Aging and Rock Demographics

Due to a bewildering number of things to do, combined with a collective Dark Night of the Soul shared by almost all of us in Grad Office 210 that lasted a week, I'd completely forgotten that I'd spoken to my friend Tina about going to a gathering at the Murat in downtown Indy. At the time I'd originally spoken to her I didn't hear her properly and thought that it had something to do with the Colts. Hmm, a concert for the Colts. Inconcisely, I'm very much not at all even slightly connected to football, but I thought, hey, free tickets, it'll be good for people watching, expanding horizons, writing material, a gin and tonic, and so forth.
But by the time I'd finished my class yesterday, piled all of my crap in the back of the car, and hightailed it home, any memory of my conversation with Tina had completely evaporated. I Lugged my box of books, papers, notebooks, CD-Rs, dumped the mess on the sofa and did what I now often do after getting home on an early Friday afternoon--I went directly to bed. Sure, I go there with the excuse that I'll stay warm under the covers and read until the house heats up, but I know that I'll be out like a light within ten minutes. After a dream in which I was at the Symphony with my Aunt Paula, I hear my phone. Tina. Wanting to know about the concert.
"The Colts? Really? A concert for them?" I was inclined not to go. After various repronunciations at varying volume, I finally was able to understand that they were free tickets for The Cult, whom many of my older readers might remember as an 80s rock group. Tina had five free tickets, her husband couldn't go. I squinted at the clock and determined that I could get to Tina's house and then downtown in time to find a decent spot. I told Tina I'd be over after a quick clean-up.
The poor Cult folks--as soon as I got in to the Egyptian Room with Tina and company, I was failry certain that this would be a bust of a concert. At the same time the "Kids Bop" even t was being held in the Main Hall--pre-teens could be heard screaming to imitation Britney. Tickets hadn't sold well so the promoters, looking at the general age group of folks who listened to The Cult, comped a bunch of tickets to banks, downtown office buildings, and my former employer, the Big Mutual Fund Company, which is how Tina got ours. The room looked like a slightly goth-tinged Annuities Convention. The whole event was officially titled The Jaegermeister Music Tour--five bands culminating with The Cult. The Jaeger bus, bright orange, was parked outside. The busty Jaeger girls were there, smiling in carefully-prepared poses, took orders and pulled back their shoulders for pictures. Jaeger ads were projected onto the ceiling--the buck with the radiant cross between its antlers twitched to different spots on the ceiling at timed intervals.
I wasn't really in the mood for a rock concert. Evidently, neither were the 50-somethings that were there. The opening bands exhorted the attendees (I won't call it a crowd) to buy independent, to support new bands, and to "ditch all this Corporate bullshit that's killed music." I blinked. Looked up. The Jaeger logo spun slowly--a deer in a dryer. "Coors Light" sailed slowly over the ceiling tiles.
The sedentarily-boozing Managerial faction at the tables weren't impressed. "Fuck you." Their jowls quivered. Most sat in accustomed Barcalounger poses. I ordered a drink. Sipped the Jaeger. It tasted like Vicks Formula 44D. I decided to have it changed to a Jaeger Bomb, which added Red Bull. I sipped. The addition magically transformed the flavor to that of Robitussin.
The Cult came on. One of Tina's kids was face-forward on the table, sleeping in spite of the volume. The lead singer, after three songs, mentioned Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. "Fuck you" said the Barcaloungers. "You do read books, don't you?" said the lead singer. Contempt from the Barcaloungers, who went to get more crap domestic beer. After a few more songs, the lead singer spits. "Kids Bop is next door, people." "Fuck you" said the Barcaloungers. The Jaeger gorls were gone. The tenders broke down the bar, shut off the Jaeger machines. Carts of the awful stuff went by. From my vantage point, I could count no fewer than four Barcaloungers, heads thrown back, mouths open, sleeping. It was less a rock concert than a lounge in a retirement village, shortly after dinnertime.
"Good night, right-wing Christian fuckers," said the singer. Which missed the point, I think.

waaaay too much to do...

I've not posted much recently, and am not sure when that trend will end, as this weekend is a bit out of control---book reviews, record reviews, term papers to grade, revisions to make, and new stuff to produce, not to mention all those other more mundane things I've been putting off that need to be attended to, such as bills and groceries and laundry and such. I'd had an idea for a thought-provoking post based on something Robert Hass said in an interview, but that thought went away. I hope to regain it at some point but it's not likely to be this weekend.
As a diversion, I went to the Indianapolis Library book sale at ten this morning, after not having been there for several years. The same people run it, the same hoards with their bags, stale tobacco-and-cat smell comb the shelves. I found a volume of Yevtushenko--whose poetry was used by Shostakovich for his 13th symphony--and though he's supposedly an egotistical ass in person, picked it up, along with Oppen's collected poems and another anthology of English Renaissance poetry. CD's were going for 50 cents, but with my main focus on classical stuff that wasn't scratched all to hell, ended up with not particularly much--Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night some Continental Renaissance music for two violas, and a collection of stuff by Taverner. Oh, and Erasure's latest album, which has cover art that it so glittery it makes Barbie's dream album art look like the Stone Temple Pilots. I mean, it's like My Pretty Pony had an acid trip with the Care Bears in Neverland. I remember them from that year before I started at Purdue in Lafayette. They're still going strong, but they should fire their graphic design team.

Brushes with Greatness

Well, here's the gang, there with JCO in the lobby of Loeb, after her grueling book-signing stint. I I thought it a nice touch that we were arranged with the most brightly-colored folks on the outside, with the rest of us somberly-clad writers in the middle. It was not only an aesthetic choice, but perhaps one for public safety. Putting Brian and Tess side by side might have caused the paneling behind us to burst into flame. I was among those who was keeping the line in order. I had my own pad of bright orange Post-its, on which I was writing the name of the person JCO ws to dedicate the book to. Shortly after doing this, word came down the line that there were too many people and that she would only be signing her name. No dedications. Ok. She reads a poem shaped like a kite and now she won't personalize books. I still dutifully place an orange Post-it on the title page, so as to make it easy for JCO to sign the proper page. Here she is with local politician Sheila Klinker. She looks thrilled to be wielding a pen.

The party afterwards was quite nice--Deb and I arrived just in time to say hello to the guest of honor. By the time I put down my bookbag and took off my jacket, we turned around just in time to day goodbye to the guest of honor. Which of course left more onion tarts and cold boiled shrimpies for us poor grad students. And the champers was delightful.

Can I Help You?

