other fiction read in the last, well, year or so

Nabokov's Lolita.
Voltaire's Candide.
Adam Fawer's Improbable.
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.
Stephen King's The Stand.
Shelley's Frankenstein (1818 text).
Stephenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (can't believe I never read this before -- incredible!)
Several short stories by Joseph Conrad.
Escohotado's A Brief History of Drugs.

A bunch of other stuff that I don't have handy.

Riverworld

Re-reading Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, which I had read when I was 15 or so. I wanted to see if I enjoyed the philosophical bent more now than I did then.

Eh ... it's OK. Neat premise (all 36 billion humans who ever lived resurrected on the banks of a 10-million mile long river, with their material needs cared for and the possibility of permanent death initially gone). Allows him to really look at social/cultural interactions and evolution in a little laboratory, with the material side more or less controlled (though of course people still pursue more and more material stuff, especially at first). But the prose is rather stilted and the whole thing is a little sophomoric. Oh well, I guess that's why it's science fiction, not usually my preferred genre.

Blindness

Read Jose Saramago's Blindness a month or so ago. It was recommended by a Barnes & Noble guy when I asked for something "dystopic, preferably post-apocalyptic," and he did a pretty good job for me. Right on, B&N guy! The writing style is haunting and beautiful, the story and characters fascinating.

new OAITW

Seemingly new-to-circ OAITW show via Matt Smith and the Pacific Northwest crew running at Lossless Legs. Fun stuff. Richard Greene is there, which puts it to April-May '73, in all likelihood. It's also in a goodish sized hall, not the Keystone or Boarding House or whatever. My own guess is either Santa Barbara 4/12/73 or one of the Oregon shows in May (5/8 or 5/9), but that's just base speculation.

Pat Lee suggests that the fact that the reels were on BASF tape stock is consistent with the Santa Barbara soundman stuff (cf. 4/20/74, 4/24/74 GASB shows that Will Boswell also had on reel from that source). Funny thing is that the 4/12/73 wasn't even listed on TJS until it was added based on info from Richard Greene, and now this tape cames along that might well be it.

update: And, what do you know? Looks like this nailed it - 4/12/73 it indeed seems to be. https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/05/ln-jg1973-xx-xxoaitw88minssbd.html

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival

Gotta whole mess o' discs from this festival, which I am going through pretty methodically. Lots of neat stuff.

There's a four CD version going around, but there's more material that I'll try to get moving around.

There's a post at Keep on Truckin' with the setlist of the circulating material.

edit 8/22/201: now going to be the first of a series, I think.

Fishing Journal: 200905xx, St. Vrain @ "white gate"

Got skunked on lots of big heavy wet stuff.


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Been Awhile

Was thinking I need to start leaving some notes for myself re: The Book.

Example: I'd really like to track down Sara Fulcher. Anyone help? She sang backup on the GD's Wake of the Flood (sessions would probably have been August '73?) and sat in with Jerry and Merl a fair amount in early '73. I can't tell if she's black or white. Let's assume she was 23 in '73 ... she'd be ca. 59 now. I have a hunch she's from Texas.

Anyone?

Fishing Journal: fishies @ SBC/Eldo

So I am told that I have been catching browns. They do look a lot like the guy above, most distinctively with the row of pink spots that can appear along the midline.

Caught a bunch yesterday. I really need to spend more time between the big rock (my name for it) and the vehicle bridge. Was in a huge rush yesterday on the last stretch of water and was getting all kinds of action there right around 12 noon.

Family came up and we picnicked at the Visitors' Center. On a lark just fooled around in the very shallow water near all of the picnic tables and must have hauled in five teeny-tiny fish in 15 minutes, mostly on a Copper John that they could barely fit in their mouths. Silly fishies.

Fishing Journal: reference

I am considering South Boulder Creek in El Dorado Canyon State Park to be my local water for the summer.


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Been out there a half-dozen times in the last couple of weeks. and am having a blast with it. Yesterday morning (Monday, 8/4, 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.) I caught ten fish over pretty much the whole main stretch in the park, i.e., the lower pedestrian bridge near the lower parking to the upper vehicle bridge before you get to the visitor center. Morning was cool enough that I put on waders and a light windebreaker. But as soon as the sun came into the canyon, maybe around 6:30 or so, things warmed up nicely. It was a beautiful day, a little overcast, warm but not scorching.

