tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-276526602024-03-07T07:56:16.083-08:00The Feltonian Institute"He's got a mind like a steel sieve..."David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-30384090451866267282009-09-19T17:05:00.001-07:002009-09-20T07:58:37.440-07:00Announcing launch of new BLOG!Just what the world needs. Yeah. But, I couldn't resist. At least this one has a focus. The name of this new Web Log from the offices of the Feltonian Institute is <a href="http://www.authorappearance.blogspot.com">'Author Appearance'</a>. First I wanted to name it 'Writers Reading', but that name was taken. Basically this new blog will be a forum for me to post videos I've recorded of authors readings. I've got access to a constant stream of content in my role as bookseller at The Regulator Bookshop, and I've been recording some readings for a while, so now it's high time I at least gave these videos a chance at being shared with some folks who might enjoy them. And since it's a blog, I'd be remiss if I didn't try to entice with tasty links, so I'll be trying to steer folks towards other content, video and otherwise, dealing with authors and books. Right now all the video to be posted is from The Regulator, but hopefully I'll eventually be casting a wider net and visiting some other bookshops to record their author appearances. Cheers.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-75175826324073756382009-01-12T10:34:00.000-08:002009-01-12T10:36:17.679-08:00Details, detailsThe name of the movie I'm raving about below is "Stephanie Daley". I missed it completely in 2007. But it is available on DVD now. Thank you Margaret for the pertinent question. Cheers.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-42223659664738443592009-01-11T13:10:00.000-08:002009-09-19T17:19:51.841-07:00Finding a good movie when you least expect itLast night the football game I was interested in was a blow-out. So, after having cooked a big meal, and having had my fill, I flipped channels. I paused on Tilda Swinton's face. Then I couldn't break away from the movie. Even though it was on Lifetime (nothing against Lifetime per se, but it isn't the television channel where I end up watching movies most frequently, that's for sure) and it was showing with bleeped words and who knows what other censoring or editing or re-formatting, and with commercials, I couldn't stop watching the movie. I happened upon it at the beginning, and I stayed until the end. I stayed up 'til almost 2am watching it. I'm amazed it got shown on Lifetime. I mean the story fits their programming certainly, that I can see. But the construction of the film is so far from what I expected that I'm amazed it made it onto the list for Lifetime. Congrats to director/writer Hilary Brougher, as well as cinematographer David R. Morrison, and editor Keith Reamer, and perhaps most importantly (although they all did great work IMHO) the whole sound department, because the soundscape of the film is truly amazing. This film reminds me more of European styles than U.S. but certainly bears the marks of people certainly much more aware of both than am I. I'm definitely going to go rent this (maybe even buy it) so I can see it straight through, as intended. It could so easily have been done so badly, that I am still amazed at how Brougher handled the story. I knew Tilda Swinton was great, and this gave more confirmation of that, but now I have several more film names to watch for, especially Brougher. Whoever you are, if you dig filmmaking and like to see movies that probably came and went from the theaters so fast you missed it, or they never made it to your town in the first place, because they don't play so much by Hollywood conventions, then rush out and find a copy of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483812/">this excellent film</a>.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-24661961379696651962008-11-01T08:23:00.000-07:002008-11-01T08:29:27.968-07:00Ukuleles, Comics, & Videos! Oh My!Wow, my fourth post of 2008. Chapel Hill Comics on Franklin St. is a great independent retail shop and they moved into a great new space next to Ham's and across from the Franklin Hotel on Franklin St in Chapel Hill, NC. I showed up to the party with my video camera and caught on tape a live performance by my friends' band, THE HIGH DOLLAR HOT DOGS. Check it out.<br /><object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CyAM79ufRpQ"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CyAM79ufRpQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed> </object>David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-79675224759883123452008-06-04T07:22:00.000-07:002008-06-04T07:54:13.168-07:00Bo Diddley is dead. Long live Bo Diddley.Once upon a time in a small town just off a long highway, in a basement of a rental cinder-block house up on a ridge in the hilly hamlet, I played Bo Diddley songs with my friends. We weren't much as a band but we had some good fun in that basement, beating out our primitive covers of Bo Diddley's drivin' rockin' 'n rollin' rhythms. The band didn't last long, and we didn't learn but a few songs. But sometimes we got in the groove, and those Bo Diddley rhythms picked us all up and blew us all away like Dorothy and Toto up in the twister, off to a land of pure delight and desire and dancing and just getting down deep in the joy of making this noise together for a few fast minutes. <br />I remember those moments well and fondly now for they feel far far away. I still see all those folks sometimes but things aren't like they used to be. I dare say we will never again all be in a room together, beating out a rhythm and kicking up our own little tornado of rock 'n roll love between us. Because things change and on down the long highway we all move on, but no matter where or when, when I hear that ol' Bo Diddley beat coming through the ether I will tap my feet, remembering how I shook the maracas and shuffled my feet to the music. As I danced on the concrete floor of that basement, surrounded by my friends banging away on their instruments, I was moving to the beat of one of the gods of rock 'n roll. I want to thank him for bringing his particular joy to the guitar and thus the world, and for giving this non-musician wanna-be rock 'n roller white boy a taste many years later of what it is to get rock 'n roll deep in your soul as the vibrations and rhythms surround you and carry you away for a few fast minutes, no matter where you are, where you've been, or where you're going.