music: Townes Van Zandt- Live at the Old Quarter
I caught myself trying to do nine things at once today: laundry, troubleshooting the electronic crackle in my guitar amp, purging unused clothes from my drawers, pulling down three concerts from archive.org, boiling ravioli for dinner, fixing a zipper, checking my bank statement against my receipts, unloading the dish rack, and worst of all, making a list of all the things I had to do tonight (check about the table hockey game I ordered, go grocery shopping, write a quiz that the kids are taking tomorrow, write a rent check and drop it off, call a guitar technician I know about amp repair, refill migraine prescription).
Ridiculous.
This is the time of year when things gain momentum. School is sliding into its final days. I’m beginning to think about summer. The warmer weather (whenever it comes) catalyzes all life’s reactions. There’s a lot to get done and a short time in which to do it all.
Some people are able to handle having thirty things going at once; I can handle it as well but not happily. I’m the type to order my obligations by relative importance and then run down the list, checking them off one by one. It’s a sign of my mental health when I crave order and productivity enough to start up with the lists, but these days lists grow long and untended. And even though I work my way through them they seem to grow longer such that I never seem to make much headway.
In the midst of all this personal entropy I started to reorganize the cookware cabinet because it was pissing me off how the lesser-used stuff ended up in the front and the big mixing bowls were balanced on top of the smaller ones. I stopped about 30 seconds into the exercise because the ravioli was done and the shows finished downloading and I resigned myself to the fact that in three or so days things would be in a similar state of chaos.
In doing nine things at once I don’t really get any one thing done well. This life of mine has me turning in my hamster wheel something fierce.
Part of the crush I experienced today was because I skipped town to go hiking in the Green Mountains this weekend. The trip to the backcountry afforded me some time and space to meditate and ruminate, to let my mind process so many backed-up thoughts. In high school I made a point to take about an hour before bed every night to sit with a cup of tea and just think-let my mind wander here and there, let it delve into corners of my psyche that needed attention-but there just isn’t time for that sort of thing anymore. Quiet unstructured thinking time has become an extravagance. Hiking, however, provides me with that opportunity again. Hiking itself is a meditation for me-an amount of physical exertion mixed with a self-sufficient philosophy put to practice and a very, very long path to walk as slow as I please. There is no thrill to hiking the way there is to rock climbing or whitewater paddling; you just walk. You walk the path and think. Sometimes after struggling uphill you catch a nice view, but there is no opportunity or reason to do more than walk. Spending time walking through the wilderness gives me that space to let my mind grind and digest all the stuff that it needs to.
It usually takes about three days to acclimate to the backcountry lifestyle, to clear my head of the bombarding demands of regular life, to have my ears stop their city-noise-cancelling ring and be able to actually listen, to get used to sleeping on the ground, to drop into a calm and focused and crystalline mental state. By the third morning of the weekend I was approaching this goal but had to cut off the exercise and come back to Boston. I spent a good deal of yesterday nursing an incredible migraine and spent most of today mopping up all those little details of post-post-modern living that I left scattered last Friday.
This is a time of transition, which doesn’t make things any easier. But my transitions are more internal and seasonally routine than others. I spent my time in the mountains with two friends: one from Boston who won’t be here much longer, one an old roommate from college who I don’t see nearly enough. We three had a positive time, but in our conversations and in my own meditations while hiking I was reminded how much is in transition right now across the board. Jojo is moving to a new and unfamiliar city for a boy. Evan just graduated law school. Each had their own reasons and needs to be up in the mountains and meditate, perhaps more reason than my pedestrian lists of errands, but from my perspective it was good to spend some time with my friends. They are two examples of this flux in my extended circle: another college roommate just received his M.D., and another is off to become a Broadway actor. My sister just shed the majority of her material possessions and is now making her way out of the deserts of Arizona to start her adult life. Things are afoot at home as well- one roommate has already moved out, with at least two more on the way out by summer’s end. What of the countless other individual lives out there swinging through transitions of all kinds this time of year?
