Rock On, Chris John!

"This station is now operational!"

2012-01-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest regrets of my teenage years was that I didn't discover At The Drive-In early enough to catch them live. I read about their high energy live performances and could only dream of how awesome they would be in a small club, but unfortunately, they broke up before I ever had the chance.

After today, my dream of seeing them live might come true.

At The Drive-In announced today that they will be breaking their 11 year silence. They're lined up to play both weekends at this year's Coachella music festival in April. April is going to be the craziest month of the year for me at work with the release of the 1940 US census, so there's no way I'm going to be able to take any time off. I'm crossing my fingers that their reunion is going to result in more than just a few shows here and there. I'm hoping for a full tour and a new album.

I'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, here's a video of the band performing on Letterman back in the day.

2011 in Review

2012-01-03T17:27:00.002-07:00

2011 was a good year, but it was also a fairly uneventfulyear for me. I got a promotion,went on a couple trips (Seattle and Washington, DC), took up a couple newhobbies (bowling and photography), and otherwise did the same things I’vealways done (read books, listened to music, and watched movies). Future biographers would find littleworth mentioning about 2011 and would have to push forward to find somelife-altering events.

My biggest regret of 2011 is that I didn’t write more,especially after I finally overcame the mental block preventing me fromreturning to my unfinished novel in December 2010. I spent most of the year preparing to resume work on mynovel, but I never quite got to resuming work on it. I did accomplish a decent amount during that time but no actualwriting. However little I wrote, Ithought of little else all year.

If 2011 was The Year of Thinking About Writing, then 2012has to be The Year of Actual Writing. My life is in the perfect place to get a lot of writing done. I do not have any dependents, nogirlfriend to distract me (though that’s a distraction I would gladly accept),and I have everything to gain. Ineed to put my dream of becoming a writer to the test, and the time is now.

While I hope that most of the writing I will accomplish in2012 will be in my novel, I want to resume updating this blog regularly aswell. I have set a goal to postupdates three times a week. Theymay not be very substantial updates, but they will be regular and helpcontribute to meeting the goals I have for my writing in 2012.

I don’t have much else to say in this post, but here are thesubjects for a few of my upcoming posts: favorite songs/albums, books, and movies of 2011, a longessay on why I need to write, and whatever else I may think of.

That’s all.

2:00 a.m.

2011-12-13T02:20:00.001-07:00

It's hard to let go of these ghosts.

The ghosts of the living haunt me and never more so than these late nights when I wonder why things are the way they are and why I feel so powerless to change them.

I chide myself for thinking that maybe today of all days would bring something different. My brain knew better. How foolish I feel for allowing myself to hope. And yet, there's the bittersweet pleasure of being right in the end. Always right but praying to be proven wrong.

How much longer, ghosts, will you haunt me? How much longer will your presence fill me with regret and sorrow? Will you ever recede fully from my thoughts as I must have from yours some time ago?

We are bound together in some unholy one-sided union that I call torture, my own personal hell.

Others call it friendship.

"It's Real" - Real Estate

2011-10-18T22:37:00.003-06:00

This is my current song of the whatever: "It's Real" by Real Estate. Great tune from a great new album.

Light Bulb

2011-09-20T01:09:00.002-06:00

Why do good ideas only seem to come to me late at night when I should be sleeping? Not that I'm unhappy the ideas come to me, but sometimes I wish creativity would conform to a convenient schedule. I am, after all, a working man. That being said, tonight's idea was a pretty good one.

As I've often stated in the past, I really need to blog more. I'm going to do better! I promise! But first, I need sleep.

"What good is it to sing helplessness blues?"

2011-06-13T23:28:00.003-06:00

For no apparent reason last week, I decided to listen to Helplessness Blues, the recently released sophomore album by Fleet Foxes. I'd given it a couple listens when I first got the album a month ago, and I had more or less enjoyed it. I then purchased the vinyl when I heard the album played in a record store and found myself really enjoying it. But until last week, I really hadn't spent a lot of time with the album.

When I listed to the album again, it all felt so familiar, more than it should have with the limited time I had spent with it. Maybe it was the upturn in the weather that made the music resonate more with me. I don't know. It just clicked, and I've been listening to it heavily the past week. If you've never listened to Fleet Foxes, you are missing out. They play an Americana, folky type of indie rock -- I hesitate to call them rock; it just feels completely off. What really sets the band apart is Robin Pecknold's vocals and the soaring harmonies that accompany his melodies. Really amazing, beautiful music.

I've had a couple "moments" -- for lack of a better term -- with their music this past week. They've taken place while driving home from work, when I can just let the music wash over me and help me relax and put work behind me for a few hours. These moments occurred as I focused on the lyrics and really listened to what the songs were about. What resulted were powerful connections to the songs ("Helplessness Blues" and "Someone You'd Admire") that may not have drastically changed my worldview or brought about some miraculous transformation, but rather left me different, a little happier, a little more resolute to achieve what I need to achieve.

I highly recommend checking out this band and both of their albums. I've included links to these songs on Youtube.

Helplessness Blues

Someone You'd Admire

Monthly Mix: May 2011

2011-06-01T23:23:00.004-06:00

May was an interesting month for me. It began similar to April, i.e. with me listening to pretty much just Sharon Van Etten. Whereas in April I was all about her latest album Epic for its more expansive scope in instrumentation and dynamics, I found myself listening to her debut album, Because I Was In Love, much more this month, for the very reasons I had initially put it off (sparse instrumentation, mostly just acoustic guitar and her vocals). I have to say this about Sharon Van Etten: I could listen to her sing all day. I'm conflicted because I am grateful that her music exists, but I can hardly fathom that someone would break her heart or cause her any of the emotional pain that is present in her songs. I listen to her and think to myself, "I would never do anything to hurt this woman." I realize she's just a normal human being, a very kind and humble one at that, who experiences normal human emotions, same as everyone else, but as a listener you marvel that anyone would treat her like some normal human being and not a musical goddess. So, person who treated her like a normal human being, thanks for inspiring her to create sublime music, but how could you hurt her?! How do you live with yourself? I wonder what life is like knowing that your break-up with someone lead them to create amazing music. Do you feel deserving of a little credit? I'll probably never know. I use three of her songs in this mix: one to kick things off, one in the middle, and one to close the mix.

Back to May. Things changed pretty drastically during the last week and a half of the month. I acquired some new albums and made a conscious effort to listen to them. (Too often I don't spend enough time with new music and it falls between the cracks and gets ignored). Two of these albums dominate my May mix, making up 9 of the 15 tracks. Smother, the third album from UK art-rock band Wild Beasts, could be considered my album of the month. Their track, "Bed of Nails", is easily my song of the month. I must have listened to it at least 40 times last week alone. Wild Beasts was one of those bands where I liked everything I had heard from them but never felt a desire to really dig in to their albums. Everything fell into place when I listened to Smother. I recognize that their style may put off some listeners, but I hope people will enjoy the songs I selected. Give them a few extra listens if you're not immediately a fan. It's impossible to escape Wild Beasts in this mix.

The other album that dominated the end of the month is Hooray for Earth's True Loves. I read some strong praise online for the album and decided I needed to give it a spin. I'm glad I did. I suppose I'd classify them as synth-pop, as they mostly use layers of synthesizers, drums, bass, and a few guitar parts here and there in each song, but I think that classification doesn't convey how good they are. Their music is dense and massive. It's not cold and sterile like a lot of music with strong electronic elements. Maybe that's because of the hooks, but I would urge you to not dismiss it offhand because of my description. "Sails" is my favorite track, but the whole album has grown on me a lot.

Enough rambling, right? Here's my May 2011 mix.

Sharon Van Etten - "For You."
Wild Beasts - "All the King's Men."
Hooray for Earth - "Last Minute."
Cults - "Abducted."
Wild Beasts - "Bed of Nails."
Hooray for Earth - "Realize It's Not the Sun."
Wild Beasts - "Loop the Loop."
Sharon Van Etten - "Have You Seen."
Wild Beasts - "Hooting & Howling."
Antlers - "Parentheses."
Wild Beasts - "Lion's Share."
Metric - "Hustle Rose."
Wild Beasts - "We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues."
Hooray for Earth - "Sails."
Sharon Van Etten - "Keep."

Just a public service announcement.

2011-05-29T20:25:00.004-06:00

Music never sounds better than through a pair of high-quality headphones. It always amazes me just how big of a difference a quality set of headphones can make.

That's all.

Monthly Mix: April 2011

2011-05-18T19:45:00.003-06:00

Stacey told me that I should make a mix each month to document what songs I've been listening to most, and I immediately accepted her idea. Each month I'll throw together a mix without much fanfare and post the tracklist and a link on this here blog.

April was a good month for music. I found myself, for whatever reason, listening to a lot of female artists or bands with female vocals, the foremost of these being Sharon Van Etten. I saw three very, very good concerts during the month (Wye Oak at Kilby Court, Sharon Van Etten and Little Scream at The State Room, and The Arcade Fire and Local Natives at the UCCU Center), and I discovered a handful of new artists that I immediately liked and listened to extensively. Anyway, click here for the April 2011 mix.

Little Scream - "Cannons"
TV on the Radio - "Second Song"
tUnE-yArDs - "Gangsta"
Local Natives - "World News"
Wye Oak - "Holy Holy"
Sharon Van Etten - "Don't Do It"
TV on the Radio - "Repetition"
tUnE-yArDs - "Bizness"
Local Natives - "Sun Hands"
Wye Oak - "Hot as Day"
Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"
The National w/Sharon Van Etten - "Think You Can Wait"
Little Scream - "The Heron and the Fox"
Sharon Van Etten - "Love More"

131 Days Late: My Top 10 Albums of 2010

2011-05-11T21:12:00.001-06:00

I started a post back in January, and it was going to be lengthy and awesome and very descriptive. But...I never finished it, and it's unlikely that I will ever finish it so I decided to just post the abridged version of my top 10 albums of 2010. For those who care, here it is in no particular order:

Top 10 Albums of 2010:

1. Liars - Sisterworld. Brief description: unique sounds from a very unique band, not for the musically unadventurous. Favorite cuts: "Scissor", "No Barrier Fun", "Scarecrows on a Killer Slant", "The Overachievers", "Goodnight Everything."

2. The National - High Violet. Brief description: most anticipated album of the year and did not disappoint. Favorite cuts: "England", "Afraid of Everyone", "Anyone's Ghost", "Little Faith", "Conversation 16."

3. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me. Brief description: one of the most unique artists (plays harp, sings like a renaissance minstrel/forest sprite) puts out a massive triple album of gorgeous music. Favorite cuts: "Good Intentions Paving Company", "Easy", "Does Not Suffice", "Soft as Chalk."

4. Menomena - Mines. Brief description: complicated and intricate indie rock that seems effortless. Favorite cuts: "Oh Pretty Boy, You're Such a Big Boy", "Intil", "Taos", "Bote."

5. Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart. Brief description: perfect mixture of classic and psychedelic rock creates a timeless rock and roll experience. Favorite cuts: "The Hair Song", "Old Fangs", "Wilderness Heart", "Roller Coaster."

6. Buke and Gass - Riposte. Brief description: man and woman duo playing hybrid instruments and making extremely unique and thoroughly awesome music. Favorite cuts: "Medulla Oblongata", "Medicina", "Sleep Gets Your Ghost", "Red Hood Came Home."

7. Screaming Females - Castle Talk. Brief description: tiny female wails on guitar (she seriously shreds and is only like 5 feet tall) and belts out awesome vocals. Favorite cuts: "Normal", "A New Kid", "I Don't Mind It", "Ghost Solo."

8. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach. Brief description: Gorillaz doing what Gorillaz do best. Favorite cuts: "Rhinestone Eyes", "Empire Ants", "On Melancholy Hill", "Glitter Freeze."

9. Autolux - Transit Transit. Brief description: long awaited follow-up takes band in a different but outstanding direction. Favorite cuts: "Census", "Supertoys", "Audience No. 2", "The Science of Imaginary Solutions".

10. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid. Brief description: Monae pulls off an astounding number of styles with her astonishing vocal range and endless ambition. Favorite cuts: "Oh, Maker", "Cold War", "Tightrope", "57821."

There you go. That's about as concise as I get.

Words from the past.

2011-05-10T23:07:00.002-06:00

I wrote the following at least six years ago, but it feels especially pertinent at this moment.

I imagine you think of me every now and again. Maybe something catches your eye and makes you remember something I once said or did. Maybe a little bit of me rubbed off on you like that fine layer of dust you find covering the television screen -- you never really notice it until you take a good long look at it.

"I wonder what she wished for. I just wished for you."

2011-03-29T22:28:00.003-06:00

I honesty intend to start blogging with more regularity. I miss the Golden Age of Blogging, which seemed to be 2008 for my peer group. I miss having interesting things written by interesting friends to read at various times of day. If you have a blog and are reading this, know that I am supportive of any and all efforts to blog.

In other news, it's looking like it's going to be a very good spring for concerts. I already have tickets to see Arcade Fire, Mogwai, and Janelle Monae within the next two months. Then there are a bunch of other shows I want to see as well. This weekend I am hoping to attend two shows: Wye Oak on Friday and Sharon Van Etten/Little Scream on Saturday. I'm especially looking forward to Saturday's show and have been listening to Sharon Van Etten and Little Scream a lot this week. Little Scream's "The Heron and the Fox" has become my song of the week. Normally I'm not a huge fan of folksy music, but both these artists don't make typical girl-with-acoustic-guitar music.

Here's a live performance of "The Heron and the Fox" by Little Scream, filmed inside a station wagon. Enjoy!

Little Scream: "The Heron and The Fox" (live) from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

My Two Minutes of Fame.

2011-02-08T22:12:00.001-07:00

Check out this link. The very first comment in the blog was written by yours truly. I don't know that my writing career will ever surpass this.

Sadly, I'm not joking.

JIMMER!!!!

2011-01-26T23:32:00.001-07:00

JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(This was me at the BYU-SDSU game every time Jimmer did something amazing).

Scanning Memory Lane

2011-01-18T17:10:00.008-07:00

I spend a good portion of my day off scanning old family photos, and it was really quite the worthwhile experience. Here are a few pictures that make me smile and/or laugh.

This was Janessa's first birthday/Easter celebration in 1987. Though I was but three years old, the love of sports was already growing inside me, even if it was misguidedly directed towards baseball.

That's me on the far left, rocking the awesome red outfit and knee-length socks at the Dinosaur Gardens in Vernal. Also, note my brother Michael's awesome short shorts.

Preschool graduation day with my buddy/little sister, Janessa.

This picture forces me to ask myself, "Where has my hard edge gone?"

This picture was taken at a kindergarten program. I don't remember what the program was about or what I was saying, but I am a fan of my threads and my firm two-handed grip of the mic.

Seeing this picture made me very happy. To be honest, I didn't even remember it, though I'm sure I have seen it many times in the family photo albums. The reason I was so happy to see it is that I believe it is the earliest picture, at least in my family's possession, of me (far right) and Justin Betts (center). A lot of the photos I scanned were taken at birthday parties with friends that I have lost contact with over the years, but to find a picture from way back with the friend that has most helped me to understand the true value of friendship was a definite highlight of my day/week/year so far.

Where is it, boy?

2010-12-09T00:07:00.003-07:00

It's eight days into December, and you may be asking yourself, "Where is the novel you said you were going to write in November?" The answer to that: [crickets chirping].

So National Novel Writing Month has come and gone, and I did not write the novel I said I was going to write. I failed for a number of reasons. Here is my defense:

I had a very important, very large, and very complicated project dropped on me at work, without advanced notice. This project required a lot of work and took its toll on me mentally. Writing in that state would have been extremely difficult.
I decided to write a novel before I even had an idea for a story. I think it should probably be the other way around. My first idea to write a robot's autobiography didn't take off, and then my second idea was to take my idea for a TV series and turn it into a novel. I did a lot of conceptualization and made good progress with plot points, but never actually got any real writing done.
A non-literary creative idea (short film) got in the way. My company announced a Film Festival/contest, encouraging employees to make a 60 second video to be played at the company Christmas party. My team and I came up with a good idea (an Antoine Dodson parody, complete with actual autotuning), and we put it together. We ended up taking third place and winning $250 dollars ($25 for each person). It hasn’t been announced yet, but we feel pretty certain we won the People’s Choice award. We definitely got the best and most cheers when our video was played in front of everyone.

Those are the biggest reasons why I wasn't able to write a novel in November. I really wish I had succeeded, believe me, but I'm not too torn up about it. I was lying in bed early last week, and, as I frequently do, I was thinking about the stories I wanted to tell. I started thinking about my unfinished novel --- December 17th will mark eight years since I started it --- and I wondered why I've felt so powerless to complete it.

Back when I thought I was going to finish my novel before graduating college, I liked to describe it as conveying the "essence of my adolescence," and I figured I wouldn't be that far removed from adolescence when I finished it. My goal was to finish my novel before graduating from college.

As they always do, things got in the way of my plans. It turned out to be pretty hard to find time to write when I was a full-time student at BYU and working 20 hours a week. Life disregarded my goal, and I never could get back into a good writing routine. I successfully co-wrote a weekly newsletter thing (the old Access: Denied) for some twenty-five consecutive weeks, but I never made much progress on my novel. Then school got really tough --- who knew double majoring would require a lot of work? --- and I basically gave up on my goal.

Years passed and I felt so removed from the 19 year-old kid I was when I started writing my book that I didn’t think I’d ever manage to resume writing it. At least until last week.

There I was, waiting for the sweet oblivion of sleep, and I started thinking about the novel I didn’t write in November. It didn’t take long for my thoughts to turn to the novel I started but didn’t finish. Eventually I asked myself, “Why can’t I start working on this novel again? What has been holding me back?” I could not think of a valid reason why I couldn’t resume work immediately. The old hang-up, of my book being about my adolescence and my no longer being an adolescent, no longer held water. I realized that yes, I would have to do a lot of revising, but I already knew that, even when I was just twenty-one and not much of an adult. I realized that my work’s autobiographical nature shouldn’t restrict me from working on it even though I’m no longer the person I was when I started writing it. I’ve changed, but the beauty of my novel being mostly unwritten is that I don’t have to revise that much. I was just struck that night, for whatever reason, by the realization that not only could I complete my novel, but that I wanted to complete it.

I remembered something I had learned in one of my film classes. There are two questions to ask when attempting to define a character in the most basic and essential terms: what does the character want? And what does the character need? Most central conflicts arise from discrepancies between the wants and needs of a character. My novel wasn’t really about me or the life I had as an adolescent. Yes, that life and my experiences informed a lot of the novel’s plot, but they did not define my protagonist. What did define my protagonist were his wants and his needs. And those wants and needs had not changed even though I have changed quite a bit in the eight years since I started the work. More than that, I think that I now have a deeper and more complete understanding of the protagonist’s wants and needs. Eight years ago I thought I knew what was driving my protagonist, but I see now that my understanding was pretty superficial. Life has prepared me to understand him better, and if delaying my novel has been worthwhile in any way, it will be in the lessons I learned during those eight long years.

A Certain Kind of Weird is not dead. Let’s think of it like it’s waking up from its hibernation, or returning from an unfortunate but necessary exile. I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to finish. There really is a lot of work to do, but rather than crank out a 50,000 word novel in a month, I’d rather try and put the 61,000 words I already wrote to good use.

Yesterday I read a lot of the notes and outlines I created years ago (which really was quite extensive), and it got me excited to return to these characters and their silly story. Though the amount of work to be done is staggering, I am not discouraged. I have to basically do a full revision of everything I’ve already written (especially the first chapter) before I can push the story out into new territories. I’m looking forward to the challenge of reconciling the tone and voice of my writing from eight years ago with my current tone and voice. Really, that’s the biggest challenge facing me. I know there will be some cringing as I read my work again, but I think I’m ready to deal with it. Most of all, I’m ready to reacquaint myself with my characters.

Maybe I’m finally prepared as a writer to complete my work.

My Newest Nephew!

2010-12-06T22:29:00.003-07:00

On Saturday, 04 December 2010 at 12:05 p.m., my sister Janessa gave birth to her firstborn, Carter David George. He weighed 8 lbs. 14 oz. and was 21 inches long. Today they both went home.

Congrats to Janessa and Brett! I plan on spoiling this kid rotten.

Here are a couple pics:

Late Autumn Mix

2010-11-21T19:14:00.002-07:00

I finally got around to putting together a Late Autumn mix. Even though it's already gotten cold and we've received snow, I think a Late Autumn mix is still appropriate. It's not unofficially winter until after Thanksgiving in my book. Anyway, I am pretty pleased with this mix. I managed to keep it under 80 minutes, which is not the easiest thing for me to do --- no two-part mix this time. I think the tone remains quite consistent, with just enough variation to keep things interesting. I made the mix available in two formats: a .zip file containing the individual tracks and a single, long-playing mp3 with all of the tracks and transitions.

