Thursday, November 23, 2006

November 2006

Books read:

Why Not Me? – Al Franken
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time – Mark Haddon
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
The History of the Middle East – Peter Mansfield
Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie (abandoned)
Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths – Bernard Evslin
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

Music enjoyed:
Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
The Foo Fighters – Skin and Bones
Lily Allen – Alright Still
Gomez – How We Operate
Alex Camaaño Mix - Secret Lunch Hour of the Librarians

I was riding high above the road in the charter bus on my way home from school when I first really got the chance to sit down and listen to Skin and Bones by The Foo Fighters. To my left was the blackened sky that together with the dark sea spiralled off into a black infinity only to be broken up by the occasional commercial liner ship, floating beacons of civilization trudging infinity. To my right was the purple sky of the setting sun. The undulating mountains provided the background of shadows blocking the sun while the palm trees in the foregrounds were indistinguishable yet through shape. The scene to my right was of shapes that had been cut out of black construction paper and placed on a dark purple backing. Why is the dusk sky purple in Valencia? None of this description has much if anything to do with The Foo Fighters or their new acoustic live album, but it has everything to do with the image that will be in my head everytime I hear this album. This album can’t mean the same to someone else like it does me because they weren’t there to see the purple sky and the black palm trees. No one else was paying attention to the perfectly lined glowing globes floating across pitch black nothing to my right. No one else was being re-introduced to “Marigold”.
I met Marigold in 199_. I was blown away by its restraint and by the fact that the drummer was singing, Dave Grohl could sing…who knew? Of course that realization seems silly by now. Yet Marigold remained a needy infant that demanded inclusion into my mix tapes. I couldn’t deny it and from 199_ until 200_ Marigold graced at least one version of a mix tape or CD that I made to win over new friends. You know what…Marigold is all grown up now and he doesn’t need me anymore. The quiet little bedroom tape has given way to a full on aurchistral experience.
I like my live albums muddy. As far as I can tell the mastering and recording of Skin and Bones is near perfection. You can hear the strings restrain against the guitar pick before they leap off into their protesting sigh. It is crystal clear, as if I really was carrying the band along with me in my Dell mp3 player. I shouldn’t like it, but I do…it seems right.
I read on the bus on my way to school and I listen to music on the way home. One way is too loud and I need the book to escape, I couldn’t hear the music anyway. The other way is too dark and I need the music to escape, I couldn’t read the words anyway. I get most of my reading done either on buses or while waiting for them. Here is what I have learned in my bus stop literary conferences….I don’t like Peter Pan. I have been trying to read it for about three weeks now and I keep finding other books to pick up so that I can interrupt it for something else. I continued to do this until I could justify it to myself why it was that I wasn’t able to connect or care about this book. In between my experience with Peter Pan I read The History of the Middle East. I would have made a terrible physicist or European/African/Asian. Once we start dipping into negative numbered years I have problems. The BC(E) dates mess with my head, my grasp on time is very linear and it can only move in a progressive direction, once the numbers begin to digress so then does my comprehension. It is impossible to accurately discuss the history of the Middle East without counting backwards for a good portion of the book. The beauty of being an American is that there isn’t much math expected from me in my history lessons. The other beauty of being an American is that I can make ignorant statements such as the former and it can be shrugged off because well…I’m American.
I started reading The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby and I am stealing his format. I don’t look at is theft I look at as an exercise in free verse thinking. Lately I have been trying to hard to coherently connect dots with lines that would form into a cohesive short story with an absolute beginning middle and end. I had all three of those things and then I lost the ends. A little while later the middles stopped happening, now I am forced to suffer notebooks of beginnings. Eventually those are going to go away too. I am exercising, I am writing….there is no beginning other than to describe a particular Thanksgiving evening in Valencia Spain while listening to a particular song, which incidentally transpired at the end of my day…there goes my beginning.
I wonder what’s on television right now….

Sunday, November 19, 2006

When was the first time that you heard Blister in the Sun?

