marksaleski.com

For a whole host of reasons, this one took me a long time to write. Part of it was that I had a pile of ideas and couldn’t decide on either tying them together or choosing a particular subset.

Then one night I made the mistake of looking at a Springsteen web forum. Holy smokes, what a bunch of whiners and attention whore. Look, you can not like a new album, but do you have to spend all of your energy coming up with ‘interesting’ ways to dump on it?

Actually, none of that matters, because what drew together a lot of the ideas I had was something that I noticed was common to many of the ‘fan’ reactions and reviews: they seemed to miss the point of the record.

New technology. Blah, blah, blah. New technology. Not so scary. New technology. Not so bad.

Yeah, I realize that nearly everything I write about my experiences with technology sound like that.

Well, the collisions with technology are unavoidable. This time around, it was Twitter.

As usual, I have had single days, maybe even hours, that have seemed longer than this week up here. Somehow, I blinked and it’s time to pack up the Jeep and head home. This is really a good thing. We sort of miss the dog, and though we hate to admit it, we miss our piles of books. The transition back to “real” life feels odd to me this time around, because it’s the first time we return to an empty house — both of my parents are gone. For years, the tradition had been to come home with stories, souvenirs, and a copy of the local newspaper (like me, mom was something of a newspaper hound.) The change will indeed feel strange, but over time our emotions will smooth out. This we know.Yesterday being the last full day here, we decided to skip the Jeep ramble and stay in town. While TheWife™ visited the yarn shop, I hit the bookstore. I told myself I wouldn’t buy anything else this week but, in a moment of (all too common) weakness, I gave in to Larry McMurtry’s Books and also a collection of Robert Creeley poems (a quote from which has already made its way into a partially completed music review). I’d had my eye on the McMurtry for quite a while and sort of wanted to wait for the trade paperback to come out…but my inner book demon couldn’t resist. It’s probably a good thing that I picked that one up so late in the week because his tales of the book trade would have no doubt fueled my lust for more books. After reading about two thirds of the book, my interesting in finally reading Lonesome Dove has been piqued. My dad was a big western fan. This past Christmas, I bought him a small set of Return To Lonesome Dove DVDs, which I now possess, unopened. Transitions, always more transitions.

We ate dinner at a very unassuming, family style restaurant. It’s the kind of place that might have seemed new 30 years ago. Heck, I bet these same waitresses worked here 30 years ago! The couple next to us conversed in French, while I ate too much meat loaf (Mile High? Yep.), washing it down with a Sam Adams. I tell you, why on earth would you eat at Applebee’s when you could go to The Topic of the Town?

I woke up this morning to discover that the thermometer is doing its usual New England spring thing. A few days ago it was almost 50 degrees. Today, it’s bright and sunny and eleven degrees. This temperature yo-yo is a sure sign (along with the mud) of spring. It’s another transition that we’re looking forward to.

Vacation, vacation, vacation!!! While some folks like to take a plane or (***shudder***) boat down to a balmy Caribbean island, me and TheWife™ like to head north and hunker down in blissful solitude.

From the handful of vacation entries already published, you can sort of see what I’m getting at.

And despite my multiple contacts with high technology, it actually turned out that way.

If I look out the living room window, directly across the way is the outside, second floor landing for some apartments. To the left of the door are three black metal mailboxes. Each box has a pair of magazine hooks at the bottom. Magazine hooks? Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s the official term, though I know for a fact that I stuffed newspapers in them when I delivered them as a kid. Did I break the law? Ohhh, I was such a rogue!Given the way the business of magazines and newspapers appears to be headed, could it be that those loops will be headed to the postal equipment hall of anachronisms?

I got to thinking about this yesterday partly because I’d just read a couple of short John Updike essays on the physical nature of books. One of them centered on the e-Book (which so far I have no use for) and the functions that they will not be able to replace. Funny, this was from an op-ed piece going all the way back to the year 2000. Those e-Books have been “right around the corner” for a long time now.

