The Westification of the Situation

He's Back

2006-11-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Colt McCoy was back at practice today for Texas, having been cleared yesterday by team doctors to get back to business.

Colt's comments on the injury:

"It was really frustrating to be on the sideline," McCoy said. "I had a good doctor's appointment [Sunday]. I'm excited to be back at practice this week. I worked really hard this week in the training room to get myself back and ready and get my strength back."

And on the game this Friday:

"In my family there's some Aggies," he said. "I hate to say that."

There's a good chance someone took that last quote out of context, but I still think it's great.

Longhorns QB McCoy cleared to play vs. Texas A&M [ESPN]

Zombies and Gobelins, or Art I Heart...

2006-11-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at a slide show of Parisian photography. Does that make me culturally aware, pretentious, or just bored? Anyway, I found this photograph and I really like it, and yet, it somewhat creeps me out:

“Avenue des Gobelins” (1925) by Eugène Atget

Also, I saw this album in Waterloo Records yesterday, and I almost bought it solely on the basis of its title and artwork:

Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! by Hellogoodbye

Indeed.

Jenny Lewis and Twins

2006-10-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

Jenny Lewis played a great show at Stubbs on Monday night. Lewis, the Watson Twins, and her band played a set that brought a fullness to Rabbit Fur Coat, both in sound and stage presence. They also unveiled some new music, my favorite of which is a song called Acid Tongue [savefile]:

"I went to a cobbler
to fix a hole in my shoe
He took one look at my face
and said, 'I can fix that hole in you.'

I beg your pardon,
I'm not lookin' for a cure,
seen enough of my friends
in the depths of the godsick blues

You know I am a liar
You know I am a liar
Nobody helps a liar

Continue Reading Lyrics...
Cause I've been down to Dixie
and dropped acid on my tongue
tripped upon the land
until enough was enough

I was a little bit lighter
and adventure on my sleeve
I was a little drunk
and lookin' for company

So I found myself a sweetheart
with the softest of hands
We were unlucky in love
but I'd do it all again

We build ourselves a fire
We build ourselves a fire
But you know I am a liar
You know I am a liar

And you don't know what I've done

By the rolling river is
exactly where I was
There was no simple cure
for unlucky in love

To be lonely is a habit
like smoking or taking drugs
and I've quit them both
but man, was it rough

Now I am tired
It just made me tired
Let's build ourselves a fire
Let's build ourselves a fire"

The recording of Acid Tongue is from the NPR Live Concert Series. You can listen to the whole of her set here.

Aces of Diamond

2006-10-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

They did the improbable.

The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Tigers of Detroit 4-2 tonight to win the World Series 3 games to 1. It's been 24 long years (the span of my life to this point) since our last championship. Needless to say, I'm fairly excited.

The Pumkin to Prove it.

Lost As Sin

2006-10-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

I decided tonight that Lost is a lot like sin. It's interesting and exciting on the front end, but never fails to leave you feeling empty and confused by the end.

I watched the latest installment tonight, along with 10.6 million other poor, strung-along souls. I go back and forth on the artistic merits of Lost. At first I found myself amazed by the labyrinth of a plot the creators of the show have designed; there's nothing quite like this show for stirring up conversation and keeping people up at night reading plot theories on obscure websites.

Of late, though, I've started to wonder if the show really has an intricate plot, or if it's just being mysterious for mystery's sake, throwing around black smoke and polar bears, trying to convince us that there's a logical explanation to everything, and that maybe if we just thought about it a little harder... when in reality a bunch of writers are sitting around a table trying to figure out some semi-plausible way to connect the dots, inevitably deciding it would be easier for now to add a few more instead of drawing any lines.

Progress in Black & White

2006-08-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

We All Tube

2006-08-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

I'm probably one of the last bloggers to stick some YouTube clips in a post and call it done. But sometimes there's good to be found in the status quo.

CLIP #1: The Bottle Rocket Short: Wes Anderson's (ridiculously good) film started out as a short, shot on black and white film. Which makes it feel a lot darker, and well shorter. You'll recognize some scenes nearly identical to ones that made it into the feature length. One of my favorite parts is at the beginning and involves a conversation between Dignan (Owen Wilson) and Anthony (Luke Wilson) about an episode of Starsky and Hutch...

CLIP #2: Square One: Does anyone remember this show? Fast forward halfway through for a very special treat - Mathnet. I love Mathnet. Love it...

I See (Inside) Dead People

2006-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know what Bill Gates (care of the NY Times) is so crazed about, but last night I went on a voyage into the world of the human body. That's right, I visited the Body Worlds (2) exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature last night. This German guy Gunther von Hagens has figured out how to preserve and seperate the various systems of the human body so that one can look at and be slightly to mostly grossed out by our insides.

From Wikipedia: Body Worlds (German title: Körperwelten) is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner organs or structures. The exhibition's developer and promoter is a German anatomist named Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique in the late 1970s...

Indeed.

come on ride The Avalanche, and ride it.

2006-07-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

Is my writing a post about the new Sufjan Stevens album The Avalanche: Outtakes and Extras from the Illinois Album the most predictable thing that I could possibly do at this juncture? I submit that it is. The album came out today, and is available on emusic. That's just one more reason to love the good folks at emusic.

Pitchfork gave Avalanche a 7.2 on the Richter scale. They also said this, which I don't understand in the least, though I would probably write something similar in an attempt at turning a phrase:

"He'll never come to our houses and weep on our shoulders-- but he'll write songs about coming to our houses and weeping on our shoulders."

Wicka-wicka-what?! I'm looking forward to the three additional versions of Chicago (including the multiple-personality disorder version). But then again, aren't we all? I'm in Colorado this week visiting my family and sundry other people and places. I suppose that The Avalanche fits in a bit better here than in the great state of Illinois. I wonder if The Avalanche is kind of like what would happen if Illinois lost its job and took a road trip to Colorado? I wish my emusic download would hurry up and finish so that I could know.

In other Sufjan news, a tour was just announced, including two dates at Austin's Paramount Theater during ACL weekend. Level ORCH Section R Row N Seat 8, I'll be sitting on you soon.

today we celebrate our independence day

2006-07-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm home.

After a six week jaunt overseas, it's good to be back in the states. I'll go ahead and admit that a return on the eve of the 4th of July makes it a bit difficult to ease back into this place. Independence Day is America set to high contrast, with the best and worst on display side-by-side. There is much to love and celebrate about our United States - the equally valued oft competing values of unity and diversity, the vision of life and liberty, and the courage of the many men and women who have defended such idealism with their noble lives and humble deaths. There's also, though, a lot to mourn here - the ways in which the value of independence from tyranny has degraded into a value of independence from anyone else, the tarnishing of freedom as the chance to do what one wants instead of the ability to do what one ought. It's a fight to enjoy the light of a day like this one, bright as the light is, when the darkness is so stark. Celebrating the good while pursuing the better is a tough tension to hold - on one side of the spectrum it's easy to become complacent, and on the other side it's easy to lose the joy that is the seed of future hope. There is love in this tension, somewhere right between the extremes.

"A new country seems to follow a pattern. First come the openers, strong and brave and rather childlike. They can take care of themselves in a wilderness, but they are naive and helpless against men, and perhaps that is why they went out in the first place. When the rough edges are worn off the new land, businessmen and lawyers come in to help with the development - to solve problems of ownership, usually by removing the temptations to themselves. And finally comes culture, which is entertainment, relaxation, transport out of the pain of living. And culture can be on any level, and is." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden

It's great to be back.

Sufjan, a Quiet Interlude

2006-04-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

So it's been 9 months since Illinois, the proper gestation period for a human child, and people are antsy for Sufjan to birth another record. Speculation is rampant. People want additional states Sufjan, they want their states. Waiting for your state's treatment by Sufjan is kind of like waiting for your state to have its own quarter. It's just a quarter - you know it'll be worth twenty-five pennies, it's just a Sufjan album - you know it'll be stunning, but when it's your state on the quarter or your state on the album you get all haughty and fuzzy on the inside. Anyway, no official word on the the next state to get lucky with Sufjan, but people with large amounts of time and huge word banks have taken to coming up with potential track lists. Here's one for Texas, which I thought was a fun(ny) read:

TEXAS: THE LONE(LY) STAR STATE

1 - Stephen F. Austin Was A Friend of Mine
2 - From A Library On A Hill, Or Lyndon Baines Johnson Talks On The Telephone While Sitting On The John
3 - The Galleria Mall Fountain Song
4 - George H.W. Bush Claims A Houston Hotel Room As His Permanent Residence, But The I.N.S. Takes Exception To Jose Gutierrez of Juarez, Mexico's Attempt To Do The Same
5 - Texarcana, And Other Obscure Facts about Our Borders
6 - Oh, I-10, You Bisect This Great State with Love
7 - South Padre Island Is Not So Fun In The Wintertime
8 - Galveston Recovers From The Great Hurricane, But Never Recaptures It's Former Grandeur
9 - Black Gold, Texas Tea
10 - On The Contemplation Of The Stars At Night In Big Bend National Park And The Corresponding Sense Of Desolate Isolation
11 - Paris
12 - Old El Paso Is Not Just a Brand of Condiments, They Also Have A Pretty Good Basketball Team Out There
13 - Remember The Alamo Dome!
14 - Stanley Korshack Rules Dallas Retail with A Velvet Glove
15 - The River Walk Forever, Or How Davy Crockett Built A Canal To Nowhere
16 - It's Easy To Forget That Mission Control and Gilley's Are Less Than A Mile From Each Other
17 - Hakeem, the Dream!
18 - Ann Richards, We Shall Remember You (And Especially Your Hair) When You Are Gone

[care of randominnyc]

Speaking of Sufjan and babies, there was that whole human child hulabaloo care of Pitchfork and Rosie Thomas the other week.

HAS ANYONE BEEN LISTENING TO VOXTROT? They're blowing up...

sad accordions make me feel happy

2006-03-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

I saw The Sad Accordions play earlier tonight. I must say, I'm a fan. I cannot tell a lie.

An album is in the works and on the way, but for now take a listen to an early mix of the track The West on their myspace:

The Sad Accordions - The West

"Your heart is heavy
We won't be here forever
The night holds no pleasure
We're tangled in the whether

Your fire burns unsteady
Alight but not much better
We go it for the most part
Alone but still together"

In other music thought, the back-to-back-to-back trio of I'll Be On The Water, Running, Returning, and Afford on the Akron/Family Self-Titled album is definitely in my top five all time of back-to-back-to-back songs on an album. Such a great use of soft/loud, such great patience/pacing.

