i've moved

Hey all! I know it's been forever since I posted here, but seeing how its the 31st and seeing how each year I always make a new year's resolution to be a better blogger, I thought I'd let you know that I've moved my blog over to WordPress and that I hope the new set up will inspire me to be more garrulous. Or would that be blogulous? Anyhoo, click here to see the new blog, and bookmark it or blogroll it, if you feel so inclined. There's not much there that's new right now, but I have created pages to house my playlists, which should keep the clutter down, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can do with WordPress. Eventually I'd love to get my own domain, but, first: baby steps. Baby blogging steps.

Happy New Year, folks, and I look forward to reading your blogs and/or reading your comments on mine in 2010!

playlist, jun. 16, 2009

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Radio Radio"
Viva Voce - "Die a Little"
Crystal Stilts - "Love Is a Wave"
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero"
Otis Redding - "Respect"
Hidden Cameras - "Lollipop"
Cut Off Your Hands - "Happy as Can Be"
Comet Gain - "Love Without Lies"
Metric - "Sick Muse"
Leonard Cohen - "So Long, Marianne"
Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"
St. Vincent - "The Party"
My Brightest Diamond - "Tainted Love"
Sonic Youth - "Sacred Trickster"
Pavement - "Stereo"
The Beatles - "For You Blue"
Akron/Family - ""Everyone Is Guilty"
Rademacher - "They Are Always Into That"
Blake Jones - "Music to Change Clothes By"
Poplord - "Change in Time for Monday"
The Sleepover Disaster - "Friend"
Wheels of Fortune - "A Firefly Never Forgets"
Y La Bamba - "Fasting in S.F."
Ian McGlynn - "Mistaken for Strangers"
Breathe Owl Breathe - "Boat"
Papercuts - "Future Primitive"
The Breeders - "Do You Love Me Now?"
Fever Ray - "I'm not Done"
Moderat - "Sick with It"
NASA - "Watchadoin?"
Bola Johnson & His Easy Life Top Beats - "Ezuku Buzo"
Animal Collective - "Lion in a Coma"
The Lettermen - "Love"
The Raconteurs - "Salute Your Solution" [Live]
Crooked Fingers - "New Drink for the Old Drunk"
Peter Murphy - "Deep Ocean Vast Sea"
Interpol - "Obstacle 1"
The Go! Team - "Bottle Rocket"
Dirty Projectors & David Byrne - "Knotty Pine
Circlesquare - "Stop Taking (So Many)"
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - "Traveling Salesman's Young Wife Home Alone on Christmas in Montpelier, VT"

selling my seeds for free

Rachid - “Sweet Charity”

If you’re like me, you just love songs about sperm donation. And I think you’ll agree with me that Rachid’s “Sweet Charity,” from 1998’s Prototype, is the best of the bunch. The song features flawlessly produced R&B grooves replete with vocoder, achey falsetto and just the right amount of melisma. But it’s the lyrics that really stand out here. The singer is in a waiting room preparing to…give freely of himself, but he thrills at being able to do so without the aid of “girly magazines.” All he has to do is think of his beloved, and—presto!

“I really must admit

It’s so lovely when you spit

When I think about it

I can make my deposit.”

Now who wouldn’t melt at having that whispered in your ear? “You’ve always inspired me,” Rachid croons, “to give to strangers in need.”

Consider this my gift to you. Enjoy.

♬

4 yr ears and 4 yr eyes

Rainbow Arabia - "Omar K"



Breathe Owl Breathe - "Boat"

i be in it like a preacher in a pulpit

The-Dream - “Mr. Yeah”

I’m a sucker for art that parodies itself, whether it does so wittingly or not. The-Dream’s “Yeah” is a syrupy bit of horny braggadocio that owes a lot to the up-in-da-club bravado of Usher’s “Yeah” and to Kanye West vocoderized come-ons. The lyrics may be silly when they’re going for sexy (“Cupid ain’t got shit on me / I’m harder than Superman, / I bounce back like a rubber band”), but there’s a really lovely melodic line here, and I love how the staccato synthesized chords counterpoint with a noise that sounds like a contented baby alien after a satisfying breastfeeding.

♫

oh, but we go out at night!

Born Ruffians - "I Need a Life" (Four Tet Remix)

After listening to this remix umpteen times, I’ve decided that Four Tet should remix every song I like—or every song I don’t like, for that matter. The remix minces and reassembles the rough-hewn singing in Born Ruffians’ “I Need a Life,” creating an achey-breakey assemblage of boy vocals that swirl over pools of blips and bleeps. By the time the chorus breaks in and we hear the Ruffians chanting “Oh, but we go out at night!” the track has built up to such a crescendo that the otherwise forgettable phrase becomes a sublime assertion. At 6:50 the moving plea

I need a life
I’ve never had
I need so much more good, Lord
And much less bad

closes the track and turns what might otherwise have sounded like a frat-boy chant into a heartfelt prayer.

