Favorite Songs (Not Albums) of 2014

Todd Terje - "Johnny and Mary"

Absolutely not too long at six and half minutes. The slowly constructed warmth of warbling keys, a breathily sung story, and cautious percussion eventually settle into an electro Chariots of Fire groove that is given about four and a half minutes to crest, crash, and sink away back into the sand.

Ariel Pink - "White Freckles"

This is the only song from Pom Pom that approaches former favorite album of 2010, Before Today. It's as weird as it is fun as it is musically confounding. Video game glam.

Ariana Grande - "Love Me Harder"

This is the kind of radio pop one often dismisses as an instant Forever 21 playlist classic. Yet, hear that chorus, hear those fluttering "Ooooos" and the space they give the song's perfectly stuttered synths to shine. Blissful pop, perfectly paced.

TV On the Radio - "Happy Idiot"

Even on imperfect albums, they always seem to put out at least one song to stand alongside such career highlights as "Wolf Like Me" and "Staring at the Sun".

RMR Vol. 2: More from El Centro de la Raza

A drawn seating chart to help recall names, a check-in pad, and a free-will donation tin.

This is an ongoing series in self and service evaluation. In these posts I utilize analysis questions, reflection approaches, and rubrics that I have gathered over several years of teaching university level Service-Learning courses and apply them to my own service experiences in Seattle, Washington. I am putting my methods under their own microscope. Rubber, Meet Road.

---

Nobody has a phone.

Ok, I have a phone. And two other people have phones. We are the youngest in the room and stick out like sore thumbs. They accompany their elderly family members to senior lunch and whip out a phone occasionally; one keeps a single earbud in at all times.

The room is not full of longtime friends, but you'd be forgiven for making that assumption based on the hum of voices echoing around the El Centro basement. The majority only knows each other from lunch here. Among other things this leads me to think about how the absence of technology has affected and continues to affect their relationships in this time. Could a room of millennials sit at tables, wait for food, and for an hour each week get to know each other? I assume it would look more like a prayer circle: heads down silently regarding their (de)vices. What I see at El Centro's senior lunch seems to be an increasingly rare tableau in our day and age.

In the conversation on power and privilege, I find myself more acutely aware of how much of both of these I have acquired or was handed at birth, and more often I'm sensitive to the stale backwash that technology leaves in my system, particularly as I approach others. I rarely sit through a meal without using my phone or without several people at the table placing theirs on the table alongside their food. How symbolic. Sustenance adjacent to sustenance. One ingested to give and replenish energy necessary for life, the other an inorganic drain on energy, ejecting us from conversation and presence into the cloud where it's too thick to see faces.

My phone has trained me to multitask. Late last year I discussed with a friend (@whenwherehowe) his New Year's resolution to stem the tendency to follow twitter while reading a book, watch a show while looking up all the actors in IMDB, and other habits of our time. I think this was a discerning approach to deal practically with technological fatigue. It highlights a reality that I hadn't yet appreciated, which is that I am always, forever multitasking when I have the opportunity to receive a text or call while talking or dining or biking with others. I am available to be pulled away from reality into parallel, floating interfaces that are necessarily more pale in comparison to the colors of presence.

I'm trying to remember my early years of college before smart phones came around. I held out for many years, but in September 2012, I ditched my flip phone for the iBrain. It's not true that something died then, but I think it's fair to say something decelerated growth in subsequent months and years. This thanksgiving, we've been pondering placing a phone basket by the front door for our guests and selves. I wonder how that will feel.

To steer this back to the seniors and El Centro, there is truth in what I see around those tables. There is presence, and it must have something to do with both the generational gap and the shrinking gap between life and death for many of them. Who has time for twitter when dementia is setting in and your grandkids have to remind you of their names at check-in? At El Centro, I put my phone away for shame. They don't have time for such nonsense.

The buzzing room holds up a fine microscope to my (de)vice. It's time I looked into it.

This entry grew out of the analysis question, "How are differences of power and privilege visible in your service?" From there, I thought of the power of technology and the inversion of that power dynamic as seen in the folks without it.

RMR Vol. 1: Day 1 at El Centro de la Raza

These are the same words as in the previous post, but I'm copying them again for cohesiveness in my Rubber, Meet Road series of posts.

I found El Centro months before moving here. It was ubiquitous in many a job search given my criteria and clearly a prominent--if not preeminent--center for the Latino community in King County. I got into a volunteer orientation about two weeks after arriving, and since that first meeting became more than convinced that I was going to spend much time there.

The subtitle of the organization is "The Center for People of All Races", which can seem a bit incongruent with the name itself. Nonetheless, I have found this to be true in my one day, four hour shift volunteering with the seniors and homeless meals program. Here are some of the moments that I remember:

A woman of Asian heritage sitting with her friends brought me a piece of bread while I was signing in those arriving for lunch. Her name was Li Bueno. Lunch had not been served yet, so this bread must have been from home. I thanked her.

