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 Instead of experiencing a transforming moment where all historical references to this great body of water suddenly converge into one epiphany about my place in time—that’s how I imagined my first meeting with the Mediterranean—the great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).

travel writing (1)

i don't have much to say today, so i thought i'd share an old travel essay that i wrote. the story narrates my crazy adventures in italy during the spring of 2002. on the whole, i'd say the essay is an unpolished literary belly flop. however, it's humorous and true...

Minding the gap, I pull myself aboard, struggle through sliding doors as they close, and shimmy onto the platform. I ping-pong from wall to wall toward the next seat. Boarding trains with a forty-five pound pack is like playing human pinball. The advantage to train travel may be its ease—the conductors and crew appear to do all the work—but for a novice traveler, things are never as easy as they seem.

To my credit, I maneuver clear of fellow passengers—or they from me—flop my pack onto an empty seat, and slide across to the adjacent bench. With considerably less exertion, other riders take their seats too: scruffy olive-skinned men in slacks and open-chested flannels, women cradling the fixings for tonight’s pesto surprise, and a couple of intellectuals with noses buried in books. Everyone looks tired. It could be the weather; I’ve never known somewhere so humid. Where else can one make small talk like: ‘looks like another sweaty day.’ I’m melting, and maybe everyone else is too. Or perhaps everyone is aggravated at this American and his bulky pack—he’s certainly tired of it—filling an entire seat and muttering to himself in some foreign dialect.

[continued on the 17 pointscale appendix - let me know if you followed this link and the text colors, size, or formatting seem obnoxious]

faking the news

as many of you know, i work as an editor for the UW department of psychiatry. as the only editor in my department, i wear many different caps. one day i'm the copyeditor and the next day i'm rewriting an entire manuscript. in the morning i may find myself navigating the obscure nuances of the question mark and then return from lunch early to teach exasperated faculty to use endnote, the handy reference manager that makes citations a breeze. but apparently there wasn't quite enough variety to my day.

earlier this week i received a phone call. "we've found something for you to do during your down-time."

"oh?"

"we'd like you to create a newletter."

"oh."

after meeting separately with four MIRECC heads of state, i determined that they actually want me to develop three or four newsletters, each with a different audience and slightly different content. and get this: they envision me toting a tape recorder to work so i can interview the top brass for the lead stories. that's right, the newest incarnation of andrew the editor will be as reporter, writer, and designer. yikes! i'm not sure what i think of this; several adjectives have crossed my mind--interesting, cumbersome, challenging, harrowing--but the overwhelming thought is something like "what the crap do i know about newsletters?"

anyway, if you have any newsletter advice, feel free to leave me a comment.

cheaptickets (part 2)

this post represents the bittersweet conclusion of the 17 point scale cheaptickets disaster (i.e., my consumer report of cheaptickets.com, the website that neglected to send beth and i our plane tickets and then shirked all responsibility for this oversight; see the link above). when last we left beth, the crap-slinging travel corp had instructed her to pay some fees and sort out her difficulties directly with taca airlines. thus, early last monday afternoon, beth wearily recounted her story to a taca customer service representative. the taca rep guffawed, and pointed an accusing finger back at the cheaptickets buffoons. then beth spent a courageous 2 hours haggling with a ridiculous crop of cheaptickets personnel. the nightmare turned several shades darker when the batteries on beth's land line died and she lost her connection. she scrambled for her cell phone and dialed customer service, but the cheaptickets minotaur refused to reconnect her with her specialist--she was forced to recite her dilemma to yet another inane service rep. thankfully, the rep finally promised to send beth her missing ticket, and--this may be the biggest shocker of all--it arrived last friday!

now, this tragicomedy suggests three quick morals: (1) do NOT buy anything from cheaptickets.com; (2) if you do accidentally purchase something from cheaptickets, contact their customer service reps immediately--something is bound to go wrong, so you might as well have a manager's ear from the get-go; and (3) be persistent, the evil schemers at cheaptickets will eventually cave (and then they'll call you back and pretend that they never acquiesced, so you will have to spend another week on hold, and only then will they really grant you justice, once you're to the point of staying home and cancelling your exciting airplane adventures).

by the way, does anyone know if there is a better business bureau for online companies like cheaptickets?


andrew david. "water" jasper/banff national park, canada.

obama and i

some of you have complained that my creative nonfiction is a bit too creative. apparently you want me to warn you whenever i plan to stretch the truth. well, okay. the following story is completely true. this really happened*.

yesterday morning, senator obama and i were carpooling. well, to be more precise, i was escorting baraka--that's what i call him; he laughs and calls me andrewgah; then i frown and return to my story. anyway, the senator has a driver's permit, not a license, and he needs another forty hours before he can take the driving test. thus, as a happily licensed driver, i was obliging baraka with some extra drive time before work.