We all walk some sort of path, but most of the time we’re so distracted by computers and dirty clothes and bank statements and boiling ravioli to realize we are — right now — in the middle of our journeys. Given the chance to simplify and literally walk the path, the more basic terms of our journey comes into focus for a brief moment. I walk up and down mountains and canyons with 50 lbs on my back, in part, to work myself into this perspective. (That and the chance to catch a view of some fantastic scenery.) The rest of my time on the path is spent oblivious that there is a journey beyond what has to get done for today or tomorrow. And here again, late into Tuesday night, a good hour and a half after I would have liked to be in bed, I’m scrambling, trying to go nine directions at once, not keeping up with my own lists, trying to make these microtransitions as smoothly as possible, stumbling over myself, stretching for that mental place I cultivated nightly in high school and daily on-trail, and trying to remember the lesson from this past weekend in the woods: all I have to do is walk.
music: Beethoven- Synphony #6
We humans need stories. Religion itself probably started out as fantastic stories of explanation. Parables and tales not only passed the long hour, they also were the weapons passed down from old to young to be used against the great unknowns of the universe. And while we might not need our weapons, they are nice to have. Stories give us understandings of ourselves and our surroundings, understandings sometimes far greater than the most powerful telescope or microscope. What many do not realize is that the stories that have been told since the beginnings of spoken language are variations on a handful of common themses: creation, love, falling from grace, the battle of good versus evil. All stories flow from the same spring, but some tap the source so directly that their truths are blinding. This is the origin of mythology.
Myth is not dead. Not yet, anyway. My generation’s mythology takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
28 years after the original release, the final installment of the Star Wars saga was finally unveiled. With Episode III’s release, the original vision of its creator was realized in full and the mythology of our age was rendered complete for the first time. The final Star Wars movie is no small piece of trivia; this is an unarguably important moment for our culture as Star Wars is no mere movie. No simple movie could cause 70,000 Australians claim their religion to be Jedi on official government forms.
The figures that sprang from the imagination of George Lucas are nothing short of cultural icons: Yoda as the sagacious mentor, Han Solo as the honorable scoundrel, C-3PO as the trubador storyteller, Darth Vader as the incarnation of evil. We were given these figures in three installments almost 30 years ago, and have treasured them as we have treasured nothing else from the world of story and tale since. Star Wars and its characters are instantly recognizable symbols.
The more recent installments of the epic tale graced movie screens in 1999 and 2002, and filled in the timeline 30 years before the original trilogy. In terms of script, acting, and special effects the general concensus was that the movies fell flat, but there was a deeper disconnect. There was a piece missing on the mythological level. While the first and second episodes had some similar names and faces, they didn’t click into the narrative that we as a culture know so well.
Until now.
In the telling of the final piece of the tale, however, we see something quite different in Star Wars: the myth that was once so clearly about good versus evil has become something else. Star Wars in its complete rendering is really about a tragic fall from grace and subsequent redemption. The main character is not Luke Skywalker as we once thought, it is his father. And now that we have the whole story as it was originally intended, Darth Vader is not the incarnation of Evil that we once thought him to be. We see clearly that beneath that unmistakable mask is a young man hungry for power, conflicted between love and duty, and mortified by his own human limitations. This is not the stuff of Sci-Fi or action entertainment. This is derived from the stuff of the Arthurian Legends, Grimm’s Fairly Tales, Shakespeare’s plays, even the religious stories taught in communities all over the world. Star Wars is no different from these stories. Star Wars is the taproot of modern mythology.
