carried away

I nearly forgot to blog tonight, so busy was I reading a book and searching online for a lamp replacement for our projection TV. OK, so I hadn't planned on reading a book. I really wanted to hunker down on this brutally cold evening with an afghan and a few cats to watch a movie or two. But the burnt out bulb in the TV ended that pipe dream (although I did still have afghan and cats while reading).

We ignored the "replace lamp" warning for a couple weeks. The picture started getting a little darker and a little less clear. When it exploded last night, we could ignore it no longer. Ted searched around town today, and was stunned to find out that this bulb, uh, I mean lamp assembly costs about the same as a Toshiba 26" flat panel LCD TV with a built-it DVD player. But a mere couple feet can't replace the 10' behemoth that we call television. So, I shopped around online, found a more reasonably priced lamp assembly, and it will arrive early next week. Until then, we go without. Or we finally get around to setting up the little TV in the bedroom. I vote for [A] because I really like having a television-free bedroom.

Time for bed. Need to see if I can get the blast furnace to actually shut off for a little while. It's so windy and cold that it's been running all evening. Gmail's got it wrong again, by the way. It may be clear, but at 11:30pm at night, it's just not sunny.

for art's sake

While I like to think myself moderately creative, I'm no artist. So when I find a fun way to pretend that I am, I go to town. Hence, the Jackson Pollock website. No fancy instructions. Not even any idea what to do. Just go there and start moving your mouse around. Hover in one area for a couple seconds. Click to change colors. Splatter away. What a blast!

