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31
Jan 23

The view stretched on for miles

So there I was, 11 p.m., huffing and puffing through my third bike ride of the day. OK, second ride, but third route. Still, “third ride” sounds more maniacal. I rode 39 miles this morning in London.

After a day at the office, an evening in the studio and delicious leftovers for dinner, I went to Zwift once more. Just naked mile collecting, really. I have three spreadsheets. Well … had three spreadsheets. This was the butt of a mild joke today. It was an implied joke and those are the ones that stick with you. So this evening I consolidated the three files into one single document. One part of the spreadsheet compares my top months, mileage-wise.

This morning, I topped my previous best, May 2016, when I had time to pedal and numbness to pedal through. But I realized that if I did juuuust a few more miles, I would get to a pleasing number. So I did that this evening, riding in Zwift’s made up world of Watopia. For some reason the photo capture part of the app didn’t work this evening, which is a shame. I had a great wide shot of some Mayan temples. That part is odd, since I wasn’t riding in the Maya region of Central America and modern Mexico, but rather on an island in the Solomons, some 7,000-plus miles away.

But this evening, when it was done, I set a new best, humble as it is. I tabulated a chart showing January in the saddle. That blue line, if I can stay above it throughout, would give me a record-setting year, in terms of miles. The red and green trendlines show slightly more ambitious goals.

The purple line is where I am now.

So, not a bad January.

Another part of my spreadsheet presently ranks out the best Februaries. None of them are impressive and it shouldn’t be hard to post a new superlative. I’ll start on that after a rest day or two.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 53 routes down, 67 to go.

Let’s clear out a few tabs. This is the feature where I link to things I’ve been keeping in a browser somewhere. Rather than have this stuff disappear forever, I can reference them here. (Blogging! I know! So wild!) Some of these are absolutely worth the effort. The last several weeks I’ve shared a bunch of pages that I’ve held open for a long time. This one here, however, is just from last fall.

Bryan Collins’ 101 design rules:

Musings, ramblings, and principles that I’ve shared with my team and randomly on Twitter. Reminding yourself of the principles that ground you is simply a good practice. Here are mine.

1. Design is hope made visible.

2. You can live your life as the result of history and what came before, or you can live your life as the cause of what’s to come. You choose.

3. When talent doesn’t hustle, hustle beats talent. But when talent hustles, watch out.

4. When you work only for money, without any love for what you do in and of itself, your work will lack energy. People will feel that. So give every project everything you’ve got, at every moment, every time.

5. A good philosopher will say: “Know thyself.” A good shopkeeper will say: “Know thy customer.” A good designer will say: “Know both.”

This might be one of the last things I opened on Twitter. And it is worth seeing. There are 96 more chestnuts for you there, should you follow the link above.

This one, meantime, has been sitting on the phone for quite some time. In hatboxes, pouches and bags lie the items that define us:

In Carson McCullers’s novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), Mick, a teenage girl, owns an old hatbox that she keeps hidden under the bed. The box contains personal valuables, ‘three mystery books her Dad had given her, a compact, a box of watch parts, a rhinestone necklace, a hammer, and some notebooks. One notebook was marked on the top with red crayon – PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. PRIVATE – and tied with a string.’ This strange assortment of things is of little material value, but of immense sentimental importance. The hatbox is her own small space, where she keeps the things that make her who she is.

Many people own such a shoebox, a drawer or some kind of chest in which they keep the things that are of strangely intimate value. The idea of these small spaces that contain things of high personal value is an overlooked part of Western culture.

Honestly, this is a good starting place, but there’s no reveal or resolution here. I was so hoping for one, something that might help to explain “Why do I have several of these?”

Know what I have several of? Tabs! These came from my phone, where I am now down to 39 tabs.

We return to the Re-Listening project, and while we are still somewhere in the late 1990s as I play all of my CDs, in order, this one is from 1995. It is also a cassette-to-disc upgrade, so I am glossing over this.

So today we’re on to Edwin McCain’s “Honor Among Thieves.” I like him, saw him live a few times in venues both big and small. I enjoyed the music because the South Carolina style appeals to my musical sensibilities of the time. “Solitude” made its way onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and landed in the top 40 of the Mainstream Rock Tracks, Top 40 Mainstream and Adult Top 40 charts. Also, this is the one where Darius Rucker came on to sing for his friend. It has never not been funny that McCain wound up singing harmony to his guest on his own debut single. But, Rucker was set to become Elvis at that moment, so it made sense in more ways than one.

