An Important Life Lesson from Dr. Seuss

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." -Dr. Seuss

I have a gadget on my iGoogle homepage that promises a different Dr. Seuss quote every day. It actually only has about a dozen quotes, many of which are over-used lines from his more popular books. This one, however, struck a chord with me. In very few words, Seuss has basically managed to summarize a year of my life.

There were times this past year when I felt like I was all alone. There was something I stood up for that didn't seem to matter to anyone else. It felt like I was fighting a losing battle, and that no one seemed to care. It's not fun, when yours is the only heart bleeding. But reading this simple line from a Dr. Seuss book reminded me that you never really lose when you stand up for what you believe in. I think that I managed to do just that. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish, even when it felt like I was the only one fighting for it.


Anyone else have any inspirational quotes by children's authors?

New Pop Music Discoveries 08 - 09

Here are some artists I've discovered this year so far:

The Mountain Goats
- Once you get passed the nasality of the lead singer, this sem-acoustic group are great story tellers. From "Michael Myers Resplindent", about the complexities of being Michael Myers (the killer, not the comedian) to "Marduck T-Shirt Room Incident", all of Mountain Goat's tracks are singular stories-in-action. Think a less British Decemberist, combined with a hint of Sufjan Stevens and subtlle humor not unlike Fountains of Wayne

Nellie McKay
- As it says on the packaging for "Get Away From Me', Mckay draws comparisons to Norah Jones, Dolly Parton and... Eminem. Now that's one hell of a threesome. Although her jazz/lounge inused pop sounds similar to Norah Jones, Diana Krall, or even Pink Martini or Regina Spector, her lyrics and vocal style are far more to the liking of Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLaughlan, and yes, Eminenm. Tracks like "Sari", "Inner Peace", and "Identity Theft" take on views from education, US aid to third world countries, to human selfishness, the corruption of the entertainment industry in fast pace raps, while songs like "Clonie", "David", "Ding Dong", and the overly sarcastic "Mother Pearl" provide cute sounding yet harsh and clever tongue lashings on feminism, cloning, and alcholism ina more lounge oriented sound. Very fun to listen to, but not for everyone. As Mckay sings, "I'm sick and tired of being nice so fuck you once -no fuck you twice."

Israel Kamakawiwo'le
- "IZ" is known as one of the premier and most famous traditional Hawaiin artist. The iconic, now deceased artist is most famous for his ukelelee version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow". His original content may be disparring for big fans of the song, for while his other covers "Mona Lisa", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and "Wonderful World" are simialr to Rainbow, many of his oringal songs are backed by orchetsra or synthesizer.

Daphne
Awesome French lyrics. Great pop voice. Subtle yet charming, not snobby, musical thought. Shameful that she only has one real album, Carmin.

Mechanical Bride
For fans of Yael Naim, Birdier Busch, and the lik, Mechanical Bride is the one of he next little female sub-pop artist coming into play. Her piano and handbell driven version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" is great, and her original content ranges from pretty melodic and pretty to standard rock.

Baby Soda Jazz Band
Found them in the subway on 6th. 2 Homeless guys, 2 college kids, a college professor, and a guy from Nasdaq, add a banjo, one string box bass, sax, trumet, clarinet, some makeshift drums, and a kick ass name and record label (the Brown Bag - all Cds come in a brown paper bag staple together), and you got me. They play good old-time swing with a bluegrass twist (and a kick of gospel in some songs. Worth checking out.

Peter and the Wolf
I always don't know how to correctly describe the sound of the New Pornographers - now I do - they're like Peter and the Wolf, with more comples lyrics. I really like Peter and the Wolf better though0 great hanging around on a weekend afternoon music.

Dreamtheater
They're more mainstream,an d they've been on my Ipod for awhile, but Dreamtheater is very good. I love that they 9as well as Tool and Coheed and Cambria) are bringng back the concept album (which hit a low after Rush's 2112, The Who's Tommy, and Pink Floyd's The Wall). Dreamtheater seem to be the perfect storm of rock - think Tool's drums with Queens vocals (hes not Freddy Mercury but) and RHCP's Flea on bass, with Roger Waters collaborating with Coheed for lyrics. Really good stuff.

