What shall I cry?

2011-12-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

Starting out a blog post by talking about how it's been SO LONG since the last time I blogged makes me feel ridiculous and also makes me think about how weird blogging is in the first place, so I'm NOT GONNA DO IT! But I woke up early today so Tami could make me coffee in bed and give my my birthday gift (Spoiler Alert: it's my birthday!!!) and now I'm wide awake and felt like spilling my mind-grapes before breakfast.

Side note: Tami got me a birthday sweater just like I got her one. It's a dark-grey cardigan with a shawl collar, and I'm still a little on the fence about it because I don't wear things with shawl collars very often/ever. It is a testament to my wife that she bought one even when, after telling her what I wanted, she told me that she didn't really like cardigans on guys. My wife, people - solid gold.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about my culture and history lately. Partly this has to do with two of the classes I took this past quarter: and ethnomusicology course about music and community, and an ed course on teaching African American students and culture. Both of these classes challenged me to cultivate an understanding of my own culture and values in order to better respect the backgrounds of my future students, which I find to be a difficult thing to do, considering the dominance of my statistics in the U.S./world at the current moment. But discerning my culture and values has been coloring a lot of my thinking lately.

We picked my younger brother and sister up from the airport on Thursday night, and I drove them home Friday morning while Tami was at work. Since I've been slacking on the running front during exams, Andrew and I went on a six-mile run in the afternoon down through the valley. The air was stagnant and hazy, and someone was burning something big, which made everything smell, not unpleasantly, like wood smoke. We detoured around the fire towards the farm, so it wasn't until I got back to my parents' house that someone told me that they were burning down the old house on the Bylsma Road.

This house had been beyond saving for some years, and was definitely a hazard, but I had spent a lot of time exploring it, taking photos and imagining what it must have been like to live there, and it jolted me a little when my parents told me it was being torched. It sat on a nice rise above the valley, and the view from the kitchen window was one of the nicest you could ask for. There was a barn and shed next to it, one of them filled with old wooden-frame windows and an old door. I had always contemplated taking the door myself, and I hope someone saw fit to pull it out before they burned the place.

When I think back on this year in the future, I wonder if I'll remember it as the year of houses. My parents moved out of the farmhouse and onto their new place in January. The house in Iowa burned down in the fall (my brother visited after the remains were bulldozed and grabbed a brick for me). And now they shoved down the old house and barn on the Bylsma Road and burned them, too. It amazes me how much loss I feel in all of this. Much of my history's physical manifestation has been destroyed or is now closed to me, and part of me wishes that I had pulled out that door, or some moulding or railing from the Iowa house; that I still had some piece of these places to hold on to.

I'm not trying to turn this into some carpe diem thing. I guess I've become more aware how my history is being shaped with each passing year, how my culture and values are burned, changed, or made more concrete through my experiences. That includes loss, and I think that losing something is an easy way to put it in focus, but I am blessed to have so many more things that I haven't lost. This past Sunday, I helped lead two carol sings, one at my old church in Lynden, and then one with my extended family, and I realized how important that tradition is to me, and how incredibly thankful I am to have been able to sing "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne" with my Grandma's voice in my ear one more time. I got to have breakfast with my other Grandparents on Tuesday morning before heading back to Seattle, and I get to spend Christmas with them for the first time this year. My sister and brother-in-law are bringing my niece (and themselves) over from Nebraska, and Tami's brother and sister-in-law are expecting a baby this spring. We have stability, shelter, friends, jobs, etc. There is a lot that hasn't burned.

Increasingly, one of my favorite quotations is from the "Cana of Galilee" chapter in The Brothers Karamazov: "Not grief, but men's joy Christ visited when he worked his first miracle, he helped men's joy...'He who loves men, loves their joy'..." That's how I've felt, more often than I deserve, this year - that Christ loves my joy. I can't think of anything better to wish for people this Christmas.

2011-11-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

Just an update. As I prepare to student teach, I'm buttoning down much of my online activity so that students who Google my name can't find out my sordid past. Not much here that I'm worried about, but it's better safe than sorry, right?

So. Might make this thing private, or change the URL. Not sure. Will keep you posted. Thanks.

An ending

2011-10-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

So the house burned a week ago last Friday. I was about to start a choir rehearsal at church Thursday night when my mom called from Iowa. I felt that something was wrong when I saw her name on my phone and hoped that she didn't have bad news about a family member. She told me she was in mourning, or something along those lines, which indicated that it wasn't a person that had passed, and then I knew: "Someone burned down my childhood home."

My parents stopped by on their way out of town to see it and sent me some photos they took on my Dad's phone. They're sort of blurry around the edges, and they look like Mathew Brady Civil War photographs, the scorched-brick/early autumn colors bleeding into each other, dulling the edges of the scorched earth. The walls are still standing for the most part, but everything flammable is gone: staircase, window seats, sidelights, piano. The left side of the front facade collapsed, but to the right of where the front door was you can see scorch marks where the barreled ceiling of the porch attached. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach, especially when I think that it might have been deliberate. It feels like someone died.

I think about it when I'm falling asleep, that burned skeleton standing on the same hilltop where it has stood for so long. I did before it burned, too, wondering if it was raining or windy, if shingles were blowing off and letting in more water, wondering when the balance would shift from "salvageable" to "condemned," still clinging to a crazy hope that I could change its fate. I don't know what the owners will do about it. Judging by past performance, they won't do a damned thing, but maybe they'll hire someone to push what's left of it down into the cellar, smooth over the dirt, and call it a day. Old, alone, done for.

I don't like to think of myself as a weepy twenty-something who cries in Starbucks when he thinks about a burned-down house. Add to that the fact that it wasn't my house, that no one was living in the house, that the house had been abandoned for close to two decades, and even I don't understand it. I don't know that I ever will. Right now, I know that I can hardly bear thinking that the owners let this happen, that some idiot kids broke the windows out and smashed the railings and drank and smoked there and then eventually set the thing on fire because why not burn it? I want to find these people and yell in their faces, grab them by the shoulders, shake them. How could you do this? How could you allow this to happen?

Because it wasn't my house, but it was. I loved it. My family loved it. I wanted to help it. I did believe, crazy or no, that maybe, possibly, I could make other people understand, make others want to save it, too, to the point where we could actually raise money and fix it. I still believe that I could have. But now that's not an option. And I have to face the fact that even if it had been restored, it could have burned down just as easily, just like any other house. My inclination is to go and scavenge, grab a few bricks, pull up a chunk of sandstone and take them with me; if not the whole, than at least a part. But then I realize that I'd just be delaying the inevitable, putting off a goodbye with back-breaking labor, and then who's the stupid one?

Which just keeps me circling back to the one thing I seem to always be able to circle back to: there is goodness in this world, but it's a messed-up place.

2011-10-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was waiting for the 44 on campus, and a gust of wind blew up behind me with a couple of the leaves, and it smelled like fall. Not just fall in general, but the fall I associate with being on the farm. The minty color of the grass in the mornings, the rare and shocking red of the windfall Kings from the two big trees in front of the farmhouse, catching falling maple leaves on the road while waiting for the school bus. Grandma's blue corduroy jacket. Coming home to garbage cans on the front lawn, full of corncobs, the kitchen sweet-smelling and sticky. Leggy mums which had been so dutifully pinched back earlier in the year, now collapsed under the weight of their flowers. Drifts of locust leaves in front of the garage. The whiteness of the moon on clear nights driving home from a late play practice. Sweatshirt weather. The first day after daylight savings time ended, when it seemed like the earth had unbalanced itself.

I think mostly about corn silage. When I was younger, sometimes at night I would ride along with an uncle or with Dad in a silage truck. You couldn't talk a lot, nor was there ever much to say, but it hardly mattered. It was enough to sit there as darkness fell, feet braced against the floor to keep from bouncing out of your seat, in awe of their uncanny abilities to predict where the chopper would be when the next load came full, slicing through the new world of the bare cornfield with their headlights. Every year it was like pioneering, uncovering ground that had been inaccessible for months. Eventually, you would tell the driver that this was your last load, and then swing out easily down onto the pavement, turn and reach and slam the door, watch them drive off for another load, and head back into the house. But there, in the back of your mind while you were doing your homework or practicing piano, was the comfortable knowledge that they were still driving, secret and powerful in the dark cabs of their trucks, filling up the bunker load by load. For a few weeks, there was a nightlife on the farm, and although everyone complained in the morning, you could tell that everyone enjoyed being in on it together.

The year I lived at home was the year that I was actually a cog in the machinery. I was not a good truck driver: I never synched with the rhythm of the chopper, couldn't get a feel for the gears, and always felt like I was behind. My main job that year was packing the bunker. Someone else, sometimes Jose but often my dad, would spread the corn out over the stack, and then I would pack it down in a tractor with an ecology block mounted on the back, driving back and forth, up and down. It was mindless, decidedly dull, and sometimes I suspected that Dad had invented the job to give me something easy to do that I wouldn't screw up, but I fancied that I was pretty good at it: how flat can you pack the front with just two narrow front tires? How close can you drive to the wall without hitting it? Can you read the stacker's mind, and stay out of the way? It was wonderful. I listened to music (mostly Pet Sounds), ate Wint-o-green LifeSavers, and drove back and forth, up and down late into the night over an artificial, electric-green mountain of corn under hot-white flood lights, on our own little playing field surrounded by darkened farm, fields, trees.

One night Dad and I went until 3 in the morning on the stack, and it was getting late (close to 11, if I remember) when my mom called and asked what I wanted to drink. A while later, she arrived with a mocha for my dad (typical) and an Italian soda or smoothie for me (typical at the time, anyway) and we took a break, my dad and I stiff from sitting so long, my mom wearing a jacket because it was chilly out. I remember leaving my sweatshirt in the cab on purpose whenever I had to get out to pick up my dinner or pee or something: it always felt good to crawl back in where it was warm after being outside where you could see your breath. But standing there with my parents, enjoying that free feeling you get behind your knees when you finally stand up after driving for a long time, drinking whatever it was I was drinking, talking about the farm and probably nothing much at all, really: I don't think I'll ever forget that feeling of belonging. Everything in that moment was simplified, and I think those are the moments that mean the most, that are closest to heaven.

It's a weird feeling to be reminded of all that at a bus stop in a city, where the seasons only seem to relate to clothing, heating bills, and, God forbid, the complete shutdown of everything should there be snow. I miss that rhythm sometimes, and it's a very real fact to say that there's no going back to those times in many ways. But, sitting here now, even though I can't ride along, it's still nice to know that a couple hours north, my family is pulling in a harvest.

This is my fall/farming song. On repeat.

Three essential YouTube videos

2011-09-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Joanna Newsom performing "Baby Birch" in Amsterdam

This was the encore when she played in Seattle, and although we were sitting in the middle of the balcony at The Moore, it was just as captivating. She's completely wrapped up in the performance. An artist in every sense.

Gyorgy and Marta Kurtag performing their transcription of the Sonatina from BWV 106

Pulled from a documentary about the couple. Perfect in simplicity, and still 100% Bach.

Stevie Nicks singing "Wild Heart" at a photo shoot

She starts singing a little bit of "Love In Store" before someone turns on a demo track for "Wild Heart." Thankfully, someone had a camera. This is relatively new to me, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of listening to it.

Surprise Lake

2011-09-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

After a successful hike to Lake Serene, Tami and I decided to try for round two on a Friday she happened to have off. Snooping around the Washington Trails Association website (recommended, if not for helpful up-to-date member reviews, at least for the ridiculously flowery hike descriptions, i.e. "Tumbling Surprise Creek, always nearby, provides constant visual and audio delights"), we were looking for something a little longer. We settled on the Surprise and Glacier Lakes hike, mostly because it was about the length that we wanted. The trailhead is between Skykomish and Stevens Pass, just past Deception Falls a few miles. We headed up on Thursday night and stayed with our friends Charles and Ed, who live on Highway 2 just outside of Gold Bar. Apart from a shorter drive Friday morning, this also gave us the opportunity to see/play Charles' new pipe organ. His friend in California built it for him, and they had just installed it a few weeks ago. Can I just take this time to say how boss it is to have a real organ in your house? Charles and I played/sang some Psalms from the grey Psalter Hymnal. It was very Reformed. Tami has photos on her phone, which I will maybe post later.

So. The hike. Best hike ever. No exaggeration. Not too difficult, "constant visual and audio delights", perfect weather, old-growth trees everywhere, lots of wildflowers, salmonberries, and a beautiful alpine lake. Thanks to it being Friday and not the weekend, there were hardly any other people out on the trail. We passed a few going up, but we had the lake to ourselves. Also, Charles and Ed brought their dogs, Pointer and Tiger. Tiger went off-leash, and nothing makes you appreciate a beautiful hike more than sharing it with a dog who is obviously having the best day of his life.

It was practically a 5-mile hobbit trail.

Trees.

Surprise Lake. We didn't go the last half-mile to Glacier Lake. Happy enough to sit around here for an hour.

Yeah, it was cold.

Hard to think of a better way to spend a Friday afternoon. Although, once we got back to the car, we all thought we were going to collapse.

Gloomy side note: did any of the loggers who cleared PNW forests for the first time feel any regret or sadness about what they were doing? I mean, yes, they probably thought the supply of giant trees was inexhaustible, that what they were doing was hardly making a dent and was necessary for progress, etc., but still. There is nothing quite as breathtaking (for me, anyway) as old-growth timber, nor anything quite so humbling as spending some time walking through virgin forest. You see those old photographs of bearded men in suspenders standing on stumps that could be used as helipads, and they look so proud. Why is it that when we're presented with something amazing in nature, we feel the need to conquer it? It's the same sadness I feel when reading about big-game hunting in Africa in the early part of the last century, or about the decimation of bison herds. To God be the glory/great things He hath done, now grab your two-man saw and rifle, O pioneers, and go ye forth and subdue. Genesis 1:28 is a scary verse.

Heritage

2011-08-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

This came from my Grandma Blok's sister. I found it in an old email and thought I'd post (maybe re-post) it here. It is still to my mind one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.

"The last time I saw Ma, Pa didn't know me real well, but the last time I saw her, she was sitting in a room with a little white shawl on her shoulders and she was never cold for nothing. But she said I should probably read Psalm 90 to her, and so I did and then she said, "Well, you better read it once more in Dutch before you go," and that was the last time I saw her. And I don't know if Pa really knew that she was gone, cause he walked around the home asking, "Where's my wife? Where's my wife?" And he died about two years later.

They called the kids one day and said, "Your Pa's not breathing too well." So they all went there and he sang Psalm 42 in Dutch, and he hadn't talked for weeks, never said a word, but then he sang the first verse and started into the second and then he was gone.

So in all of their hard times there was so much joy in what they give us in trying to keep us together. My Pa always was a cut-up and they were always there for us kids, no matter where they would be. if there was something sad that happened in the family, no matter what time it was, even if it was three in the morning, they would always sit up with a cup of coffee and talk about it. I don't think there are very many people who can say they had a Ma and Pa like us. They were just always there. And Pa always used to say in Dutch, "Jam'n, God laat geen bidder staan" - "Yeah, but kids, God never lets somebody stand alone who prays." And I can still hear him say that."

Cabbage Soup

2011-08-30T12:59:00.001-07:00

I don't normally post recipes, largely because I don't trust my taste level. I know what my standards are in the kitchen, but I'm not sure how they match up with other people's standards. Then again, Tami seems to like most of what I cook, although I have a hard time accepting compliments and will instead focus on the things I should have done differently.

So. Cabbage soup. Roald Dahl makes it sound pretty terrible in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but I think it's pretty delicious. I doubt the Buckets had access to bacon, though, and bacon is totally the keystone here. Not sure if I started this with a recipe, or amalgamated it from various others. It is easy and comforting and vaguely sweet-and-sour. All measurements are approximate, because I am not your mother.

Start by cutting up a half-pound or so of bacon (TJ's Apple Smoked Bacon is amazing) into bite-size pieces. Cook over medium to medium-low heat in a large stock pot, until the bacon is starting to brown nicely and much of the fat has rendered.

Add one large or two small yellow onions*, chopped. It all depends on your taste for onion. I used two small-ish onions. You want a nice pile - two cups, maybe? Saute until onions are translucent. This part of the process smells amazing.

Add one medium-sized head of green cabbage, cut into shreds. Not too fine - we're not making coleslaw here, folks. I just sort of cut 1/2" wedges and then halve them. Be aware that the thick, whiter pieces around the core and on the outside can be unwieldy to eat with a spoon, since they hold their shape more. Saute cabbage for a while, stirring often to incorporate with the onions and bacon. When some pieces start to go limp, cover the pot for a few minutes, stirring occasionally until all of the cabbage is beginning to wilt.

