Let it Was

I finally got my hands on this movie, though I had to deal with a shady ebay seller to do it. Especially after reading that dang book about 'em, I've been feeling the need to see them at work together. I like Hard Day's Night a lot, sure, but that's early, happy Beatles. I wanted to see the hairy, grumpy Beatles at work and play. And this movie is that. Anybody know why this isn't available in DVD? It's insane that it isn't, really. When I bought mine on ebay, I thought I was buying an old copy--that it used to be on DVD and was now discontinued for some legal reason. After getting it in the mail, I'm convinced it's probably a boot--my first. I'm gonna justify owning it by arguing that it's not available in any format and I really, really wanted it.

Moral quandary resolved, let's talk about the movie. Oh, are they hairy, dirty-looking hippies. I mean, these are my favorite haircuts of all for them, but when you see them living in the hair and the beards and the floppy clothes, it all looks so dirty. Pretty magnificent.

There is no real plot to the film, of course--it's just them screwing around with tracks for Let it Be and a few for Abbey Road and talking and what not and what amazes me the most is how well they seem to be getting along through it all. I just finish this book that talks only about the bad blood going on in the studio at this time, and almost none of it made it to the film. We do see Paul kind of being the control freak, but I also feel like they they are kind of cool with him running things. It's strange to see. I'll have to watch it again a few times to see if I can pick up on subtexts.

Speaking of, it'd be nice if there were subtitles so that I could watch it like I watch the British (original and better though the American one is funny too) version of The Office and pick up on lines I can't make out. But there aren't.

Anyway, if you are a friend of mine, you should consider asking to borrow this movie from me. I will probably say no and laugh at you, but you should still ask. You might get lucky.

self-portrait in cloud gate

This here may be my favorite spot in Chicago--Millennium Park, this nutty spread of public sculpture and promenades plopped near the Art Institute. What I'm actually taking a picture of in this shot is the "Cloud Gate," a large silver "bean," to use Joseph's word. It could also be described as a smooth silver brain or bicycle helmet. Click here to see what it looks like. It's just beautiful. This, combined with Gehry's insane pavilion help make Chicago a different place for me compared to the last few times I've gone.

I'd been tired of trudging up and down Michigan Ave and grown too familiar with the same museums, I think, but then Joseph had us park in the Millennium Park lot, making the park itself our gateway to the city and somehow entering town that way got me all giddy for the city again. I can't explain it, really. As we walked through it on the way to our flat for the weekend, I wouldn't shut up. There's just something about a city that is willing to spend so much of its capital on public projects that make people ask questions, that make people stop walking and mutter to themselves "Chicago, you are crazy as hell."

Kids these days

I dunno. In my day, kids didn't eat dirt. We just didn't. It's a different world these days, and I blame the Internet.

This shot is from playing with the kids outside today after getting home from a childless weekend in Chicago. More about that later.

Pure Evil

What with the Enron trial going on, we decided it was a good time to rent The Smartest Guys in the Room. It was a good idea. I had a decent, well, foggy idea of the particulars, but this movie helps to put a human face on it. That's important because understanding this case isn't really isn't about the numbers and the accounting fraud, it's about knowing the people involved and getting a feel for what it takes for someone to pull the kind of crap that these guys as a matter of regular business, day in and day out.

In the trial, it's going to be hard to prove what exactly Skilling and Lay knew, but watching this movie, you get a pretty good idea. By the time it was over, I was tempted to take all of my retirement out of the stock market and put it in, I dunno, paintings or something.

newest neighbor

One great thing about friends who buy an old house and have a baby is that you know they'll be home when you take a Sunday morning walk. This is a. with her mommy. With a new house and a sweet young daughter, the parents have a lot of work, but whenever we visit, they always seem energized by it rather than frazzled. I wonder how they do that.

e4 show

We didn't get there til later, but I think the e4 opening went well. People were still arriving even as we pooped out and left, so that's good. It's always cool when lots of the nice people you know in town end up in the same place.

C and I both kind of fell for the same painting but it was priced at more than we had agreed to spend. Then on the way home we at first joked "hey, we could put less toward retirement this year than we'd planned and get it" and then it wasn't a joke and we were serious. It's a couple of days later and we're still undecided.

"Remember Black Shoes"

This is Tracy and Seth getting ready for tomorrow night's opening reception at the Charlie Cummins Gallery. They and the other two members of their collective, e4, have a show going up there and it's amazing stuff. I wish I could paint. I'm getting that same "I can't do anything cool" feeling like I had after I went to the circus. I did remember that I can juggle, though, which is a little cool.

In the top picture Tracy is demonstrating the new "sign" or whatever for my old school South Side. Look at it--it's an "S"! I need to learn some words besides "cool" because I'm about to say that I think that the "S" sign is really cool.

Anyway, the opening reception tomorrow is 7-11 or so, so stop by if you'd like to support some local talent and all around nice guys. 4130 S. Clinton

$4 TAN

You know you’re tired when this happens:  I’m driving to school this morning and pass a small commercial area and I look at a banner hanging outside one of them and I swear to god, the sign says “SATAN.”

I have to keep driving so I look to the road but have to look back to see if my eyes were deceiving me but no, there it is: “SATAN” in red letters on a yellow banner.  I was sure of it.

I guess it was the third or fourth look that finally worked.  “$4 TAN” it said.  Not SATAN.  What a relief that was.  I mean, Wal-Mart is bad enough, but if Satan got into big-box retailing, things could get bad.  

Oh, the things kids say that people say

Maybe this is only funny to us but we're trying to cross a busy street to get to a park this afternoon with the whole family and this car is driving unpredictably so Cath goes "Drive, you idiot," which is what you say in that situation. J won't let it go: "Why did Mommy say 'Drive, you idiot?'" over and over. Then she starts practicing it, softly, to herself: "Drive, you idiot. Drive, you idiot."

In other news, we're trying to think of fun things to do on a Saturday in Chicago that's coming up soon. We'll be without kids. I know things I like to do there, but a part of me doesn't want to do the same old things. I know, for example, that I don't want to see the Field Museum's collection of Northwest Coast Indian culture again. For some museums, 20 visits is enough.

So I'm open to suggestions for what else is there to do in Chicago.

To Hammond and Back Again

I took this picture at the US District Court in Hammond this weekend. I like it because it looks like a corner chapel in some kind of modern cathedral, but it's just a couple of water fountains and elevator doors. It's peaceful.

Taking this picture may have been the most peaceful part of the weekend. I drove one of the "short buses" there with eight students and a couple of other club sponsors for the regional mock trial competition. It's a long story, and it was a long, intense day. It was much more intense than the speech competitions I've been to--kids are just in each other's faces all day long. It's totally nuts. In a way, I'm just now realizing how cool it was, even though we ended up middle of the pack and got spanked in one round. Hey, it's our first year ever and we were going up against teams that had competed together for three years in some cases.

We'll be back.

The courthouse itself was just gorgeous--a huge, clean, blocky modernist dream that rose from the rubble of surrounding Hammond like the monolith at the beginning of 2001. I'm serious. This building would be worthy of dwell magazine if only people lived there.

Driving the little bus was fun, too.

Touche, or however you spell that.

I only really like the speed skating and the xc skiing, oh and the luge, but I end up watching whatever olympic sports are on at the moment: ski jumping, downhill, biathlon, whatever. So I'm watching tonight and see Picabo Street goes off on US skier Julie Mancuso for some vague attitude problems, suggesting that she doesn't have what it takes to succeed at the Olymbics--she actually says "Lose the tiara" at one point. So what happens? Mancuso skis down the hill and wins gold in the GS. In your face, Picabo. That's pretty funny.

And maybe everyone has heard about this by now, but I can't stop watching this video segment from CBS News about an autistic high school senior who has been the manager of his school's basketball team but gets to join the team for the last game of the year. Coach puts the kid in for the last two minutes of the game--he scores 20 points. 6-7 from the 3pt line. Kids rush the floor. Stories like this make me cry.

Out of body experience

Fascinating feeling during today's IU game against Illinois . . . I couldn't have cared less. I watched, the whole thing, even, but it felt like it was just a movie about a basketball game for some reason. I've been a fan my whole life, and we have had bad seasons, worse seasons even, but I've never felt this disembodied during a game. I think it's because the coach and most of our good players won't be back--it's hard to root for Robert Vaden, for example, when he has already delcared his intention to leave the team. I don't feel like he's playing for us any more, and he didn't, really, hitting like 1-10 from three.

