Books – Page 27 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – December 29, 2019

“Quine and Loon”

David arrived in Stewarton on Sunday evening in time for some of my Mum’s yummy steak pie. Diana found the two of us waiting patiently in anticipation of the pie quite entertaining for some reason.

We enjoyed breakfast at the Millhouse on Monday morning, prior to David driving us up to Aberdeen in what’s known as a “Duber” service (David’s Uber). We gave him a very good rating. The Millhouse is much nicer than when I visited the previous discotheque incarnation more than 35 years ago. The 4 hour drive (with a pleasant stop for coffee) concluded just in time for us to ooh and aah over the amazing rural views from Elspeth and David’s home before the early sunset.

That’s the Bennachie mountain range in the distance, and the highest peak, Mither Tap at 1,732 feet, on the left. How would you like to enjoy that view from your kitchen every day? A website says it should take about 2.5 hours to climb Mither Tap. I asked David how long it took him – about an hour – sounds pretty typical of the speed he moves.

David’s younger sister, Suzanne, and her family arrived shortly after us on Friday afternoon. They came even further than us – all the way from Brisbane, Australia. It was funny to watch David looking down the road and judging the size and speed of each car to determine if it could possibly be Suzanne. When they arrived, Suzanne said she knew she was at the right house because she saw the way David was walking through the window. It was a real treat to meet the entire Ruff family of Suzanne, Alan, Rebecca, Izzy (Isabelle), and Alex.

From the left: Izzy, Alex, Michael, Heather, Struan, Rebecca, Bramble in the foreground

David was a good sport and took the girls out to enjoy the night sky from the hot tub.

The Ruffs headed off to the Lecht Ski Center on Monday morning, in search of some snow for the girls – not much of that in Australia. David took us to an excellent coffee shop – the Coffee Apothecary near Pitmedden, a short drive from the house.

The coffee selection and presentation were great, as was the chicken liver pate. What a nice feature to have such an excellent place close by in such a rural setting.

After coffee and a snack, it was Bramble’s time to have some fun. Who’s Bramble? Sorry – the latest addition to David and Elspeth’s family, a red Labrador retriever. David took us to Fyvie castle to give her a good run. Another pet seemed to sneak in on the adventure – that crazy baby penguin certainly gets around.

Here’s a video of the exercise routine. It helps when Bramble keeps an eye on the ball all the way to hitting the ground. Diana survived a direct hit on the noggin with the tennis ball from the launcher shortly after this video was made.

Tuesday was a quiet and relaxing day. David, Suzanne, Bramble and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood. I wasn’t expecting to be doing quite as much “off-roading” through mud and long grass. Wind power is popular in Scotland, with turbines seen all over the landscape. We passed under a set used to power the ice cream making operation at Mackie’s farm, next door to Bonnyview.

Our hike lasted about an hour and we had worked up a good appetite by the time we finished. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was working their way slowly through a Christmas jigsaw puzzle. I’ll spoil the excitement and let you know that the puzzle was ultimately completed on Boxing Day afternoon. I hate to think how many man and woman hours were invested.

We expected an early start on Christmas Day with the young girls in the house. They were exceptionally patient, and even waited through breakfast before heading to the living room to open presents. There were lots of fun presents for everyone. Here’s McD with one of the stuffed trophy heads we received from Elspeth and David. Aren’t they hilarious? They did generate some interest on the trip home as they peeked out from Diana’s carry on bag, even getting the once over by the Dallas customs team.

The girls enjoyed the colouring book, pens and charm bracelet kit that Diana picked out for them.

Elspeth, David and Heather worked very hard on a delicious Christmas dinner. From the prawn and smoked salmon starter, through turkey with all possible fixings, through to Christmas cake and pudding (thanks Mum), everything was perfect.

The hilarity level went up a bit after dinner with board game time. We played several rounds of a game, the name of which I can’t remember now, where you had to describe a thing without using the word. The teams were evenly matched and so we kept having to play another deciding game.

That was followed up with a game of Cranium. I enjoy the variety and silliness of this game – everything from clay modeling, to charades, to blindfolded Pictionary. I was disappointed that nobody could guess my puppeteer work as I had Suzanne demonstrating how to milk a cow. It’s really lovely to see everyone laughing and having so much fun.

The Ruffs left early on Thursday morning. Not really that early to give David a good excuse for wearing his pajamas out to close the gate after them.

David and I used our time in the afternoon to coach Michael through enhancing a picture that we had jokingly titled the “Elf on the Shelf”. I shared this with Brent, who in typical clever fashion, suggested “impaired on the stairs”.

We drove to the nearest decent sized town, Inverurie (Diana can do a decent Scottish accent on this one), for an Indian dinner. Rajpoot was very good, with everyone really enjoying their meals. The owner thought he was funny bringing me a kids dessert served in “Miss Pinky” – I had laughed when I saw them on the menu.

Our visit was drawing to a close and we did our best to organize our packing for an early start to the airport on Friday.

The airport is located less than a mile from where I worked my first job out of University at Gearhart. The area has changed a lot since 1985, but the Four Mile Inn (a regular lunch spot back in the day) is still there and looks much the same. The Aberdeen airport was small and pain free (other than not having jet bridges, resulting in us having to haul our carry on luggage up slippy metal stairs), and we were soon in some very comfy seats (particularly for a shuttle flight to Heathrow) and enjoying a massage.

The flight to Dallas was around 10 hours and a bit hot and stuffy. I was glad to get home and stretch out. I did catch up on some movies and enjoyed a TV series by Billy Connolly about traveling through the east coast of the United States. I had been reading his autobiography (a present from Mum and Dad) on the earlier flight.

We got a much needed work out in early on Saturday (early to bed and early awake thanks to time changes) and then enjoyed coffee and a crossword in downtown McKinney. We enjoyed reflecting back on how enjoyable our visit to Stewarton and Bonnyview had been. We are fortunate to enjoy spending time with our family as much as we do.

We exchanged gifts that were too much to carry to Scotland on Saturday afternoon. These penguins nest like Russian dolls. One of several very creative gifts that Diana picked out for me. She got another puzzle – this one double sided for extra fun.

I finished “Olive Again” by Elizabeth Strout this week. I had recently watched a TV series based on the original “Olive Kitteridge” book, and starring Bill Murray and Frances McDormand. I kept visualising them as I read this sequel. It’s a bit of a depressing story as each chapter chronicles residents of the town and their interactions with the aging Olive, but Strout is an excellent writer who can create a very vivid picture of a character in just a few paragraphs.

I’m not a huge fan of Christmas music, so try to find twists on it that I enjoy. As usual, New Orleans to the rescue. Here’s a big band version of a classic carol.

And here’s a couple from a great New Orleans Christmas album:

I heard this more raucous and irreverent carol by the Pogues on the Scottish radio:

Week in Review – December 7, 2019

“Pins Out”

Penelope and I made the drive down to Austin on Monday morning. I was pleased to finish the trip with no back pain or other issues. P was happy to get up some decent speed for once – she typically maxes out at 45 mph on my short commute to the office.

The pins were extracted from my finger on Tuesday afternoon. The doctor says everything looks good, but my finger looks pretty ugly still – new nail required. I did find this ornament in the doctor’s office quite entertaining. That finger looks much better than mine.

