in defense of stowing a kindle in one's pocket during an excursion in the jungle, or andrew reveals his insatiable need to respond seriously to facebook comments made in jest

i broke another kindle. my third. this time i was hanging from a jungle vine, and the kindle, which was in the pocket of my brown cargo shorts, must have been crunched between my thigh and the wooden railing beside me.

i posted something to this effect on facebook, lamenting my sudden lack of books for the remainder of my trip--one week in new zealand and more than a day's worth of airline time and sitting in airports, ack! what am i to do? my friends were, understandably, incredulous--how did i manage to so easily destroy yet another kindle? why was I bringing my kindle into the rainforest in the first place? why use a kindle at all? 

and as usual, i couldn’t help but overreact:

before arriving in the rain forest, that lively universe that was the site of my latest kindle’s demise, i first had to take several other types of transportation. i knew from other similar excursions around cairns, that these legs of the journey could involve a lot of staring into space, which i'd rather fill with something more entertaining and constructive, like reading.

as it turned out, i spent much of the travel time playing "i spy with my little eye" with some aussies from melbourne and a man from jamaica. but upon arrival in kurunda, i did relax for awhile in a shady park, reading on my kindle and--pay attention here, you e-reader cynics, this is one place where the kindle, if it didn't have a pansy screen, beats out a pocket-size paperback--finding illusory literary community with friends back home: that is, using the kindle's wireless function, i was able to share some passages from a short story collection I'd been reading with my bazillion closest friends on facebook.

now, no one commented on those quotes or my reflections on those quotes (just as I don't tend to comment on other people's quotes), so perhaps whatever community i felt by posting them was false, and perhaps whatever community is achieved through an online social networking site like facebook, even if it is with real people who you know and love, is already false, but this felt like some step toward not being stranded in my own head, a thousand-plus miles from friends and people who like to talk about books.

i should end there. that sounds about as close to profound as i can get when unnecessarily blathering on about a stupid broken device. that's the true ending. but i also want to mention these two logistical points: (1) the sharing of those quotes on facebook was free, whereas to share them with my iphone, which wasn't on me at the time, would have entailed an international phone service charge; and (2) i'm pretty certain that any other electronic device that i own--my iphone, my (work's) macbook air, my nikon camera--would have survived the bump just fine; these kindles have excellent customer service but their screens are less durable than the spindly stick of a candy cane after it’s been sucked down to a needle-sharp tip, which is to say that, apparently, you can’t take them anywhere.

and i have no idea what candy canes have to do with kindles or rainforests.

on running, boredom, and survival

jamie, mari, andrew, and nora at the 2011 resolution run 5k & polar bear dive

i recently told my friend nora that running was boring. when i said this, i was surrounded by runners. in fact, i myself was running. there was some serious irony dashing about.*

we were threading our way through a pack of new year's day marathoners, racing toward a chilly finish--a plunge in lake washington. the sun was shining bright, but the temp never broached the freezing mark, and so runners would periodically wave their arms in the air and cry, "ice! ice! ice!" as a warning to the surging crowd behind. there were even doughnuts. 

but i didn't mean that i was bored at that moment or even in that race. the brilliant sunshine, the excited banter of our running cadre, and the anticipation of our impending polar bearization all added up to a fine level of happy engagement. i simply meant that the motion of foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, look left, breath, foot, look right, foot, breath, look left, foot, breath, look forward, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, lift shirt to brow, foot, wipe brow, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, breath, foot, foot, spit, foot, big breath, foot, foot is dull.**

yet it turned out that the 5k was fun, but not because the running was fun; not because i found a head-foot groove where the world slipped away and there was just me and the motion, just me and some kind of meditative trance; not because i rejoiced in the burning of calories or the achievement of a new personal best. the running that day (and in the days since) was not boring in the same way that this blog entry may not be boring. because if you got this far, you probably know me; when you read this, you can probably hear my voice or imagine me making the wacky facial expressions i inherited from my dad--the arching eye brow, the wrinkled forehead--and so it's not that you're reading a well-crafted thought piece or an explosive, jaw-dropping page-turner (this is, after all, about running), it's that we are connected.

and if i am to run, i need connection. i need something outside the self and the path and my feet. i need ice patches and obstacles. i need the promise of a mind-bending dip in the lake. if i am to run, if i am to press on, if i am to run this race where it takes me, then i need my friends and i need my family. i need you running beside me.***


xoxoxoxoxoxo



here's a youtube clip of me playing alexi murdoch's "orange sky," which expresses a similar sentiment to the one i concluded with in this post--i even adjust the final lyric to make it more personal--though murdoch sings of brothers and sisters "standing by," not running beside:
 

xoxoxoxoxoxo

* i went to a philosophy colloquium today and perhaps i should have asked our prof about irony. it's a word that, despite my english major roots, i hesitate to use. in fact, when i come upon questionable uses of the word irony in my editing career, i tend to avoid correcting writers, instead opting for something more wishy-washy like, "please confirm that this usage of irony matches your personal understanding of the word. for more reference, see the oatmeal." yet in this blog entry i use it with abandon, even combining it with a bad pun.

