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Digging Baby Name Guesser. Says here, “It’s a girl! Based on popular usage, it is 4.373 times more common for Doc to be a girl’s name.” Hm. I can think of Rivers, Holliday, Watson and the Dwarf. But not one girl. Yet.
Check the results for Festus.
Hat tip to Leonard Lin.
J. Dana Hrubes has been reporting on his work and life at the North and South Pole for the last few years, but I just discovered his site this morning via the 12 July Aurora Gallery at SpaceWeather.com.
Here’s his report on 2007-2008. Here is the June page, with some amazing pictures of the aurora australis in the midst of stars. Plus this paragraph:
| June is the month when we celebrate the midwinter solstice. It means that we have lived through 3 months without the sun and there are 3 months until sunrise on September 21st. As for me, I get sad when the sun starts to rise because it means that the magic of walking miles each day to work and back under the beautiful skies of the South Pole will be over. But for now, we still have plenty of darkness left and the two coldest months are just beginning, July and August. I hope to beat my record low of -110.7 F (almost -80 C) which was in early August, 2005. I personally would like to experience -118 F and break the all time record since records at the Pole began in 1957. That also happens to be the temperature that carbon dioxide freezes at this altitude (over 10,000 ft equivalent). By the way, these are actual static temperatures, not any of that wind chill nonsense. Even at temperatures below -100 F, we still hike out to the telescope every day. I haven’t missed one day at South Pole Telescope since I got here on December 8, 2007. |
His weather widget says it’s -89°F right now, or -65°C. Still, good to be there, if only vicariously.
Nobody parodies TV news better than The Onion. They’re just wicked.
Anyway, just caught Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency on a podcast here on the plane (still boarding), and laughed so hard I just had to pass it along. It’s almost up there with this one, which still wins for truthiness.
Okay, they’re making me turn this off. See ya on the East Side.
Click on the above to dig one of the best photosets I’ve shot in a while. I was driving to a Radio Shack to pick up a volt-ohm meter, so we could monitor the browning out of electrical service, when I saw the sun setting through the smoke from the fire, and knew instantly that I could get a good angle on that through the Mission in silhouette. So I turned the corner, and sure enough. Got it.
Any blogger or news service that wants to use any of those shots should feel free to grab any of them. Give me photo credit if you like, but it’s not necessary. Just here to help.
(tag: sbgapfire. Hashtag: #sbgapfire)
I’m not a car nut — I could never afford to be, lacking both the money and the time — but I do enjoy and appreciate them as works of arts, science, culture and plain necessity. So, about a month ago the kid and I joined Britt Blaser at the Concours d’Elegance in Newport Harbor, looking at an amazing collection of antique cars and motorcycles, all restored or preserved to a level of perfection you hardly find in new cars off the production line.
We also got to hang with new friends from Iconic Motors, who are making a very hot little sports car designed and made entirely in the U.S., mostly by small manufacturers of obsessively perfected goods. Took a lot of pictures of both, which you’ll find by following the links under the photos.
I discovered JazzFM91 on a recent trip to Toronto, and keep going back. It’s sooo good. Right now Danny Marks is talking to … who is it? dunno, just tuned in. (Later… it’s Terry Gilespie.) But the subject is John Lee Hooker.
The music that follows reminds me of the time John Lee gave one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen. It was in St. Joseph’s Church in Durham, I’d guess around 1980. I was in front pew on the right. John Lee walked in with an orange suit and his guitar, said “Stand up!” to the audience, and all obeyed. There was no way to sit for the rest of the service. It was just amazing. Just remembered I wrote about this, and a funny JLH story, back in ’01.
There’s a light at the end of the digestive tunnel. (Sorry, can’t resist.) Four bowls of broth, two teas, a bit of jello, four glasses of water and an Italian ice have all made it past my pancreas, now once again the cooperative beast it was for close to 61 years before it revolted a week ago, dropping me into a trough of pain and inconvenience.
In the morning I get my first solid food, then start careful eating habits for the duration. If my pancreas agrees, I’m outa here by noon.
Which brings me to this comment by my buddy Chip, pointing to Leonard Cohen performing his song Hallelujah on German television, I’d guess in the mid-80s. (He wrote the song in ’84.) It blew my mind. Leonard is a first-rank poet and songwriter, but also a performer of such unusual calm and grace that I’m stunned by how well his schtick works, even in a hokey TV stage setting.