A little more fun was going to the game on Friday. The kidz loved the action and the popcorn, but got pooped before the first quarter was done in the varsity game. At the beginning of the game, HHS went out and stood right in the center of the home team's floor and did this cool rallying cry. It was pretty cheeky.

Beatles: Conclusions

Now I know more about the Beatles than you do. Oh wait . . yep, I just forgot half of what I read in that book, so now we’re about even. But yeah, I finished it, believe it or not. Took me what, like five weeks? Could have been faster, but I have this job I have to do during the day most times.

The entire story is pretty great, but the last 50 pages or so are riveting. By that point, they’re on the verge of breaking up after the agonizing experience of recording Let it Be and the white album. I put a lot of the blame on John and Yoko for this. They’re both into H by this point, and are just really into themselves. For all of John’s complaints that Paul loved to pander to the public and the media, he comes across as just as guilty, churning out media stunt after stunt to promote his wife’s art and their collaboratively made art crap.

So with 50 pages to go I’m sitting there wondering how they are going to manage to put together Abbey Road after their two prior albums, Let it Be and the white album had so much sub-par music on them, and when they hate to be in the studio or near each other. The book doesn’t do justice to the Abbey Road sessions, for they’re end up being kind of neat end to the story. Basically, they find that the joy of playing together somehow helps them forget about all the crap they had going on in their personal lives. They bring George Martin back. It’s like old times in some ways. So, even with Yoko directing their recording from a bed she had installed in the studio, they manage to put together something brilliant. Even George gets his day with some of his best work.

And in the end . . . here are some conclusions:

1. I appreciate John the artist much more than I used to. You get the feeling that even he didn’t fully understand his talent, and he needed Paul to help make it work, but his music is probably the best, I have to admit.


2. I hate who John was to his family, his band mates, his friends, to strangers, and to himself. He may be one of the most un-likeable famous rockers I’ve ever read an 800 page book about.


3. Paul is the reason they ever got anywhere. On his own, he would have found fame. You can’t say that about any of the others.


4. They ripped off a lot more people than I realized. In more ways than I realized, these fellas were just really good at making derivative versions of the music they heard and loved, much of it coming from black America.


5. Their best haircuts were in the late 60’s. I wish like the devil I could grow a beard like Paul’s.


6. After they did the first Ed Sullivan Show, they stopped being funny. I don’t know why, but the beginning of their career, when they were poor and struggling, their wit seemed to be just really vital to who they were. After they started touring, they all get kind of cranky, caught up in the womanizing and the reefer and the LSD and the whatnot.


7. In the end, the love you take is equal to the booty you shake. I made that one up myself.

So here's why people don't send telegrams

It's because they cost almost $50 a pop. At least at the site I found with a quick Google, a hand-delivered (and that's they way you'd want it to be) telegram is around $43 plus .89 cents a word.

You have to wonder how they actually have those delivered. I mean, surely they don't have offices in more than a few cities across the country. If I had a telegram delivered to someone, say, in Fort Wayne, I wonder if they would just open up the Fort Wayne phone book, make a long distace call to the first pizza delivery place listed and say "are you delivering any pizzas near the corner of State and Main? You are? How'd you like to make a quick $5?"

Personally, I'd love to deliver telegrams. How awesome would that be? I could wear a fedora and dress like I was all 1940's and slick my hair back with a nice part and go to peoples' homes and businesses and say "Telegram!"

People should still send telegrams.

The Sunday Times had this funny piece on “famous” telegrams over the years, and this one made me laugh.  Apparently, a journalist once sent a telegram to Cary Grant’s people asking him his age, and it read:

“How old Cary Grant?”

In reply, Grant sent this telegram:

“Old Cary Grant fine.  How you?”

Man, jokes like this crack me up.  I had to call my dad and tell him because I inherited a gene that made me know he would like it too, and he did laugh too.  You’ve got to love hearing your dad laugh long and genuinely.    

It was kind of fun.

So people were actually nice to my draft memoir last night.  A few sharp people pointed out the parts of it that are weak, but several also said that it was pretty.  Come to think of it, maybe they were saying that it was “pretty weak.”  I don’t quite remember.  

The fun part is that they spent over an hour talking about, yes, ME.  One rule is that the author is not allowed to speak at all, so that made it this cool fly on the wall experience.  Sarah said that I looked like I was in agony.  Some people thought it meant that I didn’t like being a father.  One guy said that references to some fairly well known movies and a couple of books were off-putting because he didn’t get them.  “Then read more,” I thought.

Overall, though, people were pretty nice to it.  Maybe nicer than they had to be, sure, but it was an encouraging experience.  

Waiting for the shoe to drop

So this is my week to get my brief "memoir" critiqued in my writin' class. The class is Tuesday night and I had to have my draft posted to the class web page by last night. Lots of mixed emotions swirling about on this . . . on the one hand, the piece I put together is terrible and sitting through a critique of it will be murder. On the other hand, for that half hour of class Tuesday night, it will be all about ME. That part I like ok.

I might overstep how awful the piece is, but not by much. Compared to the other work that we've read so far, it's competitive. On an absolute scale, however, no one will be offering me any advances. It's not fun when you're someone who thinks they have some sense of what good writing is but then find out how that is an entirely different faculty than writing something good yourself. You sit back, read from the top, and think "who wrote this?"

There is a small part of me that secretly hopes my class will be fooled into thinking that my piece is good. Extra credit if someone uses the word "lyrical" to describe it.

Sold

Maybe I'm one of the last people to hear about Jenny Lewis, but that's okay. I finally came around when I saw this video of her new single "Rise up with Feist" or something like that. Funny Loretta Lynne looke she pulls off. The album is above average so far, but I reserve the right to say it's even better as I get to know it. Right now, I just keep playing the single over and over along with my trusty guitar. In fact, it's really the first couple of lines I love, including the great lyric: "It's like trying to clean the ocean/ what do you think you can drain it?"

Fun stuff. Reminds me of Edith Frost. The new Cat Power is really getting to me, too.

I took a walk in the falling snow with my dog tonight, too. That's always good to do if you are lucky to have both handy, a dog and snow. Even better if you find a stick.

New rankings out

Sorry about the continued Beatles talk.  I only have 200 pages to go in the book, and then I’ll be over them for awhile maybe.

But anyway, until last night, my favorite Beatles records went like this:

1. Abbey Road


2. Rubber Soul


3. Revolver

However, after reading about this era and then a close listen, the order is now:

1. Abbey Road


2. Revolver


3. Rubber Soul

The recurring motif is still how John is such a complete arse to people, but his song-writing is waking up, too.  He comes across as a terribly lonely man, in a marriage that he doesn’t enjoy, and a little jealous of Paul’s freedom and, well, talent.  

It’s funny how when I’m reading a book that book becomes this lens for how I take in the world.  When I was doing Gatsby last semester, I was seeing “Gatsby-figures” everywhere I looked.  “He is such a Gatsby,” I would say to myself, or sometimes Cath.  Or: “Total Daisy.”

This is happening somewhat with the Beatles bio.  Mainly, I’m seeing the upcoming Belle & Sebastian tour as my equivalent to the first Beatles tour of the US.  Sure, they’ve been here a few times before and I’ve seen them once before, but they’re charging lots for tickets now, and have a decent headlining act and, according to Tito, are even being advertised in Best Buy circulars.  I don’t see them breaking big, but at least I can pretend that there is some kind of “mania” attached to a band I like for once.

What is so funny about the Beatles tours to me is that these guys played, like, 30 minutes, tops.  That was their set.  Kids would scream, no one could hear them play, and then they’d be done.  So, even people who can claim to have seen the Beatles can only claim to have experienced 30 minutes more of a brush with greatness than any of us can.

Bring it on!

I am not anywhere near a hawk when it comes to Middle East politics, but when I heard that an Iranian newspaper is holding a contest to come up with cartoons about the Holocaust, my first thought was "Bring. It."

