READIN

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

🦋 Reading with expectations

As noted below, my memory of reading the book from 15 years ago suggested that the whole body of the story is Marlowe's journey upriver, and the final scene is his arrival at the Inner Station to find Kurtz dead. In this fantasy Heart of Darkness, the final sentence of the novel is "Mistah Kurtz, he dead."

Needless to say, the actual book goes a little different -- I spent a little time while reading the middle third or so of it, trying to reconcile my expectations to the plot that was unfolding. I did not abandon them entirely until Marlowe actually met Kurtz; until then I was holding on to a thin thread of hope that his talk about their meeting was some kind of metaphor. This shows, I think, the danger of rereading something with expectations when your memory of it is so far gone, and suggests that I should reread it a second time -- it is after all quite short. So I think I will keep it along with me for a while yet. I am going to turn my attention to The Myth of the Eternal Return; but when that drags (as it will) I will have some backup reading on hand.

posted evening of May 26th, 2004: Respond
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Heart of Darkness -- I had forgotten that Kurtz is alive when they get to the Inner Station.

posted morning of May 26th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, May 25th, 2004

🦋 More set work

Here is how you transition from "Palette" to "CAGWYW":

...G / B / C / /
G / D / Em / /
G / D / Em / C /
G / D / Em / F /
F / G7 / C / C
C / / F / /...

Trust me -- it sounds sweet. In other jammin' -- I finally figured out how to tie "Stagger Lee" and "C.C. Rider" together; just strum the last chord of "Stagger Lee", rest for a measure, and start right in. That sounds a lot better than the noodling around I had been trying to do.

"Rag Mama" is finally together. Never before have I really been satisfied with how I played that song; but tonight the speed was right, the beat was right, I had the vocals down. (3 out of four times that I played it tonight -- hope I hit lucky tomorrow night on stage.) I am not talking about the Band song called "Rag Mama Rag" -- this is a tune by Blind Boy Fuller (which I originally know via Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band):

    A7
I'm goin uptown with my hat in my hand
D
Lookin for de woman aint got no man
G7
Just as well be tryin to find a needle in the sand
C
Lookin for a woman aint got no man
 
Chorus:
Dwee-de-daw, dweedly-daw, Rag Mama,
Come on, baby, do that Rag
 
Well you get yourself a woman you best get two,
One for your buddy 'nother one for you,
Got me a wife an a sweetheart too,
Wife don't love me my sweetheart do
 
Took my woman down to Meeker St.,
Honey now, honey now, whatta'I see,
Saw my woman with a man, she was holdin' his hand
(that ain't right!) Aw,
Pistol in my pocket, black jack in my hand, says
I'm gonna get that so-and-so
 
Now, who'd'a thought my gal would treat me so,
Love another man at my back door
Mind, mama, what you sow,
Cause you gots to reap just what you sow

posted evening of May 25th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, May 24th, 2004

🦋 Set work

I'm working on a 3-song set for the open mike on Wednesday. Tonight I tried out "Palette on your Floor", "Can't Always Get What You Want", and "Rag Mama". At least the first two are definitely good to go -- the third needs a little work but I was shocked to be able to play it as well as I did. Gabe assisted me over the phone with a way to transition between "Palette" (which is in G) and "CAGWYW" (which is in C) -- on the final turnaround you go from D to Em instead of back to G, and then to F, G7, C and you are suddenly playing in the key of C.

posted evening of May 24th, 2004: Respond
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Sunday, May 23rd, 2004

I have been distracted, a bit, from Heart of Darkness by the book which Ed Antoine gave me for my birthday present; it is The Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History, by Mircea Eliade. I can't quite tell yet, what is the nature of the book; its prose is the very dense essay style that makes me reluctant to read philosophy (though I believe its genre is probably sociology). But this is a book that I am judging by (a) its cover and (b) the fact that Ed gave it to me, as worth spending some time being puzzled by.

The moment I saw the title I had a pretty fully formed thought along the lines of, "Cool -- he is going to investigate how different early cultures came up with the idea of a cyclical cosmos, and how that relates to being human." -- I know -- a lot to come up with from 10 words, 5 of which are articles, conjunctions or prepositions -- still, Ed assured me that I was on the right track with that supposition. And that investigation is interesting to me; so I am trying to get on board with Eliade's difficult prose.

So far, a lot of what he is saying seems like pretty intuitive ideas backed up with historical research. One thing that I liked: he was talking about how cultures would tend to think of unknown territory as being part of the chaos that preceded creation, and when they conquered or explored new territory would perform rituals that made it part of the created universe; at one point on page 15, he writes, "...the temple or sacred city is always the meeting point of the three cosmic regions: heaven, earth, and hell." And that made me start thinking about how if "hell" is the chaos outside our knowledge, and "heaven" is Platonic forms, i.e. pure knowledge, then "earth" is the imposition of forms onto the unknown, is reality which we can dominate by naming.

posted afternoon of May 23rd, 2004: Respond
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Saturday, May 22nd, 2004

🦋 One hour set

I am trying to put together a one-hour set of songs that I can play on guitar and sing. This afternoon I played a 45-minute set and it sounded pretty good -- the songs were generally not what I would call "tight" but they were all good enough that I could play them at an open mike and not be embarrassed. I have a sort of plan going to do several open mikes and then ask Randal (owner of The Dancing Goat) if I can play a set there on one of his slower nights.

