Omen of summer

I was talking to a friend earlier today and she said, "People wanted it warm." We both kind of agreed it was a "be careful what you wish for" kind of deal. It's muggy and humid, and just a few hours of this leaves you pretty sluggish.

Anyway, we're at or near the end of another month.  Not too exciting blogwise.  I should be posting more regularly again in June, once I'm past a couple of things that have already been mentioned.

Public libraries, much like the Post Office, are beset by questions like "Does anyone use that?", "Isn't print dead?" and "Doesn't private for-profit enterprise do everything better?" And while those are all good test questions with intricate answers, the askers tend to get self-satisfied and leave the room before anyone else even starts to answer.

There are also stretches - without any NGOs or foundations to help run a libraray. This seems especially true in the red states, which are also of course the places most resistant to taxation for public projects.

Which is to say that Mellow Pages seems like a great idea. I mean, it's cool in New York, but it may well turn out to be necessary in other places.

Like the name, too. Has a certain Zap Comix air.

A few days now

I'm steeling myself for the trauma of moving.  Why trauma?  It's not that far.  It's not a bad place.  And I have at least one friend helping me.  It's just the one of those things that I'll like looking back on more than I'm looking forward to it.

Hollowe-out Friday Random Ten

It's a sort of interesting experience, living in a place where heavy construction is going on.  Neighbors within the building have been bailing.  I think there are about half a dozen occupied roomis in the building.  All sorts of things have been ripped out of the empty rooms: stoves, sinks.  I'm not sure I'd repeat the experience, but it is an experience.

1. Lou Rawls - See You When I Git There
2. Love - Live and Let Live
3. Grizzly Bear - All We Ask
4. T. Rex - Sound Pit
5. Patti Smith Group - Elegie
6. They Might Be Giants - Icky
7. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
8. Los Campesinos! - There Are Listed Buildings
9. Edith Piaf - Las Amants de Paris
10. Art Blakey - Dat Dere

What's funny today?

This is a comedian (comedienne if you prefer) I hadn't been familiar with before this past weekend.  Ms Jackson does have a certain elan, though.  The "rent is due" is a precious little detail.

Glitchin'

Yesterday I was at work and spent half the day with my computer basically useless because most things require it to be connected to the main network, and my connection was out.  I thought at first that someone else would complain, but at some point I found out that I was the only one with a problem.

Today I was doing laundry.  I loaded clothes and money into one of the washers.  When I went back to check on it about 20 minutes later, I found that the laundry was sitting in soapy water.  The washer had filled, and then done nothing else.  The attendant said he had never seen anything like that happen before.

I guess why have regular bad luck when you can have X-Files bad luck?

Oddly familiar/Familiarly odd Saturday Random Ten

It's a little bit mortifying to see people you think you know, go up to greet them, and find a stranger staring at you like you're a lunatic.  Conversely it's a pleasant surprise to be unsure you know the person and then to find out they are the right one.  In this case it was a guy I hang out with frequently anyway, but still...

1. David Bowie - The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
2. T. Rex - Change
3/ Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
4. Sarah Vaughan - Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year
5. Edith Piaf - C'est Merveilleux
6. Ladytron - Tomorrow
7. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
8. Brian Eno - Baby's On Fire
9. The Bonzo Dog Band - Equestrian Statue
10. Sly & the Family Stone - We Love All

How to get something from nothing (sometimes)

Recently I found myself with, effectively, writer's block.  I had an idea, but couldn't come up with anything leading from it.  In effect the idea was just a bunch of words sitting there mocking me, or at least that's what it seemed like.

I got through it by going back and thinking about, and trying to put down on paper, what had interested me about the subject in the first place.  And also writing down my anxiety about having writer's block, plus a bunch of stuff implied by that.  Lo and behold, I started getting more ideas after that.

It's kind of like having stomach flu or something.  Once you lean over and puke your guts out, you feel amazingly better.

collapse

Weird,  sleepy feeling has kept me from doing most of the things I hoped to do tonight.  Of course dinner partly invovles turkeys sausages.  Maybe I've fatally tryptophanned myself.

Anyway, hope to be back tomorrow evening.

Sunny Friday Random Ten

We had one of those days this week when you have thick sheets of rain falling at one time, and five minutes later the sun is out doing its best to dry everything.  In Florida I think that's called "a day."

1. The New Pornographers - Challengers
2. Lou Rawls - Lady Love
3. The Magnetic Fields - Take Ecstasy With Me
4. Sly & the Family Stone - Are You Ready
5. Ladytron - Predict the Day
6. They Might Be Giants - Replicant
7. The Bonzo Dog Band - Postcard
8. Art Blakey - Blues March
9. David Bowie - Love Is Lost
10. Diana Krall - Where or When

Okaaaaay

For some reason I had to come over to Google Chrome to post a comment on my own blog.  Weird.  Frustrating in that it took a couple of tries to realize I wasn't doing anything "wrong."

Submitted for your approval

Okay, this was kind of weird.

I was lying in bed late last night, sort of drifting off.  Upstairs there were sounds of a loud party: stereo up high, a lot of people talking.  Besides being annoying, this struck me as very unlikely.  The building is all studio apartments.  There's not really room for people to throw parties.  On top of that, the landlords are emptying the place out, and most of the tenants have already moved away.  So who were all these people?

Since it looked like they'd be keeping me up for some more time, I changed positions, rolling onto my back.  Right away, the noise disappeared.  Which is to say, it never existed in the first place.  While I was still at least partly awake, I was also asleep enough to dream about the sounds of this get-together.

It wasn't an entirely pleasant experience, but kind of cool nonetheless.  The way you can just conjure things out of your own head.

... and a smile

Quasi-accidentally found this reading from Frank O'Hara yesterday.  It struck me in its avoidance of stereotype.  O'Hara looks like he's been on the losing end of some bar brawls and talks in a Baltimore-via-New York squawk.  He's not the common image of a poet.  (Or a gay man, but that's another subject.)  The lines don't scan the way poetry is "supposed" to, either.  Yet they are poetic.

Friday Random Ten on Saturday

Not a Saturday Random Ten, because I listened to these yesterday.  And I thought I posted the FRT as well, but... didn't push a button somewhere?  I dunno.

Weather's cooled down a little the past couple of days.  Which is a relief.  I'm not ready to be in summer mode yet.

1. They Might Be Giants - You're On Fire
2. The Bonzo Dog Band - Rockaliser Baby
3. Love - The Red Telephone
4. Brian Eno - Cindy Tells Me
5. Edith Piaf - Il Pleuf
6. Sly & the Family Stone - I Ain't Got Nobody (For Real)
7. Sarah Vaughan - It's All In Your Mind
8. The New Pornographers - All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth
9. David Bowie - I'd Rather Be High
10. Patsy Cline - I Fall to Pieces

The artist and his mustache: a love story

Happy May, people!  This is a nifty video I found recently on Vimeo.  If you are or hope to be a creative person, but have to struggle against going completely dry, somebody out there understands.

As Simple as an Artist from SHU Animation on Vimeo.