Tonight’s the night. Last school Christmas program ever for our family. After fifteen total performances between preschool and 1st–3rd grades, L will close it out this evening when she stars as Ms. Jingle, the mayor of Jingle Bell Hills.[1] She has one of the three biggest roles and has taken to it in classic L form. She had all her lines memorized before Thanksgiving weekend was over. She’s added a little bit of flair to them over the past week.
News is hitting the Pat DiNizio, lead singer of the most excellent band The Smithereens, has died. He was 62. To me, The Smithereens were always a super cool band that bridged various gaps. They didn’t fit into standard 80s rock or pop radio, yet they weren’t a truly college rock band like R.E.M. Their music had strong elements of 60s pop (thanks to DiNizio’s obsession with The Beatles), and gritty, blue-collar, bar-band rock.
YES! Drew Magary has posted his annual holiday treat, The 2017 Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. As always, read with care in the office, lest you alert all your coworkers that you’re slacking off with your laughter.
A weird start to the week. I had planned on going into hermit mode for a couple days, as I had a large library book that is due Wednesday and I still had to plow through about 200 more pages of it. I tried to renew, but there’s a waiting list for it, so I endeavored to dive in and finish it up, avoiding online time as much as possible.
A quick burst of high quality new tunes over the past week. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Entitlement Crew” - The Hold Steady. The band just completed a four-night stretch at the Brooklyn Bowl and recorded this track, along with a B side, in advance of those shows. Franz Nicolay is back with the band, which is great news! And the song is pretty good! “Passing Out” - Strand of Oaks. Tim Showalter scrapped an entire album of material before hunkering down to bang out this year’s Hard Love.
One more piece of the weekend that requires its own entry. L began her basketball season on Sunday with two games. We missed the first game, but we we landed I had a couple texts from the head coach and another parent letting me know that we lost by six and did not play well. We rolled into the gym a few minutes after the tip of their second game. Maybe we should have skipped it.
We had ourselves a good ass weekend in San Antonio! Here’s a rundown of what all we packed in. We flew down Thursday, getting in late afternoon. We went down with one of S’s partners and her husband, and met a friend of theirs who was in from Colorado for the conference. After checking into our hotel - the Grand Hyatt on the River Walk - we changed and hustled out to grab an early dinner.
Crap. I had an awfully nice playlist put together and then realized I can’t figure out how to share Spotify playlists using the WordPress mobile app. You see, the Mrs. and I flew down San Antone way yesterday so she can further her medical education over the next couple days. Expect details from the tip on Monday. Without Spotify music, these two vids seemed appropriate. youtu.be/ZJEwrw4VE… youtu.be/VGF4ibgcH… I’m off to check on the basement at the Alamo…
Dang it. Once again my slowness in writing has caused someone with a lot more readership than I have to hit the same topic. Will Leitch has a piece in New York Magazine about whether the NFL is on a downward spiral. He hits a lot of the same notes I wanted to hit in a more personal post. His piece is really good, so I do recommend reading it. But I won’t let it stop me from sharing my own thoughts.
An action-packed Thanksgiving break in our house. We kicked things off Wednesday by heading to the post office to submit passport applications for all three girls. We are going to Mexico next spring break and wanted to give their applications plenty of time to percolate through the system. We double, triple, quadruple checked that everything was in order, talked to a couple friends who had gone through the process recently, and arrived thoroughly prepared…only to discover the post office now takes reservations for the passport window and they were booked solid for the day.
Busy, busy day around here getting ready for tomorrow. All the errands have been run and (hopefully) the final trip to the grocery store completed. The girls and I are midway through our house cleaning regimen. I’m about to head outside and do some leaf blowing and grass mowing in the 90 minutes or so the thermometer might reach 40 today. With that in mind, I thought I’d just share this most excellent link with you all.
So much for my little lull. I raced through two books over the past week. So as I don’t forget about them over the holiday weekend, here they are. The Lock Artist - Steve Hamilton This book arrived with loads of praise from many different sources. And it ended up being a magnificent read. Our narrator is Michael, a man who is writing down his memoirs while serving a prison sentence.
The flow of new music has slowed recently, as it always does this time of year. Thus, I’ve spent more time reviewing and whittling my Favorite Songs of the Year list lately, getting it ready for unveiling in about a month. So for today’s playlist, I decided just to open up Spotify, select my Songs, hit shuffle, and share the first five songs that popped out. Enjoy! open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Shark Fin Blues” - The Drones.
Funny thing. After reading that Van Halen book in one day, I then didn’t read a thing for an entire week. And then took roughly a week to really get into my next book. Obviously my body was self-regulating and making sure I didn’t get too far ahead of my book-a-week pace. The Sellout - Paul Beatty Here we have An Important Book. So important, in fact, that Beatty became the first American to win the Man Booker Prize.
As I do every year, I’ve bookmarked this site and check it every day to see what holiday shows are on that evening. We’ve already recorded Home Alone and L has watched about half of it. This Saturday looks like the first big TV night of the season. Christmas TV Schedule
Here we go. Too early for sure, but the first big night of the college hoops year is tonight. These games would likely be much better if played a month from now but, whatever, we have to live with all these marquee matchups before Thanksgiving. This year’s Champions Classic is perfectly arranged. Duke and Michigan State, #1 vs. #2, two complete and mature teams, will open the night. Then Kansas and Kentucky, #3 vs.
A couple cool things M has accomplished recently. Earlier in the year, a big group of girls in her grade attended the induction ceremony for National Junior Honor Society. M had never mentioned a thing about it, and when I asked her, she just shrugged. I dug into the student handbook and saw her GPA last spring was 0.3 points too low to get admitted. M worked really hard in the first quarter of this year, raised her GPA up over 3.
Damnit. I’ve reached the point in my life where if I want to remember things, I have to somehow set a reminder. The girls tell me they need more school supplies? Set a reminder. There’s something I’d like to remember in three months? Put it in the calendar. I know this isn’t some kind of radical new system, but up until a couple years ago, I could always count on my brain to recall things when needed.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Intrepid” - Pinegrove. A fine new single and the exciting “More News Coming Soon” entry on Pinegrove’s website is promising for 2018. “Boy Crazy” - Lydia Loveless. Likely the first single I ever heard from Loveless, who in now in that group of 20 or so artists that I love the most right now. Originally released in 2013, it’s the title track of a collection of B-sides and older stuff she just released.
A few assorted notes for the middle of the week. Election Night A little less traumatic than a year ago, for sure. The result I was most interested in was the vote on the new airport in Kansas City, which passed overwhelmingly. There’s no doubt that KCI needed a facelift, but I’m among those who still love it. It’s the most convenient mid-sized airport I’ve ever been to. You can literally get dropped off at the curb and be through security, at your gate, in less than 10 minutes if conditions are right.