As a change of pace from all the weighty ponderings below (friends-only posts, so holler if you’d like to know what’s on my mind), I just realized how funny one of my misheard lyrics really is: as a child, I thought the Elton John song “Island Girl” was called “I Like Girls”, which, in Elton’s case, is clearly, well, wrong.
Music & Concerts
Too depressed to think.
The US Government Department of Homeland Security has deported Yusuf Islam, née Cat Stevens, writer of the song “Peace Train.”
Sad.
Quick update
I have been much slack in updating of late. Oops.
As an excuse I offer: busyness! (surprise! ;-)
Ok, so last weekend I:
- Met Heather and Debra at Carrburritos (I think I might’ve put too many “rrrrrr”s in there) for Burritos as Big as Our Heads (BaBaOH) tm followed by Tift Merritt‘s album release party at the Cat’s Cradle. The Super Double Bonus was that Gary Louris (of The Jayhawks), who sings backup for some of the songs on this album, played as well. In fact, he sang one of my Most Favorite songs — All the Right Reasons — solo accousitc. Mmmmmm! I gushed at him a bit afterwards…
- Saturday was the Day of Organization. Jeff & I went to several stores with multiple sets of measurements in hand in order to find a storage solution for my fabric and yarn. This is not an insubstantial problem.Some sewers/knitters, you see, find a pattern they like, then buy the fabric/yarn to complete it, then make the thing. Not me. Nope. I find fabric/yarn I like, then visit it on a regular basis, so as to be able to hear it when it tells me what it wants to be when it grows up. This means I have *lots* of fabric and *lots* of yarn. The sad thing was that my storage capacity was so limited that the materials were all squashed up, so some of them weren’t being heard properly (I mean, really, how could a nice little piece of quilting cotton in yellow expect to be heard over lime green polarfleece?).
So now I have four little Target cabinets (with doors! on sale! $23.99/ea.!) that all the fabric can safely live in and two little shoe cabinets with 25 compartments each where all my yarn can live. Needless to say, the fabric and yarn are quite happy to be grouped by weight and color. And it makes me really happy to be able to go upstairs (the shelves line the catwalk that connects the stairs with the loft area of my house) and see all my pretties all nice and neat!
- Saturday night, Jeff and I met ferociousbcycad, one of my significant ex-others (ex-significant others?) for dinner at Babymoon Cafe. Potentially awkward, yet decidedly not in reality (yah!). We had a blast (they actually have quite a bit in common… INTP’s [I’m listening to you all gape in surprise at that one! ;-)] who ride motorcycles, etc.) and ended up talking until nearly ten.
- Sunday I decided that if I could finish a big (and very long-in-the-making project), I could clear off one of the tables upstairs, which would give me space to cut fabric (which would be far more ergonomically correct and far less backache-inducing than the current system of cutting it on the floor). So I spent Sunday afternoon (and evening and part of Monday night) reacquainting myself with how to do this craft that I’d not done in, oh, I dunno, 7 years? (geep). Only minor injuries were sustained and The Project (which is not being detailed here for a pretty good reason) is completed!
- Tuesday night I met Greta for dinner at Rocky Mountain Firebird Grill Thing at my mall. Greta is one amazing person, and this time, just like last time, we managed not to do a stitch of knitting, but instead gabbed for three hours. :)
- Wednesday night, thebroomecloset (surprisingly, another significant ex-other or ex-significant other, take your pick) and I met for dinner at Rockfish (and also gabbed for going on four hours*). Pretty amazing … I’ve known him for eighteen years (I think we figured out?…) and he’s still one of my favorite people on the planet.
Whew.
* OK. That’s not all that amazing. I talk. A lot. I get it. ;-)
Stragely pleased with myself
So, Mimi Smartypants posted a link to a site of Self-Referential Songs, which is in a WIKI format. I’d known of WIKIs, of course, and see them and whatnot, but I’d never tried to actually add anything to one.
I plunged on anyway, and edited the page by copying and pasting and making changes to the pasted stuff. And it worked! Yah me! Yes, there was a tutorial, and yes, perhaps I should’ve started there, but I’m pleased I figured it out myself. (And yes, I’m aware this is not rocket science).
BTW, I added “Lonely People” by America. :-)
Heading to beach
I’m quite excited as I’m heading down to the beach for a three-day weekend tonight! I’m going down to DeBordieu to visit my roommate from high school and her husband (and two kids). Sun! Fun!! NOT WORK!!!!
Sad state of smoke detection
The smoke detector upstairs in my house is very “touchy.” It’ll go off at the slightest provocation, like when I, for example, turn the oven on. (And who can blame it really? I mean, it’s the *oven*. Anyway…) I haven’t tried looking cross-eyed at it yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that set it off too.
