sleigh:

Xmas music isn't exactly my favorite genre anyway. I freely confess, in fact, that most Xmas songs are so old and tired that if I never hear them again, I'll die happy. And gee, when one of the 'big' artists decides to make a CD of Xmas music, it's often a sign that the artist's career is in a death spiral. A CD of Xmas music sits uneasily on the demarcation line between 'active artist' and 'ancient has-been artist.'

So... Bob Dylan has recorded a CD of Xmas music. Listening to the excerpts on iTunes, it sounds like a parody album: "Hey, here's what Bob Dylan would sound like if he sold out and did an album of really clichéd and worn-out Xmas songs." If you have iTunes, go to the iTunes store, search for 'Bob Dylan Christmas', and take a listen to the tracks on "Christmas in the Heart." I howled with laughter over the first few I listened to, then it just sounded horribly sad...

Bob, oh Bob, how far you have fallen...

I also heard that Sting was doing a "Christmas" album, but thankfully that has turned out to be false. He does have a new CD out called "If On A Winter's Night" which is not Xmas music, but winter-themed music, much of it old folk songs. Now that's how to do a seasonal album. Listening to the tracks, there is some tasty stuff there. Don't know that I'll be asking for it for the holidays, but at least it's music I might be interested in hearing.

scs_11:
About six months after Kate was born I went out of town for a full-week conference. Things were perking along just fine until someone with a baby in a stroller went by. At that moment I desperately missed Kate and desperately wanted to pick up that baby and coddle it. Since then I've found that happening any time I was away from the kids for an extended period of time. It only faded when they were graduating from high school and "parent" stopped being such a defining role in my life.

This week I've been at a conference in Baltimore. And when a kid about the same age as my granddaughter goes by, I get an urge to go play with it. Some things don't change, they just move around.

shannachie:
Arrragggchhhhhhhhhh!
This must have been the drive home from hell.

Not that I was in hell. I was in Düsseldorf at “Fantasydays”, a commercial fantasy convention where my merchandiser Werk-Zeugs had organised readings for the authors they represent and do stuff for. So far so good. The event itself was a little over-advertised and under-organised. Not by Werk-Zeugs, they were good but suffered from the general lack of attendance. Several hundred people had been expected. But I saw only a handful.

Well, if you start a con at Friday noon, what do you expect? Worse, if you have the first panels at noon but won’t let people in till 2:00 p.m. you really mess up the schedule. The cable fire in the tech system in the big main hall did not help either. After that they had the fire brigade in who checked all the dealers’ tables for inflammable substances (such as table cloths, oh and books… They gave up after a while.)

So, my reading was a bit like the con. It was on at the wrong time (Friday late afternoon, right before the opening ceremony) and I had the added issue that I had this - admittedly nice – bestseller author reading before me who got up after his reading saying ‘if you want your books signed follow me’ and led the audience away like The Pied Piper of Hamelin. I started reading to an almost empty hall, and since after my reading the opening was on we could not postpone it either.

In the end the opening started almost an hour late – but who could have known that? The MC had the charm of a red brick and only a cursory idea about who was present and who was not. For ages he kept announcing people who would not be there. “Oh. Maybe they’ll come in tomorrow? Does anyone know?” And he announced me as a man. Mr. Ju Honisch. I was in my 19th century crinoline dress and while I was mounting the stage, someone shouted “But that looks like a girl!” So my introduction changed from “Hallo, I am Ju Honisch and I am a fantasy writer” to “Hallo, I am Ju Honisch and I am not a man”. Well. It got a laugh. And the MC was a little mortified.

The worst bit, however, was the drive home. I did not stay all day Saturday because I wanted to be home before it got dark. No such luck. My navigation system guided me to the autobahn – right into a traffic jam. I was stuck there, and the worst thing was, they had closed the autobahn I was supposed to take. So I had to detour without any idea where I was going while my nav system kept guiding me toward the same closed motorway. So - while standing stuck in the traffic jam again – I recoded it to take small byroads. The first 20 miles of travel took me 2 hours. I had no clue where I was going and – to make matters worse – there were no restrooms anywhere and guess what – I needed one. Urgently.
Hell. Sheer hell.
I finally found another motorway, cried hurray - and was stuck in another traffic jam for almost another hour.
It took me all afternoon to get home (190 km, 118m).
I am miffed. I am seriously miffed.
The things I do for more publicity…
Sigh.
I wonder if it's worth the effort. I really do.

cflute:

Some roads will get you to heaven
Some roads just wear down your shoes
Some roads you know will be hell-bound
But there's a road that will get you through
Love is the soul's road calling you...
So where is that road?

