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Thursday

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.

books / music / Re-Listening / swimming / Thursday / video — Comments Off
13
Jul 23

I won’t talk about unpacking anymore (after this)

We are now down to unpacking the dining room. We have no pressing urge to unpack the dining room. And the guest bedroom. That will need some actual attention.

Today, some things got put on some walls. This is always an interesting exercise. New house, same decor. On the one hand, this is very comforting. The bedroom — aside from a wacky paint decision and, for the first time ever, having windows at the head of the bed — is starting to feel like a familiar place. Those picture frames are an important part of that. But then you might think, Oh this one again, eh?

And then you feel bad about that. Because you love that souvenir print, or the photo you took or the gift you received.

I wonder if people on makeover shows feel this way too.

This looks great, but why did you leave my freckles on my face?

These are the things that help make us who we are, though, and you do love that print, that photo and that sign you got a few Christmases ago.

Yesterday I unpacked my audio equipment. Now I just need to deaden the sound in my home office-studio. That’ll take forever to agonize over.

Today I unpacked my half of the library. The joy, the challenge, of unpacking your library is putting things back on shelves thinking, “I should read this again. And I should read that again. And I should read … ”

I alternated between thoughts of kicking myself, in the haste and hustle of packing ourselves, I did not think about it at the time, but maybe I should have photographed how I had my books displayed in their book cases. On the other hand, this is kind of freeing and I can make this a new start, with my old books. And also my new ones.

(At least I photographed how we’d built the cat trees, they were reassembled easily, and before most everything else for some reason.)

So, of course The Gloms are in chronological order here in my office. The other two bookshelves in my office, which hold the Books To Read have been loosely arranged in order of interest and priority. But in the library downstairs, there were boxes to open and shelves to fill today. How to do that?

I’m not going to say it took longer than it should, because these are books and this is important — and no I do not use the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification system and, no, I am not a librarian, why do you ask? It took as long as it should, because I reworked the shelves a few times.

Memoirs and autobiographies got two shelves. Cycling books got a shelf. Textbooks and the like got a bottom shelf. (I still have two bins of actual textbooks that are awaiting their eventual fate. They will stay packed up at least through the summer.) Pretty much an entire bookcase is devoted to history. And there’s a pile of things over on a chair that I’m going to donate, or put in a little library. And there are some biographies that are somehow missing … maybe they’re with the kitchen knife and the good scissors.

It is strange what goes missing when you pack in haste.

This evening, we had a lap swim. The Yankee easily outpaced the ducky.

For my part, I swam a half-mile, 832 yards. Not bad for my third lap swim of the last week, which was also my third lap swim since 2015. Oddly enough it felt … good? Is that the word I want there? Was that because the water was hot-in-July? Every time The Yankee finished a (much more impressive) set she’d break the surface and say, “Uuuugh,” in a non-ironic way. Swimmers like the pool to be colder. Helps with the speed. Goosebumps are hydrodynamic it turns out.

That’s not the case, at all, actually.

Anyway, I feel like I’m close to a technique breakthrough, or at least a conscious-brain understanding of something. It will have nothing to do with kicking, of course, but there’s a progression to be made. And I wasn’t even especially sore or tired. Because I only swam 832 yards. Let’s see what happens this weekend when I add on a few more laps. And, also, if I can raise my arms above my head tomorrow. Let’s see what happens there, first.

OK, this is the penultimate performance I’ll share from the Indigo Girls concert we saw last month, which also happened to be simultaneously both yesterday and 18 months ago.

This is a song from the 2004 album “All That We Let In,” and, while it isn’t a song for everyone, and it is a bit of a divergence from the band’s brand, it puts Amy Ray’s power squarely on display. And here’s the thing I learned about lifetime activists playing near their metaphorical backyard in these trying times — and during Pride, no less — they didn’t make a big deal of much of anything in this concert, though they certainly had the receptive audience. I’m sure they know what works for them and their fans by now. And I’m certain that people who do real community work, as Ray and Saliers have since the 1980s, know something said into a microphone is minuscule compared to raising money and using elbow grease. But in these moments, where showing one’s support is a sort of social capital, this is understated. Four words, right there in Nashville, right before one of the more straightforward socially driven protest songs in their catalog, and that was all. That’s all she needed.

Speaking of Ray’s power. Tomorrow we’re closing this little feature with the best song of the night. It was a moment, and I can’t wait to watch it again.

Back to the Re-Listening project, and we have a lot of catching up to do from the long car ride. Let’s chip away, shall we? (I’m still a dozen discs behind.) Remember, I am listening to all of my old CDs, in the order in which I acquired them, and trying to think of something to write about them here, while I embed videos from YouTube.

Fiona Apple’s “When the Pawn…” was released in November 1999, the second studio album for the young phenom. She won a Grammy for a debut record in 1997, which came out when she was 20. The followup got two more Grammy nominations. Spin magazine called it the the 106th greatest of the last quarter century in 2010. For Slant Magazine it was listed as the 79th best album of the 1990s. No less than Rolling Stone ranked “When the Pawn…” at number 108 on its 2020 “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. It finally went platinum that same year.

