favorite things 18

the days around here are finally beginning to warm, and of course the baseball season is now in full swing. which for us means a lot more time spent outside. last night as the sun began its descent we barbecued nathan's hot dogs while my son aaron and i played catch on the lawn. in the background we could hear the sights and sounds of another game being played by our local team far away in the land of their birth. there in new york it was cold and wet, and i smiled as some of the remaining sunlight still touched my cheek.
since we're well inside the broadcast area, my little transistor radio works well. this one is a repro we picked up years ago based on a design from the 50's. like most of my favorite things what i love about it is the simplicity and reliability. unlike so many of the complicated digital whatsits of today, this device only does one thing and needs no online tutorials to operate (that is unless you were born after 1985) the cost to operate this little marvel amounts to less than a couple dollars a year. and for now the airwaves remain free.
there's something very calming about listening to the ballgame on the radio on the porch or while working in the back yard. for a time you can imagine that life is still simpler, like the design of this transistor. but then your line of thought drifts forward as you remember that this gadget heralded a coming future, where we could not only take the broadcasted programming to the beach with us, but one day become the broadcasters ourselves.

carrug island

one of the reasons i think the t.v. show "lost" was so popular is because i believe within all of us is an island of private thought. a construct of all of the sacred dreams and desires we carry around separate of our connection to others. this place, which i have named "carrug island" appeals to me very much.
it's my place of escape, and a land where a boy may be king. still featuring a restored castle from original inhabitants of centuries past, now open to guests as a kind of museum, winery and b+b. there is also a football field nearby (and when i say "football" i'm not talking about the american offering) which hosts world cup qualifying and exhibition matches from around the world. just to the south of it is the little hamlet of carrug where one can grab a pint of local ale while listening to folk music or spoken word. further south one may choose to stay in our 5 star international accomadations with all modern technology and convenience.
of course the biggest event each year is the vintage moto gp, whose road course challenges riders from all backgrounds and which circumnavigates the island. after the race you may find some of the riders hanging out at the igloo club and dancing the night away. all of this fun does require an organization, and you'll find our three building headquarters and offices down on the southeast side of the island. when we take a break from the busy planning, we like to head down to the gourmet hot dog stand below on street level.
of course there are other attractions and amusements including the carrug peaks, with an still active volcano, and its unusual desert valley below. a large greenhouse cultivating some of our more delicate fruits and flowers, and even a circus show to rival cirque du soleil's. and too there is always the beach. never far from our gaze, it's beautiful blue reminds us that we are always close to life.

warm toast

friday afternoon i got a call from my old friend jim, asking if i would like to be his guest that night, along with his brother and another friend at a show on polk street. with little time to plan i shot out of work, and waited for them to swoop by and pick me up. we parked and went looking for a place to get a quick bite to eat. and we stopped here.


as i gazed up at the sign i had to laugh, and felt i would be remiss if i didn't capture some imagery from the place and share it here. inside it was an updated take on the urban diner theme, clean and contemporary. typical of the style it featured counter service and booths looking out on the intersection. the food too was what you would expect, although i can only vouch for the fries. my companions orders were more substantial and they looked tasty with big portions.
outside on the sidewalk in front of the entrance i spotted this little stamp in the cement which is so indicative of san francisco. you see the names of the street on each corner in the city, and they are designed in the event that an earthquake levels all recognizable landmarks as it did nearly 106 years ago. as you wander through the horror of that aftermath, perhaps you may at least have a sense of where you are.

over 30 years ago today, you taught us all to play. thank you and goodbye mr. duey.

a day at the railway

and now for something completely different. a little railway distraction trip, courtesy my uncle courtenay and aunt vera. enjoy the ride!

ground control to major tom...

music for washing and ironing

each weekday i rise early in the morning to get ready for work. and some mornings this is more challenging than others, especially as i say goodbye to my bride of 15+ years still snuggled warmly in bed. and then as i go out into the morning chill to meet the day i am steeled by a resolve that i am meeting my duties as a husband and father as i go speeding off to my job.
meanwhile life moves along at home at its own pace. and as my wife begins to rise and take care of her own duties, what better accompaniment than this vintage vinyl find? the stirring somerset strings moving the ladies through the cycles of laundering. and as midday thoughts may turn their heads to fancy as they look out their windows and see the warming sunshine, reality snaps them back to responsibility as they flip the record over to side 2.

every time i pass this machine at work it reminds me of p-diddy...

fields containing pearls
lie beneath our feet and wait
for full hearts to dig

as day shifts to night
we lose our ties and wind down
the reel to reel

analog

at thanksgiving my cousin asked if i had seen the movie "super 8". i had not. she then told me how much it reminded her of me. curious, i got around to seeing it over the weekend, and though i wasn't crazy about it, i did enjoy taking a little time machine trip through the landscape of my youth. seeing a walkman in the movie reminded me about all of the "personal stereos" i had picked up over the years. back in the day sony was the gold standard, but there were others. i once picked up an aiwa because the sales guy said "s' got sony guts".

but my finest purchase in the field was undoubtedly back in '84 when i somehow managed to drop a hundred bucks for the wm-10, the world's smallest cassette player. without a tape inside it was as big as a cassette cover. and as i thought about this little marvel of the age, and all my fond memories of sporting it on ski trips and walking to and from school listening to big country and duran duran, i wanted to geek out a little more and went looking for any information i might find on the world wide internet.

