A Fable

Once upon a time, there was a little girl playing with her new gifts from Santa (in particular, the Sunshine Family and their very granola-ish home - if you look closely you can see that Steffi, the mom, is wearing Birkenstocks) when the phone rang. It was the girl’s grandmother.

“Would you like to come up and visit with me?” asked the Grandmother.

The little girl thought about this, and she wanted to very much…but it was night and she was already in her pj’s, and it was cold out, and she would have to ask her mom to drive her up the hill to Grandma’s house, and then there were the new toys which were pretty fun…

“No, Gran’, I’ll just see you tomorrow.” said the little girl.

The little girl went to sleep, warm and sound. She was awakened early – it was still dark – because the phone rang. The little girl’s mother answered the phone.

And that is how the little girl found out her grandmother had died in her sleep that night.

Moral: Sometimes There Is No Tomorrow

In Memory of Lily McIntosh
December 20, 1920 – December 27, 1973

Multiple Choice

An Egyptian tomb discovered in 1964 has become the subject of a raging controversy amongst the archaeologist types.

Seems that the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, manicurists to the king, could be one of three things, depending on your interpretation of the facts. So, here are the candidates:

1. It is the tomb of two gay men
2. It is the tomb of twin brothers
3. It is the tomb of conjoined twins

It is a complete aberration that two people of equal stature would be buried together. Most tombs were built for a noble man and his family.

The tomb art depicts the two men embracing and “nose-kissing”, which the article claims was the preferred method of kissing in Egypt. Although the men were married, there is no depiction of the wives in any of the art inside the tomb.

I find it incredibly absurd that someone would posit the theory that they were conjoined twins as a way to explain two men embracing, especially when the two men are shown separately, performing activities like fishing in marshes. I am going to be mature and leave the most sophomoric joke about how they might have been conjoined completely alone.

And lest we forget, they were the ROYAL MANICURISTS. ‘Nuf said.

Breathtaking Inanity Overruled!

There are moments when I am so ashamed of where I was born, I just want to hang my head and claim roots elsewhere...

That is exactly how I felt recently when morons from Pennsylvania decided to teach "intelligent design" in the classroom.

But, and I consider this a holiday gift, while reading the NYT this morning I see that my new hero is now John E. Jones III, (I will now refer to him as JJJIII) the judge who so eloquently voiced my opinions in his decisions:

Judge Jones, a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science, and that in order to claim that it is, its proponents admit they must change the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations.

Judge Jones excoriated members of the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, who he said lied to cover up their religious motives, made a decision of "breathtaking inanity" and "dragged" their community into "this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

Let's all eat a banana in tribute to Mr. Scopes and JJJIII.

Feeling Lucky, Punk?

This holiday season, gift yourself with the perfect item for your inner child.

AND, free edible ammo (approximately 247 rounds). What the heck is better than that?

Marshmallowville. Just down the road from Campfireland.

(ps- the packaging comes with a warning label: "Do not eat marshmallows after shooting", but when you combine the dual forces of velocity and distance, factor in some vector anaylsis, you are sure to come up with an equation proving their edibility.)

Go for it.

Seperation of Church and State, At Least In The Kitchen

Once considered half animal and half fish, the Catholic Church proclaimed beaver acceptable to eat on Fridays.

The Mayan Green Room

I was truly stunned by the beauty of the newly discovered (and earliest) Mayan painting in this morning's NYT.

The detail and colors were superb. And I was enjoying reading about Mayan art, an area which I know far too little about.

That is until I got to this bone-headed statement talking about the room in which the mural was found:

Dr. Saturno suggested that it could have been the room - something like the greenroom in television studios - where the king rehearsed his public performances reinforcing his mythic right to rule.

Yeah. Right. Sure it was. And the Mayan king was like Leno.

New Music Tuesday - Samite

Today's CD comes to us from the mythic stacks of Hollywood Stafford. He had loaned me several CDs about a million years ago, and I never found the opportunity to sit down and to give them the time they deserved until tonight. My favorite by far was Tunula Eno by a Ugandan artist named Samite Mulondo.

The CD is gorgeous music, performed mainly on his collection of thumb pianos (kalimbas), flutes and other percussion instruments. His soothing, clear tenor floats over the rhythms like a warm breeze.

"An instrument already has a spirit and it comes with its own song. The rhythms were natural and they were in my blood, but I ended up with my own style. I am convinced that we are all moved by the same desires, needs and emotions, regardless of the language in which those feelings are expressed"

Despite the peacefulness and tranquility of his work, Samite has not had an easy life- he lost a brother during the regime of Idi Amin, endured a prolonged exile from his homeland, and is now a young widower.

Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo says that "When you hear the music of Samite, the soul of Africa is revealed to you."

That's good enough for me.

I also want to quote his wish for the holiday season:

As we come to the end of this year, it is important to remember to love and to accept love from others.

Calvin(o) and Hobbes

I received a marvelous gift from Scout the other day, and a great article arrived from the PenPal on the same day. Coincidence? Perhaps.

A smallish, very heavy box arrived for me and in it was the three-volume, 23-pound collection of all 3,160 Calvin and Hobbes strips that ran in newspapers between November 18, 1985 and January 1, 1996 by Bill Watterson, local resident of nearby Chagrin Falls..

Such fond memories of Calvin. When each new book came out, I would get one for the PenPal's Lil'Sis and draw a cartoon inscription on the cover page for her.

Then, I get an article about the great Italo Calvino, the author of one of my all-time favorite books. This coincides with my picking up Hermit In Paris, a collection of his autobiographical writings originally published in 1994, and translated to English in 2003.

In the end, it all comes down to reading, itself for yourself. Great literature or comic strips -doesn't matter. As Calvino said:

I can never sufficiently highly recommend the direct reading of the text itself, leaving aside the critical biography, commentaries, and interpretations as much as possible. . .

Don't Turn Me On

Dan Flavin was the reknowned artist who used mass-produced , off-the-shelf fluorescent lighting fixtures to create his inherently temporal light sculptures. He was making beauty from endlessly available supplies.

These "monuments" only survive as long as the light system is useful - about 2,100 hours. Flavin was quoted as saying he wanted to challenge the permanence of art.
"Bulbs burn out."

So, the joke is that the once anonymously industrial and readily available source materials are becoming hard to find. Manufacturers are disappearing. Sylvania stopped making green bulbs.

Before his death, Flavin had his assistant scour warehouses and came up with 600 spare bulbs that were stored to be used judiciously in the future, to replace bulbs that had burned out. Then he hired custom fabricators to make replicas of the bulbs he needed. The lighting fixtures themselves were then made from vintage templates rescued from the original factory.

So the preservation of Flavin's artistry is now in the hands of artisanal hand crafters that he was rebelling against.

Permanence and temporality. Off-the-shelf and handmade. Original and reproduction.

Flavin's sculptures with the original bulbs and hardware can sell for 3/4 of a million dollars.

So most collectors never actually plug them in, protecting their investments.

Symbolism In A Compass, Or A Shiny Nose

So let’s talk about Rudolph for a moment.

Once the girl of his dreams, Clarisse, kisses Rudolph on the cheek and tells him he’s cute, he is able to fly for the very first time. That is the power of having someone believe in you.

Yes, indeed, it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me, as the song goes.

Clarisse loves her Rudolph for who he is, from the inside out, despite the fact that he is an outcast. And what of Rudolph’s other misfit friends? Rudolph is a story of acceptance, tolerance, and a lesson in looking beyond differences to see what makes us similar. It shows the cruelty of mocking and name-calling and the undeniable importance of encouragement.

And as Clarisse points out, the major lesson to be learned and owned for me is:

There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true.

Even when that dream is better than anything you ever imagined.

How Do You Get THAT Delivery Route?

Barbra Streisand has canceled her subscription to the Los Angeles Times over the firing of the paper's liberal columnist, which she felt reduced the diversity of voices on its opinion pages. (With statements like that, I see a long career as a University professor for Ms. Streisand.)

Robert Scheer had been a Times columnist for 12 years. He was a reporter for the newspaper for 17 years before that.

Quoting from her letter:

Robert Scheer's column, with its often singular voice of dissent and groundbreaking expositional content, has been among the most notable features that have sustained my interest in subscribing to the LA Times for many years now.

The Red Cup – An Insider Story

I came across this interesting post today, about one of my favorite subjects: Starbuck's.

