(I Continue to Be) A Fool for Fall

So, that tree outside my bedroom window is coming along rather nicely:

The above picture is from about a week ago, I think. There have since been some cold and un-sunny days, resulting in some more redness and orangeness and yellowness:

Yep, things are just autumnal as hell around here.

While I’m on the subject – i.e. posting pictures of trees that are likely of little interest to anyone other than me – I need to show you a few photos I took when I was out at my parents’ house a few weeks back.  They have this dogwood tree that was just out-of-control colorful.

I could barely stand it.

And then there was this curious bush.  I do not know what it is, but it looks like autumn:

Oh, I’ll be sad when the leaves are gone and it’s wintertime.  The 5:00pm darkness is already getting to me, and we’ve a long haul ahead.  Maybe I’ll have some fall photos printed, blow them up real big like, and hope that they’ll sustain me.

And it would be easier to explain this if

I learned an important lesson the difficult way one morning a few weeks ago when it was very rainy out and I had to go to school, and that lesson was that I should not bike to school when it is very rainy until I acquire some seriously waterproof pants. I don’t have class until noon on Wednesdays but I had a 9:00am meeting that I hadn’t allowed myself enough time to get to traveling by any other means – there is, I suppose, another even more important lesson in there somewhere – and so I had to bike to school, and quickly, and got pretty good and soaked.  Even after sitting through that meeting with wet pants and socks and shoes, I thought that I’d stay on campus and just tough it out and dry off over the course of the day.   The GSE computer lab, though, is considerably draftier than the offices on the third floor where I began my day, and when I caught myself day-dreaming about clothes dryers while trying to do get some work done, I decided to go home to change.

I returned to campus sans bicycle and walked home that night, taking almost the same route I ride.  I have crossed the Spring Garden bridge hundreds of times, and that is not an exaggeration, but don’t think I’d ever done so on foot.  And while I know it runs over I-76, I don’t think I’d ever really processed that or thought about what it would look like.

It looks like this:

The weather’s been better this week and I’ve been back on the bike … a little more, as I mentioned in my last post, than usual due to the SEPTA strike.  I’ve been biking to and from Phila U since the buses aren’t running and, while I do get a fair amount of reading done on the bus and have missed those windows of productivity, I’ve mostly been grateful to have occasion to be out riding the Schuylkill trail on a more regular basis.  I’ve been pretty abysmal at finding times for scenic rides away from traffic, so this has been a nice collision of pleasure and purpose.

On Tuesday afternoon it was particularly beautiful, riding home around 2:00 in the afternoon with the sun hitting the trees just so, in wide rays from behind clouds.  At one point I came around a bend and the bright fall colors and sunlight as seen from the other side of a bridge were really especially striking.

This is what it looked like, except even prettier, if you can imagine:

The sun shining on the water bounced back upward and lit the underside of the bridge.

There is kind of a theme to this entry, some words that pop into my head sometimes (and I realize this is a thing I write or say a lot; this is how my brain works, serving things up in fragments) that one can find at the end of a certain David Berman poem, which goes:

I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together…

To quote any more would be to ruin it for you (go read it), and anyway my point is just that I am glad to have encountered some sights in the course of my day-to-day of late that have lifted me out of my head and reminded me of the world outside, reminded me that I can still see new things in this city and enjoy familiar sights in a new light.  And it’s a lot easier to explain this / because I have some pictures to show you. : )

So, here’s to breaking patterns, getting around in other-than-the-usual ways, and the things one can find in the process.

Indecision Central

So, with this SEPTA strike happening I’ve been biking a lot more, i.e. 20 extra miles this week – five miles either way, two times – to and from my practicum site in East Falls.  It’s an office where one has to look presentable (unlike my former uber-casual workplace) and a harder ride than I’m used to (mostly the mile-long hill at the end), so I’ve been riding in exercise-y apparel and packing a full change of clothes.  So, I was getting myself together last Thursday, working on the minor feat of fitting trousers, a camisole, a sweater, socks, a bra and high-heeled shoes into my little messenger bag along with my wallet and camera and the other things I bring everywhere, when I realized something … something that has slowly been dawning on me since I started school a few months ago and started carrying many more things around that I’ve needed to in the past, which is that I could really use a bigger biking bag.

So, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Timbuk2 website these past few days. They made the bag I have now, which is going on eight years old and is still in great shape aside from the fact that it is filthy, which is my fault, so I’m inclined to stick with them.  The reason for spending all the time is that they let you design your own bag with custom colors and what have you.  This, of course, constitutes a minor disaster in my world.  A disaster of spending time agonizing over various color combinations when there are many other things I need to be doing.  But I mean, I might have this bag for eight years.  This is important.

So, internet, here are the designs I’m considering (and some I’m not really considering).  I would appreciate your input on this matter.

I started out with a lavender-silver-blue fog combo:

but worried that with all the light colors, it would get egregiously dirty kind of quickly.

Then I swapped out the light blue for a navy:

and then I swapped out the lavender for a brown that is made of reflective fabric for added safety hooray:

But then felt like I was staying too close to the bag I already have, which is silver and navy and a mint green they don’t seem to carry as a fabric option anymore.  In the interest of doing something different, I went back to the drawing board.

I really like the combination of light blue and dark brown in general, and think it looks alright in messenger bag form:

Though maybe I should go way bold:

rock some primary colors:

or keep it cool:

or be mad neutral:

I could be all Irish in everyone’s face:

or girl-y it up:

and did I mention that there are patterned fabrics?

It is just indecision central over there, though I will say that seeing these designs all together has been helpful.  I may be leaning toward the red-gold-organge combo, surprisingly enough, and, though I put it together to be silly, like the green-white-orange bag quite a bit too.  And the brown one.  And the textured one.  Sigh.

So, hello, reader, what do you think?  Please also feel free to build a contender of your own to share … because what I need, clearly, are more options.

ETA: Thank you to those of you who offered input!  I ended up going with a variation on the “way bold” option above, with an organge logo on the red and a panel of reflective orange fabric on the right.  I found myself smiling every time I looked at it, though it’s a departure from my usual style.  I’ll post some photos when it arrives!

A Fall Favorite

There is a certain kind of tree that I just adore this time of year, and I don’t know what it’s called even though it’s been my super favorite for some time, but anyway, the reason I like it so is that its leaves turn all the colors instead of just yellow or just brown, and they do so gradually, so what you get, in the time before the leaves all fall off, is this gorgeous rainbow-colored tree. And so, imagine my delight upon moving into my current apartment when I realized that a specimen of this species was right outside my window.

This was the view earlier today, an autumn treat:

All that remaining green means there’s much more color to come.  I’m excited.

Guerrilla Good Will

In the first-floor women’s bathroom in the nursing building at Penn, which is where my Assessment class is held for some reason, there is the nicest graffiti carved into the paint on the wall: the word “dreamer” all in caps and large, a command to be oneself and love oneself, the last two lines of an e. e. cummings poem that’s a favorite of mine.

One night last week, I was looking across the Delaware from that raised walkway off South Street, and saw “Remember to Be Awesome” written on the concrete of the enclosure.

I was on my way to my practicum site at Phila U last Thursday, and I got off the bus and crossed Schoolhouse Lane walking along Henry Ave., and this is what I saw:

and I just want to say thank you to these people and to others who put positive things in surprising and public places, without an agenda to promote or a product to market.  It’s vandalism, sure, but it can really pick a person up when said person is feeling down or frustrated or extremely stressed out about life.

It’s been a busy month, but also not nearly busy enough, as there is much I need to do between now and December 1st on my PhD applications.  I finally have a list of schools (there are twelve of them) and now it’s a lot of logistical juggling … transcripts, test scores, recommendations, data forms, statements, updated resumes.  This is not surprising – I have been in the business of advising applicants to graduate programs for years – but the reality is nonetheless a challenge.  I spent several hours last night just getting my undergraduate transcripts in order, whereas the major project for today is packets for recommenders.  I’ve been thinking about a personal statement and circling in on the core of my message and what I care about (i.e. meaning, identity, direction), but I’m not quite there yet, but I need to be there soon.

And then, of course, there’s school and my field placement and oh so many group projects.  Let’s not talk about group projects; this is a public blog.  Hello, PhD admissions committee members who might find this, I love group projects!  Collaboration!  Whoo!

So, yeah, it’s a crazy time.  I’ll get through it, though, with a little help from my friends, and from the anonymous strangers who are out there writing some good will into the world.

Playlist Project: Songs for Fall

So, I had an idea some time ago that I would periodically put together playlists around a certain theme or set of rules. It was going to be great fun.  Months later, I have four half-finished mixes and a long list of ideas written on an index card that keeps getting lost and resurfacing.  Life got busy.

Once the weather started changing, though, I started putting a mix together in my head without even realizing it.  There are some songs that just sound like autumn, and I would hear them and make a mental note that yes, this is a song for fall.  Things begin to get chillier and maybe a little more reflective, but there’s still a lot of life about.  Winter songs burrow deep and burn slowly … fall rocks right on, though maybe does so in a minor key.

So, no strict rules or guidelines this time around, except for a twelve song limit.  Some happen to mention certain months or seasons, but that wasn’t part of the plan.  These songs are just how autumn sounds, popping into my head unbidden while I’m walking or biking around, feeling the cooler air, looking at the changing leaves.

Songs for Fall
01. Holding Back the Year (Lou Barlow)
02. Poses (Rufus Wainwright)
03. Walking for Two Hours (The Twilight Sad)
04. Drink to Me Babe, Then (A.C. Newman)
05. Halloween (matt pond PA)
06. Young Bride (Midlake)
07. The Wild Kindness (Silver Jews)
08. Ghost Under Rocks (Ra Ra Riot)
09. Tightly (Neko Case)
10. Skinny Love (Bon Iver)
11. Mr. November (The National)
12. Light Leaves (WHY?)

You can listen to the entire mix over at blip.fm (imeem did not have “Walking for Two Hours” and lala did not have the Midlake song, what the hell?).

How does fall sound to you?

AK Has a Crush on Yoni Wolf, Pass It On

I have been waiting for days to write this blog entry, having had to first attend to school work and having the tiniest bit of a social life, and I have been listening to WHY? pretty much nonstop during that time.  And I’ve been sinking deeper and deeper into the music, falling more and more in love with Yoni Wolf’s freakin’ off-the-wall talent.  This shouldn’t surprise you.  I have written about his music before.

Anyway, so, I saw WHY? last Friday.  It had been some time since I’d been to a show in the First Church basement, or to an all ages show at all.  I have reached a point in my life at which 21-year-olds look like very young people, so being surrounded by pretty hip 17-year-olds drinking surprisingly acceptable beer out of brown paper bags was a bit of a trip.  They were gung-ho, too.  I’m usually able to scoot up to the front of a show, but not this time.  These kids arrived early and waited in line and packed themselves oh so tightly around the stage.

It’s also been a while since I’ve felt the heat of so many bodies.  I was standing over to the side of the room near an open door and the warmth of the crowd still reached me in waves, until the band took the stage and people closed in on all sides and I was enveloped.

The thing I most dislike about the church basement as a concert venue is that the lighting is absolute crap and it is impossible to take an ok picture.

I have a pretty good track record of getting pretty near to dudes whose work I adore – I have stood within 10 feet of Craig Finn, Matt Berninger and Will Sheff, to name some of my most most favorites – and was bummed that I was still so far away on this occasion. The area immediately in front of the stage got a little squishy/moshy at some points, though, so maybe this was for the best.

At any rate, the show was pretty good.  The last time I saw them, Yoni played keys and maybe also guitar, but this time he brought more backing musicians and was just on vocals, which, I think, made for a more dynamic performance.  They started things off with “The Hollows,” an opening selection of which I heartily approved, moved right into “January Twenty Something” and continued with a mix of songs from Alopecia and Eskimo Snow.  “Rubber Traits” and “Gemini (Birthday Song)” off Elephant Eyelash, which has become my favorite of their albums, were both a treat.  I was jazzed that they slipped the 44-second “Twenty Eight” in at the very end of the set; “Tell me, are you single yet? My heart’s as big as Texas” is one of my favorite of song openings.

The biggest hole in the setlist for me was the absence of “Fatalist Palmistry.”  It’s certainly the most straight pop of their songs and a bit more upbeat than average, lyricwise, so I get that it might not have fit into the mix, but its omission was a minor bummer nonetheless. I’d've also really liked to have heard “Against Me,” my current fave off the new album.

I’ve been thinking about why I like WHY? so well, and have settled on the following reasons.

The songs are just packed with imagery.  They evoke.  For example, the lines from one of the aforementioned songs “there was a moth caught in the soapdish laminated in lye / Will (will) you still (you still) remember me well (remember me)?” It’s not all pleasant things you see and hear, but I mean, that’s life.

