The Day the Music Died

A week ago a hard drive died, and my music collection was gone with the wind. Tunes, music videos, and much more are now locked forever on the magnetic platters inside that Western Digital drive. That’s one advantage CDs have. Your CD collection doesn’t disappear like dust in the wind if your CD player dies.

I’ve always been less a fan of particular artists and more a fan of music that I like, regardless of who records it, and I like a lot of different kinds of music. From Pachelbel’s Canon In D, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, through Shakira’s jazzy Obtener un Sí and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, to guitarists like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Joe Satriani, to … well, what’s the point? It’s all dust in the wind now.

I had many oldies that were classics: The Eagles (so many great songs like New Kid In Town and my favorite Peaceful Easy Feeling – and I was actually driving through Winslow, Arizona, the first time I heard Take It Easy playing on the radio in my van), America (so many hits, like A Horse With No Name, Sister Golden Hair, Ventura Highway – and I’ve driven Ventura Highway between Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles), 10000 Maniacs (but Mary Ramsey only), Cracker (The Good Life), Fatboy Slim (Praise You), Ronstadt (too many great songs to list), Sia (Breathe Me), and hundreds more.

In a way, it reminds me of the time my garage was burglarized. I had so much stuff in my garage that it was impossible to figure out everything that was stolen. But sometimes I would go to the garage to get something, and it wouldn’t be there. Then I’d know. This thing was stolen. I don’t have it anymore. Likewise with my music. I don’t know all the songs and videos I don’t have anymore, but I know that now and then I’ll want to listen to a song or watch a video, and that’s when I’ll become aware that I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone with the wind.

Sigh.

Home Depot

I had lunch at the Bee today. It was crowded, noisy, and I was in a blah mood. I ordered the usually good house salad, but today the bacon bits were so overcooked they were like little pieces of tooth-breaking gravel. Stephanie asked if I was doing anything this weekend, but she knew the answer before she asked. After a while I left and went to Home Depot. I needed a T8 Torx screwdriver.

Home Depot is a rich source of blog material. Entering the store, I was immediately accosted by employees attempting to assist me. There were a couple of older gentlemen at the tool aisle. They looked like typical tool guys, with their orange Home Depot aprons. They asked me what I needed and I told them “a Torx driver.” Bad move, as I was already over their heads.

“You want a what?”  Both men stared at me like I was a two-headed Martian who had just beamed into their store.

“A Torx driver. T-o-r-x,” I spelled it out.

“A what? A torque? You want a torque wrench?”

“No. Torx.  T-O-R-X.  A Torx driver.” They looked at each other and shrugged, completely mystified.

“It’s a screwdriver,” I explained, “and the driver end looks like a star. “It has six points. Like a six-pointed star. It’s called Torx. T-O-R-X. I need a T8 size.”

“I don’t think we have anything like that,” one of them said.

“Well, it’s on your website,” I said a little too loudly as I started walking down the tool aisle. I’d find the dang thing myself.

Just then a young fellow showed up and offered to help. He knew what a Torx driver was, and after a little while he located the exact tool I was looking for: a little screwdriver handle with 4 double-ended driver inserts for a total of 8 sizes. Made by Husky. Six bucks.

I showed it to one of the older tool guys and pointed to the word “Torx” on the package. I told him, “Next time somebody asks, you’ll know what they’re talking about.”

“Oh, that’s what it is,” he said. “I have some of those in my toolbox. I call ‘em star drivers.” The other tool guy agreed. Star driver.

Okay, call it a star driver. The screw head does look like a six-pointed star. But so does a Bristol screw head. So does a polydrive screw head. They all look like six-pointed stars but that doesn’t mean they are interchangeable; they’re not. Which is why you should try to use the correct name. Or at least know it.

By the way, I just checked the temperature on this second day of Fall in central Virginia. At 3:30 PM, it’s 100°; the heat index is 107°. I don’t know if the leaves will turn colors this year or if they’ll just ignite and go “poof” right off the tree. I’ll let you know.

First Day of Fall

It is the first day of Fall in central Virginia.

National Weather Service:

Weather Underground:

They don’t agree on the temperature. But they do agree, it’s flippin’ hot!

Autumnal Equinox

The autumnal equinox arrives at 11:09 PM ET tonight. An equinox happens twice a year when the sun crosses the plane of the equator. On that day, night and day have equal length. The beginning of spring is marked by the vernal equinox. Now, the sun is headed south for the winter. In the springtime, at the vernal equinox, the sun is headed north for the summer. It appears that our sun is a snowbird.

Also tonight, there is a full moon. It’s called a Harvest Moon. If your sky is clear, you might see what looks like a bright star near the Moon. It’s not a star, it’s the planet Jupiter. Jupiter is in opposition, meaning it is exactly opposite the sun as seen from Earth. Jupiter is closer to Earth now than it has been since 1963.

Tomorrow is the first full day of fall. But tomorrow’s temperature will be in the mid-90s. I took a walk through the neighborhood this evening. According to the NWS, it was 89° then and the heat index was 93°. And it felt like it.

In the hot evening, many residents were sitting on front porches or walking along the avenues. My memories of Fall, formed in high school days, was of football and cold evenings. And cigarettes. I was a regular smoker at 17. For years and years, lighting up a cigarette on a cold autumn night was a memory trigger that would take me back to high school Friday night football games – and from my house I could hear the high school football crowd cheering.

When I was a high school senior, I had the job of yearbook photographer, which got me into all the games, home and away, for free. It got me onto the sidelines where picture-taking was better. You could see me running along the sidelines during the game with a 4” x 5” Graphlex camera. Sometimes I used my 35 mm camera, but I preferred the Graphlex because it looked serious. It was the press camera of World War 2 and it looked like a press camera should look.   And its powerful flash would reach much farther onto the field than the electronic flash of the 35mm. Its flash attachment held 4 or 5 D-cells to power the flashbulb. It used a film negative as big as the average snapshot of the day. Its film carrier contained two negatives. To shoot a picture I inserted the film carrier into the back of the camera and pulled the light shield out of the film carrier so the negative could be exposed. After taking a picture, I inserted the light shield into the film carrier, pulled the film carrier out of the camera and flipped it over, inserted the film carrier back into the camera, then pulled the light shield out of the film carrier to expose the new negative. Then, I was ready to shoot a picture. Complicated and time-consuming. I loved it! And one more thing: nothing on the camera was automatic. I set the shutter speed, I set the exposure time. It didn’t even have a light meter. A good photographer was just supposed to know how to set those things.

I had a darkroom in my cellar where I often developed and printed pictures. The school didn’t like me using the Graphlex due to the cost of loading the negative carriers, so I bought 4” x 5” film and took the negative carriers to my cellar and loaded the film there. It had to be done in total darkness – no safelight for this film. To this day I remember standing in utter darkness, feeling along the edge of the negative for the little cutout that would tell me the film orientation – which side had the emulsion.

My best friend, Doug, was also a yearbook photographer. Doug and I usually showed up at events together. I would try to have the Graphlex and he would have a 35 mm. I recall one amazing shot – or perhaps I should say, two amazing shots. We were at a basketball game. We were on opposite sides of the court, kneeling along the sidelines to capture a picture of a player making a layup. By happenstance, our cameras were aimed toward each other. As the player went up for the layout, we each snapped our shot. When I printed my picture I was astounded to see Doug’s flash going off in my photo. His flash was electronic; it had a duration of about one millisecond –a thousandth of a second. I couldn’t tell you now what shutter speed I used on the Graphlex, but certainly it was a tiny fraction of a second. And of course, Doug’s photo showed my flash going off. We had snapped our photos at virtually the same instant.

Lots of memories and lots of nostalgic feelings were evoked on those cold, autumn football evenings when I lit up a smoke. But those nostalgic feelings may not be coming back to me any longer. The world has changed, and I’ve changed. I no longer smoke. And the cold autumn evenings – they’ve become too hot to enjoy even a short walk around the ‘hood.

Thievery Corporation

I’m listening to Thievery Corporation. Wikipedia calls their music a mix of “dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern, and Brazilian (such as bossa nova) with a lounge aesthetic.” First I listened to Lebanese Blonde. The band performed that song on Austin City Limits. (I tivo’ed the show.) Then, Holographic Universe. And now, Shadows of Ourselves (also performed on Austin City Limits).

Rob Garza and Eric Hilton are Thievery Corporation, but they often perform and record with other artists. For their Austin City Limits performance, they had a horn section, guitar and bass, singers, even a sitar. Their music is varied but has a recognizable sound.

Here is a video clip of a live performance; watch Sound the Alarm.  This is electronic music. This is club music. This is 1:30 AM having-fun music.

Below, listen to Shadows of Ourselves.

The vocalist on Shadows of Ourselves is LouLou Ghelichkhani, a multi-lingual Persian singer. LouLou grew up in Paris, France, so she can sing in French, and does.