If you look up live performances of that song, McCain has slowed it down over the years, and it works pretty well. I imagine he’s on stage thinking, “I still have to sing this song?”

Just one more, since we’re glossing over the cassette-to-CD set. I was reading something recently about someone learning how to write songs, and how to write pop songs. As I listened to this record again I found myself thinking about how that could apply to McCain’s debut. It can get fairly narrow in places here, though his work blossomed over the next few records. There are still one or two standouts on this record, and this time through, it felt like “Jesters, Dreamers & Thieves” has aged the best.

Here’s a 2004 live performance. The song was a decade old, and they let Craig Too Cool Shields take his sax out for a little spin.

We’ll hear a bit more from Edwin McCain soon. I think I have two more of his records that will show up in the Re-Listening Project.

But, coming up soon, probably tomorrow, is some wildly successful power pop. Hey, it was the nineties.

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30
Jan 23

Me three

It is a lovely shade of gray. There, I’ve said it. One might think that Stockholm syndrome has kicked in once again. Last year it was Feb. 7th when I mentioned that condition. The year before that, it was Feb. 19th. This is a disturbing trend. There was a bit of direct sunlight Saturday. We might have some tomorrow, or possibly on Friday. This photo was from my trip to campus yesterday. It was 2:30 p.m.

There are 80 days until spring arrives.

I was on campus yesterday testing, in my role as the manager of a television, some DVDs and streaming projects that we’ll be screening next month. Documentaries and art aplenty! Some of them look very good. Others, I am sure, will appeal to more discerning viewers. It is a nice collection of titles, to be sure, and now I know they will all play on command. Hopefully they’ll also play on schedule.

But enough about the hour I spent at work on the weekend, and get to the site’s most popular weekly feature. It is time to check in with the kitties. They are doing well.

Here’s Phoebe in that Saturday morning sunlight. The curtains flew open, as they do in the morning, and there was this warm, yellow light rushing in. She might have been as stunned as I was about it.

Poseidon … he’s hanging out in the sink again.

Don’t let the charming face fool you. That cat is a piece of work.

Got in a nice Zwift bike ride on Saturday. I wimped out on yesterday, though. There just didn’t seem to be a good time for it, I told myself. Wimped out entirely. But, on Saturday, I rode through a volcano.

I wonder what the sulfur would do to your breathing if you could put a road through the inside of a volcano. Also, I wonder if you could put a road inside a volcano. It seems to be a stretch.

Anyway, aside from taking Sunday off, I’m still well ahead of projections for the month. Plus I have tonight’s brief ride, and perhaps one tomorrow morning, to add to the tally. This evening I rode the 2018 UCI Worlds short course. Two climbs, and I set Strava PRs on each of them. And then I bested my time on the sprint segment, and thought I would collapse in my run up to the finish line.

Zwift says I finished the course in second place. I assume that means today. I assume only two people have ridden that course today. Anyway, my avatar was having a fine time on this descent. He, who doesn’t always abide by the strictest rules of physics, hit 57.6 miles per hour on this descent.

That’s a bit faster than I’ve ever gone on a real road.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 51 down, 69 to go.

According to the new rules I just made up for the Re-Listening project, we’re going to gloss over the discs that are cassette tape replacements. This was a good decision which, of course, takes place near the possible end of cassette-to-disc upgrade period. (Hey, it was the nineties.) I’m listening to them, you can be sure. And the five-and-a-half minutes I spent at one red light yesterday (thanks city planners!) helped make sure I got through this next disc, which was U2’s “Achtung Baby.” Released in late 1991, it would sell 18 million copies worldwide (and I have two fo them, I guess …) and it won a Grammy for best rock performance. Making the record, their search for evolving their sound, almost broke the band.

Of course, a few weeks ago Bono said they were always almost breaking up. They were also recently hoisted for all to see at the Kennedy Center Honors and, now, here they are, getting glanced at in the Re-Listening project.

Turns out they re-released this thing on the 20th anniversary, and again on the 30th anniversary. There was also a video release, the worldwide tour, five singles, a documentary, a concert film, and who knows what else. It’s amazing we aren’t sick of this but, Achtung Baby, it’s still a great record.

Of those five singles, three hit the top of the American charts. The other two landed in the top five. They could do no wrong for a while there. And these days they get roasted by Borat.

