Feeling Much Better, Thank You

iPod morning commute music: Nick Drake, Bryter Layter (1970) & Five Leaves Left (1969)

Nick Drake was one of the great singer/songwriters of his time, which was short; he died in 1974 at the age of 26, probably a suicide. He only made 3 studio albums, the two I was listening to this morning and Pink Moon, which came out in 1972. All his songs a deeply reflective, with stunningly visual lyrics, accompanied by Drake on acoustic guitar, often with strings added. Beautiful, haunting songs. All three albums, along with a final collection of unreleased material called Time of No Reply, were gathered together and released as a box set called Fruit Tree, which is what I bought. Someone worth exploring if you don't know his work. Check out the song River Man from Five Leaves Left as a place to start.

I appear to have recovered from a 24-hour bug which put me into such a foul mood yesterday. I apologize for ranting and raving, particularly about my dentist. After he worked on me for half an hour last night, it appears he isn't charging me for the work! So much for my accusations of greed in the dental industry.

Sunday's Seattle Seahawks football game was televised after midnight this morning; I'll get to watch it tonight, my first Seahawks game of the season. One thing that I do miss from the States is football. With Nomo, Ichiro, and Godzilla playing baseball in the States, we get loads of live games, but not football (or basketball, for that matter). However, pity of the poor Europeans, Australians, South Americans, Africans, Indians, Pakastanis (I could go on, but won't) who live for soccer (football to the rest of the world), rugby and cricket. If they want to watch their sports, they need satellite TV such as Sky/Perfect (which we have, but the football and baseball games I watch are all on NHK, Japan's PBS). Again, though, this points out how much easier it is for Americans to live in Japan than for Japanese to live abroad: When was the last time you saw a complete Sumo match on American TV?