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Fri, 03 Mar 2006
Last Tuesday I went to Boston to see Belle and Sebastian with The New Pornographers. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've been as excited about the opening band as the headliners; it's definitely the first time I've wondered if you can make the opening band to an encore.
Some of the highlights:
Belle and Sebastian passed around a fruit bowl. I've never had blueberries at a concert before. And they were some pretty tasty blueberries!
Avalon has a bar in the ladies' bathroom. Maybe this is common at night clubs, but it was the first time I'd ever ordered beer in a bathroom.
Hearing Judy and the Dream of Horses live.
The drummer from The New Pornographers makes the best facial
expressions. Plus he kind of looks like a hobbit.
Also, Chris from Belle and Sebastian looks kind of like the weird
brother that someone let play with the band but turned out to be really
good. He had a little bit of a Napoleon Dynamite's brother thing going
on.
It may have been ridiculously hot inside, and the drinks may have been overpriced and weak, but we got three hours of amazingly good music. I am totally satisfied.
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Wed, 14 Dec 2005
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Sun, 13 Nov 2005
A lack of photographic evidence
I have been camera-less for over a month now. Why? It's a long story, but you can read about it here. It's been painful, really. So many picture-worthy moments. Like the hassidic man gazing out the window of the Verizon store. Or the view from East Rock in New Haven. I think today may be the day that I take the plunge and commit to a new camera. Hmm, I feel like I could almost do an extended metaphor here comparing camera-hunting to dating. Those disposable cameras? They're the one-date wonders. Right now I'm leaning towards the Canon PowerShot A620. It's not a digital SLR -- those sure are tempting -- but it's like the high-maintenance boyfriend. I'm hoping that the Canon will be the low-key go-anywhere kind of camera that still performs up to my standards.
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Mon, 07 Nov 2005
This is why copy editing is a good thing.
Ok, are they advertising for a gardener or a missionary? I can't decide.
Just in time for the holiday season . . .
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Thu, 03 Nov 2005
Yesterday I lost my phone. Mostly likely it was grabbed by a 7th grader who missed the lesson on why stealing other people's stuff is not cool. So today I thought I would go online and find out just how much it's going to cost me to get a new one. Cell phone companies aren't big on telling you the real price of phones. They like to let you know just how cheap it will be once you sign a brand-new two-year contract, but if you want to know how much the phone costs all by itself you have to log into your account. Which would have been fine, except they recently enacted a policy by which you need not only your account number and pin number, but also a user name and password. The user name you can pick yourself, but the password they have to send you. And they can only do this as a text message.
To sum up: To get a phone, I need a password. To get a password, I need a phone.
I suspect this is all a nefarious plot to get me to go to the mall.
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Wed, 26 Oct 2005
In the interest of circular linkage
I will send you here. This is Jeff's blog. It is entertaining. Now that I'm sending people to his site, though, he need to add more content to it.
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Fri, 21 Oct 2005
Yesterday I went to the DMV to get myself a Rhode Island Driver's License. I assumed that a valid out-of-state license and proof of address would be enough to do the transfer. Apparently, though, you need your social security card as well. Not just your number, but the actually flimsy little piece of paper.
Now, I know that I had my card at one point, but somewhere in the moving process I misplaced it. So today I went to get a replacement. Guess what's the only item you need to get a replacement card? Your driver's license. Hmm.
I love bureaucracy.
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Thu, 20 Oct 2005
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Come see . . . Pushy Galore! Paris Killton! Cyndi Plopper! Veruca Assault!
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Fri, 14 Oct 2005
Something looks oddly familiar about this font . . .
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As you fellow New Englanders may have noticed, it has been raining for the past 7 days, and apparently will continue to do so through Sunday. I am very unhappy with whoever decided that this would be a good idea. I don't mind a rainy day every now and then. It tends to serve as a good excuse to stay in bed or watch a movie. However, I would prefer my rainy days evenly spaced out, with plenty of sunny and/or partly-sunny days in between. Therefore, I have created this short petition. Please fill this out and send it along to whoever you are blaming for this nasty weather.
Dear god/local meteorologist/aliens/yakuzi/al-Qaeda/Donald Rumsfeld/other ________,
This weather sucks. Please make it stops. I promise that I will donate money to your party/kill the heathens/not talk about the abduction/support my local TV station/start going to church/buy more Japanese products if we can just have a little bit of sunshine.
Sincerely,
your name here
Thank you.
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Sun, 02 Oct 2005
Today I bought Dr. Mario/Tetris for my Super Nintendo. This is me beating my brother:
Note the lovely "X" denoting "You lose, player two!"
Said brother was also kind enough to give me Donkey Kong Country:
Now I'm all set for another cold Providence winter.
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Fri, 16 Sep 2005
No, really, it sucked. It started off with a certified letter stating that I was going to be sued by Miriam Hospital for a bill from November of 2003 that my VISTA insurance had never paid, despite numerous phone calls on my part to all involved parties. Today I had to argue with the representative from VISTA that labwork is indeed a part of an annual exam, and that a yearly physical and an annual are, well, pretty much the same thing.
Then things got a bit better; the two people I wasn't looking forward to interviewing didn't show up, and the pre-recorded training session I was supposed to watch turned out to be shorter than I though. I left work at 4 and went to my very first yoga class, where I stretched and relaxed and worked some muscles I didn't know existed.
But then they got worse. I left yoga feeling all loose and energized only to find that my car had been broken into. And not just broken into, but seriously brutalized. The passenger window was smashed, and the entire middle console, including my ghetto cd player set-up, vents, and heating controls had been completely torn out. With all sorts of gouge marks around the sides. Even better, the genious who did this managed to cut himself in the process, and now there are blood streaks all over the inside of my car. My AC adapter is gone, and so are most of my CDs, with the exception of David Bowie and Beck. And the turn signals don't work.
The good news? It's covered by insurance. The bad news? When I switched to Rhode Island insurance I raised my deductibles so I wouldn't be paying quite so astronomical an amount for car insurance. Instead, I get to pay the first $1000 towards fixing this mess. Which, coincidentally, is about what Miriam Hospital wants me to pay them. Although, at this point, being sued feels like nothing.
The scrabble set wasn't touched, though, nor was the box full of glazes; that has to count for something. And Erin was kind enough to come over with a bottle of wine, which has done wonders to mellow out the stressfulness of the day.
I'm just hoping that from here, the weekend can only get better.
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Sat, 10 Sep 2005
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I cleaned the chain, adjusted the handlebars, tightened all the nuts on
the fenders, and fixed whatever was wrong with the gears (although I'm
still not sure what was wrong, or how I fixed it).
Now my bike is in (almost) tip-top shape, which is excellent, given that it is my preferred form of transportation in this age of $3.00/gallon gasoline. And it's keeping me in pretty good shape, too. There's a lot of hills in this city. Riding up them on a 3-speed is no joke. Hopefully I won't wimp out come wintertime.
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Fri, 02 Sep 2005
Making homemade soymilk rocks.
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Wed, 31 Aug 2005
I'm feeling too lazy to put up a photo gallery with captions, so I'm just going to post a few pitures from my adventures at the North Carolina Outward Bound School.
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Tue, 16 Aug 2005
Things I will not miss about 75 Raymond Street
- Biking up and down Dean Street
- The hourly sirens
- People getting arrested outside my window
- The dark scary basement
- The evil pokey thing on the way to the basement
- Turning out of my driveway
- Grimy gray carpeting
- Our landlord
Things I will miss:
- Free laundry
- The porch
- the view from the porch
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Mon, 08 Aug 2005
3 New Photo Galleries
Friday night I went to Boston and waited out the rain in my car -- I
took these pictures
to keep myself entertained.
On Friday and Saturday I played with taking pictures in dark but interestingly-lit spaces; these pictures are the result of that experiment.
