Not Nearly So Many Words

Moving Mountains - Pnuema

2008-08-07T21:10:00.002-04:00

Moving Mountains is a four-piece outfit hailing from the college-haunted reaches of Purchase, NY. These folks have two EP's and one full-length record under their belts to date; the full length, titled Pneuma, was self-released by the band in 2007. The album was reissued a year later, after the band's pick up by indie label Deep Elm Records.

Moving Mountains REALLY wants to be The Appleseed Cast. They, unfortunately, fall somewhat short of those lofty aspirations, and might be easily dismissed by the cruel naysayers simply as "Appleseed Clones". While being somewhat accurate this is, to put it simply, very unfair. We shouldn't forget that when The Appleseed Cast released The End of Ring Wars, they were often dismissed as Sunny Day Real Estate or Mineral clones.

Pneuma isn't a terrible album by any means, it simply sings of a freshman effort by a still green band. In time, Moving Mountains will find their niche, and then, perhaps, will focus somewhat less on the polish and pretense, and give us something raw. More importantly, they'll give us something 100% theirs, and the word "derivative" will never cross the lips of reviewers.

Summer = Stagnation

2008-07-26T17:41:00.003-04:00

I'm sorry. In the great weighted judgment of asinine, pretentious bloggers everywhere, I have many marks struck against me. The most potent of these is laziness, and a lack of content.

So here's something.

In a book store this afternoon, I picked up the Little Things by Jeffrey Brown. He's a cartoonist that draws interesting autobiographical comics/cartoons. I also bought his debut graphic novel, Clumsy, which I have just finished reading through. The artwork is very rough, and the story doesn't really come full-circle to a clear point or conclusion; however, given it's nature as a true-to-life re-telling of events in the author's life, this is understandable. Things in this world rarely come to a point wherein they make sense.

I bought the books because there was a strip that was all about Andrew Bird albums. See also, I am a tool.

Moreover on the subject of Andrew Bird, I think I'll be going to see him and Wilco in August, even if it means going solo, and seeing them play from a shitty lawn seat.

I Want to Bear the Children of Fleet Foxes

2008-06-08T10:28:00.004-04:00

I feel that to properly begin this entry, and to more surely define the words that are about to follow herein, I must do my part to lay something of a disclaimer at your feet. As I sit and write this, my head is swimming with fever-like delusion brought on by the savage heat wave that has recently struck my little corner of the Northeast. Each breath I take is labored and ragged, without satisfaction, as each breath draws in more wet, humid air than it does actual delicious, palatable, life-sustaining oxygen.

Driving my comrades and myself home last night from Torrington (which is to say, the tangled wilds of Bear Country), I found that the early summer heat had taken an unusual toll on me, as the night air was veritably swimming in my field of vision; I found the road and trees had taken on a liquid blurry quality. It took my utmost concentration to persevere through the drive, a fact which was not heartened by the presence of the unmistakably drunk driver who was in front of me, practicing the "I swerve all over the fucking road" technique of Zen driving.

So then. Fleet Foxes. Fuck yes.

It's a rare occasion that I really find myself agreeing with the elitist goons over at Pitchfork, a fact which is generally exasperated whenever the site's writers begin to get super excited about a band or album, and crank up their own personal hype machines up to high gear. For example: Vampire Weekend. Remember them? Who fucking cares now? Not that they didn't deliver a solid album; it had an undeniably unique sound, and was certainly noteworthy, but the praise that was heaped on the lads by the three-pronged indie media overlords simply did not seem warranted.

On to the review of Fleet Foxes debut LP, wherein I will eat my words. Pitchfork fell all over these fellows ever since their Sun Giant EP. It was good. Their self-titled album is even better.

Imagine My Morning Jacket, a few years earlier. That's a good basis to imagining the spectacular sounds that Fleet Foxes have produced on this album. Their music is the music of lonely mountain paths and stream-side woodland meadows; it you listen and close your eyes you might be able to imagine a band of Appalachian gypsies descending from the high roads, instruments in hand, their voices rising supernaturally above the woods and echoing throughout.

Yes, that's it. So it's really fucking good. And that's that.

New Sigur Ros Album has English Lyrics; In other News, A Piece of My World Dies

2008-06-01T22:01:00.002-04:00

I'm sure that by now we've all seen the oddity that is the new Sigur Ros album cover. The cover art for their new LP, proudly titled Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, prominently displays far more nude ass than I generally care to have on my Icelandic post-rock albums. In lieu of trying to pronounce the album's proper title, I think I'll just be calling it "the naked album". This is not nearly as fun as the hand pantomime I make when referring to the band's masterpiece ( ) album.

So, the album art is iffy. But it's still fucking Sigur Ros, right? Anyway, here's some of the LOWDOWN, which you can read on the band's offical site.

Upon hearing the new single "Gobbledigook", I am not sure what to think; the band has both intrigued and direly confused me with this new musical direction. It sounds utterly unlike anything Sigur Ros has done before, and by that I mean that it, in fact, does not sound like the soundtrack to a walk through a bleak winter landscape.

Is this good? Well, maybe. It's certainly progressive of them, and one cannot place any blame on the lads for wanting to move away from their more dour roots into something a bit more cheerful...something a bit more (if we can take anything away from the new track)...Animal Collective?!

I will remain optimistic, because I have faith in the power of the Icelandic people. If I can make myself not be an elitist douchebag who resists change, then I'm willing to bet I'll love the new album. Yes. The "naked" album.

Oh, and here. Take a listen for yourself.

Efterklang + Slaraffenland = More Danes Than You Can Fit in a Phonebooth

2008-05-31T00:04:00.007-04:00

This past Tuesday, with some apprehension, I journeyed to the tangled reaches of the Hamden urban wilderness to witness the inaugural landing of the Danish collective on Connecticut shores. The aforementioned lads from Denmark comprised two bands: Efterklang and the much more difficult to pronounce Slaraffenland.

The show was at The Space, a wee little used-to-be-an-office-building-but-is-now-a-music-venue on the Hamden/New Haven border. Because so many of the people I know register high on the "I'm a lame-ass" scale, I found myself flying solo to this affair; hence my original apprehension at even bothering to go. Nevertheless, I grit my teeth and persevered through the night, alone (it wasn't bad at all, and I've done it before on a few occasions).

The opening band, whose name escapes me, was really fucking terrible. I guess they were trying to present some sort of gloomy goth rock front, but it did not work at all. Their songs, which consisted of a heavily distorted, repetitive four chords (all of them minor of course) played on constant repeat, while a bearded fellow banged out an ultra-slow beat on a two-piece drum kit. Oh, there was some sort of xylophone too...and fox masks...whatever, fuck it. It was BAD.

Luckily, Slaraffenland (who I had not heard previously) impressed me instantly as soon as they started their set. I knew I was in the "good shit" neck of the woods as soon as I saw them unpacking a trombone and a clarinet - seriously, how can that go wrong? Their vocals are all about the band as a group; everyone sings, and it has this amazing choir-like quality to it, a factor which is amplified many times over in a live performance. The high-energy climax of their set was when the band members handed out some tambourines and drumsticks into the audience, and started up one serious freak out, culminating in two of the band members running around the venue with drumsticks, banging out a crazy rhythm on any object they could get to.

Efterkland was equally as impressive, crowding eight members onto a very tiny, very cramped stage. Their music, which is sprawling and ethereal on record, did not suffer at all; it retained all the soaring, echoing mysticism that it has on the album. It's hard to describe their performance, save to say it was a truly hypnotic experience. The acid-enthusiast in front of me also seemed to think so, and half my fun at the show came from watching his stoned reaction to the music. That dude was fucking IN IT.

