If you were looking for me today, and couldn’t find me, that’s because you didn’t look here.
There are pretty good odds that I’ll be there tomorrow, too.
Tuesday
30
Aug 22
‘The past is gone, but something might be found”
Funny, how quickly back-to-normal gets you back to normal. I’ve been a bachelor the last two weeks, but my lovely bride returned from a much-deserved family trip yesterday. We, of course, hopped back in the car and went over to Cincinnati for the rock ‘n’ roll show. We got back just around midnight last night. And this morning it was the alarm, a quick bike ride into work, and watching the work over at the half-gone Poplars Building.
I wonder if I can call it the Pop Building, then.
This evening it was leave promptly for a quick bie ride back to the house. We had to return a rental car and that place closes at 6 p.m. After that, dinner, catch up on the new Game of Thrones show, House of Exposition And Time Jumps and then get ready for bed.
Back-to-normal happens quick.
Yesterday in this space I shared some clips from the rock ‘n’ roll show. Toad the Wet Sprocket opened the show. Here’s photographic proof. They had an eight-song set.
I’ve been listening to them for almost 30 years, now, and I’ve seen them twice. Both this summer, 18 songs total. Worth the wait is a weird expression here — particularly since the first show was supposed to be in 2020, and the Monday show was a spontaneous add-on that was, itself, postponed from last month, and — why did I wait to see a band I enjoy? Surely, somewhere along the way, there were intersecting opportunities. Right? But who knows?
Toad opened the show, and the Gin Blossoms were the featured act. They did a six-song pure nostalgia set (down from the nine songs we saw from them in July). And that was fine. I’ve managed to see them a half dozen times, I think. Same jokes, same material. You’re there for the vibe, and to try to reclaim the unreclaimable feeling of a younger day. It’s illusive; it’s Sisyphean; it’s impossible and melancholy.
So, then, Gin Blossoms are perfect for that.
That’s a hasty, from-the-hip mix I made on my phone just now. I am surprised how well it works.
The rest of the week we’ll fill out this space with Barenaked Ladies. (Lots of clever lyrics for titles, too!)
16
Aug 22
Unconcerned as the deer
I got a decent shot of the fawn on the lawn as I rode through one of the campus neighborhoods. Three or four seem to sit there every evening. It’s a grassy, wooded lot that sits next to an odd rental, and just down from a Civil War-era home. They’re on a slight hill, in the shade, munching clover.
I just saw two of them on this pass. Last time I spied three. Next time, maybe zero. Who knows the schedules urban deer keep.
That’s a standard width sidewalk, and I was passing by close to it, on the two-lane road. The deer were not at all concerned with me, or the occasional passing car.
There are five houses on that block, and the one small stand of trees. One block down there’s a more densely wooded stand. I suppose that’s where they live.
Back to Sarton. I’ve worked my way through about two thirds of the book. She’s telling the story of her house. She bought it in her mid-40s after her parents died, and the memoir, written eight years later, is about the experience, the hidden New Hampshire village and, now, her neighbors.
I bought this book used, and I was pleased to see someone had underlined a few bits here and there. I probably haven’t always felt this way, but now I like idea of happening on someone else’s notes, but people seldom write in the margins anymore, it seems.
I think about a version of her support and freedom of a routine once in a while. I think it’s really about efficiencies. A routine gets done and redone, and you get better and better at it. So you become faster and so on.
Isn’t that the point of rote work? It’d be different, of course, if you were talking about true craftsmanship, which she does a fair amount. From time to time she tries to compare the craft work of others to her own craft.
And here she is at her craft, jamming an incredible amount of work into two pages. It is masterful, really. This is not the full story of her neighbor, Albert Quigley. (Even more about what is an interesting measureIt is not she includes about the man, but consider how much information is contained in these two short, clear pages.
The Quigley home is now Nelson’s library.
I’m still waiting on all of the context clues to flesh out where Sarton’s house is. I have a guess, and I could definitively figure this out online, Googlefu being a craft of a sort, but that seems to be against the spirit of the book.
Slow going across the way. The big crane didn’t move today. Perhaps it has developed an affinity for the Poplars Building, which would be the only one. Crews were doing some work among the rubble below.