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-45517091724153218172008-02-14T08:56:00.000-08:002008-02-14T16:36:52.488-08:00Pro baker, great cook, & friend o' mine's new food blogCathy Cleary, a good friend of mine from college days at UNC-Greensboro who now lives in Asheville and is an owner/operator of a great bakery (<a href="http://www.onhaywood.com/westendbakery/">West End Bakery</a>, that's Cathy in the second picture from top pulling bread out of the oven & her co-owner Krista is at the register in the photo at top; also see Cathy further down icing the cinnamon rolls which are the best I've ever put in my mouth; everyone should visit them and the other cool small shops on Haywood Road when next in Asheville) in the West Asheville neighborhood she and her husband Reid call home, has given up non-local food for lent, and she is blogging about her experiences <a href="http://localfoodtileaster.blogspot.com/">here</a>. Check it out for some eating-local inspiration. Be warned, it will make your mouth water. Bon appetit!David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-7806000095017797282008-01-03T21:33:00.000-08:002008-01-03T21:50:23.576-08:00Errol Morris always blowin' my mind...I first encountered Errol Morris when I was a video store clerk at the late lamented Durham Carolina Theatre Video Store. I've tried with reasonable success to keep tabs on his career over the years, always to my great pleasure. Tonight I discovered that he is blogging at The New York Times. My god, his blog is overwhelmingly amazing. I mean really folks, he blows my mind with his mind. I only began to read one post and had to stop because I was about to be reading his blog for hours if I didn't break away. I will return, ASAP & AOAP, when I have a little more focus and time to spend. If you want to dive in to the deep end with Mr. Morris I can heartily recommend starting <a href="http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg-part-one/">here</a>. After going down the rabbit hole @ his NYT blog, go check out his personal <a href="http://www.errolmorris.com/">website</a>, where you can watch some of the best commercials you've ever seen but didn't know were directed by one of the world's greatest living film directors, and plenty that you've probably never seen, and much more beyond. If you haven't seen his films do yourself a favor and make arrangements to as soon as possible.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-47257288616205793142007-04-24T21:10:00.000-07:002007-04-24T21:34:31.758-07:00Surfin' past my bedtimeI am so close to finishing my undergraduate college degree, at long last. I started in 1989, left for a year, went back, bailed out again at the last moment, stayed gone ten years, then went back for a third try, now after 6 semesters, the last 2 full-time while working 32 hours between Friday and Sunday, I find myself with just a handful of days left and much more work to do... but damn if I'm not feeling less motivation than a slug looking for a beer.<br /> Instead of working on a paper, I've been distracting myself with surfing. I think I have fallen hard for a new web radio social sharing thing called last.fm. I have enjoyed Pandora some at work, but for whatever reason never at home. Next time you're surfing and want to put on the headphones and listen to a commercial free mix which you can customize, give last.fm a try. If you like female chanteuses then check out Keren Ann at last.fm, and then run out and buy one of her cds.<br /> I fell in love with her album NOLITA last year. Since right now basically all my music is in storage, I was very happy to hook up with last.fm, find her radio station, and get to hear some of her other stuff. I had kind of forgotten about her, since I haven't had access to her cd in some time. She is fantastic. She sings in French and English. I'm not sure there is anything sexier than a woman singing in French... well... I could maybe think of a couple of things... but it's way up there...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-29714240818156283172007-04-18T21:12:00.000-07:002007-04-18T22:34:45.004-07:00Ross McElwee is the man!I love me some <a href="http://rossmcelwee.com/home.html">Ross McElwee</a>! Hell yeah. Thus, I'm pissed that I didn't get to see him receive a <a href="http://rossmcelwee.com/news.html">Career Achievement award</a> at the <a href="http://www.fullframefest.org/">Full Frame</a> documentary film festival happening right here in good old Durham. Full Frame was celebrating its 10th anniversary. Wow. Ten years. What a trip.<br /><br />I was working part time at The Carolina Theatre when the festival began its life as the Doubletake documentary film festival. I discovered McElwee's films while working at the dearly departed Carolina Theatre Video store. I fell in love with his personal narrative verite style the first time I saw <a href="http://rossmcelwee.com/shermansmarch.html">'Sherman's March'</a>. <br /><br />I've fantasized of making a documentary of my own all about how I love McElwee and about how our lives have intersected in small contingent ways. Such as: I was dating a woman who worked for the original iteration of Doubletake magazine at the time of the first Doubletake Documentary festival. Leading up to the first festival there was a fundraiser shindig of some sort at the NC Museum of Art. My girlfriend Rebecca asked if I might want to go. Remembering it now I'm not even sure if she was going to be there herself. Maybe I used her ticket or something. I don't remember her being there. Probably I've simply forgotten because I became so starstruck at being in the same physical space as Ross McElwee. So there I was, a part-time video store clerk and projectionist at the Carolina Theatre who lived with his Grandmom in Durham, all dolled up in my best bow tie and my deceased rich uncle's camel hair sweater, trying to look like I belonged amongst the glitterati and cognoscenti such as they were that night, but mainly trying to disappear as much as possible.<br /><br />I was hugging a wall and clutching a drink and trying to be as unnoticeable as possible. (Trying to remember this all now I think that Ross was showing a piece of a work in progress and that was the reason I went in the first place. I think he showed some of the footage which would later become <a href="http://rossmcelwee.com/brightleaves.html">'Bright Leaves'</a>. At this point in the evening I had seen the sneak preview and was just hanging out for free drink & food and the chance to 'hang' with Ross for a while.) I didn't do a good enough job of keeping a low profile. All of a sudden a local TV news crew was in my face and I was giving an interview about what I thought of Doubletake and Ross. I couldn't believe they picked me. Just minutes before I had been watching them interview McElwee himself. On the news later that night I made the cut and contributed some banal soundbite to the story. I want to say that it might have even been edited so that I appeared immediately after Ross in the piece.