Okay, I like The Golden Compass

I have a fair bit of the old fantasy and occasional sci-fi vein in me, stretching back to the days when Dungeons & Dragons came in a box with a thin blue rule book, and including books like Lloyd Alexander's series and the Michael Moorcock Elric novels, and of course Tolkien. But this is not a part of me that I like to acknowledge too often any more because I like to think that I have grown up or something, whatever that means. In fact, when I read Jonathan Strange & Dr. Norrell last year, I felt embarrassed to talk about it some times. I need to loosen up more.

However, so many folks have talked up the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials series that I've always been curious, and in a hammock at the lake this weekend, I gave the first volume, The Golden Compass, a try. I have to say: it is a ripping good yarn. It has some of the problems that most books in this genre have, but it's hard to notice them as I get pulled along by the adventure of it all. I love the "daemons" and the "armored bears" and the intrigue. It's a great change of pace.

There's a movie trailer online for the film version that's coming out this fall, and though it has some big names and some money behind it, it looks, like everything has to look now, I suppose, like something trying to ride the Harry Potter coat tails. I sure hope it's better than that, though.

Who knows. Maybe I'd like Harry Potter. Maybe I should just get it all over with at once--turn on some Phish and read the HP books straight through.

MTB Season

Lake Winona

Either it gets cooler this time of year or you just get tired of letting the humidity keep you from going outside. Regardless, I find myself outside more--we made it out for two mtb rides in three days this week! Unheard of since the law school days! And, I killed the two main moles that had been killing my stuff this summer! Good things come in twos! I am not in favor of killing moles for sport, but when they give you just cause, like killing all your creeping phlox or sweet woodruff, that's a different thing. I swear, there is nothing softer than the fur of a mole . . . that you have killed (with just cause).

Man, I love the Winona trails. Like usual here, I hit trees and ended up in the dirt at least four times this day. It was kinda like the start of the William Carlos Williams poem "The Trees":

The trees--being trees
thrash and scream
guffaw and curse--
wholly abandoned
damning the race of men--

Still, it was so nice to be out this day, I don't think I even felt their bite much. Big thanks to Heidi and Stuart for watching the kids for us so we could make it out there.

Akron/Family

So, I can't stop listening to Akron/Family. From Brooklyn. Brooklyn! What a place that must be. I guess they'd be considered "freak folk" with some XTC or Beatles and some I dunno almost tribal chanting and beats or something. Can't figure it out, but it's quite beautiful. I can see myself going through a period of immersion with them like what happened with Ariel Pink earlier this year.

Sometimes when I start liking bands like this I get afraid that it's too close to what Phish sounds like, a band that always leaves so little of an impression on me that my body, as a defensive mechanism, causes tiny black-outs, wipes out my memory for at least the day, and sometimes weeks thereafter, every time I hear their music.

My fear is that someday I will like a band that might allow someone to tell me "oh, if you like them, you'd definitely like Phish." By this point, see, my pride is too invested in not liking that band to ever let me get into them, I'm afraid. Getting even in their neighborhood would be too much for me to admit. But since I can't remember what they sound like, it's difficult for me to avoid their sound. As a general rule, I try to avoid bands where the members have non-ironic beards (except for Will Oldham) or wear knit hats like the guy in the lower left corner up above, because that's how I imagine most Phish fans to look. It's not a great system, though. You can imagine the stress I'm under. It's quite a pickle.

Yesssssss!

The trailer for No Country for Old Men! Not my favorite McCarthy, but it's the Coen brothers. How can you not be excited?!! I might camp out for this one while wearing a cowboy hat and sitting beside a rented horse.

In session

J in the wildflars

I always forget how busy I get when the school year starts back up. I mean, look:

6:00 wake up
6:15 cereal and magazine because you can't eat breakfast while holding a book open with one hand.
6:40 to school
8:00-2:35 teaching or whatever
3:00 to my poetry class that I am always ten minutes late for but my great prof has said it's okay, we'll work something out.
4:15 thinking about class and whether I talked too much or not enough and whether other students hate me or not.
5:00 to day care
5:30 Curious George
6:00 make dinner kids don't eat.
6:30 eat while standing because I think that's what chefs do.
7:00 make stuffed animals talk to children
8:00 make children go to sleep or at least stay in room.
8:15 try not to waste night on teh interweb
9:00 read, no, fix something kids broke.
9:30 read
10:00 try not to waste night on internet.
10:30 bed.

Actually, looking at that, it's all fun stuff, so I'm not complaining.

Talk about the "decisive moment" . . .

These pictures have me looking around the house for things I can break. Gorgeous.

