Let’s Get Meta, Return

Okay, first post of the new school year, senior year, busy year.  I think I managed a half-assed attempt a week or two ago but that was a week or two ago.  Things have happened.  Things are happening.  Things, things, things.  My shoes have worn to dust.  Nearly.  Bandanas keep sweat out of my hair on a day to day basis; it has been hot, uncomfortably hot.  University is in, so why is summer still here?  Cue “hear, hear” echoes in the background.  Er, or am I the only one who looks forward to Fall?  The Swedish turn to Spring took so long I just need to see the other side, but I digress (purposefully, yes, but still).

Classes: Writing Ethnography, Poetry Workshop, Shakespeare, Environmental Biology (sadly, this last is lecture).  Needless to say, I will be reading and writing; they always make me do that in these classes.  Lots and lots, and lots of writing is a good thing, though, a cathartic thing.  Looks like I have a nice chance to get zen on the semester.  Not take it easy, but groove.

Good to see so many familiar faces of the Uni, Urbana area (and visitors, too — can’t forget my buddy Sweet in for the weekend nor Kyle and Kristi who I visited).  Hello to new students, too.  May we have a wonderful year, and ones to come (grad apps also on the plate — Portland, Iowa, Berkley? — oh, and GRE).

Anyway, before the year gets too far underway I wanted to share a recent poem (one of many).  I know this is a rare occasion, for me to be posting my actual poetry, instead of just talking about it, that you, dear readers, get too much meta-assumption, or just pretty pictures, but today you get poetry.  This particular piece was inspired by a friend of mine who taught me this fact.  I’d just bought this winter hat, and, being the hipster I represent, I wore it in irony of the summer season; my friend then warned me how her parents might think I’d loosened more than a few screws, and asked that, for her parents’ sake, I remove the hat.  Cool.  Enjoy:

“Absurdity of Seasons”

they say inability to effectively measure one’s own bodily
temperature is a sure-fire sign of insanity, that something
up there has certainly and perhaps inexorably, fatally
cracked, a case study of the schizophrenic category, well
here i am with a woolen tibetan hat, gunning to assault my sanity
upon the university

yes. i am aware of
the month and of the
the heat and that is
precisely why instead
i wear no pants.

Fin.  And now for some photos collected during these first few back-to-school days:

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Listening to: LOTS of fantastic music.  Menomena almost nonstop.  Just bought Mines.

Welcome to Pt. III

In the third and final installment of my Tour de East adventure, I found myself in Ann Arbor, Michigan, visiting an old friend from my home town, Daniel.  We did some fair wandering around the downtown area, spent Saturday afternoon searching for geocaches, then popped over to Lansing / MSU to see another of Daniel’s buddies.  He showed off his motorcycle, describing the number and varieties of ways he has crashed it, and then we drank some Canadian brews.  On Sunday we made the hungover drive back to Ann Arbor, and from there Daniel to Canada and myself to Urbana.  Feels funny to be back, too quiet.  It’s been good to see so many of my good friends.

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Welcome to Pt. II

New York, New York.  Mar and I took the Bolt Bus to the city, I reunited with my friend Mari, hit the Met, dive bar with hotdogs, Central Park, some West side thrifting, metro after metro, and lived the Bronx all in 24 hours.  Never sleeps indeed.  But now I am in quiet Arlington, a quick visit to my cousin Becky and her husband Bret while I’m out here, where I do hope to catch some z’s.  In fact, I feel them creeping up on me, so again I will let the pictures do the talking (they are, by the way, chronological, depicting the journey from Savage to NY and beyond):

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More Arts, Crafts

Had another arts & crafts night at the Nevada Street residence with Shanza and Blauvelt.  Also featuring a disappearing Mr. Byrne.  And, yes, Gillman, I realize I still owe you that CD.  I’ve got a miniature Drakkar Sauna RIBCo poster hung above my desk as a reminder.  Anyway, back to arts & crafts.  While Shanza attempted to bastardize the sanctity of my bandanna with the likeness of one Tigger, I focused on cutting up emo-band magazines to make depressing children’s poetry, a piece which finally earned the title of “scaring kids.”  Here is a cutting edge low-quality image of the poster which, although was on my bed for display, will soon earn a spot on my wall:

Shanza also made me a lovely bracelet.  It already fell apart, though.  So, you know, two points for style, minus several million for good craftsmanship.

And in recent news, I’m about to embark on a roadtrip over to the Washington DC area to visit my friend Mar from Sweden.  She’s not Swedish, she’s Spanish, but lives in America, and I met her in Sweden.  And then up to Canada, or maybe just to Ann Arbor, to spend a weekend with my friend Daniel, who is Canadian, but I met in my hometown and was an integral part of my childhood (i.e. our friendship).  As my current roommate put it, apparently this kind of spur of the moment cross-country driving is rather transcendental.  In any case, the drive will be cathartic.  I’ve got the Don Quixote audiobook queued up and ready to play.  Along the way I also hope to find the world’s biggest ball of twine.  Wish me luck, there will be updates along the way.

Love and peace.

