Dehumanized

There's a really wonderful piece in the September issue of Harper's Magazine written by Mark Slouka,about the effects of an economically driven educational system, the current fate of democracy, etc. It's a great piece to give to someone when they ask, "What are you going to do with a degree in __________(insert any of the humanities here: Literature, Philosophy, History, Etc.)."

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/09/0082640

here's some clips:



Rain does not follow the plow. Political freedom, whatever the market evangelists may tell us, is not an automatic by-product of a growing economy; democratic institutions do not spring up, like flowers at the feet of the magi, in the tire tracks of commerce. They just don’t. They’re a different species. They require a different kind of tending.

The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult—to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization—not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be. ......

They are thus, inescapably, political. Why? Because they complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties. Because they grow uncertainty. Because they expand the reach of our understanding (and therefore our compassion), even as they force us to draw and redraw the borders of tolerance. Because out of all this work of self-building might emerge an individual capable of humility in the face of complexity; an individual formed through questioning and therefore unlikely to cede that right; an individual resistant to coercion, to manipulation and demagoguery in all their forms. The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what we might call democratic values. There is no better that I am aware of.

For me, this shot summed up the SDRE show on Saturday

Do you remember CD clubs?

I do.

My Dad let us join one when we were like 9 or 10. It was one of those deals where you bought one CD for full price (16.99!!) and then got 11 CD's for a penny each. For Christmas that year my Mom had been given a 5 disk CD changer, and one CD: Tracy Chapman. Whenever I hear that "He's Got a Fast Car" song, I feel like I am 9 again, being woken up for school, or eating Honey Bunches of Oats with Jack, looking at 1+ year old Kayla learning to walk, my Dad drinking coffee and filing his briefcase with bills and invoices for Beliken, his clothing company. Mom would try to cut bananas into our cereal. I just recently, as in, like, yesterday, began to tolerate bananas.

Anyhow, I remember a few of the CD's we ordered. We each got to pick three, I think, but I don't remember who ordered what. Here's a list from foggy memory:
Shaquille O'Neal: Shaq Diesel
Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Greatest Hits
Soul Asylum: Grave Dancer's Union
Montell Jordan: This is How We Do it
Pearl Jam: Ten
Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience

The last album was my Dad's jam. We listened to that album a thousand times if we listened to it once. I remember many an afternoon out in the shed, putting the drywall on what would eventually become the Rompin Room, singing along:

"Things you said and did to me
Seemed to come so easily
The love I thought Id won you give for free
Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about nights out in the school yard
I found out about you"

Recently, my friend Futureman hooked me up with an invitation to an "exclusive" torrent site for DLing music. It was like being 9 again, flipping through the BMG catalog, circling the pictures of the album covers I wanted, making a list of fifteen albums and laboring over the final cuts, except I didn't have to make any cuts-; I can download whatever the fuck I want! The anxiety is short-lived now( it took WEEKS to get the CD's from BMG; it only takes about 45 seconds to DL an album from the site), but I still get excited about new music the same way I did back then.

I haven't been home to see my pops in 6 months now, and have been missing him and my sis terribly lately. The first album I snatched from the site--can you guess? Gin Blossoms discography. And damn have I been listening to it, blasting it when the ladies aren't home, drowning out the little girl that lives next door's singing lesson, playing air guitar in the living room, thinking of my Pops.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7WaJt02sTE

Will you carry me across the sea...

I honestly don't remember the first time I heard Sunny Day Real Estate's "Diary." It must have been ten or more years ago, in High School. I assume I was in my 4Runner, or in Juice Box's Jeep. I don't remember. So, I can't say how long it has been since I have wanted to see them live, but it has been a while.

I got to see them Sunday night. They were amazing, in the most un-bastardized, literal sense of that word.

Elle and I went and ran into Terrence of the Lafayette Luftwaffe. Terrence got to see them in their heyday, on their tour supporting "How it Feels to be Something On." We both pine for that period of music. We both still listen to Superdrag, SDRE, Samiam, and other bands from the early-nineties, before the word "Emo" was ruined, coopted and stripped of any meaning. It is a word that does not mean anything anymore, and certainly one that a band like SDRE does not recognize.

I'm sure one day I will get around to writing a long-form essay about my love affair with this time period of music, about the aesthetics of vulnerability, etc. But right now I want to tell you that SDRE played an incredible show. The crowd (which consisted of a disproportionate number of tall, chubby, black-shirted sad men, so many that is was very difficult for Elle to see no matter where we were in the crowd) erupted at the first notes of each song, a choir singing in unison to each chorus.

It was a good show and one I will not forget soon.