Add chicken stock**. I don't know how much, because we happened to have homemade stock in the fridge from last week's roast chicken (Ina Garten would be so proud of me right now). You want to cover the cabbage completely: I would say it was about 8-10 cups, which is what, two quarts? Homemade is great, but so is store-bought. Use chicken bouillon, whatever, it's your soup. Bring to a boil, then simmer until cabbage is soft and translucent and on the verge of falling apart.

While simmering, season to taste with a pinch or two of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Totally depends on the stock and bacon you end up using. Just take your time: add a little, give it a stir and a minute to incorporate, and then give it a taste. Tami likes things peppery but not hot, so I try and season accordingly. I don't think the soup should be tongue-numbing, but a nice heat is great.

That's seven ingredients for what I would consider a really satisfying bowl of soup. Serve with whatever you want. Bread, probably? We didn't get too fancy last night: I had a G&T, Tami had TJ's Italian something bread with pea vine pesto, which I also made (and consumed extensively) yesterday. Those are both, to my mind, pretty terrible pairings for cabbage soup, but who are you to judge? Pesto recipe forthcoming.

*If you have medium-sized yellow onions, you have a tough choice? Skimp on onions? Onion overload? Use one and a half onions and end up with a half onion that you'll find in your fridge a month later, all weird and dry?

**I seem to remember I've made this soup quite successfully with vegetable stock. Probably would avoid beef, though. Use what you have! And you can thin it out with water a bit, too.

Lake Serene, Part 2

2011-08-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

We made it to the lake! And it was totally worth it.

There's an enormous boulder that sits on the edge of the lake called Picnic Rock. It's pretty steep (I was worried one of our water bottles would roll down into the lake), but there are places to sit and lie comfortably. There are also some nice places for...

...jumping into the water! Too cold to be pleasant for more than a minute or so, but yes, very refreshing.

Just kidding about earlier: Tami was impressed! Although we felt like old people by the time we got back to our car, let me assure you.

Lake Serene, Part 1

2011-08-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

Blogger is being dumb and won't upload any more photos, so here is part one of what has now become a two-part adventure: Tami and Tim hike to Lake Serene, in the crotch of Mount Index!

(Not pictured: crappy parade detour in Monroe, drive to ranger's station in Skykomish, extremely full parking lot)
Here is part of Bridal Veil Falls, Washington edition, maybe?

Tami is not impressed.

We sat on a big rock below and ate Luna bars. That's right, I ate a Luna bar. I am practically a lady. It was delicious, though.

Tami cleared the trail with her Superwoman powers.

You see the light that Tami is walking towards? It is the light of "LAKE SERENE, PART 2!!!" Stay tuned, hold your breath, etc., because there is a LAKE somewhere up there!

Homemaking

2011-08-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

Big things are happening in The Burrow (which is what I and, as far as I'm aware, no one else calls our basement apartment). And by big things, I mean that we went to Ikea and bought a 2x4 Expedit shelving unit. Before we were making do with a 2x2, but a.) Tami lets me buy records at Goodwill, and b.) the wall where it sat was always sort of awkward-looking. And so, thinking that the extra storage would clean up another unsightly corner and house misplaced vinyl, and also that a bigger piece of furniture would in some way even out the awkward wall, we upgraded, also giving us an excuse to buy cheap food at Ikea. A cup of five meatballs with gravy for a buck? Yep, uh-huh, sold.

In an ideal world, this would probably be the last piece of furniture we buy at Ikea. With the Expedit series being a mild exception, I don't trust Ikea furniture. Yes, their couches and chairs are somewhat less expensive, but they're also somewhat more uncomfortable, and I think they always have a strong "college" aura. Plus, while the whole "assemble it yourself" thing is great, the resulting pieces aren't exactly heirloom quality. I don't really want to fill our (future) home with things that are made of MDF and can be disassembled with an Allen key. But for now, fine. Also, they are super boss for housing vinyl, and we got a couple of baskets to fill with office supplies, CDs, and other stuff that just doesn't look great sitting out.

So now, I'm trying to find a large-ish something to hang above the new shelving. Not trying too hard, because often times Goodwill will come through with something unknown and completely perfect (hello, giant and mysterious Japanese map of the moon). But, should thrifting fail to produce the appropriate masterpiece, I've also been toying with the idea of ordering a print from Shorpy. If you haven't heard of it, Shorpy is a website/blog that posts high-res historical images which are also available for purchase. It's a fun place to browse, and some of the photos really are quite spectacular. Most of them are from early- to mid-20th century America, a place I've found my mind a lot lately. These two are a couple of my favorites, but you should visit the website and dig around on your own.

"What the Water Gave Me"

2011-08-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Florence Welch, and I do what I want.

Still-untitled new album out November 7. Fantastic.

Thoughts on being married for two years

2011-08-22T18:51:00.001-07:00

For our six-month anniversary, my sister and brother-in-law sent us a card (and cash for a nice dinner - we were both students, and my sister and brother-in-law were, and are, exceedingly generous and kind). In the card, she had written, among other things, that if we thought things were great now, just wait! because things would just keep getting better. It was well-meant and well-received. Well, partially well-received. After we read the card, we looked at each other, thinking the same thing: 'I sure hope it gets better."

Because our first stretch of married life hasn't been without its rough patches. There was, I found, a general expectation that the first year or so of marriage was just a blissed-out hall pass: the real work began once you started moving into the back half of the first five years, or even ten years, who knew? And although we talked about, and understood however dimly, the concept of marriage taking work beforehand, we didn't (or at least I didn't) expect the need to work coming up so quickly. And when you surprise yourself by bucking the collectively understood trend, it doesn't take long before you think you're doing it wrong, that you're not good at the whole marriage thing. People would ask you how things were going but thinking they already knew the answer: "Of course you two are doing well! You're still newlyweds!"

And now, here we are, leaning into year #3, and I'm feeling more like a newlywed than I ever have before. Last night, we went out for dinner and came home to two gigantic bouquets from Pike Place and a bottle of champagne (thanks, Justin). It was perfect. The weather was beautiful, the meal fantastic, the flowers hyper-saturated in the way that only late-summer flowers from the Market can be. As we sat down on the patio in front of our apartment, enjoying the smell of the lilies and the balmy Seattle evening, I opened the champagne and shot the cork 30 feet into the neighbor's yard, much to the confusion of their two goldendoodles. We both busted up laughing, and I looked across the table at Tami and thought: It doesn't get any better than this. Not because of the setting, but because, after two years, I (still) love being married to my wife.

This shouldn't give you the impression that we've got it all figured out, because we don't. The thing I am learning most through being married and living with another person is that I don't really have much of anything figured out. But here is a person, this beautiful, blonde, freckly woman who listens to hours of Bach with me, who eats my lesser meals with grace, who believes that I can do things even when I don't, who challenges me to look at things differently, who laughs at me far less than I deserve, who can mine the depths of Goodwill like no one else, who supports me while I finish school; a woman whose laughter is more precious than almost anything I can imagine, a woman who constantly surprises me, a woman who is honest and trustworthy, a woman who listens to me even at my most inane/insane, a woman who is patient - exceedingly patient - while I sort things out, a woman who still loves me even upon the realization that I give shitty back-scratches. I think that marriage is partly an intensive class on grace: giving it, receiving it, recognizing it. Yesterday night, my friend Zeek posted a video of our wedding and reception, including most of a solo dance I "performed" to Amy Grant's 'Emmanuel.' It would be difficult to think of a more vivid personal example of grace and love than Tami joining me in that dance.

Why the long face?

2011-08-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

This morning: Tami trying, not successfully, still sloppy after getting her wisdom teeth pulled, to put chapstick on her numbed mouth. "Maybe," slapping the visor down, "maybe it will be easier with a mirror." Then, holding her face with one hand and the chapstick with the other, applying it on and around her lips. Me, trying to hide my laughter, answering, for the second time, that no, I hadn't gotten her prescription filled yet, and would do so on the way home. Her: "I feel so drunk!"

This afternoon: bucking around my parents' lower field/ex-cow pasture on a riding lawnmower, clipping back the dead grass and thistles and those tall stalky weeds that smell like rancid dandelions. Covering the neck of the last Kilt Lifter with my thumb to keep out the dust billowing around me and blowing towards the neighbors. Trying to avoid getting too much cow shit stuck in the tires. Trying to remember to put my shirt back on before I burned my back. Trying to remember more of the lyrics to "Sawdust and Diamonds", and yowling out all the ones I knew. Later: washing a quarter-cup of topsoil out of my hair in the shower.

2011-07-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

I don't want to talk much about The Tree of Life, except to say that you should see it, and when you do, to please leave everything you possibly can at the door. Better yet, see if you can't work it out to arrange a private viewing. Sometimes that seems to be the biggest problem with going to a movie theater: the forced company of the other patrons. Granted, sometimes that works out for the better, either completely (Super 8) or partially (Harry Potter 7.2), both for those moments of wonder and disbelief that you can whisper about with your neighbor and shake out during the credits, as well as those moments when you've forgotten about the people around you and wake up, so to speak, surprised. It's only when you're reminded against your will, and against the grain of the movie, that other people bought tickets to the same showing as you that things get ugly. When, during some of the flashbacks in The Tree of Life, the people behind us giggled uncomfortably, I wasn't so much annoyed as sad for them, because that's probably about all they were getting out of it: "Yeah, the Hubble shots were cool, but WTF was with the dinosaurs?" Which, of course, completely misses the point.

This might sound like I "got" the point, which would be incorrect, because I don't feel like I scratched the surface, and searching for a single point would seem a bit disrespectful. What I did feel when I left the theater was grateful: grateful for the experience, grateful for my wife and my siblings who watched with me, grateful that I could drive back home in the evening in northwest Washington, a dry evening, drop my brother and sister off at home, sleep easy. I had a similar experience last night, attending a reading of Bach's Magnificat. Just piano accompaniment and a bunch of unblended voices, but at the end, leaning through the Sicut locutus est to the big finish, I was just extremely grateful: to be there, for Bach's genius, for my friend sitting next to me, for Dr. Boers on the podium, for the strangers around me, including the soprano with a voice like piano wire, for the ability to sing this music. I suppose that singing in choir and going to the movie theater can be similar: sometimes you just want to hit the screeching soprano/the guy in the front row with the annoying laugh. But ultimately, the best choir experiences are community experiences, which is part of why I love it so much.

Also, Dr. Boers told me that the big winter choir/orchestra concert will be the Magnificat, Stravinsky's Chorale Variations on Von Himmel Hoch and the Symphony of Psalms, which is basically the best program ever?

Let us commence.

2011-06-14T12:04:00.001-07:00

Tami and I headed to Lynden this past weekend for Kristen's high school graduation (congratulations!) and my cousin's wedding (congratulations Ryan and Kaysha!). It was an all-around excellent time, made more special by the presence of my Grandma Van Gorp and Aunt Diane. A fair amount of time Saturday was spent in the kitchen preparing food for Kristen's graduation party Sunday afternoon, and it was the most enjoyable cooking experience I've had in a long time, never mind that I had to prepare a cup of minced rosemary (which is, newsflash, a lot of mincing). It's always a huge blessing to spend time with family, especially out-of-town family that we don't see often, and I realized that it's even more rare to spend time together preparing food. I feel that the kitchen is generally the heart of my parents' home anyway, but that felt true in a really special way. The same was true last Christmas when our entire family prepared a meal together (the Blok Family Medium-Fancy Team Dinner 2010), namely that it was the best. You can learn things from each other, and for some reason, it seems to let your guard down a little. Also, Aunt Diane is way better at peeling boiled eggs than I am.

The rest of the weekend was filled with finishing an essay (only to find out that it was about a third as long as it needed to be after turning it in) and working on a student teaching application. Also, coffee, meals with family, meals with friends, a few rounds of dominoes, and, thankfully, some Food Network. Butter-poached lobster served in a shot glass with more butter? Paula, you've outdone yourself again, which becomes harder and harder to believe.

I went to the IMA on campus and swam this morning. Then I got out of the pool and thought I was going to die in the showers, because it has been two weeks since I last swam, and also I ate a lot of party food in the past week. I stopped at the library to pick up some summer reading before catching the bus home. Here is what weighed my backpack down:

Joan Didion: We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Annie Dillard: The Writing Life

Isak Dinesen: Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny

Soren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

Two Danes, three women whose surnames start with "D". The Didion was sitting nearby to Dillard on the top shelf, a large red Everyman's, and caught my eye. I've read only "The Year of Magical Thinking", but meant to investigate her other nonfiction. Now I've got the whole of it, though I don't know how much I'll attempt. The Dillard will hopefully offer me some advice on my writing pursuits this summer, or warn me away altogether. The Dinesen comes via my mom, who first mentioned Babette's Feast to me when I was in high school, although it's been recommended to me since then in other place. Out of Africa was one of the most pleasurable and luminous reading experiences I've had, although I've been less taken with her short fiction. Kierkegaard has been on the list since freshman year of college. Leave recommendations in the comments! This means you, Mom and Amy!

photo dump

2011-06-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

We made ricotta!

Tom Yum soup. Yum.

The neighbor cat, Carolina, comes to visit sometimes.

Tree at Grandma Blok's.

Abby almost lost her paw in a mower accident :(

Andrew enjoying his summer home from college.

Destroying a stink bush.

Tiger

Our Memorial Day dutch babies.

Gross:

This is a gush-y post

2011-06-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I worry that if I say things are great right now, I am either a.) coming across as ignorant of or insensitive to the things that AREN'T great in my life right now, or b.) setting myself up for a turn for the worse. But things are great right now, even though they aren't perfect.

Short list:

1. I get to do music! And lots of it! Chamber Singers concert last night was really great, as was hanging out afterwards. Looking forward to student teaching next year. Just got emailed a job opening, which I am ineligible for, but still, it's a nice thought that some day I will be teaching. Also, this excerpt from John Tavener's "Mother and Child" has been sounding pretty good lately.

2. Reading a great book that Tami recommended to me: "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder.

3. Had a fantastic weekend, full of family and friends and dogs and mountain streams and ferns and waterfalls and old movies.

4. I feel like I'm growing to appreciate Tami more each day.

5. The quarter is ending! I'm going to be crazy busy, but I can do it! I think! And looking back, this has been a year of enormous growth for me as a musician and as a student.

6. It is almost summer!

Death and judgement

2011-05-01T22:34:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I feel like the way I approach Christianity makes it too easy. If I live in a way that I feel follows Jesus' model, shouldn't the world kind of like me, similarly to how people venerate Mother Theresa? Where does all of this "hated by the world" thing come into play?

As I'm sitting here, trying my hardest to cram physics into my brain, all I can think about are the varied reactions to the death of bin Ladin. Apparently, Greek Row has filled up with people shouting "USA! USA!" Facebook, too, has filled up with people celebrating his "takedown". Many of these people, if asked, would say that hell got a little more Osama tonight. It reminds me of that wonderfully uncomfortable moment in "The Fellowship of the Ring" when Gandalf chides Frodo for being to quick to "deal out death and judgement." When it boils down to it, no one can cast the first stone, right? I know I certainly couldn't. Try taking that message to Greek Row, and I imagine you'd meet some active resistance.

Not to oversimplify things: We can and do make exceptions, use our best judgement, make calls about which is the lesser of two evils. The same old arguments: prevention of further loss of innocent life, the difficulty of capture and containment, the fact that he probably would have been killed anyway if given due process. The odds have been weighed, and hopefully a step has been taken towards peace. But this stupid world we live in, killing a man (and thousands of others) for peace. I feel like WWJD should have been "What Would Jesus Have Done", as in, "What would Jesus have done had he been here?" Because, physically, he's not. There's no hotline to tap into Divine Knowledge, and the playbook is hopelessly confusing. There is no one here but us, and sometimes it feels like we're getting it so, so wrong.

Look, Ma, new post!

2011-04-30T00:02:00.000-07:00

Also, could you see if you can dig up that picture of me holding lilacs? Tami would be appreciative, as would I.

I don't know if there's a time stamp on these posts, but if there is, some of you will probably be wondering what I'm doing up at 12:03, blogging with no clear purpose in mind. "Don't you have a wife to snuggle up with?" Or, "Don't you always go to bed at 10:00?" The answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is usually yes. Believe it or not, this kid SWIMS in the mornings, usually four times a week! Meaning he is on the bus before 7:20 most mornings! I know, I wouldn't believe it either. But yes, still awake, half-watching 'The Fellowship of the Ring', all because Zeek convinced me to stay up and watch The Royal Wedding (TM). And a side note on that: are all the other royal families in the world super-pissed at the British monarchy for manhandling that away from them? I think there's a Queen of Monaco or something, right? Don't they have just as much right to have "The Royal Wedding" as the fancies of Knifecrime Island? Whatever, DON'T CARE. Long story short, I stayed up until 3:30 PDT, when Kate walked down the aisle to Parry's "I Was Glad", which is ridiculously English and bombastic and great, although The Royal Musicians (again, poor Sweden) screwed up the ending a little bit, at which point Zeek and I realized that we were idiots and I promptly drove home. So my clock is all out of whack, and I'm still awake.

