In the dream I had last night I was driving in a Minivan with my immediate family. At least I’m pretty sure it was my immediate family, dream logic being so screwy and all. A mournful song was playing on the radio and somebody asked if I knew who the artist was. Speaking authoritatively, I said it was a Philip Glass piece from the early 80’s. I was interrupted, however, by a rumpled Philip Glass himself, who was lying in the far back of the car’s interior, the space usually reserved for luggage, groceries and the occasional minimalist composer. “Actually, “ he refuted, much to my embarrassment, “it’s an 18th century composition, one that has had quite an impact on my own work.” He rummaged about the space and held up a CD. “I think the folks at Telarc have the finest version of this piece available.” Calling me on my mistake, one of my older brothers laughingly pointed to Philip Glass and said, “From no less an authority then the man himself.”
I also recently had a dream about our baby talking at 2 weeks.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Poor Richard's Armonica and Septuagenarian Desires
I had no idea that, among his numerous other inventions (the lightning rod and bifocals being among the most well known) Benjamin Franklin also invented a popular, at least in its day, musical instrument called the Armonica. Here’s an excerpt from H.W. Brands alternatingly grueling and fascinating biography of Franklin, The First Amarican:
Franklin did not exaggerate when he described the armonica’s tones as “incomparably sweet.” They had a haunting, ethereal quality, much like that which would characterize “New Age” music more than two hundred years later. Franklin quickly became adept at playing, and took to entertaining guests on the instrument. Others followed his lead. Marianne Davies, a singer who played flute and harpsichord- and who was another young woman charmed by Franklin- became proficient enough to offer public performances. For a time the armonica achieved a genuine vogue. Royal wedding vows were exchanged in Vienna to armonica accompaniment; some of the greatest composers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including Mozart and Beethoven, wrote for Franklin’s instruments.
You can play an approximation of the Armonica here.
Of those core (and near mythological) founding fathers, Franklin is the one I’d most like to share a beer with. Washington was too regal, Adams too puritanical, Hamilton too overwhelmingly scintillating and Jefferson and Madison too connivingly political. Franklin, however, seems the most human, a Renaissance man securely tethered to the joys of the quotidian, a polymath able to hold his own with experts in the fields (to name just a handful) of geology, linguistics or electricity and yet never flaunting his intellectual prowess to such an extent or degree as to miss the opportunity to gain the affection of the common man. He, of all the founding fathers had the best sense of humor, the most flirtatious sense of fun and the most unwavering and appealing temperament. Of all the founding fathers, Franklin is the only one I can imagine barreling down a water slide, spilling out into the waiting pool and emerging with an amused smile and sparkle in the eye ready for another go.
He was also a notorious, highly accomplished flirt. One of the ways history has distilled Franklin’s character, or that of any of the founding fathers, is to trim away anything but the mythos-Washington chopping down the cherry-tree, for example, or Franklin and his electric kite. To become an icon is to lose nuance, shades and degrees of an otherwise complex life lost to the majority in favor of readily digestible fable. So, in addition to his juiced up kite, most folks, I’m assuming, know something (maybe just a hint) of Franklin’s reputation as a lover. Brand thankfully helps to shed more light on Franklin’s amorous charms, focusing most intensely on his time in Paris when Congress had appointed Franklin to a Committee of Secret Correspondence in hopes of gaining foreign support, namely that of France, for the war back home.
Then in his 70’s, Franklin was well known and adored by the French, who considered him one of their own. In between his talks with Comte de Bergennes, King Louis’s foreign minister, Franklin stayed in the rustic village of Passy, just outside Paris where he summoned his many septuagenarian charms in service of wooing numerous objects of affection.
Madame Foucalt, sister of Madame Chaumot who in turn was the wife of Franklin’s landlord, Jacques Donatien Leray of Nantes, was one such pursued interest. Brand quotes liberally from their letters, the sparring contents of which are a blast to read, with Franklin administering a variety of deliciously naughty reasons why she should sleep with him while she nimbly curtsies and denies him. Franklin tries again:
Adopting yet another analogy, he likened their sparring to war, and proposed a preliminary peace treaty.
Art. 1. There shall be eternal peace, friendship and love between Madame B. and Mr. F.
Art. 2. In order to maintain the same inviolably, Made. B. on her part stipulates and agrees that Mr. F. shall come to her
whenever she sends him.
Art. 3. That he shall stay with her as long as he pleases.
A few more concessions on his part, then:
Art. 8. That when he is with her he will do what he pleases.
Art. 9. And that he will love any other woman as far as he finds her amiable.
Let me know what you think of these preliminaries. To me they seem to express the true meaning and intention of each party more plainly than most treaties. I shall insist pretty strongly on the eighth article, though without much hope of your consent to it. And on the ninth, also, though I despair of ever finding another women that I could love with equal tenderness.
Ben Franklin, founding father, septuagenarian stud extraordinaire.
Franklin did not exaggerate when he described the armonica’s tones as “incomparably sweet.” They had a haunting, ethereal quality, much like that which would characterize “New Age” music more than two hundred years later. Franklin quickly became adept at playing, and took to entertaining guests on the instrument. Others followed his lead. Marianne Davies, a singer who played flute and harpsichord- and who was another young woman charmed by Franklin- became proficient enough to offer public performances. For a time the armonica achieved a genuine vogue. Royal wedding vows were exchanged in Vienna to armonica accompaniment; some of the greatest composers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including Mozart and Beethoven, wrote for Franklin’s instruments.
You can play an approximation of the Armonica here.
Of those core (and near mythological) founding fathers, Franklin is the one I’d most like to share a beer with. Washington was too regal, Adams too puritanical, Hamilton too overwhelmingly scintillating and Jefferson and Madison too connivingly political. Franklin, however, seems the most human, a Renaissance man securely tethered to the joys of the quotidian, a polymath able to hold his own with experts in the fields (to name just a handful) of geology, linguistics or electricity and yet never flaunting his intellectual prowess to such an extent or degree as to miss the opportunity to gain the affection of the common man. He, of all the founding fathers had the best sense of humor, the most flirtatious sense of fun and the most unwavering and appealing temperament. Of all the founding fathers, Franklin is the only one I can imagine barreling down a water slide, spilling out into the waiting pool and emerging with an amused smile and sparkle in the eye ready for another go.
He was also a notorious, highly accomplished flirt. One of the ways history has distilled Franklin’s character, or that of any of the founding fathers, is to trim away anything but the mythos-Washington chopping down the cherry-tree, for example, or Franklin and his electric kite. To become an icon is to lose nuance, shades and degrees of an otherwise complex life lost to the majority in favor of readily digestible fable. So, in addition to his juiced up kite, most folks, I’m assuming, know something (maybe just a hint) of Franklin’s reputation as a lover. Brand thankfully helps to shed more light on Franklin’s amorous charms, focusing most intensely on his time in Paris when Congress had appointed Franklin to a Committee of Secret Correspondence in hopes of gaining foreign support, namely that of France, for the war back home.
Then in his 70’s, Franklin was well known and adored by the French, who considered him one of their own. In between his talks with Comte de Bergennes, King Louis’s foreign minister, Franklin stayed in the rustic village of Passy, just outside Paris where he summoned his many septuagenarian charms in service of wooing numerous objects of affection.
Madame Foucalt, sister of Madame Chaumot who in turn was the wife of Franklin’s landlord, Jacques Donatien Leray of Nantes, was one such pursued interest. Brand quotes liberally from their letters, the sparring contents of which are a blast to read, with Franklin administering a variety of deliciously naughty reasons why she should sleep with him while she nimbly curtsies and denies him. Franklin tries again:
Adopting yet another analogy, he likened their sparring to war, and proposed a preliminary peace treaty.
Art. 1. There shall be eternal peace, friendship and love between Madame B. and Mr. F.
