Today: Cleaning Up the Summer and Thank God for Kate Bush

An ill-fitting window fan and a hastily (badly) installed air conditioner meant winged and crawly things had easy access to our house this summer.  So long as you were under an inch or so in diameter, it was come on in!  The air is ON.

So, today I have been sweeping up the bits of moths, spiders, lady bugs, wasps, etc. that survive when the rest of bug has turned to dust.  These bits collected in every corner of every room.  There was a thin layer of tiny, light-colored bugs on the living room floor in front of the window fan.  They were too small to be identified.  I think they must have tried to come through the fan blades.  This didn't work out well for them.  There is still a Daddy Long Legs hanging out (literally) over the dog's dish.  Hand-to-heart, the thing could straddle and Eggo.  It has been clinging to the side of the cupboard for days, still as stone.  It looks so delicate, though, that it felt like murder to sweep it away. I left it.  A proper spider, a miniature version of that one in the Lord of Rings, did not fare so well.  It scurried out from under a baseboard while I was sweeping and I stomped it instinctively.  I felt a bit bad about this but at least I was quick and it was trespassing.

I also cleaned my 13-year-old son's room today.  (He is now off at school and so unable to eject me as soon as I open his door).  I rounded up some items there for Goodwill.  I found two pairs of sneakers from last year, now two sizes too small for him and too dirty and torn for Goodwill.  These went into the trash in the kitchen.  One, a basketball shoe, sat disconcertingly on top of the pile and gave me the whim whams as I went to and fro, it looked so much like a disembodied foot.   I heard a news story recently about how feet in shoes tend to wash up on certain shorelines.  Apparently corpses in water tend to break apart at the ankles and the feet go drifting.  More cleaning ensued.  Now the shoes are covered by other trash and it's safe to get a Diet Coke.

My summer was short and lame.  I did not go swimming once.  This has never happened before in my nearly 50 years.  I had some surgery in mid July (just when the water temperature in our Vermont wild rivers might be getting tolerable).  Bathing was then forbidden for weeks.  No proper vacation either.  (See note re: surgery).

The good news is that I have a trip to England on my horizon now, and closing fast.  (I just called my doctor to get my "airplane medicine" and my credit card company to put them on notice).  The Infanta is my travel companion.  Why England in September?  Well, Kate Bush is, as you should know, giving a series of concerts in London in these next few weeks.  In a fraught moment last May, I managed to snag two tickets.  KB opened the shows this week.  I have been reading the reviews at every lull for the past 48 hours.  Every one has fallen in that narrow spectrum between glowing and "I"M WETTING MYSELF."  I can't wait.  My step mother is coming to stay with Shackleton.  She can be relied upon not to let the place go to wrack and ruin in the four days that we'll be gone.

Wait For It...

Just sitting here *not editing*  but paralyzed, again, by a Kate Bush song.

I have been thinking about KB lately and how, most of the time, I don't really like a lot of her music the first time through.  I buy every record.  I listen to it.  I like some of it and other parts not so much.  I mean, we are not in radio hit territory here.  And yet, thousands at her bidding would speed, and post o're land without rest, if she were ever to give a concert.  I am one of those.  She's a magician.  And those songs that bounce off me at first have a way of wending themselves into my DNA and often later become my favorites.  It has happened time and again.

It pleases me that in this time, where all popular entertainment seems to be required to hook its audience like a hit of crack that KB succeeds in the way that she does.  So much of value is not capable of snap judgment or even instant appreciation.  Point taken.

So, here's a video for the song "Snowflake" from last year's 50 Words For Snow.  It features her son, Bertie, (who is just the same age as the Infanta so I feel a certain connection).  KB's voice, as she sings the chorus, "The world is so loud, keep falling, I'll find you"  coming just behind his choir boy's voice, gets me right between the ribs every time.  Also, the piano in this song is gorgeous.  I am not sure it jumped out at me from the record right away but it has me now, a year or so later.

You may have to listen to it a few times before you get all that out of it.  I hope you will.

Just a Little Note for Kate Bush Fans

You know how I worship at the altar of Kate Bush? (Still, after all these years).

She pretty much hides from the light - I don't think I have ever heard her speaking. I got an email from her new label "Fish People" the other day letting me know she has a new album coming out in November. There I learned she gave an interview in August on NPR. If you're interested - here's a link. She sounds positively accessible...

Happy New Year!

More snow on the Vermont/Quebec border this New Year's Day. The Woolfoot family spent New Year's Eve in typical style - at home and in bed by 9:30. I guess it would have been nice to have been invited to a party... Oh well. It was snowing New Year's Eve and I am developing a dread of driving on snowy roads.

We braved them this morning however. I got the kids up and dressed and the three of us went off to Jay Peak for a little family snow shoeing. It was idyllic back there.

After some hot chocolate and four-dollar Ben & Jerry ice cream bars in the Jay Peak cafeteria we went down to my beloved Degre Auction House in Westfield, Vermont. The kids were wonderful, ensconced on an old couch they let me watch the proceedings for about two hours. $250 later, I was the owner of two old prints and a complete set of the works of Charles Dickens. Then it was off to Newport to get some stuffed animals (a reward) and groceries. The Hallmark store was closed, to the deep disappointment of Kid 1. Wendy's burgers were on the menu and a quick trip to RJs Friendly Market, then home. Not a bad New Year's Day. Woolfoot husband saved the salmon that was nearly incinerated under the broiler, and, here I am with my report. I'll try to post a little video. Best wishes to all.