Couer De Pirate
Another Frenchie, Couer de Pirate is much mellower and minor that Daphne. Legato, flowing melancholy music, great for the gray days of ennui.

One of these things is not like the other one...

So I figured some interaction on the log would be fun. so, in the following lists, there s a common theme - what is the theme and why doesn't it belong? Remember, this is Matt doing this, so it may not be what you think. Leave comments with your answers - whoever gets the most correct wins satisfaction! yay! and maybe a cd if I feel up to it. lol.

1) Aluminum Foil
Babies
Styrofoam
Ham
Peeps

2) Stevie Wonder
Steve Erkel
Erin Neville
Mushmouth
Rev. Lowry
Mike Tyson

3) Bon Jovi
Ear infections
Beatles
Mike Tyson
Wet Willies

4) Comfortable
Aqualung
Wet Tadpole
Deviated Septum
Barefoot

5) Liver
Fruit Cake
Pop
Wiener
Fuzzy Navel

6) Doc
Sleepy
Grumpy
Dopey
Dr. Phil
Sneezy

7) Hugh Jackman
Josh Holloway
Helen Keller
Kimbo Slice
Keanu Reeves

8) "I do"
" It's a boy"
" I love you"
" You're my son"
" I feel like lunch"

9) !
?
@
#
%
Fuck

10) Tights
No friends
Attachment to an older man
Non sequiter exclamations
Choice of nickname

Some quotable highlights from a recent NYC trip

So yesterday I spent the day in NYC with my best friend Paul, a self-descirbed "calvinistic renaissance Paul Bunyan", and Nick, an old friend from elementary with an extremely high aptitude for adventure and physical activity. Here are some quotes (some of which are memories re-quoted.

"remember that time i peed here?" - Paul, standing on the Bridgeport Bidge

"I love lamb rump" - Paul, as we are eating gyros

"you guys are right, this whole place is really impressive especially looking down from here (The Empire State Building), but you know, it isn't that impressive if you think that if someone injected me with enough meth and gave me all the legos in the world, I could probably do this" - Me

"Dude, watch it. Eddy Curry hides out here" -Me/Paul

"Nick, how'd you get up there? - Paul, upon seeing Superman halting a truck in midair in Toy'R'Us

"The first thing I'm investing in NY is a lint roller" - Nick

"Dude, that'd be an awesome job. Hey, I'll watch your house. I'll walk your dog. I'll do your dishes. I'll vaccuum. I'll do your laundry. I dont care. I live in your house. Sure, I'll take your kid to school. I'll take him to baseball practice. As soon as I'm done doing your laundry, I'll even teach him how to hike. I LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE." - Nick, on housekeeping

Nick- I love cleaning. But my dorm room - my vaccuum, the tube is this small. And i don;t have any attachments, so it takes me forever to vaccuum. And then the guys come in and don't take off their shoes, and its like you know?
Me - Dude, that small? Thats like having a guy with emphesema suck up the dirt on your rug with a coffee stirrer

Nick - Wanted: housekeeper. Must be legal
Black girl on cell phone across the train - OBVIOUSLY

Me - Nick, does that ad say "Merchandise for sale: Baby boy?"
Nick- Yes.

Lady in front of me getting into bus - (whispered) Lift me up.
Me- what?
Lady- Lift me up.
Me- Uhh...
Lady- I have a leg problem, help me up..
Me- Oh sure no problem

"Dude, all I'm saying is, with that haircut, you look like a dude. like a dude dude. like if you dressed in armor, Id follow you into battle" - Paul to me

Cliffhanger

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice.

As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine.

Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!

-from "The 10 Very Best Zen Stories"

Lindelhof and Cuse are scared of me

Lindelhoff, one of the powers to be for Lost, recently said this in an interview:

One thing we all decided was, the biggest mistake we could make in Season 5 would be to hold back or slow down or go back to a stalling modality. We’ve basically been feeding the audience crystal meth for a year, to cut them off cold turkey and give them a pack of chewing gum and say, “We’ll give you more crystal meth in Season 6,” would have been a disaster. When you piss off a junkie, they will do almost anything to get their drug.

That's why I love this show. As Powerthirst says, ITS CRYSTAL METH IN A CAN!

Fiji!

