La Vida Loca

I’ve been having quite the glamorous week.

Monday was a dream. I biked to work along the lakeshore path (a 40-minute ride, the same as taking the subway, except lovely and breezy and beautiful) and smiled at the sun shimmering over Lake Michigan. This is gonna be a good day, I thought.

Now, I’m not one for cliché’s, but the power of positive thinking is crazy real.

The work day on Monday was productive in that way that makes you think, “Hot damn I’m good at my job! And then, at 4:30 pm, I had an email exchange with my lovely boss that made me squeal like a sorority girl.

Lovely boss: Are you free tonight?
Me: Possibly. What’s up?
Lovely boss: Free tickets to Madonna, compliments of INSERT THE NAME OF GIANT COMPANY HERE.
Me: (out loud, with girly emphasis) SQUUUUEAL!!!

Working in marketing has its perks. Among them: freebies.

Madonna and I go way back. As a girl, she was my basis for fashion. As a teen, my friends Bryan, Lindsey, and I had entire choreographed dances to Express Yourself, Like a Prayer, and Vogue. The new CD, Confessions on a Dance Floor is frequently buzzing in my ears as I trot along during my morning run. My favorite songs on the new album are Like it or Not (“like it or not/This is who I am/You can love me or leave me/’cuz I’m never gonna stop”) and Hung Up.

The concert was amazing. She came out of a giant disco ball. She thrust her loins into the face of some lucky little 10-year old boy in the first row. She sang from a cross wearing a crown of thorns. She rode a thrashing man like a horse. She krumped. She wore a cape that said Dancing Queen on the back and had glowing neon lights on the interior. There was roller-skating, acrobatics, and of course, the music.

It was amazing. Oh, and did I mention where I sat? Row number 6. Up close and personal.

Tuesday and Wednesday were lovely days filled with more bike rides to work and dampened only by a nasty migraine that took a while to sleep off Tuesday evening.

Thursday I conducted a model shoot for the ad campaign I am working to re-brand at work. One of our male models cancelled and I scheduled his replacement, which also cancelled mere hours before the shoot. I sweet-talked the tattooed and handsome photographer’s assistant into modeling and I took over some of his duties. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered from my college photography and studio classes. It was a great day at work and reminded me that I really do love my job sometimes.

Shaun’s sister stayed with us last night, although by the time she arrived I was so pooped from the events of the day that I was asleep when she arrived. Hopefully we will hang out this morning—I get to go to work late today since I was in at 7 am to set up for yesterday’s shoot.

This weekend I’ve got to work on my most recent short story. I turn it into my writers group on Wednesday and it is in terrible shape. I’ve been so crazed lately that my writing has been rushed and frantic. I did a critical read over what I have thus far and it moves at the speed of light. I need to slow. it. down.

Also this weekend, Shaun’s parents are in town to visit. We are going on the architectural boat tour. I’ve gone on this tour before with my grandparents and LOVED it. It is really nice just to act like a tourist in your own city sometimes. And the boat tour is so relaxing—it’s nothing but soaking up the sun, basking in the cool lake breeze, and gazing up at the beautiful Wright’s, Sullivan’s, and Mies van der Rohe’s. I can’t wait!
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How has your week been?

::Random Tangent::

While I will always have a place in my heart for Madonna, I feel weird writing about only the good, because there are many destructive cultural contridictions in her performances and her use of celebrity. My favorite articulations of these are found in the bell hooks essay, Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister. if you have yet to read bell hooks, this is a great intorduction to a fantastic cultural critic.

URGENT! Male Model Needed!

This is a total stab in the dark, but what the heck.

I am coordinating a photo shoot to re-brand one of my museum’s advertising campaigns. We are a not-for-profit and have been seeking volunteer models to grace us with their pretty faces. A post was placed on Craig’s list to solicit these models and a number of gorgeous people, many who model professionally and were just looking for a way to support the arts, responded to the ad. A group of five of the most fabulous and fitting male and female models were selected.

The trouble is that one of our male models cancelled. I found a replacement. And now the replacement has cancelled at the last minute. I have until 8:30 am tomorrow (the shoot is from 8:30 am – noon) to discover a beautiful male model.

This male model is preferably African American, Latino, or Asian. He is between the ages of 21-35. He is willing to model pro-bono for the amazing exposure that being connected to a world renown institution will bring. He is eager to support the arts by contributing 4 hours of his time and his comfort behind the lens. Are you or do you know this male model?

