Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘19th Century’ Category

James Breig–“Volumes of Knowledge: How the Enlightenment Perfected the Encyclopedia” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Books about writers, Colonial Williamsburg, Denis Diderot, Essays, Foreign Books, Free Speech, History, James Breig, Phish, Religion on August 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait Vol 3 (2010).

This selection of free Phish songs is notable because of a couple of items.

  1. All of the songs were recorded at the Worcester Centrum in Worcester, MA.  Although the first three songs were recorded in 1993, the fourth song was recorded in 1997 and the final track was recorded in 1991.
  2. The first three songs were recorded on New Year’s Eve–technically on New Year’s Day.  The first track actually counts down the seconds until midnight, when the band bursts into Auld Lang Syne
  3. Probably the biggest deal of all: the band plays a version of “Runaway Jim” that lasts 58 minutes and 48 seconds.  That’s right, nearly an hour on one song.  I think if I went to see them live and they did that I’d be pissed, but it sounds great on this recording.  “Runaway Jim” is not one of my favorite songs, but this extended jam is really good–they break into several different sections and it doesn’t feel like a long version of this song so much as a bunch of different jams thrown together.  At one point it almost seems like the band thought they began with “Weekapaug Groove,” but they push back against that.  I’m very curious to know what happened after that song was over, but the end of the disc takes on an early recording of “Llama, ” a song I like quite a lot.

This is yet another great addition to the free Live Phish pantheon of music–I mean, an hour version of one song, how cool!

[READ: August 1, 2012] “Volumes of Knowledge”

Encyclopedias date back thousands of years–Pliny the elder tried to write everything he knew in Historia Naturalis and a Chinese emperor created a similar book Emperor’s Mirror in 220 A.D.  But the art and craft of creating books that contain all the world’s knowledge flourished in the 1700s.  Increased wealth and education in the French bourgeois, a flood of information and a decline of interest in religion all led to the desire to learn more.  The printing press helped to disseminate the information.

It was Denis Diderot, a French enlightenment polymath who best explained the concept of the encyclopedia:

the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come.

But Diderot recognized the limits of a one-author encyclopedia: “I do not believe it is given to a single man to known all that can be known.”   From 1751 to 1772 he and his assistants edited more than 70,000 articles from 140 authors to create his first Encyclopedie.  Of course having many authors had drawbacks–differences in style, length and quality.  But Diderot shied away from nothing and in many locations the book was banned.  Some of the ideas in the book shook the very foundation of accepted ideas.  And many of the authors hoped to change the world.  Diderot himself even hoped to usurp religion with his knowledge: “It is not enough for us to know more than Christians, we must show them we are better.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Gil Klein–“The Use of Myth in History: Many Myths are Designed to Explain Us as We Wish to See Ourselves” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Abner Doubleday, Baseball, Colonial Williamsburg, Deer Tick, Essays, Field Recordings, Field Recordings, Gil Klein, History, Myths, NPR/PRI/PBS on August 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DEER TICK-“Main Street” (Field Recordings, July 18, 2012).

NPR created a bunch of Field Recordings at Sasquatch Music Festival.  I picked this one [Deer Tick Among the Honey Buckets]  primarily because it featured Deer Tick front man John McCauley singing front of a bunch of porta potties.

I actually don’t know much about Deer Tick, so I don’t know if they normally sound folky or what.  But this song, in its acoustic setting is very good.  John McCauley’s voice works great here.  There’s even a nice shout out to MCA.

There’s not a ton to it, and this alone won’t make me a fan, but I’ll certainly check out more by them.  It’s also a nice video to watch, especially for the amusing encore.

[READ: August 1, 2012] “The Use of Myth in History”

Most of the articles in Colonial Williamsburg have to do with, well, Colonial Williamsburg.  This one, however, talks about myths that we as Americans have created and continue to believe, from colonial times to more days.

The article opens by explaining that Patrick Henry’s famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech was written down forty-two years after the fact by William Wirt.  And he wrote it down from memory, so who knows what words Henry actually spoke.  But no doubt Wird got the gist right.  So the Henry speech is a myth–not necessarily wrong but not exactly true either.

