I spent the last month and a half driving around these mountains, editing a manuscript, double-checking facts and phrases, searching for crowded rooms in which to get lost in, searching for quiet rooms in which to write in. In less than six hours, I hope to be driving away from the mountains, past the reaching fields of Nebraska, up the stinky 75 and to my home. It will smell like my family, though my family will not be there, and I will probably collapse. If not, if I'm still having trouble keeping my eyes shut like I am now, then we'll find something to do.

Thankfully, there are people to chat with who are wide awake on the other side of the world. It's strange to imagine talking to someone when their mental state is almost the complete opposite of yours. We reveal ourselves differently when we know we should be asleep, when we're laying in bed in a dark room. If we are sitting up, showered, made up, probably caffeinated and it's light and activity outside, maybe guarded isn't the right word to use, but we're at least distracted and moving, on a momentum for the day and looking forward. If there are birds singing there, she could probably see them outside the window. Here they are phantom noises. Songs from ghosts and shadows.

I remember when I was much younger, and felt like the worst person ever when I would fall asleep praying at night, I tried to organize my thoughts for a moment before taking that huge breath and rushing in with the Dear God... The trouble is that there isn't enough time to pray for everyone's everything and maybe that's one way I justify the lesser-winded prayers. There was a retreat some time ago, lost in the blur of how many we went to every year, how many times we got on our knees and bawled and held each other to wake up early the next day and head home in the bright sunlight, I remember the speaker for that particular year was saying something about how you pray for everything and everyone you can think of, for every little detail you release from yourself and then, when you're "clear" and kneeling there in silence, it just so happens that you can hear what the person next to you is praying about... "And you say, 'OK. I can pray about that.' " So you do, and so on and so on. It's like brainstorming... for everything in existence.

The sun is starting to rise. I can see a soft blue, the color God would assign your mom's hand on your face when you've got a fever, the most comforting color in the world, and the early workers are already on the road. I can hear them. Maybe I should just make some coffee because, dear worried reader, I can't bring my eyes to shut for more than five seconds. My therapist is about to end her day at work. The sun, the same sun, is maybe just starting to ease itself on its way down to the horizon. That means that, from here, it's about to reach over and the blue light will eventually be yellow... which really makes you wonder about white light. I mean, the idea of white balance isn't really as objective as we'd like to think. She's not a very good therapist; she just said that I'm going to die on my drive home. Actually, maybe that makes her a great therapist... or a concerned acquaintance. I don't think I will. When the caffeine wears off, the hydration and calories will help, the movement and activity. The nap(s) as well. Then the caffeine again. Tell my mother not to worry.

Am I too excited to sleep? Are the latter tracks of More Adventurous haunting me? The Safran Foer book that Jermy sent? The pile of keys that rattle around the film canister where I keep letters? That she puts on red lipstick to study for exams? Awesome. Chicks, man.

Adios.

List!

What to do when back in town, in no particular order...

-play with dog
-run with dog
-comfort dog
-eat kimchi
-check/tend garden
-spend several evenings in backyard with friends and food and drink and Sigur Ros and Yo La Tengo and Iron & Wine and Bob Dylan and hookah
-string up lights and torches and music in backyard
-watch Anchorman
-see Rob Taylor, Todd Montsma, Prof. Volkers, Prof. Hubbard, Bethany Schuttinga
-dance face off at Jess, Katie's wedding
-move out of apt. with Matty
-pack for Honduras
-pick up dad from airport
-talk to/hug people my age
-finish short story
-see if flight can alter to land in LAX
-lots of sweet late night tipsy tennis action
-hello, hello, hello, hello, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
-find a turtle, become attached
-watch sunset/sunrise from roof
-visit Pencil Box
-write out Honduras pre-reflection
-chase bats
-play guitar in private
-have breakfast with friends on porch
-secure camera for Honduras
-drink beer with dad
-dig firepit? Otherwise, visit Sandy Hollow
-streeeet hockey EXTREME
-recite poetry
-long walks on beach
-go fishing, feel bad when fish swallow hook, then angry
-sleep outside
-eat cherries, spit pits, attempt to plant
-make guacamole with Mama Dee, attempt to plant
-make hummus, borscht, eat chips and salsa with Matty, run out of chips
-eat waffles with Carmela, have Dan take her to work
-eat something with leeks in it
-hear Discovery Days stories, laugh fondly
-guilt trip Bailey for not visiting, feel bad
-night time bike rides
-hackysack
-visit Blue Mountain bar

What else? What did I forget?

