...
Whooooo, New Year's Eve. Oh man. Happy New Year, y'all.
December 31, 2006
Backlogged
So I just got home from the Everglades where I've been the past few days. Got updates galore for y'all when I get a chance to shower, celebrate the new year, and maybe get a few hours' worth of sleep.
December 28, 2006
Dusk
It's funny how no matter where I go or what I do nothing feels as much like home as dusk on a cool, clear night in Florida out in some broad pasture with the frogs and the crickets and the orange blossoms and palmettos.
Dad and I went out tonight to visit Fred and Mr. Steward. Fred is a longtime friend of my dad's and he loves to tell stories and his family homesteaded in Arcadia generations ago. He's a tinker and an inventor and he has cars and tractors and farm implements and rusting antiques strewn across his property. His two lady German Shepherds follow him everywhere and they love to have oranges thrown for fetching. He lets me come out and take pictures whenever I want and I don't go out there enough. But we went out tonight and he and dad had Budweisers and I climbed over the barbed wire and took pictures while they visited. He showed me a big steel rake he welded for his front-end loader and his generator and some salvaged steel supports from the old Arcadia water tower, rivets the size of lemons, that will soon become a small steel bridge to cross a stream. He's been working on clearing a piece of land out on Kings Highway and he says there's an old homestead site on it where he's been finding glass bottles. I want to go out and dig some up.
Then we went across the street to Mr. Steward's because Dad's gonna be his tax man starting this year and he also happens to have a nice big organic garden - it's his hobby and his retirement plan and so we went out to see it and he came outta the house with his Wranglers and his big mustache and Cane the dog and he flipped out his knife and started harvesting lettuce and broccoli and potatoes for us to take home. Hurricane Charley took the roof off his house but they put a new one back on, him and some carpenter friends, and he's slowly rebuilding the entire thing. We stood out on the porch watching the sunset and drinking more Budweisers and he talked about his plans to get out of the citrus business and expand the garden and try some new techniques and start a CSA, and his seaweed fertilizers and his horse supplements and the cypress trees he's putting in out back and the wetlands and the grove, still recovering post-hurricane, and his wife, the daughter of my old choir director, who gets out and helps sometimes but maybe worries a little too much about the weeds.
Drove home with burrs on my jeans and a couple of decent pictures and a head buzzing full of ideas. Sometimes I think that amazing things could happen here, that maybe they already are.
December 27, 2006
Birthday
In lieu of a larger update, which I've got coming, here's the shot of me and the gang out at Fishermen's Village last night for my birthday!
December 23, 2006
Lemony
Today I began the process of making lemon marmalade with an armful of lemons from the big washtub full we've got out back.
We made pralines today too, two batches, so delicious.
And tonight there's boniato, a tropical sweet potato, with coconut milk and nutmeg.
I owe y'all some food posts!
December 22, 2006
Home Again
Home again. It's humid and warm and it doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet. Ben and I went to Sarasota to catch up and do a little shopping; he played some Jacqueline du Pré cello performances for me that were remarkable. Tonight, though, things feel a little off.
Maybe that's because someone put Donnie Darko in the family Netflix queue (nobody remembers doing this, it must have been on there for a while), so my dad and I watched it tonight.
Somehow I missed the presence of Love Will Tear Us Apart the last time I saw this movie.
December 21, 2006
Vegas
The Las Vegas airport is kinda creeping me out - strange neon lights, crawling with people, dim smoking lounges, and slot machines EVERYWHERE, a cacophany of electronic bleeps and blips and flashing lights and spinning numbers and people all hunched up pulling the levers.
I did get to see MGM Grand from the airplane, though, and the desert-colored afternoon light coming in across the mountains and down along the palm trees in the distance is pretty gorgeous.
BOI to LAS to TPA
I'm off today for Florida - two weeks' vacation here I come!
Got lots of stories for ya on the flipside.
December 20, 2006
From China
The only thing I want to post today is a link to my friend Nick's last entry from China. It's about what it means to leave behind what you know and set off toward something that isn't easy, telling stories that are hard to put your finger on but ring true anyway. So check it out.
