Howling Mime

kristin took me out to get a mandolin today as my birthday present.  thanks, guitar center, for the $25 off card + 10% sale.

despite the tiny frets, it’s a fun instrument to play.  figure out ziggy stardust in almost no time.  that’s a good runthrough of about 10 chords, enough to put together a few tunes.  discovered a jazzy progression and the basic blues. 

i know what you’re saying – something’s not quite right about the blues on a mandolin.  come hear it and decide.

ate some tasty gruyere and ementhaler cheese later today as a snack.

pogues tunes, here i come!  yep.

Currently
Juno (Single-Disc Edition)
By Jason Bateman, Emily Perkins, Allison Janney, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons
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saw my first epidode of this show tonight.  i understand it’s rather popular among the jet-setters of their own kitchens crowd.  seemed like a silly show with trumped up pomp and circumstance to me.

howeve, it inspired kristin and me to have a dessert-off.  had 15 minutes to come up with something.  i went the hot, sweet bananas in rum and freshly squeezed lemon route, kristin the nugat-tasting cold mousse route.  i think i won in taste, but with her candied lemon peels that made the entire dish edible, kristin pulled the style vote.

after this morning’s ham and spinach frittatas and caprese salad, i’d say i’ve had a successful day in the kitchen!  for those, i rigged up my own oven-safe pan by unscrewing the handle off one of our pans.  hey, it worked!  i think i’ll keep the handle off from now on.  that way, i can make more frittatas; they’re so amazingly simply.  who knew? 

then why didn’t you tell me!?!?!

Currently
Fire in the Glen
By Andy M. Stewart, Phil Cunningham, Manus Lunny
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Currently
The Mollusk
By Ween
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Currently
Myths & Legends of Wales
By Tony Roberts
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tonight was the inaugural event to kick off kristin’s new project – mana: manifold arts in north austin .  we got together and played acoustic music and read poetry.  kristin told some stories about raccoon and what open mics mean to her, and i introduced some folks to scifaiku , a fun intersection of science fiction and haiku.  stephan read some great poems and wendy played three or four of her sad songs.  i played along as kristin has a singalong of a raccoon song and then i read a few poems.  great stuff, all!

it was a nice event attended by 18 or so people, a nice manageable number for the space at cafe de bella.  this sort of thing is very important, seeing as how it’s multicultural (we expect some spanish-language performance next month) and takes place in a part of town that’s not jam-packed with hipsters; the folks there were real people with jobs ranging from teachers to firemen to programmers. good stuff!

looking forward to the next one, a chance to prepare a few more songs.  i see this growing, especially with kristin at the helm.  i’ll let everyone know when the next night will be, and when kristin organizes other sorts of community-oriented art.

wrestling with this topic at both work and school.

in the meantime, there’s the recently designed muppet steve! it’s a pretty close likeness, actually.  scary, even.

getting in some gaming this weekend at millennium con xi , for those of you interested.  prolly doing diplomacy on friday night, followed by co-running the classic battletech arena of death all day saturday.  gotta get work done sunday, so i’ll not be there then, but if you’re around fri/sat, come check out the gaming.  there are sure to be plenty of nerds there.  i’ll be the blue one seen above…

Currently
Bartok: Violin Sonata No. 1 (1921) / Janacek: Violin Sonata (1914-1921) / Messiaen: Theme and Variations for Violin and Piano (1932)
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Currently Reading
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
By Obama Barack
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