Sunday I went to breakfast in my pajamas (for the second day in a row, actually). And then went to Thayer street in my pajamas. And then Purgatory Chasm, Worchester, and Woonsocket. What can I say? Sarah and I were running away from the daunting task of packing up our apartment. Luckily we had the camera with us, and were able to take these entertaining photos along the way.
And, for good measure, here's a picture of Batman, nicknamed Mr. Stretchy and now Yoga Cat.
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Wed, 03 Aug 2005
So I was on my way to the studio on Saturday, hoping to catch up with the wood firing crew and get some of my pieces in the kiln, when I saw a grey bird in the bike lane. I realized pretty quickly that this was not a pigeon, but rather a cockatiel, and therefore not the type of bird you expect to see wandering around outside. I parked my bike and tried to approach him, but he flew onto a nearby branch that I couldn't quite reach. I stood on the sidewalk whistling at him for a while (and receiving a quite a few honks from passing cars) but he wasn't charmed by my repertoire of wolf whistles. And then he flew across the river.
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Mon, 01 Aug 2005
Every time I move I do a combination of proactive, helpful things like getting rid of clothes I never wear and time-consuming mini-tasks. Right now I am working on uploading all the CDs I can find into iTunes. This also means listening to a lot of music that I have neglected since, in some cases, 10th grade. It's an interesting walk down memory lane. The first thing I copied was Jethro Tull's Aqualung -- something I know I haven't listened to in years. It reminds me of driving to Minnesota in my friend Ryan's dad's car to go to the renaissance festival. We kept accidently going 95 and having to remind ourselves to slow down. I also remember that Ryan managed to spill gas on himself on the way back and the whole car smelled kinda funny after that.
And then there's the Ani albums, with a whole slew of memories from freshman year at Iowa.
I'm also trying to decide whether I should take a class this fall. Glass blowing and jewelry making sound pretty awesome.
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This is the what it said on the cute little scroll I won from playing the 4 Meter Lamb Toss:
The Sheep Dog
What to do.
Don't Panic. The Sheep Dog can be inserted into some pretty funny
situations. Remember the time Donna dry-mopped the bar with the fattest
pup? She didn't even know it was one for the drunk what she was. Then I
heard her wash it all off the dirt and we all fall down. I'm a clean one
now, hoo boy. But Donna. Donna drunk that pup.
I have no idea what that all means.
Other highlights of the evening included the Unimog ride, which was actually Nick Bauta's WWII truck driven around the bumpiest parts of the Steelyard grounds, and Lewis and Clark, a band from Pennsylvania which cannot be googled.
My contribution to the evening was to mix up Mania's lemonade, which
consisted of:
A whole bunch of mint
9 lemons and 2 squeezy fake lemons
1 pound superfine sugar
A gallon and a half of water
Ice
And a bottle of vodka
I also rescued a cockatiel from the trees around the Woonasquatucket river, but that's a whole different story.
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Mon, 25 Jul 2005
So it has been suggested that I should put more pictures in a navegable online format instead of leaving them on my hard drive to collect binary dust. Thus, for your viewing pleasure, I now have 2 more photo galleries to share; this one of a semi-recent trip to Mass MoCA, and this one of pictures taken around the Steelyard.
I was also thinking, after checking out a few other people's blogs, that it would be nice to find a way to repair the writebacks on here that wouldn't just attract more gross spam. I could always go for a totally new blog generator, but I like the very DIY aspect of this one. Of course, DIY is only valid if I actually bother to do anything (note that this is post #2 in the past 4 months). Maybe I'll go on a blogging spree. Or not. Depends on the weather, I think.
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Sat, 02 Jul 2005
You know you're a Scrabble nut
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When you're playing scrabble online at 7:00 on a Saturday morning and you get excited because GIJoel from Word Freak logs on. |
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Sat, 22 Jan 2005
Our friends at the weather channel are predicting between 12 and 20 inches of snow for this weekend. I'm not terribly concerned, though; I figure a good snowstorm is a fine excuse to sit around and watch movies and knit. I'm almost finished with half of a pair of fingerless gloves -- not very useful for the upcoming blizzard, but very exciting. They're lime green with a fuzzy orange border.