Here's a track-by-track run through of my Late Autumn mix:

"My Life" - jj. This song is a cover of "My Life" by The Game, but you'd never guess that if you had only listened to the Swedish duo's take. This song is the perfect lead-off to the mix. Just piano and vocals.
"Cherry Tree" - The National. As I was thinking about which songs to include in this mix, I decided early on that I wanted to avoid the songs that would come to mind easily. That meant that I'd have to dismiss certain bands or songs that always come to mind when I'm putting together mixes. The National is a band that definitely comes to mind when I'm thinking about autumn. I've tried to share this amazing band with others as much as possible so I definitely wanted to include a more obscure selection in this mix. "Cherry Tree", released on the Cherry Tree EP is a song that I think some of you National fans may have never heard. It's quite stunning.
"November" - Azure Ray. This is the only song I've heard from the group, and, as you would guess from the title, the song is a perfect inclusion for this mix. Again, this somber song is quite simple: an acoustic guitar, cello, and beautiful female vocals.
"Flume" - Bon Iver. No autumn mix would be complete without Bon Iver. Some artists just capture a season's essence, and Bon Iver and fall are almost inseparable in my mind. I could have picked just about any track from the amazing For Emma. If you've still yet to check the album out, do it now.
"H in New England" - Max Richter. I first heard this song featured on an NPR music program, and it blew me away. It's a short piano piece, and it is sublime. It's the first of two instrumental tracks on this mix.
"Love is Stronger" - Sebadoh. This is the first track on the mix with a distorted guitar. It's full of melancholy in the lyrics and the music. It also has one of my favorite guitar solos, nothing amazing in terms of technicality, just incredibly emotive.
"Your Protector" - Fleet Foxes. This band's music has always made me want to drive through the mountains with the windows down and the volume up. Their music works as both spring and fall music. I decided to go with one of the songs that gives me a more distinct fall vibe.
"How to Disappear Completely" - Radiohead. It hit me while looking through Radiohead's discography how many of their songs I could classify as fall music. They've never recorded the sunniest music, and there's just something about their music that makes me think of this time of year. (On a side note, Radiohead is definitely night music --- there's an interesting correlation between night music and fall music). This is my favorite track from Kid A, and it features one of my Top 5 Radiohead moments near the end of the track.
"Shame" - Low. Low is a band that I've always read great things about, but I'd never gotten around to listening to their music. I finally found an album of theirs and give it a go. I've been really impressed. Very simple but beautiful music. I need to listen to more of their music to prepare for their mid-December show in SLC.
"Enchanting Ghost" - Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is an incredible musician. This song comes from a great EP he released a few months ago. This is simply a great song.
"Foreground" - Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bear is a band that kills it live. They're so great live that I struggle to really get into their albums. Nonetheless, they always have a handful of songs on their albums that blow me away. This song is part of that handful from their most recent album, Veckatimest. Again, a very simple song that's mostly piano and vocals.
"For Real" - Okkervil River. This is probably my favorite Okkervil River song. It may have been their first song I ever heard. I chose to include it because I felt the mix could use a song that hits a little harder. The song makes me think of the way the days grow darker and darker as winter looms over the world.
"Sorry" - The Wind-Up Bird. This is the second instrumental track on the mix. It comes from a very interesting album, Whips, in which the titles of the eight tracks come from a heart-wrenching voicemail, "Sorry that I've become this monster -- I love you a lot." I first heard a different track from the album in which the actual message is played over and over, little by little being deconstructed and transformed into a collage of white noise. It's an astounding and punishing track, a little too much for this mix. This track, however, the album's opener, fits right in.
"Protection" - Liars. It took awhile for me to notice this song. I finally did, sitting on a plane on my way to visit my sister in Arizona back in March. Since then, I've listened to it many, many times. It's an atypical song for the Liars, which may be why it finally hit me as forcefully as it did.
"Scientist Studies" - Death Cab for Cutie. I haven't really followed Death Cab's rise to indie stardom, but I still love their first two albums a lot. There wasn't a whole lot of thought put into this selection, other than thinking to myself, "Hey, I really, really like this song." So that's why it's here.
"Kettering" - The Antlers. If you want an album to tear you apart emotionally, really dig in and listen to Hospice by The Antlers. From Wikipedia: "Hospice tells the story of an emotionally abusive relationship, explained through the analogy of a hospice worker and a terminally-ill patient." The frontman/songwriter hasn't shared just how autobiographical the album is, but it doesn't matter. Even if the songs were completely fictitious, the story they tell is heartbreaking. If any portion of the lyrics are autobiographical, they become that more devastating. "Kettering" is my favorite song from the album. Its power continues to amaze me.
"In the Backseat" - The Arcade Fire. This is another instance in which I wasn't necessarily drawn to a seasonal connection but to a tonal and thematic connection. This song just felt right as the final track for this mix.

Well, that's that.

Click here for the .zip with the individual tracks.

Click here for the long mp3.

National Novel Writing Month

2010-10-27T18:32:00.002-06:00

For whatever reason, November was designated as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo in its shortened form. A quick look into the history of NaNoWriMo shows that July 1999 was the first occurrence, but it was moved to November to better utilize that month's miserable weather. What it is is this: during the month of November people are encouraged to write their own 50,000 word novel by 11:59 p.m. of November 30th. There are no rules other than the work be something that could be considered a novel (roughly anything fictional), it must be started from scratch (no old material), it must have one author (no collaboration), and it must be 50,000 words long (that's a lot). A comparison for those who have had the privilege/misfortune to read it, my unfinished novel A Certain Kind of Weird is 61,000 words long. It's quantity, not quality NaNoWriMo is after.

For the past few years I've seen Facebook status updates from people participating in NaNoWriMo, but I've never really considered participating before now. In part, I think that November frequently snuck up on me, and it was too late to start. This year, however, I am aware of November's impending arrival, and I am feeling the itch to write. Though the project I most want to work on is not actually a novel, I think I could find something else to write for a month, possibly even something related to my other project.

So what do you people - if anyone actually still reads this blog - think? Should I go for it? Will this be just another ill-fated attempt to get some more writing down? Or will this actually help motivate and inspire me to write something substantial? Anyone else interested in doing this? Let me know what you think.

If you're curious and want to learn more, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

Hey, what do you know, I'm literate.

2010-08-29T22:08:00.002-06:00

There is something about living in a large house with just two other individuals that fosters a good environment for reading. I've lived in the house for just over two weeks now, and I am already incredibly accustomed to the absolute silence at night. Coming from an ever-noisy student apartment complex in a college town to a suburban residential neighborhood, I wasn't prepared for just how quite it would get at night. None of us living here are students or have occupations that require anything of us at night, so after about 9 p.m. we begin winding down. We may watch some television (praise DVR!) or play some video games or something like that, but eventually the TV gets turned off and people start heading to their rooms for the night. For me, this provides a perfect opportunity to read, something I haven't done much of in the past two years since graduation. Living with five other guys in a small student apartment didn't really foster the right environment for reading. But all that has changed.

I've recently finished two books about music. Not serious music criticism or anything, really just a series of essays/chapters about specific songs and either how those songs tie into the authors' lives or some ruminations on life generated by the songs. The first book, Love is a Mixtape by Rob Sheffield, takes a look at specific mixtapes Sheffield made throughout his life and how they became a part of his life and relationship to his deceased wife. The second book, Songbook by Nick Hornby, isn't built upon such a tragic loss, but it is full of genuine emotion and wit, something Hornby has always successfully incorporated into his writing. I read Songbook once back in 2005, very shortly after I returned from my mission. Hornby had written a line that has stuck in my mind, a credo, as it were, for how I've tried to approach music. It's found in a chapter in which Hornby explains how he's begun listening to music that, at earlier stages in his life, he would never have loved or been able to truly appreciate. He's come to understand how foolish it is to worry about anything other than the actual music. Too often we worry about an artist's genre or being too cool for certain kinds of music, and Hornby realizes just how limiting such thought is. He concludes with this awesome statement: "You're either for music or you're against it, and being for it means embracing anyone who's any good." Amen.

I'm not going to go any deeper into my ideas about musical appreciation or anything. I just wanted to share this awesome quote with the hope that it will ring true for fellow music lovers (and I know there are some of you out there reading this). That's all.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

2010-08-15T23:07:00.002-06:00

Attention all who read this blog, if there be such a person or persons:

You should contribute some of your hard-earned money (or some of your not-so-hard-earned money, if you're that sort) to the major motion picture Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. If you really want to be awesome, buy the six-volume comic from which the movie was adapted, read it as quickly as possible, and then go see the movie.

I must add as a disclaimer that if you did not grow up in the video game era, you may not enjoy the film so much. I hate to put a generational limitation on the film, but a lot of the film's awesomeness comes from the way it incorporates video game references and elements into the story and visual approach of the film. Nonetheless, anyone with an open mind and fun sense of humor should find plenty to enjoy in the film.

I decided on a whim one day in July to buy the first two volumes of the comic. I completed the first volume in less than an hour and then proceeded to read the next five as quickly as circumstances would allow. I was hooked and could not wait for the film. As is my tendency when I love something, I began recommending the comic to those I thought would enjoy it. My roommate Jared was the first to read the books after me. Then three others, Mr. and Mrs. Jones and fellow Sparksian Andrew Pass, read the entire series during our road trip to and from Portland to see the final two performances of Joanna Newsom's most recent U.S. tour. They were all hooked, just in time for maximum anticipation of the film's release.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the film other than to say it was a very good adaptation of the comic, despite the limitations of adapting a six-volume comic into a two-hour film. There were some story omissions that I wish hadn't been omitted, a few character back stories that couldn't be told, and a few favorite punchlines that didn't make the screen, but overall I was pleased with the film. Edgar Wright, unsurprisingly, did a great job directing and continues to impress with his eye for impressive visuals. I don't know that the film is quite as good as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but it is definitely one of the better films of the year. Not as affecting as Toy Story 3 or as mindbendingly (new adverb alert!) awesome as Inception, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was definitely as entertaining as any film released thus far this year.

Oh yeah, the character of Ramona, played by the talented and beautiful Mary Elizabeth Winstead, reminds me of Kate Winslet's incredibly memorable portrayal of Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Any film that reminds me of Eternal Sunshine is automatically cooler in my book.

So in summation, contribute your money to a deserving film and do your part to encourage Hollywood to keep financing interesting and unique projects, allowing talented directors like Edgar Wright to make the films they want to make.

FIN

Highlight of the Night

2010-07-16T00:01:00.003-06:00

Girl Talk was pretty fantastic and the whole night was a lot of fun, but the highlight of the day was Paige calling Jared "Goat-Boy." At first, there was confusion as to why she was calling him that, but eventually she explained that it was because of his goatee. There was much laughter.

After the concert we started talking about how we should make a movie about a guy whose friends start calling him "Goat-Boy" and eventually he becomes an actual goat.

It was a lot funnier than it sounds. You kind of had to be there.

In anticipation of seeing Girl Talk tonight...

2010-07-15T16:45:00.003-06:00

this is how I feel.

Yeah...

2010-07-06T23:56:00.003-06:00

You know what I'm

sick and tired of?

I'm sick and tired

of having to eke my way

through life.

I'm sick and tired

of bein' a

nobody.

But most of all...

I'm sick

and tired

of havin'

nobody.

My Labor of Love for America

2010-07-04T11:36:00.005-06:00

Here's what I did the past few days to demonstrate my love for the greatest nation on Earth.

The first (and most basic):

Later, after creating most of the pictures included below, I decided I needed a more intense picture for myself:

Here's the picture where I surprised myself with my use of Photoshop. Behold, General Whitney Jones-ington:

Here's Paige Jones, transplanted from the canals of Venice to the harbor of New York:

The wonderful Melia Fonoimoana taking the Labor Day parade to Mt. Rushmore for Independence Day:

Kiss front-woman Megan Rogers rocking out with the original American band:

Matthew Melville strolling with President John Adams on the White House lawn:

The mohawked-2nd Amendment avenger Jake Glazier:

The courageous Elyse Hawks braving the elements as she watches General Washington's historic river crossing from the banks of the Delaware River:

As American as they get, the illustrious Dave Horan:

Captain America Lauren Bytheway:

An Elder's Quorum president (Kevin Firl) riding a giant eagle adorned with a semi-transparent American flag is an Elder's Quorum president I will follow:

Jeremy Jensen, defying the redcoats to his very last moment:

Do not mess with Jared Davis...ever:

Possibly my masterpiece, the greatest thing I may ever produce in my lifetime. I present the Professor, Mr. Jake DeArton, defying the head of the British Empire, King George III:

America the Beautiful, am I right or am I right?

Song of the Next Few Days or Weeks

2010-06-29T01:37:00.003-06:00

I discovered my next song-of-the-next-few-days-or-weeks tonight while working on my Summer Jams mix.

It's called "Casual" from Here We Go Magic. I've had their latest album for a couple months, but I've never really given it a fair listen. I remembered seeing something about this song on Pitchfork recently so I decided to given it a spin tonight. It was well worth my time, each of the five or so times I've listened to it tonight. Not many songs are capable of embodying exactly what their title and lyrics suggest, but this song's title and chorus are so perfectly melded with the melody and instrumentation. It's really quite stunning.

Look for it on my forthcoming Summer Jams mix or head over to Pitchfork to give it a listen.

Answer: I don't know but they are.

2010-06-19T22:16:00.001-06:00

Question: Why are horns so awesome in rock music?

Sometimes you just have to powerslide.

2010-06-07T23:57:00.002-06:00

The National - "Afraid Of Everyone" 5/13 Letterman (TheAudioPerv.com)

2010-05-14T02:38:00.000-06:00

This video is fantastic. This band is amazing.

Great site

2010-05-14T02:09:00.002-06:00

So I was taking a break from writing something that will probably end up on this blog---yes, I know it sounds strange, but I was writing---and I found an awesome website that has entertained me now for ten minutes. I'm certain it will provide further enjoyment in the near future. Check it out:

Rules for My Unborn Son

New Mix Series - "10 for Friends"

2010-05-08T19:44:00.003-06:00

This is my second take on this blog post. I, unfortunately, lost my first attempt to the void that is website/internet malfunctions. This second post will likely be much shorter.

I love to share music with people, and I have since I got seriously into music as a fifteen year old. Not to toot my own horn or anything, because the bands deserve credit, not me, but I have been quite successful in sharing the music I love with my friends. It can be tricky deciding which song or albums to recommend because so much depends on the other person's personality and musical taste. Sometimes it's a shot in the dark, but I think one of the biggest factors in successfully sharing music is to just genuinely love the music. Enthusiasm might not be logically understood, but it's often inexplicably contagious. Maybe that's why I've been able to share my favorite music with my friends.

Anyway, I've decided to create a new series of mixes called the "10 for Friends." The basic idea is that I will choose ten songs from a band that I think an uninitiated listener will enjoy. I plan on starting by making "10 for Friends" mixes for my all-time favorite bands, but any band with at least three albums will be eligible for a mix. I'll even take requests. I don't know how frequently I'll create these mixes. I've already created two, and, along with my two Spring Mixes, I'm feeling the mix-making magic these days.

I will post each "10 for Friends" mix on this blog as well as Sonic Soup, a music blog I am co-authoring. Like my two Spring Mixes, I will make each "10 for Friend" mix available as either a .zip file with the ten individual mp3's or a single mp3 with all ten songs back-to-back. I'm having a lot of fun determining the best track sequence and crossfading the songs into one another.

I will post the first "10 for Friends" mix soon. I'm gonna publish this post before Blogger decides it doesn't want to let me post it. Stay tuned.

Spring Mixes now available

2010-05-05T21:05:00.003-06:00

I already posted links on Facebook to my two-part Spring Mix, but I thought I'd put a link here in case anyone might be interested in the mix and didn't see the link on Facebook.

Head over to my music blog, which I plan on using more in the near future, at:

http://sonicsoup.tumblr.com

That's all.

High Violet

2010-04-25T16:37:00.002-06:00

The National's new album, High Violet, is awesome. It has passed the "laying in bed late at night with headphones" test, as well as the "late night drive rock out" test. I feel it may be my album of the year when all is said and done and it's January 2011. My favorite tracks are: "Afraid of Everyone","Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks", and "England," which could end up being my favorite song this year.

I may write more about this album sometime.

In the meantime, the entire album can be streamed here, but only until April 27th. Check it out!

For the record...

2010-03-19T18:28:00.004-06:00

...I think Mike Loyd Jr.'s mohawk is totally awesome.

I couldn't find a good picture of it, but if you've watched any of BYU's MWC tournament games or their victory yesterday against Florida in the first round of the NCAA tournament, then you've seen plenty of Loyd's mohawk.

Loyd is quickly becoming a favorite player of mine. His quickness and ability to take the ball to the rim is not only exciting and fun to watch, but it's been key to BYU getting to where it is right now.

Here's to hoping we see some more mohawk magic tomorrow against Kansas State.

Why I Write: Preview #1

2010-03-12T19:08:00.002-07:00

For the past year or so, I have had a blog post on my mind. It is an explanation of what I want to do with my life, an exploration of some of the ideas that matter most to me. I have jotted down a few notes, drafted a preliminary outline, but things have never progressed much beyond that.

A few weeks ago my roommate Dave wrote an excellent blog entitled "For the Love of... Writing", an explanation of why he writes, and it gave me a renewed desire to complete my own blog/essay on the subject of writing.

I have yet to write said blog/essay, which is why this post is titled the preview. Rather than sharing my own thoughts at this time, I've chosen to share William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech given December 10, 1950. It is a remarkable speech, and it conveys a lot of my personal views on writing, with more clarity and eloquence than I could muster, of course.

Enjoy:

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Witty and/or Informative Title Goes Here

2010-02-25T23:29:00.003-07:00

A few things that are rocking my world right now:

The new Joanna Newsom album, though I've only managed to get through the first six songs so far - it's a triple LP - over two hours of music! "The Good Intentions Paving Company" is my favorite track at the moment. The way she sings the word "baby" gets me every time.
The BYU men's basketball team. This team has been a lot of fun to watch. I feel sorry for fans who deprive themselves of enjoyment because "the team hasn't accomplished anything until they win an NCAA tournament game." It's sad that people would rather protect themselves from possible disappointment than enjoy the journey along the way. Watching Jimmer Fredette and co. play some beautiful basketball has definitely been a highlight of the winter.
Killer Bunnies! I heard about this game from a couple co-workers and decided to buy it without ever playing it beforehand. It was a wise impulse buy. My roommates and a few other friends have had a lot of fun killing each other's bunnies and trying to acquire the magic carrot. Once we learned the complex rules and nuances of the gameplay, it's been a blast.
I was tasked with putting together a Playlist of Awesomeness and it led me to finding some awesome new music, particularly some danceable ditties. Fantastic songs that I've been listening to as much as possible this week: "Bulletproof" by La Roux and "Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor (a foxy Brit) and Freemasons, among others.
I really, really, really want to play disc golf. Hopefully the weather will cooperate soon.

I'm sure I could come up with a larger list, but my brain is tired. I should probably sleep soon.

The Jack Donaghy Rich White Guy Humor Award goes to...

2010-02-18T18:14:00.003-07:00

...whoever wrote these jokes for the conservative speakers at CPAC. Somebody really squeezed their mindgrapes coming up with those jokes.

To blog, or not to blog.

2010-02-16T22:35:00.001-07:00

I was considering writing a second blog entry in as many days, but instead I have decided to hit the open road and listen to/sing along to some Radiohead.

My hunch that I would enter another Radiohead phase is proving correct.

"One day I am gonna grow wings, a chemical reaction..."

2010-02-16T00:59:00.007-07:00

I was browsing a music message board today and there was a thread in which people were listing what they considered to be Radiohead's best song. I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of people listing "Let Down" from the albumOK Computer. "Let Down" has always been one of my favorite Radiohead songs, dating way back to when I recorded a copy of the album on cassette before my brother Michael left home and went to college, but because of the cassette's limited size, I was only able to get the first half of the album on the cassette. Anyway, I listened to the first half of the album over and over, and "Let Down" became one of my favorite songs. The final verse of this song contains perhaps the greatest moment of any Radiohead song.

Reading this thread force me to listen to "Let Down" and some other songs from the album. While looking at the tracklist in iTunes, it struck me how remarkable the album really is, especially the first half. The first six songs ("Airbag", "Paranoid Android", "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Exit Music (for a Film)", "Let Down", and "Karma Police") constitute one of the best and most consistently great runs on any album ever recorded. I'm struggling to think of another album that can match that six-song run.

I feel my annual period of listening obsessively to Radiohead may have begun tonight.

(Tongue in Cheek)

2010-01-30T20:55:00.001-07:00

This BYU-Utah basketball game proves that Max Hall didn't know what he was talking about.

Turn up the AC!

2010-01-24T16:51:00.003-07:00

As much as I would have liked Austin Collie to have stayed for his senior season at BYU, I am glad that things have worked out so well for him as they have. He's given me a reason to follow the NFL, and it has been a lot of fun to track Collie's progress this year. I don't think he could have been put in a better situation, and he made the most of it. He's definitely played very, very well as a rookie. I offer many props to Austin Collie. I wish I could have watched today's AFC championship game to see Collie tear it up. Anyway, way to make all of us at BYU proud, Austin. Go Colts!

Awesome movie posters

2010-01-19T22:46:00.005-07:00

I've recently decided that I'm going to decorate the Party House, or at least my room in the party house, with awesome movie posters. I've been looking at a lot of posters online, including a lot of foreign posters, and I must say that Poland takes the cake for awesome movie posters, surprisingly enough. I just thought I share a few of the awesome posters I want to get.

