Wednesday Morning

I just finished a short story by Philip K. Dick called "Exhibit Piece," about a 22nd century historian who enters his exhibit on the 20th century and in so doing enters the 2oth century, but not as an outside observer. He is part of the past and the future, having a history in both times, and can't figure out how to get back. I won't ruin it for you, but it is excellent.

New people started work today, I guess, transferred in from somewhere else. I wasn't here for their introductions, so I'm not sure of their names, but I don't know the names of the people who were already working here for the most part, so it's not really a big deal, I suppose. I can see the nameplate on one new guy's desk, but I'm not totally sure how to read it. Japanese names can be difficult because characters generally have multiple readings, and in the context of a name, there is no real hint as to which it has. Sometimes they have readings that the characters usually don't have. Japanese names are more made up than English ones, usually, but certain ones are common, so a lot of times you can guess, but the characters for this guy's are weird and my best guess is Fumito, but I've never heard of anyone with that name before, so I think that's probably wrong. It doesn't matter because I can read his last name, which is all I need to know.

Some other people just came in and bowed and such. I have no idea who they are.

It seems to be snowing/raining outside. I can't really tell from here, but it seems cold enough that snow is possible. I'm also tired, so that might be making me feel cold. I have the Dylan song "God Knows" stuck in my head, but I don't know any of the words other than the title, so it is torturous. Yesterday it was "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" from the Tom Waits album Small Change. That made sense, though, because I was listening to that album. I have no idea where this song is coming from. The rain's really coming down now.

I had to look up that song title to make sure, and came across this quote from Bones Howe (quoting Tom Waits) about writing "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)":

"He said the most wonderful thing about writing that song. He went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, 'I went down to skid row ... I bought a pint of rye. In a brown paper bag.' I said, 'Oh really?'. 'Yeah - hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote 'Tom Traubert's Blues [...] Every guy down there ... everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there."

It's a pretty good song and I never skip it when I have that album on.