top albums of 2008, part 1

i've never been much for these kinds of statements, but i have to say that in the 8 years i've been making a year-end list, this is the least excited i've been about a year's albums, and the first year i didn't really feel like any particular album was my favorite favorite favorite of the last 12 months. i'm not sure if that's music's fault or mine, but in any case, it took me a fair amount of work to pick my favorites this year, not because there were so many vying for my attention, but because i just wasn't that crazy about most of the stuff i heard this year. that's not to say there wasn't any good music--i DO consistently enjoy these albums and a few others that came out this year. anyway, without further ado, here's 10-6 of 2008:

10 emiliana torrini, me and armini

my medical school friend and dyad ernesto told me i needed to hear this album, and i'm really glad he did. her voice is so smokey, laid-back, and downright sexy that i guess a comparison to norah jones is unavoidable, but this is ms. jones if she wasn't...well, mostly so boring. the songs here feel unpredictable and never feel like recycled sounds, and are much better for it. torrini writes pretty straightforward pop songs, but she's got the voice and pop sensibilities to do it and do it well ("big jumps" is the sort of song industry types probably say will "make her a star" in press junkets or at meetings), and the lyrics and melody to give you something to remember when it's over. light and fluffy like desert, but substantial and filling like dinner. ah, food similes for music--they're never wrong.

highlights: fireheads, big jumps, jungle drum

09 the dodos, visiter

here's to minimalism, and here's to unadorned, unembellished, no-frills music. what i heard the first time through this album, and what was underscored seeing them live this summer, is the way this group's nearly simplistic approach to music (two guys bang the crap out of everything within reach, usually including guitars) allows them a complexity and intensity a 10-piece blog-hype band with strings and an accordion can't create. in his triumphant return to blogging, my buddy aaron wrote that it's the percussion, and not the melodies he usually loves music for, that keeps him coming back to this album, but i'd say it's the musicality and melodic nature of the percussion that makes it so special. sometimes all the banging and clanging seems to give depth and, well, complexity to what would otherwise be a pretty thin outing, despite some very good songwriting, which by the way is why i'll be looking forward to what these guys do next.

highlights: walking, fools, winter


08 q-tip, the renaissance

"sometimes i phase out
when i look at the screen
when i think about my chance for me to intervene
and it’s up to me to bring back the hope-
feeling in the music that you could quote
not saying that I hate it cause here
i kinda dig it
but what good is a ear
if a q-tip isn’t in it?"

none, q-tip. no good. no good at all without a q-tip in it. look, i'm not a hip-hop expert by any means, but a tribe called quest's first two albums are by far two of my favorites of the genre, so i was really looking forward to q-tip's first solo album in 8 years for several months before it came out. and i wasn't disappointed at all--i love his voice, his flow, and he's a great producer, both for the way his beats match his lyrics, and also for the great instrumental performances all over the album. too many mc's get locked into a particular musical sound and rarely venture elsewhere, but this album stays fresh and interesting and all over the map until the end. also, that's a slick cover.

highlights: johnny is dead, won't trade, shaka

07 deerhunter, microcastle

in the past several years, i've really grown to love a fair amount of electronic, experimental, kinda off the wall stuff. i really like the feeling that i'm hearing something i've never heard before, and i suppose as someone who enjoys the discovery of new music, it makes sense that that's a high value for me. but my greatest weakness will always be the guitar--for example a nice, crunchy, overdriven sound, like the chord that opens this album. there's just nothing like it, and those tones and that emphasis on the guitar, both to play both straightforward rock and also some more sprawling, reverb-drenched classic bradford cox music, is all over this album. and so, here it is on my end of year list. this album is deceptively and very subtly intricate, and i was pleasantly surprised on my 5th time or so through the album to still be noticing so much happening behind the curtain for the first time--a definite grower for me, and one i expect i will continue to enjoy in the future.

highlights: agoraphobia, little kids, nothing ever happened

06 sigur ros, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

the album didn't turn out to be the huge stylistic shift "gobbledigook" seemed to herald, but looking back over their recorded output, it makes sense to interpret sigur ros' artistic development as one of their 9:00 slow burning songs, slowly building and beautifully unfolding along the way. this album is one more slow movement toward something new, and once again the journey is as rewarding as whatever i can hope the destination will be. when i think about sigur ros' albums, i tend to think of moments more than songs or movements, and this album is bursting with enough moments of pure, bombastic, joyful release and twinkling, jittery, blissed out sugar-highs to more than make up for the few spots where things drag a little. i can't wait to see where they're headed next!

