Happy Holidays

Right now I am eating a delicious slice of the pumpkin cheesecake I made to celebrate my own Thanksgiving. One of my best Thanksgivings was spent in Cedar City, and I actually had to work. But almost no one called Convergys that day, and so we played games like I Have Never and threw bouncy balls around. And then I went back to my apartment and all my roommates were gone (except for Adrian), and I drank a bottle of Meier's sparkling grace juice and watched The Rules of Attraction. I was so energized afterward (sugar rush!) that I cruised Main Street listening to Christmas songs on the radio. All in all, it was a pretty good day. This Thanksgiving was not exactly like that. It was very low-key but more lonely. I missed all my friends and family.

I did make a whole feast for myself. Besides the pumpkin cheesecake, I also made homemade cranberry sauce which is my specialty--but it's also ridiculously easy. A monkey could make it. I also made a spinach pancetta strata (which is like Italian stuffing), spinach artichoke dip, and Brussels sprouts. The Brussels sprouts were actually not half-bad even though I burned my hand on the pan--an ibuprofen and a few glasses of wine helped ease the pain tremendously. I also bought a rotisserie chicken which I didn't even touch until yesterday. The wine, Brussels sprouts, dip, and cranberry sauce are gone. The cheesecake is disappearing at an alarming, yet delicious, rate. So all I have left is the strata and a couple of chicken legs.

I spent the day watching movies. Well, first I watched all ten Thanksgiving episodes from Friends on the WB's website. That was delightful. I also watched a couple of The West Wing's Thanksgiving episodes. Again, delightful. And then Netflix screwed up my movies, and instead of sending me Will & Grace and Were the World Mine, they sent me A Streetcar Named Desire and Dark City. I sort of stopped paying attention towards the end of Streetcar so I'm not entirely sure what happened. What I do know is that Marlon Brando exudes sexuality. So damn hot. Whew. Dark City is an interesting and bizarre, stylistic and dark science-fiction picture starring Rufus Sewell who's very pretty--especially ten years ago. It reminded me a lot of Sin City and now I very much want to see that movie again. On Friday afternoon, I made my way all the the way down to Capitol Hill to see An Education which was very good. It was very interesting and not at all what I had expected based on the trailer. So I had to adjust my expectations, but I think it was all for the better. The screenplay's by Nick Hornby based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, and it's set in England in the early '60s right before The Beatles took over and shook things up. It's a coming-of-age story of Jenny played perfectly by Carey Mulligan. I didn't make the connection myself, but she's being compared to Audrey Hepburn--the sunglasses help enormously--yet Carey Mulligan is effortless and graceful and glowing so the comparison is apt. Peter Sarsgaard who has always creeped me out, was only mildly creepy, but then his character is a charmer, so I guess it's very good acting. Here's a part of Roger Ebert's review and it doesn't contain any real spoilers:
"So young women, let this movie offer useful advice. When a man seems too good to be true, he probably isn't -- good, or true. We all make mistakes when we're growing up. Sometimes we learn from them. If we're lucky, we can even learn during them. And you must certainly see Paris. Do not count on meeting the aunt."
By the way, I also loved the last line of the movie. All in all, it was a good film and worth checking out.

There were also a couple of trailers for movies I want to see. I love the way that the way trailers present movies change through the years. A few years ago trailers seemed to give away the whole movie. Sometimes the two-and-a-half minute trailer is better than the movie itself. But I think we're moving away from that a little bit, based on these two trailers anyway. I have no idea what either of them is about, but I desperately want to see them. The first is the directorial debut of Tom Ford's film A Single Man and it's garnered a lot of critical buzz. The second is Nine and all I know is that it's a musical from the same director of Chicago. By the way, I finally bought Chicago on sale at the grocery store last week, and I also watched that on Thanksgiving. I love Chicago! Here are the trailers:



