Tobia Ziklik

Sunday, January 31st, 2010 .:.

Hi Lisa!

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Sunday, January 31st, 2010 .:.

We celebrated last weekend with a trip to Mendocino for the annual Crab Festival. There were many activites taking place, but we were there primariliy for the Crab Cake Cook-Off and Wine Tasting Competition in Fort Bragg.

This year, the cook-off returned to being held in a large tent and the experience was so much better than last year, when we were all crammed into a stuffy community center. I think I ate a dozen and a half crab cakes (Arnon had even more), sampled a dozen different wines, and had a bowl of cioppino (which was not part of the competition).

We agreed that I would vote on behalf of the two of us for best wine (Navarro Vineyards) and Arnon for best crab cakes (North Coast Brewing Company). For the record, I thought the Cliff House team had better crab cakes.

If you haven’t been before, I highly recommend it. The event runs for three hours and during that time you can feast on unlimited crab cakes, cioppino, beer and wine. Plus there’s live entertainment, a silent auction, and lots of freebies. Everyone is so friendly and we meet a lot of cool people there.

Talk to Me of Mendocino

I bid farewell to the state of old New York
My home away from home
In the state of New York I came of age
When first I started roaming
And the trees grow high in New York State
And they shine like gold in the autumn
Never had the blues from whence I came
But in New York State I got ‘em

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait
Must I follow
Won’t you say come with me

And it’s on to South Bend, Indiana
Flat out on the western plain
Rise up over the Rockies
And down on into California
Out to where but the rocks again
And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I’ll rise with it till I rise no more

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait
Must I follow
Won’t you say come with me

On the way to Mendocino, we had to take a detour because landslides closed the road we normally take. I’m glad, though, because otherwise we wouldn’t have picked up a local radio station that was talking about the recently deceased singer Kate McGarrigle (whom I’d never heard of before) and her song from 1975 entitled “Talk to Me of Mendocino.” It’s a beautiful song that Linda Ronstadt later recorded.

The Traitor

Now the Swan it floated on the English river
Ah the Rose of High Romance it opened wide
A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer
and the judges watched us from the other side
I told my mother “Mother I must leave you
preserve my room but do not shed a tear
Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you
it was half my fault and half the atmosphere”

But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever
and the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame
She said at last I was her finest lover
and if she withered I would be to blame

The judges said you missed it by a fraction
rise up and brace your troops for the attack
Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action
Oh see the men of action falling back

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
The poison sank and it paralysed my will

I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
that they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona
I’m listed with the enemies of love

And long ago she said “I must be leaving,
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I’m sleeping
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan”

So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there — I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
and people call me traitor to my face

I was surprised to learn that Kate McGarrigle was the mother of singing siblings Martha and Rufus Wainwright. I’ve been listening to them alot in recent weeks, particularly Martha Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “The Traitor,” which makes my list of top ten songs of all time. I find the lyrics to be absolutely beautiful.

Over the weekend, I fell in love with two paintings I saw on display at Raven’s Restaurant, both by painter Mike Trevillion. I love the simple and serene settings. These photographs do not do justice to the actual paintings.