highlights: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Við spilum endalaust, Festival

ok, that's all i have time to write tonight--stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion tomorrow!

kim's great adventure, in photographs, part 2

when kim left california, she flew up the coast to seattle, where (of course) she took more pictures. and i (of course) am showing you, because (of course) they are AWESOME! enjoy:

albums of the year not of the year, 2008

last year i started a new list-making tradition: i list my favorite albums i discovered in the year that weren't actually released that year. i really liked going through itunes and finding the stuff i really liked--since music often serves as a placemarker for events and phases in life, it was an interesting way to review the year. so i'm doing it again this year, although i'm already bending the rules a bit (this year i've got a discography on there, AND an album i heard several years ago). let the fun begin:

once OST, glen hansard et al (2006)

i heard "falling slowly" the year it came out, and i thought it was a tremendous song. i saw their oscar performance and was touched by their humility and the way they called marketa irglova back on stage. and i'd heard the movie was really, truly good. but for some reason i never saw the movie or heard the soundtrack...i just missed it, and that song sounded to me exactly like the one awesome song an okay artist makes. and besides, i hate musicals, and movies about music almost always disappoint for either having bad music or bad...movieness (usually it's the music). but at some point this year kim and i watched the movie, and for once (lol) there's a movie about a musician who wants to write good music where...(wait for it) the musician actually writes good music! the scene where they play "falling slowly" for the first time is great because of the way it contributes to the story, and to the development of the relationship, and because it so inspired me to go and create something. and it turns out that not only is that not the only good song on the album, it might not even be the best--"lies" and "say it to me" would also compete for that title in my book. i'm talking a fair amount about the movie, but while the movie augments the music, the soundtrack stands on its own as a really fine collection of songs.

fela kuti's entire discography (1970-onward)

i saw "the visitor" this summer, and if you were sitting next to me at the movie, when the african guy says to the white guy, "victor! you've never heard fela?!?" you would have seen me get my pen and my trusty booklet out and, by light of iphone, write "fela kuti!!". these albums were so influential that you've heard their influence 20 times this week in songs not written by fela kuti. the music is so much more than a reference point, though--it's funky, tight, danceable, groovy, and it sounds like an incredible party is happening whenever you hear it, but it's also kind of...beautiful, and moving. i can't really summarize a music legend's entire recorded output in this paragraph, so...i don't know. take that guy in the movie's advice and check it out!

the motorcycle diaries OST, various artists (2004)

this is turning out to be a pretty movie-centric list this year, which seems decidedly un-music snob of me, but given that i'm here writing a year-end list of albums that weren't from the year, i guess either my snobbery is not in danger or it cannot be escaped. it wasn't that long ago that i talked about this movie here, so i won't again. and i would say it's possible that this music wouldn't be very enjoyable for me without the movie, but i would also say i don't really care--when i realized that the movie, like every other movie, probably had a soundtrack, and then i got the soundtrack, i was pretty happy. and then i listened to it, and that made me happy, too. so i listened to it some more and i still listen to it, and it makes me happy.

in an aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel (1998)

i'm cheating here because i heard this album for the first time quite awhile ago. and it seemed like an ok album, and i guess i got why people thought it was a classic--i figured it was one of the first really indie records to sort of have that bookish-sounding kind of whiney singer, and it had that lo-fi sound and raw playing style that made it sound like an indie rock cornerstone, and there was the anne frank connection, etc etc...and i guess my curiosity was satisfied after one listen.

but some press about this album's 10th anniversary got me to check it out again, and i was BLOWN AWAY. this is the sort of album that begs essays to be written about each song, to have every word turned over and discussed in long, intense conversations that last way longer than the album does, so you put it on repeat while you talk about it because you want to hear it while you discuss it. it seems like every measure of every song was carefully constructed and considered--the musicality and sounds of the words are flawlessly matched to the melody and rhythm of the music.

but it's not just the sounds: the lyrics are brutally honest and clear, devastating in their ability to depict, in specific scenes and stories, what feels like the breadth of humanity--conception, birth, innocence, growth, love, learning, losing innocence, remembering, death, forgetting or being forgotten. aaron and i were having one of those intense, long conversations about the album, and we talked about how opener "king of carrot flowers, part 1" acts as a thesis for the whole album, from the opening line's "when you were young..." to describing the rich world of imagination of youth and the possibilities and horrors it begins, and then the ruthless, wrenching loss of growing up. the album can't be summed up with one song, but i'm going to try anyway by showing a snippet of "holland, 1945", which begins with "the only girl i ever loved was born with roses on her eyes" and concludes:

