Tonight's the night for indie superstar Will Oldham/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy at the Los Osos Community Center, the Taj Mahal of the central coast.
Meggsie & the wife are going, and Facebook informs me the Funks will be making an appearance.
I'll probably regret passing on it, but I'm not a big fan & someone has to watch the Fuss.
He's has been more than usually fussy lately. Last night he howled like a damned soul from 7 to 10. I'm loathe to expose unpaid friends & relatives to the corrosive power of his vocal stylings, and I'm not yet at the point where I'd trust paid help to watch him.
So it's the Fuss and I, Claudius for me tonight, with maybe a frozen pizza if I'm feeling especially venturesome.
/edit
Amusing juxtapositions on his tour schedule.
One night at the Fillmore in SF, the next night at the Community Center in Los Osos.
Haw!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
lawyers on the street:
lady lawyer to her companion:
She's going to go through chemo with a boob job?
I can't even think about it, it's making me sick.
Monday, March 30, 2009
full moon?
there are more muttering headcases than usual wandering the store.
Haven't had to throw any of them out...yet.
Haven't had to throw any of them out...yet.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
true customer tales
teen browsing book, to her friend:
A young gal to her boyfriend, contemplating a copy of Twilight:
This is interesting...I never knew what people would do to prevent maggots!
A young gal to her boyfriend, contemplating a copy of Twilight:
You wanna read this? It's for like fourteen year old girls. I dunno, I was expecting more..something. I thought it was gonna be more like Blade, with violence and gore, y'know.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
uh poem
I had a notion a while ago that my goal for the year would be to write one good poem.
The wife writes lots of them, but I think too much and mine get all warped and tangled up. Here's my first try at keeping it simple.
Grey Morning
make coffee &
put the baby back to sleep
check the orders, pack the books
birdsong in the yard
ignore the knocking on the door
look in on my sleepers
gather up a book & pipe
smoke & read on the deck
in the cool sea air
bluejays fight in the tree
listening to the birds
things are changing
The wife writes lots of them, but I think too much and mine get all warped and tangled up. Here's my first try at keeping it simple.
Grey Morning
make coffee &
put the baby back to sleep
check the orders, pack the books
birdsong in the yard
ignore the knocking on the door
look in on my sleepers
gather up a book & pipe
smoke & read on the deck
in the cool sea air
bluejays fight in the tree
listening to the birds
things are changing
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Adulthood, Ho!
The bank sent me a thick stack of papers to sign for the basket full of cash I need to silence the hungry bird mouth bequests in mom's will, with a slice left over for fixing up the house.
This seems like the final spade of dirt on the coffin of my footloose, bohemian old life.
But as it lands atop a plot already mounded high with a cascade of previous shovel-loads, it seems somehow less disturbing than today's other project- ripping all my CDs and trading in the husks for credit at Boo Boo's.
This seems like the final spade of dirt on the coffin of my footloose, bohemian old life.
But as it lands atop a plot already mounded high with a cascade of previous shovel-loads, it seems somehow less disturbing than today's other project- ripping all my CDs and trading in the husks for credit at Boo Boo's.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
new music
one of these days I'll make a compilation called "great songs by bands I don't like", and this one will be on it.
They have one other excellent tune, Did You See The World, which puts them one up on the Smiths.
Although I can listen to the Smiths if pressed...outside the two noted tunes, Animal Collective gives me a headache.
/edit
synchronicity strikes- searching for the 'other' good Animal Collective song also turned up this tune by Califone, a group I find eminently listenable. They're always described as 'experimental', but seem as accessible as most indie rock to me.
They have one other excellent tune, Did You See The World, which puts them one up on the Smiths.
Although I can listen to the Smiths if pressed...outside the two noted tunes, Animal Collective gives me a headache.
/edit
synchronicity strikes- searching for the 'other' good Animal Collective song also turned up this tune by Califone, a group I find eminently listenable. They're always described as 'experimental', but seem as accessible as most indie rock to me.
picked over
It's a saying that implies someone, or multiple someones, has already sorted through the books you're looking at.
It's a perceptible lack, a malaise of quality a seasoned book dealer will intuit almost instantly. It is a truism that even the junkiest, least interesting collection of books will harbor a few saleable items in its flesh, grown like pearls in a particularly lackluster oyster. When you don't find them you know something is up.
