Blowing & Drifting

I'm up way too late, having gotten happily mixed up in some heavy-duty website revisions (see the new Tassava.com home page). A minute ago, I looked away from the computer monitor and noted that it was inordinately bright outside. When I went closer to the window, I could see that the nearly-full moon was illuminating the cloud cover, making the sky glow a deep but unmistakable blue.

We don't get the midnight sun here in Northfield, but this is not a bad substitute.

Taking advantage of the unusual trifecta of early bedtimes for both girls, great weather, and a little bit of energy in my legs, I took to the roads for my longest rollerski of the summer so far - 80 minutes, covering 14.23 miles (22.91 km) at a pace of 10.59mph.

It was not a great workout, but it was fun, and it gives me the pretext to respond to a recent blog post by my friend Matt, newly bitten by the triathlon bug, about his motivation for getting back into the fitness swing of things.  With high school cross-country and track in our distant pasts and young daughters at home, we have some things in common, and we have some according overlap in our reasons for trying to get back into shape. The main thing that, as Matt might say, gets my arse outside to work out on a daily basis is just seeing my mileage and time pile up. It's a shallow impulse, but one that works quite well. I know that if I run or rollerski for an hour that I'll be able to book another 5 or 10 miles (respectively - even more when I count kilometers!) in my log. I'm also hoping that putting in some time now will mean that, when family schedules change a bit, I can run a long race or, even better, ski one. The Mora Vasaloppet is a near-term goal.

Slightly deeper, as motivations go, is the desire to be out in something like nature for a while. Until they hook me up with a MacBook at work, I have to stay pretty much in my office all day long. Getting out at night or on weekends to pound through the Arb or grunt up the rural hills is a refreshing change of scenery. Somewhere between the shallow and the sublime are the physical outcomes: it's nice not to be achy and tired after a day sitting at a desk (or rather, to be achy from a run, not from sitting down), and it's nice to feel my bike commute getting easier and easier from week to week as I get into shape.

Finally, it is very nice to think - okay, hope, right now - that when Julia sees me come back from a rollerski or hears Shannon and me talk about our runs, she (and eventually in her sister) is acquiring a sense that being active is a normal, fun part of life, on a par with eating good things and reading books and having parties - and of course, sleeping.

Driving to her swim class this evening, Julia told me, "I'm making 1s and Js." At a stop sign, I turned around to see what she meant, and all she was doing was holding her face blank and blinking in a very exaggerated way - two fast blinks, a slow one, another slow one, three fast ones. "What do you mean, honey? I don't understand," I said. She just kept doing this blinking thing, and as I drove on, she repeated herself: "I'm making 1s and Js wif my eyes."

This goes right to the top of my list of "Weird Stuff My Kids Have Said."

I love the Flatiron Building at 5th and Broadway in New York: it's a brilliant and beautiful. I took this picture on a long walk in Manhattan last June; I walked a couple miles out of my way to see the building.

Kottke recently linked to a high-resolution picture of the building in 1910, when it was only eight years old. It's an engrossing photo with enough detail for a million questions. What did the advertised cigars cost? What's that guy with the ladder doing, just right of the building's prow?

The Carleton Concert Hall was jammed - a few seats short of SRO, but no doubt a sellout - for the Bad Plus show last night, and the boys didn't disappoint, playing a long set that featured new and old, soft and loud, slow and fast, originals and covers. Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson, and Dave King were tight throughout, and the show really highlighted the interplay between Anderson on the bass and King on the drums.

The concert opened with a short but entertaining set by Forró for All, a six-piece band, led by New Yorker Rob Curto, that played forró, a genre of dance music from northeastern Brazil. The music, which you can sample on the website, was propulsive and fun, featuring a talented singer whose voice was often lost in the mix, two percussionists who used the usual kit plus triangles and an interesting Brazilian instrument halfway between a tambourine and a snare-drum head, and Curto's amazing accordion playing. He was spectacularly fast and precise, the true leader of the band. 

The Bad Plus came on quietly, opening with a new song called "People Like You" by Reid Anderson. Like many of Anderson's compositions, the song started slowly but, in patented TBP fashion, built to a big climax and then faded back away. It was a good way to kick off the show, and a good segue to the second tune, "Blue Candy," a Dave King song that focused initially on his heavy drumming. and Anderson's thrumming on the bass. With Iverson playing a simple piano figure, the song acquired a tension that did not so much break as dissipate into dissonance created by King scratching his cymbal with a drumstick.

After these two great new songs, the band launched into one of its greats, "Big Eater," off These Are the Vistas. Iverson rejuvenated the song with a new piano line, one which drew the song to a tumultuous conclusion quite different from the two preceding songs' ends. After that high point, the band continued with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," their meditative or even tragic version of the Tears for Fears song. The tune pivoted on the misfit between Iverson's sure restatement of the melody on the piano and King's quicker drumming, then ended with a beautiful bass line.

With one of the obligatory covers out of the way, the band played two new Iverson compositions. "Who's He?" featured a wondrous piano part and, at the end, a big bass drum solo which lent the song the feel of "Physical Cities," the best song on the new album. The second Iverson song, "Old Money," was, he claimed, set in Duluth - a town from which apparently no members of the audience came, eliciting a bemused, "Okay then" from Iverson. The song itself was a study in tempo changes and offered each player a spot in the foreground. Iverson played some marvelous notes at the right end of the keyboard, and then Anderson did some truly incredible stuff with his bass. King's smashmouth drumming is best in concentrated doses, but I could listen to Anderson play all night. 

The seventh song was another King tune, a new one called "My Friend Metatron," about an evil-fighting archangel. Or robot, judging by the thudding rhythm provided by Anderson and especially the grinning King. Iverson played a strange but interesting piano line that seemed predicated on stutters and staccato. With more polish, all three of these new songs (and the two at the start of the set) will be great on the next TBP album.

After that, the band switched gears and played five straight songs from the new album. Anderson's "Giant" started with a phenomenal bass part that seemed to go as deep as the instrument could possibly allow. Anderson's playing was wonderfully prominent throughout, but Iverson's careful keyboard work and King's more subtle drumming propelled everyone to the top of the song, where the muscular playing was barely kept in control. It was a beautiful display of Anderson's composing and playing skills.

"Giant" seemed like the high point of the concert, and afterwards the group recovered with some less challenging fare. The next song, "1980 World Champion," is the latest in King's songs about a hard-working ski jumper named Jimmy Carter.  It's a good song, fun to see played, just like the next song, the band's cover of David Bowie's "Life on Mars." Their fine rendition which imbued the song with great uneasiness and ended with the drums threatening to crash through.

This perfectly prefigured the last song of the regular set, Anderson's masterpiece "Physical Cities," which was immediately obvious as the real climax of the evening. The trio expertly exploited the tune's cyclical structure, using Iverson's climbing figure to create great tension before finding cacophonous release in a series of enormous drum-bass breaks that required insanely tight playing between Anderson and King. "Physical Cities" is a great album track, and it was stupendous live. What can verge on merely repetitive when coming out of the stereo is energizing and searching when flowing off the stage. The demolition-site finish was perfect for both the song and the concert. (The obligatory encore was "Tom Sawyer," a decent rock song that is a decent jazz song but not nearly so strong as "Physical Cities" or the other new tunes.)

All in all, it was an excellent time. Kudos to Northfield's ArtOrg for arranging it, and to the band for playing a hell of a good show. 

I read and admire Laid-Off Dad, a blog which features some of the best writing I've seen on the web, and no shortage of smart and funny parenting anecdotes. In today's post on a fun day with his two boys he links to a fantastic photograph that simply must be seen to be believed.

Quite a good Father's Day, frankly: playing in the sprinkler with Julia in the morning, opening gifts (including a mug with this photo on it!), a nice long workout while the girls napped, heading downtown for ice cream and some bookstore-browsing in the afternoon, lots of playtime with the girls before a delicious dinner, and a reasonably long evening. And while this doesn't sum up to a funny story like this one, I'm pretty happy with the day.

