CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
I love cinnamon candies.
The thing is, they actually don't taste like the spice in your kitchen. Cinnamon Imperials, cinnamon toothpicks, and my favorites, Hot Tamales, they all misrepresent the spice, but they're so tasty! But my all-time favorite seems to no longer be in business: Vernell's Cinnamon Bears. Most cinnamon bears are kind of cherry-flavored, which I find off-putting with the overlay of cinnamon (you know, a weird artificial fruit flavor), but the old Vernell's tasted of nothing but that artificial cinnamon. I miss 'em.
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
I spent the entire day in one motor vehicle or another, the price you pay for bicycle touring...
After a van ride from Cedar City to St. George, I jumped in my car and drove to Denver--a toll worth paying after a great week on the bike. While motoring through the Utah desert, I even got to speak to T for the first time after a long web flirtation (it went well!).
CDs listened to today:
Last day of the bicycle tour today.
We rode from Bryce Canyon to Cedar City, UT over the Cedar Breaks National Monument and it turned out to be one of the most physically difficult days I've spent on the bike in a while. The morning was chilly, but tolerable, and we got to pass through the Red Canyon again. This time, I skipped the bicycle path and rode down via the highway--and got to go through the little arch cut into the rock fin on the highway! The bad news was that once we left the canyon, the wind rose up and I had to ride uphill 50 miles or so into a howling headwind. It was a long, slow grind and the majority of riders in our tour surrendered to the conditions and took a shuttle van for part of the ride. I can't blame them, but it was a reward to reach the picnic stop and be the subject of admiration from those who didn't ride.
The Cedar Breaks has a summit of around 10,000 feet and is capped by another colorful, striped canyon that may not be a match for Bryce, but is still worth a visit. On the way up, there are more ancient lava flows splitting the Aspen stands and meadows, the iron-gray rocks splattered with bright green lichen patches. The high altitude made things a hair chilly, but immediately at the beginning of the descent, the wind rose up behind me and things warmed up to make for a screaming downhill into town. A fine finish!
Here's a view of the autumn Aspens on the ascent to Cedar Breaks:
(click to see a larger image)
I finally got to see Bryce Canyon today.
After a slow-moving morning around our campsite, I took a bus up to one of the main "hiking" trails inside the famed canyon (is it really "hiking" when half the trail is paved and the steep parts have handrails?). Even the simplest of trails dive deep into the hoodoos and other weird stone formations, including natural bridges and narrow aisles between the enormous fins of rock that appears to melt right before your eyes. As I finished my stroll (a couple of miles walking), it began to rain, adding to that melting idea, but encouraging me to hop the next bus back to camp rather than slip on to another path.
It turned out I made the right choice not to keep walking around. The rain I encountered evolved into a thunderstorm and some of the other folks on the tour had gone riding into the park, only to be caught in a heavy hailstorm that covered the road in ice. They told me that there were quite a few motorcyclists in the park--and it turns out that motorcycles can't ride on hail, so they saw multiple spills. I, however, was snug in my tent napping and reading--except for one call from work!
(click to see a larger image)
I had an incredible day on the bike today.
We rode from Springdale, UT to Bryce Canyon National Park and it was a rare thing, filled with scenery and weather. We rode back through Zion National Park and the tunnel in the morning--the slower pace of the uphill ride in the park allowed me to see the slot canyons, bizarre mesas, wildlife, and red-dyed road at my leisure. I got to stop with some of the tour group in a tiny town for pie at a place that bills their product as "Ho-Made Pie", complete with t-shirts bearing the slogan (yes, I think that, even in Utah, they know it's a bit risqué).
After a second breakfast of pie, we encountered another touring company (Backroads this time) making a lighter distance. Their staff shared chicken fajitas with me--far better fare than our own tour's! As I left the picnic spot, we started to see a little rain on the following climb. And as I ascended, it became an icy rain (turns out, we were well above 7,000 feet for most of the rainstorm which is not the place to be in September!).
What a glorious thing the ride in the mountain rain was! I chose to ignore what the other riders were doing and not don my jacket for most of the deluge, but as we reached the summit and I stopped at a gas station for a little snack, I cooled off as I munched and put on the jacket for the terrifically cold descent to follow. I instantly lost feeling in my hands and legs on the brief descent, but the rain promptly cleared and there I was, barreling along the flats at 25 miles an hour, riding no hands as I stripped off the sloppy wet windbreaker. The Midwesterner I was riding with was speechless that I had gone so long without rain gear, then was flummoxed by how I made the jacket disappear so quickly without stopping. I really felt like I was at my peak as a rough, tough cyclist in these conditions.
