Small Streams

How Stuff Is Made

Just found out about the How Stuff Is Made project, a collaborative effort among Yale University, NYU, UC Berkely and others to provide a wiki-driven compedium of materials, manufacture, labor, etc. Mind-blowing stuff. I took my first step, registered with Twiki, and fixed a typo.

The Shovel

I stopped by the Walgreen's site on Centre Avenue, East Liberty, to watch the construction. Take a look.

The Road to Wellville

Just finished T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville. Not laugh out loud funny, but humorous. I guess the description "Dickensian" comes to mind. Boyle displays what is large and small about all of us in different characters. The story centers around Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. Along with high-minded ideals, Kellogg espoused a lot of quackery and exhibited a significant amount of showmanship. Think Donald Trump, but instead of real estate and casinos, Kellogg sold people on the benefits of vegetarianism and enemas.

Boyle's writing is rich, erudite, and sometimes evocative. Even the villains of the story are portrayed sympathetically. You do, however, get a residual feeling of despair when examining his characters.

Anyway, good read. Highly recommend it. Would be interested in seeing the movie.

Eat 'n' Park Destroyed

The Eat 'n' Park on Penn Avenue is being demolished to make room for a senior housing complex, one example of many of construction projects going on in Pittsburgh's East End. The building looks like it was built for the ages. Notice all the steel I-beams. Amidst all the heavy brick and twisted steel, one end of the building maintains perfect composure. I'm not sure if this comes through in the photo; but if you're there in person, the juxtaposition is striking.

Clay Firing

Liz spent Friday night and Saturday morning at the clay firing. I took the kids to visit around 9 p.m. Using the kiln shown here, they were able to raise the oven temperature to 2,400 degrees. They stopped feeding the fire on Saturday morning, and the clay items will probably be cool enough by Friday.

Please note that a well engineered kiln can not only bake clay, but can make excellent s'mores.

Think Cool Thoughts

This is the cover of Liz's book Think Cool Thoughts. The book will be distributed at the end of June. Of course it's a wonderful book, and it'll be just the thing to help beat the hot summertime nights. Piper loves it. The book can be ordered through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Plugging Acoustic Music

I had a great time Saturday night at the Star-Lite Lounge in Blawnox. On the first Saturday of the month, Robert Wagner puts together the Three Penny Opry, a melange of mostly acoustic musicians, who usually have a lot to say, and are always worth hearing from. I usually do a little work as the emcee and I play a song or two. At the end of the evening we trade songs and generally mix things up. One of my favorite moments this past Saturday was being part of a improvised doo-wop chorus for Randy Hoffman's song about a perky goth girl.

Robert just sent me an e-mail that said there's more fun in everyone's future, especially if more people participate:

I was speaking with Ron Esser, owner of Moondogs and The Starlite Lounge, and he said that he wants to make The Starlite his "acoustic" club. Moondogs would be devoted to rock and blues, and The Starlite would be devoted to acoustic folk and blues. Thus far, we've been doing The Threepenny Opry on a monthly basis. And every Tuesday night The Starlite is home to the Calliope Bluegrass Jam.

To do a show in the backroom at the starlite, it takes about 20 minutes or so to move tables and chairs and set up the p.a. It's not hard at all. As you know, the backroom is non-smoking, but people can smoke and buy drinks at the bar. (The lighting isn't ideal, but we're not movie stars...) Moondog can't GUARANTEE us anything other than a few drinks and a sandwich, that kind of thing, but at least we wouldn't be expected to pay anything. We'd make what we earn "at the door," something we're accustomed to.

So I'm volunteering to facilitate the scheduling of shows at the starlite and to help set up the p.a. and that kind of thing. I think we should just start booking shows every friday and saturday night, do it and do it and do it and stick with it till the general public gets the idea that if they want to hear good acoustic music on friday or saturday night, they should go to blawnox.

Leave me a comment or send me an e-mail if you want to join in.