Weeknotes: April 14–18, 2025
Monday, April 14
Islay lifts her sweet face and peers over at me from her end of the couch. I lean over to hug her and she gives a few contented snorts before re-composing her limbs into an endearing tangle across her dog bed. I've promised myself I'll take her camping again this summer. It's been six or seven years since she slept in a tent and gave me the worst poison ivy rash I've ever had. We'll have to stay vigilant, but I want to make sure she gets more adventures outside our neighborhood. How many summers does a little dog have?
I ran my six mile route earlier in the day and it inspired a mood of supreme confidence and ambition which I haven't felt in a while. Those rare triumphal runs make all the ordinary everyday runs feel like part of a greater plan you knew you had in you all along. In my head I plotted out my next four marathons, one each month in a different city. I'll train harder for these races than I ever have before, all while going to school, working full-time, and recording a new project. What's more, I'll manage to shave 25 minutes off my PR and finally qualify for Boston. No problem. I carried this ambition back to my doorstep, inhaling the spring's first pollen, certain my strength of conviction would last.
Weeknotes: April 7–11, 2025
Monday, April 7
C-G-D-G-B-D. It's a version of C Wahine, a Hawaiian slack key tuning I'm playing around with this morning. The low C vibrates against the back of my guitar and into my chest like a Pacific frequency. Outside a pale blue sky is flooding the weak clouds in a slow diffuse throb.
During a Zoom meeting we discuss a now-beleaguered company that we used to be a part of and it depresses me. I break for lunch and listen to a podcast dissecting last night's season finale of The White Lotus. In late afternoon I put the Tigers game on the radio. The entire homestand against the Yankees has been rescheduled because of the cold weather. Early April night games are a gamble in the Midwest. Two weeks into the season and the team is playing really well. I'm excited about them. They beat the Yankees 6–2 and who doesn't love to beat the Yankees?
I go for a drive, chasing the evening light and listening to Michael Rother's calm, radiant music. At Mary McCann Preserve, I hop back and forth over muddy lanes to get to the rail line at the back of the property. A dozen or so inert train cars are linked together on the track and have been there since I discovered this park during the pandemic. I'm collecting photos using different lighting strategies for my photography class, trying to find my way around manual mode. Right now I feel uncreative and pressed for time and I wonder how many lame photos of rusting train cars and derelict factories the instructor has to sift through every year from novice students like myself. They must be the G, C, and D chords of photography.
Weeknotes: March 31 – April 4, 2025
A sick week last week. Weeknotes had a fever, but it’s on the mend.
Monday, March 31
Q1 ends with a sigh. The flu in February, then Covid in March, family health scares, and the daily horrors of the news. I'm exhausted. But, tomorrow is a new month. My energy is starting to come back, I've got a gig on Wednesday, and I'll be done with classes in just five weeks. After that, Iceland.
Today it's Scott and Amanda's birthday, siblings born seven years apart on the same day. I've been in different bands with each of them dating back to high school. On the turntable, I’ve got the first of two Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty duet albums. I pause work in late morning to test drive an outfit for the Iceland trip. By most accounts, I can expect average Icelandic temperatues in the mid-40s (F) which is the weather in Ypsilanti is today. I've got a good rain jacket I'll use as my outer shell and a zip up fleece for a mid-layer. Islay and I walk for about 45 minutes and I feel comfortable in my layers. But as much as I appreciate the tech gear, I'd be so much happier in my tattered canvas coat and jeans. I'll probably bring them too. Obsessing over what to pack for an adventure is it’s own vocation
Weeknotes: March 17–21, 2025
Monday March 17
It's Islay's 11th birthday, today. My dog and both my parents are now firmly in their senior years. Mom calls to tell me they've hired some arborists to fell a few trees in their wooded backyard. Slated for execution is Dr. Pepper, the massive white pine that grew directly outside my boyhood window. I don't remember why I named it Dr. Pepper — I was only four when we moved there — but it's become a beloved landmark and feels like an extension of the house.
