doodledee

Nope, this isn't an illusion or trickery of the camera or bad photoshop work, it really is an ENORMOUS kite shaped like a bear sporing a red shirt that said "Hug Me" and it was flown by some people who drove up from Iowa for this year's kite festival and it was super duper awesome on a whole lotta levels. But really, isn't that what you expect at a kite festival on a frozen lake?

Yes it is, because kites are awesome and so is winter, even when the wind is maybe admittedly a TINY bit chillier than you'd prefer, but at least there's plenty of it to hold up the kites and the cocoa is free and the sun is bright and they play "Summer Wind" over the PA every year and every year it rules I don't care if it came off some "songs for kite flyers" mixtape.

We went back on Sunday and more or less had the whole lake to ourselves and our kites. Why must there be a festival to be festive, right? Right.

Easily easily easily one of my favorite events of the winter. (No offense to Huna's annual 'Christian Bale' movie night, of course.)

Here's the balloon drop and 'gag' from Phish NYE in Miami. I've watched it 3 times. I was in bed before the ball dropped here. Because I'm old. But good lord would I liked to have seen this run of shows. Tho that's easy to say, I suppose.

It's in HD, so go full screen and turn it up.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Here's me and Vic at the 400 back in 2003. I told him I liked his stocking cap. He told me it was cold in Minnesota. I thought maybe he'd say he liked mine. He didn't. I didn't care, I liked him because he was weird and awesome and emotional and unpredictable and funny and sad and seriously 'Zippy Morocco' is just one of my favorite songs and it's a real bummer that he's gone.

Vic Chesnutt, Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 45

Oh man it's almost time for the Olympics and you know what that means, right? Right. Snowboarding coverage in the NYT, baby! Today's sports COVER PAGE featured an article about the run-up to Vancouver and how the double cork is gonna be the move to beat. It's some new move that's hard and twisty and you know what else - it's actually kinda stylish, which is nice to see for a change given the ever present obsession on SO MUCH ROTATION that looks yes, hard, but also clumsy and awkward and silly. Stupid 1080's.

But back to the double cork. Here's the vid of Shaun White hitting it back to back earlier this year, which is mentioned in the article, and which pretty much freaked people out.

I am so pumped for the olympics. Seriously.

Oh and here's your LOCAL ANGLE: Duluth kid Mason Aguirre didn't make the cut at the first Olympic qualifier. Bummer.

Double Cork Puts Twist in Fight to Qualify for Snowboarding Team [nyt]

How crazy was it to roll into the parking lot the day winter decided it was time to party and see all these cars with their wipers pointed up at the sky. Super crazy. And totally new to me. And I've lived thru winters before. Several of them. And I've been around parking lots in winter. Several of them. And you'd think that given my extensive background in both winter and parking lots that I'd be familiar with most local genius tips and tricks for winter parking (LGT&T4WP). Especially if there was a tip that instructed you to "pop your wipers" before you go into the office. I'd be tuned into that, right? Right? Oh man.

Either way, here's my theory on this. I work in a building with a lot of people who are either ex-pats from warmer (non-snowy) climates and/or travelling road warrior consultants in from other parts of the country. Many of them aren't overly familiar with snow or cold or whatever. Some of them obvs are - like the Canadian guy I work with who rode his motorcycle every day up until like last Sunday - but there are seriously tons of people in the building who are from Honduras or Brazil or Georgia and just don't know about winter beyond the "concept" and/or "youtube".

My hunch is that it's a regional thing. Some guy who flies in from Cincinnati or something. Everybody pops their wipers in Cincinnati, duh. So he does it here. Then the clueless non-wintered masses roll in, see Mr. Cincinnati's blades, jump out of their car, yell something in Portuguese, and pop their wipes, too, assuming that's how it's done here in the Great White North. Such rubes. We don't care about blades frozen to windshields. We take PRIDE in frozen blades. We put on our choppers and pound away at them with the thick blade of a scraper we purchased at a store that also sells large chains, coveralls, and deer urine. We use push brooms and shovels. You pop your blades like that and 9 inches of snow is gonna drift over your windshield anyway. You may as well hang a white flag on the tip of each blade because yeah, you just surrendered before the fight even started.

So now my mission is to a) find Mr. Cincinnati and b) find out if he's really from Cincinnati and c) buy him a pair of choppers. Stupid Cincinnati, so much to learn about winter.

So here's the recently released video for Dylan's song 'Must Be Santa' off his new Christmas album that - like the rest of you - I thought was a joke when I first heard about it. But it's not. And weirder yet, it's actually not that bad.

