A Trip

Vermont looked beautiful as we pulled away from the Connecticut river. Sunlight glanced off the shallows headed for the comforting shade of the pine tree steeped banks. I felt strangely self aware. I considered, "I have to drive 4,000 miles." And I thought, "This means nothing to me, but it will." I was right, but as the trip progressed, I lost the self reflective streak. Moments themselves seemed more important than what would, or wouldn't, or had already. Succumbing to a traveling trance was easy, delightful, and as I embraced it, I felt closer to the country, the road, and myself.

Spirit Home

There’s a place just up the road, past the small reservoir and beneath the gaze of West Rock. You won’t know it’s there unless you look. After a large snowfall or heavy rain, you can hear it shout; but for most of the year it unassertively murmurs from the concrete dam. How you get there is not a mystery, nor are there any obstacles or barriers other than a chained gate you can easily slide through. And yet, it is a secret place.

Once past the gated threshold, a short walk through brambles and tall weeds leads you to the creek bed, the life-blood of my Spirit Home. I call this place my Spirit Home because I am most at peace here; however, its beginning does not mirror this posture. The cold reservoir water cascades over 3 separate falls—each measuring about 10 feet tall—and shoots up and through cracks and divots in the solid shale rock.

a couple new ones

So a while ago I wrote a post about how inspired and motivated I was to get serious about recording my own music. Such a sentiment might as well have been a New Year's resolution, because I really haven't achieved it at all. Not to say that I haven't been working on some tunes, but for the most part, I come up with some basic parts, maybe a certain groove or riff that I like, but usually don't flesh anything out much past the stage of being a sketch or fragment. It's easy and fun to come up with a bunch of sketches that don't really resolve or have any formal structure. Actually trying to turn them into a song is hard, frustrating, humbling and slightly embarrassing. But it can also be rewarding, especially in those precious few moments where you actually feel like you've got something halfway decent. I've got plenty of sketches that I'll try to refine into actual songs at some point, but for the time being I've only got a couple songs to share. I've spent a fair amount of time tweaking very minor parts over and over to get them to this point, and of course, they still feel miles away from where I'd like them to be. But I think I've reached the point of diminishing returns: I keep putting in more work, but it's getting less and less noticeable.

Note: I do sing in these songs; your ears have been forewarned.

http://soundcloud.com/daustin/left

http://soundcloud.com/daustin/comet

Hope you find them somewhat enjoyable, or at least amusing!

Swept Away

If it's one thing I know, it's that I am happiest when I'm playing tennis. Despite an often frustrated exterior after missing shots or having flaws in my game, it is my form of mediation, my sanctuary to leave the outside world behind and focus on the now. It is this feeling of selfless absorption -- learned that in Philosophy and Art, bitches -- that I've actually been looking for a lot lately. Earlier in the year I actually tried "sitting" to meditate, and believe it or not I think it was my lack of hip mobility that deterred any further pursuit. Indian-style (sorry, Karth, Native-American style) simply doesn't work for me.

Factoids Aren’t Facts

A Defense of Prescriptive Lexicography

I was reading a New York Times blog today – the Diner’s Journal – which features a column called “What We’re Reading”. A few times a week they'll post a variety of links to food-related fare on the web. One of the showcased links was to a list of 20 pieces of trivia about sausages, and the text accompanying the link reads “A few fascinating factoids about sausage.” I couldn’t help but think of a recent conversation I’d had that skirted the intersection of commonly misused words, words that sound as if they should mean something other than what they do, and wordy pet peeves. No, “travesty” does not mean the same thing as “tragedy” and should not be used in its place; “disinterested” is close to but distinct from “uninterested”; an acronym must be pronounced as a word of its own, otherwise it is a mere abbreviation (e.g., NATO vs. FBI).

Learning to Remember

I was in a study hall period in 8th grade when I first heard that a plane had collided with one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The room was in a sort of remote part of the school, tucked away, budding off of a lone hallway that comprised the third or maybe even fourth floor of Cape Elizabeth Middle School. I remember a teacher coming into the classroom with a grave, deadly-serious face, taking aside the study hall monitor and exchanging some urgent, hushed news. I can't even remember who the study hall monitor was -- I remember what she looked like: tall with a boyishly cut crop of brown hair that fell just above her shoulders. She was young and taught Spanish, so I never actually had her for a class because I studied French. Her youth translated to an automatic air of almost being "cool", but as I remember she was meanly sarcastic and kind of a hard-ass. But I cannot for the life of me remember what her name is. I guess I haven't thought about her much over the past few years, but now, looking back, every forgotten detail carries a small but significant guilty weight. I know it's unrealistic to expect perfect recall in such a situation, but still, I can't even remember the name of the teacher whose classroom I was in? I can't remember how she broke the news -- it was still in the morning, and I think at that point most of the details were unknown, or at least kept from the students, for our own benefit of course.

