Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
dream reunion
i just had a dream of some kind of high school reunion. we were all coming back to mhs for some kind of homecoming game. only, we weren't quite so old, maybe a couple of years out of high school. all the faces were as i remembered them, with the teenager still present in the features. yet, oddly enough, there was this shimmering echo in the back of my mind, that i knew so much better, that this was so far gone as to be absurd... and yet, i played along.
it was like a repeat of facebook experiences, meeting all my friends from the past, only now, they were "grown up." and i had the dubious privilege of introducing everyone to everyone else, only, there were some awkward periods when some who claimed to be my friends, well, i couldn't quite remember their names... and the odd sensation, when someone you barely knew, for some reason, has the loudest voice, and starts calling out everyone's name, and starts narrating and steering the conversation for the most part... but somewhat pleasant, that, connecting ties that maybe should've been connected, in my "fantasy high school" (in the manner of "fantasy football.").
we passed by the "cool kids," and they were the same, maybe i knew now that they weren't quite as cool as they seemed to be (or that they wouldn't be, in a few years, with pregnancies and dead end jobs), but weird as it may seem, in this dream rendition, they were still cool, and still as hard-to-reach. they weren't but a few bleacher rows above as i passed, but it seemed as though they were staring down at me from heaven with imperious gazes... how i wanted to be their friends, how i "knew better," this being a dream, and this being a dream about reunions... but somehow, it felt as though there were a current pulling me: i'm in an "it's a small world" ride, and much as i'd like to stay on stereotyped japan or stereotyped hawaii, the ride was pulling me on and on, and i couldn't resist it.
strange.
and as i passed people i WISH i had known back then (only? it was back now?), this covered morrissey song "let me get what i want" was playing (embarrassing, but i had actually watched "sky high" with lynn once, and the thing i remembered, aside from all the corny stereotypes, etc., were the neat alternative 80's covers: it was like the soundtrack for my high school years, the music of the goths and the mods, redone disney style: weird, just like this dream). so this song was playing my heart, like maybe there was someone i really wanted to meet and talk to, especially with these twenty or so years of hindsight behind me, but i couldn't. couldn't see the person, couldn't get to her in any case. and the song kept playing: "please, let me, let me, let me..."
when i woke, it was strange, as though years had melted off me partially, and i was stuck in a place where different time periods of my life were echoing together. if i were a bat or a dolphin, echo-locating, i'd be thoroughly confused; it would be like, i had shot out a signal decades ago, and shot out a signal recently, and for some reason, they both came back at the same time, saying similar but different things... so i started seeing ghost signals, ghost walls, ghost tunnels, etc. only, i wasn't sure which was the ghost, and which was real...
i came away with a feeling of, like, whoa what did i eat last night, and then, this sad resignation. people always say, "like, if only i could go back." but in my dream reunion, even shimmeringly blessed with a "better perspective," there were currents and tides that i could not resist... dissatisfaction with my friends, longing for "meaningful relationships" ... hell, all of that has existed since the beginning of time... and much as we'd like to puzzle piece our pasts, as though it were simply a matter of finding the pieces... it really is more like a narrative stream, with currents that you think you COULD resist, but ultimately can't... after all of the effort to reach one thing, you'd lose so many others... and you'd just be tired out, and likely prey for the riptides.
i walked in the darkness, and it was really strange. REALLY STRANGE. my wife sleeping on the sofa near me, then my kids passed out in their rooms... this is my present, my beloved present... and yet, for a moment, it seemed, they, this was the ghost... or maybe i was... floating between realities... walking through walls.
sadness, regret, at times it can crush you, but at times, you realize it is the natural soundtrack of your life. it gives depth to the music you feel in the present. not all complete saccharine disney, but there's some faint undertone drifting throughout, that this present is not the only surface that could've been, but even with the absent could've beens ("with the absent???"), there is an informing, an echoing, of all possibilities... a much richer sound...
there was a story about some musician's musician, a guitarist, forget what his name was, but he was from louisiana, and one thing he did with the glass slide, well, there were two things he did that were neat. 1) he plucked the strings on BOTH sides of the glass slide, on the normal side, and on the "wild side" close up on the neck of the guitar; this created an echo, because although both plucks ostensibly produced the same pitch, to pluck both created some strange reverberation so that each note carried longer, with strange overtones; 2) he used the palm of his hand over the amplifier box (the hole) to "shape" the sound. it reminds me of this, for some reason, this dream... don't know why; simultaneous plucks, modifying amplified sounds... i guess i'm stretching it, but the dream made me think of these things in "realities," i suppose.
well, to all my friends, both dream and real, i send sweet dreams...