Lawrence Gowan, Soul's Road, from Gowan: Solo Live

What songs comprise the soundtrack of your life?

maiac:

November 7 is Recipe Day.

On this day in history:

( Go to The List )


(Reconstructed medieval kitchens in Stirling Castle, Scotland)

rivka:

Feeling much better this morning, but really really tired.

It was a fast, violent illness. The active phase lasted about four hours for both me and Michael, leaving us weak, nauseated, and utterly exhausted afterward. During those four hours, I actually wished that I would die - and it seemed plausible that I might. Once the active phase was over, it gradually dawned on me that (a) I wasn't going to die, and (b) that was a good thing.

acceberskoorb is the most fabulous person in the whole world. She came over with takeout sushi for Alex, fed both kids, played with them, and helped with their bedtimes. Man, we are lucky to have the friends we do.

I am really tired this morning. Colin did an unusual amount of overnight nursing. I'm guessing that I was dehydrated and not making as much milk as usual, so he had to nurse a lot more.

billroper:

I was noodling around with a couple of chords, one of which I don't normally use, and tripped over a chord progression that led me to this song. And it probably doesn't sound anything like you think that it does.

I think. :) But it does have a beat.
( Lyrics inside... )

kijjohnson:
gwyndolin has been staying with me since she came up from San Jose on the train Tuesday. Fun has included but not been limited to climbing(!), Pike Place Market, a lot of baking, and less writing than either of us expected. Tonight being her last night in Seattle, we went over to La Casa jeanineers and woadwarrior to spend time with corwynofamber, Vicky, cupcake_goth, and stroppy_baggage. corwynofamber gave me a doll-house bathtub full of tiny rubber (flying) monkeys (and one ape), which makes him A+++++; and jeanineers loaned a Che Guevara hat and sunglasses that fit the WFA bust of Lovecraft. gwyndolin has uploaded pictures.

And now a public service announcement: I am seeing someone!

trektone:
After the closure of many local restaurants, some I've liked and others I never tried, I'm looking forward to the opening of a couple. One of them is eVe, a couple of blocks from where I live, almost right next door to Chocolatier Blue.

A recent blurb in the San Francisco Chronicle aka sfgate.com:

More Berkeley news: Former Colorado chefs Christopher and Veronica Laramie plan to open eVe (sort of an e.e. cummings thing) late this month. The 28-seat restaurant (1960 University Ave.) will specialize in New American cuisine in a prix-fixe format. Expect micro-seasonal, locally sourced ingredients - you know the drill.

Christopher Laramie, eVe's executive chef, used to work at the Blue Door in Miami Beach. Veronica Laramie, a pastry chef, worked with Chicago chef Charlie Trotter.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/columns/insidescoop/#ixzz0W9ArTMR3


And yes, I've not only been walking by, but have had several conversations with Chef C. and Chef V. I also got to meet their charming dog, Oliver.

( pics and such )

I really hope I like the food.

surrdave:

Can you see it rising like mist off the pavement?
Can you see it coalescing gray on fabric walls?
Can you see a wave cresting in the air, a following sea?
If you look at someone's head, can you see their mind?
Can you see thoughts form and spring, dissolve, orbit, spiral out, trail behind?
What does attention look like?
Can you see music? --not heads and stems and staves, but notes with evolving shape and color
and motion.
Can you close your eyes and see the shape of an orchestra, and name instruments by genus and species?
Can you see the form of a sonata as it lives?
Can you make out the composer's signature in the corner?
When you look at rain, do you see the river and the sea?
When you look at mountains, do you see sediment? Do you see mountains waiting underground?
If you can see these things, then see one thing more:
The inside of your eye.

dagibbs:
to a house smelling of natural gas. Apparently someone left the stove on but unlit. Oops. Luckily no boom.

Travel, again, went smoothly. Yay.

It was a good week in Michigan, saw people every evening. Didn't get any climbing in -- but that's ok. Sunday looks good for climbing this weekend.

Of course, almost everyone was in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, so I did the commute back and forth from Novi every evening. (Well, Monday and Friday I only went one way.)

pegkerr:
( Cut to spare the uninterested )

hsifyppah:
Today was exciting!

1. I got a seasonal flu shot.

2. I un-quit my job.

3. I was robbed at gunpoint.

Yep.