Add Mike Olthoff's family to your prayers. Little brother Ben was flown out to the burn unit in St. Paul's hospital after a bonfire accident Friday night. I can't imagine what would happen if one of my brothers were badly burned over the majority of their body and had an estimated six months in the hospital to fight through. They are there now, trying to get some rest for these important first few days.

Happy Father's Day

There are two mother-daughter sets here at the bagel place where I come to drink coffee, research and talk to the bagel at the counter. The girls are all young - six or so - and you have to wonder where the dads are. Sleeping in, or out golfing, maybe "out of the picture" because that girl with her mom in the corner booth looks much too sad for a girl her age.

To my left, at the employee table, a high schooler with a subtle nose ring calls her friend back. "I know. I didn't pick up because I'm at work. Well, yeah obviously. Technically, I'm not even supposed to be calling you back..." It's so great, the edge in her voice and I'm trying to stifle my laughter with both hands.

Oh goodness. The mom in the corner just moved to sit next to her daughter and they're both staring at the door with pleading eyes. The sun is all business today. Mid-90s and harsh, brutal light. Obviously they gave the father an opportunity to meet his daughter, who just started ballet day-camp, here at their favorite bagel place and, like the deadbeat he was, he couldn't muster up some balls to meet his daughter. The mom, Karen, clutches her phone nervously to her chin, rocking back and forth. Daughter Cassie quietly eats her bagel, carefully wiping her mouth with each bite. She wore her bright orange hair band for today, her favorite, and watercolor sundress.

What a sad story for Father's Day.

They decide it's about time. Karen places her large sunglasses over her eyes and clears the table as Vicky stands quietly by the door, drinking her tropically colored smoothie.

I love you dad, and mom, and brothers and sister.

Maybe I also did it because it's a step towards maturity. Maybe, but not likely. I really like the new template and header and... the other title didn't make sense at all. What have I ever been neutral on?! 

Insomnia!

I had thought we were through - she and I - and yet, here we are. Four twenty-one in the morning, and the birds are making a steady ruckus outside. I see myself alone in this large room when I look at the window, which means the sun hasn't come up yet. They have to tend to the earth, I know. And they start early. I know that too. I'm supposed to be at the office in... six and a half hours or so, making edits and going down the to-do list that will, undoubtedly, be lying on top of the pile of printed emails and script fragments next to Linda's computer. Coffee will help, but five... and a half hours of sleep would help more. Can dehydration keep you awake at night? Even if you don't feel thirsty?
Maybe it's because I looked at photos.
Maybe it's because I thought about my own personal to-do list that is still more to-do than done.
Maybe it's because I had a platonic DTR-type, why are we friends, conversation. (Funny!)
Maybe it's because I'll be in Sioux Center in one week, and that is weird.
Maybe it's because Honduras travel is after that, and arranging for the camera from Volkers and thinking up a loose script for the video.
Maybe it's because Volkers and Rob Taylor and Hani and the film festival to be planned.
Maybe it's because there's a running list of people I want to talk to before summer continues to slip away from our clenched fingers.
Lying in bed and making an effort to keep the eyes closed, kicking around and trying to slow your heartbeat is one of the most frustrating times you will experience in your life, I think.
Unless you golf, and are bad at golf.
I know what you're thinking. "Alvin, you should drink a beer as fast as you can! That's what I do and it always works for me." Well, all right mom. I'll keep that in mind if it gets to six and I'm still up.

Four thirty-six. Took a break because I'm not too interested in this post and read that Iran's supreme leader claims that because so many people voted in the election, there's no way voter fraud could have taken place. Also, "The legal structure in this country does not allow vote-rigging." It's a tall order of pomposity* and delusions with a bowl, not a cup, of organic lies on the side.

Four forty-one. Do you ever get it when you're running around during the day, lying awake at night, or showering (or doing anything, really) and a scene or a dialogue pops into your head, and you play around with it mentally, before you scribble it down somewhere. And then, when you finally do, you can't believe how self-centered you are? I mean, seriously. There was a time in my life when I used to observe the scenes and exchanges of the people around me, and not just my own.

Linda has a masters in theology and drama. Hopefully we'll get to talk about that before I take off.

I want to ask why Koreans like posing so much, but I'm starting to think that maybe it's just girls...

Four forty-eight. Birds still going. Getting that late-night, exhausted but wide-awake cold creeping in. It starts with the extremities of course, working its way toward the core.

Why doesn't Matt eat sushi anymore? What the heck is that about? Maybe he tried it in France and it sucked, but he thought it would be good because it's France and so forth. I bet that's what happened. Crazy.