** the dull sentence of a thousand nouns is inspired by an essay from lorrie moore's collection birds of america, in which moore has two consecutive pages of the word "ha." i read somewhere that moore used well over one thousand has.

*** this wasn't just an excuse to write a lame, heartwarming metaphor about life being like running or to highlight my stellar ability to adapt two-chord pop songs to the piano. i've actually been running several times a week since that new year's eve marathon, and as the post suggests, i'm running with friends. surprisingly, running and chatting with friends who run at a similar pace is quite the opposite of boring.

and i also went to santa fe this summer...

so i might as well share my photos from the glen workshop: http://picasaweb.google.com/the17pointscale/200907SantaFeGlen?authkey=Gv1sRgCNzihKbSheHmeA&feat=directlink.

photos from the oc

beth said that i should post these, too: http://picasaweb.google.com/the17pointscale/200906OceanShoresBevisFamily?authkey=Gv1sRgCIS79_Tn-5_RpwE&feat=directlink.

the 17 points of attraction

i guess i'm not the only one to see the scientific merit of 17 point scales. check out this site to hear the informal findings of some engineers who used a 17 point scale to gauge the perceived attractiveness of their 70-some subjects. as one might expect, their scale ranged from 0 (disgustingly ugly/repulsive) to 17 (perfectly attractive/marry this person right now!).

photo: blb, "the 17 builds a dam" great smoky mountains, tennessee

andrew the political provocateur

my friend greta recently pegged me as "pretty passionate about the sonics," which i suppose must be somewhat true. after all, during the last week i have sent several impassioned pleas to my governor and state legislators, and i have printed and posted "save our sonics" paraphernalia--grammar errors and all.

however, i haven't actually watched an entire sonics game all year. the supes suck this year, and i'm happy to spend my time elsewhere, give someone else my dollars.

the thing is, NBA basketball is cyclical. today we field a team of rookies and scrubs, but tomorrow--and by tomorrow, i mean five years from now--the key arena/ford center will rock. think '95-'96.

but my sudden political activity isn't founded on a gamble or the promise of a rosy future--i'm willing to admit that durant might lose a leg and presti's stockpile of #1 draft picks could turn to naught. no, my desire to keep the sonics and impeach the legislature is entirely separate from the great potential of future iterations of the green and gold.

i guess i am just tired of the same old irrelevant arguments. i am tired of dogma that prohibits us from looking beyond our wallets and imagining the world from someone else's shoes. i am tired of leaders who parrot back the same meaningless answers to straw man arguments rather than taking decisive action.

and that is why i have called the legislature (800.562.6000), written my governor, and enlisted at least 3 others to do the same.

now it's your turn! unless the governor schedules an emergency legislative session, the city ponies up another $75 million, or some other sports miracle occurs, today is the last day.

photograph: sean meichle. "the provocateur." VAPSHCS, seattle, wa.


PS apparently i am so annoyed at our leaders that i even gave the governor some input on an unrelated bill about law enforcement and gang activity.

some of the others in a live concert at the green bean

that's right, my new band, some of the others, will be performing at the green bean open-mic night on wednesday. we're a cover band that focuses exclusively on sufjan stevens classics. more particularly, we have trained our euphonic sights on chicago, one of the singles from come on, feel the illinoise (check out track #9). some day we may broaden our repetoire to include other sufjan songs and perhaps even some muse but in the meantime, our guitarist, trombonist, accordionist, violinist, marimba-ist, vocalists, and pianists make chicago a spectacle that is more than worth the drive (or flight).

we'll be playing sometime after 9pm. incidentally, the green bean is greenwood's favorite non-profit coffee shop. you can find it next door to the tap root theater at 210 n 85th st. also, some of the others is a name that i coined just now, so don't be surprised if mari (our illustrious leader) introduces us by some other name (e.g., sufvan stejens) at the show. (some of the others seemed an apt name because the band consists of some of the players from our soccer team, the others, and then some others.)