"And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes"

actually, that didn't do it. you should just go listen to it.

kim is a super photographer (pictures from our trip)

kim got a new camera for christmas, and that ought to mean more quality (non image search result) pictures around here. she spent quite a lot of time getting used to all the dials and whatsits and thingamabobs, and took a lot of pictures along the way. here's some of those pictures! click "fullscreen" if you only see blackness. because she figured out enough to take more than just blackness.

california!

nebraska!

no, seriously--we made tunnels! TUNNELS!!!

if you read the last post and thought "those tunnels are the coolest things i've ever heard about anyone doing in the history of people doing things!", you're in luck, because this post is also about those same tunnels. if you had any reaction even a tiny bit smaller than that, you might find this a little boring. unless you enjoy watching people awkwardly falling over, or the sound of people laughing at people awkwardly falling over, in which case i might have a little something for you. because this is going to be all about that:



here's kim going in and then coming out of two of the tunnels. the third entrance is in the foreground. you can tell by how big it is and how long it takes kim to come out that the tunnels are really cool.


but don't just take my word for it! here's some footage of kim going through the tunnels with the camera. you're looking at some fine craftsmanship there, believe me.


and finally, here's kim destroying the tunnels at the end of our trip. i'm not sure what, exactly, about this is so funny, but as you can hear from michael's uproarious laughter in the background and my snickering behind the camera, it definitely is. maybe it's kim's extra layers of clothing and the way they make her sort of flop out onto the snow, or the sound she makes when she hits the ground, or the way the ground seems to suck her in after a second...whatever it is, it's the good times.

today kim and i go our separate ways: i'm leaving california to go back to chicago so i can start school again on monday, and kim heads up to seattle to visit the piestch's (they of the creative ways to play baseball with food) for a few days. travel!

christmas and beyond

hello readership! i am writing you from our most excellent holiday adventure. right now we're in the snowy mountains of southern california with kim's family, frolicking in the snow and relaxing in a cabin next to big bear lake. just before this, we were in nebraska for a few days to celebrate christmas over there, too. somehow we managed to leave snowy, blustery chicago to arrive in lincoln, where it was even colder, leaving only to come to rainy southern california and then to the ice-cold mountains, while lincoln and chicago warmed up to somewhere around 60 degrees. it's bad luck, but we've made the most of it. yesterday we recognized the virgin 2-3 feet of snow in the back yard as the perfect playground opportunity and made a series of tunnels which are, in my opinion, super awesome. SUPER! the photo above is of a portion of our tunnel system and was taken by occasional blog photograph contributor michael chan.

this break has been very much needed after a pretty brutal finals stretch to finish out the semester, and i'm finally feeling reenergized enough to start looking ahead to my last semester of classes in medical school, and just beyond that to what most people call the most important exam a doctor takes in his or her career--STEP-1. so there's that to look forward to. but for now, i'm going to enjoy the next week or so of not thinking too much about it.

my weekend looked like this

5 finals down, 2 to go!

brb, you guys.

important update update

for those of you who come to my blog, frustrated that instead of the information you want, you're being left with meaningless stories about mishaps at target or new and interesting things to hit with a bat or Why I Want To Be A Doctor When I Grow Up, etc, i think this will be a welcome change. because today, instead of continuing the silence, i'm updating you all on the ongoing status of my own special chronic disease.

i know that many of you have drawn inspiration and courage from my story and my insistence that i will continue to live a normal life despite what many consider to be a debilitating disability. i know many of you see me, going about daily life, never blaming my shortcomings on my illness, and you feel within you the desire to be something better, to be...MORE. you say to yourselves, "if a man with such a handicap can live a relatively normal life all by himself, think of what a healthy person like me can do!". perhaps you, too, suffer from this disease and regularly overcome the same struggles, stigmas, and prejudice that i do. you know the pain, and you continue on. i know that many of you point at your jeremy portaits on your mantles, or your jeremy buttons on the lapels of your winter coats, and, solemnly tapping the photo, you say simply "hero".