The afternoon warmed quickly as the rainclouds passed and the ride to Bryce Canyon was spent nursing my legs, stiff from the cold and tired from the long climbs. And ahead was a sunny reward in the unexpected ride through the Red Canyon, something of a preview for Bryce Canyon. We rose out of the desert, an ancient lava flow on the left, exited to a bike path next to the highway, and suddenly we were in a small canyon of red stone hoodoos and strange stone formations. I was chagrined to see that one of the rock "fins" had a tunnel cut into it for the highway to pass through--I so wanted to ride through that! We actually arrived at the entrance to the park, but the hour was late and I certainly couldn't risk missing dinner, so I have yet to see Bryce Canyon. If the preview holds, what a day it should be tomorrow!
I didn't ride today, which always gives me mixed feelings when I'm on bike tours.
After a lazy morning and a stroll into Springdale (I was hoping to find a camping pillow I liked) and learning the town lacks charm, I took the park shuttle bus up the restricted Virgin River road. As I mentioned, the canyon there is the centerpiece of Zion National Park and every recommendation I saw was that the hike to Angel's Landing was the best in the area. I'm a little embarrassed to say I couldn't finish it!
It seems that the final part of the hike is over an exposed, narrow ridge where the Park Service has added handholds because the drop on either side of the slimmest part of the trail is about 2,000 feet. How narrow is it? To my eye, it looked like it was less than five feet wide and steep enough to require one to clamber with hands as well as feet. I have a fear of heights that made the first tricky section (next to what looked like a 600-foot drop) to Scout Lookout more than enough to tell me I couldn't finish the more exposed part of the trail. I was terrified, but waited until I was past the first scary part to decide to quit!
Here's a view from Scout Lookout. The narrow ridge to the left is the trail and there is no reason for a sensible hiker to traverse that!
(click to see a larger image)
Arrival at Zion National Park today!
Today's ride was mostly uphill after yesterday's descents, arriving at the south entrance of the park (which is spectacular, if not the more famous part). The middle of the park is an ancient highway tunnel where bicycles are banned, so I had a long wait by the side of the road while I waited for the tour van to shuttle me through. A competing company was also collecting its riders at the same spot and they were making it their snack stop (I think they were riding less than half our distance, so our stop was much earlier). This was Bicycle Adventures, so I went to say hello and they immediately started pressing drinks, fruit, and snacks on me! Most touring companies will feed stray non-guest riders out on the road--partly for the good vibes cycling brings, and I suspect partly as good promotional juju. They even had Mexican Coca-Cola (with real sugar, not corn syrup)!
After the tunnel, I got a nice speedy descent and then I took a little detour off the route and rode the seven miles up the park's Virgin Canyon, which is restricted and has little motorized traffic. The road is dyed red to match the enormous canyon's rocks (this is the centerpiece of the park, this part of the canyon) and it was worth the small effort!
Here's the view from near the tunnel:
(click to see a larger image)
Today, I got the first day of real bicycle touring in a couple of years. What a treat!
We started at the chilly North Rim as a herd of deer wandered through the empty campsites and spent the better part of the day gradually descending the high plateau of the Grand Canyon, ending the ride just over the border in Utah. I'm sure the scenery today wasn't the best we'll see on the ride, but I'm more than happy to say it was a sincere pleasure to roll over this country, ending in a cozy small town (Kanab, UT) that claims to be "Little Hollywood" for it's history of hosting crews filming movie Westerns.
Here's a view from the Kaibab Plateau, looking toward the Vermilion Cliffs (Kanab's just on the other side, I figure):
(click to see a larger image)
I'm at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon today.
Our campsite is on "The Transept", one of the deep feeder canyons that intersect the main Colorado River section of the Grand Canyon. It's spectacular, and as I walked back from dinner last night, the moonlight made the lighter rocks in the canyon walls seem to glow as the darker bands of stone receded in darkness. I'm told we're at 8,000 feet and there is a touch of autumn in the morning, so I snoozed, then rode my bike to Imperial Point (mostly uphill) for a nice stretch of the legs and a new view. We are having our breakfasts and lunches at the North Rim lodge, which sits on the very edge of the canyon. Crowds gather at the lodge's patio for sunrise and sunset, but I found the full moon even better!
