Peg Duthie's Blog, page 41
June 24, 2014
looking in the crowd, your face is everywhere
[The subject line is from Freedy Johnston's "Bad Reputation."]
As I work, I've been listening to Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)," a song that often takes me back to the spring and summer of 2008, specifically to the counter of Ground Effects, a coffeeshop in Berea, Kentucky. There was neither coffee nor wifi at my mother's house, so I'd drive to Chestnut Street to get my caffeine fix and check in with project managers, and this song was often playing as I researched and wrote, as well as dealing with the things that executors do.
Foster the People's "Don't Stop" is the ringtone on my phone. (I originally set it as the alarm, but the BYM threatened to stop sleeping with me unless I changed it.) It takes me back to watching tennis in Paris (the DJ frequently played it as exit music -- in fact, I first heard it as "Bon Soir, Bon Soir") at the POPB, which ranks as my favorite arena experience to date, and also brings back happy memories of making myself understood in French, as well as later parts of that trip (such as the evening chez Ginette et Au Lapin Agile).
The alarm is Mika's Elle Me Dit -- which the BYM probably now can't stand either, since my phone was blaring it every four hours during the first month after The Wreck, to keep us on track with his meds. But the opening still cracks me up every time, and other roommates have burst out laughing at its sheer obnoxiousness... (dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum HEY!)
The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses" takes me back to my late teens, to an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky, listening to an ex sing along to "I want to love but it comes out wrong." "Dance Like an Egyptian" reminds me of the Snowball Dance I attended with that ex, and the tinsel I draped on his suit (some of which found its way into the Christmas card he sent later that month, which is still somewhere in one of the boxes in this house).
The Cars' "Just What I Needed" was the only vinyl single I bought in high school (long story, and long after it came out), and I have lots of memories attached to it, but my favorite may be the time I sang it twice at a wedding reception two decades later -- the second time was by request, because the crowd of church teenagers wanted to do the hustle to it, which was hilariously weird and happy.
"Stacy's Mom" reminds me of dancing with![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380840198i/3130798.png)
marginaliana
in a Chicago ballroom, on another hot summer night. "Lay All Your Love on Me" reminds me of Haifa, Israel -- of the hip sushi bar that played the Erasure cover that earwormed me, the skanky hotel room where I subsequently played it on my laptop through half the night, and the characters that then wouldn't leave me alone until I gave them their say.
(I usually don't work with music on at all -- especially when creating or finetuning wording is called for -- but sometimes it's unavoidable [e.g., when dependent on cafe wifi] and sometimes it's compatible with the tasks at hand [such as entering data or cleaning up redlines].)
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As I work, I've been listening to Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)," a song that often takes me back to the spring and summer of 2008, specifically to the counter of Ground Effects, a coffeeshop in Berea, Kentucky. There was neither coffee nor wifi at my mother's house, so I'd drive to Chestnut Street to get my caffeine fix and check in with project managers, and this song was often playing as I researched and wrote, as well as dealing with the things that executors do.
Foster the People's "Don't Stop" is the ringtone on my phone. (I originally set it as the alarm, but the BYM threatened to stop sleeping with me unless I changed it.) It takes me back to watching tennis in Paris (the DJ frequently played it as exit music -- in fact, I first heard it as "Bon Soir, Bon Soir") at the POPB, which ranks as my favorite arena experience to date, and also brings back happy memories of making myself understood in French, as well as later parts of that trip (such as the evening chez Ginette et Au Lapin Agile).
The alarm is Mika's Elle Me Dit -- which the BYM probably now can't stand either, since my phone was blaring it every four hours during the first month after The Wreck, to keep us on track with his meds. But the opening still cracks me up every time, and other roommates have burst out laughing at its sheer obnoxiousness... (dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum HEY!)
The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses" takes me back to my late teens, to an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky, listening to an ex sing along to "I want to love but it comes out wrong." "Dance Like an Egyptian" reminds me of the Snowball Dance I attended with that ex, and the tinsel I draped on his suit (some of which found its way into the Christmas card he sent later that month, which is still somewhere in one of the boxes in this house).