I'm going to try and secure the nickname The Body this year. Really go for it this time. Alvin The Body Shim. I know. I KNOW. There should really be at least two syllables in my last name for it to really catch on... are there any asian last names with two syllables? Shim, Kim, Han, Yang, Yoo, Kang, Lee, Park, Ryou is one I guess... James The Body Ryou. Damn, that sounds better doesn't it? I need an epithet that goes well with my first name... like Alvin The Battleship Shim. Oh crap. Ship Shim. Nope. I really want the article though... Alvin The Pain Shim. Geez. That last name is really screwing this up... Alvin The Rage Shim. Alvin The Hazard Shim. Alvin The Taskmaster Shim. Alvin The Blade Shim. The Blade... Boris the Blade... try for alliteration? Alvin the Alka-seltzer. Alvin the Alienated... Rage.
Frick.
Seeing all those asian names in one line is weird. I know (several) people with those names. I know them well... but all of a sudden, we're a bunch of stereotypes. Our families own convenience stores (some friends do), laundromats (some friends do) and sushi restaurants (yes, some friends do - many others work there).

Five o'seven. David The Middle Brother Shim, got the job at a Bank in GR. I don't know if I told you this already. Big news, though!

Also, yes, we are very good at math.

-------------

Ext. Front porch. Late evening.
Three characters: Amy Adams, Tom Waits, Martin Sexton.

AMY and TOM step outside. Tom's clothes are rumpled. Amy holds a glass of wine.


Amy: What are you doing here?

Tom: I'm sorry?

Amy: Sorry. Hi. How are you? is what I meant to say.

Tom: Hello. What am I doing here?

Amy: It's good to see you.

Tom: I'm all right. I just got back...

Amy: Oh. Right. Yeah, I knew that. What's up?

Tom: Um. Well, shit. Do you want to hang out?

Amy: Ah. Yeah...

Tom: I mean, I just got back. So, whatever. Sorry.

Amy: No, it's just that a bunch of people showed up out of nowhere.

Tom: Sorry. I'm kind of tired anyway.

Amy: I don't even know who they all are, actually. They just kind of called each other.

Tom: I've got to do... something tomorrow. I have to do it, but I forget what.

Amy: Ah shit.

Tom: I'm sorry. This is weird.

Amy:No! It's... Fuck, what happene-

(enter MARTIN)

Martin: Hey! You're back! How's it going?"

Tom: Hi Martin. I'm really, really tired. I'm about to collapse right now. I was just about to go away to sleep and all that. How are you?

Martin: Doing well! Yourself?

Tom: ... ...?

Amy (mumbles): You stupid fucker...

-----------

Five sixteen! The sky is a deep, dark blue. Let's try for a few hours.

*The actual noun is pompousness, but which do you think is more fun? Exactly.

Iran and Twitter

Roughly ten new messages on Iran every seven seconds sent out on Twitter. (#IranElection) While the access and ability to communicate is a serious matter for those who are being censored (citizens of China, Burma, North Korea, Iran), it isn't hardly as useful because, of those last ten messages, five said not to list the Iranian twitter IDs, three others said to change your timezone to Tehran's.
One of them asked "isn't this a good way to spread misinfo too?" The user, simpleurbane, must have thought what anybody would have if they were following this cascade of chatter. Nobody is reliable on Twitter, and information is perhaps more prone to being lost in the various circles it runs through. The army has moved in. No it hasn't. The Lebanese army is in. No it isn't. etc.
Still others relate the feed and the protests to their safe day-to-day, maintaining, it seems, the social-journal function of Twitter.

"i should sleep after a 13 hour shift yesterday and work at 6 tomorrow. reading about #iranelection is too crazy though"

Some others post on photos from the attacks, new videos are up, reputedly from Iranians in Exile, asking the rest of the world to keep from apathy and stand with their human counterparts demanding a fair governing party. I don't know how to do that.

"RT We may be thousands of miles apart, but we all stand together today. #iranelection"

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, if anything.

Posting photos, videos, listing off email servers that are being blocked, reporting murders and reporting that camera/laptop carrying citizens are attacked on the street - this is all information that is spun around and used, collaboratively, to put pressure on an oppressive theocracy and band a digital legion of individuals together, sloppy and unorganized as we may be.

http://bit.ly/Q6T1s - Q/A with NYU professor Shirky on Twitter's effect on Iranian riots.

The representatives of our government have a difficult position to uphold (that is, if one sees a government as a tool for/of a people) and it would have been that a nation's united individuals would call on their government to speak for them. We can call on ours to acknowledge that an actual election did not take place and that it won't support a government that oppresses, censors and attacks its own citizens. What can we do, as citizens, to take a step past messaging each other constantly?

