Pecking Order of Survival

Someone asked me last week of Therapist had a timeline of when I'd be able to function more freely mentally for schoolwork and whatnot. I wish that I'd said that I'm actually ahead of schedule. Truth is that I will always be right where I need to be, even if that current place sucks. I mean, what else could I be doing?
About a day after I got that question, this piece from The Onion slid thru my tumblr dashboard. I found it very fitting. I showed it to Therapist, who loved it.

I don't really know how to do more than I'm doing. My schoolwork is not up to my standard. School is about survival right now, not success. I didn't envision my doctorate playing out like this. It's hard not to feel pathetic or weak. One friend pointed out that I'm doing awesome in character growth, in healing. Another friend said that I deserve a silver medal for all that I'm doing (I don't like yellow gold). Silver is my favorite.

I actually believe that this is true, which is big for me, of course. Unfortunately it's not gonna play out that way academically.

But I sit down and ask myself what's more important, my health or a college class? Previously I would've just sacrificed everything else for the grade. I can't do that anymore--like I am physically and mentally incapable of that option.

So I listen to Adele, Jackson Browne, The Avett Brothers, my friend's music to calm me down. I listen to Daft Punk's Tron when I simply can't think anymore. I paint. I write. I draw. I watch baseball. I talk to friends.

I deal weekly lately with various forms of panic attacks. Daily with anxiety now. Last Wednesday I hugged my dad goodbye as he's at Fort Benning now getting ready for a 5-month Red Cross stint in Afghanistan. I'll tell you just how well I'm doing about that. September 16, you need to come RIGHT NOW.

A friend suggested that I need a milestone for each of the 5 months that he's gone, something to look forward to. One will definitely be a Braves-Mets game in Atlanta. I've never seen my favorite team play in person. Maybe this will happen twice.


So I am left asking myself daily what's more important? What can I do today? How can I survive today? How can I thrive today? What can be just enough?

Sometimes I feel like saying eff everything. Some days I want a hardship withdrawal from life. Other days I feel like I might just make it.

What usually wins out is the idea that on the crappy days, another really good one will come soon and it'll be awesome and I will love it and I will be so happy.

I'm grateful for those happy days. I'm grateful for how they carry me thru the sucky days. I'm grateful for music. I'm grateful for friends and family. I'm grateful that my dad will most likely not leave the base for the 5 months he's in Afghanistan. I'm grateful for baseball and how it calms my soul. I'm grateful for sunlight that buoys me up. I'm grateful for art. I'm grateful for school b/c I would've collapsed without it over the last 18 months. I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I realized that I was molested.

I really am grateful for life. It's odd how much I do like life considering everything, I guess. Maybe it's not odd. I've had more wonderful by far than I've had terrible. I'm grateful for that, too.

My subconscious must

be trying to tell me something because today I woke up with the song "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon playing in my mind.

Coping Mechanisms

Lately my heart's been hurting a whole lot. I don't admit things like this often, but after Chris' mom passed away, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer two weekends ago, and then Brian's brother being killed in a small plane crash on Tues night in West Jordan, I'm just done seeing the people I care so much about hurt so much. Like, I'm really done. No one can hurt anymore.

This next part is going to sound so weird to most of the world. I couldn't sleep last night, like at all. I'd spent about 18 hours trying to figure out how to calm my soul down a bit. I went to what I learned from my father: I put something on to watch that I love (Passing Strange) and I got out the ironing board and ironed tons of clothes. It wasn't Blazing Saddles, like my dad woulda watched, but it was a musical, so it's close enough.

Who knows why I'm posting this. But there it is.

Life is kinda funny

The B-52s got stuck in my head today and I had this realization. At the beginning of the song they sing about the Atlanta Highway. I've sung along with that lyric for quite literally 20 years. I now live .5 miles from the Atlanta Highway. Life's kind of a goofy thing how it all plays out.

At :18 in the song:

Rapture Day Activities

It's almost here! So I think I'm going to list off various things that we could do. Feel free to join in.

We could listen to DMB songs that fit the theme. Or the obligatory...

Photoshop.

Look at Photoshopped pictures that will haunt you for the next few hours, five months or billions of years.

Listen to uplifting musicals.

Magic.

We could hope that we're part of the group that isn't raptured, because then we won't miss out on HP 7.2 this July! But since I'm Mormon, I'm pretty sure that I'll get to see the movie.

There are some silly t-shirts that we could buy.

I was talking with Wendy today, and we decided that since other days/holidays like Rapture Day, get commercialized, we should start the trend. So I think we should get our loved ones Rapture Day gifts.

Wendy and I also realized that Christmas has reindeer and manger animals and Easter has bunnies and baby chicks, Rapture Day needs animals: Fire-breathing Dragons and post-Rapture Day gets stinky skunks à la brimstone.

So many things to be done...like getting a massage, which is what I'll be doing.
What else could we do? Ideas?

Michael and Who?

So this picture appears on the digital signs and video boards at UVU's campus:

So it's the King of Pop and the Prophet Joseph Smith?
You'd think, wouldn't you

Well, come to find out it's nearly as weird:

Favorites of the 20th Century

A few weeks ago I set out to make a list of my 100 favorite songs of the 20th century. It sorta blew up in my face because I couldn't keep it at 100. It's now at 139.
This link should take you to the Google Doc so that you can see all 139. Oh blast. 140. I forgot that Cher song. Long live mesh clothing.

My love for Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Staples Singers, Marvin Gay, Van Morrison, Smokey Robinson and Aretha Franklin has already been expressed.
I do need to add in Jackson Browne right here.

So can you recognize what Ralph Vaughn Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus doubles as in Mormondom?

And how about those cameos in Walking on Broken Glass. I think Annie Lennox chose poorly.
You've gotta love Biz Markie.
I can still remember my 5th grade teacher complaining about Bonnie Raitt winning the grammy for this song. He's crazy. Do you know her Angel From Montgomery?

If you're not familiar with the Estonian Arvo Pärt, you need to listen to his music. Wow.

How does one narrow down a list of Beatles songs? Well, one rotates through favorites.

And I've already mentioned Tears For Fears on my blog before. Shout and Sowing the Seeds of Love have no odd ties to my childhood, but the songs rock.

I went a bit Sondheim crazy and sorta broke my own rule of no more than 5, but I'm justifying it because they come from different musicals. Children Will Listen, No One Is Alone, Finishing the Hat, Beautiful, Pretty Lady, Children and Art, Move On and Johanna are works of genius.
Double Blast: 141. Not a Day Goes By.

Kashmir is almost universally loved.

So, yes, I'm admitting that Will Smith's Miami and Deee-Lite's Groove is in the Heart both make the list. This may change if I ever completely mature out of high school. Whitney Houston's It's Not Right But It's OK will likely never leave. I've been a closet Whitney fan for over 20 years. Rupaul's Supermodel and Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy were oh so close, but in the end, there wasn't enough mustard. But I'm sure you're VERY glad that I linked those two fairly awkward videos.



I'll leave it right there for now. I'm sure I'll be coming back to the list on my blog, adding more links to good songs, etc. etc. Did you make it to this sentence? Wow.

Vemonator's Tumblr

Hello. I'm Tumblr-ing.
Now can post more things online that I can't do on blogspot. I have grand plans for posting something there tomorrow. We'll see if I can pull it off.
Anyway, that's all.

And I think I got the link fixed.

Control

I was just thinking about how the first cassette tape I ever owned was Control by Janet Jackson. I loved that tape (and still own it). My parents bought it for me after they saw me singing along with the music at the Grammys or something. I think I was eight.

Do you remember what yours was? Just curious.

Different Trains

Just one more post for today, I promise.

Steve Reich did a project called Different Trains. He collected and interspersed interviews from people about and sounds of the trains from different points in our history. The first piece of the three is titled America -- Before the War (meaning WWII).

The second movement incorporates phrases from Holocaust survivors. Obviously it is the most haunting of the three. Listen to how the notes on the instruments mirror the tones of the voices. The piece is titled Europe -- During the War (wow. what an amazing production of that piece.)   The sounds are imitating the trains that carried the Jews to the death camps. At four minutes you can see and hear how the strings are nearly dead ringers for train horns.

The final of the three, appropriately named After the War, is reminiscent of a world trying to regain normalcy. You can still hear the sorrow from the second movement. The first movement was so effulgent with its upbeat sounds of future possibilities. I think the third movement is trying to bring that hope back, but its tempered with what we know from the horrifying second movement. But there are those hints of budding industrialization at the end, i.e. prosperity.

And if you've stuck with me this long, thru two Steve Reich posts, you just might be as crazy as I am.

Piano Phase

I find Steve Reich to be a fascinating composer. I don't know how to fully describe Piano Phase. It's harmonious and cacophonous, sometimes at the same time. How does he pull that off? It's usually performed by two pianists. I mean, it makes sense that it would be right?

Then you stumble onto crazy talented pianists like Peter Aidu.


I love it.