Klein explains that some historians would like to remove the myths from history and focus only on the facts, but stories like Henry’s are so popular, so ingrained in our memories, that removing them would do more damage than the beloved myths do.  Indeed, some historians believe that myths are very important.  Micheal Gerson wrote, “We know that myths are not the same as lies” and John Thorn said “Historians have an obligation to embrace myth as the people’s history”

Klein writes that America’s mythology was largely created by writers from the early 1800s.  Pressure was building towards the War of 1812 and they needed support.  The mythology was designed to get people to forget about the ugly Revolutionary War.  And so stories were created just in time for the birth of public education in America to disseminate the stories.  And so mythological stories like George Washington and the cherry tree or the midnight ride of Paul Revere or Plymouth Rock or even Pocahontas became enshrined in textbooks.  Now, most myths are based on facts, but the truths were embellished and made more romantic and given a moral.  So, yes Patrick Henry did give a speech, the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth and Paul Revere did ride into the countryside to warn of the British invasion. but probably not exactly as we think they did.  So nineteenth century writers made George Washington the symbol of our country–a unifying power to embody a nation. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ivor Noël Hume–“Mecklenburg’s Declaration of Independence” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, Field Recordings, Field Recordings, History, Ivor Noël Hume, Now, Now, NPR/PRI/PBS on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NOW, NOW-“But I Do” (Field Recordings, August 8, 2012).

This is an NPR Field Recording, [Now Now at Graffiti Park]which means they brought equipment to Graffiti Park in Texas and recorded Now, Now playing this song live.  You can watch the video here.

The video opens with the band lugging their gear into the weird little foundation of space.  (This explains why there are no drums, clearly).  And so the band with two guitars and a xylophone (and a shaker) play their song and sound great doing it.  This is something of a stripped down version of the bands usually more shoegazery sound, but even in this format the band sounds great–the song is catchy, the melody is pretty and their harmonies are great.

I haven’t heard the original of this, but this is now the third Now, Now song that I’ve really enjoyed.

[READ: August 1, 2012] “Mecklenburg’s Declaration of Independence”

The previous issue of Colonial Williamsburg surprised me with several articles that I found really interesting.  Although this issue was filled with a little more about current local happenings (bulldozers and updates) they still managed to pack in a number of interesting articles.

According to this article, in 1775 Captain James Jack delivered a document to the Second Continental Congress.  On May 19, 1775, select officers from North Carolina, seeing the kind of fighting that was happening against the British in Massachusetts made up several resolves.  The fist stated:

We hearby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanely shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.

This “declaration of independence:” preceded Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence by fourteen months.  The document never reached its destination in the intended form and it was almost forgotten.

But then in 1819, the editor of the Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette wrote about this “Mecklenburg Declaration.”  The news surprised John Adams who had never heard of the document.  Adams praised the document (Adams didn’t really like Jefferson).  But Jefferson called it questionable: “I believe it spurious.”  This led to an intrastate rivalry with Virginia claiming the Declaration of Independence as the true one and North Carolina claiming the Declaration of Independence a plagiarism!  Jefferson even went as far as to question the patriotism of North Carolinians.

The controversy is complicated by a document from May 31 a facsimile of which seems to show signatures cut from court records and imitations of the designer’s handwriting.

It’s all somewhat moot as the Continental Congress applauded the intention of the letter but felt that adopting the Mecklenburg resolves was premature.  And therefore it was not a usurper of the actual Declaration of Independence.  But in North Carolina, the document is held up as official.  It became a page of official North Carolina history in 1831 and in 1861, the state voted  to add the date to the state flag.

American history caught up in 1954 when President Eisenhower acknowledged the men who signed the “Mecklenburg Declaration.”  Who knew?

