Episode 17: OTC Vistas, Small Talk, Walden, Unchained Melodies: Summer Songs, and Cat's Cradle
This week Dave and Steel are joined by Dave’s friend Rosie. Together the trio describe the most beautiful places they’ve ever been and discuss the greatness of Lonesome Dove, the latest in shipping crate swimming pool construction, and the legend of Mingering Mike, an imaginary soul singer who made good in the latest edition of Small Talk. Rosie and Steel also try to explain the greatness of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden to a skeptical Dave, and they have a bit of fun with a fill-in-the-blanks game. They share great summer tunes from Son Volt, Loudon Wainwright III, The Bowerbirds, Fountains of Wayne, crash, and The Drums, and Rosie drops some book wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Cat’s Cradle.
Links
OTC Vistas
- Rosie: The Spiral Jetty [an earthwork by Robert Smithson] in the Great Salt Lake, Utah
- Steel: Gandria/Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland
- Dave: Marion Lake, Wyoming
Small Talk
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Lonesome Dove
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Mingering Mike: Jon Ronson’s Guardian article and his personal website
Walden
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
Read the book.
Unchained Melodies
Son Volt — Windfall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1XrTzVzbJY&t=24s
Loudon Wainwright III — The Swimming Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdfXHWUKm-8&t=18s
The Bowerbirds — Overcome with Light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fijyCMF9D80
Fountains of Wayne — Leave the Biker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQalBzt8ECU
crash — Mad at the Clouds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnghXaEkE\_Q
The Drums — Let’s Go Surfing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHI\_lTmog4
Book Wisdom
This week’s passage (read by Rosie) came from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle. Wishing you all a ton of boko-maru in the coming days.