Oct 31, 2008
how many times can i listen to dicks?
i've listened to this album on repeat for many so many times this week. i'm drunk. a little drunk. and i haven't even left the apartment yet. oh dear.
Oct 30, 2008
FRIDGE RAGE!!!
i bought a shit-ton of fancy-pants ingredients awhile back at winco, with the idea that i would make a few bomb-ass meals with the cheap bulk food from there over the next week or so.
well thanks to my ridiculous-ass fucking work hours, that was two weeks ago, and now that i finally had a bit of time tonight to sit down and cook something decent...mold in the tomatoes.
i almost threw them at the wall. i basically wasted like 15 bucks worth of food and like 2 weeks worth of anticipation about cooking.
i don't know why i'm so angry about this. it's just frustrating. i don't have time for ANYTHING anymore, it seems.
well thanks to my ridiculous-ass fucking work hours, that was two weeks ago, and now that i finally had a bit of time tonight to sit down and cook something decent...mold in the tomatoes.
i almost threw them at the wall. i basically wasted like 15 bucks worth of food and like 2 weeks worth of anticipation about cooking.
i don't know why i'm so angry about this. it's just frustrating. i don't have time for ANYTHING anymore, it seems.
hastings proves to be of minor worth/cards on letterman
so i got "cardinology" last night at hastings...of course it wasn't in the "adams, ryan" section, but instead they just had a few copies on one of those inter-aisle turnstile thingies, buried actually behind some new rap CD. but that doesn't matter. what matters is that they had it and it was only 10 bucks.
i like how i pretend to care about a dollar or two after dropping 30 on the vinyl and 50 on the new book.
i haven't listened to it yet because i had a sushi last night instead and now there's no free time at all until...wednesday night. seriously. i don't think i'm going to be able to just sit down and listen to it for six days. this job is insane. i'm going to have a little free time this weekend, but it's all being preemptively dedicated to sleep. because sleep is all. i'm getting to the point where i'm doing insane shit constantly, like walking out in front of a speeding car (which i did yesterday because i literally just didn't see it until it stopped and honked at me). i believe the clincal term for this is "brain death".
well, the cards were on letterman last night, with one performance and one webcast track. youtube time! i love the oversized princeton amp behind ryan. very spinal tap guys. very hilarious.
"cobwebs" is the webcast track (this rip is kinda low quality, you can see a better-quality one on letterman's site, but no embed code there...):
"fix it"
i'm going to start referring to the internet as "the dubya-dubya".
i like how i pretend to care about a dollar or two after dropping 30 on the vinyl and 50 on the new book.
i haven't listened to it yet because i had a sushi last night instead and now there's no free time at all until...wednesday night. seriously. i don't think i'm going to be able to just sit down and listen to it for six days. this job is insane. i'm going to have a little free time this weekend, but it's all being preemptively dedicated to sleep. because sleep is all. i'm getting to the point where i'm doing insane shit constantly, like walking out in front of a speeding car (which i did yesterday because i literally just didn't see it until it stopped and honked at me). i believe the clincal term for this is "brain death".
well, the cards were on letterman last night, with one performance and one webcast track. youtube time! i love the oversized princeton amp behind ryan. very spinal tap guys. very hilarious.
"cobwebs" is the webcast track (this rip is kinda low quality, you can see a better-quality one on letterman's site, but no embed code there...):
"fix it"
i'm going to start referring to the internet as "the dubya-dubya".
Oct 29, 2008
521 prompt #8, or "l'epoque avant mes pieds"
Part One
[parts of a morning somewhere between november 2007 and march 2008, recalled mostly through the sense of hearing and the action of repetition]
the wind splatters against the living room window, wet with snow and angry; the door slams, barking against the frame, the lock grinds
three short flights of stairs down to the parking lot, each step on them made treacherous by a pastrami-layering of ice and snow, snow and ice
ice crunches
i remember when i could get my car out from underneath the snow. no chance of that now. if you follow my footprints from yesterday, still visible in the snow because only two other people have hazarded the walk to my apartment building in the last three or four days, they will take you out of the lot and down a hill that parallels grand avenue, which you can see to your left as you descend.
the amount of slush on the road makes it seem impossible that anyone could safely drive on it, yet occasionally one brave driver or another sissing of tires through slush takes their chances, travelling at low speed.
you have to walk on the balls of your feet while descending this hill; it's so sheeted over in ice that putting weight on your heels makes your feet immediately slip forward. walk carefully.
once you reach the blockbuster parking lot, you can see further ahead and the post-apocalyptic nature of the scene becomes clear: stadium way ascends ahead of you, visible only in blotches due to the sheeting snow.
crosswalk alarm beeps, like a bird that has no business being alive in this weather
i remember having to leave my truck, back when i had a truck, at the base of this hill for a week because there was so much ice on the road leading back up to my apartment that cars simply couldn't drive up it without sliding back down.
you proceed through the parking lot, the abrupt end of the crosswalk alarm leaving the proceedings in an eerie silence save for the near constant whistle of the wind
the next hill is worse. grab the handrail; you'll probably need it. unless you like the taste of ice and ground smacking you in the face. this sidewalk is ridiculous. no traction at all to be had.
splash of a gravel truck driving by to your left
proceed up stadium way until you get to b street. turn right. turn almost immediately left. usually crossing this street at this intersection is awkward at best, and dangerous at worst. this morning, with pullman in wasteland-mode, you tromp through snow almost as deep on the road as it is on the sidewalk. road crews have given up on the sideroads days ago. to your right, further up the b street hill, you see a girl in a red parka and blue jeans and red plastic boots go down, slipping on the ice and hitting with a nasty thud that you feel but don't hear. she gets back up immediately and continues; at this point in the winter falling on the ice is no longer a noteworthy event. continue along until you reach harvey street. instead of taking it turn right. then turn on c street. this looks imposing, i know. but c street is at this point easier to take than b street. trust me, i have bruises to prove it.
a car engine sputtering, trying to start in the cold. another already idling weakly. further up the hill you can hear the shrill screech of something that must be an improvised ice scraper rubbing against a frozen windshield. the sounds of winter morning near the university in pullman.
this is the hill i've climbed every day (with the rare exception when i go up b street) since i started working as a graduate student in pullman. i never had a reliable car, never had the money for a parking permit, never wanted to rely on public transportation, wanted to stay in shape. so i've gotten in the habit of walking. i can remember the sidewalk covered in piles of dirty gold leaves in autumn, peppered by sprouting patches of grass in spring, and shaded by the huge trees that fill yards in summer. this is the barometer, in a sense, with which i gauge the attitude of the natural world in pullman, the calendar with which i track the passing of the seasons.
the path snakes up and up ahead of you before curving off to your right. it seems slightly crazy that cars would drive up or down this hill in normal weather. this isn't normal weather, though. the ice is a little less of a problem on this hill, but the incline more than makes up for it. lifting your boots up and then plunging them back into nearly knee-deep snow as you ascend is draining, to say the least.
a crow caws from a lamp post above and behind you
as you climb, you can see people in full winter outdoor gear...inside their houses, squinting as they peer outside, expressions on their faces illustrating the decision they're currently obviously weighing: how important is that 8:10 class, anyway?
about halfway up the hill, the incline angle increases, and it starts to feel like the whole enterprise is worthless. your only choice though, is to keep going. wsu's campus is on a hill, and this is the least icy approach. you must keep climbing, or you'll die.
okay, you're not going to die.
a door creaks open behind you and to your left. booted footsteps stomp out onto a wood front porch. someone groans. possibly a death rattle.
crest the hill. pack yourself on the back (figuratively). it's all downhill from here.
foot traffic is suddenly visible as campus comes into view. many brightly colored dots with legs move against the near-solid background of snow and ice. bryan tower stands up against the wall of snowfall. it's still lit in the early morning, odd neon almost-pink like a surreal lighthouse. walk toward it.
from here it's a short jaunt along the sidewalk, past more red, orange, and yellow (why do people wear such bright clothes in the winter?) dots, and then along the left side of the hello walk
frozen trees branches scrape against your arm and backpack, a dry susurrus
and through the breezeway to safety. good work. be ready to do it again tonight, at 2am, on your way home to bed.
Part Two
"[One] of the things I enjoy about using various sound effects is how they carry their source time and place with them." (Cardiff 81)
The one thing I kept thinking about as I was writing this script was how the sounds communicated particular visuals. Most of the sounds I used are pretty typical walking-type sounds - the kinds of things you'd expect to hear on a walk in Pullman on any day, during any time of the year (with the exception of the snow sounds, of course). But the particular ways in which they were presented were intended to contextualize them in a specific empty/cold/winter sort of way. For instance, the door slamming and the lock turning sound differently against the background of a snowstorm than they do during, say, a sunny summer day. There are crows in the summer too, but somehow their cawing doesn't sound nearly as ominous. Envisioning these sounds in a certain way can help transport the reader visually to the particular environment in which the action takes place.
I also attempted to use the perhaps overly simple trick of lowercasing all of my language in the script so as to communicate a smaller, shrunken feeling to the action going on; as if the language itself was acknowledging the vastness of the environment it was taking place against by shrinking away.
[parts of a morning somewhere between november 2007 and march 2008, recalled mostly through the sense of hearing and the action of repetition]
the wind splatters against the living room window, wet with snow and angry; the door slams, barking against the frame, the lock grinds
three short flights of stairs down to the parking lot, each step on them made treacherous by a pastrami-layering of ice and snow, snow and ice
ice crunches
i remember when i could get my car out from underneath the snow. no chance of that now. if you follow my footprints from yesterday, still visible in the snow because only two other people have hazarded the walk to my apartment building in the last three or four days, they will take you out of the lot and down a hill that parallels grand avenue, which you can see to your left as you descend.
the amount of slush on the road makes it seem impossible that anyone could safely drive on it, yet occasionally one brave driver or another sissing of tires through slush takes their chances, travelling at low speed.
you have to walk on the balls of your feet while descending this hill; it's so sheeted over in ice that putting weight on your heels makes your feet immediately slip forward. walk carefully.
once you reach the blockbuster parking lot, you can see further ahead and the post-apocalyptic nature of the scene becomes clear: stadium way ascends ahead of you, visible only in blotches due to the sheeting snow.
crosswalk alarm beeps, like a bird that has no business being alive in this weather
i remember having to leave my truck, back when i had a truck, at the base of this hill for a week because there was so much ice on the road leading back up to my apartment that cars simply couldn't drive up it without sliding back down.
you proceed through the parking lot, the abrupt end of the crosswalk alarm leaving the proceedings in an eerie silence save for the near constant whistle of the wind
the next hill is worse. grab the handrail; you'll probably need it. unless you like the taste of ice and ground smacking you in the face. this sidewalk is ridiculous. no traction at all to be had.
splash of a gravel truck driving by to your left
proceed up stadium way until you get to b street. turn right. turn almost immediately left. usually crossing this street at this intersection is awkward at best, and dangerous at worst. this morning, with pullman in wasteland-mode, you tromp through snow almost as deep on the road as it is on the sidewalk. road crews have given up on the sideroads days ago. to your right, further up the b street hill, you see a girl in a red parka and blue jeans and red plastic boots go down, slipping on the ice and hitting with a nasty thud that you feel but don't hear. she gets back up immediately and continues; at this point in the winter falling on the ice is no longer a noteworthy event. continue along until you reach harvey street. instead of taking it turn right. then turn on c street. this looks imposing, i know. but c street is at this point easier to take than b street. trust me, i have bruises to prove it.
a car engine sputtering, trying to start in the cold. another already idling weakly. further up the hill you can hear the shrill screech of something that must be an improvised ice scraper rubbing against a frozen windshield. the sounds of winter morning near the university in pullman.
this is the hill i've climbed every day (with the rare exception when i go up b street) since i started working as a graduate student in pullman. i never had a reliable car, never had the money for a parking permit, never wanted to rely on public transportation, wanted to stay in shape. so i've gotten in the habit of walking. i can remember the sidewalk covered in piles of dirty gold leaves in autumn, peppered by sprouting patches of grass in spring, and shaded by the huge trees that fill yards in summer. this is the barometer, in a sense, with which i gauge the attitude of the natural world in pullman, the calendar with which i track the passing of the seasons.
the path snakes up and up ahead of you before curving off to your right. it seems slightly crazy that cars would drive up or down this hill in normal weather. this isn't normal weather, though. the ice is a little less of a problem on this hill, but the incline more than makes up for it. lifting your boots up and then plunging them back into nearly knee-deep snow as you ascend is draining, to say the least.
a crow caws from a lamp post above and behind you
as you climb, you can see people in full winter outdoor gear...inside their houses, squinting as they peer outside, expressions on their faces illustrating the decision they're currently obviously weighing: how important is that 8:10 class, anyway?
about halfway up the hill, the incline angle increases, and it starts to feel like the whole enterprise is worthless. your only choice though, is to keep going. wsu's campus is on a hill, and this is the least icy approach. you must keep climbing, or you'll die.
okay, you're not going to die.
a door creaks open behind you and to your left. booted footsteps stomp out onto a wood front porch. someone groans. possibly a death rattle.
crest the hill. pack yourself on the back (figuratively). it's all downhill from here.
foot traffic is suddenly visible as campus comes into view. many brightly colored dots with legs move against the near-solid background of snow and ice. bryan tower stands up against the wall of snowfall. it's still lit in the early morning, odd neon almost-pink like a surreal lighthouse. walk toward it.
from here it's a short jaunt along the sidewalk, past more red, orange, and yellow (why do people wear such bright clothes in the winter?) dots, and then along the left side of the hello walk
frozen trees branches scrape against your arm and backpack, a dry susurrus
and through the breezeway to safety. good work. be ready to do it again tonight, at 2am, on your way home to bed.
