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25
Jul 23

Shocking! I felt shocked! (Because I shocked myself … )

The people that sold us the new house had a giant corner wardrobe in their bedroom. They didn’t take it with them. Left it right where it was. The day we moved in, we moved it to the basement. I had to take it apart, disassembling it around the hard-working movers. They had to carry it, in four pieces, into the basement. Down the stairs, out the front door, around the side, into the garage and downstairs. They strained. They struggled. They did it with good cheer. We felt bad. We tipped them pretty well. We were going to do that anyway, but after that we huddled and agreed to tip them a bit better still. They earned it.

Only, they didn’t reassemble that wardrobe in the basement, where we will use it as off-season clothes storage. So, late last night and early this morning, I did that work. (Sorta?) It had been three-plus weeks (time flies) since I took it apart. I was in a rush to tear it down back then and I didn’t document where in the MDF all of the little metal parts went. Also, IKEA doesn’t have it listed anymore, and I’ve no idea what they sold it as, so I can’t easily find the manual online.

Today, though, the giant four-part wardrobe is reassembled as three individual pieces. Maybe I’ll make it a two-section wardrobe later this year, when I swap out the clothes. But at 2 this morning, I felt like I’d done enough with it.

Today I raked up the grass clippings from the lawnmower, and stuffed them and a bunch of weeds, mostly pokeweed, in a lawn bag. I also discovered we have an electric fence. Every day there’s something new to discover, and that’s fun. Still don’t know what the extra light switch in the hallway does, but I digress. I was out at the shed and found a small solar panel, pointed west, with a little red cable running to a white cable that runs around the shed, right about at big toe height. It is energized, and it’ll give you a nice, moderate, shock. Not as many volts as you’d get grabbing a hot wire in the house, but a little more than static electricity. No pests in the tool shed, then.

I called the company that makes the solar panel. A nice woman there said this little unit could power a fence that covers three-quarters of a mile. Electric fences don’t take a lot of power, of course, but that’s just remarkable.

Soon after, someone came by to take all of these bad boys off our hands.

It only took three tries to give them away. A guy who came out last week to do some work on the house carried some off to use in his flowerbeds. I advertised them on a Facebook group. Move! Store things in them! Build forts! Put them in your flowerbeds!

A woman agreed to swing by, but she disappeared. From the chat. She disappeared from the chat. I’m sure she’s fine.

So I found another woman who needed boxes. She took them in two trips today. In between, the sky looked like this.

And then, almost magically, those clouds moved on, burned off, disappeared. It was all but instantaneous. The sun came out, bright as ever. And then it rained through the sunshine. I stood in the window and watched it. And, after the shower had passed, I glanced in the large room where cars are normally parked. The boxes were gone. We no longer have a squished warehouse. We now have a garage. About the same time, my lovely bride finished setting up the gym. (Can’t wait to renovate that one of these days.)

We’re making progress every day. So much so that we feel confident in having a bike ride tomorrow. It has been so long since I’ve been on my bike I’m mildly curious if it is, in fact, just like riding a bike.

I need to make some progress on this front as well, closing tabs in my browser, that is. Good for me, then, that it is Tabs Tuesday. These are a few links that I’ve kept open for too long. They might not rise to the level of making a bookmark — which comes at considerable cost, if you read this sentence wrong — but they could be worth memorializing. So I put them here. Let’s see what I’ve been holding onto.

Sometime back I learned about the Artisans Cooperative, which emerged as something of a maker’s revolt from goings on at Etsy. Or, at least that’s what I seem to remember about it.

Artisans Cooperative is crafting a “better” online handmade marketplace, run as a values-aligned, member-owned cooperative.

OUR VALUES
1. Member-owned co-op …

2. Free and fair marketplace …

3. Inclusion …

4. Authentically handmade …

We are in the final stretches of development and getting ready to launch to the public in October 2023.

Good for them. And some of the merchants, the ones I’ve clicked through so far, anyway, do some amazing work. Like, East Ruin.

