You really need to go to Secret Crush Records and pick up the Stamp Collecting (For Beginners) compilation. Amazing indiepop. Yummy.

New Year's Eve Plans?
Right now the plan is to keep switching between the Cartoon Network and the 3 Stooges and Twilight Zone marathons. Then again, I hear Hilary Duff is co-hosting the festivities on MTV, so there may be a fourth channel involved, as well.

Time to floss.

Well, I fell asleep this afternoon and missed out on the early evening activities, unfortunately.
I suppose I needed the rest; last night wasn't exactly full of sleep.

Flannery's been sleeping quite a bit today. I suppose she's resting up after a long past week and getting ready for a night full of exploring the cluttered townhouse.

Christmas Vacation Report

Flannery rode with me to Indiana and back. She likes to yowl while I'm driving, but eventually calms down. Yesterday in the car we listened to some Lenny Bruce comedy, the Cold Mountain soundtrack, an album Dylan did with Allen Ginsberg, The Fiery Furnaces, The Mamas and the Papas, and I forget what else. My cd player tends to get too hot or something and not want to work for a while.

I split my time between Michigan and Indiana, my family and Stacey's, both of whom I really dig. Our families live about an hour from each other so I ended up doing quite a bit of driving. I love everyone but it's nice to be back in Omaha and not have to drive a ways to get anywhere.
I won't bore you with a gift list.

Many thanks to Jeff for all the great books, tapes, and videos I'm borrowing. I should be working on Desolation Angels right after Tripmaster Monkey since I have to get that one back to the library.

I spent a good amount of time with my niece. She's 17 months old and we'd only hung out more than a year ago, so she remembered me in name only, really. She's a bright little kid and is just a blast to watch and have fun with.
I intended to get to a liturgy or service on Christmas Eve or Christmas. Something besides the Children's Mass that Jeff and Beth's kids were going to be in...it didn't even necessarily need to be Orthodox, just a service or liturgy in a contemplative, liturgical setting to really commemorate and medidate on Christ's birth. However, splitting time between two Baptist families that live a distance from each other sort of made that impossible; we had to get up early on Christmas morning (or at least were supposed to, hehe) so I couldn't even make a midnight Mass.
I had been planning to leave Sunday but Allie (Stacey's young sister) asked if I would come to her Baptism, so I did and just left Monday. So, yes, I went to a Baptist Sunday Morning church service for the first time in years. The church there has some great people, but I wish I could have just gone to the baptism and taken off after that. We ended up going to Sunday School first, during which I held my tongue pretty well, even in "group time." The teacher had some good and interesting things to say, but was teaching about Bible study and then started a study in Ephesians. At first, I just sort of didn't mind what I observed and knew would be the case, that the thoughts would be incomplete. However, his approach to Bible study turned out to be not only incomplete, but also backwards! How can people teach Sola Scriptura and then turn around say that YOU, the reader, are the measurement by which we interpret Scripture and you should do that yourself before looking at commentaries and other writings (and by whom?)? I could go on and on, but I won't. I'm not into bashing people just because they are Baptist or Pentecostal or anything, but it's literally painful and excruciating to watch and listen to the butchering that goes on. I really feel sorry for those who trust these people as spiritual leaders. I mean, both our families are in that boat and it's so hard to be nice about it. I suppose the important thing is that they're trying.

Anyway, all this leaves me really looking forward to some spiritual nourishment. I've tried to spend a lot of time meditating on Christ's birth. Tonight I'll be going to vespers and then some of us are going to go do something I hope is nice. This couple, Ed and Pat, is one of the nicest couples you'll ever meet and have been a part of St. Vincent's since it began, as far as I know. A bit less than a month ago, Pat had a stroke and ended up needing dedicated care and is now in a nursing home. On the Sunday before the Sunday before Christmas, Ed reposed in his sleep. I chanted at the requiem mass and it was good to see it heavily attended. One of the most touching things I've ever seen happened there. Toward the end of the mass, those who wish to may kneel at a rail up front and take Communion. Pat, sitting on the front row, was unable to walk or talk properly because of her stroke. However, when Fr. Stephen came to the rail to serve Communion, Pat half-stood and began to lurch toward the front (with a little help). Fr. Stephen whispered, "Pat, I'll come to you." She shook her head vehemently and forced herself to the rail, desperately desiring the Body and the Blood. I want to be like that.
Anyway, tonight a group of us are going to Pat at the nursing home to sing Christmas carols and just show our love.