Lent

2006-03-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

"Lent is a journey - a pilgrimage of sorts. Like most journeys worth the time, the Lenten one is not easy. The great themes of Lent represent areas of struggle and vulnerability for all people - mortality and death, temptation and resistance, repentance and holiness. But the Lenten journey is a necessary trek, one that leads us back to God, back to the basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls on us to put to death the sin and indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. The classic location of this struggle is the desert or wilderness, the place of wandering, waiting, hunger, and temptation. The desert is also that unavoidable space between slavery and freedom, exile and homecoming - it connects the two and beckons us towards newness. This wilderness is not the end, but a part of the journey - a journey that leads the church into the darkness of Holy Week, through the god-forsakeness of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday, and delivers us into the exuberance of Easter Sunday."

Ash

2006-03-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

"Remember that dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

"Oh Lord, we are ready
For what's in store

Oh Lord, we are ready
For what's in store

Oh Lord, we are ready
Show us what comes next

Oh Lord, we are ready
For what's in store

Lead us into the night"

Henry David Thoreau...

2006-03-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

Interesting thought. Is that socialist, capitalistic, or something else entirely?

Anyway (you slice it) Walden Pond is way overpriced.

love birds

2006-02-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a poster I designed for this project, based on a lyric from the Ryan Adams song If I Am A Stranger:

Listen: If I Am A Stranger (Now That You're Gone 7" Inch) [savefile]

Solzhenitsyn

2006-02-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

"It has long been known that our life stories do not follow an even course over the years. In every human being's life there is one period when he manifests himself most fully, feels most profoundly himself, and acts with the deepest effect on himself and on others. And whatever happens to that person from that time on, no matter how outwardly significant, it is all a letdown. We remember, get drunk on, play over and over in many different keys, sing over and over to ourselves that snatch of a song that sounded just once within us. For some, that period comes in childhood, and they stay children all their lives. For others it comes with first love, and these are the people who spread the myth that love comes only once. Those for whom it was the period of their greatest wealth, honor, or power will still in old age be mumbling with toothless gums of their lost grandeur."

(from The First Circle)

Mushaboom Goes Postal

2006-02-22T17:06:00.000-08:00

Has anyone heard this yet? Feist's Mushaboom as remixed by The Postal Service? As if Mushaboom wasn't great enough already...

You can pick up the single on iTunes for $1.07 with tax, or welllll why not, here for a bit as well... Feist - Mushaboom (Postal Service remix)

I've listened to it 12 times today so far. It's a Postal Service track so be sure and give it the devotion of headphones.

"And we'll collect the moments one by one
I guess that's how the future's done"

Alex Dupree & The Trapdoor Plan

2006-02-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

Alex Dupree and 16 of his closest friends played a great show at Beerland last night. Highlights were Sarah is Rising and Ramona (as always), as well as a bipolar version of Deep Ellum (soft then loud then soft and so forth), and to finish out the set:

"vinyl floors stick cold
to my feet and to my medicine
pallid glow downstairs
the cabinet mirror all cracked in
this night that wrestles me
is in my knees and under my skin
with an icy cocktail moan
hung on a spike like a gasp in the wind
all that was written must come to pass
so i will give up, i will give up at last."

The Sad Accordions and Zookeeper played valiantly as well. Beerland - you need to work on your acoustics.

[If you're wondering about the picture, and the streak of light, it's film's best attempt at capturing the "lightar" in all of its glory]

Napoleon Bonaparte Says...

2006-02-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."

Ryan Adams says... "Can you still have any famous last words / if you're somebody nobody knows / I don't know / Somebody go and ask Claire / She's been dead twenty years / Just look at her hair." (Strawberry Wine)

Listen up February...

2006-02-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

Here's what I'm listening to these days, just in case you were wondering...

Mostly I'm listening to Iron & Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, that's pretty much all I'm listening to, over and over and (why not) over again.

Especially: [1] Sodom, South Georgia [2] On Your Wings [3] Passing Afternoon.

Lyrically:

"All dead white boys say, 'God is good'
White tongues hang out, 'God is good'" - Sodom, South Georgia

"God, every road takes us farther from home...
God, give us love in the time that we have" - On Your Wings

Sigur Ros - Taak...
Especially: Hoppípolla

Lyrically:

"OG ÉG FÆ BLÓÐNASIR (Hoppípolla)
En ég stend alltaf upp (Hoppípolla)" - Hoppípolla

Alex Dupree & The Trapdoor Band - Self Titled
Especially: Ramona

Lyrically:

"Oh who holds the map to the treasures of coal
Oh who scraped up against the granite edge of his soul
Who savors the weeds after trampling the rose
Who drives through the night with blood on his clothes
Who begs for pennies on streets paved with gold

Bear on, Bear on are you liberty's sons
There's no pride in coming home" -Liberty's Sons

Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Especially: Measuring Cups

Lyrically:

"and we were tired of being mild
oh so tired of being mild
we were so tired" - Tables and Chairs

Alexandre Desplat - Syriana Soundtrack
Especially: Driving in Geneva

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
Especially: Shine a Light

Lyrically:

"I was a hero
Early in the Morning
I ain't no hero
In the night"

NPR - Story Corps
Not an album per say, but something I've been listening to a lot of. NPR is recording an auditory history of America, made up of the uncommon stories of common Americans.
Listen:

SAMPLER

Retired Memphis sanitation worker Taylor Rogers and his wife Bessie remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s final speech.

William Jacobs tells his grandson Seth about an unexpected visit from his fiancée's mother.

SOME OTHER THINGS I'M TAKING IN:

Especially: David Gray's Ain't No Love from the album Life in Slow Motion.

Lyrically:

"On winter trees the fruit of rain
Is hanging trembling in the branches
Like a thousand diamond buds
Waiting there in every pause
That old familiar fear that claws you
Tells you nothing ain’t no good
Pulling back you see it all
Down here so laughable and small
Hardly a quiver in the dirt" - David Gray, Ain't No Love

All that to say that I'm really only listening to Iron and Wine. Over and over and over.

"small as a wish in a well"

2006-01-29T21:59:00.000-08:00

"When the world is sick, can't no one be well
But I dreamt we was all, beautiful and strong."

"God give us love in the time that we have..."

That's Icelandic for "Puddle Jumpers"

2006-01-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite songs of late is Sigur Ros' Hoppipola. Ridiculous song. It turns out the video makes it even better - the concept is old people behaving like out of line adolescents. So great. I knew the old folks had it in them.

It reminds me of when my grandmother and I used to go outside after it had rained and jump in puddles together. I may or may not have been only wearing a diaper.

"OG ÉG FÆ BLÓÐNASIR (Hoppípolla)
En ég stend alltaf upp (Hoppípolla)
Við sjáumst tvö
Í sjálfum mér
OG ÉG FÆ BLÓÐNASIR
Og ég stend alltaf upp
Við sjáumst tvö
Hoppípolla (til endaloka)

or english if you prefer...

And I get nosebleeds (jump into puddles)
But I always get back up (jump into puddles)
We see each other
In myself
And I get nosebleeds (jump into puddles)
But I always get back up (jump into puddles)
We see each other
Jump into puddles

The Geffen site also has a video for Glosoli, which is also very tastefully done. You Icelandics put me to creative shame.

Comfort in the Sound

2006-01-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

Death Cab's lastest video, for Marching Bands of Manhattan is out. And it's worth a look.

"And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in."

crime scene evidence

2006-01-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it this past week, Ryan Adams was on Austin City Limits. I don't say that so that I can launch into some thoughts about how great what you missed was and how you should forever carry with you a deep regret for missing the event. I just wanted you to know that if you missed Ryan Adams on ACL last week, you can download video of the performance here:

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Games
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Cold Roses
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Hard Way To Fall
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Call Me on Your Way Back Home
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Now That You're Gone
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: Let It Ride
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals :: A Kiss Before I Go

All clips care of An Aquarium Drunkard, which is firmly entrenched in my pantheon of great lyric inspired blog names. (I realize the narrow scope of such a pantheon.)

It was a subdued, slightly haunting, set from Adams and company. The highlights for me were Hard Way To Fall, Call Me On Your Way Back Home, and Now That You're Gone. The video quality on these isn't perfect, but the sound is excellent. I think they would look and sound great on a video iPod, which means that this post is pretty much just for Ian, and for Paul when he gets around to getting his new white baby.

SIDENOTE: Does anyone find it ironic that the word blog is not in blogger's spell check list? That's the purest irony I've experienced all day.

Atlas Shrugged

2006-01-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

So AT&T recently merged with SBC, creating at&t and an updated globe logo, a little ball that I cannot, despite my best efforts, get away from. The other day I saw billboards in both Spanish and English, while driving alongside a bus advertisement, and hearing talk of their new motto your world delivered on the radio. Not to mention the magazine, television, and web ads that have been slowly grating on me over the past few weeks. They must be spending a hundred million dollars making us all aware of absolutely nothing. This new at&t means little to me, and I have no idea what it means that they're delivering my world to me. I thought I was already living in my world, I wasn't aware that I was awaiting its delivery.

I appreciate the heads up on the new identity and all, but if I have to see that three-dimensional blue and white striped thing or hear the corresponding tagline five more times I just might go insane. The new at&t is close to going down in my bad blood book right after John Mayer and Napoleon Dynamite. I wish they would just pin me down, give me a tattoo of their impressionistic rendering of the earth, and move on to delivering someone else's world.

Is anyone else having a hard time with this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Elsewhere: Get Busy Livin' or Get Busy Dyin' [Be A Design Group]

never underestimate a russian novelist

2006-01-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty into the fact that our nation seems to be regaining a social conscience; that there seems to have been a significant uptick in our concern about the impoverished both within our own country – and probably more heavily – concern about those in the third world. This is especially true with people within the church and with people in my age group, the generation following Gen X, whatever we're called.

This makes me hopeful about our world and it's often sorry state. I'm a supporter of the One Campaign - I sport the t-shirt from time to time and send pre-written letters to my congressman. I gave my family a flock of ducks for Christmas, a cleverly disguised contribution to the good people at Heifer International. I find these, and other endeavors that Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates put their seal of approval on, to be worthy causes.

Not to discount any of these efforts in the least, but I've been wondering these past few months if we're really solving any problems. Sure these aid movements are demanding of their beneficiaries responsibility and a return on investment like never before, they're geared towards creating self-sufficiency and sustainability, but are they fixing problems or are they only mitigating symptoms? Are these efforts mere bandaids on flesh wounds?

