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Friday, September 5th, 2008
Sylvia and I were taking Pixie out for a walk this evening and we decided to head down to the park. (Well "we decided" is not exactly how it happened; more like, Sylvia says "When we get home can I play ToonTown?" and I seek a diversion by saying "Let's go down to the park.") She found a cast-off tennis ball and was practicing throwing it overhand. This was really interesting for me to watch -- I don't really have any memory of trying to master a physical motion, at least not until I was much older. My childhood was singularly unathletic and, well, pretty much uncoordinated. Sylvia seemed to be paying a lot of attention to how to move her arm to throw the ball properly. She asked me to throw it so she could see how to do it -- and it seems pretty effortless to me at this point to throw a ball overhand, though I never worked at it. Maybe Sylvia will get a better arm than I have, by being interested in the mechanism of it. On the way home from the park Sylvia said "Look at that sunset!" And it was indeed a breathtakingly beautiful one -- the darkening sky mostly blue to the west except for a small bank of cirrus clouds shadowed charcoal-grey; and in front of that a tiny wisp of cirrus glowing hot pink in the dying rays of the sun. (Meanwhile to the east, storm clouds are rolling in -- we're supposed to get a ton of rain tonight and tomorrow.)
posted evening of September 5th, 2008: Respond
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The school bus was on time today! Even early -- we were walking to the bus stop and saw it pulling away. Fortunately it was headed in our direction, and the driver pulled over to let Sylvia in. I had a sort of nice, neighborhood-y feeling as I walked back home, and driving out of the neighborhood to work -- saw a lot of people I know bringing their kids out to the school bus.
posted morning of September 5th, 2008: Respond
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Thursday, September 4th, 2008
I worked up a fiddle part for "Rollin' in my Sweet Baby's Arms" to play at the jam tonight, and I must say it was pretty successful. I kept it fairly simple, everybody stayed with the beat and it sounded nice -- and my singing was as good as it ever gets. A couple of people complimented me on it later on. The jam leader tonight was Barbara Lamb -- it was really great to get a chance to hear her music. She did some far out stuff like setting up rhythm tracks by overdubbing lots of different clapping patterns and rattles just before she started playing, and playing duets with herself through a delay box. She's playing a house concert in Rockaway on Saturday, I hope we can make it out there.
posted evening of September 4th, 2008: Respond
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Today is Sylvia's first day of third grade! She's starting at a new school. We're all going out together now to walk down to the bus stop...
 Aargh... Well the bus was 45 minutes late. But Sylvia's in school! And we met some neighbors whose son is starting kindergarten, who seem like nice people.
posted morning of September 4th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday, September third, 2008
One of the best things about the Luminous Groove box set is this track, on disk 1 of "Bad Case of History." It is a previously unreleased demo recording (recorded in Yarmouth in 1992), which means The Asking Tree has never heard of it. This song just seems like a very pure, beautiful melody to me. I'm not sure what else to say about it -- I find the descending run on the fourth and eight lines of the verse rivetting. I lean back and forth between thinking the lyrics are lovely poetry, and thinking they are tritely emotional. The best thing about the lyrics is definitely the ways that the eighth line of each verse leads into the refrain. Possibly what I want to say about this song is, it combines perfectly the style of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians with the style of Robyn Hitchcock's solo work from later in the '90s -- this is what you might get if you crossed "Raymond Chandler Evening" with "Heliotrope."
Lyrics below the fold.
 
Ivy Alone
The fabulous whisper;
Can anyone hear but me?
The ivy surrounds you
Infinitesimally.
Does anyone love you?
Baby just me.
You're caught in the darkness,
The only place you can be alone
Alone
Alone.
A series of strangers,
Shall we say "absent friends,"
Parading before you;
Into your life she bends.
So hollow and lonely,
It's making you see,
You'll only get better
When you've learned how to be alone
Alone
Alone.
(instrumental)
What does it matter?
You're seeking the eyes long shade.
I brought you some onions;
Cry now, don't be afraid.
They're walking towards you,
The angels from everywhere;
The ghost of your body
Is bringing you back to her alone
Alone
Alone
Alone
Alone
Alone.
↻...done
posted evening of September third, 2008: 1 response
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The Washington Post reports today on how Sarah Palin decided not to provide funding for helping pregnant teenagers whose mother is not a powerful Republican politician. Palin... earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live. Thanks to Tim in comments at The Great Whatsit for the link.
posted afternoon of September third, 2008: Respond
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 Ayse posts the first sentence of Museum of Innocence in my comments:
It was the happiest moment of my life, I did not know. (See the comment thread for discussion of the translation.) The official website for the book is here -- only in Turkish naturally, but with two lovely photo galleries: Pamuk in his study, and Pamuk around the town. There is also a Wikipædia entry of course, in English and in Turkish, but practically nothing written about it on the English site as yet. ...And, Banu Güven of MSNBC Turkey interviewed Pamuk about his new book yesterday. I am wishing I could understand Turkish...
posted morning of September third, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, September second, 2008
 I've fallen in love with mural-blog The Wooster Collective -- every day tons of clever, striking images of graffiti on streets and buildings around the world. Today they link to an NRK article on Urban kunst midt i ødemarka, which shows many walls by Norwegian artists Dolk and Pøbel.  This is a site you should add to your daily rounds if you're interested in public art.
Flybane/fluesopp by the by, is also Little My's preferred fungus -- I've forgotten which Moomin book it is that has the family sorting mushrooms they've gathered, all of Little My's are poisonous and/or psychoactive.
 Update: I made "Pike med fluesopp" my desktop wallpaper. I love this image! Here are a couple more photos, with higher resolution.
posted afternoon of September second, 2008: 1 response
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 Pamuk's new novel is out! (In Turkish only; the German translation will be published in two weeks, and hopefully the English will be available before too long.) Today's Zaman has a short piece with some information about the novel, a love story which will be Pamuk's longest book excluding his first.
Additionally, Pamuk has written two articles related to his new novel. The first article sheds light on the literary, personal and philosophical sources of "Masumiyet Müzesi," and the second one discusses the themes of famous love stories in general. The publication dates of the articles are not yet known. So exciting! I can't wait to read these.
posted morning of September second, 2008: 22 responses
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Monday, September first, 2008
I guess this must be a common dilemma for historians (or "popular writers of history" -- Wyden is a journalist, not a historian): whether to relate the course of events from an eagle's-eye view, and risk losing the lived experience of the events, or to follow the people who are living the events, and risk losing the larger picture. Wyden errs quite clearly (and I think consciously) on the personal side -- his narration is vivid but the connecting thread between episodes is quite weak. It would help if he could pay a little more attention to giving dates -- each chapter is pretty much continuous so if he gave a date at the head of the chapter it would be much easier to fit the chapter's events into the broader narrative. As it is the reader needs to spend a fair amount of time flipping back and forth to figure out what year it is right now (or I do, anyway). Right now the Fascists are about to launch an attack on Madrid, and I had somehow gotten the idea it was the fall of 1937; as it turns out it is still 1936. I certainly do not want to fault Wyden for this choice however -- the personal narratives are a great thing, they make the book shine. I would much rather read this way with a bit of confusion about the course of events, than a dry narrative of troop movements.
posted afternoon of September first, 2008: Respond
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