Bad news!

Really bad news! First, Miep Gies, one of my all time heroes, passed away. She was the beautiful woman who protected Jews and saved Anne Frank's diary during WWII.

Today, I come home from work to discover that Jay Reatard (a mere 29 years old!) has died. This amazing punk-rocker-Goner (if you will) made me cry with his high energy redemption of his songs prior to the Pixies show I attended not too long ago.

R.I.P., loves of mine.


He was supposed to play this show...oh, what a creepy poster.
Beautiful, beautiful.

Well, folks, they wanna feed me cornbread and molasses...but I've got my pride.

On that note, Nic and I have watched part of the Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, and I've got to admit it: Bob Dylan was an adorable young adult. I can't say that for most musicians. Typically I find the music incredibly attractive, but neither the nose nor the haircut. Dylan had it going on.

work and more 38 second book reviews

Yesterday was another day at work, and I am definitely getting the hang of all there is to do around that joint. My workplace actually has some good defining principals and hires good people in general, so if you ever want any good coffee, I can hook you up with where to go (so that'll be either Heifer International or Java Roasting Cafe). The beans are roasted right in Hot Springs, which is awesome, and the owners are great people.

But here's the thing with blogging: by sheer virtue of rattling on about my day or whats on my mind, I break all of those internet rules designed to protect your identity. Eugh. But I've got to blog, yo. Once one has gotten into the habit of blogging, one can't stop. This is the public version of the mind's cathedral (see prior blogz) and I find it valuable to keep it up.

But now, the long awaited book reviews.

Onion John by Joseph Krumgold. Too much baseball. I couldn't get past the first twenty five pages, but it's supposed to be great. Try it, you might have better luck than me.

What The Songs Look Like by Various Artists. I spent hours with my headphones on looking at this beautiful beautiful book. It's the perfect combination of two of my favorite things- the Talking Heads and artists from the 80s.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Another supposedly great classic I had a hard time with. One formulaic story element, cliche, and debunked stereotype after another. Valuable perhaps at another point in anthropological history, but not today.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This incredible text is, no joke, every single book I've ever read smashed into one. If you can think of a subject, it's probably mentioned or directly addressed. I highly recommend this eccentric ride through a strange soul's life. P.S. this soul would have been strange even if he wasn't middlesexxed.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. This nonfiction book about Dr. Paul Farmer is a combination of inspirational, beautiful, and frustrating. Although Paul Farmer is doing great things in the world, I feel that him and I would have severe personality conflicts (38 second mark over). This dude talks junk about foreigners in English right in front of them, then goes on crusades to help them. He seeks wealth and health for the impoverished, but insists that his lowest paid workers should work overtime without compensation. Farmer does great work, Kidder presents interesting read, and although I am inspired by and proud of Farmer, I am glad I don't have to work with him. Ophelia Dahl plays an interesting role in Farmer's life. This text also provides a great insight into the functioning of the World Health Organization. It's seriously just a personality thing with Farmer. Don't let my knitpicky things keep you from reading this book.

Alright, it's lunchtime. Huzzah!