The University of Texas was hosting an event to celebrate ground breaking on the new Moody Center – a basketball and concert venue to replace the 40 year old Frank Erwin center. This event started right after my finger appointment and was a short walk away – why not?

The event turned out to be quite something. Intro speeches by all the University brass and the “Minister of Culture” for the new Center – Oscar winning actor Matthew McConaughey. Free food trucks from several Austin classic spots – I enjoyed an empanada from Four Brothers and a delicious green chile pork taco from Torchy’s.

Moon Taxi (an indie rock band) performed after the speeches and I thought they had a very pleasant sound.

The whole event is what would be called a langiappe in New Orleans.

I almost forgot to share a picture from the event. I had my picture taken with the UT mascot – Bevo. Turns out this is Bevo XV – who knew there had been so many?

Those cheerleaders seem quite excited to be getting their picture taken with me. McD’s comment – I leave him unattended for a couple of hours and look what happens.

I enjoyed a nice long walk back home from the event. Here’s a nice view of the Capital on the way. Can you believe the tree in front of the Capital is fake? It’s true – I watch them assembling it level by level.

Diana’s bus wasn’t due for another 45 minutes and so I made a minor detour to Antone’s to listen to some free Blues music – what a deal.

The band included Denny Freeman and Sarah Brown – a couple of our favourites.

I was able to drag myself away from the music just in time to meet Diana arriving on the bus.

We had a delicious dinner with Damon on Wednesday at the Odd Duck. This is the last time we’ll see him before the holidays. He was very effusive in describing the Frozen play that his daughters are performing in this coming weekend. We just heard a recording and he had every right to be proud – beautiful voices.

I watched an inept Dallas Cowboys performance on Thursday night (at least until I fell asleep). Such a disappointing game from a team with so much talent!

We enjoyed a good Austin evening on Friday – starting with the Rosie Flores Review at C-Boy’s Heart and Soul. Rosie is 69 and belting it out and playing the guitar beautifully. I love their cover of the Blind Faith song “Can’t Find My Way Home”:

Diana chatted up Wayde who has a new food truck on the C-Boys patio. I laughed as he walked the waffle fries we ordered around every table asking – “Did you order these?” – a great advertising trick. He was quite a talker and turns out a fire fighter when not operating the truck.

Here’s a cover of Springsteen’s “Luckytown” from Rosie:

I really like the feel of C-Boys Heart and Soul. From there we made our usual stop just up South Congress at June’s, enjoying escargot and steak tartare. From there it was a pleasant one mile walk back home.

On Saturday we did some minor grocery shopping and some Christmas shopping on South Congress. There was a nice artist market set up by Guero’s and interesting gifts in some of the weird little stores. It was a beautiful day to be out and about, with temperatures in the mid 70s. We enjoyed an episode of “The Crown” in the evening. This one was set in 1967 and featured Prince Philip’s mother being rescued from Greece and visiting Buckingham Palace – a piece of history with which I was not at all familiar.

Sunday included the usual standards – workout, coffee and crossword, and football. No Cowboys but an excellent game between the New Orleans Saints and San Francisco 49ers in the Superdome. San Francisco ultimately winning 48-46 in a thrilling back and forth game. One of the best that I’ve seen in several years. Now we’re both working on things we need to have ready for work tomorrow – very boring!

I’ve very much enjoyed “Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans” this week. Dan Baum tells the tales of nine New Orleans residents from Hurricane Betsy in 1960 through Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Baum was reporting on Katrina and fell in love with the city that Hurricane almost destroyed. His writing on the nine characters from different races, sections of the city, and backgrounds, captures New Orleans very well. It really is heartbreaking to read the stories of Hurricane Katrina – particularly that the city survived the actual storm but was then let down by the levees and water management system. Such a wonderful city that still suffers through so many problems.

All this talk of New Orleans has reminded me of the wonderful nights I’ve spent at Vaughan’s listening to Kermit Ruffins (features in the Nine Lives book as a kid at a backyard barbecue).

But let’s start out with a very catchy new song from the Lumineers that I’ve been hearing on the radio:

My Spotify Discover weekly took me to New Orleans also. This song from Snooks Eaglin – a superb blues artist that I saw at the original Rock N’ Bowl weeks before his death and not too long after Hurricane Katrina.

The same Discover list had me back at the Kessler listening to the unique James Hunter from England.

And let’s have Kermit finish things out this week with a song I heard the same night as I heard Snooks. Denny and Anne took me over to the broken down shack that is Vaughan’s to revel in Kermit’s genius. The late, great Henry Butler was sitting in on keyboards. What a memory.

Week in Review – December 1st, 2019

We landed in cold and rainy San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon and were greeted by an American airlines protest outside the terminal – something about “One Job is Enough” – very loud.

Tuesday evening was spent at Adamo’s house enjoying Italian take out. We were glad to finally diagnose why Phoebe constantly barks whenever Grammie shows up in the house – her hearing aids emit a high frequency noise that drives the poor dog nuts.

Diana enjoyed holding Francesca – 7 weeks now and almost 7 pounds. I spent some quality time having Massimo read me his favourite books – he has them very well memorized for a 3 year old. The chameleon doesn’t have a colour of his own is his current favourite.

We returned to Adamo’s home on Wednesday morning to do a couple of hours of babysitting while Amy went to an appointment. McD did a good job on some puzzles and we were able to keep the two terrors entertained almost up until their Mom returned – they’re good for about 90 minutes.

Thanksgiving day started and continued with lots of cooking. Giancarlo and Diana made a good team preparing two kinds of stuffing and D’s famous artichoke dip.

I particularly enjoyed a story from Diana’s childhood about the reused lunch bags. While all the other kids in class got a new lunch bag with their name nicely written out each day – poor, tortured D had to reuse whatever size sack was available until it could be used no more. Apparently particularly embarrassing if containing a smelly leftover fish sandwich. It was better to go hungry than stink up the whole classroom. She created this mock up to make her point – Clorinda was too busy to write out full names and just went with initials. I think I saw some deep seated frustrations being worked out as the bag was aggressively crumpled up.

I headed up to Adamo’s home early on Thanksgiving afternoon to watch the Cowboys play the Bills and wish I hadn’t bothered – one of their weaker performances in a while. One of the cats was more interested and determined to block my view.

Family and friends soon arrived, with Julie bringing up the rear in typical fashion. Plates were filled with all kinds of delicious offerings and then we took our places at the very long table with the beautiful Pacific Ocean backdrop.

Amy stopped moving for a couple of minutes and allowed a couple of family pictures:

Massimo had on a very cool t-shirt under his flannel – Austin Mix Tape:

Clorinda’s neighbor, Andy, finally got the two terrors to settle down and watch some videos of the new mountain line that has been patrolling Gypsy Hill:

We met up with my boys, Christine, and her Dad, Guy, on Friday evening. Will chose Vino Santo in Redwood City and it was delicious. We had fun giving the kids their Christmas gifts as we won’t be in California this holiday season.

Will started us of with his “off-menu” appetizer sampler dish – a very nice way to try a number of things:

The lobster ravioli seemed to be the most popular entree at the table. I enjoyed veal marsala – haven’t had that in a long time.

The evening closed with the usual father and sons picture. It was great to see all the boys looking so well.

We walked up hill to Andy and Jude’s gorgeous home for coffee on Saturday morning. There was a hummingbird convention underway outside the window – this was just one of three feeders and all were equally populated.

