I’ve added a page that’s usually the cornerstone of any blog: an About page.
I figured this site needed something that at least said who’s writing it and what they’re about. The content can speak for itself to a degree, but so far the stuff on this site has been pretty scattershot. It made sense to ground it all with a single statement describing myself.
In other site news, I’ve already retired the Quest Log. It was a fun evening vibecoding it into existence, and I might revisit the idea, but ultimately I didn’t feel like it was adding much to the site. It was mostly just a list of books I’m reading, which I already log on Goodreads. I also already keep a daily log of my life, so I didn’t need another personal archive.
A final note: I made it so the Notes feed on the homepage shows a preview of the image, if the note has one. Hopefully makes it a bit more interesting to look at and inviting to click on.
That was much better. Same set list, same gray hoodie with the hood up, but everything was better. The band was locked in. The crowd was quiet, except for the occasional whoop. The Masonic Temple is beautiful, and the sound was perfect. I heard everything that came out of Dylan’s mouth clearly, unlike the previous night’s performance in Saginaw.
He only did one harmonica solo, a short and rather flat bleat at the end of “Every Grain of Sand.” Saginaw had two harmonica moments – another one at the end of “When I Paint My Masterpiece.” Maybe he hadn’t appreciated the shouts of “HURRICANE!” that came his way as soon as he took it out.
It was the usual Yondr pouch setup, but someone still taped the whole thing and put it on YouTube.
I just got back from my fifth Bob Dylan concert. It was at the Dow Event Center in Saginaw, Michigan.
He came on stage in a gray, unzipped hoodie and kept his hood pulled up the entire time.
It was the most rickety, least remarkable show I’ve seen from him. Arrangements that sparkled at previous concerts, like the “When I Paint My Masterpiece” that sounds like “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” were flatter this time. It felt like they were going through motions. Even the closing “Every Grain of Sand” was basically devoid of its usual grace. The crowd kind of sucked, too; the hum of their conversation never quite died down, and they started shouting for “HURRICANE!” as soon as he blew into his harmonica.
The only times that Dylan and his band perked up were for two old school rock’n’roll covers: “I Can Tell” by Bo Diddley and “Nervous Breakdown” by Eddie Cochran. Dylan seemed to be enjoying himself with these. He even raised his voice loud enough for us to hear it; with most of his own songs, his voice was almost inaudible for half of every line. I hope he’s working on an album of these covers.
James Bond continues to shine when it comes to the car stuff. From “Live and Let Die”:
Bond liked fast cars and he liked driving them. Most American cars bored him. They lacked personality and the patina of individual craftsmanship that European cars have. They were just ‘vehicles’, similar in shape and in colour, and even in the tone of their horns. Designed to serve for a year and then be turned in in part exchange for the next year’s model. All the fun of driving had been taken out of them with the abolition of a gear-change, with hydraulic-assisted steering and spongy suspension. All effort had been smoothed away and all of that close contact with the machine and the road that extracts skill and nerve from the European driver. To Bond, American cars were just beetle-shaped Dodgems in which you motored along with one hand on the wheel, the radio full on, and the power-operated windows closed to keep out the draughts.
But Leiter had got hold of an old Cord, one of the few American cars with a personality, and it cheered Bond to climb into the low-hung saloon, to hear the solid bite of the gears and the masculine tone of the wide exhaust. Fifteen years old, he reflected, yet still one of the most modern-looking cars in the world.
Kid Rock’s star outside the Country Music Hall of Fame looked defaced compared to all the other ones
