Screw the conventional blogging wisdom (ie. "don’t apologize or otherwise even acknowledge that you haven’t been posting"). This is not an apology, just an update of sorts. If nothing else, it’s for me, so I can keep tabs on just where the days have gone.
- Carla and I decided, for reasons emotional and financial, to put our house on the market.
- Our cat, Gladice, went on to the great mouse hunt in the sky after 17 years.
- We moved in with
my mother-in-lawa nice older lady who kindly offered to rent half her house to us. - I started posting more and more little updates to Twitter and Facebook, and as a result have seemingly had less to say on the blog proper. (If you’re reading this from Facebook, it might alleviate your confusion to know that Facebook is auto-importing posts from my blog as notes.)
- I started becoming more interested in making things. Not even necessarily writing songs – just creating. Pencil sketches, guest posts on others’ blogs, ugly PSD mockups of fake band websites…when the time is right, I may share this stuff (or at least the stuff that’s not currently public), but for now the process of making it is good enough.
- I lost some momentum on the songwriting front, which usually happens when life gets in the way. But the study is now arranged and my music equipment set up, so that should change soon.
- And oh, the social engagements. Concerts, ballgames, once-in-a-lifetime Geek singularity events, random get-togethers with friends…considering the circumstances, it’s been a good summer.
And now that I’ve caught you all up (and by “you all,” of course, I mean “me”), I may just resume blogging about everything and nothing.
I may just.
Image by anthom via Flickr
I discovered a few weeks ago that my inner critic sounds a lot like Jay Sherman. And not Jay Sherman as normally seen in any episode of The Critic, but Jay Sherman locked up in a mental hospital in a crossover bit from The Simpsons episode “Hurricane Neddy” where all he can do is repeat his catchphrase, “It stinks! It stinks!”
Whenever I sit down to write, make music, or sketch (my latest interest), there’s Jay Sherman in his room, yelling “It stinks! It stinks!” before I’ve even made a mark on the page.
My hope is to eventually turn my inner monologue into the words of the doctor treating him, patronizingly saying “Yes, Mr. Sherman. Everything stinks.” In other words, just don’t take The Critic seriously.
I even made this little parody of a motivational poster to remind me that when I hear that voice, it’s really just Jon Lovitz pretending to be a mentally unbalanced film critic.
Why am I sharing this psychological insight with you not long after talking about getting out of my own head? Well, you may be able to help me in my quest to Be the Doctor instead of The Critic. Or maybe not. Stay tuned to future posts – this might eventually make sense.
Tuesday night I sat in on a songwriter’s group in Brunswick, organized by Jud Caswell. We did quite a bit of “object writing,” ie. taking an object, person, or situation, and describing it in as much sensory detail as possible, without worrying about rhyme, meter, or even basic prose. The idea is just to get what you see, smell, hear, touch, and taste on the page.
As a songwriter, I’ve been pretty stuck in my own head for as long as I can remember. I tend to favor impressionistic lyrics, snatches of ideas mushed together into a whole that I hope is greater than the sum of its parts. More often than not, the phrases tend to reveal something bigger than themselves, but don’t really tell a story in the traditional sense.
I usually associate that kind of “story” writing with cheesy country ballads and CCM artists singing about the love of their daughter, but realized that some of my favorite songwriters (particularly Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie) also use it to great effect.
I guess I’m starting to learn there’s a benefit to getting out of my own head.
- Image by Steve Rhodes via Flick
A literate country – a hopefuller country…
- Former Leader of the Free World, George W. Bush
Recent events have transpired to make me less despairing of the future. Here, in rambling, semi-coherent form, are a few of the reasons I feel, well, “hopefuller.”
Perhaps it’s the change in the weather. Warmer temperatures, longer days, more sunlight – these are all very positive developments. It’s almost embarrassing how much better I felt after our first few days of spring-like weather this year.
Another plus – today’s my birthday. The entire month of May for me usually is measured in “amount of time preceding or after my birthday.” I’ve come to the conclusion that I enjoy this time year so much because it was the first season I ever knew. I can just imagine myself as a baby, being used to spring and summer, suddenly feeling colder air coming on in autumn and thinking, “Dude, WTF?”
Yes, in my mind, infants speak in IM/txt acronyms.
- Image by mike-andrews via Flickr
I’ve spent at least 10 minutes each day for the past week and a half near the water. My current favorite spot for this is the waterfront park in Gardiner. I’ve taken to eating my breakfast there, watching the waves, listening to music in my car. It’s a great way to start off the day, and I can’t imagine why I never thought of it before.
Also, I don’t want to jinx anything, but Carla’s been feeling better. This by itself would be a huge relief.
Last, but not least, I’m enjoying ideas again. Who knows if anything will come of them, but I’m not shooting down any weird creative possibilities my head may invent just because they’re weird and creative.
This feeling may stay. I will allow it.
Image by slavin fpo via Flickr
Don’t be frightened to display your talents. – Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies, as just seen on Twitter
Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. – Fortune cookie taped to my monitor
The Man has seen fit to remove the Kenny Rogers audio from my Lost Skeleton/Big Lebowski mashup. That being said, I’m not the only one doing wacky audiovisual things with that classic of bowling, ‘Nam, rug-peeing, and Caucasians. In the vein of the recut Shining trailer that makes the horror classic look like a quirky romantic comedy comes this bit o’brilliance (via Twitter/gfmorris):
Yes, it’s true. March 20th is the official First Day of Spring. After the winter we’ve been through, both weather-wise and life-wise, Carla and I (and, it seems, everyone else in our lives) could use the thaw.
To celebrate the momentous occasion of having seemingly survived the worst of winter, I’ve uploaded another new song to my Bandcamp profile. Well, not exactly “new,” as the song’s been percolating for about 5 years in my head, and in various live configurations. The recording’s only been completed in the past few months, anyway. It’s called “Light of Day,” and it’s something I wrote to remind myself. Of what, I’ll let you decide, because, hey, maybe you need a reminder, too.
As usual, you can download it for free (all I ask is your email address, so I can keep you in the loop when I make yet more music), or pay whatever you want to download a higher bit rate version of the song.
Take a deep breath, enjoy the weather, whatever it’s doing (it’s supposed to be sunny and mild here), and let me know what you think.
- Image by \ Ryan via Flickr
I originally wrote this back in September, after hearing the news of David Foster Wallace’s suicide. Recent events have caused me to rethink why I was sitting on this post…
Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
The sad irony of this passage is that the man who wrote it as an observer (“you or me”) became the person for whom the fear of falling couldn’t overcome the fear of the flames.
Apparently, David Foster Wallace battled crippling depression for over 20 years. The antidepressants stopped working. I think this is the part that sticks with me. At least two of the most important people in my life are wrestling with depression right now, and it scares me to think someone can get so hopeless that this is the only way out they see.
It might not seem like much to those feeling the flames, and ultimately, it’s trite and cliche, but true. Something like this really does make you think about the big stuff – what’s important – and hopefully let the people you love know that they are just that.
Loved.
When panic grips your body and your heart is a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you’re breathing in reverse
All your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level outBright Eyes – If The Brakeman Turns My Way
I couldn’t stop listening to the album this song comes from all last week. I didn’t realize how prescient the opening verse of this song would be…
Note to self: Next time you’re hearing minor clicks in your audio, try rebooting before going crazy and assuming it’s the source file.
Interpretation for those who aren’t me: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the piano version of “Return.” You may resume streaming, downloading, and basking in its awesomeness.
