my synthar blurb

as usual, my latest image update blurb, a review of synthar's evenings and weekends, is kind of a gamble.

i'll explain the gambling later, but in the meantime, here it is:

Synthar: Evenings and Weekends

In this season of last caucuses and primaries, with the names of presidential candidates on our tongues and a foretaste of change on our lips, the pop-indie band Synthar has come out with just the album to match that extra kick in your step—or that worried furrow of brow—that may accompany this historic time. Synthar’s debut album, Evenings and Weekends,is a genuine, synthesized consideration of change and transformation. Its sound lies somewhere between electronica and folk—as the Jackson Free Press says, Synthar has taken “synth-pop into singer-songwriter territory.” Synthar is an internet band: its members—spread around the world from Shaoxing, China, to Jackson, Mississippi and from New York, New York, to Stanford, California—huddled their laptops together to create an irresistibly catchy mix of Moogs, vocoders, guitars, and sad, understated vocals. The tracks of Evenings and Weekends range from themes of changes in landscape—“Hurricanes” is lead singer Johnny Bertram’s firsthand response to Katrina and Rita—to the hiccups and tragedies of relational change in “My Heart Is a Beating Drum,” “Stabbed by an Unseen Blade,” and, most traumatically, “The Phone Call.” Synthar also asks us to question how our dollars and cents impact the world. In “The Robots Among Us” they warn that “in the land of milk and honey / where we walk the thin line between / what we need and greed” there are “robots among us” who “don’t understand the warmth of human touch”—and the song builds to a chilling climax when the robots join in the chorus. But most extraordinary is Synthar’s uncanny juxtaposition of generally dark, meaningful themes with spritely, upbeat melodies. The combination of thoughtful lyrics with playful synthesizing and vocal harmonies results in moments of happy-pop-bliss, making Evenings and Weekends an album that is not just smart, but indeed, as they sing in one of their happier tracks, gives you “the urge to dance… dance the morning away / and when the day finally turns into afternoon / you’ll flip the record and dance to new tunes!” Because Synthar is an independent band in the truest sense, the best way to buy Evenings and Weekends is directly from them on their website (ours even came with a handwritten “thanks.”) Plus, the handsome CD and packaging are individually screen printed by hand.

For more, visit Synthar.com. You can also listen to a few tracks on Synthar’s Myspace page.

OK, how is this a gamble? it's not that i'm hesitant to recommend the album; evenings and weekends is seriously really good. it may even be my favorite new album of 2007.

no, it's because i write these reviews for an arts journal that focuses specifically on work that somehow engages faith. therefore, i always feel challenged to center my thoughts on some theme or idea that is relevant to the image vision--faith, art, mystery.

sometimes that's a breeze--the culturally savvy christian, for instance--but often it's a stretch. it's not that i walk the plank of clear, accurate critique into the surging waters of creative interpretation, but that i sometimes have to dive beyond the patent responses of other reviewers. i have to lay all of my cards down on the table and say, "you know, i haven't heard anyone else say this, but the road sure strikes me as an incarnation story," (yikes!) and that's a scary place to be.

so here's where things get dicey with my evenings and weekends review. every other e&w review explores the synthar sound. they reference bands i've never heard of. they describe how andrew, johnny, matt, and joel have built a bridge between new wave 70s (?) and synth pop. occasionally a reviewer mentions synthar's socially conscious lyrics, but the only reviewer to mention subject matter says that he was initially turned off by the "futuristic, sci-fi themes."

(futuristic, sci-fi themes? as far as i can tell, only one song, "the robots among us," taps the sci-fi genre, and as i suggest in my blurb, it does so in a satirical, now-focused way.)

the problem is, i'm no music critic. i can confidently rank e&w among my top three 2007 albums because i probably only listened to three 2007 albums. and so my only chance of saying something profound and worthwhile about a band is to listen to those words, those strange syllabic formations that some listeners may deem a musical afterthought. and those words tell me that change is in the air. so when i say that my blurbs are a gamble, i really mean that i hope the synthar fellows won't be surprised to learn that their tracks are about change. i hope a few dozen readers will buy the album, nod their head--in time to the beat, of course--and hear the change.