The real question was crystallized for me during a conference call I was listening in on yesterday: is poverty just a physical problem or is it also a spiritual one? Is our world's pain and stark poverty just in need of a redistribution of the wealth? My guess is that such a solution is only a temporary one. The capitalism the west is proselytizing is, at its core, a system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is a system in which man reigns supreme, the richest men the ones who rule, who get more stuff.

Granted, free trade is important, and a worthy fight. But will this goal, fully realized, solve porverty or just distribute it more evenly around the globe? Will these pursuits not just make the poor harder to find and easier to ignore? The ultimate question is one of who is ultimately in charge. As long as mankind views mankind as the highest power there will continue to be discord, poverty, and bitter pain.

I admit these thoughts to be but partially informed and spontaneous, open to criticism. I also admit them to be heavily influenced by a speech I read this morning, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's speech to the graduating class of Harvard University in 1978. It's ridiculous how much foresight Solzhenitsyn had. He pretty much nails the progression our world has gone through over the past half-century. I hope his words won't be lost on us, they're worth careful consideration:

A World Split Apart
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Excercises,
Thursday, June 8, 1978.

Also: Flag Waving SUV by Penny Carothers [Burnside Writers Collective]

1,036 words

2006-01-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

My photo prof passed this quote on. I thought I'd share:

"Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is."

-Willa Cather

another little hole

2006-01-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

Interesting read today in the New York Times.

Michiko Kakutani's article comes in the wake of James Frey's admission that his Oprah Book Club worthy memoir "A Million Little Pieces" includes a healthy helping of fiction, to make it more exciting and memo(i)rable. Kakutani takes an interesting look at our culture and the continually blurring lines between fact and fiction.

An excerpt:

"James Frey's admission last week that he made up details of his life in his best-selling book "A Million Little Pieces" - after the Smoking Gun Web site stated that he "wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms and status as an outlaw 'wanted in three states' " - created a furor about the decision by the book's publishers, Doubleday, to sell the volume as a memoir instead of a novel.

It is not, however, just a case about truth-in-labeling or the misrepresentations of one author: after all, there have been plenty of charges about phony or inflated memoirs in the past, most notably about Lillian Hellman's 1973 book "Pentimento." It is a case about how much value contemporary culture places on the very idea of truth. Indeed, Mr. Frey's contention that having 5 percent or so of his book in dispute was "comfortably within the realm of what's appropriate for a memoir" and the troubling insistence of his publishers and his cheerleader Oprah Winfrey that it really didn't matter if he'd taken liberties with the facts of his story underscore the waning importance people these days attach to objectivity and veracity.

We live in a relativistic culture where television "reality shows" are staged or stage-managed, where spin sessions and spin doctors are an accepted part of politics, where academics argue that history depends on who is writing the history, where an aide to President Bush, dismissing reporters who live in the "reality-based community," can assert that "we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." Phrases like "virtual reality" and "creative nonfiction" have become part of our language. Hype and hyperbole are an accepted part of marketing and public relations. And reinvention and repositioning are regarded as useful career moves in the worlds of entertainment and politics..."

Continue reading Bending The Truth In A Million Different Ways [NY Times]

dallas

2006-01-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

Listless?

2005-12-31T14:44:00.000-08:00

I almost made it to the end of 2005 without putting out some sort of best of list. That would have been unfortunate; a gaffe even. To close out the year, here are my oft listened to songs of 2005. They're not the best songs of the year, the ones with the most originality or artistic merit. They're not necessarily even songs of this year - some were released in years prior - they're simply the songs that I listened to the most.

I'll refrain from much commenting, but I will include a few for download - because music speaks louder than words. Well... music consists of words more loudly spoken... I mean... you know what I mean.

Here they are, in proper mix CD order:

1. Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez - Veneer [sendfile: follow the link]
2. Speed of Sound - Coldplay - X&Y
3. Plenty of Paper - Eisley - Room Noises
4. Sweet Illusions - Ryan Adams - Cold Roses
5. One - U2 - Live 8 [sendfile: follow the link]
6. Sarah is Rising - Alex Dupree - Self-Titled [sendfile: follow the link]
7. The Hardest Part - Ryan Adams - Jacksonville City Nights
8. Make No Protest - Waterdeep - 1Beginning
9. Marching Bands of Manhattan - Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
10. Use It - Twin Cinema - The New Pornographers [sendfile: follow the link]
11. Folsom City Blues - Johnny Cash - The Legend of Johnny Cash
12. Blue Sky Blues - Ryan Adams - 29
13. Intervention - The Arcade Fire - KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic [sendfile: follow the link]
14. The Predatory Wasps of the Palisades - Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
15. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself

Some more proper (music) end of the year lists:
Pitchfork - Top 50 Albums of 2005
What Would Jesus Blog? Top 11 of 2005
Stereogum Readers Poll - Top 20 Albums of 2005
The (s)Wheatest 11 of 2k5!
Gorilla vs. Bear: Top 50 Albums of 2005
Gorilla vs. Bear: Songs of 2005

Get your fix for 2006...

Pass

2005-12-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

Back in October a few of us spent some time in Pass Christian, MS helping some people piece their homes and their lives back together after Katrina. I pretty much fell in love with the town and the people there. The destruction was simply unbelievable and I can't communicate it aside from taking you there.

For those that went, or others that are interested in the continuing clean-up process in Pass, the New York Times has an interesting article, with an accompanying video story, and a series of pictures:

In Mississippi, Canvas Cities Rise Amid Hurricane's Rubble
[NY Times, December 20]

I really want to get back there ASAP.

===================================

2005-12-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

If Only Emails Were As Highly Personal As Letters...

2005-12-20T12:22:00.000-08:00

Prolificacy & Friendship

2005-12-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

29 is out today. On first listen I'd rank it after Cold Roses and before Jacksonville City Nights. One of my favorites: Starlite Diner. [savefile follow link]

I've gotten a bit tired of every single Ryan Adams interview or review referencing how much music he releases... but here's an actual interesting article in that vein: The Sound and the Fury. (Thanks Tracy.) This article has a Ryan Adams quote that belongs in a pantheon of some kind:

"I figure, you know, Mom makes too much meatloaf means we got leftovers. It doesn't mean that she did something wrong."

And now Jeff Tweedy gives us a test of true friendship. (Thanks Paste):

"I think Wilco is never going to accomplish this goal, but I would love for more people to listen to music as a sole activity. I think it’s a really transformative way that that art form can touch you. Aside from live music, which I think is really important to being human—to be a part of a crowd experiencing music—recorded music is like literature when you allow yourself to sit and listen. I mean, you know. That’s all you did when you were growing up; that’s all you needed to do. You found friends that could sit and be quiet and not...ruin it; those were your friends, you know? If somebody couldn’t do that, you couldn’t hang out with them. I don’t care how cool they were; they were not cool."

Or, if you prefer something more historic, here's George Washington:

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."

Make Austin Proud

2005-12-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

I just realized something while listening to Explosions in the Sky. A snipet from their song The Only Moment We Were Alone appears in Walk The Line. It's at the beginning of both the movie and the trailer, right until the film cuts to a shot of Joaquin Phoenix's playing with the blade of a circular saw in Folsom Prison.

Explosions in the Sky are some of Austin's finest. They're playing at Emo's (outside stage) on 1/27. You can pick up their albums on eMusic, on iTunes, or at Waterloo.

Walk The Line trailer (Apple)

On Not Grocery Shopping

2005-12-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going home for Christmas in a day or two and I've been avoiding going to the grocery store. For one thing I don't really like going to the grocery store, and for another thing I hate to buy food right before I leave, and for one more thing I like to think that making do with what I have is developing character of some kind.

Today's ingredients:

Brown Rice

Campbell's Tomato Soup (Condensed)

Jalapeno Jack Cheese

The Finished Product

The taste? Uhhhh...like crunchy tomato soup.

In The Sun

2005-12-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Coldplay put on an excellent show last night on Austin City Limits. Thanks to Doug's TiVo capabilities we were able to skim through the telethon parts (don't tell PBS).

One of the highlights (for me at least) was when Chris Martin brought out Michael Stipe (REM) for a few songs, one of which was a Joseph Arthur song In The Sun. You might remember Joseph Arthur from Honey And The Moon fame. In The Sun is off of an earlier release: Come To Where I'm From. A live version of In The Sun can be had here.

High in the 20's

2005-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Well the early reviews for Ryan Adams' 29 are in, and, per usual, some love it and some don't. 29 releases on Tuesday, as Ryan Adams rings in the birth of the Messiah with a dark, haunting exploration of the death of his twenties. There's nothing quite like a good contrast.

Early reviews, assembled by the crack marketing team at Lost Highway:
Q (Review)
Q (Top Albums of 2005)
Uncut

And also:
Pitchfork

I'll be picking it up. But then we all knew that already, right?

Chesterton & Dylan

2005-12-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

I finished off Orthodoxy earlier today. It's a bit difficult in places, but it should be read. A few of us have spent the semester talking about the Gospel in terms of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. I think Chesterton has some good thoughts on the reality of the Fall. From the last chapter, Authority and the Adventurer:

"The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. That is the inmost philosophy of the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's interesting new Catechism, the first two questions were: 'What are you?' and 'What, then, is the meaning of the Fall of Man?' I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to the questions; but I soon found that they were very broken and agnostic answers. To the question, "What are you?' I could only answer, 'God knows.' And to the question, 'What is meant by the Fall?' I could answer with complete sincerity, 'that whatever I am, I am not myself.' This is the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have never in any full sense known, is not only better than ourselves, but ever more natural to us than ourselves."

Some more Dylan Greatest Hits - The Times They Are A-Changin':

"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."