East Ruin is an archaeology-inspired art & design business for eco- and socially-conscious consumers who value alternatives to extractive production methods.

For a different sort of thing, there’s Maple Creek Vermont.

I started Maple Creek Vermont in the fall of 2020 as an outlet for my creative energy. For as long as I can remember I have had a passion for creating, building, crafting and making. As the son of a carpenter I have been around wood working my entire life and I worked to spend as much time as I could in the wood shop during all levels of my education. From the closet turned wood shop in my kindergarten classroom to the well appointed wood shop on my college campus, I have always felt at home making sawdust.

And check out StellaNCWorks. I’ll definitely be shopping here.

Pottery was the souvenir my parents brought back from every place we went, each piece chosen to represent that place, with the potter’s mark on the bottom. Embracing my home in NC is reflected in my own pottery. It seems appropriate, forming a chunk of the very land itself, through an intimate, engaged process, into a practical object that reflects the plants and animals that share the land. I am inspired by these plant and animal neighbors, by the idea that memories and heirlooms connect us to our loved ones, by things that are made by someone’s hands, and by shared humanity. I explore these ideas to create themes that celebrate the personal connection with nature and with other humans, and often use artifacts of these things—plant leaves, animal footprints, heirloom lace—to shape my work.

When I first started making my own pottery, it was driven by the need for a perfect vessel for a particular food: a plate for sardines with a line of mustard, bowls for pho, a big tea mug. Making clumsy pottery taught me lessons about making things better: about handle shape appropriate for leverage on a big mug, flat bottoms that don’t retain dishwater when drying upside down, shapes and edges that are comfortable for hands and lips. I make pottery for people who love the art in the practical, who love useful things made by someone’s hands.

(It also happens to be beautiful work.)

I discovered a bramble vine in the yard the other day. So now I’m reading up. Brambles: Pesky garden weed or delicious summer treat.

Brambles are bush-like, thorny plants with arching canes that are all in the Rubus family of plants. This includes the common blackberry, raspberry (including red, black and yellow) and the less common dewberry and thimbleberry. Many of these species are grown or bred for their wonderful fruit, and there are many wild-growing brambles as well. Wild bramble fruits are generally smaller than their cultivated, on-farm cousins, but are more packed with flavor! It’s almost “brambleberry” foraging and harvesting time now; if you see anything in the woods that looks like store-bought raspberry or blackberry, it’s safe to eat! There are no poisonous look-alikes to worry about.

There is good news and bad news about plants in the bramble family. The plants root easily, they spread out, and they give off fruit every year. If you are trying to establish them in your garden, you’ll likely be successful; they are quite vigorous. Another plus is that they are an incredibly rich (and common) source of pollen for pollinators of all types. Expect new plants to bear fruit in their second year.

And there’s always something new to learn about peaches, too. There’s so much to learn about peaches. They aren’t at all intimidating.

Less intimidating: the 54 tabs still open on my browser.

Just two more clips from last week’s Barenaked Ladies show. I didn’t include the encore. These days BNL brings out their supporting acts (Del Amitri and Five For Fighting on this leg of the tour) and they do a cover. They’re doing Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner.” (It’s fine, I guess. Last year, though, they did “Handle Me With Care.” It was much better. Here’s the version they did in Cincinnati. And this is the version they did in Indianapolis.)

There was a freestyle rap, an Ed Robertson staple. And they mixed it into a medley with a Taylor Swift song. I am counting this as having attended a Taylor Swift show.

Tyler Stewart came out from behind the drums for the big finish. And it’s a pretty robust singalong. Think of it another way: this is a 40-year-old song, a staple of another band’s catalog, and everyone, or at least the guys, are all singing along.

When Joe Elliot screamed it in 1983 “Rock of Ages reached 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number one on the Top Tracks Rock chart. No one forgets Def Leppard — who are playing seven dates across the U.S. next month.

