land of pleasant living

not that the living has been all pleasant, or entirely unpleasant. although i am unsure if i am actually within the bounds of the land of pleasant living. i've been a fan of the phrase for a while, but only recently had it properly contextualized. like a surprising number of things in clutch tunes, this was a reference to something geographically specific, namely the label on the notorious national bohemian beer. the beer is a totally decent cheap beer, quite pabst-like, and somewhere in the neighborhood of ten dollars a case. something to be said for that. in any event, i'm sure the label has said that for a long time, and it was made in baltimore for a long time, but is now made in milwaukee, unsurprisingly. as a matter of fact, heileman makes it, along with such hits as carling black label and old style.
oh, but i was not in maryland to gather knowledge about clutch references or merely to purchase natty bo (i only recently discovered the beer is called national bohemian and not that), rather, i did indeed attend the kinetic sculpture race. it covered a lot more time and ground than i thought it would, and it was an awful lot of fun. day started off gray and cold but got really excellent just after noon or so. seeing an enormous pink poodle sculpture piloted in and out of a harbor by people dressed as marie antoinette is surreal in one of the finest ways possible. one of my favorite sculptures involved a giant blue wombat, but the best part was that the people piloting all played instruments while doing so, even in the water. had a small drum kit mounted and everyone else played some kind of a horn, couple saxophones and trombones, a trumpet, good stuff. the water was probably the most fun to watch, but i really enjoyed the next leg too, which was in this park that has a wikipedia page it turns out is not worth linking. anyway, the park has quite a hill, is huge, had something to do with a civil war battle, and most importantly has a sixty foot pagoda built at the top of the hill. and yes, you can go in and up to the top, and the view is amazing. and yet, somehow, that isn't where the one picture on that wikipedia page is taken from. yeah, i guess a camera is a decent thing to have and they're cheap now and such, but it is too late now. the good news is that plenty of other people do, and the official recap of this year's race includes some really awesome pictures.
so it turns out that baltimore is really quite close, especially with traffic on a cold, damp saturday morning. but i don't really know how much i want to go back soon except maybe to visit the really cool museum that puts the race on. granted, i saw a limited part of the city, mostly the inner harbor area, but i was pretty underwhelmed. everything looks like it got put up in the last twenty years or so, i kind of expected a more historical feel. i'm sure there is plenty of that too. and if i really wanted, i could probably also easily find locations approximated on the wire. only the view from the pagoda convinced me that the place is a for real city. i guess they went from about 950k people in 1950ish to about 650k by the 90s. ouch. and yet their benches proudly proclaim their current motto: baltimore - the best city in america. that is some bold shit. and honestly, i don't think some big ass business is gonna move to your city because all your benches talk about how awesome your city is. on the other hand, there is a lot of construction going on in the center part of the city, and population is starting to rise again, so they must be doing something right. i think mostly it's that the city had a huge harbor history that dissipated, but now that it has once again become fashionable to live downtown in a big city, they have some opportunity. being a harbor, they had a ton of abandoned warehouses to tear down and build over and got to skip a good portion of the painful gentrification process. but hey, i'm no urban planning expert.
i also ate in a waffle house for the first time on the way back. the food and service were both shitty, which seemed appropriate. it was a very small one and in kind of a nowhere town not too far from the MD/DE border. the most remarkable thing was the jukebox, which contained about an eighth or so of selections that were songs about waffle house, by waffle house. i wasn't really listening to what was playing while it was on, but it started skipping and this guy got up from the counter (which accounted for about 50% of the seating) and jostled it pretty violently, successfully shutting it up. he was kind of an interesting character: probably a couple years younger than me, 30 years younger than all the other people who conducted themselves as regulars, stuck in an in-between town with a mall, long hair lip ring slayer shirt bondage pants. but he was really pleased about smacking the jukebox and getting it to shut up. sort of like an inverse fonz.
the next day i had a good time in the name of cats. some friends held a backyard benefit for city kitties, a local organization that takes care of strays and gets them foster homes and such. good cause, good people, good times.
unfortunately all of these good things are happening in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death known as finals time. i finally had my first one tuesday. i was getting tired of waiting for them to start, but alternatively i should really wish for all the time possible given that i have an outrageous amount of material to cover. my next one is con law on friday and i think i read six or seven hundred pages of small point text for that this semester; a whole lot of shit to know. and the prof is real scholarly and is bound to have some pretty high expectations. also, he talked about as many cases we weren't assigned as ones we were, and i have no idea how much of that is expected. i will find out with brutality all too soon. even though it is going to be intense, i figured i really wasn't going to do myself that much good with the last four hours of thursday night, and so i am still going to go see tea leaf green. i am psyched.
my first exam was all rooted in one hypothetical factual scenario, which was really quite funny. involved this guy from delaware who had eaten tons of food for his whole life, so much that he had trouble getting ahead. then he discovers competitive eating and wins a couple local events when he finds out about a big time event on the PA border where the food is his favorite of all time, ham and cheese croissants. big prize of 50k, plus every participant gets five free hams, as the event was naturally sponsored by the Happy Ham Corporation. so this guy really wants to gear up for the event, but he can't afford enough sandwiches to train, so he gets a sponsorship with a NJ deli. so he's practicing constantly by eating tons of ham and cheese croissants. one day, his training is derailed by a new flavor of ham, honey hickory, which disgusts him and he can't eat. he's freaking out and he calls the happy ham corporation to ask what ham will be used at the competition and they tell him original, so he's all set. the day arrives, and he's ready to rock, and then he smells it: the dreaded honey hickory ham. he tries to compete but he just gets nauseated and falls way behind. he knows he can't win and he gets super pissed and starts screaming at the CEO of happy ham, pelts him with sandwiches and ethnic epithets. so i had to explain why the case could be in federal court in PA first of all. then it was on to a question of if convicted assault, did the dude forfeit his free hams based on a participation contract demanding contestants comport themselves with dignity and honor (no clear answer on that, actually, hard to say), and all sorts of good stuff like that. so yeah, law school...
speaking of food, i had some incredibly dank dinner last night. i wish i could say that i made it, but i did not. fried artichoke ravioli with one of the most serious sauces i have ever encountered. check it out: sauteed onions and mushrooms, quart of whole milk, pint of heavy cream, probably around six ounces of gorgonzola, half a bottle of cheap champagne, and four pears sliced up all thin, and some requisite low-key things like salt, pepper, and of course a little old bay. but damn. it was so delicious. the champagne and pears lightened things up nicely; it wasn't too rich but instead perfectly savory. man, i am making my mouth water.
i have recently discovered a fairly remarkable repository of live music, leaning much more toward the hip than the hippie. i know some of you all would get excited about some of it, and other things everyone can get excited about. everything from neil young and tom waits to califone, band of horses, and bonnie prince billy. and many more. also the wilco archive is bigger than everything else put together (80 gigs or so vs. 76 - lots of tunes here folks). i think just about everybody could find something to treasure from this trove. and for all you slackers, guess what - you don't even need bit torrent. everything is lossless too. there are a few attractive-looking studio sessions on there as well (including dylan's '65 BBC sessions), if you're not much for the live thing, but just about every band i've heard of on the list there is respected as a live performer.
shit. i have so much to do tomorrow. doable (not marked) though, just have to memorize a couple hundred years of constitutional jurisprudence is all. preferably by 7 pm or so. this also means getting up on time. i hate doing that. but tomorrow i get to wake up early and review what i learned about executive power and the war on terror. definitely the way to start your day, like spilling coffee: painful, upsetting, and jarring.