music: John Coltrane- My Favorite Things
It’s Sunday night, and I’m back in Boston now after the long Thanksgiving weekend in Milwaukee. This year was very laid back, which was just what I needed. Part of the Thanksgiving rush each year is getting to spend time with friends, who now descend from all over the country on our collective home city. I did a fair amount of that this year, but not nearly as much as I have in years past. I used to make a point to make an appearance at the Silver Spring House and the Hi Hat, two local establishments that serve as default meeting points every Thanksgiving weekend, a universal law that is understood by a good chunk of my high school class. I’ve had less and less interest in showing up for these gatherings as the years have worn on, and this year I just didn’t go at all. I don’t miss it a bit.
I did get a chance to see friends that I wanted to see, which is a good and important thing to do. It’s always a tricky juggling act when I’m in Milwaukee, as my circles of friends are cleanly divided into two subsets: high school friends and camp friends. The experience of interacting with each group has always followed different sets of norms, but as time progresses the differences become more pronounced.
To be fair, the high school friends were not all in town this year. We had a healthy handful of folks, but things were a little disjoint and haphazard. I pushed to see the people I wanted to see, and accomplished that goal, but along with that saw people from high school that I really didn’t set out to see at all (even without hitting up the Silver Spring House or the Hi Hat). Which is fine, I guess, but for what little updating and small talk I had for some of the people I counted as friends in high school, I had that much less for those who I didn’t. Not that they are bad people, not that I don’t like them. Neither is really true. But to spend time with these friends-of-friends doesn’t interest me, no-interests me even less than it used to, which wasn’t very much. But I understand it as part of the social web that has been woven in Milwaukee, and if anything, seeing these friends-of-friends acquaintances whom I have not given a single second of thought to since the last year is a good reminder of the myraid intersections that our lives’ paths make with one another. And I didn’t feel too bad about not seeing everyone or spending quality time with everyone, as we all have a wedding to attend in Milwaukee in three weeks.
Camp friends, on the other hand, are familiar and comfortable. We all are able to fall right back into our social world, make fun out of pretty much any situation. It’s inaccurate, I suppose, to call these people ‘camp friends,’ as none of us are working at camp anymore. But still, we all were raised by a common third parent, and as such, operate much like a family. We spent a rowdy and loud night at the Landmark (where else can you bowl, play video games, darts, pool, and drink local microbrew for $2.50 a pint?) and as always, meshed wonderfully. Even those distant camp cousins who I haven’t seen in years, even those lost camp nieces and nephews who I have never really talked to. A collection of these camp folk will be spending this New Year’s with nothing but each other in a two-room cabin in the Nicolet National Forest. It’s always a highlight, and it is because of the character of our interaction. I even saw some old campers (besdies the ones who made it on staff), which is always reaffirming and good for the soul. Pound for pound, point for point, and on the whole, the sons and daughters of Minikani have a distinct knack and edge in our ability to congregate and celebrate.
To be fair, I think that part of this has to do with the fact that many of my high school friends are also friends from their camp, and therefore have two sets of friends that virtually overlap, myself being the outlier. I know this has a lot to do with how they interact, as evidenced by the quality of their time that they spend with each other. They are lucky in that their friendships are concentrated and potent, I am lucky in that I know (arguably) twice as many good people.
I relate to my friends, of course, as individuals, and the individual interactions I had this weekend were dynamic and varied. Some were reaffirming that no matter where two people are in their lives, they can jump right back into something meaningful and substantial. Despite having a momentus life change directly in front of him, good ol’ #8 and I shared some good conversation talking shop, about our friends, ourselves, our city, and how time has had its effect on all of it. I popped by to have a brief visit with K., an important friend in my life, and was struck with how two people who, in high school, spent a good amount of time in close connection could be wandering down such distinct paths in their early 20’s. I had some good, albeit brief, conversations with Ript Kod, Thomas Lindhurst, P-Rock, Maggie-O, and even the Local Resource despite being placed in a context of Saturday night bar revelry. I did get to check in with Joslar X. McFilbert and Larghetto but didn’t come away with a mess of interpersonal insight. Sobering. And as a pleasant surprise, I got to spend the plane trip back to Boston sitting next to Agent Krysiak, which was a nice way to nurse a migraine.
This weekend I have come to realize a possible third subset of friends: my sisters. As they are getting older, I am able to relate to them better and I actually had fun seeing them this year. There is, of course, a long way to go, and gaps that will not be bridgeable, but there a good chunk of progress being made in that sphere. Ari will be out in Boston this Tuesday; we will be taking in a Phish show together. Which is exemplary.
Despite all the psychic energy I spent on my past this weekend, at certain points this weekend, I caught myself thinking about aspects of my life here in Boston, wishing I could run my thoughts by a friend here or measuring some aspect of my Milwaukee experience relative to Boston. That is as it should be, I think; yet as I sit here typing, I know that I am staring down a mountain of schoolwork and certain trials of time, energy, and attention here. I’m invested in my present environment, reaching up and out. This weekend I temporarily recoiled to my origins and spent a good deal of time examining my roots, polishing and shining old corners while letting others gather dust. And in the end, I left it all there, knowing I would be back in three weeks for a larger helping. Time is doing strange things to my relationship with Milwaukee and the people I associate with my first home city, but all things considered, that is exactly as it should be.
music: Keith Jarrett- The Koln Concert
We are now officially in the “holiday season,” I guess. Cut away all the economics and this is a time of year to celebrate family and life, to share and give. As is appropriate, I had Thanksgiving dinner tonight with my family in Milwaukee. That, however, doesn’t really say anything interesting on its own. Some thoughts must be unpacked here…
Family. It’s become a tricky word for me. it convolutes things slightly this time of year, and on this Thanksgiving night especially.
