Psyched out.

I thought I'd be done with my psych class by Monday night, but I ended up working 2.5 hours late (surprise) and I felt like playing my guitar and ukelele instead of studying.  I had some anxiety about the term paper, and I prepared myself for the likely outcome of a 70, a 60 or even a 50.  It was not poorly written, but from a technical standpoint, I expected the professor to bust my balls over the flimsy bibliography and a complete dearth of footnotes.  Fooled me, because he gave me a 100 on it.  This was most gratifying.  I've made a 100 on everything but the tests, which I've made an low A on all of those.  I only  have to make a 4 on my final (out of 150) to make a B, or 104 out of 150 to make an A.  I figure 2 out of 3 is a no brainer.

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What is it with me and getting my ass chewed out by kooks at work on the phone, lately?  My natural mien on the phone is deferential, kindly and empathetic.  Lately, when people call in and are in a state of outrage (drunk or just plain crazy, in some cases) me speaking truth seems to really piss some people off.  The odd thing is, though, when people are super-shitty to me on the phone, I get a little more quiet, much less casual, but I seem to have a knack for acting as a catalyst for people who are primed to blow.

Okay, I just wanted to say that bit there.  People who are primed to blow want to blow, and are just determined to do so, and generally there is simply no talking them down from the ledge.  Oh, I could patronize them and turn it around, but I'm not going to mollycoddle someone or lie to them to shut them up and get them off my back. 

But another word on people who have an obvious comfort level with going all 'splodey and showing they ass on the phone with peon-level customer service schlubs like me: the world is not the murky, anonymous morass it once was, my darlings.  If you have a unique name (google your name and you'll see how many of you there are in the USA), you're much less anonymous to the person you are blowing up at.  My theory is that just like some people collect porcelain flowers or snuff boxes, some people collect shitty customer service experiences.  It's their axe to grind, their justification for rancor and bitterness in life, and it's always someone else's fault.   All this is a roundabout way to say there should be a shitty customer archive somewhere where people can be outed for being the nasty people they are.  Someone named Jim Johnson may slip through the net on  that one, but if Miss Lilliepatrice Gigglesnort shows up there, you can bet she's the only one in the USA. 

Is there such a site? If so, let me know.  I have a list.

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My guitar playing is progressing nicely.  The weird thing is I never realized how fast my nails grow. I have to trim them frequently.  I told my teacher that I'd like to write music eventually, and he said "why not start now?"  He gave me some basic tips on chord progressions and assigned me to compose a chord progression in the key of C major.  I must say it's not half bad, and I've even composed a little melody to go with.  I need a keyboard.  I'm glad I have this diversion-- I think it's kept me sane this summer.

Hopefully I'll have news of an A on my test tomorrow.  Cheers!

The Lush Life

I think I heard this for the first time about 16 years ago, and the complexity of the melody was at once hypnotic and as elusive as ribbonlike tendrils of smoke curling up from a half-tamped cigarette in a dirty ashtray.  Jaded, world weary, one fully expects this was composed by some middle-aged barfly, yeah?

Not so.  Billy Strayhorn began composing this when he was merely 16.  He performed it at private events and on the strength of this and another composition, Duke Ellington hired him as in-house composer where he could practice his songwriting craft while blending into the background.  Tonically, the structure of this piece is staggering, and I find the poetry of the text to be equally so.  Really?  A 16 year old man wrote "where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life" - elegant, incredibly refined and altogether dolorous.  And the Byronian reference to distingué traces? Achingly lovely and sad.  Still, I think Billy was a bold and brave soul, completely open about his homosexuality in an age where that was simply not done.  Bless Duke for giving him a platform from which someone might trumpet his magnificent compositions.  All the same, though, Duke really should have given Billy credit for composing Take the A-Train, Duke's most popular composition.  Billy was never paid a dime of royalties for that one.

Strayhorn was said to have been infuriated with the liberties Nat King Cole took with the song when he recorded Lush Life, layering in a samba beat and botching the exacting poetry of the piece.  How gauche!

Sadly, the song was prophetic, and Billy did live a lush life, dying at the age of 51 as a result of the toll of a lifetime of booze and cigarettes.  My favorite recording of this is of Billy himself singing the piece in 1964, a year before his death.  The ravages of his lifestyle show in his voice and the pitch is iffy here and there, and he was admittedly not a singer, but a songsmith.  I love it.  The wrung-out version fits. 

I used this clip below because Johnny Hartman's vocal is haunting and brilliant, and his vocal production is so amazingly smooth that it's like the finest silk, and it's a wonderful compliment to such a perfectly crafted song. 