I take Star Wars very seriously. I’ve studied it quite literally; I’ve written papers for academic credit that compared Luke Skywalker with Yvain of Arthurian legend and Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Jim with Han Solo and Chewbacca. I delved into Joseph Campbell’s work my senior year of high school. I’ve sucked up the auxilliary novels and information guides of the Star Wars Universe; I’ve learned that fantastic pantheon’s history as if it were real. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve seen the original trilogy enough times to be able to recite it all myself. I was excited for Episode III, of course, but also apprehensive. There were worlds to bridge and things to explain. While the outcome of the movie was known, much of the telling was left in question. The last two episodes fell on their faces. Would Episode III meet the discriminating standards of the true Star Wars dorque, the one who could tell you the name of the animal that lives in the Death Star trash compactor (dianoga), the Ewok medicine man (Logray), the names of all the bounty hunters hired to find Han Solo (Bossk, 4-LOM, IG-88, Dengar, Zuckuss, Boba Fett), the chorus to the tune played by Max Rebo, Sy Snootles, and Droopy McCool for Jabba the Hutt (Lapti Nek), or the name, race, and planet of origin of the four-eyed fuzzy alien in the Mos Eisely Cantina (Muftak, Talz, Alzoc III)?
I could pick through every detail that caught my eye in the movie. I could list all the points where things clicked together for this Star Wars Dorque, and there were many. I could try to trace the movement of things from Episode II to the original trilogy. I could talk about acting, special effects, or movie script. I won’t bother. Plenty of people do a better job of that than me, and script or acting does not concern me. Episode III is released, and anyone who cares to get into that stuff is more than welcome. What is important is the telling of the tale, and the impact it had on me.
With wholly appropriate setting, music, and symbolism, Episode III slid seamlessly into what we know of the Star Wars universe from the original trilogy. It all made sense and clicked perfectly, even to the discriminating eye of this Uber-Dorque. I walked out of the movie theater entranced, fully believing the myth, loving Star Wars the same way I did when I was ten. And even though the movie ended on a grim and melancholy note, we had the luxury of knowing the eventual outcome. We Star Wars faithful were sad, but not worried. And we sensed as an infant Luke basked under Tattoine’s desert sunset (as he would 18 story years later), that evil would not win permanently, that love and faith would triumph over hate, that redemption for our true protagonist would eventually come, and that magic is possible.
It is sad to me in a way that the entire tale is told, that a new portion of the story would never again fall upon these ears and eyes. But there is something relieving about it as well. The narrative tension, drawn out longer than I have been alive, has been resolved. We have the complete vision of one of the most powerful myths of our time. We have a pantheon of names and faces more familiar than our neighbors, characters more real to us than some real people. We have now heard the story and because of it somehow understand our own human condition a little better. The Force will be with us. Always.
music: Deltron 3030- The Instrumentals
I talk not about a space ship, but when Yoda himself can count down the days to Star Wars Ep. III on one hand then the mythology of my generation weighs heavy on the brain. More on that later. But about those special modifications…
I had a real problem when I backpacked Europe in the summer of 2000: I had to carry my buttpack by hand when I was wearing my big hiking pack. I bumped into the same problem this past summer and this spring break. Upon returning from Utah, I assembled a gear outfitting list, the top of which contained two projects: sew a tight form-fitting case for the travel guitar and modify my buttpack to become the top of my hiking pack. I must give credit where credit is due, however: Reuben is a couple years ahead of me on this one. His Mountainsmith Tour has been the top detachable part of his hiking pack for some time now, but I think that’s because the daypack that came with it was stolen or lost.
I took my buttpack to the same cobbler who sewed in a panel of pockets about two years ago and in 20 minutes the straps were perfectly in place: two 1” female clips on either side, slightly above the hipbelt compression strap facing backwards, and two 9” pieces of webbing with 1” male clips along the bottom also facing backwards. These lock into the Osprey’s clips perfectly. Stuffed full of gear it’s hard to tell whether or not the buttpack was made to go there. It is superior to the detachable daypack that comes with the Osprey on all levels: more room, more pockets, more flexibility. It fits so nicely I think it’s worth writing Mountainsmith a letter to see if they can’t engineer their stand-alone buttpacks to somehow become modular with their bigger hiking packs.
The bonus is that when not attached to the Osprey, the buttpack now has two webbing straps that run underneath and clip to the front (two more new 1” female clips, halfway up the front and next to the Nalgene holers) so I can carry jackets and layers outside the main compartment and still have the webbing open for other things. It’s actually an attachment the new model Mountainsmiths have built in. The buttpack is itself improved. Genius.