When my parents started building in 1981 they spared this tree and cut a hole in the deck around it. As its circumference grew, my dad enlarged the opening until it reached a crossbeam, then he found a way around that problem too. It has been our primary shade tree and its evergreen needles have danced outside my old bedroom window for as long as I can remember. It became a popular destination for flying squirrels.
We all love Dr. Pepper, but he too is now a senior who stands perilously close to the house. My dad is afraid it will fall on the roof, an emergency that would be tough to handle. I understand it's time to say goodbye. My mom's voice caught when she told me the news. The house will look significantly altered next time I visit, but I'm grateful for the warning; I'd hate to be caught off guard.
At the brewpub a folk band is doing their best with some Irish tunes. I'm at the far end of the bar drinking an obligatory St. Patrick's Day beer. To my right is the kitchen service window where a hand periodically delivers plates of fried food onto the stainless steel shelf and rings a bell. My parents text my brother and I photos of Dr. Pepper's dismantling which are a little heartbreaking. They've found an old photo of my dad just after they bought the lot, standing next to the tree with only the foundation of our house behind him. The next image is of him today standing on the deck next to its broad stump. Everything changes. So long, Dr. Pepper.
Weeknotes: March 10–14, 2025
Monday March 10
The day rises bright and clear, an hour later than it's supposed to. Daylight Savings has begun and even though I enjoy the brighter evenings, it makes the mornings feel rushed. I put Grace Jones' Nightclubbing on the turntable and dive into Monday stuff.
CC sends me my horoscope from an app she uses:
Timothy Monger wants to push the limits today. Distract the museum guards while they kiss a painting.
I spend the afternoon with some co-workers volunteering at a local food bank. We sort giant bags of carrots and pack up about 120 boxes of dry goods. It's satisfying labor, but I wouldn't say I pushed my limits. Mostly, I just feel tired and can't figure out why. It's 65° and sunny when I get home. I sit in a camp chair in the yard finishing out my workday. To my left Islay assumes her customary position at the foot of the driveway, already in warm-weather mode.
March is a tricky month. You get warm days like this, but the sun is not itself. It's harsher and more unrelenting, glaring over dead lawns strewn with winter's detritus.
Here are some nice birds I've already seen this week:
Bald Eagle
Pileated Woodpecker
Harlequin Duck
Weeknotes: March 3–7, 2025
Monday March 3
I'm on Spring Break. The last time that happened was 1997, by which time I'd already been a college dropout for a year. I joined a group of friends on a weeklong trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina where we drank impressively and agitated the local retiree populace as only drunken youth can.
This year, my friend Serge invited me on a weekend road trip to Newport, Kentucky to see Robyn Hitchcock at Southgate House Revival. It’s the successor to the late Southgate House, a grand old pile that for decades served as a staple of the indie rock touring circuit until its abrupt closure in 2011. GLMS played a show there sometime in the mid-2000s, though my memories of it are hazy. We opened for an Oregon band called the Stars of Track and Field in the tavern room and played mostly to the staff. We might have caught a couple strays who wandered in for a beer, but neither band had any fans there. Somewhere there's a photo of me in one of my occasional touring moustaches posing next to an oil portrait of some colonial chap who may or may not have been the manor's original inhabitant.
The revival occupies an old church just a few blocks away and carries some of the original’s historic gravitas, even if it feels like a work in progress. But, a santuary seems like a good fit, especially for Hitchcock who was in top form. His set consisted almost entirely of requests, a detail I didn't learn about until I overheard his partner, Emma Swift, asking fans at the merch booth if there was anything they'd like to hear. I can hardly remember the songs I've just practiced, let alone dredge up curios from the distant past; this gig would be my nightmare. In fact, I've probably had this nightmare. But Robyn was game, and as a result I got to hear songs I never thought I'd hear live, foremost among them the timely "Don't Talk To Me About Gene Hackman," a cut so deep it was the second of two unlisted secret tracks buried at the end 1999's Jewels For Sophia. He closed with the Soft Boys gem “Queen of Eyes,” a song I’ve included in my own set many times. As an encore, he unplugged his guitar and paced around the congregation leading a sing-along of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” My kind of sermon.