Read Full Post »

W.A. Swanberg–The Rector and the Rogue: Being the true and incredible account of a dastardly hoax against an upright (if rather stuffy) divine. It turned New York upside down. (1968) [THE COLLINS LIBRARY No. 7 (2011)]

Posted in 19th Century, All Songs Considered, Anarchy, Biography, Decadence, Django Django, Funny (ha ha), Hoax, Humiliation, McSweeney's, Newspapers, Paul Collins, Post Office, Pranks, Religion, Short Books, The Collins Library on August 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DJANGO DJANGO-“Default” (2012).

This song was featured in a post on NPR’s All Songs Considered site on July 31.  Django Django are a Scottish duo and they sound very retro.  The two guys sing in close harmony that is more of an echo than a harmony.  The music is mostly very old-sounding guitars–big and unprocessed–and yet the rest of the track is quite processed and electronic.

It’s a simple, straightforward song (with some cool effects).  The NPR write up about them says that they are more of an electronic band, although this song doesn’t really suggest that (except in the middle section where the sounds are manipulated in a cool way).  I’m not sure if I’m all that interested in the rest of the album  In fact, after a few listens, I’m not as excited by this song as I initially was.  But it’s still fun.

[READ: July 31, 2012] The Rector and the Rogue

The Collins Library is back!  And since this seems to be the summer of non fiction, I decided to read it now.  I have loved every Paul Collins book so far in the Collins Library (old, out of print and forgotten titles that Collins resurrects) and this one–which I admit seemed questionable–was just as wonderful as the others.  The Rector and the Rogue details a much-forgotten episode of a grand-scale prank–the systematic public abuse of Dr Morgan Dix, Rector of Trinity Church by a trickster known as “Gentleman Joe” in 1880.  Yes, 1880.

Swanberg told the story, eighty years later, as a rather gripping tale.  The afterward explains that he just happened upon some information about the story and needed to know more.  So, he did the research and compiled first an essay and then this (reasonably short) book.

And so he begins his tale without letting the audience know what they are in store for (just like Dix had no idea what he was in store for).  One morning in February 1880, Rev Dix opened the door to see a safe salesman from Acme Safe in downtown Manhattan.  The salesman says that Dix inquired about safes.  Dix had done no such thing and sent the man on his way.  Then a man from a local girls’ school rang the bell and said that Dix’ charge was more than welcome to attend.  Dix had no daughter or interest in the school. The schoolmaster showed him a postcard from Dix which asked for information.  The postcard was not his own (obviously) and was not in his handwriting (obviously).  Then came a man selling two horses, replying to his postcard….  This went on all afternoon.

The afternoon mail was full also of responses to similar inquiries–about wigs, dance lessons, kitchenware, etc.

And so began the botheration of Dr Dix. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Cathy Hellier–“Gentleman’s Servant” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Cathy Hellier, Colonial Williamsburg, Crooked Fingers, Essays, History, Racism, Slavery, St. Vincent, The National, War on April 14, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ST. VINCENT AND THE NATIONAL-“Sleep All Summer” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This cover is by The National with St. Vincent singing a duet with The National’s singer.  The original, by Crooked Fingers, is also a male/female duet, so this works nicely.  Indeed, having listened to the original, there’s not a lot of difference between these two versions.

The singer from The National has a distinctively deep voice.  And I really like St Vincent, although on this song, she’s not really doing anything amazing, she’s just singing (very nicely, but she could be anyone).

It’s a perfectly nice song, in both versions.  The original is a bit more interesting musically, but I like the vocals in the new version better.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “Gentleman’s Servant”

If you have read my other three posts about articles from Colonial Williamsburg, you have seen the cover of this magazine.  And, man, does it make me uncomfortable.  About as uncomfortable as I feared this article was going to make me.  I almost didn’t read it.  In the previous article I mentioned how the photos look…wrong.  And none look more wrong to me than the series of pictures for this article.

However, this article was not about slaves exactly.  It was more about servants or valets.  The article immediately puts us at our ease by telling us that there are schools today that teach how to be a valet, primarily in England.  And they make it out to be not such a bad gig.  It puts me in mind of Jeeves and Wooster, and what a lark it must all be.

