Why isn't it spelled FARVE?

I would like Ray's house to be a real place, where I could always want to go and grill it up, enjoy a couple of beers in the sunshine, go swimming, and cap off the day at 2 am by watching Braveheart. Onstad you have really created something fantastic.

Unemployed day 1:
Got up at 6am to see my lady off to work, at some breakfast, tidied my desk up some, watched an ep of Stella, consolidated some bank accounts, bought some delicious sausage at Reading Terminal Market, applied to 3 jobs, played a little bit of fake risk in Middle Earth, finished watching Pan's Labyrinth for the first time, did some dishes, got irrationally angry about some things, calmed down, made delicious dinner using the delicious sausage, watched an ep of Arrested Development, wrote a blog post.

New section of the blog! It is called "Moby Dick Pages of the Day" (MDPD)! It is a chronicle of how many pages of Moby Dick I read since last time I blogged. Today's number is uncertain, probably like 4 or 5 before bed last night.

My brother is getting married on Saturday.

Sharing is Caring.

Here is a video I think you'll love!

There it is!

In honor of this man I will do a caption ok?

Flowers: If we reach out farther we can gently wake him up and tell him we love him.
Backpack strap: Back off this is my man he is my man!
Flowers: You never loved him! We will care for his needs!
Backpack strap: Back off or I will kill you!
Flowers: We have just talked to each other and find your manly bravado much more appealing than that guy's alcoholism - will you sleep with us?
Backpack strap: Ok cool I hope you guys don't mind some pencils and all that weird dust that happens at the bottom of a bookbag. That is my house I am sorry for the shape it is in the maid was supposed to come.

"Intolerable Allegory"

Ok, right?

So I am writing, unpaid, for this music magazine and I am doing an interview with a man from this band on Thursday. This is a strange process, because, though they might not be my cup of tea, they are certainly a band that is enjoyed by folks. My strategy in preparing for this interview has been to try and take the band at completely face value and try to evaluate the music on its own level, within the context of its genre, to try and understand how it fits in the grand scheme of things. I've been able to do this a little bit, and I'm hoping the interview goes ok. More info as it comes and linx to the article when it's up.

Oh man I also don't have a job! This is great because people are just throwing money and jobs around these days. This will not be a blog about a man who is upset that he doesn't have some job. There are men like this every place, maybe women too.

Instead this blog is about. I don't know. This is the main struggle of a man with a blog and no purpose. Oh! This is a blog about a man who doesn't have a job who also doesn't know what his blog is all about! That is interesting to complain about because of its complexity of things the man doesn't have or know about.

Moby Dick is still very great, looks like I have some time on my hands to really read the shit. I'll probably just end up watching movies like an asshole though.

Oh Well Goodbye!

Oh man.

So I am completely listening to "Powderfinger" by Neil Young. You should also be listening to this song, right now. Considering that I am by far the person who looks at my blog the most, I will follow my own instructions. Wow, Nick, this song is really great, thanks for the recommendation. This is great.

I turned 25 two days ago. Just so you know. Even though you already do know, as you're me.

Also, I just got an email back from this Philadelphia music mag who might want me to write for them, without monetary compensation. I am down. Experience is experience, and it would be sick to be the best music journalist eventually, right? Anyway, I'm talking to them this week, I (me) will let you (me) know what happens.

Here is a picture.

It is of where I am getting married. Have a nice day.

Farewell to Henry. Plus, Fall!

So the final rally of Henry Truman's 2008 campaign for the seat of City Co-Chair has come to its downbeat and very bizarre conclusion. Show 3 was by far the least well-attended, and once again we were plagued by people sitting down. It didn't help that we were a bit giddy from three weeks of nearly identical shows, and were laughing a bit more and stretching out the awkward moments, thereby alienating the few souls who chose to stand. It went out with a strange whimper rather than a bang, but in many ways was the funniest of the three shows. Anyway, here's a couple photos to document the evening:

The best back-to-back-to-back of all three shows.

Moody.

So ends the current saga of Henry Truman. I fully expect that the man will be back at some point, at some unspecified date in the future. That's the kind of man he seems like to me.

It's getting on fall-time, my favorite time of year, which I have missed so sorely being in California these past couple years. So I'm trying to spring on every opportunity this area gives me to experience the glory of Autumn. So it was that, yesterday, though it was a sticky 94 degrees outside, the lady and I trekked out to Linvilla Orchards to get a bit of farm air and some fresh vegetables. Oh yes, and delicious delicious apple cider:

Tiny, but effective.

It was really necessary to get out of the city for a while. Lame as it sounds, it was a centering experience. I feel more focused on all fronts, eager to face the future with a renewed sense of purpose. I think this city gets me into a cycle of stagnation and sameness, and maybe regular trips out of its borders and into some greenery, where you can see the sky unhindered and can smell things other than pavement and garbage, can really do a man good. That is my hypothesis, and I'm excited to test it.