They played "Mirador" as a final encore, and it was worth the price of admission (which, by the way, was a meager $8 for all this whimsy) just to hear that song live. There's a video for it you know, which can be found here.

To sum it all up, if you have the chance to see these fellows on their US tour, then you'd best do it.

2008-05-23T09:09:00.002-04:00

Despite any attempt I might make to dissuade myself from the obvious, the lack of written words posted on this page is a complete fabrication of laziness, rather than anything else; in truth it's been my own damn lack of motivation.

So then. The spring semester is over. I ended up taking (count 'em) a total of ZERO finals. My final grades ended up being a series of A's for News Writing, Poetry Workshop, and Critical Reasoning. These were followed and supported by a B in Psychology; presumably the only reason I ended up with a B instead of an A is because I skipped out entirely on the research experiment that I was supposed to be a subject in. Fuck that. I'll take my B.

Most of my finals-time was spend helping Megan pack up her things to move back home. For such a small space in her apartment, she apparently packed a veritable ton of stuff into an area that could not, in any way, physically support it all. It broke the laws of reality (which we then re-broke in order to fit it all in her car). Post-packing and finals, she came back to Danbury with her mother, and we had dinner at this super fine Indian place. And that was that.

When you spend a lot of time with somebody, especially somebody who is the definition of amazing, you end up getting attached to them, and to that time. So after months of seeing her nearly everyday, even if just briefly between classes, it's odd to enter these summer months, and have that not be the case. At first, that combined with my sudden lack of a school schedule made me feel very disjointed, and out-of-place in the world.

But we're doing better. Still, sometimes I wish that all the people I like the best weren't so far away from me.

Le Loup - "The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations’ Millennium General Assembly"

That album cover overhead; if you haven't heard it, then you owe it to yourself to do so immediately. I'd been searching for it for MONTHS, and in the end it seemed as if fucking iTunes was going to be my only source of musical salvation, insofar as it came to Le Loup. Lucky for me, I found a copy at Newbury Comics, and thus my life was fulfilled again, with my penchant for wolf-related bands and their unnecessarily long album titles.

Do you like folk music?
Do you like banjo?
Do you like choir-like vocals?
Do you understand I have better musical taste than you do?

Then fucking listen to it. Also, they have a super cute girl playing in their band.

2008-04-10T08:45:00.002-04:00

Tuesday night I made another vaunt-worthy trip into the tangled outskirts of Boston to see somebody play; this time the journey was made in honor of Kimya Dawson. You may have heard of her- she was the nice lady playing all those saccharin songs on the Juno soundtrack having to deal with tire swings, and holding hands, and thinking about a complex, frightening world with the philosophically masterful simplicity of a twelve-year-old.

The show was at the Somerville Theater, this wonderful vintage theater in Davis Square. The idea of having my vehicle towed again for parking violations did not appeal to me greatly, so I parked at the Alewife station, and my traveling companion and I took a two-minute subway ride to the Davis station.

Davis Square is, let's say, a fucking amazing place. The whole place was lined with trees, still bare limbed in the early spring, sporting strings of white Christmas lights in their branches. It was very warm that evening, a conclusion to what had been a 100% picturesque Spring day. We walked around for a bit, looking for somewhere to fill our veins with caffeine, and our stomachs with foodstuffs. We ended up at the Diesel Cafe (which was where I had originally suggested...but didn't know the location of), this amazing coffee & food shop only a couple hundred feet from the theater...and across the street from a Starbucks, as expected. Their menu was very vegan/vegetarian friendly- many interesting sandwiches. Their coffee selection was not vast, but certainly on par with any other shop. The beans were pretty good; I had an Americano (which is fast becoming my favorite drink to judge one's espresso quality on) and it was a bold, strong drink, but without the sort of bitter residue you might expect from some others. Megan had a green tea latte, a drink that always mystifies me wherever I see it. The cafe was full of exactly what you might expect (especially with Tufts being right around the corner), a young college crowd. It was a very comfortable, fun place, even to just sit with a drink and watch all the interesting sorts of people that trickle in and out throughout the evening.

The show itself was great, as expected. My view of the stage was partially blocked, as my seat was directly behind a massive support pillar for the balcony above. The opening acts were Angelo Spencer, Kimya's one-man-band husband, and a French band (whom played Japanese songs) that I did not catch the name of. Kimya herself was, in a word I rarely use, adorable. She seemed like such a small, friendly creature, somewhat put off by the size of the crowd who had come explicitly to see her play some songs. Her set was great- I only with that it had been longer, I didn't want it to end when it did.

Now, while the drive TO Alewife had been absolutely, completely FLAWLESS in it's execution, the return trip to Connecticut started off on shaky footing. I missed a merge onto I-95, so we ended up driving in a spiral for a bit, trying to get onto highway ramps that were closed; this risky venture eventually deposited us into "for reals" Boston. We were spit off the highway into the heart of Chinatown; there were no signs in English on any of the windows of the buildings. Eventually the true and proper way back home was found.

A good night.

----

Yesterday, after my poetry workshop class, I was leaving Berkshire Hall when I noticed Kevin Devine's face posted on one of the bulletin boards. So, next week, Kevin Devine is playing at the WCSU Coffeehouse. That's amazing!

The Medal

2008-04-09T19:09:00.001-04:00

There is a path – winding
trail that cuts through the hillside,
wrapping itself serpentine around
the wooded slope graced by pines.

Here, down below it – the road upward
overlooks the small white fences
of abandoned fields that now grow
only stones and rough weeds.

He walks here, because he has
always walked here; it was his
footsteps that forged it and broke
down the tangles of brambles into
soft, fine dirt. Walking again-

Alone today, not like when
he brought the girl in the grass-
green skirt here with him; a long
time ago. Just him today,
all three legs- two flesh and one
smooth ash made to take up
the weight from where the
shrapnel tore his muscle.

They gave him a medal when he came home;
everyone cheered, showered the wayward sons
who had been made men by violent happenstance,
whose wide reflector-eyes played back every scene
of butchery they'd seen, from trench to trench- or
that place in between the two, lined with pieces of
the less fortunate lads who died as children still,
crying for mothers who sat, unaware, across oceans
while their sons warm insides spilled out onto
cold foreign soil.

But they gave him a medal-
A tiny golden star hanging
out from a pale blue ribbon.
They pinned it on him after he shot dead
a great many young men;
much like himself, but they
spoke a different language, and
cried out to their mothers in German.

It, the medal, small and nothing-
appeasement, a hollow thank-you,
the worthless trinket of enormous weight
resting in the wrinkled palm of his hand.
Taking it by the edge, he drops it
into the ravine below, and with surprising
speed the falling star drops out of sight
crashing somewhere, unknown, uncared.
With the crash of that small star he
is made separate- the butcher and the hero.

He comes to the summit-
the top of all things, and looks
out on the golden-coin sun sinking
into the slot-valley down, out.
He could lay now- rest his head
on the pillow of the earth; it's infinite
strength more than enough to support
his head, crowned with alabaster white.

2008-04-05T10:18:00.003-04:00

During the course of rather par-for-the-course afternoon conversation, I was confronted with this provocative question: do I regret my last relationship?

Now, the question and answer itself isn't quite as important at the idea of the question itself; this is to say, consideration of regret is greater than the actual summation of an answer to those same thoughts. The thinking it good, and we'll get on to that shortly.

But, I'll briefly look at the original question- do I regret my previous relationship? The short answer is "no". The slightly more involved answer is "I regret parts of it". Then there's the verbose reply. My last girlfriend was fairly long-term, but in retrospect, was a tenuous thing that deteriorated fairly rapidly. I stuck around for far longer than a well-adjusted human being should have, especially one who is confronted with rather morose situations during the course of these romantic pursuits. Let's simply that that at times I felt shat upon, and taken for granted. I was also subject to some fairly piecemeal lies, most of which would make any sane individual scratch one's head in wonder. Maybe pity.

So, here is my ultimate answer: "I don't regret the relationship, but I do regret allowing myself to be a doormat for so long, and continuing to be so long after I realized that folks were wiping their filthy feet all over me."

Anyway. A few weeks ago, while I was working, a former partner came into the store to talk with some of the people she knew who still worked there. Over the course of the rather bland "catching-up" small talk, somebody asked her if she was still with Boyfriend X. She said no, they were not together, that she had broken up with him only recently, after a three year relationship. The next bit of her speech dealt with how her "feelings just seemed to change, and she wasn't sure how she felt any more."

So, why do we bother? Her little anecdote seemed to exemplify this for me; why do we fucking bother, when people can all be so unpredictable, and change their minds when the wind blows in the opposite direction?

I suppose we like being with other people. We like sharing ourselves; we enjoy feeling required for something in the world. I think so. I liked being relied upon. I felt like I had a purpose to something other than my own self-interest. And that is something great.

You see? I'm not really all that nihilistic when it goes to this. I just want to slap and shake the thitkicker's shoulders and scream at them, "You're doing it wrong!"

----

As a follow-up to something I wrote previously- Do recall that during the Akron/Family expedition, Megan lost her earring somewhere in the backseat of my car while asleep. I spent hours searching for that thing; I turned the whole car out. She spent thirty seconds looking for it, and immediately found it. Ridiculous. How useless did I feel? Very. Female luck, I suppose.

Eventually I'll have something real to say.

2008-04-01T23:01:00.001-04:00

2008-03-31T18:55:00.002-04:00

Having been in the midst of Spring for a few weeks now, imagine my surprise when, over the weekend, I encountered a solid foot-deep layer of snow and ice in the hilly wilderness of southern Massachusetts. Curious, yes? This isn't hyperbole in any way; there was one unexpectedly deep snow drift that attempted to devoured me whole, and swallowed me up to my waist.

So, now that I'm back in CT, it's returned to being dreary, gray, and rainy. Pleasant weather follows in my way, apparently.

Sometimes, and especially recently, I have a difficult time being comfortable in my own skin. It's hardly all the time, or very often, but on occasion I get absorbed into this sort of general malaise; it makes me terrible company, and I don't see how people can enjoy being around me at that point, when I quiet up and become ultra-introspective. I don't mean to tense up and seem unappreciative of others for their company; it just happens this way. I always seem to have problems telling people what might be on my mind, for fear of alienating or offending people in some way. I'd rather just keep my mouth shut than make those around me uncomfortable. It's a risky maneuver.

Next Tuesday we're going to see Kimya Dawson at the Sommerville Theater, and by we I mean myself and my previous traveling companion, Megan, who I dragged with me to see Akron/Family and Megafaun in Boston. If things go properly, I might manage not to fuck this up like I did the last trip; my car was towed and we ended up having to walk a long way through the freezing streets of Boston. Further, she lost one of her earrings somewhere along the way (it was from a thrift shop, so is more or less irreplaceable). I still feel pretty terrible about all of that.

For a point of comparison, consider this: when we went to see Juno in January, it took me a good two hours or so to finally find the movie theater. There's this as well, which I had nearly forgotten- back in November we went to see I'm Not There. I thought it would be fun to walk from Molten Java to the theater, and sorely misjudged the distance. That was another psuedo-failure on my part.

It's a wonder she even bothers to hang around with me anymore, but I'm glad she still does, despite my faulty planning on nearly every outing I attempt.

Ah...I don't know, I don't know. I'll be me again eventually. I think. Hope.

So, Next Week. Again. You Know.

2008-03-31T00:05:00.001-04:00

Who is going to see Kimya Dawson on April 8th? This guy. I mean me, by the way.

What, really?

2008-03-23T00:44:00.000-04:00

I totally did not know, or realize, that Phil Elvrum is also in Old Time Relijun.

The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain

2008-03-19T12:37:00.002-04:00

I always enjoy new music, and even more so when I am lucky enough to be unexpectedly, pleasantly surprised by my newfound aural company. I've had no previous exposure to Canadian indie-folksters The Acorn. Thus, after clumbing up the slope of their debut LP, Glory Hope Mountain completely blind and without expectation in any form, I was very excited when I came down the other side of the mountain, having felt that I found something wonderful in those lofty peaks.

Glory Hope Mountain is a musical re-telling of Gloria Esperanza Montoya, the Honduran-born mother of the band's frontman, Rolf Klausener. The album's title is a near literal translation of her name. Without knowing anything about this woman, we can safely infer that her life must have been something shiningly interesting, if it served as the catalyst to inspire this album.

Glory Hope Mountain sounds distinctly of summer; listening to it is like walking through a sunny abandoned wood, while intensely intricate guitar plucking resounds overhead, combining with an enormous percussion set that melds together subtle tribal beats with rusty brass sections. I feel that the group's name itself, The Acorn, does something of summing up their sound in few words- they do a spectacular job of blending bright folky melodies with a more eccentric naturalismo-inspired undercurrent.

Key tracks: "Crooked Legs", "Oh Napoleon", "Lullaby (Mountain)".

The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain: 7.5/10

Some Old, Sad Bullshit

2008-03-16T20:36:00.003-04:00

Well, great. Somehow, no matter how carefully I tread in the world, occasionally misfortune decides to visit injury on me. Never anything too dramatic, but just enough to annoy. And so, I sliced into my left hand with a serrated bread knife today.

Fuck. The line of cuts across my palm are in just the right places too; the string of red slashes are in the spots that are constantly agitated by the opening closing or my hand, or the use of my fingers. In other words, everything I do is another step in the opposite direction of letting the cuts close up and heal.

Anyway-

Some friends of mine (who now reside on the far Western coast in the sun dappled urban sprawl of Los Angeles) gave me this idea from the writing in their own respective blogs; each day they'll pick a song with a particularly strong thought or memory of theirs attached to it, and write a short bit about their anecdote.

I can do that. Why the fuck not?

Song #1: "I Felt Your Shape" by The Microphones

From the very moment I started to listen to the lo-fi musical tapestries woven by Phil Elvrum, I was struck by how extremely sad and lonely the songs were. It's sorry, ironic music that hinges on self-pity but never quite makes the transition; instead it hovers on the edge of that sickly pit, at the bottom of which rots every bad emo song ever recorded. Instead of hideously self-indulgent "poor me" songs, we're given a sort of factual re-telling of less-than-happy circumstances. Elvrum doesn't whine- he doesn't want your sympathy, he's just sort of saying "this is how it is; too bad, but it's this way".

"I Felt Your Shape" off of the infinitely amazing The Glow Pt. 2 tells the story of unrequited love in the most gouging of ways; at it's base it's the story of a boy who is very much infatuated with a woman, whom he believes feels the same, but comes to realize that it's a one-sided affair. In the end he's left wondering if anything they might have shared had any meaning whatsoever, with uncertainty abound.

And, boy, it that thought didn't cut deep the first time I heard it. Finding myself in a very similar situation, albeit perhaps more pathetic in ways, I latched onto that song like some sort of obscene musical security blanket. I would play it over, and over again to myself, constantly on repeat. It was the song at the time; it said everything I was possibly thinking to myself. Maybe it still does, in some way, though I think at this time I can appreciate Elvrum's song for what it is, and allow it to be a song based on his own merit, rather than vainly thrusting my own personally confusing turmoil onto it.

Still - the song reminds me of particular people, a particular time, and particular things that were said. It's become somewhat representative for me.

Ridiculous, I know. But this is part of what music is for; it verbalized something I was feeling in far more concise, literary terms than I was able to, and helped me to understand what it was, and come to terms with it. So, thanks Mr. Elvrum, for being sad before I was.

At the Corner of Beacon and Goodenough

2008-03-14T11:47:00.004-04:00

There's a lonely lamppost
on the corner of the street -
the meeting of the two.
The electric full moon, it
shines it's beams from not
so very high overhead.

The city is dead with sleep.
There's now only dust on
the streets, and my own two
feet echoing footsteps by
dark alleyways, the cold numbing
them through the canvas.

Pockets aren't warm, and my breath
comes in thick smoke, cutting air
so cold it freezes my eyes wide open.

Under that light now, washed up
in the pale nothing, the false moonlight.
And turning my head to look down,
below my feet some scraps of careless trash,
I head behind me the echo of smaller, lighter
footsteps following in my wake, my shadow
who's brighter than any low-lit moon,
who's radiance is felt behind me now.

My bare arms-
I'm wide open to the cold here,
and somehow I'm still warm.

Kitsch

2008-03-11T11:20:00.001-04:00

I really wish that I had something incredibly poignant to say or write, something that I wouldn't feel embarrassed about a few days after the fact.

Boston, Akron/Family, and the Frozen Four Miles

2008-03-03T21:43:00.011-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I found myself, along with my irrefutably amazing traveling partner, driving into the far Northern wilds en route to Boston to dance around the tribal fires and pay homage to Akron/Family.

I have always been a purist when it comes to the musical pilgrimage; I have firmly-rooted beliefs that the driving to and from a show is just as important (and on some existential level, more important) than the actual show itself. It gives the whole affair a nice Freytagian Pyramid sort of feel, with the act of driving providing a nice rising/falling action, split by the show itself - the climax.

The evening began with a trip to fill our empty stomachs with some super-fine, and extremely cruelty-free, psuedo-Italian food. This was our destination. Considering that I have not eaten anything resembling pizza in nearly a year (since my vegan conversion), I was very excited to try this place. It was everything I could have hoped for. I had something called BBQ "chikhin" pizza, which was both satisfying to say, and to devour. Megan had something that sounded far more sinister, going by the moniker of a "Grassgrazer" calzone. My pizza was far better, and if the two meals were to fight one another in the ring, in a battle to the death, the chikhin pizza would deliver a killing blow within seconds...because it was fucking delicious.

Now, onto the show itself. The venue was a bar, a fact that I always seem to enjoy on some esoteric level. It's not that I drink much, or very often; nor would I really consider doing so when I'm the key-carrying driver who has a two hour ride home ahead of him. I suppose I simply like the option, and the "dark" quality than bar shows tend to carry with them. Hey, and sometimes the floor is sticky with interestingly colored stains, ones that make fun noises when you try to pull your foot away from them.

This place, Harper's Ferry, was surprisingly clean. I realize that I may have certain expectations, having most often frequented Toad's Place in New Haven; a truly ancient, dingy venue where the stains on the bathroom walls have become sentient enough to whisper dark nothings into your ear as you pass them on the way to the dungeon-like bathroom (it's ceiling is only four feet high too).

Akron/Family was amazing, and they played with an energy that I can only describe as cosmic and catastrophic. It was sort of like watching a star explode, or watching an infant being born...in reverse while a chorus of Tibetan monks chanted prayers, and a trio of Aboriginal musicians danced and beat skin-drums around the perimeter of the hospital room. They had the fine folk of Megafaun join them for the set, all of whom jumped right into the musical throng with naturalismo-born fervor.

Most of the songs (which is to say, almost ALL) played were off of the trio's newest album, Love is Simple. There was no sign of the older material, which one can assume is attributed to the loss of singer/guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof. Not that this was terribly dissapointing, but there were a few songs I would have liked to have heard live, most notably "Running, Returning", "Franny/You're Human", and "I'll Be on the Water". The later is a song of special significance to me; also, it was something that I had put on a mixtape I gave to Megan, whom I was with. Selfish reasons aside, it would have been nice to have heard it live.

Nonetheless, what they did play ended up transcending into a non-stop clash of clattering instruments, tribal shouts, clapping, stomping, and general freaking-out by all parties involved. I, with great trepidation, am tempted to use the descriptor "jam band", which may in fact be accurate. Throw these six amazing musicians on stage without any solid direction, and you get a jam band, minus all the shitty-ness normally associated with such, creating a holy tribal cacophony.

When we had done as much dancing, clapping, and shouting as we could muster for the evening, we spilled outside, along with the rest of the small crowd, into the frigid Boston night. Outside, a disastrous surprise awaited us; where I had parked my car, there was only empty space. When I parked in the Right Aid lot across the street, I had knowingly disregarded the "violators will be towed" sign on the poles. After all, how often does that really happen?

After calling the number and finding directions to the lot where my car was imprisoned, we set out on a long, lonely, and very, very cold walk through the empty Boston streets. The walk itself was (according to the tow records) about four miles. Now mind you, I had no coat whatsoever, as I had parked close enough to the venue that I did not feel it was needed. Megan was jacket-ed, but was still sick, and the cold certainly was not liable to help the fact. Without any other options, we walked to the tow lot like the Hebrews through Sinai, where I threw down $110 and freed my car from it's cage.

At least now, I know.

Skullfish

2008-02-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

And all these days that I've spent idle in the wilds, keeping quiet, keeping still, staying here without much-to-do about nothing, or anything. I've plenty of nothing, if nothing else. There's a little field behind Robinson's mill, next to the stream; it's a tangled little affair, right where the reeds and the thistles start to give way to proper woods. It's full of rough grass and flat river stones where rattlesnakes lay sunning themselves on these hot summer afternoons.

Nobody comes here, ever, so I sit in the tangles and watch the waterwheel slosh in the muddy stream. It carries the ruddy water up, up, up, then down, down, down. Again. Again. Never stopping. The whole thing creaks like crickets; rusty gears grate relentlessly on one another, letting out the most rustic of squeaks and scrapes.

I sit there and watch it, letting the ticks and chiggers bite at me, crawling under corduroy trousers, or up my rolled sleeves. I don't bother to brush them off. I'm a parasite too, a lazy little bloodsucker in this town called Cambrey. Oh, aren't we all parasites. Oh yes, yes, yes we are.

Sometimes I sew my eyes shut so I can better hear, and sometimes I sew my ears shut so I can better see. I never bother to thread up my mouth, because I don't talk anyway.

Rumor has it here that Miss Robinson, the hideous old spinster in the mill, is a leper. So nobody comes around, save for the children of shameful families who use their grubby hands (the hands of future gypsies, thieves, and rapists) to throw muddy stones through the mill's windows. Nobody cares, so nobody to bother me on my riverbank.

One of those labor camp boys once was caught trying to pinch pennies from the church poor box, and the Magistrate shot him dead right there. Sad boy. But he certainly was poor; wasn't he only bothering to rob himself? Robbing GOD, they say. I don't care. GOD robs us all the time.

