July 7, 2008: Back from Idaho

Greetings, faithful readers. I spent the 3rd through the 6th at Lake Coeur d'Alene in North Idaho. We've had a house on Rockford Bay since 1974--my parents had it built. Hard to believe how much has changed in 34 years. The lake is becoming another Tahoe, what with all the multi-million dollar mansions, exclusive resorts, and hugely overcompensatory watercraft. Of course, all the growth has increased our property value (and property taxes) but in the end, I miss the vast empty woods that we used to go romping around in with our BB guns, the empty lake shore we could walk along without troubling any neighbors, and the lack of pestering wave-runners and jet-skis. Still there are some good things. The fishing has gotten better over the years. We're catching lots of bass and perch off the dock, and big salmon out in the deeper parts of the lake (my brother and I went looking for the smaller kokanee but came up empty handed). There are bald eagles around too--we saw one--as well as aspreys and pelicans.

I'm glad Ian was able to meet my brother and his family--especially Katherine who is 9 and Ryan who is 6. The next time they will probably see him he won't be a baby anymore, alas.

So, despite the fact that Dick Cheney is still (arguably) the second most powerful man in the world, here are five reasons God should not put out the sun today: (1) The shuffle mode on the I-Pod. What could be more wonderful than to go from Aerosmith to the Cocteau Twins to Patsy Cline to The Jam to Neil Diamond to the Stooges and not have to lift a finger? (2) Hebrew National hot dogs. Especially when eaten at a baseball game and the baseball game is the Cubs v. the Giants and the baseball game is played at Wrigley Field. (3) G&J Dairy Freeze, Umatilla, OR. A great place to stop (half-way between Spokane and Portland) for a corn-dog, tater-tots, and a malt. (4) Blow-Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. One of my favorite films; I just rewatched it for the hundredth time this weekend at the lake. Is there a better commentary on the vapidness (vapidity?) of pop-culture than the sequence where Jeff Beck, during a Yardbirds performance of "Strollin' On" (awesome tune!), smashes his guitar ala Pete Townshend, and David Hemmings fights tooth and claw among the audience for the severed guitar neck, only to, later, toss it in the gutter like the worthless trash it is? (5) The drawings of Heinrich Kley. I bought a book of his drawings (Dover) some years ago after seeing a bigger (and too expensive) book. Wonderfully inventive sketches provide caustic comments on European culture at the turn of the 20th century; as the back cover puts it: "His frantic, posturing, iconoclastic brainchildren lash mercilessly at bureaucracy, militarism, false 'Gemutlichkeit,' the eccentricities of reformers, the ballast of majesty, and many more facets of a weary civilization." See some here: http://thescreamonline.com/art/art7-1/kley/kley.html.