Boxing Day mixed bag

Dad drove (AWD Subarus get through anything) us down to Eugene to my brother's house yesterday. My street was the worst of it both coming and going. I-5 was pretty much clear. Berms of frozen-over slush between the lanes and in some places the outer lanes were part covered by ice. On the way home when we got to my street the frozen ruts were so aggressive that we went skittering all over the place. Managed to miss the parked cars. I stood in the road and watched Dad drive away to be sure he got back out okay too.

Today it is warming up - 37 at the airport - and supposed to rain. It's sun behind clouds right now. That's great coz I have to go out and take the bus (Miz Pea still has a pile of snow behind her - plus our street is still messy) to get more cat food and litter before there's a general strike here.

The radio controlled Tarantula I got my 7 nearly 8 year old nephew was a huge hit. They chased my niece's Mini Pinscher/Chihuahua puppy around with it. She didn't like it very much - hopefully she won't take a big bite out of it when nobody's looking.

Got to spend a little time holding my great-niece Isabelle while her mommy opened presents. She's a beautiful baby. No, I'm not biased, she really is. I found her a cute little outfit with a leopard print mini skirt, matching shirt and little leopard print plastic cat-eye shaped sunglasses. Those were a little big. I wish someone had snapped a picture when my sister in law plopped them on her little face.

I got cash from Dad (he doesn't like to shop) and a gift card to Borders from my brother (Hey! I thought we weren't doing gifts?) so if the weather holds, I'll head downtown on the bus as well. I wonder if they have the Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians box set I haven't picked up yet? I'll have to see how much of it is new to me material vs how much I already own coz it's spendy.

Beth posted the Mariah Carey version of this song today. I like the version from the film Love, Actually (Which I should watch today - I've got the dvd - they keep playing a sanitized version on Oxygen and Bravo and it's just not quite as funny without the naughty bits.) so here's that cute kid from the film.



Hope you all have the day off and are having a great extended Christmas holiday with your friends and relatives!

Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite Christmas Songs.





Come January 20, 2009 I am hopeful that our country will be henceforth in the business of ending war rather than making war.

The proper attitude to take in these situations...

Happy Solstice!!!

At last - the shortest day of the year and the longest night. From here on out, little by little, the days get longer! I am such modern day wuss. It's not like I've been living in total darkness, lit only by firelight or candlelight like the ancients endured. But still, we seem to be hardwired to welcome this day and the annual return of the light.  I know I do!  

21 F out there right now. I stepped outside in nightshirt and flipflops (only as far as the porch) to take some photos of the trees that are now frosted in white. So pretty!

The Japanese Snowbell Tree in front of my house.

A detail of the lights in the Japanese Maple.

One of the Hawthornes in the neighbor's tree belt.

They're still saying we'll get freezing rain on top of this, but if it holds off long enough I really want to go out and build a snow cat!

Okay - that was just practice snow

Now we've got the real thing! It's been snowing since last night and we've got about 4" here in the city. Much more up in the West Hills.

My little Japanese Maple decked out in Christmas lights.

The back yard.

The snow is still coming down!

It might even keep snowing until Christmas!  My Nephew in Law missed his flight from Atlanta this morning and is now stuck in Dallas.  Trying to get him onto a flight to Eugene (probably via San Francisco or L.A. - there's almost no flights direct to Eugene) instead of Portland so that he doesn't have to get there from here.  It's just rain in Eugene - 110 miles south.  

Snow!!!

We got our snow!!!

They're not the usual sploshy wet flakes we get here in Portland.  They were teeny little things when I woke up at 7ish, gradually getting bigger and accumulating a little more than a 'dusting' and less than an inch.  The tops of the grass still stick out.  Fairly easy to sweep off of the porch - which I did twice - too cold out there now.  26 degrees and still windy.  