The stream's good a place as any. I've found a glass eye in there once, and a crow skull that I cleaned up and wear around my neck on a leather thong. There's skullfish in there too; the good ones – the one's that are all bone and no flesh.

Proper skullfish they are – little aquatic skeletons that swim like dead weight carried on the currents. They're already dead. Still alive, though. They thrash and flail in the water, just as if they were very much alive. Poor skullfish. Not so much different from us, really. Not so much different from anyone. Those poor labor camp children are already dead, they just haven't realized it yet. Magistrate might as well have a loaded pistol for each of their heads.

White leper Robinson is as good as dead, as good as some old ghost haunting a worthless mill. She doesn't ever come our. Dead, dead, dead, and for some reason still breathing.

All these people in Cambrey – every white washed farmhouse is filled with corpses that insist on walking, breathing, talking, laughing, fucking, eating. One day it will dawn on them what they've been all along, and then there it is. Bury them in the chapel graveyard, next to the gallows.

And I too, I suppose. I put as much effort as possible into being a worthless wastrel. I'm no skullfish. Not now, not ever. I know that I'm all bones; I don't try to swim, I just lay be. It's what keeps me fucking alive, I suppose.

I'd Never Admit It

2008-02-06T21:38:00.001-05:00

How jealous I am
Of the ghosts you were haunted by
In the stories that you tell me.

I Appreciate My Mornings

2008-02-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

Every morning - I open my eyes.
It's a small thing that I do,
in bed, just me, accomplished this.
And before my neurons fire,
before soap, and water,
before I make myself dressed,
before I sit with my breakfast;
Before my day is even alive
I am alive, myself, lying in bed.
I open my eyes - I take a breath,
and that air is sweet.

Irony

2008-02-02T08:39:00.001-05:00

The man with the guitar
Is playing the most relevant of song
All by chance
What providence.
I look away, or pretend to smile
Outside at the rain, or some far away street light
As I'm sure my eyes are shiny
God damn it -
Irony.

I'd Be Happy To

2008-01-31T11:12:00.002-05:00

I see that you've broken something
I'd be happy to be your crutch.

Adam

2008-01-31T11:12:00.001-05:00

Now, I don't really know if I was made from dust
Or if you were born out of a rib
God is a word I can't pronounce
But, what I do know is this-
I have twenty-four ribs, and so do you.
They grew like branches, all from the tiniest seed.
And I know that eventually, they'll be dust.
I think that's good enough for me.

Keeping Sync

2008-01-19T08:36:00.000-05:00

I carry this with me
Wherever I go
or happen on, or stumble to, or fall toward
All places
From my head to my bed
Every step I take in between
I try to match with your/it's shadow.

A Good Writer

2008-01-18T10:07:00.001-05:00

Hank-

THEY talk about you.

They things I hear!

Did you pour the poison straight down?

Did you run to the bar to escape the bottles?

Did you ever hit her, Hank?

Or break your little Stone?

THEY say you did.

Did you stalk the brothels?

Did you fill your belly with sin?

THEY say you died without God

and you never tried.

Was the pen in your hand, Hank?

Did you live in your pages?

Ownership

2008-01-18T10:06:00.000-05:00

I have a car

anditsalittlewornoutbutitdoesntbreakdownandgetsmewhereIneedtogo.

I have a house

anditssmallandcrampedabitleakytoobutIcanalwayssleepthere.

I have some money

anditsnotmuchbutitsalwaysjustenoughallthetime.

I have some friends

andItrustthemtobearoundandlistentoallofmybullshitwhenIneedthemto.

I have

mind.

Eyes

Soul.

Alive.

Best.

Tiny Mix Tape

2008-01-18T10:05:00.000-05:00

Devon woke up that morning with the profound realization that he should kill himself. He was not quite sure where the sudden impulse had come from; he had opened his eyes that morning and felt absolutely no desire to move from his bed. For a very long time he thoughtlessly stared at the dull, sand-colored ceiling, looking for any accidental constellation-like patterns that may have been hidden there. He found one that looked like the face of a fat house cat, which he named Felonius. It was shortly after that, at precisely 8:45AM, that Devon decided that he no longer wanted to remain living.

He had thought that he would be more emotional over the whole thing. He had certainly seen movies, and after-school specials, that dealt with this sort of issue. If you were contemplating suicide, it was pretty much expected that you would be hyper-emotional. Before anyone took their own life on screen, they would almost certainly be manic with their mental anguish; there would be screaming, crying, laughing (maybe), tears, spit flying from gnashing jaws, thrashing limbs...the whole deal. Devon felt a social obligation to at least make an attempt at an emotional outburst, so as he lay in his bed, corpse-like under the while linens with calmly folded arms, he did his best to squeeze out a few tears. He stared vacuously upward while conjuring up images and memories of the saddest moments he could remember in his life. All of the recollections of old dead childhood pets or lost relatives couldn't do much in the way of melancholy, and all the memories of painful breakups were so blurred by past therapy sessions (alcoholic binges) that they, at best, were remembered like a swirling, colorful musical number that might have come off of Sgt. Pepper's. After some time struggling with attempting to get sad, Devon simply decided that because the rest of the world was bitter about their self-annihilation, he was not, and refused to try to be any longer. The notion was just too Hollywood for his tastes.

He showered and dressed, just as if it were any other day. As he showered (and just as he completed styling the finest shampoo-mohawk he had ever seen), Devon wondered why exactly it was that he wanted to die. His questioning did not waver his resolve at all; it was simply a case of thinking, “If I am going to do this, I might as well understand why in order to do it right”. He thought about all the reasons that people were offing themselves these days. He was able to list dozens of reasons, from failed marriages to financial crisis, but they all seemed to come back to general unhappiness. Devon wasn't unhappy. He didn't feel any profound sadness, and he wasn't full of angst or rage at the world like some melodramatic teenager. He wasn't sad, or angry. He wasn't happy. He just was.

He contemplated this mental blankness as he dried himself off, became bored, and switched to the slightly more interesting (and important) question of how he would do the deed. There certainly were a lot of options opened to him, it initially seemed, but the list of possibilities quickly dwindled when he scanned them more realistically. Anything that required gathering extra “tools” was out of the question; Devon didn't have that sort of patience, and if he spent too much time planning this in advance he would feel somewhat sullied by it. He didn't want to choose anything that was too grotesque or messy. Causing a public spectacle was out as well. The last thing he wanted was to show up on the news as “that bridge jumping guy”, and have his face plastered all over the televisions and newspapers. That just wouldn't be polite; he had relatives to consider, and there was no need to humiliate them.

He made the decision quicker than he thought he would have, in a flash of enlightenment, by divine providence he settled on exactly how he would kill himself. It was simple, perfect, painless, and private. It fulfilled all his requirements. He briefly wondered about exactly when he should do it, and came to the conclusion that there was certainly no time like the present. If he had resolved to do this (which he had) and was serious about carrying through with his plan (which he was) then there was no point in putting it off.

Devon considered writing some sort of note, but decided against that. Anything he wrote would be read too far into; that note would become an endless source of anguish for his relations, each word would be endlessly scanned for answers to the question “why”. No, that note would do no good. He thought about making a phone call and filling a friend in on his newly formed agenda, but remembered that you only ever tell anyone about suicide if you actually want to be caught and saved. Confidants were for second-guessing attention seekers. Devon was neither, and thus, decided that it would be best for all involved if he simply carried through with his plan and disappeared, ghost-like, until (perhaps) the truth was eventually discovered.