A neat summer shot

Sarah P. on a Burt Lake evening

My good friend Mike Johnston, who runs, or is, The Online Photographer, recently expressed something that I have long felt: digital sucks for black and white. He says this partly because in the part of an image where you should have highlight detail, digital usually gives you just, um, light.

A part of me always thought that my spectacular ignorance about digital workflow was the real thing to blame, so it was somewhat reassuring, I guess to hear someone whose skills I respect say this. But this issue does bug me. At this point, I'm not going back to film. I could; I still have the stuff. The darkroom could be up and running in five minutes. But I've become addicted to the immediate feedback of digital. I just shoot more of it, so even though it can't, yet, replace the feel of Tri-X, I get so much more in the way of images that it's a compromise I can live with. I just hope my current camera lasts me a few more years before I have to shell out for the next gen.

This cute girl above is one of Mike's cousins, actually, and I took this picture during a family gathering up in Michigan. If I were shooting film that night, I probably would have totally blown the exposure and had nothing to show for it--she walked away before I would have had time to bracket it. Because it was digital, I got it "right" (enough for me) the first time.

Some More Hiking Pics

Pictured Rocks, some waterfall I forget which one.

So, for most of the fifteen miles of true "pictured rocks," the tall sandstone cliffs that give this place its name, we had fog. It was okay because we'd been there before and knew what it looked like. That's what we told ourselves, anyway. It was kind of an end of the world feeling, though, where you couldn't see the horizon on Lake Superior at all, but could just barely make out the waves hitting the base of the cliff that was up to 200 ft. below you. The picture above got took later in the day when the fog finally lifted. Waves have carved these hollows at the base of the cliffs so that, when they hit them now, it is loud, like bomb go off, all the time. Really cool soundz.

Neat mossy lane, probably leads to Hobbiton.

Waiting for the sunset, day three.

We had this entire beach, a couple miles of it, to ourselves this night. Nothing but sand and, like most days, the water was shallow enough that the sun had warmed it over the day. I swear, after swimming in Lake Superior, you feel like you've been forgiven for things you don't even remember doing.

You can see the six day old swimmers itch sores on my legs here, which I got before the trip. First time ever. When I got it, I looked it up on Wikipedia, which said that it was "not to be confused with Seafarer's Eruption." Yikes. Catching something that had the slightest chance of being confused for something called Seafarer's Eruption did not make me feel good at all. So far, I have resisted doing a Google image search for that malady.

Prospector and his mule Lucky taking in a sunset.

I thought this was such a sweet scene that I had to shoot it. Prospector was mad as hell at me when he heard the camera shutter, but it was worth listening to him spew his antique profanities for a few minutes in exchange for capturing the moment.

Such an awesome trip, though. We usually prefer hiking in some Canadian parks on the other side of Lake Superior because they have fewer people and are a little more difficult. Lots of times up there, the "trail" is merely a faint system of rock cairns that you have to look for while scrambling on wave-covered rocks. Very cool, but the scenery here is hard to beat, and we decided it was kind of nice to have an easier trail for once.

Prospector's Big Trip, Part I

Prospector's last cup of coffee before hitting the trail. Mackinac City.

I first got Prospector and his pack mule, Lucky, for my two year old. He was meant to be a present before we left the kid and his sister for four days of hiking the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore up in the U.P. But then Prospector wanted to come with us, so he did. He was a real crotchety companion at times, but he had a lot of good folk wisdom to share with us and also plenty of stories to tell around the campfire. Sure, most of his stories involved snakebites and claim jumping, but you'd be surprised how much variety there is in that genre. Most nights, we were riveted to his tales about the Badlands and the Yukon. He's a wise old S.O.B., that Prospector.

Prospector's first big find

Above is a picture of Prospector with a bucket-full of blueberries, which he called "Blue Gold." Here is an excerpt from his diary entry for the day:

"In the mornin', when I told the young'ns that we'd be findin' blue-berries as big as your head this day, they got all excited-like. Especially the tall, gangly one. But later, when I showed them this great haul, they were, well, I reckon you'd say they was disappointed. There's just no figurin' youngsters today."

I feel bad for disappointing Prospector now. I guess I did misunderstand him a little. And them berries were pretty great. Blueberry bushes lined probably 20 of the 37 miles we covered. And raspberries, too:One part Grape-Nuts, One part Granola, Raspberries, and dried milk.

This is breakfast on the first morning, the only rain we had the whole trip. Lake Superior was kind of angry just next to us but didn't rush our coffee and cereal. I swear, you could eat nothing but sand on a hiking trip and you'd think it's the best meal you ever had. Something about being outside and tired. Maybe it's the flavor of bugs in your food. Anyway, an hour after this, we came across two kayakers who'd given up on the lake and were actually dragging their kayaks down the trail because the waves were too big. They looked, well, miserable. We were a little wet, but our MSR Hubba Hubba tent had kept us pretty clean that night.