Part Two
"[One] of the things I enjoy about using various sound effects is how they carry their source time and place with them." (Cardiff 81)
The one thing I kept thinking about as I was writing this script was how the sounds communicated particular visuals. Most of the sounds I used are pretty typical walking-type sounds - the kinds of things you'd expect to hear on a walk in Pullman on any day, during any time of the year (with the exception of the snow sounds, of course). But the particular ways in which they were presented were intended to contextualize them in a specific empty/cold/winter sort of way. For instance, the door slamming and the lock turning sound differently against the background of a snowstorm than they do during, say, a sunny summer day. There are crows in the summer too, but somehow their cawing doesn't sound nearly as ominous. Envisioning these sounds in a certain way can help transport the reader visually to the particular environment in which the action takes place.
I also attempted to use the perhaps overly simple trick of lowercasing all of my language in the script so as to communicate a smaller, shrunken feeling to the action going on; as if the language itself was acknowledging the vastness of the environment it was taking place against by shrinking away.
OHHHH FUCK IT'S FUCKING CARDINOOOOOLOGY YEEEEEAH!!!
those of you who have been around the last two wednesdays will get my awesome reference to a self-generated meme. the others of you, way to not care enough about my life to know what's up or to be willing to live in pullman just to support me emotionally!
if this was livejournal, i could almost be serious with that comment.
alas, i am not actually emoting or cutting myself...i'm just celebrating the release of cardinology, which i'm going to try to fucking buy from hastings tonight and possibly go insane with rage when they don't have it/aren't open. INSANE WITH RAAAAGE.
anyway, it's a win-win deal for you because i'm putting up two old RA tracks from the infamous foley's cellar show...which as i'm sure i've mentioned before was the show that simultaneously got me interested in RA and collecting live music. and without both of those hobbies i would likely work even more than i do now. which would be very, very bad for me.
i was listening to suicide handbook on the way to work today and these two tracks in particular stood out. have to go back to conference-land now. sushi tonight. mmmm...
"maralise"
"perfect and true"
UPDATE: the volume on these tracks is a bit low. if they're really quiet...that's because they're really quiet. crank your volume to normally intolerable levels and you'll begin to hear them.
if this was livejournal, i could almost be serious with that comment.
alas, i am not actually emoting or cutting myself...i'm just celebrating the release of cardinology, which i'm going to try to fucking buy from hastings tonight and possibly go insane with rage when they don't have it/aren't open. INSANE WITH RAAAAGE.
anyway, it's a win-win deal for you because i'm putting up two old RA tracks from the infamous foley's cellar show...which as i'm sure i've mentioned before was the show that simultaneously got me interested in RA and collecting live music. and without both of those hobbies i would likely work even more than i do now. which would be very, very bad for me.
i was listening to suicide handbook on the way to work today and these two tracks in particular stood out. have to go back to conference-land now. sushi tonight. mmmm...
"maralise"
"perfect and true"
UPDATE: the volume on these tracks is a bit low. if they're really quiet...that's because they're really quiet. crank your volume to normally intolerable levels and you'll begin to hear them.
Oct 28, 2008
SHOUT in/at!
noticed all the comments on the post-parade from last night. appreciated them. will respond to them soon. discussion is the heart of...something. bacon? was it bacon? that doesn't seem right.
capitalism is the suit jacket of zoroastrianism!!
book jackets are the camel drivers of the baking world!!
someone take my brain away.
capitalism is the suit jacket of zoroastrianism!!
book jackets are the camel drivers of the baking world!!
someone take my brain away.
more dicks jokes
i still love dicks.
the whole record is really good, but i haven't encountered a bit of music i've liked as much as i like the combination of "sidearms & parsnips", "shellac", and "d'avros" in a really long time. what a way to start an album.
i'm sure i'll be talking more about dicks later on in the week as i continue to stick them in my ears.
the whole record is really good, but i haven't encountered a bit of music i've liked as much as i like the combination of "sidearms & parsnips", "shellac", and "d'avros" in a really long time. what a way to start an album.
i'm sure i'll be talking more about dicks later on in the week as i continue to stick them in my ears.
Oct 27, 2008
gah!
back in moscow. at midnight. going crazy. writing paper/pres for tomorrow. totally jacked on caffeine again, dammit.
still in love with life.
liking people's dogs. liking peoplez.
life is bigger. it's all good.
still in love with life.
liking people's dogs. liking peoplez.
life is bigger. it's all good.
clarification from earlier post about love/life
i don't necessarily want to be in a relationship with someone awesome just so i can do fun shit and have a good time, but also because i feel like i might finally be able to give someone else something and have that be a healthy thing...that's a new feeling for me, and i'm really excited about it and want to try it and junk. to recap:
1. i'm a cuddler, not a fucker (MCMC, after all)
2. i just wanna love somebody!
3. i wish this was me being drunk. alas, 'tis not.
d. i shall seriously leave you for sleepdreams now.
?. Now.
!. NOW!!
end.
1. i'm a cuddler, not a fucker (MCMC, after all)
2. i just wanna love somebody!
3. i wish this was me being drunk. alas, 'tis not.
d. i shall seriously leave you for sleepdreams now.
?. Now.
!. NOW!!
end.
"not!"/i wanna talk to peoplez
HOLY SHIT! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH ABOUT STUFF AND THINGS AND I'M REALLY INTERESTED IN YOUR LIFE TOO WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT THAT?!
ZING!
WAIT, DON'T HANG UP!
beeeeeep.
WHEN YOU HEAR THE BEEP, IT WILL BE A LOT O'CLOCK.
ZING!
WAIT, DON'T HANG UP!
beeeeeep.
WHEN YOU HEAR THE BEEP, IT WILL BE A LOT O'CLOCK.
speaking of pants...
talking fashion with S the last few days has inspired me to actually buy pants that fit. i don't mean like the 80 dollar a pair super-chic pants, but at least pants that are more suited to a guy who's six foot three and has legs skinnier than most people's wrists. it's very hard to find a compromise between the standard boot cut (which has slighty too-wide legs for ultra-skinny dudes) and the tapered leg/emo hip-smasher. but i think if i just go to a decent store and find some jeans at a decent price and actually talk to someone whose job it is to get people jeans they like (aka probably not the dude at JC Penney's or Target)...i'll probably find a few pair i like. this jeans thing is a problem because i wear jeans all the time and i've never really had a pair that i thought fit me completely well.
it seems silly, but one of my stupid fixations is good jeans.
ohhhh shit. i think the stimulants are wearing off. i just had to try to type "stimulants" nine times before getting it right. i'm going to go sleep before i wake up again.
it seems silly, but one of my stupid fixations is good jeans.
ohhhh shit. i think the stimulants are wearing off. i just had to try to type "stimulants" nine times before getting it right. i'm going to go sleep before i wake up again.
curtain life!
i've started making a point to leave the curtain in my living room open at all times. it's weird, but it's sort of similar to the comments i've made re: writing about sensitive things on the blog.
i kinda like leaving the curtain open because it makes me more honest. does that make any fucking sense? it's not like a weird voyeur thing. i have a problem with wanting to constantly hide what i'm actually thinking, feeling, looking like from other people. doing things like this help me get over that. is that weird?
i mean, maybe the times when i do pants-less cartwheels in the living room are weird. but i mean other than that.
i kinda like leaving the curtain open because it makes me more honest. does that make any fucking sense? it's not like a weird voyeur thing. i have a problem with wanting to constantly hide what i'm actually thinking, feeling, looking like from other people. doing things like this help me get over that. is that weird?
i mean, maybe the times when i do pants-less cartwheels in the living room are weird. but i mean other than that.
sidearms and parsnips
god, i'm loving this album. dicks, that is. i love dicks.
okay, i'm quickly running that joke into the ground. and as fun as it is to be brutally immature, i should probably accomplish some higher level brain function.
BLAT!
BOOM!
like that.
nah, i'm just joking.
i'm incredibly amped up on nicotine and caffeine right now. why the fuck don't they make some legal drug that will knock your ass out? why does everyone want to be stimulated? i've wanted to sleep for 17 years. why don't they make something for that?! HUH?! i want to eat my cake and have the same cake whilst eating it.
me: oh look! a cake! NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM...oh look! a cake!
got back a bit ago from moscow. so fucking hyper. thinking about everything at once. i don't think S (i don't think she reads this, but i'll anonymize her anyway) realizes how close she came to being literally talked to death. i'm fucking nuts.
FUCKING NUTS!!!
i'm freaking out a bit because as a result of my crash from two weeks ago (which was pretty spectacular and frightening even considering the great collection of grad-school crashes i've had over the years)...and i decided i really couldn't keep working at the rate i was working. that it would literally destroy me. so i got sick as fuck. i literally couldn't work. i quit smoking. i quit staying up all night for no good reason. i quit thinking the only point of life was to stay ahead of the next deadline; a train of thought i've subscribed to for 2 whole years now because it allowed me to justify professionally and personally not dealing with most of the other shit that's been going on in my life. fuck that. i started reaching out to people. i got over myself and went to other people and said "look, i'm not going to be able to this without help", and they were all like "right on". humility is always not stupid.
see what i did there?
my friends are great. there are the usual occasional hangups and whatnot, but whatever. who ever gained anything by holding other people to higher standards than they hold themselves? i'm stopping brutalizing myself, so i should go easy on other people too. that doesn't mean i'm going to befriend serial rapists, but...i could be a little less of an ass about who i spend my time with. i realize that now.
i'm learning to care about people in moderation. i always talk about how i just like having a few "good" friends instead of a lot of "shallow" friends, and the good side of that is that i know the kind of people i get on with and will search them out and some funz. the bad side of this, i'm realizing, is that it keeps me from having to deal with another issue i have, which is that i become insanely attached to people insanely quickly. and when i only have a few friends i can justify that. mostly. when i have more, i need to learn how to not treat everyone i know like they're the most significant person on the planet, because they're not. we all are. and we're all not. at once. and junk.
anyway, my point is that i'm trying not to go bonkers for everyone that i find to be fun to hang out with. a corollary of this (and a harder thing) is to learn how to care about/love friends of mine who are girls without mistaking that for that other kind of love (the one that i suck at). i've never been good at this...and i'm trying to learn, but dammit it's incredibly hard. something about autumn especially puts me in this weird, cuddly sort of mood where i just want to go apple picking and pumpkin carving and outdoor-walking with a girl, and it sucks that now, after 2 years or so of being single, when i finally feel like i'm not so insane that i'd just devour someone if i was to enter a relationship with them, that it's not happening. my response is of course to just project a romantic-relationship schema on like every girl i meet who's half-nice to me...which is stupid, and sucks. and i shouldn't do it. but i just have a hard time being friends with girls and not eventually either actually having or at least thinking i have feelings for them. and the "really having" and "not really having" are hard to tell apart. shit.
but i'm really, really happy to have a lot of great people around and to feel like i can push myself to engage with them instead of just being too scared/lame to do so. after everything i've done the last few years, with the degree, and the teaching, and the music, and the writing, and the photography and everything else...somehow this feels like the one thing that actually means something outside of my own head. just being with good people, and being good to them. and that scares me, because none of them will be around forever, and when they leave, it's quite possible nobody new will come around. but i've used that as an excuse for at least 10 years in my life to not seriously and meaningfully engage with people. and i've also complained constantly about how unconnected i feel. maybe it's time to start shouldering the responsibility for my part in that.
i'm going to somehow try to sleep. peeps iz awesome. monday in t-minus five hours. engaging deflector shield, preparing for impact. entering atmosphere. anybody else smell smoke?
okay, i'm quickly running that joke into the ground. and as fun as it is to be brutally immature, i should probably accomplish some higher level brain function.
BLAT!
BOOM!
like that.
nah, i'm just joking.
i'm incredibly amped up on nicotine and caffeine right now. why the fuck don't they make some legal drug that will knock your ass out? why does everyone want to be stimulated? i've wanted to sleep for 17 years. why don't they make something for that?! HUH?! i want to eat my cake and have the same cake whilst eating it.
me: oh look! a cake! NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM...oh look! a cake!
got back a bit ago from moscow. so fucking hyper. thinking about everything at once. i don't think S (i don't think she reads this, but i'll anonymize her anyway) realizes how close she came to being literally talked to death. i'm fucking nuts.
