promise and precision

08.14.2010
visingsö

eight days left in sweden. where has all of this time gone? it still felt like a lifetime laid ahead of me here, but suddenly the days are flying by. woke up this morning, relieved. i haven't been sleeping well lately and i've had to resort to taking benedryl to sleep at all and my nights have been plagued with dreams and misgivings, but this morning i woke up with no recollection of the preceding eight hours of sleep. eggs and toast then over to the ad hob lab in the living room at the big house. tina, nez, and jessie took a ferry around eleven to go check out a house on the mainland they are looking into renting for the project next summer and mike tagged along to get more internet time in gränna. with mike gone and the rest of the team paired up, i was left to work on my own which was fine by me - i like working alone and i was still going as quick as the other pairs working together. apple and cinnamon oatmeal at lunch while uploading photos - some of which turned out neat with the mist. more chemistry and mike was back by the afternoon work session, so our collaborative efforts continued until a bit past four. oh, and billy gave me the mix he made this morning over skype! he tagged me in a post on facebook talking about it but hadn't uploaded it until i was heading to work, so i started to listen to it over lunch once it finished downloading and then finished it out after work. now i'm halfway through my third listen and i live it. such a great addition to my day. this is how i fell in love with this boy in the first place - that first mix stole my heart and he has had it in his possession ever since. on a different note, today was a bit frustrating because, well, some adults wouldn't act like adults. it isn't even important or interesting enough to elaborate on, but people never cease to amaze me with their lack of reason and rationality. there is no explaining or understanding this kind of thing, however, so i'm not going to bother. i was in a bit of a funk after work, probably due to my lack of exercise, the mediocre weather, and the immaturity of some of those around me, but against my better (financial) judgment, i went to dinner with tom, gisela, katie, and mike. katie and i split a margherita pizza again at solbacken and i skipped on the $8 beer, so i really only spent a little under $5. we started to head back once this awful "tex mex band" known as the carlssonz started covering CCR. katie and mike got ice cream and we all walked down by the harbor toward the base of the castle while they ate their cones. spirits rising, we headed home and i turned on billy's mix and caught up on some things online and got in touch with some people who i was long overdue in responding to. as this mix winds down once aain, i'm off to write a few e-mails and read, waiting for billy to get online. pretty mundane saturday, but i'll take it.

meet me in the middle

08.12.2010
visingsö

talking to billy before writing makes this a little weird - i already feel redundant. today is the first day in a while that the sun prevailed from morning until evening; only now are the clouds rolling in. went . out with tina again, but that is to be expected at this point. continued working in the crops near the johansson farm. the unobstructed sun in conjunction with shoulder-high stalks retaining heat (damn you, photosynthesis) made today a bit toasty. wore tina's rain pants until i couldn't stand the heat anymore, but luckily by that point most of the crops had dried out from the day before so i had no need to be concerned with water-repelling gear anymore. i really need to invest in waterproofing my boots if i ever do this again - i'm tired of squishy toes and soggy socks. i wasn't feeling all that well this morning so i stuck to special k red berries in place of my standard two scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast with strawberry jam. gave in and had eggs at lunch, though - i was too tired to consider skipping protein today. two eggs, an apple with peanut butter, and a slice of cinnamon sugar toast with a glass of apple juice. with a full stomach and a bit of caffeine coursing through my veins, i was half-ready to head back into the field. thirty one holes by myself this morning, another twenty one this afternoon. we drove down a tractor trail that crosses the cow pasture this afternoon to save us from the same tired half kilometer walk down from the tempelgården. we have made that same trek so many times during the last three days there is actually a clear, well-trodden path through two adjoining clover fields we always cross en route. a change of pace was definitely in order.

as we passed through the cow pasture, the farm dog decided to follow us throughout the afternoon, turning our duo into a trio. he would run with tina while i sampled and then run back to me and lead me to tina when i finished and started moving on to the next hole. he even ran down to the shore and grabbed a rock to try to get us to play with him, it was adorable. he stayed with us the whole afternoon which was definitely a morale booster - it was almost like the universe said, 'look - shit sucks, but here is a dog to keep you company in the meantime.' waited for jess and mike to meet us at the car and then made it back to the house at 4:35. i wanted to make it to this cafe near the small grocery store in kumlaby before it closed at 5, so i changed at lightning-fast speed and threw together my purse and peddled off as quick as possible. got there with eight minutes to spare and they had already closed up. basically, i hauled ass for nothing. it was definitely harder to bike right after work, especially a day of trudging through downed  crops. i finally understand why people work out - it lifted my mood, at least momentarily. lord knows how sad i would be right now if i was just sitting on my ass all day. came back dejected and pastry-less, but at least there was a cup of coffee with my name on it once i got out of the shower.