Any interested candidates should visit the following link to my most recent Craig’s list posting at http://chicago.craigslist.org/tlg/174099733.html. Candidates should submit photos of themselves and a phone number where they can be reached by 8 am tomorrow morning.

Man, I really like my job sometimes. ::smile::
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First: Do you know anyone? Second: What did you do at work today?

Sunday Munch
This morning is damp and gray, which is so absolutely welcome after yesterday’s sunny scorcher. Since we don’t have air conditioning, I really relish even the slightest temperature drop in the summer: shady, breezy days allow me to do some cooking, which on a leisurely Sunday midmorning, is one of my favorite things to do. Plus, cooking means we get to eat something other than cold salads, chilled cucumber yogurt soup, and veggies with hummus. So with a careless breeze dancing through our wide-open windows, I’ve been making delicious things in the kitchen this morning.

My approach to cooking usually starts with a real recipe and evolves based on what we actually have in our cupboards, how closely I’ve read the recipe, and what music is playing. Today we had everything we needed (give or take), I had already read over the recipe once (it was from this month’s issue of Eating Well), and listening to our very talented neighbor compose a driving rock ballad on the piano.

Here is what I made:

Pickled Eggs
These eggs are evil looking, pungent, and fabulously sinister. If I had a beaker like mad scientists use in their laboratory, I would put these eggs in it to store them in the fridge to make unsuspecting people think that I’ve got a bloody beaker full of eye-balls and innards. All pranks aside, this dish makes the reeking farts you get from hardboiled eggs worth the while. But of course, I’m a lady. I don’t ever fart. I fluff. I also really know how to make mouths water, don’t I? Ha!

You need:
1 can of beets
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
4 whole cloves
1 medium onion, sliced into cute little rings
6 large eggs

1.) Dig out a saucepan. Drain the beet juice into it and save the actual beets for another recipe, another day. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, and cloves to the pan. If you have bay leaves, go for it and add a few of those too. Boil that shiznit over medium-high heat to dissolve all the graduals of sugar and salt. This should happens in ten minutes or so and when it does, pour the red, briny mixture in a big ‘ole bowl and stir in your onions. Set it aside to cool for an hour.

2.) Hard boil your eggs. Run cold water over them and let them cool before peeling the little shells off.

3.) Remove the onions from the red, briny mixture and put them on a nearby plate. Plop your naked little hardboiled eggs into the brine and put the onions on top of them. The onions will hold the eggs down to ensure they get a good soak.

4.) Put this pretty bowl of eggs, brine, and onions in the fridge for 24 hours and tomorrow you’ll have eggs that are pickled and red and pretty on the outside. Eat them with some pita bread and the onions for lunch. Just don’t forget to pack gas-ex and breath mints too.

Basil-Cinnamon Peaches
These peaches will make your kitchen smell like you actually know what you are doing. The aroma is so good, you will want to cook these before you have company over and they will leave thinking, “Wow! What a waft of peachy-goodness that home had!” Making people’s sniffs a pleasant experience is always a kind gesture, especially after all those hardboiled eggs you’ve been eating. Plus, these buggers taste pretty good over vanilla ice cream or plain yogurt with granola on top.

What you need:
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup sugar
3 strips of lemon zest (thick strips: use your veggie peeler, not your zester)
1 tablespoon
1 cinnamon stick (Friendly tip: buy the bags of cinnamon sticks in the Mexican aisle instead of buying the little jars from the spice aisle. The Mexican kind are bigger, you get more of them, and they are only $2 as opposed to the white-bread $6 versions).
3 ripe, firm peaches, halved and pitted
1/2 cup spankin’ fresh basil
Optional: a 2-inch piece of fresh ginger left over from a stir-fry that might go bad if you don’t use it soon.

1.) Dig out another sauce pan and dump in the water, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, cinnamon stick, and skinned ginger chunk. Simmer this good until the sugar is dissolved.

2.) Add the peach halves, turning them occasionally until they are tender little vittles of love. This will take about 20 minutes, so if you want to wash some of the dishes from the egg recipe, feel free. When the peaches are tender, use a slotted spoon to fish them out and put them on a plate.

3.) Return the liquid to a boil and reduce that shiznit to a gooey 3/4 cup. Remove from heat, stir in that basil, and let it cool to room temperature.

4.) While both of these things cool for about 40 minutes go read a book or do those damn egg dishes, will ya?

5.) When everything is cool, slip off the peach skins and pour the liquid over them. Let this chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours before noshing.

Happy eating!
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What are your favorite summertime munches?

::Random Tangent::
On a personal note, life is going fantastically well, although Shaun put it best yesterday when he said that this summer was starting to feel like a “tedious epilogue.” Now that we know we are moving to Scotland this September, it is really hard to keep going to work and sit through status meetings about FY07 with a straight face. (I don’t want to give any official notice of my departure until August 1—my last day will be August 31.)

Plus, conversations with my husband keep steering towards plans, logistics, and to-do lists. It will be nice to simply talk about books and art and movies and friends and the news and just regular-people stuff again. A stirred-up sense of giddiness has imbued itself into our interactions: some days it feels like my face hurts at the end of the day from smiling too much. Also, we’ve has a number of guests stay with us these past few weeks (with more to come), so the inherent fun of that only adds to the exhaustion of caused by slap-happiness.

What I need is a tranquilizer and a dark, quiet room. My mind is too alive, causing my writing to be rushed, frantic: the story I hand in to my writer’s workshop next session reflects the frazzled, frizzy state I’m in. I need more midmornings like this one: empty and cool with only my cooking to keep me company.

How do you find zen?

Big Brother’s New Toy

I’m not sure if the “footprints” section of Xanga is new or not, but I certainly only just noticed it this week. For those of you who are not hip to the “footprints” function, it is basically a Big Brother-type gismo that appears for the Xanga account-holder on the left-hand side of your Xanga page. I do not think it appears for the public at large. The footprints gismo allows the Xanga author who holds the account to see who is looking at their site. In a very exacting way, it lists where people are checking from, the time they went on your site, and how they got to your site.

People can access Xanga sites three ways:

1.) Readers can go straight to your blog by typing in your Xanga web address (in my case www.xanga.com/chicagoartgirl23).

2.) Fellow Xanga authors can get to your blog through their blog (this is the case with subscriptions and blog rings and all that geekdom that is so fun).

3.) An internet user can stumble onto a blog while searching for a phrase/word that the Xanga author has presumably written in their blog.

Most people looking at my site are either fellow Xanga peeps or friends and family who live far from me and who I share my blog with to keep in touch: a nice, friendly readership.

However, some people who find themselves on my blog stumble upon it from searching phrases that may (and in many cases may NOT) appear in my blog entries. For example, in the dank and musty hours of last Thursday night, a heavy-breathing Texan found themselves scouring Yahoo for the phrase: “sexxy teens eating out other girls.” Just imagine how disappointed they were to click on the #2 Yahoo listing (my Xanga site) for that search and find themselves in the midst of a tame blog entry about a regular old camp trip with my pals. Sure my friends and I called our trip “sexy camping” as a joke, but only because camping has got to be the least sexiest thing a person can do. Unless they’ve got some freak fetish for pit toilets and bug spray, that is.

Below, I’ve included a list horrifying/funny phrases that, according to “footprints,” weirdo’s typed into search engines and had my blog pop up as a result. The really nutty thing is, that this blog entry will undoubtedly strengthen the likelihood of my blog being the result of some pimply Texan with keyboard lust finding my blog (seriously—all the horn-dog phrases come from users in Texas). These are listed chronologically, starting from 9 days ago today.

1. rabbits thumping in the night
2. can inner ear infection go unseen by doctor
3. thumping noise in my eardrum
4. nick sutt
5. “pool water” belch
6. masterbation “campfire”
7. sexxy teens eating out other girls
8. food dine ass teens

Who is Nick Sutt? What on earth is a masturbation campfire? What are food dine ass teens? And most importantly, what on earth is wrong with people? I mean, we’ve all had a pool water belch here and there and certainly we sometimes wonder if ear infections can go unseen by the doctor, but where are these rabbits and why do they thump in the night?

Humans are strange animals, ladies and gents, even when they are in the zoo, with big brother watching. And Big Brother, the jerk that he is, is pointing, laughing, and taking detailed, sinister notes.
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How did you find this blog?

I drafted an email to send to friends and family, but I can’t send it until Shaun and I call our moms.

For Shaun’s phone call to his mom, we’ve prepared a list of calming talking points: she is a loveable, albeit shell-shocked bundle of nerves. My mom is an adventurer herself (she ships off to India in a week for a month of teaching English in Mumbai), so my only challenge with her is actually calling at a time when she is home to answer the phone.

But I am dying to send this email. It is below for your reading enjoyment. Good lord this has been one helluva month.

