First posted on Mark Is Cranky:
The funny thing here is that, unlike just about everything else that I write, the Friday Morning Listen is almost always composed at the keyboard. Today (which, scout's honor, is Friday October 28th, 2005) it's being scratched out with a BIC #2, 0.7 millimeter mechanical pencil.
Over the past couple of days I have experienced a distinct lack of modern, functional, Internet-type technology. When the wife made the reservations at this inn, she was assured by the representative person that each room had Internet access. Well, turns out that that's true...if you're equipped for dial-up. Oops.
Oh, well. I figure that'll give me more time to catch up with writing and that big stack 'o New Yorkers that's been taunting me recently (I'm up to the yearly food issue, September 5th). I supposed a solution to this would be to find a local Internet cafe, but since the wife takes the Jeep to the conference she's attending (and since I'm too lazy to get up early and take her there myself), I'm sort of stuck here...which, honestly, is a good thing. I'm having a mini-vacation that's full of what a friend of mine has referred to as 'Mark-time'. So be it.
So last night, after the wife had gone to bed, I decided (fortified by a nice glass of Laphroaig & water) that the iPod needed to be loaded with the source material for this morning's first encounter with moderately organized vibrating air molecules. I boot up the laptop (which seems to take forever since the latest Symanctec AntiVirus software was installed) and pop in Bjork's soundtrack to the movie Drawing Restraint 9. After a minute's worth of fighting with both iTunes and CDMax over which is going to play the disc (the answer is "Neither!! Now Just Go Away!") I finally get down to importing the song data.
(OK, I have to admit that this late night computer stuff was a huge mistake. Earlier in the day I had a horrifying run-in with my portable speaker/subwoofer setup. For no apparent reason, the sub went berserk and started making an insanely loud and unnerving deep growl. Unplugging the input jack seemed to solve the problem. Hours later the thing freaked out again. I'm sitting in a chair reading an article about the unknown/overlooked composer Franz Schreker (and trying to not be annoyed at the author's overuse of things like "fin-de-siècle" and "cri de coeur") when the devil's subwoofer goes into mad jackhammer mode...shortly followed by my cell phone ringing. But....the sub wasn't even powered on! I walked away from the desk and the vibrations stopped. Ah, the speaker system's electronics are picking up on part of my cell signal. Sure enough, I move the phone to within six inches of the speaker and the electro-burp fires up again. Hmmmm...maybe I should have spent more than fifty bucks on these things).
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
fantastic as ever, Sir Saleski. to the best of my knowledge the Bjork flick is directed by the fella who did all that Cremaster malakey, which lasts the guts a six or eight hours, but you can only get half an hour of it on DVD. she's married to him, it seems. who knows what it'll be like? maybe it'll provide an answer to the highly perplexing question regarding why i get so, um, excited by that peculiar image on the cover of Medulla.
2 - Mark Saleski
yea, i know what you mean about that pic.
buy the way, i should have added that if you sit on the edge of a bathtub for 30 minutes, your ass will fall asleep.