It was foggy all day today, foggy and misty and great. It was warm enough that I was able to walk to and from my radio show at night with just a hawaiian shirt on top. My eyes felt much much better when I was outside, because of the combination of dimness and humidity. So, okay, I was a little late to syntax. Then I went to Sharples for lunch, sat with Joel and Joe and theory teacher Lex Rosin, and spent the bare minimum amount of time preparing a dialogue for French class with Matthew Block and Forrest. After that I commenced a long stretch of running errands in preparation for the party. I created a bunch of flyers, with the moose picture, and with clever words and phrases. I picked up a party proposal. I made a phone call to a representative to talk about funding for public education. I went to the SAC office to wait for Gabe, and while I waited I played harmonica in Upper Tarble. Then I made photocopies until the machine ran out of toner, and took a bunch of strands of christmas lights. I ran into Hans downstairs - he said "I've run into you three times today: in the library, in the gameroom [basically the minute before] and now...I guess it's hard to get work done on a day like today because so many people stay inside." Okay. I went to LPAC to talk to Nick Kourtides, and although he didn't have anything to lend me, he did call a place to find out about renting a sound system for the party, which they priced at $235, and explained why my other ideas wouldn't work out. Then I came home.

Rather than clean my room or anything, I took the moose out of the box and started assembling it. It's in my room now, in the middle of the floor, mostly complete except I'm having trouble with the antlers. It's pretty big and cool-looking. I listened to my new Ted Leo/Pharmacists CD, which just came today. It's really good. I made phone calls and wrote e-mails about sound and money. Then Brigid came over.

We played a friendly but frustrating game of scrabble - frustrating because the board was extremely tight the whole time. The entire upper left half of the board, as divided diagonally by the string of double-word spaces, was basically inaccessible the whole time. We did reach six of the triples though. We both traded in our letters several times, which I tend not to do much at all, even though it's probably a good idea. That was partly because we had really bad letters. We didn't use all of the letters - the game ended when nobody could make a word (we had between us three i's and two a's; my last full hand had been four i's, two a's and an e). We didn't talk the entire time. We never have conversations, so don't go suspecting that we do. I kept being interrupted - by phone calls from Ben and Delia and Ester. I didn't make dinner because all the people I had been planning to make dinner for decided to eat elsewhere. I did go over to Parrish with Brigid to eat some of her "caesar" salad, which wasn't salty at all. Elizabeth and Ester were watching "Prospero's Books" (aka this weird version of the Tempest with frames), except they weren't really watching it, they were just ridiculing it. Ordinarily I would have been mocking it just as much, but perhaps because they were doing it I wanted to give the film some credit and try to appreciate it the best I could. I mean, it was critically lauded and my dad loved it, at least the music. It was pretty plotless, as least as well as I could tell not being able to hear the dialogue over the laughter. We also talked about Douglas Adams and the Queer/Closeted Alliance. Then I came home again

I put away some CDs and assembled the moose some more and stuff. When I was in Tarble with Brigid I had run into Andy Alderete, who made my life incredibly easier by agreeing to use the SoundMachine equipment, which means that we can have the Rattech setup. Phil later e-mailed his concurrence: "Thanks dude, this should work great. Party on!" I e-mailed publicists and people. Then I went to my radio show.

Ali was there waiting for me, and I played some stuff that she likes and then started playing a lot of 12-inch hip-hop singles and other stuff around the studio. It was almost all funk and hip-hop in preparation for the party, with the occasional Gorky's track or something thrown in. Here's what I played:

the end of Drew’s Destroyer Track

Ted Leo/Pharmacists : Under the Hedge
Dismemberment Plan : Sentimental Plan

Bahamadia : The Biggest Part of Me (axed)
Maxwell : Get to Know Ya
Avalanches : Flight Tonight

Olympics : I’ll Do A Little Bit More

Willard Grant Conspiracy : The Beautiful Song
Renegades of Funk : Afrika Bambaata
Arrested Development : Africa’s Inside Me (Zingilamaduni Mix)
Liz Phair : Uncle Alvarez
Dilated Peoples : Rework the Angles

Bis : Dead Wrestlers
Buckshot LeFonque : Music Evolution
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien : Doctor Bombay

Call and Response : Lightbulb
DJ Towa Tei : Funking for Jamaica
Jungle Brothers :Freaking You
Large Professor : ‘Bout that Time
Whitney Houston : My Love is Your Love (Salaam Instrumental Remix)
Doug Fresh : Cut That Zero (Remix)
EPMD : Give the People
Erick B. and Rakim : Juice (Know the Ledge)
Gorky’ s Zygotic Mynci : How I Long

Outkast : ATLiens
Arsonists : Millionaires
Kruder and Dorfmeister : A Mother
Armand Van Helden : What’s Up Doc

Her Space Holiday : Perfect on Paper
Spoon : Fitted Shirt
Dismemberment Plan : Time Bomb

It was a really interesting show. I played around with the turntables a lot and did funny transitions and I'm sure alienated most of my listenership, as well as Brigid who stopped by for a minute or two. Liza came right at the end and we hadn't seen each other in a long time. I stopped by the triple again (it needs a name - so does the moose) and yakked with them folx, and Nick who was there too. Yup. Then back here.

It's so late right now (3:10) and I really should be asleep, but I'll just finish this first. What happened was - I worked on the moose and the CDs, then Alyssa called. We talked about the news in our lives - she had lots of excellent stories - and then realized that we had practical things to talk about and plan, like how we're going to see each other in LESS THAN A MONTH! She said she was not going to have the car, but then later said she would try to talk to her folks about it again. A car would make things so much easier. In any case, she'll come bisit me in Roch and hopefully go to Wanakena too. And stuff. And she loves me - I remembered I love her too after she said that. She's writing a story for Spike. Lots of surreal things happened to her. She laughs. She's good.

And then I saw Lizzie in the hallway and asked her about the fondue set, which she doesn't have here, but they offered me pomegranate seeds, which I ate as I talked to all my neighbors in their kitchen about cape cod snap sex shirts and leftist academics and pomegranate seeds and moose of course. I have to remember to be neighborly more often. And then I went into Joel's room and we talked about theory and I played "take-off" on the guitar and then we harmonized on "14 Cheerleader Cold Front" and then Rebecca came in and we sang it for her and then "Everywhere," and we lay on the bed and Rebecca told us her exciting major plans and we looked at my high school yearbook and I said I have to go and write my journal and go to sleep. And go to sleep.

I need someone to take some joy in something I do

This sucks: my left eye is in intense pain. I don't know what to do about it. Also, I didn't go to French this morning, because my body demanded that I sleep. That part was fine, but it also means that I didn't hand in the oral exercises that were as it turns out due yesterday, and will not be accepted after today - I tried to do them last night, but it's apparently no longer possible to access them from any computers, you have to go to the language lab, which never seems to be open when I have free time. Also, I didn't look at whatever it might be that I need to prepare for working on this dialogue to memorize for tomorrow, which means I won't be very useful to the classmates that I'm meeting for lunch after class. I will go to syntax on time though. I wrote up the homework for it last night, on reflexives, actually quite enjoyed it, and even put in a lot of extra unneccessary stuff to consider further examples that weren't in the data set. Of course that just meant I stayed up later (2). Alison, who I caught up before African, says that sleep is important. No doubt.

I always love coming back to the barn, no matter how often I do it. I came back home a lot yesterday, after each class. Straggled back after morning murder, but was actually productive here - read two M&D chapters, then back to Parrish for I9 forms and new pin for pre-registration, ran into Rae with a plank and a shoe-box diaroma for her architecture class. After French (discussed recipes, and of course I didn't have one prepared, but I read someone else's for bouillabaisse) I nearly ran back here, singing "I Can't Explain" and delirious. I put on "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy," this excellent comp of early Who hits, and listened through the whole thing as I made lunch (vile pasta) for me and Becca, preregistered for a bunch of classes I don't really want to take, just to see (8:30 Phil? CogSci? Anth? Semantics?), did more stupid e-errands, decided not to read the last chapter of the M&D reading. Oh yeah, and I recieved this trippy thing - a flat cardboard package from Belarus, with lots of stamps and cyrillic writing. It was the Bob Dylan album I ordered from Half, only it was actually a Russian import copy, sent without a jewel case, because, as the sketchy ungrammatical note included said "most of them crash before arriving." Pretty cool though.

Pynchville was good, but fairly subdued. Christy and Dave and I talked about golems and "kabbalistick" writing, Popeye and Spock (genetic deficiency), and Tox, then gave a whiz-bang presentation to the class. Nobody talked after break, except eventually I started too. And there was this power outage, which made most of the buildings dark, just reminding me that I needed to sleep. I came home to do that, but ended up instead watching most of "32 Short Films about Glenn Gould" with Elena and Ester (I want to call her Martha.) I thought it was quite good in that ridiculously pretentious and artsy way, but I guess the two of them were not entertained. It's definitely a pretty movie. I'd like to see it again sometime when I'm not falling asleep. Uncertain because of the power out, but I went to Sharples (Student Council dinner meant nothing more than usual, but I got to preside over a good long table of past Willetsians, Heather and Phil at the other end dancing on their chairs, then a big cone of Ben and Jerrys - the cone itself was kindy funny tasting) and then to African (finalistic and pretty intense, especially towards the end. Christy and I jumped up and down.)

Olde Club to talk to Erik Osheim about sound and lighting for the party, then to the library, where I feel like I must have accomplished something. Then back to Olde Club, where I stayed for about an hour as Erik and Dave Maccandish set up eight lights. We played around with the little lighting board, which includes a pulsating effect Erik dubbed the "Warsaw discotheque" effect. They look pretty good, and with better positioning and some new gels they should be very effective. Hopefully Rebecca will have some time to help with that before the party. After that, I went up to SRN to visit Elena at her radio show. It was really fun - I pulled out stuff for her to play (Currituck County, Danielson Famile, Lambchop, Mr. Len, MJ Cole weird-ass remix) in between her standard MagFields, Bright Eyes and XTC. There are a ton of ten-inch hip-hop dance singles in white jackets that I bet nobody ever plays, including two copies of "Get UR Freak On." I borrowed one of two copies of a Faithless CD, and a Dilated Peoples disc, to see if they're worth playing at the party. We should borrow some more stuff for the party too. On the way out, we stopped by to see pajamed Brigid, who agrees about "Bagombo Snuff Box." I still hadn't done the syntax work, but then I did it.

intertwining hands...

the sun was glaring today, so bright that it was hard to look at people. African got just plain hot - everyone was sweaty, after the first ten minutes. An up and down day, but I actually wasn't all that tired for most of it. My eyes are certainly taking a beating; they haven't gotten a rest in thirty-six hours. I didn't take my contacts out when I went to sleep for an hour at 7:30 this morning.