Of course in the 18th century things were quite different (although it is described as similar duties–caring for the master and the master’s clothes and horse and such).  This paragraph tucks in a key phrase as it tries to make it all seem casual: (more…)

Read Full Post »

James Breig–“Department of Deportment: Stances and Dances Made the Eighteenth-Century Man–and Woman” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, History, James Breig, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Ryan Adams, Superchunk on April 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RYAN ADAMS-“Like a Fool” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I don’t particularly like Ryan Adams’ songs, so I was surprised how much I liked this cover of a Superchunk song.  The cover has an interesting vibe, a kind of Pearl Jam (in the guitars) meets Radiohead (in the vocals) sound.  It’s not too different from the original, although, as with many of these covers, I like the recording quality better.  I know I love my lo-fi world, and I love Superchunk but these newer versions just sound better.

Adams has a good voice, and he adds just enough orchestration to make the song a wee bit more interesting than the original.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “Department of Deportment: Stances and Dances Made the Eighteenth-Century Man–and Woman”

This article was intriguing but wasn’t quite about what I wanted it to be about.  Also, what was weird about this article–not so much with the others in the magazine so far, is that the photographs look simply too modern.  Usually for period pieces there is a hint of aging done to the film.  Obviously for the magazine they want the best possible quality photo, but it just looks really…fake?  Obviously modern people in old homes and dress.

The other thing that is odd to me about this article is that it begins with the idea that the reader doesn’t know what deportment means, or  that we misunderstand its meaning.  The true meaning–upright behavior and moral uprightness–doesn’t seem that hard to grasp.

However, despite these criticisms the article has some interesting history to impart.  The idea was that Gentlemen and Ladies were educated and would act with honor.  And part of that honor was the way one stood and acted.  Thus, Gentlemen had to maintain deportment.  Etiquette books also taught how to treat people of equal–and lower–standing.  Some people tried to appear gentlemanly by quickly learning deportment–but rules were complex and fakers were easily caught.  And those who were caught were punished by being thrown out of  a party or by public ridicule. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Mary Miley Theobald–“A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, History, Mary Miley Theobald, Quasi, The 3Ds on April 3, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: QUASI-“Beautiful Things” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I’ve had this CD for a pretty long time just waiting for me to devote some time to listening to it.  The collection is a compilation of non-Merge label bands covers songs by Merge bands.

Quasi was a great band (I guess they are still together, so they are a great band).  I have their records from around the turn of the century (I love writing that!).  Sam Coombs and the wonderful Janet Weiss comprise the band (there’s a bassist, Joanna Bolme, added in 2007). And they sing wonderful, political alt-pop.

This is a cover of a song by the New Zealand band The 3Ds.  I don’t know the original (although I do know (and like) a few songs by them–mostly from the Topless Women Talk about Their Lives soundtrack.  This version has heavy keyboard prominence, but he sweet verses (sung largely by Janet with Tom doing backing vocals) are interspersed with some cool buzzy guitar solos.

  I just found the original online, and the cover is pretty accurate–although the Quasi version is a bit more dynamic.  Nevertheless, it makes me want to listen to The 3Ds a bit more.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya”

Have you ever wanted to read about the history of hot chocolate?  No, of course not.  No one has.  And yet, when I started flipping through this article, Theobald introduced plenty of ideas that I found not only interesting but compelling.

Theobald explains how the Aztecs called this (at the time) very hearty, spicy and bitter) drink cacahuatl.  The Aztecs got the drink from the Mayans, who got it from the Olmecs.  The first Europeans to try this drink loathed it (one even called it a drink for pigs).

It was the conquistadors who mixed cacahuatl with sugar to make what we now know as chocolate.  Chocolate was a luxury back then–time consuming and difficult to make.

The Spaniards found the drink very hearty–hearty enough to be considered a meal.  This put Catholics in a tizzy about the state of the item.  They feared that if it was food it could not be consumed on fast days–it was ultimately deemed a drink.  The drink made its way through Europe and into England.  The first known English recipe called for sugar, long red pepper, cloves, aniseed, almonds, nuts, orange flower water and cacao. (more…)

Read Full Post »

César Aira–An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (2000) [translated 2006]

Posted in 19th Century, César Aira, Chris Andrews, Foreign Books, Johann Moritz Rugendas, Nature, Robert Krause, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, Translation, Travel, Uncut, Under Byen on March 30, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: UNDER BYEN-“Samme Stof Som Stof” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Under Byen is a Danish band and has only one song on Viva Piñata.