Sufjan vs. Sufjan vs. Seay

2005-12-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a Christmas music sort of person. It all strikes me as a bit over the top, and well cheesy. I am, though, a big fan of Christmas hymns. I see no need for them to be relegated to the days between whatever day Thanksgiving is on and the 25th of December. If it were up to me the Herald Angels would sing "Hark" year round. Quite possibly one of my top songs of the year is a Christmas hymn: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I'm not sure if it's valid to have a song from the 9th century as one of your top songs of the year, but I've been reading a lot of Isaiah and liking ancient of late. An excerpt:

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

By way of infusing some good, pre-capitalistic Christmas music into this world [savefile follow link]:

Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Shorter, Sweeter)
Robbie Seay - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

The Robbie Seay song is off of an EP called December, which I highly recommend. It includes a cover of the Patty Griffin song Mary. I don't see the album for sale on his website so I don't feel too badly about giving it to you as well. Besides, it's Christmas:

Robbie Seay - Mary (Patty Griffin cover)

Chesterton & Dylan

2005-12-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

Some more Chesterton. The Gospel (and life) becomes much more intricate and interesting when we consider it as story and not simply as math.:

"...a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an elment of will, of what theology calls free will. You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. When somebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one Differential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had felt inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the theological free will. It is a large matter and too much to one side of the road to be discussed adequately here; but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making a prison mearly a hygenic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not. If you say that you are going to cure a profligate as you cure an asthmatic, my cheap and obvious answer is, "Produce the people who want to be asthmatics as many people want to be profliages." A many may lie still and be cured of a malady. But he must not lie still if he wants to be cured of a sin; on the countrary, he must get up and jump about violently. The whole point indeed is perfectly expressed in the very word which we use for a man in hospital; "patient" is in the passive mood; "sinner" is in the active. If a man is to be save from influenza, he may be a patient. But if he is to be saved from forging, he must be not a patient but an impatient. He must be personally impatient with forgery. All moral reform must start in the active not the passive will"

And some Dylan, It Ain't Me Babe. I watched Walk The Line for the second time today and thought this was amazing as a duet, sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter. I think it speaks to the idea that no man (or woman) can be a stand in for God. Either that or it speaks to the idea that some guys are jerks.:

Go 'way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'm not the one you need.
You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Coldplay on (as opposed to at) ACL

2005-12-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

Coldplay taped Austin City Limits last Friday. The good folks at ACL usually like to sit on their tapings for a few months, but this one was apparently too hot to sit on. It was threatening to start a fire, and no one wanted that. In light of that, the Coldplay ACL show will be aired this Saturday, December 17th. Aired at 7pm in Austin, at other times elsewhere. (Be sure and check your local listings kids.)

My love of and caring for Coldplay increased much after the ACL Festival this year. They played a downright stunning show; if you were close enough to see through the dust storm. I'm a little unsure about how they'll translate to the small screen and to the small (though friendly) confines of the ACL studio. I did watch this promo clip, though, and it gave me one or two chills.

Viewing party at my house.

Austin City Limits Website
ACL Local Listings
ACL: Coldplay, 10 minute preview

Coldplay - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas [savefile, follow link]

Chesterton, G.K.

2005-12-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

I've been reading Chesterton's Orthodoxy and found this passage to be pretty poignant, and fairly true of our world, though it was written almost 100 years ago. I ask your good faith with my use of ellipsis:

"We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor for mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road - very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape.

Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean that we are always walking toward the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.

Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for a long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the last touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a blue moon. But if we worked harm, that high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it. If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favourite colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work would be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner...There was a time when the Established Church might have fallen...It was because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in the existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism to pull anything down...ours is an era of conservation and repose. But...ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same."

-Orthodoxy, Chapter VII: The Eternal Revolution.

the GRE: my bane and yours.

2005-12-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

I partook in a few GRE good times this morning. Here are five or so things that I strongly dislike about the GRE:

1. It's on a computer. The GRE takes place on a computer - in my case an ugly mishmash of parts from the likes of Dell, Compaq, and HP. I think my computer monitor was circa 1985, the year of my sister's birth. How can I be inspired to think rightly about anything in such an environment. (At the beginning of my test there was a tutorial on how to use a mouse. Where am I?)

2. Once you answer a question, you cannot go back to it. This has something to do with the computer and the scoring and it's terrible. My test taking strategy for the whole of my existence has been to do the easy ones first and then work up to the more difficult questions, regardless of where they fall on the test. The GRE told me to take my test taking strategy and throw it away, away where there is both weeping and the gnashing of teeth. ALSO, the first few questions matter way more than the others. So you have these conversations with yourself: "I must know the antonym of the word carapace, it's really important that I know this, it's got to be in the depths of my brain somewhere," and the computer just stares at you while you waste your time thinking, "this guy has no idea how much time he's wasting." Three minutes later I've still got nothing but a guess, a wrong guess.

3. The GRE is lonely. One of the great things about tests is the ability to take the same test at the same time as other people, people that you probably know. That way, during the test you can hear the occasional groan or sigh and remember that, hey this is a difficult test, people are groaning and sighing, I can totally beat these people. There's no one to beat when you're taking a test in a cubicle in a drab industrial complex on the way to the airport. I'm not entirely sure anyone would find me if I were to pass on to the next life. Also you can't complain about the test with anyone after it's over or during the breaks. That is one of my favorite things about taking tests.

4. The GRE is a one-upper. The GRE is caught in this nasty game of cat and mouse with all of these test prep companies. I'm pretty sure the GRE stopped testing smartness a long time ago. Some people published some books on how to do well at the GRE, things you should know and what not, and so the GRE just decided to start tricking people instead. It's not about how smart you are, it's about how much smarter the GRE is than you. I bought one of those Making the GRE Your Personal Slave and Chauffeur to a Better Life books, and as I was skimming through it I kept thinking - what if I didn't have this thing with all of its secrets? There's not a chance you would know some of these "need to know" things without these magic tricks.

5. The GRE still matters. The GRE is like that kid on the playground that no one likes but still has to deal with. The kid that's always saying stuff like, "Oh yeah, well my dad is the boss of your dad," when no one ever said anything about his dad in the first place.

also...

2005-12-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to the new Ryan Adams album 29 quite a bit lately. It comes out on December 20, just in time for stuffing in stockings. Get your children started on Ryan Adams early, some would say he's prolific, and they'll need a lifetime to digest all of the good music he puts out. You can stream the album, by way of preview, here. [care of scenestars]

The concept? Ryan Adams, in a Pitchfork interview:

It has nine songs, and all the songs are nine minutes long, they're all story-songs. And it's basically just me and a piano, me and a guitar, with Ethan. It's really cerebral. The theme of it was that I wanted to write a record where I could write myself out of my twenties. So for each year of my life, in my twenties, I kind of assigned different parts of my character, I gave them names. The last song is a song from the perspective, believe it or not, of a ghost. When it's just passed out of a body, and it goes "Don't go to the light/ I'll show you how to haunt." This spirit is trying to conjure this dead child, this dead person, back to the house where they died. So they can haunt it.

Early favorites of mine are Blue Sky Blues, Starlite Diner, and Voices. Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part has a bit of a Damien Rice feel to it, which is kind of interesting. Does anyone else feel the need to listen to Damien Rice when it's cold out like this?

a few thousand words

2005-12-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

After a moment of silence to lower your expectations*...

I'm writing a blog post, which means that I probably am avoiding doing something more necessary and less exciting. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks, complete with captions!

November 19: The last day of existence for Peet's Coffee (and Tea) on the Drag. I was sad for a while, but now I'm mostly past it. I think I went through the five stages of dealing with death in the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

November 20: Dan and Paul at Pine Cove. Don't let the colors fool you, they are in fact wearing the exact same sweater.

November 20: A Pine Cove sunset, irrevocable proof that Texas is a very big state.

November 23: Driving to Round Top, TX for Thanksgiving in the countryside. Stuck in traffic. Relegated to taking pictures of concrete.

November 24: The first annual Thanksgiving Day Game of Croquet. My sister pretends to hit herself in the eye with her mallet.

November 24: Corrie (Nelson) is miffed. Mrs. Hird yawns in response.

November 24: Corrie and Ian (Nelson): bored or pensive?

November 24: Flowers. Fields.

November 24: A Round Top, TX sunset. Thanksgiving? Fine, thanks.

*adapted from the words of Cabe Matthews.

(i drink my coffee) BLACK WEDNESDAY

2005-11-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

The single cause of my no good, terrible, very bad day: Peet's Coffee, Austin, TX style is closing. Apparently they're just not selling enough. Peet's Coffee is closing its doors on the Drag on November 18. That's in 10 days.

I love Peet's and hate (hate!) to see them go. I'm not sure where I'll find coffee like that, I'm not sure where I'll find people like that: Bronwyn, Aimee, Dee, Dana, Bob, Meredith, Shannon, et al. They're good friends, I will miss them.

If you would like to call Peet's to mourn and/or complain, please do so: 800-999-2132.

All good things must come to an end? Are you kidding? 10 days. That's not even enough time to say goodbye.

a few of my favorite things

2005-11-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

What are you doing? Nothing? Nothing, you say?

You should go to the Oswald Gallery. It's on 7th or 8th and Congress, and they've got some fine art that you should take a look (or two or three) at.

Jerry Uelsmann and his wife Maggie Taylor are amazing photographers. Their work is on display (for sale) at the Oswald through the end of the year. I definitely can't afford their stuff on my smallish salary, but it turns out the price of appreciation is free. It's worth going over there just to look.

Uelsmann and Taylor stretch photography past the careful composistion, printing, and editing standard to the medium's best artists. Uelsmann uses a traditional darkroom process - chemicals, englargers, dark rooms - but combines multiple negatives to create ethereal worlds. It's really difficult to create images this way, and yet the results are fluid and graceful - the process serves the art and not the other way around.

Jerry Uelsmann - Tree and Cathedral - 1975

I hadn't know to be a Maggie Taylor fan until visiting the gallery yesterday, but her images are equally stunning, achieving with color and found objects similarly other-worldly images. Taylor uses a flatbed scanner as her camera - using objects she finds to compose her images, many of which have upwards of 30 different pieces - seamlessly composed into one.

Maggie Taylor - Man With Too Much Time - 2004

I don't know if that sounded convincing enough, but Uelsmann and Taylor at the Oswald is most assuredly worth checking out. It's free, it's art, but don't break anything because broken art is not free.

Ryan Adams has a better Halloween than you do.

2005-10-31T22:12:00.000-08:00

I know Halloween is over, it's a few minutes past, it's the day after and whatnot. Nevertheless, you must (must!) listen to this song. It is good.

Ryan Adams - Halloween [YouSendIt link]

Lyrics:

Heart stops beating, all the words worth repeating
She is dancing but not singing, is it maybe that she doesn't know the words?
She's dressed up, but don't worry, she's got friends
Snowflake eating, she is mildly self-defeating
And the secrets that she's keeping they are really only dangerous to her
Ships ain't sinking

We are here to help you sing your songs
We are here to help you sing your songs
Because tomorrow comes and no one calls

She stops grinning when the room it starts spinning
She is losing all her winnings, she's angry but it's just the alcohol
She's all f***ed right up, it's okay, man, she's got friends
'Cause we are here to help her sing her songs
We are here to help her sing her songs
Because tomorrow's gonna come
Tomorrow's gonna come, and no one's gonna call

This isn't Christmas, this is Chinatown and those are pretty lights
Just use some more and put 'em on your make-up dolls
A painting on the underneath that never smiles on the scene
Is just like Christmas if it was Halloween

Someone taught her it's okay to be a martyr
Like an educated angel, be a rat, you know in all the things you love,
Well okay
Priceless pictures, she's collected iceless fixtures that is freezing from the people
She's chosen out to help her through it all
Whatever

We are here to help you sing your songs
We are here to help you sing your songs
We are here to help you sing your songs
Because tomorrow's gonna come
Tomorrow's gonna come, and no one's gonna call

52-17

2005-10-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Tech Wrecked.

