Right now I’m at the Stumptown location on Division Street in Portland, and the Paul Simon album Graceland is playing on the stereo. It reminds me of a 1999 Onion headline: “Burned-Out Coffee Shop Employee Just Lets Paul Simon Album Play for Fifth Time”. This is a special subclass of life imitating art: Life imitating art that really only made sense when compact discs were the dominant storage device for personal audio media.
This last summer I downloaded a mix from the Kleptones blog called “Paths to Gracland”, and I listened to it while replacing the transmission in my van. Look it up and give it a listen; I think you’ll like it. Anyway, there you have it, another installment in my series “Stories About Things That Remind Me of Other Things”.
On an unrelated note, I spent New Year’s Day in the Columbia River Gorge, hiking up to a place called Angels Rest. It was clear and cold and windy, and the dogs were with me and there were whitecaps on the water. Which reminds me of something I’ll tell you about later.
– Listen to the 1963 Lesley Gore song “Sunshine, Lollipos, and Rainbows”
– Bake cookies; eat some of the dough but not more than half
– Go to the public library, put inspirational notes between the pages of random books
– Write lists of things that help me stay positive
– Self-referentiality
That’s all I can think of right now. Happy New Year!