Oh great ocean, oh great sea

I crossed the Pacific for the second time just five days ago, and still don't know if I've really had time to process the big adventure. However, time, tide, and basement shows wait for no man ... as the saying goes. I think I'd better get this done before the weekend.

On one of our last days in Auckland, Paul and I were discussing our answers to the question, "What was your favorite thing?" I protested that I hate questions like that, while Paul argued that even so, it's kind of a pussy move not to give some sort of answer. (Paraphrasing mine.) So, here's some sort of answer.

The beaches in Sydney, the cliff walk from Bondi to Bronte, and swimming in the Bronte rock pool. Looking up at the sky at the end of our walk back from a late dinner in Te Anau, actually exclaiming "Holy shit!" and stopping in my tracks because I couldn't believe how many stars I could see and how dazzling they were. We even tried to take pictures of them with our point and shoot digital cameras. We knew they wouldn't turn out, but we had to try. The beaches near Whitianga - Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. Realizing that when they say "hot water" they are not kidding. Belting out "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" at a Split Enz concert in their home country, along with an arena full of bouncing Kiwis. Giving a kangaroo a drink of water at a farm outside Melbourne, and seeing the penguins come in later on Phillip Island. Spending the night on a little boat with eight wonderful people on Doubtful Sound, which is numbingly gorgeous. That's true of Fiordland in general. Your jaw is on the ground for a few hours, and then it's as if you just can't process it anymore. (Actual quote from Paul a few hours into our cruise: "Ugh, all my pictures are just going to be waterfalls and rainbows.") Visiting One Tree Hill, about which I once wrote an English class essay.

I'm proud of many things about the trip, too. Proud that I survived a month of travel and even managed to duck the overweight baggage charges on domestic flights in NZ. Proud that we planned and booked this entire trip from the ground up back in January, and our choices were overwhelmingly good ones. Proud of driving the winding mountain roads between Auckland and Whitianga on my first day in New Zealand, most of the Southern Scenic Route and Milford Road later on, and actually passing other cars on the road by the drive to Queenstown. Proud that I bungy jumped with no hesitation whatsoever. (Interestingly, although it was a very cool experience, for some reason bungy is not one of the things that stands out most in my memories of the trip.)


Other things I learned in Australia and New Zealand:

• You never know who you'll bump into on the street or in an airport. Just one example: Paul and I attended a bone carving workshop in Christchurch with two other people. Nine days later I spotted them waiting at the gate at the Auckland Airport - we were on the same flight from Auckland to Los Angeles.
  
  
• Whitcoulls: they're everywhere!
  
  
• Not that Heidi didn't tip us off, but New Zealand dairy products are far superior to ours. And I live in Wisconsin.
  
  
• People in Southland pronounce the "i" in words like "fifty" or "bit" in a unique way. Fush and chups!
  
  
• I could have explored the lanes and alleys of Melbourne for at least another two weeks. Also, eaten at a different awesome-looking place at every meal for two weeks and still barely made it off my street.
  
  
• People in Australia and New Zealand are serious about their coffee, and they do it well. They made me into a coffee drinker for a month. I never drink coffee in the U.S., but I was averaging at least one flat white per day.
  
  
• Sheep are awesome. Galloping sheep are awesomer.
  
  
• Children and teens in Wellington are crazy for skateboarding.
  
  
• You can buy the Best of Split Enz CD at virtually any petrol station in NZ.
  
  
• If I could bring any bird back from extinction, it would totally be the giant moa.
  
  

My trip by the numbers:

Planes, beginning with my flight from O'Hare: 17
CDs I bought: 1
Books I bought: 5
Shirts I bought: 9
--For myself: 7
Promotional concert posters I nicked: 2
Kilograms my suitcase weighed at the end of the trip: 29
Times we heard a random Split Enz or Crowded House song in a store, restaurant, or on the radio: 7+
Pavlovas I ate in NZ: 2
Times Paul or I randomly said the word "peninsula" with a NZ/Sean Connery accent: 50+
Times since I got home that I've been walking along and veered to the left instead of the right when faced with oncoming traffic: 5+
Pictures I took (including duplicates and duds): 1739

And here is a sheep sticking out its tongue:

