Posted in pick up and read, the wife on April 3, 2009| 3 Comments »
Surprise!
I liked this moment in Jonathan Carroll’s The Wooden Sea:
What is more gratifying than to lie next to your partner in your own bed mornings, thoughts just beginning to take shape, sharp-edged early light coming through the window and warming a patch of floor where your shoes are mixed with hers from the night before? What is more fulfilling than waking to your own satisfying life with someone treasured next to you? What more could we ask for and not be ashamed?
Posted in idiot box, review, the wife on April 8, 2008| 1 Comment »
The wife and I are big Kristen Wiig fans. We got to see her with the Groundlings the summer before she started with SNL. She did a Target cashier character in her first season that gave me hope for post-Fey SNL. She commits to these nutcase personalities in a way that reminds of John Belushi, Molly Shannon or Gilda Radner, and has this amazing attention to the little quirky details that really sells it. So hilarious.
Posted in all and sundry, in which I totally geek out and alienate my readers, review, the wife, truth that goes crunch, up over my head, Waterdeep on January 15, 2008| 8 Comments »
Before I begin, let me just say, you won’t earn my love by reading the whole thing. It’s just nice to know you.
I’ve been so busy putting together a list of the Greatest Recordings Known to Humankind, 2007, that I didn’t have time to get around to this list of Albums I Really Liked This Year. I’ll let you know if I ever finish the other, but here are my top 10 albums released this year, ranked according to my taste in music from best (10) to most best ever (1). I’ll warn you in advance: it’s leans to the sweet
side this year.
Click on “Launch Standalone Player” below to hear samples (minus my #1 pick and 1/2 of my #8). Your browser may resize, but don’t panic, and things will work out for you.
10) Over the Rhine, The Trumpet Child: I had been away from Over the Rhine for a while, but this album drew me in close. I also picked up their Live from Nowhere album this year, and enjoyed that as I anticipated The Trumpet Child. The opener grabbed me immediately, and they kept my attention with a fluid consistency throughout. Played like a covers album, in a way, including an overt nod to Tom Waits and some moments of true Patsy Cline and Lady Day.
9) Deerhoof, Friend Opportunity: It was a great year for punchy, spasmodic alt-pop, with fantastic albums from Modest Mouse and Shapes and Sizes also getting lots of spin. But Deerhoof had this sort of whimsical fairy vibe underneath that made them least likely of the three to flail into me.
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Posted in all and sundry, civilization schmivilization, found it on the internets, me me me me me, the wife on May 24, 2007| 4 Comments »
I’ve been a Pajiba reader off and on, and enjoy the unusually smart and fair-handed “Jesus, etc.” column editor Dan Carlson provides, on and off. Oh, and it’s also often hilariously on the mark. A few weeks ago, I added my name to a little group of same-church-traditioned bloggers, and, checking some of the other links, lo and behold, there’s Carlson. Shor’n’begorrah.
In grad school, I knew a musician who played the coffee shop where I worked, and if you asked him for an original, he’d say there’s no need – plenty of better songs already out there. I feel that way about a lot of coffee shop music, too, but my point is that I realize there are plenty of actually good blogs out in the great wide world web, so why clutter the downtime of three obliged family members and friends with another bookmark?
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Posted in civilization schmivilization, Mr. Rogers, the wife, the young'un, theosmattery on January 15, 2007| 1 Comment »
My wife showed me a clip of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” she’d watched with the young’un about what people call their grandparents. First, he played a recording on a tape recorder (which is not magic, and Mister Rogers did not go into and talk out of, but somebody invented) of grandparents telling what their grandchildren call them. The tape played, “Our grandchildren call me Pap Pap, and their grandmother Grandma,” and Mister Rogers gently smiled at us and said, “Pap Pap and Grandma.” Then we heard, and he repeated, several others.
He continued, “Have you ever asked your friends what they call their grandparents? It’s fun to hear all the different names children have for grandparents. I called my dad’s mother and father Grandmother Rogers and Granddad Rogers.” Then, with his same sweet and steady sincerity, “And I called my mother’s mother and father Nana and Ding Dong.”
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36 Cents for Your Entire Brain 