I ran out to take pictures an our or so ago.  There was a robin sitting on the sidewalk.  Thought she was ill or too cold to fly so I went in to get a small towel to pick her up in but she flew away when I came back out.  I hope she's okay.  I didn't think to get birdfood when I was out grocery shopping yesterday in anticipation of the snow. I'm leery of putting out food anyways.  There's rodents and raccoons out there.  And squirrels.  They've totally destroyed my birdfeeder.  And don't robins eat bugs, anyway?  I suppose I could put suet out.  Squirrels won't eat that, will they?  

   Raccoons came through the yard early this morning.  Tried to get a picture of them.  They were so businesslike as they moseyed out of the across the street neighbor's fenced patio, down her drive, up across my front lawn to the chain link fence and over it to the neighbor behind.  I tapped on the glass to get one's attention and it just looked at me like "Whut?"  and I swear posed for the picture.  Too bad it came out totally blurred.  Maybe it was simply hoping I'd open the window and toss some food out.  

Waiting for Snow

Supposed to wake up to 1-3" of the white stuff tomorrow morning!   Was out in showery cold today to put lights on my bare Japanese maple.  Was going to do blue lights. Kelly said no, white.  So white they are.  All we need now is snow.

 

Stiggy Stocking Stuffers

Grrrrr...

The Top Gear UK site has great Stig key rings for a very modest GBP2.50 (actually only GBP2. if you buy three of them) but they won't ship to the United States.  Or they won't ship that item to the US.  A very nice customer service rep named Neil had just assured me that Marks & Spencer (who handle this part of the Top Gear merch ) will ship to the US.   So I set up my online Marks & Sparks account, picked out my merchandise - 2 key rings and Stig bubble bath! - and went to check out and pay and in big RED letters it said 'we're sorry but these items cannot be shipped to your country" or something similar.  

I e-mailed that to Neil and am waiting to hear what he says.

Meanwhile I am bidding on a toy car boat - James' Triumph Herald sailboat - on eBay UK, but that just went over GBP5.50 - US$13.75 before postage - and I'm sure there's somebody out there with an automatic bidding program bidding against me.  

Is this not cute? & of course it was James' which makes it the best by default.

Dang!  I just lost that auction - it went for GBP7.  There's another one up there - gotta go bid on it!  

Seemingly disparate things...

Lou Reed singing Sweet Jane.  Had this song stuck in my head for days last week.  This vid from NYC in 1998. 

One of my Mom's favorite songs when I was a kid was his Walk on the Wild Side.  Until she really heard the lyrics.   Until then she liked the part:  "...and the colored girls sing doo doo doo...".  

So while I'm stuck on childhood memories, over on Livejournal there's a poll of what character from a children's book would you be?  And Malcolm the kitten with the blue trumpet pops into my head.  Seriously.  I hadn't thought of that book for years. Probably hadn't thought of it since the last time I sat in the Ellis Parker Elementary School library reading it.  I even thought I might have dreamt it into reality because I couldn't find anything about it up on Wikipedia and precious little (after a HUGE search) on the web at all.  But I found a couple copies on eBay and bought a near mint copy of Malcolm Softpaws, copyright 1958 by Joe Bascom.  

 
This was the first "Malcolm" book!  This tells the story of how he got his blue trumpet.  The one I remembered was Malcolm's Job - where he played at Coney Island for the tourists.  There's a couple copies of that one floating around eBay and Amazon too, but they want $30.00 for them!  Yikes!  Revisiting childhood can be expensive.  

Hee! "Toot toot purr..."

When it came in the mail yesterday, I was surprised at how small the book is.  I swear it was a LOT bigger when I was 6!  I wonder if the author is the same Joe Bascom who is an artist known for crumpled paper bag paintings? Anybody know?  Who would you be if you could be any character from a book you liked as a kid?

On a more serious note, this week also marked the 45th anniversary of the day that President Kennedy was assassinated.  His funeral is the first thing that I really remember watching on t.v. That or perhaps Astro Boy cartoons in black and white.   

Some say that scent is the thing that will immediately transport one to places in the past.  For those of us born as late baby boomers or in subsequent generations media is going to turn out to be the mode of transportation back to our childhoods.

