I found this on YouTube. If you ignore the fuzzy love-fest, this video gives you a good sense of what a blurry, jiggly Valencia is like at night.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen...BOB LOG III!!
Bob Log III is coming to Barcelona next month. I am going to do what I can to make sure that I am there again front and center. It's been a couple of years, Bob and I have some catching up to do.
Enjoy
Enjoy
January/February 2007
Reading
Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
America – Franz Kafka
The Art of Stealing – Chris Brookmeyer
The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster
Oracle Night – Paul Auster
Chis y Garabis – Paloma Bordons
Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Ernest J. Gaines
Ghost Stories – Roald Dahl
The New Spaniards – John Hopper
Listening
Everything All the Time – Band of Horses
Irresistible Bliss – Soul Coughing
Kicking Television – Wilco
Dingly Dell – Lindisfarne
I’m Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass – Yo La Teng
Pearl Jam – Live at Benaroya Hall
The Shins – Wincing Away the Night
Norah Jones – Not Too Late
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News (archives)
In order to properly tell why Live at Benaroya Hall by Pearl Jam was a significant find for me, I’ll need to go back a number of years and introduce a new character. Go back to the late fall or early winter of 1992. I had recently acquired my driver’s license and had gone to Relics Records (when it was originally run by Jerry and the other guy whose name is escaping me) with D Moore. After doing some browsing we met back together to share our finds. D had come up with a Black Sabbath bootleg with some old Ozzy tunes and I had uncovered a Pearl Jam bootleg called “Black” which was the MTV unplugged performance. For reasons at which I’ve long lost track, I willingly swapped the Pearl Jam bootleg for the Black Sabbath bootleg. I think my logic was something to do with the fact that Ozzy was no longer with Black Sabbath and Pearl Jam at this time was still a bunch of young pups, so naturally the Sabbath disc would be better. We went back to D’s house where we listened earnestly to our new purchases, while undoubtedly thumbing through his collection of horror comic books or perhaps discussing the logistical differences in musicianship between Hank Sherman of Mercyful Fate and Andy LaRocque of King Diamond, or something equally tantalizing. The Black Sabbath album had turned out to be crap; the sound quality was terrible. D’s Pearl Jam album however had proven to be the better buy. At that point in time I had been minimally interested in Pearl Jam. I had bought the Ten album as was required by all angst ridden, long haired, pimply young lads. It was listening to it in D’s bedroom stripped away of from the studio magic and hearing the band rage through “State of Love and Trust” and “Alive” acoustically that made me sit up and take notice. The clincher was that particular version of “Black”, which on Ten had been one of the songs that was too slow and I would skip through. There was something raw about the acoustic version that got to me.
I immediately took my leave of D and drove through the snow and sub-zero temperatures the 20 minutes back downtown to Relics Records. I tried to exchange my Black Sabbath record for another copy of the Pearl Jam bootleg. As it turned out that was the only copy that they had, but he would happily buy back the Sabbath disc for 1/5 of what I had paid for it.
That was 1992 and as silly as it seems I have been seeking a proper Pearl Jam acoustic disc since then. I had come across a few other bootlegs over the years, but they were bad quality. Now, fast forward to late winter 2007 in Valencia, Spain where a happy-go-lucky, long haired, no longer pimply faced, man-child is browsing the shelves of El Corte Ingles’s Musical Pyramid shop in Nuevo Centro. I was looking specifically for either Modest Mouse or The Shins’ new albums. On my way from the M’s to the S’s, I saw the bright yellow and orange album cover under Pearl Jam. It wasn’t the 7 disc that D had bought several years back. This was a double disc with 26 songs, recorded in October of 2003. While its version of the song “Black” may not be quite as ambitious and fresh as it had been in ’92, but the acoustic versions “Nothing As it Seems”, “Man of the Hour”, “Sleight of Hand”, “Fatal” included alongside covers of Victoria Williams’s “Crazy Mary”, Johnny Cash’s “25 Minutes to Go” and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” more than makes up for it.
Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
America – Franz Kafka
The Art of Stealing – Chris Brookmeyer
The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster
Oracle Night – Paul Auster
Chis y Garabis – Paloma Bordons
Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Ernest J. Gaines
Ghost Stories – Roald Dahl
The New Spaniards – John Hopper
Listening
Everything All the Time – Band of Horses
Irresistible Bliss – Soul Coughing
Kicking Television – Wilco
Dingly Dell – Lindisfarne
I’m Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass – Yo La Teng
Pearl Jam – Live at Benaroya Hall
The Shins – Wincing Away the Night
Norah Jones – Not Too Late
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News (archives)
In order to properly tell why Live at Benaroya Hall by Pearl Jam was a significant find for me, I’ll need to go back a number of years and introduce a new character. Go back to the late fall or early winter of 1992. I had recently acquired my driver’s license and had gone to Relics Records (when it was originally run by Jerry and the other guy whose name is escaping me) with D Moore. After doing some browsing we met back together to share our finds. D had come up with a Black Sabbath bootleg with some old Ozzy tunes and I had uncovered a Pearl Jam bootleg called “Black” which was the MTV unplugged performance. For reasons at which I’ve long lost track, I willingly swapped the Pearl Jam bootleg for the Black Sabbath bootleg. I think my logic was something to do with the fact that Ozzy was no longer with Black Sabbath and Pearl Jam at this time was still a bunch of young pups, so naturally the Sabbath disc would be better. We went back to D’s house where we listened earnestly to our new purchases, while undoubtedly thumbing through his collection of horror comic books or perhaps discussing the logistical differences in musicianship between Hank Sherman of Mercyful Fate and Andy LaRocque of King Diamond, or something equally tantalizing. The Black Sabbath album had turned out to be crap; the sound quality was terrible. D’s Pearl Jam album however had proven to be the better buy. At that point in time I had been minimally interested in Pearl Jam. I had bought the Ten album as was required by all angst ridden, long haired, pimply young lads. It was listening to it in D’s bedroom stripped away of from the studio magic and hearing the band rage through “State of Love and Trust” and “Alive” acoustically that made me sit up and take notice. The clincher was that particular version of “Black”, which on Ten had been one of the songs that was too slow and I would skip through. There was something raw about the acoustic version that got to me.