The City of Northfield has begun a project to reconstruct Woodley Street, a main east-west route through the middle of town. Narrow, twisty, and lacking a shoulder, Woodley is also the only main route from our subdivision to town. When I have to bike along along Woodley, as I do every day I bike to work, I go as fast as I can until I can turn off onto another, safer road.

But improvements might be on the way. The city is soliciting public comments on the project, and here's mine:

I live a block off Woodley, near the eastern end of the construction zone, and I'm very excited by the plans for and goals of the project. My excitement stems from three sources.

First and perhaps foremost, improved biking/walking paths along Woodley will help knit my subdivision into the rest of the city. Right now, it's difficult and dangerous to get from our neighborhood into the rest of the city (i.e., west of Prairie) except by car. By providing easy and safe ways to walk and bike to the rest of town, the project will dramatically improve the livability of the subdivision.

Second, and relatedly, improving the bike access along Woodley will improve the commuting situation. I presently bike to work at Carleton, and the few hundred yards between Prairie and Heywood is always dicey, with those curves, bad road surfaces, poor shoulders, and speeding SUVs. Better bike connections to the city grid will thus make bike commuting more feasible for everyone in my subdivision - and feed into the city's (and citizenry's) interest in more sustainable development of the town.

Finally, and to continue in this vein, improving the stretch of Woodley east of Prairie will be a boon to the many bikers, runners, walkers, and rollerskiers who use the Woodley St.-Kane Ave.-Wall St. loop for training. Looking out my back window on any decent day, I don't have to wait more than five minutes before seeing another person (or a group) go by on a workout. I can easily foresee heavier use of this loop if and when it's not so hazardous to get out to and then past the heaviest development, that of the area just east of the golf course along Woodley. Who knows but that the "Wind Turbine Loop" couldn't become a major destination for aerobic athletes?

In sum, I applaud the city's plans and I look forward to seeing them come to fruition. I will eagerly participate in additional citizen-centered planning.

Thank you.

We're just back from the annual Justin Roberts concert sponsored by the Northfield Public Library. As it was last year, the show was excellent. Genevieve had a good time, despite being up one and then two and then nearly three hours past her bedtime: she spent a good chunk of time singing along with the other kids. Well, inasmuch as "Rahr rahr rahr rahr" is singing. Julia went right up front to sing and dance with the other kids, and spent a good fifteen minutes dancing maniacally. She was more subdued for the rest of the concert, but still sang along and was happy to see her friends. The whole freaking town was there.

And "Robbie" himself: what a showman. Almost all of his songs have associated gestures or movements or other ways for the kids to participate, and boy, do they. He even updated one of his best songs, about the nine planets, to reflect current astronomical knowledge. "Oh yes there's eight, eight, say it one more time..."

With the kids' music out of the way we can turn to the music for the grownups: the Bad Plus show on Friday, June 22. Campus - though empty of students - is well covered with posters for the show, and tickets are finally available at the Goodbye Blue Monday coffeehouse downtown. The show is getting some good press, including a story on a jazz website , and the new disk, PROG, is garnering more good reviews. I can't wait. I won't be singing along, though.

Blowing & Drifting is almost a year old already, so in an attempt to get my archives in order, I've set up a "redirect" to send readers from the regular front page to the page for a specific month. (If you're seeing this on the website, as versus via an RSS reader, you should have /06-2007 showing up at the end of the URL.) On the first of each month, I'll update the URL and archive the previous month's material. This all should be invisible to the reader; if you have troubles, let me know. Troubles, I mean, relating to the blog.

With Carleton's graduation this weekend, the 2006-2007 academic year is well and truly over. With apologies to Don DeLillo:

The SUVs departed all afternoon, a long gleaming line that coursed out of campus. In single file they rolled under the college archway and moved away from the dormitories. The roofs of the SUVs were loaded down with carefully secured suitcases full of light and heavy clothing; with plastic bins of blankets, boots, and shoes, stationery and books, sheets, pillows, quilts; with rolled-up rugs and sleeping bags; with bicycles, skis, backpacks, flipflops and sandals, an occasional canoe. As the vehicles stopped and turned to head to the highway, students inside settled into the back seats, among the objects inside: the stereos, iPods, laptops; small refrigerators and microwaves; the cartons of CDs; the hairdryers and curling irons; the tennis rackets, soccer balls, hockey and lacrosse sticks, golf and ultimate frisbees; the controlled substances, the birth control pills and condoms; the junk food in half-empty bags--barbecue chips, nachos, mint-flavored Oreos, Tootie Fruities and Coco Roos, fruit snacks and cheese popcorn; the Charm Pops, the Andes mints.

