four and a half years
i promise i'll update this weekend. i'll be around a computer for longer.
if you haven't already heard...
so i get all my music for free. and it's legal. i figured i'd share this information with you all.college students (with a pc) can get free music. it's called ruckus. it's offered to anyone with a valid .edu email address. here's a link. sign up. get free music. FREE MUSIC.
https://www.ruckus.com/ruckus/registration/chooseUniversity.do
to john mayer fans
this is actually quite fantastic... only one ever recorded. he should have done more. he might have had something with this. although... eh, just watch it. it's funny.
for breakfast
i love the way e.e. cummings writes poetry. if you read this blog and you have a collection of his poems, can i borrow it?
surely
i was reminded of something that happened this summer about an hour ago.while hiking through the woods at keswick with my second week of campers ever, we came across these lizards. or newts. or salamanders. but these things were bright orange, and really cool to look at. not to mention, there were a lot of them, all over. i told the kids they could look at them, but please don't touch them. obviously, that didn't work. so once they were done playing with them, we went off to other places of interest in the woods.
when we got back to our cabin after the following activity (an hour after we finished hiking) there was considerable hustle and flow around one camper in particular. when i questioned what was going on, the campers looked at me in silence. none of them wanted to speak. i told the camper they were surrounding to show me his hands since he was hiding them. dead lizards. in his small hands, dead lizards.
they were just there, lifeless. their color had drained.
i think it's amazing how human contact can mar some animals. i heard once that if you touch a bird's eggs, or handle a baby rabbit, the mother will never want it. it will be kicked out and left to survive on its own.
it seems as if a lot of this is true for relationships as well. how in everything we do, everything matters. everything. how we talk about our parents, how we treat our friend who's a little awkward, how we talk about the people we don't like. what if our view of others really was the same view as how we view ourselves... what if we were able to love God enough that the view that we have of ourselves is healthy. that we're actually able to love others.
are there issues in our lives where we need to seek God's healing and restoration. are there people we need to talk to and resolve conflicts with before we can tell God we really love him? do we love our neighbor with a self sacrificing love that says the way of Jesus is the right way to live? do people actually see that in our lives? or are we just a shadow of how Christ calls us to live? i don't want to be an imitation. i want to be a part of that greater restoration that God calls his people to.
and all this because of a simple recollection of dead orange lizards.
don't watch this video
U.N.K.L.E. f/ Thom Yorke – “Rabbit in Your Headlights”
(Dir. Jonathan Glazer, 1998)
free tetris
so, one of my residents. actually, all of them. introduced me to free tetris. now i'm not saying it's ruining my life. but it will ruin my life. fo' real. anyways, i figure i should ruin some of your lives too. here's it is.
click picture for go.
back to basics
as i frequently do, i updated the format of the blog again... or layout. or whatever you want to call it. hmm... maybe it's a time for simplicity. i also think uploading things will work better now.
rainbow head
so i've got this slight issue with this band radiohead.they released this new record. in rainbows. and while it is fantastic, i STILL go back to ok computer and listen to it over and over again. every album they have released since it has drawn me back to it. it's the perfect record. in rainbows is good. ok computer is perfect.
just thoughts.
can we?
February 8, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Questions for Dr. Retail
By DAVID BROOKS
QUESTION: Dr. Retail, now that the Democratic presidential race has
entered its long, bloody slog phase, I figured it was time to get a
fresh perspective. Can you explain to me what it’s all about?
DR. RETAIL: Why do you bother me with simple problems? Listen, the
essential competition in many consumer sectors is between commodity
providers and experience providers, the companies that just deliver
product and the companies that deliver a sensation, too. There’s
Safeway, and then there is Whole Foods. There’s the PC, and then there’s
the Mac. There are Holiday Inns, and there are W Hotels. There’s
Walgreens, and there’s The Body Shop.
Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the
less-educated, less-pretentious consumer. As Ron Brownstein of The
National Journal pointed out on Wednesday, she won the
non-college-educated voters by 22 points in California, 32 points in
Massachusetts and 54 points in Arkansas. She offers voters no frills,
just commodities: tax credits, federal subsidies and scholarships. She’s
got good programs at good prices.
Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated
consumer. In the last Pew Research national survey, he led among people
with college degrees by 22 points. Educated people get all emotional
when they shop and vote. They want an uplifting experience so they can
persuade themselves that they’re not engaging in a grubby
self-interested transaction. They fall for all that zero-carbon
footprint, locally grown, community-enhancing Third Place hype. They
want cultural signifiers that enrich their lives with meaning.
Obama offers to defeat cynicism with hope. Apparently he’s going to turn
politics into a form of sharing. Have you noticed that he’s actually
carried into his rallies by a flock of cherubs while the heavens open up
with the Hallelujah Chorus? I wonder how he does that.
QUESTION: But why would Democratic votes break down so starkly along
educational lines?
DR. RETAIL: The consumer marketplace has been bifurcating for years!
