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.

Home.

After six months in Sweden, I’m finally home.  These first few days have been a trip to Uncanny Valley, almost as if I’d never left (with one major exception — USA no longer seems to be so atrocious at soccer).  I do, however, seem to be experiencing some reverse culture shock.  When I went to Sweden I was expecting the different, the new, and it wasn’t so shocking.  Coming home after studying anthropology, I now find myself looking through an ethnological spyglass.  Restaurants are loud with a push for turnover and toilets have more water.  The streets are made for machines, not people.  A whole city had been a walk away; now, going next door seems to necessitate use of a car.  I look around, and it’s all the same.  Perhaps only my eyes have changed, gotten wider.  If not for the digital proof of photography, a vague record in the blogosphere, umpteen dozen new Facebook friends from across the globe, Sweden could have been but a dream.  Sure, I picked up some tangible objects as souvenirs and memorabilia, but in today’s global market, they could have come from anywhere.  Even my ukulele, to me the most iconic semblance of my time in Sweden, was made in China.  Well, dream or not, I’ve got a few last photos to share from my time with my family in the Motherland.  Maybe by posting I will get that final needed confirmation that yes it did all really happen, and, with any luck, make my brother look like a goon along the way.

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Yep, that’s it folks.  Sweden isn’t just a fairy tale.  It’s for real.  And it’s awesome.

Now, time to get me some proper Mexican food.

Malmö o Köpenhamn

Arrived in Malmö yesterday.  Hopped the train over to Köpenhamn today.  More tourism, more photos.  There are a few more from Ronneby, and I’ve gotten some really glorious distortions.  Enjoy.

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Let There Be Sound!

I’ve just returned from a week without internet: minus.  Because I was in Barcelona: plus.  For the Primavera Sound Festival: plus plus plus!  Really, folks, this last week has been phenomenal.  Let me set the stage…

Last week about this time I was handing in my final essay, packed back in tow, then hopped a train over to Stockholm.  With nowhere to go until the 4 a.m. bus to the Skavsta airport, because, you know, everything in Sweden closes early, I’d planned on maybe hiding out at a kebab shop after the train station closed.  Turns out, there were a few other travelers in my same boat: losts souls for one night.  Together with a group of strangers, we managed to find a dive bar that stayed open until 3 a.m.  We had a few beers, then made it back for the early bus to the airport.  Then it was off to Barcelona for me.

Once in Barcelona, I kicked back with a few good books (one on Quantum Theory, the other me rereading Bachelard) until my friends’ flight arrived.  They’d planned to meet me on their way from Vienna.  Apparently they also had quite an adventure getting to their flight, but that is a tale for them to spin.  The rest of the world was behind us, Barcelona our future for the next few days.  And since we’d arrived a couple of days before the festival, we got to wander around the city and see the sights.  Mainly these were the buildings of Antoni Gaudi.  Seriously, that man’s architecture is mad.  As in crazy, not the hip slang term for awesome.  Which they also were.  First, however, we had to find our apartment.  This was quite the ordeal as most of our cell phones didn’t work and we had to call this guy Fernando to come let us in.  And when we finally did manage it, only two of us could actually meet with him, because, well, because we’d been involved in some creative counting of our personage when booking the place on account of inflating prices.  Truly we numbered five.  Soon to be six.  Maybe even seven by Thursday.  Heh, heh…  Anyway, we got in just fine then had some late night sandwiches and beers despite our inability to speak or even order in Spanish.  Mostly it involved lots of hand waving and pointing.  In the end, however, mission accomplished.  We ate.  We drank.

Now, I think I’ve been telling a bit of this tale out of order already, so I hope you don’t mind me just skipping to the festival part.  It was the whole reason for the journey, after all.  After grabbing my friend Marlo from the bus stop, the seven of us headed to Primavera Sound.  And just to be clear, we were Marlo (from Bromley freshman year and friend since at UofI, seriously who’d’a thunk we’d meet up in Spain?), my Turkish friends from Uppsala — Atahan and Burak, plus their Turkish friends John, Chala, and Oner (correct me if you guys/girl read this — I’m a simple country farmer and don’t know to spell Turkish names good, plus Oner called me Jared all weekend, which I thought was funny, but hey this is retribution).  Plus me.  Now, as I sometimes do, I’m going to cut the narrative short in favor of pictures.  Maybe it’s laziness, maybe I still have a paper to read and oppose for my class, maybe there are simply no words for the music.  And there were three days of music.  Three amazing days.  And for jealousy’s sake, let me name the bands I saw (and rocked out to) in chronological order (best in bold): Thursday — Sic Alps, Surfer Blood, The XX, Titus Andronicus, Broken Social Scene, Pavement, Fuck Buttons; Friday — The New Pornographers, Best Coast, Spoon, Beach House, Panda Bear, Major Lazer, Yeasayer, Mujeres; Saturday — Atlas Sound, Florence + The Machine, The Antlers, (then wandered between Built to Spill, No Age, and The Charlatans), Pet Shop Boys, The Field, Fake Blood.