Back in Little Rock

Well, folks, I've been back home now for some time and things are business as usual. I had a good Christmas in Malvern as well as up here in LR. I got a job at a coffee shop fairly quickly, and am getting part time hours. It's not bad, and the coffee shop is closed on Sundays, so I've always got a day off. Generally, I want to actually get to the Kyrgyz Republic and get out of this damn waiting period in my life. One major problem with not being in school or working at a rewarding job (thanks Heifer and AmeriCorps) is that I feel like I'm rotting a bit. Sure, I've gotten some reading done, but I read anyway. I had a dream last night that left me with the distinct feeling that I need to get back in school ASAP, be it as a teacher or as a student. I need the routine of education. Education is such a great routine. One is constantly filling one's brain, reviving neural connections or creating new ones, and finds oneself frequently challenged. My daily routine now is hardly challenging, and it can be quite boring. And for me, being bored is not the best of ways to be. Why, boredom for me is about as bad as stress- it can lead to depression, stomach problems, and back pain. Especially when trapped at work, when all there is to do at work for the purpose of relieving boredom is wiping down tables for the Nth time.
Ok ok, in spite of that, things aren't that bad. I had my first Russian lesson, but the guy that volunteered to provide Nic and I with lessons ignored me for two hours and gave Nic a lesson. The kid that was supposed to teach us turned out to be extremely sexist and a bit materialistic. Needless to say, I may not have a second one, and will more than likely just stick to the stuff provided to us by the Peace corps. While I do have an interest in learning Russian, I do NOT have an interest in being blatantly ignored for two hours in a coffee shop. I know I am not chopped liver, and refuse to be treated as such.
I got a new cook book as a Christmas gift that I completely love. I have cooked a few recipes from it and they were awesome. My hands still smell like German meatballs, which consisted of very small amounts of very strongly smelling things as well as a combination of three different animals. These meatballs were the tur-duck-hen of meatball world. They were a combination of cow, bison, and anchovies. Although the texture of the meatballs was very soft and light, they had a very strong and indistinct taste. Just a few days ago Nic and I made pierogis from scratch, which, as it turns out, is extremely time consuming. Pierogis are basically a polish dumpling that is boiled or fried, and stuffed with beef, cheese, or potatoes, then served with sauerkraut or cottage cheese. First, I made the dough, rolled it out, cut it into little rings, then made the stuffing, let it chill, stuffed and sealed each pierogi...it took a few hours to make them from start to finish. I have a newfound respect for Polish grandmothers everywhere, as well as a greater understanding for the appeal of pierogi making machines.
New Years was pretty chill. I went to a party very briefly, but the party struck me as bad news. It was a bunch of really young kids basically screaming "arrest me arrest me!" I understand the urge to have a good time, but geez, man, there were some blatant illegalities that people were bringing a tremendous amount of attention to. It was not a boat I wanted to sink with. Folks, if you're going to party, at least put minimal effort into protecting yourself and your peers. So Nic and I went home and chilled with Nic's family, which was pretty good.

Sometimes I feel like I must be getting old over here. Or at least am really getting grown up.

And that's alright.

Living Gifts, etc

Hey Folks (yes, Ya'll have been upgraded to the status of a proper noun), this past weekend at the farm was the Celebration of Living Gifts. Formerly, Overlook did an annual Living Nativity; The Celebration of Living Gifts is the replacement for this living nativity, and shall become an annual event. Basically, I stood outside in the cold or inside of a barn and watched little kids marvel at farm animals. There was this tiny star-shaped child, 2 verging on 3 years old, who had her mind blown by everything. She was perplexed by the piglet (whose face was bigger than her whole body), bewildered by the buffalo (whose foot was bigger than her whole body), and astonished by the alpaca (who was terrified of this little girl). This marathon watching of little kid's reactions to creatures ended with me spending the last twenty minutes or so playing with the director's daughter.

There's snow on the ground here. We had a bit of a snow storm a few days ago that put maybe a foot of snow on the ground. It's rained some, snowed some more, and frozen a few times since then. Nic says walking on it is like walking on a giant creme brulee- I feel like it's like stabbing a Hobo Joe's with a fork, and you are the fork. What does this tell you about our backgrounds?

Anyway, in a few days I will be back home. Nic is at the dentist getting his first real cavity filled (I'm so proud of him!), and later on we are going to go christmas shopping. And then we pack. I'm going to cry, I think. I've come to depend on these animals for comfort and entertainment, and I've come to love the people here. This place is a place worth missing. I'm a bit tired of being uprooted, though; I'm ready for the two year stint in the Kyrgyz Republic. That's just enough time to get comfortable and stay comfortable. Three to four months is the time it takes me to get truly, really comfortable in a new place. I look forward to having a job and living a life that extends way beyond those three to four months of adjustment time.

David Byrne and a brass band doing Social Studies . Practically perfect in every way.

Interesting enough concept: the ability of humans to hack their own brains

Even more interesting: the new technology based meaning of the word "hack"

Oh, how language evolves. To hack one's brains back in the day surely meant to chop them apart; put an axe to a man's head and have a field day (oo, another phrase with an interesting evolution).

To hack one's brains now is to control your own thoughts and, primarily, sleep patterns, or induce vivid hallucinations at will. WHAAT!