Johnny Hartman, vcl
John Coltrane, tenor sax.
Mccoy Tyner, piano
Jimmy Garrison, bass
Elvin Jones, drums
Photo: Dorothea Lange


I used to visit all the very gay places
those come what may places
where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
to get the feel of life
from jazz and cocktails

the girls i knew had sad and sullen gray faces
with distingué traces
that used to be there you could see where
they'd been washed away
by too many through the day
twelve o'clocktails

then you came along with your siren's song
to tempt me to madness
i thought for a while that your poignant smile
was tinged with the sadness
of a great love for me
ah yes i was wrong
again i was wrong

life is lonely again
and only last year
everything seemed so sure
now life is awful again
a trough full of hearts
could only be a bore

a week in paris will ease the bite of it
all i care is to smile in spite of it
i'll forget you i will
and yet you are still
burning inside my brain

romance is mush
stifling those who strive
i'll live a lush
life in some small dive
and there i'll be
while i rot with the rest
of those whose lives are lonely too

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: three-fur

The pups are nicely settled together. Miss Mochi seems to bridge the gap between the personalities of Chuy and Praline, so there's pretty much something for everyone here. It's a delight to me to see them curled up together like this more and more frequently. I took this photo on Friday while I was working. They're so sweet when they are sleeping.

Sorry to miss SPS last week, but Sunday is a big day, as it's the day my test opens, so I spend the whole day studying and then take the test in the evening. At this point, there are only 3 things remaning. I need to read about 200 pages of textbook today (and I'm a slow reader), and I need to read a 26 page paper and write a 3 page review, and participate in 5 discussions online. Piece of cake, right? My hope is that at this time tomorrow, My work on this course will be completed, because it's been kicking my butt.

Oh, and the reason I didn't already do my reading for the test is that Tuesday I had a weekly paper due and Friday at midnight I had a term paper due, and Saturday I had to work from 8 to 1pm, and I had not the heart to study last night. I'm exhausted. This is all going to be worth it, but there's no doubt in my mind that I'll know I've earned this when it's done.

overheard on Facebook:

Something I never thought to imagine I'd blurt to someone...

"Remember when you used to walk on my back in Band Hall?  That was the awesomest!"

I'm Hip by John Pizzarelli

John is the son of the immensely talented Bucky Pizzarelli. 

what we learned at work yesterday:

People who call in prepared to launch into a spittle-flecked rage no matter what I say don't like it when I laugh at them.

More on this later.

blackwork: the delicate toil of the needle

If I had limitless amounts of time, one of the things I'd be adding to my schedule would be embroidery.  I'm not crazy about all forms of embroidery, but I am quite taken with blackwork, which is a style of embroidery which came into vogue in the age of Henry VIII.  According to wiki, this was also known as "Spanish work" based on the belief that Catherine of Aragon brought many blackwork garments from Spain, and art of the 15th and 16th centuries shows black embellishments on many garments.  Typically a dyed black silk thread was used on a matrix of cloth such as linen, preferably with a very regular weave.  Various styles of stitches were used to create the effect of density of color and delicate motifs.   Apparently few original examples of this art survived the period, as the dyes used to blacken the silk thread were corrosive in nature.  Blackwork can also be found in other colors, with red being the most common variation.  I think there might be an argument that black-and-white and red-and-white quilts were very much inspired by this beautiful effect.

currently digging: Norwegian songstress Ane Brun

Odd video, unusual vocal stylings, and I really like it.


Wow. Just a little over a week of this summer session left. I'll be glad.  While there is tremendous appeal to getting school credit quickly, there's something to be said for not having it hi-jack your entire schedule and life.

guitar lust.

I can't afford it, guitar lust.  But the inlay work on these guitars by Andy Powers is nothing short of breath-taking. 

You can hear how nice one of these instruments sounds here.  Lovely.   I so love the inlay of the maple leaves and acorns-- quite lovely.

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I've been spending more time playing my ukelele, in addition to practicing my guitar.  On the uke I'm playing Sheena Is A Punk Rocker by the Ramones and Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash (or was that the Carter family, originally?)  Anyway, I'm nothing too exciting on them, but it's a nice diversion from the workaday and school-a-day.  I'm very pleased that unlike last night, I'm not up until 2am studying.  Finished a test a short bit ago.  I seem to have a solid A so far with 1.5 weeks left to go. I have 2 major papers to submit and 1 or 2 more tests, I think.  I'll be glad when it's done, though.  I'm looking forward to the break between summer and fall terms to do a little more quality concentration on practicing my guitar and uke.

