Khanceled! (but not forgotten)

We were supposed to see King Khan & BBQ Show tonight at the Jackpot, but apparently they got held up by the fuzz in Kaintuck.

This is a picture Jenn took of Arish, Simon and Mark when they visited us in KC in 2008. Mr. A's dog was barking up a storm at the time so I think that's what the crew is reacting to.

We count ourselves among Khan's many friends across the map, and want to extend our wishes that everything gets resolved and the rest of the tour treats this charismatic crew more kindly.

I've been listening to King Khan & BBQ show's music today in protest, but hope to see them again soon. Turns out this particular Friday the 13th show was too good to come true.

As a bonus/consolation prize, here's a more rock-friendly group of Fuz. The video itself is a jarring mash-up of flower power vs. jolly green giant, but the tune itself is a classic, one I've heard Khan himself spin upon occasion.

Take care.

Autumn Caught Em

'Tis now the time of year in which I post pictures of me high up in some tree or perched out on the Pinnacles. Usually I would accompany such a photo with a bit of translated or untranslated poetry, but this time I'll just suggest Trakl and leave it at that.

Posted some seasonal tunes up on thelukebox for all of you at home and on the road. Also let me remind you to check out Ghosty's A Mystic's Robe EP.

When I'm not out climbing I'm busy working and writing, looking forward to working with and seeing many of you over the Pumpkin holidays. I've been taking videos here and there but will probably postpone posting any more shorts until I've brushed up a bit on my skills. In the meantime my alt-persona duke will be holding it down with scotch tape and twitter-text. Don't take this as flight from the blogosphere (I never completely check out of here) just a chance to chase colorful nonsensical twine from branch to branch before all the leaves fall completely.

And anyone looking for a Hugh Cameron birthday tribute can check the archives or wait until the celebration of the centennial of his death this December. More from lucubrations sometime soon. In the meantime, here's a bonus pic of the Big Tree.



And just for fun, another shot from Natalya Bond taken last week at the doorway of the Devil's Icebox.


I like it because of the lighting, and also because it almost looks like Jonna and Deebs are looking up in anticipation of an avalanche of leaves. More pictures from that set here.

James Wetzel is...

What it feels like to get hit by a dodgeball

Some of you may have noticed that I've been walking funny lately. It's not just that I'm trying out new gaits (or strides, saunters, swaggers). It's just that I've just been drilled by dodgeballs too many times at close range and it's starting to effect both my posture and my brain cells. I can barely count to 14 without getting confused and the other day when someone was talking about helping a photo client with thumbnails I thought she was talking about the nails on her actual thumbs. No complaints, though. I feel more alive than I have in weeks, and if I have to pay for it with my health, than so be it. Speaking of health-impairments, anyone who wants to risk damaging their hearing in the most delightful way possible should come down to the West Bottoms art fair thing at 6 to hear Ree-Yees and friends. Here's a flier with details that you might even be able to read.

Thursday Tracks: "Kelly Ann" Remix

Nice write-up and update about Suzannah Johannes from Jason Harper today on the Pitch blog. Also features a lovely, ethereal remix brother Deez did of one of my first favorite tracks of hers (and lyricist Hans Bronze). The EP is still for sale at Love Garden and a steal for only 5 bucks and there are some great tracks on Daytrotter as well. I also recommend the Turnpike episode about her for a good intro to Suzie's music, complete with nursing home performance and fireside singing.

(and yes, I know it's not technically Thursday anymore, but no one told me Short Cuts was actually over 3 hours)

Big Giant & Little Giantess

The complete photo set is here, and a video (in German) here.

Did any of you go to this? What was it like?

Ferris Wheel

Ferris Wheel from Lucas Wetzel on Vimeo.

I got a flip cam the other day and have been putting it to use as much as possible. I'll post a selection of short clips soon, but for now here's my most ambitious project to date: a five minute, four-second montage of rides and crowd scenes at the Lee's Summit Oktoberfest. The song is something I heard in a Munich kellarbar of all places. It's by a Texas musician named Paul James.

Ewa Demarczyk

Been buying some foreign dollar records at the Super Flea. Here's the video of a recent find, from Polish singer Ewa Demarczyk.

