Glad My Car Has a Cupholder (Part 1)

'Cause I gots to put this Colorado Cup somewhere... :)

Okay, technically speaking, I suppose my car needs a shortsholder:

With all apologies to fans of pre-modern linear narrative, popular demand* dictates that I cover the last part of our excellent vacation first. But I have to start with our second trip to Colorado, so that means starting the tale west of Vancouver on Salt Spring Island at 5 AM PDT.

* - Then again, perhaps this is a bad idea, as popular demand - read, a request from Sprawl-baller Aaron H. - also dictated that I include another sexy "half-naked pic" of your balladeer. This order is by-letter filled by the shorts pic above - I am indeed shirtless up there, it being a cool 102 degrees at the time of photo-shooting - but I am sure that is not what he had in mind, so here's a zoom-out to fulfill Harczynskian desires. FYI, this is what a one-fifth naked Harczynskian looks like when chugging a 32 ounce girly beverage:

The bed and breakfast where we stayed, Blackberry Glen, was easily a five star experience, but one question stood between the establishment and the coveted fifth and a half star - how would they handle breakfast on Friday morning? For flight-out-of-Seattle-at-3:45 and ill-timed-ferry-schedule reasons, we had to leave at about 5:30 that A.M. This meant not only an ugly 5 A.M wake up, but also that that we would not be getting our last breakfast, rendering the last night a mere bed-and. Jason and John, our excellent hosts, came through in the clutch with a quasi-picnic breakfast of sandwiches and fruit, pushing the stay into exalted territory. Seriously, I cannot recommend Salt Spring or Blackberry Glen enough, though I suppose we'll get into that in another post.

So Beck and I lumbered downstairs in the dawn-dark with our week's worth of luggage to begin a Friday-ful of travel, being careful not to make noise so as not to disturb our hosts nor the friendly neighborhood deer. We managed to successfully not take a detour into America en route to the Canadian ferry this time,* as thankfully it was just about a one mile - sorry, 1.6 km - ride to the ferry port from the B&B. We waited about twenty minutes before pulling up onto the ferry, parking the car and heading to the passenger deck. We used the boat cafeteria's microwave to heat up our breakfasts-to-go. And they were SO GOOD, on all kinds of aesthetic levels:

* - We were in a huge rush on Tuesday, leaving from Vancouver to get to the ferry in Tsawwassen - our boat left at 7:10, we were supposed to be there half an hour early, and our ETA after hitting traffic in Vancouver was approximately 6:38. Our directions said "take 17 South to the ferry," but as we're heading down that road, Beck sees a sign that says "next left: Tsawwassen." So, reasonably enough, she turns left. And after speeding through downtown Tsawwassen in approximately two minutes, we see signs welcoming us to America. I'll spare you the goofy details of Port Roberts, other than to note that yes, U.S.A. has perhaps the most pointless patch of territory in the world up there on a little peninsular offshoot of Canada, and the border guards on that patch are not really huge fans of the border U-turn. We technically left Canada for a microsecond, so we had to re-present passports, re-answer all of the questions about cargo and weapons, and restate our purpose in Canada. The guard waved us through with all the passion of someone who has heard "which way back to the ferry?" a thousand times, and we made it at 6:50, the last people in line to be let on the boats. Phew.

You'll notice, in addition to the sandwiches and fruit and breakfast chocolates, the chocolate-chip-oatmeal-and-raisin cookies that made it into the mix there. Those were definitely a highlight of the Blackberry Glen experience, and no, how dare you accuse us, we did not eat all two dozen of the ones baked for us. That's preposterous!

The ferry ride was relatively uneventful, other than fog and boat-rocking that made us a little queasy, but nothing crazy. I spent the boat trip (inbetween five minute naps, anyways) reading Tango et al.'s The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, at which Beck gave a cursory glance and asked, "Is that a book for nerds?" Yes. Really, really cool nerds. I did, though, just to stay remotely on topic, give quite a bit of thought to leveraging situations with playing time and how it applied to Ultimate. So that sort of reset my bar for assigning PT for the weekend, and I think resulted in a more even, more successful distribution. So the nerdiness occasionally pays off.

We couldn't take the subtle indoor boat-rocking after a bit, so we got up and walked laps around the boat-deck for the last fifteen minutes of the ride. This is more challenging than perhaps it sounds - being exhausted and walking across a rocking boat effectively makes you look very drunk, so that was good exercise for the day. We pulled in to Tsawwassen at 9:30-ish with way more than enough time to make the 2 hour drive to Seattle and catch our plane. We started making plans to hit a good eatery somewhere en route accordingly. Which would have been great...

...except that we did not anticipate that it was the Friday before "BC Day." Apparently Canada has a "civic holiday," which seems to mean that someone along the line decided screw it, the whole country's going to take a day off the first weekend in August. How very uncapitalist of them. The result was that we were not the only ones making the trip from Vancouver to Seattle that afternoon, and our leisurely stroll to Seattle turned into a tight-scheduled pain in the arse. We spent an hour and fifteen minutes in a traffic stall at the U.S.-Canada border, and the most challenging aspect of crossing the border this time was when the guard asked "What's new from Canada?" and Beck thought he was asking about Vancouver news and not, say, the bottle of port we bought on Salt Spring Island. "Nothing much... what's new with you?" didn't really suffice as an answer. But we didn't mention the Sky Tower or going to a Phish concert*, so they let us through just fine.

* - This has been a Zil shoutout. Liz: the only person who's U.S. - Canadian border crossings are more eventful than Beck's.

Another idiotic feature of your narrator is that he completely neglected to comprehend that Canada is, indeed, a foreign country, and as such data and texting and phone calls in such a place are, however technically, international. Meaning 15 bucks per megabyte and such. So we made it a solid three days without using our iPhones, and thank goodness we got them back when we did. The primary effect was that we could use the Yelp! app to find a non-McDonalds eatery for the ride back - despite the newfound tightness of our schedule, we thought it'd be a great idea to stop just off the highway in Everett for another nice vacation lunch*. We tried to stop at a place called The Majestic Cafe only to find it closed, but that sent us across the street to The Prohibition Grille... and next time someone asks you, "Do they have good soul food in Everett, WA?," you can answer, "Yes, yes they do." If I recall correctly, Beck got a bisque and a salad, and I got a big-as-my-head order of cornbread followed by a plate of Andouille sausage and cajun shrimp over jalapeno cheese grits and spinach. Dios mio - probably didn't exactly qualify as pre-Ultimate carbo-loading, but it certainly fulfilled my pre-tourney "dripping with oily flavor goodness" quota. The food came out fast and got us back on the road in a split; if you're ever north of Seattle, that place will not disappoint.

* - We ate quite well this vacation, I tell you what. I am pretty sure Beck broke a mussels-meal record - special thanks to Meghan and Greg for sneaky funding part of our trip! The Salt Spring Island bucks were great.

So we slugged it down through Seattle Friday afternoon traffic and our flight hour got closer and closer. Much to Beck's chagrin, the signs for rental car return at the airport left out one significant fact - that Thrifty's rental car location was five miles south of all the others. ARGH! All told, it all worked out, but it injected the end of an already too long 10 hour day with an added drama that we didn't need. A ten hour day, and we hadn't even taken the trip back to Denver yet. Ugh. So a tired Nyet* and Beck boarded the plane to Colorado, pretty much wanting a bed to crash into at that moment but needing another four or five hours to realize it. Beck fortunately had rented Sherlock Holmes for her iPad - her ire for Steve Jobs being worth a discussion on its own - and I had my nerd book to tide me over, so we made it through the flight okay.

* - I should note - the fatigue thing certainly did not get any better over the vacation. I was up and down all week - e.g., danced like a maniac at Elliot's wedding, did elliptical workouts twice in Denver the previous weekend and went running twice at the island, but at other times couldn't walk around downtown Vancouver without feeling faint, had to eat every five seconds to feel remotely okay, etc. I continue to not be able to get it. I was at my nadir around Wednesday or so and had absolutely no designs on playing at Colorado Cup ... but as we'll see, the best laid plans of Nyet and men are, you know, not life. Or something.

Oh, somewhere in there, EBay and Cole each texted me that Cole had broken his leg. And Ian wrote to tell me that his knee felt terrible. And I already knew that Dheintime wasn't going to be making the weekend. And with myself being questionable, it certainly seemed like we were in for a rough time. I was sub-enthused.

We had to circle Denver a few times in the plane thanks to thunderstorms - so at that point, I was having a "fatigue attack," for lack of a better term, and envisioning a weekend in the rain watching a depleted Sprawl squad play in nasty conditions. Not exactly the height of my optimism. We landed and it seemed every plane in the place had been delayed - tons of people were already in line at Hertz; thankfully we had reserved the car (priceline HEYO - 50 bucks total for the weekend!) and could just use the kiosk. We eschewed dinner in favor of a stop at a Safeway and ended up grabbing turkey and some fruit; we drove to the hotel (located partway between Denver and Boulder) and got ready to crash. I talked to Ian for approximately five seconds to get the keycard to our room and otherwise saw no Sprawlers that night. I got my stuff ready for the morning, briefly watched part of a Cubs-Rockies game which the local-to-Denver teaming won 17-2, and headed to bed.

