6.4.24
Back in 1999, the Magnetic Fields (songwriter Stephin Merritt's primary project) released a 3 CD album called 69 Love Songs, that was exactly what the title said it was: a collection of 69 songs (23 per disc) about love, romance, and heartbreak. It was an ambitious project that, at the time, I thought would have been brilliant as a double album and an all-time classic of indie pop if he had chosen just the best 23 songs, but it was still a release that I spent a lot of time with back then.

Over the years, my affection for these songs has grown, and I have finally come around to believing that every song is vital to the overall narrative journey of the album, even the ones that don't ever make it into my shuffle playlists. So I was pretty excited when Merritt announced that the band would be celebrating the 25th anniversary of 69 Love Songs with a tour of mini-residencies where they would play all 69 songs across two consecutive nights, and I immediately got tickets for Julie and myself.

The shows were originally scheduled for June 1 and 2, but due to a water main break in Atlanta that turned off water for a significant portion of the city, including the Variety Playhouse where the concerts were scheduled to take place, night 1 was postponed and the first night of the show was actually June 2. Merritt is known for being very focused on routine and order in a spectrum-y kind of way, so I figured he would wrestle with whether to play the first selection of songs on June 2 (which was the night when the second set was supposed to be played) or to keep the second set on June 2 and play the first set the night after that on June 3, the date the June 1 show had been rescheduled to.

He decided to keep set 2 on June 2—you didn't have to buy both nights as a package, so some people had likely intentionally chosen that night because that was the batch of songs they wanted to hear more—but he definitely agonized over it, because he made jokes about things being out of order on both nights. But the shows were great despite the water issues that affected the schedule, and luckily our own calendar was flexible enough that we were still able to attend both shows.

The audiences were weird both nights though—on the first night, we were seated next to a couple who seemed like they were on their first date, and they were much more interested in talking to one another than they were in listening to the music. On night two, we were similarly seated next to a guy who was pretty nice (I chatted with him for a while before the show started), but who sang loudly through the first four or five songs before the person in front of him politely but firmly asked him to stop by reminding him that she paid to hear Merritt sing, not him.

6.5.24
Right on the heels of the Magnetic Fields shows, Julie and I went to another concert on June 4, a triple bill at Chastain Amphitheatre featuring Cat Power, Modest Mouse, and the Pixies. I've seen Modest Mouse and the Pixies several times before, but I jumped at the chance to see them again, and I was curious to see Cat Power live.

The sound wasn't great for her set, and she played a lot of stuff that I was less familiar with, but I did get to hear two of my favorite songs from her, "The Moon" and "Manhattan". The sound quality in that venue can be pretty variable, so after the poor quality of Cat Power's set (terrible mixing and too loud), I was bracing for subpar sound for Modest Mouse and the Pixies. But the sound was great for both bands (I'm guessing the soundcheck was focused on making sure they both sounded great), and they were two of the best performances I've seen by either band.

Modest Mouse played close to a full normal set despite not being the headliner—14 songs total—that were pretty evenly spread across their catalogue. The Pixies wisely stuck to their classic era that ended with 1991's Trompe Le Monde. Of the 24 songs they played, only one was from outside that era: "The Vegas Suite", an unreleased track that will presumably appear on their next album.

We were seated next to two young women (mid-20s) who had driven down from Chattanooga for the show, and while they were lovely to talk to in between sets, they were among the many people who choose to stand the entire time during Chastain shows. I have come to accept that as part of the deal with that venue, although I generally prefer sitting.

And usually I don't have any issues if the people next to us are standing, because they don't block the view, but these two were so exuberant in their dancing that they often shuffled over so they were standing directly in front of me and stepping on my feet. They would go back in front of their seats when they would step on me, so eventually I started stretching out my legs as an early-warning barrier that would prevent them from getting all the way in front of me.

All in all a great night, despite the minor annoyances with the neighbors. But again, it was great to see their enthusiasm for the music, and it was fun to chat with them in between sets.

6.6.24
I recently finished The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel, a non-fiction account of the life and crimes of Stephane Breitwieser, a French art thief who, with his aid of his girlfriend, stole an estimated $2 billion of art from museums big and small all across Europe and stored them all in their living space in his mother's attic as a private art gallery just for the two of them.

Early on, Breitwieser can come off as sympathetic, especially if you're someone for whom art can be a powerful emotional trigger like me (I recently had a very public and somewhat embarrassing breakdown in front of friends and random strangers when visiting one of my favorite pieces in the North Carolina Museum of Art). In interviews and in a memoir, he talks of his motivation to steal the works not being based on greed, but because the pieces spoke to him and overwhelmed his emotions to the point of obsession. He wanted to be in their presence and to be a caretaker for them, not fence them for pennies on the dollar like most art thieves.

And while it's true he never tried to sell any of the works or profit off of them in other ways (like ransoming them back to the rightful owners), even when he knew that his collection was reaching into the hundreds of millions of dollars in value, it's also clear that, whatever his motivations might have been for his first few thefts of highly treasured items, by the end of his career, the thefts were more about the thrill of the hunt and high from getting away with his crimes that drove him, a compulsion that would sometimes lead him to steal multiple times in a single day.

He also quickly ran out of room in his mother's attic, so instead of displaying the stolen objects and paintings with reverence, they were shoved into drawers or closets or under the bed. And in a heartbreaking end to the story for so many of these stolen works, when he was arrested and it was clear the police would have enough evidence to search his mother's home, she cleaned out everything in the attic apartment, throwing much of it into a nearby river and actually burning some of it. So out of the hundreds of pieces of art that Breitwieser stole over the years, only a fraction of those were recovered, and a small fraction still were able to be restored to something close to their original condition. But many were damaged beyond repair or outright lost or destroyed.

This was a great read though—I'm not sure what else Finkel has written, but I'll certainly be on the lookout for the follow up to this 2023 book.

6.11.24
It was our 28th wedding anniversary (and 36th anniversary of our first date) on Saturday, but we kept it pretty low key. The day started with a family visit to the Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, although that wasn't related to our anniversary. The local Johns Hopkins alumni group had organized an event that morning where you could go up in the air traffic control tower at the airport, something that even Will didn't get to do during his airplane camp (where he got to pilot a small plane for a few minutes) last year, which was held at PDK.

After that, Julie and I had an afternoon out by ourselves visiting antique and vintage stores outside the perimeter (which included a visit to a Pelican Snoball stand, a shaved-ice franchise that we discovered on a trip to Carrboro in April), followed by chinese takeout for dinner and watching a movie together. Julie has a nice dinner out planned for later this week, so we'll have another chance to celebrate then, but that was a pretty good day.

6.12.24
While casting around for something to watch while I exercise on my stationary bike, I noticed that all seasons of the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica were now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, so I decided to revisit it. I don't remember a ton about the plots, but I do remember liking the show at the time and thinking that the ending of the show was one of the better payoffs for long-running series with high expectations around the finale (although again, I don't remember the details of the story or how it ended at all).

Enough time has passed that I don't even remember major plot points or character arcs, especially around who is and isn't a Cylon—aside from one character who is initially presented as a human, all the other reveals (and we're not even though half of the dozen different Cylon models yet) were a genuine surprise to me when they were outed to the viewers. And although I kind of hazily remember the early events of the series—the restarting of hostilities by the Cylons after 50 years of no-contact with their human creators, the destruction of major population centers and much of the military and commercial fleets of ships—now that I'm past the miniseries reboot and the first few episodes of the official first season of the show, I really don't have much of an idea of where we're headed next.

I don't know whether I'll end up rewatching the entire show—I really don't care for the actors who play Number Six or Gaius Baltar, and I also don't particularly like their characters (which is intentional), and they both have a lot of screen time, and much of that time is in shared scenes. But even if I don't make it through all four seasons, it was nice to revisit it.