and of course the triple w did not let me down, as i uncovered some great archival sites deicated to all things pre-digital. chief among them is walkman central, an exhaustive portal to some fine sony machinery. and as i perused my new found love interest, one thing leapt out at me. sony was the apple of its day. as i read some of the more technical achievements for each model i really got this sense that these guys were pushing the envelope wider and wider with each successive model. as problems occurred, they looked for ways to solve them and they did, again and again. and even as the shift from cassette to cd began, sony was still at the forefront of development and technology.

sadly then, it is difficult to understand why they were so soundly defeated once the shift again moved us from cd to mp3 technology. i mean they had it all. the design and manufacturing departments, research and development, marketing, even a solid link to the music business through their publishing label. so why did little apple which had never before delved into the music market become not only the spoiler, but the only dominant force in making these little music sticks that we all carry around now? in a word, simplicity. as sony added more and complexity to their devices, apple just made it simple. but looking at that old wm-10 reminded me that they once knew how to do that really well too.

memories cut the
grooves we follow of time's life
line spinning endless

record finds

so as i continued to try and sort out my new garage, i made a discovery the other day. buried in a box of old records my father in law had given me some time ago i found these very tiny ones. they are smaller than a 45 and have grooves on only one side. on the non-grooved side are patent dates from the very early 1900's. i'm assuming they are little 78's, but so far i haven't had the courage to play one. but i just thought they were so odd i wanted to share them. they are clearly before my time.

but even as i was sorting through my own records, and organizing the few 45's i do own, i was impressed by this deep history of recorded music cataloged not only in our own memories, and in the music itself, but also in the beautiful paper labels that adorn these old recordings. today as with the cover art it has mostly vanished into the digital matrix. these 3 look to be from about 1918, which means that my wife's 95 year old grandfather probably listened to them as a toddler. i'll have to see if i can turn them into mp3 for him before he's gone.

if you want to learn more about these tiny recordings there is a great website archiving the entire line. check it out here. i'm still amazed that after all this time, it is still possible to see something new pop out at you in a stack of wax.

favorite things 16

one of my favorite things on a saturday morning without commitments is cooking breakfast. now breakfast itself is my favorite meal, and saturday is the pinnacle breakfast day. today was the first time i'd done one in the new place and as i stood here putting it all together it occurred to me. although i have my routines and have whipped it all up in many locales this one felt different. the new kitchen, the light coming through the windows. i was re-orienting myself. i immediately wondered how many breakfasts lay ahead here.
one of my most favorite parts of this whole ritual is the quiet time i spend here preparing the food. sometimes i'll rise before everyone else and start stirring quietly. i prepare the coffee first. and once everything is on the stove i like to pull out my old church hymnal. in between flipping the sausages and french toast i'll work my way through a few of the old familiar numbers. and this is very good. it reinforces all that is good in serving and creating, drawing me closer to the Master Creator and Servant. time spent here compared to the rest is very short. but sweet, like the french toast. today we don the beret.

we played summer's flute to the last note. and danced across the horizons of space and time together. we laughed and cried until it hurt and it felt good. and we ran out of breath. and though death was always there in the corner looking on, he too joined in the dance. the lives of friends have crossed and now departed and we are all of us richer because of this time. goodbye friends. we carry your music in our hearts.

(photo courtesy ingmar bergman)

the glamour of war
has deserted me traded
in for rock and roll

short subjects

Kurt always carried a guitar pick in his pocket with 37 cents in loose change. A quarter from the year he was born, a 1937 buffalo nickel he found once on a department store floor, and seven wheat pennies from various years including all those that America fought in World War II.
Kurt didn’t play the guitar, but he carried the pick nonetheless in hopes that one day he might be sitting around at a party with some of his cooler friends when someone would pull out a guitar and ask one of the people at the party to play. When the guitar player would say “but I don’t have a pick” Kurt would coolly reach into his pocket, shaking the change around and then slowly pull out his bright red Fender medium and say, “here you go man”. After that he hoped all the people gathered round would nod in approval as the guitar player said “thanks man”, to which Kurt would take a beat, then reply “no sweat”.


Bill loved his daughter Christine and her new husband Todd. And even though they now lived over 800 miles away in California, they would still return home at least twice a year, once in the summer and again at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Once during a summer visit they were all in the living room after dinner watching TV, when they discovered a new nature documentary together called “Planet Earth”. And watching it on Bill’s new HD flat screen television, they all sat mesmerized, each letting out “oohs” and “aahs” at various times during the program.
That Christmas Bill delighted especially in one of his gifts to Todd and Christine, the DVD box set of Planet Earth. And although they were both thrilled to receive this gift and agreed with Bill when he reminded them of the super time they’d all had together, nonetheless, after it returned with them to their apartment in California it sat on the shelf unwatched.
And when Bill visited them on his next Birthday and toured their apartment, he proudly made note of his box set gift sitting on display right next to the first season of Lost, and nodded to himself smiling.

check it

check the cool wax is one of the inspirations for my entry into the bloggiesphere and though i have been remiss in posting samples of my own procured wax of late, i take comfort in knowing brainwerk has taken similar sabbaticals.
take a look though, he is back and posting like mad of late. stop in, look around and who knows who you'll bump into, maybe bill shatner himself.

transformation

today at work i discovered a little treasure trove of vinyl in the giveaway area next to the break room. there were like 20 of these and i was a little surprised too. usually it's pretty slim pickens over there, but david crowder band on vinyl? cool. anyway, i went back later and they were all still there. doesn't anybody own a record player anymore?
so i decided to do a little art project while i made a fresh pot of coffee. i grabbed another one and put it in the oven in our break room and let it cook while the coffee brewed. after several minutes it was malleable (and probably quite toxic) and i was able to form it into a little crumpled box. the dcb wax is now my new key tray. and something tells me that this would make mr. crowder smile as well.