Random Rules

Thank you, Soviet Russia for Wondrous LP Covers, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

2010-02-16T22:47:00.003-06:00

attention design-nerd friends...in celebration of my last post, let me show you something i just happened across. i think you will enjoy some of these:

there are some album covers....

2010-02-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

that i just love. somebody want to teach me how to burn screen prints so i can make a shirt with this on it?

The Daily Swarm - Cap'n Jazz Reunion, Anthology Confirmed...

2010-02-16T17:52:00.004-06:00

The Daily Swarm - Cap'n Jazz Reunion, Anthology Confirmed...

Posted using ShareThis

apparently Cap'n Jazz will be reuniting for a tour this summer. I am sure many of you have heard, but for those who haven't, can we agree to keep our ears to the ground on this one? i really don't want to miss a chance to see them.

why not?

2010-02-15T13:12:00.001-06:00

i've never just let this blog be whatever i want it to be. that starts today. i stumbled upon this clip on youtube. it reminded me how much i love this poem. anyway, for anyone with any love of poetry, this guy chooses some pretty killer stuff...may i suggest the ezra pound poems, recited by pound himself just before death.

from Portland, OR (hour 37)

2010-01-08T02:59:00.000-06:00

I flew to Portland, OR on wednesday, Jan. 6. 2010. this trip marks many things for me; the first time I've flown in the post-9/11 world (the last time I was on a plane was in July of '01), the first time I have flown across the country, the first time I have flown alone, the first time I have traveled from Philadelphia to anywhere other than New York state or Connecticut in a couple of years. I'm sure I could think of more but I have other thoughts to move along to. So far, my time here has been great. I am staying with my dear friend Olga Lukomsky. It has been quite a while since the last time I have seen her. To tell of what I've been up to since I got here would be a short list of names of people I have met and food I have eaten, but I do not want to reduce anything to such simple terms. Olga has made a home here and has great roommates that are gracious enough to allow me to crash here for the next few days. The other friends of hers that I have met are similarly beautiful people. It has been a great joy to meet them and be able to spend some time with them. Tonight, Olga and her friend Mick took me to Powell's Books which is by far the largest and most amazing bookstore I have ever been to. I bought 5 books. Earlier in the day, I saw Lana and was able to get some food with her and her roommate Kielly and it was really good to see her. She really seems to like it here so far and i'm very happy for her. I look forward to the next few days which should involve the following: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans at one of the many theatre pubs in this city that I've heard so much about, a brunch on saturday at Olga's house (possibly followed by watching a movie or two on the projector), going to Olga's church that she's told me a lot about. On Monday, I will be going up to Olympia, WA to visit Marlee and Olivia. I miss them a lot so I am very excited to see them. This trip has already been very restful and life-giving for me, even though I still talk as much in any other city as I do in Philadelphia....people are terribly gracious with me, which I appreciate.

Don't worry, Philadelphia, I miss you and love you and will return soon.

p.s. - today I was put into comic form for the second time in my life (as far as I know). check out my new friend Breena's comic: http://www.easelainteasy.com/category/comic

2 more from the past week

2009-12-22T12:33:00.001-06:00

I'm glad I don't feel like I have anything to prove with this. I just hope no haters come through and steal anything from me. how do i make that copyright sign? either way...here is a really short one and another one.

I'd much prefer to
read another's book -
to put down the
pen
ever-writing, close the
eyes
ever re-reading, the one
that is mine.

The life, long-lived, though
short of years, burns not at
its ends but from within,
in burning toils, and
having toiled,
rests for a new day.
Owing itself only to the author
until another claims
that attention, this life, lived
lest lies draw doubt,
is full.

thoughts as I walked on december 21, 2009

Walking down a snowed-in street, I
found something akin to adventure

In the once clean shovel-paths
made by morning ghosts, who,
bathed in the snow-sepia of streetlights
and 19 hours straight of accumulation,
re-imagined the necessity
of roads through the wilderness.
These past avenues, once noticed,
were subsequently travelled
by any bold enough to enter
and used until the grass
knew where to stop.

A walk to get coffee becomes the expedition
of the unappreciated bastards
that Lewis & Clark must have
found dead on their trip through
the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase.
They never reported these bodies
for the same reason that you or I
would not - they fade into the landscape.

Nobody cares about the lone
explorer, and even he doesn't care
for the adventure alone.
There is a destination and, therefore,
a recognition,
similarly noticed on a day like today,
that each step means something,
that the end of fresh footsteps in the snow
means I must make a new path,
new prints to be walked in.
And until this white wilderness melts
away, others will walk in these
steps, and never know who
it was that came before them.

written drunk(ishly) last week...It was meant to be a paean to philadelphia

2009-12-22T01:18:00.000-06:00

I.

as is true for any other city, everyone that is here
wants to be, at least at this moment.
also possible: their distinct journeys to somewhere
else have placed them here.
this is true for, at least, this moment
which, coincidentally, is a time that has haunted me
since a middle school friend told me her birthday,
three numbers repeated in the standard form of dates
that i've seen far too many times to count over the years
when checking the time.

is there something attractive about this minute
more so than 1:11 or 3:33
on any given day?
do my eyes drift towards clocks in the same way
that so many have drifted here?

at twenty-six years old, 'here' has been
the same place for the past six years,
now a significant percentage of my life.
i've broken these years down so simply
to so many, but the things that have happened during
this time could probably fill a book...a book that very few
would want to read, partially because there is not much
blood and sex (compared to the theoretical autobiographies
of my peers), and partially because not as many people
read books
now that our vocabulary consists of verbs that should
look like names in a science-fiction/horror/fantasy tale -
"netflix", "google", "blog", "wikipedia", and "tweet"

at twenty six years old, here is specifically
1452EWiltSt.Philadelphia,PA
(feel free to embrace the written word again.
perhaps we could keep the price of sending mail
from increasing more than it has
in recent years - I find it distressing that the cost
of sending a postcard is now twice what it was
when I was only two years old
and who the hell was i sending
postcards to then? nobody, that's who.)

II.

the house that I am talking about
that has the clock that shows the time
that makes this particular brain remember an
otherwise forgotten friend, the house
that I am talking about right now,
stands proudly amongst its sisters on a quiet street
in a tortured city where
the isolation of a few hundred-thousand
suburban childhoods are constantly being dissolved
into another night's contribution
to a collective lost weekend which extends calendar-ignoringly
into a few hundred-thousand question-mark futures.

III.

who can blame us for our little brother complexes?
for our silently-held knowledge that this place
will only ever be a better version of what it now is?
who can blame us for coming anxiously
to an insecure city in a scoundrel country that leaves
its once prized metropolises to their inferiority complexes,
inept leaders and inadequate budgets?
for our defensiveness concerning the choices we've made
in location and vocation?
the choice of where we are is the common thread among
God-only-knows how many
broken and breaking bits, baiting one another to bury
the old and embrace the now and promise nothing
to one another and nothing to ourselves.
and suddenly, this place can be anywhere,
and the questions only asked of our most intimate relations
become irrelevant, for intimate relations are found in 19th
century novels and in frontier families, in the ideals of every
religion and in hollywood-manufactured romantic
fantasies (are any of them really funny enough to be
called comedies?) -
they are not found in the real people
of the real world and in the real present age.

and it is no longer 2:22 and I am no longer
thinking of a friend from my youth,
and I am only thinking of this city
and not of how to fix it or even how to make it
"a better place", only that i am here
and so are so many others. we share something
beyond an awful transportation system
and a high blighted-to-non-blighted-block ratio,
beyond a few streets cobble-stoned with historical significance,
beyond frustratingly few public trash receptacles,
beyond distinctly drawn neighborhood personalities,
beyond 'townies' and 'locals' and 'DINKs' and 'transplants'
beyond barely-breathing aspirations
and beyond too-easily-announced resignations
and beyond.......

IV.

i wonder how many of my neighbors
are sobering up right now in the early morning.
i wonder how many of my neighbors
have high school diplomas and high school sweethearts
and how many have college degrees and sick parents.
i wonder what my neighbors want for the neighborhood
and i wonder if i can answer anyone's questions they might
have for me with a smile and a 'hello' when i walk
by them. i then wonder why it is that i do not
ask any of my neighbors these questions and
quiet!!!
an epiphany:
"who is my neighbor?"
makes sense.

suddenly, this place could be anywhere.

from 12/2 'in apology'

2009-12-04T14:09:00.000-06:00

...For all the newless
Things I've written,
Ideas old and spent, bemoan,
And for aping those before,
Opportuned to record
The strangely speechless,
Yet the known -

Some faceless names,
Some placidly contained
To photographs
Brimming with
The everything therein.
Drink and drug
Failed to dull,
The roar, the struggle,
And the rage,
Articulate
Upon the page....
They've spoken noises
Seldom heard,
And offered names
To nameless
Words.
Within, without,
Wherewith is heard,

For better
Or for feigning worse,
Abstract, and perfect
Beauty - rehearsal
For the end,
Revision of the past,
The present ever-filléd
With Moment's
Living-dead repast-

And this has
Been from me
A reflection
Of my purest -
Onliest - form.
A question posed
To mirror-me,
Lips read,
Mouth silent,
Words unpreformed:
"Who am i to ever
Dare to judge
A raindrop from
The storm?"

personal project - yeah!

2009-12-01T11:02:00.001-06:00

I've decided that, in an effort to discipline myself to write more consistently, I will be writing (at least) 3 poems a day until Christmas. having only started a few days ago with this in earnest, i don't have much to show for it yet. these will not necessarily be finished products, but what I have at the time...i'm not really one for going back and re-working my poems but i might start that at some point. i'm pretty sure I will be posting one or two of these a day on here.
(that being the case, anyone know how to make that 'copywrite' sign so that if anyone steals my work, i can sue? also, i don't expect this to happen but it would be nice to learn how to make that symbol)

here's one for now:

Rhyme, form, meter -
All that confines
is useless
(Solomon's wisdom!!)

Silence, stillness,
Vulnerability,
Freedom realized
In weakness.

A sermon's promises,
Hardly to be seen,
Live as the Iris -
Each discipline
Practiced
Is another spring.

-12/1

whimper and roar

2009-11-06T12:43:00.000-06:00

silence,
having wrapt
itself tight
around
a closed book
and growing
outward
envelops
the entire room,
ceasing
the mind
of the
erstwhile
reader.

my dear,
there is
here
nothing
you could
hear
that you
do not already know.