FUCKING NUTS!!!
i'm freaking out a bit because as a result of my crash from two weeks ago (which was pretty spectacular and frightening even considering the great collection of grad-school crashes i've had over the years)...and i decided i really couldn't keep working at the rate i was working. that it would literally destroy me. so i got sick as fuck. i literally couldn't work. i quit smoking. i quit staying up all night for no good reason. i quit thinking the only point of life was to stay ahead of the next deadline; a train of thought i've subscribed to for 2 whole years now because it allowed me to justify professionally and personally not dealing with most of the other shit that's been going on in my life. fuck that. i started reaching out to people. i got over myself and went to other people and said "look, i'm not going to be able to this without help", and they were all like "right on". humility is always not stupid.
see what i did there?
my friends are great. there are the usual occasional hangups and whatnot, but whatever. who ever gained anything by holding other people to higher standards than they hold themselves? i'm stopping brutalizing myself, so i should go easy on other people too. that doesn't mean i'm going to befriend serial rapists, but...i could be a little less of an ass about who i spend my time with. i realize that now.
i'm learning to care about people in moderation. i always talk about how i just like having a few "good" friends instead of a lot of "shallow" friends, and the good side of that is that i know the kind of people i get on with and will search them out and some funz. the bad side of this, i'm realizing, is that it keeps me from having to deal with another issue i have, which is that i become insanely attached to people insanely quickly. and when i only have a few friends i can justify that. mostly. when i have more, i need to learn how to not treat everyone i know like they're the most significant person on the planet, because they're not. we all are. and we're all not. at once. and junk.
anyway, my point is that i'm trying not to go bonkers for everyone that i find to be fun to hang out with. a corollary of this (and a harder thing) is to learn how to care about/love friends of mine who are girls without mistaking that for that other kind of love (the one that i suck at). i've never been good at this...and i'm trying to learn, but dammit it's incredibly hard. something about autumn especially puts me in this weird, cuddly sort of mood where i just want to go apple picking and pumpkin carving and outdoor-walking with a girl, and it sucks that now, after 2 years or so of being single, when i finally feel like i'm not so insane that i'd just devour someone if i was to enter a relationship with them, that it's not happening. my response is of course to just project a romantic-relationship schema on like every girl i meet who's half-nice to me...which is stupid, and sucks. and i shouldn't do it. but i just have a hard time being friends with girls and not eventually either actually having or at least thinking i have feelings for them. and the "really having" and "not really having" are hard to tell apart. shit.
but i'm really, really happy to have a lot of great people around and to feel like i can push myself to engage with them instead of just being too scared/lame to do so. after everything i've done the last few years, with the degree, and the teaching, and the music, and the writing, and the photography and everything else...somehow this feels like the one thing that actually means something outside of my own head. just being with good people, and being good to them. and that scares me, because none of them will be around forever, and when they leave, it's quite possible nobody new will come around. but i've used that as an excuse for at least 10 years in my life to not seriously and meaningfully engage with people. and i've also complained constantly about how unconnected i feel. maybe it's time to start shouldering the responsibility for my part in that.
i'm going to somehow try to sleep. peeps iz awesome. monday in t-minus five hours. engaging deflector shield, preparing for impact. entering atmosphere. anybody else smell smoke?
homezzz
i got some of these pictures from andrea (who incidentally would look like this if she was a care bear) today. very cool.
i miss home. autumn is my favorite season pretty much anywhere, but especially in kent, which is the closest thing i have to a permanent home (parents, etc. are elsewhere, but i've always felt like canton was their space and not mine for some reason, anyway...) and i love how the trees take forever to change and fall apart; here it's sudden and beautiful in its own sort of violent way...more fleeting, and i think there's something to learn in that. but. i miss autumn in kent. i miss being there in general...but. at the same time, i feel like nothing moves there for me anymore. i'm glad i left, just as i'm glad i get to come back now and again. but. sometime around the middle of 2005 something happened that just really made me feel like there was nowhere else to go there anymore. like to move on to something else in my life i needed to go somewhere else. i don't know if that makes sense. i guess i feel like, had i stayed there, i would have remained the person i was at 24 forever. i would have become the dreaded "townie"...and as much as i love going back there and want to pretty much constantly...i'm glad i left, because it's the only way i could have grown up. but yeah. these trees are awesome.
 |
| From fall 08 |
i miss home. autumn is my favorite season pretty much anywhere, but especially in kent, which is the closest thing i have to a permanent home (parents, etc. are elsewhere, but i've always felt like canton was their space and not mine for some reason, anyway...) and i love how the trees take forever to change and fall apart; here it's sudden and beautiful in its own sort of violent way...more fleeting, and i think there's something to learn in that. but. i miss autumn in kent. i miss being there in general...but. at the same time, i feel like nothing moves there for me anymore. i'm glad i left, just as i'm glad i get to come back now and again. but. sometime around the middle of 2005 something happened that just really made me feel like there was nowhere else to go there anymore. like to move on to something else in my life i needed to go somewhere else. i don't know if that makes sense. i guess i feel like, had i stayed there, i would have remained the person i was at 24 forever. i would have become the dreaded "townie"...and as much as i love going back there and want to pretty much constantly...i'm glad i left, because it's the only way i could have grown up. but yeah. these trees are awesome.
 |
| From fall 08 |
reblogging is LAME.
nonetheless.
this hit me between the eyes this morning, and parallels with some things that i've sort of been thinking about/dealing with/failing to deal with a lot lately. so i thought it was cool. so now i'm reblogging.
this hit me between the eyes this morning, and parallels with some things that i've sort of been thinking about/dealing with/failing to deal with a lot lately. so i thought it was cool. so now i'm reblogging.
ryan here- hello all
I decided to put my thoughts into action. I decided to get well. I’ve had terrible insomnia forever and I guess since I got the flu my chest really hurt. So I quit some stuff. here’s how it’s going.
1. QUIT SMOKING-Day Two- ZERO cigarettes (from being down to just three or so a day for four days. (fingers crossed- total dedication- no patch- no meds)
this will help me feel better, my voice won’t suffer and it’s a positive thing to do. I have bee smoking since I was 14 (over half my life). yuck. it’s over. (smokerbreaker LP coming- (not)
2. QUIT COFFEE- I drink too much coffee. It gives me anxiety- I think it does anyway. I push myself hard enough I don’t need to have a heart attack. So I quit. I feel fine. I still make tea. new fav mx- Red Clover with Rose Hips….yummmmmm.
3. QUIT RUNNING AWAY FROM MY PROBLEMS-
i am so far from perfect, so flawed, so human, so dumb, so smart. BUT i am not getting anywhere right now blogging at FOGGY every time i feel lonely or weird. I used to read and write even more than I do lately. It was a great relief. But you know, I am the same guy that writes these lyrics and stuff about some serious issues. I have to face that fact that i am that person and you know, work on that. Because it is just as effective to understand myself and share joy as it is sadness and, well, i have taken some steps to understand myself better.
I feel good sharing. Everyone down here on this funny little planet can use some love and some light and some sharing and I just wanted to let anybody who knows our band and knows our gang to know that I was taking care.
I also thought, and this is stupid, but, if you are going through some rough times out there, you are not alone, and even if you don’t know me and I don’t know you, well, we’re aLL CONNECTED and all have that same potential to change and to love ourselves and others and to free ourselves from pain. And I am a big knuckle head and I am making some strides towards getting well.
So if you are feeling alone out there or on the rocks, just know i feel ya’ and one soul to another….HANG IN!!!! like my friend tells me when times get funky.
HANG IN!
xx
Ryan
crossed-out name
not sure if it's the record version or not, but a cool video nonetheless.
record comes out tuesday, but since i work 8-10 on tuesday, i'm gonna have to snag it on wednesday. rarg.
UPDATE: this is in fact the version of the song off the album. just verified with iLike.
record comes out tuesday, but since i work 8-10 on tuesday, i'm gonna have to snag it on wednesday. rarg.
UPDATE: this is in fact the version of the song off the album. just verified with iLike.
good geesh!
just as i suspected, dicks is the seminal fila brazilia album.
and i mean that in all the ways you might think i meant it.
and i mean that in all the ways you might think i meant it.
Oct 25, 2008
Oct 24, 2008
i <3 my jorb
i was going to say this the other day, but i didn't. and now that i'm super-caffeinated, half-asleep and completely incoherent, i'm going to try to say it now.
i have a very cool job. and the point of getting the ph.d, of course, is that i'll be able to not only continue having this job, but also get paid huge amounts (by my standards) of cash to do it.
i've been whining a lot lately. even more than usual. and with good reason. lots of hard things going on. lots of work, little sleep (even more and less respectively than usual, and i have been living exceptionally unhealthily in these two ways for the last three years or so, so that's saying something). on top of that, lots of actually having to think about my future, having to actually think about feelings of the romantic variety. neither of those things are exactly my forte. fighting the tendency to just sort of curl up in my hole and resign myself to my work, which is probably my least favorite thing about myself...my tendency to do that. i have to stop, because otherwise i'll never actually be happy. i've accepted that i'll never be the most popular guy at the party, but there's a difference between being that guy and willing to go out of your way occasionally to engage someone socially or emotionally, and i don't think i've ever realized that before. it was always "i'm socially awkward, so that means i have to consign myself to entertaining myself". but fuck that. i care too much about other people to be that way. i care too much about making my life worth something other than me feeling good about myself. that's cyclical, masturbatory, and selfish, ultimately. at least if it's your only goal.
anyway, my point was...umm...i guess that my job is great. i get paid to write and read. and work with students who are, by and large, pretty awesome (though most freshmen have a special kind of apathy that makes me want to work with higher-level students sometimes). i don't get paid much, but i don't need to get paid much because i don't spend much. i'm surrounded by really great people and friends who are all into the same kinds of things i am and who are always around when i'm not being too stubborn to actually talk to them. all those years that i worked shitty jobs thinking that someday having a job i liked would somehow make it worth it existentially? yeah, it totally did. i was right. for once. working 16 hours a day here is ten times easier and more enjoyable than working 8 hours at any other job i've had. i actually get home at night feeling like i both accomplished something meaningful and also learned things that help make my own life better.
of course working 16 hours a day 7 days a week gets old even if your job is having teh secks. that's why i've been really pissy lately, at least partially. it's hard to work this much. i was afraid to come back to the program, honestly, because i was still burnt out from the MA and the idea of doing it again, for twice as long, seemed terrifying. but i'm glad i did. i know what i want to do, i know i'll need a ph.d to do it, and so having to go through it eventually was inevitable. i'm glad i did it now instead of waiting a few years and trying to "come back" to the scene after being away. i don't think i could have made it then. i think i'll make it now. besides, fear is a dumb reason to do anything.
so yeah. it's week nine and as usual at about this time, i'm tired as shit. i want to be done and i never want to read a journal article again. but underneath all that, i'm fucking fortunate as fuck to be here and be doing what i'm doing, and i know that. and that's what makes everything else not only bearable, but formative, and in a positive way. growing is always a little painful...
time's up. gotta hit spanish 600.
i have a very cool job. and the point of getting the ph.d, of course, is that i'll be able to not only continue having this job, but also get paid huge amounts (by my standards) of cash to do it.
i've been whining a lot lately. even more than usual. and with good reason. lots of hard things going on. lots of work, little sleep (even more and less respectively than usual, and i have been living exceptionally unhealthily in these two ways for the last three years or so, so that's saying something). on top of that, lots of actually having to think about my future, having to actually think about feelings of the romantic variety. neither of those things are exactly my forte. fighting the tendency to just sort of curl up in my hole and resign myself to my work, which is probably my least favorite thing about myself...my tendency to do that. i have to stop, because otherwise i'll never actually be happy. i've accepted that i'll never be the most popular guy at the party, but there's a difference between being that guy and willing to go out of your way occasionally to engage someone socially or emotionally, and i don't think i've ever realized that before. it was always "i'm socially awkward, so that means i have to consign myself to entertaining myself". but fuck that. i care too much about other people to be that way. i care too much about making my life worth something other than me feeling good about myself. that's cyclical, masturbatory, and selfish, ultimately. at least if it's your only goal.
anyway, my point was...umm...i guess that my job is great. i get paid to write and read. and work with students who are, by and large, pretty awesome (though most freshmen have a special kind of apathy that makes me want to work with higher-level students sometimes). i don't get paid much, but i don't need to get paid much because i don't spend much. i'm surrounded by really great people and friends who are all into the same kinds of things i am and who are always around when i'm not being too stubborn to actually talk to them. all those years that i worked shitty jobs thinking that someday having a job i liked would somehow make it worth it existentially? yeah, it totally did. i was right. for once. working 16 hours a day here is ten times easier and more enjoyable than working 8 hours at any other job i've had. i actually get home at night feeling like i both accomplished something meaningful and also learned things that help make my own life better.
of course working 16 hours a day 7 days a week gets old even if your job is having teh secks. that's why i've been really pissy lately, at least partially. it's hard to work this much. i was afraid to come back to the program, honestly, because i was still burnt out from the MA and the idea of doing it again, for twice as long, seemed terrifying. but i'm glad i did. i know what i want to do, i know i'll need a ph.d to do it, and so having to go through it eventually was inevitable. i'm glad i did it now instead of waiting a few years and trying to "come back" to the scene after being away. i don't think i could have made it then. i think i'll make it now. besides, fear is a dumb reason to do anything.
so yeah. it's week nine and as usual at about this time, i'm tired as shit. i want to be done and i never want to read a journal article again. but underneath all that, i'm fucking fortunate as fuck to be here and be doing what i'm doing, and i know that. and that's what makes everything else not only bearable, but formative, and in a positive way. growing is always a little painful...
time's up. gotta hit spanish 600.