well, to each of you i say, thank you. because to me, you are all heroes. you all inspire me, and i have your pictures on the button on the lapel of my heart. and with your support for me, and all of our support for one another, we can overcome! we can be proud of who we are! we can say to the world "here i am, and i am here!". and we can hope for a cure. but until that time, i leave you with my motto:

be strong. be bold. be bald.

show and tell

kim and i host a church small group at our house. every once in awhile we have a show and tell night where one person shares something important to them or their development as a person. this week it's my turn, and we're going to watch "the motorcycle diaries". and since the old blog is named after the movie, and even exists because of a trip that was partly inspired by the movie, i thought i'd say a bit about it and its impact on my life here, as well.

after i graduated from college, i wasn't sure what i wanted to do with my life. i thought i might want to do medicine or some kind of scientific research, so i decided to spend a year trying both out. i started out doing research in lincoln, but my ultimate plan was to find a job researching somewhere in europe, and then to come back and work in a hospital the rest of my "extra" year. so a few months after graduating i was getting the research experience i'd need while exploring grants and options to work abroad. and then i saw the motorcycle diaries.

if you don't know, the movie focuses on a year or so in the life of che guevara, before he became a revolutionary, and sort of looks at the development of some of his ideals about equality, justice, and defending the downtrodden. if you just know him as the guy on t-shirts, or even if you know him as the guy who fought various revolutionary wars all over the world (and especially in cuba), you might be surprised to learn that he was just a few exams from completing his medical education and becoming a doctor in argentina when he began a journey that took him from the southern to the northern extremes of south america. and it's that trip that the movie is all about.

there's a lot about the movie that really resonated with me the first time i saw it--"restlessness, impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road," as che narrates in the introduction, for example, that i think helped to make the movie make such a big impression on me. but there were also bigger things about caring for people and about realizing lasting and meaningful change in people's lives, that served to articulate and identify for me the answers to some questions i'd been struggling with in terms of what i wanted to do with my life. i wouldn't say the movie made me feel or think a certain way, but i think seeing the movie and responding to it allowed me a glimpse into my own perspective on things.

but even more specifically, there's a scene that changed "being a doctor" from a potential career to something that i felt some part of me had been born to do. it's the scene pictured above, and in it che has been asked to visit this old sickly woman whose health has recently worsened, and as he examines and talks with her he treats her with such care and dignity and gentleness that i felt like i was watching some incredible, sacred work being done, and it seemed to me like the most amazing thing someone could do with their life. and in that moment i began changing my plans for the next year--as the movie played on, i wiped the research plan from my mind and first started planning ways to do medicine, and then to do medicine in the context of the sense of discovery and poverty i'd seen in the movie, and finally to try out medicine in south america. by the time the movie ended, i'd decided on a plan of action that ultimately led to my trip to ecuador, and has ultimately led to me studying medicine here in chicago.

the movie influenced me in other ways, too, but if i was going to make a map to retrace my life, this movie, and even that scene, would serve as a sort of signpost in the road, and even a direction on the compass. as the movie's tagline says:

"deja que el mundo te cambie, y tú podrás cambiar el mundo."

my summer vacation

this summer, back when the blog backlog (clog) was building up, kim and i went to seattle. we had lots of fun, and planned on writing a really long post with lots of pictures. we almost got around to it, and then we didn't, and then we didn't post anything for several months. for some reason i thought of some of those pictures today, and i'm posting them now without much in the way of explanation, other than to say that the pietsch's, who live in seattle and who we were visiting out there, like to play a little something called "apple baseball" (which is exactly what it sounds like and is exactly as awesome as it sounds), and we also got to play. we also played old bread baseball and watermelon baseball and can of V8 baseball. it was fun and delicious.

the exploding bread is cool, sure, but look at my face. i am very much in the moment right there.







nate not only made a decent cup of apple juice here, he's also showing he's got a swing that means business. that's commitment to apple baseball right there, folks.




caity makes some applesauce.









again with the face. this should be on an atkins diet billboard. "DEATH TO CARBS," it'd say.







ah, summer: friends, sports, and watermelon.








the aftermath. sweet, sweet aftermath.








trevor opens a can of V8 by opening a can of whoopass on a can of V8.







jeremy pietsch is so proud of his work here. "look what i made!!!"









here's some video footage of the carnage.

oh my red:






i'ma make it rain!!!:

and the winner is...

