11.30.2007
11.29.2007
NBLND
Poking around on Jack's blog reconnected me with the night before last night's dream:
Debbie Gibson died. Subsequently, it is revealed that she is responsible for several of Britney Spears's recent hits: what we believed to be Britney singing is actually Debbie.
Debbie Gibson died. Subsequently, it is revealed that she is responsible for several of Britney Spears's recent hits: what we believed to be Britney singing is actually Debbie.
11.26.2007
Lou Mitchell's
We used to eat regularly at downtown Madison's Great Dane Pub. After a few dinners during which the space was so cacophonously loud that we emerged with something vaguely akin to shellshock, we stopped going. (There was also the garden incident, but that's another story.) During a couple of recent trips to the Great Dane's new Hilldale location, we encountered even more confusion-- once eating hurriedly as a happy-hour crowd repeatedly sloshed up against the outer edge of our booth's table. An ordeal rather than a hospitable dining experience.
If we can't stomach such confusion, why do we love Chicago's Lou Mitchell's? The place embodies hustle and bustle. Both times I've been to this downtown institution, it's been packed with a stream of hungry folks lined up out the door.
Parties are either jammed into tiny booths or seated at a continuous series of two person tables. In the below pic of Kenny, you can see the arm of an adjacent diner on the right (there's another on the left who fell just outside the frame, despite my best efforts).
The wait staff squeezes among these masses of bodies and furniture with amazing stamina and aplomb. Unlike the personality-deprived & perennially green servers of Madison, Lou Mitchell's waitresses are efficient, skilled, and delightfully sassy. And the place offers a constant parade of treats. While waiting for a table, everyone is offered complimentary donut holes (made on site and without trans fats). While the LADIES wait, they get a complimentary box of Milk Duds. Upon ordering, you get a little bowl with a stewed prune and a slice of orange. You can see the remains of Kenny's on the table. The omelets are served with breakfast potatoes, all in skillets. And it's all flat-out terrific. After the meal, everyone gets a little tiny cup (just a little shot) of ice cream. Last Sunday, the place was so loud, I could hardly hear our waitress-- who was no frail flower-- but the atmosphere at Lou Mitchell's was so convivial, so refined in its own way, that I left fatter and happier than ever.
If we can't stomach such confusion, why do we love Chicago's Lou Mitchell's? The place embodies hustle and bustle. Both times I've been to this downtown institution, it's been packed with a stream of hungry folks lined up out the door.
Parties are either jammed into tiny booths or seated at a continuous series of two person tables. In the below pic of Kenny, you can see the arm of an adjacent diner on the right (there's another on the left who fell just outside the frame, despite my best efforts).
The wait staff squeezes among these masses of bodies and furniture with amazing stamina and aplomb. Unlike the personality-deprived & perennially green servers of Madison, Lou Mitchell's waitresses are efficient, skilled, and delightfully sassy. And the place offers a constant parade of treats. While waiting for a table, everyone is offered complimentary donut holes (made on site and without trans fats). While the LADIES wait, they get a complimentary box of Milk Duds. Upon ordering, you get a little bowl with a stewed prune and a slice of orange. You can see the remains of Kenny's on the table. The omelets are served with breakfast potatoes, all in skillets. And it's all flat-out terrific. After the meal, everyone gets a little tiny cup (just a little shot) of ice cream. Last Sunday, the place was so loud, I could hardly hear our waitress-- who was no frail flower-- but the atmosphere at Lou Mitchell's was so convivial, so refined in its own way, that I left fatter and happier than ever.
From the UW Archives:
Bobby Cook
Bobby Cook--in 1947, the leading scorer both in the Big Ten and on Big Ten Championship Team-- is cocked, by which I mean ready to go off, by which I mean about to shoot. Everything about this photo vibrates with exciting physical tension-- a body fixed on the verge of release.
11.24.2007
Keep on Rocketting in the Free World
On our Thanksgiving trip to Chicago, we saw the Rockettes. More on this once I get my act together, scan some things, etc.
11.21.2007
Document
My wonderful therapist is a savvy earth mother (think heavy cabled knits with metallic flecks) in her later 50's who, when I reported that I'd begun to pump iron, replied, "Oh! I do free weights!" She proposed that weightlifting shifts the focus of exercise from losing weight to something more likely to produce a feeling of accomplishment. You can see and feel the work you've accomplished. I think she's right. I also promote a sense of accomplishment through record keeping.
I've been meaning to share this with you for ages, but I misplaced it for several weeks. Do note that my record-keeping methodology here is peculiar-- more focused on utility than accurate representation of what I've done. "65" in a squat means that I load each side of the bar with 65 lbs. This removes arithmetic from the process (65 x 2 + bar = 175 lbs) . "30" in a dumbbell exercise means I use 30 lb. dumbbells. I ain't braggin'. I got miles to go before I'm strong. I just want you to know that I can bench more than 35 lbs.
I've been meaning to share this with you for ages, but I misplaced it for several weeks. Do note that my record-keeping methodology here is peculiar-- more focused on utility than accurate representation of what I've done. "65" in a squat means that I load each side of the bar with 65 lbs. This removes arithmetic from the process (65 x 2 + bar = 175 lbs) . "30" in a dumbbell exercise means I use 30 lb. dumbbells. I ain't braggin'. I got miles to go before I'm strong. I just want you to know that I can bench more than 35 lbs.