And today I started working on some lists. I finished my wish list on amazon and my holiday/winter playlist. Some of my favorites include Allison Crowe's cover of "River," The Killers' "A Great Big Sled," and Tori Amos' versions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "Little Drummer Boy." I also love "How Long" by Martha Wainwright which screams Christmas to me with the "starlight gleaming" and the melancholy atmosphere; it would be the perfect song for a Christmas scene in Brokeback Mountain. (Is there a Christmas scene in that movie? It's been a while since I've seen it.) I also queued all my holiday movies on Netflix for this month. Based mostly on TBTL's recommendations from last year I will be watching The Shop Around the Corner, Die Hard, Love Actually (it's a tradition!), Fanny and Alexander, the original Miracle on 34th Street, Meet Me in St. Louis, the 1984 A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, and The Dead which is based on a James Joyce story and is actually set during the Epiphany. It's not a very traditional list, but I'm kind of going for a more alternative Christmas this year, but if I happen to catch It's A Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, or The Muppet Christmas Carol on TV then so much the better. What are your favorite Christmas movies?

I can't wait to go home. I have three more weeks of classes and finals, but I'm not too stressed out. I only have three assignments and one final, and none of them should be too difficult. This break has also been nice and long. I only got one extra day off, but I can't believe it's only Saturday. I still have Sunday to relax and lounge around. Delightful! Well, the Christmas season has begun in earnest. I guess it's time to start my Christmas shopping. Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.

Music For Your Weekend

I'm awake in the wee hours of Friday morning, but it's the weekend nonetheless, especially for me since I don't have classes on Friday. However, I have a major group project that I will be working on tomorrow, actually later today, and the rest of the weekend. Boo. But forgetting about that for a moment, I am patently ripping off TBTL's segment "Music for Your Weekend" wherein they showcase new-ish songs every Friday for the listener's weekend listening pleasure. My selections aren't new songs per se except to me and perhaps you as well. Anyway, these are three songs that I've been listening to a lot this week, and if you happen to be bored with all the music currently on your iPod (or Zune, Dain), you might take a gander at one of these. Enjoy!

The Other Other Wainwright
My first song is by Martha Wainwright, daughter of Loudon and sister of Rufus, and the song is "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole." As you can probably tell, the lyrics are explicit. In contrast to her brother's polished, seductive voice and lush arrangements, Martha strips down the music to some sparse guitar and her voice is raw in its crooning not entirely unlike Liz Phair. And the song reminds me a little bit, oddly, of Avril's "I'm With You" only better. The song can be found on the EP of the same title or Martha's eponymous album.


Hey Seattle
I heard about local Seattle band Hey Marseilles on TBTL and bought their album To Travels and Trunks on iTunes over the summer, but only lately have I gotten into the record. The band has seven members and even more instruments including a mandolin and accordion giving it a European flavor hence their name. A few of the tracks are purely instrumental, but the songs with lyrics are artfully crafted and sincere. Here is their most popular number "Rio" which has excellent lines like "There are always Brazilian boys to discover" and "Drink till the morning becomes yesterday." And who doesn't love a song with clapping?


Reading Camus
This is actually off of a recommendation by Regina Spektor from some radio show she was on. It's called "I Don't Want to Get Over You" by the Magnetic Fields from 69 Love Songs. (Dirty!) It's a short song that I just love; a self-aware number about the exquisite agony (and pleasure) that comes after love when you're not quite ready to let go. My favorite lines are "I could . . . smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth / Like I was 17 that would be a scream."


Speaking of Regina...
Here's a bonus song. Her latest album Far came out this summer, and as I've already mentioned it is my favorite yet, and I've been listening to it incessantly. Working with five different produces has the odd effect of making it her most cohesive album to date, and there's not a song on it I don't like. With so many excellent songs to choose from--and really you should check out the whole record--I've chosen the first track "The Calculation" which points out that one can't calculate life or love, which is fitting in regards to my last post.

Have a marvelous weekend!

