Grateful Dead audience tapes, stories, M.R. James on the BBC, buddy/Meriwether Lewis

Friday 4/4/25

My mother told me yesterday that she was going to lunch with a certain someone I knew, and when I asked if that someone was my sometimes buddy Amelia/Ms. Weber she confirmed that it was. But not just with Amelia, but also Amelia's mother/my sister and her two best friends--the twins Charlotte and Winnie--and their mom.

I had a message I wished delivered. The other day I saw a little girl in the Monument going to the top and she wasn't five--which is how old Amelia is--and she wasn't four and I think she was maybe three-and-a-half and she could do it but I'm not sure if Amelia can (they're coming to Boston for a visit in August, and the other two kids want to return to the Monument). This is what you say to Amelia to have her respond, essentially, with "How dare you...I'll show you."

Then again, you also never know with her.

Amelia helps keep my mom young. I smile when I think of them together.

It's strange to me how people use the term "steroids" as a positive thing. I received an email from a publicist about a book of photographs of Oasis coming out in the fall which was described as "a monograph on steroids." That makes it sound less appealing to me, more lowest common denominator.

"...when they was..."

Why do people have to talk like this? Chances are they're borderline illiterate already, so why make yourself sound even less intelligent? I see this, or hear this, and I think it might as well be a piece of trash on the street talking, but I would have more respect for the trash.

I don't listen to many podcasts, but one I regularly return to is A Podcast to the Curious, which began as an exploration of everything written by M.R. James, and then once all of that was gotten through, morphed into an examination of authors influenced by James, or connected with James in some manner, and their ghost stories. I'll go to sleep with this one--it's in the rotation.

The other night I was listening to the two hosts' review of Mark Gatiss's TV adaptation of "Martin's Close," a James story I've written about on here before. They had previously said that they thought the story would be hard to adapt for television, and spelled out their reasons, while also stating that it was well-suited to radio, but that, alas, there wasn't a surviving radio recording and no one had come along to do one.

Not true! There is a BBC recording from 1963, which is quite good. I heartily recommend it.

Hunting down Grateful Dead audience tapes here in what most would call the middle of the night but which is often the beginning of the day for me. Lot of energy/audible excitement at the Dead's 11/4/77 Colgate University show. (The Betty Cantor soundboard tape features on Dave's Picks Volume 12.) And the raw, bust-through-the-scrim-of-the-inferior-recording power of the tape of the band's first show in Ohio from 11/22/68. Bill Kreutzmann was absent so it's just Mickey Hart on the drums. There couldn't have been more than a couple hundred people there. There's one of the first longer versions of "And We Bid You Goodnight" at the end--though it's not as worked out as it'd be come the next year. Everyone claps along for that. It's a molten Jerry Garcia night.

The 2025 Red Sox have already had a longer losing streak--four games--than the 2013 and 2018 Red Sox did at any points in their season, but I thought it was important for them to win the series in Baltimore and return home at 3-4. They have to be better than they have been in recent years at home. They'll need to be markedly better at Fenway in order to have a successful season.

It'd be cool to see the Dodgers and Padres both be elite, 100 plus win type of teams and battle it out all year and heat up their rivalry further. A current day, West Coast variant of Yankees-Sox.

Bruins drubbed again last night--Canadiens did the honors this time. Bruins aren't much better than an AHL team right now. Isn't very encouraging that their first round draft pick went the entire season at Boston College without potting a single goal.

I guess it wasn't a big surprise that the Celtics dropped another home game the other night after returning from their six-game road trip, which I think can be forgiven given that they took all six games on said road trip, something a Celtics team--surprisingly, given all of the success the franchise has had--never did before. Bigger thing to me was that Jaylen Brown had a nice game in the loss--he hasn't been scoring much lately.

The Patriots unloaded Joe Milton for not very much. I don't know why. Strange timing and they should have been able to get more--it was like they didn't care if they did.

It's warmed up some and this is the time of year to really start making hay on the fitness front. I didn't have a great day in that regard yesterday so I'd like to do better today.

Things have smoothed themselves out testicularly, which sounds like a pun but isn't. No issues for four or five days now and no pain. My guess is I strained something in a nearby area, and there was a referred effect.

Got some sunflowers yesterday.

Have been working on a number of site matters for the past couple hours. Need to get some stuff fixed with search engines. Among other things. Too much has not been "indexing," so that has to be taken care of.

I'm about to jump back into "By Water," which has become about 600 words longer. Also did more work on "Hero of Mine"--yes, still--and "Still Good." Have been working through some things regarding "Finder of Views" in my head and pondering certain ideas and options with the presentation of the work itself.

Here is a photo I was sent: Is that Meriwether Lewis or my buddy? Who can tell! They recently went to California for spring break and did a hike. There was another photo of Amelia at the top of a little rise with her arms raised in triumph for having gotten to the top of it.