We’re somewhere north of West, TX, south of Waxahachie, TX and effectively in the middle of nowhere. The earth is parched and brown and the grass is parched and brown and I’m none too hydrated myself and we’re taking a break at a little rest stop where the bathrooms are housed in silos.
Poop chutes if you will.
The sky is blue and cloudless and it might just be a touch too cold to be perfect, but the weather’s still pretty sweet for January – and it’s a shame we’ll be in Dallas by nightfall because I bet the stars out here are STUNNING.
I was looking at the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Wikipedia page today as I was trying to explain to a friend who and what they were and why it was a big deal that Rowan was joining them. Seeing Rowan added to their page is incredible, a huge thing for him, but it also hammers home the reality of his departure. We know that he’s only touring with them for part of the year (because they only tour for part of the year), but we have no real idea how this is all going to play out. Maybe he’ll end up moving to North Carolina to be closer to his family and to the rest of the band. Maybe he’ll want to take the rest of the year off. Maybe he just won’t be interested in doing the ilyAIMY stuff anymore. I really have no idea. Hell, HE has no real idea of what he’s going to want. I don’t blame him.
2014 is going to be a year of transition – and for a guy who hates patterns and having to do the same thing over and over again, I sure don’t like transitions! Kristen and I are also downsizing our time at House of Musical Traditions, Heather’s got some visions of how her year wants to roll… and of course Sharif had that kid. That’s what the new album was really pointing towards : a new Life… and being unsure of what it presents.
The Dreamscapes Project is over. That’s also pretty stunning. Speaking of transitions. Keith made that announcement just a little while ago and they’re doing one last big show, going out with a bang.
ilyAIMY, because of its fundamental modularity is probably effectively immortal, but who knows what it’s going to sound like in another year. It’s scary and exciting and strange and wonderful all rolled into one. Texas is barren and my vision of the future finds no inspiration here.
Our first full day in Houston finds us visiting one of my absolute favourite places, the Houston Natural History Museum. Since my last visit they’ve completely revamped their fossil and dinosaur exhibits and it’s pretty amazing. Right from the get-go it’s pretty impressive with some of the most exotic examples of trilobites from the very birth of the beast in the Early Cambrian to their huge diversification in the Paleozoic. I’d never realized how many different types there were… (below, a trilobite!)
Trilobite festivities. Festive trilobites… some of the marvelous dinosaur fossils (well, models of fossils) on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Some research for the new White Rose Confession album being perpetrated at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Houston, TX. Some more of that notorious HMNS humour. It’s sort of subtle. You know… until you look up and see human skeletons being chucked over your head in the darkness… The Houston Museum of Natural Science also had a really good exhibit on Egyptian art and culture – it’s the first time that I’ve been up close and personal with a LOT of these items, and even when I was teaching art history back at Suitland I don’t think I had quite a full appreciation of how exquisite some of the form and line work was in later Egyptian periods.. Goes without saying, really. Or this guy will get you. I really enjoyed the Native American cultures section of the HMNS (though it shows our innate contempt for them I guess, placing them in the category of “Natural Science” declares them more animal than human and no matter how good the displays are this fundamental classification speaks volumes) I was glad to not just get a rehash of “Native Americans Lived on the plains and chased buffalo” but rather a really Lovely breakdown of cultures from Alaska down to Argentina. Okay, there’s nothing good about this and the only reason we don’t have megalodon vs mammoth movies is because the producers at SyFy apparently have never visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I was sort of okay realizing that these were coexistant animals, and I’ve just HAD to come to terms that such sea monsters as the megaladon existed – however, reading that actually this bastard was a shallow-water monster and putting its jaws and a mammoth skeleton next to one another (not pictured) is something that’s going to keep me awake for weeks. Thanks HMNS.
The thing that had REALLY stuck in my head from the HMNS that I’d wanted to show off to Kristen was their Butterfly House – absolutely exquisite and completely immersive, we saved it for last. T’was a beautiful day. After the Natural Science Museum we went to some taco place that had the absolute worst of all pop music on their speakers. If the food wasn’t too good to waste I might’ve thrown up.
Kristen was impressed by the museum! Which is really why I do any of these things…. Back home my brother got his hands on my camera, but didn’t know how to NOT shoot with the flash…. much to the shock of Del.