Here's a photo of the view roughly 20 yards from my tent (funny thing: I just can't find room to complain!):
(click to see a larger image)
Today we shuttled with bicycles and gear from St. George to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Five hours in a cramped passenger van with strangers, but pleasant enough. As always with these things, there's a lot of waiting around as the tour staff collect guests from hotels, airports, other cities... I stood around with quite a lot of others in the Albertson's parking lot, wondering why we were driven roughly three blocks and made to wait rather than be allowed to snooze in my motel room, but these tour companies always have this amusing need to gather the low-hanging fruit first: the guests who are at a designated pick-up point on time. Then they schlep around looking for the exceptions, rather than vice versa!
The thing is, my vacation mind-set is in full effect and because the day is given to schlepping (it says so in the brochure), I am completely at ease with the delays and the waits. Ah... I love travel...
I'm penning today's entry a bit after the fact.
I made a rather messy miscalculation regarding my vacation! It turns out I kept thinking I needed to arrive in St. George, UT by mid-day Sunday. Totally clever, considering the actual date for the shuttle was Saturday. For some reason, I never bothered to actually read the stupid bike tour itinerary and made the foolish assumption that they would schedule it the same way as every other tour: giving the happy campers an open Saturday to arrive. Stupid!
So that meant I had to call my boss at the last minute Thursday and explain I had to take today as vacation and hurriedly pack (OK not as quickly as I shoulda)--then drive to Utah! By the time I actually got organized, I was starting a 14-hour drive at 2 in the afternoon... I imagine the drive would have been shorter if I hadn't had to stop and buy a towel when I remembered I hadn't brought one, a better choice than forgetting it entirely! So I got to St. George at 3 AM, barely conscious (I would have got there sooner if I hadn't felt the need to pull over a couple of times and doze), but I'm ready to ride!
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
I've been having a marvelous flirtation with H.
The thing is, we "met" online, via a facebook flirting game and I've yet to convince her to even talk to me on the phone, let alone meet in person! I've seen enough of the right kind of photos to feel OK about her looks (oh, call me shallow if you like), and I'm just itching to meet her. She's making me just a little crazy, but I don't think I'm managing to make her feel the same way!
CDs listened to today:
I'm still in Idaho Falls today.
I gather my ex, A, works at the Idaho Falls center that I'm visiting, so I was a little apprehensive about seeing her for the first time since I broke things off. I even saw a woman who looks a lot like her from behind (everybody's in four-foot-high cubicles, so I really mean the hair and the hooded sweatshirt), but in the end, I didn't see her. Mixed blessing, I suppose. On the one hand, it probably would have been awkward, but I think it also would have been some closure.
Boy, you don't always appreciate the basics.
I flew to Idaho Falls last night and found out that my bag didn't arrive with me. Sadly, that meant I had to wear yesterday's slightly grubby clothes again today. Ick! It's really the dirty shirt and the dirty underwear I don't like--I'm used to wearing not-too-fresh jeans now and then!
And wow, am I glad I put on fresh socks before I left for the airport!
CDs listened to today:
I'm no longer idealistic enough to watch the Olympic Games.
I used to really enjoy them, but for me, the games of my childhood were about sport. Now they're about commercialism and nationalism. For me, it was the Seoul games that turned me away with the naked displays of nationalistic, and perhaps even ethnic, chauvinism on the part of the Korean fans. The last Olympic games I enjoyed were Barcelona and Lillehammer, which seemed so charming.
The Beijing games appear to promise more naked racial and nationalist displays as the Chinese work to show they aren't the inferior nation of the past. I'd rather they worked for peace in Darfur or Lebanon to show their putative "greatness"--whatever that means to them. Instead, I fear we'll see more poor sportsmanship like in Seoul or Atlanta (or even Athens). I'd like to see more fans like the Swiss, who don't complain about the winners when they lose, they quickly blame their own athletes and coaches! Plus, they turn up with those cowbells to show their enthusiasm--much nicer than the "USA!" chants...
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
I'm ticked off at Senator Hillary Clinton again today.
I actually had a tough time choosing between her and Senator Obama when it came time to attend my state's caucuses. While I agreed with more of Ms. Clinton's views and proposals, her political baggage in the Washington, D.C. partisan wars of the last 20 years is considerable and I preferred a fresh start in the White House. Senator Obama seemed to represent that (although some of his recent campaigning seems to gainsay the "post-partisan" politics he's been selling).
Yesterday, there were plentiful news reports circulating that Senator Clinton is busy insisting that her delegates and supporters "must be heard" at the convention. This seems like a combination of preening vanity and sore loser syndrome on the part of the Senator from New York--and whatever supporters she still has. A divided Democratic convention only further weakens Senator Obama's already-compromised ability to show he's a new kind of politician and he's having enough trouble without this.