From Freaks, With Love

Extraordinary Ladies, Esteemed Gentlemen, and Every Loved One in Between:

You can call me a tease and you can call me a flake: for what I’m about to tell you, I’ll own up to either.

Shaun and I don’t mean to toy with your emotions, but just imagine how we felt when we got the incredible news that a spot for Shaun opened up the crazy-selective Masters in Creative Writing program at University of Glasgow in Scotland. Those of you who have been on this journey with us for a while know that this program has been the apple of Shaun’s eye for two years now. However, after discovering that writers the world over were competing for the program’s 15 spots, we were resigned to the unlikelihood of Shaun being granted a spot; despite the brilliance of our young protagonist, the competition out there is FIERCE. Well, low and behold, just DAYS after we decided to have a happy trek out to New Mexico, Shaun was informed of his acceptance into Glasgow University.

Not that New Mexico isn’t fabulous, but does it top ten months in Europe with Shaun studying in one of the world’s most renown writing programs? Ummm…no. This is undoubtedly an upgrade.

So, this is the last freakish notice that we are giving. Our apologies for jumping the gun, but this news was completely unexpected and by George if we didn’t shift gears I’d say we were in need of lobotomies.

University of Glasgow’s term begins in October. Shaun’s program is a ten-month masters program, so we’ll be back in the states June 2007. I will not be eligible to work in Scotland (not in any documented capacity, anyhow), so I will be on the lookout for any interesting internship/volunteer opportunities that strike my fancy; the city is bustling with culture and history, so I’m sure that I’ll happen upon something interesting to keep me occupied. The university has been so kind as to arrange for our housing and we move in on September 15.

So, if you are planning on a Chicago visit, please pop by anytime before September 1. September 1—15 we will be in Michigan to visit family, store our stuff in Grandma Render’s storage house, and bask in the last rays of summer before heading off to one of the world’s most cloudy, rainy places.

For those of you who are interested in checking out our Scottish digs, go to: http://www.gla.ac.uk/.

We love you all and apologize for being such skittish freaks.

Always,

Truly and Shaun

I spruced up my site to make it feel more like summertime. Dig my new profile pic? It is a photograph with China marker drawing by Mary Beth Edelson called Woman Rising/Spirit, 1973. According to Olga M. Viso in her essay The Memory of History in my favoriet art book, MENDIETA (a collection of artist Ana Mendieta’s work and influences), this work of art makes “a political statement that says I am, and I am large, and I am my body, and I am not going away.” Beautiful, eh?

In other news, you might remember from my last entry that we were contemplating a move. In April, my husband interviewed well for a dream job in NYC. He applied to a number of grad schools and was faced with both some disheartening rejection and happy acceptance. And finally, enough information was available to us this week to make a decision. I had the pleasure of sending a version of the email below to the bulk of my address book. Read on, if you are curious.

Love Letter

Howdy friends!

My apologies for the mass email, but I’m thinking that it may be the best way to go with this sort of announcement. I hope to connect with you all individually soon.

As most of you know, Shaun-san has been hard at work these past few years seeing that his dream of carving some time out in life to take a deep dive into the study of creative writing comes to fruition. My husband has worked his tail off to get his resume in ship-shape for this (I’ll brag for him, since I suspect that he would rather die than do it himself): moonlighting as an editor, authoring Cliff Notes, reviewing comics, and submitting his fiction manuscripts to editors everywhere (make sure to check out his graphic novella, “Renewal,” published in the anthology “Hope: New Orleans,” hitting an amazon.com near you this August). We’ve scrimped, we’ve saved, and oh-my-lord did we WAIT. And now, it is my great pleasure to announce: starting August 21, Shaun will be attending New Mexico Highlands University this fall to get his MA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing.

While getting his MA, Shaun has been hired to work in the college writing center for the first year and he has been granted an assistant professorship for his second year. Aside from emerging from this little educational rendezvous as a better writer, an MA is necessary to be competitive when applying for good editorial positions. And what better day job for our dear protagonist to have than as an editor-in-chief of some hot literary magazine? ::smile::

As for me, I’m along for the fun ride, but I also get a kick out of employment situations where I am helping to cultivate the cultural, educational, and recreational services in communities. Thanks to my current position, I am experienced (and damn good at) developing and implementing cultural programming, marketing, and public relations. I’d flourish in a museum, college, art gallery, theater company, tourism office, cultural center, or a mayor’s office of special events. I’d also consider employment at an advertising firm or an events planning company, but my heart truly sings when I am serving communities rather than clients. I have a degree in Writing for Television, but I doubt anyone is hiring a screenwriter—but hey, it never hurts to throw that info out there. ::smile:: I’ll be scouring New Mexico, Santa Fe, and Taos for such a position soon, but any contacts/ideas/leads that anyone might have are greatly appreciated.

