today (01:30 AM)
July 5, 2008
I didn’t see fireworks today, unless you count the sparklers my cousins were twirling this afternoon. And, thinking about it, I’m not sure I care. It was the first 4th in a while, it seems, that I wasn’t watching at least a few fireworks. I think last year my friend Mark and I drank several pints at a bar in Old Town and then saw at least a firework or two framed by the buildings on King Street. Whatever the case, I don’t mind not seeing fireworks. It’s like missing an episode of a TV show you and a lot of other people watch. They’ll have that spectacle to recall, you won’t. And life goes on without serious hindrance.
But I took a walk to 7-Eleven a little while ago. I heard only ambient city hum for a time. Then I came within earshot of a crowd behind an apartment building on the hill to my right, their hubbub, and then music as a backing track, no doubt pouring from the window behind the group which also donated a faint light to the scene. It was James Brown, loud: “Please, Please, Please” as I walked to the store, and “Night Train” on my way back.
Forget fireworks — that’s July 4th: having a good time with friends, and listening to a musical trailblazer who fought for real freedom.
What did I do? Rode out with my daughter and my parents to Rawley Springs, where I saw various family members for a gathering. These are the cousins on my mom’s side of the family whom I see every year at Thanksgiving and yet seem to know less and less about as time passes. They accrue history, and I have only ten minutes over mashed potatoes each year to suss it all out. The accumulated children and homes and jobs and deaths blur in the reflection in the gravy boat.
There were some newcomers this year, such as a thin and intense man with a twirly handlebar moustache who has repaired cameras for 31 years. In just two years he found himself repairing 95 percent digital cameras. And people now buy new cameras at a rate far greater than they did when cameras were analog, giving the repairer of cameras fewer opportunities to fix them and thus stay in business. Consider that digital culture may be a sham to drain us of our time and resources. Perhaps this is not lamentable, that repairmen are shuttering their windows and closing their doors. It is just how things go. But I like old cameras and their heft and solid blackness and shiny metal. An old camera could sustain a fall off a 90-foot cliff and still take a good picture — or at least the camera puts up a good front. But dropping one of these wussy digital cameras would surely mean its demise. And I like the interiors of real camera stores. I used to go to one in Vienna and it seemed more like a hardware or auto parts store than a place where devices similar to those deployed by Alfred Steiglitz and Man Ray are sold. Riddled with parts, carpeted only functionally, inconsistent lighting, a man’s workspace, no glitz but the romance of interiors, the guts of the cameras all on view. Compare that to Best Buys, with their interior aspects no doubt designed to seduce you into opening your wallet, and the helpful blue-shirted staffers roaming like a squadron of factory-issue droids.
All this is why I felt a little sad about what the camera repairman told me.
Read Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space — it might tie into this.
hi there (11:50 AM)
June 30, 2008
Coffee at 9:30 p.m. at the Java House. Q St. between 16th and 17th NW. We dream in a humid night, warm like a blanket, the people walking by with headphones or running shirtless. Car-horn squonk reminds me of Ornette Coleman. Piggybacking on unknown Internet connection “lyrical.” The problem with the Web is that form and function don’t jive for me. How to resolve? I’ve had ideas, never gotten around to them. Man next to me regards weathered paperback with skepticism, is it doing the trick? Next day he puts on slippers and develops a new scheme. How to make money without really trying. Meanwhile hair thins and bones creak.
I’ve settled into a rhythm. Enough money in the bank account right now that I don’t have to worry though I probably should. I would not mind a lit cigarette in my hand — earlier at the bus shelter a man sat next to me and exhaled cigarette smoke and I liked the smell. A woman standing nearby in a white shirt looked back possibly with displeasure or disgust. The girl in front of me wearing Chucks as well fidgets with her chignon. Next to her a guy thumbs a device and wears a wild yarmulke, not something you usually see. Most yarmulkes are unassuming and conservative. She stands and looks around and puts the book in a totebag with insignia that to me are cryptic. Mr. Mxlpytk! Now a kid walks by making noises that sound both like quacks but also unlike those made by any actual bird.
Last night Louisa and I set out to my garden plot, me on foot, her on her new bike for keeping at my place. She had ridden ahead of me across the low concrete bridge that crosses Four Mile Run. As I approached the bridge I noticed two men standing on the path and looking out into the creek. I wondered what they were studying. It took me a while to see it, but there it was: a large bird squatting upright, standing stock-still, looking straight ahead. One of the men asked me what it was, and I had to admit I had no idea. But later, as Louisa and I ate whole-wheat spaghetti with a sauce that included basil I clipped from the garden on that visit, I thumbed through a field guide to birds. Louisa looked with me and said she spotted the bird we saw. I doubted her at first, but as it turned out, I think she was right: it was a black-capped night heron. What a cool name.