So Friday night was a low - tired after daylong travel, wondering how in hell I was going to rally to play for the weekend, and generally not feeling great about the cap to our vacation. I would be pleasantly surprised in the ensuing 48 hours.

Sending Our Love Down the (Not) Well

I am seated in the living room with iodined cotton fuzz on both arms, placating the dogs with rawhide chewies and not-really-all-that-eagerly awaiting LeBron's 6 PM announcement. Oh, and I'm celebrating, sort of, the ten year anniversary of the first summer I got certifiably Phish-hooked and followed their tour online on a day-by-day basis. I'm not going to full-on album review the show, but just so you get a proper environmental image, here's the setlist of a show from ten years ago today, a show that was conveniently enough immortalized - more than all of their shows have been immortalized - as Live Phish 05:

Saturday, 07/08/2000 Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, WI

Set 1: Punch You In the Eye > NICU, My Soul, Poor Heart, Wolfman's Brother, First Tube, Llama, Guyute, Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: Heavy Things, Piper -> Rock and Roll, Tweezer -> Walk Away, Twist, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Possum

Encore: Suzy Greenberg > Tweezer Reprise

We're in the midst of the instrumental composition "First Tube" right now. This show was a weird selection for the series - there's nothing that really screamed "of your 1000+ shows, you should definitely make this one one of the first six you release officially!" - but they did, and despite the controversy at the time (dooooood, 1994!!!??!?), it's a good representative of a standard show from that summer of 2000. So it's effectively taking me back to happy times with Beck and Zil and driving to Toronto and Ohio to catch Les Boys - ah, memories. I'll give an in-depth take on the whole release at some point, probably in 2047 at the rate I've been reviewing albums recently, but for now, trust that it's a breezy pleasant soundscape on an otherwise 112 degree day.

(Interruption - it's 6:11, and I still don't know where LeBron's headed. Tres betrayal - they said it would be announced within the first 10 minutes! When will I learn?)

Back to the fuzz... as mentioned, I've been feeling intermittently energy-less lately. Well, "intermittently" became "constantly" a little over a week ago - just have been having bouts of a gasless tank at random moments in the day, with my peaks being in, I don't know, the 70% range. Not good - hard to do much of anything for more that ten minutes at a time, and on occasion I get that weird, going to fall over feeling. I'm not dizzy, not feeling faint, don't even really feel week, just feel like I'm dragging badly.

(Miami, btw. Yawn. I suppose this flagrant dis to Cleveland isn't all that yawn, but otherwise, this has been an encapsulation of everything annoying re: ESPN-esque supercoverage).

I'll cut to the chase - docs are pretty convinced I've got mono or valley fever or something of that ilk, so it's something that's more tremendously annoying than it is serious. So no reason for concern - all the appropriate values continue to be normal (after three rounds of bloodwork now), physical exam is normal, yada x 3. The recommended remedy is rest, don't take NSAIDS, and don't push myself to exhaustion in Ultimate or workouts. That last part has not been a problem lately, as this continued bout of low energy was actually somewhat well timed. With the holiday weekend, all things Ulty were canceled last weekend, which has given me a solid twelve days between events. And I've skipped three workouts in a row, too - I'll pay for that later, ugh - but mayhaps all the rest will do my fatigue some good and will have the added bonus of knee relief. This is me being positive about the situation.

Refocusing - I saw the doc for followup today, and he wanted to do a blood culture to rule out anything really strange. And blood cultures require 1, an iodine-sterilized draw, and a lot of blood. So NATCH I got Susie Rookie Phlebotomist. And despite my gigantic, ropey veins, she stuck and stuck and stuck me and hummed her favorite Neil Young tune off Harvest as she bruised the Bathsheba out of my arm. In her defense, the iodine makes skin incredibly sticky, and if the container gets stuck on the skin, the needle is that much harder to navigate. Anyways, she eventually called in Kathy Has-Done-This-Before Phlebotomist, who used another vein on the left arm, and they collaborated to draw a tube from my right arm for a blood culture as well. They put cotton and gauze over all three holes before I got up - purple gauze, so I looked like a mummified Suns player* or something - and when I tried to take it off at home, the cotton stuck all over the iodine. So here he sits, fuzzy was he, and my arms still hurt from the needle swishing. Boohoo, I know.

* - Here's to refraining from making the obvious Steve Nash and lots of bandages joke, which surely would have reminded everyone that I am from San Antonio, home of NBA Champions.

Anyways, just thought I'd give a little health update since I had casually mentioned that I'd been sickly lately. I've been pretty frustrated with this, btw, as the symptoms are all pretty vague and cause me to reflect on how energetic I'm feeling 20,000 times per day. I constantly have to convince myself that I'm not faking, and this is not just some elaborate psychosomatic ploy to get away from workouts. Speaking of, it also feels like the work I've done at the gym is being swallowed up by lethargy, and there's nothing I can really do about it. I want to get my exercise in, but I'm pretty tapped out by just walking the dogs in the morning and doing a little cooking. I've tried to do some pushups just to see if there's any chance I have something for a given day, and around #5 I get predictably woozy. So it seems that all that can be done now is to take 'er easy and try to get some work done from the prone / seated position. Walking from my car to the office has been quite a drag, so I'm going to do stuff from home if at all possible. I do have some Sprawl stuff coming up, so I'll do my best to play a limited amount and not push it too much... which, as you can probably guess, will be quite difficult for me.

Ugh. I suppose there are worse things in the world, but having your vital force sucked out kinda, um, yeah, you get it. So apologies if things have a dragging tone of late, and if I'm at all unkind, trust that it's only my body / not my mind / that is confusing things. Here's to rest and rallying; wish me luck, and hope this spell doesn't cause me to fall even farther behind in my work. It was supposed to be the summer of George, etc.

Beck: The Early Works, Plus Holiday Pics (Take Two)

The following is the song "I've Never Had Any Parents," composed by Beck, year unknown, for the character Monica, the lead role in one of Beck's many musitragicals.

Lyrics:

I've never had any parents, I probably never will,
They died in a fire when I was two days old,
I've been here ever since.
But there is always hope for the future,
You never know, someone might come,
And love you.
I dream at night of my mother,
She's beautiful, like me,
Her hair is brown and it curls at the sides,
Her eyes are big and tender loving,
No one will ever love me like her.
My father is handsome as anything,
With black hair and soft blues eyes,
He loves to play in the yard with me,
And he never wears polka-dotted ties!
But who in the world would love me like him ...
Yes there is always hope for the future.

While you're trying to digest that, here are some holiday pics from Rachacha for your enjoyment.

Skyping with Meghan/Greg's nephew/nieces:

Intense breakfast conversation (and new profile pic) - you may be shocked to realize that the pirate-rag on my head above and the neckband in this picture are the EXACT SAME GARMENT!!!:

The iPFam - and despite all appearances, no, Wrigley is not existing in an alternate dimension inside my chest:

Joanne, who owns the local movie theater, recently made Zil a star about town by featuring her 30th on the 30th birthday on the marquee. Beck got the royal treatment this weekend (as did some fellow named "Nate"):

Speaking of Zil, here she is, vastly improving the aesthetic qualities of what would have otherwise been a ho-hum picture! Great to see Zil and Lilly and the rest of the Bishops today for a great brunch by Beck:

Happy holidays again everybody!

AR: Joy

Phish - Joy (2009)

Well, I'd be entirely remiss if I didn't tell you that the best thing about the album Joy is that (2009) attached to its end - it's not that it's cool-dude-buddy-bro-sweet that yo-Phish is back together, it's just that I am unspeakably happy that Phish is back together. If you're not me - and you're not - you'll never have a real appreciation for just how blissful this band can make me, how when I find myself in times of trouble, "Punch You in the Eye" comforts me. The real simple take is that I always heard a sound in my head, a band that played in this mystical, eccentric and varied style. It sounded a specific way and I would seek out music that would even hope to touch that crystalline perfection of what I wanted from a rock band, but there were always only glimpses, hints here and there. And then Liz took me to a show in Houston on 9.25.99, and the band from Vermont just stepped in and *were* that sound - the archetype I had heard forever. And everything about them grabbed my brain and on dark nights intimated that all was okay in times when they most definitely weren't. I'm a far cry from the world's biggest Phish fan - um, that's an understatement - but trust that when I say it's good to have them back, it is the *good* to have them back. Joy, indeed.

This is also the first time that I've caught the music in the order proper. Meaning that the typical way a Phish album gets introduced is that the songs get written in between the tours, maybe the album gets recorded, but then well before it's released the band is out on the road working things out, extending jams, rewriting sections, etc. I joined the Phish game in 1999 after most of 2000's Farmhouse songs had already made their debuts in either '97 or '99, and I had a very paltry live show collection. When Farmhouse came out, all of the songs were brand new to me. The horror that is Round Room came out at the tail end of Phish's "hiatus," so all of those songs were originally heard in that studio version rather than being worked out on the road. Some of 2004's Undermind's songs were aired out in concert before the album's release in 2003, but many weren't (some not even making their in-concert debut until 2009). Regardless, that was the middle of some bad times for Phish's sound - another post's topic, sure - so I was following the band nowhere near as closely. With this album, however, all of the songs were put on display over the two summer tours, and thanks to the power of the internet (and Tuftsmen named Ian), I heard pretty much every second of every concert. So I heard the crackling live versions of all these tunes and had them ingrained in my head well before the disc was officially released yesterday.