The next day we drove an hour east to see the great Serpent Mound, a 1,348-feet-long effigy built thousands of years ago, probably by the Adena culture. The gates were closed when we arrived, so we took our chances and trespassed on foot. Relative to this country's size, America has preserved so few of these ancient earthworks. Past a small visitor center and rickety observation tower (closed for repairs) the curving burial mound stretched serenely out of view, bordered by a paved footpath. With no one else around, it seemed especially peaceful and we grokked it with reverence for its prehistoric creators and apologies to its present-day stewards, the Ohio History Connection.
Weeknotes: February 24–28, 2025
Monday February 24
I spend the morning listening to Robyn Hitckcock's Eye. I think it’s one of his solo benchmarks and it prompted in me an early appreciation for the merits of an acoustic album. I'm going to Kentucky to hear him play this weekend. I've seen him four other times, but it's been a while. There are few other artists whose careers I've consistently followed and admired for so long.
When I was 15 my brother took me to see Hitchcock with his erstwhile band the Egyptians in Royal Oak. They were at their brief commercial apex, having just stumbled into a minor hit with "So You Think You're in Love" from Perspex Island, an album that, until recently has remained "out of print" in the streaming world. It's not his best (Queen Elvis is my favorite), but it's the point where my adolescent self arrived in his career. I had just begun to pay attention to album credits and I remember noting the producer's name, Paul Fox; he had produced XTC's Oranges & Lemons two years prior. His name came across my radar again in the mid-'90s, helming Semisonic's first LP.
The Egyptians show we saw was in February 1992 and afterward we waited out in the cold behind the theater to ask Robyn for an autograph, which he graciously, if somewhat obscurely, gave. In black marker he inscribed on my ticket stub a capital R with a circle around it. It's still tucked under the CD tray of my copy of Element of Light.
Today, the sun is shining and the snow is melting in rivulets down both sides of the street. I listen to a grim Icelandic detective novel on my headphones. As we walk, Islay insists on hitting every snowbank, examining the dense neighborhood thaw. In the muddy driveway she stands for minutes on end, head cocked, nose gently twitching. Spring must be intense for a dog; such olfactory abundance.
In the evening CC and I rehearse a new song. Between illness, work, and school, I've been playing less often than I'd like and the act of harmonizing with another person feels especially welcome. I expect us to sound a little rusty, but we've played together for long enough now that it all comes together rather quickly.
Weeknotes: February 17–20, 2025
Monday February 17
Composing for hire remains a novel pursuit for me. I enjoy the challenge, but do it so rarely that I have to fight against my deep-rooted tendencies. I tend to overcomplicate things. Even when I'm writing instrumental music, I'm thinking about the overall structure and pacing of the arrangement, treating it more like a song than the mood-setting backdrop it sometimes needs to be. This piece I'm currently working on should flow unobtrusively behind a voice-over, but I'm struggling to keep it simple.
Repetition with very subtle dynamic shifts is what's called for, but I keep inserting rests, a bridge, and dynamic dips and swells. The first version I submitted had all those things and when I watched the rough cut, I was a little embarrassed; the piece itself is nice, but the extra parts felt obtrusive and showy. I then tried a version with a shorter rest and truncated bridge and it played a little better on the fine cut, but still wasn't right.
This morning I spend a couple hours on an edit that removes all chord changes outside the primary loop, but still has a sort of "bridge" moment about two-thirds of the way through. Why don’t I have it in me to kill that bridge? It’s not a pop song.
Weeknotes: February 10–14, 2025
Weeknotes: January 27–31, 2025
Monday January 27
Over the weekend I shot over 100 photos in multiple locations with the borrowed Canon, but forgot to change the settings to RAW. None will be usable for our first class project. My first lesson learned. This evening the light is similar and I head out at the same hour to try and recreate some of my favorite shots, knowing it's a fool's errand. Of course, yesterday's magic is nowhere to be found, but today's magic gathers around me the longer I look.