<br /><br />So, yeah, that happened. And I have that news broadcast on a VHS tape somewhere. I think I labeled the tape 'ME & MCELWEE'. Ever since then that has been my pet name for my fantasy documentary. Over the years I've added a handful of other little stories which would go into the documentary. Me and McElwee just seem to have some weird wavelength thing going on. Just tonight I was thinking about composing a blog post congratulating him on his well deserved award, when I stopped by my ex-girlfriend's excellent blog, <a href="http://littleradioshow.blogspot.com/index.html">'My Little Radio Show'</a>, and lo and behold she had been blogging about McElwee. She is a big documentary fan and she had gotten to see him at the festival. Unfortunately she screwed up her ankle, tore a ligament and took some bone off with it, when she stumbled on some steps at the Theatre, but she did get to see Ross. Not only did she get to see him accept his award, but she caught him napping in the Marriot lobby. She wanted to get a picture of him asleep but she didn't because her phone photo function is still a mystery. That would have been hilarious if she had got that photo. That would have definitely gone in my documentary. But Charlotte already had secured a place in the documentary (even if it only ever gets made in my head) because she was responsible for me introducing myself to him one evening a couple of years back.<br />'<br />He was in town to show 'Bright Leaves' at The Carolina (where else) and I dragged my friend Margaret out to the screening. We ran into Charlotte afterwards and the three of us walked over to dearly departed Jo & Joe's to have a beer. Fifteen minutes later, in walked McElwee with some folks from the Center For Documentary Studies. We three were sitting directly across from the bar and McElwee and company came to the bar to order drinks. It was basically us and them in the bar and Ross was standing directly behind me at this point. At Charlotte's urging (she had no doubt been listening to me gush about how I loved McElwee's films) I got up my gumption and turned around and tapped him on the shoulder and introduced myself and told him I was a big fan and I might have thanked him for coming down to Durham to screen Bright Leaves, for it was the first time I had had the pleasure of seeing his work on the big screen rather than the small. He was nothing but friendly and gracious. He thanked us for coming out to see the movie. I turned back to my beer thankful that Charlotte had been there to give me that little push when I needed it.<br /><br />If I ever make that documentary all y'all are all invited to the premier. If there's any justice it will be at the Carolina...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-40844854359377149162007-04-10T22:18:00.000-07:002007-04-11T07:34:07.246-07:00Discipline of imperfectionOne problem I have with this type of instant publishing is that errors of multiple sorts creep in. I get all crazy about little things like having misspelled 'weird' in my response to my friend Joe's response on the previous post. I have words that in typing and writing by hand I often invert the letters of. Words with e before i seem to give me particular trouble. Oh, well, this instant publishing can perhaps teach me to relax my perfectionism on that front a little. I think I have posted before about this sort of perfectionism as a block against writing. I've wrestled with procrastination most of my life, and the other day I was reading something which discussed links between perfectionism and procrastination. In my experience that is spot on. I want something to be perfect, I know there is about a 99% certainty that it won't meet my desire for 'perfection', so I put off doing it at all. In this world of weird logic it is better not to have done a thing than to have done it imperfectly. I think it better (for me at least) to try and develop an approach where it is better to have done many different things, some which will stink, some which will smell fine, and some, if we're lucky, which will approach in some small way the natural beauty of a flower in bloom. I think of cooking. For years I barely cooked at all because I was such a perfectionist about it. I would try to follow a recipe, then I would freak out because I didn't have the tool they told me to use, or I had bought tartar sauce instead of cream of tartar, so I would throw up my hands, throw my disaster in the trash, and eat a bowl of cereal. Nothing wrong with eating cereal, but why did I feel that every time I tried to cook I needed to create a perfect dish? Now, I still don't cook a whole lot. But I like cooking and am able to roll with the inherent imperfections a little better. I'm a little more experienced and a little more patient with my self. I realize the value in doing things imperfectly over not doing them at all. Of course perfectionism is not all bad. I think it can help us people persist in some rather quixotic pursuits which we absolutely won't do unless perfect to our imagination. And if we can achieve the 'perfect' results we desired then we just might have made something whose 'rightness' will be a balm to us and perhaps even a joy to some other who shares the sense of the things 'perfection' and marvels at the obdurate effort of the creator to bring forth such a thing and then is maybe inspired to try and create something 'perfect' according to their lights... So, it is good to have a light touch when it comes to perfectionism. Don't hold on too tight or it might turn into a weapon which you are using against yourself, but don't let go completely because you may be able to do beautiful work with it if you can learn to use it well. Now, quick before I delete this post because I don't think it is 'perfect', I'm not going to reread it, and I'm not going to correct anything after it is posted, I'm just going to... hit.. the.. publish.. button.. now...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-34713215701676799942007-04-09T21:28:00.000-07:002007-04-09T21:44:39.694-07:00After MidnightI didn't blog all of March. Now it is April. Life runs away with me. I like to visit here every once in a while. The other day I thought of my heart as not being broken, but rather, thought of the possibility of imagining that my heart was held in a vessel, and that the vessel which held my heart as being broken... I've been reading a lot and staying up too late and staring blankly at my computer as I try to figure out how to write all the papers I need to in the next three weeks in order for me to finish this semester of college. The other day in an email to a friend and fellow blogger (go check him out at Fallout Shelter, he's good people) I thought of all of us bloggers as folks who were giving each other the chance to become our own fans. I think this is a cool way to look at these endeavors. Often I wonder about why I want to do this at all, and about why so many folks these days are doing some sort of blogging, and I have many more questions than answers, but I think that at the least it is an interesting way to 'get to know' some people better. It is a way for folks who know each other already to share with each other more, and it is a way for folks who may never know each other any other way to share at all. We can be each other's fans. It is a way of extending friendship and a new way of being friendly. I'm still learning how to be a better blogger (which I guess for me means learning how to be a good community member in some sense) and I'm enjoying the effort, slight as it may be. Maybe this Summer will see me blog a little more...