The one thing I want to do before it starts snowing is take this box full of old clothes that's been sitting in the dining room over to Savers. The funny thing, of course, is that some of those clothes were probably purchased at Savers (or Goodwill) to begin with. At any rate, I'll be glad to get them out of the house.
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Tue, 14 Dec 2004
Warning: this post contains language unsuitable for children
OK, I don't usually use my weblog as a venting ground. But I feel the need to share some of the ridiculous behavior of my downstairs neighbor.
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Last night on the way home I stopped at a red light on Dean Street -- not an unusual event by any means. Except that the light didn't turn green.
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Tue, 30 Nov 2004
So I'm in Indiana, unexpectedly. We found out Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, that my grandmother (my dad's mother) had passed away during the night. Her memory had been been fading over the past couple years, and last year at this time she moved out of the house that my grandfather built and into a nursing home. The last time I saw her -- last December -- I'm not sure she remembered who I was. She died after spending Thanksgiving with her family and talking to all of her seven children on the phone; it seems almost like she decided it was time to go.
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Fri, 29 Oct 2004
Last Friday and Monday I was a substitute science teacher.
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Sun, 24 Oct 2004
It's been a while since I've added anything to my weblog. I've probably had 10-20 ideas for entries, but somehow I never get around to actually writing anything. First things first, though -- it's time for an update of what's going on in my life.
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Sun, 15 Aug 2004
While doing some much-needed room cleaning, I came across these limericks written way back in high school with my friend Sarah Hagge. They of course deserve to be immortalized on my weblog.
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There once was a dog and a carriage The love-stricken dog proposed marriage When the carriage was silent The dog became violent At that act of utter disparage
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Young Florence had very fine knees And she always said thank-you and please Her smile was delightful But her tresses were frightful For her beehive, it really had bees.
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As Madeline sat on her bed An idea came into her head "If one day I go wild And string up a young child I will bury it under the shed
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There once was a lady quite fair, And whenever she ate a ripe pear, The meb would start flocking For her manner was shocking But she fought them all off with her hair
-R.P. & S.H. |
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Tue, 27 Jul 2004
It was Tim's birthday yesterday, and we all conspired to give him a
little surprise party. I made the carrot cake, Robin made the card, and Matt
made the "Evil Genius" stencil. It took a while to come up with the ideal decorating scheme for the birthday cake. There are, of course, so many entertaining aspects of Tim's personality that we could have used, but a lot of them don't translate well to cake. "Evil Genius" is a reference to the game "Call to Power," a Civilization derivative that Tim and I play when we can find the time for a 4-hour geek-out session. The game assigns personality types to your leader based on your game behavior, and the game picked "evil genius" for Tim. I gave the cake a basic cream cheese frosting, and then we dusted cocoa powder over Matt's stencil to make the letters. There are plans in the works for a matching t-shirt. |
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Mon, 05 Jul 2004
Musings from the grammar-obsessed
Remember that old joke about how if pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of congress must be progress? (hah hah hah) We've been giving a lot of thought this issue, and while we haven't fully figured out how these prefixes work, we've certainly come up with some fun observations:
1. Contest (accent on test) & protest: definitely not opposites. In fact, isn't protesting something a way of indicating that you'd like to contest it? A contest (accent on con), on the other hand, is something else entirely (I'd like to contest the results of the contest). And then there's detest--like I protest the war because I detest war.
2. Conduct and product: Especially given that a duct is an "enclosed passage or channel," I'm not sure what to make of the relationship between these two words.
3. A new version of the joke: if con is the opposite of pro, does that mean the opposite of Constitution is Prostitution?
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Wed, 30 Jun 2004
I just developed the film from a crappy disposable camera that's been
floating around my apartment for the past year, and I found some
pictures from Halloween. My best friend and I had decided that we would
both dress up as rock stars; we took a trip to Sal's and came up with
some pretty stellar outfits. We came up with a whole story to tell
anyone who asked. The tricky part, though, was that she lived in Iowa at the
time--we had to be an estranged rock duo.