If you are curious, New Mexico Highlands University (at: http://www.nmhu.edu/) is in the snuggly little town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, which is about 40 minutes outside of Santa Fe and Taos (and not to be confused with the ever-more popular Las Vegas, Nevada). There are two national forests within minutes of downtown. The western portion of the county contains the peaks of the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The eastern portion contains broad, flat plains. The middle contains the Las Vegas Plateau. Our new neighbors might be Mexican or Native American, the two largest ethnic groups in the county, although there are two universities in the town, creating a large international population as well. According to the chamber of commerce website, there are lots of fun, cultural things to do, just like in any proper college town. See how much you want to come visit us?

Thanks for your time, ladies and gents. But more importantly, thanks for your support, your well wishes, and your solidarity. You keep us grounded and let us know that we have a home no matter where we are in the world. And we’ll always feel the deepest gratitude for that.

Lots of love,

Truly and Shaun

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So now I pose the question to you, my dear Xanga peeps: Any ideas/contacts/leads in NM?

Changeling
Soon we’ll be discovering new favorite’s once again: new favorite grocery store, new favorite bakery, new favorite evening walking route, new favorite park, new favorite bike path, new favorite museum gallery, new favorite place to eat, new favorite movie theater, new favorite bar, new favorite newspaper, new favorite used bookstore…you get the point.

Details are non-existent at this point, so I won’t get into any specifics quite yet. But when my lovely partner broke the news to his sister, who was visiting us this week, I’ve never been prouder of him. It’s his attitude that is so damn sexy. With a warm smile, he said something like, “this year I’ve just been trying to create as many options for my life as possible. There were many possibilities before. And now there are a few real options.”

And all of them deserve a toast.

We moved to Chicago a week before we got married in January of 2002. Shaun had just graduated from college that December. I was a 19-year-old college sophomore, transferring to Columbia College. Neither of us had job. We didn’t really know a soul. We found a place to live in a day. Most importantly, we were game for an adventure. And that is why we survived. We both found jobs. I graduated from college on time, and went on to find a great job at my favorite museum.

We adore Chicago but there is more adventure to be had. When I imagine our goals, I think of a yellow dog running free in a field. Shaun and I are chasing after her, laughing, happy. If we live to be old, we’ll die sometime around 2080. Until then, I’d like to romp around this world with the person that I love and that slobbering, playful pup.
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Have you ever been to New Mexico? How about Scotland? Ever lived in NCY? If so, what did you think?

::Random Tangent::
Although all the excitement of this week cheered me up, there is still a goddamned rabbit thumping around in my ears! I went to work Wednesday–Friday, but it certainly was a challenge to grin and bear it with my eardrum jack-hammering away every couple of minutes. Ear infections are the PITS!

Also, for anyone 21+ in the Chicagoland area who is looking for something fun tonight, I want to encourage you to go to a benift for my favorite Chicago writing center, 826CHI. They are having a fun, fake-me-out prom tonight. $20 in advance ($30 at the door) and that includes all the bad music, spiked punch, and beer that you can handle for the evening. Thrift store prom attire is encouraged. I’m going to look tragic in a 1970′s floor-length dress and a cottonball crammed in my ear. So come out and have a riot for a good cause!

Tickets at: http://www.826chi.org/prom.html

YUCK!

Late last night and early this morning, I could feel a rabbit thumping his big ‘ole foot in my right ear drum every fifteen minutes or so. The aftermath of the thumping left a seeping ache to entertain me before the next fit of thumps came. This morning I tried to get ready for work but by the time I got out the door at 8:10 am, I was feeling puke-ish and dizzy, with the added bonus of a full-blown headache caused by the rabbit in my ear! First my gross-out nausea yesterday and now this rabbit?!? It was time for a doctor appointment.

I like my doctor. She is a blond, WASP-ey looking woman named Dr. Anne Frank. And although I appreciate the irony, that is not entirely why I like her. I like her because when I tell her things like, “There is a rabbit in my ear and he is making me nauseous,” she doesn’t bust out the straight jacket.

