Jun 27, 2015

on the mug rack


in the andalusian hills.

Jun 21, 2015

hardware and software

the traditional sherry bodega's solera system blends wines from casks representing many vintages. this allows each bodega to produce a set of consistent products despite the inherent variation across vintages. it takes years of continuous guided observation for bodega's foreman to learn the patterns in how casks of wine develop and what interventions in their development are possible and desirable.

the complexity and optionality of the solera system gives the capataz enormous freedom to move particular casks into and out of different criaderas and soleras; each capataz makes a slightly different set of intervention decisions; consistently made, the differences in these decisions generate distinctiveness in the bottled wine.

the physical bodega and the know-how of the capataz are, in combination, a large part of a technology for reproducing style in wine.

the fino room at bodegas tradición.
3 plaza cordobeses, 11408 - jerez de la frontera

Jun 10, 2015

meaning and knowledge

1. The stranger, therefore, approaches the other group as a newcomer in the true meaning of the term. At best he may be willing and able to share the present and the future with the approached group in vivid and immediate experience; under all circumstances, however, he remains excluded from such experiences of its past. Seen from the point of view of the approached group, he is a man without a history.

2. Every word and every sentence is, to borrow a term of William James, surrounded by 'fringes' connecting them, on the one hand, with past and future elements of the universe of discourse to which they pertain, and surrounding them, on the other hand, with a halo of emotional values and irrational implications which themselves remain ineffable. The fringes are the stuff poetry is made of; they are capable of being set of music but they are not translatable. There are in any language terms with several connotations. They, too, are noted in the dictionary. But, besides these standardized connotations, every element of the speech acquires its special secondary meaning derived from the context of the social environment within which it is used and, in addition, gets a special tinge from the actual occasion in which it is employed.

3. In any culture the highest rank is accorded to one of the three types of knowledge distinguished by [Max Scheler]—knowledge for the sake of domination (Beherrschungswissen), knowledge for the sake of knowing (Bildungswissen), knowledge for the sake of salvation (Heilswissen)—and therewith to one of the three types of men of knowledge: the scientist-technician, the sage, the saint. The social acceptance of this rank order determines the whole structure of the particular culture.
Alfred Schutz, On Phenomenology and Social Relations