i climbed into his sleek black lexus and buckled my seat belt. baraka threw it into reverse, peeled out of the driveway, and thrust the car into drive. then, after we barreled along the highway for several minutes, the senator asked me whether the red camry on our bumper looked familiar. i turned my head back and looked at the car. no, i said, i've never seen it before. we were approaching a red stoplight, but instead of braking, he pressed hard on the gas. the lexus leapt through the red light. stunned, i glance back at the camry. it edged into the intersection and then burst after us. baraka was right; something was amiss. as we darted through traffic, baraka warned me that things might get a little messy. he had the look of jack bauer. i closed my eyes as he reached for the hand-brake, sending the lexus into a 180 degree spin. i heard the sounds of scraping metal and shattering glass, and inquired, am i dead?

'the camry hit a tree,' explained the senator. but now there was a honda on our tail. the car chase resumed in a busy shopping mall lot. baraka weaved through parked cars, old ladies, and shopping carts. somehow he managed to lose the civic as he skidded into a parking space at the local gas station and mini-mart. i took a breath and considered our position. there were no cars or buildings within 20 yards of us; nothing obstructed us from the view of that shopping center or the lights of that prowling civic. obama has his head bowed and his hands are rattling in his lap.

we're a bit conspicuous, i thought. searching the grounds for a plan, i spotted my good friend john brawner chatting with a gas station attendant. i figured that if we're being followed, the perps wouldn't suspect us if we're in a larger group. i stepped out of the lexus and waved at brawner. oblivious to my panic, he walked over and blessed me with one of his characteristic bear hugs. and then life slowed down. mid-hug, i saw obama bending over outside our car, i heard the desperate buzz of a floored honda, i felt john's arms tense as he sensed that something was awry. then time snapped back into the frenetic pace of real life. the civic tore through a yellow caution sign, jumped the curb, and slid to a stop 10 feet away; baraka, brawner, and i backed toward the lexus and scrambled into its black leather seats. angry screams burst from the honda and were muffled by the staccato of rapid gunfire. instinctively, i ducked, perhaps hoping that the engine block might somehow impede our assailants rounds. out of the corner of my eye i swear that i saw baraka obama smile and then mumble some wise words of passing. i shut my eyes and began to pray.

on the other side of my eyelids, the world erupted into bright colors: orange, yellow, red. a heavenly welcoming ceremony perhaps. but i was could still feel my legs bunched up awkwardly in the front seat. the fiery plumes of color faded to grey.

i opened my eyes and looked at baraka. instead of seeing a smoking corpse, i watched as the senator dusted himself off and turned the radio dial to npr. i straightened my body and surveyed the scene outside our car. a smouldering wreck sat in the place of the honda. obama grinned *and then i woke up. and, yes, that's exactly how i dreamed it.

back page: the brothers k

IX.
the brothers k by david james duncan

7/22/05
"...maybe i don't like perfect circles...in any case, i apologize for casting a shadow over this otherwise brilliant achievement. after all, i think [that the brothers k is] quite capable of casting its own shadows. david james duncan's characters are crazy extremes, yet he somehow makes them so believable and life-like that their suffering is contagious (beware). duncan also invents new twists to common language (metaphors) that open his world to us in a funny, unique way."

according to my myspace page, the brothers k is my favorite novel. i love it. if you like stories that address issues of faith, philosopy, baseball, the pacific northwest, family, love, politics, nature, war, mental health, or redemption, then you must read the brothers k. now. stop reading this blog; you are wasting time that could be spent reading the brothers k, the best book on the planet.

go forth and read.

andrew david. "river teeth" banff/jasper national park, alberta.
(incidentally, river teeth is a journal of creative nonfiction that is edited by david james duncan.)

CheapTickets (part 1)

as you may know, beth and i are accompanying my parents on a trip to belize this april. in some respects, it could be a trip to paradise: white sandy beaches, crazy jungle monkees, lost mayan ruins, free lodgings (thanks dad!). however, the airfare to this small central american utopia is rather steep...and troublesome.

[UNHAPPY PRODUCT/SERVICE REVIEW / CONSUMER REPORT]
we bought our tickets on cheaptickets.com. they had the cheapest price for our itinerary. however, i now suspect that the cheap in cheaptickets may actually refer to dictionary.com's fourth definition of cheap: "of little account; of small value; shoddy." during the past week, cheaptickets has lost one of our tickets and treated us like rubbish. i am still optimistic that they (i.e., shoddytickets.com) may redeem themselves, but until then, i warn you, stay away from cheaptickets.com!

here is the latest email that we sent to the evil online travel empire:

Hi. I'm writing because I've had a frustrating experience with Cheap Tickets and am very dissatisfied with the conversations I've had on the phone with your customer service department. I'm trying one last time in hopes that I can clearly explain what is going on so that someone can solve the problem I am having with your company.

