Chicago in Doodles

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"He looked fourteen going on some age that never was. He looked as if he'd been sitting there and God had made the trees and rocks around him. He looked like his own reincarnation and then his own again. Above all else he looked to be filled with a terrible sadness. As if he harbored news of some horrendous loss that no one else had heard of yet. Some vast tragedy not of fact or incident or event but of the way the world was."

Album and book cover art are my two favorite mediums. While every piece of art contains depth greater than its colors, each piece of cover art is forced to represent all that it literally contains. It's a great burden, and many independently beautiful pieces of art have collapsed on the foundation of weak writing and poorly composed songs. When the level of quality coincides, however, covers are deeply powerful and affect me in a way no other visual form can.

That said, you can imagine how I dorked out when I saw someone selling an exact reproduction of the 1st edition of The Great Gatsby for less than the ugly new version on Amazon. I won't get into the coolness of First Edition Library and how it's currenly on hiatus; I'll just say I was lucky to see this book on the same morning it went up for sale.

Because I teach it, I've read The Great Gatsby eight or nine times, and I love it more each time. The themes are as relevant as the day it was written, the characters inhabit the real word, the symbols are both striking and natural, and Fitzgerald strung words together so beautifully that it's practically a 200 page poem. The cover could be hung in a museum even without an associated story, yet it represents all of these things as well. Does visual art get any stronger?

P.S. Adrian, your senior art show was my favorite.

P.P.S. If people really stop buying physical albums, I think record shops should become art shops where you buy album art that comes with a code to download the album. Of Montreal sort of tried it, but I'm talking shops full of this stuff. Posters, t-shirts, mobiles, etc., each tied to a specific album. What do you think? Bad idea? Yeah, I hope vinyl never dies.

Third Revolution Straight

Yeah, I know it's very cliche to rave about this album right now, and it probably belongs on Stuff White People Like, but I seriously can't get enough of the new Animal Collective. Here's a video for the song that's been stuck in my head all day. "I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status, I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls." That chorus is so sticky!

Great day? Bad day? Not sure.

The good news: I wasn't one of the 160 teachers in my district to be given a pink slip today. It looks like I'll have a job next year, and I feel as though I managed to dive under a moving truck without being hit.

The bad news: 160 teachers in my district are facing unemployment. Among the casualties is Jeff, an excellent English teacher with a mortgage and a pregnant wife. The only reason I'll be able to dream peacefully while he will surely endure a sleepless night is because I was hired a year earlier. I want to praise God, but I know Jeff serves the same one, so I realize I have to praise him simply because he's God, not because of my circumstances.

Mondays are the only weeknights I'm at home; I teach on Tuesday and Thursday nights, go to church on Wednesday nights, and Friday, well, you know how Fridays are. So I really should blog on Mondays, and I usually think about it at work that day, but once evening rolls around I'd rather read on the porch, immerse myself in a record, or hammer something together. Since I appreciate it when friends keep their blogs updated, I really would like to be consistent, but, well, I don't feel like being on the computer right now and it's a good night for putting on a hoodie and taking a walk. Wait, was that a blog entry? Done.

Favorites from SFMOMA

I'm drawn to imperceptible moments made perceptible.



The poodles have been interpreted by some as guardians and by others as villains, but why would guardians face opposite the danger? And Chris, consider the Manichean significance! The poodles are obviously evil.



Magritte is my favorite Surrealist, so seeing an original up close was pretty exciting.



There were about 15 guys working on a huge mural.