kathyp

Um...a little heavy on the AOR, eh?

I got...drumroll...eight. Eight. I rock.

03.03.2007 Springfield MO Randy Bacon Gallery

I've never heard of the Randy Bacon Gallery, but it's not like I'm in Springfield, um, ever.

I didn't see the StL date when I first read that list. Nevermind.

This isn't really a now watching, but Hollywood video insists that I did not return this DVD last month when it was due, so they think I am now, still, watching:

Z Channel. I heard about this some time ago, and finally got around the renting it. It's about a proto-cable channel in California. I also recently saw Th Devil and Daniel Johnston (which is still on cable-on-demand, I think). Great documentary. Sad the way people have the potential to exploit him. (He suffers from a severe form of bi-polar disorder, which in certain circles grants him extra "hipster" points.)

She's much prettier than that picture, though.

i couldn't even fill in a top 10 for 2006. there wasn't much good released this year. i ended up with a top 4.

I had a top three. For me, at least, it's not that good music isn't being released anymore, I just really can't afford to buy cds unless I buy them used. (Which puts me roughly three years behind everyone else. I have a kick-ass top 50 from 2003. )

I did a book list for 2006 (libraries are free and awesome).

I can't post a photo directly from Flickr, but here's a shot of last month's ice storm. Surprisingly, we didn't get hit too badly this week. Just a lot of rain.

Right now I'm watching the continuing coverage of the "Missouri Miracle."

Diet Vault, which I'm not seeing in stores much lately. Really, my only requirement for a soft drink (I know it's touted as an "energy" drink, but it's soda): no calories and lots of caffeine.

I so want to read this. Have you read Bird By Bird? It was required reading for a writing workshop I took years ago.

I'm determined to re-start and actually finish this book this year. One of my brothers gave it to me about 5-6 years ago and I've started it at least 4-5 times but I lose steam with it after about 50-75 pages.

 

Everybody, and I mean everybody, I know who's read this book has great things to say about it.

 

I've enjoyed the first 50-75 pages even though it's a bit of a struggle to grasp what's happening in the tale. The book gets much better as it goes on, I've been told.

 

The book is enormous, physically. It has to weigh 5-7 lbs. and is actually hard to hold when reading in bed. It's very long, too, and has fairly small print in the edition I possess. I will no longer allow these issues to stop me from finishing this supposed great piece of literature.

So, this is the year I start and complete David Foster Wallace's:

 

I got about 40 pages into Infinite Jest a couple years ago. Never attempted it again. I love David Foster Wallace, but I prefer his short stories to...that tome. Oblivion was great; funny. People talk about his, at times, well, most of the time, turgid prose, but he's really, really funny in small doses.

My dad: cell phone + toilet = disaster

Okay, Everyman was put on the back-burner for a while, but I did finish Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape, his memoir about his marriage to his first wife who died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. If you came of age in the eighties or nineties, there's a lot to like about this. Also, I'm half through with Mary Pipher's new one, Writing to Save the World, which is okay, but I still think that just because someone puts pen to paper, that doesn't automatically grant him the right to call himself a writer. And I read a bit of Freakonomics, but usually I hate these kinds of books. They always leave me feeling as though, according to my upbringing, I should be a welfare mother by now.

None right now. I let all my subscriptions run out, as I've moved twice in the past five years. Regularly, or semi-regularly I read:

Harp

Paste

Uncut

Mojo (sometimes)

Bitch

Bust

Magnet (but not so much anymore)

Wow, I'm a clich

1. Man in Need - Shoot Out the Lights - Richard Thompson

2. Lay it Down Clown - Tim - Replacements

3. Hoodoo Voodoo - Mermaid Ave. - Billy Bragg & Wilco

4. The India Song (?) - No.1 Record/Radio City - Big Star

5. Quicksliver Dreams of Maria - S/T - Townes Van Zandt

6. Lonely - Closing Time - Tom Waits

7. Call That Gone - Stereo - Paul Westerberg

8. Love Shack - Poor Little Critter... - Knitters

9. Love Hurts - GP/Grievous Angel - Gram PArsons

10. Space Monkey - Easter - Patti Smith

less than usual names from our family:

Bertha

Grover

Culver

Kenneth

Ethel

Hazel

Muriel

Earl

Loretta

Lillian

Charles

Barbara

Isabel

Ellen

 

sister and i had regular names: katherine elizabeth (middle name after paternal grandmother) and jennifer elise (middle name after maternal great-grandmother). In a class of 20 (small grammar school) we had three Jennifers. When i got to HS there were 4 until graduation. in our social circle there are at least 6 Jennifers in the immediate area but thankfully none of them are naming their kids regular names--we currently have Archer (Ari), Ronen, Max, Maya, Orrin, Malcolm, Jessica and AnneMarie Margeret.

I think we may be related. In my family I have (or had, as many of them are dead):

Ethel (pronounced with a long "E") May

Buelah

Mabel

John Jefferson (called Jeff)

Neoma (not Naomi)

the afformentioned Jett Orrin and Donnie (Uncle Bob and Aunt Don)

Mack (on a girl. Short for Maxine)

Etta

Dolores (my mom)

Fay (or Faye, as she spelled it)

Ruby

I just got Philip Roth's new one, Everyman. Haven't started it yet. Fact is, Roth is one of those writers I feel I am "supposed to" read more than I really "want to" read.

This is the name of our second son, now 4.

 

And why was your great-uncle's cool name reduced to Bob? Not that there's anything wrong with Bob, mind you.

I guess he thought Jett was too weird. (He was married to a woman named Don if that helps.)

My dad told me if I were born a boy my name would have been Dominic Dante.

I had a great-uncle with a fabulous name: Jett Orrin. We called him Bob, for some reason.

Basil, I like Asa, too. And Asher. I went to school with a kid named Asher, and I always thought it'd be a great name for my first son.

I had to re-register today. I initially signed up around Christmas, and haven't logged in for about a week, and today when I did, I didn't exist. What happened?