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-57216415547250677782007-02-24T14:52:00.000-08:002007-03-04T09:48:16.588-08:00Home away from homeThese days I sometimes make a pallet on the floor and call the bookshop home for the weekend. I work Friday to Sunday. Except for my lunch breaks and moments necessary to meet other bodily needs, I can be found at the store (during normal operating hours of course) from 11am Friday until 6pm Sunday. I used to go home, even for my lunch breaks. That was when home was with my girlfriend in Durham. Now that I broke up with my girlfriend, I had to find a new home. Good thing I still have part ownership of a house in Burlington. It's a great old house (see pictures <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/runder/sets/1496702/">here</a>) that my buddy Noah and I (with a whole lotta help from family, significant others, and friends) have spent the last 8 odd years restoring. I lived their briefly but decided to leave last summer and move in with my girlfriend. Now I'm back at the house while I finish my undergraduate degree at UNC-Greensboro. So I'm living in Burlington and coming to Durham on the weekends to work. Between being at the shop all day and the drive home being 45 minutes one way, I find it better to stay in Durham rather than doing all that driving. Most weekend nights I feel like getting out of the store for a couple of beers with friends after work. But some nights, especially when I have a lot of schoolwork to tend to, I like to lock the door behind my departing coworkers, and enjoy having the bookshop, with unused cafe space, all to myself. Last night I made a salad, had a beer with it, read an interview with the British theologian Sarah Coakley for my class entitled "God, the Body, & Sexual Orientation", and then read some more in Kobo Abe's novel <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Woman in the Dunes</span>, then I practiced playing Buffalo Girls on the baritone ukulele. Then I turned out all the lights and headed for the "fur vault" (The bookshop is in a building which originally housed a dry cleaners and they had a vaulted room where they stored furs for the summer. Now it is sans vault door and serves as the shipping and receiving area for the store.) where I squirmed into my sleeping bag, zipped myself up, set my alarm on my cell phone, and drifted off to sleep. Call me crazy, but I kinda like calling the bookshop home away from home on the weekends. (Not that I want to live like this for the rest of my life, mind you.)David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-14830446158537159302007-02-22T07:31:00.000-08:002007-02-22T08:20:54.440-08:00Ryszard Kapuscinski, R.I.P. 3/4/1932- 1/23/2007I just learned that Ryszard Kapuscinski passed away last month. Kapuscinski is one of my all- time favorite writers. He was a journalist who wrote like a poet. That is what I have said for years and only now that he has passed away do I learn that he wrote poetry as well. Go read this obituary at The Guardian to learn more about him: <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1997953,00.html">http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story</a><a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1997953,00.html">/0,,1997953,00.html</a>. First thing when I get to the bookshop on Friday I'm going to order a bunch of Kapuscinski's titles. I'm ashamed to say that I'm terrible about making sure the shop has copies of my favorite books. There are lots of reasons, but none that good. I discovered Kapuscinski at the bookshop years before I started working there. Anyone who loves reading beautiful, clear, imagistic, non-fiction prose should go find some Kapuscinski. I bet they have some titles hanging around over at 'The South's Greatest Bookstore' if you are down with navigating the publisher organization system. Heck, I bet the Durham Library has at least one or two Kapuscinski titles. I first read and fell in love with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Imperium</span>, his book of essays about traveling around the U.S.S.R.; <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Soccer War</span> is wonderful, describing Kapuscinski's experiences covering the 1969 war between El Salvador and Honduras whose flames were fanned by the two national football teams playing each other in World Cup qualifying; the last thing of his I read was <span style="font-weight: bold;">In the Shadow of the Sun</span>, which is an amazing portrait of Africa as seen by Kapuscinski over many years of reporting. Undoubtedly the world has lost one of its most wonderful chroniclers. May we all enjoy well what he left us. Hell, we could probably even learn a thing or two if we read him well enough.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-79081703898512052682007-02-18T09:35:00.000-08:002007-02-18T13:00:23.793-08:00Reading List for the Brokenhearted...or for anyone interested in thinking about what it means to "be in love". In the wake of recently breaking up with my girlfriend of a year and a half, I'm feeling drawn to books which might help me think about the whys and wherefores of "love". The two titles into which I have dipped in the last few weeks are <span style="font-weight: bold;">Against Love</span> by Laura Kipnis and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties. </span> I have read the first 30 odd pages of<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>the Kipnis book (a polemic which consciously eschews "fairness" for the sake of argument) and have found it resonating with some of my experiences and thoughts on the subject. So far one of the interesting issues she is discussing is the idea of love-relationships as being situations which inherently require a lot of work. This is an idea which I have found myself intoning more than once, but it comes in for some interesting critique by Kipnis. I picked up the Rilke book, flipped it open randomly, and found Rilke weighing in on how love required difficult work. I need to read more of both, and think more about how love-relationships should and should not be sites of work. Anybody have any favorite books which illuminate the labyrinths of love?David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-79179469634181645372007-02-16T10:42:00.000-08:002007-02-16T12:37:31.909-08:00Life is what happensI once read that life is what happens between the dates on the tombstone. Life is a hyphen. In the world of web logging I reckon you might say that life is what happens between posts. Between my last post and this one I broke up with my girlfriend. This is sad in many ways. Maybe I'll do some navel gazing about my love life later on. (I'm of half a mind to start a new blog dedicated to stories of "love", call it something like "Love Letters", or maybe I'll just use this blog for some posts on that tortuous and wonderful subject...) But for now I will recommend everyone go check out my ex-girlfriend's new blog. She is a natural. She has posted more in a few weeks than I ever have. She has a focus, her radio show, which is excellent, if you dig her taste in music, which I do. The name of her blog is My Little Radio Show. When I have more time I'll link to it. If anyone knows of any blogs which are focused on affairs of the heart I'd dig hearing about them. 