Not because there is anything remotely funny about the Holocaust, of course. It's more the thought of the more radical imams all over Iran putting pen to paper to make comic strips that gets me. This could be the first funny thing that has happened in international relations since "you forgot Poland!!"

Imagine some of the early drafts that contestants come up with; I can see them putting a cartoon together, sitting back to read it, and saying to themselves "no, that's just not funny."

Maybe big things could come of this--maybe people all over Iran trying to write a winning cartoon will realize "hey, there's really nothing at all funny about the Holocaust. That was some seriously tragic stuff they went through." Maybe democracy isn't the road to peace in the Middle East; it's comedy.

Writing Class: tonight's box score

This stat line is a little better than it was last week:

Number of times I had a thought but did not blurt it out like a big blow-hard: 3

However, this stat hurt me tonight:

Number of times I blurted something out like a big blow-hard but didn't have any thought to go with it: 2

That's kind of like my class discussion assist/turnover ratio. Still needs some work.

One of those records

I wonder what percentage of all the dancing that happens in the world happens when people are alone and not out in clubs or bars but in their own livingrooms and bedrooms and kitchens and they are just listening to their favorite song of that exact moment. I know a lot is done in clubs by club kids and party people, but I think a lot is done by just people, in the daytime, listening to their home stereos.

It's the new Belle & Sebastian that's making me wonder this. It's just so . . . good.

Buddha Machine is Here

My Buddha Machine has arrived. It's the latest thing, so late and great that I'm not yet sure why I bought it, though I'm sure that will become clear to me in good time. Have you ever bought anything off the internet because you read a thing or two about that thing somewhere and it kind of sounded cool and it wasn't all that expensive and you just thought "why not?" I have.

The Buddha Machine is like a poor man's ambient iPod, this lil square box of plastic that plays one of nine different loops of ambient weirdness over and over until you turn it off or the batteries run out. Apparently, it achieves it's sublime coolness because each unit has its own teeny bodhisattva seated right inside. You can see him in the technical diagram, above.

I think what made me buy it/him was when I read in two different places that "Brian Eno bought eight of these." Why that would make me want to do anything, I'm not sure, but it did. Still, I like my little bodhisattva. He needs a name, though.

Kids and Trainhoppers

Fun night out tonight for kids and parents alike . . went to the lobby of the Indiana Theater to see the CD release party for The Legendary Trainhoppers. As you can see in the snap above, they're a sharp, backward-glancing Americana rock 'n' roll band. They've got lots of people excited here because they're made up of the best and brightest of various bands in the local scene.

One reason this was such a great show is that they actually had a 6:45 set that let kids in free because one of the guys is a kindergarten teacher and he wanted his class to come. So C and I loaded our kids up, even tho B had been pukin' a lot today, and headed downtown. What a cool experience to see so many young, happenin' parents with their kids, all enjoying good original alt-country music. And what an obvious, under-exploited idea: early music shows for the young parents who want to stay engaged with the scene but don't want to have to pay for a baby sitter. It was as much fun for the chilluns, anyway.

Most of the show was electrified, but for the last song they unplugged and stepped into the crowd--probably the highlight of the show for me, the way music was supposed to be heard. Why'd Dylan have to go electric, anyway? He ruined everything, the traitor.

Beatles update

Let me summarize the first 450 pages of the new Beatles biography:

John Lennon was a real poo-poo head.

There is more to it than that, and it's a fun read, but I'm surprised that I'm surprised at what a complete tool he can be, over and over. First, he hates women, hiding from his young wife and son as much as possible; however, he hates them only a little less than he hates himself, I think. All the drinking and the anger and what-not--I don't think he sounds like a very happy fellow.

A big part of me thinks that he only got to be in the band because he was a couple of years older than Paul and George and they looked up to him. They were kids and he was this older, cool, tough guy who gave them the time of day. He needed them because they actually knew how to play their instruments.

Sure, he's a genius blah blah blah, and he had a good wit, but, well, we'll see. I'll finish the book before I draw any more conclusions. Maybe a more sympathetic portrait will come out.

Participation points

I am debating whether I should go on some kind of silent strike at my next class over at IPFW.  I’m in this pretty good writing class right now devoted to creative non-fiction, and, so far, I just won’t shut up in it.  Maybe it’s because during my day job I try not to talk too much, thinking it’s a sign of lazy teacher planning.  During this class, then, when the role is reversed and I’m actually expected to contribute, I feel rather liberated.

But I think I’m going overboard.  I don’t know how I know this, and I don’t think the other students hate me too much—most of them laugh (with me, I think), but still, I’m thinking about a strike, or at least making sure that I say something nice about a fellow student’s paper before I start saying what’s wrong with it.  That would be a good start.

Monkeysquirrel Revokes Support of Mike Davis

I am just realizing, fifteen minutes before we play Northwestern, that the Mike Davis era of IU basketball has almost sapped my last bit of enthusiasm for the game. Used to be that a game was a big deal for me, I'd look forward to it for a couple of days, plan my evening around it, and enjoy watching a team win or lose playing its own style of basketball, a definable style, and one that I could feel proud of.

Now, even when they're winning, I'm usually bored. Our offense is so boring to watch, and out defense is not even really defense, and I dunno. I'm tired of it all.

Oh, I'm still going to watch tonight, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that if Mike Davis's tenure at IU comes down to a vote and it's close and there is some wacky tie breaker where they have to call me at home and ask me whether he stays or goes, I might say "goes."

I stand corrected

Today, lots of people I told about liking the circus gave me a funny look and responded "Really? Have you not been to the circus for awhile or something?" I had to say yes to that. Apparently, past circuses had tygers and even those massive cage balls with motocross bikes running around them. So yeah, I guess I've missed out on some good shows. Part of what was fun for me was sitting there saying to myself "First row! How 'bout that?" over and over.

One thing this circus had that I bet most don't was the actress who played Jessie in Saved by the Bell doing a juggling-like act with her hat. Here she is in a photo I took (from the front row!). You might have to click on it to tell that it actually is her.

Another fun thing I saw this weekend was the Sk8 exhibit at the art museum. Some of the boards are okay, but what was even better were the three short videos of local skaters doing tricks and what not. Justin and one other dude from school are in them doing some pretty cool tricks--I'd buy a copy if they ever sold it.

Action packed

When our friend Chad called for circus tickets for us all a few weeks ago, he called the moment they went on sale and said "Give me the best seats in the house." I have got to start saying that. I had no idea that people actually said that, and even less that it could actually work, but it did, and I've resolved to start demanding "the best" from people when I have the chance.

Our seats for the circus, as I've hinted, were pretty much the best. Front row, dead center. We were close enough to tell which of the contortionists were sacrificing high school to live with the circus and which ones were old enough to have gone to high school in a one room school house. We were close enough that the one really awesome, old school clown chose Chad to parade around and make fun of him. We could smell the elephants. Well, everybody could probably smell them.

Cynical parent that I am, I was not ready to enjoy the circus as much as I did--I thought it'd either be just kind of cheesy or even a little sad when I saw the poor animals. I loved it though--there were so many people who could do so many pretty cool things, things that are hard to do and require dedication, like juggling lots of objects or making people laugh or bending yourself into funny shapes.

Even more amazing is that you'd see one lady balancing on the head of a pin or something and then twenty minutes later you'd see the same lady out there in a different costume and with a different name training crocodiles. It was, yes, just like the ringleader kept saying, amazing.

You see how cool it is to watch people who know how to do all these cool things, though, and you start to think to yourself "what can I do? I can't do anything." I can drive a car. Wow. I can put a golf ball into a pond. Spectacular.

I'm going to start demanding the best seat in the house, and I'm going to start learning how to do cool things. Thank you for opening my eyes, circus people.

Jeff Mangum is back

I'm going through a pretty intense rediscovery of Neutral Milk Hotel these days. The album In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea, and their other one, On Avery Island, have helped me wash more than a few dishes over the past week. Nice, fuzzy-guitar, psychedelic, indie rock. I wish Jeff Mangum didn't wig out and join the circus because I miss this band. (I really think that's what happened to the guy, literally, though I haven't kept up with his recent whereabouts)

Some of my favorite records I listen to so much that I "memorize' them almost and get to the point where I don't enjoy hearing them much anymore. I still consider them favorite albums, but I don't enjoy listening to them nearly as much as I used to. That's strange. Guided by Voices records are like that for me, and so are some Galaxie 500 things and even some Nick Drake. It's too bad, but at least I'm not like the dorks whose car stereos I hear outside my house--the guys who have been listening to the same Led Zepelin 8-tracks for thirty years. It's good to move on.