  

Loulou, 21 Apr 2004

And speaking of Austin City Limits, will they ever air another repeat of Leonard Cohen’s performance? I’m referring to his performance with Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla. I’d like to see that show again.

Spray-on Clothing?

Are you kidding me?

I think we all know this is a ploy by geeks to get hot female models to pose topless in their lab. I’m just mad they thought of it first.

“Stand here, sweetie. That’s perfect. Hey, Leonard, where did we put the Krylon, er, I mean, the spray-on shirt?”

Video

Whither the weather?

Got up at 7. It’s cool outside. The National Weather Service says it’s 52° F and overcast (but we have bright sunshine). The NWS has been screwed up for months. During the sweltering summer they would sometimes report the temperature as being 28°, for example. And today, with nary a cloud forecast all week, they’re … well, see for yourself:

Notice anything strange? The radar shows precip but the satellite shows no cloud cover over Virginia.

Weather radar for my part of Virginia:

Satellite photo below. See any clouds over Virginia?

Say … don’t these NWS guys also report weather conditions to airline pilots?

Walmart

The local Walmart is becoming more and more worthless. It seems every time I go there, they’ve quit stocking some item I’ve bought there for years, while stocking more and more of stuff I’ll never buy. For example (glad you asked):

I make pitchers of iced tea and lemonade. I use a certain artificial sweetener that I buy in a bulk package and it comes with a little pink measuring spoon. I keep the sweetener in a sugar bowl. It’s more convenient to spoon a half-dozen tiny spoonfuls into a pitcher than to rip open 10 or more little pink envelopes and shake out their contents. Walmart sells the bulk package and they sell boxes of pink envelopes, too. 

 

	<< Bulk package
Box of tiny pink envelopes >>
Now, let’s go shopping!	<< Walmart shelf
Wait – what’s that lone box on the left? Is it … is it … Yes! That solitary package at the left end of the shelf is the bulk sweetener. Obviously, they don’t expect to sell a lot of it, but they’ve arranged it so they can’t. (Last trip it was their pitcher-size decaf teabags they didn’t have.)

That’s my gripe du jour; a poke-in-the-eye for you, Walmart. Take that, multinational giant!

Midnight

Saturday night/Sunday morning

Midnight. It’s cool that I can put the stuff I write on the Internet for, theoretically, the whole world to see. Although who, really, reads this stuff?  Just me.

It’s late Saturday night, early Sunday morning. Listening to Mark Knopfler (Local Hero/Wild Theme).

Listening to music at midnight and having a brandy or three. When I drink brandy, I always track how much I drink. (I have a do-not-exceed limit.) But I don’t count drinks, ‘cuz I might pour a shot one time and a plus-up next time. So mentally I track calories. Seems strange, I know. But that’s what I do.

Now playing: Full of Grace (Surfacing/Sarah McLachlan): if you were a BtVS fan, that brings back feelings.

Now it’s after midnight and I’m going to wind down with Norah Jones/Come Away With Me.

I’ve hit my brandy limit. I can’t have another.

Playing: Norah Jones/Lonestar …

I should go.

Saturday Later

In my last post (Saturday) I said I’d post more later.

And now, it is later. As I type this, it is 9:37PM. At 7 I checked my messages and found a voicemail from Kim, one of my neighbors, and she told me Walmart had mums on sale for $4.55 and if I bought some she would plant them for me. That was a nice offer. Not sure what her angle is. Does she think my house needs spiffing up? Is she trying to increase property values? Then Sally (another neighbor) came over to join the chat. When Kim left to chase after two of her cats that had crossed the street and were fighting behind my boxwoods, I told Sally that Kim thought my house needed mums planted between the boxwoods. I asked her, “What do you think? Sounds like a lot of work to me.” And Sally said, “Um … (long pause) … yeah!” And laughed. The night air was really very pleasant, a lot of people were out walking through the neighborhood, kids riding bicycles, seniors walking their dogs, and I talked with Kim and Sally until 9:30 and my feet were hurting (sandals are not very comfortable for standing for hours) so finally I gave up and came inside … I left the gals still talking … now I’m blogging and listening to music.

I’m listening to Agnes Obel.
I’m listening to Martina Topley Bird.
And Sia. And Shakira. And Kylie Minogue.

A few days ago, a hard drive failed without warning. It just suddenly decided it was dead. I had a lot of music on that drive. I had other stuff, too: videos, images, documents, all kinds of stuff. But it’s the music that I miss.