Here's some clips.

It's starting to feel like fall here in New York. The leaves have already begun to look singed at the edges and the air feels lighter today. These are the days for bike rides, for sunset sessions and offshore winds. For coffee on the boardwalk. The beginnings and ends of the day auburn and rusted, crisp and clear.

This is my last semester as an undergraduate student. I have been in New York for almost two years. I feel like I have been here forever, yet at the same time like I have just arrived.

I spend a lot of time browsing graduate schools in the afternoons, waiting for 4:45 to roll around so i can pedal downtown to pick up Elle from work. It makes me hopeful, yet empties me. Where to go now, what to study, what to do. MFA in creative writing, try to get a book deal? PhD in American Studies, teach college, write essays on the bowels of American popular culture? Who knows which way the wind blows.

I do know that in <9 months I am getting married to a girl who everyday surprises me with he fits of beauty, her moments of grace and humor, her empathy. Other than that, well, I'll figure it out. I'm not worried about it. Not worried at all.

I realized that I never put a decent shot of MY bike up, and, since I will inevitably be putting a picture of Jack's bike I just finished with Devotion, I figure I might as well. My baby:

I built Elle a bike. I'm very proud of how it came out.

We went skateboarding yesterday. Elle and Noelle hung out and chewed gum while Vava and I shredded. I haven't skated in a while--not counting trips to the grocery school on my zip zinger. It was a good feeling, still being able to pull a few tricks out of my bag for Vava.

Here are some pictures Elle took:

News. A little late.

I asked Elle to marry me.

She said yes.

I have been thinking about asking her for a long time. That sentence makes it seem casual kind of, which I promise you it was not.

I decided I was going to do it before we went to Nova Scotia, one night lying next to her as she slept with her eyes half-open. I started looking for rings. Over the next couple weeks I spent hours walking around the city looking at rings that felt empty, cold, diamonds that sparkled wildly yet felt distant, fake, soulless. I talked to my Mom, something I have started to do a little more often lately, about rings. She mentioned the ring her and my dad got married with, that she had saved it and would love for me to have it.

My Dad got a pretty bum deal in my opinion. There are obviously two sides to their story, but the one I have witnessed wasn't very fair to him. He worshiped my Mom. When they got divorced I got an email from one of her friends wondering how I was dealing with everything. She was a good friend of my Mom's from childhood, and knew my Dad and her from the beginning. Your Dad always adored your Mom, she said. Put her on a pedestal, but she never took it well, being worshiped.

He gave her that ring and they were married in the backyard of the house where, one year later, I was born. The story since then isn't all bad news. Not even close. I mean there are three of us now, and the earlier part of our childhoods were spent in the company of two parents who loved each other and us very much.

Anyhow, anyone who knows me knows how close my Dad and I are. Pete says it is incestual. My Dad is my best friend. And I feel like I share the same idealism about my relationship with Elle that he had for my Mom. I worship her. She is the most beautiful person I have ever known, the most amazing, rational girl I have ever met. She takes care of me, knows how I am feeling--sometimes before I do--, and is always, always there for me. When I fall down--literally--she picks me up. And I think she feels the same way about me. And that blows my mind. We never get sick of each other. Ever.

SO, I had the ring my Dad gave my Mom refinished, turning it into white gold, and the diamonds made to sparkle like it did when my Dad gave it to her 26 years ago. I wanted that ring to mean what it did to my Dad, and for it to be received the way it should have been. I wanted to redeem it, and in doing that, redeem my Dad. I hope this doesn't sound cruel. It isn't. My Dad had his heart broken. He risked it all, time and time again, and got burned. Elle knows this, knows how it weighs upon me, and understand me better because of it.

I think she also realizes how much it means for me to want to get married, knowing what happened with my parents. If Elle wasn't who she is, and we weren't who we are together, I would have gladly ended up living in a rooming house with Pete, Jack, and probably Lucas and Larry, for the rest of my life. Elle has forced me to reconsider and retract many statements I have made about the nature of women, the nature of committed relationships, etc. etc. She has made a liar out of me, in many ways.

So, I asked her to marry me.

Two Saturdays ago I was supposed to go looking for apts during the day. I was going to ask her that night. Her birthday was Sunday and we were supposed to go to dinner with her parents. Saturday night was my chance. It would surprise her and be a birthday present to remember.

I made reservations at a cuban restaurant in DUMBO, and we had plans to ride over the Brooklyn Bridge on the way back, something Elle had never done. I would ask her there, the city behind us twinkling.