Let the Right One In

Harry and the Hendersons (Polish)

Children of Men

City of Lights

The Empire Strikes Back (Polish)

The Princess Bride (Brazilian)

Rocky

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (German)

8 1/2 (Polish)

Amelie (Polish)

Those are just a few of the awesome posters I've been looking at.

Haiti

2010-01-13T23:30:00.003-07:00

This picture, found on the New York Times homepage, breaks my heart:

A Time Suction Device

2010-01-12T18:44:00.001-07:00

Behold, all ye procrastinators:

http://www.passiveagressivenotes.com

Life goal #1

2009-12-28T21:08:00.002-07:00

Just in time for New Year's Resolutions, here is a life goal I just created.

Life Goal #1:

Create a meal called Pottage Soup. Pass this recipe on to my children.

FIN

I'm back...

2009-12-09T22:25:00.002-07:00

in black. More like back from the black. It's been awhile since I blogged, and while I don't really have any valid excuses for not writing, I think I may have determined something that has been preventing me from writing more.

Basically it's this: my approach to blogging got too cerebral. I spent too much time thinking about things, outlining, planning, etc., and not enough time actually writing. This over-thinking began to take place because I gave myself an unnatural standard to achieve with my writing. It was like I couldn't write unless what I did write was going to be so good it could be published without any substantial revision. I've realized that I was not only more productive as a writer, but what I did write was usually pretty good and enjoyable to read when I didn't take myself too seriously. I need to write because it brings me happiness and contentment, and that's all. I can't feel like I need to produce a masterpiece every time I sit down to blog. It's just got to flow freely and naturally.

I hope consciously acknowledging this hang up will let me overcome it and write as frequently as I once did. It seems like I'm not the only one who is less prolific these days. Is the general enthusiasm for blogging waning? I hope not. I won't delude myself into thinking that I am going to lead the blogging renaissance, but I will do my part.

Why count sheep when you can blog about music and robots and zombies??

2009-10-31T01:57:00.005-06:00

Every once in awhile when I'm in a creative mood, or at least thinking about being creative, I'll stumble across a song that is perfect for whatever I have in mind. Earlier this year when I was brainstorming the still unfinished Bad Jeremy Trilogy, I heard the song "Robotboy" by Robyn and my brain was flooded with images for the perfect ending montage for the film. I love the feeling when this epiphany takes place. I realize my ideas aren't anything spectacular or groundbreaking, but there is still a certain satisfaction when this happens.

I'm writing this because I just had one of those moments. It was such a random occurrence too! I was writing down some ideas about a short film involving zombies and robots (very high-brow), and I was trying to decide on some music to listen to. I find that music can be a useful, though imperfect, resource in evoking certain moods or emotions when I'm writing. For some reason I decided on an obscure band I hadn't listened to in a very long time, The 1900's. It wasn't until the third song of their only full-length album that magic happened. The song "When I Say Go" immediately jumped out at me. I remembered listening to it sometime in the past, but this time the music and lyrics struck me like lightning. It fits perfectly with the premise and mood of the film I'm trying to conceptualize. How often are you going to find a song that fits perfectly with your ideas for a film about humans and robots teaming up to fight off the zombie horde? Look at these lyrics:

Watching all the quiet faces I don't understand

I believe we can be rescued by better things than man

And everyone would be so sorry I don't even know

I've been watching all my time go to waste

And you never thought you'd be so slow

First one to the steps when I say go

Any body but my own

Waiting on the lines that we define

Listen up! I never knew I'd ever be so sad

I've been touched in places by very scary hands

If anyone should ask me I'll tell them I don't know

I've been leaving all my clues like my footprints in the snow

And you never thought you'd be so slow

First one to the gate when I say go

And you need to hold your own

Waiting on the lines that we divide

All the world is cold

Ice to snow to sun

Look at what is left

It's just me

And I've been waiting all alone

Watching all the quiet faces I can understand

Why we need to be rescued by better things than man

And you never thought you'd be so slow

First one to the steps when I say go

Any body but my own

Waiting on the lines that we define

Waiting for the one I love

I've been forgetting you

It's late and I don't feel the need to point out all the parts of that song that turn on light bulbs in my head. I guess I just felt the need to blog something, and, since I couldn't sleep, this is what I came up with. I should really sleep now.

Late-night post that went longer than I planned.

2009-09-26T00:07:00.003-06:00

I was perusing Facebook this afternoon and came across a status update from an acquaintance, not really much of a friend. The update upset me, and I hurriedly copied it to use later in this post. This acquaintance wrote:

"Dear Lord Obama, please increase teacher salary or cut my taxes so that I can take home the money I earn instead of paying for the following: 1. Medicare and Medicaid (I pay for my own insurance, thanks ;-), 2. Some skank-meth-addicts 5th drug baby 3. Food stamps of those who will never do anything to pay society back. Love, C. Montgomery Burns." (name obviously changed)

I normally don't scoff at all when this stuff all too frequently appears on Facebook, but for some reason, this upset me. I'm not going to write a lot about this, but I will say a few things in my own little letter.

"Dear C. Montgomery Burns, shouldn't the free market determine your wages? Don't like what you're earning, get a different job or complain to the free market. Your 'letter' displays an alarming lack of compassion, not that compassion is commonly associated with conservatism or anything, but I'd expect a little more from you. You and I both, after all, spent two years of our lives trying to help people live better and happier lives. Not that the government necessarily needs to be the body to extend compassion to people, but history has shown that treating one another with compassion has not been high on mankind's list of priorities. What did James say about religion pure and undefiled? I feel like your views are shortsighted, not to mention selfish. You probably don't have any kind of preexisting condition which would preclude you from receiving affordable health insurance. You have a job, however low-paying the salary may be. You are fortunate and should consider yourself lucky. Everyone isn't that fortunate, however. And yes, people can and should work to improve their lot in life, but you do not know people's circumstances and are really in no position to judge them or determine how worthy they are of aid. But maybe you're right. Maybe we can't possibly worry about helping other people until we first worry about ourselves and make sure that we have all we want. Thank you for your timely Facebook status update."

It's been a good week for concerts. I saw two bands I had wanted to see for a very long time. Sunny Day Real Estate played a reunion show with the original lineup, playing mostly songs from their first two albums, and it was amazing. They sounded just like I hoped they would. They played with a lot of energy and intensity. They played a fantastic set and were very tight. The lead guitarist had a huge grin on his face throughout the entire show, and it always made me happy when I saw it. Having been a fan since I first heard them as a teenager (many moons ago), I never thought I would have a chance to see them live. I'm grateful I did. Then later in the week I saw Autolux with my boys Andrew and Whitney, and it was one of the loudest shows I've ever been to. Autolux were incredible and put out an incredible wall of sound for a trio. We were bombarded with sound, standing only a few feet from the small stage. Each member of the band was off in their own little world, doing their own thing, but they were always right with each other. The drummer, Carla Azar, was incredible to watch. She is an amazing drummer. During the set, she rarely smiled or showed any emotion. She seemed very focused, very into what she was playing, almost oblivious to everything else going on around her. Then after the show, she was at the band's merch table. Andrew, Whitney, and I dropped by because we wanted shirts. (I bought a band shirt for the first time since I saw the Wrens in Seattle in December 2005). At the table, Carla was smiling and laughing, very friendly. I told her I really enjoyed the set and thought the new songs they played were fantastic. (Their second album will finally be released after New Year - it's been over five years since they released their perfect debut album). I was pleasantly surprised with the difference in her on-stage and off-stage demeanor. Let it be know, I love Autolux. They put on an amazing show, and I hope to see them again someday. Hopefully my ears will have recovered by then.

In other music news, I have been listening to The XX a lot this week. I first heard them months ago on NPR, and I was very impressed then. The band consists of four 20 year old Brits. Their songs are quite low-key and feature a lot of back and forth, boy-girl vocals. I'm astounded that 20 year-olds are making music this refined and mature. They're not overcompensating for songwriting deficiencies with volume or enthusiasm. They just write very, very solid songs. Their debut album is perfect for listening to at night with a set of quality headphones. I recommend the song "Crystalised" as a good introduction.

I will now attempt to sleep so I can wake up, finish cleaning my bedroom and bathroom for cleaning checks, and play an intramural football game. Adieu.

Go mighty Cougars!

2009-09-11T21:21:00.003-06:00

I should have written this earlier, but it's been a crazy week. Last week saw the return of college football, and all was well in the (sports) world again. Ever since I heard that BYU was in talks to play Oklahoma in their season opener for 2009, I was worried. That worry grew when Florida defeated Oklahoma in the BCS championship game, and Sam Bradford and Co. announced that they would return for another season. Only winning a championship could motivate players guaranteed millions in the NFL to return for another season. With that kind of motivation, I figured the entire Oklahoma team would have a chip on its shoulder all season.

However much I feared Oklahoma, I never wrote off BYU's chances because in college football anything can happen. That fact became the basis of my hope that BYU could pull of an incredible upset. Whenever people asked me how I thought the game would turn out, I would answer that the logical part of me thought Oklahoma would win, but the rest of me was holding onto that one beautiful truth that anything could happen.

It's gameday. Twenty-five people crowd into the living room of my apartment. The game is dead even. The atmosphere is electric. Everyone is cheering loudly. I jump to my feet and high five nearly everyone in the room after every great play. The little blue wind-up dancing robot leads us in our celebration dance. We run around the apartment complex and yell after each of BYU's two touchdowns and after the final whistle blows. Provo is full of celebration. We drive down the streets slowly. I honk my car's horn. We all yell and put our index fingers into the air triumphantly. Crowds of people are gathered on street corners, all of them cheering loudly and happily. A rally is quickly organized to meet the players when their plane lands in the early morning hours. The college football world is stunned, and Provo is content, ecstatic, and optimistic. College football is back, and the Cougars have burst onto the scene with one of their biggest victories of all-time.

It really was an intense and incredible game. I have never been in a better atmosphere for watching a road game on TV. Many props to everyone who watched the game in my apartment. I'll never forget the game or my experience watching it. I'd like to forget the monstrous bratwurst sandwich thing my roommate Jeremy concocted; it was delicious but later destroyed my innards. Earlier that day, before the game started, I was speaking with a friend who said she couldn't understand the appeal in watching sports on television. I tried to explain to her why I love watching sports, but I wasn't very successful. Had she watched the game with us, I think she might finally understand.

A few observations made during and after the game:

DEFENSE! How great was the BYU defense? That goal line stand was epic. I am now very proud that my #1 jersey, which used to be Fui Vakapuna's number, is now being sported by Pendleton, the outside linebacker. He had a fantastic game and, along with Andrew Rich, the safety, was the most pleasant surprise of the evening. Let's hope the Cougar defense continues to play with such ferocity. Props to Coach Hill for calling a great game and constantly confusing Oklahoma's inexperienced offensive line and putting pressure on Bradford. Clawson is a beast.
I feel like this game could be for Max Hall what the 2006 TCU game was for John Beck: a season and career-defining performance. Let's hope this victory will give Max the confidence and poise to take on other high-powered defenses (TCU, Utah). The nine minute fourth quarter drive was superb. It was later revealed that Hall called all of his own plays until reaching the red zone, and that impressed me a lot.
Play of the game (other than the goal line stand): the fourth-down conversion during the epic fourth quarter drive. On 3rd and long, J.J. Di Luigi manages to pick up a couple yards on a draw play. Immediately the team lines up and snaps the ball, and Hall finds Pitta for what turns out to be a twenty yard gain. What impressed me most was the fact that the play was called in the huddle on third down. The team knew exactly what to do, and Oklahoma's defense was left reeling by BYU's perfect execution.
This game was won by BYU. True, Bradford's injury changed things, but anyone who watched the game knows that BYU was outplaying Oklahoma even with Bradford in the game. Take away BYU's turnovers, and Oklahoma wouldn't have scored in the first half. Anyone wanting to play the injury card ought to remember that BYU was playing without Harvey Unga. While Kariya played spectacularly as Unga's replacement, Unga brings a whole new dimension to the BYU offense. Had he played, BYU would have won by a larger margin.
It was just one game. True, but it was just one amazing game, one of the biggest in BYU's history. Go ahead and celebrate it. Too many wet-blanket pessimists have been coming out of the woodwork, trying to discount the victory and act as if we shouldn't enjoy it. It's not every day, or decade, that we beat a Top 5 opponent. As long as the players continue to prepare well and focus their attentions on the next game at hand, everything will be okay. There's no need to repress the celebrations. I, for one, think every second of the celebration was earned. I hope to celebrate many more victories this season. People need to enjoy life and not worry about protecting themselves from disappointment and pain. Every Cougar fan suffered through last season's losses, but this is a new season and a new team.
I am a believer in this BYU team.

I have been way too excited for the next game against Tulane, and I am relieved that it is just over fifteen hours away. Go Cougars!

The Beatles: Rock Band

2009-09-10T01:17:00.003-06:00

TWO THUMBS UP!

I picked up my copy of The Beatles: Rock Band today and finally got around to playing it around 9:30 p.m. Nearly four hours later, I can say that it is a great game. I always imagined that playing with six people at once (guitar, bass, drums, and three vocalists) would be great, but I didn't know just how great it would turn out to be. While we didn't hit many of the three-point harmonies perfectly, there were moments of sublime harmonization. It's going to be a lot of fun learning and mastering the different parts. I even played the bass and sang during the Apple Corps rooftop, made possible by a neighboring apartment's mic stand. It was difficult but still a lot of fun.

I am excited for the downloadable content, especially the Abbey Road Side B medley, and I'm sure my love for this game will only continue to grow.

Anyway, time for golden slumbers.

And in the end...

2009-09-05T03:24:00.002-06:00

...the beard you take is equal to the beard you make.

I have been bearded since the end of the intramural basketball season in March, but the end is in sight for my current beard. I have grown quite attached to this beard, or perhaps saying it has grown quite attached to me is more apt. Anyway, intramural soccer starts next Wednesday, and I must shave. The sacrifice will be worth it because we have more talent on our roster than I've played with on any intramural soccer team. I am very excited to play.

The shaving of the beard will take place in a gradual process. I plan to initiate phase one tomorrow afternoon. If all goes according to plan, I will post a photo on this blog. That is all for now.

A few words

2009-09-01T00:40:00.002-06:00

I am now involved in a social experiment of sorts. I'm not going to go into details right now, but this so-called experiment will lead to more writing. How much of that writing will end up on this blog is uncertain, but there will be more writing.

Just felt like posting something since it's late and I'm still awake.

Checking In

2009-08-10T00:08:00.002-06:00

You'd think with the number of times I've resolved or declared my intent to write more that I would actually, you know, write more. You'd be wrong. I wish I could cast blame on someone other than myself - my roommates, friends, and whoever I end up hanging out with all the time - but you and I would know that is dishonest. One of the good things with summer ending soon, besides the return of college football, is that I hope to have fewer distractions at hand, fewer opportunities to do things other than writing. I really do wish I had more down time, more time to occupy with solitary activities like reading and writing. I'll hold off on making any bold declarations of renewed intent to write. For once, I'll try and let my actions do the talking (or writing).

In other news: college football is weeks away from opening day. Fall camps are in progress across the country, and I am incredibly excited. I purchased my sports pass this week and cannot wait, though I must wait until September 19th, for BYU's first home game. There is nothing like returning to Lavell Edwards Stadium for the first home game of the season. The atmosphere is incredible. I have some pretty high hopes for this football team. I think they're gonna be pretty good. The Oklahoma game is going to be tough, but I am not writing off the team's chances. Anything can happen in college football. Anything.

My pretentious reading quest is sputtering along. I actually started reading a book that didn't win the Pulitzer, though it was a finalist - that's how I justify my actions. I'm reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, who also wrote the film Away We Go and co-wrote the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. It's a piece of creative nonfiction about Eggers' experience losing both parents to cancer within five weeks when he was in his early twenties and becoming the legal guardian of his younger brother. From the little bit that I have read, I think I am really going to love this book. I'll get back to my pretentious quest soon enough.

The best film playing in theaters right now is 500 Days of Summer. I have seen it twice now, and I've written about it in a couple posts at my other blog. I recommend you see it if you have the chance. For those of you in Provo, it's currently playing at the Towne Center and University Mall cinemas. Support quality cinema.

Fall is nearly here. That means new people will be moving into my apartment complex. I'm always optimistic at the beginning of a new school year, though I'm no longer a student, that I will be lucky enough to meet someone who will reciprocate interest and that a healthy, long term relationship will result from it. I don't know though. I'm getting older and the girls going to BYU keep getting younger. There will be girls here born in the 90's. Is that not insane? You never know how things are going to turn out so I'm going to continue to hope that things will turn out well.

We got a new bishopric today. I'm going to miss Bishop Oyler and Brother Larsen. It was a privilege to serve more closely with them the past few months, and I am grateful to have had them as examples in my life. I know the new bishop, Bishop Lott, is going to do a great job. I was impressed with his determination to hit the ground running, and I can tell he is going to be a great example of service. I'm looking forward to serving with and getting to know the new bishopric of our ward. The Church is pretty remarkable in how it never misses a beat amidst leadership changes, and that is one of the greatest proofs, in my mind, that it is not the work of men. Not only are all positions filled by regular members of the Church, sacrificing their time and talents to the work, but the transfer of leadership is quick and painless as everything continues onward.

Thus concludes my little update.

A pretentious reading quest.

2009-07-15T21:09:00.004-06:00

I really haven't done enough reading since I graduated over a year ago. It's quite sad actually. I believe there is no better way to improve writing than by reading great writing, and it's no wonder I haven't really progressed as a writer lately. I always seem to make grand declarations of noble intentions, but I really do mean to make more time for reading. I have already finished two books this month (Persuasion by Jane Austen and Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist), but I know I can do better.

It's my current intent to read all of the Pulitzer Prize winning novels. I realize this might sound pretentious, but I promise I'm doing this for a better reason than to be able to say, "I've read every novel that's ever won a Pulitzer." Though I must admit that wanting to be able to say that I had read War and Peace was one of the biggest reasons I started reading that gargantuan book, it was not, however, my reason for finishing the novel. I will someday share more about my experience reading War and Peace and how it profoundly affected me. My reason for wanting to read all the Pulitzer winners is this: I need to improve my writing, and I am confident these books can teach me a lot about writing.

I've taken the first step toward reading all the Pulitzer winners by buying a bunch of them. Borders has had some great deals the past month, and I have purchased a good number of the last fifteen Pulitzer-winning novels. I'm still unsure about how I want to go about selecting which novels to read first, whether I'll just go by the ones that interest me most or whether I'll read them in a reverse chronological order. I'm leaning towards reverse chronological order. In any way, I'm planning on reading the winners of the current decade before moving back any further. Fortunately, I have read three of this decade's winning novels. Here is a brief rundown of my future reading list.

2000: Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri; a collection of fantastic short stories. I was turned onto this book by an English grad student who taught one of my lower-level English courses. A very good read.
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon; I've heard good things about Chabon, but I've never read any of his works. I'm looking forward to reading this some day.
2002: Empire Falls - Richard Russo; I really don't know anything about this book nor the author.
2003: Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides; I actually bought this book before assuming my quest to read all the Pulitzer winners. The book's blurb sounded interesting so I got it.
2004: The Known World - Edward P. Jones; another book I know nothing about.
2005: Gilead - Marilynne Robinson; I read this book in my Advanced Writing course, and it was amazing. A good chunk of the book is written as a letter from a dying Midwestern pastor to his infant son. As you would assume from that briefest of introductions, the book deals a lot with mortality and spirituality. It's a very moving book, and reading it was definitely the highlight of that course.
2006: March - Geraldine Brooks; hey look, another book I don't know anything about.
2007: The Road - Cormac McCarthy; I picked up this book after reading McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, a very bleak book. The Road is even darker, a bleak vision of post-apocalyptic life. It tells the story of a father and a son struggling to survive as the earth slowly dies each day. While McCarthy paints perhaps the bleakest picture of society's demise, he creates one of the purest and most poignant father-son relationships in all of literature. I was unable to put this book down and read it within twenty-four hours. It is both devastating and inspiring.
2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Juniot Diaz; I purchased this book six months ago, but I haven't picked it up yet.
2009: Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout; surprise surprise, another book I had never heard about until I decided to purchase it.

While writing this blog I have come to the decision that I will read at least this first decade of Pulitzer winners (the ones I haven't previously read) in reverse chronological order, meaning I will commence with Olive Kitteridge. I'll write at least a little something about each book as my quest progresses forward.

Here's to pretentious reading quests!

Introducing The Proverbial Phantom Wallaby opening for Moses and his Tabernacle Choir!

2009-06-23T23:16:00.005-06:00

Tuesdays are usually slow days. While not as bad as Mondays, they still seem to drag on endlessly. Today, however, was a pretty good day. I had a couple good conversations to keep things interesting at work, I played a decent round of disc golf and won by a stroke, I ate delicious Hawaiian haystacks for our dinner group, I played some Rock Band, and then I climbed a couple trees.

One of my interesting conversations was with Caitlan on Google Chat, a new friend made some 17 days ago. We got on the subject of how using big words in everyday conversations can boost one's credibility, make you seem smarter and more important. We started throwing around interesting big word combinations; my favorite was "proverbial phantom wallaby," courtesy of Caitlan. I mentioned that The Proverbial Phantom Wallaby would make an awesome band name. We tossed around a few other sweet band names here and there throughout the duration of the conversation.

All this reminded me of a life dream I once had. I've always wanted to be in an awesome band, and during the summer of 2003, I decided I wanted, more than anything, to be in a sweet disco-funk band. (I was listening to a lot of disco at this time. It helped keep things bearable while I was working nights at the BK in Vernal). I envisioned the band being huge: at least two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, a horn section (trumpet, trombone, french horn), at least two violinists, two to three backup singers, and a miscellaneous percussionist to handle the cowbell, triangle, maracas, bongos, and other awesome percussion instruments. I figured I would be one of the guitar players, and I would handle singing as well as putting together our song arrangements. There'd be a female singer to share lead vocal duties. We'd play a mixture of classic disco songs and our own compositions. In my head, it all seemed possible. I had even decided on a couple songs we'd cover: Lipps, Inc.'s "Funkytown" and, my personal favorite, the LDS classic "Together Forever." (I still think that someone could seriously record an incredible cover of that song). Who wouldn't love this band? Our music would make everything in the world alright. It's impossible to listen to great disco-funk without smiling; unless, of course, you have no soul.

All the dream band lacked was a name, and it lacked one for a while. This dream followed me to Brazil, and it was there, some six months into my mission, that a name came to me. I was in the city of Aracatuba, in my second area in the city, and I was a young senior companion. Things were tough in my area, and it was probably in trying to relieve my troubled spirit that the name came to me: Moses and his Tabernacle Choir. Of course, it would only seem clever to an LDS missionary whose daily reading consisted entirely of scripture and who could only listen to church music, stuff like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Everything would depend on people remembering that Moses had a tabernacle, and then connecting that idea with MoTab. (I could see the name playing well in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona; everywhere else, people would probably be confused).

It's kind of funny, but the whole description of the band sounds a lot like the Polyphonic Spree, a band that once had something like twenty members who would all dress in robes and play very happy spirit-lifting music, verily, a band I love a lot. I assure you, readers, I was not aware of the Polyphonic Spree at the time I dreamed of forming a sweet disco-funk band. I did not copy nor rip-off anyone else's idea. I still wish that I could be in a band like this. If I were, I could die happy---after doing lots of other important things (getting hitched, continuing my family tree, writing books, attending a World Cup, etc.) and getting old and decrepit, of course.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share this personal dream with the world. It felt like the right time. I should have another, more substantial post coming this week. I'm in the preparation stage, going over things in my head; I'll probably move on to the note writing/outline making stage tomorrow (later today, actually).

Time to get the funk out (and into the world)!

Words and dreams and a million screams

2009-06-19T00:56:00.004-06:00

With a present need for direction, I turn to the past.

Originally written 26 December 2006:

Life has an ironic sense of humor, and it loves to point out the ironies of my existence. There are certain things that I yearn for, that I long to have in my life, and yet I'm constantly being reminded that I'm incapable of obtaining those things. My true self is riddled with contradictions, paradoxes, and unanswerable questions. Why am I this way? Why can't I do this or that?

I want nothing more than to feel accepted by others. I want to truly be a valuable addition to others' lives, to know that I am appreciated and that others need my company. In some way I suppose that I'm searching for meaning and justification in my life and my choices. Yet all the while life hits me upside the head and screams into my ear that I have to make my way through life on my own...

No man is an island, or so they say, though I feel like I am some uncharted desert isle that no one knows about nor will ever discover, and this frightens me... The future is some horribly bleak unknown that I'm involuntarily nearing with each passing day.

Let's get a little more irony up in here with something written 25 May 2002:

It seems nothing ever changes in my life. Through the characters of the story seem to come and go, the plot remains the same. Like a bad sit-com, my life seems destined for re-runs. Everything that has happened to me will happen again, only in a less comical fashion.

While these words may strike you as a bit melodramatic or over-the-top, I find them quite helpful. They've reminded me this evening of some important personal truths, and those reminders have helped me resolve to put an end to my mediocrity and complete lack of create productivity. I hereby resolve to do what it takes, sacrifice what I must, and prioritize my life that thereby I might achieve the things I feel I am capable of achieving. I'm too tired and frustrated with myself to continue on in blissful ignorance. The bubble surrounding me since graduation one year ago, no matter how small and trivial it may have been, has burst, and the scales have fallen from my eyes. It is, as I said to Janessa tonight, better to move closer to achieving success and personal fulfillment on one front than continue toiling in futility on another front.

This may appear vague and cryptic to some of you (most of you, I'd presume), but let it suffice me to say that it is time for me to write. And not in a write-more-often-in-my-blog kind of way. I am talking about serious creative writing, the writing I wish to do for the rest of my life, the writing I hope will help me make a living and maybe, just maybe, bring some good into this world. I have been coasting for too long, enjoying an unproductive life of (typically) superficial interaction, as if I didn't know any better. I may have buried my head in the sand, but the rain and wind have finally eroded away enough of that sand that I am now seeing clearly (though perhaps still upside-down). It's time to see things clearly and do what I am meant to do.

More on my personal ideas and feelings concerning writing and art will be coming soon.

Cougar karma

2009-06-05T00:42:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, 04 June 2009, was a huge day for the BYU football program, a cosmic "boo yah" in recruiting news.

In a press conference held Thursday afternoon in Salt Lake City, the top-rated high school quarterback of the class of 2010, Jake Heaps, announced his intention to sign with BYU. Along with him, two other highly touted recruits, a wide receiver that actually decommitted from Texas and the #5 ranked middle linebacker, announced their intentions to come to Provo as well.

After the dark times following the disappointing end to last football season, as well as losing Manti Teo to Notre Dame, it's been tough for Cougar fans. This definitely makes things a little better. Okay, more than a little.

I just felt like sharing my happiness, that's all.

Stay tuned...

2009-05-30T00:51:00.003-06:00

I promise that I will write on the following subjects very soon:

my exhausting, expensive, and excellent Memorial Day weekend at the Sasquatch music festival in Washington; a multi-part series
my thoughts on Up, Pixar's latest wondrous piece of art
a basic outline of my personal thoughts and philosophy on writing (and art in general)

Sounds exciting, I know.

Shake that groovy postscript.

2009-05-06T00:41:00.002-06:00

So this whole post will serve as a big P.S. to my previous post.

I thought of another problem regarding myself and infatuation: I just seem to like girls that don't like me. It goes hand-in-hand with what I wrote about liking girls that must be out of my league. Also, when I said I hoped that the lyrics to The National's "Slow Show" would some day be true in my life, I meant that I hoped to some day tell someone that I dreamed about them and missed them for however many years until I saw them, not specifically twenty-nine years. I really don't want it to take that long.

Okay, so after I published my previous blog, some things went down to ease my melancholy. Jared and I went to Sammy's where their delicious pie shakes were half off, so I got a strawberry cheesecake shake and a Mountain Dew for $2.14. Pretty sweet deal. Then we came back to Sparks, got Dave and Jeremy to join us in playing Rock Band (we totally rocked out to the recently released Franz Ferdinand songs), and, as always, drumming was therapeutic for me. After that we went to the Cinco de Mayo party going down in the clubhouse. I was able to chill, eat some snacks, and talk to people. The original party plan was to watch The Three Amigos, but a group of us had too much energy to sit down and watch a movie. Thus, we decided to make a Slurpee run, and, if the mood was right, head up Hobble Creek Canyon for a dance party. Those of you who followed my blog one year ago should remember me blogging about the dance parties we had last year. They were definitely a highlight of the summer, and I have been looking forward to bringing them back this year. Well, we got our Slurpees, and five of us (myself, Jared, Elyse, Kelli, and Megan) felt the urge to make magic happen. After we dropped off three new guys who weren't too keen on the idea, we all piled into one car and started the adventure.

The canyon was open - it had been closed pretty recently - and after awhile we found the old spot where our other dance parties had taken place. We parked Elyse's car, turned up the music, and got the party started. Let me tell you, it was a blast, and it was exactly what I needed. Just letting loose and dancing really helped decimate my melancholy. It's hard to not shake off the stress to groovy music. Everyone was getting into it, and we all had a great time. A lot of pictures were taken, and I may have to include some of the best ones in a future post once I get access to them on Facebook. It's incredible how quickly circumstances can change, or at least attitudes. I had a great night, I'm not so bothered by my social status, and I feel more optimistic for the future.

Now I need to make some awesome Hobble Creek Canyon dance party mixes for the near future. I shall enjoy compiling those mixes mucho. Anyway, it's late, and I need sleep.

"I want to start over. I want to be winning."

2009-05-05T19:16:00.003-06:00

"Looking for somewhere to stand and stay, I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away."

- The National

I am pretty exhausted right now. Let's just say that I feel sorry for the future spouses of some of the roommates I've had over the years; they make loud, weird, and sometimes scary noises in their sleep, and if I were lying next to them, I think I'd be tempted to use the pillow to end their misery.

Besides being exhausted, I'm kind of feeling melancholic at the moment. Work was good today, other than the struggle to remain alert. We had a Cinco de Mayo party, and it was fun and we ate good food. I played a round of disc golf, and while my score wasn't as good as my previous two games, I still scored under sixty. Also, I nearly lost a disc in the treacherous mess of shrubs and trees, but Jared was able to spot it and save me from dishing out $15 to replace the disc.

No, my melancholy is of a different sort. Basically, I'm tired, as I've been for some time, of purely platonic relationships. I'm tired of unrequited interest and fruitless infatuation, of being "a footnote at best." My problem, as I've concluded, is that, when it comes to infatuation, I:

do not do enough to translate infatuation into action, or do what it takes to make my infatuation more apparent.
remain infatuated for too long, especially when nothing is coming of it.
become infatuated with girls that are, most likely, out of my league; I think part of my problem is that I like girls that are really quite amazing (smart, beautiful, talented, etc.), and I can't just say, "Oh, she's stupid cuz she doesn't like me," and then forget about her.

Nonetheless, I have to keep hoping that eventually I will meet someone that interests me and that interest will be reciprocated. The National song "Slow Show" ends with an extremely beautiful combination of lyrics and melody that I hope will someday be true in my case. The words are: "You know I dreamed about you for twenty nine years before I saw you. You know I dreamed about you. I missed you for twenty nine years."

I firmly believe that it's better to be alone than to be with the wrong person, so at least I have that on my side. I didn't get to be twenty-five and single by being impatient or desperate. I do feel a little better just writing this. I'll keep telling myself that everything will fall into place in the right time.

It has to.

No need for a title

2009-05-02T15:32:00.003-06:00

I don't know what it is, if it's the rain and the gloomy weather, but I am feeling in a funk right now.

I know I keep saying that I have a substantial blog post coming soon, and yet it never seems to arrive or make its way from my mind to the internet. I feel more and more, however, that it is near. The subject of the blog has been on my mind for a very long time; in fact, I first thought of writing about the subject one year ago. My initial thoughts have multiplied since then; every day seems to bring me something new to think about, some new idea to mull over. I feel like those ideas won't be held back much longer. They have been gathering in my mind like water in a reservoir, and the water is about to spill over the dam.

5 Things to Do

2009-04-29T00:30:00.002-06:00

5 Things To Do (in no real particular order):

1. Trim beard

2. Watch Lost

3. Begin unpacking my stuff

4. Write a real blog post

5. Start reading something

My New Hobby

2009-04-23T16:10:00.003-06:00

My blogging output has declined considerably over the last two months. In January and February I was posting nearly every other day for a total of 27 posts. Then in March I blogged just six times, and this current post will be the third for April. That's pretty sad. I'm going to do better.

I've recently taken up a new hobby: disc golf. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it involves throwing discs (similar to but slightly different from your typical frisbee) from the tee to a basket usually more than 300 feet away. Trees and other natural obstacles make each hole a unique challenge. Here in Provo we're lucky to have Bicentennial Park, an official disc golf course, not too far away.

My first time disc golfing took place about a month ago. I borrowed a couple discs from friends and did my best, which wasn't very good. However, I had a very enjoyable time, and other than having my keys fall through a hole in my pocket and being forced to re-walk the entire course to find them, it was a very positive experience. I was pretty much hooked from the beginning. Unfortunately, the weather most Saturdays after my initial disc golf experience was poor, preventing me from trying my hand once again. Last week, after the snow and cold early on, the weather turned quite pleasant. I was able to go again on Saturday, that time using my own discs that I purchased the day before. I did better than my first time, but there was definitely a lot of room for improvement.

With the beautiful weather we've been enjoying up to the current day (it's going to get rainy again), my friend Jared and I couldn't help but take advantage of the sunshine. We decided spontaneously to go throw the course, and with just the two of us it didn't take long at all. We went Monday and Wednesday, not going Tuesday only because we went to Salt Lake to attend the glorious Franz Ferdinand concert. Each time I've gone I have improved noticeably, and I think I'm finally getting a feel for my distance driver. Yesterday my score for the sixteen holes was 60, but it very well could have been 57 were it not for a couple of unfortunate bounces out of the basket.

There's just something soothing about tossing a disc around. My mind always goes back to the summer of 2002. I had just graduated high school and would be starting at BYU in the fall. All of my best friends were in still in Vernal, and we would often go to the city park. We'd toss my bright orange Life is Good brand frisbee back and forth, running barefoot through the perfect green grass, working on our trick catches (through the legs, behind the back, etc). Throwing the frisbee became our thing. Whenever we'd get bored of sitting around our older friend Britt's apartment, with nothing good on TV or just whenever a certain restlessness would kick in, we'd drive over to the park and spend an hour or two tossing the disc back and forth. Man, that was a great summer. I spent a fantastic week in Boston with my family, got to hang out with my best friends virtually every day, had some interesting and overwrought relationship drama, spent a lot of time listening to music and conversing with my closest friends, did some crazy (but not too crazy) stuff, and just lived it up. It was really a singular summer. Never again would I live in the same town with my best friends after that summer. We all went our separate ways; I went to BYU that next year and then to Brazil for two years on my LDS mission. Thinking about the summer of 2002 makes me nostalgic and, honestly, kind of sad. A lot of things have changed since then; people, relationships, just life in general has changed. We keep growing older, more and more becoming responsible adults, and our paths seem to keep diverging. The simple joy of living, the thrill of freedom, the excitement of being on the brink of adulthood, never were those feelings more abundant than that summer. And throwing a frisbee with my best friends seemed to encapsulate everything about those amazing months. (This paragraph got a bit more serious and introspective than I anticipated).

Friends located in or near Provo, I invite you to give disc golf a chance. You're more than welcome to join me anytime I may happen to go. I have a feeling that there will be many opportunities in the near future.

In other outdoors/sports news, I really need to get out and run more, whether that means playing soccer, basketball, ultimate, or even just plain running (boring, I know). I need to get into better physical shape.

SOFA 2009!

2009-04-22T15:53:00.003-06:00

Last summer I mentioned my desire to organize a movie-watching group with a cool name - PIMPS (Pseudo-Intellectual Movie People Society) was the best I came up with. Unfortunately, PIMPS was not meant to be. It never even got off the ground really. I did, however, form The Book Club, which, depending on who you ask, was a minor success. My desire to organize a society of people to watch good films recently returned, with a decent name to boot.

I hereby announce my intention to organize and administrate, on a trial basis, the Summer of Film Appreciation, or SOFA. People interested in joining this group must have one thing only: an appreciation of good film or at least a desire to learn more and expand your knowledge of film. SOFA, as I envision it, will not devote itself to watching trivial popcorn blockbusters; instead SOFA will seek out the films that have significance, either historical, social, or cinematic. SOFA will aim to recognize films of high artistic value, wherever they may be found.

Having taken two film history college courses, my eyes were opened to the vast expanse of films made throughout the hundred plus years of motion picture history, both American and foreign. It seemed that I would leave every class period of every film class with at least five more films or names of actors and directors to check out. This lead to my Netflix queue steadily growing until it hit the 500 film limit a few months ago. I hope that SOFA will be able to create a similar learning environment for others, where their film knowledge will be expanded. This is not merely an attempt to give others the chance to say, "I watched a silent black and white film, or an obscure French film - look at how cultured and smart I am." While SOFA members would likely be able to brag in such a manner, I envision different results. SOFA will seek much more substantial film-viewing experiences by watching films to expand our sympathy and understanding of other people, to create lasting and unforgettable emotional experiences, and to generate insightful and meaningful discussion.

Anyone interested is welcome to participate, and I mean absolutely anyone. Were SOFA to be successful this summer, I'd be willing to expand its lifespan, renaming it the Society of Film Appreciation. Let me know if you are interested and willing to reserve at least two hours a week to watch films worth appreciating.

I have what I think to be a pretty cool idea for selecting the films we will watch, but I'll write more about that once the level of interest in SOFA can be ascertained.

Everything is okay.

2009-04-08T23:57:00.001-06:00

Sometimes all that's needed to make everything alright in the world is a strawberry cheesecake pie shake from Sammy's.

For the time being...

A strange memory of times past.

2009-03-27T00:30:00.003-06:00

I still owe all you readers a worthwhile post, but it has yet to arrive. The thoughts are in my head. I just need to assemble them into something that makes sense.

Anyway, I had a funny/quaint experience tonight. I was speaking some Portuguese to myself, something I ought to do more often, and for some reason my train of thought led me to say, "...jeito de palhaco," which means "the manner of a clown" more or less. I'm not sure now why I said it, but I'm sure it was a well-deserved self-deprecation. Saying it took me back to a night in early summer of 2005. I was nearing the end of my two-year mission in Brazil. At the time I was in the city of Jose Bonifacio. At the end of another long day, I decided that I would order a pizza for my companion and me to eat. I went to one of the public phones, put in my phone card, and dialed one of the city's pizzerias that delivered. I made my order, and everything was going smoothly until I told the person on the other end of the phone our address.

"There is no such address," he told me.

"Yes, there is," I replied. "I live there."

"No, there isn't. I know."

"I'd think that I would know. I live there." We were both getting upset. I could hear it in his voice as he ended our conversation.

"That's not an address, you clown."

He hung up on me, and I could only look at my companion incredulously. I could not believe what had just happened, and I was kind of upset. I really wanted that pizza. We laughed about it amongst ourselves as we walked to our apartment. I think we ended up getting burgers from a little burger place on the corner of our street.

I laughed when I remembered this experience. I hadn't thought about it for a very long time, and it was a nice little moment during my rather pedestrian evening.

Status

2009-03-22T23:48:00.002-06:00

I am alive. I know I haven't posted for awhile and maybe some of you were afraid that I had ceased to be, but I just want everyone to be assured that I am, indeed, alive and well.

5 Things That Have Taken Time Away From Blogging:

I have been working on another short film, the first of a planned trilogy, and most of my "free" time has gone toward that in some way.
I've been playing Goldeneye on the old-school Nintendo 64 with some friends. This game was a big part of my adolescence, and reliving the 4-player madness has been amazing.
My new found love for Sammy's, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint in downtown Provo. I knew it was true love after my second visit.
March Madness. Need I say more?
A slight increase in socialization.

I promise that I will try harder in the near future to keep this blog moving forward. Though I'm not the only trapped in this famine of new blog posts. Pretty much everyone on my Google Reader list, with a very few exceptions, hasn't been posting lately. I hope that changes soon.

I Can't Believe It's Not--- Aaahhhhh!

2009-03-09T00:09:00.004-06:00

I was chatting it up on Facebook tonight, talking with a friend about genetically engineered beasts and romance novels, you know, the usual stuff, and I wrote something that I found pretty funny.

"Birds don't respect Fabio."

It's an obvious allusion to his famous get-smacked-by-a-bird-on-a-roller coaster incident, but the line itself made me think of a song that's yet to be written or perhaps an album title. Anyway, I felt like it was worth immortalizing on the internet.

Another brick for the Bricks.

2009-03-07T10:04:00.002-07:00

As I was shaving my two-week old beard to comply with the BYU Honor Code, I decided to leave my mustache. I thought that rocking a 'stache might help my lowly basketball team win another game.

Turns out I was wrong.

We played our final regular season game last night, and it ended similar to every game besides our first, which we actually won. I didn't play horribly last night, but I only ended up with 3 points. Though I didn't score, I did other things and should have had a better stat line, but most everyone else on the team was also a bit off. I'd be more upset, I suppose, but we are clearly not a middle division team. We ought to face better competition, better as in more suited to our skill level, in the tournament.

One thing is for sure: I must destroy the 'stache.

Manly Men Only - a tribute to Presidents' Day

2009-03-04T00:15:00.001-07:00

I like holidays. With the exception of Valentine's Day, I think any holiday is a good holiday --- especially one that gets me out of work. With that in mind, it's easy to see why I would love Presidents' Day. And I loved this last Presidents' Day. I got a Monday, easily the worst work day of the week, off with pay, and I was free to have fun with friends.

Back in September, a group of us decided to do something extra awesome for Labor Day. We ended up seeing who could buy the best outfit for $10 at Savers (a thrift store that happened to be having a 1/2 off sale that day). Later we all dressed up in our awesome clothes and decided to throw a Labor Day parade. Suffice it to say that it was supremely awesome and will long be remembered. I'll blog about it sometime soon, I promise. A sort of retroactive look at some of my favorite moments in 2008.

Anyway, Savers was having a similar 1/2 off sale on Presidents' Day. I ended up going shopping with my boys Jared and Joel. Jared and I were hoping to find awesome briefcases (just because), but he found the only one. I took care of my predicament by finding an awesome brown faux alligator skin briefcase on Ebay --- it's sweet. Anyway, we bought a bunch of stuff: some awesome clothes, pictures to decorate our apartments, and other miscellaneous stuff like a lunch pail. We stopped at a 7-11 to get slurpees because it just felt like the right thing to do to celebrate the beautiful weather we were enjoying.

