jaw@ames.UUCP (James A. Woods) (05/20/86)
# "I rather like bad wine -- one can get so tired of good wine." -- Disraeli
# From: kjd@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Kevin Dunlap)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: What has happened to 4.3 BSD??
Date: 15 Apr 86 18:29:37 GMT
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
4.3bsd it's like harvest time in California wine country.
The grapes shouldn't be picked until the exact time they have reached
their peak level for making a fine wine.
Soon, before Atlanta USENIX -Kevin
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Date: 4 May 86 14:49:09 pdt
From: ames!aurora!jaw (James A. Woods)
To: yquem!mouton!sif
Stu,
Your tasting notes of late March were mouthwatering, as expected.
Grand olde champagne, madeira, mosel, and bordeaux -- the stuff of life
alright, and a deserving first fit component of the wine/women/song
triumvirate.
This boy may never be able to sample such legends, but he has had fun
with his California collection. Buffy and I just returned from a Ch. St. Jean
tasting, nicely complementing a birthday presentation to her of what is now
her very own source of ionizing radiation, a sherbet orange / hot pink neon
cocktail glass (from Acme neon and sign repair). It goes perfectly under the
Goines Ravenswood silkscreen.
There's nothing atypical to report about the tasting, other than that
master Richard Arrowood has plenty of new winetech toys to play with, courtesy
of takeover sugar daddy Suntory, with surprisingly no expectation of output
volume increase. The deal, like the original Thompson 12-page shell,
was a peach. Among the chardonnay barrel samples, the Robt. Young was in
it's usual state of splendor, with no detectable structural flaws (quite
similar to the Kernighan 'ed'). Whether or not I'd want to save this one ten
years is up for debate -- I'm of the fine-in-its-time school of chardonnay,
and not of the "it'll save up for decade, just as long as you realize it'll fall
apart 10 minutes after opening" contingent (these people probably go for emacs).
The Belle Terre was pleasant enough, but the Frank Johnson I have doubts
about, just as 'prep' never caught on. We were all taken with the unfamiliar
'84 pinot blanc, whose concept is as clever and refreshing as the Morris salted
password scheme. I do believe this will go a ways down the line, not that
dealing with the grape requires the heroic proportions of, say, each new McIlroy
'spell' filter. (Thumbing our nose at the 64K boundary with Bloom filtering,
only to follow with compressed sparse hashing, amazes us, but for what end?
Even the tight structure of a Ridge York Creek petite sirah or of a Caymus
cabernet opens up given the freer exegesis of time.)
Our 'brut' champagne frontend really did outshine the (inherently)
one-dimensional 'blanc de blanc', rather like streams vs. sockets.
The '81 cab was too light for my taste; I'm hopelessly hooked on the monsters
I'm afraid, not these modern deceptive "shared memory" lightweights ala Sun.
And when we got around to talking about the cult favorites of yesteryear
(the Forest Crimmins fume blanc), Arrowood virtually read the words before
leaving my lips, though he did a double take when I suggested that certain
of his sauvignons blancs used to be so grassy as to dovetail well with a
highly-cilantroed burrito.
Don't get me wrong, I value Dick's fresh signature on my '78 late harvest
riesling (r.s. above 30%) bottle just as much as I do my Mandlebrot autograph,
or my Declan McManus (an old name for a noveaux songwriter) pawprint.
I truly believe that such honeyed botrytis manna can only strengthen with time,
just as the muscular Linderman 'sort' will come to be appreciated.
Oh, I've sampled many failed experiments (aged zinfandels can be as
volatile as any given tty driver), and, indeed, sometimes question whether
the utility of a good solid port such as the '63 Fonseca may be as fleeting
in the place of history as our venerable hdb 'uucp'. But this is more than
compensated by the outright successes, and I would quite liken the
indispensability of your very own 'make' or my 'fastfind', with a BV
Georges Latour, or perhaps, in my more humble case, one of the unheralded
Oregon pinot noirs.
But ahh ... the wines you must have known -- wouldn't you agree that the
'61 Petrus as at least as mammoth an achievement as the Elz/McKusick 'namei'
cache? Won't the '53 Margeaux keep building in stature as does the elegant
'awk' interpreter, with it's carefully selected functionality? And despite the
faded glory of some of the older Perignons and window managers, isn't
a pre-war Taylor or an 1893 Yquem every bit as dear and priceless as the
v1 manual set?
Enough, I must rest. Looking forward to the visit out Gotham way ...
Sincerely,
James A. Woods
-----
Date: Mon, 5 May 86 21:05:57 edt
From: sif@latour.bellcore.com (Stu I. Feldman)
To: jaw@ames.UUCP
Make may indeed be like a BV PR CS, reliable and from a selected
vineyard, and easy to find old (and out of date) copies.
Alas, the 53 Margaux is weakening considerably in bottle, though
fine in magnum (takes a big bottle, just like awk needs a big machine).
Older Dom Perignons are holding much better than old window managers.
1893 is getting brown not only around the edges but in the center, and losing
some of its savor; not a bad comparison to the V1 manuals.
see you.
stu