But, Elle decided that since it was such a nice day that we could ride bikes around Brooklyn and look at the apratments together. I thought that would be fine. We could come back in the afternoon, get cleaned up, and head out for dinner.

So we rode bikes around for 6 hours, got home, and were exhausted. She suggested we order food instead of going out. No, I said, lets go out. It will be fine. She was exhausted though, so I didn't have much of a choice.

We ordered wings.

I was freaking out. I called Kayla, told her the situation as I ran through the grocery store to get stuff to make a salad. She said it would be fine. I thought maybe I should wait. Another time, i thought. Wait for the perfect moment.

But I had been working myself up to this point for over a month now.

I lit candles, put the wings on plates instead of eating out of the styrofoam, and asked her to marry me about 15 minutes into our meal. I was sick to my stomach and Elle could tell something was up.

I got down on my knee and she offered to stand up (she was sitting criss-cross-apple sauce). I don't know what to do, she said. Do you put it on my finger? I say yes, do you put it on my finger?

Then we hugged and kissed a lot, jumped up and down and tried to figure out what to do about telling people.

Now you know. I'm engaged to the most beautiful girl. The girl of my dreams, as if I had created her myself, to my own specifications and liking. She is mine, or will be officially sometime in June (we think).

I'm a lucky, lucky young man.

Bear was a good pup. She always welcomed me loudly when I cam home late from hardcore shows, or when I snuck in from the Rompin Room for some Oreo's and milk. Usually Dad would wake up from the door opening or from bear barking and join me. We would sit, the dogs sitting under the table or in the dining room, and dunk our cookies together, talking of life, love, hate, politics, religion (or lack thereof), etc. Even as she got older, and her seizures began to strip her of her vitality, she was such a loving and faithful pup. As her mind went, her love stayed put. My Mom was crucial in taking care of her, and always knew just how to calm the poor lady down. Last year her brother, Wolf, died. I wasn't there to see him off. But it was a rough time for me, being alone in NYC, feeling alienated from everyone I loved and cared for, and hearing my Dad tell the story of Bear wandering around the backyard, digging and sniffing, trying to find her brother out there in the backyard somewhere, trying to dig him up and bring him back.
She tolerated my pup Lemon's harassment, as long as Lemon didn't take her chair from her. She will be missed.

You Are Not A Stranger Here

So my friend Cornelius Blackpool suggested a collection of short stories to me. "It's called 'You Are Not A Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett," he said. "It's fucking awesome."

Blackpool has always seemed a damn smart guy, having majored in Literature and went on to work in the Hedge Fund world.

Anyhow, Elle bought me the book from the Strand last week. I finished the book i three days of subway rides. Besides the ones where Elle and I meet on the back of the train on our ways home from work, they were the best subway rides of my life.

Haslett graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and from Yale Law School. It's the only thing he has ever published, and it was a finalist for the Pulitzer and the National Book Award. And for good reason, too. His stories are definitely MFA fiction, but the best kind. Critics have called the stories Checkhovian. I guess that's fair.

Here is the first story from the collection:

"Notes For My Biographer"

Two things to get straight from the beginning: I hate doctors and have never joined a support group in my life. At seventy-three, I'm not about to change. The mental-health establishment can go screw itself on a barren hilltop in the rain before I touch their snake oil or listen to the visionless chatter of men half my age. I have shot Germans in the fields of Normandy, filed twenty-six patents, married three women, survived them all, and am currently the subject of an investigation by the IRS, which has about as much chance of collecting from me as Shylock did of getting his pound of flesh. Bureaucracies have trouble thinking clearly. I, on the other hand, am perfectly lucid.

You can read the rest here:

www.all-story.com/issues.cgi?action=show_story&story_id=46

I never posted a picture of my head:

5 staples and 4 interior stitches. I've been getting headaches lately, but was told it's fine on Thursday at the ER. I have Post-Concussion Disorder. They said the headaches would go away eventually.

So, we've been surfing a lot lately. Jon, Dale, Lucas, Pete and I have been on a bender. Elle has been coming and bodysurfing with us, too. Summer is amazing when you are young, in love, and have good friends around you.

These are Lucas' pictures of the Schwinn Paramount I purchased off him. I will take pictures of the frame built with my stuff soon:






I bought it of Lucas for a great deal and then built it up with Ezra. He helped me lace up some Phil Wood HF track hubs to Open Pro's and got me some Sugino 75's and a Nitto 65 post. I have nt gotten a chance to load the pictures I took of it yet. It hauls ass, and will probably be a contributor to my ultimate demise.

I got a new bike, a new log, a new spot for the summer, and nothing to show for it on this blog. I'm working on it. Stay chuuunneed.