Andy and Jude are a very kind couple, keeping a close eye on Clorinda, and full of good stories. I enjoyed a new one about hippies sitting outside their record store in the Haight Ashbury region of San Francisco, playing loud bongos and blocking entrance to their store. They tried several different approaches to moving the hippies on, ultimately having success with an Andy idea – play the Barney song repeatedly through the outside speakers.

I’m pushing publish a day early this week as we’ll be traveling back to Dallas most of tomorrow.

I finished a trio of books this week. My favourite was “The Dutch House” by Ann Patchett. I had brought this book to read on my previous trip to Pacifica, but Clorinda ended up getting engrossed in it. We were able to discuss it this time and she regularly asked me where I was in the story.

I really enjoyed Patchett’s prior book “The Commonwealth” and this was almost as good.

The story is based around the Dutch House, purchased at the end of the Second World War by Cyril Conroy, who combines luck and a single canny investment to build an immense real estate empire, and thrust his family from poverty to great wealth.

Set over the next five decades, the story is about two smart people, Danny and Maeve, who cannot overcome their past. Despite outward signs of success, the siblings are only truly comfortable when together. They are ultimately forced to confront the people who left them behind with dramatic consequences. I recommend this book a lot.

Here’s a paragraph that explains the book jacket picture:

“the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about was the portrait of Maeve hanging there in the drawing room without us. How had we forgotten her? Maeve at ten in a red coat, her eyes bright and direct, her black hair loose. The painting was as good as any of the paintings of the VanHoebeeks, but it was of Maeve, so what would Andrea do with it? Stash her in the damp basement? Throw her away? Even as my sister was right in front of me I felt like I had somehow left her behind, back in the house alone where she wouldn’t be safe.”

And here’s something that I don’t understand – “and two hamburgers for Kevin, who could have cared less”. How did this get turned around in American English? Patchett is trying to say Kevin didn’t care at all – he couldn’t have cared less – but instead uses, could have cared less, meaning he did care a bit. It’s interesting how these things that are obviously wrong, become accepted as meaning what they don’t. Climbing down off the soap box now to tell you about the other books I read.

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Amazon book review when one of my favourite authors recommended two new books that he had enjoyed very much – I ordered them up and put them in the to be read stack. The first, “Very Nice” by Marcy Dermansky is described as:

“A brilliantly funny novel of bad behavior in the post-Obama era, featuring a wealthy Connecticut divorcée, her college-age daughter, and the famous novelist who is seduced by them both.”

Not really my cup of tea, but a quick and entertaining read nonetheless – I think this is what is referred to as a perfect beach read.

The next recommendation, “All this could be yours”, by Jami Attenberg, had a bit more substance. One back jacket cover review captures the feel well:

“Big Little Lies meets Succession in the scorching heat of the Big Easy . . . Money, power and family are touched upon through Attenberg’s emotional, humorous and sharply written accounts.”

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister–feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.

I enjoyed the characters and New Orleans setting of this novel, but it was also a bit of a quick, beachy read.

I revisited a couple of excellent country folk songs from Hayes Carll this week:

This new Grace Potter song came up on one of my playlists this week and I like it:

Here’s a good one from Austinite Rob Baird. He’s opened a couple of shows at the Kessler and seems to be gaining a good following:

And finally another Austinite, Shinyribs:

Week in Review – November 24, 2019

“Levon’s New Drum Set”

The week started off on a bittersweet note. We had a farewell dinner for my boss, Mark, who is leaving the company. I’m sorry to see him go and it brings a lot more responsibility for me. D and I will miss going out with him in Austin.

We organized the dinner at Eddie V’s – an excellent seafood and steak house in downtown (next door to the legendary Antone’s blues club). Team members joined us from Guatemala, Canada and Australia. Everyone that Mark wanted there showed up. Diana did an exemplary job of selecting wine and appetizers for everyone. We particularly enjoyed going around the table telling our favourite Mark stories. Adam was hilarious. Going clockwise from me we have Caleb, Mark, Adam (Canada), Issac, Roy (Australia), Norma (Guatemala) and Damon. And not to forget our excellent photographer Diana.

Norma thought she was very funny in the office on Tuesday. Sitting with a bandage on her finger just waiting for me to notice. In her defense, she brought an amazing bottle of 23 year old Ron Zacapa rum from Guatemala that we all enjoyed very much.

Saturday started with the normal routine – workout followed by coffee and crossword. Then we walked over to the excellent downtown Austin library, walked back on the river trail, made a Xmas shopping stop at the Yeti flagship store, and relaxed on the balcony with books. What great weather.

Festivities picked up nicely on Saturday evening. We tried a new Vietnamese restaurant called Mandala. What delicious flavours and creative dishes. Edamame with truffle oil and sea salt, surf clam ceviche, mini rice pancakes, and Vietnamese curry chicken – all excellent. McD was pleased with an inexpensive and very good French champagne. This place is certainly a good addition to the expanding Austin restaurant rotation.

clam ceviche

A short walk from Mandala and we were at the One-2-One bar for Shelley King’s new CD release party. And it was indeed a party – for the great value price of $10.

Here’s a favourite from the new CD – “Levon’s new drum set” – a tribute to the late, great Levon Helm of The Band. Shelley was in Woodstock to play one of Helm’s Midnight Rambles in the barn by his home. This was the week that Levon passed and there was no Ramble. At the time that the concert would have started, there was a massive thunderstorm. Shelley viewed this as Helm playing his “new drum set” in heaven. What a great song:

Then special guest Carolyn Wonderland joined the band, picking up the energy and guitar level immediately:

The next special guest was long tall Marcia Ball on the keyboards for “Hurricane Party”. Shelley told the story of Marcia being scheduled to play shows in Florida that were cancelled due to the hurricane. She called Shelley to arrange a dominoes game – like a “Hurricane Party”:

Another lovely night of music in a small Austin club. Four different bands were playing in the One-2-One on Saturday – an amazing array of talent.

We were up early for a workout on Sunday morning, and then packed up and made the drive to McKinney. I arrived just in time to catch the last few exciting minutes of the Saints game – they eked out another last minute win. The Cowboys are not doing so well now in freezing cold, rainy New England.

I finished “Conviction” by Denise Mina this week. Here’s the Amazon synopsis:

The day Anna McDonald’s quiet, respectable life exploded started off like all the days before: Packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone.

Reeling, desperate for distraction, Anna returns to the podcast. Other people’s problems are much better than one’s own — a sunken yacht, a murdered family, a hint of international conspiracy. But this case actually is Anna’s problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life, a life she’s taken great pains to leave behind. And she is convinced that she knows what really happened.

Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over. The devils of her past are awakened — and in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, she goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide.

A true-crime podcast sets a trophy wife’s present life on a collision course with her secret past in the “blazingly intense, exciting as all hell” (A. J. Finn) new thriller from Denise Mina. We just listened to A.J. Finn’s “A Woman in the Window” on audible, and now we’re listening to Mina’s “The Red Road”. Audio books make the drive back and forward from Austin to McKinney pass much quicker.

I enjoyed this passage as the protagonist arrives at Skibo castle:

“First the hills across the water rose into view, pale and round. Then the sea became visible on the left, molten grey with the winking lights of oil rigs in the bay for repair. They stood ankle-deep in the shallow water, like giants wading, home for tea. Lastly; the castle rose up from behind a screen of strategically grown trees.”

