(no subject)

So, I had wasabi last night. "Big deal," you might say. "Don't you have wasabi all the time?" Well, maybe, but I've never been as gung-ho for it as a lot of people seem to be. dilletante, for example, gets a faraway, dreamy face when he eats too much wasabi. I've never understood it. Slightly increasing the amount of wasabi in my little wasabi-soy-sauce plate only ever led to more pain. Last night, I found that goat gets exactly the same look. She said some things about the sensation that intrigued me, so I had to try to overload my wasabi receptors, past the point of pain and out through the other side into curiosity.

It turns out that if you take a big ol' hunk of the stuff and sort of... spread it around the roof of your mouth, close your eyes, and inhale slowly, a fascinating sensation goes up through your palate and out the back of your head, spreading upwards from there. Well, that's how it worked for me, anyway. I had to keep trying it, of course: after a certain point, more wasabi only allowed me to increase the surface area I was working with, and not to increase the sensation.

At this level of wasabi, I don't think I'd call the feeling pain. Once it got to the point where I had to deal with it and think about it directly, it became a curious little thing that required all of my concentration. Very strange, and kind of fun. I don't think I can do that with hot-pepper hot. But this feeling, it was entirely unlike tasting food! How do you people mix this with food? For example, I like the taste of eel and mackerel. Wouldn't I lose it, if I was concentrating on the wasabi? If I only put a little wasabi on something, I know my tolerance level. I can make the food taste spicy and good, to me. But if I do this bizarre sensation experiment, won't it just distract me from the food?

All very strange. Maybe I'm not making any sense, and everyone else figured this out ten years ago. Maybe I just process this differently from eating hot hot salsa, and other people can integrate wasabi-hot feelings with food just fine. I'm not even sure if I have a concrete question, but I'm still thinking about that strange dinner-coda half a day later.

(no subject)

It turns out that the Treo 650 can take movies with sound. Woo! So, I put this to use at the almost-impromptu aerial silks recital last weekend. And so, I bring you ( silks movies )