The pad switch embedded in the asphalt isn't working. The switch that makes a beep and activates the connection between the microphone in the lit sign and the headset of the woman inside has ceased working correctly. It believes a car is on it when there isn't one. In my walking to the grocery store, the woman's voice could be heard, offering assistance. But there isn't anyone wanting her assistance, as there isn't any car, though the switch insistently tells her this. Inside the grocery store, many people are standing in line. Some are holding bags. Some are carrying babies or pushing carts filled with things. They polish the oil off the displays of their cellphones. It looks as if they are waiting to board a plane, or a bus. They hold their identification ready. Credit cards. Newspaper clippings. The scanners call out their single short note to each other, bat it back and forth under the mercury vapor lights. Someone's plastic pumpkin won't scan. She holds it over the smudged square of glass with both hands, swaying it diligently. A movement filled with uncertainty, ceremony. The scanner will not respond, will not call out to the other scanners that a connection was made, that the pumpkin should be placed on the metal table that knows how much the item weighs before she sets it down. A series of people come, touch the screen with one finger, carry the pumpkin away. I pick up my own items, the weight of which the metal table has successfully predicted. Crossing the dark parking lot, there are people pumping gasoline into their cars. There are patches of oil. Flattened cans. Can I help you? Can I help you? The drive-through sign softly illuminates the empty area of asphalt under which the faulty switch is buried. The woman inside asks again: Can I help you? Makes another offer. Her intonation growing more urgent, more as one would ask it after rushing to someone found lying down on the ground in an unusual spot, like a street, or a sidewalk. She asks again as I climb the steps to my front door. No cars in the lot; the sign shining softly.

SCORE!

I'm being told it's an illness. I'm being told I should make it stop. That something shoudl be done. But what am I to do when the Humanities library holds its annual book sale, with all hardcovers for $2? What am I to do? Going there to find what there is on offer is a mandatory thing. Unfortunately, all the big area book dealers were also there, well ahead of us poor students, being absolute pigs about it, sweeping stuff off the tables and hoarding them in boxes they stacked in the corners. Aggressively snatching books right in front of you, pushing and hassling--it was like the Cabbage Patch Doll Riots of '82. In spite of all, though, I managed to come out with some great stuff: The hardcover U. of California edition of Charles Olson's poems, four volumes of the Gerhart Hauptmann set I've been looking for over the past 10 years, a lovely edition of one of Haydn's operas in full score, and a good deal of poetry. Pretty soon, I'll have two residences completely full of books, which will put me in a bad way once my MFA time comes to an end...

Joyce Carol Oates, to me, was far less enjoyable at her reading than she was at the more informal Q & A. Her entire reading consisted of reading two poems (one of which was shaped like a kite for godsakes) and a short story. Unfortunately, she felt the need to tell us what the poems were about for approximately 10 minutes before reading each 45-seconds-to-read poem. 119 books published and she decides she's gonna read a poem shaped like a kite. She was quite generous with her answers during the Q & A, which was quite nice. With so many books out, it is unsurprising to hear from her that her "writer self" is introspective, isolative, compulsive and obsessive, but there were times I certainly doubted her sincerity, especially when she mentioned that she writes "very slowly." 119 books out, three of which were put out this year? I don't believe she's a slow writer for a second. More on some of the deeper issues on what she said (along with pictures of me with Greatness) in future posts...

Joyce Carol Oates Day

This evening, I get to sip champagne with Joyce Carol Oates, by which time I will have spent so much time in her company that we'll likely be singing Carpenters tunes at the piano once the salmon canapes have been served. At 4, we MFA folks will have the wonderful honor of chatting with her in person, then I'll be one of the ushers/book table attendees, where she will be signing books before and after the reading. I'll be right there as the waves of adulation crash over the folding table stacked high with the fruit of her endeavors. The checks roll in, which I collect, and I sit there close to the center of the vortex of all that positive energy. Well, as positive as a vortex based on books filled with domestic violence and coercion can be.

I was trying to figure out who she reminds me of, and that person is Shelley Duvall. As in, of The Shining Shelley Duvall. More later. Pix at eleven.

Get Happy--Gouda, Emmenthaler, or Gov't Surplus?

In true manic fashion, I don't type any blog posts for over a week, and then in two days post three. I'm not aiming for consistency folks. Neither qualitative or quantitative. I should sensibly go for both, but I've got Virginia Woolf to read, ya know. I'm finding that one tends to be most profound when one least aims for profundity. Not that those that don't aim for profundity end up being profound.

While spending an exceedingly enjoyable evening with Holly (found I needed a nap to work my way up to it, being the rapidly foxing flyleaf that I am), she called my attention to a few things on YouTube I hadn't seen before, so in closing I bring you three performances of the famed MGM musical tune made a household name by Judy Garland before she curled her toe over the sharp edge of fame, then by Rufus Wainwright, who managed to not embarrass himself by replicating Judy's playlist for her famous Carnegie Hall concert (the recorded evidence being released sometime this month, evidently). I find it interesting that in the current day and age that the only things that really ends up making this a drag performance are the heels and hose--the lipstick dispatched by Robert Smith of the Cure, and the earrings dispatched by just about every heavy metal group since 1985--oh, and by the way, as Holly has mentioned, the Rufus is lip-synched because the dancers are actually his band. Finally, to keep things serious, I include a replay of the immortal Peggy Guy, whose performance ends up being curtailed somewhat due to secretly forseen circumstances.

Dentrifice and the Knight of the Red Crosse

Dream: of being at the dentist, having just rolled out of bed with morning zaggly-mouth. As I am exchanging pleasantries with the hygienist, I duck into the next room and find a gumball machine, into which I insert a dime, twist the ratchet. Another is beside it, one filled with those strange-tasting "hot-dog" gumballs I remember in the Nebraska Hinky Dinky as a kid. My slight regret that I didn't opt for those--they were mintier and would have done the job better. The gumballs rattle down into the hopper. I lift the flap, pop several gumballs in my mouth and chew, hoping to clear my breath a bit before I have to sit down in the chair. I turn to acknowledge what the hygenist is saying. Behind me, the gumballs continue to fall into the chute--I am a winner evidently and the gumballs currency in some feeble slot machine. I wonder why a dentist office would have sugar-based gum in their machines. I chew and chew. Evidently I'm grinding my teeth more than usual in my sleep lately.

Under three blankets was cold all night and so now, on this starkly bleak day, I am sitting in the warmest room in the house with the furnace on, with tea steeping, and wearing flannel. Spenserian stanzaic scansion be on the docket for today, along with the penning of a stanza in some manner of pale imitation, which I will discuss and display in class for Monday, a lovely excuse to pull my Penguin edition of Faerie Queene from the bookshelf--the credit card slip is still inside--evidently I purchased the book on January 6th of 1991 from Von's. I would have been a sophomore then, With a Discover card, the application for which was no doubt filled out in the Memorial Mall so I could have a free 2-liter bottle of Coke or a free highlighter. The acidic newsprint pages have been yellowing like ivory on my shelf ever since. For some reason I have my transcript right here--I'm assuming I bought the book for my English 240 class: English Lit through the 18th Century. I never read the excerpts no doubt assigned for class, which would explain my lackluster grade of C.

Photo of Jewish Holocaust Museum, Berlin

Lame-o Lamenheimer

Yep, I've been pretty damned lame on this blog. I won't make excuses. I've been having what could be categorized as a fairly light semester, but have hed little time for blog entries lately. Perhaps I need a life-coach. Or at least a personal assistant. I've been told to include pix of my three new trees ( story on that event forthcoming) that I now have in my yard, and, if my laptop will agree to talk to my digital camera, you can see the breathtaking arborial documentation in upcoming posts.

Considering my quite-busy upcoming semester, I'm trying to get some reading done ahead of time, and have therefore been limping through Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which, far be it from me to be presumptuous, really could do without 30 pages of verbatim fireandbrimstone sermons in the middle. I mean, I get the point. At least the last 25 pages of the book have turned out to be interesting. Next on the list--To the Lighthouse and The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.