♪

st albans

Shane and Joyce and I took a short day trip to the market town of St Albans on Saturday, Jan. 24. At one end of the market is a clock tower, which also marks the site at which the funeral procession of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I, rested on its sojourn to London in 1290. At each spot where the funeral procession rested, Edward raised a cross (one of these is the site of Charing Cross in London). The cross at St Albans no longer exists, but the clock tower is handsome in its own right, no?

A group of American Indians were dancing and singing at its base. Why not?

Word has it that St Albans boasts one of the highest concentrations of pubs of any village in England. That was enough motivation for Shane and Joyce and I to find ourselves in one. I ordered sausages and mash, and the pub people misforgot my order. So they gave me my lunch for free. Score!

After our lunch and ales, we sought out St Albans Cathedral. Here are Shane and Joyce playing "find the cathedral."


The cathedral is an interesting blend of styles dating from before the eleventh century to the late nineteenth.


See?

The interior was particularly beautiful, and, while inside, we joined a guided tour which informed us about various of the cathedral's features.




I can't quite remember what the tour guide said, but these pictures should give you some sense of what's in there.

After enjoying another beer, we headed back to London. That night, I took this picture from the window of my room in Vincent House.

westminster abbey & barnes to putney

On Jan. 23, I took the students to Westminster Abbey. No photography is allowed inside the church, so I don't have pictures, but Westminster is a fascinating and beautiful place. Some of the students found all the tombs to be creepy (it must have been all the tombs), and a couple chose to cut out early (their loss, I say). It was also difficult keeping everyone together: Westminster allows groups only if all the members stay keep together and if the leader refrains from making any comments that a hired tour-guide might make. Thus, between herding students of varied levels of interest and not being able to say much while inside, the experience was less than ideal. Still, some of the students really enjoyed Westminster. One of them remarked, "Wow. You really have to want something badly to build this." I concurred.

That afternoon, Shane and I followed Robert Wright's walk from Barnes bridge to Putney. Early on in the walk, we stumbled across a house Henry Fielding lived in. So, to celebrate, I cut a little caper.


The walk took us past a Wetlands Centre, and then to a boat-racing section of the Thames.


It was dusk at the end of the walk, which made for some lovely views of the river and the bridges that cross it in Putney.

behind on london and bread

My goal had been to blog regularly about my London Semester adventures, and I didn't even get through the first month of three! Still, through photos, I have a pretty good record of the walks and excursions, so I'll keep posting about them every so often, if only so I have a record of the experience.

Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this loaf of bread:


I made this a couple of days ago using the Cook's Illustrated Almost No-Knead Bread recipe that appeared in their January/February 2008 issue. It's a simple recipe, and it's nearly perfect. I still have to figure out why my loaves come out with a slightly over-browned bottom crust, but I have some ideas about how to address that problem.

Almost No-Knead Bread

An enameled cast-iron Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid yields best results, but the recipe also works in a regular cast-iron Dutch oven or heavy stockpot. Use a mild-flavored lager, such as Budweiser (mild non-alcoholic lager also works). The bread is best eaten the day it is baked but can be wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days.

3cups unbleached all-purpose flour (15 ounces), plus additional for dusting work surface
1/4teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2teaspoons table salt
3/4cup plus 2 tablespoons water (7 ounces), at room temperature
1/4cup plus 2 tablespoons mild-flavored lager (3 ounces)
1tablespoon white vinegar

Makes 1 large round loaf

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

2. Lay 12- by 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 2 hours.

3. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make one 6-inch-long, 1/2-inch-deep slit along top of dough. Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Cover pot and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

from Cook's Illustrated, Number 90, January & February 2008

inns of court & dinner with the students

On Jan. 23, Shane and I walked through the Inns of Court, which has been London's legal district for centuries. The various Temples that comprise the area feature a variety of architectural styles. We wandered back up to Fleet Street, and then ducked down to the Temple Church, which played a prominent role in The Da Vinci Code. Here are some of the Knights of the Templar, enjoying their eternal repose:


At the end of the walk, we came across this colorfully-named wine bar:


You can read about or download Robert Wright's Legal London walk here.

That evening, the students organized a group dinner at a favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant. The food was very good, and the service was even better. The evening concluded with some of the students dancing with the owner and one of the servers. Here we are, happily sated on pasta and pizza.

mayfair and piccadilly

Slumming it in Mayfair is how Shane and I spent the afternoon of Jan. 21. We began our walk at Piccadilly Circus and then made our way up to Burlington House, the Royal Academy of Art. The courtyard features a statue of Joshua Reynolds trying to paint air.


