Break

The first Saturday of spring break. Many of my students probably haven't even gone to sleep yet, having stayed up playing Gears of War all night. They're already bored, I bet--they're already wishing they could be back in my class. See, kids, video-games are not the answer: they are a diversion from Truth, a living death. Hey, I just saw a woodpecker fly into a knothole in a tree outside my window. I thought that only happened in cartoons. Nature!

That's a picture of my new favorite local band, Tugboat Jack. They played a fun show at the Warbird Brewery last night full of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., and some revved-up traditional bluegrass standards. Makes me want to pick up the banjo today and put new strings on it.

First Signs

This is the early crew heading out to cross a half mile of late winter mud to get to the Yoder sugar bush yesterday, something that is starting to be a fun, first signs of spring ritual. The people there are as sweet as the maple syrup they are boiling in the evaporator room. A lame simile, but it's true. Every year, I leave thinking "I've just got to start drilling holes in my trees to make my own syrup," and I don't even care that most of our trees are Chinese Elms. Even if the stuff tasted awful, it would still be something I made, which is basically our sole purpose on this planet: to make stuff.

Cath is carrying what may be the first Vera Bradley bag that I am willing to say, publicly, is cool. It almost has an Anthropologie feel to it. Sure, there have been patterns in the past that I have liked, but none that I was comfortable enough to admit it to outside of a close, trusted, inner-circle of friends (okay, one other I can admit to openly is the classic Blue Toile). This pattern, called "Puccini," is still a prototype, and is therefore still being tested in wind tunnels and by rooms full of violent chimpanzees, but the early results have been promising.
Last year, I swear that they made the pancakes for you, but this year you were supposed to bring your own batter for the grills. My bad. Fortunately, Wes and Sarah Jane brought enough for all. B. got to man the tractor, a highlight for him, apart from the donuts the Yoders had for the kids.

Here, I predict, is the 2008 Christmas card photo that Wes and Sarah will use. It's that good. I love the way the firewood radiates in these, like, rays like it's one of them old-timey religious icons. That's what it makes me think of, anyway.

I knew him before he was big

A big drug dealer, that is. According to the Journal-Gazette, this guy here just got caught, allegedly, in possession of over three tons of marijuana, the largest pot bust in local memory. I didn't recognize him at first because it has probably been almost twenty years since I saw him last, but he is the younger brother of a pretty good high school friend of mine. We weren't great friends, but we hung out a lot. I got mad at him once when he lost my Dead Milkmen t-shirt, and he got mad at me when one time when I made out with his high school sweet-heart, but J.R. was always cool.

Anyway, I'm sorry that J.R. and his family are experiencing this. The McChesneys are an extremely nice, bright, and upstanding bunch of people. Such a shame.

I am so good at art.

What a beautiful snow day that was yesterday, and I would have loved it even more had I known that we do not have to make it up at the end of the year. I sat around, had some mediocre coffee that I had roasted in my basement the night before and then made a really hard test for my Comp class and then made it a lot easier. And then, like most people, wasted time on the internet. I watched the mail-man pass right by the house because I didn't shovel our front walk. And the prospect of a day with no mail bummed me out, so I drew pictures for awhile.
I don't really draw, but last weekend my friend Clare showed me these "blind contour drawings" she'd done, and it made me want to try. I'd never heard of it before, but what you do is not look at the paper as you're drawing, and you don't lift the pencil, either. You can peek to see where the pencil is, but you can't move it while you're looking. I first attempted those two heroes of modernism William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. I like Carlos the best, though he looks a little like Tintin with glasses instead of Snowy the dog. Wallace Stevens is a little bit of a disappointment, but not nearly as bad as James Wright.

It's funny. I wanted the Wright one to be the best, so it's like the left side of my brain, or whichever side is the one that can't draw, tried to control things too much. Pretty scary, but that's part of what's so cool about blind contour drawing: when they turn out ugly, you can say "hey, I wasn't even looking when I drew it, so shut your face." I haven't had to say that to anyone yet, but I will if I have to.