December 19, 2006
Damn Sam
MOKB linked to a great Ryan Adams live set yesterday - it's from October and the whole thing has a great laid-back, drawling vibe. There's a Jerry Garcia cover in there, and I'm happy that he's still doing Damn, Sam, I Love a Woman That Rains live. He may be crazy but the man can sing a fine tune.
You can download it here (MOKB via archive.org).
Potluck
There was totally a potluck at work today. I totally did NOT get that memo and thus had nothing to bring. But I totally got to go anyway.
Highlights from the buffet table:
- No fewer than 6 meat dishes in jumbo-size slow cookers
- Four types of meatballs
- Three variations on spinach-artichoke dip
- Zero vegetable dishes (dip doesn't count)
- Pumpkin butter gooey cake from Alvin via Paula Deen
- Red punch
Inertia
You know, I'm not sure what's happened to my creativity but it bothers me that it's become so elusive. That goes for everything - writing, drawing, cooking, friendships, life in general.
Sitting at a desk every day is killing me but that's no excuse, that's just a lack of self-discipline.
December 18, 2006
Insects
Doing a little research on backcountry permits in the Everglades and found this:
Insect conditions are so severe during summer months that wilderness use is minimal and permit writing desks may not be staffed.
... Yeah. Thank goodness I'm going in December.
A Very Long Weekend
Man oh man. This was a busy weekend. I'll try to share some stories later. I just rolled into work (late, yes, I know) and haven't stepped foot into my apartment for more than 2 minutes since Thursday. Hadn't checked email since Friday. Yeah, I know. Whoa.
December 14, 2006
Oh Texas
The Flying Machine's foreign correspondent DB is currently living in Texas and relaying tales of the weird, the LOL-worthy, and the people-are-plumb-crazy. Check out this photograph of a Texas carpet store, where the parking lot is paved with carpet pieces. File this one under "weird."
December 13, 2006
Bend, Again
I'm off to Bend again for job training - can't wait. Friends, free food, useful skills, and a weekend at the hot springs at Summer Lake. Back on Sunday.
I was putting some music on my iPod for tomorrow's long drive and I found a playlist for the stuff I was listening to 4 years ago this time of year. Last of fall 2002.
To be honest, this combination kind of boggles my mind:
Jump, Little Children: Cathedrals
Ennio Morricone: The Mission
Doves: M62 Song
(Astute friends might know from whom that Ennio came. Think freshman fall friends. Think "preternaturally inclined toward melodramatic violin swells")
That Holiday Favorite
From Garrison Keillor's holiday newsletter, which starts out hilarious and then deftly shifts into a lovely end:
Our child enjoys her new school and is making friends. She was a horsie in the church Christmas pageant and hunkered down beside the manger and seemed to be singing when she was supposed to. We go on working and hope to be adequate to the challenges of the coming year but are by no means confident. It's winter. God is around here somewhere but does not appear to be guiding our government at the moment. Nonetheless we persist. We see kindness all around us and bravery and we are cheered by the good humor of young people. The crabapple tree over the driveway is bare, but we have a memory of pink blossoms and expect them to return. God bless you all.
(via Ellen, who reads good websites more regularly than I do)
Cajun Collards
I've been cooking without recipes a lot lately - just kinda messing around with ingredients and tossing things together. A whiskeyed apple galette, quinoa stew, various salads, roasted this-and-that. Nothing fancy, but lots of good solid dishes. The biggest success, though, was an experiment with collard greens.
Being disinclined to smell greens boiling in pork fat all day on Sunday (the traditional method), I set off through my freezer and spice jars for ideas.
What I came up with:
1 bunch collard greens
1 small yellow onion
1-2 andouille sausages
4 cups chicken broth
red pepper flakes
Cajun spices (Penzey's makes a nice mix; you can also make your own - cayenne, chili, paprika, onion, mustard, cloves, and sometimes some other fragrant bits too)
You don't really need an exact recipe for this if you've cooked collards before. Just chop 'em up, toss 'em in the pot (or slow cooker) with the liquid and onions, let it cook 'til the greens are tender and the onions translucent, add the sausage and spices, and cook it some more. It can cook 'til it reaches your desired tenderness - my family cooks them the Southern way, which is "down to mush". When I'm cooking for myself I go for a slightly less pulped version.
