Sunday literary supplement

I've been on an early 20th century American Lit. kick for the last couple of years. Two years in fact. I say that because two years ago I picked up John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath for the first time since I was in High School. Man, to read that masterpiece as a 40-something who's reading it because he wants to instead of reading it as a 17-year-old who has to puts a whole new spin on that novel, let me tell you. Reading it with a couple of years under my belt and with a far more practiced understanding of what loss means enhances it further. If you haven't read it in a while or if you've never read it, do yourself a favor and pick up that book.

Anyhow, from Grapes of Wrath I moved onto East of Eden, another masterpiece.

From there the rest of Steinbeck's life work filled my nightstand and overflowed onto the floor. I spent the next year-and-a-half reading everything the man ever wrote. I seemed to have stumbled upon a mid-life literary project and I finished his last book, Travels with Charlie over the summer. I feel like I know the man John Steinbeck as much as I know his work now. That feels good. 

A highlight of that whole exercise was taking Once There Was A War with me to Italy last spring. John Steinbeck was a war correspondent during World War II and he accompanied The Allies' invasion of Italy. To read about his experiences on the Isle of Capri while I was actually on the Isle of Capri still makes the hair on my arms stand up. I made it a point to seek out the places along the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi Coast he mentioned. There aren't any markers but Steinbeck did a great job of describing where he was and it was pretty, pretty cool to retrace the path of one of the greatest literary minds this country's ever produced.

I took this photo from the balcony of the hotel where Steinbeck and a bunch of soldiers were housed on Capri in 1943.

Anyhow, finishing up his work left a pretty big hole and I've been searching for a new literary pursuit. I think I found it in Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, from 1922. Despite my previous incarnation as an English Major, I'd never read it before. I'm glad I picked it up. In an election season where passions are running high and the economy's tanking, it's interesting to read a novel set in 1920 when there was an election approaching, passions were running high and the economy was tanking.  Babbitt could have been written yesterday. George Will from the Washington Post mentioned Babbitt in one of his columns a couple of weeks ago and I bought the book based on his column. I don't find myself agreeing with Mr. Will very often, but I always respect his mind. At least so far as reading material goes, Mr. Will knows what he's talking about.

Lewis introduces his archetypal main character on the first page:

His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.

Like I said, it could have been written yesterday. So it looks like I'm on a Sinclair Lewis kick 'til further notice. Next up? Elmer Gantry of course.

Read this woman's blog

Kelly Morisseau is a Northern California-based CMKBD (Certified Master Kitchen and Bath Designer) and CID (Certified Interior Designer) and she writes a blog Kitchen Sync. I've been reading for the last couple of weeks. Kelly's been in the business for 25 years and she has quite a bit to say. Her blog is chock full of great advice, good humor and her valuable, expert opinion. Give it a peruse. She even answers her readers' design questions. Well, I would too except that no one ever asks me any...

Find Kelly's blog here.

Saturday ha ha ha

This story from the Onion sent me into paroxysms of glee yesterday. Thank you Paul Krugman for pointing it out.

WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."

"Natural" my butt

This is iron in its natural state.

But if I melt it down and mix it with the carbon I get from super heating limestone it will become something else. So can I still say that this house is being framed with natural iron framing material?

This is wood in it's natural state.

If I chop up wood into small pieces and mix it with a polymer adhesive, can I still call this natural wood substrate?

If I called steel "natural iron framing" or if I said that particle board were natural wood anything people would say I didn't know what I'm talking about. Right?

This is quartz in its natural state.

If I chop up that quartz, dye it and then add a petroleum-derived polymer to it I can still call it a "Natural Quartz."  Right?

Huh? Well according to most of the manufacturers of the product above I can. Silestone actually has it as part of the name of their product. "Silestone Natural Quartz,"  they call it. But it isn't just Silestone. The whole industry uses that term in an attempt to muddy the water and leave people with the impression that Quartz counters come out of the ground. Or that they're sustainable. After all, they're natural, right? 

In Europe, that product is referred to as composite. I like that better. So composite it will be from now on.

Composite is a counter material that I like. Though I cannot stand how its marketed. I like Caesarstone above all of them, and that's due in a large part to the fact that they shy away from the whole natural thing. But c'mon already. Things have names and names are important. There is an objective truth out there and marketing be damned.