To me, her debut, “Tidal” is an incredible record. And more than a quarter of a century later it still feels fresh and raw, sure, but also accomplished and something which demands attention. “When the Pawn …,” however, easy to have on in the background without notice. I don’t write the Re-Listening project entries as reviews, of course, but usually try to associate them with some silly memory or odd bit of personal trivia. But I can’t think of a single thing that goes along with this record. I can’t even recall hearing it in the car this time around, though I know I was in Ohio at the time, and that was just two weeks ago. (To be fair, I was very tired, and probably distracted.)

The next thing on the playlist was another sophomore release, Filter’s “Title of Record.” They got good alt radio airplay, and even MTV spun their video, and so they moved more than 800,000 copies between August 1999 and early 2001. Sometime after, they went platinum.

Three singles, but I only bought it for one, a good belt-out track. I was apparently not alone in that. This song climbed into the top-20 on nine different international charts. Domestically, “Take A Picture” reached number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100, topped the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and peaked at number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and landed at third on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number three. It also settled at number seven on the Adult Top 40, and number 15 on the Mainstream Top 40 at number 15. The year 2000 was a good year for Filter, one hopes.

I was in a grocery store parking lot, a Meijer, in Middletown, Ohio when that sixth track came on. (Their next show, in August, is at a festival in Ohio.) It’s always been a car track to me, and so this was appropriate, even if I was riding at a parking lot speed as opposed to the usual interstate speed.

Funny how I think of almost every car song as being heard on only really fast roads. High(er) speeds just go with music, and most of the commutes of my life.

Let’s do one more CD, just to get it out of the way. After Filter there was Third Eye Blind’s “Blue.” Didn’t care for it when it came out — if I know how much airplay they were going to get I would have not purchased it — and I don’t care for it now.

That was quick. But not interstate quick.

adventures / cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
6
Jul 23

Let’s go ride bikes!

House work continues. It’s slow, but progressive. We have arrived to the point where it feels that it may never be over. Of course it will get finished. The magical sprites of the woods aren’t getting the job done, though. That’s disappointing, but we’ll get it all finished. We’ll hire an excavator if that’s what it takes. Or maybe we could turn this into a reality show or something: The Unpackening.

The garage is more-or-less in order. I’ve turned a bit of attention to my office and learning what all the light switches do.

Today, though, we took our first bike ride at our new home. My first bike ride in two-and-a-half weeks, and boy did it feel like it. But how about that new bike banner, eh? Similar to the old graphic, changed the colors, put in an easter egg and added a cyclist, It was an inspired decision to put her ahead of me in the graphic, since I’m always trying to chase her.

There are a few, but I did not take a lot of photos. I found myself having to get used to the whole process again. Riding a bike is just like riding a bike; it was everything else that felt a tiny bit off.

Out working among the crops.

We are surrounded by beautiful farmlands. (Look out produce stands and farmers’ markets, here we come!)

The Yankee’s form was just fine. It was a warm day, and we’re riding from map cues, but she still looks pro.

My shadow selfie looked pretty decent, much better than I did today.

We made a big circle, which, hey, is the goal. It gets you back to where you started.

Where the boxes and the bins are waiting.

adventures / New Jersey / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
29
Jun 23

The new house needs a name

Did our walk through of the new house this morning. Everything is lovely in this new place. Aside from some additional cleaning — of course the sellers cleaned things, but still — everything is lovely here. One of the rooms has a blackboard wall. This will be The Yankee’s home office. The sellers left us a lovely note.

We went over to an office to sign all of the forms you must sign to buy a home, and all of the forms you must sign to acknowledge that you just signed the last form. So long is the process now that two separate people race through a thumbnail sketch of what they’re putting in front of you in a lab-tested voice that sounds interested but, you know, has gone through this so many times they’re clearly just bored with it and won’t you sign it so the fees can get transferred.

So we signed them.

There are at least 762 treaties that ended armed conflicts that involve less paperwork and signatures than the modern house process. I know because I counted them, in my head, in between the taut recitation of how this form notes that you will provide your own ninja security detail on your new property, and this document notes we’ve not told you which agencies to hire them from …

When all of that was done, everyone went their separate ways. Someone must work in that office, but I’m not sure which of the four people in the room that might be. And we went back to the new house. The movers were there waiting for us.

They loaded us up with four guys. They unloaded everything with two guys. Two guys plus us. Those fellows worked so hard today, and so did we, to a slightly lesser extent.

At the same time, the ISP guy came by. Bald, long braided beard. Probably rides a motorcycle when he’s not in his service van. It made him look older than he was, and older than his humor. Overly polite, like he’d just come out of some company-mandated customer service workshop. He got his job done in a hurry, and gave us more of the gigabytes than we expected.

