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Pull that oar until it cracks
And then today I got up on two hours of sleep and spent the day at Canobie Lake Park with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel, sairaali, M., M's brother C., rushthatspeaks, gaudior, jinian, and B. It was wonderful.
I was last there as a small child in the '80's; I recognized the miniature sports cars and the narrow gauge railway, but the Kosmojets and the Matterhorn are gone. The mirror maze looked familiar. I remembered the red-and-white skyway that makes a circuit over some of the family rides once I was on it. Everything else was new to me.
I rode three coasters: Untamed, the Yankee Cannonball (twice), and the Canobie Corkscrew (twice, the last time to close out the day; it is a small coaster and it does one thing, but it does that one thing extremely well). The Xtreme Frisbee looked like a close cousin to the Big E's Fireball, which I love and find exhilarating, but it actually blurred my sense of balance in a way I hadn't experienced before, so I didn't give it another chance. TheFerris Giant Sky Wheel got two rides, the second at sunset right before the midway started to light up. So did the Mine of Lost Souls, a gonzo dark ride that starts like a tour of a haunted mine and then falls sideways into a different genre. We rode the Caterpillar and the sky ride of my childhood and the swing carousel called Da Vinci's Dream. I avoided the Policy Pond Log Flume and the other water rides because I was already freezing; the day was bright and nippy and I spent all of my time in my jacket, mostly with my hair stuffed down the back to keep it out of the wind. I also stayed away from the Psychodrome, because the idea of a scrambler ride with loud music and strobe lights was a migraine waiting to happen. The half-hour cruise around Canobie Lake was lovely. Half of my food intake for the day seems to have been ice cream in the form of Dippin' Dots and butterscotch-dipped vanilla soft-serve and the other half was some surprisingly tasty pulled pork and the bowl of clam chowder I ate as soon as I got home (after feeding the cats, who otherwise seemed to think the chowder was a special present for them). I appear to have a sunburn across my cheekbones despite putting on sunscreen. We missed the antique carousel, but that just leaves something to go back for.
Saira had made a road trip playlist, from which I learned that Heather Dale went through a phase of recording songs about shipwrecks; I suspect I need them.
I am physically very tired. However temporarily, I'm happy.
derspatchel, sairaali, M., M's brother C., rushthatspeaks, gaudior, jinian, and B. It was wonderful.I was last there as a small child in the '80's; I recognized the miniature sports cars and the narrow gauge railway, but the Kosmojets and the Matterhorn are gone. The mirror maze looked familiar. I remembered the red-and-white skyway that makes a circuit over some of the family rides once I was on it. Everything else was new to me.
I rode three coasters: Untamed, the Yankee Cannonball (twice), and the Canobie Corkscrew (twice, the last time to close out the day; it is a small coaster and it does one thing, but it does that one thing extremely well). The Xtreme Frisbee looked like a close cousin to the Big E's Fireball, which I love and find exhilarating, but it actually blurred my sense of balance in a way I hadn't experienced before, so I didn't give it another chance. The
Saira had made a road trip playlist, from which I learned that Heather Dale went through a phase of recording songs about shipwrecks; I suspect I need them.
I am physically very tired. However temporarily, I'm happy.
Re: "It's the story ... of a Scottish grocer ..."
Live in Vancouver and Phil Ochs in Concert are the only complete albums on my computer; the rest is on vinyl at my parents' house. I also own a double-CD anthology of covers, What's That I Hear? The Songs of Phil Ochs (1998), some of which I have still never heard sung by Ochs himself.
Somehow, probably because I was both running a convention and moving house, I didn't chronicle the existence of Where the Lightning Strikes on LJ, so here in its elongated glory is that list
Thank you! The presence of Sassafrass in this tracklist ups the chances that my cousins have a copy somewhere around their house, so I'll ask them first. (Please tell me the song about the golem is good. I don't see a lot of golem songs. As a matter of fact, this may be the first.)
I like putting this music out into the world, and it's done a lot to benefit Contata, which has helped keep it afloat, which seems appropriate, given the subject.
Heh. I am glad it's achieved its intended effect!
Re: "It's the story ... of a Scottish grocer ..."
I have those as my base, particularly What's That I Hear which made me love John Westley Harding even more that I previously did (Have you heard his Love Hall Tryst album, Songs of Misfortune? it's got some amazing ballad treatments.) and I also have There But For Fortune and The Broadside Tapes, plus the fact that my Gunfight at Carnegie Hall also has Rehearsals for Retirement on it.
I think it says something about how my psyche was formed that I pretty much spent the last two years of high school listening to Live in Vancouver and Assassins in steady rotation (albeit mixed in with a lot of other things). This was before I discovered Utah Phillips, or I probably would have been listening to him too.