it was like a repeat of facebook experiences, meeting all my friends from the past, only now, they were "grown up." and i had the dubious privilege of introducing everyone to everyone else, only, there were some awkward periods when some who claimed to be my friends, well, i couldn't quite remember their names... and the odd sensation, when someone you barely knew, for some reason, has the loudest voice, and starts calling out everyone's name, and starts narrating and steering the conversation for the most part... but somewhat pleasant, that, connecting ties that maybe should've been connected, in my "fantasy high school" (in the manner of "fantasy football.").
we passed by the "cool kids," and they were the same, maybe i knew now that they weren't quite as cool as they seemed to be (or that they wouldn't be, in a few years, with pregnancies and dead end jobs), but weird as it may seem, in this dream rendition, they were still cool, and still as hard-to-reach. they weren't but a few bleacher rows above as i passed, but it seemed as though they were staring down at me from heaven with imperious gazes... how i wanted to be their friends, how i "knew better," this being a dream, and this being a dream about reunions... but somehow, it felt as though there were a current pulling me: i'm in an "it's a small world" ride, and much as i'd like to stay on stereotyped japan or stereotyped hawaii, the ride was pulling me on and on, and i couldn't resist it.
strange.
and as i passed people i WISH i had known back then (only? it was back now?), this covered morrissey song "let me get what i want" was playing (embarrassing, but i had actually watched "sky high" with lynn once, and the thing i remembered, aside from all the corny stereotypes, etc., were the neat alternative 80's covers: it was like the soundtrack for my high school years, the music of the goths and the mods, redone disney style: weird, just like this dream). so this song was playing my heart, like maybe there was someone i really wanted to meet and talk to, especially with these twenty or so years of hindsight behind me, but i couldn't. couldn't see the person, couldn't get to her in any case. and the song kept playing: "please, let me, let me, let me..."
when i woke, it was strange, as though years had melted off me partially, and i was stuck in a place where different time periods of my life were echoing together. if i were a bat or a dolphin, echo-locating, i'd be thoroughly confused; it would be like, i had shot out a signal decades ago, and shot out a signal recently, and for some reason, they both came back at the same time, saying similar but different things... so i started seeing ghost signals, ghost walls, ghost tunnels, etc. only, i wasn't sure which was the ghost, and which was real...
i came away with a feeling of, like, whoa what did i eat last night, and then, this sad resignation. people always say, "like, if only i could go back." but in my dream reunion, even shimmeringly blessed with a "better perspective," there were currents and tides that i could not resist... dissatisfaction with my friends, longing for "meaningful relationships" ... hell, all of that has existed since the beginning of time... and much as we'd like to puzzle piece our pasts, as though it were simply a matter of finding the pieces... it really is more like a narrative stream, with currents that you think you COULD resist, but ultimately can't... after all of the effort to reach one thing, you'd lose so many others... and you'd just be tired out, and likely prey for the riptides.
i walked in the darkness, and it was really strange. REALLY STRANGE. my wife sleeping on the sofa near me, then my kids passed out in their rooms... this is my present, my beloved present... and yet, for a moment, it seemed, they, this was the ghost... or maybe i was... floating between realities... walking through walls.
sadness, regret, at times it can crush you, but at times, you realize it is the natural soundtrack of your life. it gives depth to the music you feel in the present. not all complete saccharine disney, but there's some faint undertone drifting throughout, that this present is not the only surface that could've been, but even with the absent could've beens ("with the absent???"), there is an informing, an echoing, of all possibilities... a much richer sound...
there was a story about some musician's musician, a guitarist, forget what his name was, but he was from louisiana, and one thing he did with the glass slide, well, there were two things he did that were neat. 1) he plucked the strings on BOTH sides of the glass slide, on the normal side, and on the "wild side" close up on the neck of the guitar; this created an echo, because although both plucks ostensibly produced the same pitch, to pluck both created some strange reverberation so that each note carried longer, with strange overtones; 2) he used the palm of his hand over the amplifier box (the hole) to "shape" the sound. it reminds me of this, for some reason, this dream... don't know why; simultaneous plucks, modifying amplified sounds... i guess i'm stretching it, but the dream made me think of these things in "realities," i suppose.
well, to all my friends, both dream and real, i send sweet dreams...