It heralds the arrival of the Red Cup, the harbinger of the holiday season. Being a classicist, I can't go in for eggnog lattes and that sort of thing, but my triple grande latte is made a wee bit more festive in a nice red cup. I have to admit to liking the design this year, especially the hand drawn row of Christmas lights around the rim. Nice touch, folks.

I really liked this story of struggle and intrigue, and the "behind-the-scenes" stuff that goes into something seemingly so simple as the cup that contains your morning brew. Read it. You might have a new appreciation for the amount of time, energy and talent that is spent on everything that you encounter.

And, lest we forget, all hail the print production gurus who make it happen.

Uh, Is There Free Shipping?

Well, your chance to own yet another piece of history is over, but some lucky person will have a quite a present to unwrap this Christmas - about two thousand square feet in fact.

The ORIGINAL 1923 H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D sign, made of rusted and weathered and graffiti-ed barn roofing metal was put up for sale on EBay, and was sold for the bargain price of $450,400.

New Music Tuesday - Holiday Round Up

Three new holiday CD's to run down this year, and a classic track.

First up, Brian Setzer, with his second holiday CD, Dig That Crazy Christmas! The best tracks are the instrumental My Favorite Things, and Jingle Bell Rock, when Brian again gets to show off his guitar skills. His Grinch is fun, but the vocal can't live up to the hallowed Thurl Ravenscroft's classic. On the whole, the disc is a lot of fun, but nothing superb. On What Are You Doing New Year's Eve, a duet with Julie Reiten, it sounds as if the vocalists were listening to playback at different speeds...they are never in sync. It is very strange. And not in a good way.

Second, we are featuring Anita Baker's Christmas Fantasy. I have to give this release a low score, with the exception of the outstanding first track, Frosty's Rag, which I will eagerly add to future up-tempo holiday mixes. On the whole, the tracks are uninspired and overproduced for my tastes.

Batting clean-up this season is Diana Krall with her much-hyped Christmas Songs. Scout is quite the fan of Ms. Krall, and so we pledged not to listen to this one, until we could hear it together over Thanksgiving. I don't think there was a particular track that we were both impressed by, but if forced to pick a hit track, I'm going to have to go with Sleigh Ride. Again, the music is over produced, and despite the press to the contrary, to me it sounds like the there is little relation to the singer and band. It sounds to me as if the vocal track was just layed down over pre-recorded music. There is too little emotion and connection for a compelling jazz ballad.

I found a Christmas CD at the used record store, and thought it just might be bad enough to play at work, and for $2.50, it wasn't a bad bargain. Little did I know that included on this CD was Marlene Dietrich "singing" The Little Drummer Boy (or more correctly, Der Trommelmann). Oh, my friends, this is classic. And reason enough that Marlene was a film star. Just when you think the military drumming is going to put you over the edge, here comes the Village of the Damned Aryan Youth Choir to fill in the rum-pa-pa-pum's. What a joyous season.

(P.S. - My Penpal reminds me that she owns a 45 rpm of Marlene "singing" the classic, Too Old To Cut The Mustard)

Christians Target Target

Oh, For God's Sake.

So, the Times yesterday ran an article stating that The American Family Association is boycotting Target because Target doesn't use the words "Merry Christmas."

Not to be outdone, The Catholic League is boycotting Wal-Mart for similar reasons.

As a retail professional, with almost 20 holiday seasons served, I have to say that every place I have been affliated with asks employees to say "Happy Holidays." And I agree, as (I know this comes as a surprise to many) not everyone celebrates freakin' Christmas. Many occasions fall in the winter months, and "Happy Holidays " is a great way to acknowledge that without pushing your own beliefs onto anyone.

So, at this festive holiday season, all I want to say is, "Lighten up, People."

Your Holiday Gift Guide - A Public Sevice

With the holiday season approaching, I thought I'd help all of you Faithful Readers out with some important tips when you go out amongst the masses gathering your loved one's gifts.

As everyone knows, the alpenhorn tops just about everyone's list. But here are some tips taken from the TIPS FOR BUYING AN ALPENHORN webpage (yes, it's real) to help you choose the right alpenhorn for your loved one - it's almost as complicated as the adoption form at the ASPCA...

Seven Test Questions for the Purchase

1. Am I in contact with a group of Alphornplayers; did I look round and make inquiries about the Alphorn there? If not one should make up for that without fail. There is no better source for information than a group of Alphornplayers with practical experience. I can also recommend to get practical experience at a yodelers' festival. Furthermore a yodelers' club surely will be a help for all these questions. (This should not be a problem, as there are so many yodeler's clubs to choose from in the Greater Cleveland area...nyro4797)
2. Have I already played the Alphorn?
3. Do I want the Alphorn for decorating my home or do I want to begin a new hobby? (I think I saw that on Queer Eye...alphorn decor...nyro4797)
4. Are my teeth in order so that I shall succeed and enjoy the new hobby?
5. Is there a place where I can work daily without being disturbed?
6. Am I motivated enough for this daily working?
7. May I loan an Alphorn from the group where I am in contact?

I see some missed marketing opportunities with local dentists. Who knew? Good dental hygience and alphorn playing go hand in hand.

PLUS, you must have very special natural gifts (besides the good teeth) to be a player. These include:

The lips of the player
The teeth of the player
The embouchure of the player
The technique of breathing of the player
The physical condition
The ability of concentration
The level of the training
The musical talent
The experience

I bring this up because I am petitioning for embouchure to be the word of the day, or Pee-Wee's secret word from Conky. It means the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of a wind insturment. I tell ya, they have words for everything.

Now, use the word of the day in the sentence, happy INFORMED shopping, and... RICOLA!~

Give 'Til It Hurts : Audience Participation Requested

Howdy Faithful Readers!

Today I present you with a challenge. But first, the backstory...

My friend was involved with a holiday canned food drive for the needy. It is a well-known but sad fact that many people take these sorts of things as an opportunity to clear out their pantries. Which is all well and fine, except when you decide to donate a CAN OF LYCHEE NUTS. Yes, my friend actually witnessed this.

I propose a contest. If ANYONE can think of a more perfectly absurd, useless and insulting item, please post it here - and make sure I have your email address if you are declared a winner. Be forewarned, though, as I suspect that nothing will be able to de-throne the champ.

With Your Kind Indulgence...

The PenPal and I decided to get each other the ultra-deluxe Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials DVD set for Christmas this year. The set includes 1965's magnificent My Name is Barbra (winner of 5 Emmy Awards and the Peabody Award), 1966's Color Me Barbra (nominated for 5 Emmy's), 1967's rarity The Belle of 14th Street, 1968's A Happening In Central Park and 1973's Barbra Streisand...and Other Musical Instruments.

I was truly excited to own this as I have never seen Belle, and in particular BS&OMI. I owned the soundtrack to the latter, and listened to it quite often trying to envision what the show was like.

Well. Now I can tell you...

It's a good thing I never saw this back in the day...it would have been far too much for my teenage heart to handle.

Piano Practicing, the opener, is still one of my favorite bits, and Barbra looks GORGEOUS. It's one of those"I can sing/talk REALLY fast, with a funny Jewish/New York accent" bits done with just an eight year old pianist show-off sporting a forerunner of Adam Rich's haircut from"Eight Is Enough".

I've Got Rhythm, a 20 minute tribute to world music (she should get a credit in the annals of music history - I mean Barbra did it all from Native American drumming to Scottish bagpipes, in under 20 minutes) opens with Barbra running through the western orchestra as they are setting up. Watch the dude playing the saw. (What, they could find no theremin player?) Everything is all swell, until she makes him use his saw to even out the wobbly chair she is sitting on. This is clearly insulting to him, I mean, it is probably like the Stadivarius of saws, and she wants him to use it AS A SAW, destroying its finally honed and tempered sound. So watch at the end when she passes him by - he is CLEARLY thinking, "I can let the end of this go and it will slap your lilly white behind, lady" - OR -"Have you ever seen a magician saw a woman in half, lady? Let's give it a try."

Later, she descends on an Indian rope trick rope accompanied by some erotic sitar playing, in a gorgeous, form fitting (exposing) gown - her designers have certainly always known how to expose that woman's finest womanly parts - her back, legs and bosom. Wow.

