I feel good, just pulling out of this nasty sore throat that everybody at UMSL got. I had a productive week, playing in a talent show, taking on three articles for the paper, and getting all of my homework done. To begin, the talent show. It happened on Wednesday at at the South Campus Honors College, in the chapel. About fifteen people/groups competed in all. I and a good friend of mine, Lydia, played three songs with both of us singing and me strumming.
We played "Televators" by the Mars Volta, "Smugglers" by George Cavanaugh and the Browne Sisters, and "Baby, One More Time" by Britney Spears- as a sort of treat for the audience for sticking through our more thoughtful first two songs with us. It was a lot of fun, we sounded fairly well and came second in our category. Now, there was only one other guy in our category, but still. He won (after singing "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts along with a recording) when the audience applause-o-meter (the chosen method of judgement) was sent soaring by his two adoring and hideously vocal gal-pals who jumped and screamed like banshees at a barn-raising. They were pierced, spike-haired hipstresses who could be heard saying "he's so adorable" about their effeminate boy-toy and laughing at his every flamboyant gesture. I mean no slander to him. He sang very well and wholeheartedly and seemed a perfectly nice fellow. He just needs to lose the dimwitted duo that comprised his screeching posse.
All in all, it was a fantastic night in which I had the pleasure of watching three operatic pieces, a virtuoso four-mallet marimba performance (my favorite of the evening), a delightful barbershop quartet, a jazz trio, and much more. And there was free food, always a selling point.
I had a dream some months ago in which I was back in beloved Boerne at my Aunt Betsy (hey you!) and Uncle Mike's house. I and all of our family was there as we often are in the summer time, and we were all having a great time. The, my grandpa Stewart entered and took his place in the rocking chair he had so often sat in before his death a few years ago. He was talkative and lively and I didn't think anything of it in the dream, until I remember suddenly that he was dead.
When I asked my aunt Betsy what was going on she said, "Oh don't you know?" and then explained that there was a new company/service which provided look-a-like actors who would study up on deceased loved ones of clientelle and then dress up as and "be" that loved one for a holiday or other such event. I looked more closely at my grandfather and only then realized some slight distinctions in his appearance from my real grandfather. I was quite taken with this idea in the dream, and upon waking, decided that it was a crackling-good idea for a story.
I began to write this short-story yesterday and should I complete it, will post it here.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday is game day!
Today is Sunday, and that means that after my morning routine is finished, there are two words on my mind and on my schedule, filling me with dread and excitement. These words are of course, The Current. The Current is our belove paper here at school, and for a good fifteen straight hours it is my cruel, unyielding taskmistress.
I am design editor here as of August, which means that of our twenty-or-so staff members, I am one of two people (the other being our editor-in-chief Mellisa) who must stay until the very second we send out the final edit of the paper. This usually occurs between 4:30 and 6:30 a.m. Monday morning. I arrive, by Melissa's orders, at about 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. I will leave campus only once during the evening, driving down the street to the QT to grab a 69-cent 32-ounze energy drink and, if dinner calls, a $3.99 club sandwich. Tonight I was not hungry, having scarfed down a late lunch right before leaving my house for school; so I got a trail mix from the QT and even that I couldn't finish.
I enjoy the work here, love feeling productive, adore the atmosphere in the Current HQ late at night and am crazy about my co-workers. There are about five of us here until midnight or so. Then anyone in photos will make their goodbyes, leaving Elizabeth (managing editor), Melissa (editor-in-chief) Gene (business editor) and myself. An hour or so later, Gene ducks out. Elizabeth tends to turn in between 2:30 and 3. We are short-staffed, which is why our business editor and managing editor do a hell of lot of page design with me. Elizabeth is interviewing potential new staffers this week, and we are all desperately hoping that she hires every bloody one of the unwitting applicants.
Anyhow, I am here now, brain-deep in it. I'll tell you one thing, compared to any other situation and compared drastically to previous jobs I have held, this is the fastest flying fifteen hours of my week.
An experience about recently:
I covered The Arianna String Quartet's "Folk Infusion" performance Friday night and was incredibly drawn into the experience. The music was awe-inspiring and lush. I was reminded of Alduous Huxley's statement in The Doors of Perception:
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. "
A quartet is a much more intimate experience than a full orchestra. There is an incredible sense of synchronization and coordination among the four players, two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. This synchronizations extends far beyond the music into their bodies which sway and jerk with and, occasionally, seemingly against the music.
