in search of adventure.

inside my head my dog's a bear
she's significant i'm insane

So.


This is the final stretch of what, for some reason, feels like my final semester, and though the end is in sight, I can't make out what's on the horizon. (Three cliches in three clauses:). Very much would like to dedicate the remainder of my school year to creative output and construction and the maintenance of that, in lieu of the studying abroad I'd planned, but I might have to play by their rules.

In less oblique terms, I've been incubating an idea for a year or so, although it's just recently taken root in my mind and spawned branches of sub-ideas. I don't really want to say what it is, mostly because I have no way to neatly encapsulate it. It is slowly consuming me, however, and I hope I can get others on board, too.

It may not prove so difficult, as I've begun swaying two formidable critics: my roommate Taichi and my mom. Taichi isn't totally sure about it, but he "really likes [my] enthusiasm", and my mom isn't sold but was interested enough to hear me out and brainstorm with me for a little over an hour-long conversation.

The gameplan at this point isn't to take time off to do this while starting to play music again, work the Warhol more, intern at the CP, etc., but try to work it within the framework of an independent study. Also potential is a seed award from the Sprout Fund.

Not sure how I plan to accomplish all of this when I can't seem to write four more pages for a Nonfiction paper due three months ago (whenever), but I feel like I've already researched and just thought through this undertaking more than any paper I've written in the past.



[At this point, the voice of my livejournal narrator is heard asking questions about what will happen to our fine protagonist and reminding you, the viewer of this drama, how to find out. WHAM! POW! GOODNIGHT!]



PS: And how could I forget the two nights that have most recently catalyzed and solidified my beliefs and thought on all this, the Centipede E'est EP release (assonance and consonance, whoa) on Nov. 24 and especially the Romeo St. "fest" that channeled other dimensions with otherworldly exuberance and collected/collective energy this past Saturday?

A hint to the puzzle:

-Imagine this grouped trifecta of Babybird, Harangue and Tusk Lord. (I think Flotilla Way could make this a fourfecta and round things out. Their two newest songs that I've heard are so singularly great. One has this jazzy, melancholic Joni thing going, and the other is a ball of rage that erupts into the atmosphere in flames with a really sweet single note, minor key kind of new/nowave guitar line gliding down, too. Hi Jai:)
- Apply to the rest of the world.

in the past few months i've come to realize that this isn't the place to keep my secrets. while i don't know what that place really is, i think i'd like to turn my internet writings into something a little more publishable and accessible, something like what you would call a "blog". mainly it seems to me that i need to do two things: more links and maybe some more pictures, although i've done alright with that so far.

i have at least one more personal rant on where i've been making my days for the past couple months, a sort of treatise of future song lyrics on the implications of "freedom", a potential essay on mixtapes that i've been writing in my head each time i slip in this one tape, musings on alien vs. aliens (alien 2), adventures in contact mics and likely some other things on the way. we'll see what sticks.

wrote a pretty long but skeletal entry a few weeks ago and never published it. it's private, i guess, on the beauty of music and life or something, and being on the brink of real excitement. i'm in a similar sort of mood today: brainstorming, planning a film, making music mixes, vibing carefree. last night was a monumental (not necessarily in terms of number of attendees, although there were a lot) sendoff for ross and tim, two of my best friends who are headed back for the second half of the appalachian trail after a two-week respite. tim's stepdad charlie had cancer and got pretty bad before he passed away last wednesday night, so tim made it into town to support his mom the weekend previous. very good to be around so many friends. chris and wes came, andrew and sean made the trip from pittsburgh... the cops even made a visit.

i can't get over how i missed can's ege bamyasi LP. i'm pretty into their other albums, but this is the shit. perfect mix of breakbeats, funk and general groove without being overbearingly cheesy (or cheesy at all), and it still functions as a rock/kind of krauty, very cool record. just close your ears or turn your attention to something besides the little slaps and pops on "pinch":)


oh, also i've been playing a ton of music lately, both at home and in public. here is a recording of a collaboration between jeremy hedges, john eastridge, mike kasunic and me: http://dogchirp.com/mike/Noctuelles%20-%20Pittsburgh%205.2.7.MP3. the group is called NOCTUELLES, and it was assembled to play a show at john's place with ospreys, plain lace (matt from navies), and church clothes.

additionally, next week i'm playing guitar and saxophone in david bernabo's ASSEMBLY (raymond morin, josh chucklebeyer, dave and me) for the release of the album by the same name. behold:



the next musical (ad)venture i'm involved in, i want it to be called "big world".

^^thanks greg

part 2 comes when i scan all the prints i made for B+WII!

-Run ~25 miles a week
-Read some PK Dick (anything else? suggestions, please!)
-Practice saxophone regularly and maybe learn clarinet better
-Try to get a job taking pictures for the Beaver County Times
-Correspond intimately with friends


I'm trying to look into a newish program at CMU for photo. It may or may not exist, they might or might not accept me if it does exist, and there is a chance that my credits could transfer. Failing that, I'm going to look into self-designing a major at Pitt, something along the lines what could amount to a photojournalism major.

Another goal I have is to give myself enough credit, but more importantly give reasons for giving myself that credit.

everything's cool now. my bad.

i'm having an extremely hard time doing anything. been at kiva han working on a paper i stayed up till 4 last night writing which was due at 3pm today. it really shouldn't be this difficult.


i have another one that was due last monday that i wanted to hand in tonight, but i don't have t anywhere near done. i know i shouldn't let myself give in to this kind of thinking, but i feel like i'm climbing an impossibly steep mountain with the summit being the end of the semester. someone mentioned taking incompletes in some classes because of an emotional block so that i can finish the work in the next month or two. at this rate though, i'm not convinced i'll be ready to come back in the fall. this sucks. am i being lazy?

an attempt to encapsulate the bittersweet reality of now (thanks, billy corgan) in +/- in a hurry because that's how i do everything:


let's start with the -'s. why the hell not?

-kind of going nuts. worse now than it's been in a while.
-having a really hard time doing schoolwork. serious lack of focus and aptitude to do the task at hand (eg, the word document of the nonfiction story, open on my desktop, that was due last monday.
-though i've been somewhat enlightened recently, my mp3 player doesn't work anymore.
- i have this weird stilted way of typing/writing and it's bleeding into my conversations pretty badly, too. i almost just wrote "...somewhat enlightened recently, my mp3 player no longer works."
-feel like the synapses in my mind have snapped like a booming straw in eat'n'park for the last time. don't know how to work my mind, where all those words i used to know went, when i forgot how to spell, when my motor skills, coordination, typing all went flying out the window.
-can't seem to get comfortable with sleeping. duration, frequency, nap vs. sleep, inability to nap despite being deadly tired.
-just about two big assignments left for each class.
-what is "weekend"?

going from there...
+got a paper back in my scifi class... 95% content, 95% organization. she even saw that i had sentence with its second half missing. EHE HE HE HE HE. i would say, "i guess all that time writing and working at the library paid off," but i probably wrote that one in a total of five or six hours.
+went to DC with josh on saturday to see the instant composers pool orchestra at the library of congress. drove back that night.
+been hanging out//making out/talking a little with a friend. we basically figured that we can't date. i'm also leaving the city in a month or so. i'm strangely not very invested in it. maybe that's a sign. but not dating leaves more time for important things like eating pizza and getting slurpees, i think. wave pools.
+been reading good things. frnkenstein by shelley, burn collector by al burian (thanks andy).
+everyone in my house has been hanging out together because we have a guest named nicola staying with us. she's from london, originally from new zealand, and her accent rules. she's pretty cool, but everyone's been really friendly, sitting around watching mr show last night, Safe Men tonight. it's nice.
+i took adderol last week. probably what dropped me down to some of those lower -'s. i dunno. no huge effect other than making me feel crazy afterwards. i felt normal when i dosed. i'm going to student health tomorrow, i think, maybe for something else, but i'll ask them about it.
+want to get back into regularly doing things that make me feel good, like playing music and running. i saw the center jazz band the other night and really wanted to play some charts on saxophone. of course, there's the ICP too. tomorrow afternoon jo is cutting out of work, and he, spencer and i are going to make noise for a few hours. i'm psyched.

+/- living in aliquippa for the summer. huh. need to find a new arrangement for fall.
john k. is taking my room. later.



the light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

easily excited, easily disappointed. big ideas, big plans, big worries. long drives, long kisses, long days and letters from long lost friends. that's my idea of a good life. best to keep the letters short though, like a good song or a good fling, leaves you wanting more. it's spring in the world right now, and i don't mean just the weather. the old are young again, the crippled walk, grudges mysteriously disappear, and even washed up old bands are exciting again. washed up people are exciting again. second chances for everyone. free refills. it's never too late to be too late. everyone is working on new projects and prospects and i haven't ever seen so many people with a gleam in their eye and a swing in their step.

i stay up late and sleep late and still wake up in time for coffee then beer twice and the goddamn sun is still shining. unbelievable. i fell face first in the creek on albany hill but luckily nobody was there to see it and the sun dried me quickly. let's hear it for sleeveless t-shirts. black spraypaint, red fingernail polish and black and white photographs turning yellow. lost friends found, lost pride found, and suddenly the past is just a good story instead of a ball and chain.

it's spring, brush your teeth and break some bones. stolen kisses and stolen glances and pretty much anything stolen as long as you can get away with it and no one's worse off for your slyness. ivy walked right out of the supermarket with a whole shopping cart of food, the crazy fool. cheap beer, strong coffee, spicy food, and you can't go wrong. spring and finding money on the sidewalk and bracelets in the pit after the show. finally hearing the song that's ben stuck in your head for weeks. a good book anda long walk and painted shadows and spelling out words in gasoline on the city hall lawn. spring and small pleasures that quench your thirst for life, and wash down those big disappointments.


--aaron cometbus

ok. i don't expect this to come off as very lucid. also, i used to make joking asides about how "livejournal" certain things i said were. well, it appears we've now come full circle, doesn't it?

one of my most frustrating feelings is what i get when i'm convinced that i can't express what i'm feeling, or trying to say, or whatever. it might be related to the constant flux of not actually ever knowing what i want. or thinking that i don't. or knowing that i think i do but i really don't and oh my god im' going insane.


devo says i should be a "mongoloid" and bring home the bacon and not give a shit. would i get my papers done that way? i FEEL that the answer is no.



also, i feel like the mass of my livejournal "friends list" is shadowing the fact that i started writing on this to actually write. now whether or not i acknowledge it, i'm censoring myself or generally guiding my words toward an assumed audience (that RSS feed doesn't help much, you). yow. it's weird though, because back when nobody was reading, the entries were not as clichedly-livejournal. i don't think there's much correlation between the two, though. 

one of my paper journals has been reclaimed. they read a lot of that, too. is nothing sacred? goddamn kids. oddly enough, the journal was separated from the rest of my stuff. i can't wait to find out how all of this happened.


tonight at bombay grill while everyone was talking about their favorite twilight zone episodes, i thought to myself that spending the summer at home would be a good thing because i could catch up on whatever low-value culture stuff i want. like renting DVDs of TV shows and sitting around watching them. thinking about that now is a little bit depressing.  choosing things to inundate myself with, though, and actually following through, could be a very good thing.

a concept young greg and i discussed over our past few meetings: taking things that would typically be done on weekend nights around 9th 0r 10th grade and substituting that into our current weekend goingson. an example: playing hide and seek inside wal*mart instead of drinking beer and making fun of people. or staying in to do work or play music, then go out when we feel like it. these possibilities are very real.

i don't want to drop out of life, but signals are pointing in that direction.

poems, how they ache
the ideals of youth burned at the stake
but all i know is sweet and sour

i had fun today. i think it was a step forward. the weekend will be full of work but wont be that bad.


i'm relistening to these housequake demos of my from the brass factory in 2005. it's helping to facilitate this livejournal thing i have going on right now. it always surprises me how much i enjoy listening to these songs. i did g-chat with tim today. they're headed into a range of snowcapped mountains whose name escapes me, but over the next week or two they'll be at the highest elevation of the whole trail. 

i'm finally making some progress on the piece i'm writing on jude. maybe a third of the way there already, and i haven't barely said anything i need to. the fire has been lit; i just could use a shorter fuse, maybe.


youth has gone.

i think someone nabbed my knapsack from the kitchen of jamie, kelly and kelsey's place last night. it was empty, for the most part. it contained a handful of quarters (my last traces of cash), some pens, my CD player, a de la soul CD, my headphones, and a couple journals.

to whoever took it, i ask that you please give it back. keep the CD player. i'm working on a story for tomorrow and my notes for it are in one of the journals, along with my address and phone number.

i hope it's just a misunderstanding or mistake. i know that i didn't take it home last night, and i also know that the bag is no longer at the apartment, because i checked earlier this afternoon.


thanks.