The story, if I can remember it, goes like this:
We started out as a folk duo; we both played guitar and Bess did all the
vocals. But then on a trip to London one spring we discovered David
Bowie and glam, and our lives changed forever. We ditched the acoustic
stuff and bought an electic guitar and a bass--Bess played the bass.
All we needed then was a drummer--little did we know that would be the
downfall of the band. We found a great guy, really talented, and
thought we were on our way to stardom. But then there was the love
triangle to sort out, and then he discovered the groupies. Before we
knew it he was living the rockstar lifestyle, and we had to deal with
the hangovers and crying girls. One day he just didn't show up to
practice. And Bess and I were so worn out from touring that we blamed
each other for the downfall of the band--we fought for a couple weeks
straight, and went on some ugly drinking binges. I knew I had to get out of
there if I wanted to save my music career. So I moved out to Providence
and pulled things together; Bess stuck around in Iowa and reverted back
to her folksy roots. We started talking, patched up the friendship,
even jammed a little. And for Halloween, we decided to break out our
old outfits one last time. We might tour together again, but not as a
rock band.
I also found this picture of Matt.
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Mon, 21 Jun 2004
Every morning I check my e-mail and read the headlines from the New York Times. And it seems lately like every day I read something that profoundly disturbs me. Today I read about how George Bush has spent $85 million dollars on discrediting John Kerry.
Now, I know that in comparison to, say, the amount spent on the Iraq war, 85 million is not that much. But in comparison to the annual budget of AS220, or my annual salary, it's a lot of money. So I came up with this idea: what if a candidate were to forgo spending any money on fancy television ads, and just put a small text announcement in the newspapers or online saying that they've decided to take that 85 million and spend it on education. I just consulted the calculator, and for that amount of money you could hire about 2000 teachers.
Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes also has an interesting viewpoint about campaign spending, and I think he's onto something. After all, with the national budget deficit where it is, don't we want a president who can spend money wisely?
John Kerry isn't any more miserly. He's spending $100 million on his campaign. I guess in an ideal world people would be able to do their own research and determine what candidate best fits their ideals. And candidates would have a presence in our mental space not because they spend millions on airtime, but because they are active and involved individuals (if you want to be on TV, why don't you do something newsworthy?). In this age of information proliferation, it's not that hard to find out what someone is up to.
I feel like I'm giving the American people too much credit. Sound bytes work really well as pacifiers for a lot of voters. All it takes for some is the reassurance that Bush is a religious man, and they'll ignore all the reasons why he's incompetent.
Unfortunately, the idea of voting for the least bad canditate just doesn't get me excited about politics. I was never into popularity contests in the first place.
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Sat, 19 Jun 2004
I'm looking at the picture of Olympia
that Matt put up as the background image on the AS220 kitchen computer,
and I kind of wish I was home so I could snuggle with her. I locked
myself out of my apartment yesterday, and I've been waiting for that
confluence of roommates being home/ride to my house so that I can
retrieve my keys and tend to the animals.
In the meantime I am hanging out, waiting for Sarah (potential VISTA
visiting from Pennsylvania) to get back from the
URI lab so we can discuss whether Loui's and the Salvation Army are in
our future.
I just answered the "what's in your bedroom" question on Orkut and
realized I sound like an old lady (yarn, books, and my cat). I swear
I'm not really an old maid. Even if I am pretty domestic.
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Sun, 13 Jun 2004
So I took a nap on the beach today. It was great--warm but not too hot, a nice cool breeze, the waves crashing on the beach, sand tickling my legs. Except that I was stupid and didn't put on sunscreen, and now I'm hanging out in my underwear nursing my bright red arms and back. Anyway, I'm feeling sorry for myself. That's my weblog installment for the day; hopefully I'll have something intelligent and insightful to add later.
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Fri, 11 Jun 2004
I took a break from my weblog in the weeks leading up to the Fools Ball, and it's taken me a while to get back into keeping it updated. I've also started working on a new weblog project--that of the Stinktank.
