October 2007 books

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driving with purpose and pleasure

Today I woke up early, and thought about a conversation I had with a friend of a friend at a show the other night, where he basically made the case that if I am going to be driving as much as I am and really don't want to move to the boondocks I call my service area, I'm going to need to do all I can to make the drive pleasurable. I've already worked on this some, getting the AC fixed in my car, new speakers, and fancy-ass wiper blades. This morning it hit me that I could do something to make the days where I am unable to carpool on my long route something to look forward to, with ritual. And by this, I don't mean slaughter or such, but rather to make a plan for a pleasurable activity on such days...in my case, I've decided if I'm going to drive an hour, I'm going to carefully rediscover entire albums all the way through. This may not sound like much, but I've been finding I'm developing a tendency to fill up my wee iPod with my most favorite of songs, and there is no room for full albums. At home I multi-task too much to pay close attention, but in the car, I am all ears.

Today I listened to one of my all-time favorite straight thorough with much relish: Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.  Much singing along ensued, and some I'm-stuck-in-traffic-so-I-might-as-well-dance wiggling around, too.

Now the question is, what next?  Tell me your favorite albums...that is not just cds with a few songs you like, but ones that work extremely well as a complete whole.  Two of my other favorites that come to mind right now are Arcade Fire's Funeral and Jim White's Wrong-Eyed Jesus.  I have plenty to re-discover in my collection, but would love to check out some of your favorites, too.

And on a super down note...

...this really really bums me out:

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

Egads!  Why aren't people freaking out about this? 

If only someone could melt it down into a faux ice cap for all the poor drowning polar bears.

My day in photos

I drove to Stanwood this morning for an all day workshop.  The view was nice.

















There were eagles.  I saw 6 at one time!















And some bugs.















Then I went home, and ran around Seward Park.  Which was chilly, but oh so lovely.  This is why I hesitate to join a gym.  No view like this in a gym!