Genuinely hot for a good chunk of the day. Apparently around 80 and humid is my idea of 'hot.' And I really like it. I'd like it better if I could wear shorts at work.

This weekend I heard toads singing at Leverett Pond. I was astonished, for a couple reasons. First, it isn't really a pond, just a wide slow part of the Muddy River. Second, I compiled a survey of all the terrestrial vertebrate life in the area a couple years ago, and I detected no toads. That just goes to show that you need year round attention to accurately count the species in an area. (but I knew that already)

...

Unusual word combination of the day: Solka Floc
This one was especially unusual, as I was familiar with neither of the words in the combination. A little context, perhaps? I was slicing up a 5 pound packaged log of partially frozen processed horsemeat--the diet for some new animals in quarantine--I can tell you what in about two weeks--when I noticed that there was an ingredients list. It read: "Horsemeat (USDA Inspected and Passed), Solka Floc, dicalcium phosphate..." and so on. Just like that "Solka Floc," like everyone knows what that is, Oh of course, solka floc*! That reminds me, I need to go to the store and buy some more solka floc tonight, and maybe a package of oop spap and a box of gibyet morgs. (*Google it. It's just cellulose fiber.)

The Nebraska Brand website, by the way, assures us that, while it's hard to get human quality horsemeat for humans anymore, we can still get it for our Amur leopards, spectacled owls, and coyotes. They assure us, in all caps. NEBRASKA BRAND REMAINS COMMITTED TO USING ONLY USDA INSPECTED AND PASSED HORSEMEAT IN OUR CARNIVORE DIETS! RECENTLY THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL ERRONEOUS REPORTS REGARDING HORSE SLAUGHTER AND THE AVAILABILITY OF USDA INSPECTED AND PASSED, HUMAN QUALITY, HORSEMEAT. WE ASSURE ALL OUR CUSTOMERS THAT THERE WILL BE A VERY ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF USDA INSPECTED HORSEMEAT, WELL INTO THE FUTURE. WE AT NEBRASKA BRAND REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF USING ONLY THE HIGHEST QUALITY INGREDIENTS, THEREFORE WE WILL CONTINUE USING ONLY USDA INSPECTED AND PASSED HORSEMEAT, IN THE PRODUCTION OF NEBRASKA BRAND HORSEMEAT PRODUCTS.
okay, then.

I'm listening to Jimmy Cliff right now, largely as a result of seeing The Harder They Come two weekends ago. It's an interesting movie, and I can see why it's considered something of a landmark. The music turns out to be pretty timeless, but the low-budget filmmaking style is less so. The story is about a young man from the countryside who moves to the big city to become a singing star, but instead gets involved in organized crime. The message seems to be, in order to become a famous reggae star, you have to go on a killing spree. Maybe I missed some other point to it, but that's what I took home. That, and the soundtrack.

Also, I finally understand a lot of what the ska crowd that I hung around with 20 years ago were into, and even why a minor hit from the 80's begins: "Sit tight and listen keenly while I play for you a brand new musical biscuit!"

EDIT -- a final note: Now that wtf-nature is in the lj spotlight, I expect it'll be about 24 hours before irrelevant, redundant, and inane posts make me drop the community.

I have the day off, but it's not for fun. I have to be under house arrest from 12 to 5 waiting for the gas company to show up. The best case scenario is that they come at noon, are gone by one, and I can be free to move about and give the dogs a long walk or something. Much more likely is that they arrive at 4:45 after I've been looking outside longingly all day--or better yet, call at 5 to reschedule.

Ah well, at least I can try to do some stuff out of the house before noon, and some stuff in the house after. I had such a fun weekend that I accomplished nothing.

So to keep this post from being tedious, I'll ask for a music/audio suggestion. What should I bring to listen to with my dad on our trip to Yellowstone? I'm bringing at least one Willie Nelson album, and an audio book. (It's 'Assassination Vacation' by Sarah Vowell. I'm hoping it will cover our overlapping interests--his interest in history, mine in all things morbid. I am a bit worried that her voice will drive us both buggy after an hour or so.) What do you suggest for long drives out west?