As we were driving back to Sparks, I blurted out, "I want to make a movie." That was that. We got back to our apartments, put on some sweet threads, and got to work making a movie. We started with a very, very loose plot based around Jared's briefcase. With that seed of an idea planted in our brains, we started filming with my digital camera, the only camera we could find spontaneously. The quality isn't great, and it's pretty obvious that we were winging it, but after a week's worth of editing, I managed to put together a decent little film.

We premiered it just over a week ago to a group of friends and associates from around the way, and the film was successful. People laughed quite a bit, and that was enough for me. We didn't make any high art. It's pretty basic stuff, but what else would one expect from a spontaneous gesture on Presidents' Day?

I've since uploaded the video to Youtube, but I haven't done anything with it yet. I decided tonight to make it available to my faithful blog readers before I whore it out on Facebook. I hope you enjoy it, and if you really enjoy it enough to post a comment full of praise, feel free to do so. I suppose you could comment and tell me how stupid it is, but I've probably already thought whatever negative criticism you might bring up. So unless you've got something really original, you should probably just keep it to yourself. Anyway, enjoy. Here it is:

True Blue

2009-03-01T18:50:00.005-07:00

This will not be the so-called substantial blog that I have long promised. No, that post is still stewing in my brain. It will likely require some more stewing before I can make sense of it and share it with you all. Also, I haven't had time for serious writing. I've been somewhat busy.

Friday afternoon my former roommate Jeff spoke with me about the possibility of camping out for the BYU-Utah basketball game. People had first started camping out as early as Tuesday this past week, and getting decent seats for the game Saturday was a concern for both of us. I had planned on just arriving early Saturday morning, possibly creating a rotating shift system with Jeff, Whitney, and Paige, as well as whoever else would want to watch the game with us, but it became apparent to us that just showing up on Saturday might make getting good seats difficult. Jeff told me that he was going to head over Friday afternoon and set up a tent, and he invited me to join him. Since I really didn't have anything else to do, I accepted Jeff's invitation.

Jeff ended up pitching his tent near the southwest corner of the Marriot Center. Tents stretched from the northwest doors, which would be the first opened Saturday afternoon, all the way across the bridge and around to where we found ourselves. By the end of the night, tents would nearly extend to the southeast doors. It was astounding and awesome.

I arrived at 8:30 with my gear and some foodstuffs to tide us over; I would have arrived earlier (I did bring Jeff some Arbys for his troubles earlier that evening), but I was forced to do my job for cleaning checks so I wouldn't have to wake up early and go home to clean Saturday morning. It was definitely a cold night, colder than most that week, but I was just fine with a couple layers of clothing. Jeff and I sat around and talked for awhile; we were joined by his wife Amy and later by our friend Whitney. Jeff, Whitney, and I ended up watching the hilariously terrible film Troll 2, and, all in all, it was an enjoyable evening.

After the movie, around 1 a.m., Jeff and I both felt it was time to try and get some sleep. I climbed into my sleeping bag, pulled a couple blankets on top of me, and did my best to fall asleep amidst our noisy neighbors. There was something like a dance party going on not too far from us; then in one tent next to us someone was playing NCAA football on an XBox with the volume up too loud, and then in the tent on the opposite side of us they were watchingArrested Development, one of my favorite episodes even. People were being loud all around. I'm not sure exactly when, but I fell asleep at some point. Then I was awoken by someone who didn't care how loudly he was speaking. I guess I got a couple hours of sleep, but I can't say how many. I was warm and stayed in my sleeping bag for a little while, but eventually Jeff and I both got up.

Then all we had to do was wait. We snacked on the food I had brought, packed up our stuff, and took down the tent. Whitney rejoined us, and I was able to head to my apartment where I took a shower and tried to recruit others to watch the game with us. I failed. I grabbed two pizzas from Little Caesars and rejoined my compadres in line. All the while more and more people were arriving and getting in the line which had nearly circled the entire Marriot Center. Something about camping out for the game had increased my excitement for the game. Not only that, but it was the first BYU-Utah basketball game I could remember in a long time that had such implications regarding the conference championship and postseason play.

They opened the doors at 1:30, and the Cougar faithful filed into the Marriot Center. It didn't take long for the student section to fill up. We ended up with seats about two-thirds up the lower bowl, right at mid court. We had a perfect view of the court, and I was pleased with our seats. All that was left was for BYU to overcome the Utes; then all would be well.

For those who don't follow BYU basketball, it was a close, hard fought game. BYU shot poorly in the first half, but was only down by two points at half. The second half, however, was a different beast. Our defense completely shut down the Utes' offense. Luke "Beaker" Neville finished with just 9 points and got completely outplayed. Lee Cummard's block of Neville just might be the play of the year; it was insane. Jimmer Fredette continued his domination and finished with 25 points. In the end, BYU beat Utah 63-50. At the end of the game, I felt like I do after an intense football game. My throat was hoarse from too much yelling, but I was elated with the victory and ready to camp out all over again. For a BYU sports lover like myself, it was all I could ask for. I've read numerous news articles about the game, and every time the raucous crowd is mentioned, I am proud to have been played a part. I credit the crowd with causing at least one Ute turnover, when Neville held on to the ball too long and got hit with a shot-clock violation because he couldn't hear anything and had no idea how much time he had. I couldn't even hear the ref's whistle; people just stopped playing and I had to catch the ref signaling the violation to know what was going on. It was very, very loud in there all game long.

Oh yeah, Jeff flashing the Ute hand sign thing to a couple Ute fans as we drove away was priceless.

Jeff standing in front of the tent.

The line of tents behind us.

Just some of the tents ahead of us.

Someday I will write something substantial, but for now...

2009-02-26T23:34:00.003-07:00

I promise that there is an actual blog worth writing in my head. I've been mulling over some ideas for awhile, and as soon as the time is right, I will transfer those ideas from my brain to the internet. In the meanwhile, I figured I would just write something even if it is inconsequential. It just feels good to write every once in a while.

The Andrew Bird concert last night was very good. Mr. Bird is a fantastic performer, and I was continually in awe as he shuffled around the stage and played his various instruments (guitar, violin, xylophone, handclaps), manipulated his loops, and sang or whistled. The opener, Loney Dear, of Sweden, was also very good. I was very impressed with their set, and I intend to listen to them more in the future.

I would like to say I've had a lot on my mind lately, and while what I have had on my mind has pretty much dominated my entire thought process, I can't really say I've been up to much. I haven't watched as many films or read as many books as I'd like, and it's not because my social life is all-consuming. In fact, I'd be delighted if it were. No, I suppose I lack motivation to do things right now. I've got lots of plans in my head, lots of things to write and/or create, but I'm usually thinking of accomplishing those things later. Lately I've been languishing in uncertainty, mainly on one issue, but that uncertainty has done a good job of keeping my emotions somewhat disjointed. Anyway, the future substantial blog that I'll someday write will clarify some of this vague rambling.

I need sleep.

I Require Assistance

2009-02-23T20:36:00.003-07:00

Okay readers, I have a situation that requires intervention. I have an extra ticket to the Andrew Bird concert on Wednesday night in Salt Lake City. I am open to gifting it to someone who wants to go to the show. It will be a good show. I virtually guarantee it --- as much as I possibly can, barring crazy circumstances outside of my control.

Anyway, if you or someone you know is interested in obtaining this ticket, simply let me know.

That is all.

Oscar Thoughts

2009-02-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

I posted a lengthy blog about my thoughts on tonight's Oscars and who I think should win. Head on over to my other blog, I Take It With Jello, if you're interested.

A new blog! Aaaahhh!

2009-02-18T22:38:00.002-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the creation of a new collaborative blog, I Take It With Jello. This blog will be written by myself and my homeboy Justin Betts, and it will act as a sort of informal discussion between the two of us on the subject of art, mostly movies and music but not limited to those topics. We both miss the frequent communication we used to have in our younger years, and because of the physical distance and business of our more adult lives, a new blog seemed like a natural method to communicate more frequently about the movies and music we experience in our daily lives.

Though the blog is in its infancy, we welcome any and all who wish to read it. Loyal readers of this blog need not worry: I will continue posting and updating this blog as often as I can. So who knows what that means.

Thank you, goodnight.

Save me!

2009-02-13T16:05:00.002-07:00

Today has been a vicious day at work, as slow as it could possibly be. I need some distraction, even if it is just to post something insignificant (like always) on my blog.

Yesterday I had chinese food for lunch, and I got a good fortune cookie. My fortune read, "Your dreams will become reality." I'm hoping by dreams it meant the things I want to happen in my life and not literally my dreams, like the one earlier this week with this freaky serial killer attacking me and some girl, and I end up stabbing him with a butcher knife in self-defense.

Yeah, let's hope it's the first type of dreams.

Anti-Valentine's Day

2009-02-12T21:43:00.007-07:00

In 2001 two friends and I observed the first Anti-Valentine's Day celebration. That meant getting pizza for lunch and not being sad about not having girlfriends. Obviously, as high school juniors, there wasn't much thought going into our celebration; it was just cool.

Then in February 2002, one year older and wiser too, I drafted a document that put forth the philosophical foundation of Anti-Valentine's Day. If you, dear reader, happen to love Valentine's Day, don't stop reading because I am talking about Anti-Valentine's Day. I may not like the holiday, but that does not mean that I am anti-love. In fact, it is the opposite that is true. Anyway, I wrote an essay for my Advanced Senior English class, and it was very well-received. I've shared it multiple times since then, but I figured, why not share it one more time? I apologize if you've already read this and do not want to re-read it. You may be dismissed. Otherwise, please continue onward.

All You Need is Love and Some of Those Little Candy Hearts

I often feel nauseous. For years now I have observed that I seem to be stricken with a much more serious and dangerous nausea in early February. It may be tied to the fact that I've eaten a thousand candy hearts, hearts that come in shades of pink, yellow, or green, sporting such romantic phrases as "be mine" and "I love you", but I really think that what makes me most nauseous is the fact that the most deceptive, evil holiday known to man is celebrated on the fourteenth day of February---and there is nothing I can do about it.

For years I was absolutely powerless to stop this mindless tirade of fake affection; there seemed to be nothing I could do about Valentine's Day, and I thought that there would never be anything for me to do about it. Thoughts like that are hard to destroy, yet my train of thought was annihilated a couple years ago. No, I was not converted to the true meaning of Valentine's Day. No, my soul was not overcome by a love so powerful that I had to prove its veracity by doling out lavish gifts. Two compatriots and I stumbled upon a solution, a revelation that we could not deny. Amidst flowers, chocolates, and those vile candy hearts, we celebrated our own holiday: Anti-Valentine's Day.

Picture it: three teenage boys, coming together in high school to celebrate a holiday they call Anti-Valentine's Day. Is there any doubt in your mind that they are just jealous adolescents who can't get dates and have no one to spend Valentine's Day with? Obviously they created their little holiday as a way to make themselves feel better about being such losers. Now that we've gotten a vivid picture in your mind, I'd like to ask you to promptly destroy that image as quickly as possible. Had we wanted to observe the traditional Valentine's Day we could have. We may have been losers, but we were losers by choice not fate. Though for one day of the year, we were actually the only logical ones of the lot. We were the cool kids who knew what was up. We saw things that most people will never see in their lifetime. We saw that Valentine's Day is a farce of a holiday. Millions of people have it set in their minds that February 14th is the best day of the year. Why? Because they receive gifts and candy and affection they don't receive any other time of the year; it is the Christmas for hopeless romantics. Much like the actual Christmas that comes once a year, the meaning of Valentine's Day has been lost. In its conception, Valentine's Day is a great idea; in its celebration, Valentine's Day is an atrocity.

How awful could a holiday be that supposedly promotes love? I'm not sure, but I do know that the Teletubbies also promote love. Question answered. To put it bluntly, Valentine's Day is not about love. Corporate big-wigs want you to think it is. If you really love someone, is it necessary to heap gift upon gift at their feet on a special designated day other than birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, and Labor Day? A real showing of love does not involve gifts or delicious victuals. Valentine's Day was created to dupe people into thinking that by purchasing expensive gifts they can show how much love they feel for someone. In all truthfulness, they are inadvertently doing the opposite. Do you have to be told when to tell someone that you love them? Does some C.E.O. of the mega-corporation that creates those little candy hearts have the right to tell you to that February 14th is the day to show your love and spend your money? I think not. Make that capitalist pig eat his shorts by not procuring anything related in any way to Valentine's Day---does anyone really like those little candy hearts anyways?

Aside from being a holiday created to steal your hard earned money, Valentine's Day does much more harm than good to those who celebrate it. Although it stimulates our economy, which by February is still stuck in the post-Christmas rut, the psychological effects of the holiday are astounding and far reaching. From the elementary schools to the care centers, Valentine's Day is upon us all. Young children base their personal worth on how many valentines they get dumped into their homemade box; both low and high self-esteems are created this way. What kind of message are we sending that child who receives very few to no valentines? Because this holiday is made out to be something important, that child will suffer for a long time because he didn't get as many valentines as some of the other kids.

Depression, self-loathing, anger, bitterness, those are all feelings that can and do accompany this holiday of love, and those feelings are probably even more prevalent amongst adults. Spending the holiday of love alone can cause severe depression in the lives of those unfortunate enough to believe that you have to have someone to share Valentine's Day with. The quantity and quality of gifts received on Valentine's Day lead human beings to create status levels, a class system of sorts, but the way I see it, our society is divided enough. What we truly need is unity, and Valentine's Day is circumventing any attempt at a long-lasting united society.

John Lennon sang, "All you need is love," and he was right. But those powers that be want you to think that all you need is love and some of those little candy hearts, a dozen roses, a box of chocolates, and some cute little stuffed teddy bear holding a cute little stuffed heart. Through all of time and across the many different cultures that inhabit our beautiful world, the ability to love has always been one of mankind's greatest characteristics. Love should be shown often; if you feel it, show it. Why should there be only one day a year designated to show someone that you love them? Wouldn't a gift given at random be more meaningful than a gift given on a day you're supposed to? Love, when it is truly felt, is a constant thing and should be expressed constantly. Anti-Valentine's Day is not about being anti-love; it promotes love in its pure form. Love is meant to be shared often, and once a year is not often enough. Instead of Valentine's Day, why not have Valentine's Year or Valentine's Decade? Or maybe we ought to just live our entire lives with love; if we did that, there'd be no need for this meaningless holiday. When I hear John Lennon and the Beatles sing, "All you need is love," I cannot help but echo their sentiments and whisper a quiet "amen". Until the world realizes its errors, accepts the truth, and begins to treat each and every person living on this earth with love, this is how I will stand: Pro-Love, Anti-Valentine's Day.

I can hardly believe that this essay is seven years old. Crazy. Sometimes I think I should rewrite it, add some new thoughts and whatnot derived from my observations and experiences of these past seven years, but I still feel like the essay is more than adequate.

Interestingly enough, someone wrote something very similar to my essay. My sister Janessa found an article on CNN.com, and it almost made me wonder if I'd been plagiarized. Okay, not really. But, if I felt safe in calling myself or this other writer a great mind, I'd say that great minds think alike. However, as Janessa stated and I wholeheartedly agree with her, my title is better. Check out this article and tell me it's not eerily similar to my essay. Do it! Do it now!

Coming tomorrow: a special Anti-Valentine's Day mix. Stay tuned.

Ramblin'

2009-02-12T00:13:00.002-07:00

Friends and family, those of you who are involved in the blogosphere, you have let me down. You have not given me much in the way of reading material lately. Where else am I to turn for entertainment, enlightenment, and social interaction? Actual conversation?

I learned of the disintegration of a former-roommate's long-term relationship, and I am most disheartened. This was a couple that seemed extremely compatible, like the cliched "match made in heaven." I'm still hoping to have my own Saturday's Warrior moment sometime. Like I said a couple posts ago, I sometimes don't get people. I never imagined that this particular relationship would go down like this. It seems really sudden to me, though I can't claim to have been in the loop or anything. I feel like I need to listen to a Modest Mouse with lyrics like, "This plane is definitely crashing," and "This boat is obviously sinking," and "This building's totally burning down." Fits pretty nicely.

I'm hearing about too much heartache, especially this close to Valentine's Day. I'm definitely not a huge proponent of the materialistic farce of a holiday, but even I would be somewhat respectful of the day's place in our culture. I'll write more tomorrow about why I think Valentine's Day is a sham, but still, it's not a good time to be breaking up, y'all.

If only it were a good time for getting together, and I'm referring specifically to myself. But that likely shan't be happening, to my eternal chagrin.

Once again, I really don't have much to write about, but I just wanted to do some writing. Maybe if I get some of the thoughts out of my head and into the blogosphere, they won't be able to bounce around in my cranium and keep me awake longer than I'd like. I don't know what it is, but my brain has been unable to shut down as promptly as it used to not all that long ago. Perhaps the fact that my bedroom is some ten degrees warmer than the rest of my apartment has something to do with it.

Well, dear readers, you lucky, lucky individuals, I hope all is well and the rest of your week goes smoothly. I'm looking forward to the three-day weekend, that's for sure. I only need to think of something awesome to do. Oh great, something more to think about. Initiate shutdown sequence now.

Patria amada, Brasil.

2009-02-09T00:08:00.003-07:00

I know it hasn't been long since I blogged, but I just got hit hard by an intense longing and yearning for Brazil. This happens every once in awhile, and it never gets any easier to deal with.

I was copying all my documents from my external hard drive to my MacBook, and I saw a folder called "Letter" that caught my eye. I opened it and it contained a letter that was written to my parents by a family from the last area I served in while a missionary in Brazil. The author of the letter, Patricia, was the wife and mother of the only family that I was able to teach and baptize in Jose Bonifacio, a small city of about 35,000 people. I came to love Patricia, her husband Odair, and their three beautiful daughters under the age of five with all my heart. When my two years of missionary service ended, I was excited to return to the States but heartbroken to leave my dear friends behind. I was lucky to be able to return to Brazil in November 2005 to visit this family along with some others in a different city. Leaving the second time was even harder. As I drove my parents and our rental car back toward Sao Paulo, I was nearly overcome with a yearning to stay, but I knew that my place was back in the U.S. of A.

Anyway, I saw this letter that Patricia had written to my parents, which I had then translated for them, and I quickly reread the letter. That was probably not the best idea if I had wanted to retain some of my emotional tranquility for the evening. Even before I finished, I was hit with saudade, a Portuguese term for longing. Instead of the action of missing someone or something, saudade is a noun; it's like the longing or yearning is an actual object within you. I really like the distinction, the difference between the ways different languages express a similar reality. Anyway, this saudade hit me very hard tonight. I haven't communicated with Odair and Patricia for awhile, and that causes me great sadness. I constantly miss my Brazilian friends, and I am ashamed that I have not done more to keep in contact with them. It is one of the great regrets I have, that and not keeping up with my Portuguese the way I should. I'm just amazed every time this saudade hits me. I mean, it's not like I don't think about those people frequently. Just last night Jared and I were at Carl's Jr and our conversation eventually ended up on this same subject.

I'm constantly reminded of Brazil and my friends. I see Brazil in so many things. I can hear it, smell it, touch it, and feel it all the time. It really assumed a place in my soul; that's the only explanation I can give for its continued and unmistakable presence in my life, despite the tremendous physical distance between my favorite South American nation and me. I think this saudade is just something I'm going to have to deal with, as difficult as it may be, because the only way to get rid of it would be to completely forget all the people I came to love so much, and I would rather suffer with my saudade than enjoy the numbness of oblivion and forgetfulness.

Scattered Thoughts

2009-02-08T22:11:00.003-07:00

I consider myself a student of humanity, and the more I observe and try to understand people around me, the more perplexed I become. I'm grateful for whatever occasional insight I'm able to gleam from all my observations, but sometimes the only insight I can come up with is that people are complex, their motives are often unknown, but their complexity and confusing nature makes them all the more fascinating and worth striving to understand.

I guess it's a good thing I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on who I am and often evaluate the things I do and why I do them. I don't know where I'd be if I found myself confusing.

On a totally unrelated note: I am loving my MacBook. I still have a lot of files to transfer over from my external HD, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying my most recent major purchase. I have started working on a video about the Labor Day exploits some friends and I enjoyed this past September. I'll definitely upload it once it's finished. I worked on it for a couple hours yesterday and ended up with a solid seventeen seconds of edited clips. I must say it's a pretty sweet opening sequence though. It feels good to be (somewhat) creative again.

I need to bowl more often. I bowled two subpar games Saturday night, and I realized that my bowling skills are not what they once were. Kudos to Gus for throwing the high score.

Lemon out.

25 Things About Me

2009-02-07T16:58:00.002-07:00

Okay, this whole 25 random things about me has been dominating Facebook for some time. Jessie tagged me about a week ago, and I think it is about time that I posted my own list.

25 Things About Me:

1. As a kid I was a rabid baseball fan, and my favorite team was the Atlanta Braves. I had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of baseball statistics, acquired primarily by reading and memorizing the stats listed on the backs of my many baseball cards. My family would quiz me on the different stats of random players, and I would rock their socks off. Now, I can’t even stand watching an entire baseball game on TV.

