rollin' round the bend

Something I love about being home is the sound of the trains, which I notice usually at nighttime. I guess I've always loved trains, but I don't think that was a conscious love until I looked back through an old pre-teen journal and I had listed a bunch of things to do with my life, one being take a train across the country,"--which I kinda did coming back home from Bend. (Portland--Chicago--KC over three blissful days of rolling monotony and traveler's anonymity.)

Anyway, the continuous sounds of the trains in the night make me think of this that I read in an Anthony de Mello book:

When Brother Bruno was at prayer one night, he was disturbed by the croaking of a bullfrog.

All his attempts to disregard the sound were unsuccessful, so he shouted from his window, "Quiet! I'm at my prayers."

Now Brother Bruno was a saint, so his command was instantly obeyed. Every living creature held its voice so as to create a silence that would be favorable to prayer.

But now another sound intruded on Bruno's worship—an inner voice that said, "Maybe God is as pleased with the croaking of that frog as with the chanting of your psalms."

"What can please the ears of God in the croak of a frog?" was Bruno's scornful rejoinder.

But the voice refused to give up. "Why would you think God invented the sound?"

Bruno decided to find out why. He leaned out of his window and gave the order, "Sing!"

The bullfrog's measured croaking filled the air to the ludicrous accompaniment of all the frogs in the vicinity.

And as Bruno attended to the sound, their voices ceased to jar, for he discovered that, if he stopped resisting them, they actually enriched the silence of the night.

With that discovery Bruno's heart became harmonious with the universe, and, for the first time in his life, he understood what it means to pray.

And, on another note, also this...


and as the original poster of this video says, sorry for the sideways-ness. The sound quality is quite good though.

close encounters

I'd heard of this man before and enjoyed his music when I caught it but never made an effort to get real acquainted--until--we were acquainted two nights ago. A favorite lovely lady had four free tickets to his show and we field tripped westward into Kansas college town territory. A few months ago listening to "So Runs the World Away" online I never, never, anticipated I'd be hanging out with this dude on his tour bus. And now I have Ritter fever. Forget Justin. It's all about Josh now.


Like when I wrote a David-Sedaris-style essay for an author imitation assignment and a year later met the man after a reading. And he read [ie, politely scanned] my imitation of him. Right over my grade school heading of name/date/name of assignment, "David Sedaris imitation," he signed his own name! omg!

It's strange and fun to realize people you read and listen to are people in fact.

measured in music

Around this time last year I listened to the All Songs Considered podcast "The Year's Best Music," looking back on listeners' picks for 2009, and can't believe that the "Best Albums of 2010" has shown up in my iTunes library. I remember vividly spending the bus ride to Hangzhou at the start of winter break listening to The xx, Phoenix, Edward Sharpe, Metric. Most songs I would hear and ask Megan, "Have you heard...?" to which she would give me a seriously? look and say "Yyyeah..."

And now here I am, a total 180 from a Chinese bus, lounging in my nana's sun-stained arm chair in the comfort of the living room, already listening and looking back to 2010, including The National, Yeasayer, Sleigh Bells, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, and others I wasn't cool enough to catch.

happy about this

The National's High Violet

party in the usa

Since I have my freshmen class four times a week, I regularly play them English-language songs on Mondays, which I have cleverly dubbed "Music Monday". I play the song while they look at the lyrics, some of which I have blanked out so they have to listen for what the words are. Just this week I realized I could greatly enhance Music Monday by showing them music videos downloaded with some unnamed downloading client (because as of now, we shadily are not allowed internet access in the classrooms...). iTunes' top downloads list tells me that some song called "Party in the USA" is quite the hit back home, so I searched for it and downloaded a live performance.

And that's how I learned about this pole incident which looks to have been a real flurry in the media that I thankfully missed before we left.

Here I thought Miley Cyrus would be a nice window to American culture as a solid representation of current American pop music. What a tragedy that she really is a current icon of American pop! She is not such a nice window to American culture for these Chinese students. There's no way I could show this to my class of 20 year-olds: Megan and I drew out the lyrics for "The 12 Days of Christmas" and the boys couldn't even be mature about her stick figure drawing of 9 ladies dancing. Plus, I don't want to show it to them, which is really the sad thing, that what's "popular" in my country would embarrass me as a cultural ambassador to my students.

At least they now know who U2 is. Can you believe Bono was unknown in a corner of the world?