This passage looks much better with double spaces after the periods. Something about the font and the single spacing after periods really bothered me. That and the five or six typos I found in a published book.

I heard this song by Patty Griffin on Sun Radio – what a pretty tune. So many great “River” songs – Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Leon Bridges, and the young Dallas blues guitarist whose name I can’t remember right now.

Open in Spotify

Seth James was playing the Sun Radio Wednesday night show at Guero’s Oak Garden. Listening on the radio, I loved the Little Feat feel, the horn section and his guitar playing.

Open in Spotify

Kevin Galloway was playing at the Saxon Pub on Friday night – but not until 11pm – too late for us old folks. I do love his music and hope to catch an earlier show.

Open in Spotify

Week in Review – November 10th, 2019

“The Ogans are coming”

Thanks for all the concern about my poor finger. It’s much less painful and messy this week – still not completely straight and looking like some kind of bug with antennae sticking out. I did get a nice custom brace fitted on Wednesday afternoon, and the stitches should come out next week.

My week started with a different medical appointment – the annual eye exam complete with dilation on Monday morning. Nothing better or worse than last year, which is always pleasant news. Right after that we made the drive down to Austin so that McD could attend a prospective client meeting on Tuesday morning. It’s nice that she has a client in Austin instead of Milwaukee or Boston.

Our friend Ron was in town for a few days and met up with us on Wednesday night. The requisite Sky Bar picture opportunity was followed by a delicious dinner at Peche – the foie gras on grits was amazing. After dinner, we couldn’t resist a quick taste of the Spazmatics before walking back to the Catherine.

Denny and Anne arrived for a long awaited visit on Thursday afternoon. I took them shopping at the Yeti store, followed by pool at Ego’s, while poor Diana finished up work for the day.

Dinner was at Suerte and Denny said it was the best Mexican meal he’d ever had – we were off to a good start. I thought the mushroom tamale and goat barbacoa were highlights. And of course the famous suadero tacos.

After dinner we sampled a bit of the house band at the Parker jazz club, and then called it a relatively early night. The weather was very cold and wet and so the walking I had planned between events was all replaced by Uber XL.

I headed to work on Friday and left the Ogans to explore downtown Austin. The original plan was a trail hike, but again the weather didn’t cooperate. We met for lunch at Loro – a new south Lamar restaurant from the chefs behind Franklin Barbecue and Uchi. I had really been looking forward to this place after reading so much about it. In an interview with Henry Winkler (The Fonz), in town for Wizard Fest, he said, “I’m sitting here now thinking that when I get off the plane Loro’s is where I’m going to go first.”

Anne went with the bar tender’s recommendation and had this delicious bavette steak – perfectly cooked with a smoky flavour. Denny’s curry chicken was also perfect. I look forward to heading back to Loro soon.

While I went back to work, the Ogans walked all over Austin – they have so much energy – go, go, go all the time.

The four of us reconvened at C-Boy’s Heart and Soul for some happy hour music from Robert Kraft – very pleasant and a good volume that still allowed us to chat. Here are our guests with the Soulman Sam and Jimmy Vaughan murals out back:

It was a short walk to June’s and a typical situation – the champagne by the glass didn’t suit McD (I tasted both samples and agree with her this time), and so a bottle was ordered. We enjoyed another great meal – my bone marrow bolognese was fantastic. Our only complaint was the music the DJ was playing – we might be getting too old for this place on weekend evenings.

After dinner Diana and I were ready to call it a night. Not so much with our guests. They Ubered to a honky tonk 20 minutes away and enjoyed a show by Choctaw Wildfire. They always like to find some authentically local and off the grid spot.

The visit drew to a close on Saturday morning with a yummy brunch at Launderette and a walk along the river. Then we dropped Denny and Anne at the airport and had a relaxing afternoon.

The James Beard award winning pastry chef at Launderette does come up with some excellent creations.

Sunday saw our first workout in a couple of weeks and my finger survived fine. Not so much the coffee and crossword – Diana beat me! I got stuck on “Macduff and Macbeth”. I know, shouldn’t I have an advantage on Scottish clues. My parents will probably be disappointed that I didn’t know “Thanes”. Even had to look it up – “the chief of a clan, who became one of the king’s barons.”

The Saints lost badly to the Atlanta Falcons, much to the chagrin of the Ogans who were in attendance at the Superdome. That’s what happens when Denny taunts us about how well they’re going to do. We’ll see how the Cowboys do later tonight. Campbell and crew were also enjoying some live football – they traveled to Chicago to watch their friend Nick Bawden play for the Lions. Sounds like they had a great experience.

Will was having a great experience this weekend also. His birthday gift to himself was race track driving his BMW M2C around the Thunderhill Raceway.

My book this week was “Panama” by Thomas McGuane. What a crazy ride of a book, n0t like anything I’ve read. Felt like a marriage of Hunter S. Thompson at his gonzo best and John Kennedy Toole’s New Orleans humor from “Confederacy of Dunces”.

An interesting paragraph blends in the final lines of Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”:

“On the steps of St. Paul’s church, a pigeon worked its way diagonally below the feet of two elderly gentlemen, factional members of a Long Island exodus.

“We could have had such a damned good time together,” I heard one say.

“Yes,” replied the one in the bonnet, “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”

“Now,” said the former, “I’m heading home to put things by.””

And then an excellent set of musical references:

“As to this orchestra, I am an admirer; at the same time, I know better. I came of age like everyone else, wearing out copies of Tupelo Honey, feeling richly gloomy. Now in Los Angeles, Jackson Browne and The Eagles nurse everybody’s bruises, and Mick Jagger, the tired old hag, says the Rolling Stones are the best punk band in the world.”

My fingers are getting tired now and I’m going to skip the “K’s New Music” section this week. It should be back next week with some new discoveries.

Week in Review – October 13th, 2019

“Sweet Child of Mine”

Busy, busy, busy with work all week and into the weekend for both of us. I had a big system migration project that we’ve been working on for months, and Diana had a variety of annoying challenges.

McD arrived in Austin on Thursday evening on the bus. Our friend Vinod had to spend his birthday in Austin to work on the migration, so we took him out to a nice vegetarian dinner on Friday night at Bouldin Creek Cafe. His gift was his very own Baby Penguin, which also became our migration mascot.

Our BP was very happy to have some brief company.

After dinner, we decided to see if we could make our way into the Austin City Limits music festival to see Guns ‘N Roses. We were very fortunate to run into “Marcus the ticket guy” on Barton Springs, and he fixed us up with wrist bands for a very reasonable price. The wrist bands are very fancy. A few minutes later we were transported back to the classic rock of the late 1980s.

The stage show was the most elaborate and impressive that I’ve seen, complete with fireworks for the finale:

Axl Rose’s voice wasn’t too bad, but Slash’s guitar playing was as good as ever. He seems to be channeling some Texas blues here:

Cold November Rain and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door were the two highlights for me:

I think Diana and Damon enjoyed the show almost as much as I did. We herded back out onto Barton Springs with the hordes and made it to Juliet to regroup and have a drink. We met a nice couple, Daniel and Natalie, and invited them to join us for the late night show at the Continental Club. Our luck continued, an SUV was parked right outside and ready to shuttle us over.

Western Youth had just started when we arrived at midnight. This is my favourite local band and they put on a great show.