"rite of spring" by igor stravinsky = sex!?
igor stravinsky's "rite of spring" is like sex? really? this, coming from a woman? i thought women were all like, into the strings section when it came to- well, "it." tender strains and all that. for men, well, i'm not sure they really need a soundtrack, it kinda just distracts from the single-minded focus (and it takes SO much focus), but if it wasn't some 70's "wah wah", then, well, to be honest, i don't know what it would be (i don't have much of a soundtrack, btw, it's more images and impressions)... so it's kinda surprising when anyone associates "rite of spring" with sex, particularly when a woman does. since i'm so low-brow, my only exposure to "rite of spring" was from disney's fantasia, and in that, all i remember is a lot of gas and volcanoes (AH, there you go), and tyrannosaurus rex chomping down on a stegosaurus, steggy nailing tyranno a couple of whacks with its spiky tail (AH, there you go x 2), and then this long depressing period afterwards where the dinos just kinda wilted under a blistering sun... (ah, maybe that's relevant too...).
i think, if i had to give "sex" a soundtrack, and since my creativity never wanders far, i'd have to go back to fantasia and say what captures me is "the sorceror's apprentice": especially the part with those broomsticks marching (dumpty dumpty dumpty da da da)... (i'm in a particularly self-deprecating and self-mocking phase right now, btw... :) )
i think, if i had to give "sex" a soundtrack, and since my creativity never wanders far, i'd have to go back to fantasia and say what captures me is "the sorceror's apprentice": especially the part with those broomsticks marching (dumpty dumpty dumpty da da da)... (i'm in a particularly self-deprecating and self-mocking phase right now, btw... :) )
hey hey hey
okay, this totally cracked me and lynn up... in this japanese game show, these comedians are forced to watch a video and NOT LAUGH. if they laugh, then they get punished (whacked on the rear HARD)... so the video is an english lesson... i think, even if you don't know japanese, you'd get it...
Saturday, September 27, 2008
update
just so's not to keep y'all hangin'... i did fine on my first observation. maybe too well. now, i am anxious about how to keep it up, or even raise the bar. but in any case, despite some jitters, i had fun with the kids. they are all basically good kids, and as long as i engage them, make the effort to relate to them, i think they are willing to give things a try. and besides, my cooperating teacher (formally, i kept calling her my mentor teacher, which, in truth, i feel she is) is great, and has a great system in place. to be honest, things were, in a way, too easy for me, because all i had to do was basically cue the kids in to do what they already knew they were supposed to be doing...
had to catch up on some sleep deprivation. for various reasons, i was pulling consecutive all-nighters. now, since i'm an old-timer, i can't just shrug it off and say, "i'll pay that back when i'm old." I AM OLD. so my credit's no longer good. immediate payment for debts...
am still in drift mode, though. lots of obligations, debts, dreams.
1) heard about "jam packs," where you can incorporate different musical instruments into the standard garage band set. there's one jam pack called "world music," that has, among other things, taiko drums, koto, shamisen, etc. coo-u-l.
2) have to get back into taiji... learn (and fully retain) other style forms. analyze the forms i do know in greater detail... sure, been saying this for some time now...
3) write a story about brocken spectres, and walpurgisnight.
4) may start posting stories and poems on webooks (from facebooks). at least there's a possibility of getting published, instead of just having these things "out there" with no (or little [but it HAS been appreciated!!!]) feedback...
5) systematizing my treatment methodologies (another thing i've been sayin' for quite some time), somewhat inspired by the organization of my cooperating teacher...
well, gotta go. the kids require assistance.
had to catch up on some sleep deprivation. for various reasons, i was pulling consecutive all-nighters. now, since i'm an old-timer, i can't just shrug it off and say, "i'll pay that back when i'm old." I AM OLD. so my credit's no longer good. immediate payment for debts...
am still in drift mode, though. lots of obligations, debts, dreams.
1) heard about "jam packs," where you can incorporate different musical instruments into the standard garage band set. there's one jam pack called "world music," that has, among other things, taiko drums, koto, shamisen, etc. coo-u-l.
2) have to get back into taiji... learn (and fully retain) other style forms. analyze the forms i do know in greater detail... sure, been saying this for some time now...
3) write a story about brocken spectres, and walpurgisnight.
4) may start posting stories and poems on webooks (from facebooks). at least there's a possibility of getting published, instead of just having these things "out there" with no (or little [but it HAS been appreciated!!!]) feedback...
5) systematizing my treatment methodologies (another thing i've been sayin' for quite some time), somewhat inspired by the organization of my cooperating teacher...
well, gotta go. the kids require assistance.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
the art of the hunt, the hunt of the art
to be artistic means to be possessed of a madness
or so it seems
there is a cunning to it
the circuitous route
and meandering
is just to lead you off the beaten path
and then throw you off the trail
so that you are hopelessly lost
in its wilderness.
after you
or so it seems
there is a cunning to it
the circuitous route
and meandering
is just to lead you off the beaten path
and then throw you off the trail
so that you are hopelessly lost
in its wilderness.
after you
wish me luck, and buy me caffeine
this morning, at 8:20, i have my first observed lesson. been working all night on the finalized lesson plan and the handouts. i will need to make copies, but am debating whether to get some sleep or just go fer it, red eye... well, i DO need to make copies, so looks like it's off to kinko's, and maybe grab something caffeinated to prop up my spine and hold my eyes open... hahaha. crap, i'm tired.
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