Oct 23, 2008
madden update
okay, so it's been awhile (obviously) since i've had time to do anything even remotely resembling playing madden 2003 on my aging home computer, let alone had time to actually do that exact thing.
when we last left our heroes, they had completely mutilated the falcons, a team they hadn't met in years, 38-10 in falconland...
bunting pulling in one of many touchdown throws:
only god knows who this pass was intended for:
so, coming off a falcon-beating and an OT win against the seahawks, i figured we would roll right over the cleveland browns. right? RIGHT?!
well, it turns out that even though i managed to shut down zack osbourne (a feat i utterly failed to accomplish in the preseason), william green ran for over 150 yards...but i'm getting ahead of myself.
it was 0-0 late in the first quarter, and it looked like it would be one of those slow, drudging, field-positiony games (and it was raining, which doesn't help the passing game). at one point, osbourne was 1-10 passing and our QB was 2-11. then shit got crazy. we went up 7-0, then they got a field goal after a ridiculous play involving donnie smith intercepting a pass that bounced off kevin johnson's helmet which somehow resulted in sparks getting called for pass interference as donnie smith ran the interception 70 yards for a touchdown (interception called back, browns got the ball back on our 10). then they took the lead 10-7 after stewart missed a 41 yard field goal and green ran 30 yards for a TD shortly thereafter.
suddenly, green went nuts and by the two minute warning it was 17-7, cleveland. thanks to a few no-huddle plays, we scored to make it 17-14 at halftime. this is where things got really ugly. after punting back and forth a bit, we scored again to make it 21-17, then got a field goal to make it 24-17. on the next drive, osbourne threw a screen pass that green dropped (ruled a fumble) and we recovered. but, poised to make it 31-17, bowes fumbled and the browns worked down the field and scored to tie it at 24-24. then, on our very first play of the next possession, they intercepted and ran it in to put 14 points on the board over 5 seconds of clock and take the lead 31-24. they held us, then we held them, then we scored with just over 2 minutes left to tie it up. we held them at midfield again, and green fumbled on a third down run. we recovered and ran it upfield to get into field goal position with 10 seconds left. then, on a dive play to bowes to center the ball, he fumbled the handoff and the browns got the ball back and ran the clock out.
fortunately, as usual, we won the toss in overtime, buzzsawed through the defense, and kicked a field goal 3 minutes in to win 34-31. jesus.
next up...umm...i can't remember. somebody not good. oh, the panthers. who i still have a sore spot for from the time they ruined our undefeated season 12 games in. kill.
when we last left our heroes, they had completely mutilated the falcons, a team they hadn't met in years, 38-10 in falconland...
bunting pulling in one of many touchdown throws:
 |
| From Other and Posts |
only god knows who this pass was intended for:
 |
| From Other and Posts |
so, coming off a falcon-beating and an OT win against the seahawks, i figured we would roll right over the cleveland browns. right? RIGHT?!
well, it turns out that even though i managed to shut down zack osbourne (a feat i utterly failed to accomplish in the preseason), william green ran for over 150 yards...but i'm getting ahead of myself.
 |
| From Other and Posts |
it was 0-0 late in the first quarter, and it looked like it would be one of those slow, drudging, field-positiony games (and it was raining, which doesn't help the passing game). at one point, osbourne was 1-10 passing and our QB was 2-11. then shit got crazy. we went up 7-0, then they got a field goal after a ridiculous play involving donnie smith intercepting a pass that bounced off kevin johnson's helmet which somehow resulted in sparks getting called for pass interference as donnie smith ran the interception 70 yards for a touchdown (interception called back, browns got the ball back on our 10). then they took the lead 10-7 after stewart missed a 41 yard field goal and green ran 30 yards for a TD shortly thereafter.
 |
| From Other and Posts |
suddenly, green went nuts and by the two minute warning it was 17-7, cleveland. thanks to a few no-huddle plays, we scored to make it 17-14 at halftime. this is where things got really ugly. after punting back and forth a bit, we scored again to make it 21-17, then got a field goal to make it 24-17. on the next drive, osbourne threw a screen pass that green dropped (ruled a fumble) and we recovered. but, poised to make it 31-17, bowes fumbled and the browns worked down the field and scored to tie it at 24-24. then, on our very first play of the next possession, they intercepted and ran it in to put 14 points on the board over 5 seconds of clock and take the lead 31-24. they held us, then we held them, then we scored with just over 2 minutes left to tie it up. we held them at midfield again, and green fumbled on a third down run. we recovered and ran it upfield to get into field goal position with 10 seconds left. then, on a dive play to bowes to center the ball, he fumbled the handoff and the browns got the ball back and ran the clock out.
fortunately, as usual, we won the toss in overtime, buzzsawed through the defense, and kicked a field goal 3 minutes in to win 34-31. jesus.
next up...umm...i can't remember. somebody not good. oh, the panthers. who i still have a sore spot for from the time they ruined our undefeated season 12 games in. kill.
Oct 22, 2008
i'm happy like it's 1994
i just got my "new" CD player in the mail. as i ranted about last week (i think), i agonized over making the switch to completely digital music files for a few days after breaking my current CD player. the idea was seductive, despite the fact that digital would require purchasing a bunch of hard drives, ripping ALL the thousands of my CDs to FLAC/WAV and putting them on those hard drives...not to mention that to get anything near the efficiency and ease of my CD player/CD collection i would have had to buy a digital music player capable of play FLAC and also storing at least like 20 gb of files to make it worth my trouble. this came out to about 400-500 bucks total, plus a shitload of conversion work...while getting a new CD player entailed about 50 bucks and the ability to grab any CD whenever, wherever i want and play it right away at lossless quality.
ultimately, not a tough decision (ironically, the 60 bucks i ended up paying for the CD player was being saved to soon buy a turntable and a sound system for said turntable...no longer).
anyway, i got the sony walkman D-NF340...i wanted the 430 like fuck, but they don't make them anymore and so i had to buy the slightly less sleek (read: bulky and loud) 340, which takes 2 AA batteries (so primitive!). but it sounds really good, it's really sturdy looking, and though i miss my old player still, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with this one (no EQ, which is a little bit of a bummer). it DID come with this awesome little remote thing on an extension cord, which allows me to keep the player safe in my bag, and only keep the remote in my pocket, coat, whatever and still switch tracks and change volume. very cool.
i'm just happy to be able to listen to music again in my idle moments (walking, etc.)...when i don't listen to at least 4 hours of music a day, i feel the same way that i do when i don't keep up with my reading for class :)
i almost never use smileys in blogging. it's a sign. of something. perhaps i haven't been blogging enough lately? fo sho.
anyway, hooray for music. i'm gonna go home and enjoy being awake and not working for like 45 minutes before i fall asleep.
ultimately, not a tough decision (ironically, the 60 bucks i ended up paying for the CD player was being saved to soon buy a turntable and a sound system for said turntable...no longer).
anyway, i got the sony walkman D-NF340...i wanted the 430 like fuck, but they don't make them anymore and so i had to buy the slightly less sleek (read: bulky and loud) 340, which takes 2 AA batteries (so primitive!). but it sounds really good, it's really sturdy looking, and though i miss my old player still, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with this one (no EQ, which is a little bit of a bummer). it DID come with this awesome little remote thing on an extension cord, which allows me to keep the player safe in my bag, and only keep the remote in my pocket, coat, whatever and still switch tracks and change volume. very cool.
i'm just happy to be able to listen to music again in my idle moments (walking, etc.)...when i don't listen to at least 4 hours of music a day, i feel the same way that i do when i don't keep up with my reading for class :)
i almost never use smileys in blogging. it's a sign. of something. perhaps i haven't been blogging enough lately? fo sho.
anyway, hooray for music. i'm gonna go home and enjoy being awake and not working for like 45 minutes before i fall asleep.
free jazz!
just got pointed to this by the boys and gals on RAA...totally free, over 70 minutes. awesome.
checks it out, precious.
checks it out, precious.
why must hollywood break everything?
everything!
this is at least the best bad review of the max payne film i've read, because:
a) it intimates that the review has at least a bit of experience with - and hence respect for - the source material, which once again hollywood has utterly failed to even attempt to do justice to
b) briefly raises the point that a large percentage of the pop-culture populace refuses to acknowledge the fact that video games are not all over-the-top, vapid, masculinist pursuits with no redeeming critical or artistic value. even as the movies they love become more and more like the type of soulless, action/violence-worshipping shooting sprees they villify video games for supposedly being. but i digres...
c) i also like the point that the reviewer makes that it is actually shitty action movies in the first place that influenced video games to be so shitty and actiony and that maybe we should look at movies to ask ourselves why video game adapatations suck, and not at video games.
this is at least the best bad review of the max payne film i've read, because:
a) it intimates that the review has at least a bit of experience with - and hence respect for - the source material, which once again hollywood has utterly failed to even attempt to do justice to
b) briefly raises the point that a large percentage of the pop-culture populace refuses to acknowledge the fact that video games are not all over-the-top, vapid, masculinist pursuits with no redeeming critical or artistic value. even as the movies they love become more and more like the type of soulless, action/violence-worshipping shooting sprees they villify video games for supposedly being. but i digres...
c) i also like the point that the reviewer makes that it is actually shitty action movies in the first place that influenced video games to be so shitty and actiony and that maybe we should look at movies to ask ourselves why video game adapatations suck, and not at video games.
Oct 20, 2008
nomz!
i spent so much money on food this weekend. little caesar's on friday, taco del mar last night, a few other grocery goodies thrown in there, bar food twice, pita pit tonight and a total of something like five drinks at the bar over the course of two nights...shit. you'd think i was making a living wage (instead of making slightly under what's considered poverty-level pay for working at the very least 70-80 hours a week).
however, i would not have survived the last week were it not for occasionally indulging myself food-wise and regularly taking some time away from work to spend with friends instead, which is something i haven't been doing at all this semester until now. so fuck it. if having friends and spending a little money and not just working all the time is what it takes to get through this semester...well that's not so bad. at the moment, school can eat my ass anyway.
however, i would not have survived the last week were it not for occasionally indulging myself food-wise and regularly taking some time away from work to spend with friends instead, which is something i haven't been doing at all this semester until now. so fuck it. if having friends and spending a little money and not just working all the time is what it takes to get through this semester...well that's not so bad. at the moment, school can eat my ass anyway.
Oct 19, 2008
eagle one, fox two...direct hit! confirm target destroyed...the week from hell is down. repeat, target is down.
i started this post as a way to describe in words the scope of the horror that has been the last seven days. i'm not sure if i can compass it, but i'll try.
so i started getting a bit sick just before my friend tonie's wedding last saturday, but i toughed it out and had a good time that night, though i ended up going home early feeling quite a bit like shit. sleeping was done that night. for the last time.
sunday was a day of struggling mightily through my work for the week, making little to no progress, and questioning my place on the earth (for various reasons romantic, existential, and professional). this night ran until about 5am. i got up at 7am to teach. taught monday and spent all night reading a book for 510. spent a cumulative 22 hours in avery, and short of sleeping for 30 minutes at one point on the lounge couch, i just went home and showered and came back for my 9 hours of class on tuesday. after class, i went out to rico's with some classmates and my professor to discuss research projects. ended up staying up afterwards until about 3am, slept till 7am, back in to teach on wednesday. this is where i started to have to rely on cold medicine, sugar, and diet coke to literally keep my conscious and functional. i fumbled through my class (ask my students; i ran into a TV. three times.) and then spent most of the night in the library with toria and lauren, and then in avery and then at home, trying to write fifteen pages of a seminar paper that was due in the morning. i slept for one hour. back in at 7am on thursday for 521, during which we workshopped. at this point i was insanely sick, but stuck out class, then went home and took a nap, to prolong death. but then it was back to avery all night to tie up all the loose ends i had had to let hang all week...until about 5am. back up at 7am to go to class all day friday. after class was over on friday, i wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. so i stayed at work until about 11pm, then came home and actually went to bed at 1am...slept until 2pm the next day and since then tylenol sinus and i have had my illness on the run. though i don't have a voice anymore.
so...we have in the final score over five nights...three all-nighters (unless you count an hour or so of sleep, which if anyone in the audience has ever pulled an all-nighter you know sleeping for an hour actually just makes it worse), and two short nights of sleep for a total of 9 hours over about 120 hours, on top of having a crazy fever and sinus issues, and being super-crazy emo over this one girl that i shouldn't have been super-crazy emo about but couldn't help myself. wow.
right now, i'm just glad it's over. nevermind the fact that i still haven't finished the first draft of my paper in all honesty, and i have to somehow read an 800 page book tomorrow and i'm sliding out of my chair at the moment because it's too hard to sit up.
how people in other programs get into grad school just to "keep going to school" because they like it is beyond me. in english, as a TA and a grad student, this job just fucking eats you alive. i'm glad i'm doing it, i'm glad i got my foot in the door instead of trying to pick things up when i'm 30 or 35 again like i did when i started the MA...because it won't be any easier then than it is now. it only would have gotten harder had i waited. but it's hard enough already. egads.
enough whining for now. i'm going to go do something else. dexter season 3 is good so far. not as good as 2...but then, what is?
so i started getting a bit sick just before my friend tonie's wedding last saturday, but i toughed it out and had a good time that night, though i ended up going home early feeling quite a bit like shit. sleeping was done that night. for the last time.
sunday was a day of struggling mightily through my work for the week, making little to no progress, and questioning my place on the earth (for various reasons romantic, existential, and professional). this night ran until about 5am. i got up at 7am to teach. taught monday and spent all night reading a book for 510. spent a cumulative 22 hours in avery, and short of sleeping for 30 minutes at one point on the lounge couch, i just went home and showered and came back for my 9 hours of class on tuesday. after class, i went out to rico's with some classmates and my professor to discuss research projects. ended up staying up afterwards until about 3am, slept till 7am, back in to teach on wednesday. this is where i started to have to rely on cold medicine, sugar, and diet coke to literally keep my conscious and functional. i fumbled through my class (ask my students; i ran into a TV. three times.) and then spent most of the night in the library with toria and lauren, and then in avery and then at home, trying to write fifteen pages of a seminar paper that was due in the morning. i slept for one hour. back in at 7am on thursday for 521, during which we workshopped. at this point i was insanely sick, but stuck out class, then went home and took a nap, to prolong death. but then it was back to avery all night to tie up all the loose ends i had had to let hang all week...until about 5am. back up at 7am to go to class all day friday. after class was over on friday, i wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. so i stayed at work until about 11pm, then came home and actually went to bed at 1am...slept until 2pm the next day and since then tylenol sinus and i have had my illness on the run. though i don't have a voice anymore.
so...we have in the final score over five nights...three all-nighters (unless you count an hour or so of sleep, which if anyone in the audience has ever pulled an all-nighter you know sleeping for an hour actually just makes it worse), and two short nights of sleep for a total of 9 hours over about 120 hours, on top of having a crazy fever and sinus issues, and being super-crazy emo over this one girl that i shouldn't have been super-crazy emo about but couldn't help myself. wow.
right now, i'm just glad it's over. nevermind the fact that i still haven't finished the first draft of my paper in all honesty, and i have to somehow read an 800 page book tomorrow and i'm sliding out of my chair at the moment because it's too hard to sit up.
how people in other programs get into grad school just to "keep going to school" because they like it is beyond me. in english, as a TA and a grad student, this job just fucking eats you alive. i'm glad i'm doing it, i'm glad i got my foot in the door instead of trying to pick things up when i'm 30 or 35 again like i did when i started the MA...because it won't be any easier then than it is now. it only would have gotten harder had i waited. but it's hard enough already. egads.
enough whining for now. i'm going to go do something else. dexter season 3 is good so far. not as good as 2...but then, what is?
