Happy almost Halloween and welcome home to Petur!

We just wanted to quickly say welcome home to our beloved Peepa Petur who has been away on a film shoot for a looooonnnnngggg time. Petur, we've all missed you a lot, but I think Kathi's missed you most of all! Now we all have something really big to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Also...it's a little early yet, but I stumbled across this picture of Finn - our original wild thing. We hope everyone gets a visit from The Great Pumpkin this year. Much love to everyone. (This is Em, btw. Just so I don't embarrass Patrick by being too mushy.)

Very Harmful!!!

Books that should never be read, no matter what, under any circumstances, ever:

1 - Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

Did I forget any?

Train!!!

Hi guys, this is Em. This is a very brief post. What can I say, it’s late and I’m tired, but we wanted to put up some pictures from our Halloween Train extravaganza with the boys and Finn’s best friend Hana and her parents Kei and Duy. Among the many cool activities available in Griffith Park, definitely one of the better ones is the Live Steamers. Okay…so they’re not all steam engines, a few of them are diesel engines and, much to Patrick’s chagrin, they charge a “suggested donation” of $5, which he sometimes refuses to pay – just on principle.

But all of that aside, the boys love the trains which usually offer a fairly long, winding ride through the peaceful terrain of Griffith Park. For two weeks before Halloween, though - watch out! All hell breaks loose – literally. Every year is different, but this year they had demon babies gnawing on hands, plenty of ghoulish ghosts, a bunch of scary clowns and…for the vegetarians in the family, a giant pig b-b-qing what looked to be a person’s foot. Personally, I thought there were a few things that were a little too scary for this kind of ride. I would say the oldest kids who ride on it are probably eight or nine, but they had a very scary display at the end with a person being electrocuted and another Hanibal Lechter-type in a mask trying to break free of his restraints and yelling, “I know where you live! I’m coming to get you.” I thought that was a bit much...but luckily the part that the kids always seem to remember is a skeleton making use of an out house. This display comes complete with sfx and a gaseous green glow seeping up from under the skeleton’s buns. For some reason this particular display also features, rather incongruously, the song ‘Moon River’. It kind of gives new meaning to ‘my huckleberry friend, I guess.’

Not like you!!!!

Happy 138th to Pablo Picasso!!!

!!!

OK, what is the most ravishing song of all time? I nominate this one : )

Amy!!!

Happiest of birthdays to my delovely sister Amy!!!! We're soooooo happy to have their family close by, and I can't believe how lucky I am to be able to see both of my amazing sisters on a regular basis!!! Amy also makes great comments on the blog, and there's one on the previous entry that has her usual mix of humor and insight. Love you Amis McGurk!!

Birthday!!!

Happy 80th (!!) to Ursula Le Guin!!!!! I'll feel bad if she reads this, but I have to admit that I have tried to read many of her books and haven't really liked them...except for three books that she wrote in the late 60's and early 70's: her Earthsea trilogy. But those three books are soooooooooooo great that I still consider her to be one of my favorite authors!


These books are true classics of fantasy writing - up there with The Lord of the Rings and Narnia (actually, better than Narnia I think and neck in neck with LOTR), and if you like fantasy at all, go get them! But even if fantasy isn't really your bag, the series is so well written that everyone seems to like them - I've even had some students discover an enjoyment of reading from these books!



I can't go more than a year or so without re-reading them, and every time I find something new to love - I just finished them again and dug this:


Though he was the chief wizard in the whole island of Iffish, Vetch made his home in Ismay, this small town where he had been born, living with his youngest brother and sister. His father had been a sea-trader of some means, and the house was spacious and strong-beamed, with much homely wealth of pottery and fine weaving and vessels of bronze and brass on carven shelves and chests. All things here were well-founded, peaceful, and assured; and Ged looking about him at the firelit room said, "This is how a man should live," and sighed.

"Well, it's one good way," said Vetch. "There are others."



It's funny because we lived pretty close to her up in Portland, and I was always kind of nervous to see her because I worried that I couldn't stop myself from asking her, "What happened to your writing after Earthsea?" Which would have been horrible! So I hope she doesn't read this (not a huge worry), but just in case, all the best wishes and huge thanks for three perfect books!!

“There is a desire in you,” said Sparrowhawk, “to see dragons.”

“Yes.”

“Their blood is cold and venomous. You must not look into their eyes. They are older than mankind…” He was silent for a while and then went on, “And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.”

Wild!!!

Congratulations to Spike Jonz on this big day!! Spike has been working on the film version of Where the Wild Things Are for like the last 15 years, and it finally opens this weekend!! We’re excited to see it, and hope that it’s good and doesn’t scare (or bore) the kids too much!

But regardless of how the movie actually is, one of the great things that came along with it is the blog that Jonz has been helming for the last year or so called We Love You So. The blog loosely chronicled the final work on the movie, but that was really just one part of it. It seemed like it really just came out of Jonz’s excitement about the project and about working with so many amazing people. You could really feel his joy and inspiration almost every day in the blog, and he (and his collaborators) put up some wonderful music, art, and videos that loosely revolved around the Maurice Sendak classic. It’s been really fun and inspiring to see!!

If you missed the blog (and I really hope that he keeps it up!!), one of the best things came right at the end; there was a GREAT contest calling for people to make their best Wild Things inspired fort and send pictures in to the site! The prize was a cool Wild Things Xbox, so kids (and, let’s be honest, hipsters) everywhere immediately began tearing pillows off couches and throwing blankets over everything in order, I’m sure, to win the box, but even more, I think, to be a part of a cool pop-culture moment that someone could probably write a pretty interesting book about!