The Cars' "Just What I Needed" was the only vinyl single I bought in high school (long story, and long after it came out), and I have lots of memories attached to it, but my favorite may be the time I sang it twice at a wedding reception two decades later -- the second time was by request, because the crowd of church teenagers wanted to do the hustle to it, which was hilariously weird and happy.
"Stacy's Mom" reminds me of dancing with
marginaliana
in a Chicago ballroom, on another hot summer night. "Lay All Your Love on Me" reminds me of Haifa, Israel -- of the hip sushi bar that played the Erasure cover that earwormed me, the skanky hotel room where I subsequently played it on my laptop through half the night, and the characters that then wouldn't leave me alone until I gave them their say. (I usually don't work with music on at all -- especially when creating or finetuning wording is called for -- but sometimes it's unavoidable [e.g., when dependent on cafe wifi] and sometimes it's compatible with the tasks at hand [such as entering data or cleaning up redlines].)
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June 23, 2014
what comes up
The BYM pruned the rogue rosebush yesterday, and some of the branches happened to be the right length for the tomato and pepper stakes I'd been meaning to set up, so today ended up being mostly about gardening.
Today's digging and weeding turned up shards of ceramic and glass, some shreds of cassette tape, a couple of nails, and a penny very much worse for the wear. In what I think of as the west tulip bed, I replanted some of the bulbs I'd dug up and divided earlier this month, cleaned up and transplanted the begonia I'd picked up from JVI, and sowed bachelor buttons and balloonflowers. In the east tulip bed, the mint is alive and the crocuses and tulips are dormant; today I added the two so-called mosquito-repelling geraniums I'd purchased at May's hospital party, putting them next to the gutter spout.
On the deck, I repotted two of the basil plants and gave up on the rail-planter zinnias (the ones in the leaky watering can are looking good, though, as is the lily the BYM received last fall).
Inside, I decanted and diluted the quart of Vinegar of Four Thieves I'd been steeping and shaking for the past fortnight. It didn't smell as foul as it looked, but it also didn't keep all the skeeters at bay. Later this week I shall try the clip-on fan thingie a physician's assistant recommended to me, and then I will likely concede defeat and swathe myself in long sleeves and jeans regardless of temperature (and even that didn't help me last summer -- I wore mesh from head to toe and the little fiends bit me through that, and denim too) and dab myself with vinegar/OFF!/etc. on hot spots.
I do like summer, though, godawful bugs and ginormous electric bills notwithstanding. I enjoy not having to factor school zones into my schedule, my heartiest hollyhock is still heavy with flowers, and every now and then I glimpse a fat firefly flickering near the rogue rosebush.
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Today's digging and weeding turned up shards of ceramic and glass, some shreds of cassette tape, a couple of nails, and a penny very much worse for the wear. In what I think of as the west tulip bed, I replanted some of the bulbs I'd dug up and divided earlier this month, cleaned up and transplanted the begonia I'd picked up from JVI, and sowed bachelor buttons and balloonflowers. In the east tulip bed, the mint is alive and the crocuses and tulips are dormant; today I added the two so-called mosquito-repelling geraniums I'd purchased at May's hospital party, putting them next to the gutter spout.
On the deck, I repotted two of the basil plants and gave up on the rail-planter zinnias (the ones in the leaky watering can are looking good, though, as is the lily the BYM received last fall).
Inside, I decanted and diluted the quart of Vinegar of Four Thieves I'd been steeping and shaking for the past fortnight. It didn't smell as foul as it looked, but it also didn't keep all the skeeters at bay. Later this week I shall try the clip-on fan thingie a physician's assistant recommended to me, and then I will likely concede defeat and swathe myself in long sleeves and jeans regardless of temperature (and even that didn't help me last summer -- I wore mesh from head to toe and the little fiends bit me through that, and denim too) and dab myself with vinegar/OFF!/etc. on hot spots.
I do like summer, though, godawful bugs and ginormous electric bills notwithstanding. I enjoy not having to factor school zones into my schedule, my heartiest hollyhock is still heavy with flowers, and every now and then I glimpse a fat firefly flickering near the rogue rosebush.
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June 14, 2014
from AMERICAN DRUGGIST
February 1920, page 62:
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James H. Shevlin, the newly named Prohibition supervisor of New York district, will take over the work of inaugurating a Federal campaign here against the use of narcotics. . . .
