Thursday, June 27, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 06/26/19: Broken Egg and New Shoes, Soup Stock, Neil Young and Bob Dylan Movies

1.  I suddenly realized on one of my good Kellogg walks the other day that I hadn't bought new shoes for several months. So, I hopped into the Sube this morning and jetted over to Kohl's in Hayden, hoping that the make of New Balance shoe I've come to trust was in stock. I'd gone online looking for this shoe and I got the impression that it's being put to pasture, but, I thought, maybe I'll get lucky and Kohl's will have it. They did. As a small bonus, it was marked down 15 bucks (my guess? a clearance mark down), so I quickly tried on the pair I found, was satisfied with the fit, and bought them. I rocketed straight back to Kellogg.

Before I went to Kohl's, I tried out the Broken Egg, a breakfast place on Government Way I've seen many times. In a way, it reminded me going to Ye Olde Pancake House in Eugene. The cafe was bustling, lots of customers, and the majority of them were my age and older. I was not looking for a gourmet breakfast. I was going to be satisfied with a solid plate of food.

That's exactly what I got.

I ordered a country Benedict: two biscuits, each topped with a sausage patty, an egg, and sausage gravy. It was served with hash browns. The service was friendly. Nothing in the restaurant was fancy. I sat at the end of the counter on a stool and relaxed, enjoyed my food, and pondered things.

2.  I didn't go anywhere else in CdA because I was feeling drowsy and, sure enough, upon returning home, I fell into a bottomless sleep while sitting in my chair.

I checked on my latest soup stock bubbling away in the crock pot. It's a combination beef and pork stock. I decided to use the various bones I had frozen and combine them with onion, celery, oregano, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. I think the stock will be ready to put into containers and freeze on Thursday.

3. For a little while late this afternoon, I felt slightly paralyzed by wanting to plunge into several stimulating things all at once. I couldn't decide.

Should I return to Shakespeare?
Should I start season 2 of The Americans?
Should I return to Luther?
Should I watch the concluding episode of Empire Falls?
Should I watch the last 50 minutes of Farewell, My Lovely?

No. No. No. No. No.

Instead, I immersed myself in, first, Neil Young, and then, Bob Dylan.

I watched a documentary entitled, Neil Young's Music Box. Its purpose, through a series of interviews with music critics, historians, and musicians, was to account for Neil Young's eclectic musical explorations through exploring the many performers who influenced Young, starting with Elvis Presley and Little Richard and moving forward through, among others, Bob Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Randy Bachman, Steven Stills, Don Gibson, the Sex Pistols, Devo, Kraftwerk, and Pearl Jam. I'd never submitted myself to any kind of overview of Neil Young's career, to any examination of the many different styles of music he has performed and recorded. Reviewers critical of this movie want more music and less talk, or, at least, more music in support of the analysis the interviewees offered. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. But, I learned a lot from this movie and I didn't find myself thinking about what it didn't do: I had a great time listening to and thinking about what it did do.

I ended my evening by watching the first half of Martin Scorsese's movie, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story.

I'm going to finish the movie before I write about it more fully. Suffice it to say (and I think this might be true of most things having to do with Bob Dylan) that the movie messes with its audience. It's advertised by Netflix as "an alchemic mix of fact and fantasy".

Indeed.

It is that.

Until tomorrow.





No comments: