changes

The truth is I’m not listening to music right now but to backyard morning sounds: birds, creek, calm Sunday morning traffic from 1300 East, my neighbors' baby fussing a bit, an AC unit kicking on, and a single dog bark. I also really didn’t listen to a lot of music last week, between spending time at the cabin (cabin/canyon sounds are prioritized, just like backyard sounds) and people being around in the office at work when I did go back into work. There are some interesting things here nonetheless, and I have a lot of promising stuff queued up to listen to soon.

Sat-Sun.2022.07.23-24 | [Playlist] New Music Friday | (2022) | NPR Music

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: whatever

Notes: I also queued up / incorporated a bunch of new tracks I read about in various newsletters and other sources, intermixed with this playlist.

Wed.2022.07.27 | Drifting Toward the Absolute | (2021) | Josh Medina

Format/Source: sound files from bandcamp - tape music but I don’t own the actual tape

Location/Context: earphones cabin cleanup chores

Notes: Wanted something kind of lowkey natural while I washed dishes, and this came up in the shuffle first thing and was perfect. Then I listened to…

Wed.2022.07.27 | Chihuahuan Desert / Birdscapes | (2021) | Rob Frye

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music - tape music but I don’t own the actual tape

Location/Context: earphones cabin cleanup chores

Thur.2022.07.28 | Causers of This | (2010) | Toro y Moi

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving

Fri.2022.07.29 | Connection | (2022) | The Maghreban

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving, reading, whatever

Notes: First listen

Fri.2022.07.29 | Ginkgo | (2022) | Field Guides

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: reading, whatever

Notes: First listen. Didn’t know anything about this and tried it based solely on the band name and the cover art. Not quite what I had hoped for, whatever that unfairly means, but I may have to give them another chance.

Fri.2022.07.29 | Where Have All the Flowers Gone? | (2021) | Deb Never

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: reading, whatever

Notes: First listen

Sat.2022.07.30 | God’s Country | (2021) | Chat Pile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: chores, driving errands

Notes: First listen. This is another great recommendation from that record store that I unfortunately never go visit. (This is also a record I would be unlikely to ever buy on vinyl because no one else in my house ever would want to listen to this.)

Sat.2022.07.30 | God’s Country | (2021) | Chat Pile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving errands, chores, whatever

Notes: Immediate re-listen

Standalone post link: Listens Last Week (July 31, 2022)

Link: My Grandma Is a Meme | Alise Anderson

Type: Web Page for an Art Exhibition / Video

Source: Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

I felt for some reason that if I went to this exhibit or looked at the book it would give me some idea or way forward for what to do (or not do) with this website, as the process of archiving ephemera (digitally in my case) and cataloging mundanities resonates with me. (If you are for some reason looking at this web site for even a few seconds you will likely have already discovered this about me.)

But I’m not sure if I’ll get myself to go to it before it closes.

I was thinking of going there on my lunch break today, but instead I watched the video in my car while I ate lunch, then tapped this note on my phone.

Standalone post link: Art Link - My Grandma Is a Meme

A log of my music listens in the past week, by albums and playlists, not including completely random shuffles.

Sun.2022.07.31 | Florist | (2022) | Florist

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: don’t remember

Mon.2022.08.01 | Mahal | (2022) | Toro y Moi

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving

Notes: getting pretty obsessed with this album now, which is usually the case with Toro y Moi, but it was delayed this time. I think I just thought that throwaway “Mr. Postman” song was so stupid when I first heard it that I couldn’t listen beyond that, just took this for a whole throwaway album. But it is as solid as anything he has ever done, with some decent psych leanings.

Mon.2022.08.01 | Orange Blood | (2022) | Mt. Joy

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: dishes, chores, whatever

Notes: Meh. First listen to this album and this band. Feels like something I might have liked 15 or 20 years ago, but not a style or songwriting I’m excited by at this moment.

Mon.2022.08.01 | Remove Your Skin Please [EP] | (2019) | Chat Pile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: reading, whatever

–

Mon.2022.08.01 | This Dungeon Earth [EP] | (2019) | Chat Pile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: reading, whatever

–

Mon-Tue.2022.08.01-02 | Hey What | (2021) | Low

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: reading, whatever, driving

Notes: came up on shuffle and really hit the spot - I haven’t listened to Low enough, need to change that.

–

Tue.2022.08.02 | God’s Country | (2022) | Chat Pile

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: don’t remember

–

Tue.2022.08.02 | Hellfire | (2022) | black midi

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: don’t remember

Wed-Thur.2022.08.03-04 | Florist | (2022) | Florist

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: working, driving, whatever

Thur.2022.08.04 | American Rituals | (2022) | Cheri Knight

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving

Fri.2022.08.05 | Mahal | (2022) | Toro y Moi

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving

Notes: these songs are often in my head now and it is a good vibe.

Fri.2022.08.05 | [Playlist] August 5 New Releases | Diabolical Records

Format/Source: Streaming - Spotify

Location/Context: driving, whatever

Fri.2022.08.05 | [Playlist] New Music Friday | NPR Music

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: whatever

Sat.2022.08.06 | i’m in your walls | (2022) | Death Insurance

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving, errands

Sat.2022.08.06 | comfortably in pain [EP] | (2022) | Dora Jar

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving, errands

Sat.2022.08.06 | Oil on Canvas | (2022) | AJ Suede

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving, errands

Sat.2022.08.06 | Could We Be More | (2022) | Kokoroko

Format/Source: Streaming - Apple Music

Location/Context: driving, errands

Standalone post link: Listens Last Week (August 7, 2022)

My knee has recovered enough that I went on somewhat of an actual hike!

(That Moffitish peak in the background here is the destination I was aiming for, but I only got half way up.)

I ended up bushwhacking a bunch and felt like I should turn around before actually getting to the peak I was hoping to reach, but I went almost 3 miles with an elevation gain of 1100+ feet, without a trail over half of the way.¹

Considering that two or three weeks ago I didn’t even want to go up a flight of stairs, this was pretty good. My knee has relapsed a little bit since, but I think it will still be fine.

Standalone post link: a hike!

Here’s a photo of a grasshopper on the door of the shed in my backyard.

I took so many shots of this guy but this is the only one I even remotely liked.¹ I kind of hate this camera on my phone that tries too much to fix my photos for me. I need to get out our old late-00s DSLR, or get a film camera again, or something. I don’t think my cousin ever gave my film camera back to me, and I didn’t think that was a problem but now I miss it…

Standalone post link: Grasshopper Shed Door

Just read the June 2022 issue of Poetry.

Longer, with details: just seriously injured my knee by tripping and falling over my daughter’s bike in the garage - I was rushing through while doing maintenance on our water heater. So, instead of continuing with the water heater, I am laid up with an ice pack in my son’s bedroom, reading the June 2022 issue of Poetry until I feel rested enough to try to go upstairs to my own bedroom.

My favorite entry in the magazine was actually the closing prose essay from Shelby Handler about translating ancient Hebrew texts - “Astrological Speculum,” and Other Objects Found on My Way to the Ancestors

I might write and share more thoughts on the essay at some point - besides being beautifully written and thought provoking, it made me cognizant of some of the Jewish/Hebrew cultural appropriation I once engaged in as a Mormon.

Standalone post link: Reading June 2022 Issue of Poetry

I’m reading The Hobbit with my son at bedtime now.

We hit 21% completion tonight, so according to my new reading update ‘best practices’ I can post about it now.

Standalone post link: Reading The Hobbit with my son

i’m paddling my way through Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, though it is definitely taking me more than a week.

I have this Library of America edition, but I’m actually mainly reading it on my phone - Standard Ebooks edition, added to the iOS Books app. The LoA edition has reference notes, so I look at it when I can, but I actually like reading on my phone.

From my notebook, June 6, 2022

I think I’m more than 20% of the way into A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers now, so I can officially let myself share it.

Again, though, it’s hard not to think about all the other books I could or should be reading as well.

[Thoreau’s] going off right now about how poetry is the best thing to read and really we should just read poetry and not waste time with anything else. But he’s not exactly writing poetry himself [here], at least not in any traditional idea of poetry.

I want to read Leaves of Grass after this, but I also want to read Walden. And Spring and All. And Catalog of Unabashed Joy. And [Ovid’s] Metamorphosis. And a hundred other things. And a bunch of middle grade and YA stuff. And all the banned books. And all the digital gardening indieweb newsletter stuff. A Week, though. I should give it a week, as it says.

Standalone post link: Reading Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Update: my wife referred to this as my “moveable grotto,” which is ridiculous, but probably better. Definitely better.

Original: a view from my backyard “desk” just as I was creating the home page for my new “digital” garden.

It started raining a minute or two after this, so I put away my laptop and waited it out because I didn’t want to go back in. It stopped, and now I’m posting this.

Standalone post link: My Backyard Desk

Evening sun breaking through the clouds to some of the upper bows of the Siberian Elms after the rainstorm.

Standalone post link: sun in the elms after the rainstorm