21 Things I Want in a Lover

Every now and then one comes to a realization of one of life's great truths as if there were such things. Raised in a culture that celebrates romantic love and fed on literature that worships soul mates, we believe that our perfect match is out there, and it's just a matter of meeting that person. Perhaps, that is true, but I find it highly unlikely, and it is even more unlikely that one will ever meet that person if, in fact, he does exist. Still, it's a highly romantic notion, and so we indulge it--if we could just find him! then we will be complete. That is the premise of the beautiful song "Origin of Love," though I believe the primary human condition is aloneness (not to be confused with loneliness), but perhaps that's just the solipsist in me. I also like that we believe that true love triumphs over all even though love of all sorts--passionate, familial--is as often destructive as not. Is there any proof that love is inherently good? Harold Bloom happily reminds us that the Macbeths are the happiest married couple in all of Shakespeare. Speaking of marriage, I've always found it to be a business arrangement, first and foremost. It's the primary reason I think that gay marriage hasn't been widely granted. It's not because the general public can't stomach the thought of two men or two women together--though that may be part of the case--or even religious--whatever the rhetoric--but because marriage is a sign of power with its various rights and privileges (tax breaks, inheritance, visitation rights, etc.). It's the same reason that slaves couldn't get married either. A sort of Foucauldian power struggle if you will. On a side note, there's a scene in Eyes Wide Shut where a man is talking to Nicole Kidman and he tells her something to the effect that the only reason women got married back in the day was so that they could then sleep with whomever they wanted. I've always liked that notion that marriage is a business arrangement separate from love affairs. But I digress. In one of my favorite songs by Alanis Morissette, she lists the twenty-one things she wants in a lover--not necessarily needs but the qualities that she prefers. I've been thinking about my own list, and it starts with a variation of the desert island question. Dr. P once remarked that he married his wife in part because she loved the film Raising Arizona, and that if she hadn't the relationship would have ended. So I've started with the tastes I would want to share when it came to books, movies, music, etc. The rules are you only get to choose one item from each genre where compatibility is essential though it may differ from your personal favorite or desert island choice. Again, this perfect person probably doesn't exist, but isn't it pretty to think so?

NOVEL I've chosen novel over book because I like the idea of a work of fiction representing a facet of a person. My novel would be To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. One of my favorite novels, this stream-of-consciousness work perfectly captures the minutiae of daily life making it one of the seminal modernist novels.

FILM I'm a film buff, and I think that the films one has in one's personal collection says a great deal about his character. The film I've chosen, naturally, is The Hours directed by Stephen Daldry. A drama centered on characters instead of plot, it has so many things that I love: Meryl Streep, Virginia Woolf, literature, life, loss, and the transcendental moments that change our lives.

PLAY | MUSICAL Ideally, this would be based on a live staged production, but we no longer live in an age of ideals, at least not the Wildean one. So this may be a musical or play in any format you like: live, the book, a film version, or the soundtrack. Mine would be the play Angels in America written by visionary Tony Kushner and the brilliant miniseries directed by Mike Nichols. In the best of all possible worlds, Angels would be required American reading because it has everything in it: sex, religion, politics, and America.

ALBUM I haven't entirely decided on the rules here. Should best of collections or soundtracks be allowed? Maybe but it should be a single disc. I would choose Little Earthquakes Extended by Tori Amos. Earthquakes is Tori's seminal album. It remains her most accessible and her best. The extended edition includes four B-sides: "Upside Down," "Flying Dutchman." "Take to the Sky," and "Sweet Dreams." In real-life we may make mixed CDs of our favorite songs and artists, but that's not part of this game. Anyway, Earthquakes was a transformative album for me, and there's nary a song on it that I don't like.

