Why am I only inspired at ungodly hours in the morning? Ah, well. I’ve got another poem up. And on that note, y’all should be aware of this particular Onion article:

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National Poetry Month Raises Awareness Of Poetry Prevention

NEW YORK—This month marks the 10th National Poetry Month, a campaign created in 1996 to raise public awareness of the growing problem of poetry. "We must stop this scourge before more lives are exposed to poetry," said Dr. John Nieman of the American Poetry Prevention Society at a Monday fundraising luncheon. "It doesn't just affect women. Young people, particularly morose high-school and college students, are very susceptible to this terrible affliction. It is imperative that we eradicate poetry now, before more rainy afternoons are lost to it." Nieman said some early signs of poetry infection include increased self-absorption and tea consumption.

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That bit about inspiration reminds me of a rule I’m formulated: in situations where people are awake, then the closer it is to four in the morning, the more likely it is that something important is happening. Kind of an odd trend, possibly related to 4 AM being the least likely hour for people to be awake. I suspect ScavHunt will be the next great demonstration of this principle.

There comes a time when a man must cease worrying about any potentially difficult decisions he will potentially make at some point, and enjoy the simple things in life, such things as 200+ metal microfilm reels, or a bulky old PA system that rquires 8-ohm speakers…

Yes indeed, there was more dumpster diving yesterday, this time with the end result of several people in our house having better chairs than the standard wooden college desk chairs. Shu looks even creepier than usual now that he has a big high-backed leather chair to sit in. I grabbed a large box of microfilm wheel, just in case I need 200 or so metal reels at some point. And Zach took the library’s old PA system, which could apparently be used effectively as an amp if we got a microphone and some big speakers.

Which, of course, all had to be explained to the prospie, as well as rearranged so he could actually sleep somewhere. However, despite the fact that nothing is actually happening here on Monday nights, we managed to show him a good time. We showed him one of things we have that Yale (his other choice) clearly doesn’t have: Harold’s Chicken Shack. And much delicious fired chicken was eaten by all, and I got a remarkable amount of grease on my shirt with the first bite. Thereafter was a viewing of The Big Lebowski and a game of poker.

And so, in theory, I have work to do. Although I maintain that the things which absolutely must be done are usually the least important things. Ah, well.

God help me, I think I'm a poet. So I might as well put it out there. So I threw together a simple archive and linked it in the madness section. I'll update it whenever seems appropriate. Read and comment to your heart's content. Or don't. See if I care.

And so, in the midst of all this emotional turmoil, I have forgotten to relate the ordinary humdrum surreality of life on a college campus.

About Saturday, Ethan from down the hall opened the door, and with no explanation, deposited in our entryway two copies of the latest issue of Playboy. Later investigation revealed that he had received 100 free copies, and so, apparently, distributed them throughout the entire house. We still haven’t found out why and how he got 100 free copies of Playboy. But now we have two.

Well, I’m out of my idiom again. Of course, I have a particularly slow and dangerous idiom anyway.

I hate backup plans, good advice, and pragmatism. But my enthusiasm for second chances, persistence, and reckless optimism is considerably diminished of late. So it seems to be time for another change. bleh.

All things must pass…
Although it’s interesting, if you can find and compare the George Harrison version of “All Things Must Pass” with the Beatles out-take version (released on Anthology 3). The Harrison solo version has got Phil Spector-produced strings and horns that give it a sweeping impact, and Harrison’s vocals are confident and reassuring. The Beatles version is much more spare and intimate, and Harrison’s voice seems to crack a little from time to time. In this version it sounds more like a man trying to reassure himself. Both are good songs though. I need to get more of Harrison’s solo stuff.

Speaking of music, OurTunes makes it so much easier to explore more unusual branches of music (depending on whether someone actually has it, of course). For example, the plethora of one-hit wonders from the 80’s that I’ve grabbed lately. And just today I’ve found Yes’s Tales from Topographic Oceans, which is known as the ultimate expression of excessive 70’s prog-rock. Not bad so far. Of course, I’m still only in the first track, which is 22 minutes long, and only slightly longer than the other 3 tracks, each of which originally took up an entire LP side.