Then she enters this little tunnel that makes you think a hookah smoking caterpillar is going to appear, and here is the part where I triple dog dare you not to COMPLETELY lose it -

She does a belly dance segment. Really. However, the costume is constructed in such a way that no skin shows, but, and here is the incredible part, they have sewn like, a saddle of bells to her posterior, and she flits about the set, shaking her rump at the camera. Really! Barbra Streisand!

So the final part of the rhythmic marathon ends with her virtuoso performance of holding a note for an extraordinarily long time. Like 20 seconds. Listening to this LP (repeatedly) I imagined the scene going down in a very different way. They cut to a montage (for those with a limited attention span who forgot all of the cultures visited in the past twenty minutes) and then right towards the end they cut back to her, and she is obviously reaching in and PULLING out every millisecond of air she possesses in the depths of her lungs...she is in pain. I vaguely recall reading that they attempted to film the scene again, and she passed out. I believe it. In my imagination though she just tossed it out like butter.

She does three numbers with the great Ray Charles, (which are not on the LP), and they are fabulous. And she even gets down with the sistas, the Raylettes (she looks incredibly frightened at one point when they get a teeny bit to close to her and start testifyin') on Sweet Inspiration/Where You Lead, and Ray is shown down center, in the foreground, just laughing away at those wacky chicks...

THEN comes Auf DemWasser Zu Singen, which is "really one of my favorites, and I'm sure it's one of yours. In fact, it is so much fun to sing, why don't you join in with me and y'know, sing along with Schubert?"done in a lovely lace Victorian-esque gown that I swear was her wedding dress in A Star is Born, and sporting Dolly Levi's hair from Hello Dolly.

THEN the moment we've all been waiting for, THE CONCERTO FOR VOICE....and Appliances. A Carol Burnett classic. I am pretty sure that the "musicians" are really the wait staff from the Harmonia Gardens - really. Check 'em out, they look just like they might break into Hello Dolly at any moment, and she is wearing the 'do after all. Either that or they were the orchestra from like, Benny Hill, because they are all weird old balding British looking men with bad teeth. Especially the guys playing the electric toothbrushes.

Now THERE'S a sentence I never thought I'd write....

A Good Day For Mad Scientists

Gentlemen, when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention. - Special Agent Dale Cooper

So today, a French woman, mauled by her pet Labrador Retriever, received the first human face transplant. I must admit to being confused over the controversy this announcement created. I mean, it isn't like they did a head transplant. The woman received the chin, lips and nose tissue from another French woman that committed suicide and was declared brain dead.

There are concerns about the woman's psychological ability to handle her appearance, which the doctor says will be an amalgamation of the two faces. I would worry about her ability to handle her and I quote, disfigured lipless grimace and her growing inability to open her mouth due to scar tissue formation.

So, if that isn't enough to whet your mad scientist appetite, score one for the fish! Seems an Israeli fisherman was rushed to a hospital with a nasty head wound - eight inches of a swordfish's sword was protruding from both sides of his cheeks. I wonder if he got a referral...

Information for Frequent Flyers : The First Year-End List

The powers that be have released their list of the most intercepted prohibited items from prospective airline passengers today. While I find lists of all types eminently readable (Harper's Index fer sure!) , this one is so good, and raises so many thoughts, I wanted to share it with you:
Prohibited items intercepted by airport screeners, Jan. 1-Nov. 29, 2005:

Lighters (prohibited as of April 14, 2005): 8,124,525

Ok, let's stop there. As Scout can attest, there is a growing underground behaviour for flying smokers. It seems that once you find an area to smoke at the airport, it is common courtesy to leave your lighter on the edge of the ashtray, for smokers to use once they arrive, nicotine-depleted, from their flight. While I appreciate that consideration, my mind is reeling from the fact that at an average price of a buck a piece, we are talking about eight million dollars worth of product being seized. That makes many local drug busts look like child's play. Do you think that the BIC people are in on this? I had no idea that they sold eight million lighters in a year....whew.

Sharp objects: 3,041,218

Knives and blades: 1,650,894
Less than 3 inches: 1,599,103
3 inches or longer: 51,791

OK, so who needs to carry on sharp objects? Three million people do. I want more specific information here. Obviously, these passengers are not so sharp. And what is with the knife thing? Either many more chefs, taxidermists, butchers and sword swallowers are flying than I thought or people are simply stupid- OR- members of the Swiss Army.

Tools: 819,450

Ya never know when you might need that chainsaw during your flight...

Flammables/irritants: 362,613
Ammunition and gunpowder: 21,939

Hey, at least they stowed the gun in the checked baggage...

Box cutters: 19,499

and finally...

Clubs, bats and bludgeons: 19,183

Please tell me the nineteen THOUSAND bats were from like, little league teams flying to games.

So pack carefully for your holiday travels, folks.

New Music Tuesday - I'm Hacked Off

I am just so very annoyed. I have loved the Eurythmics since the early 80's, loving them (well, loving Annie Lennox, let's be honest- especially in the phase she had when she performed in a red lace bra and black leather pants...but I digress) so much that I even learned how to spell their name, but not so much that I ever took the class in colllege.

Anyway, so I have all of their CDs - including their great TOURISTS hit, I Only Want To Be With You. And what do they do? They have gone and re-released all 8 of their CD's with glorious deluxe packaging, extensive liner notes, photos, blah blah blah AND...AND...BONUS TRACKS! Over 40 spread out on all 8 CDs, which are going for $18 a piece. Now, if you ask me, I would have happily paid $24 for a CD of JUST THE BONUS TRACKS!!! AAARGH. I hate them. Today. For the moment. Can I petition someone? Annie, are you reading this?

That being said, I had to pick up EURYTHMICS - Ultimate Collection. Why? The cover art is perfect. Yes, that is primarily why bought it. I am a marketers dream after all. Interior photos are wonderful as well, with the unfathomable inclusion of a NICE photo of Dave Stewart! Really! The typefaces and general design capture the era of the Eurythmics heyday perfectly. Ah, the days of genderbending, orange haired Annie...it'll take you back.

The bonus tracks, the sublime Was It Just Another Love Affair? and I've Got A Life are worth the price of the CD, but folks, there is scant information in the liner notes - in fact, all you get is the lyrics. It would have been a nice touch to include the YEAR OF RELEASE (especially for the new tracks - I mean, were they old tunes that are included now, or are they fresh new ones?)and from what album the track came from, just for simplicity. Is this too much to ask?

A Special Kind Of Genius

The password is : monorail.

One rail.

How can you have two trains collide? That takes some special genius I tell ya'.

Product Review - Collective Wellbeing

Your Captain has a great tip for you today. Visit Collective Wellbeing and order yourself their Bamboo/Fennel Seed Body Scrub. (The site is very annoying to navigate, by the way. To wit : Bodycare - Body Washes and Scrubs - Bodyscrub).

The fennel not only smells good, but has secret anti-microbial properties. The bamboo is mildly gritty for excellent exfoliation, and it is also a natural deodorizer. Who knew? And God love 'em at the Collective Wellbeing - they use the correct binomial nomenclature for the plants as well as the common name in the list of ingredients.

After using this product, which smells very pleasing to the Captain's nose, I have noticed a dramatic softness to my skin. If it can have that affect on me, I can whole-heartedly endorse it for anyone.

The Perils Of The Irish Joint On A Saturday Night

In the immortal words of Miss Christine Lavin, "What Was I Thinking?"

I really wanted a substantial meal tonight on my "lunch" break, and had my heart set on the enormous plate of cod and chips at the nearby Irish place, whose name sounds like you are clearing your throat of a year's worth of mucous. I was planning on sitting at the bar, real quick, in and out. MyAdoringPublic had even gone there with her as yet un-nicknamed Beau (not to be confused with my Beauregard Van Horne - what a scandal THAT would be!), and they were leaving as I was arriving, off to see Harry Potter.

Hello. It's Saturday night in a mecca of capitalism. The place was a madhouse.

I found the single seat left at the bar. In a mostly timely fashion a waitress found me, took my order, let me pay in advance, and all seemed well. My food even arrived in fifteen minutes. This is going well, right?

Then, the idiot drunk guy next to me, leans over, and I swear, puts his face about 6 inches from my food..."Um, looks good! What is it?" Like he's never seen fish or chips before.

I kinda wanted to poke his eye out with my fork.

Up On The Mountaintop - A Holiday Sighting

Well, for those young at heart, who have fond memories of staying up late looking for the first glimpse of Santa's sleigh, the distant sound of incoming sleighbells, or even of the appearance of the Easter Bunny hopping toward your house on a spring evening (ok, maybe I had a vivid imagination), the waiting is over.

