Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Monday, June 23, 2008

Chronicles from an ER on a Monday

Dear Lady in a wheelchair who won't stop eating the hamburger,

There is no one out to get you.

But I will say this. If you don't stop waving your greasy fast food bag in the air, insisting that your life is in danger...it will be...very very soon.

Sincerely,

Ineda Latte

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WATCH THIS

Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus
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YUM!!
LOBIO on MiddleWestMeals

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Have you been here yet?
GREEN CUP BOOKS
Bookness Galore!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Birmingham's First Annual Bloom's Day Celebration

4pm at J. Clyde's on June 16th, 2008

Featuring passages from Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake soaked in Guinness and irish whiskey.






Monday, June 16, 2008

Happy Bloom's Day!



No full Irish breakfast this morning of sausages, rashers, toast, beans, and black and white puddings (which was offered in Dublin in 2004 before the 100th "Bloom's Day anniversary"of the fictional events described in James Joyces's book Ulysses). I broke my water glass getting out of bed and stumbled to make some brae burn apple yogurt for breakfast. A rather long train made me late for work and I have a roaring hangover from the small bit of wine we had at James' family's Father's Day Gathering yesterday. Seeing as today is an Irish holiday, I guess that in the very least I got the roaring hangover right.



This last December, Jimmy Joyce came to visit the Emergency room.



He gave B.O.B. the Frog a present (which contained a bar of lemon soap and a lucky potato)(B.O.B. was very upset because for the moment he did not have pockets to carry them around in).

This evening, James, Leah, and I will find a few pints and some poppyseed cake in a quiet place and read a bit of James Joyce's masterpiece. And then Jim will sleep with his feet next to my head. And Bloom's Day will be at an end.

PS - DETAILS! I need details about the Flaming Lips show at City Stages AND the Mark Kozelek show in New York. Come on! Spill the beans!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Jaimers

is right now in her 17th hour of labor. Jaime is my best friend. She's been my best friend since 7th grade and she's having a baby. Right now. At a hospital over 500 miles away from where I sit at this very moment.

Excuse me while I freak out a little. I've tons of friends who've had babies. Heck, I helped to bring Canaduh's little girl, Indiana Scarlet, into this world. But, this? This is Jaime. This my best friend, my Shirley, my Diana. She's the Dino to my Jerry. She's the straight man with the great looks and good sense. And yes. I just compared myself to Jerry Lewis. Under the right circumstances, most of my friends would say that's pretty accurate, especially if there is a robot, a fingerpuppet, or a Mark Kozelek within 50 feet of me.



I've always done my best to keep Jaime up on whatever I'm listening to (which really means that since we were kids, I've commandeered the radio whenever possible. Sometimes that didn't work out and thus I know all of the words to "Cheeseburger in Paradise".) and get her out to shows when she'd come down to visit. One night we went out to the Nick to see the Goodies. It was really the first time I'd ever seen that light in Jaime's eyes. You know the light. Here's the best way I know to describe it:

Go to a Flaming Lips show. As Wayne Coyne walks out with a strobe light attached to his chest/People in Furry Bunny Suits run out into the audience/the whole audience throws confetti in the air at the beginning of a song, turn around and look for the light. This certain type of smile. The wheels are turning and there is warmth in that expression.

That is the smile that crept across Jaime's face as Holiday Childress took the stage in bowler hat and three piece suit. I've been to hundreds of shows over the years and that particular show is in my top 10. I've actually seen better Goodies performances, but to see it with Jaime, for her to enjoy it so much, made it something extraordinary.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Wednesday! Wednesday!

I'm not sure how cool I am with produce distribution in the Emergency Room, but I just couldn't pass this up.



Sheila, our director of Nurse Education got it from her neighbor's garden.

Bloggy Blog Updates:
E* is BACK!
Yesterday - E about Andrew Bird!
Andrew Bird will be playing at Birmingham's City Stages this Weekend!
(Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha is a definite driving soundtrack for me. It always reminds me of mid-day errands in the rain, especially up and down the streets of Southside.)

Chris Mitchell posted about the new set at CBS 42 featuring photography by one of my favorite local blogger/musician/picture-takers Brian T Murphy.

Tonight:
We are celebrating the birthday of Wade Hulsey!



(He's the guy in the background who is apparently so elated about the convo at T&A's house that he's fallen asleep.)(Sorry, Wade, that's the only picture I had of you on my computer.)

Wade has been cooped up for a couple of weeks, recovering from knee surgery, so we're totally excited to get him out and feed him lots of thai food.

Hurrah!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Mark-Paul and Me

Dear World,

Why is Jason Collett trying to be Bob Dylan for the first half of his newest album?



For the same reason that throughout Dan (Destroyer)Bejar's latest, Trouble in Dreams, he stumbles all topsy-turvy in the drunken shadow of David Bowie. Not that David Bowie's shadow is particularly drunk.


(I'm a terrible drunken ghost!) Maybe Dan Bejar just got it drunk so it would tell him all it's secrets.

I enjoyed Dan's last album, Destroyer's Rubies, so much more. Maybe because of the production seemed so much more...I don't know...lush? It was full of sound, full of landscape, a landscape full of color and texture and light. Trouble in Dreams just seems so bare. I need to give it a few more turns, I think.

Back to Jason. Idols in Exile was disjointed and jubilant. Each song had it's own unique subject drowned or enveloped within an intense emotion. Each was a glipse into a day in the life and no matter how bi-polar those days were, each one, each song, viewed on it's own was valid and beautiful in it's own way.

So the new record. The first half is so rolled up in the Dylan with rambling vocals and low-grade sound that it is actually incredibly boring. But the second half. Beauty.

Once when I worked in the record store in Illinois, there was a young man who often came in to buy records. He thought he was Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach from "Saved by the Bell") and had an obsession with Chris Farley. Once he bought the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack and discovered when he arrived home and gave it a listen that it was not exactly the same as the TV show theme song. He kept calling me about it over and over and over. Each time he would call, he would watch the beginning of his videotaped episode of Dukes of Hazzard, watch it to listen to the theme song and take note of the rather large "Yeehaw" sound at the end and then listen to the record, which did not include the yeehaw... Each time I explained that although it is different on each recording, one would not change to accomodate the other at any time, no matter how many time he played them side by side. "How can I make them change, Sara?"



"Magic, Mark-Paul."I replied. (We called him Mark-Paul, even though his real name was Joseph.) (He truly believed that he was the actor.)

He called me fifteen times that night. The next day he brought the soundtrack in and exchanged it for another one, reasoning that it was defective. I let him do this two more times, reasoning with him each time that there was nothing defective about the actual recording and just because something is one way on TV, it don't mean that it's the same on CD. He finally gave up. He brought the Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack in to the store one last time and I told him that he could exchange it for another CD. After two hours of deliberating (with an ice cream break in the middle) he brought me the Poison Double Live CD set. "Mark-Paul, I told you that you could exchange it for something of equal value. That cd set is almost double the price."

"I know, Sara Miller. I know. I just want half of it."