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Year End
Posted 7:07 PM, Dec 31, 2007 |
No, the title doesn’t mean I’m quitting Year of Glad, ha. Actually, I’m launching a new project, because what else do I have to do?
In 2008, I’m going to write one poem per day, so I made this site, and I called it one poem per day, because I thought that was appropriate. You can get to it from the sidebar, under YoG fustlethrum, or you can just click here.
There’s an RSS feed, although it’s not working properly - it ignores all the line breaks and so just spits my poems out in one paragraph. If you know how to fix that, I will listen.
Also, I’ll still occasionally post poems here, when I write more than one a day, which will hopefully happen.
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Consistency
Posted 5:10 PM, Dec 29, 2007 |
I was distressed to learn that my backhand in Wii Tennis has the same deficiencies as my backhand in real tennis, i.e., high, looping, spin-heavy shots that usually float out of bounds on my backhand side.
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2007 Wrap-Up
Posted 5:23 PM, Dec 27, 2007 |
While I may post again in 2007 - I probably will, in fact - now seems a good time to wrap things up here with a summary of 2007.
I wrote 215 posts in the main section of this blog, including poetry and galleries. That’s 1 post every 1 day, 16 hours, 43 minutes, and 41 seconds. Not bad, I guess, since every one is amazingly engaging and immaculately spelled.
Sadly, I only posted 9 poems to this site this year, which is 1 every far-too-long. I wrote some other ones and sold them, making them ineligible to be posted here. Things did pick up in December, when I wrote and posted 4 poems, and there will be more news about next year’s poetry goal in these pages.
I posted 10 galleries this year, containing 152 photos. With an average pixel size of — just kidding. I have no idea.
There are 25 albums listed in the “current listen” section, which is about 2 weeks per album. I listened to a lot more, but don’t update that section except for stuff that gets really extended play.
I read 71 books out of the 84 that I started. While I didn’t use exact numbers, let’s say 275 pages per book, 500 words per page. Getting out my calculator, that’s about 19,525 pages, or 9,762,500 words. That’s reading about 18.57 words per minute, every minute, all year. And that’s not counting magazines, newspapers, and the internet.
The site has gotten 9,181 hits (or so), compared to 7,818 last year, an increase of about 17.4%.
I have not gotten any taller.
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Unauthorized Biography
Posted 12:01 AM, Dec 20, 2007 |
you took my simple suggestion
for a coroner’s report
without seeing the body.
i would think a future
lawyer would demand
the production of the corpse,
but the only thing you demanded
was a production,
a spectacle,
a monologue i was never invited to
(although i would have declined,
given the option).
the reviews of your two-act
came in, no bylines,
just why why why lines,
and it wasn’t until much later
i realized you’d written
your own reviews,
as if you’d written
your own unauthorized biography.
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Hello, Dear Reader
Posted 2:40 PM, Dec 19, 2007 |
It’s the holiday time once again, which means I’m retreating to the snowy hinterlands where the Internet is not easily accessible. This means, at least for a few days, there won’t be new material here. I’ll be out of town from the 20th to the 26th. There may be a post or two in there, if I stumble across an Internet cafe buried in a snowbank or something, but don’t count on it.
Upon my return, I’ll do a yearly recap of all things YoG, and then we’ll start the new year in earnest, with new projects, celebrations, funny anecdotes, and all the other things you’ve come to know and love (unexplained silences, misspellings, uninteresting baseball talk, etc.)
There is much to look forward to.
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Word Houses
Posted 10:39 PM, Dec 17, 2007 |
we all have built word houses
pieced together from
resignation letters,
love notes, and
humorous write-in candidates
our houses are different shapes:
some have peaked roofs
with chimneys jutting awkwardly
like misplaced apostrophes;
some are round geodesic dome houses
in the shape of a typewritten O,
not quite perfectly round and
not quite supposed to be.
my house is made of millions of small rooms
covered with wallpaper from different decades
and off-white linoleum floors
and pictures of family members
i’ve never met, but would like to
pretend that i have.
the room at the top of the steps
is filled with crumpled balls of paper,
old blueprints ready to roll out the door,
if only you’ll open it and let yourself in.