He found it on accident, while he was pulling two worn, gray socks over his feet. Half-buried under the books and debris that was scattered across his living room floor, was a tiny black tape. It was well-worn; the outer case looked battered and chipped. The tape, whatever it was, had seen better days. Filled with an strange curiosity, Devon leaned forward and picked it up in his hands, turning it in them, feeling the cracked edges of the tape. The thing was completely unmarked save for one side, where in white out was written the words “Every Day”.

He was not sure where the thing had come from, or if it even belonged to him. Devon vaguely recalled a time when homemade tapes like this were used like youthful currency. While in his past he may have produced hundreds of self-conceived compilations for everyone from close friends to girlfriends, Devon had not involved himself in the intricacies of tape creation in some time. This relic that had suddenly presented itself to him on his living room floor, hidden under the personal rubble, presented a strangely magnetic enigma.

It took Devon another hour or so of rummaging through closets and crates until he was able to find a working tape player. With the advent of the microscopic piece of hardware that could store entire galaxies of media on itself, something so archaic as a cassette player was long extinct. When he had finally pulled one from the bowels of long-forgotten boxes, likely still left untouched from the day he moved, he set it up on his coffee table, and plugged it in. Devon opened the player and gently set the tape inside, and with great curiosity, pressed the play button down.

He listened. He listened for a very long time, and the tape simply kept playing. Devon sat and listened for as long it played, and when it was finally over, he sat back in his couch, slowly, as if relaxing after some extremely strenuous activity. He may have smiled then.

For a moment he thought about his plans. They were all laid out so perfectly. As the first pangs of doubt struck him, Devon decided to reconsider.

All Night Diner

2008-01-18T10:03:00.000-05:00

Every Wednesday evening after work I would go to the diner, sit alone at a table in the back of the place, and mope over my sandwich and coffee. I worked pretty late at that time, so I would only just arrive as the place was winding down, getting ready to let loose a torrent of people into the streets. That room was always crowded and noisy when I got there and first sat down; mostly a younger crowd full of awkward kids on awkward dates, grabbing something on their post-theater visit. If you watched slowly, you could see how the young ones steadily trickled outward, and the old quiet ones slowly trickled in. By the time I was having my fourth cup of coffee, the diner was dead quiet; the kids left along with all of their youthful energy. Now the jaded older folks came to stare into their cups, alone for the evening.

I was with them. I, only twenty-five myself, found myself inexplicably drawn into this crowd, the old crowd with the heavy lines in their face, the unshaven men who smelled of oil, liquor, and age. Somehow I had become their peer. They accepted me. Not a word was ever raised, and week after week I found myself frowning into my tar-covered coffee cup each Wednesday night. We all sat separate, together and alone, never too close. The long-faced old men drank and smoked; the horizon of the room was marked with long smoke trails curling up to the ceiling from each of them, signals marking the campsites of each low-driven heart.

There was one old guy in there that drove me to curiosity. The crowd of regulars was never really individualistic in any way; the faces of these men didn't matter, they were just shadows and husks anyway. I couldn't tell you, looking at a bunch of old bastards on a lineup, who was there on Wednesday nights and who wasn't, because I never bothered to really look at them. This fellow was different, in some way. He looked like the rest of them. He wore wrinkled and stained flannel shirts, his wrinkled and worn face was marked with stubble and deep lines, and he had an obscenely shaped gut that hung over the waist of his pants. Just like the rest of them. Something was different. Don't know. This old bastard stood out. He commanded the central stool of the bar, where he sat (upright, not slouched like the rest) and read from worn, dusty books while he smoked and drank. All the nights I spent there, I never noticed the guy come in. I'd just happen to glance up, and he'd be there, on his broken-down diner stool throne, looking like he was silently lording over the rest of the bums in this place. Never saw him leave, either. He was always still there when I left for home, late in the night.

Now I don't know where the impulse came from, but one evening as I was gearing myself up to head home, I decided that I absolutely needed to talk to this man. There could have been a story there, he might have sagely advice to give, this bum king giving a bum decree to a young bum subject. I wanted to know. On my way out the door, I stopped and approached the counter, where he was sitting with his smoke-signal cigarette, his half-empty glass, and his book. I stood by him for a few seconds, like an ass, and thought of what to say. When I finally decided to turn around and leave, the guy raised his beady black eyes to me, and held me in a strong parental-like stare for a moment. He licked his cracked old man lips, and put the cigarette into an ash tray.

“You want something?”, he asked in a gravely voice from ash-covered lungs.

“Not really. Just wondering.” I really was. I was wondering what the hell I was doing, coming up to this strange, old fellow like this. No idea.

“What? What do you want to know?” He raised the glass to his mouth and gulped down the liquid loudly, then again brought the cigarette to his lips.

“You think I'll make it? Out of here, I mean.”

He fixed me with his stare again, then squinted his eyes, further paralyzing me. He stared a moment more, then made a grating sound that could have been laughing, revealing what could have been considered some sort of decayed smile, smoke leaking from his mouth. His eyes wandered now, and looked me up and down closely. He laughed again.

“Well, anything can happen!” His laughter was profane.

(Wherein I become a sappy, outpouring fountain of...)

2008-01-16T22:51:00.001-05:00

Write This Now, a Week Later

These are just recollections of some things that I did in the past six days, written just because I CHOOSE to remember them just as I do now, with all the enthusiastic glowing that I do now. Just in case I forget, or am one day knocked in the head with enough force to affect my memory violently like that.

If you could not guess yet (with my rather verbose introduction/declaration of intent), these were very good days.

Anyway. And now: I was (very) lucky enough that I was able to spend a long while with Megan, who I had not seen since some time before Christmas. I met here in Hartford, where we visited this amazing Veg-Jaimacan restaurant. It was a pretty fucking inspiring place; everything was very laid back, calm, comfortable. Food was very good; it's a refreshing thing to go somewhere and know that I can eat pretty much anything on the menu. It doesn't happen to me often – I usually have to fight tooth and nail to get anyone to agree to a place where I can east ANYTHING (bowl of sawdust please).

You know, giving a play-by-play synopsis of each and every thing that happened seems somewhat redundant and juvenile to me. Dare I say this: it would read like a twelve-year-old-girl's diary after she had a run in with her first wee little crush. I'll try to do this one better than that, even if I'm all for kitschy jumping up and down inside – I'll try to sweep past it all and get down at the heart of the matter. Hmm.

Now hear this: I feel like the world's most blessed individual to have been able to spend almost two full days with this girl. I have such a great time doing the smallest, simplest, and most inconsequential of minute things when she is around. Now, this is the truth, strange as it may sound. Truth it still is. Serious.

NOW. When I look at her, often I get this particular sort of thought in my head, that is difficult to say. It's a very good thought, and it works well as a thought, but forcing my brain to form it into recognizable words is something that is difficult; dumb I sound, and I don't have the extraordinary verbal capacity to make it sound fucking good as it should. Here's what it essentially boils down to, however. I look at her and I think this: “I am looking at a beautiful creature, and I am amazed by it in many, many small ways that lead to a whole”. Now, if I could ever make that sound GOOD with words (it's written so clumsily), and I said it? I think there would probably be a moment of strange humility, and she would not accept it. HOWEVER, it is true. It is a truth. I'm not always so very impressed by people, and she impressed me.