Lotería is a like a Latin bingo. It's simple and social. The main difference has to do with the "numbers". In lotería, the cards have household objects, fruits, caricatures, musical instruments, or the moon on them. I lead a couple of the rounds. As leader you call out the card that is drawn in Spanish and English. Everybody helps each other hear and find the right spot that was called. There is a bit of banter in between the leader and players, too. So when I called "El Catrín" ("The Gentleman", as Raquel translated it in an earlier round), several of the women called back at me. "Eres tú, Aaron!" ("That's you, Aaron!"). "Nooooo, I don't smoke!" The next card was "La Dama". "This one's me!" They all laughed.

There is more than one concerning card in lotería for the nature of the caricature. Here's the most difficult one.

While El Centro program director Raquel was leading the first round, I was paying close attention to the translations and was already anticipating how she might articulate this particular image. I was thinking to myself whether I would want to play this game at all because of the weight of some of the racial tone-deafness contained in some of these images. Raquel translated it as "The Dancer", which...ok that's a pretty flat way to skirt racism. Is that a dancer? Ok. Yeah, I guess it could be that. It's just not called "The Dancer" or anything close in Spanish.

Lunch is held in a room full of seven circular tables with eight chairs each. After serving everybody, I was given a plate to sit down with. I can't say what the conversations were like in the rest of the groups or what they're like on any other day at El Centro, but this table I sat at was eye-opening. You might not think a Latino man and a black woman have much to talk about, but get on the subject of poverty, equal treatment, and social justice and they're knee deep in commonality--at least that's what I observed at the table. They spoke of their experiences in hospitals, state offices, and other service-oriented environments. The rest of the table gave consenting head nods if not words. She even addressed me as a person who probably doesn't suffer much of what they are discussing. She wasn't wrong, and I actually appreciated her pointing it out. If we are willing to use the words "under-privileged" to describe sectors of the society, why do we balk at calling ourselves "privileged"? What's clear is that class struggle, race, and equality are not #ferguson conversations. They are everywhere. These things were cut short by a hard right turn to Kennedy assassination theories. Made me think about being in my 60s and discussing 9/11 around a table where a kid who's only read about it in history books is rolling his eyes at how damn old we all are.

Here is a statement of intent:

I will blog about these times. There is richness in them. For years, I've been teaching Service-Learning courses in which I instructed students in how to analyze and decode their volunteer experiences to extract meaning from them. I need to do this myself as well if I am planning on not just helping but serving. To serve is to receive as much as you give. Helping happens when one person has power and another does not; service happens within a relationship of equals, where no power or privilege dynamic is in play. It's time I take these ideas and apply them to my own volunteering to see what I can unearth. Rubber, Meet Road.

El Centro de la Raza: day 1 and a statement of intent

I found El Centro months before moving here. It was ubiquitous in many a job search given my criteria and clearly a prominent--if not preeminent--center for the Latino community in King County. I got into a volunteer orientation about two weeks after arriving, and since that first meeting became more than convinced that I was going to spend much time there.

The subtitle of the organization is "The Center for People of All Races", which can seem a bit incongruent with the name itself. Nonetheless, I have found this to be true in my one day, four hour shift volunteering with the seniors and homeless meals program. Here are some of the moments that I remember:

A woman of Asian heritage sitting with her friends brought me a piece of bread while I was signing in those arriving for lunch. Her name was Li Bueno. Lunch had not been served yet, so this bread must have been from home. I thanked her.

Lotería is a like a Latin bingo. It's simple and social. The main difference has to do with the "numbers". In lotería, the cards have household objects, fruits, caricatures, musical instruments, or the moon on them. I lead a couple of the rounds. As leader you call out the card that is drawn in Spanish and English. Everybody helps each other hear and find the right spot that was called. There is a bit of banter in between the leader and players, too. So when I called "El Catrín" ("The Gentleman", as Raquel translated it in an earlier round), several of the women called back at me. "Eres tú, Aaron!" ("That's you, Aaron!"). "Nooooo, I don't smoke!" The next card was "La Dama". "This one's me!" They all laughed.

There is more than one concerning card in lotería for the nature of the caricature. Here's the most difficult one.

While El Centro program director Raquel was leading the first round, I was paying close attention to the translations and was already anticipating how she might articulate this particular image. I was thinking to myself whether I would want to play this game at all because of the weight of some of the racial tone-deafness contained in some of these images. Raquel translated it as "The Dancer", which...ok that's a pretty flat way to skirt racism. Is that a dancer? Ok. Yeah, I guess it could be that. It's just not called "The Dancer" or anything close in Spanish.

Lunch is held in a room full of seven circular tables with eight chairs each. After serving everybody, I was given a plate to sit down with. I can't say what the conversations were like in the rest of the groups or what their like on any other day at El Centro, but this table I sat at was eye-opening. You might not think a Latino man and a black woman have much to talk about, but get on the subject of poverty, equal treatment, and social justice and they're knee deep in commonality--at least that's what I observed at the table. They spoke of their experiences in hospitals, state offices, and other service-oriented environments. The rest of the table gave consenting head nods if not words. She even addressed me as a person who probably doesn't suffer much of what they are discussing. She wasn't wrong, and I actually appreciated her pointing it out. If we are willing to use the words "under-privileged" to describe sectors of the society, why do we balk at calling ourselves "privileged"? What's clear is that class struggle, race, and equality are not #ferguson conversations. They are everywhere. These things were cut short by a hard right turn to Kennedy assassination theories. Made me think about being in my 60s and discussing 9/11 around a table where a kid who's only read about it in history books is rolling his eyes at how damn old we all are.

