On Tuesday, we drive to Tulsa to see Tom Waits on Wednesday, and then on across to visit the fambly. And then we come back here and don’t go out of our apartment for a couple of months because we really, really miss home and we feel a little off-kilter.

I’ve never seen Waits live, despite my years of fandom. I always meant to get around to listening to him, and then right after I starting seeing Mister Husband he played ... what? Heartattack and Vine, maybe — yes, definitely —for me one Sunday and that was it. I spent the rest of that cold January afternoon sitting in the light from the patio windows and playing every Tom Waits CD I had time for (he has them all, every one, plus boots) and then running off with a handful of the rest, and it’s pretty much been like that ever since. His music is a constant in our house. (I also teach vocal ethos with it, which both annoys and enthralls my students.)

Johndan linked to recent Q&A from the Anti blog and the borrowed beats Waits edition. Of course I love it all, but there are two things I wanted to pull out and post here:

Q: What’s heaven for you?
A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.

This makes me feel less like a freak, obviously, because if you substitute ‘cheap-or-not-so-cheap cameras’ and ‘a decent, free Internet connection;8217; for the cheap guitar and the pawnshop tape recorder, that’s pretty much my favorite thing in the world.

And then there’s this one, which I’m filing next to my question for all of you about your sounds:

Q: What are some sounds you like?

A:
1. An asymmetrical airline carousel created a high pitched haunted voice brought on by the friction of rubbing and it sounded like a big wet finger circling the rim of a gigantic wine glass.

2. Street corner evangelists

3. Pile drivers in Manhattan

4. My wife’s singing voice

5. Horses coming/trains coming

6. Children when school’s out

7. Hungry crows

8. Orchestra tuning up

9. Saloon pianos in old westerns

10. Rollercoaster

11. Headlights hit by a shotgun

12. Ice melting

13. Printing presses

14. Ball game on a transistor radio

15. Piano lessons coming from an apartment window

16. Old cash registers/Ca Ching

17. Muscle cars

18. Tap dancers

19. Soccer crowds in Argentina

20. Beatboxing

21. Fog horns

22. A busy restaurant kitchen

23. Newsrooms in old movies

24. Elephants stampeding

25. Bacon frying

26. Marching bands

27. Clarinet lessons

28. Victrola

29. A fight bell

30. Chinese arguments

31. Pinball machines

32. Children’s orchestras

33. Trolley bell

34. Firecrackers

35. A Zippo lighter

36. Calliopes

37. Bass steel drums

38. Tractors

39. Stroh Violin

40. Muted trumpet

41. Tobacco Auctioneers

42. Musical Saw

43. Theremin

44. Pigeons

45. Seagulls

46. Owls

47. Mockingbirds

48. Doves

The world’s making music all the time.