Don't forget the cornbread on the side - and to make it a more complete meal, you can bake some accompanying sweet potatoes too.
December 12, 2006
Flasher
My coworkers in the tax office cleaned out their holiday decorations this week. They foisted some Christmas lights on me - not one, but four sets - two multicolored and two bright blue.
I have never in my life* owned a set of colored Christmas lights. My family is of the strictly white-lights-only school. We just don't roll that way. But I couldn't really say no to the tax ladies. If I hadn't taken the lights they'd have given me something even tackier, and I can assure you that there was some phenomenally tacky stuff in those boxes so I chose the least of the evils.
I put the multicolored ones up in my living room window and set them on flash mode just to drive the neighbors crazy.* They look great. The blue ones went along my bedroom window. I kind of want to leave them on all the time because they lend a surprisingly warm glow to my room. Who'da guessed?
* If we're being totally honest here, I once had a small string of blue Christmas lights when I was like 10. I'm not sure what happened to them or where they came from; I think they died young. I like to think that this was a precursor to my eventual falling in love with The Weakerthans.
* Kidding; they always have their blinds down. Also, they are my landlords. I bet they haven't even noticed the flashers.
If You Live in New York
If you live in New York City you owe it to me to go see the Beer Fiddlers tonight. Because I can't go. And it's free. All you have to do is buy the musicians a beer.
And take some pictures for me.
11th St. Bar, in the East Village, NYC.
10:30 PM.
p.s. So it turns out there's a story behind the name the Beer Fiddlers -
Who were the Beer Fiddlers? They may best be described as the unauthorized, free-lance country musicians of Bach’s day and earlier who earned or supplemented their livelihood by offering services at simple weddings and funerals, or in inns and taverns (Bierstube) along the way. Their members most likely worked at other occupations during the day: as tailors, cobblers, butchers, bakers or brewers – or even as common laborers – and picked up their instruments at night in hopes of earning an extra farthing or two on the side.
They've also got some ties to Bach, interestingly enough: this rather long-winded piece suggests that Bach himself might have been descended from a bit of a Beer Fiddler - a zither player, to be precise!
December 11, 2006
Madeline
Hey, is that Will Oldham doing backups on this track? Or does it just sound a lot like him?
Either way, I like this song a lot.
Madeline - To Hell and Back
(via Raven Sings the Blues)
Monday Tunes
A few YouTube and mySpace video finds from the weekend:
Fiona Apple does Tonight You Belong to Me with Jon Brion and Chris Thile and some other cool folks.
There's this Irish guy, Anto, and he's got a new album out under the name Armoured Bear. Here's the cutest video everrrrrrrrr for his dreamy indie pop song Imagination. My favorite part is when the whales come in singing and glowing.
Morning LOLz: The "Unchurched"
Oh man. I don't even know what to say about this one, except that it is real and not a joke. It's about reaching "unchurched" teenagers. I'd run if I saw her coming too.
Found while googling for icebreakers for a meeting I'm running today.
December 10, 2006
Notecards
Pretty much the prettiest notecards ever: hand-carved woodcuts of flowering trees of Appalachia.
SIGH.
>Picture Stories
Here are some photographs that illustrate my week:
When I got to Boise we went out to eat at Mai Thai. It was quite good and the napkins were very white.
On Tuesday I went to my conference but I didn't take any pictures because there wasn't anything to photograph. When I got home Z had gotten his new camera in the mail. It's kind of like mine but it's a Sony. We sat and messed around with our cameras for a while. Z's other roommate whom I'd not met, B, was home too. I think he was bemused by our dorkiness.
Me being all, duuude.
Then I went to the conference on Wednesday and that night Z and B and I went out for sushi, where I ate a whole lot. We came back warm from the sake and I schooled B and Z both at Goldeneye. Then I went to the last day of the conference on Thursday and came back and did some work things while Z did dog things and I made dinner and we sat by the fire for a while and chilled for the evening. It was nice. On Friday I woke up and drove home and rolled into work a bit late, but nobody minded.
On Friday night I re-strung my mandolin for the first time ever.
