a love story

my favorite cinematic romance since wall-e & e.v.e.

wes anderson's best since "the royal tenenbaums."

and a reminder of why i love to go to the movies.

if the year-end oscar season doesn't produce anything to top it, 

i'll be totally ok saying that "moonrise kingdom" is the best movie of 2012.

art review: jeff on jeff

one of our options for part of our final assignment in my m.f.a. class this spring was to write a review of our work from a third-person perspective. that sounded like it has potential, and when i thought back to the day in class when i showed the lipstick and mirror piece and how my professor and the visiting artist completely misinterpreted my intentions behind it, i decided to play with that.

a few years ago i read an interview with a director where the interviewer was going off about how freaking brilliant the director was how deep his work was and the director seemed disinterested with the heaps of praise, and so that became the inspiration for my writing: i created an interview between me and aRT Magazine, which was the most pretentious name i could think of.

i really like my professor and he's very much into dissecting a work and discussing the myriad of meanings that can be found therein. so i prefaced this to him that it wasn't an attack against the art critic world, merely having fun with the stereotypes. he loved it and asked for permission to share it (and also encouraged me to film it, with me playing both roles. that's an intriguing idea...)


I arrive early at the gallery, eager to talk with Jeff Gustafson, a film-maker turned fine artist about his newest exhibit. As a writer, it’s always a thrill to be the first to see these rising artists and to talk with them about the messages they have for the world. 
Gustafson arrives casually a few minutes after our planned time, dressed in sandals, mildly worn dark jeans, with a red shirt and plaid vest, a look perfectly fitting the creator of the works I’ve been studying.

aRT Magazine: It’s a pleasure to meet with an artist like yourself. Thank you for making time today. This is exciting.
Jeff Gustafson: You’re welcome.

a.M. Ok, before we get started, I just have to tell you how incredible this lipstick and mirror piece is. It’s insane. As soon as I saw it, I thought, this guy is feminism’s newest and greatest champion. Your ability to show how women are manipulated by society through the social constructions of so- called “beauty” and the whole prostitutionization that the cosmetics industry forces and women everywhere is just awesome. And that it’s on a mirror, so that you’re looking at yourself when you’re reading it! Wow. You are a freaking revolutionary here. I mean, your anger just shows in all of it. Laura Mulvey would go nuts for this.
J.G. Actually, I...

a.M. And is this your handwriting? Groundbreaking. You get it. You absolutely get it.
There’s no difference between men and women. A man can write in cursive in lipstick and, by extension, do anything that a woman can. And so can women. You are throwing down the societal constraints and declaring that total equality is now! You are the kind of artist this world needs!
J.G. I had a female friend write that.

a.M. Yes! You’re right! Women are completely manipulated by men in society! Even in
the art world. I’ve been seeing that for years and I’ve been telling people, someone
needs to fight against this. Someone needs to stop it now, you, wow, you did that!
You’re the liberator for women everywhere. The girls must love you! I bet you can get a
different girl every night! Unless you’re not into girls. I mean, that vest looks really good
on you and...
J.G. Don’t worry about it.

a.M. But these prints over here! I can’t believe at how much you’re able to say in two
feet by three feet! It’s like you’re rejecting that art even has content anymore! Art has
been meaningless for years, and by making this total glitch art, it’s like you’re the only
one who recognizes that and you’re telling the rest of the world to wake up. It’s over.
There’s nothing left to say and that’s exactly what you’re saying. These prints are
literally the final word in art! And that’s that word? Nothing! Because there’s nothing left
to say! You’re like the Pollock of the 21st century. Absolute genius. You know, I’ve got a
friend who’s got a gallery in New York and I know he would love to have these. I’ll give
you his number after this and you guys can talk.
J.G. Thanks.

a.M. And this canvas. It’s brilliant. I mean, it really makes you think, and that’s what I love about it. Because so much of art today doesn’t do that. You just look at it and it’s blatant and there’s no work involved but you, you demand that people work for your art. And what’s so brave about that is that most people won’t get it. They won’t figure it out. Only those who really understand aRT will get it. When I was waiting for you, I stared at this for at least half an hour. And I got it. I understood what it meant. And it’s amazing. It changed my life. I feel like I’m a different person now because of this message here. I don’t even know if I’ll want to have my old friends anymore, because they won’t get this.  It’s like you’re reclaiming pop art and making it fine art again. Because you’re totally right, art shouldn’t be for everyone. That’s what movies are for. If you don’t want to think, just go to the movie theater. This, this canvas code, this brings it back to the intellectual elite! And it’s time. It’s been time for a long time and you looked at society and said, “I don’t care, you don’t deserve this,” and took it back. Was that hard? Did this piece hurt to make? Or was the rage in you so strong that you couldn’t hold it back? Did you feel like you were saving a child from ravenous wolves, or was it more primal, like taking a woman and just having your way with her?