After the festival on Saturday, I went directly to the bus at 5:30ish a.m. and then caught my morning flight back to Sweden.  Then, without properly sleeping, somehow bought myself sushi in Stockholm, got a train back to Uppsala, saw some dude who had also gone to Primavera, gave him a thumbs up because my brain couldn’t make conversation, then passed out.

You win, Primavera Sound.  You win.

And now, as promised, pictures.

Listening to: If I Had A Heart, Fever Ray (Fuck Buttons Remix)

Valborg

As I’ve already alluded to in my previous post, this weekend was Valborg.  The festivities started on Thursday with Kvalborg, the day-long pre-Valborg party which consisted of a large amount of barbecue, beers, and me trying to steal Martin’s bicycle but just falling down instead.  I wish there had been video, because I’d sure be pleased to see myself looking so much of a fool.  On the whole of things, though, I think I kept myself better composed than the majority of the Flogsta population.  Others were falling down in the street, which might sound dangerous if the Flogsta buildings didn’t exist in such an exclusive bubble.  I also managed to avoid having beer poured on my head, which was the unfortunate case for a few of my friends.  I believe Martin remarked that his clothes were probably a larger percentage alcohol than cloth.  After the loudest Flogsta scream sounding out around ten o’clock, I, as I often do, passed out early.  Well, not right after.  I think I managed a few more hours, although the plan was to wake up early for champagne breakfast at my friend Nathan’s corridor the next morning around 7 or 8.  This did not happen.

Instead, hangovers all around seemed to get the better of us and we didn’t make it out until about ten in the morning for the boat races.  This was, of course, accompanied by the planned and traditional champagne and strawberry breakfast.  After an hour or two of boats, Martin, the Turkish gang, and I wandered off to Ekonomikumparken for the big picnic (for lack of a better word).  I’d been smart enough to stash along a sandwich and nommed the living daylights out of it while we all sat around in a massive crowd, listening to the live bands playing, and still drinking.  While many of the others wandered off to the Nations for the champagne race (basically just throwing champagne over each other), I stuck around at the park with Mar, Alvarro and a few of the other Spaniards.  I didn’t last long there, wandering back to Flogsta for a two hour afternoon nap.  And by nap I mean I passed out.

At some point I must have woken up, because there I was having dinner (bread and cheese, or something) with Mar and Martin (I think).  And here the details get a little hazy, because we went back out partying.  There was some sort of massive party on one of the Flogsta building rooftops, so up to the roof we went.  There Martin and I reconvened with an red-lip-stained Nathan and the rest of the Turkish crew I’d been hanging out with earlier in the day.  I remember we were talking about nation stereotypes at one point, which led to something like half an hour of “Turkish wrestling” which really just involved a couple of the guys rolling around on the ground and occasionally slamming into the walls or railing.  You know, keeping it safe seven floors up.  I also wandered off at one point to make a beer/whiskey run to my corridor, holding a door for a girl on the way, who remarked, “Hey you’re the cool guy who fell yesterday,” which pretty much made my night.  And then, uhm.  Then the whiskey happened, and there was a bonfire, and they were burning a couch, and then I woke up on Saturday feeling terrible.  TERRIBLE.

Drinking’s bad, kids.  Now here are some photos.

P.S. For those of you who are sorry I missed Unofficial at UofI this year, don’t be.  I’m sorry you missed Valborg.

Listening to: Petit Colorado, Dionysos

Buh, bluh.

I’m sick.  Buh.  But on the plus side, I’ve got a few pictures from this last week to show how life seemingly revolves around my computer.  Even now, ensnared by infection’s grubby fingers, I hear the computer’s call.  Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Computer R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

Listening to: Pale Horses, Moby

Puzzles & Bad Art.

I did things in Sweden today.  Namely: wandered around to some thrift stores.  Two major things came of this.  First: I finally got some decorations for my room (the worst paintings I could find — seems bad art is the same everywhere you go, which is comforting).  Second: I started a new project called “Corner Floor Puzzle.”  It’s pretty self-explanatory.  Pictures!

Please note: Now that it’s getting lighter, expect some legitimate outdoorsy pictures.  There’s this path (a shortcut, if you will) I took which leads through over the hill and through the trees on the way home.  I did not have my camera.  I intend to stray from the main road again.  Hopefully with my camera.

Listening to: Emily, Joanna Newsom