From Can’t Get Much Higher newsletter, a list of the 18 best Podcasts About Music. This is basically a Venn diagram of my favorite things. Many of these I’ve never heard before and am excited to dive into; some of these I’m already familiar with (Reply All, Heavyweight, 60 Songs that Explain the ’90’s) but demand a repeat listen.
Sad news hit me late last week via Instagram; old friend of the blog Lis passed away after a series of health issues (fuck cancer, etc.) We overlapped at MICA and ran in some of the same circles but struck up a better acquaintance via the web later on. I didn’t pivot to Twitter the way she did, and I think the RockHaus went on hiatus sometime in 2010, so we lost more immediate contact, but we were still on Instagram together. The post that clued me in also featured a candid snap of the two of us—I can’t remember exactly when it was taken, but I’m glad it exists.
Rest in peace, Lis.
We just finished the first season of Six Feet Under last night. Apparently, this show came out in, like, 1999 or 2000 or something, and totally flew right over our heads. It could be that we don’t have HBO and that I waited three years too long to open up a Netflix account, or it could be that I’m just a cheap bastard. Whatever the case, we love the series (or, at least, the first season of it.) I think that the first episode kind of took us by surprise, and then we were immediately hooked. Now, I’ve heard varying reviews of the next couple of seasons (and don’t go telling us what happens, people), and I think we’re looking forward to Season 2, but we’ve decided to take a break on it and switch over to something different. Like Trainspotting. And then, Shaun of the Dead.
We made it through the Baltimore Blizzard just fine, although heading out to see Miss Lis at Molly’s did not happen—my apologies, Lis. There’s about 12″ of fresh snow down here in Catonsville, and for whatever reason shovelling it yesterday was a lot easier than the last snowfall we had—the last snowfall was that dry blustery kind that just blows all over the place, whereas this was the kind of snow that made big white drifts stick to the side of the house. I decided that cookies were in order if we were getting snowed in, and made them better than last time (something about packing the brown sugar.) The neighbor’s son came out and helped me clear the driveway with his snowblower, and breathed whisky fumes downwind to me while we chatted. It’s good to see some things don’t change.
Finally, I inherited another iMac last week, this one a slot-loading model (the date stamped on the CD-ROM is October 1999), and slapped a 120GB drive into it on Saturday. Most of Sunday was spent watching HGTV and a freaky Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Duvall (WTF??!?!) and loading my backup music files onto the machine. Purple, the old reliable warhorse I’ve dragged from home to work and back again, will be retired, and the new Bondi Blue machine will take its place.
I could write here about viewing the Pianist on Saturday evening, and spending most of Sunday in an existential funk—watch the scene where Adrien Brody walks crying through the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto, amid broken furniture and blowing feathers, and then try to look at the Crate & Barrel catalog without slitting your wrists.
I could mention how I spent my Sunday in the basement painting the last of the walls Kilz white, but that would be boring. I could take pictures and post them, too, but that would be incredibly dull, and you really don’t give a shit about my basement. I could proudly mention that the basement is now somewhat organized, is about seven shades brighter, and has a pair of tables set up next to the only south-facing window under a grow lamp for our vegetable seed. I suppose that’s a good thing.
Honestly, it was a pretty quiet weekend, and now it’s Monday.
P.S. Lis– I get the Adrien Brody thing now. You’re on your own with Buscemi, but I get the Brody thing.
(in the tradition of Miss Lis‘ Thursday Three):
Make a list of common albums that every one of your girl/boyfriends owned.
For example, every one of my previous girlfriends owned these albums:
Tears For Fears, Songs From The Big Chair
Sinead O’Connor, The Lion And The Cobra
Tracy Chapman, that album with “Fast Car”
New Order, at least one album (usually Republic)
Peter Gabriel, So
U2, The Joshua Tree
Your list?
Take That, Pop Music. Mogwai, Mogwai Fear Satan. Goddamn, this is good stuff.