...and why not

2009-09-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

a lot has been going on for me lately, from the large (going back to school), to the small-ish (just doing my thing, settling back into quite simply being me), and it feels to be adding up in some never-ending math equation to something i am quite happy with. to even attempt to articulate how i have been feeling the past few months would be a moot point since i no longer feel those ways, but being as there is no time like the present, i will share a bit of how i feel as i sit in a computer lab on Temple University's main campus at 3:26, september 14, 2009.

- my birthday was last weekend and, although i woke up the next day to a not-yet-eradicated cold, i had a great day. beginning at midnight with the final hours of a marathon hang with my boys Brian Dwyer and CVA, i enjoyed a salmon dinner and some beers. sleep ensued, followed by coffee with my dear friend Marlee and her magical daughter Olivia in the morning, lunch with great friend/roommate extraordinaire Michael Heneghan, a birthday Boh and some episodes of Deadwood. the low-key afternoon was followed by a delicious dinner prepared for me by my best friend Kim Hall and her wonderful boyfriend and the evening culminated in my (at this point usual) gathering of whoever does not yet have plans on my birthday. a good crew of folks although it was interesting to note that none of my core was in attendence (more on them later). not bummed in the least by this, but thankful to see those that came by, i enjoyed a very relaxed and pleasant end amongst friends...a perfect end to a day that was composed of this spirit throughout.

- the general settling down of my life into fewer people that i feel truly close to is a process that began probably a year and a half ago, with my conscious brain kicking and screaming against letting go of anyone that meant a lot to me at the time. through the joys of psychotherapy and personal work, a natural trend began to emerge and i find myself currently caring about many but trusting/sharing/sticking with only a few (which i have historically referred to as 'my core'). this distillation of those that i open myself up to enough to hurt me has been beneficial for me in so many ways and, given the aforementioned birthday, i feel like more of an adult in realized that I am viewing my place in the world on a smaller and more manageable scale.

- being back in school has been a trip. since the planning on this originally began in July 2008 (thwarted by my missing the deadline for FAFSA registration), it has been a long road since I last attended university in spring 2004, and reining my brain back in to the focused paradigm of learning what/as i am taught (as opposed to just thinking in however large/abstract/wrong ways i do when left to my own devices) is still not complete but i am settling back in pretty nicely. the entire process of getting my ducks in a row to be back here found me walking to Temple on numerous hot summer days, waiting for hours to sit down and talk to many different people about my re-enrollment, and even beginning classes 2 weeks ago not fully knowing if my financial aid was all set up the way it should be (i still have not received my financial aid money, which was supposed to show up in my account last week...i suppose i should speak to someone about this). all told it has been good so far, and i am glad to be back in classes, pursuing something, even if it is that piece of paper i so vilified upon my departure from college some 5 years ago. lesson learned: to have a goal and work towards it has generative merits and proves to oneself not only what one is capable of achieving but THAT they are. one encouraging thing about getting back into school was that, upon entering the hallway on my first day heading to my first class I saw my friend Brooke, asked her what class she had and she said 'Intro to Lit'. thus I re-began my schooling with a friend to sit next too. it was (not-so-)strangely comforting and reminded me that, while I am back in school for myself, I am not alone and I know many others on a similar path. Also, i transferred out of the one class i was particularly NOT excited about into a class with Joshua Grace, so that is/has been awesome. I am nervous to get the first paper that i turned in back, but we will cross that river when we come to it which is, i think, in 20 minutes. [note of bummer: i slept through my first class of the day today and missed a quiz...Brooke said it was really hard so i don't even know how i would have done. alas.]

- being free of and moving past things that have been heavy on my mind and heart the past few months came with less effort than i thought they would take, but did involve a lot of letting go and trusting God (which I, admittedly, am not very great at). however, the peace and re-focus that has come back into my life in quite simply being myself has been a great re-awakening. many things that I want to do/be are occurring very naturally and the whole world is still turning as it does. sure, there are some things i still feel to be lacking but i am not reading this in the self-deprecating way I have for most of my life, but quite simply that I currently have the time and context to focus on being me, doing my thing, being in school, and preparing for that which comes next. I cannot express how grateful I am to my friends that have been with me through this...they certainly know who they are, so here it is in all its cyberspace sincerity: thank you all. i love you. (i think you already know this.)

anyway, there is a general update in case you wanted to know.

a poem about someone else

2009-07-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

after birth, he came home
to the house he would live in
for just shy of twenty years.
in that time,
the natural course
of everyone occurred,
to him as it does
to others -
innocence.childhood.
friends.adolescence.
pets.change.

knowing something was off,
something not quite in line
with what he wanted -
'and shouldn't everyone get
what they want?' -
he left,
away from the ever-shrinking pond,
in reality the third
largest city
in the third
most populous state
in 'this great union',
he would not recognize
the shrinking
was the result of myriad actions,
opportunities, relationships,
what could simply be reduced to

his life up til then.

off he moved to the city
whose very definition
hardly describes how life
is lived there,
yet in this place
he found himself a home.
as any home that has ever been,
it has change with time,
it's character
developing
with little consideration
for his desires -
'and shouldn't everyone
get what
they want?'

the tension was no less
six years upon making
this place his home,
and his greatest fear
was a cliche:

'the only constant is change.'
how does a man get used to this life?

It's something in the air...maybe rain?

2009-04-07T23:21:00.000-05:00

((Everything is always a work in progress that I will probably never return to. I'll stay some sort of faux-blog personal poetry purist until I go back to school and the 20-year-olds go over my pieces with a fine-toothed comb))

Some days the city
speaks plainly and honestly,
but the wind carries it away
before anyone has the chance
to take a step closer.
The shame is that so many
are used to the volume
of PAs in bars,
drowning out conversation
causing a requisite
twenty-to-thirty
'what did you say?'s
per interaction
therin.

Morning will break each
day around 6:28
with a diminishing number
of bird-songs,
sunrise-watchers,
and night-shifters,
rendering the budding trees
and lonely trains
agitated and insecure.

This place has it's lovers, too,
imbued with the spirit of the streets,
row homes, gestating condos,
blocks called 'parks'.
The cliches that cover
this small corner of a state
choke out the romance,
choked it out before it began
and left its inhabitants
(at least this one)
better off
than the citizens
of such bully and prom-king
cities as

why bother,
you've already heard.

And everyone knows
this isn't New York.
Most of them
don't seem to mind.

can't you tell? - an exercise

2009-02-24T18:41:00.000-06:00

He left the house still smelling of the gas from the stove where he stood for 20 minutes attempting, unsuccessfully, to make eggs over-easy for breakfast. At least he hadn't failed at the alchemical process of turning ordinary white bread into 'toast'. He fumbled for his keys as he closed the already-locked-door behind him. This had become a measure of comfort for him ever since last week when he left his keys on the little hook by the door for the third time since moving in the previous month.
The pretty girl from down the street was walking her dog again. It seemed to be some sort of beagle-mix, and he shivered violently at the thought of his childhood dog Marty biting his leg which lay too close to the dog carelessly abusing a chew toy. It wasn't Marty's fault exactly, but it still required 5 stitches. Marty was a beagle.
Mustering a wave to the pretty girl at the same time he began choking on his toast, he turned away before he noticed whether or not she waved back. She usually did, but then again he usually wasn't in a coughing fit. Embarrassed by this foiled effort towards neighborly civility (mixed with an undeniable hope in future flirting - chatting, number-exchanging, etc.), he threw the crust of the toast down on the driveway and removed an empty hand from his jacket pocket.
Time number four.

introductions

2008-12-29T02:54:00.000-06:00

these poems are for S.H. and L.C.

In A Poem

my friends are buying houses
to give their roots a place,
my friends ask if I'll visit soon
so they won't forget my face

my friends have joined the army
to fight for all our rights,
my friends are moving on
to sunny days and warmer nights

my friends are having twins
in roughly six months time,
my friends have died a thousand deaths
while I only die to rhyme

my friends have gone before me
and left me in their wake,
my friends have told me it's ok
to ever make mistakes

and my friends ask me how I'm doing,
the ones I see each day,
and, wondering when
they'll end up in a poem,
I don't always know what to say.

Going Deaf

the weight was heavier than
it had been in my younger years
so I prayed to God
to help me lift it.
days later, it wasn't
any lighter
so i prayed louder,
hoping to hear something
if it wasn't going to feel
a different.
still nothing,
then I wondered -
am I just getting old?

a response to the Philly Weekly front page

2008-09-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation with Mike Heneghan after we has both read the PW cover story this week and agreed it was not what it could have been, as the parlance of our times would have it, 'it was what it was'. We agreed that while Wells' writing had an obvious bent to it - look no further than his explanation of his plight in conversation with Aaron, found in the third section of the article - the weakness of the article was that it seemed simply observational. The attention-grabbing introduction just below the title of the article (i looked all over for what this would be properly called and could not find the name anywhere...I need to take a journalism class) prime one for an analysis of what is going on in the city of Philadelphia regarding the counter-cultural church movement, but Wells seems content to merely observe the people who make up this subculture with his own lens and define things first as they seem or are described to him, then apologize with his own opinion, then say something clever like: it all depends on how you look at it. Journalism this is not, and while it was nice to read about some of our friends and see our church mentioned in a widely-read free publication, Wells really missed the opporunity to cover things going on in the city in favor a tell-what-I've-seen-as-the-outsider/foil approach. Admittedly, this probably rubs me the wrong way because I know that there is more going on than what appears to be (and, in all reality, is) happening on the surface of our 'annoyingly self-righteous Christian hipster' movement. I would be curious what questions Wells asked Joshua and Shane, not to mention more context to some of the quotes he used from members of the mewithoutYou camp. Throughout the article, I felt that Wells only used any provocative or edgy language as a means to laugh at the idea of turning the other cheek, some sort of confused, ironic way of not believing anything he was actually saying himself, more the post-modern game of I-will-tear-down-what-you-think-or-believe-without-actually-bringing-a-rational-argument-against-it that so many people seem content to play. All in all, the piece didn't upset me or make me proud to be a part of this thing, didn't really make me feel anything at all. I read what I would have assumed somebody of Wells' ilk would write after spending an agenda-driven amount of time with people that challenge their worldview, a puff piece which says, "we really aren't so different, Christians and atheists, but Christians sure aren't as great or different as they think they are". This isn't injustice or persecution, it's the world we live in: it's blogging on paper.

