Narratives

I recently heard on NPR a theory that all we are (our identity) is a narrative. We are a story, that we have created about ourselves. I can see how this might feel like a negative concept. It can seem scary to be nothing more that a story you tell yourself over and over again. I think I am inspired by the idea though. It would suggest that I am in complete control of myself and what I aspire to be.

I think the idea of the "story" can explain all our constructs. When we learn history in school we are really learning the narrative of time that we tell ourselves as a society and that we feel best explains our society.

The reason we can understand abstract concepts like LOVE is because we connect a whole life's catalog of experiences, memories and feelings to the word. We create very complex narratives to explain all sorts of things in our lives and then somehow, we condense them into this gut feeling or image or moment that can be recalled almost instantaneously. That instantaneous recollection becomes meaning, but it's really just a super condensed narrative.

Why am I thinking about all of this at 2:30 in the morning? Well it has something to do with how I don't seem to have the stomach for politics. I think that for me at least, the pace of politics, policy, and advocacy etc. is faster than I can form meaningful stories to justify my involvement.

I am beginning to think for me to satisfy my desire to make the world a better place I should create and export my own narratives. Choosing this path would couple well with my naive optimism that most people out there are just trying to do the best that they can with the information that they have. It would then follow that if I could create a narrative about an issue that was important to me, say as a video or slide-show, I could then help others understand how it was important.

The aspiration to teach and communicate, condense and reformulate, and shape concepts into a pearl of meaning has been a passion of mine for quite some time. But it has not been part of my identity lately.

How do we make our mark on the world? In my personal narrative I will be making a mark somehow, and I just keep rewriting the details.

$50 dollars for the shirt

I'm raising money to become an icon.

First Annual Portland Music Festival

Ok, I'm starting to get frustrated with the music venue owners here in town. There are many (too many) venues and y'all need to work t'gether y'hear.

Here's the simple one: Start coordinating more with the First Friday Art Walk. First Friday shows should be great lineups, they should start a bit earlier, and everyone should know about them.

Here's the hard one: We need a music festival. Start with say, two nights. Friday and Saturday. Every venue in town brings in a couple hot out of town acts (to draw out of town crowds) and all the openers are the many Portland bands that totally rock and need more exposure. Someone (with a tiny bit of guts and capital) puts it all in one easy to use schedule that people can walk around with. Then there's advertising.

My point is just that we have great venues and we have great bands. We just don't have enough people to support them. BRING MORE PEOPLE!

Hadestown by Anais Mitchell (WOW!!!!!!)

Well, I'm no good at reviews, as you might know if you had read my previous ones. That however will not stop me from trying to share TOTALLY AWSOME music!

I think that "totally awesome" is exactly what we have on our hands with Hadestown by Anais Mitchell. It is a Folk Opera that has apparently been in process for a long time, and is recorded in collaboration with a great group of artists. To name a few, Greg Brown, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Ben Knox Miller (Low Anthem) and Ani DiFranco.

I really love all of these songs!

Way Down Hadestown - is a perfect use of a folk standard.

Wait for Me - Is beautiful, spooky and dark.

Why We Build the Wall - is written in an ask-and-answer format that sucks you in and sends the listener's thoughts way beyond the plot of the story.

Epic (1 and 2) - are beautiful narrations.

Lover's Desire - is on my list for most beautiful melodies!

Listen to this album-story-commentary and enjoy!

Hadestown - Anais Mitchell

The Liberetto

Finally FooDart!

Well, we now have the audio to our Pecha Kucha presentation! It's not like being there, but at least people can at least hear what we said. I hope you all enjoy this. It's a product of many weird evenings.

First Run

I went for my first run of the year.

It seems to be a spring thing for me.

I never seem to hold out doing it all summer.

It was great to enjoy the weather and sun though. I think I may have a sunburn.

It's amazing to walk out my front door and go for a run on the water and almost entirely without cars.

View running in a larger map

FooDart

Last night Sash and I presented our FooDart at Pecha Kucha Portland. We had a blast being hams. I am hoping to get the sound file of our speaking to add to the slide presentation. Will post that soon. For now, this is just the stop-motion fashion show portion.

Boston Harmony

This weekend I went to Boston with Sash and my mom to see my sister sing in Boston Harmony. This is a fantastic group, and I find it incredibly inspiring to hear. Here are two of my favorite songs from the concert.

This first one is from Corsica. It was sung by just four people, perfectly in pitch. I'm am currently listening to it over and over again.

A Violetta - VOCE DI CORSICA

This song is from Bulgaria. The harmonies and melodies are traditional, but you can tell that it's a contemporary arrangement. I find the arrangement distracting at points, but it hardly matters with such a beautiful song.

Ergen Deda (feat. Bulgarian Na...

I haven't listened to "Want One" in months. This is a really good album. It has a bit of show-tune flavor to it. Just now my coworker thought I was listening to "Kid A," and I can totally hear it. I never would have thought to compare Rufus Wainwright to Radiohead.

Want One - Rufus Wainwright

Music: a backlog

I think I am going to start talking about music more often. I've been listening to more new albums lately than I have in years. This is a list of tracks that I've already posted on Facebook, but never posted here.

Facebook History

Colin Macintyre is the main guy in Mull Historical Society. His new album I've been listening to a bunch today, and I am definitely enjoying it. The music is good, and there's much more in the lyrics than I have yet appreciated.

"The Supermarket Strikes Back" is both musically and thematically similar to Arcade Fire. Great song!

My friend Jesse played "A Little Lost" for me the other night, and as a result I've been listening quite a bit to the whole Another Thought album. Authur Russel is a bit weirder than the other music on this list.

"Little Secrets" is certainly where my love for pop can be found these days. I can't think of a song that better delivers what one wants to hear. This song was also a lasting theme through summer 2009.

(By the way I got married to Sasha last August 2009! It was a fantastic wedding! We planned it all ourselves, and loved doing it together. That made me feel good. I think that if we can collaborate well on a wedding then will will certainly be rolling out more creative exploits. We also bought a house. We live in a fixer-upper in Portland, and I walk to work every day. This has been yet another product of our collaboration, and I should post some pictures of it.)

"I think Ur a Contra" is by far my favorite track from the new Vampire Weekend album. I've listened to it on repeat for longer than I should.

The newest Yeah Yeah Yeahs is very good. "Skeletons" is one of my fav. tracks.

My friend John had me listen to Hockey. There are a lot of different sounds on this album, but if it makes any sense, I like the attitude of it. "Four Holy Photos" could easily be a mockery of religion, but somehow it isn't.