Selvin Young, Vince Young, Billy Pittman-Young... pick a Young, pick your poison.

_______ for a day.

2005-10-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: Almost anyone can be almost anything for a day. Of course there are limits: a person cannot be a dinosaur, for example. Well, not without dire consequences and some serious time-continuum funk.

This will be a feature in which I take on various roles, feelings, and titles for a day at a time. These things I take on will be abnormal to my being, but fun and experimental nonetheless.

TODAY: VEGETARIAN FOR A DAY.

I was a vegetarian today. Last night I started thinking about just how much meat I've probably eaten in my life. I began to wonder how big of a field I could fill with all of the chickens, cows, and porks that I've partaken of in the last 23 years. I decided it was probably a very big field.

Today I did not eat meat for the first time in a long time. What did I eat you might ask? I ate these things, in succession:

1. Pumpkin Bread (from Peet's Coffee & Tea)

2. Tomato Bisque Soup, with (whole-wheat) noodles.

3. More (whole-wheat) noodles, this time with butter and pepper-jack cheese melted on top (for taste).

It was a good day all in all. If I am this for a day in the future, though, I'd probably try to add in a few more fruits and vegetables. I'm not sure grains and tomatoes will sustain a man for very long.

[I apologize for the Westification's lack of photo-awareness of late. Courtney has my camera. I put it in her purse at ACL.]

Exuberance Kills Me

2005-10-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was a great day. It was a cool, calm, and collected sort of day - overcast, contemplative. What better way to start such a day than with a cup of Peet's coffee. I entered the store, had a pleasant conversation with the barrista, ordered my usual medium coffee of the day (no room for cream) and walked out.

Later in the day, contemplative turned into sleepy (I think it might have been the overcast that got to me). I decided to make a second trip to Peet's, to get a second boost of energy, to put a second smile on my face.

I went in and was standing in line when the barrista (from earlier) and I made eye contact. She was standing by the coffee, not by the register, filling people's orders. Now in the midst of this eye contact she held up an empty medium coffee cup and asked a question, something about half and half which I didn't really understand. My thought was, wow it's great that she's already starting on my drink before I even get up to the counter. They must really appreciate my patronage here at Peet's. I have no idea what she means by all this "half" talk, but I'm pretty sure my answer would be "no". Why don't I just go ahead and answer her with a resounding "no", as that will most likely suffice.

Me and the guy in front of me in line at the exact same time, "NO."

It turns out that there was a fatal flaw in my perception. Instead of speaking with or making eye contact with me, our fair barrista was actually carrying on some sort of interaction with the person in front of me. Someone who had actually ordered something already.

I figured I had a few options: (1) Pretend like I was having a conversation with someone else, that required a no at that exact instant. (2) Act as though I have tourettes syndrome by saying a few other inappropriate, ill-timed things. (3) Pretend as though I was answering the other guy's question for him. Being helpful, preventing him from sullying his coffee with half something or other. (4) Stand there awkwardly.

It came down to standing there awkwardly or pretending to have a conversation with someone else. I ended up standing there awkwardly, trying to find someone nearby that I could have plausibly been talking to. I found no one.

45-12

2005-10-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

I don't even want to talk about it. I'm taking a vow of smiling.

Charles Goes 80

Bomar Breaks (On The Inside)

I Refuse To Come Up With A Ridiculous Nickname. This Is Vince Young.

caring & sharing

2005-10-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

I decided earlier today that my new motto in life is caring and sharing. I care, I share, and when I don't I at least want to be the kind of person who cares and shares. As best as I can imagine, caring involves thinking about other people and talking to them, while sharing involves being less possessive. I'm all about those things, or at least want to be, so I thought a motto or mantra of some kind would be of help. Power of positive thinking and whatnot.

Of course, I might be saying all of this because I mistakenly said caring and sharing in a conversation, when I meant to be referencing the saying caring is sharing. And it's entirely possible that caring is sharing is not a popular phrase at all, but that most people actually tend to say sharing is caring. In some people's eyes, creating a new motto for myself might come across as a thinly veiled attempt at hiding my error in speech/judgment.

But these are all just possibilities really, and who lives their life consumed with possibilities? That's just not healthy.

why i am a huge fan of austin.

2005-09-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

I went the one day pass route for the ACL Festival this year, choosing Sunday as my day in the sun. Wow. What an afternoon. I started the day with Eisley, before moving on to Rachael Yamagata, Doves, The Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Franz Ferdinand, and Coldplay. It was hot (a point continually harped on by most every performer) and it was dusty, but it was a day filled with the kind of auditory delights that make you forget such things. Besides, lukewarm water has never tasted so good.

I was feeling pretty good about my ACL experience, actually I was feeling great about it, even though I missed the first two days. Then I got a call this afternoon from my friend Sean: Brett, are you on campus? Me: No. Sean: Oh. Well Blues Traveler is doing an Austin City Limits taping, and it starts in about 10 minutes, and there are still seats. Me: I'm coming to campus.

So I parked, walked over to the communications building, and walked into the studio just after their first song ended. I hadn't heard from Blues Traveler in a while, but they're really entertaining. It was a great way to cap off the weekend. Never underestimate a man with a harmonica.

This is why I am a huge fan of Austin. It's the mix of big and small. 80,000 people at a Texas football game on a Saturday afternoon, 10 people at Jo's Coffee on a Sunday morning. 60,000 people in a field watching Coldplay one night, 100 people in a studio watching Blues Traveler the next afternoon. Events you plan for months ahead of time, things you show up at on a few minutes notice. Thanks Austin. Big pats on the back, and maybe a full-frontal hug or two.

[visit Paul's blog for some ACL pictures and other marvelous things]

Austin May Have It's City Limits...

2005-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

But Jacksonville has it's City Nights.

A certain Ryan Adams is releasing his second of three albums this year, Jacksonville City Nights on September 27. It should be a good way to wind down from the ACL Festival and from all of the resulting chaos induced by a certain Rita.

I spent the past two days in Los Angeles, and on the flight back I found myself watching the sunset from 30,000 feet (or however high airplanes fly, exactly). It was beautiful. Have you ever seen something so beautiful that it makes you sad? It made me in the mood for music that was sad, old, and country sounding so I pulled some Neil Young Harvest out of my trusty iPod.

My sad, old, and country mood has been sticking around today, and low and behold trusty Stereogum came through in the clutch with a little Ryan Adams sneak peak. Stream the new album here [care of Scenestars] or at least check out a song or two:

The Hardest Part [care of My Yellow Country Teeth]
Withering Heights [care of My Yellow Country Teeth]

I'm attending ACL on Sunday. Who should I see?

short but oh so sweet

2005-09-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm quite the fan of this song.

[care of Paul via The O.C. via Bloc Party]

subvert --or-- the dangers of assimilation.

2005-09-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

"If I, even for a moment, accept my culture's definition of me, I am rendered harmless."

Eugene Peterson wrote this in a book my staff team is reading right now: The Contemplative Pastor, and I found it to be both a profound and sobering thought. Few set out in this life with a desire to be harmless. We each hope to affect the world, in ways spanning large to small. Large enough to leave a legacy or small enough to at least be noticed and liked. We want to be applauded, or at least sufficiently accepted.

Herein lies the problem. It's my attempts at applause and acceptance that yield me to what the culture expects, or still worse, what it demands. I run to stereotypes - Austin Texan, Relevant Christian, Compassionate Conservative - not because these titles affect change, but because they provide much of the glory with little of the rejection and work.

We hate stereotypes of ourselves but demand them of others. Labels keep people in clearly defined categories, in boxes that free us of angst and uncertainty. I know that engineers are smart but nerdy, and that sorority girls are beautiful but not brainy. I don't actually know these things of course, but the definitions free me of further thought. They safeguard me from the uneasiness of not knowing.

I'm auditing a class this semester. In it, there are upwards of 400 students, far too many to ever really know. The content of the course centers around relationships and communication, and in the middle of the lectures, of the questions and answers, I've begun to feel an emptiness. As my professor asks people personal questions about themselves - whether they have boyfriends or girlfriends, what they do for fun on the weekends - I gather expectation from his tone. He expects lots of drinking and sex. He expects cramming for tests and the occasional challenge of coming to class hung over. He expects to have encountered the very likenesses of MTV and The O.C.

The responses and relieved laughter of my classmates do little to subvert these cultural definitions. Instead they raise them on a banner high. I have to wonder how many actually value the culturally mandated lifestyle of a college student, and how many just value the acceptance that comes in embracing what the culture is preaching. I know I do. My culture is different - it's post-collegiate, post-modern Christianity. It's expectations are different - to be moral but still relevant, spiritual but still rational. I find a safe place there, rather than in the grace of God.

It turns out that a man in safety is rather harmless. Easily defined, without much in the way of personality. This makes for a safe person and, in turn, a lousy friend. Culturally defined, I demand but feigned glances. I must deal in the anxiety that comes from being accepted by my world, a world of shifting values.

hands across elizabeth

2005-08-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

To commemorate the 19 year, 3 month, and 5 day anniversary of Hands Across America, I will be hosting Hands Across Elizabeth an event of solidarity, celebrating the human spirit and the power of community. Community is really about being a good neighbor, and neighborhoods are the setting of most communities. With that in mind we will gather together and stretch down my street (Elizabeth St.), to remind people of the power of asking others, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

During this solemn gathering, we will also help the residents at 704 Elizabeth St. (myself included) in their move down the street to 1400 Bouldin. We will stretch out over the 0.2 miles of this course and pass boxes of prized (and not-so-prized) possessions from one house to the other. The 704 house is purple, the 1400 house is blue, so if you come please wear a red shirt. We're taking out the red. We're going blue.

Music, food(?), drinks(?), and a communal bond not easily broken. Interested? Meet us at 6pm on Tuesday, August 30th. Let the fun commence.

hooked on phonics worked for starbucks

2005-08-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Oklahoma. It was good times with good people up in Native America. Oklahoma will definitely introduce mixed feelings into your life, if you don't already have some. On the upside it's such a friendly place. Everyone is nice, hospitable. On the downside it's cheesier there. Apparently happy people tend to be cheesy.