Art. 2. In order to maintain the same inviolably, Made. B. on her part stipulates and agrees that Mr. F. shall come to her
whenever she sends him.
Art. 3. That he shall stay with her as long as he pleases.
A few more concessions on his part, then:
Art. 8. That when he is with her he will do what he pleases.
Art. 9. And that he will love any other woman as far as he finds her amiable.
Let me know what you think of these preliminaries. To me they seem to express the true meaning and intention of each party more plainly than most treaties. I shall insist pretty strongly on the eighth article, though without much hope of your consent to it. And on the ninth, also, though I despair of ever finding another women that I could love with equal tenderness.
Ben Franklin, founding father, septuagenarian stud extraordinaire.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Beyond Narrative
Though you may not pick up on it at first, there’s a narrative, albeit sublimely fractured, weaving through this film, one Tarkovsky was miffed others couldn’t easily grasp or felt necessary to overburden with symbolism. “It’s no more then a straightforward, simple story,” he assured one prying interviewer, though I can’t help but think this assertion of the film’s simplicity, and even that the narrative is readily apperent, was anything but feigned.
Because we’re all hopelessly tethered to reason, films that eschew the linear can often try our patience. It can make for a rough viewing when things don’t seem to be making narrative sense. You end up with that prickly feeling, you shift around in your seat and think, “Geez, what am I missing here? Does everybody else get this?” Or, more importantly for the health of your sanity, you can give yourself over to the fact that, especially in this instance, the filmmaker probably didn’t expect you to make sense of the film anymore then they could make sense of it themselves. I almost fell asleep twice watching Mirror, but I loved every second of it. Its animating force, illusive as it is, gains in power until it begins to overwhelm.
Mirror was supposedly the most biographic of Tarkovsky’s 7 films. It freely leaps between pre-war Russia, wartime and postwar Russia in the 60’s where an unseen narrator oftentimes reads poetry. (The poems were written by Tarkovsky’s father.) As such, it’s a stunningly, ravishingly hypnotic collection of images, passages and moods. It’s the ambience that carries you, sustained and haunted- with some of the most powerful passages involving wind blowing through fields, leaves, and billowing curtains. Like our own memory, the film is restless, fragmented and episodic. Themes come into focus only to dissolve. It’s an interior dialogue in all its glorious inexactness and lies just beyond the reach and conceits of narrative.
Because we’re all hopelessly tethered to reason, films that eschew the linear can often try our patience. It can make for a rough viewing when things don’t seem to be making narrative sense. You end up with that prickly feeling, you shift around in your seat and think, “Geez, what am I missing here? Does everybody else get this?” Or, more importantly for the health of your sanity, you can give yourself over to the fact that, especially in this instance, the filmmaker probably didn’t expect you to make sense of the film anymore then they could make sense of it themselves. I almost fell asleep twice watching Mirror, but I loved every second of it. Its animating force, illusive as it is, gains in power until it begins to overwhelm.
Mirror was supposedly the most biographic of Tarkovsky’s 7 films. It freely leaps between pre-war Russia, wartime and postwar Russia in the 60’s where an unseen narrator oftentimes reads poetry. (The poems were written by Tarkovsky’s father.) As such, it’s a stunningly, ravishingly hypnotic collection of images, passages and moods. It’s the ambience that carries you, sustained and haunted- with some of the most powerful passages involving wind blowing through fields, leaves, and billowing curtains. Like our own memory, the film is restless, fragmented and episodic. Themes come into focus only to dissolve. It’s an interior dialogue in all its glorious inexactness and lies just beyond the reach and conceits of narrative.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Free the Bean
The picture to your right is the view from the 23rd floor of my in-laws new condo located downtown. Very nice. They’ve wanted to have a place in the city for a long time now, so we’re excited to welcome them to the neighborhood. They’ll split their time between here and their other pad in Naperville. It’ll certainly save on their traveling time (and ours!) once the baby arrives.
Speaking of which, she gave her Dad a little kick on Wednesday night. 3, in fact, so as make certain I knew it was her and not her Mom. Just about the most awesome thing ever. Cathy’s 22 weeks today.
Speaking of which, she gave her Dad a little kick on Wednesday night. 3, in fact, so as make certain I knew it was her and not her Mom. Just about the most awesome thing ever. Cathy’s 22 weeks today.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Identity Technology
Maybe it’s time somebody collected a books worth of essays on the iPod and its inter/intrapersonal repercussions? And doesn’t the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self sound terribly interesting? I mean, wow, those site graphics of an old slab of vinyl, a cassette abutting an unspooled reel to reel, a super 8 and clunky videocassette are so redolent of this initiative’s promise of investigating that fascinating intersect of technology and identity that I’d love to read some of the stuff they’ve compiled.
I’ve had a lot of inchoate thoughts regarding technology as a reflection of who we are as people so it’s exciting to see folks with more discipline making an earnest effort to understand how this relationship affects us interpersonally as well as, and maybe more importantly, intrapersonally.
This reminds me, I picked up a book recently that was right up this intrapersonal ally. It’s Geoffrey O’Brien’s Sonota For Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory and the Imagined Life. Here’s a blurb from a review:
For O'Brien recorded music -- especially those songs and records that got listened to obsessively, often in one's youth -- becomes a sort of memory-retrieval device, a flawed one, but still a way to tap into recollections of things past, as potent and evocative as a snapshot of a long-lost friend or a deceased parent. "Inside those songs, I know, can be found whatever is left of whole days and weekends and seasons otherwise beyond retrieval. The trick is to locate the seams in the music that will permit an unraveling of what was woven into it," he writes about the Beach Boys.
I hope to get to this one soon.
Maybe it’s time somebody collected a books worth of essays on the iPod and its inter/intrapersonal repercussions? And doesn’t the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self sound terribly interesting? I mean, wow, those site graphics of an old slab of vinyl, a cassette abutting an unspooled reel to reel, a super 8 and clunky videocassette are so redolent of this initiative’s promise of investigating that fascinating intersect of technology and identity that I’d love to read some of the stuff they’ve compiled.
I’ve had a lot of inchoate thoughts regarding technology as a reflection of who we are as people so it’s exciting to see folks with more discipline making an earnest effort to understand how this relationship affects us interpersonally as well as, and maybe more importantly, intrapersonally.
This reminds me, I picked up a book recently that was right up this intrapersonal ally. It’s Geoffrey O’Brien’s Sonota For Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory and the Imagined Life. Here’s a blurb from a review:
For O'Brien recorded music -- especially those songs and records that got listened to obsessively, often in one's youth -- becomes a sort of memory-retrieval device, a flawed one, but still a way to tap into recollections of things past, as potent and evocative as a snapshot of a long-lost friend or a deceased parent. "Inside those songs, I know, can be found whatever is left of whole days and weekends and seasons otherwise beyond retrieval. The trick is to locate the seams in the music that will permit an unraveling of what was woven into it," he writes about the Beach Boys.
I hope to get to this one soon.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Coming This Christmas
Here’s another picture of our impending domestic anarchy. It looks, like the previous picture I posted, as if she’s sucking a thumb. Well, yeah, the personal pronoun I just used was intentional. It’s a she. We had originally intended to keep the baby’s gender to ourselves but when we realized that each of us thought this had been a request made by the other and that, honestly, neither one of us really cared one way or the other, we decided to tell. “How sure are you?” I asked the doctor. “99% sure.”
Still, easy on the pink frilly stuff. Please.
When we had the ultrasound this past Thursday there was a resident being trained by the attending, so we let him explore for a while provided he took ultrasound pictures at our request. The images on the screen are, like the contents being revealed, in constant flux though he managed just fine and took us on a tour of her heart, feet, hands, spine and even the placenta and umbilical cord. Best of all, she was awake and active so we got to see her legs unfolding and poking out into the uterine walls.