Here is a statement of intent:

I will blog about these times. There is richness in them. For years, I've been teaching Service Learning courses in which I instructed students in how to analyze and decode their volunteer experiences to extract meaning from them. I need to do this myself as well if I am planning on not just helping but serving. To serve is to receive as much as you give. Helping happens when one person has power and another does not; service happens within a relationship of equals, where no power or privilege dynamic is in play. It's time I take these ideas and apply them to my own volunteering to see what I can unearth.

Gravel Worlds 2014

I sit here some 48 hours removed from my Gravel Worlds experience. Head is swimming, body buzzing pleasingly, grammar uninteresting.

Leading up to the race, I honed a mantra: "low expectations, high hopes, might finish". You see, I heard many stories directly out of many friends' mouths about how much their first Worlds hurt them, about how they made it 80 miles and had to phone for a ride. There are also certain aches and pains that only 150 miles of gravel roads will reveal, so be ready to hurt in new and unexciting ways, I was told. These and other cautionary talks are a big part of why I've felt so stupid happy since feeling the last of 153 miles melt away beneath my legs on Saturday.

About those legs: they are sun-scorched, they carried granite and limestone strata, they move now with a gratifying groan, they carried the day.

Here is what I remember:

1. Didn't need the 4:30 alarm--was well awake before. Josh Rice arrived at 5:10 to shuttle Austin and myself.
2. Rode first 15 miles amongst friends, next 40 with Berly to Garland. Others like Amen, Pedley, J.D., and Tim had joined up by the time we rolled into Malcolm (66 miles).
3. At the Malcolm stop, I reassessed my goals and decided that I needed to take extremely short breaks the rest of the way if I was going to finish by sunset, so I set off alone for the next 63 miles until Hickman.
4. Rode with Kat part of the way to Hickman, seesawed with Carnes and McLaughlin a bit. Stuck to my commitment of spending less than 10 minutes at the checkpoints and oases--enough to refill water and Kobayashi a polish dog, pickle, or whatever salty foods were available.
5. At 90 miles, a dormant right knee suddenly got angry. It hasn't hurt like that since its 2002 reconstruction surgery. The upper/inner corner hissed with every stroke, and I began to ask myself if I could go another 60+ miles. Speculating that the root of the problem was my foot angle, I adjusted it to be slightly more pigeon-toed. The self-diagnosis worked; the pain disappeared after 3-4 miles never to be felt again. Amazing.
6. Passed Rhino and Russell leaving as I arrived at the winery oasis (114 miles). If I could catch them, I thought, it would make a perfect home stretch out of the last 40 miles.
7. They were lingering at the gas station when I rolled into Hickman (129 miles) where we were also caught by Kat. The four of us (two geared, two SS) churned out the last 25 together.
8. With one mile left we were swarmed by 4-5 others, including Carnes and McLaughlin, to make an 8-way tie for the finish time of 14 hours and 14 minutes just as the sun was disappearing at 8:29pm.

All day, I kept the hope of finishing in the forefront of my thoughts: the feeling of lying down in the grass and drinking a most satisfying beer, of high-fiving other finishers, and of having ridden 70 more gravel miles than I'd ever done at once. I have not been disappointed. It feels as if I have my own personal BCE/CE crossover. There was a before Gravel Worlds, and now there is an after. There were guesses, and now there is certainty. There was a question mark, and now there is an answer.

So what did I take from this?

As far as bicycling goes, a ton. I learned to ride my own race and be patient. I learned to stick to my goals and my plan even if it meant I jumped ahead or slipped behind a friend group. I learned I have a lot more endurance than I knew. I am amazed to say I never felt like I was digging very deep, which makes me think I could have gone harder and faster.

As for life takeaways, finishing Gravel Worlds comes at a particularly momentous time when many existential questions are asking themselves. I refer to my impending move to Seattle next month, which I've described previously as a "throwing of my life to the mercy of the wind". With so many unknowns looming I approached Gravel Worlds as not only a thoroughly romantic farewell to my prairie homeland but as a 153 mile if-then statement to myself. If I can do this thing I am afraid of not being able to do, then [...].

Last takeaway is the unbelievable community that I have found in 5-ish years of Lincoln Hustle, nacho rides, BicycLincoln, and Cycle Works. The experiences that lead me to this moment are myriad, but I can put a finger on the spontaneous combustion of the summer of '09 and the fine friends that continue to orbit this city and bicycles in what feels like my own personal Big Bang.

Thanks, all, for reading and being a part of that.

Three cheers! Three tears! Dust to dust! Dusk to dusk!

The tree with the lights out of it

"It's called 'Breach' and was installed in 2009. It's a pretty neat sculpture because--"

And there is as far as I could ever get. I couldn't finish the sentence, and this annoyed me endlessly because filling in the "because" of aesthetic appreciation is super fun. I remember a friend once asking, "Why do you always have to know exactly why you like something?" The coy answer would have been "Because I like to."