i talked to my mom for thirty minutes before dinner. ian was there, too, and hunted down each of the dogs in turn so that i could seem them. i wish one of the puppies could make the trip with me - it is going to break my heart to have them for one night just to leave them in the morning. veggie burgers on toast with avocado, spicy mustard, cheese and tomato with instant (but good) mashed potatoes on the side. all of that and it was still only seven o'clock. watched an episode of lie to me, skyped with billy and he is the cutest human being on the planet. i still worry that the attentiveness, or lack thereof, will ever change...but i'm holding out hope. he says he loves me, but sometimes it is hard for me to believe i could be that lucky - i've been treated well. i just want something real. i've been playing the format all day - i can't dwell on soco or my melancholy will never pass. no more tears in the rain, only straining in the sun. there may still light outside in every direction, but it is time for bed. goodnight.

and you could still get sleep

08.11.2010
visingsö

ten days until stockholm, eleven days until austin, twelve days until jackson. unreal. school is starting so soon and i am still sitting here in swden. i'm sure this feeling will just be mounting as the days go on. started reading euripides' hippolytus today and i'm having flashbacks to seneca. intertextuality, folks - gotta love it. i am a little worried about jumping back into latin and greek (especially as a tutor) because, well, i haven't read all summer. on friday i will have been traveling for three months. today over coffee after we got back from the field, we started talking about high school and i brought up marching band and i realized that i really haven't given myself a break since sophomore year of high school - it has always been go, go, go. maybe even before that - in middle school i was doing band and playing soccer...for three separate teams. facing down this coming year, i'm worried and tired, but i guess i've been putting myself in the same situation for years and years - committing every moment of every day to something. at least i have the practice of taking the sat and acct during marching season because i will be doing the same with taking the gre this year, amidst myriad things i barely have time to do on their own. had falafel for dinner and the rain that had rolled in around three this afternoon started to dissipate. watched true blood and then got in touch with billy. some things never do change. katie and jess went on a walk and when they got back i went for a ride - down to kumlaby then torp and back - a whopping twelve plus kilometers round trip. listened to played in space and tried to sort things out with the mindless peddling and the burn of my muscles starting to feel the faint pull of exertion. shower, tea to settle my nerves, finished catching up on true blood season three and now off to bed even though i'm not tired. maybe i'll never be happy.

there's no antidote for irony -

you say that you have, 

when you know that you don't
and you say that you can, 

when you know that you won't

new arrival

07.24.2010

visingsö, sweden

today is the definition of lackadaisical. when we were eating breakfast i noticed that the kitchen clock has started running slower than both my watch and my computer, which i should have taken as a forewarning of the odd way that time would pass today. forget consistency or structure. downing my still scalding coffee, i made the walk to the other house. i talked to tina about the possibility of bjorn and rachel coming to visit the island and she proposed an even better idea - she offered to drive katie and i to jönköping on monday during our day off. so, as long as they can get to the city as well, it should be a better way to get together - hopefully cheaper for both concerned parties and a bit more convenient. we don't have a car to drive around on the island and the few things to see and do aren't necessarily the most riveting or easy to get to. the prospect of this working out is really exciting! i know i won't be able to see mathilde, but hopefully i can see some familiar (and much loved) faces. there is something so surreal about seeing a person you know when you are out of the country - it finally stirs you have this strange experience of traveling and reminds you that things are in fact not quite normal, you really are in a strange, foreign country. once i was at the house, tom and gisela weren't downstairs yet, so katie and i sat around for a little while waiting for them to get ready and finish doing laundry. we drove out to the pea field (all four of us went together while tina went to pick up hans from jönköping) and as soon as we got our equipment out, it started raining. gisela needed to talk to a landowner to get permission to work on their property, but she didn't feel like it, so we sat in the car for about twenty minutes waiting for the rain to let up. it never did, so she finally realized that she would have to stop putting it off. we waited in the car while she talked to the man (who happened to live on the other side of the island) and tom, katie, and i just talked for a little while. all of the sitting around and listening to katie's loud, repetitive storytelling was giving me a headache. i just keep telling myself that she is from new york, not the slow, mildly spoken south. drove back to the pea field because the rain was letting up, got out of the car and it started raining again. drove to the forest where we would hopefully have some canopy cover and then it was only an hour until lunch. took an hour and fifteen minute lunch even though they said they would be back in thirty, and of course as soon as they drove to pick us up, it started raining again. they sent us back inside and said they would pick us up if the rain let up. well, two hours later they came back, drove us to the forest where it started raining, surprise surprise. it was like the weather was consciously taunting us. came back around five and i've been scattered ever since - starting things but not finishing. i don't like starting and stopping or being unproductive, so it really left me feeling in a funk. the wind is still roaring outside and it sounds like tornado sirens, which puts me a bit ill at ease. i was putting photos in with my entries and nadia messaged me on facebook. i admire that girl so much, there aren't words. we talked about albania, sweden, jordan, and made a date before she leaves. she is one of the few people i have met who is like me - the traveling, the independence, the disenchantment with 'normal' social interactions (to a certain extent). it is refreshing to actually have someone who understands what traveling is for me, what these long summers are like. it is an awful mixture of excitement and regret all mingled together. i think the internet complicates things as much as it simplifies them - it allows me to peer into what it is like on the other side - what it would be like to have a normal summer, to have friends i'm never separated from, to stay in one place, to relish the simplicity of those long summer weeks. hell, it sounds enticing to be among the masses, but at the same time i know that it just isn't me. all that to say, nadia kind of made my day. skyped with my sister and parents - my dad just got back from detroit so it was nice to hear from him. he called me yesterday but i don't even bother carrying my phone on me anymore so i didn't see his missed call for four hours. we talked for under two minutes with a promise of skyping today, so i'm glad it worked out. after those frantic, exciting conversations, i told katie how discombobulated i was, just as she pointed out that tina and hans were walked up the porch steps. so much for regaining my composure. even in sweden (as in bulgaria), i still can't escape the hipsters it seems. hans is a bit shy, but maybe reserved is the better word for it. we talked about typical niceties and the project, tattoos and travel. things didn't revolve around the university of buffalo for a change, which was nice. i hope he doesn't act all reclusive because he seems pretty fucking cool - i just want to pick his brain. we were supposed to have the veggie version of pea soup at the other house for dinner, but the store was sold out, so leftover pasta with fresh veggies and one ballerina cookie with the last of our coffee rounded off my night, or so i thought. right as i got dressed for bed, hans came back over and gave me some movies and the first season of true blood to watch. we talked about films and tv shows for a while which was nice. katie is really disconnected from pop culture so it was nice to have someone to talk with about normal conversational topics i carry on about at home. as i was closing the window to the howling wind, i saw a double rainbow outside the window and hans, without skipping a beat was double rainbow, what does it mean?!' went and took some photos and then called it a night. not too shabby, but still a fairly slow going day. oh! i also found out that janelle monae and of montreal are playing the lyric in oxford in november! i'm going to have billy order tickets once he gets back from phoenix so that we can make sure we have them before they sell out. i would order them, but i'm afraid i would be subjected to those pesky international service surcharges. i wish billy had time between sessions to set my nerves at ease, but maybe more sleep and a fresh start tomorrow will be enough to do the trick. it's the same ol' drag.