"Twitter's impact inside Iran is zero," said Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles. "Here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves." http://tiny.cc/3gNFY

It's a good article, and it goes on to cite an Iranian student saying that Twitter is the only means of communication they have to the outside world.

We're driving through Mexico with a mixture of friends from Grand Rapids and Dordt students, with some professors (Kobes, Fessler, Den Boer). "Friends from Grand Rapids" is a loose description. For instance, cousin Ducky was there, as were previous youth pastors. And others. And others.
I'm in one car, a small convertible (it was raining so the top was down) with brother David, previous youth pastor Yoon (the army guy), and cousin Ducky who keeps switching places with Dordt friend Allison... and when Ducky is there, she's always really sad and at age, like twelve. When it's Allison in our car, she's about to barf or narcoleptic. Right. And it's rainy and we occasionally see the other cars spin out and crash into the barricade. The highway is a littered with car frames and fire dancing in the rain.

So we've been on the road for awhile, so we stop by a Korean convenience store and spend lots of time deciding what we want... gourmet dark chocolate pop tarts, dried squid, Ring Pops, milkshakes, popcorn? Ducky/Allison get distracted with the knockoff purses they also have on display, and previous youth pastor Yoon steps outside to do some exercise. I decide on grapes and water - they don't have 7UP for Allison's stomach.

Boom. The grapes are, like, $7 a bunch. And David is chewing me out. I'm saying, "I didn't round up the costs, mentally. Sorry. Dang." And he's all, "Yeah, that's why I owe you $90!" and he slams my credit card down on the counter. I don't really know what that was about, but we didn't get the grapes.

It stopped raining outside and 12-year-old cousin Ducky is lying on the back of the car, soaking in the sun and feeling a little better. We hit the road until we reach our destination...

A tiny Catholic orphanage for Mexican-Korean children who, let me stop here and tell you, are THE MOST BEAUTIFUL imaginary children in the world. They are stunning. Their skin is golden, their eyes are enormous and sharp and they smile like middle school crushes.

It's situated right on the Atlantic Ocean, not the Gulf, and I don't know if the water is clean there or not, but it was - of course - perfect. We undergo an epic tale of soccer with the ninos. They terrorize us, laughing all the while, and our hearts melt and evaporate and rain down again on our delirious heads.

The strict carekeeper (of COURSE she's strict) calls us in for evening meal and we run in to grab a seat. Somehow we manage a table with the strict carekeeper... she was British actually, somehow... and my brother David STARTS EATING BEFORE PRAYER, and she smacks him off his chair with her ruler. Everyone else at our table laughs crazily. David shakes his head straight, climbs back up, and puts the bread back in the basket.

We pray and begin eating and Kobes and Fessler have a GREAT TIME talking about how they're not in labs, but on the beach in Mexico eating swordfish. They are slapping each other on the back, and coughing from their laughter. It is great.

Summer Questions

You meet your friends during the semester to ask "How's it going?" If you're good friends, you can be more specific but maybe what we're really asking is "Are you OK? Is there something especially good, bad or interesting that we can talk about?" That's when everyone is around. That's in person, when we can make use of tonal inflections and body language.
During the summer, over the phone, "How's it going?" may very well mean "How are you?" and "Are you OK?" and we might briefly check in sometimes to ask that. "You're doing all right?"
The answer has been more elusive lately.
It is still gorgeous here - I got to watch a thunderstorm make its way from across the valley, seeing the shades of rain and the occasional strike of lightning. Birds singing, sunlight streaming all the while where I was sitting. The hue of the grass shifted as the minutes ticked by, the wind carried whirring sounds past the leaves.
It was a good weekend. Larva called on her way from Iowa City to visit and we exercised social lifestyles - talking over beer, over fish, over whiskey, over coffee, over soup and burgers. With one friend's focus, and the coveted permission to ask elaborate and visceral questions - even if primarily to make sense of it to yourself, putting it up for approval - we got to describe the consecutive stages of our individual identities (student, graduate, teacher, assistant, friend, girlfriend, brother, daughter) and prescribe what we might've been, what we learned we wanted to be, what we're trying to be (leader, activist, artist).

And maybe what was easier and/or more appropriate to ask was "What exactly are you doing here?"

Because that was the grounded question of a lot of what we talked about. Who are our friends? What are they doing, what are they interested in? Who do we find we've surrounded ourselves with? And why? And what is it about those we used to love?
I meet with Linda Seger, a script consultant/author/speaker, in the mornings usually to discuss the new manuscript for her book Making A Good Script Great. (I think what we're working on is the seventh edition, but I may be mistaken.) What that means is a few new chapters, some elaboration, edits or additions to previous chapters on various tenets of scriptwriting.