In other disastrous news, I made the mistake of listening to Terry Gross today, who somehow managed, in the first three minutes of her interview with David Simon, producer of the incredible show The Wire, to let out at least three major spoilers about season five. We just finished watching season four last night and were planning on waiting until the DVD's came out to watch 5, but now Terri has taken much of the fun out of it. After the first two major plot things slipped out of her mouth, I started running to the radio to turn it off, but not before she told me that XXXX XX XXXXXX XX XXX XXXX [redacted]. I couldn't believe it. Thanks, Terry. I always liked Diane Rehm better, and this just confirms it.

Bring that snow.

New Snow, Northern Michigan, 2.08.08

End of February, starting to hear lots of folks say things like "I am so bored with winter" and "I am so bored with winter." But this has been a nice one, I think, for the way it, like, keeps renewing itself, you know? The winter melts on you, leaves standing water in your yard, looks ugly, and then snows all over again and some part of you says "yay, snow!" That reaction doesn't happen when you just have snow every day; it's the mud/snow cycle of this winter that keeps bringing that feeling back for me.

I haven't been posting much lately, but life has proceeded regardless. For example, I have been busy with my winter sport of mice-killin, though I appear to have scared off, or smushed, all my opponents. There is not nearly as much sport in mousing as there is in mole-hunting, which requires a high degree of judgment, sensitivty to the rodent-mind, and cold-blooded wilfulness. Mouse hunting just requires peanut butter. Still, it passes the time.

So here is a snow day, then. Snow day #5, the first one to officially make my summer shorter by one day. That is one long bike ride I will not get to take now. Still, it is hard to argue against a snow day. They're gifts, where you don't have to do nothing you don't want to do apart from the occasional time-out for your kids. So far, I've spent most of the morning looking up the TAB and Youtube covers for REM ("Driver 8" and "Talk About the Passion"), Big Star ("I'm in Love with a Girl"--but I tell my girl it's "The June-y Song"), and that "Falling Slowly" song from Once (which is a little cheesey, but it's of the moment).

And now the kids are asleep and I'll either go skiing or read a little more of the new Junot Diaz so that I can hopefully, retroactively, remove some of my demerits with my club. Probably not. This is a club that does not forget.

And if you like The Smiths, I found this pretty awesome Youtube of a guy showing how he recreates the effects for "How Soon is Now." I've watched it about four times now, I think.

New new low

So our power goes off for twenty minutes today and at first my desktop is working a little funny and then I "fix" it (re-boot once or twice) but then for some reason my network card won't work. Laptop runs fine over the wireless, but the desktop connection's "broke," as they say. How weird that a power surge would just mess up one part of my setup but not, like, other parts. I guess tomorrow is the day I buy a surge protector and an external hard drive and hope that it fixes itself over night.

Makes me miss back before computers when all you had was, um, nothing. I guess I don't really miss that all that much. Growing up in a small town, I would have loved to have a link to the outside world. As it was, I didn't even learn about the Talking Heads until I moved to Ft. Wayne at the age of 13. Thirteen before I heard the Talking Heads!! Not sure how I managed in little old Marshall, Michigan. Such an isolated town. It was so small the neighborhood bully was also your best friend because there just weren't enough kids to go around. We liked Ozzy and Molly Hatchet because that's all the one record store sold. The entire theater stood on the seats at the end of Star Wars because we had never seen anything like it. We played baseball because we didn't know about cricket. Didn't know about cricket!! We probably still would have played baseball even if we knew about cricket, though.

One of my dreams is to start a cricket club at school. That would be hilarious.

I'm gonna go make some tea.

New low

For the first time in my life, I just voluntarily turned off an IU game before it was over. This has to be the lowest point in my history of loving IU basketball. And that goes back kind of far since one of my earliest memories is the party my parents threw when we won it all in 1976. But this year, geez, it is worse than a Mike Davis team because our offense is just as painful to watch but our defense is worse and we have more talent. Seriously, this has to be the most athletic and talented team since, heck, Cheaney's days, but Sampson doesn't appear to have the first clue about what they should do to score in the half court. It's humiliating. Well, as an IU fan it is humiliating. There are worse things in life than having your team suck. I'm just sayin'. I'm going sleepies now.

