esprit de l'escalier

Goodies from Josh Ritter

Today I got a huge package in the mail, full of beautiful posters and flyers and singles from V2 Records. I had told Doug Rice that I would hang up posters and pass out flyers for the upcoming Josh Ritter show in Chicago, and the package has finally arrived. Plus I got a little vinyl record with "Girl in the War" (an amazing song, especially live) and "Peter Killed the Dragon", which I can't wait to hear. I try and be embarassed about my fandom, and am a little, because I feel I should be, because doesn't society slightly pity fans? But I can't be too embarassed. The man is a wonderful musician and seems to be a truly good person.

I also checked out the message board on his website and found out that his new album is streaming on the net. The album is out already in Ireland (he's got a bigger following there than here), and I've been trying to be patient for the April 11th US release date. I've heard a lot of the new songs live in the past, and have heard a couple of the new songs. This album's very spare in sound, and sounds different than his earlier albums and his live shows. The songs are strong, though. He said his influences over this album were late Mark Twain and Candide. How can you not like it? Thoughtful, literate and you can hear him smiling.

Anyhow, get over to his website and check out his new album, The Animal Years. Go see him if he's coming to your neck of the woods. I promise you won't be disappointed.

....Today has been a good day for mail goodies. I just got a single from Arcade Fire that I tracked down... They have a cover of "Brazil" that I heard on Sounds Eclectic and then couldn't find it anywhere! And I had to have it. (Have I mentioned I have a problem with buying things on the internet? It's an issue. I confess my sins to my roommate and she laughs at me. Sigh.) I also received one of the two books for my class. Unfortunately it's not the one I need to have 150 pages read by Tuesday... shitty... Even though I'm chained to my cube, I can bop along to "where hearts were entertaining June..."

Side commenting

I started my third quarter tonight. I think it's going to be a good class, the professor seems really great. It's a seminar about gender and identity and new media. I was walking out of class with a friend from my previous classes and he agreed with me that he had high hopes for the class, but was worried about some people comandeering the discussion. (I am always worried that I am one of those people, because I tend to be very vocal in classes. I'm just chatty and can't help it.) He said I wasn't one he was worried about, which made me feel better. Besides, I really prefer side comments as opposed to hogging the spotlight. Side commenting has gotten me into trouble time and time again, but I am almost always on topic, which I always feel should count for something. I like the sidelines better, though. I think sometimes more interesting things are going on off to the side than front and center. That's why I like comments on blogs. I kind of feel like they are side comments to whatever the topic at hand is. Little conversations happen, and sometimes there are multiple conversations that don't relate to each other exactly. I like that. Though I like lurking, too. Blue Girl had a good quote up the other day that perfectly explained lurking. Go take a look. (And maybe, if you want, de-lurk yourself here and say hello!)

***Update: Go check out the long list of comments over at Mannion's place for his post about movies about writers... It represents the beauty of blogs and comments for me!

My friend Kyra

On Saturday Natasha and I drove down to West Lafayette to visit our friend Kyra, who has been living in Thailand for the last 17 months, working on sustainable development efforts. Saying it was great to see her would be an understatement. It is always nice to realize that you have another friend that is one of those people that you can pick up with, regardless of the time and experiences that have passed. Happily, Natasha and I found out that Kyra is one of those people. That's a picture of her above, with some rice that she has been working to get a fair trade logo on the box. She's been working with a group called Alter Eco. Click on the "Grains of Change" to watch a video about the families of farmers that Kyra lived and worked with. (Seriously, I always knew that Kyra and her siblings were special, some how set apart from the rest of us in how they would contribute to society, and after meeting her family my hypothesis has been solidified. These are some wonderful people that I am so lucky to know.) Kyra is moving to San Francisco today, to continue working with Educational Network for Growth and Grassroots Exchange (ENGAGE). It was wonderful to hear her talk about her experiences and see pictures of her life in Thailand. I was impressed with her when she studied in Thailand in college and came back conversant in Thai after six months. (After four months in Prague, the best I could do was order beer and count to ten.) She now can speak Thai well enough to translate and read. Impressed again does not cut it for how I feel.

