frumiousb

some great old comics here.

Dream that in an ultrasound, they revealed that my baby was actually a cat. I was shocked, but the nurse assured me that sometimes it just happened that way.

One of my very favorite comic artists, Julie Doucet, apparently has the same dream. I wonder if I got it from her.



Dancing Chicken Recipe

For archival purposes, last night B. made this recipe from the Delicious Christmas issue. Chicken with lemon and capers. It was easy, and great. As usual, scanned recipe is in Dutch, but I've translated it.

( recipe )

( translation )

B. and I went to see Bo Diddley at the Melkweg on Wednesday. I was very excited to go. I had no idea that he still toured before I saw the notice about the show.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a great show. The songs were great, and he's still really impressive, but a lot of a good show is the dynamic that builds up from one song to another. Someone apparently screwed around with his guitar back stage, so he spent at least five minutes between each song messing with his guitar and amp.

What also kind of sucked was that a large number of tickets had been bought by some shitty advertising agency celebrating the birthday of the managing director. They have apparently used Bo in an advertisement. The assholes who worked for the agency clearly had no interest in the music. The whole time that we were trying to listen, we had four junior executive types and their wives droning on non-stop behind us. Rude, and particularly given that it was so hot I spent a lot of time controlling the impulse to strangle them to death. Crowd was a very strange mix of older folks, super hipsters and advertising agents. Weird vibe.

The heat also made it hard, despite valient efforts from the Melkweg to pump up the airco. We left a little bit before the end because I was starting to feel sick.

At 77, he clearly got tired very quickly. He preferred to stop between songs and talk for a while-- his hands look as though they hurt. When he did play, you quickly heard how much talent there was. I heard "Crackin' Up" which I had wanted to hear him play, but not "Diddley Daddy", unfortunately. Ever since the show, B. has been walking around calling "heeyyyyy, Bo Diddley" to our extremely puzzled cats.

( more pictures )

What else?

I'm currently being soundly defeated by a book on the economic history of Chicago. I'm telling myself that this is the heat making it difficult. May even be true.

We watched American Splendor last night and really enjoyed it. It was all the reviews said it would be-- helped that I'm a fan of the comic. But B. didn't even know that Pekar was a real guy until halfway through the film, and he loved it also. It was well shot, well written, well acted. Nice change of pace.

Our house is breaking down around us, just as it seems we may be able to buy our next house. Nothing like some last minute repairs to an apartment that you plan to sell anyhow. Ah well, luxury problem, although it hasn't felt that way this week. Our plumber comes back for the fifth time this week to try to address our leak problems.

I have lots to say about the situation in Lebanon, but it isn't even vaguely blessing counting and my reading about the situation has started to verge on the obsessive.