Ah, but I should not sneer in their general direction I suppose, as it’s looking like all content will be online at some point. Will all printed matter vanish? I don’t know what to think. It won’t vanish from my life, even if i have to print out books using my own printer. This isn’t some curmudgeonly stance, but a point of realism — I just can’t read anything beyond a page or so if it’s not printed out.

Or maybe I’ll have an epiphany after vacation. I’ll buy a Kindle and have a bookburning. We shall see.

Printed matter update:

• Attempted to read the first few chapters from Lavinia Greenlaw’s The Importance of Music to Girls but couldn’t get into it.
• Fiddled with a book proposal that I’ve been working on for a while. Yes, I have a printout!
• Went through a small mountain of promotional material (and CD’s) for some upcoming review work.
• Read the first chapter of Michael Kimmelman’s The Accidental Masterpiece

You get to a point where you just have to stop. Stop working. Stop planning. Stop thinking about the future and its inevitable ramifications. Just stop. Make a cup of something hot, sit down, and stare out the window.That’s exactly what I did on Sunday afternoon. We had driven from the inn down past gorgeous views of a snow-covered Mount Washington, through the icy downhill tumble of Crawford Notch, and then into ‘civilization’ for lunch. It’s sort of a point of destination, but I’m not sure we would do it if it wasn’t for the landscapes in between. In some ways, it’s gotten to feel like a ritual. Yeah, I’m aware that every year I tease TheWife™ about snowshoeing out onto that train bridge. Is bringing out your own cliché’s a sign of aging? The food was great, the weather was more than hinting at spring, and the return trip brought a host of sights I’d missed while trying to keep the Jeep between the lines on those curvy, frost heave-riddled roads.

Then, it was time to stop.

From my chair in this borrowed living room, the late afternoon light illuminated the church steeple off in the distance. A bright swath of sunshine painted the statue on the lawn of the old town building across the street. I’m not sure why that one spot mesmerized my eyes so much. Maybe it was the tranquility of the idea of a fixed object existing over such a long time period. Yes, this inn is nearly 150 year old and it seems to impart a similar calm.

Or maybe that’s just me.

In any event, as the sun continued its slow descent, I caught up on months of reading material between long gazes out the window.

Printed matter update:

• Finished Chuck Klosterman’s Downtown Owl. Hates the ending. Klosterman should stick to music writing.
• Read a long feature on David Foster Wallace. I now see where Infinite Jest came from. Still don’t like it.
• Purchased: Wallflowers At The Orgy - Norah Ephron
• Purchased: Due Considerations - John Updike
• Purchased: The Accidental Masterpiece - Michael Kimmelman
• A new journal made from some great recycled paper that has just the right amount of texture. I needed this because there’s a lot of stuff in my head that has just got to come out.

Writing will begin today…shortly after lunch at the diner. At least that’s what part of my brain tells me.

OK, so I had another encounter with the world of digital downloads, though that’s not really what this is about. What it’s really about is discovery. Time and time again, I hear people complaining about how there’s no good new music out there anymore.

I’m sorry, that’s just plain wrong.

What? Actual non-Friday Morning Listen content? Well, I’ve been sorta busy and let me tell you, the review material has been piling up something fierce. This is my first attempt in a while to cut that growing monster back. There will be more to follow soon. Honest.

Check ‘em out:

Dan Adler - All Things Familiar

Mike Marshall, Alex Hargreaves, Paul Kowert - Sweets Mill

Fly - Super Sister

Neil Haverstick - 34 Fjord

Cecilia - Preludio D’amore

Aaron J. Johnson - Big Fun Blues

Raquel Bitton - Aranjuez, mon amour

Blue Sky 5+2 - Me, Myself and I

Sound Assembly - Slide Therapy

Nathan Eklund - Hand Picked From Her Garden

Oh man, there are times in your life when you have to call into question just what the heck you’ve been doing with your time. Mostly, the debate goes nowhere and you end up staring off into space.

This morning, I had to stare off into space for a while.

I haven’t stopped yet.