Why did Craig Finn name-drop Shaker Heights in a song, anyway? Diamond says he and I should go on a double date with Mia Clarke and Ros Murray from Electrelane. Like that's ever going to happen. If it does, though, color me converted.
Fled Baltimore after six days of isolation for the colder comforts of Pittsburgh. Caught a lift on a Greyhound. Real Hold Steady-an cross-country jaunt, that. Talked to one girl from Salisbury who was busing out to Nebraska to see her best friend of friends for one of their biannual meetings. I hope in a few years I'll like someone well enough to travel halfway across the country to see them twice a year. I would've sworn Andrew was that guy, but I haven't seen him since last October. When I got to Pittsburgh, I talked to a lady who was from St. Louis, but was going to Chicago from DC for her commercial vehicle transport gig.
Last night was some sort of madness. Mike, Diamond, John and I came into Cleveland from Pittsburgh and met up with Maura. Then we went to a party at Maura's friend Cat's house. One of the wilder things I've seen: Brian brought around some spicy home-brew beer for our sampling; I shot beer pong with Maura's friend Bailey, who reminds me more of Fiona in a mischievous sprite-ish manner every time I see her, against Mike and John (and lost miserably--it was no Will/Glenn alliance); the basement was almost saturated with smoke; people disappeared frequently behind closed doors into the bedrooms to indulge. Cat sat Diamond and me down on her roommate's bed to make sure we were taking care of Maura down in Baltimore. Diamond held up a large quadruple beer bong for the locals. The stereo played Folk Implosion. Snippets of seemingly-important conversations flew by as I passed from room to room but I couldn't hang on to any of them in my drunkenness. Eventually I bundled up in a blanket into the corner and fell asleep.
A confession: I had a serious internal debate on whether to ask Maura and her friends for an E when I realized they had it. It's the only drug so far that I have any desire to try, and maybe it would be best to get this nonsense over with while still in college and being entitled to some measure of stupidity; on the other hand, I wasn't friends with the vast majority of people there (actually they were very nice, even though I'd only known them for a few hours), and being drunk, I couldn't confidently either confirm or refute Diamond's concerns of long-term effects. In the end, I didn't do it. I still might, when the right time comes. Such a time might never come, but whatever.
There was a party tonight too, at Bailey's; a much tamer affair involving Middlebury and Princeton students and wine. And now I find myself in a familiar position: hanging out with friends, yet somehow on my laptop and writing in a blog. I've been with these guys for three days and I'm already feeling a need to get away again. I'll probably want to escape to Maria's soon. Feeling again like I'm playing a background role in someone else's story, watching from the periphery of someone else's drama.
I do not understand how Maura and John's dynamic works. John's one of my best friends--has been for at least two years--and I still can't be convinced to take his side on the breakup. I remember the night that whole scheme began to deteriorate: John was crashing at my place, but I decided to go to bed early at 2AM (early for me on a weekend) when he still hadn't returned, figuring he'd decided to sleep over at Maura's, only to be woken by his phone call as soon as I'd gotten to bed asking to be let in, and when he showed up at the door he revealed he'd spent the entire evening hanging out with another girl, whom he "couldn't sleep with, even though Maura and he weren't on definite terms" (more or less paraphrased). From that moment, there was no convincing me he was the good guy in this scenario, if there was a good guy. So I do not understand why Maura still seems closer to him than to any of us other kids who run with them; I do not understand why she drove down to DC to hang out with him shortly before finals; I do not understand how his constant poking and rib-jabbing can be endearing in any way.
This is not some sort of loner angst statement; it just seems I've completely failed to grasp the basics for dealing with other human beings. I wrote an entire rulebook, figuratively speaking, on what I expect of myself categorically, but though I constantly revise it, sometimes it seems I should rip it up entirely.
Along similar lines, I do not understand why Mike is still open to getting back together with Hannah, who broke up with him to begin with, and now texts him saying she's "85% sure" she wants to get back together with him (up from a previous estimate of 60%, which in turn was down from a yet-earlier estimate of 100%). For me, at least, this kind of haphazard handling of relationships would probably nullify any kind of attraction I had for the other person; after all, if there can't be some kind of stable happiness, what's the point? Of course, in a recurring theme, what makes perfect sense to me fails to correlate in any way to what people do in reality. On the other hand, I don't know how to live my life except in the way that makes sense to me. I don't like this whole thing of living in a world where nothing that happens makes sense to me and nothing that makes sense to me happens. They say you got to fall in love with whomever you can (actually, Craig Finn said that again), but it's damn hard when people don't seem to even exist in the same way I do. Just like walking drunk past locked doors at a party behind which people are getting high. On the bright side, this disconnect means I won't break any hearts when I go.
I was listening to the Stars album, Set Yourself On Fire, just now. It's actually quite good--I guess I overlooked them in my Pham-provoked boycotting of Canadian indie pop. Many of the songs are quite sweet and audacious, and all of them are very meticulously assembled; particularly, "Ageless Beauty" and "One More Night" are really excellent tunes. The lyrics are quite bold, talking about relationships without trying to pretend they're actually talking about war or whatever, and they're good lyrics too. But I almost feel like I don't have the right to listen to music like this, and more, to enjoy it and take it to heart. I feel like I don't know anything of what love songs like these talk about, and all the empathy and emotional response I have toward them is false. I should stick to my droning feedback instrumentals and keep my head buried in a bucket of digital distortion where it obviously belongs.
Craig Finn wouldn't have written this entry. Craig Finn would've been high as hell and passed out or raving about getting born again. Maura's parents should meet him.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Annual Review
It's that time of the year again, and by that I of course refer to the end time, with all its attendant rituals--as far as this blog is concerned, more or less, one.
But first, this is what I did on Christmas Day, 2007: woke up slightly before noon; ate while listening to Four Tet's Pause; put cider ingredients in the pot; went to explore, while still listening to Four Tet, the ravine off the west of campus, which holds memories from freshman year, and sophomore summer soccer, and the Trippy Buddha Man last December, who told me, "you don't know how to let it go," as if I needed telling; returned home and collected the finished cider (yum); watched Love Actually, which I had downloaded last night; cooked more mashed sweet potatoes and string beans, and ate; finished writing/recording the song for Maria's Christmas present; and that about brings us up to speed. Oh, and the Nagans called, which was nice of them; it was the first real speaking conversation I'd had since Thursday (ordering beer at the Talking Head didn't count). I am feeling increasingly like the third wheel, though in a tricycle sense. Actually, Jess, if you're reading this, go find Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. It's an interesting take on a similar concept, though filtered through the slightly desperate lens of early Murakami.
About the film: I don't care what anybody says, it's a good film, cynicism be damned. The character interactions are not as simple as the concept of the plot would have you believe. Besides, it's easier for me to wax romantic about the world at large when nobody's around, so I thought I'd seize the opportunity. After all, I'll be seeing people again soon enough, and then I'll be all cranky again, and nobody likes that.
On a related note, I noticed how ambidextrous I can suddenly become in the kitchen. Often I'll be stirring or scooping something in the pan with my right hand, while with my left hand I will grab the knife and chopping board, chuck them in the sink, turn on the faucet to rinse them off, and turn off the faucet. I say this is related to the point about the film because the same people who will likely scoff at my infrequent enjoyment of select rom-coms would probably denounce my adept domesticity (yes, you). To which I respond: my mother always liked to say I tend to become good at anything I do long enough; I'm not so much domestic as just really, really proficient at being a bachelor.
Anyhow. Here are some pictures from the woods.
This is, I believe, the remnant of a rope swing someone tied from a branch a little upstream from the bridge.
This is a cover-less storm drain hatch. While the second picture shows a ladder descending into its not-so-deep depths, I don't think the drain at the bottom is of standing height. Who feels adventurous?
This is where the water goes at the end of the ravine, under the road leading into Hampden. The descent from the top of the ravine to this position was especially treacherous, as the geology that so conveniently shunts rainwater down the hills and into the creek threatened to send me careening over the ridge as well (a substantial fall at certain points), especially given all the slick fallen leaves. I had to do a lot of grasping for roots and kicking in footholds in the mud; I wished I'd have worn my boots. Once I got there, though, the stone steps seen in the first photo made a nice vantage point for taking the second.
Possible scene from a postapocalyptic film, part 1.
Possible scene from a postapocalyptic film, part 2.
But sometimes one must look at the small things...
Finally, the arboreal gate to the south end of the trail.
--
And now...the annual tradition. This is a fairly comprehensive survey I have done each year since...I can't even recall. 2004 at the latest, possibly 2003. Last year I started the sub-tradition of comparing the previous year's results to the current year's (in boldface). Let us begin, shall we?
1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
(2006) Gigged! Crazy, I know, but there were two, not counting open mics (also two). Playing venues is much different from playing half-assed school functions. Tried hookah. I suppose technically I tried weed, once, but it didn't do anything but make me cough for two weeks, so I don't suppose it counts. Moved off of school-owned property. It doesn't seem 2006 was the healthiest year, or the most revolutionary; I'll forgive myself this time.
(2007) Took the GRE; wrote a research paper; applied to graduate school; recorded electronic music. Hey, not too bad! OK, so that was mostly nerdy.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
(2006) Did I learn to deal with other people, and myself? To a large extent, I think I was successful. Only from the second half onward, though. The first half was still a wreck. For 2007, let's try: exercise more! Learn double thumb! Learn how to make music in Live! Learn how to use Pd! Maybe get something published/presented by the end of the year? Apply to grad school! Well, if I don't, I'm forfeit anyway.
(2007) Exercise more: a little. Double thumb: can sort of do it now. Learn Live: check! Learn Pd: to be done (though Audiomulch is similar). Publishing: pending... Apply to grad school: check!
Next year's resolutions: I'll think about this more during the next week. Certainly there ought to be some.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
(2006) Nope!
(2007) My postdoc colleague Mikhail and his wife had another kid...their fourth. Seriously, guys.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
(2006) Someone died at my school again--an art history teacher, meningitis again. I swear, someone dies at Johns Hopkins every year. Closer, my uncle died of liver cancer less than a week ago. See earlier entry.
(2007) No. It's remarkable what an exception it's become to go an entire year without anyone I know dying.
5. What countries did you visit?
(2006) Same. Not much money or time for traveling anymore. I need a new location, soon.
(2007) TW + USA...Europe someday? Please?
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
(2006) I actually got most of the things from last year's list. A bass that's fully functional. An ID that says I'm 21 (I'll have a real one in August). Having someone I could be alone with would be nice, but I'll hang.
(2007) A graduate school acceptance letter, a car, a fretless bass, a Macbook Pro, a Nord Modular synthesizer, and the one thing I wanted this time last year that I didn't get.
7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
(2006) October 17. Debut Trafalgar gig at the 8x10 + the encounter with Sarah; pretty memorable, I think. November 17. Second Trafalgar gig at the Charm City Art Space.
(2007) The fact I don't know how to answer this question probably says most everything. Memorable moments: firing Lisa from the band on Valentine's Day (ouch); second to last gig with Monica at the Ottobar; being fired from the band myself; Pitchfork Music Festival; Radiohead album release; second encounter with Sarah.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
(2006) Gigged! Got into another lab--and managed to stick with it. Fall 2006 saw my highest GPA since I got into college. A fairly pragmatic year, as far as years with me go.
(2007) Independent research, paper, applied to graduate school, and all that. The academicism continues...
9. What was your biggest failure?
(2006) Still not too happy with the pants thing. I must've passed up 4 different lab position offers before I got into Dr. Hristova's lab; bad timing on my part.
(2007) I actually don't know. I feel like everything I did, I tried my best at. Of course, that just makes the lack of results seem all the more fatalistic.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
(2006) Might've had a cold back in the beginning of the year. But I got by relatively unscathed.
(2007) Wrecked my right ankle at the Deacon/Girl Talk show in September. It still feels iffy if I bend it too much.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
(2006) The Avatar 410. The Gallien-Krueger 800RB. They'll stick around for a long time. My iRiver. My Thinkpad...it was a good year for consumerism. I'm sorry to say.
(2007) Pitchfork Fest tickets; my mixer; Audiomulch license. As usual, I only spent money on music gear. Except my green faux-military jacket, that was pretty cool too.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
(2006) Lindsay was there for me quite a few times when I had meltdowns. Thank you. Yuli , many times, kept me awake and talking way too long after I was supposed to have slept and stopped knowing what I was talking about. Sterling still helped me and the band out way more than we deserved.
(2007) Jess and Thom's. Thanks for helping me out on many occasions.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
(2006) I was somewhat distressed when P. started leaving me out of her life, but I deserved it. That aside, we all know which people messed with my head at the most inconvenient times. So let's not name them. They might be listening in. As a final addendum, few things are more traumatizing than finding porn on your little brother's (14) computer.
(2007) Sarah definitely made me depressed for much of fall semester, though I don't suppose I could ever fault her for anything. I was somewhat bitter when I began to realize John's support of my music-making only went as far as I fit into his established plans, and when I deviated from that, he stopped talking to me about music. In addition, while I regard him as a generally good guy, I cannot see him as such with respect to certain more recent events.
14. Where did most of your money go?
(2006) Bass Rig MK II. (GK800RB + Avatar 410NEO) Hey, it works now!
(2007) Making the Chicago trip during the summer.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
(2006) For the third time--gigging. Not as many awesome shows, but I was psyched for Mission of Burma and Radiohead. Really psyched.
(2007) Pitchfork Festival and the new Radiohead album.
16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
(2006) These lists just keep getting better and better. Peter, Bjorn & John, "Young Folks" (and the rest of Writer's Block, really); Squarepusher, "Iambic 5 Poetry"; Aphex Twin, "Girlboy Song"; Venetian Snares, "Hajnal"; "Mission of Burma, "Careening with Conviction" (and the rest of The Obliterati); Slowdive, "Alison"; Bloc Party, "Two More Years"; Autolux, "Turnstile Blues"; The Hold Steady, (choose one) "Cattle and the Creeping Things" "Chillout Tent"; TV on the Radio, "Wolf Like Me"; The Knife, "Forest Families"; Jose Gonzales, "Heartbeats" (Knife cover); Mew, (choose one) "Apocalypso" "She Came Home for Christmas"; Joy Division, "New Dawn Fades"; Forget Cassettes, "Quiero, Quieres"; Mogwai, "Travel is Dangerous"
(2007) Stars of Track and Field - "Centuries"; Four Tet - "She Moves She," "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth"; Dinosaur Jr - "We're Not Alone"; Thrushes - "Heartbeats"; Monarch - "Family Glue"; The Twilight Sad - "Cold Days From the Birdhouse," "And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth"; Electrelane - "To the East"; Radiohead - "All I Need," "Nude"; Jesu - "Star"; Burial - "Near Dark"; Fennesz - "Endless Summer"; Brief Candles - "So Long"; The Smiths - "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"; Boris - "A Bao A Qu"; Guitar - "House Full of Time"; Slowdive - "Sleep"; I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - "Lights"; Bloc Party - "Secrets"; Mojave 3 - "Love Songs On the Radio," "Tomorrow's Taken"; Airiel - "Firefly"; Beach House - "Childhood"; The Field - "Over the Ice"
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
(2006) First of all, a revision to last year's response: the Sophomore Slump of 2004-05 was definitively one of the most miserable periods of my life. December 2004 couldn't even compare. That said, I'm fairly confident right now that, whatever the specifics, I'm in a better place than I was in a year ago.
(2007) On and up. I'm alright.
ii. thinner or fatter?
(2006) I weigh the exact same as I did last year.
(2007) Not much has changed.
iii. richer or poorer?
(2006) Richer. I saved up a bit.