And now here's this video, and it's one of those things where you laugh when it starts because it's so absurd but then when it ends you're immediately clicking the play button again because while you're not sure you really saw what you just saw, it's everything you want a Dylan holiday house party to be and you go check your mailbox and pray that today is the day you get the invitation. But it's sunday, and there's no mail today. So let's just watch this genius all over again. Perfect.

Also: Here's the 'official' youtube vid for the song. Bob's people refused embedding on it. It's slightly better quality.

My sister makes these. They're for sale in her etsy shop. You should do some holiday and/or regular shopping at her site because they're magical and seasonal and amazing and seriously she was crafty way before it was cool. Book it.

There are also watches made with safety pins and beads that look like they would take way more patience and squinting than I would be able to tolerate. You know you want one.

Can't wait can't wait cwcwcw.

Huna sent this pic over. My favorite part is the fire extinguisher. Like "hey, I tried."

It's been a rough harvest for sure. Fields are soaked, the corn is wet, it's a mess. I read that in some counties in southern Minnesota like none of the soybeans are in. It'll be curious to see if any macro trends are ever tied back to our super wet October here in the upper Midwest. I know I'll be blaming it for everything over the next 6 months. Stupid rain.

A Chinese guy I work with made a cup of tea this afternoon out of a tea flower ball and it blew my mind. This video is very similar to what he was drinking, the picture of his is below.

We talked about tea for like 20 minutes after that. I drink a cup basically every night from Labor Day thru Memorial Day. Mostly chai spice stuff or whatever, but occasionally other stuff. This dude says I'm a clown and that I should be sipping white tea in the evening. He's so particular he basically won't even drink *any* tea sold in the States. It has to come from China. I'm super excited to try it.

Here's your obligatory [and doodlecliche] Wilco shot from last Friday nights big show over at the cinder block box better known as Roy Wilkins Auditorium. All in all it was a predictably great show, if a bit slow to start. I'll bullet a few things here, just to keep it soft and easily digestible.

• We got there early because it was GA on the floor. Stood 1-deep on Nels side. PERFECT.
• Beers, bs'ing, then the opener was Liam Finn and the first song he (they?) play was jaw dropping awesome, then the rest of the set got fatiguing fast. Watching some guy loop his guitar and pound on the drums like a coked-up maniac is maybe just too intense for me. But for sure the first song was great. So I guess that's something. No offense, dude.
• Lights down, Wilco out. Price is right into the Wilco song and good lord the sound is bad at the Roy. And really it is. It has to be the worst in the city, if not the greater 5-state area. A few years back I decided I was never seeing another show at the Roy just because the sound is so bad. I think that's called 'principle' or something. But then remember when the Arcade Fire came to town and played the Roy and it was like the greatest show in the last 10 years and I was home with my principle missing it? Right. So now I go to shows there. And just to be clear - at any time my principle would have made way for Wilco. Duh.
• So yeah, they're out and the sound is bad but it's a rock show and it's danceable and great but Jeff is maybe not fully engaged and it's only the second show of the new tour and I think they were all still maybe getting their groove back. I was enjoying it, but it was maybe a bit more mechanical than your typical Wilco show. Just an observation.
• Personally I think things turned with the Impossible Germany. Nels went nuts - I know this, because I was 4 feet away from him - and that seemed to spark everyone. Then a Simple and you know it's for real when the Spiders hit and was high energy and did you guys see that guy jumping up and down like a maniac during the big guitar pounding part? GOOD BECAUSE THAT WAS ME!!! IT WAS GREAT!!!
• Late set stuff was somewhat predictable and safe with no surprises. Gary Louris comes out to play along on California Stars and I'm cheering and the kid in front of me turns and asks who Gary is. Because I'm the old timer now. Comforting?

All in all it was of course a great show and I left EXHAUSTED after like 3+ hours of music, but I'm not going to put this up there on my "oh man top 5 shows ever" list or anything.

In related news, here's a shot of the boys on the set of Prairie Home the next night. It was a great evening all around. Garrison was maybe 80% on his game. Wilco was contained and lovely. Seriously it was a great time.

And in sort of related news, here's a shot of Son Volt on stage at First Ave the Sunday prior, where they put on a show that was MUCH BETTER than I was expecting.

Sunday -> Sunday. Son Volt -> Wilco. Alt-Country bookends on a autumn week in Minnesota. We should do this every year. I'll make a few calls.

... but sometimes when I'm at my desk pounding out multinational excellence on my ergonomic wireless keyboard I like to think it's this fun and funky and spontaneous and cool. And then - like he does at the 1 minute mark here - I'll stop, turn, smile, and throw a head nod to the room before going back to the delivery of business value.

I'm not sure anybody really notices. Though my headphones are plenty loud, so I'm sure they all hear.