Speaking of the House of Windsor (right?) and Westminster Abbey and music, this year, Maundy Thursday was also the Queen's birthday, so she participated in a "Royal Maundy Thursday" service, where they sang Handel's Coronation Anthem No. 1, Zadok The Priest (watch CP Frederik of Denmark bawl his eyes out at their bargain bin "royal" wedding here - where are the giant indoor trees?). The point here, if there is indeed a point, is that singing "God save the Queen! Long live the Queen! May the Queen live forever! Alleluia, amen!" on Maundy Thursday is just wrong, I don't care if she's the head of the Church of England. They might as well have broken out with "Happy Birthday".

It is way too late. I promise I will post more soon, Mom, as soon as I finish this stupid physics homework...

Seek him!

2011-03-01T00:30:00.001-08:00

Still thinking about houses (and the house) a lot these days. There's a sense in which houses are chameleons that take on families instead of colors. You move into a new house and everything is strange and foreign and takes some getting used to, and then suddenly you can't remember the old place, or having ever lived with only two bathrooms. It's not the same as feeling that a house has become a home; it's the way that house fades from view as it becomes yours.

I can remember moving into this apartment - seeing it for the first time, the weird process of matching up Craigslist photos with actual rooms and features, then filling those rooms with our stuff and beginning to unpack. There's that momentary, almost giddy sense of unreality ("I just peed in the toilet from the picture!") and the general strangeness of being in someone else's old living space, but then it's not strange at all, and you walk to your front door without noticing the neighborhood, and the wide sills and built-in bookshelves aren't a source of pleasure, but simply the way things are.

My parents moved recently. For the last four and a half years of college, I've gone home to the farm, pulled into the driveway over the speed bump, craned to see who's watching what on TV, parked the car, walked to the front door, waved at my mom through the kitchen window (where she would invariable appear, washing dishes or cooking a meal). Now I head down a different driveway, enter the house through a garage in a narrow hallway, announce myself to whoever might be listening. It's not that the new house is bad, but I miss the homecoming ritual at the old one. Already I've adjusted to the new location without having to remind myself to drive past the old turn, but it remains to be seen whether the new house will ever hold any sense of home for me.

I never really liked the old farmhouse: the layout was a little awkward, the upstairs was cold, the basement was cramped, the kitchen was too small. But it was home, and home covers a multitude of shortcomings. And of course, in hindsight, none of those things seem to matter much.

Come on!

2011-02-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

We're going to be singing Nico Muhly's "Bright Mass with Canons" with Chamber Singers next quarter. I can't find any place that y'all can listen to it online, but seriously, go buy A Good Understanding. Or just listen to all the samples. No, scratch that, just buy it. It's some seriously beautiful choral music. Do yourself a favor.

I've been feeling a little adrift lately. Partly because school is crazy, but partly because school is not as crazy as I sometimes let it be. Also, I still need to do something about this house (see previous post from, like, five months ago). And finishing school and getting a job. And I need to make money this summer. And I want to read more. And I have a wife who definitely deserves more of my time and attention. So just a couple things to sort out and I'm golden. Did I mention that I need to exercise more? Because that's not a thing I do?

In unrelated news, I really want custom-designed bookplates. Like, old-school ones with a three-masted ship or a globe or something.

Getting in over my head

2010-09-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

I am re-inhabiting this blog in an attempt to organize my online life. Tumblr will stay up, too, but Blogger is a better platform for long-form blogging, so here I am.

The need for long-form blogging springs from a new project I am attempting: saving the central Iowa house my mom grew up in with her parents and siblings. It's been abandoned for some time, and when Tami and I visited my grandparents in August, we found all of the windows broken out, doors off their hinges, bannister destroyed, plaster collapsing off the walls and ceilings, yard overgrown. It had been bad before, but nothing compared to this.

Visiting the house felt something like a pilgrimage for me, and when I try and explain why, I find that I am unable to put my finger on what makes this house a sacred place. Both times I had visited before, my mom had pointed things out - the copper-lined porch where she and her sisters would sunbathe, the slightly caved-in kitchen floor, the scary bathroom in the basement. It is not a large house, and it is still amazing to me that my grandparents raised eight children in a four-bedroom house with (barely) two bathrooms. To say that they were poor growing up seems somehow outside my rights, but times were tight. Knowing what I know about my grandparents, perhaps I feel that their lives were enough to sanctify the place in which they were lived out, a place that they loved.

It is not a perfect house - there is no insulation, just double-laid brick - Grandpa talked about the walls sweating when the weather was wet. It was bitterly cold in the winter. But it is also the most beautiful house I can lay any claim to: red-brick with Georgian characteristics, built in the mid- to late-1800s, symmetrical on all facades with wide white trim. Inside: high ceilings, extensive moldings, narrow windows with window seats and transom windows over every doorway on the main floor, central staircase leading to an upstairs hallway with front and back porches. Even in its current state of neglect, it is wonderful.

My grandparents were kicked out while they were visiting my family in Washington. The sheriff delivered the eviction notice, the landlords apparently too cowardly to tell them that after 30-some years of calling the place home, they were being removed to make room for some family members that needed a place to live. As far as I know, it remained just "a place to live" for a year or so, then was left empty; my grandparents were the last ones to make it their home.

So far, my campaign to save "the old Else place" consists of writing an article for the Pella Chronicle about the house - its history, specifically regarding my family, and how it reached its present state - and talking to my friend David, who works in historical preservation. The number of things I don't know are enough to overwhelm me - I don't know if the house is even salvageable, let alone if it can be acquired, who would buy it, where money would come from, who would live there, etc. I have ideas, but that's about it. I suppose this blog is where I'll be getting those ideas out, working out why I feel the need to attempt what is most likely an impossible dream.

Just kidding.

2009-09-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm abandoning Blogger for Tumblr.

NEWNEWNEWNEWNEWNEWNEW!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-09-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Post-wedding blogging is about to begin! But at a new location! Follow me to chezblok.blogspot.com!!!!!

(This one's for you, Marcus.)

one week from a sigh of relief

2009-08-14T22:53:00.001-07:00

I have had no more wedding nightmares since the last post. Instead, I have traded that in for perpetual fatigue - seriously, I feel like I have just run up stairs ALL THE TIME. That is an exhaustion exaggeration, but not a time exaggeration. And it's stupid, because I'm not doing anything physically exhausting. Except I moved five 60 lb. bags of concrete from Tami's trunk to my trunk to our patio. (Tim: "Did the guys at the lumberyard load this up for you?" Tami: "Are you kidding?") But other than that, I have just been driving back and forth to Lynden at least twice a day, picking things up, dropping things off, getting a wedding haircut - it's short, people - and breaking the law by talking to people while driving. But I can say that we've reached the point where, even if everything is not perfect, we will still have a nice wedding to go to if we forget a few minor things. Some people would say that we had reached that point a while ago, and some people might be right. We went to Ikea tonight and were in and out in, like, an hour, which I think might be a world record. Upon further consideration, I feel like there was a time when I was in and out of Ikea in 15 minutes flat, but I can't remember why. Or how, really - I think they make the shopping level confusing on purpose, so they can make you all weak by thinking that you're lost, and then ambush you with more useless shit that you NEED. We avoided that, but did find some lovely teal-ish dinner napkins. Wedding attendees, take note.

We're almost done being engaged! Hooray! Now I just need to convince Tami to let me see Harry Potter EVERY NIGHT we're in San Diego. Because there is obviously nothing else to do in the evenings in SoCal in August.

Twelve days

2009-08-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Wedding nightmare #1. Tami and I are driving in my car, turning the corner from Berthusen to Loomis Trail roads. We are wearing street clothes, and we are on our way to the reception. I suddenly realize that we failed to get dresses or tuxes for the wedding party, we don't know if we actually invited anyone, if there will be decorations or food or music. Basically, we neglected to do any planning. Tami tries to reassure my by saying that because they are our family and friends, they won't mind just standing around for a couple of hours. I am not so convinced.

Wedding nightmare #2. I am in a classroom at my church with my groomsmen, and we are changing into our tuxes, frantically. The dream wedding starts at eight, and I got to the church at 6:30, having completely forgotten to take pictures. For some reason, the tux rental people sent us a stack of jackets, a stack of pants, a stack of shirts - we don't know what belongs to who. Some people have found pants that fit them more are less, but some are left with pants that are more like capris. Tami is missing and can't be contacted, and I assume that she is pissed at me for missing pictures. Also, the groomsmen are not my groomsmen, but people that I knew from high school.

Wedding nightmare #3. The wedding is taking place in the fellowship hall at my church. It is running more like a dress rehearsal. It is light, and most of the wedding party hasn't showed up. Tami is nowhere to be found, and there aren't very many guests. My tux has a bow tie. The odd thing is that the wedding is getting broadcast on the radio, so we stop for a commercial break every ten minutes. I am crushed, waiting on the sidelines. At the end of this dream, it morphed into a non-existent Adventures in Odyssey video where Connie gets married, presumably to her fiance. Somehow, that all seemed very real.

Marcus has assured me that he also had wedding nightmares, which is nice to hear. And although the general theme would seem to indicate that there is a real-life lack of planning to feed my subconscious hysteria, I think we're doing pretty well at keeping on top of everything. Sure, we still need to make a run to Ikea and buy gifts and...ugh. But at this point we will still be getting married, there will still be a reception, people will be fed (and get favors!), so I think we're all right. I had to reassure Tami back in the day that it would be here before we knew it, but even I feel like it crept up on me unawares. I'm terrifically excited for what's coming, but just hope that we both have time to enjoy it.

SUMMAH!

2009-07-18T13:34:00.001-07:00

Yes.

the tussock and the cheroot

2009-06-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

1. Movies. I don't watch very many. I did see Star Trek, like, two months ago or something, and it was great. Still haven't seen 'Up'. Just bought tickets for myself, my fiancee (now pronounced "fee-AWNCE") and my baby brother Andrew, who is 18 (Happy birthday! Happy half-birthday to me!), to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. People can give me crap about loving Harry Potter until they turn blue, and I will still laugh in their faces. Also, I have resisted the urge to read the books since I've been home, which is sort of a summer tradition. So pat on the back to me, and also I am having withdrawals.

2. Books. I don't read very many. Which is sad. I've been 300 pages into David Copperfield going on four months now, which is frustrating. Finished Isak Dinesen's 'Out of Africa', Thornton Wilder's 'The Eighth Day' and 'The Angel That Troubled The Waters', and am now in the middles of (deep breath) Faulkner's 'The Sound and the Fury', Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children', Mandelbaum's translation of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', Billington's 'The Icon and the Axe: And Interpretive History of Russian Culture', and the fourth edition of Williston Walker's 'A History of the Christian Church.' Also, did I mention that I'm getting married this summer? Who would like to bet on how may of these books will still be unread in 12 months? I'm guessing four.

3. Music. I listen to a lot of music. Which was complicated by the fact that my beloved iPod got washed. I let it dry out for a week, and upon resuscitation, everything works except the backlight on the screen. If you hold it at the right angle, you can see the screen, but it's tricky. So I'm gonna get that figured out. I'm just thankful that I won't have to replace it, or live without it. As much as I love slow music, iPods do make long bus rides/airplane rides a lot easier. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I am in rehearsals to perform Brahms' German Requiem next Saturday with the Bellingham Festival of Music. It's a LOT of singing, but it's rewarding and beautiful, especially on the nights when I can hit a high G without too much strain on my vocal chords. It's funny, because Michael Palmer (the conductor...sorry, Maestro) will occasionally tell the tenors that we are allowed to go into head voice at certain passages, which sort of just makes me laugh. And in other choir news, I am 99% sure that I'll be travelling to Estonia and Latvia next spring break with my choir at UW, which is awesome. I don't know too many details, but details probably wouldn't mean much to me at this point. It's enough to know that I am finally going to visit Europe. Hooray!

4. Wedding. The invitation process is basically completed, and there have already been times when I had to resist the urge to apologize for not inviting someone. I don't really do well with that kind of situation, but when it comes down to it, we had to cut people all across the board, and some of those people are bound to be disappointed. Oh well. On a side note, those people are more than welcome to still send us gifts. Hahaha! But seriously, we love ca$h. Tami and I have our first shower on Sunday, which will be shared with another cousin of hers and her fiance. I'm sort of nervous about the whole thing - how to handle all of this blatant financial support? What if there are embarrassing games? But also, Tami's family is great, so it will be fine. And also, presents!

5. Today, I was riding down the road after changing irrigation pipes, hunched over on my little brother's bike, shirtless, farmer's tan, wearing cut-off, mid-thigh jean shorts and Romeos (with ankle socks!), beer in hand. And you know what? IT FELT GREAT.

We were like glory's gate, my darling.

2009-06-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Thoughts from the tractor.

1). Should I be concerned that more and more of the songs that I loved as a middle-schooler are played on soft rock stations?

2). Taylor Swift doesn't quite understand the implications of a "scarlet letter".

3). Also, Plain White T's, what is your deal? "If every simple song I wrote to you / would take your breath away / I'd write it all." Okay, WHAT? So you are basically asphyxiating this girl Delilah with your crappy "it"? Write another simple song, dude, because she's turning blue! Think about your words.

4). I have heard Grieg's Holdberg Suite at least once every week that I listen to Julie Nesrallah's five hours of mixed-bag classical. Not so mixed, eh, Canadian mezzo-soprano of Lebanese descent?

5). Today I thoguht about dualism. According to CBC Radio News, three bodies were discovered in London, Ontario, partially decomposed. Autopsies revealed that these three bodies belonged to babies which were possibly not quite full term. I can't say exactly why this struck me, but I realized that in all the talk surrounding abortion, I never really heard the word "body". You hear about fetuses a lot, and when pro-life people with blown-up posters of cut-up infants arrive at your college campus, they call them "babies" or "children." But you never really hear the word "body." It's all about what they want you to see - those aren't bodies you're looking at, they're babies. And to me, refering to a fetus as a body makes it seem more human. But then I realized that I don't really think of babies as having bodies. They're just babies, part and parcel. A toddler has a body, but in my mind, a baby doesn't. A baby just is. I'm trying to figure that out.

6). Rich Terfry sounds WAAAAAAAAAAY to old as a DJ to be Buck 65. Srsly.

7). Sometimes, I still wish I was a Canadian. But I would want to be an east-coast Canadian. At least Toronto/Ottowa.

2009-05-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

The only thing in the world that I really feel like doing at the moment is going to see Star Trek.

a.) This does not mean I am a Trekkie. I think I have watched maybe two half-episodes from one of the newer series. It is solely based on this.

b.) I don't feel like doing ANYTHING. Forget reading - even the internet isn't a suitable distraction. Also, if it doesn't rain, I have to go out in a few hours and do some grass silage. AT 11:00 PM. ON A SUNDAY. If you were not all future versions of your selves and were in my basement right now, you would see me doing my rain dance to Animal Collective.

c.) GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And with that, I finish this thrilling update on my life.

like God taking a photograph

2009-04-23T00:17:00.000-07:00

It's funny to me that I don't feel like blogging when I have time, but when it's past midnight and I've been sitting in a tractor for the past six hours, I can convince myself quite easily to write up one of these bad boys instead of doing more important things, like sleeping.

Two people today have asked me what's going on in Lynden, and my answer both times was, "Nothing." There ARE things going on in Lynden, and I clarified, throwing out some info about the Guide widening project (roundabout countdown in 35, 34, 33...) and about the new public restrooms being built next to the teriyaki/sushi restaurant. But I don't feel like I've been in Lynden much in the past few weeks, and I don't know any hot gossip, which is what Lynden people mean when they ask what's going on in Lynden. The only notable thing from the past few days is that my grandma and her sister were on the FRONT PAGE of the Lynden Tribune. They ended up going to the Bellingham TEA Party tax protest shindig, and just happened to get interviewed/photographed, and now they are famous!!! My feelings about the article will be left out, but the headline did give me a turn, since when I glanced at it, I thought it read "Anti-government ires sinners at county 'tea party'. When I paused to think about what that could possibly mean, I realized that it was a typo, but my initial thought was that the Trib was calling the protesters sinners, which made me a little giddy for a second. Can you imagine the controversy? If the line of canceling subscribers stretched out the door when the editorial staff endorsed Obama instead of McCain, how many blocks would it stretch if they came out and called protesters/conservatives/Republicans 'sinners'? Unfortunately, it was not to be. Protests are exciting (see: Prop 8 protest. Heck, even the crazies in Westlake are fun to be around) but I don't know if I'll ever seriously be involved in one. They just don't seem to do much.

