a sad day for the comics.

i am proud that this is my 100th post.

reading the paper has been part of my daily routine since i was about ten or eleven. part of reading the paper is reading the daily comic strips. only one comic has followed me throughout the years, for better or for worse, written and drawn by lynn johnston. it is a serial comic about the patterson family. what made this comic so special is that the characters aged and went through a lot of very real problems. the strip printed its final comic in today’s sunday paper bringing to a close 29 years of the pattersons.

when i started reading the strip i had no idea how connected to the characters i would become. i am the same age a michael, the oldest son, and really grew up with him. i was also strongly moved by how mrs johnston handled the coming out of the first gay comic strip character, way back in 1993. a couple of years ago mrs johnston announced that she was going the end the strip in few years, and for the first time in my life i wrote a fanboy letter to her via the for better or for worse website. i told her all about my connection to the patternsons, i think in a way i really wanted them to take place of my family. i was so happy when i got a personal reply from her thanking me for my kind words.  i am really going to miss the pattersons.

starting tomorrow, the story will begin again. lynn johnston will do a kind of directer’s cut of the series from the beginning, adding new art and changing things a bit. so although the story is over, the pattersons are not going away.

go here to to be able to read it.

this show is brought to you by the word ‘teabag’.

yesterday in seattle i met up with josh, his lovely wife janet, mr joe page, and the visiting from minneapolis ginger for the radiohead show at the white river amphitheater. we piled into janet and josh’s prius, thom would be proud of us, five people in a hybrid. as soon as we got on the highway we hit terrible traffic, and unfortunately the traffic tormented us the entire trip. we kept our spirits high by chatting and catching up with everyone. there was also a bit of unsavory joking going on, which we wouldn’t let get old. things brightened up a bit for us when we saw a rainbow, which was rather fitting to see before the show. a trip that should of taken us a little over an hour ended up taking just under three, thanks to the ineptness of the venue management for not fixing the traffic flow problem.

we got to the venue parking lot and we could hear that liars had already started. they started early, have you ever been to a show where that happened? after parking ginger and i ran into the venue to catch as much of  liars as we could. josh and janet stayed at the car to eat some sandwiches and joe had to go find a ticket. ginger and i made it to our seats, which had a great view, when the liars where halfway through their third song. liars are not really what i would call a large venue band, that combined with it still being daylight so they had no light show they didn’t really make big of an impact. it’s hard to be an opening act in a huge venue, but they did the best they could. they are a great live band. you just need to see them in a smaller venue.

after they finished josh called me and we found where he and janet were sitting they had better seats, further to the front and more centered. we also found out that joe scored a great seat in the 100 section right in the middle. all we could do is wait for the crew to set up the stage.

after about twenty minutes the lights went out and radiohead came out, instantly the crowd was on their feet. thom and company were amazing, they get better every time i see them. the live versions of the in rainbows tracks were great, although i have to say the the versions we heard at the berkely shows two years ago were a bit more rocking and alive. as if they heard my wishes they played “talk show host”, they updated it with synths replacing some of the guitars giving it an almost disco feel that the kids are digging nowadays. the noisy new version of “the gloaming”, complete with a white noise interruption, was suprising and awesome. thom and jonny tried to do a intimate acoustic “faust arp”, but thom fumbled a bit, then broke into an impromptu neil young cover before going back to “faust arp”. other highlights were “jigsaw falling into place”, “arpeggi/weird fishes”, and “you and whose army”. thom dedicated “you and whose army” to the people who were part of the wto protests. that song is always great live, largely in part to the way thom plays to the piano mounted camera. and they ended the show with the same song they have ended with the last eight to ten times i’ve seen them, “everything in its right place”, i have no problem with them ending on that song, it is a great high energy song that leaves the crowds screaming. overall the show was completely awesome, although much more mellow than the last few tours have been.

the complete setlist.

01. 15 Step
02. Reckoner
03. Optimistic
04. There There
05. All I Need
06. Pyramid Song
07. Talk Show Host
08. The National Anthem
09. The Gloaming
10. Videotape
11. Lucky
12. Faust Arp
13. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
14. Climbing Up The Walls
15. Dollars and Cents
16. Nude
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. How to Disappear Completely
19. Arpeggi/Weird Fishes
20. Idioteque
21. In Limbo
22. Street Spirit

Encore 2
23. You And Whose Army?
24. No Surprises
25. Everything In Its Right Place

why?

why haven’t i heard of dandi wind before?
i feel so out of touch.

if anyone can find me a copy of her version of “safety dance”, i would be grateful. it is by far one of my favorite eighties songs. here’s a crappy live video of it.

she would not leave him.

i just don’t have the literary chops to properly describe the brilliant writing of octavia butler. i can say that this was a fantastic book. the characters, albeit superhuman, are realistic and full of emotion. the plot moves a little slow at times, you really don’t mind though because it is written so beautifully.

things have been a little quiet.

it seems that for the past month or so all i’ve really done is watched televsion, read books, and gone to a couple of movies. well, that’s about to change. over the next few weeks i have lots of shows and events planned. starting tomorrow when i go up to seattle for the radiohead show on wednesday. i cannot explain how excited i am for this. plus ginger has flown in from minneapolis for the show, it’s been almost a year since i’ve seen her.

i know radiohead are going to be awesome, i’ve been listening to some of the new bootlegs and they seem to be in top form. the setlists sound pretty good to, i don’t think they’ve played “morning bell” at all, which is a very good thing. “talk show host” has popped up a couple of times, keep you fingers crossed for me. i tried to stay away from youtube clips, but i broke down. this tour’s light show seems amazing.

here’s a shot from the a show in may.

my favorite bootlegs from this tour so far. big thank go to the people over at atease for keeping up with the bootlegs.

chicago 8-1-08 (this is missing “airbag”, but i am ok with that because of the superior audio quality.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n8ts6j

mansfield ma 8-13-08
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l58njq

cool wHip.

this is another late night moment. i only occasionally watch family guy, i really hate the father character. i do really enjoy stewie and brian though, so i generally only watch it when the episode focuses on them. i saw this episode a while ago, it was on again the other night and i found it just as hilarious. thanks to whoever put this on youtube.

it’s that vibrating touch.

they other night i couldn’t sleep so i was watching some late night television. some of the funniest commercials are on then. this one killed me. i’m glad the studio that made it had the sense to put it on youtube.

this is going to be amazing.

a diverse saturday.

this past saturday i had a pretty interesting day full of free activities. the first was the red bull flugtag. i had no idea how popular that event was, apparently there was over 80,000 people there. who knew that watching people push things off a pier would draw such a crowd. jamie, her roommate jesse and i got there about half an hour after it started and it was almost hopeless to find a spot that we could see. after a little searching we found a space where we could see bits and peices of the pier and the large screen. we watched about ten or so “human powered crafts” fall into the water. mostly we were amused by the horribly stupid skits that the teams would perform before pushing their crafts into the water. after that got old and the crowd became too frustrating we left.

after leaving the flugtag we said goodbye to jesse, jamie and i hopped on the streetcar and headed down the the sw waterfront for the ten tiny dances walkabout. the ten tiny dances set up ten performances all around the sw waterfront neighborhood with each performance lasting eight minute and starting at fifteen minutes intervals.

the first one we saw was call “wet?” by POV Dance. it was alright, a little to yogaish for me. i was impressed by the strength and grace of the two performers as they dangled and lifted themselves and each other over and around the railings and small fountain that was used as their space.

after meeting up with iris and isaac we watched “finding foundation” by KO&Co. five people using a four foot cube frame to perform around. i thought that the concept was interesting and the arrangements were good, it was just a little sloppy and a bit unfocused. i’d be interested to see a longer performance from them.

we then moved into a loading dock where the hand2mouth theater was doing “project x”. this was an interesting performance that had the audience filling out a questionnaire while the troupe sort of acted like cheerleaders prompting the crowd. i thoroughly enjoyed this one; it was amusing and informative. it reminded of the vis-a-vis society performance (look here under april 9th) i saw in seattle a while back. i’m definitely going to check the full show in a couple of weeks at milepost 5.

sojourn theatre’s “built: prologue 3″ was next.  this was part of a bigger performance that was started in a workshop earlier in the week. two people acting out a courtship in the kitchen, the backyard, the wood, a fountain and several other places. it was by far the most linear performance of the day, and one i’ll remember.

we then made our way over to a large dirt lot for two performances. first was “lack of current” by hot little hands. i really appreciated that they thought about the starkness of the environment and produced a slow and pensive performance with a slow drum beat and a single woman with a unique outfit that involved a set of antlers under the skirt. i would like to see more from them.

the second lot performance was by rhiza A+D. billed as “architect’s draw”, when the performance started we were told that we about to see “telephone sketch #2″. we watched four construction workers walk across the lot where one of them strapped on a wooden frame with pink twine unfurling from the shoulder. one worker guided two other while they hammered posts and twisted the twine around them. when they were done they were left with a landscape off telephone poles with pink wires. it was certainly the most conceptual piece of the day. isaac said that it was “oddly satisfying” and i have to agree. it was the only performance that left something behind and caused the most discussion.

the final performance we saw was another one of the sojurn theatre’s “built: prologues”, i don’t remember which number it was though. this time there were four women, with one of the searching for acceptance. at home we’ve been watching mad men, and this performance reminded me of the divorced neighbor’s struggle to belong in sixties suburbia. that piece could be expanded on for a whole show about the desire to belong. something everyone can understand.

we were all performanced out by this point, and we were starving, so we went to bambuza, a vietnamese place in the sw waterfront. all off us ordered vegetarian dishes and ended up get the pork equivalents. also iris ordered her pho without cilantro, yet it came covered with it. once we all got the right dishes it was all delicious. i would totally go back for the food, i just hope the have the service issues sorted out.

thanks to jamie, jesse, iris and isaac for accompanying me on that interesting and entertaining day of free events.

finally a rational response.

after reading so much about this book i picked it up at powell’s on a whim. for those not in the know twilight is the first in a series young adult of books about vampires.  this series has become quite a phenomenon, much in the vein of the harry potter and the his dark materials series.

twilight centers on bella who moves to forks wa, on the olympic peninsula, to live with her father. shortly after starting school she starts hanging out with the mysterious edward, who turns out to be a vampire. edward is part of a clan of vampires that do not feed on humans, so the story doesn’t directly go in that direction. the first half of the book is written more like a romance and moves rather slowly, and in my opinion got a little boring. once the romance is out of the way things get more interesting as we learn more about the clan and another clan of uncontrollable vampires is introduced.

sure, i’ll read the next book in the series, but i have a hard time recommending this book to most people. if you like vampire stories, and want a good beach or plane book, this would be good. but if your looking for the next great young adult book series, this isn’t it.