Eat Your Heart Out, John Muir

YOSEMITE, CALIF. -- Just back from a quick trip to Yosemite, where with a summer afternoon/evening, you can take a hybrid shuttle bus to the trailhead to Mist Trail, hike to the top of Vernal Falls, and be back in time to enjoy a couple of Yosemite Pale Ales and pizza before bed!Of course, some things probably haven't changed: namely, the ranger chasing after the nocturnal visitors to the Curry Village tent cabin trash cans with a flashlight bellowing "Get goin' bear! Go on! Get!" all night long...

I'm sure John and Ansel had trouble sleeping through that, too.

A list of what those CDs + $14.73* got me in trade at Amoeba

• Wilco, A ghost is born -and- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -- Stolen in the Great Burglary of 2005 and finally replaced.
• Beck, The Information -- Purchase inspired by my nephew, 3, who likes to say "One by one I'll knock you out!" as heard on Track 3.
• Fountains of Wayne, Fountains of Wayne -- So I can listen to "Radiation Vibe."
• Wilco, Summerteeth -- Ripped it onto my iPod but couldn't resist a used copy for $5.99
• "The Graduate" -- So I can watch Dustin Hoffman drive the wrong way over the Bay Bridge over and over again. And spot Moe's on Telegraph.
• An Amoeba postcard.^**
  

^* Full disclosure: I also sold four unopened "Best of Friends" DVDs I won at my high school reunion in 2004 and a promotional copy of "Monk" episodes, for your Emmy consideration, given to me by someone who considers things for Emmys.
** These are actually free.

A list of CDs I'm getting rid of and why

• Garbage, Version 2.0 -- I have some sentimental attachment to the debut Garbage album, but not this one.
• Peter Gabriel, US -- Ehh.
• Eurythmics, Greatest Hits -- All the songs I "need" from this album I have on my iPod.
• Soundtrack to "Dazed and Confused" -- Hanging on to this CD purely because I loved the movie would be wrong. Do I even like Nazareth and Foghat? No, I do not.
• Peter Gabriel, Secret World Live -- Eh.
• The London Suede, Sci-Fi Lullabies -- I'm keeping the other Suede album I have, but my Suede phase has passed, to be honest.
• The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious -- Everytime a Hives song comes around on my iPod, I skip it. 'Nuf said.
• Eric Clapton, Timepieces -- I can hear "Layla" on any classic rock station or in the middle of a Fountains of Wayne concert whenever I want. Which isn't all that often.
• Edda, Myths from Medieval Iceland -- You only really need to listen to this CD once. Listening to it again would not make any of it any clearer to me.
  
• Jewel, Pieces of You -- I should have ditched this CD a long time ago. I'm not a Jewel person anymore.
• Moby, 18 -- We all loved Play, but, like the Garbage CDs, one Moby CD is all I need to get by.
• Eric Clapton, Unplugged -- Overuse of windchimes.

Sharp Dressed Double Vision

OSHKOSH, WISC. -- Last week's Fountains of Wayne concert at the Oshkosh Waterfest (This week's featured performer? Three Dog Night! Next week? Grand Funk Railroad!) could have been a real half-assed affair to a crowd of unappreciative townfolk. But, instead, it was a rockin' show on a balmy summer evening with $3 beer and many, many Oshkosh locals who knew all the words to more than just "Stacey's Mom."

ed002d usually provides a set list for his concert reviews, and, in that spirit, here are a smattering of the songs that FoW incorporated into the performance of one of their early hits, "Radiation Wave:" For 10 minutes, the group tossed off a half dozen snippets of classic rock, segueing into the next catchy tune before getting to the chorus, which was just about the time my brother and I (mostly my brother, who's nothing if not a repository of rock) were able to identify the hit. So something by Kansas morphed into ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man," which turned into "Double Vision" by Foreigner, which hit the riff from Eric Clapton's "Layla," which ran into "Jungle Love" by the Steve Miller Band. It was like playing the music portion of the Albatross Pub Quiz! Good stuff.