Today the sun went down while I was driving tractor. At first, I thought it was going to stay behind the clouds, but it cut through about 45 minutes before sunset and flooded out over the valley. For some reason, I was oddly aware of how all of the light I was looking at came from one source. The mountains in the south-west were dim and blue, the strip where I was driving behind the trees was grey, the foothills were pink and purple, and the fields and barns were brilliant orange, and all lit by the same star. It was almost like looking at pieces of different worlds, and I imagined zooming up to the sun, to see things from that perspective. But from the perspective of the sun, you can't really see much of anything on earth. It seemed like the Greeks and Romans should have been right, that the sun was a bright light in close orbit around us, not an object millions of miles away. How could that thing be so far away, yet seem so near? Anyway, it was a spectacular sunset. I wished, for a moment, that I was at Birch Bay, watching it set over the water, but then I realized that I would far rather be where I was. Perhaps not driving a tractor, but certainly watching from the fields. Of all the things I hope to see in my future, I don't know if I'll ever be able to beat a sunset in the Nooksack River valley.

Christian Zeal and Activity

2009-04-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

Please.

I believe that. And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, right here in this room, right now. Right now. I believe that. And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, right here in this room, right now. Right now. And he wants to meet every need. Now what's wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand, healing all that were oppressed of the devil? I believe that. And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, why would— Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, right here in this room, right now. And he wants to meet every need. Now what's wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand? And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that. And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, right now. Now what's wrong with the withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand of a man that was in the synagogue? Now what's wrong with the withered hand? Why would Jesus — Right here in this room, right now — And he wants to meet every need. Drawn to a withered hand of a man that was in the synagogue? Jesus Christ not only healed this man in the synagogue that had the withered hand, but I believe this very same story has a message for you and me even down here in this year in which we live. Now I believe Jesus Christ not only healed this man in the synagogue that had the withered hand — And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now what's wrong with the withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand of a man that was in the synagogue? But I believe this very same story has a message for you and me even down here in this year in which we live. Jesus knew all about that. They said, "Who can forgive sins but God?" But God? But God? They said, "But God?" They said, "Who can forgive sins but God?" Then he said, "Take up your bed and walk." God? Then he said, "Take up your bed and walk." Forgive sins but God? Then he said, "Take up your bed and walk." Now I believe Jesus Christ not only healed this man in the synagogue who had the withered hand, but I believe this very same story has a message for you and me even down here in this year in which we live. Then he said, "Take up your bed and walk." And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit, right here in this room, right now. Right now. Right now. And he wants to meet every need. Now what's wrong with the withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand — drawn to a withered hand — of a man that was in the synagogue? To a withered hand of a man that was in the synagogue? Well, a withered hand can't hold on to anything. Jesus coming — Jesus moved — Jesus moved about with divine appointment. Jesus is here, and this place is packed with people standing outside, and Jesus walks in. Jesus always moves with divine appointment, and he had an appointment: someone that had a withered hand and if they could hold —

die Englein, die bakken das Brot

2009-03-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

Right now I am listening to Mahler's Fourth Symphony on vinyl. Lynden Christian's thrift store sells LPs for 10 cents, so every once in a while I head in and wade through the schlocky mid-60's Christian vocal groups and pick up 10 or 15 records for less than a couple bucks. Some of them end up getting thrown away, but still - it's about the cheapest music around. Cheapest music to OWN, that is. Instead of paying $9.49 for an mp3 album of Otto Klemperer conducting Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and the Philharmonia Orchestra in one of Mahler's masterpieces (the physical album isn't even in print anymore), I payed 10 cents. If you are reading this, Amy, that is a savings of about a bajillion percent.

Today, on the heels of what looks to be the GREATEST AWESOME CHILDREN'S BOOK-TO-FILM ADAPTATION OF ALL TIME (srsly), the trailer was released for the adaptation of another one of my childhood favorites: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. And I am less excited. With "Where The Wild Things Are (and there is some speculation here), the design of the film relates to Maurice Sendak's drawing style. Look at the trees in the forest where Max pops his head out of the ground - they look like Sendak's hatching brought to life. And the monsters are actors in costumes. It's all tactile and and low-fi, just like Sendak's style. With that other movie, it looks like any run-of-the-mill 3D ("In jaw-dropping 3-D!") movie, which is basically anything that Pixar HASN'T done. I can't imagine them drawing this movie to match the illustrations in CWACOM - the people in that book always kind of scared me - but there's no relationship between the book and what's shown in the trailer. Plus they messed with the story. Of course, you need to augment things to turn a 30-page book into a 90-minute film, but it needs to be done well. With WTWTA, they added more about Max's home situation, which makes sense - in a book about escaping the everyday, why not explore what there is to escape from? But part of CWACOM's magic was the idea that, somewhere, there was this land where food rained from the sky - restaurants with no roofs, street sweepers to clean up the left-overs. Turning it into someone's invention takes that sense of fantasy away. It would make more sense, and be more respectful to the source material, to find a story in the story, instead of fitting part of the story into your own work. Although I will say that the part where the pancake lands on the school made me smile. But seriously, though - CWACOM is more than a good idea to be exploited. You treat that book with respect, you hear?

Okay, too much about trailers and children's books. Spring break is almost over, which is too bad. The weather sort of went down the tube today, so maybe everyone will want to go back to school. It definitely doesn't make me want to be working outside, but I'll pull through. Everyone is catching the flu - the REAL flu, not some wussy strain - so I'm kind of scared that I might catch it. It's nasty - hide-in-the-dark, eat-Tylenol-by-the-handful nasty. So okay, I not catch of the flu, please?

This is part of the text for the final movement of Mahler's Fourth:

St. Luke does slaughter the ox
without any care or consideration;
wine costs not a penny
in the heavenly cellar;
the angels, they bake the bread.

Good greens of all sorts
they grow in the garden of Heaven!
Good asparagus, green beans,
and whatever we wish for!
Whole dishes full are ready for us!

Good apples, good pears and good grapes,
the gardeners allow everything!
D'you want venison, d'you want rabbits?
On the open streets
they run about!

When a feast day approaches
all the fish swim up gladly!

If there is good asparagus in the garden of heaven whenever I wish for it, I'm okay with that. Venison and rabbits running about in the open streets? Meh.

I'm the carnival of peace

2009-03-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

Less of the bad. More of the good. This is my goal.

*Title courtesy of Bon Iver's "Babys", from the gorgeous Blood Bank EP.

for that would surely break my heart in two

2009-03-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

Tommy, Zeek, Dan, Nate, Mike, Alex and Kyle:

It's been great.

And now, indulge me one last time.

The lights dim as the curtain rises and he steps forward, in all his splendor, to the microphone. The drummer nods his head to cue the band as the man opens his mouth to sing...

The most glorious music.

"Is that the music? Is that it?"

2009-03-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

This sort of reminds me of the Target: Women video about yogurt: "Old people DON'T get it!" I was talking with Kyle about music yesterday, and how our grandparents don't like the music we listen to. I don't know if this is because our grandparents didn't grow up with record collections and 20 different radio stations, or just because tastes change. I tell myself over and over that I'll never stop listening to new music, but what if I have a saturation point, and after that I literally can't pick up anything new? Will I hate the music my children and grandchildren listen to? Anyways, these oldies somehow, sort of, get into Young Jeezy (which you can skip), and then, around 2:10, try and wrap their noggins around Animal Collective and "My Girls." Unfortunately, all they really see in it is an opportunity to plug the Girl Scouts.

achieved is the glorious work

2009-03-14T00:57:00.001-07:00

I sort of officially found out what Twitter is all about, and now I'm tempted to turn this into a Twitter post - "Just finished singing The Creation!" I won't ever start a Twitter account - that's right, you heard it here first - but that is a true fact. It was great. I don't feel the same sense of release that I felt after finishing Beethoven's Ninth, but it was still a great experience. A big thank-you to all my friends who came out, and also to Tami and my parents.

Yesterday, I received word of my acceptance into the School of Music and the Music Education degree program. I'm relieved to be on a set path now, and it's sort of nice to be able to start claiming things that are choir-related as my own. I hope you understand what I mean by that, because it's hard to explain. Like tonight, when I was singing, I was sort of thinking, "I am allowed to really get into this." It's not like I couldn't before, but now choral music is my self-professed "thing." Yeah, that sounds stupid, but I guess that's how my mind is working.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. Now.

Chamber Singers sang THIS before The Creation. When they finished, the guy I was standing next to said that it wasn't a great performance, but they sounded fantastic from backstage.

still i keep it professional

2009-03-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

You know how in the summer, standing water gets a film of pollen and pine needles and dust on top? I feel like a dead bug sunbathing in that film right now. This always happens when the quarter is winding down. I've prepared myself to move on, in this case not to a new slate of classes, but back to Lynden, and the prospect of change leaves me feeling like everything is at a standstill.

Lately, I've been feeling like I should write something. Not something blog-ish. I'm exceedingly hard on people that throw themselves out there on the internet, and I don't think that I want to put myself in that position. I don't even know if I could. Anyway, no non-fiction. I've been sort of sketching out a few different ideas, occasionally when I should be doing other things. There's a guy in my astronomy class who has to use crutches to walk, and he often arrives to class 20 minutes late because it takes him a while to get around. He sat down next to me while I was writing in my notebook and immediately asked me, "So, are you writing a book?" My immediate response was to lie and say "no." I felt bad about that, so I amended it with "I wish." I don't know why I have such a hard time putting anything forward. It's not any sort of heavy-felt humility on my part, or a lack of ideas. I think I just tend to look at what I admire, and then quickly realize that anything I do will just be a copy.

I've never felt any real drive to be unique or original. Some people apparently thrive on being different, but I'm too lazy and/or too poor to keep that up. Hold on - let me qualify that. In high school, I tried wearing a tie every Friday (Tie-day Friday, get it?), but that just got burdensome, and also I didn't have enough collared shirts. I used to stress about clothes, but I don't anymore. I also don't stress about listening to the right music as much, either, although Pitchfork is still tied around my ankle. I rarely watch movies - just ask Zeek or Daniel. As far as reading the hottest new books - is that even a thing? I guess it is. I don't have that either - I'm currently reading David Copperfield, The Sound and the Fury, an unpublished novel by Jeff Thomas, and Kokoro, which Alex and I are reading at the same time over spring break. This is not to say I am above peer pressure, the influences of the liberal media elite, or my sassy housemates, blah blah blah. It's more that I've found myself with little interest in what's fresh, and it's making me feel old.

Over the past six months, for the first time in my life, I've gotten tired of listening to much of "my" music. My proclivity has been towards field recordings, folk songs, Sacred Harp, Bach, Brahms. This isn't to say that new music isn't good, but I'm just tired of listening to hip, beardy men play the musical saw and weep about the seasons. However, if those beardy men are old and dead, I will gladly listen to said weeping, and, if needs must, the sawing. I am still totally loving Final Fantasy. In my mind, he's doing something exciting, and also very old. That jag needs to release a new album.

Also, I just realized that the official Food Network Queen of Awfulness, Sandra Lee, is from the great state of Washington. Also, according to wikipedia, she got her start by creating "a product called "Kurtain Kraft", a home decorating tool using a wire rack and sheets or other fabric samples to create the appearance of decorative drapery. The product was sold on infomercials and cable shopping networks." ...Aaaaaaand she's been trying to fake it ever since. And seriously? "Kurtain Kraft"? What is this, 1950?

music to die for

2009-03-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the music library listening center. I finished my School of Music audition a half hour ago, and I have my MusEd audition in another half hour. How did it go? Let's just say that I'm glad I got to explain myself and share that I've never received any formal vocal training. It's not that it was bad - there were some parts that I thought went well, although there was another part where I forgot the lyrics. However, singing for bona fide opera stars is daunting, especially when you only have a very slight idea what you should be doing with your voice. So we'll see - I'm not going to make predictions either way. Hopefully the next part will go well.

In other news, I woke up this morning to find my phone largely unresponsive. The outside display lights up and shows me things, but the inside display is just blank white. When the phone is open, it doesn't respond to anything - I couldn't even shut it off. Eventually, I took the battery out to see if it would correct itself when it rebooted, but no such luck. It's sad that I feel slightly helpless when I'm alone and without a phone. Even the knowledge that I left a working phone at home and could call someone if I wanted to would be some comfort. So I guess that means it's happening - soon, babies will snuggle up with iPods instead of teddy bears. Alert the media.

I'm gonna go sit by myself in the hall now. Thank goodness there's a new 30 Rock episode waiting for me at home. And food. I'm hungry.

how you get all of them inside?

2009-03-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I had to accompany some of my Russian 102 class on the accordion while they sang a Russian folk song at the Slavic Department's Maslenitsa celebration. Maslenitsa, which literally translates to 'butter festival', is roughly the Russian equivalent of Mardi Gras, although as far as I know, it's more about food than anything else. So we ate blini, listened to music, watched movies, and were slightly confused about what parts were supposed to be funny. It was great, although I didn't feel like I had eaten enough butter when I left.

At the end of this week, I have my audition for both the UW School of Music, and also for the Music Ed program. I have to prepare two pieces, so I'm working on memorizing Scarlatti's Sento Nel Core and Schubert's Das Wandern at the moment. I'm sort of feeling at a little disadvantage, having never received any serious vocal training, but I think I'll do okay. My choir director was kind enough to offer to meet with me and work things over, so tomorrow I'm going to sing for her and hopefully not receive any sad shakes of the head.

Other than that, I don't have any groundbreaking realizations to recount. I am officially going to the first day of Sasquatch! in May, so I get to see The Decemberists, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Devotchka, Sun Kil Moon and Passion Pit, hopefully - not really sure how the scheduling will line up. I wasn't going to go at all, but my roommate Zeek got me a ticket as an early wedding present. So thank you and 10,000 points to Zeek, who has been doing confusing and mysterious things around here lately with his precious 20 copies of Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's debut album. He is being inscrutable, which reminds me of this quote from 30 Rock:

Angie and I said things that can't be taken back. She called my vanity license plate "inscrutable." ICU81MI - hilarious! - Tracy Jordan

I've been watching a lot of 30 Rock lately. In other news, there is no other news.

on the beach, at night, alone

2009-02-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

"Standing at the edge of a winter field among rough men. The boy's age. A little older. Watching as they opened up the rocky hillside ground with pick and mattock and brought to light a great bolus of serpents perhaps a hundred in number. Collected there for a common warmth. The dull tubes of them beginning to move sluggishly in the cold hard light. Like the bowels of some great beast exposed to the day. The men poured gasoline on them and burned them alive, having no remedy for evil but only for the image of it as they conceived it to be. The burning snakes twisted horribly and some crawled burning across the floor of the grotto to illuminate its darker recesses. As they were mute there were no screams of pain and the men watched them burn and writhe and blacken in just such silence themselves and they disbanded in silence in the winter dusk each with his own thoughts to go home to their suppers."

- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Today in astronomy we learned about the life cycle of a star. The average star creates energy by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium in its core. When a hydrogen-burning star begins to die, it fuses enough of its hydrogen into helium that the helium core begins to collapse on itself. This contraction causes the center of the star to heat up, which enables more hydrogen to reach fusion temperatures, creating a hydrogen shell. However, this spike in energy production exceeds the force of gravity, allowing the star to expand dramatically, about 100x its original diameter, turning it into a red giant. The core continues to collapse until the temperature reaches 100 million K, at which point helium begins to fuse into carbon. In most stars, this is basically the end: the helium fuses quickly, much quicker than hydrogen, and eventually the new carbon core begins to collapse. If the star is too small, the carbon never reaches a high enough temperature to achieve fusion, but the heat fuses the remaining hydrogen and helium shells so quickly that the star blows away its outer envelope and the carbon core is left alone, a white dwarf.

HOWEVER, if a star is large enough, it CAN bring the carbon to fusional temperatures (600 million K), and the carbon begins to fuse into oxygen. The process repeats until the star has, from the outside inward, shells of nonburning hydrogen, hydrogen fusion, helium fusion, carbon fusion, oxygen fusion, neon fusion, magnesium fusion, and silicon fusion and an inert iron core. The problem with iron is that it doesn't release energy by fusion, but by fission, which the star is unable to do. So eventually, once the iron core has grown big enough, gravity grows so great that, in an instant, the electrons combine with the protons to form neutrons, and an iron core that was about the same size as Earth (with a mass equivalent to our Sun) shrinks to ball of neutrons just a few kilometers across. This gigantic, quivering ball is called a neutron star. The energy released in this split-second collapse is more than 100 times the total amount of energy the Sun will radiate in its 10-billion year lifetime. It's called a supernova, and it looks like this:

I apologize for the physics lesson - it's almost over. After my prof showed us some photos of other supernovas, or rather remnants of supernovas, he explained how these enormous explosions are the source of all the heavy elements in our universe. Then he stopped in the middle of the auditorium and held up his left hand. Pointing to his wedding ring, he said, "This is a symbol of my relationship with my wife. And all of the gold in this ring was created in one of those," pointing to the screen behind him. "Some people say that studying too much prevents you from appreciating the beauty and majesty of nature. But if you don't study it, how can you ever experience and appreciate what's going on here?"

