Sync Chrome City Sensorium: Best of 2009

Taste: cinnamon laced with cloves and topped with sugared walnuts; hazelnut cream, spiced cherry compote, a maple syrup drenched corn waffle; champagne cranberry-ginger — breakfast at Cafe Flora; dry mead by Sky River Brewing, tart and bittersweet, honey wine with Golden Delicious apples; apple pie and black butte porter, sweet yeast and hops and butter and cinnamon; A vampire (Cape Cod plus Chambord): vodka, cranberry juice, lime, black raspberry liquor; plum and honey, crushed plums squeezed into juice dripping into honey: mead with juice, a braggot; carrot dip with harissa, a North African hot red sauce or paste made from chili peppers and garlic, often with coriander and caraway or cumin; the sour patch kids taste like Swedish fish, the plain strawberries taste sugared, the dill pickles taste sweet, there's no hint of alcohol in the absinthe, and the lime and the salt and vinegar potato chips crackle with an electric, intolerable saccharine: the effects of miraculin a protein from a West African berry; at Balefire, a flight of red wine flavors that run down to the back of the throat and change there: fruity, smooth on the lips and tongue acidic in the throat, fruity on the lips and tongue complex and many flavored in the throat-Furion Cellars in Everett, 2006 Wicces Basium (witches kiss), Syrah, "a soft dark kiss of pleasure and flavor on the lips"; St. Germaine's Elderberry Liqueur in champagne with huckleberries, an Inaugural Toast, with Optimism Cake, maple flavored truffle and chocolate ganache
Sight: broken dance shoes; a rock jaguar; a window in a cave looking out to rock teeth, to rainforest; a jeweler's lens, a loupe; a sun-drenched brown bear, t-shirts: "Metaphors be with you.", "My Marxist Feminist Dialetic Brings All the Boys to the Yard"; the cubed amethyst colored glass looking up at a city street from inside a Steampunk-esque underground Seattle bar where the Can Can Castaways perform
Touch: screaming toes; windblown staggering; gritty guava; alkaline soil, hipbone; a loose strap, a skinned knee, a caught breath; rocking chair, camel riding, waves: the liquid body; her plush cheeks and brow, a pink, powdery softness; the softness — down, bunny fur, silk — of her head is her super power; legs sore: stomping, jumping; neck sore: headbanging; pelvis sore: rough sex and music; featherweight Kindle2, disappearing, touch-less, technology
Sound: Om: shanti, shanti, shanti; Om: peace, peace, peace; he is singing underwater; Dr. Paul Farmer's last words if bitten by a poisonous beetle: "Where's the antidote?" (delivery) and "What about other people?"; Can we cure drug resistant TB? Farmer: "If we can put a man on the moon, I can't believe that's an insuperable problem."; Cruxshadows, "Birthday"; sputtering gasps, humpback whales breeching; ""The Wrong Side," Abney Park; A guitar strums, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," giggling; a mantra of preventative medicine: "orange, okra, kiwi, red pepper, apple, cucumber, tomato, avocado, zucchini, blueberries, strawberries, green pepper, raspberries, butternut squash, pumpkin, blackberries, mangoes, eggplant, pear, watermelon, cranberries, acorn squash, papaya, grapefruit, peach"; Ecclesiastes 7:3-5 "It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die and it is a good thing to think about it while there is still time. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. Yes, a wise man thinks much of death, while the fool thinks only of having a good time now."; Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, on NPR's This I Believe: Health Is A Human Right, "Of course such a world is a utopia, and most of us know that we live in a dystopia. But all of us carry somewhere within us the belief that moving away from dystopia moves us towards something better and more humane."; "...the sibilance of satin cuffs brushing past embroidered coat skirts." — "A Musical Interlude," Suzy McKee Charnas; assonance: plait, saint; onomatopoeia: snorfed — Carol Guess reads from Tinderbox Lawn
Smell: putrescine, the organic chemical compound NH2(CH2)4NH2 (1,4-diaminobutane or butanediamine); cadaverine (similar to putrescine) a toxic diamine (NH2(CH2)5NH2) 1,5-pentanediamine and pentamethylenediamine; dankness
Extra: Jaguar Gods—xibalba (shebalba) — place of fright; bejeweled octopus tentacles; a reclining Buddha; "live long enough to live forever"; a fierce warrior of love; "Rachel in Love," by Pat Murphy; Plato, the last page of Critias, "They bore their vast wealth of gold and other possessions without difficulty, treating them as if they were a burden. They did not become intoxicated with the luxury of the life their wealth made possible; they did not lose their self-control and slip into decline, but in their sober judgment they could see distinctly that even their very wealth increased with their amity and its companion, virtue. But they saw that both wealth and concord decline as possessions become pursued and honored. And virtue perishes with them as well."