Job! Boss came and had a heart-to-heart with me and I cancelled my resignation. I seem to have accidentally called her bluff. So never mind all the sales stuff, sayeth she, and she took back something she had said that had upset me quite a bit. (In passing she had said that it seemed to be "just a job" to me, which, well, no, it's not. I feel strongly that this is my calling in life. Maybe tied with making music (actually I sort of go to the same place inside me when I'm on stage that I do when I'm counselling patients,) but not less passionate for being part-time. Anyway. This has been communicated.) AND! She is changing my schedule to make it EASIER FOR ME TO GO TO CONVENTIONS. ...yes, yes, that'll do, thank you.

I was very relieved by this turn of events. I'd been growing more and more depressed during the day, seeing regular patients come in and realizing how hard I'd miss them.

Anyway, I had had about 15 minutes of happy relief when a guy with a gun comes in. I was in the middle of posting on LJ about the job thing when I look up to see the muzzle of a gun pointed at my face. Oh LJ, you are there for me in all of life's most difficult moments. He asked for narcotics, I gave him narcotics, he left. No one was hurt, although my poor teenaged cashier was really freaked out. FAIR ENOUGH! I was weirdly calm the whole time. I started out thinking it was a cute armed robber costume, because really, our neighbourhood is so ridiculously sleepy. But not so much. Apparently ours was the fourth armed pharmacy robbery in the city within 15 minutes, so the police took a long time to get there. It's comforting to think we were just one of many targets rather than the subject of some more specific plotter. That was the first time in like 3 years that the store has been robbed, and may it be the last time for many more years.

Now it's time for greasy chinese food and single malt! Because HELL YES THIS DAY IS OVER.

billroper:

Nobody here is desperately ill, but no one is exactly well either. Katie has a loose cough, Julie has some serious nasal congestion, daisy_knotwise has been under the weather for a bit and hit the wall this evening, and I've been fighting off a cold all week.

I think I'm also about to lose a tooth.

telynor:
( Notes from today )

matt_arnold:
I now carry t-shirts on PodDisc.com! Art by Jonathan Chaffin.

spiritdance:

Daniel's musical sense of humor has a bit of a reputation, and I think he's influencing me a bit ...

So, I've found myself with a selection of music from Show of Hands on fairly heavy rotation on the iPod recently, with the song "The Galway Farmer" appearing with great frequency.

Given that I've got 4 year and 2 year old boys in my house, "Bob the Builder" is in high demand.

What's disturbing (in a good way) is starting to hear things like "The Bobland Builder" singing about the racehorse Bobland Bay, and how Bob won a lot of money on a bet, so he now can spend lots of time building things in Bobland.

If you aren't familiar with SoH, here's a link to the song up on YouTube:

sdorn:
Baaaa! I'm following those who ship tweets...
( Cut for the sanity of those who can't stand more twitter posts )

unclechristo:

The Lord Mayors Tea party at John Lewis's on Weds kinda knocked me out - up early and all that luggin stuff around.

Thursday was a different kind of day - Bad night sleep - needed a sleeping pill in th end - Hoewever got quite proactive - sorted out the guy who recorded my solo slot at The Musician - I wrote music for a new song at the piano yesterday which felt good - largely influenced by Jimmy Webb and his Ten Easy Pieces album. Bought home-ish stuff from Homebase, looked at a few new cars in showrooms for the hell of it - (my car is fine but nearly 10 years old so I;m looking long term), loaded more songs albums into Bandcamp, I bought publicist Ariel Hyatt's ebook Music Success in Nine Weeks - some good tips for music e-marketing in a web 2.0 world. In evening did some website work.

Friday - bad headache day - really stopped me doing anything much worthwhile - considered amputation - could not focus on music or my lists - did some website work, uploaded another songs album to Bandcamp. In evening we dropped in on friends Tom & Beth.
Later I chilled watching 42nd Street (1933 Ruby Keeler) - good film - good script - not convinced by Keeler tho. Good to see Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell & Ginger Rodgers & Una Merkel tho. And Busby Berkeley, as mad a genius as ever.

jhayman:
We had quite the lovely visit from the Prince of Wales and wife. Camilla is descended from Sir Allan MacNab (of Dundurn Castle -- not really a castle, but the best you'll get in North American), so she visited the homestead. It was all good publicity for Hamilton.

AND, far more momentously, Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe won the 2015 Pan Am Games. This means three new facilities for our town, and something the city really needs: hope for the future. Although I believe that the McMaster Innovation Park will, in the long run, be much more important, the Games are something it's easy to rally 'round.

And if that's as clear as mud, you're not from Southern Ontario.