 

Cats & IKEA Frogs & Mice

Warning!  Cute overload pic coming up:

The Tabby Boys have taken to napping in my laundry basket.  I've got two things to say about that:  Thank heavens it's the dirty laundry and OMG we've got fleas!!!

So no more 'outside' privileges for Spencer & he got a dose of over the counter "Advantage" flea repellent.  Been combing out and drowning fleas found on Salvador.  He's 17 and 1/2 years old and much too old to be dosing with insecticides.  Gotta wash everything they've been on lately - cushion covers, throws, my bedding, their bedding.  Already washed all the laundry in the basket.

About to post these off to my new grand-niece.  Hell!  I knew I was a "great aunt" but I gave my little brother all kinds of sh*t for becoming a grandpa - now I find out I have a grand-niece.  I feel so old all of a sudden. 

Isabelle - born on October 6th. 

IKEA baby stuff!!!  I wish I'd bought more of the mice.  They're so cute!  & they were only a buck fifty each!   Could get a room-full of them for not very much money at all.

Here's Spencer trying to ignore three mice hanging out on his cushion.

NOT confiscated by Customs after all...

So I finally had to know and e-mailed James May's agent, a very nice lady named Fiona, who e-mailed back and said that yes indeed the Catnip Wrench (insert copywright symbol here) made it to England and has been handed off to Mr. May for his cat, Fusker.  

...I know he's incredibly busy and gets tons of fan mail he can't possibly answer, but I would be over the moon if I had a picture of him with Fusker and his wrench.

Birds, The Byrds, The Beatles & Hitchcock

Dang!  Spaced out the logo...

Okay so these aren't your usual 6 degrees sort of links.  They're a little oblique and undulating. The KatBox contribution, at Beth's invitation, to The Six Degrees of the GMMP 

Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians' 1991 Perspex Island, "Birds in Perspex" for the pretty Byrds-like guitar bits (I almost wanted to invoke "Turn, Turn, Turn" but it sounded stodgy and dated after all these years) played by Robyn himself with Andy Metcalf (an original Soft Boy) on acoustic - Peter Buck was (is?) an Egyptian, but he doesn't play on this track.

So, birds?  Pretty guitar bits?  Credited to Lennon & McCartney, "And Your Bird Can Sing", from Revolver, 1966 by the Fab Four was really John's songwriting credit alone and of course he sings the lead.  I love the interplay of George's and John's guitars - sweet little riff - more than you really wanted to know about it here.  I could have flipped these two songs -it's Robyn who sometimes channels Lennon, not the other way around - but I liked the way they sounded in the playlist with Robyn's first.

Cascading guitar runs and this time it IS Peter Buck.   R.E.M.'s "Pretty Persuasion" from 1984's Reckoning - right in the thick of their jangle pop period - love that chiming Rickenbacker and Bill Berry's driving, urgent beat - this sounds as if it could get away from them - but it doesn't quite and that just makes me love this song all the more.  Minor key changes, obscure lyrics, this is possibly my favorite single R.E.M. song (even if New Adventures in High Fi is still my favorite album). 

It's on 2004's In Rock, The Minus 5 covering "The Little Black Egg", The Nightcrawlers' mid 60's hit - I sure don't remember them, but then I was 6 in the mid 60's.   Links?  Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin - one official and two 'additional musician' members of R.E.M. who moonlight as The Venus 3 to back Robyn Hitchcock.  Musical links? Another great jangly guitar pop song, but this time it's Scott and former Model Rocket, current Tripwire lead singer John Ramberg playing the riffs.  I wish I had a pony for every time I've heard them sing this live.  Actually.  No. I don't.  But I still love this song.

More Lennon, but I was really thinking of Hunt Sales' drum intro and machine gun outro of Tin Machine's 1988 cover of his "Working Class Hero" on their eponymous first album.  The song as John Lennon sang it is quietly outraged, powerful.  This version gives it (bigger) balls and Bowie. 

