Good morning. Hello. How are you? #865
Tennis elbow, shocking revelations about Felix Pedro, musings on Antonoff, Duolingo for all kindergarteners
Good morning! Wasuuuuuup as the frog says. What did the fox say. Gonna be 80 today. Hey hey. Well yay.
I have tennis elbow. It is somewhat annoying. Been about two weeks now. Left arm, thankfully, but boy you really use your non-dominant arm more than you think. I started experiencing symtoms almost immediately after the 30 trips up and down the stairs moving all that stuff from storage to the garage. But you supposedly get tennis elbow from repetitive tasks, so, that is weird. But all the symptoms seem the same, and this nifty $6 elbow band I got from the internet seems to be helping, so Tennis Elbow it is, because who wants another ailment to go to the doctor about.
Going to Fairbanks in two weeks. Have I said this yet? Anyway, I will be up there for my sister’s birthday, which is nice. Although it is still ridiculously cold there and they still have snow and I am not excited about that but whatevs. Been a while, might as well remember my roots, even though a low of 12 at night is hardly Fairbanks at its worst.
So last night somehow Emma and I got on the topic of Fairbanks’ history and founding. I gave her the story of Barnette paddling up to Fairbanks on his sternwheeler and getting as far as he could and going ashore to start selling his 150 tons of goods.
And before too long Felix Pedro came along and bought some stuff and went back out into the woods and struck gold and the rest is history. I mentioned how there were some kinda racist overtones about the whole thing, how there are plenty of things in Fairbanks named after Barnette, and Wickersham, the first judge in the area, but that I couldn’t think of anything named for Felix Pedro. I mentioned he did lead the Golden Days parade, though, that every year they got a man in a sombrero with a donkey to walk the parade.
I mentioned to Emma how there were like 10 new schools in Fairbanks since I lived there and who knows, maybe they named one of them or something else for ole Felix finally. I dimly recalled that Felix had a Wikipedia page, so I checked it out.
And okay, either my elementary school teaching was off or (more likely) my memory was off, but I have some shocking information to relay here:
First: Felix Pedro is not mexican, or even hispanic. His real name is Felice Pedroni, he is from Italy, he fled to the us in 1881 and changed his name to Felix Pedro as he went through Ellis Island.
Secondly: The dude was absolutely, positively murdered by his wife.
Third: He had a business partner in his gold discovery, Tom Gilmore. I am going to be generous and assume Gilmore street in Fairbanks is not named for Tom Gilmore, cuz that would be racist. Then again, no one’s heard of Tom Gilmore but we’ve all heard of Felix Pedro (all of us, har har)
Fourth: For some weird reason, even though he never lived there, he was buried outside of SF in a “necropolis” town called Colma that I had never heard of but had like literally a million people buried there, outnumbering the living population 10:1. I can only assume this is because it’s what his wife wanted and she needed that murdered body out of Fairbanks so she could spend his gold freely.
I need to read a biography of Felix Pedro now.
Anyway, Fairbanksans: Do they still have the guy and the donkey in the Golden Days parade? Inquiring minds need to know. Anyone been to the Golden Days parade lately? Is there still a Felix Pedro with a donkey?
Jane has proceeded to “section” 2 of Duolingo, which is about… 9 units in? Her streak is like 60+ days, she started in January. She has a masterful ability to remember the gender of nouns, which I am so, so bad at I mean this language thinks “dress” is masculine I cannot keep them all straight. It got me thinking it is completely insane that we wait till high school to teach kids foreign languages we really oughtta be doing this in Kindergarten when they’re good at it seriously, an hour of Duolingo every day for every Kindergarten student in America would do wonders for global affairs in a generation or so. I’m still plugging away, and I’m learning more than I thought I would. This might be a lifelong habit, it’s fun. Duolingo is fun. I will get sick of it I suppose but you know who will not get sick of their silly gamification? Five year-olds.
Of course, I had a meetup with one of my house painter’s crew, he was early, Andreas wasn’t there yet to translate, and of course all my 40 days of Spanish completely failed me in the real world. Which will probably be the case the whole time.
Daddy-Jane Dance party last night, Jane wasn’t really in the mood, she was sucked into her state-sponsored PBS learning app, and so I tempted her with Robyn, we watched the “With Every Heartbeat” video first which is not a great video but is a great song. Then Youtube suggested two videos: “Call your Girlfriend,” and “Green Light” by Lorde. I chose the Lorde video first because this reminded me of a theory I used to have about Jack Antonoff which is that he is too repetitive and can’t write a good bridge, and I specifically sued to use “Call Your Girlfriend” and “Green Light” as an example. “Green Light” is such a good song. It’s on Lorde that she decided to not put a beat in the beginning, against the advice of her label and producer (I read this somewhere in an interview back in the day) but it is 100% on Antonoff that the synth line in the bridge is, while pretty good, so repetitive and kinda boring. And it is a great contrast when compared to the completely off the hook synth solo in the bridge of “Call Your Girlfriend.” That’s just the sort of brilliant bridge Antonoff doesn’t do.
But I gotta say, the “Green Light” video is pretty good! Lorde looks great in it. She had a good year or two living in semi-anonymity in NYC after her first album came out.
Man. Quotes around song titles is exhausting.
Dance party was also short because we had to do a school lesson to Jane and several of her stuffed animals because while we were on our walk our neighbor stopped to say high and Jane asked why the door handles in her car were flat against the car and I said “aerodynamics” and Jane asked what that was and I said we’d do a class on aerodynamics that night. I think she’s entered her moody teen phase because although she took the time to set the whole class up, she just wanted to play her PBS game while I taught the class, and of course I had to make it clear teachers didn’t like that. “This lesson is too hard,” she said, and I suppose, with me going on about wind tunnels and turbulence to a five year old, that she had a point.
Got a mix for you, just a mix, but it’s a good one if I do say so myself. Some old, some new, Luscious Jackson RIP Vivian Trimble, really love this band Shame, very into Trementina right at this second what a great noisy pop song, don’t know much about this Momma band but I like them. New Hold Steady is… fine. I mean, it’s fine. I like their late albums maybe it’s just me maybe I have lost my love for the meth-addled midwestern common man or something. Troubled couples just looking to hold on to someone, the tragedy of a weed bag with a leak. He’s so good at it, but.. also… there’s a whole big world out there but maybe that’s just me. First song is good though.
Until tomorrow! Friday! That’ll be nice.