Several weeks ago I booked 2 tickets during the SAME transaction using CheapTickets. Then, when I received my sealed UPS shipment, there was only 1 ticket in the CheapTickets envelope. I am hoping that you can straighten this out and send me the ticket that you neglected to include in my original mailing. I also want to ensure that I have the original ticket that I purchased; I am traveling with a friend and need to be on all the same flights and seats that I originally reserved.

I have already spoken with CheapTickets customer service over the phone, but I seem to get a different answer each time that I call. I am tired of the exasperating ridiculousness that I have experienced during the past week. Each time I call I spend 10+ minutes on hold and then receive conflicting answers. Also, no one at your company has taken responsibility or apologized, and no one even seems to understand that I did NOT lose the ticket and the ticket was NOT lost in the mail -- it was never sent! I'm sorry for being so explicit about this, but as I said, no one seems to understand; the UPS package was sealed and there was only 1 of the 2 tickets inside. I can only assume that someone at your agency dropped or forgot the ticket when
assembling my mailing.

I have been told that (a) I am to go to the airport ticketing office and fill-out an indemnity form; (b) I am to call Taca airline (one of the airlines that I'm flying on this two-leg trip) and ask them to cancel and reissue a new ticket; and (c) not worry about it, CheapTickets will pay for any and all reissue fees AND send me a new ticket. The duplicity of these responses is both frustrating and confusing. I am especially bothered by the suggestion that I may have to pay for your error; if (a) or (b) is true, it is unclear to me why I am responsible for fixing this problem or paying any new fees/costs when this was clearly a mistake on behalf of someone at your company.

I have dealt with many online ticketing agencies and have never had problems of this magnitude. This is very frustrating, especially considering that I was told that CheapTickets would take care of this. I hope that you can solve this problem. Although I doubt that I have any legal recourse in this matter, I will certainly be quite vocal about my problems with your company if this matter is not resolved favorably. Besides telling friends, family, and other online consumers, I am also prepared to have my company's travel department stop using your services.

Thank you for your attention,
the17pointscale

andrew david. "crash down the customer service falls, support cheaptickets.com" alberta, canada.

my friend chaucer

when i woke up this morning i started thinking about chaucer. you know, the 14th century poet who is responsible for the canterbury tales, troilus and criseyde, and the book of the duchess. i was wondering whether his old english friends considered geoffrey to be an ordinary fellow or a crazy loon. as a senior at SPU, i wrote this essay on chaucer, which claims that "it is not difficult to imagine chaucer stooped over his manuscript smirking mischeviously as he subltly pokes fun at narrators like the man of law." the essay speaks with such authority that i'm rather positive that chaucer was something of a goofy academic. and--this is odd--i read the essay just now and am feeling a strange saturday morning kinship with this mysterious genius. however, this has nothing to do with anything, and i'm not quite sure why it popped into my head or why i'm posting this.

2006 film list

joel hartse has a book review in the latest issue of paste. i hardly ever read paste, but i (am under the impression that i) respect their eclectic, thoughtful arts perspective--that and the free cds that they include with each issue. anyway, i wandered from joel's blog to the paste website, but i couldn't find his book review. instead i found paste's top 40 films of 2006:

1. Half Nelson
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Iraq In Fragments
4. L'Enfant
5. The Departed
6. Volver
7. Three Times
8. The Queen
9. The Last King of Scotland
10. Borat
11. Old Joy
12. When the Levees Broke
13. Pan's Labyrinth
14. A Scanner Darkly
15. A Prairie Home Companion
16. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
17. The Science of Sleep
18. An Inconvenient Truth
19. Mutual Appreciation
20. Thank You For Smoking
21. Babel
22. Brick
23. The War Tapes
24. Wordplay
25. Stranger Than Fiction
26. Requiem
27. Factotum
28. The Proposition
29. United 93
30. For Your Consideration
31. Clean
32. Manderlay
33. Fast Food Nation
34. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
35. Marie Antoinette
36. Casino Royale
37. Tristram Shandy
38. Be With Me
39. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
40. The Secret Life of Words

blue = movies that i've already seen
red = movies that i already planned to see before i discovered this list

what do you think of their list? i'd remove #15 and consider removing #22 and #25. i'd also consider adding the three burials of melquiades estrada, blood diamond, and apocalypto to the bottom of the list.

andrew david "the cliffs from which we did not jump" somewhere near banff, canada.

the state of the union address (in green and gold)

i was at the supersonics basketball game last night, so i missed most of the state of the union address. however, i did catch some snippets from the address; during the final tense moments of the supes' loss (112-117), the massive screen that dangles prominently in the middle of key arena flashed quick clips from the president's speech, exhorting the crowd to have faith and cheer madly for the home team.

with the sonics leading 106-103, nuggets' guard steve blake drilled a three pointer from 26 feet. the crowd groaned, but an image of bush pushed us on: "on this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle," he encouraged us, "let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory." suddenly empowered, we jumped to our feet and cheered. unfortunately, a minute later, blake drifted beyond the three point arc and buried another sonic-dagger. we were down by 5 with 1:28 left. it didn't look good. but the president shook his fist and cried, "we are united in the goal of victory!" perhaps there was a chance. then, with less than 30 seconds remaining, ray allen hit a three of his own. the shot capped an amazing 44 point night, but it was too little, too late.

okay, okay. i admit it. there was no video feed streaming from the capitol to the key (but those are real quotes from his speech, check the link above), but i'm afraid that my recap sincerely captures my sense of the address. it was a great speech. as i skimmed his various points, i found myself nodding in agreement (incidentally, i had a similar response to the content on baraka obama's website; i suppose i'm just easily swayed by political rhetoric*). bush was ray allen in a blue tie. he was on fire, scorching the house of representatives chamber with his thoughtful words. still, despite the fine speech, bush's presidencies will ultimately be evaluated based on his response to 9/11 and his management of the iraq war. and, unfortunately for the world (and bush), it's probably too late for iraq. the majority of our nation (including many republican politicians) believes that an increase in troop strength will make no difference in the war. like the sonics-nuggets match, the outcome seems predetermined.

however, although the sonics fell to the triple threat of carmelo anthony, allen iverson, and steve (who the heck is he?) blake, plenty of other nba teams have rallied from 5 down with 2-to-go. and, likewise, there's always a chance that bush can beat the odds and crush the insurgency in baghdad. after all, the military brass appears to support the president's decision (i'm not entirely certain of this claim; the link is for factcheck.org, a nice nonpartisan political site. it's unrelated but i found the optimistic polling response of the iraqis to be rather surprising).

in any case, let's hope we aren't watching the sonics-nuggets duke it out on the global scale. i'm afraid to send more troops, and conversely, i'm afraid to abandon iraq to terrorists and genocide. and i certainly don't support a slow withdrawal--either get those troops out of there or send in the reinforcements and give our military a fighting chance. ah, crap-goose, i wish we could just fast-forward to a happy conclusion and be done with this. if only it were a game of hoops, then we could tivo it and skip to the end.


andrew david. "troops marching to war" alberta, canada.

ps. if elected to the office of president in 2008, i'll win the war on terror by forcing the world to listen to john rouse's "love vibration." how could someone be nasty and malicious after hearing these lyrics?

step out into the sun
step out into the world and love someone
save yourself from hate
and save yourself from hate and all the hassle

yeah, you people all know what i'm talking about (yeah, you people all know what he's talking about)
yeah, you people all know what i'm talking about (yeah, you people all know what he's talking about)
spread the love vibration, uh huh
spread the love vibration, uh huh

now everybody's scared
scared of being lonely and abandoned
if you found someone who cares
you found someone to love and understand ya'

then you people all know what i'm talking about (yeah, you people all know what he's talking about)

yeah, you people all know what i'm talking about (yeah, you people all know what he's talking about)
spread the love vibration, uh huh
spread the love vibration, uh huh

[ooohs and ahhs followed by chorus #2]

*yes, i know. there are not three a's in obama's first name. i'm conducting a google experiment....

5 things: an interview with a fictitious colleague

on december 20th, becky sent me the following email message:

I was blog-tagged and now, apparently, so are you. Supposedly, the "blog tag" assignment was to write five things on your blog that people might not have known about you. Tag. You're it.

i usually ignore chain-mail assignments, but i decided that in a blog-context like the 17 point scale there is no harm in babbling about myself. still, nothing struck me as both interesting and unknown, that is, until i found this odd passage from pages 204-206 of don delillo's white noise:

lasher [a professor] wadded up a paper napkin and tossed it at someone two tables away. then he stared at the 17 point scale [in white noise lasher is staring at another professor, but to accomodate the blog-tag, i have substituted myself in his place; i also used font colors to differentiate myself from lasher--there are no colored fonts in white noise].

"who was the greatest influence on your life?" he said in a hostile tone.