Pedro, in a landslide.

Hey has anybody seen this funny movie called Napolean Dynamite? jk, of course you have. I bring it up because I saw a new shirt in the hall at school today that said "Jesus died for Pedro." Because the lettering on all these Pedro shirts look homemade, it was hard to tell if this was something the wearer made or bought somewhere. As a result, I couldn't tell if they were being ironic hipsters, like "look, I'm hip because I'm wearing a post-modern pastiche combining elements of lo pop culture with a contemporary Christian slogan" or if they were wearing it as a clever, sincere expression of their faith.

Either way, it's a funny shirt.

And then also today I walk in on some staff people at school who are talking about a student they think looks exactly like Napolean Dynamite, and I then I hear myself saying to them "no, my neighbor when I grew up was the Napolean Dynamite." Same hair, same glasses, same half-lidded eyes when he talked to you, and, best of all, same running style. Even though he was 18, his mother still drove us around town, to movies, book stores. He didn't like the same comic books I did, but we got along fine.Good guy.

But anyway, it occurred to me that maybe everyone knows someone whom they think looks exactly like NP. And maybe these look-alikes are people that no one ever thought twice about before the movie came out but now they're not only out, but they've got a kind of respect or awe from people who used to ignore them. I hope so. For the real life Napolean Dynamites out there, I hope so.

And no, I'm not one of them.

Murderball!!

Finally saw the above documentary about the hardcore life of wheelchair rugby players. They sure are angry, these guys. They hold grudges, they snap at loved ones, they cry when they lose. Your natural assumption is that they are angry because they are in wheelchairs. I think I came to believe, though, that these just happen to be angry guys who happened to be in wheelchairs.

They’re not all that way, of course, but the movie seems to focus on the ones that are—Joe, the former mvp who “defects” to the Canadian team when he gets cut, lives for wheelchair rugby the way I used to live for IU basketball: even when they’re playing, he’s too stressed out to enjoy himself or be in the moment. At home, he’s a jerk to his kid and comes across as distant to his wife. Out to dinner with her for their anniversary, for example, she makes a toast to them and he toasts back “to the Canadian team.”

I would have liked to see some other things developed more here. As a biker gearhead, I would have loved to hear them talk about the gladiator style chairs they use in the matches; I wonder if they would express similar affection for their rides just like when cyclists talk about their new bikes. There were some other things I missed, too, but I can’t remember them right now.

My favorite scenes were with the former motocross racer who was just learning how to get used to his wheelchair and then learns about murderball. He gets into one of the armored chairs, loaned to him by one of the featured guys, and you see a change come over him. For the first time since he was paralyzed, you can see that he’s not thinking about limitations, but possibilities. It’s actually pretty moving.

I also have to say that wheelchairs didn’t keep these guys from landing some pretty wonderful girlfriends. It’s funny how you don’t feel sorry for any of them at the end of this movie—or at least not as sorry as you think you might. That’s probably the whole point.

this is a test

this is another test.

The early beatals*

I'm 1/4 of the way through this new Beatles biography and for someone who knew only the music, it has been a fun read so far. I tend to think of them as this fully formed force of nature, so it has been interesting to read about the changing balance of power as they formed and grew. I'm thinking, for example, even of the obstacles posed by the relative age differences between Paul and George on one hand and John on the other. I love the thought of the two young ones sneaking into John's art school for furtive smoke breaks and to ogle the art school birds.

What I dig the most maybe is the sheer industry about them as they jumped into rock music. They had no idea what they were doing with these crappy guitars, but they locked themselves into their rooms and pieced it together. They weren't good students, but they were smart and found something they wanted to do and they devoted themselves to it. School should be more about finding what you want to do and doing it and less about finding out what other people want you to do. Most of the fault here lies with the way school is organized in this country, but your occasional student who doesn't seem to have any real interests has to share some blame, too.

Especially beautiful to me in this book is the way that American music feels like a message from another universe when it reaches their ears over late night radio broadcasts. I can relate it to life before the internet: music was a bigger deal for me back before you could download an album by someone within 10 seconds of hearing about them for the first time. Back then, the act of discovering a new band, or finding an album, or even a cd, could be a quest in itself. That quest is gone now, pretty much, and when you can't go on a quest, it's hard to feel like a knight.

* this is how they really spelled their name at first. How crazy is that?

Quote of the day

From a nature show about ocean life on pbs tonight:

"The sea otter wraps itself in kelp so that it doesn't drift away during its morning nap."

If there is a more contented animal on the planet than a sea otter . . . well, there just isn't. Man, where did we go wrong?

Big new releases coming up:

It's not often two of your favorites release an album within a couple of weeks. Chan Marshall seems to get better with every new record and B&S seem to--I dunno what they're doing. Their newer sound isn't the one I fell in love with, but it's still smart. Some people are saying this new one is the best since their second release.

As much as I love seeing Belle & Sebastian live, Cat Power may have been one of my most agonizing live experiences. She wasn't even all that bad--what made it so terrible was her attitude. I remember that after the opening band was done we heard this whining voice coming from this woman seated behind our table: "I don't wanna go up there! I don' wanna go!" she kept moaning to no one in particular. This, it turned out, was Chan Marshall herself. Stage fright, I guess. She sounded okay once she got up there, or actually, no she didn't, but what made it worse was how little pleasure she was getting out of it all. You just felt embarrassed for her.

Still, I'd see her again. She's awesome. Cath thinks I'm crazy for that, but oh well.

Darn you, PBS

I meant to get into the new issue of Granta last night but then Michelle told me about a new series on PBS about the French-Indian War. I had to watch that, of course. That's from back when the cool northeastern indians were still running the wilderness. Mohawk, Iroquois. They had some of the most beautiful material culture, but got wiped out early in comparison to the plains indians.

At the risk of being offensive to several first peoples in a single blog entry, here are my favorite indians:

1. Haida
2. Cree
3. Inuit
4. Ojibwe
5. Mohawk

I'll tell ya, here's something weird about this war. It was a war between England and France. Indians fought on both sides. Guess who loses? The indians. How did they do that? They hedged their bets. They were everywhere, but they still lost. Maybe not immediately, but eventually this is true at least. I mean, today, if you look at a globe or something, you'll see an England and you'll see a France, but there is no "Indiana." Well, there is, but it's not the same thing.

What's sad for me is that I can watch a show like this and be in suspense because . . . I don't know how it ends. How ignorant can I be? Of course, I'm sure that England did okay, but they sure get their heads handed to them a lot in the beginning. When I went to bed, things didn't look good for England, that is. I wonder how it all turns out.

The best part of this show is the actor they pick to play Geo. Washington. They play him up as this bumbling idiot, accidentally starting a war between France and England and then miraculously surviving all these indian slaughters without a scratch. The actor plays it all while wearing a constant expression that says "whew! That was close!"

The show resumes next Wednesday.

A few recent snaps.

J gets tired being in front of the camera all day.

B on ice

Over break, we spent an hour or so at a rink. B did pretty well his first time on the ice--but he was just wearing boots.

It's like train spotting, kind of.

B looking at cars.

Chips.

At the gyros shop, killing time until the botanical gardens opened.

Spring in our steps

Stayed home with a coughing J on Monday but it was so nice we had to go out and scramble on the woodpile in our yard's "back 40." The sun was warm enough that the air brought that damp, fecund spring feeling to our noses. It was almost sweet like a nice tobacco or something, though I don't know much about nice tobacco.

The snow is back today, but that 's okay too. Time goes so quickly when you're older and with kids that all the seasons come to you soon enough and there is no point in looking forward to them or doing anything but enjoying the one you're in. Gee, don't I sound like I'm at peace with the universe?

It just occurred to me that this photo could have come straight out of the video for "I Wanna Be Adored." J could pass for a mini Reni with that cap on.

