One of those days that was frustrating from the standpoint of my little life--then I hear that Keely's in the hospital, after the heater at Tom and Joanie's shut down, after the ice storm that brought the power line down across the road down their hill (though the road was impassible under two inches of ice anyway), after Tom broke his leg skiing...they are way too lovely a family to deserve a shit rain of these proportions. Barb's feeling under the weather too, a tenacious cold. And Vicky's in the middle of chemo. So I recognize my little sense of failure at not getting a large chunk of my programming assignment^* working by deadline and worries about friends maybe and maybe not on the move must be put into perspective. Anyway I reacted by going to class anyway, and by starting TODAY on the next assignment so I can kick ass the rest of the quarter.

This class, rocks, by the way. (Not sure if that link's publicly accessible.) Kelvin's pretty amazing--he can get really into talking about threads⁺, at 9:00 at night!^# I think he's the best enthusiastic teacher I've had in that madhouse.

Tonight's viewing: True Romance (dir.) Like every movie I've seen written by Quentin Tarantino, this has some truly great bits and some truly horrible ones. I really liked Patricia Arquette, thought Christian Slater was a little too cool for school, and enjoyed watching Brad Pitt and Gary Oldman playing a major pothead and a psychopathic drug courier respectively. (And Chris Walken and Dennis Hopper and ... !) But in true Tarantino style, the violence is completely stylized, edited for maximum enjoyment, which seems uncomfortably close to porn to me. And Tony Scott sure knows how to cut videos, but I did get annoyed at the shootouts ripped off from John Woo, and from music and woman's voiceover ripped off from Badlands, a kajillion-times better and weirder Natural Born Killers movie. Satie just doesn't sound like Tony Scott's kind of thing (cf. the soundtrack to Top Gun, etc.). Markie's review:**

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^*Geek footnote: Writing the world's dumbest command-line shell in Java and writing a shell script that works like find -R in Linux.
⁺Nongeek footnote: They're like little parts of a program that all can run at the same time.
^#Kelvin says he stays up late and pokes around in Java .jar files just to find out that's in them

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Most of my traditions are ones that I've made up for myself (sometimes in tandem with Barb or others): Bad Movie Night, a ham for Christmas, Stupor Bowl and New Year's Day bowl games with Scott, election returns with Scott...so today was MLK Day, which several years ago we celebrated by going for a nice walk around the top of Queen Anne Hill and in subsequent years have instead navigated Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Woodland Park to our north. Today we walked down the west side of Lake Union along a beautifully wooded trail that ended up in a bunch of parking lots for marinas, houseboat communities, and boat-related businesses. We've also had beautiful weather every year we've done this, and today we got sunshine with a bunch of clouds that made for a perfect sunset. I never take for granted what a beautiful city I live in (esp. when the light from the setting sun reflects out of west-facing windows ll over Capitol Hill--and when I look at the Aurora Bridge from many different angles and notices how perfectly it frames all of them), and days like this I'm reminded of that. We ended up enjoying teriyaki at Snow Monkey, then going home to watch the Iowa caucus returns. Kerrey, Edwards, I don't care--long as we're motivated to return Stupid to his miserably unsuccessful business career, I'm good to go!!! (And we did "Emery" for the first time among my new tunes, Scott is encouraging, okay then.)

Listening: Soul 24-7 Radio (Internet). I think this is what KCRW aims to be a lot of the time.

Tonight Tresy and Becky and Adam and Carrie threw a joint birthday celebration for Earl Scruggs (still picking strong at 80) and Elvis Presley (dead at 42). Turned out the only other invited guests were Carrie's friend Matty and her brother (???) and her moms Suzanne and Carla. Nice people, nice vibe, lots of sugar. In short, a typical evening at the Quirk-Kilbournes.

Robin came over later to watch silly movies. We got through "Twentieth Century," a pretty good film of its kind. Carole Lombard is definitely sharp and funny and beautiful, and John Barrymore...they just don't make 'em like that anymore. (Robin and I have cast the remake: Cameron Diaz for Carole Lombard's part, Jim Carrey for John Barrymore's.) It just happens that screwball comedies of the Thirties are some of my favorites. I heard them compared to Restoration (or, heck, Shakespearean) comedies, and that to my non-scholarly ear sounds right.

Also managed an interminable vintage-2002 blaxploitation movie--starring Fred Williamson and Ron O'Neal (Superfly!), with Gary Busey as the psychotic assassin and Ice-T (this is a stretch) as a dope-dealing pimp. I'll tell you how bad "On The Edge" is--you tell me who directed it!!!!!!