I spent a day in Branson (Missouri) then a day in Tulsa before moving on to Oklahoma City, where Dan and Meghan's wedding was. Oklahoma City (which is not, as its name suggests, the only city in Oklahoma) has an interesting downtown area called Bricktown. It reminds me of Austin's downtown a bit, because they've taken old brick buildings and restored them, complimenting them with new buildings - also made of brick. The mix of old and new is what reminds me of Austin's downtown. Bricktown's fault lies in it's borderline cheesiness. I only need cite one example: Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill. You're so close Oklahoma, and then you go and totally un-redeem yourself.

I went to Starbucks while I was in Oklahoma, because I usually default to Starbucks on the road. It's corporate, I know, but I trust it. It's kind of like the McDonald's of the coffee world. There's something comforting in the fact that I can walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the world and get too salty french fries.

Apparently, Starbucks thinks my name best without it's second "T". I'm in no place to argue, but what's that about? I thought Bret was the female version of Brett. Is Starbucks trying to take a stab at my manhood? (I drank my coffee black, just in case.) Or are they just taking the phonetic approach to names now? Henre, Jayson, Mikeall, is that what we're in for?

Support your local coffee establishment. Save your name.

All that to say, congratulations Dan and Meghan. I wish you all weren't living in Ft. Worth, but I wish you a ton of years of happiness and a relationship that gets deeper each day. I hope that you love each other, even when it's difficult.

the futura is now!

2005-08-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

-OR- the punnery continues... -OR- Brett pretends to be obsessed with some very small cultural artifacts in order to garner both laughs and pity. -OR- I wish we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time.

I was looking at the cover of the new Death Cab album Plans, trying to be a good indie-yuppie, when I noticed something. I noticed the continuation of a trend:

Death Cab

Royal Tenenbaums.

Royal Tenenbaums, again.

Royal Tenenbaums, again, again.

Starbucks. The Life Aquatic.

The Austin Stone, my church (and possibly yours).

Which of these things is not like the other? Well none of these things. They're all like the other. Death Cab, Wes Anderson, Starbucks, The Austin Stone. Each uses the font Futura. I think it must be trendy. Trendier than say, Times New Roman, or maybe even Arial.

I am a font geek.

To make up for it here is a track off of Plans. I've heard mixed reviews, but I like it thus far:

I Will Follow You Into The Dark [care of daily refill]

I'm going to Oklahoma tomorrow. Dan's getting married this weekend. Capital!

trapdoors & accordions

2005-08-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

I saw Alex Dupree & The Trapdoor Band play last night at the Lava Lounge. Don't go to the Lava Lounge. It's weird. Do, however, do whatever it is you can to see Alex play. He's a great songwriter, and I think he'll be around for a while.

Alex & Band are planning an album release party out in Llano on August 27th. It should be a good time. Here's a lyrical taste for you, from Sarah Is Rising (off the new album):

"Catalog maturity / rocking chairs for softened feet / tapping shoes to quick regret / picture shows and cigarettes / evenings in the cyclone park / in beginnings of the heart / heroes grow in looking back / in old cassettes and photographs / all the good has all been used / but Sarah is rising from under the moon"

My other musician friend Seth Woods and his band - The Sad Accordions - are playing an Inside Stage Show at Emo's on the 29th (of August). Get in on that as well, if you can.

Seth's starting a side project, tentatively called Whiskey Priest, featuring a bit of an old-country/folk sound. Look for that to debut at Alex's album release party. "Whiskey Priest" comes from the book The Power and the Glory, written by Graham Greene. I will be reading this book, as I must find out what a whiskey priest is. That is intrigue at its finest. I bet The Power and the Glory would have sold quite a few more copies if it had been entitled The Whiskey Priest.

Was this post as unnecessary as it now feels?

a cardinal hits the window

2005-08-04T14:44:00.001-07:00

I don't claim that this is original in the least, but I have been really into Sufjan Stevens of late. Come On And Feel The Illinoise is quite possibly the best record of the year. In fact, according to Pitchfork it is.

As you might know, Sufjan has begun an ambitious project to record an album for each and every state of the union of states known, incidentally, as The United States (of America being optional). Being a Texan, and also a person, I found what Sufjan said in a recent interview to be fairly hilarious:

"I've been working on songs for Oregon and Rhode Island and New Jersey lately, just based on information I've read about their histories. And I'm solicited all the time by people who are proud of where they're from. Texas seems to be a favorite. Everyone's always asking, 'What are you going to do about Texas?' Like it's a big problem or something. People are like, 'What are you going to do, Sufjan? Someone's got to do something about Texas.' Like I'm suddenly responsible for that whole new empire down there."

[MTV care of stereogum]

Oh Texas. In other (Austin) Texas news, The Real World: Austin is positively terrible. Not that I'm watching... MTV is murdering souls.

Speaking of murdering souls, here's a lyric that excites me about the new Ryan Adams album coming out in September: "Oh Jacksonville how you muder my soul / How you hold my dreams ransom / Jacksonville how you play with my mind / Oh my heart goes back suffocating on the pines."

Sufjan's Illinoise has a great song entitled Jacksonville, which brings this post full circle. It's kind of like the circle of life.

a brief thought...

2005-08-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Blogs turn good, healthy people into good, healthy narcissists...

a dead blog is a healthy blog.

2005-08-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Now that I've driven you all away from my blog by not posting for six weeks (out of the country) and then posting a few times (being a tease) and then not posting for a few more weeks, I feel free to say whatever it is I'm thinking. No one to impress, no one to listen, just me and my thoughts all alone...for everyone with a computer to read. Who am I kidding? Definitely myself.

Well by way of explanation I'm going to give you some possible reasons my blog is dying. It's going to be in the form of a multiple choice question, because I've been conditioned to think that life is really a multiple-choice test, and that I just need to find the answer key.

Why has Brett been content to disown his blog, as though it were dead to him?

A. Blogs have been trendy for a while and Brett only likes to be involved with trends when they first start. In fact Brett can hardly say or think the word "blog". It makes him cringe in the worst of ways.

B. Brett spent too much time out of the country, and doesn't feel like "anyone really knows him anymore," in fact he's not sure he "really knows himself anymore," either. His blog was just propping up the sinking ship that was the Brett of yesteryear. Sink ship, sink.

C. We live in the "Information Age" where there's lots and lots of, well, information. As a service to the rest of mankind, Brett has decided to stop informing people about things. There's just too much information out there, and if you're not a part of the solution you're just a part of the problem. As Smokey the Bear would say, "Only you can prevent forest
fires." *

D. Brett is dead.

E. Brett is lazy.

F. A & C

G. D & E

H. None of the above.

Feel free to vote, or to just not care. I'll try and post more... probably.

* Now we all know that other people can also prevent forest fires. In fact, once a forest fire is underway, it's probably best to let the professionals - with their masks and their shovels - handle it. Smokey is just trying to remind us that the best way to control forest fires is to stop them from ever happening in the first place. This responsibility is mine just as much as it is anyone elses, and I can really only control my own actions anyway. The buck stops here, if you will. Of course, there's always that guy wandering around the woods with a lit cigarette and a leaky can of gasoline. That's Smokey's problem.

a picture's so much stronger than a thought...

2005-07-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

The question is what that thought is exactly. I think I'm "getting lazy with the blogging," as they say.

a brief thought...

2005-07-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Life would be so much cheaper without vices.

Some horses in Colorado:

Birds! Steal! Things!

2005-07-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Birds are no longer high on life. They've stooped from their once lofty heights, soaring through the air on a bright summer day, intent on one lowly purpose: getting a quick fix. It turns out that the recreational abuse of choice for these once majestic creatures of flight is artificial sweetener. Sweet 'n' Low is the new pink and birds are busy inhaling it.

Caught in the act at Jo's:

Surveying the scene.

Incapacitated by choice.

Just can't get enough.

Feeling remorse, wondering how common sense
and reason so easily slipped away.

All hopped up, not feeling a thing.

The tragic aftermath.

It's hard to watch this descent into darkness, unable to lend a hand. If this stuff causes cancer in laboratory animals, I can only imagine what it will do to one's flying and worm-regurgitating abilities.

somewhat shameless co-promotion.

2005-07-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

If you read this blog, there's a good chance you've heard of the stellar Courtney Husak and of her amazing jewelry designs. (They almost make me wish I could trade in that Y chromosome of mine for another X.)

If, though, the name Husak Design reads utterly unfamiliar to you, be sure and check out her website. I took the model photos earlier this spring. (That's the shameless part of the promoting, the rest is whole-hearted.) She makes great stuff.

A few additional pictures:

holler back.

2005-07-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my overseas adventures. Only time will tell if The Westification will ever recover from such neglect. I actually mostly enjoyed life without a computer, finding blogging detox to be refreshing.

Since I've been back for almost a week, I've decided to climb back on the blog horse and see what comes of it. The Westification might appear to be sea-sick on first glance, everything haven taken on a greenish hue. Your eyes do not decieve you, I wanted to give things here an entirely organic feel. Grassroots even.

I'll (re)start things off with a picture, since they speak louder than words. Or were those actions? Anyway:

Mystery is characteristic of a future untold. I do know though that my blog will never be as time-worthy as a certain R. Fred Choy's.

knowing glances

2005-05-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

so the Westification will probably be dying a slow death over the next few (6) weeks... I'll be overseas, and probably will have few if any posts for you.

In the meantime I suggest these quite pleasant alternatives:

Musings
Doug - On Being Brown
Melody - The Melodious Accord
Tracy - tracycakes
Paul - The (s)wheat spot!

and of course Stereogum, for all vital music news and the occasional really good MP3.

Take care. Take luck. Take what you will.

a brief thought...

2005-05-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

The accomplishment of tasks is only valuable as a means to accomplishing relationship, not as an end in itself.

when cats become squirrels...

2005-05-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

...or try to chase them:

Earlier today, at Spider House: a great place to spend a morning.

the gifts of girls

2005-05-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Girls give each other gifts that no guy would ever dream up. Stuff from places with "barn" or "yankee" in the title, places having nothing at all to do with proper farm management or the states north of the Mason-Dixon line. Case in point: my sister's birthday is on Friday, and last night some of her friends from school took her out to dinner. Someone gave her "Bookmarker Pens":

Bookmarker Pens (7 slim pens in 4 tasteful shades) are apparently good for these reasons: (1) Slips easily, trimly over a page and your pocket. (2) Ideal place marker and pen for diaries, checkbooks, questionnaires and the phone book. (3) Light weight. Mail to a friend, a good reminder that you're owed a letter.

I've never thought of mailing a friend a pen to remind them that they owe me a letter. That seems a little passive agressive. Also isn't the ideal pen for a phone book any kind of pen? Who weighs the pros and cons here, now really.