It’s happening because the educated and uneducated lead different sorts
of lives. Educated people are not only growing richer than less-educated
people, but their lifestyles are diverging as well. A generation ago,
educated families and less-educated families looked the same, but now
high school graduates divorce at twice the rate of college graduates.
High school grads are much more likely to have kids out of wedlock. High
school grads are much more likely to be obese. They’re much more likely
to smoke and to die younger.
Their attitudes are different. High school grads are much less
optimistic than college grads. They express less social trust. They feel
less safe in public. They report having fewer friends and lower
aspirations. The less educated speak the dialect of struggle; the more
educated, the dialect of self-fulfillment
Did you hear the message of Clinton’s speech Tuesday night? It’s a
rotten world out there. Regular folks are getting the shaft. They need
someone who’ll fight tougher, work harder and put loyalty over independence.
Then did you see the Hopemeister’s speech? His schtick makes sense if
you’ve got a basic level of security in your life, if you’re looking up,
not down. Meanwhile, Obama’s people are so taken with their messiah that
soon they’ll be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings.
There’s a “Yes We Can” video floating around YouTube in which a bunch of
celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and the guy from the Black Eyed Peas
are singing the words to an Obama speech in escalating states of
righteousness and ecstasy. If that video doesn’t creep out normal
working-class voters, then nothing will.
QUESTION: Your cynicism is really interfering with my vibe. I don’t
think you’re feeling the fierce urgency of now.
DR. RETAIL: Believe me, those of us who bill by the hour completely feel
the fierce urgency of now. As John Edwards would say, this is personal
with me.
QUESTION: So does this mean the Democrats are fundamentally divided?
DR. RETAIL: Why do you political people always think in either/or terms?
No. Safeway and Whole Foods people shop in each other’s stores. They
just feel less at home.
QUESTION: So who’s going to win?
DR. RETAIL: Observe the marketplace. The next states on the primary
calendar have tons of college-educated Obamaphile voters. Maryland is
5th among the 50 states, Virginia is 6th. But later on, we get the
Hillary-friendly states. Ohio is 40th in college education. Pennsylvania
is 32nd.
But it’ll still be tied after all that. The superdelegates will pick the
nominee — the party honchos, the deal-makers, the donors, the machine.
Swinging those people takes a level of cynicism even Dr. Retail can’t
pretend to understand. That’s Tammany Hall. That’s the court at
Versailles under Louis XIV.
uninspired
suzi had this on her blog, and since i'm feeling uninspired... here goes:choose a band and answer only in song TITLES by that band.
band: death cab for cutie
are you male or female: i was a kaleidoscope
how old are you: wait
describe yourself: for what reason
how do some people feel about you: someday you will be loved
how do you feel about yourself: all is full of love
describe how you feel about your significant other/crush: i will follow you into the dark
describe where you want to be: stability
describe what you want to be: hindsight
describe how you live: two cars
describe how you love: we laugh indoors
share a few words of wisdom: no joy in mudville
mayer
i know many musicians i'm friends with aren't a big fan of him, but i love john mayer. he's such a freakin' phenomenon in so many ways. it's crazy. but i do love his music. now. i used to hate him. i did. i didn't have a good reason. i did though.but there's something about his continuum album that drew me in... it was actually music. and then i listened to his older stuff. music. i didn't realize that. i guess he dropped out of berkeley for a reason.
so he's got a new single out and it's pretty good. very catchy. great build. sounds capo'd but on the vid of him playing it, he's playing some stuff on the second fret... so maybe 2 guitar parts... or he's muting... but anyways. very well put together. i think he's finally arriving... maybe superbowl material in a few years?
olson and i were talking about that...
who is capable of playing next year at the superbowl?
-dave matthews band
-goo goo dolls
-cold play
-john mayer
-radiohead
-red hot chili peppers
i'm pretty sure none of them have played the superbowl. i'm kind of sick of it being all old men. petty was okay. he's old. prince was great, but they leveled the mix entirely wrong... but still... old. and i don't know why they chose someone like him over a janet jackson... even with a "wardrobe malfunction" a lot of his stuff is way more risque... albeit, better music.
anyways, enough with my rant. off to bed. so let me know who you think should play next year.
for becca bannon
hey, remember james' odd dancing rabbit chocolate snacks? and his men's chocolate candy? well... i was browsing through some old images on my computer and this came up...
covers
so i'm working on getting a few new covers together... i'm realizing the stylistic vein that i tend to go towards now, and i'm going to pursue that. it's weird, because there's nothing relating to my music taste that follows that vein really. maybe pop music. but only on a small scale.qualities of the vein:
simple syncopated guitar picking patterns
inverted major chord tonality
simple 8th note drums, no fills
central vocal aesthetic
so yea, i'm thinking of doing actual videos for these songs instead of just a static picture. we'll see. i'll keep you updated. i've also got homework, but this just may be the weekend project.
rice
i've been listening to a lot of damien rice lately. he's got this great line in a track called cannonball:so come on courage
teach me to be shy
i dunno, i guess i just like the line. and the song.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