for those of you who are very ill and can't make it to our second debut, i hope to have some bootleg youtube footage for you in the next few days.

the s.o. "contemplating the d-c-g sequence of chicago." cahal pech, san ignacio town, belize.

urgent soccer matter

back in february i wrote that i was thinking of founding a co-ed soccer team. somehow, my thoughts mushed together into something a little more concrete than cerebral wonderings: if the stars align right, i'll be submitting a registration form on monday.

i'm aiming for a total of 15 players (8 guys, 7 girls), and so far we're 1 guy and 2 girls short. thus, if you know anyone who might be interested, leave me message.

if you're thinking "hmmm...i might be interested in that, but i don't know anything about soccer," here's the scoop: we'll have 5 girls, 5 guys, and a goalie (any gender) on the field at all times. our team will have an odd blend of talent--some of us have never played soccer and some of us have coached it--so we're going for a fun, easy-going experience. of course, I'd like to destroy the competition too, but this could be an interesting experiment.

again, if you're interested, leave me a message.

pietro's pizza. "that's me in junior high." seattle, wa.

dreams

[programming note: it's not wednesday, but i've decided to post a little something tonight anyway. also, my travel writing experiment is turning out to be a flop, so i may return to regular blogging again soon. we'll see....]

for my trip to belize, doctor wendy prescribed chloroquine. "don't worry," she said, "this isn't the one that gives you crazy dreams or makes you monster-sick." indeed, there are several ways to kill the malaria bug and chloroquine's side effects are rather tame. it's malaria med cousin is a bit more interesting however: travelers taking mefloquine complain of the usual aches and pains--headaches, nausea, dizziness--and then some more interesting symptoms like vivid dreams and visual disturbances.

i picked up my chloroquine at bartell's pharmacy on march 24th and have been taking the pills every saturday since. they taste rather nasty, but i didn't experienced anything too alarming until late last week. that's when i started having crazy dreams.

okay, in of itself, crazy dreams really aren't that uncharacteristic for the typical andrew evening; my memory and imagination have collaborated on some rather bizarre late night escapades. but this is new: my dreams are prophetic.

the first visitation of the future occurred last wednesday night. i was dreaming of a hotel in belize when some friends from spokane appeared in the lobby. "what are brady and alisha doing in belize?" i wondered. before i could inquire further, i learned that the hotel's staircase terminated about a flight and a half short of their room. this was particularly awkward because alisha was pregnant (and this wasn't one of my office mate james's flying dreams). after clamoring up onto the hotel's roof and trying to find an alternate entrance to their room (you know, ancient apostle-style), i awoke.

no, i didn't climb my way to work the next morning, but there's a surprise embedded in that little adventure. but before i explain, let me recount thurday's dream. i'll warn you though, my newly discovered talent for divination is in no way correlated with an improved sense of timing. that is, i'm not about to interfere with this vision i've been granted, and although much of the dream may seem irrelevant, there's no way i'm skipping to the end.

my recollection of the dream begins with me sitting in the passenger seat of a nondescript white van, watching as the driver, a heavy-set bald man, scanned his mirrors, pulled into the parking lot arterial, and then attempted to repark in the neighboring space. i say attempted because the space was already occupied--my driver didn't seem to care. he pressed the gas and gunned our big white beast through the rear bumper of the unfortunate subaru. with a chuckle, he jumped from his seat and tossed me a can of lighter fluid. as flames reflected off the walls and cars and puddles of that concrete jungle, we admired our handiwork. the man happily quipped about the surprise of the owner when he or she stumbled from the mall into the presence of their smoking car-cass. he then wiped the grime from his hands and reached into his sports coat.

"how does five million sound?" he asked. he nodded to himself, scrawled a figure in his ledger, and dismissed me with a wave. as i walked toward the mall, i turned to watch him stuff a check in a bright green envelope. he placed the envelope a safe distance from the smouldering wreck and returned to the van.

[i foretell that this post will be continued in the future, perhaps tomorrow....]