Weeknotes: January 20–24, 2025
Monday January 20
When he received the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this:
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Weeknotes: January 13–17, 2025
Monday January 13
My limbs trundle reluctantly up the hill past the south edge of campus, the wind biting my bare face. The first half mile is accomplished by will alone, but it gets better. I gauge my footfalls gingerly over the ice patches and head down the ginnel that connects College Place with Pearl. By the time I cross onto Spring Street, my body feels relaxed and lithe. At Waterworks Park a woman stands over the hood of her blue minivan arranging loaves of supermarket bread to feed to the assemblage of ducks and geese closing in around her.
I think of my mom, a lifetime nurturer of urban waterfowl populations. I picture her tiny figure holding up a bag of hamburger buns to feed the squawking gulls. For a brief time she and I kept up a Christmas Eve tradition of emptying a large bag of cracked corn on the grass by the Brighton Mill Pond, a gift to the cold feathered peasantry. Even now when I go to visit my parents, she is constantly managing a half dozen feeding stations. Just yesterday I caught her scattering seed on the front porch for her favorite possum and then on a metal table out behind the kitchen for her resident doves. She loves her doves. My parents have always had big hearts for wild things.
Weeknotes: January 6–10, 2025
Monday January 6
Outside the giant home decor superstore shreds of yellow caution tape flap like pennants, suggesting unknown drama. Scant cars punctuate the desolate parking lot. Grim is the word that comes to mind. In Chris Frantz's Talking Heads memoir (which I've stuck with, and am now enjoying) he recalls how Johnny Ramone used that word over and over to describe their shared 1977 tour of Europe ("Oh shit, man, this is gonna be grim").
I don't go to this store very often. It's one of those wastelands of excess that makes me feel edgy and cynical. It's like a blander Pier 1 without any curation, a shelter for the world’s decorative vases and wicker plant stands to live out their days in a heady fug of candle store aroma. I'm in the market for new bathroom rugs that will pair well with the tricky seafoam walls and faux driftwood floor covering I inherited when I rented the house. Last winter I spontaneously bought a complete set of grass green rugs and matching towels which I pretended to like for a couple days before recognizing I'd turned my bathroom into a 1980s Holiday Inn. January is when I'm most inclined to tackle these problems. Aren't we all working on our interiors this time of year?
Weeknotes: December 30, 2024 – January 3, 2025
Monday December 30
The sun returns after several days of drear and what a difference it makes. I visit my parents and eat chili seasoned with brown sugar. My mom puts brown sugar in everything, a secret ingredient of her long happy life. My dad and I work down in the woodshop cutting and sanding some lumber for a couple home improvement projects I hope to complete before my vacation ends. Last night I saw the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, and was unexpectedly moved by it. It made me think of my parents and I urge them to go see it while it's in theaters.
I've had a lifelong respect for Dylan, but he's never really been my guy. I’ve owned various records, sung his songs, watched documentaries, and even read his memoir. I've flirted with "going through a Dylan phase" many times in my life, but it just never quite clicks. I didn't really have any expectations for Timothée Chalamet; my only reference was the recent Dune movies, but I've seen David Lynch's version so many times, it's hard for me to accept anyone but Kyle MacLachlan as my Paul Atreides.
Anyway, I loved the movie and was won over by Chalamet. I think biopics are always more successful when they set limitations and examine a specific era of a subject's life. The Greenwich Village folk scene of the early-'60s has always held an allure for me. Although they grew up in Chicago, my parents were the perfect age for that time. Together since they were 16, they graduated high school in 1963 and loved music more than anything. They were bopping around the clubs and coffeehouses of Chicago, steeping in the cultural abundance of that era during their late-teens. How lucky for them. I loved my teendom in the mid-'90s, but if there were another era I could be young in, I bet I would have thrived in that one. I'll just have to try and thrive in the present, a worthy goal for 2025.
Best of 2024
I enjoy the self-reflective tone of the year’s end. I spend some time taking stock, reviewing my past goals, looking at what went well, what went poorly, what surprised me, how much I changed, where I traveled, who I met, what I made, and other observations that left some kind of imprint on me. All of this helps me move into the new year with a certain measure of confidence and optimism. Assembled here is a Top 40 of personal highlights, ranked in no particular order.