Writing the paper was not too bad, as is usually the case. I flowed easily in and out of writing it, succumbing to a constant stream of distractions starting with Joel's entrance, circa 1:30, bearing the new Belle & Sebastian single. After the first few test drives, the verdict seems to be pretty negative, but maybe not much worse than could be expected. I like the cover though. Other visitors - Rachel with Stereo Total to tell the nipple story, and later on again with Joel; Ben came over for good when everyone else was out, and I prepared us some pasta (although the Ginger-Peanut bottle claimed that mixing it with coconut milk would give rise to an unforgettable pasta sauce, I wasn't very impressed. putting asparagus in was a good idea, but I think I just don't like coconut milk. I heated up the rest for myself and Rebecca for lunch today, and I realized it was pretty vile - I couldn't finish a bowl); Rob dropped by in the wee hours to deliver the moose, which is now sitting in its box in a shrine in my room. And I received phone calls, engaged in diatribes against the week's phoenix living editor pro-tem, nibbled on wasabi chips and corn nuts and peas, exulted with Joel when he bought a keyboard, made impulse purchases off half, including a present for Alyssa, and generally tried to take advantage of the fact that our flat was declared an anxiety-free zone. I wrote an introductory paragraph, wrote a completely different one and shunted the first one into the middle of the paper, then wrote a third with a different thesis again, and encorporated it and the previous attempt into a three-paragraph long musing of contemporary media foibles. The paper started stronger than (at 7:30) it ended, but it is chockfull of good stuff, too long, fairly well argued, coherent as far as I could tell, and haphazardly cited. I intended to write a biblio when I woke up, but didn't of course. It was a mistake to go to sleep for an hour - everything was worse when I got up. But whatever, I printed it, didn't eat, wore the lemon & soda sweater to class, talked more than I expected, then stopped. Well, I will come back later and write more about today, but I'm going back to Olde Club now to play with lights with Erik. There is a huge damn annoying situation that is requiring me to do a lot of work. And I have some schoolwork to do tonight too. But I'll sleep eventually, with at least some of it done. The computer is not being cooperative.

loop, de loop,
around around i go i go,

Circles in circles (or maybe outside) and ripples, and someone gets upset, or at least uneasy. I'm chagrined, because I thought I was being circumspect, but it's a funny thing, and I guess I'm learning bit by bit. The readership is growing again, and largely choosing to remain silent again. My policies though, I think, haven't changed, not that they were precise to start with.

Clothing: yesterday I was wearing forest green corduroy top and bottoms, which worked better when the shirt was unbuttoned, because red yes made it more difficult to see that the greens don't quite match. But it's a good costume. Today's was the sitting around in the house all day paper writing outfit - the green corrugated sweatpants and the purple sweatshirt, both a little more mature than that, actually olive and plum or something, hummer tee. I put them on after my goddamned glasses broke, just matter-of-factly snapped where they had required adjustments lately, metal finally having had enough of this bending back and forth. The same thing happened to my last pair, towards the end of same semester last year, and fortunately I have the same recourse available: contacts. Well, it won't be bad to wear them the rest of the time, they haven't seen much action lately. Then I walked downtown, singing "Beyond Belief" and "One by One All Day" loudly and happily. Another surreal French class - first a "tour" of the co-op, including a competitive price search and talking to Elizabeth about cereal. Then a tasting at the cheese court. Roquefort, Brie, Saint-Andres, Morbier, Emmenthaler, and a couple more on a large platter with fruits, and a basket of baguettes. Soo much cheese. Really, really, good, but I think that's my meal for the day. Mmmm. Too early for so much cheese. I'm losing it with Syntax. Not getting mad, just falling asleep. Something will shake me up. Ester and I spent a good while going through the documents in preparation for the paper today. I'm not working on it right now. But I'm going to.

and in this almost empty gin palace
through a two-way looking glass you see your Alice
try to trick results and flattery
her body moves with malice
do you have to be so cruel to be callous?

Solex - Low Kick and Hard Bop Solex is, like, that girl who doodled all the time, that you never knew quite what to make of. Her wholesome would-be sex appeal was kind of at odds with her clothing, which was ratty and second-hand enough to qualify as thrift-store chic, but always a little too colorful. You wanted to write her off with epithets like "spunky" and "cutesy," but weren't sure whether she would reject them with an indignant glare or maybe just smile lopsided and pixie away. She's gotten a lot more self-assured, and it's clear that the coolness side of the equation is winning out, though still with that hefty slice of dorkiness which, let's face it, was what cool was all about anyway.

Actually, Solex is the nom du disque of Elisabeth Esselink, whose approach to sample-based music is, if nothing else, unique. For her third long-player, the satisfactorily titled "Low Kick and Hard Bop" (it sounds right, don't bother about what it might mean), she has apparently abandoned her working method from the last record, of bootlegging her own copyright-free samples from live performances, and returned to salvaging bits from "unsellable" CDs at her Amsterdam record boutique, along with found sounds and folderol. We're talking about tiny snippets - a few xylophone notes here, a fragment of a horn riff there - culled wittily, but wielded musically. Whereas someone like Beck might use a sample for its humor value, but fall back on live instrumentation, Solex sculpts Beck-like music beds with nothing more than a live drummer and an array of carefully placed samples. Take the album's opening title track as an example: Esselink's oddly Asian-sounding voice (reminiscent of Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda) intones "Elisabeth!" repeatedly, as though to renounce the first two albums' excessive reliance on the Solex moniker as a source for wordplay. Then we get a percolating drum stutter, jumpstarted by a bluesy harmonica blast, which repeats and is soon followed with a slinky guitar slide, before the drums burst into a funky loping groove. The drums here strut and shuffle, but later on they're just as likely to swing or bossa nova, and the musical accompaniment might be equally varied.

Complementary, but somehow also in opposition, to Solex's modernist-retro sound collages are her loopy lyrics. Take the full text of the tune "Ease Up You Fundamentalist!": "They were all using the mirrors to study their mouth movements for themselves/They were all learning that the curve is the thing when making up lips." These are absurd nonsense stories delivered with an earnestness and quizzicality that we usually associate with children or foreigners. Esselink does fall into the latter category (and her pride in her Dutchness is evident in titles like "Amsterdam is not LA" and "You Say Potato, I Say Aardappel"), but there is certainly something self-consciously childlike here as well. Is her English accent really as awkward as her bizzarely stressed deliveries would have us assume? Doubtful. No, she's a crafty one. Odd, because a lot of the appeal of Solex's music is it's charming disingenuousness. Clearly, a lot of it is calculated. Come to think of it, that doesn't make it any less charming. (6/10)

Crazy things happen when Kemal goes away and Charles leads the class. He told us, among other things, not to be surprised if the gremlin sometimes gives us good advice. Point well taken. My gremlin's advice today is not to worry or even think overtly about the history paper that's due Wednesday. Apparently some of the other class gremlins feel the same way. Really, if this isn't a paper I care about or am even interested in, and no matter what I'll end up writing it late at night on Tuesday (hopefully not too late into the morning), what's the point of trying to squeeze it into my every spare moment today and over the weekend. I just feel bad that my friends and my mom felt the brunt of anxiety over the weekend. I tripped on plumbing and fell onto the sidewalk while I was running to African, scraping my hand and knuckle and thigh. But I'll survive the pain let's me know that I'm alive. My resolution: to pick classes next semester that won't require me to work overly much, at least at things that require excessive amounts of original thought about things that don't interest me. Not that this semester is particularly difficult, any more than standard. But I want to, and I really have to let myself, focus on other things: piano, playing music in groups, and Alyssa. These days I'm thinking Ling major, Arth minor, but it flip-flops a lot.

Ester tells me I'm a pragmatic romantic.


I found this over the weekend, which is the source of these two adorable pictures. Good picture of Ali especially. He mispelled Alyssa Timon's name, but okay. Today has just gotten better since I decided to follow the gremlin's advice. Thanks Charles. This morning, for the record, was as it normally is. The last Victorian class (?) was about par for the course, with even more picture books than usual, including favorites Beardsley and especially the Symbolists (Puvis de Chavanne, Redon, Moreau, my favorite folks.) Some of my favorite writers too: Housman (great, I have to go back and reread the whole of ASL) and Wilde. (I should revisit "The Invention of Love" too.) She read us Kipling's "Female of the Species" to conclude, which was fun. Then I came back and talked to Ester, who is much more diligent than I, if more hemmed in by constraints.

Dinner after class was excellent if delayed - veggie and tofu tempura courtesy of Michelle. [I was listening to OK Computer through the window because someone was blasting it next door, but they just turned it off in the middle of "Electioneering"]
The SAC meeting was insane - eight proposals to fund in two weekends with what turned out to not be too ridiculously skimpy of a budget ($2100 if we took everything from our discretionary funds rather than pretending that we would use them for "something special" during reading week.) I had ulterior motives for trying to coax events away from this Friday, and it worked, sort of: Phil Watts and Andy Alderete are going to have their MarTin-style techno-bash next weekend, although they apparently are planning to have another one this Friday anyway, in any case they're amenable to compromising about Rattech. As it turned out, only this weekend's parties fared that badly, due to fears of low budget and my already allotted $317 (thank goodness I went to propose two weeks ago and got those funds set aside!) Next weekend, by flushing Flux (oops), we were able to give the Society of Women Engineers a very reasonable amount for their Paces party, which should be fun, and "Why War?" $250 - about half what they asked for but apparently much more than they expected, as apparent from Micah and Elena's jubilance when I saw them at Paces later. Funny talk with Amanda on the way out about SAC directors - I posit that they should be coupled very carefully, to make an effective comedy team. Paces was frenetics - I gave out lots of hugs and had fast and furious conversations back and forth with Mariah, Nina, Elena, Dan, Marc, etc. about Lisa Cohen, Art History, Bruce Dorsey, SAC, sleep, and so on. I think my 12 hours from last night finally kicked in (I had actually been feeling kind of tired during the day.)