[disclaimer: this is creative nonfiction with the emphasis on creative--i may be overplaying my response to these dreams just a tiny bit.]

andrew david. "traveling by van" the highway from belize city to san ignacio town, belize.

a pat on my back

tonight i was sean (i.e., i was an offensive juggernaut). during our pregame soccer warm-ups, rebecca reported that sean was at home on the couch; the flu had transformed him into a miserable blob of snot. and after that chat, i knew that i had to serve honorably as his replacement; i had to let his legacy shine. and how better to remember sean then to score a goal? so i did (my first ever, i should add). and then i had an assist for our second goal of the night. whooohooo! unfortunately, the opposing team mounted a comeback during the second half, and we only managed a 2-2 tie, but there's still an itsy-bitsy chance that a tie will be enough to propel the WE PLAY BETTER ON GRASS into the title game.

gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaalll!

father of the s.o. "look out. here come the crazies." ocean shores, washington.

soccer

i'm researching the possibility of founding a co-ed soccer team for the spring or summer season and i've already got some possible candidates. if you, mysterious web surfer, might be interested, leave me a message, and i'd be happy to tell you more. my motivations for this rare burst of leadership are the following:

1. i like to play sports, especially soccer.
2. playing regularly on a team guarantees at least one night a week of certified good exercise.
3. i'm currently subbing on sean's soccer team. the players are nice but there's a very distinct difference between playing as a substitute and being a full-fledged member of a team. as a sub i'm very hesitant to give a position preference, to direct others (e.g., verlach, are you playing left forward? get back over there!), or to offer strategy advice. this is all compounded by #4.
4. i enjoy team sports, but for some reason i tend to lose confidence when i'm thrust into a team atmosphere. if i build my own team from scratch, i'll know my fellow players, and be a bit more comfortable and perhaps confident.and, if i know the players on my team, there's a greater chance that i can round them up for scrimmages.
   
5. my lack of confidence isn't helped by the fact that i'm still rather rusty. at the moment, i feel like i'm neither an asset nor a liability; just another guy out kicking the soccer ball. scrimmages will help this....

the s.o. "andrew at rest; andrew and his soccer dreams 1 & 2" jasper/banff national park, alberta.

travel writing (4)

in the next installation of my travel essay, i sling some mud at a local travel hero, the edmonds native, rick steves. when i returned to the states in 2003, i discovered that this was a rather unpopular decision. in fact, i was a little worried that my friend pam clark, a devoted fan of the antique roadshow, the gods must be crazy, and (you guessed it) rick steves, might stop speaking to me if she caught wind of my mocking tone. these days pam lives in prosser, and i hardly ever speak to her, so i suppose that i have nothing to fear from pam.

to read the preceding chapters of my desperate travels in the cinque terre, click this link.

Hours later, without warning, our train unceremoniously emerges from a tunnel to that fabled city of Vernazza. Hoisting my pack, I happily stumble through the door and onto the platform. The haggard locomotive burps, coughs, and finally rumbles from the station, allowing the distant lull of laughing voices to fill its wake. An expectant smile flickers across my face. I can almost taste the gelato. But first things first: I must secure a place to stay. No worries, my friend Rick Steves already allayed my apprehensions concerning the night lodgings: “The town is honeycombed year-round with pleasant, rentable private rooms, […] simply show up by morning and look around [….] Any main-street business has a line on rooms for rent […] no reservations taken, just show up at restaurants” (Steves 578).

So, down a flight of stairs and into the busy breathing city center. In Vernazza, the city center consists of a single pedestrian-populated cobblestone street that empties into a small cove well suited for sailboats and small fishing craft. Forming an artificial canyon of sorts, apartments, boutiques, Internet cafes, and restaurants are stacked one atop the other all along both sides of the avenue. Tourists are everywhere, sipping the local white wine—after all, where else but in the Cinque Terre is wine cheaper than coke?—and languidly reclining on apartment steps, all in all pretending to be Italians well practiced in the art of the siesta.

Following the natural progression of the boulevard toward the harbor, I eagerly approach the waterfront. Sidestepping some sunbathers, I lean forward for my first touch of the Mediterranean. Instead of experiencing a transforming moment where all historical references to this great body of water suddenly converge into one epiphany about my place in time—that’s how I imagined my first meeting with the Mediterranean—the great big bulk straddling my back lunges forward as if to leapfrog my shoulders. I somehow catch my balance, roll to the side, and narrowly escape a refreshing dip.

Shrugging my shoulders in mild defeat, I cautiously walk along the beach toward the first candidate for a good night’s lodgings: Gambero Rosso. I’m not quite sure how this works though; apparently all the harbor-side restaurants set their diners outside in a sea of plastic patio furniture. In fact, the various restaurants seem to encourage their tables and chairs to mingle amongst one another. Perhaps waiters from the various establishments compete, racing one another to each new guest: speedy service, guaranteed! While the lack of indoor seating ensures a marvelous view, it also makes it difficult to determine the best manner of approaching a restaurant proprietor. After a moment of indecision, I head toward the door from which the food seems to be flowing.