The wind kicks up. Could it be about to rain?
look into the microscope (11:05 PM)
April 21, 2008
Tonight, for the first time in a while, I feel free from the pressure of deadlines, and it is a nice feeling. Well, I do have to put the finishing touches on a few articles for Retail Traffic, it’s true. But at least I don’t have the feeling of needing to write thousands of words hanging over me. Instead, I sit in the La-Z-Boy, drinking an Oskar Blues Ten Fidy, having just polished off dinner and a few episodes of Deadwood, listening to the distant sound of cars rolling by and trying to persuade the cat not to lie on my stomach. I suppose “persuade” is not really the most accurate word. And now he has prevailed and is purring loudly and lying on my wrists and making it very difficult to type.
What’s on the horizon? I have some posts to think about for Scanning the Dial, some work to do for the Amazon Conservation Association, posts to write for the Future of Music Coalition’s blog. And Wednesday I will be up very, very early to help out with my mom’s first farmers’ market under the Smart Markets banner, way out at the Fair Lakes Whole Foods. I’m working at that market for just a month, but for the whole season at the market at the Reston Town Center, as the so-called “market master.” Right on.
Meanwhile, I still have much digging to do in my own community garden plot, though with all this rain I’m not sure when I’ll get around to that.
I’ve gotten into playing Scrabulous on Facebook. At first I was just playing people I knew, but in my search for satisfying and multiple simultaneously games I started looking for opponents whom I don’t know. I’m sort of amazed at all the women who have to specify “no pervs” in their game requests. Amazed, I guess, but not surprised. But I really don’t understand how perviness and Scrabble go hand in hand. I mean, if I were a perv and seeking to inflict said perviness on other, and I also enjoyed Scrabble, I think I’d keep the two predilections separate, and indulge the perviness elsewhere. I can’t imagine how the two coexist all that well within the confines of a Scrabble game. But maybe I should broaden my horizons.
It’s official: I’m going to Bonnaroo. I am super excited.
wherein our author retires to the country (09:02 PM)
April 10, 2008
Life is funny. Life is just funny. It amuses me.
Here I sit, enjoying a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale and full of spaghetti. This week I’ve been working on two articles for Retail Traffic and one for Current, as well as the website for my mom’s farmers’ markets, Scanning the Dial, setting up my new MacBook (yum), my taxes and sundry other things. I tell you, it’s enough to keep a man from all the online Scrabble he really ought to be playing.
Today, I worked steadily from 9 to 4. I know you people with 9-to-5 jobs are scoffing right now, but I have been reading (and loving) Tom Hodgkinson’s The Freedom Manifesto (I really prefer the British title, How to Be Free), and it is putting me in the mindset that really, seven hours of solid “work” in a day is about four hours too many. Come 4 o’clock, my back and legs were aching and I felt terribly restless. I was ready to join the circus or craft a nutty mask or do something equally drastic. But I did not undertake these things. Instead, I visited my community garden plot.
Hodgkinson, incidentally, is a big fan of gardening. But he’s not the reason I’ve started gardening — I was inspired to start growing things last fall, after reading Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I filled out a form and sent it to Richmond, Va. (odd, I thought, that I was lobbying the state government, rather than my county, for a plot). And lo and behold I was granted one, just a short walk from my condo. I head out the door, descend to and cross the creek, go up the hill and I’m there. They provide everything I need. What a deal! I’m so glad that after years of walking or biking by this community garden I finally did something about it, and now I’m a part of it.
I was commencing to double-dig, which I was advised is the best way to create a healthy and high-yield plot. Here’s what double-digging is all about. It was a lot of work, especially for a lazy sort like me. It took me a good three hours just to get one-fifth of my whole plot done. But I was just starting, which probably prolonged it, plus I paused often to talk with Colleen, a friendly fellow gardener. Note that the wikiHow article advises the following: “Begin at one end of the bed and dig a spade-head depth (approx. 12” deep) trench across the bed’s width, placing the excavated dirt in a wheelbarrow.” And then: “Fill the LAST trench with the soil excavated from the first. (The soil in the wheelbarrow)” Sound advice. I didn’t do this and it created some extra work, plus I got the first trench worth’s of soil on a neighbor’s plot, and I really hope I didn’t smother any budding plants. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Colleen, my fellow gardener, discovered that she had several stick-skinny asparagus shoots growing out of her plot (like me, this is her first year in the garden). We picked and ate them — they were pretty good.