Disturbing Fingers Diptych
1. During a dinner at Monty's Blue Plate, Erk witnesses the young, fresh tall waiter sniff his fingers tips while trotting towards the diner's counter.
2. On his morning busride, Erk spies what look awfully like shitty finger smears on a laminated surface abutting the seat in front of his. It's not as harrowing as the incident of several weeks ago in which Erk sat behind a guy with dandruff the size of rolled oats, but it's captivating nonetheless.
Erk: That's not something you want to see. Although, maybe it's something delectable...
Knnth: A special sauce?
Erk: Cockcheeseburger?
Knnth: [blanch]
2. On his morning busride, Erk spies what look awfully like shitty finger smears on a laminated surface abutting the seat in front of his. It's not as harrowing as the incident of several weeks ago in which Erk sat behind a guy with dandruff the size of rolled oats, but it's captivating nonetheless.
11.20.2007
Evening Bus Ride
A woman in her mid-20's enthusiastically reading Reader's Digest. Erk repeatedly inspects her hands: "Is she really in her mid-20's?" Yes, apparently she is.
120 Memories:
Just Can't Function No More
I'm haunted by this series of images that open the video for Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. The camera tracks up a flight of stairs. At the top, it encounters a hand disappearing behind a door which then opens to reveal an empty room. Because I had difficulty capturing the hand's slide out of sight, I highlighted it below:
The door marked Ian C. beckons us and then opens to emptiness.
Thank you, Ian C.
Goodbye, Ian C.
11.18.2007
11.16.2007
120 Memories:
Introductions in Dust
We recently altered our cable package, trading a Showtime bundle for a different, cheaper set of channels which include the-n, BBC-America, the Sundance Channel, and VH-1 Classic. The change has revolutionized our lives: I'm watching Absolutely Fabulous regularly, I suddenly have access to a great deal more Degrassi: The Next Generation, and Kenneth has taken to recording and sharing music videos from the VH-1 Classic shows We Are the 80's and VH-1 Classic 120 Minutes.
I fret about how this revolution demonstrates the importance of television in my life, but I fret about most everything.
Kenneth and I sat down to watch a video or two over dessert the other evening and ended up chatting and thrilling our way through all 120 minutes of Classic 120 Minutes. The show-- sadly-- does not replay old episodes of the MTV's alternative feature which was hosted back in the day by the likes of Kevin Seal and Dave Kendall. You can get a small taste of or return to these from various tiny clips on youtube like this, this, and this. Classic 120 Minutes does feature only alternative and new wave and whatnot videos, most of which were made in the 80's. The experience of revisiting certain videos and discovering other ones has been so delightful and intense that I'd like to blog about it in a new series which I'll call 120 Memories.
I have no adolescent memories of seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees' Cities of Dust-- making my series's title something of a misnomer at least in this instance-- but I can't stop thinking about the brilliant video which Kenneth and I agree holds up as a solid work of (audio)visual art. You can catch the whole thing here. Below, I've captured my favorite bits.
The long opening shot of bubbling red.
Siouxsie reclining and singing as molten veins spill down towards her exposed flesh. Fragile, fierce: her head and shoulders radiate the same heat.
The same shot, now with a shower of SPARKS.
Gorgeous contrasts with the previous images.
Simple but highly evocative layering of images throughout. The bouncing of these marionette skeletons is whimsical, but it evokes delightfully childish delicacy, the ephemeral and theatric, the jangling hubbub of life-- the whimsical's inescapable correlation with the civilized.
I fret about how this revolution demonstrates the importance of television in my life, but I fret about most everything.
Kenneth and I sat down to watch a video or two over dessert the other evening and ended up chatting and thrilling our way through all 120 minutes of Classic 120 Minutes. The show-- sadly-- does not replay old episodes of the MTV's alternative feature which was hosted back in the day by the likes of Kevin Seal and Dave Kendall. You can get a small taste of or return to these from various tiny clips on youtube like this, this, and this. Classic 120 Minutes does feature only alternative and new wave and whatnot videos, most of which were made in the 80's. The experience of revisiting certain videos and discovering other ones has been so delightful and intense that I'd like to blog about it in a new series which I'll call 120 Memories.
I have no adolescent memories of seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees' Cities of Dust-- making my series's title something of a misnomer at least in this instance-- but I can't stop thinking about the brilliant video which Kenneth and I agree holds up as a solid work of (audio)visual art. You can catch the whole thing here. Below, I've captured my favorite bits.
The long opening shot of bubbling red.
Siouxsie reclining and singing as molten veins spill down towards her exposed flesh. Fragile, fierce: her head and shoulders radiate the same heat.
The same shot, now with a shower of SPARKS.
Gorgeous contrasts with the previous images.
Simple but highly evocative layering of images throughout. The bouncing of these marionette skeletons is whimsical, but it evokes delightfully childish delicacy, the ephemeral and theatric, the jangling hubbub of life-- the whimsical's inescapable correlation with the civilized.
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