Thursday, November 2, 2023
Artisan Baker Raven Norris
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Murders in Durham
The recent spate of violence in Durham is nothing like what is happening now in Portland, but for anyone who works Downtown, the increased violence and schizophrenia of the panhandling and unhoused community is well known. In a terrible quote from the Times article above,
He estimated that based on the body’s temperature, this victim had been dead for more than an hour, which meant dozens of commuters had walked by his body during rush hour before one stopped to check his breathing and call 911.
Monday, a Duke grad student was murdered, and the man held in custody is someone known to the bar and restaurant industry of Durham as a regular.
Last night at 11pm, my own neighbor in Northgate Park was shot at in his car as he pulled in. In the morning, I found the car window punctured with a bullet hole, and four spent casings littered the curb next to my eucalyptus tree. Thirty people have been shot and killed this year in Durham, and 115 non-fatally. Growing up, the only pops I heard where from a tennis court nearby my home. Now I have to tell my son not to be scared when he hears gunshots.
Implicit in the Times article is that we are all complicit in the stepping around of a dead body laying out in the street. Two months ago, arriving at work, a Durham ambassador told me as I stepped out of my car, "You got a body in your bathroom". There was a man sprawled out on the bakery customer bathroom floor, a dirty knee twisted as if to draw a perfect chalk outline. He could have been sleeping, so I spoke to him. No reply. Not even a flickering of the eyelids. His skin color was between olive and gray. I yelled louder. No response. Should I check to see if he's breathing? Five minutes later, I put 911 on speakerphone. After a couple minutes, the sound of the dispatcher must have roused him. He got up and scampered away, leaving his phone charging in the wall outlet.
We depend on our City officials to provide safety and security for the residents. We depend on first responders to handle crisis situations. We depend upon the health care system to tend to mental illness and addiction. We depend on the legal and penal system to provide pathways to rehabilitation for offenders. Right now, none of these systems are working, either independently or together. It's enough to give you a panic attack.
That is exactly what happened to me. In the second year of Covid (2022), I began getting panic attacks from the overwhelm of everything that was going wrong. I eventually began seeing a holistic chiropractor/therapist and went down the path of becoming a trained breathwork guide and ice therapy coach. It's helped. And I've been able to train others. For every systemic malfunction, there are people like Michael Bock who are like Jedi, like angels literally trying to "hold back the ocean". The ocean is coming, and the question remains what we're going to do about it.
Friday, April 7, 2023
Sights and sounds
Anywhere are you go in Durham you can hear the pop of a nail gun hitting timber for a new four-on-one development.
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Saturday, February 11, 2023
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Isaac’s Bagels: An Appreciation
I got to know Isaac Henrion his second week distributing bagels at the Burch Ave community garden. I introduced myself, him in his trademark leather jacket, bandana, and occasionally incomprehensible UK accent. Thinking I was out to compete with him, he was suspicious of my interest in his business, and his bagels. What he later learned was that it was actually an obsessive interest in bagels and baking that made the connection.
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Friday, December 16, 2022
Best of 2022
Tacos: Tacqueria Allende NL, Green Flea Market, Durham
Sunday, December 4, 2022
Brewing and Baking
I don’t know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day.
- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Inflation / NYT
We have been feeling cost inflation since January, and it seems the Fed may likely overshoot its interest rate cooldown in an effort to tame it. When staples like bread and eggs go up in price, a market cooldown of assets like housing or the stock market is not likely to bring down the price of these essentials due to their demand inelasticity. I expect we will see 6-10% inflation year-over-year for at least another nine months.
Here in the New York Times, there is a great description of the bread inflation costs and prices happening globally.
Here at the Ezra Klein pod, we hear about the devastating international effects of US interest rate increases due to a dollar-denominated global economy.
Monday, October 17, 2022
One Must Ask
"There’s nothing holy about Babka to me, but if it’s like a salami and cheese Babka why bother? “What is the integrity of the food?” One must ask." - MFK Fisher
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Covid Diary 10-1-21 to 9-30-22
10-15-21
Sociology to the rescue (Zeynep Tufekci):
Research on the unvaccinated by KFF from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html
10-18
It's been a slog, but it's going to get better.
10-19
Our downtown fate has been sealed: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/400-W-Main-St-2605-Durham-NC-27701/2067850157_zpid/
10-22
The bakery can no longer get cake boxes due to: Supply Chain Woes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/business/shortages-supply-chain.html
10-29
The Great Resignation: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/style/quit-your-job.html
11-2
Everything is Conditional
11-3
Workers are scare and empowered: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/03/business/jobs-workers-economy.html
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Guaranteed Income
On August 20th, we had a social to celebrate Excel and Durham Neighbors, two organizations dedicated to the idea of guaranteed income. The following piece of visual art was created by Jaclyn Gilstrap as the event went off. Click to enlarge.
Friday, August 19, 2022
Wild'n Out
Niceties Averted
Much has been make of the seeming breakdown of the fabric of society during Covid. Shootings, robberies, homicides, domestic violence, road rage, flight rage, etc. If morality is more like a language, and less like an inherent biological code, we seem to building a Tower of Babel. I have had numerous testy exchanges with customers, vendors, and staff over the years, but nothing quite prepared me for this deranged coffeeshop owner from Raleigh who ceased doing business with us and then refused to pay his remaining bills.
Go into your average food service establishment today, and you see chaos and dysfunction. Hiring, retaining, training, and supervising workers has all become exponentially harder. Is it because of the Great Resignation? Is it because workers are now paid more and have more power? Is it because our cell phones and social media have made us both productive and distracted to the point of schizophrenia? I'm not exactly sure. But a brief look into this conversation will convince you that we live in a scary society that is capitalism on hyperdrive. The toughest moments for me are when we have a wholesale customer that has clearly lost touch. I tried to reason with them, but this one really hurt and stuck out in my mind as emblematic of this period in time. I was really shook. I post here for future researchers and historians of the 20's. A is the owner of the Raleigh cafe, and R is his wife and co-owner.
On March 20, 2022 at 9:36:22 PM EDT, Ninth Street Bakery <info@ninthstbakery.com> wrote:
Good evening,
We've attempted to run your card on file, but it was declined. Please call us with updated payment information at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your business!
- S
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Everybody cries
In March 2020, the world tipped upside down, and no one knew if Covid was going to kill us all, and quickly. One employee, K, decided to take it upon herself to stop Bakery production and shut things down to save us all. She felt like unless we closed immediately, people would die. I tried to reason with her, but her heart was steadfast. At 2pm on Monday, March 16th, she began banging together pots and pans and collecting staff around her. Her voice would not be stopped, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She continued to rant about the dangers of Covid while I pleaded with her that we should try to discuss this in a more civil, reasonable manner. Our head artisan baker walked out. Customers watching from the cafe were scared. Eventually, we locked the door. Finally, we had to call 911 to have her removed from the premises, fired, and given a trespass. Having a background in social action, I suppose she was prepared for this, or maybe this was the statement she wished to make. We carried on with our day, but I was shaken up. The possibility of hurting our staff or customers was indeed great. We had little information on how the virus was transmitted (this was pre-masking), or how prevalent it was at the time in Durham (very low). It was when my head of artisan came back and we debriefed in the office that I broke down and cried from the stress of it. Not great big gobs of tears, but little ones, a muffled sob. "Everyone cries in this office," I said, "And now I suppose it's my turn."