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.
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.
This morning we took The Yankee’s car to a mechanic. It was a planned event. She needed an oil change and, I suspected, a radiator flush. She searched around, found a place that got great reviews, and made an appointment so, literally, a planned event.
I followed her over, we met the guy, sitting three rooms deep into his shop. Large fellow, sleeveless shirt, bandana on his head. Hunting paraphernalia on his desk. There were fishing rods in the corner, a Dale Earnhardt flag hanging on the wall. I felt like I understood him right away.
We left the car, which he said would be ready this afternoon. We headed back, stopping off at the grocery store for a few lunch supplies. The afternoon passed easily enough. I believe I was finishing up a bit of reading and writing on LinkedIn when she said the mechanic called and her car was ready. So we went back over, the first half of the short trip entirely by memory. And the car was ready! Windows rolled down. Key in the ignition. Inside, she paid the fellow. Cash. He made change, from his pocket. He said the radiator flush was the right call. Said he tested it. So we established I knew what I was talking about, that he’d work on both of our cars, his prices are fair and, possibly, he doesn’t hold up progress by slow-walking maintenance work.
If that’d been it, that would have been a day’s worth, right there.
At the house, she said, there was something she wanted to show me. Turns out, we’ve got a peach tree.
Five varieties of peaches grow here. Now we have to become peach experts.
There are also some tomato plants out back. Do you know who is a tomato expert?
And there’s a corner of Lactuca sativa. Funny, you just don’t think of growing your own lettuce.
This is something called clammy goosefoot, an herb from Australia. I don’t know what you’d use it for, and I have yet to find a site that screams “You simply MUST put this on your pasta.” So probably I won’t.
But we also found some chives …
Nearby was the oregano.
And, of course, the sage.
We’re going to have to determine the schedules for all of these plants now. And, if that had been it, that would have been a day’s worth. But no.
For, you see, we went to join this running club. But, for the second week in a row, they no showed. They are, in fact, running away from us.
Which is fine, because I need someone to chase I wasn’t going to run this evening anyway. It usually works like this. I think Rest day? Schmest day! And then, the next day, I realize the error in that thought, and the wisdom in a rest day. So today, I did not run, or anything else, because I had eight days of workouts (be they ever so humble) in a row, and 11 days in the last 12.
Tomorrow I’ll … exercise … or something.
Instead of running, we got milkshakes. Dinner. We got dinner. And also milkshakes. We carried that back to the house and watched today’s stage of the Tour de France. And here’s the thing about the Tour … it’s 21 days of racing and this is the 110th edition and that means there’s a lot of history and trivia and wonderful anecdotes and a lot of it, until recently, wasn’t kept with baseball statistic precision. We did know, coming into this stage, that this was the third-narrowest time differential (10 seconds) between first and second place riders after 15 completed stages. We knew that because the TV producers made a fine graphic telling us about it.
Also, you know, it’s a bike race. Real roads, differing technologies and external circumstances and terrain and routes and all of that. It’s hard to compare the apples and pears of the time differential in this year’s race with the leading comparable statistic, which was four seconds between Jos Hoevenaers and Federico Bahamontes in 1959.
Bahamontes wound up winning, Hoevenaers finshed eighth, down 11-plus minutes. But everything about the style of the race was different then.
It also seems difficult to compare the tight affairs of this year’s Tour with the legendary 1989 race, which was a 50-second race on the last day, ultimately won by Greg Lemond by eight seconds. Someone put together the Lemond and Laurent Fignon time trial side-by-side.
Evolving cycling technology is coming into play here. Lemond, on the left, has aero bars and a new teardrop-shaped aerodynamic helmet. He only used the disc wheel on the back. Fignon ran two disc wheels, which leaves you more susceptible to crosswinds. Also, Fignon road a conventional style. It got so silly after the fact that people also speculated that, had he cut his hair, Fignon would have avoided eight seconds of air drag.
