popped over the bead, breaking  the connection to the fuel. When the stove did hold its position, the connection was so tenuous that the cooking pot teetered back and forth above the flame, threatening at any moment to crash off the burner into the dirt. (You can see it leaning in the photo below)

A few years ago I went to REI to see about fixing my Super-fly, and the salesman said, "Oh, you have one of those? They're horrible. Why not get the newer version with tight threads and no need for a collar?" Good idea.

I love my new Super-fly. It's sturdier, heats things faster,  and uses less fuel.

Yet for car camping, the one-burner Coleman stove remains Old Reliable. Too big for a canoe trip, but you can get the fuel canisters at any hardware store, cheap. I think they're make out of cast iron.

***

There was a time when traveling in the BWCA involved a route. Nowadays, for us, it merely involves a lake. You go in, you camp for a few days, and then you come back out. Sometimes the biggest issue isn't even which lake, but which aspect. Do you want to be on the east or the west shore? In the midst of islands or staring across an expanse?

Though they don't mention it in the Boy Scout manual, perhaps the most crucial issue is which books to bring. They have to be small, light, and wide-ranging in subject matter. Here's what I've got lined up for the upcoming trip: A Book of English Essays for good-natured  browsing; Little Misunderstandings of No Importance by Antonio Tabucchi for fiction; The Rig Veda for poetry; and a weather-beaten copy of Ernst Cassirer's An Essay on Man to stimulate thought. You can open that book to any page and hit upon a singular judgment to ponder while you watch the water-beetles scurry by.

Shall I put that theory to the test? OK. On page 112 Cassirer writes: "Parmenides declared that we cannot separate being and thought, for they are one and the same."

That is a very stupid notion. It's easy to separate being and thought ... Or is it? Well, thought requires differentiation. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything to think about. But you can think about history, which has no being. But ... Oh, did you hear that loon?

Bastille Day Revolutions

Bastille Day is the finest international holiday, and the fact that we can turn it into pretty much whatever we want to exemplifies what we're celebrating—unbridled personal exuberance and creativity—while the holiday's French overtones insure that the end result is something a little more than just another lazy day at the beach.

Hilary and I had planned to play tennis and then watch the World Cup consolation match between England and Belgium, but it was a sparkling morning and by 7:30 we were on our bikes peddling downtown to wander the Walker's arty new sculpture garden.

There was dew on the wildflowers—bee balm, vervain, purple clover. It's only a mile or two from Cedar Lake to the sculpture garden, and soon enough we were wandering inside a brick tower dedicated to St. Lawrence, the patron saint of librarians. The Basilica of St. Mary loomed pleasantly in the distance, exuding a Franco-American Beaux Arts elegance that none of the sculptures in the garden possess. But why should they? Today we have a giant blue chicken and an even larger cherry on a spoon to draw inspiration from.

Be that as it may, the garden is a nice place to wander. But a trip across Hennepin Avenue to Loring Park returns us to a richer past. There's a lake, a bridge ... and the gardens have flowers. We biked our way around the park to the Dunn Brothers Coffee on the south side and picked out a chocolate-filled  pastry to eat on a bench with our take-out coffee au lait. It wasn't pain au chocolat but it was in the vicinity.  

Winding back through the central garden we came upon an old colleague, Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology and Institute on the Environment. He lives nearby and is on the board of the Friends of Loring Park.

"The garden looks pretty good," I said.

"Yes, but there are two dead trees over there in the central hub." I hadn't noticed.

They were having an all-volunteer Saturday morning garden clean-up. (We would have volunteered ourselves, but we had other fish to fry.)

"You've got a Zen-like job for yourself," I said to one of the volunteers.

"Haven't I, though," he said, trying to crack a smile.

Then it was downtown to the Local to see how the match between Belgium and England was going. The English coach had been quoted as saying, "Who wants to play for third place?" But one thing about the athletes themselves is that they don't like to LOSE.

Considering that Nicollet Mall has been under construction for the past two years, it didn't look all that different to me.

We traversed the mall to Washington Avenue, then on to the Guthrie Theater on the spur of the moment to check out the prospects for rush seats to West Side Story.

I'm glad we headed down that way because, although the ticket prospects were nil, the Saturday Mill City Farmers' Market was in full swing right next door. I talked to the authors of a new book about mushrooms at their booth sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society: "What about pheasant-back mushrooms?" I said.

"Delicious, and unmistakable," they replied.

At the booth next door I sampled some ginger-lime marmalade, and told the vendor I'd had some Smucker's Orange Marmalade on toast for breakfast, in honor of Bastille Day. He smiled, but I had the feeling he was not impressed. The marmalades he was offering were $12 a jar. But it's that kind of market. One woman was selling big bags of flax seed. We bought a few pastries at the Salty Tart booth and listened to a solo cellist trying to buck to animated conversations and the urban breezes.

Our ride back to Cedar Lake was uneventful. There were fewer cyclists, though they tended to pass in large groups--Saturday cycling clubs, no doubt.