Walking home, I saw two familiar haircuts and started whistling at them. They didn't seem to notice, so I whistled more forcefully and then resorted to some more obvious "conversational" whistle patterns. Finally I had to run over to them, prompting Elizabeth to loose an impressive shriek, which made Brigid laugh and brandish her safety whistle. I accompanied them to the Lodge, and they promptly left, leaving me to talk to Felicia, Stef and Kate about my future, airport security, and summer plans. Stef and I sketched out ideas about travel to Seattle in the summer (?) or Colorado over spring break (!) Would be much fun. We'll have to see what Alyssa and her car are up to. Now back here, and sleep soon. But I want to write a Solex review first.

there was a grown man running from fright

Sunday - work obsession meant reading lots of M&D to get it out of the way. Just nice to be at home and reading, for pleasure, about. I lugged home a stack (DeLillo, Tolkien x 3, Barth x 3, Calvino - "The Baron in the Trees"). I worked on a resumŽ in the afternoon, which came out surprisingly quick, I guess I'll go to CP&P and have somebody look at it later this week. Don't want to have to deal with that stuff now, but oh well. Eventually gave up with depression/workmode and decided to contact a few friends - Emiko and Nick - ideas for plans but no fruition, instead I went Xtreme bowling with Martha and her friends (Karen, Larissa, Michelle, and the Lange sisters, Alex brought along Isaac, whom I recieved at the door - tall and manly, deepvoiced and brownskinned, a wrestler and softspoken, but "he's so weird" and it's a funny coupling, almost regal and classic) and Alex and Chris. Inexplicably, I started off by bowling two strikes in a row, and a spare on the next ball. That was enough for me to win the first game with 109, but I never got close to it again, sticking in my usual 6-7-8-gutterball territory. The lights were not as exciting as promised although the music switched to good danceable jungle continuous mix with the Eagles, Fugees, Badu, and others. I was promised that we wouldn't have to drive everyone home, but we did of course, all the way out past Mt. Read and then some more, we didn't get home until after one.

And I had to get up at five-thirty for a plane at seven-thirty the next morning (yesterday) which was fine. uneventful except I felt strangely sick at the beginning of the flight, wretched but I hadn't eaten anything substantial to throw up. Waited an hour for the shuttle and read M&D in the sinfully warm air outside. Came home to find Ester in stylish red fleece pajamas that made me think of Janet, and a bagel. No other food but bagel for breakfast, bagel reuben for lunch, cereal for dinner. I went to bed at about 8:30, meaning I got twelve hours of sleep last night. Excellent. It doesn't matter that we made scant headway on the history paper, I would end up staying up tomorrow night either way. Been playing a funny game today. Found Rob to buy the moose. I did almost all of the reading for poets, so I think I'll go to it now.

my weight is 300 pounds
my favorite is beef jerky

The New Deal - s/t A few weeks ago, I went to a concert by the best hip-hop band in the world. I've seen them before, and knew they would deliver an exciting and dynamic set. And they did. However, what really got me excited that night was not the Roots, but a trio of unlikely looking fellows in button-down shirts who were on the stage when I walked into the venue. Like the Roots, this group's MO is to take a genre of music often decried for an excessive reliance on machinery, and to inject it with an incredible level of energy through the exclusive use of live instruments. Even more than the jazz-inflected funk verite of the Root's hip-hop, though, the New Deal's music is something truly unique, perhaps paradoxical: live techno. Using only a drum set, a bass guitar, and a couple of keyboards, the New Deal create what they describe as "progressive breakbeat house." It's odd that a group whose performance philosophy is not unlike that of a post-bop jazz combo - collective improvisation directed by spontaneous nonverbal communication, and reined in only by a groove and perhaps some sense of harmonic direction - should feel compelled to pigeonhole themselves into a sub-genre with such specificity. But that description is a surprisingly accurate one. It just drives the point across that the New Deal aren't some self-indulgent, jam band prone to twenty-minute solos, but a tight ensemble with one undisputable purpose. Forty-five seconds into their self-titled debut studio album, just before a low, sinister disco-throb bursts into stunning syncopated three-four synth-funk, a voice advises "if you've got a pair of headphones, you better get 'em on and get 'em cranked up." I say forget that - drop the 'phones and get on the floor. This is dance music, as infectious and funky as it is clean and precise. It is, indeed, progressive breakbreat house. They do such a good job of imitating electronically created music that it's hard to distinguish anything "live" about their self-titled debut studio recording. It comes across as enjoyable and funky, but essentially deriviate techno. Not to say that it isn't a worthwhile recording on its own merits, independent of process, but ultimately what's special about the New Deal is the fact that they are a live band. Until you witness them in action, you just have to take their word for it. And if you have a chance to see them, do not miss it. Take my word for it. (7/10)

Hmm. Where was I? Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Very nice - Michelle and George and Alex and Chris were here, we all (pretty much) helped out in the kitchen, which meant it got pretty crowded at points. I took charge of the mashed potatos (added pepper boursin). The meal was terrific - my taters, Michelle's excellent sweet potatoes, spinach and chard, cranberry jelly and relish, great stuffing, turkey of course, goose (a good new idea), and some bizarre thing made from prunes and goose liver. Was very full, ate pie, went to bed before it was made.

Today we were active for most of the day, at least after the turkey lunch. Went first to the co-op, excuse me, the Abundance Cooperative Market, which seems to be doing well, and where I bought more groceries than probably I ought, including some of those good Indian things. And some interesting shaving cream, at Martha's suggestion. Then a driving tour of downtown, which I think looks better than I've ever seen it. The whole small city civic pride thing has always been kind of amusing to me, and I definitely think it's a good thing, it just sometimes seems like the D&C (local paper) and businesses and stuff pretending that everyone cares about this stuff. I guess some people really do. We went for a walk at Highland Park (except Michelle, who asked to be dropped off at home) which was really lovely. It was quite warm in the sun - I didn't wear a jacket. I tried to practice tango steps as we were walking. After we were home for no longer than five minutes, they were motivating to get going again, so a bunch of us walked down Monroe with some vague shopping goals. Alex and I split off and went to Lakeshore Record Exchange, which has just moved to the corner of Park and Oxford. It's one of those stores that always catch me off guard- with lots of imports and singles and stuff, with little notes on a lot of the cases and the CDs behind the counter. They had large racks of used CDs for $3, but it was all junk. Alex picked up an old Silverchair album there, and he bought the new New Order (which we listened to this evening, pretty good) and Post (my recommend.) I found the new Plaid and a (used?) copy of the Mad Professor v. Massive Attack disc - remixes from Protection (which I don't actually own,) and Alex surprised me by paying for them. Hey, thanks. (But I want to spend some of this money - they wouldn't let me buy the groceries either.)

When we got back, I put on the Plaid, which Michelle assessed as "not unpleasant." We had a surprisingly "valid" (to use my dad's word) aesthetic conversation about electronic music, live performance, and Abba. She might be able to get us tickets (expensive with donation) for "Mamma Mia" around Christmas, even though it's sold out. I'm starting to get really excited for winter break. Only two more weeks of school proper. Funny thing is that I have as many papers due between now and then than I've written since the beginning of the semester (let's see - 25 total pages done, 24 to go, assuming I hit the middle of the page ranges, which I will undoubtedly exceed. that's not counting a final rewrite for Murder, or any Syntax work. okay.) For some reason, my unhopeful desire to eat Chinese for dinner panned out; we went to the Golden Dynasty, ordered too much food, even more so than usual, meaning that we really have a ridiculous leftover situation on our hands. Too bad I didn't bring any tupperware. After that, a game of Risk, which I haven't played in years (my mom's suggestion!?) with my two parents and two of my siblings (Martha was with a friend, of course.) I spent too long squabbling over Australia with Chris, and by the time I had secured that and Europe, Carl and Alex were big enough to crush me in one quick turn. I listened to the CD by "Ben Flash and his Boyish Good Looks," a band put together by Ben Pattison and his friends at Wyomoco. It's very intentionally amateurish and jokingly self-aggrandizing, but some of the stuff is pretty catchy. I liked the line about being repaced by Elisabeth Shue. They use AppleTalk a bit too much. I want to know where they found a turntablist. Anyway, I checked out their website, which is fun, someone (Ben) obviously puts a lot of time into it. Just makes me realize we (Inflight) have to get our act together, and how easy it all is. (Man, it would be so much easier if we were still in high school - so much more time for this stuff.)

Words for the weekend: lugubrious, ululate, recidivism. Nobody seems to be active online, e-mail or website-wise. I guess that's as it should be.

we're gonna live until we die
and we're gonna live til we get high

it's a luscious mix of words and tricks
that let us bet when we know we should fall

Seven didn't seem too early for some reason. Well, okay seven-thirty, since my alarm didn't go off, and I was awoken just by Rebecca. phone calls > Talking Heads > Fountains of Wayne > Ali showed up not much later, we left the place unlocked and drove to Einsteins, I realized I didn't have a jacket. Couldn't think of anything better than (cinnamon?) raisin with plain cream cheese (an unreal amount), and orange juice was almost twice as expensive. The cream of E&I in the car ("Invited" through "City") got me hyped; my turnaround on that disc has been so quick. I guess the live show does the trick, like they all say. I want to hear or create a funkafied dance remix of "You are Invited."

We were in the airport by around 8:30, not optimal maybe but not bad, found the automatic e-ticket machines (long overdue installation). A little unnerving how the whole check-in process takes place with a machine (including the standard security questions - push the screen here if your baggage has not been left unattended since you packed it), but it's much faster and more convenient. It even prints out a baggage tag. The line for security was enormous (although Rebecca says it was even longer last spring), but we passed the time discussing journals (Rebecca brags that hers has more visually exciting content than mine) and talking with a family of Marcus Pfister fans (Alyssa has a poster of the Rainbow Fish, but I never realized it was a book.) Then Rebecca began to tell my future. She has a different approach than Stef and Brigid - her rendition was straight and possible. And probably exactly accurate - I do small-time work for music mags and such, playing in bands on the side but never making it big, as Alyssa finishes grad school (Harvard - we live in Allston in a cute neighborhood with "punks and blacks") and begins to achieve major success in her field (publishing or something), she gets pregnant with Hermiony (!?) (Mia [maya] for short), we marry and move to the west coast (SF?), I start teaching music, but take time off when the twins are born, before moving to DC, where I get mugged and go through a minor emotional crisis which resolves itself when I take up teaching again. All of this lasted through two security checkpoints as we made our way through the endless string of concourses to F, and Rebecca and I parted ways before I enter the ministry. Before I reached the gate, I realized that 9F is of course my seat number, not my gate number, so with ten minutes to takeoff I ran (despite the admonitions of one of the various servicemen stationed around the airport) back two concourses, through yet another security checkpoint, to D2, and joined the comfortably long line for my flight. They searched my bag (I keep having this urge to write in present tense now, I've had to change every verb) and asked me to turn on my computer. "Oh, it comes on with music too! I just check every few times, to make sure it's not a bomb," he explained when I asked "they're all so technologically different!" as if he'd never seen a powerbook before. The flight was uneventful - I read four chapters of Pynchon and got bored with the crossword puzzle.

Dad and I started talking about books on the way home, which continued into the study - Barth, DeLillo, Alasdair Gray, Rushdie, Grass, Franzen (I counted three people reading "The Corrections" in the airport) and Wallace (about whom I know nothing - same goes for Neal and "Illuminatus," about which Rebecca and I were talking last night.) The latest additions to his CD collection include a lot of my favorite records of the year, or the decade; the most recent albums by David Byrne, Bob Dylan, The Shins, They Might Be Giants, Joe Jackson, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields. So that's nice. When I got in, the goose was already cooked. George and Michelle ("Don't touch me, I'm sterile") were here. There was a wooden cross set up in the front yard that Betsy assures me is to be used as a trellis, not in a burning. And new tiles. I sat down at piano and read through the score that was on the stand, a set of Beethoven variations. Martha came in towards the end, showed me some unintentionally b&w shots of a party, and played right hand to my left in a rondo, while Michelle snapped photos. Should I go see "Apocalypse Now Redux" this afternoon? I'm thinking not. Just see my brother and read and mash potatoes. Through the window and the yellow leaves I can see uncles and nephews playing touch football in the backyard next door, some of them in red white and blue jerseys.

I want to thank you for the hearts and flowers

It got better. I went to sleep for a while in my bed, then in the common room, then in my bed again. I was still hungry when I woke up, so I gnawed on some breadsticks. Eventually Rebecca came home. I started packing a little, and preparing for my year-end list (I have sixty-odd 2001 releases to narrow down to ten or so) and pursed pynchonline. I'm developing this incredible urge to reclude myself and become a post-WWII American literature bum. So much to catch up on (it looks like Barth, DeLillo, etc. have been releasing new books right under my nose without me realizing it.) We talked in class about organized continuous readings of GR and Moby-Dick, which sound like so much fun. I would love to do a reading of Mason & Dixon aloud, as a bedtime ritual or something. That's probably how it's best experienced.

Talked to Ali for a while - she apologized profusely for going to dinner in such a hurry that she forgot about me, offered to make it up by taking me to the airport tomorrow, I suggested we have breakfast beforehand. She says she's thinking of art and or chemistry as a minor. She's working on a 'zine with Nick and Heather (Doyle, she insists on specifying) - and I felt well enough to do something about dinner. I used two-thirds of the remaining "smart bacon," the yolk of the remaining egg, much of an old thing of cream, most of the remaining spinach, and the measly amount of pasta left in the cupboard to make a delicious bowl of farfalle carbonara, which I celebrated with the bottle of ginger beer. Rebecca suggested we watch a movie - Fantasia 2000. I was able to make the DVD play on the TV screen with almost no effort at all this time, and we enjoyed the screening thoroughly, with the requisite amount of sniggering about the christian paradigm. No question the best sequence is "Rhapsody in Blue", but the "Pines of Rome" is not bad either. Watching it made me think of Meredith and Alyssa, with whom I saw it the two previous times (at the Inner Harbor Imax and in LPAC cinema). Afterwards I finished my

List of books that courses this semester are making me want to read and re-read (check it out) and did some dishes. Oy, it's late to be waking up at 7:30 for breakfast and plane and home and turkey tomorrow. I'm going to sleep. As soon as I finish off the rest of this pistachio ice cream, which has tasted much less pleasant since Brigid and Heather pointed out that it's very reminiscent of maraschino cherries.

did I forget to mention
forget to mention Memphis?
home of Elvis and the
ancient Greeks
what's that I smell?
I smell home cooking
it's only the river
it's only the river!

Folks, that's a fucky. Classes were a little thinner today; some detailed document work in Murder may or may not prove helpful for the paper. I think this one should be easier than the first, I just don't know where to begin, with the huge mass of reading that I've only sort of done, all of which might be relevant. At least there's no indication that we need to talk about everything this time, just something I suppose. The SEO was closed annoying, I read at my chair and talked to Sarah Wood. The book is good. Were we supposed to read beyond 41? That's what the syllabus says online, but he talked beyond it in class. Whatever. Bénédicte expressed distaste at pomme de terre sucres and pumpkin pie, she'd rather eat oysters for Christmas and foie gras. I could eat some foie gras right now too, or especially some Chinese takeout.

I had another dilla for lunch while Becca made pumpkin muffcakes. Not sure where she is now, but I'd like some. Schmidt e-mailed to commend my "brilliant insights in your 2:15a (ahem!) posting." Not sure if the ahem was for the lateness of the hour or the posting. Credit union (how do I still have so much money left? I'm going to have to buy a lot of Christmas presents or something) and class. Most people were there, and it was good. Like, really good. Small discussion topics - fantasy, conspiracy, frame narrative - were all interesting, I chose the latter, and did a decent amount of the talking, partly still riffing off my ideas from last night. I'm still curious about the reasons for this specific group of people in the framing narrative. The last hour of class we did a lot of readings, I encouraged character voices - so Rae read Amelia the Brooklyn milkmaid ("and he's as,") and somebody else Mason to my narrator, which made it 10x funny (that's on page 400.) Lots of good passages, "royal geography," bodice-ripping, Tox's Pennsylvaniad and the "S of J" song that Ben's harmonica accompaniment was a little sprightly for ("was that foolish?"). What a great book. Schmidt sent us a Rick Moody review. I have to arrange a lunch with he. Want to come? Talked to Gabe at break about St. Louis.

So the plan, as decided in the room last night, was to go into "the City" for Indian ("'a Passage to India' is also the name of the restaurant") with Ali and Zabby and Eva, between 4 and 5. I called after class as suggested, and then stopped by, nobody home. Retrieved the Liza CDs from Tika and the Claudia CDs from Dave, home not ten minutes later, around 4:20 as specified on the white board as Holman return time. Called again but still no answer, so I don't know what happened. I'm annoyed, I was looking forward to that. The silence here is oppressive and there's nothing to eat. Pack and plan.

knowing what I know now,
I should have had a cow

About today, which was not a bad day by any means. Syntax was back to be being frustrating, but in a more wholesome way. Kari repeated several times that an alternative analysis (the one that I would have been arguing for in my homework if I was thinking a lot more clearly) to the one we adopted is in many ways a preferable one. I wanted to ask her if Chomsky gave a good reason for not adopting it, but the line was too long. I am resolved to read some of the original Chomsky to further frustrate myself/find out whether my opinion changes, and Elena has agreed to go in for it with me. Add to my growing winter break reading list (to be distinguished from my ongoing general purpose reading list, which hasn't changed much since the beginning of the semester). She came home with me for a nice lunch (I had a reuben, she granola) and discussion of the Times and such, Joel showed up with Joe in tow to play him some EC. He's particularly enamored of an acoustic demo version of "Blame it on Cain." Somehow Elvis turned into Keith Jarrett before much longer. I went and played "Lipstick Vogue" for Joel. We started a listening party for "This Year's Model" (I advised him to expose himself to each album in chronological order, and he seems to have absorbed MAIT quite quickly). He liked the Beat, but fell asleep around the start of side two. I turned the record off and joined him.

When I woke up an hour and a half later I wasn't much less tired, but I was able to get through 50+ pages of Pyncho in about an hour and a quarter. Like Ben said, nothing happened, but it was fun reading. Interesting discussion of history, a great extended "analepse" about a Mechanickal Duck (which I think Tiffany clapped her hands about back at the TMBG show). I wrote here, then stopped procrastinating and made sweet potato pancakes for Joel and me (I wanted to make vegan carbonara, but we don't have any pasta, so it will have to wait until next week.) They came out okay, a little more bland than usual for some reason. Cleaned up and read a bit more, or did I? no, I just spent more time on computers, and looked at the history reading some (de Tocqueville), listened to Strummer and the New Deal. Went to tango, where everyone except Lindsey and myself was a newcomer (five of them). We couldn't figure out where everyone else was. So they were just doing the basic stuff all over again. I stayed for an hour, and then decided to waste my time in Brigid-Ali-Elizabeth's room instead (there has to be a better way to refer to it). B and A were engrossed in (complaining about) their programming on brown screens, Eva Holman was studying Bill Watterson. She is even goofier than her sister, if that's possible. It came out that she concocted the bit of nonsense preserved in BlogBack a few entries ago. I talked to Ester about it when I got home, she says that she, Sorelle, Elizabeth, and others(?) were all reading this together once, although it looks like Eva's comment predates that. So I guess more of that contingent read this than I knew about. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, it's fine (especially if they stop being so anonymous about it), but it just makes me think a little bit again about what's going on here. It doesn't cheapen anything, I decide. It's just stuff.

Ester left for Vermont, and I finally got to work on the focus paper, which was quite fun to write, and two pages single-spaced (probably supposed to be double, oh well). I didn't have space to fit in a comparison with a passage from Gravity's Rainbow. Got really excited about it and decided to just post to the listserv about it. Possible paper topic, it's a really rich area - history, innocence, power, self-reference, children's lore. Maybe this book stuff isn't so bad. Okay. It's late, even if I do get to sleep as much as I want starting tomorrow afternoon.

emasculate me with your biology

One more thing before I forget: Mackenzie Carlson is the most incredible person who has ever lived.

