midway 2021

Alright so I will say that 2021 has been extremely unexpected overall, but then, what year does turn out the way you expect? I hope I never have one like that. I am sitting here in my new home, there are things piled up everywhere because I don't feel enabled to settle properly until I get my shelves built (the install I think starts on Friday - waiting to hear) so I have, for instance, a huge pile of CDs atop a cabinet and I haven't even really started thinking about unpacking CDs (CDs are like something I don't even really think about much, and the ones I have are only around because essentially I throw very little of anything out - !).  I also have a big pile of junk at one end of my car parking space down below. 

It has come to my attention that a pipe in the ceiling outside the laundry is leaking, so that's the first big wake-up call re: home ownership, but OK, I can handle whatever it takes for the right to put pictures on the wall as I please and not have an inspection every six months. I have been told in any case that this might be remedied today... we'll see... (not because anyone responded to my request for a repair, but because a repair was scheduled anyway). I also have ordered a new stove because the stove here sucks and also - unpleasantly - it's kind of grimy and I deserve better. So I will receive my due soon enough. 

The big problem for me that worries me the most is Helmi is clearly very unsettled and unhappy, and while I actually wouldn't have described her as happy at Parkville, at least there were times when she would come out and spend the day with me and Nancy. Now, as far as I can tell, she has not left the bedroom and adjoining bathroom since we got here and spends most of her time either under the bed or in hiding somewhere, I'm not sure where. I hope she will rally soon because it can't be good for her to be so scared and sad. 

Otherwise, everything's pretty great, to be honest. 

adventures in spotify

 

So first things first Spotify NO NO NO after I finish enjoying Waiting I don't repeat DO NOT want to hear the first Fun Boy Three album. I can't even imagine why you would think I would, or indeed why anyone would!!! I am also really repelled by your smooth move from me listening to seventies Todd Rundgren (was it 'Fade Away' maybe?) to presenting some John Cale song to me. Who the fuck do you think you and I are? And then craziness - I go to listen to the Closed Circuits compilation I did a few years ago and instead of starting on the first song, first side, you go straight to Karen Marks. Why would you do that?! 

So I took advantage of having spotify to listen to some of McCartney III. I thought, it's really messed up this time playing this song as the first song. But 'Long Tailed Winter Bird' actually is the first song. That is mental. Then I switched to listening to Use No Hooks. I grabbed it off the record shelf a few days ago with the intention to listen to it again as I wasn't that impressed the first time around. This was the first time I had really, really listened to the version of 'Spoonful' on that album. It sucks so bad. Question is, when something on an album really really sucks, and you know it sucks and you think that possibly the group knows it sucks, indeed the point might have been 'let's make something that sucks', does it suck more? Or less? Or the same? 

Back to Waiting, I just want to say, it is a really great album with a great sound (David Byrne production). Whereas the first album sounds like it was recorded on a grimy 4-track with three grimy ideas, the second one is almost on par with the second Specials album (and conceptually similar I would say, in some respects). The troubling bit is 'Well Fancy That' which seems to flippantly deal with child abuse and I've heard Terry Hall talk about the experience the song is based on and he was somewhat flippant then too, which is his prerogative. 

This afternoon coming back from the shop I dropped in to look at my new home (2 weeks to go basically). I mean all I could see was the front garden, such as it is. 

I will soon be calling that trellis mine for real. I must come back earlier in the morning and see how much sunlight there is maximally. To tell Nancy.