Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Year, New Culture, Post 2 of 2022!

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Year, New Culture, Post 2 of 2022!

by | 208 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.  We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Year, New Culture, Post 2 of 2022! 1 Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Year, New Culture, Post 2 of 2022! Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Boxing Day
For this, our second Medium Cool of 2022, let’s talk about what we’re looking forward to in the new year in terms of culture. I’m just finishing Michael Pollan’s book How To Change Your Mind, and have his newest one on deck.

What’s on your horizon? A new book or film? Revisiting or catching up with something? Planning to get to something you haven’t done in a while? Covid forcing you to finally learn a foreign language or new musical instrument? Do tell.

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’ve been learning Spanish for many years now but I’m stuck at maintaining a rudimentary proficiency. Not sure how to take it to the next level.

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    One thing I’m looking forward to in this space is a post on friend-of-Medium Cool John Lingan’s forthcoming book on Creedence Clearwater Revival. We’ll do something during the pre-order stage and then again when it lands, and John will be here to answer all your Rock ‘n Roll questions.

    If you haven’t heard of, or read, John’s first book (Homeplace), it’s here.

  4. 4.

    mvr

    I’m working on building a concert ukulele. So far I’ve made the form for bending the sides and a template for cutting them. And got some nice Koa. I guess this counts as learning new musical instrument (though perhaps not in the intended sense) as I have made a few guitars, but uke’s are new to me.

    And the Creedence book does sound interesting to me.

  7. 7.

    BGinCHI

    @mvr: WOW. Very, very cool. A cycling buddy of mine builds guitars on the side, and they’re beautiful.

    What a skill.

  9. 9.

    Leto

    Avalune and I are traveling to Italy in April so I can attend a weeklong cooking shindig/seminar. Very excited to go back. Will attempt to eat my weight in gelato and will also try to fill a very large suitcase with hard to find items.

    Regarding Polian:

    NPR Fresh Air: ‘Reluctant Psychonaut’ Michael Pollan Embraces The ‘New Science’ Of Psychedelics (First interview, 42 mins long; May 2018)

    NPR Fresh Air: ‘Reluctant Psychonaut’ Michael Pollan Embraces ‘New Science’ Of Psychedelics (Second interview, 37 Mins; May 2019)

  12. 12.

    mvr

    @BGinCHI: Not so much skill as persistence in my case, but two of the three (the electrics) I made came out very well and the other one (an acoustic) needs a bit of work as it was built where it is humid and now lives where it is dry and I didn’t sufficiently curve the bracing to allow it to stand up to that well.

    I’ve been hoarding wood for some more guitars in the next few years or if not then when I retire.

  14. 14.

    Leto

    @BGinCHI: Calabria region, town of Dasa. When we lived in Italy we never got past Rome. We explored the northern half of Italy quite a bit, so heading further south and exploring their cuisine/cooking will be amazing.

    We’ve read most of Pollan’s work, just haven’t gotten to this one. We’ll get there.

    Edit: going to kill my autocorrect.

  17. 17.

    BGinCHI

    @mvr: I would endlessly shop just for the wood and never get past that point. Would love to see a pic when it’s finished!

  21. 21.

    Gin & Tonic

    Not really in the same music/art vein as others, but I’m hoping to build another boat this year. If I put strings on it, can I pretend it’s an instrument?

  23. 23.

    brendancalling

    Over the holiday a friend of mine showed me the basic finger-picking roll for guitar, so I’m working on that.

    In March I start applying to teaching jobs in Philly and Nashville. Burlington VT is a nice place to visit, but I’m out at the end of summer. Gonna be nice to back in either city.

    It’s raining on the snow right now, and temperatures for tomorrow -6 to -10 Fahrenheit. So the drive into work (never mind the walk to my car) will be an Olympic skating event.

  24. 24.

    Leto

    @BGinCHI: we’re super excited. I’m excited for the new recipes I’ll learn, Avalune is excited for the new recipes I’m going to learn ;) It’s been 9 years since we’ve lived there, and honestly that’s just too long to be away.

  27. 27.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Baud: Thoughts (I’m trying to maintain my rudimentary French, much degraded in 28yr):

    1. I listen to French music, and lyrics services mean I can itinerantly look up the idioms, too.  But this helps to keep the “phoneme recognition” circuits refreshed
    2. I subscribe to the Le Monde RSS feed, which is in French.  It only provides the first third of each article, but that’s enough to get a good idea of what the article is saying, b/c I don’t think Le Monde “buries the lede” like FTFNYT
    3. Every now and then I watch a French-language movie or TV show.  There’s so many of them.
    4. Obviously all of the above work for Spanish even better, esp. in the USA.  Lastly, I used to converse in French with a friend in Paris, but …..  the last few years have been so stressful that I don’t seem to be able to manage to keep it up.  But if you can find Spanish-speakers who want to zoom, that’d work a treat.
  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: I took lessons for a while back in the olden days in high school.  We couldn’t afford a decent tuner so I had to suffer with an out of tune plastic pitch pipe.  Needless to say, it wasn’t very helpful in trying to learn a fretless stringed instrument…

    :-/

    Enjoy!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  31. 31.

    Cacti

    Since the thread is on pop culture, this seems an appropriate place:

    Bob Saget found dead in his hotel room.

  32. 32.

    mvr

    @Gin & Tonic: What kind of boat and what sort of construction. I have fantasies about a strip-built Kayak and then taking it down the North Platte to the Platte and up Salt Creek.

  34. 34.

    Miss Bianca

    @mvr:

    Yow, cool!

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Doo eet. I’ve been picking up my fiddle (NOT my violin, damn it!) almost every day for at least five minutes a day since New Year’s, after having barely played at all in the two years since COVID hit. Trying to work on at least one new tune per week.

  35. 35.

    cope

    Well, if the currently “delayed” boxes of family slides finally show up, I will have about a decades worth of family pics to organize, scan and turn into…something to share with my two brothers and two sisters.  These were slides taken by our step-dad including holidays, summer-long vacations, shorter trips, family life and school events. They haven’t been viewed since the ‘60s when they were taken so assuming FedEx hasn’t screwed the pooch with the delivery, I have a long, fun project in front of me.

    I’ve also had a very recent urge to take the electric guitar out on the back porch and make some real noise of my own for the first time in three decades.

  36. 36.

    Professor Bigfoot

    I picked the guitar back up over the last few months; and then Mrs. Bigfoot acted on a very long ago mentioned wish: an electronic drum kit.

    I’m NO GOOD, but it’s fun as hell and it’s actually a workout

    (and being electronic, no one hears anything other than the sticks hitting the pads unless they’re under the headphones with me… )

  37. 37.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Baud:

    Find a Spanish language Reddit sub, maybe one of the sports subs like r/Barça, where they converse in Spanish.

    On another note and speaking of new mindsets, Fantastic Fungi on Netflix was a fascinating watch and certainly opened my eyes to a world I had little knowledge of, the world of fungi.

  38. 38.

    laura

    @BGinCHI: in a total Momsense-type move, our mom bought the boy who would be Roadie Brother the Elder Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Willy and the Poor Boys. That’s how it started. He was fortunate to have worked a gig for John Fogerty and fulfilled a dream to be of service to such a major early influence.

    Also, Stu Cook’s dad- who’s that lazy and dismissive to advise these babies on that contract?

  39. 39.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Hopefully 2022 will allow me to get back to playing live music, at some point.  But who knows when that will be and it’s gonna be like starting all over again because I will likely have to find new bandmates due to people moving.

    Looking forward to another season of Snowfall and hopefully a new season of For All Mankind.  The latter we started watching again while visiting Texas and I forgot just how amazing that first season was.

  42. 42.

    FelonyGovt

    @Chetan Murthy: I’m trying to regain my French skills as well. We were going to go to France in September 2020, obviously THAT didn’t happen, but maybe someday. I took French and Spanish in high school and was much more advanced in French, but then I married into a Spanish speaking family and Spanish became much more important. And I graduated from HS in 1970, so it’s been awhile!

