Today’s Thankful Thursday is not much different than any other Thankful Thursday, only I am slightly wracked with guilt due to yesterday’s rant, hence this Thursday’s title (let the song-referencing contest begin!)
grateful for:
the crates of squash stacked high in the fields of Hadley (while many farms have suffered due to incredible amounts of rain on top of the flooding from Hurricane Irene, some of Hadley, Amherst, and Hatfield’s crops look okay; some not; Vermont got hammered)
fields of pumpkins
Nina Simone
Ewan McGregor (if you’ve seen much of Ewan McGregor’s ouevre, you know he appears buck naked in several films, not the least of which are Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam)
Ewan McGregor naked
words
when I can write a decent poem or at least string some interesting words together in an interesting way
Hubby
my kids
not experiencing the news
early bedtime (before or by 11 pm)
the small card of this image that sits on my desk. I have had it for 28 years or so. It’s been with me for so long and I love it so much, but it’s faded and banged up with creases. I’d like a copy of it again and I’ve found it on google images with much maneuvering. I just can’t manage to track it down beyond a particular blog post, in German, from Germany. I know the painting is by Almut Gernhardt and I think it’s from a book called “Twelve Pretty Cat Paintings.”
kitty kitty
All of the serendipitous things that happened this week, like when I posted about quisling and as I was typing up my post, typing the word puzzling, I overheard Hubby on a business call to Belgium and he was saying the word puzzling and the next day on the A Word a Day, the word was quisling
almost never knowing when to use italics, boldface, or quotation marks in my posts when I am pointing out specific words. I love this so much!
how easily one can italicize and boldface in writing on a computer
Jeff Tweedy’s take on serendipity: people with broken hearts find things that reflect their broken hearts (okay, so I’m using it slightly out-of-context, but not really) (thanks to alpha dog for sending me the link to that particular interview)
the aforementioned (in yesterday’s post) Utz Red Hot potato chips. I love them very much and yet they are very hard to come by, so much so that a year or so ago, I ordered a case of them. Naturally, they made me sick, and I haven’t ordered them since. I’m grateful that they aren’t available in the stores around here, but I’d probably be grateful if they were. If you go to the Utz website, a darling cartoon-child will try to sell you Utz chips by reaching into her bag of chips and munching them right before your eyes!
the incredibly long period of my life in which I never experienced tinnitus
twinklysparkles 
I have a musical reference…”We have a remedy”-The Who, “A Quick One While He’s Away”…If you can find the ‘Live At Leeds’ version it’s worth it for Townsend’s introduction alone-I haven’t checked, but it might be on Wolfgang’s Vault…Mike R
You are the winner, Mike. I found a youtube version, the same version that is used in the film “Rushmore.” I have not checked out the Live at Leeds version. The one I love is from the Rolling Stones’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus and Keith Richards introduces them. It’s the bomb. An amazing version and the only one with which I am particularly familiar. I think the Who are ultimately a boy’s band. They are all testosterone, in a different way than Led Zeppelin is all testosterone, but all testosterone nonetheless.
I love that fucking song.
Keef: ‘Ladies an’ gen’ehmen…dig the ‘ooh”…
With tracks like this, the Who achieved a level of musical virtuosity tied to a level of playfulness that few other bands could aspire to.
If you can’t find the Leeds version which is I believe on an expanded version of the original album lemme know and I’ll challenge my technological horizons and try and figure out how to forward a copy of the disc.
Absent that, I’ll just burn a copy and send it to a PO box of your choice.
It interests me that you describe The Who and Zep as all testosterone…the ’70s were ALL testosterone to me, and, sadly, too pent up.
I saw Zep at the Cleveland Richfield Coliseum (Jan/Feb 1977-I’m sure it’s online, but I never looked up the actual date despite the amazing occult powers of the interwebs)(Now that I type that, the date of Jan 19 strikes me as familiar) I sat 19th row floor, and couldn’t hear a thing out of my left ear for a week after the show. The payoff was I could tell generations to come I saw Zep.