Here are some photos taken by a backpacker up on the poetic-sounding Silver Star Mountain in southern Washington.

It may not be Santa, but then again, maybe it is. Could be a rock. Another backpacker. OR! OR! IT just COULD be the newest candid pix of....Washington's own Bigfoot!

As the article points out: The photos are inconclusive, but they are potentially relevant. Uh. Okay.

I suppose even Bigfoot has to leave the house to get his holiday shopping done...

ScubaSteve To The Rescue!

I have been in a frenzy lately, taking care of things I have been procrastinating, because Scout will be arriving in four short days!

Today's tasks involved driving up north to go to Crate and Barrel and to pick up a Cuisinart hand mixer, which I am told, is an essential element in making real whipped cream, mashed potatoes and possibly pumpkin pie. I really don't know. All I know is that getting a mixer has been on my list for about a year now, and THIS is the one I wanted, so Scout's arrival was a perfect excuse to get it.

Also, the C&B had a lovely piece I wished to use as a headboard. My problem would be in mounting it, because of its size. To that end, I enlisted the aid of my pal, ScubaSteve, to come down and help me hang things on my walls, which seem to be made of titanium and are nearly impossible to drive nails of any type into. Because of this sad fact, my lovely Picasso print has been sitting, wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer, in my entrance hallway for many months.

So, I ask a salesman for the piece, and am informed that they only have the floor model, which is NOT for sale, but more will be in...in JANUARY. That is so not helpful. Why are they displaying a floor model that might inspire someone to make a design decision, and then NOT SELL IT? And it ain't like it was cheap, either. Oooh, they made me mad. FURTHERMORE, it holds 14 votives. How many votives are sold in a set? That's right, Clever Readers, 12! The same bozos who package the hot dogs in 12's and the buns in 8's thought this one up, too...

Anyway, back to the good part of the day...With a promise of a pre-work Starbuck's of his choice and a meal following, ScubaSteve met me at the shopping center and followed me back down the highway for 45 minutes. That, Faithful Readers, is true friendship. The hanging process didn't take too long, but I thought a nice meal at Bob Evan's sounded better than the pizza we were planning on, so we drove down to the restaurant and had a nice visit (but nothing to be jealous of, Kitty Griffing!)

All went well, and my house is practically perfectly in order. One of the remaining tasks is to choose the right bedding ensemble from my collection of five...it will either be the Classic Linen, which features the most beautiful Matteo duvet cover and Leitner accent pillows, -or- it will be the Neutral bed of Egyptian cotton, which I firmly believe are the best, softest and most luxurious on the planet.

Well, there are still four days to make the bed...decisions, decisions.

New Music Tuesday – Gender Bending Strings

I was eagerly waiting for this new project from Patty Larkin to be released. The full title is La Guitara: Gender Bending Strings. It is in Patty's words " a glimpse of how women have influenced the guitar over time. We made a decision to create a collection of women instrumentalists from many different musical styles, and from many places around the world, including archival selections." In my opinion (shared by many) Patty is one of the greatest guitar players of all time, so I was very excited to hear what she would select for her tour of the distaff world of guitar playing.

The great classical player Sharon Isbin is featured on track two (La Catedral). The tracks fro two other classical artists I am not familiar with ( Muriel Anderson -the first woman to have won the National Finger Picking Guitar Championship- and Badi Assad) are also quite good.

From old blues-playing Memphis Minnie to the jazz stylings of Mimi Fox, the CD encompasses all types of guitar work. My only complaints are that the final three tracks are barely over one minute in length (the CD is only 40 minutes long, so it's not like she was running out of space), and are just little snippets. And, the track Ms. Larkin included of her own work is less interesting than many of her other tour de forces, say Banish Misfortune/Open Hand or even Solo Flight.

All in all, a good CD for study, but the Isbin track is the only one I will be returning to with regularity.

This Means War!

My favorite procrastination device at the moment is a website called KittenWar.

It is the simplest of concepts…folks submit pix of their cats, and two are pitted against each other. There are links where you can see the “winningest” kitties and the big losers. It is readily obvious that voters do not the sphinx/hairless rex varieties of cats.

And my personal dislike of the “flat faced” cats is surprisingly a popular position…in most of my contests I have judged, the flat facers have lost by a substantial percentage.

My On-Going Love Affair With Studio 360

I’ve just discovered Odeo, a web page that collects podcasts that you can listen to on your own time. I’ve been using it to catch up on old Studio 360 shows that I have missed due to my work schedule.

The October 22 show is an interview from 2002 with the late Spalding Gray, with many live bits of Spalding performing in Seattle cut in. It was very moving and quite sad as the details of Spalding’s overwhelming depression come to light, but also nice in a way to get to hear ol’ Spald again.

Besides wonderful shows on March Of The Penguins (focusing on how the Christian Right have tried to make it their own and closing with the absolute best point, that March of the Penguins is….FRENCH), and Herman Melville (where host Kurt Anderson shares that he is also a Starbuck's triple grande latte drinker - ah! AND Laurie Anderson calls Melville "the master of the jumpcut", as well as the author of the weirdest book she has ever read) you can hear a re-broadcast at your leisure of my all-time Studio 360 show, when I discovered The Lonesome Gal.

The Lonesome Gal was a radio host (Jean King)who was first broadcast in Dayton, Ohio in 1947. She did fifteen minutes spots of intimate, one-on-one type romantic interludes, managing to work in ads for tobacco and beer amongst the soft background music. She played an important part in many a lonely, single man’s life in the day, if the interviews with fans are to be believed. You will be shocked at her voice – it is as if she is speaking directly to YOU, in your head. A Laurie Anderson internal, soft, and low quality, but WAY more sexy.

If I remember correctly, someone found old vinyl records of the Lonesome Gal shows…THAT would make a cool CD….

Thoughts On Furniture

I saw the perfect bedside table awhile ago, but it was a bit too pricey for me. Then it went on sale! Hooray! BUT, they didn’t have any in stock…won’t be seeing them until the end of December. Now your very own Captain StL is expecting a visitor for the holidays, and it would be very nice to have a bedside table. December arrival is just not going to work. But I took their silly raincheck, then decided to stop into the store by my work, and Viola! Yes, they had one new in a box and everything. (The Captain StL is very, very good at assembling furniture that comes in boxes, having loads of practice early in life with IKEA products.)

So I get my table home and assemble it. If you have had any experience with IKEA or even Crate and Barrel furniture assembly, you should fall onto your knees and thank them for their well-thought out construction. My table hails from Thailand, and they put the screws (requiring an Allen wrench- enclosed) into such tight locations that the wrench will only rotate a quarter of a turn at best before hitting the top or side or back of the piece. It takes about a half an hour to get one screw in. Thai’s must train monkeys to do this work…

Anyway, my lovely table came together after a bit of forcing and finagaling. Here is what the catalog has to say…

Handsome solid hardwood in a dark walnut finish with black rub-through contributing to a vintage Colonial character. Open shelf, one drawer and handy magazine rack on side.

Honestly, until today I had no idea what the purpose of the “magazine rack” was - I thought it was a cool design element. I am often not that bright.

Country of Origin: Thailand
Approx. Weight: 46.2 lbs

Yes, that’s right folks, I own a 46 pound table. That ain’t no plywood and veneer my friends!

Holiday Craft Idea!

Okay, this is really too sad to make fun of, but it was a slow news day folks, so here we go!

Wondering what to do with the kiddies now that the nights are growing long and the weather is turning chillier by the day? Gather them around the kitchen table, get out that old roll of aluminum foil and let your creativity run rampant! That’s right, a new family tradition…It’s Thought Screen Helmet night!

Well, What IS Leather After All?

I learned a great new phrase today.

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy is the term for...books bound in human skin.

This article from The Record of Harvard Law School details the historical use of human skin as bookbinding. It seems many medical and law texts were bound in executed criminal and cadaver's hides. And, even our very own Cleveland Public Library has a copy of the Koran bound in skin. (Can you say "Field Trip"?) But there was also a rage in having your skin bequeathed for the purpose.

The great Arts and Crafts designer Dard Hunter tells of being hired by a young widow to bind a volume of letters dedicated to her late husband in his skin. Hunter later learned that the widow remarried and wondered whether her second husband saw himself as Volume Two. Hunter quipped, "Let us hope that was strictly a limited edition."

