Stratovania

So far this month, we've seen a concert, gone to two amusement parks, and done a few Halloween activities, so I might as well write about them now. We also got stuck in traffic a few times and got COVID and flu shots, and I had bad side effects from medication. Those aren't as enjoyable to reminisce about, however.
On the first Sunday of the month, Beth and I went to Tarrytown to see Neko Case, which ended up being a strange and kind of disturbing experience. The opener was Amaad Wasif, who, during one of his songs, apparently decided it would be a good idea to go into the audience and sit in people's laps. I didn't see any of this from the balcony, but from what we saw online afterwards, one guy objected to it and pushed him away. He then returned to the stage and said someone punched him, which the guy and other people sitting nearby insist he didn't. I don't actually know what happened, but he left after that, and Neko didn't come on until about an hour after she was scheduled to do so. She was angry, and while she still did the show, she never explained what was actually bothering her. I'm sure it had to do with what happened to the opener, but neither she nor the venue provided any details, and the guy who pushed Wasif had already been kicked out. Is the whole audience being punished, like some kind of Full Metal Jacket crap? She still performed well, and seemed to calm down a bit over the course of the set, but it ended up being quite short. They apparently had a fill-in bass player who didn't usually play that instrument, and this was the first time we saw her with a saxophone player, although he mostly played keyboard. Somehow we ended up sitting in the exact same seats as we did when we saw Ben Folds at the same venue. Since it's October, they had a lot of Halloween decorations up in town.
We had some pizza before the show, and the window of the place had this monster slice on the window.

The following weekend, we traveled to Pennsylvania to visit two amusement parks, and a lot of stuff went wrong. Knoebels was doing Hallo-Fun, and we left home later than we'd wanted to. Then there was a long line of cars just to get in, as it didn't seem like the traffic lights were set up to handle that much traffic. We were there for two hours or so. It was pretty fun when we actually got inside, but we didn't have time to do that much.

We rode the Rock-O-Plane, an old sort of ride that was new there this year. It loads sort of like a Ferris Wheel, with only a certain amount of cars low enough at any time for people to get in and out of them. The cars rock around, although you can stop them from doing so with a brake.

I believe it was also the first time we rode their Tea Cups, which were the same sort of ride that Beth knew as a Crazy Daisy.

And the line for the Phoenix had this graveyard for old rides.

We didn't get a chance to go on the Haunted Pioneer Train, which had a really long line.


Dorney Park, which we visited on Sunday, has Halloween Haunt, and I took another picture of Beth with the puking pumpkin.

They have a new ride, the Iron Menace, a roller coaster with a straight vertical drop.

The park has a backstory for this ride involving the fictional McTavish Steel, whose owner died under mysterious circumstances and went on to haunt the old mill. There actually is a McTavish Steelworks in Manitoba. To fit the theme, they also redesigned the nearby glider ride and changed the name to MT Buckets.

We also rode the Cedar Creek Cannonball, which last year we hadn't realized was going to close early for the Halloween events.

And it was the hundredth anniversary of the Thunderhawk. We visited two of the temporary haunted houses, Blackout and Blood on the Bayou. The former was introduced as a candy factory, but was really just a bunch of dark rooms. I guess the introduction was just misdirection, although a candy-themed haunted attraction could have been interesting. The latter was based around a pop culture representation of Louisiana that's probably nothing like the actual place, including alligators and fortune tellers.

And we saw part of a show by a group called the Spectral Sisters, who were pretty similar to the Puppini Sisters, doing swing versions of pop songs, including 10,000 Maniacs' "Because the Night," Heart's "Crazy on You," and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising."


Thursday the seventeenth was Nightfall at Green-Wood Cemetery, which includes a mix of things, both displays and performances. It seemed like there wasn't as much as in previous years, although that could have just been our timing or the paths we took. The ways through the graveyard are marked off with lights, but some of them do branch off. There were performers from the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a one-man band who played "Tequila" and a sword swallower.