And, for good marching-band, pit-playing measure, here's Reich's Six Marimbas. Wow.


And for those of you who like The Gipsy Kings, here's some Clapping Music.

Missionary Beatles Equation

The Missionary Mall has a new ad campaign with a lovely poster. I know what they're getting at, but I wonder if they stopped to think about the significance of the equation.
Cue blurry picture taken while at stop light:

"We're more popular than the Beatles!"

So according to this reference this is situation according to Missionary Mall:
Missionary Mall  > The Beatles
And as was misunderstood in that John Lennon scandal:
The Beatles > Jesus
Thus,
Missionary Mall > Jesus

I'm fairly certain they weren't shooting for this.

On to Georgia!

I've shared this song before, but it's much more apropos right now, as we head off to Georgia this next week. Julie Rae and Brian are moving so that he can do his PhD program. So it won't be so much a train as a caravan of a Penske moving truck and two cars. And it won't be so much midnight as the middle of the day so that we can enjoy the scenery. But it will be Georgia, so it's close enough:

It's been a while since I Hodge Podged

I haven't done a hodge podge entry for a while. Wait, I haven't overtly called an entry "hodge podge" for a while. That's probably a truer statement.

Brian replaced Julie Rae's broken car radio tonight and added an iPod connector. If you look at the bottom right of the picture, you'll see Christmas lights. We had to use those instead of a flashlight because we couldn't find one.

This list of almost-happeneds is somewhat astounding in certain spots. Number 1 is one of the world's great ironies.

Motorized couch!

And here's a video that made me laugh pretty hard. Seriously, the Baltimore Orioles security just let him run around and around and around. They're not even the ones who got him to stop in the end.



And that may not have been the craziest thing to happen during the game. Holy cow, he threw a nutty.

The Nexus of Knowledge for the Day

AKA, This led to that which led to yonder thing which brings us to this thingie here
subsubtitled things that might only interest me

I think I might do this more as a chronological rundown of the Nexus of Knowledge that Scottie and I learned in the last 10 minutes:

1-I'm reading book 5 of Harry Potter in Italian (shout-out: Wendy!) right now. There's a spot in chapter two where "April Fool's!" is written. In Italian it's written as Pesce d'aprile! I'd looked it up in my French (poisson d'avril!) and Portuguese (primeiro de abril!) books as this phrase is a linguistic essential.

2-So we searched on Word Reference in Spanish: Día de los Inocentes!, which is what is written in my HP5 ebook in Spanish.

3-I tell Scottie that Día de los Inocentes is actually on December 28th and that I think that it probably comes from the slaughter of the innocents by a wussy Herod who wanted to keep his throne. So we Wikipedia-ed it. Low and behold.

4-Scottie and I become curious about the roots of April Fool's Day. Hello Wikipedia again. Chaucer: HEEEE-EEEYYY.

5-A part of the Wikipedia article mentions the Feast of Fools which was held on December 28th (shout-out to #3!).

6-Suddenly 2 songs from the somewhat skanky French musical Notre Dame de Paris pop (phonetic pun intended) into my head: Le Pape des Fous & La Fête des Fous. These songs link to this part of the Feast of Fools Wikipedia article.

7-I start singing the lyrics to both songs which makes Scottie look at me like I'm slightly crazy. All the while I'm learning about the intrinsic relation that the Feast of Fools has around the Cathedral Notre Dame. I explain this Nexus of Knowledge to Scottie.

8-Scottie says that the Nexus of Knowledge always does come back to French Musicals.


addenda to today's Nexus of Knowledge:
9-It seems to me that Día de los Inocentes was yet another religious holiday that the Catholic church imposed over a pagan holiday to try to draw attention away from the ultra-fun reveling.

10-The mythological history behind Saturnalia "tomfoolery" and "buffoonery," the Titans & the Roman gods makes so much more sense to me as I just finished the Percy Jackson series.




ça, c'est fini, quoi!

holy side hug

I don't think I've shared this yet. A friend showed it to me a while back. Frontal huggy huggy can lead to sinny sinny?



This reminds me of the chastity talk and how you inevitably hear someone say, "I think even handholding can go past the line for some people sometimes." yeesh.


Oh, and frontal huggy huggy appears to be worse than extreme violence. And I'm fairly certain they don't understand a lot of the word meanings/double entendres. double yeesh.

