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Brian: Princeton?Princeton: Yeah?
Brian: Listen buddy, nobody has seen you for two weeks! What is up with that?
Princeton: I went to work for a temp agency, and they fired me for being too depressing on the phone. I maxxed out my cards, I am two months behind in rent, I totally messed up my personal life... Oh - and Brian? I still haven't found my purpose.
Brian: All right. Get off your ass and stop worrying!
While I frequently compare cooking to chemistry, I probably should not. I am far more likely to follow the recipe I have been given for a chemistry experiment, and to employ precise amounts of reagents - whereas in cooking, imprecision is the rule of the day! In that light, tonight's cooking accident with a few modifications that I believe will improve the recipe:
Hastily stuffed Flounder
Hope it works - I liked the outcome, and I have yet to kill myself or others with my cooking, so you have my best wishes. Let me know what you think would make a good accompaniment as either a wine or a side dish.
Ow.
The problem with stopping every now and again to appreciate nature and to smell the flowers is that sometimes you stop on top of a fire ant mound.
In flipflops.
Ow ow ow ow.
Cue profanity.
Ow.
One of the little inconveniences we encountered during ACL-fest was our general inability to contact and reach one another within the relatively narrow confines of Zilker park. Due to the enormous crowds packed with thousands of people there, it would have been impossible to find one another without some sort of plan.
Many persons attempted to solve this problem by carrying unusual banners with them. Just as fighting for the honor of the flag must once have provided cohesion and direction during the confusion and mayhem of early warfare, so too did these proud standards provide rallying points for lost travelers in search of old friends. Of course, the more unusual and unique your flag, the better. It would help to avoid discussions such as, "but which jolly roger are you standing at the base of? I've already been to three, and the concert is almost over..."
The next ideal strategy would be to meet one another at distinctive landmarks at prearranged points and times between acts, but to push through the press of the crowd sometimes made it difficult to meet such deadlines. Those same crowds could pack people so densely that you could be standing less than ten feet from your party, but never see them through the forest of strange faces. Even being able to see them might not help, for a particularly popular act might present an audience so dense in attendance and so rapt in appreciation that it would be impossible to greet your friends without being extraordinarily rude, and just shouldering through the crowd.
In the face of such difficulties, we could try to turn to modern technology for a solution. Cell phones have done wonders for the ability of two lost and misplaced groups to find one another in the modern world, but they are only useful so long as one can hear what the person on the other end of the receiver is saying. Crowds and rock and roll make this exceptionally difficult, and so we were forced to fall back on text-messenging between phones. Of course, text-messenging only works so long as there is a network line available to carry your signal. When ten-thousand people suddenly want to see each other all at once, some things tend to get lost in the æther for a little while. As an amusing example, I am only now receiving messages that were sent to me on Sunday afternoon...
Better late than never, I suppose...
And like that, it was over. Three days of music, friends, and excellent food. Later this afternoon, I will get on a plane and fly back to Florida, leaving all of these good things behind.
I will remember, and someday:
I will return.
I mean that. Austin is and will probably always remain my town.
The Decemberists were the single band I had most hoped to see at ACL, and they did provide fun for all in attendance. In spite of misplacing the majority of my good friends, I did manage to arrive in time to negotiate my way to a place center-stage, but fifteen feet from all the action. The set felt a little short, and they were deluged by an excessively large number of chrysopids drawn to the red stage lights, but it was a fun and exuberant show. It was a good way to finish out the weekend, and I am glad I attended.
Ms. Spektor turned out to be one of the most pleasant surprises of the concert series. She could be compared favorably to other female vocalists who perform a significant portion of their work on piano, such as Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, or even Norah Jones. However, just as they maintain a distinctive voice, so can Ms. Spektor be distinguished from her peers. Her music is haunted by traditional jewish folk-music, and influenced by jazz and the American independent sound... but she still gives it her own particular spin. I had heard her before briefly on NPR, and several of my friends were enthusiastic about her work, but I remained unsold.
Then I saw her live. While she sounds great prerecorded and on disc, her performance live is nothing less than amazing. Her most recent album feels overproduced, with unnecessary accompaniment - and on stage you have only her and her instrument and her voice. Her audience was exceptionally supportive, and stood transfixed in appreciation. This was not a concert to yell in excitement at, but one to absorb in admiration. One of my companions commented that she would have been better to see in a concert hall, for that was the ambience that we drew off the crowd.
She also fed off of the energy of that crowd. She was as delighted to be there as her audience was to listen. This was a woman who loved her job, and she poured that enthusiasm and appreciation right back into the audience who wanted to be there to hear her in a warm and fuzzy feedback loop of happiness.
It didn't hurt that she is the kind of cute that you just want to reach out and pet on the head like a puppy...
Yes, ACL is under way, and it is that smokin' hot!
For those who are concerned about my whereabouts, I will be in Austin for a long weekend of frivolity and relaxation. That, and reviewing my data for analysis (now that I have another two or three weeks of thrips captures), and maybe finishing the writeup on the ecology lab I have due halfway through next week.
In the meantime, there will be food, friends, and some seriously rockin' music.
So lately there has been a minor technical difficulty with the server that hosts this mindless page you read before you, and all of it might have been wiped out. While it might have been interesting to start again with a completely blank slate, I would have missed this. I am a man who likes to carry a sense of personal history, and for what it is worth, this site does provide that context to me; helping me to remember who and where I was - or what I wanted to be.
This site contributes to seven or more years of my personal extended memory, and occasionally provides a sense of outreach to those who need to keep track of me.
Soooo...
I'm back, and for most of you, I suppose it is as if I had never left.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then a new pair of glasses must be a bit like remodeling the front of the house with nice new victorian picture-windows. I can see clearly again and live without glare while driving.
Rah!
That was quite the experience, shared with approximately ninety thousand of my close personal friends. It was good to see the game in the flesh, and such a thing could prove habit-forming if I had the time and the money to attend. I was constantly amazed at how much better the picture was in reality when compared with watching the game on television. Well, almost any television - and that problem and my scratched glasses should be repaired by Wednesday. It was still fairly disconcerting to be looking for and never see the handy lines that most networks overlay on the video, directing your eye to the ball or to the first down or even the most recent slow-motion replay. Whatever did people do before the creation of the Jumbotron?
The Florida Gators were rather loud and enthusiastic. And orange and blue, apparently. Not quite as crazy as some universities, but still... very enthusiastic. The Gators were also victorious - which was actually somewhat disappointing. I'd rather have seen an amazing game between two equally matched opponents, but while Western Kentucky provided a few amazing feints and a good short passing game, they never claimed the yardage they needed, and their defense might as well have been made of Kleenex for all the good it did them. The game was called with eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter "due to rain", but it was a mercy-killing for the drowning Hilltoppers.
While the Gators walked through this game without much effort, it will be interesting to see how well they respond to a real challenge. On the bright side, Tebow continues his extremely promising career as quarterback. I am surprised that the University did not rely on him more last season, as he actually knows how to pass and run when the opportunity strikes him. I expect this year's successes will be harder earned, but also more worthwhile.
Time will tell.