I decided to go with a Thursday Playlist after noting the date. We are off very early tomorrow for a week in the Dominican Republic with roughly a third of M’s graduating class. Two other local high schools will also have large contingents at our resort, so it’s going to be Indy in the Tropics, I guess. Knock on wood all travel goes well and there’s minimal drama amongst the kids (both ours and the larger group).
It’s been a busy week. Our spring break begins on Friday and there is much to be done to prepare. Lots of errands, laundry, organizing, taking kids to appointments, prepping the house, etc. Much of my free time has also been taken up by trying to finish a show I’ve been watching that will disappear from Hulu next week. It may well pop up somewhere else - Netflix, Prime, etc - on April 1, but I didn’t want to risk not finishing it.
Not a good weekend of basketball. Nope, not good at all. Jayhawk Talk Well, I feared playing Arkansas from the moment the brackets came out a week ago. Long, athletic, fearless, a little crazy. They resembled Texas and TCU, teams that gave KU three of their worst losses this year. Saturday afternoon I began to gain confidence. KU was more experienced and had been tested all year. Arkansas dropped just about every big game on their schedule.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Get Out of My House” - Miya Folick Folick described this song as an exorcism. Which makes it a perfect metaphor for the last weekend of winter, a time for throwing out all the unnecessary things that have collected over the past little while. “Tell Me To Go” - John-Allison Weiss This track is over three years old, but also appears on Weiss' new album. It reminds me of the bedroom pop from 20 years ago.
The appetizer of the First Four is complete. Now it’s time for the real deal. NCAA thoughts. Jayhawk Talk I’m not sure how to feel about this team. Kevin McCullar and Gradey Dick both say their back issues are fine. Can we trust them? Might they be fine against Howard today and flare back up Saturday in the second round? For a team that is not very deep, those alone are massive questions.
In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin Chatwin’s work was the inspiration for so many other travel writers I’ve read over the years, so this piece has always been in the back of my mind. If you’ve ever purchased a Moleskine notebook and bothered to read the insert that came inside, you know that Chatwin documented his trips in notebooks similar to them. I mention the notebook angle because that’s very much how this book reads: like a series of brushed-up notebook entries made while traveling through the South American region of Patagonia in the mid–70s.
As you might expect, I have a lot of words about basketball today. HS Hoops A quick note about HS ball. Cathedral’s run as defending state champs came to an end in the regional round of this year’s tournament, losing to #1 Ben Davis by 10. The Irish did have the lead at halftime. I had to run L over to a friend’s and when I got home they trailed going into the fourth.
open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Not Strong Enough” - boygenius This is what I’m talking about! The first set of songs from the upcoming boygenius album each featured a different lead singer. On this one, Phoebe, Julien, and Lucy all take turns. The result is wonderful. “Crusher” - Taleen Kali You know a retro-head like me is going to enjoy the hell out of a song like this that is loaded with post-punk goodness.
I haven’t run across as many pieces lately that struck me as sharable. So this entry spans over a month of collection. Thus the first is a little out-of-date, and I’m guessing many of you who would be interested in it have already read it. Wright Thompson is a modern Gary Smith: everything he writes is completely compelling. Especially when he has such an interesting subject. This is an amazing look at Joe Montana and the person he has become.
Chart Week: February 25, 1978 Song: “Falling” - LeBlanc and Carr Chart Position: #28, 20th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of April 1. Normally I put my song grade at the end of these posts, but for this entry it seems best to offer the assessment up front. This is not a good song. In fact, it is borderline terrible. I’m sure a lot of people who were young and in love in 1978 remember it fondly.
You may recall that a few years back I made fun of S for getting poison ivy for the 90th time since we began dating. I bragged about how I had never gotten it so I must not be allergic to its oils. Within two weeks I wandered into a whole mess of poison ivy vines, had sores all over my body, couldn’t sleep because of the itching, went on steroids to stop the itching and then couldn’t sleep because of them, and soon had my first major Afib episode.
College Hoops I’ll save most of my thoughts for a post later in the week. It is always a bit of a relief when we reach this point in the season and have a few days off. November and December are usually a mix of big games and ones that KU should win easily. I’m always left wanting more from that part of the schedule, as the Jayhawks often have week-long gaps between games.
I’ve been dropping a bunch of old school tunes into my working playlist. So this week’s edition is going to be both extra meaty and heavy on the old. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Room” - TV Star Seems like a good song for a week when we just broke the record for warmest day on March 1 by five degrees. It is dreamy and spring-like. “Give it Back” - Cass McCombs and Weak Signal Heavier than anything I’ve ever heard from Mr.
Shortest month of the year, but I was not short-changed on the media tip. Movies, Shows, etc A Cook’s Tour, season one As I said last month, I recently discovered these were on YouTube. Which is awesome because I’ve never seen them. Anthony Bourdain’s first TV show, and you can see the seeds of what No Reservations and Parts Unknown would become. You see a host with a clear point of view trying to establish his voice but being a little off what we got used to later in his career.
I’ve not been very good about continuing with this concept. It seems like I mostly think of it in relation to music, and I figure I have enough music content here already. Or when I get a decent, non-music idea, I have enough other posts lined up. I have a few of those ideas sitting in my drafts folder and will try to share them plus add some new entries so this can be a more regular feature.
Kid Hoops A week ago L’s team beat some good sixth graders in the best game they’ve played all year. This week they played another sixth grade team and got crushed. It was a 50–26 loss. And that was with us scoring six points in the last minute. The team we played made at least 7 3’s to our one. They worked us over pretty good on the defensive end. They dominated the boards.
I didn’t spend much time with the new music this week. Between that and a family development, this week’s selections will lean to the old. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “I Wasn’t Thinking at All” - Cold Irons Band Jason Isbell released the first single from his upcoming album this week. It didn’t jump out at me. Coincidentally, I also heard this track this week, which definitely has an Isbell-like vibe to it. Bonus points: these dudes aren’t from Alabama like Isbell, or even Nashville.
I’m a little behind once again, so these will be brief both for brevity’s sake and because the two older books aren’t so fresh in my noggin. The Confession of Copeland Cane - Kennan Norris I loved this book. It is exactly what the title says: the confession of Copeland Cane, a young Black man from East Oakland. Sometime in the near future (I think it is pegged around 2030), Cane is accused of murdering a police officer.
Monday night’s win in Ft. Worth deserves a few notes. In Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, he attempts to determine what the perfect win is. Now this was British soccer he was talking about, so the standard is a bit different. I think he settled on a 3–2 triumph when your side trails both 1–0 and 2–1 and scores the winner late. That result would be full of drama and angst, have moments of joy, and a big, cathartic ending.
Our trip to Cincinnati was good. We drove down with one of M’s long-time friends, A, who was planning on confirming her enrollment at UC on our visit. At check-in we ran into one of their CHS classmates and her mom. When the parents were comparing notes on the college search process, I mentioned that M was waiting to hear from Michigan. She butted in and said, ‘Yeah, that’s not happening, we don’t need to factor that in anymore.