Tonight S. and I went to a great new toy store in Omaha. If any of you Omaha peeps are out there reading this, go visit The Wishing Well, it's in the plaza on the north side of 87th and Pacific. They've only been open 2 months and need your support. They carry pretty unique, original toys and tons of learning toys. S. and I found ourselves wishing we had more kids to buy for!
This Christmas I get to experience my first Christmas with kids in a long time. I'll spend a decent amount of time with Stacey's family (3 kids under 10) and when I'm up an hour north of there with my own family, my niece will be there (she's about a year and a half old).
Kids are great and I wish the people next door would stop screaming at theirs.

Today's remarkable listening has been The Beach Boys' Ultimate Christmas Album and Q's year-end compilation...mostly the songs by The Darkness, The Rapture, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Johnny Cash, and The Thrills.

At the end of the day, it's nice to relax. Of course, then I end up posting here about food and television, the good old American treatment. However, I'm very happy watching The Polyphonic Spree and Atmosphere videos. Some contrast, for sure. I love Slug's anger because it's authentic. It's about time we had someone pissed off and rapping on the television. And The Polyphonic Spree is gorgeous...
I just ate some vegetarian chicken noodle soup and whined about its blandness until I got to the bottom of the bowl. Apparently we're supposed to stir it up.

Early this morning I dreamed I was trying to take my final exam in Beats & Hippies (the big event is tonight). I arrived early to the university and was going over some last minute cramming when someone came along and needed a hand with something (I don't remember what). Wanting to do the right thing, I helped them, but then realized I was too late to take the exam. I found my professor and he, being a nice guy, allowed me to go take it then, but the only place for me to take it was a public area where people kept coming up and asking for help, which of course I would give them. Frustrated by the inability to take a test I confidently knew I could ace, I then woke up. Beeping. Phone. Might be important and even worth the risk. A prospective employer calling at 7am? Shock of cold, lumber up the stairs, flip it up, my voice lurching.
Despite reports in the newspaper that city crews plowed all residential streets by Wednesday night after the big snowstorm on Tuesday, we in this working class mid-town neighborhood know better. Maybe they just figure that those who don't speak much good English won't complain. She's the only white person in her apartment building and speaks a fairly literate Midwest English, but her little blue car is stuck. I meant to get it out over the weekend and never did. I'll just drive her over and earn a trip to the Krispy Kreme on the way back. What kind of person rewards himself with clogging his own arteries? I'm more American than they want to admit.
I pull up and she's almost onto the road, right tire spinning. Shoulder to the trunk, shoulder to the trunk, get out of the way, shoulder back on the trunk. She's determined to keep me away from the Krispy Kreme. She finally wins and I hope none of the Nebraska slush I'm wearing now got on her when we hugged.
My car warmed up, I feel obligated to do more than just go park and head back inside to read Abbie Hoffman. I'm not going to the Krispy Kreme way out West during rush hour, but 5 minutes to the grocery store and I'm just not sure which frosting works best for me today. I let the gentleman patiently waiting behind me in and he quickly fills his box. I turn into my dad, the guy who comments to strangers and understands that community is made up of kind words.
"Lucky co-workers, with a guy who brings in donuts early on Monday morning."
"They're for my customers, actually."
I tell dad he's done his duty, he's been nice, he can stop right here.
"Oh? What do you sell?"
"Electrical equipment."
"Nice. I hope the donuts work and they buy a lot."
Ten years ago, I would have been pleading with my other Father for a distraction or a sudden need for the bathroom to strike my father.
"Well, I've been doing it for thirty-six years. Whatever happens today won't make much of a difference one way or the other."
By now we've both grabbed our grease and shuffle off, my direction determinedly different than his. Brian Wilson's falsetto captures me for at least the thousandth time and I know today's going to be good, at least, because I'm walking around a grocery store and God seems to be crooning through the loudspeaker, "Don't Worry, Baby." I time it right and hit the self-checkout station just as the song finishes, priding myself on the quickness with which I ring up and pay for my pastries and an unmentioned Christmas gift I picked up along the way. Peripheral vision alerts me to another potential awkward situation and I quicken my pace, but he's got the angle. He's right behind me, but maybe...no, his car is parked next to mine. I always wonder if, having acknowledged someone once, I've done my duty and should keep silence from there. Is it rude to not at least nod and grunt a little when, somehow, you both end up in the same place again? Because somehow, we always do.