Can You Really Change Your Corner Of The World?

I really enjoyed this article the Times published today. It is about the quest for manners in Chicago cafes and other businesses, which have recently been putting up signs "encouraging" parents to parent, and to keep their children quiet and well-behaved. This, of course, has created quite a battle. I'd love to hear your opinions.

But to me, they really buried the lead of the article. Almost the penultimate paragraph of the article states:

He (Mr. McCauley) likens this one small step toward good manners to his personal effort to decrease pollution by hiring only people who live close enough to walk to work.

"I can't change the situation in Iraq, I can't change the situation in New Orleans but I can change this little corner of the world."

I think McCauley's whole idea of hiring only those people who can walk to work is certainly worthy of its own article. I remember with great fondness living in Portland and being able to walk from my apartment in the Northwest to my job in the Pearl District. And on my day off, everything I needed to do was also within walking distance. I rarely had to use to my car, which was great, because on-street parking was minimal, and once you got a good space, you didn't want to give it up.

There is something terrific about hiring people in the neighborhood to work IN the neighborhood, but that takes a whole different infrastructure than is readily available, especially out here where I live now. And remember, I now commute 2 hours a day to my work, so I am sure that Mr. McCauley is not a fan of mine. I would love to see viable, livable neighborhoods that supported all kinds of businesses and families.

And a resurgence of manners would be welcome, too.

New Music Tuesday - Sentimental

I was reading a magazine and saw an ad for this CD, and I had to get it from Amazon as a French import, but it was worth it.

The CD is Sentimental, by Tanita Tikaram. I've been a fan since the PenPal brought home Tanita's first LP, Ancient Heart, long ago in 1988.

Sentimental is a lovely, jazzy CD and Tanita's voice is maturing like oak casked single malt Scotch. Smooth, deep and dark.

I can't really point to a favorite track on the CD, with the exception of one mood killing misplaced track, the CD flows from track to track, making a very pleasant listen.

Sentimental is closest to a melange of Lovers In The City and Everybody's Angel, but much more focused.

"I wanted to get back to things I had forgotten, fundamental ideas about keeping things simple and interesting and looking at how the voice sits with other instruments. Ideas I felt I lost but which maybe I just knew naturally when I was seventeen."

I am so very glad to have new Tanita tunes!

Wine Tip Of The Year

I have had the good fortune to discover a wonderful wine, Conte di Bregonzo Amarone della Valpolicella. This bottle will serve you well if you let it breathe for an hour or so. The wine is a deep reddish purple color with a nice nose of cherry and spices. The taste wine is rich with the flavor of figs, dates, plums, dried apricots, and light oak. The alcohol level is high at 14.5%.

I had never heard of Amarone before trying this bottle, so I did a little research that I would love to share with you:

Amarone della Valpolicella is an often powerful Italian wine made from dried grapes of the Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara varieties.

Made near Valpolicella, Amarone is made by harvesting ripe grapes and allowing them to dry, traditionally on straw mats. This concentrates the remaining sugars and flavors. Depending on weather conditions, the wine may be influenced by "noble rot". The final result is a very ripe, raisin-y, big-bodied wine with very little acid. Alcohol content easily surpasses 15%. Amarones are not cheap, be forewarned, but they are very, very, good.

Laurie Anderson Revisited

Once again, after work I headed downtown to Playhouse Square. I had a good chicken lo mein and excellent potstickers at China Sea Express, as Otto's was closed on Sunday. The restaurant was almost vacant, which was fairly pleasant, but then a very outgoing certified wack-o came in, and group of four. The wack-o sat across from the four top, but almost instantaneously stood up and joined in their conversation. They were fairly polite, but clearly bothered by his unsolicited attention. I was glad that my meal was just about over, because I was loathe to be the next victim.

Anyway, back to the lobby where I waited for "TinTen" to arrive. We had great seats (about 6 rows back on the aisle) for Laurie Anderson's new show, The End Of The Moon. I was quite surprised on seeing the stage. There was an upholstered armchair on stage right, and at center stage, a small keyboard stand, and a very small screen on stage left. Scattered about the stage floor were about a hundred tea lights. That was it. It was a great contrast to the old Laurie Anderson stage performances, which were multimedia extravaganzas, often requiring so much equipment that it filled two semi-trucks. I last saw Ms. Anderson here at the Palace Theatre way back in March of 1995 performing just such a show, The Nerve Bible, along with my friends Brokenbrush and TunaMusic.

"My own work is more about trying to ask really good questions and not trying to come up with really big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that. They're all doing multimedia shows. One of the things that I learned from working on the Olympics was that I was hired as a tech geek, someone whose done big multimedia shows. I said, "The world does not need another big multimedia show."

The End Of The Moon is an impressionistic, dreamlike collection of stories and observations, all glued together with music interludes, which attempt to shed light on some of the most brain-melting quandaries we face.

This show began with an inquiry: Who told you what beauty was?

The element of time is also a major theme.

"It begins with this idea of stuttering and how difficult it is to start things. People only stutter at the beginning of the word, they don't say "stuttering-ing-ing-ing" because they're not afraid when they get to the end of the word. There's just regret."

In the course of the show she told two miraculous stories. The first was about a walk she took with her rat terrier on the California coast. She related how the terrier would always run ahead, nose to ground, searching left and right for intruders, protecting her. Then, an eagle swooped down, poised to carry the dog away, but in Anderson's eyes, decided the dog was a wee bit too big, and just ... hovered over it for awhile. Anderson said that she saw a brand new thought pass through the dog's head, that intruders can come from ABOVE. She describes how in future walks, the dog's posture was thrown off, trying to reconcile this new knowledge, and to keep an eye on the skies as well as the ground. This seamlessly segued into our post 9-11 behaviour. It was chillingly, beautifully done.

"End of the Moon is about the queasy feelings you might have. It's dreamier. More abstract. There is a lot more trepidation about the future. There's uncertainty. It's my best attempt at describing life at this moment."

The second story was about a concert she was doing outdoors in Greece. She heard this odd sound, and thought that it might be feedback, or someone playing an instrument, or even a child. When the sound persisted, she noticed that it was mimicking her own vocalizations. Then she looked up into a tree that was near the stage. An owl was there, watching and echoing her sounds. Anderson says she thought that she could drop dead right at that moment, because there was nothing better than doing a duet with that owl.

The last influence on this work was Anderson's recent tenure as the first (and last) Artist-In-Residence for NASA. Indiana congressman Chris Chocola considered the $20,000 stipend paid to Anderson "an example of government wasteful spending" and successfully introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill last June that prevents NASA from funding such a position again. She considers much of this work to be her "official report" to NASA about her tenure there.

Watching Anderson perform is an odd experience. Her movements are few, and there is simply not a lot to watch. But it is her voice, low, quiet and measured that insinuates itself into your thoughts, and for long moments you think that what you are hearing is just your subconscious voice - but it's way more eloquent and poetic than it has ever been. This experience felt very much like a waking dream.

Says Anderson, "I like it when we fall into that communal dream."

There you go.

One Good Reason To Live In Cleveland

Tonight I headed downtown for dinner at Otto Moser's, and to take in the concert of the year, if not a lifetime. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Case were hosting the 10th Annual American Music Masters Series, which was a tribute to the life and music of the definitive soul singer, Sam Cooke.

The most exciting thing before the show began was the appearance of a woman in a long white gown accented by a red boa, a huge ostrich feather fan and an enormous hat, easily four feet in diameter, also made of red feathers. Her companion wore white pants and a red blazer and matching bowler hat. They made quite a stir sitting in the box seats. They were the talk of all of the folks in my section of the theatre.

The show began at 8:15, when a video screen lowered and Bill Clinton began speaking about the influence of Sam Cooke. His appearance was met with wild applause.

The first act was the incredible Blind Boys of Alabama, singing, This Little Heart of Mine and If I Had A Hammer. They were terrific.

They were followed by the emcee, Dr. Julian Bond of the NAACP, a man of stunning charisma.

Next on the line-up were Otis Clay and Cissy Houston. Cissy sang Only 16, but she was either tired, old, or hanging out with her daughter. She was out of it and had no enthusiasm whatsoever.

As the set was being prepared for the next act, we were treated to old Ed Sullivan black and white footage of Sam singing You Send Me which was breathtaking.