the final count on the night was 9 jokers and 7 sarah palins in the couple of hours i walked around the north side. i'm not sure who that means wins, but i'm pretty sure anybody in either of those costumes loses.

i told my friends i'd go to their parties, and then didn't show up. on monday i'll explain i was the cubs' hitting in the playoffs. the chicago assimilation is going great!

not quite political

i'm not super into politics, and this is hardly a political blog, but it's sort of in the air and basically unavoidable recently, and all that talk has occasionally touched on a topic that i feel pretty strongly about. (long-time readers might even recognize this picture from the last time it showed up on this blog.) so strongly, in fact, that i've decided to share a sonnet with you (bet you didn't see that coming!). it's "the new colossus" by emma lazarus, and even if the title doesn't ring any bells for you, and even if you've never heard the whole thing before, i'm willing to bet you'll recognize at least part of it, and know where it can famously be found:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

that's not in our nation's constitution, but it is undeniably in our DNA (literally, even). whatever your thoughts on border control, undocumented employment, and deportation policy, let the debate start here, at what is not only one of this country's greatest values, but also one of the most valuable sources of our country's greatness. (now i'm talking like a real politician! antimetabole for president '08!)

the epic target debacle

kim and i recently found ourselves in the market for a new bookcase. this was due in part to the ridiculous amount of books one accrues in the process of a medical school education (and the desire to display them to guests--"i know anatomy! i am SMART!"), but also due to the fact that we removed the back from our old bookcase so we could reach the light switch behind it, causing some instability and necessitating the use of a curtain rod for propping up ("i ruined my bookcase...on purpose! i am perhaps not as smart as you thought!").

anyway, like most people do when they want a nice, solid piece of wooden furniture, we turned to target for our furnishing needs. and it was there we found an incredible pre-fab piece of wood and wood-like substances, with only some assembly required. i figured i could handle this assembly with no problem, and i tore into the box. but could i handle it? in your mind, you should be weighing out the evidence presented by the old bookcase: lots of medicine books....but the bookcase itself is broken...on purpose. place your bets accordingly.

fast forward a couple hours. i've just done the only step in the entire process which, if done incorrectly, will irreparably destroy the bookcase when kim comes home. i show her the (nearly completed) work in progress, to which she says "is it supposed to look like that?" and i looked at it, and actually, no. it is not supposed to look like that, with the front part in the back and vice-versa, and screw holes in the part that should be the front. round 1 to the bookcase.

so kim and i went to target to select another bookcase. i asked the customer service rep, in entirely hypothetical terms, if a bookcase could be returned if it had been opened and partially assembled. she replied in the affirmative, so we began our search for bookcase #2. as we browsed the different display offerings, i noted with some satisfaction that the bookcase i'd just mangled at home had the exact same screw holes in the front that i'd given it--so maybe i'm not so smart, but at least i'd potentially make it at target. maybe. let's see how we fared at target.

here in "the big city", space is at a premium, and accordingly buildings are built up to make up for the lack of horizontal space. in a target, this means 2 story targets, which has given rise to the cart-friendly escalator (see pic). so we loaded up our cart with a few other things we needed (several bouncy balls, giant kooshballs, and toys for kim's ESL classes, some socks and underwear for me, and so on), and then we put it all into our cart. i didn't take a picture, so i'm using google images to find for you an approximation of what we were dealing with by the time we loaded our favorite bookcase into the cart:



and onto the escalator our load went, and happily it rode for about 3 seconds until gravity, that malicious little fiend, finally had its way with it, and the whole cart flipped forward, launching, catapult-like, all its contents out into target's airspace. aside from the loud and awkward crashing of the projectile bookcase, it looked very much like a target commercial, as all the underwear and colorful rubber balls arced merrily through the air among smiling white people wearing tasteful sweaters and browsing through cheap goods. it was a glorious scene, and would have also been basically harmless were it not for the fact that those overgrown koosh balls landed at the bottom of the people escalator, got sucked into the gears, and completely stopped the escalator from further functioning.

kim and i walked away and got our bookcase at a different target.

pictorial update essay, pt. 5--anniversaries

On June 30 we made it to our 1st Anniversary – much to our own great surprise. Despite being extremely busy with school stuff, Jeremy found a way to sneak around and craft an incredible surprise treasure hunt. I came home from work on July 3 to find an empty house and a poem about zombies. Tres romantique! The poem led me to a glass head sculpture where Jeremy had hidden the next clue – a list of “inside references” that we’d cultivated over the last year about locations in our neighborhood. So I got on my bike and criss-crossed the neighborhood collecting sealed envelopes from under mailboxes, behind street signs, and from local shopkeepers.