A couple weeks ago I found myself again reflecting on the significance of the sculpture, finding that my deepest reach into thought was inches away from the kernel I sought. When I brought it up a friend commented, "It's neat because in different seasons it means different things." After a few days of chewing on it, this turned out to be the thought I had been missing.

The sculpture of the tree is stagnant and lifeless. It is passive to the surrounding space. It is inorganic, and seen through the changing seasons it offers a mirror to the rest of the world around it. In its lifelessness, it calls into focus the splendor of the organic. In this way, it is a sculpture not of a tree but of all the other trees. In this metallic tree we see reality reflected that much more fully. The real, life-giving branches nearby gain more reality due to the juxtaposition of these metal ones. We don't need this metal tree to know the other trees are real, but without it maybe we notice them less. Maybe we care less. Maybe we miss one of those sweet moments of gasping at spring or the flush of fall.

So I arrived at my because, and while there may be more to unearth from this idea, I'm happy to have found the source for more reflection. There's also a great connection here with Saussure's ideas of the sign and stuff I haven't thought about since early grad school. Much more to chew on!

Since I'm on the subject, please enjoy this tree-awe from Annie Dillard: 

A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one. A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes, it splits, sucks and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out even more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air.

Tax Happy

She is a soft-spoken woman with a beautiful, seven year-old daughter and a hardworking husband. Together Lucia and Esteban make enough to have paid off their home in the 10 years they've been together. We exchange a joke as the cautious tax preparer ponders how to enter their double last names. You can tell they are happy people.

"Es que aquí se pierde el apellido maternal y se mantiene solamente el paternal del marido."
(Here you drop the maternal last name and keep just the husband's paternal last name)

"¿Esto no es sexista?"
(Isn't that sexist?)

She laughs, and so Esteban and I realize we can too. You can tell they are happy people, except maybe for on this day: they've come to pay their taxes again.

I've done their return more than once before, and it never ends well. This year I will be their interpreter. What I remember is the pale look of resignation. They know the ending to the story and yet it must be read aloud to them anyway. Lucia and Esteban owe the IRS several thousands of dollars every year. Esteban is a contracted drywall installer, and as a self-employed laborer does not have any taxes withheld from his paychecks. Instead, he gets hit with a wrecking ball of ~$5,000 self-employment tax each year. This year, we talk about making estimated payments for 2014 to hopefully stay ahead of the game, but there's little money for estimated future payments when you're still paying off 2012's $9000 tax debt.

Here's the hook: Lucia and Esteban are undocumented workers (i.e. illegal immigrants). They have each lived 20+ years in this country, and although they dutifully file their tax returns yearly they have no hope of ever becoming citizens without a reform in the immigration process. They apply yearly for residence, and then, when turned down, they file their taxes again. They pay thousands year after year into programs such as Social Security and Medicaid that they will never benefit from.

Lucia's voice softens a bit as she explains: "Nos dijeron que había mucho movimiento positivo en la política de inmigración...que iba a haber reforma el año pasado." (They said there was a lot of positive stuff happening for immigration policy...that there would be a reform last year.)

There at the end of that phrase is the key: last year. Speaker Boehner, as of February 6th, 2014, has already shelved the idea of pursuing reform this year, too. When these model non-citizens are responsibly filing their taxes in a country that continues to refuse to recognize them (unless we need their $), what's the point? You may ask why they are filing at all. It's to be in good standing while hoping for a reform that would possibly provide them a pathway to citizenship, allowing them the benefits they are denied now based on a technicality. I say technicality (legal status) because they are as citizen-like as any of us. They own a home, their kids go to my neighborhood schools (for which they pay property tax), they live down the block from me, Lucia works at a restaurant I frequent, they bought a new car last year. You know: America, right?

The three of us are talking about all of this as the preparer tries to find the box for Mexican residency, and it seems appropriate to pause to say something I don't know if I've ever put into words: "En caso de que nadie les haya comunicado esto antes, les quiero decir honestamente que les quiero aquí en este país y en mi comunidad. Uds. son una parte importante de mi ciudad." (In case no one has ever said this to you before, I must tell you honestly that I want you here in this country and in my community. You are an important part of my city.)

Was I saying it for me? To say to the face of an actual person what I have long believed to the point of tears?

Lucia and Esteban take their stack of papers; we shake hands and exchange wishes to see each other again next year. Esteban smiles: "Este año dono todos mis ingresos a la iglesia a ver qué pasa." (This year I'll give all my income to the church and see what happens.)

You can tell they are happy people.

On Wheels

On reservation lands, western New Mexico

Each cresting hill birthed new miles of the same reality: sunlicked desert, tumbling weeds, and a diminishing road steering my eyes to the next horizon. For all our eyes do, they just can't see the grandness of these places. They only look side to side and try to piece it together like your phone's panorama feature. This is the catch of binocular vision: you will see deeply, but narrowly. A camera does even less, so here I find myself trying with words.

I felt camaraderie with larger things like this tree. We are shadow casters. In a monotonous landscape, we are the markers of relative distance. On the day I saw three vehicles I began saluting the trees. The solitude was wide as the sky, and my tree friends reduced my loneliness to a manageable level. To some degree, the thing I most noticed when looking over enormous stretches of desert road was how wonderfully and terribly alone I was. There's no burst of adrenaline at the realization--just the steady understanding that if I don't make my body make my bicycle carry me over that horizon, I'll be sucked into this unfeeling, barren black hole and end up shadowless as a shrub.

I kept a list of things wonderful and horrible. Here are some highlights:

1. Ol' Willy: Ol' Willy died a day or two before I got to Quemado, NM. He was the talk of the town. These are direct quotes from conversations I recorded.
-Ya hear 'bout ol' Willy?
-Yeah--did. How old was ol' Willy?
-Fifty-six.
Then, the next morning, two other (skinny) locals:
-Diabetes finally got him. You see the way he used to eat? Hell, that'll kill ya bigger'n shit.
-The way they all eat...I bet you can't find 10 in this county that can walk from one end of town to the other without stopping to catch their breath.

2. The dogs: I am an aberration here. The dogs know this and shout themselves hoarse at the strange, metallic humanoid. Their growls end in question marks tagging sentences of instinctive, guttural confusion. They give chase but for their chase no answer is given. I appreciate their lives. On the day I rolled through 70 miles of unmaintained roads, they offered bursts of fear-energy needed to push harder, farther, faster.

3. Frozen bottles: 15 hours is a long time for it to be below freezing. So long that all of your water bottles will freeze overnight if you don't empty them. Duh? I guess? Luckily, the morning I woke up at El Morro National Monument to a gaggle of frozen friends, I was only a half mile from the park office where there was hot water to melt them back to usefulness.

4. Lyman Lake State Park was closed for the winter, but the closed gate allowed plenty of room to sneak my bicycle under in order to camp away from the highway. I arrived at Springerville, AZ around 4pm from Quemado, NM and found a Subway to munch some carbs. From there, I had about one hour to reach Lyman Lake before sunset at a distance of 18 miles. Holding that average speed for an hour felt too tall a task for how tired I was at that stage, but I knew it would be a big help to cut into the next day's planned 110 miles. I can't explain how I rode so fast, but I made it before sunset and got the tent set up as the temperature dropped into the 20s. It wasn't a downhill, but it was a short, manageable goal. Reaching it was a highlight I celebrated alone. Were they self high-fives or clapping?

5. Park rangers: The one parked 20 meters from my tent was just waiting for me to get up. I was camped two feet on the wrong side of the fence at Petrified Forest National Park. He knew it was illegal. I knew it was illegal. But the night before, I arrived five minutes late to the exit, and as the sun was setting I had to move quickly to make camp. Explaining this and showing my bicycle won a smirk of sympathy: "Damn cold last night, huh?"

6. Friends: It is a blessing to have friends whose lens for the world is set to the same aperture and zoom as mine. Chris and Tarah Hall were a part of one of my defining times in Costa Rica, and out of those shared experiences and general like-mindedness, when we get together we do a lot of idea chewing. C and T don’t have much time these days to dissect all their experiences with others: they have quite a bit to process as graduate students and elementary teachers in largely native schools. Our conversations could be described as stimulating and overwhelming among other adjectives of greatness. They gave parking for my car and showed me around Gallup. They took me to get stuffed sopapillas and let me borrow some gear. These are friends you keep.

Favorite Music of 2013

In no particular order, these are the albums I enjoyed most from 2013.

Appleseed Cast - Illumination Ritual
It’s been more than a decade since they last released an album that would’ve made my list (Low Level Owl vol.1, 2001), and I held little hope they would ever return. But Illumination Ritual, while not as immediate as earlier releases, pushes many of those old buttons that remind of my fondness for their older catalogue. A satisfying new memory.

Califone - Stitches

Old faithful. Seeing them play in a living room in Omaha last May prepped me for more of their folksy meditations.

Charles Bradley - Victim of Love

If the story behind this guy (see: “Soul of America” documentary) doesn’t win you over, the sound will. This is so easy to love. 

Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe

Bizarro Hot Chip, these guys. Hits me right in the hips, too, but there’s a broader emotional landscape here than with the London dudes. Lauren Mayberry’s range carries the album through many tracks vindictive, comforting, bitter, and hopeful. Exhausting to body and heart.

Cage the Elephant - Melophobia

Listening to a college radios station that doesn’t introduce the artist or song means that Shazam is a key tool for my new music acquisition. In late October, I Shazamed (ugh) two songs in two days from the same band and album. There are several radio-ready tracks here among other slower numbers I could do without. The peaks make the valleys worth it, though. Life philosophy, album review.

Dear Herman - Sincerely, Dorothy

This album surprised me. Thinking about it now, I’m surprised that this album surprised me. It shouldn’t have, because Dear Herman make great music. I don’t think I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed a friend’s album as much as I have this one.

Rhye - Woman

“Open” became a theme for my 2013. I sang it to myself and to others. Things have come and gone in my life this year, and I’ve needed this reminder to stay open to change and to hold my plans loosely.

The Dodos - Carrier

I don’t think any other band right now hits my sweet spot quite like The Dodos. Their rhythmic inventiveness continues to be a highlight. After the death of guitarist Chris Reimer, it’s not surprising that this album stews deep emotions, but they’ve been able to work toward more electric sound without losing the intimacy that made 2008’s Visiter so inviting. That the sound compliments the sentiment means this is my favorite Dodos release yet. The image of something being taken away without your control provides fertile thematic ground throughout.

UUVVWWZ - The Trusted Language

I don’t think this sound is particular to Lincoln, but I admit to being proud that it’s being made here. It’s raw, imperfect, paranoid, and totally works.

Julia Holter - Loud City Song

This is probably the most “album” album on the list. It’s one for sitting down, sipping wine, and letting yourself trip into the rabbit hole. There’s avant-garde, jazz, lounge pop...so just a bunch of things to appreciate if you care to take the time.

Jake Bellows - New Ocean

I can’t talk about Jake Bellows without revisiting one of my favorite concerts. Four (five?) years ago I saw a guy I’d never heard of and wouldn’t soon forget at the Box Awesome in Lincoln(RIP). He played through two hours of classic songwriter material: broken hearts, broken bottles, love sickness, etc. I couldn’t tell if he was super drunk or a genius, and somehow the distinction was irrelevant. He was tuneful and gave just the right number of shits to put me into a trance. Now, years divorced from his band Neva Dinova, this album captures most of what hooked me that night.

Musics of 2013

Some singles that have been owning my ears this year:

Disclosure - "Latch"

I've done some of my most inexplicable dance moves this year--all of them elicited by this track. Keep the chiropractor on speed dial.

Caroline Smith - "Magazine"

It's tight and soulful; these are good things. Then at 1:50 it goes to the moon.

Numbers Always Lie

A few of days ago I was working with my dad stripping wallpaper. It's one of those manual jobs that allows your brain to traverse all kinds of mental terrain.

Like any two men at a loss for conversation we flipped on ESPN to accompany the mindlessness of this particular task. The show we heard was "Numbers Never Lie". It's a new show dedicated to the sports world's favorite athletes: the numbers 0-9. The show hunts down player or team statistics to prove whatever points they are trying to make on that particular episode. ESPN knows this business is a bit shaky. I suspect this is why Never carries an asterisk. That doesn't stop the hosts from exclaiming "The numbers never lie!" with deep conviction after each segment.

If you've paid attention to sports in the last couple of decades, you've likely noticed this increasing obsession with statistics. In (American) football, the defense now tallies statistics for tackling the quarterback, hitting the quarterback, hurrying the quarterback, blocking a pass from the quarterback, and possibly other quarterback related actions of which I am unaware. Sometimes announcers will hint at this growing interest by saying something like, "We've only been keeping track of QB hurries since 2004, but..."

Football is becoming more fixated on stats, but baseball is the crowned king of statistical gluttony. These are the Wikipedia categories for Baseball statistics: batting statistics, baserunning statistics, pitching statistics, fielding statistics, and general statistics. The pitching statistics category has 49 different calculations. Forty. Nine. Forty-nine! Just for pitching. They include something called "pNERD," which purports to tell you, the viewer, the rate of "expected aesthetic pleasure of watching an individual pitcher."

What does all this mean? I'd like to suggest a couple things.

1. I feel this fixation on numbers actively reduces aesthetic pleasure or at least distracts from it. If aesthetic pleasure can be calculated, what is the point of enjoying the grace of Federer's beautiful one-handed backhand? Joy and grief are tabulated now, too. So you don't actually choose to like his backhand--the numbers say you will. Did your team win? That elation you're feeling? Just neurons firing. Your pleasure--oh, we have a formula for that. Ugh, statisticians!

2. This leads to what I find most frustrating: the reduction of humanity to numbers. Instead of seeing any of the biographical information of a certain athlete, we see his statistics flash across the screen. Imagine if you and I walked around with our lifetime GPA and cholesterol count on our foreheads. Wouldn't that allow you to determine a person's "value" just a little too quickly? Wouldn't that keep you from knowing or wanting to know many who otherwise may be genuinely worth your time? What kind of pleasure can their be in meeting someone if we have preemptively reduced them to numbers?

3. I think this abstraction/reduction of the human element also contributes to our great scandal and/or pleasure at seeing that element ruined. Certainly, in favor of good taste we wouldn't replay a video over and over of a man having his leg shot apart by radicals in Middle East protests, but we don't seem to shy away from replaying and dissecting some very violent images of bodily destruction in sports. Of course, there are massive differences surrounding these two violent situations, but I feel that one of the reasons it's easier with athletes is that we strip them of some of their humanity. Pay attention next time a knee gets blown out or an ankle is snapped and you'll likely notice the commentators fetishizing the moment. They warn you to look away if you're squeamish, but those who aren't continue groaning over over several replays.

I'm stretching a bit to make a point, I would not dispute that scientists and statisticians have a lot of truth to contribute to the world--and definitely to the sports world. But so do poets. And the poets are dying. I'm afraid that we are exchanging poetry for science. We're choosing the easily digestible, testable, and reducible over the human element and ultimately over our deeper, personal selves.

The result of statistical gluttony as I see it is that the numbers obfuscate the human person. Thus, the numbers always lie.

p.s. I read very little sports journalism, but if there's one sportswriter poet--that is, a writer most interested in human narrative and not in #0-9--his name is Brian Phillips of Grantland and Run of Play. Read him. His piece on the Iditarod is beautiful. Not coincidentally, he likes to write about two sports less permeated with the statistical preoccupation (tennis and soccer).

Silence

When we arrived at the top I heard no words. I heard air rushing into lungs. I heard "hhhhhhhhhhhh!!" and "ohhhhhhhhhhhhh" and then--

nothing.

Some stood for a time; others sat. Eventually, every one of us had settled into a place. And there we were silent for almost five minutes. Ten if you count the slow, individual ascents to the rock.

There is rarely silence among gathered people--especially in this raucous group.  We are not engineered to sit together and not speak. It felt like a miracle walking a tightrope. The slightest sway and *poof* into a cloud of dreams.

It started at the base of the climb through the forest: we could hear a congo or howler monkey up in the trees above us right about where the rock is. As we entered the woods and continued upward, it became clear to all that treading lightly might just keep him in range of sight once we got closer. As we neared the rock the howls grew in intensity until we were nearly directly under the ruckus. We quietly scaled the face that opens up to a massive view of San Ramón and the Central Valley. Once above, we seemed to have forgotten the congo and perhaps the beast itself recognized the delicateness of the moment.

We stood and sat gawking at the breadth of what lie before us. Five weeks of families, parties, Imperial, classes, friends, and what certainly had become our home was there down below in a living postcard. A melancholy, beauty, victory, saudade of place. It felt like a mini, unspoken goodbye. We were far enough removed to be able to look at it for what it was, a small place we had come to love and now must leave shortly, yet close enough to see it alive in the way we know it to be.

One of the students remarked: "The clouds move slowly up here." I would respond that they always move slowly if we're paying the right kind of attention. And that, in a whisper, is the deep truth of this place, of what coming here means, of what travel is and can show us, of what I really mean by "new air".

At home we don't often look closely at the clouds and we don't often breathe the air with intention. We live expecting that we will see only what we have always seen and nothing more. But, transported to a new environment we see the same world through new lenses. We don't merely see, we look. We don't only hear, we listen. We try to find what it is that makes this newness so palpable when it is, after all, just other faces with eyes-nose-mouth, other buildings of concrete, other smokey tail pipes. The clouds are moving the same speed they always do; it's us that have slowed down.

The reality behind it is that all the wonder of new air, new people, new ways of life is a fallacy. None of it is new in this place. Only we are. I like to think that some of this is what was dawning on us during those silent minutes.

Praise God for when words become unnecessary.

Two Lights

This is my journal for today. See how neatly I started on a little thought? You can tell by how messy it gets about halfway through that my pen was struggling to keep pace with my head.

This notebook is my all-purpose enabler of an obsessive compulsion for writing everything down. I write meetings, I write phone numbers, I write journal entries, prayers, poems, blog ideas, drawings, lesson plans, check lists. I bought it in late November 2010 and have amassed 2.5 years of everything I've done written in my frantic (but artful?) shorthand. If it lasts to the end of 2013 I will be pleased.

Today I had a thought, a very happy thought. I realized that I was able to do two things in the last week that revived my spirit in this far place: playing piano at the museum where we have afternoon class, and mincing several cloves of garlic during a student cooking session yesterday. Here is some of what I wrote as the thoughts poured in/out:

"These two things are very related because they are tangible things. They are creative things. They are things I miss badly. What is it about them that is so satisfying? I think it is the simple seeing of a thing (i.e. garlic cloves, piano keys) and then the changing of that thing to make something out of it through the transformative process of creation. Piano keys they are not anymore: they are music. Cloves, no longer: minced, flavor-giving garlic. I take them from where they are and together we arrive at their purpose. Potential to kinetic--I am Physics. I am a force of reason and spirit descending on them. Cooking is music, too. It is bringing disparate, sometimes dissonant elements into harmony by creative, intelligent incision. Taste is like music, too. A sorbet is Katy Perry's latest pop anthem. A fresh salad, a sprightly waltz. The orchestra is here--I conduct. I whip my arms into a fury drawing out the crescendo of spices. I fade down the blaring brass...or onion. I coax the life out of basil leaves, a flourish of strings."

When I sat down to the piano I played through Daniel Johnston's "Held the hand". One of the students was there with me, so I sang it for her. It's a devastating progression of chords (not to mention the words and melody) with the abrupt, whimsical mood shifts that are present even in his darkest songs. It wasn't the same as being in my apartment with my keyboard, but in the same abstract sense as above it was still a row of keys giving birth to song (with my help).

When I realized we would need garlic for the gallo pinto I volunteered loudly to cut it. A clove of garlic is a small thing already, and the activity of making that clove into tiny, tiny bits of itself is what I love. It's work with hands, it's simple concentration on a simple task, it's raise-and-cut, raise-and-cut. That there was a decent knife made it three minutes of long-needed therapy. I could have kept on cutting my whole way through the head, but six cloves was enough and so I had to hang up the knife for another couple of weeks.

I'll probably get minced garlic all over my keyboard and guitar the day I get home.

China and Costa Rica

Reading on the way to Puerto Viejo

Since 2007 China has given Costa Rica hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid, autos, medical equipment and this sparkling national stadium. I thought many would be interested in this burgeoning odd-couple relationship between the two nations, and so I'm translating an opinion piece from the paper La Nación from Friday, June 13 about a recent agreement to let China build an oil refinery on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast. China's recent interest in Costa Rica is no doubt based on its growing need for resources and allies in new regions of the world. The article highlights the fears many Ticos share about what ultimate cost Costa Rica will be asked to pay for all of this kindness from the Chinese. The coercion of the little guy by the big guy hasn't changed much since 1492--it's just become more diplomatic.

"China: money Costa Rica pays for"

In this refinery project we are not talking about donations, aid, or concessions from China to Costa Rica. None of the above are necessary for international agreements, of course, but it should be clear from the start when they are or aren't involved. What we're dealing with is two associates making a business deal in which, as in any such deal, each party, if it is marginally intelligent, will try to gain the most it can. This current deal is nearing $1.5 billion or 3.5% of the national GDP. As a result of the project, a foreign power controlled by a dictatorship with global imperial ambitions will be, via his national businesses, co-owner of assets whose operation is part of a monopoly that will oversee a strategic area of national development.

But the truly absurd part of the refinery deal between Recope [Refinados Costarricenses de Petróleo--Costa Rican Refined Petroleum] and the China National Petroleum Corporation is that everything--absolutely everything--has been decided, controlled and executed by the foreign power. Subsidiaries of the CNPC have conducted the feasibility studies as well as overseeing the design, the size and other characteristics of the project--all without soliciting bids or approval of government accounting offices and with massive conflicts of interest in which the CNPC is judge, jury and executioner. All of this, remember, is at market cost. No gifts to Costa Rica this time.

On the 30th of May La Nación reported that Recope informed that a subsidiary of the CNPC would be in charge of construction. Just like that! Another conflict of interest. No bidding process like there should be when dealing with state institutions. That subsidiary is the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC), the very company that, by means of one of its own arms (CEI), participated in the review of the feasibility studies and recommended the project be carried out!

And do you know, Costa Ricans, who may supervise the construction of the refinery? Personnel from another subsidiary of the CNPC. Amazingly, the CNPC will "supervise" itself as it builds! This in spite of the fact that dozens and dozens of world class businesses without links to the CNPC are available for the same services.

Also, we know that that the CPECC will need $1.3 billion to build the refinery. Experts believe that a refinery capable of processing 65,000 barrels is only profitable if its cost is less than $900 million. The fact that the CNPC itself will build it all explains the high price: the CNPC doesn't care about the excessive cost because one of its own subsidiaries will get the contract. What it overpays on one end it overcharges for on the other. For Recope, and by extension, all Costa Ricans, the equation is different: what we overpay for on one end is gone forever.

But here's the cherry on top: upon announcing that the subsidiary CPECC of the CNPC will charge $1.3 billion to build the refinery, the CEO of Recope, Jorge Villalobos, declared that "CPECC's offer is what we expected..." Essentially, the one man who ought to defend national interests declares that the price is fine for a project equaling 3.5% of the national GDP where no bidding process has occurred.

It is hard to find a worse business "strategy". With that statement any bargaining opportunity was lost. If this is how Villalobos manages his private enterprises--pay what they charge!--he is welcome to anger his descendants and inheritors, but Villalobos administers resources that are not his own but those of the whole country, and he should defend them with his life. Beyond that, this attitude underlines what we already know: in this unfortunate deal, China has decided everything, absolutely everything, and the Costa Rican government (just like during the Banana Republic days) obeys and pays what is charged them.

The fact that the president hasn't fired Villalobos still shows that there are reasons that this administration, just like the previous, has bent over backwards to accomodate all that China asks. In my mind, if China intends for Costa Rica to pay and repay the stadium and other donations with the refinery project, it is best that they share this intention with us. Then we will understand--even if we don't agree--the reasons that they so thoroughly trample our national interests. So don't expect that this project will continue on as planned with our silence.

The way this has played out is intriguing, educational and ironic. Who would have imagined that Communism could come up with such a classic Capitalist sleight of hand business deal! Who would have thought that the CNPC of Communist China, that studious observer of the United Fruit Company of Capitalist USA, would revive so perfectly the same practices that we hoped to see dead and buried.

The way in which China has surrounded and pulled in so many Recope executives, organizers, even the ambassadors and presidents of Costa Rica, is highly worrisome, but it also leads to a complete lack of faith in the project. What guarantees us that, one or two years after construction has started, the CNPC (with the approval of Recope) won't ask for more money than originally planned to complete the refinery, driving it closer to the $2 billion that some have speculated?

Distinguished analysts like Dr. Leiner Vargas and Dr. Manrique Jiménez Meza have found technical, financial and legal anomalies in the project. It is clear to me that this all began when our authorities allowed China to make all the decisions and to charge as they please.

What we must do is stop this project before more signatures further compromise the country. The warnings have been clear. The financial offices have been informed. Let no one claim that they didn't realize that this baby was born ill.