'Til next time...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-16110400770348550342006-12-21T07:04:00.000-08:002006-12-21T07:39:32.573-08:00Hey, that's my car!Yesterday my girlfriend and I went shopping. First she had to go get a new driver's license. At the first place we went, a strip mall in a land of strip malls and condo developments, the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) office was closed. Closed as in no longer there, as in moved somewhere else. We got back in the car and drove to a different, smaller, probably cheaper for the State to rent, strip mall space. My girlfriend was about to park one place and I saw spaces closer to where she was going and pointed to those. (God forbid any loved one of mine should have to walk more than necessary at the strip mall.) She pulled in to a spot next to a familiar looking car. I said, "That's my car!"<br /><br />And I do believe it was my car. My old car that is. My old granny car. (Upon seeing what I was driving a friend once asked "Is that your Grandmom's car?", to which I had to reply, yes. He had a friend who had the same car. It had belonged to the person's Grandmom.) A car which had a strange provenance. My maternal Grandfather's brother passed away in late '94. He was a widower and lived in Carmel California. He had a home aide living with him at the time. This 'aide' was rotten. He ended up in jail for using my Great Uncle's credit card. Great Uncle Alton's house was broken into after he died. His Cutlass Cierra was stolen after he died. The police recovered the stolen vehicle by following the trail of associates of the rotten 'aide'. <br /><br />I went to Carmel in early '05 to housesit while my Mom and Grandad executed the estate from back in N.C. It was a strange gig, hanging out in a dead man's house, a man whom I had met only three or four times if that, going through all his belongings, preparing his house for sale, answering his phone and informing charities he had contributed to that he should be removed from their lists, etc. I also drove around in his previously stolen vehicle. I was slated to drive the car back to N.C., but those plans changed. The car did make it back to N.C. though, and it became a second car for my grandparents. I ended up living with my grandparents a few months later. I ended up driving that car on a daily basis. <br /><br />Three years later, after both my grandparents had passed away, the car became mine. Three or four years later I sold the car for a few hundred dollars to a neighbor. That neighbor traded the car in and got a new car. I last saw the car probably three or four years ago. Then my girlfriend and I pulled into that parking spot yesterday, in a place I had never been before, and lo and behold there was my old car, my grandparent's old car, my great Uncle's old car, sitting next to us, with two people inside eating their breakfast. I was drinking my Biscuitville coffee from breakfast. I knew the car was my old car because it had the smear of yellow paint on its back passenger side bumper where I had backed up on a yellow parking post years ago. I had tried to get the paint off and it was like it had been embedded in the bumper. <br /><br />So I sat next to that old car, thinking about what the odds were that we pulled up and parked right next to it in that parking lot. The people were waiting for someone in the DMV office. When their person came out they started the car and it sounded like crap. Just like it had when I sold it. As they drove off I wondered if I would ever see the car again.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-40653457846035219322006-12-18T12:08:00.000-08:002006-12-18T12:34:17.395-08:00Seen on the highway, 2I would love to be driving on I-40/I-85 one late night or early morning and get a glimpse of some of the brave and foolish souls who dangle themselves off the sides of highway overpasses all in the cause of inscribing some message or other in hopes of broadcasting their sentiment to the larger world. Has anyone out there ever witnessed such an event? In my younger days, when I was involved in some social activist work, I and a couple of other folks hung a banner off of one of the main highway overpasses in downtown Atlanta, under cover of dark, in an attempt to get some media coverage. Thank goodness we got the media coverage we wanted out of it, because the process was deeply scary and nerve wracking. But most folks who undertake to use the overpasses as guerilla billboards seem to be driven by more personal desires than media coverage of some social issue. A couple of months ago I saw that someone had put themselves in harm's way in order to declare their love for 'Angela'. (I use quotation marks because I don't remember if this is the correct name or not.) They put up something to the effect of 'Angela I heart you'. Seeing these inscriptions always makes me wonder about the person, or persons, who managed this feat, especially due to my own experience with such a stunt. I'm here to tell you that it is a logistically challenging undertaking. Now this instance has distinguished itself from any other I've seen. After having their love message shown to the world for a couple of months I saw one day that someone had come and painted over the 'Angela' part of the message. Oh how I would love to know the story behind this series of events. It was as if the love had gone wrong and the lover had been compelled to return to their original message and white out the beloved's name. Since I will likely never know the real story, I am tempted to make one up. I wonder if anyone is ever arrested for doing these things? I would love to read the police reports for those arrests.