The campaign is designed to prevent the people who drank from turning to drugs now that they have been deprived of liquor. There has recently been much fear expressed that the drug evil will take the place of the whiskey evil.
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June 10, 2014
from the research rabbit-hole
"F. S. Seymour Wimbourne will be glad if any one will inform him how he may bleach ferns, without injuring the veins, causing them to have a whitish or transparent appearance." -- "Notes and Queries," Pharmaceutical Journal, June 2, 1877
"Yellow Daffodils are under the dominion of Mars, and the roots thereof are hot and dry in the third degree. The roots boiled and taken in posset drink cause vomiting and are used with good success at the appearance of approaching agues, especially the tertian ague, which is frequently caught in the springtime. A plaster made of the roots with parched barley meal dissolves hard swellings and imposthumes, being applied thereto; the juice mingled with honey, frankincense wine, and myrrh, and dropped into the ears is good against the corrupt and running matter of the ears, the roots made hollow and boiled in oil help raw ribed heels; the juice of the root is good for the morphew and the discolouring of the skin." -- Nicholas Culpeper (1653?), quoted by Maud Grieve (1931, in A Modern Herbal)
The word oxymel .
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"Yellow Daffodils are under the dominion of Mars, and the roots thereof are hot and dry in the third degree. The roots boiled and taken in posset drink cause vomiting and are used with good success at the appearance of approaching agues, especially the tertian ague, which is frequently caught in the springtime. A plaster made of the roots with parched barley meal dissolves hard swellings and imposthumes, being applied thereto; the juice mingled with honey, frankincense wine, and myrrh, and dropped into the ears is good against the corrupt and running matter of the ears, the roots made hollow and boiled in oil help raw ribed heels; the juice of the root is good for the morphew and the discolouring of the skin." -- Nicholas Culpeper (1653?), quoted by Maud Grieve (1931, in A Modern Herbal)
The word oxymel .
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June 9, 2014
rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit
It sometimes feels odd to live in a neighborhood repeatedly (and with reason) characterized by journalists as teeming with hipsters (including in SPIN's profile of the late Ben Todd [trigger warning: depression/suicide]). Especially on a day when wild bunnies are frolicking in the neighbor's yard -- I caught sight of one when I got home from this morning's errands, and flushed out four when I took out some trash just now. What's more, two of them proceeded to chase each other around in circles for a while.
They sure were cute, but I'm glad they haven't found my vegetable plantings yet.
I accidentally fell down a research rabbithole yesterday, but before that happened, I went to a pool party at the Crying Wolf, a bar across from my yoga studio. That's me in the rightmost row, attempting to "flip the dog."
When I got home yesterday, I noticed that there were black bugs all over the leaves of the runtiest hollyhocks, so I mixed the Lovejoy spray described by Jim Long and doused the leaves with it.
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They sure were cute, but I'm glad they haven't found my vegetable plantings yet.
I accidentally fell down a research rabbithole yesterday, but before that happened, I went to a pool party at the Crying Wolf, a bar across from my yoga studio. That's me in the rightmost row, attempting to "flip the dog."
When I got home yesterday, I noticed that there were black bugs all over the leaves of the runtiest hollyhocks, so I mixed the Lovejoy spray described by Jim Long and doused the leaves with it.
comments
June 8, 2014
shining softly and with a tarnish, like the lining of a shell
A problem with fascinating houseguests (in this instance, a carpenter with an international touring production) is how it leads to staying up with bourbon and turkey sandwiches while listening to him reminisce about the custom knives he bought in Japan and the diner we should have tried in Vancouver and the nonstandard rigging he sorted out for staging Wizard of Oz in three cities in Korea.
May was a blur of work, yoga, and gatherings (one wedding, one graduation, and a bunch of birthdays).
On the first day of June, I treated myself to a stand-up paddleboarding lesson. On the fourth day of June, I went swimming after yoga. Both days, it felt soooo good to be on/in the water, and I think my threadbare one-piece will last one more season.
I am in the middle of cleaning up one of the tulip beds in my front yard. Tennessee clay is as stubborn as I am, so excavating the bulbs for division is a chore. I confess to feeling grateful toward the moles for making it easier to transplant some of the hollyhocks.
