open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Dull” - Microwave. Thus crunchy, grungy track sounds a lot like something Manchester Orchestra might have done when they were sussing out their more dramatic sound. “New” - Family Friends. A strong, mid-90s vibe alt-rock radio vibe here. “Stars” - Hum. If I’m sharing songs with one-syllable titles and Clinton-era overtones, I might as well go back to the actual age and pull a classic. “Fix “ - Hazel English.
Book catch-up time. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini. As I mentioned in my last Reader’s Notebook post, somehow I never read this book. I know my wife read it. In fact, I bet there’s a copy tucked away somewhere around our house. Several friends read it and raved. I know it was on my list of books to read for ages, but for some reason I dropped it a few years back.
We stuck close to home over our spring break last week. Doesn’t mean we didn’t do fun stuff. As is tradition, a quick recounting of the past 10-ish days. The girls’ final day of school, March 30, was an all-school day of service, a first-time attempt at St. P’s. There were some minor hiccups but, all-in-all, it was a good day. I was supposed to help out with C’s class, but they got rerouted and I ended up at the same place as both C and L, the Down Syndrome Society.
A different sort of playlist this week. On our lazy spring break, I roared through the Pearl Jam Twenty book that was released as a companion to the documentary of the same name a few years back. When I picked it up at the library, I expected it to be just a collection of photos and other memories of the band’s career, layered with little anecdotes from the band the the people around them.
Yes! Baseball is here! As I type this, I’m sitting in front of the TV watching the Royals take on the Twins. There’s humidity in the air, we mowed the grass for the first time yesterday, there are mulch piles all around the neighborhood. Spring is here! Wait, what’s that in the forecast for Thursday? Snow with wind chills in the 20s? Yikes. Anyway, I’m happy baseball season has arrived. I might be a total fool, but I don’t believe the pessimistic forecasts so many experts have predicted for the Royals of Kansas City.
Busy week so low on posts. Still time to share some music, though. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Please, Let’s Go Away” - Trementina. Today is the first day of our spring break. As we’ve already taken a trip this year, we’ll be staying close to home for the next week. Doesn’t mean we can’t wish we were going somewhere warm, especially since the forecast is cool and rainy for most of the next 10 days.
Saturday I had a feeling I can’t ever remember having during a KU loss, especially a season-ending loss. Peace. Oh, I had my moments of yelling, cursing the TV, and throwing things, no doubt about that. But as Oregon’s cold-blooded assassins dropped in ridiculous shot after ridiculous shot, as Jordan Bell kept rejecting every shot KU took near the rim, and as KU could never find anything on offense beyond BIFM, it was obvious this was not KU’s night.
A quick playlist since I’m well behind schedule today. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Dundee Man” - Spiral Stairs. I was sure this band was Scottish. Turns out it is actually Pavement co-founder Scott Kannberg. I still like the song. “Hope The High Road” - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Drifting more toward the rock side of his alt-country sound, I really like this song. “Living In The City” - Hurray for the Riff Raff.
Holy shit! What a goddamn game. It’s taken me until noon Friday to calm down a little bit after a thoroughly satisfying Thursday night of hoops. I went to bed after 1:00, and slept only fitfully between the lingering adrenaline and the trips to the bathroom caused by that last beer at 12:30. This morning my pulse was still a wee bit fast, so I threw my camera over my shoulder, drove to a couple nearby nature parks, and spent two hours walking and snapping pics.
I need distractions today. 9:40 pm tips for Sweet 16 games are complete garbage. Too much waiting. I’ll catch you up on my books to kill a little time. Finders Keepers - Stephen King. Book two in his Bill Hodges trilogy moves a little differently than the first. This one spends nearly 150 pages setting up two back stories - one in the 1970s, the other contemporary to book one - before King finally pulls the returning characters in.
I realized over the weekend that I never closed out our winter sports season. I think part of the delay was because of how winter sports ended for our two oldest girls. Let’s start with M, whose volleyball team had a fine regular season, going 5–2. By the end of the season they had a number of girls who could consistently rip off a long stretch of serves in a row, including M.
And now for the mighty Jayhawks. Sunday was everything this year’s team is about, compressed into 40 minutes. Moments where they looked completely brilliant. Moments where they faced a serious personnel issue and eased past it with no problem. Moments where they looked totally dominant on the glass. Moments where they could get, and make, any shot they wanted. And then the moments where they played entirely too fast without any poise.
A much, much better weekend of hoops after a ho-hum first two days of the tournament. Quick catch up for Saturday. Although I lost my runner-up, I was just fine with Villanova going out. I’m in a weird place with ‘Nova. I’ve watched them quite a bit since Butler joined the Big East, and I’ve always been impressed with the Wildcats’ incredible toughness. They just hang in, wear down, and wear out their opponents.
The least entertaining first round of the NCAA tournament in recent memory is in the books.[1] There were some solid games, but a shockingly low number of upsets. And only a handful of “text all your friends and tell them to turn game X on immediately” moments. KU rolled. Which was good. They did exactly what I expected them to do: look sloppy early then settle down and lay the wood.
Day three, and the first marathon of the tournament. I hung in there pretty valiantly, but must admit I packed things in about 11:15 eastern when none of the games were particularly close. Fortunately I didn’t miss any amazing comebacks or crazy last-second shots. All-in-all, it was a kind of boring day. There were a couple close games, a couple other that had moments of entertainment. But for the first time in three years, I did not lose a Final Four or Elite 8 team in the opening hours of the tourney.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Darling” - WOMPS. Some fine, Frightened Rabbit-approved Scottish rock. “Sentimental and Monday” - Holy Holy. Apparently this song has been around for a couple years, but I just found it thanks to one of my Spotify Discovery playlists. It’s cold, rainy, and bleak in Indy today. This song is perfect for this morning. “Why We Fight” - Fast Romantics. There’s something about the Canadian national identity that makes them prone to forming musical collectives.
Hate to admit it, but I did not pay as much attention to day two of the tournament. Once again, I had the games on for roughly three-quarters of the evening. But this time instead of missing the first half of the first game, I skipped the second half of the second game because I was tired and knew the next few days would be long. That seemed like the smart choice with Providence pounding USC at halftime.
I got to watch three-quarters of the first night of the tournament last night. A few quick thoughts. The Mt. St. Mary’s - New Orleans game was fun. A couple teams flat going at each other for 40 minutes. New Orleans got some local run because their head coach and one assistant coach are from Bloomington. I thought head coach Mark Slessinger blew it by playing the last defensive possession of the game straight-up.
A few weeks back, in the midst of a particularly satisfying KU game, I told the group of friends I text with during the game that if KU won the Big 12 again this season, they should refuse to play in the NCAA tournament and hang a banner for being regular season national champions. You may laugh, but there is precedent for that. At least the banner part. In 1975 Indiana went undefeated through the regular season, but lost star Kent Benson late in the year to a broken arm.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the release of U2’s The Joshua Tree. I remember buying the cassette shortly after it came out, but I either got a bad copy or let it sit in the sun or my tape player mangled it, because within a couple plays it began sounding terrible. As I was five months from getting my drivers license, I couldn’t just run back to Musicland - or whatever relic of the 80s I purchased it at - and swap it out for a new copy.