“Red Skies” - The Fixx. This is all I have right now.
The Verge Of History
Well, here we are, the day before the end of the world. Perhaps. As I shared sometime last year, I just don’t have the stomach for politics the way I used to. I had largely disengaged before this fall, sick of how our political process had become a system not of checks and balances, give and take, discussion and compromise, but rather a zero sum, destroy your opponent, repeat lies until they become truths, never ever compromise, slash-and-burn mess.
Friday Playlist
November. You know what that means? Yep, Wednesday morning I heard one of the SiriusXM DJs talking about the Christmas music channel being up and running. A quick run through the stations and, sure enough, the Holly station was blasting holiday tunes. Apparently the other Christmas music station won’t fire up until December 5, which is almost as weird as starting on November 2. It was even weirder to be hearing songs about crisp, cold days when it was 75 and I was wearing shorts.
Epic
Now that’s what people are talking about when they get all giddy about a game seven finale for a championship series! It wasn’t the prettiest game ever played in the World Series. It wasn’t without its head-scratching moments. But, man, was it entertaining. Especially if you weren’t committed to either team. I can’t imagine what that game was like for Cubs and Indians fans. First off, props to MLB for starting the game on time.
Halloween 2016
Day late, dollar short I guess. Had a last-minute schedule change yesterday that kept me from getting out the obligatory Halloween wrap-up post. So my apologies, as I know many of you spent your entire day refreshing the site, waiting for that post to appear. It was, perhaps, our best Halloween ever. Temps were in the low 60s and it was dry, making it an ideal evening to be out. M went as a panda.
Friday Playlist
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Brand New Lover” - Dead or Alive. Perhaps you heard that DoA lead singer Pete Burns died this week. Here’s a reminder that the band had more than the one good song you probably think of first at the mention of their name. “Dead Alive” - The Shins. Purely coincidental, but The Shins released a new song this week that name-checks Dead or Alive. “Wanna” - BRONCHO. This doesn’t sound like a band from Norman, OK should sound, does it?
Top 5s
If you follow Joe Posnaski on either Twitter or his personal blog, you no doubt saw his recent piece that was based on Xavier basketball coach Chris Mack’s list of favorite Bruce Springsteen songs. A Bruce Top Five There is so much for me to love here. A) It’s Poz, so it’s almost automatically great. B) It’s about music lists, something I’m also a little obsessive about. C) I enjoy the thought process Poz went through from first being floored by Mack’s list, to coming to an understanding of how we all come to different conclusions about music, to the natural end: sharing his own list of favorite Springsteen songs.
Curse Breaking Season
Welp, here we go. In about a week, either the Chicago Cubs or the Cleveland Indians will be World Series champions. A week after that, Donald Trump could be the president-elect of the United States of America. Y’all know I’m not a religious man, but if you believe in signs, I think those could be the first two of the three that signal the world is coming to an end! Hopefully since #2 is looking increasingly unlikely, the World Series will stand on its own rather than a portent of doom.
Fall Break Wrap
It was a pretty laid back fall break for us. As I said last week, we had no travels on the agenda and hoped for good weather so we could do some fun stuff locally. Things started off as well as I could ask: we had been home five minutes on Wednesday when I got a call from the mom of one of M’s friends, asking if she wanted to come over and spend the night.
Friday Playlist
We’re fall breaking it this weekend. No trips or super exciting and unique plans on the agenda. Just flu shots, playdates, sleepovers, and general chilling. Here are some songs that I’ve been listening to this week, and thus they feel fall break-y to me. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Queens” - La Sera. La Sera put out an album earlier this year that got fine reviews, but which I did not like that much. Then they released an EP of extra tracks a couple weeks back, and I dug it the most.
Tuesday Notes
A few assorted tidbits for Tuesday. Here’s the thing about Indian Summer: you never fully appreciate it. Sure, you can talk in wonder about it being in the mid–80s in the back-half of October. You can take a long lunch, leave work early, or just take the day off to get outside. But as good as these days feel, we are also craving those cool, autumn breezes. It looks like the weather here is going to shift dramatically in the next 36 hours.
Friday Playlist
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Shadrach” - Beastie Boys. None of this week’s new releases really piqued my interest, so after dropping the girls at school this morning I threw on Paul’s Boutique and have been reliving the first month of my freshman year of college. At least musically. I haven’t been skipping classes and puking in trashcans. “Positron” - Palace Winter. Another very fine track - this one recorded live - from PW. “Tiny Fires” - Kevin Morby.
Good Journalism Moment of the Day
I went through a stretch a few weeks back where I was watching a lot of Veep, the HBO comedy where Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Vice President Selina Meyer.[1] And this week I finally cracked the seal on our DVR’s collection of The Good Place, the new Michael Schur comedy starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson. That combination means I can finally share this piece from a few weeks back in which Steven Hyden posits that Louis-Dreyfus and Danson are the two finest comedy actors of the modern age.
Finishing Fast
Before I jump into the true topic of this post, a quick realization I just had. Lately many of the family stories I’ve been sharing in detail here have already been posted to Facebook in much more simplified form. Since the bulk of my regular readers are friends on Facebook, that means you’ve often had a sneak preview of the story about X or Y before I get around to putting a few hundred words about it up here.
Friday Vid
I’m having a fun morning. I’m searching on what movies are appropriate for a 12-year-old’s sleepover. Up until now it’s been pretty easy to pick movies to show when our girls have friends over. But now that M is up on the verge of being a teenager, you can’t throw in a Barbie movie or even a good animated flick like Inside Out. She needs something that is a little more grown up for her and her friends who are sleeping over tonight to watch.
MLB Playoff Predictions
Well, the MLB playoffs are here, a bittersweet time for me - and many of my readers - for sure. There is a sadness that the Royals aren’t part of the festivities this year. The last two Octobers were so much fun, even if they were intensely stressful. I imagine my blood pressure will appreciate watching games more casually this year. Yet there will be the constant references to the Royals for the next month, which will be good.
September Books
A pretty solid month of reading in September keeps me right on 52-book pace for the year. Palace of Treason - Jason Matthews. I read Matthews’ excellent Red Sparrow three or four years ago. Turns out Matthews enjoyed those characters and settings so much, he’s decided to turn it into a trilogy. Volume two just hit the shelves in June. Matthews, a retired CIA officer, does another first-rate job in building a tale of modern espionage.
Ocho to the Third
Yesterday was a very busy day, which makes me a day late in offering up my birthday post for L. Our youngest turned 8 yesterday, and everything about the day fit her perfectly. As a lot of you saw, I posted some pics of her to Facebook with a little birthday announcement. At the end of the day, I showed her how many people had liked it or sent birthday greetings her way in the comments.
Friday Playlist
As promised last week, a video and playlist of older songs I’ve heard on SiriusXM over the past 15 days or so. youtu.be/dbXzAAXOB… “Bye Bye Love” - The Cars. I heard this song a week or so ago on one of the SiriusXM throwback stations. As I listened, and considered it’s greatness, I thought about how many hits The Cars had over the years. I bet most people, when asked to name their three favorite Cars songs, wouldn’t think of “Bye Bye Love.
School Daze
Our academic year is off to a decent start. The girls got their mid-quarter progress reports a couple weeks back, and all three are doing well. C has really taken to fourth grade, which is when the teachers at St. P’s begin pushing students to be self-motivated for getting their work done. Unlike the K–3 years, we don’t have to review her assignments and sign her folder every night. She’s done a great job of balancing her practices and games for kickball and cross country, getting all her school work done, and still having some time to herself each night.