SO this, now boiled down: She is really fucking pretty all the goddamn time; and I always get excited when I can hear what is coming out of her brain, the words from her mouth, thoughts from her mind. That's probably the best summarization I could come up with.

So, so, so, so, so. I got to spend time there. Now, I must say this, and I might damn myself by daring to say it. Unseen. Here. I find that one of the most enjoyable tiny things in all of human existence in the very simply act of sleeping next to someone. Silly. I've always thought that. Just is. Who knows.

SLEEP. The act of sleeping, is a very personal, intimate sort of thing. You're so very vulnerable when you're asleep. Completely so. Allowing somebody, anybody to share that space with you, to lie in your bed, that belays a certain level of trust, contentment, and quiet care. I think people often overlook and underestimate (or take for granted) the simple act of sleeping in this way. Or maybe it's me.

I don't. I suppose. Or seem not to. It's a small holy sort of thing.

I might be an odd, kitschy sort of human being in how I see all the small, silly things as s !!! to me. But, perhaps not. Lives are mostly made of the smallest moments, innumerable small things leading to a few big things. If we all learn to have a much greater appreciation for the small things we share with other human beings, then I think we'd all be better off, with a more appreciative outlook on each and every day, all other people. Small things make us feel blessed. There's a song about this. Listen to it (The President's Dead – Okkervil River).

LIKE THIS: Sharing Indian food next to a mill, next to a river might make you feel blessed. Quite so, it might, it can, it should, it could.

Or just dropping off a box at a post office – that might make you feel blessed.

Tiny things. Odd tiny things. Tiny things are all the good things. It's like I might be on fire, or maybe made of fire, right now. I could be glowing from inside, I could be radiating – I might be burning, and I'm a part of all things everywhere. I might open myself now, I might shout at the top of my lungs for eternity, then stop and find that only a second had passed. I am electrical storms, a burning bush, a crashing train, a tsunami. I am gravity, I am inertia, I am kinetic, I am force beyond comprehension. I, right now, am the infinite sum of all the small, blessed events experienced by all people everywhere in the universe.

I am the quotient of all human happiness.

NOW I am gushing like a madman, and I know it. I know it. I am raining down, raving like some mad joyful elemental monsoon. I know it. But it must be done. Must be done! It must be done! It will be done!

So I have this tiny, wonderful girl who I can that for it, who has so provided me with all this ammunition; these tiny moments that I can split like atoms, and implode in my eyes/heart/chest/brain. How wonderful is that?

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. What a catalyst. I might have now gone insane. It's only me. I'm blessed, and sometimes so very curious. I'm always curious. I should always ask, I should always speak up and question. Maybe?

Oh sir.

Goodnight world, I love each and every one of you. Goodnight night.

Sign vs Car

2007-09-20T10:16:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I may have narrowly avoided death. Or great injury. Maybe neither. I am not quite sure.

Here is what happened (which in the retrospect of telling the story seems far less dangerous than it was to experience first hand). I was driving my way to school, minding my own business, putting along the highway at an almost elderly speed of 60 MPH. My current car is not in very good shape these days; I've been putting off looking for/investing in a new vehicle, but I know that soon the day will come when my car dies. Then I will have no option.

Regardless to the condition of my automobile, the story continues. There was some sort of large truck some distance in front of me, perhaps 100 ft. I was not paying attention to it. Then, something caught my eye. A faded yellow "caution" sign had fallen from the back off the trailer, and was not hurtling down the highway. There was nowhere for me to go. It bounced hard off the concrete road once, then slammed into the front of my car before coming to a rest on the midway between the highways.

My car is undamaged by the aluminum sign striking it. That wasn't really my concern. Imagine if that sign had struck only slightly above where it did. It could have sheared through my windshield, and perhaps sheared right through me. I am lucky, I suppose.

-Ray

Bitter Tea

2007-09-18T23:55:00.000-04:00

At seven in the morning I am sitting at the kitchen table, drinking strong black tea from an unnecessarily large cup while I let my eyes glaze over the folded front page of the Times. I am not actually reading the paper; my eyes are unfocused, taking the whole thing in as a blurred smear of newsprint. The words run together, headlines into body; photos and pictures flow and distort like an impressionist painting. I sip from the pale blue mug, continuing to stare dumbly and uncaring at the news. It is chilly in the apartment, but the early spring sunlight seems especially strong this morning, pouring vibrantly through the window over the sink. I sit in it, like a monitor lizard on a desert rock, a disheveled, pajama-clothed body basking on a rickety wooden chair. From the hall behind me I hear the sound of shattering glass, a muffled curse, and the sound of hastily shuffling feet as she hurries into the kitchen. There is a beaten, water worn cardboard box in her arms; various eccentricities poke out from its open top. It’s some of her things. She is packing.

“I think you broke something”. I speak without taking my eyes off of the newspaper. Like a mono-tone magic eye puzzle, the image gets more confusing and enthralling the longer I stare. Without looking at her, I know that she has fixed me with a death stare, a mix of shock, disgust, and some deep underlying hatred. I hear an exasperated sigh, and her tiny feet shuffle off into the living room. There is some great calamity taking place in there; I can hear her rummaging. Our things are now becoming two separate entities; my things, objects to be despised, are being thrown about the room. Her things are being taken. I suspect that the record collection is being ransacked. I sip my tea, and wonder if I will find anything broken once the storm is over.

She reappears in the doorway from the living room, her cardboard box full of hastily gathered possessions now bulging even more at it's frail, tape-covered seams. There are a few vinyl albums piled precariously on top, along with what might be some DVD cases. I sip my tea. She stares balefully at me for many long moments. The room is becoming uncomfortable for me now, because I can feel her eyes boring into me as I idly pretend not to notice her standing there. I glance at the blurred lines of the Times. I sip my tea. Without warning there is a loud thud on the table in front of me; she had violently set her box down, and is now hovering over me, arms akimbo.

I set the useless newspaper down on the kitchen table, followed by the pale blue tea cup that I set carefully next to it, being sure not to spill or disturb the dark liquid inside. After I feel enough time has passed to upset her some, I look up. My tone is flat.

“Yes?”

“This is why. This is exactly why. I cannot take this...can't take you! You confuse me! You just do not care! What sort of world do you exist in, Devon? What are you possibly thinking?” She throws up her arms to her forehead. It's very melodramatic, but the performance does little to stir me. She is looking at me; there's confusion on her face. Presently, she is blocking my sunlight.

I decide that the best response is to simply half-roll my eyes at her, then close them for a few seconds. The heat from her vicious stare is only amplified by closing my eyes. Maybe when I open them again, I think to myself, she will have already been gone. That would make things so much more pleasant. It would be nice to avoid this whole mess and get back to my morning. I have another twenty pages of newsprint to not-read, so many more lines to gloss over and pretend that I'm interested in the world. I have an entire cup of tasteless tea to drink still. I have my cold-apartment, my cell, to keep me company. I have a schedule, and her need for disruption is taking me from it.

Her eyes are a little shiny, and the corners of her lips are quivering like a child with a scrape. Her pupils are moving quickly, dilating, receding, changing direction as they scan me. For a moment, I am worried that she might cry, the way her face is beginning to fall into ugly wrinkles. I can imagine her here, in the kitchen, sobbing with tear-stained cheeks and puffy red eyes. Her makeup will run. Her hair will fall to shambles; so will her dignity. I don't want that, especially not today. I sigh, to myself, and clear my throat. I can't help but look down, and I don't want to meet her gaze. I keep my hands folded at the seat of my pajamas; my fingers fold and unfold in a strange, uncomfortable puzzle. There is only relief when I hear a small, wounded noise come from somewhere above me. Her gasp is the breaking of the final link; the chain is shattered. Her tiny, fragile hands grab the box on the table, she takes a hold of her material life and girds herself to fire her last bullet. She gives her coup de grace.