I am firmly in the camp, as I'm sure I have mentioned, that values Phish's studio albums. Dad joked last night that the studio albums are "for the record." Wokka wokka wokka. It's nice to have a standardized version, particularly for some of the more intricate / complex songs, and it's doubly, triply nice to have clean, 100% tight and in-tune versions of the ballads and acoustic numbers. But more than anything, in addition to the thrills and energy and ripping seams of live shows, I just love studio albums. For completely different reasons. There's excellence in control, too, in studio tricks, and Phish is a different beast when reined in. Not worse or better, to my ears, just aesthetically different. Not the same vibe, so why compare? I mean, of course, except for the ballads and acoustic numbers, which are clearly better in house. And given that Phish teamed back up with the same engineer / producer from their largely ballad-and-acoustic-driven album Billy Breathes, it would seem that was at least part of the effort here.

Getting to the album: it opens with that rarest of birds, a saccharine poppy ode to friendship that manages to eschew all my cynical, ironic leanings. "Backwards Down the Number Line" is beautifully endearing, the sappiest sing-along number that I will gladly hum along to with pride. I especially love that it's that rare rock song about male friendship - few west of Belle & Sebastian would sing about whispering "in his ear" with a self-assured smile. After all the mayhem that Trey wrought upon himself in the last several years, hearing this sort of earnest, beaming rebirth* is frankly soul-lightening.

* - Now's as good of a time as any to mention that sort of wise sentiment firmly entrenches in a genre that I'd like to dub "SUPER-COOL adult contemporary pop." They are plainly not as ragged and out of control as in years past, and yeah, they're all greying and have kids and are a little weary from all the self-drug-addling. There's a certain focus that this brings that makes them sound austere, stately. I know that's not completely the case - they still, for example, run impromptu dance competitions set to tape-loop effect ambient music in concert (see previous post) - but there's a new graceful age to them, probably that started on the previous album and has really come to a head here. It's a good quality, I do declare.

Next up is a guitar-wailing mid tempo rocker "Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan" which is about angst-ridden as Phish gets. It's allegedly about Trey's state in the aftermath of his sister's death from cancer and his own aforementioned demons. There's some clear catharsis within, and it has a surprising admission of struggle. "Joy" - practically exhibit 1A from my claim that some songs are better on albums than live - follows along the same lines with sentiments of overcoming tragedy and loss. The chorus teeters just on the right side of powerful/cheesy, and part of this is the clarity with which things are delivered - easy to hear the acoustic guitar accents and well-blended vocal harmonies behind it. Great anthemic ballad.

"Sugar Shack" is a Mike number through and through, an offbeat calypso-ish number delivered in only the way Mike TPB can. His nasally falsetto is admittedly strange - nears Weird Al territory sometimes - but the severe quirkiness that accents this otherwise simple number makes it work. And btw, Trey's goofy island lines over the top seal the goofy deal. Very nice that it's followed by another in the large catalog of animal-based Phish songs - "Ocelot" is an easy-going, straight-forward piano rocker accented by more melody echoing screaming leads from Trey. Ends with a nice "Dear Prudence" homage in a fun times bouncy outro. "Kill Devil Falls" is almost an old timey rock n' roll, twist in the dance hall number, a plain effort to fill the floor. Really a workman's rock ditty, this is the type of song that probably could have come from any bar band but gets carried by the weight of the band - they pull a fake ending, and come back with a fade in chorus jam session. Safe fare, sure, but quality.

If a 2009 album can be said to have sides, that closes the first one. Side B fades in with a crunchy electric guitar ambient fade-in to the very bright, crisp "Light." This, possibly to the largest degree on the album, sounds like a recent Trey Anastasio solo number. That means that there's a very full wall-of-band sound that is solidly unified behind a very melodic Trey vocal / guitar lead. It's a decent enough, straightforward number that stops at sounding vaguely pretty - it's obvious that this will (and it did this summer) serve as a sore of simple-container jam vehicle, and these sorts of songs aren't my favorites. At its conclusion, someone says, "Hey Page, where you been?" And Mr. McConnell / Phish proceed to deliver a schmaltzy, completely toss-off piano-blues-hall number called "I Been Around." Trey gives a silly duplicate-the-melody, Auld Lang Syne sorta lead riff. The whole thing is so obviously a dicking around in the studio moment that it's a little embarrassing. Not the album's highlight.

Phish then dons their prog hat in "Time Turns Elastic." This tune was released as a single several months ago, so I was already quite familiar with the multi-part, 13 minute opus that supposedly took some 270 takes to get down. It's been called their "Terrapin Station" which is sort of silly, given that Phish certainly had plenty of multi-part, extended compositions before this one. The Grateful Dead started in 1965 and "TS" came out in 1977, which would have been 1996 in Phish years, so it's not like it's a smart stage-of-career comparison. Maybe it's that the "melody...shelter in the darkness" section (that repeats) has a little bit of that GD drums groove sound, and people are more on that. So perhaps "it sounds like 'Terrapin Station'" is what people are really on about. Regardless, yeah, keep those GD comparisons coming, that helps a lot. Anyways, this song works tremendously better in the course of the album than as a single, which should be shock at all. A prog rock song on an island is just odd, whereas one that pokes out of the back half of an album works just fine. It's not anything like one of my favorite long-composed pieces, though it continues to grow on me. The middle intricate and highly varied sections are more interesting than intriguing... I appreciate their proggy* goodness, but that's about as far as it goes. I will say that the best part of the song does come at the end, which is a solid move, because you can view the long sections as a road to payoff.

* - I realize that if the term "prog" doesn't mean anything to you, then that paragraph is probably entirely meaningless. I don't know if it's really a coherent term - bands from Yes to Rush to Genesis to Ben Folds Five have had it applied - but I generally think of it as multi-passage, very serious, long songs with big album themes and motifs, exhibiting technical brilliance and melodies that won't sit still long enough to be remembered even if they were somewhat catchy. It generally requires some pretty intense, concentrated listening to appreciate (a certain tolerance for talk of dragons helps, too). Some people use it derogatorily; I try not to, but it does tend to evoke a certain absurd self-importance. It's not that I don't dig it - some of my best friends are progs! - but the general anti-casual listening stance makes "TTE" an odd choice for a single, especially given the super-accessible vibe of the rest of the disc.

The album closes with another song of slow-down self-reflection called "20 Years Later." Sparsely toned with trickles of keys and guitar splashes. Pretty safe closer, solid enough, and maybe rescued a little bit by the Beatles-esque psychedelic outro that closes the album. The reflection angle makes a nice bookend to the album, so if you leave it on repeat, you jump from that relatively somber self-mirror back to the bouncy ode to friends. Nice.

In case it's not obvious, Joy belongs to a long list of albums with a great Side A that loses steam on the second half, even with the clear opus of the disc on the B surface. Every second, excepting the Page throwaway number, is solid, though, and the sageness of Phish 3.0 exhibited throughout makes this well worth a spin. Many reviews call this album "safe;" I'll join them, but argue that Phish's safe is sophisticated and results in a whole lot of tight gems whose sound is best served by this studio format. So glad to have them back, glad that the band members themselves have all come to places that permit their coming back, and glad to have another discful of the studio-version of my favorite band. That's right: I'm glad, glad, glad...

(It was either that or a Happy, Happy, Ren & Stimpy Joke. You got off easy).

Status: Recommended (solid)
Nyet's Fave: "Backwards Down the Number Line"

Miscellany

I have a bad habit of dropping my blogging for a couple of weeks at a time and neglecting to blog in detail things that deserve it. And then I write a single post that lumps a bunch of things together, diminishing the apparent importance of each thing individually. This would appear to be an instance of that sort of behavior:

HSD PAPER IS DONE. Yay. Submitted and everything. I'm a little concerned that I didn't do enough of a back and forth, writer / editor style interaction with the professors, but I met with them several times regarding topic, got help with the paper outline / framing, etc., so hopefully they won't destroy my self esteem with red pen. We'll see. Anyways, if you're interested, here it is; let me know what you think:

Addressing the Laity: Public Rhetoric in the Sociobiology Critique

THANKSGIVING IN RACHACHA. As briefly alluded to, we had a great time over Turkey week in Rochester. Hit Jine's for brunch twice, once on Wed. and again on Sat. Good stuff. Sat around and watched a whole lotta Season 1 30 Rock on Friday and Saturday - I mean, it was a marathon, and we just couldn't stop pressing next on the AppleTV. Wow. Good show, but we seriously watched 24 episodes. Yikes. Saw Liz's apartment and visited the Bishops for Liz's birthday. Liz has a cool place, walking distance (when not in winter) from her workplace and apparently up the street from cousin Ian. Good stuff.