So … among the deep cuts … Normally, as I get into the music, I try to conjure up an anecdote or a memory that I’ve associated with the work. That, and being a space filler, is the point here. But this is record is going on 32 years old now, and my memories aren’t all that great. But you know this got dropped into my knockoff Walkman a lot.

Bono is, I think, one of those people who made it OK to think of being a tenor. And now he’s adding some depth and texture to his voice on this record. Who knows where sounds come from, really, but I bet some of the croaky things he does all over this thing are why I do them when I sing along to stuff in the car now.

Amazing rhythm section alert.

And the last track on the album, though this album never really ends for all of the work others have done covering it. (Aside: Look up “One” covers sometime. It’s impressive how many people tie that into their own work.)

After this tour they’ve apparently only played it live twice.

Know what U2 are doing again? All of the classics! They’ll soon release “Songs of Surrender,” a reimagining of their old works. Nostalgia sells, and it moves a lot of units. Let’s listen to the first track, a version of “With or Without You” you’ve waited on for 36 years.

It’s interesting, and risky. Here you have one of the most iconic songs — a band-defining guitar riff, a picture perfect bass line and that big cathartic wail — and invert the entire thing. Starting there is definitely a statement. We’ll all have to give it a listen to find out what’s what. It is due out in March.

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27
Jan 23

There’s a lot here for a Friday

Here’s a question — and it is a real and earnest question. I, being from somewhere sensible, don’t have a lot of experience with this. But if it snows on Wednesday, and your car still looks like this on Friday morning, would it be inappropriate if I got out at the red light and scrapped all that stuff off your car?

Here’s another question — again, asked in all earnestness. If the car in front of you, and the car behind you, has the same idiotic problem, which car should I prioritize?

“Two days, y’all,” he said drawing out the y’all, so that you might understand that it is a word of his people, not just something he has appropriated from others, so you realize, This guy is from the South, and he has found your snow care … wanting.

I spent much of my morning working on my calendar. It’s riveting stuff, I tell you, but February is now planned to a fairly granular level. No one ask me for anything, please, lest we upset the applecart.

In the middle of the day I realized that not everyone knows the expressions “song and dance” and “dog and pony show.” I’m not sure if that’s a generational issue, or perhaps I was misheard. Either way, it will surely make me self-conscious. I sometimes tell people to break a leg, in the show business sense, but there’s going to be a day when someone doesn’t know the phrase, and I’ll sound like a callous, violent person.

“He was very helpful. He asked me twice if I had any questions before he left. And then he told me to break bones. But the weirdest part of all was, he said it in a kind of cheery voice.”

I’ve got to work that out of my lexicon.

Late in the day I had the chance to watch people use a state-of-the-art studio and control room as props again. This never fails to amuse. I also met a folklore major, who taught me a bit about folklore. I now feel as if I can enroll in a folklore 101 class, sneak in late on the second day and be ready to learn.

Folklore is fascinating, as an area of study. I was in their building in October, and admired some of the class offerings on the walls. Some looked worth trying, not that I’d be a folklorist, whatever that actually is outside of the academy.

Looking at classes years and years later, when the pressure is off and it doesn’t matter so much, is an interesting exercise. And, you find, your horizons broaden when you’re not contemplating tuition.

I left the office promptly at 5 p.m. today. First time since Monday. Saw the daylight and some sunshine on the drive back to the house. First time since … I’m not sure when. Maybe Monday, but nothing is jumping out at me. Could it be last Friday?

Anyway, the days are slowly getting longer, which is encouraging. The view in the backyard this evening was even more so. What’s that blue stuff back there?

It is the first sign of spring, if you’re desperate. It’s the first time you’re going to be tricked by the prospect of spring, if you are foolish. There are three stages to this trickery. This is the first stage.

I’ll be foolish. I’ll take it. It isn’t spring, not even close. But that doesn’t matter so much when you see the sun and sky actually, finally, beating up the clouds, even if it is just for the small part of one day.

The next CD in the Re-Listening project is another media update. I had “Throwing Copper’ as a cassette, even though it was released in 1994. (Remember, late adopter.) So in late 1996 or early 1997, I had to get a CD copy because I still wanted to play it a lot, because it was the 90s, and I was young, and Ed Kowalczyk screamed a lot. And the rhythm section on that record is pretty decent.

“Throwing Copper” was the mainstream breakthrough, after two smaller records and an EP. And it was a huge success. Two of the five singles went to number one, and “Lightning Crashes” sat atop the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for ten straight weeks. After it had been on the Billboard 200 album chart for a full year, the record hit number one. It sold eight million copies in the US alone.