Knowing that this is the way many people view Circle of Hope (and Circle Frankford-Norris especially) is a frustration, but my prayer is that people would be open to us being who we are, in the same way that we are trying to be open and welcoming to who they are.

day 2: a month later

2008-07-22T23:56:00.000-05:00

[please forgive this and future blogs from my home computer...my keyboard is on its way out and the apostrophe doesnt work]

The second song ive chosen to write a little bit about is the purple bottle
If you are in a relationship, think back on when you first realized you had a crush on this person (if you arent in one, think about any crush you have ever had). It might not have made you feel like an over-excited child, which is one way that ive heard detractors describe lead singer avey tares vocal style, but there is more than likely a certain feeling that you get when you think on that time. Reaching into the collective conscious of all of humankind throughout all of history, Animal Collective distill that feeling and turn it into a propulsive (almost) 7 minute romp. The drumming, the songs first and most compelling feature, quickly grabs the attention and will continue to be the songs main musical attraction, an exercise in just how much dynamics can shift and surprise, changing whenever the listener thinks they know the beat and ending each full thought with an audible exclamation point. The unpredictable drumming leading out of the first part and into the second seems to exist in order to embody the uncertainty of a new relationship...the persistence of vulnerability to the object of affection even when one is sure of how they feel in the relationship. Warm guitar and electronics wash through the song but seem to be the ground the lyrics walk, jump, and play on. The use of voices and vocal harmonies (pay attention around thw 2:34 mark) express the emotional world that these feelings of love put the owner into. Think of it as an update on what the carpenters were trying to do with close to you.

The lyrics easily move from confessions to the thoughts that spawned them, earnest requests to content realizations, all while stuttering over words and speaking much too fast for anyone but the most intimate audience to make anything out after only one listen. Now that I am mature enough to know I dont want to be with someone who is exactly like me (and I thank God that she is not), i can more fully appreciate the section which speaks to the relationships nature of one partner complimenting the other. Without turning this blog into my own personal interpretation of the song, I find it hard to finish writing anything about this song without pointing out just how sincere it is; accepting his emotional maturity (think we are the right age...homes), the aforementioned ways the two compliment each other, admitting he talks about her too much, and claiming the feeling as singularly his (you couldnt really know cause its in my toes). Far from being merely clever, using both forms (verb and noun) of bottle asks a question of whether people in our highly medicated world are given medication so that they can better deal with the sadness/loneliness/depression they feel or whether the bottling is an emotional response that needs something more than pills to remedy.

I've gotta big big big big heart beat, yeah
I think you are the sweetest thing
I wear a coat of feelings and they are loud
I've been having good days
Think we are the right age
To start out own peculiar ways
With good friendly homes?
You get me freaked freaked freaked on preakness
Never met a girl that likes to drink with horses
Knows her chinese ballet
Must admit you smell like fruity nuts and good grains
When you show my purple gaze
A thing or two at night
Make me sick sick sick to kiss you and I think that i woud vomit
But I'll do that on mondays i dont have a work way
I like it when I bump you an accident's a truth gate
I'm humbled in your pretty lense
I'll hold you dont you go
Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet. Hallelujah!
Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talkative, I know....

Well i'd like to spread your perfume around the old apartment
Could we live together and agree on the same wares?
A trapeze is a bird cage even if its empty and defintintely fits the room
And we would to

And my dear dear dear khalana
I talk too much about you
Their ears are getting tired of me singing all the night through
Lets just talk together
You and me and me and you
And if theres nothing much to say
Well, silence is a bore

I've gotta big big big big heart beat, yeah
I think you are the sweetest thing
I wear a coat of feelings and they are loud
I've been having good days
Think we are the right age
To start out own peculiar ways
With good friendly homes?

Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet hallelujah
Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talkative i know....
Sometimes you hear me when others they can't hear me. Hallelujah!
Sometimes I'm naked and thank god Sometimes you're naked. Well, hello.....

Can I tell you that you are the purple in me?
Can I call you just to hear you, would you care?
When I saw you put your purple finger on me
There's a feelin' in your bottle
Found your bottle, found your heart
Gives a feeling from your bottled little part
(Repeat)

Hey oooooo

Gotta crush high
Thought I crushed all I could
Crushed all I can then I touched your hand
Crush high
Dont want it to stop
Cause stories of your brother make my crush high pop
And you couldnt really know cause its in my toes
And sometimes i wonder whered that crush high go
Crush high then i go and take some pills
Cause i cant do all of my dos and still feel ill
You get that whooooooo (x8)
(Repeat twice)

day 1: the beginning of a project...months long

2008-06-21T10:32:00.000-05:00

a while back i realized that i hardly ever write on here, and, while i have my problems with the relevance/importance/credibility of blogs, i figure if i have one i might as well write in it. i came up with this idea a while ago and i'm going to see if i can make it happen - to write a blog a day about songs i love in order to introduce any of you who read this to some of my favorite songs, or, at least, to practice writing on why i like certain songs so much. so here is the first one i'll talk about.

Scott Walker - Amsterdam

Without getting into how much I love Scott Walker I'll lay out that many of the songs on his first 4 solo albums were English language interpretations/rearrangements of songs by Jacques Brel, a singer-songwriter quite popular in France and French-speaking countries in the '50s and '60s. Walker's interpretations are consistently faithful to the feeling of Brel's compositions (at least, from what i've heard - youtube Brel's version of this same song for an idea), even if the lyrics are not 'accurately' translated into English...I wouldn't know so I don't think too much about it.

About the song, it begins with a soft accordion swell and appropriately subdued singing concerning some poetic imagery of loneliness in 'the port of Amsterdam'. Without missing a beat the second verse begins, finding a beautiful horn/string section accompanying the now-busier accordion. This song's characters are all sailors - this being a port, after all - who 'will show you [their] teeth that have rotted too soon/that can swallow the moon/that can haul up the sails', and who 'turn and they dance/and they laugh and they lust/til the rancid sound/of the accordion bursts', and other such seedy doings (I am trying not to give away some lines that MUST be heard in the context of the song). This evocative imagery, playing upon the now-frenetic musical accompaniment in an ever-increasing tempo (increasing in both speed and subtlety of it's shifts), plays a vital role in how the song's character's behavior influences the music and somehow vice-versa (think of the way 1920's puritans believed it was 'jazz' that made everyone act in an inappropriate manner). I cannot listen to this song without getting caught up in the loneliness of the sailors who seem to find companionship only in the whores they meet, although they all seem to be doing the same things in some sort of spirit of camaraderie, and the way this lifestyle ends up causing everyone more pain, as he mentions the whores who have 'promised their love/to a thousand other men'. Assuming that Amsterdam is or was a place where sailors spent their time before being sent off to some sort of combat it makes sense that these are the types of relationships that they would be finding themselves a part of, but you can tell by the way Walker sings the last few lines that it is not necessarily a place that anyone who is looking for love would want to go.
I've go to run to work now.
Give it a listen if you'd like to:

Amsterdam - Scott Walker

some things we learn

2008-04-11T13:21:00.000-05:00

i've spent most of my life under the impression that i am learning and growing and that i know enough to make my life bearable even if i don't consistently love my circumstances. these days (i'd say the past 2 months), i've been living out of a place where my faith is real and i don't spend any time doubting it: i know that God loves me and i know that i am free in that love. that's basically what i'm working with. i still find myself trying to figure out how to approach certain situations/people, but these theories don't often lead me to any place of seeing God, just feeling a bit self-righteous...i say this because whatever 'answers' i come up with don't really mean much to me when i am actually put in a situation with a person that i'm trying to 'figure out' how to deal with. when i am around people, i want to love them, this is something else i know: when i think about what i think about people, it is divisive and a bit alienating, but when i actually spend time with people (whoever they are) i want to be a part of God's love and be reflecting where God is in them.
it's not just a nice thought to me, but an important and life-giving way to be. i feel better as i go through my days...i am approaching things with less of a need to be validated and more of a desire to be a part of the thing itself, whatever the end result might be. an example: the other day, i wrote a few poems for a person that means a lot to me. she seemed to like them and that made me glad, but i did not write them for any real transaction to take place, just to be a part of where i was and let her see/know that place. i am trying to live more out of the place that the things i am doing, the conversations i'm having are not only connecting us to each other (which from what i can tell is a good thing) but connecting us to the truth of who God is (which i'm coming to see is more the point than just to 'be close' with people).

anyway, this was jumbled and disjointed but it had been a while since i wrote. i'm trying to think of a new writing challenge to give myself...if you have any weird concept or idea that i could work with, i'd be excited to try it.

a thought from a vigil

2008-03-18T02:02:00.000-05:00

'and who will profit from your death?'
a friend asked the savior
on a day that never received
a commemorative name.

'all people will but no one
any more than the next.
you see, i offer the same thing
to everyone, but they will not all
have it fully.
many things will keep them
from taking all of what i give,
but mostly pride.'

'pride? isn't there some greater obstable?'
the friend inquired,
'a government, wealth, another person?
i'm sure a persuasive voice will
be more destructive than pride.'

'my friend, do not be fooled,'
the savior replied,
'for pride is at the root of each
of those things you've spoken of
and pride
will make each person
the most important thing

in whatever world they live in,
a world occupied by only themselves.
but remember, every good thing
is from my Father who sent me,
and nothing good comes from any but Him
so rejoice and take heart, friend,
for humility will give birth
to many good things,
and my Father will be there.
and from humility will come joy and celebration,
often times which will never been seen
except with new eyes.'

ask and ye shall...