Examples: montage, sub-plot, voice-over, flashback, thematic characters, thematic monologue, convincing voice and dialect, expository dialogue

Some of the work is simple - double check the names for the characters in The Usual Suspects. Pull off the opening monologue from Michael Clayton. Sometimes it's more of a challenge and she'll ask for a list of film examples to illustrate a love interest character or foreshadow/payoff and I'll scour my notes and imagine the films I left at home. The idea is to use recent (for the new edition after all) and successful films - the best way to understand these concepts is to walk through a film that you know well AKA films that have been seen by the general audience. I do that. I edit some little typos, I fill in the blanks, I come up with suggestions and watch about two films a night, adding on to the list of things to look out for...

Example from my notebook: Ch. 12
Ensemble casts - The Women, Babel, Crash, Lord of the Rings, The Royal Tenenbaums, Snatch, I'm Not There...
Catalyst Characters - Mrs. Robinson, The Graduate; Tyler Durden, Fight Club; The Joker, The Dark Knight; Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), Vicky Cristina Barcelona; shark, Jaws; demon, The Exorcist...

etc.

Most films contain a lot of these elements. Knowing this is frustrating, because it would sound easy to isolate this one piece of filmmaking in your mind and scroll through every film you've seen. That was a very mediocre road trip game actually. A long time ago, we went around the van and listed all the films we've seen one-by-one. Boggle style. So, if you said In Bruges, I couldn't say it on my turn, but I would think you were cooler. It's not that easy, and that was a long trip. I've found the most effective way is to try and keep just a few different look outs on my mind at a time.

Like this, reader. List five film examples for each idea (overlapping is allowed).
-Double protagonists
-Comic-relief characters
-Protagonist playing the skeptic against the film's plot, thereby becoming the lens through which the audience sees the film, thereby learning to suspend belief together

(You're not doing my job. I already went through this chapter... but if you come up with something good... who knows?)

Aside from that, I arrange flights and hotels, look up directions, make reservations and appointments, make/update facebook accounts, read memos on class-action lawsuits involving Google and see if other phone companies would be cheaper. Also, I know how to work a fax machine now. AND, there's an original piece by Impressionist painter Gustavo Arias Murueta that she wants to see what it could move for on eBay. Also, she wants me to set up an eBay account. I've tried to find out more information on him, and might have to look him up at the library. The internet has been little help. Isn't that weird?

When I'm not working... I read to prep. for Honduras course, recently finished some pages for Signet, research for some work to make up for Dengler's Early Brit. Lit. course, read Tolkien's thoughts on fairy stories for De Smith's Lit. Studies, write some letters, write some bad, undisciplined fiction, eat, drink, talk, laugh with Carol and Jerry, watch the lights of Colorado Springs and ask friends to come visit. (New Belgium Brewing Company is two hours from here.)

So. It's going well. But you can't expect that to really tell you anything, right?

Maybe I've got such a short attention span, or maybe I'd like to move my mind more, but I've been laying awake at night thinking about taking a weekend - the whole weekend from Friday to Sunday night - to walk through the thickest of urban Denver with the camera or taking better paper and charcoal to the park or... maybe it's just after watching so many films, and thinking and writing about creativity so much...

People have asked if I'm ready to leave Colorado. Almost. I have less than two weeks before a week in Sioux Center to move and pack and prep. before Honduras. And then, of course, Honduras, which will be a different day-to-day then here - travel with video and photo, with a handful of girls I know very little for a month and a half. Trying to dig up Spanish phrases and syntax from early high school, journeying with a heavy load and the constant, solo attempt to document with a bulky camera, an expensive one, AND a still when my ideal summer week would be one of those, and one or two good friends, and the country to explore.

I don't know that I was trying to get anything across this time but I'm tired now, and find much encouragement from reading of others' adventures. So here are mine.

ALSO. I changed the blog template. I noticed a lot of people have been using the white-on-black minima and it was getting hard to tell one from the other, mine from yours, etc. The list of you below now includes sloppy epithets, anecdotal character sketches and (in)accurate synopses. Fire away.

LARVA'S HERE!

We had Irish coffee stout, at Trinity Brew, and you might get a postcard from us with more details.
Then we had lots of sushi and (some) plum wine. It was awesome. It is my favorite thing to do with friends (eat sushi - other than cook and drink wine and smoke hookah).

THEN we drove through a windy roads, slaloming enormous boulders and...

Now we're here. And the air smells SO GOOD, apparently.

Hope you are happy too.

Bye!