(2007) I don't know.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
(2006) Exercise. Gig (can't get enough of that). Study and study. Write entries (serious dereliction of duty after the fall semester started). Lab work.
(2007) Connecting with people.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
(2006) Drink, sulk, sit and do nothing.
(2007) Be emotionally quarantined.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
(2006) Ditto. Got a couple nice jackets.
(2007) Alone, in the woods, with self-made treats, and recording music. See above.
22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
(2006) No. I'm simply no longer able to just fall in love with people I don't know will love me back. I wanted to, though, and almost did, once.
(2007) Yeah. Jess was right: the best part was the hope. It was all downhill from there.
23. How many one-night stands?
(2006) Katelyn doesn't count. We didn't do anything.
(2007) Zero.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
(2006) CNN News during the one week that I didn't have a computer. Then it was back to Google News for me.
(2007) I still dislike TV.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
(2006) Amazingly, I can deal with both of them now, and even share an apartment with the latter. I still don't hate anyone, because I don't think it's worth my time, but there's a certain person I wouldn't mind never associating with again. Again, they might be listening in.
(2007) No. Hatred is a waste of time.
26. What was the best book you read?
(2006) Kazuo Ichiguro, Never Let Me Go. Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions (I liked it because it confused me). Haruki Murakami, Kafka On the Shore. Theodor Adorno/Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment.
(2007) Kay Ryan - Say Uncle; Ron Currie Jr., God is Dead; J. G. Ballard, Super-Cannes
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
(2006) Mew, The Knife, Peter Bjorn & John, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Board of Canada, and the other IDM stuff I listen to, The Hold Steady, William Basinski, Fennesz, Slowdive, Pinback, Boris, Gyorgy Ligeti, Bela Bartok, various dub and D'n'B stuff (as genres, not artist-specific yet).
(2007) I've fallen off the bandwagon. Since Tim Hecker wasn't on last year's list, I'll put him here. Also: Four Tet, Electrelane, The Twilight Sad, Stars of Track and Field, Thrushes, Monarch (now Wye Oak), Apparat, The Field, Marissa Nadler
28. What did you want and get?
(2006) Working bass rig! A paying job(s). MP3 player. Laptop. A new lab position. Uni West apartment (ideal residence since freshman year). A halfway decent GPA (3.48--best GPA and first A- in a science course since freshman spring). Year of
down-to-earth achievements?
(2007) All the music gear that I planned on getting. I didn't plan on getting a 4.0 last spring, but I did anyway.
29. What did you want and not get?
(2006) Laid, but there's only so much you can do. New bass on which everything doesn't break on me.
(2007) Sarah? Or do people not count?
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
(2006) The Science of Sleep, hands down. Babel a close second. A History of Violence a close second if you count DVDs. Sorry Snakes On a Plane, none for you.
(2007) Didn't watch any particularly memorable films this year. Is that bad?
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
(2006) 20. Got kicked out for underage drinking of the Ted Leo show at the Ottobar that ended up being the awesome power-out fiesta that got coverage on Pitchforkmedia!
Fucking go me.
(2007) Went to dinner with Jess and Granger, and then One World for drinks with them two and some others.
32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
(2006) Going steady. Everything else has been pretty hard to complain about.
(2007) I don't know why I bother to answer this question anymore.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
(2006) Pretty much the exact same thing, plus a pair of Doc Martens from time to time. Better jeans though.
(2007) Warm: t-shirt, black or blue jeans, black Converse. Cool: t-shirt and black hoodie or army green jacket, jeans, Converse or New Balance. Cold: collared shirt under black cashmere sweater, long black coat with black scarf, jeans (notice a trend?), New Balance or Doc Martens. Somewhat long hair, but on average shorter than last year's.
34. What kept you sane?
(2006) Self-restraint of perverse magnitude. Except, you know, those days when I wasn't quite so sane.
(2007) Solitude.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
(2006) Beth Cameron, singer-guitarist of Forget Cassettes. And how.
(2007) Why don't we just change this question to "beautiful girls I wish I knew in bands that make beautiful music" and be done with it?
This is Ros Murray, from Electrelane:
Really, I would date anyone if it meant I got to play with a Rickenbacker bass regularly. But especially if she is thin, brunette, with a slight girl-next-door aura (remind you of anyone?). Ros Murray also makes acoustic music as Ray Rumours. I recommend "Max Dugan Returns."
Alexandra Maria Lara gets honorable mention too. Although I think that's mostly because she played Ian Curtis' girlfriend in a film.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
(2006) The war between Israel and Palestine. Also, I believe my general outrage against capitalist domination has reached a new peak after my Marx, Freud and Modern Critical Theory class.
(2007) I really don't know. I've let myself slip...have to start being aware again. OK, resolution #1.
37. Who did you miss?
(2006) I missed myself as I used to be (more naive). Patrice, in a figurative way. Maura and Steph...they'll be back though, soon enough.
(2007) The people who left college, though then I got too busy to think about them. As usual. Jess and Thom for the first half of the year. Granger after he bailed for California. I miss a lot of people, don't I?
38. Who was the best new person you met?
(2006) Lindsay and Yuli. Edit: Sarah K. Credit where credit is due.
(2007) I don't think I met anyone particularly worth mentioning. That's bad.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
(2006) Love drains you and shouldn't be as freely given as it used to be for me.
(2007) I don't know if I can answer this in a blurb at 4:37AM. I'll try to sum it up later and then maybe come back to edit this entry.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
(2006) This is still hard, and would be better answered by a medley of song lyrics, but it's the last question, so I'll try not to cheat: "We cannot wait for much longer. We want happiness back. We want control of our bodies, everything we've lacked." (The Knife, "From Off to On")
(2007) Don't get any big ideas. They're not gonna happen. (Radiohead - "Nude")
But first, this is what I did on Christmas Day, 2007: woke up slightly before noon; ate while listening to Four Tet's Pause; put cider ingredients in the pot; went to explore, while still listening to Four Tet, the ravine off the west of campus, which holds memories from freshman year, and sophomore summer soccer, and the Trippy Buddha Man last December, who told me, "you don't know how to let it go," as if I needed telling; returned home and collected the finished cider (yum); watched Love Actually, which I had downloaded last night; cooked more mashed sweet potatoes and string beans, and ate; finished writing/recording the song for Maria's Christmas present; and that about brings us up to speed. Oh, and the Nagans called, which was nice of them; it was the first real speaking conversation I'd had since Thursday (ordering beer at the Talking Head didn't count). I am feeling increasingly like the third wheel, though in a tricycle sense. Actually, Jess, if you're reading this, go find Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. It's an interesting take on a similar concept, though filtered through the slightly desperate lens of early Murakami.
About the film: I don't care what anybody says, it's a good film, cynicism be damned. The character interactions are not as simple as the concept of the plot would have you believe. Besides, it's easier for me to wax romantic about the world at large when nobody's around, so I thought I'd seize the opportunity. After all, I'll be seeing people again soon enough, and then I'll be all cranky again, and nobody likes that.
On a related note, I noticed how ambidextrous I can suddenly become in the kitchen. Often I'll be stirring or scooping something in the pan with my right hand, while with my left hand I will grab the knife and chopping board, chuck them in the sink, turn on the faucet to rinse them off, and turn off the faucet. I say this is related to the point about the film because the same people who will likely scoff at my infrequent enjoyment of select rom-coms would probably denounce my adept domesticity (yes, you). To which I respond: my mother always liked to say I tend to become good at anything I do long enough; I'm not so much domestic as just really, really proficient at being a bachelor.
Anyhow. Here are some pictures from the woods.
This is, I believe, the remnant of a rope swing someone tied from a branch a little upstream from the bridge.
This is a cover-less storm drain hatch. While the second picture shows a ladder descending into its not-so-deep depths, I don't think the drain at the bottom is of standing height. Who feels adventurous?
This is where the water goes at the end of the ravine, under the road leading into Hampden. The descent from the top of the ravine to this position was especially treacherous, as the geology that so conveniently shunts rainwater down the hills and into the creek threatened to send me careening over the ridge as well (a substantial fall at certain points), especially given all the slick fallen leaves. I had to do a lot of grasping for roots and kicking in footholds in the mud; I wished I'd have worn my boots. Once I got there, though, the stone steps seen in the first photo made a nice vantage point for taking the second.
Possible scene from a postapocalyptic film, part 1.
Possible scene from a postapocalyptic film, part 2.
But sometimes one must look at the small things...
Finally, the arboreal gate to the south end of the trail.
--
And now...the annual tradition. This is a fairly comprehensive survey I have done each year since...I can't even recall. 2004 at the latest, possibly 2003. Last year I started the sub-tradition of comparing the previous year's results to the current year's (in boldface). Let us begin, shall we?
1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
(2006) Gigged! Crazy, I know, but there were two, not counting open mics (also two). Playing venues is much different from playing half-assed school functions. Tried hookah. I suppose technically I tried weed, once, but it didn't do anything but make me cough for two weeks, so I don't suppose it counts. Moved off of school-owned property. It doesn't seem 2006 was the healthiest year, or the most revolutionary; I'll forgive myself this time.
(2007) Took the GRE; wrote a research paper; applied to graduate school; recorded electronic music. Hey, not too bad! OK, so that was mostly nerdy.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
(2006) Did I learn to deal with other people, and myself? To a large extent, I think I was successful. Only from the second half onward, though. The first half was still a wreck. For 2007, let's try: exercise more! Learn double thumb! Learn how to make music in Live! Learn how to use Pd! Maybe get something published/presented by the end of the year? Apply to grad school! Well, if I don't, I'm forfeit anyway.
(2007) Exercise more: a little. Double thumb: can sort of do it now. Learn Live: check! Learn Pd: to be done (though Audiomulch is similar). Publishing: pending... Apply to grad school: check!
Next year's resolutions: I'll think about this more during the next week. Certainly there ought to be some.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
(2006) Nope!
(2007) My postdoc colleague Mikhail and his wife had another kid...their fourth. Seriously, guys.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
(2006) Someone died at my school again--an art history teacher, meningitis again. I swear, someone dies at Johns Hopkins every year. Closer, my uncle died of liver cancer less than a week ago. See earlier entry.
(2007) No. It's remarkable what an exception it's become to go an entire year without anyone I know dying.
5. What countries did you visit?
(2006) Same. Not much money or time for traveling anymore. I need a new location, soon.
(2007) TW + USA...Europe someday? Please?
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
(2006) I actually got most of the things from last year's list. A bass that's fully functional. An ID that says I'm 21 (I'll have a real one in August). Having someone I could be alone with would be nice, but I'll hang.
(2007) A graduate school acceptance letter, a car, a fretless bass, a Macbook Pro, a Nord Modular synthesizer, and the one thing I wanted this time last year that I didn't get.
7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
(2006) October 17. Debut Trafalgar gig at the 8x10 + the encounter with Sarah; pretty memorable, I think. November 17. Second Trafalgar gig at the Charm City Art Space.
(2007) The fact I don't know how to answer this question probably says most everything. Memorable moments: firing Lisa from the band on Valentine's Day (ouch); second to last gig with Monica at the Ottobar; being fired from the band myself; Pitchfork Music Festival; Radiohead album release; second encounter with Sarah.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
(2006) Gigged! Got into another lab--and managed to stick with it. Fall 2006 saw my highest GPA since I got into college. A fairly pragmatic year, as far as years with me go.
(2007) Independent research, paper, applied to graduate school, and all that. The academicism continues...
9. What was your biggest failure?
(2006) Still not too happy with the pants thing. I must've passed up 4 different lab position offers before I got into Dr. Hristova's lab; bad timing on my part.
(2007) I actually don't know. I feel like everything I did, I tried my best at. Of course, that just makes the lack of results seem all the more fatalistic.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
(2006) Might've had a cold back in the beginning of the year. But I got by relatively unscathed.
(2007) Wrecked my right ankle at the Deacon/Girl Talk show in September. It still feels iffy if I bend it too much.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
(2006) The Avatar 410. The Gallien-Krueger 800RB. They'll stick around for a long time. My iRiver. My Thinkpad...it was a good year for consumerism. I'm sorry to say.
(2007) Pitchfork Fest tickets; my mixer; Audiomulch license. As usual, I only spent money on music gear. Except my green faux-military jacket, that was pretty cool too.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
(2006) Lindsay was there for me quite a few times when I had meltdowns. Thank you. Yuli , many times, kept me awake and talking way too long after I was supposed to have slept and stopped knowing what I was talking about. Sterling still helped me and the band out way more than we deserved.
(2007) Jess and Thom's. Thanks for helping me out on many occasions.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
(2006) I was somewhat distressed when P. started leaving me out of her life, but I deserved it. That aside, we all know which people messed with my head at the most inconvenient times. So let's not name them. They might be listening in. As a final addendum, few things are more traumatizing than finding porn on your little brother's (14) computer.
(2007) Sarah definitely made me depressed for much of fall semester, though I don't suppose I could ever fault her for anything. I was somewhat bitter when I began to realize John's support of my music-making only went as far as I fit into his established plans, and when I deviated from that, he stopped talking to me about music. In addition, while I regard him as a generally good guy, I cannot see him as such with respect to certain more recent events.
14. Where did most of your money go?
(2006) Bass Rig MK II. (GK800RB + Avatar 410NEO) Hey, it works now!
(2007) Making the Chicago trip during the summer.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
(2006) For the third time--gigging. Not as many awesome shows, but I was psyched for Mission of Burma and Radiohead. Really psyched.
(2007) Pitchfork Festival and the new Radiohead album.
16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
(2006) These lists just keep getting better and better. Peter, Bjorn & John, "Young Folks" (and the rest of Writer's Block, really); Squarepusher, "Iambic 5 Poetry"; Aphex Twin, "Girlboy Song"; Venetian Snares, "Hajnal"; "Mission of Burma, "Careening with Conviction" (and the rest of The Obliterati); Slowdive, "Alison"; Bloc Party, "Two More Years"; Autolux, "Turnstile Blues"; The Hold Steady, (choose one) "Cattle and the Creeping Things" "Chillout Tent"; TV on the Radio, "Wolf Like Me"; The Knife, "Forest Families"; Jose Gonzales, "Heartbeats" (Knife cover); Mew, (choose one) "Apocalypso" "She Came Home for Christmas"; Joy Division, "New Dawn Fades"; Forget Cassettes, "Quiero, Quieres"; Mogwai, "Travel is Dangerous"
(2007) Stars of Track and Field - "Centuries"; Four Tet - "She Moves She," "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth"; Dinosaur Jr - "We're Not Alone"; Thrushes - "Heartbeats"; Monarch - "Family Glue"; The Twilight Sad - "Cold Days From the Birdhouse," "And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth"; Electrelane - "To the East"; Radiohead - "All I Need," "Nude"; Jesu - "Star"; Burial - "Near Dark"; Fennesz - "Endless Summer"; Brief Candles - "So Long"; The Smiths - "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"; Boris - "A Bao A Qu"; Guitar - "House Full of Time"; Slowdive - "Sleep"; I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - "Lights"; Bloc Party - "Secrets"; Mojave 3 - "Love Songs On the Radio," "Tomorrow's Taken"; Airiel - "Firefly"; Beach House - "Childhood"; The Field - "Over the Ice"
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
(2006) First of all, a revision to last year's response: the Sophomore Slump of 2004-05 was definitively one of the most miserable periods of my life. December 2004 couldn't even compare. That said, I'm fairly confident right now that, whatever the specifics, I'm in a better place than I was in a year ago.
(2007) On and up. I'm alright.
ii. thinner or fatter?
(2006) I weigh the exact same as I did last year.
(2007) Not much has changed.
iii. richer or poorer?
(2006) Richer. I saved up a bit.
