At this moment...
10.31.06:
As I was driving home last night after work I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR when This I Believe came on. I listened as the essayist talked about her experience as a waitress at a local diner, of how people come to diners because they are starving, not just for food, but for human connection. Then she spoke a line that's been lodged in my head ever since, "Peace begins with one person but spreads like warm syrup."
I feel a cold coming on. Last night I tossed and turned and couldn't seem to get myself to sleep.
10.29.06:
Crazy day of passing out Halloween candy in Columbus, Wisconsin. I swear I've never passed out so much candy.
10.28.06:
Earlier in the week, when my left achilles tendon wasn't feeling so great I told myself that I was going to take off three weeks from runng. The problem with that idea is that I love running. Yesterday I was telling a coworker that running is play for me. I'm not sure why, but when I'm out running I feel wonderful. Sure, sometimes I have minor aches, and other times it feels like a chore. However, for the majority of the time running reminds me that I'm alive. It's hard to describe. A lot of runners view running as a social event. People have always tried to get me to join a running club. For me running is a very solitary activity (I quite enjoy solitude), there's almost a meditative quality to running. I can think, or I can allow my thoughts to disappear and cease to exist.
This morning when I woke I told myself that I was going to do some sort of physical activity. After 20 minutes of AM Yoga and a bit of breakfast I decided to go for a bike ride. I went out for a 16 mile ride. Aside from the wind it was a great ride. At one point I was almost blown over. When I got home I looked at my running shoes. After lacing the shoes up I went out for a short two mile run. It was nice to get out and just run, even if it was for such a short period of time. My left leg felt fine, so I'll go out again on Monday or Tuesday for a three mile run to see how things feels.
10.26.06:
Happy birthday to Jason.
The other night, maybe Sunday, maybe Monday, I was watching Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. In 1982, the year Halloween 3 was released, I was 8 years old. I'm pretty certain that my parents didn't allow me to see that movie until around 1985 (the year we bought our first VCR?), and I remember it frightened the crap out of me. There was a period of time when all I used to watch was horror movies. During that period I had the worst nightmares, but that didn't stop me from watching horror movies. I've always had an active imagination. To this day I still have an active, some would say overactive, imagination. Where was I going with all this? So I'm watching Halloween 3, but I'm really not watching it (well, that's a lie because it's such a train wreck of a movie, but in a good way. I kind of prefer it to the original Halloween). Instead, I'm listening to the music score. It's brilliant piece of electronic music. Good stuff.
Here's a photo collage I put together using some photos from marathonfoto.com (they want $15 for a single 5 by 7 photo. I think that's a bit much.)
Yes, when it's cold, I run in tights. I always find it funny when people wear shorts over running tights.
Listening to:
Let's Build a Fire - +/- (Starts out all old timey jazz, and then just erupts. Just when you think indie rock is dead an album like Let's Build a Fire comes along and restores your faith. I saw +/- a few years back and thought they had the most amazing drummer. He'd switch out his cymbals between songs, and I swear he had more than the usual two arms and two legs that most drummers have. Amazing. Great album.)
10.25.06:
Last night I fell asleep at 8 PM. Must have been a combination of the wine and my body needing sleep. I wish I could go for a jog. I saw someone running and I thought, "That looks like a lot of fun." My left achilles tendon isn't as swollen as it was on Sunday after the marathon and it no longer hurts to walk on it. After work I went to the running store and bought a new pair of running shoes, but I told myself no running for three weeks. I think I was doing too much speedwork before the marathon and that caused this minor case of achilles tendonitis. Plus, my shoes had too many miles on them. Usually I switch to new shoes at about 350 miles. This year I let them go to 420 or so.
Listening to:
ibm 1401, a user's manual - Jóhann Jóhannsson (A gigantic Icelandic orchestra with flourishes of electronics and vocoders -- well, only one track has a vocoder, the beautiful The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black. Highly recommended!)
Connectivity! - Mahogany (Heavenly and blissful pop, reminiscent of Stereolab when they were willing to push themselves and try new things. Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins produced a few of the songs. Highly recommended as well.)
10.23.06:
<-- Me and my medal.
24 hours after the marathon and I'm feeling pretty good. I managed to fall asleep for two hours. I've been icing my achilles tendon on and off all day. Tomorrow it's back to work.
Tonight I feasted on a French provencal chicken stew. Simple and delicious.
10.22.06:
I crossed the Chicago Marathon finish line a little after 1 PM. My official chip time was 04:58:18. Last year I ran it at 05:21:42. So a pretty good improvement. And my 2004 time was 04:45. It was a cold and windy race. My left achilles tendon is pretty inflamed, so I guess I need to stay off it for a bit and take some anti-inflammatory type of medicine (it started bugging me about a week ago, but I figured it would be okay to run the marathon). At about mile 11 or so I got tripped. I managed to keep my balance, but afterwards my right calf muscle started to cramp, so that kind of slowed my pace. Other than that I really enjoyed myself, especially with Bowie on the iPod. And thanks to Jason for meeting me beforehand (I stretched out under The Bean at Millennium Park as it was the only dry space I could find), taking a few photos (hopefully I'll have a few to post within a few days), and driving me home (I didn't smell very pleasant). Afterwards I had a pint of Guinness, some soup, and a pizza for dinner. Really hit the spot.
10.19.06:
Stressful day, but I got out and ran, so now I'm sleepy and feeling much more relaxed. The Chicago Marathon is about three days away. I'm excited. Tomorrow I pick up my race number.
Something got me thinking about Lau Tzu. And while I'm on the subject of Chinese philosophers, Anton's Fruit Ranch has the best taffy apple.
While listening to Peter Gabriel I stumbled across an article saying he wouldn't be touring with a reunited Genesis. Good for him.
Games Without Frontiers
Hans plays with lotte, lotte plays with jane
Jane plays with willi, willi is happy again
Suki plays with leo, sacha plays with britt
Adolf builts a bonfire, enrico plays with it
-whistling tunes we hid in the dunes by the seaside
-whistling tunes were kissing baboons in the jungle
Its a knockout
If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers-war without tears
Games without frontiers-war without tears
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
Andre has a red flag, chiang chings is blue
They all have hills to fly them on except for lin tai yu
Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names
-whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside
-whistling tunes we piss on the goons in the jungle
Its a knockout
If looks could kill they probably will
In games without frontiers-wars without tears
If looks could kill they probably will
In games without frontiers-war without tears
Games without frontiers-war without tears
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
Jeux sans frontieres
What type of work does this company do? They seem to visit my site every couple of days, so I'm intrigued. Do I know you?
Listening to:
S/T - Peter Gabriel
Security - Peter Gabriel (I love when the guitar comes in during San Jacinto.)
10.17.06:
It's been ten years since Jeremy Enigk's amazing chamber pop solo album, Return of the Frog Queen. During that time he managed to reunite Sunny Day Real Estate, break them up, and form another band, Fire Theft. I pretty much gave up on Sunny Day Real Estate when they released the way to prog rock for my tastes The Rising Tide. I've always loved Diary, the Pink Album, and How It Feels To Be Something On. I never got into The Fire Theft. A few months back I read that Jeremy was readying a second solo album and have been anticipating it ever since. One of my all-time favorite concerts was seeing Enigk and his band perform Return of the Frog Queen at The Metro in 1996.
All this rambling leads me to Enigk's stunning and beautiful second solo album World Waits, which was released today. While not as chamber pop influenced as Return of the Frog Queen, it's still a far cry from the Rush styled prog rock styling's of The Fire Theft, and has more in common with How It Feels to be Something On than The Rising Tide. Actually, World Waits would have been a great follow-up to How It Feels to be Something On. Gone are the metaphysical and oblique lyrics that Enigk usually writes. Does anyone know what Lewis Hollow is about? Instead Enigk is more straightforward, as if he's come to terms with not having to shroud the meanings to his song in Donne-esque metaphysics. One of the best releases in 2006.
10.14.06:
Score of the day: David Bowie's Black Tie White Noise.
I've been searching everywhere for this and managed to find it at Remember When in Downers Grove. I have to say this is a good album. I think Earthling, Outside, and Hours are okay, each have their moments (and it's obvious that Bowie wasn't sure who he wanted to be during that period, an innovator or a follower. Sadly he seemed more like a follower) but Black Tie White Noise is probably the best out of all the albums Bowie released in the 90's. Still not as great as Heathen or Reality but pretty damn good. Surprisingly it doesn't sound even remotely dated (the only absolute clunker is Looking for Lester. Almost sounds like Bowie's attempt at making smooth jazz cool). Well worth the insanely low price of $15.99 (used, but with a bonus disc of music and a DVD).
This morning I woke to slow walker screaming across the street at the train station. I thought about calling the police. Last night, as I was waiting to grab the Metra down to Chicago, slow walker was screaming and dancing at the train station. I always thought slow walker was the harmless type, but now I think he's looking to cause some trouble.
10.12.06:
Snow this early in October?
Went for a five mile run after work. Ran 8 minute miles. Felt great.
Tonight slow walker talked to me. I can't recall if I've ever mentioned slow walker or not. There's this person, who I think is homeless, that walks around my town very slowly. I swear, it takes him an hour to walk a block. Between the time I left my apartment and the time I finished my run (40 minutes), slow walker covered less than a block. I'm pretty certain that he walks slow to conserve his energy. As was leaving the outside door to my apartment building slow walker was looking at the apartment for rent sign. When he started speaking to me I couldn't quite understand him because his accent is so thick. My guess is that he's from Jamaica. Eventually I figured out that he was asking about rent. He seemed taken aback when I told him rent was $835 a month. Either way, I finally talked with slow walker.
10.11.06:
Back from NYC. Actually, I was back on Monday night. I've been too lazy to bother with specbebop.com. Here's a bunch of stuff:
10.05.06:
Tomorrow kk, moped man, and I head out to NYC. I've never been there, so I'm looking forward to seeing some new sights. I think I've mentioned to kk about a million times that I need to make a stop at Other Music. I've been ordering CDs and albums via their online store since I can remember, so it'll be cool to visit the actual store and maybe track down some vinyl.
10.04.06:
This morning I wrote to Ashmont Records, home of amazing Pernice Brothers, to thank them for releasing a fantastic album. In my email I said that I listened to Live a Little during my four mile run, and that it was the perfect soundtrack to accompany my run. Later in the moring I visited the Pernice Brothers web site only to find that the latest blog entry referred to my email:
Thanks to all the well-wishers, except for the one guy who was all excited to take the new CD on his four mile run, because all he did was make me feel bad that I haven’t been to yoga in over a year. Thanks a lot.
I thought it funny that my email made it onto their blog. Later in the morning I received an email back that read:
Awwww thanks. (I was only kidding when I dissed you on the blog).
If you haven't already picked up a copy of Live a Little, I highly recommend that you do. Right now it's a toss-up between The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian and Live a Little by The Pernice Brothers for album of the year.
In other music news, Zerostars received a new review courtesy of Plug In Music. You can read the review on their web site.
After work I went for a late six mile run. Damn, I love running. It's Fall.
10.03.06:
I thought it was supposed to storm again. Last night, as the series of storms passed by (lots of intense lightening), I listened to Sigur Ros. Good times.
After work I went for a four mile mile. That first mile is always the hardest after a race or a long run. I'm pretty exhausted, but in a good way. Felt good to get out and pound the pavement. Listened to the new Pernice Brothers album, Live a Little, which is quite fantastic. Joe Pernice is probably my favorite American songwriter. His lyrics are literate and his melodies are amazing. Also out today is the new Robyn Hitchcock album Olé Tarantula, which is a return to form (not that Robyn has released a bad album over the years, but the new one is very much like an album with his old band, The Egyptians.)
10.01.06:
What a gorgeous day for a race. I woke super early for the Chicago Half Marathon. As I was driving to the city I was reminded how much I love Chicago. This morning the sun was rising just beind the skyline, and it was quite a beautiful sight. I ran a pretty okay race, finish time was 01:59:10. Still haven't beat my PR from three two years ago, but much better than last year. I held my pace well until around mile 10 and then slowed up a bit. I've been training at a 10:30 pace for the marathon which is in a few weeks, but ran about a 09:30 pace (slightly faster for the first eight to ten miles).