The other big thing is that the words and sentiment just seem real.  The content ranges from uncomfortable (e.g. “Good Friday“) and creepy (e.g. “Simeon’s Dilemma“) to exuberant (“Fatalist Palmistry”) and sweet (“Simeon’s Dilemma” again … complex!).  The song “Act Five” really gets in your face – “There is no grace in act five / only the nerves, insect-like twitches / involuntary bowel movements, and confusion / a snail in salt doesn’t fall asleep / with a half-smile, like grandma from the after-school special” – and speaks truth.

Wolf also manages to be consistently winningly self-effacing, “playing the wall at singles bingo” in “The Vowels, Pt. 2,” for instance, or the repeated “You know my build, you know my size / the degree to which my eyes are astigmatic” at the end of “Gemini (Birthday Song).”  I have a soft spot for writers who are confident enough that they make smile while putting themselves down.

So, yes, I like WHY?  Let it also be known that the reason I’m linking to songs like crazy is that I keep telling people that Yoni Wolf is so talented oh my god I can’t take it, but have thus far been unable to explain what I mean by that.  So, listen, if you will, and see for yourselves.

The TDG Phenomenon (Also, Mayer Hawthorne & The County)

I have been to a lot of concerts over the past few years – at venues large and small, seeing acts world-famous and relavitvely obscure -  and in the process have encountered a range of concert-goers.  Going to most shows I go to by myself, I end up paying a lot of attention to the people around me.  Most of them are cool and often entertaining-to-overhear folks, but there are a few that drive me up a wall.  You’ve seen them.  There’s the Uncomfortably Affectionate Couple, the Too-Loud Singer Along-er, the Very Tall Person Who Pushes Through The Crowd Only To Stop Directly In Front Of You, and let’s not forget the Dumbass Who Holds His Point-and-Shoot Camera In The Air For The Duration Of Every Song Recording Crappy Video To Post To Youtube.  Fortunately, I’ve found that most of these people, especially the latter two types, will desist if you give them a good tap on the shoulder and say (or, depending on noise level, yell), “hi I really need you not to do that please.”  Most people are pretty ok.  The absolute worst type of concert goer, though, one who will not listen to reason or be deterred from her poor behavior, is the Terrible Dancey Girl.

The Terrible Dancey Girl is a selfish, inconsiderate creature.  She has no regard for your personal space or concert-going experience.  She just wants to dance, man … and if her body or any of her limbs  decide they want to occupy the space where you are currently standing minding your own business, they’re damn well going to.  The Terrible Dancey Girl bumps and pokes and knocks into you repeatedly and she does not apologize or care or stop.  She makes it necessary for me to remind myself that, in our society, assault is illegal.  I have documented my problems with the TDG before.

Also, please don’t think I’m hating on people who are enjoying themselves.  The Terrible Dancey Girl’s direct opposites, the Awesome Dancey Girl and her rarer counterpart the Awesome Dancey Guy, are among my very favorite concert-goers.  I have a great time when people around me are all into the music.  It’s only when someone’s enjoyment comes at the expense of others’ that I get a little rage-y.

So anyway, I went to see Mayer Hawthorne at Johnny Brenda’s last week, and the TDG phenomenon was in full effect. There were three of them, all of whom knocked into me at some point, but two of them at least apologized for themselves and also for the third, who seemed to resent my having walked into the 5′ x 3′ foot space by the front of the stage that I suppose she imagined was meant only for her. She was either very drunk or just an extreeeme bitch. I am not sure which. Possibly both.

Anyway, so, the concert.  It was good.  I arrived somewhere in the middle of Buff 1’s set with 14KT.  I’d never seen hip hop live before and I have to say it was a blast, though I was a little stressed out by the expectation of audience participation.  I have six hours of class on Wednesdays, and had been up late working on an assignment, so this show was at the end of a very long day.  But, to reiterate, those boys were delightful.

Mayer Hawthorne & the County were enjoyable as well.  I took a few pictures during opener “Maybe So, Maybe No” before it was requested that we put all the camera and cell phones away and have a technology-free evening, appropriate given the throwback nature of the musical project.

I was standing pretty much directly below Jimmy Yellowstone on guitar.

Other highlights included a fun reggae-ified version of the song that started it all, a very fun if unimaginative cover of “Mr. Blue Sky,” and the toe-tapping good “Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothing.” They closed the encore with “The Ills,” which I kind of can’t believe is an original song, it sounds so of another era (though some would argue that it’s excessively derivative).