I finally did it.
Somehow I managed to work it so the television remote control fell into a cold cup of coffee.
Everything's been leading up to this, I later realized. I'm horrible at recognizing warning signs.
I'd just finished skimreading Richard Farina's Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up To Me a second time for tomorrow night's final. Fascinating, incredibly well-written book, but after my eyes whizzed through 329 pages in a little over 3 hours, my coordination is amazingly less than its usual lousy. On top of that, the images coming from the television set played tricks with my eyes. Every moment on Adult Swim distracts me when my eyes are like this, even with the sound muted. Cooking in the oven one of those new three-cheese totino's pizzas. Bang, Splash.

Midnight brings a new day and this time, literal and figurative finally match up.
Macaroni salad joins the pizza. S.'s mom taught her well to put in the mustard.
Belle & Sebastian's new video, "Step Into My Office, Baby" plays second on Subterranean.
Lucky again. I think I'll go apply for that job at at the University tomorrow.

Suckas don't respect it.
Flannery loves my wooden floor. She was just batting around an empty film canister. Her favorite things boast a menthol scent; she constantly steals everyone's chapsticks and her constant companion at my house is an old Hall's cough drop.

S. and I just made this up:

My hair is short
and so is my skirt
my music is loud
and so is my shirt.

This as a result of her telling me that MY hair is too long and my music too loud.

Oh, by the way, what I wrote below is quite possibly a sneak peek at my next column. Didn't know I had it in me tonight. What do you think?

It's 11:37pm on a Wednesday night and Prince's "7" video is on MTV2. As good a time as any to start a post.

Tonight's "thank you" goes to Totino's for recently making a 3 Cheese version of their nice crispy little pizzas. Now we vegetarian types have one more junk food option than we did 6 months ago.

Next video up?
"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" by Boyz II Men.

In the early 90s, we weren't allowed to listen to rock and roll. Or Top 40. Even jazz was iffy.
Discovering music could really only be done on the sly. No money, no car, a little sheltered school, no internet yet. Only the radio, really. I discovered Pet Sounds and some of the other Beach Boys classics early on, but most of the music I dug on was radio music, a complete opposite of how things work for me today. Needless to say, most of the music I listened to then was crap. It's worth noting that in the early 90s, Top 40 stations weren't afraid to play rock and roll, and rap was riding its first wave of popularity, so Top 40 radio was much more diverse than it is now. Boyz II Men was IT back then. My best friend Tim and I used to walk down to an elementary school one neighborhood over from mine hauling a little red wagon containing the following items: water bottles, a trampoline used so we could practice our dunking techniques, my basketball, and a little boombox that blared one of our few tapes, Boyz II Men, once we were safely out of hearing distance from my house, of course.
One day Tim destroyed the tape during a fit of sin-smashing zeal. As I recall, our church school had a special chapel service dedicated in part to helping us get rid of the devil's music. I never had a girlfriend, so music is all I had and I never threw away a tape. I told Tim he could've just given the tape to me and had it off his conscience but he always had a flair for the dramatic and besides, the staff needed to see a little fervor now and then, so I didn't belabor the point too much.