It is amusing to me that these guys were all about 24 when this record was released. Picked up straight out of high school, dictionary in hand and angst to share.

Since it was that broadly popular, and since this was a tape-to-CD upgrade for me, and because it is getting late into the evening, here’s just two quick tracks from later in the album. I always enjoyed this bass line, even as the song goes well against the general feel of the rest of the record.

And then Kowalczyk goes full Kowalczyk three-and-a-half minutes in.

This was the hidden track, and the slide guitar is so atypical, and works so well. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense, but this was on as I drove away from campus today, and it still works.

I saw Live three times in concert in the next few years. They put on some great shows. Then the music got more exotic, and then the tensions within the band got weird. I’m trying to make sense of it on Wikipedia now. The singer left, or was uninvited or something. The band continued without him, which seemed weird. He sued them. Then the original band got back together for a time, then fired one member. There was another lawsuit, and now Kowalczyk is the last original member still playing under the name. That’s the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, I guess.

Since I premise the Re-Listening project as a quick stroll through the memories that got pinned to some of this music … I remember, and I am being as vague as possible here, a job I had in high school. I worked with a guy who was a college frat boy. He was funny, goofy, nice, and guaranteed to fall into some sort of trouble. You know the sort. There was a young woman who worked there, too. She was nice, attractive and guaranteed to be trouble. You know the sort. They got pregnant. “Lightning Crashes” was their song, which, I mean … really.

But that was 1994. To be young just then brought a certain set of choices, just as any other period. I wonder how long those two lasted.

I got in a quick ride before dinner tonight, tapping out 33 miles on Zwift, racing to finish before the batteries on all the necessary devices died. (The speaker didn’t survive the ride. My phone and iPad just barely did.) Tonight I got in two routes in France. I set three Strava segment PRs, somehow.

This lighthouse spins as you’re riding through the digital countryside of northern France.

I’m in an interesting place for the month. Earlier this week I compiled my highest volume months of bike riding, in terms of miles. It’s still a humble number, but this month was in 9th place overall. After tonight, this month is now my third best month. Tomorrow, it’ll be second. Maybe I can make it my most prolific month before it’s over.

May as well get something out of January.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 48 routes down, 72 to go.

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26
Jan 23

The color fits, see

I had a meeting this morning, and there were doughnuts. The doughnuts were from a craft bakery, which means they put non-traditional toppings on them so they can charge you 36 bucks for a dozen. Also, they seem to be croissants covered in non-traditional toppings. Tasty, sticks with you throughout the day. Makes you think of doughnuts all day. They also ensure you don’t need to eat anything else all day.

The rest of the day was the rest of the day. A few meetings here and there. A lot of emailing and some phone calls. The usual stuff. And then into the studio in the evening. The late night host was interviewing an expert on M&Ms. As a part of the bit, she was doing so in an awkward British accent. The expert was not actually an expert. But she new many things about the hard-shelled candy, despite not being old enough to have spent 33 years researching them. Also, some of the information might not have been perfectly accurate. Wikipedia might need some updating.

Very usual stuff.

Here’s a photo from Wednesday I forgot to share. I like this one. A monochromatic skylight seems just right for the moment, somehow.

Three long days in a row. Just a regular 8-hour day tomorrow. It’ll feel like a half-day, I’m sure.

That recent weather has meant slower driving. My commute — a normally mysterious 20-minute, 4.5 mile adventure — has been longer. I guess that’s why I’m working through discs in the Re-Listening project so quickly in the last few days. So we return once more to revisit old music. I’m playing all the old discs, in the order that I picked them up.

Did you know I have some photographs in the Museum of Alabama. I used to, anyway. It’s been a long time. I’m sure they’ve been archived and warehoused or destroyed by now.

In the summer of 1997 I was commissioned to drive around much of Alabama and photograph the old covered bridges. I think they were doing a series of these in different seasons, and also some paintings. But traipsing through woods and creeks in the heat of an Alabama summer seemed like the perfect job for a college student, and someone knew me and that’s how I got the job.

I drove over a third or more of the state listening to Tigerlily. It came out in 1995, went platinum five times in the United States and peaked at 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Somewhere in late 1996 or early 1997 I bought it. Probably as a bulk deal, but when I got around to listening to it, I listened to it a lot.

The record starts like this.

