12 hours of sf music?

so apparently there is some all-day music thing happening here in SF today (I think?)

Here's the link:

http://www.therambler.org/locations.htm

Notice how nice they make warm water cove look in that picture...

google is amazing

The mystery has (at least I think) been solved. Google apparently just released this beta version of google for blogs (http://google.com/blogsearch), which allows you to, you know, google search blogs. So I just used it and look what I found!! (CMOC is sooo going to have to cover this)

DINU LIPATTI'S BONES
The Mountain Goats
The Sunset Tree (4AD, 2005)
By John Darnielle

Tuning: E A D F# B E
(Tune G down 1/2 step)

CHORDS

B D#sus4 E C#sus4
e--------------------------
B--------------------------
F#--0-----0------0-----0---
D---4-----8------9-----11--
A---2-----6------7-----9---
E--------------------------


INTRO: B* D#sus4 E B

B D#sus4
We stank of hair dye and amonia

E B
We sealed ourselves away from view

B D#sus4
You were looking at the void and seldom blinking

E B
The best that I could do

E C#sus4
Was to train my eyes on you

E B
We scaled the hidden hills beneath the surface

E B
Scraped our fingers bloody on the stones

E B D#sus4
And built a little house that we could live in

E B
Out of Dinu Lipatti's bones



We kept our friends at bay all summer long
Treated the days as though they'd kill us if they could
Ringing out the hours like blood drenched bedsheets
To keep wintertime at bay
But december showed up anyway
There was no money, it was money that you wanted
I Went downtown, sold off most of what I owned
And we raised a tower to broadcast all our dark dreams
From Dinu Lipatti's bones

Help me out, internet

One of my favorite things about the internet is how easy it is to find out who sings songs you hear in passing. My trick is I try to remember one catchy line, or a few words, that sound like they could be the chorus or the title. Then I get home, or if I already am home, I go over to my computer, put the fragment in quotes, and google it. I’m not kidding that this has ALWAYS worked. Always that is, except once. And that failure is the point of this post.

I was walking home from work one day and I passed this house a few houses down the street from my own. On nice days, they often leave open their window, and also it frequently sounds like a band is practicing inside. Or at least, a girl is singing and someone is playing electric guitar. So this one day, as I was walking by, I stopped to listen because this song she was singing was seriously AWESOME. So I assumed it must be a cover, so I memorized my key phrase, which in this case was “to keep wintertime at bay.” I scurried on up the block, googled the phrase, and . . . nothing. Nothing even close. Even when I spelled wintertime like winter time or winter-time or winter-thyme. I was so sad.

So then, a few months later, I was at a Mountain Goats concert, and the dude, as many of you know, has like, 478 songs or something. So I only know a very small portion of his song catalogue. But he’s playing, and suddenly, in the middle of this nice song, he sings “to keep wintertime at bay” and I was like, “holy shit! The puzzle is solved! It’s a Mountain Goats’ song!”



So that night when I got home, I did an exhaustive download of Mountain Goats’ songs, and did a massive search of his song lyrics. Because there are many people who are really into this guy, there are a number of websites which set forth every song he’s every written or played, along with all their lyrics. To my chagrin, not only was “to keep wintertime at bay” not among those lyrics, but it was also not among any of the songs I downloaded.

So, if anyone has any information about what this song is, please let me know. Yay internet.

Re-visiting majors

if i could go back in time, or alternatively, if i were to win the lottery and no longer need to work, i think i would go back to school and major in linguistic and cultural studies. i used to think that if i did it over, i'd do a triple major in math, physics, and philosophy, because the intersection of those three subjects is where my non-fiction reading interests lie - impacts of quantum theory on everyday life, concepts of time / spacetime, etc. but now i think i should have stuck with linguistics. i used to be really into it. i took this one french linguistics class that was pretty amazing. i loved learning about the etymology of the words. especially words relating to time and fate and fatality. and also different cultures' concepts of future and past, and whether the past is "behind you" like we say, or whether it's actually "in front of you" because, after all, you can see what is in front of you, but you can't see what is behind you, and we can see the past, because it has already happened, but we have no idea what lies in the future, yet we say that the future is just ahead...but of course, some people also say the future is ahead but "just around the bend" and that makes more sense because you can't see what is around the bend.

animals and the hurricane

In times of tragedy and sadness, it's very important to focus on people. people are important and we, who are reading this, are people. however, the often forgotten victims of such tragedies are the animals. the thousands of factory-farmed animals trapped and crushed by their enclosures, the pasture cows who have no grass to eat because it's all supersaturated or under water, the zoo and acquarium animals (most of whom died because of a 'power failure' - how upsetting is it that fish can't live in the water into which we put them without power-generation), and of course, the pets that many rescuers forced the victims to leave behind. organizations like peta, the humane society, and other, smaller animal welfare organizations are now down there, doing their best to rescue the remaining animals. I personally gave a donation to the humane society, because they are well organized, etc, but there are many smaller organizations that could certainly also benefit from donations. and key right now is to find temporary housing for the animals. so if you live nearby, and it freaks you out to take a stranger or two into your home, think about a new dog or cat or ferret, etc.