DIARY
– My computer is too damn slow…
– YESTERDAY – Work was uneventful, but I was very relieved to finish my current project. I’ve been tracking down public-domain images from Library of Congress and other sources for science entries, but we could only use images we were 100% sure were PD, which is a lot harder than you might think. For 900 entries I probably only got some forty or fifty images. The project before had been uploading tax forms… now I’m back on earth science, linking articles on the Oceans, and I expect it will take me the next two to three weeks to finish that.
After work I set out on my annual music binge, although it wasn’t so much of a binge this year as a trip. Still, I feel this is mitigated by the quality of my acquirings and my persistance and invention. Yes, I’m bragging. First, I stopped at 192 books on Tenth Avenue to look for some things I’ll need for class, but no luck there. I headed back to Sixth, where the sidewalks were packed and snow was melting and running through the trash, between the trash bags, and into the sewer. When I got to the Village, I found the address of Disk-Go-Round on 4th Street, but it had been converted into a laundromat. I crossed over to Cornelius Street and easily found Underworld Music in a space about the size of my bedroom. It had ambience but a shitty selection, and when I finally found a Jimi Hendrix CD I wanted, the guy told me that while they accepted credit card, they didn’t accept it for purchases under twenty dollars. That was that. I didn’t have cash, and I wasn’t about to buy another twelve dollars of music I didn’t want just so I could buy it there. (Note – This is something about some small businesses that truly perplexes me… if you’re turning away potential repeat customers over something as trivial as a credit card fee, you’re in trouble already. This place had just shot there one stake with me). Walking further down Sixth and switching the Bleeker, I found another used CD store, Village Music World, where I did actually buy The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced, which is one of those album I figure everyone ought to own. Plus the place was playing Silverfuck by the Pumpkins, so I figured I owed them some business. I hit a fourth used music store down by Washington Square Park. Again, came up empty. I threw my hands in the air (figuratively) and walked up to the Virgin Records at Union Square where, of course, I found everything else I was looking for. Which wasn’t, incidentally, so obscure. My final take was:
James Brown, Live at the Apollo
Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced
Orbital, The Brown Album
Orbital, The Green Album
Sly and the Family Stone, Greatest Hits
Now it was time for class.
A quick side note about two offensive things I saw yesterday.
1. A campus comedy group was performing in the 11th Street Cafe as I passed through to check my email. They were doing a bit with two boys wearing sloppy towels on their heads as turbans, talking in sloppy middle-eastern voices, trilling like crazy and talking abou blowing things up.
2. A girl in the second row had the most ridiculous laugh I’ve ever heard by leaps-and-bounds. She was CRAZY. It sounded halfway between an all out scream and a noisy orgasm. I kept expecting her to convulse and die.
That we should have been so lucky…
At class we discussed Pale Fire which I want to go into later. I feel like I have to put more teeth in the emulation exercises than I have been, though I think I managed to do so this week.
I went home, spent some time with Jessica, who’d had a kind of lousy day, and put together my reading for tonight.
Oh yeah. I’m reading tonight. At the 11th Street Cafe. Wish me luck.
– WEATHER – It’s different everywhere right now, especially east of the Mississippi. The Midwest is being pelted with a mixture of and rain, while it’s mild and sunny out East.
– FEBRUARY – Is Children’s Dental Health month.
LINK OF THE WEEK
CoolOpticalIllusions.com.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
What’s your favorite television show (ever)?
END OF POST.