Could you explain the concept behind "Information Environmentalism" and what you think about it?
"Information Environmentalism" is a term that David Levy, a professor at the University of Washington, has come up with. The idea is that we need to take an active role in deciding what information we're consuming and what it is that needs to stay by the wayside. We can't turn off our computers, nor should we want to. But I do think that we need to take a curatorial attitude towards our information streams and be very realistic about how much time we have to read and consume stuff online.

Have you done that yourself?
I'm trying to, but it's difficult. I love the novelty just as much as everybody else does. It's very, very hard for me to look away from my RSS reader with its constant stream of new stories or new takes on new stories. I'm very much into what everybody else is interested in at any given point in time.

A Time Q&A with Bill Wasike. Full Interview.

"I was talking to the head of school lunch in Baltimore, and he had a field trip where he took some kids out to a peach orchard and he said a significant percentage of kids had never had a fresh peach. They'd only had peaches in syrup, and it blew their minds. And that should not be. Everyone in America should experience a fresh peach."

Michael Pollan, discussing the new documentary Food Inc. on Newsweek. Full Interview.

We should really get that a screening of that film at Dordt.

Apologies for the links and pointing on this post, but I don't have much to say at the moment...
EXCEPT that I'm house sitting for my boss in her beautiful cabin situated remotely in the mountains AND I got a call from Miss Laura Mac notifying that she will be in the area tomorrow evening (just missing the Farmer's Market down the street), but it will be a good dosage of sanity to speak with a good friend in person. Microbrew!

I've started back on Twitter, did some cleaning of those I was following, and added much more to try out. I asked Betsy just a minute ago, when she thought I was being grumpy, to sign on and combat the drivel by posting intelligent and interesting updates but she decided to be a pacificist. Chicks, man. Anyway, those two gems of current events were found through Twitter. SO, you should join Twitter - Carmela, Ross and Jess especially - and act like an educated person.

"Stop Following Me!" or Why Twitter sucks, though it may be a big deal at one point in our lives...

Two good friends of mine started following me on Twitter today... which reminded me that I had Twitter. But it's OK! One of the friends is really, really bored and the other is using it to find a job... I hope that helps, but I honestly can't see that it would. A business, that you happen to admire and follow on Twitter, is going to say, "We're hiring two spots!" and you have to reply in order to get an interview?

I started Twitter several months ago when I read that Chef Grant Achatz, of Alinea in Chicago, and Mike Ruhlman, the go-to food-writer of modern cuisine - gastronomy or otherwise - had Twitter. I really liked what they said, or did, in regards to cooking and was really excited to get to see the casual, unrehearsed, behind-the-music thoughts of these two figures in American cuisine. Then, I don't know how they found me, the people who actually know me, but I starting receiving these email notifications from Twitter. My friends and peers found me and, through them, I found other people I knew. That was cool and exciting and communal, except that everyone I was following turned out to be... extremely dull.

Edit: Everything they said turned out to be extremely dull.

Re-Edit: Everything they said, on Twitter, turned out to be extremely dull.

"Wooooo... I want some village pizza...... Yuuuum...."

"Kind of bored."

"has started to pack :D"

"hoping that the penguins force a game 7..."

"making stuff"

"Met with Dr. Veenstra this morning. I wonder what he thinks about me. 'What are you doing in my office?' probably."

OK. That last one was me, but the others are from people I love, respect and think are hilarious. And I could honestly care less about any of the above. If these people said these things to me, in person, out of the blue, I would be puzzled. "Bitch, I don't care!" and the like. You know how it goes. Then go get some pizza. Geez.

It turned out, though, that the celebrities were boring people as well. If they weren't peddling what they had already written about (in their blogs or whatever), then they actually used twitter to connect with the people in THEIR lives. This is a problem to me! I want my celebrities to stay on their pedestal! If Philip Seymour Hoffman were to come to town, I would love to have a drink with him and he would think I were hilarious and we would be friends but I wouldn't want to follow him on Twitter because that would make him boring. Twitter makes you boring. Twitter takes celebrities off their pedestal - where they should be - and makes them say stupid, insignificant, human things that let you down because you were expecting them to be groundbreaking with every breath.

We're not all living to such high expectations, of course. There should be some credit to an avenue that encourages contact and writing, of all things, from one person to the world. Says Sarah Milstein, who wrote a book on Twittering, "An individual post may not be interesting, but over the course of weeks you build a meaningful picture of somebody, you get a sense of the rhythms of someone's life." (Full Article - with tips on how to write interesting tweets) Instead of seeing a fact-by-fact feed for information, Milstein is actually claiming that Twitter is a way to get to know somebody.

Really?

It is satisfying, in some strange way, to send out a small piece of exposition or identity in the midst of a hectic week or late at night alone in a workspace. This isn't isolated to Twitter - blogs, facebook notes and journals hit on the same spot.
This site maintains that 10% of the users are responsible for more than 90% of the content. I bet 40% alone are from Rainn Wilson (Dwight, from the American Office - you'd think he was funny from his acting, and from that brief and eloquent letter to CNN. I mean, clearly, he's a complex and capable human being... but his tweets are hit-and-miss, and mostly dumb.) Regardless, it seems most people abandoned Twitter, having realized that they didn't have interesting things to say in 140 characters (or that they would be better said on facebook or, oh crap, their blogs) and quit, or they're quietly on but not contributing. This article titled "How Twitter Will Change the World" says that hearing what people had for breakfast is actually more interesting than one would think. "We don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask." Without our even having to ask... thereby exacerbating the lack of filter in our digital lives. Except that most answers to "How's it going?" are rendered insignificant when the conversation is reduced to one-sided, 140 character rants. All of a sudden, YOU become that one co-worker who won't let you idly exist and breaks the peaceful quiet with, "So my kid did the cutest thing the other day..." YOU become that guy we try to avoid walking down the hall with because he thinks you want to hear about every drink he had over the weekend. And when dozens of people are simultaneously telling you about their eating habits or hopes for the Lakers, that's when people stop caring and start drinking. The problem: few of us can manage to be interesting in 14o characters. We're filling up the servers with our shinfo.
But the kids are doing it because they still text during movies and their hormones drive them to care about when their friends are feeling sleepy or insecure. And who better to tap into the world's young, vulnerable and dim? The church. Apparently it's a good idea to allow caffeinated youths to feed their ADD by talking constantly through service instead of raising hands or breaking up into groups. I sent the article to my youth pastor brother and said that I would never join a church that regularly held their services this way. Crazy. He wasn't, if I remember correctly, ready to whip out the holy water, but he wasn't pulling out the projector in the sanctuary and asking the congregation to bring in their laptops either.
And there's a space for quick, digital communication in the business arena... somehow... I'm not really in the loop on that if someone wants to explain how Twitter is better than, or different to, emailing than please do so. For conference buzz?
And if the public won't read/watch/listen to the news, then politicians can keep their constituents updated on any policy updates... which, if it's intriguing or threatening enough, will to lead to their web site or a news source. All major news sources are Twittering as well and if some people find usefulness in their access to information, by all means.
But this "social interface," like any other, is about the people. Let's not forget that. And Twitter is currently best when we, as a collective group, come together to acknowledge our seemingly menial, daily culture. The existence of our voices, our expressed thoughts, is a celebration to our unified humanity. Our opinions, thoughts, desires, failures, triumphs and epiphanies are a product of the lives we lead and Twitter is best used to collect that and make fun of each other. (You can sign in to comment and bring other morons in for humiliation with your Twitter account.)
Otherwise, you should just check The Onion regularly and not have to depend on Twitter to let The Onion tell you when it has new stuff up. If we're going to fill it up with redundant updates for higher ad counts and our mundane details of - holy crap! - how difficult finals are, then we might as well use it as a shooting range. Maybe each social/professional group will have to have a computer geek (Travis, pay attention) to set up a private Twitter for certain individuals, and maintain keeping the unpopular kids out. WITH a shinfo foul option... or, you know, we could just not spew shinfo down each other's throats. We could take 140 blank characters as a challenge. Accountability, coupled with ruthless elitism, is our hope for productivity. And... go!

It's interesting, if not completely unsettling or hilarious, to compare the understanding of evil I have now to then, and earlier back when. Back when Satan was a scapegoat, but unattached to any actual practice in the world because such practices didn't exist. Keep in mind this was very far back and, for that matter, God was a hero for most things because most things were good. And I ran around home, school, church - the weekly routine - merrily spewing what I was taught to recite. When I was a bit older, I found a cigarette in my house and remember my spine immediately chilled and, as dramatic as it seems, there was no sound. I must have been eleven or twelve when I locked myself in the bathroom, set it on my lips, looked in the mirror and actually went dizzy from the image. Total badass, I know. Nicotine, alcohol, sex, swearing - all inexcusable then. Black and white and that was good enough. I went to public school after sixth grade, after that first innocent encounter with the cigarette, and made friends with the greasy, hacky-sacking stoner kids. Their parents had complicated, strained relationships; they smoked weed when they could; smoked cigarettes aggressively and (talked about how they) had sex every weekend. I was friends with them up until we moved to Iowa . They knew I didn't smoke or drink or sleep around and, somehow, we were pretty good friends. I'm older now, and my understanding of evil shifts to what silences me during the day and keeps me up at night - none of those earlier vices even comes close to the list now, but it must have been easier living an existence with such specific targets. Is nicotine a stronger addiction than greed? Corruption? Injustice? Apathy? Fear? What I'm noticing is that my initial understanding of sin, of DONTs, involved vague but specific-seeming rules. Don't lie, cheat, fight or ask questions. From there it was don't smoke, don't drink, don't have sex and don't talk about it. (For the record, family, I'm not having sex.) I'm not afraid that my current roster of evils will "phase out" into yet another list, and that to another etc. but it's an unsettling idea to consider when you go about your day, meeting with people, reading about what's happening and hearing stories. And it's necessary, I think, to being to understand what's been built in your existence to stay up at night to wrestle with.

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Jer - I saw Annie Hall recently too. Had a strong New York/Seinfeld conversation energy to it, I thought.

Dee - Scott and Margaret and Dan recommended Robertson Davies to me on various occasions. I have to yet to do so. I saw 'The Girl with the Pearl Earring" in a used bookstore today. Really, don't read it?

Joel - Persepolis the film is fantastic - lovingly drawn (by hand). I'm sure the graphic novel is as well. I don't want to fight your family, but it seems you want me to. So... SM was a waste of talent, craft, preparation and lots of money.

Up (2009) - Carl loses his balloon when Ellie whirls around and scares him in her clubhouse. They go upstairs to see it across the dilapidated room and she pushes him to cross the single plank and retrieve it. Halfway there, he falls through and CUT TO: ambulance wailing down the street CUT TO: Carl, heavily cast in plaster, in bed and Ellie comes to visit. Then there's a montage of them getting married, buying the dilapidated house, fixing it up, going on picnics, thinking of children, sharing their dreams, growing old, getting sick, dying, leaving. In all seriousness, it could have ended there.

The Hangover (2009) - The lines from the trailers are still funny in the film. That rarely happens. Not a great film, but an OK one and a really good time for guys who dream about debauchery and hedonism in Vegas with their pals and having Meat Loaf sing at their wedding... which is most of us.

El Espinazo del diablo or The Devil's Backbone (2001) - His awesome majesty, Guillermo del Toro's "brother" twin film to Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is another story that explores supernatural notions against a very harsh, very visceral, war-torn Spain. "What is a ghost?" is the first line of the film and it reverberates with the characters as they struggle with friendship and self-worth (orphans), passion and responsibility (caretakers, teachers) and anger from their past. Though not as crisp or beautiful as Pan's Labyrinth (or Hellboy, for that matter), it's an engaging, violent and menacing film. A film that makes you hate the antagonist as much as this does is one sign, among many, of effective storytelling. It's a personal and complex hatred and it's thrown right back at you.

Peddling pt. 1

It may seem like I'm turning into that "friend" who's always telling you about some new product, film, album or book that you HAVE to read... in fact, I read a really great short story in the New Yorker on that very premise. Let me see if it's available to read online...

Boom. Click.

Amazing what the internet can do, right? Especially on the super-sleek dual core processor of a Macbook...

Um. So I've been reading McSweeney's since before it was mentioned on Juno, but after I moved out to Iowa where I met my buddy Jason and, via Jason, Ben Folds, Robert Post, gin, the north Minnesota coast, Mountain Dew, the pseudo-Irish, robot penises and, like I said, McSweeneys. Currently, the New Today feature on the site is a very quick, genuine, sad and funny essay by Robin Hemley (writing professor at Univ. of Iowa, for crying out loud) on his current experience in the Philippines. There's a lot of good writing on McSweeney's - some features are more hit-and-miss than others... it seems the lists used to be a lot funnier than they have been... but I started reading 'Dispatches from Manila' after, well, we traveled to Manila for ten days.

This was during Christmas break 08-10 with Professor Volkers. We spent only ten days there, but we spent ten days there with the sole purpose to meet poor people and see how they live. I've rambled enough about that experience elsewhere...

But there's a lingering, how would you say, sentiment? Maybe not, but we won't take any more time to think of a more accurate word. The memories of certain scenes from that trip still play vividly in my mind. It helps to have a stock of images and notes to fall back on, but even during the semester when we got back, even here in a nice suburb of Colorado Springs, certain moments will come back to me. So there is, of course, an interest in the country, and in hearing other stories... and if they're from a writing professor's experience on his Guggenheim fellowship, why not?

OK. I made about $68.33 from this post. There's lots of microbreweries in Colorado.