I’ve heard Lemond say, more than once now, that he was told Laurent Fignon was haunted by that race for the rest of his life. That he walked around counting eight seconds. Fignon, in his autobiography, wrote “You never stop grieving over an event like that.”
Anyway, that was the closest finish in history, but after 15 stages, the difference between them in first and second was 40 seconds.
It’d be a bit easier to compare the technology of today to the second closest, the 2008 edition, where Frank Schleck, of Luxembourg, was leading Australian Cadel Evans by eight whole seconds after 15 stages. (Also, bikeraceinfo.com reminds me that Austrian Bernhard Kohl was in between them, down only seven seconds to Schleck. Kohl later confessed to doping, so he disappears from the official records.) Eight seconds! Neither of those guys won the Tour.
At least that looks familiar. Modern. It’s only 15 years ago, and those riders have all retired, but the names are familiar. Indeed, I remember that particular tour. The technology and nutrition have jumped significantly ahead in the generations hence. Even the way they race, in terms of strategy and tactics, has been evolving since then. It’s the same, but different, remember.
But this year’s tour will be difficult to forget. Today …
Time trials aren’t usually very interesting to me, but I’d love to know how this ranks historically. The guy in second place, two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogacar, started the day down 10 seconds, and he had an incredible ride. The only problem was the guy behind him, his rival, the defending champion and current leader, Jonas Vingegaard, had an incredibler ride. A gobsmacking ride. Watching the time gaps grow at the checks was something that strained credulity. You could tell he was riding hard, working for it, riding well. It was in the body language right away. But that stage was a deconstruction. This is a place I actually want more statistics. Has a time trial ever done such a thing to an evenly matched opponent? SBS offered a slightly more technical comparative look of the two rivals.
What started the day as a tense, 10-second race finished a mind-boggling one minute and 48 second race between the two best road racers in the world. This will be hard to forget. And there are more mountains to come.
If that’d been it, that would have been a day’s worth, but no.
Because I also updated and upgraded a deadbolt. I only messed up two parts, and it only took several more minutes than the directions promised. But, it is installed. It is square. It matches the door knob. And, importantly, it is functional.
Each entry and exit through that door will now be reported to the ninja barracks out back, via a military grade wifi network, so that they can monitor and approve of all of the comings and goings.
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.
I’m putting this up front because I want to. Because it is great. Because you should listen to it.
Mark Knopfler wrote this song. “Romeo and Juliet” is a big part of the Dire Straits catalog. It’s a classic song, and that means it has been covered a lot. But this is Amy Ray’s song now. Her intensity with this puts it in a class by itself. I’ve heard the studio recording, of course, and a few live recordings, but I’ve never been seen her do this song in person. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll moment, no doubt about it.
Goosebumps.
They’re playing a few hours from here in a few more months. Maybe we should go see them again. We should go see them again.
Today we made a recycling run. Always a little smelly, but also satisfying. We stopped at the local hardware store, at place that still holds the name from way back when ice and coal were the big sellers. On the sign out front they were advertising a now oddly popular horse wormer medicine. We met the owner, Doug, and his son, who looked like a young, bearded version of Gregory Sporleder, their high school employee, who’s name I did not catch, and two cats almost as big as any of the humans in the store.
They had one of the three things we went in for. We’ll get the other two online, I’m sure.
This afternoon I took a nap, dozing off while reading a Belgian poet’s journal. My second nap in two weeks, this summer is going great, thanks for asking!
And then we went for a run. Mine was twice as long, but not as good as my Tuesday run, which was my first run in seven months … maybe because I didn’t have take off seven months. I should really look into that. The Yankee had a nice run, though.
It was 84 and felt like 90 degrees and, well, it felt like it. Good timing on our part for that run.
The sunset, off the front porch, was lovely as well.
And now, at the time of night when Saturday seems long enough to mean everything seems possible, I say to you, happy weekend!
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.