These movements seem completely unwilled, as if there is some physical force, some second gravity that affects on these musicians, compelling them to performe this strange dance. How prevalent in dystopic and post-industrial literature is the idea that there can be no worse fate than for a human being to be reduced to a cog in a machine? Yet these four players looked like nothing so much as that as they enveloped the theater in Dvorak's "American" opus. Suddenly the idea reversed in my mind and I could think of nothing more beautiful and perfect than to be a a cog in the most flawless of machines-nature.
And now it's back to the salt mines for me, but I'll leave a treat, some more quotes from the brilliant Huxley.
"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex."
"A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
"Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness."
"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs."
and finally, and I feel appropriately:
"Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them."
I am design editor here as of August, which means that of our twenty-or-so staff members, I am one of two people (the other being our editor-in-chief Mellisa) who must stay until the very second we send out the final edit of the paper. This usually occurs between 4:30 and 6:30 a.m. Monday morning. I arrive, by Melissa's orders, at about 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. I will leave campus only once during the evening, driving down the street to the QT to grab a 69-cent 32-ounze energy drink and, if dinner calls, a $3.99 club sandwich. Tonight I was not hungry, having scarfed down a late lunch right before leaving my house for school; so I got a trail mix from the QT and even that I couldn't finish.
I enjoy the work here, love feeling productive, adore the atmosphere in the Current HQ late at night and am crazy about my co-workers. There are about five of us here until midnight or so. Then anyone in photos will make their goodbyes, leaving Elizabeth (managing editor), Melissa (editor-in-chief) Gene (business editor) and myself. An hour or so later, Gene ducks out. Elizabeth tends to turn in between 2:30 and 3. We are short-staffed, which is why our business editor and managing editor do a hell of lot of page design with me. Elizabeth is interviewing potential new staffers this week, and we are all desperately hoping that she hires every bloody one of the unwitting applicants.
Anyhow, I am here now, brain-deep in it. I'll tell you one thing, compared to any other situation and compared drastically to previous jobs I have held, this is the fastest flying fifteen hours of my week.
An experience about recently:
I covered The Arianna String Quartet's "Folk Infusion" performance Friday night and was incredibly drawn into the experience. The music was awe-inspiring and lush. I was reminded of Alduous Huxley's statement in The Doors of Perception:
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. "
A quartet is a much more intimate experience than a full orchestra. There is an incredible sense of synchronization and coordination among the four players, two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. This synchronizations extends far beyond the music into their bodies which sway and jerk with and, occasionally, seemingly against the music.
These movements seem completely unwilled, as if there is some physical force, some second gravity that affects on these musicians, compelling them to performe this strange dance. How prevalent in dystopic and post-industrial literature is the idea that there can be no worse fate than for a human being to be reduced to a cog in a machine? Yet these four players looked like nothing so much as that as they enveloped the theater in Dvorak's "American" opus. Suddenly the idea reversed in my mind and I could think of nothing more beautiful and perfect than to be a a cog in the most flawless of machines-nature.
And now it's back to the salt mines for me, but I'll leave a treat, some more quotes from the brilliant Huxley.
"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex."
"A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
"Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness."
"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs."
and finally, and I feel appropriately:
"Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
All is Blog
At the urging of my dearly beloved sister Siobhan, and faced with the existence of my brother Will and Aunt Besty's pages, I have created this web log.
In it I intend to write each (more likely: the occasional) day's joys, sorrows, and banalities in an effort to do as a more industrious Kipling might have instructed: to "Treat those three impostors the same". There seem to be unending benefits to doing so, and i love to write. The plot thins.
Listening to Nick Cave's "Get Ready For Love" today I was struck by how much I identified with the opening line of the first verse:
"Well, most of all nothing much
ever really happens
And God rides high up in the ordinary sky
Until we find ourselves at out most distracted
And the miracle that was promised
creeps quietly by".
I then realized how much I disliked the idea that my current view on les affair de ma vie was so reflected. No matter how much truth there may or may not be in this lyric, I pride myself in my tireless ability to ignore truth and live in the glossy world I know. And so I was so bothered by how willingly I gospelized Cave's words. They are just words. He is just a man, an Australian none the less. Having recently thought about how terribly strange a person Baz Lurhmann is, I am particularly weary of Australians at large in any corner of the arts. Suffice it to say that much as I love and admire them, they stir a unique brew down under.
I wish I read more. Is it strictly an issue of time, as I often exclaim to Jessie? Maybe it is, but I am sometimes suspicious of my oft-stated pseudo-belief that if I only had all the free time my little heart desired I would read more. I just don't know, but I certainly hope so. More likely I would gleefully gridlock myself in a multi-hour setup involving the combined pleasures of watching favored movies, eating favored foods, reading from favored websites, and writing favored friends. This is of course, more pleasure than God intended me to have. I am absolutely convinced that the only reason that the laws of phsyics render it dangerous to A) watch tv, B) play guitar, or C) eat, while taking a bath is because people (translate as: Christopher Stewart) would simply stop doing anything else and become those blissfully vapid jello-people in Wall-E.