    Another resource you might consider is the Paris Match weekly magazine. I get it through Libby and my local library.

  44. 44.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Professor Bigfoot: I got a V-drumkit with stimulus money.  Such a great investment and something I had wanted for a very long time.  I love my acoustic drums, but we have a tiny place and my wife is now working from home, so the ability to practice without shaking the whole house is a must.  My drum chops have actually gotten much better as a result because I finally CAN practice more.

  47. 47.

    cope

    I also meant to second the recommendations of Pollan’s works and point out that he has a four part series on food on Netflix that I enjoyed.

  48. 48.

    Haydnseek

    @raven:   Glad you’re on this thread. Some time ago just in passing you mentioned the book Vietnam by Max Hastings.  I wasn’t aware or it.  I’ve read quite a bit in this area but I always had the impression that they left a lot of the real history out. This book doesn’t. It pulls everything together in chronological order and plays it right down the middle.  Can’t thank you enough.  Highly recommended.

    ‘

  50. 50.

    Spanky

    I too picked the guitar back up, but once I did I now find I’m not so eager to keep it up. Don’t know what that’s about, but will probably shelve it until the muse returns.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    For the past year or so, I’ve been taking all manner of online courses through Emory University’s OLLI (lifelong learning) program. They put out a call a while ago inquiring whether there was interest in teaching a course. I put my hand up and am now deep in working up a notional set of lesson plans for a course tentatively entitled Murder Between the Wars: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and the Golden Age of English Detective Fiction. I’m doing a ton of reading right now — revisiting all my old favourite mystery novels, of course, but also getting a better sense of the rapid interwar social changes and seeing how Christie and Sayers reflected those changes in their novels. I’m hoping to have it ready to offer starting in early summer.

  54. 54.

    BGinCHI

    @WereBear: Homeplace is fabulous too. Highly recommended.

    I taught it in a grad seminar a few years ago and John came to the class at the end (via Zoom) and we had a terrific discussion.

  58. 58.

    BGinCHI

    @mvr: We can do an MC on crafted things at some point. I know WaterGirl or someone does a similar kind of thing, but we’ll find a way.

  61. 61.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne: not a mystery, but I learned so much about that period in England from galsworthy’s trilogy that follows up on the forsyte saga. Highly recommended.

  65. 65.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mvr: As noted, “skin.” I’ve already built a wood/fiberglass kayak, but have long been fascinated by skin on frame.

  68. 68.

    persistentillusion

    @SiubhanDuinne: That sounds brilliant!  I’m a huge fan of Sayers, have read most of Christie with varying degrees of enjoyment and would love to hear your thoughts on that period of rapid change in a society that had remained relatively static for 100 years.

  73. 73.

    BGinCHI

    @SiubhanDuinne: That sounds fabulous!

    My colleague Julie Kim has edited several detective fiction collections (articles on various subjects). Might be worth a look for the class reading.

  75. 75.

    Chris

    The friend I started rooming with during the Covid era got me hooked on the Barker & Llewelyn detective series over the last year, which I recommend if you enjoy the Sherlock Holmes type Victorian fiction. Oddly enough the detective mysteries themselves don’t really hold my attention, but the setting and characters more than make up for it.

    Currently on book # 6. Once that’s done, starting book # 1 of the Amelia Peabody series, which I’ve been meaning to check out for a while.

  76. 76.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I live close to a path along a creek and during the pandemic got a lot more into water birds…mostly ducks, but also egrets, herons, hawks and little peepers to numerous to know much about. More of that and one day this week when it will be warm, we’ll go to a state park to view the eagles nesting.

    I have toyed with buying a keyboard and a computer program to learn the piano. I keep looking but I never pull the trigger. I’m afraid that I don’t have the focus.

  77. 77.

    Leto

    @BGinCHI: I’m going to work with WaterGirl to do some type of Travel post :) Also if there’s something specific you’d like brought back, lemme know.