"i'm sure you realize that it's difficult to objectively answer a question like that. it reminds me of the postal service song where ben gibbard desperately tries to reconcile with his lover, and she responds with 'charts and graphs....[and] a lecture on why i have to leave.' it's an uncomfortable embrace of heart and mind. still, i'd wager that my parents have had the greatest impact on my life. that's a safe bet. my dad gave me an easy-going nature and an arsenal of animated facial expressions, and my mom introduced me to faith and morality."

"did you ever spit in your soda bottle so you wouldn't have to share your drink with other kids?"

"i don't recall ever spitting in soda bottles. after all, pop usually came in a can or in one of those waxy coke cups. in any case, my pop was protected by my peculiarity: when drinking soft drinks, i always used two straws. people don't like to admit it, but they find this behavior troubling. thus, my pop was safe."

"how old were you when you first realized your father was a jerk?"

"errrr...that's a presumptious question," i said. "i really can't recall him ever acting like a jerk. this christmas i had a chat with my uncle robin where i tried to dig up dirt on my dad--not real dirt, mind you, just unfiltered memories from my uncle's past. you know, questions like, 'did you guys ever get in fights? ' that kind of thing. all i learned was that robin sometimes 'borrowed' my dad's cars for joy rides, but that this never seemed to upset my dad--hey, aren't these questions supposed to help people learn about me?"

"[....]?"

"i'm sorry, lasher, i don't know that your question is appropriate for this blog, and i'm also afraid that it might generate an unseemly set of keywords. but, speaking of dental hygienists, i suppose most people aren't aware of my orthodontic past. yes, i was lucky enough to have braces as a kid, and later, i had a neon green retainer, which i sometimes used to save gum. but generally speaking, i save gum in on my soccer and quizzing trophies."

"when you bite dead skin off your thumb, do you eat it or spit it out?"

"i chew it and spit it out. however, i have swallowed it before. is that unhealthy?"

"do you ever close your eyes," lasher said, "while you're driving on a highway?"

"no, never. i sometimes imagine myself careening across into the dividing barrier on highway 520, and i've often thought about drifting into oncoming traffic on highway 99. i smile to myself and think 'that'll surprise them.' but it's just the flighty wanderings of a bored commuter.'

"how much pleasure did you take as a kid," lasher said, "in imagining yourself dead?"

"my good sir, i refer you back to postal service's 'nothing better.' i think i refrained from morbid fantasies except when i was in trouble. and then, like any kid, i watched the hearse roll by and thought, 'yep, they'll regret that when i'm dead.' well, that's it, dude. i think we've already exhausted the average attention span of most internet users. also, if anyone is still reading this and would like to know more about me, feel free to comment."

dizzying dream

it's 4:36am, sunday morning. i'm blogging at this crazy hour because my dreams are bothering me. a moment ago i was kissing beth. this is usually one of my favorite pastimes, and i suppose that it also makes for a pretty good dream. however, as i was kissing beth, a wooden chandolier appeared behind her face. then, i had this sudden third-person omniscient premonition that the chandolier was creepy, bad news. dream prescience is never wrong. the chandolier started to spin. ordinarily this would be okay; after all, i tend to kiss with my eyes closed. however, in the dreamworld i couldn't close my eyes. and beth's face joined the chandolier, traveling in strange circles, like a crazy shipwrecked kaleidoscope. i felt myself getting dizzy and light-headed, yet her face continued to spin. then i realized that i was sleeping and snapped out of the dream. okay, i feel better now. hopefully i won't be updating this post at 5:21am to complain of more spinning faces....

[2:36pm update. the good news is that once i got back to sleep the whirling faces went away. the bad news is that it took me several minutes to recover from the incident. i found myself puzzling at the significance of sight. i was wondering about real life parallels. when my eyes were closed, i could see a merry-go-around of faces, but when my eyes were open, the world went black. there must be something to this, i thought. i don't know what to make of the kiss or dervish chandolier, but perhaps we sometimes see better when we're not looking for things. or perhaps life is clearer when our heads are bowed in quiet contemplation or meditation. yes, these were the thoughts that kept me up for another half an hour. at the time i thought that these deep nuggets might make an interesting expositive essay, but in waking i'm rather doubtful....]

camera advice?

my camera is broken. apparently, the d70 is a fragile creature. during a recent trip to portland, it was stuffed in its protective case and stored in a clothes hamper with my laptop and some clean laundry. as i was loading my parents car, i perched the hamper on the hood of my ford ranger so that i could open their trunk, and the hamper crashed to the ground. my laptop frame was bruised but the operating system appears functional. the camera, however, is dead.

the folks at photo-tronics were kind enough to give me a free estimate: $79 for new parts, $325 for labor. blast! now i must decide how to proceed:

1. spend $400 to repair my d70 (two years ago i paid $1200 for this camera and its kit lens; critics now refer to it as ancient)
2. spend $600 on the new d40 (released in november, this camera is 6 oz lighter than the d70)
3. spend $1000 to buy a d80 (released last summer, this camera is already being described as old, but it has 4 more mp than the d40 and d70)
4. spend $2200 on the d200 (way too much money for all the camera i would ever need...until it breaks too)
5. buy a used d70 body and use my old kit lens (this probably costs about the same as a repair)

i'm leaning toward options 1 and 2. hmmm...if i just sell 10-15 times as many pictures on istock, i won't have to fork out a penny of real money.

blood diamond (addendum)

errrrr...yesterday's post didn't quite return to my roommate's skepticism of blood diamond. obviously, the film is a hollywood creation. as nora the newly employed (congratulations, nora!) observed, despite the film's frank depiction of harsh violence, there are certain fairy tale components to the plot. however, i stand by philosophical veracity of blood diamond--there must be some concise term for lowercase truth in cinema, but what is it?--that is, the setting, ideas, and characters struck me as real.

more particularly, i was convinced that leonardo dicaprio was really from zimbabwe. his speech (and looks) reminded me of a zimbabwean teacher that i met last year. in fact, as i watched, i thought, "wow, i thought rob was a teacher. he never told us about his time in the south african defense force...."

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.

directions to eden

during my recent absence from the 17 point scale, i finished two new books: night and east of eden. together, they're an odd pair. in the first book, elie wiesel, a nazi death camp survivor, writes a diary-like timeline of the horrors of auschwitz. and the second novel is something of an epic; john steinbeck follows two families and a small californian town from the reconstruction era to sometime during world war II.

the only similarity between the two books may be self-evident from their titles; night and east of eden each struggle with darkness and, more particularly, the manner in which humanity, now fallen, must wrestle with the dark, curious urges of our nature. in east of eden, steinbeck seems to anchor this battle in the context of community (and wiesel too, i suppose, but i'll save that for a longer essay). characters chafe at one another, letting loose the soul-seeds of discontent and pushing each other to the brink of bad decisions, yet community also represents the salve that can bring characters back into happy-smiley homeostasis. community is the fertilizer for good and ill.

as i read east of eden, i was struck by how little the characters took advantage of community. the characters weren't alone; they were surrounded by empathy and wisdom, and when advice is given in east of eden, it is quite good advice, the kind you can hunker down into and build a home, or make a decision at least. but invariably, the characters constructed their sense of self and the world in a one-man ivory tower. they rarely sought advice and watched their lives crumble, wondering "why, why....?"

perhaps the east-edeners were born into the wrong age; perhaps in this postmodern century we finally realize that each of us only holds a piece of the truth, but i doubt it. as the apostle paul says, we see through a glass darkly, and until the trumpets* sound and the gates of heaven come crashing open, we can expect more darkness. so until that glorious day, i suspect we'd be better off seeking the counsel of community.*


andrew david. "the lake somewhere in canada where bear sounds bothered us as we slept" somewhere in canada.

*errrr...sorry, i was listening to the war charge in bright eyes's "land locked blues" and was suddenly overcome by the brassy sounds of the end of the world. actually, now i've listend to that song six times in a row.
*here's where things get crazy and a bit off-topic. i've had several friends say that when women vent, they want an empathetic ear whereas men want to problem-solve and exchange advice. apparently this creates inter-gender communication problems. i'm not sure that i buy these theories, but assuming that this is a legitimate gender difference, i'd say that us guys have it right. you might ream me for leaving the toilet seat up, but i think steinbeck would agree, an open dialogue of advice is the way to go.*
*i don't really believe this, by the way. it's just food for thought. the point of this post, after all, was to encourage us to be more open with our thoughts, feelings, and concerns, not our advice...or was it....?

book ratings update
15.east of eden.john steinbeck
13.night.elie wiesel

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.

happy new year!

errrrrrr....what's become of the 17 point scale? well, i've been spending my week brewing tea, watching lost, and guzzling nyquil. it's been a blast, but i didn't have much energy left for blogging. besides what would i say? apparently the rattling in my throat is so raucous that the garbage collectors were afraid to visit our block. even beth's house, some fifteen blocks away, missed a pick-up. this is prime time news. in our new age of herocentric dramadeys (lost, heroes, etc), every network is looking for someone just like me. a man that can topple buildings with his herculine sneeze yet--and i don't think that waste management got this memo--has the selfless decency to shield his mouth with a tissue or a sleeve. yep, i'm their guy.