Diana snapped a picture of the setlist:

After such a late night, we muscled through a late workout on Saturday morning and had a pretty lazy day. We met up with Damon for dinner at El Naranjo. This is an Oaxacan style Mexican place that I had been wanting to try. The ceviche and duck with mole sauce were very good. Apparently over 30 ingredients go into that thick, dark mole. I have a little left over for dinner tonight, and I’m thinking it may be even better now. After all the excitement on Friday, we called it an early night.

I had to wake at 4am for a checkpoint call on Sunday morning for our system migration. It has mostly gone well, but we’re still troubleshooting some printing issues as I write this post.

Workouts were earlier on Sunday and we were able to make a quick trip to Opa for coffee and crossword before I had to resume work. The Cowboys had a weak showing against the winless New York Jets, ultimately unable to eke out a win in the last few minutes – very disappointing.

I thought this news story was entertaining. Penelope was not laughing.

I finally finished the 500+ page novel, “The Most Fun We Ever Had”, by Claire Lombardo. I enjoyed this book, but it did go on for a while. Here’s what NPR had to say:

“Lombardo, a Chicago native and recently minted University of Iowa MFA graduate, has crafted an intricate multi-generational saga about the vicissitudes of a passionate but not perfect marriage over a 40-year span. Her capacious novel also encompasses the “vast hormonal hellscape” the couple has spawned — four cattily close, constantly sparring grown daughters trying to figure out their place in the world as they measure themselves against their mother and each other.

Set in the Chicago suburbs, Lombardo’s book has been compared to The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s seminal ode to a dysfunctional Midwestern family.”

I liked Franzen’s “The Corrections” a lot, and I suspect it was that comparison that encouraged me to read this one.

I thought this was a very pretty song when I heard it this week:

I enjoy the Fruit Bats and am surprised they are still so unknown:

A work colleague saw Fastball in Austin this week and raved about the show. I didn’t realize they were based here.

Week in Review – September 22, 2019

‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man

This was a very busy and enjoyable music week. The festivities kicked off with Lonelyland at the Saxon Pub on Monday. Bob Schneider has been playing this regular residency at the Saxon for 20 years now.

This was an excellent show – very laid back and quiet (mostly) compared to a typical Schneider show. Here’s the setlist for the show – my favourite song was “The Band Played On” – a very melancholy song.

Lonelyland goes live at 8:30PM CT at the Saxon Pub tonight! Join in on the live stream: facebook.com/bobschneidermusic

tryer G C C D

titty bar Fm Bb Eb/Fm Bb Eb Cm Ab Bb//Ab Bb Cm

like lightning D G

existential blues E A B

blue and blue G D Em C

wasting time A D E

bad mama G C G D

band plays on (the) G# D#/A#/

dark knight (the) G C D

boys you like D Bm G D A/

like the man said F Bbm

snow men F C

joey’s song A D E

squeeze (the) C Eb F/F Am F G

touch me and i’m good Csus2 G/B Am7 Fmaj9

sun’s coming G C

in a roomful of blood F C/G

once you feel nothing F C Gm F

natural woman

If you’re a real Schneider fan – here’s the livestream of the full show. Don’t miss the humorous “Natural Woman” followed by “Eye of the Tiger” closing.

We met Vinod for dinner at the Bouldin Creek Cafe on Wednesday evening. This is a vegetarian restaurant close to our apartment that we chose with Vinod in mind. The food and ambiance were very good. McD commenting, “These are the best fajitas I’ve ever had”, on her portabello mushroom fajitas. Vinod and I enjoyed our veggie burgers and particularly the chipotle pesto sauce. Meals with Vinod are always very entertaining.

On the drive to the restaurant, I noticed a sign on the El Mercado Mexican restaurant alerting us that John Inmon was hosting Marcia Ball as his guest. After dinner, we paid our $5 cover and enjoyed the last 40 minutes of that excellent show. John Inmon is known as one of the finest guitarists in Austin (pretty rarefied company) and hosts a different guest every Tuesday night. What a treat to see Marcia Ball with a different band and playing songs that you don’t hear in her regular sets recently. Here’s the excellent “World Full of Love”. Marcia and her friend told the story of writing this song after the last election – they were not happy with the result but turned around that sentiment into this beautiful song:

Thursday brought the drive back to Dallas so that Diana could attend a meeting downtown. We listened to more of our audible book, “The Apartment”, getting close to the concluding exciting part. Diana texted me this picture from the client office, asking me if I was interested in attending. “Absolutely”, was my speedy response. I’m a huge Eric Clapton fan and this festival includes many of the world’s best guitar players.

We headed down to American Airlines Center early on Friday afternoon and were the first folks to arrive at Diana’s work suite. The show started with Bill Murray introducing Sonny Landreth (an amazing slide guitar player from New Orleans). Last time I saw him was with less than 50 folks at the Rock N’ Bowl – bit different this time.

Eric Clapton and his band (including Andy Fairweather Low – my Mum’s 2nd cousin) were up next and provided a beautifully nuanced acoustic set – including these two gems:

Gary Clark Jr., another amazing Austin guitar player, joined Citizen Cope for this one – such a great guitar sound:

Sheryl Crow was joined by Doyle Bramhall (last seen at Antone’s small club in Austin) for one of my favourites of hers, “Steve McQueen”:

I think Jimmy Vaughan had one of the best sets of the evening (and there were a lot of good ones). We last saw him a few weeks ago at the tiny C-Boys Heart and Soul club on South Congress in Austin – quite a change in venue. He started out with the same band from C-Boys:

Vaughan’s first guest was the lovely Bonnie Raitt:

Then things picked up on the crowd pleasing dial. Billy Gibbons of ZZTop joined for a couple of songs, getting the crowd going with “Sharp Dressed Man”

We saw Marcus King at the Hula Hut in Austin during South by Southwest and loved his voice. Things were a bit loud and overdriven at this show. I did enjoy this quieter song, “Goodbye Carolina”:

Next up was Peter Frampton – weeks away from entering retirement. He started with a lovely instrumental version of Hoagey Carmichael’s “Georgia on my mind”, and then transitioned into the famous “Do You Feel Like We Do”, from the best-selling live album of all time, “Frampton Comes Alive”:

Then we had a real moment. Frampton introduced a gentleman that he’d known for a long time, but had never played with, Eric Clapton. A real one of a kind experience as they played the Beatles, “My Guitar Gently Weeps”:

Jeff Beck finished out the show. A special guest ambled onto the stage to sing John Lennon’s “Isolation” – Johnny Depp – he did a decent job on a great song:

What an amazing event, finishing after midnight, wait – there’s a song about that. Who wrote that? Eric Clapton you might quickly answer, but you’d be wrong – it was J. J. Cale. Check out the original version later in this post. Thanks Diana, for an excellent event. The logistics of this event were incredible – a rotating stage so that there was a very short gap between music, and satellite stages to add some special interest. The setlist for Saturday (Vince’s buddy was recording the show and provided this) shows the precision involved:

Here’s the setlist from the show we saw on Friday:

Main Event in American Airlines Center from approximately 7PM on Friday, September 20th:

Sonny Landreth: Walkin’ Blues, It Hurts Me Too, Instrumental (Title Unknown), Brave New Girl

Eric Clapton with Andy Fairweather Low, Jamie Oldaker, Steve Gadd, Nathan East and Pedrito Martinez: Circus, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out, Tears In Heaven, Wonderful Tonight, Lay Down Sally

Bonnie Raitt, Keb’ Mo’ and Alan Darby – 1 song. Alan played the new Gibson Custom Eric Clapton 1964 Firebird 1 Recreation which is part of the 2019 Crossroads Guitar Collection.

