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Archive for the ‘Swimming’ Category

Maile Meloy–“Demeter” (New Yorker, November 19, 2012)

Posted in Death, Foals, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Maile Meloy, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Swimming on November 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FOALS-Live on KEXP, May 30, 2008 (2008).

I really like Foals’ debut album, Antidotes and this short concert is all about that album.  They play four songs from the record and a fifth intro-type song called “XXXXX.”  The band sounds great, playing their complex rhythms perfectly.

“The French Open,” “Heavy Water” “Red Socks Pugie,” and “Electric Bloom” all sound remarkably similar to the record (not exactly, but amazingly close given the technical nature of the record).  The one distinguishing feature of this show is that the backing vocals are a little more prominent.  This actually gives the songs a slightly more ghostly sound.  Of course the angular math-rock of the album is still present in all of these cool songs.  The band is not very talkative, which is fine, since the music is what matters.

It’s interesting that the band says they prefer recording and creating to playing live.  They sound great live but you can definitely hear the joy they had in creating the record. The live session is here.  

[READ: November 21, 2012] “Demeter”

Here’s another wonderful story from Maile Meloy.  In continuing with her excellent streak of simple stories about families (especially mothers and daughters), we have “Demeter” (I never know how to say that name).

This story differs from many of her other stories for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on.  It feels lighter somehow, although it’s not exactly a happy story.  Perhaps it’s that it seems so concerned with the weather and the elements, rather than the routines of the characters?  Whatever the case, the story is very much about the characters, specifically Demeter, a middle-aged mother of a thirteen year old daughter.

When Demeter and her husband divorced, she decided that the best custody arrangement would be that each parent received custody of Perry Mason (their nickname for their daughter because of her hard stare as a baby) for six months at a time.  On this particular day, Demeter is dropping off Perry Mason at her father’s for the next half a year. (more…)

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Periodical: Outside

Posted in Adventure, Biking, Canoeing, Daredevils, Essays, Fishing, Food, Hunting, Outside, Shooting, Skiing, Surfing, Swimming, Travel, Wells Tower, Yuck! on October 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

After enjoying yet another article from Outside, I figured it was time to subscribe, you know, give the magazine makers some money for their work.

I decided to wait for three issues to offer a verdict because the first two were really disappointing.  Subscriptions run $2 an issue with a list price of $7.  I haven’t really talked about subscription prices of other magazines before but this one is quite high.  It’s staggeringly high for the amount of ads that are in the magazine, too.  They have a half a dozen advertorials which look like articles (which I hate) and all those personals in the back.  Plus the mag is littered with ads for gear (which I know gear people love but still  it should impact the price of the magazine.  Sheesh).

So the articles I’ve enjoyed in the past were personal stories (from the likes of Wells Tower, etc).  They are extended pieces by reasonably famous authors and they have a great voice.  In the issues I’ve received so far, the feature stories have been the 50 Best Jobs and Are You Tough Enough?  That Jobs one seems like a fun article and indeed the places they chose were interesting.   Although this was more of a fluff piece than a real article–no one is getting a job looking at these companies–certainly not just because they read about it here.  Also, note that none of the companies are East of the Mississippi.  There’s also later article on adventure seeking entrepreneurs.  Yawn.  I gather that the Are You Tough enough type of article is the real meat and potatoes of the magazine, with headlines like “Eat Like a Champion” and “Surfing Monster Waves,” the actual target audience for this magazine must be slim indeed.  I know it’s not me. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Squish: The Power of the Parasite (#3) (2012)

Posted in Children's Books, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Nyckelharpa, Pranks, Short Books, Swimming on September 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Nyckelharpa (2012). 

At ScanFest we also heard the American Nyckelharpa Association play a few tunes.  Like most of the  world, I had never heard of a  Nyckelharpa , but since I love unusual instruments, I couldn’t wait to find out more about it.    From the ANA website:

The modern chromatic nyckelharpa has 16 strings: 3 melody strings, one drone string, and 12 sympathetic vibration (or resonance) strings. It has about 37 wooden keys arranged to slide under the strings. Each key has a tangent that reaches up and stops (frets) a string to make a particular note. The player uses a short bow with the right hand, and pushes on the keys with the left. It has a 3 octave range (from the same low “G” as a fiddle’s 4th string) and sounds something like a fiddle, only with lots more resonance.

It was really neat to watch half a dozen or so people playing this odd instrument with all those strings.  They held it like a guitar and the bow is really short.  And, indeed, they were playing the keys instead of the fretboard.  How cool!  I didn’t really get to experience the sympathetic strings in the auditorium (I honestly can’t even imagine how that works), but it sounded wonderfully folksy.

Check it out!

[READ: June 6, 2011] Squish: 

This is a weird experience for me–I’ve now read the new Squish and the new Babymouse pretty much right as they came out.  Wow!

The Power of the Parasite continues the interesting juxtaposition of what Squish is reading (a Super Amoeba comic) and what’s happening in his life.  In an interesting graphic choice, the comic book is rendered in black and white while the scenes of Squish are lovingly rendered in the creepy green that they use.

