Sleeping, dying, or faking.

Sister Emily and son Theo (yes, named after Epstein.) Emily is visiting Northampton from Boston, seeing our friends Naomi and Chris. Naomi's daughter Stella's quotes include: "When people's eyes are closed, they're either sleeping, dying, or faking." --Stella, age 4 - "I pee in the ground and bury it." --Stella, age 5 - Emily went to Harvard Divinity School and of course has parlayed that into... a wardrobe consulting business called Closet Smarts. She helps me thin the wayward herd of clothing that is my closet for free, and shows me combinations I never conceived of.
Main Street moment with cigarette, umbrella, and cellphone.
"Rock."
A delightful office visit from Llama provides a mid afternoon lift.

Mt. Tom and Mountain Park Photo Documentary

Click here or watch the embedded video above. The loud rock music dissipates quickly and Mr. Schwobe gives a pretty remarkable history of Holyoke and Northampton, with the mountain inbetween. It's low budget, or should I say hand-made!

More Sidewalk Sales and Downtown Weekend

South Carolina's kids rock band Lunch Money performed at 2PM Sunday as part of the Iron Horse's new matinee kids concert series; The No Nap Happy Hour, co-presented with the enthusiasm and kids music know-how of Bill Childs of the Spare The Rock, Spoil The Child program which airs Saturday mornings on WRSI The River. Here they are below before the show doing an impromptu gig on the sidewalk. Lunch Money's songs deal with childhood's deeper issues such as cookies as big as your head, grilled cheese, and getting dizzy (the cheapest ride in town.) The next show is on Sunday August 23rd with Justin Roberts and the Not Ready For Naptime Players, who's song "Pop Fly" is a hit (no pun intended) to my ears regardless of the target demo. Watch the video!

The Dynamite Records guys. I should have gotten their names. Lots of great vinyl in their basement!

The OTHER Morrissey. Used to play the Iron Horse all the time. Fantastic songwriter who also wrote a great novel called Edson.
Rock and.....bun?
Don Dixon (along with Mitch Easter) produced a lot of the great '80s american bands like REM and the dB's. He married singer Marti Jones, formerly of Color Me Gone before she made some fine solo albums. Don made a record or two of his own as well. This one contained the song Preying Mantis which was played constantly on WRSI for a while in the late 80s. I still hear it once in a while.

When Beatlemania hit, dozens of imposter bands tried to dupe the fans, hoping they would be so manic and foaming in the record store that they wouldn't notice they were buying bogus Beatles records.


Live music on the steps of the First Church, sponsored by Florence Savings Bank. These shots are of Northampton's incomparable Primate Fiasco.

My route home up and over the new bikepath and railroad tracks. My friend Gabriella and I pass each other here frequently and both confessed recently that we go this way because passing under the bridge and being asked for spare change by that relentless man is oddly stressful.
Scotland's emotionally dramatic and guitarishly lush Frightened Rabbit at the Iron Horse on Saturday night. They recall some of the old New Zealand bands of the 80s on the Flying Nun label like The Chills, The Verlaines, The Clean, and The Bats.

Mr. Bubble.

Poetry reading and slam in the basement of Thornes made possible by C3's Storefront Art program.

Noel Buscemi's incredible collection of ephemera, Paper Tigers, is my favorite part of the weekend.Sylvia.