Good morning. Hello. How are you? #684
New York Trip, The Hours Before Dusk by Jenna Matecki, The Interstate System, evil squirrels, the quest for HD footage of the Limelight continues
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Happy Monday. Good to talk to you chaps, been a while. Almost a week! New York was lovely. Very hot. Not as hot as here, but, you know, covered in concrete and dripping air conditioners. So a less pleasant heat, even if somewhat lower. I walked over the Manhattan Bridge which I had never done before and it is most definitely the least pleasant bridge to walk over. Not a good breeze. Smells like pee. No tourists posing, though, so, you know, that was a plus.
Driving to NYC and back in three days was shockingly doable. My butt hurt on the way home, but I didn’t have any problems with getting too tired or anything. Missed the hellish DC traffic completely on the way in. The express lane was open, heading north, and I paid the toll because why not, not like I’m a commuter, and breezed through DC. BW Parkway was a bit crowded but nothing too much. Skipped a baaad bout of traffic just after Baltimore thanks to another express lane. Hit maybe 30 mins of traffic on the NJ Turnpike. All in all quite lovely. Trip home was worse. Stop and go traffic for the entire BW Parkway, Maps had me take the longer western Beltway route back to 95 but that was wise, it was quick. The 30 miles or so where there were express lanes south of DC on 95 were great, but then it was about an hour of stop-and-go traffic. Eight and a half hours up, nine hours down.
The interstates are crazy. I mean, I know you know this, you’ve been on them, but those of us who aren’t regular denizens of them really forget how nuts they are. A whole different world. I saw about six boats, a tank, three houses and a giant concrete bridge thing. Stunning, stunning numbers of people texting while driving. A beaver. A Canada goose who had been hit but his long neck was still moving. That hurt. I only did rest stops, no pulling off at exits, and rest stops are just filled with lunatics it is terrible and wonderful. I think I tried to capture the essence of the lunacy of our Interstates last month when Emma and I went up to Boston but I did not do it justice. Being on the Interstate system is like being in another country, in another world. Road tripping is a liminal existence, not tied to the emotional reality of point A and point B. It is terrifying. I love it.
I stayed at the Hotel on Rivington, for nostalgia’s sake. It was my go-to hotel when it first opened, and was the only hotel in the Lower East Side, before I moved to New York. Because I love the Lower East Side. The place… has not aged well. They mentioned when I checked in that they had been closed for over a year during the pandemic. They did not take that time to refresh things. It is.. a bit run down. But it still has some charm. It’s like a nice time capsule of a certain era. Unfortunately, it was so hot out I had to keep the floor-to-ceiling curtains closed the whole time so I did not really get to enjoy the views.
I saw my friend Jenna in New York on Wednesday night and went to her book launch party on Thursday. I met her publisher, Amy, who was lovely and we had more of a history in business than we realized. The book party was at the band stage thingy in Prospect Park. Jenna did a reading accompanied by an earnest gentleman on acoustic guitar who had been inspired by her book to write some pieces. It was just great. Jussi came and Tom came with his partner Rose.
Jenna’s book is called The Hours Before Dust and it is lovely. You can read about it and buy it here. It is sort of an autobiographical memoir in poetic form, reminds me a lot of Leonard Cohen, Spice Box of Earth era, though “Nights of Santiago” comes to mind as well, as I told her back when I first read the book earlier this year.
After the book party Jussi, Tom, Rose and I headed into the city to see Mea at her birthday party and meet up with Jesse, and that was lovely as well. I also saw Eva, Nicholas, Derek, Dorothy, Felix and Karen during the day. Derek and I did a very productive walk and talk.
A good time, a good time. And, fingers crossed, I did not get COVID. I stayed outdoors or in empty bars with big windows open. I was careful. Today is day four, so, so far so good. Fingers crossed.
I returned home, however, to discover that the squirrels (and rabbits) had penetrated the defenses of the hoop house and eaten about a dozen of my tomatoes, and I was ripshit. Also they tomatoes were covered in Septoria. Much work was needed. It was bad. I patched up the holes where the squirrels were getting in, and moved a security camera to inside the hoop house, very low to the ground, right where they gather to eat tomatoes. I set a special alarm on it so it alerts me whenever a squirrel gets in. I run out and scare them and see where they run out, and then I patch up that hole. It is slowly working. They can chew through the netting, though. But I think I can prevent that with dillegence. I also put all the tomatoes they had gotten off the vine out in the woods so they could find them there. Man. Rotten tomatoes smell And I put out some squirrel corn.
I still got about a dozen tomatoes, though. They didn’t get everything. And there are still a hundred or so on the vines, if I can successfully keep them out.
The neighbor’s chickens had gotten wind of the tomato harvest as well and were also loitering outside the hoop house. They couldn’t get in, but they would feed on any tomatoes the squirrels dragged out. It was chaos. Yesterday I was bringing some greens to the compost bin and there were chickens inside the bin munching on tomato vines. Scared the bejeezus out of me.
I also thinned the leaves, cutting off the septoria leaves, and sprayed some copper fungicide to control the leaf blight. It’s crazy. I was only gone three days! I might not have even been out there in those three days if I were in town. Except I would have, because I have been tending to the grape plants on a daily basis in my battle with Japanese Beetles which, by the way, seems mostly won and they seem gone. So that is good. Win some, lose some.
Also harvested a shit ton of peppers, and another 30 pounds of cucumbers which I am going to try to get to the food bank today.
Oh and here’s the YouTube video for the week if you want to watch a man wrestle with the world’s most unruly cucumber patch:
Okay, well, I could write forever, I have much to tell you, but I will try and dole it out across the week. I will spare you my Elon analysis today. I will close with updating you about my current Limelight obsession. The DVD of Party Monster arrived just before I left, and I ripped it this weekend and re-watched the movie, as well as all the behind-the-scenes footage on the disc (there is a surprising amount!). There are scenes that take place in the main hall of Limelight but it is shot on early hand-held digital looks like a 3-chip Sony Mini DV, so they are disappointingly low res. But more problematically, it is obviously a set. I mean, it is a very good set. It really does capture the Limelight, and I can see why I couldn’t remember clearly. But the behind the scenes footage make it clear it’s a set, and also it’s pretty obvious once you look at it, the set is just too small, It’s only about 10 dancers wide.
So, my deep desire for hi-res footage of the interior of the Limelight remains unfilled. Someone who shot it on motion picture film and, in the 21st century has scanned that film at 4K and restored it. That’s what I need.
The cast of that movie really is solid. It’s kind of a great film. So nihilistic and deadpan. Quite disturbing.
I missed my wife and daughter something fierce. Home is where the heart is, as that wise man Gavin Friday said. It’s good to be back.
Today’s playlist is a playlist of all the songs I clicked “like” on while driving. I listened to music both directions. My giant “All The Good” playlist of 5,000+ songs that I listen to on shuffle. It was so great. Just endless awesome music. Music is awesome. There is no thematic coherence and I only made minor adjustments to running order, but I love it, I think it works great. So many great songs I had forgotten about.
Okay. Off to do my Quicken transactions (gulp) and my country game. Can I still remember where Modova and Malawi are? We shall see!
Hi! We heard that having chickens in your compost pile is auspicious because they turn it over for you a little bit at a time. I just wanted you to know that.