I immediately took my leave of D and drove through the snow and sub-zero temperatures the 20 minutes back downtown to Relics Records. I tried to exchange my Black Sabbath record for another copy of the Pearl Jam bootleg. As it turned out that was the only copy that they had, but he would happily buy back the Sabbath disc for 1/5 of what I had paid for it.
That was 1992 and as silly as it seems I have been seeking a proper Pearl Jam acoustic disc since then. I had come across a few other bootlegs over the years, but they were bad quality. Now, fast forward to late winter 2007 in Valencia, Spain where a happy-go-lucky, long haired, no longer pimply faced, man-child is browsing the shelves of El Corte Ingles’s Musical Pyramid shop in Nuevo Centro. I was looking specifically for either Modest Mouse or The Shins’ new albums. On my way from the M’s to the S’s, I saw the bright yellow and orange album cover under Pearl Jam. It wasn’t the 7 disc that D had bought several years back. This was a double disc with 26 songs, recorded in October of 2003. While its version of the song “Black” may not be quite as ambitious and fresh as it had been in ’92, but the acoustic versions “Nothing As it Seems”, “Man of the Hour”, “Sleight of Hand”, “Fatal” included alongside covers of Victoria Williams’s “Crazy Mary”, Johnny Cash’s “25 Minutes to Go” and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” more than makes up for it.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Fallas 2007
March must be drawing near. Outside my window the more impatient Valencianos are already letting off their petardos (firecrackers). They’re warming up their wick-lighting thumbs. They’re shaking off the cobwebs of their throwing arms. I have tried unsuccessfully to explain fallas to those who have never experienced it. This year I hope to do a better job. I, myself have only experienced it firsthand once and I am dreading while at the same time a bit giddy by the experience that is going to overtake the communidad in two weeks.
How do you compare something to which there is no comparison? For instance, I know what fireworks and firecrackers are, but the prior knowledge that gives me an image of those does absolutely no justice to what fireworks and firecrackers are capable of being. Every day from March 1st to March 19th at 2.00 pm, the city lets off mascletas in the town center in front of the town hall. Every day at 2.00, hundreds sometimes thousands gather around the strings of firecrackers that explode with the ferocity and force of…
You see, this is where I trail off. What do they explode with the force of? I have nothing to compare it to. Fallas is like nothing that I had ever experienced. Instead I can only explain how the old lady next to me warned me not to close my mouth or the force would burst my eardrums. `…They explode with the force of ‘burst eardrums’´ (?) It doesn’t work, but you get the point that these things are seriously loud.
On or around March 1, various parts of the city of Valencia are closed to traffic as giant several storied-high papier mache sculptures adorn the streets and plazas. These sculptures are the fallas themselves. Artists spend an entire year creating and preparing these for their 5 day viewings. They are generally made to spoof global or local politics. Every year the city government sponsors a falla that is placed in front of the town hall. This is considered the grand falla of the celebrations. It is excluded from the contests that are held to determine which are the best fallas and is the last one to burn. Its incineration signals the end of fallas for that year. Last year I was fortunate enough to see the creation of the government sponsored falla, “Imagine”. “Imagine” was created by Ramon Espinosa, the father of a friend. His sculpture is on record as the largest falla ever created. It depicted a woman holding her newborn child towards hope and prosperity with evil and corruption at her back. His design had been inspired by both John Lennon’s song of the same title as well as the paintings of Gustav Klimt.
What is the most amazing part of this experience to me is the fact that these artists spend an entire year working tirelessly on these sculptures to see them burned to the ground in a pile of ash and cinders during La Crema on March 19th. On March 20th the artists go back to work to prepare for the next year. The history of this tradition goes back hundreds of years. March 19th is Dia de San Jose (St. Joseph´s Day). San Jose is the patron saint of carpenters and on this day the carpenters would do a little spring cleaning of their shops by bringing out all of their old scraps and useless bits which they would pile up and burn. Somewhere along the way someone got creative and molded those useless pieces into an effigy of sorts. From there it became an art form and developed into what it is today.
‘Los Castillos’ are essentially seven nights of fireworks displays. You have to understand that these aren’t quite the same as sitting on the bank of the Cedar River and watching the show from May’s Island choreographed to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”. While the synchronicity to Mr. Greenwood’s timeless ostracizing call to unnecessary arms is nothing short of… (there it is again, how do I compare levels of mediocrity in saccharine-sticky patriotic country songs?) Last year I tried desperately to capture it all on camera and finally gave up when I realized I was only capturing a fraction of the show. Los Castillos are set off from the original gates to the city, Las Torres Serranos, near the riverbed. The show lasts about 30 minutes and the colors that dance through the sky for those 30 minutes seem to disrupt any natural harmony in the heavens. I remember watching what appeared to be the sky being ripped apart above me, thinking that this is what the Apocalypse might look like. At times the smoke from the recently discharged explosions got so thick that there were just blasts of indistinguishable color erupting from behind the black shroud.
As if the din of Armageddon erupting in every direction wasn’t enough to keep you awake, every morning between 6 and 8 is what is called la despertá, which translates roughly as the wake-up call. It is this portion of the festivities that exits solely to make sure that if you did nod off for a quick nap, it won’t last long. Local falleros and falleras (the official celebrants of the festival) on their way home from the previous night´s festivities bring along a brass band and march up and down the streets with the horns and drums taking the lead while they toss off a few more firecrackers.
I have been told that Valencia did a major international push behind this year’s festival. America’s Cup will begin in the port of Valencia in April and go until July. The city sees this as their opportunity to put itself on the map. It has been estimated that close to one million people (these figures have been supplied to me by a group of 10th grade students, so do what you will with them) will come to visit Valencia for fallas this year, this is 1 million extra people being crammed into a city that is built to hold 800,000. The anticipation swells as I see them setting up the central plaza for the mascleta. But damn, that’s a lot of people.
http://www.fallasfromvalencia.com/
http://www.fallas.com/
How do you compare something to which there is no comparison? For instance, I know what fireworks and firecrackers are, but the prior knowledge that gives me an image of those does absolutely no justice to what fireworks and firecrackers are capable of being. Every day from March 1st to March 19th at 2.00 pm, the city lets off mascletas in the town center in front of the town hall. Every day at 2.00, hundreds sometimes thousands gather around the strings of firecrackers that explode with the ferocity and force of…
You see, this is where I trail off. What do they explode with the force of? I have nothing to compare it to. Fallas is like nothing that I had ever experienced. Instead I can only explain how the old lady next to me warned me not to close my mouth or the force would burst my eardrums. `…They explode with the force of ‘burst eardrums’´ (?) It doesn’t work, but you get the point that these things are seriously loud.
On or around March 1, various parts of the city of Valencia are closed to traffic as giant several storied-high papier mache sculptures adorn the streets and plazas. These sculptures are the fallas themselves. Artists spend an entire year creating and preparing these for their 5 day viewings. They are generally made to spoof global or local politics. Every year the city government sponsors a falla that is placed in front of the town hall. This is considered the grand falla of the celebrations. It is excluded from the contests that are held to determine which are the best fallas and is the last one to burn. Its incineration signals the end of fallas for that year. Last year I was fortunate enough to see the creation of the government sponsored falla, “Imagine”. “Imagine” was created by Ramon Espinosa, the father of a friend. His sculpture is on record as the largest falla ever created. It depicted a woman holding her newborn child towards hope and prosperity with evil and corruption at her back. His design had been inspired by both John Lennon’s song of the same title as well as the paintings of Gustav Klimt.
What is the most amazing part of this experience to me is the fact that these artists spend an entire year working tirelessly on these sculptures to see them burned to the ground in a pile of ash and cinders during La Crema on March 19th. On March 20th the artists go back to work to prepare for the next year. The history of this tradition goes back hundreds of years. March 19th is Dia de San Jose (St. Joseph´s Day). San Jose is the patron saint of carpenters and on this day the carpenters would do a little spring cleaning of their shops by bringing out all of their old scraps and useless bits which they would pile up and burn. Somewhere along the way someone got creative and molded those useless pieces into an effigy of sorts. From there it became an art form and developed into what it is today.
‘Los Castillos’ are essentially seven nights of fireworks displays. You have to understand that these aren’t quite the same as sitting on the bank of the Cedar River and watching the show from May’s Island choreographed to Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”. While the synchronicity to Mr. Greenwood’s timeless ostracizing call to unnecessary arms is nothing short of… (there it is again, how do I compare levels of mediocrity in saccharine-sticky patriotic country songs?) Last year I tried desperately to capture it all on camera and finally gave up when I realized I was only capturing a fraction of the show. Los Castillos are set off from the original gates to the city, Las Torres Serranos, near the riverbed. The show lasts about 30 minutes and the colors that dance through the sky for those 30 minutes seem to disrupt any natural harmony in the heavens. I remember watching what appeared to be the sky being ripped apart above me, thinking that this is what the Apocalypse might look like. At times the smoke from the recently discharged explosions got so thick that there were just blasts of indistinguishable color erupting from behind the black shroud.
As if the din of Armageddon erupting in every direction wasn’t enough to keep you awake, every morning between 6 and 8 is what is called la despertá, which translates roughly as the wake-up call. It is this portion of the festivities that exits solely to make sure that if you did nod off for a quick nap, it won’t last long. Local falleros and falleras (the official celebrants of the festival) on their way home from the previous night´s festivities bring along a brass band and march up and down the streets with the horns and drums taking the lead while they toss off a few more firecrackers.
