Sunday, September 23, 2012

slip inside this house

saigon02
Banh mi from Saigon Hong Kong Market, Baton Rouge

Sunday:
Will Oldham and Alan Licht, Will Oldham on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
The 13th Floor Elevators, Easter Everywhere
Tav Falco & the Unapproachable Panther Burns, Behind the Magnolia Curtain

Today came on like a long shadow of the week, like a Sunday morning should. Coffee. Crossword puzzle. Little epiphanies steaming up and either sticking to your clothes or popping like balloons. I listened to "Slip Inside this House" and the cosmos winked back. Then it got real and we went to Saigon Noodles.

saigon01

Bun Bo Hue. Spicy but its true aggression is on the lemongrass front, the kind of aromatic assault that opens your brain. I think that is what the people who go get yelled at church do it for. It's something you "enjoy" but can't handle completely and it pries you open.

The bánh mì is from the supermarket just down the strip mall from the noodle place. Bánh mì is perfect -  bland and not, spicy and not, dry and not, all on the most appropriate little baguette. I had a weak impulse to drive to New Orleans just to go to Dong Phuong just to get bánh mì. What feels like the correct thing to do is get it somewhere local and handy. It's a $3 sandwich; you don't spend $25 in gas to get a $3 sandwich. It turns out all the Vietnamese places in town get their bread from DP anyway. It all adds up.



I bought the Will Oldham eBook last night even though I have memoirs for Kenny Rogers and Heart sitting on my dresser right now. I like thinking that there is a passage in the Kenny Rogers book where he goes, I became an intense ball of throbbing light or Lionel came over and said, "You gotta help me get rid of this body" and so I did. I do expect such tales out of Will Oldham, but his book is more about how he created a different persona so he doesn't have to be the persona singing the songs. Hm. It's still pretty good.

When I first moved back to Baton Rouge, I met Will Oldham after a BPB show and asked if he'd pose with me for picture on my phone. I couldn't find anyone to take the picture - it was pre-smartphone, before we could all unlock our wrists to teledepict ourselves. We huddled in close but the picture was just of my face and he laughed. "Perfect!" and then trotted off on his little goat feet.


Will Oldham & Rian Murphy, "Fall Again" from All Most Heaven


I watched Face/Off, Starship Troopers and the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds in the last 24 hours. I am one Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan short of the Cable Movie Miraculous.

We bought three bánh mì for all of us, but it's too spicy and squidgy for the normal eaters slipped inside this house, so more bánh mì for me! Perfect!

No comments:

Post a Comment