Little Cesar dog food commerical with a very cute Pom in it and — here’s the nifty bit — a (relatively obscure) song called “I Need a New Heart” by the Magnetic Fields that I adore!
(One of the best concertings I’ve ever had was a three-night, in order, live show of the Magnetic Fields 3-disc set “69 Love Songs” that I went to see with David at the ArtsCenter).
In case anyone didn’t see the last post, I’m in dire need of these songs:
to play at my brother’s wedding reception — anyone have them?
Thanks!
Help!
My baby brother’s wedding is at the end of June and I’ve been asked to put together some CD’s (1) for playing when the band is on break. Having asked them what sorts of things they were looking for (quiet-backygroundy-won’t-compete-with-the-band // songs the band couldn’t/wouldn’t play (like, heaven forbid, the Macarena, though I didn’t put that idea in their head!) // dance stuff, etc.), Jo (Drew’s afianced) sent me a list of some songs they’d like to hear.
I have some of them, but I’m completely stuck on some others, namely:
Plud, any bluegrass (“Old and in the Way” was mentioned)
Can anyone help me with any of these? If you could, I would be *most* appreciated! You Send It should work, I think…
(1) Yes, I asked if there was an AuxIn for iPoddy goodness. They don’t think they have one, so I’m going with safe rather than sorry and making actual CDs.
…that the Beatles’ Golden Slumber (just the first part, not Carry that Weight1) segues quite nicely into Fool in the Rain (Led Zeppelin).
1 Yes, I have my iPod set to “individual song shuffle”… I know it would make some people (Tim) nuts to hear Golden Slumber without Carry that Weight after it, but, eh, doesn’t bug me at all.
So a goodly part of this week and this past weekend (after the Aimee Mann show(1), which was fabulous) has been devoted to getting ready for the Europe trip, for which we depart on Friday!! We start in Heidelberg, as always, to pick up and pack the bike (and recuperate from the trip a bit), then moving on to Antwerp, where a good friends of Jeff’s, Carlo and Gabi live (that’s Gabi in the front of the boat, with her son, Tomas, behind her). We’re staying in the city center, and I intend on shopping most mightily. And eating frites. Lots of frites.
At some point during the Antwerp bit we’ll probably take the bike to Bruges for a day, as it is supposed to be lovely and it’s only an hour and a quarter away.
Then on to Spa, where we hope to be able to have Spa treatments, but at worst we’ll have spa baths. (Scheduling mishap on my part — I didn’t think to make reservations far in advance, which I’m normally quite anal about). Oh well. Worst worst case, we’ll do something like the Castle at Rochefort or Chimay (aka Trappist ale land).
On Thursday, the rest of the gang shows up. This year will be a big one, as it’s the 10th anniversary of EP, with folks coming from Switzerland, Germany, USA, Japan (1), Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden and Ecuador! Needless to say, I can’t wait. I’m not as anxious as in years previous, as I feel like I know folks, and I’m quite glad to be seeing everyone again.
Post-EP we head for Luxembourg for two nights, after which I fly home and Jeff continues on to ride unencumbered for a week more.
The good news about the getting ready is that my comprehensive list (which I update every year with learnings from the year previous) makes everything pretty simple, even though the logistics of preparing for a motorcycle trip can be complex (you have all the normal packing issues, with the additional constraint of everything having to fit in a small waterproof duffel. Add to that the fact that the “gear” is critical — and also complicated — and the whole thing has the potential to be a nightmare.)
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In other news, one of my cow-orkers (thanks thebrooomecloset for the terminology) has a cell phone that’s set to play Reveille (you know, the “I can’t get’em up, I can’t get’em up, I can’t get’em up in the morning” song). In general, I think phones should ring, not sing (particularly as they do it so poorly), and in specific, phones should NEVER do this.
(1) The Aimee Mann show was wonderful! Heather and Steve met Jeff and me at the Wellspring (I refuse to call it Whole Foods) to procure foodstuffs. Two loaves of bread, chicken salad, hummus, three kinds of cheese, three kinds of meat, strawberries, cherries and mini-desserts later, we headed out for the show. Product endorsement: I have one of those rolling cooler thingies (that’s not the exact model I have…mine was cheaper at Target) and it ROCKS! Also highly recommended are the chairs that have backpack straps (not the ones that come in the green bags… I don’t like those one bit, as they’re too tall) — they’re low, portable and have a great big pocket on the back into which you can stuff more goodies.