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Three Jump Cuts, In Order of Preference
Posted 8:50 PM, Dec 17, 2007 |
1. Lawrence of Arabia - cut from T.E. Lawrence blowing out a match to the desert
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - cut from a flying animal bone to a spaceship
3. The Graduate - cut from Benjamin Braddock jumping onto a floating air mattress to Benjamin Braddock jumping onto Mrs. Robinson (sort of)
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How I Cured Your Heart (an unfinished job)
Posted 7:05 PM, Dec 16, 2007 |
i started slowly, prodding around the edges,
my fingertips casting molds in the hard cardiac muscle.
i remembered when you made me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
on a canoe trip; you and i ended up in the same canoe by sly design.
the peanut butter, fresh in the jar, was smooth and firm,
the tip of the butter knife casting small whorls in its surface.
(Thanks to Kevin Fanning.)
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Nightmare and Dream
Posted 9:55 AM, Dec 13, 2007 |
Nightmare: I have this dream every once in a while that I have to write a school paper. I’m still in high school, in the dream.
The dream isn’t the exact same dream every time, but the “unfinished assignment” theme is recurring.
Last night’s featured me looking through old papers I had written, as early as elementary school, looking for something on a historical subject (which, I guess they technically all were, as they were written in the past, ha ha), and finding nothing. Fortunately, I woke up before the due date.
However, I did have to remind myself, upon waking, that it was a dream - the dream actually carried over to reality for just a moment.
Dream: In the other dream I had last night, I was at the house I grew up in and playing in the yard when a seemingly-feral bobcat came running out of the woods. (Bobcats are not native to northern MN, as far as I know, and thus its appearance was startling and frightening.) So I ran back onto the porch and then we barricaded the staircase with various patio furniture.
I don’t remember who else was in the dream, but I do remember that the bobcat had been barricaded long enough that I stopped being frightened of it and went back inside. Later, I went back out onto the porch and found one of my compatriots playing with the bobcat through the patio furniture. Suddenly, it seemed a nice bobcat, but I still insisted that it not be allowed onto the porch or, for heaven’s sake, into the house.
Still later in the dream, the bobcat got sad, after being playful for hours and still being denied entry, that it began to wander back to the woods, its shoulders slumped. At this point, I felt bad and ran out next to it to comfort it. I walked next to the bobcat all the way to the woods, at which point we came upon some sort of brightly-colored ice-cream-type truck that was really a fancy advertisement for some website, the address of which I do not remember and may or may not have been a real website.
The bobcat laughed and leaped into the woods and disappeared, and I realized that the bobcat’s entire role in my life was simply to get me to walk to the woods to view this advertisement. It went to the lengths of scaring me and then having a change of bobcat-heart and then getting sad. The advertisers were smart enough to know that my predictable reaction would be to try to comfort the bobcat and that I would, upon seeing its sadness and lonely walk to the woods, accompany it, thus playing right into their hands. I was appalled, as I often am by advertisers.
Fortunately, as I said, I don’t remember the name of their website, so if the advertiser was really a real company and they were somehow trying to advertise inside my dreams, I’m happy to report that it did not work.
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What I Have Been Up To
Posted 3:09 PM, Dec 12, 2007 |
A list of what I have been up to lately:- Lawn bowling practice for a singles match on Friday and a league match on Saturday.
- Practicing the six songs I’ve memorized for guitar:
- Blackbird - the Beatles
- Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
- Tomorrow Is A Long Time - Bob Dylan
- Babe, I’m Gonna Leave - Led Zeppelin
- I’d Love to Change the World - Ten Years After
- Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
- Working on a new website / project, to be unveiled sometime soon.
- Reading - finished three books in the last 36 hours:
- The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- About Alice by Calvin Trillin
- Working, you know, at my job.
- Making lists and sub-lists.
That is all.
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Review: Schulz and Peanuts
Posted 6:27 PM, Dec 10, 2007 |
David Michaelis’s Schulz and Peanuts has gotten a lot of flak for “smearing” Schulz’s name, dragging details about his personal life into the light after he is no longer around to defend himself, as well as just, in general, not providing an accurate portrayal of his life - some of this criticism has come from his family.
From what I can tell, Michaelis did his research. He has innumerable citations, direct quotes from friends, family, and correspondence, and backs it all up with maybe the most telling evidence of all: 240 Peanuts strips. The strips (granted, chosen from around 20,000 strips that Schulz did) dovetail perfectly with the details in the book. It would have been nice if Michaelis would have included the original dates of publication for the strips he chose; it would make it clearer that the strips’ content came directly from what Schulz was going through.
A lot of the criticism has been that the book portrays Schulz as a depressing misanthrope who had a lot of personal, emotional struggles, from continually feeling unloved to being unable to really connect with other people - those last two things might be the same.