I have been told that Valencia did a major international push behind this year’s festival. America’s Cup will begin in the port of Valencia in April and go until July. The city sees this as their opportunity to put itself on the map. It has been estimated that close to one million people (these figures have been supplied to me by a group of 10th grade students, so do what you will with them) will come to visit Valencia for fallas this year, this is 1 million extra people being crammed into a city that is built to hold 800,000. The anticipation swells as I see them setting up the central plaza for the mascleta. But damn, that’s a lot of people.
http://www.fallasfromvalencia.com/
http://www.fallas.com/
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Tom Waits "Lie to Me" on David Letterman
Happy New Year (2 weeks ago). Submissions have been sparse as of late and will remain so through the rest of the month. Here is some Tom Waits to tide you over until things start to slow down a bit on my end.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
"The Great Salt Lake" by Band of Horses
I haven't really had the chance to sit down at my computer these past few weeks. So until I get that moment I will leave you with a video from a band that I've been digging on, "The Great Salt Lake" by Band of Horses. Their athletic ablity reminds me of another certain softball team (the rise and fall of The Giant Sloth...for one glorious summer they were America's amateur softball team).
Monday, December 18, 2006
December 2006
Books Read:
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree – Chris Stewart
The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society – Chris Stewart
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
Frannie and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
Wicked – Gregory Maguire (not yet finished)
Listening
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards – Tom Waits
Okonokos – My Morning Jacket
Death By Sexy – The Eagles of Death Metal
The Little Willies – The Little Willies
Bows and Arrows - The Walkmen
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone - The Walkmen
The first two books that I had read this month served a metaphysical role in the guise of reading a book about Spain written from the perspective of an Englishman trying to immerse himself in his recently adopted country. Chris Stewart has written three books on the subject now along with Driving Over Lemons being the first of his trilogy and these being numbers 2 and 3 and read in that order. I guess that I was hoping to relate to Stewarts musings about his family, home and friends…oh and the fact that he used to be the drummer for Genesis. Outside of laying down the rhythm section for a hugely successful prog-rock band (I don’t mean to name drop here, but you all may remember my frantic bass work in bands such as Hung Like a Moose with our break out epic masterpiece “Iron Dick” or perhaps 3 Matts and a Scott…classic) Stewart’s Spain and mine are absolutely incomparable. Stewart’s Spain involves neighbors that come from miles to assist in rebuilding a washed out bridge to help reconnect our protagonist to society. My neighbor is pushing 40 and still lives with his mother. He blasts his television while playing FIFA Futbol on his X-Box as the two seem to constantly be yelling at each other over the din. I can’t even get this guy to hold the elevator, let alone assist me in metaphorical manual labor.
Stewart’s neighbors come together to assist in the shearing of the sheep and the rescuing of lost cattle. About two weeks ago, it was 11:30 at night and there was a kitten stuck in the grill of a gray Renault 5. Marta and I could hear the delicate mewing through the windows up on our 5th floor flat. We had some discussion about the kitten’s fate when the owner would leave for work the next morning. We decided we were going to rescue the kitten. When the light of our flashlight hit it, the kitten began tearing through the motor of the car. We could see tufts of fur as the thing blurred from one end of the grill to the other like the Alien in ventilation ducts. The gentle mewing became angry and turned to hissing. Neighbors began to gather. I had been reading A Parrot in the Pepper Tree at this time and I found myself thinking that this was it, this would be my Christ Stewart neighborly moment. However the neighbors seemed to be there merely to provide color commentary to the evening’s main event. The two older women were reminding us that there was a cat in the car, they would then turn to each other and bicker about something or other. The middle aged man and his son discussed what tools we could use to excavate the cat. The owner had meanwhile wandered down to watch us watch her car. When we explained to her why we had gathered around her car, she offered little more than, “yep, it’s been there all afternoon”. My role had clearly been assigned, I was the flashlight holder, Marta however was taking matters into her own hands and had requested that the lady pop open the hood and get her some gloves. With the hood open and Marta now fully gloved, she began the delicate procedure of removing the kitten that had somehow wrapped itself around the radiator. The kitten began hissing and with claws fully extended began swiping. I knew this because I was able to see it, Marta knew this because she was the one being swiped at, and however, our play-by-play announcers were perched just at my shoulder to remind us of anything they were afraid we hadn’t fully witnessed. Like a shot the cat took off down towards the wheel wells. The rescue was futile; this cat didn’t want to be rescued. By this point I was already citing destiny, if it chooses to wrap itself around the engine of a car, then that is the fate the good Lord has in store for it.
Out of nowhere the owner’s voice came upon us all.
“This is the fourth or fifth time that this has happened to me,” she observed.
Everything stopped and we all looked at her.
“Que casualidad, no? (what a coincidence, no?)” asked the middle aged man
“Que raro (how weird)” piped in his son.
“Why do you think that is?” asked John Madden (or Dick Vitale, I’m not sure) taking her eye off the action under the hood for a moment.
“Well, I deliver fish all day in this car. That might be it.”
Marta said nothing. She took the gloves off and calmly handed them to their owner. My job as flashlight holder had ended. The light came off and I shut the hood of the woman’s car. Nothing more was said between us. The crowd dispersed just as quickly as it had gathered. In the end there was no communal shearing of the sheep, or rescuing of the cattle there was only a stupid cat and a car that smelled like fish.