Love. Hate.

How can one place change so much from day to day?

Fresno is a place of extremes: Highest level of concentrated poverty, 80 miles from the tallest peak in the lower 48, a few hour’s drive to the lowest point in North America, the drunkest city in America , #1 in US auto thefts. Living in this place of extremes has shaped my feelings towards it in the same fashion. I love Fresno. I hate Fresno.

Nina

Every once in a while you read a quote from a famous musician that isn’t garbage drug speak. I like these moments and I like feeling the people who I follow sometimes obsessively actually are articulate and meaningful. While Phish is obviously known for their stupid lyrics (except for backwards down the number line) Trey did say something in an interview with Guitarworld (yea I know…) that I will never forget. He described driving a long distance and suddenly having a song come on which instantly awakens him to his surroundings, as if all of a sudden the clouds evaporate and more is observed while still concentrating on another thought entirely. This is a strange neurological phenomenon not worth understanding, but I have felt my brain, when stimulated by one thing, seems to brighten/enhance/focus perception in general. I listen to a ton of music when I drive, but I had never felt this feeling. Sure when I was sleepy and I put on Appetite for Destruction it woke me up but not in this elusive fasion Big Red was insinuating.

Ode to Francis the Bus Lady

Oh Francis, sweet Francis
Why have you left me?

How can I take one more step onto that gum-stained floor without hearing your angelic song:
“Good morning, King David!”
Huzzah! Music to my ears!

And your smile? Where hath it went? Your nourishing smirk which gave life to my sleepy morning disposition is now replaced by a rigid half-toothed grin of an ogre!

Somehow the sweaty passengers are just not as repulsive
The cord not as fulfilling to pull and listen for that ding
The baby not as cute for me to give a cheery wave

But alas, sweet Francis!
You have moved on.
On to the great unknown of the 41.
All I wish, all I want in this world
Is for you to remember your King David
For I will never forget my Francis the Bus Lady

Dark Clouds, Fading Lights

 I was drunk.

Drunk on romance, drunk on manifesto, drunk on that vainglorious philosophy, which, if scrutinized by the lucid, would sooner be tossed than a graduate's copy of Meditations.  Mostly I was drunk on that bottom of the barrel brew, bistro's soft-pedal as 'house wine'. It's that filthy red shit that conforms your cogitations to its own murky character.  It's a conduit for ersatz genius and desultory conviction.  In most probability, it had a hand in the deluge of many once-great empires.  And then there was the ouzo and single malt.

Writing About Writing

In the interest of keeping my brain functioning for more than a few weeks past graduation, recently I've been looking back at some of my writing from the past four years.  As most of you know, I was an English major, and in my senior year decided to express my desire to write by declaring a Creative Writing Concentration.  What does that mean exactly?  Not much.  I'd already taken more writing classes than are needed (4) for this classification, and it was as simple as filling in about 3 lines on a form in the Registrar's office.  In trying to further this effort, though, I took a class called Advanced Prose in the spring of my senior year.  This was a small workshop style class--only nine members and one meeting each week.  Our projects could be whatever we desired.  Most people wrote fiction (short stories and two attempts at a novel), there were a couple of deeply personal memoirs, and one collection of travel writing stories.  Those were mine if you couldn't guess.  

"The Screening Period" - Infinite Rest

Previous Entry: Infinite Rest

 

For something that seems so obscure, so unlikely, so remote it was remarkably easy to find the closest sleep studies to me. A quick google of “sleep study portland maine” didn’t turn up anything promising, so I tried “sleep study boston” and the first hit was to the Research Study Subject Recruitment page for the Harvard Division of Sleep Medicine. For some reason the success of a simple Google search is still able to instill some sense of pride, of self-sufficient (search-sufficient?) DIY know-how. There was a list of about 20 active studies, each with its own tagline and then a short summary of what the study would entail. The taglines offered some paltry information about the studies they were representing, but I think their main function was not to inform, but to lure in potential subjects. One study’s tagline was “Need some light in your life?” Only in the context of sleep studies can such a seemingly innocuous question feel so sinister. And of course there was no indication in that study’s summary that light would play a role in the study, leaving one no choice but to conclude that they would be locked in a room with the lights on for God knows how long.