(2007) I don't know.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
(2006) Exercise. Gig (can't get enough of that). Study and study. Write entries (serious dereliction of duty after the fall semester started). Lab work.
(2007) Connecting with people.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
(2006) Drink, sulk, sit and do nothing.
(2007) Be emotionally quarantined.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
(2006) Ditto. Got a couple nice jackets.
(2007) Alone, in the woods, with self-made treats, and recording music. See above.
22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
(2006) No. I'm simply no longer able to just fall in love with people I don't know will love me back. I wanted to, though, and almost did, once.
(2007) Yeah. Jess was right: the best part was the hope. It was all downhill from there.
23. How many one-night stands?
(2006) Katelyn doesn't count. We didn't do anything.
(2007) Zero.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
(2006) CNN News during the one week that I didn't have a computer. Then it was back to Google News for me.
(2007) I still dislike TV.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
(2006) Amazingly, I can deal with both of them now, and even share an apartment with the latter. I still don't hate anyone, because I don't think it's worth my time, but there's a certain person I wouldn't mind never associating with again. Again, they might be listening in.
(2007) No. Hatred is a waste of time.
26. What was the best book you read?
(2006) Kazuo Ichiguro, Never Let Me Go. Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions (I liked it because it confused me). Haruki Murakami, Kafka On the Shore. Theodor Adorno/Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment.
(2007) Kay Ryan - Say Uncle; Ron Currie Jr., God is Dead; J. G. Ballard, Super-Cannes
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
(2006) Mew, The Knife, Peter Bjorn & John, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Board of Canada, and the other IDM stuff I listen to, The Hold Steady, William Basinski, Fennesz, Slowdive, Pinback, Boris, Gyorgy Ligeti, Bela Bartok, various dub and D'n'B stuff (as genres, not artist-specific yet).
(2007) I've fallen off the bandwagon. Since Tim Hecker wasn't on last year's list, I'll put him here. Also: Four Tet, Electrelane, The Twilight Sad, Stars of Track and Field, Thrushes, Monarch (now Wye Oak), Apparat, The Field, Marissa Nadler
28. What did you want and get?
(2006) Working bass rig! A paying job(s). MP3 player. Laptop. A new lab position. Uni West apartment (ideal residence since freshman year). A halfway decent GPA (3.48--best GPA and first A- in a science course since freshman spring). Year of
down-to-earth achievements?
(2007) All the music gear that I planned on getting. I didn't plan on getting a 4.0 last spring, but I did anyway.
29. What did you want and not get?
(2006) Laid, but there's only so much you can do. New bass on which everything doesn't break on me.
(2007) Sarah? Or do people not count?
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
(2006) The Science of Sleep, hands down. Babel a close second. A History of Violence a close second if you count DVDs. Sorry Snakes On a Plane, none for you.
(2007) Didn't watch any particularly memorable films this year. Is that bad?
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
(2006) 20. Got kicked out for underage drinking of the Ted Leo show at the Ottobar that ended up being the awesome power-out fiesta that got coverage on Pitchforkmedia!
Fucking go me.
(2007) Went to dinner with Jess and Granger, and then One World for drinks with them two and some others.
32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
(2006) Going steady. Everything else has been pretty hard to complain about.
(2007) I don't know why I bother to answer this question anymore.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
(2006) Pretty much the exact same thing, plus a pair of Doc Martens from time to time. Better jeans though.
(2007) Warm: t-shirt, black or blue jeans, black Converse. Cool: t-shirt and black hoodie or army green jacket, jeans, Converse or New Balance. Cold: collared shirt under black cashmere sweater, long black coat with black scarf, jeans (notice a trend?), New Balance or Doc Martens. Somewhat long hair, but on average shorter than last year's.
34. What kept you sane?
(2006) Self-restraint of perverse magnitude. Except, you know, those days when I wasn't quite so sane.
(2007) Solitude.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
(2006) Beth Cameron, singer-guitarist of Forget Cassettes. And how.
(2007) Why don't we just change this question to "beautiful girls I wish I knew in bands that make beautiful music" and be done with it?
This is Ros Murray, from Electrelane:
Really, I would date anyone if it meant I got to play with a Rickenbacker bass regularly. But especially if she is thin, brunette, with a slight girl-next-door aura (remind you of anyone?). Ros Murray also makes acoustic music as Ray Rumours. I recommend "Max Dugan Returns."
Alexandra Maria Lara gets honorable mention too. Although I think that's mostly because she played Ian Curtis' girlfriend in a film.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
(2006) The war between Israel and Palestine. Also, I believe my general outrage against capitalist domination has reached a new peak after my Marx, Freud and Modern Critical Theory class.
(2007) I really don't know. I've let myself slip...have to start being aware again. OK, resolution #1.
37. Who did you miss?
(2006) I missed myself as I used to be (more naive). Patrice, in a figurative way. Maura and Steph...they'll be back though, soon enough.
(2007) The people who left college, though then I got too busy to think about them. As usual. Jess and Thom for the first half of the year. Granger after he bailed for California. I miss a lot of people, don't I?
38. Who was the best new person you met?
(2006) Lindsay and Yuli. Edit: Sarah K. Credit where credit is due.
(2007) I don't think I met anyone particularly worth mentioning. That's bad.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
(2006) Love drains you and shouldn't be as freely given as it used to be for me.
(2007) I don't know if I can answer this in a blurb at 4:37AM. I'll try to sum it up later and then maybe come back to edit this entry.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
(2006) This is still hard, and would be better answered by a medley of song lyrics, but it's the last question, so I'll try not to cheat: "We cannot wait for much longer. We want happiness back. We want control of our bodies, everything we've lacked." (The Knife, "From Off to On")
(2007) Don't get any big ideas. They're not gonna happen. (Radiohead - "Nude")
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Holidays Are the Hardest Hours of the Year
This line from a Marissa Nadler song, "Diamond Heart," might be the lyric of the season. Though I'm really not as sad as that probably makes me seem. Being alone actually got quite pleasant after a couple of days, as I put more work into the handful of songs I'm working on right now. Today, I didn't speak to anyone in person. I ventured out to Giant for butter to make mashed sweet potatoes tonight, but even then I used the automatic checkout, as I usually do. I think if I forget the idea that going through a whole day without speaking to anyone in person is somehow "wrong," things are actually alright. Speaking of the mashed sweet potatoes, they were delicious. I could barely believe it, seeing as I didn't really know what I was doing.
Sweat and beer last night led to strange dreams. I shouldn't invent people in my head, especially when they are hopelessly inaccurate versions of people I know in reality.
A year ago today, an ocean away, my uncle died. I still remember scenes from that day: his crying family, his shellshocked-looking brothers, sitting in the hospital hallway, blood spilled across the pale, sterile sheets. I remember not crying; I remember becoming exhausted from both the drama and the jetlag and falling asleep while sitting outside the hospital room. I remember the disconnection: how the fluorescent lighting did not dim or flicker, how the doctors' trained cool never wavered, how none of the sharp edges and corners of the hospital walls twisted with the agony in the faces of the mourning family.
It was that way when dad died too: it was a sunny, early morning, the scene completely detached from the catastrophe unfolding in it. The objects of the world utterly unsympathetic to the people living, dying in it. And I felt the disconnection of facing something that was too immense for a person to understand; I couldn't speak, I couldn't cry, because what was pounding at my mind was far more than could be channeled through a mortal soul and body. It was only when I returned home and realized suddenly that dad would never be there again, never come home from work, never watch TV on the couch, never sit with us at dinner, that I was able to cry or express--feel--any sort of emotion. But by then it was selfish: it was the void in my life I cried for, the vacuum left when a piece of the present became sealed irretrievably in the past, when the piece was only a hint of all that was lost. And that infinitesimal fragment was all my mind could hope to process.
Come to think of it, I've had that feeling twice in my life, the feeling of coming home to the emptiness of someone who will never be there again. At least the second time I was drunk.
Hm. Too much sad. I suppose the point of it all is, there's no real hard-and-fast rule about Christmastime. Oftentimes you spend it with your family. But sometimes you find yourself alone in a city on a different continent. And sometimes your uncle dies. We make up all these rules about meanings certain days have, but it doesn't take much for them to be nullified.
Last night I went to the Talking Head for the Spank Rock Christmas-Eve Eve party. The Death Set played too. I was one of only three people riding the last shuttle bus down to Mt. Vernon--the last bus before Christmas Eve. It was more of an excuse than anything; it's easier to stop being so painfully aware of myself when I'm lost in a packed crowd trying to knock me over.
First, though, you've got to cross the line beyond which it's no longer possible to stand alone and awkward in a corner. Fortunately, the place was packed with hipsters, as usual, many of them wearing big round plastic glasses in tribute to the main act. I watched them drop and frantically search the floor for their glasses all night (fortuitously, I'd decided to wear contacts). I was a little surprised there were so many people there; living in Charles Village with all the students, you'd think this entire city was just abandoned during the holidays, or any other occasion when people went home to their families. Sometimes I forget people--kids even--live here.
Anyway, it was loud, and dirty, and foul-smelling, and a glorious time. A guy who looked like a younger, more heavyset version of James Murphy tried to pick a fight, and a tall guy in glasses shoved him toward the back of the room. I didn't see him again. Started out with solid DJ sets and when The Death Set hit people flipped out. Dancing, as it were, was more or less impossible toward the front of the room; up there, where I was for most of the night, movement was more or less massive and tidal. You couldn't get away from warm and sweaty (well, you could--but what would be the point?). Crowd surfers dropped overhead without warning. I held a few people up from slipping and fell to the floor once myself, but I landed on top of four other people, so it was okay. A gaunt, pale guy in a black jacket asked me as we were waiting in the restroom line, "you know where the drugs are at?" I don't know what it is about me that prompts everyone from small MICA girls to strung out tall dudes with dark hair to ask me for drugs in restroom lines. I went back into the crowd and prevented a short girl from falling, and ended up dancing pretty closely with her near the stage for a while. (I put my face against her shoulder; I hoped she didn't mind.) The MC from Ninja Sonic, who was standing next to us, grinned at me and gave me a high five; I guess he didn't realize I didn't actually know who she was and would never see her again. Nonetheless, some superficial closeness is better than nothing. Around 2AM I walked out after recovering my hoodie and jacket--which had been stashed early on and miraculously survived the multitude unscathed--somehow slightly more peaceful than I was going in.
Look! I got the brandy/eggnog ratio right this time!
Sweat and beer last night led to strange dreams. I shouldn't invent people in my head, especially when they are hopelessly inaccurate versions of people I know in reality.
A year ago today, an ocean away, my uncle died. I still remember scenes from that day: his crying family, his shellshocked-looking brothers, sitting in the hospital hallway, blood spilled across the pale, sterile sheets. I remember not crying; I remember becoming exhausted from both the drama and the jetlag and falling asleep while sitting outside the hospital room. I remember the disconnection: how the fluorescent lighting did not dim or flicker, how the doctors' trained cool never wavered, how none of the sharp edges and corners of the hospital walls twisted with the agony in the faces of the mourning family.
It was that way when dad died too: it was a sunny, early morning, the scene completely detached from the catastrophe unfolding in it. The objects of the world utterly unsympathetic to the people living, dying in it. And I felt the disconnection of facing something that was too immense for a person to understand; I couldn't speak, I couldn't cry, because what was pounding at my mind was far more than could be channeled through a mortal soul and body. It was only when I returned home and realized suddenly that dad would never be there again, never come home from work, never watch TV on the couch, never sit with us at dinner, that I was able to cry or express--feel--any sort of emotion. But by then it was selfish: it was the void in my life I cried for, the vacuum left when a piece of the present became sealed irretrievably in the past, when the piece was only a hint of all that was lost. And that infinitesimal fragment was all my mind could hope to process.
Come to think of it, I've had that feeling twice in my life, the feeling of coming home to the emptiness of someone who will never be there again. At least the second time I was drunk.
Hm. Too much sad. I suppose the point of it all is, there's no real hard-and-fast rule about Christmastime. Oftentimes you spend it with your family. But sometimes you find yourself alone in a city on a different continent. And sometimes your uncle dies. We make up all these rules about meanings certain days have, but it doesn't take much for them to be nullified.
Last night I went to the Talking Head for the Spank Rock Christmas-Eve Eve party. The Death Set played too. I was one of only three people riding the last shuttle bus down to Mt. Vernon--the last bus before Christmas Eve. It was more of an excuse than anything; it's easier to stop being so painfully aware of myself when I'm lost in a packed crowd trying to knock me over.
First, though, you've got to cross the line beyond which it's no longer possible to stand alone and awkward in a corner. Fortunately, the place was packed with hipsters, as usual, many of them wearing big round plastic glasses in tribute to the main act. I watched them drop and frantically search the floor for their glasses all night (fortuitously, I'd decided to wear contacts). I was a little surprised there were so many people there; living in Charles Village with all the students, you'd think this entire city was just abandoned during the holidays, or any other occasion when people went home to their families. Sometimes I forget people--kids even--live here.
Anyway, it was loud, and dirty, and foul-smelling, and a glorious time. A guy who looked like a younger, more heavyset version of James Murphy tried to pick a fight, and a tall guy in glasses shoved him toward the back of the room. I didn't see him again. Started out with solid DJ sets and when The Death Set hit people flipped out. Dancing, as it were, was more or less impossible toward the front of the room; up there, where I was for most of the night, movement was more or less massive and tidal. You couldn't get away from warm and sweaty (well, you could--but what would be the point?). Crowd surfers dropped overhead without warning. I held a few people up from slipping and fell to the floor once myself, but I landed on top of four other people, so it was okay. A gaunt, pale guy in a black jacket asked me as we were waiting in the restroom line, "you know where the drugs are at?" I don't know what it is about me that prompts everyone from small MICA girls to strung out tall dudes with dark hair to ask me for drugs in restroom lines. I went back into the crowd and prevented a short girl from falling, and ended up dancing pretty closely with her near the stage for a while. (I put my face against her shoulder; I hoped she didn't mind.) The MC from Ninja Sonic, who was standing next to us, grinned at me and gave me a high five; I guess he didn't realize I didn't actually know who she was and would never see her again. Nonetheless, some superficial closeness is better than nothing. Around 2AM I walked out after recovering my hoodie and jacket--which had been stashed early on and miraculously survived the multitude unscathed--somehow slightly more peaceful than I was going in.
Look! I got the brandy/eggnog ratio right this time!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Day x of n
Notes to self:
1. less brandy in the eggnog
2. the brandy is European, hence "40" is "%," not "proof"
3. 1% = 2 proof
You'd think someone who converts between standard and metric on a daily basis with minimal conscious effort would realize something like that. But you'd be wrong. Again. I don't even know what I'm going to do with the rest of this brandy after I finish the eggnog. Although I suppose now if anyone ever sees fit to faint in my apartment, I'll have something for them.
Today was a music day (in addition to a shopping day: aside from the aforementioned eggnog and brandy, I also bought various foodstuffs, and presents (!) for people from Hampden--that new antiques store that opened up next to Avenue Antiques is where it's at--I mean, I've never seen, say, vibrators from the 1940s on display anywhere else): I recorded a very abrasive beginning-of-a-song right after I got back from farmer's market; there's a beat, but it's decimated, and there's this funk kind of guitar riff, but it sounds like it's been through an abattoir. Earlier this evening, Monica, the last singer in my old band (saw a musicians ad she posted today on Craigslist--"No Republicans or generally right wing people"--I remember thinking back in the day if Trafalgar went to hell, as it did, I would rather just start a band with her; I wonder if I should email her and say that), sent me a scratch track--just guitar and vocals--of a song, called "White Space." A few hours later I had basic instrumentation worked out for the first two verses. It was just beats, bass, and severely processed guitar (what passes for a synthesizer pad in my world). It sounds like Peter Hook and Stephen Morris barged in on a DJ set by The Field and started covering "Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead. I don't know. Facetious analogies are about all I can manage now.
