A Year in the Life

I have no real excuse as to why I've neglected this poor blog for the last year. I think that I may have gotten tired of thinking of things to say/was distracted by new people/definitely lazy/working toward some lofty goals/fighting feelings of blog-induced narcissism/ or just fighting the fact that I have a a narcissism-induced blog. Who knows! I'm going to try again though, mainly for the sake of improving my writing which has fallen by the wayside since graduating two years ago.

New developments in the last year:

I decided to become a high school English teacher. After MANY failed attempts at obtaining a position as an editorial assistant at some publishing company between Boston and San Francisco, I realized that I didn't actually want to do that job anymore. I had a lot of trouble mustering up enough enthusiasm to convince the editors at that EMT textbook publisher that I would love the job. I think I gave up halfway through the interview.

Life changes directions on us often, and it often pushes us along avenues we had not previously noticed. My new avenue? English teacher. I took my last certification exam this past Saturday, and I'll find out in a month whether I passed. I was also accepted to the Simmons College Masters of Art in Teaching program for Secondary Education, which will help me earn my license in middle and high school English. I'm terrified. I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do, but I know that I feel genuine enthusiasm for this venture, and being a teacher will make my life much more flexible, and I've found flexibility to be an important factor in one's overall well-being.

I start classes on Monday.

I'm not sure what I'll write about on this blog, but I feel confident that I am truly a Lady of the Century, a product of Generation Y, a young American adult struggling to find a purpose after college has ended, and a person who is fed up with not experiencing enough.

Here's to Higher Education.

And here's to Jonsi--the lead singer of Sigur Ros who recently released his first solo album. I haven't bought it yet but I've listened to a lot of it. He's as whimsical and melodious as ever. Though he isn't singing exclusively in his imagined language of Hopelandic anymore, his music still reverberates with spirit. Listening to him makes me want to do something big. Hence--this blog has been awoken.

Wild Light and Doves, 6/7 @ House of Blues Boston

Note: I hijacked an internet-bearing computer at work because my manager is away and I can get away with it for another couple of days, but its abilities are limited so I can't post any pictures or videos on here just yet. I'll flush this out later...

Always one to be late to the game, I finally saw a show at the new House of Blues across from Fenway Park on Sunday night. Wild Light, who I can't seem to stop mentioning on this thing, was opening for Doves, the ambient indie kings of Manchester.

I've never been to another existing House of Blues so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a great use of the space formerly occcupied by Axis and Avalon (RIP). The stage was wide and just high enough off the floor to give us a great view of the bands and the sound quality was sharp. There was ample room to dance around on the floor without inconveniencing too many, as well as easy escape routes should one need to leave the concert floor for a refreshment at one of the 3+ bar areas studded along the walls.

The crowd was surprisingly sedate during Wild Light's set despite the fact that the band announced the show was a homecoming and was their last stop on the tour with Doves. A 50+ man with a toothy grin asked me what their name was at the end of their set, so I know they made at least one new fan.

TBC...

Also want to write about Passion Pit and The Phoenix Boston Music Awards...but the bank has blocked many websites from their dear tellers. I'm off to explore what else I'm blocked from seeing online, and maybe help a customer or two...

Beep my Beep, Jersey

I don't know, but it's just fucking amazing for some reason.

I can't find much about Addeboy vs Cliff, but I do know that they're a house/electro duo from Sweden, and they look like this:

I found their video floating around on another blog that I have since lost track of.

The song and video remind me of middle school...and parts of high school. And the summer nights I spent at that 17 and under club on the Jersey Shore when I was 14. My pals and I would wear our most sparkly spaghetti strap tanks and whitest keds and have someone's parents drop us off outside the club, where we'd grind with the underage surfer guys and sweat our asses off until it closed at 10pm. What the hell were we thinking?

Still, those nights were awesome, and I remember them vividly. Who knew I'd be more of a clubber at 14 than I am at 23? Is that kinda lame?

Leave it to the Swedes to bring it all back. I wonder if that club is still around...?

Where do I go from here?

Living at home since school has been convenient, and I love my family very much. But I don't want to spend my entire life in Massachusetts. The year I lived in Maine doesn't count much because, well, I mean, it's upstate Maine. I need somewhere a little more stimulating.

Though I don't really want to end up renting in Boston, I've marked it with a black spot of possibility on my seismic map of the United States. Also marked are San Francisco, NYC and DC.

I just spent a few days in San Francisco and absolutely loved it. I could see myself there. I felt good wandering the streets and I couldn't stop myself from imagining a new life there. I want that place so bad.

But, I've also thought about moving to DC and NY, specifically Brooklyn. My past/future roommate would prefer NY, so that's probably the most likely contender.

DC is fun and I really appreciate their public transportation. But, it's a city full of Type A's. Compared to my other favorite cities, it's a bit stiff. But I know some really wonderful people in that area and that's always worth a lot.

I really want California though. That place just fit. It felt good. It felt familiar. It felt like home.

Seeing as we have no money, significant debt and dismal job opportunities, our options are limited. Or maybe they're unlimited. I'm willing to work any kind of terrible job so long as I can experience something new for a while. Anyone else?