From what I've read so far in the latest issue of McSweeney's, Bowl of Cherries, the new book (actually the debut novel) from Millard Kaufman (the man who brought you Mister McGoo) is quite good. It tries a bit too hard in certain spots, but I'd rather something try hard than not try.

Speaking of trying, I should make the attempt to finish the last ten pages of Portrait. It's just about the easiest book to put down that I've run across...

Descending Chromatics

--Why I'm a sucker for this device, I don't know, but if a piece has this as the motif, I'll play it to death. I still remember the first time I heard Dido's Lament When I Am Laid in Earth--it was in the auditorium of Matthews Hall during Music Appreciation class back in 1992 or so. In fact, it's the only thing I remember about that class. The performance was a bit more industriously-paced than this (the aria proper starts around 1:10)--in fact, it could've been a polka--but there it was...that descending scale that fits in so perfectly with the last thing before Dido descends to the Underworld. And then a song I'm sure I never would have heard had I not been in Russia, the amazing Seven Seconds by Youssou N'Dour, which was one of the reasons I made sure I caught Euro MTV every evening in the hopes this video would be on.

It fell under my radar for a few months once I got back to the States, until I listened to Radiohead and Bossa Nova in the same day--it's good to have things on shuffle occasionally. In the Joao Gilberto performance of Samba de Una Nota So (an amateur performance is here), I noticed a distinct similarity to the main motif of Radiohead's Nice Dream. I was once again down one of those rabbit holes I mentioned earlier--The Cure has their 10-minute epic Watching Me Fall from Bloodflowers (here live, with modified bass line), and then on that new Annie Lennox album I mentioned earlier this week, her song Big Sky, the latter couple of minutes of which are among the most impressive vocals she's laid down in years. There isn't any link to the actual song, but snippets of it can be heard on Itunes. I'd swear I've got about 10 other songs that have this, but can't think of them right off-hand.

There are only two other things that seem to immediately get my attention in pop music--the reasons for which I'm still unsure of: 6/8 time (Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears and, yes, I'll admit, I even temporarily fell for Whitney Houston's Be Your Baby Tonight for the same reason), and then there's one other thing I can't describe and will need to clear through someone with plenty of music theory so I know the term for it.

--pic from http://www.cityofsound.com/photos/swiss_cottage_library/swisscottage_stairs2.html

Sex, Politics, and Overcast Skies

This morning came early, with me feeling feverish, and with sore throat, and generally feeling crappy, at 2:30 am. Couldn't get to bed until 4:30, over which time I spent writing general notes on a prospective piece concerning an imagined photograph of a hand grenade along with a pomegranate. It made sense at the time, and, not having my notes, I'm hoping it will make sense later. After my class, during which various freshmen succeeded to varying degrees to stay awake whilst talking about Dostoevsky. Once class was finished I spoke to some about their sleepiness and that I will be counting students absent if they sleep whilst in class. I didn't use "whilst" in conversing with them, but they got the point. At least one high point was someone coming up to me afterwards asking whether all of Dostoevsky was like Notes from Underground--his stuff seemed relevant well past the time in which it was written. Hearing that from just one student is making the teaching of this book worthwhile. Next semester I hope to do a better job at setting this book up and discussing it to better effect in class.

Once I was settled down after getting back to my office, I headed to the Lafayette side to get some breakfast at a local diner, where the post-Matins crowd had gathered for eggs and hashbrowns. One of the off-duty priests came in, and asked, in passing, just who they thought was going to be president; whether there was any hope of someone other than Hillary. Conversation was rather reserved, but, as I perked my ears up to get the dirt on local politics, I heard "Evan Bayh--I'd vote for him...He's a heartthrob."

Really. After all this mess, is that still how people are voting--off the ballot and based on looks and personality? I was hoping after all this, with thousands of lives lost and billions and billions of dollars down the pike that the age of voting for someone that seems like a good person to have a beer with was long past. I'll admit I entertained similar thoughts when Perot was running--he was wacky and seemed he'd be someone to add an element of fun to politics. I've grown older and wiser since.
When the "gals" turned the tables and asked the priest what he thought about the upcoming election, he said that he thought hillary would be the next president, but didn't like her. "She strikes me as a very emotional, angry person." Not quite sure where that's coming from. Having listened to her, I'm still trying to figure that out. Angry? I'm trying to figure out how that sizes up with threatening war with Iran and discussions on doubling the size of Guantanamo. I guess it's all a matter of perception.

I found out yesterday that Annie Lennox had a new CD out, and it turns out to have the world's worst title: Songs of Mass Destruction. The title wasn't at all promising, indicating a full-out awful political album, and, much as I like Annie Lennox, I don't want George W. to be the basis for a Lennox album. Thankfully only two songs are preachy, but that is two songs too many unless one is willing to go out and do Baez-style protesting. and even that, inthis day and age, is unlikely to do much. and flagwaving former hippies in this bar playing the Doors on the jukebox aren't helping my view on this much.
I'd be in a better mood, but it's Jane Eyre weather outside. Cloudy, dark, bleak drizzle-piss coldness, with a really shitty waitress to top things off. Honestly. If I'm going so far as to typing most of this blog entry on a laptop at an 8-top table (which is where the outlet is), after waving hello to her and most of the townies sitting at the bar, we've got a problem.

Debt, Thy Name Remains Davo

Well, it's October and I'm hemorrhaging money. After the first brake issue ($600), I had to finally bend to necessity and get a laptop ($650), then there was the second brake issue ($250), then the dental issue ($250) today, and then the other bills. It's a good thing I'm easy on clothes and am not too proud to wear things that occasionally look ridiculous (my sweaters would be a good case in point). This October break was not particularly productive, but I did at least manage to get a few books that I know I'll be needing for next semester's classes. I was hoping to actually get a review or two done, but perhaps that can wait for the coming weekend. I have many reviews to write. Perhaps I'll just work on those in the evenings...get about 5 done and then send them off.

I've been reading through one of the latest issues from McSweeney's Press--the box set of flash fiction, which is generally ok, with some really rather interesting pieces. I'm about halfway through the last volume. In other news, Half Price Books was selling blank books and sketch books for $2 each--woo Hoo!

Unusual talents, Plus, The International Tranvestite Revue

Oh Dear. I could be working on my lesson plans. I could be writing the Great American Novel. But, I started with the recommendation of one of the Chinese Grad students at Purdue, who was completely amazed and mesmerized by someone named Vitas, who has very impressive falsetto. The song is very much what I remember to be typical Russian Pop Music from my time with Kristen in Moscow, but this guy has something special. I looked around for a vid that had the best sound quality and resolution, and this what I was able to find that didn't involve exploding fish. If I could do this, I'd be a professional singer too. By the way, the shrouded musicians are reminiscent of the faceless characters in Man Ray's early film Les Mysteres du Chateau de De.