I read blogs. They describe families. Mine does no such thing. I wish I had stories of funny things my parents say when we're out shoveling the snow from our driveway, but the truth is, even if I were home right now, there wouldn't be any snow, nor indeed do we have a driveway. My room doesn't really exist anymore, nor has it since freshman year of college or so; all my stuff got moved out to the study, which got combined with dad's old room into one big study, and my brother moved into my room. Every time I go home, my brother has to share a bed with my mother, and I sleep in my old bed. He's 15; this can't go on forever.
When I think about it, it seems I come from a markedly ascetic background; very little sentimentality involved in my childhood (what there was of it), except for that which I invented and kept to myself, and I turned around and annihilated even most of that through the years. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm here now. Even if "here" isn't always warm and comforting.
1. less brandy in the eggnog
2. the brandy is European, hence "40" is "%," not "proof"
3. 1% = 2 proof
You'd think someone who converts between standard and metric on a daily basis with minimal conscious effort would realize something like that. But you'd be wrong. Again. I don't even know what I'm going to do with the rest of this brandy after I finish the eggnog. Although I suppose now if anyone ever sees fit to faint in my apartment, I'll have something for them.
Today was a music day (in addition to a shopping day: aside from the aforementioned eggnog and brandy, I also bought various foodstuffs, and presents (!) for people from Hampden--that new antiques store that opened up next to Avenue Antiques is where it's at--I mean, I've never seen, say, vibrators from the 1940s on display anywhere else): I recorded a very abrasive beginning-of-a-song right after I got back from farmer's market; there's a beat, but it's decimated, and there's this funk kind of guitar riff, but it sounds like it's been through an abattoir. Earlier this evening, Monica, the last singer in my old band (saw a musicians ad she posted today on Craigslist--"No Republicans or generally right wing people"--I remember thinking back in the day if Trafalgar went to hell, as it did, I would rather just start a band with her; I wonder if I should email her and say that), sent me a scratch track--just guitar and vocals--of a song, called "White Space." A few hours later I had basic instrumentation worked out for the first two verses. It was just beats, bass, and severely processed guitar (what passes for a synthesizer pad in my world). It sounds like Peter Hook and Stephen Morris barged in on a DJ set by The Field and started covering "Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead. I don't know. Facetious analogies are about all I can manage now.
I read blogs. They describe families. Mine does no such thing. I wish I had stories of funny things my parents say when we're out shoveling the snow from our driveway, but the truth is, even if I were home right now, there wouldn't be any snow, nor indeed do we have a driveway. My room doesn't really exist anymore, nor has it since freshman year of college or so; all my stuff got moved out to the study, which got combined with dad's old room into one big study, and my brother moved into my room. Every time I go home, my brother has to share a bed with my mother, and I sleep in my old bed. He's 15; this can't go on forever.
When I think about it, it seems I come from a markedly ascetic background; very little sentimentality involved in my childhood (what there was of it), except for that which I invented and kept to myself, and I turned around and annihilated even most of that through the years. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm here now. Even if "here" isn't always warm and comforting.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Think of Licorices
Timing, asshole, timing. Though it's really not my fault; who calls at quarter to 1AM on a weeknight? That's pretty much just asking for awkwardness. The little things that just can't be blamed on anyone really frustrate me after awhile. They just reinforce the impression of living in the margins. I'm all longhand and prepositions dropped in a world of boldface type, stripped down, scrawled skewed and sideways to make the words fit. Character in search of a script. Script in search of a stage. Seeds of a plot that were never given a place to be sewn.
"When I tried to tell my story, they cut me off to take a break. I sat silent five commercials; I had nothing left to say."
Next time, leave me to my bed. Please.
Anyway. I went up to Hampden today to trawl the antiques stores for anything of worth and/or interest. Part of the initiative. I ended up grabbing a few books from the used bookstore: a book on Chinese poetry (for Williamson), Jessica's book about eternal recurrence, and an Atwood poetry collection. I've never really checked out the poetry sections in bookstores before. I found it to be not so dissimilar to browsing through used CDs: you scan until something catches your eye, pluck it from the stack, flip through a few poems and read them to yourself (analogous to playing a CD and skipping to a random track in the record shop), and see how you like them. It was an interesting experience; I wish I'd had more time and wasn't so desperate to come home for dinner.
I finalized my Best of 2007 mix playlist. By no means did I listen to every new album that came out this year; in fact, for a while I actively refused to find out about new music, because I genuinely resented the trend-chasing, mp3 blog-hounding tendencies of some people I know. I gradually came around to some new music towards the end of this year, but still, there's no Animal Collective, or Panda Bear, or Dan Deacon, or LCD Soundsystem, or whatever, on this list. I'm not trying to define what was good or cool this year; this is simply a summation of what I felt like listening to this year. And that means a lot of guitar feedback, digital ambience, beats, female vocals, white noise, and glitch. Which is the way it should be.
[Track number/Band/Song title/Album title]
1. A Place to Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover (s/t)
2. The Depreciation Guild - Sky Ghosts (In Her Gentle Jaws)
3. Jesu - Transfigure (Conqueror)
4. The Twilight Sad - Cold Days from the Birdhouse (Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters)
5. Dinosaur Jr - Crumble (Beyond)
6. Wye Oak [formerly Monarch] - Warning (If Children)
7. Thrushes - Into the Woods (Sun Come Undone)
8. Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer (Songs III: Bird on the Water)
9. Radiohead - All I Need (In Rainbows)
10. To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie - The Man With the Shovel, is the Man I'm Going to Marry (The Patron)
11. Burial - Near Dark (Untrue)
12. Sally Shapiro - Find My Soul (Disco Romance)
13. Electrelane - To the East (No Shouts, No Calls)
14. Apparat - You Don't Know Me (Walls)
15. The Field - Everyday (From Here We Go Sublime)
"When I tried to tell my story, they cut me off to take a break. I sat silent five commercials; I had nothing left to say."
Next time, leave me to my bed. Please.
Anyway. I went up to Hampden today to trawl the antiques stores for anything of worth and/or interest. Part of the initiative. I ended up grabbing a few books from the used bookstore: a book on Chinese poetry (for Williamson), Jessica's book about eternal recurrence, and an Atwood poetry collection. I've never really checked out the poetry sections in bookstores before. I found it to be not so dissimilar to browsing through used CDs: you scan until something catches your eye, pluck it from the stack, flip through a few poems and read them to yourself (analogous to playing a CD and skipping to a random track in the record shop), and see how you like them. It was an interesting experience; I wish I'd had more time and wasn't so desperate to come home for dinner.
I finalized my Best of 2007 mix playlist. By no means did I listen to every new album that came out this year; in fact, for a while I actively refused to find out about new music, because I genuinely resented the trend-chasing, mp3 blog-hounding tendencies of some people I know. I gradually came around to some new music towards the end of this year, but still, there's no Animal Collective, or Panda Bear, or Dan Deacon, or LCD Soundsystem, or whatever, on this list. I'm not trying to define what was good or cool this year; this is simply a summation of what I felt like listening to this year. And that means a lot of guitar feedback, digital ambience, beats, female vocals, white noise, and glitch. Which is the way it should be.
[Track number/Band/Song title/Album title]
1. A Place to Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover (s/t)
2. The Depreciation Guild - Sky Ghosts (In Her Gentle Jaws)
3. Jesu - Transfigure (Conqueror)
4. The Twilight Sad - Cold Days from the Birdhouse (Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters)
5. Dinosaur Jr - Crumble (Beyond)
6. Wye Oak [formerly Monarch] - Warning (If Children)
7. Thrushes - Into the Woods (Sun Come Undone)
8. Marissa Nadler - Mexican Summer (Songs III: Bird on the Water)
9. Radiohead - All I Need (In Rainbows)
10. To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie - The Man With the Shovel, is the Man I'm Going to Marry (The Patron)
11. Burial - Near Dark (Untrue)
12. Sally Shapiro - Find My Soul (Disco Romance)
13. Electrelane - To the East (No Shouts, No Calls)
14. Apparat - You Don't Know Me (Walls)
15. The Field - Everyday (From Here We Go Sublime)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Tour de Force
The normally overzealous radiators have gone on strike. I've put on some Godspeed to mark the occasion. A fine soundtrack for a slow, glacial death, doubtlessly. But what am I saying; maybe it's just the end-of-year apocalypticism again. Yes, I just coined the term "apocalyticism."
Jess wrote an entry on the human need for "end" rituals. Ending is certainly something I know very well and appreciate. The apocalypse used to be romantic for me--"I said, 'kiss me, you're beautiful; these are truly the last days'" from the beginning of the first Godspeed album remains one of my favorite lyrics of all time--though somewhere along the line the concept of an idealized end to all things wore thin. Perhaps nostalgia for an end that has not, and possibly will never come to pass is inevitable for anyone who does not perceive time as an infinite linear progression.
I think at Lawrenceville, end of semesters used to be ceremonialized (apparently I just made up that word, too) a lot more, with diner runs and coffee and cigarettes...actually I can't remember how most winter terms ended, but spring terms invariably concluded with an orgy of packing and box-moving as the dorms closed. Now we don't even have that. I just quietly return to my apartment each evening as people slip out of town, equally quietly.
I've got so many thoughts I don't know where best to start. Maybe with the confession that, right now, I feel mostly ghostly. I spend most of my time thinking about things that have happened already and very little of it thinking about things that have yet to happen. Like looking back on a life that's already past--and soon it shall be, so is it really that different? It feels almost like I'm gone already, this story is over already; there's nothing left to do and nowhere left to go. Main cast's played out their parts.
This much, at least, is not a retread of senior year at Lawrenceville. Four years ago I commenced a mad rush for new friends, new experiences, new loves in a last attempt to end high school on some kind of crescendo. That kind of crashed and burned, but this opposite extreme isn't very desirable either. Balance, it's always been about balance with me: that one elusive element. I should try to summon some of that spirit again, but I've just felt so tired this week, not just from the day but from the days.
On a related note, I talked to Andrew last night, about girls as usual--he always brings it up, not I--and he said that I shouldn't be cutting myself off from humanity if that's not what I actually want to do. For my part, I actually don't really care if the last unrequited love I had drags on and lasts me the rest of college. But that kind of thinking scares me. I've got to start thinking of my life as an ongoing process again instead of waiting dumbly for the next jarring jump-cut. Maybe going to Cleveland next Thursday will help. "Maybe partying will help." Lord, that's pathetic.
I don't really want this. I don't really want to drink alone and listen to nothing but Godspeed tonight, but I do. That's not what I need. I need silence. I need sleep for days. I'm so tired.
It used to be I faced these "end days" with a leave-them-all-behind attitude: that was how I ended junior and senior year at Lawrenceville, and to some extent sophomore year at JHU. The Baldwins decided they didn't want to keep me in Hamill as a prefect after junior year, so I decided to abandon it, and never concern myself with its rises and falls again. And we set bonfires all throughout that last year of high school, in rural Virginia and Pennsylvania. We burned branches and beer cans and by the end I was burning regrets, I was burning missed opportunities, I was burning failures, I was burning loose ends and open wounds, I set myself on fire because I no longer liked who I was stuck being. After sophomore year of college I moved to the north Village and resolved to never let the noise of the past year's mistakes (there were many) drone around me again. At each stage of my life I've renounced the immediately preceding stages; threw out everything I didn't like, said it wasn't me, and began all over again.
But, standing in the epilogue of 2007, I find myself without that old rush, without that old resolve. Maybe I've just lost faith in the tearing up and restarting, after attempting it so many times and not having gotten nearly as far as I'd wanted. And it seems my mistakes are finally starting to stick, both what I am and what I've done. I can't substantiate this, but I have a feeling whatever goes unresolved by the end of next May will go unresolved. There are certain things I've left hanging that I want to try and conclude before this whole college thing is over...but I've learned a thing or two recently that suggest this may be even more complicated and difficult than I'd originally anticipated, and even leads me to question whether it's a good idea at all, that is, whether it will actually do anyone any good. One person's closure salts the wounds of another. And who am I to claim priority? I think it's a true sign of my growing older when I can't just burn my bridges anymore, when I'm forced to carry their burden and somehow find a way to keep moving. It's not something I can answer right now; I'll have to think on this too, and hopefully make some kind of decision within the next few weeks.
Growing older is a funny concept when you can't remember ever being young.
New idea: forget me. If I don't matter, I had better start acting like it. Stop using walks to and from campus as headphones reflection sessions. Start buying presents for people on sight. Stop self-referentialism (yep, just made that word up too). Start associating weather movements and sunlight incident angles and songs with others instead of nostalgic moments in my own past. Kindness is something I've always expected from myself, perhaps more than anything else, and if ego's such a tumor in my head, probably not the worst idea to throw it to the dogs. If all the projected loneliness and emptiness of the next six months do not matter, probably best to ignore it completely. Of course, were I to follow through with all this, the first thing to do would be to destroy this blog, but one needs a record. Or one makes the same mistakes. Not to say I don't do so anyway.
Jess wrote an entry on the human need for "end" rituals. Ending is certainly something I know very well and appreciate. The apocalypse used to be romantic for me--"I said, 'kiss me, you're beautiful; these are truly the last days'" from the beginning of the first Godspeed album remains one of my favorite lyrics of all time--though somewhere along the line the concept of an idealized end to all things wore thin. Perhaps nostalgia for an end that has not, and possibly will never come to pass is inevitable for anyone who does not perceive time as an infinite linear progression.
I think at Lawrenceville, end of semesters used to be ceremonialized (apparently I just made up that word, too) a lot more, with diner runs and coffee and cigarettes...actually I can't remember how most winter terms ended, but spring terms invariably concluded with an orgy of packing and box-moving as the dorms closed. Now we don't even have that. I just quietly return to my apartment each evening as people slip out of town, equally quietly.
I've got so many thoughts I don't know where best to start. Maybe with the confession that, right now, I feel mostly ghostly. I spend most of my time thinking about things that have happened already and very little of it thinking about things that have yet to happen. Like looking back on a life that's already past--and soon it shall be, so is it really that different? It feels almost like I'm gone already, this story is over already; there's nothing left to do and nowhere left to go. Main cast's played out their parts.
This much, at least, is not a retread of senior year at Lawrenceville. Four years ago I commenced a mad rush for new friends, new experiences, new loves in a last attempt to end high school on some kind of crescendo. That kind of crashed and burned, but this opposite extreme isn't very desirable either. Balance, it's always been about balance with me: that one elusive element. I should try to summon some of that spirit again, but I've just felt so tired this week, not just from the day but from the days.
On a related note, I talked to Andrew last night, about girls as usual--he always brings it up, not I--and he said that I shouldn't be cutting myself off from humanity if that's not what I actually want to do. For my part, I actually don't really care if the last unrequited love I had drags on and lasts me the rest of college. But that kind of thinking scares me. I've got to start thinking of my life as an ongoing process again instead of waiting dumbly for the next jarring jump-cut. Maybe going to Cleveland next Thursday will help. "Maybe partying will help." Lord, that's pathetic.
I don't really want this. I don't really want to drink alone and listen to nothing but Godspeed tonight, but I do. That's not what I need. I need silence. I need sleep for days. I'm so tired.
