1/14/02
Hey, everyone--Lisa's got her photos of the honeymoon up! And they're gorgeous!
It's been too long. Sorry. I've been busy the last few days--went to see both Mission of Burma reunion shows in New York. A couple of people I know called Saturday night's show the best rock performance they'd ever seen--I wouldn't go quite that far, but it was really really really good. Back in college, I put together an 8-hour Mission of Burma radio special that was probably the most fully realized piece of work I did the entire time I was there. Sort of depressing to think of it that way; on the other hand, that is pretty much along the lines of what I'm doing now, so I shouldn't regret it. The Saturday show was preceded by dinner (Burmese food, of course) with about ten Record Hospital alumni, plus Lisa, who I think was made a little dizzy by the in-jokes flying past her head. Gossip was gossiped and mud flung. It was great.
Either today or tomorrow, I believe, is the tenth anniversary of the day I left East Lansing and started driving out to New York City. Thursday is the tenth anniversary of the incredible Sebadoh show I saw at CBGB's, 1/17/92, that also did helped me nudge me in the direction of my current lifestyle. Jen Matson was at that show too, and later made me a tape of it; a little improv piece they did that night became "Pete," on the first Dark Beloved Cloud record. I wrote to Lou Barlow yesterday to thank him again for everything.
In the dept. of non-nostalgia: went to Dia Center with Lisa and Andrea and Caitlin on Saturday to see the Roni Horn exhibit--a wonderful thing. (Those photographs of water: how does she do that?) Also stopped off at Printed Matter and bought an issue I'd never seen of Nancy's Magazine; there doesn't seem to have been one for about five years, and if anybody knows how to get in touch with Nancy Bonnell-Kangas, please let me know. Sunday, aside from Burma, was devoted to wrestling The Beast, the ungainly Voice piece I've been working toward for a couple of months now. It'll be out in next week's issue, most likely. I'm still tweaking it a little. The preserved lemons are starting to cloud up in their jar on the windowsill. (As opposed to the lemon preserves, which only had to sit for a week before they were edible, and which came out fantastically well.)
Book #2 finished this year: Myla Goldberg's wonderful and imaginative Bee Season, which a) features spelling bees prominently (I got up to the state level as a youth; lost on "oppugn"), and b) has a crucial scene that's like something I was trying to write a few months ago but a million times better.