Back home again in Indiana.

Pictured Rocks, day two

Well that felt like a long trip. A little over two weeks away with four days of backpacking without kids in the middle of it. In woods with barely any internets for 14 days or so, you don't miss internets. And you don't miss tv, though staying somewhere that had cable during the big Tour de France stages was nice.

It's weird coming home after two weeks away. The house feels like it has been up to something, but it won't say what.

The last thing I read last night was Kenneth Koch's poem "The Boiling Water," which starts: "A serious moment for the water is when it boils." It's just the craziest thing and I can't stop thinking about it.

Lots of pictures coming soon.

Pitchfork

Just had a great weekend at the Pitchfork festival. Just for Saturday, but what a bargain that was, like $29 for a day of great sets. It was also the first time I've taken the train to Chicago, which was quite a pleasure for not having to deal with parking and being able to sit and read the whole trip there.

Picture above is the crowd for Mastodon. Joseph and I hadn't planned on trying to see them, but ran into some former students who'd been waiting in the front row for Cat Power's set, which wasn't planned to start for another three hours, and after talking to them a few minutes Mastodon was ready to go, so we stayed. I stuffed a large wad of paper napkin into each ear and began trying not to laugh whenever the metal hair-gods of Mastodon looked my way. God, they're so serious. I really did feel like the lead singer was looking at me and could tell that I was not one of them.

The picture below is the crowd at Dan Deacon, the highlight "experience" of Saturday, I think. See, instead of fists, his crowd did things like wield a squirt gun that is color-coordinated with your purple fingernails. Deacon didn't even set up on stage, but nobody really cared that much because he was so funny , talking through his whole set, telling the sound guy to turn up the volume "about 400 dragons" and, I dunno, just not shutting up, like some holy goof with a drum machine.

The people watching was kind of fun, too. I took this picture because the guy's pose reminded me exactly of a reversed version of Edouard Manet's Olympia:

Edouard Manet, Olympia 1863-1865

Do you see it? It's so obvious, I think the guy must have been doing it on purpose, thinking to himself "I am Manet's Olympia" over and over. He must be a little strange, if you ask me.And here is Joseph showing off his Obama t-shirt, his very first stop inside the gates that day. Joseph knows his stuff and predicts Obama will be the man, while I am reserving judgment. You should have seen Joseph shut down a volunteer for Libertarian candidate Ron Paul who accosted us while we were on the way to the Old Town School of Folk Music's summer festival on Sunday.

Walking by a shoe store in the Wicker Park area on Sunday, he told me a story about a time when he passed the store when it was closed and dark, but in the store window was its guard dog in the act of eating the display shoes. When Joseph told me this I first thought "no, life is not that funny; things this good cannot happen," but then I thought again on this sunny day with a light breeze surrounded by Chicago's version of beautiful people and thought "yes, it's true; life is this good. The dog ate the shoes."

So, for the record, my favorites from the day at Pitchfork:

1. Grizzly Bear. Much more dynamic and raucous than on their records, and they pulled off their harmonizing, too. One of those shows where you find yourself liking songs live that you sometimes skip through on the cd.

2. Califone. I'd never listened to Califone before because, seriously, their name reminded me of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication and I can't stand the RHCP. But I gave them a try knowing they'd be playing this weekend and it's great. If their set were longer, it might have supplanted Grizzly Bear as my favorite of the weekend, too.

3. Dan Deacon. His album Spiderman of the Rings is pretty fun, and live he doesn't sound much different--I think he almost just presses play on his ipod, because at the beginning of the set he kept muttering "c'mon ipod, work" and he wasn't kidding. But his show is great. The crowd was so ready for him and into him and just positive all around.

My only real disappointments were Iron & Wine, who were bland as heck I think because he tried to electrify things instead of stay acoustic and intimate and stuff. Also Cat Power was only okay, but she was sober, at least, I think. It was a lot of sun--a nice brief shower would have been nice--but an awesome day. I might have to seriously consider going at least two days next summer and bringing more of the family.

AP

If anyone from my AP classes reads this . . . I'm curious to hear if you've received your scores yet. Send me an email at my school address if you don't mind sharing.

Strawberry Jam

This new record is unreal, really. On the A.C. forum most people think "Fireworks" is the best song, by a big margin, but "Cuckoo Cuckoo" just makes me bang my head on the table. And after that, it's "Derek" and "Unsolved Mysteries." This may be the last record I listen to in 2007. Please excuse the hyperbole.