At this point, Gustafson looks at me in silence. It’s thrilling, the sort of connection that 
only happens between an artist and the person writing about their works, but also a little 
frightening, being in the presence of such revolutionary talent.
He looks around the room and straightens his vest.

J.G. What is lipstick on a mirror used for?
a.M. Telling someone you want to sleep with them.
J.G. For writing love notes. For taking the terrifying risk of telling someone how you
really feel about them, of knowing that you’ll likely get really hurt, but on the off chance it
does work, it’ll all be worth it.
a.M. That’s exactly what I get from it.

J.G. These prints over here. Digital images are made from code. Code is also how we
hide things in plain sight. So these images are direct presentations of some of my most
vulnerable moments. You’re staring right at it and yet it’s completely hidden.
a.M. And I absolutely feel that power when I look at it. It’s so brave yet so tender. You’re
a warrior-poet.

J.G. I bet. Thanks. And this canvas is that idea one step further. Now the actual letters
are there, completely in the open. Like a computer code, except that a human may actually be able to read it if they only knew the order. Once again, some of my most
vulnerable spots, letter-by-letter, right in front of you.

a.M. So many artists are total cowards and you are like a gladiator among them all!
J.G. That’s how I see it, too. Anyway, there’s a Buster Keaton festival going on down at
the Palace theater so I need to run. Good luck with your article.

shall i dance?

i've written about how i'm not really afraid of the gym any more. just yesterday i spent some time with the rec center's punching bag and didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about it. i took my first weight training class sometime during the middle of my undergrad career, so after ten years and three more classes, i got where i want to be, to where i can go into the weight room and know my way around.

now i'm working on my next awkward arena: the dance floor.
not the byu stake dance kind of stuff, but the real thing. i took "social dance" at byu in the fall of 2001 and was nervous and uncoordinated but did my best. i took tap during my senior year and got a C. i'd occasionally go to the swing dancing nights at the armory on 500 S. and would do alright for the evening, even if i did, um, make a mistake now and then.... and last fall i took country western on the suggestion of my sister: "if you're in texas, you may as well learn to country dance," which sounded reasonable, despite my aversion to all things "western."
and, excepting the few missteps here and there, i did pretty well in it.

my problem is the same thing that i'd have with weight lifting: i'd forget everything the moment the class ends. i learned some really cool jitterbug moves last fall and could hardly recall them just a few weeks ago. and, in my experience, that's not a very effective way to be on the dance floor. the moves need to come naturally. but, i've learned to snowboard and i can calculate the effects of focal lengths, f-stops, and shutter speeds on my camera as second nature now, so i see no reason why i can't conquer this, too.

it took me four weight training classes, and i'm signed up for social dance this fall, which will be my fourth dance class over a similar ten-year span. and i'm trying to start going to the dance nights around town (free lessons from 8-9:30) and hopefully that wall will finally crack, too. i don't want to win any contests, but to simply know enough that i'm comfortable out there.

mostly, it just looks like fun and i want in on that.

talking through cans and string

'k, i'll stop posting articles and stories from other people here soon. it's just that i've been busy with school and work and... well, that's mostly it. and while i had a growing list of things i want to write about, i like sharing the good stuff that i find, especially when i don't have time to write myself.

the great laurie jayne posted this on the facebook a few days ago and i dug it. there's a calvin and hobbes comic where calvin says to himself that he's happy. then he admits that he's happy, but not euphoric. then he gets depressed because he's not as happy as he could be.
same kind of idea.

the original article can be found here. i'm only posting it here as well because it makes it more likely to be read.

By AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

"I just want to be happy."

I can't think of another phrase capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness. With the possible exception of, "Honey, I'm in love with your youngest sister."

Yet at first glance, it seems so guileless. Children just want to be happy. So do puppies. Happy seems like a healthy, normal desire. Like wanting to breathe fresh air or shop only at Whole Foods.

But "I just want to be happy" is a hole cut out of the floor and covered with a rug. Because once you say it, the implication is that you're not. The "I just want to be happy" bear trap is that until you define precisely, just exactly what "happy" is, you will never feel it. Whatever being happy means to you, it needs to be specific and also possible. When you have a blueprint for what happiness is, lay it over your life and see what you need to change so the images are more aligned.

Still, this recipe of defining happiness and fiddling with your life to get it will work for some people—but not for others. I am one of the others. I am not a happy person. There are things that do make me experience joy. But joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what I feel is, interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance, confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn't all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what I'm thinking is, is that so terrible?

I know a physicist who loves his work. People mistake his constant focus and thought with unhappiness. But he's not unhappy. He's busy. I bet when he dies, there will be a book on his chest. Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested, instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.

The barrier to this, of course, is that in our super-positive society, we have an unspoken zero-tolerance policy for negativity. Beneath the catchall umbrella of negativity is basically everything that isn't super-positive. Seriously, who among us is having a "Great!" day every day? Who feels "Terrific, thanks!" all the time?

Anger and negativity have their uses, too. Instead of trying to alleviate some of the uncomfortable and unpleasant emotions you feel by "trying to be positive," try being negative instead. Seriously, try it sometime. This will help you get in touch with how you actually feel: "I feel hopeless and fat and stupid. And like a failure for feeling this way. And trying to be positive and upbeat makes me feel angry and feeling angry makes me feel like I am broken."

If that's how you feel—however you feel—then you have a base line, you have established a real solid floor of reference. Sometimes just giving yourself permission to feel any emotion without judgment or censorship can lessen the intensity of those negative emotions. Almost like you're letting them out into the backyard to run around and get rid of some of that energy.

A corollary to the idea that we must all be happy and positive all the time is that we must all be "healed." When I was 32, somebody I loved died on a plastic-covered twin mattress at a Manhattan hospital. His death was not unexpected and I had prepared myself years in advance, as though studying for a degree. When he died, I was as stunned as if he had been killed by a grand piano falling from the top of a building. I was fully unprepared.

I did not know what to do with my physical self. It took me about a year to stop thinking, madly, I might somehow meet him in my sleep. Once I finally believed he was gone, I began the next stage: waiting. Waiting to heal. This lasted several years.

The truth about healing is that heal is a television word. Someone close to you dies? You will never heal. What will happen is, for the first few days, the people around you will touch your shoulder and this will startle you and remind you to breathe. You will feel as though you will soon be dead from natural causes; the weight of the grief will be physical and very nearly unbearable.

Eventually, you will shower and leave the house. Maybe in a year you will see a movie. And one day somebody will say something and it will cause you to laugh. And you will clamp your hand over your mouth because you laughed and that laugh will break your heart, it will feel like a betrayal. How can you laugh?

In time, to your friends, you will appear to have recovered from your loss. All that really happened, you'll think, is that the hole in the center of your life has narrowed just enough to be concealed by a laugh. And yet, you might feel a pressure for it to be true. You might feel that "enough" time has passed now, that the hole at the center of you should not be there at all.

But holes are interesting things. As it happens, we human beings are able to live just fine with many holes of many sizes and shapes. Pleasure, love, compassion, fulfillment; these things do not leak out of holes of any size. So we can be filled with holes and loss and wide expanses of unhealed geography—and we can also be excited by life and in love and content at the exact same moment.

This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: The facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things which ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.

The truth about healing is that you don't need to heal to be whole. And by whole, I mean damaged, missing pieces of who you were, your heart—missing what feels like some of your most important parts. And yet, not missing any part of you at all. Being, in truth, larger than you were before.

Human experience weighs more than human tissue.

—Adapted from "This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike," by Augusten Burroughs. To be published Tuesday by St. Martin's.

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.

the best camera is the one you have in your hands

i was reading an article talking about how good photography has nothing to do with the quality of your camera or lens. it gave numerous examples of amazing shots that were taken on cell phones, $15 holgas, or with cameras deemed "broken." it then referenced this story as an example of thinking, if i just had that canon 24-105 l-series lens, then my pictures would be amazing. the truth is that a new lens by itself isn't going to make mediocre photography instantly better.

it's nothing new, but i wanted to share the story here.

Heading towards the station ... - 28/03/2008 10:09

Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We're traveling by passenger train, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There sill be bands playing, and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering ... waiting, waiting, waiting, for the station.

However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

"When we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. Translated it means, "When I'm 18, that will be it! When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz, that will be it! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it! When I win a promotion, that will be it! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it! I shall live happily ever after!"

Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.

"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

(Found as published in Dear Abby, The Station, By Robert J. Hastings, fwd mail)

i think i'm getting better at living the lesson of this story in my life; i've still got plenty to learn, but i'm working at it.

the counterpoint, though is that better resources, in the right hands, do yield greater results, so i still would like to have that lens. but just because i don't have it doesn't mean i'm going to stop taking pictures until i'm holding it in my arms.
...um, i mean, hands.

home alone

my roommate left on a month-long trip yesterday. he's doing his doctoral research in seattle because... i think just because his professor is up there on some academic visit. at any rate, he won't be back until the middle of july.
another roommate is home in idaho for the summer. and my third roommate seems to live on mars.

so, at any rate, i've got the whole house to myself for a while.

living alone for me is no big deal. i did it for about seven months back at the red door, plus there would be plenty of times when i wouldn't see my roommate there for a while, depending on schedules or whatever else. heck, during the school year here, days will go by without me seeing anyone, since i (always) get up later and (often) come home (much) later than everyone else.

but my schedule is lighter in the summer, and when my class ends next week (yes!) then i'll really have time to be at home. and while i think i would go crazy if i permanently lived here by myself, it is really kind of nice to have the place to myself for a while.

the slight irony is that a lot of my friends are also out of town for the summer, but i'll figure out something.

3 speed

just over a year ago, i posted about a couple of quotes from president hinckley. i've been thinking about them recently and i just really like them, so i thought i'd share them again.

one of the great errors we are inclined to make when we are young is supposing that a person is a collection of qualities, and we add up the individual’s good and bad qualities, like a bookkeeper working on debits and credits.

if the balance is favorable, we may decide to enter (into marriage) … the world is full of unhappy men and women who married because … it seemed to be a good investment.

love, however, is not an investment; it is an adventure. and when marriage turns out to be as dull and comfortable as a good investment, the dissatisfied partner soon turns elsewhere …

ignorant people are always saying, ‘i wonder what he sees in her [or him],’ not realizing that what he [or she] sees in her [or him] (and what no one else can see) is the secret essence of love.

and

it was you who felt that there was no one else in all the world quite like her. it was you who wished to have her forever.

sources can be found on my original post.

the bishop

a few years ago, my dad was called to be the bishop of the ward in which i grew up. (for those of you not familiar with lds organization, a bishop is responsible for the spiritual and temporal welfare of a congregation, usually consisting of a few hundred people. they usually serve 3-5 years and, like all positions in the church, it is unpaid.) my sister and i have often lamented that we can't be there to see him in his new calling, but our friends all tell us he's great.

when i was at home for Christmas, he got a call one night for a young mother who was having some especially hard times and needed some help. since he can't meet with a female alone, he asked me to come with him and sit in the church foyer while he talked with her in his office. i saw her as she came in; she was pretty and in her early twenties.

i passed the time by playing "cut the rope" on my phone.

when she left, my dad asked me to help find some prices on a rental van to help her move back home with her family. so i did some research on my phone while he called this girl's former bishop to find out more. it was interesting, being in the same bishop's office that i had sat in as a teenager and talked with bishop giles and bishop jeppson. now, kids would come in here and talk with my dad.

coming out of the office, he noted the darkened chapel and told me how he'd just gone in there and sat after hearing (and having to deal with) some especially tragic news just a few weeks earlier.

since we were already there, he asked me to help him check and stock the paper towels and toilet paper in the bathrooms. again, this was the church building that i'd grown up in. i'd raced down these halls in cub scouts, staggered in half asleep during early morning seminary, and chased my friend who was holding the last bit of ice cream in his hand (don't ask.) i was only in this building for two or three sundays a year anymore, but it still held a lot of memories for me.

now, my dad was the bishop and we were going through the supply closet, grabbing rolls of toilet paper and making sure everything was in order. it was pretty unglamorous work, but to be there with my dad on a cold winter night, helping him check the bathrooms in the fargo church building, was a quietly special moment.

the crane wife

yesterday i stopped by to ask my institute teacher a question about how to apply what we'd talked about in class the night before. we ended up having a really great discussion and i'll probably keep visiting him every couple of weeks, just for good conversation.

he told me a story about elder holland and his son matt that really helped me understand some things. the more you think about it, the bigger it becomes.

