so give it up and smile

our last time together

i think it's safe to say that i've listened to tally hall's first album more than any other album i've ever owned. between my car and my computer, i'm sure i've played it more than tmbg's flood (my very first cd, i think) or the eels' electro-shock blues or... i can't even think what might come close to it. i feel in like with them from their first harmonies of "welcome to tally hall" the night that they opened for guster and bought the disc from them after the show (at a discounted price.)

we listened to it on the way home that night, falling in love with them after the concert like the after effects of a great first date. they were eclectic and creative; every song sounded different, and while they had recognizable influences ("'sgt. pepper' era beatles meets the barenaked ladies," i'd tell peope), they were completely unique and refreshing. there were fun and bold songs that i liked from the start, but over time the quieter songs grew on me and became my favorites. it's the only album on my itunes where i have genuinely rated every song at five stars.

i would give copies of their cd to any friend who would take one. at each concert, we were bringing new friends who had also become fans. i'd reference their lyrics in texts with other tally hall fans. the great laurie jayne would leave me voicemails of her playing their songs on her ukelele. i learned all the words to the fast part in "ruler of everything." heck, i even got them to play a concert at an elementary school. when i mused about what i would do if i could only have one movie to watch for the rest of my life, i had a hard time deciding. but i knew without question that i'd choose tally hall if i could only have one album.

i went to their show every time they came to town and could die happy there. i danced and just soaked up the music and the energy. not only did i know every song by heart, i knew the band. and they knew us. if not by name, they knew we'd be there after the encore, waiting for their signatures on our newest shirts and to take our traditional picture. and they were always good sports about it.

then, life went on. i moved to texas. they released a second album and it was actually pretty good. yet i kind of just stopped listening to them. not abruptly; i didn't get sick of the album or them. it was just one of those times where i realized one day that it had been a while since i'd listened to them. that's how things go sometimes, i guess.

since i first heard them in 2007, marvin's marvelous mechanical museum has always been in the first slot in my car. and it still is. i reached the end of my general conference cds and so when it cycled back to number one today, i let it play. it's been months, but i still know every word and sang along with all my heart. because the fact remains: there's no one better than you.

konstantine

blast. the post i was trying to write for today just wasn't coming out right. i guess it needs to simmer a little while longer.

but i saw this and found it interesting. it's funny: there are people who could describe me on either side, here. i daresay that those who know me would say i'm an extrovert, but those who know me best might recognize numbers on the first list.

although the truth is that we're all more complicated than two different categories can neatly sum up.
but generalizations and categories are just so darn convenient.

ride the waves and don't ask where they go

a handful of years ago, someone described to be a rather interesting way to deal with challenges:

imagine you're at the beach, playing in the water, and a wave starts coming. if you just stand there, either frozen in fear or trying to be tough and withstanding it, the wave will pick you up and carry you with it.
if you run from the wave, which is the natural and instinctual reaction, not only will it catch you and crash down on you, but it will have grown in size and force and so will really plow you into the sand.
but if you do the opposite of what seems natural and dive into the wave, you will likely be tossed a little with the turbulence of the water, but will avoid the crushing power that was coming right at you.

it's so crazy it just might work.

like a rolling stone

i spent the evening in the studio at school with a canvas, my ipod, and some markers.

i've stayed focused this week and it's paid off. my roommates today noted that they haven't seen me since tuesday and i didn't come home until 6 a.m. this morning, but i finished all of my video projects and my shading assignment was selected as part of the class demo reel for next week's show. there's still more to do for the show and i'm not letting myself slow down yet. i shopped for materials before stake conference. after conference, i was in the studio.

today was one of those days where no one texted me back.
the only proof i had that i had my service was even working was a brief exchange between brandon and myself, excited about a few of our videos getting selected for the show's main exhibition.
and while it's not the end of the world by any account, it's hard not to imagine your friends checking their phones and going, "meh."

so i used that feeling of isolation to propel my work and decided that i may as well enjoy the feeling of being a lonely artist on a saturday night. and with a good playlist and a can of code red mountain dew, i did.

as i was prepping my canvas, i thought it was starting to look pretty cool and began wondering if i should make it my project as it was.

i finished it a few hours later and feared that i might have been right about that. the end result was... lackluster. a few weeks ago, to the delight of my professor, i refuted the incorrect interpretations of my "power of vulnerability" piece (which was also accepted into the show, thank you.) he and i also talked a bit about my work and where i am and he noted that my ideas are strong, but that i'm not fully committed to being an artist and that it shows in my work.

and that's a fair statement. i'm not. i'm working to be a layout artist at an animation studio, not a fine artist in a gallery. but it did raise the question of what could i accomplish if i focused more? i'm often actually rather pleased with my ideas in the conception, but i don't think i follow and develop them as extensively as they deserve.
staring at the finished product from tonight's work, i think that's probably true.

perusing facebook before writing here, i saw an essay by ben folds about advice to aspiring musicians. one of his first points felt applicable to me tonight:

Finding your Voice takes a lot of frustrating time. That's a painful period that all artists go through, sometimes more than once. I think that most artists don't want to admit that period ever existed. We all like to pretend we came out special and it all just magically happened. You will eventually find that it takes no effort to just be yourself, but the road to that place can be long and rough. The truth is that most artists would not want you to see the evolution of their Voice. It would be very embarrassing. Imitating your heroes, trying on ill advised affectations. It's all part of the trip. It's why all those Before They Were Stars footage is so cringe worthy. Nobody wants to be seen in that light and so successful musicians do the new generation a disservice by denying their shady artistic past. I for one, will do my best to cover my tracks because I don't want anyone seeing that sh*t!

a few more lines i liked:

Be schooled in form and technique as much as you can swallow and abandon it when you feel it's nearly killed you.

How many times do we say or hear "they're trying tooooo hard!" I say, try try and try again but just put the effort into the right things.


in fact, i liked the whole essay enough that i'm going to put it up as a separate post here, just so i have it.
but your obligation as a faithful sheep go to heaven reader ends now.

the pale blue dot

images of venus and the earth taken with a long lens
have been composited into their relative locations
in this wide-angle photograph

after 12 years in space, the voyager I spacecraft was 3.7 billion miles from earth and nearing the edge of the solar system. despite doing everything possible to use as little power as necessary, at the request of astronomer carl sagan, nasa rotated the satellite's camera to look back at where it had come. the sun flares much of the image, but in all of the grainy noise of that black photograph, taking up 0.12 pixel, is a pale blue dot.

reflecting on what that pale blue dot meant, sagan wrote,

we succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. that's here. that's home. that's us. on it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. the aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. 

the earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. in our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. it is up to us. it's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and i might add, a character-building experience. to my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. to me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

pale blue dot: a vision of the human future in space, p.6

and he's right. so much of what we worry about and stress over each day--getting a 74 instead of a 94 on a test, dishes left in the sink, not getting the job we applied for--are easy to see how trivial they are when we realize that all we're fighting for is a moment of minor superiority on that tiny little dot. viewed from way out there, we are nothing.

but we are not worthless.
even though we live on a pale blue dot, even though we are only tiny points on that tiny dot, we are valued. God knows us by name. He knows us personally and closely. He knows what got us excited yesterday and what hurt our feelings today and what we hope for tomorrow. we matter to Him.

on my windowsill

• a root beer bottle
• fake vampire teeth
• an orange camera filter
• a box of animal crackers shaped like cars
• an iphone case (i don't own an iphone)
• a dark chocolate orange
• red lipstick
• a wizarding wand
• swimming goggles
• a wall-e lunchbox
• four rolls of camera tape