Partially because of my protests to our family’s previous Thanksgiving plans, we held Thanksgiving dinner at the house I grew up in tonight, as we have for the past three years. The six Taus/Edelmans were of course in attendance, as were my dad’s side of the family: Grandma L., Aunt L., and the J’s. This is practically the only time of year where I have the chance to see my two cousins and we all find ourselves in the same location. Grandma is beaming because she has all her grandchildren in one place, and we are happy for it as well. It is important to me to stay in touch with my dad’s side of my family; I’m glad that we have Thanksgiving together, because there is little opportunity for me to get some face time in with them otherwise these days.
Tonight’s cast of characters, my family, provided for some intruiging human chemistry. While everybody is smiles and hugs, I still don’t feel 100% good about the whole event. My spirit was restless tonight, my senses a bit on edge. I’m not all that surprised, though, being caught squarely in the middle of such a family gathering. I’ve felt this way for the past couple Thanksgivings, and it has everything to do with the trickiness the concept of family here. Rich, Ari, and Jessie moved in over eight years ago, and I have come to accept them as part of my nuclear family, but I don’t think that attempts to mix them in smoothly with my dad’s side of the family will ever really work. Mom has a heart of gold to try to engineer such a feat, and everyone plays their part as best they can, but things just don’t click. They can’t. They shouldn’t. Family is indeed a tricky word, and will continue to be. This being a holiday to celebrate such institutions, I spent some time tonight digging through the earth in order to better examine my roots. I tried some meditating on my own family, my place in it, and how to best frame those other people with whom I share my life.
It’s nobody’s fault, really, but being in Milwaukee can’t help but be stressful for me. That’s why I’m not here all that much. As a result, I don’t get a lot of time in with family members and in many ways have relationships with them that don’t go far past their relation to me as family members, even though I know better. And then I think: do these people know me as anything other than “son”, “brother”, “cousin”, etc? It’s hard to say, but I’d guess probably not. (That, I think, is one of the biggest reasons why I’m doing this Blog in the first place.) Maybe it is because family is such a tricky concept that we all relate via perceived family role prototypes. Were it not my own family, my own experience, it would make a fascinating psychological study in interpersonal dynamics. But that’s not my goal here. I want to make it my goal to come to understand those people in my family as something other than family members. If that makes any sense.
After my sisters went out to see friends, I opted out of a high school night out, and mom and Rich went to bed, I spent about two hours paging through old photo books. It started with my parents’ baby books, and carried all the way through when my sister was born. The pictures I found myself staring at the most were the ones of my parents in high school, college, and in young adulthood. These were my parents as very real people, free of the roles of “mom” or “dad”, with a good amount of youth in them and a very unknown future ahead of them. There were pictures of dad with his high school girlfriend (not mom) and pictures of mom looking very 1960’s teenager with her brother and sister, who I only know as “aunt” and “uncle”. There were pictures of my mom picking out vegetables at Haymarket in Boston, and pictures of my dad hanging out with some friends in his apartment. There were pictures of the two of them taking trips to Maine, marriage even then a distant concept. There were a couple pictures of mom with her housemates sitting on the stoop. There were pictures of dad in cap and gown at his graduation from Harvard. Then there were pictures of their wedding, and with that, things started to drift closer to my own story. But still, their lives were full of detail in their own right. I wasn’t even a thought then-these two people who became my parents eventually had a wealth of life expreience before I came into being.
The pictures eventually turn to topics more familiar: my birth, my early years, my sister’s birth. I have memories of the rest of the story, but my memories, I realize, are quite biased towards my own perspective. And as a consequence, so is my story. The point here is, though, that my story is not their story at all. Even in the years after 1978, my parents lived their own lives and experienced things beyond their roles as “mom” and “dad”. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to fully understand that part of them because I am their son. Family is a tricky word.
I don’t have the opportunity to ask dad about his life, his individuality, although his and my family members could help fill in some of the missing pieces. From what I do know about his story I think I would have really enjoyed getting to know that part of him that was not just “dad”. Mom is still here, but I still don’t have a good grasp on who that young woman in the pictures is. There is a picture of mom in a hospital bed with me as a newborn, all wrinkled and red and puffy, she holding me and staring at me in that classic mother-newborn way. I sat there tonight wondering how in the world the young lady in the pictures and the woman who picked me up from the airport yesterday could be the same person, and moreover, how that person is the same as the teenager in pictures before. (I might add that I have trouble integrating my own past into my self-concept: was I really that wide-eyed three-year-old in corduroy overalls? Was I really that wrinkled, puffy newborn? It doesn’t connect easily for me, even back here in Milwaukee.)
I think the trick is to realize that they are not the same person-mom’s story and life is still unfolding and she is changing along with it. But she is not the only one. I am now six feet and skinny and almost twenty five years old, hardly the little infant in those pictures. But there is some connection between those people in the pictures and this family today and every time I come home I am reminded of that. It’s easier to forget out there, far away from my first home, far away from my roots. It’s easy to forget, but it’s important to remember. That, above all else, is what Thanksgiving was about for me this year. It makes me sad that such an activity is riddled with complications and obfuscations, but that is the way my story has played itself out. Moreover, it is the way my family members’ stories have gone as well But there is much more than that.
