200 miles, 10 people, yikes

This weekend is the solstice and I will be celebrating (suffering) it by running the Green Mountain Relay, a 200-mile team run from Burlington Vermont, way up near Canada, to Bennington, Vermont, which is all the way down by Albany. From what I hear, the relay legs are mostly in the 4-6 mile range and everybody does 3-4 of them depending on how many people you have. (I assume, since they let me in, that my team is a little short.) The race starts Saturday morning and runs all day and night and most of the next day. Am I looking forward to those country jogs at 3 a.m.? Yes, I am, you bet, thanks for asking. So those are my weekend plans, which may well spill over into Monday…at least in terms of sleeping in afterwards.

Other news, my son Sean has completed 7th grade…highlights:
* Most improved XC skier…he took about ten minutes off his time in one race.
* Starring role in local production of “Tom Sawyer”…very amusing southern accent.
* Most improved award in track, too…did a personal best of 6:25 in the mile, which is faster than I can run…yeah Sean!
* Reasonably good academic performance, but not the all-As that would get him an X-Box or possibly into Yale or Dartmouth
* Selected for advanced algebra next year
* Will play Diesel this summer in a New England Youth Theater production of “West Side Story”.

Okay, and music…

My interview with David Berman of the Silver Jews went up today at PopMatters:

Clearer Vision: An interview With David Berman of the Silver Jews
In between his fifth and sixth albums as Silver Jews, David Berman underwent eye surgery that both physically and metaphorically extended his range of vision. He explains, "The changeover to sight, for me, is accompanied by a larger agenda -- being able to take on more, being able to see farther, but also having more confidence about any number of things because I can see."

More here:
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/59536/clearer-vision-an-interview-with-david-berman-of-the-silver-jews

Here’s David performing “What Is Not But Could be If” from the new album:


Also, today, Dusted picks its favorite records so far:
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/744

Mine is Big Dipper. Here they are playing “Ron Klaus Wrecked His House” fairly recently:


And “Man o War” in their prime”