6.13.24
Last night Julie suprised me with an anniversary dinner at Nadair, the just-opened newest restaurant from Atlanta celebrity chef Kevin Gillespie (the name is a Scottish word that refers to Gillespie's ancestral heritage, although it's painfully close to the word "nadir", which is not a name you would want to give a fine-dining restaurant). We've been to a couple of his other restaurants three or four times each (Revival, which used to be in downtown Decatur before it closed after a fire, and his signature restaurant, Gun Show, which we actually went to most recently for our anniversary last year), but because this one is so new, it wasn't easy to get reservations.

But Julie had a little help: one of Will's best friend's father happens to be Gillespie's business partner who does a lot of behind-the-scenes work to get Gillespie's restaurants open and keep them managed well. For their middle school graduation in June, her father reserved a table for dinner for the whole class (it's a small school) at Gun Show. So when Julie was trying to get reservations for our anniversary for Nadair, she reached out to the friend's mom, who was able to get us a table reasonably close to our actual anniversary.

The food was great—there were definite Scottish influences, but it didn't stray too far from what you would expect from a contemporary farm-to-table fine dining restaurant. I also really liked the interior design, and the way our table overlooked a wild-growing garden that really brought the outdoors into the space. Gillespie was also kind enough to sign our menu with a congratulations on our anniversary (our 28th wedding anniversary, but also the 36th anniversary of our first date).

If I was picking between a return to Gun Show or Nadair, it would be a toss up—I like the style of service and the variety of dishes at Gun Show, but we've been there several times, and the atmosphere is a little noisier and more chaotic than is ideal for me with my sensory issues. I also like the Nadair has a prix fixe menu (with an alternate tasting menu), which keeps the decision-making a little more streamlined and also makes the evening's costs more predictable. But they are both great restaurants, and my guess is that we'll visit both of them again in the future.

6.25.24
We spent last week in Chicago, the first time I've flown since 2019, the first time I've been to Chicago since 2019, and the first time we've ever taken Will to Chicago. I was pretty anxious leading up to the trip—travel in general produces a lot more anxiety for me since the fire (I won't go deep into my therapy conversations about this, but it's likely related to leaving the house and being anxious about it not being there when we come back)—and I didn't get a lot of sleep, so it was pretty miserable navigating the airport parking and security lines early in the morning.

But all in all, it wasn't too bad getting to our hotel. We kept it pretty low-key that first day (we arrived on Tuesday)—Will and Julie went to explore some nearby attractions (we were on the Chicago River right across from the Apple Store, which we could see from our hotel window) and I tried to catch up on some sleep and let my travel anxiety settle down a little bit.

On Wednesday, we met up our friends Brad and Sarah (and Brad's son from his first marriage Ryan), who I first got to know when we were in a World of Warcraft guild together for several years back when that game launched 20 years ago and then got to know in person during my semi-regular business trips to Chicago (fun fact: Brad and Sarah also met in the game, and quickly started hanging out in real life once they realized they both already lived in the Chicago area). We met them at a Cubs game, which I expected to be relatively uncrowded on a random Wednesday afternoon in June until I realized that it was also the Juneteenth holiday, so a lot of people had the day off.

I was supposed to go to a concert that evening, but I still wasn't feeling 100%, so instead we went to dinner at Star of Siam, the very first Thai restaurant I ever ate at, and one which I try to visit every time I'm in Chicago. My mom was the person who took me there first—she used to be in Chicago for business often enough that she had a corporate apartment there, and I came up to visit her a couple of times during those years—and it was cool to bring Will and introduce him to a restaurant that I only knew about because of his grandmother.

I spent most of Thursday doing conference stuff—that was the main day for this conference—while Julie and Will went exploring. When we met back up at the end of the day, a plan had formed to meet Julie's uncle Bobby who lives outside of Chicago and one of her cousins who lives in Chicago for dinner. Because we wanted Will to experience authentic Chicago-style pizza, we asked them to pick and place, and they chose Pizzeria Due, which had a very old-school vibe even though it's down close to the touristy areas. It was great to see them and catch up a little—Julie's dad passed away a couple of months before Will was born, but Bobby looks and acts a lot like him, and it's the closest Will can come to getting to spend time with a grandfather he never got to meet.