The real weather report.

Enough of this 6-10" snow prediction stuff. I am going to call it early tonight and predict that our actual total will fall in the 2-3" range, and result not in a cancellation, but in a 2-hr delay. That's my call. Looking at the radar trend, there is no other possibility. Why can't the forecasters be as smart as I am? It's tiring doing both my job and theirs, too.

Untrue or False

I think Burial's "Untrue" played in my livingroom on repeat from 9 to 5 yesterday, and then we drove around for an hour or two listening to it in the car as we shopped for a new tv. Sometimes I'd forget it was on, sometimes I'd stop what I was doing and just listen, but after a full day, I still can't decide how much I like it. Somehow, it's riding this perfect line between sublime and boring. Does it take some kind of genius to do that, or what? Still figuring that one out.

My first day as a DIY electronica musician.

Finally, via boing-boing, I discover a free way for me to realize my dream of becoming whatever you call a person who makes electronic music. This great link to aM Laboratory lets you tinker with all the knobs on the above virtual, vintage, Roland drum machine. I can't really figure out how to control it much yet. No idea what "decay" means or "shuffle," or what clicking those buttons on the bottom do, but still, I'm making music. Or beats, at least. Best time waster I've found in awhile.

2008 is happening.

Lake Caravan

That was a healthy break, there. This muddy looking image is from a few days before new year's at the in-law's lake place. The lake had been free of snow for a few days before and like glass and you could see the bottom like a window, like summer was still happening down there. You have to wonder if fish have any idea at all, where the boats go, where the worms go. I know a guy who walked out on the ice and found a fishing lure he'd lost last summer. Now he just needs to remember when he comes back in July.

What else.

I'm the first person I know who doesn't love Juno. And I don't have a cell phone. That makes me extremely rare, I think. There is something going on now where young whippersnappers want to use soundtracks as substitutes for film-making. Wes Anderson does it, and this movie does too, all over the place. Oh, and Garden State. It was well done in The Graduate, but that movie makes it look easy.

Still, the baby-birthin' scene made me tear up at the end of Juno. Once you're a dad, I guess, every time you see those you say "let's have us another one of those babies!" And then you snap out of it somewhat, or you don't, but you know that you have to stop having the babies at some point in life, let other people have some of them. It's hard.

Here is a new year's resolution: learn to juggle 4 things. You have been juggling 3 things for what, many years now? It is understandable to not know how to juggle, but to know how to juggle 3 and not learn 4 after 15 years or so just looks lazy.

Good news today is that Silver Jews have a new album coming out in late '08 and I had no idea. So excited. I love this excerpt from the Pitchfork interview with David Berman where I heard about the new album. They ask him what he does when he's not working, and he says this:

DB: I read a lot. I read, like, ten hours a day.

Pitchfork: Sounds perfect.

DB: I figure that's what I'm supposed to do when I'm not working. I think that I'm supposed to keep learning, in order to be useful in the event of an emergency, I don't know. I still have to learn how to make knots and all of that stuff. And why France collapsed so easily in 1940. There's a million things I have not caught up to.

I know the feeling.

Anyway, hello, 2008.

My favorite records, 2007

That was a quick year. I hope 2008 takes its time. Here's the music that I dug the most this year.


1. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The Doldrums

Okay, not really released in 2007, but this list, as I have said, is for music that I first heard this year. Of all the things I turned onto this year, this is the one that, even after a bobillion listens, still completely baffles me with delight every time I hear it. I have no idea what I'm listening to half the time it's playing, but when I try to describe him to myself, I say that he sounds like the kind of music Bob Pollard would make in the creepy basement if he were the serial killer guy in Silence of the Lambs.

And the coolest thing is that all the retro influences he corrupts and spits and beat boxes into his microphone made out of walkman headphones are completely sincere--he's not winking at us; he's just rocking out and not caring how ridiculous his falsetto is.

2. Animal Collective--Strawberry Jam

I dunno--everything they do is awesome and either you agree or you don't. I'm not judging you if you don't. I mean, I'm sure there are lots of people who don't like Animal Collective and manage to live completely normal, fulfilling lives. I guess it's possible in theory, at least.

