Weekly update

I guess it's a weekly thing.

Anyway, I went 0 for 3 on the political/cultural events this week. Maybe I'm being too harsh--all of them were good, but they all disappointed in one way or another.


Guillermo Gomez-Pena gave essentially the same performance I saw him give six years ago. Oh sure, there was the naked acupuncture, but that was essentially a performance that was going on while he did his own. There were a few changes to his monologues, but I would estimate 90% of it was word for word the same. That said, his words seem much more relevant today than they did six years ago, but maybe that just means I'm starting to realize how much more disastrous Bush is than Clinton.

Karl Kumpfmüller gave a lackluster talk in the Browsing Room earlier the same day. He made some interesting points, but there was no reason for it to take an hour--he could have made his points in about 15 minutes. (To be fair, I only made it about 20 minutes into the talk. Maybe he was just warming up?)

Finally, we stayed out way too late to see Seksu Roba on Monday night. Now, don't think I'm going to complain about their performance--I'm not. It was incredible. Unfortunately, it was only about 20 minutes long. The opening band, however, played for more than an hour and sucked. They were truly awful.

So that's what I get for trying to mix in pleasure during an extremely busy week. Hopefully this week's plans turn out better. They include a house mass and a library luminary. Show me the light.

Is it a weekly thing?

A week since I posted to either blog. An indication of being busy or just not having anything to say?

I can fall back on the weather--especially since I just caught up with the snow in Chicago. The week was unseasonably balmy--tank tops and shorts on campus. I even rode home just wearing shirtsleeves one day.

What a weird word. I was actually wearing the whole shirt, not just the sleeves.

Last Sunday I went out and exposed some film. This afternoon I developed it, and even spent some time this evening printing (not the film in question though). I think I can actually say that I've started a project. One I've wanted to do for a very long time, and one that I failed to start in Chicago. I failed to start it so badly that the place I wanted to start with disappeared. Not that I'm comparing myself, but I wonder if Atget ever got to a location in his 'disappearing Paris' only to discover that the piece in question had already disappeared?

Reconnected with an old friend last week. Solidified some acquaintences at a conference. And even met a couple new folks (who admitted to being readers--that was simultaneously creepy and exciting. Hi Moira and Bluehole (who's real name I've already forgotted)! Not the either one of you was creepy, but as I said: it was nice to meet someone that already sort of konws me.).

I'm sure you're all riveted to the changing stylesheet on the tiny blog. Another loyal reader has suggested I need to brush up on my tableless column designations. I've started by simply putting all stylesheet where it belongs.

Cheers.

Librarians, where art thou?

I think I complained about this a year ago, but when your library hosts a local author reading for the local bookstore from a book about your institution, you'd think at least a couple staff people would show up. There's plenty of people that hang out late for various reasons--you'd think a local author would be one of them.

But no, once again I was the only one. And I didn't wear my little tag this time.

Folks don't know what they're missing. Lotte Streisinger has written what sounds like a really nice book about the history of one of UO's most important research endeavors. Not only am I going to read it, I'm going to buy it. (and not just for the collection.)

I am hopelessly unfashionable

Working on a college campus, I get the opportunity to observe fashion trends among the young ladies that populate the campus. For a long time now, the crop top has bemused and amused me--it's not a great look for those who are not in the thinnest percentile, and no matter how skinny you are, if your pants are down around your pubis, there's going to be fat hanging over your belt. Moreover, when I was in Rhode Island in November, I observed girls wearing crop winter coats. If you stop and think about this for just two seconds you will see why this is horribly wrong.

This morning, I saw a new one. I've been seeing puffy lambskin boots for a while. Kind of goofy, but no big thing. And among the landscapers on campus and winter gardeners everywhere, the rubber boot (I think that would be a Wellie?) is always acceptable. But this morning, it was a very attractive young lady wearing a mini-skirt and pink wellies. Now, I'd say she had nice legs, but the incongruous combination of the short skirt and the rubber boots threw me.

I just don't understand.

Food or weather?

Seems like all there is to talk about here. The hard frosts have ended--but now they are predicting snow. Made an improvised dinner of polenta, blue cheese, and red chard with tomato sauce the other night. We're still eating the leftovers.

Gearing up for a big tennis weekend--singles and mixed doubles action in a citywide tournament. New strings AND new sneakers. How can I lose with that combination?

Started reading my new Cometbus today. I noticed it has CiP data--a whopping 14 subject headings. Perhaps these are valid, but WorldCat turns up nothing for:

Presidents, Assassination
Old world badger as carriers of disease
Dancing -- Jews

But there are entries for:

Caffeine habit: 60
Subversive activities: 3009
City traffic: 1763
Diners (restaurants): 235
Jewish socialists: 277
Sudden death: 283

Frosty

And I'm not talking about my beer mug. We got our first really hard frost last night--finally killing a few rogue flowers that were very confused in the yard.

The ride in this morning was a little slick, but mostly just pretty--the combination of frost and green is something I'm still not used to. Even as we enter the coldest part of the year here, the camellia and rhodie buds continue to grow fatter.

Bridges, books, bakery and breakfast.

Oh Portland, why do I love thee? Is it because you are so easy to navigate just by using the force? (Oh, this looks like a diagonal street--I bet it turns into a bridge. Oh look, now we're downtown.) Is it the alt-literature at Reading Frenzy that forces me to decide ahead of time how much money I can spend and reminds me that I never really look advantage of Quimby's when it was so close to home? Or is it the plethora of good breakfast places--so many that we have yet to repeat, have never had a bad experience, and always are able to convince friends to meet us out?

So this weekend it was the latest Giant Robot, a Cometbus anthology, and the new Nikki McClure calendar, among other things.

An unhealthy dinner was had at Montage with a big group--though I was the only one who had the oyster shooter. Excellent all around (except for the arteries--sorry about the gravy). And then we viewed a new print of Tron, which brought back pleasant memories of drinking beer on the Kalakala--which I had very nearly forgotten about. Seeing it on a big screen with decent sound was great, even if there wasn't beer. We also saw some Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and some kickass Lician Freud etchings.

So now it's back to work. The kids will be back on campus tomorrow, and the ten weeks of intense bilocation will begin. I'm still doubtful that my sanity will survive.