This past week I went to see The Violent Femmes here in Valencia at Sala Cormoran. Arab Strap provided an unimpressive opener that was difficult to hear through the talking of the Spanish audience. At several points the lead singer would mutter something inaudibly into the microphone and the rest of the band would laugh, obviously on behalf of the joke being made at the inattentive audience’s expense. I wasn’t particularly interested in what Arab Strap had to say or the songs that they were playing, but I did pay to hear them and not several hundred Spanish people yammer on. I also knew that my patience was going to wear thin if they insisted on talking through the Femmes as well.
From the very moment that Arab Strap stepped off the stage, what I had already perceived to be a packed house doubled. The venue had been packed so tight that the late stragglers had to watch from the doorways of the entrance. The moment The Femmes took the stage all attention went forward. Not only was the applause between songs thunderous, but also the crowd singing along with Gordon Gano’s distinctive twang. The band opened up with “Blister in the Sun”, the crowd went mad clapping to the beat and singing along word for word. I was stunned at the turnout and response, expecting the show to be filled with a few English teachers sipping tea and watching from a ratty sofa.
That night, on the way home, I asked the New Yorker, the two Italians and my wife, the Spanish representative in this equation, if any of them remembered the first time that they had heard “Blister in the Sun”. None of them could. I couldn’t place ever hearing it on the radio and to the best of my knowledge I have never seen a video for it on MTV, which growing up were my only two sources of new music. Somehow we had all come together knowing of the Violent Femmes and all being able to sing the song forwards and back without the accompaniment of the actual tune. I simply chalked it up to generational.
The next day, in order to bring real life events to the novels that we discuss, I had mentioned the Violent Femmes show to my 10th grade class. Understand that this wasn’t a case of the newly anointed 30-something English teacher trying to prove to his students and ultimately to himself that he’s still ‘with it’. In the middle of a free jam during “Black Girls” the bass player, Brian Ritchie, had pulled down from his (Ampeg) bass amp a pink and white conch. He had blown into this conch to signal the end of the free for all jam, which the 8 or 9 ragtag assortment of paid musicians and random guests from the crowd respected and ceased playing. Ritchie, with the moment to himself, broke into a conch solo---which within itself was interesting --- before bringing the song to a close. For anyone who has read The Lord of the Flies, understands that the character of Ralph is able to guide and gather the other characters through the guidance of the conch. It is this that I was trying to convey to my students. I hadn’t actually expected any of them to know who The Violent Femmes were.
Until Isabel raised her hand and asked me, “Don’t they sing “Blister in the Sun”?” I stopped my lecture right here and responded that, “Yes they do.” I immediately followed by asking her how she knew. She just shrugged. Another student leaned in and asked “Que?”, to which I responded, “English only”. Isabel hummed the first few bars of the song and the inquiring student immediately knew what she was talking about. The same thing happened when I taught the next 10th grade class later in the afternoon, there too were two students that knew “Blister in the Sun” and there too were two students who couldn’t tell me where, why or how they had heard it…they just seemed to know it.
These four students had blown my generational theory out of the water. Incidentally all four of them were the eldest children in their families, so that also did away with the older brother/sister used to listen to it theory. All four of them are, however, huge Nirvana/early to mid nineties Northwestern United States music scene aficionados (from which The Violent Femmes are not, having formed in Milwaukee Wisconsin and having released their first album in 1983, but are considered an influence to the grunge genre), which does offer explanation to them having crossed paths with The Violent Femmes at some point.
“Blister in the Sun” was released in 1982 as a lead off single for their debut album The Violent Femmes in 1983. In 2005 the song was voted as the only English speaking song allowed on Ireland’s Irish Language Radio Station, likewise it was voted in Australia as one of the Most Essential Songs of all time.
Unfortunately, like much of everything else that I have been writing lately, there is no conclusion to this, its merely a work in progress (if in progress means “will never be touched again after I post this”). I guess I’m just simply starting a discussion for those of you that remember when you first heard “Blister in the Sun” and those of you who will happily admit to never having heard the song.

My Morning Jacket - "Gideon" - Late Show with David Letterman

Saturday, November 18, 2006

U of I Needs a President, Jim Leach Needs a Job...



In light of the Democrat's victory last week I can't help but express voter's remorse over voting against Jim Leach. It seems silly, having never actually met the man, but I liked him and he was a good congressman. For the first time I voted a straight ticket going all democrat. Leach had always been the republican who was okay to vote for, now he is gone and rather unceremoniously.
In expressing my voter's remorse someone had sent me an email about Jim Leach being a good candidate for the next president of the University of Iowa. I looked through my emails to find who it was so I could give credit, if it was you let me know.

