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It's a lonely life, Tift Merritt. But I totally agree about the modern aspects of it.

And in another effort to halt the relentless march of "progress," an excerpt in support of handwritten notes.

Are you an advocate looking for a cause? Try education for girls.

The geography of government benefits.

The island where people forget to die.

Happy birthday, Bob Ross.

Laws of Modern Man.
Laws of Modern Woman.

Brooklyn, U.S.A. -- Hurricanes, Yoga, and Art, Not Necessarily In That Order

Speaking of the next day, the morning was fraught with consternation as E and I pondered from our separate locations whether to change our airplane tickets, since New York was about to get hurricane'd on.  And I might have done a little actual work as well.

I was sore from running so skipped that and instead went to the New York version of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.  (There's a bigger on in DC.)  It was, well, small, but enjoyable.  And it's housed in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House, which is simply stunning (more).

 The ceiling of the central hall

The permanent exhibition of Native American clothing and artifacts was there, and very cool.  They had a small exhibit of mixed media paintings by Julie Buffalohead which I didn't care for too much, but there was a great exhibit called "Up Where We Belong" highlighting Native Americans and their contributions to the music world, primarily rock and jazz.  Unfortunately the "Circle of Dance" exhibition wasn't open yet.

 A martingale, used to prevent a horse's head from rising too high.

 The platinum record reissued to the family of Ritchie Valens for "Donna."  The exhibit also has Buffy Sainte-Marie's Oscar for "Up Where We Belong" (from An Officer and a Gentleman) and the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Grammy awarded to The Band.

Lyrics sheet for "Universal Soldier"

 Jimi Hendrix's multi-colored coat

 Robbie Robertson's custom-painted Fender Stratocaster

 Stevie Salas had his guitar custom-shaped to resemble the club wielded by Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans

From there I went to an exhibit I had heard about in Soho but just hadn't made it to yet.  It's called The New York Earth Room, and it is exactly what it sounds like - a room full of earth.  Dirt.  That's right.  Someone filled a second-floor loft in Soho with thigh-deep dirt.  And you know what?  It's actually really cool!  Weird, for sure, but cool (literally cool, in the summer, apparently - the dirt helps modulate the temperature swings).  Something about the air in the room is different.  It smells like dirt, but it smells clean.  It's neat.  Also I just wanted to jump in it like I was three years old and it was a ball pit!

Earth Room has been on continuous view to the public since 1980, supported by the Dia Art Foundation, a mostly-privately-funded charitable organization.  The work was originally commissioned in 1977 and was the last of three such projects.  The first two - Munich (1968) and Darmstadt (1974) - no longer exist.

The same artist, Walter De Maria, has another work also supported by Dia just a few blocks away.  This one is called The Broken Kilometer.  (Unfortunately photography is not allowed in either exhibit, so you'll have to check out the websites.) This work is a floor installation made up of 500 polished brass rods, 2 meters long and 5 centimeters in diameter.  They are arranged in five rows of 100 rods each, the first two placed 80 millimeters apart, with each space after that growing by 5 millimeters.  I don't really get it, but apparently some people do - this one has been on view to the public since 1979.

As soon as E got off work we met up for another yoga class, then got some cider and headed home for a quiet Friday evening of packing and drinking.  Her last night in NY - how sad!

Goal #44

Goal #44: either finish Winter's Tale or get my stuff moved on Saturday.

Why the split goal (because it's kind of a cop-out)?  Well, here's the thing.  I'm supposed to move on Saturday.  Moving truck reserved and everything.  But if I ended up getting stranded in NYC unable to get home, that's probably just not going to happen.  In which case, I will finish my book.  By candlelight, if I have to.

Recap of Goal #43: major fail on the data entry, but that's not really my fault.  Our trial access expired to our new system, and it hasn't been reinstated yet.  I'm calling for a mulligan on this one.

Brooklyn, U.S.A. -- Yoga, Cemeteries, and Food!