Tallies for 2007

And now for a tradition that is entering its second year. Here is the list of books I read in 2007, followed by some statistics:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists - various
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
For One More Day - Mitch Albom
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Cage of Stars - Jacquelyn Mitchard
Leaving Mother Lake - Yang Erche Namu & Christine Mathieu
Wisconsin 24/7 - Rick Smolan & David Elliot Cohen
Alternadad - Neal Pollack
Love is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
1001 Ideas for Color and Paint - Emma Callery
Historic Homes of America - Ernest Wood
Bill Bryson's African Diary - Bill Bryson
Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom - David Wilkes
On The Wealth of Nations - PJ O'Rourke
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood - Ann Brashares
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Not a Genuine Black Man - Brian Copeland
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
The Children in Room E4 - Susan Eaton
IV - Chuck Klosterman
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime - Miles Harvey
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The Body Artist - Don DeLillo
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
One Sunday Morning - Amy Ephron
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
The Cabin Faced West - Jean Fritz
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War - Tony Horwitz
Disney's Winnie the Pooh: A Celebration of the Silly Old Bear - Christopher Finch
Poster Child: A Memoir - Emily Rapp
Da Vinci's Kitchen: A Secret History of Italian Cuisine - Dave DeWitt
Gravity's Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond - David Darling
The Tiger in the Attic - Edith Milton
Becky's Christmas - Tasha Tudor
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
The Curse of Ravenscourt: a Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Shadows on Society Hill: an Addy Mystery - Evelyn Coleman
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation - David Kamp
Midnight in Lonesome Hollow: a Kit Mystery - Kathleen Ernst
Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story - Ann Kirschner
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Alison Hart
Jesus Land - Julia Scheeres
Away - Amy Bloom
Peril at King's Creek: a Felicity Mystery - Elizabeth McDavid Jones
Tests of Time - William H. Gass
Silent to the Bone - E.L. Konigsburg
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
The True and Amazing Adventures of the Hunt Sisters - Elisabeth Robinson
Songs Without Words - Ann Packer
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food - Judith Jones
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
A Little House Christmas Treasury - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
Snowbound with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
The Christmases We Used to Know - Reminisce Books
Betsy's Winterhouse - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and Billy - Carolyn Haywood
Back to School with Betsy - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Little Star - Carolyn Haywood
My Year of Meats - Ruth L. Ozeki
The 1927 Sears & Roebuck Catalog
The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery - Sarah Masters Buckey
Betsy and the Boys - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy and the Circus - Carolyn Haywood
Betsy's Busy Summer - Carolyn Haywood

Total books read: 77

Nonfiction books: 32 (42%)
Fiction books: 45 (58%)

By female authors: 47 (61%)
By male authors: 27 (35%)
By both: 3 (4%)

Marketed for children/teens: 26 (34%)

Read previously: 16 (21%)

You should definitely read:
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. It was a book that made me miss my days of studying literature in a classroom setting, because upon finishing I itched to go back and take notes on themes and motifs and things. I started out unsure of how the threads in the story would tie together, but ended up impressed by the way they did.

You also should definitely read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, but I figure I might have been the last person who hadn't already read it.

You absolutely should not read:
On the off chance you checked out my list of books and thought, "Hey, I should read some of those American Girls mysteries!" ... really, not so much. I mean, they're fine if you're nine years old. If you're not, I'd only recommend them if you need some palate-cleansing fluffy reading material featuring characters you first met when you were nine years old. And even then, the Carolyn Haywood books are a much better use of your time.

Overall, my 2007 reading stats are quite similar to those from 2006. I need to bust out with some crazy trends in 2008! Or, you know, just keep reading what I clearly enjoy reading.

Because I like lists and stats, here are some more for 2007.

Total concerts attended: 46, counting each day of multi-day events (like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass) separately

Seen the most often: Wilco, Andrew Bird, Jon Brion

Performers seen for the first time (headlining): 5 (Scott Amendola Band, Badly Drawn Boy, Joseph Arthur, Arcade Fire, Crowded House)

Performers seen for the first time (support or festival): 15+ (Carrie Rodriguez, Ferraby Lionheart, Jon Rauhouse, My Brightest Diamond, Low, Chris Mills, Blue Mountain, Liam Finn, Richard Swift, Art Brut, Dr. Dog, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Kim and Kelley Deal, and many more)

Performers for whom I am a repeat customer: at least 20 (it gets hard to count with festivals)


Foreign countries visited: 1 (Mexico)
Foreign countries visited for the first time: 1 (Mexico)

States visited (for work, fun, or both): 17 (Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Iowa, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nevada)

States visited for the first time: 4 (New Mexico, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont)


Homes purchased: 1

I expect to surpass at least two of those totals in 2008. Though probably not "homes purchased."