reservations

07.20.2010

visingsö, sweden

today was the first day of work! it is a little difficult for me to use the sample because of my height and weight. if i hadn't lost weight in albania and during my backpacking trip, i would at least have more cushion to insulate the blows of throwing my body to force the sampler into the ground, but unfortunately that is not the case. i ahve bruised on my ribs and hands, but i think that the more i get the hang of it, the better it will be. i had a hard time the firs tfew samples, but after two or three katie and i just picked it up and it clicked. i worked with tina after lunch, which was nice - i get along with her really well. she is really into music and actually used to bartend at cbgb's! (i had to resist being all ''oh my god, it was one of my life goals to visit there before it closed! ahhh!!") dinner had a few tense moments over at the main house, but lunch at our house with just katie was awesome - fresh swiss cheese and tomato paninis with a pot of coffee. after dinner we went for bike rides on the busted bikes they have at the main house which was so pleasant. i want to bring my bike back to campus, i think. not to use on campus, but maybe to go around belhaven, but at the same time, it might get stolen...i don't know if it is worth the risk for occassional use. oh! katie and i looked at graduate programs for classics and classical archaeology and i feel a bit better - i know much more than i give myself credit for. i need to study and register for the gre, but there are still tons of open seats at the jackson testing center. i'm thinking mid-october, but i need to decide (officially) which programs i will apply for to know what the deadline is to receive gre scores - apparently they take a while to actually reach the schools. all of this nonsense is just staring to sound like high school again, but at the same time, i couldn't be more excited about it. i'm ready to move to the next phase of my life, i think. i look forward to my future now i have at least a vague sense of direction and my motivation is at an all-time high. on a related note - lauren and mike came over for drinks again tonight and we started talking about ub and their undergrad/grad programs....and it is so different. i think the page requirements for one of my courses in one semester is more than their's for their entire year and entire courseload. fifteen page honors theses? are you kidding? i could churn out four of those in a week. automatic as and t.a. graded homework assignments and tests...it is just crazy millsaps still isn't challenging enough for me, but at least it is more of a challenge than that. at millsaps, the only thing that really can internet with on-time graduation and proper advisement is apathy, indecisiveness or procrastination, while at ub, even the most diligent people (such as katie) get screwed because advisors don't care or don't even know what is necessary. she works so hard (relatively) and has made it so far, ut it is the professors apathy that has set her up for disappointment with graduate school. i'm really glad i, as a younger, more naive version of myself knew that at the very least a liberal arts degree would be a bit more fulfilling. i mean, in my core ten paper i say that millsaps is what you make of it - but really, it is so much better than the majority of schools. after mike and lauren left, i skyped with billy and it was much better than yesterday. i almost forgot that he was leaving for general assembly this week and i don't look forward to going a few days without talking again. i got so paranoid about pitchfork - i wish i had been there so bad. sometimes i wish that i hadn't billy the ticket so that he couldn't go without me, but that is just stupid and childish. i'm just so jealous that he had the most fun of his life and i wasn't there - but more than that, i enabled him to have that experience without me. it is kind of heartbreaking. i worry about how much he is concerned about dyer's business...it has been ten months since they broke up, nine months since we have been together. i just really need him to move on for my own sanity. i hate that he is going to think back about his favorite weekend of his life and dyer will be there, not me. i love him so much, i just want to make him as happy as he makes me...that's all. amo te.

with lantern dreams

everyone grows old on the gold coast
it takes a lot of hope to grieve
everyone gets dark and the worst part
is the way those thoughts can please you
personality like a split screen
see yourself down on your knees

hold out your hand, darling
say please

everyone gives up down on hard luck
on hope aint enough it seems
everyone gets lost in their own fog
have to wonder on with lantern dreams
say please, please
just say something
speak up, please
if its what youre looking for

hold out your hand, darling
say please

on adoration

there is something about picking up a new book, spine still completely intact. unbent, undamaged, unexplored. a page yet to be turned, only the slightest inclination of what is yet to come, the first utterances still unknown. there is something inexplicably comforting about starting anew, fresh hopes with preconceived expectations neither of which are ever reconciled.

then a few days pass, a few weeks if you're diligent, and before you know it the charm is gone. the corners are bent, some pages catch a little differently and the cover isn't all that it used to be. by this point you have already forgotten what it was like to lovingly open the pages and begin to explore, desperately searching for something you can never quite pinpoint, something of which you cannot preemptively conceive. this early notion of what was to come was more shaped by your own transference of expectation than of the reality of what you were to face.

one day, likewise, you are going to start to see my creases, the lines left from reckless days come and gone which may have been flattened out under the pressure of something greater, graver... but whose mark is still impossible to miss, ever present like a scar on the character of who i am, corrupting what might have at first appeared ideal. the novelty will fade and the discordant nature of these two conceptions, what was and what will be, unequivocally and diametrically opposed, will tear whatever semblance of cohesion that may be remaining apart. the deference will be gone, the object pushed from the foreground into an uneasy, forgettable backdrop of a memory, condemned to a bookshelf of skeletons and unstable spines, slowly coming apart at the seams. despite the wear of the impeding drop in interest, the tear of ever-growing distance, gaps and disconnects, let this be the one i don't forget. the one i don't have to shelve. let your hands turn the pages with care again and again until they become a part of your touch, always opening back up to those passages you treasure.

at the moment

and then there is you.

dear thomas,

The Fall Of Troy, originally uploaded by alex batten.

why do i adore you so? let's see each other again soon.

love, me.

on fairy tales

miss rosa may have had her ogre-tales shaping her narrative in absalom, absalom, but my theme is much happier for once. no dark twisted images, just childish (though maybe in the sense of being delusional) dreams and a smile despite all the obstacles in my path. i'm just waiting for the happy ending. a modern day romance.

articulated through texts, telephones, and twitter...and punctuated by mixes lovingly crafted, uploaded, and reduced to a web address. by leaks and blogs and pitchfork news, by pirated movies and tv online. trying to convey physical energy and desire, human inertia across a static phone line...then failing to put my fingers to the keys in a pattern that makes any more sense that my ever-increasing sighs and smiles, unseen four hundred miles away.

you're cute, amazing, and i appreciate everything you do. all the tears you've already heard, and the weaknesses that you not only see past, but somehow turn into something admirable. i've liked you for far too long... i can't believe you're mine. you, the person i never thought i would have.

so much for ambiguity, so much for pretense. for once in my life, i'm sure. no regrets, no lies, no facades, just a few worries about what may keep us apart. you're the one that i want.

08.08.2009

Berlin, Germany

on the train again, and now it seems like this is the only time i actually find to write. there are these really nice spanish kids in my compartment with me, but at the same time they are really depressing me. i'm so tired of being alone, not just on this trip, but in life. i'm tired of the transient, impermanent nights that are punctuated only by regret. i wish i had someone to share my life with. yesterday at the hamburger bahnhof i had one of the lowest points of trip. unlike in copenhagen, this moment was inspired by a seemingly inane act, not a mounting, growing, inevitable breakdown. i was leaving the beuys exhibit to go upstairs to the rest of the collection and sitting on the stairs was this striking scene - a very attractive, thin, tattooed man (who reminded me a lot of cody)...a man out of my dizziest daydream, sitting with his wife and his daughter. nothing breaks my heart more than to see my ideal manifested right in front of my eyes.

i just had to take a break from writing, it was causing me to relive the moment and it was getting a bit overwhelming. i just lost myself for a moment in the passing landscapes until the monotony lulled me to sleep. as i started to close my eyes, however, the sun started to break from behind the passing trees and fields. i closed my eyes, despite the glare, and all i got were passing sun flares in my eyes learned i only see some memory but all i see is red small orange sunbursts that flash into my vision in frequent consistent intervals, constant flinches reminding me of the inevitable pain to come. my only choices were to either embrace the pain, or to open my eyes only to be blinded by the reality, or else to hesitantly avert my eyes right below the source, the blazing heat of this brilliant light, illuminating the days ahead of me. and what do i do? instead of choosing any of the above, i curtly excuse myself from this suffocating compartment to pace the halls and absorb the satisfying hiss of the opening doors between each new car