Family is indeed a tricky word, and that won’t change, but it’s what I have been given. And for what it is, to the best of my ability, I should give thanks.
music: Muddy Waters- The London Muddy Waters Sessions
These past couple days have been extraordinarily noneventful. With Thanksgiving weekend impending, I mentally checked out earlier than I should have and have been piddling around, tidying up obscure and relatively nonimportant corners of my life because I couldn’t really think of anything else better to do and I didn’t have the energy and motivation to dive into school at full speed. I’m lucky in that I can set the academic cruise control for short amounts of time without getting myself into trouble. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself this past week, mostly doing schoolwork so I wouldn’t have to take a lot home over the break. I banged out a paper, which I think turned out fairly well, but it could be a little too light on references for an empirical work. I started to collect sources for my term paper in my Environmentalism class. The topic is quite apt, considering this week: the relaionship between solitude and the wilderness and how it plays out in different historical contexts. Focus will be on Thoreau, Muir, Abbey, and McCandliss (Krakauer’s “Into The Wild”), although I suppose I could go as far back as Moses on Sinai and as recent as my own excursion out West this past May. It’s going to be a doozy of a paper: 35+ pages. And other work on top of that. When Thanksgiving ends, I slide into Finals period at Harvard (which lasts until the end of January), and will have to negotiate an on-site high school internship all the while. It will be a trial. I’m not really worried about finishing it. But I’m definitely not looking forward to it.
I think it’s high time to get the hell outta Dodge for a little bit. I will find myself in Milwaukee tomorrow afternoon, and will spend a good four days mucking about in my past. It’s always a very emotionally charged time. There are things tied up in the Milwaukee package that are very good, and things that are not good at all. Much like my own past, I suppose. As a result, I’m always both excited and anxious about going home. It’s a trial in many ways, it really is. It is my home, and yet, I no longer have a place of my own there. There is so much history there that I can’t help but confront spectres from the past as well as celebrate personal and shared history. Thanksgiving break is about the perfect time to be home: 4 days. This winter I’ll be home for about two weeks between Christmas and New Year’s, probably the longest I’ve been in Milwaukee in some years, and I’m not quite sure how I’ll handle that stretch as of yet. I do know that I’ll have plenty of work to take home, and some business to attend to up North over New Year’s.
But for now, I’m glad to be making the voyage to Milwaukee. Things are in a strange stasis in Boston right now, and I could use a shift of perspective. And a break from the routine. It will be good and important to see family and friends, to reconnect with where I came from. More thoughts to come, I’m sure, as the weekend progresses.
music: Keller Williams- Laugh
I had a visit with tmo this afternoon. We talked about stuff, but most of the time he just said, “yeah, I read it on your blog.” So now I guess I don’t have to talk to anyone anymore. Happy reading, everyone.
As an offshoot…
Picture it: the Anize.org T-Shirts. The front is “anize.org” and the back is “(I read it on your blog.)”
music: The New Deal- gone gone gone
I don’t know what it is about working late at night, but I always put out better stuff. That my mental dead time during the day is from about 4pm-8pm is going to be a pain in the ass for years to come. No matter while I’m in grad school, I’ll just give another Friday night to paper writing. I banged out a pretty good rough draft tonight, although there is much tweaking for tomorrow and Sunday (my notes to myself: “add references; add a critique of Piaget; cut by 250 words). It’s really not that bad. I’m not complaining, especially now that I have my Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and some really nice late night groove thanks to the latest Homegrown radio promotions mailing. The new The New Deal (eh?) CD is really an acnievement. As was Piaget’s theory. My paper? Gettin’ there.
I also spent the idle minutes burning out a lot of the music that’s been sitting on my computer, so on top of the six or so CDs I got through Live Live this week I have 15 more CDs that are freshly burned and more in the works. I ran out of binder space about a month ago so now I just have music accumulating on hard drives and spindles. I really should take a hint. My stuff is totally unorganized, but oooh, so much music. You can have worse problems.
But the music is not just something to collect and accumulate; thanks to some dialogue with my colleague out west, I have some renewed energy in making music of my own. Despite my downstairs neighbor not being a fan (a story for another time). As tmo said one snowy night in Syracuse a couple of seasons back, it is time to start singing my own song. Once I figure out how to upload some of my little creations here I will, but suffice it to say that my own music making is progressing. Slowly, sure, but given the time and energy constraints, fairly well.
A mellow, productive Friday at home leaves me in good shape for the rest of the weekend. I’ll work through this paper at a semi-leisurely pace now, and have time to see friends. Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving feast/party at Lothrop with the Boston family tomorrow night, hopefully connecting with M. at some point, and catch up with tmo somewhere in there. Maybe even some time in the out-of-doors. And a trip home very, very soon. I’ve been doing this thing here so intensely I nearly forgot that there’s much, much more out there. but in the meantime, I push forward into the night…
music: Eric Clapton- Unplugged
Last week was an off-week on many fronts. The obvious biggest factor was the 1ey’s departure from Boston. I’ve been taking it harder than I thought I would, but can seek solace in those wonderful people that are still here. the 12 Curtis crew (JoJo and tmo) is indespensible and I wish I could spend more time over there. Hell, I wish I lived there. Instead, I’m here. The apartment had an off-week as well, full of heated messages on the dry-erase board in the front hall and subsequent passive-aggressive nonsense. The functionality of the setup here approached the tipping point when balanced with the stress of “group” dynamics last week. It’s like that when the phone bills from July-November come close to $2000. (That was one big reason why I switched to cell phone.) No joke. We had a house meeting last night and vented a bunch, so the pressure has diminished some. There’s some good points, some bad points, but it all works out.
