Peripatetic

So some years ago, I saw a short travel feature on some cable channel or other about an island town in Italy where all the houses were painted bright, vivid colors, and anyone wanting to paint their house had to request approval from the local government. It looked like an absolutely wonderful town, and I always had it in the back of my mind that I would try to visit it someday. (This was when I was going to Italy for the book fair every year, and the idea of getting to travel around the country seemed much likelier than it does now.) Except that I couldn’t remember the name of the town or which region it was in, only that it was an island, in the northern half of Italy.

And then I forgot about it, mostly. But every so often when I’m wandering aimlessly on the Web, I’ll try to think of things that I’ve always meant to look up, and the name of this town falls into that category…except that I never remember to look up half the things that I’ve always wanted to look up. But today, for some reason, I finally remembered the little town with the multicolored houses. It turns out that my memory was accurate, if fuzzy: the town is called Burano, and it’s an island in the lagoon around Venice. And it looks just as magical as I remembered from the travel show. Funny thing is, I’ve never particularly wanted to go to Venice, which I’ve heard is overcrowded and too touristy; I’d rather go back to Milan or Rome or Florence or, God knows, Bologna again. But I think Burano would be worth the trip.

In an effort to maintain the illusion that I’m still blogging, and because I’ve gathered about 20 new WordPress themes that I like, I may be switching themes frequently for the next little while. Then again, I might not, because I’m kind of smitten with this one (although I may tweak a few things). The image at the top is London—traffic lights in Kingston, to be precise, so Greater London—and I’m in a city kind of mood these days. (By “city,” I mean “somewhere bigger and city-er than here,” and I really mean “NYC or London,” because really, those are my cities.) It’s been a longish winter, and I’m feeling the tug of going somewhere I belong, warring with the complacent pressure of staying here where it’s cheap and liveable.

I bought a stunningly wonderful laptop (aided and abetted by a friend who works at Apple) a couple of weeks ago, and since it’s more or less lived in my lap ever since, I’m hopeful that I might start blogging regularly again. If I can find anything worth saying, that is. I’m not going to start tonight, however. After a moderately frantic workday followed by fooling around with WordPress and themes and assorted other meta things, I am laptopped out.

It’s a little strange (but only a little) to find myself weeping for a dog I never met, but having just learned about the passing of Zeke, I can’t help mourning. Undoubtedly, a lot of that is because Chris Clarke has written about him so beautifully, but I also know, despite the lack of empirical evidence, that Zeke was a truly good dog. Read all about him—and there’s a lot to read—here. Warning: have some tissues on hand.

(It seems like nowadays I’m only blogging to note the passing of important creatures, which really isn’t my intention for this blog. I’ll have to do something about that.)

I was terribly saddened to learn on Friday of the death of the great writer and thinker Ellen Willis. Back in the Dark Ages when I was an impressionable preteen and early teen and already beginning to compose entire record reviews in my head in rock-crit-ese, there were precious few women writing about rock. And of the few who were around, none could touch the lucidity and originality of Ellen Willis. It would be hard for me to overstate the impact she had on me back then, and throughout my teens and twenties. When she moved on from rock criticism to general essays (most of the obits referred to her as a feminist writer, but that ghettoizes her unnecessarily, and inaccurately), I continued to read her avidly, and I believe I’m a better writer and thinker for having done so. It had been a long time since I’ve read her regularly, but looking at some of her recent work, it’s easy to see that she never lost her sharp eye or her fluency.

I never met her, but I’ll never forget her. May she rest in peace.

Yeah, I haven’t been around much lately. This is partly because it’s getting increasingly difficult for me to be at the computer when I don’t have to, and partly because I haven’t really had a whole lot to say lately. Apart from an ongoing crisis of confidence about my ability to be any good at all at my job, things have been pretty quiet in my world. I’m not depressed, not at all (although I can sense some weather-induced doldrums coming on, as the forecast for this week has temperatures climbing to the mid-80s in friggin’ April); I’m just not up to much, I guess.