Weeknotes: December 16–20, 2024
I guess I felt like writing this week. Happy Solstice!
Monday, December 16
My Christmas lights shine weakly against the gloom. After such a crisp start, December has retreated into rainy drear. At the supermarket I stand in the baking aisle looking for cardamom pods. The woman next to me is coming up short in her own spice search and we exchange friendly smalltalk about holiday busyness. A few minutes later she finds me in the next aisle waving in victory a small jar of ground cardamom. Such a sweet gesture, but I really want the pods. I thank her anyway.
After work I head back out into the drizzle on a longer set of evening errands. Just over a week until Christmas, but I'm thwarted on most of my stops. I do find the cardamom, though. I walk around Ann Arbor feeling dispirited, carrying only one of the several gifts I'd sought. I catch the last ten minutes of happy hour at Conor O'Neill's. I remember when this Irish bar opened in the late-'90s. It felt like an overly-commercial upstart on Main Street, but tonight I'm drawn to its well-established and unpretentious vibe. Some type of Harry Potter party must have recently happened; there are "Wanted" posters for Fenrir Greyback and "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" signs are tacked over several booths. I work on a pint of Smithwick's and write in my notebook, replenishing my cheer sip by sip.
A father with his young son approaches the bar asking if the North Pole mailbox has been taken down. The boy has a letter for Santa. The bartender disappears for a bit, then comes back to confirm said box is presently in the store room being prepped for delivery to the North Pole. He accepts the envelope on Santa's behalf, and moves off stage with a smile, ferrying away the kid’s hopes and dreams.
Year in Review: Music
I think Weeknotes might go on vacation for a little bit while I enjoy some holiday downtime. But it’s the end of the year and I do love a good wrap-up list. Featured below are a handful of records I had the privilege of reviewing in 2024 along with some I love, but didn’t review. I’ve included links to my AllMusic reviews along with buying/streaming links to support these artists.
Weeknotes: December 2–6, 2024
A condensed edition this week. Yet again, I’ve borrowed a format idea from my hero, Walknotes (thank you, Denise!).
STRAY THOUGHTS & OBSERVATIONS
I take Islay to the pet store to have her nails trimmed by a professional. She trembles, but tolerates it, giving me a wounded look through the grooming salon window. Afterward, I reward her with a walk at County Farm Park. We're behind a Ford Escape with the shaft of its rear wiper missing. I don't think the driver realizes it's on. Its little black stump wags back and forth every few seconds like a shy, sweet dog.
Weeknotes: November 25–29, 2024
It’s the start of the holidays. I’ll likely take a break from Weeknotes sometime in the next month, but for now, here’s a little Thanksgiving four-parter and some notes on the joy of running.
Monday, November 25
PART 1: I hang my evergreen wreath on the high eave of the porch. No ladder needed; I balance its fulcrum on the tip of my walking stick which I keep in a blue bucket next to the coat rack, and gently lift it up to the waiting nail placed there three years ago.
Weeknotes: November 18–22, 2024
Monday, November 18
It's mid-afternoon and I'm standing at the end of my block with Islay who is examining a hedge. Across the street a band loads out of an upstairs apartment. The first guy has a freshly-sculpted mohawk and a guitar case and is followed single file by two mismatched bandmates with amps and drum gear.
At work we are assembling our year-end lists, both for the company and as individual editors. I have some focused listening to do. At dusk I head out on foot and find myself wandering though Highland Cemetery, listening to Arooj Aftab's Night Reign on my headphones. It's a good cemetery album, more seductive than spooky. As night falls, I see a woman walking a dog in my direction down the dark wooded lane and turn around so as not to scare her. On my way out I pause at the gate which is eerily lit by a high purple streetlight. Now I'm listening to the Shovel Dance Collective, a U.K. folk group who sound a bit like Ireland's Lankum. Their slow, brooding version of the old maritime ballad "The Merry Golden Tree" is a bit of a masterpiece. I love these new dark trad bands.