better than this and that

Jeez, I wrote this last week and forgot to post it.
This is what happens when you use the zoom on the camera phone. I didn't feel like carrying my regular camera with me last night when I saw Richard Buckner.

I first heard him maybe 6 years or so ago when I downloaded Lil Wallet Picture because I liked the name. His voice was amazing and broke at all the right times, which Glenn O'Brien said once about Tammy Wynette when he wrote for Spin. Anyway, Richard Buckner's voice is amazing, it's pure poetry to me as are his words.

I had never seen him live until last night. He started off with his hair over his eyes, leaning into the microphone in another world. I wondered if he'd speak to the crowd. He did, he pushed his hair behind his ears, chatted a bit and sang 4am which was more heartbreaking live, if that's possible.

I hadn't realized he set Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology to music. My aunt gave me that book when I was a teenager saying it was a must read. Turns out he also likes Raymond Carver, one of my favorites.

Funny, this bit about a Damien Jurado record (another of my favorites) calls the songs "Raymond Carver-esque vignettes" and then likens Jurado to Gillian Welch, Richard Buckner and Lucinda Williams.

It's like when I was 14 and found out my favorite guy, Morrissey had a James Dean obsession just like me. Well kind of like that, only better.

Bloomsday

100 years ago today: June 16, 1904 was a very normal day in Dublin, Ireland for Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom.

I spent an entire semester in college reading and ripping apart (or trying to) Ulysses. I've held on to my Ulysses Annotated because I may want to dive into the book again and looking up the obscure references is fun. I enjoyed Joyce's stream-of-consciousness writing, but it took me a while to get into it. William Faulkner said it perfectly:
You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.

It would be fun to be in Dublin for part of ReJoyce Dublin. I'd like to see where Bloom had his glass of Burgundy and gorgonzola sandwich. When I was there in 1999, I didn't get the chance. Instead I'll spend some time looking at the Philadelphia Inquirer's 100 Years of Bloomsday.

Summer and Wireless

It's definitely summer now, look at that temperature. I was wearing a coat a few days ago.

Other signs that it's summer: the Red Sox are playing at Fenway (and winning!), the Scooper Bowl is at City Hall Plaza, Massachusetts Farmer's Markets have started up and so have the North End Feasts.

Thankfully, the humidity is only at 46%.

In completely unrelated news, Apple has announced AirPort Express which is exciting although since I opted for a non-Apple wireless router it cannot serve as a bridge for me. Of course I want one.

Not using wires is great. I just set up bluetooth with my iBook and Motorola v600 and can now take pictures with the phone and browse the folders wirelessly from the iBook. Excellent.

World War II

When I was in DC last month I was able to visit the new World War II Memorial. I found it pretty stunning. I made sure to get a picture of the Pennsylvania pillar so I could show my grandfather. He grew up in Pennsylvania and served in WWII in the Navy along with two of his brothers. I wish he could go to DC to see this, but he's not up to the trip and probably won't ever be.

He just recently gave me a box with pictures that included this cut out from the York, PA newspaper in 1941. The article below his picture said that he was learning a lot and "he recommends enlistment to his friends." That made me smile.

I'm glad this memorial was finished while there are still WWII vets to see it. Unfortunately many of them who are still alive are not well enough to travel. My grandfather is in an assisted living place right now and I know of at least one other WWII vet there with him.

My mother recently brought an American flag in for my grandfather and gave it to him while he sat in the living room with a lot of the other residents. They're all suffering from Alzheimers, but someone started singing the Marine Corps Hymn and everyone else in the room joined in. It was a surreal moment--all of these old men and women who otherwise seem out of it (to varying degrees) were singing in unison.

The man who had started singing had been a medic in the Marines. When the song was over, he let go of his walker, sat back down, leaned over to my grandfather and said, "we really kicked their butts, didn't we?"