Freaks Win

Fearless Freaks and I am Trying to Break Your Heart show you the right and the wrong way to make a film about a rock band. Heart is humorless and plodding, assuming that it can be all about the music alone and we'll care. Freaks doesn't make this mistake: the music is there and not there at the same time beause the film-maker-guy lets it be about Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd and how weird and funny and what great people they are. I know the band and the fellas a lot better after watching it--after Heart, I felt like all I learned is that rock n' roll can be boring.

And Wayne Coyne. Jeez. I'm not convinced he has much to do with what makes the music great, but he's, I dunno, he's Wayne Coyne. He has cool hair and I like the suit he wears. His affable, busy-body spirit reminds me so much of various friends I've known through the years. I wish I had that energy. I spent half the movie just scrunching up my face and wondering "what the h*** is that guy thinking?" I mean, how many "rockumentaries" would devote 15 minutes or so to things like the back yard sci-fi movie the band leader is making in his back yard, or to grainy 1970's film of him and his buddies playing football in their tight 70's jeans and KISS haircuts? Not many.

Another interesting comparison to Heart is that in that movie, part of the drama is when they kick out a band member for . . . it's not real clear--talking too much, I think. In Fearless Freaks, the reverse happens: we see Steven Drozd literally in the darkest moments of a heroin addiction and then his bandmates bring him out of it. The message is clear: The Flaming Lips can save your life.

I have to admit that it might be a movie primarily for people who are already fans of the "Flips," but still, it is a nice example of what a rock documentary can be when it treats the people like people and not icons.

Yay

Wow, just snagged tickets to go see Belle & Sebastian with New Pornographers. That's gonna be a pretty swell gig, if I do say so. Saw B&S in Detroit a few years back and it was just one of the best shows I've ever been to--it's all about the fun with them.

Ticketmaster do take a bite, tho. That hurt a little. Information superhighway robbery, that is.

Boots

In the prologue to the new Beatles biography by Bob Spitz, I just read this description of how the lads were dressed on the night of their big first show in Liverpool:

Nor could anyone take his eyes off of the rude cowboy boots with flat chopped heels that each man wore, especially John Lennon's, which were ornate Twin Eagles, emblazoned with birds carved on both the front and the back and outlined with white stitching.

And I realized: these are the boots that are missing from my life. Not necessarily John Lennon's boots, but boots like that. Rude. Black. Flat, chopped heels. With boots like that, I could . . I could do anything.

Broke my heart

Got my first Netflix movie last night, the Wilco documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart. It's because I had never seen this and couldn't find it around here that helped nudge me into finally getting Netflix, though I'd been close to pulling the trigger lots of times before. Amazingly this plus the Flaming Lips movie Fearless Freaks both got here in one day after being shipped--the shipping envelopes make the movies look like little more than AOL junk mail, and Cath almost threw them out.

So we watched Wilco first and it was a little funny because Cath starts out by saying, "I don't really like Wilco," but then as they played each song, she would say "Oh, but I do like this song." She kept doing this until she remembered that she does in fact like Wilco; she just couldn't remember their sound at first. I hope she doesn't think that me saying this makes her look silly.

The movie ended up being a disappointment. Jeff Tweedy is an amazing song writer and performer, and he seems like a really down to earth fellow with good values and whatever--I love the scene where his little son starts tapping the beat to the song "Heavey Metal Drummer" and he sings along to it--but overall, he's not the most dynamic screen presence and the movie ended up being a little dull. The most interesting personality was Jay Bennett, the guy they kicked out of the band. I guess this is why MTV and other folks always populate their reality shows with idiots.

The music was okay--I liked hearing alternate versions to the album songs, but in almost every case, I preferred the album version to the studio goof-around, knob-twiddling they were doing.

Fearless Freaks looks to be a little more bizarre. I watched the first 10 minutes or so, and Wayne Coyne's drug addled childhood looks like what That 70's Show would have been if it were produced by HBO.

Country Boys

We've been watching the recent PBS documentary Country Boys in my sophomore class the last two days, and my general impression is that most people appreciate it. They like it for different reasons, sure; some people see humor, some are feeling the pathos as they watch Chris's floundering attempts to flee his splintering family and Cody's identity issues. It just kills me every time--I think in a way that Chris's mother is a worse parent than his father is. The dad has an illness, alcoholism; what's the mother's excuse for leaving Chris and his sister behind? She's heartless and selfish.

I can't help but read any movie or book without being affected by what I read last, which in this case is Gatsby, so it got me thinking about the "dreams" these characters carry. In Gatsby, it's all big stuff: houses, women, cars that make up the dream. In Country Boys, their environment has pounded them down so much that their dreams are heart-breakingly small: get out of the trailer, score high enough on the ACT to get into a cinder-block community college. The modesty of these dreams makes me so much more sympathetic to what they're going through.

I wish I could teach a course in documentary film. That would be pretty awesome.

If you dig this film, PBS has a great web site devoted to it. Updates on Chris and his life since the movie, plus lots of other background material.

Smart wombat.

And he can dance, too.

Get your sleep

Cody, one of the subjects of Country Boys

In thinking about the below-mentioned "so much to read, so little time" dilemma, I decided that maybe I could cut down to six hours of sleep a night, so I tried that last night. Unfortunately, instead of reading, I watched the second episode of the Frontline show "Country Boys." This show just knocks me out--it's set in eastern Kentucky, but these kids could be anywhere. They are everywhere. I think I might jettison my hero-quest plan so that I can fit this show into the last couple days of the semester and ask people to look at some of the Gatsby "American Dream" motifs as they appear in it. These kids live in one big Valley of Ashes, for sure.

The other bad thing about my new six-hours-of-sleep plan is that it makes you very tired. Normally, I only need seven hours, so you wouldn't think that one hour makes that much of a difference. Well, it does. When the tiny speakers in my 20 year old plastic clock radio switched on the morning drone of NPR this morning, I was literally still a dead man. Literally. Yes, literally. Literally. Yes. The dead of night it was for me.

I guess I'll go back to the plan where I sleep seven hours. Sometimes, I can't wait to be one of those old folks who only need like four hours of sleep a night. They must get lots done every day, those old people.

First day of skool

Ahh, it's nice to be back in class again--it'd been a few years. Attended the first meeting of a course I'm taking toward a masters in English out at ol' IPFW last night. Oddly, it's in the exact same room that my last course was in, this cell of a room that I could only barely lie down in across the width of it. No windows, neither. There were about forty desks in their and fifteen of us people.

I forget the title of the class, but it's about this so-called "Creative Non-fiction" genre and of course I was one of the first people the prof turned to when she asked "what is creative non-fiction?" Actually, she'd asked if any of us had read any CNF lately so I half raised my hand because with this teacher it is sometimes impossible to tell whether she's asking a rhetorical question or whether she really expects us to give an answer--so I started out giving a 1/4 arm wave to questions and then moved to just answering them to myself, silently, making no motion at all. "Yes," I would think to myself, in response to a question, but sometimes I would also think "no" or "what did she say?"

But when she asked the class if any of us had read any CNF lately, there was a silence, and then another one, so then I volunteered (Joseph, you'll be proud of this one): "I recently read Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker." I had to stop the silence. I didn't even know if this book qualified as "creative non-fiction," but I decided that it is one of those genres where if you aren't sure whether a work fits in it, the answer is "sure, it fits fine."

To me, then, the prof (whom I like very much, if that hasn't come across yet), says "Great! What is it?" so I start telling her all about the book, which doesn't take too long, because it's not about all that much, and then she stops me and says "no, what is creative non-fiction?"

I wanted to punt. I was a student in my own classroom for this moment. I actually said: "I don't know."

How ridiculous. I laughed it off, and then launched into a brief personal definition of the term. I even made especially sure to use the word "lyrical" when describing it because I love to describe things as "lyrical." She liked it. She said "lyrical!!" as though that was the day's secret word. And then she moved on.

Oh, man. What fun. I have to restrain myself, really, because I could easily become the kind of participator that just doesn't shut up in that class. I don't want the people in there to hate me; I just want them to be jealous of my craft.

I'm a little surprised that we are only expected to finish two pieces of writing--seems kind of light, but the reading load is significant. I don't know when I'm going to do it all. I am now 1 1/2 weeks behind in the New Yorker, and I just got the new Beatles biography from Amazon, and I want to read In Cold Blood, and another teacher just told me she was going to loan me Ian McCewan's Saturday, which always makes me feel obliged to read it. It's such a burden to be recommended books sometimes.

