Optimism, Idiosyncrasy, Courage

It's been one of those dreary, drizzly days I absolutely adore. I've been catching everyone around me staring off into the distance with the glazed look of the pensive, the catatonic, or someone desparately in need of a caffeine fix.

In other words, it was a perfect day to go visit the library.

When I first moved to Akron, the Main Library was undergoing a multi-million dollar transformation and the interim holding facility for all the tomes was a vacated DIY Home Warehouse over on Tallmadge Avenue.

The new facility is simply stunning, with a sleek retro vibe that lends a certain polished, timeless air.

Libraries and record stores hold the same mystique for me. I go in, get overwhelmed, and walk out forgetting half the things I meant to get. To combat this, I've learned to arm myself with a list before I leave the house.

One would think I'd be used to it now, but I'm still astounded at the excellent selection available through the Akron-Summit County Public Library System

Today's scores included:

A book on the works of Joseph Maria Olbrich

Unbuilt America: Forgotten Architecture in the United States from Thomas Jefferson to the Space Age
(billed as recording over 200 years of audacious, curious, revolutionary, utopian, radical, and visionary ideas in the combined fields of architecture and the environmental arts. It is a book about ideas. A book about optimism, idiosyncrasy and courage.)

The Encyclopedia of Arts and Crafts
(Arts and Crafts being the international arts movement, not popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, natch.)

Atlas of the Human Heart

Paste Magazine featuring Wes Anderson (with the cover completely illustrated by his brother, Eric Chase Anderson. On a side note, I think it would be the utmost in cool to commission some work from him. I always love his illustrations for the Criterion booklets of his brother's movies.)
I'd love to see him do something along the lines of what Ellen Forney has got going on.

I also borrowed Mental Floss, a magazine I'd seen, but which never really appealed to me. However, this edition had lists of ten, whose cover lines tantalized me with articles such as:

"The Ten Most Forgettable Presidents”
“Ten Underrated Spectator Sports”
“Ten Famous Monkeys in Science”

and

“Ten Countries You Can’t Find on a Map”

Considering I'm the gal who once begged a police officer to let me into the medical library of the hospital I worked at at like, two a.m. because I realized I had no clue where Denmark was in relation to other countries and this really, really bothered me and I needed to copy a map and rectify the situation immediately, the last cover line totally sold me.


But by far my most thrilling score of the afternoon was A Pattern Language. I’ve been trying to find this book for the past six or seven years to no avail. It was always hopelessly out of print or when I could track it down, astronomically out of my punk rock budget.

But now I finally have the tome in my hot little hands and am terribly excited to dive right in.

Movie-wise I picked up A Generation and the first two volumes of The Films of Charles and Ray Eames

I also picked up Corporate Ghost, a collection of Sonic Youth videos.

My raddest movie find was none other than Westworld. Even Miss Peppermint fancied the idea of viewing some hot Yul Brynner psycho robot action.

As I lugged my bounty to the car, the thought occurred to me that I might have been a wee bit overambitious with my selections. Thank goodness for online renewals.

Currently spinning:

Elliott Smith ~ Elliott Smith

Chick Tracts and Unsociable Holiday Icons

W123, How I Love Thee...

I've never been one for rampant autophilia.
For me, cars have always been a way to get from Point A to Point B, and I've been fortunate/spoiled enough to have been the owner of three pretty darn reliable foreign-made models.

The closest I ever got to having a crush on a car was an old boxy 70s Volvo, angular and ugly. Oh, and that one time where I made eyes at a Dart...but I was just flirting and it didn't really mean anything...

But the first time I saw the movie Rushmore, and spied the leggy blonde Miss Cross drove, well...let's just say my curiosity was piqued.

I paid extra close attention in subsequent viewings over the years, but never did much to pursue, seeing as I was already in a committed relationship with my Toyota and possessed neither the financial means nor the gumption necessary to leave the relationship.

Recently a Highland Square aquaintance trotted out her new/old sedan version of what I had affectionately dubbed the "Miss Crossmobile." I started asking about it, and thus emboldened, did that slightly endearing, slightly stalkerish act that the Internet facilitates so well: I Googled it.

