Cat Crackers, Pot-stills and Test To Failure: In Which I Meditate On One Year In The Blogosphere

Sniff, sniff.

Smell that? That oily, singed hair mixed with whisky and caramel kinda smell?

One year. One year ago today, I fell into the blogosphere.

Whew. What a trip. I had no idea then that I would be here now, with the stuff that I wrote being what it is. I certainly did not foresee that I would connect with such a wonderful, weird, invigorating community, many of whom have given my work a warm reception. There are quite a few whom I would be honored to consider as friends, and definitely kindred spirits, even though we haven’t yet met in the physical world. I am grateful that I could take the noise in my head and spin it into signals that people want to receive. I am even more fortunate to have discovered such a deep well of talented, fascinating people who can write and take pictures and narrate the things that catch their eyes, weave the fabric of their lives.

With all the upheavals and changes in my life over the past six years, I daresay the tapping of this well, the plugging in to this outlet has been anchor and sail for me. I was out of the gate fast and ran high before the wind before time and tide reined me in. But sail I do, upon an ocean I care not to quit.

In the petrochemical industry, there is a beast known as a ‘catalytic cracking chamber’. Also known as a ‘cat cracker’, it is usually a tall cylinder which is fed with heavy oil or other hard-to-refine nasties. In the cracker, a wide range of temperatures, pressures and catalysts makes it possible to “crack” the heavy stuff into lighter, more useable stuff.

In the whisky biz*, there is the ‘pot-still’. This charming creature makes it possible to take fermented barley malt and distill it into tasty libations, like single-malt Scotch (to use a particularly fine example). The process has been around for centuries and the shape and size of the still can have a marked effect on the flavor. In both processes, liquids are fractionated to produce something that people want or need or find useful. Some you can burn, some you can drink; the desired result dictates the choice.

Whether I am a cat cracker or a pot-still, or have brought you heat and light, or taste and pleasure, I am humbled and honored to know you all. Thank you all for being here with me. Thank you for a year of sharing art and life, comedy and tragedy, prose and poetry.

For your edification and delight, I leave you with this:

Bending test for the impatient from Alexander Schreyer on Vimeo.

*And it has many applications for other types of tipple, and in the chemical biz, too.