Not a ton to talk about that isn’t basketball related. C came home for her spring break Friday. She took a detour to Cincinnati on the way. Her high school friend who goes to Auburn visited her in Bloomington on Wednesday and they drove over to visit friends at UC Thursday before finally looping back to Indy. L had another long weekend, as the Indy St. Patrick’s Day parade was Friday and Cathedral always takes the day off for that.
Another week, another playlist. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4MbU06JBji8ubvRCE0kOpG?si=44b16e342eaa49ec) “I Danced With Another Love In My Dream” - Brigitte Calls Me Baby I’m telling you, if radio didn’t suck, this band would be on the verge of blowing up. The title of this track plays even more into their connections with The Smiths. “Brace Yourself” - Gladie As I said when I shared another song of theirs two weeks ago, this band sounds straight out of the Nineties.
Colts The Colts held on to their two most important free agent pieces this week. I’m not sure the process was right, nor am I sure the results were ideal. First, they slapped the transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones. By doing so they immediately made wide receiver Alec Pierce a free agent, which was seen as a rather large blunder by NFL experts. However, within a day Pierce re-signed with the Colts.
I forgot one book in last week’s entry, then another I’m saving because I have a similar book in my queue and I want to write about them together. I hope no one minds that these books are not in the exact order I read them in. The Anthony Bourdain Reader - Edited by Kimberly Witherspoon One down side to reading primarily on a Kindle is I am never sure how long a book is when you begin.
The quiet weekends continue. We started our latest in-home project, only to be foiled by problematic wallpaper. S painted a little bit. I cleaned some gutters. We started laying out clothes to prep for spring break packing. Other than that, slow times. Jayhawk Talk The one event of the weekend was KU closing out the regular season with a pounding of K-State. Nothing unexpected about that, K-State is trash.
I’ve been going through an especially persistent bout with my periodic insomnia this week. I have no idea how I couldn’t sleep last night but here we are, me bleary-eyed after hours of tossing and turning, getting up to read and reset my brain, then more tossing and turning. We’ll see how that affects the songs I put together for you today, and what I write about them. If this turns to gibberish by the end, you know the reason.
Such Great Heights - Chris DeVille My second book about modern rock of the year. This one, by one of Stereogum’s best writers, covers the indie rock of the past 25 years. From its rise out of the ashes of ’90s alternative rock to its embrace of hip hop, R&B, and traditional pop music in more recent years. And all the many stages in between. It is not just an accounting of the bands that were important to each stage of this process.
Sub-title Too Long For The Web: In Which An Effort To Unload Some Unused Furniture Becomes An Opportunity To Show What Nice People We Are The main title has nothing to do with KU’s loss Tuesday night to a very mediocre Arizona State team. A game in which Bill Self was ejected, Jacque Vaughn received a technical, and Elmarko Jackson was called for a flagrant foul, all of which seemed like garbage calls.
Movies, Shows, Etc. The Night Manager, season 2 Five years ago this show’s first season confused me a bit, as I struggled with its presentation and pacing. I found season two to be silly and uneven. There was some plot stuff that was flat-out strange and perhaps unnecessary. And I was annoyed when nothing was resolved but rather it all sets up a hypothetical season three. B- Miracle: The Boys of ’80 You’re telling me there’s a new documentary about one of the foundational moments in my relationship with sports, a mythical event that even 46 years later still does not make sense?
This will be a brief(ish?) entry as we had a rather lazy weekend and I need to get outside and push the snow that fell overnight off the driveway. It looks like close to 2” from inside.[1] CHS is delayed for two hours so L gets a longer weekend than she already had. Tomorrow will be in the 50s and we’ll be well into the 70s later this week with thunderstorms.
I realized at about 10:35 Thursday evening that because I have an appointment Friday morning, if I didn’t put this together right away, I might not get it posted until nearly lunch time Friday. Let’s see if I can keep my eyes open long enough to crank out something worthy of your attentions. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6gLFgnOjcen5g2z8C5RytR?si=c7a4145e082b49f7) “Stupid Bitches” - Grace Ives This seems like the perfect song for the moment. (Spotify is fighting me to put this one in Thursday night.
I haven’t read many pieces lately that seemed worth sharing. But there’s a very important TV premiere tonight that forced my hand. Even then, one of these is a YouTube video. I need to read more/better during my Internet time. OMGOMGOMG, Scrubs is back! One of my eight favorite comedies of all time! I trust Bill Lawrence and the rest of the team behind the show to revive it without sucking too much.
Jayhawk Talk Well that was much better. Sure, it took about 17 minutes to get going, but once the Jayhawks found an offensive rhythm last night, they had no issues with Houston. Great games from Melvin Council Jr. and, especially, Tre White. Darryn Peterson played the whole game again! He didn’t do a ton, but two second half 3’s were huge in making sure Houston could not come back. The defense was outstanding.
Last weekend was our first without football. This one was our first without high school basketball, at least directly. Yes, we’ve entered the dog days of winter. Mother Nature was sure to rub it in a bit. Jayhawk Talk Well that fucking sucked. Not just coming out like ass in a classic trap game. Not just having the game sitting there, begging to be taken over, and KU refusing to do so until Cincinnati said, “Fuck it,” and ran the Jayhawks off the court over the last five minutes.
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5xIBXihq3JqosAMvRNQtVd?si=51a7c57336914af9) “This Tornado Loves You” - Neko Case “Victim Of Luck” - Metric I put these two songs together, that have nothing to do with each other, because of the weather just down the road last night. C and her dorm mates had to take shelter when a tornado took dead aim at Bloomington. I have to say, as much as I enjoy watching TV coverage of severe weather, I got a strange feeling in my stomach as we watched the radar images showing the worst part of the storm passing within a mile of her dorm.
I didn’t intend to put this off a day, but Monday ended up including a trip to Bloomington so that kind of messed my routine up. Let’s get to the details of the weekend, which involved a couple rough basketball results. State Regionals Well, our girls damn near pulled it off. Saturday they were eight minutes from a huge upset over 3A #1 RHS. They came sooo close to getting it done.
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0MeodQldwRTo8nMN8A80OH?si=45e24d68587445b3) “PUNK ROCKY” - ASAP Rocky One of many successful hip hop artists I knew the name of but was not familiar with their work. At least until I heard this terrific track on The Bridge a couple weeks ago. “C.L.U.T.T.E.R.” - Clutter Joining bands like Bad Company, Black Sabbath, Talk Talk, Bad Religion, and Living In A Box, among others, that have songs with the same name as the group.
With all this terrible weather,[1] I’ve been doing some of that reading shit. Hotel Ukraine - Martin Cruz Smith Smith died last summer. Over his long career he wrote over 30 books, most famously his Arkady Renko series, which began with Gorky Park. I never read any of his books, although my mom owned a paperback copy of Gorky Park. This landed on a best thrillers list from last year so I gave it a shot.
It is funny how my relationship with sports in general and Kansas basketball in particular has changed in recent years. As I get older, I’m less fired up than I used to be. Or, better stated, less fired up as often. I can still work up some intensity, but it doesn’t last as long, good or bad. My family might argue, as there are still plenty of times when I’m either cussing in anger or roaring when a big play happens.
One of the last busy weekends of the season before the late-winter lull hits. Super Bowl Every year around this time we have dinner with some good friends to celebrate a shared birthday, S’s and the male half of their duo. This year Super Bowl Sunday was literally the only day that worked for both of us over a four weekend stretch. So we scheduled an early dinner for our celebration.