the darkerside to rants

My new amp and tuner. Waiting for the tapedeck and a good way to set up the turntable.

For the past ten years (well, almost) this site has lived without a logo. Main reason? I suck at graphic design and every person I know I asked and they were either too busy or said they would but they didn’t.

I may suck at graphic design, but I do know how to use a camera, so I “recycled” one of my photos and with the power of the keyboard managed a “logo”.

Yes, I am oh so proud of myself.

I am seduced by trains. When one moans in the night like some
dragon gone lame, I rise and put on my grandfather’s suit. I pack a
small bag, step out onto the porch, and wait in the darkness. I rest
my broad-brimmed hat on my knee. To a passerby I’m a curious
sight—a solitary man sitting in the night. There’s something
unsettling about a traveler who doesn’t know where he’s headed.
You can’t predict his next move. In a week you may receive a
postcard from Haiti. Madagascar. You might turn on your
answering machine and hear his voice amid the tumult of a
Bangkok avenue. All afternoon you feel the weight of the things
you’ve never done. Don’t think about it too much. Everything
starts to sound like a train.

David Shumate

He understood nothing about her; for him she had the unfathomable look of a creature from another world, and that was precisely what bound him to her.

He experienced her presence in his house not like that of a dog, which has no secrets from human beings, but like that of a cat, which is in itself a secret– and to that extent he felt free and unthreatened.

And just as a dog belongs to a human being but a cat belongs to a house, so she merged with the order in his apartment and became a part of it. Dogs knock over tables, scoop cushions from armchairs, and carry things out of the room with their heads held high; cats do not even touch what they touch.

Harry Mulisch