Books of '06

Happy new year! Here's that list I promised - every book I read in 2006, in order. Only books that I read all the way through were counted. Some number crunching follows:

Toothpaste for Dinner - Drew
Name All the Animals - Alison Smith
Mommy Knows Worst - James Lileks
Come Back to Afghanistan - Said Hyder Akbar
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Cell - Stephen King
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans - McSweeney's
All Souls - Michael Patrick MacDonald
Summer Sisters - Judy Blume
Wisconsin Capitol: Fascinating Facts - Diana Cook
Lost in Time - Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Nick of Time - Anne Lindbergh
Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place - E.L. Konigsburg
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
The Second Summer of the Pants - Ann Brashares
Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares
The Second Mrs. Gioconda - E.L. Konigsburg
A Child Called It - David Pelzer
Lost Boy - David Pelzer
Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov
We're All in This Together - Owen King
The Lake House - James Patterson
The Dante Club - Matthew Pearl
The Blood of Strangers - Frank Huyler
Somehow Form a Family - Tony Earley
Blue Highways - William Least Heat Moon
The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson
Anne of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
Anne of the Island - L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars - L.M. Montgomery
You Shall Know Our Velocity - Dave Eggers
Anne's House of Dreams - L.M. Montgomery
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
The Shining - Stephen King
Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell
I'm a Stranger Here Myself - Bill Bryson
Eye Contact - Cammie McGovern
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
Daniel Isn't Talking - Marti Leimbach
Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs
The Poe Shadow - Matthew Pearl
In A Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - Richard Matheson
Jane of Lantern Hill - L.M. Montgomery
Stone Field, True Arrow - Kyoko Mori
Two-Part Invention - Madeleine L'Engle
Emily of New Moon - L.M. Montgomery
Emily Climbs - L.M. Montgomery
Emily's Quest - L.M. Montgomery
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s - Wendy McClure
The Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The Nasty Bits - Anthony Bourdain
Burning Fence - Craig Lesley
The Summer We Got Saved - Pat Cunningham Devoto
Twins - Marcy Dermansky
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
A House Like a Lotus - Madeleine L'Engle
You & You & You - Per Nilsson
Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs - Various
Somebody's Daughter - Marie Myung-Ok Lee
The Language of Baklava - Diana Abu-Jaber
26a - Diana Evans
Samantha's Surprise - Maxine Rose Schur
Molly's Surprise - Valerie Tripp
The Best American Travel Writing 2004 - Various
Lisey's Story - Stephen King

Total books read: 71

Nonfiction books: 24 (34%)
Fiction books: 47 (66%)

By female authors: 35 (49%)
By male authors: 33 (46%)
By both: 3 (4%)

Marketed for children/teens: 21 (30%)

Read previously: 14 (20%)

You should definitely read: 26a by Diana Evans. I didn't not expect it to be good, but it took me completely by surprise. One of the best books I read in 2006, and one of the most unique.

You absolutely should not read: The Lake House by James Patterson. It was the first book I ever read by James Patterson, and based on this book, it will also be the last. I know he's a hugely popular writer, and I have no idea why. I'm not entirely convinced that he's not just a highly trained monkey.

Best Spam Names

Inspired by the McSweeney's humor collection (I think; I just know this isn't an original idea), here are the 10 best account names to send me spam at work, as culled by the spam filters:

• Lucifer Tuten
  
• Frang Dame
  
• Walker Crocker
  
• Peterkin Fore
  
• Dag Lyon
  
• Tutankhamon Suriel
  
• Lazarus Delaney
  
• Miss Bacon
  
• Santos Falcon
  
• Butts

Lists

I don't think I've made a good old fashioned list post in a long time. So, without further ado, here are some lists:

Mnemonics, Memory Devices, or Other School-Learned Phrases That Will Be in My Brain Forever:

• kingdom phylum class order family genus species
  
• y = mx + b
  
• first, outside, inside, last
  
• Mary's very eager mother just sat until night passed (Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto)
  
• Every good boy does fine (EGBDF)
  
• Roy G. Biv (red orange yellow green blue indigo violet)
  
• Gee, Scott has nice cuffed pants (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama)

Most Recent Stream-of-Consciousness Subjects I Looked Up on Wikipedia:

• diphtheria
  
• Laura Ingalls Wilder
  
• Thomas Pynchon
  
• Gravity's Rainbow
  
• Ten Commandments
  
• YHWH
  
• county seat
  
• Consenza
  
• Calabria
  
• urine
  
• Edmonton, Alberta
  
• white-collar
  
• The Magnificent Ambersons

Things My Nephew Wanted For His 10th Birthday Last Weekend:

• Spongebob Legos
  
• gold necklace
  
• purple satin Ninja mask

Name that tune

I have decided to be a follower and play the "name these songs that I generated by hitting shuffle on my iPod" game. As my own unique twist, I decided to forget about it first, and then a month or two later find the list I'd begun! Anyway, like many before me, I skipped any repeats from the same artist. And, um, instrumental tracks. Guess away! (Oh, and duh, but no Google cheating.) I'm thinking Gina will be quite successful...