2008-03-12T00:59:00.000-05:00

a man arrived home from work one day
to his precious wife
and son. after a brief greeting to his wife,
his precocious child
gave a full report of his days'
activities and played along
with the usual
question-and-answer game
until finally, he asked,
'daddy, what do you love?'
there was any number of simpler answers.
but as he thought
about how to answer
his flesh and blood,
the unexplainable product
of an even more profound union,
he asked his son to wait
for a minute.

the house was not terribly old
yet the stairs spoke like stoolies
as he walked
up to the bedroom he'd shared
these past few years
with the most obvious
answer to his child's query.
in the closet he pulled down a box
that was home to a few notebooks
and old photographs.
returning downstairs minutes later, he found his son
drawing at the table,
crayons in hand and tongue slightly sticking out
the side of his mouth in concentration.
'did you still want to know what i love?'
he asked him.
the small head turned to him,
he put down the crayons and asked,
'what is it?'

the man looked down at the open notebook,
felt waves of sadness,
shame, pride, fear, loss,
embarrassment:
not one after the other, but more like
if five different stereos
were playing five different songs in the same room.
without thinking further,
he read from the page:

'the crumpled papers
that should have been home
to at least 5 new comic strips
looked away from him
and the once project-driven books he kept
hadn't been added to
in weeks
and the greatest song
the world hadn't yet heard
was still unwritten
(but waiting, impatiently,
in his brain).
his favorite poets didn't bring him
the inspiration they once did,
nor did nature - it simply wasn't
there to be absorbed -
though the street was named after a flower.
nor did celestial bodies prompt him
to work,
or the general ideas of 'truth' or 'beauty',
but something caused him to write this down.
his muse was free,
deaf and dumb no more,
but radiantly alive
with something so bright
that 'light' was not the word
for it any longer
and 'hope'
seemed a shadow
of what was truly there.

he knew who he was
after a thing like this;
much more so than after
stating his opinions,
or in the fight against
his myriad fears,
or in the place
he sought in others.
and this is him.
this is him
in this moment,
and though it was hours
or days
or weeks or months ago,
it came and went
and you know this much:
you knew him in that moment.'

he looked up from the notebook
to see his son staring intently
at him.

'i love that we can ever feel that way'

no rants here

2008-03-08T00:50:00.000-06:00

lent has been good. working on the inside, the outside looks the same. learning to pay more attention to what i need to be doing than to what i think other people think i need to be doing. moving forward, trusting God, doing my thing. it's not always pretty, life. not writing as much as i'd like...trying to get back into journaling regularly. learning that it's easier to love than to hate, easier to trust than to worry, easier to believe than to doubt. we'll see how long this all sticks, right now it feels like it's the best place to be. why would i want to be anywhere else? a few disappointments lately, nothing knocking me out. working too much, not resting enough. days go by and i wonder when it turned march. lots of listening lately, lots of looking, very little making/doing. hopefully a trip to an art store and a hang out with jeff soon will change that. i hope i don't disappoint him, i hope i don't disappoint myself. i still think it's better to just go and do and see what happens. here i go.

it is easy to see the things in myself i don't like, harder to change them when they are very much a part of me, harder still to simply will myself to be the person i hope to grow into. i guess it gets back to trusting God and going with Him. i'm changing (dare i say growing). future plans. goals i'm working toward. stop into johnny brenda's any saturday or sunday, i should be there.

i read what was written
and i saw what was on the wall
and i noticed what was all around me,
what was obvious to me,
what was there for me to believe
information = truth,
right?

did i ever miss 'the forest for the trees'?
thank God, no one sincerely ever said that to me.
so maybe i did miss it,
but in the best of ways

we are all left to believe
whatever we want
and if our wants cannot come
without another's denied,
who steps aside
or lays down
for the other?

no myspace...just here

2008-02-26T02:19:00.000-06:00

i'm freaking out. i need to make some phone calls tomorrow. one is very important. the others would just make me very happy. i want answers...i always do. i feel like i have an answer to how i feel. it sounds awful to my rational mind. 'matters of the heart,' they say are not meant for any than those that experience them. i don't know what to do. i want to take steps. i don't want to assume that any thing i do will make everything better. i don't want to feel like i've blown it. i don't want to feel that some decision i could make would mean that i'm blowing it. i know what i'd say to friends of mine. i still like music. i still want to make music. i still want to start to paint. i still want to do a lot. i lack motivation for reasons i understand. i want to rise above that. here's to next week not being as busy as this one is going to be.

a poem and some thoughts

2008-02-15T02:55:00.000-06:00

it's been a while for blogs of any sort coming from me. this is roughly the same as one i wrote on myspace so no worries if you are bored by one of them. things have been good for me lately. i love my jobs, i'm feeling very loved by God these days, i've been listening to (almost exclusively) early-mid-90s hip-hop, nirvana, and they might be giants (only the first 4 albums). i'm going to be making some mixes very soon. i'm going to be house-sitting for dan and kim for a couple of weeks in a short time. i'm going to some shows at work (pretty weird) in the next few weeks. i'm excited to start painting and to have a new silver jews album coming out in may (sidenote: i'm going to try to take a trip this summer to meet david berman...apparently he lives in nashville and i wouldn't mind seeing what that place is all about anyway, but less in the 'hip-christian-subculture way and more the i-want-to-drink-some-whiskey-with-one-of-my-favorite-songwriters kind of way...let me know if you want to join me).
i'm starting to understand why people like to blog so much. it's easy to feel like you said plenty when really you just rambled....wait, sounds exactly like real life for me. anyway, here's that poem for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

i wish a lot of things right now.
i'm feeling the best i have in a long, long time and i can still think of a lot of things that i would change if i could.
is that strange.....this is me learning to be content.

her black glove

the other night at the bar
i made the mistake of interrupting
a couple, in the midst of what looked like
a break-up conversation.

when i asked if she was done with her drink -
a quarter inch of room temperature beer
asleep at the bottom of her glass -
she waved an impatient hand
as the other shielded her face.

i wondered why
he would bring her to such a public place
only to hurt her,
ultimately embarrass her.
i wondered if maybe
she didn't see it coming.
i found myself eventually wondering
if she thought the peanut butter bomb
was as good as i think it is.

a while later she went to the bathroom
and as i cleared some plates
from the war-torn table,
he made a gun-to-the-head gesture to me
and i nodded politely.
i'd have nodded the same way
to her,
even though i know a nod
doesn't mean much in situations like that.

i didn't notice them leave
but she left a plain black glove
which i put in the lost-and-found box
at the end of the night,
although i'm doubting
she'll come back here to look for it.

i saw a movie...

2008-01-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

today, kim and i went to see there will be blood after hearing many things about it and looking forward to it for quite a while. being familiar with p.t. anderson's previous films, i thought i would have been more prepared for what i was about to see and i couldn't have been more wrong. my initial reaction to seeing the trailer a few months ago was something along the lines of oh-great-some-overt-social-commentary-on-the-evils-of-oil (thank God, this wasn't to be). yes, daniel day-lewis is amazing. yes, the acting all around is amazing, the camera work, editing, locations/photography itself, soundtrack, everything are amazing. however, it was one of the most upsetting films i've ever seen in my life (and you should know by now that i've seen quite a few films). i made the comment to kim right after seeing it that i had never thought i'd see a scene in a film that makes me as uncomfortable as the 'lick the boot' scene in a clockwork orange, yet this film had 3 scenes that made me as uncomfortable, if not more so. alright, so this movie pushed the limits of cruelty and comfort and all that good stuff, so what am i complaining about, right? i was upset by the hopelessness. the problems begin with the fact that i am an applier...when watching a film, i try to see what i can relate to in the characters, the whole idea that the human experience only contains so many stories (i think it's 7) told in different ways. in trying to relate to the characters in this film, i found myself disgusted not only with day-lewis' character but with his never once actually considering changing who he is. [in the past few weeks/months of my life, i've had many conversations which contain a phrase along the lines of 'everyone is wired differently' somewhere in them. while i understand the idea behind this phrase, i still have a hard time believing it. the spirit of the phrase seems to be more like 'don't expect other people to operate the same way you do', but the actual phrase says something to me like 'you cannot understand the way another person thinks because they just have a totally different and never-to-be-understood way of viewing the world/their life (forgive me for being a literalist in this way).] back to the movie...if daniel day-lewis character is to be believed in the context of the film (which you will be hard-pressed to find someone that does not believe him), he appears to be wired in such a different way from me and everyone else i know that i probably wouldn't dare look him in the eye if i saw him, for fear of having my soul sucked out. films are a bit different from real life, though, and we get to see years of this man's life in a matter of hours (how convenient) whereas in life, we do not see our slow descents into paralyzing resentment/obsession/disconnection/fear and, naturally, assume we are nothing like day-lewis' Daniel Plainview in the film. the film plays our very naturally, in a poetic and beautiful way, but what we are watching is not simply the story of a man...we are voyeurs into him at some of the most personal moments of his life and i'd be surprised to find anyone who has seen this film and would be willing to extend the grace and forgiveness to this man who refuses to extend it to himself.

to be honest

2007-12-23T03:13:00.000-06:00

tonight, at the avellinos house i made the comment, 'i remember being this way' because we were just having a good time and i felt comfortable, even happy, about who i was. i start off saying this because before opening my mouth to say that, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind. this year was low for me, but there has been so much to be happy about, so much to thank God for, and so many things that i can see need to be redeemed and healed in my life (i'm most thankful that i know that healing and redemption can take place). anyway, the tour was great and this past week back in philly i've been jobless, but making the best of my time. lots of time with friends, lots of writing, racking my brain to figure out what to do for my family for Christmas and it's all been great. today i hit a little snag which resulted in me looking over my emotional to-do list and wondering if maybe i'm wrong. i'm confident that without my steady diet of music, movies, and tv i wouldn't be as romantic as i am but, alas, this is me. anyway, i wrote what should be the last poem inspired by this person tonight and i think healing is as close as it's been all year, maybe even here already. maybe all the things i've been wanting are not so very far off. maybe it was always me and never the other party....maybe i've got a lot more to learn from this year than i think i do. either way, this past week has been a pretty huge cleansing for me and i'm excited to get back to philly after Christmas and move with what is happening.

i don't even know if anyone remembers that this exists. i don't know who might see this, but for whoever might be out there, there's my life as of 4:13 a.m., sunday, december 23, 2007

of all the things

2007-11-04T01:43:00.000-05:00

every now and again i write something new that i like enough to put up on here....here you are, world:

i once thought i had all the answers
and now i know
i only have some of them
and not for anyone else
but me.
i know i'm no fool,
i know the smell
of certain things
like fall in rochester, plastic burning
and _______,
and some things i'd like to forget.
i could pick some faces out of a crowd
and remember (generally) what guernica
looks like
and can explain the opening scenes
or many films.
even in this, i find myself
telling people how to live
and what not to do
yet somehow allow myself to do the same
enough to bother me
enough to stay with me
enough to consider the before-now
unthought of.

i wouldn't bother with all the same
questions i've had before now....
i'll only wonder a few things
like what will i do now?
and do i really believe you?

by the way, as i write this greg is playing 'the boxer' by simon and garfunkel, singing quietly and i am about to join him on the 'li-li-li's' this will be wonderful

i know this isn't livejournal

2007-10-12T03:56:00.000-05:00

as the title states, i'm aware that on this blog my intention was to write things that had something to do with art or God or whatever was really important to me at the time, and tonight it's about what is important to me. tonight i did something that is probably three months late and i am finally going to take some effort to try to get over a girl that i really love that does not want to be with me. i'm not going to go into it really but i decided that i was going to actually need to DO something to try to get over the feelings that come from being broken up with and that 'getting over it' would not just happen upon me after x-amount of time. considering that i am going to be on the road with the dudes for the next 6 weeks, i want to have as clear a head as possible and, after having a huge freak-out in my mind tonight, i did what, for now, i felt i needed to do to separate myself and try to let go. i really didn't do it to elicit any response. i did it for me. the hardest thing is that i really don't want to let go but i am seeing how much more i think on this situation and her than i do on God, and it bothers me - seeking first things that make me happy or help to show me God is a far cry from seeking Him first. if you think of it, pray for me to have peace and comfort in God and that i will continue to follow where He leads. also, pray for her - that she would know God loves her and that she would have ears to hear Him and eyes to see Him.

circle blog

2007-09-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

Ever since I first started to be a part of a cell, I've appreciated that Circle of Hope does not just misuse the idea that Christianity is 'a relationship, not a religion', but that most people involved are really trying to live in that belief, both with God and with others. As a transplant to Philadelphia from an upstate New York suburb, my 20-something mind was not quite prepared for a church where relating to each other and knowing one another was more important than agreeing to abide by the same moral code. Suddenly, being a part of the body of Christ meant something to me and the significance of that has only grown in the past four years, enough so that I sometimes have the perspective that I am a part of the body of Christ before I am whatever I think being Daniel Pilger means (I am hoping to continue on in this and believe it more consistently).