Her due date is roughly December 23rd through the 25th. She will not, despite my repeated entreaties and the world’s great loss, be named Fern.
Still, easy on the pink frilly stuff. Please.
When we had the ultrasound this past Thursday there was a resident being trained by the attending, so we let him explore for a while provided he took ultrasound pictures at our request. The images on the screen are, like the contents being revealed, in constant flux though he managed just fine and took us on a tour of her heart, feet, hands, spine and even the placenta and umbilical cord. Best of all, she was awake and active so we got to see her legs unfolding and poking out into the uterine walls.
Her due date is roughly December 23rd through the 25th. She will not, despite my repeated entreaties and the world’s great loss, be named Fern.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Flutter
Ultrasound tomorrow afternoon. Scans will be up on Friday. The quickening came a little over a week ago now. I may or may not have actually felt the baby myself last night (I think it may have been Cathy’s hand fluttering against mine when she herself felt it move) so I imagine it’ll be another week or so before my palm is accommodated with a kick.
Ultrasound tomorrow afternoon. Scans will be up on Friday. The quickening came a little over a week ago now. I may or may not have actually felt the baby myself last night (I think it may have been Cathy’s hand fluttering against mine when she herself felt it move) so I imagine it’ll be another week or so before my palm is accommodated with a kick.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
DJ Flatwater
I had the pleasure of DJing Sunday at this year’s Flatwater Classic for about 600 or so Chicago River friendly folks. I played for close to 6 hours, from about 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Lot’s of people dancing as they took their canoes out of the water and numerous folks approaching to find out what I was playing right then, ten minutes ago and, like, about an hour ago, “you know, it was really nice, she sounded Russian.” Which, of course, was Gal Costa, who really sounded Portuguese and was singing Que Pena.
Other tracks played that good people were curious about:
Marjuragenta by Ghorwane
Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson
2 More Dead by RJD2
Kinky Reggae by Bob Marley
O Filosofo by Jorge Ben
Rock Your Baby by George Macrae
As by Stevie Wonder (Oh, man, did this ever sound great in the haze and shimmy of the afternoon heat!)
There were a few others, but that’s what I remember from the top of my head. The best compliment of the day came from some 50-something dude who told me, “Man, I’ve been meaning to leave for like the past half hour but the music keeps me coming back.” Well, allright! Hear the music and multiply!
Other tracks played that good people were curious about:
Marjuragenta by Ghorwane
Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson
2 More Dead by RJD2
Kinky Reggae by Bob Marley
O Filosofo by Jorge Ben
Rock Your Baby by George Macrae
As by Stevie Wonder (Oh, man, did this ever sound great in the haze and shimmy of the afternoon heat!)
There were a few others, but that’s what I remember from the top of my head. The best compliment of the day came from some 50-something dude who told me, “Man, I’ve been meaning to leave for like the past half hour but the music keeps me coming back.” Well, allright! Hear the music and multiply!
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Funky D and His Fabulous Cassette Archive
When Dennis turned 34 he decided what he really wanted was a set of drums. That we were all so lucky to know our birthday needs so well. I’ve become dangerously lame when it comes to my own birthday fortunes, forfeiting anything more adventurous then indulging my appetite for ever more books and music. Note to self: One of these days you should ask for an omnichord.
I spent some time with Dennis and his drums this past Monday. Neither one of us is anywhere within walking distance of the ambidextrous effortlessness necessary to really swing, but we both managed to hold down some meek but manageable grooves on the new set while the other added various percussive elements and barnyard hoots. Dennis recorded a lot of it on the trusty 880.
As Dennis begins to get a feel for the skins, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be inspired to put together an album of his recordings. He has one of the most impressive cassette libraries of personal recordings, dating back to the early 90’s, of anyone I know. In fact, one of my musical obsessions over the last few years has been to work with these tapes (which include a number of improvisations Dennis and I committed, for better or worse, worse probably, to 4-track back over the years), feeding interesting passages, riffs and percussion culled from this sonic molasses to my sampler and rebuilding the tracks from the inside out. The appeal, I think, comes from thinking of this 4-track tape collection as though it were some exotic cachet of sonic curiosities, a hodgepodge archive of musical meanderings waiting to be composted with the help of my sampler, ample sound processing and some Pro Tools editing.
Please, give the drummer some.
I spent some time with Dennis and his drums this past Monday. Neither one of us is anywhere within walking distance of the ambidextrous effortlessness necessary to really swing, but we both managed to hold down some meek but manageable grooves on the new set while the other added various percussive elements and barnyard hoots. Dennis recorded a lot of it on the trusty 880.
As Dennis begins to get a feel for the skins, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be inspired to put together an album of his recordings. He has one of the most impressive cassette libraries of personal recordings, dating back to the early 90’s, of anyone I know. In fact, one of my musical obsessions over the last few years has been to work with these tapes (which include a number of improvisations Dennis and I committed, for better or worse, worse probably, to 4-track back over the years), feeding interesting passages, riffs and percussion culled from this sonic molasses to my sampler and rebuilding the tracks from the inside out. The appeal, I think, comes from thinking of this 4-track tape collection as though it were some exotic cachet of sonic curiosities, a hodgepodge archive of musical meanderings waiting to be composted with the help of my sampler, ample sound processing and some Pro Tools editing.
Please, give the drummer some.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The River
This past Saturday Mayor Daley released the Chicago River Agenda. Cathy has put a ton of work and vision into this and biased as I obviously am I can't recommend highly enough that you give it your attention.
No matter what you might ultimately think of Daley and his political priorities I know I’d be hard pressed to disprove his dedication to improving the natural environment of Chicago while in the process setting an exciting precedent for large urban cities throughout the US. Not to resort to a journalistic cliché, but Daley clearly seems to be eying his legacy, sizing up his contributions to the city and deciding, much to our benefit and his good credit, that ecological sustainability and the greening of Chicago’s infrastructure will continue to play a prominent role in defining it. Yes, glaring ecoproblems continue to exist, but it’s hard to avoid evidence of the progress he’s made.
What makes this even more exciting is the role Cathy gets to play in improving, protecting, balancing and enhancing the Chicago River aspects of this vision. That is to say:
-Improving water quality
-Protecting nature and wildlife in the city
-Balancing river uses
-Enhancing neighborhood and community life
You can read more about these goals in the agenda. Pay particular attention to page 11. It’s the one on Combined Sewer Overflows. It begins, “Chicago, like many older cities, has a combined sewer system that carries sewage and strormwater in the same pipes. During heavy rains, the system can become full and cause a mixture of stormwater and sewage to overflow into the river.” Yuck. The antiquated sewer system overflows ‘cause otherwise all that excess water would be appearing in your basement and ruining your excellent comic book collection.
Cathy and I have had dinner conversations about CSO’s. You bet we used the acronym! Over home cooked meals we imagined untreated or raw effluent, otherwise known as the collective intestinal outpouring of our cities near 3 million occupants odiously mixed with stormwater, dumping (pun intended!) into the river in impressive quantities. No doubt for some such talk would dampen a candlelit mood and the gentle coaxing of Marvin Gaye’s voice beckoning through the speakers. But it’s fascinating stuff, and Cathy knows her shit (pun intended again!) and hearing about how the city is tackling this challenge, among others, is one of the joys of having Cathy as an ally.
So, get out and give the Chicago River some much needed love. There are still a couple days left in the Chicago River Fishing Derby where all you gotta do is show up and be given all the particulars you need to fish in the loop. I hope someday we'll be able to fry up our catches and have them for lunch. And on Friday Cathy and I will be checking out the Chicago International Rowing Regatta where I'll be carefully judging the rallying merits of each boats coxswain. And next Sunday there's the Chicago Flatwater Classic which concludes at Ping Tom Memorial Park where I'll be haphazardly DJ'ing summery grooves on behalf of Friends of The Chicago River for the better part of the afternoon.