I found out the vehicle that had been haunting my dreams is a Mercedes W123 turbo diesel, manufactured from 1975 to 1985. They are crazy reliable (popularly used as taxi cabs in several post-communist countries), crazy servicable, crazy cheap and crazy gorgeous. And they come in dark brown and dark red (which means it fits right in with my dippy color scheme, joy of joys!)

One user's review referred to the cars as possessing sleeper cool and embassy chic.

(C'mon...I so obviously fit right in with such outstanding examples of white male corporate Ameri--erm--Deutschland!)

All I know is I'm saving my allowance and picking up pennies, regardless of whether heads or tails is sunny side up.

Currently spinning:
The Postal Service ~ Give Up

122 North Portage Path

For one year I lived at 122 N. Portage Path, apartment 6.
It was a small, one bedroom in a big rambling brownstone.

It was my first place alone ever.

It was a magical and wonderful time and place, and not just because of the radiators and checkerboard floors and bleach spot on my kitchen floor that I forced visitors to scrutinize a la a Rorschach inkblot.

For 12 consecutive months, from July 2004 to June 2005, I documented the exterior.

Here are the pictures.

Secret Confessions

It would have been criminal to stay indoors on a day like this. The jogging trail called and I heeded its siren’s song. The sun was setting earlier than I expected and the fading light filtered through the trees, dappling the sandy path.

At any given time I pass lots of people on the trail. I normally have my headphones on, thoughts about a million miles away, but I have to admit that I take a secret joy in catching the scent of passers-by.

No, I don't have some odd sweat fetish or anything like that. Eau de gym sock never did much for me either. Allow me to explain:

Here we are, two people going opposite directions in the middle of a forest. I'm in my world, they're in theirs, we've got sunglasses and headphones and other things to insulate ourselves and distance ourselves from one another, but in their exertion I'll catch the faintest scent of their shampoo or soap and it's this completely disconcerting, intimate moment.

Despite the pains we take to distance ourselves from each other and be left alone, I am left feeling like I know a secret about them. It's completely revealing and I go into little internal fits of joyousness because of it.

So what impression do passers-by have of me? I'd imagine Dr. Bronner's peppermint, baby. At least I hope so. Liberal amounts of liquid DBP + scrubby gloves = nirvana

Currently spinning:
Liz Phair ~ Girlysounds demos

Woodsman

Currently spinning:
Smog ~ A River Ain't Too Much to Love

Architecture Students are Like Virgins...

Currently spinning:
Annie ~ Anniemal

Who Moved My Weave?

Spotted tumbling down West Market street...

Currently spinning:
Hall & Oates ~ Greatest Hits
(Much gratitude to RS)

Maneater

Currently spinning:
The Six Parts Seven ~ Things Shaped in Passing
(I never thought I'd say this, but right now I'm cursing the lack of Hall & Oates in my music collection...)

Drone

It has been a rather hot Summer o' 2005 here in lovely Akron, Ohio. I leave the house early in the morning, when the day is still deceptively cool and I begin to harbor hopes for zephyrs and temperatures hovering in the mid-70s. But then I hear the unmistakable drone of cicadas and know we're in for another muggy day (makes for great tomatoes though, right?)

Last year I was fortunate enough to experience the emergence of the 17-year cicadas smack dab in the middle of cicada central--Northern Virginia. I was living on 26 wooded acres, spending my days wandering the clay roads, listening to lots of Iron + Wine and getting caught in the occasional summer thunderstorm. This may sound familiar to some of you.

One day my father was out mowing the septic field when he came across a cicada egg sac dangling from a tall blade of grass. Within a week, the roar of cicadas was deafening. There were several times where I was inside the house (with the hum of the air conditioner) listening to music on headphones and I could still hear the cicadas.

At several points I set up a microphone on the porch and recorded the sound, with the hope to use it in some sort of "organic rock" experiment, perhaps (hey, if yo la tengo can use crickets, I can use cicadas, darn it!)

In celebration of the cicadas, Web sites started featuring recipes (kind of like those Cricket Lick-It lollipops they sell at the Canton McKinley Museum or the Smithsonian gift shop). I have to admit that I was never struck by the desire to fricassee, barbeque or bread a cicada, but that may have been because I often found my parents' dogs rooting about in the yard and gobbling cicada larvae. These are the same animals who, during winter, were caught chowing down on what my mother delicately referred to as "poopsicles". Heathen animals...

