Greetings! I hope you are well, well-washed, and well-stocked with the essentials of life: shelter, food, water, toilet paper, coffee, music, pets, family, friends, and access to Chessbase.com, which is covering the candidates’ matches for the men’s world chess championship in Yekaterinburg, Russia. (The eight candidates are playing face to face, but without spectators.)
Here in Portland, Oregon, the supermarkets are full of stuff no one wants. The only frozen vegetables I can find are cauliflower and gefilte fish. My neighborhood center has stopped:
6 p.m., Tuesday, March 17. I stood on the center line for almost two minutes.
But I found the silver lining!
Here’s a list of all the things for which we can thank Covid-19:
- Renewed attention to the study of corvids, especially crows, ravens, rooks, jays, magpies, and nutcrackers.
- Donald Trump has a bad case of Sudden-Reality Shock Syndrome.
- Young people are asking old people if they need help. What I don’t like is that they keep asking me.
- I haven’t received a rejection from an editor since March 13.
- My commute to work is a breeze.
- The next chessboxing championship is still scheduled for April 18 in Paris.
Year 9 (2019) of Run-DMSteve was a bumpy ride
Here’s an index to what I managed to post:
Forgotten bands:
Take care of yourselves. Wave from a distance at everyone you love. Special D just made curtains for my new home in the garage.
Random Pan of the Day
Empire Records (1995)
This unremarkable film is set in a record store in the 1990s. No one is tattooed, no one has phones, and the black customers have been locked outdoors. The 15 songs on the soundtrack are mostly easy-listening alt rock, with a few heart-pounders by obscure acts: “Here It Comes Again” by Please, “Sugarhigh” by Coyote Shivers, “Circle of Friends” by Better Than Ezra, and “Ready, Steady, Go” by The Meices. They’ve got an edge, though all of these bands have dumb names.
The only truly memorable song is “This Is the Day” by ’80s romantic synth stalwarts The The. (Their cousins are And And And.) “This Is the Day” plays over the final scene. It’s the only song from Empire Records that gets any airplay today. Naturally, it’s not on the soundtrack.
The pretty, interchangeable young people who work at Empire Records spend most of their time hurting each other’s feelings. I don’t know how I got through the whole thing. Because I was waiting for something better? With Renée Zellweger, an 18-year-old Liv Tyler, a bald Robin Tunney (a year before The Craft and 11 years before The Mentalist), and Tobey Maguire (whose scenes were deleted). Avoid. But don’t avoid The The’s album Soul Mining (1983).
Run-DMSteve 