TELEVISION "TV knows everything." Also, it's our true national pastime. I love television, and I don't think I could be with a person who didn't. Here you have to choose an entire television series. I have at least five, but the one that matters the most is The West Wing even though I haven't yet seen the final season. Still, the first four seasons alone are some of the best TV ever seen on network television. Yes, it's political porn, but that's part of why it's so good. What I love the most about this series is the characters--what I've learned is that what matters most to me in any novel, film, series is the characters--especially the women: C.J. Cregg, Donna Moss, Abigail Bartlet, and Amy Gardner. The men are pretty great too. Furthermore, the writing is excellent, the drama is earnest, and it's hysterically funny--more so than many sitcoms. Any show that can make jokes out of syllogisms and dangling modifiers gets instant respect from me.

POETRY I just added this category, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I think we should allow selected and completed works as well as books published by the poet, but anthologies are too easy. I can't decided what mine would be. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot would be my desert island choice, but I'm not sure if that's the criterion I want to select. Perhaps I would choose the extant handful of Emily Bronte's poems. Or the poems of Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, or Octavio Paz. Obviously, I need to read more poetry, but for now I suppose I will settle for The Waste Land.

I can't think of any more categories of media for now, except perhaps visual art but that seems like an entirely too messy genre to contemplate right now. I couldn't even begin to choose a favorite painter, though I suspect Salvador Dali would be in the running. Perhaps video games too though I generally don't play them. Mine would be Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And there are, of course, many other important qualities such as personality, clothes, and whether or not he prefers gin to vodka. Anyway, prove me wrong, if you know a gay man with these exact same interests, I need to know. What would be your personal selections?

Fragment

I love to slip into the shadows
Into the void that can hold
The shape        that is not me.

ReSpekt

Yesterday, after two hours of discussing information behavior models which grow ever-more confusing, and doing some homework, I eventually made my way downtown to the Paramount Theatre to see Regina Spektor. Also, when you're riding the bus and it makes its way downtown, it goes into tunnels underneath the city and the bus stops feel like real train stations. O London Underground, how I miss thee! I got dropped right outside the Paramount's iconic neon sign, but since I arrived far too early, I made my way to the nearest Barnes & Noble--locating bookstores is a sixth sense of mine. I bought a copy of GQ because my magazines haven't caught up with my new address yet, and my mom probably threw away the November issue since January Jones's boobs are falling out on the cover. I also got How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom since that's a Bloom title I don't own, and Lillian mentioned that she loved it. I then flipped through Shelf Discovery which is about the teenage books that girls never stopped reading. I didn't buy it, but I did read an essay about Bridge to Terabithia--a dumb, little two-page essay--and it made me cry. Well, almost. So then I headed over to the children's section to buy my favorite children's/YA novel since I lost my other copy some time ago. And then I made my way back to the Paramount for Regina.

The Paramount Theatre is gorgeous. Anyway, once they opened the doors, we all settled in, and the opening band was Jupiter One. They're an indie rock band from New York, and they're all right. After another half hour of setting-up for Regina, she finally came on stage--so exciting! And if somehow you didn't know, Regina Spektor is an adorable porcelain doll. How is someone allowed to be that cute? Zooey Dechanel--indie goddess that she is--is the only girl who has her beat. Regina is out promoting her latest album Far which is hands down my favorite album so far, and she waited all the way until the encore to play "Samson" which is hands down my favorite song of hers.

I've heard so much made of Seattle music fans, but for my money the audience for Tori Amos in Salt Lake was so much more passionate. Of course Tori fans are crazy and obsessive, but even Tori said that she will always play Salt Lake because we're so passionate. And I believe that SLC audiences in general are always very excited. Anyway, there was a lot of Regina love last night, but the energy didn't even compare to the Tori concert. There was one guy who shouted "I want to have your babies, Regina!" And then a girl chimed in, "Me too!" Regina laughed, and said there's one in every city, and then thanks . . . I think. There was another obnoxious girl who shouted "Ghost of Corporate Future" after four different songs. It was like, honey, it's either on the setlist or it's not, and shouting it out isn't going to change that, you're only giving Seattle a bad rep. Speaking of the setlist, here it is:

The Calculation
Eet
Folding Chair
Ode to Divorce
Riot Gear
Machine
Laughing With
One More Time With Feeling
Two Birds
Blue Lips
On the Radio
Dance Anthem of the 80s
Silly Eye-Color Generalizations
Bobbin' for Apples
That Time
Apres Moi
Poor Little Rich Boy
Human of the Year
Man of a Thousand Faces

At this point she left, and after what I felt like was an unnecessarily long period of ovating, she returned for the encore:

Samson
Us
Fidelity
Hotel Song
Love, You're a Whore

Technically, this is the Portland setlist, but I'm pretty sure it's identical. On the first twelve songs she was accompanied by a violin, cello, and Matt Chamberlain on the drums, even though I thought he was still touring with Tori. Maybe he was just on the North American leg. On "Dance Anthem," she moved to the keyboard, she went a capella on "Eye-Color," played the guitar for "Apples" and "That Time." "That Time," by the way, was the first song I heard by Spektor that wasn't "Fidelity," and was introduced to me by Rae. It's still one of my favorites. She returned to the piano alone until the encore, banging a chair with a drum stick on "Poor Little Rich Boy." Awesome. "Samson" was also solo, the violin and cello were back for "Us" and Chamberlain was on the drums for the last two songs which she sang standing up. Versatile performer.

I think what's impressive about Regina live is that even when she's just on the piano by herself it still sounds as good as the album. She has a set of pipes and can scat or amp up a section if she wants to. The Russian bridge of "Apres Moi" was amazing, and I don't even like that song very much; in fact that whole song was so much better live. Also, you never realize just how funny some of her songs are until you're in a full theatre and she's singing and winking and the whole audience is tittering.

So then I took a bus back to campus, and which point I walked home, and thankfully didn't get mugged, the U District is all sorts of scary after dark, so that was good. It was in all, a lovely night, and if you can see her concert, it's definitely worth it. You missed out, Alex.

Catch-Up

I just mapped out my bus route to the Paramount Theatre for tomorrow because I am going to see Regina Spektor, so obviously everything is just dandy.

This was after doing all of my reading for tomorrow--a rarity--though it seems no matter how much you do, you're never entirely caught up. I still have two papers due this week, two group projects to work on, oh-so-much-more reading, and my inbox is overflowing with emails--of which most of the information will already be outdated by the time I get around to reading them. "Yesterday's news more remote than a cuneiform tablet smashed to bits." Also, information overload.

Today, I realized that I hate LIS 510--Information Behavior--and that I want to be more on the library side of LIS than the information science part. After most of the readings, and classes, I ask "So effing what?" The so what is a question that our professor told us is the staple of our program. That and "stuff." The Information Science field is still maturing and much about it is ill-defined. She also wants us to think critically about our readings. Thing is, it's backfired. I'm critical of the class and think "so bloody what?" about the readings, most of which are written by our professor. Also, the last three weeks of class will be devoted to group projects and no lecturing. Aside from my own group project, the workload will be rather light, but that's not what I'm really paying thousands of dollars in tuition for.

Oh, and this week I need to arrange and register for next quarter's classes. Add that to the "to do" list.

I'm not very fond of the term "guybrarian," but ever since beginning the LIS program, I have become ever so much more domestic. Okay, all I'm doing is cooking--my room, the living room, the bathroom--they've all been taken over by chaos--but the kitchen is loverly. I'm also spending way too much money on food--my grocery bill is at least twice what it used to be as an undergraduate in Cedar City--and it wasn't cheap then either. However, I am buying real food. In college, I didn't cook, I heated various frozen, canned, and boxed foodstuffs with the microwave, stove, or oven and called that good. It can't have been that healthy, but watch how the pounds melted off of me. Now eating supposedly healthy real food has the opposite effect. FML. Of course, all the beer could be affecting the results. Still, I'm eating well. I've made moussaka, potage parmentier, real macaroni and cheese, risotto, and the like. Delicious. And on Fridays when I don't have class, I sleep in and then watch the Food Network. I make a day out of it. Beautiful.