Reentering the Earth's Blogosphere: or How a Cartoon Has Kept Me From Writing

I'm heating up, flying down through the blogosphere, cruising past space dust and satellites broadcasting the Bruins game and sharing my personal information with anyone who wants it.  Damn cloud computing.  Much has happened in the time since last posting, and covering all of it would be exhausting and an exercise in banality.  So, in brief, since late April I have: written several papers, crammed for an Art History exam, passed my classes, graduated, moved down to the coast, watched a couple games of Ultimate Frisbee, climbed some damp rock, gotten approximately 12,594 blackfly bites, spread some mulch, planted a garden, walked on the beach, gone swimming in the frigid waves, eaten mussels, hosed out moldy trash cans, walked Lucy, and read most of a book called Anthill (it's not good).  I did some other stuff too, but that's the gist of it.  It's been an interesting month and a half.  In the all the hubbub, though, there's been an activity that has grounded me and reminded me fondly of my youth.  Most days I indulge in it, and it is the focus of the rest of this post.  So read on if you like cartoons...

Watching the Corn Grow

If you drive into the city of Fresno from any direction, you will see the same repetition of scenery in slightly different forms. Highway 99 from the northwest takes you through vistas resembling Napa Valley, with curtains of grape vines stretching for miles-cultivated for any of the fruit's 3 forms of consumption: wine, grape or raisin. Coming in from the West follows a straight, flat highway 180 bisecting the most abundantly fertile land in our country, home to blinding amounts of cotton, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and cantaloupe. Highway 41 stretching into town from the South acts as almost a mirror image of its northern counterpart, Highway 99. Grapes are truly King in Fresno County; so much so, in fact, that there's a little town south of the city aptly named Raisin City. And to the East, slowly crawling up into the Sierra Nevada foothills along Highway 180, are the county's true poster-child: the stone fruits. Now, I have not tried any yet, for 'tis not the season, but I have heard that Fresno county's apricots, plums and peaches are the greatest in the world. "Like taking a bite into a juicy sphere of pure sugar," they say. After having already tasted the strawberries grown here, I trust every word any Fresnan tells me about the quality of fruits. They know their produce.

Infinite Rest

Blogger's note: As most of you probably know, I participated in a sleep study at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston from November 12th to 25th, 2010. Over the next few months I'll periodically be posting the journal entries I wrote while in the hospital. Except for minor spelling and grammatical revisions, I've refrained from editing the journal entries and will be posting them exactly as they were originally, sloppily penned. However, I might end up omitting some of the boring stuff, for your sake and mine. I might even end up scrapping the entries altogether and just start making stuff up. But for now, integrity. And a few posts, such as the following prologue, have been written ex-hospital, to serve as contextual bookends. Hope you enjoy, or at least that you don't fall asleep.


Prologue

Sometime in the late summer or early fall of 2010 I found myself en route to Rumney, New Hampshire for a week, or maybe it was an extended weekend, of rock climbing. I was making the two and a half hour drive from Maine with Tucker, a friend who'd graduated from college a couple years before me and had been drifting between temporary jobs ever since. He wasn't the type to settle into an office job right after school, and as far as I know, he's still floating around somewhere, I think up in the Pacific Northwest now. A couple years earlier I'd driven cross-country with Tucker and a couple other friends. For us it had been an excuse to camp and climb across America and even earn a little college credit for it; for Tucker, it was a rather impromptu relocation, as he ended up staying in Crested Butte, Colorado to try his hand as a ski bum while the rest of us continued the road trip for another week or so before returning home to finish school.

Why Mark Twain Is The Man

I've been out of commission in the writing words game, solely subsisting on greek letters and special functions (here's a new friend). But I try to read a little whenever I can. I was scouring a Smithsonian for any semblance of enjoyable material when I stumbled upon an article about Samuel Johnson, an esteemed biographer of social commentator James Boswell. That seemed like so many literary levels removed from real life, until I found out that "Writing the Life of Samuel Johnson", a chronology of said biographer, had taken it a step further, yet still won very prestigious critics awards. Who reads this stuff anyway? This is two hops and a skip away from a rumor mill, except that I guess it's fastidiously researched to the point of obsession. I want to get back to the roots of American Literature and celebrate a man who wouldn't dare get caught on a hype track for some other writer essaying on the story of another writers writing. I just realized I'm writing about this.