I still need to do some field testing, but things are looking good. I’ll have my buttpack, but will also be able to do extended backcountry trips without having to leave it somewhere or carry it in my hands. Once the travel guitar case (customized to fit on the Osprey as well) is finished I’ll be one unstoppable mobile modular musician. New levels of buttpack dorquedom, really, but you have to be a dorque about something. For me it’s camping gear. And Star Wars.
Yeah, she’s got it where it counts. Now my buttpack rating is just plain illegal. Which is a good thing. Travelling through the Outback isn’t like dusting crops.
music: Spaghetti Western- Do Right By People
The advent of the digital music player is without question changing the way people listen and even the way artists create music. We are quickly becoming an iPod nation; the number of white earphones I see in my classes increases every week. I haven’t jumped on the iPod bandwagon (and Nick’s roundabout link to iPod’s Dirty Secret hasn’t further encouraged me). iPods are great for what they do, but they are a consumer-level device that does not allow for much more than listening to music. Great for most people, yes, but I need a little more.
I’m a nomad guy. Solo trip to the Outback aside, I’ve actually been using a Nomad Jukebox 3, for the better part of three years. It is a bulky beast by industry standards, but the extra features more than make up for it: .wav playback in addition to .mp3, two line level outs, and best of all, lossless analog and optical recording at line and mic levels. The last feature was the real selling point. I could take the thing to a show, plug into a taper or the soundboard, and come away with a cd-quality recording. Now that I’m making music myself that is (sometimes) worthy of recording, the thing has become indespensible. I’ve recored all of our biosphere sessions as well as the acoustic side-project stuff on my Nomad JB3 and it’s come out perfectly. (The recordings, not the playing.) Now that I think about it, I interact with that little piece of electronics on almost a daily basis.
Yesterday I turned on the Nomad to find the LCD screen half blank. There’s now a big horizontal strip running across the top third of the screen that is completely blank. None of the music is lost on it, and I’m pretty sure everything else works perfectly, but now it’s really hard to navigate the menus and playlists. It’s almost like that old Twilight Zone episode where the man is transported to a world with an infinite number of books and all the time he wants to read them and then breaks his reading glasses. The music is still there and I can still record (I think), it’s just going to be a problem getting to it.
This isn’t the first mishap with said Nomad. The line-in jack popped loose about two months ago so I opened the thing up to investigate and tmo did a handy job of soldering that seemed to fix everything. After this last mishap, I think it’s time to start thinking about a replacement Nomad. The thing is pushing three years, which isn’t too bad for technology these days.
I would get another Jukebox 3 in a heartbeat, except I hear that Nomad has discontinued making them. I’m not sure why, as the recording features are really unique. I guess nobody cares about that and everyone is just interested in listening to their dumpy quality mp3’s. But I think it’s worth shopping around a little. If there is another digital music player out there that can record into .wav (and record optical!), can play .ogg, and isn’t limited to proprietary software for transferring between computer and device, I’m all over it. Possibly the iRiver H140? Meanwhile, I’ll blindly stumble through my music collection and hope I hit the right buttons.
music: The Velvet Underground- Nico
I’ve been busy counting squares. It’s that time of year.
I count eight rows of squares, seven per row, until I board a plane to Sydney. I count 37 more squares in which I have to wake up at 6:00 AM and tuck in my shirt. Now that my summer plans have solidified I’ve started counting down to the end of school. To be sure, there’s a lot going on between now and then. I’ve got some frisbee and some music to play, I’ve got some hiking to do up in New Hampshire and Maine, I’ve got to find a summer subletter, and we’ve got a party here at the 1-2. On a more monumental scale, G-Phatty is getting hitched and the last Star Wars movie is coming out. There’s a buttload of school-related obligations too. Fine, fine. But I’m still counting down. It’s that time of year.
The past two weeks have been trying ones at school. Besides being the first two weeks back from a most excellent spring break in Utah, I had the distinct honor and privilege of teaching the most…um…stimulating content ever to cross a teenager’s assignment notebook: human reproduction.
“Aw naw missa, we ain’t goin’ there.”
“Yes. We’re going there.”