Each envelope held a line from one of our favorite songs – “This Will Be Our Year” by the Zombies – which, when I put them in order, provided latitude and longitude coordinates. So I used the GPS to follow them downtown to where Jeremy had managed to get us an executive suite at the Hyatt, overlooking Lake Michigan, the river, and Navy Pier. After getting our free happy hour and dessert buffet, we walked 5 minutes to the Independence Day fireworks over the lake. What a clever clever boy!

The next day, the 4th of July, we wandered downtown for a while, watched the kids playing in the fountains in Millenium Park and finally headed to a friend’s BBQ. And then, the REAL fun began… as the sun started to set in Pilsen, the cars disappeared from the streets as families emerged with literally armloads of fireworks. From about 8 pm to 2 am, our neighborhood was about as close to a war zone as I ever hope to get – smoke billowing through the streets, explosions everywhere, sparks and shrapnel flying, booms, cracks, hisses, and ratatats echoing off of buildings. At one point we had to ride our bikes through it, and we can attest to the fact that fearing for your life is a great adrenaline rush.

From the roof our building, we could see probably thousands of fireworks being set off all across the city. It was the best 4th of July ever – a 360 degree panoramic show. Here's a video of a little bit of what it looked (and sounded) like:

pictorial update essay, pt. 4--nebraska

After Sigur Rós, we went on to Lincoln and enjoyed several days of awesomeness and fun. During the rest of our stay, we spent lots of time with the Howes, enjoyed expanses of green grass such as Chicago has not seen for some time, ate excellent food (Jeremy's nephew Landon especially enjoyed his ice cream, as you can see), enjoyed Lincoln, played with kittens (and more kittens!) and other examples of Nebraskan wildlife, saw more friends, went bike riding, and – best of all – got to borrow the kayaks for a couple afternoons to cruise the rivers and creeks and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. Here's some photographic evidence of our exploits:





On the water, kayaking like explorers on the Amazon (that's what we were pretending, anyway).










Do you know how hard it is to get a shot like this from separate kayaks? It's really hard.






KITTENS!!!











By the end of our visit, the recent tornadoes and rainfall had only exacerbated the rising floodwaters in Iowa, and on the way home, we were forced to take a 4 hour detour around the river. Even that was a close call, as we found ourselves in water up to the hubcaps at one crossing. We stopped for lunch in Iowa City, only to find our Burger King underwater. It is a very surreal thing to look down a street and see familiar distinctions like curbs and white dashes and stop signs all erased while the wide expanse of water slides smoothly and seamlessly from building to building. Note also our friends Chase and Kara, who were very open to exploring and enjoying the adventure (such as it was), except for the part where the detours meant we didn't get home until 1 or 2am...none of us were particularly excited about that. But we made it home in one piece, and thankfully, dry.

Coming up next: the 4th of July and anniversary celebrations! Stay tuned!

pictorial update essay, pt. 3--sigur ros

editor’s note: this post was, in an inspiring display of marital harmony and compromise, co-written by jeremy and kim. democracy!

after the bike crash and the beginning of the euro, we come chronologically to our great trip west, to nebraska. the timing of this trip coincided (not coincidentally) with a sigur ros show in omaha. but we cracked open the ol’ wallet and found that 6 hours of gas each way was going to cost us a pretty penny. so we put an ad on craigslist for company, and got two students from the art institute to join us--chase (who looks vaguely like a musketeer) and kara (who appears to be leasing out her clothes and skin to be a safety pin breeding ground). but as the return trip was more interesting than the first leg, we'll hear more about them later and skip right ahead to the show.

in omaha, we met our nebraska friends for dinner in the old market and ate our corn-fed beef while listening to tornado warning sirens wail outside the windows. just as we were leaving we heard the service staff telling everyone in the restaurant to move away from the windows. a sane person would probably conclude it'd be better to stay put for a minute, but a sane person would run the risk of missing the show--not an option! about 5 steps out the door of the restaurant, a torrential downpour began and we became almost instantly soaked. we ran the 4 blocks to the theatre and arrived soggy and dripping, to discover a scene something like this:

i'm borrowing the photo from pitchfork here, but the point is that those several hundred people were all huddled together under the marquee, shrinking back from the rain. we squished ourselves into the edge of (only slightly drier) people, and there were told that there was a tornado warning, and they weren't letting people in until it passed. let's take a paragraph break while that fema-style disaster management sets in, shall we?