To Be Well-Read

It has officially been a year since I completed college. I haven't had any homework, exams, professors or study groups in the last year. My senior year was an apocalyptic struggle due to a broken right foot, a sprained left ankle, the stomach flu and a few other unplanned unpleasantness, but despite all that, I've really missed school. I've missed being challenged, and educated, I guess.

Bank-tellering has been challenging. It's a completely different beast from what I've spent the last 8 or so years focusing my efforts on. Working in finance and counting all day has shown me that I'm more well-rounded than I had realized, and I'm proud of that. I feel like I can do any job well if I just shut my trap and suck it up. I've done that pretty well for a year, but I still miss the ole' book report and research paper now and then.

Grub Street, Inc helped satiate my need for literary sustenance for a few weeks, but now that's done and I have no one handing me assignments anymore, and I don't have to face the weekly pressure of reading a freshly-hatched short story in front of a room of strangers. It was a huge challenge, but it felt very good.

So, until I save up enough $$$ to sign up for another writing workshop, I've decided to challenge myself. In the pursuit of becoming "well-read" I will attempt to read all of the books listed on The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels. I've already read a few thanks to Framingham High School's exceptional Honors English curriculum (...) but can't remember much of them.

I've dusted off my library card and will being my "Well-Read Challenge of Summer 2009" tomorrow. My college roommate has just moved home and I plan on enlisting her as well, because 1) she's already read way more of these than I have and 2) we technically have a 2-person reading group that unofficially disbanded last fall when she became a slacker and stopped reading the books we picked (bitch) but I'll let it slide. She knows her shit, and I like that.

Here's to a summer of words.
Books already read in red. Ha!

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
   
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

Shit. But this will feel good.

The Shins, The Boring.

I saw The Shins on 5/20 at The Orpheum. A friend invited me and I agreed to go because, 1) I missed the friend, and 2) I like going to shows. However, I'm not a huge fan of the band. I had a moment or two back when I was 18 during my freshman year of college, much like the tens of thousands of other college freshman who still fall victim to the band these days.

Ok, they're alright. I grew tired of the band about a week after buying Chutes Too Narrow. They still bore me, but their live set bored me something fierce.

I don't know many of their songs aside from those on that big album that came out around the same time as that little movie that helped their star to rise. I don't think that's the reason I didn't enjoy the show though. Rather, it was the fact that they played all of the slowest songs in their catalog and it was such a snooooozefest. Even my friend, who I'm pretty sure liked The Shins a lot more than I do because she bought the tickets, was yawning and fighting the urge to curl up in her seat and take a cat nap.

Oh yeah, and I don't like shows at The Orpheum. Rows of stationary chairs? Assigned seating? $10 beers? Three strikes, Orpheum. Three strikes.

So, case and point, The Shins are really boring live and I think their fame has worked against them. Maybe in a small club with no chairs and a large bar they would put on a good show, and I was in fact told that they do great in that kind of venue. But that show in Boston was a fail. A crowded, sleepy, steamy, expensive fail.

Newport Folk Festival: August 1st & 2nd

This might be a little early to write about, but I don't want to forget that it's happening.

First, the meat and taters:

General Admission: General Admission seating is first-come first-served on the lawn. Patrons may bring blankets and low-backed beach chairs. Adult: $ 69.00 in advance, $ 75.00 on festival weekend, if available.

Venue: Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI

What a dump, right?

Apparently, most people only buy tickets to one day of this 2 day festival. I will be one of those people. I plan to go August 1st, to see the following:

Pete Seeger, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Gillian Welch, The Avett Brothers, Billy Bragg, Iron & Wine, Mavis Staples, Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Ben Kweller, The Low Anthem, Brett Dennen, Tift Merritt, Tao Rodriguez Seeger, Langhorne Slim.

The fucking Fleet Foxes. My beloved bearded baroque band of Washington state. They're the reason I'm really going, because it's the only scheduled show they're playing in the area.

Also, the venerable Iron & Wine. The closest I've come to seeing him live is watching an episode of Austin City Limits at 3am one morning. My fuzzy, crackly, horrible TV hardly distracted from the fact that it was an absolutely beautiful concert. His songs are mesmerizing.

My former/future roommate and I stayed up until 7am one night drinking wine and watching music videos. I kept playing this video over and over and over and over and over. We both swore to become flamenco dancers that night. These women are so sexy and graceful. They were the most strong, beautiful, confident, and amazingly sensual women I'd ever seen. And I said as much, over and over and over and over and over again that night.

Also, Tom Morello, of Rise Against the Machine, will be performing. At a folk festival. Who knew?

The legendary Pete Seeger is performing both days of the festival to continue celebrating his 90th birthday, which was May 3rd. HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY.

To help Pete celebrate, watch this video and buy a ticket to the festival here, because this land was made for you and me.

And not to be outdone by Pete Seeger, I am also going to celebrate my birthday. That's right, on August 2nd, I will become 23 years old. 90? Pfft. Whatever.