Reality Check. On the five-page questionaire the vet sent home with Jen, for Penn’s checkup, there’s a list of four or five questions towards the end, which go something like this:
- I am concerned about my animal’s behavior, but do not want to do anything about it.
- I am concerned about my animal’s behavior, and want to try something about it, but don’t care what happens either way (I’m paraphrasing here.)
- I’m concerned about my animal’s behavior, and want to try something; if it doesn’t work, I’m going to try something else, but I won’t give up my animal.
- I’m concerned, and if the treatment doesn’t work, I want to euthanize my animal.
Penn is a good cat at heart, but I had to check the final box. I’m no animal killer, nor PETA member, but I can’t have him hurting the other cats any more. Especially when it looks like he’s doing simply for our attention.
As I wander through the house a mere month before the wedding, I make a mental list of stuff that I’d like to do or have done. Besides the obviously huge projects (central air, adding that wing off the back for the wine cellar, putting the second floor studio on the garage, fencing the yard, bulldozing the neighbors’ yard for our hedge maze), there’s a pile of smaller things I’d like to do when we get back from Italy:
- Keyed locksets for the doors. (We have more keys for this house than the Home Depot.)
- A bird feeder. (All of the feeders I’ve seen so far are crap—thin plastic, cheap-ass poles, or pitifully ugly. I want to feed the birds, not run a squirrel soup kitchen.)
- A ladder. (Our gutters are full of more gunk than a restauraunt sink drain, and we have a house’s worth of windows crying for paint. Nevermind the rest of the house.)
- A dishwasher. (Cheap by itself, but the reconfiguring of our door-tastic kitchen is going to take a lot of work.)
- Shelving for the basement. (Getting all the crap off the front porch into the basement is simply moving one mess to another location; organization is in order here.)
- A new dryer. (The Brady Bunch-era unit we use now is both useless and small, and we need some serious commercial drying muscle—as well as better energy efficiency.)
- A gas range. (Oh, my HELL, to borrow a phrase from the P.S.D.F., does our electric oven suck donkeys. I’m sure we bring down the power grid in Catonsville every time we turn on the damned thing, and it cooks as well as a heroin addict.)
Spurred on by a comment from Lis, I posted a bunch of pictures of our garden I took this weekend. For the tech-heads, I’m using a Canon G3 with a 58mm close-up lens (thanks Dad) in natural sunlight. The one on the home page is the only one I lit additionally—just a mini-maglight from underneath to brighten the center.
I also got off my ass and started up the picture-a-week thing I’ve been threatening for years; I’m going to try to post a new illustration on varying topics, and I’m going to involve you, my four loyal readers. Each Monday, I’ll take suggestions from you for an interesting editorial story, article, or biography, and choose one for an illustration, and then post it (gulp) by Friday. So, send me an interesting article you’ve seen online (please keep it under 2-3 pages) that could make for an interesting illustration, and I’ll draw you a drawering.
purties for my sweetie, 2.13.04
In honor of Valentines Day, NPR did a report last night on couples who get cold feet at the altar and call off weddings; I the report cheerfully mentioned that roughly 20% of Catholic couples who make it through pre-counseling sessions call off the wedding, and the majority of weddings are cancelled by the groom (90%). Buoyed by these facts, Jen and I went to our second pre-cana meeting with our sponsor couple. The church seems to dig on its tests, because we took about seventeen of them last night. When I say tests, what I really mean are sheets of paper with lots of questions and a general 5-answer selection, from “Always” to “Never”, and you’re supposed to mark in your little square and then compare notes. There’s some validity in these tests, but also some voodoo science which sort of feels like you’re doing a sex quiz in the back of Cosmo—in front of your neighbors. I know that these tests are really to promote private discussion and conversation about all the crap a couple may not have talked about before (e.g., “What do you mean, you have a gambling problem?!” or “I never knew you thought I was spending too much time with my mother!”) but I have to wonder how some couples, who may have buried these revelations in a deep, black pit of denial, are equipped to talk about them after two hours of light conversation and a few Entenmann’s doughnuts?