Oct 18, 2008
whickety whack!
where the hell is everyone?
i've been trying for like three days to get in touch with a bunch of particular people, and they've all disappeared off the face of the earth.
in their absence i've finished out the Week From Hell and made a facebook music page (which doesn't get a public URL until i get some new pictures of me with a guitar).
with the sudden absence of a particular happy possibility in my life...i've sort of realized how much i've neglected everyone else lately. which of course is making me want to stalk the shit out of everyone because i'm lonely. i suck at being human.
but still, hey, if you want to hang out, give me a call.
i've loaded myself up with enough drugs (both legal and...stuff) that i currently don't feel sick at all!
i'm clearly not a basketcase.
i've been trying for like three days to get in touch with a bunch of particular people, and they've all disappeared off the face of the earth.
in their absence i've finished out the Week From Hell and made a facebook music page (which doesn't get a public URL until i get some new pictures of me with a guitar).
with the sudden absence of a particular happy possibility in my life...i've sort of realized how much i've neglected everyone else lately. which of course is making me want to stalk the shit out of everyone because i'm lonely. i suck at being human.
but still, hey, if you want to hang out, give me a call.
i've loaded myself up with enough drugs (both legal and...stuff) that i currently don't feel sick at all!
i'm clearly not a basketcase.
Oct 17, 2008
new lease on life
despite my constant refusal for two years now to replace the majority of the working parts in my desktop computer (due to money issues), the thing is still functioning fairly well. now it's almost three and a half years old, and while it (sadly) won't play anything close to resembling a new computer game, it still does everything else i'd like it to do semi-competently.
it's also good at catching horrible viruses, as i found out earlier this week. fortunately, after i devoted most of the 3 hours i actually had available for sleeping late both last night and the night before to editing system files from the command prompt (the computer wouldn't boot fully, even in safe mode), i seem to have exorcised the demon.
seeing as how the main thrust of my repair effort involved inserting vista system files and values into an xp registry...well, things might not last that well for long. but so far my fix is holding.
now all i have to do is drudge up the funds to do a motherboard/video card/RAM/case replacement and i'll be set!
it's also good at catching horrible viruses, as i found out earlier this week. fortunately, after i devoted most of the 3 hours i actually had available for sleeping late both last night and the night before to editing system files from the command prompt (the computer wouldn't boot fully, even in safe mode), i seem to have exorcised the demon.
seeing as how the main thrust of my repair effort involved inserting vista system files and values into an xp registry...well, things might not last that well for long. but so far my fix is holding.
now all i have to do is drudge up the funds to do a motherboard/video card/RAM/case replacement and i'll be set!
Oct 16, 2008
bah...and zzzzz...
that's it. i'm done with feelings and love and whatnot.
actually, i'm going to try to take a nap and i find it easier to fall asleep if i lie to myself first.
ha.
actually, i'm going to try to take a nap and i find it easier to fall asleep if i lie to myself first.
ha.
free and clear
work, once again, has swooped in to rescue me. by destroying everything that actually matters and taking my mind off things that can't be broken down and simplified and explicated. the world is broken down into a narrow tunnel between me and my laptop screen, and the lines of caffeinated lightning that keep shooting my fingers across the keyboard. maybe that's good. i don't know anymore.
i feel like "day-to-day" is a four letter word. how low the mighty have fallen, and so fast. i keep thinking about where i thought i was even a few weeks ago and i would laugh at myself if i was laughing at someone else instead, for being such a presumptive, care-free dumbass. it felt really good to try something new, to do something different, to do something for someone else for a change and not be afraid of that. but it didn't work out...so why the hell do i still want to be that person instead of the one that i am? probably because i'm the kind of person who writes stupid shit on an internet blog, and that's currently a person that's hard for me to like that much.
fuck, this is why i was writing a paper and not opening firefox.
i feel like "day-to-day" is a four letter word. how low the mighty have fallen, and so fast. i keep thinking about where i thought i was even a few weeks ago and i would laugh at myself if i was laughing at someone else instead, for being such a presumptive, care-free dumbass. it felt really good to try something new, to do something different, to do something for someone else for a change and not be afraid of that. but it didn't work out...so why the hell do i still want to be that person instead of the one that i am? probably because i'm the kind of person who writes stupid shit on an internet blog, and that's currently a person that's hard for me to like that much.
fuck, this is why i was writing a paper and not opening firefox.
Oct 15, 2008
pterodon bombardiers
fuck lazers forewent the third night of concertage in avery tonight in favor of some learning and some drinking and some more drinking and then forgetting all the learning. there may have been a point at which my head spun around in a complete circle and shot laser beams made of rachmaninoff's third concerto at innocent people.
in the last few days i've:
1) lost my older of my two digital cameras
2) broke my CD player
3) got a virus that's completely crippled my home computer
4) been awake for 64 of the last 68 hours
5) have a cold
6) have to somehow write a 15 page paper tomorrow after sleeping for 3-4 hours only
7) topped off my night tonight by finding out definitively that the girl i am/was interested is DEFINITELY not interested back.
i've managed to be pretty impressively positive throughout all of this, but i've hit the wall.
i'm making the completely classy move of taking a shot of my own jim beam stash and passing out on my bed. fuck it.
in the last few days i've:
1) lost my older of my two digital cameras
2) broke my CD player
3) got a virus that's completely crippled my home computer
4) been awake for 64 of the last 68 hours
5) have a cold
6) have to somehow write a 15 page paper tomorrow after sleeping for 3-4 hours only
7) topped off my night tonight by finding out definitively that the girl i am/was interested is DEFINITELY not interested back.
i've managed to be pretty impressively positive throughout all of this, but i've hit the wall.
i'm making the completely classy move of taking a shot of my own jim beam stash and passing out on my bed. fuck it.
Oct 14, 2008
transcendence through madness/many skittles
i'm so tired i'm incapable of anything except unconditional love.
if you've ever wanted anything from me, now's probably the best time to ask.
two more days of this to go. if i know myself well at all, tomorrow will be a SUPER PISSY day. hopefully i'm wrong-o.
time to go close my eyes and instead of worrying about insomnia be happy that my friends kick fucking ass and i'm doing my own thing and not trying to sell myself to anyone for the second straight year in a row and holy shit it's working a lot better now that i'm not an asshole and i'm being open to people. this one friend of mine who is a total, humblingly awesome fucking sweetheart (who hopefully does not read my blog or else this will be hilarious) gave me a bunch of soup the other night and holy shit is it a) really good and b) awesome to have soup in your fridge already when you have to walk home for 15 minutes in a sideways-ass ice storm and you don't have a coat because you can never keep track of that damn coat. wowzers.
i can't remember at this point if i swallowed the light or the light swallowed me, but i can definitely feel it in my fingers and it's telling me to spread the word. not jesus, don't worry. it's not like that. i don't have anything against jesus, but, you know...he's just alright with me. we have an understanding born of a long argument that almost ended with me doing something neither one of us really wanted me to do. so we had an armistice per se. now i'm more interested in human, flawed, holy (nonetheless) power that's the only real thing we have to prop each other up with. and we have to. just because you're scared, or lost, or clueless doesn't mean that you're not still responsible for your own life. if you want to waste your time feeling like you're somehow more flawed than everyone else, whatevs. i don't want to do that anymore. i want to at least get to the end knowing i cried as hard and as honestly as i laughed. and now i must to bed.
to bed!
if you've ever wanted anything from me, now's probably the best time to ask.
two more days of this to go. if i know myself well at all, tomorrow will be a SUPER PISSY day. hopefully i'm wrong-o.
time to go close my eyes and instead of worrying about insomnia be happy that my friends kick fucking ass and i'm doing my own thing and not trying to sell myself to anyone for the second straight year in a row and holy shit it's working a lot better now that i'm not an asshole and i'm being open to people. this one friend of mine who is a total, humblingly awesome fucking sweetheart (who hopefully does not read my blog or else this will be hilarious) gave me a bunch of soup the other night and holy shit is it a) really good and b) awesome to have soup in your fridge already when you have to walk home for 15 minutes in a sideways-ass ice storm and you don't have a coat because you can never keep track of that damn coat. wowzers.
i can't remember at this point if i swallowed the light or the light swallowed me, but i can definitely feel it in my fingers and it's telling me to spread the word. not jesus, don't worry. it's not like that. i don't have anything against jesus, but, you know...he's just alright with me. we have an understanding born of a long argument that almost ended with me doing something neither one of us really wanted me to do. so we had an armistice per se. now i'm more interested in human, flawed, holy (nonetheless) power that's the only real thing we have to prop each other up with. and we have to. just because you're scared, or lost, or clueless doesn't mean that you're not still responsible for your own life. if you want to waste your time feeling like you're somehow more flawed than everyone else, whatevs. i don't want to do that anymore. i want to at least get to the end knowing i cried as hard and as honestly as i laughed. and now i must to bed.
to bed!
the jamz
happened a bit early, since i really didn't want to stay in avery until 4am unless i had to.
1. pearls on a string (cardinals)
2. lady gray (new, slow, funky version)
3. hey sue
4. transmissions > crazy stairs > enemy
5. dead flowers (rolling stones)
6. love in vain (robert johnson)
7. three tylenol and a bunch of cigarettes (improv song)
8. palace > cassie (new song) > palace > caroline > isis > caroline > palace (20+ minutes)
9. delicate > w (new song)
10. better to have loved and lost
11. carolina rain (ryan adams)
12. molly
13. long black veil (johnny cash)
this was followed by the cleaving of a roland microcube amp into smoking halves thanks to a epiphone LP-100 wielded like a two-handed battle axe covered in blue elf fire (achieved by soaking said guitar in purell and then lighting it with a match). the remains of the stage were scoured by the two white dragons that i summoned using these two awesome bracelets i found in the heart of a volcano last time i was in the 8th century. you know, back when dragons were awesome.
1. pearls on a string (cardinals)
2. lady gray (new, slow, funky version)
3. hey sue
4. transmissions > crazy stairs > enemy
5. dead flowers (rolling stones)
6. love in vain (robert johnson)
7. three tylenol and a bunch of cigarettes (improv song)
8. palace > cassie (new song) > palace > caroline > isis > caroline > palace (20+ minutes)
9. delicate > w (new song)
10. better to have loved and lost
11. carolina rain (ryan adams)
12. molly
13. long black veil (johnny cash)
this was followed by the cleaving of a roland microcube amp into smoking halves thanks to a epiphone LP-100 wielded like a two-handed battle axe covered in blue elf fire (achieved by soaking said guitar in purell and then lighting it with a match). the remains of the stage were scoured by the two white dragons that i summoned using these two awesome bracelets i found in the heart of a volcano last time i was in the 8th century. you know, back when dragons were awesome.
Oct 13, 2008
guns n roses was once badass
in the middle of simultaneously being insane and trying to find a copy of robert frost's poem "my november guest" online, i accidentally ended up at the "november rain" music video. if you've never seen this, fucking watch it. and then shred some shit.
soundcheck
fuck lazers briefly took the stage for soundcheck a bit ago. played a bit of "pearls on a string" by the cardinals, and a really saucy version of "caroline".
3 1/2 hours until the crazy breaks.
3 1/2 hours until the crazy breaks.
another fun use for fuck.
i love when the phrase "what the fuck" is used to indicate disbelief specifically as a statement, similarly to when one would say "you've got to be kidding me" or "that's ridiculous". somehow, when it's not a question, it's intrinsically funnier. like in this comic, for example.
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| From Other and Posts |
stevens (again)
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
stevens
There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,
They would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly
And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,
Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.
wordsworth
one impulse from a vernal wood
may teach you more of man;
of moral evil and of good
than all the sages can.
may teach you more of man;
of moral evil and of good
than all the sages can.