So, again I've neglected my blog. I have good reasons (several of them), but am not going to reveal details at this point. For now, I'll just build a little suspense and say that there will be interesting posts in the near future, pertaining to what we've been doing, what we will be doing in the months ahead, and oh yeah, that meme post I keep promising to do.

~~~
Song: "Fever Dog" by Stillwater (a real song by a fake band; see "Almost Famous")
Reading: "What Should I Do With My Life" by Po Bronson
Other: Kurt Elling and Raul Midon -- two of my favorite musicians -- are playing a FREE concert this Saturday in New Haven, along with Terence Blanchard and Dee Dee Bridgewater, hosted by Spike Lee. How cool is that?

poles converging

The 80s were my "formative" years. I entered high school in 1980 and graduated from college in 1988. The vast majority of vinyl in my record collection was released during this decade. I had conservatively 843 hair styles during that time, though contrary to the faulty recollection of my family and friends, I never dyed it pink (well, not intentionally).

Although I had an appreciation for the punk aesthetic and its music, my claim was always that I was "new wave, not punk." This difference was most evident in the genre of music (British alternative pop), fashion accessorization (multiple piercings but only in the ears), and the rebellion factor (the closest I came was "Rebel Yell").

One of my favorite artists of the decade was a singer/songwriter/musician named Nik Kershaw. Catchy songs and clever lyrics -- a great combination. He enjoyed a little success in the States with the song "Wouldn't It Be Good," but was a massive success in England for much of the decade.

During the 80s, it was relatively easy for me to get his albums on vinyl. But toward the end of the decade when I started building my CD collection, it became much more difficult to procure their digital counterparts. I eventually found an independent record store in Yarmouth, Maine where a sympathetic owner (and fellow Kershaw fan) sought out the hard-to-find discs for me.

Like many artists, Nik slowed down after a period of high exposure, shifting his focus to writing hits for other artists (including Elton John!) and recording his own albums on a much more elongated schedule. I've managed to stay relatively on top of their releases and usually found a way to procure them since then.

Yesterday, I woke up from a dream where Gwen Stefani was performing a concert in my living room with Billy Idol and Nik Kershaw singing backup for her. (There was more to this dream, but isn't that enough detail?) I headed into the office with the distinct goal of filtering my iTunes library and listening to nothing but Nik Kershaw for the day.

I did just that, and spent a little time reading email and the New York Times while listening to gems like "Wide Boy" and "Billy" (how appropriate, given Mr. Idol's appearance in my dream). Then, at some point, I looked at iTunes and realized that the mini iTunes store at the bottom of the screen was suggesting I consider a couple other selections from Mr. Kershaw. One of them was an album I did not have! Released in 2006!

How did I miss this?!

Needless to say, I purchased it on the spot, and have been listening to it ever since. I am very pleased with it, and just have to forgive myself for letting five months pass before realizing it existed. (In my defense, I've had a lot going on in the last five months.)

Fast forward to last night. It was 11:00pm, Ted was asleep, and my second wind kicked in. I flipped channels looking for something interesting to watch on TV when I found the Henry Rollins Show on IFC. I watched it with interest, as I find Mr. Rollins eminently compelling. And while I was enjoying the conversation, it slowly occurred to me how much Henry Rollins now looks like Nik Kershaw. To wit:

Nik Kershaw 2007

Henry Rollins 2007

Now, to the uninformed, this might not seem such a big deal unless you have an appreciation for how very different they are from each other. Here are two additional comparisons to drive the point home. First, photos of each from long ago.

Nik Kershaw 1983

Henry Rollins 1983

Now, for musical differences. Take a few minutes to watch these videos.

Nik Kershaw 1984

Henry Rollins 1984

And there you have it. Today's "whoa, how did that happen" moment. Well, I guess it was actually yesterday's moment, and I'm just now getting around to blogging it. I feel compelled to once again observe how infrequently I'm blogging when, theoretically, I have more time to do it now than ever before.

I have also ditched writing about American Idol all together. This is partially due to my waning tolerance of it, and partially due to Ted's new Tuesday-Wednesday weekend which keeps us busy and even traveling. Oh well!

Now, I must review my "To Do" list, head to Costco, and get productive.

Song: "All About You" by Nik Kershaw (of course)
Book: "Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness" by Marc Ian Barasch
Other: Won $330.40, mostly playing roulette, but also at the nickel slots

unexpected absence

I thought I would have been blogging more, this first week of unemployment. But alas, I spent much of the first three days of this week fixing my internet access. First the cable modem died. Then the router. It was Wednesday afternoon before everything was functioning correctly again. And I just haven't bothered to write anything since then.

Until now, that is.

And what am I going to write? I don't really know. I am inclined to include today's "Poem-A-Day" from Poets.org (did you know that April is National Poetry Month?). I actually started writing a poem on the 1st, thinking I might try to write one every day. It's been a long time since I've written any poetry, and so the stasis has slowed my attempt. That, and a bunch of errands and chores that have commandeered the week.

Here's what I'll do for now. Include today's poem and dust off an old favorite. I'll find some sort of graphic to include in this entry. And then I'll call it a post for now. Maybe I'll work some more on my own poem during the day and come back later to share the results.

Poem-A-Day for April 6, 2007

Bent Orbit
by Elaine Equi

I wind my way across a black donut hole
and space that clunks.
Once I saw on a stage,
as if at the bottom of a mineshaft,
the precise footwork
of some mechanical ballet.
It was like looking into the brain
of a cuckoo clock and it carried
some part of me away forever.
No one knows when they first see a thing,
how long its after image will last.
Proust could stare at the symptom of a face
for years, while Frank O'Hara, like anyone with a job,
was always looking at his watch.
My favorite way of remembering is to forget.
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull's wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.

And now, to dig into the archives.

A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! -- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

I'm also changing up my typical post ending. In addition to the song currently playing, I will now include the book I'm reading, and maybe something else unique to my work-free life.

Song: "Faith" by Elmer Bernstein
Book: "Doing Nothing" by Tom Lutz
Other: Played "Promenade" and "Gnomus" from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on the piano

tricky

Ya' know, I want to be able to just jump quickly into my blog and put up a 15 minute update. But the blog gods are against me. I spent half an hour trying to figure out why it wouldn't upload my last two pictures (unsuccessfully). If I can't make the tools work for me, then I'm only going to be able to do this when I have big chunks of time to work on all the bits and pieces. And I can't be doing that in the middle of the night on a regular basis.

Here's a minor indication of the scatteredness in which my brain works. There are three half-read books and two poetry anthologies on my nightstand, and I don't even read in bed -- ever. But that's where the books land when I want to remind myself to finish them. Alas, that tactic does not work. I Don't Mean to be Rude But..., Gig, and Autobiography of a Fat Bride were all books I started reading on plane trips. A new poetry book is easy enough to leaf through, and an old one is a comfort. I do have a love-hate relationship with most poetry anthologies, though, so I can be easily frustrated by them.

But the real point is that I can't even finish a silly little book (to call them fluff would be a tremendous compliment).

I'm alone today with no Sunday commitment (rare), and my husband is working a full eight-hour Mothers' Day shift. The perfect opportunity to work on all the house-based projects I've neglected so badly in the past few months. But then I slept late (after the 3:00 am blog entry), and then I wasted some time watching overly sentimental movies (Something's Gotta' Give, Safe Passage). Now I'm trying to clean and organize and 'make home,' and I feel like a complete failure because everytime I pick up an object to determine its fate, I am faced with myriad contingent questions. Even though I know I can't possibly do everything today, I feel like a failure for not being able to do it all in one day. How did I let it get so out of control?

That question will have to be contemplated while I get back to my chores. Both the washer and dryer have stopped, and there's a pile of clothes that need sorting -- those in good shape to give away and those in bad shape to trash.