2. I became obsessed with Russian literature my first semester at BYU. I read War and Peace in two weeks for fun, and then I read Anna Karenina in one week. The next semester I took an awesome Russian literature course and read a bunch of other great books. My love of Russian lit made me want to serve a mission in Russia so I could learn Russian and read those novels in the original language, but instead I was sent to Brazil. It was all good.

3. I won my school’s Geography Bee when I was in the fifth grade. I got to go compete in the Utah State Geography Bee where I didn’t win anything.

4. Growing up I was frequently the subject of various psychological tests. I should mention that my father is a school psychologist and would use me as a test subject to familiarize himself with the different tests he would use. I always scored very well on those tests.

5. If I could be anything in the world, I would be a musician (i.e. guitarist). I would love to tour the country in a van, play small clubs for little more than gas money, and sleep on people’s floors. Unfortunately, Rock Band will probably be the closest I get to that dream. Though I did play two shows in front of people with my unsuccessful band in high school.

6. I went to the Malt Shoppe in Provo once a week for an entire year, taking advantage of their 2-for-1 shake offer. Then they started ripping their customers off, and we had a falling away.

7. I cannot walk into a bookstore and not buy a book. I justify each purchase by telling myself that I am going to have an awesome library when I have my own house sometime in the future.

8, One of my all-time favorite things in the world is to go to live rock concerts. I love to rock out and lose myself in the music. I’ve gone to a couple 3-day festivals in different parts of the country, road tripped to the Pacific Northwest a couple times for concerts, and plan on doing more traveling to see concerts in the future.

9. I nearly died twice in one day on my mission in Brazil. The first time a drunk driver came within inches of where I was standing on the side of the road, and the second time a large chunk of the ceiling crashed down on top of the desk where I normally sat at night and ate a bowl of cereal, but I happened to be elsewhere that night.

10. My best friends and I in high school would take fast food trays and slide down steep dirt hills on them; we called it ghetto boarding, and it was awesome.

11. I love to drive for driving’s sake. I love to drive down unfamiliar roads, not knowing where I will end up. If gas continues to be reasonably priced, I plan on doing a lot of aimless driving around in the mountains this spring and summer.

12. I absolutely hate to inconvenience or bother anyone. If someone is inconveniencing or bothering me, I will tend toward longsuffering rather than confronting the person about whatever is bothering me.

13. I am tentatively planning on attending the 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil.

14. I do not mind going to the movies alone. I have done it many times and will continue to as long as I have to.

15. I feel like I need to pursue a future as a writer, but I am not sure if I have the skills or luck to succeed. All I know is I feel I need to try.

16. War and Peace is my favorite novel. I have only read it once, but it was a life-altering experience.

17. I love sports, and I think I tend to surprise people with how athletic I really am. I guess I don’t look too sporty or something. One of the greatest compliments I have received came from various Brazilians when we’d play soccer together, and they would compliment me on my play. Not many Americans knew how to play, let alone keep up with the Brazilian people, so when an American could, the Brazilians were genuinely surprised and pleased.

18. I double majored in film and English and have a job that utilizes very little of that education, but it doesn’t bother me too much right now.

19. I want to make enough money as a writer to be able to live in a bungalow on some beautiful Brazilian beach part of the year, just basking in the sun, doing some writing, swimming frequently in the warm ocean water, and living a quiet, peaceful life.

20. I am an idealist beneath my outer core of sarcasm. I believe that people are inherently decent and ought to be treated as such. Every day I am trying to better reconcile my actions with my beliefs.

21. I have never been what you would call popular, but I keep a small circle of close friends towards whom I am staunchly loyal.

22. Listening to music, reading books, watching movies, and talking about each of those things constitutes the majority of what I most like to do.

23. I have a very random and spontaneous side, what some might call spastic, and I need to find more opportunities for that part of me to come out. I miss the Slurpee-fueled adventures of the summer and cannot wait for the return of warmer weather.

24. I love classic films, especially the silent comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and defend their worth whenever someone incapable of sustained attention disparages them.

25. I tend to write too much and ought to seek for greater precision with words, this list being proof enough of that.

The joys of consumerism, or how I learned to stop worrying and help the economy.

2009-02-06T00:23:00.006-07:00

I've been meaning to post something the last few days. I've been carrying around a small notebook with me everywhere I go just in case I feel the need to write something down, part of my resolution to be more organized and get more stuff done, and in this notebook I always have at least three or four topics to write about. Actually sitting down and writing about them is a whole other story.

While I won't actually write about any of the topics that are written down in that notebook, I just wanted to actually post something, mainly because I am on my new MacBook (and it is a sleek, sexy machine). It will take some time to get used to everything, and I'm still in the process of transferring files from my PC (including my music, which will require quite a bit of time and effort). All in all, I am very much pleased with my purchase. It will allow me greater mobility and freedom, which I hope will encourage more and better writing, and it will let me finally get around to finishing a few projects I've left unfinished for some time now. Those projects include the Director's Cut for my short-film "Irish-American Idol," as well as the Director's Cut for "The Three Masters 2." It's been almost a year since I've done any film editing, and I'm looking forward to being able to do it at my own leisure.

I have been wasting too much time on GarageBand, throwing loops together and trying to create something resembling music. I fear I will continually be tempted by it.

And in other news: there isn't much other news. I have now seen four of the five films nominated for Best Picture, and I hope to see the fifth before the weekend is over. Also, I don't have anything planned for this weekend. After the hustle and bustle of last weekend, it might be nice to just take it easy and be boring. Or maybe not. I can't decide. I am languishing in uncertainty. (I'm only half-joking).

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Andrew Bird.

2009-02-01T18:54:00.003-07:00

Three years ago, on Martin Luther King Day, I went to breakfast at IHOP with my friend and former roommate, Bryan Hicks, and his then girlfriend, Lindsey, along with some of her roommates. While Bryan and I competed to see who could eat the most pancakes (I lost eleven to nine), I spoke a little with some of Lindsey's friends about music. We discovered that we had some common musical interest, though I didn't pursue that connection as much as I should have for some reason. One of the artists that was brought up was Andrew Bird. At the time, I had heard of him and read favorable reviews on the internet, but had yet to actually hear any of his music. I was told that I needed to listen to him right away.

Not long after that I acquired an album of his and started listening. I was quickly hooked. Andrew Bird is a multi-instrumentalist, proficient in violin, whistling, guitar, mandolin, and glockenspiel. His music is tough to categorize. It's very distinct; once you know what his sound is like, you will instantly recognize his music. In fact, my iTunes just randomly shuffled to one of his songs right now.

Bird played a free concert this summer in Salt Lake as part of the Gallivan Twilight Concert series, a series of free concerts every Thursday night in July and August at the Gallivan Center in downtown Salt Lake. I highly recommend catching one of those shows. They had a great lineup this past summer, and I'm looking forward to another stellar lineup this summer. Anyway, Bird's show was really great. He puts on a very good show while maintaining the complexity of his music. Seeing his songs reproduced live as he plays both guitar and violin, uses pedals to record and playback loops, and sings and whistles is an experience.

I bring this up, not just because I want to introduce his music to more people, but because Mr. Bird is returning to Utah. He has a show scheduled for February 25th at the Murray Theater, and I am very excited to see him playing in an actual club. It should be a great show. For those of you who have not listened to Andrew Bird or aren't as familiar with his music as you would like, I have assembled a mix of my favorite songs from two of his albums, 2005's The Mysterious Production of Eggs and 2007's Armchair Apocrypha. Bird has a new album recently released called Noble Beast. It used to be available in its entirety on NPR's website, but I just looked and it is no longer available. Bummer. Noble Beast is a grower; it didn't immediately resonate with me, but repeated listens have revealed the album's strengths and lasting power.

Anyone who likes Andrew Bird's music should come to the show. Tickets are approximately $20. I've already got mine, and I know at least a couple people besides myself will be going. Transportation shouldn't be much of an issue, so don't worry if you need a ride.

The Best of Andrew Bird Mix

Baby on the way.

2009-01-31T10:41:00.002-07:00

That's right. I've got a baby on the way. It should be here sometime next week. Here's what I imagine it will look like.

I'm pretty excited. That's all.

I'm pretty tired. Think I'll go home now.

2009-01-28T22:50:00.002-07:00

It's only Wednesday, but I feel pretty worn out. My struggle to get out of bed and go to work this morning was epic. I think the resurgence of the cold is playing a part in that; two mornings ago there was ice on the inside of my car. It was the first time I had ever seen that. Crazy stuff. Anyway, I was going to write something more substantial today, but I'm not really feeling it.

Yesterday I left work at the absolute perfect time. I stepped outside the main doors of the company building and looked out at Squaw Peak. It was glowing pink; the snow atop the mountain was reflecting the gorgeous hue of an amazing sunset in the western sky. Mt. Timpanogas was also alight with the rays of the setting sun. I was taken aback when I looked at both peaks simultaneously, and I wished I had my camera on hand. Every once in a while I'll see something that I wish I could preserve forever. Even if I had my camera yesterday, the pictures couldn't have captured that breathtaking scene as vividly as it truly was. And now my words are failing miserably to convey the grandeur of that moment.

It's a shame that some of life's greatest experiences are the most impossible ones to share with others. How do we communicate pure emotion or transcendent experiences, which by definition go beyond the limits of perception? I remember feeling the inadequacy of words often as a missionary, and not just because I was speaking in a second language I was picking up as I went a long. Oh well, I know what I saw. I really didn't mean to go off on this tangent.

I worked ten hours today. Crazy, I know. I did it because I left work Monday a little early to catch a matinee, and I plan on doing the same thing tomorrow. I'm pretty committed to seeing every film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar before the Academy Awards air. I've been successful in doing that the last two years, and I don't see why I can't accomplish it this year. Most of the five films have either just arrived in Provo or will in the upcoming weeks, and they're all coming out at the same time so I have to scramble to catch them all. Not that I mind much, only when I have to drive up to Salt Lake to catch a film I really want to see at the Broadway Theater (the only independent theater nearby) because none of the theaters in Provo will air films that the masses (i.e. escapist and less than enlightened viewers) won't pay to see. Yes, I am a movie snob, but in my defense, I do know a little bit about film and narratives and all that.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. The Bricks, the intramural basketball team I play on, has its second game this Friday at 6 p.m., and I'm hoping we fare as well as we did in our first game. Saturday morning I get to drive to Vernal (2.5 hours from Vernal), attend one of my best friend's wedding reception later that afternoon, and then drive back to Provo for much anticipated additional festivities that night. It should be a good weekend. Nothing like having 5 hours in a car by myself to rock out and think about life and all that.

I have no more thoughts to share at this time.

Best Songs of 2008 Mix

2009-01-25T22:33:00.003-07:00

I forgot to mention in my post earlier today that the two-part mix of my favorite songs of 2008 is available for download. They are not arranged in any particular order, other than alphabetically. I hope that those of you who actually download these songs enjoy them as much as I have.

Best Songs of 2008 - Part 1

Best Songs of 2008 - Part 2

Also, before I close this post, I just want to announce my intention to write more about music. I know that at least a couple of people who read this blog have put my uploaded mixes to good use and appreciate them. Therefore, I will continue to share my passion for music with all you fine readers of my shoddy blog.

Artist/band up next: Andrew Bird

I am open to requests also, either for particular artists or genres or themes or whatever. Peace.

I believe in This I Believe.

2009-01-25T13:14:00.006-07:00

Midway through this past week, I was feeling down. Not terribly depressed or anything, just somewhat disheartened and disappointed. Things I had hoped would happen didn't, and, as I previously blogged, BYU's men's basketball team lost to UNLV in a disheartening fashion. I was at work Thursday with this sour mood, hoping for time to speed up, trying to find something, anything to ease my disappointment. I was listening to NPR online, and I saw a link on my playlist to the latest installment of a series called This I Believe. The series asks people, just everyday, normal people, to put what they believe into 300 words or less. I'd heard a couple of these essays read on the air in the past few months, but lately, I hadn't been tuning in at the right time to hear the most recent essays. I clicked on the link to listen to seven-year-old Tarak McLain's list of thirty things he believes in. As I listened to Tarak's list of simple yet profound beliefs, I was moved by his innocence and goodness. "Out of the mouth of babes," right?

I felt a sort of emotional rebirth at that moment, nothing drastic or life-altering, mostly a peaceful cleansing of my disappointment and discouragement. My admittedly trivial concerns began to fade, and I realized there is too much goodness in this world to focus on the bad. Not that I should ignore the bad or deny its reality, but that my attitude towards it should change. Sure, some things didn't work out the way I wanted, but rather than let that bring me down I should use it as motivation to make things happen in the future.

Too often I let the ups and downs of day-to-day life distract me from my long term optimism that everything will work out well in the end. It's hard for me to keep everything in the proper perspective when the problems and difficulties of the present are so present. I struggle to see the development and growth of personal improvement because those changes occur slowly over time, not immediately or from one moment to the next. Yet, I feel that those changes are taking place, that I am in a good position with room for a lot of improvement. I am pleased with who I am and who I feel I'm becoming, and I need to cling to that self-acceptance in order to continue my personal growth.

And all this because of a child's simple and pure hearted declaration of his beliefs. After listening to Tarak, I found many more essays to listen to. I even went to Borders and purchased the book, This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women --- but only because I couldn't find the first book. Each essay I have since listened to or read has been full of important truths. Perhaps even more importantly, each essay has given me a glimpse into another human being's understanding. Writing what you believe in 300 words cannot be easy, and it forces you to get to the very core of your beliefs. There can be nothing extraneous in such a declaration; every word is an important part of that person's soul.

These essays have expanded my empathy and understanding. You can't help but feel your estimation of humanity being raised as you read or listen to these essays. These are normal people who struggle with normal issues, but they each have important insight into the human condition, as clarified through their personal experiences. Sometimes I think we allow all the terrible things going on in our world to distract us from the common humanity that can and should unite us all. We all struggle with grief and heartache; we all yearn to love and be loved, to serve one another; we all feel a need to connect to something greater than ourselves, be it God, our nation or community, or just our families.

These remarkable ordinary people share the things closest to their hearts, and they have found their way into my heart. I don't know any of these people. I recognize the names of some of the more prominent figures who choose to share, but they will likely all remain unknown to me --- and yet, in some profound sense, I do know them. They are the people I interact with on a daily basis. They are the people I silently pass in the grocery store, the people at work I have yet to meet, and they are each and every face I will see in my lifetime.

They are you, and they are me.

I encourage everyone to visit the This I Believe website and listen to the available essays --- they are well worth it. There is an online database with many, many more essays that I have yet to check out, but I'm sure that most of those essays are just as worthwhile. Kudos to NPR for providing this awesome service. I now feel a desire to write and submit an essay to This I Believe, but I'm not sure exactly what to write about. I've been giving this quite a lot of thought lately, and I hope to write something this week. I encourage everyone who reads this, especially those who blog, to take the challenge and write your own 300 word essay about what you believe. We bloggers could all post ours on our individual blogs, and I think it'd be an awesome way to get to know one another better. Just a thought.

Well, I've got a few more essays to read.

Saturday morning but no cartoons for me.

2009-01-24T09:09:00.002-07:00

It is Saturday morning, and I am up bright and early and not loving it. Instead of sleeping in and recuping lost sleep from last weekend's craziness, I had to wake up at 8 a.m. to clean my oven and bedroom for cleaning checks. It's that time of the month.

This maketh me not happy.

I was enjoying a deep slumber and an interesting dream when my alarm went off. Alas, it was time to clean. After my Friday night unceremoniously vanished into the eternal nothing of the past, this seems like an appropriate start to what will likely be a forgettable Saturday. I've got no real plans other than playing basketball this afternoon (which will be good because I need to keep playing to improve my shot and get in better shape) and possibly attending the BYU basketball game versus San Diego State.

I wish I had more on my plate, I really do. Unremarkable weekends make the tedium of the work week all the worse. Who knows? Maybe something awesome will happen. I can always hope.

Flaming Pigs on Fire Reunion Tour - Winter '09

2009-01-21T23:04:00.003-07:00

So I'm pretty bummed right now, mainly but not strictly because of BYU's poor performance against UNLV tonight. I hate losing in any way, shape, or form. I'm competitive to a fault, I suppose, but I cannot stand losing. It puts me in a terrible mood and leaves me wanting only revenge.

I've got a few things stewing in my head right now, and they will (hopefully) make their way to this blog eventually. For the time being, I am going to take a little time to report on the festivities of my three-day weekend. It was a very good weekend. My brother Mike and I drove down to Cedar City on Saturday afternoon. Our final destination was the home of my best friend, Justin Betts. Justin's older brother, Bryan, and his wife, Ashley, had also made the trip down to Justin's, and it was good to hang out with them all weekend. I find it awesome how well my family and the Betts family get along. We are all friends and have a lot of fun whenever we get together. This weekend was no different.

The purpose of this little gathering was to participate in a reunion tour on Rock Band. Justin, Bryan, and I formed a band one night in November. Our band was named Flaming Pigs on Fire, an homage to the large tattoo on the chest of Christachio, the character I created on Rock Band. That night we ended up playing for at least six hours straight. The time flew by and we only felt tired once we stopped rocking out and time caught up with us.

We all wanted another Flaming Pigs on Fire gathering, and this was the perfect weekend for it. I won't really go into too much depth about the reunion tour, but I will say that we played a crazy amount of time, something like 23 hours between Saturday at 6 p.m. and Monday at 2 a.m. It was incredibly fun. I love rocking out and was perfectly content spending my weekend that way with great friends. Our band is pretty amazing, I gotta say.

I am definitely feeling the effects of the sleep deprivation, but it was worth it. Our fatigue even helped us have an awesome conversation about Mark Wahlberg, The Happening, wind direction change, math, and K-Fed (among many, many other things). All in all, it was a weekend worth remembering.

We googled "flaming pigs on fire" and learned that our band name has awesome historical relevance. Apparently the Romans would set herds of pigs on fire and let them loose amongst enemy elephants, creating chaos and mayhem. Seems like a pretty good description of our band, if you ask me. Who knows when the next reunion tour will take place, but when it does, I assure you there will be rocking and rolling --- as much as is humanly possible with fake instruments.

The Best of 2008

2009-01-17T09:45:00.009-07:00

Best of 2008

Well, it’s taken some time, but I have finally compiled my Best of 2008 lists. It was an interesting year, not the best of times nor the worst of times. All in all, it was a good year. I really can’t complain. Anyway, here are the lists.

Books

Best Books Read in 2008 (I’m not literate enough to have read enough books published in 2008):

The Road – Cormac McCarthy
This is an amazing book, alternately bleak and sublime. I found it gripping and read it less than two days. I’m eagerly anticipating the film release later this year.
Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies – Brian Doyle
I’d always enjoyed personal essays, but it wasn’t until I took a Creative Nonfiction Writing class in the beginning of the year that I truly came to love the form. Brian Doyle is an amazing essayist, and this collection of essays ought to be read by everyone.
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
This was the second selection read by The Book Club this summer, and it really impressed me. It has a unique style, a brilliant choice of a narrator, and an interesting story with compelling characters. Its haunting and unforgettable imaginary will remain with you for a very long time.
Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
I had often seen this graphic novel listed as a must-read on the internet, and I even saw it was on Time’s list of most important novels of the last half of the 20th century. It is definitely not a children’s comic. Great graphics and a very unique take on the superhero narrative. It’s both innovative and completely entertaining.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby
This is a book that I appreciated much more once I saw the film – I wholly recommend the 2007 film of the same name, directed by Julian Schnabel. Schnabel’s film is spectacular. His background as a painter allowed him to make a film as visually compelling as the narrative it’s telling. And the film, and book, tell a remarkable narrative. It’s the story of a wealthy and successful French businessman who has a massive stroke and is almost completely paralyzed. He can move only his left eyelid and eventually learns a code that allows him to blink and dictate words. This book is his autobiography, a testament to the strength and capacity of the human spirit. Read the book and watch the movie soon after.

Film

Best Films of 2008 That I Actually Saw in 2008:

WALL-E
This was the first movie to really move me this year, and it is still my favorite film of the year. I blogged about the film, and I really can’t say much more about this masterpiece. I thought Pixar had achieved greatness with Ratatouille, but WALL-E just set the bar even higher. I suspect part of my love for this film comes from my love for silent comedies, especially those of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. WALL-E, the character, reminded me of a robotic Charlie Chaplin, and nothing that makes me think of that could ever be anything but amazing. This story about love and companionship still moves me every time I see it. Seeing it in the theater for the first time was a transcendent experience.
The Dark Knight
The rest of the films in this list aren’t in any particular order. TDK was definitely the best superhero movie ever produced. It was dark and serious and relevant at all times. Heath Ledger, of course, was brilliant as the Joker. In fact, his performance was so perfect that it got distracting for me. When the Joker wasn’t on screen, I got impatient for him to return. Ledger’s impeccable performance completely overshadows all the other fine actors in this film. If anything, he was too good for the film. I know people thought Daniel Day Lewis’s performance in There Will Be Blood was so good that it detracted from the overall film. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t have those roles portrayed any other way. Brilliance like Ledger’s Joker is rare and should be appreciated whenever we come across it.
Young @ Heart
I just blogged about this film, and my thoughts concerning it remain the same. This is an amazing documentary that everyone should see.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Another film I recently blogged about. No other film is as visually spectacular this year, that’s for sure. Technical brilliance and very good acting aside, I wish there were just a little more substance to the story. Oh yeah, I can’t forget the overpowering melancholy this film produced in me. Still, it is a beautiful and ambitious film that stands out from most of the other films released in 2008.
Rachel Getting Married
Most people have likely not heard about this independent movie. It’s just as well because I doubt most people would enjoy it. This is a very rough film, what they call a slice-of-life film that strives to portray life as it actually is. That’s not to say it’s a documentary, but it wants viewers to feel connected to the characters and plot as if they were 100% real. Anne Hathaway gives an amazing performance as a former-druggie out of rehab for her sister’s wedding. The film focuses on human, particularly familial, relationships, and it doesn’t gloss over the difficulties found in those relationships. The film doesn’t sentimentalize or minimize the heavy emotional reality of the film. I thought it was a very powerful character study with amazing acting all around.