Update: I mistakingly linked the Chicago River Agenda to the Chicago Water Agenda from 2003. It's fixed now. Though, I gotta admit, the City's web page could really use some help.
No matter what you might ultimately think of Daley and his political priorities I know I’d be hard pressed to disprove his dedication to improving the natural environment of Chicago while in the process setting an exciting precedent for large urban cities throughout the US. Not to resort to a journalistic cliché, but Daley clearly seems to be eying his legacy, sizing up his contributions to the city and deciding, much to our benefit and his good credit, that ecological sustainability and the greening of Chicago’s infrastructure will continue to play a prominent role in defining it. Yes, glaring ecoproblems continue to exist, but it’s hard to avoid evidence of the progress he’s made.
What makes this even more exciting is the role Cathy gets to play in improving, protecting, balancing and enhancing the Chicago River aspects of this vision. That is to say:
-Improving water quality
-Protecting nature and wildlife in the city
-Balancing river uses
-Enhancing neighborhood and community life
You can read more about these goals in the agenda. Pay particular attention to page 11. It’s the one on Combined Sewer Overflows. It begins, “Chicago, like many older cities, has a combined sewer system that carries sewage and strormwater in the same pipes. During heavy rains, the system can become full and cause a mixture of stormwater and sewage to overflow into the river.” Yuck. The antiquated sewer system overflows ‘cause otherwise all that excess water would be appearing in your basement and ruining your excellent comic book collection.
Cathy and I have had dinner conversations about CSO’s. You bet we used the acronym! Over home cooked meals we imagined untreated or raw effluent, otherwise known as the collective intestinal outpouring of our cities near 3 million occupants odiously mixed with stormwater, dumping (pun intended!) into the river in impressive quantities. No doubt for some such talk would dampen a candlelit mood and the gentle coaxing of Marvin Gaye’s voice beckoning through the speakers. But it’s fascinating stuff, and Cathy knows her shit (pun intended again!) and hearing about how the city is tackling this challenge, among others, is one of the joys of having Cathy as an ally.
So, get out and give the Chicago River some much needed love. There are still a couple days left in the Chicago River Fishing Derby where all you gotta do is show up and be given all the particulars you need to fish in the loop. I hope someday we'll be able to fry up our catches and have them for lunch. And on Friday Cathy and I will be checking out the Chicago International Rowing Regatta where I'll be carefully judging the rallying merits of each boats coxswain. And next Sunday there's the Chicago Flatwater Classic which concludes at Ping Tom Memorial Park where I'll be haphazardly DJ'ing summery grooves on behalf of Friends of The Chicago River for the better part of the afternoon.
Update: I mistakingly linked the Chicago River Agenda to the Chicago Water Agenda from 2003. It's fixed now. Though, I gotta admit, the City's web page could really use some help.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Mirabilis Dictu, Peanut
There’s been an elephant in the room that this blog has yet to address. Cathy is in the family way. 17 weeks along at that. Among the many appealing changes currently underway, the past couple weeks has seen an expansive belly transformation, the shape of which now, to Cathy’s great pleasure, clearly denotes pregnancy.
In any case, it goes without saying that we’re both thrilled. In addition to the occasional “Oh, my god!” moment (a moment that has as its catalyst the contemplation of Cathy + Chris= 23 weeks and counting, the ramifications of which will surely astound!) we’ve also been reveling in what is, beyond our own intimate enthusiasms and enchantments, one of lives great quotidian conditions. It’s simultaneously mundane and irresistibly astonishing.
We can’t wait.
Joining the good news is my acceptance into Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. This means I’m one step closer to holding a position where I can both promote and freely provide my own cultural/media obsessions to an unsuspecting public. I have ardent dreams where I’m sending curious patrons home with sturdy copies of Laurie Anderson’s United States I-IV, Tony Gatlif’s Latcho Drome and Gore Vidal’s United States the fineness wherein slakes their demanding expectations and sends them back hankering for more. If this isn’t work disguised as play, I don’t know what is.
This, by the way, is hilarious. But only if you’ve been orbited by Tom Cruise the last couple of months.
In any case, it goes without saying that we’re both thrilled. In addition to the occasional “Oh, my god!” moment (a moment that has as its catalyst the contemplation of Cathy + Chris= 23 weeks and counting, the ramifications of which will surely astound!) we’ve also been reveling in what is, beyond our own intimate enthusiasms and enchantments, one of lives great quotidian conditions. It’s simultaneously mundane and irresistibly astonishing.
We can’t wait.
Joining the good news is my acceptance into Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. This means I’m one step closer to holding a position where I can both promote and freely provide my own cultural/media obsessions to an unsuspecting public. I have ardent dreams where I’m sending curious patrons home with sturdy copies of Laurie Anderson’s United States I-IV, Tony Gatlif’s Latcho Drome and Gore Vidal’s United States the fineness wherein slakes their demanding expectations and sends them back hankering for more. If this isn’t work disguised as play, I don’t know what is.
This, by the way, is hilarious. But only if you’ve been orbited by Tom Cruise the last couple of months.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
I'm Looking For A UB40 Red Red Wine kinda Wine
Is there any better way to start your day then with a trip to Chicagoland’s wine and spirits superstore, Sam’s?
We got there around 11:00 this morning, stepping out of our ailing Rav- 4 and into the thick, wooly blanket of heat that’s hovered over Chicago for the past 5 or 6 days. A guy was throwing bags of ice from a delivery truck just off to the right of the store’s entrance. He’d lunge into the walls of bagged ice densely packed into the truck, lift, pivot and heave, the bags making a delightful arc (at least I thought so) before meeting their fate with an enchantingly watery thud on the steamy blacktop.
What I like most about Sam’s is to just wander the wine aisles admiring all the wine. Because they’ve so rarely done me wrong, I always check in on Chilean wines first. We’ve gambled on and enjoyed dozens of good Chilean wines for under $10 over the last 5-years or so, in fact, they played a vital role in our wedding considerations back in the day. Nothing says, “Why not? Let’s get married!” like a good Chilean merlot and we're proof of that. I bought a couple this morning, but I couldn’t tell you what they were called or what vineyards they might have come from. Cathy and I have long lamented our laxity when it comes to writing down the name of a good wine and have been too quick to recycle the bottle. Because some of those wines were damn good! Once, I decided to combat our neglect by taking some notes, jotting down some quick impressions every now and again about what we we may have liked about a particular wine (“Made talking about combined sewer overflows while simultaneously eating dinner surprisingly appetizing and not gross at all!”) but I never made it past the first few.
We talked to a couple Sam’s employees. There seemed to be hundreds of them there, two to three per aisle and so, so very willing to be of service. We had a guy recommend some Chilean wine for us. The only part of that conversation that I remember went like this:
“…some people like medium-bodied…”
“Yeah, that sounds great!”
Then we wondered into the Australian aisle, hoping to find an interesting Shiraz, which is another way of saying we wanted something cheap but tasty. There we met another employee. They’re almost always male, these clerks, and most of them seem to know their shit. I imagine the staff greeting each other at the beginning of each shift with a hearty, “In vino veratas!” and a high five. I remember more of this conversation. There was this:
“Do your drink Australian wines?”
“Yes!”
And later there was this:
“Yeah, pinot noir’s are very big right now, very popular.”
“It’s because of that damn movie, isn’t it?”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
He told me to try this one, whatever it was, and I was easily convinced though was $1.99 over our usual $10 limit. Then he told me how to really enjoy it. Chill it for about 45 minutes prior to serving. He reassured me that while this was an odd request given that it was a red and all, it was a countenanced practice amongst those in the know. You don’t serve it chilled though. Let it sit for about 15 minutes after the 45 in the fridge. Then serve it. Very refreshing on hot days like the ones we’ve been having.
We got there around 11:00 this morning, stepping out of our ailing Rav- 4 and into the thick, wooly blanket of heat that’s hovered over Chicago for the past 5 or 6 days. A guy was throwing bags of ice from a delivery truck just off to the right of the store’s entrance. He’d lunge into the walls of bagged ice densely packed into the truck, lift, pivot and heave, the bags making a delightful arc (at least I thought so) before meeting their fate with an enchantingly watery thud on the steamy blacktop.
What I like most about Sam’s is to just wander the wine aisles admiring all the wine. Because they’ve so rarely done me wrong, I always check in on Chilean wines first. We’ve gambled on and enjoyed dozens of good Chilean wines for under $10 over the last 5-years or so, in fact, they played a vital role in our wedding considerations back in the day. Nothing says, “Why not? Let’s get married!” like a good Chilean merlot and we're proof of that. I bought a couple this morning, but I couldn’t tell you what they were called or what vineyards they might have come from. Cathy and I have long lamented our laxity when it comes to writing down the name of a good wine and have been too quick to recycle the bottle. Because some of those wines were damn good! Once, I decided to combat our neglect by taking some notes, jotting down some quick impressions every now and again about what we we may have liked about a particular wine (“Made talking about combined sewer overflows while simultaneously eating dinner surprisingly appetizing and not gross at all!”) but I never made it past the first few.
We talked to a couple Sam’s employees. There seemed to be hundreds of them there, two to three per aisle and so, so very willing to be of service. We had a guy recommend some Chilean wine for us. The only part of that conversation that I remember went like this:
“…some people like medium-bodied…”
“Yeah, that sounds great!”
Then we wondered into the Australian aisle, hoping to find an interesting Shiraz, which is another way of saying we wanted something cheap but tasty. There we met another employee. They’re almost always male, these clerks, and most of them seem to know their shit. I imagine the staff greeting each other at the beginning of each shift with a hearty, “In vino veratas!” and a high five. I remember more of this conversation. There was this:
“Do your drink Australian wines?”
“Yes!”
And later there was this:
“Yeah, pinot noir’s are very big right now, very popular.”
“It’s because of that damn movie, isn’t it?”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
He told me to try this one, whatever it was, and I was easily convinced though was $1.99 over our usual $10 limit. Then he told me how to really enjoy it. Chill it for about 45 minutes prior to serving. He reassured me that while this was an odd request given that it was a red and all, it was a countenanced practice amongst those in the know. You don’t serve it chilled though. Let it sit for about 15 minutes after the 45 in the fridge. Then serve it. Very refreshing on hot days like the ones we’ve been having.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
This Calling Bell
I got some good news in the mail earlier this week. Thankfully, not knowing it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon in such a way, and with such momentous consequences, as to be analogous to George Washington’s own crossing of the Delaware, did me no harm. That I did well doesn’t guarantee university acceptance, though it does mean I’ve successfully jumped through a vital admissions hoop and managed to land upright, a biscuit artfully balanced atop my nose.
So, now there is more waiting. I know the mail arrives on most weekdays between 2:00 and 2:30 in the afternoon.
And there’s Hilton Head. In celebration of Lou Lou’s 60th birthday. Whole family under one roof, a hundred yards from the beach and just a week from today. I’m making a mini-documentary of the whole thing. (Honest! Wait to you see it. It’s gonna be good, and much, much funnier then the first one.) Which reminds me, my incredible nephew, Ethan, is taking, simply because he’s curious little kid, a super cool summer school class focused on making your own movie sets. How very cool is this? “Okay, kids, listen up please! Eyes up here. We’re going to begin today by using the props I’ve brought in to recreate as best we can the set design from the opening scene of Hannah and Her Sisters!” What child doesn’t adore that movie and Woody Allen in general? The kids are crazy about him! I’m truly surprised that there’s never been a “Little Woody” cartoon, something suitable for, say, PBS. Episodes would follow the endearingly neurotic adventures of Little Woody with plenty of opportunities for wry, existential musings about monsters in the closet, the potential consequences of committing Onan’s sin and death. Sounds like Radio Days to me, but still…
We have Wearemonster and wearehappy. And, if that wasn’t cool enough, Cathy just turned the air conditioner on.
If you’re like me and find this administration’s chronic exaggerations on how progress is coming along with the building of an autonomous Iraqi army both maddening and utterly fraudulent (let alone dangerously delusional), take a look at this bullshit repellent from yesterday’s Washington Post. The Administration line is delivered by Maj. Gen. Josehph J. Taluto who reassures us that there will be plenty of qualified Iraqi fighting men come fall- “I can tell you, making assessments, I know we’re on target.” Everything is fine, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along!” The U.S. military currently says there are over 169,000 thousand Iraqi military and police who are “trained and equipped.” But the truth, I think, is conveyed by one of the platoon sergeant’s involved in the training and who readily admits that he and his fellow soldiers “like to refer to the Iraqi army as preschoolers with guns.” Most estimate that the number of realistically “trained and equipped” Iraqi soldiers, that is, soldiers who could act autonomously of U.S. support and fulfill similar missions, is around 10,000 at most.
I’ve read dozens of articles over the months regarding this attempt by the U.S. military to train Iraqi soldiers. And in reading these pieces, it’s made stunningly clear that this undertaking, like so many of our adventures in Iraq, isn’t going well. Frustrated commanders on the ground, Iraqi leaders and anonymous insider sources all thread through these articles and offer assessments bluntly contradicting those made by the administration.
Lastly, we’re having a BBQ on Sunday. Summer has arrived. And Happy Birthday to Big Art, who will be grilling out on the deck in Bay Village tonight.
So, now there is more waiting. I know the mail arrives on most weekdays between 2:00 and 2:30 in the afternoon.
And there’s Hilton Head. In celebration of Lou Lou’s 60th birthday. Whole family under one roof, a hundred yards from the beach and just a week from today. I’m making a mini-documentary of the whole thing. (Honest! Wait to you see it. It’s gonna be good, and much, much funnier then the first one.) Which reminds me, my incredible nephew, Ethan, is taking, simply because he’s curious little kid, a super cool summer school class focused on making your own movie sets. How very cool is this? “Okay, kids, listen up please! Eyes up here. We’re going to begin today by using the props I’ve brought in to recreate as best we can the set design from the opening scene of Hannah and Her Sisters!” What child doesn’t adore that movie and Woody Allen in general? The kids are crazy about him! I’m truly surprised that there’s never been a “Little Woody” cartoon, something suitable for, say, PBS. Episodes would follow the endearingly neurotic adventures of Little Woody with plenty of opportunities for wry, existential musings about monsters in the closet, the potential consequences of committing Onan’s sin and death. Sounds like Radio Days to me, but still…
We have Wearemonster and wearehappy. And, if that wasn’t cool enough, Cathy just turned the air conditioner on.
If you’re like me and find this administration’s chronic exaggerations on how progress is coming along with the building of an autonomous Iraqi army both maddening and utterly fraudulent (let alone dangerously delusional), take a look at this bullshit repellent from yesterday’s Washington Post. The Administration line is delivered by Maj. Gen. Josehph J. Taluto who reassures us that there will be plenty of qualified Iraqi fighting men come fall- “I can tell you, making assessments, I know we’re on target.” Everything is fine, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along!” The U.S. military currently says there are over 169,000 thousand Iraqi military and police who are “trained and equipped.” But the truth, I think, is conveyed by one of the platoon sergeant’s involved in the training and who readily admits that he and his fellow soldiers “like to refer to the Iraqi army as preschoolers with guns.” Most estimate that the number of realistically “trained and equipped” Iraqi soldiers, that is, soldiers who could act autonomously of U.S. support and fulfill similar missions, is around 10,000 at most.