Mail

One of the best things about going away on vacation is that when you get home you get to read a huge stack of mail all at once. It's so exciting. Maybe a book you forgot you ordered from Amazon came in while you were gone. Maybe Netflix sent you the first episodes of Entourage. And even if Entourage turns out to be not that good, which it isn't, unfortunately, except for Jeremy Piven, that's okay because this time I also got a letter telling me that a poem of mine, "Ghost a Dress Might Wear," has been accepted for publication! I'm thrilled, really. I've had a few other things published here and there, but this particular journal, Many Mountains Moving, is a bigger "stage," I guess.
Makes me want to send more of these things out and see what happens.

To celebrate, C brought home tortilla chips, chicken salad, and a carrot cake. Interesting mix. She claimed to have been pressed for time after discovering that Baan Thai was closed for a few weeks while the owners took a trip home. It tasted pretty swell, though.

Back from the beach.

Here we are toting a few sandwiches out to the Lake Michigan shore before Saturday's sunset, the last of our 4th of July vacation. This picture kind of reminds me of the old Stone Roses video for "I Wanna Be Adored." I wonder if I have a copy of that cd that isn't scratched to death.

Married!

Just Married

What a beautiful weekend of catching up with old friends and watching your brother marry your new sister. Our whole family is so happy about it we just don't know what to say.J was a great flower grrlI got to sing a Daniel Johnston song

Solstice State of the Garden

Bergamot, maybe my favorite plant.

Echinacea, blooming and on the way

Herb Buddha in control as always

Cobalt (at least that's what I call it) getting ready to go off.
This cool new silver I got last year but I forget the name. I want more.

Update

This picture shows you everything you need to roast your own coffee: green coffee beans, a popcorn popper, wooden spoon, timer, notebook, and the newest dwell in case you have time to read. I pretty much just stared at the beans jumping around in the popper, though. Those beans cooling in the colander are the result of my first attempt. I am far from a coffee connoisseur, but I read somewhere about how you can buy green coffee really cheap and it keeps longer than roasted coffee, and it sounded fun. Haven't tasted it yet, but it smells like coffee, so I'm optimistic.

What's going on? This weekend, the little brother is marrying a real sweetheart of a babe. I was trying to find a poem to read during the ceremony but we couldn't find one that fit, so they asked me to play and sing Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End." Such a cute song for a wedding, I think. I bet all crying babies will stop and listen while I play.

Not much else is going on, the way it should be. I put up a hammock on the sleeping porch off of our bedroom and it's a super cool place to read. I'm also looking forward to the Saturday of the Pitchfork music festival.

Anyway, keep making the most of your summer.

Small Town Rodeo

The summer fair season hadn't quite started up yet last weekend, so I had to travel a little farther than usual to find something fun for the kids. I didn't even know they had rodeos around these parts and was a little skeptical so when I heard about this'n in Monroeville, I had to see it.

Praying Cowboys

And it was pretty cool. I'm not sure what I expected, probably just a few cowboys going through a sham rodeo. Instead, though, it felt like an actual competition. I guess there's no way to fake getting on the back of a bull and trying not to get killed. Because of the high fences, it was almost impossible to get close enough for good photos, though. This image is the closest my kit lens could zoom.

Girl Texting her Prayer

The people watching was pretty good, too. Lots of country-mouse tweens on parade, which is always funny to see. Such posturing. Rodeo Clown's Last Smoke

This picture isn't so great because he caught me focusing. I could have been a lot closer if I'd kept my cool, but I had two kids with me, and that makes it tough to be a sneaky photographer.
This clown's job was not to spook the bull away but to provide a hokey play by play. He had a head set and cracked insults between the time a cowboy was thrown from his bull and the next one was released: "That bull must be related to OJ Simpson . . . He doesn't want to go to the pen!" And people would laugh. More bizarre was this "insult" he delivered when the emcee was introduced: "Hey, it's one of the actors from Brokeback Mountain!" That one got a big laugh. So, apparently, even portraying a gay cowboy in a Hollywood movie is enough to set you up for ridicule in these parts. And the 10% of the cowboys who were gay all thought to themselves "Gosh durn it, don't he know those comments just kill me on the inside?"

Anyway, something to put on the calendar for next year, definitely.

Summer Hours

School's out, so MonkeySquirrel will be on a summer-
occasional-photo-blog-schedule. I was so lazy the last few days. It took me almost a week just to get our last Netflix in the mail. But summer is here, and big plans are in place. Today, for example, I was supposed to buy guitar strings and go to a rodeo, but I took two Benadryl for this terrible hay-fever season and I forgot they knock you out. But now I'm awake, and it's time to get to work enjoying the work free season.

The movie that sat around was Old Joy, something I got just because it has Will Oldham in a starring role and a soundtrack by Yo La Tengo. A very quiet, pretty thing, this movie. Kind of a Raymond Carver or Ann Beattie simplicity on the surface. I just can't decide if it has as much beyond the surface. Anyways, have a nice summer.