Veteran’s day, a blessing upon first glance, really threw things out of whack as far as weekly rhythm and scheduling. I’m having trouble finding time when I’m able to sit myself down in the library and really get down to work. Reading is taking twice as long as it should; I’m really picking apart texts far too carefully. It’s fine for short-term comprehension, but there’s no way I can retain all of it, or even most of it, which is really what matters. I’m starting to think about new study strategies. It’s also that I’m getting antsy with all the learning about teaching. Do or Do Not. Clear Your Mind of Questions. Your Weapons, You Will Not Need Them. And all that.
I was also sufferning from some pretty substantial headaches last week. I was taken out of commission on Wed. night, and I had one all Thursday night as well, although I still managed to spend some good quality time with M. at the Someday and on a nice walk through Tufts campus. Things just don’t seem to get stale for a second with us. It was a really nice evening, except for the whole it-feels-like-someone’s-swing-an-icepick-in-your-eye-cavity thing. I’m going to see a doctor about the migraines on Monday, and yes, it’s very much to the point of me looking for the little pill I can take for it, which is highly uncharacteristic of me. I just don’t have the time to waste burying my head into some cool pillows as often as I would need to with these headaches.
The weekend was pleasant enough: P-Rock was in town and we caught up, talked about NYE plans involving a cabin in Northern Wisconsin, and generally reinforced for each other that the camp family survives time and distance with ease and grace. I went to a party which a fellow TAC student managed to find a way to get school to cater the event by turning it into a student group, and I took home about 20 pounds of Blue Ribbon BBQ at the end of the night. It’s been feeding me ever since. We had another cigar and scotch gathering on Sunday, which was overly decadent (and appropriately so). And I paid about three dollars for a bag of dirt, as I was repotting some of my plants. 20 pounds of meat for free, three dollars for a bag of dirt. Rediculous.
So clearly things are moving, possibly even progressing, but I’m not really motivated by the immediate these days. It gets to be like that around Thanksgiving. Especially so after last week, which for some reason sucked horribly. I’m looking up and out at things in the near future as motivation: the end of some of these classes, the beginning of the real work of teaching, going to WI for thanksgiving and then a nice stretch in December during which Reuben gets married (!!!) and I reunite with long lost friends to relax a little far away from civilization and record some original music over New Year’s. The time of year is approaching where it’s very common to connect with old friends, celebrate community and family, and (if you can cut through all the economic bullshit), celebrate the spirit of giving. As such, it’s a very stressful time of year and I know that I’m bound to work myself into a funk at some point.
But it’s not about the day-to-day right now. I’m looking more at landscapes, larger patterns, and rituals that celebrate relationships: Thanksgiving, NYE in Wabeno, weddings, road trips to see music with a solid group of friends, even leisurely late-night strolls through city streets and a new friend’s thoughts. Grad school has really forced me to keep my eyes down, staring at my feet and maybe even the next few steps. It’s a welcome reprieve to have many wonderful reasons to see the path ahead of me, examine the larger landscape, to rest my eyes on the horizon.
music: none
Volker got in his big purple truck this afternoon and drove south towards Floyd, VA. He’s not going to be back in Boston for some time. He’s gearing up to embark on a solo journey through South America, a journey that has no definite end in sight.
Will I see him ever again? Most likely. But today, tonight, right now, it has a feeling of finality. We parted ways last night without much ceremony, but in true form: after taking in some music. Volker seemed detached and elsewhere the entire evening though, busy taking pictures and fiddling with his camera and tripod. In many ways it was just another night with music and the 1ey, a night like the ones we have had for the better part of two years in this city. At the end of the night, between well-wishers and bar patrons, I got an honest-to-god hug out of the guy, and before I could think of something fitting to say as a parting shot, I found mysef walking back to the car by myself. A drawn-out, sappy goodbye would have been too cumbersome, although after I turned my back and started to walk away I found a few of my tears hitting the pavement. Life is painfully beautiful sometimes.
Right now now Volker and his big purple truck are headed out. He’s probably on the road as I write this. In terms of our little social circle, a significant chapter has definitely closed. He will be sorely missed around these parts. He already is.
I could try to summarize the phenomenon of DJ 1ey as I have known him here over the past two years, but it is an effort that would surely fall short of its goal (luckily, he has joined the Anize family so we can read about the latest firsthand). Those who don’t know Volker wouldn’t really understand; those who do know him don’t need my words.
This has been a bittersweet occasion. Of course I’m excited for his adventure to lands far, far away. It is quite an undertaking and will absolutely prove to be a life-changing experience. It’s not that I wish he were staying here; it is high time for him to go exploring, see the world. It’s not that I wish I were going along; that path is one for him to walk by himself. It’s more that his distinct presence will no longer be something immediate and local in my world. That makes me sad, but I know that it’s also very selfish. It makes me happy to think that the 1ey will be walking through some strange and beautiful corners of this planet in a short while, way out there capable of being nobody but himself and having people I’ll never meet learn a little bit about him and be glad for it. I feel blessed to have gotten to spend a good two years with him, and only upon his departure more completely realize what an extraordinary individual my friend is. We should celebrate and cherish the good people in our lives, and by my humble estimation, Volker is one of the best.
As you pack your bags,
head out for Parts Unknown
We hope that you’ll remember
all us folks back home;
When you’re feeling lonesome
and you’re stuck without a friend,
Know that
someone
somewhere
loves you
music: Ryan Montbleau- 5/30/03
Higher Education is a curious thing. I’m taking a break from some really strenuous reading to complain about it. And of course, to avoid doing more of such reading in the next couple of minutes. My brain, it seems, has a refractory period.
As I’ve been reading some heavy cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind ( Chomsky, Vgotsky, and friends, as well as my two esteemed professors ), I feel compelled, at least, to get something down about it for fear it shall be lost forever to the vast store of trivia. I’d like to retain this as useful knowledge by connecting it to other schemata, specifically by using a piece of Zen thought as a metaphor. Piaget would be proud.
First Stage: Mountain Is Not Mountain
We are born to the world with a basic operating system and a set of reflexes. It is from this template that all our knowledge is created. So when we are young, we don’t have any specific knowledge. We go about interacting with the world, and in doing so, construct knowledge. It’s a process that occupies the majority of childhood development, especially in the early years.
Second Stage: Mountain Is Mountain
By the time we are teenagers and capable of abstract thought, we have amassed a body of specific knowledge about the world that will more or less serve us for the rest of your days. We even give things names to make talking about it easier. And here, for the most part, we take it for granted that this is true. There really is no need to argue about whether or not a rose called by any other name would smell as sweet. This carries us through high school, give or take.
Third Stage: Mountain Is Not Mountain
Enter Higher Education, that institution by which we youth are indoctrinated into the adult world. Here, now, comes in that wonderful cognitive privilege of ours called metacognition. Here comes deconstruction, unpacking of ideas, semiotic analysis, and other hallmarks of post-modernity. Here comes a very close analysis of something to the point where it doesn’t look like anything anymore. We’ve taken the block castle of knowledge that we spent the previous 20 or so years painstakingly assembling and we’ve knocked it over in order to better handle the pieces, which themselves are pretty meaningless.
Fourth Stage: Mountain Is Mountain
Now that we more fully understand the pieces we automatically and intuitively used to build our knowledge in the first place, we can more expertly assemble our block castle again. Here is a re-integration of knowledge, where we see the forest, the trees, the biological processes that made the forest grow, and the lumberjacks who cut the the whole thing down.
I’m currently wallowing in stage three, with a distant hope that stage four will roll around come time for my re-integration with the working world in May. Perhaps this is just the nature of reading cognitive psychology at the graduate level. And perhaps, yes, I’m committing the cardinal sin of the psychology student: applying what we’re learning about to ourselves. But my sneaking suspicion is that when we’ve reconstructed the tower and are hanging out in stage four, it will look pretty much like it did in stage two. We only took things apart and re-assembled them because of our mistrust of our own automatic cognitive faculties. A greater point to consider, though, is whether or not things proceed stepwise in this fashion at all. This sort of process, of course, is never as linear and discrete as I’m making it out to be here. On a micro level, this sort of thing is happening all over the place, every day. More than that, there really isn’t a stage four. Despite our greatest hopes, wishes, and dreams, the tower will never be finished, the book will never be written. This business of living is a process, subject to continuous revision. Brainstorm, write, and rewrite. Another topic quite familiar to grad school…
music: Jimmy Cliff- The Harder They Come
Have you ever been to Italy? Want to go? Do you seek the experience of Arabic Culture and Folklore in Rome? Well, perhaps I can help. What I mean to say is: Today’s your lucky day! Did you know that Taus is a Persian word for peacock?
Or you perhaps are looking for a male friend? A beau? A husband? Please, I encourage you to look at my personal ad. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Did you know I have black hairs, brown eyes, fair skin?
Maybe I was moving too quickly. Forgive me. Let me make it up to you by decorating your home with high quality needlepoint and crochet. You will not be disappointed. Did you know there really is a Taus, WI?
This has been a most informative exercise. Now hopefully you have come to know a little more about me and can ask me the relevant follow-up questions about my multi-faceted life in days to come.
music: Grateful Dead- Dead Set
Today was a holiday, and to celebrate, I took the day to not do anything related to education, teaching, grad school, or any of that. There is such thing as too much of a good thing, and as good as this grad school endeavor is, there are other things. And I don’t let myself remember that too often.
Instead of working, I played my guitar, slept late, and today drove to Providence and back before a very satisfying nap, radio show, and Murphy’s. For some reason it’s been an extremely emotionally charged day and at the end of it i was feeling very misanthropic which is why I opted out of the Murphy’s after-party which is probably still going on. It’s nice to enjoy a quiet moment to cap off the day.
I woke up around 11:00 and felt the need to get out of Boston for a little bit. Providence was an impulsive trip, and classmate and fellow revolutionary M.McC. came along for the ride, enduring my nostalgia all the while. The highlight was that we met up with former roommate Stylz for lunch and a whopping 45 minutes of catching up. It was a really nice check-in for me, who hasn’t seen this guy I used to live with and see every day for no small time now. Stylz seems to be doing very well, making a go of acting, and moreover finding personal truth in the process. He described acting to me as a process of uncovering and revealing, as opposed to a make-believe or creation of the illusory, which is what I always considered it to be. An interesting notion to say the least; I am more comfortable with the whole enterprise when construed as such. And Stylz is getting a lot out of it. Despite the to-be-expected struggles, he seemed healthy, alive. A good, albeit brief, check-in. The Good Doctor P. was completely MIA and hasn’t returned my calls. He’s probably still on. So it goes in the world of medicine. We all have our albatross.
We did a brief walking tour of Brown and I got nostalgic for days long gone. It was raining out and there weren’t many people around, but still. The place still reeks of experiences I had; little corners of the most obscure parts of that campus hold powerful personal meaning. I called J. from in front of Middle Caswell and left a message. And wiped away a very, very small tear that was probably mistaken for a raindrop.