Oct 12, 2008
too bad they don't make denim/leather jackets
how badass would that be?
i'm still apparently incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful tonight/today/ever. i think today has seen the highest Amount of Time Spent in Avery/Shit Getting Done ratio in like six months.
on the upside, avery 487 just saw the return of Fuck Lazers, my old band from last thursday night, which consists entirely of me and a guitar and occasionally people who walk by on the sidewalk and talk to me when i stick my head out the window. we/i had a knock-down, drag-out jam session (or something not quite like that) a bit ago, involving some of these songs:
1. the melody (ravenous promethean-era liver-eating birds of prey version)
2. enemy
3. transmissions (with crazy phaser filter effect)
4. love in vain (marshall stack heavy distortion version, makes robert johnson sad)
5. my apparel is having a bad day (new improv song)
6. i want a girl with a long jacket and...something (attempted cake cover)
7. sunshine
8. caroline > isis > caroline
9. wharf rat (grateful dead...i gave up)
10. i'm starting to scare myself a little maybe someone should take my guitar away (new improve song)
11. love song in d
12. love song in x flat, aka "sad sunday" aka "rock is hard but life is harder and feelings are harder than those other two things"
13. delicate (played like frankenstein's monster if he had to play with one hand only and growling)
i'm still apparently incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful tonight/today/ever. i think today has seen the highest Amount of Time Spent in Avery/Shit Getting Done ratio in like six months.
on the upside, avery 487 just saw the return of Fuck Lazers, my old band from last thursday night, which consists entirely of me and a guitar and occasionally people who walk by on the sidewalk and talk to me when i stick my head out the window. we/i had a knock-down, drag-out jam session (or something not quite like that) a bit ago, involving some of these songs:
1. the melody (ravenous promethean-era liver-eating birds of prey version)
2. enemy
3. transmissions (with crazy phaser filter effect)
4. love in vain (marshall stack heavy distortion version, makes robert johnson sad)
5. my apparel is having a bad day (new improv song)
6. i want a girl with a long jacket and...something (attempted cake cover)
7. sunshine
8. caroline > isis > caroline
9. wharf rat (grateful dead...i gave up)
10. i'm starting to scare myself a little maybe someone should take my guitar away (new improve song)
11. love song in d
12. love song in x flat, aka "sad sunday" aka "rock is hard but life is harder and feelings are harder than those other two things"
13. delicate (played like frankenstein's monster if he had to play with one hand only and growling)
inferno of foot-tapping fury
i left my god-damned car parked in the green lot for 35 minutes on a sunday...and when i went back out to move it into a legal spot that had just opened up i had already been tagged. what's a guy to do? amusingly, the first response that came to my mind was to dance angrily. i must be watching too much flight of the conchords...
show me your american spirit!
since i don't have any cigarettes tonight, i'm going to go outside for 10 minutes, walk in a big circle around the building and occasionally touch my fingers to my lips and see if it makes me feel any better. then i will come back in here and hold my head and make whimpering noises.
a great insight handed down from on high.
noah wouldn't have survived the flood alone, even with the konami code.
i'm the next camera-ad-guy
i need a burrito somethin' fierce. done got no cigarettes or diet coke today, my pickup just broke down, my dog just died, my best gal just left me, my wife just got killed by my dog, an asteroid broke through the roof of my barn and set my horses on fire, and all i got to eat is this old tupperware lid and it don't taste too good even with salt all over the top of it. oh, and this little silver rectangle, but it don't look too edible.
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| From fall 08 |
Oct 11, 2008
victorian angst!
here's an excerpt from an email correspondence i had earlier this week:
i gasped at the trolley
grabbed the wheel and then
as it rose up in its full-throated greatness
stamped down on the pedal and hoped for the best
the buttons blew off of my coat-front in the wind
thence
for ahead of us was the gale that forthwith consumed my mind
i reached for that girl's hand, as it were
but she slipped free amidst the cacophony
and i was left holding a single white silken glove
certainly, i must be mad
to consider this a chance
for anything other than regret!
i gasped at the trolley
grabbed the wheel and then
as it rose up in its full-throated greatness
stamped down on the pedal and hoped for the best
the buttons blew off of my coat-front in the wind
thence
for ahead of us was the gale that forthwith consumed my mind
i reached for that girl's hand, as it were
but she slipped free amidst the cacophony
and i was left holding a single white silken glove
certainly, i must be mad
to consider this a chance
for anything other than regret!
Oct 9, 2008
521 prompt #7, "Stuff that might eventually become a thing".
Sitting in the parking lot of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in the western corner of North Carolina, watching the horizontal rays of the westering sun slant through the beginnings of what would soon be a chill evening fog, Asheville suddenly seems like the kingdom of heaven. We – “we” being myself and my friends John and Andrea – had just finished a three-day backpacking trip in the nearby wilderness and then split up for a morning and afternoon to meet back in the heart of the Joyce Kilmer forest, John traveling on foot and Andrea and I by car. The bit of driving involved in moving the car from our original trailhead to the Joyce Kilmer trailhead – a bit of forest service road, a bit of one-lane, cliff-edge driving – was jarring, as usual.
Reincorporation into the “modern” world is always difficult for me after a few days in the wilderness, and the process is never more awkward than when it involves immediately taking a car out onto a heavily traveled road. Silence is suddenly sound, peace is suddenly conflict, beauty becomes artifice, freedom becomes a series of rules. Turning the key, starting the engine, hurrying to turn down the volume on the CD player as the guitar solo from “New Year’s Day” by U2 suddenly roars to life, I was envious of John’s extra few miles of hiking that would take him through the heart of the old-growth forest that Andrea and I were only now able to reach through a circuitous and disenchanting drive.
Reincorporation into the “modern” world is always difficult for me after a few days in the wilderness, and the process is never more awkward than when it involves immediately taking a car out onto a heavily traveled road. Silence is suddenly sound, peace is suddenly conflict, beauty becomes artifice, freedom becomes a series of rules. Turning the key, starting the engine, hurrying to turn down the volume on the CD player as the guitar solo from “New Year’s Day” by U2 suddenly roars to life, I was envious of John’s extra few miles of hiking that would take him through the heart of the old-growth forest that Andrea and I were only now able to reach through a circuitous and disenchanting drive.
Oct 8, 2008
brain stem is like a
mushroom cloud exploding in
a rain of Sweet Tarts
yay Robitussin!
i feel like a marshmallow
that's Robo-trippin'
lycopene guanine
syncopy butane carbon
mitochondria cake
oh my god, i can't
feel my eyes; no more for me
it's "out, foul jellies!"
i like puppies and
cute girls and Taco Bell
and SLEEPING FOREVER
summarize this, you
motherfucker; summarize
this motherfucker
mushroom cloud exploding in
a rain of Sweet Tarts
yay Robitussin!
i feel like a marshmallow
that's Robo-trippin'
lycopene guanine
syncopy butane carbon
mitochondria cake
oh my god, i can't
feel my eyes; no more for me
it's "out, foul jellies!"
i like puppies and
cute girls and Taco Bell
and SLEEPING FOREVER
summarize this, you
motherfucker; summarize
this motherfucker
holyshit tacobellrun
1am NOMZ.
bliss +1 damage to hunger.
50% chance of Death to Growling Stomachs upon hit.
THACO +2
can only be wielded by: vampire ninja robot knight (with at least three levels of Slayer)
(i totally combined like at least 38 different AD&D rule sets in this post)
mellifluous. say it out loud and tell me you're not just a little happier than you were.
crazy might be back. lock your doors. john locke your doors.
bliss +1 damage to hunger.
50% chance of Death to Growling Stomachs upon hit.
THACO +2
can only be wielded by: vampire ninja robot knight (with at least three levels of Slayer)
(i totally combined like at least 38 different AD&D rule sets in this post)
mellifluous. say it out loud and tell me you're not just a little happier than you were.
crazy might be back. lock your doors. john locke your doors.
Oct 7, 2008
can't buy me love...
...but money sure can buy lots of things that temporarily fill that empty, dark hole in your heart. like drugs, for example. but i didn't buy drugs. you shouldn't do drugs. i shouldn't either. and i usually don't.
i just dropped 150 bucks that i totally didn't have (okay, i had it, but only because i did like 20 extra hours of grading over the last few weeks so i could ostensibly have "emergency money"). on what, you ask? on stupid bunting stuff, of course!
1. 60 bucks to preorder the hardcover hand-signed and hand-numbered limited edition of RA's book with an extra one-print-run chapbook and some other shit.
2. 35 bucks to preorder the vinyl version of "cardinology" with the bonus 7' record, a digital download code, a t-shirt, 17 postcards, and special leah hayes album art and graphic novel. keep in mind i'll still also have to buy the CD version until i'm able to afford a decent turntable setup (which is looking like a prospect for next year at this point; honestly, it depends on how much it's going to run me to do the DIY version of timing chain and clutch replacements)
3. preorder of phish's roxy box set. this is actually the only thing on this list that makes anything approaching economic sense. 8 discs plus one bonus disc for 9+ hours of music for 40 bucks. it doesn't hurt that over the three shows in this set they played 78 different songs, so unlike all those old DMB box sets, there won't be seven versions of the same song. 78 songs for 40 bucks = 50 cents a song, for soundboard-quality remasters. totally worth it.
i'm excited as shit about all this stuff. i just have to stop spending money. or not. you've got to have something in life to make you happy, after all...
that sounded worse than i meant it to.
i just dropped 150 bucks that i totally didn't have (okay, i had it, but only because i did like 20 extra hours of grading over the last few weeks so i could ostensibly have "emergency money"). on what, you ask? on stupid bunting stuff, of course!
1. 60 bucks to preorder the hardcover hand-signed and hand-numbered limited edition of RA's book with an extra one-print-run chapbook and some other shit.
2. 35 bucks to preorder the vinyl version of "cardinology" with the bonus 7' record, a digital download code, a t-shirt, 17 postcards, and special leah hayes album art and graphic novel. keep in mind i'll still also have to buy the CD version until i'm able to afford a decent turntable setup (which is looking like a prospect for next year at this point; honestly, it depends on how much it's going to run me to do the DIY version of timing chain and clutch replacements)
3. preorder of phish's roxy box set. this is actually the only thing on this list that makes anything approaching economic sense. 8 discs plus one bonus disc for 9+ hours of music for 40 bucks. it doesn't hurt that over the three shows in this set they played 78 different songs, so unlike all those old DMB box sets, there won't be seven versions of the same song. 78 songs for 40 bucks = 50 cents a song, for soundboard-quality remasters. totally worth it.
i'm excited as shit about all this stuff. i just have to stop spending money. or not. you've got to have something in life to make you happy, after all...
that sounded worse than i meant it to.
MIXTAPE - September, "Better Late Than On Time"
here's the trackses, precious.
here's the tracklist:
01. Oasis - Morning Glory
02. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Beautiful Sorta
03. David Bowie - Suffragette City
04. Stereolab - Three Women
05. Cake - Frank Sinatra
06. Ben Folds - Learn To Live With What You Are
07. Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes
08. Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
09. Blind Melon - Change
10. The Shins - Gone For Good
11. Mason Jennings - 1997
12. Billy Bragg and Wilco - At My Window Sad and Lonely
13. M. Ward - Post-War
14. Ben Folds - In Between Days (The Cure)
15. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cherry Lane
16. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
17. Conor Oberst - Cape Canaveral
18. Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
19. M. Ward - Well-Tempered Clavier
20. Iron and Wine - Passing Afternoon
here's the tracklist:
01. Oasis - Morning Glory
02. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Beautiful Sorta
03. David Bowie - Suffragette City
04. Stereolab - Three Women
05. Cake - Frank Sinatra
06. Ben Folds - Learn To Live With What You Are
07. Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes
08. Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
09. Blind Melon - Change
10. The Shins - Gone For Good
11. Mason Jennings - 1997
12. Billy Bragg and Wilco - At My Window Sad and Lonely
13. M. Ward - Post-War
14. Ben Folds - In Between Days (The Cure)
15. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cherry Lane
16. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
17. Conor Oberst - Cape Canaveral
18. Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
19. M. Ward - Well-Tempered Clavier
20. Iron and Wine - Passing Afternoon
Oct 5, 2008
addendum
robert and i might or might not have made sweet, sweet monkey love. however, he's not into videotaping so i can't post a youtube. sad.
i'm going to kill as many of them as possible before someone stops me.
3am, and someone's shooting off fireworks in the parking lot.
some might say that i should chill out, and consider all the times i did publicly inconsiderate things as a drunken asshole undergrad. fuck that. sure, i had my fair share of drinking of partying, but neither me or any of the people i partied with were such inconsiderate fucking assholes that we would have done something like set off fireworks in a parking lot of a apartment complex that houses hundreds of people, nearly all of which are obviously asleep at this hour because while we all certainly enjoyed having fun, we never let that get in the way of remember that other people are fucking people and should be treated as such.
these guys are obviously 1) too drunk to realize anything that's happening at all or 2) just fuckhead d-bags that get off on doing things they're not "supposed" to do.
come on guys, there are more intelligent and constructive ways to be subversive if that's what you're into. channel some of that energy into not sucking huge amounts of dick.
some might say that i should chill out, and consider all the times i did publicly inconsiderate things as a drunken asshole undergrad. fuck that. sure, i had my fair share of drinking of partying, but neither me or any of the people i partied with were such inconsiderate fucking assholes that we would have done something like set off fireworks in a parking lot of a apartment complex that houses hundreds of people, nearly all of which are obviously asleep at this hour because while we all certainly enjoyed having fun, we never let that get in the way of remember that other people are fucking people and should be treated as such.
these guys are obviously 1) too drunk to realize anything that's happening at all or 2) just fuckhead d-bags that get off on doing things they're not "supposed" to do.
come on guys, there are more intelligent and constructive ways to be subversive if that's what you're into. channel some of that energy into not sucking huge amounts of dick.
some photos from this afternoon
i finally caved in my four-day fight with shitty high-ISO problems on my camera coupled with tricky lighting via the sun and took these pictures today, before they leaves are gone forever and it's too late. everything's much more bright and smudged than it really looked in real life (darker and starker differences between the colors/trees). but anyway. i'm whining.
