Thanks so much

to the cellist who was playing Bach from a nearby patio last night. Folks at that house play fine punk, too.

The music made excellent accompaniment to reading Ann Powers’ book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, which I really enjoyed. Some of what she discusses resonates with things I wrote about in The Rules for Hearts. Some sparked ideas. Reviews, though all the ones I read praised her style, seemed to want her to be doing either journalism or memoir, and not blur the lines — but I appreciated the blurring, too.

Has anyone else read it? What did you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 11, 2006 and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Thanks so much”

  1. intothebassment Says:
    Friday, August 11, 2006 at 8:19 am. |

    As a cellist myself who has played on a patio, I think this neighbor of yours is awesome.

  2. kathmuse Says:
    Friday, August 11, 2006 at 9:39 am. |

    I liked the idea, but thought she didn’t really bring it home to me. I’m still not sure I see where she’s coming from, but that may have been her intent because the book is largely about how “Bohemian culture” has kind of seeped into the mainstream.

    kath

  3. signifier Says:
    Friday, August 11, 2006 at 10:25 am. |

    Ann is a friend of mine, and will be in Portland this weekend (for the Sleater-Kinney show!). Shall I try to introduce the two of you?

  4. thisisnotanlj Says:
    Friday, August 11, 2006 at 10:30 am. |

    yes please, that would be neat!

  5. capn_jil Says:
    Friday, August 11, 2006 at 9:18 pm. |

    Ha ha ha ha oh shit I need to read that book.

  6. johnaegard Says:
    Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 1:48 am. |

    I have not read the book in question but we used to have an opera singer upstairs who would practice on Sunday mornings.

    It was in 2003, soon after we’d moved back to Seattle, when I woke up early on a Sunday to do critiques for stew. It was a nice cool morning with a breeze (through weird building geometry, we have windows on opposite sides of our bedroom and we kept them both open all the time–at least until the garbage truck nearly gassed us with diesel fumes.)

    So, breezy morning, just woken up after a decent night’s rest, with Nutella toast in one hand and a fine Mike Canfield manuscript in the other, and, unprompted, these angelic notes start drifting down in the narrow space between buildings. Perfection.

  7. caitlinleah Says:
    Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 9:27 pm. |

    i was worried when i moved into my new place how much thinner the walls are- but my neighbors have such good musical taste, i have no complaints. i’ve actually been known to work out on the back fire escape just so i can hear what the hot upstairs neighbor is blaring…

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