Record.

Long day at work on Wednesday. Tim offered to pick me up, so I met him at the red line Fullerton stop. We headed back to Logan Square and Tim shouted "HEY THE RECORD STORE IS OPENNNNN!" We pulled a u-turn and headed in.

We've been without a stereo received for...our entire marriage? We had wandered into this same record store last fall and there were several receivers available, and we'd always been meaning to go back.

So we headed in. The place was bigger, painty-er, and had about four times the stock it did last time. It was a whole new store, but with the same sign it had last time: Logan Hardware. We spent about 30 minutes talking to "Jim," the owner, who walked through all these different receivers; really, I just listened until they said something like "channels" or another term I still remembered from the MSUM music department.

We ended up getting on the high end receivers, and then wandering into a back room that said "STOP. You may enter if you have purchased $10 today..." or something like that. Guess what was back there? ARCADE GAMES. FOREVER. There were all the games Tim had played growing up, and one pinball game for me. There were completely free, and you could play for as long as you liked. Pretty fantastic.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE WEIRDEST PART. I was telling a fellow colleague about the cool arcade stuff, because she also lives in Logan Square but apparently only goes to one restaurant. She recommended I talk to another colleague who "really liked records." To prepare for this conversation, I googled the shop and found out that...

the guy who had sold us our receiver, the owner of the shop, was this guy named Jim Zespy.

Jim Zespy grew up in Fargo. Tim knew him growing up, and I met him in 2002 in my then-boyfriend's apartment. He was a pretty well regarded recording engineer, audiophile, musician, etc. Just WEIRD. Especially because when Tim walked into the arcade, he immediately exclaimed that the games were exactly the ones he had played growing up in Fargo. Duh. Cause that's what this guy based his collection on. Just weird.
--------------------------------------

Also. This tid bit. When I finally had the conversation with my colleague (a beautiful young lady who owns a cat, has worked for classical music organizations, complains of having too few bookshelves), I mentioned that we should exchange music sometime. And she said, oh, do you have a specific type of music you like? Cause I like everything, but I really love hard core and metal.

...

...

...

UH...are you serious? I said. She went on to tell me (as we complained about how both of us don't see enough music anymore) that the only concerts she'd seen lately...

was Rob Zombie...

with Korn...

...in Indianapolis...

IN 2010.

Pretty much made my day.

The Sound of Stusic.

I brought Tim up to Janesville, WI last weekend to view a sing-along of The Sound of Music. We both needed a stop at Taco Johns as soon as we crossed over state lines (did you know they have a burrito with Fritos in it? Just think it over for a bit...doesn't sound so bad) so we arrived late and missed the costume contest, where one person reportedly dressed as Leisel's self esteem. Heh.

The Sound of Music sing along also encouraged several crowd responses to the action on the screen:

Barking when Ralph came on screen
Hissing at the Baroness
Booing any Nazis
Cheering for Maria
Swaying back and forth with a plastic sprig of edelweiss (provided for you)
Laughing at the seven grown-ups in sweatshirts with Do, Re, Mi, Fa (NOT FAR, stupid sub titles), So, La, Ti try to keep up with the Von Trapp children. Pretty funny.

Why did we go to Janesville for this? Our friend Liz invited us! Liz is a friend that has seen (and verbally repeated many times) me on my worst behavior, usually because she was encouraging or at least enjoying the same bad behavior. She has more student debt than you can shake a stick at, reads more books in a week than I do in a year, and will let you know if you owe her a phone call. She's one of the two people in my life that call me Ruthie. There are typically no surprises at this point of a friendship.

Which is why I was surprised that she loved the Sound of Music. We both tend to lean more toward Bikini Kill than musical scores, but apparently both Liz and her little sister Emily spent every Christmas at home singing along, dancing, and doing actions to the Sound of Music with their mom. So. Watching her and her sister sing along word for word on every song, and scream "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" along with Leisel was a high point of 2010.

It was awesome. Thanks, Liz! And...sorry, Tim.

Sound of Music sing along from Ruth Meberg Stine on Vimeo.

Vocals.

Sometimes we take our talent for granted. Sometimes we think, I'm not a good cook! I can only make macaroni and cheese from the box! My rice always turns out crunchy. I screwed up instant pudding once! etc.

Sometimes we need to focus on the courage it takes to make those boxes of macaroni and just be happy that we're trying. Cue Shane:



Please sing loud in your car, your kitchen, your hallway, and your shower. Sing and know it's best to do it and not think about it. Write silly songs and don't worry about the neighbors hearing you. Dance in public spaces where you aren't supposed to dance (grocery stores, chain restaurants, train stations). Really, it's for your enjoyment and no one else's.

Thanks, Shane.

7:30 p.m., Newspaper stand, Clark and Lake, Chicago, IL

"I just want to dance."

Last weekend we went to the Art Institute for Free February. Cheapest day ever. The best. And then this scene unfolded outside, and I thought, wow, there are other people in the world who don't realize that other people can see them dance in public. When no one else is dancing. Or even realizes there is music.

Okay bye.

I am finally using the old top as a "ghetto blaster" in our Logan Square apartment.

Which means I dumped everything else off of it and am now uploading all the music I feel like off the hard drive. It is taking a while. Today I listened to my entire collection of The Books, The Decemberists, and have now begun reliving my high school and Fargo memories through Fiona Apple. I also saw a note on facebook that my brother Aaron is now a "fan" of Zach Galifianakis, a comedian with a big beard.

Here is something that connects the two.

Should I be adding anything in particular to my music collection? Hmmm?

Music WTF.

W.

T.

F.




Please vote, because I think my taste sensors are exploding. Good, because it's a great song! Bad, because they are DOING IT A CAPELLA! And wearing matching outfits. If you ask nicely, I'll explain how I came across this little gem.

I'm really going to try this again...

This is song #2.

So I've been playing with Digital Performer and using Tim's aptly named E-MU audio/MIDI interface.

Song #2 has a big instrumental flourish in the middle. Needs some work.

Song #1 (which is just implied since there is a song #2) was recorded in stereo, and for some reason will absolutely not tuck into one neat little track. So that's going to take some work before it happens.

I'm getting a little exasperated at this point because I JUST WANT TO POST THIS THING but I had to sign up for about five different music services and downloaded just one mp3 converting software. Sooooooo boo yah. I hope it works.

Frustratingly yours,

Ruth

Geek out time.

My friend Kaye just sent me the best thing ever.

It's a caucasion funk song dedicated to the most AWESOME people in the world: Arts Administrators.

Those who know me well know I enjoy a good bridge. The lyrics for just this sort of things are below:

Juggling that governing board
Buying things they can't afford
Driving in an old Accord
('Cause they can't buy a new one).

HA! Anthony Taylor, song writer and lyricist of this wonderful tale of hard working, low tax bracket professionals, must be sharing a bed with an Operations Manager. That's all I'm sayin.

In the process.

Currently, there are a bunch of jazz saxophonists in my kitchen making reed jokes about Joe Henderson. I don't even know who that is, but I do know what a reed is. And I'm still not getting the jokes. Sigh.