Honorable mention(s): Happy-Go-Lucky, Cloverfield, and Iron Man

Music

I need to preface these next lists by saying that they were by far the most difficult lists for me to compile. I am an avid music fan. I’m constantly searching for the best new music while still appreciating everything I already love, and it can be difficult to keep up in our technological era. There is so much music being created, and it is more accessible than ever before. Used to be I’d have to drive three hours from Vernal to Salt Lake to find a decent record store to buy an album I wanted. Now, there’s the internet. There was a lot of good music this year, a lot of songs I really, really enjoyed; there were, however, not many albums that really stood out to me. It just wasn’t a big album year for me, not like last year where a bunch of my favorite bands released very good albums (Radiohead, Spoon, The National, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, etc). This year’s list isn’t as definitive or indicative of my music tastes. That is why I decided to include a comprehensive list of my favorite songs of the year, and I plan on soon uploading a mix with those very songs.

Best Albums of 2008:

Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
I played this album a lot this year, especially during the first six months of the year. It’s very danceable and always has great grooves. I’ve found that I much prefer dance music with strong vocal takes and (at least) decent lyrics, unlike the more techno-ish stuff that doesn’t really care about the words, and while Cut Copy may not write the best lyrics, the vocals are an integral part of their music. This is a really strong album with good pacing, and the powerhouse tracks are spread throughout the entire album, making it easy to listen to the whole thing over and over. And yes, they will make you shake your groovethang.
Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins
Okkervil River, a rock band fronted by singer-songwriter Will Sheff, has been gradually moving up into my list of favorite bands since I was first introduced to them in late-2005. I’ve been very impressed the two times I saw them perform, most recently at Lollapalooza last summer, and they put on very high-energy, impassioned shows that are fun to experience. The Stand-Ins is a great album, and there are no bad songs on it. This band has a very impressive track record actually; I can’t think of a song I don’t like from their last three albums. Most of these songs are fairly up tempo, with a good mix of instruments. What impresses me most with this band is how articulate Sheff is. I heard an interview with him on NPR, and the guy is very clearly intelligent. Sometimes you can have smart guys in bands and not know it, but a close inspection of Sheff’s lyrics is all the proof you need that he has got plenty going on in his brain. I really can’t say anything bad about this band.
Spiritualized – Songs in A&E
The final three albums weren’t as clear cut as the above two. This album by Spiritualized has a huge sound. Though it feels so expansive and the instrumentation is so rich, it’s also very intimate and personal. The singer nearly died of an illness while recording this album, and the lyrics often reflect on life and death, love and loss. I feel like I need to spend more time with this album, but the time I spent with it was enough for it to make this list so I guess that’s a good sign.
Fleet Foxes – Ragged Wood
I came upon this album late in the year, and I really wish I had found it sooner. You know how some albums evoke a certain vibe that coincides with certain times of year? This is definitely an autumn album for me. There are a lot of great harmonies that I wish I could have listened to while driving through the mountains with my windows down when the leaves were turning. Even though I missed that opportunity, this album is still pretty great. The songs are lush and beautiful, and I’m sure I’ll turn to this album this upcoming autumn.
Hercules and Love Affair – self titled
I came across this album even later than the Fleet Foxes’ album, but my time with it has convinced me of its greatness. This is another album that makes me groove with reckless abandon. Like the Cut Copy album, Hercules and Love Affair makes great use of vocals in their songs. The lyrics might not be as catchy, but the arrangement and production more than make up for it. This album has the best use of horns in dance music that I have ever heard, or at least can remember at the current time. There are some tracks on this album that will definitely be played the next time I spontaneously start dancing up Hobble Creek Canyon late at night.

Favorite Songs of 2008:

“Great DJ” – The Ting Tings
This is catchier than any infectious disease, and you’ll be happy you caught it. I could not get this song out of my head this summer. Definitely the standout track on their decent debut album. I look forward to listening to this band’s future output.
“Sleep” – The Wrens
I really can’t convey how happy I was to come across this track by my unequivocal favorite band. It’s really a beautiful track best listened to with good headphones at night. It’s pretty different from most of the Wrens’ music, but it is undeniably great. I love when the rest of the band comes in and joins the vocals and piano.
“Hearts on Fire” – Cut Copy
This is my favorite track on Cut Copy’s album, and I dare you to not dance or sway or bob your head or tap your foot while listening to it.
“Nobody Lost, Nobody Found” – Cut Copy
Second favorite cut from that album.
“Red and Purple” – The Dodos
This is a great song from a band I need to listen to more. They put out a very promising and assured debut album. This is the best track from it, in my opinion.
“White Winter Hymnal” – Fleet Foxes
The best track from the Fleet Foxes. Love the harmonies.
“Cassius” – Foals
This is another band with a lot of potential. They put on a really good show at Lollapalooza also. This track rocks.
“Hercules’ Theme” – Hercules and Love Affair
I love the trumpet in this song. Pretty amazing, groovy stuff.
“Blind” – Hercules and Love AffairAnother awesome song that makes me groove.
“Cheap and Cheerful” – The Kills
This lean little ditty features a fine lady singing, “I want you to be crazy cuz you’re stupid, baby, when you’re sane.” How can I resist that?
“Just Dance” – Lady Gaga
Very mainstream choice, I know, but I love the vocals during the bridge. One of my favorite moments in a song this year.
“Ways to Make It Through the Wall” – Los Campesinos!
I first heard this on NPR, and while I haven’t come to like the rest of their album like I do this track, this is a solid, raucous rock song.
“I’m Good, I’m Gone” – Lykke Li
Swedish pop is good stuff. This song has an absolutely great chorus that hooked me instantly.
“Lost Coastlines” – Okkervil River
I think this amazing song speaks for itself.
“Blue Tulip” – Okkervil River
As does this one. This song has another of my favorite moments in a song at the 4:15 mark.
“Dying is Fine” – Ra Ra Riot
Another relative late-comer I first heard on NPR, this is just a very solid song.
“I Thought I Saw Your Face Today” – She & Him
When I first heard this song by the incredibly lovely Zooey Deschanel and the talented M. Ward, I must have listened to it some ten times in a row. It’s simple and reminiscent of simpler times, and I can’t help but be enchanted by it.
“Inni mer syngur vitleysingur” – Sigur Ros
My favorite jibberish singing Icelandic rock band put out a great album that I am still trying to wrap my head around. In time I might consider it one of the best albums of 2008. This track is perhaps their poppiest song yet, and it is awesome.
“Soul on Fire” – Spiritualized
I love this song. I love plugging in my guitar and trying to play along. It has a very rich and full sound that I love.
"In the New Year” – The Walkmen
The Walkmen are an interesting band. They’re undeniably talented, but I either listen to them a lot all at once or not very frequently at all. I need to give their latest album some more listens. This track has always stood out to me.
“I Decided” – Solange
Another mainstream dance song here. I have a weakness for anything catchy and danceable, I’ll admit it. I think I could probably trace it all back to “Lovefool” by the Cardigans. I’m not sure why I purchased that album when I did back in the day (and I do mean back in the day when I was a young ‘un and not anywhere near the menace I am now).
“Strange Overtones” – David Byrne and Brian Eno
These are two very famous musicians (Eno especially as a producer and Byrne as the frontman of the very influential Talking Heads) who have often collaborated. I was surprised when I heard this on NPR at how much this song rocks. NPR has been good to me this year.
“Best Supporting Actor” – One for the Team
Another gem I heard on NPR. This is an excellent power-pop song with boy-girl vocals. There are a lot of great things going on in this track. I expect great things from this band in the future.

Best Concerts Attended in 2008:

Radiohead, The National, Okkervil River, and many others; August 1-3 at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois.
This was everything you’d expect a three-day festival in the summer sun to be. With 100,000 people nearby and incredible fatigue at the end of each day, Lollapalooza was a daunting but fulfilling experience. I got to see some of my favorite bands, and my life goal of seeing Radiohead live in concert was finally realized. It was definitely worth the effort and expense.
Cut Copy and Black Kids; May 2 at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I got really into Cut Copy this year. Their music is catchy and danceable, and I had a blast at their show. Nothing like losing yourself in a crowd of strangers, everyone dancing and jumping and running into one another.
Andrew Bird; July 17 at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Now Andrew Bird is a talented musician. I never realized how good he is until I saw him live. He’s a classically trained violinist who uses a violin and guitar equally during his show. He uses pedals to lay down loops, plays guitar or violin, and then sings or whistles on top of that. He played a great set – a free show no less. Thank you Gallivan Twilight Concert series. And thank you in advance, Andrew Bird, for your upcoming show in SLC.
Broken Social Scene and The Big Sleep; August 21 at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
This was another free show I caught this summer. Broken Social Scene is a huge band from Canada, and I was very excited to see them again. I first saw them at Lollapalooza, and they blew my mind. I was never a big fan until I saw them live. Their show in SLC was pretty good, just not as spectacular as their set at Lollapalooza. Lots of guitars make me happy.
Explosions in the Sky; March 24 at In the Venue in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I never thought I’d see this band play in Salt Lake, and I never dreamed that there’d be a long line outside the concert venue. I was pretty astounded that so many people showed up to listen to an instrumental rock band. Granted, they flat out rock, but it’s just not the type of music that would seem to appeal to the trendy hipsters in Salt Lake. I was very content with this show. I enjoyed their set at the Coachella music festival in 2007 more, but any chance to see them is welcome.

Well, there we have it. My lists are complete (for the time being). This post ought to be enough for everyone to read while I'm partying and rocking out all weekend.

A good start to a great weekend.

2009-01-17T02:13:00.003-07:00

This has been a long week. Lots of work, not enough sleep, some unnecessary stress, and plenty of good times as well. Tonight the intramural basketball team I am on, the Bricks, had its first game of the season. We played alright considering it was the first time a lot of us had played together in a real game situation. We worked out some kinks, got a good rotation going, and stuck it to the other team. After starting slow, we managed to tie things up at half, 15-15. Then we unleashed the beast in the second half. We held the other team to just 10 points while we put up 29. It was a lot of fun. According to Jake, our statistician, I ended up with 13 points. I should have had more, but there will be another time. I did hit a three near the end of the game that was the final nail in the coffin. It felt fantastic.

After the game we went to IHOP and enjoyed all-you-can-eat pancakes. I only had five, but that was plenty. Now I'm stuffed and ready to sleep. Tomorrow I will venture south to Cedar City to spend time with my homeboy Justin and other awesome people as we rock out on Rock Band all weekend long. It's gonna be great.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and a happy MLK Day when it comes around on Monday. I'll be back on this internet thing soon enough.

So close yet so far away.

2009-01-16T00:46:00.004-07:00

I nearly finished my Best of 2008 lists today, but the most difficult ones remain. I got a good deal finished and then I watched New York Doll with my friend Jessie and her roommate Jen (love that movie) and then three episodes of Arrested Development with my homeboys. I could stay up late and finish the lists, but I don't want to. I'll do my best to get them up tomorrow night before my basketball game - and before I shave my beloved beard. My heart breaks a little every time I say goodbye.

Goodbye, dear beard. Til we meet again...in a few months.

Why am I still awake?

2009-01-15T01:06:00.002-07:00

So I was playing Rock Band tonight, and I was totally rocking the drums. I was probably hitting the pads with too much force, but all I wanted to really do was play a real drum set and smack them with gusto aplenty. It was sweet. We'd been playing for some time, and usually when I drum for a long time I tend to get tired and lose the beat. Tonight, after taking a break to play bass, I got back on the drums and got my second wind. I was feeling it, and that translated into some sweet rocking out.

I think Rock Band can play an important part in a twenty-something's life. For me, it's letting me live out my adolescent (and adult) dreams of being a rock star. Sure I'm just smacking these pads with drum sticks in my friends' front room, but it feels like I'm really rocking out. Maybe I am. My attitude is definitely rocking, and I tend to think that our attitude determines our reality.

Anyway, it was a good night for Rock Band and then a couple episodes of Arrested Development. Now I'm up too late and not looking forward to work in the morning. It's gonna be a long day.

A few thoughts, nothing significant.

2009-01-12T23:08:00.004-07:00

I'm blogging again. I don't have much to say, but I set some goals for myself last week, and one of them was to do more writing. That entails much more than just blogging, but there's no harm in updating this more frequently as well.

I don't have much to write about tonight. I had an interesting day. I slept very poorly, was too tired to be any good at work, went home and took a nap, went to FHE, and then played basketball with my boys for an hour and a half. I've been pleasantly surprised with my play lately; I thought it would take longer to get my shot to drop, but that hasn't really been the case. I'm looking forward to our intramural game Friday night at 10 p.m. Anyone interested in attending is more than welcome to. We like fans.

I got an email from my favorite band, The Wrens, tonight. Not a personal email, though that would be amazing. The Wrens make amazing music, but they don't do it frequently enough. It's been nearly six years since their last album was released. Before that it was another six or seven years between albums. In the email I received, the band said they will be entering the recording studio in one week to begin work on their next album. This made me extremely happy. I love this band so much that Justin and I once took off on a crazy road trip to see the Wrens play in Seattle in the middle of December, right after the winter semester ended. We drove to Seattle, watched the concert, slept for a few hours in a rest area outside of Seattle, and then drove back to Utah. It was a crazy trip that I wouldn't have traded for anything in the world. The Wrens were amazing. The guys in the band are now in their forties, but they rocked harder than all of the younger musicians who played before them. They had so much fun playing; you could tell they were grateful for their fans, and everyone their experienced a special connection between the band and the fans. For me, that's the greatness of live music when a band and the fans can connect in such a way that the fans become a part of the creative process. Justin and I were singing along and rocking out as much as possible. My vocal cords were thrashed after the show, but it was well worth it. Now, knowing the band is going to be recording very soon and hopefully releasing an album sometime this year, I have something to look forward to with eager anticipation.

I find myself in an interesting position in life. I feel/hope that I could be on the verge of a very good year. I have established some high goals for myself, and I hope to be disciplined enough to reach them - though some will likely require a little luck/outside assistance. I just need to do my best. I'm ready for and optimistic that good things will happen. But more than anything, I think I'm ready to make good things happen. Let's hope so, anyway.

Well, that's all I've got for now - for this blog anyway. There is some other writing I must get to work on. Tchau!

The Melancholic Effect of Benjamin Button's Life on my Own

2009-01-11T23:18:00.008-07:00

Two posts in one day? Weird, I know. Sometimes I go two weeks without posting, and then I post twice in one day. There's just no understanding me, I suppose. Stay tuned this week for my Best of 2008 lists - hopefully I will complete them soon.

It's been ten days or so since I watched David Fincher's recently released film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button For those who don't know, the film is about a man who is born physically old, yet has an infant mentality. As Benjamin grows older chronologically and mentally, his body ages backwards. Benjamin falls in love with Daisy, and the film focuses on their relationship throughout the years of their very different lives. The film, loosely adapted from the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name, is very good and has some remarkable things working in its favor. The film is beautifully shot, and the technology used to make Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett look younger and older than their current selves is stunning. I can see why the film needed such a large budget for the effects, and it is, in my opinion, the front runner for the visual effects and possibly makeup Oscars.

I will now proceed to discuss some of the thematic elements of the film. I will try to not include any spoilers, but if you are planning on seeing the film and want to do so without any of my ideas influencing your viewing experience, then I suggest you do not read the next three paragraphs.

BEGIN SPOILER ALERT!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button left me with a terrible melancholy. It seriously bummed me out for the rest of the day, and I still can't think about the film without a faint reminder of that melancholy. That melancholy doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the film or that I wasn't moved by it; if anything, it shows just how strongly it moved me. It's emotional effect was to make me sad. Benjamin and Daisy's relationship reminds me, in a way, of Romeo and Juliet. They are definitely star-crossed lovers, and their relationship is fated for tragedy. Everything I have seen in life tells me that one of the greatest joys and possibly the primary consolation in the face of old age is the opportunity to age beside someone you love, to see your lives continually grow together until you are one united entity. Due to the unusual circumstances of his birth, Benjamin knows that he will never enjoy that consolation. When he and Daisy finally come together and meet in the middle, as they say, they enjoy tremendous happiness that cannot, unfortunately, last forever. Benjamin knows what will happen as he continues to get younger and Daisy gets older, and the realization that he will end up an infant totally dependent on someone else drives him away from his love. He will not have himself become a burden to Daisy or their daughter, and he abandons his family. At this point, the inevitable tragedy of their relationship was almost too much for me to take. Sure, it may have been somewhat manipulative filmmaking, but I wept as his daughter read all the postcards he sent as she was growing up. The expressions of pain and sorrow were too much for me. I couldn't imagine having to make such a decision. Talk about tragedy.

I came away from the film with the following as the overall theme: live life gratefully and with love, even in the face of inevitable loss and tragedy. That is what Benjamin and Daisy do; they love in the face of inevitable loss. I was grateful while watching the film that I believe in continued relationships after death, and having the faith that when I do find that kind of love I will not have to deal with that inevitable loss and separation. It left me extremely grateful because I doubt I could handle that pain and heartache as Benjamin.

Therein lies one of my biggest qualms with the film. It glosses over the final years of Benjamin's life as he becomes an adolescent, then a child, and then an infant. I wanted to know while he was still cognizant of his past just how he felt. This could have, of course, made the melancholy all the stronger and overpowering, but I wanted to get deeper into his thoughts and feelings. The film suffers by not exploring his psychology more, in my opinion. Still, it is a beautiful film. I'm not sure where I would put in the Best Films of 2008, but it will most likely be a Top 5 film. I think it could have been something more. Instead of leaving me melancholic, it could have gone deeper into the characters' psychology and been more cathartic in the process.

END SPOILER ALERT!

Justin and I discussed the film after we had both seen it. He and his wife both chose it as their favorite film of the year. I told him that it left me terribly melancholic, and he responded that it had a different effect on him. He said it made him extremely grateful for his wife and everyday that they have together. So instead of emphasizing the pain of Benjamin and Daisy's inevitable loss, the film helped them focus on what is truly important: their relationship. The film's theme that every day matters struck them both more strongly than it did me. I told Justin it was probably because the film helped me be even more acutely aware of my loneliness than I was before. I could empathize more with the loneliness of Benjamin and Daisy than I could the joy. Not that I am "terribly, terribly alone" (Michael Scott), but I do lack the higher level of companionship one finds in a romantic relationship. I am plenty aware of this as it is - I don't really need a film to emphasize that for me. It's very likely that the film's melancholic effect was at least partially due to my bachelorhood, but regardless of one's relationship status, I think the film is still very tragic.

Melancholy is an interesting emotion. Sometimes it strikes me pretty forcefully. I think it's natural to seek a companion, and we feel incomplete without that higher companionship. We all seek it at some point in our lives, and for all of my seeking, there have been a lot of squandered opportunities. I frequently fail to step outside my comfort zone, to overcome my natural timidity. It can be quite frustrating to be pretty outgoing with people I know well and then struggle to engage people I don't know very well in interesting conversation. This is my great Catch-22: I only really connect with people through meaningful conversation, yet I struggle to even initiate basic conversation with unfamiliar people, even someone I might be "interested" in. It bothers me to no end, and I am constantly resolving to overcome it. For the time being, the struggle continues.

I've noticed that melancholy has another interesting effect on me: I only seem capable of writing poetry when under the influence of melancholy. I've yet to really be pleased with any happy poetry I've written. When I am feeling my normal sense of contentment and well-being or when my happiness is above-average, I just don't feel the need to be poetic. I can and do write other stuff, just not poetry. Maybe this will change sometime in the future. I guess I'll share some of my melancholic poetry, just for the heck of it. These poems were written as much as a couple years ago to less than one year ago. They were usually motivated out of some specific experience or failed opportunity, but that is all I will reveal about the autobiography behind these poems. They are short so don't be afraid you'll have to read a Homeric epic or something. I've yet to give them real titles, other than a letter and a number, a sort of code that unmistakably identifies these poems in my autobiography, but I will merely number them as I randomly arrange the poems. Enjoy, or don't.

1
I only have eyelids for you,
the beautiful nothing that I yearn to view;
but the light always returns,
a prodigal sun, and with it love burns.
A smoking wisp of life now gone;
rest in peace, my dear, for I loved you 'til dawn.

2 (here comes a haiku!)
I've been here before
empty opportunities
slip through my fingers

3
a stray hair hung over your face
and I wanted to push it away
but you did it yourself
before I even had a chance

4
In my dream you rested
your head on my shoulder.
I awoke colder
(and older)
and realized you were only
in my head as I lay in bed,
dreaming with open eyes
my dream of lies.