I do like the inspirational quotes though, I'm a sucker for inspiration:

"Hope is a waking dream." - Aristotle

"All the sounds of the earth are like music." - Oscar Hammerstein II

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well." - Benjamin Franklin

"A good laugh is sunshine in a house." - Unknown

"Nature does nothing uselessly." - Aristotle

"All art is but imitation of nature." - Luciuas Annaeus Seneca

I'll take credit for that unknown quote since no one else has, even though it's a bit cheesy. I've probably said that before, and besides, I need to start stockpiling quotations if I ever plan on reaching Benjamin Franklin status.

Doug has something much more interesting over at his blog, Lyrics of the Week, encouraging people to "Feel free to add anything that's been haunting you." You should do that.

spam zombies

2005-05-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it turns out I wasn't being targeted with neo-Nazi propoganda spam simply b/c of my last name:

"'Spam' e-mail, used for years to sell snake-oil medicine, penny stocks and suspiciously low mortgages, is now being used to sell neo-Nazi ideology as well.

A new computer worm sent right-wing German messages to millions of computers over the weekend in what anti-virus experts said was a sign that spam has become a tool for propagandists as well as scam artists"...

Keep Reading [CNN.com]

Germania!

2005-05-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well I knew the day was coming. It seems my past has finally caught up with me. You may not realize it, but my family name - Westervelt - is Germanic in origin. In Germany they would say Vesterwelt, as they tend to see "W" and pronounce "V" (and vice versa).

I am a fully devoted user of Gmail, have been for the past year or so. One of the things that I've enjoyed about my Gmail is that there is a "Spam" folder for all of the junk mail that people tend to aquire. This isn't all that novel, as most email services have a spam folder of some kind. What I like about Gmail's rendition, though, is that when it is empty it says something to the effect of: "Hooray! No spam here!" I love that. It's downright celebratory.

Sadly, the days of celebration are over. My German heritage has caught up with me. Yesterday afternoon I began recieving all kinds of German junk mail. I have no idea what I'm being junk mailed about, with the messages being entirely in German.

[Click to enlarge.]

The lone exceptions are a few emails that I've recieved with the subject "The Whore Lived Like a German." Which begs two questions: 1. Which whore? 2. What does it mean to live like a German? (Besides of course to speak German, which these particular emails seems to be avoiding entirely.) Anyway, I have no desire to do any research into this "whore", but thanks for the heads up.

I wish that Germany would stop trying to get me to buy things that I can't even read about. I mean, I'm no marketing guru or anything, but I just don't think these ploys are very clever.

reviewing Cold Roses

2005-05-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering what I thought of the new Ryan Adams album Cold Roses after all my hyping, I put together a little review:

There are, for the most part, three different responses to the name Ryan Adams. For some, descriptives like arrogant or jerk quickly come to mind. For others, confusion arises as to why Bryan Adams’ name was so carelessly misspelled, quickly followed by a sense of longing for a bygone summer (’69 to be specific). Then there are those who cringe at both of these sentiments, while anxiously asking, “Ryan Adams? Where?”

Where is he playing, when is his new album coming out, what is the latest rendition of his website all about exactly? These are the devoted fans of Ryan Adams. The ones who aren’t quite sure what else everyone is so busy listening to. The ones who wonder where all the critical acclaim and albums sales are. Who can’t figure out how people can be so harsh, or even worse indifferent, towards a musician they love so much.

Cold Roses will both meet and challenge the expectations of these fans. For everyone else, this latest release from Ryan Adams (with backing band the Cardinals) will serve as a proper introduction, given the chance....

Keep Reading

i turn my camera on

2005-05-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

I just got a hold of a new digital camera. Is this what infatuation feels like? Two pictures from earlier today:

Cup of Jo

Ashes of American Roses

My Muse (basking in white space):

caffeinated thoughts

2005-05-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

We are incredibly vague. We’ve lost our sense of self. (These statements being fairly ambiguous in and of themselves.)

I was thinking about music today (which I’m apt to do). Almost all of the music of our day is about romantic relationship of some kind, that four –letter word, the one that starts with “L”. Being lonely, wanting to be in love, being excited about how great love is (or at least how great a lover is), emoting post breakup.

Now there’s obviously more to life than romantic relationship (or as some have boiled it down to – the physical outer workings thereof). It’s just that few of the musicians of our day talk about these things. Of course some of these songs about dating or not dating people are really really good, and even insightful into the rest of what life is really about. Ryan Adams comes to mind. And of course there is music being made about other things that matter. U2 comes to mind. I’m making on-the-whole-generalizations for the sake of brevity.

When did love (or sex) become the only thing that sells, the only thing worth talking about, or dancing to? Actually maybe that’s why. Dancing. No one wants to dance to social justice, and dancing (and other types of self-satisfaction) seem to be job number one In this year’s world. If we don’t know who we are, why we’re here, who we’re supposed to become, and where we’re supposed to go pleasure is all that’s left, really. Making music about love, mostly the romantic kind, makes sense. People write music (and do other things) based on what they value, and people value feeling loved.

I heard another person say the other day that “learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.” This is challenging to think about. So much of what I’m about is being loved. The truth is I already am loved- perfectly- by God. Son of the Father, sheep of the shepherd, bride of the bridegroom. It’s the loving back that’s the hardest part of being alive.

There is a new trend in music. Storytelling. Bands like Eisley, Midlake, and The Decemberists weave fantastical tales, the stuff of nostalgia or dreams. Through this lens of vagueness and loss of identity, this too seems like a natural progression. People don’t resonate (at least not forever) with vague generalities, this is why cheap pop doesn’t last. Telling tales is a way to say very specific things while not needing to have any story of merit in and of ones own self.

I love music. I listen to it a lot. There’s way more to enjoy than complain about. A lot of the music I listen to really does an amazing job of putting my unexplainable emotions into explainable words, and I need that. It’s just that I cannot help mourning what we so often boil life (and the art that reflects it) down to. There is more. I know this in my soul. I just wish we would talk about it, singing on occasion.

[UPDATE: upon reading this again, I wanted to clarify a bit. I think that bands like Eisley, Midlake, and The Decemberists do a great job at creating artistic distance. I think that to some degree they are sharing their own actual stories, just doing so through fictional means. I prefer this sort of thing to bland relationship speak anyday.]

Aweslan

2005-05-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

Following the tr end of great books being made into quite good movies, the C.S. Lewis classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is coming out in December. Check out what those in the industry would call a teaser trailer, here.

Light Sensitive

2005-05-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

Below are a few pictures (2) that I recently exposed. They are about light.

[click to enlarge.]

Awe_____

2005-05-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the word awe lately. Taking it apart, putting it back together. I don't really get it. Namely...

Awesome would seem to describe something having some amount of awe, whereas awful seems to speak of being full of awe. I tend to think of awe as a good thing (or at least an emotion worth experiencing), and yet my native tongue would say that awesome is a good thing, while awful is to be avoided (at almost all costs). I'm sure there's some explanation for this, I just don't know what it is. Maybe if I knew Latin.

In case you were wondering, here are a few things that AWE is an acronym for: Accepted Weight Estimate, Atomic Weapons Establishment, American Wilderness Experience.

Drooling in the City Limits

2005-05-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

The lineup for this fall's Austin City Limits Festival has just been announced. I'm essentially speechless.

Of note (in my book): Coldplay, Oasis, Wilco, Deathcab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, Spoon, Eisley, The Doves, The Decemberists, Rachael Yamagata...

Check out the full lineup here

[Has the Westification turned to a music only blog? No. Well, of late.]

Politically Correct versus Very Funny

2005-05-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

I was trying to come up with a theme for the Cru end of the year party last week. In a moment of unadulterated inspiration I came up with this:

Filthy Rich versus Filthy Poor

Some dressed in their finest evening wear, others clothed in potato sacks and dirt (preferably rubbed in the hair). The rich sipping on ginger ale and Evian, snacking on hors d'oeuvres. The poor eating vienna sausages, cooked over a trash can fire.

I realize how very politically (or maybe morally) incorrect this all seems. The problem is that the picture this puts in my head is extremely funny. Besides, neither extravagant wealth or absolute poverty are a good thing in my view, so I wouldn't exactly be championing a given side.

Plus think of all of the sociological experiments to perform (and learn from). Would a "rich" friend associate at all with a "poor" friend at the party? Would the poor hate the rich for being rich? Would the rich hate the poor for being there? Would hors d'ouevres be exchanged for vienna sausages and vice versa?

I thought about trying to make things a little less wrong by coining the theme The Bourgeois versus The Proletariat, but it feels like that sort of thing has been done.

I'll have a good time I'm sure, Living in the 90's, but I'll always kind of wonder what might have been.

counting down Cold Roses

2005-05-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

The newest release from Ryan Adams, Cold Roses comes out TOMORROW. (Which is in a little over an hour in these parts.)

We're having a listening party at my house a little after midnight, b/c the kind folks at Cheapo Discs are open until midnight. I recognize that the Westification's countdown might be a little over the top, might be hyping things more than is fair. I hope you've grown some appreciation for the sometimes maligned Ryan Adams. That's what we're about on the Westification, helping you love what we love... b/c well, things worth loving are naturally worth talking about. (By we, I mean me, that's the royal we.)

So here's a review of the new album care of the All Music Guide. I recognize that the AMG isn't the most neutral review service, they put a postive slant on everything, but it's the only review I could find and it seems pretty balanced on the whole:

Last time we received a dispatch from Ryan Adams, the self-styled savior of rock & roll, it was in 2003, when he delivered his straight-up rock & roll record (aptly titled Rock N Roll) and his two-part mope-rock EP (later combined as one LP) Love Is Hell. Admirable records both, but not quite the sequel to Heartbreaker that fans craved. They also weren't quite as successful as all the hype surrounding their release suggested that they would be, so Adams briefly retreated from the spotlight to regroup, heading back in 2005 with a planned triptych of new albums, the first of which is the double-album Cold Roses, recorded with his new backing band the Cardinals and released at the beginning of May. Three albums in one year is overkill even for an artist predisposed to releasing his every whim, and while it's too early at this writing to judge whether he needed to release all three of the records, it's safe to say that Cold Roses is the record many fans have been waiting to hear -- a full-fledged, unapologetic return to the country-rock that made his reputation when he led Whiskeytown. Not that the album is a retreat, or a crass attempt to give the people what they want, but it's an assured, comfortable collection of 18 songs that play to Adams' strengths because they capture him not trying quite so hard. He settles into a warm, burnished, countryish groove not far removed from vintage Harvest-era Neil Young at the beginning and keeps it going over the course of a double-disc set that isn't all that long. With the first disc clocking in at 39:39 and the second at 36:29, this could easily have been released as a single-disc set, but splitting it into two and packaging it as a mock-gatefold LP is classic Ryan Adams, highlighting both his flair for rock classicism and his tendency to come across slightly affected. As always, he's so obsessive about fitting into classic rock's long lineage that he can be slightly embarrassing -- particularly on the intro to "Beautiful Sorta," which apes David Johansen's intro to the New York Dolls' "Looking for a Kiss" in a way that guarantees a cringe -- which is also a problem when he drifts toward lazy, profanity-riddled lyrics ("this sh*t just f*cks you up" on "Cherry Lane") that undercut a generally strong set of writing. But what makes Cold Roses a success, his first genuine one since Heartbreaker, is that it is a genuine band album, with the Cardinals not only getting co-writing credits but helping Adams relax and let the music flow naturally. It's not the sound of somebody striving to save rock & roll, or even to be important, but that's precisely why this is the easiest Ryan Adams to enjoy. The coming months with their coming LPs will reveal whether this is indeed a shift in his point of view, or just a brief break from his trademark blustering braggadocio.

counting down Cold Roses

2005-04-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

A mere 3 DAYS stand between the point in time in which we currently exist, and the point in time in which Ryan Adams' Cold Roses is released to the general public.