One of the ways in which this has been liberating for me is that I no longer feel that I have an appropriated faith which my parents and youth group gave to me. Thankfully, right from the start I found Circle of Hope to be a safe place to be exact who I am. In this time of being truly 'on my own' from my parents and whatever other construct I always felt had defined me, I was able to form and cultivate relationships with many people that I believed were trying to head in the direction of loving God and others more. How glad was I to be a part of a larger community that seemed eager to offer true friendship to me and allow me to offer what I could back?

However, I got scared when I noticed that my desire to make my own decisions and love this community was distracting me from actually spending time alone with God and following Christ closely. As I am sure that I am not the first person to get caught up in the community/body and (to whatever degree) lose sight of what truly binds us together, it was an upsetting thought that I might love this community more than I was loving God. In any number of conversations that I have had throughout my life, one of the things I find myself consistently dealing with is my tendency to 'love the gift more than the giver', to find myself believing so much in James' declaration that 'every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows', that I find myself and my value in those gifts (in this situation, the many beautiful relationships I was finding myself a part of) more than in who I am in Christ. For someone like me that values friendships very highly, all the more so the more authentic and transparent they are, my sense of having found a 'home' (or at least a like-minded group of friends) in these people became a much larger distraction from my personal relationship with God than I could have imagined. Over time I began to do meditations every few days in an effort to find myself in a place where I could rest in knowing that God loves me. Forgive me if this sounds painfully basic, but that is the most important thing for me to focus on - to know that God loves me. Through this I found it much easier to be thankful to God, to actually be in a spirit of appreciation towards Him. The differences were not always easy to see outwardly, but there was a newness to the ways that I viewed my relationships; I still spent a lot of time with my friends, but I found myself able to love them individually, not just as a part of this large community I was so glad to be a part of, and to feel more that I was actually investing in their lives.

I'd like to inject here that I spent a few years feeling like I had no value whatsoever, and this could probably turn into another blog - a book probably - about the importance of feeling, more importantly knowing, that we have any worth at all. I am sure I am not the only one who has felt this same thing, and while I'm sure we could all think of a number of reasons why this could be, I think it is important for each of us to know in a true way that we are valuable to God. Earlier in my life, the thought of trying to 'view myself as God views me' was not appealing because I had no idea how to do it and because I was so used to viewing myself in the way that I had for my entire cognitive life up to that point. Looking back it seems strange that I thought I could love others while at the same time not love myself, but I tried very hard to. All of this is not to say that I don't think I loved my friends in the past, but I believe I was a bit misguided in my efforts to do so.

While I am still inconsistent with these, I have found the disciplines of solitude and meditation to be essential in keeping myself centered on finding my value in God.
These days, I am trying hard to be renewed by God each day, to be a part of the forgiveness and redemption that Christ offers me (all of us), and to know that my worth comes from being loved by the Creator of all things, and be grateful for the many chances I am given to share that love with others.

feelings come and go, we remain

2007-08-30T01:35:00.001-05:00

something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the reality and acceptance of my feelings and how exactly i handle them. i've always been one to be strongly aware of what i feel and, though that is not a problem in and of itself, i find it hard to hide these feelings within my interactions with others. i guess i've been thinking of this problem (is it a problem?) because of an interaction i had today, in which, if i thought about it for two seconds longer, i would have faked my response a bit more jst for the sake of making things seem fine. since i didn't do this, i have been beating myself up a bit about how i could have handled the interaction differently and how it could have made me feel a little better overall if i did. it's one of those things where, as i thought about it again later in the day, i wish i had acted differently, but since acting much differently would have been some sort of betrayal of my feelings, i'm glad i didn't. i could continue on in a neurotic self-examination of this incident, but i don't feel it's very prudent.
looking at the larger picture of my life, i've always been one to try to share my feelings with others and it is hard to want to do this when one cannot really control the way they feel about a certain aspect of his life that provokes negative feelings, especially toward oneself. i'm finding it quite valuable to pay closer attention to the other (more positive) things i feel; like happiness at sitting around talking with a few friends or re-watching the video of joanna newsom singing 'ca' the yowes to the knowes', contentedness at living in this city and having such an amazing church to invest in, excitement to follow through on some plans i have for the near future...unfortunately, the feelings of fear, insecurity, and even despair are never that far away. i hope to learn more how to focus on the good things and tap into that which makes me feel something strongly on the side of joy and contentedness and to be able to encourage others as we continue to try to figure life out.

as a child entering school...

2007-08-28T01:24:00.000-05:00

today marks four years that i have been living in philadelphia. truly, much has happened in my life in this time. overall, i am terribly happy to be in the place that i am in my life right now. i look back on many things with a range of emotions, but am glad i've been brought to where i am now. unlike the title to this blog, i have enough of an analytical nature (which i must believe has been developed over time so it's no fault of the child's) to think/wonder/fear about what comes next in my life. i have some tentative plans in place over the next few months which i am very excited about, i am finally getting to the point where i think i will pursue in a more consistent and disciplined way art of some sort, and i value the friendships i have and am excited to see them grow. this doesn't take away the reality that i base my feelings at any given point on where i have been and what i have already done, and i fear that i am doomed to some sort of failure-fearing sitting on my hands when it comes to art and, in a more real way, relationships of all sorts. it reminds me of something my friend olga once sent me as a random text message: 'it is impossible to be happy if we see are reality incorrectly', or something along those lines. my current prayer is that i will see my reality correctly...that i will know that i am loved and valued by God and that it is worth doing the things that i care passionately about, even if, in many ways, i am not good at them.

i'm excited about the next four years. i hope i can get better at loving others.

you may find

2007-08-23T09:39:00.000-05:00

now that i have been on myspace for a little over four years, i've gone through many of the sides of loving and hating it. as recently as a few months ago, i had a long conversation with my friend ethan about how great it would be if we could round up 20 people to all get rid of myspace at the same time, thus having a whole slew of our friends notice a fairly significant drop in their number of friends, hopefully spurring more people onto getting off of what, at the time, i believe to be a site that was, at the least, distracting and time-wasting, and at the most, harming peoples ability to actually connect and interact in real life. now that i am no longer on a big hating spree of the site (and sites like it), i've decided to ask myself a question that usually helps me wherever i am: what can i personally do that will make me feel like this thing i am a part of is a worthwhile part of my life? what i came up with may seem really cheesy or indulgent, but i am going to give it a serious shot over the next few weeks. last night, i started to leave comments on my some of my friends' pages that include a short poem that i wrote at the moment, thinking of that person. after doing them, i was really excited to do more but didn't really want to wear myself out writing 20 in one night. however, i'd like to keep this going for a while, and leave a little something for as many people as i can that i am friends with on the site. it is good for me because i have not been much for leaving comments lately that aren't along the lines of 'hey, let's hang out', and writing little somethings like these allows me to connect with a part of myself that i am notoriously bad at discipling myself to. i have been writing a good amount in the past few months, but i tend to not show people much of what i write.
who knows what anyone thinks of them, but i like them. in the end, i think i will start to compile them on here.....actually, here are the first few:

to my brother, steven:

tell your friends
you have a brother,
and that you have another
without a baby,
who lives somewhere else,
that they might someday
meet and hear talk a bunch.
i hope by that point
i'm not talking
as needlessly
as i used to,
but if i do talk a lot,
i kind of hope they listen.
i think i have
something to offer
people.

to kim hall:

maybe it's not all
the years or hours spent
talking,
but something else
(that i never
can really articulate
or describe)
that is
friendship.
and that's why
we got
elephant-bird tattoos.

to dan gauthier:

if life fit together
like some recipe or puzzle
would you and i be
interlocking pieces,
or the egg and milk
that must be added
to make delicious pancakes?

to mariko snook:

when i see you
and your baby-
which isn't yet in the world-
and we talk for a few minutes,
and we say,
'have a good day',
i know that i am at home.

that's all i remember doing last night. if this seems really self-indulgent to you, i invite you not to read them as i post them on here. in the end, i'm doing this a lot for me and the people i specifically write them for, but i am proud of doing any writing so they will be here, also.

now you can probably understand my quote on myspace better. i won't see you all this weekend because i will be in rochester. may we love each other better and more consistently.

untitled 4

2007-08-11T01:03:00.000-05:00

in a world full of portable
listening devices,
it seems no one
wears headphones anymore.
but i saw a man on the street today
with headphones on
and i thought i heard a bit
of what was playing on them.
raggaeton or top 40 r&b,
something i'd normally
feel indifferently about.
he had a look on his face
that made me upset i would ever
judge someone
based on something so trivial.
i'm sure i've worn
a similar look;
the first time i saw li'l bees play,
when i see something mark has painted,
when i saw a video of Alison giggling,
each time kim sings the line
'i am a virus..i will destroy you'.
or maybe it was just
my own rendition
of how my face shows
that same feeling
that the man wearing headphones felt.