no, that doesn't really fly. but i did have a disturbing dream. last night as i tossed back and forth, i dreamt that i was sleeping with two crumpled lengths of toilet paper jammed in my right nostril. don't coil back in horror yet--that's actually rather realistic; i find that a dripping faucet is less troublesome when plugged. in any case, the makeshift kleenex was getting grimy and needed replaced, so i unconsciously pulled the mutant paper from my nose and prepared to snatch a clean square from the roll. and then, the nightmare. the old paper plug tore in two. one half was safely plastered to my thumb and the other was somewhere in that nostril. panic set in. what if i was unable to retrieve the lost toilet paper? it might slide surreptiously up my nasal cavity and then coagulate, thereby forming an indestructible barrier (of paper) between my lungs and nose. soon it would cut off the circulation of blood to my head. i would most certainly die. fearing the worst, i dug around in the nostril, trying to differentiate between my nose and that dastardly toilet paper. and then, as my finger was going wild, i awoke.

well, errrrr....look at what you have to look forward to this year!

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.)

christmas list

1. piano sheet music - absolution/muse
2. piano sheet music - amelie soundtrack/yann tierson
3. piano sheet music - play/moby
4. piano sheet music - drunkard's prayer/over the rhine
5. six mighty floodlights that run with very low battery power and are easily portable (to play soccer in the dark)
6. a dark colored fleece or a hoody (i.e., black, dark brown)
7. one of those ipod docks that includes good speakers (so i can outblast my roommate in his basement music studio)
8. a parallel bible that includes the rsv and eugene peterson's the message
9. something that will teach me how to use f-stops and my tripod and help me catch danny on istock
10. the 18-200ish lens that danny's buying himself
11. a gift certificate to have my camera cleaned by some camera cleaners
12. some sugary treats
13. a puffy coat
14. a pack of expensive root beer
15. a yummy smelling candle
16. a really good book that will make me think, scribble funny things in the margin, and cry
17. a roundtrip ticket to belize


andrew david. "last year's loot" seattle, wa.

the road (continued)

i'm not sure how much i can trust my statcounter, but it appears that some of you are afraid to click on the imageupdate link (or any link for that matter). therefore, i've decided to include the blurb here. there's a chance that the managing editor of imageupdate may force me to remove it, so read quickly--it may disappear at any moment:

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel, The Road. And we mean that. The Road offers a dark, apocalyptic vision of the future, of a charred, useless land, wasted by an unnamed catastrophe and “peopled with refugees [in] masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators.” McCarthy’s characteristically spare dialogue forges a world that is chilling and austere. And into this “crushing black vacuum of the universe” he thrusts a frightened father and son. They push a battered shopping cart south through the ash-choked air, hoping to escape the winter cold, hoping to find food. In this desolation, language and meaning deteriorate, “the names of things slowly following those things into oblivion… the names of things one believed to be true.” The father walks the road with a pistol tucked in his belt—in this savage land, he is no longer free to do right, only to stay alive. But there may be hope in McCarthy’s darkness, perhaps even a sense of the Incarnation, an inkling of Advent. Despite the desperation of their journey, the son walks in empathy. With an innocence foreign to the blighted earth, this boy cares passionately about right and wrong. At times the father “raise[s] his weeping eyes” to see his son “standing there in the road looking back at him from some unimaginable future, glowing in that waste like a tabernacle.” This child, born into a world gone mad, shines with some greater fire. And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown (David par. 2).

the road

ah, yes. i'm proud to report that i've published yet another blurb in imageupdate.* and in some respects, the paragraph is even a bit christmasy! if nothing else it's one of a kind; when i googled "advent" or "christmas" in conjunction with cormac mccarthy's recently published the road, i got fewer than one relevant hit. perhaps that's because the road is the darkest, most harrowing book that i've read in the last year. perhaps that's because the only mention of christmas in the novel is when the main character points to a fireplace mantle and shows his son a patchwork of pinholes, explaining that holiday stockings once hung from those holes. in any case, read the road. it's worth the tears. and if nothing else, you can look forward to arguing with me about the presence of a christ-child in mccarthy's post-apocalypse.


andrew david. "the road" mt baker, wa.

(actually, imagine the photo as wayyy more dreary. the picture was taken right outside the lodge that i stayed at during bethany community church's wilderness retreat, and, when in color, it is rather beautiful, so it was rather tough to drain it of it's splendor. just imagine that everything in the photo is dying and covered in ash.)

