In solidarity.

You know how you go to a concert of 500, or 5,000, or 50,000 people, and the band plays a song that everyone knows the words to, and everyone sings along, and you get tears in your eyes because it's such a beautiful feeling? 

That's why I wanted to watch the Superbowl yesterday.

Our world is so divided right now, in a really nasty way. My community is divided and it shows. Most recent case in point: Saturday night, we went with friends to see Milk in the same theater that hosted a TPUSA event a few weeks ago. We expected the theater to be full given recent anti-Pride events at a county commission meeting, and the outpouring of community support that ensued. The TPUSA event was packed - sold out, I'm told. There were about 12 people in the theater for Milk. (OK, maybe that's not a fair example seeing as how we did walk out of Milk quite depressed, but... you get the point.)

I spent the weekend catching up on volunteer activities for a few service clubs I'm involved with, writing postcards, and hanging with some good people. That was necessary... But yesterday I wanted more.

So we signed up for a free trial of YouTube TV and watched the television event 125M other people were watching. We rooted for Seattle. We groaned at the AI commercials. We ate nachos. We got bored during the third quarter but got back into it during the fourth (that's normal, right?). We watched some of the Olympics afterward.

And yes, we loved the halftime show. 

It felt nice to be doing something nostalgic, something familiar, something communal.

Today I'll go back to raging against [gestures broadly at everything]. But at least I'll be able to talk about the game with folks at work...

2015 reading challenge: quarter one.

I signed up for Goodreads' 2015 reading challenge and will be posting results here.  To avoid a ginormous list like this at the end of the year, I'll try to do this on a quarterly basis.

So!  Here are 1Q results...  A "*" means you should TOTALLY read this book.

• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murikami) - as noted on the other list, I wanted to love this but I didn't, it was just too weird.
  
  
• You Suck: A Love Story (Christopher Moore) - a quick, amusing read.
  
  
• * Anthill (Edward O. Wilson) - Wilson is a biologist, not a novelist, and this really shows in the stark differences between parts one, two, and three of the novel.  Part one read like a Mark Twain story, part two was an absolutely FASCINATING view of life from an ant's perspective, and part three reverted to Dan Brown tactics.  If you read nothing else, read part two.  You'll never look at ants the same again.  (You'll still kill them when they invade your kitchen every spring, but you'll never look at them the same again.)
  
  
• * Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (Michael Pollan) - this really shouldn't count toward my reading goal.  It really shouldn't.  But I'm counting it.
  
  
• We Are Water (Wally Lamb) - sigh.  You know how sometimes, you do that ill-advised thing of watching an entire season of Dexter on a rainy Saturday, then you feel really sick about humanity afterward, and then you totally forget about it the next day? That's what every Wally Lamb novel has felt like to me...  I don't want my rainy Saturday back as much as I did after reading the others, so there's that.
  
  
• Hoot (Carl Hiaasen) - a friend recommended Hiaasen and this young adult novel just happened to be in the book exchange at our farmstay.  It was fun, quick, completely unbelievable and yet totally predictable at the same time.  I enjoyed it and I'll definitely be checking out some of his adult fiction.
  
  
• * My Story (Ingrid Bergman) - I LOVE THIS LADY.  That is all.
  
  
• * Mokoka'i (Alan Brennert) - another one for the "sorta true stories" file, since it's based on real events and several real people.  A young native girl is sent to a leper colony in Hawaii in the early 1900s.  This is her story of how she copes throughout the next seven decades.  I honestly could not put it down.
  
  

I'm still three books ahead of my goal so I'm taking a little hiatus to catch up on some movies.  Pee-wee's Big Adventure counts as research for our upcoming road trip, right?

Book-o-rama.

I loves me some goals. (But you know that already.)

It's been a while since I did quarterly goals. It's now 2015 and I just keep pushing out the completion date for these, at least until we are back in the Pacific Northwest. They all still apply and I still practice them on a fairly regular basis, so it's all good.

But the strangely addictive Goodreads put out a 2015 Reading Challenge. And I loves me some challenges. (But you also know that already.)  So I signed up to read 24 books this year. I'm at 8% of my goal already - hooray for lazy afternoons after a hard day at the farm!