Passing through some dangling beads, I step into a dim smoky room. Contrary to my initial impression, this appears to be some kind of a bar. I spot a woman behind the counter and prepare for first contact.

“Uhhh…buona sera!” I greet her enthusiastically. That’s “good evening,” I think.

“Prego…” She says as she polishes a glass, inquisitively searching me with her dark hazel eyes. Apparently yet another use for the term “prego.” With my three word Italian vocabulary exhausted, I turn to the standby communication tool of all oblivious travelers: my hands.

I point to myself, bring my hands together against my right ear in the manner of a pillow, and ask: “Where place to stay? Sleep?” My English grows choppy. I even try a little French. Then, in a rare flash of inspiration, I conceive the perfect gimmick to illustrate my sorry plight. I pull the crumpled page from my Best of Europe 2001 and point to two boldface Italian words that preclude Rick’s explanation of places to stay. She squints at the worn page, shakes her head “no,” and mumbles something I take to mean that they’re+full. As a consolation gift of sorts, she nods and points across the square before returning to her dirty china.

Threading in and out of tourists, I cross the square. Outside the indicated apartment, a few men lounge idly about, laughing heartily through wispy clouds of cigarette smoke. I approach one, about to speak, but he motions me inside. I enter, make eye contact with a young man in an apron, and launch confidently into my new routine. As I thrust the page under his nose, I glimpse a sparkle in his eye. I think he understands. I’m a pro! Perhaps those games of charades really paid off.

Perhaps not. “Sorry,” he says, clear as can be, “You have no reservations? We have no rooms left.” Either I suddenly picked up Italian, or he’s speaking English. “It be tough to find room this time of the season without reservation. Try Paolo at Trattoria del Capitano,” he says, pointing next door at another restaurant.

I try next door. “No, no rooms.”

I try next door to Trattoria del Capitano but am referred back to Paulo. Like the Mary and Joseph of past millennia, I’m faced with the harsh prospect of no room in the inn. Unfortunately, there are no stables either. All these tourists, I belatedly realize, have places to stay. Quaint little Vernazza is brimming with hotel patrons. By eight in the evening, it’s an entire village of no vacancies. I am Cinderella at two strokes till twelve; catch my coach now, or things will get ugly. However, this is no fairy tale: there may be no night trains out of here.

to be continued....

unknown traveler. "and here is life with reservations" venice, italy.

travel writing (3)

i'd hate to find matt's brains splattered across my blog (see the comments from the previous post), so here's the third installment of my adventures in the boot:

(if you're thinking, 'hey, wait, what do you mean third post? i've only seen two!' then you're kind of right--i posted three paragraphs on the appendix. so this link will take you to the first two installments in one bigger chunk.)

...I could probably write a darn good travel essay from a dank prison cell in Timbuktu, Italy.

The train is rumbling now, but still no onboard announcements or any sign of a conductor (or a rail pass). Groaning, the train flexes its tired mechanical muscles and jettisons forth from the station. Saying a quick prayer, I realize that if necessary I can probably purchase a ticket onboard. Besides, the other passengers, pretending to ignore my antics, have no tickets in hand ready for collection. I sit back and concentrate on the movement of the train, but its faded caramel seats, jarring motion, and cranky grinding of gears conjure unpleasant images of rickety old roller-coasters. Unconsciously, I reach for a lap bar and wonder uneasily if trains cave to the same barometric conditions as humans. Might our car suffer heat stroke and leave me stranded in Genoa?

But the train keeps going. And stopping. And going. And stopping, stopping at every little space in the tracks wide enough to accommodate a few benches of worn commuters. There! Beyond the benches and stucco high-rise apartments I can see thin strands of beach. With any luck, that’s the Mediterranean. But as each fresh likeness of tropical paradise rolls slowly by, the city names elicit no sense of familiarity. Still, these towns look nice. I could cut loose from my itinerary, barrel blindly from the seasoned advice of other travelers, and land myself in some obscure Italian village no one’s ever heard of, besides the Italians, of course. Some ordinary coastal community sifting wages from the sea rather than the wallets of tourists. Rent a raft and float away into the Mediterranean sunset…but seriously, maybe this is the wrong train. I ask a few passengers.

“To Vernazza?” I ask. “Vernazza?” And point to the train.