Thanksgiving day itself was fun - the bulk of the extended iPJ family was there, including the usual Margie-Scott-Jamie-Meghan-Greg -beck-Nyet crew, The Red Robster and Ginny, Greg and Jane, Brednan and Annie, Ian briefly, Kathleen, and Suzie (I'm pretty sure I got everyone; correct me if I'm wrong). Good times, good conversation and good eats - I'm pretty sure Ginny was the source of the sickness that touched Beck last week and now me (boo), but otherwise it was a 100% successful visit. We managed to watch no football whatsoever I think, which is a great rarity for me, but for whatever reason, I just haven't kept up with the NFL this year, so putting aside time to watch Detroit get killed seemed frivolous. (Actually, we had been at GPGDS the night before thil 1:30 in the morning, so most of us were comatose well into the Lions game anyways). NEhoo, a great time, potatoes peeled and everything, and I'm glad we made the trip.

The Royal WEfnuk CELEBRATORY DINNER. Genevieve kindly hosted the team for a two weeks later, celebration of our league championship, potluck dinner last Sunday. G made pizza, we all drank beer and wine and bored everyone's dates with tales of our Ultimate glory (including some folks from other teams in the league, har!). Great post cap to the season, and better yet, Alexxx is a graphic designer and came up with this bad boy as a trophy t-shirt design:

>

Excellent.

BECK ON THE FIELD. Despite coughing up both of her lungs over the course of the past two weeks, Beck took to the Ultimate field at women's practice this last Tuesday and is returning tonight! I am super-psyched as my eleven year plan to get Beck to play frisbee is finally coming to fruition. Just kidding - I really am supremely proud to see her giving it a go; it's very hard to jump in with a bunch of people who know what they're doing* and try to pick up a sport. I am excited about warming up with her tonight; we've got "competitive pickup" alongside their practice, so should be a good evening.

* - PHXation, Phoenix's women's Ultimate team, may or may not know what they're doing.

MEN'S LEAGUE. Is going just fine, thanks. Our team took the one seed in regular season play, tying Justin and Vince's team at 4-2 but losing both of our games by a single point, giving us the nod in point differential. We're playing pretty sloppy - this year doesn't seem quite as crisp as last year's men's league for whatever reason - but having a good time. I've felt exceedingly banged up (tight hamstrings, quads still giving me trouble, sore feet, bruised hip from crazy layouts), but other than being unable to shift it into seventh gear b/c of my quad, I've been playing pretty well. Last week, axshully, I was en fuego, with something like 12 deep hucks connected and a bunch of poach Ds on the other side. Excited for the coming year; I'm gonna try to play club, pending my body holding up. We'll see how that goes. And yes, I''ll give the playoffs the full treatment on Monday.

Alright, gotta run. Sorry for the lame coverage. More later. Wish Beck luck!

Disparate Topics

1: Another year, another loss for the NL. Snap.

Quick comment on something that probably went entirely unseen, or at least entirely uncommented upon: in the bottom of the 11th. Ian Kinsler hit a single and tried to steal second, but was thrown out. Kinda. He looked safe anyways, but the replay showed that Tejada did not even tag him - pulled the ol' "slap tag" routine and got the call. Now, this being America and the land of honesty and fair play and equal opportunity and aren't sports grand and don't they teach us all kinds of good-heareted lessons and everything else, Tejada immediately went to the umpire and explained, "No sir, I in fact missed the tag, and Mr. Kinsler should be declared safe." So they let Kinsler stay at second, and he scored two batters later when J.D. Drew singled up the middle. So the game ended in the 11th.

Oddly, though, all of the papers say it went until the 15th this morning. Maybe I mis-saw something.

So Tejada clearly knows he missed that tag, but he got away with it, and no one blinked an eye. That's clearly within the realm of "gamesmanship," but why? Looks like Tejada just used deceit to gain a competitive advantage. So while it falls under gamesmanship, it also falls under "win at all costs." Which *demands* the question: is anyone thinking of the children?

2: So beck and I, lacking inspiration and high brow prejudices, have watched a few episodes of Last Comic Standing. And there's this duo called "God's Pottery." Here's a clip that gives pretty much the whole shtick:

So it's pretty much open season mocking of the entire "Chirstian Acoustic Youth Group" movement. Which is interesting on the one hand because it's a group mocking Christianity on primetime network television - these guys are hardly pulling David Cross atheistic critiques of religion here, but still, not exactly family-friendly to a significant percentage of the country's population. But the other hand is that it's just a very limited shtick - these guys pull it off well, but it's one joke over and over. And over, but that is what's truly surreal about it - on this purported reality show, they keep up the act the entire time! Ridiculous, and made for some bizarre situations, like when they were in a "Yo Mama" joke telling contest and just kept complimenting their opponent's mother. Not to mention that they theoretically acted in this manner off-camera, too, just in normal living situations with the other contestants. Nice - they almost get points for me for some quality theater of the absurd stuff, but fall just a hair short because it's just frankly not quite absurd enough. Anyways, they were eliminated last week essentially because their one joke finally ran out of steam, and I'm pretty happy, because should I choose to waste more time with this show, I'd prefer it not to be at the hands of a one-off act.

(Train of thought to be continued in a moment - but in the meantime, speaking of "theater of the absurd," looking into the music of The Fortress of Solitude led me to an avant-garde group from the 70s-present called The Residents. They're famous - you may recognize them from their iconic eyeball masks - and I recognize that I am way off the cool path here - but check out this video. And be warned: WEIRD. Divinely so. I think I'm in love).

Getting back to the "acoustic comics" theme - thanks to an afternoon spent in Rochester with Meghan and Greg and an iPod hooked up to a TV, you can't think of "acoustic comedy duo" and no give props to these guys. In fact, I've probably posted this before, but here it is again:

"Be more constructive with your feedback." Indeed. Those dudes are much funnier / more talented / more musical, etc., than God's Pottery imho. And more versatile (if by "versatile" you mean, "can play funny acoustic guitar songs from other genres").

So compare and contrast with this guy, a seventeen year old acoustic guitar / musical comedian from Boston. Big props: witty lyrics, wordplay, and definite presence. Un-props: if you watch a bunch of his videos, you'll start to see a pattern of immature mugging and a consistent reliance on the same kind of jokes. And some pretty poor-taste jokes.

Oh, and if weren't for all the lewd references and disgusting, sophomoric imagery, I would totally dedicate this to Zil because the topic here is, loosely, high school math. Consider the preceding sentence a warning on two fronts (nerdy and illicit content). Btw, if you're looking for the "made soda come out of my nose line," it's the one that starts off "squaring numbers are (sic) just like women..."

In completely unrelated news: t-minus two until Ben and Ali!!! HUZZAH.

But the Beat Goes On, Da Da Dum, Da Dum

But before we continue the disjointed tale, you must check this link. It's a slew of classic rock songs with the lyrics reprinted in alphabetical order. You have to figure out what the original song is. Fun times. It's pretty interesting how you have to force your mind to do this - probably the most effective strategy is key words (duh, I can't believe I just typed that). So even the iPJ can look at a set of alphabetical lyrics, and if he sees the word "colitas," it should clue him in to what the song is. Hint: it's not Kate Smith. Unless there are some seriously obscure verses of "God Bless America." Hint 2: Bm, F#, A, E, G, D, Em, F#, rinse, repeat. (second clue mainly for Frank, who will now go play those chords and realize that he has learned at least the chord structure of a new song. Just wait til we get the band together, man).

Back to the story, and the eight ball tells me that we will now cover the topic of dinner. We hit up a ton of Phoenix area restaurants - some twice - and big thanks to all of our parents for some delicious meals. On the first Wednesday of the parental invasion, we headed to a new spot, Michelina's Italian Cuisine, on Beck's colleague Katy's recommendation. SERIOUSLY good. Beck and the normal eaters got excellent oysters for appetizers. I was force fed soup. And had ridiculously good Chicken Parmesan for dinner. Beck forced me to order flan for dessert. And the meal came with an after-dinner cordial that was a mix of amaretto and creme de mint; it tasted like mouthwash but was still good. Just a great dinner, great restaurant, fantastic service, and they even have fresh flowers. Good times, and the iPJ was so taken that he made reservations for Saturday night when my parents would get into town. On the next night:

Beck's family ate raw fish.

Ha! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Faulkner! We headed down to Houston's on Friday night, giving Beck ample opportunity to bust out "El Fisto Fe." Houston's does not take reservations - we know this because Beck called and asked to make a reservation. While Beck was waiting in line to put our name in, she overheard the hostess say "if you call ahead, the wait is fifteen minutes; otherwise it's 45 right now." Beck, having indeed "Called ahead" but not having been informed of this option, was less than amused by the hostess informing her that our wait would be 45 minutes. Beck went with the uber-logic of "can't we just pretend that I asked to be put on the waiting list when I called?," which falls in somewhere along the "can't we just pretend I paid my insurance premiums on time?" continuum. The hostess said no. So Beck then tried the existentialist approach and pointed out the absurdity of the situation: "You're saying if I walk outside and call you, the wait is fifteen minutes, but if I ask you here, the wait is 45?" Again, the hostess did not flinch. (Which, really, was a good call, seeing as it was all a bluff: Beck's phone was sitting in the rangers office at Tonto Nat'l Monument at the time. However did that happen, you might ask? Don't).