To mark the ocasion, here is a special version of Anybody Want To Take Me Home, a song which appears on Ryan Adams' two most recent releases: Rock 'N' Roll and Love is Hell. The Rock 'N' Roll version has an extended outro, while the Love is Hell version has an extended outro. This version has both. I guess that just makes it extended. I think that's a good thing:

Ryan Adams - Anybody Want To Take Me Home (Completely Extended Edition) [YouSendIt link]

Also, here is a Cold Roses album stream that is a little better, care of Scenestars. (Quality is better, and you don't have to click on individual songs to listen.)

counting down Cold Roses

2005-04-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of there being only 4 DAYS until the release of the latest from Ryan Adams, Cold Roses...

The album can now be streamed, in its entirety, at ryan-adams.com. Go give it a listen.

This sucks a little wind out of my hype machine, but blows said wind right back into the ears of the music anticipating public. Cold Roses is the music floating along on this wind, and I'd have to say it kind of feels like spring.

I haven't listened to much of it yet, but feel free to post your thoughts in lieu of my own.

counting down Cold Roses

2005-04-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of the release - in 5 DAYS - of Cold Roses, here is a special edition of Ryan Adams & C.S. Lewis:

"I ain't afraid of hurt / I've had so much it feels just like normal to me now"
-Ryan Adams, Now That You're Gone

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
-C.S. Lewis

counting down Cold Roses

2005-04-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

The newest release from Ryan Adams, Cold Roses, comes out in 6 DAYS (t-minus):

Consider this countdown week on the Westification, with hype and things to read and things to listen to, to get you ready for Cold Roses. (Or to make you hate me and my Ryan Adams loving ways, forever cementing a rift in our friendship, actual or potential.)

Today, Amazon.com's About the Artist feature, which I'm almost certain was written by Ryan Adams himself:

Ryan Adams has played in some bands and has made some new albums. He enjoys writing lots of music, and from time to time takes it to the jam. He is currently focused on doing things quietly, without much fuss, in his professional life. He hopes for a calm, cool, meaningful ride in his thirties. Ryan loves his dog and his guitar. He digs comics, coffee and cigs. His favorite foods are, whatever the soup of the day is (as long as it’s maybe like a vegetable soup, or some sort of clam chowder), and ham and cheese sandwiches. When he falls asleep next to his dog, he thinks to himself that heaven is probably holding hands with your gal by a beautiful lake and laying in the grass with your dog; dreaming of the sky, clouds and the smell of grass and rain.

Ryan likes to think about the solar system, the dynamics of rotation, its effects on binary star systems and if it has linear or emotional effects. He likes to read Ram Dass and loves Ram Dass' voice. He was very moved by Journey of Awakening. Most of the time Ryan isn’t thinking at all about music, or the ramifications of playing music, or what that means to others. Instead, he thinks about little things like "I wonder if she would like this?" or "Maybe this is tacky, not that tacky is bad, but it just might not go with her other stuff" or "Why did I used to like the Twilight Zone so much? It gives me tremors. I mean, almost panic attacks. Why can’t they just write an episode where everything works out? Where its all okay and people can just sort of be here for a second, breathe and feel some sort of relationship to themselves." You know, normal stuff.

For the most part, Ryan Adams hopes that he can just play some songs and whatever. If that’s not okay with someone, that’s totally fine, He won’t come into their homes and like, jam on top of their TV sets, or in their face wearing nothing but a cowboy belt with gun holsters and women’s underwear while screaming "Listen to me...look, look what I did… LISTEN TO ME OR PERISH!!!" Then, turn into a gigantic metallic spider and wrap whoever up in electric coils and devour them, only after injecting them with poisons so their insides go to mush.

Well, he’s totally not into that at all, and really sort of keeps mostly to himself these days. He knows that everybody thinks that he is some kind of lunatic, and maybe that’s so, but as long as it’s not in someone else’s yard, and yeah that happens to everybody once or twice, but really.

Ryan likes Dokken a lot, unapologetically, not that anyone would have to apologize for that. He is currently looking for the deeper meaning in things, trying to belong to the light and not give into meaningless ego drivel. He really hopes for the best.

The Cardinals are his new band. Cold Roses is his new jam. Laters.

Wilco, TX

2005-04-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to see Wilco play in Houston on Saturday night. It was grand.

The setlist (in case you want to make your very own Wilco, TX playlist):

At Least That's What You Said
Muzzle Of Bees
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Handshake Drugs
Hummingbird
A Shot In The Arm
Jesus, Etc.
Kamera
War on War
Via Chicago
I'm Always In Love
Theologians
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Poor Places
Reservations
Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Encore #1:
Candy Floss
The Late Greats
Kingpin
I'm A Wheel

Encore #2:
Misunderstood
Passenger Side
California Stars

A good mix of new and old: 8 songs from A Ghost is Born, 7 from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 4 from Summer Teeth, 2 from Being There, 1 each from A.M. and Mermaid Avenue. That seemed about right.

Here's a snippet of Poor Places that someone taped at the show (right-click, save as). I'll post more if I can track more down.

Jeff Tweedy was a bit testy at times, which he blamed on having just quit smoking. This led him to saying amusing things between songs without affecting the music (which was really, really good). At one point the pro music downloading Tweedy commented, "I think we're going to start releasing our music only on vinyl. How about that? (cheers.) And maybe LaserDisc too. Do you guys have those? (more cheers.) What if we just released our stuff as sheet music? You guys wouldn't copy it would you?"

If only I could read sheet music...

[Picture courtesy of houstonmusicreview.com]

Golly Sandra

2005-04-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

I wish I would have taken this.

Whiskeytown, revived.

2005-04-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

Whiskeytown is back, kind of. The band that helped launch Ryan Adams solo career (as in when they broke up, he set out on his own) put out some great albums in their own right. Pneumonia is a must own. If you own more the 10 albums and do not own Pneumonia, I cast a look of disrespect in your general direction.

Regardless of your Whiskeytown fan status, you should check out the song The Battle by Caitlin Cary, the former violinist/background vocalist of Whiskeytown. It features Ryan Adams, and so is vintage Whiskeytown at its finest. You can buy it on iTunes. It only costs 99 cents, which is essentially free (if you round down).

Best line: You mine for silver / I pan for gold. For eight words, that sure says a lot.

Alex Dupree played a house show at Will's tonight. It was amazing. I wish I could post some of his music, but I can't, on account of my inability to find any. The show might very well become the stuff of legend. I would have loved the music without the words, I would have loved the words without the music; combined I just sat there dreading the end. The banjo and mandolin didn't hurt either. I'll let you all know the next time he has a show (house or otherwise).

Anyone that went care to write any legend-esque tales about the night?

child's play

2005-04-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Find and list all of the differences you find between these two photos:

(that's an Antoni Gaudi creation, in case you were wondering)

all things new

2005-04-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

My good friend and compatriot Doug Brown has thrown his proverbial hat into the proverbial ring known as the blogosphere (a term, which by the way, I'm quickly learning to hate).

Anyway his blog is/promises to be great times, so you should check it out here.

If nothing else maybe this picture of cake, and any loosely resulting association with Doug Brown or his blog will entice you:

from midland, with love.

2005-04-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

I'm in Midland for a few days, learning to be more socratic. Ah the joys and the constant thinking-induced-headaches of being a college ministry intern.

If you haven't been on the Musings site lately, you need to head on over. Honesty is all the buzz, even brutal in nature.

Read (here and here). Reflect. Comment.

waxing poetic

2005-04-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Yeats... not just for lovers...

"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."

"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

-W.B. Yeats, For Anne Gregory

literally thousands of words!

2005-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

Having followed the prescribed advice of a certain Chris Seaberg, I've found myself more than fascinated with what happens when you type random words into the search query box at images.google.com (Moderate SafeSearch on):

tiger:

(sixth result)

sharpie:

(third result)

oklahoma:

(11th result)

case in point:

(first result)

halelujah:

(third result)

Did you mean hallelujah:

(11th result)

Point. Set. Match.

2005-04-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

Can't we all just get along? Agree to disagree?

Personally, I hate the term "agree to disagree." You either agree or you disagree. There's no need to agree to disagree, people just say that b/c they feel uncomfortable with lingering discord. I think you can still be friends with someone and not agree with them on everything... especially if the point of contention is sports, which by their nature involve disagreement.

Tracy originally claimed a victory, and now is claiming a truce in our most recent point/counterpoint. Truth be told, while the blog comment voting is a veritable dead heat, I conducted a straw poll which has me winning this little discussion. (Trina sees both sides; Katie, Colin, Felicia vote in my favor.)

Straw polls aren't necessarily official, so I'll hold off declaring victory. Tracy's initial point and subsequent thoughts, however, have me wondering if she's really a sports fan or if she just enjoys spending summer days out in the warm sunlight watching guys in cute outfits run around. Tracy, you can choose to not care about how any team besides the Astros are doing, but the Astros' success is only relative to how everyone else in their division is doing.

I suppose that the disagreement continues, even though I'm officially done discussing it. I'm okay with that.

ryan adams & c.s. lewis

2005-04-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

"My life's gotten simple since / But it fluctuates so much / Happy and sad and back again / I'm not crying out to much."
-Ryan Adams, Dear Chicago

"Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things - ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out fear."
-C.S. Lewis, The World's Last Night