So, yeah, it was a very good performance, though I’m not sure I can say I enjoyed the show.  There was the TDG factor that ruined things a little bit, but I think another layer was the artifice of the whole endeavor.  Dude’s name isn’t Mayer Hawthorne, for example, and he is not really a singer (though he gets around it admirably).  And then there were his instructions to the audience, like his command that all the single people find someone couple up with during “I Wish That It Would Rain.”  Hello, I got five hours of sleep last night and have been awake for seventeen and I am not feeling cute.  Let’s make me feel worse about it please, thanks.

The more I write about, the more I realize that I did not have a good time.  Oh well.

This was also my first concert in some months, so I was maybe a little out of practice.  My subsequent show-going experience (there have been two) have been more positive, at least, so I’ll be posting some more upbeat music thoughts soon, promise.

An Anniversary

I was getting on my bike after a long day at school last Wednesday, and maybe it was that I’d just discovered that I’d left my blinky red light that makes me more visible to drivers at home or that my shoes didn’t quite fit in my half-clips, but anyway I was getting on my bike after school last Wednesday and it felt as if there were something more than a chill in the air. Danger. Or peril, maybe.  So I was thinking about this as I rode up 37th toward Chestnut, the weather and the time of year and this vague sense of unease, and I realized that it was very nearly the anniversary of my bike accident. It was two years ago yesterday, in fact. October 2, 2007.

A quick recap for those who don’t know the story: I was biking home from work on Hazel Avenue that night and arrived at a stop sign at the same time as a car across the street. The motorist was signaling a left turn, I was going straight. She remained at a stop for several seconds and I assumed she was letting me go, so I proceeded through the intersection. Turned out she hadn’t seen me; hadn’t even looked, she told me afterward. So she makes her left turn, and there I am in the middle of the lane and unable to get out of the way, and she hits me perpendicularly and I come over the bike and onto the hood of the car and into the windshield. I’m not sure where I went exactly, my eyes were closed. I either rolled over the car completely or just slid off the hood … all I know for sure is that I landed on my back about a quarter of the way down the block. She must have been going pretty fast.

So, an ambulance came and the police came and I went to the hospital and so on and so forth. I walked away from the incident but had a lot of trouble with my left leg in the months that followed. I developed bruises that contained purples and blues I had not imagined could occur in the human body. On the whole, though, nothing debilitating or life-threatening. I got a new bike and started riding again, shook the whole thing off.

I’ve been using the same helmet since the accident. I gave it a once over after the incident and all looked totally fine. It wasn’t until last spring – more than a year after the fact – that I noticed a pretty serious indentation in the left side:

A closer look:

I hadn’t noticed it before because I wasn’t looking all that carefully, and the reason I wasn’t looking all that carefully is probably that I wasn’t ready to see it, and process the fact that that could have been my skull. Meanwhile, an acquaintance of mine, an absolutely lovely person who’s about my age, has been in a coma for almost two months after biking into the path of an Escalade on JFK one night and, well, shit.

The point of all of this, and I have a roundabout way of saying so, I know, is that I’m grateful. Grateful that I’m ok and walking and talking, that I’m still riding my bike around.  There are few things I enjoy more than standing on my pedals and flying down the hill behind the art museum toward Kelly drive.  It’s hard to find the balance between recognizing that it’s a dangerous world out there and, like, living life, you know?  The compromise, I guess, is to try not to think about it, but to wear a helmet whenever appropriate.

Eternal Return

So, I spent all of last night writing a critique of the psychological theory of Alfred Adler, though I should mention that part of the reason it took so very long was that our text states that he was influenced to an extent by Nietzsche’s concept of will to power, which of course sent me off on an hour-long Nietzsche re-reading tangent.  You can take the nerd out of philosophy, but I guess you can’t take the philosophy out of the nerd.

Anyway, in the course of this distraction I happened back upon that quote from The Gay Science about that demon and the idea of eternal recurrence, which I just wanted to share here before I run away to class, because I think it is amazing.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!”— Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!”

Pause for a beat please.

If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

What a freaking amazing imperative (or idea or objective or whatever you want to call it), to use every single moment in a way that you would be happy to use it again.

I plan on writing a post about the specifics of the classes I’m taking to give interested parties a sense of what the hell I’m actually doing with all my time.  Soon.