  85. 85.

    mvr

    @persistentillusion: Rural Nebraska to Lincoln. The idea is to follow the small stream (Portaging the first mile or two) that leaves my tiny self-built cabin in the Sierra Madre Mountains of WY to my home in Lincoln (I guess I’d have to portage a mile or two on that end as well).

    IF the one in Chicago is in the Mississippi watershed I suppose it could be done via the Platte as well, but I don’t know if the Mississippi locks allow kayaks.

  88. 88.

    Poe Larity

    Amateur land restoration. Soil treatment, native grasses, growing trees from acorns. Irrigation systems. Inventing toyon removal/suppression strategies.

  89. 89.

    Eric S.

    In the Fall a few of us on my softball team started a book club. We are SLOW readers. We are reading The Night Watchman right now.

    I just finished watching 2 seasons of The Witcher yesterday. I won’t argue it is good but I find it a guilty pleasure.

    Finally, a couple weeks ago I took up sketching. I don’t have much of a direction beyond “I want to create” something. So far, so good.

  91. 91.

    mvr

    @BGinCHI: Sounds like fun. Just to be clear – is this a subtle way of saying don’t talk about making stuff on this thread? Cause I don’t want to cause problems.

  92. 92.

    BGinCHI

    @Cacti: To die in a hotel room in Orlando is just too damn sad for a guy who seemed so genuinely funny and loved by so many.

  98. 98.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @zhena gogolia:

    Oh, I reread The Forsyte Saga every three or four years. Absolutely love those books! (And “Indian Summer of a Forsyte” invariably makes me cry.)

  99. 99.

    Leto

    @BGinCHI: the first time I heard one of his standup routines, I was so surprised by how funny and just dirty he was. Like so many others, I’d only known him from Full House, then later America’s Funniest Home Video. But man was he funny. It was always a treat listening to/watching a set of his.

  101. 101.

    Kalakal

    @SiubhanDuinne: That’s right up my street, I’m a sucker for detective fiction of that period. I think my favourite is Ngaio Marsh but am a big fan of Christie and early  Sayers

  102. 102.

    mali muso

    For the aspiring French speakers, don’t miss the excellent series “Call My Agent” available on Netflix. Watch it in French with French subtitles (I find it helpful to match reading which is a little easier to hearing which is harder).

  104. 104.

    brendancalling

    @Miss Bianca:

    I was about to jump in on violin v. fiddle but it looks like that’s covered. What styles do you do? I am not a fiddler myself—upright bass, guitar, singin—but I do love me some fiddle, especially old timey.

    With all the talent here, how soon before there’s a Balloon-Juice jam session…

  108. 108.

    Kalakal

    I’ll keep on with the guitar and finally get around to actually complete recording songs. I have a bad habit of getting to about 80% on a piece of music and then chase off after the next shiny object.

    My other project is digitizing and restoring my dad’s old photos and 8mm fim

  110. 110.

    Origuy

    @Leto:  I’m making plans to go to Italy in July. Still not sure if I’m going to go ahead with it. The World Masters Orienteering Championships are in the Gargono peninsula, around Vieste. Current plan is to fly into Rome a few days early and see a little bit of the city. Then take a charter bus to Vieste for about a week. After that, another bus to Naples and see Pompeii. Open-jaw flights are around $200 more than a round-trip to Rome, so it’s probably worth it. Using Duolingo and Rosetta Stone to learn some Italian. After years of Spanish, it’s going pretty well.

  112. 112.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne: I love it too but I’m talking about three later novels that deal with the interwar period. It starts with A maid in waiting. The trilogy is called The end of the chapter

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Everything that was drilled into my head about how to hold it (“Keep your elbow up; you’re not a fiddle player”), etc., cries out differently.  Hell, if I play air violin, I sit up straight, keep my left elbow up, and make sure my air bow is held perfectly.

  118. 118.

    mvr

    @Suzanne: Did you get your door fixed? Been wondering about it all day after reading your posts (in last night’s thread) this morning.

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @Origuy: that sounds really awesome! There’s never enough time to explore Rome, we spent a week exploring as much as we could, but I do recommend Googling the best gelatterias and simple walking from one to the next. Tons of amazing stuff in between so a win/win :

    Edit: regarding the bus, is there no train route? If you can do the train, I’d recommend that.