The presence of Sassafrass in this tracklist ups the chances that my cousins have a copy somewhere around their house, so I'll ask them first. (Please tell me the song about the golem is good. I don't see a lot of golem songs. As a matter of fact, this may be the first.)
That seems very possible, though it's also possible that it's at some other end of the giant arm of Sassafrass distribution, since there was probably only one allotted contributor copy for the entire band. The CD could well be in Texas or Chicago.
I do think it is a good Golem song, since I chose it for the album out of all the various songs that were sung at the convention, but then, I also like that there is a Golem song at all. There really do need to be more atmospheric Golem songs. I expect I could write the music for one, but I haven't got a hook for the words.
I am reminded, have you read He, She and It? by Marge Piercy? Outside of her politics, I am pretty fond of her writing, albeit, that dates back to high school, and I haven't really reread it, but it is one of my favorite modern/historical golem treatments.
Re: "It's the story ... of a Scottish grocer ..."
No, I haven't! I don't even know Love Hall Tryst. The names make a promising combination, for ballad definitions of "promising."
For a shifting combination of reasons, my favorites off What's That I Hear? were usually Iain Matthews' "Flower Lady," Greg Greenaway's "Tape from California," John Wesley Harding's "Another Age," Sid Griffin and Billy Bragg's "Sailors and Soldiers," Christine Lavin and Megan McDonough's "Gas Station Women," Anne Hill's "Iron Lady," and Karen Savoca's "No More Songs." I just couldn't believe it had taken until 1998 for Tom Paxton to record "Draft Dodger Rag." Ditto Arlo Guthrie/"I Ain't Marching Anymore" and Dave Van Ronk/"Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," really.
I heard a blistering cover of "Crucifixion" live at an Arlington folk coffeehouse once, but I don't think it was ever recorded. The first time I heard Ochs singing it on the radio, it terrified me.
I think it says something about how my psyche was formed that I pretty much spent the last two years of high school listening to Live in Vancouver and Assassins in steady rotation (albeit mixed in with a lot of other things).
I don't think I discovered Assassins until college, but that was the age at which I started listening to Phil Ochs, too.
since there was probably only one allotted contributor copy for the entire band.
Right. I'll probably just end up asking you for a copy, then.
I am reminded, have you read He, She and It? by Marge Piercy? Outside of her politics, I am pretty fond of her writing, albeit, that dates back to high school, and I haven't really reread it, but it is one of my favorite modern/historical golem treatments.
I have not. Please talk to me about it! My familiarity with Marge Piercy mainly comprises a deep and abiding love for "The thief" and a near-total bounce off the rest of the one book of her poetry I picked up, including the famous one about the orange. What's with her politics?
what's with Marge Piercy's politics
Re: what's with Marge Piercy's politics
Aaagh.
Re: what's with Marge Piercy's politics
Yes, exactly. You have perfectly summed up my sentiment on the subject. This was the point at which I stopped buying and reading her work, whereas previously she had been on my 'buy it whenever you can' list. For what it's worth, I've always bounced off her poems, with a few exceptions. I have seen some nice excerpts in places, but I bought The Art of Blessing the Day and bounced pretty thoroughly.
He, She and It was the first book of hers I read, at the age of 15, so she was something of a hero to me, growing up with her progressive gender-exploratory writing, particularly Woman on the Edge of Time which had proto-polyamory, bisexuality, and thoughts about gender non-judgmentally braided in alongside modern Judiasm, and idea about working through the mistakes we make in the throes of revolutionary zeal (I may be conflating in parts of Braided Lives and Vida, it's been more that 2 decades since re-read. On the whole, I still recommend the books, but with the heavy reservation that her subsequent action brings into the picture.
Do watch Dropbox for further updates to your music library.
Re: what's with Marge Piercy's politics
Fortunately, it is possible to read an author's books without sending them money for it (if they're in libraries, anyway). Are her earlier politics consistent with her later behavior, or was it one of those distressing shifts where you always thought of them as progressive until they weren't?
Do watch Dropbox for further updates to your music library.
Thank you!
Re: what's with Marge Piercy's politics
Pretty much that, at least from my perspective. I mean, it's not like I knew her as a person, it was just that I'd read her books and then I read about her public act of signing onto something I found hateful.
Woman on the Edge of Time has an sympathetic androgynous character, and deals fairly and rationally with mental illness, and it's radically feminist/equalist. Her other work has constructed sapients that have gender, and modified people who have gender, so it's just hard to reconcile the breadth of understanding it must have taken to create those people with the sheer lack of empathy from later on.
Thank you!
You're welcome. I trust things have made their short transit to you.
Re: what's with Marge Piercy's politics
I hope I never do that to people younger than I am, and that if I do I will have the grace to apologize.