The keyword is PEHDTSCKJMBA! For Tom Waits tour of the Southwest United States this summer. Look out Tom Will be coming to a town near you!
For those with a hankering to see Tom I think this video is welcome news. I did prefer his last tour press release where he said he said the whole reason he went on tour was that he had some business in Illinois, and a guy in Indiana owed him money. There was no Youtube video for the last press release though….
I don’t think I will be fortunate enough to travel to See Tom Waits live. My fortunate time was seeing him in Detroit with Dad in 2005.
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Surfer Getting Some Air on a Beach Break in Morocco
Surf and Travel. What better combination? Every Surf Paddler’s deepest dream is to surf a virgin break, with very little competition.
The photos from this surf trip to Morocco are really beautiful. Travel and surfing is something that I long to do. Laura and I keep talking about going to Costa Rica. I would love to go in winter to do some kayak surfing.
Morocco is very beautiful, and I had no idea it had any good surf at all. But I guess it makes sense if the Atlantic side has big swells you’re likely to see surf like they get in the Basque country. I remember getting excited when I saw how big the surf was in Baiko and Mundaka this winter.
It would be great to do a Paul Bowles Sheltering Sky type mosey through Africa to do Kayak Surfing on the west coast. Granted I would pass on catching a horrible disease and dying. But the traveling sounds great.
Survived surgery. No allergic reactions to anesthetic. I was lucky enough to have my wife to nurse me, and therefore oggle, (go Wenley!). I also had an African woman from Zimbabwe who put in my IV offer to get a witch doctor to cast out the evil spirits that make me cycle, run, and kayak. I thought it was quite benevolent of her. But also quite unnecessary as the operation will do that quite nicely for at least three weeks.
I do like the idea that it is evil spirits inhabiting my body that makes me kayak surf. Perhaps I can somehow join forces with them to catch more waves, break fewer paddles and get that carbon road bike I’ve been after.
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Tomorrow I face the surgeons knife. Hopefully this will lead to a short road to recovery. I know in my heart it will be longer than I’d like. But I hope to be out kayak surfing some time in early June.
I will most likely be doing a lot more strength training before I begin serious running/cycling again.
Wish me luck!
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The 1984 film of Hayao Miyazaki’s graphic novel captured my imagination as a child. The giant airships, the toxic jungle, and most of all Nausicaa’s Mehve or Mowe glider. I really like the German word Mowe, as it means seagull, which is what the glider looks like when you see it. The Graphic Novel is probably one of the best things I’ve ever read. For me it is up there with Spiegelman’s Maus.
The Graphic Novel is a tale of the after math of a major ecological disaster. In this story humans destroyed the world in seven days of fire. The remainder of the human population is now threatened by a toxic jungle filled with giant insects and miasma. The major nation states are now vying for the territory that is left as the toxic jungle increases in size. Nausicaa is from the Valley of Wind, a small fiefdom to the kingdom of Torumeka near the acid lake. Winds off the acid lake keep the miasma and jungle from encroaching on the small jungle. War finds the Valley of the Wind and young Nausicaa a girl with a special telepathic link to other living creatures. She is thrust into the conflict between Torumeka and Pejite and manages to create her own side in the conflict striving to live in balance with the new eco system that was created after the seven days of fire.
These crazy Japanese guys have built up a working model of Nausicaa’s enigmatic Mowe.
The gap is closing on my childhood dreams. What’s next? A real lightsaber? Maybe it’s better that we don’t get those…
Check out the test flight video of the Mowe.
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Leonard Cohen has been the man for me since college. Like a lot of young literature majors we’re drawn to the image of Leonard Cohen living in New York city as a poet, a writer, having deep, complicated relationships that require him to write a finely crafted song. Each one is a shining diamond from his deep mine of wisdom and perfect pain. Mostly it was probably from not having any real complications or pain of our own.
Most people probably have outgrown Leonard Cohen, but I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older each song has burned a little brighter. Perhaps as my relationships have grown more complicated, and my experience wider, I appreciate him even more. I had Famous Blue Raincoat on infinite repeat through out college. I knew all of the words to Everybody Knows at one time.