Citzen Cope – 5 songs including Bullet And A Target and Sideways. Gary Clark, Jr. joined for one number

Gustavo Santaolalla – the Argentinian guitarist and composer opened with the Apology Song, followed by a selection of songs from film soundtracks he composed.

Sheryl Crow – 6 song set with guests Bonnie Raitt and James Bay. If It Makes You Happy, Steve McQueen (with Bonnie Raitt), Live Wire (with Bonnie Raitt), Everything Is Broken (with Bonnie Raitt and James Bay), Every Day Is A Winding Road (with James Bay)

Pedro Martins and Daniel Santiago – 3 song set

Kurt Rosenwinkel with Pedro Martins – performed 6 songs. Songs were taken from Kurt Rosenwinkel’s album Caipi and Pedro Martin’s album, Vox.

James Burton and Albert Lee with Jamie Oldaker and Nathan East: That’s Alright Mama, Rock Around With Ollie Vee

Jimmie Vaughan and The Tilt-A-Whirl Band with guests Bonnie Raitt and Billy Gibbons: D/FW, Roll Roll Roll, No One To Talk To (But The Blues), Baby Please Come Home (with Bonnie Raitt), I Ain’t Never (with Bonnie Raitt), Sharp Dressed Man (with Billy Gibbons), La Grange (with Billy Gibbons)

Doyle Bramhall and Gary Clark, Jr: Rock Me Baby

The Marcus King Band: 7 song set including I Just Want To Make Love To You, Hoochie Coochie Man and Goodbye Carolina.

Peter Frampton with Eric Clapton: Georgia On My Mind (Instrumental), Do You Feel Like We Do, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (with Eric Clapton)

Jeff Beck with guests Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall (pending confirmation): Jeff’s set included Big Block, Isolation (with Johnny Depp), Somebody’s Nobody (with Johnny Depp), Superstition (with Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall), Little Wing (with Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall)

While we were enjoying all of this varied and excellent music in Texas, Will was presenting to a Redwood City elementary class about the solar power system he installed for their school. You can tell he’s loving the chance to interact with the kids:

It’s been a very good football Sunday – the Cowboys won easily over the Dolphins (scoring two TDs while I was facetiming with my parents), the Eagles lost, and New Orleans beat Seattle with a backup quarterback. And Nick Baudin, Campbell’s friend since elementary school in Los Gatos, hurdled a defender for a first down for the Detroit Lions.

I started “The Most Fun We Ever Had” by Claire Lombardo this week. The first 100 of 500 pages have been enjoyable. I suspect it’ll take me a few weeks to finish this one. The multi-generational story of a Chicago based family seems like it will provide many hours of interesting reading.

There’s a new ablum from the excellent Teskey Brothers, a Melbourne based blues/soul band that I really enjoy:

Here’s the original version of “Isolation”, performed by Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp on Friday. It really reminds me of Dark Side of the Moon era Pink Floyd and could easily be a Roger Waters song:

Let’s finish out the week with even more excellent music, the original version of “After Midnight”:

I highly encourage you to check out all of Cale’s wonderful catalog.

MIND GAMES COVER

TESKEY BROS

Fortnight in Review – August 25, 2019

“Surfing Dogs, Walking in Memphis”

Did you miss me last week? Really? Be honest.

We were visiting with Kris and Cat last Sunday prior to their French adventure, and ended up staying late after dinner. With travel and excitement, I decided to skip the blog and catch up on two weeks today. Do you think I qualify as a “Babe Who Blogs” – I didn’t think so either and so skipped this event at the apartment building.

I spent the first week in Austin, while McD headed to Wisconsin for a few days. Sunrise on Tuesday was described as “crepuscular” by the TV weather guy. It was quite impressive and I looked up what that meant:

Crepuscular Rays: A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a ray of sunlight that appears to radiate from the point in the sky where the Sun is located. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains, these columns of sunlit scattering particles are separated by darker shadowed volumes.

I do enjoy waking up with sunrise over downtown Austin. Meanwhile Diana was enjoying what Wisconsin had to offer – much cooler weather, and some good steakhouses (no relation to the New Orleans institution of the same name).

I enjoyed an amazing Chinese Dim Sum meal on Wednesday with Mark and Damon. Lin Dim Sum is one of my new favourite Austin restaurants. We navigated the hard to eat soup dumplings and then enjoyed the stand out of our meal, the seafood basket. All the different seafood offerings were perfectly cooked and presented.

Diana and I regrouped in Dallas on Thursday night at the lovely Neighborhood Services restaurant on Lovers Lane. We love this place and it never disappoints with excellent service and food.

On Saturday morning, we caught a flight to San Francisco for a few days with family. Crosswords are a good way to pass the time, and I always enjoy the view of the Sierras with a small snow cap remaining.

We took Clorinda to Puerto 27, the Peruvian restaurant in Pacifica, for dinner on Saturday night. She enjoyed “sharing” the pisco sour 27 cocktail with me, and was heard to say, “is the rest of this for me?”.

Clorinda thought her “His and Hers” note by the extra coffee maker acquired at a rummage sale was very funny:

Sunday took us down to Santa Clara to visit with Kris and Cat. The fresh produce from their garden led to excellent appetizers and dinner. We laughed as we reviewed the calendar for their three week trip to France, and particularly Kris’ list of outfits, shoes, and accessories to be worn each afternoon and evening

Diana had to work on Monday, so I took Clorinda for lunch at the Cliff House – a classic San Francisco restaurant on the cliffs above Ocean Beach.

Sutro’s at the Cliff House is very fancy and we were able to score a lovely window seat. Clorinda loved every last drop of her red Thai curry bouillabaisse, while I was equally happy with my scallops and shrimp over saffron cous cous.

I gathered some excellent stories: Why it’s so much more difficult to sing opera in French than Russian (who would have expected), the challenges of surf boarding behind a ski boat in Lake Tahoe when you can’t float with a life jacket, living in a one bedroom apartment in North Beach with a baby grand and not being able to concentrate on music if the kitchen wasn’t fully organized, and making a 21 layer rice crispie cake for Adamo. For desert we chose a butterscotch pot de creme (yummy). We both enjoyed our 2 hour plus lunch experience.

While in Wisconsin, McD had seen a story on the news about the dog surfing championship in Pacifica. It was funny to read about this in the local Pacifica paper. Here’s the start of the story:

“It was a foggy morning in Pacifica, but the cover burned off as the day went on and it didn’t deter crowds from coming out to see the 4th annual dog surfing championships at Linda Mar beach on Saturday. At least a thousand people showed up to watch.”

Tuesday took us down to Campbell to prepare for our concert at the Saratoga Mountain Winery. We enjoyed dinner at Pacific Fresh in the Campbell Pruneyard and then made the precarious drive up to the winery.

Shemeika Copeland, daughter of blues great Johnny Copeland, opened the show beautifully. Her dialogue between songs really added to the experience.

You can tell from the video that Diana sprung for some amazing seats – front row, right in front of Marc Cohn’s piano. Thanks for the excellent birthday gift!