In light of this exciting new goal, I was inspired to give a rundown of the books I have read over the past 650 days of our trip. We were really fortunate to pass through dozens of hostels, guesthouses, and WWOOF accomodations offering book exchanges so I found some real gems I probably would never have picked up otherwise.

So without further ado...  I didn't track every single book I read over the past few years on my Goodreads list, but if they aren't listed here they are probably forgettable to me.  An * means I really, highly recommend checking it out.

Literally literature

• * The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - completely mesmerizing.  Can't believe I didn't read this sooner.
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami) - I really wanted to love this but it just got too weird.  I'll try another of his novels when I run across it, but in the meantime I recommend I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki) instead.
• * The Wonderful World of Oz (Frank L Baum) - one of those books I re-read every few years, along with A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I  always see something new in the story.
• The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) - probably would've appreciated this more 20 years ago, but it was definitely engaging.
• * Dracula (Bram Stoker) - any story about vampires is a good story, no matter how many times I've read it already.
• * What the Body Remembers (Shauna Singh Baldwin) - beautifully written.  The first book I read in ages that I actually couldn't put down.
• Please Don't Kill the Freshman (Zoe Trope) - ehhh... very Portland, very high school, very tedious.  I didn't quite finish it.
• * Tales of the Unexpected (Roald Dahl) - perfectly dark and twisted!   And I have a whole new appreciation for Royal Jelly now that I've worked with bees.  Anyone who loves Hemingway's short stories will love these too.
• * The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) - edgy, fast-paced, very well written.  I really liked this one.
• * Last Man in Tower (Aravind Adiga) - and I liked this one even more, especially because the plot translates to almost anywhere in the world right now.
• Great House (Nicole Krauss) - I need to remember that I like her ex-husband's novels much more than I like hers...  As with History of Love, I ended up skimming the last several chapters due to lack of interest coupled with a need for closure.

Beach chair books

• The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) - I finished it in, like, a day, and then promptly forgot about it.
• Everything by Kathy Reichs - to be honest, I am ashamed to admit how many of her stupid books I have read on this trip.  If her characters were vampires I would probably suck these up like I did the Twilight series and the True Blood series... but after one too many "OMG SERIOUSLY WHO TALKS LIKE THAT?" exclamations, I finally had to call it in Hawaii.  I will never pick another one of her books up.  (Unless, yunno, it's just sitting right there and I'm on a beach somewhere.)
• You Suck (A Love Story) (Christopher Moore) - definitely teenage vampire pulp fiction.  A quick, fun read and I loved all the references to familiar San Francisco places and things.   
• The Gunslinger (Stephen King) - an oldie but a goodie.

True stories

• * No Picnic on Mt Kenya: A Daring Escape, A Perilous Climb (Felice Benuzzi) - the title really sums up the plot.  A really engaging read that I enjoyed very much.
• * Riding the Iron Rooster (Paul Theroux) - Theroux is my favorite travel writer, my hero in that sense.  This is the story of that year in the '80s that he spent riding the rails in China. I wanted to re-read it as soon as I finished it.
• * Booby Trap (Allison Bially) - anyone who knows Allison will love this book.  
• Point to Point Navigation (Gore Vidal) - I had no idea he knew so many famous people. I had no idea I would be so enthralled by stories about famous people. I later tried to read Palimsest but barely made it through a few chapters.
• * Daughter of the Killing Fields (Theary C Seng) - stunningly heartbreaking. And then we actually went to Cambodia and my heart broke again and again.  One of those only-available-locally books, so next time you're in SE Asia definitely pick it up.
• * Night (Elie Wiesel) - stunningly heartbreaking. And then we actually went to Auschwitz-Birkenau and my heart broke again and again.  Must find Dawn and Day.
• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (Ruth Reichl) - a fascinating look into the life of a food critic.  This book made me never want to eat in a hoity-toity restaurant ever again.
• * Me: Stories of My Life (Katharine Hepburn) - written as you'd imagine her talking.  She was an amazing lady.  Just look at all these awesome things she said...
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Jonathan Haidt) - Interesting thoughts mixed with too many words, too many examples, too many external sources.  He had me... Then he lost me with all the fluff... Then he quoted a bunch of studies from Flow and Influence (which I've read) and he really lost me with the simple regurgitation of ideas.  I liked the Geography of Bliss (Eric Weiner) a lot more.

