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ghost suburbia
Sunday, June 20 2004
I suspect that I'm unusually squeamish, even for an American, and I'm not the sort of person who can handle looking at video of people getting their heads sliced off. But the latest beheading of a westerner in the Middle East didn't produce any video, so I was curious to see the still pictures. None of the news sites (not even the Chinese ones) provided links. But a few days later it's not hard to find the pictures, because providing such material is what the web does best. If you want to see them, you need only click on this hypertext.
I spent most of the day at the Eagle's Nest house continuing work on its electrical system. I brought both Sally and Eleanor with me, since Gretchen would be gone from our house all day and we didn't want them getting bored.
The older couple I hastily-named "Mr. and Mrs. Eagles Nest" were driving by with their dog Bowie as I worked, so they impulsively stopped by to hang out with me for awhile. Bowie had contracted Kennel Cough from Eleanor before she'd developed any symptoms, and, being 14 years old and suffering from multiple simultaneous illnesses anyway, had lingered for a time at death's door. Today, though, he seemed to be much restored. Since he'd already been infected, I saw no need in keeping Eleanor away from him. (Though seemingly healthy, her infectious period will supposedly continue for the next 12 weeks.) We mostly talked about the foolishness of spending so much money on this property. But given the reality that this transaction has occurred, we eventually moved on to the subject of whick things should be torn down. More ruthless than Occam, the razor suggested by Mr. Eagles Nest and me would leave little standing aside from the original stone-walled cottage, which constitutes only about 400 square feet of indoor real estate.
Later I drove up to the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Eagles Nest and snacked lavishly on the many items set before me. Interestingly, we mainly talked about electrical wiring and the geopolitics of the Eagle's Nest community. Mrs. Eagles Nest told me that people living in the Esopus Valley were afraid to go up Eagles Nest back thirty some years ago when they moved in. Mr. Eagles Nest told me about the many abandoned houses near the end of Eagles Nest. I'd driven to the end of the road to have a look at the neighborhood and it's like a goddamn ghost suburbia being taken over by the forest. If that don't send a Steven King shudder down your spine, then I'm giving Steven King more credit than is his due!
Given the proximity to the longest day of the year, today was unusally cool. When I drove around this morning I kept my windows mostly rolled-up, and I thought nothing of leaving the truck parked in the sun (windows down!) with the dogs in it while shopping in Lowes. This evening temperatures fell to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
I'm qualified to say: The thing I most notice about the White Stripes is my ability to recognize their music in the first three chords even when I'm unfamiliar with a particular song. But the thing is, I don't like any of their songs except "We Are Going to be Friends."
Holy shit, this works!
http://www.audioscrobbler.com/. It tells you what music is liked by the people who like a musician you like. That's the service that was once provided by Firefly, a company subsequently bought by what was to one day be my erstwhile employer Launch, now subsumed in Yahoo.com. But unlike Firefly, you get bar graphs showing you a person's particular ratings of individual bands on a decreasing scale. It's a whole additional dimension of information. It's very useful to know that someone who likes My Bloody Valentine also likes Bryan Adams three times as much as he likes Pink Floyd. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I think I'll be coming back to this site a week from now!
What got me to write these things? Smoking pot (I still have some and nobody is testing my urine!) and then listening to the singularly-brilliant and original "I Wanna be a Dumbcharger" by Guided by Voices.
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