I've been spending the last too long looking at Pynchon stuff on the internet, ending up back here where there is a lot of neat-looking stuff. I'm going to have to come back over break to finish reading this and take a look at some of the other "web essays". Now I'm going to try to write about Pynchon myself for a little while, and then go to tango. Oh, is it okay to stay up later than intended tonight considering that break starts tomorrow? Harrumph.

you are invited

by anyone to do anything

Just put on "Little Plastic Castle," changed my mind, put on "Not a Pretty Girl Instead." (I couldn't find "Dilate." Doesn't Ester have it?) Dunno why I wanted to hear Ani right now, maybe because I'm writing this from Ester's computer. Mine has been on the blink a lot lately, internetwise. (I haven't had any problems using the printer, thank goodness.) So I've been using my flatties' a lot for this and e-mail and e-reserves and e-crastination. What I need to do, I've been told, is reformat my hard drive. Okay, now that Joel has installed his zip drive on mine, I guess I can just stick everything on that and transfer it to his computer temporarily or something. I'll have to contact Rob or Dan and find out what to do. Oh, while I'm thinking of it, here's a partial

List of people that are borrowing my CDs:
Ester - Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes"
Liza - Liz Phair "Exile in Guyville"
Spoon "Girls Can Tell"
Lillie - They Might Be Giants "Then"
Daniel Sproul - Moby "Everything is Wrong"
Ben Galynker - "Dance Pop, Vol. 2"
Claudia/Lodge 4 - the hip hop mixes, etc. other party CDs.
Rachel Block - Stereo Total "Musique Automatique"

okay.

I gotta cover my butt
coz I
covet
another man's [butt]

Yesterday [have to get out of this one-day catchup cycle, tomorrow night i guess] was good. Got up too early (an hour before class? why? why?) and frittered the time in bed and back and forth. Murder was entertaining (about "pope's day" celebrations and others), I wrote a lengthy letter to "mes parents" in the hour between, and discussed le cinema in French. Bobby was about ready to get up when I returned at noon-thirty, and I suggested Sharples lunch (cottage fries, people). I didn't realize that Sharps shut down so early; it wasn't much later than 1:20 when we got there, and there was nothing except post-lunch scrapings. I had a decent meal of salad, vegan-bar sub and mini-bread products, and Bob declared the food better than Yale solely on the basis of a hamburger and some soup. Then a roundabout tour of the campus (lovely day for it): Parrish, Trotter, Nason (whose namesake just died), Beardsley 3rd, KohlPAC, the Langs, Armpit, a lengthy walk through the Crum, the Olde Club window, Paces (where Dan Shargel was baking something brown) and UTACS, then Worth courtyard, where Matt and Chris Conaway were talking about performing, and Lodge 4, to stammer approval. We got back, looked at photos, listened to the Beta Band, while he made some plans with friends I made scant headway on Ling.

Dinner was rushed at Sharples (not only was the line too long for the bar, it wasn't even Caribbean bar as advertised. Oh, Caribbean bar!), ran into Morgan and her father on the way out. He expressed a lot of paternal affection. I guess I can understand why someone would feel paternal affection for Morgan. Particularly if he's her father. The two of them drummed for a particulary intense African (combined) class, which included some great combinations atf and ended with a show-off circle that not many people were brave enough to try (certainly not me.) Stopped by Elena and Jessie's (Cat Power vs. ska) to talk about Ling. The assignment was frustrating in the way it presented the data, it was clearly going was a more complicated analysis than I felt was reasonable, but the way the assignment was constructed made it much easier to do it their way. I'm still not sure about a lot of our underlying assumptions. Like how to formally discuss movement triggers, and exactly how d-structures come to be - why do sentences with the same information in the same semantic roles need to have the same d-structure? Maybe more about that when I discuss class today. Basically, I didn't finish it until too late (2:00) and by that point I had figured out that my analysis was definitely "wrong." In the meantime, Bobby got back. (little in the middle, etc.)

We went to Lang a few minutes late to help the Simons move the drums I guess, because they showed up with them in Paces about five minutes after we got there. Bob sat down with his book, later made a friend or two. Carlos made an excellent raspberry-vanilla shake. The stage setup was a little questionable: I was all the way to SR, in the back next to Karl on bass; Sam, Morgan, and Aaron Goldman (guitar?) were the front tier, and showman Scott Simon was all the way to the other side. I could barely here his piano, which made things a little hairy, but his extensive banter and perfect corny blues lyrics ("I got two teenage daughters, and they're both old enough to drive") came through clearly. We did the usual (Song for my Father, Don't Get Around, Desafinado, Blue Monk) and at least a half-dozen shuffly blueses, which were really fun (more so if we got the hits together). I was having too much fun, doing things like dropping the tempo of "All of Me" mid-song to about a third, and then turning it into a quasi-waltz. Did a fun and well-recieved solo on Blue Monk, and a "chorus up-front" on Oleo (that was a trainwreck at such a slow tempo; I had to verbally call the out-chorus). Oh yeah, and "Mercy Mercy Mercy," started too soon like always, my attempt to make it triplet slow-funk aborted, then triplet fast-funk (marginally better), then I let them play it slow and laid some frenetic jungle underneath it (Karl: "I don't know what that was you were doing, that fast stuff, but it sounded pretty cool") If we do this more regularly (which we should, it was a blast) I'll have to behave myself. The best tune was probably "Tunisia," where we seemed to be more or less in agreement on the groove and hits. The (large) audience was quite receptive. I appreciated Corey sitting at my foot the whole time, along with drum masta Charles. Some people even tried to dance, to "Misty" and to even more ungainly choices, including Gaskell and Spiegel (okay, they're definitely together, right?) Gabe Rosenkoetter came to talk to me twice ("this is pretty cool. there should be live music in Paces more often") and of course Corey was supportive ("there should be a law that says that Ross has to play drums somewhere at least once a week and people will go and listen to him.) It was terrific. I got into a funny conversation with Scott afterwards about our complicitness in the conspiracy of students, teachers and administrators to overload us with work until we burn out. Bobby had a good time, even though we got back later than expected. Whiskeytown and all that.

it's been sixteen days,
fifteen of those were nights

I'm taking it easy this week. I was here in the barn all of yesterday until the evening, doing some cleaning here and there, laundry, listening to the Juliet Letters (to wake up), Heatmiser, DisPlan in preparation, consciously doing as little as possible. The most constructive thing I did was to finish a package for Alyssa: the letter (three pages), a party invitation, a stack of photos from the summer and the semester, the mix, with no case, just fragmented and reordered radioshack stickers for a label and four pages of typed song notes. I found a fiver on College Ave. today, which covered most of the postage ($5.30 to Sakyamo-ku.) Presumably it will arrive before she leaves.

The sun went down and Bobby hadn't arrived, there was confusion about concert plans. Heather, Ali, and Nick all had different ideas about where we should meet, where the tickets were, and what time the show started. About ten minutes after Bob finally got here (6:00 or so), Ali showed up and told us to get in the car; we grabbed our just finished quesadillas and ran out to join her and Heather. The confusion still wasn't over though. We got as far as the Springfield mall parking lot before we turned back again, under some pretext, and Ali suddenly jumped out of the car, thrust a ticket at Heather and announced that she couldn't go. Uncertain about where the rest of the tickets were, we stopped by the barn to make a doomed phone call (and grab some earplugs and canteloupe). More discussion about the best way to get there, but eventually we were on South street, most of the way through side one of Creds, met up with Nick, Andy Alderete and Naomi Baumol, neither of whom I'd really met before. It turned out the show wasn't until 8:00 (although even the marquee said 7:00) so we a while to kill; they went in search of cloves while Bobby and I took a stroll and ended up in the Pink Rose pastry shop, with a carrot cupcake and a slice of mousse torte, discussing College cheers and the inexplicable resurgence of "Sweet Caroline." They didn't make me pay for the concert, though they were very thorough in searching my jacket.

The good old TLA was pretty empty considering the confusion about start times, and they had erected a little guardrail in front of the stage (a DC band thing perhaps?) Need New Body's set was short (twenty minutes max), not their fault. They were slightly less aggressively weird (fewer costumes) and noticeably funkier than when they played here. They're really talented musically, especially the drummer and keyboardist, although this time it was hard to make out the words. Lake Trout, who Corey had hyped up to me, were better than they seemed at first. Mostly because they have an original idea, but actually it is pretty successful: two guitarists play repetitive Godspeed-like melodic lines ad nauseum, the bassist adds effectified layers, the drummer bursts out with clean and funky drum-and-bass, New Deal-style, and a flautist/saxer at the keyboard adds the icing. It's all very languid and tripped-out, great when they stay in dancy-trancy territory, less interesting when they veer toward straighter rock stuff, especially when he tried to sing. Bob seemed comforted by them after the disconcerting NNB. Andy couldn't stop talking about the flute (he turned out to be kind of a zealot.) Hedda and Jarrett, each in their own way, were pumping up the excitement level for the Plan, the hometown groupie and the erudish Nor'westerner. And indeed they have a presence. Lead singer Travis, dressed in black smiled disingenuously, retorted requests rather smarmily, didn't need to be told he was hot, gripped the mic with confidence and took a self-described "escapade" (Destiny's Child? Annie?) on the floor at the end of the show. He knows the show, gave the fans what they wanted without putting himself out. The bassist bounced like another Travis, the lefty long-blond drummer mathed and wore earphones, they were tight. I most enjoyed the songs I recognized (warp-time opener "Gyroscope," Townsend-stuttered "Girl O'Clock," dumb-beat dumb-fable "You Are Invited," cathartic "What Do You Want Me To Say?," chiming "City," but not the one I was hoping for), and some of the newer ones (lyric-patterned "Timebomb," "Elaine and Ben," which I later realized must be about the Graduate except that I then realized it was actually "Ellen and Ben.") Apparently a lot of what they played was older stuff. It was loud, and they said "hey" a lot, and some of it was good (the funky stuff.) Bob was able to get into it, I think (he declared it "really great," but that's like him), but he did complain about the noise. It was a fun show, definitely worth the time and no money. And it did make me more excited about the album, at least the songs they played from the album.