It used to be I faced these "end days" with a leave-them-all-behind attitude: that was how I ended junior and senior year at Lawrenceville, and to some extent sophomore year at JHU. The Baldwins decided they didn't want to keep me in Hamill as a prefect after junior year, so I decided to abandon it, and never concern myself with its rises and falls again. And we set bonfires all throughout that last year of high school, in rural Virginia and Pennsylvania. We burned branches and beer cans and by the end I was burning regrets, I was burning missed opportunities, I was burning failures, I was burning loose ends and open wounds, I set myself on fire because I no longer liked who I was stuck being. After sophomore year of college I moved to the north Village and resolved to never let the noise of the past year's mistakes (there were many) drone around me again. At each stage of my life I've renounced the immediately preceding stages; threw out everything I didn't like, said it wasn't me, and began all over again.
But, standing in the epilogue of 2007, I find myself without that old rush, without that old resolve. Maybe I've just lost faith in the tearing up and restarting, after attempting it so many times and not having gotten nearly as far as I'd wanted. And it seems my mistakes are finally starting to stick, both what I am and what I've done. I can't substantiate this, but I have a feeling whatever goes unresolved by the end of next May will go unresolved. There are certain things I've left hanging that I want to try and conclude before this whole college thing is over...but I've learned a thing or two recently that suggest this may be even more complicated and difficult than I'd originally anticipated, and even leads me to question whether it's a good idea at all, that is, whether it will actually do anyone any good. One person's closure salts the wounds of another. And who am I to claim priority? I think it's a true sign of my growing older when I can't just burn my bridges anymore, when I'm forced to carry their burden and somehow find a way to keep moving. It's not something I can answer right now; I'll have to think on this too, and hopefully make some kind of decision within the next few weeks.
Growing older is a funny concept when you can't remember ever being young.
New idea: forget me. If I don't matter, I had better start acting like it. Stop using walks to and from campus as headphones reflection sessions. Start buying presents for people on sight. Stop self-referentialism (yep, just made that word up too). Start associating weather movements and sunlight incident angles and songs with others instead of nostalgic moments in my own past. Kindness is something I've always expected from myself, perhaps more than anything else, and if ego's such a tumor in my head, probably not the worst idea to throw it to the dogs. If all the projected loneliness and emptiness of the next six months do not matter, probably best to ignore it completely. Of course, were I to follow through with all this, the first thing to do would be to destroy this blog, but one needs a record. Or one makes the same mistakes. Not to say I don't do so anyway.
It Could Be Home
I am obsessed with the Electrelane song "To the East." There's something about the chorus of, "it could be home, it could be home...come back, oh, to me" that pokes at all my weak spots. Also, it does combine two of my greatest fetishes: ex-Eastern Bloc regions and unrequited love. Dash of nostalgia for good measure too. It's just a beautiful, beautiful song. Some of the band members are quite beautiful too, though they'd probably kick me if I said that to their faces. Why do I never find out about good bands until after they go on "indefinite hiatus"?
I watched Secretary by myself today just before dinner. It was one of the most adorable films I've seen recently. Even more adorable than Chungking Express. The way Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader could drive the plot just by staring at each other was fantastic.
Later tonight I went into Hampden to check out the Christmas decorations on W. 34th St. They always have some insane decorations there this time of year--last year I watched a report on "Christmas Street" on the news in Taiwan!--but I've never been in town to see it. It looks a little like this.
Christmas ornaments made out of Baltimore staples crab, Natty Boh, and Old Bay:
(For the record, I think regional jokes wear out fast, precisely because they are so ubiquitous. Side effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose.)
Towards the end of my walk, I found this smashed pumpkin on a street corner, as a rather pathetic reminder of all the casualties of holidays past.
It was a good walk, out in the cold. Sometimes I just need silence, when none of the usual music will do. It's too bad there were so many people hanging around Christmas Street; I honestly just wanted to stand quietly and stare for a while, but too many people passing by tend to distract me. Quiet is what I am these days. I wandered further down Chestnut as well, away from the brightest-lit blocks. I'm always drawn to the darker areas, the empty spaces between the lights, the things occupying those spaces with their feeble presence. Like this nativity scene in front of a rather lonely-looking church, a few blocks away from Christmas Street:
Across the street from this church was a large, white, mansion-like house with blinds drawn and candles lit in nearly all the windows, and the garden half torn up--or was it half-constructed? It was surrounded by a black metal fence which had been decorated with wreaths of holly at regular intervals. I looked over the fence and saw a bench in the garden, which bore this inscription:
"If tears could build a stairway
And memory a lane,
I'd walk right up to heaven
And bring you home again."
I wondered whom it was for, if anyone at all.
A few days ago I read on the blog of a JHU alumnus/Harvard poet an essay denouncing the inexactness of slang and its plague on society. He made some good points about how nowadays people say a lot of things without really meaning anything, or indeed knowing what it means (I honestly doubt I could find anyone who could tell me the exact meaning of "keeping it real" or "how we do," even if I scoured the entire Western hemisphere). But I tend to think that the language isn't absolute, it's relative to the context of the people speaking it; meanings of words must change with time, and if they evolve in a direction that impedes the expression of exact meaning, there's probably something causing that loss of exactitude, but I don't think the loss is a consequence of the language. I'll have to think more on that.
I've finished with everything. Literally everything: finals and graduate school applications. (There are some loose ends to tie up with UCSF, but that'll sort itself out soon, I hope.) As of 5:30AM last Friday. Since then, I've been feeling inordinately exhausted; just this lethargy that comes from not knowing what to do next, slowly becoming tangled with the frustration that I Must Do Something Soon. I don't know what to do for the holidays. I could go to Maura's, but I think crashing people's families, especially for holidays, too many times in the past six years gave me a complex against doing so. I always feel nervous and intruding, regardless of how welcoming they are. If I just stay home, I'm lonely, but at least I feel like I belong in lonely.
I have a lot of more reflective things to say, especially after the conversation with Jess last night. But I'm too tired to write them now. At least I've dispensed with most of the reportage. So I'll close this out with some photos from the Biophysics holiday party:
We had a Rod Stewart impersonator!
Senior graduate students sing "The Twelve Years of Grad School." Note the background portrait: apparently Jim Morrison is the patron saint of our department.
First-year Molecular and Computational Biophysics Ph. D. students sing The Beatles' "Help!" I thought "A Hard Day's Night" would've been appropriate too.
This is Geoff, who works in my lab. I will be teaching him impedance spectroscopy come January.
Undergrads. Left to right: Molly, Leanne, Laurel. Laurel is a defector to Public Health.
Mike, Molly, and Geoff. Molly claims to like Nirvana, but is always far too well-dressed for me to fully believe that claim.
Geoff and I were going to sing "Come As You Are" after about 15 minutes of debating songs, but then he had to leave.
I watched Secretary by myself today just before dinner. It was one of the most adorable films I've seen recently. Even more adorable than Chungking Express. The way Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader could drive the plot just by staring at each other was fantastic.
Later tonight I went into Hampden to check out the Christmas decorations on W. 34th St. They always have some insane decorations there this time of year--last year I watched a report on "Christmas Street" on the news in Taiwan!--but I've never been in town to see it. It looks a little like this.
Christmas ornaments made out of Baltimore staples crab, Natty Boh, and Old Bay:
(For the record, I think regional jokes wear out fast, precisely because they are so ubiquitous. Side effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose.)
Towards the end of my walk, I found this smashed pumpkin on a street corner, as a rather pathetic reminder of all the casualties of holidays past.
It was a good walk, out in the cold. Sometimes I just need silence, when none of the usual music will do. It's too bad there were so many people hanging around Christmas Street; I honestly just wanted to stand quietly and stare for a while, but too many people passing by tend to distract me. Quiet is what I am these days. I wandered further down Chestnut as well, away from the brightest-lit blocks. I'm always drawn to the darker areas, the empty spaces between the lights, the things occupying those spaces with their feeble presence. Like this nativity scene in front of a rather lonely-looking church, a few blocks away from Christmas Street:
Across the street from this church was a large, white, mansion-like house with blinds drawn and candles lit in nearly all the windows, and the garden half torn up--or was it half-constructed? It was surrounded by a black metal fence which had been decorated with wreaths of holly at regular intervals. I looked over the fence and saw a bench in the garden, which bore this inscription:
"If tears could build a stairway
And memory a lane,
I'd walk right up to heaven
And bring you home again."
I wondered whom it was for, if anyone at all.
A few days ago I read on the blog of a JHU alumnus/Harvard poet an essay denouncing the inexactness of slang and its plague on society. He made some good points about how nowadays people say a lot of things without really meaning anything, or indeed knowing what it means (I honestly doubt I could find anyone who could tell me the exact meaning of "keeping it real" or "how we do," even if I scoured the entire Western hemisphere). But I tend to think that the language isn't absolute, it's relative to the context of the people speaking it; meanings of words must change with time, and if they evolve in a direction that impedes the expression of exact meaning, there's probably something causing that loss of exactitude, but I don't think the loss is a consequence of the language. I'll have to think more on that.
I've finished with everything. Literally everything: finals and graduate school applications. (There are some loose ends to tie up with UCSF, but that'll sort itself out soon, I hope.) As of 5:30AM last Friday. Since then, I've been feeling inordinately exhausted; just this lethargy that comes from not knowing what to do next, slowly becoming tangled with the frustration that I Must Do Something Soon. I don't know what to do for the holidays. I could go to Maura's, but I think crashing people's families, especially for holidays, too many times in the past six years gave me a complex against doing so. I always feel nervous and intruding, regardless of how welcoming they are. If I just stay home, I'm lonely, but at least I feel like I belong in lonely.
I have a lot of more reflective things to say, especially after the conversation with Jess last night. But I'm too tired to write them now. At least I've dispensed with most of the reportage. So I'll close this out with some photos from the Biophysics holiday party:
We had a Rod Stewart impersonator!
Senior graduate students sing "The Twelve Years of Grad School." Note the background portrait: apparently Jim Morrison is the patron saint of our department.
First-year Molecular and Computational Biophysics Ph. D. students sing The Beatles' "Help!" I thought "A Hard Day's Night" would've been appropriate too.
This is Geoff, who works in my lab. I will be teaching him impedance spectroscopy come January.
Undergrads. Left to right: Molly, Leanne, Laurel. Laurel is a defector to Public Health.
Mike, Molly, and Geoff. Molly claims to like Nirvana, but is always far too well-dressed for me to fully believe that claim.
Geoff and I were going to sing "Come As You Are" after about 15 minutes of debating songs, but then he had to leave.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Exit the Recital
I have finished with fall semester. Sent out my Proteins & Nucleic Acids final this afternoon at 4. Five single-spaced pages on RNA structure and nucleic acid-protein interactions. Stayed awake all but three and a half hours last night and today finishing it.
This semester...it was a compromise. I had to split my time between class, applications, and research paper writing. The latter two actually turned out fairly well so far, but the first paid the cost. I just hope I don't get any terribly embarrassing grades. Computational Biology was the greatest hit, I think; all the theory, both of the computation and ensemble dynamics, was fascinating, and Patrick Fleming is one of the nicest professors I've taken a class with, even within the super-nice Biophysics department. One of those guys who's so genuinely kind and idealistic it makes you feel guilty. On the flip side, I am never taking anything with Physiology in its name again.
I'm tired now; I'll write a more comprehensive review of the semester later.
I am becoming far too emotionally attached to this Stars of Track and Field album. In a different life, I probably would've denounced it as sappy indie pop, but in this life I am a sucker. Does it matter? Am I wasting my time? How can I be wasting my time when I don't even have any time left to waste?
This semester...it was a compromise. I had to split my time between class, applications, and research paper writing. The latter two actually turned out fairly well so far, but the first paid the cost. I just hope I don't get any terribly embarrassing grades. Computational Biology was the greatest hit, I think; all the theory, both of the computation and ensemble dynamics, was fascinating, and Patrick Fleming is one of the nicest professors I've taken a class with, even within the super-nice Biophysics department. One of those guys who's so genuinely kind and idealistic it makes you feel guilty. On the flip side, I am never taking anything with Physiology in its name again.
I'm tired now; I'll write a more comprehensive review of the semester later.
I am becoming far too emotionally attached to this Stars of Track and Field album. In a different life, I probably would've denounced it as sappy indie pop, but in this life I am a sucker. Does it matter? Am I wasting my time? How can I be wasting my time when I don't even have any time left to waste?
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Great Thoughts
Great thoughts
do not nourish
small thoughts
as parents do children.
Like the eucalyptus,
they make the soil
beneath them barren.
Standing in a
grove of them
is hideous.
-Kay Ryan
do not nourish
small thoughts
as parents do children.
Like the eucalyptus,
they make the soil
beneath them barren.
Standing in a
grove of them
is hideous.
-Kay Ryan
Bali Morning Station
My cheap RCA stereo's (through which I monitor, mix, and master all my music...bad idea?) speaker wires pick up radio signals at the worst of times. Like when I'm trying to do homework. Only the most boneheaded modern rock stations too; I don't know why they can't go for the classical station or something. The weak buzz makes it that much easier to doze off.
Right now it's picking up the Chili Peppers' "Californication," and it reminds me that I actually did go buy that album junior year, marking more or less the first and last time I cared about the Chili Peppers. I even learned how to play this song on guitar (it's easy). That was an interesting time of life, though. That was before all the cynicism set in.
Pop music is for nostalgia fiends. Or maybe it's the other way around.
Right now it's picking up the Chili Peppers' "Californication," and it reminds me that I actually did go buy that album junior year, marking more or less the first and last time I cared about the Chili Peppers. I even learned how to play this song on guitar (it's easy). That was an interesting time of life, though. That was before all the cynicism set in.
Pop music is for nostalgia fiends. Or maybe it's the other way around.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
La La La, La La La La La
Certain people, when they are playing songs on the school radio...and know very well that I am the only listener...should arguably know not to play certain songs...such as The Flaming Lips' cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head."
Yeah, the one that goes "I just can't get you out of my head/Boy, your loving is all I think about."
Back to revising poems about people who die alone in their homes and aren't found until two years after the fact.
Yeah, the one that goes "I just can't get you out of my head/Boy, your loving is all I think about."
Back to revising poems about people who die alone in their homes and aren't found until two years after the fact.
Unknown Leisures
To follow-up on my own question from this summer, a few moving moments in electronic music:
a. when the glitches flutter and the guitar strums come in on Fennesz's "Endless Summer"
b. when the main vocal sample drops in Burial's "Near Dark," followed by the snikty-snikt beat
c. Aphex Twin's "Rhubarb"
Hm. Still not an extensive list, I suppose. Then again, sometimes the emotional content isn't crystallized in moments. In the case of Tim Hecker it's usually diffused throughout the entire album. And why should form not be subjugated to emotion? Still, I really admire how Fennesz is able to make his music work on a song-by-song basis...being unlikely to release any records anytime soon I would probably do well to crib from him. That, and how he makes seething distortion feel like the gentlest, most intimate sound possible. Nice to curl up under a blanket of feedback noise and drift off, I suppose. Or maybe that's just me. I listened to Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37" Minus Sixteen Degrees 51' 08" last night and for the first time ever "got" it. I also like droning strings on open chords because they allow you to harmonize notes that are far apart in pitch and sound like there's more than just one guitar playing. Barre chords sound tight and all, but sometimes you just want to loosely carve out a space. That's the one thing I miss while playing bass: you can't define a space with it, so much.
I have a leak of the new Beach House album, Devotion. It's quite good; I recognized a couple of the best songs ("Gila," "Heart of Chambers") from their set in the church back in October. Speaking of defining spaces, Beach House always sound like they're transmitting from another place in time, a place you feel like you've been, but can't clearly recall, but somehow know you'll never be again, a space in time that's defined precisely by its inaccessibility to the present, a distilled nostalgia perhaps. The name Beach House is quite paradoxical: the name's all summer but the music's all autumn. Or maybe that's the point. Writing autumn songs about reminiscing about the summer past, at least in a figurative sense?
