SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE: 10/01/2005

Spelunking: Hidden Site Found Again
I have found the hidden site that I refered to about a month ago, tucked away, completely abandoned in the middle of Vietnam-like jungle, seemingly untouched and unvisited by anyone in years.

More creepy photos here

Fecal Material is NOT the only tasty pastry ingredient

Ann Arbor, MI
Zingerman's deli reports on their bakehouse website that they are experimenting with a soap ingredient to enhance their baked goods. Zingerman's has been known for their "know fat" honest to goodness baking style and continuing on that theme, they now introduce their first baked good that revives the use of good ol' LARD as a key ingredient. Not just any lard either, but the good stuff. Please follow the bakehouse link above and read on.

This news in-and-of-itself is plenty reason to visit the bustling (and lard-swollen) Ypsi/Arbor metropolitan area.

I shall alert the Chamber of Commerce of your imminent arrival.

KGBT 4 - TV Harlingen, TX: Man Arrested For Sprinkling Fecal Matter On Pastries

It seems that Jimmy, in his secret trips to Texas is up to his scatalogical shenanigans again. I am nauseated by this and in no way do I endorse this behavior.

Planting Fields Ghost Story...
No, I'm not making this up (or am I?)

http://plantingfields.org/ghost/index.html

And here I thought the scariest thing I saw there was Victor Wooten playing the upper registers of his Fodera 5 string like Yngwie on Angel Dust and Pon Farr.

3 Favorite songs on my iPod this week

1. Luna Broken Chair - Track 6 from 2004's Rendezvous is a lush, lovely song with swirly guitars, pedal steel and the neo-Lou Reed/Velvet Underground stylings of bandleader Dean Wareham. I have always sort of liked this band, sometimes finding them a bit too languid for my tastes, but this song caught me at the right time and continues to be pleasing. I have a particular weakness for pedal steel guitar but am not a real country music fan at all (other than some "alt country" stuff and The Flying Burrito Bros). Somehow the hybrid of NYC downtown hipster rock and cosmic Americana works here and makes me want to sip Manhattans and eat pork rinds at the same time.
Listen to MP3 file

2. Big Star What's Going Ahn - All of you who follow the music press have heard critics blather on and on about Big Star over the years and I am emphatically stating that everything you have read (in this case) is true. I will not even attempt to start explaining the band - here is their history for those interested.
What's Going Ahn (yes - correct spelling) is beautiful, spacious Beatle-esque folky rock rendered fragile and sad by the magnificent Alex Chilton. For a band that created and personified 70's power pop their music sounds damn fresh today and still trumps their many disciples (Teenage Fanclub, Posies, New Pornographers).
Listen to MP3 file

3. Chris Bell I Am The Cosmos - Chris Bell was a member of Big Star, playing on their first two albums, leaving the band, having problems with depression, attempted suicide, drugs religious guilt and closeted homosexuality, not getting any recognition in the cruel music industry and final crashing his car into a tree, dying instantly in 1978. This song is as devastating as you would imagine someone living his life could make it, providing the soul-crushing sadness that permeated many a Big Star track, tempered with some indescribable brightness... That is the dichotomy of Big Star & Chris Bell's brief discography - empty darkness that is tainted with sunny melodies and an optimism that keeps you from turning it off and accusing them of harshing on your buzz. I am a masochist for sad music to begin with, but this song was some thing different from the first time I heard it - It haunted me. Not many songs do that to a jaded ass like myself.
Listen to MP3 file

Today's Haiku

These words, so funny
spelunking and blog sound like
wet toilet noises

Welwyn Ghost Stories
Chapter II

Chocolate(s) were exchanged, this is true however, here is the somewhat made for TV version from what I remember:

Timeframe: Cold late October night, moonless (except the three of us wore no pants), had to be a Sunday or Tuesday, it had something to do with classes at NCC, if I had to say a year I would have to go c. Perl Jam releases first album, all tracks save Jeremy are pretty cool (Little did we know the run of "Sailor Shanties" that would follow), Soundgarden enters studio to record magnum opus "Superunknown" What year is that?

Me (J3K), Moomatz and Lu'e are walking between the Mansion and the Greenhouse on the cobblestone road.

J3K: "And you could see the glass moving, like someone was hitting it."

MOO: "[Bends arm slightly, holding index and first fingers upright like statue of St. Yunyach the sanctimonious having sores licked by Sen. Tom Keane (R NJ)] Perhaps my prose, which is the most celebrated on Earth could coax this apparition, this phantom of the unholy manor to make…"

LU'E: "(Interrupting) Jim, we could buy the house, keep it haunted, and sell haunted hot dogs and chocolate, Jim, hot chocolate!, and we can put two hotdogs in a pentagram…"

* BANG * (loud crashing sound, coming from the Mansion)

MOO: "Dude, that was really weird."

J3K: "Yea right, we were just talking about…"

* * * B A N G ! ! ! * * * (louder crashing sound coming from the greenhouse)

J3K: "Did the temperature just drop like 10 degrees?"

MOO: "Well, something doesn't like us being here."

LU'E: "Jim, lets write a song about Alistair Crowly!"

J3K: "Louie, lets get the fuck out of here."

(pops and snaps coming from the greenhouse beside us, not footsteps)

Three of quickly, silently make our way back to the hole in the fence at Webb Institute, get into Jim's '78 busted-ass Buick and haul ass to 7-11 where stories are told over Nachos and the politically correct "Crazy Horse Malt Liquor" 40 oz. hepum' big medicine pour.