I went to a seminar sponsored by the father of all lies, DuPont, a couple of years ago. DuPont makes a composite product called Zodiaq and this seminar was one of my continuing education things that designers are supposed to go to from time to time. There were about 20 of us and as we filed into the conference room, some DuPont lackey handed each of us a black velvet bag with a quartz crystal inside. They were acting as if they were giving each of us the Hope Diamond or something.

Anyhow, the kids in the marketing department had been working over time to come up with the content of this seminar. The web of deception spun by those people was incredible. The party line is that DuPont has a very special and secret quartz mine in Canada where they harvest crystals like the ones we'd been given. Once harvested, those perfect crystals are lovingly and magically turned into Zodiaq brand Natural Quartz counters. There may be other brands out there, they whispered, but none of them have a special and secret mine in Canada.

Spare me.

Here's how quartz comes out of the earth. Quartz is the most common mineral found in the earth's crust. It forms alongside other ores and until people started making composite counters with it, it was considered to be waste and used as landfill.

Quartz and other waste stone aggregates are what composite counters are made from. Not magically obtained and transformed quartz crystals.

That certainly doesn't make them inferior or bad. In fact, I think it's a testament to human intelligence and ingenuity that someone figured out a way to make something beautiful out of a waste product. It's a clever reuse and in bringing it to market, composite developers and manufacturers created a whole new category of counter material and that's a pretty cool thing.

Next time, I'll say nice things about quartz. Stay tuned.

Sometimes, "granite" isn't granite at all

This is Absolute Black. It is always labeled and sold as granite but it isn't granite. It's a mineral called gabbro.

When magma gets trapped in a single layer underneath the earth's crust, it will gradually cool and form gabbro. Now if the same material were to be pushed up from below under great pressure, it would form granite. But then again, if that magma were to come in contact with water it would turn instantly into basalt. Are you still following me here? Gabbro, granite and basalt are essentially the same material in different forms. In order to form granite, magma needs a good hard squeeze so its component materials can separate and form large crystals. If magma cools very quickly upon contact with air or water, it will form basalt. And if magma is left alone for a couple million years it will form gabbro.

Why is this important? Well, it's important because those three phases of former magma have different properties. Basalt is the most brittle of the three which is why it doesn't get used as counter top material. Most granites are strong enough to be sliced into 3cm sheets without too much trouble. But gabbro, due to its uniform crystal size and density is stronger than granite. This means that it can handle longer, unsupported overhangs --like on a bar. It can be carved into more ornate edge treatments and since it's so uniform, it is more water resistant. Absolute black is a great stone to make into a sink, whereas you wouldn't want to use most granites for that purpose.

The downside to it (if it's truly a downside) is that it's always black or very nearly black. Chances are good that if you're looking at a uniformly black or very dark grey granite, you're not looking at a piece of granite at all, but rather a piece of gabbro.

Now, due to that uniform crystal size and density, gabbro can be shined up to a mirror-like surface and that's where the problem with it is as it's ordinarily used comes in. It is impossible to keep clean if it's being used as a kitchen counter when it has that mirror finish. I have never heard of someone who had it and liked it. But the problem isn't the material, it's the finish. It will show every finger print, water spot, smear and smudge. It would drive me insane.

Here's a slab of absolute black with a honed finish. The honed finish tones down the black quite a bit, and in so doing, it eliminates the mirror effect.

Here's a whole kitchen done in honed Absolute Black. It's a much calmer counter than the shot at the top of this post, wouldn't you say?

Now, because true Absolute Black "Granite" is a premium, a lot of less-than-honorable stone suppliers will take a less-expensive predominantly black granite and call it Absolute Black because most people can't tell the difference.

Sometimes; similar, dishonorable suppliers will actually dye inexpensive granite with black pigments and sell it as more expensive Absolute Black.

Not that I'd know any of these less-than-honorable business people personally...

Anyhow, if you're in the market for absolute black, make sure that what you're buying is just that. If it looks like this, it ain't absolute black.

And as a completely unrelated yet completely cool side note, the paving stones on the streets of Pompeii are gabbro.

Sometimes I just love geology. Even if the only person I fascinate with this stuff is me.