  120. 120.

    dm

    This first part of this comment was inspired by MisterDancer’s “A reason to sing” thread, but didn’t quite belong there.

    Malcolm Gladwell has a series of interviews with Paul Simon, called Miracles and Wonder, which takes Simon through the creative process from the early days in the 1960s to today. Simon talks about his musical influences (which are widely scattered and diverse), building up to Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints.  I’m pretty musically illiterate, and I kind-of thought Paul Simon was okay background music, but this series really opened my ears.

    It’s available as an audiobook (of course — I can’t imagine it on the printed page, since 50% of it is musical excerpts).

    But that was the past, we’re supposed to be talking about going forward.

     

    A nerd am I.

    Like Baud with Spanish, and some of you with French, I’ve been working my way through a manga series in Japanese.  I can knock off a chapter in about a week, speeding up as my working vocabulary increases.  When I finish this series, I have more to tackle, plus a small stack of novels I hope to progress through faster than a half-hour a page.

    Sorry: the following won’t mean much, save to a small subset of posters.

    Last year I read The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), widely considered a classic.  However, I didn’t do the exercises, so I sort-of got the gist, but especially in the later chapters, where the magic really happens, I was lost.  So I’ve started over again, and am working my way through all the exercises this time.

    I wish I’d done this years ago.  I’ve been a software weenie for almost fifty years, but this book makes me look at the things in a different way.

    Along about halfway through chapter two there’s a couple of pages that seem pretty innocuous, but they introduce a concept of representing data procedurally that’s …. breathtaking. There is deep magic happening here, though it won’t be obvious until the subsequent chapters when that magic is applied to do some amazing stuff, up to building a virtual machine and a compiler for it.

    There’s a third edition about to be released, only this time they use Javascript instead of Lisp, which sounds intriguing.

  122. 122.

    West of the Rockies

    Any fans of The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies?  Fun Canadian academic-setting stuff.

    Also, looking forward to season 2 of Picard in February.

  123. 123.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Leto: I avoided Italy for years, but, once I finally went, I was bowled over.  I would still opt for France if forced to choose, but Italy was well worth the wait.

  128. 128.

    Origuy

    @Leto: The bus is organized by the event, so it’s probably the simplest. I still have to contact the bus company to see the details, like price and schedule, for example. If I change my mind about getting the open-jaw ticket, I’ll take the train from Naples to Rome.

  129. 129.

    The Dangerman

    I would generally never recommend Joe Rogan (too often a bunch of Chucklefucks on Parade), but his episode with Pollan was really interesting.

  131. 131.

    Suzanne

    @mvr: Not yet. We filed the claim.

    So the crazy dude has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief, breaking and entering, destruction of property, and indecent exposure. That last one may be considered a sex crime because the kids were present. I looked him up, and he has a long spotty history of DUI, assorted low-level drug offenses, public drunkenness, and trespass. Lots of probation stints. I looked up his voter registration. GOP. Shocking.

  132. 132.

    dm

    @West of the Rockies: Gosh.  I read it so long ago that I seem to have forgotten everything but one or two characters’ names.

    I think of the Deptford trilogy every time I pick up a chair, however.

  134. 134.

    mvr

    @Suzanne: Sounds like his life is a bit of a train wreck.

    Hope the household returns to normal as quickly as possible. I’m assuming you’ve got something over it until the insurance comes through or they authorize you to get someone to do it for you with a promise of payment.

  136. 136.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve known plenty of great fiddlers who used a fairly classical technique. And then I’ve seen others hold the fiddle in the crook of their arms with the bow hold choked up halfway up the stick…and they both sounded awesome. To my ear, anyway. ; )

    Not to knock strict classical technique, but I think focus on technique at the expense of musicality can be detrimental. I also think there’s an awful lot of shibboleth and snobbery – to say nothing of outright chicanery – in the violin world.