the ushers watched us sternly from the warm, dry other side of the glass for 45 minutes, until it was deemed safe enough to enter. even then, we were only allowed to wander around the lobby. by the time the concert had been delayed 2 hours, the humid, steamy mass of people was beginning to foment into the beginnings of a rebellion, when from the underbelly of the theatre we heard the sound of horns and drums. we followed the music and pushed our way through a crowd of onlookers, past a couple ushers, and down a flight of stairs to find ourselves face to face with the members of sigur ros and amiina. we were so close we could smell the sweat and feel the vibrations of the drums as they created this joyous impromptu drum circle in the basement. after a while, they marched off to other parts of the basement, and a little while later, the real concert started.

the concert itself was great. this was (i’m trying my best not to brag here) my fourth time seeing them, and other than the time i met jonsi before the show and he put me on the guest list (really trying!) or the time i was in the second row and brushed wayne coyne’s butt as i walked by him (trying really really hard!), this was definitely the best show i’ve ever seem them do. they are touring their new album with a 13-piece ensemble—the band, amiina (the string quartet), and a five piece horn troupe. the sound was enormous, and even though the show at times felt like a dress rehearsal (this was a 4-show tour that included a completely unadvertised show in omaha, nebraska, after all), it was a really great experience and i assume was incredibly inspiring and moving for all in attendance (other than kim, of course, who fell asleep at various times throughout). as the internet is already littered with pictures of jonsi grimacing as he sings and plays, here's a shot of the aftermath.

stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment with even more nebraskan adventures.

pictorial update essay, pt. 2--the euro

the european championships have been going on for the last 2-3 weeks. i've watched a lot of games on the internet, which for most of the time looked a lot like the above. this has been the best soccer tournament i've ever personally witnessed, based on the quality of play, the amount of drama and excitement, and also because my favorite european team (spain) has done very well and enters today's final against germany as the best team in the tournament.

two years ago i wrote a long and lengthy post on this very blog extolling the virtues of international soccer, and i'll save you my long-winded thoughts on the game and national identity, national pride, and the incredibly intricate anthropological aspects of the spanish psyche as it pertains to their team and its success and failure. (aaron and i have, in the last couple days, have had several lengthy conversations about these matters, so CLEARLY it's a fascinating topic). suffice it to say, though, that if you don't have anything else going on at 1:45 CST this afternoon, it would be a very worthwhile experience to head to whatever sports bar in your neck of the woods will show soccer games, and blend in to whatever international community your neck of the woods has, and shout until you're hoarse at the television screens there. i know i will. ¡¡¡QUE VIVA ESPAÑA¡¡¡

pictorial update essay, pt. 1--the wreck

sorry about the delay in posting--there's been lots happening, and therefore so much to tell, but unfortunately also so little time to tell. since there's so much to say, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, it stands to reason that the most efficient method of catching up is with a lot pictures. because otherwise these posts would be even longer(!).

so, let's see here. when we left our story (forgetting kim's...incident), aaron was in town. we had a great time, and i think aaron will probably back me up when i say that you should come visit us, too--it's good times. so aaron went home, and kim and i went back to our normal lives. and that's where our story begins...

some morning shortly after aaron left, i decided after waking up around 5:30 (which i usually do) that i would go for a bike ride. this is something that i've been wanting to make a regular part of my summer since about the fifth snowstorm of our crappy winter, and all winter i dreamt of how amazing it would be while stumbling through the snow. i imagined myself waking up every morning, going on long epic bike rides, and really enjoying starting my day with vigorous exercise, breathtaking views of the lake, and probably insightful thoughts or beautiful poetry written while sitting on a rock by the lake. in search of all of this excitement and more, this particular morning i rode down to the 57th street beach, and i got off the trail, walked around, and enjoyed the feel of sand on my feet. aaaaah, what a relaxing, great start to a lovely summer day.