Well, at least my Onion horoscope is pertinent and reassuring, after a fashion:

“Although you've always worried about dying alone and unloved, you can put your mind at ease: A tragic mix-up at the pheromone lab will lead to your being loved to death by nine separate species.”

Additionally, the last fortune cookie I recieved was "Your talents will be recognized and rewarded" ... in bed. So clearly, I'm in for interesting times. But they do not appear to be the times I initially hoped for.

So (in a peculiar but unrelated echo)

Here goes nothing...

There we go.

http://homepage.mac.com/mmontgomery4/iMovieTheater5.html

'nuff said

Ain’t no change in the weather, ain’t no changes in me… and it dropped about 30 degrees over the course of this morning, so you can see where I’m coming from…

Rational? Rational? Okay, well not the last two, but the third-to-last was a blameless description of bizarre events. I mean, finding a toilet behind the physics building was clearly not a metaphor. And if it was, I don’t want to know.

And besides, I wouldn’t talk about rationality if I were you, Mr. “Fat Anna likes her liquor.”

Alex, you don’t even want to know what I would write if I had celebrated 4/20. I don’t even want to see what I would write if I celebrated 4/20… okay, maybe I do just a little… I mean, it would probably be pretty crazy… but no. I mean, this is already my surrealist phase. And it’s already clearly incoherent, which is why I have to become a Dylan song. Or as Homsar would say, “I’m a sooooong from the Sixties.”

Of course, If I’m really after emulating Dylan, I’m going to have to pick up guitar this summer. And enter more of a folk-surrealist phase… which I could do. Actually, I’m kind of working on it.

And you know, it’s kind of hard to cut down on the oblique references and double meanings once you get started on them. I mean, these things happen… Besides which, now I can explain a period of my life as “Cocaine vs. the Death Star”. How many people can say that? Probably just me – and I may well be the only one who thinks this is worthwhile, but nevertheless… I mean, besides my innate love of cleverness and complexity, I wouldn’t want to make my audience nervous. Although if being compared to the Death Star hasn’t scared her off, I don’t know what will.

But, if only to promote the image of bloggers-as-journalists, I will delve into factual events. I saw two plays today, both written and performed by U of C students. Zach was in one, and was not even playing a drunk. It was called Sweet Time, and it involved a cowboy, gangsters, and an unidentified white powder. It was brilliantly surrealist and rather amusing, although Zach says they had been reading it as a drama. The other play was about a struggling Jewish playwright, written by a Jewish playwright. Rather interesting, not as directly amusing, but pretty good for a new work.

And the power went out for the third time this year yesterday (This building is three years old!), just as I was about to write up a social science memo, so I had to do that in the Reg. But the end result is that I got beaten by a heavily-handicapped puffball. This indirectly reminds me that I probably should say something about the pope. We’ve got a new one, in case anyone missed it. After only three rounds of voting, they chose Ratzinger, who I think should have called himself Pope Ratt I, but will instead be known as Benedict XVI. I suppose it could be worse. I mean, I don’t know how many liberal candidates for pope there were. However, Ratzinger’s track record is not exactly reassuring. I mean, I kind of like Vatican II and all. And I don’t think the church is particularly in danger of moving forward too fast. It did kind of take them 1500 years to stop speaking Latin. Competing views hold that no candidate could have been too conservative, but that’s an argument I’ll have to get back to.

Well, things should get interesting once we get the prospie tomorrow. We plan to pass our RA Jakob off as famous European techno composer SCRÜPHI (that would be “scruffy” for those of you not familiar with his nickname). And the less said about the dead hooker, the better…

See, that was moderately rational. Now I can get back to obtuseness and reference. I have some great material with trucks and windmills that I should post at some point. and of course, closing with a song lyric.

You ain’t seen nothing yet…

So I'm not really sure when this blog just became a place for Pat to vomit his emotions from time to time. As it stands, the current state of the blog is gettin' way too weird for my tastes. This is partly due to the fact that it's impossible to read into the 7-10 layers of thought and double meaning that Pat puts into each post. I mean, if you took what he writes at face value, you'd think that he just copied and pasted some results from a random word generator.

It seems the days of rational blogging have come to an end. I would try to stem the tide of irrational emotions, but I'm far too busy to regularly update this blog. I just thought that I should make some sort of comment after reading the last three posts made me dizzy.

For Pat's sake, let's hope he celebrates 4/20.

If I were a Dylan song, I would be profound. As it is, people just ask what the fuck I’m talking about – even people who really like Dylan songs. I promise I’m not nearly as crazy as I sound, just a little more expressive than is strictly wise.

So, you see, I told you I wrote poetry. Though, rather than clog this blog with poetry, I ought to set up some kind of separate archive for the stuff.

My greatest flaw is that I have two flaws, and I can never tell which one is working. I can be terribly impatient, but then I have a history of waiting too long and missing opportunities. You’d think these would cancel out, but no such luck.

I will assemble, for my own amusement, an elucidating series of quotes:

“Time takes time.” – Ringo Starr
“All things must pass.” – George Harrison
“It’s getting better all the time.” – Paul McCartney
“I am the walrus.” – John Lennon

Alright, not entirely elucidating.

And in actual real events, I didn’t actually do that much today. I did see former Governor Jim Thompson talk about the 9/11 report, which was cool and fairly informative. Although there was that crazy woman in the audience, but she wasn’t too disruptive. Really, she was schizophrenic or something – kind of scary.

Other than that, it was just your average Monday. Although I suppose it would be bad, in conjunction with my previous post, to say that I’ve been in a good mood today…

A quandary: When I am at my most anxiously neurotic is when I am least likely to do something crazy and/or stupid. But when I am feeling particularly comfortable and enthusiastic, then… then I am more than ever likely to do something crazy and/or brilliant and/or stupid. Rational analysis suggests, perhaps, that I ought to work on being less neurotic whilst not doing anything stupid. On the other hand, my particular philosophy of life encourages attempted brilliance. So… well, the real trouble is working out the fine line between brilliant and stupid beforehand. I think it’s a given that anything I do will be crazy, after all.

Ah, well. Though I have no idea what I am doing, I am assured that I know why I’m doing it.

And seeing as I keep self-identifying as a poet, I really ought to start putting some out there. Although the ratio between total poetry and completed, presentable poetry keeps increasing in an alarming fashion. And so, since I’m not in the mood for rational commentary today:

Another Misty Morning
It is another misty morning as I write this
Another grey uncertainty of dawn
Another weary tumble into lightness
That the clouds will not surrender to for long

There is another well-worn circle in my head now
Another quiet journey in the dark
Another wordless mystery my heart bows
Forever aimless firing at no mark.

It is another silent pensive cloud that greets me,
Assures me I have written this before
And another mental struggle now defeats me,
Assures me that I cannot win the war.

And yet another far-off birdsong lifts me
And echoes with a half-forgot refrain
Another feeble sunrise makes new morning
And nothing stands forever quite the same.

And I forgot to mention that I died on Monday. No, that’s not a metaphor. No, really… Well, kind of… Strictly speaking, I was assassinated. It was very unpleasant.

You see, we crazy collegians play a game called Assassins, which is sort of like living in a paranoid universe of fear and strife, only more paranoid and fearful. Everyone in the game is assigned a target, and someone is targeting them in turn. You must shoot your target with a stream of water in some fashion. I, alas, was killed the first day by an unusually poor stroke of luck: My target, my assassin, and an already-dead lookout had the same class. And so my target escaped, and whilst I berated the corpse, my assassin ran around the building and shot me in the back.

And so, after a night of drinking, I woke up at 7:15 feeling refreshed. I soon though better of it and slept until 9, which is better, but still abnormally early for a Saturday. And that party definitely deserved a longer recovery time, due to it’s high quality and unprecedented levels of inebriation. Not that I have an extremely high precedent for drunkenness. First time I’ve been physically impaired to a noticeable degree. Actually, it was kind of fun to find that my brain was a half-second behind my head, so to speak. And I suspect lowered inhibitions, which, given how neurotic I am, is not really too terrible. Clearly, I am a happy drunk. Of course, I am liable to jump on things and shout “wheeee!” when stone cold sober, so…

And of course, the right company helps. As does fried chicken, to a lesser degree (Zach would stab me over that last part, I suspect). So we (Zach, Chris, Zach’s lab partner John, Megan, and myself) went to Harold’s for dinner and thence to Hitchcock to play N64 and watch family guy. Apparently, performance in Smash Brothers is an exceptional accurate measure of drunkenness. Although basic competence helps too.

So, what’s round, white, and can be found in the physics building dumpster? Yes, that’s right, a toilet. Additionally, an unidentified brick of electronics from 1962 with capacitors the size of your head. Also, HEPA filters and a lot of plywood. Today marked the first actual scavenging for ScavHunt, and we dragged back quite a haul from the dumpsters. There were also a VCR, an air conditioner, a dissertation on Maya architecture, extensive blueprints for the children’s hospital, a coffee machine, two office chairs, six heavy wooden shelving units, and a brief document entitled “How to utilize the enlarger”.

No, it certainly doesn’t make sense, but it’s beautiful...

It is always slightly disappointing when events continue happening at a pace that leaves me no time to record my reactions. Of course, sometimes something else happens which entirely obscures that. Nevertheless, if I can impart one thing to the world at large from this past week, it is that they should go see Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

It was, at the very least, much better than my last trip to Doc Films. heh… hrm… moving on…

In any case, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a cinematic masterpiece, which demonstrates just how fucked-up-insane the world would be if we shared it with ‘toons. It’s like film-noir, but with a talking baby and a more attractive female lead (“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way”). Also, Christopher Lloyd is just the right kind of zany creepiness to make a superb ‘toon villain. And there’s just so much great stuff in this movie that I should stop and just say that every one of you should go see it, especially if you haven’t seen it since you were little.

“Is that a rabbit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

“Twoooooo Biiiiits!”

“This is the latht time I work with thomeone with a thpeech impediment!”

“What do see in a guy like him?”
“He makes me laugh.”

So, yeah, I went to the Med for dinner and to the movie with Megan, Chris, Jim, and Lisy on Thursday, and an excellent time was had. I had the most boring pizza available, but it was delicious. So there.

And you see, I’m not even a week behind reporting that. You people are lucky you don’t have to wait for this blog to be delivered by stagecoach. Don’t ask me how that would work. What do I look like, a postal engineer? anyway, the point is, the Internet + lazy > the Wheel.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend was also lots of fun, though Megan repeatedly schooled me at the original Smash Brothers on N64… also Mario Kart, though at least there were computer player for me to school there.

And I did my part preserving the athletic honor of Woodward house by playing IM soccer on Sunday (okay, so technically I was watching baseball in the lounge and didn’t realize there was a game until people started gathering, but I went…) And I did my part by playing goalie in the second half. Now, considering that I haven’t played soccer since 8th-grade and haven’t played goalie since 6th, I did pretty well. I am an excellent goalie… about half the time. So I may have let four goals get by. Although we never scored, so it didn’t really matter. And I did have some good saves, including a manic sequence of scrambling and diving to prevent it becoming 6-0.

And in the process I worked up some mighty sunburn to celebrate the weather. Although actually it only added to the sunburn I had from watching women’s rugby the previous day. Yeah, rugby is a crazy sport. It’s like every minute is that crazy last-second play in football where everyone is trying to lateral. Only sometimes they stop to form pyramids or play reverse tug-o-war. Yeah, it’s beautiful.

And just when I though nothing could get crazier than my weekend… something entirely unexpected happens. But I’ve rambled just long enough today, and that’s confusing enough to wait a bit.

(HWA! Edited to prevent bad luck. Or something.)

It is April and I am a fool. They’re not particularly connected, though I do have a story about that. But first…

Today is beautiful. I am insanely happy for no good reason, other than it’s spring and the grass is green and it feels like it’s about to rain.

And look! Alex is blogging again. And all it took was a widget. These widget dealies are kind of fun, actually. I’ve plastered my desktop with news tickers at the moment. Don’t tempt me on the poetry, dude. I might just do it.

Although, speaking of April fools, it was interesting to find, on returning from class Friday, that there was an extra mattress propped up against our closet. It turns out it was being stored there by Shane for the purposes of depriving his roommate of the use of his mattress, with the aid of Zach. End result: around 3 PM, a very tired-looking Mike came and got a mattress from us.

My own activities in the spirit of this holiday were to walk past tour groups whilst carrying The Electrical Engineering Handbook. Let me tell you something about the handbook: it is round about 5 inches thick (think unabridged hardbound dictionary size). So I hope I managed to subtly freak out somebody. Why was I carrying a massive book about electrical engineering, you ask? Well, I had to renew it. And to answer the next question, well, how else were we going to figure out how to disassemble that garage door motor? And I figured we should keep it around until Scav Hunt, just in case.

And now the (slightly delayed now) bad news…

Too many people are dying. I mean, the Pope and Terry Schiavo are getting the headlines, but I’m really going to miss Mitch Hedberg. I mean, Jesus, I just saw the man perform less than two months ago. As Maciej said, “motherfuck.”

Also, my sympathies to the U of I folk on the basketball front.

Ah well. Let’s see how if the Cubs (or White Sox, if you are of that misguided bent) can do something this year.

And now I’m going outside. Wheee! Spring! April! Craziness! Finally, things are getting interesting again...

What quality news we have in Chicago. These headlines are courtesy of M. McKinz.

Actual Headlines from the Chicago Sun-Times: April 6, 2005


Acting River Grove Mayor Defeats Genital-Piercing Rival

Missing Man Finally Found--In Elevator

Cops Don't Like Strip Club's Art of the Peel

Protests Erupt After Ms. Wheelchair Loses Title For Being Seen Standing

Ex-Maid Says She Saw Singer Laughing in Shower With Boy

Thompson Going Out With A Bang--Wife To Shoot Ashes From Cannon

Bishop: I Never Suggested Jesus Was Gay

They Might Not Be Vampires, but Bats Bite

Daly, Hooters, Match Made in Marketing

Hair Thieves Leave Horses With No Tales To Tell

Escaped Convict Found With Warden's Wife After 11 Years

Married Cousins Say Their Love is More Than a Family Affair

Another Widget Blog

So...again with the blogging.

The weather here in Grinnell is beautiful, and I just got done
listening to Pat and Ron on the radio. Even though the Cubs lost, the
warm weather and ridiculous banter gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling, or
maybe that was some bad chicken I ate at dinner. Either way.

The thing about widget blogging it it makes me title every entry and
condenses the text into stanza-like form. So feel free to consider
what I'm writing to be poetry. Hey, if we're lucky, maybe Pat will
actually grace us with some actual poetry. Hmm...or would that be
unlucky...

So..I've had this album for awhile, but it's sheer brilliance has only recently hit me. I got into Jazz through Kind of Blue, which is an excellent starting point, yet it seems like there is nowhere to go from there. How can you expand your horizons when you started with (arguably) the best stuff out there?

After memorizing Kind of Blue note for note, I went to my uncle (former jazz columnist for the Chicago Sun Times) and asked him for some good jazz. He led me to Thelonious Monk. Now, let me just say, Monk is brilliant. Really great stuff. Yet, he's a far cry from Miles. Aside from the fact that Monk was a pianist, their basic styles of jazz are completely different. Monk is Monk; he's completely unique. However, his sharp technique and wild notation contrast the almost epic sounds that Miles can create with his trumpet. Monk is a genius in his own right, but his work is incomparable to the sound found on Kind of Blue. But, as Pat would say, I digress.

