Downloading in the Future

I remember that periodically Charles and I used to revel, after some personal technological revelation or other, in the fact that we live in the future.

As I sit here listening to music through my new receiver (heavy and not really that futuristic) I marvel at the fact that I purchased one disc of this William Basinski box set (The Disintegration Loops) for probably $14.99 or so at The Record Collector in Iowa CIty several years ago, supposing that some day I might get around to acquiring the rest. That obviously didn't happen until one day I realized that I could legally purchase the remaining three discs (as eight MP3s) at eMusic for what amounted to under $3.

Progress is awesome.

SAN

I'd already basically decided to go to San Diego around my birthday for something (warm) to do this spring, watch some baseball*, see the sights, etc., and then I learned that you can walk to the airport from downtown in less than an hour. Under three miles. Bonus!

*The World Baseball Classic in either San Diego or Los Angeles was also tempting, but I'd rather be watching basketball than traveling in March.

PIFF

I got worried for a while there that Portland's film festival wouldn't be showing anything good. I mean, who releases a festival schedule less than two weeks before it opens?

I'm less excited than I was about Vancouver, but that was to be expected. I'd been hoping to see 24 City and Treeless Mountain, Wolf intrigues me, and the rest will hopefully be okay.

PIFF '09

SAT 14 FEB
3:00 Terra Nova (Melnik)
6:00 Shall We Kiss? (Mouret)
8:30 Treeless Mountain (Kim)

SUN 15 FEB
1:45 24 City (Jia)
4:45 As Simple As That (Mir Karimi)
7:00 The Friend (Lewinsky)

MON 16 FEB
2:30 Wolf: The Laws of Wilderness (Alfredson)

8track

So Muxtape's got a successor, which seems nearly as straightforward if not quite as perfect. My first mix features Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Dept. of Eagles, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, The Dodos, Wolf Parade, and Deerhunter.

Davenport

• On Tuesday Meryl mentioned that she was taking a castoff couch from the VS house. I decided to follow suit so today we moved one for her and one much heavier couch for me.
• This week a month-old hold item came in for me at the library: Couch, a novel by Benjamin Parzybok.
• Tonight when I got home and turned on the radio just before sitting down on my new furniture, KEXP played "Will Work for Food" by The Halo Benders. First lines: "I need a couch/I haven't got one."

Clark Kent

Tonight, around the fifth minute of the oral Tim Tebow hagiography in the second half, one of the broadcasters mentioned that, although some people doubt Tebow's accuracy, "he makes throws when it counts."

Being a bigger fan of logic than sports-related pabulum, I noticed that this was essentially the same thing that's often said pejoratively about Allen Iverson, Randy Moss ("I play when I want to play."), and any number of less hallowed athletes. Whether "clutch" athletes definitely exist is debatable, but perhaps also up for question is, if they're real, aren't they just super-talented slackers who ought to be able to play a lot harder the rest of the time?