So what have I been up to?
I've been doing a lot more cooking--check out my recipes section for
new additions. I've been taking advantage of the cast-iron pan on the
third floor to work on my Omletteer superpowers.
My other new superpower is shelf-building; I helped Matt build a
kick-ass CD shelf for his new studio, and a bookshelf is in progress.
Tonight Erin and I are throwing a birthday party for ourselves (I went
out to dinner on my birthday, but never had a real party). Tomorrow I
want to get my bike fixed and check out garage sales.
I love the summer . . .
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Mon, 03 May 2004
Mayday! or, How I Won the Kentucky Derby
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Mon, 26 Apr 2004
I just got a writeback from a guy I went to college with. I haven't talked to Keef (aka Keith Rutledge) since we graduated, so it was awesome to get a link to his weblog. So I'll return the google-juice favor: keef.org
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Wed, 21 Apr 2004
There are now only 5 weeks left until the AS220 Fools Ball, and there's a lot to get done. I'm in charge of decorating, which is great fun--it reminds me of doing theater in high school and trying to get a lot done with limited time and money. It's a lot of stress and long hours, though. I'm a little bit terrified. A lot rests on my shoulders right now, and while I know that I've always worked best under pressure, it's often hard to explain that to nervous co-workers. I'll survive, I hope.
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Sun, 18 Apr 2004
Lying in bed with Olympia in my arms and looking forward to tomorrow.
It stopped raining finally. By the time we pulled in to Brattleboro on Thursday the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Later that afternoon, after the Creative Economy Symposium, we drove along the rural backroads to Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachussets, and later on took rte. 2 back towards Providence. It was late enough in the afternoon that warm sunlight was shining through the trees as we drove through the river valley. On the way out of town we had an amazing view of the Berkshires.
Tomorrow is Sunday, and it's supposed to be 70 degrees. My goal is to bike to the Coffee Exchange so I can post this article and to pick up ingredients for my vegetarian cooking workshop tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's 2 AM and my cat is curled up next to me, and I think I'd like to cuddle with her for a while before drifting off to sleep.
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Brattleboro's a cute litle town. I was up there on April 15th for a Creative Economy Symposium My favorite part by far, though, was the co-op.
My first experience shopping at co-ops was probably Wheatsfield Grocery in Ames, Iowa. Mainly what I remember is that they had a little play area for kids near the front window with one of those thermometer signs for tracking fundraisers--I think it may have been in the shape of a carrot. When I was in high school I took a lot of art classes at the Octagon, which was right next door--I would go there before figure drawing and buy fruit leathers and mango spritzers.
When I moved to Iowa City I started shopping at New Pioneer Co-op. They served some of the best sandwiches in the world. Like the Brad's potent pesto tofuwich: "Spiced organic tofu steamed with caramelized onion and Smoked Provolone, topped with sunflower sprouts and tomato. Served on Sourdough with sun-dried tomato spread and spinach pesto". Yum. I spent a lot of money on eating lunch there with my friend Ryan my freshman year (we enjoyed bonding over good food and french grammar). In the summers the Farmer's Market was help across the street, so I could very easily pick up fresh produce, horseradish cheese, and bulk olive oil all in one trip.
Providence doesn't have a real co-op. It has Whole Foods, which is good, but it doesn't have the bulk section and it doesn't have the same feel as a co-op. The good news is that Urban Greens (a buying club) and some students from Brown are working on starting one. It's about time. I know it takes years to reach the point of having a deli counter and having a wide selection, but I'll be happy if I can start buying my spices in bulk again.
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Wed, 14 Apr 2004
It's been raining for the past three days, and I'm sick of it. I'm ready for real spring. I want to go camping, ride my bike, sleep in the grass, wear sandals, drink beer on the porch, plant tomatoes, put away my jacket, open windows, have a barbeque.