Marc Cohn and the Blind Boys of Alabama followed Copeland, with a very unique set. The Blind Boys adding excellent gospel harmony to Cohn’s songs. “Walking in Memphis” taking on a whole new meaning with the gospel harmonies. The blind boys have been performing for over 7o years, with one of their member close to 90. What an experience.

Video recording was not permitted at the show, so here’s a sample of what that song sounded like at another performance:

I loved watching Cohn’s smile as he listened to the Blind Boys enhancing his compositions.

We will never forget the Cohn concert at the Kessler a few years ago, when we were first introduced to “True Companion”, our wedding song, and the story of an overseas service members’ wife attending the concert. Here’s a memory from that show:

Taj Mahal finished out the show. While we enjoyed his music and performance, more Marc Cohn would have been great.

I love this video of Taj Mahal riding around New Orleans while performing his classic song, “Queen Bee”:

We flew back to Dallas on Wednesday, fortunately sharing the flight with Kris and Cat heading to France.

Prior to the flight, we enjoyed brunch at Mo’s in downtown Campbell, home to an outstanding Bloody Mary with onion ring and bacon – yummmm.

We both worked most of the day on Thursday and Friday, and then Diana organized an excellent night out on Saturday. We began with dinner at Rye in downtown McKinney. Ownership had changed in the last year and the cocktail list had me on alert, but we ended up having an excellent meal. Four courses of shared tapas – blue cheesecake (very creative), forest floor (almost up there with Manresa presentation) with four kinds of mushrooms, edible flower, and seaweed foam, perfect scallops, and finally pork belly lollipops.

Dinner was followed by the Peterson Brothers band in the downtown McKinney courthouse – quite a change from the Continental Club where we usually see them. Diana had a nice chat with Deana (the boys mother) where we learned that they were just back from opening for Gary Clark Jr. in Virginia – big time! As usual the Brothers delivered high energy, positive vibes with those great smiles and energy.

Sunday began as normal- swim, coffee and crossword, and facetime with Mum and Dad. I laughed at the story of my Dad’s challenges with caulk, only to struggle as I tried to fill in a hole where wasps are gathering around a window on our back patio.

On a completely different note, Will is headed to Burning Man next week and has been excitedly sharing pictures of his camper, outfits and transportation:

I’m excited to hear about Will and Christine’s experiences in the Google village at Burning Man.

I loved the book “Henry, Himself” by Stewart O’Nan. O’Nan is renowned for illuminating the unexpected grace of everyday life and the resilience of ordinary people with humor, intelligence, and compassion. In this book, he offers an unsentimental, moving life story of a twentieth-century everyman.

Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honor. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he’s always believed in logic, sacrifice, and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It’s 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple anymore. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife Emily and dog Rufus stand by him. Once so confident, as Henry’s strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he can’t answer: Is he a good man? Has he done right by the people he loves? And with time running out, what, realistically, can he hope for?

The quality of the writing is superb, and I really enjoy the time taken exploring the everyday experiences that make up a life. I look forward to reading the other two books in this trilogy.

This is my favourite Peter Gabriel album, before things got too esoteric, with excellent production by Bob Ezrin, and containing “Here Comes the Flood” – a top 10 song of mine.

Try this piece for an escape from the ratrace – just beautiful and calming:

And if you liked this, then you will probably enjoy this as well, excellent pianist also:

And as the wonderful Monty Python’s Flying Circus would say, “and now for something completely different”. In my estimation, this is the perfect bouncy summer song for relaxing by the pool:

Shemeika Copeland delivered an awesome version of this song by her father on Tuesday night:

Week in Review – August 11, 2019

“My compliments to the chef”

It was back down to Austin on Monday morning and back up to McKinney again on Friday. Diana let me borrow her car so I would be a bit more comfortable on the long drives, while she and Penelope tried to get along on her drives to downtown Dallas.

As you can see from the pictures above, it was oppressively hot all week. Those red bars are the “feels like” temperature – adjusted for humidity. Diana’s car is reporting a real temperature of 105 degrees at 5pm. As a result, I spent most of my time indoors this week.

Cat was in Austin for an Apple Systems Engineering annual meeting, and we were able to meet up on Thursday evening. We made a quick visit to the Sky bar for the requisite picture, and then Ubered over to Peche – I know, it’s less than a mile, but it was still too hot to walk at 7:30 pm.

We enjoyed an excellent dinner at Peche. The combination of Cat’s intelligence, world view, and immense wit, make him a perfect dinner companion. He loved the rabbit and mushroom risotto, and sent his compliments to the chef via Tucker, our waiter. Chef showed up a few minutes later and Cat told him he liked the dish because you could stop eating to tell a story for a few minutes, and the excellent flavor was still in your senses. This is a new dish on the menu, and Diana will have to return to try it soon.

We visited the Roosevelt Room, a kind of fancy speakeasy style cocktail bar, after Peche and I enjoyed a Paper Plane. We sat at the bar and thoroughly enjoyed watching all the craft cocktails being prepared – some works of art. My drink came with a small origami plane flying alongside

It was very nice to spend an evening with Cat without the girls along. Wait – maybe that didn’t come out exactly the way I meant it. What I was trying to say…. Ah, never mind, I’ll just stop digging the hole now.

I tried a couple of new things for my drive on Friday. #1, I downloaded an audible book to listen to on the ride – I’ve listened to podcasts but never a book. I chose “Lincoln in the Bardo”, which got such rave reviews last year. It has an all start cast reading – apparently one of the largest for an audio book. Nick Offerman is excellent. What a weird book – I listened for almost four hours and was really struggling to figure out what was going on. Had to read a synopsis when I got home. Not sure whether I’ll make it through the remaining 3 hours or not. #2, I decided to venture away from the standard places along the highway and try a real Waco restaurant for my lunch stop. Harvest was a very good farm to table casual place, not too far off Interstate 35. The migas were excellent. I look forward to stopping there again.

It was very nice to resume the regular weekend routine with Diana – swim, coffee and crossword, reading. The simple things that I miss when we’re not together. We ventured out of the normal routine for dinner, trying a new restaurant for us, Knife, located by Willow Bend Mall. This is a John Tesar place. You may remember I came home with a whole pan of his duck confit risotto after attending a demonstration he did at the Granada theater a few years back. He is starting to expand his empire with a few different places now, after getting his real start as the executive chef at the Mansion on Turtle Creek.

We were both very pleased with the quality of the steak and the sauces. My au poivre was absolutely delicious. I chuckled at the mini fry basket that the french fries were served in. We have plenty of left overs for dinner tonight.

I was even able to resist the chocolate caramel treat and have that waiting for desert later.

I finally finished “Lost Children Archive” by Valeria Luiselli. On the surface this is a family road trip story. Parents and two young children embark on a trip from New York to Arizona and the Apache homelands. Several stories interweave, including narratives on the plight of native Americans, and on children traveling alone across the border in attempts to reunite with family members living in the United States. All very poignant with the backdrop of our governments challenge to figure out a workable immigration solution on our southern border. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but got bogged down in some of the historical details and discussion on documentary field recordings.

Welcome to a new series of introductions to my new music finds – featuring some of my favourite album covers. I particularly like the diner scene on the back of Supertramps’ classic “Breakfast in America”. If you zoom in you can see Dougie Thompson reading the Glasgow Herald.