Returning from an exploring trip on backcountry roads, he and his father came to an unexpected fork and could not remember which road to take. It was late in the day, and they knew darkness would be enveloping them in unfamiliar territory. Seizing a teaching moment, Jeffrey Holland asked his son to pray for direction. Afterward, he asked his son what he felt, and Matt replied that he felt strongly they should go to the left. Replying that he had felt the same way, his father turned the truck to the left. Ten minutes later, they came to a dead end and returned to take the other route.

Matt thought for a time and then asked his father why they would get that kind of answer to a prayer. His father replied that with the sun going down, that was undoubtedly the quickest way for the Lord to give them information—in this case, which one was the wrong road. Now, though the other road might not be familiar and could be difficult in places, they could proceed confidently, knowing it was the right one, even in the dark.

i presume this is from the "teachings of the living prophets" class manual but don't have a reference for this other than this is where i got it.

hab. 2:3

i guess i've always kind of hoped i'd have a story like this one day.

this isn't quite the post i originally planned to share this in, but it's awesome enough that i wanted to share it anyway.

mmrph

i had a post i was going to write here.
title, thought, and picture, all planned out.
but it just wasn't coming out smoothly.
and not in the "keep revising it until it's better" way,
but more in the "no, it's just not going to happen today" way.
and i've suddenly really got an urge for a taco with guacamole, but since i'm actually writing this on sunday evening, i'm probably not going to go get one.

i'm tempted to slap an "ei blot til lyst" label on here just for kicks, but, no.

eh, what the heck.

and i lost my embroidered handkerchief on the plane last week.

waiting on the Lord's timing

Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. This stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all around was covered with earth.

Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them.

I made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by the messenger, and was again informed that the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived, neither would it, until four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that place precisely in one year from that time, and that he would there meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come for obtaining the plates.

Accordingly, as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.
...

At length the time arrived for obtaining the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. On the twenty-second day of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, having gone as usual at the end of another year to the place where they were deposited, the same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected.

Joseph Smith-History 1:51-54, 59
italics added

mujun

the word for "contradiction/inconsistency" in japanese is mujun. it is made of two characters, the first meaning a spear and the second representing a shield. the meaning of the word is derived from the story of a dealer who proclaims that the spear he is selling can pierce through any shield. when asked about the shield for sale, he then declares that the shield can stop every spear ever made.

sometimes, you just can't win.
mujun.

princess of china - revised

"the only constant in life is change," said president monson.
and he's right. it's a mortal world. things shift and change all the time. constantly. but we are immortal spirits and deep in us, there is a longing for the peace of eternal permanence in the things that are of greatest importance.

i know that things change. i accept that nothing really stays the same. f.h.e. group 2 is no more. we don't gather around to cheer for jack bauer on monday evenings anymore. movie nights followed by rock band followed by a midnight ihop run are gone. i play mario kart by myself now.

that's ok. i was fortunate to have those times and i'm grateful for them and their memories and life goes on. i trust that good things will come again. the church even put out a really great message about it that i posted here a year and a half ago. but while releasing ourselves from attachment to things brings with it a zen-like calm, i don't think that the whole point of life is to be continually giving good things up.

people are what matter. everything else in this world is corruptible and will pass away. but when we move to a new city, we still keep in touch with our closest friends and family. sometimes, the distance makes us realize the value of that relationship and we put for new effort to ensure that it will grow stronger and endure.

but the relationships that matter most to us, we want those to last forever. the thought of losing those we love most, of having to "let them go", is unthinkable: and that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy. so taught the Lord in modern revelation. and that is one of the great blessings of the gospel: that we don't have to give up the person that matters most to us, but that we can stick with them wherever life takes us, through the valleys and over the mountaintops.

eternal marriage. to be with the person you love and to never have to let them go. to know that you are together and that you've said "let's do this." that with all of the changes and shifting of life, when everything else comes into our lives then again leaves, to not have to say goodbye to your best friend, to get to keep the person you love that most, that sounds pretty dang to me. it's the teaching of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints that it is the most important thing we can do in this life, but it also just makes sense.