I watched I’m Your Man Nick Cave, of whom I’ve always been a huge fan, didn’t leave me very impressed. His version of I’m Your Man seemed to be thrown off by the overly loud backup singers. Nor did Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Everybody Knows. Incidentally I like a few Rufus tunes, but his was actually the worst Leonard Cohen cover to which I’ve ever been subjected. Rufus’ campy drag queen delivery hit every phrase wrong and made the song seem insipid and dumb.
Bono and the Edge from U2 make an appearance and a performance. Bono’s comments while sometimes ego maniacal are purely complimentary and made me see the song Hallelujah completely different. You will have to watch the movie to see what he said.
Antony, of Antony and the Johnson’s also did a great cover of If it Be Your Will. He did a rip roaring version of this song. His voice is really unusual, it has that sort of vibrato/tremolo character to it that makes it sound a bit like the folk singer who did all the songs for the animated version of the Hobbit. *think “The gre-aaaa—aaaa-tttt adventu———rrrreee.” He is unusual and uncomfortable to watch, but great to hear.
However that said, Teddy Thompson’s cover of Tonight Will be Fine is possibly the best cover I’ve heard of a Leonard Cohen song (maybe John Cale’s and Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah is a three-way tie with this song). Unfortunately the recording that I liked the best was Teddy’s rehearsal from the special features of the DVD. I hope to find it somewhere someday.
This song says so many things about the elastic and circular nature of love between married people that it actually frightens me a little.
Tonight Will Be Fine
Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past.
We swore to each other then that our love would surely last.
You kept right on loving, I went on a fast,
now I am too thin and your love is too vast.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
I choose the rooms that I live in with care,
the windows are small and the walls almost bare,
there’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer;
I listen all night for your step on the stair.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me,
she’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be
and she’s moving her body so brave and so free.
If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory.
And I know from her eyes
and I know from her smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine
for a while.
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Yehuda Moon & the Kickstand Cyclery is a daily comic for cyclists everywhere. The comic is geared for the commuting audience. But is a little for everyone on two wheels. The comic is drawn by Rick Smith.
I’ve been reading with delight since it’s inception. I’ve wanted to do this about one hundred times myself. It seems urban bike culture is coming into it’s own. The comic depicts two cyclists. Yehuda is the steel frame/single speed/ simplicity bike guy who works at the shop the Kickstand. Then there is the bike shop owner Joe. Joe is more of a high technology fan and is a perfect foil to Yehuda.
Today’s comic is a gem.
Another favorite of mine is where Yehuda paints his own Bike lanes. Peruse the archives and enjoy.
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I find myself becoming more and more irritable on my morning bike commute. Drivers who use cell-phones, that do not look where they are going are trying my patience. This morning I made a critical mistake. I think if I had changed my position in the lane to be more direct and visible, this situation might have been negated.
I had my modified Bianchi San Jose with pannier bags loaded this morning. Laptop and clothes for the day in the bags, and I am heading downhill to a stop light. The stop light has some construction going on in the middle lane. I rolled up in the right lane first at the light. I was off to the right of the lane, which was my first mistake. I should have been in the middle of the lane. A woman from the center lane under construction started edging her SUV into the right lane. She rolled forward but needed me to move to turn right at the red light.
She actually rolled down the window and tried to sweetly ask me to move so she could turn right at the red light. “No!”, I told her. She could wait for the light to turn green like everybody else. If I had been a car she could/would never have done this.
My mistake was in being off to the right if I intended to go straight through the light. I was asking for it. Lesson learned occupy the center of the lane when you intend to go straight.
Bad Bike Commuter Positioning Diagram for going Straight in an Intersection
Good Position for a Bike in Traffic going straight
Certainly the second diagram is more aggressive in terms of the positioning in traffic, but hopefully safer. The object is not necessarily to be in the center to let the car through on the right, but to clearly occupy the middle to let the car know you are going straight.
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