Song of the day, 30 Juni 2026

Since I've been listening to Yes' Heaven & Earth a lot lately with the intention to write about it, here's one of my favorite songs from it.

Song of the day, 29 Juni 2026

A week or two ago I went to see the Gregg Allman documentary Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul with my music doc viewing pal. Afterwards in the car on the drive home we discussed The Allman Brothers Band. I admitted that I enjoyed their post-1989 reunion stuff. Indeed, I have a soft spot for their 1994 effort Where It All Begins. The band is tight and the songs are tuneful with fine melodies and great soloing.

I really love "No One to Run With" with its Bo Diddley beat, a full and catchy percussion section, and insistent drive.

And On Those Shores They Did Dance

It was a lovely day on Saturday to return to San Damiano to see what the wood sculptors at the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival had come up with. If Michelangelo was correct in his (arboreally adjusted) assertion "Every log has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it" then I was surely in for a treat. And so I jumped on my bike and headed out after my morning coffee and making sure Willow was properly fed & watered.

Starkweather Creek looked lovely from the Ivy Street bridge.

Back in my old neighborhood I spied a mama mallard and her brood in the runoff reservoir just off of Walter Street. It brought back some good memories as I had walked and biked by there quite often when I lived in Eastmorland. I saw all manner of creatures there as I passed by over the years - mallards, muskrats, blue herons, et al.

When I stopped in at the wood sculpture festival last weekend, the artists were mainly wielding chainsaws and doing the rough cuts on their logs, giving only the broadest of outlines to the statues within. But now there were some completed sculptures, a few getting stain applied, and the remaining still having the finishing touches put on them.

The bear and mouse dancing was simply lovely.

Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!

San Damiano is such a lovely spot.

At least some of the works from the last festival ended up on display at Olbrich Park and Garver Feed Mill and I am hoping the same will happen to this year's works.

The Dixon Green Space was serene and all aglow on my ride home.

Rauch chow

Earlier this week I ran into an episode of the BBC World Service's show The Food Chain about smoked foods called "Why do we love smoky flavours so much?".

As a lover of smoky flavours, I found it a great listen and surprised to hear about smoked water and smoked lettuce.(?!)

The next day I discovered that it's not just we human who enjoy them.

Diorama

Just Darth Vader and a Stromtrooper having a cookout on their deck.

Obligatory cat pics

Willow is just so gosh darn cute.

I am trying to get into the habit of playing with her in the morning and after dinner. She gets less play time on mornings when I go into the office but I have been pretty good at playing with her daily for at least some time. And show loves it. She runs through her tube and squats under the couch before pouncing on the wand toy at the right time and then she'll jump on the couch and go into her couch fort biding her time once more...

Stoopid heat is coming

In preparation for the coming heat wave, I made some limeade.

It took 2 pounds of limes to make half a gallon of the stuff so I did a lot of reaming. Maybe I should look for a juicer at the thrift shops if I keep this up.

And I do not plan to fire up the coffeemaker when it's 90 so I've got some cold brew concentrate a-steeping.

I also made a batch of tuna salad and some Thai cucumber salad. And those brats in my refrigerator will likely be grilled today for dinner and future meals.

Something's changed, that's not your chair

It's mine, it's mine!

Just the sun peaking through some leaves

The first fruit of the season

My serrano plant has fruit!

I am looking forward to fresh chilies. Presumably the upcoming 90+ degree temps will kick things into overdrive. After years of not attempting to grow anything edible, it's nice to see a harvest, however modest, on the horizon.

Also, last night's kabobs were tasty. My ladyfriend assembles a mean skewer.

You know you're a Doctor Who fan when...

 ...you go around the supermarket calling these Macra bars.

"Look at all that protein!!"

Kitty cat cuteness

Maisie hunting her brother from on high.

Willow peeking out from under the couch to snag her favorite toy.

Play me my song, 27 Juni 2026

Moonchild!
Hear the

Silence

Moonchild!
Open the

Blurp blip - static - silence 

Moonchild

Me: Goddammit! 

A few months ago the headphone jack on my phone started to act wonky. The merest twist of the cord or slightest shift of the device would cause my headphones to fall silent. Since I could still call my mother, text people, and MFA for work, I decided to just buy a cheap MP3 player instead of replacing my phone which hopefully has a couple to a few more years of life left in it.

