Good news: my Monadological Muxtapes feed totally works, and it let me know that Amanda had uploaded a sleep-themed mix, which I’ve listened to several times this morning. (It’s a good one.)

Bad news: umm, it appears to be fucking raining.

The feed: totally awesome. The rain: sucks.

I’ll put up a new mix later, by way of argument against that pitiful Atlantic article about settling.

It’s been snowing on-and-off here all weekend, which might suck more than rain in mid-April.

I like Adonis Cross’ quirky commentary at the end of his LP, but it’s a little weird how it’s not a different track. The Phyllis McGinley poem I posted in the earlier mix also had extra commentary on the same track trying to sell the other Voice of the Poet recordings. :-P

I’m really enjoying listening to all of these muxtapes and the feed is great since for whatever reason, muxtape only displays eight of the muxtapes you’ve favorited on your main page and I cannot figure out how to view the other ones. If anyone has figured out how, let me know.

The main reason the rain sucks is that it’s forced the cancellation of the annual US Naval Academy vs. St. John’s College croquet match, pretty much the most important event of the year.

I have no idea what’s up with only having eight favorites on the homepage; I can’t figure out a way to view the rest of them, either.

Nate

It was later un-canceled. I think the match was finished in between the raindrops. I have no idea of the outcome. Did you not make it to Annapolis, Nate? Various of us were looking for you, never found you. You were missed.

Yeah, I didn’t feel like making the ride to Annapolis through the rain; it kept pouring and storming here. I didn’t know exactly who would be around or what would be going on, either. Sorry to miss you guys.

Jess: you’re the first person to make me purchase an mp3. I bought “Burial - Broken Home” from Amazon. Mmmm… drm-free.

The rain sucked indeed because half of the “local” people were missing. Those of us who came from further weren’t going to miss it. Hope you had a good day out the rain. I thought about you and your motorcycle when Martin suggested I should have rented a motorcycle to get around this weekend. I think I’m glad I didn’t.

It was still pretty awesome. We won (I think). I got some great deals at the bookstore. Good friends, free-flowing wine, etc. Not as great as some years.

Nate’s transportation issue points up one of the real defects of the year, at least on the part of me and all my friends: not enough coordination! Nate, you could easily have come with us if we had thought to offer earlier.

Also, it only actually rained about ten minutes out of the afternoon. Mostly it was grey sky and the occasional light drizzle.

I have to agree with Michael’s assessment. It certainly could have been more awesome, but Croquet is its own stiff competitor. In this year’s favor, though, was the charm of having guerrilla croquet (as Pierce Arnold termed it) with only slightly fewer people in attendance than usual. I only wish that I hadn’t followed the warnings I received about impending rain around 5pm and moved our party inside preemptively. It meant I was unable to speak with the Sullivans or Gaudinskis (among many others), although I did enjoy telling my companions about how that crack in a window of the coffee shop got there. Sorry you couldn’t make it out, Nate.

Glad to hear it, Nate. They have a better selection on that Amazon site than I would have expected.

Well, hb, possibly Nate—did I manage to reconcile you more* to my Bulgarian folk singers? Or for that matter, Nate, I don’t know if you’ve reconciled yourself to ‘Blonde on Blonde’ yet—I remember you once said you befriended Dylan songs one at a time, with much time in between.

*Note the more.

Or, did either of you notice that Sei Mir Gegrusst is the song the German lady sings in “Remains of the Day”?

I didn’t remember knowing that you liked the Bulgarian folk singers, actually. My only acquaintance with them comes from VAST’s “Touched”, a song that uses a very limited sample to provide texture amidst a by-the-numbers rock song. (I like the effect, actually, it’s just all very straightforward.)

As to “Sei Mir Gegrusst”, I didn’t realize that, either! I’ll have to go back for a listen. Sadly, repeated exposure is only confirming my intense dislike for the White Stripes.