Anyway, she was great. At one point someone hollered “Free Bird” and she joked about wishing she knew how to play it, but then went on to play something else. Much later in the show (during the encore?) she was hemming and hawing (but in a cute way) about what to play and someone (perhaps even the same one) hollered “Free Bird” again.
And she started to play it! Or something like it. She was clearly making it up as she went along (geez! I wish I could play *any* instrument by ear!), so her version contained the hilarious lyric: “You can’t tame a bird” rather than the “And this bird you cannot tame.”
She also was tres amused by the spinney flashy light things and asked the light-bearers (which sounds a whole lot more profound than “drunken concert-goers”) to do an “interpretive dance” to the next song. They did, which apparently surprised her — so much so that she started laughing three times at the beginning of “Deathly” (I think that was it, anyway), and had to scold herself: “be a serious artist now” :-D
I’m sooooo far behind in blogging (well, in everything, actually). I think I will blame it on getting ready for the annual pilgrimage to Europe sur moto. This year it’s Germany (it always starts there, ’cause that’s where the bike lives), Belgium (the frites and the chocolats are calling me, yea verily), then to Luxembourg City, which is in Luxembourg the country, though as I understand it there’s not much difference between the two. We leave next Friday, the 24th — I can’t wait.
Or I could blame it on being too social. But that would pretty much be a lie, as there’s no such beast for me. Two weekends ago was the Tift Merritt show at the NC Art Museum that I alluded to in the title. We had 15(?) people, who were all friends of mine or friends-of-my-friend-Caroline (or, for that matter, friends of both of ours). We all brought pot-lucky foods, and I busted out the big guns on the cooking scene, making a Cook’s Country recipe for pasta with bacon and ricotta (and other bits) that Heather had recommended; coleslaw (hailed by two different people as the best coleslaw they’d ever put in their mouth! — the trick is using a little rice wine vinegar along with the regular vinegar…it adds a lovely ‘kick’); and two apple pies.(1).
The apple pies were not particularly portable (a fact I’d thought of when I was considering recipe choices, but conveniently forgot when I was making the actual dessert selection), and posed, therefore, posed an engineering challenge. We rose to the challenge by constructing a rather clever, if I do say so myself, Pie Box, consisting of a square cardboard box whose dimension along one side was a wee bit longer than the diameter of the pie, into which we placed four Pie Struts, made of cardboard folded into little prism shapes and taped. These fit quite tidily into the corners of the Pie Box, allowing us to support a “second floor” (made of several layers of cardboard, set cross-grain, cut to the appropriate size and taped together) to hold the other pie. Sadly, due to space constraints with unpacking the food, no one else got to see our clever Pie Box, so this memorial will have to suffice.
Last week I managed to have dinner with my friend Jacintha (followed by ice cream at Coldstone —mmmmm), (which was *really* cool, as we don’t manage to get together nearly enough and this “rescued” a spoiled plans night for each of us!), and my brother, Drew, who was in the state (and who I was seeing) for the first time in two and half years. That was great, and probably worth an entry unto itself (apparently his fiance, Jo, has somehow got me tagged as the “stylish jeans girl”?!), but that’s not going to happen if this is ever to get posted.
The real blame (for the lack of blogginess… you’d lost track, hadn’t you? That’s ok, I don’t blame you. I’d nearly lost track myself), though, I think, belongs to my most recent craft obsession: the sewing of a yukata. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but was finally spurred into action due to a constellation of factors including:
Pictures (and a proper recounting of the battle, from which I emerged scarred, but victorious) to come (really), but on a day I’m not quite as frazzlepated as I am right now. Amongst the lessons I learned is the fact that fabric does, in fact, come in non-standard widths, and just because the back of the pattern envelope has directions for 45″ wide and 60″ wide fabric, and you know your fabric is wider than 45″, that *doesn’t* mean that it’s 60″. Nope. Not at all. I took the shortage of material as an opportunity to investigate contrast trim, which, in the end, looks quite nice, I think.