6.26.24
After my conference sessions were over on Friday, we went on the architecture cruise led by the Chicago Architectural Center. Julie and I did this one together back in 2019, and we not only wanted Will to experience it, but we were excited to do it again ourselves. Julie wore her Davidson shirt that day, and while we were waiting in line, the young man in front of us asked her if she went there. It turns out he was a relatively recent graduate of Davidson who then went on to get his PhD at Princeton in economics and now is a research fellow at Duke. Not only that, but when he learned that I worked in the enrollment area, he asked about my boss and if I knew his wife, who is an economics professor at Emory and whose work this guy was a big fan of. It's a weirdly small world.

On Saturday, we once again met up with our friends Sarah and Brad for a visit to the Art Institute, where a new show about Georgia O'Keeffe had just opened. We were able to go in an hour before the public opening because they are annual members, and it was really great to walk through that exhibit and tell Will about her, and especially to show him her "Black Cross" painting, which is one of my favorite works in the history of art. We spent a couple of hours wandering around with Brad and Sarah before heading over to get lunch with them at the Gage, a restaurant right across the street on Michigan Avenue.

After they left (they were headed up to a music festival in Milwaukee), we went back to the Art Institute because there were a few things I wanted to show Will that we hadn't gotten a chance to see yet, most notably the Chagall stained glass windows and the recreation of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, as we got to that part of the museum (they are located near each other), the entire section was blocked off for no apparent reason.

I found a guard who told me that the area was closed for the day so they could set up for a wedding that would take place that evening. As if we need more reasons to eat the rich in this country, I can add rich assholes stealing a cool experience with my son for me so they can have a nice backdrop for their wedding vows to the list. I was pretty pissed about this, but as Will said, it just means we'll have to come back to Chicago again soon.

That night I went to a concert by myself while Will and Julie did a couple of things that I wasn't interested in. The concert timing was very fortuitous—it was for a Welsh band called Los Campesinos who are one of my favorite groups of all time. They don't release records very often (they have a new one coming out this summer, but the last one before this one was released in 2017), and they don't tour the US very much, and when they do, they tend to stick to the upper East Coast and the upper Midwest (the last time they made it as far south as Atlanta was in 2012, and that show was in fact the very first concert I went to after moving to Atlanta).

That was also the case for this tour, and as I was tentatively making plans to go up and see them in DC (which I did back in 2018), I realized that this plan wouldn't work because I'd be leaving for my Chicago trip the day after their DC show. But then I looked again at their tour dates and realized they'd also be playing Chicago the week we were in town, so I immediately got tickets. I took the train to get to the venue, which was in a semi-gentrified but definitely still transitioning neighborhood and found a cozy spot up in the balcony. It was a really fantastic show, and I'm so glad it worked out that they were playing Chicago the same time I was already going to be in town for the concert.

6.27.24
We flew home early on Sunday morning, and had a relatively uneventful flight and airport experience. We had all been feeling a little under the weather when we were in Chicago, but the symptoms were very mild (we were walking outside in the heat for 5-7 miles each day), and we thought it was just a summer cold or some aftereffects of travel. But because we had Covid tests in the cabinet at home, Julie decided to test herself out of curiosity, and lo and behold, she was positive for Covid.

She took another test (also positive) before telling me, and then Will and I tested and we were both positive as well. We were all very surprised—again, the symptoms were very mild, and we were all feeling pretty normal when we tested positive after getting back from our trip—especially because this is the first time any of us has ever tested positive. We did the right thing starting at that point—not going into work or school until we tested negative—but I do hope we didn't pass it along to anyone in Chicago, since it's likely we were also positive for it during at least part of that trip (we checked with the friends and family that we saw while we were there, and none of them contracted it after hanging out with us).

It was a good trip overall, and I would like to take Will back there sometime soon. It's one of my favorite cities to visit, and even though we did a ton of stuff while we were there, there's still so much that he hasn't experienced there yet.