Funny or frightening?

A couple of weeks ago, just before that really bad winter storm hit the southeast, I witnessed a strange occurance on a Delta flight: our flight attendant fell asleep on the job.

We had just gotten in the air, and he was seated at the front of the small plane, still strapped in, facing us. Holding some sort of phone receiver looking thing, speaking into it, explaining the snacks:
"we have an assortment of juices and sodas, as well as wine beer and spirits available for…"
silence.
Eyes closed, head tilted to his right, face pressed into the receiver.
Ten seconds pass.
The pilot must have turned the seatbelt sign on then, because there was a familiar ding sound.
Startled awake, he started on "the captain has turned the seatbelt light on…"
He never did finish explaining the alcoholic beverages.

At the time I thought it was kind of funny. The poor guy looked like he had been up for days. He was physically more towards the Chris Farley end of the spectrum, and I invented a storyline in my head wherein he was up late acting a fool at some club where he didn't quite fit in.

A week later I was randomly reading the airplane crash part of the Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. In it he writes about how pilot fatigue has contributed to several airline accidents. Of course, in the book it is a combination of fatigue and other important factors like changed flight plans, minor malfunctions of equipment, bad weather, all contribute to bad decision making. We were flying in perfect weather, and it was a flight attendant not a pilot, but all the same, I no longer find this event funny.

Serena and Pepper

Portland, Maine

I'm Happy Just to Dance with You

Broken Household Appliance National Forest

We did some exploring recently in some of Knoxville's not-yet-parks (Fort Stanley, a future park on the bluff overlooking UT, the recently donated Wood property). They river bluff trail can be accessed from a parking lot on Cherokee Trail, and is the most cleaned-up of the three future city parks.

There's not much to the Wood property yet, but it will soon be turned into bike and walking trails. While walking around we ran into a lot of junk, which brought to mind this old Grandaddy song.

Later, in the old city, we noticed this half broken phone. Not sure how long it's been there, but the costume shop to its right appears to have been found unfit for human habitation recently, according to a note on its front door.

Pepper

Things that should exist: download codes for books

In the last few years, record labels have started including download codes when you buy music on vinyl. That way you can still enjoy the superior sound of vinyl, and load your music up on an ipod or laptop for listening at work or in the car.

It would be great if publishers did the same for books. Unless I'm travelling, I prefer a physical book. It's kind of a pain to have to have two separate reading piles for home and for travel.

Cool Aid: Rhye

For the last year or so I've been listening to a lot of softer, more sedate music. This change in my tastes might have evolved out of my thinking about Kelis's last album, Flesh Tone, and Hot Chip's One Life Stand. These two albums are ostensibly pop records, but the love that they address is far removed from the booty-shaking in love-with-a-stripper stuff you hear on the radio (which I also enjoy). The sounds are pure pop, but the themes are adult. Is this why they aren't more popular? And does this mean I'm getting old?

Of course those albums are very upbeat, Rhye has much more of a soft-rock vibe.

I would describe Rhye as a warmer sounding Sade. Think Sade + Sebastian Tellier's La Ritournelle.

The cure for bad dreams

There was a handwritten note on my car this morning. These have been popping up around town.





I've been into Cccandy lately. This song sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a bad dream.

Photo dump: hiking, and bluegrass in a cave

In March and April, I did a lot of hiking, and here's some of the photos. These three are from Frozen Head State Park. One of the nice things about this park is there are usually fewer hikers than on the trails in the Smokies.





In late April, I returned to the Porter's Creek trail, with my parents. You can see some lovely Dogwoods blooming in the last 2 photos.






On April 23rd I went to the Bluegrass Underground show, which is exactly what it sounds like: a monthly bluegrass concert held in a cave. On the drive there, on Easter Saturday, we saw this:


Here's the entrance to the cavern:


There's a chandelier in cavern:



Here's Frank Fairfield on stage in the background, and the radio sound guy in the foreground.



Everything about the first act was amazing. This guy, Frank Fairfield, has a deep knowledge of, and love for American musical history and traditions, and he plays a mean fiddle. Check out his Daytrotter session, and a set he did at Amoeba.

The main act, the Emmitt-Nershi Band, was described as "jam-grass" and "progressive bluegrass." To my ears they basically sounded like a slightly more country America, which is nice, but with incessant rounds of soloing, which isn't really my cup of tea.

sounds like...