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree – Chris Stewart
The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society – Chris Stewart
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
Frannie and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
Wicked – Gregory Maguire (not yet finished)
Listening
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards – Tom Waits
Okonokos – My Morning Jacket
Death By Sexy – The Eagles of Death Metal
The Little Willies – The Little Willies
Bows and Arrows - The Walkmen
Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone - The Walkmen
The first two books that I had read this month served a metaphysical role in the guise of reading a book about Spain written from the perspective of an Englishman trying to immerse himself in his recently adopted country. Chris Stewart has written three books on the subject now along with Driving Over Lemons being the first of his trilogy and these being numbers 2 and 3 and read in that order. I guess that I was hoping to relate to Stewarts musings about his family, home and friends…oh and the fact that he used to be the drummer for Genesis. Outside of laying down the rhythm section for a hugely successful prog-rock band (I don’t mean to name drop here, but you all may remember my frantic bass work in bands such as Hung Like a Moose with our break out epic masterpiece “Iron Dick” or perhaps 3 Matts and a Scott…classic) Stewart’s Spain and mine are absolutely incomparable. Stewart’s Spain involves neighbors that come from miles to assist in rebuilding a washed out bridge to help reconnect our protagonist to society. My neighbor is pushing 40 and still lives with his mother. He blasts his television while playing FIFA Futbol on his X-Box as the two seem to constantly be yelling at each other over the din. I can’t even get this guy to hold the elevator, let alone assist me in metaphorical manual labor.
Stewart’s neighbors come together to assist in the shearing of the sheep and the rescuing of lost cattle. About two weeks ago, it was 11:30 at night and there was a kitten stuck in the grill of a gray Renault 5. Marta and I could hear the delicate mewing through the windows up on our 5th floor flat. We had some discussion about the kitten’s fate when the owner would leave for work the next morning. We decided we were going to rescue the kitten. When the light of our flashlight hit it, the kitten began tearing through the motor of the car. We could see tufts of fur as the thing blurred from one end of the grill to the other like the Alien in ventilation ducts. The gentle mewing became angry and turned to hissing. Neighbors began to gather. I had been reading A Parrot in the Pepper Tree at this time and I found myself thinking that this was it, this would be my Christ Stewart neighborly moment. However the neighbors seemed to be there merely to provide color commentary to the evening’s main event. The two older women were reminding us that there was a cat in the car, they would then turn to each other and bicker about something or other. The middle aged man and his son discussed what tools we could use to excavate the cat. The owner had meanwhile wandered down to watch us watch her car. When we explained to her why we had gathered around her car, she offered little more than, “yep, it’s been there all afternoon”. My role had clearly been assigned, I was the flashlight holder, Marta however was taking matters into her own hands and had requested that the lady pop open the hood and get her some gloves. With the hood open and Marta now fully gloved, she began the delicate procedure of removing the kitten that had somehow wrapped itself around the radiator. The kitten began hissing and with claws fully extended began swiping. I knew this because I was able to see it, Marta knew this because she was the one being swiped at, and however, our play-by-play announcers were perched just at my shoulder to remind us of anything they were afraid we hadn’t fully witnessed. Like a shot the cat took off down towards the wheel wells. The rescue was futile; this cat didn’t want to be rescued. By this point I was already citing destiny, if it chooses to wrap itself around the engine of a car, then that is the fate the good Lord has in store for it.
Out of nowhere the owner’s voice came upon us all.
“This is the fourth or fifth time that this has happened to me,” she observed.
Everything stopped and we all looked at her.
“Que casualidad, no? (what a coincidence, no?)” asked the middle aged man
“Que raro (how weird)” piped in his son.
“Why do you think that is?” asked John Madden (or Dick Vitale, I’m not sure) taking her eye off the action under the hood for a moment.
“Well, I deliver fish all day in this car. That might be it.”
Marta said nothing. She took the gloves off and calmly handed them to their owner. My job as flashlight holder had ended. The light came off and I shut the hood of the woman’s car. Nothing more was said between us. The crowd dispersed just as quickly as it had gathered. In the end there was no communal shearing of the sheep, or rescuing of the cattle there was only a stupid cat and a car that smelled like fish.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Benimamet News
Benimamet has lately seen an influx of what are coming to be called The Zombies. I don’t know what drugs these people are taking, but there is an entire community of them that wander around the streets in an absolute stupor stumbling around, often yelling at objects of distraction (hands and articles of clothing seem to be a popular target for the vented outrage). They gather in the fields behind my apartment building. When I look out my window, I can see them milling about in the fields like fish bugs from a recently overturned rock. They didn’t generally stray from the fields but to get money.
Tuesday December 5, 2006 (true story)
A dazed gentleman wandered up from the fields with two others in tow. They made there way through the streets, past the stone church, beyond the fountain, on the other side of the old town hall (before the ever reaching fingers of Valencia grasped onto it). His objective was money and his persuasion was his knife. How this young man came to choose his target remains a mystery. Together the three of them feeling more astute and aware as the surge of adrenaline poured through them walked into through the door ignoring the chimes and rings of the neon slot machines. They ignored the sedimentary layers of chatter that upon evaluation could determine the originator and point of the buried conversation. They walked directly to the man behind the bar. Our hero (up to this point his name has not been released) pulled out the steel 7 inch enforcer and thrust it towards the man behind the counter demanding all of the money from the cash register. Continuing to wash the beer glass in his hand, the man made no moves to the nature of the request, however perplexing our hero by an unexpected look of familiarity. The man’s mouth was moving and the beer glass was gently set on the counter while the man kindly reached across. Our hero in a panic began thrusting blindly at the air being squeezed closer together between him and the man. Upon the instant revelation of the familiarity of both the face of the man and the bar belonging to his father, our hero fled the bar leaving his comrades behind in a stunned gaze and ran upstairs locking himself in his bedroom threatening to kill himself should anyone ever speak of the incident again.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Sandberg to coach Peoria Chiefs
Having grown up a Chicago Cubs and Ryne Sandberg fan I may be one of very few that cares about this particular placement in the Chicago Cubs line up. Incidentally Sandberg will be replacing former teammate Jody Davis, who was my brother’s favorite player at the time.