I was only half with him at this point, still stuck on neutron stars. These giant atomic nuclei, floating out in space, occasionally so massive that they collapse one more time, forming a black hole. They're just there, alone, quivering in the dark. The way he described them reminded me of the passage from "The Road." It was a weird way to end lecture, thinking about my future ring being made by a supernova, but also having the image of a molten ball of snakes floating singularly against the darkness.

If you have read this entire thing, you deserve an award.

update:

2009-02-08T00:03:00.001-08:00

Is it Christmas yet?

2009-01-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

NO.

But here is a performance of the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's "Messiah" that I'm sort of fascinated by.

I understand that it's a period performance, hence the period instruments. And I understand that period performances break away from romantic interpretations and kick the tempo up a notch or two. But the combination of lovely filming technique, punchy French text, a group of beautiful-looking performers, the 78 rpm tempo and that goofy close-up shot of Minkowski's face just makes me expect the whole thing to be a vodka commercial. Right?

and the crowd goes wild!!!!!!!

2009-01-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I don't know why I do this. Do I just want to run my mouth off? Is it worth posting when I feel that what I have to share has little merit? Blog angst.

1. I want to buy a telescope. I will not buy a telescope.

2. My roommate is watching kids play a video game on the internet. He's trying to find a laugh. We're all trying to find a laugh.

3. Sometimes I hesitate to post videos, because when other people post videos on their blogs, I don't usually watch them. But anyway, as we head into the back half on January, I've been listening to these two songs a lot. One of them has an awesome video; the other does not.

a. Efterklang - Illuminant (awesome video here). Yes, this is a weird video, but it's also very weird. And the music is also beautiful.

b. Antony and the Johnsons - Daylight and the Sun (not awesome video here). Antony is the voice of the Hercules and Love Affair song on the previous post. This is a switch. Hypnotizing? I almost fell asleep to this (in a good way) in the children's section at Suzzallo yesterday.

4. Today I went to class, and there were no pens or pencils in my backpack. So I went and stole four golf pencils from the computer stations in Suzzallo and used those. When I write with golf pencils, I get even more self-conscious about my weird pencil grip, because the pencil is so short that it really does look like I'm writing with my fist. Like a hill person.

5. In astronomy, I get really tired. I was thinking today, during a lecture, that I'm going to write a book about astronomers seeing angels through a telescope. Not sure where I'd go with that. Sometimes I wonder if the plots of some books don't sound ridiculous only because I'm familiar with them. How about midgets destroying a magic ring in a volcano? Is that ridiculous? I'm not sure.

6. Another video. I love Sigur Ros. Once, a girl told me that she didn't like them because their music is just a bunch of arpeggios. What? I will admit that sometimes their music lacks purpose, but when it's combined with dance and one of my favorite Hans Christian Anderson stories, I'm a complete sucker.

and everything is going to the beat

2009-01-13T19:30:00.001-08:00

How is it that in an arena as refined and pretentious as wine (no offense, now), part of the basic vocabulary is "mouth-feel," which is one of the dumbest terms I've ever heard? EVER. Maybe it sounds better in French, I don't know. I've been kind of sensitive to language lately, most notably yesterday when my bus was pulling onto University Way and the chatty driver started explaining where all the different "coaches" were heading. Who on earth calls city buses (especially the 44s, which are juuuun-ky) coaches? I feel dumb enough when tour bus drivers refer to their wheels as motor coaches. King County Metro, you are not that classy.

Here is a video for all of you super-hip cats. This song, along with "My Girls" and Hercules and Love Affair's "Blind", form our January Triptych, which is a great set to wash dishes to.

Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

"Pieter Peeperkorn will now regale himself with a schnapps."

2009-01-08T22:24:00.000-08:00

Finally, my reading of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" has proven itself worthwhile.

I'm really excited about this quarter. I'm taking Russian 102 (language), Russian Literature from 1840 to 1917, and Astronomy. They're all classes I am excited about (a.k.a. classes I won't let myself skip), and they so far have added three items to my "List of things to do before I die":

1. Visit St. Petersburg in the summer and experience a White Night.

2. View a solar eclipse. The next chance in the States will be in August of 2017.

3. We learned about the umbra and penumbra in astronomy today, and I was thinking that it would be fantastic to be floating in space right at the point of the umbra, so that I could hold the shadow of the earth in my hand.

Being engaged is great. It is probably not as great as being married, but it is still great. Tami is pretty great.

My Girls

2009-01-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

I don't care how many times you've listened to it - listen to it again. And again.

I could clear off my iPod and leave just this song, and I'd be set all year.

push button for macbeth

2009-01-06T00:02:00.001-08:00

Day one of winter quarter is over, and I am excited about all of my classes.

Also, I am getting married.

My maidenhair fern died over break.

I need to do some Russian homework.

Now it is Christmas again

2008-12-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

I think I will post this every Christmas for as long as I have a place to post it. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

like it's christmas in the room

2008-12-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

I got my hands on Sufjan Stevens' eighth "Songs for Christmas" album this week. It is fantastic proof that he can and should release a new album this coming year. The last song is called "The Boy With The Star On HIs Head", and I really like these lyrics:

Why crawl around in the snow when you know I am right here
waiting for you to expect something more?
For I am warm, I am calling you close to my table
where I have made us a feast.
For the year of troubles, they have gone -
the winter brings a Christmas song.

Maybe it's because it seems all I've been doing the past week has been crawling around in the snow.

a cure in the house

2008-12-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

It is cold, and the wind is blowing whatever snow we got this morning and afternoon into drifts. It's too dark to see them, and I almost tripped over one earlier. I hate working outside in weather like this, when everything runs the risk of freezing and snow finds its way in no matter what preparations are made. It's miserable, but I still get excited. I had to walk down to the north side of the farm, where the buildings end and the wind blows unobstructed over the fields and then right into your face, to shut off a switch. If I hadn't been worried about freezing to death, I would have kept on walking down the lane to the river, to see the glow of Lynden a little better up on the clouds.

Pitchfork will have all of their year-end lists up by Friday. I'm pulling for TV on the Radio for best album - it'll for sure be in the top ten. I was disappointed that they didn't show any love to "Family Tree" in the top 100 tracks list, but I don't feel like I listen to enough music to have too strong an opinion. Sometimes I pay too much attention to P4K anyway. But they did inspire me to post my book list. I've kept a list of every book I've read this year, including re-reads and excluding crappy textbooks, and I think I caught everything. I don't know if this is embarrassing or not.

Craig Thompson - Blankets
William Butler Yeats - Mythologies
Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Annie Dillard - For The Time Being
George MacDonald - The Golden Key
Anonymous - Egil’s Saga, trans. Bernard Scudder
David Roche - The Church of 80% Sincerity
Daniel Handler - Adverbs
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Children of Húrin
Thornton Wilder - The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Christoph Wolff - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Michael Pollan - The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Jon Krakauer - Under the Banner of Heaven
Peter Shaffer - Equus
Annie Dillard - Teaching A Stone To Talk
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Anne Lamott - Traveling Mercies
Arthur Ransome - Old Peter’s Russian Tales
Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
Chaim Potok - The Chosen
Lois Lowry - The Giver
Ellen Raskin - The Westing Game
Aldo Leopold - A Sand County Almanac

In process, with hopes to finish in 2008:
Aeschylus - The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles
James Agee - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain

Highlights were probably Anna, Brothers, Teaching a Stone, Mythologies and Bridge. Lowlights: Adverbs. It was real dumb. I'm sort of embarrassed about all the rereads in here, but I think most of them were worth it.

Coming soon, maybe: 2008's movies and music.

study hard, my pretty, or you'll

2008-12-09T22:36:00.001-08:00

One of the greatest things about studying at home is that, when you're sick of memorizing irregular Russian nouns in the prepositional plural, you can walk three blocks north and get some of the cheapest, nastiest, mind-numbingly delicious fast food the world over. Okay, so I haven't actually been the world over, but I do know that a chocolate shake and a wet baggy of limp french fries from Dick's reboots my brain like none other! I'm going to ABSORB that list in nanoseconds once I've paved another layer on the insides of my arteries for a mere $3.50! Mental health!

If anyone randomly wants to drop a Franklin for my birthday (two weeks until hilarious, legally-intoxicated Tim makes his West End debut! Just kidding! But also not! Haha!) or Christmas, feel free to pick me up this bad boy. I will give you a signed 8x10 photo of myself left over from high school as an incentive.

And to close this completely useless post, my second favorite SNL skit featuring Kirstin Wiig (and, unfortunately, Tim McGraw):

emotional champ

2008-12-03T00:41:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with me?

I've listened to this a lot. It's a cover of a Phil Collins song - "I've got two ears and a heart, don't I?" - that I first heard on a dorky pro-gay marriage advertisement. I will let you listen to it without needing to watch the advertisement. I think the addition of the choir at the ends of choruses really does it for me, although Ane Brun's voice is fragile in a good way.

In other news, I am down to finals, and then it's goodbye first quarter as Husky. I'm looking forward to number two. Also looking forward to Christmas.

I'm very seriously considering the music education program here at UW. The two main issues that are holding me back at this point is that it would be another four years after this year - a.k.a. I would graduate in 2013, and that I'm not sure how realistic it will be to expect to get a job in choral conducting at that point. It's mostly just the four years, actually - it doesn't make sense for me to base my decisions too much on what the world will look like in four years. It makes my head hurt.

Bed.

Also, happy 21st to my lady-friend! I no longer have to bug my friends to buy me booze! Kidding, kidding.

2008-11-26T01:11:00.001-08:00

bright morning stars are rising
bright morning stars are rising
bright morning stars are rising
day is a-breaking in my soul

oh where are our dear fathers?
oh where are our dear fathers?
oh where are our dear fathers?
day is a-breaking in my soul

they are down in the valley praying
they are down in the valley praying
they are down in the valley praying
day is a-breaking in my soul

oh where are our dear mothers?
oh where are our dear mothers?
oh where are our dear mothers?
day is a-breaking in my soul

they've gone to heaven shouting
they've gone to heaven shouting
they've gone to heaven shouting
day is a-breaking in my soul

bright morning stars are rising
bright morning stars are rising
bright morning stars are rising
day is a-breaking in my soul

One is my mother, who is good to me.

2008-11-20T18:57:00.001-08:00

Hahaha. Haha. Okay, this photo keeps coming up during lecture in my American History class, and although I can't find a nice version on the interweb, I'm gonna give you the best that I've found. It was taken by American photographer Mary Ellen Mark.

Things are good. Real good. Real. Good.

down to Parnassus

2008-11-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I lied. "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" doesn't make everything okay. It's comforting to remember that someday everything will be okay, but right now it's not. I apologize for making a gross oversimplification, largely to myself.

It seems every time I walk out of my Wildlife class onto Red Square, I'm confronted with something. I guess that's the whole point of having Red Square - it's a platform for people to express themselves. The aftermath of a man committing suicide by burning himself alive. People campaigning. Blood drives. Students lying down in the rain to commemorate the murders of humanitarians overseas. Each day seems to bring something different.

Today we watched part of a National Geographic documentary on global warming. I hesitate to talk about global warming because I feel that it's a contentious issue in some parts of my life, and I'd rather just avoid it. Personally, I agree that it's an important and potentially life-altering issue, although I've never been passionate about acting on it and am likely to try and downgrade its importance. The National Geographic people aren't nearly as passive as I am - after sitting through 50 minutes of poorly-rendered 3D animations of flooding in Miami, the incineration of the Amazon, and a heat-blasted Parisian street scene, it's pretty obvious where their opinions lie. As I was watching the movie (which my friend confessed was "more terrifying than Scarface"), I kept trying to alleviate my sense of panic. "No one knows the future", I told myself. "They're sensationalizing this entire issue. Positive steps are being taken." All of these things are at least somewhat true, and things probably aren't quite as desperate as the filmmakers wanted us to believe. But still. If there was any "light at the end of the tunnel" moment coming, we didn't get to stick around and see it.

When class was over, I stayed a little afterward, watching a projected heat map of the globe grow rosier and rosier. Then I walked outside and was greeted by a dozen or so protesters scattered all around Red Square holding on to enormous photos of aborted babies. I've never gone out of my way to look for pictures of abortions, and I'd never really seen images like these. It was like getting punched. I walked across to my bus stop, overhearing a girl saying to her friend in disgust, "This is so unnecessary." To which I wanted to scream, "What about this is unnecessary?"

I guess the point of all of this is that in the last week I've been confronted by major problems in the world. Major evils, if I can say that. And, as far as I can see, all of these problems have at their root human self-centeredness. I wish I could explain it all away as inevitable, and to a certain extent it is inevitable. After all, if we could fix it all ourselves, we wouldn't need a Second Coming. Nor am I saying that it's not worth fighting, or that we should all just hunker down as the world goes to shit. But it still breaks my heart that we screwed up in this one. Sometimes it's no fun to be on the losing team.

magic mountain?

2008-11-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

Jesus' blood never failed me yet / never failed me yet / Jesus' blood never failed me yet / this one thing I know / for he loves me so...

If you haven't listened to Gavin Bryars' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet," you should. For some reason, it makes everything okay.

I baked bread today - it was the closest thing available to working outside in the dirt. Since that won't really be an option until April or May, I might be baking a lot in the next several months. And apart from the obvious benefits of producing bread that doesn't come from a dumpster (which is delicious, by the way), it also means the oven will be on, which will make it a few degrees warmer in the kitchen.

And now, some photos to illustrate how ready I am for the herlidays.

aaaaand...

2008-11-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

The weather in Seattle is absolutely perfect right now, and if I was a true maverick, I would zip up my jacket and go for a walk. But I need to go to bed, so as I wait for my roommates to finish watching "Undercover Brother" on the bunk above mine, I'm just waiting in the study room. I shut off all the lights, and you can see the skyline and the I-5 bridge between the shadows of the trees whipping around in the wind. It's also raining, and the street lights reflecting off the pavement match the color of the city reflected in the clouds. Like I said, perfect.

The reason I am so tired is that I stayed up late last night re-reading "The Chosen." So now I am reading Salo Wittmayer Baron's "A Social and Religious History of the Jews". I've meant to read a comprehensive history of the Jewish people for some time, and since my course load isn't enormous, I decided to begin. There are two versions of Baron's work: the original edition is three volumes, and the revised and expanded edition is something like 18 volumes. I am, thankfully, reading the shorter version. This is a passage that I read tonight:

"The more we learn about the history of mankind in general, the further back we can trace all fundamental ideas. In any case, these ideas are older than any traceable sources. Indeed, it would not be altogether whimsical to believe that all our basic viewpoints were seen obscurely as through a glass by the first race of men, perhaps those who lived in caves. The beautiful Jewish legend that all human souls for all generations were attached to Adam's body explains how all men can participate in the original sin and consequently suffer punishment; it may also be construed as symbolizing the adumbration in Adam's mind of all future ideas."

"There is nothing new under the sun." I was going to tie this in to the current political climate, but I don't have the heart. Regardless, the idea of Adam having two enormous balloon bouquets of souls invisibly tied to his wrists, swaying in the breeze amidst the trees of Eden, is enough to keep me occupied for the next four years regardless of who ends up el presidente.

fish and chips

2008-10-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

I filled out my ballot today.

I walked out of Kane at 1:25 this afternoon and saw the aftermath of this.

If I want to major in Music Education, it's going to take four (count 'em, FOUR) more years.

I feel like I'm in some sort of weird movie version of my life. The boring, semi-autobiographical movie that people walk out of, that only runs a week.

see, i will comfort you

2008-10-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

So, the big news is that I have two ballots - one from King County and one from Whatcom County. I got stopped by one of those voter registration vagrants a few weeks ago on 45th after buying some overpriced drain clearer at Ace, and when she told me she could change my registration to King County, I said sure - why not receive my ballot at my house? So when I got back to Seattle after being home last weekend, there was my ballot laying on the dining room table. The only problem was that I also had my Whatcom ballot in my backpack. Although I really have no interest in turning them both in, I'm curious as to what would happen. I mean, it's not MY fault that I can cast two votes for the new president. Or governor. In regards to the presidential race, it doesn't look like it would matter, but if the Gregoire-Rossi thing gets as inch-for-inch as it did in 2004, my extra ballot could be important. I guess my question is, could I go to jail?

