High on Life

Dude, I have always wanted to be a rockstar.


So so happy with band practice/recording party. Kind of blown away, actually. I've been listening to this first batch of songs on a loop all day and can't get enough. When this band was just a concept around this time a year ago, I never would have imagined I would be in a band that actually sounded like an ocean of drunken pirates. This is, like, my dream. I am filled past the brim with love for the magic that happens when we're together. And love for the band itself. And I love that that comes across in these recordings. I can finally hear us.

And the reaction seems positive so far. Really positive. With multiple exclamation points and capital letters. Even to the live stuff. Especially to the live stuff.

Talking with Steven today, we were saying it's like things have clicked, like it all makes sense. I could honestly drop everything for this band. I don't want to miss any of this.

The kind of picture that reminds me of that Rodin in the LACMA sculpture garden

** borrowed from the Brooklyn Vegan, who I presume borrowed it from Thomas Bartlett?

The question still remains, though, whether that gripping sense of capturing a single moment really translates as well in photography. I think that sense is dulled on us. When you see an enormous bronze monolith captured in a moment in space, it seems more real, and I'm jealous of sculpture for that even though Henri Cartier-Bresson might argue that the definitive moment is photography.

In any case, I really like this image. I like the movement and the use of focus. And, of course, the way black and white lets you see form without being distracted by color. I like an image that lets you complete a motion in your mind, that lets you put on (or take off?) his jacket, follow him onstage and absorb the lights as the music starts. In a word, engaging. I like an image that is engaging.

Radiolab on deception

Today's episode of Radiolab says I'm kidding myself when I say I'm invincible, but that it makes me a happier, more productive human being.

Never!

But I do hope I have extra white matter in my brain... Could come in handy.

I'm going to have to side with Jad on this one. These are not lies, Robert. I am invincible. Invincible!

Were you aware of it? vol. 2: Stede Bonnet

Stede Bonnet was an early 18th-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called "the gentleman pirate". Because of marital problems, Bonnet turned to piracy in the summer of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, named it Revenge, and traveled with his paid crew along the American eastern seaboard, capturing other vessels and burning down Barbadian ships.

After arriving in Nassau, Bonnet met the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Incapable of leading his crew, Bonnet temporarily ceded his ship's command to Blackbeard. Before separating in December 1717, Blackbeard and Bonnet plundered and captured merchant ships along the East Coast. After Bonnet failed to capture the Protestant Caesar, his crew abandoned him to join Blackbeard on the Queen Anne's Revenge.

Bonnet stayed on Blackbeard's ship as a guest, and did not command a crew again until summer 1718, when he was pardoned by North Carolina governor Charles Eden and received clearance to go privateering against Spanish shipping. By July 1718, he had returned to piracy.

In late August and September of that year, Colonel William Rhett led a naval expedition against pirates on the Cape Fear River. Rhett and Bonnet's men fought each other for hours, but the outnumbered pirates ultimately surrendered. Rhett arrested the pirates and brought them to Charleston in early October. Bonnet was brought to trial, and sentenced to death. After his request for clemency was turned down, Bonnet was hanged in Charleston on December 10, 1718.

I really need to get my hands on A General History of the Pyrates.



**Courtesy of Wikipedia

Reality

I have been avoiding it. Lately more than usual.

I was talking to someone about real things a bit ago. Probably my father. About this search for real things. Real food and real sounds, acoustic instruments and clothes I made myself.

Or, the elusive human connection. Some people are better at that than I am. Better at making the connection between ideas and participation.

If I am impressed by a bakery, I want to learn to bake bread. Not make a sandwich. Sandwiches are a different conversation all together. You must start at the beginning.

I haven't had many ideas in the past few days. I can still follow movie plots, but anything more concrete is difficult. I said before - one piece of information at a time and no decisions.

It is an odd sensation to be very much on your way and then suddenly and completely lost.

I remember a few things. Maybe I will list them:
1. I am supposed to follow after -- (to be present in one's skin).
2. There are a few matters of business that need taking care of including: the acquisition of a Chinese visa, the receiving of shots for visiting the same, the division of a plan for how to pay off a credit card bill with so many airfares on it, the tidying of one's apartment before one's bandmates arrive, &c.
3. It is generally recommended that one eat every day.
4. An object in motion stays in motion.
5. I am meant to select a future. Preferably soon.