I was back in Boston by 5:00pm and got two hours of nap in. I crashed hard. Didn’t realize how deep my sleep debt had gotten, but now I feel a lot better. Actually, more rested than I have felt in months. Hardly a coincidence that it was on the first day that I didn’t do any thinking about school since September. I know I’m very hard on myself, but I often don’t realize exactly how hard. It felt good to take it easy for once today. And yet, I’ve got this guilt creeping in about not doing anything today. Tomorrow I’ll make up for it. We all have our albatross.
Murphy’s was excellent tonight. Even tmo was getting giddy; even A. was dancing. The past two weeks really have been exceptional. There’s good energy in that room consistently and the crowds have thinned out a little which is nice. The regulars were there tonight and most are at an after-party, but I thought it more important to do some processing and figure out why I was so emotionally extreme today. Not in a bad way, really, but it’s a fair summary of my moods over the past 24 hours. That, and I really wasn’t up for socializing as much as I was up for some late-night pensive thinking and reflection. It’s nice to take a moment from my day; this weblog is a tool that really allows me to do it effectively and I am thankful for that. But there is tomorrow to think of now: class, schoolwork, and judging from the house whiteboard my roommates are getting prickly about phone bills, bathroom use, the front door and other petty, nitpicky issues. It’s astounding how each wants something out of this living situation, but it’s always something completely selfish, and it’s never said explictly, just written on the whiteboard. So it looks like I’ll wake up to business as usual, but it was good to take a break from it all today. No, necessary. Thanksgiving will be most welcome when it hits in two weeks.
music: Phish- 11/8/96, Champaign, IL
Last night I went to a party for DJ 1ey, who is about to depart for South America for a good amount of time (This, of course, deserves its own entry which will be made some time soon). A most excellent group of friends were gathered there and shared in what was at its core a simple celebration of friendship. It was a great time. I count myself lucky to know so many quality individuals and am glad to be able to spend time with them.
Due to getting in around 5:00 in the morning and drinking too much last night, I had a hard time enjoying the bright morning today. I laid in bed for a while, struggling with consciousness, and after deciding that today would not be a day of work until the sun went down, began to let my mind wander. I tried to piece together a very fragmented dream in which some orwellian trial had sentenced me to an excommunication of sorts for a minor scuffle with some woman I didn’t know. I tried to make a mental list of all the things I had to do for Monday’s classes but quickly gave up on that. And I started to figure out how I have come to know so many good people here.
An answer of sorts came when Trangy called in the early afternoon interrupting, incidently, my train of thought. The first words out of his mouth, even before “hello,” were “happy anniversary.” November eighth….Eleven-eight. Of course. It was seven years ago today that Vounk’s mom’s minivan carried him, myself, Scroto, Krudson, Garbage, and Rosario down to Champaign, IL for our first Phish show. It would be the start of a force that would push my world in new directions, a force that has everything to do with where I am today.
I first heard Phish at camp when I was 13 or so, but didn’t really put some mental effort into the band until the fall of 1995 and spring of 1996. I can remember sitting with Trangy during a fall inservice weekend at camp talking about Phish- trading tapes, going to shows. It was the beginning of a dialogue that approached academic levels of analysis of the band and their music, a preoccupation that bordered on obsession for the next 3-4 years (Trangy, now, is a graduate student of music and culture, earning a Master’s degree in such a conversation). We since had seen the band a handful of times, most recently with sign in tow for a weekend this past January. We have spent ungodly amounts of money, time, and thought on the band over the years, but all of this is perhaps best epitomized in our journey to the Florida Everglades and back to celebrate the coming of the Millenium with P.D., Scroto, 85,000 others, and Phish. It just so happened that one of those 85,000 others was a friend of Trangy’s from college, someone named Tim.
My brief introduction to Tim at Big Cypress was, by all appearances, a non-event. But we crossed paths again that fall at Deer Creek and Polaris, and he came down with Trangy to stay with me when Phish played two nights at Great Woods. So when it came time for me to find a place to live for the summer in Boston, I contacted Tim and shortly thereafter took up residence in a corner of the attic in a big yellow house in JP. By this time, Phish was on hiatus, but the music had spun me in a solid and definite direction. Enter the other members of Chowdahaus: G-Phatty, Peet, Doug, as well as the likes of OGD and DJ 1ey; so begins a social core that would make me feel home in Boston and friendships that survive to the moment.
I think the first time I hung out with the 1ey it involved frisbees and the Arboretum. The music slowly changed, but old patterns remained. We both went to a lot of concerts, and as a rule, the 1ey’s taste in music was something to be respected. Mostly on his recommendation, we hit up the local hotspots, reggae clubs in Brockton, festivals around the Northeast, as well as a little pub in Brookline called Matt Murphy’s. To say that I’ve met a few good people over the course of about two years’ worth of Tuesday nights at Murphy’s would be a collosal understatement. The music, then was expanding and changing, but it was indeed music that was in many ways guiding me along a path.
Concurrently, I began to put some work into Live Live, thereby placing myself in the middle of a thriving and vibrant community whose very foundations were music. Live Live was a constant in-and-out of new and interesting people and their friends, and as such I have Live Live to thank for gaining access to such an incredible collection of people. I count as my friends some of those whom I had the good fortune to interview for the show, friends including the good people from Lothrop and their extended circle (which, by no small coincidence, overlaps almost perfectly with the Murphy’s circles).
Things have recently come full circle in a matter of speaking as a friend I had made in college is now integrating into the Boston network. I shouldn’t be so surprised that C. and I met one night at a RISD party playing hand drums, later spinning off setlists and concert dates. Would it be any surprise that the band’s music we connected through was Phish? It almost goes without saying.