    I guess I mean, technique ain’t everything. I’ve known amazing players who can’t play a lick if you take their sheet music away – just couldn’t improvise on a theme to save their lives, even though musicians of Bach’s and Mozart’s days would regularly do it.

    Then there’s me, who can pick out a tune by ear pretty easily, but reads music at basically an elementary school kid’s level and would be equally paralyzed if handed an unfamiliar classical score. Takes all kinds, I guess.

  137. 137.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m talking about all nine novels — plus the several novellas (“interludes,” I think Galsworthy called them). You are right, of course — Forsyte Saga is technically just the first three novels + Indian Summer and Awakenings. The three trilogies are collectively The Forsyte Chronicles, but I am lazy and just think of them all as the Saga :-)

    Anyhow, they are all splendid!

  140. 140.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    I also think there’s an awful lot of shibboleth and snobbery – to say nothing of outright chicanery – in the violin world. And the classical music world in general, to be honest.

    I used to belong to a Facebook group called “Pretentious Classical Music Elitists.”

  141. 141.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mvr: Property insurance companies want to resolve things like this as quickly and with as little involvement on their part as possible. They’ll send an adjuster, who will try to fit everything into their standard formulas, and then cut you a check within days. Figuring out who should fix it, scheduling that, making sure it’s done, etc., is all up to you.

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    ObPopularCulture:

    Overhead @ the dispensary:

    Budtender: “Sir, can you put a mask on please?”

    Sir: “Sure, sorry. I’m from Texas – we don’t have all these regulations down there. We have freedom in Texas.”

    Budtender: “Isn’t weed like a felony in Texas?”

    ???

    — Chris Becker ? (@chris_honeybee) January 8, 2022

    (via eclecticbrotha)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    James E Powell

    @Kalakal:

    I’ll keep on with the guitar and finally get around to actually complete recording songs. I have a bad habit of getting to about 80% on a piece of music and then chase off after the next shiny object.

    I want to learn how to record myself. I have the same issue with not pushing my playing & singing because I’m not gigging or even playing with other people. I figured recording would give me something to aim for.

  145. 145.

    geg6

    @Gin & Tonic:

    We must have an awesome homeowners insurance company then.  When our sewer backed up into our basement, they took care of everything including getting the disaster recovery company scheduled and paid.  Best insurance claim experience I ever had.

  146. 146.

    Leto

    @Omnes Omnibus: Avalune’s initial experience with France essentially killed it as a destination for us for… ever? Maybe ever

    Edit: if you wanted the best of both worlds, live either in SE France or NW Italy. Basically the border region as the crossover between the two would probably be really good.

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    @raven: me too. All three.

    Remember Vassar Clements and Mark O’Connor’s take on House of the Rising Sun? So gorgeous, it just moves me to tears every time I hear it. I actually got to tell Vassar Clements that when I heard him play in Chicago one time. Gracious, gracious man, he endured my fangirl squeeing with such aplomb.

  149. 149.

    Leto

    @Origuy: that makes sense. Yeah, if it’s a group thing best to stick with that. Man I miss the trains. Travel was so easy. I also miss the roads, like the autostrada. Recently had to replace two of my cars rims because Pennsylvania roads literally warped them (manhole sized potholes). All four are bonked, but I just did two. Just… ugh.

  152. 152.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne: OK — I think your idea for the course is great and I remember thinking while reading the end of the chapter that it helped me understand those mysteries I love.

  156. 156.

    Suzanne

    @mvr:  Maybe I’m coldhearted, but he can work his shit out in prison, IMHO. This dude has been a loser for a while, and this is not anomalous behavior for him. I have plenty of sympathy until you break my windows and climb in.

  158. 158.

    Another Scott

    ObFightingTheSoulSuckingMiasma – Dean Baker at CEPR – A Better World:

    Okay, I’m a bit slow for a New Year’s piece, but what the hell, we can always use a bit of optimism. Anyhow, I thought I would spout a few things about what the world might look like if we didn’t rig the market to give all the money to rich people. Not much new here for regular readers, I just thought I would spell it on paper, since it is a nice backdrop for many of our battles.

