Saturday, August 16, 2008

More Molly.

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Molly Venter.

Here's Molly:

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Friday Melanie.


I've been uploading to youtube some video clips of my friend Molly Venter -- I'll share them when they're ready -- who reminds me, at least her voice, of Melanie. Most people I think only know Melanie from "Brand New Key," her big novelty hit, or possibly "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)," the song she wrote about Woodstock, but she wrote and recorded and performed for years and years (and may still be out on the road -- I know she was touring a few years ago with her daughters who have a band).

She likes old timey instruments and arrangements, which gives her songs sometimes a music hall vaudeville-ish sound. Some of her songs are silly -- on her live recordings, she seems to love making the audience laugh -- some are a bit maudlin, others are serious, poetic, introspective. (Reading back over that last sentence, I realize that all those elements were part of the sixties folk revival that she was a big part of.) But then, over and against all those elements is that voice that seems to just spill from her heart undiluted. Patti Griffin does it. And Molly Venter does it, too.

"Peace Will Come" was on a K-Tel compilation that my brother and I got in the early 70s -- the single version starts with only a plaintive vocal and I think accordion and builds to a full orchestration with all sorts of odd instruments and layers of vocals (all her). I used to listen to it over and over because it made me cry. I didn't even really know what it was about, still don't, but something about the sonic quality of it would go right to my tear ducts.

I had no idea who she was or what else she did and I guess no curiosity about it until many years later. I still think it's a mysterious and moving song.

And this clip of "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)," I can't even find words for how happy it makes me to find this.

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Manhunt.

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Extras.

Jay and I have been watching Extras, the series by Ricky Gervais who did The Office. I loved The Office, but this is even better I think. The Office was so relentlessly cynical, which was one of the things that made it so funny, but after a while that tone makes me a bit claustrophobic. What I love about Extras is that it is just as biting, but the characters are sympathetic. There's love in it. The Office was short on love. From what I saw of the American version of the Office, they tried to put some love in it, but it didn't ring true to me. The American version would probably be pretty good if you'd never seen the original. Steve Carell is pretty funny, or I should say used to be. He doesn't make me laugh any more. It's like Will Ferrell. I don't know if they're not funny any more or if I just got sick of them.

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Saturday, August 9, 2008

Moving Out.

J and I are moving some time soon to a house built from shipping containers and building materials salvaged from movie sets, which our friend JP (of M&JP) is building on their land. JP says it'll be done before Christmas.

I was talking with J a few days ago about how -- though I'm excited and happy about our future home -- the move comes with some sadness. It feels like a farewell to a kind of life that I dreamed of when I was a kid and lived for many years, in New York and then briefly in San Francisco, and to some extent in Nashville. A big city life where you live and work and play, shop and eat, all nearby or in places that are easily accessible by public transportation.

I've continued or tried to continue to live like that here in Austin, but it's a struggle because public transportation is so spotty. Sometimes, without a car, I feel isolated, stranded here. I can walk to the post office. I can walk to the bar, movie theaters, coffee shops, restaurants, and various other businesses. But I can't walk to a grocery store. And if I need something outside my neighborhood, I have to do serious planning. I can't just hop on the subway. Usually I can borrow J's truck. If I can't, a bus trip is often an hour and a half to get to a place that might take 15 minutes to drive to. Austin is a driving city, and I hate driving.

So moving out to M&JP's is like giving up, admitting that it may be impossible to have that life now. Life in the urban core is more and more just for the rich. The kinds of neighborhoods I lived in (the East Village and Lower East Side of New York, Ft. Greene in Brooklyn, Waverly-Belmont in Nashville) flip too fast now. There used to be a window of several years between when the artists moved into ghettos and the developers and yuppies came and wiped everything out. Now, I look at the neighborhoods east of our present home, where there is still serious poverty, drug dealing, prostitution on the street corners, not infrequent shootings, etc., and across the street they're building "luxury lofts."

Our new home will be about 4 miles from downtown and the U.T. campus. A reasonable bike ride and a very quick drive. M&JP are family to me, and though I'll be farther away from downtown, I'll feel less isolated there with them. The house is going to be beautiful. We'll have windmills and solar panels generating most of our power, a composting toilet, rain water collection will provide most of our water, a bigger vegetable garden. We'll be more closely in M&JP's orbit, a big and varied group of artists, friends, family. M&JP are like magnets for good, generous, interesting, hard-working, smart, creative people.

This move is a relief. No more yuppies nipping at my heels. It's the end of a long trail of spoiled neighborhoods that were once full of life and art and danger and possibility and are now full of strollers and retail chains and rents that are way too high for the marginal people.

(The new light rail system they're building now will stop near our new home and it goes downtown and to the U.T. campus. And we're right on two major bus routes, one of which goes to U.T., so my commute to school if I don't feel like riding my bike will be quick and easy.)
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Friday, August 8, 2008

Heat.

It's 7:30 p.m. and it's 101 degrees here in Austin. But the sun will go down in a couple hours and the temperature will drop to about 95, and then it feels so good to open up the house and turn on the fans. That's the best thing about this extreme heat -- 95 feels cool.
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