Welcome (back) to Brooklyn!  I arrived Wednesday late morning, but somehow it took me forever to get to E's apartment, although I made it just in time for afternoon yoga at Kula Yoga Project in Tribeca, her chosen studio.  It had been a while - since the last time I was in NYC, actually - since I did yoga, so it was a little rough but good.  We made a trip to Whole Foods for sustenance, then back to the apartment so E could get ready for her fancy dinner at Boulud Sud, which sadly I was not invited to.  Although when the inviters found out I was in town, they said I should have come!  Damn!

I was tired and planned to go to bed early, but instead stayed up watching Nashville and Homeland until E got home.  I'm early in both shows, but loving both so far!

Thursday started with a run, something I haven't done since I ran the 5K with L - which, by the way, we successfully completed!  I did some work in the morning, then headed over to Green-Wood Cemetery to commune with the famous dead people (of which there are lots).  I saw graves of the following, among others:
- Dewitt Clinton, politician and education reformer
- Leonard Bernstein, composer
- Charles Ebbets, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers
- Henry Chadwick, the "father of baseball"
- Henry Bergh, founder of the ASPCA
- William "Boss" Tweed, political machine unto himself
- William Steinway, crafter of performance pianos
- Samuel Morse, developer of the telegraph and Morse Code
- William Bayard Cutting, financier and philanthropist
- Horace Greeley, newspaperman and politician
- Louis Comfort Tiffany, designer.

And what's more, it's just a beautiful place!

The main entrance gate

 Inside the catacombs, which are closed to entry (I was peeking through the gate)

Doesn't this look like the Shire?

The chapel

After walking for a couple of hours I stopped in the chapel to rest, which, if you happen to be in the neighborhood and find yourself in need of one, also has a charming little restroom.

I left Green-Wood and headed to FIT to meet up with E.  There are a couple of fashion-related exhibits we'd been wanting to see, and FIT was one of our stops.  They have two exhibitions up now, both fairly small: Highlights from the Collection and Ivy Style.  I was thoroughly entertained by the Ivy Style exhibit, and it was fun to see how the conservative designers I'm most familiar with - Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. - fit into the picture.  Generally I thought the pieces in the Highlights were more interesting and varied (and some of them were for women, so that helped).

From there we headed to 61 Local for the "Meet Your Maker: Hops and Crops Fest," which was a fundraiser for BK Farmyards, a great local organization which turns otherwise unused urban land into happy, productive farmland.  There were three chefs there who produced five tasting courses (one chef was unrepresented, and one got overzealous and made two things), plus some pie, all of which were paired with beer selected for the evening.  Matchups were as follows:
- Roasted cauliflower with Cayuga farro and green peanut puree, paired with a Southhampton double white ale (prepared by the chefs at Seersucker)
- Soup of three winter squashes with fried sunchokes and spiced honey, paired with a Carton pumpkin cream ale (prepared by the chef at Parish Hall)
- Kale Caesar salad with crusty bread and (he was the overachiever) a hollow bread sandwich (like a pita, only better) with barley, hot sauce, avocado, kale, cucumber, and other goodness, paired with a Ommegang hennepin (prepared by the chef/baker at Scratchbread)
- Chicken meatballs with arugula pesto, paired with a Kelso pilsner (prepared by the chefs at Court Street Grocers)
- Brown butter pumpkin pie, paired with a chocolate porter from Bitter and Esters (prepared by the chefs at Four & Twenty Blackbirds).

All of it was delicious, and we even took some hollow bread sandwiches home with us for lunch the next day!

I Lost My Place!

This happens to me all the time:

I'm reading.  I get distracted by something.  I look away from the book without noting where I'm leaving off.  A few minutes later I come back to the book and start reading again.

"Nope, I don't remember that part," I say to myself.  So I back up a few paragraphs.  "Read that, read that, read that."  I skip forward.

As it turns out, the place where I picked up reading was actually exactly where I left off, even though I had made no conscious effort to note the spot.