Here is the result of the fresh vegetable shopping. We also picked up a couple of decorative pumpkins and gourds, and settled down for a nice, fresh, delicious dinner.

Delicious, grillicious sandwiches.

Very few things are better than fresh, grilled zucchini. That is all.

Henry Truman, Mark 2. Also, more Dick.

Another round of the Henry Truman show this weekend. Can I just say how much better it was than last week. Last time 'round, everyone was sitting and most people were well past drunk. This killed energy. This time we set it up so that maybe 35-40 people could be standing, and the difference was night and day. We had also tightened the story-line a bit so it was a more cohesive show, but the standing-room decision was maybe the smartest initiative in the whole campaign. We played better because people were more immediately involved in what was happening on stage. This made the audience more excited, and created an escalating-energy-feedback-loop.

Here are a couple pictures of the night:

Singin' 'bout Henry.

Baseball, y'all. Baseball.

If everyone that read this tells just one person to come on Friday for the finale, then 2 people will come next week. That is a lot! Of people I mean!

Also we are getting a dude we knew in college to film the shows, so hopefully there will be some sort of DVD/web video of this epic campaign rally. More on this when it maybe happens.

A word or two on Moby Dick and the Pequod Cadets.

I am now in the chapter called "Cetology", which is essentially Melville's attempt to inject some knowledge into his Great American Novel. He's teaching us all about different sorts of whales and what they mean to the whaling community and to the world at large. I've given myself over completely to the Moby Dick experience, and this primes me to be very interested in sections like this. It may look on the surface like dry, encyclopaedic writing, but, though it is primarily an informational section, Melville still has a sweeping drama in his prose that shines through here. Like the rest of the book thus far, it is a really strange mixture of seemingly discordant elements. "Beautiful reference" is a phrase I had never thought of before.

Also, Melville's slow introduction of Ahab is really really really great. Can't wait til he busts out with a grand speech.

Anywho, enjoy your [length of time until my next post]. More Sex Piano news as it develops.

We doin' this!

Okay, "all"... September is a month of rebirth. Here goes.

First of all, I forgive this man for stealing my name and actually doing a blog with it. Turns out his blog is much better than mine, and also has more to do with his title than mine ever did...plus it can actually be called a "blog", whereas mine is basically a place where sometimes I say I am about to go out to dinner when I feel dumb for not having bothered to write anything for a whole month. So Kudos, enjoy all the traffic that I never deserved.

You may recall a while back that I said something about a band I was in - I am still in this band. We just kicked off our tenure as a live band in Philadelphia with a highly ambitious, multimedia project revolving around a fake politician. The first of three shows was a success, and hopefully next week's will be even better. Here are three pictures from the evening:

I like them best left unexplained.

GEAR SHIFT

I recently started reading this book, and now I find myself always wanting to read it.

I'm on Chapter 15 of 135, about 50 pages in. Some thoughts.

I'd always just assumed this book was really hard to read. It's long, and any time it was brought up, there was a mysterious aura around it, as if the world was saying "Don't even try it - too dense, not enough payoff." Maybe it's that first sentence that is so daunting - "Call me Ishmael." Three simple words, easy to understand, but loaded with a hundred and fifty years of literary significance and over 2000 years of biblical baggage. I suspect those three words are the most famous opening line in American literature simply because most people read them, stopped at the period, and closed the book, petrified of what could possibly lie ahead if those three words could mean so damn much.

This could be complete bullshit. It's probably more that it's a long book with a slightly older form of English than we're used to, and it takes a long time to get to the part with the whale. As I said earlier, 135 chapters, and almost all the actual whale-hunting action is in the final three, from what I can discern from the chapter titles. There's also the fact that Melville takes some very long and seemingly unrelated detours along the way to the battle with the whale - the three chapters on visual depictions of whales, and the two chapters on the shapes of whales' heads, for instance. That is enough to turn anyone off if they're not in exactly the right mood to take the trip along with Ishmael.

Fortunately for me, I was hooked after one paragraph. That first paragraph is not only wrought with rich symbolism, it speaks beautifully to the power of the ocean and is also hysterically funny. I hadn't realized just how funny the book is - I think that if I'd known how effortlessly Melville switches between very deep and moving passages and downright funny writing, I would have been more inclined to read this beast of a book.

The point is, this book is taking over my literary life. Extended meditations on the sea and its power are spectacular. The patience of the story-telling, and Melville's willingness to make the mundane fascinating, is really amazing.

The book is not about a fight with the white whale - it's about the long, complex journey to get to him.

And also about how to tell a right whale's head from a sperm whale's head.