Doing Asbestos We Can

My brother stopped in to Urbana this week, Tuesday and Wednesday specifically, his unofficial weekend.  We got some good vinyl shopping and Risk playing in, but the highlight was going out to an abandoned air-force complex with some of his old photog. comrades from the Daily Illini.  I had the secret mission of finding ghosts, which, I’ll tell you right now, didn’t pan out; it’s almost as if they don’t exist.  We did, however, have a chance to egress at a sprint when we thought we heard footsteps following us (apparently it’s illegal to be on the grounds or something, as if we could deface the complex’s already decadent and crumbling guts).  Realistically, it was probably just another group of young explorers, but that’s beside the point.  During our adventure we also: sat on a pile of tires, exploded a fluorescent light-bulb, saved a bird’s life, made a porno (but not really),  and probably inhaled a lot of asbestos.  My photos from the day are meant to highlight that latter fact.

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Arts & Crafts Night

First time seeing many of my good friends from UofI again tonight.  Let me tell you, Urbana is the place to be living; we had an arts & crafts night.  We made masks.  Things got very paint-y.

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Listening to: My new Fever Ray vinyl — good morning, me.

In Dreams (Part 2).

Here’s the latest installment from my Dream Journal (actually clocked in from February 13th, but the latest that I’ll be sharing).  This is probably the most accurate account of a dream I’ve managed so far.  I even gave it a title (because it’s that epic).  So worth the trouble of concentrating in the morning…

“Life on the Road: The Adventures of Business Cop”

I’d just been hired on as an assistant to this questionable dude who drove around in truck (from here on out I will refer to him as Business Cop, the most accurate guess I can muster up about his profession).  Largely the details of my position were unclear, just that I was supposed to follow him around on errands.  We’d been driving around for a while when Business Cop saw a homeless man [from here on out I will refer to him as Homeless Man] wheeling a suitcase in tow, stopped, and asked Homeless Man if he would like to join us, which he did.  Apparently Business Cop and Homeless Man were old friends.  Then we made a stop at a random McDonald’s on one of our errands.  The manager came out to talk to Business Cop, giving us a speech about how he was thinking about expanding the chain, that it had been a big hit here in Sweden (apparently this dream took place here in Sweden).  He was even thinking about making commercials.  He seemed so excited, in fact, that he gave Homeless Man a free sandwich.  Homeless Man took a bite then asked me to hold on to the rest for a while, telling me, “Don’t eat it.  Just hold it,” then walking off, still dragging his suitcase.  In the meantime, Business Cop had started inspecting the McDonald’s silverware (which was actually real metal of some sort, notably not plastic).  He found one with a particularly interesting design and started to explain to the manager how he (Business Cop) thought the design was just that: “particularly interesting,” and that he “had to have it,” asking the manager if he could “please keep the spoon — as a souvenir.”  The manager seemed enthusiastic about the idea, although Business Cop refused to let this rest with a simple “yes,” forcing the manager to give repeated assurances that, yes, this (taking the spoon) was an okay thing to do.  The manager insisted, yes, take the spoon, that with the upcoming expansion he’d just be reeling in the new silverware and that, if he cared about every spoon that walked out of his McDonald’s then he “wouldn’t be the man he is today.”  As we made our way to leave, Business Cop made a rather awkward announcement to the manager, telling him, “You should tell your mother I’m a cop.”  Then we walked out, Business Cop completely enthralled with his spoon.  When we got outside, Homeless Man was waiting in the parking lot, rummaging through his suitcase.  He asked me for his sandwich back.  I gave it to him and he stuffed it into his suitcase, then walked off in a huff.  I think Business Cop and I were about to go off on another errand, but I woke up.

Listening to: Stiff Jazz, dZihan and Kamien

Sweden’s Latest Win.

Thank you, Sweden, for reviving my interest in playing music.  A couple of nights ago (Wednesday, to be precise) I attended a little music night hosted at my friend Anna’s place (she has a piano in her room, hence ideal location).  Mostly we just fiddled around — I read some poetry, people played piano, guitar, made drums of your everyday objects and spoons, and in general just created a really unmatched vibe.  For about two hours, we’d created our own universe.  Perhaps this feeling was personally charged, although if you asked anyone else in attendance I’m sure they’d agree (ha, good luck with that, suckers! you’ll just have to take my word).  The feeling may have also been influenced by my latest purchase — a precious little 350:- black ukulele.  Maybe I shouldn’t make impromptu purchases like that, but I’d been walking home after quite a long day (running around campus trying to figure out why I’d suddenly been registered for a class I’d never signed up for and consequently getting e-mails about the course’s upcoming final, how I could get unregistered [apparently I can't, probably], and what this will mean for my grades [although this whole concept of 'worrying about it' was shrugged off by the few course administrators I talked to -- I guess I shouldn't worry about it]), passed a music shop on the way to the bus, saw a few ukuleles hanging in the window, turned around and bought one.  Instantly I felt better about everything.  I took it to the music night only able to play two chords and didn’t actually use it much, but I’ve been playing it more or less non-stop over the past few days.  True, this kind of derailed my plans to go to Stockholm this weekend, but I’ve got no classes until March (really, Sweden, I’m fascinated by your approach to academics).  Anyway, here’s a picture of my latest win:

Isn’t she beautiful?  She needs a name.  Also: if anyone knows where I might rent a trumpet here in Uppsala, I’d be extremely grateful.  Needless to say — I will be looking forward to more of these music nights.