This afternoon I was fixing myself a *very* belated lunch (or breakfast, depending on how you count it) of a BACT sandwich (Bacon, Avocado, Cheese & Tomato). I have some of that Hormel-pre-cooked-in-a-bag-bacon, and it seemed a good opportunity to try it out. Per instructions, I heated the bacon (though I think they said oven proper, and I used the toaster oven. Oh well). Well, bacon is a slippery beast, and one piece escaped through the toaster grate and landed on the …erm…hot thing (in an oven it’d be a coil, but this is straight, so that seems wrong, somehow).
Stinky pig-gone-way-too-far smoke poured out of the oven (causing me to panic and open the oven door *before* finding the tongs to remove the bacon. Not, perhaps, my wisest choice ever, but the bacon deities were watching over me and the pig did not erupt into flames (which it would have had every right to do at that point). While the voice of Bill Cosby (Bill Cosby Himself; watch it if you haven’t. Tres funny) ran through my head, I grabbed the tongs and rescued (can you say rescue if it’s way too late for the rescuee?) or maybe just retrieved the bacon, and doused it in the sink.
Through all this, not a *peep* from the smoke alarm.
I should probably have that checked out, eh?
On why I “went digital” (musically, at any rate)
(These are just some random thoughts I wanted to get in one place).
I’m really an all-or-nothing person when it comes to music. I bought one of the first mega-multi-disc changers back in 95(?) and since then have been completely unwilling to change compact discs (I *hate* butterfly packages — so un-butterfly-like, as butterflies are a good thing and not in the least annoying. Anyway).
I never had a CD-changer in my car, because I hated the idea that the CDs I wanted in the car at any given moment would be in the house or vice versa. My solution there was an in-dash minidisc player and mix MDs. “Mixes” fall outside the “all-or-nothing” realm because they’re intentional and have “flow.”
For me, the decision to “go digital” was spurred on by three things:
- the fact that my collection had grown far beyond the two daisy-chained 200-disc changers, which meant there was a lot of my music I wasn’t hearing (except for the “select” songs that made it onto mixes)
- the invention of the Audiotron (that lets me stream all my music from a PC, in my case a dedicated music server) , and
- the 40GB iPod, which was big enough to “hold it all” … the same logic (or lack thereof) about the CD player in the car applied here: “What if the music I want to hear is not on the iPod?!”
So now I have a 40GB iPod — that really holds 37 GB; thankfully, about 15GB of my collection is classical (which is “bigger” in filesize), new age or jazz, which I’m not as concerned with having with me. (FWIW, I have a little less than 9000 songs).
All my “real music” (which roughly equates to stuff I can sing to) is in my baby (at about 35GB), which makes me *very* happy! There are a lot of duplicate songs (the cases where I have a “best of” album as well as the original disc, for example), which I’m weeding out as time permits, allowing me to add more music (plus I have a GB or two to spare now).
I don’t think I’d want only part of my music with me. I did buy a Sonic Rio an eon or two ago, and almost never used it because trying to figure out *which* songs I wanted (and get them onto the bugger) was such a pain. I’m way too picky about what I want to hear… sometimes it’s not enough to be in the right genre or even the right artist; no, I want *the*song*that*the*radio*in*my*head*is*playing.”
Did y’all know that not everyone has a radio in his head? I can’t imagine that.
Concert goodness
Last night Meghan, Jeff and I saw Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the (now smoke-free!!) Cat’s Cradle — WOW! Great show. The Old Crow Medicine Show opened — they’re probably the biggest pleasant surprise I’ve had with an opener since I saw Ron Sexsmith open for Tift Merritt in June 0f 2002. TOCMS was real “old-timey” “string-and-jugband” bluegrass-y, with 5 (6?) vocals, a *damn* good fiddler, stand-up bass, guitar and banjo (and maybe more)? They did one song, about a girl who lied, that I adored (and, of course, which I don’t know the name of…grrr).
Gillan and David were (as always) amazing. They love playing in this area, and it shows — they energy was wonderful. Best treat of the evening was when TOCMS joined them on stage for a slow, bluesy version of Clapton’s “Round Midnight” — gorgeous.
Still sleepy though. Big project launches today, Singing tomorrow night. Will attempt to update before next Thursday. ;-)
They Might Be Giants -> Mono Puff -> Violent Femmes – > Sonic Youth -> Radiohead -> R.E.M.
regarding musicplasma
Ok, so I’ve been futzing with it to see if I can get from A -> B, where A is a band/artist I like and B is a different one. Started with R.E.M. and so far have been able to get to the land of prog rock (YES), alt.country (Gillian Welch), classic rock (the WHO), classic folk (Joni Mitchell) and “punk rock” (old school — Violent Femmes).
I cannot find a way from R.E.M to They Might Be Giants yet, but I’m going to cheat and reverse-engineer it.
Then I have to see if I can get to Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds (or maybe England Dan and John Fold Coley) from TMBG.
Realm of the Lint Queen 