In this story, it’s summer vacation and time for camp.  Interestingly, Squish’s two best friends Peggy and Pod go to ballet camp while Squish opts for swim camp (not that there’s anything wrong with ballet camp).  This means that we don’t see much of Squish’s cohorts.

When he gets to camp, he is pretty unimpressed (and he’s afraid of water) so he decides that he will avoid the SUPER AWESOME FUN that the counsellor promises.  Instead, he reads his Super Amoeba comic.  But then a new character Basil,a hydra, comes along and bonds with him (not literally, although he is capable of growing  a new limb (or tentacle or whatever) when one breaks off.  Basil also has the ability to shock others.  Yes literally.  (scientific fact: A hydra’s tentacles can paralyze you!).  And when he is bored, he uses this to make more fun. (more…)

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XXX Summer Olympic Games–Part Deux (2012)

Posted in Archery, Biking, Cycling, Fencing, Handball, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Olympics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Shooting, Speed Walking, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Water Polo on August 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: August 6-August 15, 2012] XXX Summer Games continued

The Olympics finally ended in our house.  Meaning we taped the closing ceremonies and only got around to watching them (well, fast forwarding through them) a couple of days ago.

I’m not sure what it was about this year’s Olympics, but I was really on board with them.  In past years I haven’t watched nearly as much.  I’d say it had something to do with my kids, but they weren’t really that interested.  They typically played with things while the games were on.  My son wanted to watch Tae Kwon Do and my daughter wanted to watch “the beautiful diving.”  But they wouldn’t really hang around too much during most of the events.  Nevertheless, I was pretty happy to have been able to watch as much coverage as I did.  It became something of an obsession to be able to watch as many obscure sports as possible.  And even if I didn’t watch everything (the FF button is my friend), I enjoyed so many unlikely sports this year.

Since the last Olympics post we had a whole new breed of events that we got to enjoy: (more…)

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XXX Summer Olympic Games (2012)

Posted in Archery, Badminton, Biking, Fencing, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Olympics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Shooting, Speed Walking, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Trampoline, Water Polo, Weight Lifting on August 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: July 27-August 5, 2012] XXX Summer Games

So I have been TiVoing the XXX games like crazy and now my suggestion box is chock full of porn.  And Motherboy XXX!

I have watched more of these Olympics than any previous one.  And I think it’s because NBC has been covering the heck out of it.  Not NBC proper, which is blowing it as bad as everyone says, but the satellite stations–NBCSN, which is great and CNBC or MSNBC one of those other stations that nobody watches, have been doing 9, 10 and 11 hour blocks of whatever is on.  And that’s pretty cool.

A few thoughts though—NBC & co., please learn how to cover live sports.  Even the wonderful NBCSN, home of awesome esoteric sports that I really want to see.  If I watch 40 minutes of field hockey and you cut to commercial during the only goal scored, well, you know, that sucks.  Or really any sport that doesn’t stop–you really fuck with momentum if you cut away all the time.  Here’s a simple solution, and its even more aggressive than World Cup soccer which knows how to shill product–compress the picture some and show a banner ad at the top or bottom or left or right of the screen.  You can’t show the no-doubt-well-thought-out ads for whatever it was 100 times like you do now (which I FF anyway), but plaster the logo in the bottom the screen, let it jump around and do cartwheels.  We can handle it, just stop cutting away. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Memory Laps” (New Yorker, October 24, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, David Sedaris, Funny (ha ha), Memoirs, Nada Surf, New Yorker, Swimming on October 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NADA SURF-“When I Was Young” (2011).

This is a new song from Nada Surf’s new album (due out in January 2012).  Nada Surf aren’t changing much from their tried and true sense of pop hooks, but this is a slower, statelier song (with strings!).  It features a challenging-to-sing-along-with chorus (“I wonder what was that world I was dreaming of”).

It’s a bit longer and slower than my preferred Surf songs, although I can see it working well in the middle of an album.  About two minutes in, the guitars kick in and the song really comes to life.  It’s catchy and fun and has me excited for their new disc.

[READ: October 23, 2011] “Memory Laps”

This article came around the same time that our tickets for Sedaris’ upcoming performance at Raritan Valley Community College arrived in our mailbox (nicely timed, that).

It did make me wonder if I shouldn’t be reading anymore of these pieces, since I don’t want to spoil the humor of Sedaris live (although I think Sedaris is funniest when delivering his pieces–his monotone is just wonderful–even if I have heard them before).  And plus, the show is not until April, so chances are I’ll have forgotten about it by then.

This essay is all about young David when he was on the swim team (this guy has done so much in his life–who knew he was a swimmer too?).  The crux of the essay is that David’s father never praised him for his swimming; instead, he heaped tons of praise on David’s teammate Greg Sakas (I wonder if names have been changed in these essays). 

True, Sakas was pretty great, and he won every meet, but even when, on that one freakish instance when David beat Greg, David’s father was unimpressed, saying that Greg must have been ill or something. (more…)

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