Listening to: myself play countless repetitions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow

In Dreams.

I’d like to share a dream from a few days ago.  I may or may not have inadvertently made a deal with the devil in my sleep.  I’ll let you be the judge of that…

A lady friend and I had been discussing making comic books.  She’d been doing superhero artwork for a long time and she asked me to do the writing.  It seemed like a pretty good idea and we immediately entered into a classic 80′s style writing montage.  We sat gesticulating wildly over a storyboard, scrawled out ideas, tossed crumpled papers into an overflowing bin, and then sat with dumbly satisfied smiles over a finished comic book.  The story went something like this: a heroine and her various super-powered sidekicks hung around drinking at bars, helping their friends move, and playing pranks on local children.  I guess we never got along to writing in any proper villians.  Still very proud of the product, we decided to pitch the comic at a super hip little indie comic joint.  The clerks loved it and took us up to their office, where they told us flat out that the comic was too big for their little store — we needed to take this to the big time.  Being the helpful sorts they were, the clerks phoned up some big time company exec.  Apparently the indie clerks had notable taste, because the exec came straightaway into the tiny office to take a look at our comic.  She also loved it, asking us to please step into her office to sign.  We said sure, and so she opened up a large demonic portal in the middle of the room, told us not to worry, and kind of nudged the pair of us through the portal.  On the other side, we all took on the forms of slightly gruesome but-still-very-obviously-made-out-of-Play-Doh dinosaurs.  We bumbled along to the exec’s office and had a brief meeting about the future of the comic.  The exec said something about not being worried about the supposed “sexist plot and imagery,” which was confusing to both my friend and me, as we’d thought the comic to be extremely progressive.  Of course, we were assured not to worry, and that the comic would be going “big places,” so we signed.  And then I woke up.

Listening to: NPR

On Tallinn, Estonia.

As some of you may be aware from my last post announcing it, I went with a group of 30-something other exchange students on a cruise to Tallinn, Estonia, this weekend.  In other words: booze cruise to a country boasting precious little in the way of sightseeing except for a dozen or so churches and a shorefront of liquor stores.  First I’ll throw a few sparse details your way, then give you some photos and you can fill in the blanks.

Since my memory of the actual cruise is a little fuzzy, we’ll start with a description of Tallinn.  The main attraction is supposedly their town square.  So when we arrived, we disembarked based on level of hangover.  I made it into the early-risers group with three of my Irish friends (Áine, Anna, Eolann) and a Peruvian girl (Silvana — didn’t know her name the entire weekend until we bought our return train tickets together.  whoops!).  Anyway, so this group of mine hit the town square straightaway.  And by straightaway I mean after stopping in a maritime museum (called the Fat Margaret) and in a very somber church where Anna sat down at the piano to have a play, ringing Boogie Woogie into the rafters, then scaring a bunch of Estonian schoolchildren.  Great job!

So, right, then off to the town square to find a spot of food with which to fend off our collective hangover.  This was, of course, a mistake.  The minute we set foot on town square ground we got harassed from every which way by shop owners imploring us to “You buy!  You buy!”  In a desperate attempt to ward off the harassers, Eolann told one of the men after shouts of “You like pizza?  You buy my pizza.  Eat.  You buy!” that, “No thank you, we don’t like pizza.”  Mere moments later we passed what was apparently his shop to check the prices (cheap is why we were in Estonia in the first place) only to have the man come over and yell, “Why you say you not like pizza?  You come to the same fucking place anyway!”  Turns out the prices were horrible and we did not, it would seem, end up at the same fucking place anyway.  Instead we ambled over to the fine fine establishment known only as the Texas Honky Tonk Cantina.  The food was rotten, but the prices were low enough.  It should be noted here that the Irish also found the token Irish pub.  It advertised a proper dinner roast, but the door was locked, taunting us with music emanating from within.  Later, when we got lost and found the Irish embassy, we found more locked doors.  Useless.

I think some other things happened, but I can already feel my narrative structure falling to pieces.  Plus I’m hungry.  So here’s some pictures:

At some point during the boat ride I got to cast a message in a bottle into the sea.  Hopefully someone posts that video up onto YouTube so everyone can see how awesome I am at throwing bottles.  Into the sea.  Anyway, it read, “Dear friends, we are 31 Erasmus students from Sweden going to Estonia.  If you find this come to Uppsala to party with us! <3 Love, A bunch of Spanish, Greek, Irish, and a few others.”  I’m a few other!  Woo!

Oh, and the best part of the entire trip was actually on the train ride back.  We got sat in front of the toilet.  And it made space noises anytime someone used it.  Nothing like being five years old again.

Listening to: Circuitry of the Wolf, Mew