I guess I should hand it to myself. Last night and today I was ripping my hair out over not getting JBuilder to recognize the Java class files we're supposed to be using for our assignments. Began to get that old oh-shit scared feeling. Something or other kicked my butt out the door to go to the gym (well, Barb encouraged me!), and though I didn't immediately chill out I did decide to go buy some books to see if they provided any enlightenment--then came home and worked on just the programming part, actually writing out design notes and li'l algorithms. So though I'm still the world's worst procrastination addict (that's got to be the worst, worse than food) I give myself props for dealing with an inevitable feeling of frustration by recognizing it was turning into self-doubt/depression and doing something about it. Score one for conscious living. (Somewhere, Patricia Smith is smiling.)

Oh, and Barb may consider a swap for a Les Paul Goldtop Tom Cope is selling (insert several dozen ! marks).

Listening: Through Glass-Covered Roses: The Best of the Green Pajamas Ah, homeboys (and, of late, -girls). This band's been at it since '84, and from everything on this CD it sounds like they really liked the precious, baroque-style psychedelic-revival sounds of L. A. bands like The Three O'Clock. So their notion of psychedelic is twinky by definition, but it's also sweet, and it can rock out when it wants to. I also like the fact that along the way they recruited Laura Weller who'd been one of two members of much-missed gal pop band Capping Day. She functions a little like Neko Case in the New Pornographers--power and soul from just behind the frontman. Mark's rating: ***

I heard about Eric Von Essen from interviews with Nels Cline, who credits Von Essen with a lot of his musical education. (I like Nels C.'s music because it's studied and atavistic at the same time.) Apparently a sweet, sensitive, lonely musician guy who worked pretty regularly, had demons, took off for Sweden to get away from them, and died in his 40s. The music strikes me differently in different environments. In the car, it sounded half like an L. A. version of Oregon, half like West Coast studio jazz--a little too pastel. Here at this hour (after fighting with my Java configuration all day), it sounds like Ralph Towner jamming with Wayne Shorter, very beautiful and right for late night. (As, come to think of it, was Oregon.) (And, duh, Wayne Shorter.)

I often think about the consequences of everything being interconnected. (That's a good Buddhist principle to think through.) I am fascinated by ripple effects--things that happen at x degrees of indirection from you as a result of something you do. Things you may never (and likely won't) know about. It lines up with my interest in things just beyond seeing/hearing, too. Everyone wants to be immortal, or at least remembered through time--and without even being conscious of it, everyone is.

Lunch today with my old work group (from '97-'99). I worked with some really fine people over the years, but this was one of the best groups of them all. I really miss the cameraderie, laughter, personality commingling. One really interesting political note: Roxanne was one of the people who voted Green in '00. (I had an e-mail dialogue with her on this subject.) Today I learned Eric S. was one, too. And both of them say they've learned their lesson since then--and that they doubt Nader's going to get anywhere near the votes this year (if he runs) that he got four years ago. I hope these opinions are representative--we need the hopeful signs we can get, right?

Wow--Dinah Washington is badass. Another artist I had evangelized to me before I was ready to listen (like Bob Feingold with the Velvet Underground--and Hendrix)--by Don Rawley, the only semi-openly gay guy I knew in high school. He did have pretty good ears. (He also liked Billie Holiday.) This music makes me want to turn the lights down, pour a big glass of cheap whiskey, and light up an unfiltered cigarette. (I'd have to start smoking...)

whoa...I don't know if it's the mild weather coming in thru the window Barb opened by the computer desk, or three hours on the phone with Mom (God I miss my lovely Phoenix clan...happy memories of my time last summer, seeing all the places/people they're with day to day, nieces, nephews, brothers, sister, pets, friends, warm weather, mountains, palm trees) or Barb and I making our first gym visit since 11/11 (me) or 10/29 (B). If it's the latter, I'd better do this more often, 'cause the endorphins or whatever make this feel like the first day of spring, like summer's just around the bend.

