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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
So I put together a mix tape of some of the music I particularly like. If you'd be interested I could make you a copy (assuming I'm calculating correctly that not a whole lot of people will be interested) -- just drop me a line and let me know where to send it. Track list and notes available on request; it's a mix of old-time blues and country, and music by Robyn Hitchcock. They go together better than you might expect.
"Welcome to the 21st Century": On-stage patter from Robyn
Hitchcock's Hallowe'en 2003 concert at The Bottom Line, NYC
"Ragged and Dirty", Bob Dylan, World Gone Wrong, 1993
I like this album a lot, indeed it's one of my very favorite Dylan
records. Old music; this is an old tune by Sleepy John Estes, a
bluesman from Tennessee.
"Black Cat Rag", the Famous Hokum Boys (Big Bill Broonzy's first
band), April 1930
from Big Bill Broonzy: All the Classic Sides 1928-1937.
"Pancakes", Leadbelly, 1941 radio broadcast
from Lifting the Veil: the First Bluesmen. Hilarious.
"Full Moon in my Soul", Robyn Hitchcock, Spooked, 2004 (with
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings)
I just love Hitchcock and this song has all of my favorite Hitchcocky qualities.
"Sweetest Love", the Stanley Bros., April 1952
from Selected Sides 1949-1953.
"Go 'Long Mule", the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
from A Study in Frustration: the Fletcher Henderson Story. I don't
know jazz very well but I know what I like and damn, do I like
Henderson. Early big-band jazz from New Orleans.
"Heartaches", Patsy Cline, February 1962
from The Definitive Collection.
"Pig Meat Strut", the Famous Hokum Boys, April 1930
"C.C. Rider", Mississippi John Hurt, The Best of Mississippi John
Hurt (actually a concert tape, not a best-of – Oberlin College campus,
1965).
"Pig Meat Blues", Whistler and his Jug Band, April 1927
from Violin, Sing the Blues to Me: African-American Fiddlers 1926-1949.
"Mr. Kennedy", the Soft Boys, Nextdoorland, 2002.
The Soft Boys' reunion record. Robyn wrote this song about a concert
tour he had been doing in 1999 with Sebadoh – Mr. Kennedy drove the
tour van.
"Cincinnati Flow Rag", Gary Davis
from Blues & Ragtime (which has no info about dates)
"Drivin' Nails in my Coffin", Ernie Tubb, September 1946
from Early Hits of the Texas Troubador
"Little Birdie", the Stanley Bros., 1952 radio broadcast
"Risin' Sun Shine On", Big Bill Broonzy and the Cool Tones, July 1935
A bit later in his career, when Broonzy had got a lot smoother
sounding and better production.
"Polk Salad Annie", Sleepy LaBeef, Tomorrow Never Comes, 2000
Song is by Tony Joe White, also covered (not well) by Elvis. Here is
fantastic video of White: http://readin.com/blog/?id=1041
"Memphis Blues", the Mobile Strugglers, July 1949
from Violin, Sing the Blues for Me – this song is total Americana, by
W.C. Handy.
"I Love Lucy", the Soft Boys, Nextdoorland
"Walkin' the Floor Over You", Ernie Tubb, April 1941
"The Yip Song", Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, Spectre
(promotional pressing of Respect with interviews), 1993
If you dig this song you need to rent the DVD of Storefront Hitchcock.
"Two Soldiers", Bob Dylan, World Gone Wrong
I respond more emotionally to this song than to any other song Dylan sings.
"Crown Junction Breakdown", the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, 1962
from String Theory –WFMU dj Jeffrey Davison gave this compilation as a
pledge premium in 2004.
I was just looking at Wikipædia's article on accidentals in music, to resolve a question I had in mind, when I came upon the section entitled History of notation of accidentals. Go take a read if that kind of thing interests you -- it seemed pretty far out* to me, who am pretty well completely ignorant of musical history (this kind of stuff anyways).