But enough about music. There’s a lot more of that to come. Tomorrow we’ll dive back into the Re-Listening project, because I am very behind, and that’s making me itchy.

Friday / music / video — Comments Off
21
Jul 23

Into the weekend

It was a big day over here on the inner coastal plain. My lovely mother-in-law came for a visit this weekend. She is presently putting her stamp of approval on the property. Perhaps we’ll go out to see a few of the local small town charms this weekend.

Today, the try-hard pest control people came for a visit. They smiled and were encouraging and enthusiastic and sure of themselves. They petted the cats. They would not take any of my cardboard boxes. But they did wave around the wands on their high pressure rigs. And, for some reason, one of the guys brushed down the sides of the house with a giant broom.

At the very least, we look industrious to the new neighbors? One hopes, anyway.

It was a full day without feeling like it. Or, it was a day that went by fully without feeling heavy. A fine summer Friday leading into a relaxing weekend. Just what most everyone should have.

How fine a summer’s day? Let me sum it up like this: a family friend who was passing through stopped in to join us for lunch. We dined outside on a tomato pie and a pretty incredible strawberry salad. If everyone had been wearing white we could have looked like extras in The Great Gatsby. (Also, I’m a solid strawberry solid convert now.)

Here are a few more clips from the Barenaked Ladies show we saw on Wednesday.

This is an old, old, deep cut. You had to buy this on a cassette way back when. The band was still very Canadian-centric at the time. Probably they hadn’t even heard of the United States at this point. Which would be odd, considering they’re from just across Lake Ontario.

Do you need a bass solo to get your weekend started? You need a bass solo to get your weekend started.

I’ll get another couple days out of this show, not to worry.

Happy weekend!

music / Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off
20
Jul 23

More music to my ears

Started the day with some good ol’ fashioned house cleaning. My lovely bride’s mother is coming for a visit and we have to hide more boxes and clean the floors and give another big push toward making this look more like a home than an abandoned warehouse. More a place that looks like people could live in it rather than a low-budget dystopian landscape.

I kid, of course. We’re basically there. Because we’ll have company the guest bedroom is coming online. After that we’ll only have the dining room to go.

The last time we moved my mother-in-law came to visit at precisely the right time, injecting some much needed momentum into our efforts and helped us unpack the dining room. I reminded her of that recently, not to suggest she should do it again, I said, but to point out how important that was to pulling us across the finish line … and are you sure you aren’t interested in doing that again?

She doesn’t have to do that again.

We had a technician come in and pick up some testing equipment they’d left earlier this week. We passed the test. All systems go. The good news there is that all of the things I’ve put on the back burner because of this can now be placed back on the front burner. Ehh, Monday, maybe.

I made a trip to the Rowan campus today. Had to take care of a little paperwork. Stopped in to meet the dean. We talked for more than two hours. I don’t know how many one-on-one chats I’d had to add together with my previous deans to total two hours, but that math problem would span several deans, for sure.

We talked about the area. We talked dialects. We talked about the move, and the mysterious light switch in our hallway. He told me about the 100-year-old house his family moved into when they first came here in the 1990s.

We discussed the Edelman College classes I might like to teach in the future. I’d sent him a list of classes in the catalog that I can credibly lead, and he detailed where each of those is going in the future. And, it seems, there will be plenty of options to set up a fun little corner of coursework. It is a ball-is-in-your-court kind of conversation, a conversation that will run into next spring and beyond; it is a conversation I’ve never been offered before. Hopefully good things will come from it, and so now I’m coming up with ideas for classes and curricula.

Then the dean pulled out a piece of paper that showed a map of one of the college’s buildings. These are the offices for this unit. This is a classroom for this. That’s the newspaper. Over here is the TV studio. And this room here is going to be a new kind of lab. He described it to me, and in the process of explaining the vision they have for that lab he mentioned the idea of creating a working community newsroom. A hyperlocal project that is both classroom and practical. Now we’re talking about journalism, news deserts, coverage areas, the possibilities and concerns, the successes and liabilities of a newsroom of this sort. And this is part of why the conversation went on for more than two hours. Then the dean mentioned some other specific needs he sees for underserved communities. If anything comes from that, it would be an important contribution. That he sees, at least conceptually, the need, is a big, positive signal.