More driving drums (Bill Rieflin this time) and a Beatle-esque Robyn sounding very Lennon (especially the line "...that'll do nicely, step this way sir, after you") "The Authority Box" from Ole Tarantula, 2006, Robyn Hitchcock and afore-mentioned Venus 3.  The song also contains one of the strangest/best lines in rock "F*ck me baby, I'm a trolleybus!" This is contemporary Hitchcock at its most wry and fun, but it wouldn't sound out of place on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

  

Barack Obama is the President Elect of The United States of America

YES WE CAN!

This is AWESOME!

& damn she's good! Doing better than Madonna did on this tune (but Antonio Banderas as Che was an inspired piece of casting IMHO) Actually.  That's not fair.  I really did like Madonna in Evita.

Work in Progress

...kilnformed glass can start out more like an exercise in collage.  Given the challenge of coming up with a 'demo' piece for my company's website featuring some new products, I first grabbed a bunch of random sized and colored circles of Uroboros System 96 thin transparent glass* and attached them to a square foot of 12-56-96 Black Streamer Bits on Clear (also Uroboros System 96 Fusible) in a pleasing pattern.  Note - the piece is upside down at this point.  I attached the clear 1.8mm thick circles to the 'bottom' of the Black/Clear because I want the depth of the clear on top.  I'll flip it to fire it.  Also.  I'm not. Done. Yet.

The entire 1 square foot piece.

A detail shot.

Hot glue works great for temporary attaching of elements to be fused.  It's sturdy enough to withstand some schlepping around of the piece - as long as you are reasonably careful.  I don't know if it's visible in the detail (it does enlarge if you click on it) but the glue is applied like sewn stitching of the circles onto the base glass.

In the next picture, I have 'flipped' the glass an am now working on the 'top' surface.  I have so far assembled (but not glued yet) "Noodles" and "Stringer" of glass in mostly clear as another layer of the piece.  I'm thinking of a textile-like final appearance.  So I'm not done yet.  These will be attached on one side only with the hot glue gun and then I'll see if I can 'weave' another layer at a 90 degree angle to the horizontal lines.  'cept I seem to have run out of clear Noodles...

The entire piece with first 'top' layer laid out.

& a detail of that.

Got a little gluing project ahead of me, but first I've gotta get outside to take care of the leaves in the yard before it starts raining again.  

*random sized circles don't just 'appear' of course - others are also working on demos and had cut some out & I cut some more too.  I'm all about the mini circle cutting tool!  

Not exactly like being there

But nice to be able to view/hear in real time!

R.E.M. at the Voodoo Festival, New Orleans, LA!  Streamed on teh internets...

Setlist

Living Well is the Best Revenge

Kenneth

Drive

Fall on Me

Man Sized Wreath

Ignoreland

Houston

Electrolite

Walk Unafraid

Don't Go Back to Rockville - with Peter and Scott sharing a mic on the chorus :)

West of the Fields

One I Love - Michael out in the crowd

She Just Wants to Be

Let Me In

Horse to Water

Bad Day

Orange Crush

It's the End of the World...

Encore

Supernatural

Losing My Religion

Driver 8

Seven Chinese Brothers

Man on the Moon

Kinda missed that they didn't do the big end of show bow with Scott and Bill included - what's up with (not doing) that?

The Power of the Set List

From Friday's Minus 5 show at the Mission Theater in Portland, Oregon.  Hee!  I've never gotten one with chord changes on it before...wonder whose this was?   I didn't actually grab it off the stage myself.  Had it handed to me.  

Was a fun show!  I missed Weinland's opener - thought the deal was doors at 8 but it really was show at 8.  I made it just about 9 just before the Minus 5 went on.   Minus 5 lineup was:  Scott McCaughey, Peter Buck on bass (the lovely Blue Rickenbacker this time out), John Ramberg on guitar and Ezra Holbrook on drums.  Additional vocal support by Little Sue, The Shee Bee Gees and Jane McDonald (on sleighbells as well...)  

