My Will Oldham profile

Here’s my Will Oldham profile.  (Here’s the New Yorker‘s).
Will Oldham opened the door of his Louisville ranch house, which would have been the perfect size for an upwardly-mobile young family had it not been filled with overflowing boxes of pink tank tops and multi-colored Crocs.
He punched me quickly in the face, muttering ambiguously, “I don’t [...]

Visit from Adeline & Otto

Adeline and Otto and their mom and dad are visiting from Arizona.
Attentive long-time readers may recall that Adeline was featured in Moonraking’s very first posting back in April 2008, “How Puppies Die.”  Adeline swiftly became the girls’ best buddy and then, sadly, the family moved to Arizona.  We’ve been very excited to have them back [...]

More on San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel de Allende is a beautiful and somewhat strange town.  It’s filled with narrow, cobblestone streets and has something of the feel of an Italian hill town.  My aunt lives in a beautiful house way up on a hill — to climb her actual street you really have to gird your muscles and get [...]

Freddy/ Mexico City

We were going to depart San Miguel the way we’d come: some combination of buses and cabs.  San Miguel de Allende is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Mexico City and it’s not the easiest thing in the world to get there.  In retrospect, given how tiring the trip was overall, it probably would’ve [...]

Las Posadas in San Miguel de Allende

We are in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for the holidays, staying in my aunt’s house.
Christmas is a big deal here.  There are pinatas and other holiday decorations all over the town.  And there’s a neat tradition of nightly Posadas over the 9 (?) nights up to Xmas.  There’s one big one for the town [...]

“We spent as much money as we could”

Weird/ surprising Victorian lit reference of the day: a line from Great Expectations as epitaph for the American reconstruction effort in Iraq:
At the end of his narrative, Mr. Bowen chooses a line from “Great Expectations” by Dickens as the epitaph of the American-led attempt to rebuild Iraq: “We spent as much money as we could, [...]

What the Frack?: Battlestar Galactica

We’ve been making our way through the first season of Battlestar Galactica.  I’d heard good things about it, but I’m not the biggest filmed sci-fi fan and it felt like a big commitment.  What finally inspired me was running into an old acquaintance who has pretty hip/smart taste who declared that he believes it may [...]

“Wheep wheep wheeeeep:” R.I.P. Oliver Postgate

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New Moonraking Feature

What I’m listening to/watching/reading
1/12/09

First episode of the new season of Damages on FX, with Glenn Close, Ted Danson and now William Hurt.  Wednesday nights.  We watched the first season on DVD — it’s great; very over the top with countless double-crosses, like some overheated old noir.  The NY Times review complained that the new season [...]

Jello Sculpture Art or Not?

Sarah discovered this t.v. show Art or Not? which is on the Ovation channel, whatever that is.
It’s entertaining, although there’s something about the premise that is a little bit corny — I mean, the question isn’t really whether the jello sculpture, say, is art (what else would it be?), but whether it’s crappy art or [...]