Friday, July 27, 2007

Thursday, July 26, 2007

West Philly Communal House Throws Party, Gets Egged

If you were on Kingsessing and 49th this Monday, you probably heard the high-pitched indie warble floating out of The Mitten’s fenced-in yard. Several of the neighborhood kids did, peering in at vegans sitting cross-legged on thrown-out couches and grilling veggie dogs. The indie community is very open, and these kids were invited in even though they hadn’t the faintest grasp of indie rock etiquette, which they demonstrated by sitting onstage next to a solo guitarist, one picking his nose and filling the space between songs with hilarious covers of ‘70s disco hits.

However, tension was brewing on the block. Cars rumbled by, and deep bass upset the mellow mood. As Frontier Ruckus, who had driven in from Michigan, was putting on a rockin’ headlining set, we hooted and hollered praise, and it could have been that it was getting late. In any case, their bassist’s coif was the recipient of a well-tossed egg, which led to a few sour notes and much squinting. Most of us were horrified, and the party soon broke up. But some of the less seemly characters present were frankly amused. They pointed out, heartlessly clever: Can there be a more fitting punishment for a vegan who’s pissing you off than an egg in the head?

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Most Extraordinary Character I Ever Met

An alternate title for The Man Who Planted Trees, a short story by Jean Giono that was originally written as an assignment for a magazine who wanted a story of the greatest human being who had ever lived. They rejected it when they found Giono had created a fiction, but in my mind this just makes it more powerful. I take it as a great and simple metaphor of the good one man can do, when I get down and existential. When I went to Bosnia to join a wild archaeological undertaking on a hunch, my friend sewed (crocheted? quilted?) a book for me that reads "Dear Eddie, Go Plant Trees" under a tree of golden thread. It's one of my top five possessions.

The others are:
1. Ipod
2. The book -- In Praise of Older Women
3. No Mas sweatshirt featuring Tecmo Bo, the most unstoppable athlete in the history of sports video games
4. My VHS copy of The Man Who Planted Trees

Frederic Back, himself a cult genius, made an animated film of the story, and it won the 1987 Oscar for Best Animated Short. Best movie ever? Probably.

A cool thing I came across is the story of Abdul Karim, a man who accomplished a similar, but actual, thing -- the creation of a breathing forest from nothing. Fuckin' unreal.

if you reading this fuck you


figure it would be nice to hook my girl, zoe strauss, up with a recommend

I'm going to start blogging



Heads up.