Mark goes to the movies: Girl with a Pearl Earring (dir. Peter Webber) I'm coming to appreciate "period" movies in my old age--better a careful, loving recreation of a past era than today's CGI horrors, right? This movie does well by the late-1600s-Netherlands detail (including a--literal--meat market you can almost smell), and it's fairly subtle in its depction of servants and working people and their vulnerability to their employers' whims. But, as Robin said about Scarlett Johansson (who plays the titular Girl), she's made a career out of doing not much of anything on screen, and in this film she spends most of her time looking freaked out. (Colin Firth, as Johannes Vermeer, similarly works his patented splitting-headache expression to express various degrees of artistic seriousness.) There are nice supporting performances by Essie Davis (as Vermeer's mercurial, jealous wife), Judy Parfitt (as his stern-but-kindly mother-in-law), and Alakina Mann (as an angelic-looking monster-child), and the shot compositions are often really nice--but (except for the scenes in the artist's studio) everything seems bathed in overcast, greenish light, and I think that look contributed a lot to the film's slow, static feeling. John Woo this isn't. Mark's rating: **½

Listening: Mal Waldron Quintet with Steve Lacy, One-Upmanship Taut, hypnotic, very swinging in an off-kilter way (Mal's definitely someone who took off from Thelonious Monk). And on "The Seagulls of Kristiansund," lyrical and beautiful. Lacy is a terrific partner for this music. Mark's rating: ***½

V/A: Macro Dub Infection, Volume 1 Pretty good state of the art mindwarp, vintage '95--a bunch of people remaking King Tubby in their own image with the help of a lot of digital delay. This anthology is nicely ecumenical, including the Golden Palominos (from NYC), Tricky (from Bristol), and Scientist (from Jamaica) as well as all the British guys you've never heard of. Mark's rating: ***½

Mark goes to the movies: House of Sand and Fog (dir. Vadim Perelman) One of the jokes growing whiskers in my household is my name for the Lifetime Movie Network, one of my guilty pleasures: "The Bad Judgement Movie Network." I think that's part of my problem with this movie. Jennifer Connelly's character is a passive-aggressive fuckup who undoes a bunch of people's lives and then feels bad about it, Ben Kingsley is a hard-assed military guy who buys into the Darwinian view of what it means to be an American, and between the two of them (and Ron Eldard as a well-meaning but equally deluded deputy sherriff who leaves his wife and kid to move in with Jennifer--yuck) they leave a bunch of characters dead and the rest of them perfectly miserable. I will say that the scenery (was that really the Redwood Coast or was it B. C. impersonating?) is gorgeous, the acting good, and damn, the story really, really sad. Mark's rating: **½

Listening: The Shirelles, Myrmidons of Melodrama I've heard a bunch of these singles before, but it's only hearing them end to end that I hear what a genius producer Shadow Morton was and what a perfect bunch of badassed young women singers he found to sing these songs. No wonder the NY Dolls and Johnny Thunders loved 'em so much. Mark's rating: ***½

Lost Seventies soul One of my favorite periods in soul music history was the very early Seventies. Think: "Superstition," "Smiling Faces," "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," "Sex Machine," "Slippin' Into Darkness," "Machine Gun," "Freddie's Dead," "Respect Yourself," "Family Affair" (just to name some of the biggest hits). The last was from one of the albums that really set it off, Sly's "There's A Riot Goin' On" (the Rolling Stone review when it came out called it "smack rock"). All of a sudden, street reality was in. Soldiers coming home from 'Nam with habits, women turning tricks to feed the babies, junkies and criminals everywhere scaring everyone to death. Sly dealt with all this allusively, in stoned/free-associative fragments that still left you narcoticized or scared, depending on which side you were on.

A band named Mer-da (aka Black Merda) made an album called Long Burn The Fire sometime in '70-'71. I know almost nothing about them except that they went from home in Mississippi to Chicago to make two albums for Janus Records (a subsidiary of Chess), of which Long Burn... is the second. The album reminds me of a lot of different people: Hendrix (the R&B base, without all the processing and feedback), Curtis Mayfield, Sly. Their singing sounds about halfway between Al Green and Bob Dylan. Their songs make explicit what Sly mumbles about: people who are broke and despairing and in relationships that have exploded. A song called "My Mistake" sounds like a garage band doing its best the Chi-Lites impersonation. The singer sings a sweet tribute-style ballad to the man he killed for messing with his wife, then decides he should have killed the wife instead. As the Gs say, that's keeping it real.

I wish I could point you to Amazon or someplace for this one--but the last reissue from '96 has been out of print for awhile now. I managed to find vinyl and get a CD out of it, so until EMI or whoever owns the Chess catalogue decides to reissue the album I wouldn't feel guilty about burning you a copy. Mark's review: ****

Mark goes to the movies: Paycheck (dir. John Woo) If I think hard, I might be able to think of an on-screen couple with as little chemistry as Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in this movie. Everyone else plays their parts to perfection: Aaron Eckhart as Yuppie slime (now that's a new one for him), Paul Giametti as Leading Man's Hobbit.