Is that weird?  Does that happen to anyone else?

What Ever Happened to a Community of Friends? Or, Marriage in a Mobile Society. Part II.

...Continued from yesterday.

This whole issue is interestingly tied to a recent episode of To The Best of Our Knowledge called "Privacy."  The guest for the middle segment, Hal Niedzviecki, discusses what he calls "peep culture," which is where we live now.  We put information about ourselves out there on Facebook or Twitter or what-have-you, and everyone else can "peep" into our lives.  It's not, he says, an issue of privacy.  The crux of the matter is our willingness to commoditize our privacy in return for something we want.  But that begs this question: if you're "confiding" in your new online "friends" by sharing  your life on the internet, are you really building friendships?  Where is the line between a true friendship and an unnecessary online overshare?  He has an especially relatable comment regarding use of these technologies to reach out to others:

"The loneliness aspect has much more to do with how we've structured our society into little suburban units connected to cars, connected to work places, the death of public space, the fact that we will now be moving around much more, disconnected from our families, we no longer have multi-generations living in a house in small towns.  So you really do have this sense of the anonymous that hurts people, and haunts them, in ways that I don't think they, or our society at large, fully understand.  So along come these new technologies and we're experimenting with them.  We're reaching out with these new technologies to see if we can ameliorate some of the negative consequences of mass society."

And in another episode just a couple of weeks later called "The New Alone," Steve Paulson conducts a thoughtful interview with Eric Klinenberg, author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.  Much of the interview focuses on romantic relationships and people who live alone because they're unmarried, but Klinenberg ends with this to say about social media (horror of horrors!): "We're very early in this experiment of living with those technologies, so let's be open to the possibility that the story is going to change.  For now, the best research tells us that in fact people who are the most active on social media are also the most heavy users of face time - they like to be social.  And they use Facebook and Craigslist and MeetUp and the instant messaging programs and email to have more face-to-face ties.  On the other hand, we also know from some new research that people who are not on Facebook, but who have a lot of people in their lives who are, have a tendency to get left out of social interactions.  They miss out on things.  So in fact, some research I've seen recently shows that the real risk of isolation is in not being connected."

What does this mean?  Should I get on Facebook?  Maybe.  But for some reason, I don't think it is the answer to my questions.

The next segment on that show featured Michael Cobb, author of Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled.  Again (for obvious reasons), this focuses on couples of two, not the wider net of relationships.  But Cobb does address the issue of those other relationships insofar as to say we're putting an undue and untenable amount of pressure on our romantic relationships because we expect our "other" to be all things to us.  If we had enough other others, maybe we wouldn't be tanking our relationships by expecting too much.

"I think what was so fascinating is that we put happiness and fulfillment and life's meaning under the category of that significant other.  In fact, that significant other has to come and represent all of those meaningful amazing things in your life.  I think that's where the problem is, and that's where a lot of anxiety starts to creep into people's existence; it's because they think that this other person is what's going to make them happy, it's what's gonna complete them, it's what's going to make everything okay. . . . You don't have to foreclose the possibility that people will find a significant other and get into some kind of deep relationship over time.  What I'm most interested in is the supremacy of that one narrative, that then makes that couple, that partner that you choose, and overly anxious commitment.  Or let's just say, too much importance is put on that relationship, and often it can never actually fulfill all those expectations and all those needs.  And I think this is one of the reasons that lots of couples break apart."

[This quote is moving off a bit into different territory - is an analysis of couplehood due to complement this analysis of friendship?  Perhaps so, but I'm not sure I'm qualified for that job.]

Regardless, where I think Cobb's point relates to my post is that, because of the societal changes highlighted in the Times article, we often don't have the option of relying on friends and family for the things we once did - companionship, help with the bills, a call-anytime babysitter - so we put even more pressure on our spouses to be all things all the time.  Can the romantic relationship withstand the pressure?  I don't know.

But having some quality face time with friends might ease that pressure.  So set aside a little time, go forth, and make friends!

What Ever Happened to a Community of Friends? Or, Marriage in a Mobile Society. Part I.

Not too long ago, I read and reviewed MWF Seeking BFF.  To save you from having to re-read the review, the gist of it is this:  it's hard to admit you're looking for friends, hard to make them, and hard to keep them.  But they're important, so don't give up trying.

As we all get older, it seems that friendships cease to be just that, and instead become more like networks of convenience.  A "friend" used to be a person you spent time with just for the sake of spending time with them, because you liked them, because you enjoyed the conversation or both loved New Kids on the Block or whatever.  All too often, you grow up and they become a person who can offer you something: "Oh, I have a friend who's an accountant.  I'll ask them that question."  And the truth is that they probably don't mind (or wouldn't, if you weren't asking them at the busiest time of the year).  After all, an important facet of friendship is helping the other person out; they're happy to do it.

It's obvious why this relationship changes.  Everyone gets busy, buys houses, has kids, makes commitments, works too many hours, money gets tight.  If you can kill three birds with one stone, why not do it?  (1) See friend, (2) get help, (3) save money.

As I said, there is nothing wrong with that!  Everyone is busy - even people who don't buy houses or have kids or work too many hours.  (Can you think of anyone - anyone? - who says they have too much free time?  I can't.)  Saving time and money is important.  I just miss pure friendships, which exist purely because you like each other, because you value each other's point of view and sense of humor and advice.  To wit, last weekend I had lunch with a new friend - or at least someone I hope will be a new friend.  Lunch ran for five hours.  Know what we did?  We talked.  We talked about each other's lives, what's hard, what's frustrating, what's good. Neither of us answered our phones.  Neither of us had anywhere else we wanted to be.  We were just there, talking.  It was great.

Not long after I read MWF, an article came out in the New York Times called "Friends of a Certain Age: Why is it Hard to Make Friends Over 30?"  It's long but if you're interested in the subject, as I obviously am, it's totally worth the read.  Or just read this (which is, believe it or not, shorter than the original):

The article highlights the reasons why making new friends is difficult and why keeping the ones you already have is hard too.  Friendship generally requires three things: "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other."

Requirements 1 and 2 are tough.  Proximity is hard these days because everyone is mobile.  People don't settle down in one neighborhood for their whole lives and stick with one job their whole careers.  Better opportunities are often elsewhere, and we're all willing to go somewhere else if the situation calls for it.  Can't blame anybody for doing that.  So proximity?  No more.  And unfortunately, the repeated, unplanned interactions - which are so closely tied to proximity - often go the way of the dodo as well.

If you have old friends from whom you are separated, it's often easy to continue that sense of confiding in one another - the third requirement.  They're those friends who inspire you to say, "whenever I talk to her, it's like no time passed at all."  I have lots of those people.  It's great to be able to confide.  Often they're the people who've known you the longest, so even though you're lacking proximity and interaction, their understanding of your situation and the advice they dish out is still on point.  But, lest we overlook what I just said, you're still missing two of the three elements which psychologists say are vital for a good friendship.  You still love these people dearly, but there is something missing from the friendship.

Once people are coupled up, it's even harder.  It's a four-pronged (or at least three-pronged, if there's a couple and a third wheel) match that needs to be made, rather than just a being a two-way street.  Do you like him?  Does he like her?  Does he like him? Does she like me?  It becomes all too easy to become "just the two of you" because, well, it's easy.  There's no weird chemistry.

In case that isn't all difficult enough, we also become more picky in selecting the people with whom we want to be friends.  "Manipulators, drama queens, egomaniacs: a lot of them just no longer make the cut."  Maybe they don't have to be completely eliminated as friends, but they can be pigeonholed as a certain type of friend: the martini friend, the brunch friend, the theater friend, the sappy movie friend.  But they may not be the friend you'd go running to in a life crisis which you need to overanalyze for days.

To be continued...