Even dying can be fun, if you have a sense of humor about what to do with your estate:

Thanks to David Hildebrand '62, Carleton has a slush fund that's worth its salt. Hildebrand, a statistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania who died in 1999, had a lively sense of humor and a generous nature, which was the impetus for the David K. Hildebrand Endowed Fund for Ice and Snow Removal—a slush fund, literally. His family and friends, who created the fund, say that he was fond of wordplay and often composed limericks to include on his statistics exams.

If I'm ever rich enough to consider such a thing, I'm going to saddle Macalester (and maybe Carleton) with some sort of ridiculous endowment fund like this. Perhaps a nordic-ski grooming fund, with reports due to the stewardship office within five days of the end of any snowstorm with accumulations greater than 8 inches. Yeah, that's it.

Now that it's June, we can reasonably assume we won't get any snow. (60 years ago, living through a giant late-May storm, we might have been overconfident.) As such, NOAA has released snowfall maps, like this one for Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Just to do the math for you, 288 inches is 24 feet. Of snow. Much of that massive total came in one "snow event" in March, summarized on this map. Hancock, my hometown, is just north of the red-purple stripe running northeast up the Keweenaw Peninsula - right about where it says that 42 inches of snow fell in six days, and just north of a spot that received more than 60 inches! Five feet of snow in five days. As they say up there, "Holy wah."

This is where I think global warming is going to lead. Not just to higher average temperatures in every season, but toward more unpredictable weather: huge late-season snowfalls, unexpectedly early tornadoes, stronger and later hurricanes, and so forth. If we get a few May snowstorms here in the low-snow belt, I won't complain.

Bjarne Riis will disappear from official Tour de France publications. That's according to a report in The Guardian newspaper, where Tour organizer Christian Prudhomme said the Dane's name will not appear in official Tour record books following his recent confessions he used banned doping products to win the 1996 Tour. "Formally it's down to the (UCI) to disqualify him, but for us he can no longer be the winner and he has already been wiped from the road book [the official press guide] you will see at the start of the Tour," Prudhomme told reporter William Fotheringham. Riis became the first Tour winner to confess to using illegal performance-enhancing doping products. An existing eight-year statute of limitations will allow him to officially keep title, but Tour officials said they would not recognize the victory as legitimate. UCI officials publicly asked Riis to return the maillot jaune. In a May 25 press conference, Riis said: "My jersey is at home in a cardboard box. They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself." 

This is Stalinist, and ridiculous. Riis won the Tour, but now, having admitted cheating, will be excised from its history, unlike other winners who probably doped but haven't admitted it - or can't: is anyone moving to strip the '98 Tour title from Marco Pantani, who was known to have doped and in fact died from a cocaine overdose?

Tonight, like most nights, Genevieve entertained herself in the bathtub by playing with a little red cup. Julia had, at the same age, loved the same cup, so it's a nice parallel. Tonight, though, Genevieve decided it would be fun to pretend to drink from it, so she held it up to her mouth and made her hilariously garbled, "Num num num" sound. I asked, "Can I have a drink, Gigi?" and immediately she held it up to my mouth, laughing at how silly that was. After a few minutes of this, Julia wandered into the bathroom, and Genevieve offered her a few sips; this got all the funnier when Julia made an exaggerated "sip sip sip" sound, playing right along. We called down to Mama, and when she came in, she was duly given a "yittle dwink" as well. This was the funniest of all, because Mama in the bathroom during a bath is nearly unprecedented, and giving her water? Forget about it.

In Northfield, the clouds are our mountains.