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1162186186584658022006-10-29T21:18:00.000-08:002006-10-29T21:29:46.600-08:00Did I Really See That?It's one of those things that later you wonder "Did I really see that?" I wish it wasn't real, but I really saw it. On I-40/I-85 on my way to Greensboro from Durham, seen on the back of an eighteen wheeler, a home-made looking bumper sticker saying "GOD GUNS GUTS = NO LIBERALS". What do you think the person was thinking when they put this on their vehicle for all to see? If people had more God, more Guts, and more Guns, there would be No Liberals? I'm not sure about the "=" part of the equation, it may have only been a dash.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1160017828638175722006-10-04T20:10:00.000-07:002007-02-18T13:02:53.825-08:00Seen on the highwayMonday through Thursday I do a round trip from Durham to Greensboro as I attempt to carry a full load of classes at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. So far (at about halfway for this semester) my four classes are going well. Monday to Thursday I'm on the highway around two full hours give or take. I see some strange things.<br /><br />Today I saw a Hummer, strange all on its own, but this one was a company vehicle for a company which was touting something called "4-D" imaging for sonograms or whatever those wierd in-the-womb pictures are called. So this Hummer has, across its wide rear, the name of the company flanked by two mirror image "4-D" scrunched-up in-the-womb baby faces, each at least two feet tall and appropriately wide, which were an unnatural amber-gold computer screen color. The face was repeated on the side I passed, but just one image there.<br /><br />Then I saw a gas tanker for the Sheetz gas station. Sheetz is a newcomer to the milieu of oversized trucker-oriented, car friendly, restaurant bedecked, megaliths which cozy up to the shores of I-40/I-85 between Durham and Greensboro. Sheetz is new to me and I have yet to get fuel there. I stopped once but they weren't open yet, it turned out all the cars at the pumps belonged to people who were learning how to work at Sheetz. For a place that wasn't open they seemed to have an awful lot of people working there. Training is a big job, and just from what I saw on that drive through and from what I can intuit from there billboards, Sheetz is quite an operation.<br /><br />I have heard rumours that one of there selling points is more, maybe better, food with the option of ordering it via your gas pump. I guess it was just a matter of time before someone put together the fast-food drive-through sqawk-box and your smart, helpful, friendly 21st c. gas-pump. With the gas truck Sheetz again caught my eye with their bold red color scheme, but I realized that they had done something I hadn't seen before. They had turned their gas tanker truck into a billboard for their luscious food-oriented gas-station-convenience store. Something about seeing food so brightly and boldly represented on the side of a tank full of gas was unsettling to me.<br /><br />Maybe Sheetz will eventually patent a gas-pump which will include a hose we can stick down our throats and for three bucks get super-food-slush pumped down our gullet while we feed the needs of our autos. Hey, as long as I can use my card at the pump and avoid all human interaction, I'm all over it. Sanitation would be an interesting issue but just think of the millions to be made off whatever disposable plastic solution is come up with.<br /><br />In other notes: Dr. Marc Bregman, my professor in the class devoted to the story of Abraham and his offering of his son to God, whom I like very much as a professor and who seems to be a generally likeable and good person, had worn the same shirt, or set of identical shirts, to every class up until last week. The class meets once a week, Tuesday nights. So for 5 or 6 Tuesdays in a row Dr. Bregman sported the same shirt, or indentical shirts. I like the thought of such wardrobe discipline and organization. I've heard stories of eccentrics who wear the same outfit daily in order to save time, etc. But I've never managed anything near such a state of discipline or organization.<br /><br />The shirt Dr. Bregman wore wasn't one I would chooose to wear for six Tuesdays running, but it suited him, and regardless our differences in taste, I respect his consistency. However, last week, he wore a different shirt. And this week he wore the same different shirt, or one identical to it. Maybe he is on a six week rotation. How many shirts would he need to cover such a rotation? My girlfriend thinks I have too many shirts. But I'm not sure she would be down with the daily shirt plan on a six week rotation. Maybe some day, when I'm older and wiser, I'll enjoy the wardrobe discipline and simplicity of such men as Dr. Bregman. I could do a lot worse, I reckon. Stay posted for updates of the Dr. Bregman Shirt Watch here at The Feltonian Institute of random observations and rambling cogitations.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1154617867720528552006-08-03T07:17:00.000-07:002006-08-03T08:11:07.776-07:00Apologies...I remember once writing in a journal that I sometimes felt as if I needed to apologize for all the apologizing I do. This still holds true in some sense. Staring at my web log I look at the date of my last post and I feel guilty. I feel that old apologetic urge hitting me. "I'm sorry for not posting more." There is something really lame in my urge to apologize. Something to do with the insecurity which is better than it was when I was 15 or 25, but having just turned 35 it is somewhat disturbing to realize that one is still in so many ways dealing with the same issues as one was ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years ago.<br /><br />The optimist in me says that it is better now because at least I recognize, in some dim way, what some of the problems are, as opposed to simply suffering under the weight of things which feel as if they are immutable. When is it better not to apologize and just keep moving on, not looking back, not wishing we could have done or said that one thing differently so as not to hurt someone else or ourselves? At least here in the solipsistic world of the web log I'm not hurting anyone by rambling on in my neurotic way, and there is a refreshingly high likelihood that hardly anyone (except those who are already far too familiar with my neuroses and have hopefully decided that it is worth hanging out with me here online or in person despite my shortcomings) will be reading this.<br /><br />And yet, alas, I am overwhelmed with the urge to apologize for even writing this, because it brings up the issue of 'champagne problems'. Are all psychological difficulties 'champagne problems'? Should everyone in therapy for anything but the most dire, life threatening problems, stop paying psychologists and start giving the money to... people whose basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter aren't even being met, or the organizations in your locality set up to help those most unfortunate, perhaps those so mentally ill that they can't meet their most basic needs...