I seem destined to gradually go about acquiring my own copies of the songs that other people put on mixtapes for me. I ordered an early kd lang album after hearing some tracks from it on an NPR folk-show "twangy" segment the other week, thinking it would be a creative way to bolster my country collection, and because half had it for something like $1.50. And it has this song "Full Moon Full of Love" that Nicole Lancy put on a tape for me years ago ("Audio Cartoons.") And of course Nuggets, which I'm listening to right now, has the Knickerbockers' "Lies," that's on "Pynched/Promised."

Got out of bed before noon today for once, and talked with cousin Carla. She (and my mother) saw/heard on national news about them trucking in snow from Buffalo for a winter festival here in Rochester. It has only snowed here once since I've been home (for a season total of 12"), which is kind of depressing. There is no snow visible anywhere except in a few isolated clusters. But it was a beautiful sunny day, so I guess that's something. I went running this morning, for no real good reason except the idea occurred to me. I was running for a full 45 minutes (side one of the dishes that alyssa left here), not counting a stop into record archive to try to find that used copy of "Cassidy" again (I couldn't, and I resisted buying the Divine Comedy and Nadine as well), and a moment of terror when I thought my mom's walkman had fallen out of my pocket (well, it had, but I went back and was able to find it.) I met up with my dad at the intersection of Culver and Monroe. Thinking about all this music that I wanted to listen to (Ted Leo, Apples, Nuggets, her space holiday). All kinds of stuff keeps coming, most of it great: Four Tet, New Pornographers, Dump "that skinny motherfucker with the high voice?" I think I'll make my amazon best of 2001 listmania list, music that made me glad to be alive in 2001.

Last night I went to see "Gosford Park" with the folks. It was opening night (my second in a row), at least in backwards Rochester, and the Little was crammed. We ended up in the third row, next to Ed and Pat. The movie is really enjoyable, not least because of the genre all-star cast (especially Maggie Smith, Richard Grant, Stephen Fry, and my favorite Emily Watson). It's pretty unusual in the way it combines an "Upstairs-Downstairs"-type twilight of the Empire British mannered country weekend shooting party film with a murder mystery. Because of the staid style, the murder mystery part isn't dramatic or suspenseful at all, it just sort of happens like anything else, it might just as easily not have happened, and it almost gets lost in the shuffle of subplots and characters. There is so much going on that it's really impossible to figure everything out after one viewing, especially due to many scenes (in the parlor, in the servants areas, etc.) where multiple conversations overlap, realistically and frustratingly. Definitely one I'd like to see again, to enjoy it for its delicious detail as much as for the overall effect. Afterwards we went to Hogans, where though I wasn't very hungry I enjoyed a third of a caesar and a bowl of seafood chowder, and some tasty bread. The Harrens were there. We talked about cars; whether they should get a new one, whether they should fix the van. The difficulty is that there are apparently no vans with standard anymore. The new eurovan looks pretty nice though, although the microbus is not exactly. Hmm, how about some breakfast.

from a splinter in the hand to a thorn in the heart to a shotgun to the head
you've got no choice but to learn to glean solace from pain
or you'll end up cynical or dead