Hee!  Scott wrote the setlist on the back of the flyer for the Backyard Bird Shop!  

The Power of the Ballot

I've just cast my vote for Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. 

 

   Oregon is a vote by mail state - the first in the nation to be exclusively by mail - and my ballot arrived Saturday afternoon.  I should have it back in the mail to Multnomah County Elections by Monday. Tuesday latest.  Once I wade through all of the ballot measures and local candidates and measures...

Done!  Mailed it out Monday!

Now That's a Hairball

Damn cold.  It's been a full week and a day now.  Missed two days of work - not consecutive days - had a relapse after trying to be well.  

Spencer's giving me the funniest sympathetic looks as I hack and choke and come up with only nasty green mucus.  I think he's expecting the Biggest.  Hairball.  Evah.

Chinese Garden in the Rain

Today was a 'free' day at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden 

It's a complete world in a square city block.  Only if you look up does the rest of the city exist.

The Steel Bridge over an office building (whose? ... I never go down third on that block.  The gas company is on the next block over) across the street.

The US Bancorp Tower (a.k.a. "Big Pink") strangely small in proportion to the Moon-Locking Pavilion (so called because it is situated to catch the reflection of the full moon in the pond).   I worked on the 19th floor of that tower for 8 years...

But the magic of the place is found in the details and private spaces the walls enclose.

Decorative tiles on the eaves of the roofs with vines entangled in them.

The geometry of the roof tiles.

A potted pomegranate tree in a pebble tiled courtyard.

A long needled pine tree glistening with raindrop jewels.

At least half of the space is water.  Waterlily leaves and pods.

Pink waterlilies...

and white

trailing through the water in a graceful "S" curve

up to the sculptural rocks and the teahouse steps.

It's been a whole week now

...without Paul Newman in the world.  Damn.  Another of the Really Good Guys gone.  Even a week after his passing it seems everyone has a special Paul Newman moment or story to share - for the good of all of us.    Frank Deford on Morning Edition the other day had me in tears with his tribute.   Gwen Ifill replayed a spot he'd done in support of Washington Week at the end of Friday's show.  There's no separate vid of that, but there's a podcast of the entire show at their site.  

A good friend of mine went to school with one of his daughters - Stephanie, I think, given my friend's age - and knew the family a little.  She had a funny story about nearly running him down on a cross country ski run. By accident, of course.   She said Joanne Woodward was amazing and really nice.  I think I'd just take that for granted.

I never met the man myself, despite the fact of his having spent quite a lot of time in Portland out at PIR (Portland International Raceway) over the years.  You'd hear stories around town about him popping up in random Portland locations when he was here with the races.  And what a nice guy he was.   

I suppose the first film I noticed him in must have been The Sting.  I was 13 when that came out.  I remember asking my mom to buy us some Coors beer (Newman's drink at that time) which she did.  I didn't like it.  I think I rinsed my hair with it - one of those '70's beauty myths. (& it's not that my mom encouraged underage drinking.  We grew up with a healthy attitude towards alcohol because it wasn't a mystery and wasn't banned completely.)  

The best thing?  That was when I found out that I shared a birthday with Paul Newman.  Yeah, he was already 35 when I was born, but every year since 13 I've wished him a Happy Birthday on our special day.  Not in writing.  Just a wish sent out.  

Next January 26th is going to be a bit lonely.

Accidentally Coolly Cropped Cat Eye

Guitar Karma is Real

The inherent goodness of the human spirit prevails!  Peter got his Rick back!!!

Actually, he got it back a couple days ago while I was looking the other way.  Probably at Captain Slow...

Now, to the person who is hanging onto Robyn's pretty blue Telecaster - wouldn't you like to clean up your karma?  

It Was Like Being in a Snow Globe

...except the 'snow' was black and was really thousands of very fast little birds.

I've been meaning to go check out the Vaux's Swifts roosting at Chapman Elementary School for years now and finally got over there Saturday night to see it for myself.  According to the school's website, "The world's largest population of Vaux's Swifts makes its home in the Chapman chimney every year in late August and early September."

