Grilles

Spotted at the local car show:

And a bonus grille-less close-up:

Weaver’s Corner

A couple of guest photos by The Weaver, taken while she was on vacation (from me):

Goðafoss, Iceland:

Oregon coast:

Sigur Rós and Amiina

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

The trance-state is characterized by repetition
What kind of place is Iceland?
The repetition contains within it variations
How can a country so small generate so much original thought?
The variations produce chaos out of order
Two Icelandic bands performed in Minneapolis last night
The variations produce order out of chaos
Amiina, feminine, creating complex layers of sound
The trance-state has a character that includes repetitions
With strings and saws and lobby-bells and harmoniums and loops
The repetitions contain within them variations
A joyful surprise
The variations promise chaos on our orders
Sigur Rós, rose of victory, takes the stage behind a scrim
The validations premise orders our chaos
The song is one
The trance-state has crenelations that infer repetitions
For two hours the song ebbs and flows
The resuscitations comprise worlds of validation
The climax, and yet another climax
The validation presses outward on chaos
The encore, and then another, and yet another
The trance-state has created our inspiration
And a curtain call, Sigur Rós and Amiina
The resolution compels wild adulation
Boys and Girls playing together
The adulation posits overwhelming cries
Some new kind of music
The trance-state of Iceland?
Takk

Alda said…

Lovely!

Contrary to most, though, I just don't get what's so great about Sigur Rós. I've never really liked their music.

Professor Batty said…

…I had a hard time with them also, the latest album is much better I think, but still a challenge- definitely not easy listening! Our excellent public radio station The Source played a 'song' today from the sound check for Saturday's performace- it was absolutely stunning! I like the fact that they have incorporated Amiina into almost all the arrangements- they were wonderful in their own right, similar approach but not quite as brooding as Sigur Rós can be at times. Regardless of any of this, verrry original approaches to music. The man I sat next to, who didn't know a thing about either group was completely overwhelmed by the show.

Re-posted

Endless Summer Redux

My lyrical ode to Summer’s End.

Fall Fiction

God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is ~ Bob Dylan

With the return of hot weather I’ve been on a bit of a late-summer mysteries jag. Here are four books that I recently enjoyed (each with themes of corruption), good bets for the fall reading season:

The Corpse Flower

A novel by
Anne Matte Hancock

Danish journalist Heloise Kaldan is the protagonist of this Scandi-Noir crime novel.She has recently been under fire for a poorly-sourced feature article when she begins to get mysterious lettters from Anna Kiel, a fugitive murderer who has been on the run for several years. Homicide detective Erik Scháfer comes up with a lead when another journalist (who covered the the Kiel murder) come up murdered. The book has a straight-forward plot and comes to tidy conclusion. Dark and pessimistic, this is not a feel-good book. Well-written, Hancock is big in Denmark.

Marginal recommendation for fans of the genre.

Knife Skills for Beginners

A novel
By Orlando Murrin

On a much lighter note is this comic culinary caper.
Paul Delamare is a talented but under-employed chef who is asked to step in for Christian, a cult chef who is slated to lead a class in basic gourmet cooking but has recently suffered a broken arm. A variation of the classic Agatha Christie set-up finds 12 disparate people thrown together when, after the first day, Christian is murdered (found by Paul) and the police confine everyone to the cooking school (located in a grand Clue-style house with numerous rooms available for all sorts of skulduggery.) Paul is witty and glib, with trenchant observations on the action, both criminal and culinary. I laughed out loud many times. The large cast can be difficult to follow (write yourself a character sheet) but the story comes together in a dramatic finish at the end. Recommended.

The Frozen People

A Mystery by
Elly Griffiths

This is the start of a new series by Griffiths. A mix of historical fiction and police procedural. Ali Dawson is an cold case detective working in modern London. Her team is asked to investigate an MP's great-grandfather and rumors about him. Via a secret government time-travel device she goes back to the 1850s and Victorian London where she finds herself stuck in an era where things are very different. Modern politics, plot twists, a beloved son and a cat all figure in the action.

I was a big fan of the Ruth Galloway series and this book is similar in its attention to detail and characters. It is different in that the whole premise is bonkers—you have to suspend your disbelief in a very big way.

Big recommendation for fans of Griffiths or for anyone looking for a wild yarn.

You Can Trust Me

A novel by
Wendy Heard

Summer and Leo are two independent and rootless young women who prowl southern California in search of easy marks to fleece. Summer is a pickpocket while Leo is love ’em and leave ’em kind of gal. When Leo meets Michael Forrester, a billionaire capitalist, she goes with him to his private island. Summer thinks it will be an overnighter, but when Leo doesn't return her calls she manages to finagle her way to the island where all is not as it seems.

Summer and Leo both have backstories which play out in flashbacks. They are great characters and Summer’s search for Leo and Leo’s efforts to escape are exciting. A female buddy story with a pointed critique of capitalist excess.

Recommended.

To fear, or not to fear

20 years ago on FITK

"You say you're afraid of Death, right?"
Sometimes...
"Let's cut out the grey here, is it yes or no?"
Yes?
"Have you ever tried being dead?"
No.
"Then how can you be frightened if you haven't gone through with it yet?"
I don't know actually...Fear of the unknown?
"You've never eaten a yellow pepper. Are you afraid of that?"
To be honest, yes.
"Okay...what about petting a koala? That's unknown to you."
Well, I guess you've got a point there, but Death is eternal, whereas petting
a koala is not.
"So? What if it's a pleasant kind of eternal? What if you were reincarnated? What if you came back as a koala? Would you want some scaredy cat college girl petting you?"
Um...I suppose not.
"Alright then, I'm glad I made my point."
Wait...