In unrelated news, I have found various unusual and completely hysterical video clips from around the world that involve people wearing clothes that some would not consider work-appropriate for their gender. I remember at my previous job that some supervisors interviewed someone who showed up to work in drag and all went quite well save for the fact that he had forgotten to shave, leaving quite a bit of stubble showing through the foundation, however thickly it was applied. Earlier yet was a person who was (and perhaps still is, on the City Council for Ft. Wayne Indiana, who on various occasions, showed up at the Southtown Mall branch of Home Loan Savings Bank in full drag, ranging from a Minnie Pearl-type getup (he stepped down from a Monster Truck parked in the lot) to a Klinger-style Nurse's outfit in a shiny red Miata in the drive-thru.

At any rate, we have, of all things, transvestite Russian/Ukranian Ska (wrap your head around that one, folks); he happened to be also the Ukranian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, whose persona is a disturbing combination of a Christmas tree and my dearly-departed Grandma Irene, his song "Dancing" was quite the hit. At least he got rid of the big star headdress in later days.

But oh, that ain't all. In addition to that, we have Dame Edna, much adored in Britain, whose show is a bit of a twist on the typical talk show. I'll be sure to keep you abreast (ahem) of further developments in this area.

I Hate Vista. I Hate Vista. I Hate Vista.

Okey folks, I know just enough about my laptop to know that I sincerely, truly, honestly, unabashedly hate Microsoft Vista. It's truly the biggest, most bogged-down load of flaming goatshit on toast I've had to deal with. It is running right up there with 1993-era Russian bureaucracy. And that ain't good, folks. Earlier today, Vista decided that it wanted to shut down my computer and restart it. no matter that I was doing research. no matter that I was answering student emails. The overall feel, for those that have been there, is AOL back just before everyone revolted against AOL. Remember? Do not shut down your computer. AOL is installing important updates to your computer. And there you sit, for a half hour, watching Yellow Man Running. It's like that. Infuriating. You don't like settings as they have them? Well, the path to the areas that allow you to adjust said settings is a quest of Hobbit-like scale. Muting the sound also makes it so that you can't close the Volume window. Evidently Vista believes that if you want things muted, you plan on changing your mind soon. I think a strongly-worded letter is in order. Especially since I can't get XP anymore...this is the only operating system I'm able to get from Micro-suckin-soft.
In happier news, the latest book from Alice Notley is out, the one who brought you The Descent of Alette and the one who was weirded out by Dave's starstruck-ness at AWP in Atlanta this year. From what I've seen, it isn't quite as difficult to access as The Mysteries of Small Houses. I've also seen that the latest issue of McSweeney's is out now, with a tribute to Barthelme, and in addition there is a box set of flash fiction out there from the same folks that proves to be interesting.
After spending untold hundreds of dollars on my car, the parking brake refuses to disengage, which left one wheel smoking profusely after a low-speed roll of 5 blocks. I was obscenely and verbosely cussing my fate when I found that the intersection I just passed through had two badly-damaged cars just involved in an accident--I suppose things could be worse. Here's hoping the damned brakes disengage for my drive home tomorrow. I promise never to use the parking brake ever again.

I'll take you outta this world baby, with a lovin' feelin.

While I get the hang of a perfectly flat laptop keyboard that radiates heat-- certainly something to get used to--I thought I'd mention a singer everyone's likely heard of already--Amy winehouse. The first time I'd ever heard of her was when she got incarcerated due to her addled fight with her boyfriend. I had no idea who this chick was. Now that I got a computer and a bit of free time, I thought I'd see who this person was, expecting to read about another one of those manufactured stars like Britney and Lohan, and instead I find someone who has a wonderful recent album of heroin-meets-Motown combined with a touch of Diamanda Galas--who has quite a few harrowing releases out there, along with this amazing performance with Alan Wilder's (formerly of Depeche Mode) recoil. Winehouse is certainly in trouble, and her family is encouraging people to ignore her recent album, but from what I've heard, her Back in Black album is worth looking into. Of course, I may be writing this about 9-18 months too late, as is my usual M.O. regarding pop music.

Still no new pictures yet--the drivers aren't readily available for my camera and my hard drives have yet to be easily connected to my laptop.

Back to Music and Politics

Bright and early at 7:45 on Friday, my good friend Joe called me up asking if I was coming down to Indy for the weekend--he had tickets for the Symphony for performances he wasn't planning to attend. I of course said I'd be delighted to lighten him of a couple of tickets. Last night saw the return of the most recent winner of the Indianapolis Violin Competition, which is an event that has seen quite a bit of respectable international attention in the past decade. It turned out that it was the opening concert for the Classical series, so there was quite a bit of prefatory shenanigans going on in the discussion that they often have in one of the reception rooms. Mario Venzago, the conductor, mentioned that some might think that Richard Strauss' Death and Transfiguration an odd choice to open the series with, considering its rather grave opening section. He mentioned that he thought it apt.
Many of the usual folks were there, Friday seeming to be the night that those closest to working with the Symphony plan to attend. Marianne Tobias, the musicologist who writes the program notes, was called on to demonstrate augmented fourths on the piano. Her husband was also there who many will likely recognize--Randall Tobias, the Bush-appointed AIDS "czar," who recently has been in a spot of trouble or two. He seemed to be in quite good spirits, in spite of his shady resignation. Wife Marianne was quite bubbly and seemed to not be affected at all by the recent scandal. either that or the medications are working quite well. Considering that her husband was CEO of Lilly company, I'd assume she's getting the best drugs money can buy.
But I digress. Venzago's comment about Death and Transfiguration being an apt season-opener, no doubt, has to do with the recent shake-up in the orchestra recently, with quite a few principal chairs picking now to retire, and this quite soon after what appears to be a Venzago-leveraged replacement of the Concertmaster the season before. There are quite a few fresh faces (and by this I mean young in addition to new) in the current lineup. The new concertmaster is all of 28 years old.
He was featured quite a bit in the pieces yesterday, with the various solos in Death and Transfiguration, which opened the concert, and the following Poem of Ecstasy, otherwise known as the fourth symphony by Alexandr Scriabin, which is about 35 minutes of sex. Yep, that's about the only way I'd be able to describe it--that Scriabin dude was rather preoccupied. His ten piano sonatas are a great overview of what his style is like and how it evolved into the ecstatic metaphysical vision that he had toward his last years. The audience seemed rather bemused/confused by all the sinuous swirling of the massive forces packed on the stage. I was rather distracted by my nose, as the woman next to me had her perfume set on tazer stun mode. I found I only had a tiny little Dairy-Queen napkin in my pocket and I was doing all I could to make it last through the performance.
The last piece was our Violin Competition winner, Augustin Hadelich, performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. As winner of the competition, he has been given the use of the Gingold Stradivarius made in 1683 for the next four years, so this was also an opportunity to hear the voice of a famed and ancient instrument. He did wonderfully. As most who have been to Classical performances know, there are folks who think the whole piece is over when only the first movement has ended and they'll clap. Tonight was no exception, especially with the barn-burning ending to the first movement of the Tchaikovsky, but a couple of people in the fourth row went so far as to give him a standing ovation, which brought other people springing up who didn't appear to know any better. This went on for some time, with various Others not knowing quite what to do and standing up to clap while the orchestra had a not-particularly well-hidden chuckle.
I have half a mind to go again tonight, but with finances the way they are, I'll think it's best not to. Next week--The Beethoven 9th. There'll be plenty to see with that one. The general public piles in and proceeds to yawn and consult their watches through the first movements of the symphony, but perk right up as soon as the Chorus stands up. They seem to think that that movement is the 9th symphony. And who knows--perhaps I'll be able to corner Randall and ask him a bit about massage therapy...