big events in the real world

for once i feel legitimately vindicated in my 17 point scale absence. since we last spoke, my world has exploded. by world, i mean my friends, my teams, and myself, and by explode, i mean that the last two weeks have been crazy ridiculous.

my friends

1. alex got married and headed off on his honeymoon
2. sean finally left on his honeymoon
   
3. my roommate got laid off
   
4. beth and her roommates got a tentative eviction notice
5. the other andrew and some of beth's roommates (i.e., whitney and nora) confirmed that they were beginning new life adventures in sunny california while others (i.e., joel & sara, mari, my parents) set off or prepared to set off for trips to china
   

my teams

1. the sonics drafted kevin durant and jeff green and signed wally szcerbiak, delonte west, general manager sam presti, and coach pj carlesimo
2. the sonics traded ray allen and rashard lewis
3. the muckleshoot indian tribe is considering the possibility of the construction of a new sonics arena
   
4. the mariners are still winning, and at 50-36 are only 2 games out of 1st place in the west and 1 game out of 1st place in the wild card race
5. after jj putz and ichiro, a pair of sports bloggers may be the leading MVPs for the mariners this year; perhaps i'll explain more later
   
6. the others, my amazing soccer team, are 0-3 with an ever climbing goal differential and potential for success

myself

1. i finished the text for the first issue of that silly newsletter that i mentioned a few months; i'll post a link when it's all fine and dandified
2. i spent the last week or so in ocean shores with the s.o., her family, and my family; it was the first meeting of the two clans
3. i have a new job! i am the assistant creative writing editor for the other journal; i'll explain more later
   

if life slows down and gets ordinary again, i'll be sure to visit more frequently.

andrew david. "the wize young iguana listens patiently to andrew's list" san ignacio town, belize.

sufjan stevens cover

i'm a world famous musician! my band just aired our music video for sufjan stevens's "chicago" on youtube. i'm the fellow on secondo piano and occasional background vocals.



(if you press play and the video appears to be slow or perpetually loading, click the youtube logo in the right-hand corner of the video screen and follow it to the youtube site. also, be sure to take part in the first ever 17 point scale poll--see the side bar--and leave poll-related comments here on this post.)

the quiescent nerd myth

as many of you know, i spent the last 3 years working as a research coordinator for the COGS, a multi-site study of schizophrenia. then, earlier this summer, a research angel came to relieve me of my COGS protocols, scheduling duties, and crashing database. i was delighted. but although i expected ms. sara goodnow to do a dynamite job in my place, i never expected her to be such a valuable asset to the 17 point scale. indeed, it turns out that sara bowls a 120, heralds from rural new york, and is dating a doctoral engineering student. these attributes make her unequivocally qualified as an informant in my latest blogging pursuit, an autobiographical biography of the other andrew (or something like that).

the felicity of sara was revealed at an off-site lunch on an otherwise gray day. seeking respite from another slice of hospital pizza, sara and i tumbled from sean's honda prelude into a philly cheesesteak dive on airport way. we made our way to the counter and pondered the menu. behind the cash register, a woman fixed me with an icy stare--apparently this wasn't the city of brotherly love. i mumbled an order. she frowned and thrust her open palm toward me. scrambling for my wallet i promptly forgot whether i had ordered the medium or large. "goose-chicken," i thought, "i really would prefer the medium," but she was already taking sean's order. "yikes." if this wasn't philly, then where was the characteristic seattle friendliness?

afraid for my food, i swallowed my curiosity. things were getting grim. in retrospect, i suppose that meant we were ripe for a miracle. after all, we tend to notice the light when it's dark not in the daylight. when our sandwiches arrived, we discussed our evening plans. a momentary burn in my throat tore my attention from the conversation. hmmmmmm, horse radish. after a swig of water, i looked up to hear sara talking of engineers, "i don't know," she drawled, "they're just really quiet...maybe it's a brainy awkwardness...."

as sara's words trailed off, my mind snapped into blog mode. yes, i thought, whether they be english profs, computer geeks, or [fill in a random intellectual stereotype, e.g., engineers], brainiacs seem to lack the natural rhythms of everyday conversation. chatting with smart folks is a bit like my morning commute. you crawl sluggishly forward, hit an open stretch after the aurora bridge, take the harbor island exit into gridlock, and then escape into the steady streets of beacon hill. start, stop, start, stop. such conversations are intriguing yet strained.