It turns out that my sudden bout of motion sickness on the train yesterday was caused by an ear canal infection. That’s right: an infection known for being common among infants. Didn’t I tell you all? I’m an infant! I’m a super smart, blog keeping infant. Okay, I give. I’m a woman-type person and I’ve got this baby-style ear infection because apparently grown-ups can get those from excessive swimming, airplane riding, or prolonged exposure to damp environments. I’m guessing I got mine from airplane travel, since I’ve spent a number of recent weekends flying the friendly skies and I do not consider my apartment to be particularly damp. I only wish I were swimming to excess.

Anyhow, these ear infections can really mess with you. My equilibrium is out of whack and I’m feeling nauseous because of it. The rabbit is trapped fluid.

GROSS!

I got some eardrops to flush the bugger out and some nose spray that is going to do something—I don’t know what. I guess try to attack the liquid rabbit from every angle? Who knows. All I know is I’ve got to get back to work tomorrow. I feel like such a scummy bum! I know that most of my anxiety stems from the fact that before my current position, I never had a job where I was allowed sick days so I always usually would go to work half dead, unless someone sent me home. So now that I do have a job that is okay with me not coming in if a rabbit is trapped inside my skull, I still can’t quite shake the guilt that comes with playing hooky. Although hooky would be a lot more fun without the bunny.

The infection should be mostly flushed by the morning, so I guess I don’t have to worry about my stupid guilt for much longer. All I have to do is keep taking the meds for 7 days to make sure that rascally rabbit is good and dead.

That’s all folks.
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How do you handle being sick?

Today

I tried to go to work this morning. I got up, my stomach churning, my mouth mealy. I made coffee. I used product in my hair. I thought about ironing my clothes.

I left on time. I caught the bus. An old man asked me, “why the long face?” I thought about smiling at him.

I transferred to the red line. I nabbed a seat. I read a short story. I began to feel hot. I took off my coat. My face was covered in searing pinpricks. I put my head between my legs. I tasted bile in my throat. I thought about passing out.

I passed out. I dry-heaved awake. I got off at Fullerton. My sweat dried and I shivered. I thought about calling in sick. I reviewed my mental “to-do” list and determined it possible. I walked feebly down the stairs and crossed over to the northbound tracks.

I went home. Bought an orange juice at Dunkin’ Doughnuts. I had to charge it. I changed out of my wet clothes. Did I mention it was raining? I slept on my couch through the movie Garden State.

It’s afternoon now. My body aches for no good reason and I might have to admit to having the flu. Over mugs of green tea, I made revisions to my short story. If I am not still worshiping the porcelain gods on Wednesday, I will be turning this story in to my writers group.

I am really proud of my story. I’ve been working on this sucker for a good three months now: I’m a slow, part-time writer. I revise a lot. I wish I could just barf up a story in one good draft, but I’m not like that. When I write fiction it feels like driving at night with no headlights. But I like the discovery. I like the challenge. And I like taking my time.

I’ve been having less success in my blogging lately. I’m in a period of limbo right now (those of you who know me know why) and it would be unwise of me to blog about my messy, fun life at the moment. In the next few weeks, I will be able to turn inside out once again on me blog, which for some inexplicable reason, I enjoy. Untill then, it looks like more hum-drum posts like this one.
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How are you today?

Something Good

Every time I hear the music segment on NPR’s 8:48 program, the host either features a band that is already one of my favorites (recently Morrissey and The Flaming Lips) or a band that I have never heard of before and love instantaneously (recently Antony and the Johnston’s and Josh Ritter).

Immediately after hearing Josh Ritter’s music on the program, I was splurging on his album, The Animal Years on iTunes and uploading it to my pod. So beautiful is this album that while listening to it on the crumby subway ride to work, I was transported to another, better place. Instead of standing cheek-to cheek with a Sterno-reeking homeless man, I was lounging barefoot, braless, and comfortable at a grassy summertime lawn concert, laughing with a group of my best friends. I was drifting aimlessly on an inner tube in the lake at my family cottage, minnows nibbling at my toes, a spine-split paperback shading my face.

The language on The Animal Years is thick with story and imagery. The music does not stray from the organic; nothing is over-produced or slick about the tracks. It is real. It is rust and dirt and terrible casseroles; it is a kind of home, nostalgic and comfortable with a hint of wist. On a number of the songs, Ritter weaves unexpected metaphors about wolves into the lyrics, a touch that forces the listener to buck up, to pay attention, to engage; like any work of truly good art, these songs refuse to be digested too easily.
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What have you been listening to lately?

::Random Tangent::
Wolfin is something else that is good. It is a quarterly DVD of unseen short films that, for the most part, are engrossing and very cool.