We popped into a couple Victorian and Georgian arcades. Well felt like true flâneurs. Here's the interior of the Royal Arcade:


We passed by the Ritz Hotel (see above), through Berkeley Square (immortalized in "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"), and walked through the gardens of The Church of the Immaculate Conception (the headquarters of the Jesuits in Britain) in Farm Street:


I was particularly thrilled to stumble across the house where Beau Brummell--dandy extraordinaire--lived.


After passing through Grosvenor Square, we made our way to Savile Row, which is where you'll find several tailors who produce snazzy and 'spensive men's clothing. It's also home to Apple Records, where the Beatles produced some of their last recordings and atop which they performed their final concert. (See this post for an account of my visit there on the 40th anniversary of the Let It Be concert.)

We ended the walk at St. James's on Piccadilly, which is the only Christopher Wren church outside the city of London, I believe.


You can read about and download Robert Wright's Mayfair walk here.

complicit

On the evening of Jan. 20, our British Theater class met at the Old Vic to see a new production: Joe Sutton's Complicit. I'd had high hopes for this one, as it stars Richard Dreyfuss and David Suchet and is directed by Kevin Spacey. Last summer I'd gone to see a near-perfect production of Pygmalion at the Old Vic, and I figured that, even though I knew next to nothing about Complicit, this venerable playhouse wouldn't let us down.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Sutton's script is a heavy-handed, unimaginative effort to engage in the ethical debates that journalists face when pressured by the state to reveal confidential sources. (The obvious inspiration is "Plamegate.") Sutton clearly wants to be this generation's Arthur Miller, but Complicit suggests that he sorely lacks the talent and the nuanced approach to complicated social issues to fill such a role.

While Suchet delivered a compelling performance as an attorney representing a journalist during a hearing designed to compel the his client to reveal a confidential source, Dreyfuss, who plays Ben, the journalist, was histrionic and unconvincing as someone supposedly beleaguered by a range of ethical issues related to his reportage on and opinions about state-sponsored torture of alleged terrorists in secret prisons around the world. Dreyfuss clearly hadn't learned his lines, and he performed with an earpiece, delivering his lines a beat or two late. He was clearly being fed lines during the performance. As Ben's wife, Elizabeth McGovern was lackluster, but to her credit, the part simply required McGovern to fail to grasp the issues surrounding her husband's dilemma and to harp on him about his responsibilities as a husband and father.

The set was fairly interesting--a glass-surfaced, round stage with television monitors both embedded within the stage and hanging above it. The best parts of the play were the moments in which the televisions came alive with footage of a CNN-style interview with Ben, but this footage also reveals Ben's inconsistencies in his thinking through the U.S. government's response to terror: at one moment he provides evidence that covert U.S. operatives are killing some prisoners to motivate others to reveal information; in the next, he's suggesting that the U.S. is "squeamish" in failing to use strong tactics in interrogating alleged terrorists.

Thus, as heavy-handed as the play is in tone ("this is about civil rights and torture, people! take this seriously!" Sutton whines), it's message is ultimately confused, as Ben fails to work through the most basic elements of his position on torture and the ethical repercussions of a journalist revealing his confidential sources.

Fortunately, the play was on the shorter side, and the torture the audience suffered was less than it might have othewise have been. Small mercies.

little venice to camden lock

On Jan. 20, Shane and I walked from Little Venice to Camden Town along the Regents Canal. I knew nothing about this part of London, and the walk along the water was beautiful. We started where the Grand Union Canal meets the Regents Canal, which was an important commercial waterway between Birmingham and London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Later, the railways made the canals less important venues for commerce and transportation.

Along the canal are many narrow houseboats along Regents Canal; many of these are functional residences with little gardens either atop the boats or opposite them, across the walkway.



The canal forms much of the northern the border of Regent's Park, and I was surprised to see hyenas on the opposite side of the canal. Then I realized we were walking just opposite the London Zoo.

We crossed under several attractive bridges. There's Shane walking ahead of me in this first picture.



At the Cumberland Basin, the canal veers northward toward Camden Lock, where our walk ended. There we visited a pub and watched some of the live televised presidential inauguration.


Read about and download Robert Wright's Regents Canal walk here.

chelsea and the british museum

On. Jan. I took Robert Wright's walk through Chelsea. I arrived at the the Royal Hospital Chelsea--designed by Christopher Wren and established for the Chelsea pensioners in 1692--at noon, but it was closed to visitors until 2:00 pm. Since I had some time to kill, I wandered over to the Saatchi Gallery, but it was hosting a private event that day. Instead I meandered up and down the King's Road in the rain and found myself a tasty pasty for lunch. Once the hospital opened to visitors, I was able to see the Figure Court, the Chapel, and the Great Hall; then I headed out toward the embankment of the Thames.