I ran errands today. I did the crossword (which continues to afford me more pleasure than most activities). I thought about going to work out. I listened to NPR. I watched the news extensively. I ate breakfast and lunch. I turned in homework. I participated in a conference call with actor Michael Chiklis about the upcoming film "Eagle Eye" which he is in. I spent time with Jessie. I picked out songs for the "High Brow, Middle Brow, Low Brow" event coming up at school. They are: Take it Easy-the Eagles, Redemption Song- Bob Marley, Smugglers-George cavanaugh+Browne Sister, Will Ye Go, Lassie Go-Clancy Brothers(the version I know). I called Siobhan and John Ganta. She and I spoke thoroughly and enjoyably. He never called back, the cad. I turned in homework. I had coffee in the loop. It was a good day, a nice day, a Saturday.
I spoke with a friend the other day who had recently been mugged. He told me that on the metro he had shared his woeful story with a fellow commuter who had replied, simply: "Hey man, the sun's still shining". And the moon still glows...As for my Nick-Cave-inspired excursion into gloomier philosophical territory, it goes into the file in my mind regulated by the following Vonnegut quote from "Cat's Cradle":
"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why why?'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."
A suitable answer, and at the same instant a far warmer outlook. Could human (philosophical) nature be better condensed?
In it I intend to write each (more likely: the occasional) day's joys, sorrows, and banalities in an effort to do as a more industrious Kipling might have instructed: to "Treat those three impostors the same". There seem to be unending benefits to doing so, and i love to write. The plot thins.
Listening to Nick Cave's "Get Ready For Love" today I was struck by how much I identified with the opening line of the first verse:
"Well, most of all nothing much
ever really happens
And God rides high up in the ordinary sky
Until we find ourselves at out most distracted
And the miracle that was promised
creeps quietly by".
I then realized how much I disliked the idea that my current view on les affair de ma vie was so reflected. No matter how much truth there may or may not be in this lyric, I pride myself in my tireless ability to ignore truth and live in the glossy world I know. And so I was so bothered by how willingly I gospelized Cave's words. They are just words. He is just a man, an Australian none the less. Having recently thought about how terribly strange a person Baz Lurhmann is, I am particularly weary of Australians at large in any corner of the arts. Suffice it to say that much as I love and admire them, they stir a unique brew down under.
I wish I read more. Is it strictly an issue of time, as I often exclaim to Jessie? Maybe it is, but I am sometimes suspicious of my oft-stated pseudo-belief that if I only had all the free time my little heart desired I would read more. I just don't know, but I certainly hope so. More likely I would gleefully gridlock myself in a multi-hour setup involving the combined pleasures of watching favored movies, eating favored foods, reading from favored websites, and writing favored friends. This is of course, more pleasure than God intended me to have. I am absolutely convinced that the only reason that the laws of phsyics render it dangerous to A) watch tv, B) play guitar, or C) eat, while taking a bath is because people (translate as: Christopher Stewart) would simply stop doing anything else and become those blissfully vapid jello-people in Wall-E.
I ran errands today. I did the crossword (which continues to afford me more pleasure than most activities). I thought about going to work out. I listened to NPR. I watched the news extensively. I ate breakfast and lunch. I turned in homework. I participated in a conference call with actor Michael Chiklis about the upcoming film "Eagle Eye" which he is in. I spent time with Jessie. I picked out songs for the "High Brow, Middle Brow, Low Brow" event coming up at school. They are: Take it Easy-the Eagles, Redemption Song- Bob Marley, Smugglers-George cavanaugh+Browne Sister, Will Ye Go, Lassie Go-Clancy Brothers(the version I know). I called Siobhan and John Ganta. She and I spoke thoroughly and enjoyably. He never called back, the cad. I turned in homework. I had coffee in the loop. It was a good day, a nice day, a Saturday.
I spoke with a friend the other day who had recently been mugged. He told me that on the metro he had shared his woeful story with a fellow commuter who had replied, simply: "Hey man, the sun's still shining". And the moon still glows...As for my Nick-Cave-inspired excursion into gloomier philosophical territory, it goes into the file in my mind regulated by the following Vonnegut quote from "Cat's Cradle":
"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why why?'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."
A suitable answer, and at the same instant a far warmer outlook. Could human (philosophical) nature be better condensed?
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