Morbid Anatomy did a series of lectures, of which we heard the one about Ra's journey through the underworld in Egyptian mythology, as told in the Amduat; and another on symbols of time and mortality in funerary decoration. And a band was playing songs from the earlier part of the twentieth century, the ones we were there for being from the 1910s and 1930s, with a different lead singer for each.


We visited South Jersey this past weekend, and did a few Halloween-related activities while there.

On Friday, we went to the Creamy Acres Night of Terror, which consists of a hayride and three walkthroughs. From what I remember, it was pretty much the same as last year.

There was a drive-through called Glow in Washington Township, which was a bunch of light displays loosely themed around old Route 66, although some of them didn't seem to relate to much of anything.

It had monsters and other seasonal stuff, but wasn't scary in the sense of people jumping out at you or anything; you just drove through and looked.

And that night, we went to Terror at the Junkyard for the Scullville Fire Department in Egg Harbor, which involved driving along a lot of dark roads, rather scarier than the maze or hayride, but obviously not as theatrical.

One performer seemed particularly into his role, stomping on the wagon and singing a song about waking the dead. And that's about all that's worth writing about for now, but there should be some more later in the month.

Has anyone noticed I haven't written much recently? It's been a matter of access, since we've been staying in a motel. I finished reading The Lost Tales of Oz, and I might be able to write a review this weekend, but I'm not making any promises.


Beth and I saw two concerts last week. The first was Neko Case at the Beacon Theatre on Thursday. She doesn't like people to take pictures at her shows, which is fine, but I would have liked to have had a better look at the dress she was wearing when her set started. Her opener was Thao, who's in a band called the Get Down Stay Down, but I know nothing about them. I didn't find her songs particularly memorable, but she make some interesting sounds with her guitar. Kelly Hogan wasn't there for this show (I think she might still be touring with the Decemberists, but I'm not sure), although this was the first time I saw Rachel Flotard, a long-time collaborator with Neko who was also in Visqueen. And Johnny Sangster, who played guitar and keyboard, is the brother of the Young Fresh Fellows' bass player Jim Sangster, and there was a song about his band, the Sharing Patrol, on the Fellows' second album. The setlist was heavy on songs from the last few albums; she did include a few from Blacklisted, but nothing from before that. But then, more of the songs on the earlier albums were covers. Neko has a really confident voice, but points out how nervous she is in between numbers. It's a combination I've noticed in a lot of people I know, so that's cool.


Saturday's show was Michael Nesmith at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, a town about fifteen miles from where I grew up, and also where they filmed The Blob. Beth's mom went with us to that one. It was advertised as the First National Band Redux, revisiting the material he released soon after leaving the Monkees for the first time. It's mostly country-rock music, the same kind of stuff he wrote for the Monkees. None of the First National Band's output was particularly successful, although "Joanne" was somewhat of a hit. It's really good, though. Aside from Mike himself, the original members of the band had either died or were unwilling to tour. The new lineup is partially a family affair, with Mike's sons Christian and Jonathan on guitar, and Christian's wife and bandmate Circe Link on backing vocals. The set included some material from after the FNB era, and at one point he played three of his earliest songs, "Propinquity," "Different Drum," and "Papa Gene's Blues" with only the steel guitar player accompanying him. "Different Drum" was, of course, a hit for Linda Ronstadt that the Monkees' producers had rejected; he later included his own version on a solo record. I first knew another one of Mike's songs, "Some of Shelly's Blues," from the cover by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The title is presumably channeling Bob Dylan; a lot of his songs from that period had titles that had no clear connection to the songs themselves, although I'm not sure he did that so much during the FNB years. When he re-released "Carlisle Wheeling," he gave it the much less enigmatic title "Conversations."