So we had to wait on the patio for 45 minutes, which turned into a little over an hour. The good news is that either because of the extra wait or because of the voodoo evil-eye style curse that Beck put on the hostess, we got free spinach dip out of the deal. Ah, the manager. Nice work. Of course, when the manager brought the dip to our table (seconds after iPMM had said "should we get some spinach dip?"), iPMM rebuffed her, saying, "We didn't order that." Mass confusion and awkward, nervous attempts by the manager to placate us. I was tempted to give the 2007 Best Actress in a Supporting Role to her, but it turns out that someone had already turned in a better awkward, nervous performance. After all of this, the meal was excellent - ribs for me, hawaiian steaks and ribeyes and steak salads elsewhere. Good stuff.

Saturday Night was Michelina's II, vastly better than the Marquis II (props to my Rice readers!). My parents were in town as were Mike and Anne, the King and Queen B of CBS. Another great meal, and great times / conversation with everybody. Liz sent us puppy pictures throughout the meal and Jim sent us Duke-UNC updates. Margie tried to learn me in the ways of Phish with her iPhone. But oh, out near stonehenge, I lived alone; I know all the Phishtory you can throw at me. Bring it! Incidentally, the Bs were staying at "The Sanctuary" on Camelback Mountain. If you need to look it up, go ahead and google the word "schwank."

I'll skip Sunday for the benefit of a stand-alone Sedona / Jerome post. Monday night we went to Carlsbad Tavern which, I am informed, is some sort of pun. The restaurant is decked out as a cave, complete with bats and spelunkers, and I have no idea why you would do that with a restaurant. Beck, my mom, dad and I got there a little early, so we sat at the bar and chatted with a bartender from Alaska who, for a security guard, had an awful lot of information, don't ya think? We eventually sat down out on the patio and had a fantastic, spicy meal, and were enlightened re: the proper Rochesterian pronunciation of the word "Chimichanga." We also discussed historical context and judgment, and I'm pretty sure we concluded that little old ladies are incapable of doing anything wrong so long as you're related to them. I think. Great last night with the Searls; we ran over to their hotel in the morning for official goodbyes and to pick up the standard Corona / Lipton tea combo platter.

On Tuesday afternoon, I introduced my parents to the glory of Chompie's, where we all got sandwiches that invoked the ghost of Mitch Hedberg:

"I like New York delis, but the problem is that they put too much f***ing meat on the sandwich. It's like a cow between two crackers. I want a pastrami sandwich. Anything Else? Yeah, a loaf of bread, and some other people!!!"

Seriously, what's up with that? Great sandwiches, but we each ate half and saved the rest for a quick bite Wednesday night before we went to the movie of the decade, Vantage Point. Wait, hold on a second, I'm drooling sarcasm right now and need a napkin. I headed to work, and Tuesday night we hit up local Streets of New York Pizza which was excellent as always.

Thursday night probably won the game for my parents - we went to Los Olivos, a place I'm sure I've mentioned here before, down in Old Scottsdale by the Contemporary Art Museum. Great food that's a little more Tex-Mex and therefore right in my parents' wheelhouse - very, very, yummy, and if you come visit me we are going there pronto.

Friday night we reprised Streets of New York, this time getting spaghetti and calzones, and settled in to watch Michael Clayton and Reign Over Me, two movies which I had already seen but thought Mom and Dad would enjoy a lot. And I think that's pretty much it for the food review, other than the 5 dollar bourbon-injected hot dogs at the Cubs games. Seriously, coke and a hot dog, that'll be nine dollars? I felt like I was in an airport and a movie theater at the same time. Ugh.

I'm sure that was highly un-exciting, but I just crossed a fair amount off the blog to-do list. SO phbbbbt. In the meantime, we'll cap this with some more links:

Poker simulator!
Cool video on a glass structure called Prince Rubert's Drips.
Say goodbye to Dad, it's a website full of chess problems.
Beck cannot make fun of me any more.
Good article on the myths of torture.
Internet web gaming on copious quantities of crack.
Slow motion karate chop.

VERY INTERESTING article on the differences between eastern and western science.

(But wait - how can things that are objective be different?).

And we'll leave you with the fantastic lunacy of garfield minus garfield. Best idea I've seen in a while.

Back in the Sun / The Patriots Are Nobody

The Beck and I are reunited with the SW, having survived a 2:30 AM MST wakeup and an 8 hour plane trek from the splendid iPAbode in Rochester, NY, to our own sun-streaked abode in Az. (note that SW stands for "Sparkle & Wrigley" and "Southwest"). It is, natch, good to be home, though we definitely had a fun holiday in NY. A quick account of the past couple days:

For obvious reasons, we went to World Hair on Thursday. This happened somewhere between the viewing of several episodes of "Flight of the Conchords" and "Aliens in America." FOTC is an HBO show about two New Zealand indie rockers living in NYC; they essentially play parody-rock of multiple genres and incorporate their songs/music videos as skits in the middle of a fairly typical inept-young-males narrative. The songs are really funny / good, and I would give the show aspect something in the B-range; maybe it's just because I watched them in marathon fashion, but I found the humor somewhat repetitive. AiA is a surprisingly sensitive show about a Midwestern family that takes in a Pakistani exchange student; hilarity ensues. This show was more sentimental and clever than the previews indicated; I was pleasantly surprised. Thus ends the vacuous review portion of the post.

Clearly I'm lying - after waiting for a skipped Greg (nay, Jason) to get his haircut, and after coffee with Meghan and Greg*, we went to see Juno with the iPFam. Juno is straight-up indie fare, rife with snappy, witty dialog, emotional content, hipster-alterna clothes, attitudes, and Belle & Sebastian tunes. The lead actress nailed it, though this was simultaneously impressive and rendered the movie a self-conscious star vehicle. So, a good overall movie, and right up my alley. By far the highlight was the character portrayal by Jason Bateman; the entire dynamic between him and Juno saved the film from a stereotypical suburbanite indictment. There were a lot of problems - the dialog felt terribly forced in a no-one speaks that constructedly that fast; it was clearly written. Plus the pace of dialog died off roughly halfway through the film. The romance between Juno and Michael Cera did not occur on-screen enough to deliver the emotional impact it intended. Actually, a lot of the movie didn't occur on-screen enough; a huge chunk of the relationship and narrative felt under-developed. Blah blah etc. All of that said, still a very good movie; funny, enjoyable, and at least emotionally touching (though man, that pan-out guitar duet ending was PAINFUL, and not in a Yo La Tengo kinda way).

* (I used one of my go-to lines at the coffee shop. There was a small child screaming that he wanted water at the table located about 18 inches behind me. I said "Desire is the root of all suffering!" in response. I feel this comment stands as metaphor for my existence nicely: accomplishes nothing, but makes you laugh**).

** (Of course, my joke of the week was when Beck said that she "spread word about the book Lamb like gospel!" Lamb is a Christopher Moore novel about an apocryphal text by Biff, Christ's childhood pal. It's fantastic - funny and spiritual. I said "Beck, you're the Jesus Jesus!" This is funny, in a constant iPodJesus joke environment).

After the movie, we went to a restaurant called Lentos in Rachachachachacha for which I was ridiculed for the entire day due to my non-vegetarian leanings. Thankfully, the food I had was super-delicious. We were there celebrating Margie's birthday; I look forward to my birthday celebration in early February.

MG headed out on Friday morning. They had a thoroughly-mentioned adventure en route to iPHome, involving car accidents, AAA and hotel bartenders, so they needed to get back to Boston to start taking care of things. PLUS their cat Simon (see reference here) has been very ill for the past couple of weeks, so they needed to get back in to take care of him (not only to, ha, make plans for Nigel) (their other cat). An update on that front is that beck, supervet, correctly recommended that they check Simon for pyelonephritis, so hopefully some abx will be able to help the little kitty. Great as always to see MG; hope their universe becomes more orderly in the near future.

Beck and I spent the bulk of Friday lounging, reading, playing pool (Beck crushed my self-image by beating me at nine-ball TWICE), and, especially for Beck, sleeping. We eventually roused ourselves enough to eat dinner, and were visited by a very serious Liz:

Not really. Liz (aka she who saved Xmas) brought Lilly, her new lab puppy, over for a kitchen-wide romp.


There are a few more cute shots of the pup over at flickr; just click any of the above pics and navigate. We would be remiss if we showcased Lilly without giving the current CBS canine matriarch a shoutout, so here's a few snaps of the Hollister:


That brought us to early early Saturday, a plane ride, an afternoon run for me (first since my contused thigh, yah!), a nap for Beck, and a settling in to watch a very exciting Pats win. 16-0! The Pats are perfect. I am nobody. Therefore, I am the Pats. I think that's how it goes.