I had originally written a review under the impression that it was different song (the CD and even iTunes confuses this song with “Kiss ME” by Uncut.  And you can see my initial impression below).  Now, knowing that this band is not singing in English changes a lot about my perception of what the sounds actually are.

This is one of the few remixes on the disc where I listened to the original first (to make sure I had the right song).  The original is an interesting mix of peculiar instruments and some cool soundscapes.  This remix chops it up into pieces and puts it back together.  It’s an interesting twist on the song but man, the original is so much better.

[Here’s my original thoughts, when I read a bit about the song when I thought it was by the band Uncut and I thought that it was not a remix.  And I saw that they were described as a poppy fuzzy band.

this song comes from one of their official releases.  “Kiss Me” is not a remix but it sure sounds like one.  It is kind of warped and the sounds feel manipulated in crazy ways. The vocals are mostly moans and noises. But it has a catchy beat and some interesting sounds. This is a weird song, and I’m not sure how it fits in with the rest of the album.  I do kind of like it, but I wouldn’t hunt them down for more.

Of course, now that I know it’s supposed to sound like that, I change my tune completely. And I will hunt down some other songs for comparison.

[READ: March 23, 2012] An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

This is the third novel from Aira that New Directions has released (translated wonderfully by Chris Andrews). It’s the first one they published and the first one of his that I had heard of.  I actually heard of it long before I knew of Aira because the Preface is by Roberto Bolaño.  And if you do a search for Bolaño, this title always comes up.

And so now I finally got to read this mythical essay.  Sadly, it turns out to be an essay called, “The Incredible César Aira” which was recently published (2011) in Between Parentheses–bad timing for me.  It also has nothing to do with this novel specifically

But on to the novel itself.

This short book is about the German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas.  Little did I know that he was real.  He was a landscape painter (a profession which became obsolete with the invention of cameras) and he was very well-regarded.   Twice during his career he went to the Americas to paint the land.  On his second journey (from 1831-1847) he went to Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, which resulted in thousands of paintings.

The opening of the book is rather philosophical (and a little dry).  But after about ten pages, the book picks up with the titular episode.  Rugendas and a German painter named Robert Krause set off in 1837 from Chile.  They got on well.  Rugendas was far superior technically and Krause, although also quite talented, was always respectful.  Rugendas had sold prints and books and his Picturesque Voyage through Brazil was printed on wallpaper and China. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Michael J. Lombardi–“ΦΒΚ: Love of wisdom, the guide to life” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Ben Folds, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, History, Michael J. Lombardi, Set at School, War on March 21, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Free Folds Five E.P. (2011).

With the purchase of Ben Folds’ Imitation of Myself, I received a free download of this E.P.  It contains five tracks: three demos and two live tracks.

The demos are for “Underground” (1992), “Stevens Last Night in Town” (1994) and “Song for the Dumped” (1994).  Demos are a strange thing.  For fans of a song it’s interesting to hear an original version, especially if it is radically different.

These demos are not radically different although there are certainly some differences.  “Underground”‘s opening spoken bits sound more comical and less sung (it’s clearly just not mixed well).  And “Steven” has a strange spoken word section during the instrumental break.  It’s also less manic than the official release.

The most drastic change is in “Song for the Dumped” in which the chorus ends not with the humorous “and dooooooon’t forget my black T-shirt” but with the more abrasive (and Ben said harder for him to sing) “you fuuuuucking whore.”  So these demos are interesting for knowing that these songs were pretty much always meant to sound a certain way (and that even Ben has limits for how much he’ll curse).  But the official releases are better.

