Weeknotes: February 12–16, 2024
"I Want You To Want Me is one of my least favorite songs." Unbidden, 9:18AM.
This statement launches the liveliest of my various group chats into its morning of banter. There are certainly better Cheap Trick songs, though I find it hard to be too critical of this enduring 1977 earworm. I've always enjoyed hearing the Budokon version with its enthusiastic callback lines from the crowd. Honestly, I can think of so many other repetitive pop songs by lesser groups that stoke my ire. The other offending songs posited are Concrete Blonde's version of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" and Patience and Prudence's "Tonight You Belong To Me." I have some nostalgia for the former which reminds me of the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack. The latter, while painfully precious, is so brilliantly immortalized by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in The Jerk, that I can't really hate the song itself. All three strike me as odd bugbears, but then I've got plenty of my own.
Weeknotes: February 5–9, 2024
I’m new to the concept of weeknotes. Here’s how I found out. In December Field Notes, the Chicago notebook company that I use religiously, posted on their Instagram account about getting a mention in Russell Davies' book Do Interesting: Notice. Collect. Share. I had never heard of Davies or the U.K.-based Do Books series, but I bought it and loved it. I mean, I really loved it. It inspired me to start this blog. Davies mentions weeknotes as a type of journaling meant to reflect on and break down the events of the work week. From there I found the wonderful English blog Walknotes from a South London resident who documents their daily commute. I find Walknotes deeply charming . An old school barebones Wordpress blog with no visual frills, just great writing. I’ve become a subscriber and look forward to it every Saturday morning in my inbox. Since I already journal and love capturing small details I thought I’d try my own version of the weeknotes format.
A Small Appreciation
When we are out on a walk and pass any sort of evergreen shrubbery, my dog will lean into it and enthusiastically scratch her back on its brush. She'll make a few passes, hitting both sides of her coat, occasionally getting strung up on a branch. Once she is satisfied and trots off, there will inevitably be a jaunty green sprig or two sticking out of her harness like a corsage. I love it so much I sometimes just leave it there for the rest of our walk.
Is This Something?
A few years ago I started a side project called Log Variations. It was rooted in an earlier idea involving a stage prop, one of those motorized fireplace sets with a jumble of logs surrounding a molded plastic window behind which an amber light bulb gives off a cozy fire-like glow. It's a piece of kitsch so wonderfully fake it becomes its own unique object. My original concept was to have the "logs" open for some of my solo shows. I would activate the fireplace about for about ten minutes while playing some crackling campfire sound effects interspersed with spontaneous synth stabs and abstract field recordings. In 2021 I revisited those recordings, created a few more, and released them on cassette under the title Log Variations. Then I started an Instagram account devoted to photos of fires, logs, and other log behavior. Next up was a video component of burning logs and their corresponding soundtrack.