Got back here to find Rebecca making up some tofu with stuff. Does she always nag this much, and I just ignore it? I have a feeling maybe she does. I'm not sure I want to live with someone who nags that much. But if I'm so good at ignoring it than maybe it's okay.

what do you want me to say?
what do you want me to do?
to let you know that i still love you

Rae Solomon was a park ranger one summer, on Wall St. in New York.
When Andrew Stout was born, he was so small that his dad could hold him in one hand.
Jonah Gold’s chest hair is in the shape of a V right now.
Matt Rubin didn’t vote for George Bush.
Nate Wessler played the role of Cinderella’s dog in his high school production of “Cinderella.” If you’re nice he’ll let you scratch his belly.
Jess Pulver got an infection from sticking her finger in her belly-button.
Jedd Cohen’s mother’s first pet, a goldfish, exploded. That’s the first thing he knew about pets.
Liza Clark jumped from a moving train and broke a jar of mayonnaise.
Though her parents have lived together for 19+ years, they’ve never married. Therefore Addie Candib is technically a bastard.
Tika once stayed in a split for 15 hours.
Alison likes pink mittens.
Sarah Hughes’ parents were first cousins.
If Jackie Aponte rubs them the right way, she can make her eyeballs squeak.
Joel Blecher’s thumbs are two different sizes.
Mariah Montgomery was captain of her midget-league cheerleading squad.
Rebecca’s friend Geoff has a scar on his wrist and he doesn’t know where it came from.
Despite years of effort, Renee Witlen has never been able to whistle.
Cathy Meals has only been pulled over once while driving, and it was in the CIA complex.
Louisa Boiman wanted to be Benjamin Franklin when she was three.
Sam Dingman once ate a fruitcake and pimento sandwich prepared by a woman in green sweatshirt.
Elinore Kaufman drives a mean tractor.
[L.D.] is currently suing the Catholic church.
Maria Alvarez is going to be Eddie Vedder when she grows up.
Jenny Ku can flare her nostrils in sync with any moderately paced song, sober.
Joanne Gaskell’s parents met through the Cygnet.
In elementary school, Alana Price led a student chocolate-tree movement that ritualistically planted hersheys kisses in the ground, watered them, and recited original incantations to promote their growth.
Khadijah White can stand on her head. (Sometimes for quite a while)
The first CD I ever owned was "The Monkee's Greatest Hits."
Lourdes Carrasco is a vampire.
Morgan Simon just wanted to let you know that the meteor shower isn't until Sunday morning at 4am, so we'd have to be partying for a long time.
At the age of seven, Rebecca Ennen won a cow-milking contest.
Ester Bloom once had a crush on her imaginary friend.
Nathaniel Deutsch will speak.
Sarah Cohodes hates ordering Chinese food over the phone. She hates it with a passion.
Corey Mark used to wear spoons around his neck.
Gerrit Hall veni vidi vici
Rachel Block once got frostbite on her nipples.
In ninth grade, Kim Bussey’s classmates decided that she was a friendly witch and asked her to grant them wishes.
Who got into an argument with a squirrel today?
Who went rock climbing today? It was fun?

fifteen reasons not to spend my life with you...

The not-so-morning-anymore sun streams through Rebecca's window onto my naked and slightly sore back. Mmm. I just went through the guest list and counted sixty-eight people that were here last night, including people that weren't on the list. That's a lot of people. Especially for the first two hours or so, when almost everybody was in the common room, the place felt really crowded. The hallway also got extrememely crowded at various points, thanks to the fun "personal trivia" that we put on the walls. There's not a whole lot to say about the party without going into extreme detail (such as listing the guests); as a host the experience is always so oversaturated as to become monolithic. Suffice to say it was good.

Of course that lack of detail never suffices here at ross talks funny. Let's see, where was I. Of course yesterday was all taken up by preparations. I was planning it that way, but Rebecca and Ester weren't. The former ended up spending almost the whole time here anyway, and was unable to make it to the shop; the latter escaped to the city with her friends, they caught a flat, but were able to help out with groceries anyway. As much as we fought along the way, I think they had come around and gotten into the idea by the time of the party. I was anxious sort of for the sake of being anxious, which probably wasn't a good idea; of course it was all going to come out fine. I'm really glad and grateful that they were willing to help out, even though I wished that I didn't have to feel grateful because I wished they felt it belonged to them just as much as to me.

What made it even worse was that Rebecca was in an illness-induced snit for most of the morning. Even Stephin Merrit felt it. But no matter, I don't mind Billie and cream of wheat and peach tea, and the baking (or something) made her feel better. She turned out an endless quantity of delicious banana "muff-cakes," while I put out a pan each of lemon squares (delicious, though they were cut too large for many people to eat them) and nanaimo bars (which turned out extremely messy and overly sweet; this recipe was not nearly as good as my old one.) We also served a veganized artichoke dip (seemed to be a success), chips, cheese and crackers, grapes, and got rid of some things that had been sitting around - mango slices, choco cookies, roasted peas and corn nuts. I cleaned my room (stuffed everything into my desk, made the couches, swept), listened to A Break from the Norm, which is as fun as you would think, and '77.

Waited outside Olde Club for forty-five minutes, balancing Mason & Dixon on my head (which is really easy, especially while wearing a hat. It's easier than reading it.) and talking to Evan Moses about it. I kept the book on my head as I sat down, in the front row on the floor, listening to Sarah Fritsch and Amelia talk about Grapevine. Having auditioned for the play many months ago (it was funny to have it re-enter my life now in this way), I was particularly attuned to the casting decisions. Mara Gustafson was excellently cast as the mother, even though she was essentially playing herself; tortorously deadpan and unassumingly manipulative. She was holding a martini glass the whole time, which was a nice touch. Alex Edleman was also himself, very convincigly, but it didn't work quite as well for the role; he was excellent as the sincere, caring fiancé, but a bit too precise and hypernormal as a member of the demented family, and too self-aware to have only just started questioning his life. Amy was not very pleasant at all as the fiancée; her sweetness was okay, but had too much bile, and the sudden vagaries of her moral compass were poorly explained and confusing in her reading of the character. It's kind of a tough role. Sarah Walsh's role is especially difficult, and I wasn't sure what to make of her performance. She looked a fair bit like Parker Posey, if by looking like Parker Posey you mean looking like Meredith, thanks to a wig (couldn't they have just used her real hair to achieve a similar effect) and a constant glower. She was leaning back aggresively the whole time, which was unsettling but certainly made her seem manic. Her reading was fairly one-dimensional, but it almost made sense to play it that way. She was certainly actress-ish. Finally, stranger Ben Camp did a commendable job as the whiny, sex-obsessed younger brother, the role that Rebecca had picked out for me. The ensemble worked nicely together, and the staging was fine, it made good use of Olde Club's limited capabilities. The transitions between the scenes (many of which are fairly short) were not very effective; they could have been served well with a melodramatic score and more sudden blackouts, but the delivery of the final lines was often simply weak. This detracted a lot from the sinister quality that I could imagine in a different sort of production. Irregardless (a word I heard someone somewhere use yesterday), it was very enjoyable.

Back to the anxiety, as I returned home to find Ester and the weekend visitors in her room, watching the teevee, rather than involved in any sort of preparation. It was fine though; they had gotten most of the groceries and liquor, and laid most of it out, so there really wasn't much left to do. I typed out all of the trivia (more than 20 people responded by e-mail, and a handful in other ways), Rebecca crayoned them on scrap paper, and we taped them to the wall in the hallway, which made them quite festive and colorful. The first to arrive were Kim and Cathy, followed by the masses (oh, you know, Jonah, Sarah, Mariah, Kent, Jenny, Olivia, Juliet, I'm not going to list them). There were enough people here to begin with (eight, remember) that we had an insta-party anyway, so it felt lively immediately, none of the early awkward stage. I did surprisingly little upkeep work during the party itself - set out a contributions bowl (we raked in a whopping $10, not counting the bait), toasted more bread to go with the dip, cleaned up some spilled water, took peoples' coats and encouraged them to add more trivia - just drank a gimlet (which was effective enough, considering I hadn't eaten anything all day) and took care of the music. They rejected the Jungle Brothers, so we started things off with side two of "Get Happy!!" (EC being Joel's latest infatuation, thanks to Rachel's tape of MAIT in the car to the PMA), then Call and Response (great party album), some of the Stax singles comp, the Lounge Lizards, Shuggie Otis (for Matt, but also a terrific party record), a bit of St. Germain and Plaid, then "Look Into the Eyeball" (for dancing with Liza and Blair) and Zero 7 to chill out (Damon said "this is the new Fiona Apple album, right?" Lots of conversations: with Lillie and Kat on my bed about movies, with Rae and Blair in my doorway about rangering, with Jenny, Geoff, and Joel in the entrance to the common room about concerts, with Chris and Amy all over the place about barnlife, singing with Rachel and Catherine, with Jonah, Sarah somebody, and so on. It was an (un)surprisingly tame party - the drunkest people that I saw were Felicia and Kate (who both had these beatific smiles on their faces, it was brilliant), no sex as far as I could tell (although as Rachel pointed out, someone ought to have made out with Nate Wessler's little brother), and only one spill (Rae's water as I stood up to hug Matt goodbye) - the place was so clean afterwards you could hardly tell anyone had been here. ("When you go there, it becomes here." "Really?" "Yes, come on, I'll show you.") The guests managed to put away a bottle of Skyy, a bottle of schnapps, a bottle of Kahlua, the better part of a bottle of Tanqueray and a 24-pack of Corona. They barely touched the sour mix though. There's almost no cleaning left to be done, just some dishes or something. Ester sequestered herself in her room with Jamie and Ilana and Louisa and a few others, as is her wont, and they snapped at me when I tried to go in. Lots of people left between 12:30 and 1:00, so the people who came later didn't stay as long (Jeff Wu, Renee, Annie, among others). Joel spent a long time with his "friend-crushes" Damon and Jason in the kitchen and on the escape (along with a sullen, crutch-bearing individual who was at the poetry slam), and Michelle was offended. I fell mostways asleep on my couch, then came in here for the rest of the way. No meteor shower. Bobby's coming. I'll clean and read and eat. Relax. Try to find some people maybe.

ah, but who saves you?
who craves you?
who hearbreaks?
who love makes?

There are eight people in this apartment right now. I feel like I'm sleeping over in someone else's house: there's the debate over sleeping arrangements, and the unfamiliar bedroom. It's a flash-forward to next semester - I'm in Rebecca's room, (which actually doesn't feel that oppressive at all, it's rather cheery and cozy, at least with the fuzzy white blanket. I'm determined to move my bed in here next semester, even if it takes up half of the space. I don't really need a desk [I'm not using mine now except to collect clutter and store sheet music and printer paper], just my bed, my CDs and my stereo and a bookshelf, and Alyssa; I can use the dresser in the closet. Hopefully Nori will be able to make use of my desk, I certainly wouldn't look forward to moving it. Maybe she'll find the keyboard useful as well for theory purposes, or if not I can store it in her old room); she and Geoff are in Ester's. And Ester is sharing my bed with Jamie and Ilana while Ben sleeps on the loveseat. Joel is alone and unchanged. He's such a constant.

