I Often Dream of Trains

Wherein Robyn Hitchcock is on tour. Dude, I am so there.


Matt Welch wrote an article about John McCain that generated many responses. He reviews them here. In his post, Welch writes:

And certainly I stand in awe at what he endured, with great spirit, in the name of our country. But just because someone is sympathetic and funny and able to withstand torture doesn't make him presidential material, or somehow off-limits to a critical examination of his political philosophy, such as it exists.

Good stuff, go read.

And while you're over there, check out his James Brown youtube links. Also good. Because I have a train theme to flesh out, I'll just steal his cool train videos. The second was left in the comments.

Chaiyya Chaiyya


BjorK


Tom Waits


Train songs I own:

1. Broken Train, Beck
   
2. Different Trains, America - Before The War, Kronos Quartet
   
3. Different Trains, Europe - During The War, Kronos Quartet
   
4. Different Trains, After The War, Kronos Quartet
   
5. Downtown Train, Tom Waits
   
6. From A Late Night Train, The Blue Nile
   
7. Ghost Train,Marc Cohn
   
8. Ghost Train, Rickie Lee Jones
   
9. Ghosttrain, Gorillaz
   
10. Glory Train, Randy Newman
    
11. Gospel Train, Tom Waits
    
12. I Often Dream of Trains, Robyn Hitchcock
    
13. I wanna be a train, Prudence Johnson and Gary Rue
    
14. Like a Train, Ken Layne and the Corvids
    
15. Night Train, James Brown
    
16. Night Train, The Scofflaws
    
17. Number 9 Train, Tarheel Slim
    
18. Snaketrain, Stan Ridgway
    
19. Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me The F Train, Mike Doughty
    
20. The Getaway (Lonesome Train), Ray Davies
    
21. The Memphis Train, Rufus Thomas
    
22. The Train Carrying Jimmy Rodgers Home, Prudence Johnson
    
23. The Train Kept A-Rollin', Tiny Bradshaw
    
24. The Train Song, The Robustos
    
25. The Woo Woo Train, Valentines
    
26. This Train, Buckwheat Zydeco
    
27. Train in Vain, The Clash
    
28. Train Song, Tom Waits
    
29. Wood and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking, Rickie Lee Jones

Kim, Rudyard Kipling:

They entered the fort-like railway station, black in the end of night; the electrics sizzling over the goods-yard where they handle the heavy Northern grain-traffic.

'This is the work of devils!' said the lama, recoiling from the hollow echoing darkness, the glimmer of rails between the masonry platforms, and the maze of girders above. He stood in a gigantic stone hall paved, it seemed, with the sheeted dead third-class passengers who had taken their tickets overnight and were sleeping in the waiting-rooms. All hours of the twenty-four are alike to Orientals, and their passenger traffic is regulated accordingly.

'This is where the fire-carriages come. One stands behind that hole' -Kim pointed to the ticket-office - 'who will give thee a paper to take thee to Umballa.'

Lewis Carroll

Problem. — (1) Two travelers, starting at the same time, went opposite ways round a circular railway. Trains start each way every 15 minutes, the easterly ones going round in 3 hours, the westerly in 2. How many trains did each meet on the way, not counting trains met at the terminus itself? (2) They went round, as before, each traveler counting as “one” the train containing the other traveler. How many did each meet?

Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson:

The train climbs up out of the night and into a red-brick arroyo, headed northwards out of the city. It is about three in the afternoon; that special BP train must have been carrying swing shift gals.

Waterhouse has the feeling he will not be working anything like a regular shift. His duffel bag—which was packed for him—is pregnant with sartorial possibilities: thick oiled-wool sweaters, tropical-weight Navy and Army uniforms, black ski mask, condoms.

The train slowly pulls free of the city and passes into a territory patched with small residential towns. Waterhouse feels heavy in his seat, and suspects a slight uphill tendency. They pass through a cleft that has been made across a low range of hills, like a kerf in the top of a log, and enter into a lovely territory of subtly swelling emerald green fields strewn randomly with small white capsules that he takes to be sheep.

Of course, their distribution is probably not random at all—it probably reflects local variations in soil chemistry producing grass that the sheep find more or less desirable. From aerial reconnaissance, the Germans could draw up a map of British soil chemistry based upon analysis of sheep distribution.

Two Trains Running, August Wilson