And these lyrics just give me chills:
| There’s a blaze of light in every word. It doesn’t matter which you heard. The holy or the broken Hallelujah. |
| I did my best, it wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch. I told the truth. I didn’t come to fool ya. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah. |
“Hallelujah” is the Pachelbel Canon of poetic ballads. On YouTube alone, you’ll find outstanding covers by the quartet of Kurt Nilsen, Espen Lind, Askil Holm and Alejandro Fuentes, the Shrek soundtrack, Allison Crowe, Sheryl Crowe, Damien Lieth, Rufus Wainwright, Bon Jovi, Amanda Jenssen, k.d. lang, k.d. lang (again), The OC, Jeff Buckley (many from him) John Cale…
I’ve listened to all of them, some several times, and still I like Leonard’s the best, maybe because his is the only one with the lines I quoted above.
Among my resolutions for life after Liberation is to sustain my love of music, rekindled here in the hospital. It’s not hard, that love. We all have it. Maybe that’s why I like the opening stanza of “Hallelujah”, as everybody sings it. Dig.
Bear with me while I rehabilitate with radio. If that doesn’t do it for ya, tune out now. It’s cool.
Gotta say that I’ve been learning to love WMBR/88.1, MIT’s student station, on Saturday mornings. Been listening for the last half hour or so to Doug Gesler’s excellent “Lost Highway”: Country music for folks without boots, a hat or a lasso… Doug just did a nice job reviewing the last set, while talking over two of the best instrumentals ever recorded, without identifying those, mostly because he uses it as is background fill. But it gives me an excuse to fill in the blanks. Both were from Mike Auldridge, who plays the loveliest dobro you’ll ever hear. The first tune was “This Aint Grass”, and the second was “8 more miles to Louisville” from his amazing Blues & Bluegrass album, now available as part of a 2-album compilation called Dobro.
I’d guess it was in ’74 or ’75 that I was sitting with my neighbor and buddy John Curry, listening to WDBS, the station I worked for at the time, when a song called “Bottom Dollar” came on, and stopped both John and I cold. I called the station, found out it was by Mike Auldridge, the dobro player with the Seldom Scene, a great DC-area bluegrass band. So we both went out and bought a copy of the album. I’ve loved his music ever since.
Great to catch up on his website, too. The style is pure gray-background 1995, and has html an amateur can actually read. More importantly, it has a wonderful sampling of .mp3s from various highly worthy albums. Plus introductions to Mike’s nothing-else-like-it Resophonic guitars. Beautiful things. Check it out. Take your time.
Still no food, by the way. It’s past 9am. Isn’t that a little late for a hospital to be delivering breakfast? Anyway, the listening continues.
Two of the greatest songs ever recorded are both called “Pride & Joy”. Marvin Gaye did the first. Stevie Ray Vaughan did the second. That’s what I’m listening to right now on Radio Paradise.
Wish the “food” would come. I’m so ready to boogie outa here. (Not really, but that’s how I feel.)
Finally ready to listen to a little radio. I gotta say that it’s pretty freaking hard to beat WERS. “Music for the independent mind.” Yes indeed. I’m not familiar with most of the music they play, but I like a helluva lot, especially since I’m sure I’m 3x the age of many of its programmers and listeners.
Right now it’s Yo La Tengo with “Take Care”. Take care not to hurt yourself. Be ready to ask for help. Thanks for that. Right now it helps. Before that it was Thao with “Bag of Hammers”. David Bowie’s outstanding “THV 15” ran before that. Was that Dr. John on piano? Before that Coldplay with “Speed of Sound”. Now it’s Gnarls Barkley: “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul”. They’ve been playing that one a few times. Deservedly. And now, for geezers like me, Van Morrison with “Caravan“. Radio. Turn it up. So you know. Radio. Takes me back. Keeps me up. From the Moodance album. 1970. Also The Last Waltz. Gives me chills. Progressive rock stations loved to play that song, mostly because it spoke from original dream of radio. What it was, and what it will be again, better than ever. Thanks to WERS for holding the flame high.
Man, this goes on. Now it’s Leonard Cohen with So Long, Marianne”. Another perfect oldie. Followed by Cat Power, “Aretha, Sing One For Me”.
[At this point I got a call from Steve Gillmor, and we recorded a brief impromptu podcast. I’m fading now, and heading for bed. Night, all.]
