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.
I’m not the most outgoing person in the world. Particularly when it comes to strangers. I just don’t have that gene that makes it easy for me to talk to people I don’t know in non-social settings. I’m not the dude striking up a conversation with the guy next to me while we wait in line at the deli, or the mom sitting by me at a first sports practice for one of our kids.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Walkaway” - Weaves. I heard this song for the first time yesterday and immediately fell in love with it. I think I hear a little bit of Martha Davis, of The Motels, in the vocals. “On And On” - Curtis Harding. This song has been bouncing around for a bit, but Harding just released the album it is the lead single for last week. Similar to Leon Bridges, Harding takes us back to a classic era in soul music.
What a letdown. After all the craziness and joy of the first six games of the World Series, game seven was an absolute dud. It held some early promise. After the Astros scored two in the top of the first, the Dodgers seemed poised for their own first-inning rally, loading the bases before Lance McCullers Jr. wiggled out of the mess he made. Then Houston added three more runs in the second, chasing Yu Darvish, and the Dodgers again tried to rally, putting two on.
Well lookee there, it’s November, bitches. The baseball season ends tonight. SiriusXM will begin playing Christmas music at some point today. The slow trickle of holiday commercials will turn into a flood over the next few nights. All kicked off last night by Halloween, of course. It was a very different Halloween night for us compared to anytime in the past 13 years. The girls all went in different directions, and all without either S or I.
No where does recency bias rear its ugly head more than in sports. Whatever game we just watched always drowns out the games of the past. That acknowledged, last night’s/this morning’s game five of the World Series is surely one of the most entertaining games in the history of the game. I did not watch every pitch. I didn’t turn the game on until the girls went to bed, when the game had just entered the bottom of the second.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Wolf Lie Down” - The Fresh & Onlys. Man, I hate bands that hold their music back from streaming services. This song was released as a single back in June but F&O didn’t allow it to stream until recently. This kicks ass and is a perfect summer song. Oh well, at least we get to enjoy it now. “Emotion” - Curls. Christopher Owens once had a band named Curls. Then they broke up and he started a new band called Girls.
It’s been a pretty good World Series through two games. Rather than offering up random notes, I thought I’d share the four most interesting things about the series so far. Game one checking in at 2:28 was perhaps the greatest thing in sports this year. Seriously, I watched an entire World Series game - complete with game one extended introductions - and was in bed before 11:00 Eastern! Clayton Kershaw and Dallas Keuchel deserve a Nobel Prize for their efforts.
In an unreal upset, it appears that fall is finally here. Over the weekend the afternoon highs were still bumping up against 80, the sun was shining, and there was a lovely southern breeze. It felt more like the first week of September than mid-October. Which I was cool with. As much as I like fall, I much prefer summer. I’m down with wearing shorts and t-shirts up until Thanksgiving. Hell, S just went through the girls’ closets and rotated in all the fall clothes last Monday.
For the first time since way back in August we had no kid sports this weekend. That meant I got to fully immerse myself in televised sports. There was plenty of baseball, soccer, basketball, and football on our TV, along with a bonus dose of college basketball on my Twitter and email feeds. Some words about all that… Baseball Man, what an excellent ALCS. I only say that because the Houston Astros won.
A slightly different format this week. All because I took the girls to the library yesterday, as I always try to do on the first day of a school break. I want them loaded up with books and videos for even just a long weekend so that there’s no complaining about not having anything to do and being bored. I checked for some books on my list and saw that [Runnin’ With the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen] was available, so I grabbed it.
The Outlaw Album - Daniel Woodrell It had been awhile since I read a Woodrell book, so I glanced at the library’s offerings and grabbed this. I didn’t know it was a short story collection and may have skipped it had I known. In fact, calling it a short story collection might be giving it too much credit. It feels more like Woodrell unloading his notebook of half-fleshed out ideas and packaging them for the benefit of his publisher.