Walking through historic Chelsea, I found Thomas Carlyle's home, Henry VIII's Chelsea Manor House, and a the place where Tobias Smollett lived.


The next day, Joyce and I went to the British Museum to catch an exhibition of six contemporary sculptors that was closing soon. Here are a couple of my favorites. Notice the shadows cast by the sculptures--comprised of dead animals--in the second photo:

kensal green

On January 18th, Shane and I traveled up to Kensal Green cemetery, and there we wandered amongst Victorian gravestones and monuments.


Some of the monuments are bizarre and overwrought; many are collapsing. This only made them more interesting, however.


The day was gray, the ground was cold and wet, so it made for a perfect day to go sloshing about in a cemetery. Nevertheless, we lingered a little too long and were locked in, but we found a gap in a chain-link fence and escaped. A couple of years ago, I was nearly trapped in Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery. It seems to be a thing with me.


Find out more about Robert Wright's walk through Kensal Green here.

Grandma Helen, 1924-2009

My grandmother, Helen Shuman Heaton, passed away on Feb. 6. She had been in a car accident last summer and had struggled to recover, so it wasn't wholly unexpected. Still, it has been sad to lose someone who has been such a an important figure in my life. I have a seemingly endless supply of entertaining Grandma Helen stories, and I love sharing them with people.

I flew to Salt Lake City for the funeral, and I'm very glad I did. It was a wonderful celebration of her life, and all her grandchildren were there. Each of the grandchildren composed a tribute, and these were displayed at the funeral. Here is what I wrote:

Right up to the sad day when I learned of her death, I was telling stories about my wonderful Grandma Helen. I was in London that day, and I was staying in a boarding house with other professors who were with me directing and teaching a London study abroad program. I had told the stories of how, in order to keep me from leaving her side, Grandma would warn me about a witch who lurked in supermarkets and department stores, ready to snatch little children who had wandered off alone. I told them about the baboon who lived outside her house that only Grandma could see, no matter how many times her grandchildren ran from window to window, desperate to catch a glimpse of it. I told them about her beauty secret—a face-mask made of mashed overripe bananas and honey. I told them about how, while visiting us in Arizona, she dressed as a Mammy figure from a long-gone South that she could still remember and burst into my high school Spanish class to ask my date to the prom for me.

All who knew her cherish their own stories about Helen Heaton, and sometimes I wonder if Grandma didn’t live her life in such a way so that those who loved her would have unique and amusing tales to remember her by.

But even more than the vivid and funny stories I fondly recall about her, I treasure memories of her equally unique and charming personality. Grandma seemed afraid of no one, and she was eager to make friends of everyone she met. She even made friends of entire strangers within the time it took them to travel the length of the escalators at ZCMI with her! Her sunny disposition was infectious, and when she was happy (“tickeled,” she called it), she would burst into a hearty laughter that always betrayed her still-girlish charm and her young, fresh, and optimistic outlook on life. She chose to pass her time with those she loved most; I spent a great deal of my growing up years in the company of my grandmother as she doted on me, played games with me, invented and sang silly songs to me, and took me on shopping adventures.

Grandma Helen always shared with others that which was most important and precious to her—her life. I know she passed from this world sharing her life and her sunny, warmhearted self with others.

I miss you now and always, Grandma.

Love, your grandson,
John

Here's a photo of me and Grandma and my Grandpa Bud at my sister's wedding:

camden market and soho

On Saturday, Jan. 17, Joyce and I went to the Camden Market and wandered the stalls. Joyce was simply there to see the latest fashions of the subcultural fringe, while I was in search a bag--a murse (man purse), as I've decided to call it. There were plenty of murses about, but none really called my name--in fact, most had the manufacturer's names on them, and I really dislike wearing clothing (or sporting accessories) with prominent labels. We did, however, enjoy ourselves, and we had some good curry from one of the many take-away stalls.

After searching for the right bag in Portobello Road, I found my murse at an military surplus store just around the corner from Vincent House in Notting Hill, where I'm staying. Go figure.

The following day, Shane and I followed Robert Wright's tour of Soho. Sunday morning is good time to wander Soho, because no one else is there as most of the shops (and other places of trade) are closed. While on this walk I spotted King Charles II in Soho Square,

found William Blake's birthplace,

and ran into Janet Leigh.


While we did see some sex shops and peep shows around Soho, we found very little evidence of the area's red-light reputation. This sign, however, indicated that we were, indeed, in the land of the lascivious.


Shane had a little shopping to do.


We roamed through Chinatown, where the streets were festooned with lanterns in preparation for the Chinese New Year celebrations.