and, until recently, i would have lumped the other andrew into this category. after all, i rarely watched him interact with others, and our conversations tended to hover in a state of friendly, well-meaning awkwardness. but in the last months, i've realized that this impression of andrew is more likely an indicator of how i respond to people that i perceive as brainy than a true picture of the other andrew. perhaps it's a bit of what sociologists like to call the self-fulfilling prophecy. i think, "wow, that person is wicked smart," and then begin to waiver in my conversational confidence. i flip the censorship switch and suddenly all of my questions, all of my odd quirky perspectives, all of my conversation kindling are deemed irrelevant; they are turned to an invisible mush. perhaps then my ineptitude makes smart person uncomfortable, and, somehow sensing that i expect them to be incapable of anything but dull nerd-speak, they too stall.

if this sounds crazy, consider the following evidence from our case study: (a) over the last few months i have learned that andrew is surprisingly quite gregarious; he laughs, he quips, he speaks thoughtfully; indeed, he seems perfectly comfortable in conversation; (b) actually, my first point has so convinced me that i don't feel the need to continue with this list.

so "where do we go from here? the words are coming out all weird. where are you now when i need you...?"



andrew david. "laughing at andrew's camera skills and blogging troubles" mount pilchuck, wa.
539 to go.

stupid math problem

i think that i have gre posttraumatic stress disorder. nora and mari are preparing to take the test sometime this winter, and their ceaseless vocabulary drills have me dreaming of my own gre test. this evening i've been haunted by a really tough question from the math section. it goes something like this:

during his stay at robbins, andrew spent most of his time in one of three apartments, two 4-person apartments and a 2-person apartment. if no one who lived in a 2 -person apartment is currently married, the editor lived with three men who are currently married, and the engineers only lived with philosophers or other engineers, what were the majors of andrew's roommates? and for extra credit, what does this have to do with the other andrew?

major	2006 occupation	2006 marital status
1 biology	1 researcher	1 married
1 english	1 editor	1 single
3 accounting	3 accountants (2+ cpas)	2 married, 1 single
1 history	1 barista/editor (ee)	1 single
3 engineering	3 engineers	2 married, 1 single
1 philosophy	1 manual laborer/webdesigner with an mdiv	1 married

actually, i don't quite know why i made this table. as i prepared to discuss the other andrew, i was thinking something like "wow, except for erik and steve, everyone who lived in my robbins triangle is currently working in the same field as their majors. that's pretty impressive." and then, "i wonder if there's any correlation between major and marital status in this cohort." (gosh, i'm a nerd, and there's not) and finally, "i hope people (joel) aren't angry that i haven't talked about the other andrew yet."

(758 to go)

andrew moves to robbins

in september of 2000, i joined jonathan, brady, and danny in a two-bedroom attempt at apartment life. like any self-sufficient city-dwellers, we cooked in our own kitchen, lounged in our own living room, and squatted on our own toilet. very adult of us, we thought. but despite our self-reliance, i've since decided that our apartment was the collegiate equivalent of a half-way house. in order to lessen the shock of independent life, the university furnished each apartment with a security blanket--well, really it was more a security rug than a blanket, and it sat in the entryway, a metaphysical appendage of our front door. indeed, it was the dorm doors of robbins that kept us insulated from darkness of the real world.

forgive me. i just finished thomas pynchon's the crying of lot 49, and i'm afraid that his wacky, nonsensical style has somehow seeped into my blog. let me offer (and then dismiss) a quick spu tutorial.

students at the college of queen anne often refer to their school as the spu bubble. they lament the university's cultural composition (primarily conservative caucasian girls) and urge one another to pop free of the campus confines and explore more diverse seattle haunts. while at spu, i worked across the lake at a market research center in bellevue, and because the phone-room at northwest research group (it's sad...i still remember the number: 1-800-545-5909) was a haven for cultural diversity (and crazies), i never felt too passionately about spu's lack of hetergeneity. still, when speaking vaguely of doors and their ability to separate one from the real world, i understand that most spu-affiliated readers (after shrugging their shoulders in bewilderment) might speculate that i am satirically referring to robbins as an academic hotel california. the doors hem you in; they are everywhere (everywhere!). you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. or something like that.

they'd be wrong.