A few things have come up that are worth talking about recently, though. For one, against all recent signs and indications, there is going to be a Twangfest this year. It was a nightmare to book this one, and I don’t even do much booking. (As it turned out, in fact, I didn’t do any booking, though it wasn’t for want of trying.) It’s the tenth year, and we wanted it to be spectacular, or something close. We wanted to bring back some performers from the earliest days of Twangfest, and then also have some totally new and dazzling headliners. A major country artist, say, like Marty Stuart or Dwight Yoakam, or someone totally unexpected but entirely appropriate, like Sharon Jones. But when we started putting out feelers and making inquiries, it was one disappointment after another. One artist who we thought was absolutely locked in got some dates in Europe in June, and we couldn’t even be made at him because we know he makes better money there than he does here. (And because he loves Twangfest, as we love him, and wasn’t trying to shaft us, I hasten to add. He’ll be welcome to play anytime he wants, if there are more Twangfests to play.) Others weren’t touring in June and would have had to be flown in to perform, an expense that our budget couldn’t handle.

In the end, we’ve put together, completely out of our asses, a great lineup that I’m quite excited about, with an array of fine purveyors of American roots-ish music ranging from the Dirtbombs to BR5-49, and much in between. See for yourself in a few days when the lineup is posted on the Twangfest site. And in the end, Twangfest X will be as memorable a musical and social experience as all the other Twangfests have been; I’m completely confident of that. I know the next ten weeks or so will be thoroughly dominated by Twangfest, and I’m looking forward to that (though juggling it with my more than usually heavy workload will be, um, interesting). I’m sort of dead weight when it comes to most of the work that makes Twangfest happen—I don’t really do booking, and I’m even less useful when it comes to finding sponsors, because I am almost pathologically incapable of asking strangers for money. But this is the time of year when I try to sort of make up for my uselessness. I coordinate the Dan Pack (named for our beloved friend and Twangfest supporter Dan Bentele), which allows people to make a small donation to Twangfest and get a good deal on tickets and a t-shirt and poster. (Asking friends and acquaintances for money is apparently easier than asking strangers, I guess.) This year, I’m back to answering the queries that come in to our general e-mail box, which pick up in volume this time of year. I’ll be writing a press release.

And then my favorite part: running the on-site merchandise sales and paying the bands. I love paying the bands, because I’d be too shy to talk to most of them otherwise, but paying them gives me a built-in excuse. (And somehow they always seem to like me. I’m sure the fact that I’m handing them money has nothing to do with it.) Paying the bands means I have to stay sober at the club, which is a good thing, and handling merch means that I get to hide behind a table instead of mingling, so that people won’t quite figure out how truly shy and awkward and tongue-tied and unprepossessing I am. It all works out very well. Twangfest is as social an activitiy as I can imagine, and it’s the sort of thing I’d ordinarily fervently avoid—I’d rather eat dirt than go to SXSW, for example—but somehow when it’s Twangfest, its okay. It’s pretty much the best thing I do all year. It’s almost scary how much of my identity is tied up in being part of the Twanggang, actually. That’s something I prefer not to dwell on too much or too often, though it’s been harder to escape this year because there are questions about the future of Twangfest and about my future with it. More about that if and when it’s appropriate, though.

Anyway, Twangfest fever has officially set in, and that’s cause for a blog post if anything is. There’s more to talk about too—for one thing, the new record by (Twangfest X performer) Scott Miller has been out for several weeks now, and I haven’t even written about it. I’ll save that for next time, along with some other musical commentary.

In the ongoing saga entitled All I Ever Do These Days Is Work:

What’s more fun than finding out less than a week in advance that you have to fly to Philadelphia for a 2.5-hour business meeting, even though you’re swamped with work and can’t really afford to spend a day out of the office? Finding out that it’s actually a three-day business trip involving two accounts that you won’t be working on, of course. And even better is finding yourself with a fever (from a flu that won’t quite give up on me) the night before your 6:30 a.m. flight to Philly.