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| From fall 08 |
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| From fall 08 |
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| From fall 08 |
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| From fall 08 |
Oct 4, 2008
Oct 3, 2008
i like to rock the party
i kind of wish i was at a party right now. it's really quiet here for a friday night. i want to be slightly inebriated and sitting somewhere where you have to push the cigarette smoke out of your eyes and scream over the shitty house band to a friend sitting right next to you.
anything's possible Out There.
i feel like wrapping myself in christmas tree lights and unspooling them by rolling down a slip and slide lubricated with raspberry vodka.
don't ask me to explain that. i want to rock the party. GODDAMMIT.
RAAAAR!
anything's possible Out There.
i feel like wrapping myself in christmas tree lights and unspooling them by rolling down a slip and slide lubricated with raspberry vodka.
don't ask me to explain that. i want to rock the party. GODDAMMIT.
RAAAAR!
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| From Winter 2007 |
i think i've probably posted enough today.
this is what happens when i'm alone for too long.
god help us all! there's a pizza in the fridge at least. a pizza with which i will soon be making sweet, sweet, consuming-a-scrumptious-food-item love.
i'm going to moscow with a friend of mine at some point tomorrow morning, but i'm not really sure when. obviously the responsible thing to do is to just stay up really fucking late and then turn my phone ringer up really loudly when i go to bed. that's what jesus would do.
god help us all! there's a pizza in the fridge at least. a pizza with which i will soon be making sweet, sweet, consuming-a-scrumptious-food-item love.
i'm going to moscow with a friend of mine at some point tomorrow morning, but i'm not really sure when. obviously the responsible thing to do is to just stay up really fucking late and then turn my phone ringer up really loudly when i go to bed. that's what jesus would do.
absolute mania, football-stylee
the season opener against seattle was ridiculous. they started out getting a field goal on their first drive, then we scored and made it 7-3. from there it was back and forth until halftime; it didn't hurt that they had three turnovers in the first half. it sort of offset the fact that they were raping our pass defense. it was something marginally untoward like 24-17 in their favor at halftime.
the second half was a comedy of mis-calls, wasted challenge flags, poorly-timed penalties and the like. we got the ball after a rather incredible turn of events involving an interception by the seahawks' brady blade in which the pass richocheted off of three guys before rolling off the arm of my running back, squirting six yards across the field in the air and right into his arms. however, once we had driven halfway down the field, on a quarterback scramble for first down on third and long the quarterback simply dropped the ball (he wasn't hit or anything) and turned it back over. the seahawks were still up by seven at this point, and we marched downfield and scored to tie it with a minute left. not to be outdone, they somehow managed to cover 67 yards in three plays and not use a single timeout (the facts that we got called for a totally bogus pass interference and then their receiver made a catch with essentially half a foot in bounds that we couldn't overturn because we'd already used our challenge flag both helped). they kicked the game-winning field goal as time expired, only to be FUCKED when they got called for holding while the kick was in the air. they moved back 10 yards, time expired, we went into overtime. in which we promptly won, 41-38. freaking seahawks. they always give us the craziest games.
le touchdown strike:
bowes runs it in from 48 yards out with 5 minutes on the clock for the tie:
the second half was a comedy of mis-calls, wasted challenge flags, poorly-timed penalties and the like. we got the ball after a rather incredible turn of events involving an interception by the seahawks' brady blade in which the pass richocheted off of three guys before rolling off the arm of my running back, squirting six yards across the field in the air and right into his arms. however, once we had driven halfway down the field, on a quarterback scramble for first down on third and long the quarterback simply dropped the ball (he wasn't hit or anything) and turned it back over. the seahawks were still up by seven at this point, and we marched downfield and scored to tie it with a minute left. not to be outdone, they somehow managed to cover 67 yards in three plays and not use a single timeout (the facts that we got called for a totally bogus pass interference and then their receiver made a catch with essentially half a foot in bounds that we couldn't overturn because we'd already used our challenge flag both helped). they kicked the game-winning field goal as time expired, only to be FUCKED when they got called for holding while the kick was in the air. they moved back 10 yards, time expired, we went into overtime. in which we promptly won, 41-38. freaking seahawks. they always give us the craziest games.
le touchdown strike:
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| From Other and Posts |
bowes runs it in from 48 yards out with 5 minutes on the clock for the tie:
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| From Other and Posts |
happy thing #7
the red sox just went up 2-0 on the angels. those silly angels. they never learn that they just don't belong in the playoffs.
there is no bunting, only zuul
today i was helping toria out with her library source search for her 101 class, which basically involved me sitting in the microfilm section of the library and rewarding any student who could find a certain NYT article on microfilm with a small token, providing they had already found the four previous tokens they were required to find.
at one point, perched on a stool, dressed semi-absurdly and reading a picture book with a huge lollipop in my lap (i was trying to look as weird as possible), i was approached by a group of students who had found "my" artifact, but not the previous required ones. i told them they'd have to come back once they had all four tokens. the complained at this response and asked if i could just give it to them anyway, to which i replied "i am the gatekeeper!" pause. "are you the keymaster?"
they left shortly thereafter, never to return. i don't think they got the reference.
at one point, perched on a stool, dressed semi-absurdly and reading a picture book with a huge lollipop in my lap (i was trying to look as weird as possible), i was approached by a group of students who had found "my" artifact, but not the previous required ones. i told them they'd have to come back once they had all four tokens. the complained at this response and asked if i could just give it to them anyway, to which i replied "i am the gatekeeper!" pause. "are you the keymaster?"
they left shortly thereafter, never to return. i don't think they got the reference.
four (or six) things that please me
1. noel has always said that he likes ryan adams' version of "wonderwall" better than his own...now he's proving it. it's a pretty big compliment for ryan if you think about it...but liam has to feel a little like shit, considering the context of the comment...
2. fucking goddamn finally. i hope the lack of judicial employment leads to sudden-onset scurvy which in turn results in jack thompson shitting himself to death in a matter of minutes. jack thompson, you are just the worst kind of person.
3. i love, love, love that with all the media coverage (i.e. pretty much every even slightly music-related news source) of phish's reunion shows, pitchfork refuses to acknowledge the return of the biggest band of the 90s with even a sentence-long blurb. it just goes to show that when it comes to hipster douchebags, it's not about the music at all, it really is just about the image. roll on, boys and girls. the world does need to know about the 65th hot chip single and what devendra banhart wears for underwear on a daily basis...
4. in perhaps the best news of what has been an excellent news day, iTunes singlehandedly brought the proposed internet music royalty hike to a stop by threatening to close down and take 85 percent of online music sales with it. all the bullshit big music execs have finally been forced to admit that yeah, maybe internet music (radio/mp3 sales/etc.) might not be completely immoral and open to brutal profit gouging and money-grubbing...nice job, guys. about 10 years too late, but you're catching on. it makes me so happy, as much as i generally despise iTunes, to see it force these fuckers into the 21st century using the only language they seem to understand.
5. i randomly downloaded this show today. if you like jazz, get it. it's free and legal. and awesome.
6. i've been looking into buying a turntable lately, and tracking down a few of my favorite albums on vinyl. people have been saying for years that vinyl is supposedly making a comeback, and lately i've been actually starting to believe them. tons of bands are now releasing their albums in both CD/mp3 and vinyl formats, and fairly often lately i've even seen conan pimping the bands on his show by waving around vinyl copies of their albums instead of CD cases. of course, that might just be because the vinyl sleeve is bigger = more promotion, but i prefer to not believe that.
2. fucking goddamn finally. i hope the lack of judicial employment leads to sudden-onset scurvy which in turn results in jack thompson shitting himself to death in a matter of minutes. jack thompson, you are just the worst kind of person.
3. i love, love, love that with all the media coverage (i.e. pretty much every even slightly music-related news source) of phish's reunion shows, pitchfork refuses to acknowledge the return of the biggest band of the 90s with even a sentence-long blurb. it just goes to show that when it comes to hipster douchebags, it's not about the music at all, it really is just about the image. roll on, boys and girls. the world does need to know about the 65th hot chip single and what devendra banhart wears for underwear on a daily basis...
4. in perhaps the best news of what has been an excellent news day, iTunes singlehandedly brought the proposed internet music royalty hike to a stop by threatening to close down and take 85 percent of online music sales with it. all the bullshit big music execs have finally been forced to admit that yeah, maybe internet music (radio/mp3 sales/etc.) might not be completely immoral and open to brutal profit gouging and money-grubbing...nice job, guys. about 10 years too late, but you're catching on. it makes me so happy, as much as i generally despise iTunes, to see it force these fuckers into the 21st century using the only language they seem to understand.
5. i randomly downloaded this show today. if you like jazz, get it. it's free and legal. and awesome.
6. i've been looking into buying a turntable lately, and tracking down a few of my favorite albums on vinyl. people have been saying for years that vinyl is supposedly making a comeback, and lately i've been actually starting to believe them. tons of bands are now releasing their albums in both CD/mp3 and vinyl formats, and fairly often lately i've even seen conan pimping the bands on his show by waving around vinyl copies of their albums instead of CD cases. of course, that might just be because the vinyl sleeve is bigger = more promotion, but i prefer to not believe that.
the endtimes
are here.
the cardinals have a twitter account. i have a twitter account (class-enforced, but nonetheless). this is fucking weird.
the cardinals have a twitter account. i have a twitter account (class-enforced, but nonetheless). this is fucking weird.
tell tale signs
i am a huge fan of the bob dylan bootleg series. the 1-3 box set was fucking shockingly incredible the first time i heard it, and all three of the live concerts (halloween '64, royal albert concert hall '66, and especially the AMAZING '75 show on bootleg #6) were well worth the money, and while #7 (the soundtrack to no direction home) was a little hit-or-miss for me, the documentary itself was so perfect it was easy to let a few bad tracks slide.
#8 is previewing right now on NPR, and it's fantastic. i'm buying it, as soon as i accumulate enough money to buy the new 9-disc phish @ the roxy '93 set, the limited edition cardinology vinyl, the normal cardinology CD, and a new clutch for my car. and some food. food rocks.
anyway, check this shit out. it's all outtakes and alternate versions from the oh mercy era till now. and it's all good.
EDIT: i forgot to mention, the alternate version of "most of the time" (famous, perhaps, from being on the high fidelity soundtrack) on this album is especially great.
#8 is previewing right now on NPR, and it's fantastic. i'm buying it, as soon as i accumulate enough money to buy the new 9-disc phish @ the roxy '93 set, the limited edition cardinology vinyl, the normal cardinology CD, and a new clutch for my car. and some food. food rocks.
anyway, check this shit out. it's all outtakes and alternate versions from the oh mercy era till now. and it's all good.
EDIT: i forgot to mention, the alternate version of "most of the time" (famous, perhaps, from being on the high fidelity soundtrack) on this album is especially great.
ur moneys iz broken
really good interview (from: bill moyers to: kevin phillips) on PBS, about the current financial/economic crisis. he makes some good points about the obvious problems, but he also really intelligently problematizes the democratic/obama approach to the issue. definitely worth 25 minutes of your clicky-clicky time.
check it out here.
check it out here.
bloggin' about teh stuff
i'm trying to pass the 30 minutes between now and the time i have to be at the library to do my library philanthropy thing.
i used to write in this thing like seven times a day. can you imagine? what was so interesting about my life back then?
actually, i'm sure a quick survey of my previous entries would make clear that the answer to that question is "nothing".
it's cloudy and cold today. which actually makes me very happy. there's something about sunny, 85 degree days in october that's just depressing as all hell. give me the cold and the darkness. for a few months, anyway. RAMMSTEIN!!!
i may be heading out to seattle for part of thanksgiving break. i may also be backpacking/hiking for part of it. i hope both of those things come true. i hope i don't have too much work to do. but, since i always have too much work to do, i suppose i won't get my wish.
the cards shows have sounded awesome thus far. looks like they're going to spend part of december on the road with oasis again. that's pretty badass because via the blog it sounds it sounds like they had a shitload of fun last time...of course, i'd prefer another month of full-on 2 hour cards shows to 8 song opening slots for oasis, but...
so phish is getting back together. wild. i honestly never believed it would happen. i never believed i'd have a chance to see them play. now, suddenly, my "i have to see trey play guitar someday" obsession has become, unexpectedly "i have to see phish play this summer". very cool. i've been listening to the old hampton box set since the announcement of hampton 2009 came down from on high; the box set isn't the best phish live document out there, but it has its moments. i'm just up to disc 2 right now; disc 1 starts out pretty heavy and then gets a little sloppy...a particularly cringeworthy jam amidst "guelah papyrus" (one of my favorite phish jams, if done right) comes to mind. the second disc started off with a pretty awesome "train song" and then a wild "possum" though...probably listen to the rest of it while i'm doing my living statue routine here in about...15 minutes.
i used to write in this thing like seven times a day. can you imagine? what was so interesting about my life back then?
actually, i'm sure a quick survey of my previous entries would make clear that the answer to that question is "nothing".
it's cloudy and cold today. which actually makes me very happy. there's something about sunny, 85 degree days in october that's just depressing as all hell. give me the cold and the darkness. for a few months, anyway. RAMMSTEIN!!!
i may be heading out to seattle for part of thanksgiving break. i may also be backpacking/hiking for part of it. i hope both of those things come true. i hope i don't have too much work to do. but, since i always have too much work to do, i suppose i won't get my wish.
the cards shows have sounded awesome thus far. looks like they're going to spend part of december on the road with oasis again. that's pretty badass because via the blog it sounds it sounds like they had a shitload of fun last time...of course, i'd prefer another month of full-on 2 hour cards shows to 8 song opening slots for oasis, but...
so phish is getting back together. wild. i honestly never believed it would happen. i never believed i'd have a chance to see them play. now, suddenly, my "i have to see trey play guitar someday" obsession has become, unexpectedly "i have to see phish play this summer". very cool. i've been listening to the old hampton box set since the announcement of hampton 2009 came down from on high; the box set isn't the best phish live document out there, but it has its moments. i'm just up to disc 2 right now; disc 1 starts out pretty heavy and then gets a little sloppy...a particularly cringeworthy jam amidst "guelah papyrus" (one of my favorite phish jams, if done right) comes to mind. the second disc started off with a pretty awesome "train song" and then a wild "possum" though...probably listen to the rest of it while i'm doing my living statue routine here in about...15 minutes.