Anyhow, enough of my gushing, I'm probably embarassing myself, and possibly Kyra. I loved meeting her parents again. Officially, I had barely met them before, although her father said when he met me I was dressed as a character from Peter Pan. (This I do not doubt is true, and fortunately I do not have any of those pictures digitized, so darn, I can't share them. It has to do with me leading an orientation session dressed as Wendy. And I was 20, the things you do when you love your community.) Anyhow, Kyra's parents are wonderful. They insisted we stay and have dinner and go see a play with them. They were celebrating Kyra's grandfather's 87th birthday. Below are pictures of the three of us girls and then the whole group.

This post is brought to you by the letter "G"

These are little doodles from the margin of a meeting's agenda on Wednesday. My chickens usually look a little different-- usually they have necks. I thought I would experiment with scanning things via the copy machine at work. It sends docs to you in PDF format and then I cut it up. The quality isn't the greatest. I like my little birds, though. I often doodle alphabets. I've always been drawn to letters and fonts. Lately I've been taken with the curliness of the cursive "G", as you can see here.

To Alix on her Golden Birthday!!

The Princess and the Pooch

Me and Alix at Christmas

Hey Alix--
I hope your birthday is great. I'm sorry I can't share it with you. Your gift is in the mail.

Love and miss you,
Your big sis

(All photos are by our brother, it's his contribution to your birthday greetings.)

Tomorrow it's her birthday...

A bit of spring cleaning in the works

You may have noticed there are a couple new things on the sidebar to your right. I added a couple of buttons. One is for a Darfur campaign my friend Ginny is plugging. Please click on the button and sign a petition, if you feel so inclined.

The other button is for my first ever blog swap! I'm very excited. I lurk around a lot of crafty blogs and drool and admire the creativity of these cool women out there. I'm always especially jealous of the many swaps, and wish that I was more adept with a needle and thread. But a mixed cd swap! THAT I can do! Making mix tapes is my superpower! (Or so I'm told.)

At the bottom I've got a box of favorite songs from Pandora. I read about the Music Genome Project a while back via Tom Watson and Amanda from Frenchtoastcake. (Actually, I might be wrong about getting this from Tom, because, after looking closer at his blog, I realize that he uses another program.) My ipod has been on the fritz, so I've decided to check it out. It's an interesting concept. You type in an artist or song and the program plays songs in the same musical vein. As the songs play, you can give them thumbs up or down and the program adapts to your taste. It's not quite as fun as radio, because everything is so similar. It's good to do work to, though, because I don't pay a lot of attention to it.

I have been planning on some spring cleaning around my blog. I want to make a new banner for the blog. I've been trying to cook up some ideas in my head, but I'm not sure how I'll get it done. I don't have any graphics programs on my computer. My brother does on his, but he doesn't like to play nice with his darling twin. I also want to start a Flickr account, because I'm sick of the Typepad photo albums taking up so much space. I also made a promise to myself to put some blog rolls up, and I'm working on that. I'm a big work in progress apparently. Hopefully there will be some improvements around here soon.

Young women

"I was unfair to him, of course, but where would I have been without unfairness? In thrall, in harness. Young women need unfairness, it's one of their few defenses. They need their callousness, they need their ignorance. They walk in the dark, along the edges of high cliffs, humming to themselves, thinking themselves invulnerable." --Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

Tuba prodigy

(Photo by my brother, the elusive Glen Eric)

My cousin Carol started playing the tuba in seventh grade, now at 21 she's the one of the youngest people and only female to ever be hired to play the tuba at a top 5 orchestra. When she graduates from University of Michigan this May, she'll be moving to Pennsylvania to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra. CRAZY.

Please go to the CBS website and vote for her to be highlighted during their Assignment America segment. Thanks!

UPDATE: Unfortunately my cousin lost out on the internet voting... But read the article about her (click on "cousin" above) and you can hear her play the tuba. It really is pretty amazing.

NYC photo album up (finally)

Quick overview of my trip:
I went to NYC for a quick trip over the first weekend in March. I visited with my friends Mary and Dan and was a co-visitor with Susan, who flew in from Colorado. Highlights include: an afternoon at the MoMA, excellent pizza at Grimaldi's, Spamalot (which got funnier once I was able to snag a seat, I was pooped from a day of standing at the museum), walking all over Brooklyn and shopping, excellent dinner overlooking the river and the Manhatten skyline, karaoke singing at an excellent little bar in Red Hook. Blooper reel: getting the stomach flu earlier Sunday morning and having to fly home ill and dehydrated, only to be sick for several days, and missing seeing some old friends. Boo. See the photo album for more.