Hey You Breakfast-Eaters

Dinner tonight rocked.

Fresh spinach-ricotta ravioli; giant mystery chard-like green cooked in olive oil, garlic, red wine and rosemary salt, topped with toasted slivered almonds; Duvel.  Balcony, 7 PM.

Recently moved the plants into a sunnier locale, have been rewarded by a comeback from the chard and a tomato hatching from the lettuce pot. Also some very enthusiastic peas.

As a respite from the high-minded (read:dry) Memoirs of Hadiran I've been reading James Fenimore Cooper - The Last of the Mohicans.  It was mentioned in another book I read recently, and I thought I'd try it.  I'm not entirely sure I want to finish; it's filled with the bigotry of its time, and the rancor towards the non-whites in the book proves difficult to swallow.  Also, it goes from one melodramatic scene of handsome men ("he was a perfect specimen") and mind-blowingly beautiful women of strong character in situations of high danger and near death that it makes me a little tired.  It's no wonder the movie did so well; the book is perfect for a screen adaptation.  I'm even more tempted to stop when I look at my magnificent and largely-unread library; I reorganized my room, and stacked all my books (28 now, including the JFC, thanks to two recent and much-appreciated care packages) where I can easily get to them.  Seeing all those delectable titles is enough to distract me from practicing.  Not such a bad thing, as I've recently overdone it; the last bit of work I had caused me fairly acute pain in my right arm, and I've been laying off a bit to avoid injury.  And my "busy month" has not even begun.  Thanks to the folks a new (old) lighter bow is on its way.  What do musicians do who don't have luthier/archetier parents?  It must really suck.

Alternate titles considered for this post:

Ack, this is so good

Why go out when you can stay in

Cooking with red wine: ruining my wardrobe, one shirt at a time

Holy Crap My Dinner Is So Delicious

Mom was right, plants like sunlight

YUM

JFC: Bigot, or just Melodramatic?

What is Duvel's alcohol content?!

Chekhov! Lessing! Tolstoy! Gaskell! Nabokov!

smoke machine

Last night, I went out. 

I know, it was totally crazy.  But I wasn't going anywhere new; the Werkraum Warteck, which houses Druckwerk, has a show space on the ground floor called Sudhaus, which basically means brew house.  They still make beer, I had some, it was light, of course, but pretty good.  The Sudhaus is a nice space for seeing music; in the back there's a balcony with a bar, foosball, and a few tables, then the main area has the stage and lots of standing room (grooving room ha ha).  I went to see a rock band called The Besnard Lakes.  Here's a representational video of them from the Jimmy Fallon show:

I had heard of them, I think, through the SXSW information mill last month.  I'm sure if I were to attend their show at the Independent, in SF, which will happen in a month or so, I'd be somewhere in the middle back, I'd barely be able to see, and I'd have drunk, oxygen-deprived girls fainting all around me (like at the St Vincent show I went to at the Great American Music Hall back in February).  Last night I started at the front of the crowd, right below the stage, with machine-fog and drums dominating the perspective.  The drummer had a righteous beard, which must have helped his sound.  After moving around a bit, I ended up by one of the walls, still close to the stage, but with the sound more diffuse; it was close enough to feel involved, and far enough away to preserve the mystique of the band members (too close, and they look too human).  I'm a firm believer in maintaining some distance from the music.  Ironic, no?  At any rate, the show was great.  Just the right kind of music to be hearing for the first time: loud and melodic. 

Riding home on my bike was nothing short of magnificent.  Cold night air, no cars, going as fast as possible.