I think that, if Senator Clinton were truly working to make America a better place and not to simply gratify her own ego, she would find another way. My suggestion would be that she show us her love of country and sacrifice her ego at the convention. First, she should ask ALL her delegates to vote for Senator Obama on the first ballot. In return, Senator Obama should ask all New York delegates to symbolically vote for Senator Clinton for the nomination to recognize her contribution.
Next, she needs to do the important thing for America and work to ensure a Democratic president: Ask to be the one who nominates Senator Obama. This would be her big moment, passing the torch and praising her formal rival with all the enthusiasm of someone who truly believes her party is best for America. The way she behaves right now, she only believes in herself and those who support her, not the party and perhaps not the United States of America.
Come on Senator Clinton, show us some greatness and be the one to close the matter. Give a speech nominating Barack Obama and make it one that takes time to honor your own supporters and then ask them to join her in making the White House Democratic. If she gave a great speech, she would cement her status as a leading light of the party and make her a serious contender for president next time there's an open Democratic nomination. Otherwise, she's playing Ted Kennedy to Barack Obama's Jimmy Carter, circa 1980, where a divided party only made things that much harder for President Carter when he faced Ronald Reagan in the general election (not that it would have saved Pres. Carter...).
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
This makes a lot of sense.
Somehow former Vice President Al Gore had become a polarizing figure in American politics. It's kind of hard to fathom how a man with so little personality in public could be the object of so much adulation, let alone anger and contempt. Perhaps it was the incredibly refined politics of division practiced by the current administration that made Senator Gore a figure of repeated vilification by those who support the president beyond all reason. The most divisive part of Senator Gore's rhetoric in recent years has been on global warming, where even the president and most of his administration have now stopped the blizzard of lies they were producing and have admitted that global warming is a fact and that human agency is a key factor.
Anyway, I wander. To get back to what makes sense: I recently saw a part of a speech by Senator Gore where he argued that more drilling for oil in the United States (or territory controlled by the USA) would not make oil and gasoline prices fall. The argument goes like this: every time Americans grumble about high energy prices, the oil companies push for the rights to drill in every last environmentally sensitive place they find appealing. Yet, in the long run, energy prices don't go down, so what is the benefit of letting them drill off the Louisiana coast or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
What will drive down oil prices? A real, long-term drop in demand. It's demand that made the oil prices into headlines over the last year--consumption increases in China and India and a stubborn unwillingness to conserve in the United States. It's time for us to create tax and regulatory policies that encourage efficiency and conservation to reduce our energy demand. It's a drag on our economy and a strategic nightmare to rely on nations as unstable and unsavory as Venezuela, Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia. And if we used our abundant national creativity, we cold soon lead the world in green technology--which we could then sell to like-minded nations. Do you really think China, India, and Europe enjoy sending their money to these oil states, either? I wager they'd much rather pay us.
CDs listened to today:
I just love urban wildlife.
Riding home tonight, I spotted two beavers in Cherry Creek! I was cycling along the bike path just as the light began to fade and I spotted a creature in the creek. Now any urban resident will think what I thought: "is that a rat?" It was only ten feet away, so I had a good, long look and made sure I wasn't mistaken--the wide, flat tail is kind of a giveaway, no? As I watched the beaver swimming along, I spotted a second one. It's kind of odd, the way animals are adapting to the human environment. I've now seen beavers three times in my life, all within a mile of downtown Denver.
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
I've long complained about the television coverage of the Tour de France.
But this isn't the day to complain, but appreciate it. You see, Sunday and Monday, the Tour covered roads in the Pyrenees that I actually know! It was really exciting to know that I'd ridden nearly all of the course the last couple of days--perhaps when the riders stopped in Bagneres de Bigorre, some of them even stayed in the hotel where I stayed (it's a near certainty that some stayed at the hotel in Pau where I spent three nights).
CDs listened to today:
My view of cycling has evolved over the last few years.
Perhaps I should just say that my taste for the sport has changed slightly. I was talking with my mechanic at the bike shop (yes, there's a guy I think of as "my mechanic", like a Ferrari owner) and we were talking about how a bike ride requires a certain amount of preparation: special shorts and jersey, special shoes and socks, helmet and glasses, decisions about water and food.
The whole rigmarole has not been as welcome to me in the last few years, and I find myself using the cheap little mountain bike I've decked out for urban riding more and more. I replaced the suspension fork with a rigid fork, replaced the knobby tires with heavy-duty slicks, added fenders and a rack--voilà! An urban assault bicycle! And it's cheap enough that I won't be terribly upset when–not if–it gets stolen.
Using it means that I can slap on a helmet, maybe clip the pants legs, and go!