At the same time we met our first neighbor. She was dispatched by the sellers to pick up from us a few things that they’d accidentally left behind. We were, of course, happy to oblige them of the sentimental. And the neighbor is lovely. A retired teacher, she watched the kids that used to live here grow up, and now those children are young adults. That’s just part of it for teachers. We talked for maybe five minutes, a welcome break in the air conditioning for me, and you can already tell she’s got plenty of stories and is ready to share them. In a week or two, when the house is in order, I’m going to have to think of a good excuse to stop by and visit her.

Everything is everywhere, but everything is here. Well, except for the cats. We’ll fetch them on Sunday. Because we’ll have wrung order from chaos in just two days.

Hah.

Tonight, we set up part of the kitchen and living room. Tomorrow we learn where all the light switches are and start breaking down boxes.

Indigo Girls / IU / music / Re-Listening / Thursday / video — Comments Off
22
Jun 23

Some boxes are emptier than others

Something amazing happened in my office today. It’s one of those grown up things that should never feel like a fun thing to the adolescent version of your inner monologue, but is immensely satisfying to the adult part of your conscious thinking.

Not everyone thinks as an adult, of course. Not everyone has an adolescent version of their inner monologue. We can all agree that 33,977 emails is a lot of emails. That’s so many emails the email program had to delete them in batches.

I wonder how long it took to accumulate those emails. A bit longer than it took to dispatch them and, even though they were all already in the trash folder, watching that number disappear felt pretty great. It was a good Thursday exercise. But why this Thursday?

Lyris Hung is here for your fiddle needs. She’s using a looper, or some such technology, to do a multitrack song all by herself. (She is the fourth artist I’ve seen do this live, and I’m sure that she could do whatever she wants with this, though this is a beautiful atmospheric piece. The second person I saw use this was also a violin player, Kishi Bashi in 2015, and his set was so incredible I was convinced he’d discovered the future of music. Maybe I’m not far off.)

Also, Hung transitions effortless into the opening strains of “The Wood Song,” and that’s never a bad thing, another classic track from the chronically misunderappreciated “Swamp Ophelia.” Critics are on a deadline and they listen to a song a few times, maybe, amidst whatever else they have going on. They bang out some copy and move on. Thing is, this song is going to be 30 years old next year. Still a huge a hit with the Indigo Girls’ fans.

Also, once again, The Ryman … an amazing place to watch a show. Each time I upload one of those videos I find myself wanting to go back.

Let’s spin a few more CDs so that we can find ourselves (temporarily) caught up in the Re-Listening project. You know the drill by now, dear regular reader. I am playing all of my old CDs in my car, in the order in which I acquired them. Today we’re doing a double shot, because it is the same band on two consecutive discs. I must have had a few extra bucks in my hand at whatever point this was in 1999, because I probably did a little binge buying. This first one was a 1993 CD that I picked up to replace the old cassette version of Pearl Jam’s “Vs.”

This was their second studio album. Wikipedia tells me they scaled back the marketing, and yet still sold 950,000 copies in its first five days on sale, a record which apparently stood for five years. No idea who took that odd bit of trivia off their shoulders.

This album stood atop the Billboard 200 chart for five weeks and was certified seven-times platinum. So naturally, I needed the copy in a new format. Though they produced no videos (again, this was 1993), Pearl Jam had four singles chart from Vs. Three of them lodged themselves into the top three of the US Mainstream Rock chart, including this one.

(If you watch that with the closed captioning on YouTube tells you it begins with “pensive indie rock music.” That’s not where I give up, but perhaps it should have been.)

For some reason seven songs from this album have their own Wiki page, including “Rearviewmirror” which is a wholly underrated track. And it is great in the car, at any age, just so long as the wheels are turning reasonably fast.

Best song on the record, even if it’s a 20-minute pretentious put-up.

Which brings us to the “Yield” record, somehow. “Vs.” was second, “Yield” was fifth, and I got the ones in between later on, for whatever reason. That doesn’t make any sense, in retrospect, given how much I enjoyed Pearl Jam. But maybe I was starting to shuffle in another direction by this point. “Yield” came out in early 1998, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200. I picked it up somewhere in 1999. “Faithful” is OK, but things were changing to my ear.

Much was written and said about how the band changed their process when they produced this album, and how that helped form a more straightforward, accessible record. No longer the guys in flannel from Seattle, they were America’s rock band, by this point. I remember thinking this, though it is not accurate or at all fair to say, but they were as close a thing to The Doors as the ’90s would produce, and Roskilde was still a year or so away. So they’d mainstreamed the sound, which diluted the power a bit. All of the slower, quieter songs sounded like this for a time.

And the intensity that is Eddie Vedder’s hallmark felt a little askew on this record. Except for “MFC.”

I doubt I listened to this one enough way back when to give it a real chance, but I don’t think my impressions have really changed much. Platinum in five countries, and an undeniable hit, but this was the last of Pearl Jam’s studio records that I bought. (Not counting picking up a few earlier discs.) And so we’ll let Yield’s hidden track, “Hummus,” play us out.

That’s it for today.

Tomorrow: Big news.