There were wires everywhere.
With all the loose wires, it looked a bit like a mad scientist.
But then I tamed the beast and gave it curls. I suppose I will soon cut them off, but I liked the look.
So now she's re-strung with some super sweet new strings and all is well. Today I went Christmas shopping in Boise with Megan and we found some great things for both family and ourselves.
One of my new sweaters is an awesome shade of teal, which you can see in this blurry picture of me, uh, rocking out or something.
Also,
And that is all.
December 9, 2006
Team Hager
Feeling photograph-y today.
Justin (the one with the ski pole) took this one.
December 8, 2006
Timing
Frustratingly, there's a sweet sweet sweet job at Fenton open right now in Manhattan. I (obviously) can't apply because they'll (obviously) want someone who can start sooner than, oh, August 2007 (I might apply anyway).
But a few years' experience working at a place like that, a PR firm that works exclusively with nonprofits, would make me invaluable in the nonprofit world - and I could have the magic 3+ years' experience that everyone wants. Argh. Looking at job postings makes me feel like a hay seed. So unqualified.
(Yes, I'm thinking of moving to a big city next year. Yes, I'm having a bit of a crisis in terms of what I want to do with my career and how best to make an impact and do what I love to do.)
December 6, 2006
Raw Dead Fish
Oh man y'all, I ate more sushi tonight than all the other times in my life combined. Sake too. Hoo boy.
p.s. Even after all these years, I still rock at Goldeneye on the N64. Hellz yeah. Take THAT, Halo.
AFK
Oops, I forgot to mention that I'm at a conference this week. Updates will be light 'til Friday when I get back to Oregon. Will of course have lots of news and gossip by then.
December 4, 2006
Hager Mtn
This weekend, it was a good one.
The memorable bits, in chronological order, +/- style, which I got from Pam who I believe got it from Riz:
+ Riding over to Bend with Megan, who has agreed to be my Wintergrass buddy in February.
+ The chocolate milkshakes at the Oasis in Juntura (pop. 143).
- The not-so crispy fries that accompanied the milkshakes.
+ Watching a corpulent, heavily-bundled-in-flannel local rumble up on his 4-wheeler for dinner.
+ The Green Line pizza at Mondo Pizza in Bend.
+ $1 brownies at Mondo Pizza.
+ Squeezing 5 people into a Motel 8 room in Bend.
+ Deschutes Brewery's Jubelale and Bourbon Porter.
- Lemon Ale (a little Pine-Sol-y).
- Having the motel attendant threaten to kick us out for noise complaints at 1:30 am.
- Waking up way too early after a late night.
- Riding bitch seat all the way from Bend to Silver Lake.
+ G. Love on the stereo.
+ silver lake store... the sign
- Repeated turn-arounds on an icy Forest Service road in search of the proper parking area.
+ Hiking shoes + foot warmers + wool socks + plastic bags = semi-winter-worthy footwear.
+ Breaking in the new snowshoes!
+ Snow on the pine boughs.
+ Cougar tracks in the snow.
+ A seriously good cardio workout up the mountain.
- Spending most of the 4-mile snowshoe totally out of breath.
+ Stopping for a sushi lunch at treeline.
+ Maki sushi eaten like a corn dog as one fat roll.
+ A great game of Fuck-Chuck-or-Marry to get us up the last steep mile above treeline.
(I mean, really, Chocolate-Salt-Lime - TOUGH ONE!)
- My snowshoe straps freezing solid.
+ An outhouse with a view of the Cascades.
+ A snug, cozy lookout cabin with 360 degree double-glazed windows, a propane stove, a compact woodstove, a well-stocked woodshed, a couple of comfortable places to sit, and a wraparound porch.
+ Being able to see all the way to California to the south and to the Three Sisters to the north.
+ Sunset.
+ Spaghetti.
- Cleaning the spaghetti pots.
+ Hot strong coffee.
+ Passing a bottle of Jager.
- Passing a bottle of Seagrams 7.
+ S'mores.
- Tim's card game-teaching abilities.
+ Down booties.
+ My new really sweet 4-season Thermarest.
- Getting said Thermarest back into its stuff sack.
+ A nearly full moon.