<br /><br />In the interest of disclosure I must say that I have gone through close to a years' worth of therapy and it definitely helped me out in some ways, although obviously I could use some more time with my 'mind doctor' (as Jim Harrison calls his pscychologist in his excellent memoir, Off to the Side) and I wish that insurance covered therapy better so that more people instead of less could experience some of the search for the 'logic of soul' which one seems able to tap into by going to visit a total stranger for 45 min to an hour a week (or more) and talking about the most intimate details of one's life... seems that in our society, that of the U.S. of A. here, as is all too often the case those who need it most are cut off in some mix of ways from receiving the care they could so greatly benefit from, and which subsequently all would benefit from, yes, universal healthcare and more therapy for everyone...<br /><br />Lawdy, I'm a dangerous fool with a blank html box and a keyboard. I will resist the urge to apologize for my ranting and raving... I mean, who would I be apologizing to, exactly, anyway...<br />maybe from now on I'll just stick to waxing nostalgic and ecstatic about food... but I wouldn't count on it, my wild inconsistency knows no bounds... Maybe I've just been sucking too many paint fumes from removing old paint with a heat gun the last couple of days. Come to think of it, my coffee's almost done so it is time to re-enter the 'real' world and suck some more paint fumes...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1152635104324333332006-07-11T08:06:00.000-07:002006-07-11T09:25:04.433-07:00Honeysuckle RamblingsI've been meaning to record another entry in this web log for some time. Since May tenth to be exact. I want to tell the world about the ten millionth wonder of the world which is HONEYSUCKLE SORBET. As far as I know this wonder is to be found only at the wonderful CROOK'S CORNER restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC. (Forgive me, but damnit, there is a lot of wonder in this world.) One lovely Sunday evening in late May or early June sometime, my girlfriend Charlotte and I decided to stop by for dinner. We had been thinking about honeysuckle sorbet and soft shell crabs because they had come up in conversations about Bill Smith, Chef at C.C., and author of the wonderful new cookbook SEASONED IN THE SOUTH: RECIPES FROM CROOK'S CORNER AND FROM HOME, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.<br /> Mind you, I haven't actually cooked anything out of the book yet, but I have read all of Smith's short essays and a fair number of the recipes, and I can tell you that it is a close second in charming to the experience of eating dinner at Crook's. If you are a fan of Crook's this is a wonderful companion piece to eating there, even if you never intend or never manage to cook from it. If you have never heard of Crook's Corner and have a slim to none chance of enjoying it in person, then this is the book to get in order to enjoy a great piece of what another, better known, Smith (Dean, that is) has been purported to call 'the Southern part of Heaven'.<br /> You can even try your hand at recreating honeysuckle sorbet at home. Next Summer when the honeysuckle blooms I will be tempted to try this myself. But then again there is something ineffably attractive about not attempting this and enjoying the unique experience of going to Crook's to enjoy the yearly small batches made under the direction of the man who created this ethereal dessert. I have been assiduosly avoiding attempting to describe the sorbet itself because it will do it such a disservice. I guess this is more or less true of all food description. But if you are from parts of the south where the Honeysuckle blooms then you may have some idea. <br /> When I was a kid attending Moore Elementary School in Winston-Salem there was a fence around the school playground where the Honeysuckle vines grew thick. When the flowers were in bloom I remember standing around with other kids, eschewing the more traditional pleasures of recess for the wild deliciousness of the Honeysuckle. We would pick the flower then pull out the stamen with as much care as an eight year old can manage. If we did this well, and the flower we selected was good and ripe, we were rewarded with a single swollen globe of viscous clear nectar (??!) which was packed with a perfumed taste of such subtle strength it makes me swoon to think on it.<br /> We would gorge ourselves on this bounty and never get enough because it was doled out in such tiny portions. One sucked on many flowers which for various reasons packed less than the desired amount of Honeysuckle essence, thus the perfect ones were all the more precious. This whole process of being outside on a hot Spring day and smelling the Honeysuckle and knowing that the time was right for a session around the vine with friends, picking flower after flower and making a sour face over the duds and exclaiming with delight and wonderment over the perfect ones, but either way the taste lasting just a moment, then dropping that flower and stamen and moving on to the next, over and over, and still never seeming to come close to making a dent in the proffered bounty of small flower cones from the vines, I imagine this is all too marvelous to be bested by any restaurant experience as an adult.<br /> But, my gawd, what a wonderful reminder of that childhood pleasure Bill Smith offers us for two or three weeks each Spring, when you can sit outside in the lovely courtyard at Crook's Corner and end an excellent meal with this cold concoction which is the equivalent of getting about five minutes worth of perfect Honeysuckle suckles straight off the vine.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1147275011406343622006-05-10T08:29:00.000-07:002006-05-10T09:31:04.613-07:00Why bother blogging?I don't know why I want to blog. I'm not even 100% sure I do want to blog. But here I sit, blogging. Maybe I just want to be able to say 'blog' as much as possible because it is a funny word. If anybody really smart reads this and can tell me what kind of word blog is in a linguistic sense of a word which is born of the shortening, the contraction(?), of another word, here weblog (was that one word or two?), then please explain it to me. Maybe I should finally get back in touch with the first girl I ever kissed, Erin McKean, and ask her about this. When we met, on a three week bus tour through Europe with 40 odd fellow recent high school graduates, she was reading an epic poem in the original Latin I believe, and when she told me she wanted to be a lexicographer I had to ask what that was. Now she is a lexicographer, one who writes dictionaries basically, and a kind of superstar lexicographer at that. She is the 'Editor in Chief of US Dictionaries for Oxford University' according to www.wordsmith.org/chat/mckean.html. She is probably the one ex of mine who has the most citations(?) come up when you google her. (Not that I make a big habit of googling ex-girlfriends, but every once in a while, since I don't actually keep in touch with any of them, to my shame, I'm missing out on some good friendships I'm sure, but I'm crap in general when it comes to keeping up with people, so you know, I google them, just to see what they're up to...) And with Erin it has been weird over the last several years because I keep 'running into her' so to speak. First I was shelving books in the bookstore where I've worked since 1998, and I was shelving a book and I looked at the author's name and sure enough, it was Erin.