Peter and I public transited it out to Speedway Meadows on Saturday to see us some bluegrass. Normally I like riding the bus, but somehow the MUNI #5 and I have come to be natural enemies. Perhaps it is the excruciatingly slow pace, the stops every two blocks, the surly inhabitants of the Panhandle and the Outer Sunset.

I love Golden Gate Park. There is something so deliciously decrepit about it. Later in the day the fog came in (in earnest) and the settting sun turned the air into a glowing substance. I thought of the duel scene in Children of Paradise and resolved that if I ever have to settle anything with anybody at 30 paces it will be in Speedway Meadows.

We met up with Sadie and Jen, which is more amazing than it sounds, there in the midst of thousands of people. Something is seriously broken with the person-finding bits of my brain. Neither of them stayed for Gillian Welch, which I imagine they would seriously regret if they knew what they missed. GW and David Rawlings are two of the best musicians I’ve ever seen perform live. They are really good, they are really careful, they really listen to each other, and they write awesome songs about cars.

I took my camera, with the 80-200mm zoom, and shot pictures of people in the crowd. It is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, because no one is paying attention to you, and everyone is doing something interesting. I will post the outcome to flickr once I get them developed and scanned.

Later I was at Clark and Amanda’s, where I finally understood how strange and innovative “Drive My Car” is, and there was an involved discussion about whether Bob Dylan should be forgiven his nasal inability to sing. Yes, yes he should, and if you listen to Gillian Welch’s Dylanesque “Wrecking Ball” you may come to agree.

Also, as Andro wondered a couple weeks ago at the Japonize Elephants show, do people really think about what words mean? To wit: I found an entry on climacterics on the “occultopedia” website. Occult meaning, of course, “hidden”, so one really has to wonder if the dark arts have fallen on such hard times that they have have had to resort to writing encyclopedias about the knowledge that was once only available to initiates. One is tempted to quote Chesterton on why people will believe anything, but my real question is, does it mean anything that words have ceased to be connected to each other? That the operative factor in picking a name is how much it resembles “wikipedia” and not what it means? It can’t be good: it makes it all too easy to think sloppily.

(cdm | UnconnectedI)