Return of the Phantom Paw and Monday miscellania

Insomnia Girl here. What the heck, I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon, so I might as well post my Monday morning post a wee bit early.

I’m not done organizing my pictures from a big dyeing adventure Saturday evening, but you can read about it at Wound Too Tight. All I’ll say right now is that Deb is an incredibly gracious, generous, and all around damn fun hostess! 🙂

Janna’s knitting a bib for no reason other than to see her cat Simon in it. Go, Janna!!

Craftlilly Jennifer is having another contest! It runs through midnight, PST, Wednesday, July 26. Anne is having a blogiversary contest – what would your superpower be if you had one?

SRP update:
Quicksilver and Shadow by Charles de Lint, 357 pages. This is another book of de Lint’s early short stories. You might remember I wasn’t that keen on its predecessor, A Handful of Coppers, when I read it recently. Fortunately, in Quicksilver and Shadows, de Lint is much more accomplished. I would still limit my recommendation of this book to diehard de Lint fans, but you will find it to be much more pleasant going.
A Circle of Cats by Charles de Lint, 44 pages. This delightful children’s book about a girl who is always searching for fairies in the woods but never finding them is a prequel to Seven Wild Sisters.

Congratulations to American cyclist Floyd Landis, for winning the Tour de France against amazing physical odds!

This sign in the 50th and France neighborhood amused me no end:

Why was I as far from home as 50th and France? I met movie maven Renee of A Good Yarn Friday afternoon to catch a matinee of Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Leonard Cohen is a remarkable singer, songwriter, and poet who has been making music for a long time – he’s in his 70s – and has influenced an awful lot of artists. The 1991 tribute cd I’m Your Fan contained covers by R.E.M., the Pixies, John Cale, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The 1995 tribute cd Tower of Song contained covers by Bono (U-2), Sting and the Chieftans, Tori Amos, Willie Nelson, Peter Gabriel, and more. Even if you haven’t heard of Leonard, you might have heard his songs “Bird on the Wire” or “Hallelujah” (perhaps as covered by Rufus Wainright on the Shrek soundtrack, by Jeff Buckley, by Allison Crowe…). Probably the best concert I’ve ever been to was Leonard at the State Theater in Minneapolis on June 22, 1993.

You might have guess that I was pretty excited to see this movie. And I was disappointed overall. Most of the movie focused on the Leonard Cohen Tribute Concert in Sydney, Australia, in 2003. The concert footage was intercut with interviews with Leonard Cohen and with artists talking about how Leonard had influenced their lives and work – most notable were the interviews with Bono and Edge of U-2 and with Nick Cave. The concert footage was the weak point in the film, and since it was most of the film… However, I would suffer through that part of the film again to see the glorious few minutes of Leonard singing his song “Tower of Song” with U-2 backing him!

I have a few more pictures from my early morning purple mouse photo shoot (I wasn’t kidding about chopping off ears, was I?!). Check out the phantom paw in the first picture, and please forgive the blurry second picture…

“Mousie, mousie, roly poly mousie. Mousie, mousie, crunch him up, yum!”

“Doesn’t he look scrumptious, my SPM?!”

32 thoughts on “Return of the Phantom Paw and Monday miscellania”

  1. Hey Chris- I feel your pain- I can’t seem to get my required 12 hours of sleep lately- could it have something to do with a hot cat sharing my bed?
    Chaos says “never use your Kitty as a scapegoat” and “take that friggin’ bib off me, will ya”?

  2. That’s too bad the movie wasn’t as great as you’d hoped it to be. Of all the concert footage Cohen has, couldn’t stronger clips have been chosen? Hmmm…

    I love that sign. LOL.

  3. Yea – did you drop them?? Saturday was a total blast. I had so much fun and can’t wait until we can do it again. Thanks for all your help and guidance, snacks, and laughter!

  4. Ugh. I feel your pain with the insomnia. Up before 5 the last two days in a row.

    I hope you get some good sleep soon.

  5. Thanks to the caption of the first picture I now have the “Fish Heads” song permanently lodged in my head today. I hope you’re happy

  6. I confess I initially mixed up Leonard Cohen with Leonard Maltin. Um. I am not sure what defense I could offer, other than thank g-d I eventually figured out the difference. I am so ashamed.

    SPM! I should take a picture of the Picasso’s beloved heavily mutilated mousie, which um, is partially skinned and flattened and much much loved.

    That dyeing looked like so much fun! I wish I could have a dye party… what dyes did you use?

    I hope you’re not feeling too bleary today…

  7. Augh! Fish head fish heads roly poly fish heads… argh. Sorry to hear about the movie, I’ll probably skip it. I don’t want my perfect image of Leonard tarnished.

  8. I love Leonard Cohen, but I it sounds like I would be disappointed by the movie as well. Hope your insomnia fades, so you can get some sleep.

  9. Wow you had a busy weekend — 🙁 on the insomnia, I hope you kick it where it deserves and it lets you rest soon 🙂 I am so glad to be home in my own house, hotel beds really mess up us shikibuton sleepers!

    What a Phantom Paw indeed! I can’t even see where it went after it began to disappear! Chaos might be developing special powers for escaping attacking bibs 😉

  10. Good old Edina! I grew up a little south of that intersection, and I must admit that I miss it. I love the thought of the little blue-haired ladies out for lunch walking past that sign.

  11. I get insomnia too, but I think mine is from my messed up schedule of working grave yard shifts. OK that extra paw is scary. Sorry the movie was’nt that good, although I too would have sat thro it just to see U2.

  12. Bummer about insomnia. Hope it’s gone by tonight.

    Too bad about the LC movie! I’m still planning on catching it at the movies – they had an a cappella LC tribute band on opening night I didn’t make it too.

    Who/where is that phantom paw from?

  13. I didn’t really love the LC movie either and Isaac hated it (he is a HUGE LC fan).

    Have you read any of his books?

    Sorry about the insomnia. I get it occasionally & it sucks! I hope you sleep better tonight!

  14. Just to show how ancient I am, I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen since 1968. My roommates hated him and gave me grief everytime I put on his version of Suzanne, but I’ve always had a weakness for gravelly-voiced singers.

  15. Hopefully, you’re sleeping now! And sorry about the LC movie – I guess it was more of a tribute thing. Too bad. Maybe they thought they had to load it with “current” artists, not realizing there are plenty of LC fans around!

    And Simon didn’t particularly enjoy the bib…..

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