Here is the set from this afternoon:

• The Ballad of Hollis Brown
  I've been working on this one for a while now, one of the songs that really made me a convert to Drop-D tuning. Dylan plays only D-minor chords throughout the entire song, but I play D-minor/G/A7. My picking pattern is fairly elaborate and in another song would run the risk of being too repetitive -- but in this song that's the whole point.
• You Can't Always Get What You Want
• Stagger Lee
  This is the first song I played in Drop-D tuning and I think of it as a critical juncture in my guitar-playing career. It was a year and a half ago or so, and after 3 years of listening to John Hurt I finally got up the initiative to try and copy one of his songs from the record.
• C.C. Rider
• Rocky Raccoon
• House of the Rising Sun
• Prodigal Son
• Palette on your Floor
• No Expectations

The order is just what order I thought of them in when I was writing the set list -- if I were playing an actual set I would fiddle with it some. "No Expectations" is however a great song to end on. Some other songs I reckon should go in there:

• Freight Train
• Tell Old Bill
• Hobo's Lullaby
• Barbara Allen

Also today I worked out Dylan's "North Country Blues" (not to be confused with "Girl from the North Country"), which is very easy to play and sounds beautiful -- once I know the lyrics I will add it to the list too and when all these songs are put together I think I will have about an hour.

Gotta go -- come back later, I am going to add links and comments for each of the songs.

posted evening of May 22nd, 2004: Respond
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Thursday, May 20th, 2004

I was playing "Rocky Raccoon" tonight and it sounded good; but I can't figure out how to do the intro. I expect Bob will have some useful ideas in that regard when we play on Sunday.

posted evening of May 20th, 2004: Respond

I've been working for a little while (about a week since I bought the lumber I guess) on building a new pair of gates for our driveway. The old ones were poorly designed -- two 5' gates hung from metal poles at either side of the driveway and meeting in the middle, swinging toward the back of the driveway. The problem was, they did not actually swing; the wooden gates were far too heavy for the hinges to support, so they were actually resting on the bottom corner at the center of the driveway. When you wanted to open a gate you had to either lift it up, or drag it along the asphalt -- either one is a hassle.

So here's my bright idea: One 8' gate hanging from the pole on the outside of the driveway (i.e. the side away from the house). It has a caster on the side that is not on hinges; so instead of swinging it rolls open and closed. Additionally it has a drop bar to anchor it in the closed position. The pole on the inside of the driveway comes out as does the short fence from the house to the pole, and a 3' gate hangs from the fence post at the side of the house. It swings toward the front of the driveway. So the deal is, you usually keep the big gate closed, with the drop bar in the ground, and go in and out through the little gate.

I finished building the big gate on Tuesday, and today I hung it on the pole. It looks pretty good, and it rolls just fine. (I may at some point need to replace the cheapo caster with something more durable though.) Ready to start work on the little gate. I will rent a jack-hammer from Home Depot to take the pole out of the ground -- this is kind of exciting as I have never used a jack-hammer before.

posted evening of May 20th, 2004: Respond
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Wednesday, May 19th, 2004

🦋 Birthdays

I see from Mark Kleiman's blog that my birthday falls on the same date as both his and Matt Yglesias'. Cool. Update: and it's also Kevin Drum's wedding anniversary! A busy day for bloggers.

posted morning of May 19th, 2004: Respond

Monday, May 17th, 2004

🦋 Recipe blogging: refried beans

Refried beans are a favorite dish of mine and I like to cook them now and then. I made them yesterday for my birthday party barbecue, and they came out very well. Here's how you do it:

• Soak about a pound of dry pinto beans overnight, in the refrigerator. I like to buy beans from places that sell them in bins; the bagged beans from Goya are not so good. I don't know if it's relative freshness or what. When you soak the beans, be sure to use enough water; I usually cover them to about 2-3 times the height of the dry beans.
• About 2 hours before you want the beans to be ready, put them up to boil in a stock pot, partially covered. Good things to add to the water are several bay leaves, and a yellow onion cut in half (with the skin on).
• While the beans are boiling, get the seasonings ready: roast and grind about 1/4 cup of cumin seeds and a Tbsp. of anise seeds; and reconstitute some dried chilis. You do this by pouring boiling water on them, waiting about 20 minutes, and then scraping the chili paste away from the skin with a spoon. Also you should be checking the beans occasionally to see that they are at a slow boil and are not too dry -- if they are, add water and return to a boil.
• When the beans are soft, fish out the bay leaves and onion (you could probably mash the onion and return it to the pot, but I have never done this), and turn the heat up to high. The water will start boiling away -- keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot, and you will wind up with a sort of pasty consistency.
• Empty the pot into a bowl; heat up about 3-4 Tbsp. oil (canola or lard) in the bottom of the pot and fry 5 or 6 chopped yellow onions and about half a head of garlic, with the cumin and anise and chili paste. After about 5 minutes add the beans back in and lower the heat down to a simmer.
• You're basically good to go now -- my rule of thumb is that the longer this mixture simmers the better (within reason), but the downside is you need to pay some attention to it so it does not dry out or burn to the bottom of the pot. I usually end up simmering it for 15 minutes or so.

posted evening of May 17th, 2004: Respond
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