3. M.I.A.--Kala

This is not at all like anything I usually listen to and therefore I didn't for a couple of months after I borrowed it from the school radio station. And then I watched her in-studio performance on Morning Becomes Eclectic, which probably wasn't all that amazing, but somehow it clicked for me and now it's my number one sitting in traffic album. For the past month, chances are good that if I am not driving in silence, listening to the fan on my car heater and that sound the air makes, I am listening to this.

4. Justice--Cross

Deep in my heart, or maybe not that deep, what I really want to be is a deejay like the guys in Justice. You watch their videos on Youtube and they're just totally stone-faced but the beat is in them, you can tell. DJ's are so business-like these days. I don't think they're allowed to smile at all, even. What a paradox: being a DJ is at the height of the cool hierarchy, just below architect, but you cannot smile or show the world how much fun you are having being so cool. I believe architects can smile, but it is hard to tell behind their glasses.

I just remembered a time in high school when I went to a job interview to be a DJ for a local outfit here in town and the guy started it by putting me by a deck or whatever and he said "okay, now let's hear you give your rowdiest 'get this party going' hello to the audience." I said "I don't think so" and walked out. Yes, it was all about the music to me then. Still is.

But seriously. This album is one of the few electronic--or whatever--records that just killed me over and over this year. There must be more out there that isn't boring; I should look for it.

5. Panda Bear--Person Pitch

Hey, this one is kinda electronic, too. I might have listened to the first track on this album more than any other song this year, other than, of course, "Only Shallow" from Loveless, which I usually hum to myself about 12 times a day. Not sure if that counts. But on this record, even the tracks that don't get mentioned in the press much are beautiful, and they are long but they all meander and change into a couple different beautiful tunes with great "beats" before they're done.

And that's all I'm going to list this year. I listened to a lot, but these are the things that I liked so much they just all stand above the rest. If I were to go to 10, these might be there, though: 6. Radiohead--In Rainbows--I still think they are indie poseurs like U2 and sound like U2, but this new one is pretty; 7. Grizzly Bear--Friend ep--after the P4k Festival especially, I think I have to like everything they do from now on; 8. Califone--Roots & Crowns; 9. Band of Horses--Cease the Begin--not nearly as lame as people are saying. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is not lame; 10. Jose Gonzalez--In Our Nature--maybe this is because I just started listening to him, but this record is on my mind a lot lately. For some reason, I am embarrassed about this because I think he is supposed to considered cheesey.

So, that's it for 2007. If anyone knows of good freeware that will let me start mixing my own samples and beats here at home, let me know.

Real Snow

Finally, some serious snow. They'd been getting our hopes up all week, and even this one wasn't quite what they thought it could be, but it was enough to slow the town down for a day. People couldn't drive up the hill in front of our house. The mall parking lot was only half full. Neighbor Herb snow-blew our walk, demonstrating again why I have neither snow blower nor cell phone: when you really need one, there is bound to be someone near by who will loan you theirs.

Check this cookie

My AP Lit class has been in the middle of independent novel presentations this past week, and a crack team presented Cormac McCarthy's The Road. They made these cookies to go along with their presentation--how awesome is that? They took the time to mix a food coloring to make "ash" colored icing. Pretty great. Couldn't bring myself to eat one.

Another group is reading Blood Meridian, and just talking to them about their project has me reading the darn thing again. It's just unstoppable, that book. Maybe Suttree isn't my favorite.

Lost

The interweb sure seems to get more funner to play in whenever you have serious work to do. And I just remembered I've been meaning to look up Daft Punk videos on YouTube. The new Readymade has the names tons of fun shoppes that have gifts you want to get people or want them to get for you. And it might snow tomorrow. Just too many distractions for me to sit still and write about the influence of painting on Mark Strand or maybe Frank O'Hara or why not both or maybe that's just a dumb thesis entirely.

Speaking of killing animals . .

as of 4:15 this morning, my total kills for 2007 are as follows:

Moles: 4

Bats: 2

Fish: 2

I am starting to think that this might be my deadliest year yet. When I was seven, I killed thousands of ants with magnifying glasses, but if you go by weight, I think it has to be 2007.