We got home just in time to see the recap of Belgium's win over England. Then it was off again to St. Anthony Main to see a French film called Á Voix Haute. It's one of many films about disadvantaged kids being inspired by talented teachers to fulfill their potential, but in this case the kids are already in college, and the skills they're trying to develop are oratorical. One is from Syria, several are from Africa, one walks twelve miles a day from a small town to attend classes. The kids are diverse but uniformly earnest and likable. And there are lessons to be learned about what makes an argument sound or a word or a phrase effective. It choked me up on more than a few occasions.

But Bastille Day would not be complete without some food and wine. Nez Pas? On our way home from the theater we stopped at Surdyk's and picked up some Camembert, a slice of country paté, and a baguette, then sat on the deck with Ravel's piano music wafting out from the stereo through the screen door: Miroir, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Gaspar de la Nuit. I can no longer tell them apart.

I had opened a bottle of cheap white Burgundy, and a copy of Cubist Poets of Paris was sitting on the table beside us. 

The windows of my poetry are wide open
on the boulevards and in the shop windows
Shine     
The precious stones of light
Listen to the violins of the limousines and the
xylophones of the linotypes
The sketcher washes with the hand-towel of the sky
All is color spots
And the hats of the women passing by
are comets in the conflagration of the evening...

World Cup Runneth Over

One definition of the game of soccer goes like this: a bunch of men run around in shorts kicking a ball for ninety minutes, and then Germany wins.

Not this year. In the group stage Germany, who won the tournament four years ago, was stunned by Mexico 1-0, and eked  out a 2-1 victory over Sweden on a masterful free kick that ended the game, seemingly righting its wobbly ship. A few days later, however, it suffered a devastating 2-0 defeat to lowly South Korea, a team ranked 57th in the world whose hopes of advancing in the tournament had already been obliterated.

Why, you might ask, was South Korea even included among the 32 teams in the draw?  Because, although many of the world's best teams come from a few regions, for purposes of the tourney the entire world is divided into regions, each of which is given a certain number of slots to fill. That's why they call it the world cup. (It's sort of sweet, don't you think?)

Argentina, the other finalist from four years ago, fared only slightly better than Germany. After enduring a humiliating 1-1 tie with tiny Iceland and a crushing 3-0 defeat to Croatia, it crawled into the knockout rounds by means of a 2-1 victory over Nigeria. 

For many American soccer fans, it came as a great relief that the United States failed to make the tournament entirely, being edged out by Panama and Costa Rica during the regional qualifiers. There was no chance that they'd win it, and their absence allowed the announcers to avoid spending precious time discussing what the U.S. was doing wrong and what they'd have to do better to make the knock-out stage.

It also gave Volkswagen the opportunity to come up with some cute ads advising Americans which foreign teams to root for instead.

When played on the highest level, soccer can be a game of great artistry, vicious brutality, and absurd theatricality. The World Cup is not the highest level...but it's very good indeed, and all of those qualities are on display. After all, many of the stars of the European leagues are there, though they're playing with countrymen with whom they've shared a practice pitch only intermittently during the previous few years. Yet the concomitant rustiness is more than compensated for among fans by the passion aroused by nationalistic sentiments and the preciousness of a once-every-four-years tournament that many nations think they have a chance to win.

And these many nations are probably right. Even when played on the highest level, soccer is often a game of flukes. Let's get real. Deflecting a ball arriving at 100 miles an hour off the top of your head or the shank of your foot into a carefully guarded goal, on the fly, more than occasionally involves an element of luck. The fickle judgment of the referee also plays an important part in the result of many matches. He has the power, by calling fouls inside or near the box, to essentially award goals to either side. Or not.

Yet the actual results of World Cup tournaments have not varied all that much since WWII. Here are the winners: Uruguay, West Germany, Brazil, Brazil, England, Brazil, West Germany, Argentina, West Germany, Brazil, France, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Germany. Considering that more than two-hundred nations participate, that's a very small pool of winners. 

Among those still on their feet this year as we move into the knock-out rounds are Brazil, Spain, England, France, and Uruguay.

Matters of winning and losing aside, what everyone who watches the World Cup wants to see is a beautiful goal. Yet goals are so few and far between that whenever someone actually scores, an element of genuine disbelief is involved. What? It went in? That's amazing!

It's a beautiful emotion, something like finding a present under the Christmas tree ... in June.

Two of the three top stars in the world—Portugal's Renaldo and Argentina's Lionel Messi— were ousted during the first day of knock-outs. Brazil's Neynar, shadowed by his old pal Coutinho, continues his run to redeem Brazil from a devastating 7-1 lost to Germany in the semi-finals four years ago. In fact, Brazil's roster is packed with players that any follower of the Europeans leagues (where most of the world's "talent" plays) would be familiar with. With Germany out, Brazil is the clear armchair favorite.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a genuine soccer fan. I've watched quite a few matches in the last two weeks, ignorant of the subtleties that distinguish a brilliant defensive play from a flagrant foul,  mesmerized by the run of play, usually cheering for the underdog but appreciative of any combination that ends with a ball in the back of the net.

I wouldn't mind seeing Sweden win ... though there's little chance of that. I'd be pleased to see scrappy Uruguay, with Suarez and Cavani up front, knock off Brazil. A trophy run by Mexico would be amazing. Nineteen-year-old Mbappe has given life to a young and talented French squad.

Or why not Belgium? When was the last time Belgium won anything?