Sorta true stories (where I got on a roll reading stories about true terribly depressing historical events set in fictional settings)

• * Burial Rites (Hannah Kent) - a beautifully written but terribly depressing story of an Icelandic woman charged with murder who lives her last days with the local sherrif and his very begrudging family.  
• * Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks) - an enthralling but terribly depressing account of a woman who saves her local village from the Black Plague.  
• * The Lazarus Project (Aleksandar Hemon) - a thoughtful (yep, and terribly depressing) tale of a writer exploring the questionable murder charges of an immigrant from the prior century.  Honestly, I never could figure out if this was based on an actual historic event but it had the same feel as the two above.

Our next life (where I sifted through thousands of permaculture and design books at our last Tasmania host's house - these are some of my favorites)

• * The Resilient Farm and Homestead (Ben Falk) - definitely the most accessible book on permaculture that I've come across, plus the author is in Vermont so a lot of the climate tips will be similar to Oregon.  I hardly ever get inspired to buy books anymore but I really want to buy this when we get back.
• * A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder (Michael Pollan) - anything this guy writes is golden.
• * Mini Farming: Self Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre (Brett Markham) - another really accessible book, very relevant to how we want to start small.
• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Christopher Alexander) - lots of  interesting design theory, much of it was over my head but I still enjoyed perusing the concepts.
• And then these just had lots of pretty pictures and good design ideas:
• Sticks Stones Mud Houses: Natural Living (Nigel Noyes)
• Small Spaces (Terence Conran)
• Building of Earth and Straw Structural Design for Rammed Earth and Strawbale Architecture (Bruce King)
• The Beauty of Straw Bale Homes (Athena Swentzell Steen)

So that's my 2013-2014 summary.  What's on your plate to read this year?

Belated Friday five.

We recently had the opportunity to watch a bunch of movies in a comfortable hotel room with lots of wine. It was awesome.

In between Guardians of the Galaxy (which was brilliant) and Expendables III (which was terrible), we saw five others. Here they are, listed in order of most favorite to least favorite, with a sentence one of us uttered during the movie:

• Snowpiercer - "This is the silliest crackhead revolt movie I have ever seen."
• Lego Movie - "So... the point of the movie is that management saves the day?"
• Chef - "You had me at 'put a big blob of butter on it'..."
• Captain America - "Robert Redford - what is he, like, EIGHTY??"
• Transcendence - "Just replace Johnny Depp with Monsanto." (Runners up: "It's like Zombieland for nerds"; "Johnny Depp should just play weirdos.")

Seriously, though.  Snowpiercer + wine = you won't be sorry.

Belated Friday five.

In honor of the Oscars, I bring you five old movies I've only recently seen, in no particular order:

• I've Loved You So Long - beautiful and heartbreaking, just what you'd expect from those nutty French.
• 50/50 - wanted to love it but I only kind of liked it.
• The Fifth Element - not sure why I always resist Bruce Willis because everything I have ever seen with him has been completely amazing in its own special (and sometimes "special") way. 
• A Day Without a Mexican - was hoping it would be so much better, it could have been so much better.
• Conan O'Brien Can't Stop - never liked his show but now I at least like him.

Got to be a loner, we just do what we please.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending the local School of Rock's Beatles show, where tiny-to-high-school-aged children named Wednesday and T-Rex and Susiannamarie (Iann for short)* played songs about sex and drugs for two hours.

you are the youngest person in the theater

goo goo g'joob

It was wonderful.  Please support your local School of Rock. 

In related news, the hardest thing about this whole no-negativity missive is going to be dealing with people.  Specifically, Portland people.  Portlanders are, as a rule, fiercely independent.  We bike**, we hike, we run, we craft, we bake, we blog, we read.  (We read a lot, in fact.)

These are not team sports.  Sure, there are hiking groups and book clubs and knitting circles, but for the most part we are on our own.  And while we have the Blazers (yawn), the Timbers (passing fad), and the Winterhawks (for die hard hockey fans only), we don't spend a lot of time on team sports.  Therefore, we tend not to be team players.

This is my theory, anyway.***

Like the woman who stood behind us for 10 minutes yesterday, chatting loudly with her friend/on her phone and then moving to stand directly in front of us, blocking our up-until-then perfect view of the stage.  I could not help my body language when she turned around (it essentially said, "hey lady, WTF?") and she snapped, "her son is singing lead on the next song."

