7/7/02

Back from Luzerne, where we went out on the water a little, but I mostly stayed around the big pretty green house and sat in the big pretty yellow chair and listened to Ladytron and read books (American Gods, Ella Minnow Pea, Watch Your Mouth) and cooked and played Anagrams and Scrabble and Boggle. Edie was much happier in the car going back (fast, cool, uneventful) than going there (slow, very hot, marred by the ceasing-to-function of both the air conditioner and the car's third left front bearing in four months). Today's mostly been devoted to clearing out the 250-plus messages in the inbox, cooking some tofu scramble and brown rice on the principle that oh what the hell let's try out this high-protein diet that the Timesis being cautiously guarded but more or less approving about, watching some dreadful videos for Blender, writing a small and silly piece for the Voice, and phoning up a bunch of people who appear not to have gotten back to town yet.

Why does nobody make an Anagrams set these days? I mean, I suppose I could make one of my own, but I'd love cool bone-colored plastic Anagrams tiles in a comfortable felt bag.

There's not going to be room to discuss this in the actual review I'm doing of the Ladytron album (which is fantastic, by the way), but the first note of it is a close paraphrase of the first note of the Normal's "Warm Leatherette," from 1978. I realize that's like saying that the first word of somebody's novel paraphrases the first word of somebody else's short story, but I mean the timbre as well as the pitch. I'm also happy that I noticed that, and that my copy of the Normal's single is within reach so I could confirm my suspicions.

Douglas

 

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