There’s a lot of interesting texture in this record. There’s a moment in this song, a lament of losing a lifelong spouse, where Merchant’s voice breaks. It’s a syllable, and it is so impactful I remember it years on. I know it is coming. It gets me every time.

She didn’t sing it that way live. On a subsequent re-release (with new instrumentation) it isn’t there, and the song, a powerful ballad, is lesser for it.

Or, if you prefer a different kind of mood.

Music is a funny thing, and if I look at the five or 10 CDs on either side of this one in my collection, it is pretty obvious I wasn’t ready for Natalie Merchant in 1997. But I should say that about a lot of things and 1997 me. Driving on country roads on dirty, sweaty days, listening to this CD spin was a good thing, and a lot of fun. Ready or not.

Wikipedia tells me Natalie Merchant is teaching arts and crafts to kids these days. She has a new record due out in April. Maybe I’ll be ready.

And that’s enough for today. Don’t worry, there will be more tomorrow including, incredibly, another CD in the Re-Listening project.

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25
Jan 23

These aren’t snowtunes

It snowed overnight, and most of the morning. This is the first substantial snow we’ve received since last February. We got about four or five inches. On the drive into the office there were two nervous moments. I got into a bit of a fishtail at a roundabout. And then, at a red light, I wasn’t sure how and when the car would stop.

But at least this guy got to sleep in.

And two of his buddies were driving around, with their snow plows up off the ground.

That might be unfair for one of a few reasons, but, then again, the roads were a mess.

Somewhere approaching 11 a.m., well after the morning rush, they got around to clearing the roads, as you will see. And they didn’t even wait until the snow had stopped falling. Just before it ended, the great big flakes, one last bit of winter defiance, came down. Here’s the tail end of that.

But those first few hours after, it was quite lovely.

It is the wrong kind of snow, however, in that it didn’t melt right away. It won’t melt until the weekend, if the weather forecasts are accurate and it won’t look that lovely in a day or so. But that’s for Thursday or Friday. For now, we listen to music.

It is time, once again, to dive back into musical memories, with the Re-Listening project. I’m going through all of my CDs, in order of acquisition and listening to them in the car. It’s about memories, rather than music reviews. No one is asking for another review of quarter-century-old songs, after all.

In the fall of 1996, a buddy of mine told me to look for a particular band. They’ll be big, he said. You’ll like them, he said. At the same time, there was always a stack of CDs on the giveaway table at my station. And one day, there they were.

This is one of the two things I remember about the Matchbox 20 debut. It sold something like 12 million copies in the United States, and 15 million worldwide. People liked it. It got a lot of airplay. This is the other thing I remember. The wrong single got all the attention.

This was the debut single, and the best bit of the record, by far.

The rest of it is a bit aggravating to me. Maybe it got overplayed. Maybe it wasn’t something we played in crowds. It definitely sounds whiny today. And, oddly, I have no other recollections associated with the album.

Similarly, I don’t have a lot of memory attached to “To the Faithful Departed.” Seems odd, but I don’t recall picking this up, either. I knew I had it, but I am slightly dismayed that I don’t recall what came behind it. And, yes, I think I should remember how and where and why I bought a circular piece of plastic in 1996. I probably barely listened to it, which is a shame. It seems, at times, conceptually and lyrically repetitive. At the same time, the instrumentation is there, and Dolores O’Riordan’s talent is fully on display.

This song struck me tonight, and I was surprised to learn, or re-learn, that this was one of the singles. (This is how closely I was paying attention to The Cranberries, I guess.) It also figured prominently in O’Riordan’s funeral in 2018. Beautiful song.

Two other singles were released. A fourth was canceled when the tour ended and the Irish rockers went home after O’Riordan had some health problems. In retrospect, that the fourth single wasn’t released might have been a good idea. It is hard to listen to that song in the context of the album and airplay at the time and think it would be as successful as the songs that came before it.

Why they didn’t release this as a single though is an enduring mystery. It’s U2, The Cure and Depeche Mode all in one. It would have been a big alt hit.

There was a well-packaged ballad just waiting to be called upon, too. And there’s an all too obvious Doc Martens reference in there, just waiting for sponsorship.

The contemporary reviews suggest this wasn’t The Cranberries’ best album, but “To the Faithful Departed” didn’t top charts in four countries and climb to number four in the United States by mistake. Maybe it was my mistake to overlook it.

A wise man said you should never end a post by admitting a mistake, so … a joke.

What is a snow man’s favorite song?

“Freeze A Jolly Good Fellow.”