the summer gets away

2007-08-08T23:48:00.001-05:00

i just finished a book that i did not really enjoy. while i realize that this statement is only an opinion about a certain book, it surprises me as it is the first book in a long time that i didn't see enough value in by the time i finished the last page to say 'i liked it'. maybe it's the fact that i interrupted this book to go on a two-and-a-half week binge of reading the last 5 harry potter books, but i find myself thinking a lot about the way that we read books. it's interesting that in today's culture, books have found themselves in a league where many people will simply 'don't read'. this could be for a number of reasons; they feel they read enough in their years of schooling and don't need to do it for a while, their schedules are very busy and they can't find the time to read, they would rather spend time with others than sitting alone reading, or they just don't find it fun. it's this last reason that i want to talk about for a minute. it seems that our culture promotes a sense of stop-it-if-you-don't-like-it when it comes to media at large...you can push stop on the iPod/cd player whenever a song you don't really like shows up, eject the dvd if you don't like or are bored with the movie. enough has already been said about taking in media for entertainment's sake only, so i don't feel i have much to add there but i do think it's worth realizing that books are getting a pretty raw deal overall these days. most books assume that the reader will be finding themselves, at least a little bit, in some of the characters' actions/decisions/thoughts and as a result, we can relate to them - it doesn't have quite the same allure as the immediate entertainment of celebrity blogs, but there seems to be a bit more there in terms of cultivating a personality. I am not saying that everyone only likes to be entertained but it seems that for those that are constantly wanting to be entertained, it only says one thing about that person ('i like to be entertained.'), whereas the world of books offers myriad places for one to do a bit of self-examination. granted, this self-examination is aided by the time investment that books require to read, and i am of the mind that to invest in something when you don't necessarily know if you will like it from start to finish is not a bad thing.

upon finishing this book, i was also prompted to thinking about the idea of seeing things through until the end. thankfully for us, it is much easier to keep watching a movie/listening to a record/reading a book until they are finished than it is to follow all of our decisions through to their supposed end. i believe one of the ways in which art imitates life is in the way that continuing through beginning-middle-end of a book (for example) allows us time to grow a little with the writing and the characters, the piece of art itself, and through this process of engaging and self-analyzing, we discipline ourselves to learn more about ourselves in the stories of our own lives (not the meta-narratives some try to reside in, but the actual feelings and events as they occur).

i don't know if any of that made any sense

so much time

2007-05-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

although i don't know exactly where it stems from, it is my tendency to beat myself up or feel guilty about the way that i spend my time or money. being a 23-year old male that works roughly 30 hours a week at a (great) thrift store, i don't exactly have the disposable income that allows one to feel particularly 'free' in how he spends his money. i have bills and rent to pay just like everybody else and i do my best to make sure i am not late on these, and with what little other money i have to play around with, i usually buy myself some meals, some beers, maybe a CD or two, and (if my wonderful girlfriend is lucky) take her out on a date or get her something little, then essentially wait for my next paycheck. i have set up a small plan so that i can start a savings account - for the first time in 6 years - over this summer. i'm really looking forward to it but know i am going to need to be discipled in how i spend my money as a result if i really want to get this all started. this is not meant to sound like complaining, because i know i could look for another job or try to find something else to supplement my income, it's just a little bit of background about my life currently.

now, about my time...having plenty of it free, as in not-at-work and not-asleep, i tend to read, watch movies or spend time with friends. i know it doesn't sound like the most soul-charging way to live, but i've been doing really well within it for a while now. before i go on talking about what i've been learning, i'd like to say that i acknowledge that each person has their own passions, and as a result different things charge each person up, and i am trying to learn to be more open to the things that are not yet those things for me. when i am given the chance to watch a movie with a friend of mine and they aren't totally blown away by it, sometimes i take it very personally - kind of a 'you are smart enough to love this, but since you don't, you must think i'm an idiot' sort of thought runs through my head. when i really get down to it, i find this difficult to live in because it is so much about me...and it leads me to think about something that joshua has brought up a few times in the past couple of months at circle of hope PMs, about 'doing someone else's thing'.

hopefully i'll be able to bring this all back around, but let me first say that lately i've been thinking a lot about the part in John 15 when Jesus says "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends". in the past, i've always played the mind-game of 'of my friends, who would i actually die for?' but lately this is being revealed to me in a much more practical way. now in a very obvious way, what are our lives but some set amount of time (which we cannot predict) that we are given and in which we take part in many activities? i believe this to be true, and as a result, can see the value in doing anything that isn't exactly what i would choose to do at a given time. a few examples: 1) if an acquaintance is having some people over his/her house and takes the effort to invite me, but i don't really want to go, do i stay at home and watch a movie i got from netflix that day or hang out with friends that i see all the time or can i go to that acquaintance's house for a little bit and try to cultivate a stronger relationship with them? 2) if i know that i stay up later than a lot of my friends, is there something i can do to help out a friend during those common waking hours? (i realize this question has more responsibility to it, seeing that it implies offering help instead of waiting around for it) 3) if i feel that i could use an hour or two to rest after work, and a friend that i know i will be on the phone with for an hour calls me, do i ignore the call because talking to them is not as restful as i feel it should be?

all of this to say, i would like to start asking myself a few questions about how i spend my time; 'if i don't want to do something that would make someone else happy/help them out, why is it exactly that i don't want to do it?', 'do i believe that i have enough value to really make this person happy/help them out by doing this thing?', 'can whatever it is that i had planned for my day wait so that i can do this thing?' these questions are important for me to consider because i think that i often times ask myself 'how can i love this person?' but try to incorporate my loving them into what i want to do myself. to me, that doesn't really sound like laying down my life (or at least 20 minutes or 2 hours of it) for my friends. i really like people a lot, and love spending time with my friends, and i'm starting to see the importance of really offering myself to help people in whatever way i can see or to get to know people that i don't know all that well...honestly, if it were up to me, i'd keep the friends i have now and just try my hardest to get to more deeper, honest levels with all of them.
anyway, i really hope to get better at this kind of thinking and living. Jesus, have mercy on me.

it's worth a shot

2007-05-14T02:43:00.000-05:00

i'm not always very articulate, but i try to be. many have suggested that this is one of the essential ingredients to being able to write poetry well, along with the ability to evoke emotions in few words. this is just a preface to me writing a post simply to share a kind-of poem i am working on. no real need for response or anything, just trying to write more consistently and not feeling very analytical right now but wanting to write. so here goes

off and running,
up and around stubborn thoughts.
this is the way we live.
they pile up if they are not
gotten past, they stack upon one another,
a grocery list of things we won't
let ourselves live down.
we all know the reasons,
and are scared far past death
by honesty.
ideas turn to problems
and soon we wear our experiences like
spring clouds wear the rain.
the light gets through, but has to wait

three cheers for mixes

2007-05-08T22:27:00.000-05:00

it's been a while since i sat down to make a mix (barring those that i made for you 3 that wanted best-of-06 mixes) but i am currently undertaking one. i've never really tried to make an all-out i-think-this-is-stuff-that-you'd-like mix like John Cusack's Rob Gordon character suggests at the end of High Fidelity, and it's proving to be very difficult for me. as most people that have ever made a mix can understand, there is a certain desire to share something with the person the mix is for - introduce them to a band they might not listen to, share with them any song off of 'the glow, pt. 2' (obtain this album it if you don't have it), tell them something with everyone else's words - that can distract from the i-think-you'd-like-this nature of what i am currently trying to do. in the efforts to make sure i pick great songs, i have been listening to no less than half of any given album i want to include a song from, which has been really great considering that i haven't listened to jets to brazil, further seems forever, roadside monument, brainiac, or the notwist in a long time and now i'm remembering just how great some of these albums are. which brings me to my next distraction in trying to make this mix...i am actually revisiting a lot of this stuff for the first time in a while and it's hard to separate the nostalgia factor from the i-want-you-to-hear-particular-song factor. needless to say, i've been at this computer for about 2 hours now trying to decide who i even want to put on this mix and i've got 3 songs decided on. thankfully, i'm seeing the value in revisiting this stuff and considering what it was i used to like about it and now with a few more years under my belt, reconsidering it all and appreciating it in a different way. all in all, the whole point of the mix for someone you care about comes into play, what with the telling someone something about hwo you feel with other people's words, and also trying to make something that actually flows well together....i don't know how i'm going to make this 90s-type rock fit in with some of the other stuff i wanted to include but i hope i can make it good. that's all i really have to say. i should get focused.

maybe art isn't so hard

2007-05-03T03:03:00.000-05:00

before you start, click play on this song. it's amazing.

last week, i succeeded in actually doing something i set out to do. this isn't to say that i never get things done that i want to, but usually when they have any sort of artistic slant to them, i never get around to doing said thing. i drew on some 3"x5" index cards, added some colored pencil to them and sent them out as little postcards to a bunch of friends of mine. it made it very real to me that every little step we take towards something is valuable, especially when it is something that we have idealized in our minds for a long time. trust me, if i could make it so i'd be extremely good at drawing and painting and would have cool shows at 1026 or some place like that. things being as they are, i can only do what i can do and i will simply take some joy in whenever it is that i actually do create. speaking of which, i wrote a bunch of haikus the other day, inspired by joshua but also just trying to give it a shot. here are a few of them:

sometimes words will come
in transit, or at bad times
paper never sees

the birds still sing here
fewer trees than you'd expect
the songs still sound sweet

where is Christ today?
ah, yes, He's risen indeed
it's true days later

so now that i've been writing a lot in the past few weeks, i am to the point where i actually feel that making some music is getting really close. imagine, if you will, some strange energy in my that really wants to make music, and it makes it's way out through my words pretty often but that's not enough; it needs to make its way out of every pore of me before i can actually start doing this with some sincerity. with every little stupid art-y thing that i do, i feel like it's getting closer to the surface. it's a pretty great feeling. to go along with that, how do you all feel about graffiti or street art? after seeing some books that are at nick and holly's house (coined 'squid house' by the two of them for no apparent reason, but now that kimmy brown painted a pretty sweet squid in the bathroom, i think i can actually go along with that name), i think i want to try to do some street art. probably nothing fancy, just some stickers or little figures drawn in marker, but nick has a pretty amazing stencil that you would be happy to see up and around in philly, i assure you, and it would be cool if i could go out with him and look out. we shall see. so far, i'm having no big ethical dilemmas about it so i probably will do it in some way. once again, it's a lot later than i meant it to be. apparently writing a blog is a good way for me to ensure that i don't get enough sleep. i really should talk to my parents about getting my a new computer sometime soon so i don't need to wait until night time to write.