I am a sandwich eating genius

My late grandmother taught me that there was only one way to make a peanut and butter jelly sandwich: 55% peanut butter and 55% jelly. She cranked those things out for me as long as she could, even offering to make them about 10-15 times a day when her dementia began to kick in.

I grew some as an individual last year, however, when I attempted the triple decker PB&J. It met with some success, but my fellow teachers at South Side laughed at me. I became too shy to eat it in front of them and had to retreat to my classroom.

In privacy, I continued to experiment. Now, I am not a bad cook, and have developed some kitchen intuition, but even I was not prepared for what I pulled off tonight: my new favorite sandwich. Try it if you dare:

The Grilled Peanut Butter and Misc. Crap Sandwich

1. Butter the bread.
2. Slather on the PButter.
3. Pour honey on it.
4. Sprinkle on some chocolate chips.
5. Add sliced strawberries.
6. and some sliced bananas, too.
7. Grill it a la mode du grilled cheese.

Actually, I got this recipe from a magazine, so I'm not some sandwich-making genius. I am just a sandwich eating genius.

Here is a perfect day for you

This picture from what's happening in some part of Japan is just impossibly beautiful to me right now; I'm missing the snow in a bad way. If this happened here, it'd probably mean school would last until July, but a guy can dream can't he? It looks like a happier version of a flood or tsunami: slowly accumulating, pretty, fun. Think of the igloos I could build.

Musical Interlude

What is it about Scotland? With Boards of Canada, it raises the number of Scottish bands I dig to "a lot." Let's see:

Arab Strap
The Pastels
Mogwai
Travis
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Beta Band
Belle & Sebastian/Isobel Campbell
Camera Obscura
Life Without Buildings

and now Boards of Canada.

For a country with a population that totals, like, in the hundreds, that's quite a lot of good music.

This Boards of Canada record is just killing me right now, though I've never been a huge electronica fan. It has this distant, muffled sound that I just realized reminds of what I hear when I am driving on the highway with the stereo off. It's November, or March, and there is no snow on the Indiana corn fields and your car is filled with that lo-fi noise mixture of wind and whatever. Who'd have thought that a flat landscape could have echoes but that's what it is, leftover sound from all the heavy trucks rolling their tires over the sad highway. It really does sound like landscape music, something you can only hear from far away.

Man, I've had way too much tea this morning.

Thanks, Joseph!

Okay, so the computer still isn't working right, but it was a good excuse to hang out. C likes the idea of that Belle & Sebastian/Stereolab double in early March, so we'll see about that.

Advice

One way not to start a conversation with your wife is to say to her: "I have an idea for a new year's resolution for you."

Even if what you have to say is totally constructive, she will be all defensive about it and won't even listen to your good idea.

On Beauty

Oh, I've got to stop staying up so late. In the morning, when I get up around 5:45 or so, I think "I really need to go to bed by 10 or 10:30." Then that evening, I often don't even pick up my book until 9:30 or so. If I want to get any reading done, I have to stay up til at least 10:30.

Last night, I finished Zadie Smith's latest, On Beauty. I'm pretty impressed/jealous of her talent, this young Brit who has come out of nowhere to write three decent novels that are totally crammed with people and humor and uncomfortable moments.

I may prefer White Teeth at this point, but I'm still digesting On Beauty. I think it was a happy ending, happier than Howard probably should have had. It's also a very visual ending, as though Smith were writing something for the screen: the art history professor used to talking his way through life and art without enjoying it but finally gives some big lecture but choosing, at the last second, at the podium, not to speak at all, but to simply click through his power point presentation, letting the Rembrandt slides speak for themselves. Now that I think about it, it is an improbable end, but still worth a smile. I remember laughing more at White Teeth, I think.

A moment of uncomfortable silence

I think that there has been a message delivered to our morning announcement team to start making the "moment of silence" longer. It used to last just a little bit longer than the time it took students to sit down after saying the Pledge. However, for the four days of this week, they have had time to sit down, stare around the room, and start wondering when the moment of silence is going to end. Some kids sit there with a look on their faces like "when can I start breathing again?" It's as though they can feel it's longer than usual, but they're unwilling to meet each others' eyes because it's supposed to be a serious moment.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, only that it's a noticeable change, and that it's kind of funny to watch.

I wonder if other classes are like this. Maybe not. I have a class of seniors and all of them stand for the Pledge and all of them are quiet for the Moment, though I've never said a word about it--I've never had to. I wonder if classes of freshmen and sophomores behave the same way.

Near hand-dryer breakthrough

For a moment today, I thought that I had discovered a breakthrough in hand drying technique. As I washed my hands this morning in the bathroom down the hall from my classroom, it occurred to me: there are two hand-dryers, and I have two hands. Why not turn both of them on at the same time? That way, each hand would have the benefit of getting the full force of its own hand-dryer.

I tried it immediately, and soon noticed that what this technique does not have is the drying effect given by step #2, "Rub hands gently." As a result, the machines turned off with both of my hands slightly less dry than they would have been had I used a single dryer. A major disappointment.

I guess that's why step #1 isn't "Push button on two dryers if available."

Picture practice

Not a great picture, composition-wise, and the lighting isn't great, but I like June's expression here. It's just a relief to finally have a digital camera that has so little shutter lag that I actually get the picture I'm hoping for when I click the shutter.

New Year

So the snow didn't get lovely until the day before we left to drive back south and once we got south there was no snow waiting for us, and so I am missing the snow right now. It was a nice trip to Michigan, though. Lots of family and some skating and some tubing down ski hills and other things you only do when you have kids. Here is a picture I took during a brief walk with C and Smokey.

not a future hobby

I'm still thinking about ice skating a lot and about how I'd like to find a pair of used skates and get better and stuff. I also, of course, have been wishing that I could dance a little like Gene Kelley, or at least know the basic steps. I realized today, however, that I do not have any desire to get into ice dancing. I just want to be clear on that point. No ice dancing.

I was thinking how cool it would be if a bunch of people got together and swept off the rivers downtown so that people could skate on them. Think how fast you could get going and how cool it would be to zip through town. They've got to be frozen, right? I mean, they're maybe six inches deep this time of year, right? And they move in geological time, they're so slow. That could work, I think.

That reminds me of the news story a couple weeks ago about the guy who flew a plane under the Columbia Street bridge. I wonder what happened with that, if anything. Skating on the rivers sounds safer than that.

I keep thinking of watching tv in Belgium in this crackpot little hotel where a little dog, a terrier, sat right on top of our table, watching us as Brian and I ate from a plate of cold cuts. The owner saw the dog, or rather I think thought that we were annoyed by him though we weren't, and yelled at him: "Sammy!!" in this odd accent and the dog jumped down. Anyway, on tv there they had race coverage from this little town where there were speed skaters flying along, yes, rivers that ran through the town. Hundreds of people lined the banks cheering them on. That could happen here.

There is fun in the Fort

Man, I had fun skating at Headwaters Park last evening. I think my favorite winter sports are the ones that let you forget how cold it is, and this is one of them, along with xc skiing and shoveling. Well, not shoveling so much. I can see myself with a broom or whatever clearing off the ice up in Michigan so that I can skate on the lake this winter, just so long as it doesn't take time away from my igloo-building project, which is of supreme importance to me.

I think another reason this skating thing is fun is that, for someone who doesn't have a lot of grace, I actually feel almost graceful out there. Fortunately, I don't get to see what I look like stiff-leggin it around the ice, slowly carving large squares in it--what's important is that I feel graceful and natural and even fast. Erin claimed that I could have walked faster, but it still felt fast to me.

What helped me rise to the occasion was the way Catherine kept making me feel like an invalid, repeating encouraging things like "just hold onto the railing" and "those skates are too serious for you--ask for a beginner pair." Nice reverse-encouragement, honey; it worked.

For real, though, it was pretty cool to skate with C. I mean, we've been together for, I dunno, sixteen years or so, and we'd never skated before. Turns out she's good at it and fun to watch and everything.