I had been listening to some Philip Glass music this week, and then read in the acknowledgements in “Lost Children Archive” that Luiselli had listened to his “Metamorphosis” a lot while writing the novel. Also interesting that the owner of Shakespeare & Co in Paris gave her a room above the store to work in for a year while writing. Here’s Part 2 of metamorphosis – I love the triplet right hand part around 2:30.

Zero 7, an English duo who began as studio engineers, have a new album out this week with a host of guest vocalists. All very relaxing, chill sounds, and, not surprisingly, beautifully produced.

Something about the Zero 7 music sent me to Stereolab and one of my favourites from many years ago:

Week in Review – July 14th, 2019

“A Dull Boy”

Another week of long work days for both of us. Becoming too much of a trend lately. We need to fix that soon. “All work and no play, makes Keith a very dull boy!”.

My comment about steak tartare last week prompted Raj to send me this hilarious clip of Mr. Bean about to enjoy the same:

We were paying close attention to Hurricane Barry on Friday, as it started to head towards New Orleans and surrounding areas. Denny and Anne returned form their European jaunt on Monday and had to move their cars out of their flooded street, and get ready for several days of being home bound.

Webster Street has never been this much flooded before, and the storm hadn’t arrived yet.

My friend Norma, from Guatemala, was trying to get to New Orleans on Saturday to see the Rolling Stones at the Superdome. This is the rescheduled concert from the Jazzfest 50th anniversary show that was canceled due to Mick Jagger’s illness. Wouldn’t you know she had to fly on Friday afternoon to get in ahead of the storm, only to find out that the concert was pushed back to Monday. We’re hoping she finally gets to see the band after so much effort. She was in Lima, Peru this week, planning for our new system to be implemented, and was complaining that it was mid winter and very cold. It will not feel like winter in New Orleans for sure.

Thankfully, New Orleans was not too badly impacted by Barry.

Out in San Diego, Campbell reported his best sales month ever, and best week ever to close out the quarter. Look at the salesman extraordinaire go!

This screensaver on my computer took me back to the gorgeous Scottish hillsides, covered in heather. Also made me picture Bramble, Elspeth and David’s new Labrador, out for a run and having fun. Correction – maybe she’s really Heather’s dog.

Our neighbours across the street are moving to a house with better “outdoor living” after 15 years in their current house. We’re very sorry to see them go – such happy people who would help us with anything. It’ll be interesting to see who moves in next.

I always enjoy waking up to the sunrise view and the Friday morning edition was very impressive.

Diana arrived on the afternoon bus on Friday and it reminded me to share this picture I snapped earlier in the week. One of the luxury Vonlane buses had broken down and the Corvette the mechanic drove over to repair it was hilarious. Zoom in and check out all that crazy air intake equipment.

Less than two hours after arrival, I had Diana over to Antone’s to see the amazing Marcia Ball. I just told her that I had a fun activity planned, and didn’t provide any more details. She was quite excited on seeing the billboard.

Part of the entertainment of a Marcia Ball concert is the way her legs and feet keep the beat. On good display in this clip:

We always laugh at the song, “Just Kiss Me Baby”:

Given Hurricane Barry bearing down on Louisiana, Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” was quite poignant:

It’s amazing that a song about the flood of 1927 still seems relevant today. Here Marcia makes the song her own, following an excellent saxophone solo:

Ball is an impressive performer at the age of 70, having played in small clubs across the South for more than 50 years. Equally impressive are the charities she runs to provide housing and healthcare for Austin musicians.

The Boogie Kings, a band formed in Eunice, Louisiana in 1955, were billed as the headliners, but the crowd had cleared out a good bit for their set – most folks came to hear Marcia Ball.

Their soul music was very good, particularly the three horn players who had clearly being doing it for many years. Here’s the “Harlem Shuffle” showcasing the horns:

As we arrived back home to the apartment, the dull sheen of the work week was starting to wear off.

Saturday began with a swim and sauna, followed by a delicious Mediterranean lunch, coffee and crossword at Opa. Then a Target shopping run and back to the apartment for a nap for me, while McD joined the craziness of the monthly pool party, including a DJ playing music she didn’t enjoy.

Diana was in charge of entertainment on Saturday night, and she opted for a walk down South Congress. We paused outside the Continental Club to listen to a very good swing band – it wouldn’t have taken much to convince D to head on inside – and then continued our walk on down to the South Congress Hotel. There really are so many interesting stores and restaurants on this street – very unique. We enjoyed a drink at Craft and Commerce – commenting on the beautiful decor, and then walked across the street for dinner at June’s. We sat on the patio and enjoyed the people watching.

I was up early on Sunday to watch the Gentlemens’ Final at Wimbledon. Going to bed on Saturday, Diana said it started at 8am, and of course I had to argue – believing that was 8am Eastern. When I got to the TV at 7am Central, the pre-game show was just starting. Diana was right again. She always says, “What was that?”. I’ll repeat – Diana was right again! What an excellent tennis match. Federer’s single handed backhand is superb, but his forehand let him down too often to prevail. I think we shared the Duchess of Cambridge’s emotions.

Sunday morning continued with a swim and sauna, followed by brunch at El Alma – so good. I enjoyed an afternoon nap and some reading time. In the evening, we walked across to the lawn at the Long Center to enjoy the Austin Symphony brass section in a free outdoor concert. They really do take full advantage of the open spaces in downtown Austin. The concert was a good mix of Renaissance music, film scores, Texas songs, and marches. The crowd was the typical Austin mix of lots of dogs, kids, and even a guy doing yoga next to us. Here’s a view of the almost full moon over the Catherine from my lawn chair, as the sun set on activities.

Here’s a short video of the brass section performing the “Yellow Rose of Texas” with some views of the apartment and downtown:

I enjoyed the book, “Machines LIke Me” by Ian McEwan, very much. What an excellent writer and a creative premise. The novel is set in 1982, the miners are on strike, unemployment is soaring, and Margaret Thatcher has dispatched the Navy to protect the Falkland Islands from take over by an Argentinian junta. These are all historically accurate, and then McEwan puts a twist on things – the war in the Falklands is lost with 3,000 casualties, Lennon and JFK are both alive, and Tony Benn is challenging Thatcher for leadership of the country.

The biggest tweak to history is that Alan Turing is still alive and treated as a hero. He has built on his famous World War II code cracking machine, and created many of the foundational components of Artificial Intelligence, which he provides to all via open source. Charlie, the hero of the story, acquires one of 25 new androids, capable of developing a human-like personality over time. The novel deftly explores what can go right and wrong as androids become more and more human-like.

This book reminded me a lot of Roth’s “The Plot Against America”, with the slight tweaks on history. This one is equally well done. McEwan has certainly become more of a crowd pleaser with his last few novels, but still highly enjoyable and unique.

I include this first song just so that I can tell a short story that I learned recently. When receiving the rite of Catholic confirmation, participants choose the name a Saint that they admire. Diana chose “Bernadette”, best known for her visions at Lourdes.

Returning to Antone’s on Friday reminded me of my first visit there after moving to Austin, and the excellent Doyle Bramhall II show, featuring special guest Lukas Nelson.

I heard this wonderful Chopin Nocturne on Paradise Radio this week – they really do play a great mix of styles and genres.

A unique Prince cover finishes out the post for this week. Didn’t turn out being too dull of a week after all.