Anyway, it was great fun to see all of the entries!! I think we were a little too crazed to get one in, but it was so amazing to see the creativity that people showed, not to mention that the pictures themselves were some of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen!! Here are some of my favorites.

And finally, here was the grand prize winner! I really don’t know how they picked this one out of all of the entries, but it is a pretty cool fort! So now I just hope the movie’s good!!

You can see more of the forts here:
http://www.booooooom.com/2009/10/15/wild-things-forts-winners/#more-12380

And here is the We Love You So Site:

http://weloveyouso.com/

Keep it up Spike!!!

Ah child of boundless seas...

Happy 62nd Bobby!!

bIRTHDAY!!!

On this rainy day, "when the world is puddle-wonderful", a happy 115th to e.e. cumings:

if you like my poems let them

walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say

"Along this road i saw a princess pass

on her way to meet her lover(it was

toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

More here:

http://theotherpages.org/poems/cumming1.html

DSO!!!

Dan & I went to see Dark Star Orchestra (or DSO if you’re into the whole brevity thing) on Friday night! For those benighted few who are unaware of such things, DSO is the premier Grateful Dead cover band in the nation these days!

In our funny little post-Jerry world, there is probably a Dead cover band in every major city, and in our town there are a few, including, arguably, my band (many people would also put the surviving members of the Grateful Dead in this category). The weird thing is that there is great competitive ill will between some members of these bands – I remember one of our singers saying that there was going to be a “hippie war” between us – yikes!! The main L.A. Dead band is called Cubensis, and they refer to DSO as “Dirty Sagging Ovaries”. Aren’t you glad you never knew this?

Anyway, I’ve got no beef with the other Dead cover bands as long as they’re good, and DSO is undoubtedly the best (including, unfortunately, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead). In a way they’re kind of like Beatlemania in that they really try to sound like the original, so much so that it’s kind of spooky sometimes!

What DSO does is take one show that the Dead played and recreate the songs and the sound as much as possible. They don’t play everything note for note as this would be absurd, and would take forever just to get one show down! But the sound and the feel are pretty similar, and one of the fun things is trying to guess which show they're doing (much easier for those with Internet connections, although I did guess the year!)

It is possible that this particular form of entertainment is not for everyone, but I had a great time & Dan seemed slightly less miserable! Oh, and for the record, it was June 16, 1976 – a good show!!

Drowned Lovers - Kate Rusby

This one's working for me big time this morning.

Peace!!!!

Take a cha-cha-cha-chance...

Congratulations to President Obama!!! And happy 69th to John Lennon!!!

Pirates!!!

Six minutes later France surrendered to Somalia.
Sorry.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091007/wl_africa_afp/somaliapiracyshippingfrance_20091007151820;_ylt=Ap9f_tZb0yduCn_qgs.hDkGCfNdF

Joe.

The copper bosses killed you Joe.

Rock Pt. 2!!!!

We Morning Glory folk achieved one of our big goals this weekend: we played the Eagle Rock Music Festival!!! This is a great music celebration that takes place on Colorado Blvd. and has grown really big in the past couple of years. With all of our Eagle Rock connections, you would think that it would be pretty easy for us to get in (Dan is the mayor of Eagle Rock after all), but it’s pretty competitive these days, and we felt pretty lucky to get a spot!



One of the best things about the evening is that we started out at Senor Fish & had a fantastic dinner with lots of people we love. We also got a first look at the flyers that Joel made for us to pass out – aren’t they amazing?!! The chips were pretty good too!

It was so fun to see Mom & Panna and all of the family, friends, and kids there - I wish that we could do that more often!

Of course, as anyone at Woodstock could tell you, these big festivals have their good and their bad side. On the plus, it was great exposure, a beautiful night (complete with full moon!!), and lots of friends showed up (thank you so much guys!!).

On the down side, there are sooooo many bands now that it was really loud! Every time that we would stop, you could here the Cajun band across the street wailing away! They were great, but they weren't really supposed to be there, and it was a total volume fight. Finally, there was some bad organizational confusion which allowed another band called “Mumpo” to weasel there way into the beginning of our set time (it really was pretty slimy), and since they were TERRIBLE, quite a few people hit the road before we came up. Unfortunately, all of this meant that it definitely wasn't our finest gig. Oh well.

But...it was still a good night - and at least we had the hula hooper!! For all of the craziness, I really hope we can do it again next year!

By the way, just in case you missed it, I loved this comment from Bell:

"The festival was a blast - danced with Jack until I passed out on the grass in Em's $10,000 dress (hee hee!) - even if the band I was listening too had crashed the festival (I'll take Zydego any way i can find it) - AND it was so wonderful to see everyone ahead of time at Senior Fish (BEST potato tacos ever - still dreaming about those....). Watching the pack of kids running around and splashing in the puddles was sooo much fun (Scarlett, you little imp!).Seeing friends from the distant past was the perfect capper to an almost perfect evening (I'm still bitter that the band before Morning Glory were *ahem* less than professional, and we missed you guys playing).Thank you guys so much for inviting mom and I - it was a wonderful, rejuvenating weekend. Love you all!"

Rock!!!

Morning Glory is playing the Eagle Rock Music Festival tomorrow (Saturday) night!! We're really excited - it's a big one! Hope some of you guys can make it!! 8:30 in front of Colombo's restaurant.