Then I chatted with the dean and the associate dean about the 3+1 model the Edelman College has helped pioneer for the university. If you want to enroll, but aren’t near the main campus, or your circumstances don’t allow you to come in as a traditional student, they’ve created a partnership with community colleges. It creates convenient, and affordable opportunities, to further a person’s education. It was nice to see their enthusiasm for the program, and great to hear. Innovation with rigor is the sort of thing a university can do well.

By the time I got back to the house it was after 5 p.m., and my mother-in-law had already taken the big house tour. Now we’ll do a little visiting, so, to play us out …

We saw Barenaked Ladies just last night in Philadelphia, remember. Here’s some more of the show.

“Hello City,” is from the “Gordon” album, and it is one of those songs with some bitter-tasting lyrics disguised by tempo and instrumentation.

It’s happy hour again.

And “Brian Wilson,” of course, is about the Beach Boy, ~~Al Jardine~~ Brian Wilson.

Oddly enough, Brian Wilson actually covered the song. It’s as surreal as it should be.

Maybe Jardine has as well? I dunno. Let’s look tomorrow.

That’s enough for now. We’ll get a couple more days out of the BNL show, so if you’re waiting for a favorite, come back tomorrow. You may see it here. See you tomorrow.

adventures / memories / music / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
19
Jul 23

Another installment of the Last Summer on Earth tour

Somehow the day passed quickly. It doesn’t seem like I got a lot down, and, on a Wednesday in July, that’s as it should be. I did get some things vacuumed. Moved a few more boxes and straightened up that sort of thing. Stuff that needed to be done, some which was past due, but nothing big, and nothing which should have filled the day, but there I was, 4 p.m., getting ready to call it a day.

Why, you ask? Because it was a Wednesday in July, that’s why. And also because we had tickets to see a show in Philadelphia.

So we had an early dinner at a place called Marathon and then walked over to The Metropolitan Opera House.

We did not watch an opera. But we did hear an operatic song.

I think it was 2000 when I last saw John Ondrasik. It was at Five Points. Was he opening for Guster? Edwin McCain? Train? Probably someone else. This was right about the time Five for Fighting was getting a lot of airplay off that second record and I saw a lot of bands in those days. Anyway, that was a great venue. They existed at a time when the local Birmingham radio play was helping set the tone, and the people that book shows put those things together and you could see all manner of up-and-coming acts and an eclectic mix of true artists with their share of road miles in there. Five Points South Music Hall existed from 1994 to 2003. Then it became a night club, and then the shooting happened. That joint had been around for five years by then, but late on July night a fight turned deadly. Two killed, two wounded and the neighbors and the city had enough. That club folded. But the next year, 2009, it opened as Five Points Music Hall again. New owners. It last for less than a year. No one seemed to figure out why they shut it down. It got torn down in 2015. (I was in town, but not in town.) A hotel is in that spot these days.

Someone is probably singing Bohemian Rhapsody in there right now, but I bet they’re doing it un-ironically.

Anyway, tonight’s headliner was Barenaked Ladies. And it was a singalong kind of night.

And Kevin Heard serenaded us. This is, I guess, the fourth time I’ve heard this live. They’ve been using that multimedia show for the song for several years. They should keep it up. It works and the synch is pretty great.

I’ve got nine or 10 of those to consider doling out over the coming days. It was, as ever, a fine, fun show from BNL.

adventures / cycling / Monday / music / photo / Re-Listening / running / swimming / video — Comments Off
17
Jul 23

1,800 words, didn’t even talk about Monday

Saturday afternoon I went out to explore for a bit. I needed to drive my car, basically. Also, I wanted to make friends at a nearby SCUBA diving shop. It serves you well to know all of the nearby people in your many interests. Plus it was a lovely day and so on.