It's time to talk about the pop music spotlight!
There are nine debuts on my little pop music playlist this week, so let's get started!
And we're busily reviewing CDs today.
OK, not "we" and really only one album: The Runners Four by Deerhoof. Hailing from San Francisco, Deerhoof fits into my usual prejudices when it comes to "arty" pop music (in this usage, "pop" really means "not classical"). And what I like is an act that's willing to understand that they aren't a classical group, so they shouldn't look to match that genre's polish, precision, or elegance. What I'm looking for if you're going to go around breaking the rules of pop music is something unruly, maybe a little chaos or noise, but mostly, I'm put off by the faintest whiff of the intellectualism of classical music. It usually leads to the melding of the worst of both worlds: the stuffy, airlessness of classical, yet with a total lack of understanding regarding subtlety or structure.
Deerhoof is a quartet that more-or-less fits into the mold we've seen in rock and roll since before the Beatles: two guitars, drums, and bass (with some keyboards here and there, the musicians sometimes swap roles). The most prominent feature of the band's sound is singer Satomi Matsuzaki, who uses a childlike, no-vibrato delivery to ornament a fairly rambunctious act with simple melodies that seem more like nursery songs--if it weren't for the clunking, grinding guitars and drums. She often sounds like a small girl making up private songs on the spot ("come, come see the duck!" she repeatedly chirps in one track), straining her high-pitched voice in a naïve, un-schooled way. The rhythm tandem eschews the usual rock music four-beat patterns (boom-chuck-boom-chuck) in many songs, cranking out steady or broken rhythms with little apparent precision that mask some pretty subtle manipulations of time. The harmonies are odd: not noisy, not consonant, giving little sense of progression despite the simplified melodies.
I think the biggest concern with an act like this is that they work within a limited emotional range, courtesy a singer who shows little sign of wider talent (she's not going to wail like a banshee). They make up for it with smarts and fun, but you might begin to crave some contrast and catharsis in larger doses than available here.
9 out of 10
CDs listened to today:
Let's see if I post a tasteful video today.
My last video post was funny, sexy, and more than a little tacky. So now how about we go back to high school when we were the smart kids who loved to make fun of the popular, pretty kids? My pal L has this quoted on her facebook page:
CDs listened to today:
I'm overdue for a CD review today.
So let's talk about Franz Schubert's Piano Quintet In A, "The Trout". There are two works on the disk, the second being Thomas Adès' Piano Quintet. If you've glanced at my listening journal much, you may not be surprised to learn that the reason I bought this disk was for Mr. Adès' work and not the much better-known Schubert quintet! This is perhaps more obvious when I reveal that the Arditti Quartet plays the shorter piece and in my world, they can do no wrong.
The Schubert "Trout" quintet is probably the best-known work for this particular chamber configuration (the four major stringed instruments plus piano), and in some ways, I suppose you could say it's really the fundamental work of the genre. I don't know that we would really have any other works to hear for piano quintet without it. Still, the most striking thing about the "Trout" quintet is really how much Franz Schubert sought to emulate the textures of a larger ensemble. He frequently masses the strings to give them bulk, while asking the piano to either oppose, comment, or maybe ornament. Even when the strings pause, the piano writing is rich and a bit florid, thickening with rippling arpeggios in the opening movement. It's as if he had a restless left hand that needed constant activity.
Still, that fidgety left hand allows some space here and there, and the middle scherzo (the work has five movements) benefits greatly from the concentration of the left hand's energies in concert with the right. While you might think that a scherzo would be the contrast movement, perky where the second, slow movement is lugubrious, the truth is that the entire "Trout" quintet is kinda caffeinated and bubbly (perhaps explaining the works' enduring popularity). It's all sunny, cheery tunes and bouncy rhythms from beginning to end, exuding the kind of charms we're accustomed to hearing in Mozart. Like Mozart, you will also note a fair amount of elegance in the "Trout" (the odd, rumbling bass note aside), and this is amplified by the occasionally fussy playing of the members of the Belcea Quartet--an odd contrast to the pianism of Mr. Adès himself, who is a bit more straightforward.
Mr. Adés also anchors the ensemble for his own piano quintet, where, at times, I found myself wishing for a pianist with a stronger personality to balance the forceful character of the Arditti Quartet's reliably brilliant musicianship. Mr. Adès emphasizes a kind of episodic storminess in his writing and this work is no exception. With such sensational, sensitive partners here, it can be breathtaking, although a bit pointless at times and his longer phrases are usually softer things that have a tendency to feel meandering--especially in contrast to the clear melodism of the other work on the disk.
7 out of 10
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