Class time was spent stifling giggling (mostly entirely from the boys) and dispelling myths (yes, you can get pregnant your first time; no, birth control pills do not protect you from STDs; no, the withdrawl method isn’t good enough; no, douche doesn’t work either; yes, the female orgasm exists and it serves a purpose). I was embarassingly blunt and honest and played dumb as best I could when kids (kids? these most certainly aren’t children…) asked their hypothetical-i-saw-it-in-a-movie-i-heard-from-my-friend questions. By the end of the two weeks I think everyone had a better idea as to how to keep themselves out of baby and disease trouble.
The toughest part was probably teaching girls about the menstrual cycle. The scientific content was not hard; that I’d never (and never will) deal with menstruation firsthand made things awkward. Still, I was shocked to see that I knew more about fluctuating levels of estrogen than some of the young ladies. It grossed a lot of them out to think about nutrient-rich uterine lining. You’d think that if you had to deal with something on a monthly basis you’d know more about it than someone who didn’t. After one class some girls who were more well-informed said that I did a decent job talking about periods for a dude. I’ll take that.
There were a handful of kids that for whatever reason were completely clueless. Fifteen years old and they still didn’t know where babies came from. I just assumed that they might have heard something about it, even in a locker room from that 17 year old eighth grader somewhere…but I guess not. So I told them. They took the news pretty well. Lots of lightbulb educational moments we educators live for. It was funny to watch happen.
Of all the curricular units I could be teaching when my mother decides to visit…
To give them some credit, the kids handled the reproduction unit with maturity and honest curiosity for the most part. It’s something that they all really want to talk about, which doesn’t happen in school all that much I guess. The kids were really into their project for the unit (designing birth control info brochures for teens) and despite some egregious cases of plagiarism they turned out pretty nice. I get lucky teaching biology; we get free academic reign over the the Big Three topics for teenagers: sex, drugs, and poop.
We moved to the next chapter today, and some kids are sad we’re not talking sex anymore. The history teacher who gets the kids after me is relieved; she couldn’t get much done by way of the Cold War with kids who just finished talking about condoms and mastrubation. I’m glad that things are going to mellow a little again. Reproduction is an important topic but it requires too much energy on my part to keep everything…um…lubricated and running smoothly. At this point, though, it doesn’t really matter what we’re studying. The weather is getting too nice, the college kids are finishing up with finals, and the Boston Public schools has seven weeks left. We’re all getting stuff done, but at the same time we’re all counting squares.
music: Led Zeppelin- Boxed Set, d.1
PASSENGER: TAUS/DAVID
TRAVEL ITINERARY
United Flight 169 Coach on-time
Departing Jul. 4, 2005 Boston, MA (BOS) 6:30 pm, Arriving Jul. 4, 2005 Los Angeles, CA (LAX) 9:50 pm
Flight time: 6 hrs 20 min
United Flight 839 Coach on-time
Departing Jul. 4, 2005 Los Angeles, CA (LAX) 10:40 pm, Arriving Jul. 6, 2005 Sydney, NS, (SYD) 6:25 am
Flight time: 14 hrs 45 min
Total travel time: 21 hrs 55 min
United Flight 8588 Operated by Air Canada Coach on-time
Departing Aug. 4, 2005 Sydney, NS, (SYD)10:00 am, Arriving Aug. 3, 2005 Honolulu, HI (HNL) 11:50 pm
Flight time: 9 hrs 50 min
Total travel time: 9 hrs 50 min
ATA Airlines Flight 4518 Coach on-time
Departing Aug. 18, 2005 Honolulu, HI (HNL) 9:50 pm, Arriving Aug. 19, 2005 Chicago, IL (MDW) 12:55 pm
Flight time: 8 hrs 53 min
ATA Airlines Flight 4152 Coach on-time
Departing Aug. 19, 2005 Chicago, IL (MDW) 2:35 pm, Arriving Aug. 19, 2005 Boston, MA (BOS) 6:03 pm
Flight time: 2 hrs 28 min
Total travel time: 14 hrs 13 min