I Could Live on a Houseboat

I think I could live on a houseboat for awhile. I would keep my kayak on the deck along with my fruit trees, herbs, arugula and mustard greens. I left Amsterdam today. It was sunny and nearly 60 degrees F. Oh, how I wish I could stay.

Endless Improvements

I heard Beth swear in Dutch today. She is miffed by the endless obstruction of Amsterdam's ongoing construction. It seems the city never rests in it's effort to improve what's "already good enough," says Beth. I agree, it is a pain having to get off your bike or to leave the bike lane, or find another side street to get around all the construction. And it's not like the city provides detour routes or markings for bicyclists. Now the idea of marked bike lane detours may seem a bit overkill for people like me from the States; but when you spend your day, your week, your year, commuting by bicycle like so many Amsterdamers do, you might welcome being treated equally to a motorist in a construction zone! But for Beth, the issue is not really about providing detours. The issue is whether the constant improvements of city streets are really needed. As for my opinion on the matter? I really can't give an informed one. I'm simply grateful to my friends for making it possible to spend every day on a bicyle while I'm here..

The Amazing Healing Properties of Grög

I have returned to Amsterdam after visiting Berlin, Dresden, Praha, Karlovy Vary, and Harrachov in the Krkonose Mountains of the Ceska Republica. I might have lost 5 lbs the first week while bicycling all over Amsterdam, but quickly gained it back the last week in Ceska Republica with my friends's family in Praha. I enthusiastically abandonded my vegetarian ways, to survive... (knock on wood- because I mildly fell off Beth's bike today and wracked my wrist and neck a bit).... on a diet of good food, good people, music, minor language challenges, history, post-communism, and forgetting about my real life for awhile. But best of all, I return home cured of all ailments by the amazing healing properties of grög and the life enhancing, river-fed brew of Zdrave' Kvasnicove" Pivo.

Riding in Amsterdam

"Flatlander" is a derogatory term loosely used by some hill people of Vermont for people who live in cities and valleys outside the Green Mountains. I suppose this word could be used for the people of Amsterdam, but after riding bike here, I have decided to redefine the concept in a new and positive way.

Commuting in Amsterdam is a euphoric experience. We could learn a thing or two from these people who "hug the sand." Think about it; the fee required to repair a tire tube or replace brake pads is ridiculously small compared to the European price of gas or a pair of well-treaded, waterproof shoes. In fact, In the four days I've been here, I think I have yet to walk an entire block by foot. Well I know this may not sound all that rad but this is not Vermont, where there seems to always be some kind of weather-, time-, clothing-related, geographical or physical constraint keeping me off my bike.

So when I return home after Europe, I will find me a handsome new set of wheels, a bike that really fits me, with a cushion size seat and handle bars that allow me to sit upright. When I find it, I will marry it! We'll lock frames together and have little "tricycle" offspring and buy a front box for our dog to ride in.... oh what bliss! Unfortunatley, I will have to return to shifting gears! Burlington is not flat like Amsterdam — a city where the act of shifting gears is more of an effort than pedalling harder over an ever-so-subtle canal bridge incline. It may be the only real physical effort a bicyclist encounters throughout the day.

Artists starving... and gnawing... at the bone.

Ampersand
Amanda Palmer Dresden Dolls
(live, Hamburg, Germany)

Love Endeavor
Alice Smith
For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me

Ambitious Orchestra
Seven Deadly Sins

September Clouds (haiku)

September clouds above Lake Champlain;

fall winds kicking up waves;

sailing haven soon to be frozen over.

These Guys

Our last show at the Intervale featured a very loud Jazz Guys to wake up the lazy afternoon crowd (as well as the late-summer sleepy grasshoppers settled in the grasses around the barn).
The Jazz Guys are something not entirely jazz. In fact, they aren't jazz at all. They are more like a displaced Brit-pop-alt-inde band "journeying" through the Green Mountains. And being a "compilation" of two brothers, childhood friends and Johnson State grads, makes them decidedly non-Brit-pop-all-together. In these predominantly downjam band lands of Vermont, this group offers a refreshing heightened upward moving beat, that begins at the achilles tendon and works it's way up and out through every orifice of the head. They were damn loud. And with all their tight-knit boyish punk reverb, they drove out the last group of nesting swallows from the barn's rafters above. Not only should you be willing to go many miles to pay to see this Burlington band (and shimmy your butt off), but you might also consider them for hire if ever you need to clear your attic of bats! And then I imagine them with a bass; with that who knows what kind of creatures could be stirred out of their musical corners....