The live versions are both from solo shows.  “Narcolepsy” (1999) and “Dr Yang (2008).   Ben live is always a fun prospect.  He puts on a fun show and often stretches the songs out with fun jams.  “Narcolepsy” is notable for the incredibly buzzy bass guitar that they’re playing.  Neither one of these songs features any jams, but they both have a heavier, more intense feel than the studio versions.

Since the Imitation of Myself included live songs and demos, these make a nice addition to the set.  Although they’re certainly not essential.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “ΦΒΚ: Love of wisdom, the guide to life”

My family has traveled to Colonial Williiamsburg for our last few vacations.  We don’t spend all of our time there (Busch Gardens is just down the road, after all), but we have really enjoyed the history.  So last year I sent them a nominal fee and got some kind of membership coupon.  And then about a week ago, we received this magazine.  I don’t know why it took so long to get to us and I don’t know how many more we’ll receive.  I wasn’t even sure if I was going to read anything in it (I like Colonial Williamsburg, but probably not enough to read a whole magazine about it).  But I was delighted by the content of the magazine.  And I’ll mention a few of the other articles in the near future.

This one is about the origins of ΦΒΚ, Phi Beta Kappa.  It’s something I never even thought about, but once I started reading it, I found it really interesting. (more…)

Read Full Post »

“Happy New Year” (The Lotus Magazine, Vol 7, No 4, January 1916)

Posted in 19th Century, Canadian Music, Chocolate, Drinking, Essays, Food, History, Holidays, Jim Bryson, The Lotus Magazine, The Weakerthans, Tyrone Power on January 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JIM BRYSON & THE WEAKERTHANS-The Falcon Lake Incident (2010).

I don’t know who Jim Bryson is (he’s a Canadian folk singer, duh), but I do know The Weakerthans.  And since this CD is always listed in The Weakerthans’ discography, I thought it was worth investigating.

All of the songs have a Weakerthans feel, there is no question (I mean, they play all the music).  And while I like the album quite a lot, I feel like without John K. Samson’s voice, the disc is missing something.  Nevertheless, the album is a wonderful folky album, a great mix of upbeat and slow tracks.

“Metal Girls” is a wonderful upbeat folk rocker.  It’s incredibly catchy.  “Fell Off the Dock” is a much slower, sadder song with the final repeated line, “everybody loved it here, but you.”  “Wild Folk” ups the tempo again.  “Constellation” is another slow song, this one with beautiful harmonies.

“Freeways in the Frontyard” has even better harmonies, from Jill Barber–a kind of minor key harmony that works very well.  “Up All Night” is another more uptempo track that could easily be an adult alternative hit.  “Kissing Cousins” is a slight track that seems like it should be funny but isn’t really.  “Decidedly” is one of my favorite tracks on the disc.  It’s boppy with a fun chorus: “Why would you ever grow leaves just to watch ’em fall off again.”

The first and last tracks feel more like filler or intro/outro than real songs.  But that’s okay.  It’s a tidy little album of very pretty songs.  And the tempo changes keep everything interesting for half an hour or so.  You can’t complain about that.

And in case you were wondering, the Falcon Lake Incident is a reported UFO encounter near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada claimed to have occurred on May 20, 1967 (thanks Wikipedia).

[READ: January 19, 2012] “Happy New Year”

Of course, I wish I had read this article earlier in the month, but then I only found out about it a couple of days ago.

This is an article (I assume from the editor of The Lotus Magazine) which bemoans the loss of the New Year’s Day tradition of going to (pretty much) anyone’s house for meals and snacks and drinks and good times.

The article states that it may have been about 35 years ago (circa the 1880s) that the Dutch custom was abandoned.  Before then, people in New York City would throw open their doors and it was:

a breach of etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these annual calls, when old friendships were renewed and family differences amicably settled.  A hearty welcome was extended even to strangers of presentable appearance.

Indeed, it seems that certain houses were known for:

particular forms of entertainment.  At one was eggnog; at another, rum punch; at this one, pickled oysters; at that, boned turkey, or marvelous chocolate, or perfect Mocha coffee, or, for the connoisseur a drop of old madeira, as soft as rainwater and as delicate in flavor as the texture of the glass from which it was sipped. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »