OK, I'm Back!
We went up to Oakland last weekend (left Thursday morning, came back Saturday night) to tour the CCA campus, where Brandy will be going in August (supported by something like $100K in financial aid, although that still won't cover the whole thing). CCA has some amazing facilities. There are studios for almost any medium you can think of--a glass-making studio with a huge furnace, a bronze-casting studio equipped with a crane that can lift up to a ton of bronze out of it's cast, a room with about 20 weaving looms, and on and on and on. An impressive experience, to be sure.
We stayed with our friends Carrie and Brian, who live a couple miles from campus, and who were in the process of moving two doors down, so we were able to sleep in their old place. Carrie is an art teacher at an Oakland high school, and Brian does some kind of work installing museum exhibits, so they hit it off well with Brandy, giving her advice, buying her books, practically ready to adopt her. So it's good to know that there's someone up there that we can turn to in case there's a crisis.
They were also trying to get rid of stuff so they wouldn't have to move it, and in addition to some paintings, Brian, who first turned me on to the Travis McGee books, gave me half a dozen of them!
Oh man, and we had a great breakfast at some cafe Saturday morning. Quite possibly the best breakfast I've ever eaten. I had plain ol' french toast with a side of bacon, but the toast seemed to have orange zest in the batter. Also eaten at the table (we all shared) were strawberry waffles (with fresh strawberries and strawberry butter), pumpkin waffles with cinamon cream cheese, riccotta pancakes, and...I can't remember what the other thing was, but all of it was incredible. And lots of coffee.
Fortunately, my Amazon order arrived the night before we left, so I was able to burn a Beastie Boys rarities CD (I had ordered the So Watcha Want CD single expressly to fill up this mix), which made for a hot driving soundtrack. We drove up in the van, which probably cost us a lot in gas, but definitely made for a pleasent trip.
Let's see, what else...Oh, this morning I finished Book I of Finnegan's Wake! Quite an accomplishment, and it took less than 2 years. I'm also about to finish the book-on-CD of Elaine Pagel's book The Gnostic Gospels. It's funny, this book is so dry, dispassionate, academic, considering how many kooks reference it. Just last night I watched part of one of those "Secrets of the DaVinci Code" documentaries on the National Geographic Channel, and the way some of the people who have written books about Templar conspiracies discuss the research that Pagels did is completely wacky compared to the actual book. They were interviewing one of the writers of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which was funny, because he looked like a crazy old hippie. Come to think of it, most of the people they interviewed (all of whom had written crazy conspiracy books) looked like crazy hippies, or nerdy bums, or...you know, they all look like The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files, which I guess is what you'd expect them to look like.
My Beastie Boys rarities mix (mostly taken off of the Anthology that I got from the library, with stuff from the Root Down EP and stuff I downloaded and whatnot. I was going to use the live version of Groove Holmes off of the Watcha Want single with Biz Markie vocals, but it's like 6 minutes long, so I left it off. And I wish I had "E-Ticket Ride" off the Mike Watt album...):
The Biz vs. The Nuge
Beastie Boys
Soba Violence
She's On It
Jimmy James (Original Version)
I'm Down
Time To Get Ill (Live)
Squat! (De La Soul)
Root Down (Free Zone Mix)
And What You Give is What You Get
Ch-Check It Out (Just Blaze Mix)
Skillz to Pay the Billz
Dub the Mic
So What'cha Want? (Soul Assassins Mix)
The Maestro (Live)
Benny and the Jets (w/ Biz Markie)
Son of Neckbone
Boomin' Granny
Alive
Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Mix)
Rock Hard
Live Wire
20 Questions
Railroad Blues
We stayed with our friends Carrie and Brian, who live a couple miles from campus, and who were in the process of moving two doors down, so we were able to sleep in their old place. Carrie is an art teacher at an Oakland high school, and Brian does some kind of work installing museum exhibits, so they hit it off well with Brandy, giving her advice, buying her books, practically ready to adopt her. So it's good to know that there's someone up there that we can turn to in case there's a crisis.
They were also trying to get rid of stuff so they wouldn't have to move it, and in addition to some paintings, Brian, who first turned me on to the Travis McGee books, gave me half a dozen of them!
Oh man, and we had a great breakfast at some cafe Saturday morning. Quite possibly the best breakfast I've ever eaten. I had plain ol' french toast with a side of bacon, but the toast seemed to have orange zest in the batter. Also eaten at the table (we all shared) were strawberry waffles (with fresh strawberries and strawberry butter), pumpkin waffles with cinamon cream cheese, riccotta pancakes, and...I can't remember what the other thing was, but all of it was incredible. And lots of coffee.
Fortunately, my Amazon order arrived the night before we left, so I was able to burn a Beastie Boys rarities CD (I had ordered the So Watcha Want CD single expressly to fill up this mix), which made for a hot driving soundtrack. We drove up in the van, which probably cost us a lot in gas, but definitely made for a pleasent trip.
Let's see, what else...Oh, this morning I finished Book I of Finnegan's Wake! Quite an accomplishment, and it took less than 2 years. I'm also about to finish the book-on-CD of Elaine Pagel's book The Gnostic Gospels. It's funny, this book is so dry, dispassionate, academic, considering how many kooks reference it. Just last night I watched part of one of those "Secrets of the DaVinci Code" documentaries on the National Geographic Channel, and the way some of the people who have written books about Templar conspiracies discuss the research that Pagels did is completely wacky compared to the actual book. They were interviewing one of the writers of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which was funny, because he looked like a crazy old hippie. Come to think of it, most of the people they interviewed (all of whom had written crazy conspiracy books) looked like crazy hippies, or nerdy bums, or...you know, they all look like The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files, which I guess is what you'd expect them to look like.
My Beastie Boys rarities mix (mostly taken off of the Anthology that I got from the library, with stuff from the Root Down EP and stuff I downloaded and whatnot. I was going to use the live version of Groove Holmes off of the Watcha Want single with Biz Markie vocals, but it's like 6 minutes long, so I left it off. And I wish I had "E-Ticket Ride" off the Mike Watt album...):
The Biz vs. The Nuge
Beastie Boys
Soba Violence
She's On It
Jimmy James (Original Version)
I'm Down
Time To Get Ill (Live)
Squat! (De La Soul)
Root Down (Free Zone Mix)
And What You Give is What You Get
Ch-Check It Out (Just Blaze Mix)
Skillz to Pay the Billz
Dub the Mic
So What'cha Want? (Soul Assassins Mix)
The Maestro (Live)
Benny and the Jets (w/ Biz Markie)
Son of Neckbone
Boomin' Granny
Alive
Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Mix)
Rock Hard
Live Wire
20 Questions
Railroad Blues
posted by Chris Oliver at 11:10 AM
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