*(i.e. not meaning that it seems incredible to me but rather fascinating)
posted evening of January 10th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
Here are Jerry and me playing at the Maplewood open mic:
(YouTube is being a little unresponsive today; if one or both of the videos do not show, try again later.)
Weary Day
The Louisville Burglar
Thanks to Vinnie Video for taping the show, and to my co-worker Rob for helping me figure out how to get clips on YouTube. (The process: Handbrake to convert DVD to AVI, and AVITrimmer to extract clips.)
posted afternoon of January 10th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Fiddling
I have 3 woodworking projects that I would like to get done this winter (and that Ellen would like me to get done this winter):
A decoration for the front of the walk in front of our house, in the form of a short fence or two short fences with a post at the corner. Ideally with nice carved finials at the top of the fence stakes. We want to grow some kind of vine or rosebush against this.
A bench for the front entry. Size is kind of tricky since the entry is mostly occupied by the swing of the front door; but there is a corner where a narrow bench would fit. Ideally this will be of the same wood and vaguely similar design to my garden bench in the front yard.
If I get ambitious, a similar bench for the top of the staircase.
I haven't been in my wood shop much at all in the past few years; but I have been wanting to do more with my hands. So I better seize the day.
posted afternoon of January 10th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Woodworking
If I have an AVI file that is 128bit, 29 frame/sec, and I want to copy a clip from it into a new AVI file, what is the best tool to use? I am trying to use AVITrimmer, but the output file doesn't look any good. It still claims to be 29 frame/sec, but the video is wrong. It is not synchronized with the audio any longer.
Hmm... wait, that might be wrong... Yeah -- that was just weirdness from Windows Media Player.
posted evening of January 9th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about The site
For the past year I have been, generally, driving from my workplace to a store or restaurant to get lunch and back again. Most days. I've been feeling kind of bad about this, and as I've said before, feeling sluggish and in need of exercise. Well the new regime, started this week, is to walk into town and back every other day -- the town deli sells sandwiches which are good for two lunches -- and to take a shorter walk on the off days. It's about a mile in to town or a little less, so this is not by any means infeasible. I'm a little sorry about "town" not being "route 10", which is about twice as far away and has my favorite lunch spots; but the deli in town is just fine.
Also, meeting Ellen at the JCC after work today for exercise.
posted afternoon of January 9th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Fitness
Hi all! If you're coming here from my brother's class blog, you are probably interested in music. So, take a look at my music posts -- there is a mix of my own recordings (pretty rough but some of them are nice to listen to) and reflections on music I listen to. My current personal fave is Robyn Hitchcock.
Today I drove a bunch of tile over from Barry's house to my own (long, non-interesting story) and carried it inside. I was washing my hands afterwards and had the thought, Frequently, washing my hands seems like a useless bit of ritual, but right now, it is having a clearly visible effect. Which led directly to the thought, maybe the proportion of head work that I'm doing to hand work has grown too high.
Fortunately I had a handy project just waiting to be done, namely fixing the pocket doors between our dining room and music room -- these are sliding wooden doors which it would be nice to use, but they don't slide very well in their tracks. We haven't really done much with them since we moved in, until the other day when I closed them -- the one on the left moved along smoothly but the one on the right had to be sort of wrestled out; and when I had pulled it out all the way I heard something falling down in the cavity it lives in, and then it would not shut.
This evening I took down the stop which is on the ceiling in the middle of the door track, so I could pull the right-hand door all the way out and see what was blocking it. Turns out the cavity was full of debris, fallen bits of plaster, lengths of 2X4 (one of which was blocking the door's return), chips of brick, and a huge amount of plaster dust. I was able to pull most of it out with a long stick, and the door slides much better now. And I had another chance to wash my dirty hands.
posted evening of January 8th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Carpentry
Every time I see this Saramago quote: "The gate is wide open, the madmen escape." at the top of my blog, I hear it sung to the tune of "Away in the Manger". Not that useful but there you have it.