(Reaction #1: Well, you should've thought about that three hours ago and gotten a nice spot down front.  Reaction #2, which I wish would've come before my physical reaction: Oh, hey that's cool, whatever.  Luckily she and her friend went downstairs for photographic evidence of her son's 15 minutes of fame, and the rest of the show was totally enjoyable.)

And like me, and like my partner in crime, both of whom spent the entire day today actively avoiding people.

I really need to work on this.

Ob-la-di ob-la-da...

________________
* not their real names... but essentially their real names
** and by "we" I mean "not me"
*** and by "my" I mean I stole it from someone

Belated Friday five.

One sentence each on five movies we have seen, in no particular order:

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi (an overdue review) - truly fascinating... and hunger inducing.
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - I finally saw this for $3 at the local pizza/pint/playhouse, and finally learned that it is definitely worth seeing.
• Searching for Sugar Man - very inspiring, and possibly the only reason I've seen to want to visit South Africa (other than maybe swimming with sharks, which is coincidentally another good movie).
• The Hobbit - enjoyable enough in 2D, but with a made-for-3D feel.
• Bullitt - my dream car for many years was an electric blue 1964 Ford Mustang, Steve McQueen is no Paul Newman, and that's about all I have to say about this movie.

Spring cleaning, part one.

it seems criminal
to recycle hemingway
coffee-stained or not

Belated Friday five.

Five movies we have seen recently(ish), in one sentence and no particular order:

• The Hunger Games - everything about this movie bothered me and yet I liked it a lot.
• Moonrise Kingdom - I'm really not sure how Wes Anderson keeps topping himself, but he has now officially set the bar impossibly high.
• Beasts of the Southern Wild - could've done without the prehistoric monsters, but otherwise a really interesting and moving film.
• Samsara - the aliens must think we are ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
• The Dark Knight Rises - I had so many questions afterward, the main two being "why the hell does anyone still live in Gotham City?" and "why the hell are they still making Batman movies?"

My favorite new set change pasttime.

(title: because i (sometimes have been known to) actually DANCE at shows)

portland hipster crowd
i have some important news
i'm cooler than you

(title: a gentle reminder)

present open fun
every single bloody day
lather rinse repeat

(title: thank you for the perspective, electro-pop drummer who screamed this before launching into an Animal-inspired drum intro to a song)

best quote heard this week
"life fucking RULES, am i right??!"
yes, you are so right

________________
The last is brought to you by the drummer from Sun Angles, who opened for Brainstorm last night. After a particularly awful day I begrudgingly dragged myself out just to see Brainstorm. Entry was $5, beer was less than that, I'd seen them before, I knew they were fun and I knew I needed that. I ended up in a wonderful mood.

Both bands are AH MAY ZING live but their recorded stuff is not nearly as interesting, so get out and see them if you can.

And yeah, this life thing? It FUCKING RULES. We are all very lucky, so be sure to live it.

Belated Friday five.

A roundup of five bands I saw (or didn't) this month, in chronological order, begins now. Hold on to your hats!

December's musicpalooza started with Mumford & Sons. The music was amazing as expected, but it was at an arena, the light show was ridiculous (who are you, the Stones?) and the section where we sat bounced. And not in a Crystal Ballroom fun kind of way - more of an "um is this really safe?" way. I can say that I saw them, but I have much better memories of sitting on my couch in my pajamas streaming their various live performances. (Now get off my lawn?)

The next show was my absolute favorite show all year, as I've previously alluded. Astounding energy, great crowd, great venue. Before Time to Pretend, there was this song. And it was good. I will officially follow them to the ends of the earth. As long as the show is in Portland.

I'd halfheartedly gotten tickets to The Joy Formidable and Grouplove the following night but honestly, after the Dandy Warhols, my partner in crime and I were not in the mood. We stayed for a few songs and then spared our ears from the rest.

Finished up with last night's AgesandAges show at the Doug Fir. Always a good time. Always.

Really excited to check out some of this stuff next year. Musicpalooza 2012, here I come...

And I've seen a LOT of shows this year.

going on record
the dandy warhols last night?
best show of the year

Early Wednesday three.

News you can use times three, in no particular order:

• MMMhop, ba duba dop, ba du bop, ba duba dop, ba du bop, ba duba dop, ba du...
• Kermit is a commie! Story at 11.*
• Oregon is AWESOME, in case you weren't aware.
  