For a slightly more uptempo performance by the so-called "Black Angel of Polish Song," here's a great performance of Karuzela Z Madonnami from 1966.

Under the radar and dreaming

Shaggy Quatro will be performing a solo set on the earlier side of things. Will still probably be more noise than a group of 10 people. A bunch of little-known local artists will be performing at both venues. Should be fun.

We're coming full circle...

Ain't Forgot Nothin

Heard somebody blog today that people have forgotten about 9/11. Not so, as you'll see from this 9/11 post from a few years back.

To commemorate I am supposed to go for some BBQ pork chops at Kyle's but I got waylaid listening to tunes such as this live take of the opening track from Sonic Youth's "New York City Ghosts & Flowers."

If the full-blown patriot musical act is more your speed, however, don't forget to bump this 9/11 classic from Darryl Worley. Regardless of whatever's up with those "Fat Cats in Washington," KC never forgets.

Some music to drown out these crickets

Juan & Junior. English version here.


I like seeing groovy videos of groovy songs from the era before people knew out to groove out in a socially acceptable manner


bébé éléphant

Mayor McCheese

I'm not going to lie. I enjoy me some McDonalds on occasion. Road trips, for example. I also like a lot of music that can best be described as psychedelic. But I'm not sure how I feel about this YouTube marriage of the two. You can decide for yourself. Thanks to ABC for the clip and drink an Augustiner for me.

Hwy 24 revisited

Last night around midnight Jennifer and I treated ourselves to a bite of year-old wedding cake. I hadn't heard of this tradition until my mother procured the frosted artifact last week from the family freezer. It was surprisingly palatable after we let it thaw for a few hours. I'd even go so far as to call it tasty.

We spent our anniversary the way I imagine many couples do -- strolling around for hours at the Kansas City Zoo. Later that day when I fell asleep for a nap I thought about the comforting presence of all the animals and how extraordinarily human some of the primates (especially the Blue Monkey and the ancient Orangutan couple) appear when they look you in the eye.

As some of you might have noticed I have not been blogging very frequently, though not for lack of excitement on the home front. After Mexico I decided to try and extend my streak of eating nothing but Mexican food with the occasional slice of pizza. I finally gave in on August the 14th when I ate a schwarma at the Habashi House. Yesterday I got a Pignose amplifier that sounds every bit as pugnacious as I could have hoped. A bunch of storms happened and I drove out to the middle of Kansas to watch the Perseids without any light pollution. Also I am working rather diligently on a few new projects that will be unveiled before too long.

In the meantime I am still posting songs on the lukebox, which Robert of Sonic Spectrum recently called his new favorite podcast, throwing a wee bit of traffic its way after 3 years of near-obscurity. I'm trying to link back to labels and such now but it's still a mostly no-frills place to stream all the songs you might not have heard. Many of these I heard through my friends (the implied "you" in the 4-year run-on sentence that is lucubrations) and some are even by them. A lot of these tunes were played at the wedding party last summer, so if anyone wants to sing along, feel free.

Speaking of streams, Blue says she's holding on to the stalactite of summer as tightly as she can, but is rapidly slipping. I don't have the heart to tell her she's fighting a losing battle. Who knows, though -- maybe we're in for an Indian summer.


Later, lemurs.

Incredible account of a Sunday afternoon spent at the Joplin book store

Some excellent street-level reporting courtesy of Dudestache and co:

"Rebels With A Rather Dubious Cause"

Reality on the outer reaches of the Bundeshauptstadt

A classic shot from the Spreepark and the very same funny face cars you get a glimpse of in the Achterbahn trailer, now playing in select Berlin theaters. Pictured in this car are Luna, who just relocated to Berlin, and James, who came back earlier this summer.

Speaking of James, Ree-Yees is playing at the anarchist info shop tonight along with a couple of bands from California. 30th and Troost. See you there.

Nohoch Mul

just mulling things over

World Championships in Kansas City next week

Beginning this weekend, disc-golfers and disc-golf enthusiasts will be taking over Kansas City's parks and wide-open spaces. Kansas City is the host of the 2009 Disc Golf World Championships, which will be played out on 11 different area disc golf courses. Quite a few folks have been working hard to make improvements to each course, including new tee pads, new signs (the one above is not new, btw) and landscaping. Naturally, each course is set up at the most challenging pin placements possible. Expectations and excitement for the event are pretty high, and PDGA sponsors believe there is a good chance this will be the disc golf tournament with 1000 players.