1. "Just someone to hold, that's what you give me"
2. "Breathe, keep breathing, don't lose your nerve"
3. "It's a turf war on a global scale"
4. "She met my father at a fête in Aix-en-Provence"
5. "And it's not funny like on TV, and it's not smart like it is in books"
6. "The vanity formed by beauty lies, you know it's a crime"
7. "I'm still waiting for a sign that describes how it's all gonna end"
8. "Hey everybody, let's have some fun! You only live but once, and when you're dead you're done"
9. "And I, like a firework, explode"
10. "Cross yourself, by Jesus, now your head is all a blur"
11. "We've got shackles to keep the laws, made by men who bought and sold themselves"
12. "She pulls her hair back the same way I've seen you do"
13. "I gotta get mine in a big black truck, you can get yours in a '64"
14. "You can say the sun is shining if you really want to, I can see the moon and it seems so clear"
15. "I need twice as much space and half as many things"
16. "I'm the screen, the blinding light, I'm the screen, I work at night"
17. "Can't pay for rent again, these spiderwebs are my home now"
18. "Another lover's day, another cracked up night"
19. "Bring me a team of replacements just in case the place that I'm taking's my own"
20. "I hope you might come back, in your own time, left to your own devices"

My 10 favorite shows of 2005

It turns out I saw exactly forty shows in 2005. I apologize to the thirty that aren't included on this list ... well, I apologize to most of them.

Something funny happened when I looked back over an entire year of music-related memories. It turns out that some of the shows I thought were really awesome right after they happened just don’t stick out in my memory anymore. And some shows that I initially thought were simply “good,” I found myself coming back to and thinking “you know, that was actually pretty freaking sweet.” Of course, some shows I was exactly right about all along.

To cut off further ramblings, here’s my list:

1. 1/29/05 Jeff Tweedy, SnS Basement – This predated my blog, but hot damn. It wasn’t just the best show (weekend, actually) of 2005, it may have been the best one ever.
2. 6/29/05 Wilco, Albright-Knox Art Gallery – I think this was the best Wilco show I saw all year, and I saw a lot of Wilco shows. And the setting couldn’t be beat.
3. 10/20/05 Decemberists, Orpheum – A little sloppy, but as fun and unusual a show as you could hope for. How often does one get to take home a piece of smashed mandolin?
4. 10/26/05 Rhett Miller, High Noon Saloon – Rhett and Madison are an excellent combination.
5. 12/7/05 Jason Molina, Robbie Fulks; Second City – Laid-back, intimate, and super. Robbie covered “Dancing Queen” and “Billie Jean,” and he meant them.
6. 5/9/05 U2, United Center– It may not have done for me what it did four years ago, but a U2 show is still a pretty grand experience – especially from the front row of the “ellipse” in front of The Edge. (Pictures)
7. 5/7/05 Wilco, Vic – the show where everything went wrong onstage created some of my fondest concert memories of the year.
8. 5/23/05 Glenn Kotche, Pick-Staiger Auditorium – I know he was just the opener, but this was the first time I heard and saw up close a lot of Glenn’s upcoming material, and I loved it. I even put one of the songs on a mix CD for a friend’s birthday.
9. 1/19/05 Colin Meloy, Schuba's – the first time I’d seen Colin solo, at one of my favorite places. He was charming, and the songs were lovely.
10. 7/17/05 Wrens, Andrew Bird, Decemberists; Union Park – It was about 100 degrees outside, and dusty, and gross, but this was a really fun trio of performances from a super-appreciative bunch of musicians. (Pictures)

That’s it! I can’t do an honorable mention list, because it would be far too long.

New year's roundup

So far the weather for the opening days of 2006 has been brought to us by Sucky McBlowsalot. Spare me your lightning storms and giant puddles of ice water, Sucky. Actually, I anticipate the real fun beginning when the temperature actually remembers that it's supposed to be below freezing at this time of year, and all of this standing water becomes standing ice.