<br />The book was, and is, Verbatim, a collection of essays from the journal of the same name, which Erin edits. I told a coworker of mine about this experience and she kind of freaked out in a good way and told me that Erin was one of her best buddies at an online Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum. A few days later I got a hug from Erin via my coworker. It is always a bit weird to know that one's self is a subject of other's conversation, but to know that two people who have never met in person are discussing me via computers is double the weird for my mildly computer phobic self. Then I was browsing in a local used books/comic books/record store, and I was looking through an intriguing comic and at the end on the letters page I read a letter signed, I believe, just Erin M., but I just knew it was Erin McKean. Both she and the comic artist were in Chicago I beleive, and it just sounded like her, she might have even said something about working with words. I bought the comic, and I'll have to dig it out of storage one of these days and verify my memories. Then a few weeks later I was flipping through the Sunday NY Times Magazine while at work and lo and behold there was Erin again, filling in for William Safire as author of the 'On Language' column. Then most recently I was browsing the wonderful Powell's bookstore website and there was Erin doing a guest weeklong blog for them. Also in the time all this has happened, over the past three or four years, I have chatted with an old friend of Erin's, Vanessa, who has stopped by the bookstore a few times. So I have passed on best wishes to Erin via a web friend and via an old friend, but I have yet to contact her directly. I'm so wishy washy about these things. My interest in contacting her is in no way romantic, I'm involved and she's married with at least one kid, but part of me wants to just say hey to her and congratulate her on her success and to say how I think she is one of the best people I've had the pleasure of knowing and how it's really cool to see such a good person having success. You rock Erin McKean, and if I never 'meet' you in person, or via a more direct form of communication than this, again, I want you to know that it is a pleasure 'running' into you every once in a while when I least expect it in my day to day life. I enjoy small conincidences which make me go 'hmmm'. So maybe I have answered my own question of 'Why bother blogging?' I think it is interesting to sit at a computer, start writing something, and see where it leads me, and to tell myself and others some of the small stories which populate my life. We are all stories in each other's stories. What's your story?David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1146959583805404832006-05-06T16:31:00.000-07:002006-05-07T09:05:51.286-07:00Twice in one day?!?My blog is only hours old (I set it up on my long lunch break during a twelve hour shift at the bookstore where I work) and I have already changed the name. Upon dubbing my blog 'The Feltonian', and my request for the 'feltonian' url being granted, I was off and running. Well, more like off and crawling, or at least rolling over and thinking about crawling, but anyway there I was with my own little infant blog. Minutes later I did the natural thing. After logging out of my blog I started furiously googling to try to verify the existence of my blog to my mildly technophobe, luddite-wannabe self which suffers interminable incredulity regarding the efficacy of anything I try to do 'online'. You computer savvy folks might wonder why I didn't go directly to the blogger website and get to my blog that way. Well, that would be just too simple and straightforward, plus, nothing exists if it doesn't appear when googled, right? So, I couldn't get to my blog, but I did find another, much older, prettier, probably smarter, probably just plain better in all regards, blog named 'The Feltonian', produced by a woman named Christine Felton. Christine is an art student and her blog has nice samples of her work. Check it out, as far as I can tell it is the original 'Feltonian' blog. So, I changed my blog name to 'The Feltonian Institute.' I like this because sometimes I chide myself by saying things, in my head, like 'Welcome to the Feltonian Institute of Dimwittedness'. And to you 'out there', welcome to the Feltonian Institute of Rambling Blog Posts. 'Til next time, Cheers.David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27652660.post-1146944224357979512006-05-06T12:19:00.000-07:002006-05-06T15:48:39.600-07:00You Never Forget Your First (No matter how lame)One blog leads to another. I added a comment to a friend's blog. I typed it up and spurned the preview function, when normally I am completely slavishly neurotically addicted to the preview function, and went straight to post. Then I read it and it had a typo. A sentence beginning with 'But really...' read 'Bur really...'. And there it was for all to see, and the insecure perfectionist in me wanted to be able to edit and correct it, but I couldn't (at least I couldn't figure out how to), so the slightly more mature person I sometimes muster told me not to be so freaking anal. Nobody but one, maybe two people will see this, and they might not even notice, and if they did they certainly wouldn't remember more than two seconds, so don't even give it a second thought. But it was weird, all of a sudden having something, no matter how banal, 'out' there for all to see, and seeing the mistake and not being able to correct it. So, that little mistake, enshrined in the 'comments' of my friends blog led me to wade into the murky waters of the weird world of 'blogging'. Serious doubts as to my ability to compose 'posts' with any regularity swirl around this small venture. I thought about calling it The Daily Feltonian, then thought better. Maybe The Weekly? Nahh. Just go with plain old Feltonian and see how it goes. 'Til next time...David E. Feltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15956153050551347408noreply@blogger.com3