I’ve read dozens of articles over the months regarding this attempt by the U.S. military to train Iraqi soldiers. And in reading these pieces, it’s made stunningly clear that this undertaking, like so many of our adventures in Iraq, isn’t going well. Frustrated commanders on the ground, Iraqi leaders and anonymous insider sources all thread through these articles and offer assessments bluntly contradicting those made by the administration.
Lastly, we’re having a BBQ on Sunday. Summer has arrived. And Happy Birthday to Big Art, who will be grilling out on the deck in Bay Village tonight.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Green Roof
Got to go up on and check out the Green roof of City Hall this morning at 9:00. It’s much larger then I had imagined and even more impressive. We spent about a half hour wandering around. One fun fact I came away with- on a hot summer day the other half of City Hall, which isn’t green and is your typical black tarred roof, can get as hot as 170 degrees Fahrenheit while the green side rarely rises above 90.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
My Sedona or My Sherona
According to the March calendar I found in the living room of our Sedona lodgings, we missed attending the following classes- Angel Do You Have A Message For Me?, and, even more irresistible, Spirit Horse Readings- both then being offered at the Center For The New Age and taught by a woman named Angel Lightfeather. Lightfeather, according to a blurb found on the calendar brochure, receives “messages from the other side” and is available for phone readings.
Surprisingly, during our brief stay in Sedona (Population: 10,192, Elevation: 4,326 Feet) I saw little evidence of its reputation as one the capitals of the New Age movement. There was a small New Age bookstore (which smelled, as do most stores with similar leanings, excessively of lavender) where I stopped to buy a New York Times and where one of the clerks recommended the vacations first and only group hike along the Brins Mesa trail.
Making fun of New Agers is bargain-basement cheap and easier then shooting fish in a barrel but I admit to having made it known while in Sedona, with appropriate regularity, that I had been looking forward for sometime to getting my Chaka Kahn aligned. It’s an easy, highly compulsive, shtick, this- you may groan or roll your eyes in mild contempt if you feel it appropriate and it satiates your own need to consistently disavow the many merits of such banter. Me, I simply can’t resist. And I hasten to add that getting your Chaka Kahn properly aligned is nothing at all like getting your Chaka Wrath of Khan properly in order. Forgive me.
What are some of the more enduring clichés of New Agism? Its healing crystals, its hodgepodge arcana of purloined neo-paganism/shamanism/Native-Americanism, its astrological (and highly synthesized) music and, perhaps most damagingly, its connection to the 1980’s as a nascent and supremely loopy boomer/Yuppie spiritual movement inexorably linked to a decade that spawned parachute pants, Reaganism and Cabbage Patch Kids. But the seriousness of its reach is not to be shrugged off as a trifle when one recalls that Nancy Reagan relied on the astrological readings of Joan Quigley to dictate her husband’s schedule.
A case could be made that beyond actually inadvertently helping a great many people (few of whom, I admit, I’ve ever met) the only aspect of the New Age solar system to break free of its air of fraud and hooey and resonate with the mainstream is its appropriation of Yoga. Our culture’s increasing tolerance for homeopathic medicine could also be said to have found its catalyst in those New Agers who evangelized the curative effects of Echinacea, Ginseng and Kola Nuts. But so-called holistic medicine has yet to take on the normative glow Yoga enjoys in the humdrum of the mainstream, where just about anybody can sign up for a class free of New Age trappings, its philosophy palatably diluted and its focus on the practical, down-to-earth benefits.
In his great book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James wrote, “The words ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’ are often used as terms of mere reproach, to throw at any opinion which we regard as vague and vast and sentimental, and without a base in either fact or logic.” Which is another way of saying we have contempt for such things. But to quote the tweed acerbity of H.L. Mencken (whose A Menken Chrestomathy is a must for any bookshelf): “I believe that quack healing cults set up a selection that is almost…benign and laudable. They attract, in the main, two classes: first, persons who are incurably ill, and hence beyond the reach of scientific medicine, and second, persons of congenitally defective reasoning powers. They slaughter these unfortunates by the thousand- even more swiftly and surely than scientific medicine (say, as practiced by the average neighborhood doctor) could slaughter them.” Which is another way of saying Concetta, who in addition to having the power to “speak with loved ones who have crossed over” is also a pet psychic. This is all good and fine provided she’s a licensed canine clairvoyant.
It’s easy to understand the spiritual allure of a place like Sedona. The surrounding red rock cliffs, mesas and buttes (fossilized sandstone over 270 million years old) rising up into a lazuline sky do inspire something preternatural, even venerable. And cartoonish. This is the landscape of countless and fruitless Wild E. Coyote Road Runner chases. I can’t help but wonder, however, if Sedona’s many vortex, defined by Lonely Planet as “points where the earth’s energy is focused,” aren’t actually New Age equivalents to what we commonly refer to as “Scenic Lookouts.” Such panoramic views, and Sedona has many, produce various grades of preprogrammed awe and celestial whimsy in addition to hackneyed photos of setting suns.
The place we stayed in had all the modern accoutrements you might hope for (wireless access, satellite television with over 500 stations) as well as stunning 180 degree views of the surrounding sandstone that impressively formed the backdrop to our living room, taking on greater and lesser shades of salmon, rust and vermillion in accordance to the position of the sun. Enjoying a bowl of Life cereal in the morning out on the deck while contemplating such a spectacle is a sublime way to kick off your day, especially if that bowl of Life is topped with a sliced banana.
This whole vacation, when you get down to it, was all about the excellence and persistence of rocks. You better believe we took the 2-hour drive in our rented Monolith, a Ford Excursion (their largest SUV) up the tortuous, vertigo inducing roads of highway 89-A with its frail looking guardrails and fearsome drops to the astonishing geological wonder of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. And whereas I can understand the devotional attitude affected by Sedona’s more intimate 270 million-year old crimson sandstone, even contemplating the age of the wonderfully titled Vishnu basement rocks found at the bottom layer of the Canyon walls and estimated to be 1.68 to 1.84 billion years old draws you toward the presence of something primal and unfathomable.
We spent the bulk of our time in Sedona. There’s not much of a downtown and what does pass for one is marred and endangered by a highly invasive species of stores that prey on a particular breed of tourist hungry for garish landscape tableaus to adorn their Winnebago’s walls with. This area felt a little like those gone-to-seed beachfront promenades found along the coasts where you can buy yourself an Elephant Ear, a bong and while away a couple hours visiting a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Cathy and I went exploring one afternoon and lasted roughly ten minutes before the sheer accumulation of knickknack and trinket debris overwhelmed us and sent us fleeing.
There are tonier aspects to Sedona, replete with posh resorts and, in our case, lavish rentals. Expendable income is, after all, the town’s bread and butter. There are numerous high-toned art galleries, too, with a special emphasis on pseudo-classical sculptures of muscle rippling nudes and horses. I’m not at all sure just whose equine esthetic tastes these works excite, but from what I saw I’ll hazard that the final outcome is probably just as tacky as the oil painted fable screwed to the wall of the Winnebago.
Here’s what I’ll remember most about Sedona: One night, after most of us had imbibed a couple very potent Margaritas, my sister-in-law accidentally said Schmuckers instead of Smuckers and scored probably the weeks biggest laugh. As with any reticent family gathering, alcohol invites much needed lowering of inhibitions, slips of the tongue and eventual descent into the ribald.
Surprisingly, during our brief stay in Sedona (Population: 10,192, Elevation: 4,326 Feet) I saw little evidence of its reputation as one the capitals of the New Age movement. There was a small New Age bookstore (which smelled, as do most stores with similar leanings, excessively of lavender) where I stopped to buy a New York Times and where one of the clerks recommended the vacations first and only group hike along the Brins Mesa trail.