What I'm Reading Now -- Born to Run

Among runners, and really all athletes, Christopher McDougall's Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen cannot be read soon enough.

When it first came out it was selling like crazy, and it has continued with pretty regular sales ever since.  I guess word of mouth is doing wonders for it.  So, as I prepare to get back into running after taking a bit of a break, I'll dive into this too.  Maybe it'll give me a little inspiration.

Microtrends -- Take 2

I spent a lot of time at my new place this weekend, cleaning, running long-packed-away dishes and linens through their respective cleaning machines, getting ideas about how my furniture would fit.  All the while, I was listening to Microtrends - I got through the whole thing this weekend.

Truth is, there was nothing new in this book.  We all already know that the Latino vote is of growing importance, that men still make more than women, and that we are a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled nation.

Having said that, I think this book is probably 6 years old.  Maybe some of the trends were new at the time, but unfortunately the whole thing dated rather quickly.

Goal #43

Goal #43: data entry.

We're switching over to some new systems at work, but we've been a little slow to get going because you have to jump the initial  hurdle of getting all the information added, settings set, etc.  As horribly inefficient as the old systems might be, at least they're already in place. 

This week, I'm making changes. Type, type away.

Recap of Goal #42: I had some success with this one.  Now I just need to keep it up and make it a habit.

The Songs I'm Loving Today

P!nk being provocative.

P!nk is probably best known for her fun, rock-star-style songs, things like "Raise Your Glass" and "So What," which get the most radio play because they're pop culture candy.  But she has a surprising number of heavy, often controversial songs which are totally worth a listen (and watch).  Check out the following, for the following reasons:

Please Don't Leave Me - an "If I Were a Boy"-esque domestic violence role reversal, with some mental instability thrown in for good measure.
Family Portrait - a painful picture of the damage done to kids in a broken family
Stupid Girls - a request to girls to stay strong, be ambitious, and not sell out
Try - an anthem to not giving up, with a sexual- and domestic-violence themed video (below)
Sober - a gritty investigation of identity and the consequences of our choices; I'm still working out the exact details
F**kin' Perfect - a reminder that, even if now sucks, things will get better (bonus: video stars Tina Majorino - remember her?).

And after watching all those, I recommend going back and watching some of her fun stuff for a pick-me-up because - sheesh - you'll need it.



Ever wonder 'bout what he's doin',
How it all turned to lies?
Sometimes I think that it's better to never ask why.

Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame,
Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned,
But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die,
You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try,
You gotta get up and try, try, try.

Funny how the heart can be deceiving,
More than just a couple times.
Why do we fall in love so easy, even when it's not right?

Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame,
Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned,
But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die,
You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try,
You gotta get up and try, try, try.

Ever worry that it might be ruined?
And does it make you wanna cry?
When you're out there doin' what you're doin', are you just getting by?
Tell me, are you just getting by, by, by?

Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame,
Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned,
But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die,
You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try,
You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try,
You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try.

You gotta get up and try, try, try,
Gotta get up and try, try, try.



Made a wrong turn once or twice,
Dug my way out, blood and fire.
Bad decisions, that's alright,
Welcome to my silly life.

Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood,
Miss, no way it's all good, it didn't slow me down.
Mistaken, always second guessing,
Always second guessing - look, I'm still around.

Pretty pretty please,  don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than fuckin' perfect.
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothin', you're fuckin' perfect to me.

You're so mean when you talk
About yourself, you are wrong.
Change the voices in your head,
Make them like you instead.

So complicated, look how we are makin'
Filled with so much hatred, such a tired game.
It's enough, I've done all I can think of,
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same.

Oh, pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than fuckin' perfect.
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothin', you're fuckin' perfect to me.

Spoken:
The whole world's scared so I swallow the fear,
The only thing I should be drinkin' is an ice cold beer.
So cool in line and we try, try, try,
But we try too hard, it's a waste of my time.
Done lookin' for the critics 'cause they're everywhere,
They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair.
Estrange ourselves, and we do it all the time,
Why do we do that? Why do I do that? Why do I do that?

Yeah! Oh, oh, pretty pretty please.

Pretty pretty please,  don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than fuckin' perfect.
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothin', you're fuckin' perfect to me.

Yeah, you're perfect, you're perfect.

Pretty pretty please,  don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than fuckin' perfect.
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothin', you are perfect to me.

A Hot Date

It's Friday night.  Almost Saturday morning.  I just got home.

I was cleaning my new apartment.

That's right, I spent my Friday night cleaning.  Obviously I'm one of the cool kids.  But let's get over that and to the important part of that sentence: I have a new apartment!

American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design -- Take 2

Whew, this book has a long name!  We'll just call it American City.

If you're in St. Louis, from St. Louis, or St. Louis-adjacent in some way, this is an easy-to-browse coffee table book.  Buildings highlighted in the book are in chronological order (and frankly, I could have done without a few of the modern ones).  It's fascinating to open the book and see a building you've seen a hundred times before, but appreciate it in a whole new way now that you know some of its history.

What I'm Reading Now -- Microtrends

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes is another one of the audiobooks I got from Mom.

I wasn't totally sold by the introduction, but the first chapter (or section?  It's hard to tell when you're listening to it on audio) is about relationships, which is a subject of some interest to me at the moment.  Hopefully that holds for the rest of the book.

SLSO

On Friday night, I went to the first of five performances at Powell Hall for which I have already purchased tickets this season.

First up was Beethoven No. 6, aka the Pastoral Symphony. The first movement was a light, evocative piece, and sort of reminded me of a non-winter version of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.  The second movement was a bit richer and fuller, getting more musical support from the big instruments, and the third was a combination - heavy and strong with soft interludes.

After intermission we heard Ravel's Concerto in G Major, which confused me at first.  It wasn't exactly discordant, but certainly wasn't terribly rhythmic either - especially the first and third movements.  The whole piece had elements which were reminiscent of jazz and big band swing.  At the break I looked at the program and that made perfect sense; it was composed 1929-1931.

Our last piece was Debussy's La Mer, which started out a bit dark.  It grew flowery but a tad melancholic as well, like there was a shadow of sadness just below the surface of the music (or the water, as the case may be). Through the end of the movements it gets more lively and jarring, with dramatic shifts in volume and timbre, which I can forgive because of the starring role given to the contrabassoon.   (Why do I like the contrabassoon? I don't really know, but why not? It looks cool, it sounds cool, it's fun to say.)

Goal #42

Goal #42: break the habit of immediately jumping on my computer when I get to work.

I know, it will take more than a week to break the habit.  But I'd like to at least make an effort.

Here's what happens: I get to work, I put my lunch in the fridge, I sit down, and I check my email.  I click on a link, and another link, I check another e-mail address, I read the news, and before I know it, it's lunch time.

This is a bad pattern.  As with many resolutions, progress on this front will be hard to measure, but maybe it's Potter Stewart-worthy, "I know it when I see it."

Recap of Goal #41: fabulous!  I found several places I like, and I'm putting in an application for one tomorrow!  Apparently there are some other people interested in it so I may not get it, but keep your fingers crossed!

Water for Elephants -- Take 2

I finished up with Water for Elephants - it's a touching tale told in two versions of the same voice: Jacob Jankowski at 90 (or 93) and at 23.  Young Jacob is weathering the Great Depression in vet school when we meet him, but a family tragedy spells the end of his formal education. With nothing else to do, he signs on with a traveling circus. He meets the cast of characters - some of them like him, some of them don't care for him a bit.

Young Jacob has a few run-ins with the unpredictable animal trainer August, with who he already has a complicated relationship by virtue of the fact that Jacob finds himself in love with August's wife Marlena.  August also happens to be his boss.  It's a complicated relationship.

Old Jacob tells the story of his younger self, and interlaces his tale with vignettes illustrating the sorrow of aging.  He doesn't always recognize his family members when they visit him, and sometimes they don't come when they should. It's heartbreakingly sad. The bright spots are his moments of excitement - the circus comes to town and he's going to get to go!  Even simple things like the days when he can remember his nurse's name.  He's a feisty fellow, and entertaining and observant even when things aren't going his way.

On the whole, touching and lovely, covering everything from loyalty to friends (people and animals) to the power of memory to corruption.

The Songs I'm Loving Today

Keith Urban's reflections.

Keith Urban is a master of songs about memory of all types.  They can be hopeful, like "Making Memories of Us."  They can be sad, like "Tonight I Wanna Cry."  They can be an I-told-you-so, like "You'll Think of Me."  Take your pick - they're all great.  Click to watch the videos (with lyrics selected by yours truly).



"I'm gonna be here for you from now on,
This you know somehow;
You've been stretched to the limits but it's alright now....

And I'm gonna love you,
Like nobody loves you,
And I'll earn your trust
Making memories of us."



"Alone in this house again tonight,
I got the TV on, the sound turned down, and a bottle of wine.
There's pictures of you and I on the walls around me,
The way that it was and could've been surrounds me,
I'll never get over you walking away.

I've never been the kind to ever let my feelings show,
And I thought that being strong meant never losing your self control,
But I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain,
To hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes,
Tonight I wanna cry."



"Ever since you found yourself in someone else's arms,
I've been tryin' my best to get along,
But that's okay, there's nothing left to say but

Take your records, take your freedom,
Take your memories, I don't need 'em.
Take your space and take your reasons,
But you'll think of me.
Take your cat and leave my sweater,
'Cause we have nothing left to weather.
In fact I'll feel a whole lot better,
But you'll think of me."

What I Watched -- Annie Hall

A friend of mine has been telling me for years that I need to see Annie Hall.  "It's my favorite movie!"  So she finally lent it to me (a month ago), and I finally watched it (last night).

And it's good!  I definitely wouldn't say it's my favorite movie, but I imagine there is some element of nostalgia tied up with it if, like S, you saw it when it first came out.

In case anyone doesn't know the story, it is, quite simply, the story of a relationship shared in retrospect, with amusing commentary added for color.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton play Alvy Singer and the eponymous Annie Hall.

Bottom line: a true-to-life tale of two people.  Sometimes that can be a little uncomfortable.

Random Links

Fear of flying?  Don't read this.  Want to develop a fear of flying?  Go ahead and give it a look.

An ode to hunting on The Splendid Table.

Great photos.

Who knew glass was the solution to all the problems we didn't know we had?

Moby Dick - the Big Read.

You tell 'em, girl!

Potbelly's!

Oh my god, I can't believe it - there is a Potbelly's in St. Louis!  All my dreams have come true!

Okay, maybe not all my dreams, but still, it's pretty exciting.

Goal #41

Goal #41: pick an apartment (or some apartments)

For those of you who don't know, I'm moving.  This week, I'm looking at what I believe to be the last of the apartments that are in the running for my new residence.  Tuesday, in fact.  So I'm going to narrow it down to a few and put in some applications!

Recap of Goal #40: progress was made, only a little bit of it by me.  It's hard to pack when you still need to live somewhere.  I finally started doing the hard stuff - packing the kitchen.  How am I going to prepare my food?

What I'm Reading Now -- Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, is another of the many books on my list that was wildly popular with book clubs when it was first released.  The limits of my current knowledge about it: circus, elephants, a clandestine love affair, and a movie with Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon (which I have not seen).

I hope it's not just dumb chick lit, but if it is, so what?  Everyone needs a little brain candy now and again.

What I Watched -- The Grey

Liam Neeson does his tough guy act again in The Grey.  But I'm okay with it, because he does it well enough.  With this character at least, it's not that he's so much into being a tough guy as that he just is a tough guy.  You learn a bit about his past and the nature of his "job at the end of the world," and you can see that he's just a guy who's been made that way.  Neeson's opportunities to show off his acting chops are spare here, but he manages to hang in there as the strong, silent type.