I am not proud of this.

The moles felt good at first--I had a lot of mole rage at the time built up from a few years of losing large swaths of creeping phlox and sweet woodruff to them--but I'm almost ready to call a truce there. This new trap I got from the back of Farm Show magazine works almost too well, though.

The fish were mercy kills, so having their souls on my conscience don't keep me up late at night. They both had terminal cases of "ick" and I could tell they were suffering. The only sad thing there is that I was very bad at killing them and it took a lot of whacks before they finally went to the light.

But the bats, I really do feel badly for them. In the summer, I just open a window and they fly out. Sure, I know they're going to crawl back into my attic, but they're cute, and I love to watch them swoop around my yard. But in the winter, it's a conundrum. If I let them out, they're just going to freeze to death, slowly. What am I supposed to do--catch them in my bedroom and set them free in the living room? No, I opt for a tennis racket, usually. This morning, I couldn't find the racket, so I used a cookie sheet. I think it was quick, if startling. I know I was startled at least--the adrenalin rush of the kill kept me from getting back to sleep, so for my penance, I lay in bed watching the time of my alarm tick closer, minute by minute, for the next hour and a half.

Buck Pole

The town where I spent my Thanksgiving boasts Michigan's "Largest Buck Pole." We were a few days late to see it this year, but caught this one instead at a club where my father in law hunts. What a horrifying picture. Why did I put this up here? Is it a protest picture? Am I just intrigued by the frozen blood dribble? Do I like the way the afternoon sun plays for the last time on the white fur under their chins? It could be all of these things. I just don't know.

It was a swell long weekend for me, mainly because I (a) did nothing, and (b) got to drive around northern Michigan back roads while a heavy snow was falling and accumulatin' and making everyone slow down. I've been ready for snow for a few weeks, so it was nice. It almost took my mind off of IU losing to Xavier and looking awful doing it.

Way, Jose

Man, this Jose Gonzalez record "In Our Nature" is really good. I had no idea. Anyone know if his first album is anything like it? AMG seems to prefer it, even.

TV

I really liked the first episode of Flight of the Conchords back when I watched it online a few months ago, but I never really expected the series itself to be as good as it is. It's just so dry and deadpan. When I watched the first disc of season one over the last couple of nights, I was laughing out loud pretty much the whole way through. I must be genetically predisposed for that kind of humour.

I think part of why it works is that Bret and Jermaine are completely deadpan during the "dramatic" scenes, but in the musical interludes they transform into whatever the opposite of deadpan is. Some of those songs are just hilarious. Most of them, even. Like this one, "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros." I can't understand what Bret is saying at the beginning, but Jermaine's lines are ridiculous:


In other news, we bit the bullet and signed up for Dish network this week. Cheapest way to watch IU basketball. No choice, really. I'm a little worried, because I watched so little tv this last year, and now I'm going to get hooked on watching South Park reruns or something silly like that.

Library Coup

I don't know how I did it, but I was somehow able to check out the library's copy of the 2007 Best Non-Required Reading before Sarah Jane got to it. She must have been asleep at the switch or something, or maybe she's re-reading Twilight for the third time.

I want to like this collection so much, but those durn teeny-weeny McSweeney's wanna-beeny's who edit it just turn you off with their smugness in the opening pages. It's a group of high school kids who are plenty bright, but just too, too convinced of their own cleverness. From the Q & A they wrote about themselves and put at the front of the book:

Are they touched by some kind of divine light?
The question is a good one. There is rampant speculation on the subject.

Are they all great looking and charming and well dressed?
Yes. All of them, and especially Felicia Wong, who can even make her own clothes.

They even put their own photographs and bios at the back of the book. So, when they come to this blog after Felicia Wong Googles her name to see what people think about their collection, they will read the above excerpt and think "c'mon, man, it was a joke" and I will respond here in advance: yes, but not the kind that is funny.

And even Sufjan's essay was useless as an introduction--I think they just wanted to get his name on the cover.

Man, I didn't intend for this to be so hatin'. I better go rake some leaves for a little bit.