Then, one of the evening's highlights for me - the performance by The Manhattans. I have to go out and get some of their stuff! They did a great version of Chain Gang, and Wonderful World.

This was followed by another vintage video of Sam performing A Change Is Gonna Come.

The mood kept on rising as the magnificent Taj Mahal came out and sang Lil' Red Rooster and Twisting the Night Away. The crowd was clapping, swaying, screaming - it was a party in the house. The energy was electric. It was impossible not to feel a strong sense of communal harmony and joy.

At 9 pm, the assistant emcee came on stage, the great Morgan Freeman, recipient of a long standing ovation, just for being in Cleveland I guess.

Then came Peter Wolf from the J. Geils Band, who really tore up the stage, doing Sam's Everybody Likes to Cha Cha Cha. I've never seen anyone run around a stage like that before.

William Bell did a beautiful version of You Send Me, which lead into We're Having a Party with everyone sans the Blind Boys re-appearing on stage. There was so much energy in the house, it felt like the end of a miraculous concert. But no, it was only intermission!

Going out to the lobby, I ran into a co-worker, "Tripod Dennison", who chivalrously offered to buy me a drink. He concurred that the evening was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event, and that for $35, we were more than getting our money's worth. I was truly concerned, given the level of passion and excitement in the theatre, what would happen when Aretha Franklin appeared. I was pretty sure the roof was going to come off the joint.

The second act began with LC Cooke (Sam's brother) and the Highway QC's .

During the show Gorgeous George and Early Bird ,two famous Apollo emcees, came out and did some recollections of the early days, and their memories of Sam.

The Dixie Hummingbirds also did a song, then came Gavin DeGraw, a youngster, who gave exquisite performances of Cupid and Change my Heart For You , which received a well-deserved standing ovation.

At 10:30 Solomon Burke appeared, wheeled out on an ermine draped throne, wearing a purple sequined suit. His handsome and vocally magnificent son, Selassie, performed a lovely number, and supernaturally evoked the tone and spirit of Sam Cooke. It was kind of spooky.

Then Elvis Costello performed two tunes, That's Where Its At and Get Yourself Another Fool and then finally, Aretha Franklin, my main reason for going to the show.

It was now past 11 pm. The house was dark for a full fifteen minutes as they prepared for Aretha's entrance. There was no videos, no emceeing, no music. Nothing but black silence. It was honestly perturbing. All of the energy of the night had faded. It seemed that the audience on the whole was ready for the night to be over. Finally the curtains parted, and out stepped Morgan Freeman, who simply said , "Here is the Queen Of Soul", and shrugged his shoulders and exited the stage. There is no mistaking that Aretha is a formidable talent. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to see and hear her live, but it was a very long and uncomfortable wait. She performed For Sentimental Reasons and Sugar Dumpling, again bringing out the evening's previous performers to the stage, but there was no energy compared to the rousing and electric first act. That first act, even though it had few "heavyweights" had all of the passion and excitement. If the show was simply the second act, it would have been very disappointing.

No Place Like Home For The Holidays

Unless you lived in New Orleans. The New York Times today ran two articles side by side under one headline:

Hurricane Evacuees Face Eviction Threats at Both Their Old Homes and New

and

New Orleans Landlords Are Pitted Against Tenants in Court

Landlords in New Orleans have filed 700 eviction notices in the past ten days, in some cases filing more cases in a single day than are seen in a whole month.

Folks who are trying to make a go of things down in the Big Easy are complaining that their funds have been tied up by minimal and unreliable mail delivery (the mail from August is just getting delivered about now, according to the article).

But landlords need their tenants to pay rent so they can live as well. And many landlords have no viable properties left to collect rents from. Locating displaced old tenants is no easy matter.

So, as you sit around your table this Thanksgiving, please keep in mind how very fortunate you are.

The Trouble With Poetry

When I was fixing to leave Portland, TheSaintedDianne gave me a present. It was The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins. I was perplexed why she had chosen a book of poetry for me, and I had no idea who he was anyway. So I asked her. And she replied, "He is the poet laureate of the United States." So, I don't get out much. Had no idea.

Anyway, three poems from that book were incredibly moving to me (The Invention of the Saxophone, The Blues and Nightclub). So I immediately became a big fan.

So there I was at Border's, and I walk up to the New Releases table and a great book cover catches my eye. It is Billy Collin's new book, The Trouble With Poetry. So I am standing there for like, a good solid six minutes reading it, enjoying it, lost in it...and a worker starts talking. I ignore her, because she obviously isn't talking to ME. Finally she says very loudly, "Excuse me!" I look up and she says," Can I help you find anything?" Now...I haven't moved for about six minutes. Haven't looked up. Been reading and enjoying myself. What in the world made her think I was looking for something...unless she just wanted to (successfully) blow my moment?

So even though I had every intention of buying that book, I had to leave. Of course. And buy it from a store near my work later in the day.

Moral: When someone is reading, leave them be.

Lessons From The Animal Kingdom

I think maybe this idea fell out of Brownie's notebook...

It seems that the fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) has found a very ingenious way of surviving floods. When the flood waters approach, the entire colony (workers, larvae, winged queen, everyone) abandons their mound and binds together into a floating ball until they drift onto higher, dry ground. During their odyssey, the ants continuously reposition themselves so that no ant is left underwater too long. ( No ant left behind...)

Humans have used their superior intellect to take advantage of the pest ant's ingenuity. It seems that if detergent is sprayed around the antball, the surface tension of the water is weakened and the entire mass sinks and drowns...

See a picture of the ant ball here.

New Music Tuesday - RIPLEY

Believe it or not, RIPLEY, is the new vehicle for one Alice Ripley, star of the Broadway hits Sideshow, Sunset Boulevard, and The Rocky Horror Show.

This 5 song EP features Shannon Ford on drums, Skip Ward on bass, and Christopher Schelling on keys. Ms. Ripley plays the guitar and sings, and has composed the tracks as well.

This band is quite a departure from her 2000 release, Everything's Fine, which was much more intimate acoustic / pop.

Ripley is five tracks of rock; one track sounding downright Beatle-esque, and another channeling a bit of Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise. The photoshop'd cover picture is dead-on.

And as they say, five songs. Five bucks. The way it should be.

Workplace Trick Or Treat

As I did last year, I spent the holiday in the workplace, where I played my two CD set of Bach's Great Organ Works by the incomparable Peter Hurford, as well as my Halloween Hits compilation. Beauregard Van Horn was working, too, and he would occasionally get on the intercom and tell mini spooky ghost stories as the customers were browsing ("It happened long ago on a night just like this..... " "This store was built on an old Indian burial ground..."). It was great fun.

The costumes were pretty great this year. We had a wonderful Marilyn Monroe, three obese clowns (Beauregard's clown costume even came with an internal fan to keep him cool!), a great martial artist with killer contact lenses, a fabulously hideous cafeteria lady, Dorothy and Toto, The Bride of Dracula, Obi-Wan, a ballplayer, a banana (!), a pirate and a pirate lady, a Gypsy ( could have been a extra from Heart's Little Queen photoshoot, or a cross between a 70's Cher and Rita Coolidge), Mr. Whipple, a Food Cop, and keeping in the holiday spirit, a pimp and their trick. That was a treat.

The funniest costume of all was one of the older employees, a motherly type, came dressed as one of the younger employees, complete with tie-dyed scarves, jewelry and dreadlocks. It was hysterical. MyFriendJason came in his jammies, robe and with a towel wrapped around his head. He said it was the most comfortable work day he had ever had. I reprised my role as the stylish Vlad in the tux, cape and top hat.

I love Halloween.

I've Been Framed!

Wow. What an occasion! After getting up for a store meeting, bright and early on my day off, I drove clear across town to visit my optician friend, who hooked me up with an eye exam and a new pair of eyeglasses.

Not a big deal you say? Well, I last had my eyes checked right before I moved to Seattle. In 1995.

The doctor asked me what brought me in to see him. I replied, "It's my 10 year fashion upgrade."

Then he informs me that "at my age" I won't be able to go so long between visits.

Whippersnapper. And anyway, my prescription hadn't changed so what's the big problem?

But it sure is nice to have some stylin' frames again!

This Just In From The NYT...

So I'm reading the New York Times this evening, and while I am hastily discarding the useless sports page, a headline catches my eye.

Swoopes Says She Is Gay, and Exhales

Yes, Sheryl Swoopes, ranked in 1999 as the 87th greatest female athlete of all time, and three time MVP winner. What are the chances that a member of the WNBA should turn out to be gay?