“Fuck you.”

Her small feet shuffle out into the hall again; her flat-bottomed shoes pound the wooden floor; I hear the front door slam with violent force. Something once perched on a nearby wall shudders with the blow, and I hear it fall and break in the empty hallway. She is in the stairwell now, and as her footsteps thunder away, I count them. One. Five. Ten. Fifteen now. Twenty. She's at the bottom, and gone.

I have my morning now. The sunlight, once again unobstructed, bathes me in yellow light and warmth. The chill of the icy apartment is not so great now. My hands take up the folded newspaper again, and I lift the meaningless print to eye level. I stare past the words now, and once again allow them to resume their liquid blurred state. Ah, the daily news. Ah, the newsprint nightmare. Ah, my morning.

I lift the pale blue mug to my mouth, sipping the dark liquid contained therein. It washes over my teeth, staining them, continues onto my tongue, staining it, and flows down into my insides, staining them. It is the most bitter tea I have tasted.

Written 19 April, 2007

This Essay Has IT, Theory Does Not

2007-09-18T23:36:00.001-04:00

Theory gets nothing done. Perhaps that statement was overstepping some boundaries; stepping on the toes of well known and respected theorists, who I believe must be a collective of bearded men in white lab coats hidden in a clean-room somewhere beneath NORAD, scrawling out life's secrets on a dry erase board and mumbling beneath their breath about how they have IT figured out already. They probably don't.

Walker Percy goes on at length to try and explain to us the precise problems with theorizing in his essay “The Loss of the Creature”. His primary example on how theory goes wrong involves it's use in a classroom, and how our sovereign learning experience is stolen by our expectations toward the academic environment (Percy 477). Yet, even as he damns the abstract and nameless force that has created this educational package and doomed students to never learn properly for all eternity, Percy manages to slip in some of his own theory. Percy's own theory deals with our loss of sovereign experience as a whole, and attempts to guide us to ways in which we may be able to take it back. However, even Percy's theories on educational packaging and retaking sovereign experiences fall into the same trap as the rest of his examples. All theory will inevitably fail when used as presented.

First, we have to address why theories go bad. The problem with theory is that they hardly ever reflect realistic circumstances, and instead make broad generalizations to form a perfect and stable (yet usually fictional) environment to act as a stage for the theory. To provide a very simple example, we could say that I walk in the forest one day and look at five oak trees, and only those five oak trees. With the knowledge I had acquired “in the field” I could theorize that all trees are oak trees. In my mind I equate the word “tree” with an oak tree. The oak tree becomes the perfect form of a tree in my mind. I didn't include all the various other types of trees, so my theory is going to be incorrect. This is really just a smaller part of what is reflected in Platonic idealism. Plato tells us that the things we see are all abstractions, which can be compared to a single idyllic form of that thing. When we make theories, we make them about that perfect form, the perfect environment which suits the theory's needs, without taking into account the millions of abstractions that exist, each one carrying a very small part of the form. The problem with creating these ideals is that they prevent us from witnessing a larger picture. When I see the oak tree as the personified idea of the word “tree”, I am allowing myself to be ignorant to all else. In this way, theories are ignorant of all the circumstances that lay outside those they are designed to demonstrate. If they are to make sense in the context they are written, this is a necessary thing.

If theories ultimately fail, then would it not be true that even Percy's theory on the educational package could be wrong to? Of course it does! Percy's biology student coming into the lab that has been laid out for a dissection already has expectations for what will proceed (Percy 477). This mental image of the biology lab is the student's “perfect form” of the classroom. He knows this form because his instructor has presented him with an environment that supports it. The educational package has been wrapped up nicely and tied with a ribbon for the student. There is a slight problem, however. Even here, we are not taking into account all the “other” classrooms. Not all classrooms will feature the educational package in such a way. Some, perhaps, have none at all. For all we know there are literature students in a classroom somewhere who don't even read books, they all just sit in a circle and communicate their teachings through mental osmosis. So we must come to the conclusion that theory is good...in theory. If they are used in the exact environment and set of circumstances they were created for, then theory may prove useful. Unfortunately, this achievement becomes very limited. The basis for theoretic success is simply knowing that there will almost certainly be circumstances in which you will be undeniably wrong.

Percy refers to this whole ordeal as the “loss of sovereignty”. What does this mean? The concept is best explained by his example of a modern sightseers trip to the Grand Canyon versus Cardenas' original discovery of the natural wonder. When Cardenas first came across the canyon, he had seen it for the first time, unexpectedly. The modern sightseer lets brochures and tour planners guide her trip there (Percy 472). She will see only what she is told and directed to see, as it is what she believes she has to see. After all, they wouldn't put it on the tour if it wasn't important, would they? The traveler here is being deprived of what could be a new and original experience because they are seeing what they believe they must from the canyon's idyllic form, that which has been crafted by the travel agents and the Discovery Channel documentaries. They walk toward the canyon with no expectations of their own, and will have seen no more or less than that of the symbolic complex already formed in their mind.

The best advice that Percy gives on how to take back a sovereign experience is to avoid the symbolic complex all together. If you are expecting to ride donkeys down the Grand Canyon on your visit, then don't. You'd be better off jet skiing down the cliff face. We are advised to walk off of the beaten path, that which has been trampled flat by the feet of thousands of tourists and travel agents. We should expect hardship in this endeavor; the beaten path is beaten down, and is much easier to traverse without the danger of tripping over rocks and other debris. Even this notion, can be corrupted. Percy's example of the couple who get lost in Mexico and stumble across an Indian tribe's celebration serves to illustrate this. At first, the couple is amazed by what they see. They return home, and immediately drag along an anthropology major to discern if what they saw was authentic or not (Percy 473). Their satisfaction relies on the arbitrary fact of whether or not the “expert” deems it authentic. The student entangled in the educational package suffers the same. In the traditional classroom, the instructor and the textbook are absolute. Students are taught to utterly believe everything that their teacher says is correct. If a student does happen to come to some new conclusion on their own, they will likely seek approval from their instructor, who they view as an academic authority figure. They are not correct in their minds unless the professor deems it so.

Unfortunately, Percy can do little more to advise us on retaking out sovereignty back. Nor can we be told how to eliminate the educational package. If Percy attempted to tell us precisely how one can travel off the beaten path and have an authentic experience, it would cease to be off the beaten path at all (Percy 474). By telling us where/how to go, Percy is forging a way for us, eliminating any chance we may have at retaking our sovereignty. The same is true for attempting to provide an alternative to the traditional classroom educational package. Doing so simply creates a new educational package. In either case, the answer simply cannot be told so easily.

We cannot be told how to retake our sovereignty, nor can we be taught how to “learn properly” by eliminating the educational package. To do so would only create a sort of paradox without end. Instead, we must work to discover the solution for ourselves. We must keep in mind the preconceived packages that surround us, attempting to influence all of our daily interactions and discoveries. While this is unavoidable, if we keep this knowledge in mind and work to separate ourself from them, we may find a way to be on the outside entirely, looking through the prepackaged symbolic complex into a entirely new way of viewing the world. If we can recognize the potential loss we may endure, by doing so we may be able to stand above these prepackaged experiences, able to forge our own way in completely uncharted territory.

Written 17 October, 2006