I miss being an English major, though of course I'm not so sure I want to pursue a post-graduate degree in the field, and though English professor was my ideal job for a while, I know I can't handle the competitive nature of the field. I'm not even so sure I'm going to get a job as a librarian at the end of this thing. Going into the program, I thought I will have my Master's before I turn twenty-five. Now I'm starting to think that the five+ years of work experience that my fellow students have on me might be to my disadvantage. Today I thought I would like to be a personal assistant/secretary. I know right away that I would make a terrible one--I'm not detail oriented. But I also thought--it's not my life, it's someone else's life. I would get to pay their bills with their money--that's a lot more fun than paying my own bills, an activity I tend to avoid for as long as possible. So I'm still deciding what I want to be when I grow up.

The lines are being drawn and the ranks are closing in. It looks likes I'm pretty much set up with my friends in the program, and while the lines will be redrawn based on the classes we take in the future and group projects, I'm not going to be making any new friends this quarter. And the people I am friends with are a lovely bunch, and I'm sure (well hopeful) that our friendships with flourish, but it's never quite what one expected. I believe, and have believed for some time, that my perfect best friends are out there, waiting. This brings me to three realizations: 1) I already met them are they are Elise, Dain, and Whitney; 2) I really just want to meet myself and apparently I am unique; and 3) I am never the best friend. So it's a sorta fairytale.

Thursday night's alright for drinking. On Thursday, after class, I met some members of my cohort at the College Inn Pub for happy hour. Our time there lasted a long, long time past happy hour and then some of us moved along to Brauers for more beer and more importantly delicious frites. On Friday night, I went to a game night in Greenwood with Maggie and met some gaming people--that was interesting. I came home to find Netflix sent me the first disc of The Forsyte Saga. I am not sure how I feel about this BBC miniseries. Sidecars are a delicious amusement when watching a confusing and semi-boring miniseries.

Saturday was Halloween, and I needed to buy a couple of things for my costume, such as black shoes since I foolishly left my one and only pair in Utah. So I went to the GAP and bought a lot of lovely clothing but nothing that helped me in my costuming endeavors. So then I drove to Northgate Mall and bought a bitchin' pair of black Robert Wayne dress shoes. They're a bit narrow but I chose them over the much more sensible and comfortable Steve Maddens which weren't nearly as cool. Once my Newsie outfit was complete (with newsprint on my face), I went to Jeannie's for our pre-party game plan, much wine, beer, and champagne was consumed. We then piled into a taxi and went to the Baltic Room in Capitol Hill--a very loud dance club. More beer. And we picked up Emily. Then we stuffed ourselves into another taxi and were headed to a so-called "rave" but decided that the cover charge was too much and ended up in Belltown instead. We went to the Buddha Bar, more beer, and there was a costume competition and a screening of Orange County. WTF? We then stumbled to Belltown Billiards where there was a $10 cover just for the guys, and we were a bit strapped for cash at that point. Have I mentioned that I don't like clubs? Bars are great, but I hate clubs. Emily and I were about ready to crash, so we finally left, got into another taxi and went back to Jeannie's and eventually I got myself back home. Home, sweet, home. Also, my feet really hurt.

And then yesterday I woke up at noon only to realize an hour later that I hadn't set my clock back, so it was noon again. Lovely. I ignored my homework, went grocery shopping, and decided to see Bright Star which is a film about John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne. The performances are good and the cinematography is beautiful. Afterward, I stopped at Dick's Drive-In and got myself a deluxe and some fries. Dick's it's perfect fast food. SO effing good! And then it was Monday. Blerg.

Class today was an exercise in staying awake. All that's keeping me going is Regina tomorrow. And Guy Fawkes Day on Thursday.