Oct 2, 2008
521 prompt #6, or "Ben's afraid of the dark and is a giant ninny".
Are any of the works we've encountered so far sublime? Or, if you prefer, have you encountered the sublime in nature or in popular culture? Discuss your experience with the work or natural phenomenon, drawing on Burke (and Longinus, too, if you like) to help out.
When I think of my experience with the sublime in terms of nature, I almost always think in terms of what I suppose Burke would categorize as Vastness, and possibly Infinity (through Vastness). One of the things that draws me to nature, both physically and as a topic for writing is its ability to suddenly and unexpectedly humble the observer, through size, through intricacy, through sheer (Burke again, I think) Power. One can encounter awe and amazement through the scope of nature without necessarily being terrified in a life-threatening sense, though I think the possibility of terror is what makes the experience of observing nature sublime in the first place. I suppose what I mean is that while simply observing a mountain, or a cliff, or the Grand Canyon doesn't necessarily put you in any immediate danger (this is especially true of sublime natural spaces that have been sufficiently tourist-ized), the very Vastness of these spaces can cause one to feel so dwarfed, so insignificant, that the resulting feeling of the triviality of the self can be just as terrifying as, say, the immediate possibility of plunging to one's death into the Grand Canyon might be.
My first night in the woods on a bona fide backpacking trip is a good example of what I'm trying (and perhaps failing) to explain. I had been camping many, many times before this trip, and so I was well accustomed (or so I thought) to the night, to the sounds of the woods, to other things that you would expect a first-time camper to perhaps react adversely to. It's also probably important to note that I was twenty years old on this trip.
We got to the trailhead early that day, and as I remember we hiked something like six or eight hours into the woods before calling a stop for the night, finding a spot to set up our camp just as the sun's rays were starting to slant noticeably. It was late fall, and so we estimated we had something like an hour or ninety minutes to get our business taken care of before seeing our hands in front of our faces became an impossible proposition. It was at this point, when we first stopped, that I became unreasonably terrified. There was a feeling, at least in my mind, that the oncoming darkness provided an non-negotiable barrier. Nighttime was something to be hidden from, something that would set upon us and, if we weren't fast enough, leave us stranded in a sort of unseeing stasis until the sun came up again.
I didn't know why I suddenly felt this way, and I hurried through setting up my tent and cooking dinner in somewhat of a panic. The last few steps of this process had to be done with the aid of a headlamp, which only exacerbated my terror. I spent most of the night curled up in my tent, jumping at every howl of wind, and every footfall of squirrel or deer outside.
In retrospect, this wasn't because I was afraid of direct physical harm, because, as I said, I'd been camping many times before and had gotten over my fear of "monsters" in the dark by the time I was about ten. It was instead because the night made the forest into something completely different, it made my world seem suddenly entirely too big and entirely too full of possibilities for me to conveniently deal with. We were miles from the relative safety of the car we had left at the trailhead, and in the dark, with little to no moonlight, were our headlamps to malfunction (a scenario I played out over and over again in my head), even those few miles would likely be unnavigable.
It was the immensity of the place, the immensity of the world that scared me, and the fact that at night in the woods that world didn't exist for the sake of my reassurance and support, as the world constructed by our cultural viewpoint generally does. I wanted some form of control, which wouldn't necessarily be possible again until the sun rose.
I have since grown to appreciate this feeling, this mini-terror (which, incidentally, I still feel an echo of everytime I'm in the woods at sunset) as a reminder, a useful way of centering my perspective on the world as opposed to centering it on myself as the world. I think that most (if not all) of my sublime experiences in nature spring from this. Seeing a mountain that seems too large to actually be there, seeing the sky spread out in near-infinite clearness hundreds of miles from any city lights; these are always slightly terrifying experiences for me. The first time I drove out to Pullman, cross-country on highway 70, about an hour across the Colorado border I got a glimpse of the Rockies for the first time, marching across the horizon like what I thought was a low line of thunderstorms. As we drew closer, my mind slowly realized that they must be mountains, but there was something terrifying in that, something in admitting that such a thing was possible that demanded that I feel a little smaller. And there's always some fear in admitting that, I think. Maybe that's what's at the heart of my sublime experience.
When I think of my experience with the sublime in terms of nature, I almost always think in terms of what I suppose Burke would categorize as Vastness, and possibly Infinity (through Vastness). One of the things that draws me to nature, both physically and as a topic for writing is its ability to suddenly and unexpectedly humble the observer, through size, through intricacy, through sheer (Burke again, I think) Power. One can encounter awe and amazement through the scope of nature without necessarily being terrified in a life-threatening sense, though I think the possibility of terror is what makes the experience of observing nature sublime in the first place. I suppose what I mean is that while simply observing a mountain, or a cliff, or the Grand Canyon doesn't necessarily put you in any immediate danger (this is especially true of sublime natural spaces that have been sufficiently tourist-ized), the very Vastness of these spaces can cause one to feel so dwarfed, so insignificant, that the resulting feeling of the triviality of the self can be just as terrifying as, say, the immediate possibility of plunging to one's death into the Grand Canyon might be.
My first night in the woods on a bona fide backpacking trip is a good example of what I'm trying (and perhaps failing) to explain. I had been camping many, many times before this trip, and so I was well accustomed (or so I thought) to the night, to the sounds of the woods, to other things that you would expect a first-time camper to perhaps react adversely to. It's also probably important to note that I was twenty years old on this trip.
We got to the trailhead early that day, and as I remember we hiked something like six or eight hours into the woods before calling a stop for the night, finding a spot to set up our camp just as the sun's rays were starting to slant noticeably. It was late fall, and so we estimated we had something like an hour or ninety minutes to get our business taken care of before seeing our hands in front of our faces became an impossible proposition. It was at this point, when we first stopped, that I became unreasonably terrified. There was a feeling, at least in my mind, that the oncoming darkness provided an non-negotiable barrier. Nighttime was something to be hidden from, something that would set upon us and, if we weren't fast enough, leave us stranded in a sort of unseeing stasis until the sun came up again.
I didn't know why I suddenly felt this way, and I hurried through setting up my tent and cooking dinner in somewhat of a panic. The last few steps of this process had to be done with the aid of a headlamp, which only exacerbated my terror. I spent most of the night curled up in my tent, jumping at every howl of wind, and every footfall of squirrel or deer outside.
In retrospect, this wasn't because I was afraid of direct physical harm, because, as I said, I'd been camping many times before and had gotten over my fear of "monsters" in the dark by the time I was about ten. It was instead because the night made the forest into something completely different, it made my world seem suddenly entirely too big and entirely too full of possibilities for me to conveniently deal with. We were miles from the relative safety of the car we had left at the trailhead, and in the dark, with little to no moonlight, were our headlamps to malfunction (a scenario I played out over and over again in my head), even those few miles would likely be unnavigable.
It was the immensity of the place, the immensity of the world that scared me, and the fact that at night in the woods that world didn't exist for the sake of my reassurance and support, as the world constructed by our cultural viewpoint generally does. I wanted some form of control, which wouldn't necessarily be possible again until the sun rose.
I have since grown to appreciate this feeling, this mini-terror (which, incidentally, I still feel an echo of everytime I'm in the woods at sunset) as a reminder, a useful way of centering my perspective on the world as opposed to centering it on myself as the world. I think that most (if not all) of my sublime experiences in nature spring from this. Seeing a mountain that seems too large to actually be there, seeing the sky spread out in near-infinite clearness hundreds of miles from any city lights; these are always slightly terrifying experiences for me. The first time I drove out to Pullman, cross-country on highway 70, about an hour across the Colorado border I got a glimpse of the Rockies for the first time, marching across the horizon like what I thought was a low line of thunderstorms. As we drew closer, my mind slowly realized that they must be mountains, but there was something terrifying in that, something in admitting that such a thing was possible that demanded that I feel a little smaller. And there's always some fear in admitting that, I think. Maybe that's what's at the heart of my sublime experience.
Oct 1, 2008
preseasoning
it's fall. and you know what that means. it's time for me to embarrass myself by posting madden screenshots again. no screenshots yet, but i played through the preseason of what i suppose would be 2010 (my seventh franchise season) in the game this weekend. we didn't do too badly, considering we've gone 0-4 in the last two preseasons. then again, we did go 1-3 and lost one game 58-27 and one 43-14. the team is not very good this year.
nonetheless, we're opening against perennial pain-in-the-fucking-ass seattle. sometime this weekend, if i can drag myself away from all this rewarding work i'm doing and sit my ass in front of the television, you'll be seeing screenshots dropping like jason mcaddley was dropping passes in the last game...that metaphor didn't work so well.
until then, adieu. oh, and if anyone has a secondary that doesn't completely suck, send them my way.
nonetheless, we're opening against perennial pain-in-the-fucking-ass seattle. sometime this weekend, if i can drag myself away from all this rewarding work i'm doing and sit my ass in front of the television, you'll be seeing screenshots dropping like jason mcaddley was dropping passes in the last game...that metaphor didn't work so well.
until then, adieu. oh, and if anyone has a secondary that doesn't completely suck, send them my way.
reckoner vids
radiohead, badassed as they are, commissioned the creation of shitloads of music videos by any willing internet users awhile back, and these two were selected as part of the top 10 best videos by (i assume) the band.
since i've said over and over again that "reckoner" is my favorite song of 2008, i'm a little biased. the rest of the top 10 can be viewed here.
#1:
watch more at aniBoom
#2:
watch more at aniBoom
i have tracks picked out for september's mixtape, never fear. i just have to find time to sequence and upload them.
since i've said over and over again that "reckoner" is my favorite song of 2008, i'm a little biased. the rest of the top 10 can be viewed here.
#1:
watch more at aniBoom
#2:
watch more at aniBoom
i have tracks picked out for september's mixtape, never fear. i just have to find time to sequence and upload them.
i mean, one of my blog entry tags is "introspection"...
...how not-insane can i be expected to be, really?
pretty fucking not a lot, that's how much!
what?
pretty fucking not a lot, that's how much!
what?
critical distance
8 years away from the 90s, i finally have enough critical distance to sit down and listen to the wallflowers' bringing down the horse and realize that, yes, i really like this album and it's really well put together and stands up to the test of time well.
for the first time i just hear some good jakob dylan songs and not the album that ended up having something like half of itself used at some point as radio singles (including "one headlight"). i don't actually immediately associate that song anymore with the time that i totally blew my chance to dance with the girl of my dreams at the eigth grade social. sometimes it's a good thing to be old.
finishing up a few things at work, going home to slack off for a bit, and then it's off to sushi and then back to work from like 7-midnight. trying to keep a handle on how good i really have it. when you suddenly become dialed in on something at least slightly resembling romance to the exclusion of everything else, and then just as suddenly realize that you have to stop because you're a fucking megalomaniac of love, you end up with a big vacuum in your brain and heart that's shaped like all of the things you could have sworn you weren't taking for granted...
probably more about that later.
pandora's playing the cards' version of "down in a hole". seems appropriate.
for the first time i just hear some good jakob dylan songs and not the album that ended up having something like half of itself used at some point as radio singles (including "one headlight"). i don't actually immediately associate that song anymore with the time that i totally blew my chance to dance with the girl of my dreams at the eigth grade social. sometimes it's a good thing to be old.
finishing up a few things at work, going home to slack off for a bit, and then it's off to sushi and then back to work from like 7-midnight. trying to keep a handle on how good i really have it. when you suddenly become dialed in on something at least slightly resembling romance to the exclusion of everything else, and then just as suddenly realize that you have to stop because you're a fucking megalomaniac of love, you end up with a big vacuum in your brain and heart that's shaped like all of the things you could have sworn you weren't taking for granted...
probably more about that later.
pandora's playing the cards' version of "down in a hole". seems appropriate.
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