Debt, thy name is Davo.

Well, folks, Davo now has a new computer. He has finally entered into the laptop age. He has a smokin credit card. He has descended into the depths of Microsoft Vista, which is truly the most godawful piece of crap software since Microsoft ME. In spite of that fact, Microsoft has blocked purchase of Windows XP, so all have to buy the most godawful piece of crap software since Office ME. Still, though, crap software is better than fried motherboard, so I leave this brief bit here to alert all who religiously check out this blog that I appear to be online yet again.

Gloom, Despair, and 'Puter Repair

Hi all. I type with a heavy heart. My home computer bit the green weenie last week and I'm lost at home without it. It's a wonder what one did before one had computers. I have access while I am at school, but back at home, it's back to 1922 regarding home entertainment. I've got books, I've got blank paper, and I've got pens. that's about it. My stereo also is affected, as the computer was the CD player ever since my conventional CD player died 4 years ago. I should probably6 break down and get myself a laptop for my portable computing needs, but before I do, I really need to figure out how to get the files off my now suddenly uncommunicative home PC.

Thankfully, I had the vital stuff--syllabus, assignment sheets, manuscripts and drafts--on a separate drive, but my music (my music! Gasp!), my photos, and many other things are trapped. I'm trying to figure out where to turn.

More on this as things progress.

Previous lives

...I've had several.. we have the uptight undergraduate in Glee club,



the uptight postgraduate just before Russia,




The uptight businessman,


















and other unsorted uptightness.....

Perhaps one sees a recurring theme.

Livestock, Sore Feet, and Fried Pepsi

What a day. After waking up and making breakfast, I found myself having some sort of Celine Dion moment, watching various performances of Lara Fabian blasting her way through Je T'Aime, a song I first heard and couldn't get enough of when I was in Paris. Both Lara and Celine are too pop/Adult Contemporary for me, but I like Lara better. She tears this song up. After watching three other shaky amateur cellphone vids of the same song, I truck outside and mix some mortar and work on tuck-pointing the remaining bits of the foundation that I hadn't gotten to yet. While I am filling a crack in my porch steps, I evidently got too close to a nest of yellowjackets, who reside in my hollow metal porch-railing, which necessitated immediate evasive maneuvers. I managed to keep skin, mortar, trowel, and mortarboard (it ain't just a hat, folks) intact while doing the Daffy Duck dance all around my front lawn. No doubt Doreen the neighbor took note. For the rest of the afternoon, the phrase "I'm covered in BEES" was on endless repeat in the Mental Jukebox.

In spite of assurances that a cold front came through last night, it was still hot as blazes outside, so I spent the rest of the afternoon parked as near to a cold-air vent as possible. From there, Holly and I went to the Indiana State Fair, which is always good for people-watching. This year's models sport neck tattoos of girl- or boyfriend's names. The guys wear boxer shorts under basketball shorts, the waistband of the latter completely under their asses so they have to walk straddle-legged to keep things from falling in the cowshit they're walking over. Regarding the ladies, I swear I saw Britney Spears 15 times today. This is her kinda place. Rascal Flatts was playing to a packed grandstand as Holly and I walked to the Midway. The Fair Food Exhibition Dish this year is Fried Pepsi. You heard it. Fried Pepsi. Under the sign was a list of steps as to how the delicacy was prepared. Essentially, it's fried dough using Pepsi instead of water, with the finished fritter drizzled with undiluted Pepsi syrup, waffle style. If it doesn't slip right out of your hand, it'll surely slip right through your GI tract. I opted for a smoked turkey leg, which ended up being over a pound. I gnawed on it for at least half an hour, feeling like a cross between Henry VIII and a dingo. It was good, but even after flossing, I still feel like I've got at least enough for half a turkey salad sandwich wedged between my molars. Of all the food to buy at the fair, the turkey leg is the most mileage for your buck.

In the Bunny and Poultry pavilion, I did my best to take decent photos of the fauna on display. The fowl were rather difficult to capture, not least due to the fact that their legs appear to be attached to their neck muscles, making each stride a full-body experience. Finally I found a couple that stood still long enough not to be feathered blurs in the limited light. The hen at the top of this post was fully determined to kick my ass. After two shots, I left for tamer fare.

The rabbits were hot. No denying it. It wasn't the walking around that made pix difficult, it was their panting. One proud young owner of a Rex offered to take her entry out of the cage so the wire wouldn't be in the way of the pic. I forgot to get her name, but here she is. She's even got a bunny t-shirt.

Oh, and I almost forgot the sheep in their disturbing protective outfits. And the first sheep Olympic Bobsledding team.

Bye, Bye, Birdie

Last night was my farewell to the Parakeet from the Sky a/k/a Bertie a/k/a Moonbat a/k/a The Bird. School is coming up and my apartment, among other things, would not be able to accommodate the cage, the grad office would not be able to accommodate birds in general, and the house would be empty save for the bird for days at a time, which would be a horrible fate for the poor thing. Transporting wouldn't work due to how cold things get up here in the wintertime. Alice, who was kind enough to loan me a cage to begin with when the bird fluttered down from the neighbor's big oak tree back at the beginning of June, will be taking over custody of the bird. Her daughter looked very excited about getting a bird and I'm sure she will be wonderful in caring for him. After only almost two months it was harder to put the cage in the car and wave as they drove off than I thought. I was thinking that somehow I'd be able to swing having him in the grad office, but I'm sure I would have gotten in major trouble for that...

Rock on, Moonbat, with your 80s-music-lovin, aloud-poetry-readin self. Hope to see you in May back here in the living room...

Parakeets and Internets and Heatstroke

It appears I have found a stopgap happy pill for the parakeet, whose droopy, sullen presence here in the house was getting to be almost more than I could bear. It wouldn't sing, wouldn't sit on my finger, and would only move either to the top of the cage to eat, or to the dining room curtain rod to look down on his hopeless, halflit domain.

This morning, as a last resort, found a website that had example soundfiles of Arizona songbirds. I played them. Found another on the songbirds of New York. Played those too. I swiped them off the interweb and combined them on a CD with soundtracks from various Youtube parakeet videos. Result--instantaneously happy parakeet, flying around the room, chatting back at the speakers, perching on my finger and eating foxtails pulled from the weeds in the garden. Considering that meteorologists are predicting the longest string of 90+ degree days since 1988, it's a good thing that I found at least this. The A/C is not likely to be off for some time. Let's just see how long I can handle hearing badly-edited birdsong sound files...Davo may end up being the sullen one.

The Burden of Memory

One thing that has weighed heavily on my mind over the past few years has been the idea of memory and how it is valued. Some of the other first year poets can likely remember my 4 or 5 page series of notes regarding a novel/long poem sequence. The notes were tremendously overburdened with detail and were overmuch by even those likely to write a large novel. Those involved in the reading were quite diplomatic regarding my glut of material and structural thoughts. Most of the bits in my notes had to do with my upbringing and the importance of keeping a historical context on things, as well as experiences of my family with Alzheimer's and how it affects memory.
I was concerned at the time primarily with the personal aspect of memory and how it is vilified or valued, but in the current political climate, memory also happens to be on center stage regarding various hearings. Memory of the people that are testifying--if they actually show up to testify--is rather consistently faulty. Gonzalez had his famous "I don't recall" testimony not terribly long ago which has morphed, in later testimonies to "I can't answer that question" now that the President is the Big Block to Governmental memory. Phrases of the past year tend to orbit around "I'm not aware" and "I don't know." But memory and its forms are a major obsession at present and the governmental problems of late are only a small part of that.