The good news is that we passed our Catholic SAT’s, which means we can get into heaven on a scholarship.
Thanks to the Rockhaus, here’s a Thursday Three:
1. Have you ever had a great Valentine’s Day?
Yes. I’ve had a few, even though I dislike corporate holidays as a rule.
2. Ever had a completely awful Valentine’s Day?
I’m almost positive, but I’ve blocked them all out. My therapist says I’m making progress though, so I don’t scream incomprehensibly and fling poo anymore when the subject comes up.
3. Best thing about Valentine’s Day?
When all the damn diamond commercials leave the airwaves on the 15th. You know the ones.
Jen sent me a link for this kit; we have a serious insect problem, so bats might be the answer.
Doctors. Today I was lucky enough to see my doctor about the poison ivy issue on my hand; instead of the pills (which apparently are for “serious” cases of p-i, and have side effects like sleep disorders, bone issues, water retention, etc) she prescribed some cortisone cream. I pointed at my hands, and told her that it was spreading—I woke up this morning and the blisters had marched across one knuckle, down into the valley of my finger, and up the other side and there is nothing more irritating than poison ivy in between your fingers—my request was in vain. So I have to travel to the Ride Aid to fill the script this evening.
Lis, I know you’re contesting the Crispin Glover nomination, so I found some evidence in the case to convict.
At the risk of fucking everything all up, I have to say this, because I’m so exited for her: Jen had a kick-ass job interview this morning, and it went really well. Everybody wish her luck!
The West Wing was pretty lackluster. I read online that John Wells himself wrote the episode, and it showed. Is anybody else out there confused/puzzled by the fact that Wells writes episodes for three different TV shows? I mean, isn’t there someone else in Hollywood who can write an engaging script? It’s just kind of funny that the media outlets talk about ‘convergence‘ and there’s one dude writing/exec. producing for two of the most popular shows on TV.
I love the fact that the water is soft, cool, fresh, and clean (not hard, bitter, chlorine-y and dry.) I love the crickets that lull us to sleep each night. I love the space inside the house, where one can find peace in a large, quiet room by themself, or join a group of contented, sleepy cats. I love the light dappled across the back lawn in the afternoon. I love the sound of the kids in the church daycare program drifting across the street. I love the smell of history in the rooms of this house. I love the peeling paint on the windows, because the house is reminding me that it’s alive too, and it needs my help. I love the trees towering over the roof, keeping us cool in the summer sun. I love the wooden floors that don’t creak under us. I love the waves in the plaster from where the workmen applied it by hand eighty years ago. I love the drawings on the walls, hidden under the wallpaper, from children of long ago. I love our two-tub sink in the kitchen. I also love having three hose spigots outside.
I don’t love the fact that the average monthly energy bill for the house was $280, according to BG&E. It could be several things that have run the price up—excessive use of the heating system during the winter (and heating all those empty rooms couldn’t have been cost-efficient), excessive use of the 20-year-old air conditioners, use of an ancient electric oven/range, or just having left the lights on all the time. Whatever the cause, Jen and I are going to become experts on energy efficiency this fall.
The update is that roughly 90% of the bill is for gas and the balance is for electric. We have to find out what drove the price up so high and make some improvements to save money. Ah, the joys of buying an older house.
Even better is the news that Verizon won’t have out DSL hooked up until the 17th, because of a “shortage of technicians”. Thanks. Dammit.
Found this afternoon, via the Rockhaus: Genuine Scooters, home of the Stella. Oh, man, this is cool. Even better are these pictures of a trip two friends took in 1953. Given my love for the design of old Vespa and Piaggio scooters, these are a sweet update on a classic ride. Maybe someday I can afford one.