P.S. More Woolfoot Reviews and Cosumer Guidance:

I see I promised back on December 16 to tell you what I thought of the soundtrack to The Golden Compass movie. I like it a lot - esp. Kate Bush's single. Of course, she can hardly do any wrong as far as I'm concerned, but I never give anybody a pass. Kids and I saw the movie in Montreal this week. A near-hopeless muddle, as must be expected given the complexity of the story. I enjoyed it anyway because it had been so beautifully realized - and because the girl playing Lyra was really great.

On this point of "realization," the French have a phrase for "producer," (I think): "Réalisateur" - the one who makes a thing out of the idea. I have observed that many mega-budget movies seem to have some brilliant realizers, who design costumes, create effects, choose locations, light scenes, what have you. They are so wonderful in the Harry Potter movies and in TGC - they made the books "real" - but the stories don't live up to their gorgeousness. I guess that's the problem of the writer and director.

This Morning at the Last House; The Golden Compass

Snow is in the forecast today and lots of it. At 6:22 AM, as I write, it is still dark, but peering up at the streetlight(one benefit of being the last house in the village is that we are also at the end of the last street and have a village-supplied light 50 feet from the front door); looking at the streetlight I see only a fine, confectioner's sugar snow falling lightly. The Weather Channel and the local forecasters have practically announced the Apocalypse: SNOW! WIND! and then MORE SNOW !and MORE WIND! Hmm. We'll see. I think the fizzle rate on these forecasts is about 50 percent. Nevertheless, the Doomsayers have the Kids and I more or less counting on a snow day for tomorrow. Also, I have been preparing Kid 2 for days for the fact that we may not be able to get to the party to build gingerbread houses at the home of his little best friend in Hyde Park (30 miles distant at least) that is scheduled for this PM. I am going to need blizzard conditions to persuade him that attendance is a bad idea.

Woolfoot Consumer News and Reviews Continued

I don't think I wrote here about my experience a few months back with Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials; The Golden Compass etc. After I got my new laptop this summer, from which I am now addressing you, I signed up for audible.com and started looking for good children's literature. I was directed repeatedly to Pullman's series so I took a chance and downloaded the audio version of TGC. Well, if you've been reading here, you know my enthusiasms can be a little extreme from time to time. I was ready to worship at the altar of Philip Pullman. I still am, metaphorically, anyway. The audio version of that book was absolutely the single best production of an audio book I have ever heard. The book is brilliant; Pullman reads it himself and there is a cast of wonderful actors playing the parts. I could not stop listening. I jumped on audible and wrote a review praising the book to the sky. I would do it again. Hooked as I was, I had to hear the rest of the trilogy. I liked and admired The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass but I didn't think they were really nearly as good as The Golden Compass.

Having established us in this wonderful world in his first book, the center could not hold. The world of TGC had some rules; those all seemed to disappear by the time we got to the end. Those rules are important. I am a great admirer of Hayao Miyazaki. There's a scene in Spirited Away (my favorite movie of all time) where the boy hero must smuggle his new friend, the heroine, into the magical bathhouse where he works and where she must go. He tells her that she has to hold her breath as they cross the bridge into this bathhouse. If she takes a breath, the crowd of magical creatures on the bridge will be able to see her and there will be big trouble.

Miyazai talked about that scene in an interview I heard. He said how it was important for children to have such rules in their stories. He had made this particular one up himself - it wasn't based on any folk tale or anything (although we feel that it could have been, because we all know these rules and expect them in our fairy tales). Of course, in the film, the girl is startled into a deep intake of breath (a talking frog in a little bathrobe jumps into the face of her friend to ask where he has been and she gasps). The girl is revealed and only quick thinking and action by her friend (who puts a hex on the frog) saves them.

Well, Pullman seems to give up on any parameters by the time he gets to The Amber Spyglass. Anything can happen; Angels make themselves manifest and talk with people; they have some powers and not others but we don't know where those begin and end; the subtle knife cuts doors between worlds and this can mean almost anything at any time. The big Cataclysmic Showdown at the end of the third book seems to me a chaotic muddle. As for the religious debates that are raging about all this now, Pullman is an artist and entitled to his opinions. I think the trilogy is clearly unfriendly to organized religion. I am not sympathetic to that point of view, but I Pullman is an artist and I respect his vision. Also my religious philosophy is summed up by John Milton (who is quoted by Pullman and is the author of the phrase "His Dark Materials"). "God needs not man's work or his own gifts. His state is Kingly." In short, God has nothing to fear from Philip Pullman.

. The opposite is not true - but Pullman has a gift. Using that gift, according to his lights, can't be a wrong thing - and consider the wonderful thing he has made.

In related news, I learned in my early morning web surfing, only moments ago, that Kate Bush has contributed a song to the soundtrack of the new Golden Compass Movie. (If I weren't worried about morphing into a female variant of Comic Book Guy, and about the Wiccan-lonely-hearts types who seem to comprise her organized admirers, I'd probably start a fan club for Kate Bush too). Within 10 minutes I had downloaded the whole soundtrack from iTunes. In a slimy corporate move, iTunes wouldn't let you buy the the Kate Bush single unless you buy the whole album. The whole raison d'etre of iTunes is to prevent having to buy whole albums to get one song. Still, I listened a little to the other tracks and could tell I would like it so, I shelled out the coin. I am listening even now. Next time I get back I'll let you know what I think.

Kid 1 has come down and has been waiting patiently for her Cheerios, and to use the computer. And here's kid 2 (he had a dream that he would be a really good knitter...) Bye for now.