Someone says the word for floor. Others shake their heads. One woman, obliging this strange foreigner, takes the lead, and offers me a helpful bundle of insight. Unfortunately, the rushing wind carries her words far away to the opposite end of our car. While Italy seems privileged to have experienced parts of the industrial revolution, like this train putting deliberately down the sun-soaked coast, other modern conveniences apparently have bypassed Europe’s boot. Despite the pressing humidity, Italians on the West Coast lack the crucial life support system we know as air conditioning. Thankfully, my train utilizes the predecessor to AC: wide-open windows. But in the context of conversations, Italian AC makes communication nearly impossible. Oh, well, her insight amounted to nothing more than Italian gibberish anyway.

“Prego?” I ask. I’ve often been told that when in Rome, do as the Romans do; in this case that means speak Italian. Earlier, as I crossed the border from Switzerland, a benevolent tour guide explained that the word “prego” serves at least a million functions, ranging from “may I take this,” “you’re welcome,” and “excuse me,” to a brand of spaghetti sauce. Thus, if lost for something to say in Italy, like now, “prego” might work. It does. She repeats her explanation. Great. I muster one last try, putting careful emphasis on each of the syllables. “Verrrr nahhhzzzzz uhhh?”

“Si, si.” So much for blending in. After a few “graci’s,” my bag and I ride the remainder of the trip in self-conscious silence. Cover blown, I discard any pretense of acting indigenous and pull dog-eared pages from a used copy of Rick Steves’s Best of Europe 2001. Staring at the map, I note how close Vernazza should be to Genoa. Barely a centimeter! Oh, well. I stash the map in the front pocket of my shorts with a camera, some German receipts, and a rail pass. A rail pass?! Hallelujah! I nearly jump out of my seat. My Italian train-mates must think I’m loony, or perhaps I’m behaving like a typical American. No wonder we have such a poor reputation abroad. After daring a last glance at my fellow passengers, I turn my gaze to the window and stare at the passing towns—in part to avoid further eye contact with the locals but more importantly to somehow verify that, yes, I am on the right train.

continued at this link (sorry matt--we're at about the half way point now).


unknown traveler. "the 40 pound pack and i" somewhere in switzerland (before i ventured to italy).

blood diamond

rating: 11 of 17

my roommate didn't bother to see this movie. he said that one diamond can never be that valuable. he then told me about diamond cutting and a fiery natural gas leak somewhere in the deserts of africa. after speaking with my roommate, i headed to the cinema and found that in addition to being fictitious, the diamond that propels the plot in blood diamond is pink but not sparkley. it looked like something you might find in my mom's rock collection. nonetheless, this stupid stone (and lesser pebble-like diamonds) sent characters careening across the screen with shovels, machetes, and machine guns. blood diamond reinforces this growing sense that despite my tendency to read big books or react to the world in a spirit of open-mindedness, i'm still an ignorant helpless american. i'm not a cnn-junkie or an activist--i had no idea that diamonds fueled death raids in sierra leone during the '90s. i hardly know how to spell sierra leone.

in the midst of it's ceaseless cruelty, blood diamond attempts to communicate hope and empowerment, but i walked away from the film in a psychiatric state of paralysis. films like blood diamond, hotel rwanda, and schindler's list make me feel helpless. i'm over here and they (substitute the victims of nearly any bloody current event) are over there. and there are too many over theres. perhaps i can deal with here--if that fictitious pink rock were my mother's and portland, a blood bath, yes, then i'd cry, take a side, demand justice--but how is a clueless english major to save the world?

really, it'd be much better if the world were on fire because of a natural gas leak. then i might have a chance. my roommate tells me that copper tools and explosives work best.

you can see other reviews on the left column of the blog. the 17 point scale reviews are marked by an exclamation mark (!). here's a link to a real review (christianity today):
11.blood diamond - brutal, bloody
and an addendum to this post:
http://the17pointscale.blogspot.com/2007/01/blood-diamond-addendum.html


andrew david. "smiling cause we're happy" somewhere in canada.

a blogging tutorial

i am told that as christianity struggles to remain relevant in a fast-paced, anything-goes culture, a new kind of church is rising from the empty pews of the mainline protestant denominations. it's a church that seeks to provoke thought and kiss off complacency. it's a postmodern or emergent church. the pastor may drink beer or vote democrat. the worshippers may sing hymns or play crashing guitars and accordions. and the church treasury may sign checks to support human rights groups, evangelists, or artists.

i happen to attend a church like this, and every winter we do our part to encourage the arts. members of the bethany community volunteer to teach classes to fellow church-goers or folks in the north seattle community. the classes--thai fusion cooking, card making, ts eliot poetry, digital photography, salsa dancing, cheese making, classical guitar, lectio divina, etc, etc, etc--are advertised throughout the community and occur in homes, coffeshops, and the church basement.

last year, beth the s.o. and mari (she doesn't yet have a 17 point scale deidentifying nickname) both taught several classes for the bethany arts college. this december they nobly approached me to see if i might also teach a class. i say nobly not because it's a strange funny-looking word but because my 2 year attendance at bethany community church has been nearly devoid of service. that is, i show up on sunday but give almost nothing of my time. i am a christian parasite (yikes!), and beth and mari's recruitment efforts may perhaps represent an unconscious attempt to reform me and precipitate some kind of evolutionary event in my soul.