Maybe I wouldn’t be feeling quite so awful if I hadn’t set my alarm for 3 a.m. this morning to watch the Australian Open quarterfinal match between Justine Henin-Hardenne and Lindsay Davenport. Yes, I really did that. What can I say? I’m a fan, and ESPN2 hasn’t shown any of Justine’s matches during normal hours. I figured she needed me to cheer her on in order to beat Davenport. I’m paying for the lack of sleep today, boy howdy. But it was worth it, because it was an exciting, come-from-behind victory for my favorite female tennis player over my least favorite tennis player.

(And I can’t resist a nasty comment about Davenport’s outfit. At first, I thought it was just a shapeless one-piece dress that bore an unfortunate resemblance to a nightgown, but then I got a better look. It was actually a long-sleeved (very practical for the Australian summer) mint green zip-up cardigan with a matching mint green skirt. With random black stripes as accents. And the clincher: a vaguely triangular translucent mesh cutout panel on the back of the cardigan…presumably needed for ventilation to counter the long sleeves. And her hair! It was all bunched up in weird clumps that were caught in barrettes. Yikes! Fashion note: The lighter your complexion is, the worse you’re going to look in mint green.)

It’s not all bleak, though. One of my projects got scaled back and postponed slightly, so I won’t have to fill the hours during which I’m not in meetings with work; I can actually relax and sleep in a little bit. And the good news is that the second part of my itinerary will take me to New York, so I’ll get a very quick, unexpected visit with my dad. It will be very different from my last, relatively leisurely trip home (which I haven’t written about yet, but I might still; it was a pretty cool trip), but hey, a trip to New York is a trip to New York.

So why am I dreading the whole thing so much? Oh yeah, I forgot: I’m allergic to meetings. It’s a good thing I love my job. That’s what I keep repeating to myself, over and over.

So, about that best-of listâ?¦

(I realize that I’m the only one who will care if I never do a best-of-2005 list, but I don’t think I’ll be able to focus properly on 2006 posts until I get this one taken care of.)

2005 was the first year that I can remember when I truly couldn’t do a numbered top-howevermany list. There were just too many good records that bunched up in the 6-20 (or 50, more like) spots, and putting them in order was too much of a chore. I already posted a (very) partial list, but it’s actually changed since then, because the Clientele record so thoroughly dominated my December (and January, so far) that it moved up a few spots.

Anyway. My list, which will be missing records that I’m forgetting about, I’m sure (no notes added, because I’ve written about a lot of these here before, but ask me if you’re curious about any of them):

1. Son Volt, “Okemah and the Melody of Riot”
2. Robbie Fulks, “Georgia Hard”
3. The Clientele, “Strange Geometry”
4. Malcolm Middleton, “Into the Woods”
5. Steve Dawson, “Sweet Is the Anchor”

and the rest, with the first five representing most of what would be my top 10 if I’d done one, and then the remainder in no order:

the everybodyfields, “Plague of Dreams”
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, “Naturally”
The Morning After Girls, “Evolve”
Bettye Lavette, “I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise”
Dallas Wayne, “I’m Your Biggest Fan”
—–
Dierks Bentley, “Modern Day Drifter.”
Gary Allan, “Tough All Over.”
John Doyle, “Wayward Son”
Lasarfhiona ni Chonaola, “Flame of Wine.”
Cathie Ryan, “The Farthest Wave.”
British Sea Power, “Open Season”
Dogs, “Turn Against This Land”
Brakes, “Give Blood”
Richmond Fontaine, “The Fitzgerald”
Bettie Serveert, “Attagirl”
The Hacienda Brothers, s/t
Reigning Sound, “Home for Orphans”
Chatham County Line, “Route 23″
Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell, “Begonias”
Sleater-Kinney, “The Woods”