*the final version will be uploaded thursday morning

what i did tonight

this evening i stayed at home. and wrote a blurb for imageupdate. it was for cormac mccarthy's the road. you should read it. reading the road is kind of like walking in the darkness toward a light, but mostly it's just like walking in the darkness. i want to talk to someone about it. read it.

unfortunately, i didn't do any thinking about christmas gifts. i have to do that soon. really soon. too soon.

andrew david. "be careful, mark! you're walking in the post-apocalypse!" seattle, wa.

a guest christmas blog

i really like christmas, but it's surprising how many things that i associate with christmas. it's colorful yet contemplative, giving and receiving, christmas parties and long lonely drives to see the folks. and i like it all. but i'm not really sentimental about christmas. that is, you probably won't find me reaching into my stocking and pulling out happy christmas anecdotes. so, since i'd hate to deprive you of some christmas blogging, here's a guest post from mari becker (you might know her as the 4th google hit for "blue scholars lyrics"):

"...christmas sweaters. My lovely housemate Beth purchased a lovely Christmas sweater for me with keyboards and musical notes strewn across it. I've had the privilege of wearing it for not one, but two full days now, and let me tell you that there is no better way to spread Xmas cheer than this cozy item. First off, I wore it on the bus going downtown. There was a man kind of talking to himself across the aisle from me, and when he stood to get off the bus, he turned to me and said 'What a great Christmas sweater! I feel better already.'

"Then I wore it to a senior holiday potluck, and the seniors were whispering to themselves only to reassure me 'don't worry about us, we're just discussing your beautiful Christmas sweater. Where did you get it?' I told them Value Village would be a good place. (Side note: Value Village is not a good place! I hope you already have your sweaters b/c Nora and I went there yesterday and there is definitely a not what you would call a plethora of xmas sweaters. It seems they are the hot ticket this holiday season.)

"OK lastly I went to pay for gas in the station I usually frequent. The regular cashier, an Indian immigrant who normally speaks to me in broken English, grinned, pointed to my sweater, and said something very much like 'what an awesome Christmas sweater.' Now Whitney could probably tell us the truth, but I don't think 'christmas sweater' is historically the standard first phrase learned among English language learners. Which points to the rising prominence and importance of these key fashion statements! Please, please, don't take this sweater lightly. There are pullovers, cardigans, even sweater vests, but nothing replaces The Christmas Sweater."

andrew david. "last christmas, my dad preferred hawaiian shirts and vests to christmas sweaters" springfield, or.

mp3 update

i've finished rating my mp3 library, hooray! that means that i've assigned a rating to 4,184 songs. in celebration, i've spent the last 15 minutes listening only to songs that were rated five stars (that's 88 songs on random play) and posting a picture of cake (the next best thing to eating it). i also deleted some of those nasty albums that were wasting precious disk space (about 1 gig to nearly be precise). now, because i know you all love lists, here are the first 11 albums (/artists)to receive the axe:

doolittle/pixies (everyone seems to love the pixies; everyone but me, that is)
frances the mute/the mars volta (intriguing album and band name, but, oh, well)
hoars/16 horsepower
laundry service/shakira
peel slowly/the velvet underground -- i left a few 3 star songs
so jealous/tegan & sara
the best little secrets are kept/louis XIV (it serves them right to have their album deleted; it's title is a lie)
the downward spiral/nine inch nails -- kept "hurt" and "a warm place"
with teeth/nine inch nails -- kept "every day is exactly the same" and "right where it belongs"
the Futureheads/the futureheads -- kept "the city is for you to use"
wet from birth/the faint (it's too bad; i liked their band name)



andrew david. "kayaking down a river of eggless chocolate" shekinah, saskatchewan.

getting burned

i'd really love for this blog to be a space where i sit at my keyboard and spin fantastic webs of light. i'd love for my words to jump off the page and rattle around in some fellow's brain until they bust a hole in his ventromedial prefrontal cortex, short-circuiting his laissez-faire let-it-be morality, shaking him from his apathy, making him high with the possibility of some greater purpose. but i'm neither prophet nor poet. i'm the anti-dillard--i fill space with preposterous commentary, not meaningful echoes of the sublime. truth is a dreamy-eyed hermit who visits me in secret; she rummages through my cupboards, raids the fridge, and occasionally i catch sight of her coat as she runs through the backyard grass and into the trees. yes, these posts are mostly about grammar, sports, and cooking, but perhaps one day i'll stumble upon her yellow plastic hood bobbing in the rain. until then, i'll be that guy with a holeless brain.

(this itsy-bitsy paragraph was loosely inspired by two burned fingers, a few months of richard dahlstrom's preaching, the blue road, and the book of hebrews...i'd say more about that, but i only have one and a half hands to type.)

andrew david. "imagine these yahoos in christmas sweaters--are we sure we want to go caroling?" shekinah, saskatchewan.