I actually have a bit more than usual to impart today. On Thursday, bethje and I met Stephanie in Manhattan to see Neko Case. Well, "see" is pitching it a bit strong. It was a free show, and by the time we got there it was so full that we had to sit back so far as not to see much. It was part of some blues festival, which doesn't strike me as a very appropriate fit, but whatever. Despite some technical difficulties, Neko was able to perform a variety of songs from everything but her first two albums, which she sadly neglects at most concerts. I'm not sure why, but maybe it's because they're more straight country, or she's just tired of the songs. Those are just wild guesses, of course. Speaking of Neko's older songs, though, was "I Wish I Was the Moon" used in a soundtrack or something recently? I follow the Neko Case tag on Tumblr, and people seem to be mentioning that particular song quite a lot, even though it's ten years old at this point. Getting back to the concert, she also performed a new song that she described as being about dating your father, who turns out to be your mother. Something like that, anyway. Also, I'm kind of surprised Kelly Hogan was at the show, since I would think she'd be touring in support of her own new album.

On Friday, we got around to watching the Futurama episode that we'd missed on Wednesday. I liked it pretty well, although the desire to reset everything at the end made parts of it seem a bit hasty. I'm talking particularly about Leela's parents' divorce and remarriage. It might have worked a little better if they'd stretched these things out over the course of a few episodes, rather than packing it all into one. That said, it was a solid story, and I appreciated how Morris' past as a sewer surfer played into the plot a few times. I guess shark people using a water-based weapon makes sense. It's also interesting that Zapp appeared to be seriously dedicated to his relationship with Munda; it was his idiocy at negotiation that broke them up, rather than his chauvinism.

On Saturday, we saw Jordan Cooper play a show in Soho. Kristen, his girlfriend and the singer for his band Sally, had a birthday that day; and they also released their first EP, We Are in a Car. So that was fun. Less fun was our experience yesterday, which involved Beth and me riding a train so crowded that we couldn't sit together, and lugging a heavy bag over the streets of our nation's capital. We made it to the hotel all right in the end, however, and we won't have to worry about carrying the bags again until Friday. So why are we in Washington? Well, Beth has a class she has to take for work, and I came along with her. Any suggestions for what we can do while we're here are welcome, but remember that her class lasts until 4:30 every day.

This past weekend, bethje and I finally got around to watching the Netflix movies that had been sitting around the house for weeks. One was My Baby Is Black and Checkerboard, a double feature of French exploitation films that were pretty boring, and we ended up not watching all of either of them. The other was Rocky IV, which was pretty heavy on the Cold War propaganda. I mean, Ivan Drago is a terse, pitiless, steroid-addicted, government-promoted freak. How much more anti-Soviet can you get? Another reflection of its mid-eighties release date was that a robot appeared, and for no apparent reason at that.

Other viewing so far this week has included Fox's Sunday night lineup. I found the American Dad episode, with Andy Dick moving in with the Smiths, to be rather reminiscent of the Family Guy where James Woods moved in with the Griffins. It seemed like Woods being a lunatic was kind of absurd, however, while as far as I can tell Andy Dick really IS a lunatic. I don't think he did his own voice, either, while Woods did. The conflict in the Simpsons episode, with Homer stealing the glory for Bart's accomplishment, never amounted to much, but I think the real highlight of the episode was how many different kinds of animation they parodied. Also, we got a few appearances by celebrities who did riffs on how annoyingly self-absorbed they are. I generally like Ricky Gervais pretty well, but his bit went on a little long. I've also heard that, since he's lost weight, he's started hassling other people about being overweight. What the hell, Ricky? Actually, his part in the Simpsons episode made a good point about that, which is that we CAN'T all afford physical trainers. But anyway, yeah, not much plot to the episode, but pretty fun anyway. And I like that they brought back Angry Dad instead of coming up with a new reason for Bart and Homer to be famous. I also liked the Family Guy episode, but I was probably mostly just amused by the bad pun of the guy who went by "Gutentag" having the real name "Schlechtnacht." The old man fight was funny, too.

I really should start to plan things out more in advance. There's an event in New York tomorrow, I kind of want to go to, with both Michael Showalter and Neko Case at a bookstore. I have to work tomorrow night, though, and now it looks like Beth won't be going either. I have to wonder what it'll be like, though. I mean, I'm a fan of both Michael and Neko, but they're from different worlds! What's next, Frank Black performing at Oz convention? Wouldn't that be awesome? Well, maybe only for me. By the way, Neko is on Twitter, and she does a lot of retweeting, but hasn't retweeted anything of mine yet! I have to suspect that the retweets are all of people she knows personally, but it would be a pretty big thing for me if she DID acknowledge something I wrote. I'm sure the other 7397 people who follow her but she doesn't follow back feel the same way, though.