as i sat on the beach, however, a menacing, foreboding wind stirred up over the lake and blew onshore (FORESHADOWING!!!). i sat it out (still waiting for my early morning, lakeside epiphany), but eventually i got tired of picking sand out of my eyes, so i decided to head home. the ride home was really nice, because the wind was at my back--i was going fast, enjoying life, and feeling like nothing could possibly be wrong in the world. but (FORESHADOWING) i was wrong. i approached the 18th street bridge and began the difficult climb to the top, digging in and probably imagining that i was winning the tour de france (i often imagine myself winning competitions during mundane parts of the day. throwing paper in the trash can: "3...2...jeremy shoots...1...HE SCORES!!! JEREMY WINS!!!" or while speedwalking to cross the street before the light changes: "and it's jeremy by a nose!!!". or while buttering my toast:"ladies and gentlemen, i think we may have just witnessed the first ever perfect butter/toast application. we await the score from the judges...6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, and from japan...6.0!!! jeremy has done it!!! the gold medal in the toast competition goes to jeremy and the united states!!! it's the miracle on wheat!!!" but i digress). so i crested the epic incline at the bridge, and did that thing that riders do when they win the tour de france. you know, they sit back, hands off the handlebars, and soak in the glory of their accomplishment. and i was so basking when the aforementioned wind decided that it was finished doing me favors for the day, and it was payback time. the wheels went sideways, i quickly grabbed my handlebars, there was a general sprawling and frantic scramble and spectacle (and i swear just as i was going over the front of my bike i thought of this) and i ended flattened, breathless, and unwilling to move, and unnaturally intimate with the pavement. i said "ooooh, oooooh, oooooh" for awhile, and finally i decided i'd rather not be run over, so i dragged myself to the corner. when i got home, here was the damage:



well, and also there was this intense rib pain which has stuck with me since, making me look (feel) like an invalid while getting out of bed. i think i may have broken my rib, which is really painful and really slow to heal. the pain is so intense, i haven't been able to ride my bike since.

but at least i won the tour de france.

Kim vs. A Pressing Urgency

Jeremy's been begging me for weeks to contribute something to the blog, and I've been delaying while I ponder what truly remarkable, insightful piece I could submit. I've had a number of really great insights, stories, etc. collecting to be shared with all of you. Unfortunately, THIS story is not one of them. Jeremy insists, however, that it must be told.

It all started early one Monday morning, when everything was under control in the ol' excretory system. No urgent business, if you know what I mean. I got to the office early and got started on some projects. I had to make an appointment with the doctor, so I though I'd call early, before everyone else arrived.

I dialed the number, and just as the voice on the other line picked up, I felt it. That critical, undeniable, URGENT need.

But instead of hanging up, I figured, "I can handle this. I'm an adult. My sphincter knows who's the boss here."

So we start through the preliminaries:
name
last name
middle name
maiden name
mother's maiden name
phone number
mother's phone number
insurer
insurer's phone number
and so on...

Little by little, I start shifting weight, folding and unfolding myself. People are now arriving for work, and I greet them with an awkward grimace.

I'm squeezing with enough force to crack a walnut. Or possibly a coconut.

Then - right in between "Hang on the line while I check for availabilities" and "Just a few minutes more..." I realize that the sensation has changed.

To my horror, I realize that something is ever so slowly making it's way towards freedom.

And I think, "Oh s***." (And indeed it was.)

Let me take this moment to talk with you about transcendent experiences. They say that when you have one, your senses become finely tuned, your awareness heightened and perhaps focused sharply on some new enlightenment. I think I understand this feeling. In this moment, everything in the room became eerily silent, as the entire focus of my body concentrated like a laser on the new enlightenment that I had actually... pooped my pants. It was a feeling of deep

understanding that I cannot fully express.

The woman FINALLY comes back on the line and I'm like, "okaythat'sgreatnextweekokayfinebye."

At this point I'm now using sheer force of IMAGINATION to keep things under control and praying for some suspension of the laws of physics and gravity just so i can keep my dignity.

I slam the phone down and waddle out of the office, knees squeezed together, vision starting to blur.

Avoiding people down the interminably long hallway, I dive into the bathroom and find myself face to face with Shuffly Tom, the cleaning guy.

I shove his bewildered self out the door with a curt, "I REALLY need this room right now!" and rush towards freedom in a 3'x4' cubicle.

If you are on the edge of your seat (as I was), you will be relieved to know (as I was), that I escaped mostly unscathed. And no one was the wiser.

Until now. When, much to the chagrin of my mother, I cast all dignity aside for your middle-school amusement.

I ask only one thing of you: make this story even more grand and glorious by adding fabulous and quasi-embarrasing stories of your own! Yay!