Thanksgiving.

For the year, a list of sorts...

1- Family
2- Good friends, wherever they are
3- Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
4- Having a working automobile
5- Free rent
6- Walking the dog
7- Health
8- Being able to play the trombone
9- Steady employ
10- Traveling to Brasil and playing music
11- Planet Earth BBC series
12- The number 12
13- Tom Paine
14- Revolutionary American history
15- Dry humour
16- Barack Obama winning the election
17- The three French sketches in my basement
18- Watching the Twins play baseball
19- Classy parties
20- Red wine
21- Plaid shirts
22- The color blue
23- Graduating from college
24- Crisp winter days, with light snow
25- