IKEA SUCKS

Just got back from Ikea. It was worst experience I've had in years. Much more later.

Confessions

My friend Ann-Katrin sent me the new Eels DVD, "Eels with Strings." Firstly it's really good. E's fundamentally sad songs set to simple nursery rhyme like music are profound and disturbing.

I remember seeing E on his first tour. He seemed like a "goofy" young guy singing simple poppy tunes about... Well I guess I wasn't listening to the lyrics.

And on the literary front I recently finished reading Spaulding Grey's second to last book, "It's a Slippery Slope." Like E I always thought Grey was just a "goofy" guy who happened to recant his silly, funny East Coast life. But like with E I guess I wasn't really paying attention. "It's a Slippery Slope" is a "goofy" light romp describing a middle aged guy spinning out of control and spiraling downward to oblivion. Forget the uplifting ending, Grey eventually chose to jumped off the Staten Island Ferry.

The job of being a "Poetic Craftsman" can be dangerous and in the case of Spaulding Grey there can be industrial accidents. Confessions can on occasion not be good for the soul and the truth does not always set one free. I applaud the bravery of people like Grey and E but for some people for sanity's sake the phrase "Don't go there" could be the right path to take.

Habla Espanol?

Sometimes I don't know what is wrong with me. A confession. A real confession. Hablo espanol muy malo.

Let's face it I'm the poster boy for a strange malady which does not allow me to acquire a second language.

I have this friend Alan who is Scottish. Alan speaks English, French, German, Spanish and Catala. Alan has never had one lesson in any of these languages nor has he ever cracked a book regarding this.

I have another friend Evert. Evert is Dutch. Evert speaks Dutch, French, English, Spanish and maybe Catala but I am not sure. Evert told me that he never took one lesson is Spanish.

I have another friend Mark, Mark is British. Mark speaks English and Spanish and he too has never taken a lesson.

Now lets look at me. I have taken months if not years of classes. I have bought a library full of books and software. I have 3 hours of intercambio every week. I have had tutors and the support of many,many Spanish and Catalan friends. My wife is French. She has a huge family. They have all for the most part been very, very... understanding.

But I still suck big time when it comes to other languages.

Is there something I am missing? Is it my wiring? Should I be taking some special vitamins? Smoking some special dope?

Does anybody have any insight about this?

Sticks to fight the heat

It's hot. Too hot. It's going to be over 90 today and the forecast indicates that there is no end in site.

I've always thought my next door neighbors, an older couple named Edu and Orelia, were silly to live in a dark hole. Orelia would come over and marvel at how much light there was in our piso. After she'd left we'd roll our eyes and be amazed at older Spanish peoples fixation with the dark. How could they live in cavernous spaces with windows shuttered and curtains closed?

Well let me tell you right now I'm sitting in the living room. The windows are wide open but the exterior shutters firmly shut blocking the direct rays of the beast of el sol. It's calm, slightly romantic and much, much cooler. The beauty of shutters is that they block the light and as such the heat but let air circulate. It's a convection thing. It must reduce the temperature by 20%. All this with out a noisy, wet, ugly, expensive, poorly engineered inefficient machine blowing out refridgerated air. Shutters also let me sit here buck naked. Having been sewn into my underwear at a very young age this is to say the least a very new experience for me. Do you know how hot the bottom of an I Book gets? Believe me, I do.

Early Sunday Morning

I was awoken by voices of the lawyer and his friends. He lives 2 floors down in the entresuelo or the principal and as such has the benefit of a large terraza.

As opposed to many other pre dawn Sundays it was soft conversations that invade my sleep and not The Doobie Brothers or Leo Sayer.

The voices were part of my dreams long before I actually woke up. A buzz of Spanish words punctuated by the lawyers low, gruff, ducado voice. As my dreams gave way to the reality of Sunday morning a woman was softly saying, "No, Carino, no." Which was followed by an incongruously louder, "Estoy una Aleman." Estoy? I layed there with my eyes closed letting the voices wash over me, amazed at my luck of being here and being alive for another morning.

The lavender light of dawn was slowly replaced by the amber rays of the sun. The colors being accentuated by the ochre color of the building and the stories high ceramic blocks that someone had failed to paint.

The neighbor and his friends voices had seemingly also awoken the birds who make their home in the in the patio de la manzana. The weird free jazz noodlings of the swifts triggered the sharp chirping of the pet parakeets which in turn started the low cooing of the pigeons. I rolled over to see a single grey feather slowly spiral down to the floors below.

Dissing.

At my friend Lucy's insistence I just finished watching a DVD about Catalunya's own Ferran Adria, perhaps the most famous chef in the world. The show was hosted by "Kitchen Confidential's" Anthony Bourdain. Lucy served as a field producer and translator and even had a substantial on camera roll. And Lucy... You looked fabulous.

OK yes my perceptions about the fundamental notion of food were unalterably changed. It's that simple. He has reinvented cooking... And eating. But so many other things went though my mind as I watching the show. This guy and his team are the same time artists, physicists, neurobiologists, craftsmen, magicians, jesters, jugglers, strategists, entertainers...

A bigger question for me was why are we, sorry, why am I afraid of anything that is radically new. I've been respecting but at the same dissing Ferran Adria for years. It's not pretense, Adria is a simple guy from a very, very working class suburb of Barcelona. It's pure creativity. Like Richard Feynman. Or, what's an art analogy for Richard Feynman? Picasso, no too sophisticated. Too calculated. Marcel Duchamp. That's it. There is so much whimsy in Adria's work. It's childlike. It's simple. It's playful. And like good science it's seems like magic. There are lessons to be learned here. Yes indeed.

Too many interesting things...

I'm just to interested in too many things. And the internet doesn't help. I learned about a book promoting a completely new approach to playing and listening to jazz. It's terrific. The author is now my buddy. I started thinking about musical instruments that are below the radar, like the ocarina. Yep, there a huge number sites dealing with this sweet and very old instrument. I got a great ukelele for my birthday, now I want to make them. Uh huh, an encyclopedia of information on ukes and their construction. I thought I'd be funny and clever and learn to play a profoundly un-ukelele like tune like, "Smells like Teen Spirit." There are of course tabs and chord charts available online but there is also a highly distributed video of "The London Ukelele Orchestra" scratching out this tune on British television.

I really don't know if this access to everything is good or bad. But it sure is entertaining. See ya later, gotta go find out how to turn an old carburetor into a bagpipe.

This just in...

I have a yahoo mail account. It now only exists as a magnet for junk male. For some reason I thought I should check it. I have 3999 unopened pre-screened junk mails and 1500 non pre-screened junk mails. That latest email was from one Della Penn. Della's header says I have an expiring account or something similar. I check it only to find a notice about a herbal penis extender. Now the mysterious part was what I found at the bottom of the email. Has Mr. Burroughs returned to add poetry to solicitations for penile growth?

itch skid educated airport magnify hummel pristine southland
gleanings simon commissioner stack flat-broke psychotherapy
febrile discuss

Zippy songs for wierd times...

Here's a little number just for summer. Hit one of the streaming versions and you shall feel uplifted. While you are there marvel at the Internet Archive. Yow. Some things are just soooo cool.

As things get more complicated other things get less complicated. Hence the Ukelele revival.