Right now I'm fantasizing about packing up a tent and some sleeping bags, gathering some good friends, and driving off to New Hampshire or western Mass. We'll pick up some veggie burgers and vegetables, and we'll sit around a campfire sharing a bottle of wine and enjoying a night sky not tainted with city lights. We'll curl up in sleeping bags and wake up with the sun, then make eggs and coffee. Maybe we'll take a hike and find a nice secluded place to stretch out in the sun and splash in a stream. We'll drive home tired and stinky but blissful.
I crave the sun, and green grass.
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Tue, 13 Apr 2004
Burlington
On Sunday, February 1st my friend Mary Bue had a gig at the Radio Bean
in Burlington, Vermont--so on Saturday we packed up her piano and some
clothes and headed north.
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Mon, 12 Apr 2004
Sometimes I hate telephones, sometimes I love them.
I spent about a half an hour today trying to call Africa. My best friend is a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, and she seldom has access to a phone. She's in Niamey today at a hostel that actually does have a phone, and even a computer with internet access.
Calling internationally always involves a lot of dialing--first the AT&T number, then the phone card number, then the actual number. I did this about 20 times. These are some of the messages I got:
All circuits are busy to the country you are dialing
Your call cannot be completed within the country you are dialing
beepbeepbeepbeep beep beep beep
Meanwhile, all I really wanted to hear was Bess's voice.
I did get through eventually, but we only talked for 4 minutes before getting cut off. I only had 13 minutes on my phone card anyway--hardly enough. We can easily talk for over an hour.
Bess and I haven't lived in the same city for a while, so when she was still in the states we had a lot of long phone conversations about everything and nothing. It's been a challenge these last few months to write a letter when I really want to just babble about everything going on in my life to the one person who really understands.
I need to go visit her in Niger.
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Sun, 04 Apr 2004
Home is a well-stocked refrigerator
The grid system, the smell of manure, the wide open spaces--I know I'm back in
Iowa. The drive from Des Moines to Ames is a straight line, and the road is
empty this time of night. There's a few lights in the distance, but the
landscape is mostly fields. I'm home--I think.
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Frankenixon, Continued
Last night I went to my third Frankenixon show--this one in their base camp
in Des Moines. I had my camera with me, so I was able to make this nifty
little photo gallery.
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Sun, 28 Mar 2004
On Saturday, March 27th I went to New York with my friends Matt and Mary. The purpose of this trip was twofold: to see Accidental Nostalgia, a play by Cynthia Hopkins that was workshopped at AS220 and performed at Perishable Theater last December, and to visit Harlem. The theme for this year's Fools Ball is the Harlem Renaissance, and I've been doing a lot of research not only on the era but also on contemporary Harlem. In my reading I kept finding interesting parallels between Harlem and Providence, so it seemed only appropriate to visit the actual location--wander around a little, visit landmarks, and take pictures.
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Wed, 24 Mar 2004
Roadkill
Another one bites the dust . . .
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Sun, 21 Mar 2004
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Mon, 01 Mar 2004
In my room it was Marco #1, in the dining room in was Bob, and now . . .
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Fri, 27 Feb 2004
Frankenixon!
I met Frankenixon when they came
through town last winter--they're a
Bifi Records (out of Ames, Iowa (my hometown)) band, and
their tour
manager is a friend of a friend. So when they played in Cumberland, RI,
I made them chili and offered them floor space in my tiny apartment
(they opted to keep driving, understandably). On February 25th they
came back to Rhode Island and put on a great show at
AS220.
Frankenixon consists of Evelyn on piano and vocals, Joe on guitar, Ben on bass, and Westin on drums. They have a new CD, Amorphous, that they recorded in San Francisco last summer in a 10-day period. They played a few new songs off that album, and also a couple from their previous album, Depth Perception.
After the show, the band, Matt, and myself all headed back to my house to hang out for a while.
Having moved last August, it was much easier to offer them a place to sleep this time around. After a good night's sleep, we took them to Loui's for breakfast and then showed them to the Whole Foods. They will be touring until March 20th, and then will be back in Des Moines for a while. They will (hopefully) be back in Providence over the summer.