Years later, Tim and I were still buddies and sweating it out at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, a bulwark of fundamentalism in Wisconsin (halfway between Madison and Milwaukee). With less than a thousand students to watch over, the authorities had plenty of time to spend finding sinners and inventing sins. Why Tim and I were in trouble is a longer story, but we knew things had become serious when we walked in our room one afternoon to find it had been ransacked, all our personal belongings rummaged through. While Communism seemed less an imminent threat post-USSR, the Domino Theory still applied, and apparently school officials figured that if we were up to no good on one front, we had plenty of other sin to hide. Sure enough, among the contraband missing were our tapes. Double Jeopardy loomed before us -- not only was rock music not allowed, but we had signed a statement at the beginning of the year promising to not listen to it; every so often we would have a "music check" that involved our laying all our music out on our beds and while we were away at chapel, a couple school officials (one of which was a student politician) checking through it to make sure it was all okay, holding the sinful music for us until semester's end. If we were found to have ungodly tapes in the meantime, we had obviously lied and were held responsible for that AND the rock and roll.

In the end, Tim was kicked out while I was told I was fortunate to be allowed to stay (his main infraction quite serious while I was only the accomplice who claimed to know nothing), albeit on probation. I stuck around for another year just to make sure I reached my maximum potential self-hatred. During my sophomore year I met an out-of-place hardcore kid named Gordon Fry who introduced me to the world of Tooth & Nail. I started wearing my first wallet chain soon after and began the slide to my current status: a vegetarian music snob almost done with his BA in General Studies With A Concentration In English (years later) taking classes on Beats and Hippies and voting for Ralph Nader, not to mention becoming Non-Protestant.
Tim, on the other hand, later married the girl he got kicked out with, had a few kids, became an insurance salesman, and now sends his kids to a school and church almost identical in ideology and rules as where we grew up. For him, it really was too hard to say goodbye to yesterday. For me, it was the best thing I ever did.

Today's subject is constructive criticism.
Let me set the context:
I had only one English teacher from Grade 7 to Grade 12. An excellent educator, Mr. Redmond taught me strong grammar skills and an early love for literature. I feel bad for the guy because I feel as if he's been very hampered by teaching in a small Christian school; not so much in a financial sense (though that's true) but more in the sense that what he's able to teach in literature classes is fairly constricted by the school's own standards, not to mention the fact that he has very little time to communicate with other educators and benefit much from any sort of national or regional discourse. He really cared about our education, teaching my class the same chapter sometimes 3 times in a row. He once referred to some of us as having "mud for brains," a fairly apt assessment that brought him a bit of backlash from parents more concerned with hemlines than their children's ability to communicate in any sort of coherent way.
I then went to "Maranatha Baptist Bible College." I tested out of English Composition I and straight into English Comp. II, of which I remember very little. We learned very basic ideas in regard to writing research papers and resumes. In that class I first met the girl who later dated my best friend, a relationship which resulted in several of us getting expelled (I came close but somehow made it through), a marriage, several children, and entertaining stories for publication at a later date. I took some literature classes from a Professor named Miss Wilfong and in those classes, learned to appreciate William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Not until later would I actually learn how to research and discuss them, but at least I was turned on to them and received a bit more instruction on the technical aspects of writing a paper. In retrospect, I'm surprised she was allowed to teach either of those authors at all, but she had tenure and the college had very little interest in the liberal arts other than to condemn most of it, so they probably just didn't ask.
After two years at that college, I ended up at Southwestern Michigan College, a local community college with campuses 5 minutes and 25 minutes from my house. At SMC, I really learned to love literature thanks to a couple professors whose names I forget now. In Contemporary American Literature class, I read "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and my life was changed. While there, I actually learned how to pick up on themes, allusions, character development, and that sort of thing on more than a very broad, general basis. However, as much as I loved my instructors there and think they're doing a good job...it was a community college, and the education matched that.
I'm now at a university for the first time. My first actual literature course (I took Great Characters, a wonderful and enlightening course, in Spring '03 but it was mostly focused on personality and temperament as opposed to the whole of the literature) is coming to an end. "Beats & Hippies" is my favorite class I've ever taken and I plan to study the authors and themes indefinitely. The professor of "Beats & Hippies" is the chair of the department and an excellent teacher. He and another instructor have really influenced my learning and ability to write and critique at a much higher level than I even realized was possible. They hand papers, assignments, and tests back to me with detailed comments on how I can improve, what I'm doing well, the weaknesses of my arguments, and so on. I'm blown away at how much I'm learning now. I absolutely love the feedback and for the first time in my life, I'm beginning to feel confident in something. Last night I got back my term paper for "Beats & Hippies." Dr. Skau wrote two pages of feedback in addition to in-text comments, most of it in regard to weaknesses and problems with the paper. My grade? A-. Importantly, I actually
understand the comments he and Dr. Latchaw give me and able to incorporate those ideas into my future writing.
My roommate and I have conversations about writing from time to time, and we both agree that constructive criticism is essential to writing. If I want to hear "great writing, you're awesome" about a piece, I know quite a few people more than willing to dish that out and do so sincerely. However, I'd rather have my writing torn apart and critiqued almost ad nauseum, because that's what I actually learn from. At 26, I'm finally getting that, and I feel as if my own writing is improving and that maybe, just maybe, I can do this.

