Taylor Street Purple

Of the songs I added to iTunes in 2006, here are the ones I played most often (many of these songs were not actually released in 2006):

1. “Are You With Me?” by Overnight
2. “Nature Anthem” by Grandaddy
3. “The Sun Shines Down on Me” by Guster
4. “Kicks in the Schoolyard” by Rosebud
5. “Three Lions” by World Cup Willies
6. “Dreidel” by Don McLean
7. “Reason is Treason” by Kasabian
8. “Technologic” by Daft Punk
9. “The Vice and Virtue Ministry” by The Happy Bullets
10. “I Was Never Young” by Of Montreal

 
I heard nine of these ten songs for the first time on The Good Show.

• “If Anybody Had a Heart” by John Waite
• “Palestine Texas” by T Bone Burnett
• “Going Going Gone” by The Vestals
• “You Didn’t Have to be So Nice” by The Lovin’ Spoonful
• “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks
• “Smoke from a Distant Fire” by Sanford & Townsend
• “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays
• “Wrong Time Capsule” by Deerhoof
• “Mad World” by Michael Andrews
• “You Go to My Head” by Frank Sinatra
• “Someone to Watch Over Me” [1945] by Frank Sinatra
• “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)” by Frank Sinatra
• “Why Shouldn’t I?” by Frank Sinatra
• “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” by The Offspring

I flew down to the Bay Area to visit my sister this past weekend, and persuaded her to make a side trip to Tower Records on our way from Pleasant Hill BART to her house.

The inventory was heavily depleted because the store has been going out of business for the last several weeks and everything is 50% off, but I still found a few things:

• “Songs of Love and Hate” by Leonard Cohen
• “Going Somewhere” by Colin Hay
• “Employment” by Kaiser Chiefs
• “Missing Songs” by Maxïmo Park

Also, for the fifth and final time I bought the latest Duran Duran album (”Astronaut”) at Tower. I don’t think I would have bought it if not for nostalgia, but maybe when I listen to it I’ll like it.

Biggest disappointment: They were out of the yellow-and-red Tower Records bags. I wanted one…

It’s been a great year for me as a college football fan. Ohio State is 12-0, Big Ten champions, and will play in the national championship game. California is 9-3 and Pac-Ten co-champions. San Jose State is 8-4 and will play in a bowl game for the first time since 1990.

Even better: Ohio State beat Michigan, Cal beat Stanford, and San Jose State beat Fresno State. The last time all three teams won their rivalry games in the same year: 1979.

Basically accurate. Seventeen years in Ohio and urban Texas rubbed off the Californian.

I’m numb at the news that Tower Records is going out of business.

When I was in high school, the first thing I would do with each weekly paycheck was spend part of it at Tower Records in Concord. I still have 12-inch singles with 1986 Tower price tags on them.

Later, while taking a year off from college, I worked for seven months at Tower Books, the sister store of that Tower Records.

The bookstore in Concord closed years ago. Now the music store will be gone soon as well. That whole vibrant culture I loved — the myriad bins of albums and singles; the excitement of finding almost any piece of music I knew to look for; the smart, cynical staff; the colored foamcore band promos; the yellow-and-red bags — all gone.

I wonder where Liane is now…

I have been out of town visiting parents for 12 of the last 14 days, first on the Big Island and then on Lake Chelan.

In rough order, here is how I spent my time: Sleeping, reading, chatting, watching television, walking/sightseeing, putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

My only regret? Not starting earlier on the jigsaw puzzle.

As I see them, vacations are for relaxing. If you are so busy on your vacation that you are worn out when you get back, then what good did the vacation do you?

I was at KBOO all afternoon and evening working on the election night coverage, and I have to go to the airport at dawn, so I decided to stay up all night. (One advantage to being decaffeinated: Coffee is highly effective when I do drink it.)

And I wonder now whether this night will be my last all-nighter. I used to do them frequently, but I have little reason to anymore. Besides, I’m 36, and the physical toll of an all-nighter affects me more now than it once did. And I have become (of all things!) a morning person.

Still, though, it is strange to think back to when I was in graduate school and did three or four all-nighters a week (fueled by my daily three-liter bottle of Diet Coke); then come forward to the present day, and realize that I am still the same person I was — I answer to the same name and inhabit the same body — yet I am no longer that person in so many ways, and could never be him again, even if I wanted to be.

My housemates and I were jolted last night by a 2.6-magnitude earthquake.

Not a very big earthquake, true, but you can really feel it when the epicenter (18th and Taylor) is only a mile away.

I was at a conference at the University of Portland a few weeks ago, and several of the sessions were held in Franz Hall, the campus’ relatively new classroom building.

The building and its classrooms have an attractively modern and stylish look. Nothing has been broken, and none of the built-in equipment has become obsolete. I would imagine that Denney Hall at Ohio State seemed very similar in the early 1960s, right after it had been built.

By the time I got to OSU, though, Denney Hall was aging, worn out, and dingy. Few people who went to Ohio State in the ’90s would have a kind word to say about the building or the fixtures in it.

And I wonder whether Franz Hall will be like that in 30 years.

Last year, Sudoku was the big rage among casual puzzle-solvers.

At the Deadhead Fred yesterday, I saw a book of “Kakuro” puzzles. The latest new thing.

Except that such puzzles already have an unexotic English-language name: Cross Sums. And I did my first one almost 30 years ago.

Yesterday was both wet and cold, rather than the usual one or the other. I went out to get the mail at 3:45, and was greeted by a damp, yowling Snubby.

I couldn’t let her in because one of my housemates is allergic to cats. But I couldn’t just leave her there.

So I spent the next half an hour sitting Indian-style on my front porch with a purring cat on my lap.

After several test runs, I successfully made an omelette today for the first time.

Then I grabbed some garlic, oregano, pepper, salsa, and cheese, and turned it into a pizza:

It was good…

There is a Multnomah County library levy on this year’s November ballot.

When a library levy was last on the ballot (November 2002), there was a decided split in who supported it. In the ten precincts that would be John Kerry’s best two years later, 73.93% of voters supported the levy. In the ten precincts that would be Bush’s best, 39.69% supported it.

Narrow the comparison to the best five precincts for each, and Kerry’s precincts gave 75.88% of their votes for the levy while Bush’s gave 36.20%.

 
(Kerry’s precincts, in order: 4027, 3151, 3274, 4106, 3097, 4022, 2099, 1025, 4041, 3004.)

(Bush’s precincts, in order: 5602, 0158, 5604, 5846, 0547, 5842, 5425, 5855, 5851, 5201.)

The votes on my November ballot:

U.S. House (3rd): Earl Blumenauer (D)
State Governor: Joe Keating (G)
State House (42nd): Diane Rosenbaum (D)
State Supreme Court: Virginia L. Linder
State Circuit Court (4th/28): Ulanda L. Watkins
State Circuit Court (4th/31): Cheryl Albrecht
State Circuit Court (4th/37): Charles Henderson [write-in]
State Measures (39, 44): Yes
State Measures (all others): No
County Measures (all): Yes