For more information, click here. For more photos of Waterworks, one of the Championship courses, click the photo of the dude sleeping on the upper-deck bench...

While we're on the subject of pics, check out this excellent panoramic shot Giessel took near his parents' farm near Larned, Kansas. Though I haven't seen him yet on this trip in from Cambridge, his enthusiasm for returning to native soil is rubbing off on me in a good way.

In the words of V. Lindsay, "Ho for Kansas, land that restores us When houses choke us When big books bore us!"

photo courtesy of Andrew

Blue, this is that WTC firework fountain I was telling you about. Taken back in the day with my HP PhotoSmart 320 from Wal-Mart. As the label on the firework says: "In lighting this firework, you are not reliving the memory of the tragedy, but honoring the many lives that were lost..."

Moritz Piehler's Peruvian Patio Photos

My dear friend, photographer and Viva con Aguanaut Moritz responded to my request for patio/poetry-inspired photos with two lovely shots from Lima and Cusca, Peru. As promised, here is the Borges poem in the original. Gracias, Moritz!

UN PATIO

Con la tarde
se cansaron los dos o tres colores del patio.
Esta noche, la luna, el claro círculo,
no domina su espacio.
Patio, cielo encauzado.
El patio es el declive
por el cual se derrama el cielo en la casa.
Serena,
la eternidad espera en la encrucijada de estrellas.
Grato es vivir en la amistad oscura
de un zaguán, de una parra y de un aljibe.

Unseasonably cool

Yes, I know the last post about the Ink hotness contest pushed the limits of snarkiness, but now I see it was inevitable. As my friend at the Compendium Tremendium Institute asked me earlier, "How much time passes between the publication of an alternative weekly's ridiculous pander and emergence of a disproportionate backlash in the blogosphere?" Apparently anywhere from 2 to 36 hours, judging by my stopwatch.

Teresa said to me tonight that I must be busy because I hadn't been blogging. That is a post all unto itself. Tonight I'd rather share an early poem from an Argentian whose prose I find difficult but nonetheless greatly enjoy. I usually provide my own photos, but if anyone wants to send me one that this piece reminds them of, I'd be happy to post it along with the Spanish version. I'm going to Mexico soon, though, so it might be a while.

Patio

With evening
the two or three colors of the patio grew weary.
The huge candor of the full moon
no longer enchants its usual firmament.
Patio: heaven's watercourse.
The patio is the slope
down which the sky flows into the house.
Serenely
eternity waits at the crossway of the stars.
It is lovely to live in the dark friendliness
of covered entrance way, arbor, and wellhead

by Jorge Luis Borges
trans. Robert Fitzgerald

Ride your hobbyhorse/Get on your hobbyhorse and ride

The other day while reading Balzac, Jenny stopped to ask me what a hobby-horse is. "Is it actually a toy horse that you ride on?" she asked. I said I was pretty sure it was, but I did an image search just to make sure. Boy am I glad I did. It sure brought back memories.

For starters, there was this lovely portrait the court painter did of my cousin and I back in my pre-tweens.


For those of you who haven't enjoyed such a fortunate childhood as mine, I purloined the following paragraph from a helpful website dedicated entirely to hobby-horse history.

Rocking horses first appeared in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century. In the United States, most horse toys were simple wood, painted or unpainted. This rocker seems to be a particularly elaborate model and was, perhaps, imported. In addition to having a showy horsehair mane and tail, it is covered with animal hide, sports a decorated bridle, and its base is elaborately stenciled and painted to imitate the grain of expensive hardwood. Although at this time some goods were mass produced, this toy was handmade. Hobbyhorses were popular because children could imitate the equestrian skills they were expected to have as adults.


Unfortunately members of my family did not always go on to develop the equestrian skills we were expected to have as adults. My uncle Toby, for example.


In all honesty, I think there was something like this on my Grandpa's farm growing up, probably something he built himself.


I found one of these in our carriage house the other day, but unfortunately there is no trace of the magic ring. If anyone can tell me what all eleven of Blaze's famous sayings are, I'd be much obliged.