Making fun of New Agers is bargain-basement cheap and easier then shooting fish in a barrel but I admit to having made it known while in Sedona, with appropriate regularity, that I had been looking forward for sometime to getting my Chaka Kahn aligned. It’s an easy, highly compulsive, shtick, this- you may groan or roll your eyes in mild contempt if you feel it appropriate and it satiates your own need to consistently disavow the many merits of such banter. Me, I simply can’t resist. And I hasten to add that getting your Chaka Kahn properly aligned is nothing at all like getting your Chaka Wrath of Khan properly in order. Forgive me.
What are some of the more enduring clichés of New Agism? Its healing crystals, its hodgepodge arcana of purloined neo-paganism/shamanism/Native-Americanism, its astrological (and highly synthesized) music and, perhaps most damagingly, its connection to the 1980’s as a nascent and supremely loopy boomer/Yuppie spiritual movement inexorably linked to a decade that spawned parachute pants, Reaganism and Cabbage Patch Kids. But the seriousness of its reach is not to be shrugged off as a trifle when one recalls that Nancy Reagan relied on the astrological readings of Joan Quigley to dictate her husband’s schedule.
A case could be made that beyond actually inadvertently helping a great many people (few of whom, I admit, I’ve ever met) the only aspect of the New Age solar system to break free of its air of fraud and hooey and resonate with the mainstream is its appropriation of Yoga. Our culture’s increasing tolerance for homeopathic medicine could also be said to have found its catalyst in those New Agers who evangelized the curative effects of Echinacea, Ginseng and Kola Nuts. But so-called holistic medicine has yet to take on the normative glow Yoga enjoys in the humdrum of the mainstream, where just about anybody can sign up for a class free of New Age trappings, its philosophy palatably diluted and its focus on the practical, down-to-earth benefits.
In his great book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James wrote, “The words ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’ are often used as terms of mere reproach, to throw at any opinion which we regard as vague and vast and sentimental, and without a base in either fact or logic.” Which is another way of saying we have contempt for such things. But to quote the tweed acerbity of H.L. Mencken (whose A Menken Chrestomathy is a must for any bookshelf): “I believe that quack healing cults set up a selection that is almost…benign and laudable. They attract, in the main, two classes: first, persons who are incurably ill, and hence beyond the reach of scientific medicine, and second, persons of congenitally defective reasoning powers. They slaughter these unfortunates by the thousand- even more swiftly and surely than scientific medicine (say, as practiced by the average neighborhood doctor) could slaughter them.” Which is another way of saying Concetta, who in addition to having the power to “speak with loved ones who have crossed over” is also a pet psychic. This is all good and fine provided she’s a licensed canine clairvoyant.
It’s easy to understand the spiritual allure of a place like Sedona. The surrounding red rock cliffs, mesas and buttes (fossilized sandstone over 270 million years old) rising up into a lazuline sky do inspire something preternatural, even venerable. And cartoonish. This is the landscape of countless and fruitless Wild E. Coyote Road Runner chases. I can’t help but wonder, however, if Sedona’s many vortex, defined by Lonely Planet as “points where the earth’s energy is focused,” aren’t actually New Age equivalents to what we commonly refer to as “Scenic Lookouts.” Such panoramic views, and Sedona has many, produce various grades of preprogrammed awe and celestial whimsy in addition to hackneyed photos of setting suns.
The place we stayed in had all the modern accoutrements you might hope for (wireless access, satellite television with over 500 stations) as well as stunning 180 degree views of the surrounding sandstone that impressively formed the backdrop to our living room, taking on greater and lesser shades of salmon, rust and vermillion in accordance to the position of the sun. Enjoying a bowl of Life cereal in the morning out on the deck while contemplating such a spectacle is a sublime way to kick off your day, especially if that bowl of Life is topped with a sliced banana.
This whole vacation, when you get down to it, was all about the excellence and persistence of rocks. You better believe we took the 2-hour drive in our rented Monolith, a Ford Excursion (their largest SUV) up the tortuous, vertigo inducing roads of highway 89-A with its frail looking guardrails and fearsome drops to the astonishing geological wonder of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. And whereas I can understand the devotional attitude affected by Sedona’s more intimate 270 million-year old crimson sandstone, even contemplating the age of the wonderfully titled Vishnu basement rocks found at the bottom layer of the Canyon walls and estimated to be 1.68 to 1.84 billion years old draws you toward the presence of something primal and unfathomable.
We spent the bulk of our time in Sedona. There’s not much of a downtown and what does pass for one is marred and endangered by a highly invasive species of stores that prey on a particular breed of tourist hungry for garish landscape tableaus to adorn their Winnebago’s walls with. This area felt a little like those gone-to-seed beachfront promenades found along the coasts where you can buy yourself an Elephant Ear, a bong and while away a couple hours visiting a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Cathy and I went exploring one afternoon and lasted roughly ten minutes before the sheer accumulation of knickknack and trinket debris overwhelmed us and sent us fleeing.
There are tonier aspects to Sedona, replete with posh resorts and, in our case, lavish rentals. Expendable income is, after all, the town’s bread and butter. There are numerous high-toned art galleries, too, with a special emphasis on pseudo-classical sculptures of muscle rippling nudes and horses. I’m not at all sure just whose equine esthetic tastes these works excite, but from what I saw I’ll hazard that the final outcome is probably just as tacky as the oil painted fable screwed to the wall of the Winnebago.
Here’s what I’ll remember most about Sedona: One night, after most of us had imbibed a couple very potent Margaritas, my sister-in-law accidentally said Schmuckers instead of Smuckers and scored probably the weeks biggest laugh. As with any reticent family gathering, alcohol invites much needed lowering of inhibitions, slips of the tongue and eventual descent into the ribald.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Water Down The Back
There's a lot I wish I had more time to write about. I'm really looking forward to writing, for example, about our recent vacation to Sedona but I'm currently trying to prioritize in addition to practicing the subtle arts of not allowing petty-ass misguided bullshit get to me. I'm lucky as hell to have in my wife and partner an incredible bulwark against such slings. Love, if creepy Tom Cruise can do it, so can I! I can't be cool. I can't be laid back! Thank you!
In the meantime, check out this new Joan Didion essay here. As usual, it's a fantastic piece of journalism, beautifully navigating the many contours of the Terry Schiavo happening from a few months back. I'm a big fan of both Didion's acute, and supremely wry intelligennce and her awesome ability to synthesize these big tent cultural affairs.
Lot's more to come soon.
In the meantime, check out this new Joan Didion essay here. As usual, it's a fantastic piece of journalism, beautifully navigating the many contours of the Terry Schiavo happening from a few months back. I'm a big fan of both Didion's acute, and supremely wry intelligennce and her awesome ability to synthesize these big tent cultural affairs.
Lot's more to come soon.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Harmonic Convergence
We’re off to Sedona until Saturday. We’ve already told you, and so we’ve heard (let alone that it bares repeating) that it’s a “spiritual mecca and global power spot.” We’ll try and definitely get some confirmation on that. Beyond this, we’re looking forward to the desert sun, red rocks, hikes and occasional naps between chapters of a good book.
The Times kicked off a series yesterday on class that’s worth a look and a little time if you’re interested about such things. There’s even a fascinating interactive graphic that allows you to plug in and see how you measure up by using what the authors claim are “among the most influential” characteristics regarding class; occupation, education, income and wealth.
We’re off to Sedona until Saturday. We’ve already told you, and so we’ve heard (let alone that it bares repeating) that it’s a “spiritual mecca and global power spot.” We’ll try and definitely get some confirmation on that. Beyond this, we’re looking forward to the desert sun, red rocks, hikes and occasional naps between chapters of a good book.