Of course you keep digging, because even after eager fingers have flensed away the obvious 'good stuff' there is nearly always something worthwhile to be harvested from the carcass. It's a professional challenge, gleaning something useful from a pile of bones, like making stock from a chicken carcass.
I was just sorting through a picked-over buy, scraping the salable dregs from the bottom of the boxes, when I chanced upon this beauty.
It nicely illuminates the lure of this whole tedious business, panning for gold in a river of paper.
It's a perceptible lack, a malaise of quality a seasoned book dealer will intuit almost instantly. It is a truism that even the junkiest, least interesting collection of books will harbor a few saleable items in its flesh, grown like pearls in a particularly lackluster oyster. When you don't find them you know something is up.
Of course you keep digging, because even after eager fingers have flensed away the obvious 'good stuff' there is nearly always something worthwhile to be harvested from the carcass. It's a professional challenge, gleaning something useful from a pile of bones, like making stock from a chicken carcass.
I was just sorting through a picked-over buy, scraping the salable dregs from the bottom of the boxes, when I chanced upon this beauty.
It nicely illuminates the lure of this whole tedious business, panning for gold in a river of paper.
the homeless steve martin returns
It's warm enough today that he ditched his giant green parka, baring a dingy gray-ish long sleeved waffle weave shirt.
But he's still wearing the fur-lined hood, which is apparently detachable.
But he's still wearing the fur-lined hood, which is apparently detachable.
guh
What's worse than the County Board of Supervisors usurping the morning jazz on our public radio station?
The County Board of Supervisors during pledge drive.
It would be nice if you could give them twenty bucks or whatever at the beginning of the process and get regular programming back.
Looking for the silver lining, this should inspire me to get an iPod dock for the store.
The County Board of Supervisors during pledge drive.
It would be nice if you could give them twenty bucks or whatever at the beginning of the process and get regular programming back.
Looking for the silver lining, this should inspire me to get an iPod dock for the store.
Monday, March 16, 2009
phrase of the week
The Hairy Eyeball.
and for your dubious visual enjoyment, the first google image result for said phrase:
and for your dubious visual enjoyment, the first google image result for said phrase:
overheard in the stacks
arty lass all in black to her friend/clone:
Hopefully the copy of Connell'sDiary of a Rapist she picked up will be more to her taste.
gal in a big Disney sweatshirt bearing the legend GROUP HUG under a graphic of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger sandwiching Eeyore:
You know what book didn't impress me? Wuthering Heights!
Hopefully the copy of Connell'sDiary of a Rapist she picked up will be more to her taste.
gal in a big Disney sweatshirt bearing the legend GROUP HUG under a graphic of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger sandwiching Eeyore:
Wow, this place is way better than a real bookstore!
Bernard Black is my role model
A twitchy, emaciated gal with raccoon eyes sets a recovery book on the counter.
gal:
I need this book I really need this book but it's seven dollars I only have four dollars but I really need this book.
me:
Huh. Well, I can hold it for you until you get the rest of the money...how's that sound?
gal:
I need this book I really need this book but it's seven dollars I only have four dollars but I really need this book.
me:
Huh. Well, I can hold it for you until you get the rest of the money...how's that sound?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Random Playlist
collected by shuffle.
Vivo sonhando- Antonio Carlos Jobim
Stallion- Sunset Rubdown
Living It Up - Rickie Lee Jones
Da Bang - Prince
Somebody in the World for You- The Mighty Hannibal
The Exploding Boy - The Cure
Big Exit - PJ Harvey
All the Years - Beach House
Confusion Instrumental - New Order
Pass the Peas- the JB's
half a movie review
The wife has been grabbing random weekly handfuls of cinema from the library. We've been using Netflix for meat-and-potatoes viewing (currently the 1981 Brideshead Revisited with Jeremy Irons)and the library for spice, with results as varied as you would expect.
This week she dragged home The Ascent, billed as the "greatest Soviet film of all time".
I liked it in spite of this bit of ironic salesmanship, at least until the Nazis captured our intrepid peasant heroes and dragged them in for questioning and we turned it off. The wife has few hard and fast cinematic rules, but "no torture" heads the list.
I think we made it about halfway, and I liked what I saw quite a bit.
It was cold in a way movies almost never are, I think because it was filmed in an actual frozen wasteland, not in a groomed, manicured, filmmaker friendly landscape impersonating a frozen wasteland. The ideology was predictably lugubrious but fell short of killing the momentum of the story.