Great night, and I shouldn't have gone on for so long without talking about it. I should not make plans more often. Well I had plans, sort of, but they were rather scotched. I went to soundcheck at five, and nobody was there except Chloe and Nicola, who were just as clueless as I, but set about trying to mop anyway. Eventually bandmates and donuts and tech arrived and we began to play, running through the set and working on more or less new songs. Come to think of it, we never really played a soundcheck. Jeff drove me home to pick up my hi-hat, I came in to find Joel with the groceries, Geoff just arriving and Claudia here to borrow dance CDs. I had to run out again to go to the play (House of Yes), but I couldn't get in even though I was there twenty minutes early. I'll make sure to be really early tomorrow. So I walked back, from Olde Club to the barn is one of the longer distances on campus, decided that it was too cold for birkenstocks.

A little befuddled, I spent too long looking at the nasty little man site. I tried to go to Maria's birthday party, but I couldn't find Woolman. Instead I went to Beardsley, to look at Tiffany Gong's photograph of me. It's excellent, I really want a copy. I'm barely recognizable, mostly because you can barely see my face, just my hands and my accordion. I was particularly struck by the light in the Kohlberg passageway, reflecting off the copper-tiled ceiling. Ali was sitting on one of the benches in the courtyard, looking at index cards with diagrams that I could barely even identify as Orgo Chem diagrams. I tried to help her study with them, but she suggested we go to her room instead. S+B+E were there, with new arrival Eva Holman (16), and whisked us off to Tarble and Rose Tattoo. I decided I didn't want to sit through the same songs again by Joe "Jewel" Altuzara, so Ali and I went out in search of adventure. We found the remnants of the Afro-Latin week dinner in Upper Tarble, where they insisted that we take some Ethiopian leftovers (they had, among many other things, two huge aluminum pans of that spongy bread stuff). Ali knew Emily, so they/we talked for a while. We tried Rose Tattoo again, but it was even worse - some guy strumming "Jack and Diane" with piano and cello accompaniment. Ali suggested Hallowell, and I insisted that we wander through all the hallways, as she smoked a cigarette (then put it out in a trash can, but the building was still standing when we left). It's a fine dorm. I don't miss it. We visited Shawn Kyzer, whose room is what was once the lounge across from my room. He was very gentle and welcoming, although I don't think we'd met before. Then back once more to Paces (Chris Conoway was on, doing some folky stuff and then some electronic stuff), for not much longer this time (by now the rest of the group had disappeared). Finally we ended up on a bench under the tree outside Mephistos, to have the conversation she started earlier that evening.

Ali's a crafty one. She asked, innocuously, what I would do if I knew I was going to die at midnight. That was only two hours away, so I said I would probably just play the gig and then go to sleep. With twenty-six hours rather than two, it's a tougher call. Actually, the party tomorrow night would not be a bad exit; at midnight it will still be going on, so I'll avoid the comedown, and just be there to enjoy the high. She said she would want to tell all the people she's close to what she thinks of them. (well, what's your answer?) I said that I felt I had more or less done that, at least with everyone I really care about. Her perfect opportunity to ask (as well as about herself) about Brigid and all that. So I told her the story, the twenty-minute version I guess, with all the key players. She also wanted to know about Barn dynamics. I asked her about the three of them, and she had some interesting things to say. We went to Nick's (wading through the Willets weekend wantonness) for a few minutes, and looked at some charcoal portraits to be published in their planned 'zine. I decided I should probably go back to Rose Tattoo and see about playing.

My timing was right on - I got there as the act before us was starting his last song. Jeff told me the premise of the lyrics he had just finished writing for the "ba ba ba" song, which tell the touching story of a boy who loses his coolness when he pees in his pants, and the girl who was too shy to talk to him until after that - they fall in love and engage in some questionable sexual practices. The audience was fairly large, although none of my good friends were there; I chatted with Justin and Ranmal and played the fawning rock fan with Damon McMahon. Jeff and Leaya did a so-so wispy duet with Corey on Djembe, and then Jason and I took the stage for the Keller Method proper. We opened with "Want," the police-y tune with a lot of breaks. The tempo was pretty good, and it went surprisingly smoothly. The "70s song" was next. I don't really have a sense of the song, I just decided to play hi-hat sixteenths, rim-click on four, double-bass the whole way through the song, playing around to find as many sounds as possible between the two hats. Corey and I shared a mike for the improvised a capella nonsense-syllable intro to "Infantile Sexuality," which was definitely our most popular number with the crowd. I worked that sixties back-beat, rat-tat-tat fills for all they're worth, and some people even started clapping and dancing along. I orchestrated a re-cap of the opening a-capella with everyone clapping and then a rocking-out. The final number was one of Leaya's called "Naked Ladies," after the flower. It was okay. I just banged on the toms. I don't know how well we were recieved, but whatever, it was fun. Morgan was there for the end (she wants me to play with her dad on Monday, should be fun), as was Joanne Gaskell, who invited me to watch meteors at 4am tomorrow (are she and Spiegel together? it sure looks like it). And Brigid was waiting for me.

The usual suspects were apparently all off drinking in Jarrett's room, having left Eva asleep. Of course she wasn't - there is always someone awake in that room - she was talking on the phone and looking a bit confused. Brig said something about giving her privacy and we went back outside. On a night like that, we couldn't help but wander down to the Crum to look at the stars. Pausing to climb the tree outside Sharples, where she tried to give me a piggyback. The sky from the meadow was surprisingly light, but I'm sure I could have made out more of the winter hexagon if I remembered them from Pynchville last week. Orion has a particularly low-slung hunting knife, or something. Cassieopia seems to be in a different place every time. Each plane we saw had a different blinking pattern. Orange, white white, orange, white white, orange, orange, white white, orange.

Ali and she differed slightly on some points, such as whether they want to live together next year, and the number of guys beating down Brigid's door this semester (ten or zero.) But they wanted to know some of the same things, particularly about how things are working at the barn (I probably gave a more negative answer than I would normally, for the sake of critical analysis). And they agree about the pros of triple living. Anyway, Brigid and I told our stories, in fragmentary form. Her dating experience limited to a "Wake-Up Little Suzie"-ish episode in high school; I invoked Meredith for the second time that evening, first as a smoker, and then as a heat source. We talked about travel, toothpaste, houses, Queen, Ohio, science, first kisses, the weather, death. I explained the basics of the relationship theory, not very eloquently. Codes always amuse me, words - "interested," "something," "complicated," "presumptious." It was special in the way that sort of thing can't help but be special, but mostly it was just nice. She felt better. We had to rely on each other for warmth, and we had to give up eventually.

Came home to the best possible things: bustle and "squished people," Ester's lookalike comfort friends piled on her bed, camera-ready, Ben Friday-stressed, family. It's morning now, and I think I'll go see who's up and who wants oatmeal.

I'm overjoyed to hear about your wedding.
I'm writing you to wish you every blessing.

A sun-drenched Friday afternoon, and I strode through it with Shuggie Otis in my hand and the Dismemberment Plan in my teeth. I actually wore birkenstocks today, and a t-shirt, and November's half gone. I carried a sweatshirt jacket on my shoulder, but I didn't need it, in fact I dropped it somewhere in Sharples I think. And I'm not accomplishing anything, but isn't our societal obsession with accomplishment a little bit arbitrary anyway?

I wrote three pages to Alyssa last night, and ended them on an inconclusive note - I'll have to just put a few more sentences down and sign it, so that it feels more like an ending. I'm typing up some song notes for Creds, which I finally got back. I just need to make a cover and copy another invitation and it'll be ready to go.

I spent some time in Ali, Brigid, and Elizabeth's room last night, for part of which Cadelba and Sorelle were also there. They make triple living work well, but I can't help wondering about it. All three of them can be quite silly, and that's fine, but I've never known Elizabeth to be not silly, whereas the other two, individually, are easier to connect with on other levels. When they're all together, the silliness dominates, hers if not all of theirs, and it can be hard to move beyond that. That group, and actually the whole octet, are so close that I sometimes find it difficult to be friends with any one of them individually in a significant way. Not that it isn't great to be around them in group settings. The conversation last night was more about sex than it usually is - all jokily of course. They all joked about not getting any; Brigid had to stand up for her heterosexuality. Apart from Kara, I don't know of any of the eight having had a serious relationship here at Swarthmore, and it's hard to imagine for most of them, just because it would infringe so much on the group as a whole. Unlike lots of girl groups which center themselves around relationships with others, theirs is very much focused on their friendship with each other. Which is healthy I guess, but in some ways perhaps not so much.

I finally got a decent amount of sleep last night (at least eight hours), and got to lay around in bed for a while afterwards. I went to Sharples for lunch again for the express purpose of finding someone with a car to take me to Genuardi's. No luck, but I did enjoy the social scene of course; interactions with Gerrit, Maria, Stef, Claudia, Heather, and others. Convergence this weekend: two of Ester's friends and one of Rebecca's will be here, and Bobby is coming Sunday (!) I'm going to do some cleaning, I guess, if not any shopping. Tentative list of things to serve tomorrow:

Lemon Squares
Nanaimo Bars
Artichoke Dip
Fruits and Cheeses
Chex Mix
Vegan Cookies/Bars (Rebecca)
Diet Coke

Should probably figure out something about alcohol too. Hey you, if you haven't already, RSVP.

we're going back
and forth
and back
and forth
and back
and forth
and back

At my radio show now. I like what I'm playing; a lot of stuff from the playlist. I ended up playing two songs in a row by the same artist a lot, at first because I was talking to Priti in the office and didn't get back in time to change the CD, then because I wanted to hear more. Maria called in a few times, and someone called to ask if it was a hip-hop show. Here's what I played, cut and pasted from the log. I should do this every week.

Merrick : Checklist
: Blue Tooth
Joe Strummer : Johnny Appleseed
: Cool’N’Out

Microphones : The Mansion (P)
Mogwai : Dial:Revenge (P)

Circulatory System : Yesterday’s World (P)
Ted Leo/Pharmacists : Under the Hedge (P)
Timorous Me (P)

They Might Be Giants :Bangs
: Wicked Little Critta
Warren Zevon : Even A Dog Can Shake Hands
Fugazi : Full Disclosure (P)
: Nightstop (P)
Superchunk : Art Class

UB40 : Matter of Time
The Kinks : Complicated Life

Arling & Cameron : BB Electro
Drums and Tuba : The Mummy
Joe Jackson : The In Crowd/Down to London
Her Space Holiday : The Ringing in My Ears (P)

Plus : Put Everything Together
Missin’ Linx : What it Is
Dilated Peoples : Hard Hitters
The Shins : Pressed in a Book
Avalanches : Flight Tonight

Jim O’Rourke : All Downhill From Here
American Analog Set : Million Young (P)

I'm not the average savage that curse queens
I'm something from your worst dreams
First we handling first things.

transcendence burns the jazz of your requiem bitch. that's what somebody wrote in the Palmer basement stairwell. Night was fluid into morning; sleep from 3 to 8, then up for French work and to campus for mailbox stuffing. Kari finally addressed my question in Syntax, I wasn't in any shape to argue with her about it. Actually, she acquiesced to my side before I even said anything. She introduced the "extended projection principle," which states that every sentence must have a subject - exactly what I had been trying to suggest for the last two weeks - that's my rule, baby. She claims that we still need the semantic scaffolding of the theta criterion (nerdy band-name), but the only reason she gave was to distinguish "it died" from the ungrammatical "it died," where "it" is a dummy subject. Sounds like a semantic distinction to me. Why couldn't she have said that earlier? I was too tired to do anything except eat at Sharples, read the Phoenix, and fall asleep. Four CDs were here for me today: "White Blood Cells" by the White Stripes, "Global-a-Go-Go" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, "Emergency & I" by the Dismemberment Plan, and "Insignificance" by Jim O'Rourke. Matt and Joel came into my room wanting to play rock music, but I was not in the mood.

Life is great
I feel good
I feel better than James Brown
How do you feel?

Hmm. Is that any better? I can't tell, there's some blogger problems. Trouble shooting these days, like what. Today was as long as a Wednesday. I was early for Murder for once, although Ester didn't make it at all (she just told me why, maybe she told you too.) It was actually a really fun class: we divided into two groups and took sides for a mock "town meeting." Erin and Ed were the most loudspoken of my group, representing Methodist ministers, while our opponents amusingly insisted on referring to themselves as "gentlemen" and "sirs." It was just interesting to have a different learning approach in that class, since everything we do is very predictable. That's one significant difference between college and high school - the format of the classes here vary rarely vary from meeting to meeting. In the hour between classes (plus a few minutes late), I went to as many public buildings as possible: Tarble (to meet Rebecca and get the invitations from her; neither were in evidence), Beardsley (to meet with Mack Daddy Cothren; he told me that Arth and Ling are related, and that everything is all right), Parrish (to visit the Office of Student Employ, where I shall return soon with my passport), McCabe (where I talked at length to Jess Sheldon and then to Jonah and Sarah about classes for next semester) - more options keep coming up; Nori wants me to take IntroPhil with her and a Bach course, both of which sound really tempting; would they really insist on that German requirement? also I think Nori just wants to be mentioned here, she seems to read more frequently than anyone, and e-mails me about it in depth the next day, I think what usually happens will happen which is that I accumulate a long list of possible courses and then rule them out through the shopping process into a more reasonable number. That seems to work really well. I think I'll try to read a Pinker book over break and see if I still want to take CogSci.

I made myself my most successful reuben yet for lunch (pleasant surprise to find a promo copy of the highly acclaimed Zero 7 debut album waiting for me at home) which I attribute to lots of dressing. Printed out some interesting stuff about the glassarmonica and went to class, which was pretty good. This book is more discussable. We shared vocabulary terms and concepts (quaquadirectional, syzygy, quidnunc), read aloud, small-group-discussed, argued about history and pot, listed recent historical fiction. From there I encountered Rebecca, who promptly lay down on the ground to protect her butt from Gerrit, who just waited patiently as she whined about not being able to go to work. I spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the invitations, trying to make it possible to print them at home, since the copying machine had not worked, then came home and started the long printing process, which is still continuing. African was purty good; lots of nice smily visitors (Maria, Liza, Christy on percs; Lela rumpshaking and shimmying) and intense leg stretches. I sat in on the first half-hour of a lecture on hip-hop culture, which was excellent, and included an in-depth analysis of Ice Cube's first album. I really wanted to stay but I was already late for Keller Method rehearsal. I got a pretty decent chicken sandwich at Tarble (from Claire who repeated my name whenever she spoke to me) and went to PPR.

The rehearsal was in Palmer basement, which I haven't seen since Ben's massive painting party last year. Someone came by later and added about twice as much paint, much of it covering over the work we had done that night; someone else put of a little note complaining about it ("thanks for being an asshole"), but in a lot of places it's probably an improvement. The walls look nice with this extreme level of saturation, and most of the best works were preserved - Rebecca's self-described "Naked Titties," Erik's "Robot Timmy vs. the bears." Pretty productive. We worked first on "song three" ("what's this song about?" "desire" "okay, let's title it 'want'"), which starts out with a sunny guitar riff and has a wispy verse. We added a police-style reggae chorus and lots of vocal and drum breaks, which, if performed cleanly, will sound really cool. We sounded really loud in that echo chamber. An attempt to work on the "ba-ba-ba" song broke down when I pointed out that there is nothing more to the song than that, as nice as it might be. So they started working on something else without much of a drum part, and then something else which it took them forever to figure out, and then they started tuning their guitars, and I got tired of banging on the paint cans in the corner, even though I was getting some pretty cool patterns and sounds, and I escaped for a while. It took me a while to wend my way through the maze, but I eventually found Heather's room. It took her a while to answer the knock in a daze and a t-shirt, hair down and human, out of a bad dream about a bad drug. I gave her my lollipop, because I didn't like it. We chatted. She sounds a little ambivalent about leaving next semester.

I went back downstairs to work on "song number one," to which I applied a half-time "street-spirit" beat and attempted to cull as many different textures as possible out of the high hat. Eventually, eventually, back here. Exhausted, but staying up to work on invitations (it's 2:30 now and my printer is still chugging away, spitting them out in sepia-tone now for some reason; Ester is folding and writing names, Rebecca is selectively stickering and occasionally adding comments.) I still have a bit of French to do. Time to put on some music and get something else to drink.

we live in a mountain
right at the top

Well, it is now possible to post comments on this website: click on the funny numbers that say "undefined." it's a temporary situation; I will try to redo the format so that it all looks prettier. I'm still holding onto reblogger in case it starts working again, so that I don't lose all the old comments. Maybe that's a bad idea. I don't know where all these Âs came from. Any ideas?

So Nori promptly e-mailed me to tell me that I'm crazy. I know I am, except that I'm not really seriously considering taking that schedule. Do I really want to take Biology? Do I really want to take CogSci or Anth? The best advice I have for choosing classes is to do lots of shopping, so that's what I'm going to do. Maybe sit in on Patterns, or Phil, or even Music 12. I get to talk to my advisor about all this tomorrow morning!

Today started out mediocre and became much nicer as it progressed. It's getting colder - there was a frost yesterday, I forgot to mention that - I'm still excited by sweaters even a few years after discovering them. I should get some new ones. Anyone planning to go underwear shopping for Alison's birthday? Just a thought. I got up early enough, but because of arguing (rrgh) with Ester about photos for the invitation I was about ten minutes late to French. I didn't too so well on the quiz today I think - not poorly, but worse than I easily could have done with a little more thought and preparation. Syntax was once again enjoyable and amusingly frustrating. It gave me that warm feeling. I asked Kari if IS&S would just make me more annoyed, and she laughed and encouraged me to take it. Elena was sick and falling asleep, poor gel, funny how friendships go in cycles in my life, depending on minor factors I end up spending lots of time with someone one week and none at all the next.

I ran into Becca and Ester, and we more or less agreed to use the "compromising position" pictures rather than the "depressed" one - Ester fraternizing with Judy and Joel and Bec posed with the vibrator, with the caption "Life gets lonely out here at the barn..." I spent the next two and a half hours fighting with Photoshop to make the invitations. They finally came out, quite nicely, with a nice little map drawn by Ester and an elaborate four-sided fold-over design. Now we just have to photocopy them. Of course that ate up a sizable chunk of my afternoon, and after a mondo cheesadilla and another tortilla wrap-up thingy, I got to reading. I only had about 75 pages of M&D to read today, so I took the luxury of falling asleep for about an hour and a half. Good choice I think.

Dinner was ready at 5:45 as promised - potato soup much improved by salt and pepper, and nummy acorn squash. The guests outnumbered the hosts for the first time in a long while: (sexpot) Maria Alvarez, who is friendlier to me than ever, Sorelle Friedler, Jaime Yassif, and Bengal Ynker, who I had not seen in days. We discussed party plans, Jewishness, the Murder City Devils, and how we met. Jaime mentioned Ferdydurke, a Polish theater performance taking place in an hour, and after doing the dishes, calling my mom (talked about classes and movies; Alex recieved his first patent) and reading a fragment of the massive history assignment, I went to it. The show was very enjoyable and as bizarre as had been advertised - lots of fart noises and other body humor, hilarious classroom scenes ("how can it enrapture me if I am not enraptured?" "great poetry, being great and being poetry, cannot help but enrapture us!"), lots of talk about faces/mugs, sex/innocence, lads/guys, and fraternizing with stable-boys and college girls - all on a minimalist set, performed by four burly polish men with thick accents that added immensely to the effect of the performance. It would be almost redundant to see it performed in Polish - which Liza did in Poland this summer. I finished the reading for M&D, and, being in Parrish, went barefoot to floor 2 to ask Ali for a ride to the Plan concert on Sunday (I'm on the guest list, thanks to surprisingly nice Jessica Hopper), then accompanied her and Brigid on a vending machine raid. Then to Tango (probably a bad decision), where Lindsey (Lindsey, fool, not Laura) admonished me for being late, was soft. At one point I thought we were progressing in those lessons, but now I'm not so sure. Still fun though. Came home to Joel hammering cables to the wall and Ester ecstatic, IMing across the apartment with Rebecca. She helped me with the comments thing, shrugged off history reading. I'm going to try to tackle some of it now. Like I always say, it's almost the weekend. Listening to the new Merrick, which is louder.

Goodbye champagne and the caviar set
I want to slum and drink all of the rum I can get