The Times kicked off a series yesterday on class that’s worth a look and a little time if you’re interested about such things. There’s even a fascinating interactive graphic that allows you to plug in and see how you measure up by using what the authors claim are “among the most influential” characteristics regarding class; occupation, education, income and wealth.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Crossing the Rubicon
I find myself playing with teleological tendencies, at least on a meteorological level, on grim, shivery days like this. “By golly”, I think, “it’s May 11th already- enough with the blustery shenanigans!” Sometimes, my friends, the fact that we can go from 80 and sunny to 39-degrees with a wind chill is so exasperating that I can’t help but wonder if nature doesn’t have a Hobbesian worldview and a dog that bites.
Still, we’re test free! Hooray! I don’t think I shattered any records or anything, but I’m feeling pretty confident that I did well enough at yesterday mornings purging. Were you aware, however, that it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon, just as Washington crossed the Delaware? Perhaps you were. Me, I was stumped. I always imagined the crossing of the Rubicon happened sometime during the Middle Ages and was part of the mythological canon. Where I got that, I don’t know but I think Tangerine Dream had something to do with it. Of course, now that I’ve learned more it seems so blunt, a perfectly famous historical exclamation mark amongst all the mundane bureaucratic detritus. And certainly this crossing was as consequential as Washington’s own crossing. I feel such searing shame!
Here’s a smattering of what’s in rotation of late:
01) Bucky Done Gone: M.I.A.
02) The Hustle: Van McCoy -Choice feather disco from the golden era- complete with a stunning Herb Alpert like horn breakdown. Lovely.
03) Sonho Dourando: Daniel Lanois -from the Friday Night Lights soundtrack- the dusty elegance of Lanois’s swamp fuzz piling up atop a humble kick drum and some autumnal touchdown strings)
04) Big Day: Phil Manzanera (w/ Brian Eno)- Hadn’t heard it until last month- recorded almost 30 years ago for Manzanera’s debut solo album. Could just as easily have come from the first half of Before and After Science. Eno co-wrote the track with Manzanera and sings lead- some of his most affecting and swooning at that.
05) What Happened (Deep House Mix): Ade Duque ft. Blake Baxter- Ask anybody who loves House music- anybody who’s ever shared the dance floor at 3:00 a.m. with a couple hundred other fellow travelers while a DJ laid down a groove so thick and sublime you understood with perfect, joyous clarity just what it means to set your mind free and have your ass follow- ask this person what, at its root, House music is all about and they’ll tell you, “House is a feeling.” What Happened is the quintessence of that feeling. It kicks right out of the gate with the sickest, funkiest 4/4 and rolling bump bass that I’ve heard in years. Over this naughty groove, Blake Baxter playfully drops a litany of harsh condemnations and questions to the House music community (Chicago … the house sound. You gotta be kidding. What happened?” “New York … what the fuck happened?). About a month ago, in lieu of the treadmill I spent roughly 30 minutes dancing to this song 6 times in a row. That’s a potentially frightening vision to conjure and for that I apologize, but if you think that’s scary you should also know that I’m thinking of setting up the video camera next time to capture it. It’s all part of my larger plan to begin the 21st Century Jazzercise revival.
06) Double Dutch Bus: Frakie Smith- From 1981 and supposedly the source that launched the izzle slang craze of a couple years ago (it’s so 2003) as well as being an inspired sample source prominently featured in Timberland’s fantastic Double Dutch production from Missy Elliot’s Under Construction album. Definitely a gem from New York’s early 80’s post-punk days, it’s got hints of the Tom Tom’s Club’s lightly coiled funk esprit and a hefty dose of roller-rink disco spindrift.
07) Timy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together?: I can’t imagine the samba preset Timy’s got going on his organ here hasn’t already been sampled- the real question is why I haven’t sampled it yet!
08) Albums we’re excited about: Brian Eno- Another Day On Earth, the first entirely vocal album by the man in over 25 years! And if that weren’t exciting enough, Daniel Lanois has gone and done what I had hoped for and will be releasing an instrumental album in July focusing on his lovely pedal-steel guitar playing. Others too, including a new one by Colleen, Sufjan Stevens and probably most excited about the new one from Isolee
I find myself playing with teleological tendencies, at least on a meteorological level, on grim, shivery days like this. “By golly”, I think, “it’s May 11th already- enough with the blustery shenanigans!” Sometimes, my friends, the fact that we can go from 80 and sunny to 39-degrees with a wind chill is so exasperating that I can’t help but wonder if nature doesn’t have a Hobbesian worldview and a dog that bites.
Still, we’re test free! Hooray! I don’t think I shattered any records or anything, but I’m feeling pretty confident that I did well enough at yesterday mornings purging. Were you aware, however, that it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon, just as Washington crossed the Delaware? Perhaps you were. Me, I was stumped. I always imagined the crossing of the Rubicon happened sometime during the Middle Ages and was part of the mythological canon. Where I got that, I don’t know but I think Tangerine Dream had something to do with it. Of course, now that I’ve learned more it seems so blunt, a perfectly famous historical exclamation mark amongst all the mundane bureaucratic detritus. And certainly this crossing was as consequential as Washington’s own crossing. I feel such searing shame!
Here’s a smattering of what’s in rotation of late:
01) Bucky Done Gone: M.I.A.
02) The Hustle: Van McCoy -Choice feather disco from the golden era- complete with a stunning Herb Alpert like horn breakdown. Lovely.
03) Sonho Dourando: Daniel Lanois -from the Friday Night Lights soundtrack- the dusty elegance of Lanois’s swamp fuzz piling up atop a humble kick drum and some autumnal touchdown strings)
04) Big Day: Phil Manzanera (w/ Brian Eno)- Hadn’t heard it until last month- recorded almost 30 years ago for Manzanera’s debut solo album. Could just as easily have come from the first half of Before and After Science. Eno co-wrote the track with Manzanera and sings lead- some of his most affecting and swooning at that.
05) What Happened (Deep House Mix): Ade Duque ft. Blake Baxter- Ask anybody who loves House music- anybody who’s ever shared the dance floor at 3:00 a.m. with a couple hundred other fellow travelers while a DJ laid down a groove so thick and sublime you understood with perfect, joyous clarity just what it means to set your mind free and have your ass follow- ask this person what, at its root, House music is all about and they’ll tell you, “House is a feeling.” What Happened is the quintessence of that feeling. It kicks right out of the gate with the sickest, funkiest 4/4 and rolling bump bass that I’ve heard in years. Over this naughty groove, Blake Baxter playfully drops a litany of harsh condemnations and questions to the House music community (Chicago … the house sound. You gotta be kidding. What happened?” “New York … what the fuck happened?). About a month ago, in lieu of the treadmill I spent roughly 30 minutes dancing to this song 6 times in a row. That’s a potentially frightening vision to conjure and for that I apologize, but if you think that’s scary you should also know that I’m thinking of setting up the video camera next time to capture it. It’s all part of my larger plan to begin the 21st Century Jazzercise revival.
06) Double Dutch Bus: Frakie Smith- From 1981 and supposedly the source that launched the izzle slang craze of a couple years ago (it’s so 2003) as well as being an inspired sample source prominently featured in Timberland’s fantastic Double Dutch production from Missy Elliot’s Under Construction album. Definitely a gem from New York’s early 80’s post-punk days, it’s got hints of the Tom Tom’s Club’s lightly coiled funk esprit and a hefty dose of roller-rink disco spindrift.
07) Timy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together?: I can’t imagine the samba preset Timy’s got going on his organ here hasn’t already been sampled- the real question is why I haven’t sampled it yet!
08) Albums we’re excited about: Brian Eno- Another Day On Earth, the first entirely vocal album by the man in over 25 years! And if that weren’t exciting enough, Daniel Lanois has gone and done what I had hoped for and will be releasing an instrumental album in July focusing on his lovely pedal-steel guitar playing. Others too, including a new one by Colleen, Sufjan Stevens and probably most excited about the new one from Isolee
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