(Really, fun to watch, but the Pats clearly have some chinks in ye olde armor. I would like to see the 19-0 phenomenon come to fruition, but I don't know if I'll be able to bear the coming storm of willtheywon'tthey. Exciting time for the NFL, for better or otherwise).

SO welcome home to the collective nyetverse - more commentary / posting in the coming hours. Today, it's football and the first dose of Ultimate in the past week and a half. Here's hoping for survival.

GPGDS, Boxing Day Edition

Greetings from the Wintry Wonderland of Wachachacha, New York. The Beck and I survived a ten hour trip up from Phoenix on Monday the 24th, including a lovely four hour stopover in Newark, New Jersey. (Nothing a few episodes of Mr. Show and a delving into The Corrections couldn't handle). Rolled into the iPAbode just in time for Xmas eve dinner with the extended iPClan, enjoyed a fantastic and throughly lazy Xmas day, and visited with the B of CBS on Wednesday (and super thanks to Liz for saving Xmas and giving me the Simpsons Movie which we've already watched for the first of four hundred times). That's a superfast version of three days which brings us to last night when we saw the ever-evolving and mind-blowingly improving (mind-blowing because it seems like they would have run out of cap room, but they do keep getting better and tighter, more emotionally transcendent, etc.) Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad. This post is primarily an excuse to post pictures, but let it be known that the GPGDS continue to smoke musically and drew a GIGANTOR crowd last night (though, as noted by superstar IPJames, a lot of them neither met the five feet tall nor the 18 years old requirement). (Though of those meeting the requirements, there was an awful lot of fangirl talk in the waiting line outside the venue centered around the cuteness of the bassist). (I'm just sayin', the rock star life maintains its aphrodisiac-esque qualities, even after all these years). (Beck, of course, insisted that her blood-relatedness trumped the shrillest of their admiring screeches). So, head on over to My-GPGDS-Space or check out some youtubeage of the band. Fantastic stuff; you want to get on now to say you knew them when. Or, just check out a little phototable below, a little visual reminiscence of the excellent aural experience that was last night:

Remiss!!!

Wow! I completely forgot to post the pic that is the creme de la bunch yesterday. Here is an unbelievably shot of shifty-eyed beck and Sparkle, both looking off-frame at the hilarious antics of Wrigs:

I mean, wow. I am in stun (copyright Liz, 2000). It's just beautiful. And telling, oh so telling.

So, getting back to the pseudo-narrative of the past two weeks: Ultimate has been sweet. In the post that started with the fabulous picture of Sparkle Amuck, I left a post with a vague reference to a game in which I thought we were going to get stomped, massacred. Well, in short, we did not. We had a very hotly contested and generally awesome game - awesome within the context of hat league, but still awesome. Awesome. I am so verbose and eloquent. Anyhoo, the other team had a good handler named Sam and a great mid named Cole and there were just tons of hotly contested catches and scores and Ds and excitement all around. We were down more or less the whole game but clawed our way back and ended up losing by two, the equivalent of a 6-4 game in tennis. Big fun - and it started us (and me) on a great streak of Ultimate. The past two weeks featured two more wins in fun, fun games, also punctuated by good pick-up on Sundays. So it's been cool - a huge 15-7 win against the second place team in our div last week, a tight 15-10 win last night, lots of running and hucking and spiking and all kinds of good gooey goodness.

On the minus side, I'm getting hella dehydrated after each game, making me feel sick once I get home and feeling not so great the next morning AKA right now. I've been drinking plenty of water and gatorade and eating powerbars like normal, so I don't know what's up with that. Will keep you posted, but it may be some combination of the gerund "getting" and the adjective "old."

In other life-related news, the job is still the job - a lot of SAT tutoring, a lot of repetitiveness, but all in all pretty low-key, and it feels reasonably decent to help people. So, steering the focus away from the now and toward the future - the PhD program hunt is in full swing! I spoke with a college professor of mine Martin about writing a letter of rec for me for the ASU philosophy program, and because he is a great advisor, he immediately steered me toward some of the ASU professors on campus to talk more specifically about what the ideal program would be. I spoke with one of Martin's colleagues at the Honors college at ASU, and she directed me to some of the heads of the interdisciplinary science / philosophy programs that are available. There's one in the Biology Dept. called Biology & Society, which has tracks in both History and Philosophy of Science or Bioethics, Policy and Law, but also has a lot of leeway for individualized programs as well. There's another brand new one called Human & Social Dimensions of Science and Technology that would could offer more than just biology-based science / philosophy. And I met with a great potential advisor, Jason Robert, yesterday (and am meeting again with him tomorrow) who was fantastic in telling me about the programs, being highly encouraging and essentially recruiting me to join their department. He is a philosopher by training and also is very familiar with / interested in some of the postmodern philosophy angles I am interested in; he actually did his master's thesis on Foucault and the genome project. He does a lot of work in bioethics, neuroscience and applications of philosophy from a very scientifically / technically knowledgeable standpoint. So this is very cool and good.

So the questions I have, mainly of myself, is how much of a selling out is this, delving back into scientific angles at the expense of something "purely" philosophical? Not much of one, I hope. AS I'm writing statements of purpose and trying to figure out exactly what research niche I'm going to carve for myself, I'm realizing that a primary function of my interest, while on one level involving the collision of postmodern cacophonous narratives and the decentralization of truth, also fully involves a big overarching collision of science and ethics. I phrased it this way yesterday: "On the one hand, I'm disturbed by science's confusion of how and why - the recent explanations of morality / ethics as a survival trait fly in the face of humanistic reasoning, and in my mind have a treacherous relativity that seems to validate any action so long as it is a recourse towards "group survival advantage." And that to me is a plain-faced undesirable conclusion, as it supports reprehensible actions such as genocide, or any atrocity that you care to include that could conceivably grant one group survival over another. So I feel a strong need to reinforce humanistic leanings that truth, value, ethics and meaning are more than just a facilitation of continued survival, more than just an evolutionary product. At the same time, I recognize that both the hard science angle and the overly subjective humanistic one are entrenched in social narratives, and therefore have their own suspect assumptions that should be investigated. Both of these methods of investigation are highly socially constructed; I think it would difficult to argue that science is not the more effective, pragmatic one, if also the more brutish. I want to reconcile their narrative implications in a way that fully addresses their constructedness but maintains a reasonable respect for both as truth-seeking entities; in other words, I want to avoid both the extreme that science is the end-all be-all and the extreme that it is some kind of "social myth."

Woo. R U X-I-ted yet? I am; it is a very cool direction to take my studies and seems to be one with enough flexibility that I can maintain a strong devotion to my school of "contextually-determined meaning" thought. So that is sweet. Now, I just have to get all my app materials in, write a statement of purpose, and... ugh. I need a writing sample, and all of my good ones from senior year at Rice in this vein were destroyed by a computer virus a few years back, with nary a hard copy to be found (thanks for looking, Mom & Dad). So i am kinda stuck, and should probably just write a brand new one, which is obviously time-consuming and, with limited access to university libraries, a bit daunting. So I will have to figure this out, and somewhat soon - apps are due Dec. 15. Yikes!

In other news: Beck trekked up to Boston a couple of weekends ago; pics of the Searl clan can be found here. Her trip to San Diego to see Jamie and the rest of GPGDS was thwarted by the fires. So she's stuck in Phoenix for another couple of days instead of hanging out at the beach for a first visit to CA - sadness. On the plus side, she went into work voluntarily yesterday to work on a surgery and attend a practice meeting. I think that's a pretty clear sign that someone like their jobby job. Today we are hanging out (or rather, I am recovering from Ultimate sickness and Beck is going running/to the dentist) until I have to go into work. SHAZAM! So things seem to be going pretty well lately - we're also looking forward to some hanging with the Dan this weekend and a visit from Greg and Meghan in a couple of weeks. Good times, and 80 degree weather taboot.

Woah - and I complete forgot to mention - I inexcusably had to skip a sacred event last week for an Ultimate game. TRAGIC. But Beck got to go, and if you can figure out what demi-god of music she enjoyed, then you rule:

Either that or you can read. Backwards!!!

----------------
Now playing: Weird Al Yankovic - Bob
via FoxyTunes

The Collective Experience of the Past Three Months

As evidenced by the Bagwellian Nightmare post, the actual recording of events past, especially those that haven't passed in the past few days, is time intensive and overly vague. So in lieu of a complete account of the past three months, I will merely hit up some of the highlights. Here is Stuff From The Past 3 Months, In An Order Dictated Neither By Importance Nor Chronology:

Cheryl's Wedding
I hit this up pretty well in the Bagwell post, but it should be pointed out that this was a blast. Always good to see the old faces to shock myself into the fact that life really is a continuous stream of people and experiences that continue to exist even out of sight. Or at least they do so effectively as to render any difference moot. My inner solipsist refuses to die. Anyways, yah, it was a great time, and great to see people. Dan McCallum is my hero.