In bed at my grandparents' house some years back, I was reading a book before falling asleep when my grandmother opened the door. The room had been, over thirty years ago, the room she shared with her husband.
"Where's Gilbert?" she asked.
"He's in the room across the hall, gramma." She blinked and thought a second, hand still on the doorknob, then looked back at me. "Well, good night, then."
"Good night," I said.
She had no idea who I was. She had walked from the bathroom to go to bed and in her bed, in the place of where she thought her husband was, a stranger was reading, a book held under the shade of the lamp. Based on what the stranger said, she closed the door and said goodnight and went to a different room. I'm not sure how many of us would have done the same thing and not caused a ruckus. And in the eye of newborns I can't help but see the same expression of newness and wonder that I kept seeing in her eyes during that and subsequent visits.

Forms of memory are seen everywhere. Hugo's thesis in Notre Dame that architecture is literature, and literature is seen as a form of memory, that same architecture as a backdrop to the interplay of Esmeralda and Quasimodo and the evil Frollo. Literature is, in its own right, memory. Any form of repetition as a form of memory, from the repeated arches or triangulations of a bridge or building to the repeated arches of wires between posts along the highway, to the fact that so many people have been named David or Michael or Frederick or Alice or Theodore before us; the fact that the names we ourselves carry are a form of memory. And in looking forward in the moving car one sees in the same field of vision the receding perspective of the countryside in the oblong mirror glued to the glass.

Memory is, currently, worth both everything and nothing. Politicians wish they could forget, and dear relatives either wish desperately they could remember or live in a present that no longer is, with surrogate sons and husbands, and acquaintances that no longer exist. The past and near-present are the current battleground of society. If one has the power to control history, one has great power. Without that, it's a frightening place to be. Its a frightening place to be nonetheless.

picture adapted from a still from The Life and Death of 9413, A Hollywood Extra

I've done my part...A Rationalization

I kinda like our ozone layer. I don't drive much, took Indy public transport (arguably the worst for how large the city is in the nation--even Lafayette has better busing) for over five years before getting my car. Had a non-engine-driven lawn mower. The usual. I've spent all but three days this summer not using my air conditioning, but after yesterday's weather, and with today expected to be five degrees hotter with more humidity, I'm in hunker-down mode with the curtains closed and the A/C on. This is the first house I've lived in that has had central air, and for a substantial part of my formative years, I've been of the school that A/C simply makes you wimpy. One can be hot, even with the A/C on, and going outside simply becomes intolerable. So, then, why have it? For days like this, when it's gonna be over 95, with humidity in the over 80s category.

The parakeet can't cling to the screen, can't hear the birds singing, can't respond to the outside, and so today sulks on the curtain rod. But at least isn't panting due to the temperature.

In the half light the curtains admit, I've got plenty to do--books to read, much to write, and a semester to plan, pondering questions such as whether I should make the freshies read French Futurist/Cubists and Dostoevsky, or should I do something else.... Plus, the huge amount of Haydn I've been putting off for months is still hanging over my head. The lawn can wait, the weeds can wait, the windows can continue to cook in the garage.

Update...

Speaking in my earlier post of conveniently-announced terrorist plots and large bricks of cheese, we have the following story. It's this sort of thing that cheapens government. It is irritating that people in such positions in society think in such terms about the individuals they have been elected to care for. If one can't believe terrorist alerts from the government, what can one possibly believe? And the bow keeps scraping across the same ol' violin.

Ah, Freedom...

This from Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus:

"...for a while [Freedom] achieves what one expected of it. But freedom is really another word for subjectivity, and there comes a day when it can no longer stand itself, despairs at some point of the possibility of being creative on its own, and seeks protection and security in objectivity. Freedom always has a propensity for dialectic reversal. It quickly recognizes itself in restraint, finds fulfillment in subordinating itself to the law, rule, coercion, system--finds fulfillment in them, but that does not mean it ceases to be freedom."
"In your opinion, that is," I said with a laugh. "As far as you can see! But in reality that is no longer freedom at all, no more than a dictatorship born of revolution is still freedom."
"Are you sure of that?" He asked.

(Woods translation)

Impeach!

Ok--I'm mad as hell and ain't gonna take it any more. Anyone with an objective mind can see that the crap we've been fed for over 5 years has been nothing but grade B Bullshit, and, though I know quite a few people that were very much for a Clinton impeachment for keeping a blowjob hush-hush, I've noticed far less vehement a response in the face of the staggering crap going on in Washington. Folks, I'm thinkin it's past time for impeachment. Cheney, Bush, and that weasel Gonzalez ("Would you permit the U. S. Attorney to carry out the law, or would you block the execution of the law?" "Mr. Chairman, your question relates to an ongoing controversy which I am recused from. I'm not gonna answer that question." Oh, and don't forget, he's also the one that says that American citizens have no Constitutional right regarding Habeas Corpus--who needs something like that?)

Shall we look back on the last 6 years? The call for Visqueen and Ramen Noodles and duct tape (a corresponding sale of which was obligingly given by community Kroger stores immediately after Cheney's announcement), the well-timed terrorist threats over the past years whenever enthusiasm flagged, the fact that, assurances to the contrary that we can trust the government, we still had wholesale warrantless wiretapping of the general American populace. You don't have to worry, of course, if you've got nothing to hide.
Gay folks can't marry (sanctity of marriage? I haven't seen an outpouring against atheists and agnostics and non-Christians getting married. Perhaps because they already have that right. We don't want to give out new rights if at all possible), and their parenting is certainly going to be substandard, but Cheney's grandchild is off-limits for such conversations, evidently because the child is related to the Vice President.

People can't board a plane with bottled water or Power-Ade or nail clippers, but people can cross unobserved (or observed but without follow-up) the borders of New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, and North Dakota. In spite of this, the rules and requirements for non-Americans to legally get into the country are absurd enough to give one insight as to why people don't bother with it.

And now, terrorists are putting large blocks of cheese in their luggage. Cheese, people. Cheddar, and not good cheddar at that. Be afraid. If my legislators cave in in upcoming votes, there's gonna be hell to pay. If there's one thing that this past term has done, it's made me an active member of this electoral process, and politics is gonna be a part of this blog. I don't particularly want it to be, but the conditions require it. Grr.