Since I’m waxing nostalgic on the vinyl era, i’ll share something here I’ve been chewing on for a few months now…the handful of double albums in the vinyl era that really DESERVED to be double albums. I’ve had several of what I consider to be prime contestants in heavy rotation in my car player for the last few weeks:
Exiles on Main Street
Layla
London Calling
Quadrophenia
Tommy
Topographic Oceans
One of my guys at work suggested Songs In The Key Of Life, which I hadn’t considered, but is quite worthy.
Physical Graffiti
Thoughts, anyone?
Best to all, Mike R
Ugh, Mike. I can’t think of any more off the top of my head after only 6 hours of interrupted sleep, but Hubby and I often remark on just what you bring up. It was quite amazing that there would be that many good songs for a band to put out, but it did happen. In fact, an album was filled with good songs, not one hit and the rest filler. More like 8 hits and 2 cast-offs.The 45 also existed back then with the B side usually being a cruddy throw-away song (but not always). I love that plastic thing you had to put into the middle of the 45 so you could play it on the regular record player.
Physical Graffiti might be my fave (off the top of my head) and Exile on Main Street in spite of some poor production. If I can add to your list, I certainly will.
Much later, but still a double album, is Wilco’s Being There.
pumpkins, wow.
amazing.
They are pretty. All that color even though the fields start to go brown.
i just listened to being there recently, and i dont think it holds up as a double album. there is definitely some filler there, though many great songs as well.
the minutemen’s double nickels on the dime, one of my all time favorites. a double record with mostly two-minute songs.
ptd
Okay, okay. You’re probably right. I can’t remember these things from one day to the next.
Not familiar with Minutemen–one of Hubby’s bands. I was not a punk rocker. Are they post-punk? Would I like them? 2 minutes is a pretty good length even if the song is bad.
The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East and something special for Twink, GD Europe ’72. A 3 record set for your listening pleasure.
Judging by what you had to rant about and what you have to be thankful for, I’d say you’re on the plus side Twink.
Thanks, alpha. No GD, you are right. Allman Bros are a quality band and I really like some of their stuff, but have never owned an album. I probably don’t know much of their work because my exposure has been only via radio. Did you see that movie “Rush?” Greg Allman is REALLY good in it. Scary, effective, and sexy (maybe you don’t care so much about the sexy part, but I did).
I think I’m on the plus side, too. Even my rant makes me happy.
Here is Ewan channeling Iggy from Velvet Goldmine. Not a great film but a great performance.
Oops. Here it is!
Oh, I see that I have to click on those words, a sexy action. You really know how to woo a girl. And on a first date you show me this, no less? Can you back that up?
ACK! David Live, David Bowie–I used to LOVE that album, but I wonder now how it holds up. I haven’t listened in years (and years and years).
I was trying to avoid live albums as they tend to be greatest-hits-so-far collections, but you’re right on about Live At Fillmore East. And I didn’t mention Double Nickles, but there is some great stuff there too. It’s also in the car, but I wind up playing History Lesson PT 2 over and over again, it’s that perfect.
Some great music lurked in those B-sides…Maggie May was the B-side of Reason to Believe, the record company’s choice. In his box set notes, Rod Stewart credited the Cleveland DJ who flipped it over and went in heavy rotation with it.
Most of my 45s were imports, and didn’t need the little orange circle-thingy. If you left the circle thingy on the disc, it f’d up your picture sleeves, which were a big part of the reason to buy the 45s. And the import 45s usually had tunes that never saw release in the US or on LP, so that was another reason to look for them. My record collection plummeted in value after CD box sets started including all the great and/or obscure stuff on my B sides, but I still love having them. The vinyl era was great because there was a great tactile and visual component to owning the music that didn’t translate well to Cds and not at all to digital.
I’ll keep my vinyl.
Mike
I love the kitty card and understand this 28 year business. I myself have a my own kitty art card right behind me as I type this, and she has been with me since 1996. Someone not my spouse, but of my gender, gave it to me, knowing my love for gray cats and their symbology, and also, my love for the Irish loovley who sent it. I think I was either the world’s noblest or the world’s stupidest woman, staying so true and faithful and all that jazz, despite sore temptation.
These days, I make it my business to give in to Temptation at every turn…and I have kept the cat card and always will.