Reggaeton for the niños

Scottie shared this with me, and I thought it would be unfair if I didn't pass it on to the world:

Jazz and Blues

I do not claim to be any form of expert in Jazz or the Blues, but there are some songs that I love listening to. Sometimes it's hard to figure out where Jazz and Blues music hits you. Some of the chord progressions are so amazing; and then when I listen to what the musicians do with the notes of the chords, I can't help but be in awe. But there's another part of Jazz and the Blues that's so much more visceral and inexplicable and I think that is the root of the power of the two musical styles.

So here are a few very incomplete lists:

My Jazz instrumental list is dominated by just a few artists. But they're by far my favorites. If you would like to help me expand my horizons, please tell me everything I've missed.

My all time favorite Jazz song is
Autumn Leaves by Miles Davis


Along with that we've got in no real order, but Take Five might be my #2
Sing, Sing, Sing by Benny Goodman
Nutcracker Suite by Duke Ellington
Take Five by Dave Brubeck Quartet
Blue Rondo a la Turk by Dave Brubeck Quartet
Take the Coltrane by John Coltrane & Duke Ellington
Body and Soul by John Coltrane
Somethin' Else by Miles Davis & Cannonball Adderley
So What by Miles Davis (another)
'Round Midnight by Miles Davis & John Coltrane
Dear Old Stockholm by Miles Davis & John Coltrane
Blue in Green by Miles Davis & John Coltrane
Straight, No Chaser by Thelonious Monk
Well, You Needn't by Thelonious Monk
[Apparently, I only really like Thelonious Monk songs that follow this pattern: WORD COMMA WORD WORD]

Here's my list of vocal Jazz favorites. Some of these songs have been covered so many times, that it's the song that transcends--well, unless you're Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald. Those two transcend the songs.:
Body and Soul by Billie Holiday (pretty much anything)
's Wonderful by Diana Krall
Popsicle Toes by Diana Krall (did you know she's married to Elvis Costello? huh.)
I'll String Along With You by Diana Krall
I've Got you Under my Skin by Ella Fitzgerald (again, pretty much anything by her)
The Nearness of You by Ellis & Louis
Cheek to Cheek by Ella & Louis
Let's Fall in Love (tons have covered this. Even this version. And ick.)
Little Drummer Boy by Nat King Cole (Can't find a version)
Embraceable You by Nat King Cole/Billie Holiday/et al
Unforgettable by Nat King Cole/Plus this (granted there are times that I'm not completely enamored with this song. I go back and forth)
Sarah Vaughan

The Blues is a harder one to categorize. But the first musician listed, Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil, is the most important in Blues, and perhaps the most important predecessor to Rock music. You listen to his songs and you think, okay, impressive. But then you realize that he's the first one to really play the Blues style that we know with incredible skill, flair and nuance. He died at 27, probably poisoned, and left only a few recording sessions. But his music is awesome.
Cross Road Blues, Walking Blues, Sweet Home Chicago, Terraplane Blues by Robert Johnson
You've got to include B.B. King, too. And the best song of them all is The Thrill Is Gone.
Then there's Bessie Smith, maybe the most influential Blues singer. (As a linguistic aside, you can hear the English Creole grammar in the lyrics. Sweet.)
Eric Clapton plays a great Blues guitar. Here's Before You Accuse Me plugged in (& in a terrible pink jacket), and here it is unplugged. mmhmmm
I can't stand John Mayer's popular Rock stuff, but he's an incredible Blues guitarist with great feel. Here's another clip. When he's on Austin City Limits, he tends to do great Blues stuff.
Blues music is sometimes so hard to peg, because it has influenced every subsequent American music style. There's a song that Bonnie Raitt did in the 70s that I can listen to over and over, Angel From Montgomery.
I know that there are more Blues songs that I could post. And what do you do with Jimi Hendrix? Anyway, the roots of the Blues go back to Africa and are the basis of pretty well every song you hear on the radio.

There, I'm presently done with this list. I hold the right to subsequent updates.

Eccentricity Average

According to the poll, my average eccentricity level is 6.9411764705882355.


And I've been thinking that I'm going to start compiling lists of my favorite songs in various genres. It's gonna take a while, but it'll give me something to blog about on and off.

to musical wit:

I think that the majority of the hymnal is grossly underused. Is it bad to say that I'm tired of some hymns and that I think they're oversung? Does anyone else feel that there is a pool of about 25 hymns that we sing?

I wanted to start a facebook group titled, "Mormons for hymn variety," but I held back. What do FB groups accomplish in the end anyway?

But who's with me?

What barely-used hymns should we add to our repertoire?

Personally I think we should add, Father This Hour Has Been One of Joy. My reasons are, however, irreverent in this case.

Seriously, what are some lesser-sung hymns that you want to add to church services?