Next thing you know they will start saying female golfers and tennis players are gay, too.

Oh, wait...

Well, anyway, not that I care, but the truly disturbing part of the article was that apparently Swoopes made the decision based on an endorsement offer from Olivia Cruise Lines. The Times article further chronicles her money problems. I guess that Nike shoe just wasn't cutting it...

Selling that part of yourself out had to hurt. That's all I'm saying.

New Music Tuesday - Good Night & Good Luck

Well, The Captain has not made it out to the movies in some time, so I wasn't too interested inthis soundtrack, until I noticed the peculiar sticker on the case...

This is no soundtrack, it is a new Dianne Reeves CD and it is incredible! Great jazz, though we expect nothing less from the great Ms. Reeves. The lone instrumental track, When I Fall in Love, is deadly romance, be forewarned.

From what I have read, she performs all of these tunes in the movie, so now I really want to get out and see it! That being said, this is no cobbled together soundtrack, this CD stands alone as a wonderful listening experience from beginning to end.

Baby Baby I Hear A Symphony

Oh Santa Baby, slip an Olive Symphony under the tree for me...

What is that you are asking? Well, I'll tell you a little about it.

At first glimpse, we have a CD player. When you insert a CD, the music begins, and the face panel displays the artist or band's name and the song title courtesy of the machine's built-in two-million-album database of album and track names.

Press a button and copy the CD (about 45 seconds per track, or nine minutes per CD). Now, loading up your library onto the machines hard drive could get a little tedious, so the folks at Olive have made y'all an offer: it will preload all of your CD's onto your new Symphony's hard drive, you just pay for shipping them. And, it can directly copy analog such as cassettes and LPs right onto its harddrive for future CD archiving. (The new machine, the Musica, holds 40,000 songs, that's about 4 straight months of music, and is a much more groovy silver...)

You can search your collection, make playlists and burn shiny new CDs at will. And you can load and update your iPod, without even owning a computer.

Then there is the built-in WiFi (ethernet router as well), enabling home networking with your PC's throughout your home. So you can also listen to internet radio through the Symphony.

The folks at Sound and Vision wrote a glowing review of this baby here. Their bottom line: "An intelligently designed, easy-to-use music server that puts sound quality first."

Damn You VH1!

If I were a superhero......I would have one debilitating weakness. As Kryptonite is to Superman, so is the I Love The... series on VH1 to me. This week they have been showing I LOVE THE 80s 3D, and I have been physically unable to remove myself from the couch. It doesn't even matter if the new episode is a repeat of the one that just ended...I'll watch it. And I am just a sad shell of myself, cocooned on the couch, staring with deadened glazed eyes at the TV while all around me Gotham crumbles....

Let Us Eat Cake:The Real and the Representation

So I come across a reproduction of one of Wayne Theibaud's paintings. He's the guy that does the "pie bar" paintings, paintings of cakes in pies displayed in windows, deli counters, sandwiches...that sort of thing. As I am looking at the painting, because I do have a good deal of appreciation for his work, I notice something is odd. Gone is the gorgeous texture of the paint that is teasing the viewer as icing. The colors are bright and sharp where Theibaud uses a more nostalgic pastel palette. Hmm...

I discovered the amazing work of pastry chef and photographer Sharon Core, whose new body of work, Theibauds, are meticulously staged recreations of his paintings.

But my torturous hours spent doing battle with Jean Baudrillard were not all for naught as Core's photographs raise the issue of which is more real? The real, textural painting of an idealized memory of a cake, or her intentional duplication of it? And it is twice removed, as we are not presented with a showing of her pastry artistry. The cakes and pies and sandwiches have long ago met their demise. But we have the perfectly staged moment, captured forever.

What is real? What is hyperreal? The poetic, the duplication, or the image of the duplication?

Says Wayne: From when I worked in restaurants, I can remember seeing rows of pies, or a tin of pie with one piece out of it and one pie sitting beside it. Those little vedute in fragmented circumstances were always poetic to me.

Painting The Town

I spent the greater part of the day with MyAdoringPublic, helping her prepare her new home. This involved my expertise "cutting in" around all of the baseboards, trim, windows, doorways and ceiling in her bedroom. She had chosen a great Craftsman-y yellow/gold for the walls, and it was very cheery color to be working with. While I was set about onto that task, MAP completed the fireplace and built-in bookcase in the livingroom.

I work cheaply - this is well-known and MAP got me going with a steaming Starbuck's Triple Grande Latte. But, sadly, it did not last, and it was soon time for PIZZA! And the pizza arrived just in time to help celebrate a major event in MAP's life - the delivery of her very own washer and dryer! There was much excitement in the "House With The World's Largest Picture Window", which in reality is not unlike a small theatre's proscenium...

After our refreshing meal, MyAdoringPublic rolled the walls in the bedroom, and I did the trim and the window in the dining room.

With the singular exception of her CD player malfunctioning so that I could not play DJ, we had a great day and accomplished a lot.

Congratulations on your new pad, MAP! And really, keep the "artistically distressed" look in the spare bedroom - it's very elegant!

New Music Tuesday - Adapt Or Die!

The name of today's CD reminds me of my senior Honors colloquium, The Theme of the Alien Woman in Literature. By reading Medea, the biblical Book of Ruth, Bronte's Jane Eyre, Flaubert's Madame Bovary and my all-time favorite classic, Hardy's Tess of the D'Uberville's, we determined that a woman taken from her native land and thrust into a new environment had but two choices: to adapt or to die. Happy, cheery discussions ensued.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the day's CD, unless we consider Ben Watt's mysterious and life-threatening illness chronicled quite well in his book, Patient.

So, we have Everything But The Girl's Adapt Or Die: Ten Years of Remixes to talk about.

I have loved Tracey Thorn for such a long time. (Going back to the days of hours and hours spent in Chamberlain's Restaurant, for you Faithful Readers going back THAT far...)Not as much as this poetic reviewer, but still. I loved the obvious depth of feeling the writer has, and curbed the urge to plagiarize him, so check it out for yourself...

While this disc is a welcome addition to my vault, as anything graced by the dulcet tones of Ms. Thorn are to my ears, as collections go I would recommend the exquisite Like The Deserts Miss The Rain over this one. This is definitely for a limited audience, and to me, more of a curiosity than a listenable CD.

(ps - on their website, under LATEST is a great little article Tracey wrote regarding the unfortunate legalities of the recording business. The bottom line being that HUMMER is using their recording of Love Is Strange without their permission. As they are not the songwriters, they have no control of how the song is used, or what it is used to promote, even if it is a product that they do not endorse....good reading, folks)

Everbody Wins - A Story of Housesitting

For the past week, MyFriendJason has been vacationing in Seattle. Because the thought made me so sad, MFJ offered up his home to me for the week, which cuts my commute to work in half.

Now not only is his home perfect (for my idiosyncratic tastes), it comes with a superfast internet connection. So, not only did I get to update my beloved blog, he even set it the computer with a personalized screensaver and wallpaper just for me.

I think I did pretty good job as a housesitter - I didn't set off the alarm, the plants are still alive. I just forgot about trash day. And I am posting this publicly so he can't kill me when he gets home tonight.

I adore his whole house but his shower is the best. I'm in love with it and his wonderfully thick towel. I told him I was having the locks and alarm code changed and just moving in. He said that was fine because he was staying in Seattle.

Everybody wins.

RE New Orleans

Need a new T-shirt? Of course you do. And, it only comes in basic black.

The fine folks at Ropeadope Records have come up with this wonderful, to the point T.

C'mon, it's one little Andrew Jackson, people.

As If Bumpas Emporium Wasn't Bad Enough...

It is with great sadness that I learned Saywell's Drugstore in downtown Hudson is closing.

Saywell's was one of the few remaining authentic soda fountains still in operation. It was founded in 1909 and has been a Hudson landmark for longer than their signature clock tower. Frommer's states:

Saywell's makes its own chocolate syrup for its popular chocolate sodas, and turns out an egg cream even a native New Yorker would love.

Practically Perfect In Every Way

My day. I left the house about 6 o'clock in the evening to get down to Playhouse Square early enough to get a parking space right near the enclosed walkway, and a ticket to see Bonnie Raitt. So far so good, minimal traffic, all is going well, even with the $8 it costs to park where I like to park.