One of my friends missed the cicadas and so I gathered up four buzzing "gifts", plopped them in a shoebox with some water and organic detritus and took them on a six hour road trip with me to Ohio.

Here's the evidence:


Currently spinning:
Billie Holiday ~ Billie Holiday Sings Standards

"Science!"

Currently spinning:
Bjork ~ Vespertine

Ephemera

Currently spinning:
Pavement ~ Slanted and Enchanted (nicht luxe, nicht reduxe)

Dinosaurs and Ghosts

Last weekend P.N. and J.J.P. and I drove out to Portage County to try and find an old amusement park that I could photograph while J.J.P. sketched.

The last time I saw the place was during the winter of 2002. Flanking the entrance were two large purple and yellow plaster dinosaurs partially hidden by weeds and snow. The park appeared to have been abandoned years ago and even after I moved away I still wondered about the place. I stumbled upon it while driving out to do interviews with a gravedigger acquaintance of mine.

It was at one of these cemetaries that I found a shivering, half-starved but sprightly cat. It followed the photographer and I around the graveyard, sticking its paws down rodent holes and trotting at our heels.

I hemmed. I hawed.

If it follows us back to the car, we'll take it with us, I told the photographer.

We tried to pretend our leisurely gait and pausing to look behind us wouldn't constitute out-and-out coaxing.

Once the car heater kicked into gear, the kitten curled up on my passenger's lap and promptly fell asleep.

Three years and many vet bills later, my cat is one of the only things I still have from those days. Despite living one county over, my time in Kent feels like a strange dream, a place too far away to go back to. But when I do cross the Portage County line, I get a mild case of the heebie-jeebies.

Last Sunday, as the three of us drove further and further into the countryside, with no dinosaurs in sight (save the rotting hulks of American-made autos), the feeling was pandemic.

Currently spinning:
Sleater-Kinney ~ Call the Doctor

We Need a Repetition

View from the parking deck, Akron City

Currently spinning:
Nick Drake ~ Pink Moon

Snappy Comeback

A couple of years ago I swapped all of my good DVDs for a just-about-new Canon PowerShot SD100 digital camera. I had been wanting one and initially I thought the dollar-per-DVD amount would still leave me with a handful of decent titles to my name.

However, once the final amounts had been tallied, my respectable collection had been pared to the handful of titles too artistic or bad to suit my swap partner’s taste (The Pillow Book did not make the cut, and to this day I’m not sure if it was just too pretentious or featured too many scenes of what lies beneath Ewan MacGregor’s kilt.)

But I digress.

Anyone who spends a day around me comes to the quick realization that I take a lot of photos. In addition to the airy notion of image-as-proof-of-existence (which I wholeheartedly embrace), digital cameras are just nifty as all get-out. They combine the instant gratification of a Polaroid, with the ability to make unlimited copies and only pay to print out the good pictures.

Don’t get me wrong – I still love the aesthetics of my 70s SLR. The digital cameras with built-in shutter sounds don't hold a candle to the aesthetics of the soft clicking of the film being manually forwarded or the ticking of the aperture as I adjust the lens. But there’s something infinitely satisfying about being able to slip this tiny camera into my pocket and being able to document anything from unintentionally hillarious signs to my friend ranting about monster trucks, world peace and ice-cold lemonade enjoyed 'neath a sheltering porch.

When I moved to Akron I found I was taking enough photos to easily fill a 700 MB CD-R with images each month. Over this past year I've accumulated numerous discs filled with everything from giant rosemary bushes in Austin, Texas to videos of me playing guitar in my pajamas at 3 am.

Since today is August 1, that means I had to burn my archive of July photos. It's been a busy few months, but looking back I realized this was a month with lots of adventures, including a picnic complete with close friends, portable phonographs and outdoor Shakespeare, a rowdy night of live Misfits covers, driving around the rural countryside in a 60 year old pickup truck, videogame bowling, voodoo figures made from deli sample spoons (including a messenger bag o' angst!), picking home-grown basil in the rain and being made aware of the existence (much less the...erm... stud on the cover) of Chess Life magazine.

I feel so fortunate for this silly life.

Currently spinning:
Slint ~ Spiderland