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November 26, 2006

Stuffing

I'm in DC at Michael's boyhood home, doing Thanksgiving with his family (and also attending his high-school reunion)... more news and photos in a few days. Unfortunately I'm also enmeshed in a huge freelance proofreading job, a huge freelance textbook-writing gig, and of course the final revisions on We Disappear, so this "holiday" doesn't wholly seem like one.

Pictured above: a highlight of the reunion, when Michael had to rescue some kid's airplane from a tree.

Five songs my iPod just played:

(1) Catherine Wheel, "Salt"
(2) Gregor Samsa, "These Points Balance"
(3) Human League, "Seconds"
(4) Neu!, "Isi"
(5) Lansing-Dreiden, "Our Hour"
...and take a look at this great YouTube clip of my favorite Mogwai song, which gives my eardrums a blister every time I listen.

Posted by scottheim at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2006

Ten Recommendations

Five new(ish) CDs:
Trentemøller, The Last Resort; Grizzly Bear, Yellow House; Mahogany, Connectivity!; 120 Days, 120 Days; Hammock, Raising Your Voice... Trying to Stop an Echo.

Four new (and very different) novels (okay, I've only read two of them, but I know I'm going to love the others):
Cormac McCarthy, The Road; Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone; Daniel Cox, Tattoo This Madness In; and Carolyn Turgeon, Rain Village.

And one movie, which made me laugh harder than any movie, ever:
BORAT.

Posted by scottheim at 01:12 AM | Comments (4)

November 15, 2006

New Toy

I can't believe I didn't buy one of these sooner: an Ion LP-to-MP3 turntable converter. My friend Jeff Rutherford told me about this thing, and I booked it over to Circuit City the next morning and bought one. Turning LP tracks into mp3s takes a while, but it's fun, and ultimately you can do interesting effects and edits with songs, etc etc. There's so much terrific music from the 80s that has never made it to CD, so that's where I've been starting. (Ie, one of the first things I converted, pictured below left: BEEHEAD, a terrific Sweatbox Records ep from 1987 by the phenomenal Perennial Divide. The photo on the right is the machine... worth every one of those 14,000 pennies I spent on it.)

Posted by scottheim at 05:08 PM | Comments (1)

November 10, 2006

Happy Birthday, Anne Sexton

November 9th is the birthday of my all-time favorite poet, ANNE SEXTON (1928-1974).

Sexton's Complete Poems is very likely the book of poetry I've read and re-read the most. When I was an undergrad in Kansas, I was in an extracurricular writing group with folks like Kellie Wells, Lisa Cosmillo, Wes Smith, and Gregg Morgan, and we all worshiped Sexton and gave readings of her work. I used to listen to the old Caedmon Records vinyl LP of Sexton reading her poems--she had this bourbony, nicotiney, seen-it-all voice, so strange and wise and lovely and awe-inspiring. I know I would have loved her if I'd known her personally. I've always imagined--from her voice, her poetry, and the stories in her biographies--that she was a lot like the two women in my life who shaped me the most as a person--one, my mother, and two, my late friend and writing teacher, Carolyn Doty.

Since moving to the new house this past June, I now have the honor of living about a mile away from gorgeous Forest Hills Cemetery, where Sexton is buried. I went there today to celebrate (see photos, above). The afternoon was unseasonably warm for November, with a little breeze blowing, and maroon and gold leaves scattering everywhere. I was utterly alone in this hushed, gigantic place. I was kind of hoping there would be flowers on her grave, thinking perhaps some other Sexton junkie would remember and show up, but no--for about fifteen minutes, under the sun sparkling through the leaves, it was just me and Anne beneath my feet. (e.e. cummings, by the way, is buried not far away in the same cemetery, but today I only had time to visit Anne.)

Besides the link already given above, there are other good informational sites (sometimes including poems) here; here; and here. Below: an Anne Sexton poem--not one of her most explosive or anthologized, but one of my personal favorites, and certainly one that seemed to fit today's mood in the cemetery.

THE SUN
(from Live or Die)

I have heard of fish
coming up for the sun
who stayed forever,
shoulder to shoulder,
avenues of fish that never got back,
all their proud spots and solitudes
sucked out of them.

I think of flies
who come from their foul caves
out into the arena.
They are transparent at first.
Then they are blue with copper wings.
Neither bird nor acrobat
they will dry out like small black shoes.

I am an identical being.
Diseased by the cold and the smell of the house
I undress under the burning magnifying glass.
My skin flattens out like sea water.
O yellow eye,
let me be sick with your heat,
let me be feverish and frowning.
Now I am utterly given.
I am your daughter, your sweet-meat,
your priest, your mouth and your bird
and I will tell them all stories of you
until I am laid away forever,
a thin gray banner.

Posted by scottheim at 05:49 PM | Comments (1)

November 08, 2006

Deval!!!!!

Time for another (brief) political aside before I get back to my usual pop culture blather and list-making. Massachusetts finally has a Democrat as governor. He's also the second-ever African American in the office in US history. After four years of living in MA, I'm actually really happy to be here. And overall, I'm pretty overjoyed with this week's election results. Not that they'll ever read this, but I wanted to say one thing to Bush/Cheney/Rove/Mehlman/Santorum et al: WHAAAHHH HAAAAHH HAAAAHHH HAAAHH HHAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Posted by scottheim at 09:44 PM | Comments (2)

November 05, 2006

Happy Birthday, Jules Bastien-Lepage

I'm a little late on this latest installment of "birthday" entries--this birthday actually happened November 1st, same day as one of the world's greatest actresses, Toni Collette--but here's another. This one's in honor of one of my favorite French realist painters, Jules Bastien-Lepage (b. 1848; d. 1884).

His Jeanne d'Arc painting (pictured above) is probably my #1 in the whole Metropolitan Museum of Art, even though I'm probably one of a zillion people with that same Met favorite. This picture doesn't do it justice--if you've seen it up close, you know what I mean. Below are two additional masterpieces.

Posted by scottheim at 12:17 AM | Comments (3)

November 03, 2006

Keith Olbermann, My Hero

Unlike many of my friends, I rarely voice my political opinions on my blog. But so many events of the past few weeks have gotten me so angered and sickened, and I keep thinking, "I have to say something about this"--but then it gets so overwhelming that I don't know where to begin in detailing my hatred of the conservatives and deceitful Bush administration. All the blatant lies and Republican-generated negative ads during these final days leading up to next week's elections, especially the clutching-at-straws smear campaign on John Kerry, have made me especially nauseous. And then tonight, someone sent me this YouTube video of the brilliant MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, and he says just about everything I've been wishing I was smart and brave enough to say. Please, please spent 10 minutes and 58 seconds of your evening and watch this commentary, if you haven't seen it already. And please, please, please remember to vote next week. There's too much at stake not to.

Posted by scottheim at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)