And there are a couple of amazing scenes, one tracking shot through a dense forest that recalled the dreamiest corners of Cocteau's La Belle et la bête and a part where the handsome peasant ponders suicide in a snowbank as the Nazis close in.
If anyone finishes it, fill me in.
I'm wondering how they pull off "ultimate transcendence" without dragging religion into the picture.
/edit
The Criterion page has a cool section for people's top 10's, and it's not just the usual critical suspects.
Comic artist Mike Allred
Director Jane Campion, auteur behind Sweetie, one of the wife's all time favorites.
John Lurie, jazz musician and my Facebook crony.
And Ricky Jay, who's literary taste is such that I mistook him for a book dealer for many years.
This week she dragged home The Ascent, billed as the "greatest Soviet film of all time".
I liked it in spite of this bit of ironic salesmanship, at least until the Nazis captured our intrepid peasant heroes and dragged them in for questioning and we turned it off. The wife has few hard and fast cinematic rules, but "no torture" heads the list.
I think we made it about halfway, and I liked what I saw quite a bit.
It was cold in a way movies almost never are, I think because it was filmed in an actual frozen wasteland, not in a groomed, manicured, filmmaker friendly landscape impersonating a frozen wasteland. The ideology was predictably lugubrious but fell short of killing the momentum of the story.
And there are a couple of amazing scenes, one tracking shot through a dense forest that recalled the dreamiest corners of Cocteau's La Belle et la bête and a part where the handsome peasant ponders suicide in a snowbank as the Nazis close in.
If anyone finishes it, fill me in.
I'm wondering how they pull off "ultimate transcendence" without dragging religion into the picture.
/edit
The Criterion page has a cool section for people's top 10's, and it's not just the usual critical suspects.
Comic artist Mike Allred
Director Jane Campion, auteur behind Sweetie, one of the wife's all time favorites.
John Lurie, jazz musician and my Facebook crony.
And Ricky Jay, who's literary taste is such that I mistook him for a book dealer for many years.
Titles of the Week
I'm processing several bags of Harlequin romances for the sale cart and they're always good for some goofy titles.
Beloved Intruder
The Redemption of Deke Summers (Deke is representing Alabama in the Men Made in America series)
Pact without Desire (???)
Nancy Whiskey (one wonders what would happen if Nancy & Deke met)
The Australian's Marriage Demand (color me intrigued!)
Outback Surrender (a sequel, perhaps?)
Tender Assault
Ah, they just don't make 'em like that any more.
Beloved Intruder
The Redemption of Deke Summers (Deke is representing Alabama in the Men Made in America series)
Pact without Desire (???)
Nancy Whiskey (one wonders what would happen if Nancy & Deke met)
The Australian's Marriage Demand (color me intrigued!)
Outback Surrender (a sequel, perhaps?)
Tender Assault
Ah, they just don't make 'em like that any more.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
true customer tales
The boss did a painting a few years back based on a scrap of fabric he found in a book bearing the legend if you go to LA you will become rich.
Every previous comment from the browsing public has been a variation on
"Well, I went to LA and look at me now HAR HAR HAR!"
A young student broke the chain today with this befuddling query:
"That painting up there, if you go to LA you will become rich....what does it mean?"
Every previous comment from the browsing public has been a variation on
"Well, I went to LA and look at me now HAR HAR HAR!"
A young student broke the chain today with this befuddling query:
"That painting up there, if you go to LA you will become rich....what does it mean?"
other peoples kids
The wife has been urging me to attend one of her Parent Participation classes and this week I acquiesced.
It was held in one of those temporary trailers, about 10 yards from my old kindergarten classroom, where I'd made a gingerbread house that my dog dragged off the sideboard and demolished.
Places fixed in memory are disorienting to revisit decades later.
The playground was tiny, eroded to a nub by time and parking lots for cars and classrooms. The gray steel pipe altars of my youth had morphed into colorful vinyl structures without a single a hard edge. The original buildings looked like they hadn't been painted since my stint learning the alphabet.
Babies have magnetic fields that call to each other and collect stray attention like iron filings, which is a mixed bag for an observer like me. The wife seizes these opportunities to socialize and compare childrearing notes, my interest is entirely based on how the alien baby compares to Fuss.
The class was one of these street encounters writ large, a double handful of infants instead of one or two. The group environment threw his numerous advantages over the proletariat into stark relief.