So, after being thoroughly saturated with Thelonious, I returned to my search to find something akin to Kind of Blue. When my uncle learned that I was into Miles Davis, he quickly gave me a list of albums to start with. Of course, Kind of Blue was there. Underneath it, however, was an album that I had heard talk about, but was completely unfamiliar with--Porgy & Bess. On my next trip to good old Rolling Stones Records, I picked up a copy.

My first listen was a bit shocking. I was completely unprepared for what I heard. I was expecting a quartet and got slammed with an orchestra, and it appeared that this Gil Evans character was behind the madness. I gave the album a couple more listens before putting it away for months. I suppose I thought it was mediocre at the time because it was not at all what I was expecting/looking for.

After a continued period of searching that turned up such gems as Hancock's Maiden Voyage, Coltrane's A Love Supreme, and Davis' own Birth of the Cool, I lay down my quest for a successor to Kind of Blue and reveled in my jazz collection, savoring what I'd found. It was only then that I returned to Porgy & Bess. "Might as well give it another listen," I thought. I'm very glad I did. Only now is the sheer majesty of Gil Evans' orchestra apparent to me, not to mention the way Miles' trumpet cuts through the other horns to carve the pure jazz out of Gershwins score. From the tuba on "Buzzard Song", to the classic "Summertime", to the crescendo on "Prayer", to the triumphant finale of "There's A Boat That's Leaving...", Porgy & Bess is a landmark in jazz, and should not be missed.

untitled

well...I'm trying something new here. I seem to be blogging from a
widget. For all of you who don't know what a widget is, type
Konfabulator into Google and see what I'm talking about. It's quite a
brilliant little device and, if it works, it will allow me to blog with
even bothering to leave my desktop. Not that this means I'll be
updating more often, but technology is still cool.

Peace out.

So, I realized that I haven't blogged it up in awhile, so I thought I throw you all a bone. Besides, Pat's incoherent babbling is getting frightning, and that's no way to run a blog. I sincerely doubt that the man is capable of coming up with anything coherent these days. But it's all good.

Therefore...onto the blogging about events not directly related to P.J.'s love life:
As some of you may know, Grinnell has a trend for obscenely long breaks, which means that I go back to school tomorrow (a week after everyone else left town). During this lovely extra week, I was fortunate enough to have time to continue plowing through the Beatles Anthology and see some truly quality films. The first was Million Dollar Baby. It's been out for awhile, but I managed to catch it at the Lake, and I thought I should see what all the hub-bub was about. I must admit that the hype is justified. Clint Eastwood sure can make a good movie. I'm not going to spoil the ending just in case some of you haven't seen it, but it's powerful stuff. (P.S. Pat, if you are still haven't seen this movie and are currently operating under the notion that it's about foxxxy boxing, you are going to be sorely disapointed).

I also managed to see Aviator the week before that, so I was able to compare the two since they were really the only ones competeing for all those Acadamy Awards. If you ask me, Million Dollar Baby wins. I blame Coppola for forgetting to put a plot-line into Aviator.

Last night, I went to see Sin City. Now, I was operating under the preconcieved notion that I was about to witness the most pretentious movie ever made. (My father, however, pointed out that the Matrix movies take the prize in that category). I must say that I was pleased with the way the film turned out, as it is a truly rightious return to noir. And I also have a heap of newfound respect for Mickey Rourke. Now, Ebert gave this movie 4 stars. I'd say that's probably one-half or one too many. Sin City is highly entertaining and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. It is certainly original, while still keeping faithful to the comics and the film noir genre. Still, when you compare it to other 4-star films (such as Million Dollar Baby), you can see where it falls a bit short.

Quality stuff overall, though.