Like I said, it was hard work, but I loved it — being outdoors and in the sun, hearing the birds chirp, and watching people go by. My thoughts receded and I was absorbed in the process of driving the shovel into the soil, breaking it up, tossing away rocks and weeds. One biker yelled out encouragingly, “You got it man!” A woman seemed incredulous that I was actually digging the entire plot rather than using a tiller. (I’m now a little incredulous too. But I’d much rather use my own power than gas or whatever tillers use.) Some dudes hung out in the cul-de-sac nearby and, I think, lit up some weed.
WikiHow also advises: “An area of 20-30 square metres or 200-300 square feet is enough to tackle on any single day. If you do too much on your first day, your back will not thank you and you may not finish the plot. Be sensible and don’t overdo it.” I must have done, like, an eighth of that. Geez.
Also: I’m going to explore whether my condo development could put up some solar power panels. But I don’t know anything about how this is done. Let me know if you can suggest any resources to check out.
death by blogging? (10:42 PM)
April 7, 2008
Earlier I dashed off something quite like the following after reading this article in the New York Times, wherein the author makes a somewhat pathetic case that, for at least half a dozen people who were accessible by deadline, blogging for a living makes for an unhealthy lifestyle.
Ugh, let’s talk about bad grammar (or listen to me talk about it): “Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month.” “Like if the pages”? What? How about “…such as whether the pages…” Geez. And do you “write” a web page? No, you write a post. This is like when people say “He posted a blog.”
And this is in the New York Times. Or maybe I’m just picky. I’ll write an article about “In World of 24/7 Stress Over Grammar, Mike Nitpicks Until He Drops.”
I do think it’s silly — it’s making a mountain out of a molehill, for one. Two deaths does not a trend make. Trend stories are a blight in themselves, but come on, you should have more than two examples. I guess they admit it’s not even a trend, but that makes it even more disingenuous. Also, these people are choosing these lifestyles for themselves. Blogging doesn’t make them this way. They make themselves this way. If they weren’t blogging they’d probably have some other high-stress jobs that don’t get written about because they don’t make for catchy headlines.
Postscript: I’m blogging as a career move, for free these days, in case I haven’t mentioned that here before. Haven’t gained a pound so far.
no country (04:57 PM)
I use too many adverbs.
The Walkmen are right when they say that the Coen Bros.’ No Country for Old Men is better the second time. I saw it last week, in a theater, specifically the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse, which I’d never visited. It was nice to be able to drink a beer and watch a movie in a theater. And I didn’t find the screen overweeningly small, but then, I rarely have that problem. I don’t care much about screen sizes. I have a small TV.
No Country is the rare movie that makes me want to read the book on which it’s based. The movie succeeds on all levels, but it stands out in its art and pacing, matters that I imagine are unique to the movie, less so to the book. Besides, I do like McCarthy, though I found Blood Meridian rather a slog, which I guess is to be expected. I want to read more just to see whether he can top All the Pretty Horses, which was enchanting.
peepers (11:40 PM)
April 1, 2008
Tonight, for the first night all year, I can hear the spring peepers. I think I noted this last year on this blog, so I feel it’s important to note it this year. It marks a real turning point.
And, in that way, this time of year marks a turning point for me — though I’m hard pressed to say exactly what it is. I am, I admit, being coy. But maybe life is like that. When are we not at a turning point? What would happen if we chose to acknowledge every moment that comes to us as a turning point? Well, well, well.
That is what R.L. Burnside said to the crowd at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C., when I saw him years ago. After each song: “Well, well, well.” I had gone to see the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. And was confronted with an old dude sitting down, with a guitarist with the most amazing hair-metal hairdo, and the old dude saying “Well, well, well.” It was something. I love opening acts. Opening acts are there to dissuade you from the notion that you are actually in control of your concert-going experience — unless, in fact, you went expressly to see the opening act, in which case you’re in a different boat.
npr's vocal impressions (12:30 AM)
March 31, 2008
It’s been running for sometime, but it was only the other night that I first heard a recurring feature on NPR, “Vocal Impressions.” Listeners are challenged to write pithy characterizations of famous voices. Contributors come up with some great stuff. One likened Henry Kissinger’s voice to “pudding skin.” Another called the voice of Andy Devine “what the fruity bits inside Jell-O salad hear when the Jell-O is vigorously jiggled.” (Even people who don’t know who Andy Devine is could appreciate the inventiveness of that one.) A feature that works especially well because it could only work on radio.
the skinny (03:50 AM)
March 29, 2008
Looks as if the full text of Jerome Rothenberg’s Writing Through: Translations and Variations is online. Nice. Also to be read sometime: Nicanor Parra on Neruda.