Hey, how about some reviews of three books I read recently?

Watership Down, by Richard Adams - I'd been meaning to read this one for a while. Actually, I did read the first few pages when I was waiting for a computer at the local library some years ago. Recently, though, I saw the book on therealtavie's shelf and read an interview where Neko Case said it was one of her favorite books, so those things together pushed me into trying it again. And it really is a good book, describing the lives of rabbits from their own point of view. Adams' introduction said that he wanted to have rabbits who would think and communicate like people, but wouldn't do anything rabbits couldn't actually do, and I think he succeeded. And the idea of rabbits having their own religion and mythology was rather fascinating.

The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan - Speaking of mythology, this is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which was recommended to me by rockinlibrarian. It's in much the same vein as Harry Potter, in terms of having an adolescent boy discover he has both magic powers and deadly enemies, as well as in there being a special training place for people like him. The similarities don't stop there, but it's not like Rowling invented these ideas. Anyway, Riordan definitely has his own style, simultaneously more modern and more faithful to traditional mythology than Rowling's. I like his view of the gods in the modern age, in that they have adapted somewhat with the times, yet still maintain their traditional personalities. And there's a good dose of humor, one of my favorite throwaway bits being how one of the only two songs Grover the satyr can play on his pipes is Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday." I'll definitely have to read the rest of this series. In fact, I've already started on the second book, The Sea of Monsters.

The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander - The second book in the Prydain series (honestly, the fact that the first book has "three" in the title still tends to confuse me) is an improvement over the first one, at least to my mind. Since Alexander has already introduced his main characters, he's able to have more fun with them. We can definitely see Taran maturing in the course of the adventure, and Fflewddur Fflam and Doli have some good moments. I also found the three enchantresses to be pretty amusing characters.

bethje has told me that enjoys being in the middle of a good book. I can understand that, but I usually like to finish as quickly as I can. After all, that's when I can move on to the next one, right? {g} Also, I like to look back on books I've finished reading. And I don't think I'm going to run out of things to read anytime soon. I might eventually run out of new Oz stuff, though, so all you aspiring Oz authors need to get to work! {g}

Let's see here. I slept pretty much all morning, except for when I was taking bethje to work. I had some weird dreams, but I can't remember most of the details. Trying to return home after some event was a major recurring theme, though. It was at least the second time I was trying to get multiple cars back home from somewhere, which really doesn't make too much sense unless I'm actually buying cars at faraway locations. There was another dream that involved wandering around a mall, which happens in a lot of them, and I can't say I really know why. Malls and schools are constantly recurring dream settings for me. The dream I remember the most involved some festival (I think it was supposed to be Mardi Gras, although none of the events really had anything to do with it), and there was a show by artists including Corn Mo and Frank Black. Frank was singing one of his songs that I don't know so well (I think it might have been "I Need Peace") and trying to get everyone to sing along, but few people knew the lyrics.

On the subject of music, the new Neko Case album, Middle Cyclone, is quite good. I haven't picked a favorite song yet, but the one that get lodged in my head the most often are "This Tornado Loves You" and "People Got a Lotta Nerve." I'm not sure why she chose to end the album with "Marais La Nuit," a thirty-minute recording of crickets chirping, but I guess I can safely skip it from now on. Still, I don't really like to skip anything when I listen to an entire album, which is also a problem with records like John Linnell's State Songs and the 6ths' Hyacinths and Thistles.

The other day, I picked up the fourth issue of Marvel's Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptation. I haven't read the whole thing yet (not that it will take me long when I do), but I have to say that the Wizard's beast form and Jellia Jamb's retro-futuristic wave hairstyle are standouts for me as far as the art is concerned.