He was killed by a cellular phone explosion
I love the internet. The resizing distortion of my profile pic has made me a perfect gremlin. People pay money to have this kind of fun...
I write this blog from the confines of no interconnectivity. Since you are reading this, my problem has obviously been resolved. Just try and cram three days of minor frustration and wrestling bouts with a modem between here and the next paragraph.
Currently listening to "Napalm Love" by Air. It's awesome background music for writing/reading provided you don't listen too closely. I can't imagine any musician wanting their music relegated to the subconscious. So on to David Bowie...
This last weekend I hung out with Sporker, Miki, Craggles, Bolt, Schmorgan, Sydney, Aduma (!), Bubbles, and Erin at the Dallas symphony in the Meyerson. Fjord was also there and is getting his own sentence, which no one else does, because I forgot to mention him the first time. The most memorable piece for me was a modern work by some guy with the last name of Adam. I am entirely too lazy to look up his first name, but you already have enough information to find that out for yourself if you want.
He wrote a very modern concerto for violin which focused (I thought) almost entirely on a single feeling of wild, free-spiritedness. The violinist took certainly the most obscure, atonal concerto I have ever heard and filled it with almost bipolar sweeps of emotion.
Nearly everyone in our party agreed that the composition left some things to be desired (such as use of the orchestra, emotional breadth, and structural variety) but I can honestly say it was the finest bit of violin playing I have ever seen. To do what she did with that piece and to play it so well from memory was simply an amazing feat of virtuosity.
The only thing to top that off would be the addition of a fine steak omelette, so we settled on IHOP. By settled, I mean that Aduma and Bolt drove erratically into the night while I tried to keep up. A good weekend, despite growing progressively more sick with a cold. I nursed myself back to health with a dietary regimen of root beer and cheeseburgers. No joke.
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I picked up one of my old textbooks from Visual Literacy, The Non-Designer's Design Book, so now I'm inspired to make a website or something. Instead, I should probably fix this blog. After this post, if I'm still awake.
I came across one quote in there that I immediately liked, which doesn't mean that I agree or even fully understand it... but it made me think. Seewhatyathink.
"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." -- Herman Melville
So, I like Melville. I don't think Melville is honestly saying that big important philosophical ideas lack meaning on their own. I think he means that *we* understand them because we know their opposite.
For example, C.S. Lewis made the point in Mere Christianity that good and beauty are the more fundamental qualities, rather than their opposites. (I believe he used the example of light and dark, if memory serves). People see ugly things and think of them as something beautiful that went very wrong, but no one ever looks at something beautiful and thinks of it as something ugly that went very wrong.
So, now we've critically discussed modern symphonies and Melvillian philosophy (and invented a new word, Melvillian). Can we possibly get any nerdier here? GUILD WARS! Nevermind.
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I filled out a couple of job resumes today. They take so long because I get distracted, because I want them perfect, and because they better be perfect since I am typically applying to editor/proofreader type positions and it wouldn't look so good to have a rogue extra space in there. Disconcerting, isn't it? I think I did exactly that in this morning's first iteration of the redesigned resume. Ah well, some things just aren't meant to be...
Which brings me to my next point. Perhaps you heard (or I might even have told you) that I'm headed off soon to a foreign country. Not so much. At the very end, it became clear to me that it wouldn't work financially in a way that satisfied me, so I turned down that job offer and have decided to remain somewhere in the great state of Texas. Now, whether that involves becoming an oil tycoon in Houston or chasing stray cows on a 4-wheeler near El Paso, who can say?
If you've never swam in the rain, I recommend it. The drops make the coolest sound.
I write this blog from the confines of no interconnectivity. Since you are reading this, my problem has obviously been resolved. Just try and cram three days of minor frustration and wrestling bouts with a modem between here and the next paragraph.
Currently listening to "Napalm Love" by Air. It's awesome background music for writing/reading provided you don't listen too closely. I can't imagine any musician wanting their music relegated to the subconscious. So on to David Bowie...
This last weekend I hung out with Sporker, Miki, Craggles, Bolt, Schmorgan, Sydney, Aduma (!), Bubbles, and Erin at the Dallas symphony in the Meyerson. Fjord was also there and is getting his own sentence, which no one else does, because I forgot to mention him the first time. The most memorable piece for me was a modern work by some guy with the last name of Adam. I am entirely too lazy to look up his first name, but you already have enough information to find that out for yourself if you want.
He wrote a very modern concerto for violin which focused (I thought) almost entirely on a single feeling of wild, free-spiritedness. The violinist took certainly the most obscure, atonal concerto I have ever heard and filled it with almost bipolar sweeps of emotion.
Nearly everyone in our party agreed that the composition left some things to be desired (such as use of the orchestra, emotional breadth, and structural variety) but I can honestly say it was the finest bit of violin playing I have ever seen. To do what she did with that piece and to play it so well from memory was simply an amazing feat of virtuosity.
The only thing to top that off would be the addition of a fine steak omelette, so we settled on IHOP. By settled, I mean that Aduma and Bolt drove erratically into the night while I tried to keep up. A good weekend, despite growing progressively more sick with a cold. I nursed myself back to health with a dietary regimen of root beer and cheeseburgers. No joke.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
I picked up one of my old textbooks from Visual Literacy, The Non-Designer's Design Book, so now I'm inspired to make a website or something. Instead, I should probably fix this blog. After this post, if I'm still awake.
I came across one quote in there that I immediately liked, which doesn't mean that I agree or even fully understand it... but it made me think. Seewhatyathink.
"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." -- Herman Melville
So, I like Melville. I don't think Melville is honestly saying that big important philosophical ideas lack meaning on their own. I think he means that *we* understand them because we know their opposite.
For example, C.S. Lewis made the point in Mere Christianity that good and beauty are the more fundamental qualities, rather than their opposites. (I believe he used the example of light and dark, if memory serves). People see ugly things and think of them as something beautiful that went very wrong, but no one ever looks at something beautiful and thinks of it as something ugly that went very wrong.
So, now we've critically discussed modern symphonies and Melvillian philosophy (and invented a new word, Melvillian). Can we possibly get any nerdier here? GUILD WARS! Nevermind.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
I filled out a couple of job resumes today. They take so long because I get distracted, because I want them perfect, and because they better be perfect since I am typically applying to editor/proofreader type positions and it wouldn't look so good to have a rogue extra space in there. Disconcerting, isn't it? I think I did exactly that in this morning's first iteration of the redesigned resume. Ah well, some things just aren't meant to be...
Which brings me to my next point. Perhaps you heard (or I might even have told you) that I'm headed off soon to a foreign country. Not so much. At the very end, it became clear to me that it wouldn't work financially in a way that satisfied me, so I turned down that job offer and have decided to remain somewhere in the great state of Texas. Now, whether that involves becoming an oil tycoon in Houston or chasing stray cows on a 4-wheeler near El Paso, who can say?
If you've never swam in the rain, I recommend it. The drops make the coolest sound.
--MamaFjordGrey