And as a wholly relevant side-trip on this path, I feel it necessary to recall a moment on the first day of my freshman year of college where a boisterous, bearded (hegemonic, malodorous…) classmate approached me with the greeting “ahh, I see you’re in uniform.” I was wearing a Phish t-shirt, as was he. We became friends and would end up living together for the next three years of college. After I introduced him to some of the guys living on my hall over dinner at the Ratty a core group of friends was formed that would, in many ways, define my college experience. That music, and specifically the music of Phish, was once again the driving force behind a significant portion of my life is not the least bit surprising.
So as I was lying in bed this afternoon letting my mind wander, I began to wrap my head around the significance of the rock concert I drove to Champaign, Illinois to see on 11/8/96. In many ways, the friends I have now and the general place in which I find myself can be traced back to this single event. I listen to Phish less and less as time goes on, but I will never put them aside entirely. Because of the role that their music has played in my life, I could never put them aside, even if I wanted to.
Grandma D. gave me a long-sleeved t-shirt a long time ago that she probably got as a promotional throw-in for buying a boombox or something like that. On the back of the t-shirt the phrase “Where The Music Takes You” is printed. It’s by all accounts a fairly ugly shirt, and I used to wear it when working with messy things or playing ultimate. But the phrase clicked some time not long ago (I think, quite honestly, that I was at a Phish show…), and I began to realize exactly where and to what extent the music has taken me. It’s been seven years to the day since I’ve seen my first Phish show, and to make the connection between me as a teenager driving from Milwaukee to Champaign in November of 1996 and me as a twentysomething celebrating so many wonderful friendships at a party in Somerville, MA in November of 2003 seems, now, perfectly natural. I will continue to move where the music takes me, and where there is music, I will follow.
Dripping in this strange design
None is yours and far less mine
Hold the wheel, read the sign
Keep the tires off the line
Just relax, you’re doing fine
Swimming in this real thing
I call life
But can I bring
a few companions
on this ride?
music: The Motet- 12/13/01 Durango, CO
It’s a brilliant sunny day today, although the temperature is threatening to dip below 40. To think last weekend we had a 70 degree Saturday to enjoy. Autumn in New England at its finest. All around the city there are signs of winter preparation. The incoming cold is spurring people into action before it’s just plain uncomfortable to be outside. Things are already making noises about the winter and my bike is no exception.
My two-wheeler has been through the shop a good number of times since the summer. First was a full-out tune up that cost almost as much as the bike did new. Then, thanks to a pack of fine individuals who decided to cover my ride in laundry detergent and fire extinguisher and taco my rear wheel, I sunk another $100 or so into repairs. Things were humming along fairly well up until the weather started to turn towards winter, and then braking problems began.
The first incident was an acrobatic feat of slapstick proportions: i flipped my handlebars at the huge crosswalk in front of MIT on Mass Ave and had a crowd of students and japanese tourists gawking. My brakes had failed to engage, so I had given them an extra little squeeze and was sent flying. Five weeks later the scabs have given way to some scars worthy of a much cooler story.
The brakes have been problematic since. Three of the four are original parts, and after over two years, it’s almost to be expected that they stick. It still is frustrating. I spent some time working on the brakes after biting it but really didn’t get anywhere better than where I was. This past week or two I realized I was pedaling around with the brake pads touching the wheel, effectively doubling or tripling the physical work I had to do to get from here to there. The colder weather is making the brakes stick a little more every day and despite tweaking, adjusting, and decent amounts of lube it’s a constant struggle to get those things to pivot cleanly. I set them so they work fairly well, then when they heat up a bit due to friction, things start pivoting differently and the whole things gets thrown off. It also doesn’t help that my rear tire is out of true again. And it’s a brand new tire. Boston roads will do that.
All that being said, I like taking time to work on my bike. It’s a much needed reprieve from staring at pages upon pages of text all day.
Brakes will become even more essential as the winter rolls in. Things are not progressing from my end anymore; it’s about time to seek expert advice from the good people at Broadway Bikes. Winter’s coming on and my ride really needs to be, quite literally, a well-oiled machine. It’s time to equip my snowspeeder for cold weather warfare.
music: MMW 11/6/96, Cleveland, OH
It’s Tuesday Night (or as they say at Murph’s in the wee hours: TUESDAY NIGHT!!!) and that means I’m getting ready for Live Live and lookiing forward to a night with Jason, Geoff, and the Altitude Gang afterwards. It’s been like this close to two years; Tuesday night is my big night out during the week. Goes to show how much I get out these days.
Since I started grad school, my ivolvement in all things Live Live, and as an extention the greater Boston music scene, has been quite limited. I think that part of it is grad school and the time that it takes up, but I think that it’s also a function of me not being as interested in the music scene as I once was when I first moved here. I see this stemming from a couple sources. The first is that I just burned out on going to shows, and going to shows by myself. I used to do about 3 shows a week because I could, because I was getting in free on Live Live credentials, because I felt like an insider. The second is that I think I found what I was really looking for from the little Live Live project: a community. A social outlet. To this end, Live Live was extraordinarily successful. I can credit my radio show with being the catalyst in meeting a plentitude of quality individuals, many of whom I value as friends and whose company I enjoy regardless of if they play an instrument, regardless of if I’ve interviewed them. Finally, I realized that this fabled “Live Music Community” I was so intent on serving is a community generally composed of white upper-middle class college kids. This isn’t a bad thing by any means (myself being easily lumped into this savory demographic), but after starting up again with urban education in June, I’m just not as concerned about this community as I am about the lower-class minorities in the city. Sure, everyone has their problems and issues, but if one were to compare apples to oranges, one would conclude that urban education is a field in need of much more attention and effort.