I'm a real sucker for minimal arrangements these days. Get Victoria Bergman on an organ and Alex Scally on a guitar and throw a drum loop behind them, or put Fennesz on a laptop and Sakamoto on a piano, and I'm all sold.
Anyway, I'm talking a lot about music, because I just got out of my Computational Biology final and am taking a break from what's looking rather like the busiest week of my college career: finals from here to Thursday, and my second round of graduate school applications is due Saturday. The more I work, the more I think about music. That can't be good. Got home at 1:30 in the morning and sure I wanted to sleep, but I wanted to play guitar more, and so I did. Hope that didn't wake E and the gypsy. I'm selling the Music Man Sterling to its namesake (M. Sterling, who is not really its namesake) in a few weeks, and I wonder if I should use the money to buy a Telecaster or something. The Jazzmaster is really good for a full, rounded sound, but it lacks chime sometimes. But I don't suppose that's anything I couldn't fix by messing with EQs or amp models, if I really wanted--have to stop using that AC30 patch on the Magicstomp. I should probably put the money toward a Macbook Pro anyway. Should I sell my bass amp?
It's been foggy in the daytime for a couple of days. Makes it feel like the campus has been transported to some place far away from reality and the rest of the city. Which is probably not too far from the truth; with all our cruising through the city in our white shuttle buses, wearing sharp winter coats and shiny ID badges and all our career aspirations on our sleeve, there are probably a lot of people out there who really hate us. A couple got beat up on a city bus last week by nine middle schoolers; racial motivations have been implicated. Maybe a couple decades from now when the population really explodes they'll be shipping people downtown to the med school in armored vehicles. I don't know.
I met up with Vi for dinner last night. Since she graduated in May she's been wandering the Atlantic corridor--the New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC axis--working whatever jobs she could find, from doing carpentry for theater productions up in NYC to staffing comic conventions in Baltimore, and putting the cash towards travel. Decidedly different from my own post-collegiate plans. She seemed to think that it was better to have some sort of career plan, like I do, and that wandering is a plan B. But I wondered if it's not better to leave oneself hanging in a void before jumping from one system to the next, if it's not better to induce a state completely bereft of any sense of obligation, of what one should do, in order to decide what one wants to do. Of course, were I to do that, I would get shipped back to Taiwan where I'd get hammered into a whole other much less desirable socket, which is part of the reason I'm trying to go straight from here to graduate school.
One of my biggest reasons for studying science, though--a reason that doesn't get put down on record, much less any of my graduate school applications--is that if, at any point in time, I decide to quit science and do any of the other things I do, such as music or literature, I could, whereas the inverse would be much more difficult. I don't believe that I'll ever be able to commit myself to just one thing in life; "everything is necessary" has more or less become my axiom for life, and that means exactly what it says, that everything--whether it's writing research papers, or finding the mathematical elegance of biological systems, or figuring out strange new chord voicings on guitar and zapping them through an array of filters and delays, or drinking tea and reading Kay Ryan, or waxing minimal verse, or walking through the streets listening to Tim Hecker on a rainy day, or meeting friends for coffee and dinner and finding out what's in each other's life--everything matters. Nothing should be sacrificed for the sake of anything else, nothing should so utterly consume one as to make one neglect the others, at least in an ideal world. Time and energy should always be fragmented and divided up among these causes: that is what defines my current idea of a "good life."
This is why I am an irredeemable slacker. Being a well-rounded, multidimensional human being is essential to basic happiness, but nobody is going to pay you for it. Talked to Sarah about this point of view last night. She agreed with most of it, but said that maybe we just thought that because neither of us had been truly inspired in too long, that if something really does inspire one it's acceptable to be consumed by it. Maybe. I can't remember if it ever was so for me.
Still, sometimes I read about certain things--political things usually, sometimes scientific, things that genuinely concern the masses--and marvel at how tiny our personal loves and despairs are in comparison. Those times, I wonder how anyone could ever care about a so-called personal life, or really personal anything, at all. It's hard for me to reconcile the individual with the individual as component. I'm still working on it.
a. when the glitches flutter and the guitar strums come in on Fennesz's "Endless Summer"
b. when the main vocal sample drops in Burial's "Near Dark," followed by the snikty-snikt beat
c. Aphex Twin's "Rhubarb"
Hm. Still not an extensive list, I suppose. Then again, sometimes the emotional content isn't crystallized in moments. In the case of Tim Hecker it's usually diffused throughout the entire album. And why should form not be subjugated to emotion? Still, I really admire how Fennesz is able to make his music work on a song-by-song basis...being unlikely to release any records anytime soon I would probably do well to crib from him. That, and how he makes seething distortion feel like the gentlest, most intimate sound possible. Nice to curl up under a blanket of feedback noise and drift off, I suppose. Or maybe that's just me. I listened to Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37" Minus Sixteen Degrees 51' 08" last night and for the first time ever "got" it. I also like droning strings on open chords because they allow you to harmonize notes that are far apart in pitch and sound like there's more than just one guitar playing. Barre chords sound tight and all, but sometimes you just want to loosely carve out a space. That's the one thing I miss while playing bass: you can't define a space with it, so much.
I have a leak of the new Beach House album, Devotion. It's quite good; I recognized a couple of the best songs ("Gila," "Heart of Chambers") from their set in the church back in October. Speaking of defining spaces, Beach House always sound like they're transmitting from another place in time, a place you feel like you've been, but can't clearly recall, but somehow know you'll never be again, a space in time that's defined precisely by its inaccessibility to the present, a distilled nostalgia perhaps. The name Beach House is quite paradoxical: the name's all summer but the music's all autumn. Or maybe that's the point. Writing autumn songs about reminiscing about the summer past, at least in a figurative sense?
I'm a real sucker for minimal arrangements these days. Get Victoria Bergman on an organ and Alex Scally on a guitar and throw a drum loop behind them, or put Fennesz on a laptop and Sakamoto on a piano, and I'm all sold.
Anyway, I'm talking a lot about music, because I just got out of my Computational Biology final and am taking a break from what's looking rather like the busiest week of my college career: finals from here to Thursday, and my second round of graduate school applications is due Saturday. The more I work, the more I think about music. That can't be good. Got home at 1:30 in the morning and sure I wanted to sleep, but I wanted to play guitar more, and so I did. Hope that didn't wake E and the gypsy. I'm selling the Music Man Sterling to its namesake (M. Sterling, who is not really its namesake) in a few weeks, and I wonder if I should use the money to buy a Telecaster or something. The Jazzmaster is really good for a full, rounded sound, but it lacks chime sometimes. But I don't suppose that's anything I couldn't fix by messing with EQs or amp models, if I really wanted--have to stop using that AC30 patch on the Magicstomp. I should probably put the money toward a Macbook Pro anyway. Should I sell my bass amp?
It's been foggy in the daytime for a couple of days. Makes it feel like the campus has been transported to some place far away from reality and the rest of the city. Which is probably not too far from the truth; with all our cruising through the city in our white shuttle buses, wearing sharp winter coats and shiny ID badges and all our career aspirations on our sleeve, there are probably a lot of people out there who really hate us. A couple got beat up on a city bus last week by nine middle schoolers; racial motivations have been implicated. Maybe a couple decades from now when the population really explodes they'll be shipping people downtown to the med school in armored vehicles. I don't know.
I met up with Vi for dinner last night. Since she graduated in May she's been wandering the Atlantic corridor--the New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC axis--working whatever jobs she could find, from doing carpentry for theater productions up in NYC to staffing comic conventions in Baltimore, and putting the cash towards travel. Decidedly different from my own post-collegiate plans. She seemed to think that it was better to have some sort of career plan, like I do, and that wandering is a plan B. But I wondered if it's not better to leave oneself hanging in a void before jumping from one system to the next, if it's not better to induce a state completely bereft of any sense of obligation, of what one should do, in order to decide what one wants to do. Of course, were I to do that, I would get shipped back to Taiwan where I'd get hammered into a whole other much less desirable socket, which is part of the reason I'm trying to go straight from here to graduate school.
One of my biggest reasons for studying science, though--a reason that doesn't get put down on record, much less any of my graduate school applications--is that if, at any point in time, I decide to quit science and do any of the other things I do, such as music or literature, I could, whereas the inverse would be much more difficult. I don't believe that I'll ever be able to commit myself to just one thing in life; "everything is necessary" has more or less become my axiom for life, and that means exactly what it says, that everything--whether it's writing research papers, or finding the mathematical elegance of biological systems, or figuring out strange new chord voicings on guitar and zapping them through an array of filters and delays, or drinking tea and reading Kay Ryan, or waxing minimal verse, or walking through the streets listening to Tim Hecker on a rainy day, or meeting friends for coffee and dinner and finding out what's in each other's life--everything matters. Nothing should be sacrificed for the sake of anything else, nothing should so utterly consume one as to make one neglect the others, at least in an ideal world. Time and energy should always be fragmented and divided up among these causes: that is what defines my current idea of a "good life."
This is why I am an irredeemable slacker. Being a well-rounded, multidimensional human being is essential to basic happiness, but nobody is going to pay you for it. Talked to Sarah about this point of view last night. She agreed with most of it, but said that maybe we just thought that because neither of us had been truly inspired in too long, that if something really does inspire one it's acceptable to be consumed by it. Maybe. I can't remember if it ever was so for me.
Still, sometimes I read about certain things--political things usually, sometimes scientific, things that genuinely concern the masses--and marvel at how tiny our personal loves and despairs are in comparison. Those times, I wonder how anyone could ever care about a so-called personal life, or really personal anything, at all. It's hard for me to reconcile the individual with the individual as component. I'm still working on it.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Waste
Not even waste
is inviolate.
The day misspent,
the love misplaced,
has inside it
the seed of redemption.
Nothing is exempt
from resurrection.
It is tiresome
how the grass
re-ripens, greening
all along the punched
and mucked horizon
once the bison
have moved on,
leaning into hunger
and hard luck.
- Kay Ryan
Winter Fear
Is it just winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can't fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won't shift the view,
when clouds won't lift
though all the skies
go blue.
- Kay Ryan
Outside, it is Manchester, 1979.
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can't fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won't shift the view,
when clouds won't lift
though all the skies
go blue.
- Kay Ryan
Outside, it is Manchester, 1979.
Friday, December 7, 2007
The Truth Will Let You Bleed
I am thinking of covering Joy Division's "Atmosphere" with a battery of granulated-crushed guitars, gauzy white noise and feedback, buried spoken word vocals, and a sampled heartbeat drum loop.
Last night I sent out my first round of grad school applications. Harvard Systems Biology, Harvard Biophysics, Yale Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and Rockefeller University (they have only one Ph. D. program). There was nothing ceremonial about it. After reviewing everything, I took a shower, had a cup of cider (needs more ginger), and said, fuck it, these things are going out now. So they did. Nothing serious about the execution. Just click click, check the .pdf, click click. For all I know I sent them out with errors still in them, but at least I don't have to think about it anymore now. Next: MIT Computational and Systems Biology, UCSF Biophysics, University of Chicago Biophysics, UC Berkeley Biophysics, and Vanderbilt Chemical and Physical Biology.
Today I ran around all afternoon trying to track down Williamson and Garcia-Moreno, because they hadn't sent my recommendations yet, and they were due today. I guess you can't really blame me for being neurotic when the whole application process is like a black box wrapped in red tape.
It strikes me that if, by some unfortunate happenstance, I utterly fail to make it up to Boston next year (somewhere in my mind I've already decided that if I can go there next year, I will, though that might change), all the friendships I've built over the past four years may very well fall apart, leaving me to start from scratch. When I think about it, I'm notoriously bad at maintaining long-distance friendships: I only talk to one or two people from back in Minnesota; I went years without talking to my friends from middle school after I left Taiwan; and I only talk to a handful of people from Lawrenceville, with whom I parted ways not four years ago. The issue is really that I change too fast. Me in Taiwan, me in Jersey and me in Baltimore are three different people. It feels strange for me to talk to people I knew in a past life. So I always end up doing it less and less. I'll probably be unrecognizable a few years from now.
Everyone seems to be setting their sights on Boston--Sarah, Jessica, Thom--so if I do end up in Boston, there might still be some chance of retaining a fragment of who I am right now a few years down the line. But if I don't...I really don't know what's going to happen. Four years from now I could have dropped off the face of the Earth, for all intents and purposes. I just don't know.
But if the worst happens, if you no longer know who I am, at least remember who I used to be--if I cannot be requited for my love, at least let me be remembered for it! I sat down in the Hut and dialed in Radiohead's "Reminder" the other day and almost teared up. Don't know why.
Wanted to get some photos of the snow yesterday before it all melted away, so I headed to the underpass of the bridge that University West runs over, about a block from my apartment. There's plenty of graffiti under that bridge; I think I first found it coming back from one of the great summer soccer gatherings of 2006, but I don't think I've been back there since then. (Could it really have been over a year? Jesus. And only a block from my apartment, too.)
And just to spite certain people (Jess) who think grayscaling should be done on the camera, instead of post-shooting:
I really abuse the Saturation and Contrast sliders in Photoshop. But you really can't blame me if the camera refuses to see the world as vividly as I do. Either way, it was a nice contrast between the more or less intact snow covering and the unmistakably urban graffiti'd underpass. This couple walking a dog came by when I was halfway through, and I sort of retreated back onto the bridge; I'm very self-conscious about photographing things when other people can see me, unless it's something that lots of other people are photographing, e.g. a concert.
Afterwards, I went down to the med school to get some last-minute comments on my personal statement from Sarah. I have a more flexible schedule than she does, but I did wonder why I was bothering to do that. It turned out she did catch a few stylistic things that had eluded everyone else who'd read it thus far--Writing Center guy, Jess, my PI, my advisor. It made me feel a little bit dumb and ridiculous. In between nodding and "hm, yeah, I see, good point" I was thinking, shit, I'm really just a stupid college boy after all despite all my claims to the contrary, what the hell am I thinking, why do I even try, etc.
On the bus ride back I picked out a back seat and listened to the new Burial album with my face against the window. It was a disconnected sort of feeling: the music trying to carve out a wasted and dimly shimmering nightscape (with appreciable success, too) while well-dressed Hopkins students sat down next to me and chatted on their way to the Monument lighting. I think it might be time to realign my inner and outer worlds again; I had a nice synergy going there for a while, but I think the scales are starting to tilt too much to one side.
Speaking of the Monument lighting, I stopped by:
There was a guy on stilts trying to get people to sing carols for candy canes.
There were lots of people about. Most of them seemed to be well-to-do people from around Mount Vernon or thereabouts. A few of them booed when the mayor thanked BGE for sponsoring the event.
There was a small girl who said to her father after all was said and done, "make it go longer!" I smiled.
Today I walked into the Hut expecting a nap, but instead ran into Kushner and ended up having an hour-long conversation with Alia, whom I met during sophomore year but haven't spoken to in a year, while somewhat ignoring the regulars at the adjacent table (my bad). Impressive for someone whom I somehow met when she was drunk and nearly falling over at a party at Danielle and Katy's old digs. She had a surprising lot to say about living--philosophy majors can be really terrible conversationalists, but they can also be really excellent ones--and seems to live quite deliberately. Something I wish I myself would do more often.
Last night I sent out my first round of grad school applications. Harvard Systems Biology, Harvard Biophysics, Yale Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and Rockefeller University (they have only one Ph. D. program). There was nothing ceremonial about it. After reviewing everything, I took a shower, had a cup of cider (needs more ginger), and said, fuck it, these things are going out now. So they did. Nothing serious about the execution. Just click click, check the .pdf, click click. For all I know I sent them out with errors still in them, but at least I don't have to think about it anymore now. Next: MIT Computational and Systems Biology, UCSF Biophysics, University of Chicago Biophysics, UC Berkeley Biophysics, and Vanderbilt Chemical and Physical Biology.