(note to self: don't employ this trick again--it's word-wasteful to spend so much time talking about what you don't mean).

(beth's note to myself: stop preluding)

during the past three years i've lived in a house and a pair of apartments. i've chatted with my neighbors about soccer, stolen cars, and Jesus "being some crazy, mixed up sh-t, man," but i've never peeked inside their homes, stared at their fish, or even considered stealing their milk. in robbins we were protected from the anonymity of this real world. the doors in robbins were always open, inviting us into communion.

and it was there that i finally met the other andrew....


andrew david. "jello 1 -- basi lays the trap" robbins, seattle, wa.
by the way, those are matts not andrews.

total robbins apartments (i.e., neighbors) that i entered unannounced: 6+
total post-spu apartments/houses (i.e., neighbors) that i have entered unannounced: 0

nearly an introduction

last week i promised a post about the brain of the other andrew. i didn't share this, but he was to be the test case for my online obituary idea (see yesterday's post). however, after a day's reflection, i've decided that even a bucket of laud isn't worth the sham of a fake obit. besides, i faintly recall that when dave eggers tried it in a heartbreaking work of staggering genius*, his thoughtfully humorous memoir was nearly overtaken by dull monotony and post-modern pseudophilosophy. so, in an effort to avoid anything that might make me a wealthy contributor to mcsweeney's (the brainchild of mr. eggers) or scare my friends, i think i'll introduce the other andrew in a more ordinary fashion:

i first met the other andrew during my freshman year at seattle pacific university (spu). although andrew shared a room with some sophomores in a remote area of my dorm floor, i can't recall a single conversation with him from that year**. therefore, this introduction will resume with events that occur sometime after the 1999-2000 academic year.


andrew david. "african dancing" puget island, wa.
andrew david. "the best modeling mug" shekinah, saskatchewan.

*that is, when he tried writing about writing a mock obituary. by the way, nick hornby has now transformed the heartbreaking work of staggering genius into a new line cinema screenplay

**there are several explanations for this seeming lack of discourse during early y2k: (1) perhaps there really was no lack, perhaps we actually had several notable conversations, but they were wiped from my mind by the events of the following years--as manyone will tell you, my memory's not that great; (2) while andrew was a fellow 5th hill-er, his room was in another galaxy of the floor--i can't even remember where--it certainly wasn't close enough to borrow sugar or to be lured in by dumb and dumber, counterstrike, or the brassy sounds of chicago; (3) andrew is tall, and i've recently discovered that i don't like tall people (i.e., individuals who are taller than me). last week as i edited a PTSD manuscript for daniel conybeare i looked up from a dangling modifier and realized that i really was looking up. "this isn't right," i thought. "i didn't realize you were taller than me," i said. and here's some more anecdotal evidence: if your name is nathan white, jonathan skeith, or john brawner, you'll notice that i haven't called you in quite some time. no disrespect, but you're just too tall.

help! i don't know what to write...

i don't really know what to blog about at the moment. it's been about a year, and perhaps i'm running out of things to say. here are some ideas that i've had in the past -- if any of these sound interesting let me know:

1. the james philosophy of life (and drugs)
2. the world breathes shadows
3. lectio divina ("these days we conduct church a lot like the late show...")
4. an exploding candleholder ("a candle just exploded. a loud crack...")
5. marriage a la alex
6. annoying noises while in the bathroom
7. shawshank redemption stuff
8. thoughts on life, flatland, and my grandpa ("i remember edwin a. abbott as the wicked writer of '96")
9. the superbowl ("i hope you will pardon one last moment with the seahawks...")

and some newer ideas that i had in the last 30 seconds:

1. 30 minutes of thinking a day, the other andrew way
2. the seahawks o line and today's trade
3. another first essence poem
4. 48 h saturation: getting to know you
5. racoons and walruses
6. okay, this is getting ridiculous


andrew david "a handshake from whitney" puget island, wa.