Difficult Listening Hour, Part Three

I got a packet of CDs from Musicweb International for review not terribly long ago, but haven't really been in the state of mind to give proper attention to them, though I found them all intriguing. It was this morning, though, that put me into gear, when my editor sent me an email asking for a review on a CD that I'd been holding on to since, oh, um, April. I sat down and looked at the notes I'd written during a casual listen. I put the disc on and listened more. And in true Davo style, once I got going on the first review, another wasn't too hard to start right in on. Currently on the playlist is a trio of feature discs from Musiques Suisses, each focusing on either a specific composer, a performer, or an ensemble. The first in the set is a disc of the compositions of Mela Meierhans, a Swiss composer born in 1961, the second is a program of works performed by a violinist I'd never heard of until this point, a certain Hansheinz Schneeberger. Upon further research, this man performed the world premiere of Bartok's first Violin Concerto and all but two of the works on this disc are dedicated to him by the composers. The oldest composition on this disc was finished in 1960, and three others were finished in 2000 or more recently than that. The parakeet likes this disc not at all. Not at all. It's been harder than I thought to write impressions on the works and performances of these pieces while my parakeet in the next room is in a non-stop AACK-fit, as if to say "makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop." Parakeets, therefore, should not be consulted when looking for a good contemporary disc of recordings for solo violin. The third disc focuses on the performances of a group called aequatour (with the first two letters merged). I do like that their name is a two-way pun, from "Equator" to a sort of multilingual English/French phrase meaning "a quartet." They make a point of playing works that are brand-spankin'-new, and I've not heard of any of the composers on that disc. To up the ante, all the works here are for soprano and quartet. I've listened to parts of this disc in the car, and let me tell you, Moonbat the parakeet will not be at all amused.

But my big discovery has been the re-release of BANG! by the Hafler Trio, which is an amazingly strange collection of sound collages that have not the slightest resemblance to a pop song or music in general. The tracks are heavily weighted toward found recordings such as news broadcasts and machine noise that have been treated and looped to fit the demands of the group in these often rather short pieces. The closest analogue would be the wonderful tracks that Talking Heads singer David Byrne and all-round genius Brian Eno came up with for the amazing 1980 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which is a disc that should certainly be in any collection. The Hafler Trio are less concerned about making their pieces fit into a pop music mold, resulting in some often rather disorienting tracks filled with voices. For example, one track is made up of a multitracked newscaster, giving political news, a phrase gradually makes itself known over the stretch of the piece that says "All Largely Propaganda." It's a disc well worth looking into.

--picture adapted from Brian Griffin's Video Only When I Lose Myself

Local Bookcrawl--the Damage Done

Well, the Half Price Bookstores in the area did not disappoint this weekend. Yesterday I managed to pick up a brandy-new hardcover volume of the Samuel Beckett set. Today I found two volumes from the Library of America for $5 or so, as well as David Eggers' new novel for $3.50. In addition, I found the newest novel by Maxine Hong Kingston for a buck and a couple of other things. And on the way I hit a garage sale and got a garden rake and a mortarboard (and the non-dayplanner version of such, for you Purdue peoples) for a total of $1.50. It's been a fairly good day.

It appears that the parakeet enjoys being read to aloud; will sing right alongside whatever it is you are reciting. It has to be from the page, however--reciting from memory or simply talking to him gets a rather stiff response. Experimental electronic music and Big Band stuff are genres that the bird does not at all enjoy--something about the machine noise or the compressed sound of the brass always results in an extended series of AACKs from the persnickety bird. Classical and 80s New Wave seem to be the faves.

I'm going to get some reading done, dammit. I was happy to have a pen while I was slopping at one of the interchangeable Chinese buffets this afternoon--I actually got more writing ideas and notes put down. Let's see how that progresses.

--Photo adapted from L'Etoile de Mer by Man Ray

Hellfire and Allegory

For those who must buy for those who have everything, might I suggest...

Hieronymus Bosch action figures.

Don't even tell me you don't want one.

From Camus' Notebooks

Considering I can't seem to string words together on my own, I'll at least keep somewhat close to the idea of writing by typing the words of someone else.

"The happy thinker is the one who follows his inclination; the exiled thinker is the one who refuses to do so--out of truth--with regret but determination."

"One must bave the strength to choose what one prefers and to cling to it. Otherwise it is better to die."

"Milton's Satan is morally very superior to his God, as whoever perseveres despite adversity and torture is superior to whomever, in the cold assurance of an unquestioned triumph, takes the most horrible revenge on his enemies."

"'I withdrew from the world not because I had enemies, but because I had friends. Not because they did me an ill turn as customary, but because they thought me better than I am. It was a lie I could not endure.'"


--Picture adapted from Jonas Akerlund's video Good Boys Never Win

Further Chain Personal Disclosure moment--You are Not Alone

Ah, another trope, this time with some freedom along with its restrictions. First, the small type:

1) We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2) Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3) People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.
4) At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5) Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

I tend to only deal with chain stuff if it 1) involves thought, and 2) tends to not talk about angels, paying it forward, and my mom dying if I don't respond. This did none of those things under section 2 mentioned, so here I am. I'm essentially taking the lead of someone before me, who chooses the items specifically toward what is desired to be made public, yet to keep them marginally interesting. These are in no way put together as a survey that encapsulates the blogger as a whole. These are random facts, folks.

Considering that the government, thanks to wiretapping and the PATRIOT act (how much that sounds to me like a person with delusions of persecution, yet how likely it actually is) already knows these things and would be willing to make them public were I to run for office, I throw these eight out to the World At Large:

1) I was filmed for Czech national television, in the Cathedral of St. Bartholemew in Plzen, at a performance of Mozart's Requiem, in memory of those who died in the 9/11 attacks.

2) The longest-held job I held before my last position as a corporate trainer was my 4+ years as a professional egg-gatherer at Stoppenhagen Eggs.

3)I've pretended to be a street musician to pay for lunch, singing on public streets in Moscow for money in my year after graduating from college

4) Was threatened with immediate arrest due to unlawful assembly at the base of the Statue of Liberty for singing the National Anthem.

5) As a child my most terrifying dream was a regularly recurring one: I float over a flat screen-like field that has ever-changing black-and-white geometric patterns that run across it, while I have the overwhelming sensation that I am being taken over by an evil force. I find out decades later that I was part of a study that gathered information toward my father's dissertation, which, in part, uses an experiment that explores extending very young children's attention spans (and therefore increasing their intelligence) by putting the subjects in a darkened room with nothing else visible other than black and white geometric patterns projected on a screen. I was around 2-3 at the time.

6) I sang, as a member of the oldest existing Glee Club in America, for the prime minister of Fiji, who was later held hostage by men wielding lawnmower blade machetes as weapons. He remained a hostage for over three weeks.

7) People I don't know have tried, in at least two ways, to set my apartment on fire while I was sleeping in it.

8) Has dreams in full color, which evidently is unusual among the general populace. These dreams have voice-overs and soundtrack music like fully-produced films.

My list of possible subjects for blogging candor is rather short, considering I'm at the end of the blogging foodchain. I shall forward the challenge to as many as possible. They, being the quality people they are, will have interesting responses, I;m sure.

--Photo adapted from Anton Corbijn's video Never Let Me Down Again

Just Gonna Read Today...

Folks, it's hot. Hot. I'm not working on windows today. Won't do it. Moonbat the parakeet (I know, I know, it was Bertie earlier, but names can't be chosen lightly. Typical writer; even my pets have working titles) is cranky. Flies listlessly from chair to window to chair. I'd read that parakeets like sharp, consonantal sounds, so I click my tongue in greeting whenever I approach him. He's taken to replicating the sound, which from him sounds like a sort of cough as reproduced on a gramophone. He scolds the owners of subwoofers as they thwomp by.