Also to come “Stupid Way to Injure Yourself, #113” …
(1) You get something from every experience, I believe. This *amazing* apple pie recipe is what I got from one of my significant ex-others.
ALSO: last chance to vote in the great spectacles debate! Voting closes 9:30am EST Wed.!
Top 50 Worst Songs of All Time meme (via tekaytalks
This is a list of the 50 Worst Songs of All Time, as put together by the hip magazine Blender. Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to bold the items that you actually like. This might be more embarrassing than you think. Remember, no one is reading this. Well, no one of importance…
Gina’s addition: italicize the songs you *really* loathe… the ones that you would’ve come up with if you’d made the list. The ones that are on albums you own. The ones with one star in your iTunes. (I’m not including Achy Breaky Heart, for instance, ’cause I don’t come anywhere near “new country” so my exposure is limited). Heck, add a few of your own. Why not? ;-)
1. We Built This City – Starship
2. Achy Breaky Heart – Billy Ray Cyrus
3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight – Wang Chung
4. Rollin’ – Limp Bizkit
5. Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice (not on an album I own, but MAN I hate this song. Such a complete tease, because I love “Under Pressure”) — edited to add… Under Pressure is Bowie and Queen, but Vanilla Ice *stole* the main “hook” and used it in Ice Ice Baby)
6. The Heart of Rock & Roll – Huey Lewis and the News
7. Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bobby McFerrin (just like Bobby McFerrin refuses to sing this song anymore, I refuse to listen to it
8. Party All the Time – Eddie Murphy
9. American Life – Madonna (I just went and bought the album on Friday, funny)
10. Ebony and Ivory – Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
11. Invisible – Clay Aiken
12. Kokomo – The Beach Boys
13. Illegal Alien – Genesis
14. From a Distance – Bette Midler
15. I’ll Be There for You – The Rembrandts
16. What’s Up? – 4 Non Blondes
17. Pumps and a Bump – Hammer
18. You’re the Inspiration – Chicago
19. Broken Wings – Mr. Mister
20. Dancing on the Ceiling – Lionel Richie
21. Two Princes – Spin Doctors
22. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) – Toby Keith
23. Sunglasses at Night – Corey Hart
24. Superman – Five for Fighting
25. I’ll Be Missing You – Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112
26. The End – The Doors
27. The Final Countdown – Europe
28. Your Body Is a Wonderland – John Mayer
29. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
30. Greatest Love of All – Whitney Houston
31. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm – Crash Test Dummies
32. Will 2K – Will Smith
33. Barbie Girl – Aqua
34. Longer – Dan Fogelberg
35. Shiny Happy People – R.E.M.
36. Make Em Say Uhh! – Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal
37. Rico Suave – Gerardo
38. Cotton Eyed Joe – Rednex
39. She Bangs – Ricky Martin
40. I Wanna Sex You Up – Color Me Badd
41. We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel
42. The Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel — Okay, maybe a little sappy, but I love it anyway
43. Follow Me – Uncle Kracker
44. I’ll Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) – Meat Loaf
45. Mesmerize – Ja Rule featuring Ashanti
46. Hangin’ Tough – New Kids on the Block
47. The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You – Bryan Adams
48. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – The Beatles — WTF? Maybe they put that in to see if I was paying attention?
49. I’m Too Sexy – Right Said Fred
50. My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion
from Gina: 51. Girl from Ipanema – by anyone at any time. Ew.
from Gina: 52. Sara – Jefferson Starship
from Gina: 53. Candle in the Wind – Elton John (and the Princess Di one is even worse)
This just came via email from Paste Magazine (my favorite music mag, by far):
Oops! We sent you an email earlier today saying that your subscription has expired. Due to a little typo (a “>” instead of “< “), we sent that email to everyone who has NOT expired. So consider these two emails as a confirmation that your supscription is still good :).
Sorry for the mix-up. Quite embarrassing, really. That’s what you get with too much multi-tasking and having journalists program.
To clarify, the issue at the printer is issue #14. Your subscription expires with issue #19.
Please accept our sincere apologies. Those responsible have been sacked. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked. The directors of the firm hired to continue…….
Tim Porter
Unsuccessful Multi-tasker
Paste
Realm of the Lint Queen 