Party Throwing

Man, what is it with people who come to parties at your house and consume all of your hospitality and then just never leave until it's so late you forget why they're there in the first place? I started to have a suspicion that they were waiting for Cath and me to fall asleep in our chairs so they could pick our pockets and steal our dog. Thank god for coffee.

JK, you all! Thanks for coming and filling our house with cheer. We'll do it again.

June's rule

After spending yesterday sick, June had this announcement for me this morning:

"It's okay to watch a lot of tv when you're sick. That's the rule."

I can tell she kind of liked being sick.

Best Books

I had a pretty good reading year. When I look back, there was a lot more non-fiction being read compared to past years. These are my favorites.

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami: Two intertwined stories, one involving a runaway boy and the other an aging mentally handicapped man who makes a living by finding lost cats because he can talk to them. Murakami is the most messed up writer I know.

Winning Chess Openings, Yasser Sairawan: I'm bad at chess and this book is way over my head but I still learned a thing or two from it. It's fun to read stuff that makes you realize how little you know about things. Chess, for example.

Hole in My Life, Jose Gantos: Autobiography of a guy who goes to jail. It's better than that . . hard to describe. Actually, it's not hard to describe; I just can't remember it that well. I remember enjoying it is all. It's a short young adult book, so it's a great quick read.

The Outskirts of Troy, Carl Dennis, poems: I love this guy's poems because they are written in common speech about little things. Some people criticize him for not being intellectual enough, but I think it's, I dunno, refreshing or something.

The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy: McCarthy has to be one of my favorite authors. I don't even care what he's writing about as long as he's the one doing it. I will probably always prefer his southern books like Suttree and The Orchard Keeper to the westerns, but these are growing on me. I also read No Country for Old Men this year, but didn't enjoy it as much.

The Cheese Monkeys, Chipp Kidd: This not a well written book at all, but I enjoyed it because I have always wanted to be an artist and this book let me see what it's like to be an art student at an art school. Funny novel about that scene.

Box of Matches, Nicholson Baker: A guy wakes up each morning at, I think, 5AM and lights a fire from a box of matches and writes about whatever comes into his head while the match is burning. When he runs out of matches, the book is over. It makes you want to wake up each morning, at, I think, 5AM and light a match in the darkness and write about whatever comes into your head. It makes you want to be more aware of the thoughts that wander through your head on their way to some other place.

The Sound on the Page, Ben Yagoda: Great survey of style and writing and how to read and boring crap like that.

The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus: Claims to be a book of stories, but is much closer to prose poetry. Each story is maybe a paragraph in length and I can read each one ten times and get something different out of it every time. Marcus just had a muddled Harper's piece attacking Jonathan Franzen that doesn't even seem to have generated much controversy. I think people were wondering "who is this guy to think we care what he thinnks about the state of contemporary fiction?"

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene: Not my favorite by him, but there is something about the clarity of his prose that knocks me out every time. It's a middle style, but it's better than that, too.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote: The last book I read for my book club before it exploded under the pressure of, well, all I know is it had something to do with toilet paper, but I'm not too clear on that. Anyway, this book feels a little dated probably because the Holly Golightly character has been ripped off so often since this was published. I enjoyed his feel for how to show us people, even if he takes a condescending view of those people at the same time.

Late Additions: I hope to finish these two books during winter break, which starts today. I can already tell they both deserve to be on my list of favorites.

The Ongoing Moment, Geoff Dyer: This guy cracks me up, the idea of someone who doesn't own a camera writing a book about his theory and history of photography. It's pretty smart, though.

On Beauty, Zadie Smith: She is just too much. Her books are so funny and smart and, I guess, raw, in a way. This is the first book to be read by my new, secret, splinter-group book club.

Best Movies, 2005

It's hard to see movies when to see a movie you have to use one of the two to three days a month that you get someone to babysit your kids and there are other things you like to do on those nights like go see friends or to parties or just sit in a restaurant until you are the last one there.

But I did manage to get out for a few this past year, and rented a few, too, though not a lot. Of everything I saw, these were my favorites:

Shaun of the Dead. I haven't seen many of the horror movie spoofs we make here, but this British zombie spoof is hilarious. Two losers so drunk or out of it that they don't even notice when all of their neighbors have turned into zombies and are walking the streets.

The Aquatic Life with Steve Zissou. Not Wes Anderson's best, but it has its little charms, like all of his do. Not charming was sitting in the theater near a couple of people who wanted everyone to know that they were the biggest Wes Anderson fans in the world and they tried to show it to us by laughing loudly almost every line of dialogue. They wanted us to know that their senses of humor were so refined that they saw jokes where the rest of us mortals only saw people talking. We should be ashamed to call ourselves fans of Wes, their laughs said. How annoying.

Mary Poppins. June got into this movie so I ended up watching it no fewer than 3,000 times this year, and I love it more every time I see it. The dad sings in just my register, so I can sing along pretty well, too.

Me and You and Everyone We Know. Just one of those odd movies about strange people that makes you laugh at the odd funny things they do in their little, odd lives. Actually kind of moving or whatever, though. I really enjoyed this.

Dig! Disgusting documentary about the disgusting, drug-addled lives of a band known as "The Brian Jonestown Massacre." You finish the movie feeling like you went on tour with them for a year.

The Edukators. Nice, warm movie about three liberal activists in Germany who break into the homes of wealthy industrialists and rearrange their furniture. They kidnap one almost by accident and have to look hard at how much they want to sacrifice in the name of the values they profess.

Capote. I saw this and was convinced that what's his name would be a shoe-in for best actor, but then he wasn't even nominated for a Golden Globe. Maybe I don't know squat about what makes a good acting performance.

Bad Education. Almodovar just gets so much more intense and beautiful with every movie, I think. I enjoyed this as much as I did Talk to Her, I think.

Singin' in the Rain. What an amazing movie. I still don't know who's better, Gene Kelley or Fred, but there are few musicals that approach this one.

My Fair Lady. Surprisingly few great songs in this one, and what little choreography there is is lame, but this is one of the funniest musicals I've ever seen. Richard Harris is hysterical.

Gosh, that's not a lot of movies for an entire year, or is it? I probably saw twice that many, so half of what I saw made it to this list. I'm good enough at knowing what I like that I am good at not going to movies that I'll end up hating.

Why I'm difficult

While driving around tonight, I had this insight into why I like some of the bands I do. That is, the difficult, noisy bands like Animal Collective and Fiery Furnaces and whatever. What got me wondering is this new Animal Collective album I got the other day--"Here Comes the Indian." At first, it was almost unlistenable. I know some people think their newer stuff is unlistenable, but this was an older one by them and it is, really, just pure noise--it makes their new stuff sound like, I dunno, U2 or something.

Anyway, I got it and decided that I had to figure out how to like it. I played it in my car constantly, just hating it, just telling myself what awful sounds they were making, but also telling myself that if I tried hard enough, I would learn to like it.

The funny thing is, is that it worked. It's probably my second favorite record by them now. I've decided that maybe it's an ego trip for me or something--that if I can figure out how to like a band that nobody else I know likes, then it's almost like they're my own personal band--they're makin' music for me alone. That bothers me a little to think of it that way because I don't like the thought that vanity affects my aesthetic taste. Or maybe that's the most natural thing in the world. People define themselves by the music they like all the time, and it's common for people to feel like we "own" a certain band; why else would we get upset when one "sells out" and becomes popular?

Maybe that's part of why I like Animal Collective, anyway. The other part is that I like music that surprises you every time you listen to it. Most records that I get into the first time I hear them end up boring me after another 5-10 listens. The "difficult" music tends to be stuff that is imaginative and new and that's where you can find surprise, when it's something you have to use your imagination to dig into it.

Speaking of songs, June is now asking me to sing Christmas songs to her when I rock her before bed, and it's amazing how few of them I know all the way through. Jingle Bells I think was the only one I could recall tonight. I had to go from that to "Doe a Deer" to "Down in the Valley." Quite a mix that makes.

June was at school today being observed by the child devo classes. I spied on her a little--it was all I could do not to go scoop her up, but I knew that that would mess up their observations. It was pretty nice to be able to walk down the hall and see your kid. Too bad there isn't a day care there. I guess we'd need more pregnant students before that happens, and I shouldnt' wish for that.

