Last Weekend for November 16-November 18: Catching Up
After a long weekend in New Orleans, this weekend was for catching up on everything that doesn't get done when you are on the road.
Or more accurately, Saturday and Sunday were. On Friday night, M and I went to the Art Museum to see the film Cielo, which is a meditation on the night sky in the Atacama Desert. The night sky photography was fantastic. Unfortunately, as with many films that involve "meditation" in the description, the connecting parts of the film that interviewed those who live in the desert, including ranchers and astronomers, were somewhat slow and tedious. Still, at 78 minutes it's a pleasant way to get a sense of the immensity of the sky. Afterwords we went to Pacific East for dinner.
Saturday was basically all errands and yard work. I finished raking the leaves, and M dealt with all the plants she had outside. There was some Thanksgiving pre-planning. The only real "not work" thing I did was in the late evening. While we were in New Orleans, gieves and I (mostly gieves) had bought pralines from a number of different shops with the intention of doing a praline tasting. For various reasons we never quite managed to do the tasting in NOLA, so on Saturday night gieves and darlox brought the three different pralines over and we had a brief impromptu tasting in my kitchen. Of course, I didn't write down the results, but I believe that Loretta's Authentic Pralines was the winner.
Sunday morning I donated platelets for the eleventh time this year. During radio my trainee did an excellent soul hour while in the freeform section I cleared a lot of my 'new artists I've been meaning to play' list out.
On Sunday I also finished two books. While donating blood I finished Jesmyn Ward's debut novel Where the Line Bleeds. She's clearly become a better writer since this first effort, and I wouldn't necessarily start with this book, but it's still a intimate picture of two brothers figuring out adulthood in their small town in Mississippi. I liked it. I've now read everything she's written, and eagerly await her next book. You should check her out.
Sunday evening I finished The Bronx Zoo by Sparky Lyle, which aside from Ball Four may be the most famous baseball book written by a player. It was interesting in that it was a behind the scenes look at a season, but also sort of boring in that a large portion of the book is Lyle complaining about his teammates and bosses, notably George Steinbrenner. On the one hand, that's what is promised by the book, but on the other hand people complaining about coworkers, even if those coworkers are baseball players, didn't hold my interest for the 200+ pages of the book. Even with the historic 78 Yankees season to provide a backdrop it didn't quite work for me. It wasn't helped in that the book never provides a full roster, and Lyle goes back and forth between using full names and nicknames without necessarily tying them together authoritatively. On the whole, I'd say this book is mostly for baseball obsessives, Yankees fans or people who like behind the scenes recaps.
Or more accurately, Saturday and Sunday were. On Friday night, M and I went to the Art Museum to see the film Cielo, which is a meditation on the night sky in the Atacama Desert. The night sky photography was fantastic. Unfortunately, as with many films that involve "meditation" in the description, the connecting parts of the film that interviewed those who live in the desert, including ranchers and astronomers, were somewhat slow and tedious. Still, at 78 minutes it's a pleasant way to get a sense of the immensity of the sky. Afterwords we went to Pacific East for dinner.
Saturday was basically all errands and yard work. I finished raking the leaves, and M dealt with all the plants she had outside. There was some Thanksgiving pre-planning. The only real "not work" thing I did was in the late evening. While we were in New Orleans, gieves and I (mostly gieves) had bought pralines from a number of different shops with the intention of doing a praline tasting. For various reasons we never quite managed to do the tasting in NOLA, so on Saturday night gieves and darlox brought the three different pralines over and we had a brief impromptu tasting in my kitchen. Of course, I didn't write down the results, but I believe that Loretta's Authentic Pralines was the winner.
Sunday morning I donated platelets for the eleventh time this year. During radio my trainee did an excellent soul hour while in the freeform section I cleared a lot of my 'new artists I've been meaning to play' list out.
On Sunday I also finished two books. While donating blood I finished Jesmyn Ward's debut novel Where the Line Bleeds. She's clearly become a better writer since this first effort, and I wouldn't necessarily start with this book, but it's still a intimate picture of two brothers figuring out adulthood in their small town in Mississippi. I liked it. I've now read everything she's written, and eagerly await her next book. You should check her out.
Sunday evening I finished The Bronx Zoo by Sparky Lyle, which aside from Ball Four may be the most famous baseball book written by a player. It was interesting in that it was a behind the scenes look at a season, but also sort of boring in that a large portion of the book is Lyle complaining about his teammates and bosses, notably George Steinbrenner. On the one hand, that's what is promised by the book, but on the other hand people complaining about coworkers, even if those coworkers are baseball players, didn't hold my interest for the 200+ pages of the book. Even with the historic 78 Yankees season to provide a backdrop it didn't quite work for me. It wasn't helped in that the book never provides a full roster, and Lyle goes back and forth between using full names and nicknames without necessarily tying them together authoritatively. On the whole, I'd say this book is mostly for baseball obsessives, Yankees fans or people who like behind the scenes recaps.