"Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. Yum!"

Barnes and Barnes, folks. Little known factoid. I am convinced that Bill "Game Over Man" Paxton was in the video for Fish Heads.

Anyway. Lovely Wife and I were out on Saturday before I had to go to work. We were walking down by the Mosshasuk River here in Providence and, as she mentioned, we got to watch a shit load of fish die. It was freaky. The best part about it, for me, was that they were dying just before this big installation art piece called Waterfire was about to get going.

Waterfire is/are (I am not really sure about the agreement on this one, is Waterfire the whole event, and therefore singular; or is each individual instance a water fire in and of itself and then plural? My grammar class is running away with my life.) this series of floating barbeque pits that sit on the river in Providence and during the fall they put wood in them and light them on fire and then people walk along the river, buy overpriced concessions and listen to music. I hate it.

But it isn't the installation itself that I can't stand. It is everything else. I actually think that the sight of waterfire itself is really lovely, but there is this whole other event that goes along with it.

I hate it most of all because of what the site looks like afterwards. IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING TORNADO ROCKED IT! But not an Oklahoma Twister, or a Kansas Oz Special. No! It looks like a giant capitalistic, money-grubbing, entrepreneurial whirlwind of greed (okay maybe that is a bit heavy handed) took hold and shook the shit out of the city.

But the saddest part is that the river has this shimmering patina of oil and lighter fluid and petrol from the boats and I have a really hard time swallowing the dichotomy of people going out to enjoy the night air with such wreckless disregard for the next day.

I suppose that WaterFire is really a giant metaphor for us all though. The overwhelming message I get is, "Don't worry about tomorrow, because isn't right now, very very pretty?"

Ugh!

On a positive note I have finished five days of Marlowe at this point. All in a row. Some of the segments I like more than others. Some of them are rushed and some of them could use a little more fleshing out; the office scene on part three comes to mind immediately. The exercise, however, isn't wasted on me. One of the things that is happening is that I am setting aside time to write and that can't be a bad thing.

Last thing I will say tonight (for a couple of days but keep checking in on Marlowe, and let me know what you think.

I am going to see The New Pornographers at the end of the month and I didn't think I could be more excited. Then I heard three albums from two bands. The first band, Bishop Allen, has two albums which might be two of the best I have listened to from start to finish. They are called Broken String and Charm School. It is a great cohesive intelligent album. If you don't own it and you like Okkervil River and/or The Decemberists and The Shins, then buy one of the albums right away. The other band is called Sea Wolf and the album is called Leaves in the River. Again, really great stuff from start to finish. Own it, embrace it, call it George.