So I get to the ticket window and ask what kind of seats they have left, and I get:

SECOND ROW, DEAD CENTER.

So, I go outside to have dinner at Otto Moser's, a place I chose because it was relatively deserted and quiet, unlike its neighbor, the much more trendy, fashionable and expensive, Star, which was standing-room only and noisy. So at Otto's, which is decorated with ancient photos of theatre folk from the early nineteenth century AND several mounted heads from the deer family wearing baseball caps, I was presented with a servicable strip steak, baked potato and applesauce by a genuine broad (for less than $20), the folks next to me were smoking (imagine that - inside a restaurant!) and it was the perfect, low-key, unpretentious meal I was looking for.

So I go in to the Palace, and survey the libations. The whiskey tonight was Jack Daniels, which I am officially not fond of, but if you are listening to blues, it is the drink of choice.

As I was being led to my seat, I noticed that there was no orchestra pit...the front row was literally next to the stage, so my seat was at most, five feet from the stage edge, meaning I was going to be less than twelve feet away from Bonnie Raitt.

It made my stage-managing heart swell with pride when at 7:30 EXACTLY (oh, yes, I checked), the lights dimmed and they announced the opening act, Stephen Bruton. Stephen seems like real nice fellow, had immaculate and beautiful guitars with very idiosyncratic string flourishes at the head, and he wore a most attractive multi-patterned shirt and great Levi's.

Then, Bonnie Raitt came out. Folks, she is magnificent. She wore a burned-out maroon velvet, deep V neck belled sleeve top and tight black pants and boots. I was close enough to her to see her cuticles and her eyelashes, and when you go to see Bonnie Raitt, most of the joy is watching her play, and I had the best seat in the house for that.

The stage backdrop was one of the coolest things I have ever seen and probably cost a $1.98. It was like 100 yards of clear plastic that were gathered and swagged, and then when lit in various ways made the greatest visual inpressions of texture and color. Blue, green, red, steel gray - many moods, and all of them rich and evocative. Way cool.

Bonnie seemed to be having some trouble with her monitors and quickly ripped the ear monitor out, and asked for a floor monitor to be set up. There were many problems with levels throughout the course of the show, and Bonnie showed herself to be in command of every aspect of the stage. When folks started yelling out requests, she handled by saying softly, "Oh, yeah, that's a GREAT song........but so is THIS one."

At one point she looked out into the audience and announced,

Well, I'm throwing a curve ball at the band and the crew, and changing the set list, because like Bobby Brown, it's my perogative.

Then she kicked the piano player off of his chair and sat at the keyboards, murmuring, "I hope I remember this, I wrote it after all...I just feel like doing it tonight..." and out came Nick of Time.

There were three standout performances in my mind. The first one was during a set when she sat on a black leather stool, with her hand on her knee and performed a gorgeous, jazzy version of I Can't Make You Love Me (which garnered a standing ovation). Her fragility and depth of emotion, and her presence in the performance were truly breathtaking. It was a beautiful moment. After she surfaced, she said,

When you go that deep you gotta pick yourself up with something like this

and literally threw a guitar around her shoulder and strutted arrogantly around the stage, just like Mick Jagger, exuding sensuality and power. That immediate dichotomy was truly impressive.

The second favorite moment was the mind-blowing Mighty Tight Woman by Sippie Wallace, which appears on Bonnie's first album, recorded in a garage when she was 21. This one was a sultry, deep blues groove, with long, excellent solos by Bonnie on acoustic guitar, Jon Cleary on piano and Stephen Bruton on lead guitar. It was steamy. And much like her soul-sister, Maria Muldaur doing Bessie Smith's Empty Bed Blues, tonight's performance was much richer, truer and filled with experience in comparison to that early recording (which is still impressive in itself).

The final song of the night (the last of the three encores) was Robert Palmer's Bad Case of Loving You, which she did an outstanding version of - hard rockin' and very fun.

The show had it all - a treat for the eyes and ears. Jazzy, wrenching ballads, slow old blues, pop, rock and the pleasure of seeing a true legend, comfortable enough in her own skin to be completely real and present.

She is a wonder.

If You Need To Waste Some Time...

Back in the day, I spent a good amount of time playing the Kevin Bacon game, trying to get a Bacon number of more than 3, to no avail.

Now I have found an equally useless and engrossing toy: GoogleFight.

The point of the game is to choose two terms you wish to pit against each other and press the "fight" button. Then you watch two stick figures fight for a few seconds, and then the results of the battle are displayed. The results are based on the number of "hits" found by Google.

Here are the fruits of my ill-spent afternoon of GoogleFighting:

Cowboys vs. Indians winner: Indians
Pen vs. Sword winner: Sword
Pros vs. Cons winner: Pros
Cher vs. Barbra Streisand winner: Cher
Bush vs. Katrina winner: Katrina
Laura Nyro vs. Joni Mitchell winner: Joni Mitchell
Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford winner: Bette Davis
Burmese Python vs. Alligator winner: alligator
Burmese Python vs. Siamese Cat winner: Siamese Cat
Immediate Gratification vs. Long-Term Goals winner: Long-term Goals

PETA Folks - Don't Read This Post

I met a most interesting fellow yesterday. His name was Sandy, and he was 83 years old. He used to manage a small grocery store that specialized in meat. He said that back in the day, he had as many as ten butchers working for him (which made him popular with the local hospital - he had to go to the hosiptal but once in his long career and, as he said, "It was a clean cut at least...").

While he had nothing to do with the slaughtering of the animals, he told me a little bit about the day-to-day operations of his store - things I never really stopped to think about.

For example, if he had a customer who wanted brisket, he would cut that from the "swinging beef" ( a whole cow)...then he said briskets got really popular, so to satisfy the brisket customers, he had to keep ordering whole cows...and then...what do you do with all of the rest of it? You have to sell it...

Ordering for and running a shop back in the day had a whole lot of considerations I never thought of. I can imagine the stress of looking into a locker full of hanging cows and wondering how in the world you are going to move it in a timely fashion.

Beef. It's what for dinner, I guess. But I think they missed an opportunity with not capitalizing on the "Swinging Beef" phrase...I'm seeing Sinatra, rakish fedora hats...cool, man.

Learning From the Past

An exercise in logic.

Let's say you live in Florida and are the owner of a Siamese cat that has been missing for a couple of days.

Then you discover you have a visitor in your backyard - a twelve foot long (yes, that's right Clever Readers) Burmese python. A python with a rather suspicious lump in its belly. Officials said they could feel "cat limbs" inside the snake, but could not positively ID the victim...one report states that the python is to be X-rayed.

I think that would still be rather inconclusive proof - sure it might be a cat but is it the missing cat? Where are the people from CSI:Miami for cripe's sake?

The snake has a new home at the Sense of Wonder Nature Center and Trail...and, in a peculiar coincidence they state:

We're calling him Hollywood

Hmm...might this have something to do with MY Hollywood's recent disappearance?

Welcome to October - the month of the Burmese Python.

Like A Day Without Sunshine

Well, okay, it's true - after my years in the great Pacific Northwest, I've come to actually enjoy days without sunshine.

However, Hollywood Stafford seems to be under the misguided idea that he was authorized to take a week long vacation.

He has not been around, and the world is a little duller. And so am I.

He better return with some excellent music tips.

Maybe The PR Is Wrong

How can Mars be the God of War ?

What A Wonderful World

The Femmebot is declared cancer-free following her six month check-up.

Now I Understand...

I got an email this morning that affected me so acutely that I actually had to leave the library and go sit outside for a moment. While that helped, the effect lingered with me all day long.

Some sentiments and words are very powerful, and it takes awhile to really process them.

Thank you, Scout. I will treasure that one forever.

A Lesson From The Seven Deadly Sins

Today's sermon is on the topic of gluttony.

Simply put, gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires. However, Thomas Aquinas adds that it is ...an inordinate desire ...leaving the order of reason...

Today's sterling illustrative example comes from deep within the Florida Everglades.

A 13 foot Burmese python (not an indigenous animal by the way) decided to have a six foot alligator for dinner. No news source I've found can give an estimate on how long that feat might have taken, nor, sadly were there any witnesses to the epic battle. However, park rangers did come across the grisly scene of the python's burst open body, with the hindquarters of the alligator exposed.

It is worth pointing out that the glutton's punishment in hell is being forced to eat rats, toads, ... and snakes.