Thought for Food

Two great quotes from David Foster Wallace's Everything and More, A Compact History of Infinity.

"The dreads and dangers of abstract thinking are a big reason why we now all like to stay so busy and bombarded with stimuli all the time."

"Never before have there been so many gaping chasms between what the world seems to be and what science tells us it is."

New Swedes

Well, I haven't been blogging for awhile. A local community tragedy has been consuming mind and body for the last two weeks, and, well, blogging just seemed a bit silly.

At any rate, I had a great time hanging out with the tall men in the Swedish band Vasen at the StringNation festival and have been listening nonstop to their new CD, Linnaeus Vasen, as well as the new CD by Olov Johannson (Vasen's nyckelharpist), I Lust Och Glod, and three Swedish CDs that arrived in the mail while I was gone: Lena Willemark's Alvdalens Elektriska, the Ale Moller Band's brilliant new CD Djef Djel and Sofia Karlsson's Visor Fran Vinden, all of which are highly recommended (available at CDRoots). More on the wonders of each of them soon.

Meanwhile, here's the first tune on Linnaeus Vasen.

String Nation

The String Nation festival starts tomorrow, in Camden, New Jersey. This is Darol's brainchild, the first festival of contemporary world string band music. And while some festivals start small, Darol and festival director Joseph Milano decided to go all out in their first venture and get some of the best Irish, Swedish, Brazilian, and American string musicians in the world. Vasen, Tim O'Brien, Seamus Egan, Mike Marshall, Hamilton de Holanda, and of course Darol and me and the Republic of Strings, which will expand to twice or thrice its size for this gig. And from what I hear, every hot young string player on the East Coast (and beyond) who doesn't have a gig this weekend is going to be there. It should be too much fun.

More Cat's Hill Photos

Anne put up a gallery of her Cat's Hill photos. They take a little while to load, but they're worth it. Wish I'd been there.

Cat's Hill

Well, I missed Cat's Hill again this year, but Anne just sent me this photo. I assume this is not the reason Joey finished off the Cat's Hill podium for the first time since he started racing. Just kidding, Joe. He said he felt good, but had trouble getting clipped in and by the time he did the group was gone and he was weaving between 10-12 kids to get going. At only three short (but brutal) laps, it's pretty much a sprint from the gun. Joey did end up riding most of the race with Katrina Howard, two-time National Champion at only age 11, which is who he rode with the first time he rode Cat's Hill two years ago.

Joey's teammate Brentley won the 13-14s, his second Junior Points Series win in a row. He's getting to be a pretty formidable rider (he also almost won a Cat 5 crit in Santa Rosa a couple weeks ago), and has got to be a good bet for a podium spot at Nationals for Team Swift. It apparently was a good day all around. Our friend Courtenay Brown was third in the Women's Pro race and another Swiftie, Ryan, was fourth in the 15-16s (I haven't seen results of the 17-18 race but I heard Ethan and Tyler were both very active at the front.

Indie Coffee

While Googling to doublecheck the name of the coffee shop I went to in downtown Charlottesville, VA, last weekend, Mudhouse, I came upon this great resource: Indiecoffeeshops.com

As I battle the increasingly milky Starbucks latte (you'd think a Triple Tall Latte would do the trick, but no) and discover that non-Bay Area Peets' drinks are weaker than the originals, Indie Coffeshops are about the only places left for real coffee.

Tony Rice

My Tony Rice interview is now on the stands (and online) in the current issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine, with great photos by the miraculous Anne Hamersky.

Nathan

I interviewed Keri Latimer and Shelley Marshall of Nathan today--sipping cappuccinos at Cafe Fanny in Berkeley, seated outside next to the parking lot as the trucks and Volvos roared by (I hope my little tape recorder captured everything).