So I stopped in at Ocean Spirit Aquatics, where I met Joan, who runs the joint with her husband, Jim. She was a lovely woman, happy to chat about the local dive scene. She was not able to help much with my main reason for stopping by, but the world wide web can pick up the slack. She told me about a SCUBA diving flea market that takes place each spring — buy and sell used gear! — something I would have otherwise overlooked for some time. I’ll be there next March.

I glanced at one of the little shelves I was standing next to while we were chatting and there were the goggles I do pool swims with. I had two pair of these in my Amazon cart, but the dive store were selling them for $10 less a pair. So I bought two pair from her for taking up her time, and now we are friends.

Setting out for my second errand, I was following the map app and winding my way through a residential area when I thought, Double check and see if there’s another dive shop nearby.

Good idea, me! Let me find a parking lot.

A car was following closely behind. Took every right I did. Took every left I did. Finally, that car turned off, and I found a lot for some quick map searches. I was correct, there wasn’t another dive shop conveniently nearby. But, I looked up, and the sign on the building said Aldi. I surmised I was in a grocery store parking lot. And my incredibly well-honed powers of deduction, I further determined that I was in an Aldi parking lot.

It just so happened that my next stop was an Aldi, but not this one. I figure, though, I’m here. I’m parked. Let’s see if they have what I’m after. Walk in, turn left to the far wall, walk halfway back through the cooler section, and, yep. Grab the goods, self checkout, and back to the car.

The next stop was back home. The map told me to retrace my steps. This, in the scheme of things, saved seven miles. And finding those goggles while talking with the nice people at the dive shop (but I repeat myself) means I also saved 20 bucks.

Serendipity!

Before we go any farther, let’s check in on the cats. It is, of course, the reason you’re here on a Monday, after all. (I watch the site data. And, remember, I have incredibly well-honed powers of deduction.)

Poseidon has progressed from sleeping in a cardboard box …

… to standing on the side of a cut up cardboard box.

I’m over cardboard boxes altogether, at this point.

Phoebe, for her part, has upgraded to plastic bins, because she is smart.

Also, she’s enjoying this bird on her traditional spot, the staircase landing. The bird makes tweeting, chirping noises when you move it. The cats like that.

It’s probably not as satisfying as catching the real birds outside, but these two wouldn’t know what to do with a real bird if they could grab one.

Saturday morning we went for a bike ride, of course. I feel like my legs are starting to come back, if only a little bit, and if only for shorter rides.

It was just a 20-miler; the last five miles were faster, thankfully. In that section, a couple caught up to us as we waited on the one red light on the route. The guy said hello. I said, “Welcome, join us,” and, jokingly, “Which of you can I draft off of?”

The light turned green, I told The Yankee to go ahead, as is our custom. The guy told his riding part to come along. And my lovely bride … dropped those people in about four pedal strokes. That probably looked gratuitous, but everyone is on their own ride, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is as strong as The Yankee, or as determined as I am to stay on her wheel, and that’s OK, too.

Also, they could have just turned quickly, for all I know. I glanced back once, and they were gone.

Maybe I should save this graphic of the route that we pedaled that day.

It already has a home roads/default route feeling to it.

It rained Sunday afternoon, so we spent the time listening to the rain and reading. It was lovely. I got back into a May Sarton book, though I think it sounds better if I say, “I am reading the journal of a Belgian poet.” It’s titled Journal of a Solitude, and that’s apt. The book started in September of a particular year. I am now through April, and there’s a big meaty section of spring and summer to come. But, sitting under a July rain, trying to picture a rugged Maine January …

I love how she hints at the difference of manipulating words or concepts. Because she is a poet, one is always weighed more heavily against the other. The W.B. Yeats poem she refers to there is, perhaps, “The Circus Animals Desertion,” where he narrates that he labored on the theme for six weeks. Any number of literature shortcut sites will tell you he’s, late in life, trying to square his own life with the times and mores of his native Ireland, and how that impacted his inspiration. It’s Yeats, so just say it is full of modernism or postmodernism; people will nod sagely.

