My favorite places to make papers bleed

Across the street, two doors over

About a year ago, as I was carrying boxes from the U-Haul to our garage, I was excited to see a neighbor roll down her driveway and pedal toward the city on her bike. I imagined that she was a staunch proponent of responsible transportation, a locavore, a reader, a purchaser of baguettes. After a few days in the new house, I realized the cycling neighbor had a few female roommates who spent a whole lot of time on their porch. Sometimes they’d be smoking, sometimes they’d just be talking, sometimes they’d still be out there when I went to bed. As I sat on my porch they were far enough away to where I didn’t feel like we were watching each other, but I could always hear the muddled buzz of their activity; It leant a sense of vibrance and comfort to the dark cul-de-sac. It wasn’t until we’d been settled for 6 months that I found out it was a half-way house. After the house painter told me, I admitted that I should have been more curious about why 4 or 5 middle-aged women lived together like that. I also realized that the bike rider pedaled by every day because she had lost her driver’s license, not because she subscribed to any of my idealistic suppositions. No matter. Then, about two months ago they had to move out because the owner of the house decided to sell it. When I sit on the porch nowadays I feel like I’m hanging out on an abandoned movie set.

Currently Reading (Still)

"When he asked her would she not have been afraid to ride through this country by herself at night she said that there was no remedy for it and that one must put oneself in the care of God. He asked if God always looked after her and she studied the heart of the fire for a long time where the coals breathed bright and dull and bright again in the wind from the lake. At last she said that God looked after everything and that one could no more evade his care than evade his judgment. She said that even the wicked could not escape his love." - Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

Chicago in Doodles

Currently Reading

"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.

This video isn't new, but it never gets old. When one of the most beautiful sights (a girl on a bike) is combined with one of the creepiest sights (masked men in a dark forest), and set to a pretty great song, the result is WIN.

"Big clumsy flies bumped into my face, swarmed on my neck and wiggled in my underwear. Blundering and soft-bellied, they had been born before they had brains. They had spent a year under water on legs, had crawled out on a rock, had become flies and copulated with the ninth and tenth segments of their abdomens, and then had died as the first light wind blew them into the water where the fish circled excitedly. They were a fish's dream come true - stupid, succulent, and exhausted from copulation. Still, it would be hard to know what gigantic portion of human life is spent in this same ratio of years under water on legs to one premature, exhausted moment on wings."

"He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."

Wes Anderson Party

The early arrivals. Ten points if you can identify them all, five if you at least know which movies.


Max Fischer: Winner of "Shoot the ear off Magnus Buchan"


Rita (Sweet Lime): "Pin the Javelina on the wall"


Mordecai perched on Richie's arm

Back on the Radar/ We Have a Place for You...

We were without internet access for nearly a month, but a couple days ago I traded Charter Communications some cash for access to the outside world. I tried to work a deal by which the nearest Charter office would be provided with enough lemons to tang approximately 3, 562 glasses of iced tea, but they wouldn't go for it. "This ain't the wild west anymore, and I ain't Dr. Quinn," said the operator. "This is the wildest west there ever was," I said with strong conviction and the deepest voice I could muster. Alas, I caved and promised to write a check.
The above picture is of the room we finished most recently. If you want to see others, click on Jenny's name over to the left there. Anyway, this is the guest room. It really doesn't belong to us because it's made up almost entirely of other people's stuff. Seriously, we spent a total of 15 dollars on it (for the sheets, on sale). We painted the walls using some old Behr I found in the shed out back, the end tables are from the Kruses (Jenny painted them white with what was left over from the trim in the kitchen), the map is from Chris, the bed is from my parents, the chair is from Jenny's mom, there's a painting from Vietnam that Tyler gave me, there's a painting Donald Miller told me I could have when he was moving, an old hutch from my parents, and some other knick knacks given to us by friends new and old (no doubt some of those books as well). Anyway, if there's not something from you in there, bring something over and you will be represented. I think it would be cool if everyone who went in there recognized at least one object. Anyway, we're hoping to put a bigger bed in there soon to accommodate the marrieds who don't want to cuddle for 8 hours. So, that's that.