+ A porch railing on which to set the camera for night shots.
+ Night shots of Silver Lake by moonlight.
+ Standing on the west-facing side of the cabin and gazing out into a wild dark horizon with not a single light from civilization.
+ Propane lanterns mixed with moonlight.
+ Live coals for the woodstove in the morning.
+ Sunrise.
- Being unable to string the lobster boxers up the flag pole.
- Last night's dishes.
- Needing a shower.
+ Chillaxin' in the morning.
+ Leaving behind a tidy cabin.
+ Galloping down through the deep powder.
+ Stopping to take pictures constantly.
- Most of them just looking like trees and snow, not the sublime light that I could see in person.
+ Making it back to the cars.
+ Putting on my cowboy boots again.
+ Homemade turkey noodle soup and french fries at the Silver Lake Cafe and Bar.
+ Izze and Kettle Chips from Wild Oats in Bend for the ride home.
+ A beautiful sunset on the way home.
+ Lots of good conversation with Megan.
- Rolling in exhausted.
+ A hot shower.
+ ... And, of course, taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures and having a few of them turn out really great. Check 'em out at Flickr, y'all:
(Haven't added descriptions to any of them yet - so if you want to know the context to the photos, check back in a day or so on the flickr album...)
Some Songs for Autumn Nights
I made this CD several weeks ago for Z. It was intended as an introduction of sorts into the places where folk and indie come together (aka some of my favorite songs by some of my favorite musicians), so some of you will already know all of these. Broad but not deep.
I like the way this one sounds in composite as a mix.
1 Paul Burch - Lovesick Blues Boy
2 Jolie Holland - Roll My Blues
3 Radim Zenkl - Mountain Ghost
4 Kings Of Convenience - Singing Softly To Me
5 The Album Leaf - Into the Sea
6 Shearwater - Mountain Laurel
7 Iron & Wine - Peng!
8 Wilco - More Like the Moon
9 Greg Brown - Laughing River
10 Built to Spill - Else
11 Whiskeytown - Lo-Fi Tennessee Mountain Angel
12 Kelly Joe Phelps - River Rat Jimmy
13 Califone - Michigan Girls
14 Brokeback - this is where we sleep
15 Songs: Ohia - Two blue lights
16 My Morning Jacket - Suspicious Minds
17 Peter and the Wolf - The Owl
18 Jacob Borshard - Vincent and Theo
19 Iron & Wine - Lion's Mane
20 Steve Earle - Halo 'Round The Moon
21 Sufjan Stevens - The Dress Looks Nice on You
22 Will Oldham - All These Vicious Dogs
23 Robert Pollard - People are Leaving
December 3, 2006
Further Signs
Uh, catching up on the important news before bed. Certain individuals will appreciate the following:
BRO: You know, last time I saw you with Nickel Creek, you were sporting a spectacular wealth of facial hair, a beard as it were, and I believe his name was Clyde. Is there any chance that he’ll make an appearance on this tour?THILE: Clyde Artimus Beard (laughs). I don’t think so. You know, Clyde is in hiding. He has been persecuted, unjustly I feel, by certain members of my social circle. So he’ll sheepishly lay dormant.
[Back from Hager Mtn. Snowshoeing was excellent, as was the 360 degree view from the cabin. Pictures and stories tomorrow.]
December 1, 2006
Going Snowshoeing
I'll be gone all weekend in the woods. Can't wait. I'll come back with pictures and stories. Also got a few pretty interesting longer essayish posts on the back burner that I hope to finish next week.
Til then, you can check out:
- Seal's good piece on the current Dartmouth brouhaha (it's a big one).
- Annie Proulx on Wyoming's little-known Red Desert.. and Colorado:
At the end of the night, Patricia Limerick asked Proulx if she had any final thoughts for the hundreds of Coloradoans who had braved the inclement weather to see her. "Stay on your own side of the Little Snake," she said, naming the river on the border between Colorado and Wyoming.
- These funny iZone pictures from high school. I just found them on my website! Remember when? I am sooo bringing my Polaroid (regular size, not iZone, lost that) back to Oregon with me after Christmas.
Miss y'all. Well, the first two at least.