Ups and downs last week. Found myself in a bout of mid-week doldrums. That’s been a Wednesday/Thursday pattern a few times, and… I think it may be caffeine-related. Time to cut back.
Running
The race I was in left me defaulting to higher speeds, so it took a bit of time and conscious effot dial it back to the norm. After the race week taper, ramped up the volume quite a bit. It’s funny how noticeable it is when I’m underfed. A big healthy meal and a good night of sleep can make a big difference.
Books
The Vaster Wilds. Don’t read it to cheer yourself up.
Don Quixote, trans. Grossman. Pretty sure I’ve DNF’ed this in every decade I’ve been alive. 🤷♂️
Nuts & Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World in a Big Way. Nails are more interesting than you’d think!
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
“Thriving and growing cultures are liberal about handing out ‘cultural green cards.’.”
Movies
The Rental. Effective! Good use of fog. Interesting choice to keep the villain unknown. I dig it. Airbnbs are creepy!
Collateral. Never gets old.
Days of Heaven. I was really disappointed with the sound at BAM Harvey Theater – too hot, too echo-y – but it’s still a splendid movie. I’m happy I got to see it on a big screen again. I really like Malick’s willingness to remove boring, functional dialogue. He’ll give you a couple clips of dialogue, or what they see, just enough to get the basic idea of what people want, and then he lets you look at how they’re processing it all.
Music
Listened to a bunch of great music from Asia this week…
Explorer Series: Indonesia – Bali: Golden Rain. Love the contrast in frenetic melodies vs. the very ponderous ding-dong of the deeper gongs in the first couple tracks. The explosive piston vocals in “Ketjak: the Ramayana Monkey Chant” are fantastic.
Mandolin Duo: U. Srinivas – Vol. 1.
Gundecha Brothers, Bhaktamar Stotra.
Sabri Brothers, Qawwali: Sufi Music of Pakistan.
Nusrate Fateh Ali Khan, Best Urdu Qawwalies. Seven hours’ worth! “Allah Hoo Allah Hoo” is a banger.
Rare Voodoo Songs from Northern Haiti. Really beautiful singing with minimal percussion accompaniment, as in “Pikan Kwenna“.
James, Seven. If you like early U2, you might like this.
TV
The X-Files, s3e3 “D.P.O.“. I like this lightning kid, and most of the creepiness comes from the very real-life stalking rather than the superpowers or generic villainy. Jack Black guest appearance!
The Leftovers, s1e9. Based on this and Hannibal: if you see an odd deer, it’s a bad sign. Deer, metronome, smoking. Everybody disappeared. :(
Columbo, s4e3 “By Dawn’s Early Light”.
Lost, s4e2. The island is getting crowded!
Mark Larson 