Two promising, if flawed, EPs:
The Love Experts, “Cuba Street.” A St. Louis band with a very distinctive sound. Too distinctive, maybe, because I find that the singer’s voice starts to get on my nerves by the end of the EP. But I’ll still be paying attention to whatever they do next, and I hope I’ll get a chance to see them live sometime.
The Squares, “Very Sharp.” I was very taken with this Columbus band’s debut EP when I first got it, though unfortunately I became less so with repeated listens—the record starts to seem a little too long, which isn’t a good thing for an EP. But I think they have oodles of potential, and you really can’t go wrong with a sound as straightforward and rocking as theirs.

Song of the Year:
If you can’t guess what this is going to be, you have either never read my blog before or you haven’t been paying attention. Yes, my song of the year is “Since K Got Over Me” by the Clientele. Duh. I think I finally figured out why it gets to me the way it does, too: it’s a London song, in the same way that Nick Drake’s “Bryter Layter” is a London album. There are no explicit references to London, but it just seems to permeate the song, and the line “But when the evening paints the streets/When the evening paints the streets/It’s like walking on a trampoline” immediately takes me to a very specific place and time in London and sends joy and heartbreak coursing through my veins all at once.

It beat out my previous lead-pipe-cinch single of the year, Alan Jackson’s “Monday Morning Church” (with magnificent backing vocals by Patty Loveless), which is a perfect country single. I like Alan Jackson better as a singles artist than as an album artist anyway, and between this song and “Drive,” he’s released arguably my two favorite country singles of the decade.

Other runners-up:
Son Volt, “Jet Pilot”
Robbie Fulks, “Georgia Hard” and “Where There’s a Road”
Malcolm Middleton, “Break My Heart”
Bettye Lavette, “How Am I Different?” (her astonishingly good cover of an already great Aimee Mann song)

In a way, I should have put more effort into my Song of the Year list than my albums list, because so much of my listening now is via the iPod, on song shuffle, so songs are more relevant than albums. But I’m an old person, and I still think in album terms. I’m doing a mix CD for a group I belong to in April, and though it’s going to include some songs from before 2005 (yes, I’m already planning/obsessing about what songs to put on it), I may use it as an opportunity to come up with a Best Songs of 2005 comp too. But I probably won’t, since I’m always too lazy to do those sorts of things. Maybe next yearâ?¦which is to say this year.

Okay, so I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, and I’m still doing some figuring out and tweaking and all that sort of thing. I don’t particularly like the new page design, for one thing—color good, layout not so much. Expect changes over the next few days as I fiddle with it. One thing I’ve noticed right away, though, is that when you look at the main blog page, links within entries are not clickable—you have to go to the individual entry itself to get the link to show up as anything but text. I’m sure there’s a) some perfectly good reason for this, and/or b) some nice workaround, but till I have a few minutes to figure it out, that’s how it will work. One step forward, two steps back…or “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” or some other applicable adage.

I think I’m completely in love with this:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1541732.html

I particularly like the idea that it’s going to be there for 20 years. But only 20 years, and no more. (That’s assuming it lasts that long. If nothing else, if it really is knitted, it’s going to be unrecognizably filthy within a year.)

Wow, two short, snappy posts in the same day, and no navel-gazing. Perhaps I will eventually get the hang of this blogging thing after all.

But I wouldn’t count on it.

Darby Conley’s “Get Fuzzy,” my favorite current comic strip, has been running a series of strips on cat facts this week, including some very funny ones, and a few that I, despite being a noted cat weirdo, did not know. My favorite, I think, is this:

“An average 15-year-old cat has slept 10 years.”

I know, of course, that cats sleep, and need to sleep, an average of 16 to 18 hours per day. I’d just never seen it framed in those terms, and when it’s put that way, it just reaffirms why cats are cool. After all, most days I wish I could sleep for about 10 years…