Sadly SanDisk doesn't make them anymore which is a shame because I'd bought their MP3 players in the past and they were solid, if no frills, devices. So I get my new one and load it up with music, audio dramas, and podcasts. It was nice to be able to listen to something and not be tempted to look at texts or check my email or just find something online to distract me from giving my ears a good time. I know too many people who stare at screens for way too long, who can sometimes barely concentrate on what is before them without looking at their phone.

For these people, the briefest downtime must be spent looking at social media, conversations must come to a grinding halt so that the status of an Amazon order can be checked, the people next to them must be briefly ignored so that the texts of someone not there can be addressed, and so on.

I soon relearned the eternal verity "You get what you pay for." First I noticed that the thing doesn't read the Title metadata and instead uses the file name which meant I had a lot of "Track #"'s.

Then one day I put on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. "Moonchild" played and I rocked out as one does to Iron Maiden. Expecting the wash of synth, melodic guitar, and gentle rim shots of "Infinite Dreams" next I instead got "Capital Letters (In Surgical Spirit Land)" by IQ. I had discovered that it only parses the first three characters of the album title. And so the songs from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son were intermingled with those of Seven Stories Into Eight. Trying to find songs from albums that begin with "The" was nigh impossible.

Navigating by artist proved to be a bit better but that list was clogged as I had the Intrigue compilation on there which meant 4 CDs worth of artist names who had but one song apiece on the album.

Despite the poorly designed menu navigation system, I got my fix of tunes and whatnot. Then it occurred to me one day that I have all these albums on there along with multiple audio dramas and I usually couldn't listen to an entire album nor finish an audio drama because I was always finding something else to listen to with such a large array of choices.

I was reminded of the days of yore when I had access to Netflix and a couple other streaming services. I'd become trapped in the indecision of all those menus consisting of seemingly endless lists of movies and programs. It was almost like being paralyzed by the enormous number of choices laid before me. Most of the time I'd scroll and scroll and just turn the TV off after a while because I didn't want to spend anymore time parsing potential viewing options. A waste of the time I have left on this planet.

It makes me sad that I have such difficulty listening to an entire album from start to finish since I used to do so effortlessly and frequently; that I am usually seeking something else even before whatever it is that has my what I thought was rapt attention is complete. I'd jump to another album even though I'd only gotten 2 songs in on the one I was listening to. Days would go by between listening sessions of an audio drama and, when I'd return to it, I'd find that I couldn't quite recall everything that had transpired up until that point.

As Thoreau implored, "Simplify! Simplify!" and so I have put a stop to it.

I deleted 18+ GB from my MP3 player just a day or 2 ago. I have but one audio drama on it that I shall listen to until completion before starting another. There are several podcasts on there and just a few albums of music. I thought that it would be fun to write about the Jon Davison era of Yes and so the 4 albums the band has made with him are on there and just another song or 2.

So far I can say that I definitely look at my phone less and often leave it in another room when unneeded. This means more time playing with Willow and giving my attention to more important things such as the people sitting right next to me. We'll see how the MP3 player saga pans out. Hopefully with a lengthy, erudite look at latter day Yes. Ha!

*******

Some new music of note. Some old stuff too. 

Rhiannon Giddens has a new album out in September called Hope Is the Thing with Feathers and the first single, "Carolina Rain" is out now. A lovely tune. Sadly her tour plans don't call for her to get any closer than Minneapolis at this point.

The Hu also have a new album out soon - in July - called Hun. "Grey Hun" is on the Youtubes. Unfortunately their tour plans are on mega bills with a few other artists. Hopefully they'll come this way for a solo show soon.

The Two Steves, Hackett and Rothery - the progressive rock dream team - have done an album together called The Roaring Waves which comes out in August. Our first taste is "The Black Sea".

Deep Purple are not only still around, but they're still creating new music instead of resting on their laurels and simply playing "Smoke On the Water" over and over for aging boomers. The new album, Splat!, comes out next week. It's their second with guitarist Simon McBride who joined a couple years or so back. He seems to have given the venerable band an injection of energy as the singles that have been released thus far are just plain good hard rock. The songs are kinetic and don't betray that most of the band are in their 70s or 80s.

Another band of old codgers that won't put their instruments down are The Rolling Stones. Their latest, Foreign Tongues, is to be released in a couple weeks. I chatted with a pal of mine about newer Stones just a week or so ago when he and I went to see the Gregg Allman documentary. His experience with them ends with Steel Wheels and so I talked up Voodoo Lounge. It's a great album and the b-sides are wonderful and it's just a really fun rock album with catchy riffs and Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger.