"you could teach a class in blogging," they said.

besides my initial gut reaction--"that's nerdy"--and an overwhelming sense that a class on blogging would be very unfun, there would be something akin to hypocrisy if i were suddenly deemed master blogger. you see, here's what i would teach as the three most important keys to successful:

1. stay on topic. if you meander between discussions of books, sports, and religion, the bookworms, athletes, and clerics will usually look somewhere else for their blogging pleasure.
2. visit other blogs. post lots of comments on blogs that share a similar topic to your blog (notice that's a similar topic not similar topics). posting comments gives other surfers a link to follow back to your blog. and back-links are the secret to good position on google.
3. post briefly and post often. people will only return to your blog if they're confident that they can find new material.

now, how many of these tips do i follow? zero.

moreover, i am again considering a blogging hiatus. sean tells me this is a bad idea, but i'm worried that i spend to much time staring at my computer screen each evening. email, googling, blogging, uploading pictures to istock, checking sports scores....it's too much! and i haven't had much to say recently.

here are the last of my saskatchewan wedding photos.



unknown. "i'm too lazy to title these tonight, but that's nathan, andrew, beth, danny, and alison." shekinah, saskatchewan.

christmas loot

i made a pretty good haul this christmas. in fact, this list isn't even finished. there are at least three gifts missing. and don't worry, there's still time to get me a gift--epiphany isn't 'till january 6th.

books
1. night by elie wiesel
2. east of eden by john steinbeck
3. how to mow the lawn by sam martin
4. parallel bible (nasb + the message)
5. one year of the bible (new living translation)
6. wild at heart by john eldredge
candles
1. sugar almond
2. vanilla
3. mulberry wine
clothes
1. a stylish black shirt
2. a hoodie
3. tube socks
4. dress shoes
5. two pairs of pajama pants
foods
1. christmas cookies
2. wasabi mustard
3. clotted cream
4. strawberry jam
5. strappleberry gum
6. chai tea mix
gadgets
1. cordless headphones
2. small ipod dock with speakers
music
1. piano bench
2. muse sheet music
3. kazoo
other
1. two wallets
2. deoderant
3. framed picture of a potter

good news. my friends and family seemed to have reached a consensus about my tastes. they have determined that andrew is a stylish fellow that likes to read, smell good, eat well, and immerse himself in music.


beth the s.o. "avocados & chili, but it was too early for saint nick" gregg lake, alberta.

i finished christmas shopping!

in lieu of a proper blog posting, i'm trying a new font. and in addition to tinkering with the 17 point scale text type, i also finished my christmas shopping and started don delillo's white noise. beth recommended it to me during our gre studies. she said something like "it's a strange, post-modern classic; i think you might like it,"and because beth has a surprisingly keen sense of what others like, i thought something like "okay." and now here i am reading white noise and experimenting with blog fonts [p.s., it turns out that the new font is invisible. what a waste. oh, well, ain't life grand?]


unknown. "flipbook potential" shekinah, saskatchewan. (i spent about five minutes studying these pictures. during that time i discovered great, earth-shaking truths and was bemused by the animate nature of my hands, cup, and expression [and by 'my' i'm referring to me, the guy in the stripes], especially in contrast to beth's motionless expression of mock gravity.)