Naturally, the one on the east side of the house (the side not visible to the public) is the one with the best show of blooms so far...
( Read more... )
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May was a blur of work, yoga, and gatherings (one wedding, one graduation, and a bunch of birthdays).
On the first day of June, I treated myself to a stand-up paddleboarding lesson. On the fourth day of June, I went swimming after yoga. Both days, it felt soooo good to be on/in the water, and I think my threadbare one-piece will last one more season.
I am in the middle of cleaning up one of the tulip beds in my front yard. Tennessee clay is as stubborn as I am, so excavating the bulbs for division is a chore. I confess to feeling grateful toward the moles for making it easier to transplant some of the hollyhocks.
Naturally, the one on the east side of the house (the side not visible to the public) is the one with the best show of blooms so far...
( Read more... )
comments
May 4, 2014
one, two, three...
You can never learn this world too well, nor will you ever be bored by it. I don't fault my dog for not being able to count to three. It took me a whole life, including a million bars of waltz time, not to get lost.
- W. A. Mathieu, "Triple Nature," in THE MUSICAL LIFE (1994)
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Within the walls, a wide world...
At church today, the conversations included...
a friend telling me during coffee hour that she wants Stephen Paulus's The Road Home played at her memorial service
another friend telling me during morning songs that she wants Jason Shelton's Morning Has Come played at her memorial service
plans for a veteran's birthday gathering
The topics also included:
the college selection, application, and financing process. The child in question is planning to major in marine biology.
grant applications (i.e., chatting with the head of a lab)
completing albums (the chief's daughter is a musician)
Wendell Berry. My hiking partner and her husband went to hear him at a fundraiser last weekend.
blue-eyed grass
vegan food
a riff on Richard III in a recent cartoon
In other news, I'm about to head to session 5 of my yoga studio's thirty-day challenge. (I had an earlier class on my calendar -- and slept right through my alarm. Whoops.) And, I'm seeing zinnia seedlings in the pots on my deck. Wheeee!
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a friend telling me during coffee hour that she wants Stephen Paulus's The Road Home played at her memorial service
another friend telling me during morning songs that she wants Jason Shelton's Morning Has Come played at her memorial service
plans for a veteran's birthday gathering
The topics also included:
the college selection, application, and financing process. The child in question is planning to major in marine biology.
grant applications (i.e., chatting with the head of a lab)
completing albums (the chief's daughter is a musician)
Wendell Berry. My hiking partner and her husband went to hear him at a fundraiser last weekend.
blue-eyed grass
vegan food
a riff on Richard III in a recent cartoon
In other news, I'm about to head to session 5 of my yoga studio's thirty-day challenge. (I had an earlier class on my calendar -- and slept right through my alarm. Whoops.) And, I'm seeing zinnia seedlings in the pots on my deck. Wheeee!
comments
May 2, 2014
I'm giving you a longing look...
[Source of subject line: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Everyday_I_Write_The_Book]
Seen in St. Louis:
(No, I don't actually covet this particular sofa. Especially since it got rained on during Easter weekend. But my own long sofa, with a sleepy doggie sprawled next to it? Awww, yeah...)
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Seen in St. Louis:
(No, I don't actually covet this particular sofa. Especially since it got rained on during Easter weekend. But my own long sofa, with a sleepy doggie sprawled next to it? Awww, yeah...)
comments
April 27, 2014
from Elizabeth David's ITALIAN COOKING (1963 edition)
This is, I think, a book for those readers and cooks who prefer to know what the original dishes are supposed to be like, and to be given the option of making their own adaptations and alterations according to their taste and their circumstances. There is, I know, a school of writers who seem to believe that English housewives are weak in the head and must not be exposed to the truth about the cooking of other countries; must not be shocked by the idea of making a yeast dough, cleaning an ink-fish, adding nutritive value to a soup with olive oil, cutting the breast of a raw chicken in order to fry it in butter rather than buying a packet of something called "chicken parts" from the deep-freeze and cooking them in a cheap fat or tasteless oil substitute.
If I believed that English women really needed this kind of protection -- censorship it almost amounts to -- I would have packed in cookery writing long ago.
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