As I'm heading back to the Iowa this summer I imagine I'll have to check out a Cedar Rapids Kernels vs. Peoria Chiefs games, who knows maybe they'll bring him in to show 'em all how 2nd base was meant to be played.
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/6241384
Sunday, December 03, 2006
No Better Time to Gloat than the Afterlife
Just click on the below website and you can send a message to your heathen brethren after the Rapture. I'm not sure who will be in charge of the delivery of these or if heaven has a postal service.
http://postrapturepost.com/index.html
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
November 2006
Books read:
Why Not Me? – Al Franken
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time – Mark Haddon
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
The History of the Middle East – Peter Mansfield
Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie (abandoned)
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths – Bernard Evslin
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby
Music enjoyed:
Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
The Foo Fighters – Skin and Bones
Lily Allen – Alright Still
Gomez – How We Operate
Alex Camaaño Mix - Secret Lunch Hour of the Librarians
I was riding high above the road in the charter bus on my way home from school when I first really got the chance to sit down and listen to Skin and Bones by The Foo Fighters. To my left was the blackened sky that together with the dark sea spiralled off into a black infinity only to be broken up by the occasional commercial liner ship, floating beacons of civilization trudging infinity. To my right was the purple sky of the setting sun. The undulating mountains provided the background of shadows blocking the sun while the palm trees in the foregrounds were indistinguishable yet through shape. The scene to my right was of shapes that had been cut out of black construction paper and placed on a dark purple backing. Why is the dusk sky purple in Valencia? None of this description has much if anything to do with The Foo Fighters or their new acoustic live album, but it has everything to do with the image that will be in my head everytime I hear this album. This album can’t mean the same to someone else like it does me because they weren’t there to see the purple sky and the black palm trees. No one else was paying attention to the perfectly lined glowing globes floating across pitch black nothing to my right. No one else was being re-introduced to “Marigold”.
I met Marigold in 199_. I was blown away by its restraint and by the fact that the drummer was singing, Dave Grohl could sing…who knew? Of course that realization seems silly by now. Yet Marigold remained a needy infant that demanded inclusion into my mix tapes. I couldn’t deny it and from 199_ until 200_ Marigold graced at least one version of a mix tape or CD that I made to win over new friends. You know what…Marigold is all grown up now and he doesn’t need me anymore. The quiet little bedroom tape has given way to a full on aurchistral experience.
I like my live albums muddy. As far as I can tell the mastering and recording of Skin and Bones is near perfection. You can hear the strings restrain against the guitar pick before they leap off into their protesting sigh. It is crystal clear, as if I really was carrying the band along with me in my Dell mp3 player. I shouldn’t like it, but I do…it seems right.
I read on the bus on my way to school and I listen to music on the way home. One way is too loud and I need the book to escape, I couldn’t hear the music anyway. The other way is too dark and I need the music to escape, I couldn’t read the words anyway. I get most of my reading done either on buses or while waiting for them. Here is what I have learned in my bus stop literary conferences….I don’t like Peter Pan. I have been trying to read it for about three weeks now and I keep finding other books to pick up so that I can interrupt it for something else. I continued to do this until I could justify it to myself why it was that I wasn’t able to connect or care about this book. In between my experience with Peter Pan I read The History of the Middle East. I would have made a terrible physicist or European/African/Asian. Once we start dipping into negative numbered years I have problems. The BC(E) dates mess with my head, my grasp on time is very linear and it can only move in a progressive direction, once the numbers begin to digress so then does my comprehension. It is impossible to accurately discuss the history of the Middle East without counting backwards for a good portion of the book. The beauty of being an American is that there isn’t much math expected from me in my history lessons. The other beauty of being an American is that I can make ignorant statements such as the former and it can be shrugged off because well…I’m American.
I started reading The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby and I am stealing his format. I don’t look at is theft I look at as an exercise in free verse thinking. Lately I have been trying to hard to coherently connect dots with lines that would form into a cohesive short story with an absolute beginning middle and end. I had all three of those things and then I lost the ends. A little while later the middles stopped happening, now I am forced to suffer notebooks of beginnings. Eventually those are going to go away too. I am exercising, I am writing….there is no beginning other than to describe a particular Thanksgiving evening in Valencia Spain while listening to a particular song, which incidentally transpired at the end of my day…there goes my beginning.
I wonder what’s on television right now….
Why Not Me? – Al Franken
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time – Mark Haddon
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
The History of the Middle East – Peter Mansfield
Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie (abandoned)
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths – Bernard Evslin
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby
Music enjoyed:
Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
The Foo Fighters – Skin and Bones
Lily Allen – Alright Still
Gomez – How We Operate
Alex Camaaño Mix - Secret Lunch Hour of the Librarians
I was riding high above the road in the charter bus on my way home from school when I first really got the chance to sit down and listen to Skin and Bones by The Foo Fighters. To my left was the blackened sky that together with the dark sea spiralled off into a black infinity only to be broken up by the occasional commercial liner ship, floating beacons of civilization trudging infinity. To my right was the purple sky of the setting sun. The undulating mountains provided the background of shadows blocking the sun while the palm trees in the foregrounds were indistinguishable yet through shape. The scene to my right was of shapes that had been cut out of black construction paper and placed on a dark purple backing. Why is the dusk sky purple in Valencia? None of this description has much if anything to do with The Foo Fighters or their new acoustic live album, but it has everything to do with the image that will be in my head everytime I hear this album. This album can’t mean the same to someone else like it does me because they weren’t there to see the purple sky and the black palm trees. No one else was paying attention to the perfectly lined glowing globes floating across pitch black nothing to my right. No one else was being re-introduced to “Marigold”.