________________
* And my one run-on sentence review of The Muppets: I want to watch it again (and again) on DVD so I can fast forward through all the Amy Adams/Ms Piggy crap and enjoy everything else a second time, especially "mee mee mee mo!" (for which I might have to put in a ringtone request).

Sorta late Friday five.

Five bands that rounded out November's musicpalooza, in no particular order:

• John Wesley Harding and the King Charles Trio - I would've loved more in his solo acoustic set, but it was really nice to see the other Decemberists get lost in some basic, old school rock. It looked like they were having a blast.
  
• We Were Promised Jetpacks -loud and tight, just like last time. Not loud but pretty amazing here.
  
• Bryan John Appleby - high quality sleepy indie pop. (Check out The Words of the Revelator especially.)
  
• Hey Marseilles - yes, again, and they were brilliant this time too.
• Noah and the Whale - SO. MUCH. FUN.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled evenings in... until December musicpalooza, anyway.

They had me at "starring Ryan Gosling."

Crazy, Stupid, Love. - It was like American Beauty, only funny... and with better cameos.

Time out.

highly recommend
good beer(s), good band* and park swings
on a wednesday night

________________
* Black Prairie played free shows every Wednesday this month, and a month ago I was really excited about that. Then life happened and I missed them all. But seeing as how last night was their last show, I finally got organized about it and dragged a friend along. We sat in the back corner where we could hear well enough but avoid the mass of humanity in the other room.

Good music, and Jenny Conlee was actually there which was awesome. But the best moment was during a music break; I was waiting behind Chris Funk at the bar and some woman asked us to move so that she could get water from the jug. Chris politely extended his hand for her glass to help her out, and she cradled the glass and edged around us. He looked at me and said something about her being serious about sanitation.

If you know who either of these people are, then I probably don't have to explain that Chris could have sneezed on my food and I would've happily eaten it. As it was, I could barely crack a smile. I WAS STANDING BEHIND CHRIS FUNK! IN A TINY BAR!

I love Portland.

Need to start paying attention again.

i had no idea
such atrocities occurred
thank you dave eggers

I love that "corpse in an elevator" has become a plot keyword.

Last Sunday I was thrilled to see Attack the Block on the marquee at the local $4 theater. I'd been eying this since hearing that it involved various people who were also involved with Shaun of the Dead and related movies that I didn't like as much but still laughed at. And what with Halloween almost upon us, I had to keep up my string of recent campy blood-and-guts monster flicks.

I was entertained, but not wowed as I'd hoped to be. The social justice angle seemed a bit forced and the stoner angle was tired. But the blood-and-guts action was spot on, and really, that's all that matters as far as these films are concerned.

Right? Who's with me?

(Um... I also clapped after Sin City and I couldn't stop grinning after Grindhouse. And I love that "corpse in an elevator" has become a plot keyword. Do I need help?)

Wednesday three.

The best thing about no Facebook has been that I've managed to catch up on the bazillion items in my google reader subscription list. I know, I know - I've traded one time sink for another. But seriously, does Facebook have gems like these:

• "The glass is half full, you know why? Because someone bumped my arm, and now half of my drink is gone!" (from here)
• the cutest monkey EVAH!
• poor T-Rex (I feel his pain, I always lost the "shotgun!" game too)
  

?? I ask you!

________________
And also, OMG this is going to be an HBO series? If only Alan Ball was in charge...

And also, sweet.

Public service announcement for Spotify users.

You can find a brilliant version of "District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by Frank Turner on Spotify. It's raw and rough and it's how that song should have been recorded in the first place. (No offense, Ben Gibbard, this is just imho.)

Search for it. Do it NOW.

(Please. Also, please let me know your Spotify "name"? I am still figuring this thing out but I did subscribe to the $5/month service for a trial run.)

I saw Frank Turner and his band Saturday night and it was an amazing show. He's been dubbed "the Billy Bragg of our generation," and while I wouldn't go that far, it's not a terrible comparison. Some politics, some history, some really good love (and anti-love) songs. He's only 30 so his lyrics are a bit immature, and I mean that in the nicest way. This song (and cutest video EVER!) and this one are my current faves.

Andrew Jackson Jihad opened. They were very fun as well...