I was listening to this song today,

and it reminded me of one of my favourite songs from Zooropa (especially the fade-out):


The whole Melted album is quite nice. You might like it.

Photo dump

I went to a record swap today, and got a little carried away.




I don't even have a turntable yet... But I have been thinking about switching over to vinyl. When I buy a CD I pretty much just rip it to mp3s, and then put it away. I don't have a CD player anymore, other than my laptop. Some record labels are now providing download codes for mp3 or flac files whenever you purchase vinyl, so I figure, why not make the switch? For example I got the new, amazing, Rural Alberta Advantage album on vinyl, and got the download weeks before the official release date, at which point the vinyl got sent out in the mail. I also picked up one of their super cool posters. (check out their video.)

A few weeks back Knoxville had some pretty heavy rains, and flooding near first creek closed some of our major roadways. Creeks aren't always noticeable from the road, and I've always found it kind of interesting to see where the waterways are that pass under roads and highways... of course you definitely notice it when the creeks flood. A week or so after the flooding I took my bike out on Knoxville's excellent Greenway, and ran into this bridge that was moved a couple of meters by the flood waters.



Now that it's warm out, I've been out on a few hikes. On the most recent, I went with some ecologists, and biologists... they make for interesting hike partners since they know so much about the plantlife. Randomly I ran into a guy I played frisbee with in Madison. He's down here doing a postdoc now. Small world.

Cool Aid: R&B edition

I can't stop listening to the new Frank Ocean mixtape/album. (Check out the amazing Swim Good)

Less amazing, but still quite good, the new Weeknd mixtape. Both albums feature a bunch of unusual rock and indie rock samples. Frank Ocean samples Coldplay, the Eagles, and Radiohead (sort of)... the Weeknd sample a couple of Beach House songs (another one of my current favourite bands). If you like drugged out psychedelic soul, check them both out. I don't think I've enjoyed an R&B album this much since the last proper Aaliyah album.

Concealed Carry

Tennessee recently passed a crazy firearms law that allows people with a concealed carry permit to bring their weapons into bars.
I found this out firsthand last recently while out at some bars, when a friend's coworker told us he was packing.

What kind of a person brings a gun with him when he's out having drinks? I don't want to draw too many generalizations from a single observation. But anecdotal evidence suggests that this kind of person is a woman-hating, tea party kind of guy, and generally a thoroughly unpleasant person to be around.

Photo Dump: WDVX Blue Plate Special

Since I was downtown today, I headed over to the Knoxville Visitors Center for lunch. Our local, non-NPR public radio station, WDVX has a live show every weekday at noon. I've been listening to WDVX for years, but this is the first time I've been able to be there for one of these shows.

I didn't catch any of the acts names, and in any case the second act was comprised of local musicians from different bands, who live downtown, and filled in at the last minute when the snow kept the scheduled guests from playing. They played old-timey bluegrass covers. It was excellent.

If you come visit me in Knoxville we should stop in to catch a show.

Snow Day

The Knoxville area doesn't usually get a lot of snow, so when we got a few inches yesterday and today, it shut down most of the city.

These first few photos are from Sunday, it's pretty tame by Wisconsin, or Montreal standards:




This morning I took a quick walk around downtown Knoxville and took these photos.

Here's a guy using a broom to clear the sidewalk in front of a grocery store in the Old City. I suppose most people around here don't have snow shovels.



This outdoor seating area at the Crown and Goose pub is protected from the wind, so this probably gives a good measure of how much snow we got.



If you look closely, you'll see a sprinkling of snow on top of the Sunsphere.








Here's Rachmaninoff's statue covered with snow.



The above train tracks run north-south and separate downtown from the University of Tennessee student ghetto aka Fort Sanders; in these next photos the train tracks run east-west and mark the northern end of downtown.

On the left side of the next two photos you can see the historic Southern Railway passenger station. This used to be one of Knoxville's busiest areas (that link goes to a document describing the history of the neighbourhood just north of the station), now the station is mostly empty, and Depot Ave. sees very little traffic. Caught just north of downtown, and just south of the interstate, and in the triangular region between Central and Broadway, this part of town is not particularly nice. The Greyhound station is a block northeast, and that area has been known in the past as for prostitution problems.