That all being said, I’m about to head on out to the A-B Free studios for my two hours on-air as I’ve done almost every Tuesday since January, 2002. I thought about dropping the whole business, but as evidenced by the fact that I have not, I still am attached to Live Live to some extent. It’s a nice card to be able to play in certain circles. It’s a really cool answer to “So, what do you do?” It’s two hours every week that I can listen to music and not worry about anything else. It’s the reason why I am sent free cds every week and offered guestlist privileges to concerts. Not bad for $35/month DJ dues.
Live Live is no longer the well-oiled machine it once was. The website has been down more than it hasn’t recently, and I really haven’t done much about it (by way of nagging tmo). One of my favorite bands is playing Lupo’s on Thursday, and I didn’t even attempt a guestlist or interview situation. I’m not even going, although the my plans for Thursday night might be just as interesting in a different sort of way. I haven’t written a review since June. I haven’t solicited an interview since the summer either. Still, it’s nice to reserve the right to call on credentials to score media passes. It’s nice to help out up-and-coming bands who need the media exposure. It’s fun to romp around on tour buses. It’s cool to say, “yeah, I interviewed him. cool guy.” It’s nice to be a producer of content instead of solely a consumer. It’s nice to fight the fight against media conglomerates like ClearChannel in my own little way. But even if none of that were true, it’s enough to know that every Tuesday night I have a guaranteed two-hour window of uninterrupted music listening in a little garden level studio in Allston. As with any habit, Live Live is a hard one to give up.
music: Keith Jarrett- Vienna Concert
It’s a good thing when a body hits the bed tired, ready for sleep. There’s a sense of daily accomplishment in the feeling that you are going to collapse into a deep sleep at the end of the day. Today is one of those days. It’s almost as if I’m feeling the past three days catch up to me right now. I think that by all outward appearances, the past three days haven’t really been anything too out of the ordinary. But from where I lay right now, i’m feeling it all.
Thursday started at 8:00 in the morning with a graduate section of my environmentalism class. I proposed my final project topic and it went over well: a study of solitude as it relates to the wilderness. I re-read my journal entries tonight from my time in Colorado and Utah last May, I think about how I conduct my life and spend my time, and I realize that this issue is one of immediate and personal importance. It’s a worthy puzzle to solve, at least something with which to tinker for a while. Then classes droned on and on from 2pm-7pm, and I met my folks for dinner, who were stopping by en route to Ari’s parent’s weekend at Wesleyan. Mom presented me with a real treasure: a signed copy of Sandman: Endless Nights that she scraped together at the Wisconsin Library Convention the day previous. Big points on this one. We had a nice dinner in Chinatown, talked about a good, healthy range of topics. In the quest to re-meet mom and Rich and relate on a more adult plane, I’m pleased with the progress. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.
Friday was Halloween, but you never could have guessed it. I hardly celebrated. I had a frustrating day at my high school internship site. In order to learn about “where our kids come from,” we took a little bus around Roxbury and Dorchester and looked at the neighborhood through the window. Then we went to JP and had lunch at Bella Luna. It was three blocks or so away from Bolster Street, where I spent a great deal of time living myself. So much for learning anything. Halloween night was spent writing papers. It’s a tough assignment to distill and elucidate your vision of the purpose of schooling, and even though I’m three drafts into something, I’m not quite happy with the results. It’s a big, hairy, ungainly topic, and quite hard to manage. I don’t think I’m doing a good job with it, but given the time constraings, all the other work that needs my attention, and the fact that I’m taking the class pass-fail, I don’t think I’ll be able to give this one much more. Sad, indeed: not enough doing it and way too much getting it done. I did manage an hour for a Halloween Happy Hour, but it was fairly uneventful. Such is Friday night in Grad School.
Strange dreams abounded Friday night. Two stood out, although I forget the bulk of what they were about. I never can seem to remember my dreams, save a very potent one once or twice a year. Last night they were very potent, but after using my brain so much today, I’ve pushed their memories out almost entirely. So it goes.
Today was an excellent day. I woke up early and worked some on the paper, then did some reading for my Environmentalism class, and then in order to celebrate the unusually warm day, went on a most excellent bike ride with M. to Lexington on the Minuteman Trail. We had a great trip, full of pizza, pumpkin muffins, wandering around Lexington, a belfry, and getting into some pretty impressive conversations all the while. I really do enjoy spending time with her. We biked back into town in darkness and quite silently, which was an excellent moment. Following, we checked in with the 1ey (due to leave town in one week!!) and tmo afterwards for a bit, and then I came back home to bang out a decent draft of the schooling paper. I had aspirations to make a late-night run to somewhere outside the city for some nighttime quietness, but at this rate, it looks as if I’m going to stay put and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another day packed with activity.
So there’s a very rough outline of the past three days. I generally don’t write summaries of things done as much as I write meditations on certain topics, and I’m not sure why I felt the need to document this past Thurs, Fri, Sat. Maybe because they were rich with varied activity, packed full, and at the same time quite typical of the things I do these days. Maybe because I needed a second to pause and catch my breath before the slide down into this coming week begins. Maybe because I needed to stop writing so academically and dig around my own head for a couple minutes. Maybe all of the above. Maybe I should shut off the third eye for once and sleep. Yes, yes. I think that’s the best idea I’ve had all weekend.