We have learned that the adjacent parking garage, just seen to the left in our view and separated by a narrow alley, will remain closed until the razing is completed. They need to move faster, then. Parking is a consideration, which explains why they waited until the end of summer — and the beginning of a return to a “normal semester” — to undertake the project. I’m sure there were reasons.
Unconcerned as the deer.
9
Aug 22
Enjoy this blog reading experience
Let’s look at some buildings. This one was cool. Plus the evening sun was shining on it. This is back in Milwaukee, by the way. And according to a hasty search — Google Maps, Google Street View, Google and Wikipedia — I can tell you that this is the Associated Bank River Center.
Such a sexy, historical name. The Associated Bank River Center was completed in 1988 and, for a time, was the second tallest building in Milwaukee. (Now it is the fifth largest, after which people stop counting, I’m sure, because, really … )
The red and green are meant to pay homage to the city hall building, which you just see to the right there. (For just under two years, the Milwaukee City Hall was the tallest habitable building in the world. Oh, to be in Milwaukee in 1895, I guess.)
Anyway, back to the foreground. The Associated Bank River Center is undergoing some renovation. It is used for offices, but also for parking, making it that most convenient 20th century design, mixed-use!
A marketing subcommittee wrote this:
Associated Bank River Center brings together the best of Milwaukee. A living intersection of the arts, finance, business, tourism and dining inspiring the City, Associated Bank River Center perfectly encapsulates Milwaukee’s historic roots and points to its transcending future. Renovations to be completed in various phases over the next several years.
But, most importantly, that view, and the brown Milwaukee River.
And, also 28 stories and 820 underground parking spaces, a large conference setup, a tech lounge, whatever that is, food market, bar and health club compliment the “completely renovated lobby experience.”
Which is how you know a marketing subcommittee wrote that. No one has ever, in the history of lobbies, had a lobby experience.
Nearby, the 12-story Hotel Wisconsin was a $2 million luxury hotel. It drew a huge crowd wen it opened in 1913. Over the years, Eleanor Roosevelt stayed there, and so did Laurel & Hardy. The hotel also had a lot of retail and locally prominent restaurants inside over the years, as well. By the 1970s or ’80s it was really showing its age, and the hotel closed in 2003. It was renamed The Grand Wisconsin – which just sounds cool and you probably can’t say that about adding the word ‘grand’ to every state name – and was renovated to create more than 100 apartments.
We didn’t go inside, but now I regret it. The second-floor ballroom was, in 1913, modeled in the style of Louis XIV and some of the ornamentation and the ceiling has been restored. The lobby’s ceiling features American flag shields, badger imagery, terra cotta State of Wisconsin shields and leaded glass panes bearing the state shield, too are on display. The lobby sounds like an impressive .. experience.
This is yesterday’s glimpse of the destruction of Poplars, at IU.
We just had so much to get to yesterday, you understand.
But, so that you can chart the progress, here is today’s glimpse.
Another week, for sure, perhaps two, before this feature grows even less interesting.
And, since we were full of content yesterday, here’s the briefly delayed and long-awaited photo experience that is the most popular feature on the site, the weekly check in with the kitties.
Phoebe looks like she is about to give a speech to her adoring public.
I’ll let you decide the tone and tenor of this speech. You can be assured her audience will be rapturous with delight, either way.
And, last Thursday, Poseidon tried his hardest to make sure we accidentally took him with us.
We did not. There was no room in that suitcase for stowaways.
2
Aug 22
Let’s listen to old music
I did this some time back as a change of pace, and figured it might be time to do it again. But this time, these four years later, I figured I would write a little something about some of it. Who knows how this will work out, where it lead, how extensive we’ll get or even when I’ll just forget about this on one end or the other. The general idea is that I am working through all of my CDs in chronological order.
Yes, I know the order in which I bought all of these things. Somehow that impresses people. I know it, more or less, anyway. There’s a brief period of time where it’s just a guess, but none of that matters. Not that any of this matters. The collection crosses genres and periods in a haphazard way and there’s no real large theme. There’s too much from the popular catalog for that anyway. It’s not an evolution or path of discovery, it is whimsy.
So let’s be whimsical and listen to old music.
The first CD I bought — and this one is obviously important because it was really considered … not just another record, but an entire format change, and I had a lot of important-to-me cassettes to replace! — was late to the format. And it meant adding hardware. So I bought one of those tape-to-CD chunks of plastic. Plug the tape into my car stereo, run the little cable out of the tape converter to the little lap player. Even then these were growing more scarce.
This was the spring of 1996. It was Tracy Chapman’s newest record, which came out in November of 1995. I bought it that next spring, because the person I was dating owned it and I heard the whole thing and I liked it, and I liked her, and I had always enjoyed Chapman’s music, and so the decision was made.
Chapman won a Grammy, her fourth, off this, an award given for Best Rock Song to “Give Me One Reason,” an incredible popular blues song. She, and that record, were nominated for four other Grammy Awards (her 13th nomination). All told, she shipped north of five million copies domestically, a few more globally, and who knows how many digital plays she’s counted. “New Beginning” was a great record.
None of this is a review, and we won’t be spending a lot of time unpacking philosophy or chord changes, but you should go buy this, if you somehow don’t have it already.
Here’s the title track, number two if you’re playing along. I didn’t know until just now that she plays the didgeridoo here, and that this was controversial for some. The use of a didgeridoo by women, Wikipedia tells me, is taboo in many aboriginal nations. To me, in this song, it just wrapped all of us together for the message. And it really accentuated the rhythm section.
The third track is “Smoke and Ashes,” and it is still one of my favorite Chapman songs, and still feels so sonically perfect. I concentrate on the backing vocals of Adam Levy, Andy Stoller, Glenys Rogers and Rock Deadrick. All these years and spins later, the shift through to the bridge is so gentle and severe and evocative I can’t help but marvel at it. “Only smoke and ashes babe, baby” kills me every time.
The fifth track lays it out, right from the title, “At This Point In My Life.” Chapman was 31 when she produced this. I wonder how it feels to her now.
On “The Promise” the strings almost get lost in the lyrics. Or the lyrics get supplanted by the strings. I can never say. It is such a character-driven song, and it’s gift is that it lets you put the particulars of the character in place yourself.
Here’s the big hit from the record. Again, the vocal work that Chapman can bring are so rich, and so perfectly complemented here. Also, there’s one little moment that always sends me back to the Gulf Coast and a little circular dance of the hand that I re-enact each time I hear this song. It’s a delight of memory and the blues.
“I’m Ready,” is the last named track on the record. Plenty of songs are laments. I’m not sure how many of them are better than this. It gets more potent with each play.
And most crucially to me, the hidden track. Plenty of writers can wax on about music and anyone that knows more about music than I do can do it at great length, with greatly envied success. That’s not what any of this simple exercise, here on my personal site is about. All of this is to just enjoy some of the things I enjoy, and share them with people who might also enjoy them, and to tell you this remains one of the most powerful 100 seconds of audio ever produced.
You get the sense Tracy Chapman just wanted to be a singer-songwriter, maybe in a cafe or whatever, and then that famous Nelson Mandela show that launched her into the stratosphere happened, and then she had some monstrous hits, and maybe, hopefully, she’s just enjoying the regular day-to-day life. She released eight studio records, her last in 2008, and released a greatest hits collection in 2015. She toured through the oughts, at least. She’s been involved in a variety of causes* important to her for probably her whole life, and generally, you would think, just values her privacy.
I don’t think she’s online much, so she’ll never see this. But if she does, or we ever have seats next to one another on a plane, I promise to not make a deal about it. I would absolutely pull out a notebook and ask her for advice on a line or two. It is a big treat to say this verb was suggested by someone whose work you admire.
*My first job was working for one of my teachers. The teacher was moonlighting in the summer doing some landscaping. I was the extra pair of hands. One day she was telling me at great length about how Chapman’s first record, the eponymously named debut album, the one with “Fast Car” on it. Everyone listening to a radio or watching a television in 1988 knew “Fast Car” and “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution” and “Baby Can I Hold You.” And something in there, she said inspired her and her friends to join the Peace Corps. But we’ll get to all of that, and that duet with Luciano Pavarotti, eventually. We have a lot of other records to get through first. Up next, something you’ve never heard of — unless you live, or go to a lot of live shows, in Georgia.