I guess I could have gone to see Neil Gaiman or Neil Diamond tonight (both are appearing in Boston venues this evening) but instead I went and saw Firewater.( Read more... )

I've been going around thinking that "Soul Bossa Nova" (popularized as the theme from Austin Powers, and in my opinion, the best thing about the Austin Powers movies) was a Burt Bacharach composition, when in fact it's by Quincy Jones. Incidentally, I discovered this when I decided that I needed to own another Quincy Jones tune, "The Streetbeater," which also was famous as a theme song. (Bonus points if you know what it's the theme of)

I have an inordinate amount of theme songs in my collection, partly because context makes music better, and partly because theme songs tend to be catchy and anthemic, and I dig that.

In addition to the Dr. Who theme (2 versions), the themes from Star Wars, Firefly, and Invader Zim, I also have the theme from the Katamari video game, "Boss of Me" by TMBG, "Hawaii 5-0," "Judgement Night" (the whole soundtrack which is far better than the movie), "Repo Man," "View to a Kill," "Some Kind of Monster," "Peter Gunn," "Live and Let Die," "Love is All Around Us," that whole Saturday Morning Cartoons thing, as well as "Watching the Detectives," "Life on Mars," "All of Me," "Hockey Monkey," "Pretty in Pink," "In the Street" which have retroactively become themes.

I was going to post asking what you thought the best themes were, but boy there sure are a ton of them. I always loved the sitcom themes from my youth: Barney Miller, WKRP, Taxi, etc. but those are mostly context. Except Barney Miller. That's still pretty damn funky. So let me ask anyway: What do you think are the best themes?

I didn't count the music of Seks Bomba, but I should have.

Whatever you think about Barak Obama, I can't remember another politician inspiring musicians so much. YouTube is thick with Obama tributes set to music. The last time I was excited about a presidential candidate they had a Fleetwood Mac theme song. This time around there are an abundance of choices should Obama become the nominee. The latest I've heard celebrates the mucicality of the man's name itself, in addition to his other attributes: Check out Reggae artist Cocoa Tea: http://www.dancehalljamjam.net/ It will start to play by itself, but you can also download it for free if you want. (I heard about the song on an npr story about Obama's popularity in Kenya.)

Conversely, what are the choices for theme songs for the other candidates? They should be along the lines of "the more things change the more they stay the same." I'd accept "The Imperial March" for John McCain, even though I like that one myself. Maybe a funeral march might be more apt? Ride of the Valkyries?

I was inspired by Cocoa Tea song to buy the last political song that excited me: Make Love F**k War by Moby and Public Enemy.
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The kid discovered, through her internet connections, a love song written from the point of view of a supervillain toward one of his captives ("Skullcrusher mountain"). The lyrics "I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you / But I get the feeling that you don't like it / What's with all the screaming?" are pretty darn charming. A little investigation shows the singer-songwriter to be Jonathan Coulton, who has staked out some musical territory between Flight of the Conchords and They Might Be Giants. It turns out I'd heard him some time ago, with his sweet folk cover of "Baby Got Back." (Even white boys got to shout!) Picking through his long list of songs, which you can listen to in their entirety free before buying them for a dollar, I found a lot of interesting stuff, not the least of which was an unexpectedly spooky tribute to the town I live in. ("For when the darkness finds you, the sun will cease to shine / In the end, your only friend, Brookline")

The problem with Pandora by the way, is that it doesn't know who I was dating when certain songs came out, or where I was working, or what friends of mine were in bands, or how drunk I was when I heard the song for the first time, or any of the other important variables that determine whether I like a song or not. I am, however, currently enjoying the radio station it created based on "Spanish Flea."

I saved this news story mostly for my brother, who is inordinately fond of a certain phrase in the headline: Completely starkers cop nabs would-be thief.

In other, sadder news, another dog-related tragedy happened, this time in Mt. Carmel Illinois. A beloved family pet, apparently without warning, bit a two year old toddler so badly that he needed 200 stitches and had to have his ear reattached. Large dogs and small children are a bad mix, especially when both are unsupervised. It makes you wonder if certain dog breeds should be banned outright. Read about this golden retriever attack here.

A few minutes ago, just as I turned the corner onto my block I saw a wild turkey standing on a neighbor's stoop! I didn't crash the car, nor could I park it legally, so I completed the circuit of the block, parked in my spot, and ran to where I saw the turkey. It wasn't there, so I quickly scanned the area: the street (full of afternoon rush hour traffic), the roof (a four story apartment building; not likely, but possible), and all around. There, across the street, on the part of the Riverway we call the "hot springs" because of a probably illegal sewerage outflow we discovered, were two turkeys. They were casually strolling on the paved walkway. I had to wait until a break in traffic to cross the street, and once I got there they had descended the hill toward the river. I took a couple pictures, which I'll post a little later.

I've now been sick officially a full week. I feel like I haven't been sick this long since childhood. Who else has the time to be sick this long, other than children? I'm pretty sure I've got bronchitis, and that I'm not going to get better without antibiotics. I'm stubborn, though, so we'll see how long it takes me to go to the doctor.

Today is the anniversary of my check engine light troubles! That's right, one year ago today my check engine light came on, instilling dread and worry and starting a journey of auto repair that shows no sign of ending. I've had all my oxygen sensors replaced, replaced the engine pipe twice, and some other stuff's been done to it too. On my way back from a roller derby game, in a white-out snowstorm, the check engine light started blinking. I was in heavy traffic on a major road (93S) so pulling over was out of the question. Fortunately, it stopped blinking, and just stayed on steady. When I brought it in, the guy told me (in difficult English) that sometimes the sensor gets wet and the light goes on, but there's nothing wrong with the engine. Okay, sure, I can live with that. So now, for the past month the light goes on when it rains, then after a couple dry days it goes out. Just so long as it's dry the next time I have to bring it in for inspection.

Last year around this time, I asked you guys to recommend some new music for me. Several of you recommended Pandora.com, a site where you enter a song or songs or an artist or artists and it generates a radio station that plays music based on that. 11 months later I've tried it, and it's interesting. It notices things about my music that I didn't notice, creating playlists based only on how the music sounds. It has a hard time recognizing context and irony. It has forced me to accept that I listen to music for reasons other than the way it sounds, at least on paper. Music is too wrapped up in memory and time and culture to be described only by key, tempo, and instrumentation.

Because of hearing loss, you have to turn the rock up LOUDER. Which causes more hearing loss.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Globular springtail; next to tardigrades, these are cutest little multi-legged beasts there are.

The Northeast Navy Showband played across the street from my house today.

You can hear a little bit of them here.

On this day in 365 Urban Species: American cockroach, one of the most iconic urban species of all. Another one of the top ten posts.

I'm the guy who likes it warm rather than cold--I'd rather endure today's predicted 97 than our more typical 27--but today is a tough one. Interestingly, very cold and very warm have a similar effect on my breathing. I have asthma, and today I can't draw a full breath. Fortunately, my awesome wife has picked up my new inhaler, so if I survive until I get home, I'll get some relief.
I have the first verse of Think Tree's wonderfully catchy and depressing environmental song "Hire a Bird" going through my head:

The sun will burn a hole right through
your parasols
The clouds so sick they've split in two
from aerosols
The air will fill your lungs with fists
for every breath
In future days when life exists
to mirror death

(my version is from memory--there may be minor errors)
It's available on iTunes, and in my opinion, very much worth the 99 cents. Do yourself a favor and buy "Memory Protect," as well.

An eccentric and possibly brilliant songwriter insists on being a celebrity, despite falling somewhere between awkward and unbearable as a performer. Above all, Daniel Johnston's story is remarkable for the many times that it could have ended in tragedy, but did not--yet. His mental illness may drive his art, but it takes him from parent's basement to carnival to mental hospital to street to jail to plane crash back to mental hospital and, finally, parents' basement. Unfortunately the filmmakers have done an inadequate job of convincing us of their subject's genius. That job will have to be undertaken by those singers and bands who perform his songs in the decades to come.

(3 stars on netflix)
(3 1/2 stars on movielens)

I'd probably be accused of being a bigot if I said that modern country music fans were the kind of people whose idea of courtship is to offer to clean ectoparasites off one another, but click this link and hear the proof.

Link thanks to brush_rat, whose attraction to novelty music is like some kind of radar.

(I just checked the artist on wikipedia, and I feel a lot better making fun of him knowing that he's an established performer, and not some guy trying to break into the business.)

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"The Urban Pantheist" as a title occurred to me sometime in the late nineties. I was emerging from time spent as a wiccan or perhaps eclectic neopagan and had rediscovered the word "pantheist" and decided that it more accurately captured my beliefs. At the same time, I was connecting with nature in a way that I hadn't since I was a boy living in a house in the woods. It struck me that to love nature in the city was remarkable, but that it was something that needed to happen, and that I probably wasn't the only person who was discovering it. I used the title for five issues of my zine, published between 1998 and 2003, before finally admitting to myself that it was now just my blog title. (Unless I find another great project to attach it to.)

For a time, I considered the title "The Urban Naturalist," but rejected it for a couple reasons. First, I didn't know enough about nature to comfortably call myself a naturalist, but to call myself a pantheist, all I needed to do was believe in a self-creating universe. I also discovered, as I looked for books about urban nature, that there already was a book called The Urban Naturalist, by Steven Garber, a New York based biologist. (This book is pretty useful, but dry, and is starting to become obsolete. It needs a revision badly, but I doubt that Dover does such a thing, since their domain is the public domain, specializing in two dollar copies of Mark Twain and such.)

One of my newish lj friends, futurebird, is currently working on a book called The Urban Naturalist, but her perspective is largely social/humanity based, and looks very interesting (if she wants, she can comment with a better description than mine, or you could follow the links and read some of it). It will not be confused with Garber's book, despite the fact that they are both based in NYC.

In 1985, British goth singer Danielle Dax used the phrase "Urban Pantheist" in two contexts. In an interview, she basically said that what we used to call hippies are now urban pantheists. And for some album art, she used a series of her own paintings, which were titled "Urban Pantheist." So far as I can tell, this is the earliest use of these two words together. (This is the kind of baiting statement I like to make in order for other people to contradict me, and in so doing, do my research for me.)

About a year ago a self-described "urban folk singer" from Melbourne Australia, named Rachael Byrnes, wrote a song dedicated to a friend, entitled "The Urban Pantheist." You can listen to it here, or if you prefer songs in written format, you can look at the lyrics (which differ very slightly from the audio version) here. She sings rather languidly, a welcome contrast (in my mind) to the punk-influenced nasal snarl popular among female singer-songwriters I usually hear. I'm rather a dope when it comes to picking up symbolism, but while the song seems to be a love song written for a friend, it also bears a strong message of loving the earth, and listening to nature. (Unless I've gotten it totally wrong. I can just about grasp the blunt-instrument environmental message of Soundgarden's "Hands all Over."

Now I'm not sure if I should continue to use the phrase "The Urban Pantheist" to refer to myself and my projects. Partly because I've drifted even further away from strictly spiritual interests more toward ecology and biology. An early draft of a business card cottonmanifesto designed for me, she used the phrase "urban naturalist" to describe me, which is more accurate than ever. The nature walk group I founded is called "Urban Nature Walk," which I think is potentially more useful than the other titles. (By useful I mean helpful in creating interest and curiosity while accurately describing what I do.) For the foreseeable future, this blog will continue to be called "The Urban Pantheist." Until such time as I am born again, and judge pantheism to be a heresy against the One True God. Just kidding. Maybe.

Here, because lj abhors a text-only post, is the bark of an apple tree, growing on a city street.

Thanks, cottonmanifesto

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skullcake commented on my March 1st post, and mentioned Jonathan Richman's song "Twilight in Boston." Someone mentioned it at a recent zine convention, too, and I still don't think I've heard it. I just looked at the words, at they mention the Riverway (where I live, and where 90% of the pictures posted here were taken).

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Don't forget, religious people:

"All things dull and ugly, all creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty, the Lord God made the lot
Each little snake that poisons, each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous, all evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous, the Lord God made them all
Each nasty little hornet, each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin? Who made the shark? He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous, all pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all"

-Idle

A friend of mine, who will remain nameless (but it will help the story a bit to mention that she is about 10 years younger than me), just told me that while she was watching the Superbowl Halftime show, she found herself wondering "Why is Paul McCartney singing a Guns 'N' Roses song?"

And I aged just a little bit before everyone's eyes.