The other babies lay dormant on the rug while Fuss scrambled around stealing their toys and scaling their parents. Aside from one other bruiser, a hunk named Bruce with cheeks like a sumo wrestler, Fuss dwarfed the field. The rest were comparatively scrawny & wizened, like a demographic sample from a refugee camp. Even compensating for the glamour cast by your own child, Fuss shone out like a chunk of gold in a riverbed.
This was some comfort during 'sharing time' when the assembly surged forward bearing tales of their child's prodigious appetites for sleep, straining heroically to raise the bar of slumber beyond the reach of their cohorts.
By this measure, if no other, Fuss lagged far behind his contemporaries.
It was held in one of those temporary trailers, about 10 yards from my old kindergarten classroom, where I'd made a gingerbread house that my dog dragged off the sideboard and demolished.
Places fixed in memory are disorienting to revisit decades later.
The playground was tiny, eroded to a nub by time and parking lots for cars and classrooms. The gray steel pipe altars of my youth had morphed into colorful vinyl structures without a single a hard edge. The original buildings looked like they hadn't been painted since my stint learning the alphabet.
Babies have magnetic fields that call to each other and collect stray attention like iron filings, which is a mixed bag for an observer like me. The wife seizes these opportunities to socialize and compare childrearing notes, my interest is entirely based on how the alien baby compares to Fuss.
The class was one of these street encounters writ large, a double handful of infants instead of one or two. The group environment threw his numerous advantages over the proletariat into stark relief.
The other babies lay dormant on the rug while Fuss scrambled around stealing their toys and scaling their parents. Aside from one other bruiser, a hunk named Bruce with cheeks like a sumo wrestler, Fuss dwarfed the field. The rest were comparatively scrawny & wizened, like a demographic sample from a refugee camp. Even compensating for the glamour cast by your own child, Fuss shone out like a chunk of gold in a riverbed.
This was some comfort during 'sharing time' when the assembly surged forward bearing tales of their child's prodigious appetites for sleep, straining heroically to raise the bar of slumber beyond the reach of their cohorts.
By this measure, if no other, Fuss lagged far behind his contemporaries.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
this morning's discussion
the wife: You're just trying to provoke me!
me: Well, you're the one making up all these rules.
the wife: What rules, 'don't rub your foot long toenail on me'?
fuss: (shrieks with merriment)
me: Well, you're the one making up all these rules.
the wife: What rules, 'don't rub your foot long toenail on me'?
fuss: (shrieks with merriment)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
arts news
Bonnie Prince Billy is playing the community center at the end of the month.
That's a heck of a lineup they have- I should get a screenshot before it changes.
Not looking the gift horse in the mouth, Meggsie grabbed tickets for her and the wife.
She's hoping he'll sign her Old Joy poster.
And holy shit, I did not know he was in Matewan. Learn something new every day!
I still don't think he can sing, but that's a feather in anyone's cap.
In other arts news, Fuss plunged off the bed this evening trying to get at the copy of Don Quixote atop the dresser.
He's mad for it, if I try and read it in his line of sight he charges it like a windmill.
Must be all the red.
That's a heck of a lineup they have- I should get a screenshot before it changes.
Not looking the gift horse in the mouth, Meggsie grabbed tickets for her and the wife.
She's hoping he'll sign her Old Joy poster.
And holy shit, I did not know he was in Matewan. Learn something new every day!
I still don't think he can sing, but that's a feather in anyone's cap.
In other arts news, Fuss plunged off the bed this evening trying to get at the copy of Don Quixote atop the dresser.
He's mad for it, if I try and read it in his line of sight he charges it like a windmill.
Must be all the red.
Analog Revolution
attn WOODY
Was picking up some blank media after work and noted that Best Buy is selling vinyl.
MMMHMMM.
Was picking up some blank media after work and noted that Best Buy is selling vinyl.
MMMHMMM.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
the epic suck of daylight savings time
I've always hated it.
When I was a kid I hated it because half the year bed time came while it was still light out, which is contrary to natural law.
I hate it now because the older I get the longer it takes my internal clock to catch up.
This year I'm living at the pleasure of the Fuss, who observes no clock of human manufacture. I'm hoping the field of his anarchy supersedes this lesser annual disruption.
The difference between 4 and 5 am seems somehow less meaningful than the difference between 8 and 9 am.
When I was a kid I hated it because half the year bed time came while it was still light out, which is contrary to natural law.
I hate it now because the older I get the longer it takes my internal clock to catch up.
This year I'm living at the pleasure of the Fuss, who observes no clock of human manufacture. I'm hoping the field of his anarchy supersedes this lesser annual disruption.