Today I got to thinking - all around the internet, people have been busy journaling and blogging their various year-end lists. I hadn't done any of that, and was feeling left out. So I figured that even though I'm a little late for 2005, I could still fill out one of the year-end memes going around. I'd just need to modify it slightly. Come, let's take a look back at the first 2 days of 2006:

1. What did you do in the first two days of 2006 that you'd never done before?
I made an origami penguin this morning.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions?
I don't normally make resolutions, but this year I was given two by a website recommended by Heidi. They were to teach my dog to fly, and to download twice as much music as I did last year. I haven't made any progress on either resolution.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What foreign countries did you visit?
None.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the first two days of 2006?
I spent a full day of work in the office for the first time since December 12th.

7. What was your biggest failure?
Forgetting to buy new soap for the bathroom.

8. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I have illness remnants.

9. What was the best thing you bought?
2 tacos, for lunch today.

10. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Phil. He took all the advice I gave him this morning during our meeting, and is testing some stuff so I don't have to.

11. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Sucky McBlowsalot.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Today's lunch.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The new UI for orders.

14. What song(s) will always remind you of the first 2 days of 2006?
"Use It" - New Pornographers

15. Compared to this time two days ago, are you:
A. happier or sadder? Happier
B. thinner or fatter? No difference
C. richer or poorer? Richer - I just got a bonus

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Watching old Cosby reruns last night.

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Editing this project at work.

18. Did you fall in love in the first two days of 2006?
No.

19. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time two days ago?
No.

20. What was the best book you read?
I read the Onion...

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That through no fault of my own, one of my 2-year-old nephews is obsessively in love with "Heavy Metal Drummer".

22. What did you want and get?
My damn bonus.

23. What one thing would have made your first 2 days of 2006 immeasurably more satisfying?
Sunshine.

24. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in the first 2 days of 2006?
Water-resistant shoes.

25. What political issue(s) stirred you the most?
The firing of Mike Sherman?

26. Tell us a valuable life lesson, or lessons, that you learned in the first two days of 2006:
Even in winter, even if it's raining, sometimes it's nice to have the windows open a little bit to let in a breeze. Just don't open them too widely or you might get some electrical cords wet. And your desk, too.

27. Quote a song lyric that sums up the first 2 days of 2006:
"Electrical storm / Electrical storm" - U2, Electrical Storm

Fifteen songs

Today's post was inspired by Dana, whose journal I read all the time and link from this site even though I don't know her and have never even commented on her journal. (Not our cat. Different Dana.) Mmmm ... stalkeriffic! Anyway, her latest entry has inspired me to put my iTunes on shuffle, list the first songs that come up, and comment on them. This could be embarrassing for many reasons ... A) some are bound to be bad songs that I like anyway, B) if too many songs by one artist pop up you all are going to think I'm weirdly obssessive (come on, stop laughing, there's a chance you didn't think that already), and C) since I have so many songs on there, I can almost guarantee at least one will come up that I don't really know, even though I may have pretended I knew it at some point. But I'll be honest, damn it! Here we go:

1. The Sun in California - The Autumn Defense: Ahh. The sun-dappled harmonies of John Stirratt and Pat Sansone. It's a little bit 1970's folky, but in a good way. I put it on the two-disc "California" mix I made when Gina and I were there in August. (Because it mentions California, see! In the TITLE even!)

2. Blue Eyes - Uncle Tupelo: Hmmmm. Not incredibly familiar with this song. It's a cover, and it's live, and it's sung by Jay Farrar ... oh, ha, never mind, I do know this song. I remember the line about "a pretty girl to love me, with the same last name as mine". First of all it's awkward grammatically, and secondly, I assume it's referring to a wife, but it amuses me that it could also suggest, like, a sister or a cousin. A pleasant little number, anyway.

3. Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding: Love it. Although the tide/seagull sound effects make me giggle if I'm not in the right mood. Or even if I am. This was yet another song on the "California" mix.

4. Way Down Yonder in New Orleans - Harry Connick Jr.: Aww. An old favorite. Though it's not really Harry Connick Jr. I mean, it is - he plays the piano parts - but this was recorded when he was eleven years old. He was brought in to play with a whole group of (adult) New Orleans musicians, and the album was released under an entirely different name. It was only rereleased as a Harry Connick Jr. album (Eleven) after he became famous and everyone figured out there was more money to be made. Man, in my first year of high school, I loved Harry Connick Jr. And I'm unashamed! He's a good guy.