 







p.s.: is anyone interested in living in my room at least for the summer? may-august, or whatever we can work out. it's really a nice room in a cool, big house in bloomfield. i'm out; it's serious. more on that some other time. please holler at me if you or anyone you know is looking for a place to live into the indefinite future.

scratch that (i have). i think swazi john K might be moving in. cool.

i spent almost 7 hours in the darkroom last night after my night class and came dangerously close to dying, as if that's not redundant.


sometimes you realize you've been welling up with something and you're full, and all it takes is an unexpected email to light the fuse and make you explode. twice.

i'm not going to pretend like i'm always reading, but i figure that i need to assemble a little to-do list anyway, in order to keep the idea in my mind. please contribute suggestions. i'll come back to this, but for now i'm starting with what i'm reading and must read for class and adding on after that.


-accelerando, charles stross
-snow crash, neal stephenson
-frankenstein, mary shelley
-dune, frank herbert
-wind-up bird chronicle, murakami
-heart of darkness, conrad
-ishmael, quinn
-2010: odyssey two, clarke
-burning chrome, gibson


i have a lot of science ficton on my plate. other recommendations would be great.

it's 4:30 and i want to go to bed but something's keeping me up. beyond the chicken parmesan and homemade cookies i just snacked on, i keep looking at the negatives i printed today (heartwrenchingly and tragically), in their near-fatal beauty. i had a "snafu in the darkroom" as my professor jen called it, when i realized that i'd been shooting with a different film than the one for which i had special developing instructions. jen's not my black and white professor, but i called her in a moment of panic and left a message.

i pulled a magnifying glass out of the drawer over cookies (macademia and chocolate chip) as miles ran the voodoo down, looking at the 90 degree grain of the negatives. i want to drive back to pittsburgh and print as many of these shots as big as i can. i want to stay up the rest of the night and read the wind-up bird chronicle. i can also assemble the sampler hiding in the basement and get to work on that for a while. i do not, however, want to fuck up my spring break schedule (whoops). i've only had one cup of coffee today, anyway, and that was at 5pm. no excuses anymore, at least not there.

i walked like speedy from I, Robot all around town today with a quick, long-strided roll step. my memories flew back to running track and self-directions of keeping my breathing steady as i glided overtop the sidewalks. at first i rushed to meet spencer at orchid's, this new veg buffet on centre ave, but they were closed for some reason. tamarind was closed too, and we weren't settling for pizza pronto. instead we walked all the way down craig street and settled for lulu's. both of our fortune cookies (which we received when we ordered!) had remarkably peachy, sunny side of the street musings on our unfortunate buffet situation. my cell phone and de facto watch is on the fritz, but i'm sure that my jaunt back to filmmakers was the fastest i've made on foot.

caught up with some emails tonight, to ebay debtees and professors alike. a-ha! it's a good feeling, and even better when put to verse. also, thurston and company over at ecstatic peace have an incredible archive of <a href="http://ecstaticpeace.com/videos.php">live show video</a>. i can't link any particular files, but i highly recommend poking around the site. 


there, now i'm tired. goodnight, babies.

last night was a good one. hung out in my room and did stuff after taking pictures of ed and barry waiting for the lunar eclipse around 6:30 before sicilliano and amy came by and we all went to hemingways. 

2 mixes:






not so sure about the second one. gotta take about 10 min of music off to fit it on a cd. i had a good name for the second one but i forgot it. maybe because i just got up. i think "everybody knows this is nowhere" is suitable.

sleep little one sleep is playing a show tonight at modernformations. we have a new song. i'm going to the darkroom.

since i turned in my scifi research paper yesterday, i've been very much at ease. it's funny how tiny mental boundaries mean so much: "i turned this paper in, so now i have nothing else to worry about." it's a research paper, but i feel really good about it. maybe i'll upload it to my secret space (is there such a thing?).

been writing a whole lot more on paper lately, and it feels good too. do moments hold more importance when you write them down (inasmuch as you can write a moment), or do you write it because of that importance? emails are good, too. gotta stay on top of things.

i watched a PBS american masters doc on steiglitz and the rise of modern art in his era on wednesday. yesterday i went to see bob raczka speak about his postmodern photography and curation and from whom and what he's gotten inspiration. tonight i watched who gets to call it art? which focused on the rise of pop out of abstract expressionism and henry geldzahler in particular. i've also been writing some really good guitar parts. just saying!

tonight was capped off with bidding farewell to ross and tim again. the next half year is going to be a lot different than the last.


2006: impending spring
2007: inspired spring
i've got a feeling this year's for me and you.