Thanksgiving at the Searls
Always a treat, and at least part of the reason that iPJ is one of Wegman's Top 100 Shoppers! Congratulations, Digital Messiah! The Beck and I are still undecided as to whether this is a fact or an elaborate/brilliant prank. Thanksgiving itself was great per usual; beck and I headed down early on Wednesday and hung out until Sunday morning. Lots of talk of the wedding during the week, and many details were further hammered out. We also made it out to Bishop Manor to celebrate Liz's 3 cubed birthday. And let us pause to give...

PROPS TO LIZ!

She is one of the big reasons the blog is back up and running, because hey, who else would fill her idle hours with clumsy prose? Meghan and Greg also made the 90 West Trek, so we got to spend Thanksgiving with them, and James Searl was en la case as well. His band, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad is on a successful rampage of sites from New York to Colorado and states inbetween, so if you get a chance to check them out, you most definitely should (don't be lame like TBN and fall asleep on them). Anyways, the beat rolls on in Rachacha, and I look forward to many holiday spendings in the years to come (though rumor has it, the Searls are planning to visit Boston the second my plane leaves the ground for texas, which makes me suspicious. If I come back to a vacant lot with no forwarding address, your primary suspects are IPs J and MM. Maybe I should start using Macs...)

New Teacher Conference
I will say for sure that the big benefit of my three day stay in Rhode Island was definitely the war story sharing with other teachings and learning first hand what a wide variety of teacher experiences there are out there. I also remembered that over-obsessed, over-bearing nerds in any profession are relatively unbearable. One quote sums it up for me - I had asked some (I think) fairly legitimate questions about reconciling your own pride in your level of talent with the fact that a career in education virtually guaranteed that you would earn less money and have less prestige than your peers from your college (a topic that, as noted, is and was near to my mind). This lifelong teacher responds with this tale of how she was once at a dinner party and people starting asking each other "what they make," and after many folks responded 80K or 6 figures or what have you, she stared down the table and delivered:

"What do I make? (Pause). I make a difference."

Same said lady teacher ended the conference by playing that crappy banjo Jamaican or whatever version of the what a wonderful world / somewhere over the rainbow medley and did some spoken word poetry about imagining ourselves in front of our classrooms, helping our students, blah blah blah. It was like watching a psychological ego defense and self-preservation tactic demonstration video in action; the lack of authenticity was impressive (or the brutal presence of authenticity was a veritable diploma from the College for the Insane). I mean, I love my students, too, but I don't pretend that teaching in new England private schools is somehow the equivalent of buying the world a coke. The koolaid stains on this lady's lips were permanent tattoos, Ay Caramba!

On the plus side, I roomed with Jon, one of the other math teachers from the Nut, and Antonio, the new Spanish teacher at the Nut. This was a good experience as they are both down to earth peeps. In fact, the situation at school is fairly great; the bulk of my (same-level) colleagues are great, and my bosses do not interfere with my day-to-day and when they do they are generally amicable about it. So good times.

Classes
I should additionally mention that my classes are great. Very sweet kids who don't always do their work completely but are generally on board with me. There are definitely some pains in the ass, but even they are mostly funny pains in the ass and not annoying ones, so it's all good. One of my favorite students of all time, Rachel, is transferring after break, so that's a bummer. But it's good to be surrounded by driven, optimistic people on a daily basis, even if I have to reign their egos in and/or crush their silly dreams now and then. Kidding! I have had a lot of management to do with my advisees, but they are doing well for the most part, too. The whole thing is very familial, and I appreciate that as a great place to be in. More props to the Liz for that one; she knows I am more or less forever indebted to her. First introducing me to Phish and now this! Liz is a superstar.

World Events
Clearly a slew of events have gone down. GWBush looks more like a war criminal everyday; I have really enjoyed Jay Severin's near daily call for his impeachment, even though I think it would never happen in, say, a billion years. Jay Severin is in general an entertaining guy, wacky in a lot of respects and borderline heartless in others. But intelligent, regardless, and so it's nice to hear a solid viewpoint these days, even if they are occasionally filtered through the same popular caricature nonsense that someone at some point deemed necessary to be heard in the grand old U.S. of A. Anyways, big discussions in class over the democrats capturing the House and Senate, Bush's crashing approval rating, the war in Iraq, and the grand etc. that has accompanied all of it. Michael Richards's tirade followed a couple of weeks later by a Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran? WTFTTM. I have found myself listening to the radio a lot more and am seeing the fallacies on both sides of the coin in nearly all arguments; hell in a handbasket looks like the only great consensus. The best political thing I've read of late was an offhand comment in this article on American English Usage by David Foster Wallace and yes, uh-oh, I realize that's the second article I've linked from DFW today. Sue me; he's a great writer, and those are the books I've been reading lately. Anyways, DFW makes a rather stunningly simple argument as why you should be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice. The essay itself, incidentally, has nothing to do with abortion, but is a grade A five star essay on prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics, which is awesome if you're into that sort of thing (which you very might be if, say, you were an Anthropology major in a former life).

Anyways, yeah, the world is majorly crazy right now. I am non-plussed by the general "First Israel, then the Americans" sentiment that seems to be coming from Iran these days. That's not good. And I don't like Americans dying sans good reason in Iraq, but I seriously hesitate to take the "demonize the bad guys" stance that a lot of the conservative folks take out there. In the butchered words of a Seinfeld quote, People: They're the Worst.

Tufts Alums Weekend
This was awesome. I spent a Saturday and Sunday down in Boston with a bunch of the Tufts E-men alums from the year I played there. It was mainly just a whole lot of hanging out and chillin', spiked by a game of disc golf, some bowling, some Ana's, some pizza, and a party at the undergraduates place. I can still DJ with the best of them it turns out, even if my music selection is appropriate for those born in the 80's or earlier only. We then spent Sunday hanging out at Funboy and Skipper's new house watching the Patriots, and as I mentioned earlier today, watching football with knowledgeable, cool folks is two steps above watchingiti by yourself and seventeen steps above watching with The Professor & The Sphere. Argh.

It's hard to define the E-men scene, and I'd be hard pressed to define it as anything other than Fraternity Plus, something I've relatively despised with the party line my whole life. My big groups of guy friends have been rare - there was certainly a substantial one at Rice just in the Lovett crowd, and another one with the Ultimate folks there. But there's just something otherworldly about this crew - a whole lot of well-fitting cogs with fascinating individual personalities that get amplified a million times when we hang out together. Conversations range from hard core philosophy to politics to sports to brutal idiocy, and occasionally we head bang and scream to Metallica. There is absolutely no doubt that any kind of alumni reunion has the danger of echoing a Springsteen song, a certain kind of remember when we were young, we shined like the sun, but with this group that's not entirely the point - sure, we do delve into a little bit of harmless idiocy on occasion, but it's really just an ongoing spike in a continual keeping in touch that I've never really felt committed to enough to work for int he past with a group of dudes. The E-men are sweet - we've got friends from multiple years of graduation, our Callahan trophy winner is as down to earth as can possibly be, and there's just an Emengeist that resonates with the group. When we converge, it's a pretty sweet feeling that goes beyond reminiscing; it's a dose of rejuvenation, a energetic pickmeup, a reminder that there are those great people out there with whom you click, even if you would never expect it upon first meeting. It can't be emphasized enough that the differences (well, as different as white suburbanites can really be) is a huge portion of what makes the thing transcendent. Plus the fact that I'm pretty much indestructible when I hang out with that crowd.

That's about all I got for the past three months,a t least for now. If I think of anything else overwhelmingly meaningful, I'll post it here. Otherwise, I'll have to wait for meaning in the present, which is always so damn elusive...

Georgia on my Mind; Bugs on my Body

The Seventh Seal
Black Snow
Songlist

"People say that I'm out of touch with reality. That I'm insane. That sometimes I forget things, like who I am or where I am. Unimportant things. But I'm not insane. I am... a tick."



Ah, my blue brother, you quoter of quips, you easily programmable VCR clock, you modern appliance of Justice, thou highly accurate spam-blocking software in this Information Superhighway of Evil - a bevy of your brethren hitched a ride with my dogs and my ankles back to the home today. Seriously, mad disgusting ticks all over legs and bodies, all over Wrigs's and Sparks's faces. Gross. Creepy. At least 25 of them. And they won't die - i idiotically tossed one in the garbage only to see it crawling its way to the top 5 minutes later. So the lot of them were rendered sewer-bound via the harsh flush of Righteousness. Nauseating, disease-ridden bug - I call you Tick. Evil heathens, you non-scurvy-curing carriers of Lyme, may you never cross the threshold into my happy abode again.