I am also kind of suddenly obsessed with this song/video. Like, within the last 15 minutes:

So far, the highlight of my experience at UW has been being in the Chorale. Not only is it probably the best collegiate choir I've been a part of, but our director picks some really amazing music. For the first time EVER, I like each song that she's chosen for us. Also, it is the first group where you have to buy tickets to come to our concerts, which is kind of lame, but that shouldn't stop any of you from coming down to Seattle next month to hear us. Seriously, it's only $10.

Sometimes, when I have breaks between classes, I like to go to the libraries and read. Sometimes, it's books that I randomly pull from the stacks, or something that I've brought for myself. Both the Odegaard and the Suzzallo remind me of Hogwarts, which is odd. Odegaard has crazy staircases in the center of the library, and the Suzzallo practically IS Hogwarts. So far, I haven't read any Harry Potter, nor do I plan to, but today I was reading in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time and came across a quote that Mrs. Who gives - "Euripides. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything." The first two things that popped into my mind were 1.) a review of "The Two Towers" where the author complained about how much the word 'hope' was used in the films, and 2.) Barack Obama. The first I was okay with, and the second one just made me roll my eyes and wish that I could fast-forward through the next month. Then, of course, I thought about Christmas and listened to Amy Grant for 45 minutes until my next class started.

i wish for clairvoyance

2008-10-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

I have two tri-terms tomorrow that I should be studying. Instead, I am reading about the debate and losing my mind over this.

Lately, I haven't been caring all that much who wins the election, so long as it's over and I don't have to listen to any trashy campaign ads. And while making fun of Palin WAS hilarious, now it's just kind of sad. Actually, the entire McCain campaign kind of makes me sad. Especially since they're pretty much done.

Anybody else ready for the holidays?

Sleepers, awake

2008-10-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

It always amazes me how much music can affect other activities. Driving through the city at night listening to Philip Glass is a completely different experience than driving through a city at night listening to Dan Deacon. Anyway, I was just reading about how the world economy is going to s%#t while listening to the first movement of SIgur Ros' "Odin's Raven Magic," which I finally got my hands on tonight, and I suddenly feel like it's not even worth doing my homework. Gas below $90 a barrel? Who cares? The economy is falling through a growing pit in the middle of the ocean and it's taking all of us down with it. I know that none of this is true, but that's how the Icelanders and the BBC are making me feel.

Speaking of which, I had the privilege of going to the Sigur Ros concert at Benaroya last night. After some early-morning presale madness in June, I was able to snag four seats in row F. It turned out to be a fantastic place to sit, as we could watch the band and also take in their amazing visuals. It wasn't as breathtaking as their 2006 Benaroya show - I wish that Amiina had been along this time as well - but it was fantastic regardless, and significantly lighter. I guess I never thought Sigur Ros would bring along confetti cannons, nor did I ever picture people dancing in the aisles, but those things helped balance out whatever was "lacking" in the music. Do I sound down about this? I'm not - it was a great show.

I went home on Friday to work a little and see my brother and sister make profession of faith. It was nice to be home and spend time with family, and I was able to use them as guinea pigs in my experimentations in the kitchen, too. I also helped with corn silage a little, hung out with the youngest two (I can't call it babysitting anymore, since they're both in middle school) and didn't do one red cent of homework. And after a weekend at home, I'm happy to say that it feels very natural to be here at the Barn. And yes, someday soon I will post pictures. Right now I need to do some more Russian. До свидания!

I'm a Mac.

2008-09-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else find it kind of funny that the new Windows slogan is "Life Without Walls"? Don't you sort of need a wall to have a window in the first place?

the infinite descent

2008-09-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

My first (half) week as a Husky has drawn to a close.

1. Russian. I am enjoying it so far, although the prof doesn't have the most logical sequence for teaching things. Why would you expect us to do our first homework in Cyrillic cursive when we started learning Cyrillic cursive on the day you handed that homework back? Anyway, I am definitely setting out into the annoying phrase-y stage of learning a language - it makes me feel a lot like a parrot, spitting out simple sentences and desperately trying to figure out which response corresponds with which question. My Russian name is Konstantin. This in honor of Konstantin Levin from Anna K, not Konstantine the long-haired creeper from American Idol. Just so we're clear.

2. Wildlife of the Modern World. Really? Reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone was controversial? You mean to tell me that people are either for, ambivalent towards, or against hunting? Or at least those are three general categories? The passenger pigeon is extinct? When did THAT happen?

3. U.S. History since 1940(ish). Timely, although we did have to play a 'get to know you' game in discussion section. I'm sort of ashamed at my lack of knowledge of the history of our country (especially the recent history), and I think this class will do a lot to rectify that.

Also, I made University Chorale. I am not sure what exactly that means, since I've never heard them perform, but I'm looking forward to being in a choir again. And speaking of choirs, I saw the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Symphony Chorus, Seattle Pro Musica, Northwest Boychoir and eight soloists perform Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand tonight at Benaroya. There were around 350 people on stage, so it was a little over a third of what it should have been, but it was still the loudest live acoustic music I've heard in my life. I feel like an 80 year old woman saying that it was thrilling, but I had goosebumps the whole time. That Mahler - he was a heck of a guy.

Otherwise, life is good here in the Barn. I'll hopefully post some pictures of the place so those of you who have never seen it are able to do so without actually visiting. But you should still all visit. Seriously, it's a blast.

kick, two, three, four

2008-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am sitting on my bed in Seattle, having finally and officially moved in last night. I am supposed to go hear Bill Gates speak at UW's Freshman Convocation in an hour, but I am having serious doubts as to whether that will happen or not. I still haven't quite gotten over seeing him shake his butt in that first disastrous Seinfeld/Microsoft ad ("Are they ever going to come out with something that'll make our computers moist and chewy like cake so we can just eat 'em while we're working? If it's yes, give me a signal - adjust your shorts."), and I don't think that seeing him in person, albeit very far away, would be a good idea. Plus, one of my friends at UW said convocation is horribly boring, so that's another reason to skip out.

When I arrived last night, my Russian textbooks had arrived. The first page of the workbook is a matching exercise, with a bunch of Russian words on one side and different food items in English on the other. I am suddenly nervous that everyone in the class besides me is going to read the Cyrillic alphabet already, because how else could that be the first exercise? Unless we're going to learn it all in the first fifteen minutes, at which point I will quietly explode. I can just see my life turning into some semblance of David Sedaris learning French: "Sometime me cry alone at night," I will say, worn out and shaking, in pidgin Russian, to which my pale, sleep-deprived classmate will answer, "That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty." What am I getting myself into? At least, should everything go well, I will eventually be able to complete one of the final exercises in the TROIKA workbook - writing a personal ad for myself in Russian, which is all I ever wanted to do in the first place.

Also, for those of you with any interest in photography, history, or a combination of the two, check out Shorpy. It's an awesome blog with hi-res historical photos, which are also available for purchase. It's kind of addicting to look through.

we're giving it up again

2008-08-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

There is a movie, somewhere, that includes a scene where a character I am pretty certain is male says "I'm sick to death of it." I know I've seen this movie more than once, because I can see/hear the scene in my mind - it's just very blurry and unidentifiable. If you know which film I'm talking about, please let me know. It's a line that I've always admired, and it's been on my mind for the past few days as election fever heats up. The more dirt that gets thrown, the less sure I am that I'll send in my ballot. But I'm also sick to death of other things. I'd like to say I'm sick to death of summer, and by most accounts I should be able to, but I don't think that saying so would be honest. I'm sick to death of all of my stuff. I'm sick to death of money.

I finally looked at the calendar today and realized that I've only got two weeks left living at home. When I look back, it looks like this day has been forever in coming, and that I should be chomping at the bit to get out of here, but I still feel torn in leaving, doubtful that I'm ever going to be all in one place. As much as that is possible.

A few years ago when our church was between pastors, one of the interim preachers gave a sermon titled something like "The Most Beautiful Verse In The Bible." I remember getting excited when I read the sermon title in the bulletin - the MOST BEAUTIFUL verse. In the ENTIRE Bible. But then I turned to the passage ahead of time (I don't remember what it was) and felt really disappointed. I think that it was explained that the verse fit some sort of poetic form in the Greek or something, but in English it wasn't all that beautiful, at least as poetry. My pick for that title, at least at this point, would be Psalm 137. Read it, if you want. It was a verse that I turned to a lot while in Guatemala - "How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?" Not in the sense that Guatemala is a foreign country, but in the sense that I am not at home anywhere. Anyway, Psalm 137 talks a lot about Jerusalem, which is a theme that I've been taking interest in lately. Jerusalem as the way things are supposed to be. Jerusalem as the way we are supposed to be, what we should be working for. I couldn't define that for you, and I don't think we'll ever reach consensus on what Jerusalem should look like, but I take comfort in the fact that it's there, and that someday we'll all maybe realize that we were off the mark somewhere.

Ed. - The movie is Amadeus, the character Stanzi. Not a boy, although her voice is on the boyish end of the spectrum.

here

2008-08-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

Well, my passport has its first stamp. The trip to Guatemala was important for me, and not just because it marked the first time(s) I've been offered pot. I feel that anything I say about it will be worn from overuse by every other person who's been on a trip like this, so I'm not going to, really.

The end of my time there and the first week back have been challenging. I received the email about my grandpa on Saturday afternoon, and by that night I was very thankful for the relationships I had been able to form with the team members during the week. I realize that my tendency when I run into big issues is to try and work them out by myself, partly because I think I can handle them and partly because I have this stupid romantic ideal of the solitary sufferer. Not to ignore the importance of solitude and a certain measure of self-reliance, but we are creatures who need community. Christ was, in my mind, the ultimate solitary sufferer, but I don't think being Christ-like should involve ignoring the gift we've been given in having friends and family. Anyway, it was encouraging to see that kind of community work itself out and to have people who were there with words of comfort.

Being back home has been good, but this week has been so busy with funeral preparations and family visits and wedding activity that I feel I haven't really had time to think about Guatemala, much less appreciate being home, which is seeming more and more urgent as my time in Lynden winds down. We have a house now, and suddenly I'm realizing that I will be leaving, maybe for good, in a little over a month. I'm looking forward to it, but also trying to be conscious of what it means for me to be here, and to appreciate it while it lasts.

done-zo

2008-07-19T23:33:00.000-07:00

The other day, in true farmer fashion, I put a piece of grass in my mouth and gagged. I think this is a good indicator that it's about time for me to get back to Seattle.

Today was our first rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth with the orchestra and soloists. It was a little surreal to find myself standing onstage with a top-rate orchestra, performing music that I've listened to for years and years, performing music that I never thought I'd have the opportunity to perform. Oddly enough, I found it easier to sing with orchestra, and it was probably the most fun I've had all summer, ripping through the Presto to an audience of three assistants and a couple of small children who were playing in the back of the hall. I wonder, were I that age, how I would act. Here, standing in a good hall hearing a live performance of one of the keystones of Western music, I am playing tag and hide-and-go-seek under the seats, apparently oblivious to all that goes on below me. Would it phase me at all? I'd like to think so, but I'm not really sure.

I leave for Guatemala on Friday, and feel like I should be more prepared at this point. If you want to follow our exploits, feel free to check up on us here.

at this time

2008-07-15T23:28:00.000-07:00

The lion’s den is stretching out before our eyes
we’re in the thick of it
you and I must not pretend
when the storm will [... run]
raining down
when we’re sick of it
and facing the [doubt]
...
lost [in green and] stumbling through this land
awaiting ... cold
... this song
for to sing in celebration of this thing
that we all share
falling through the clouds in the only way
that we know how to
show them the way
and the gift of song comes
bringing us all peace
yeah
the gift of song comes
bringing us all peace
yeah
the gift of song comes

Raining down

2008-07-03T17:56:00.000-07:00

Right now is one of those frustrating stretches of the year where there is really nothing going on, but there's always something to do. Tonight, that means The Fellowship of the Ring and Milt's Pizza. Tomorrow, heading into my most unplanned Independence Day ever, all I want is to hear a couple of what my uncle refers to as "big booms." Yesterday during softball, we heard two massive explosions that almost made me sick, they were so forceful. The same uncle posited that they were maybe volleyballs, meaning a volleyball filled with gunpowder. That is something I would like to see from a safe distance. All I can say is that I'm glad I don't live in a war zone.

Here is a song by The Lord Dog Bird. That is a really stupid band name, but the songs is really good. It's called The Gift of Song in the Lion's Den. I would like to listen to this while watching fireworks, not some Target-brand mixtape of patriotic favorites. Will I have the choice? Probably not.

Well, I learned it when I was small.

2008-06-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. The book deals largely with Mormon Fundamentalists, and I'm finding that in a lot of ways, I can understand, or at least sympathize with them more than the mainline LDS church. Mormonism is incredibly bizarre to me, and I don't know if I quite understand how anyone could buy into the whole back story of the pre-colonization of the New World, the story of the Native Americans, etc. Especially considering what we know about Joseph Smith, it seems odd that so many people have completely devoted their lives to the product of a pretty suspicious situation. But regardless, even more weird to me is how the LDS church continues to strike out different sections of The Doctrine and Covenants that become contentious with outside society. Most notable is, of course, Section 132 on polygamy, which never really gained full support from the entire church anyway, but the LDS has also revoked Joseph Smith's strong ideas on white supremacy. It remains to be seen, I suppose, whether they will ever allow women to hold important places in the church. But of the two (misguided) groups, who deserves more respect? The people who believe Joseph Smith was actually receiving missives from God, but then ignore the ones that raise a fuss? Or the people who accept it all? I don't think polygamy or racism or total male domination are good things, but in some ways I have more respect for the crazy fundamentalists that I do for the mainline Mormons who seem to bending to the ways of the world.

I don't think I can apply too much of this to my own experience with the Bible. Although there are a great many who would disagree with me, I find that most of the contentious issues in the Church today don't involve ignoring parts of the Bible, but are more about interpretation. Of course, as Krakauer points out, the Bible is far older than The Book of Mormon or The Doctrine and Covenants, and its origins are a lot hazier, its context farther removed. But barring the various questions about supposed artifacts like the golden book, Joseph Smith's writings are all fairly immediate and their context is well-documented. It's clear that "plural marriage" was no more smiled upon in the mid-1800s than it is now, which gets back to my inability to understand Mormonism: if the "prophet" claims that he's in cahoots with God, but then starts spouting off about the necessity of polygamy, AND you're not cool with it, why not get the heck out instead of picking and choosing?

On an unrelated note, I named our new kittens Patmos, Malta, Cyprus and Milo. Milo, because he looks like Milo. And here is a glamour shot of my super-hot girlfriend and I:

group manual

2008-06-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

This is kind of an update, which may end up being fairly uninteresting.

Sunday and Monday I was in Seattle, spending some time with friends following Patrick's death. (Side note: I'm not really sure how to refer to it - it feels funny to call it a passing. Maybe this has something to do with my total confusion about how to approach death.) It was a good time to talk and remember, and also to enjoy those friendships that now are much more important and significant. I wouldn't feel comfortable eulogizing Pat, and I don't respond well when people do, but we will all miss him enormously.

In unrelated news, I finally finished Anna Karenina and have moved onto The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It is excellent, and is making me think that I might actually want to be a farmer. Under no circumstances should ANY of you repeat that to my parents. It's also shaping and clarifying my views on a lot of things regarding the food industry, which is something that I've been frustrated with for a while. I recommend it to everyone, because everyone eats. I think. After learning how much corn is in everything, my brother and I have decided to give up all foods with high-fructose corn syrup and most other processed corn products for a week, just to see what happens. So far, I have eaten well.

I've had four practices for singing the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Bellingham Festival this summer. It's definitely the most challenging thing I've sung, but it's also really rewarding to hear the sound that we're making, and I'm looking forward to singing with a professional orchestra. The best part is watching all the choir nerds suck up to the "maestro" / correct the people around them. It's weird to watch people display behavior that I thought most people would outgrow. Also very entertaining.

Other than that, things are pretty normal around here. I got up early and bought tickets for the Sigur Ros concert at Benaroya this October, so I'm excited about that, as well as their new album next week. And for those of you who are unfamiliar, you should be listening to Fleet Foxes. Myspace it - you won't be sorry.

For most of it I have no words

2008-06-15T00:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Patrick passed away on Friday.

This is what I've been listening to.

There's not much else to say, really. There's everything, but there's nothing to say.

when I ruled the world

2008-06-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to making a pinhole lens for my camera. So far it's been fun to play around with, but I haven't had much opportunity to experiment seriously. But hey, when you end up paying under $15 for a new lens, it's hard to go wrong.