I met Marigold in 199_. I was blown away by its restraint and by the fact that the drummer was singing, Dave Grohl could sing…who knew? Of course that realization seems silly by now. Yet Marigold remained a needy infant that demanded inclusion into my mix tapes. I couldn’t deny it and from 199_ until 200_ Marigold graced at least one version of a mix tape or CD that I made to win over new friends. You know what…Marigold is all grown up now and he doesn’t need me anymore. The quiet little bedroom tape has given way to a full on aurchistral experience.
I like my live albums muddy. As far as I can tell the mastering and recording of Skin and Bones is near perfection. You can hear the strings restrain against the guitar pick before they leap off into their protesting sigh. It is crystal clear, as if I really was carrying the band along with me in my Dell mp3 player. I shouldn’t like it, but I do…it seems right.
I read on the bus on my way to school and I listen to music on the way home. One way is too loud and I need the book to escape, I couldn’t hear the music anyway. The other way is too dark and I need the music to escape, I couldn’t read the words anyway. I get most of my reading done either on buses or while waiting for them. Here is what I have learned in my bus stop literary conferences….I don’t like Peter Pan. I have been trying to read it for about three weeks now and I keep finding other books to pick up so that I can interrupt it for something else. I continued to do this until I could justify it to myself why it was that I wasn’t able to connect or care about this book. In between my experience with Peter Pan I read The History of the Middle East. I would have made a terrible physicist or European/African/Asian. Once we start dipping into negative numbered years I have problems. The BC(E) dates mess with my head, my grasp on time is very linear and it can only move in a progressive direction, once the numbers begin to digress so then does my comprehension. It is impossible to accurately discuss the history of the Middle East without counting backwards for a good portion of the book. The beauty of being an American is that there isn’t much math expected from me in my history lessons. The other beauty of being an American is that I can make ignorant statements such as the former and it can be shrugged off because well…I’m American.
I started reading The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby and I am stealing his format. I don’t look at is theft I look at as an exercise in free verse thinking. Lately I have been trying to hard to coherently connect dots with lines that would form into a cohesive short story with an absolute beginning middle and end. I had all three of those things and then I lost the ends. A little while later the middles stopped happening, now I am forced to suffer notebooks of beginnings. Eventually those are going to go away too. I am exercising, I am writing….there is no beginning other than to describe a particular Thanksgiving evening in Valencia Spain while listening to a particular song, which incidentally transpired at the end of my day…there goes my beginning.
I wonder what’s on television right now….
Sunday, November 19, 2006
When was the first time that you heard Blister in the Sun?
This past week I went to see The Violent Femmes here in Valencia at Sala Cormoran. Arab Strap provided an unimpressive opener that was difficult to hear through the talking of the Spanish audience. At several points the lead singer would mutter something inaudibly into the microphone and the rest of the band would laugh, obviously on behalf of the joke being made at the inattentive audience’s expense. I wasn’t particularly interested in what Arab Strap had to say or the songs that they were playing, but I did pay to hear them and not several hundred Spanish people yammer on. I also knew that my patience was going to wear thin if they insisted on talking through the Femmes as well.
From the very moment that Arab Strap stepped off the stage, what I had already perceived to be a packed house doubled. The venue had been packed so tight that the late stragglers had to watch from the doorways of the entrance. The moment The Femmes took the stage all attention went forward. Not only was the applause between songs thunderous, but also the crowd singing along with Gordon Gano’s distinctive twang. The band opened up with “Blister in the Sun”, the crowd went mad clapping to the beat and singing along word for word. I was stunned at the turnout and response, expecting the show to be filled with a few English teachers sipping tea and watching from a ratty sofa.
That night, on the way home, I asked the New Yorker, the two Italians and my wife, the Spanish representative in this equation, if any of them remembered the first time that they had heard “Blister in the Sun”. None of them could. I couldn’t place ever hearing it on the radio and to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a video for it on MTV, which growing up were my only two sources of new music. Somehow we had all come together knowing of the Violent Femmes and all being able to sing the song forwards and back without the accompaniment of the actual tune. I simply chalked it up to generational.
The next day, in order to bring real life events to the novels that we discuss, I had mentioned the Violent Femmes show to my 10th grade class. Understand that this wasn’t a case of the newly anointed 30-something English teacher trying to prove to his students and ultimately to himself that he’s still ‘with it’. In the middle of a free jam during “Black Girls” the bass player, Brian Ritchie, had pulled down from his (Ampeg) bass amp a pink and white conch. He had blown into this conch to signal the end of the free for all jam, which the 8 or 9 ragtag assortment of paid musicians and random guests from the crowd respected and ceased playing. Ritchie, with the moment to himself, broke into a conch solo---which within itself was interesting --- before bringing the song to a close. For anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies, understands that the character of Ralph is able to guide and gather the other characters through the guidance of the conch. It is this that I was trying to convey to my students. I hadn’t actually expected any of them to know who The Violent Femmes were.
