The House of Gordon: Sir Salman Rushdie

What's Brewing in the Brewhouse?

On Deck:
- Batch 046: Black IPA
- Batch 047: Hopburst IPA

Primary Fermenter #1:

- n/a

Primary Fermenter #2:

- n/a

Secondary Fermenter #1:

- Batch 045: Proper Oktoberfest

Secondary Fermenter #2:

- n/a

Secondary Fermenter #3:

- n/a

Bottle-Conditioning:

- Batch 043: British Bitter

- Batch 044: Common Cleveland Steamer

Garage Fridge:

- Batch 030: Saison Dupont clone

- Batch 034: Coffee and Oatmeal for Breakfast

- Batch 037: Dark Mild Ale

- Batch 038: Gordon Original Pilsner

- Batch 039: Booker's Porter

- Batch 040: Spiced Winter Ale

- Batch 041: Farmers' Almanac Maple Porter

- Batch 042: Colonial Amber

Empties:

- Batch 001: South of Cleveland Brown Ale

- Batch 002: Gordon's Irish Red Ale

- Batch 003: Kilt o' the Leprechaun Stout

- Batch 004: Coopers Christmas Ale

- Batch 005: Classic English Pale Ale

- Batch 006: Chocolate Bar Porter

- Batch 007: Diamond Notes Pale Ale

- Batch 008: Schnottzenbrau Alt

- Batch 009: Ram's Bladder Bock

- Batch 010: Double Cardiac IPA

- Batch 011: Pompous Mongrel

- Batch 012: Micawber's Meticulous Mild

- Batch 013: Fresh Hop (2007) Pale Ale

- Batch 014: Carolinian Slightly Smoked Porter

- Batch 015: Gordon Lightfoot Porter

- Batch 016: Joe Jackson Tripel

- Batch 017: Honey Molasses Porter

- Batch 018: Maple Pumpkin Ale

- Batch 019: Apfelwein

- Batch 020: Chocolate-Vanilla Stout

- Batch 021: Razzmatazz Raspberry Ale

- Batch 022: Vintage Hop (2007) Pale Ale

- Batch 023: Obama Inauguration Holiday Ale

- Batch 024: Get In Mah Belly! Scotch Ale

- Batch 025: Centennial Madness

- Batch 026: Canadienne Bière Brassée dans le Garage

- Batch 027: Maple Pumpkin Ale v.2.0

- Batch 028: Bitter, the Appropriate Beer Style

- Batch 029: O'Scharffen Berger Irish Stout

- Batch 031: "The Devil's Bats" Belgian Golden Ale

- Batch 033: Maple Pumpkin Ale v.3.0

- Batch 035: Orange Pale Ale
- Batch 036: Gaius Plinius Secundus

FAIL:

- Batch 032: Blanche de Greensboro witbier

(Dead yeast? No carbonation even after carbonation drops were added to each bottle.)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Sir Salman Rushdie

Yup. You read that correctly.

Author, political critic, and dare I say humorist Sir Salman Rushdie paid a visit to Greensboro last night for the next installment in the Guilford College lecture series: Literature and Politics in the Modern World. Riveting. Fatwa be damned!!!

At one time, novels were one of the main sources for news and information concerning the world around us. Take Charles Dickens. Whether it was reporting on substandard children's orphanages or frankly inventing a lot of Christmas, his novels reported on the state of the world, fomenting change where needed. With the multitude of avenues to receive news nowadays, some say today's novels fall by the wayside and do not provide this service to society anymore. Rushdie says hogwash.

When the state mandates that Item A is the "truth", and an author writes a novel from his/her own perspective and states the TRUE Item B in their book, the author has become a political author.

The differing importance of the Napoleonic Wars to Tolstoy and Austen are interesting. Tolstoy brings a version of the Russian front in War and Peace from his own perspective, virtually bringing to light a worldview of the Russian military leader Kutuzov that stems mainly from the book's exploits versus more timid real-time "newsy" accounts. Jane Austen uses military figures in her romance novels merely as pretty party guests in impeccable attire, nevermind the war of the time that was ravaging. The war did not affect her lifestyle as it did Tolstoy.

The novel is not a mouthpiece of the state, a nation, a religion, a cause. The novel is the perspective of the author alone; the thoughts and vision of the world through the eyes of the author. The novel still has a place in the world for political and newsy topics.

Afterward, I had the privilege to have three books signed by Rushdie. Invigorating. So cool to meet the man. The line was immense and time was short, so no personal photo op with him. But he's caught for posterity signing my books, including the eponymous The Satanic Verses.