Was catching on nymphs until about 9. After then the fish seemed to start looking up and I started catching on a ca. 18# caddis up top. Overall, 4 were really small (i.e., 6" or so) and 6 were just small (maybe 8-10").

I have been looking at some maps and need to drive back up through the canyon ... some maps seem to suggest that you can drive all the way to Gross Reservoir, which I'd really love to do. But not sure if the Family Truckster is up to the task. We'll see.

Fishing Journal: 20080728, Colorado River (up from Lake Granby)

Colleague invites me up to his place, from which we can fish. Beautiful drive to his place, beautiful water to fish, but not as much time on the water as I would have liked. First day fishing on the new line (Gold something or other, 5 weight) and the casting is good. I identify a likely pool on the broad and shallow Colorado and get going. First pool, maybe 2nd or 3rd cast, get a nice strike on the nymph and have a real fighter online for about 45-60 seconds. I am feeling really confident. Then my knot comes undone and fishy (fat-looking underwater from a few feet) earns his freedom and a nice $2 lip piercing. D'oh! When tying the knot I knew it probably wasn't good enough, but I got impatient. Never. Get. Impatient. When. Flyfishing. I guess this was something other than what I am used to (not a brookie, I guess) because the fish was really fighting. Oh well.

Had another good size fish almost in-hand, when it flopped off the hook at the last minute. Keep the tip up, man!

Caught a smallish one (8-10"). Succesfully spliced two pieces of line after a good, patient 20 minutes or so. Around 3:45 the fish start rising, around 3:50 it starts to rain, and just as I am tying on a dry fly to see how hungrily they're rising Colleague and wife and young adult son catch up with me and signal that they're done. Sigh. So not enough time on the water, and I really wanted to try up top for a bit.

Apparently a moose was spotted in the area, and Colleague says they saw an eagle up-close. All-in-all, a nice day and a spot worth revisiting.


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Fishing Journal: 20080709, So. Fork Stanislaus River (Strawberry, CA)

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Fishing Journal: 200806xx

So, Old Colleague asks if I want to fish. Is the Pope Catholic?

Ends up being 2.5 hour drive to small, blown out creek on private water (paying $60 for the privilege). I catch the same fish twice, I think, in the very first pool, though I made two passes on the mile or so heading upstream (south on the map).

Generalization: fly-fisherman tend to overcomplicate things. Just fish!


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Fishing Journal: Summer 2007, South Boulder Creek "headwaters" (from Gross Reservoir)

Not a lot happening.


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Fishing Journal: Introduction

I am going to try to post some recollections of my too-infrequent fly-fishing excursions. I am rapidly becoming obsessed with this incredible pastime and want to remember where I fish and how it goes.

I am a novice fly-fisherman and frankly don't have 5% of the knowledge I'd really need to do things right. Hell, I can't even identify what kind of trout I catch, less still what kind of fly I use to do so. But the bottom line is that I have been out and at it, loving it, and want to remember as I can.

I do know that I am using an ancient 5-weight Orvis rod and an Orvis reel on-loan from a colleague. I am mostly grabbing flies and such catch-as-catch-can, though trying as often as possible to shop at Rocky Mountain Anglers in Boulder.

I want to remind myself to check flow reports from DWR.

More to add.

America's Surveillance Society

WTF are we doing?

H/T: LGM

Waterboarding is Torture

Let AFJ be crystal clear on a subject where these men are opaque: Waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1947, the U.S. prosecuted a Japanese military officer for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II.

Waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death. And as with all torture techniques, it is, therefore, an inherently flawed method for gaining reliable information. In short, it doesn’t work. That blunt truth means all U.S. leaders, present and future, should be clear on the issue.

From the Armed Forces Journal.

HT: Sully.

NAU

People keep asking me about the North American Union (NAU). As one of its architects, I am sworn to secrecy. Blast these Boston Globe reporters!

h/t Drezner.

Cool

h/t: Drum.

Who is the Real Turkey?

Juan Cole on "Who Lost Turkey?"

via Drum.

Note to self

Use this when talking about states and communications.