are they coming back?

i have a confession to make. jamiroquai is at least one of my favorite bands, if not the favorite band. i love them. the only song that ever made it onto mainstream charts here "virtual insanity" way back in what, 1997? i was 12, so let's be real. i barely cared. but when i was about 16 or 17, one of my friends at work (who is still a close friend today) turned me on to these guys. so that was back in 2001 or so. and for my birthday that year, another friend of mine bought me every album they'd released up to that point. and i was set..

the problem is, or was, that there had been some not-so-secret discontent on the band's part, or at least the frontman, jay kay, with their record label, sony. their contract was up after the release of their last "album" -- more or less a greatest hits compilation with a couple of new tracks tacked on the end. those two tracks, i'm telling you... i used them to hold me over as much as i could, but... my friend and i have been waiting... and waiting... for even the tiniest tidbit of news we could nibble on. suffice it to say, i was reading all of the british newspaper rumors up until now; i wanted so much to believe!

and TODAY!! well, it was posted a couple of days ago, but one of the big fan sites, funkin.com, posted a news item after an interview by derrick mckenzie (drummer) on playvbz.com. what this all culminates in is the very real possibility that within a year, i may be holding a brand new jamiroquai album! mention of a tour was made, but i'm not getting my hopes too high yet for that. i do, after all, live in wisconsin.

via yatzer

the osler house, brazil, by marcio kogan.

i want to be here, right now. i love the modular aspect of it, the pivoted top over the pool. it reminds me of mid-century california architecture, which i suppose is perfect in brazil where it is also sunny and warm. the wooden paneling along the bottom opens up out into the pool; i think this is brilliant! it's warm even when it's closed. it's private and closed-off, but it manages not to look like a gigantic garage door. and i feel like the house as a whole just the right size. any bigger and the size would detract from the details, like those stairs at the end that seem to just float off the end of the house.

and on a final note... i love to take trips. yesterday i hopped in my car, still unsure where to go, though i had been thinking i would do the usual route along the northern edge of the door county peninsula. but i took out my wisconsin map and essentially decided i should just drive to northern michigan. i hadn't been up that way since i took a road trip to canada several years ago. the saab had a full tank of gas, so i drove up through green bay, stopping for a coffee along the way, and then just after hwy 41 veers north of green bay, i got off the highway and followed county roads along the lakeshore. some of the towns were so small i could almost blink and miss them... little suamico must have been so little i didn't even notice it.

i drove to peshtigo, wi., of peshtigo fire fame. i knew next to nothing about the fire, other than that there had been one, and i surmised that it was terrible. but i stopped into the historical society fire museum and a sweet old lady summed up what happened that fateful day in 1871. essentially, the town had been battling forest fires all summer, but that october, wind turned it into a real firestorm, and it wipen out the entire town. i looked around the museum for a while. continued up to marinette/menominee, mi. and continued along the lakeshore on m-35 until i decided that since i didn't really have a destination, and escanaba was just a little too far for my patience, i turned around. grabbed lunch at gas station that served like a camping outpost, grabbed lunch, and found a picnic area near the lake right off the road.

took some country roads back. the photo above is of an old school house on hwy j, north of green bay somewhere. i love old, abandoned buildings, and this one had apple trees growing all around it. it was great to get out for the day, and what a beautiful day it was.