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Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
Alex died yesterday. Very famous parrot, this was the first I had ever heard of him. This morning, Sylvia and I watched a really nice video from PBS: Scientific American Frontiers -- the last video listed on that page, titled "Animal Einsteins", is half about Alex and half about chimpanzees learning arithmetic. Utterly charming. When I got home this evening, Sylvia wanted to watch it again.
...And again this afternoon! Sheba the chimp touches the numbers she is looking at and Sylvia says, "Sheba always has to make sure," grinning.
posted evening of September 12th, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
(Well, or tangling them up at least.) I woke up this morning with an image from my dream fully formed. A man about my age is at a family gathering -- the crowd includes his parents, brothers and sisters and their families, and his child or children. Maybe some of his aunts and uncles as well. He is stoned and is scribbling random-seeming lines on a large piece of blank paper as he narrates in a kind of vindictive, complaining way. A few people are listening to him, others are involved in their own conversations. He moves on to something else and his son (perhaps nephew), 4 or 5 years old, starts coloring in the scribbles, eventually coming out with a very nice picture of a scene from the fairy-tale "The Frog King". Thinking about this brought to mind Shekure's observations about dreaming from My Name is Red; and that made me suddenly realize that my insight on Friday about bragging and complaining is exactly parallel to Shekure's thoughts -- with the added clarification that what I was talking about was not "ways of thinking" but "ways of narrating" my thoughts, talking about what I am thinking. And that Shekure was not saying she wouldn't tell a dream; she was just pointing out that the relation would be a lie in fundamental ways.
posted morning of September 11th, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, September 9th, 2007
Blackout on Meeker Street! It has not happened all summer -- it's really hot this evening, I guess a lot of air conditioners running. The lights went off from about 9:30 - 9:45 or so. Sylvia was in bed but had not fallen asleep yet, and she was frightened.
posted evening of September 9th, 2007: Respond
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Since chapter 31 of My Name is Red I have been feeling a little at odds with Pamuk's desire to advance the plot, which has been seeming to interfere with the lovely character development and aphoristic nature of the first half of the book. With today's reading however, chapters 43 through 47, he is coming back to the narrative style that I have fallen in love with. Chapter 47 ("I, Satan") is especially nice -- it has been too long since we heard from the coffee-house storyteller, whom I am identifying as Pamuk. He (like Pamuk) obviously has a polemical point -- is not impartial -- but his voice is lovely and seductive enough, and I'm close enough to in agreement with his side of the argument, that I am letting my guard down and just basking in his voice. Here's what his Satan has to say about moralizing preachers: I am not the source of all the evil and sin in the world. Many people sin out of their own blind ambition, lust, lack of willpower, baseness, and most often, out of their own idiocy without any instigation, deception or temptation on my part. However absurd the efforts of certain learned mystics to absolve me of any evil might be, so too is the assumption that I am the source of all of it, which also contradicts the Glorious Koran. I'm not the one who tempts every fruit monger who craftily foists rotten apples upon his customers, every child who tells a lie, every fawning sycophant, every old man who has obscene daydreams or every boy who jacks off. Even the Almighty couldn't find anything evil in passing wind or jacking off. Sure, I work very hard so you might commit grave sins. But some hojas claim that all of you who gape, sneeze or even fart are my dupes, which tells me they haven't understood me in the least. Let them misunderstand you, so you can dupe them all the more easily, you might suggest. True. But let me remind you, I have my pride, which is what caused me to fall out with the Almighty in the first place...
posted evening of September 9th, 2007: Respond
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The Apostropher has posted a mix tape that is better than good. Dig that Al Green.
posted afternoon of September 9th, 2007: Respond
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This week, Sylvia has graduated from riding a little bike, low enough to the ground that she can put both feet down flat while she's mounted, to riding a bike that is her proper size (though with the seat set a little lower than ideal). And this morning the three of us rode to town and back, more than a mile round trip!
posted afternoon of September 9th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, September 7th, 2007
It occurs to me that I don't have much full of a notion of a way of thinking which is not "Bragging" or "Complaining" and since I don't want to brag or to complain, I spend a lot of my time without, properly speaking, thoughts of any sort, and that this thoughtless time gives rise to negative feelings that I would as soon be rid of. Time to come up with a new sort of script.
posted evening of September 7th, 2007: Respond
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It is lovely to watch Robyn Hitchcock's interactions with his backup singers and musicians I am watching him sing "Cynthia Mask" with Grant Lee Phillips right now and see a similar vibe to what I have caught going on watching him with the Egyptians and with Captain Keegan. (A different species of interaction between him and Deni Bonet, a less overtly sexual one I think.) If you count yourself among the few readers of this blog and I have not yet raved at/to you about Robyn and the Egyptians performing an acoustic version of "Birds In Perspex (Come Alive)", well, I am doing so now by implication. Go watch it, really I can't imagine your thinking the time poorly spent unless you are Sifu Tweety Fish, whose musical tastes are a cipher to me. (And talk to me about it -- regardless of what I said above I would really like to know what reactions people have to that song, including those reactions that are less wholly enthusiastic than my own.)
posted evening of September 7th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Elixirs and Remedies
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A new DVD came in the mail today, for me to watch this evening. It is Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips' Elixirs & Remedies, concert footage from their "Grand Campaign" 2000 tour.
Here is a video of Hitchcock and Phillips performing Satellite of Love, which is not included in the DVD.
Do any of you have exposure to the music of Grant Lee Phillips, solo or in combination with Grant Lee Buffalo? I would appreciate recommendations of albums to listen to.
My expectation with covers sung by Robyn is, if they are of Syd Barrett tunes they will be fantastic, and otherwise the odds are about even for fantastic or awful. An interesting thing about this concert is that the two of them play many covers of songs by a wide variety of artists, and every one of them is successful. Maybe this is a product of their collaboration? "(All I have to do is) Dream" takes on many new dimensions with Robyn singing it.
Another concert from the same tour is available at archive.org.
posted evening of September 7th, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
I have a boxed set of Big Bill Broonzy discs, of which I have for some reason only listened to discs 1, 2, and 5. I put disc 3 on today and was delighted to find some songs with violin accompaniment, which I don't believe I have heard accompanying Broonzy before; and doubly delighted that one of the songs (track 14) is "C. C. Rider".
posted evening of September 5th, 2007: Respond
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