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Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
Alas! It looks like Sylvia and I are not going to make it in to the city to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams before the end of next week, when its run will be ending. I am hoping against hope that it gets a broader distribution, either now or at Oscars time -- how could something like this not get nominated? If not, well, I guess we'll watch it at home, without 3D... Julian Bell's review in the current NY Review of Books makes it sound unmissable.
posted evening of May 4th, 2011: Respond
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Tuesday, May third, 2011
The Cars have a new record out, Move Like This; and it is just marvelous. You can (for the time being) stream it free from their facebook page.  Update: Seriously -- what a great record!
posted evening of May third, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, May first, 2011
Read what inspires passion in you; this is the only thing that will help you bear existence.-- Ernesto Sabato
Before the End
 Ernesto Sabato died yesterday in Buenos Aires, 99 years old. He lived a truly remarkable life and left behind three novels reputedly in the top echelon of 20th-Century literature, El túnel, Sobre héroes y tumbas, and Abbadón el exterminador -- I have not yet read them, I am going to make a top priority of correcting this lack.Sabato also leaves an important legacy in his directorship of CONADEP, the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared, committed to documenting the abuses of the junta.
posted morning of May first, 2011: 3 responses
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Saturday, April 30th, 2011
This is my grandfather's violin, which I've been playing (with significant interruptions) since I was 12 years old or thereabouts. Today I gave it away, to my daughter. A couple of thoughts --
- Wow, Sylvia is playing a full-size violin now! It seems like the transition from ¼-size did not take a very long time.
- I have really switched over pretty completely to the Stroh fiddle in the year or so I've had it. It feels like my native instrument now. I was playing this violin with Bob and Janis earlier today and noticing it felt a little foreign, the sound was not the Stroh sound which I have acclimated to.
I took the pickup off; if you're looking for a cheap Barcus Berry transducer to mount on your violin, give me a holler. It is nothing fancy but it served me well. Of the two stickers on the case, Sylvia will be keeping "Katze und Mädchen, ein komisches Paar" and getting rid of "Future Corpses of America" -- probably a wise decision. Need to get a better bow for Sylvia as I cannibalized the good bow for my Stroh fiddle.Sylvia was going through the stuff in the outer pocket of the case and found sheet music for "Old Joe's Hittin' the Jug", which I had forgotten I had, and the dvd of Elixirs and Remedies. (Which, nice, I'm watching now.)
posted evening of April 30th, 2011: 2 responses
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 So tomorrow is May Day, International Workers' Day; it is also the anniversary day of St. Walpurga's canonization, making this evening Walpurgisnight. Hope the occasion finds you dancing naked and setting fires.
(I did not know this: St. Walpurga lived in the Ⅷ C. ad and was an English missionary for the Roman church in central Europe, evangelizing to the pagans of the Frankish empire. She is credited as being the first female author in England and in Germany.)
posted morning of April 30th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, April 24th, 2011
 While we were in China, 20th Century Fox's Rio had its premiere worldwide. By happy coincidence, Michael's House, where we were staying in Beijing, is right around the corner from the China Film Art Research Center and its attached first-run theater; so Sylvia and I got to watch Rio dubbed into Chinese. (To be specific, dialog was dubbed into Chinese; song lyrics were left in English and subtitled.)
It was, well, a really good movie to watch in a language you don't understand. The plot and characterizations were broad enough, the motivations and emotions corny enough, that we had no trouble following the story by just watching the zany, pretty charming animation -- and I'm pretty sure I would just have found the dialog and the non-visual jokes annoying, that they would have hampered my enjoyment of the movie.* And watching it in a language you don't understand is way better than watching it with the sound turned off -- the clues you get from gibberish dialog about who is speaking and what their mood is, and the clues you get from the soundtrack about the direction of the movie, are important. (I wondered, and have no idea, whether the Brazilian characters were speaking Chinese with a stereotypical Portuguese accent.)
 * (Sylvia enjoyed the movie in Chinese but wants to see it again in English. She will probably get more out of the jokes than I would.)
posted evening of April 24th, 2011: Respond
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A story idea (or, well, a character idea -- nothing happening in the story, yet) that developed in China as I interacted with vendors at the Shanghai textile market. I was not really there to buy anything, just keeping Ellen and Sylvia company in their hunt for silk... So the idea is, there's this character, a sexually/interpersonally-frustrated American businessman who spends time in China working for his company. Not really sure of the details of this, possibly I would model him on a British expatriate we met in Suzhou who had lived there for several years doing marketing for a British telecommunications firm. I think the character's name is Morris Babel, just because I was reading 100 Years of Solitude recently and thinking what a great character name that would be, and it seems to work for this character. Babel's business does not involve textiles but he develops the kink of hanging around the fabric and clothing markets having people sell to him -- the salespeople, who are generally attractive young women, make eye contact, greet him, ask him to look at their wares, and if he pauses to take a look, aggressively market the merchandise, pulling him in and connecting with him, or creating the appearance of a connection. Babel finds this addictive and returns daily to the markets, buying clothing and fabric and trinkets he does not have any use for in exchange for this experience of feeling wanted. It seemed to me at the market like this form of direct personal marketing was the primitive form of the advertising industry I have been exposed to all my life in America, probably (almost certainly) more effective on a per-exposure basis than mass media advertising but of course much less efficient in terms of money, since labor is involved in each exposure.
posted morning of April 24th, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
 Rest in peace, Hazel Dickens. Ms. Dickens passed away yesterday, 75 years old. She has a thick catalog of songs; I will remember her especially for "Dark as a Dungeon".
posted evening of April 23rd, 2011: Respond
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Friday, April 22nd, 2011
ä½ å¥½! We spent the past two weeks in China. Some scattered notes about being there, below the fold; and click on the picture of us at the Confucian temple in Shanghai for a photo album.
↷read the rest...
posted evening of April 22nd, 2011: 1 response
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Saturday, April second, 2011
Well out of a year and a bit of jamming together, John and I have put together something worth listening to (IMO obviously). You can download our demo tape from box.net if you'd like to check it out. (Click the "Download Folder" button to get the tape as one big .zip file.) Streaming here:
Track list
- "Highway 61 Revisited" by Bob Dylan (with a bit of fooling around with the lyrics from yours truly)
- "NJ Transit" by Jeremy
- "Dancing Barefoot" by Patti Smith
- "Revelator" by Gillian Welch
- "Shady Grove," traditional
- "California Stars" by Woody Guthrie and Wilco
- "St. James Infirmary," traditional
Mountain Station is John Hicks on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Osner on Stroh fiddle and vocals. Follow us on Facebook to see new songs when we record them, and works in progress...
 Update -- I am thinking with this post I'll be taking a brief hiatus, a couple of weeks. Thanks for reading, those of you who stop by regularly -- I'll be back, just want a little time off. Please help us find our audience! If you are reading this post and you like the music, I would greatly appreciate links back, from your blog or your rss reader or Facebook, whatever. Help get the word out...
posted evening of April second, 2011: 4 responses
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