Okay, so Emily wanted me to post a blog on Fiji, and I've finally gotten around to it/remembered to do it. I'm not sure there was anything that interesting that happened on my trip, but here goes...

The trip to Fiji was sufficiently LONG. It was only my mom and I, though, which I appreciated. My Dad and brother got snowed in, because Jake had to stay for his dance concert. My Dad had to figure out how to change their flights around, because theirs got cancelled. He managed to do so, much to the surprise of my mom and I.

When we got to Fiji, I felt like I was in a dream. We got off the sea plane, and they made me take off my sneakers and Christmas socks that Emily got me so that I could get off of the plane and into the water.

A girl my age from Australia was on the sea plane with us, and we sat together and ate breakfast while our rooms were being made up. Firstly, I think Australia only breeds tall, leggy, beautiful blonde people. It's like their law. This girl had also been traveling for the past year and a half or so. She told us that she went to NY, Boston, and then down to Brazil or Peru or something where she met her current boyfriend, and then travelled up to California by multiple buses. How cool is that? She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. While I do, and appreciate that fact, I also wish I had the time to travel to cool places and magically meet boys that want to travel across country with me.

Anyways, the first few days of the vacation consisted of me going stir crazy. I think it's really sad that in our society we feel panicked if we aren't multi-tasking. At least I do. No TV, no internet, no texting. All I had was a lot of books, and my family. And while my family is pretty good as far as families go, they can't replace technology for instant gratification. Even now, I'm watching TV, on the internet, and have a book opened beside me that I read when I get bored of doing the countless other things I'm trying to do. I wish I could go back to Fiji and turn everything off. It really gave me relaxation that I rarely get. Okay, except I would have all of you there with me, and probably a cell phone that got service :p

Once I got past the craziness, I started to get used to the lifestyle. No one is hurried in Fiji. NO ONE. People sit in the pool, sit in the ocean, snorkel and look at beautiful fish. And everyone is a family. Really! There were families who had been coming there since their children were 7. They knew the staff, and were friends with them. Everyone you passed greeted you ("Bula!" is the word for "Hello"). I plowed through 8 books sitting on the hammock by the ocean and watching the sunsets, which were absolutely phenomenal. Some of the pictures of the sunsets are at the beginning of the post. They can't even capture how beautiful the sky was!

My next point is that Australian children are the cutest children alive. Really, if there was a little chip I could put into my children to make them have that accent, I would do it. Or, you know, I could just marry an Australian man and live in Australia...

The flight home was the worst flight I've ever been on. We went through a storm, and the plane was going crazy. I really thought I was going to the Lost island. Or just die in the Pacific Ocean, but preferably the former.

So..that's pretty much all I have to say about Fiji. I'm sure I'll remember various stories and tell you all when I see you (Two weeks from today until our first class!) I hate breaks. I mean, I love them, but I always feel like they'll be so much longer than they end up being. I plan to do a billion and one things, and then I get stressed out and it's like I'm not even on break! Except that I've been waking up at 2 in the afternoon and can't seem to sleep for less than 12 hours at a time.

Well, I hope you're all having a lovely break! Miss you all! <3

Sonnets!

Shakespearean

When We Wake

The mother wrung her hands against themselves
And stilled her heart amid the mid-day air.
Too soon would dust be found upon the shelves;
Time would leave it still, no finger print there.
Remember June, when his hair was so long…
She sees his face now clearer than before.
It stirs within her breast an angry song:
It lives, it breathes, swells, it rattles; endure.
While father talks to the neighbors downstairs
Then hides himself in his study all night.
He writes two hundred times: “the Lord still cares”.
But, all is wrong. It suffocates His right.

The years pass by, each with its own shadow
Of what they should see; the boy they still know.


Petrarchan

Red Monster

This is the way it’s meant to be: with time
All the edges are blunted; in this place
Only a change in the weather’s sublime,
Instead of tasting the wind on your face.
When the red monster shed his fur that day
He felt the coolness of his blue, ripe skin.
Was it grief that sent redemption away,
Grief for the miles he has never been?

So daybreak took a bow and stood at bay,
Signaling the shot; and, now, to begin.
But where to go, if not the hollow cave?
Never did he anticipate this stay
In a corner of a world now shaken
Enough for monsters, emerged, to be brave.