They put out Hackney Diamonds in 2023 and I enjoyed the singles from that album and the ones from the new LP are a blast too. While these guys may not be breaking any new ground, they keep doing their thing and it sounds great still.

Jethro Tull release J-Tull Dot Com: Another Cast Of The Net in August. The box set features a remixed version of the 1999 album along with some outtakes and live tracks. "Spiral" has been remixed and it sounds very nice. I think the drums are up a bit in the mix and that there's more stereo separation - it sounds "wider".

Speaking of Tull, I've been listening to the alternate mixes of RökFlöte lately and really enjoying them. Everything is more up front in the mix it seems and there is more room between the instruments. The guitar and keyboards are no longer this mushy, soft rock amalgamate; the electric guitar is grittier, ballsier and the keyboards are allowed to step up and lead the charge too. I mean, these are songs about gods like Thor who brings down the thunder with his hammer, not Ratatosk, the messenger squirrel.

Thick as a Brick 2 and Homo Erraticus both deserve this treatment. Their restrained mixing aesthetic works fine for The Secret Language of Birds where the whole affair is turned down and acoustic instruments need to be at the fore. However, these later IA efforts deserve to be let loose.

I heard this fine stoner-doom-sludge-Sabbathy tune just today on All Songs Considered. Great riffing with some fine complementary synth work. Old school analogue Moog? Sure sounds like it.

Although released 20 years ago, I just heard music from this album yesterday. Accordion rulez!

Originally destined for Smile, "Cabinessence" eventually emerged on 20/20 with some overdubs, apparently. What a fantastic song. Late 60s/early 70s Beach Boys is great stuff. This was another subject of conversation with my music movie pal on the drive to see that Gregg Allman doc.

Son Volt has a new song out called "If I Could". It's Jay Farrar in Woody Guthrie mode.

A friend who is also a big SV fan poked at it by saying that the lyrics are too on the nose instead of having a more oblique critique of our times. The young man of the 90s in me has some sympathy for that position but I don't feel Woody Guthrie should lose points because his lyrics directly reference the Great Depression. Being open and direct has its virtues.

I wonder if there's something odd about my generation in that we enjoy direct, unopaque lyrics of the past but not of our own time. Does "Ohio" suffer today from directly referencing the Kent State Shootings? Did it in 1970?

Steve Hackett gets two mentions here because A) he's Steve Hackett and B) Mike and Tom from Tabletop Genesis just did a show about his third solo album, Spectral Mornings, which makes me want to listen to it.

This tune was apparently left off Dominion. Will it be on the next IQ album? Will they play new material when I see them later this summer?

Song of the day, 26 Juni 2026

Thanks to MadCity Music, I now have the shiny new Jethro Tull box set for Under Wraps.

And, as you can imagine, I've been listening to it quite a bit. Here's the title track live from here in Madison in 1984.

Willow spies something outside

Walk, 26 Juni 2026

Walking out my front door, I immediately saw a bunny on the lawn.

Fried Shack, baby

As noted in my latest salt & vinegar chip review, my ladyfriend and I stopped in the BP on Northport recently to try the food at Fried Shack but found it closed. The chips were something of a consolation.

Well, we dropped in soon after on a day that wasn't Sunday and found the Indian purveyor of fried foods to be open.

We eagerly placed our orders and a bit later, returned to my place to dine. I will note that the gas station gets high marks for junk food from me as they carry Vitner's chip including the Platonic ideal of the salt & vinegar variety.

My lady got the chicken biryani.

It was delicious. Delicately seasoned with a generous serving of bone-in chicken.

I went with the masala fried chicken.

What a fine cultural combination. The breading was crunchy and perfectly done. The chicken was tender and juicy while the masala added a wonderful twist to the staple American food. It blew Kentucky Fried Chicken away in so far as their chicken boasts a seasoning blend comprised of 11 herbs and spices while the masala here likely features the flavors of twice that or more. It had that lovely, mellow softness from the cardamom and the sprightly zing of ginger tempered by the myriad of other seasonings including the floral tones of coriander.

In short, it was excellent. Next I want to try their masala fried catfish.

Also, note the piece of white bread at the bottom of the box, a traditional American accompaniment.

Petrarch Had It All Wrong: The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe

I'd heard of The Bright Ages a few years back in 2021 when the authors appeared on a podcast that I listen to. Then earlier this year I found a copy at a used bookstore and snatched it up.