By Comica
Reposted

Sharon’s Gumballs

Some days Sharon is like a machine of abundance and possibility.

I just need some Sharon once in a while to make life a little sweeter…

Used by permission

Up-scaled re-post

Summer/Fall

Anoka, Minnesota, Rum River waterfront park:

Date

20 years ago on Fitk

In my senior year, my self-imposed rejection of all social customs came to an end.

I asked a girl out on a date.

Not such a big deal, but this date was to be with K____, the daughter of the speech teacher, who the most intimidating member of our high school's faculty. Another complicating factor was the fact that I didn't have a driver’s license. But I did have a friend who did, a friend from my childhood who had access to a '65 Chevy Bel-Air. But he didn't have a date. In fact I don’t think he really liked girls that much. But I talked a sophomore in my Spanish class into going “double” with him, and so the table was set.

We went to the Tyrone Guthrie theater, the classiest venue in town. A modern French farce, Thieves’ Carnival was the play, a bit suggestive but not offensive fare. The performance was a big hit. We all laughed and laughed, and then went out for a bite to eat. At that stage in my development, I could eat five meals a day and remain a near-skeleton. The girls, unbeknownst to me, were already in the constant diet mode, so had little. I chattered away like a marionette on speed, my friend said almost nothing, but we managed to make it through that awkward repast. My friend dropped his date off first and they were out of view (in her back yard) for some time. He finally returned, and as we headed out to drop off my date it started to sprinkle. Then it began to pour. The rain was biblical in its presentation. We managed to get to K____’s house in near-zero visibility and K____ and I dashed to the back porch between squalls. We spoke for a second or two, and then her father, my speech teacher (and a real bear of a man), opened the door: “And how was the play?” he boomed.

That was pretty much the end of the date. I don’t think my friend ever had another - he remains a bachelor to this day! The girl from Spanish class disappeared from my life, but thankfully, K____ did not. Many years later, I was given the opportunity to transfer some audio tapes onto CDs for her. They were tapes made by her now deceased father of her family when she was growing up. There was one tape, a tape made when K____ was only three or four years old, where she talked with her father. Her father teased her, she responded, and both of them sang songs and told stories.

After hearing this tape, I forgave K___'s father for interrupting our date so many years before. To hear the love expressed by this man to his then-little daughter on those tapes made me understand that to him, she was still his little girl, and that he had given up a lot to let her go, even if for only an evening, to some one else.

It took me 35 years to get that good-night kiss.

It was worth the wait.

Arty Party

Attended an opening for a photo show last Friday. The Homewood Photo Collective is a loosely knit group of 30 or so photographers who get together monthly to discuss their images on various themes.

I was the sommelier, whose duties primarily concerned opening bottles and washing glasses. I also had a print in the show:

Click to embiggen.

Near Beer

Summit Brewer

It has been a while since I’ve had a FITK beer-themed post.

During a recent visit to my local liquor store, I found a variety pack of beers with this attractive labeling:

Summit is a local brand out of Saint Paul that I have enjoyed in the past. Only after I returned home did I see the small “non-alcoholic” labeling on the front of cans.

So, dear reader, I drank some.

It was actually pretty good, and the flavors of IPA, Amber, and Irish Red were accurate.

No buzz, of course, but no headache either.

The Luncheon

20 years ago on FITK

The quiet one, the not-so-quiet one, the finely-scented one, and I had a luncheon 'date' friday.

They are three women of whom I have had the pain and pleasure of working with for the last 5 years or so. That I could 'tag along' meant a lot to me, that my presence is accepted, for all that we've been through. Good times, bad times, very bad times, there to help each other out, no hierarchy here, just four people trying to make it at a job that sometimes seems more ridiculous by the day.

The finely-scented one, whose usual attire of jeans and a grey t-shirt, no make-up and a no-nonsense attitude, is leaving the group, going to school for a better job, she's only comes in when we are short-handed. A single mother, her life isn't easy, but she doesn't give up.

The not-so-quiet one is always full of chatter, keeping a positive spin on her personal life (not without its own struggles) and is always the one to enliven the proceedings. She is the MC, the leader of the pack, but still realistic enough to see that our jobs are always on the line.

The quiet one, the mother of a toddler, with another baby on the way, is charming in a mysterious way, perhaps because she is so quiet, but when she speaks the mystery deepens, and her placid demeanor is occasionally broken by flashes of the fire that dwells within her.

And then there is me. Old enough to be paternal, but not really comfortable in that role. I try to keep my mouth shut at these gatherings, I can learn far more from them than they can learn from me. Because we love each other, but are not lovers, that state of acceptance that exists when we are in shared company is easy to attain. If only all of my relations with other people were so congenial.

The luncheon ended. We went back to work, or home, and back to the daily grind. Life is good.

Blogger Lady of the lake said...

Thank you for sharing a part of "this" life of yours. I feel honored and cherish "knowing" you all in the capacity I do.

Persistence of Vision Show

From Nicole Houff:

You don’t want to miss this one… The annual Homewood Photo Collective’s member exhibit opens FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5th (5-8pm)

This year’s title is “Persistence of Vision” - Which the photographers of the Homewood Photo Collective define in a broader scope. From light trails and light painting, to recurring creative concepts, to what we see time after time in our daily lives, or a vision burned into our minds.

Show runs: September 5 -27
Opening Reception: September 5 (5-8pm)

Gallery Hours:
Mon & Fri: 2-6pm
Tues: 5-8pm
Sat: 1-4pm

SPRAYFINGER
Roberts Gallery
2400 Plymouth Ave. N.
Minneapolis, MN

I’ll be exhibiting my Photo-collage Waiting for Lady Gaga (excerpt in center panel of images above.) We had great turnout last year—if you are in the Minneapolis area I hope to see you at the opening!