I'm blogging about vlogging

So, here I am in class blogging about this vlog we just watched in class . . . I dunno, what does it say about the media that one blogger can call a kid "the youngest blogger in the world" and they pick it up and run with it like it is the gospel truth? Are they that desperate for internet puff pieces? Distractions from the Iraq war? Seriously. It just shows you what an inordinate amount of influence one person with a computer can have on the internet these days--it's both scary and stupid at the same time.

Albums of the Year

The year's not over, but I still feel like it's time for my annual wrap up of my favorite new records. They aren't all new for 2005, but they are all new to me, at least. Here is my top 10, from least to most favorite:

11. Ratatat
10. Royksopp: Melody AM
9. LCD Soundsystem
8. Sufjan Stevens: Illinoise!
7. Stephen Malkmus: Face the Truth
6. Silver Jews: Tanglewood Numbers
5. Ryan Adams: Jacksonville City Nights
4. Animal Collective: Here Comes the Indian
3. Ryan Adams: Cold Roses
2. Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney: Superwolf
1. Animal Collective: Feels

In the long run, Superwolf might outpace Feels for me, but I can only go by what I like the most at this time, and that's my list.

Focus?

It occurred to me tonight that I currently have five journals going in one form or another right now. I have this blog, my reading blog, my teaching blog, the journal I keep on my pc at home, and my classroom journal. That doesn't even count my photo journal and half-arsed gardening journal I started this summer. Dang.

It used to be that I liked to keep track of how many pages I wrote each year in my journal, but that's not really possible any more unless I cut and past all my blog stuff into my home journal. What a pain that would be.

Anyways, this begins the last week before winter break. It's going to go quickly, I know, and break should be pretty nice. I wish my xc skis weren't up in Michigan, b/c I'd take them out to Fox Island or Metea. I'll be up there soon enough.

I've got a nice new writing assignment for the sophomores I'm going to give them tomorrow. It should be a nice grade boost if they put some effort into it. I'll cross my fingers for them.

I read a pretty cool article on video blogging in the Sunday New York Times today and checked out a few. I was jealous of their skills w/ the cam corder and the internet, but overall, most of them seemed a little too amateurish to maintain my interest for very long. I can read a blog faster than I can watch a vlog, skipping through the boring bits. That's probably why I prefer them.

One of the ok ones is by a guy named Michael Verdi.

Breakout

So I'm at the library yesterday, paying down my fines, when this guy comes up next to me at the counter trying to do the same thing. He looks normal enough, but he's a little timid. The librarian asks him if he has his library card and he says no. They ask him if he has any other ID and he says no but then says, "well, I have my prison I.D." The librarian says that would work so I look over after he's put it down and it looks just like my school I.D. except it says "Department of Corrections" on it, and, this is the best part, in black permanent marker someone has sloppily written "Released 12-8-05." I laughed on the inside at that. I mean, what escaped prisoner couldn't write that on there? I got this funny idea that he'd broken out of prison just so that he could make it to the library to pay down his fines, and then he was going to break back in. It was the eigth of December, after all. How touching that the first place he went on his release day was the library.

Because I like talking to strangers, I almost tried to make a joke with him: "Hey, if you lose that I.D. while you're in prison, do they kick you out?" But I didn't.

Snow Day

These days, it takes a perfect storm to make a superintendent want to cancel school, and that's just what we had yesterday. It started late afternoon, came on strong, and didn't let up until the a.m. It's so friggin' beautiful out now. The Buddha statue in our yard looks like he has a white shawl around his shoulders and a white hat; he's got the same faint smile on his face that he always carries, no matter the weather.

I was rooting for a snow day, myself. I could tell the kids in my classes were ready for one, too--some of them were so low on energy that it felt like less like a Thursday and more like Saturday school at times. That was partly my fault, too, maybe. It's difficult to find a balance in your lesson plan that can keep peoples' attention for 45 minutes or so. I think about that a lot. It's impossible, really, but that's why teaching is fun--it's fun to think of new ways to approach books and writin'.

I got home yesterday and it was already snowing pretty hard and my weird neighbors were of course out shoveling. Never mind that the snow was forecasted to keep falling for another eight hours--one of them, either Victoria or Veronica, I can never remember which--kept shoveling the same 20 square feet of driveway for over an hour. She'd shovel it, the snow would cover it, and she'd start over. I wonder if she wondered why she couldn't ever get it clear. I wonder if she was cold in her omnipresent house dress.

NewSPace

I had this bad dream last night about the MySpace page I've been putting together, and I woke up realizing that it's a bad idea. Here's my line of thought: (1) I am a teacher; (2) and parents and people don't expect me to mess with their kids' personal lives too much; (3) most kids' myspace pages are pretty personal places where they can be who they are without worrying about their parents butting in; (4) if I had a myspace page, it would have links to other peoples' myspace pages, both students and my other friends; (5) there will fer sure be stuff on those pages that most parents don't want, in a perfect world, their kids to see or read, etc. (6) this isn't a perfect world; (7) but parents expect teachers to pretend that it is, or at least not expose them to the world's flaws; (8) for example, I should not use the word **** or **** or even **** in class; (9) some people might think that, by linking to pages where kids talk about stuff that would get them in trouble in the real world, I would, in effect, be condoning or facilitating that kind of "behavior"; (10) that would make them mad at me; (11) I don't want that.

Sure, I know that in reality no kid would learn anything they don't already know by following links from my page, but it's more about the appearance of things that parents care about, and that's what I to concern myself with, unfortunately.

Fortunately, I still have this blog.

Joseph: Going

Well, my friend Joseph is leaving town. That's sad for me, but he'll be around for a few months yet, the end of the school year. He's one of the neatest personal friends I've made in the last year here.

It would be nice if he'd stay around. Chicago, though, and a girl there. I guess that's why it's important to marry your best friend: they can't move away on you that way.

S'funny, but I always knew he was going; I just thought it would be to the peace corps. It feels like more of a loss this way for some reason.

This weekend

Got cold this weekend. Snowed, too. It's beautiful out.

On Friday, I told June we'd go to the library to get movies and she said "let's get FOUR movies!!" and so that's what we did, all musicals. Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Annie, and 42nd Street, a b&w choice that she picked on her own. Funny.

So far, she's loving Maria the most, in SoM. My Fair Lady knocked me out, mainly Rex Harrison's performance and the one scene at Ascot where Eliza keeps saying "How do you do?" I kept repeating that line all weekend. Overall, the movie feels a little too long to me, though. The story drags some, and not all the musical numbers are that hummable, except for "I could have danced all night." Plus, some of the storylines feel a little bit underdeveloped. Isn't that strange? That a 2hr 40m movie would have underdeveloped story lines? I think Eliza is a little underdeveloped, too, for that matter. We see her moxy or whatever at the beginning, but after that, for much of the film, she's simply Professor Higgins's automoton.

I love that June loves musicals. They're so wholesome, I guess. They have no villains like the Disney movies do, so I don't have to fast forward through the scary parts.

I picked up J and B today and told J we were going to the newly opened library branch near our house and she starts asking if I brought "books I don't want anymore" to give to the library so that we can get some more out. I didn't know she knew about that. She's always amazing me these days. She's also spending more time with books alone, which is nice to see. She turns the pages and, well, I don't know what. It's her inner life developing.

Musical day

What is it about The Sound of Music? Twice today I have been put in tears by it, that same scene where the Captain first hears his children singing inside the house and his head turns to the house and he says kind of to himself "the children?" Then he listens to them sing with a mixture of emotions running through his face: pride, regret, the memory of his late wife, and then resolve and he steps out singing. The looks on the chidlren's faces makes it feel real, like a true moment of revelation for them. Such a beautiful scene. I got up with June this am at 7 because she crawled into our winter dark bed to snuggle and started saying "when do we wake up?" We went downstairs and I continued introducing her to one of my favorite musicals.

We picked up four at the library last night: TSOM, 42nd Street, My Fair Lady, and Annie. I hadn't seen Annie for ages, but the first 30 seconds of it told me that it was unwatchable and I walked away. I don't think June dug that one either. She picked 42nd Street out herself and actually seemed to like it though it's in black and white.

My Fair Lady is a pleasant surprise. Quite funny. "How do you do?"