The Answer

It is, indeed, "The Birds," Alfred Hitchcock's classic, based on the Daphne du Maurier short story, filmed on location in Bodega and Bodega Bay, California. The Potter School, located in the small inland town of Bodega, was built in the late 1800s and had been closed as a school by 1963, when Hitchcock resurrected it for the movie. It's now a private home that people like me visit and take pictures of.

If you recall, the birds begin gathering outside the schoolhouse, and the teacher, Annie Hayworth (played by Susanne Pleschett¹) must hustle them out the door ("quickly, now!") to safety. However, some of them are pecked mercilessly on their flight from the school, and one is virtually trampled, until Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren²) picks her up, in an act of selflessness. Good guesses!


¹ Who, I recently learned, was married to Tom Poston -- you know, the bumbling handyman in "Newhart"? -- at the time of his death.

² In advance of my pilgrammage to Bodega Bay, I caught Tippi Hedren as a head case in Hitchcock's "Marnie." I like "The Birds" better, but Hedren commands the screen in both films, in my opinion. She also has excellent hairdos, and in both "The Birds" and "Marnie" her coiffure get disshelved as a result of either birds or her own self-loathing. Interesting continuity.

Name that Film

This building figures prominently in what beloved^* classic motion picture?

^* Well, beloved by me, but whose blog is this, anyway?

The (Pooper)Scoop

You can flush it, you can compost it, you can leave it on the ground until someone steps in it, or, like many of us, you can use the plastic bag your newspaper came in to scoop it up and toss it in the trash.

Unfortunately, that plastic bag is not biodegradable, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

These musings on dog poop -- and the prevalence of biodegradable poop bags in dog parks around Berkeley -- has started my extremely grass-roots campaign to get my daily paper (which claims to publish "all the news that's fit to print") to switch to biodegradable newspaper bags, a trend that's already begun with grocery bags in San Francisco.

I've also, as it happens, found a biodegradable bag company that I find most agreeable and that adheres to California's strict rules on what constitutes biodegradability. Biobags -- available in many San Francisco markets and hardware stores as well as online -- are made from corn, and have the feel of finely-woven gortex. Plus, they include instructions on how to pick up ("Plocka upp") and dispose ("Gool de zak in de vuilnisbak") of dog waste in seven languages right on the bag!

Still, why not take a moment to drop your local newspaper a note, encouraging them to switch to biodegradable baggies? Here's the email I sent the New York Times:

As a daily subscriber to the paper edition of your fine newspaper, I enjoy your cutting-edge reporting on issues that matter to me. I also, like many dog owners, enjoy using the bag your newspaper comes in to dispose of my pet's waste, as I find it's the perfect size for such a task. It seems, however, that given the interest your excellent periodical shows for environmental issues, and the general worrisome state of our environment, it's time to consider delivering your newspaper in biodegradable bags. Environmentally-conscious dog owners (and litter-box cleaners!) would thank you for such a forward-thinking action, and you might even gain subscribers who admire your tenacity in saving the planet.

Best wishes,
A concerned, informed and green dog owner

Please copy this email, edit it, add your name and send it to your local paper (or grocery store).

The Year of Up

Last night, Team Taboo converged for most likely its last West Coast meeting to view the most recent installment in Michael Apted's 7-Up documentary series, 49-Up. I began watching the series about a year ago, and became irretrievably hooked on the characters -- who are not really characters at all, but rather people who were thrust into the ultimate reality series at the age of seven and oftentimes begrudgingly bothered every seven years to talk about their lives (and so that we can gape at their ever-changing hairstyles). 7-Up is not to be missed: if you're looking for a Netflix project, this is it. And, really, you've got to find yourself some folks who are watching it concurrently or have seen it -- because it would be unfair for me to give anything away. It's so much better to watch the films from the beginning with no knowledge of what comes next.

The only spoiler I have is -- fair warning: don't click on this link if you haven't seen 28-Up and don't want to know anything -- does anyone know Nicholas?

Photos up the wazoo

Yes, it may look like I'm headed to a meeting of the Society for Creative Anachronisms, but this is me, full-regalia, Amherst-bound. Click here to see how I spent the month of May celebrating my graduation from Cal.