#gregLaswell

i went to a concert last night. the guy's name was greg laswell, one of those singer-songwriter types that i generally don't care for. but i've been listening to his music and it's started to grow on me; sometimes, it's just nice to have some quiet music like that (this is my favorite of his.) and he's married to ingrid michaelson, for those of you interested.

anyway, it was a good show. we found seats and sat down, which was a new (and comfortable) experience for me at a concert. the opening girl was elizabeth and the catapult and she was really fun and cool and reminiscent of regina spektor. and mr. laswell and his band rocked more than i was expecting.

he also had a good sense of humor and at one point was talking about how he generally writes sad songs, which, he noted, can be depressing when looking at his twitter feed: a lot of people write things like, "just lost my job. it's raining today. #gregLaswell." and the like.

today, i'm tepidly doing homework, don't have much of an appetite, and am listening to laurie jayne mixes.
#gregLaswell

audio filters and tree rings

slow down and be safe

at my job i've been doing some work on audio files. i really know very little about audio, and nearly all of the different filter options mean nothing to me. i know just enough to clip out the mistakes and make it sound a little better.

as i've been fumbling through the filters, trying them out and seeing what they do, i've found one that's really helpful: the "normalize" filter takes the highest peak in the wave and boosts that to be just about the loudest it can be and then lets everything else fall relative to that. in short, it gives it as good a range from loud to quiet as it possible.

i found another filter that kind of seems to do the opposite: it seems to shrink everything down. actually, it looks like it "mows" the file, so that the waveform is short and not very dynamic. i decided not to use that one, but it did give me something to think about.

on the "normalized" file, there are loud parts but also really quiet parts. lot of range in between. big ups and big downs. on the "mowed" one, there isn't a lot of change between the highest and the lowest. it's all just kind of "meh."

i think we're kind of like that. i've written some here about vulnerability and thought about it much more over the past couple of months; heck, i discovered that my whole art project was about that (and if you're interested, you should really check out this talk.) when we're vulnerable, we can get hurt. embarrassed, crushed, left, forgotten, scared, lonely. deep valleys. but those undesirable feelings originate from the same place as joy, peace, confidence, security, and ultimately, love. the lofty peaks. and when we try to lower (or even completely remove) the valleys, we will equally affect our opportunity to feel the happinesses. we cannot insulate ourselves from one without numbing ourselves to the other.


but i've thought also about president uchtdorf's talk about tree rings. he noted that in times of good weather and growing conditions, the ring of growth for that year will be thick. but when the environment around it is harsh, the tree will conserve its resources, slow down, and grow only a little. and he advised us that we, too, should remember to slow down at times in our lives when things are not optimal.

drink deeply from the cup of life

so, while the only way to really feel joy and peace and love is to expose yourself in such a way that you could also get rejected, ignored, or hurt, perhaps there are times when it is appropriate to lower our amplitude, and pull things in for a bit. to slow down our pace and conserve what we have for what's most important. and then remember to take the chance and "normalize" ourselves to the maximum dynamic range, willing to take the chance that we might get hurt in the knowledge that it's the only way to really be happy.

carried away unto boasting

they say that people only post about their workouts on facebook to show off (yeah, i've got those friends, too...) and that it's really tacky.
well, this isn't facebook.
it's my blog.

i've written before about how i've had a distant relationship with weight rooms and somehow still feel like i look glaringly out of place in them despite having had "beginning weight training" three times over two schools. having just finished my fourth time a few weeks ago, i'm starting to actually feel comfortable there. like, i went to a&m's rec center this morning and am just now realizing that i didn't feel the least bit self-conscious. i even kind of enjoyed it.

to get maximum credit for the strength testing part of our grade, we had to do some basic exercises. things like pull-ups and dips were fixed numbers: for an A, ten pull-ups and twenty dips. getting a top score in the bench press and leg press required doing a combined total of 4.5 times your body weight.

let me put those numbers in perspective for you. in elementary school, when we did out fitness testing, i couldn't even do one. not a single pull-up. i used to have to measure my improvement by how much closer i got my chin to the bar. then i would watch my short friend matt conneran doing twenty or however many was needed for a "gold medal" grade and silently remind myself that i was in the advanced spelling class.
i don't do pull-ups.

as for the weight thing, 175lbs. x 4.5 = 787.5 lbs. for some perspective, i just did a google search for "what weighs 750 pounds" and got

• a 7-foot nintendo ds made out of legos
• a 20-volume set of the oxford english dictionary
• a female grizzly bear after hibernation
• chuck norris's hat

so, whatever reference works best for you, that's what i had to move five times.

