2024 / Aug 26 - Sep 1

Things I Have Enjoyed This Week

Indoor Condoor on Making Stuff

I was reading this thing my good buddy wrote about Olivia Tremor Control, one of my all time favorite bands. He was talking about them recording their albums themselves at home, the importance of DIY. And he said this great thing:

“You can do it yourself; no one has to give you permission. And if you’re not asking permission, nothing is off limits, and you can do the thing the way it needs to be done. And in that way, doing it yourself increases the magic of the thing. It’s more magical because it’s more the thing it needs to be, uncompromised.”

I think that’s soooo right on. I’ve been working lately on trying to get a new album across the finish line. It’s a lot of tracks that I’ve had like 90% done for years, but that last 10% is always the hardest and tedious-est. These words have been critical in the process. Make something. Make some magic happen. Share it with someone.

Creek/Fish

It’s very pleasant to walk along a creek up in the mountains. This is known. But sometimes I forget that way up at high altitudes there are little trout swimming around in these things. I stopped to stare at one of these whirling watery wonder-holes and saw a cutthroat (?) dash across a pool and thought, I guess to the creek, “Dude! You’ve got fish in you!”

Zion National Park Instagram

I don’t know what’s going on with this account, but I love it. Did someone hand over the keys and say “go nuts,” or are they in the act of getting away with something? Either way, these glorious goobers are having the time and it’s a real hoot. But if it’s music you want from your national park social media accounts, I recommend checking out jewelcavenps for their rendition of Long, Long Crawlway (love a song about caves written by a professional cave-ist). Extra points to the people holding the lantern and operating the bat puppet. Cuz, you know, caves.

High Fidelity and Internet Nerds

To paraphrase a quote from the movie…Only certain people are of the disposition that they should make a playlist of every song played and mentioned in the movie High Fidelity. *I* was of that disposition. It’s true. The movie came out when I was in college and was immediately a favorite. I even got to go to a test screening before it was released. Then I bought the DVD and made a list of every song played in the movie plus every song they mention when they’re doing their top 5 lists. At the time, making a playlist meant digging through Napster and then only being able to listen to the whole thing in fucking WinAmp™️ because it was too big to burn to a CD.

The other day we were skipping around and watching our favorite parts of the movie. I remembered the above, so I googled “playlist every song mentioned in High Fidelity” and found one that is everything from and mentioned in the movie PLUS every song mentioned in the book. 124 songs. Thanks, internet nerds! (Although, not to nitpick, but, uh…you missed a few.)

Poetic Justice

This stuff is hilarious, right? I was catching up on Doughboys from the last little while and one of their intros mentioned the time George W. Bush choked on a pretzel and passed out. I was laughing about this and thinking WHAT AN IDIOT. And then the next day I nearly choked to death on a forkfulla rice. So…now who’s the idiot.

“Poplars repeat the wind’s gossip.” ~ Richard Powers, The Overstory

New Bonny Light Horseman Record

I’ve been hooked on this song Rock the Cradle. At first I just loved the music and the harmonies and was listening to it VERY MUCH IN SPITE OF the lyrics. They’re kinda like I wake up, make the coffee, cook the eggs, do the laundry, etc. Not into those kind of lyrics. Just not my thing. But I kept listening to it and humming the chorus to myself because of the nice meoldy. Then I started to like the lyrics. I think the intention of the song is sorta to say that taking care of someone doesn’t mean a giant task of TAKING CARE OF THEM in some grand and indefinable way. But rather that you do a never ending amount of day-to-day, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-type-shit on their behalf, for their good, not yours. Because of…well…love. It’s a very nice thought.

BUT. Wait—No! …AND! I got extra delight out of this because it made me think of the Simpsons episode where Smithers goes on vacation and Homer takes his place (Homer the Smithers - S7, Ep 17). And before leaving, Smithers says to Homer “I know taking care of Mr Burns seems like a big job but it’s actually just twenty-eight-hundred small jobs.” Ha!

Rock the Cradle on Apple Music • Rock the Cradle on Spotify

But I also recommend The Roving (Apple Music • Spotify)

This Wendell Berry Poem That Occurs to Me Pretty Regularly

“When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

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Friends Being Supportive of This Here List/Blog Thingy

Thanks, folks.

What did you enjoy this week? I’d love to know. Leave it in the comments - thanks!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK! ✌️❤️🤘

Your pal,

Robert