Friday, July 28, 2006

Like the Flannery O'Connor story I read and forgot in undergrad, I am currently a displaced person. See description: that's me, but not in Africa. My landlord needed me to get out when my lease expired right as my employment status solidified for next semester, so I've been scrambling around with the help of several friends and family to move out and find somewhere to live. My next apartment won't be available until August 5th, so I'm currently crashing at "Gerry's Pad," so named by the red LED persistence-of-vision clock that flashes at me from my vantage point on the fold-out sofa. We ate at MCL last night "for the experience." Also for the blue jello, if I'm honest. The manager in the buffet line complimented my grey Fender shirt, which was nice, as I imagine the employees get sick of the aggressively quaint decorum. It makes me wonder what "quaint" and "kitsch" will look like when I'm old. Will we have pictures from the good old days of two-dimensional Doom sprites and the Google logo from before Google bought the Catholic church in 2016? Instead of depression-era Coca-Cola ads on the wall, will we have current recession-era ads? It's probably not too far off. After dinner, Gerry and I compulsively stopped in Hot Topic to look at shirts for bands we've never heard of. I ought to write down a few names and ask the Wundergrad if he knows them, but that would require me to care about bands formed after 1997. Then we went to the bookstore and bought books, proving that we do read after all. He got the Superman Returns shooting script and I got a book of essays about "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. Fun stuff.

I'm setting up a photoblog with a template that will allow for larger photos to be displayed. The template is simple, but I'm still having trouble with the formatting.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

We left the pristine grounds of Chautauqua yesterday and drove straight on to Taco Bell in Cleveland for food served on cardboard by teenagers who were neither pretty nor talented- a sharp contrast to the previous week of watching children play Mozart's recognizable hits in the park while eating grilled veggie sandwiches. Before we left we attended a Q&A with Arlen Specter and Lee Hamilton, and the day before that a speech by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. They were all as interesting as one would expect, which means a lot coming from me, as I generally don't want to hear about any political issue not covered in a Metal Gear or Splinter Cell game.

Here are a few more pictures from the past few days:









Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Things old people like:
High waistlines
Sitting
Ice cream
Walking slowly and looking around
Paying attention to anyone who happens to be talking
Large glasses
T-shirts with buttons
Flowers, both fresh and as floral print on wallpaper and clothing
Breakfast
Eating together (any meal)
Nodding at things
Where they used to live
Their grown children and each offspring’s marital state and vocation
The term “Digital Storytelling”
Church at any hour of the day, any day of the week

Things old people don’t like:
The internet
My brother and I until they find out that we still read books, then we’re “very nice”
Poor restaurant service
Restaurant service that reminds them of previous poor service
Rain
Hot weather
When people take their scooter parking, even when they clearly have reserved scooter parking

This much has been clear, so far, here at Chautauqua. As for me, I’ve enjoyed the past couple of days. Today I took a watercolor class with a room full of flower painting geriatrics, a guy who makes charts, and a landscape architect guy from Florida. Turns out I still have my layout and design chops, even if my brush technique is a little shaky. Last night I went to an opera for the first time if my life. Now, I enjoy the theatre and the musical as much as and perhaps more than the average heterosexual male, and I’m not entirely sworn off opera for the rest of my life, but damnation The Marriage of Figaro is long: three and a half hours with intermissions (plural) and enough time between relevant plot points to work out a Thursday NYT crossword. Superman Returns moves like an episode of Robot Chicken by comparison. On the other hand, the performers were all amazingly talented, and getting to hear the famous prologue piece live complete with a real harpsichord made me giddy. I also went to the ballet, which was quite enjoyable. The highlight of the evening was a huge group performance of Ravel’s Bolero done in a cool Spanish style. Apparently this was the world premiere of this particular arrangement mixed with this particular choreography, for what that’s worth. More harmonica class tomorrow, and I might have time to drive to a comic shop to buy 52. All this high-class living is giving me the shakes for some good-ole low culture like I’m used to. I make a habit of re-dumbening a bit at the end of the day with a little Mario Kart DS, just to keep my center.
Curiously, I seem to be in social demand in Indiana during the one week in several months I happen to leave. For those who have asked, I’ll be back on Monday definitely, and maybe Saturday or Sunday, depending on whether or not I go to Chicago. In short: you know me and concrete plans, so I’ll see you when I see you.

Monday, July 10, 2006

I sat down here in the library to get a strong wi-fi signal so I could upload pictures I took last night and as I was checking Penny Arcade (a tri-weekly staple of life), an old lady walked by and paused to express amusement that I was reading a comic strip on the internet. Imagine that- humor has endured well after the twilight of the rotary phone. Her grandson rolled his eyes and ushered her on to the books, most likely concious of the sort of humor that can be found in webcomics.

The harmonica class was a strange sort of fun. The instructor used the time to painstakingly explain the scale we were to practice, as well as several other topics. I'd summarize them here, but playing my new harmonica has been an exercise in oxygen depravation.

I took a walk last night and took some pictures with my door lens. I also stood for a while under the trees at dusk and watched the bats fly by overhead and in some cases right past me at close range.



































































After spending most of my life far removed from anything nautical, I felt compelled to photograph the heck out of the lake and the boats, as these things only exist to me in Tom Waits songs. For all I know, the Edmund Fitzgerald is sitting at the bottom of this lake next to the Lusitania and a giant kracken. I'd totally believe that if someone told me it was true.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

After a drive across the intrusively placed state of Ohio, I am currently sitting in a preposterously quaint hotel on the grounds of Chautauqua (shuh-TAW-kwah), a town devoted to arts and humanities of every stripe. My initial impression is it’s kind of like Austin, TX for the black-socks-with-shorts crowd. The main parking lot has a handicap section the nearly the size of Fenway’s outfield, if that tells you anything. I’ll be here for a week with my mom and brother, going to art galleries and attending seminars that look interesting. Notable enough to plan ahead for are a series of classes to learn the harmonica and a basic watercolor class. I never learned watercolor properly, but I’ve messed around with ink washes and gouache. As for the harmonica, I think we’re doing it just because we can.

Being here is a bit like scuba diving while dependent on a tank of oxygen. I’m cut off from my natural environment; and iron lung made of PS2 games, high-end Adobe products, and at least three months of comic books within arm’s reach at almost all times. For life support, I have my iPod (currently playing Velvet Underground); Mom’s DS with Mario Kart, Advance Wars, Brain Age, and some kind of surgery game I have to try at some point; Mom’s laptop with a spotty wi-fi signal from somewhere nearby; and the vague prospect of a comic shop in a town nearby where I can purchase 52 on Wednesday. I also have a few books along, and I plan to work on school-related things too.

Blogger currently is sort of loading as of this sentence, but a while ago I got Wikipedia to load to look up the Spanish-American war for an aborted old-people joke- just assume it would be funny if you knew what I was talking about. Hopefully this will post correctly. I should be able to upload photos of this place when I’m in better proximity to the library. For now, you’ll have to take my word for it that the room we’re staying in is floor-to-ceiling floral print. The flowers outnumber the resident population of Monaco.