The difference between 4 and 5 am seems somehow less meaningful than the difference between 8 and 9 am.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
dentistry
I discovered the Fuss's first tooth tonight as he was gnawing on my index finger.
Bottom row center.
Bottom row center.
overheard
youngish fellow, apparently commenting on the neighboring record shop:
Dude this is a RECORD LIBRARY dude! This is history in the making, dawg! Dawg in 15 years this won't even exist any more dawg!
Musique Non Stop
Gave a listen to Neko Case's latest and like it quite a bit better than Fox Confessor. It emphasizes the brooding sound of Blacklisted over the folksy vibe of Fox, which is my preferred setting for her high wire vocal theatrics.
Edit out the 30 minutes of frog noises that constitute the final track and you have a solid winner.
Alas for my recent analog conversion, it isn't available on vinyl.
Well, unless you count a UK import for $30.
My other recent find is School of Seven Bells, a mostly electronic outfit powered by the harmonies of twin sister vocalists. And I've always been a sucker for harmony.
If I had one gripe it would be the same one I have with nearly all electronica- a lack of bottom end. But it's such a lovely assemblage I can't complain too loudly. If you're looking for a pigeonhole, 'shoegaze' will do as well as anything else.
Here's a sample-
Edit out the 30 minutes of frog noises that constitute the final track and you have a solid winner.
Alas for my recent analog conversion, it isn't available on vinyl.
Well, unless you count a UK import for $30.
My other recent find is School of Seven Bells, a mostly electronic outfit powered by the harmonies of twin sister vocalists. And I've always been a sucker for harmony.
If I had one gripe it would be the same one I have with nearly all electronica- a lack of bottom end. But it's such a lovely assemblage I can't complain too loudly. If you're looking for a pigeonhole, 'shoegaze' will do as well as anything else.
Here's a sample-
early morning blogging
The Fuss is excited to greet the dawn, chirping and rushing about the living room, scaling anything within arm's reach.
I am measurably less enthusiastic, it being too early for coffee and too late for anything else. The way it goes is you kill time watching him scramble around until he starts crashing into things headlong and crying. That's the signal to stuff him in the front pack, queue up the DVD player and being the drawn out process of coaxing him back to sleep.
He's right back up again between 7 and 8, but by then coffee makes sense and there's natural light to work by.
It's the little things we learn to appreciate.
I am measurably less enthusiastic, it being too early for coffee and too late for anything else. The way it goes is you kill time watching him scramble around until he starts crashing into things headlong and crying. That's the signal to stuff him in the front pack, queue up the DVD player and being the drawn out process of coaxing him back to sleep.
He's right back up again between 7 and 8, but by then coffee makes sense and there's natural light to work by.
It's the little things we learn to appreciate.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
fresh post for the HATORZ
Nothing is happening worth writing about and all of my life force is being drained by a small redheaded vampire. If the computer wasn't already on I doubt I'd be posting this, because leaning over and hitting the power button asks more from me than I have to give.
On the house front, we got a $400 water bill for last month. Fixing the leak thus revealed ran another $500. It was, of course, under the driveway, which necessitated 'routing around' the problem.
Fuss has been standing tall before the Man lately, which leads to lots of crashing to the ground in a heap. His falling technique is rapidly improving, but not swiftly enough for concerned cousin Fiend, who last night hovered and fretted like a little old lady as he wobbled from one precarious stance to another.
Which reminds me of a few months back- whenever he would cry (which was most of the time) she would hold his face in her little hands and wail "Oh, the poor, the poor!"
I'm making pork cutlets and wild rice for dinner, and if recent history holds will be passing out around 9pm, Fuss willing.
Satisfied? =P
On the house front, we got a $400 water bill for last month. Fixing the leak thus revealed ran another $500. It was, of course, under the driveway, which necessitated 'routing around' the problem.
Fuss has been standing tall before the Man lately, which leads to lots of crashing to the ground in a heap. His falling technique is rapidly improving, but not swiftly enough for concerned cousin Fiend, who last night hovered and fretted like a little old lady as he wobbled from one precarious stance to another.
Which reminds me of a few months back- whenever he would cry (which was most of the time) she would hold his face in her little hands and wail "Oh, the poor, the poor!"
I'm making pork cutlets and wild rice for dinner, and if recent history holds will be passing out around 9pm, Fuss willing.
Satisfied? =P
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