i swear it's different because i'm lonely. i can't stop listening to barcelona. there is something horribly haunting about them, but so poignant and beautiful. it is something about the pull between the sadness and allure of it all on the edge of night we look down. . . if we got back to start(stars) we won't need any money. what would it be like to be eighteen again? to just be worried about jim and alaric, moving away and resenting my family and direction in life, fretting about cymbal line, standardized tests and dorm shopping. yet, here are some eighteen year old kids from barcelona, living parallel lives halfway across the globe and they are traveling the world, or at least germany. i wish i had that. i really think i need to come to europe, at least after my post-bacc program. maybe do my masters in the uk? i don't know. i know it is just another excuse to run away and shirk off responsibilities, social or otherwise, break ties without goodbyes, it is always easier that way after all. i find a way to run away, but there really isn't any way to actually escape anything at the end of the day, just put off the inevitable.

overarching rules have told me not to think about 'who am i?'. . . i'm searching desperate this hole is getting deeper by the hour, my hands are bleeding, i spin around. . . you're nowhere my only plans are too tired to push me anywhere but down. . .so who am i?. . .i'm searching, i'm desperate.

reasons like seasons they constantly change

and seasons of last year like reasons have floated away. . .

a mix partly for a friend, mainly for this time of year.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rix98f

close reading music

there is a project on campus that is led by the philosophy department called hooks, where they ask for submissions about why songs/literature/movies/art are compelling, and why you find a particular work compelling. some cool examples from the past? the vocal line in "twist and shout" or the bass line in "i will possess your heart." i am more of a "big picture" kind of person, which is reflected in what i talk about (i think). these are the hooks that i wrote last night. download links in the titles, and videos at the end. if you haven't heard the song before or aren't very familiar with it, i suggest listening to the song, reading, and then listening again.

Band of Horses, “The Funeral”

A simple ethereal vocal line drifts in alongside the tentatively slurring guitar line, setting the stage. Isolated and mournful harmonies add to the somber tone that meanders before ultimately reaching the jarring full-band unison of the first chorus. The bottom suddenly drops out and the subsequent crescendo of the drums, halfway through the chorus, lends itself to the growing grief elicited from the reminiscent nature of the lyrics. The recurrent ebb and flow of volume, contrasting drastically between verse and chorus, mirrors the dynamic nature of the singer’s emotional response to the matter at hand. A false hope of resolution and finality occurs at the 2:45 mark, only to be followed by the most heart-wrenching thirty seconds of the song, the one exception to the lull of the troughs and peaks preceding it, with the only verse that maintains the same level of emotional anguish through to the raucous chorus. The grief hangs static over the full sound of the entire band, with vocals, spoken expression straining to be heard over the instrumental strife beneath.

Neutral Milk Hotel, “Holland, 1945”

The opening measures start out in a stereotypically rock and roll fashion, raspy voice counting off “two, one, two, three, four” over a metrically driven instrumental line. With abrupt lyrical phrases that do not necessarily match breaks in thought or expression, the first line is misleadingly turning the listener’s expectations on their heads. “The only I girl I ever loved,” despite expected genre-based conventions is not introducing a love song, as the listener would anticipate, but rather a grotesque scene where our subject is “born with roses in her eyes.” Though this line is still somewhat cryptic and could be construed as merely symbolic, the subsequent line “but then they buried her alive - one evening, 1945” removes any remaining doubt that the nature of the subject matter at hand is steeped in morbidity. The persistent muted trumpets add an element of frivolity in opposition to the severe, macabre imagery, thus creating a backdrop of flighty irreverence in response to the somber nature of the lyrical composition. This interplay of expectations and execution adds to the mounting discomfort that is instilled in the listener as the final measures are passed back and forth between voices. As the instrumental lines amble around a resolution, they finally grow into an almost imperceptibly off-kilter final chord, leaving the listener with a sense of unease.

a lot of strange videos came up with this song as the background, but i thought it was important to have a studio version of the song, not a live one, for reference.

Manchester Orchestra, “I Can Feel A Hot One”

Simple, repeating guitar progressions carry on beneath Andy Hull’s tenuous and hesitant voice, a voice which feels more spoken than it does contrived or produced. As the uncertainty in his words begins to clear and acceptance that “I’ll face the fact that I’m just fine” rises to the surface, the complexity of the composition parallels the increasing complexity of his interplaying emotions. As increasing levels of intricacy compound, different trains of thought existing alongside one another, the vocals begin to layer in over one another in harmony. The addition of sorrowful strings, a few stray hi-hats and the occasional drum pedal later, the composition blossoms into a complicated landscape of weaving vocals and increasing instrumental involvement out of what had started out as a simple dialogue. The lyrical styling offers a dimension of vulnerability that is often lost in studio renditions or that is found only in intimate, live performances. The candid nature of the song creates a sense that the listener is eavesdropping, as if listening in on someone’s private thoughts, full of inner dialogue that riddled with retrospective musings such as “[if] enough is never quite enough, what’s enough?” As realizations mount, harmonies become more adventurous before being shaken off in favor of a sing-along worthy final reprise, quelling all of the variances into simple, straightforward succession.

this embedding on this video is disabled, but it is worth seeing - so go watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i01O0wMCr0

on influence

if you didn't already figure it out, music defines me. or maybe i define myself by music. one or the other. i always go through phases, in and out, up and down, never knowing where my taste will lead me next. there are some albums, however, that have been better friends, better outlets than any real person in my life has ever been. the more i think about it, the more i realize that every state of mind, every period of my life, every transition...there is a soundtrack for that moment. though there are dozens more that have their moment, that left their mark, these are twenty five albums that have changed my life, saved my life, or opened my mind. most of these don't exactly boost my ~cred, but they all mean a lot to me in some regard. note: these are not in any kind of order...if anything, the last album pictured here has arguably been the most influential.

the postal service, "give up"

waking ashland, "composure"

panic at the disco, "a fever you can't sweat out"

circa survive, "juturna"

band of horses, "cease to begin"

neutral milk hotel, "in the aeroplane over the sea"


the mars volta, "de-loused in the comatorium"

cartel, "chroma"

manchester orchestra, "i'm like a virgin losing a child"

be your own pet, "be your own pet"

brand new, "the devil and god are raging inside me"

dashboard confessional, "the places you have come to fear the most"

weezer, "weezer"/the blue album

the rocket summer, "do you feel"
this providence, "our world's divorce"

the starting line, "direction"

something corporate, "north"

the hush sound, "so sudden"

fall out boy, "take this to your grave"

mae, "the everglow"

panic at the disco, "pretty. odd."

death cab for cutie, "plans"

all-american rejects, "when the world comes down"

the format, "interventions and lullabies"

jack's mannequin, "everything in transit"

07.31.2009

København, Denmark

another day, another hangover. i haven't made it home sober successfully since i've been here. you would think copenhagen would have provide the requite i so desperately needed before berlin, and, well, after amsterdam, but it seems to be the exact opposite. despite mathilde insisting that she wouldn't be able to go out since she works every day that i'm here, she has only gone into work once since monday and has been out with me every single night. granted, i stay out a few hours longer than she does, but she has been right there with me for the most part.

as soon as she and her mother picked me up at the train station, we went to check my pack in left luggage then hit the streets walking. we went down strøget, the walking street, and stopped for lunch on the canal at nyhavn, where mathilde's mom graciously treated us to lunch. oh, and to my first carlsberg...the first of many, many more to come. then we caught the metro to christiania. we had coffee at the 'world's safest cafe' (due to the fact that they have had something like 2000 police raids in the past decade) and then walked around the water looking at all of the self-built homes. then we caught a bus to see the new opera house and then headed back to the train station to grab my pack. then we were finally headed to mathilde's apartment, phew.

mathilde's mom left us money for dinner and went with mathilde to run errands while i organized my pack. i took a nap after mathilde went to pick up philip, which was nice because i had just spent eighteen hours on trains and more than a few hours on my feet walking around copenhagen. when i woke up it was to a fully cooked dinner, a box of wine, and then a bit of reminiscing about amsterdam. philip was really sweet, but his english got weaker and weaker has his sobriety diminished. ultimately i had to go to call it a night once the wine started to settle into my veins...and i drifted into sleep with every intention in the world of making it an early morning.

early turned out to be 10:30 by the time i showered, ate, and attempted to make iced nescafe, which was disastrous and awful. i got to the station, spent ten minutes staring at the ticket machine that was only in danish and apparently only took change. i went to a coffeeshop in the little strip near the station to get some change, a cappuccino to get things going, and then a friendly conversation with a barista later, i was on my way. i went to the national museum, and i was absolutely blown away. this place definitely made up for everything that amsterdam had been missing. i completely geeked out and ended up staying until it closed, a good six hours later. after that i went to the round tower, took a bunch of photos and stressed over the fact that my phone was not working. after getting on the wrong line in the completely opposite direction of mathilde's apartment, i finally made it back half an hour late.

we tried to go to this traditional danish restaurant, but when we finally got there the kitchen was closed, but they sent us to another place - rio bravo. we were told if we took a certain bus and got off right near tivoli we would see it, but we ended up walking around the same few blocks over and over again. eventually we found it, and it was definitely worth the walk. i had the same thing as mathilde (she ordered for both of us) which was this pork and potato dish (gasp! i was put into a culturally awkward situation where i had to eat meat. eck) which was surprisingly good, but between that and the beers...and the fact that it was a more than generous portion, i was absolutely satiated. surprisingly, the meat didn't really make me that sick, just sleepy. we ended up walking around looking for a place to go out, but it was a tuesday night. we found a 'student' bar with cheap take away beers, and after struggling to make it up to the bar, we finally got some tubørgs and made it out to the street where i sat on the curb chatting with some guys we had taken to be from central or south america. it turns out that they were swedish! between them and the germans, i was some kind of side show being from texas, and after a while it got really old.

