This weekend we got in the ol' jeep and headed out once again for a trip across the mountains — Emily's grandma Lillian was turning 90 and the fam threw a big party at her house in Yakima.On the way back, we stopped through Ellensburg, where the skies are not cloudy all day, gas is $2.04 a gallon, and it would be very, very easy to spend a lot of money in antique stores.We showed considerable restraint in picking up only the following:An odd little metal bookshelf with a horse on it. There's a coil on the back that holds the books in place.A children's record with music by Dick Hyman, and a cover illustraton by Leo and Diane Dillon. They illustrated a bunch of children's books my brother and I loved as kids, as well as this beautiful cover for Lalo Schifrin's The Fox soundtrack, among other things:
I also snapped up a 1904 wax cylinder recording for the truly low low price of $3.00. This is what records looked like before they were flat:The song is called "I May Be Crazy but I Ain't No Fool." The Library of Congress has a listing for it here.The grooves are on the inside of the tube. When my friend Mike and I were at Joe Bussard's house a few years back, he had a bunch of these and a machine on which to play them. Obviously I will probably never be able to listen to this one but it's a cool little thing to have on a shelf.

[Click here for a little more info on Joe Bussard, including a short audio documentary; I think I've recommended this before, but the film on Bussard entitled Desperate Man Blues is a must-see.]It was nice to get out of town for a minute.Roy Last Climb Up Indian John Hill mp3