Euskaltel Euskadi

I don't remember what year it was (I'm not very good at remembering things like that), but I was living in Washington Heights when I was persuaded to adopt a soon-to-be-homeless cat. He came with a soft black carrier with a pink bow tied onto it and a name that was completely unsuitable. Luckily I no longer remember the name either.

Alain Robbe-Grillet reads Richard Scarry to his child bride.

Of the town, it is possible to see five buildings. Although some of them are attached directly to each other, they have the appearance of separate structures. Dominating the view is a building labeled Town Hall. It is the highest structure, although there is a smaller building that appears to be nearly as high but just because it is situated further up a small hill. A trick of perspective.

The Town Hall is a red-ish color that may be the result of paint, though it will seem later that it is probably some sort of stucco. On the left side it is seen to be a clock tower. Entrance to the tower is through a blue door recessed into the building at the top of four steps. Surrounding the doorway is a white border with a decorative lintel at the top. This border continues along the base of the clock tower but is absent from the rest of the building. To the right of the door is a small, narrow window with an arched top that is divided into six panes vertically and two horizontally.

Notes from a World Music Catalog, part 3

John Storm Roberts with Betty the bookkeeper and Penelope the duck in front of my 1969 Beetle

An occasional series about the heyday of World Music, analog recordings, John Storm Roberts and Original Music.

Part Three, Buying the LPS.

In the 80's, JSR and I used to go down to Manhattan every couple of months to pick up Latin and Haitian music and eat at a Peruvian restaurant in the 40's, near Kubaney Records before they expanded and moved downtown to a bigger, flashier place. I always had corvina encebollado and a wedge of curried tuna fish pie with a chilled mashed potato crust , and a lovely corn soft drink. John usually tried something different each time.

Extraordinary Claim & Extraordinary Evidence

There is a Rescue Pig in a fire truck playing the trombone with a colander on his head in What Do People Do All Day?*.

That is all.

*I like to think the emphasis is on the second "Do", because "playing the trombone with a colander on my head while racing to a fire" is a great answer to that question.

The Bomb Shelter

Our house was built in 1888, as were the two houses that flank it. Ours is basically a large square with a mansard roof and some other fancies of the age that we can only guess at under the vinyl siding. In 1950 a garage was added to one side, and a mother-in-law apartment on the other side at the back. In the basement of this apartment was a bomb shelter.

The Woods

A New Post, in which I introduce a Guest Writer.

"We’re living exactly on the borderline between the natural world from which we are being driven out, or we’re driving ourselves out of it, and that other world which is generated by our brain cells…. "

W.G. Sebald, After Nature

For more than a decade now my brother Jim and I have been hiking the section of the Appalachian Trail that straddles the shared borders of New York and Connecticut known as the Taconics. This winter it was hard to get out what with the snow and rain. And now it’s Spring and it’s still hard. We aimed for early March, then for the 23rd, our dad’s birthday; we would have made a toast to him out there in the wilderness he so loved. Now it’s April and we are at last getting out. It’s a perfect day; the sun is bright, clouds billowy and it’s mild. Because of all the rain it makes sense to stay high, so we agree to start from the Lion’s Head trailhead just North of Salisbury, which meets up with the Appalachian Trail, and to go as far as the Undermountain feeder trail which will take us back out to the road where we’ll park a second car. This will include a piece of the Appalachian Trail we haven’t hiked, and at about five or six miles seems just right for our first time out.

An LP to start

It is fitting that I should start with a Procol Harum LP.

Not because this is a rare or valuable album, but because Procol Harum was the first band that ever meant something to me in that way that bands mean something to us.  This one, A Salty Dog (their third) and Home (fourth) are still two of my favorite records even as other teenage fancies seem to belong to strangers, or are only worthy of my forbearance.

I even smoked Players Navy Cut cigarettes on occasion just because of this album cover, which still has the ability to charm me after all these years.  Because of this enchantment, my mother, for my 15th or 16th birthday, knitted me this sweater.  It still fits, and maybe I will post a picture of me in it some day.

to be continued.....