It's not always this cut-and-dried, but...

in this case, I'm completely comfortable with the death penalty for everyone featured in the video and filming it.
And as swiftly as possible.  What absolute cretins.  Damn their eyes and those of anyone who would condone their actions.

Damn, girl!

PJ Harvey kicks more than 31 flavors of ass here.  Love the way she rocks. 

a little scribbling on crazyness.

Recently I was chatting online about my Psych and Sociology classes this year with Carrie and I said that the net effect of these classes is that they re-wire your thinking, and that I rather resent this.  She chirped "I love being rewired!" and it really got me thinking about my resentment.   This may be a 10 line post, or 100.  I'll just go until I'm done, okay?

Carrie is right to see excitement in the adjustment of one's thought processes.  When I look at my life, do I think everything is ideal or the best of all possible worlds? Obviously I'm pursuing this education/career change because something needs realignment.  After all, I'm not being brainwashed, but merely challenged to consider how and why we function as we do individually and collectively.  I also subscribe to the à la carte concept, sort of an idea buffet in which I get to pick and choose to which ideas I adhere.   The cherry-picking route seems sensible anyway, since this is an evolving field of study.

In our narcissistic way, it's inevitable that some deeply reflective of our kind would try to boil us down to our discrete parts and organize little groupings, tidy little ways to categorize us, define some order to things.  That I understand.  The condescension baffles me, though.  The texts all have some point in which they mention the biases of researchers, but I find biased language here and there in the texts, but most particuarly in the sociology book.  I would be reading along, taking it in and trying to jprocess the concepts when a phrase of bias popped out at me like a toenail snagging on a carpet, and suddenly I'd be hung up on how the author meant to be purely observational but was, in fact, being a little patronizing. 

I do not balk at reading challenging things.  Indeed, I think they do tend to help you to organize your view in a better way, and to help cement what you do believe, and hopefully inspire an evolution or reinforcement of thought and belief.   I'm complaining here, but not all was bad in these books, and I have learned and perhaps being more reflective was something I genuinely needed.   

I must admit, though, I did come across one psychiatrist who makes worlds and worlds of sense to me in the form of Thomas Szasz.  Szasz theorizes that social experiences and not necessarily illness of the mind underlie bizarre behaviours. I've always been struck by the fact that the default explanation people go to for rude, deviant or antisocial behaviour has tended to be "clearly she/he is crazy."  I think that gives a pass on responsibility to people who have actively (and sanely) chosen to commit outrageous cruelties/crimes against other people.   Someone is vicious and witheringly evil to all her inner circle and people shrug it off as "she's just crazy?"  No, she is an asshole, sweetheart.  Someone has a an entire ethnic group rounded up and shipped off to be slaughtered?  That person is an asshole. Someone calmly goes into a crowded place that is not a warzone and blows away a bunch of people for no reason?  That guy is not crazy, he is an asshole.  These people may be in varying states of mental healthfulness, but I don't give them a pass as though they were not in a state of choice before they committed their offenses. 

No, these studies are not all bad, and I suppose the ultimate good I'll see from it won't be evident for a long while to come.  I can say I'd prefer these contemplative courses stretched out in a 16 week semester, rather than 5, because this is so much to process in a short span of time.

43 years ago today...

Superbly geeky and cool.  I was 3 at the time, too young to really care much, but all these years later, watching this video on my lunch break gave me chills.  Landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.



So cool.

My first pack pile.

*squeee!*

They all cuddled up together for the first time on Monday. Chuy and Praline have gotten gradually more warm and accepting of my new little peanut Mochi.
Mochi seems to be afraid of the dark and is loath to go out after dark unless a person goes out with her. Or maybe she's afraid of being left out in the dark. She was chained up in a yard for a lot of her second and third months, and then she was still an outdoor dog, though more kindly treated at her previous home.
She's a sparkly little thing, though, and I love her floppy-puppy ways. Just the way her pads sound on the floor is different, and she seems to have livened up the established houndies in the house. Chuy and Mochi seem to be undertaking some project behind (or under?) the shed. If she shares his engineering bent, they'll dig a hole to China, Praline will go walkabout down the chiweenie hole and Chuy and Mochi will stand around looking innocent and pointing out that sissy has gone down that big, spontaneously-appearing hole under the shed.

There's no telling. In any case, my pups fill my heart with joy. I'm glad Miss Mochi is here, and I think the other pups are, too. :)

...but we're going to need a bigger puppy bed.