Today I ran around all afternoon trying to track down Williamson and Garcia-Moreno, because they hadn't sent my recommendations yet, and they were due today. I guess you can't really blame me for being neurotic when the whole application process is like a black box wrapped in red tape.
It strikes me that if, by some unfortunate happenstance, I utterly fail to make it up to Boston next year (somewhere in my mind I've already decided that if I can go there next year, I will, though that might change), all the friendships I've built over the past four years may very well fall apart, leaving me to start from scratch. When I think about it, I'm notoriously bad at maintaining long-distance friendships: I only talk to one or two people from back in Minnesota; I went years without talking to my friends from middle school after I left Taiwan; and I only talk to a handful of people from Lawrenceville, with whom I parted ways not four years ago. The issue is really that I change too fast. Me in Taiwan, me in Jersey and me in Baltimore are three different people. It feels strange for me to talk to people I knew in a past life. So I always end up doing it less and less. I'll probably be unrecognizable a few years from now.
Everyone seems to be setting their sights on Boston--Sarah, Jessica, Thom--so if I do end up in Boston, there might still be some chance of retaining a fragment of who I am right now a few years down the line. But if I don't...I really don't know what's going to happen. Four years from now I could have dropped off the face of the Earth, for all intents and purposes. I just don't know.
But if the worst happens, if you no longer know who I am, at least remember who I used to be--if I cannot be requited for my love, at least let me be remembered for it! I sat down in the Hut and dialed in Radiohead's "Reminder" the other day and almost teared up. Don't know why.
Wanted to get some photos of the snow yesterday before it all melted away, so I headed to the underpass of the bridge that University West runs over, about a block from my apartment. There's plenty of graffiti under that bridge; I think I first found it coming back from one of the great summer soccer gatherings of 2006, but I don't think I've been back there since then. (Could it really have been over a year? Jesus. And only a block from my apartment, too.)
And just to spite certain people (Jess) who think grayscaling should be done on the camera, instead of post-shooting:
I really abuse the Saturation and Contrast sliders in Photoshop. But you really can't blame me if the camera refuses to see the world as vividly as I do. Either way, it was a nice contrast between the more or less intact snow covering and the unmistakably urban graffiti'd underpass. This couple walking a dog came by when I was halfway through, and I sort of retreated back onto the bridge; I'm very self-conscious about photographing things when other people can see me, unless it's something that lots of other people are photographing, e.g. a concert.
Afterwards, I went down to the med school to get some last-minute comments on my personal statement from Sarah. I have a more flexible schedule than she does, but I did wonder why I was bothering to do that. It turned out she did catch a few stylistic things that had eluded everyone else who'd read it thus far--Writing Center guy, Jess, my PI, my advisor. It made me feel a little bit dumb and ridiculous. In between nodding and "hm, yeah, I see, good point" I was thinking, shit, I'm really just a stupid college boy after all despite all my claims to the contrary, what the hell am I thinking, why do I even try, etc.
On the bus ride back I picked out a back seat and listened to the new Burial album with my face against the window. It was a disconnected sort of feeling: the music trying to carve out a wasted and dimly shimmering nightscape (with appreciable success, too) while well-dressed Hopkins students sat down next to me and chatted on their way to the Monument lighting. I think it might be time to realign my inner and outer worlds again; I had a nice synergy going there for a while, but I think the scales are starting to tilt too much to one side.
Speaking of the Monument lighting, I stopped by:
There was a guy on stilts trying to get people to sing carols for candy canes.
There were lots of people about. Most of them seemed to be well-to-do people from around Mount Vernon or thereabouts. A few of them booed when the mayor thanked BGE for sponsoring the event.
There was a small girl who said to her father after all was said and done, "make it go longer!" I smiled.
Today I walked into the Hut expecting a nap, but instead ran into Kushner and ended up having an hour-long conversation with Alia, whom I met during sophomore year but haven't spoken to in a year, while somewhat ignoring the regulars at the adjacent table (my bad). Impressive for someone whom I somehow met when she was drunk and nearly falling over at a party at Danielle and Katy's old digs. She had a surprising lot to say about living--philosophy majors can be really terrible conversationalists, but they can also be really excellent ones--and seems to live quite deliberately. Something I wish I myself would do more often.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
As Seen on the Door of Dr. Lorsch's Office
Truly, why dost thou prey upon mine heart?
To Science
Edgar Allen Poe
Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
To Science
Edgar Allen Poe
Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
New Batteries
It's snowing! First real snow of the season. Had some random sprinkles a couple of nights back, but that didn't amount to anything. Today I actually see some white on the cars and the branches of the tree outside.
Heavy snow seems to bring the sky that much closer down to earth. When I was a kid I heard or read something suggesting cutting a ping-pong ball in half, lying down, and covering your eyes with the pieces as some sort of relaxation technique. Such is the sky on snowy days.
First snow is always, always celebrated with Sigur Rós' Ágætis Byrjun. I first heard it in junior year of high school--good five years ago--and I still haven't found anything more glacial and massively crystalline, more appropriate for soundtracking the feeling of the self being whited out and engulfed. () is up there too, but that's really for the time when snow begins to accumulate and things start seeming a bit desolate, and lying down in a snow angel in a field all day starts seeming like a good idea. Not like snow ever accumulates in this town, though. Not like there's fields, either.
I woke up this morning and typed this:
"The Vermont Kid’s name wasn't really the Vermont Kid, of course. It was really Connor. Connor Cohen."
Why is he the Vermont Kid? And what's he doing anyway? The answer can be found a number of posts back. That's the intention, at least; prose is so difficult nowadays and I can't put a story together for shit. I'm all scattershot image and smashed stained glass. But we'll see where this goes.
Heavy snow seems to bring the sky that much closer down to earth. When I was a kid I heard or read something suggesting cutting a ping-pong ball in half, lying down, and covering your eyes with the pieces as some sort of relaxation technique. Such is the sky on snowy days.
First snow is always, always celebrated with Sigur Rós' Ágætis Byrjun. I first heard it in junior year of high school--good five years ago--and I still haven't found anything more glacial and massively crystalline, more appropriate for soundtracking the feeling of the self being whited out and engulfed. () is up there too, but that's really for the time when snow begins to accumulate and things start seeming a bit desolate, and lying down in a snow angel in a field all day starts seeming like a good idea. Not like snow ever accumulates in this town, though. Not like there's fields, either.
I woke up this morning and typed this:
"The Vermont Kid’s name wasn't really the Vermont Kid, of course. It was really Connor. Connor Cohen."
Why is he the Vermont Kid? And what's he doing anyway? The answer can be found a number of posts back. That's the intention, at least; prose is so difficult nowadays and I can't put a story together for shit. I'm all scattershot image and smashed stained glass. But we'll see where this goes.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
C/O Jessica B.
This is photographic evidence: it dates back to my birthday this year (August 2), but it's still hard for me to believe something that looked like this could've ever happened. I think it would be nice to keep it around in case I need a reminder once in a while that it did, and can again.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
There is Good Reason I Guess
No, not good. Bad, really. Late night walks home in the cold could end me. Relapse, best to call it like it is. Still...it was probably better than walking home alone would have been.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
An Ideal For Living
One of my better-kept secrets is this: when people ask me if I'm happy, if I'm sleeping well and eating well, often I don't receive it as benevolent well-wishing (though I know damn well it is), but rather as additional sources of pressure for me to be happy and stop half-assing meals and bedtimes, and I want to tell them, you know, if I could be happy and well-adjusted, I would.
This usually doesn't happen on my good days.
This usually doesn't happen on my good days.
Friday, November 30, 2007
I Got the Spirit
Maybe drinking on Thursday night was a bad idea. Sometimes I get it wrong and it upsets me more than anything else. Sometimes I drop to the floor of the elevator and lean against the corner looking at the lights in the ceiling and just breathe when I go back up to the apartment. They say Christmas is the loneliest time of year, for those who are into that sort of thing. I'll find out soon if there's any truth in that claim. I hear voices but they never get close, and after a while they all melt into one unintelligible, throbbing drone that I'd like nothing more than to shut my ears and hide from.
Scientists, what have you done for your loved ones lately? People think we're going to cure cancer or something. Hell, some of us even think that. Especially some of the people in my physiology class. Those health-oriented kids run the risk of becoming self-important. But when it comes time to publish or perish we're knaves down to the last man. When was the last time you offered sympathy instead of rationale?
Living up on University Parkway means I walk by Mudd Hall, where the biology department is, whenever I go to or leave campus. Sometimes I find myself walking by the building very late at night. I can see into a couple of the labs in the basement through some fairly large windows at ground level, and even when I walk by at midnight or later, one of them is always lit, and this one woman is always there, running some experiment or another. Even weekends. I want to bang on the glass and yell: where is your family? Where are your friends? Why aren't you with them? What the fuck are you still doing here at this hour? Do you honestly think this is the point of it all? And for all I know it could be, but that's kind of terrifying to think about.
In other news, I'm somewhat obsessed with the blogs of Writing Seminars MFA students.
Scientists, what have you done for your loved ones lately? People think we're going to cure cancer or something. Hell, some of us even think that. Especially some of the people in my physiology class. Those health-oriented kids run the risk of becoming self-important. But when it comes time to publish or perish we're knaves down to the last man. When was the last time you offered sympathy instead of rationale?
Living up on University Parkway means I walk by Mudd Hall, where the biology department is, whenever I go to or leave campus. Sometimes I find myself walking by the building very late at night. I can see into a couple of the labs in the basement through some fairly large windows at ground level, and even when I walk by at midnight or later, one of them is always lit, and this one woman is always there, running some experiment or another. Even weekends. I want to bang on the glass and yell: where is your family? Where are your friends? Why aren't you with them? What the fuck are you still doing here at this hour? Do you honestly think this is the point of it all? And for all I know it could be, but that's kind of terrifying to think about.
In other news, I'm somewhat obsessed with the blogs of Writing Seminars MFA students.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
We Got Pockmarked Chin
Woke up this morning to a tub full of water. Shower drain was backed up. Only had time to put in a maintenance request with the landlady before I departed for--and I just recently returned from--nearly 14 straight hours of relative productivity. Couldn't stick around to make sure they came by, but it's fixed now. I also dispatched half a dozen emails to the graduate programs I am applying to within a span of about 10 minutes and mere hours later I had, astoundingly, responses to all of them. Sometimes my lack of faith proves wrong. I will continue to hope the afterlife will not be one of those times.
I think I sucked it up at my Proteins and Nucleic Acids presentation tonight (ran short on time, didn't know answers to questions, blah), but a couple of days ago after ordering the last of my transcripts it suddenly hit me that none of the graduate programs I was applying to would see my fall semester grades. Life has substantially improved since that time. In another week I'll have finished at least half of my applications. That's a good thing, because they're consuming my life such that I don't remember much of anything else; things people say and mundane class assignments barely register. I forget to pay bills. And when I forget to pay bills, they don't get paid. So it goes.
Somehow ended up having a very long conversation with Hannah Monday night after the graduate reading (where I ran into Joe again--one of those kids it's actually a pleasure to hear talk) about her history (and it's historical alright) and so on. Then she made me Havarti pasta. I was surprised. People never cook me things. It was delicious. She's a nice kid, if intense--but who am I to criticize intensity? I just hope for her sake that she won't always take so seriously the sum of all she's been and been through. It gets to be a burden.
Read someone's entry hating on the album version of Radiohead's "Videotape." That song was a controversial move, undeniably. But I think it works. Something about the way the dry, apathetic drums and subsequent looping slicing right through Thom Yorke's stirring delivery...like listening to someone's suicide note on CD and hearing it skip. Sentiment buried under coils of stunted, grotesque technology. But then again I've always been concerned with the indifference and casualness--anti-drama, anti-emotion, if you must--with which the world responds to tragedy. It's like that poem I wrote about my father--the first and only one I've written about him in the five years since he died--a few weeks ago. I actually brought that in to Basford's workshop. I wondered if those kids who accused me at the beginning of the semester of not knowing how to mourn a loved one remembered they'd said that, and I wondered what they thought of it. I felt kind of like Meursalt from Camus' The Stranger. Then again, I suppose I feel like that a lot of the time.
Enough now though. Almost got irrationally upset again tonight because I'd let myself get tired and hungry. Fixed one, now time to fix the other.
I think I sucked it up at my Proteins and Nucleic Acids presentation tonight (ran short on time, didn't know answers to questions, blah), but a couple of days ago after ordering the last of my transcripts it suddenly hit me that none of the graduate programs I was applying to would see my fall semester grades. Life has substantially improved since that time. In another week I'll have finished at least half of my applications. That's a good thing, because they're consuming my life such that I don't remember much of anything else; things people say and mundane class assignments barely register. I forget to pay bills. And when I forget to pay bills, they don't get paid. So it goes.
Somehow ended up having a very long conversation with Hannah Monday night after the graduate reading (where I ran into Joe again--one of those kids it's actually a pleasure to hear talk) about her history (and it's historical alright) and so on. Then she made me Havarti pasta. I was surprised. People never cook me things. It was delicious. She's a nice kid, if intense--but who am I to criticize intensity? I just hope for her sake that she won't always take so seriously the sum of all she's been and been through. It gets to be a burden.
Read someone's entry hating on the album version of Radiohead's "Videotape." That song was a controversial move, undeniably. But I think it works. Something about the way the dry, apathetic drums and subsequent looping slicing right through Thom Yorke's stirring delivery...like listening to someone's suicide note on CD and hearing it skip. Sentiment buried under coils of stunted, grotesque technology. But then again I've always been concerned with the indifference and casualness--anti-drama, anti-emotion, if you must--with which the world responds to tragedy. It's like that poem I wrote about my father--the first and only one I've written about him in the five years since he died--a few weeks ago. I actually brought that in to Basford's workshop. I wondered if those kids who accused me at the beginning of the semester of not knowing how to mourn a loved one remembered they'd said that, and I wondered what they thought of it. I felt kind of like Meursalt from Camus' The Stranger. Then again, I suppose I feel like that a lot of the time.
Enough now though. Almost got irrationally upset again tonight because I'd let myself get tired and hungry. Fixed one, now time to fix the other.
Monday, November 26, 2007
6%
That's what the acceptance rate to MIT's Computational and Systems Biology Ph.D. program is. 170 applied last year and 12 got in. I don't think I'm in the top 6% of anything. I don't think I'd even make the top 6% of Neurotic Biophysicist-Blogger-Poet Dilettante-Digital Feedback Fetishist-Boys. Harvard's Systems Biology is 12%.
The future does not look overly promising for Your Humble Narrator.
The future does not look overly promising for Your Humble Narrator.
The Week of Sundays
Thanksgiving break has come and gone. Funny, these American holidays: always feel so detached, from the warm family gatherings and hearty dinners, even though I've been around long enough to have developed a taste for dark turkey meat and cranberry sauce. In fact, I'm very fond of cranberry sauce. The past few years--since I came to this country--I've spent Thanksgivings with one friend's family or another: Andrew's (can't even remember his last name, but it wasn't Martin), Aleta's, Zach's, Andrew's (the regular one), Nick's, Granger's, but this year I stayed in my apartment. People can say they welcome me all they want, but I'd still feel like I was intruding, and have. Since I've no family within a continent of here, I suppose it was only justified I finally spent one Thanksgiving alone.