While it is aimed at the lay reader and I am one, I think I've read enough books on medieval history and listened to enough podcasts to say that I have moved just beyond being a typical lay reader. And so nothing here surprised me. I may have not read a particular fabliaux or about the life of a particular empress but I've learned enough about these and other subjects that they're not new to me nor are they greatly revelatory, by and large.

Authors Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry have, I think, a couple goals here. One is to dispel myths about the so-called Dark Ages, a concept given to us by Petrarch, and to show that they were, in fact, bright. The second follows from the first and is to counter the evildoers of our time who justify their views and actions by placing themselves in a line that extends back to the Middle Ages, to cast their words and deed as a continuation of those medieval figures that they deem righteous.

The book is a series of tableaux that counter one or more widely held misconceptions about the Middle Ages and present a truth more complicated. The first chapter looks at the role of women in medieval Europe. They were not simply these meek creatures ruled over by and beholden to the men in their lives. And so we learn about Galla Placida who ruled the Western Roman Empire on behalf of her minor son from 425 to 437 until he turned 18. Women may not have been 100% equal to men but they did wield power.

In one chapter we learn about Vikings and the myriad of trading routes and partners they had. In the popular imagination they cruised around northern Europe in their longboats and, upon landing, immediately began raping and pillaging. And so it was really neat to learn about Viking in the Caspian Sea region where they traded their ships for camels to haul goods. Since Islamic states charged higher taxes to pagan northerners, these Viking pretended to be Christian.

Of course, in my head I envisioned these blond warriors with horned helmets trucking through the desert on camels. But Viking helmets didn't have horns. D'oh! This section of the book is emblematic of many others which illustrate that Europe wasn't an all white place in the Middle Ages and that people moved around and intermingled all the time. Vikings went to the Caspian Sea and to North America; Muslims made their way into Spain where they preserved many an ancient text; the Mongols went west and extended their empire into Europe, knocking on the gates of Vienna; monks from France went to the steppes with bare feet to convert the Mongols to Christianity. Humanity mingled throughout the Middle Ages.

I really enjoyed the final chapter on medieval cities. We non-historians have this notion that people lived out in rural areas under the feudal system. But many medieval Europeans lived in cities. City air was free and urbanites were sometimes granted freedoms and privileges that their country cousins were not. The book states "Voting was a prominent part of medieval urban life" yet most common conceptions of that time exclude voting and view it as a habit of ancient Greeks that we moderns picked up after a long period of kings issuing orders to their vassals and popes pronouncing ex cathedra.

One of the disturbing things in the book that I felt had relevance to today was the all-too often terrible plight of the Jews. The Christians of the First Crusade killed Jews on their way to Jerusalem and in the city once it was taken; Jews were run out of France in the early 14th century; piles of manuscripts of the Talmud were burned in Paris in 1241; they were forced to convert at the tip of sword or else. And on and on.

I think the book's discussion of horrible treatment of the Jews (the book discussed Jews in more terms than their persecution, it should be noted) resonated with me as I heard last month that, Francesca Hong, a candidate for governor of my fair state, was gleefully looking forward to chatting with Hasan Piker, an internet celebrity or commentator or something internet, who has said some terrible things such as:

"...any 'Zionist entity' should be 'treated in the same way as a rabid neo-Nazi, and you shouldn’t even let someone be the local dog catcher if they’ve ever exhibited any positive feelings about the State of Israel.'"

Last year Kanye West was seen in public wearing a Swastika shirt. And I recall the numerous reports of Jewish students being harassed on American college campuses in the wake of the events of 7 October. And on and on. When I was young virulent anti-Semitism was largely practiced by assholes who lived out in the boonies and accumulated large caches of guns or marched in Skokie and now it has a certain, albeit limited, mainstream acceptance.

Lastly I want to mention that the book delves into how the Middle Ages were, well, bright. Just look at the 13th century stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle!

And here's a reconstruction of a standing stone from the tenth century with carvings. The stones were painted back in the day.

We see surviving medieval objects in cold brown and grey but they were bright and colorful back in the so-called Dark Ages. Medieval churches were often colorfully painted and brilliant mosaics were not uncommon.

The Bright Ages dispels common myths and implores readers to take the Middle Ages on its own terms and see commonalities with our own time, to view the people of that time as being much like us despite their foibles and failings. They may have had weird beliefs and held to superstitions we have discarded but they loved their children, enjoyed a good meal, and their leaders were just as conniving and corrupt as our own. This is not an exhaustive retelling of history but a sampler that will hopefully impel readers to investigate this fascinating period further.