We have National Geographic maps and inserts up all over the house. The one above hangs in a window allowing the astronauts and star-eyed children of the Rocket Age (of which I am one) to peer back through the earth from moon. The most profound result of arguable folly is perspective. It looks like one of those dense Rauschenberg Stoned Moon prints, among his best work in my opinion.
I'm going to go out on a limb and be optimistic about the health care bill. I don't believe it will immediately fix things and in fact it will likely jack some things up in the interim before it does but, man, it feels like we actually live in a democracy. America dared to do something! Something controversial! Maybe even short-sighted and reckless, maybe it will save us all. It's a great moment for everybody to feel the wind in their sails, even if you are using your heart as a rudder and your faith as a compass and a blanket for a sail. Harry Nilsson and all of us moon children approve.
I'm on page 95, not yet remembering to put the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment on checks, so I imagine plenty will be revealed. Here are a few impressions.
• So much more readable than I thought it would be. Also funnier. • He will footnote the life out of abused prescription drugs, but not anti-depressnts. Some drugs are boring medicine and some medicines are covetable drugs. • I wonder the meaning of single quotes as the primary voicing mark. DFW was, from what I gather, into the precision of syntax so maybe the enormity is being related by an unseen conversationalist as opposed to an omniscient narrator. • Big surprise that a 1000+ page book, so far, revolves largely around pot. • I started this out on Kindle/iPhone and thought the hyperlinking of footnotes and the favorable weight ratio btw my phone and a 1000+ page book would make it a great candidate for e-media, but it's better on paper with the fussiness of two bookmarks and the pretentious gusto of its heft.
I don't know if it's related, but just as I started reading the paper and ink version, I'm suddenly again into the Damient Hirst-themed teapot I got on sale at Urban Outfitters last year.
Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Blues Band - Live from Newport Folk Festival, 1968 (Wolfgang's Vault) Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & the Cairo Gang - The Whole Show of the World (out 3/23) The Unthanks - Here's the Tender Coming (also out 3/23) Various Artists - Mississippi Records Tape TLC Vol. 1: Men With Broken Hearts (ROOT BLOG)
All the above is top notch, especially that Buddy Guy/Junior Well concert, but Mississippi Records Tapes are what it's all about. That particular what is obscured, but they are nonetheless all about it. This edition is comprised of country music at the unknowing verge of Monty Python arrived at by the dustiest of psychic trails. Happy Friday, fellow cowpokes of the abyss! Accept any of the hangtooth hardlegs depicted above your avatar and yodel your heart into those starry skies that do nothing but take and take and then disappear.
The Magnetic Fields - Realism(lala) Adam Green - Minor Love (lala) McSweeney'sThe San Fransisco Panorama (their site) R. Crumb - The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb (Amazon) Dinner at Herbsaint Spoon @ the Republic, New Orleans Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (lala) Director Series Vol. 1: The Work of Director Spike Jonze (Amazon) The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good (lala)
Not a bad night at all. Spoon was good as they always are but the Republic still has those crazy Y-posts it had back in their days as the Howlin' Wolf, when you couldn't see a damn thing. The shocker was arriving at 11 or so expecting the rock o'clock opening act of Deerhunter to be just winding down but no, Britt Daniels was putting his camera on, a sign things were approaching encore territory. Evidently the Republic gets the nasty business of musicians with instruments out of the way by midnight so that it may go dance party which is A-OK fine with me. Let the masses wanting to embrace their inner and outer Jersey Shores have the witching hours. The thrill of coming back from a 2-3 AM finish in New Orleans is gone for this concertgoer.
The real stars of the evening were (1) the excellent books always laying around my good friends George and Vassar's place. They are McSweeney oriented and book store connected, so they had the latest issue which is a gorgeously laid out newspaper, complete with magazine, sports page, book review, ads, comics, etc. Totally brilliant idea, and of Louisiana interest, on the first page of the magazine section was a dispatch from Montegut, LA, down the bayou from my home town of Houma. Most folks from Houma don't even go to Montegut unless they are going fishing, so it warms my heart that the tentacles of bookish San Fransiscans managed to reach it.
G&V also had the R. Crumb Genesis which is a thing of obsessive wonder. Just go check out the "begats."
The other star (2) was the housemade spaghetti with guanciale and fried-poached farm egg at Herbsaint, pictured above under Spoon, before and after sullying the egg. Yee-ha, y'all, bring on the small plates revolution if this is what it's like. One of the best things I've eaten in ages.
After the show, there was a wind-down with a DVD of Spike Jonze videos including this one for "It's Oh So Quiet" for Björk (please allow embedding, people) which made me realize I wrote two completely different articles referencing the Icelandic pop star in different contexts. Björk was as omnipresent in my day as was the death of Alex Chilton.. I don't know if Björk ever did a Big Star song - I'd recommend "Kangaroo" if she's into it. Icy loner supergroup This Mortal Coil did it with Gordon Sharp of the long forgotten Cindytalk.
They also did other deceased Big Star-er Chris Bell's "You and Your Sister" with Kim Deal and Tanya Donnelly.
The ride home was bellowed out with the Sugarcubes' first record, which reminded me what rockers they kinda were back then, like we all were.
Van Der Graaf Generator - Still Life (lala) itsnotyouitsme - Fallen Monuments and Walled Gardens H. P. Lovecraft - "The Call of Cthulhu" H. P. Lovecraft and Willis Conover - Lovecraft at Last (Amazon) Various Artists - Takoma Eclectic Sampler
My phone is taking all goddamn day to sync and I was thereby forced to brave my lunch hour naked, unconnected. It was a tether-be-damned spacewalk. I did, unaided by technology, find an unmolested copy of "The Call of Cthulhu" for whatever reason the Deep Ones have in making me seek it out, as well as a collage-y book from 1975 involving a guy's teenage correspondence with the famed fantasy author. In the forward of Lovecraft at Last, Conover claims to have gotten the idea to write the book after eavesdropping Lovecraft's name from hushed jury duty conversations and regaling his stunned co-jurors with his loose relationship to him. Hm. Leafing through, it's full up with reproductions of lecture programs and the madman of Brooklyn's handwriting and very 1975 redefine-the-book, which is my kind of thing. A pre-blog blog, ego meeting layout on the field who-cares-if-you-care. I do! I'd show you, but my phone is my camera and that sync bar might be moving backwards now.
These are companion photos to a rare mid-month Country Roads piece I wrote about my night out last week with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
In order: the Orchestra from the sidelines during rehearsals; the "IberiaBank-tini" (for you mixologists out there: vodka, blueberry juice, vanilla extract, splash of Patron, blueberries); the braised crispy pork belly with lemon preserve, mango chutney and an apple vinegar beet reduction appetizer at Stroube's Chophouse; the grilled tuna served on a warm spinach salad with toasted garlic, lima beans, and cherry tomatoes; the view from my seat, better than this picture implies.
