3 days

Sounds on the drive down to Stump Town after work Friday night

1. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead "Worlds Apart"
2. Beck "Guero"

Frank, his wife Ava and I got an early start on a Columbia River Gorge hike Saturday morning. One stop for for scones, an old-fashioned chocolate donut and a 20 oz (sorry, Venti) White Chocolate Mocha and we were off. Horsetail Creek-Oneonta Creek Loop...only 2.7 miles but I did stop to smell the purple flowers [prettius flowericus], stick my arms under Horsetail Falls, and push on the moss covered rocks like they were pillows. Next time, I want to plan ahead to get soaked so I can scramble up the cracks of the Oneonta Gorge itself. Looked like so much fun!

Photo by Andrew Beckham

Lunch:
LUCKY LABRADOR BREWING COMPANY note cool dog logo and dog friendly atmosphere... Frank and I sat outside surrounded by sniffing, barking, staring dogs checking each other out. I thought it was fun but I think Frank really was in dog heaven. A future dog owner who just hasn't fixed the holes in his fence yet!

Powells Books on Hawthorne found one book I was looking for (Essential Zen by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider) and one I was not (The Little Zen Companion by David Schiller). Favorite quotes so far from the latter:

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know" - Louis Armstrong

and

"Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself." - Zen in the Art of Archery

Saturday evening:
OH-MY-GOD!

Kung Fu Hustle - a true mind-blower!

"Imagine a film in which Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny. Yes. That describes it nicely." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"A martial arts film that's gloriously nonsensical and kickass deflationary (the Chinese title is simply Kung Fu)... The movie plays with accelerated action as much as any since the advent of sound. Chow also dotes on CGI mutations, subjecting body shapes, weather patterns, and space itself to a variety of eccentric shifts. Meanwhile, the characters vent their proscenium-bending complaints: 'It's tiring being tough!' 'How come every time you get hurt you recover so fast?'... The indescribable assortment of space-warping, shape-shifting, gravity-juggling shenanigans are worthy of the Elder splash panels in early Mad or the digital effects in Michael Snow's *Corpus Callosum... The fights were choreographed by master Yuen Wo Ping and, escalating from straightforward kick-punch-and-parry through aerial acrobatics to delirious CGI freestyle, they are as spectacular as they are laughable... Kung Fu Hustle is a kung fu parody that's also a terrific kung fu movie. " - J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Sounds on sunday drive home:

1. Madeleine Peyroux "Dreamland" - an eclectic mix of blues and jazz and anything else that she feels like wrapping her beautiful voice around - she's coming to the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery September 17th... very tempting.
2. New Pornographers "Electric Version" - best band since the Bay City Rollers
3. Jeff Buckley "Grace" - I have to listen to this in short spurts - too depressing otherwise