The aforementioned job of his is as a wolf hunter at a drilling rig in Alaska.  The wolves are relentless, and it's Ottway's (Neeson's) job to keep them at bay.  When they venture too close to the workers at the rig, "men unfit for mankind" as he describes them, it's Ottway's job to take them out.  Until, that is, a plane filled with men heading back to Anchorage goes down in the middle of nowhere.  The handful of survivors find themselves even farther from civilization than they had been in the oil fields, and surrounded by - you guessed it - hungry wolves.  This time Ottway is without his rifle.  Let your imagination take it from there.

This is a seriously macho film: man vs. man, man vs. animal, man vs. the elements.  It doesn't always end well, and it's rarely pretty in the process.  But somehow it also manages to be contemplative - perhaps it's all that snow quieting things down a bit.

Bottom line: bleak, bleak, bleak.  Literally grey most of the time.  But somehow, despite the fact that this is - let me say it again just so we're clear on the plot - a movie in which Liam Neeson fights with wolves, it's not terrible.  I'm not sure how that works.

What I Watched -- The Interrupters

I don't remember where I heard about The Interrupters, which is both a hopeless and hopeful story of a community group in Chicago; they call themselves violence interrupters.  (They are a division of a group called Cure Violence, formerly known as CeaseFire.)  The group members, most of them former criminals themselves, come together to try to stop crime in one of the most violent neighborhoods in the city.  (They work in a few places besides Chicago as well.)

The film primarily follows three interrupters - Ameena, Eddie, and Cobe - in 2009 and 2010.  What you get are amazing stories of people willing to risk their own lives in an effort to improve their communities, with some small measure of success to show for it.

Bottom line: as I said, hopeless and hopeful.  Where are these kids' parents?  How did they get so off track?  (In one case, we know where the mom is - hiding from her own kids.)  But even when there are no parents, there is someone, even if it is an ex-con, willing to step up and make a change.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) -- Take 2

I think the version I had of this audiobook must have been abridged because it was only four CDs long.  Truthfully, I'm glad it was.  While it was certainly funny and even had some laugh-out-loud moments, I generally have limited tolerance for humor/biography books.  They get repetitive.  And even though the audio was abridged, I'm really glad it was read by the author.  Since much of it seemed to be train-of-thought type writing, and some of it not even that connected, it was nice to get the proper inflection to make otherwise unwieldy sentences (like this one) come out right.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but I think I'm in Mindy Kaling's target demographic.  If you're not, you'll probably just think it's inane and kind of annoying.  True, there's not much in her life story that I can relate to other than being a chubby kid, but her general experiences are totally relatable and understandable. 

What I'm Reading Now -- American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design

I like architecture.  I was never math-y enough to actually be an architect and work on the projects while in the works, but I appreciate the final products.

The other day at my bookstore, I noticed this book: American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design.  I picked it up because, well, it seemed awesome: snippets of building and city history along with lovely pictures of some of the buildings which will soon be in my neighborhood, among others.

What I Watched -- Carnage

Wowzers, this movie is painful to watch.  In it, two sets of spouses meet to discuss an altercation between their sons - one hit the other in the face with a stick.  The parents begin in an awkwardly uncomfortable but civil meeting which develops into a festival of accusations, name-calling, and hurt feelings.  It's all a brilliant parallel to the fight between the boys, and also a study of the dynamics between spouses and the conditions of marriage, and an analysis of the evolution of arguments.

It's actually a fascinating portrayal of the shifting alliances which take place during an argument, the way points of view morph and move, and eventually it seems like the argument is running away with itself.

It helps that they all start drinking; that makes things really fun.  It also helps that the movie's short, because there's only so much of the intense breakdown that you can tolerate in one sitting.

Bottom line: it's a fascinating study of behavior and a train wreck of a collision between highbrow language and ideas and lowbrow actions.