5. bonus 3 - Birddog: I've only heard this album a couple of times, but I always intend to listen more because I really like it. (Which is why it's on the iPod.) This is the third untitled track at the end of the album, and it seems to be another take of the song "Rattlesnakes." Edith Frost sings backup on the official version, but not this one. Unless she's whispering from ten feet off mic.

6. 13 - Glenn Kotche: Appropriate enough following Birddog. This one's from Next, and I can't say it's something I listen to a lot - but I find the whole concept of the album interesting. Coincidental rhythm - I think I remember Glenn talking about trying to divorce his limbs from one another for these tracks and seeing what came of it all. It's all percussion, but not in any traditional structure. I think one of the reasons I like it is because it sounds like someone rifling through a bunch of these abstract metal windchimes my Grandpa used to make, and maybe dropping some of them. It reminds me of springtime when I was a kid (which is when the windchimes would go back up at our house). No kidding. I never even realized that before, but it makes me nostalgic.

7. Rock & Roll Queen - Mott the Hoople: I have a two-disc Mott retrospective, which was purchased back when I was trying to fill in some of the gaps in my musical background ... I bought some T. Rex around the same time, and Sex Pistols. Sadly, the experiment didn't really work. There are some songs from each band that I really like, and from this particular Mott the Hoople retrospective, there are a handful of tracks I really got into. But somehow, though I can see why these albums and artists are well-loved and highly regarded, there's always been a barrier between most of that music and me. It's an "I wasn't there for this" kind of barrier, but I don't really mean that temporally. It's just not tied to anything special in my life. There's no connection between myself and this song that makes it live for me. Not even the memory of it coming on during a car trip when I was five or something.

8. Anything But Down - Sheryl Crow: This is from an OnXRT live compilation that I've barely listened to at all. I didn't think I knew the song at first, but the chorus is familiar. This is quite a reworking - it's acoustic, slower, and mostly solo, though it sounds like there's some vocal backup. I also like this a heck of a lot more than I like the original version.

9. The Engine Driver - The Decemberists: Swooooooooon. This is probably my favorite song on Picaresque - this and "On the Bus Mall", which comes after it. It's so simple, but so pretty. It's one of those songs whose lyrics are just abstract enough for me to project my own ideas and images onto them. It's sung wonderfully. And, as someone who does a lot of writing myself, the chorus just slays me. Simple and eloquent.

10. Do Miss America - Ryan Adams: It's not my favorite song on Rock n Roll, but I definitely do not hate that album and every song on it, which seems to be a popular position. In fact, I'm in the mood to listen to Rock n Roll a lot more than I'm in the mood to listen to Cold Roses. (Interestingly, between the start of this blurb and now, I stopped and went out for lunch. At Qdoba, "Burning Photographs" was playing. Coincidence? Or something more?)

11. I'm Not Bitter - The Minus 5: This song always reminds me of the Minus 5 show at the Abbey Pub in 2003. No mystery as to why, I suppose. It also reminds me of Jane. Interestingly, this song was recorded on September 11, 2001.

12. Rise - Doves: So, do I know this song? Heh. Oh, no, wait Uyen made a Doves mix that I downloaded and then never got a chance to listen to all the way through. This is one of the songs from that. I'm liking it. The music (not the vocal stylings) reminds me a bit of U2's b-side "Holy Joe". Specifically the percussion.

13. Farmer John - Neil Young: This was another portion of my mostly ill-fated "fill in the blanks" musical mission. I actually do love a decent smattering of Neil Young songs, without even trying to "educate myself" about them, but this isn't really one of them. To be completely fair, I have barely listened to Ragged Glory.

14. A Millenium Fever Ballad - Scarnella: I'm fond of this song, though again, not incredibly familiar with it. It has an interesting air about it. The guitar work makes me think of Elizabethan England. And I don't think it's just because I still have jousters on the brain.

15. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Beatles: Hee hee. Gina and I just heard on the radio this driving back from Grantham to Baltimore in the wee hours on Sunday morning. Would you like to place a wager on whether or not we loudly sang along? Including the goofy sound effects?

I'm going to cut this off at 15, because it's getting rather unwieldy. But that was kind of fun. At the very least, it made me stop and actually listen to songs I might otherwise skip on random. If anyone else has thoughts (conflicting, concurring, adoring, threatening) on any of these songs, I'd like to hear them.