Friday Cat Blogging

Once again, beginning to run out of good photos - we returned the camera we borrowed from Robert Honeywell, and now I'm just going through everything we shot while we had it.


Here's Hooker and Moni in one of their temporary detentes over the currently favorited chair for each of them:





And Moni on the identical chair across the room, where she can be close to Mommy-Berit's normal position:





Meanwhile, back in the bedroom, I take a nap and my little buddy joins me to remind me who rules my sleeptime:





And congrats to our great friends, regular catsitters, and cast members of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, Christiaan Koop and Bryan Enk on the acquisition of their new feline buddy, Dharma!

Friday Random Ten

Back to the iPod. 21,235 songs in there now. I'm taking a break from Ian W. Hill's Hamlet work for some music and music removal (I have more good stuff to go in the iPod, and almost no room, so, time to take some of the fun-but-mediocre stuff out).

Here's what comes up now:

1. "Stormy Monday Blues" - Manfred Mann - Best of the EMI Years

I had to look up who was the blues harp player for Manfred Mann listening to this. Last night, driving home from The Brick, another song from the group came up on random in the car - "5-4-3-2-1" - which featured some great crazed blowing - ah, it was Paul Jones, the vocalist. Nice work, there.

And great vocal, too. What happened to Paul Jones? Ah, he's fronting a couple of blues-rock bands now, including "The Manfreds." Good.

2. "Jump in the River" - Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

One of my favorite SO'C songs. I used to play this on guitar all the time myself, and it came out sounding just like a Lou Reed song. Very simple and effective. Sharp. Wish she was doing work like this still . . .

3. "Baby, Let Me Be" - The Rutles - The Rutles

An early track from the Pre-Fab Four, Dirk, Ron, Stig, and Barry. Pretty derivative, still smelling of playing American rock and roll in Hamburg all night.

4. "Psycho" - Eddie Novack - Wavy Gravy: For Adult Enthusiasts . . .

A terrifying novelty number, obviously somewhat inspired by the classic film of the same name. I first got to know this through Elvis Costello's cover, originally just released as a single, but eventually on the Rykodisk version of Almost Blue. Costello heard the better song that was underneath this original version, which is a bit clumsy, even as its first-person account of a murderer listing his crimes to his mother and practically begging her to have him put away becomes more and more horrible (as it becomes apparent that "Mama" is in no shape to stop her son anymore), and EC did some slight rewriting to sharpen it. Costello's version, with a passionate vocal, is harrowing, but the casual off-handedness of Novack's soft C&W vocal on this original is maybe a bit more unsettling.

5. "So Free" - The Blitzz - So Free 7"

A great power-pop single from somewhere out there. Aw, man it just gets better and better. Wow. Ends with a giant chanting singalong on the title.

6. "Cruel Sister" - Pentangle - Light Flight

Oh, my. Yeah, something fulfilling my semi-embarrassing enjoyment of sweet-voiced women singing psychedelicized folk music. Yes, very lovely. Not hip. Not in the slightest. Lyrics about minstrels, and sweet ladies with yellow hair, and strumming harps, and so on. Okay, it's going on a bit. How long is this? 7:03?! Yeah, that's pushing it, even for me.

7. "Strength of Strings" - Gene Clark - Covered By This Mortal Coil

Something I got from a downloaded collection. Not too far off from the previous song, but a little more rocky, and without actual words. Kinda folk-prog. Pleasant. Thought I might get rid of it, but then it gets really good. Oh, there are some actual words eventually . . . pretty dopey ones, really, but s'okay.

I wish the Tim Buckley songs that were supposed to be in this collection had come through okay (the files didn't work).

8. "So Excited" - B.B. King - King of the Blues

Huh, at first this sounds like some kind of 60s San Francisco Blues-Rock, then B.B. starts singing. Not a bad backing sound for him, actually. Yeah, like Big Brother plus horns and B.B.'s voice and guitar. Nice, real nice.

9. "Lilian" - Puccio Roelens - Beat 600—'60s and '70s Golden Nuggets Tracks

Okay, this is maybe the kind of thing I should be dropping from the iPod. This is in the "Italian jivey movie score" genre that I like, but it just kind of ambles, sounding cool, but going nowhere, and gets boring less than halfway through its 3:14 length. I've got dozen of other tracks like this one, only better. That's it. It's gone . . .

10. "I Am Not Your Broom" - They Might Be Giants - No!

An enjoyable silly thing from their kids' album which I knew from way back when it was a tossed off video on their website: