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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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i started my new job this week as the assistant manager in the food front co-op deli. so far it is all going really well. this week was mostly spent observing and doing a lot of talking with ron, the deli manager. i can see lots of needed improvements already, but i don’t want to come in there like a tyrant. i still have one more week of learning the various jobs in the deli, then i’ll bring down the iron fist.

food front is a much different environment than pcc, the co-op i worked at up in seattle. the most obvious difference is the size, food front only has one store (with a second one opening in hillsdale in late august), and the deli is about a quarter of the size. while pcc had the corporate atmosphere of a regular grocery store, food front is the opposite, it may take me a little while to adjust to the free flowing nature of the place. the customers of food front seem less crazy than the pcc customers, although i have only been there a week so the real crazies have yet to come out of the wood work. then all my kid stories from the day care will be replaced by crazy co-op customers stories, which will be much funnier.

the next couple of weeks should be interesting. right now the co-op is flooded with employees, half of which are being trained for the new store. so i don’t think i get a real handle on my job till after they leave and i can really understand how the deli operates. i’m looking forward to what lies ahead.

mad men : set in the sixties with dashing men in sexy suits and women in torpedo bras. also its a damn good show, somewhat reminiscent of the good seasons of six feet under. we are in the middle of the first season, trying to catch up since the second season already started. this show really makes me want to drink scotch.

picture from vanity fair

eureka : the second season of this somewbuhat cheesy sci fi show is just out on dvd. while this show is far from perfect, it has a very quirky buffyness about it. and i have a bit of a crush on jack carter.

americas’s best dance crew : since watching this show i have become an authority on dance crews. i’m rooting for fanny pack. i recommend following the link this youtube video dosen’t do them justice.

project runway : the last season of on bravo. i loves me some project runway. hands down the best reality show that will ever exist.

wall-e : utterly charming, amazingly grand in scope, i almost cried (people were crying all around us).

the dark knight : i liked it more than batman begins, but all i can say is “meh”.