But the book doesn’t really make that out to be a bad thing. Sure, it may still be untrue, but I didn’t feel like Schulz was being raked over the coals. If anything, Michaelis takes the care and time to point out where Schulz’s alleged problems are rooted, making it clear that he was that way for a reason and also making clear his struggles to work through those issues.
The book is long, and starts slow, with Schulz’s parents lives, briefly, but really picks up steam once Schulz enters the public eye. The constant insertion of Peanuts strips makes the book incredible, really. It’s amazing to see how much of his life he poured into the comic and the way the comic really became an extension of his life. The book makes it abundantly clear why nobody could ever take on Peanuts after Schulz died - it was his and his alone, a unique extension of his person. Two thumbs up.
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Answer Man
Posted 11:26 AM, Dec 9, 2007 |
While Roger Ebert may be kind of a doofus at certain points (and who isn’t?) (see his review for Garfield), his Answer Man columns are some of the best stuff around. They’re great mainly for the variety of topics they cover, from the writer’s strike (is that still happening) to what cost Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the half-star that prevented it from getting a four-star review. He also, thanks to a reader, posted a photograph of Cormac McCarthy, author of “No Country For Old Men”, alongside an eerily-similar Josh Brolin. It’s uncanny.
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(Tough To Say) When It All Went Wrong
Posted 2:51 PM, Dec 6, 2007 |
you open the refrigerator, stainless steel and white plastic,
and grab the milk, twist it open. the smell creeps out,
settling like a fog, slowly at first and then accumulating quickly.
you used the milk just last night, warmed a mug of it when you couldn’t sleep,
and sometime between then and now the milk turned,
began to curdle and sour, but it’s tough to say just when.
your tongue tries to taste last night’s milk, searching for the slightest
edge of sour, like tasting soap from a freshly-washed glass.
you approach the coming day with half your mind in your stomach,
waiting, like a new sailor trying to find his sea legs,
waiting for the queasiness to come.
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Logic Puzzle
Posted 10:46 AM, Dec 6, 2007 |
Every so often, the folks over at Coudal Partners post a logic puzzle as a contest; you can send in your answer and, if correct and chosen at random, win some sort of prize. Their most recent puzzle, Let’s Do Lunch, is found here.
Now, if you don’t want to know my answer, you should stop reading.
Because I’m going to tell you.
I’ll also tell you that my answer doesn’t agree with their answer. Both my answer, their answer, and the clues to the puzzle are listed below, but of course, you can visit their site for full details.
Here’s the puzzle, first:
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1. York (who isn’t sitting in seat #1) shot a science fiction movie.
2. The person sitting in seat #2 didn’t just return from Tokyo.
3. Julia is in seat #3.
4. Hannah (who isn’t sitting in seat #4) is across from the person who just returned from Hawaii.
5. Marks is sitting next to the person who just returned from Spain.
6. Moon did not shoot an action thriller.
7. Glory and Robert are sitting next to each other; one of them is surnamed Smith and the other had just returned from Ireland.
8. Robert (who isn’t Moon) shot a romantic comedy.
There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the only correct answer.
(YoG note: They also add that the fourth kind of movie, which is not mentioned in the clues, is a costume drama.)
—-
Now, let’s start with my solution, which is similar to theirs, but differs on several points.
Seat 1: Glory Marks, who shot an action thriller and just returned from Ireland.
Seat 2: Hannah Moon, who shot a costume drama and just returned from Spain.
Seat 3: Julia York, who shot a sci-fi film and just returned from Tokyo.
Seat 4: Robert Smith, who shot a comedy and just returned from Hawaii.
Going through the clues, one by one, and comparing them to my solution:
Clue #1: Check. I don’t have York in seat #1, and I do have York shooting a sci-fi film.
Clue #2: Check. The person I have in seat #2 just returned from Spain, not Tokyo.
Clue #3: Check, Julia is in seat #3.
Clue #4: Check. Hannah is in seat #2, not seat #4, and is sitting across from Robert, who just returned from Hawaii. (The seats are arranged in a circle around a table, so 2 is across from 4, 1 from 3.)
Clue #5: Check. Marks, in seat #1, is sitting next to Hannah, in seat #2, who just returned from Spain.
Clue #6: Check. Hannah Moon just shot a costume drama, not an action thriller.
Clue #7: Check. Glory and Robert are sitting in seats #1 and #4, respectively, which are next to one another (since the table is a circle - their site has a clearly marked picture to illustrate this). Robert is surnamed Smith, and Glory has just returned from Ireland.