I’m sitting in a conference room at an Atlanta hotel, watching a roomful of high-school students from around the country write, record and edit radio stories about Atlanta. This is the fruit of a freelance gig I’ve been doing for the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, and it’s been a fun and interesting experience, especially since I’ve never done anything quite like it. I’ve basically been handling all the logistics of this, making sure nothing blows up (and nothing has, though two laptops unexpectedly shut down, causing some data to be lost) and that the trains run on time. Also drinking a lot of coffee, noodling around on the Internet and feeling my sinus cavities become as parched as the Sinai from sitting in a hotel all day. Ah, conferences. I haven’t been to one since I stopped working for Current full-time last spring.
I do like conferences, though, getting to meet new people, see old friends and generally stay out too late, drink too much beer/liquor and be tired the next day. Wed. night I was quite happy that I didn’t have to set up our equipment, which I thought I was going to have to do that night, and I went out to the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta to see Stephen Malkmus. He rocked. Malkmus has gotten a lot jammier since his days in Pavement, which on album doesn’t always tickle my fancy, but in concert it came off much better. “Real Emotional Trash” became an extended jam which appeared to disintegrate time, as good jams ought to do. One thing I noticed at the Playhouse and that I’ve noticed elsewhere in Atlanta is a surprising showing of decent beer selections, even at run-of-the-mill food-court restaurants. Since the South isn’t generally known as a haven for good beer, it’s been a pleasant surprise. I like finding the reliably refreshing Sweetwater 420 Pale Ale on tap most places.
These kids are supposed to be finishing up their stories in, say, five minutes. Odds of hitting that goal: slim. That’s fine. I just want to get it all done so I can get this gear to FedEx by 7 and pack it up, then preferably eat before passing out from hunger, which is how I felt last night. That’s because we took a tour of CNN’s headquarters, which was pretty impressive. The main newsroom is a sea of computer and TV screens sitting under a massive overhead network of lights and wiring. I felt as if I was in the middle of some odd hive embodying the culmination of human communications technologies, a space in which information almost takes shape in the air, as a honeycomb. It was somehow a little frightening. Nothing against CNN, but what if we developed spaces of this kind with an artistic, rather than journalistic, grounding? I guess I’m not sure what this would be, exactly, but I suppose I mean that the outcome of this enterprise would not be geared toward an interpretation of the world grounded in capitalism, but an appreciation of the world grounded in the ineffable. I’ll have to spend more time sometime shaping up this idea and going deeper into a critique of our news-driven culture at the same time.
poetry, food and new york (09:38 PM)
March 23, 2008
John Ashbery is on Goodreads! So cool.
The other night I wasted some time making a podcast of myself reading several poems by James Tate. Then I screwed up the audio mix in Audacity by neglecting to switch the one-channel audio track to stereo, so I was only coming through in the left channel. This is why you should always use headphones. For some reason, I wasn’t. The ironic thing is that I’m going to Atlanta this week to teach high-school kids how to use Audacity, among other things. Anyway, I’m going to attempt to repair the damage as best I can and post the MP3 soon.
Tyler Cowen: “Just think how much you are saving: what’s really scarce in life is your time and the mere willingness to get up and go. Just do it.” What I love is that this comes at the end of a post urging you to eat Chinese and Indian food in New York. Cowen’s advice about the best food in DC is just one reason to read his blog. Another is his indefatigable enthusiasm for exploring his city and others, and how this comes through in his reviews, though very subtly so.
I was recently doing some eating, and other things, in New York, on a family trip for Louisa’s spring break, but now is not the time to go into much detail (and if not now, I fear never, or not very soon, for I have much to do). But I will mention that I ate at Babbo and was quite impressed. I had bavette, a thin kind of pasta, with cardoons, which I’d never before encountered, as well as a delicious roasted vegetable salad and a few desserts, including a killer maple cheesecake. Definitely one of the benefits of traveling with my parents is eating at expensive restaurants I might never visit otherwise.