I was a lot sadder to watch the continuing descent of John Woo (the man who invented most of the action-movie moves plundered by every hack director in the past ten years) from Godfather of Action Cinema to Jerry Bruckheimer II. Until the last 15 minutes or so (when Uma goes to work with the Ninja moves she learned from Tarantino, plus one really impressive plumber's wrench and one cooperative robot), I thought this flick was the nadir of this path, the dullest movie John Woo has ever directed. Mark's rating: *½

Listening: Duke Ellington Orchestra, Soul Call; V/A, The Mercury Blues 'n' Rhythm Story, 1945-1955: Southwestern Blues; Eric Dolphy, Iron man; Zen Radio (Internet); Aesop Rock, Bazooka Tooth;

Aah...resolution #8 (I think--I lost count) to kick my Net addiction is not exactly panning out yet. This morning even my favorite source of political support and diatribe is depressing the hell out of me. On the other hand, I am glad as heck Barb signed us up for HBO--I tell ya, the final unraveling of Tony and Carmela's relationship in last night's repeat episode had me riveted. You mean all those fans have been watching RERUNS since 2002????

Snow is melting...I think this means the holidays are really really over.

Listening: T-Bone Walker, The Complete Imperial Recordings, 1950-1954; V/A, The Mercury Blues 'n' Rhythm Story, 1945-1955: Southwestern Blues


Back in the real world, this time with snow again. We spent part of Sunday with Mike and Sheri and Rachelle. Mike is back in the garage putting down beautiful tracks, Sheri still dreaming of escape from big, too-expensive house and their jobs that they hate at the hospital in Monroe. As part of my new "focus" regime (note that I'm doing homework and not procrastinating by writing blog posts), I intend to make sure I keep in as close musical touch this quarter as the workload allows. Then off to Scott's to see the end of the bowl season...neither LSU nor OK looked a whole lot like #1s to me. Ah, well. It is a new year, with a new regime, and last night I started class and was happy to see Kevin and Tina and even brainiacs Adam and Jack in the classroom with me. Familiar faces, yeah. I doubt it'll be as relaxed as I feel, but one good night's sleep on top of one sweet, sweet day with my beloved really puts me in that place.

Oh, the Kitties....acquitted themselves so lamely. I can't say they ever quit, but I can't exactly say they executed, either. I suggested to Scott that we play a drinking game where we had to take shots every time they alluded to "the events of the past 24 hours" being a distraction to Ell Roberson, but he said he thought we'd get way too wasted way too quickly. Anyway we wound up pulling out guitars--I for the SECOND time today!--and finding perfect keys for "I'm Dead," "Save The Last Dance for Me," and "Six Days On the Road."

Today's listening: Howard Tate, Get It While You Can: The Legendary Sessions

Well, now that ham is all sliced up (mostly)! Who says vacationers are lazy.

Now for some cleanup, and then on to the Fiesta Bowl at Scott's. Go Kitties!!!!!

The first day of 2004 was greatly enhanced by Barb's wonderful ham and Jul Kage and squash soup. As for the main attraction, the bowl games: surprisingly, the most exciting one of them all was the Capital One Bowl (ne the Citrus Bowl and still played there), in which Purdue almost succeeded in a come-from-behind drive to upend Georgia. (Loyalties changed hands at least once during the course of that game.) As for the Rose, Michigan made the mistake of playing a real conservative, short-yardage offense against a USC team that made humongous bomb passes the centerpiece of their offense. Hence, Michigan got its poor Wolverine ass handed to it. Now on to the Orange, where the two teams I care the least about in college football (Miami? Florida State? America, this is your future!) went at each other. Florida State wins the horribleness contest (on top of the usual football-crazed-yahooing-redneck factor) on the strength of their good-old-boy maintenance of aint-them-Injuns-rowdy-when-they-liquored-up traditions like the chop and the 1935 Hollywood authentic Injun music that accompanies it. So Florida Miami won, good for them.

Happy 2004. Being the fun bunch we are, Scott and Tresy and Barb and I spent most of the evening watching truly lousy movies (let's see: the Guy Ritchie/Madonna version of Swept Away, Message from Space with Sonny Chiba, Earth vs. the Spider, The Alligator People, and Kung Pow: Enter The Fist). Then went over to Scott's to watch the fireworks from the Space Needle. This year, for some reason, they were firing more from the bottom struts than from the top ones, so fewer were visible over the top of Queen Anne Hill. But that's what we have live fireworks telecasts on TV for!

Resolutions:
Scott: "Go to more baseball games."
Barb: "Eat more chocolate."
Mark: "Focus."
Tresy: ????