So how did all those lobsters get on us mobsters today? It was silly kinds of hot in grafton, the dogs were looking painfully bored so I rewarded them for their good behavior over the past few days (and yes, they, unlike those Pavlovian bitches, do not need temporally-connected rewards to form accurate positive associations - I just put check marks in their dog contracts, alerting them to the appropriate actions with which they have garnered their just dessserts) with a trip to the woods around the corner. The woods were hot, muggy, buggy, and generally disgusting, plus some of the treees had been knocked all over the trails. So, natch, we got lost, and ended up hiking way out to a field somewhere behind Rte. 122. Not good. We hiked back, but by the end both dogs were panting like crazy, stopping every few seconds to cool off by lying in mud. Hooray. Even WD, after spending the first 60 minutes in typical full gallop, slowed to a trot by the end. And poor Farkle Splidarkle started limping with about a quarter mile to go, a quarter mile she traversed primarily on nyetback. Or nyetfront, I suppose; basically, I carried her quite a ways. She is not light. Nor was she not muddy. Blugh. So we drove home, and two dogs got deloused and bathed. Ah, the dog bath. An activity which, as Beck described, they begrudgingly accept. Tolerate, even. But they are decidedly not happy about the situation. It's like a liquid nail trim.

So, a disgusting day in the woods - did I mention the flies that were attempting to dock inside my ear canals the entire afternoon? On the plus side, the dogs are totally zonked and passed out in the living room right now. Good deal.

I've decided to take a stab at learning the White Album, so I added Back in the USSR to the songlist today. I'm trying to be systematic about it, which means that Dear Prudence is next, which means that I need to learn some fingerpicking. Which is cool; I figure if I force my way through a lot of the Beatles catalog, really trying to learn things as I go instead of doing hack jobs, I will accomplish a fair amount. We'll see.

Got a call from Zil today, who reminds everyone to take a gander at the Bozeman Police Blotter. IPMM sent me an e-mail explaining that she and the IPJ now own iShoes (given the IPJ moniker, I would have gone with iSandals. Really, you could run wild with this - IPJ delivering a sermon when one of his disciples, maybe iPod Thadeus, comes running up saying how they only have 2 tapes and 5 CDs, how will they ever rock out for the crowd of 5000, and then IPJ whips out the 40 gig iPod with 10,000 songs and everyone gets to rock out and then some. In fact, if Apple decides to go in this direction, I demand royalties).

So I'm watching Lost on another Beckless night in Mass. That's the plan for tonight. Hopefully, bedtime in there somewhere. We shall see. Oh, and I also watched Manhattan today, which I will review later. It did have a ditty of a beautiful line, though, when Woody and Mariel Hemingway are riding ona horse-drawn carriage and Woody calls her "God's answer to Job - I may do a lot of bad stuff, but I can also make this." Something like that. Great line.

Radio-freindly Opinion Shifter

I sum up this week with a Guns N' Roses quote : I lead a Beckless life. Werbakeuh is in the warmer pastures of the horse farms of Texas - specifically, Navasota, TX, a small town with no known Nova Scotia connections, nor has Chris Cornell ever specifically complained about looking Texas but feeling Navasota (but we all eagerly await the Texas Soundgarden comeback anyways). The Beck is down there for a one-week internship with the S.S. Buick Park Avenue, hopefully surviving the weather and not having her brain infected my mad-Aggie disease due to the dangerous proximity. She'll be back on Sunday, but in the interim, I am on my lonesome own. Well, I have Tweedles to keep me company, or at least to beg me to play, go on W's, eat pepperoni, that type of thing. So I've been up to that and a whole lot of chaperoning of Walnuts. Actually yesterday was a rather ridiculous day - took Werby to the aeropuerto del Providence at 6, drove to the 'Nut, drove to the airport, picked up a violist, drove back, drove to Grafton, W'd the dogs, back to the Nuthouse, back to the airport, back to the land of crazy art kids, back to Grafton. Dios mio, man. Eight hours or so in the car / van, and I didn't even go anywhere. I had to check my butt for bedsores. Not really.

Another bloggity entry, another shoutout to Zil, she of CBS fame and a generally Phish-headed math genius: this time it's for her e-mail of the Bozeman Police Blotter. Specifically this edition of the blotter which is full of comic genius. Remind to never suspiciously enjoy the sunshine in Bozeman.

Also, if you've never had the pleasure of receiving a message from Liz on your answering machine or voice mail, you are missing out on a rich and varied experience. A very fast rich and varied experience that rambles quite a bit, actually. They're awesome. Liz is awesome. We're talking pantheon of awesome human beings status. Gandhi, Mother Teresa? Morons.

"This has been the over-the-top shout-out, brought to you by The Family Guy, who would like to remind you, if it's not overdone and obvious, it's not funny (TM)."

So I am ripping the guitar to shreds, in a good way. Added another tune to the holster, a classic and favorite of my dad's, "Get Back" by los Beat-lees. And today I cranked it to (three)11 for a couple of songs and then turned it up another couple of notches for a longtime AC/DC classic, "Thunderstruck." Try as I might, I cannot escape my KZEP-laden roots. Seriously, what the hell is up with the San Antonio classic rock connection. Didn't Ozzy pee on the Alamo? That's okay? I don't get it. Regardless, my childhood was a blurry pastiche of power chords, a whole lot of Scorpions, Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, AC/DC, Santana (well, duh on that one), Bachman Turner... need I go on? Regardless, I gotta say... I played "Thunderstruck" today, I mean really played it, even parts of the solos. You should comprehend that this was a vague impossibility not too long ago. Not that it's a particularly hard song - it's not - just that there's some pull-off technique stuff that I could never *really* get, but I just nailed it today. I'll make it official tomorrow. But, as they say, everything's coming up Milhouse.

I'm going to try to comment on the music I'm listening to a little more often in this space, because otherwise I'll be bland and run out of things to say. I'm currently listening to the relatively new Band of Horses album Everything All the Time. Very anthemic, jangly, and Wayne Coynely sung vocals. Reminds me of parts of The Walkmen album Bows & Arrows, actually. The whole disc blends together, meaning that's it's all solid, but not a ton stands out. So it's a top-to-bottom listen, but just not very singles-oriented.

I listened to Bill O'Reilly on the radio today. I also read a miscellaneous pop-psych piece on the web yesterday about ingroup / outgroup objectives in marketing (for example, how companies will try to get you to label yourself as a "Mac" or a "PC" person). I find it fairly difficult to deny some of the effects of in-group psychology, and Mr. Bill abuses it sans shame. I'm actively trying to make knee-jerk, elitist condemning opinions about folks like him - but his show comes across a whole lot like choir-preaching: "Look at those crazy-ass liberals; aren't you glad we're not like them?" And everything in the show was an effort to label this or that newspaper as "leftist" or "unfair" or "unevenly presenting the news." And he made some rather odd "liberal Jew" comments here and there, too - subtle, but consistent. Not that he was off-topic - they were discussing the Israel situation, which I will not even attempt to discuss here - but his whole indictment of the "leftist" newspapers was that they were unable to present any kind of anti-Israeli argument for fear of alienating their lefty-Jewish subscription base. Who knew Sandy Koufax had such influence. Anyways, the whole thing was absurd, seeing as Fox News would be hard-pressed to present any anti-American sentiment in their own programming. I think O'Reilly half-heartedly acknowledged this fact, but said nothing in reference to its equally-condemning application to his own news organization: the conservatives can't bash America for fear of alienating their fanbase, either. Just like, you know, Metallica can't go pop. Oh, wait. Anyways, what pushed it over the top was this "Team Good Americans" (F*** Yeah!) take on the whole thing - he made repeated references to how the leftists were "taking it on the chin," "getting their butt kicked," etc., backed up by, wait, oh, what's that, nothing. He's a smart dude, and a lot of what he said today regarding the Israelis and their right to defend themselves was spot on. But the rest, the tinsel to his Rightmas tree - it's just B.S. He lies, and rather blatantly. SuperDave Letterman knows the deal.

In the midst of this thought-provoking (though interrupted every five seconds by commercials - seriously 96.9, is times tough?) radio show, a car passed me with a "Marriage = Man + Woman" sign. I fail to see the point. People dying, WW III on the horizon, child actors beating one another on boxing shows, and this is really your prime-bumper-real-estate cause? So then I peek in the car, and it's Joe and Jane Suburbanite humming along to their Lawrence Welk greatest hits CD, and I just want to punch them. And I contemplate the level of hypocrisy this involves, given the revulsion I felt at the many glorious-and-entirely-appropriate-for-impressionable-youth-audiences anti-flag-burning videos at Texas Boys' State. (Nothing quite as scrumptious as a subtle brainwashing at the hands of the American Legion - if their brand of dependent-thinking were a dessert, it would be Death By White Chocolate). The accountant and the Mary Kay saleslady have a right to express their hateful (okay, I realize it's not intrinsically hateful to have that opinion re: marriage, I just think displaying it in bumper-sticker form is a tad gratuitous) (e.g., I don't put bumper-stickers on my car that say "you are all consumer slave braindead morons who lack the creativity and originality to express your questionably hateful political opinions in forms other than bumper stickers" - that would just be unnecessarily antagonistic, don't you think?) opinions in bumper sticker form just like every other American-Flag-Pin-Wearing Citizen. Right? Sure. So I didn't run them off the road. Thank god for level heads. And Boys' State. That. I. Love.

So that was today. In the words of a band that's either named after something vaguely Satanic, a form of current, or perhaps a very in-the-face of Lawrence Welk listening suburbans lifestyle:

You've been (Echo: you've been you've been):

THUNDERSTRUCK