I’ve watched my share of Fixer Upper over the years. My wife loves it. My kids all love it. If you’re between, say, 30 and 50, white, and live in the suburbs, odds are someone in your house is a fan. While I appreciate the show, it has worn on me over the years. Thus I enjoyed McSweeney’s poking a little fun at the show. WE’RE ENDING FIXER UPPER SO WE CAN EXPLORE OUR NEW PASSION FOR 1970S EUROPEAN BRUTALISM
A couple very different books completed over the past week. Blue Highways: A Journey Into America - William Least Heat Moon I came across this in an odd way. In Nick Offerman’s Paddle Your Own Canoe, the actor/comedian/writer mentioned this book as having had a large influence on his life. He offered a blurb that it was about traveling across the backroads of the US and that was enough for me to place it on my reading list.
Well shit. I totally forgot about the halftime show in my Super Bowl roundup. You would be correct if you thought that had something to do with my reaction to it. Justin Timberlake’s performance was visually appealing, but otherwise safe, confusing, disappointing, and forgettable. I had heard the “controversy” coming about the rumored use of a hologram of Prince during JT’s performance. I also read the quotes from both Prince taken before his death and from friends and family that pointed out how he would not have approved the use of him image in that way if he were able to weigh in.
So, yeah, I watched the Super Bowl. I’m a goddamn American, right? Despite my lack of interest in the NFL these days, I wasn’t going to miss the biggest game of the year. Also, if I’m only going to casually watch pro football I kind of have to watch the Super Bowl, as it has become a cultural obligation. Like I said, I’m an American. Now my full attentions were not on the game.
It’s been a decent start to the new music year in terms of singles. But there has yet to be a great album that has captured my attention. And, sadly, the list of February releases is looking pretty meager as well. I’ll hope the solid singles keep rolling out until we finally get some long plays that require my attention. Oh and after a brief warm spell we’re back to winter.
I have passed another milestone of the aging process: last week I picked up my new pair of glasses, my first with progressive lenses. If there was any uphill left in life it is now certainly in the rearview mirror. My eyes are still adjusting, which is kind of always the case with me. I have a nutty prescription - both bad nearsightedness and serious astigmatism - and have weak corneas.
Stereogum writer Tom Breihan has started a series where he is writing about every song to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Obviously if I owned an alley, this would be right up it. Now he’s still very early in the series, so not all the songs are terribly relevant or interesting to most of us. But last week he covered “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” from December 1958, and I thought one line in particular would make that entry a fun read for everyone.
Our first weekend with sports on both days for awhile. Saturday M had her first volleyball game of the year. They lost in two games, and neither was very close. The other team had one good server who ripped off 6–7 straight points early in each game and that was pretty much it. They were also better at passing than our girls were. M is playing on a C team.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Fireworks” - First Aid Kit. I’m been working on this band for awhile, trying to figure out if I like them and if their music fits what I usually enjoy. Some of their songs veer a little too hard into the country music sphere. Which seems a little odd for a sister duo from Sweden. But their vocals are so beautiful it’s hard to deny them. I’ve found myself listening to their latest album, Ruins, several times this week.
I was going to being this post with a line something like “An incredibly important week for KU began with a disappointing - and avoidable - loss.” But then I realized pretty much every week is incredibly important in the Big 12 this season. A week ago KU went through K-State at home (fortunate to win), West Virginia on the road (a huge, potentially season-altering, win), and Baylor at home (another very fortunate win).
Time for a link to a Joe Posnanski piece about life. This one hit me kind of hard because, although I’m a few years behind him in the dad business, I’m getting close to the stage he writes about. I’m already terrified of our girls learning to drive. I wonder how the hell my mom and step-dad turned me loose in a car after I got my license. Were they insane?
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Another Time” - Mimicking Birds. For some reason I have a hard time typing the word “mimicking.” I taught myself to type in middle school and never learned home rows and all that. I can type quite quickly, but my hands are constantly crossing over each other, violating all kinds of typing rules. For some reason that causes me to struggle with certain words. On mimicking my right index finger should hit the second M in the word.
Two more notches on my 2018 reading belt. Mrs Fletcher - Tom Perrotta Perrotta’s books all feel similar. They often center on sex, although none of them can be described as salacious, and the problems that sex causes in our lives. There is usually a strong element of nostalgia, where one or more major character wants desperately to turn back the clock to a time - days, weeks, months ago - in the past before they fucked up.
Another music legend dies requiring another one of these sad, memorial posts. Dolores O’Riordan was unmistakably one of the Voices of the Nineties. The Cranberries may not have been as big and important as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but hearing her sing a single note will instantly take those of us who were alive in the 90s back to that time as easily as hearing Kurt scream or Eddie wail. Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?
Boy did we have a Sunday. Nine-plus hours of kid sports! Things started with L and I leaving the house just before noon for week three of basketball, once again playing about an hour from home. Game one was a barn-burner. We have exactly two plays on offense, variations on the same theme where the point guard either comes off a screen at the free throw line for a (hopefully) good look at the bucket, or passes off to a trailing teammate for a shot.
Apologies for the lack of rocking on Friday. We got the call at 5:45 that the girls would be having their first snow day in nearly four years. I never really got back to sleep after that, which wasn’t all bad as I had an eye exam at 9:00 and needed to get up anyway. The exam took entirely too long for some reason and I had to cancel another appointment I had lined up for after.
Two books down already for 2018. Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World - Rob Sheffield Oh no, another book about the Beatles?!?! That was my first thought when I saw that music critic Sheffield was releasing his take on the Beatles last year. My initial plan was to skip it even though I was a fan of his earlier books. But seeing this land on several Best Of lists made me reconsider.
Good gracious, what a CFP championship game Monday night. Like most folks who were unaffiliated, I was pulling for Georgia. Those downtrodden, underdog Dawgs from Athens. I found it funny that Georgia has this big reputation as a somewhat cursed program. Maybe my humor stems from when I first started paying a lot of attention to college football, and Georgia was one of the best programs in the country. I know they’ve had some rough patches, but I’ve never not thought of them as a top tier football program.
My first book of the year was about the Beatles. So it was a nice coincidence that I was hipped to this website over the holidays. The author is ranking all the Beatles songs in order, roughly one per day. His commentary isn’t a rehash of all the commentary you’ve read a thousand times before about Beatles songs. Which makes it a must read if you’re into music at all.
Last day of Christmas break. The girls go back to school tomorrow. I guess the teachers need an extra day to get grades processed, settled into their classrooms, etc before beginning the second semester. Meanwhile the temperature is finally above freezing for the first time in two weeks. It might hit 60 Thursday! We may be able to see our (dead) front yard by this time tomorrow. Seems like a good day to dive into Big 12 basketball!