and here's the cool thing:

i did it.

when our testing day came around, i benched 135 and leg pressed whatever 787.5 - 135 is.

further, i did pull-ups. real, overhand pull-ups. six of them and almost a seventh.

i felt absolutely awesome.

i'm 32 years old and in the best shape of my life.

just when i thought i'd done it all...

being actively single for a while, i've gone on all sorts of dates. but this morning i was able to check two more off of my dating bucket list:

1. the super early morning date
2. the implosion date (*the kind where we go to watch an implosion. i've had plenty of evenings that have imploded....)

college station was imploding the old plaza hotel (one of the tallest buildings in our flat, mountainless town) at 6:30 this morning, and while i hate getting up early, this seemed justifiable. and if i could bring along a pretty girl, all the better. thankfully, summer was up for the idea, although i was a little crestfallen when she said she couldn't go out for kolaches afterwards because she had to work. we were still getting to watch a building collapse, so i can't argue much.

getting up at 5:30 A.M. rots no matter how you look at it, but i was still showered and ready in time. we made sure to park close to the exit and walk the extra distance, since we knew the traffic would be a nightmare getting out. i wasn't sure how many people would show up for this; summer estimated 3,000 but i thought it looked closer to 5,000. either way, it was pretty cool to see so many people excited for this.

the blast was supposed to happen at 6:30 but came about ten minutes later. we saw a flash from a few stories on one end of the building and (what seemed like) a second or two later, the boom hit. that thing was loud. then from left to right, the building neatly crumbled into itself, with the stair column (?) remaining falling last.

the whole thing lasted only a few seconds but it was the show we wanted. and even though we parked as close to the exit as we could, it still took us 15 minutes to get out.

but it was totally worth it.

a few hours later, i counted 17 different videos of the implosion on youtube.

but this one on vimeo is the best. 

guilty pleasure

i don't like tv.

rather, i don't like admitting that i watch tv. just saying it makes me feel ashamed. which is a little paradoxical (or hypocritical) since there are a number of shows i've heard a lot of good things about and the general quality of television seems to be getting better. a few weeks ago i had a discussion about tv vs. movies and a friend noted that a television series allows for much greater character development than any movie can.
yeah, he's got a point there.

but i'm not a big tv watcher, although in full disclosure, i think i've missed only one episode of the daily show in the past year.

reality tv is even worse. and it's running like a kudzu through the networks because it's so bloody cheap to produce that, even if the numbers are lower than sitcoms and dramas, the profit margins are still higher.
and i cringe whenever i hear friends talk about how much they love some trashy reality show and they feel guilty for watching it but it's just so amazing to watch these crazy people or they just can't help but wonder what's going to happen or it's just nice to have something mindless on to unwind at the end of the day. the networks don't care why you watch it and whether you love or detest the people on it; if you're watching it, they'll make more.

part of it, i think, is that i know a little bit more about "how the sausage is made," so to speak. sure, everyone says they know it's all fake anyway, but having worked around that industry enough (thankfully never actually on a reality show), the tricks and even the basic craft is a little more transparent to me. i can hear when the audio has been edited, i know that a cutaway from an interview shot is so that they can take out part of what they're saying. it's too easy to imagine the question the producer asked that lead to their on-camera answer. or, on the worse shows, to know that an awkward glance or an icy glare likely wasn't even happening at that event, but was cut in from an earlier, unrelated reaction. the list goes on.

that being said, i'm really hooked on pawn stars, one of the many (many!) offspring of the surprising success of antiques roadshow. the history channel seems to have begun running low on world war 2 topics and people with ph.ds talking about aliens in the bible and are now filling their time slots with either guys dealing with old junk or rednecks in the forest or swamps or wherever.

i started catching bits of pawn stars when i'd come home late and watch the daily show over dinner and it would be on after my recording had ended and soon got hooked. it's three generations of guys running a pawn shop in las vegas and dang, i love it all: seeing the different things come in, finding out how much they're worth (usually much less than the people think, occasionally more), and see how they can deduce all of this. it's gotten to the point where i watch it like we used to do with 24, namely me yelling at the tv about how much they're actually going to get for it, when someone's going to take it and when they're completely deluded. i've been known to lose whole saturday mornings to this show. and, after so many busy semesters, i don't feel the least bit bad about that.
the next time i'm in vegas, i'll probably have to go check out the pawn shop.

i still think swamp people is a really stupid show.