    Before I go through my favorite unriggings, let me start by making a general point, which some people may miss. I focus much of my writing on ways that we rig the market to give money to the Bill Gates and Moderna billionaires of the world.

    […]

    Well worth a click.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  159. 159.

    frosty

    Still playing guitar (acoustic resonators – I have two Nationals and a Republic Highway 61. Just ventured into my first guitar upgrade and put a National cone into the H61. It sounds better but now I have to work on the biscuit and saddle to get the action back down.

    In September I picked the harmonica up after (counts fingers, toes …) 45 years. The Hohner came with 30 days of free blues harmonica lessons. Well. If you want to do it right, you need to learn how to play single notes by tongue blocking three of four, instead of pursing lips to hit just one. I tried, but I don’t believe I have enough years left to get good at it.

    So it’s back to pursing and getting good enough to accompany the guitar. Which was my goal in the first place.

  160. 160.

    frosty

    @James E Powell: I bought a Zoom H2 handheld recorder a few years ago. Pretty good stereo recorder. I found out I can’t play a single song without a clam somewhere – some of them I’ve been playing for 40-odd years, and I don’t like hearing them. So that put my interest in recording pretty far back on the back burner.

    Hope it works out better for you! Sounds like a good plan to get back into playing more during COVID times.

  161. 161.

    NotMax

    While waiting for Medium Cool post to show up, watched something entertaining and moderately uplifting enough for what it is on Prime. BBC production (hardly spectacular, in the sense that the strain of a limited budget shows, I’d call it more “compact”) showcasing a quite mature Richard Harris, The Great Kandinsky.

    Following which promptly fell into a nap.

  162. 162.

    mvr

    @persistentillusion: I grew up in Omaha, say hi to Pottawattamie Forest.

    Actually I don’t know where that is, and Google maps is not helping me.

    And I grew up in Rockford IL (mostly) and NJ a little bit.

  165. 165.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:  Just fyi, many police or law enforcement departments will do a site security assessment at your home at no cost. Something to keep in the back of your mind if that kind of thing would make you all feel safer going forward.

  167. 167.

    StringOnAStick

    I’m working on the rhythm track for Vincente Amigo’s song “Roma” , modern flamenco with a Celtic twist, on my low G tenor ukulele.  My husband has learned the lead guitar portion and I have to honour all the hard work he’s done to work that out by getting my part down.  Tricky rhythm for sure.

    I can tell I’ve climbed out of the depression home if I’m consistent about practicing.

  169. 169.

    LiminalOwl (formerly The Fat White Duchess)

    @WereBear: Looking forward to both of those!

    I am currently reading The Way of Cats and People Love Dead Jews for nonfiction, and Things We Lost to the Water for non-genre fiction—my book group’s choice last month, but I didn’t finish it in time. And then I will start Anthony Doerr’s new one, Cloud Cuckoo Land, for this month’s book group.

    Of greater interest here, perhaps: the Thin Black Duke and I, along with our housemate, are listening to the wonderful audiobook The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin. Fantasy novel whose protagonists are personifications of the boroughs of NYC.  Much as I love the Murderbot series, this one should have won the Hugo.

  175. 175.

    LiminalOwl

    @dm: Ooh, thank you. I will have to get that. S&G fan from way back, and I haven’t yet spent this month’s audiobook credit.

  178. 178.

    guachi

    Anyone know if Cole is okay what with the Chargers/Raiders game in OT?

    If the game ends a tie the Steelers are out of the playoffs.

  179. 179.

    MomSense

    I bought a knitting pattern book of five hats inspired by Avatar.  I’m currently knitting Toph.  This is my first experience knitting a pattern by the designer Woolly Wormhead and I’m just so intrigued and impressed with her brain. The construction is unique and so cool.

  181. 181.

    Leto

    @MomSense: Toph is our favorite character! The way they introduced her to the series was so amazing. Will definitely want pictures of the finished product.

  182. 182.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Marsh and Tey perhaps in a follow-up course. I love them both. Don’t know R. A. J. Walling at all, but if you put him/her (?) in the same category, I’ll make it my business to remedy that omission — and thank you in advance.

  183. 183.

    CaseyL

    I went dry, creatively, a few months ago: just haven’t been able to go into the studio and do any glass at all.  To keep from going crazy, I’ve decided things will pick up again by spring.

    @SiubhanDuinne: I would also love to take this class!  Mystery is the genre, along with scifi, that comprises most of my fiction reading. My faves, past and present:  Ngaio Marsh, Sue Grafton, Ellis Peters, Dick Francis, Marcia Muller, Thomas Perry, Nancy Pickard, John Sandford, Martha Grimes, and boy is that an eclectic list!  I dip into “cozies” once in a while, but too many of them and I start to feel terribly, terribly twee.

  184. 184.

    Jean

    @mali muso: I’ve been watching that!  it’s good.  I was fairly fluent in French in graduate school, but now so many years later, I feel as if I’m starting over.  Took a class at Lifelong Learning, picked up Duo Lingo, and French Radio.  I miss having colleagues who would talk/write to me in French.  The dramatic loss is speaking and listening.  Reading is still okay.

  190. 190.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo expat)

    @Baud: Not sure you’ll see this. I also wanted to refresh my Spanish.  Started learning it in 6th grade, majored in it in college and did my junior year abroad in Madrid. Graduated and went to Japan. So much for Spanish… I found this site. It’s Castilian Spanish but there’s a lot to poke around and try. The professor also believes that reading is key to improving language, which I agree with as someone who teaches EFL. He’s written graded readers for Spanish which you can find on Amazon.

    https://1001reasonstolearnspanish.com/bitacora/

    @SiubhanDuinne: I would love to take this class. I hope you’ll publicize when it goes live and I hope it’s offered online.  I just finished listening to Dorothy L. Sayers and Patricia Wentworth on Audible.

    @Leto: Any recipes you can share, per piacere!  I look forward to the travel posts.

  191. 191.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Benw: @Jackie:

    One fun fact about the Raiders today: On this date in 1977 Madden and the Raiders won the Super Bowl in the Rose Bowl.

    Just a week earlier, in the Rose Bowl, John Robinson led his USC team to the Rose Bowl title, in the Rose Bowl.

    Madden and Robinson were life-long boyhood friends.

    Robinson was in the locker room to greet Madden post-game.

  192. 192.

    MomSense

    @Leto:

    I love Toph!  I actually loved the whole Avatar series.  Avalune would love this designer’s patterns.  She is like a textile architect.

  195. 195.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Awww. 87 a good long run.

    If there are neighborhood grocery stores in the hereafter, he’s already got his fingers in the till.

    ;)

    Just checked and his more prolific (acting-wise) older brother Darryl is still kickin’ at 89.

  197. 197.

    James E Powell

    @frosty:

    I found out I can’t play a single song without a clam somewhere

    A clam?

    I got logic pro on my current macbook. I need a couple pieces of gear, a mic, and then I have to learn how to use it. I was planning on doing it over my winter break (teacher), but other things happened so that didn’t happen.

  198. 198.

    Fair Economist

    @Suzanne:

    So the crazy dude has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief, breaking and entering, destruction of property, and indecent exposure. That last one may be considered a sex crime because the kids were present. I looked him up, and he has a long spotty history of DUI, assorted low-level drug offenses, public drunkenness, and trespass. Lots of probation stints. I looked up his voter registration. GOP. Shocking.

    Too bad you don’t have video, or you could post it (with appropriate censoring) as “A Republican voter came to our house and look what happened!” Instant viral hit.

  199. 199.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    I had honestly forgotten he was in Cat Ballou. Must find and watch that again — it’s been far too long since I last saw it.

  200. 200.

    James E Powell

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Loved that show when I was a little kid. Maynard G Krebs was one of my major role models, after Bugs Bunny and before Keith Richards.

    Never did get to see The Monster that Devoured Cleveland.

  208. 208.

    TerryC

    In my house, we begin 2022 with a new disc golf course design project in a town about 20 minutes away. Lots of big elevation changes, should be fun.

Comments are closed.