Clue #8: Check. Robert Smith (not Moon) just shot a comedy.
So my answer seems to match all eight clues, which is all the information they use in explaining their solution - i.e., there is no extra information hidden in the puzzle description or anything. The 8 clues should be sufficient.
Now, checking out their solution:
Seat 1: Glory Moon, who shot a costume drama and just returned from Ireland.
Seat 2: Hannah York, who shot a sci-fi film and just returned from Spain.
Seat 3: Julia Marks, who shot an action thriller and just returned from Tokyo.
Seat 4: Robert Smith, who shot a comedy and just returned from Hawaii.
I won’t bore you with the details, but their solution also checks out. Their solution takes a turn from mine when they use clue #5, the fact that Marks is next to the person who just returned from Spain, to mean that it has to be Julia Marks (in seat #3) rather than Glory Marks, in seat #1 - I don’t see why Glory Marks isn’t a legitimate choice. That’s really the only difference - after that, everything falls into its logical place.
So can someone tell me where my solution fails?
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Midwestern Music, If There Is Such a Thing
Posted 4:33 PM, Dec 4, 2007 |
Last weekend, the Rittonians, Dr. Dr., the EC, and me all went to see Ghostland Observatory at the Henry Fonda Theater. If you don’t know Ghostland Observatory, they’re best described, perhaps, as electro-clash, I guess. There’s just two guys, and one makes a lot of noise using electronics, and the other one “sings” loudly and makes dance moves like he may be passing something. I was not impressed, but the other members of the group seemed to like them pretty well - only the EC and I had heard them prior. (If you’re wondering why I went, the EC won free tickets, and I’m never one to turn down a show, I guess, because, like, who knows?)
Now, this group of the Rittonians and Dr. Dr. and the EC, they all like the same kind of music, basically. They all like LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, Justice, and so on - all your electro and electro-clash stuff that I tend to find pretty monotonous and/or loud.
Me, I’ve mellowed, partially due to learning guitar, but I’ve always been more mellow, musically. I’ve been gravitating towards things like Bon Iver, M. Ward, Josh Ritter, and even a little Leo Kottke and Jeff Fahey, here and there.
Now, the EC went to school out here, and Dr. Dr. grew up in San Diego. I know the Rittonians are most recently from Columbus, but may have spent some of their formative years elsewhere.
There seem to be few people here that thrive on the laid-back singer-songwriter stuff that many people back in Minneapolis hold near and dear (not that they don’t have other tastes). None of my friends here are thinking about, say, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello songs that share a title.
Is it a Midwestern thing, being in the Midwest when you first start really exploring music? (I think Ghost of Paper might dispute that, as I think his musically-formative years were in New Jersey, which is maybe the exception to the rule or maybe destroys the rule altogether.)
We all associate the South, capital S, with country music, we associate Louisiana with zydeco, and so on…. But what are those “so on”s? What do we associate with the Midwest? How about Los Angeles? Is it singer-songwriter emo-ish stuff, as much as I hate labels, and electro-clash, respectively?
In the spirit of Ghost of Paper, I’ve built this post around a question, which I will now state explicitly: like country music and the South, what other types of modern music (emo, electro-clash and -pop, drone, ambient, retro-pop, etc.) are associated with various regions in the United States?
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Two People
Posted 11:33 AM, Dec 2, 2007 |
The EC and I ran into a couple of interesting people over the weekend.
The first is one of the book-slingers (i.e., check-out people) at the local library. He’s an incredibly soft-spoken guy. As I was waiting in line, this lady and her daughter, maybe about 10 years old, were checking out, and the book-slinger was just patiently scanning each of the books and DVDs they wanted. In the midst of this, he just says, in his soft-spoken way, to the girl, “That’s a really pretty sweater.” (It was a nice sweater, all sparkly and what-have-you.) It was a really nice, sweet thing for the guy to say, and that kindness sort of made my day.
The second person pulled up next to the EC and I as we were parking the car. She was this elderly woman driving a white Mercedes, and she pulled up and rolled down her passenger window, and we rolled down our driver’s side window. (The royal we.) She was dressed in this white sweater and covered around the shoulders and also wrapped around her head in this Caribbean-blue shawl. She leaned over and said, in a voice that only an elderly woman can have, “Which way is it to the ocean?” Unfortunately for her, she was heading in completely the wrong direction and was about 5 miles away. The EC gave her directions and the woman motored away.
These two encounters made the weekend just a touch nicer.
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