The heat finally claimed the Lusitania fan, a 50s turquoise beast so-named because it looked like the product of someone hacking off the back end of a boat and wiring it to move air. Two propellers. A grille like a Buick. One of the motors froze and baked. All other fans are now aimed in my direction.

One more hot day, according to the weather forecast, and then it should be cool enough to get some things done without panting. I feel like I've been coated with a layer of something half-oil, half-silicone. But hey, this all comes with an upside: I've only had to mow the lawn twice all summer. Which I certainly wouldn't do today even if the lawn needed it. I'm not planning on doing much motile activity today. From chair to couch to bed.

Cars of a Smart and Small Variety

Hey all--

Holly called on the 6th to inform me that there was going to be a SmartCar test drive opportunity at the IMA grounds on the 7th, so of course we simply had to go. No way around it. I've fallen in love with these things since a trip to France and have been hoping that they'd show up here in SUV land pronto. It now appears that they finally have. The cars will be available for next year! They're great on gas! They're easy to maneuver! You can park-em anywhere! They have more leg room than my Accord! You can change all the body panels for a SmartCar makeover! And darn it, they're cute as buttons, they are. It's like a driveable Rollerblade boot.

The line for test drives was two hours long. Much of it in the sun. The crew there had tents for us, and water too (Smart Water, so to speak, only minus the vitamins). Holly and I held up well. As we neared the front of the line, we got to inspect one of the display models. Over 40 mpg and a trunk big enough for your subwoofer so you can cronk out in the parking lot.

The meagerly airconditioned trailer had a rather disturbing video that looped constantly of a SmartCar in slo-mo collision with a full-size Mercedes. The idea I'm sure was to show that you wouldn't turn into tinned salmon if you got in a crash with big cars, but I wouldn't have minded a wee bit more of a focus on the thing driving through curvy roads in forests and mountains and driving under city lights in this or that exotic urban area. When the time came to actually test drive the things, it turns out that my license is expired. Bad bad bad. So, after all that time waiting in line, I could only test ride, rather than test drive. The ride is quite smooth, the seats comfy, and the top-of-the-line model has a cool roof that disappears, which was way nicer than my moonroof. I had no problem whatsoever in fitting comfortably. There is less headroom in my car. They aren't for everyone, but for city driving single folks like me, it'd be perfect. Every time I have to parallel park in Lafayette, I wish I had one. So who needs a hybrid car when you can have one-a-these?

From Notebooks

Dream:

I'm looking through a book of photographs--a monograph book, all of the same photographer. The pictures are of town scenes (East Europe?) near a slaughterhouse. One, a very arresting image where a woman stands in the middle foreground. In the background are people rolling barrels/drums from the slaughterhouse, the speed of their roll and the force of their impact on the pavement is shown by the sheets of bloodred that fly off the rim of the barrels, caught in the evening light.

This appears to be the motif of the series, as these red midair splashes appear in almost every photograph. Outside the slaughterhouse, blood evidently stood in the potholes: another photograph of a 60s car approaching the camera. From each front fender is a splash that extends; two red blood batwings through which the sunlight comes. Another shot is taken of the driver from the passenger seat. A young woman is at the wheel. Past her shoulder and appearing over the sill of the door, one of those bloodred wings. The whole series a set of casual scenes with these ominous shapes spreading themselves out somewhere in the frame in that captured instant.
---
In looking around the internet and in various reading, I came across the work of Felix Gonzales-Torres, a New York artist whose installation pieces didn't impress me much, focusing mostly on draped light strings, such as could be found in just about any college off-campus house, and candy spills. I read about some of his later pieces put together when he was sick, composed of piles of light blue candy that the exhibition-goers were invited to eat. "The artist told X that weights and numbers in his pieces was arbitrary, but he also told friends that the weight of the candy pile was the combined weight of his and Ross's bodies, slowly disappearing, being consumed. ...Also, X repeatedly questions [Felix] about the shade of blue that appears in so many of his pieces, the artist evades the question even though he had told close friends that the blue was the blue of Ross's hospital gown."

Top photo can be found at http://renaissancesociety.org

"We Always Float to the Top"

Found this in Dostoevsky's The Insulted and Injured, in Constance Garnett's translation. Dostoevsky always did an amazing job putting himself in the position of those characters he used to argue against the position he himself chose, often to the detriment of his own position. Here we have Prince Valkovsky, a man of means and position, telling us like it is. It certainly isn't far from the gist of what appeared on CNN today:

"'I tell you what, my poet, I want to reveal to you a mystery of nature of which it seems to me you are not in the least aware. I'm certain that you're calling me at the moment a sinner, perhaps even a scoundrel, a monster of vice and corruption. But I can tell you this. If it were only possible (which, however, from the laws of human nature never can be possible), if it were possible for every one of us to describe all his secret thoughts, without hesitating to disclose what he is afraid to tell and would not on any account tell other people, what he is afraid to tell his best friends, what indeed, he is even at times afraid to confess to himself, the would would be filled with such a stench that we should all be suffocated. That's why, I may observe in parenthesis, our social proprieties and conventions are so good. They have profound value, I won't say for morality, but simply for self-preservation, for comfort, which, of course, is even more, since morality is really that same comfort. [...]
'...you charge me with vice, corruption, immorality, but perhaps I'm only to blame for being more open than other people, that's all; for not concealing what other people hide even from themselves, as I said before.
'[...] All is for me, the whole world is created for me. Listen, my friend, I still believe that it's possible to live happily on earth. And that's the best faith, for without it one can't even live unhappily: there's nothing left but to poison oneself. They say this was what some fool did. He philosophised til he destroyed everything, everything, even the obligation of all normal and natural human duties, til at last he had nothing left. The sum total came to nil, and so he declared that the best thing in life was prussic acid. You say that's Hamlet. That's terrible despair, in fact, something so grand we could never dream of it. But you're a poet, and I'm a simple mortal, and so I say that one must look at the thing from the simplest, most practical point of view. I for instance, have freed myself from all shackles, and even obligations. I only recognise obligations when I see I have something to gain by them. You, of course, can't look at things like that, your legs are in fetters, and your taste is morbid. You talk of the ideal, of virtue. Well, my dear fellow, I am ready to admit anything you tell me to, but what am I to do if I know for a fact that at the root of all human virtues lies the completest egoism? And the more virtuous anything is, the more egoism there is in it. Love yourself, that's the one rule I recognise. Life is a commercial transaction; don't waste your money, but kindly pay for your entertainment, and you will be doing your whole duty to your neighbor. [...] I'm looking at your face; with what comtempt you are looking at me now!'
'you are right,' I answered.
'Well, supposing you are right, anyway, filth is better than Prussic acid, isn't it?'
'No. Prussic acid is better.'
'I asked you 'Isn't it' on purpose to enjoy your answer; I knew what you'd say. No, my young friend. If you're a genuine lover of humanity, wish all men the same taste as mine, even with a little filth, or sensible men will have nothing to do in the world and there'll be none but fools left. ...and there are legions like me, and we really are all right...we shall exist as long as the world exists. All the world may sink, but we shall float, we shall always float to the top.'"