Thunderstorms

We had quite the stormy night tonight, and I'm reminded of a piece by Garrison Keillor (from salon.com, June 2001) that I've held onto for years:

Some big thunderstorms rolled across St. Paul last week, with lots of nearby lightning strikes to shake the windows and a downpour of rain, and Mr. Blue got to stand on the front porch with Baby Blue and enjoy the rock 'n' roll. It's a modest life here in River City, no struggle for fame and power, just the occasional spell of weather, and a good June thunderstorm is a great boon in every way. It rinses the air and greens up the lawn and garden and gives us a demonstration of power far beyond human control. And the thunderclaps make a little girl laugh out loud. And afterward everything is somehow changed, the ions rearrange. You go for a walk after a good rollicking thunderstorm and feel your own life slightly altered. We live in a mixed bag of a neighborhood, the sort of neighborhood you find a lot of in St. Paul, which doesn't have lawn police, and as you stroll around, you pass old manses lovingly restored and Home & Garden yards and you also pass old manses with trees growing out of the eaves and ancient rags for curtains and yards that look as if the owners are seriously on heroin. But after a deluge, we're all refreshed, obsessive and neglectful alike, and a sort of democracy of meteorology prevails. And as I write this, the sky is darkening and the light turning purplish and there is a great stillness in the yard. Two hundred miles east of here, a westbound plane from Boston is slowing down as the FAA computers tracking the storm rearrange the landing slots at Minneapolis-St. Paul and the sleeping forms in Row 23 stir slightly at the change of engine pitch and the pilot comes on the P.A. and warns of possible turbulence and the lady in 2A asks for another bloody mary and west of here the farmers whose fields are already soggy go to the refrigerator and get out a beer and here in our house a little girl looks out the window at the dark sky and turns to me and says, "Boom!"

After further deliberation, I've decided to append a couple albums to my last list of albums with no bad tracks. Which edges it to a Great Eight list instead of a Top Five, but let's be honest - I've always played fast and loose with the constrictions of five.

1. U2 - Achtung Baby
2. Dave Matthews Band - Crash
3. 10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged
4. Paul Simon - Rhythm of the Saints
5. Simon & Garfunkel - Concert in Central Park
6. Soundtrack - The Last of the Mohicans
7. Leeland - The Sound of Melodies