Saul Bellow

I wonder when I will recover economically from my trip to the Philippines.

I am amazed at how much I enjoy cleaning. It’s crazy. I love cleaning, now. Maybe it was because I spent so much time watching older women clean their kitchens.

I started cooking with tofu. I don’t know what started it. Well maybe I do. Rita let me try this tofu stir-fry once and it was delicious, the chewiness of its texture and all the flavor it absorbed– she said she marinated it first. I defrosted a giant block of tofu tonight and cut it into tiny pieces and now they are all swimming in Korean BBQ sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, chili oil and ground pepper. I need to do some research on the frying of tofu. Perhaps I will make some broccoli and mushrooms with it tomorrow!

I borrowed three CDs from Colin: 1. Sufjan Stevens’ The Avalance, 2. BECK!’s Odelay, and The Strokes’ this is It. I want to listen to a new album each day. I need to remember to do this.

I’m writing poetry again (obviously.) I don’t know how I am doing, I think as I grew older I grew more critical of myself. Not a good thing, nope. I need to stop doing that.

I want to start drinking tea every day again, too. It’s good for us.

Back to cooking. I’ve been attempting to perfect a Massaman curry recipe. I got a tub of Massaman curry paste and it works wonders. I’ve already been to two potlucks in a week and a half and have made the same two dishes: the curry and vegetables in oyster sauce. Apparently I am a very good cook! If anything, this is my newest and most favorite hobby. I always look forward to cooking something new and delicious! I should start a food blog, shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t I?

I realized that I experience intense emotional ‘highs’ and conversely, extreme emotional ‘lows.’ When I hit those lows, the bright Autumnal world becomes dark and charred in an instant. I terrify myself sometimes. But that’s okay, right?

I apply to the JET Programme soon. And by soon I mean, soon. The window for application submissions close in two months. The applications haven’t been released yet, but Kyle and I have been waiting patiently for it. My only anxiety here is where we are to be placed.. and if we are to be placed together, or apart. Destiny being handled by random Japanese people.

I reunited with polarbear! Old news, I suppose but he/she/it is back from Paris!

Well, yeah. Another update on the going-ons here.

What Daylight has Saved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eileen Cooper, my Music T.A. invited the class to see her Thesis Recital. Held at the Schare Recital Hall on the Douglass Campus, the hall itself was stunning. And Eileen’s voice? Gorgeous. Strong-willed.  Emotional. I’ve never listened to Opera sung live; it felt like every note suspended in air like strong sunlight held the hearts of the audience! The way of story-telling through just voice and expression (she was singing in German, Latin, French) was magnificent and breath-taking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from that, I drove to North Jersey to visit home. My dad changed the oil in my car and replaced my left headlight! Thank goodness for him. I watched my mom fry some fish (delectable!) and make Vietnamese stir-fried noodles! We went to Home Depot, I strolled around photographing flowers.

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Lately i’ve been actually managing and researching Japan English-Teaching / ESL programs, budgeting living costs, and compiling some good data on that. It makes it a bajillion times easierknowing that rent will be split right in half between Kyle and I. We’re both going to apply to the same teaching positions and hopefully score two jobs around the same area. So far, I’ve found this:

A super-cute lofted apartment with big windows in Osaka!

AtJPY59,000, it converts to about USD$715. I figure we’d be splitting about $400 a month. Not bad at all, considering that a lot of teaching positions i’ve come across pay starting at around $3,200 a month. Kyle and I already know how much money we need to eat every month.

Honestly, my future has never looked brighter. What’s also nice is that we’re never going to buy a house and get trapped in mortgage payments. Nope nope.

Enjoy your Saturday night. I’m trapped inside a library until Midnight.

The Bird Sings

It is very dark. People are whispering. On stage, there is a bright, red rug in the shape of a rectangle. On one side sits a medium-sized, marigold gramophone. Sitting at its base is a dilapidated toy monkey, its head cocked to one side. On the other side, there is a violin case, two guitars on their stands, and a small glockenspiel set up. By the front of the rug lays a series of complicated-looking foot pedals and wires. The lights behind the stage begin to glow different colors and suddenly, it seemed as though everyone held their breath. Quickly and quietly, Andrew Bird walks out from the right side of the stage wearing his usual forest green vest, and crinkly brown shoes. A classically trained violinist, former swing jazz musician, his music is an eclectic, passionate mix of gypsy ballads, jazz, folk and rock.

He says hello, picks up his violin, and starts in an instant. The bow runs along the strings—the sound is mere perfection, like the intertwined symmetry of sea and sky. The vibrations of the strings are quick and the sound comes in waves, the audience is softened like the skin of all fruits and suddenly, we’re all in love with the way his neck is bent along the body of his small, wooden instrument.

He will play a simple melody, its tempo ranging from fast to slow, the timbre of the violin like the fullness of a newly-bloomed spring forest, like the smell of pine, the sound of running water—that is how his instrument sounds. And this simple rhythm becomes looped by his foot pedals. Suddenly, he’s playing yet another rhythm, something entirely different, maybe even whistling the notes of a familiar song. And again, this new rhythm  embedded in melody is looped, entwining with the first rhythm. He does this multiple times, using the glockenspiel, using the guitar, banging on the wood, plucking the strings of his violin; staccato, legato, a crescendo! There are the whirling, exposed double-horned Leslie speakers, all of it together is epic, yet intimate.

His music is musical epiphany, it is communication in most primal, human form—of sounds and colors and tastes even. The lyrics he plays with are fantastical and strange and thought-provoking: “Bird’s lyrics often feature archaic language — words such as radiolarian, plecostomus, dermestids, coprophagia — which he chooses mainly for their sound,” Bird says in an interview, “I don’t write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords. I start with a very distinct melody, so my options… If one thing is fixed and then the words then have to then conform to the fixed melodies, then it’s like cracking codes. It’s like trying to go through a number of options of things that [will] just be exactly the right word” (NPR, All Things Considered).

His voice is strong and deep and smooth like a viola, it reaches and yearns like an outstretched arm to the audience. I believe that only after imperfection that one can realize its perfection. The sound is raw, he plays with timing and relies on his technology. Sometimes it fails, and he starts over again. The imperfection I talk about does not relate to literal “problems.” It’s the fact that the songs I have heard on his albums are nothing compared to when he plays those songs. He transforms each song to how he feels at the time. Sometimes he’ll hum or whistle a part of a song that he usually plays guitar on. Sometimes he’ll pluck his violin instead of singing. Or he’ll change the rhythm of the song, play on the upbeats, add rests, make some parts louder, and some parts softer. The imperfection here is that it is whimsical in nature, perfect in his eyes, and its translation to the audience and myself is completely mystifying and literally awe inspiring. He plays as a one-man show, he depends only on himself and his instruments. He truly is a magnificent, beautiful, musical human being. Seeing him in concert allows me to transcend this reality into the musical one he creates in the sacred space of the venue.

(PHOTO LINK: NPR First Listen: Andrew Bird, ‘Break It Yourself’)