eventually mathilde said it was time for her to head home and get some sleep before work in the morning, and i wasn't so into staying with these tourist boys by myself, so we grabbed a taxi home together. come the next morning i somehow managed to have my first real hangover of the trip, though i probably drank the least that night. i woke up around nine, got ready for the day, and then headed over to øosterport to see the danish resistance museum for world war two. it was really well done and very moving, but i couldn't help but laugh when there would be ten lines of danish captions on an exhibit and the english translation would be all of five words. after that, i walked into the nearby church, anglican with pointed arches and all, and then walked around churchillparken for a few minutes, taking in the swans, water lillies, and heaps of tourists. then i walked over to the stork fountain at strøget and waited to meet up with mathilde for lunch (she hadn't gone to work after all).

we grabbed pizza at a little hole in the wall place near a whole strip of secondhand and new age stores which we had dropped into. we then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, then headed over to nørreport where we stopped at a cafe for a coffee, which turned into another coffee and then a few beers. we ended up running into a few of mathilde's colleagues at the cafe and her friend sara , all of whom were very nice. sara wanted us to stop by her art exhibition, but by the time we had gotten ont o the internet at the hovedbibliothek, it was time to head back to valby, where we got ready for the night in a grant total of five minutes. we then headed to darlings to meet up with stephan, whom mathilde had met at roskilde, and who had graciously offered to take me out for the night. when we got to darlings, leigh was there and he ended up leaving with mathilde for the art exhibition when i left with stephan for vega to see tv on the radio.

stephan and i had a few more drinks (and shots of a honey vodka) before we left for vega, and by the time we got there, the band was already four songs into their set. the crowd was a bit rowdier than i was expecting for this kind of show, but it was rather fun. i got us all the way up to the front, which made stephan ecstatic, and we just danced and danced until the show was over. we headed back to darlings and chatted with anne before we headed to jolene's in the meat packing district, where we met back up with mathilde and leigh. eventually mathilde had to leave again, and i went back with leigh much later in the night. come morning, i was really down and upset and i went back to valby, showered, got dressed, and took a nap before finally making myself get back up around 2.

i found a cafe near the round tower, which turned out to be a lesbian bar, and sat with my latte until i had updated everything about amsterdam. then, i walked around a little bit, and then headed back to valby to meet up with mathilde and to get ready for the farewell party. i was still in an awful mood and almost didn't go to the party but i figured, why not? we stopped at an italian place, and then met up with monty and all of his friends at a pub. minus the fact that most of the guys were going on in danish with no regard for the fact that i was left out (until i made them include me), it was all good fun. i had a few shots, including a round purchased by a really silly group of boys, one of whom later gave me a bouquet of plastic flowers, and i had a few really good conversations about music and the like. all of the nordic names were really giving me a hard time, so between that and the alcohol, most of what i have to show from the night are a bunch of faces and numbers without names attached. after the pub we went ot rust, which was like heaven on earth. i danced with this guy caspar for a long time, and he really wanted to go elsewhere, but louis won out in the end when i didn't want to leave with mathilde around four. i was going to crash with theis but louis (monty's cousin) convinced me i was better served crashing on his couch instead of trying to get back to valby. all of these guys are copenhagen's young elite, and needless to say i felt more than a little out of place in his apartment. i left around a quarter to 2, and then just chatted and watched tv with mathilde until she left around six to go to the festival in jutland. i had all these promises of being shown a good time, but none of them went through, but one night off from drinking wasn't all that bad. it was actually really needed, to be honest. i couldn't afford to go to the hardcore festival with mathilde anyway, so i was better served staying in copenhagen.

i got up at eight on saturday and went to the statens museum for kunst, which was really hard to taken in - there was far too much to try and absorb. from there i went to the king's have at the christiansborg palace, where i think i inadvertently saw some of the guys from the night before. then i climbed up the tower of the kirke near christiania which has stairs you can take all the way up on the outside of the steeple. it was quite terrifying, but the views were unparalleled...you could see all the way to sweden since it was a clear day. then i went to christiania, had a beer and met renee and anas. we had a few drinks, hit up one of the stalls near nemoland and then sat at woodstock before heading to the main square, where a giant show was going on for the world out games. we grabbed pizza from a stall and another beer, then smoked under the ferris wheel and i started to panic. then i headed back to valby around ten after catching a few more bands, still really out of it from all of the hash, wasn't packed, and didn't really want to see monty in this condition, so i stayed home watching reruns of weeds. woke up early this morning, went to københavn station, made my reservation to berlin, but i don't leave until tomorrow, which i am kind of bummed about, but i think that means i will get to see mathilde one more time. i feel like i am wasting my time here today, but i am trying not to dwell on it. each passing days means one less adventure in my travels ahead, which makes me a little sad. i haven't been having the trip i was expecting at all, but it has still been nice. if nothing else, i probably wouldn't be able to afford to stay in copenhagen this long if i had come by myself, so i guess using this opportunity while i have the chance isn't really a waste after all. plus, i love mathilde so so much...i don't want to leave her.

after leaving the train station i went to øosterpark, back to churchillparken, did the tourist-y thing by going to see the little mermaid, walked through kastellet, then down along the canal, past the opera house, and then just happened to be passing through amalianborg palace during the changing of the guards. then i went to the marmorkirken, walked back to strøget, which brings me all the way up to the present - sitting at a cafe, writing. i realize now that i'm missing two events in my recollections - one, some kirken i dropped in during the day that mathilde and i went shopping and two, going out by myself on friday, seeing another out games concert near the round town at the antwerpen stage, and then having a large cappuccino in the square near the nørreport station. those incidents aside, i think my accounts are complete. at the next place i stop to write, it will be time to reflect, not just document.

07.23.2009

Amsterdam

So, i am sitting in the service station of centraal (yes, two a's) station waiting to validate my ticket and hopefully get a reservation on a night train to copenhagen. i am a bit worried about time though because i am supposed to meet mathilde and daniel back at the hostel at six, so i either have to stand them up or leave here pretty shortly. this place is way worse than the DMV, by far. i think they have only helped five people in the last twenty minutes, even though there are eight desks open. awesome. well, yesterday all i did was walk, and it was amazing (but exhausting).

i stayed out a bit later than i was expecting on tuesday since i went out with stephen. we went to grab a beer in leidseplein, then it started raining so we just sat there for a bit. eventually richard came and met up with us. i love that he is into music, but i hate that we have no common ground in that regard. we tried to talk about gauges, but the metric system kind of screwed that up, too. we went to soundgarden after that, which i really liked. we passed paradiso on the way, and i looked on amorously. at soundgarden they were supposed to be showing a movie, but we ran into their finnish friend matthias and his friend yana, so we smoked, drank, and then went to this other bar whose name escapes me...but it reminded me of harry potter because it sounded a bit like karkaroff. it was kind of dead, but it was still fun. matthias was way, way, way too drunk and at one point laid down in the street, but it made things much more interesting. well, when he wasn't making fun of me for being texan.

on live shows

there's no comparison. lots of live videos for all of you that are out there procrastinating as much as i am, in typical sunday fashion.

habits

i recently realized i have an addiction. okay, maybe this revelation wasn't all the recent, but it has been slowly edging it's way up into my consciousness. i'm addicted to sound, to noise, to anything that can fill my head and drown out my thoughts. tv on at night, music streaming into my mind, coloring my vision and perception. feet in step with the beat dictating my thoughts and emotions. i can use music to harness my frame of mind. tired? electronic, dance, albums that are older friends than most people. bitter? let's hear about someone else's angst. depressed? power pop. happy? keep the ephemeral elation floating high with orchestration to match. contemplative? let's focus my thoughts on some problem other than my own. i can't have the answer for everything, so why push myself further down into melancholy by putting the weight of the world back behind my eyes.

anything to not face my own thoughts, to not let my mind run in it's usual circles that never quite meet where they should. noise numbs the perpetual desire of my brain to keep working overtime. right now, my heart is still racing thinking about what i've created, what is to come, and i should be napping but it is the last thing that i can consider. all i can consider is what i want, and making it a reality. i want this to work. i'm upset about some of the events of this weekend, but at the end of the day, as my roommate astutely realized, i was much more upset when i thought i had lost you, not him. maybe you are an idea to me, just like i am to you, but it is an idea that i don't want to drown out. i want to say it over and over, through other's words...try to drown out your thoughts with my ability to harness my emotions. maybe that's too personal. maybe i am over estimating the value that my music, the words of others have for me (and hopefully for you) but i want a way to quantify how i feel. something tangible in the meantime. i just want something real.

a guide

it's all kind of a mess and bit haphazard, but i already spent way too much time on this. sometimes its literal, sometimes its not. sometimes the lines i picked below are all that i mean, sometimes it is much much more. it's about time. for you.

http://sendspace.com/file/uxgzbj

1. It started out as a feeling which then grew into a hope

2. I've been extra careful with the words that I say

3. One more time could be time enough to think about it.

4. Now, I'm wanting this for sure and I'll beg for nothing more.

5. Will I know when it can be us?

6. But my life is such a mess, and we've already been through this.

7. And not a soul sleeps, another heart skips a beat

8. They can't love me, they can't love what I don't show

9. So if you want to be with me with these things, there's not telling we just have to wait and see

10. Got you laying up nights just waiting for the music to start

11. There’s only room for you and me and what we’ve left to try

12. Goes right through you, but knotted up in my mind

13. Oh baby don’t you know I suffer…you set my soul alight

14. Do you believe you're missing out, that everything good is happening somewhere else?

15. I am taking you with me where we can contemplate our chemistry

16. Look at the time, we’re always waiting

17. They'll find a way to pull stars down

18. Every now and again sometimes I get lost on the wind of a dream

19. Im trying to find truth in words, in rhymes, in notes, in all the things i wish id wrote

20. Mixin’ up adjectives, like jealous and sweet

21. If you like to think out loud it might really help me out

22. It looks like the worst is over, blue eyes when the wind was here

23. I want to go where everyone goes, I want to know what everyone knows, I want to go where everyone feels the same

24. I don't get it, I'm not asking for much, but everybody wants to just have something

25. The next time I’m in town...