This morning at Liturgy I found my mind wandering more than usual. Maybe it was the purple vestments or the little boy playing with his plastic horse or S. wearing a beautiful multi-colored skirt she just bought at a thrift store last weekend.

Thanks for the comment, Nick.

Thanks for the "welcome back," Miss k...

The last couple days have been steady work on reviewing a record by The Miranda Sound and doing a paper on Maxine Hong Kingston. If any of you literate types out there are reading this, check her out. She's one of the first Asian-American female authors and I'm beginning to think she's one of the great American authors of our century. Start with The Woman Warrior and go from there.

Of amusement are sound files of old 1950s sex education records. They may be of Catholic origin, because in one of them, a father tells a son that to do anything to waste the seed is a great sin. I expected him to break into a certain Monty Python song. Actually, I just found a website that describes the recordings.
Wait a minute...I just found a place someone actually posted them. Click here and Enjoy.

One more quick mention:
The Dec. 1 edition of Time magazine has a piece on Tim Burton.

Last couple days I've mostly been listening to various songs on my computer, but highlights include Christmas songs from Belle & Sebastian and Bright Eyes and The Vince Guaraldi Trio.

A new edit of what I posted yesterday:

Lovely People,

Long ago you and I and the rest made a pact
Before we were born, we promised.
Someone vowed for me.

I walked through weeds and mud
all of us drying in the sun,
ate nothing all day but long conversations
then stopped by Dairy Queen and drove to work
and threw up instead of selling books
No water, warm water, and a vanilla shake
into a white plastic basket
behind the customer service desk.


Ok, back to grinding away on my education.

Lovely People,

Long ago we made a pact, you and I.
Before we were born, we promised.
Someone vowed for me but I'm glad.

I walked through weeds and mud drying in the sun,
ate nothing all day but long conversations
then went to Dairy Queen and drove to work
and threw up when I got there none too brisk
from no water, warm water, and a vanilla shake
into a white plastic basket
behind the customer service desk.

Well, I finally went and got myself a new template. Wow, over a month later. No one probably reads anymore, but that's just as well. Almost every day I intend to post something here and....well, never quite do.

I'm still looking for a job. School projects in a mad rush and finals are 2 weeks from this week.

Advent.

listens of late:
the Rosebuds
the Miranda Sound
anything Starflyer 59
the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
A Christmas Gift from Phil Spector
the Pulses

Now that I have a new template and hopefully no more gapping issues, expect more updates. Well, don't EXPECT them. Just be aware that I may, I might. I have a million links I want to post. And really, I've been eating too much lately and could use a change of self-indulgence.

Reading:
Maxine Hong Kingston
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
DIW magazine