testing the waters of imeem

2007-04-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

though i have been spending significantly less time at a computer lately than i'd grown accustomed to over the past few years, much of it has been taken up by my love of the new playlist-making site imeem. it's allowed me to find and listen to plenty of music, some highlights for me being an archers of loaf song i hadn't heard in years, some songs off of the fiery furnaces album from last year that i missed completely, plenty of dance-y/electronic stuff (that i was showing to nick filardi the other day) and 'motownphilly'. anyway, the big deal of this site is that you can create playlists and apparently other people might listen to them at some point and you might get popular...or you can just make a playlist for your own enjoyment or to simply allow their site to host songs and you can bring your playlist elsewhere on the internets. anyway, you probably know what i am leading up to with all of this (and/or you can see the player already and have made an educated guess). i have made a small playlist of songs that have been doing it for me over the past few months, either sitting here at the computer or working at the thrift store or just from out at my house. you should know that there is no real cohesive idea behind these songs, but may i highly suggest the twilight sad song for anyone that might love hearing a scottish accent coming in through shoegaze-y guitars, patrick wolf for anyone that wants a bit of pep in their day, and barbara morgenstern if you are fine with dancing about while in your computer chair. i hope this can bring some new music into your life, maybe even new music that you will really enjoy.

expect another blog at some point tomorrow. i didn't plan on it getting this late before i was done.

some nuggets of wisdom from david berman

2007-04-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

over the past couple of months, i have been listening to silver jews more regularly than usual for me. (the only things i've been listening to anywhere near as much have been the new of montreal record and blonde on blonde). david berman, the singer/lyricist/mastermind behind silver jews is a master of dry wit and has a staggering ability to strike the exact right emotional note in his lyrics. he is not only a songwriter, but a poet.

here are some lines of his that i have been loving lately:

'I have not avoided certainty
It has always just eluded me
I wish I knew
I wish i knew for true'
-from 'death of an heir of sorrows'

'We've been raised on replicas of fake and winding roads
and day after day up on this beautiful stage
we've been playing tambourine for minimum wage
but we are real, I know we are real.'
-from 'we are real'

'On the last day of your life
don't forget to die,
the things that you do will always make your momma cry
Oh I know you got a lot of hope for
the new men'
-from 'advice to the graduate'

'O come let us adore them
California overboard
when the sun sets on the ghetto all the broken stuff gets cold.'
-from 'smith and jones forever'

'andre was a young black santa claus.
he didn't want to be like his daddy was.
better take the gun with you when you go.
he'd rather be dead than anything he knows.'
-from 'k-hole'

i don't really want to get into the lyrics or anything, just wanted to give some respect to a guy that writes in a completely distinct way and, to this point, has not been as recognized as he should be. listen to silver jews.

i know

2007-03-28T01:36:00.000-05:00

i'm aware there is no video for joanna newsom. i have had about 17 headaches trying to get this post to go up correctly and it's just not working. forgive the lack of a video there. for any of you who haven't seen it, i'll direct you to the music section of my myspace page. thank you

you can read it OR just watch videos OR both

2007-03-28T00:58:00.000-05:00

i really wanted to post a list of my favorite albums of 2006, so even though we are almost 1/4 of the way through 2007, here it is. from me to you, a list of my favorite albums from last year. it should be noted that some of these albums moved around in the ranks since year's end. If you'd like, please let me know and I will make you a mix of my favorite songs of of these albums. without much more wasting time...

Daniel's Top 20 Albums of 2006

20 - Scott Walker - The Drift

Although the idea of a "challenging" album can prompt cries of pretension from potential listeners, the rewards waiting under The Drift are many. It's dark (extremely dark), unashamedly poetic in lyrical content, revelling in sonic exploration...and made by a 64 year old former heart-throb.

Want to see this with me when it plays around here somewhere? Only the last 15-20 seconds of this clip are from the Drift

19) Danielson - Ships

My biggest complaint with past Danielson records was inconsistency. This time around, Daniel Smith and co. provide eleven solid tracks, all beautiful in their Danielsonian way (see "Bloodbook On the Halfshell" and "Time That Bald Sexton"). This is not a record that everyone will love, and, to me, that is a shame for there are very few songwriters who share their hearts this openly, and whose hearts are this inspiring.

'Did I Step On Your Trumpet?'

18) Band Of Horses - Everything All the Time

From the first time I heard 'The Funeral' on their myspace page, I was into these guys. I think many people may be distracted by comparisons to My Morning Jacket's pre-It Still Moves material, but a few listens shows that Band of Horses are capable songwriters in their own right. And don't you miss that old MMJ sound anyway?

'The Funeral'

17) MewithoutYou - Brother, Sister

I almost left this off my top 20, thinking too much about how it might seem like I was giving undue credit because they are friens of mine. Then I realized that it didn't matter what it could seem like, but only that I love this album. Moving another step away from the more visceral screams and guitar attacks of their debut album, mwY is beginning to hone in on being able to create some very beautiful music, seen here most notably in the "spider" songs and the inclusion of horns, harp, and Jeremy Enigk. While the lyrics still probe to understand a Creator that is unknowable fully, Aaron Weiss has grown quite a bit over the course of two records and his lyrics have gotten stronger, mirroring a stronger faith.

Live clip of 'In A Sweater, Poorly Knit'

16) Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

You've been listened to B&S long enough now to know that their twee days are over, and they've made it through adolescence with Storytelling and Dear Catastrophe Waitress. This record is polished up pop without sacrificing any of the style B&S have been cultivating over the last few decade. More fun than their entire back catalog combined, but with just as much feeling as they have been made known for.

Live clip of 'Another Sunny Day'

15) Girl Talk - Night Ripper

Maybe it's the sheer amount of time I spent listening to this album, or the people I was able to introduce it to and see the look on their faces when they hear Jeff Mangum's count-off in the midst of so much hip-hop and classic rock mashing-up or the solo from "Say It Ain't So" cut up just right, but this album was never far from my person from the time I bought it up through year's end.

here's an idea of how this guy works...this is from a New Year's Eve party in Chicago

14) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

If you don't know the story of Clipse's label troubles by now, don't sweat it. They had some problems, but now they have a second legitimate record and it is so far beyond their debut, it's almost frightening. Much has been said about their ability to take the modern rap cliches and give them heart, but that's only because it's true. There is an undeniable sense of self-cognizance throughout this album; the Thornton's know that the rewards or money, cars, and women does not bring happiness. Instead of mope about it, they packed an album full of more clever rhymes and emotion than I thought I should expect from hip hop. Not to mention the Neptunes production is still leagues away from most producers in rap music.
This isn't the best song on the album, but it's the only legit video I could find from this album.
Don't you think that Pharrell should just stay relevant by doing his thing with Clipse instead of being on MTV all the time?
'Mr. Me Too'

13) Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Brooklyn expatriates Liars get much more primal than their earlier offerings of agitated dance-punk on their third album to consistently stunning results. The focused bombardment of tribal drumming, haunting vocals, and ethereal guitars is as effective in creating mood and engaging the listener as most of the best songs created by their Krautrock predecessors. I'd not suggest listening to this album much later than 11 p.m.

'It Fit When I Was A Kid'

12) TV on the Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

It's true that TVOTR would not be what they are without David Sitek's production, a bit less obvious here than on their debut full-length, but that's not to discredit the capabilities of this very talented band. Still revelling in their distinct vocal style, Cookie Mountain finds them infusing that into what would have been fairly basic rock songs and coming away with gold. I play this record often at the thrift store where I am employed and I've had every demograph of customer ask what it is we are listening to and comment on how much they enjoy it, which to me is proof that as boundary-pushing as TVOTR are, their music is only getting more listenable.

'Wolf Like Me'

11) The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

After being impressed by each phase of the Decemberists' development, I was well prepared to be underwhelmed with their major label debut. Somehow, this record is a totally logical step from Picaresque. Maintaining their sound throughout the record they seem much more confident, not fearing to develop a couple of tracks into prog-rock territory and providing 3 songs that should be radio hits. After the recent Payola settlement, maybe the radio-listening community will actually be graced with Colin Meloy's tales of love amidst the usual swill of rock radio.

'O Valencia'

10) Man Man - Six Demon Bag

It's possible that I wouldn't love this album so much if i didn't live in Philadelphia...or if I was still caught up in the everyone-sounds-too-much-like-someone-from-an-earlier-era game. I guess I'll never know. It's easy enough to write them off as one-trick ponies for their whole carnival-gone-wrong vibe, but to listen closer and see that the ringmaster has feelings too, and the band is more than willing to provide him with exactly the right sonic canvas on which to write his joys and woes.

Live clip of 'Van Helsing Boombox'

9) The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine

It could be seen as some sort of statement record, but what you are really hearing is a band most easily labelled "punk" with a sense of cohesiveness. War, religion, self-justifying American leaders, the future of our country..all things that Hutch Harris understands frighteningly well. Thankfully he isn't one to preach or boast in his own knowledge as he offers ten anthems, any of which can easily be appropriated by your average American in 2006.

'A Pillar of Salt' (This might be the most addictive song i heard all year)

8) Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Nobody said you have to like Spencer Krug's voice, but if that's deterring you from giving this album an honest listen, you will be denying yourself the joy of one of the best pop songwriters out there. The lyrics may be a bit bizarre at times, but the emotions that come through these songs is as familiar as the block you grew up on. That's not to mention the seemingly effortless musical arrangements, which should be able to impress the most innovative of pop songwriters.

There are no official videos, but this is a halfway decent live clip of 'Us Ones In Between'

7) Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies

Dan Bejar is Destroyer. He is also one of the most noticeable members of the New Pornographers. His past albums as Destroyer have all taken a while to reveal themselves to me, but once they let me inside I am amazed at what is to be seen. To me it seems like Bejar knew he'd never make another Rubies, so he took everything great he was storing and put it out there. Musically, he lets himself follow every whim and with genius-like ability makes each song work, and while his lyrics are worthy of however much time you may want to give them, this record provides enough hit-you-at-first-listen lines to promise return visits.

There weren't any decent Destroyer videos on youtube.

6) The Knife - Silent Shout

A quick rundown of The Knife: Swedish brother/sister duo. They make dark, sometimes frightening, techno. Their press photos have them wearing masks with oversized beaks. Whether or not they are actually as enigmatic as they seem to be going for, their music communicates a wealth of emotions to music that probably only could have come from a country that goes through near-perpetual night every winter. For us Americans it sounds interesting, beautiful even, but I have to imagine The Knife's fellow Swedes are affected by this in a completely different way. Maybe Alaskans would be, too.