Here's a few reasons why Mark Twain is the MAN, some are outright lies. He:

Invented the huckleberry.

Inspired the song Cripple Creek Ferry. Neil Young is his grandson.

Vilified and mocked the British and their snooty accents. Still got a degree from Oxford.

Bathed in rivers. Made money.

Had a real name, but didn't use it.

Spoke out against slavery, imperialism, and civil injustices around the world. Also, was born with fluffy moustaches.

Is the reason we know the period of Halley's comet.

Fell in love with a picture. Then married the woman in it. Talk about self aware.

Chilled with Nik Tesla, physics badboy and understood wizard.

Became depressed when his daughter died -- a proper and forthright reaction.

Wrote books that are still banned for being naughty. TEE HEE

Screen The Modern Family

Surfing the internet is good for so many things, and worse for so many others that I can't even begin to start rationalizing my own addicted behavior, or judging others for their ipadding or conversely their holier than thou alternative choices like running or reading or Rastafarianism. I read an article in the times not too long ago about the modern family and its development(?) under the influence of technology. As I did, I felt weird inside.

I grew up in a house where watching television was demarcated as a waste of time. It was stupid and poisonous, and even though I found ways to watch some of the drivel around, and certainly spent my fair share of Saturday mornings doing a weird vaudeville version of karate in tandem with the power rangers, I was always aware that this was merely permitted as a direct consequence of “picking your battles”, not condoned. TV on weekdays was as forbidden as soda, except for the half hour of Wishbone which went down like warm raspberry seltzer – picture my face.

Goy Meets World

Ever since I can remember, my mother has insisted that I’m Jewish. Technically speaking she’s right; she is Jewish herself, and according to halakha this makes me Jewish by default, despite my father’s blond hair and blue eyes. But her insistence was in the face of no particular resistance, which always made it seem kind of odd to me. Age 12, I’d be playing Nintendo, totally engrossed in the pixelated-yet-bucolic fantasy world of The Legend of Zelda, and out of nowhere my mother’s saying, “Danny, you do know you’re Jewish, right?” Uh, sure, whatever, Mom. Could you stop standing in front of the TV? Age 15, making myself a snack in the kitchen, or more likely cycling between desperate searches of the effectively-empty fridge and the nothing-here-but-raisins-and-Ovaltine pantry, when all of a sudden: “This is really important to me: never, ever, ever forget that you’re Jewish, OK hun?” Mom, stop being weird, and why don’t we have anything to eat? Age 17, returning home after a night of clandestine drinking, hoping that no one is still awake, tip-toeing upstairs, almost safe in my room, until I hear a muffled, tired voice reaching out from her bedroom, escaping along with a sliver of lamplight from the crack between door and floor. “Dan, could you come here for a second?” Shit. “Hi honey, just wanted to remind you to always remember that you are Jewish!” Mom, not now, can’t you see that I’m drunk?

the tip of the iceberg

The tip of an iceberg is a metaphorical sign of a relatively small symptom or problem that’s belying something far more troubling. Some fairly straightforward calculations involving the different densities of water and ice and the volume of the former displaced by the latter reveal that the tip of an iceberg is only about 10% of its mass. The rest of the iceberg, 90% of its mass, stays submerged – unseen, but its presence not unfelt. No, icebergs have been unable to successfully hide their true mass from us ever since that unforgettable historical event that has left such an impression on humankind. Am I referring to the actual sinking of the passenger liner Titanic or the cinematic depiction thereof? Well, I’m actually not sure which event has been of greater import to raising overall iceberg-awareness. But regardless of its origin, the awareness is here. Sink a reportedly unsinkable ship once, shame on you; sink a reportedly unsinkable ship twice, shame on me. (And in both cases, shame on the reporters.)

one from the vaults

This is something I recorded back in the summer of 2010, which feels so recent when I think of it, but sounds so distant when I say it. I recorded it in my basement when I had access to an electric guitar and amp, but I have neither now so I can't really do a whole lot of revising -- instead I'll just share it.

http://soundcloud.com/daustin/chill-waving