This is the chimney that they all fly into at dusk.  It's no longer actually functioning as a chimney - the school was converted to gas using a different chimney - they left this one up for the birds to use.

The crowd early on.  By the time the birds turned in for the night, the entire hillside and much of the soccer field were full of swift watchers of all ages and kids sliding down the hill on cardboard.  The air was full of (no, not bird shit - though I imagine there must have been some) the aroma of pepperoni pizza which seemed to be a popular picnic item.

Lots of folks there with tripods and very professional looking cameras with very big lenses.  Shooting from the top of the hill with my trusty Nikon Coolpix 4600 all I got were blurry snow globe images.   There seemed to be fewer birds than I'd expected and they rather took their time heading in that night.  There wasn't a sudden swoop of all the birds at once down the chimney.  They sort of did it in stages.  There was a moment of drama when one of the peregrine falcons swooped in - I think he/she might have gotten a swift.  The falcon didn't make a second pass, but headed off towards the river.

There is a documentary film, On The Wing, coming out soon.  It might be too late already to get tix for the premiere, but I'll have to go see it.  Here's the trailer

Okay. Go ahead and mock me.

But I went to a great show Sunday night.  'Twas Al Stewart - he of The Year of the Cat fame - sans the Alan Parsons arrangements, saxophones and with only two guitars and intermittent electric keyboard.  

Couldn't interest any of my circle of friends to come along for the fun - oh well, their loss.   Nearly sold out show, but very few folks younger than me in attendance (and lots a bit older).

He's one of those guys that keeps turning out good music even though his glory days of the late 70s are past.  Kind of flying under the radar far as I was concerned though Year of the Cat and On the Border are probably two of my all time favorite songs.  Love the poetry, imagery of YotC.  He did both - OtB was the better of the two - with the Hobbit-y looking guitarist in the vid below (Dave Nachmanoff).

I don't think Al was ever a real 'looker' maybe to some, back in the day.  He looks a bit like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit now...

Maybe a little more hair.  His voice is still as beautiful as ever- hasn't lost much of the airy, nonchalant but lilting quality he had/has.  He sounded really good.   

     

He's got a new album out and did a few from it - was a huge line to get said cd signed - I didn't stick around.  I'll have to go get the cd though.  Perhaps.

His opening act was a young woman named Gabby Young with Stephen Ellis who was simply amazing - and very right for Portland.  What with our local acts like Pink Martini and Three Leg Torso and penchant for other "not rock, not pop, not jazz - not quite easy to categorize" acts - though Gabby's not really like either of these two bands  I'd go see her if she came back around without Al.

Lower Than a Snake's Belly

It's all over the internets, true, but I'm gonna write about it too - it's that despicable.  Someone has stolen Peter Buck's iconic Rickenbacker 360 Jetglo.  Yes.  The one with the Trucker Girl sticker on it.  The one he's had for 26 years and that has been played on every album since Chronic Town and taken around the world many, many times.  

The guitar you heard the first time you heard the R.E.M. song that made you a fan.

The one that's got Peter's DNA permanently embedded in it.

Here's Peter playing it in May in Vancouver BC - the first night of the Accelerate Tour.

And again in March 2006 at the Crocodile with Robyn Hitchcock.  The insane thing?  That pretty blue Telecaster of Robyn's - also an iconic guitar - certainly the one I most often have seen him with, was stolen last November in Toronto and not yet returned so far as I know...

What?  Do you think you can be Robyn or Peter if only you've got their axe?

Is it for the money?  

Why steal something that can never see the light of day and cannot give the world its gift of the voice of the musician whose soul is bound up in it?

 

Here's Robyn playing Peter's Rick - April 2007 again at the Crocodile.  He'd only busted a string on the Telecaster and Peter handed him his to finish the gig.  Both guitars went home with their owners that night.  

Please let them somehow find their way back again.