5 (another haiku)
Strokes of pen and brush
are not worthy to describe
your beautiful face.

6
you inspire me to write
tepid high school poetry -
aren't you the lucky one?

7
An eternity of poetry won't change a thing.
With this limbo of words and phrases
I pen my purgatory.

At least my melancholy is short winded, right? Right? In the immortal words of Gob Bluth, "Come on!"

Young @ Heart

2009-01-11T15:45:00.003-07:00

I watched a magnificent documentary last night called Young @ Heart. It came highly recommended from my main man, Justin, as well as the many positive reviews I had come across on the internet. For those who don't know the premise of the film, there is a chorus composed of retirees in Massachusetts called the Young @ Heart chorus. Their ages range from the seventies up into the nineties, with the oldest member at a sprite 93 years old. The chorus performs classic and contemporary rock and pop songs, not the standard fare for any chorus. Songs like Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," and Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia" are just a few examples of the songs performed by the chorus. The group was performing in London when British documentarian Stephen Walker saw them, and after that performance he decided to go to Massachusetts and film the group preparing for their newest show in early 2007. He filmed the group's rehearsals and also interviewed many of the members and included their stories with the narrative.

As far as documentaries go, this film was incredibly engaging and entertaining. The chorus members are all remarkable human beings, and I, as well as everyone watching the film with me, was immediately drawn to their humor and positive attitudes. The film is incredibly humorous, primarily in the first hour, and watching it was a joyous experience. The chorus's love of life is absolutely infectious. The second half of the film becomes immediately poignant and, with absolutely no manipulation involved, tugs at your heart strings. I almost couldn't believe how emotionally attached I became to these people and their story. Little things like the way one of them laughed, or the 93 year old Eileen flirting with the director, or the way some of them courageously battle health ailments make you love these people. I experienced so many vivid emotions while watching the film, and the film ends on a very powerful note. I know that I was not the only one in the room moved by this amazing film, and I was glad to have shared that moment with others.

Young @ Heart does everything I think a great work of art should. It creates connections between the viewers and the work's subject, connections that are intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. The work promotes increased understanding of others, their view points, personalities, life experiences, and the essence of their being. Viewers should feel their understanding has expanded to include the subject of the work of art, and they should feel a sort of rebirth, like they have changed and can no longer remain the way they were. Lastly, a great work of art will create true and genuine empathy, what some might call charity or love. I firmly believe that genuine empathy or charity is the greatest quality that human beings may aspire to. It is the quality which brings out the best in who we are, and when we are full of that empathy, we see others for who they really are and treat them as they deserve to be treated. Young @ Heart did all of this for me. It taught me, entertained me, and moved me to feel genuine empathy, and I can no longer be the individual I was just twenty-four hours ago. I'd like to hope that I am a better person because of this film.

I highly recommend this film to absolutely everyone reading this.

The Book Club - strike two?

2009-01-04T19:06:00.005-07:00

Sometimes I sit down at my computer with the idea of writing something for this blog. Then, when I load the "create post" window, all the different ideas in my head swirl together, uniting to form one giant mass of thoughts, phrases, subjects, and feelings too large to be comprehended, too unmovable to trickle down from my brain to my fingertips and out onto my keyboard and into cyberspace. Earlier today I sat down to write, but only now, after a mild nap, am I able to pull apart that mass of ideas, isolate a single one, and turn it into a blog post.

Last summer I attempted to organize a book club. By all possible external measures, I wasn't very successful. Out of the approximately fifteen people that committed in some degree to participate, only a handful of people actually read the books and met to discuss them. Though numerical success eluded The Book Club, I still managed to feel that the venture was successful, the whole quality over quantity thing. I really enjoyed the books we read (The Storyteller's Daughter by Saira Shah and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Both books had a profound impact on me and discussing them was pleasurable and informative. I'm grateful for those who took the time to read the books and participate in the discussion, and I hope that they were able to take as much from the experience as I was.

I bring this up because I want to try again this summer. I know that numerical success is just as likely to elude me this year as it did last year, but that is not discouraging me from trying again. As a post-college working man, I have plenty of time to take charge of the venture and make it happen. By getting word out much earlier this time, the club's reading options will expand tremendously, reservations could soon be placed with libraries, and the whole thing could be ready months before the club would actually convene.

I hereby extend an invitation to anyone who will be in the Provo area this upcoming summer (late-April to September 2009) to join The Book Club. I will go ahead and begin assembling a list of the books that will be immediately available after BYU's winter semester ends, and interested parties will be contacted with the options and allowed to indicate which books they are interested in reading that summer. I'll take care of the more administrative tasks, but if anyone is interested in reading and discussing thought-provoking literature, you are more than welcome to join The Book Club.

If you've never been in a book club and are apprehensive of what goes down, know that I, too, am quite new to this. We weren't very formal at all. Really all that is required is to be willing to read a book and engage in conversation about it. That's it. Hit me with a comment if you're interested.

I thought I'd close with eleven quotes about literature and reading that I found last year as I was unemployed, searching for a job and setting up The Book Club. Let these remind you of the power of reading and why, if you have any inkling of desire to join The Book Club, you should.

“Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.” - Gertrude Stein

“Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.” - Augustine Birrell

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” - Joseph Brodsky

“It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.” - Henry David Thoreau

“We read to know we are not alone.” - C.S. Lewis

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.” - Marcel Proust

“A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You should live several lives while reading it.” - William Styron

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” - Jessamyn West

“In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.” - S.I. Hayakawa

“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” - Mortimer J. Adler

“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.” - Ezra Pound

Let the second life of The Book Club commence, however short lived and tragic it might be.

My belated post welcoming 2009.

2009-01-03T13:29:00.005-07:00

Welcome 2009! You've been here for more than two days already, but I think it's still appropriate to extend a welcoming hand in your direction. Make yourself comfortable; you're gonna be here awhile.

2008 was a pretty good year. As for life-changing events, there wasn't much. Other than graduating college and my sister getting married, nothing too major went down in my life. I had a good summer, got a good job with an excellent company, successfully expanded my social sphere somewhat, enjoyed the ups and downs of another BYU football season, and continued doing the things I always do. I read good books, watched good movies, and listened to good music. I saw some awesome concerts (Lollapalooza) and did some very fun and spontaneous things (late-night slurpee-fueled Hobble Creek Canyon dance parties). 2008 likely won't occupy many pages when I write my autobiography, but it will be a year that I can look back at with contentment and satisfaction.

But 2009 is here now, and I, like most everyone else, am intrigued by the possibilities of this new year. I would like to believe that I can achieve everything I've failed to achieve in years past, but that isn't too realistic, is it? Sure, I'd love to become a published author making money off my words. Maybe I'll finally finish the novel I've neglected for so long. Maybe I'll get over my cursed timidity and do what it takes to overcome my menacehood.

As much as I would love to accomplish all that and make my dreams my reality, I'm not naive enough to believe it won't require a herculean effort on my part. 2009 could be my best year, but it will require my best effort along with some luck. I hope to be diligent and disciplined enough to focus on what's most important, to prioritize my time and efforts to facilitate maximum personal growth and development.

I read an essay in 2008 (and reread it on New Year's Day) called "New Year's Eve." It was written in 1820 by the famous English essayist Charles Lamb. There are a couple passages that I love and re-read frequently. I felt it would be appropriate to share them because they reflect many of my own feelings and sentiments regarding this time of year and, even more so, life and mortality .

I am not content to pass away "like the weaver's shuttle." Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave.

Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and the fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself - do these things go out with life?

Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821.

More than anything, I suppose, I ought to be grateful to be alive, in good health, with potential and optimism for what I can accomplish in the next year. I've got another day, week, month, year to become a better human being, to treat others with more kindness, to go out of my way to serve and love those around me, to strengthen and lift the suffering and weary as they strengthen and lift me in my trials and difficulties. Isn't that what really matters? More than what we do in our lives, it's how we do it. At least that's what I have come to believe, and that's what I resolve to do in 2009: become a better person. If 2010 rolls around and I can look back at 2009 and know that I became a better person, it will have been a very good year. Everything else I might accomplish will be nice and all, but it will be secondary to the type of person I make of myself in the next 363 days.

Friends and family, I wish you a very happy New Year and the energy and ability to accomplish all that you need to in 2009.

Best Christmas Mix - The Deuce

2008-12-19T18:02:00.002-07:00

I apologize for the delay in posting the second part of my mix. I could say I was trying to give you time to truly experience the first part, but I just got caught up working on some other projects and didn’t find the time for this. But now I have the time, so here’s the track by track for part number two.

Best Christmas Mix – The Deuce

1. “Joy to the World” – The Mistletoe Disco Band. Joy is the key word in this arrangement. It’s just the perfect amount of strings and horns to keep me happy indefinitely. I especially love the repeating outro.

2. “Merry Christmas Everybody” – Rooney. This is just an excellent Christmas rock song. Pretty straightforward and fun. Need I say more?

3. “O Come, O Come Emanuel” – Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is back with his banjo – there definitely isn’t enough banjo outside of bluegrass tunes. This is both a beautiful and harrowing song; I think it captures the bleakness and cold of winter while still conveying the beauty and hope born of Christ. I love the harmonies as Sufjan sings, “Rejoice.”

4. “Greensleeves” – Vince Guaraldi Trio. This song comes from the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. I love this smooth, unhurried, and simple jazz arrangement.

5. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” – Aimee Mann. Mann is back with this fun arrangement. While her voice is most prominent in the mix, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on with the instrumentation. Sleigh bells, horns, xylophone, etc. I love the electric guitar that comes in around the 1:00 mark of the song. It’s not very prominent, but I really dig the rhythm the guitarist lays down. A really solid arrangement.

6. “We Three Kings of Orient Are” – Sufjan Stevens. I promise that Sufjan does has songs on his Christmas albums that aren’t slow and quiet, but the songs I’ve chosen for this mix really stand out. He infuses the songs with serene beauty that I cannot deny.

7. “Deck the Halls” – The Soulful Strings. This is another one of my favorite finds of the holiday season, mainly because of the song’s unexpected key changes. It starts in the typical major key, but it doesn’t take long for things to change. I always have these strange images in my head of a Christmas movie that would use this music. Scenes with prisoners, orphans, and lonely drunkards all come to mind listening to this track, not exactly the stuff the season is made of. But if I were to try and justify the inclusion of this song for reasons other than its sheer awesomeness, I would say that it conveys a side of Christmas that is kept out of sight. We might cherish the happiness and warmth of the holiday season, but not everyone is as fortunate. Like we learn in Gremlins, a lot of people have depressing and/or traumatic experiences associated with Christmas. We should be mindful of them too.

8. “Jingle Bell Disco Rock” – Disco Beat. I’ve found that there aren’t many exciting, unique, and good variations to the classic Jingle Bells tune. This is one of them. It’s just fun all-around.

9. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” – Impressions. Impressions return with another track from Funky Christmas. This isn’t as stirring as their “Silent Night,” but is still a very solid track. I dig the bass and wish both it and the drums were a little more prominent in the mix – though probably only because it would make it more danceable. And who doesn’t dream of throwing a Christmas dance party?

10. “Carol of the Bells” – Celtic Woman. This is a very solid traditional arrangement of this classic. There balance between the vocals and instrumentation is perfect, and the combined effect is quite dramatic. This is one of my favorite carols, and this arrangement is fantastic.

11. “Medley: Hark the Herald Angels Sing / O Come, All Ye Faithful” – John Fahey. I felt like I needed to include another Fahey track in this mix. Here’s one that ought to make you yearn for all those Christmases on the farm. This just makes me happy.

12. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” – Willis Jackson. This man can play a saxomaphone (Simpsons allusion, anyone?). There’s a joy in listening to someone so obviously talented lay down a track like this. Nothing else in the song has to be remarkable in the least when there is one gifted musician leading the way.

13. “Once in Royal David’s City” – Sufjan Stevens. This is one of those neglected Christmas hymns in the LDS hymnbook, along with songs like “Ring Out, Wild Bells” among others. Sufjan puts his stamp on this one, and I happen to like it a lot.

14. “Winter Wonderland” – The Mistletoe Disco Band. I love the bass in this song. Give me a funky bass line, and I will be happy. It’s a shame it’s so low in the mix. If only I knew how to remix stuff. I would turn this into the ultimate Christmas groove.

15. “Away in a Manger” – Ray Brown and Deedee Bridgewater. I felt like I needed to include this classic carol, and this was the best version I could find among my Christmas music collection. It’s simple and beautiful and picks up as the songs goes on. Jazzy Christmas music might be my second favorite style after disco/funk Christmas songs.

16. “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” – Sufjan Stevens. Okay, so this doesn’t fall under the heading of what you would consider a traditional Christmas song, but it’s about Christ and that should make it especially appropriate for the Christmas season. If that’s not enough for you, too bad. This is a beautiful song. It’s amazing what can be done with a few people singing and playing instruments. Music really is incredible, and this is quite the track, if I may say so.

17. “There are Much Worse Things to Believe In” – Steven Colbert and Elvis Costello. This is my second favorite track from the Colbert Christmas special. It’s a nice little song with a good melody and some great lyrics. I laugh every time I hear Costello singing about the “beastman giving toys for good behavior.” If this television gig doesn’t pan out for Colbert, he might have a future in music.

18. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – Chris Martin (of Coldplay). This is a very nice and simple arrangement, nothing fancy going on here, just a man sitting down at a piano. I decided to close the mix with this peaceful number, hoping to leave everyone with these seasons greetings and my own hope that everyone will have a merry Christmas wherever they may be.

Enjoy the mix for the next week or so. Groundhog Day is coming.

Best Christmas Mix - Part One

2008-12-16T22:58:00.004-07:00

Contrary to what some of you might believe, I love Christmas. I love it so much that I refuse to degrade its proper celebration by overlooking or under-celebrating Thanksgiving. I can see how some may have seen my defense of Thanksgiving and anti-premature Christmas stance as Scrooge-esque, but let me assure you, Christmas holds a very special place in my heart. I have very fond memories of Christmas and the holiday season. I remember one night, when I was probably five or six, looking out the window by my bed on the top bunk, watching large white snowflakes falling silently to the ground, shining in and reflecting the yellow glow of the back porch light. I watched the snow fall for some time, mesmerized by the sight. I can remember getting my first walkman and later my first discman. There were ninja turtles for many years, domino rally sets, remote controlled cars, etc. I cherish my family Christmas traditions: reading the story of Christ’s birth on Christmas Eve, opening the family gift (every year a new board game) and then playing the game with my family, the awesome homemade advent calendar, and so on.

As a college student, it became more difficult to really get into the Christmas spirit. The end of the semester and the subsequent finals required all my attention, at least that’s how it seemed then. Once finals were over, I could think about Christmas, and that usually meant scrambling to purchase gifts once I finally had the time. These last two years I have spent more time utilizing one aspect of Christmas to get me into the proper spirit, and that has been Christmas music. Rather than listen to the same recordings that everyone seems to listen to, I have searched the internet for new arrangements by artists in various genres. This search has been very fruitful, though I have found an equal amount of mediocre and sometimes painful songs to go along with the amazing songs and arrangements. While I have a special place for the songs that are so-bad-they’re-good, I’m going to focus on the songs I like the most. Some songs appear twice on the mix, but the arrangements are so different that I had no qualms about including them. I have put together a two part compilation, thirty-six of my favorite Christmas songs, and made them available for download. I thought I’d go through the mix track by track and write a few things about each song and why I chose it for my mix.

(I hope anyone at all interested in these songs will feel free to download the mixes. You will need a program to unzip them, but programs like Winrar or Winzip are available for free. If you need any assistance figuring these out, let me know and I’ll do everything I can to make sure you can listen to these awesome songs).

Best Christmas Mix

1. “Goin’ Up to Bethlehem” – Bob Rivers. My roommate Joel found a whole boatload of Christmas parody songs by this Bob Rivers guy. He takes popular songs and changes the lyrics while retaining the original instrumentation and vocal melody. This is by far the best of the parodies, and uses Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Around the Bend.” Just a great rocking Christmas song, of which there are very few. My favorite part of the song comes when he sings, “Hallelujah!” Perfect.

2. “Jingle Bells” – The Soulful Strings. This is the first of a few tracks by this perfectly-named group. Their approach to this familiar classic is different enough to make it memorable. I really dig the sound, especially the embellishment of the song’s main melody.

3. “Joy to the World” – Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan Stevens has released three discs of Christmas music, and there are a lot of great songs on those discs. In fact, he has the most tracks of any one artist on these mixes. This rendition of “Joy to the World” is pretty simple. Just guitar and voices. Some really beautiful harmonies going on.

4. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” – Oscar Peterson. This is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and I like Peterson’s jazz interpretation a lot. It’s just smooth. Dim the lights, lean back in your chair, nod your head to the beat, and enjoy this one.

5. “Sleigh Ride” – The Mistletoe Disco Band. The album this song is found on was probably my greatest discovery this year. Anyone familiar with my musical tastes knows that I have a large soft spot for disco in my heart. How could you go wrong mixing disco and Christmas? Well, it’s not impossible – I did find one terrible Christmas disco album, but the two awesome albums I found more than rectify things. This rendition of “Sleigh Ride” just makes me want to jump in a conga line and shake my thang. I dare you not to smile while listening to this.

6. “Little Drummer Boy” – The Soulful Strings. They return with Dwight Schrute’s favorite Christmas carol. Once again, another unique, cool, and smooth arrangement of a Christmas classic.

7. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – Willis Jackson. This cut comes from a compilation entitled Funky Christmas. It was love at first listen when I found this album. This rendition foregoes the traditional slow and somber feel of the song and gives it some forward momentum. I love the saxophone tackling the melody.

8. “Last Christmas” – Jimmy Eat World. I can overlook the fact that this song was on a compilation for the TV show The OC because Jimmy Eat World was one of my favorite bands when I was a teenager, and their show in Salt Lake in 1999 was my first rock concert. This is the first non-parody original Christmas song to make the mix. It’s a catchy pop song, what can I say?

9. “Christmastime” – Aimee Mann. If you enjoy this song, I recommend you look up (or ask me to hook you up) with Mann’s Christmas album, Another Drifter in the Snow. It’s all good. This is a pretty somber, melancholic tune, but I enjoy it a lot. Mann’s clear voice fits perfectly with the instrumentation.

10. “Mary’s Little Boy Chile” – The De Paur Christmas. This song comes from an album entitled Calypso Christmas, and it’s a fun little tune. When the bleak and frigid winter gets to be too much, add a little Caribbean flavor to your Christmas.

11. “Nutmeg” – John Legend and Stephen Colbert. Disclaimer: I like this song more than I should. The music is just perfect for this R&B tribute to nutmeg. The groove is so tight that I can’t help but love this song. And it’s freaking hilarious, though its innuendos may be a bit too spicey for some of you out there. You’ll be okay if you take everything sung in the most literal way possible. Last year it was Colbert’s book I am America and So Can You that cracked me up during the holidays; this year it’s his Christmas special with songs like “Nutmeg.”

12. “Sister Winter” – Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is back with an original Christmas tune. It’s pretty stark and chilling. I love the sparse instrumentation and the strings that enter during the interlude between the chorus and verses. The song builds gradually from its sparse and bleak beginning to the very full and rich sound of the song’s climax. I absolutely love this song and listen to it throughout the year.

13. “Silver Bells” – The Mistletoe Disco Band. More Christmas disco with this fun rendition of “Silver Bells.” I love the faux-seriousness of the song at times, particularly with the strings. They’re trying to make Christmas all dramatic and whatnot, but then they kick in the disco and the female vocals – don’t miss the awesome bass throughout the song – and you’re on your way to Funkytown.

14. “Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)” – Amy Grant. This is a very serious and beautiful song that I have always enjoyed. I first heard it years ago when my mother purchased Amy Grant’s Christmas album. It’s a simple song, not much besides Grant’s voice and piano, but it works perfectly.

15. “Carol of the Bells” – John Fahey. I acquired this album last year but never really got around to giving it a proper listen. I nearly repeated the act this year, but my ipod randomly played this track and I was astounded. Fahey is an incredible guitarist, and this is a great recording. As a guitar-lover, I’m amazed every time I listen to this master.

16. “O Holy Night” – Celtic Woman. I do have one version of this song that blows my mind every time I hear it, but I’m reserving that one for a special list. This track, however, is great for all the right reasons. I love this carol, and these women do it all the justice it deserves.

17. “What Child is this Anyway?” – Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is back with his take on this carol. I haven’t found many versions of this song on the many Christmas albums I’ve come across. Sufjan’s take plods along for nearly seven minutes. I love the way the song switches from just Sufjan and his banjo to denser textures, and he just continues to add layer upon layer of sound.

18. “Silent Night” – Impressions. This is my favorite cut from Funky Christmas. This is definitely the standout track from the album. It has the sound of a Southern gospel choir, and I would give anything to have seen this group perform their arrangement of this classic Christmas hymn. There are so many things I love about this song: the tone of the lead singer’s voice, the part where the bass plays a descending riff, the build up to the climax of the song, and the two-minute repeating outro where the soul and funk really comes out. Definitely the find of my Christmas season, even surpassing the Christmas disco albums. This song brings the house down and was the only fitting way I could finish off the first part of my mix.