Until Isabel raised her hand and asked me, “Don’t they sing “Blister in the Sun”?” I stopped my lecture right here and responded that, “Yes they do.” I immediately followed by asking her how she knew. She just shrugged. Another student leaned in and asked “Que?”, to which I responded, “English only”. Isabel hummed the first few bars of the song and the inquiring student immediately knew what she was talking about. The same thing happened when I taught the next 10th grade class later in the afternoon, there too were two students that knew “Blister in the Sun” and there too were two students who couldn’t tell me where, why or how they had heard it…they just seemed to know it.
These four students had blown my generational theory out of the water. Incidentally all four of them were the eldest children in their families, so that also did away with the older brother/sister used to listen to it theory. All four of them are, however, huge Nirvana/early to mid nineties Northwestern United States music scene aficionados (from which The Violent Femmes are not, having formed in Milwaukee Wisconsin and having released their first album in 1983, but are considered an influence to the grunge genre), which does offer explanation to them having crossed paths with The Violent Femmes at some point.
“Blister in the Sun” was released in 1982 as a lead off single for their debut album The Violent Femmes in 1983. In 2005 the song was voted as the only English speaking song allowed on Ireland’s Irish Language Radio Station, likewise it was voted in Australia as one of the Most Essential Songs of all time.
Unfortunately, like much of everything else that I have been writing lately, there is no conclusion to this, its merely a work in progress (if in progress means “will never be touched again after I post this”). I guess I’m just simply starting a discussion for those of you that remember when you first heard “Blister in the Sun” and those of you who will happily admit to never having heard the song.
From the very moment that Arab Strap stepped off the stage, what I had already perceived to be a packed house doubled. The venue had been packed so tight that the late stragglers had to watch from the doorways of the entrance. The moment The Femmes took the stage all attention went forward. Not only was the applause between songs thunderous, but also the crowd singing along with Gordon Gano’s distinctive twang. The band opened up with “Blister in the Sun”, the crowd went mad clapping to the beat and singing along word for word. I was stunned at the turnout and response, expecting the show to be filled with a few English teachers sipping tea and watching from a ratty sofa.
That night, on the way home, I asked the New Yorker, the two Italians and my wife, the Spanish representative in this equation, if any of them remembered the first time that they had heard “Blister in the Sun”. None of them could. I couldn’t place ever hearing it on the radio and to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a video for it on MTV, which growing up were my only two sources of new music. Somehow we had all come together knowing of the Violent Femmes and all being able to sing the song forwards and back without the accompaniment of the actual tune. I simply chalked it up to generational.
The next day, in order to bring real life events to the novels that we discuss, I had mentioned the Violent Femmes show to my 10th grade class. Understand that this wasn’t a case of the newly anointed 30-something English teacher trying to prove to his students and ultimately to himself that he’s still ‘with it’. In the middle of a free jam during “Black Girls” the bass player, Brian Ritchie, had pulled down from his (Ampeg) bass amp a pink and white conch. He had blown into this conch to signal the end of the free for all jam, which the 8 or 9 ragtag assortment of paid musicians and random guests from the crowd respected and ceased playing. Ritchie, with the moment to himself, broke into a conch solo---which within itself was interesting --- before bringing the song to a close. For anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies, understands that the character of Ralph is able to guide and gather the other characters through the guidance of the conch. It is this that I was trying to convey to my students. I hadn’t actually expected any of them to know who The Violent Femmes were.
Until Isabel raised her hand and asked me, “Don’t they sing “Blister in the Sun”?” I stopped my lecture right here and responded that, “Yes they do.” I immediately followed by asking her how she knew. She just shrugged. Another student leaned in and asked “Que?”, to which I responded, “English only”. Isabel hummed the first few bars of the song and the inquiring student immediately knew what she was talking about. The same thing happened when I taught the next 10th grade class later in the afternoon, there too were two students that knew “Blister in the Sun” and there too were two students who couldn’t tell me where, why or how they had heard it…they just seemed to know it.
These four students had blown my generational theory out of the water. Incidentally all four of them were the eldest children in their families, so that also did away with the older brother/sister used to listen to it theory. All four of them are, however, huge Nirvana/early to mid nineties Northwestern United States music scene aficionados (from which The Violent Femmes are not, having formed in Milwaukee Wisconsin and having released their first album in 1983, but are considered an influence to the grunge genre), which does offer explanation to them having crossed paths with The Violent Femmes at some point.
“Blister in the Sun” was released in 1982 as a lead off single for their debut album The Violent Femmes in 1983. In 2005 the song was voted as the only English speaking song allowed on Ireland’s Irish Language Radio Station, likewise it was voted in Australia as one of the Most Essential Songs of all time.
Unfortunately, like much of everything else that I have been writing lately, there is no conclusion to this, its merely a work in progress (if in progress means “will never be touched again after I post this”). I guess I’m just simply starting a discussion for those of you that remember when you first heard “Blister in the Sun” and those of you who will happily admit to never having heard the song.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
U of I Needs a President, Jim Leach Needs a Job...
In light of the Democrat's victory last week I can't help but express voter's remorse over voting against Jim Leach. It seems silly, having never actually met the man, but I liked him and he was a good congressman. For the first time I voted a straight ticket going all democrat. Leach had always been the republican who was okay to vote for, now he is gone and rather unceremoniously.
In expressing my voter's remorse someone had sent me an email about Jim Leach being a good candidate for the next president of the University of Iowa. I looked through my emails to find who it was so I could give credit, if it was you let me know.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)