Snippits

And now for something a bit more frivolous and disjointed, my true nature...

One of the more entertaining aspects of our trip so far is just how many bumper stickers we've collected. Scott is on a bumper sticker rampage, and our little Saturn looks like a complete dead-head car by now. Lots of hippie stickers, sarcastic stickers, "I Heart Insert-Your-State" stickers, and flags from all over the world. On the road, we observe glances in the rearview mirror of people behind us either laughing or looking angry (it's kind of dangerous to drive around with liberal political stickers on your car in Texas). We're not going to have any room left for more stickers later in our trip, but I have a feeling we're going to get more anyway.

I've been waiting for years to make a New Orleans compilation CD/playlist to listen to on my way back to that lovely city. I finally got to make it and play it this last trip. Here it is:

The New Orleans Playlist (in no particular order):

Ramblin' Man - Allman Brothers Band
Basin Street Blues - Ella Fitzgerald
Basin Street Blues - Harrick Connick, Jr.
The Saints Go Marching In - Louis Armstrong
Miami - Counting Crows
Goodnight Elisabeth - Counting Crows
The House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
Born on the Bayou - Credence Clearwater Revival
Louisiana Bayou - Dave Matthews Band
Mud Slide Slim - James Taylor
Me & Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
Truckin' - Grateful Dead
Take Me to the Mardi Gras - Paul Simon
That Was Your Mother - Paul Simon
City of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie
Tangled Up in Blue - Bob Dylan

They're all pretty great songs. The only one I really wanted on there that we didn't have on our iPod was Harry Connick's version of "Do You Know What It Means (To Miss New Orleans)?" Wonderfully enough, an old blues hound covered it (sang and played his trumpet while his buddy played the banjo) right next to us on the street while we sat at Cafe du Monde having our last chicory coffee before departing.

I also made a playlist for our travels that's kind of a best of scream-along-to songs, or my verson of a "Get Psyched" mix. It's called "Wendi's Musical Crack", and it's pretty frickin' awesome:

Baby O'Riley - The Who
Dreams - The Cranberries
Sitting - Cat Stevens
Down to the Wire - Neil Young
Grace - Jeff Buckley
Miami - Counting Crows
Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
Come Sail Away - Styx
Feel Like Making Love - Bad Company
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
Analyse - The Cranberries
Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young
Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley
Layla - Derek & The Dominoes
Across the Universe - Rufus Wainwright
A Murder of One - Counting Crows

You'll notice (or maybe you won't) that both this and my soundtrack to life that I made ages ago both begin with Baba O'Riley and end with A Murder of One. This is because that is how the universe wants a great mix to begin and end.

Okay, a few good quotes and I will end the insane pot-of-coffee-at-11:00-pm-induced ramblings.

"For, to adopt that maxim of Ezra Pound, it seems that poetry is more often than not bad news that stays news. The loss of love is almost always more engaging than the finding of it, death almost always more engaging than birth, ugliness almost always more engaging than beauty."

-Paul Muldoon

"...sorrow
is a liqueur. Drink deep.
We will all be consumed."

-Rosanna Warren, from the poem "From the Notebooks of Anne Vereine"