little landmarks in the life of the blogger

(1) i've made $11 on istockphoto.com! only $89 more and i'll actually be able to cash out.
(2) i've evaluated 4,182 mp3s. only 75 more and i'll have rated my entire itunes library.
(3) i've exchanged 4+ emails about editing a client's novel. only 1+ more and i might have a deal.
(4) i've posted 192 blog entries. only 8 more and i'll have exhausted all of my ideas for the 17 point scale. okay that's probably not true, but at the moment it certainly feels that way. and since it's always best to be prepared, i've found you a replacement site; it's a blog about reading, writing, and annie dillard. in the most recent post, the blogger (beth) talks of church, polar bears (well, they're actually dillard's polar bears, not beth's), and the beautiful agony that is writing (or more particularly, the troubling realization that visits nearly every young writer, the sad epiphany that some greater, more renowned author has somehow stolen your paper mache idea and given it wings, the elegant, nuanced wings of a monarch butterfly or a hoatzin). just imagine the coolness of my parenthetical thought multiplied by some really big number (maybe a number like 70. isn't that the really huge, seemingly infinite number that Christ offered the apostles when they asked how many times they should forgive their brother? i may be recalling this wrong, but if not, does that mean that jews and romans were really bad at math? or should i stop forgiving him later this year?), and you'll have a rough sense of how great this blog is. but there is one problem. you'll have to pay spu a few thousand dollars before you can read it. yep, it's that good. officially, the money that you'd spend to read the blog is considered tuition for spu's mfa in creative writing, but we all know that that's just lawyer talk, cause i'm telling you, it's a darn good blog.


andrew david. "yes this is a rather plain wedding picture and yes i wore those sandals during the wedding and yes thats danny and alison at the bottom of the page and yes you can tell becky that ive finally read some wendell berry" saskatchewan, canada.

all full of turkey and nowhere to go?

hi, everyone. i'm finally back from thanksgiving festivities in salem, portland, and poulsbo. during the lonely drive to and from oregon, i had several thoughts that might make it onto the 17 point scale, but most of the miles were spent contemplating song lyrics and the two books that i'm reading, blue like jazz and the road (collectively known as the blue road).

i'm glad to say that the blue road has propelled me back into my normal literary state of andrewdom. let me explain. i'm fairly laid-back about most things; i may grimace at a loathsome vegetable or blast the evil howard schultz, but generally speaking i don't really get passionate about particulars. and it's the same with books: i tend to enjoy most reads. in fact, for most of my life i have identified my favorite book as whatever novel i'm currently reading. i'm fickle; i love the latest fling. but during the last year i've fell prey to a snobby disdain and distance from most authors. david james duncan's the brothers k has remained my top dawg for more than a year, and (despite the fact that tbk is a masterpiece) this kind of embarrasses me. so, in celebration of some new favorites, i've decided to expand the rating links (look to your left) in a full-blown blog post.

however, my parents dial-up connection prohibited me from any kind of work on the blog-front. and then, upon arriving home, i discovered a strange white powder covering the ground outside my house. after deliberating with my roommate, i decided that the mysterious white required further attention. so, as usual, i'm not going to say much of anything tonight. still, perhaps i'll be back soon. perhaps the snow will shutdown the city, and on monday i'll have nothing to do but blog.

andrew david "2.2 inches, under my window" seattle, washington.
mark tomato "abnormally clad snow dancers" seattle, washington.

886 to go

there is christmas music wafting up through the air ducts. that's right, i live with a guy who listens to christmas music on october 1st. what the goose???

well, i too have my strange musical habits. perhaps the most extraordinary of these unusual tendencies is my analytical assualt on alex layton's mp3 collection. in the summer of 2005, alex allowed me to copy his exhaustive music library onto my new laptop. with the addition of this generous earful, the total number of songs on my computer was 4186.

if i were to rank my friends (and perhaps my acquaintances too) in terms of their musical acuity, alex would be somewhere in the top ten. however, we humans are fallible (and sentimental), and everyone likes to listen to a little crap now and then. thus, despite the impressiveness of alex's musical taste, many of his songs don't strike me as worth the 5mb it takes to keep them alive.

soooo...in order to purge my system of musical malcontens, i elected to rank EVERY single song using the itunes five-star ratings system. while this is a daunting project, the quirkiest piece is yet to come.

in the download-happy world of the single, the prevailing musical mood seems a bit against the concept of an album. still, i continue to embrace the idea that songs are significantly connected in a web of meaning. perhaps i give too much credit to the music industry, but there's something tragic in the disassociation of the chapter from the book. therefore, i will not delete the musical atrocities until i have determined that the entire album is bad.

now, one more word about my methodology: while i support the concept of the album as an important, undivided entity, i have been listening to my unrated playlist in--gasp--random order. at first i rated albums song-by-song, but i soon found that by the last third of an album i was influenced as much by the previous tracks as the song itself. because i was afraid that this manner of rating might make me miss some gems, i adopted the unbiased method of listening to tracks in random order.

wow, it took a lot longer to explain that than i thought...

beth the s.o.. "andrew summiting the highest mountain in the world" cypress island, wa.
by the way, that's the andrew that spends his time ranking music not the andrew that spends his time thinking