'Marble House'

5) The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Ever since I first heard them, I had not been particularly impressed by the Hold Steady. Separation Sunday grew on me and I now love it, but it was with their latest that I knew right away that this is a band I will enjoy for a long time. Craig Finn might be older than the characters that occupy his songs, but he understands their loneliness and approaches it with the sympathy of a good author. Without condescending to them (or the countless people that will undoubtably resonate with their stories), Finn brings to light their humanity while making some of the best straightforward rock music in years.

'Stuck Between Stations' live on David Letterman

4) Califone - Roots and Crowns

As time goes on I'm starting to get away from comparing Califone to Wilco, moving past the Americana-by-way-of-electronics-and-experimentation brotherhood to understand and view Califone in their own right. Roots and Crowns makes this not only imporant, but necessary. This record has the timeless feel that only comes from not going for it. The banjos, slide, guitars, brushed drum kits all could have been recorded by Alan Lomax, but it is the vision of something new and the precision studio know-how of Brian Deck that make this whole thing Califone.

'Spider's House'

3) Ghostface - Fishscale

My ex-girlfriend used to hate how much I loved Ghostface, how I would try to play whatever Ghostface song I was loving that week for her and whoever else might be around to listen. "The man is insane", she would say. I would never disagree. While I might have been only talking about his subject matter, stlye, and ability to make a beat work for him, he proves it in all these ways and more, possibly upping the ante on Supreme Clientele as his best work. While some of Ghost's subjects might seem a bit left-friend for a major label rapper (or any for that matter), his lyrical ability shines all over this record. Any fan of Ghost's previous work will be impressed by his ability to stay as innovative as he has over years in an industry where becoming the flavor of the month is de rigueur. Any fan of hip-hop can find plenty to love on this record.

'Back Like That'

2) Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

Have you ever listened to an album through once and had so many moments of it stuck in your head that you almost dreaded going back and listening to it again, knowing that you'd probably get stuck on one or two songs and not get around to the rest of the album for weeks? (Oh, am I the only one?) Anyhow, that's exactly what happened to me on both accounts. Grizzly Bear seem right at home as complete songwriters, exhibiting strengths in song structure and arrangement, vocal layering and harmonies, and production savvy. For all the melancholy beauty found on this album, it is not a weep-along-with-me statement so much as a reminder that the beautiful oftentimes outweighs the sad, and that they will very likely come as a pair.

'Knife'

1) Joanna Newsom - Ys

I have every intention to write a whole entry on how I feel about this album soon.
For now I will say that I don't think there has been someone out there making music like this for a long time and there probably won't be for a long time after this. I have expressed to numerous friends how proud I am to be alive at the time when this album was created. I believe that this is an important album and it's importance will be seen more and more with time.

Here's a particularly beautiful song she preformed when I saw her last November (this is not on Ys):

Once again, if you would like some sort of mix or anything with some songs by these artist's, I would be more than happy to make you one.

music snobbery, a cry for help

2007-03-22T03:47:00.001-05:00

I used to resent the ideas of expertise and authority, especially in the academic realm. This was a very prevalent mentality of mine while I was spending most of my time listening to a lot of music and watching a lot of movies. Ever since I first really fell in love with music by watching the Beatles Anthology on TV at age 12, I have considered myself a sucker for context. It's not that I need to know everything about an artist's life at the time of creating a work, but it helps me to appreciate the work created. All of that to say, during my later teens when I was rampantly buying CDs and DVDs, I would buy the special editions with extensive liner notes, spend many hours on websites like allmusic.com, imdb.com, etc. to try to increase my understanding of the contexts in which these albums and films I enjoyed had been created. For better or worse, I began to love the historical context, and with that came the old 'nobody is making anything original anymore...even Kurt Cobain admitted all he ever wanted to do was write a Pixies song' gripe. I started myself on a still-continuing journey of wanting know more than I need to know about the art I engage in for the sake of being able to appreciate it past the surface levels of aural or visual pleasure (in regard to music and film respectively). The more time I put into learning about particular musicians/directors/films, the more I cared about my opinions being validated or at least listened to...I felt a desire to not only continue to study for my own benefit and appreciation of things, but to begin trying to teach people, help lead them to a greater level of ability to appreciate music. This manifested itself one night at Syracuse University, where I was visiting my friend Joe, and I ended up getting into an argument about how bad I thought some band was (I forget who exactly I was on such a crusade against...I think I was hating on Coldplay that week). In my blunt and tactless way, I thought that arguments were equivalent to discussion and I felt quite noble, in that I was seriously trying to draw out of these people a more profound understanding of their own interest (in this instance, Coldplay) than the unenligtened 'i just like it'. After countless hours of reading about the bands I loved, listening to OK Computer enough to wear out 2 copies, go out of my way to listen to more than what was just played on the radio, I truly felt that I had some sort of authority in stating my opinion that Coldplay was not a good band. I can still remember how completely discredited I felt in that group of 7 people, all of them commenting on how much of a jerk I was being about it, the first real music snob most of them had met...i had become a snob, and no one feels that they can learn from a snob, or at least nobody wants to give the snob enough of an opportunity to teach them something. I took this all very personally, whining and throwing out comments like "You guys just don't understand....there is so much good music out there and you are listening to whatever shit the radio tells you to like", but I did learn a bit about my tactics. I would like to believe that there is a certain authority inherent in having ones opinions about things and knowing why those opinions are there, but to attack anything solely based on my uninformed - in this situation, uninformed because I never tried to appreciate Coldplay - opinions about what I think it might be is foolish and debilitating to the effort to have a real conversation.

I fear that I still come across this way a lot of the time when I talk about that which I'm passionate. I'm trying very hard to eliminate the more subtle phrases from my vocabulary in these situations and instead put myself a little more out there, no longer the authoritative "Gang of Four is a great band", as if it was declared from on high that this is true and anyone who disagrees is wrong, but trying more for "I really like Gang of Four". Maybe I think it is more important than it really is, but for me realizing the way I talk about things can really help me to actually have conversations and learn more about people by what they like and why instead of always seeming like I have something to teach them and if they don't want to learn this thing, they are inferior to me. It reminds me of a part in High Fidelity in which Rob, considering that he should have known he and Laura never would never have worked out, he says something like "...movies, music, these things matter" as if a person can be defined by the music and movies they like. While I most certainly do not think that one can be defined by their interests, I do think that what we can learn from each other through our interests are valuable things that we probably wouldn't be able to articulate in different conversations.

i'm stopping now...it is now 4:40 a.m. and I just ranted again. I doubt this post made any sense but hopefully with time, I will get better at being concise.

time to get things started

2007-03-06T22:43:00.000-06:00

after too much time coming up with arguments against starting one, i'm finally going to start writing a blog. it is my hope that someone out there in the world will read it and take something away from it. it is not my intention to use this as a journal - i'll keep the one i write in, however infrequently, to myself - but as a place for me to share my thoughts, specifically about art/pop culture/the like. don't think that i consider art and pop culture the same thing, i just cannot tell right now what exactly will find it's way into this thing.

If there is here revealed a capacity to shock, to startle the lifeless ones from their profound slumber, let us congratulate ourselves; for the tragedy of our world is precisely that nothing any longer is capable of rousing it from its lethargy. No more violent dreams, no refreshment, no awakening. In the anaesthesia produced by self-knowledge, life is passing, art is passing, slipping from us: we are drifting with time and our fight is with shadows."

Anais Nin wrote that in 1934 in the preface to Henry Miller's The Tropic of Cancer, and it was this passage that got to me in a way that made it seem worth creating this blog. I'm often times viewed as opinionated, usually with some degree of derision, especially when it comes to things that can be classified as "art". I use the quotation marks with hesitation, but since i strongly believe that there is a line somewhere between art and commodity - it's blurry, i know, and you are probably thinking, 'who are you to judge that?' - i feel it is a word that should not be used as often as it is. Although it was seventy-seven years ago that Nin wrote this regarding a particular novel, to me it offers a sort of vindication, a pat on the head saying, 'It's alright to be passionate about art even if you can't make it yourself. It is good for one person to engage another by way of their creation. The artist has tried to stop life from passing him/her by, if only for a moment and you have tried to see that bit of life." I am not trying to congratulate myself at all in doing this, many people are better critics than i am, are more erudite in what they say, but I want only to be able to truly try to appreciate that which i come across. Somewhere along the lines, especially in my generation, to "appreciate" something has come to mean that one "likes" that thing, whether it is a movie, a painting by Pollock, or the new Shins record. It has taken a while, but over the past few years this has stopped being true for me, and it is my hope that through this blog i can possibly help others to try to appreciate things in a more meaningful way, say definition 1 or 3 below:

ap·pre·ci·ate [uh-pree-shee-eyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -at·ed, -at·ing.

1.	to be grateful or thankful for: They appreciated his thoughtfulness.

–verb (used with object)

2.	to value or regard highly; place a high estimate on: to appreciate good wine.

3.	to be fully conscious of; be aware of; detect: to appreciate the dangers of a situation.

4.	to raise in value.

–verb (used without object)

5.	to increase in value: Property values appreciated yearly.

[A rant: for a few months now, it has been on my mind to start a small 'film club' with some friends of mine. I am widely considered something of a snob in that arena and have been reluctant to start it, seeing as i don't want to be seen as the leader or the guy that's going to judge someone's choice of film. I think this would be a tangible way, like book clubs (does anyone participate in any of those anymore?) to share personal ideas about a single piece of art. This not only finds a group of people engaging in the same film (for example), but investing themselves individually in it for the sake of sharing their thoughts/feelings about it with one another, hopefully learning about each other and finding other ways to appreciate the film outside of their own way of seeing it. I guess this makes it all seem a bit lofty, but that has been my hope for it, and why i keep putting off starting it. I believe that people sharing their thoughts on art has an inherent value to it that does not exist in the 'i-am-right-you-are-wrong' spirit of opinions that I seem to find myself caught up in a lot of the time.]

hopefully this didn't bore you too much. I plan to write on a consistent basis (maybe 2-4 times a week), yet doubt anyone will be broken-hearted if i never write again. Please forgive me if this entry rambled and sounded like one long disclaimer for the future. I'm sure with some time, I'll get better at knowing what to go on and on about.