Today I received a purple envelope welcoming me to UW. I'm not sure what I expected, although I was told not to worry. I'm just glad that now I can start seriously preparing myself for the fall / trying to get used to seeing a lot of purple and gold around - needless to say, I probably won't be spending a lot of money on team apparel at The Dawg Den. This also gives me strong reason to start thinking seriously about what I'll be studying there. Landscape Architecture is still up there, but I'm considering doing something a little more along the lines of horticulture / plant bio. I'm also finding myself more and more attracted to Russia. And music. But I guess I honestly didn't expect to be gung-ho about one specific area by this time anyway, so the excitement will continue.

Tomorrow also marks the end my time as an Orca. Which is fine, really, although I will miss my Spanish prof. I started out as a "Lyncs," then transitioned to a Falcon, then an Orca, and now a Husky. That's all I've got on that.

Also, everyone should listen to Coldplay's new song, Viva La Vida. Honestly, I was kind of over Coldplay, but this song is really good. The live performance on the MTV Movie Awards was also good, minus the dumb intro, but Chris Martin is really pitchy, something I don't remember from their concert. Oh well.

That is all.

i will take you and leave you alone

2008-05-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

News items:

I will be singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the Bellingham Festival of Music. I am not the tenor soloist - the BFM is actually kind of legit. I am very excited, and would encourage you all to come if the tickets were not quite so expensive. Please come anyway, but also don't feel bad if you can't. I probably wouldn't have. Info here.

I am also going to Guatemala this summer with Tami's church. I don't know much about the trip - we're working with children mostly, I think, but also maybe some adults? I'll be there for about ten days. I feel like I should be more excited about it, and I suppose I am, but it's also something that I see as an obligation of sorts. More on that later. But I guess the summer is shaping up.

Life is really a mixed bag. I had a fantastic weekend, and then today my dad had to put one of our dogs down. I was going to go and pet her one last time, but I didn't. In my mind, I used to have this picture of life being like a wave: you go up for a while, and then slide down into a bad period, and then back up. Sort of like the stock market - don't worry, overall we're going up!!! But it's not like that. It's more like that game where you stand in the center of a group of people and lock your body, and then they push you back and forth. Maybe it's not like that. I guess I am really upset about the dog, but also really happy about other things, and now I'm kind of stuck. This is kind of stupid.

What would it be like if every time a drop of rain hit your windshield it sounded like a gunshot? Noisy is one answer.

birds

2008-05-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like the last four days have been spent almost exclusively in John Deere tractors, often for long stretches of time. Imagine my delight when I realized my iPod battery lasts a lot longer than I thought it could. Can't complain much, what with the music, the thinking, and the befriending of all our local birds of prey.

First friend? Britches the red-tailed hawk. I met Britches while tedding. He was standing almost in my way, and as I approached, he stretched out his wings to fly away, but then he decided to be brave and just side-stepped a few times and avoided my whirling tines of death. I had my back window open, and I imagined Britches flying into the cab, panicking, scratching the crap out of me, but then realizing that I meant no harm and spending the remainder of the day perched on the shelf by the steering wheel. Just a boy and his hawk. This did not happen, but I did see Britches every day.

Second friend? Wilcocks the bald eagle. Wilcocks showed up yesterday. He was just chilling on a fencepost, all regal and neckless, in a field adjacent to the one I was working in (NB: Pete Dykstra's cornfield is the roughest piece of crap I've ever raked. Ever.). Wilcocks isn't the demonstrative type, but we were fast friends soon enough. He liked me (likes me) so much that he followed me from Pete's to a field about a mile away. He hung out for a while, hunkered down on a row of grass, and then took off. Probably because Wilcocks is big with the ladies. I wonder if the eagle population got less cocky when they were pulled from the endangered species list?

-

When Sufjan Stevens toured after the release of The Avalanche, there was a lot of chatter about his show, what with the butterfly wings and the stolen rooster and the glitter curtain. But there was even more chatter about two songs from his setlist: the first, a new one called "Majesty, Snowbird", and the second, his interpretation of "The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!" "Predatory Wasp" was a song that I latched onto relatively late in the game. I have that problem of never actually listening to the end of albums because I get so caught up in the first few songs. But it was my favorite by the time I went to his concert.

Anyway, I was reading something on BLDGBLOG recently where the author, Geoff Manaugh, talked about being haunted by something. In his case, it was a sentence from an essay(?) on people living in bombed-out German cities after WWII - I would be more specific, but he removed the post. Maybe he's going to use it for his book? Regardless, one of the things I thought about during my time driving tractor was what I was haunted by, and the only thing I could think of was Sufjan's performance of "Predatory Wasp." There's a line in the song that goes, "terrible sting, terrible storm," and what drew so much attention during his tour was the literal musical interpretation of the "storm" at the end of the song. Where on the album the track ends with a little swell of noise, in concert it turned into a three minute freak-out dissolving into soft strings. Somewhere during that time, Sufjan came in with this high, simple, waltz-like wail, which somehow encapsulated the entire song in a five-note figure. I've never experienced music like that. Sure, I have a recording of a NY concert, and there's always YouTube, but it's not just the music - it's the moment. Sitting in the Paramount, my mouth undoubtedly open, October, just starting SPU and never more unsure of myself, last-night-of-the-tour energy. I can still feel that moment hanging there in the back of my mind.

oh these are the days my friends and these are the days my friends.

2008-05-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

Is it better to get a tattoo on my hand, or a ring? I feel like a ring is less permanent. You can't slip off a tattoo. Nor can you lose it or damage it. It doesn't require any upkeep, either. Maybe the final act of wedding ceremonies should be a processional to a tattoo parlor. Or the tattoo artist could come to the church. If that were so, then the tattoo artist could get ordained and do the whole thing. Why do I feel like this wouldn't go over well with a lot of people? Also, when I asked 'tattoo vs. ring', I didn't mean an engagement ring. Just so there's no confusion.

I'm trying to simplify my life. Step one involves getting rid of some books. I think weeding through a library is difficult, because it's tempting to rationalize keeping anything by telling yourself that you might read it someday. Heaven forbid checking said book out of the library. So far I've got a decent pile, this after paring down my collection by about a third last year. I think I'm going to try and give them away, because some of them are good (brand-new, even) books that I just won't ever read, and I'm too lazy to sell them. Perhaps I will post a list here, and all you lucky readers (read: all six of you) can have first dibs.

Yesterday I went on an 8.4-mile bike ride (thanks, Google Maps). I saw four deer and two rabbits. Most of the time, I was thinking how stupid I was for not riding consistently. I say looking into people's windows in the evening is infinitely more enlightening than American Idol.

Do we always need to pick a side? I'm beginning to think that a lifelong struggle with an issue is better than choosing the lesser evil.

in the dinosaur wing

2008-04-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

It's Animal Collective week!

The other side of takeout is moldy rice!

Transparent paper wings that float above me while I sleep!

It's Animal Collective summer!

Sometimes there isn't much to complain about. I think this is largely due to the fact that my life is very blessed right now, and also that my class load is significantly lighter than those of my friends.

I'm listening to a recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 that I picked up yesterday at Goodwill. In the beginning of the Allegro Assai, the pizzicato strings sound like horses.

For some reason, I become wary when I hear the word "revival" thrown around. And I don't necessarily understand why the idea of revival is linked up with Pentacost. I'm not even sure I understand Pentacost very well in the first place.

Update: Sometimes things are not so simple.

the heart of the spring

2008-04-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

I'm reading "Life of the Beloved" by Henri Nouwen (thanks, Shawn). It's part of my desire to read more nonfiction, and also part of an effort to stop moping and start learning. Anyway, in the intro, Nouwen writes about his secular Jewish friend, Fred, who wants him to write something that he and his friends can "hear" about spiritual living, something for those people outside of the traditions of the church. Eventually, Nouwen discovers that need coming at him from all sides:

"Speak to us about the deepest yearnings of our hearts, about our many wishes, about hope; not about the many strategies for survival, but about trust; not about new methods of satisfying our emotional needs, but about love. Speak to us about a vision larger than our changing perspectives and a voice deeper than the clamorings of our mass media. Yes, speak to us about something or someone greater than ourselves. Speak to us about...God."

As someone who grew up in the church, I still feel like this is a statement that I could make right now. I don't think this is necessarily a failure on the church's part, or even my part, but more of a lifelong need: when I look at how easily I lose sight of hope and trust and love, how easily I get caught up in the clamor of the everyday, how often I forget God, I realize that I need to hear about those things. I used to be shocked by the story of the golden calf - how the Israelites were able to forget about God and make an idol right at the foot of tempestuous Sinai. Now it doesn't seem all that unbelievable. Nothing sounds more appealing right now than a vision larger than my changing perspective, and the ability to hold on to it.

On an unrelated note, All I do is mow lawns. If I could brainwash people to think just one thing, it would be that lawns are a waste. Let it grow, people. I'll take a meadow over a lawn any day. But I still really like mowing, too. And I have a sneaking suspicion that someday, when I choose having a meadow over a lawn, my decision will be fueled by the fact that I hate machinery. Or I'm afraid of it.

i promise to commit no act of violence

2008-04-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

This evening in church my pastor was talking about how everyone will someday stand before God and be judged, and it really struck me for the first time that no one will be able to avoid it. We can talk about freedom all we want, and we do have a lot of choices that we can make. But everyone, really, is in the same boat. There's no alternate route, no options. I don't think about that enough.

He also talked about how we often preface our thoughts (in this case, thoughts on the afterlife), by saying things like, "Well, I think..." Some day I want to be able to begin my thoughts with, "Well, the Bible says...", and especially, "Well, Jesus says...", because I think that's where all my thinking should be rooted.

I wish I could paint well.

that tree is dancing

2008-04-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

The first four seconds of this video are one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I doubt anyone else shares my opinion.

Ah, I see you have a little swimming-mouse!

2008-04-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts after visiting the other Washington:

I can't remember all of the times last week when I wished everyone around me would simply disappear. I'm not talking about my family specifically - being with them was great. But I found myself unable to focus so many times because of other people. Example:

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum. First of all, it's a busy place, which is understandable. The fourth floor of the museum, where the exhibit begins, is a narrow hallway with an enormous amount of information, so of course it's crowded. But it's difficult to read or watch or listen when you're painfully aware of the crush of people behind you and those who are in front of you, blocking your view. But while I could make do with that, I didn't have a lot of grace for people who thought it was some sort of theme park (Do I sound old and crabby here? I think I'm sounding old and crabby.) To the girl who watches a few seconds of footage about "medical experimentation" and dramatically announces that it's "gross" and then runs back to her friends: Yeah, it is gross. It's horrifying. But why are you here? To the people passing through the rail car along with me complaining about being hungry: Do you realize where you are? Do you understand what happened right here less than a century ago? To the woman excitedly explaining to her friends just what the model of the gas chamber is depicting, to the gentleman leaning on the bunks from Auschwitz next to the sign that says not to touch them, to the idiot group of teenagers chatting it up in the Hall of Remembrance: just go away. I'm trying to wrap my brain around it, but you keep giving me flat tires.

Memorials and Monuments: My favorites: Lincoln, Korean War, Vietnam War. I almost considered going by myself at night when the crowds would be gone. The Lincoln Memorial is, in my mind, the best, even though I doubt Lincoln would have approved of it. It's only his statue, the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural Address and the Inscription, but it's all you need. The Korean and Vietnam Memorials are very different, but what struck me about them were their walls. If you're reading names or looking at etchings of soldier's faces, you always see your reflection and the reflection of those around you, which is important. The best part of the WWII memorial, which was impersonal, noisy, and vaguely Third Reich-looking in design, was the dedication:

Here in the presence of Washington and Lincoln, one the eighteenth century father and the other the nineteenth century preserver ofour nation, we honor those twentieth century Americans who took up the struggle during the second World War and made the sacrifice to perpetuate the gift our forefathers entrusted to us: a nation conceived in liberty and justice.

Gettysburg, which is not technically part of DC, was actually great. I'd been to battlefields before, but this time I could understand what had happened. Well, understood the maneuvers, but certainly not the loss of life. It's eerie and unnerving to walk on Little Round Top amid the breastworks that are still there and think that not so very long ago there were men crouched exactly where you stand, killing and being killed. That's what really struck me: the US is so young. Our "Charters of Freedom" are all under 250 years old, the Civil War was less than 150 years ago, and most of the awesome buildings on the Mall are less than 100 years old. And yet we're the most powerful nation in the world.

The strangest I felt was when I was walking down to the center of the Vietnam Memorial and suddenly realized that some day there might be an Iraq Memorial.

it's only just out of reach

2008-04-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

I was talking recently with someone about spiritual warfare. I kind of said that I didn't believe in it, or at least not in the version that I grew up with. My early understanding of spiritual warfare came from reading Frank Peretti and Randy Alcorn novels from our church's library. It seemed those books were available for two reasons: a) because they were written by respected Christian authors and b) so that the library had something to offer the men of the congregation besides Calvin's Commentaries and outdated works on parenting. Not to say that women didn't read "This Present Darkness" as well, but the number of guys reading Francine Rivers or "The Blue Bottle Club" was limited to, well, me. But regardless of who was reading them, the books were there and came somewhat recommended. However, the actual depictions of spiritual warfare - reeking clouds of demons covering the roofs of a back-woods shacks filled with godless assassins, shining men with big arms and silk robes duking it out with Wartbreath and Urgz over the soul of a confused journalist - were either symbolic or the province of churches with healings and weekly alter calls. It all felt a little over the top for the CRC. We just read "Prophet" for the message of the story, which I've forgotten.

Anyway, the other day I was reading in 2 Kings 6 and read this passage, which I hadn't seen for a long time:

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked.

"Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."

And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

It's a beautiful passage. It doesn't sell me on the idea that there are angels and demons clashing swords above my head. But when I try to find an alternative that makes more sense to me - lines of angels and demons on either side of a conference table? Sitting over an awesome blossom at Chili's? (Office comes back next week!!!) - it seems just as weird.

In mostly unrelated news, a certain church in Lynden (and if you're from Lynden, you could probably guess) was advertising "Spontaneous Baptisms!" on their readerboard for their Easter service. What?

p.s. I didn't mention The Screwtape Letters here. I've read them, but don't really remember them. Perhaps a revisit is in order. I'm not sure.

Not in Michigan. At home. With PHOTOS. Or, "We are here! We are here! We are here!"

2008-03-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

I got home Sunday afternoon/evening from the Seven States Seven Days Blah Blah Blah and ate an enormous bowl of Frosted Flakes. Here is a list of things I did on Spring Break:

Travelled by plane, train, and automobile.
Beat my sister in one race on MarioKart.
Saw the sights in Holland.
Walked the same sidewalks that Sufjan walked.
Spied on a creeper in a sweet chapel.
Ate delicious ice cream Jello at the Roskamps'.
Almost went to a CRC museum.
Took uncomfortable close-ups of Eric.
Named strangers on the train.
Ate two turkeyburgers.
Fell in love with GhettoMeijer.
Saw CRC headquarters and felt underwhelmed.
Viewed priceless works of art.
Finally got to walk through Millennium Park.
Took a cab for the first time.
Laughed and didn't laugh at The Second City.
Read a lot about Bach.
Beat the crap out of Eric with my pillow.
Had problems filling an air mattress.
Didn't get to drive the train.

Here are photos.

Eric on the train. Notice the room for legs.

Somewhere in Montana.

Glacier.

Eastern Montana/North Dakota?

But what would Frank Lloyd Wright say?

A "commuter train".

At No. 5 Privet Drive.

The view from our hotel room.

The bean.

What else can you do in a situation like this?

In Mitchigan

2008-03-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hello. I am in Marcus and Amy's basement. Today Eric and I woke up at 11:30, because we could not get to sleep last night. Thanks, Michigan, for that last-minute time change. So now Amy is making stromboli and ice cream jello for lunch, which was supposed to be our welcome supper last night. Waaaaait, Tim. What's that you say? You missed your welcome supper? Yes, my children, yes we did. The mighty Empire Builder 8 was an hour and a half late arriving in Union Station, so we missed the 370 Pere Marquette and instead took a small vanbus, or "vus" to those of you in the know" (It was NOT propane-powered) from the bowels of the station. While our train was supposed to leave at 5:20 and arrive in Holland at 9:21 (with time change), the bus did not leave until 7:00ish while we waited for two old people, and thusly, we didn't arrive in Holland until after 11:00. And the in-ride movie was "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." And it smelled awful. And it was small.

But we are here! Amy and Merrrrcus have a beautiful home, which I would put pictures of, but I don't have my camera cable here. Thank goodness I have room for 2100 photos on my memory card.