I think she’s referring to “The Snow Light.” The line she went with:

In the snow light,
In the swan light,
In the white-on-white light
Of a winter storm,
My delight and your delight
Kept each other warm.

What do you want to happen in a poem after that? For Sarton, the love had to be lost.

She had published a book of poems just before that journal entry, and the rest of winter breezes by in the journal. So, much of spring and summer will be filled with her gardens and flowers and her descriptions of those things, but she’ll sneak in all manner of powerful observations about being alone, femininity, sexuality and then, near the end, something absolutely unexpected will happen.

This is my second Sarton book — My second of four Sarton books. I discovered her through Ray Boomhower, Indianapolis-based historian, who shared a quote of hers, “Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.” that sounded very much like something a cyclist would say. So I was intrigued. I then found a site that recommended four of her books in particular. After that, I found a used bookstore online that had each of those four books, plus free shipping. I bookmarked that store immediately. — so I know for certain there will be much about flowers and weeding and the spring and summer chores. The other three themes are all over this journal. And I’m hoping for another “Huh. How about that?!?” moment, that brings it all together, just as in Plant Dreaming Deep.

Belgian poets, man.

After the weather cleared, we took a little swim, unleashing an impressive array of splashy dives that created great splashes, even if they weren’t terribly splashy. I decided to do a few laps, because Sunday was a rest day, but by that time I hadn’t exercised in more than 24 hours and Saturday morning seemed a long time ago. So I did a few laps, and then a few more. And then I decided I’d just swim until I was tired. This being my fourth swim in just 10 days, and, also, my fourth swim since November 2015, I was curious to see what that looked like.

It looked like 1,120 yards. I feel a bit of that in my shoulders today, but in a good way.

So, naturally, we went for a run tonight. I did 2.91 miles — and I feel that in my feet — just to keep an easily reachable goal out there.

We return to the Re-Listening project, where the goal is to listen to all of my old CDs, in the order in which I acquired them. Since I am writing a bit about them here, and as I am woefully behind, the immediate goal is to … catch up. These aren’t reviews, but an excuse to pad out the blog and embed a few videos on a trip down memory lane.

Gran Torino, was a Knoxville-based band, that started with a rhythm-and-blues, soul and funk feel and shifted pretty effortlessly to a pop formula. This is their second album, the one that had a minor hit, mostly on college radio and the like. A lot of horns, a lot of fun somewhere between game show themes and Earth, Wind & Fire.

If you weren’t around Knoxville, this was probably how you were introduced to this band.

Infectious!

Gran Torino put out only one more album before they disbanded in 2003, but they have played the occasional show, often for a fundraiser, here and there.

Jimmie’s Chicken Shack dropped their second album in August of 1999, a time when almost no one used the word “dropped” in that way. I picked this up in a giveaway bin at one of the stations I was working at, and I am so glad I did. This is a fusion of slack rock, entry-level ska, acoustic pop and some sort of blue-eye hip hop and new wave sounds. Now, as I type that out, it sounds ridiculous, but this record is so, so great.

Track one feels like a nod to their early work before they diverge into that odd collage.

I did not understand this when I first heard it, but I liked it straight away.

And this was the low key hit. “Do Right” peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, helping to push the album to 153 on the Billboard 200.

Really, almost every song here has something to offer. How it didn’t get a bigger push is a mystery.

Oh. Wikipedia tells me that Elton John had a record label and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack was one of their acts. They apparently did not often see eye-to-eye. Also, it was “marketed” by Island Def Jam, this would have been before IDJ really figured out they were supposed to be a major entity.

Jimmie’s Chicken Shack put out two-independent records after this one, and now they’re releasing things on Bandcamp. And they’re touring now, too. Good for them.