more eric lindley/deth p. sun

A little while ago I blogged about this guy Eric Lindley, who I went to college with, who makes great music. His first real CD arrived in my P.O. box today and I'm listening to it right now and it's pretty awesome. Some of the songs maintain the spare, creepy acoustic vibe that his demo CDs and live performances have, while others are sort of fleshed out with other instruments. (In case you missed the original post, you can listen to some of his songs on his MySpace and if you like it you can buy the CD for 11 bucks on his label's website.)

Anyway one of the most arresting things about the CD, besides the music, is the awesome cover art. It is from a painting done by a guy whose (real) name is supposedly Deth P. Sun, which he says is Khmer. I just spent about half an hour looking at the paintings on his website, which go very nicely with Eric's record. He paints a lot of cat people, turtle people, mountains, rainbows, iconic words, and other odd sights. His work is sort of cute and scary at the same time, kind of like his name.

I think this might be my favorite painting on his website, but maybe it's just the caption that does it for me: Brushing Teeth

On an unrelated note, we race Nor-Ams the next three days here at home in Winter Park.

super G in kimberley

This afternoon finds me asking myself that most frustrating question in ski racing: "Why wasn't I fast?" Today's super G was a fun course on a fun hill with soft snow, which is what I'm most accustomed to these days. Despite a foggy upper half of the course that severely limited visibility, I thought I had a decent run, maybe good enough for a top-5. But I was already in fifth when I crossed the finish line, and soon slipped back to 10th. At least I was still the top American finisher in my class — although by all accounts Nick and CDY both had great runs going before, respectively, falling and DNFing. I guess hopefully we'll see on the video of today's race why I was so slow.

One bright spot was that my friend Shannon Dallas of Australia got his well-deserved first World Cup win today. Full results can be found here, and USSA's press release is here.

I'm currently listening to music by a Dartmouth acquaintance of mine, Eric Lindley. He makes introspective, spooky acoustic music along the lines of Iron & Wine or CocoRosie. If this sounds interesting you can listen to some of his songs on his MySpace page or buy his new CD here.