This is one band that absolutely needs to be better known, and it may be time to do some proselytizing. They played Sunday night at the Freight and Salvage (I missed it due to a gig in Felton with Bill Evans) and seemed pretty happy with the gig, although they said there were only 20 people there. What? How can that be? Why isn't this band famous (or at least able to draw a couple hundred people in a supposedly hip, tuned-in place like the SF Bay Area). They've got two cute gals leading the band, one of whom plays the accordion and banjo and electric guitar; Keri is the best lyricist in pop music; they're funny; their songs are stuffed full of hooks and cool guitar lines.

OK, you're wondering about that "best lyricist in pop music" line. Examples:

I feel a podium under my feet / empty crates, encyclopedia
I feel a podium under my feet / sound alarms, invite the media

or

Refrigerator hums a song it claims the TV taught it
Just before it flickered out, left us fending for ourselves

or

Who needs pictures when there's music,talking walls and next-door neighbors,ceiling creaks and radiators

or

I’m going down the highway with a suitcase full of all my bad ideas
Going to check them out, See what I have been missing all these years

or

And as sure as a sharp corner comes a jack-knife kind of creepiness / Sweeps up and over me

or

there’s a sparkle in me wanting some catastrophe to drop whatever it is doing and come rushing

So maybe it's that part about them being funny. I mean all serious pop stars are of course . . . serious. Whatever, this is a band that needs to be on everyone's iPod, now. I'm ashamed to say I still haven't actually seen them perform. We can just be thankful that in Winnipeg, as Keri says, "if you can sign your name, you can get a grant" which is what's keeping them going to some degree. I assume they're bigger in their hometown and other hip spots in Canada.

Here's an MP3 of "Discarded Debris."

Wente Road Race

Well, I could write a report from Joey's race on Saturday, but I'll let him this time:

Josef Nygaard
Wente Vineyards Road Race
April 21, 2007
Jr 15-16

The race was at twelve o’clock in the afternoon. We got to the race around ten so we had a good two hours before the start. It was my first big points series race since Cherry Pie, so it was nice to see a few familiar faces. I was racing the 15-16 race because they didn’t have a 13-14 category, but there were a few other 13-14s racing too, including my teammate Brentley.

When the race stated it was very slow until we got to the first hill. Then the 15-16s started to notch up the pace a little and Brentley and I got dropped. Brentley and I rode together for a few miles then Brentley blew me away on the descent and I pretty much rode by myself for the rest of the race. So I kind of ended up doing a 25-mile time trial, since the rest of the 13-14s were either behind or in front of me and I wasn’t supposed to ride with the other adult categories.

I’d been training really hard lately, but I hadn’t raced any big races for awhile, so I wasn’t sure how I would do. My goal before the race was to stay with Marcus Smith, who had podiumed twice at Nationals last summer and who I had only beaten once before (by one second in the time trial at Nationals). Brentley and I dropped him on the first climb and at the end of the race I had beaten him by more than 5 minutes. I felt terrific about my race.

It was a great day for Team Swift all around. Ryan got 5th in the 15-16 race and Tyler won the 17-18s! And if they had separated the 13-14s, Brentley would have gotten second and I would have gotten third.
Josef Nygaard
Team Swift
Age 12

More on CM Ride

One rider's account of the incident:

This was towards the end of the ride (after splitting off and dissipating). We had about 30 people by the time we were leaving Japantown when I heard a noise, which I could even hear over the music, and I turned my head to see a minivan on my left just having run over a bike and saw the rider on the ground. Riders nearby yelled at the driver to stop and the minivan just sped away. Many people in the ride chased after the van and surrounded it after catching up with it at the red light. The driver had her hand pressed on the horn the entire time. The cops got there pretty much right away as they were following right behind us. I rode away with the rest of the ride but some people stayed behind to deal with the cops. I didn't see the rear window get smashed but I can say that I only saw the couple sitting in the front of the minivan as the rest of the windows were heavily tinted and we could not see that there was anyone else in the vehicle.

The driver's response to the idea that she had hit a rider was "that's ridiculous."