Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1077
Trip-end round up, how does 311 work?, RRR's 40th Anniversary, Famous men I am willing to bet will never be mentioned in the Epstein files a comprehensive list, some movies I watched
Good morning! Hello there! How are you? Back at it. Home from Somerville/Boston (honestly not sure I set foot in Boston even once on the trip). Got up early yesterday, speed backed and drove 13 hours home, so we could get here early enough for Jane and I to get a good night’s sleep and get her to school today. Success! She was excited to go, breakfast went quick, the Lightning condescended to remote start so we got into a warm car, the only brand of car she forgot on our morning “car brand” game was Infiniti, van guy and G Wagon lady were in the car line right where they belonged. Return to routine, lovely. Stopped at the grocery store to refill our fridge with post-travel necessities. They only had one dozen of my posh eggs that weren’t broken. I had to cobble together a second dozen by picking eggs from multiple cartons. It felt vaguely felonious. It had never occurred to me that you could sub out eggs and steal posh eggs in cheap egg cartons. I mean, not that I did that, but, you know. Ideas.
Wow I have so many disparate notes from, like, six days of life without a proper GMHHAY. I hope you enjoyed the years-end posts. I haven’t consulted my end-of-year task list in yonks, as the Brits say. There may be another year-end wrap post coming, I can’t remember. I will just plow forth today with items from my notes.
Item: I would like to congratulate Ron’s Radical Records, or RRR, on a 40th anniversary. That is crazy. One of the most obscurist, avante garde record stores in America, located in Lowell, MA, of all places. Still going strong. I cherish my memories of road trips up to Lowell to visit RRR (shit, is it even still in Lowell? No idea). I now desperately wish I had gone to visit this trip. Next one.
Item: The trash cans at our place in Somerville are liable to float away and get lost if trash day happens to be on a day where the street floods. Apparently this is quite common. Jussi was out trying to clean out the drain last time it flooded and she met a new neighbor, who was not a new neighbor but in fact an old one returning to the house she grew up in and she said this all happened when she was a kid. So, I mean, WTF? Somerville’s property tax rates are markedly higher than ours. Their property base is insanely higher, their assessed values are insanely higher. Why are all the streets so fucking bad in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline/etc area? All of them! What does your property tax even get you? Isn’t this, like, the supposed benefit of living in a city? Greater density, greater efficiency, greater amount of services for your tax dollar? And I mean, sure, Somerville is rabidly anti-car these days, good for them, but, like, trash trucks have to come, you gotta leave your trash out, the streets have other uses besides cars they shouldn’t consistently flood for decades! Really is something. I guess the answer is “old infrastructure” but, you know. I suspect there are older cities in Europe without flooding streets. Hard not to think cronyism isn’t involved.
Anyway, to get a new trash can you gotta call 311 then go to the Somerville DPW yard and pick it up, bringing evidence of a lease or house ownership, which I kept meaning to do but never got around to it. But it got me thinking: how does 311 even work? If I call 311 on my cell phone, with a 617 area code, when I am in Somerville, does it even know I’m in Somerville? Or does it think I’m in Boston cuz of the area code? Or does it think I’m in North Carolina because of my billing address and/or that setting in your phone about where your 911 calls should go to? Does that apply to 311 as well? Does it know when you’re traveling? And, like, everyone has cell phones! And lots of people have cell phones with other area codes. Especially in NYC, which also has a 311 system. Here is an interesting article about 911 what says the answer is basically “it’s complicated” and “it won’t always work” and “it depends on whether the 911 system is modern or not” but seems to imply it is primarily done by the cell carriers passing tower-based location data to the call centers. But is all this also the same with 311? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Things that this trip made me deeply appreciate about where I live: floors that don’t creak. Hot water that immediately comes out of the faucet. Kitchens that look less than 60 years old. Water dispensers on fridges. Light switches on the correct side of a wall. Power outlets that don’t seem 60 years old. Traffic lights and crosswalks that have sensors in them and don’t blindly rotate through various directions even when no one is there. Fast internet. Efficient heat.
Things that this trip made me deeply miss about New England: walkability (not that I did much in the cold). Teddy smooth. Man Ray. Local bars. Parks. Neighbors. Incomprehensible road networks. Target.
Famous men I am willing to bet will never be mentioned in the Epstein files, a comprehensive list: 1) Garth Brooks. 2) Keaunu Reeves. That’a it that’a the whole list. Would be surprised about the Rock but wouldn’t put money on it his easy-goingness will do him in just like this recent In-n-Out scandal has doomed his presidential chances, which is a shame because The Rock was probably the only person who could heal this country.
Watched Killers of the Flower Moon and it was insanely well-acted, well-shot, well-directed but way too long and kinda boring even though it was immediately obvious to me I would absorb the hell out of the David Grann book on which the movie was based. The last hour was pointless. Lily Gladstone was awesome. I didn’t even recognize Brendan Frasier but I am so happy that dude is prestige cting he was always underrated. There was not a single 5-second segment in that film that was not immediately recognizable as Scorsese and I’m not sure why that is. It is weird. His historical stuff all has the same sheen. Mysterious.
Also watched The Creator and I thought it was great all the way through everyone keeps saying it’s great but problematic and I suppose there are some nitpicky things but I enjoyed it immensely what a great, original film.
At the park in Somerville I saw a large extended family group where two of the older members had hats on that said ALASKA, so I asked them about it and it turned out that a bunch of them (though not the hat wearers ) were from Alaska, and, in fact, were from Fairbanks, and, in fact, lived not far from my sister and, in fact, had a son about the same age as my nephew, with the same name. That was weird. They were far less excited and impressed by it but then I realized they were transplants and had only been there a few years. Still, it’s a rare day you ask someone about Alaska and it transpires they are from Fairbanks and not Anchorage or the MatSu valley.
If you have been following the Twilight Singers Box Set saga, yesterday One Little Indian finally emailed and asked for the extra copies of all the vinyl back, so I have to send those back, alas (sorry Jon). But good on them for running a tight ship, and thank you, One Little Indian, for sending me a replacement box at all. You did not have to do that.
Also, I’ve been gone from the house like ten days and there was not a single piece of vinyl waiting for me at the house and I feel like I deserve some sort of medal for that.
OK that’s all I got for today. Gotta hustle on work, check in on the greenhouse, get caught up on things, clear my mind and figure out why my left hand does not enjoy typing right at this minute it is really weird.
All right I have been alluding to “no more mixes” for the last couple months and here’s the situation: there will occasionally be mixes, but other times I am just going to post a single album, or maybe not even an album or piece of music, maybe just some other piece of media. A “media appreciation” segment that could use a title. “Work of the day” or something. There may still be playlists. But maybe just some oldie I’ve been thinking about. Is it borne of laziness? Mayhaps. But also of a desire to appreciate a single thing a little more deeply.
So today’s is the album I am just finishing up. It is called My Electric Family, by a band called Bachelorette, of whom I know nothing. I think Keith told me about it. It sounds a little like Plastic Mermaids — the band Rian was in before Wet Leg and are great, though I think the bandleader might be the dude she is always slagging, but I’m not gonna delve. Bachelorette also sounds a bit like Ex:Re and a bit like Polyphonic Spree. A good mix. I am enjoying it. “Where to Begin” is my favorite track. Enjoy.
Talk to you guys tomorrow!