It wasn't that bad. Finally finished my personal statement for graduate school applications. For days I sat at my computer unable to remember why I even want to go to graduate school at all. Change tactics to camping in the library before the sun went down and mainlining some misguided optimism via Stars of Track and Field and Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People and managed to work it out. Met up with Gustavo this afternoon and somehow got the slideshow for Wednesday's presentation hammered out, so I might be going to the Dinosaur Jr show after all. It depends on if the current miasma of stress and paranoia lifts by Tuesday.
Charles Village was dead this week, obviously. But the leaves turned colors, and how. I didn't speak to anyone for over 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday evening. Thursday evening went for a walk west of campus with the Hold Steady and a camera, took some pictures, and then to Stephanie and Crystal's for Chungking Express and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; them's good films. We had a long conversation afterward; I'd say what it was about, but it was one of those cases where more topics were covered than could be recalled later.
I've decided to jump the gun on the seasons this year and start early with the Sigur Rós. No point in holding out, I suppose, when the humidity's pretty much dried up and it's already pretty cold some days with the sky blinding blue. I remember junior year of high school when I used to spend hours doing very little but lying on my couch listening to (), and maybe reading something. Those were days when I still took time out for myself. I've also begun to perfect my spiced cider recipe. I might experiment with adding ginger to it sometime.
I've set myself up for what looks to be the loneliest Christmas/New Year's break in my life. Mom called Friday and I told her I wasn't going home this winter, because travel--is dangerous, yes, but also is very stressful for me. Even notwithstanding circumstances, the mere thought of having to prepare to go intercontinental gives me a headache. I've done it at least twice a year for the past six years, and I still can't stop being paranoid every single time I make the trip. Second of all, this is the busiest winter I've had in four years, if not ever; I'm going to try and get all my application stuff done before finals, but there's no real guarantee that's going to happen, and if it doesn't get done, then I need to stick around and get it done. I don't think I could take having to absolutely finish with everything and get out of town by a certain date. And finally, regardless of what my mother tries to tell me about our financial security, it would cost me at least $1200 for a round-trip ticket home by this point in the year--if I could even get one, which I probably couldn't--and, assuming I went home around the 20th and stayed there for about 10 days (must return in January for research and interviews), that would work out to a minimum of $120/day for me to just be home. Even though I wouldn't be paying for it, it's more than I'm willing to let anyone shell out to have me stare at a wall for a week and a half.
What it comes down to, though, is that if I were in a slightly less stressed out and exhausted state, I might be able to find it in me to get my shit together and make travel plans. But the fact is this semester has been a soul-crusher in many ways, and I'm still trying to build myself back up while attempting to not neglect the half-dozen other things I have to do. I think I need those two weeks to reacquaint myself with the present, make myself comfortable in it again.
I just feel horrible about it, because I know it doesn't matter if it's twelve hundred or twelve thousand dollars, my mother would pay it just to bring me home for two weeks, and I could tell over the phone she was sad that I didn't want to go back. She asked me if I could reserve a ticket but not pay until the day before. I told her I'd talked to travel agents and that wasn't how it worked, they could release your ticket as long as you didn't pay. She suggested every conceivable loophole. I told her they wouldn't work, and they probably wouldn't, but the fact is, I don't want to go home, I don't even want to think about going home, or anywhere else, I just need to not think about anything, completely forget and annihilate myself until I've made it through the next two or three weeks alive. And then try to salvage the remnants. But she'll understand--she thinks I've got some kind of initiative, and I know what I'm doing, and usually it's best to just let me call the shots, and she'll let me make my own decisions even if it makes her sad. And somehow that doesn't help at all. Heart and soul, one will burn...
I hate how once in a while, just to keep my own head above water, I find myself forced to neglect and hurt people who care for me. How I'm forced to turn my backs on them so I can wander off alone in some questionable attempt to hold my own life and mind steady, with a high chance of returning from the journey worse for the wear. Remember the last time I did that? Me too. It was fucked.
Last year's rain didn't fall quite so hard.
It wasn't that bad. Finally finished my personal statement for graduate school applications. For days I sat at my computer unable to remember why I even want to go to graduate school at all. Change tactics to camping in the library before the sun went down and mainlining some misguided optimism via Stars of Track and Field and Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People and managed to work it out. Met up with Gustavo this afternoon and somehow got the slideshow for Wednesday's presentation hammered out, so I might be going to the Dinosaur Jr show after all. It depends on if the current miasma of stress and paranoia lifts by Tuesday.
Charles Village was dead this week, obviously. But the leaves turned colors, and how. I didn't speak to anyone for over 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday evening. Thursday evening went for a walk west of campus with the Hold Steady and a camera, took some pictures, and then to Stephanie and Crystal's for Chungking Express and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; them's good films. We had a long conversation afterward; I'd say what it was about, but it was one of those cases where more topics were covered than could be recalled later.
I've decided to jump the gun on the seasons this year and start early with the Sigur Rós. No point in holding out, I suppose, when the humidity's pretty much dried up and it's already pretty cold some days with the sky blinding blue. I remember junior year of high school when I used to spend hours doing very little but lying on my couch listening to (), and maybe reading something. Those were days when I still took time out for myself. I've also begun to perfect my spiced cider recipe. I might experiment with adding ginger to it sometime.
I've set myself up for what looks to be the loneliest Christmas/New Year's break in my life. Mom called Friday and I told her I wasn't going home this winter, because travel--is dangerous, yes, but also is very stressful for me. Even notwithstanding circumstances, the mere thought of having to prepare to go intercontinental gives me a headache. I've done it at least twice a year for the past six years, and I still can't stop being paranoid every single time I make the trip. Second of all, this is the busiest winter I've had in four years, if not ever; I'm going to try and get all my application stuff done before finals, but there's no real guarantee that's going to happen, and if it doesn't get done, then I need to stick around and get it done. I don't think I could take having to absolutely finish with everything and get out of town by a certain date. And finally, regardless of what my mother tries to tell me about our financial security, it would cost me at least $1200 for a round-trip ticket home by this point in the year--if I could even get one, which I probably couldn't--and, assuming I went home around the 20th and stayed there for about 10 days (must return in January for research and interviews), that would work out to a minimum of $120/day for me to just be home. Even though I wouldn't be paying for it, it's more than I'm willing to let anyone shell out to have me stare at a wall for a week and a half.
What it comes down to, though, is that if I were in a slightly less stressed out and exhausted state, I might be able to find it in me to get my shit together and make travel plans. But the fact is this semester has been a soul-crusher in many ways, and I'm still trying to build myself back up while attempting to not neglect the half-dozen other things I have to do. I think I need those two weeks to reacquaint myself with the present, make myself comfortable in it again.
I just feel horrible about it, because I know it doesn't matter if it's twelve hundred or twelve thousand dollars, my mother would pay it just to bring me home for two weeks, and I could tell over the phone she was sad that I didn't want to go back. She asked me if I could reserve a ticket but not pay until the day before. I told her I'd talked to travel agents and that wasn't how it worked, they could release your ticket as long as you didn't pay. She suggested every conceivable loophole. I told her they wouldn't work, and they probably wouldn't, but the fact is, I don't want to go home, I don't even want to think about going home, or anywhere else, I just need to not think about anything, completely forget and annihilate myself until I've made it through the next two or three weeks alive. And then try to salvage the remnants. But she'll understand--she thinks I've got some kind of initiative, and I know what I'm doing, and usually it's best to just let me call the shots, and she'll let me make my own decisions even if it makes her sad. And somehow that doesn't help at all. Heart and soul, one will burn...
I hate how once in a while, just to keep my own head above water, I find myself forced to neglect and hurt people who care for me. How I'm forced to turn my backs on them so I can wander off alone in some questionable attempt to hold my own life and mind steady, with a high chance of returning from the journey worse for the wear. Remember the last time I did that? Me too. It was fucked.
Last year's rain didn't fall quite so hard.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Because I Finished My Personal Statement, I Allow Myself This
Ye olde song titles survey. Except more so.
I. Radiohead version
Are you male or female: Faithless, the Wonder Boy
Describe yourself: The Tourist
How do some people feel about you: Optimistic
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: I Might Be Wrong
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: (Nice Dream)
Describe your friends: Weird Fishes
Describe what you want to be: Fitter Happier [Har har.]
Describe how you live: Kinetic
Describe how you love: How to Disappear Completely
Describe your roommate: Spooks [It's cool, E.]
Describe your parents: Life in a Glasshouse
Describe where you want to be: Everything In Its Right Place
Describe your dreams: Lucky
One thing you want to say to someone: Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) [Yes, I realize it's called something else now.]
II. The Smiths version
Are you male or female: This Charming Man
Describe yourself: The Boy with the Thorn in His Side
How do some people feel about you: Sweet and Tender Hooligan
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: I Know It's Over
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: I Want the One I Can't Have
Describe your friends: Shoplifters of the World
Describe what you want to be: You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby
Describe how you live: Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Describe how you love: There Is a Light that Never Goes Out
Describe your roommate: Vicar in Tutu [He's got a pretty big closet, might be one back there for all I know.]
Describe your parents: Barbarism Begins at Home [Not really.]
Describe where you want to be: London
Describe your dreams: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me [It does happen.]
One thing you want to say to someone: A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours
III. Mission of Burma version
Are you male or female: Man in Decline
Describe yourself: Good, Not Great
How do some people feel about you: Absent Mind
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: What We Really Were
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: Untitled
Describe your friends: Fun World
Describe what you want to be: Max Ernst
Describe how you live: Careening With Conviction
Describe how you love: Let Yourself Go
Describe your roommate: Outlaw
Describe your parents: Foreign Country
Describe where you want to be: Progress
Describe your dreams: 1001 Pleasant Dreams
One thing you want to say to someone: OK, No Way
I. Radiohead version
Are you male or female: Faithless, the Wonder Boy
Describe yourself: The Tourist
How do some people feel about you: Optimistic
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: I Might Be Wrong
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: (Nice Dream)
Describe your friends: Weird Fishes
Describe what you want to be: Fitter Happier [Har har.]
Describe how you live: Kinetic
Describe how you love: How to Disappear Completely
Describe your roommate: Spooks [It's cool, E.]
Describe your parents: Life in a Glasshouse
Describe where you want to be: Everything In Its Right Place
Describe your dreams: Lucky
One thing you want to say to someone: Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) [Yes, I realize it's called something else now.]
II. The Smiths version
Are you male or female: This Charming Man
Describe yourself: The Boy with the Thorn in His Side
How do some people feel about you: Sweet and Tender Hooligan
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: I Know It's Over
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: I Want the One I Can't Have
Describe your friends: Shoplifters of the World
Describe what you want to be: You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby
Describe how you live: Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Describe how you love: There Is a Light that Never Goes Out
Describe your roommate: Vicar in Tutu [He's got a pretty big closet, might be one back there for all I know.]
Describe your parents: Barbarism Begins at Home [Not really.]
Describe where you want to be: London
Describe your dreams: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me [It does happen.]
One thing you want to say to someone: A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours
III. Mission of Burma version
Are you male or female: Man in Decline
Describe yourself: Good, Not Great
How do some people feel about you: Absent Mind
Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: What We Really Were
Describe your current boyfriend/girlfriend: Untitled
Describe your friends: Fun World
Describe what you want to be: Max Ernst
Describe how you live: Careening With Conviction
Describe how you love: Let Yourself Go
Describe your roommate: Outlaw
Describe your parents: Foreign Country
Describe where you want to be: Progress
Describe your dreams: 1001 Pleasant Dreams
One thing you want to say to someone: OK, No Way
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Ceremony
Of all the songs I have either in mp3 or CD form, this song, "Ceremony," probably holds the distinction of being represented by the greatest number of bands: Joy Division, New Order, Galaxie 500, and Radiohead. It's one of those rare songs--the only one of its kind that I know of--that's been given a proper studio recording by almost every band to play it except the one that wrote it, especially if you count Joy Division and New Order as separate entities (and you probably should).
Although I'm crazy about all things Joy Division, I actually am not that interested in New Order; thus, I hadn't ever heard "Ceremony" until the Radiohead live in-studio cover on their "Thumbs Down" webcast a couple weeks back. It wasn't like Thom was getting down with "Transmission" or "New Dawn Fades," but I decided to take what I could get, and for the first time I heard "Ceremony," and realized what a fantastic song it actually is. It's in a major key, but in the same way that "Atmosphere" is in a major key; it's the resigned melancholy after rage and frustration have passed, after tension's snapped and hope's been annihilated. It's a funeral on a sunny day. In a way, it's fitting that both "Atmosphere" and "Ceremony" were among the last songs Ian Curtis ever wrote, and have more of a message-from-beyond quality than even anything on Closer with the possible exception of "Decades."
However, while "Atmosphere" exists in impeccably arranged and polished form truly becoming of its name, Ian died before recording an organized studio rendition of "Ceremony," leaving Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris to put the pieces of the song together as New Order. Only two Joy Division versions of "Ceremony" exist and will ever exist, one of which was taken from a rehearsal recording.
The other was from Joy Division's last show on May 2, 1980 at Birmingham University, just over two weeks before Ian Curtis died, which was the first, last, and only time Joy Division ever performed the song publicly. The historical significance of the gig is only a small fragment of the recording's mystique: the Birmingham recording was crude and lo-fi, like most Joy Division live recordings--the recording starts in the middle of the measure; the drums are way too loud; the guitar and bass, while brutal and thrashing, sound like they're in a different room from the drums; Sumner hits a few bum notes, as if he hasn't completely learned the song yet.
But the kicker is this: Ian Curtis' mic is dead for the entire first verse, and during this time one can only hear his voice faintly coming through one of the instrument mics while Sumner, Hook, and Morris rage all around. His mic is apparently turned on during the first guitar solo--Sumner's guitar suddenly gets louder as a result of bleed--and Curtis crashes into the mix, in the same room as the guitar and bass, with, "oh, I'll break them down, no mercy shown" at the beginning of the second verse, and sounds like he can barely breathe, every single shouted word seemingly being borne on the very last breath in his lungs. His voice sounds like it could crack on the next consonant; the sound is so desperate and tense one can hear his throat, his entire body straining to its limits to deliver the lyrics. And the mic apparently goes out again after the second verse; either that, or Curtis was singing the "watching love grow, forever" refrain in nothing more than a whisper, and the rest of the band plows forth through the outro without him.
The effect, 27 years later (enough time for another rock star to have been born, gotten famous, and killed himself, I morbidly observe), is that even on that day, in Birmingham, it seemed Ian Curtis was frozen in media res and already being carried off into the past on the strength of his brief flame, drowned in the din of history, but for less than a minute managed to cry out loud enough to be heard across nearly three decades of mythologizing. For one verse, it's clear even to some punk kid who wasn't even born until six years after Curtis died how much substance was in that music; yet, though we listen to the songs on repeat day after day, letting a shard of history penetrate this deep into our hearts makes the divide between present and past more desolate still.
Rumor has it that when Bernard Sumner was trying to figure out the lyrics to "Ceremony" to sing in New Order after Curtis died, he had to re-equalize the rehearsal tape to figure out what Curtis had been singing. So who knows if Sumner, or Dean Wareham, or the guy from Xiu Xiu, or Thom Yorke ever got it right; the real lyrics to "Ceremony" may be lost, and if they're lost, they're lost for good. "Ceremony" isn't a monument, and it isn't a legacy, of Joy Division; "Ceremony" is the ghost of Joy Division and Ian Curtis, something half-seen out of the corner of one's eye, something that haunts the world and infiltrates the form of the living, and when the likes of Yorke and Wareham give a gentler voice to the words, they're underscored by the shadow of Ian Curtis, and we intersect his stalled trajectory briefly before rushing once again from that static moment in time, as the living do from the dead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
