Brad Sondahl's blog

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Jan. 3, 2017

It would feel better getting out of 2016 if we didn't have to face the realities of 2017...

Jan. 8
The mundane realities hold us, cold, snow, and sniffles. The snow is pretty, there is wood for fires to fight the cold, and sniffles are better than full on flu...

Jan. 11
To stave off the winter blues, I recorded a "new" song for the first time in a couple years today, written by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees:
"Some of Shelley's Blues" . I went over the top doing a lip sync video version, singing along with the multitracked song I'd recorded. At least it wasn't at Times Square on New Year's Eve...
We ate the last fresh tomatoes from our garden yesterday--still have plenty of carrots, chard, potatoes, and canned and frozen garden stuff that are our staples...

Jan. 18
It finally got above freezing today, a long cold spell broken with freezing rain... It was cold enough this year that the lake was frozen over completely, so that we could walk out to the first island on a snowmobile's track. For some reason the snow is only 3-6 inches deep on the lake, whereas it was nearly 2 feet deep near the pottery workshop. I'm guessing flooding from underneath consumes some of the snow--there have certainly been soggy places under the snow in many parts of the lake.
Some locals snowblew a track on the Mill Pond for fat tire bikes or skaters to go in a meandering loop, as well as clearing a skating rink. Long walks with Butters are our principal recreation...

Jan. 20
I made a recording of Elizabeth Cotten's song, Oh Babe it Ain't no Lie, yesterday. Today I'm thoroughly bummed out on the State of the Union.

Jan. 21
So here's a photo of Butters I took yesterday:

Everyone knows you have a shadow. But yesterday I discovered you also have a reflection. The sun was to the left of Butters, and I noticed on the shady snow that a beige form was following Butters as he walked, which you can see under him splaying out to the left... The bright sun reflected his coat color and the darkened snow is a perfect projection screen. And the blue color? That's the reflection of the sky...

Jan. 22
I went to assist with sound at the INBMA Showcase last night. A more talented soundman was on hand, so I deferred to him and mostly took photos. It took both of us to get the system functional in the half hour allotted to us, with the "snake" which connects the sound board to the amp having multiple bad channels.

Jan. 27
This year the Banff Film Festival comes to two local towns for 3 nights--we've made the plunge to go all 3 nights... The Banff films focus on mountain and extreme sports.. The first night featured empowering films about 4 middleaged women who rowed a boat across the Atlantic, a climber who scaled the pinnacle which had given him brain damage from a falling rock 18 years previously, a Nepali young woman who rose above her impoverished station to become an elite long distance runner,and mountain bike mogul Danny McCaskill's (sp?) Wee Day Out, loaded with tricks in the Scottish countryside. All the films are breaths of fresh air.

Books read and other media of note

Screwed by Eoin Colfer. An adult novel from a noted juvenile author, a follow up to Plugged. He really brings the characters to life, in an Angela's Ashes sort of way...

Savage Run by C.J. Box. Box manages to bring a journalist's voice to his stories, allowing the reader to form his own opinions as to good and evil. This was his second novel and showed the careful craftsmanship that has been his hallmark. I read this 6 years ago and although a few points I remembered, I was able to enjoy it anew, which may be a commentary on my dotage.

Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel. The surreality of this epic frenemy adventure came home as I first see Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on one page, and later when Donald Trump reappears in a presidential context towards the end. Once before I quit reading this, thinking, I don't want to know about the neighborhood tiff of two guys in New Jersey. By the end it had both cosmic and comic significance...

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. I'm pretty sure this wasn't a hit, as the sophomoric standards of Dave Barry's humor don't evoke the tissue wringing of your average Christmas feel good book, but being fond of dogs and Dave Barry, I read it, and it was enjoyable in that context.