Violent Femmes "Add It Up" live 1993

Running Out of Steam

Thursday, November 09, 2006

New Tom Waits - November 21



The Democrats now control the House and the Senate and Tom Waits has a new 3 disc collection being released in a few weeks time. Apparently karma is making it up to us for the last 6 years of Republicans and Green Day.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The Results are in...(most of them anyway)



Senate
Missouri
McCaskill (D)

Montana
Tester (D)

Pennsylvania
Casey (D)

Tennessee
Corker (R)

Virginia - Webb is currently declaring victory, but Allen has yet to concede
Webb (D)
Allen (R)

House
Iowa 1
Braley (D)

Iowa 2
Loebsack (D)

Colorado 5
Lamborn (R)

Florida 16
Mahoney (D)

Illinois 14
Hastert (R) - I kept my eyes on this one just in case, but hadn't really hoped for much

Governor
Iowa
Culver (D)

*Sam if you are reading this, what the hell man? ...Corker?

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Races that I'm watching: Statistics taken from slate.com, as of Friday, Nov. 3 6:59pm














Senate
Missouri
McCaskill (D) 48%
Talent (R) 47%

Montana
Tester (D) 48%
Burns (R) 45%

Pennsylvania
Casey (D) 51%
Santorum (R) 40%

Tennessee
Corker (R) 50%
Ford (D) 45%

Virginia
Webb (D) 47%
Allen (R) 46%

House
Iowa 1
Braley (D) 48%
Whalen (R) 37%

Iowa 2
Loebsack (D) 48%
Leach (R) 47%

Colorado 5
Lamborn (R) 47%
Fawcett (D) 40%

Governor
Iowa
Culver (D) 53%
Nussle (R) 42%

Statistics taken from slate.com, as of Friday, Nov. 3 6:59pm

November Reading and Listening Recommendations

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nite-Time by Mark Haddon
Set in 1996 outside of London, The Curious Incident… is narrated by Christopher Boone a 15 year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome whose mother had recently “died” (note the quotation marks around died – I’ll have to leave solving that mystery up to you). It is narrated in the manner that Christopher is writing a book to solve the mystery of the death of his neighbor’s dog, which he is immediately accused of and held by the police. His innocence is cleared within the first 20 pages and we learn of the real killer of the dog by the middle of the book. What starts as the catalyst for Christopher’s books, which has been suggested by his teacher Siobhan, becomes more of a back story as he stumbles further into his naïve investigations. For the record I don’t like mysteries, but while this is constructed as a mystery it really isn’t as such. I read this book as more of insight into the mind of someone with autism or Asperger’s syndrome. In fact this is the first book that I could definitively say should be taught in Math class of all places. Christopher’s obsessions lie with prime numbers and the chapters are numbered as such. He is fascinated by math equations and puzzles solving and offering several thoughout the book and providing an answer key after the last chapter.


How We Operate by Gomez
Gomez is a prolific British indie band that started in 1998. How We Operate is their 6th album. I’m not entirely sure if I am a Gomez fan or a fan of Ben Ottewell who makes up 1/3 of the band’s lead singers. Ottewell has a distinct voice that could be loosely compared to that of Grant-Lee Philips, as well as more of a folky songwriting style. Should the band have been fronted by only Ian Ball (another 3rd of the lead singers) they could have been billed as more of a dreamy alterna- band with heartwrenching lyrics and doe-eyed ernestness, which isn’t bad, but would make 12 songs worth a bit hard to swallow. As contrasted with Tom Gray who is a little brit-poppy for my tastes, with his ‘sha-la-la’ lyrics. Together the three of them (plus drummer Ollie Peacock and bassist Paul Blackburn) put together quite a solid and enjoyable catalog of tunes. The music seems to be written collectively as a band which allows for consistency as opposed to the impression of listening to a mix tape. What each singer seems to offer are the lyrics and the melody.
The keepers on this album are the title track “How We Operate”, “Chasing Ghosts with Alcohol” and “See the World”. The fillers are: “girlshapedlovedrug”, “Woman! Man!” and “Don't Make Me Laugh” (all of the brit-poppy bits).

Karl Rove, Republican Guru/All Around Sketchy Fella, Predicts Rupublican Domination on Tuesday


In an exchange between Karl Rove and NPR’s On the Media, Rove unnervingly declares a Republican victory all the way around come Tuesday. He claims to have secret polls that the rest of the media does not have access to. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00422.htm