As for the train ride, you'll just have to ask. There are too many stories. But did you know that "eating in the dining car only costs a little more than it does for the four of us to eat at Arby's?" And Dad, I defended rBST and widened the perspective of an organic-loving, health-food-store employee crazy. You would have been proud.

And news flash - the Wisconsin Dells are kind of ghetto.

control yourself

2008-03-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've been listening obsessively to Kids by MGMT.

Now that I'm at the brink of spring break, I've realize that I have absolutely no expectations for the next week and a half. There's gonna be a lot of incredible stuff going on, but I can't really get worked up about it. I guess that's for the best, because I'll be pretty happy with whatever comes. But I'm definitely ready to get the heck out of Dodge. No offense to all the people I've hung out with over the past two days

I'm also a little nervous about the train. We're gonna be on there a loooong time. I'm just trying to imagine how much worse it must have been for the pioneers. Or maybe better. Well, there's always this to look forward to.

New Silt Deposits a Hit With Local Oyster Community

2008-03-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Where would we be without The Onion?

I'm kind of surprised that it's already Palm Sunday. My efforts to center myself during Lent this year haven't been a flying success, but I have been thinking about it a lot, and I'm hopeful for a good time in Oregon over Holy Weekend. Not to say anything bad about CR traditions for Good Friday and Easter, but experiencing the Episcopal/Anglican tradition was beautiful and I'm excited to do so again. Not to mention hanging out with Zeek and his family is wonderful in itself, and there'll be some great guys to hang out with. Then it's off to see AmyandMarcus/AshleyandJeff in Holland/Grand Rapids/Chicago. And others. It should be fantastic, and I'm really excited to go to the Art Institute and see Edward freaking Hopper. Hoo boy.

Recommended listening for all of you (including myself) over the next 5 days:

Handel's Messiah: I think it's good to remember the Christmas story during Easter, and the majority of Messiah is well suited to Holy Week anyway.

Bach's St. Matthew's Passion: I'm not sure why, but it's so incredibly immediate and necessary. I just wish I knew German.

Pärt's Passio: I guess I could probably listen to most of Pärt's music and find it stylistically appropriate, but the Passio, taken from John, is obviously applicable. The Hilliard Ensemble recording is highly recommended by myself and those who actually know what they're talking about. SPU's library had a recording and the score, and last year I sat on the third floor and listened to it while following along. Masterful.

Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection": Maybe more Easter listening than anything, but for someone who grew up listening to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliette while reading The Lord of the Rings, it makes sense.

Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in A minor: His best, I think.

Tim Hecker, Harmony in Ultraviolet: If you're not into classical and like ambient, there's a great atmosphere on this album.

Also recommended is Fauré's Requiem, but I'll save that for later, because Whatcom Chorale is performing it this spring, hopefully with yours truly in the tenor section. With that in May and Beethoven's Ninth in July, it's going to be a good summer for choral music.

Also, if Amtrak has wireless access (it's doubtful), Eric and I are going to liveblog the trip (Day 2, hour 11: We've reached a plain.), which could be really exciting for all of you. Hahahahahahahaha.

I'm quite proud of this one.

standing in an empty tuxedo

2008-03-11T17:17:00.001-07:00

It's been a weird while since I've posted anything of merit, and I'm not gonna break my streak now. I have a lot of drawing to do for my art class, and I'm getting excited for the Fecht/Blok Seven States/Seven Days Whirlwind Spring Break Adventure Tour, which will be nice. If anyone wants to wave at us, we'll be on the Empire Builder. Call for exact times and locations. And next quarter, I'm taking a twice-a-week night class and an online class. In the meantime, I'll be getting my hands dirty and loading up on cashmoney. Maybe a drive to somewhere? We'll see.

Other than that, does anyone know the best way to ship a record?

This is from Yo Gabba Gabba and features Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters fame. It sings me to sleep.

the music of the spheres

2008-02-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes thrift stores give you the records you want. Sometimes thrift stores give you records you didn't necessarily want but buy anyway, either out of a compulsion to be ironic, a sad hope to be prematurely hip, or just curiosity. That's why I'm listening to a horrifying cover of "God Only Knows" by The Captain and Tennille from "Love Will Keep Us Together." I bought it for the title song and "I Write The Songs," but sure enough, there it was at the top of side two. I wonder what Brian Wilson thought when he heard it.

We watched most of "Born Into Brothels" today in English. It was really beautiful and heartbreaking. Both of which are horrible words to describe a film. Or really anything. But anyway, it was fantastic, and I recommend it to everyone. Although everyone probably already has seen it, and I'm behind the times. But wow. I was kind of ashamed of having bought a new camera and having not taken anything close to the photos those kids were churning out with seemingly no effort. I guess I need to get to work.

Megan at her swimming lesson party.

post 131

2008-02-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

If you have 9:37, spare it for her.

just do what the good book, do what the good book, do what the good book tells you to!

2008-02-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

Many times in Christian churches I have heard the pastor say to God, "All your actions show your wisdom and love." Each time, I reach in vain for the courage to rise and shout, "That's a lie!" - just to put things on a solid footing.
   "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.
   "He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty."
   Again, Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: "In all things God works for the good of those who love him."
   When was that? I missed it.

...

   Of course, God wrote no scriptures, neither chapter nor verse. It is foolish to blame or quit him for his admirers' claims, superstitious or otherwise. "God is not on trial," I read somewhere. "We are not jurors but suppliants."

   - Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

What's up with the Bible, anyway? The more I think about it, the more incredible seem the Church's claims about what the Bible is. I don't understand it: the more I look around, the more I feel like I have to explain away passages to match what I see in my life. I know the whole reason vs. faith discussion is not new, but I'm no longer sure which side I stand on, or if I need to stand on a side at all.

God is good. God is good. God is good. God is good. Somehow.

More pictures:

Sometimes I feel like I take the same pictures over and over.

Megan kind of looks like she's biting the dog's ear.

someone called my by my name

2008-02-11T21:54:00.000-08:00

I can now recite "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by W.B. Yeats (Katie: "He's such a pagan") to anyone who asks. Typing it here would prove nothing, so give me a call if you're up for it.

The personal statement section of my UW application is giving me some trouble right now. They ask for a lot of information, and it's difficult to organize so much (educational background, career goals, cultural understanding, experiential learning) into a "comprehensive essay" of 750-1000 words. And the more I write, the more I realize how much I have to say. What's necessary? What's important? The "tips" they give aren't especially helpful: Tell us who you are! Be specific! Write like a college student! You want to read how my "academic and personal experience to date, in concrete specific ways, fits into my academic, career and personal goals?" My life is not a spreadsheet.

Fig. 1 - The family
Fig. 2 - "The family"
Fig. 3 - My grandma's yard waste

Edamamamamame

2008-02-08T14:45:00.001-08:00

A commercial on TV for flood insurance or information or something was on as I walked into the living room a second ago. It featured a house slowly filling up with water, to the point that the front door bursts open and a wave of toy-filled water splashes out onto the front porch. This is eerily similar to my most memorable recurring nightmare as a child: I'd wake up at night and walk into the living room of our old home to find a plastic kiddie pool sitting in the corner, next to the Christmas tree. The water level would begin to rise until the side would bend over and water would begin spilling out onto the carpet. At this point I would usually wake up, and I don't remember if this included me wetting the bed.

I stayed home from school today with a nasty head cold - I think I've actually lost weight from blowing my nose so much. My homework is finished, I watched Ina Garten, ate some asparagus and read some Icelandic saga. Currently, I'm waiting for Brown to do something for me and deliver my camera, which is supposed to arrive today. Then to closing night of the musical.

This is none too exciting. Oooh! Oooh! Project Runway! TWO people voted off next week! WHAT?

OK, I'm done.

who wants a body massage?

2008-02-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

I have been working on my UW application for the last two and a half hours, and after staring at their website for a vast majority of that time, I can confidently say that I'm not in it for the school colors. Maybe purple and gold jive well at spirited sporting events and in jaunty promotional materials, but pastel'd out as the background of millions of little boxes that need to be filled with my class information, I'm just not a huge fan. NOTE: If you are a UW admissions employee, I am not in ANY WAY deriding the University of Washington, its programs, image or mascot. I'm just a little crabby and my neck is sore. That's all. I really, really want to get accepted.

I ordered my camera today, and I'm trying not to think about how much it costs and instead focus on the benefits to you, the reader, as I will be able to fill these pages with beautiful, full-color images of my life in Lynden, and even more importantly...

My trip to Chicago!!!!!! (and Michigan). Actually mostly Michigan. Eric and I will depart from Seattle on Amtrak at approximately 4:45 pm on Easter and arrive in Chicago 45 hours later. Then, after another 3-hour leg, we will find ourselves in that lush Midwest oasis, Holland, MI. We'll get to hang out with Amy and Marcus, and then head up to Grand Rapids to reconnect with John Calvin (and Eric's sister/brother-in-law)! Then to Chicago for a few days, and home in time for previously-mentioned and "I-can't-emphasize-enough-how-awesome-this-will-be" concert deluxe. If the train has internet access (?) Eric and I will attempt to liveblog our trip (including those gorgeous photos of northern ND!). Right now we're mostly concerned with smuggling alcohol and bringing enough books/music/movies to keep us occupied. Snnnnnnnnnap!

I rode my bike for the first time in a long time yesterday, and later in the evening my arms were sore. Sad.

avenues all lined with trees

2008-01-27T22:24:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like spring break is going to consist of me and Eric taking AmTrak to Michigan to hang out with our respective recently-married sisters and their husbands. Then some time in Chicago, and then fly home in time for the Seattle Symphony concert of the year: Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, and Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3, "Organ" (!), which will blow anyone's mind. I encourage you all to go, really. The train should be interesting - it's a 45-hour trip from Seattle to Chicago, which means things might get a little old by the time we hit northern North Dakota and Minnesota, but I'm excited to see parts of the country that I've never been to before. And the rails go right along Glacier N.P. in Montana, so hopefully it won't be dark when we're there, or we'll miss some spectacular scenery. I'm also excited to spend some quality time with books, and hopefully my new D40. And Eric, I guess.

I went down to Seattle to meet with admissions people and advisers at UW on Thursday and Friday. It was really exciting to be on campus as a prospective student and to think that this could be my school in a matter of six or seven months. And the lady from the Landscape Architecture department that I talked to looked and sounded like Susan Sarandon, so if I don't make it in, I can just watch Stepmom and Little Women and pretend that I go to school there. And I also got a free bike map, so hey, no losers here! Application is due on the 15th of February, so I need to get cracking on my personal statement and application, which is a royal pain in the butt. Go Huskies!

Other than that, I wish the weather would make up its mind and either snow enough to shut something down or just warm up and let me start working in the yard. I need to make a sweet portfolio for my application to the LARCH program, so I have a year to prove that I've been through the creative process. So alongside some ulterior motivation to make the Blok home look pretty, I also have a reason to take lots of pictures, draw, quilt, paint, write, compose, perform, build, etc. I guess I don't really need an ulterior motive to do any of those things, but having some impetus will certainly help.

Well, I'm taking the bus tomorrow if Whatcom isn't snowed under, so I'd better get to bed. Cheers. And Caribou. Listen to Caribou.

nothing can defeat you

2008-01-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

I pulled up behind a Conservative Christian minivan today, i.e. "I work, therefore I am conservative", and "My boss is a Jewish carpenter." Though the bumper sticker that struck me the most was, "If you think you're perfect, try walking on water." First of all, it's a really stupid saying - what does perfection have to do with walking on water, outside of the life of Jesus? Nothing. Walking on water is not one of the benchmarks of a perfect life. But apart from that, it seemed hyper-hypocritical, because the impression anyone would have gotten from the back of this van, which featured six or seven similarly-themed stickers, was that this person really did think they were perfect.

Maybe it's the fact that, over all, I hate bumper stickers. It's a really lazy way to offer an unwanted opinion, and usually (at least for me) it has the opposite effect than what was intended. I don't care if you hate the war, love Bush, care about the environment, want me to buy local, are proud of your honor student, served in the military or eat lots of organic food - telling me so as I'm stuck behind you in traffic will only make you seem preachy and arrogant, and if your driving is bad, you will bring judgement upon yourself and the cause you are supporting. And Christian bumper stickers are worse. What on earth do you prove by slapping a fish on your trunk or tailgate? I can't really think of anything, but I will say that you'd better be the most courteous driver on the road.

the golden age

2008-01-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Here is a strange series of events.

One of my favorite movies of all times is Amadeus, which I received for Christmas. After watching it, I thought I'd check out another composer biopic, Immortal Beloved, which is about Beethoven. The movie was actually not that great, but the climactic scene featuring (what else) Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" was pretty sweet, except for the music kept cutting out (to represent Beethoven' deafness) at all of my favorite parts. So I decided to find a video of the finale on YouTube, because I don't particularly like either of the recordings of the Ninth that I have, and because I like watching conductors, sound quality aside. So I found one of Leonard Bernstein conducting, and it was good (and complete, thankfully). Then, on the ever-distracting YouTube sidebar, I saw a video of Bernstein conducting the finale of Mahler's Second Symphony. I haven't really encountered Mahler much, but I watched it and was pretty much in tears, because of the music, and because Bernstein was a genius. Also, if my plans for spring break work out, I will be in Boston/NYC/DC for a few weeks, and one of my goals is to go to Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston and the Kennedy Center in DC. So I went to the Kennedy Center to see what the National Symphony will be performing while I'd be around, and they're doing Mahler's Second. The Kennedy Center. Iván Fischer. The National Symphony. And Bernstein's ghost sitting next to me in the cheap seats. The prospect makes me a little giddy. Also, for those of you with four minutes to spare, the video.

I've been reading W.B. Yeats' "Mythologies" during my reading of "The Brothers Karamazov" because it's episodic and significantly lighter. And hilarous. In one section, Yeats talks about how Scotsman have pissed off their ghosts and faeries because they are "too theological, too gloomy." "You have burnt all the witches," he accuses. "In Ireland we have left them alone." To close the section, he tells a story he heard in his youth from an Irish fisherman: "Did you ever hear how he made my brother emigrate? My brother was a diver, as you know, and grubbed stones for the Harbour Board. One day the beast comes up to him, and says, "What are you after?" "Stones, sur," says he. "Don't you think you had better be going?" "Yes, sur," says he. And that's why my brother emigrated."

Yeats talks about "those whose feet find no resting-place on earth," and I kind of relate to that statement. It's not that I necessarily feel awkward in my own skin - I'm beginning to get the feel of it, bit by bit. Instead, I'm just beginning to wonder if I'll ever feel at home here. Part of me says yes, and part of me says no. There's a lot of sadness in this world, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to push through that or dwell on it. Yes, there's often nothing I can do about a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that they should be forgotten.

wanted: 250-member boychoir

2008-01-12T23:42:00.000-08:00

There is something about Berlioz's music that is inherently ridiculous. To some, he's just a showman who didn't care about artistry. I disagree entirely, but it's still hilarious watching five grown men play crash cymbals in unison (at about 3:00) and to see just how many people were pulled together by Claudio Abbado for this perfomance of Berlioz's Te Deum with the Wiener Philharmoniker. But maybe Berlioz was right, if not always, then at least this time, to amass an army of musicians to properly sing this text:

To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
"Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth!
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory!"

two-disc special edition

2008-01-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

I've watched the same scene from "Amadeus" at least 10 times in the last 12 hours, of which this is a part. I really think it's one of my top five films, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm not sure about the rest - I haven't seen enough movies. But those two...boy oh boy.

I was sad when Lee's Laurel Cafe closed last year. Not that I was a regular, but I always planned on going, and therefore my nostalgia for the place is even greater because I miss what it probably never was. However, I'm really happy with the new establishment, which shouts its name to Guide traffic from a white vinyl Pepsi banner: Good Burger. That's right, Good Burger. Before I get overwhelmed with Snick nostalgia, I should also note that their slogan is, "Best Burgers in Laurel." Which is good, considering the only other available burgers in Laurel are from Meridian High School's cafeteria. Maybe Crazy Bob's Pizza and Wings has burgers, but I refuse to go and find out.

In other news, I skipped my first class of the quarter yesterday. Woo!!! And also, get this: I ordered a new pair of shews from Zappos YESTERDAY NIGHT at, like, 10, and they were at my house when I got home from school this morning. According to ups.com, they arrived at 10:03. That's, like, 12 hours. I'm not even kidding. WAY better than going to the mall three times in order to find something I actually like, only to find out they don't have my size. Sometimes, it's ok if local business dies, as long as that local business is Finish Line.

I tried to delete a bunch of music that I never listen to last night, but I couldn't do it, because I might listen to it later. That's kind of stupid.

Coming soon: Tim's spring break/spring quarter plans!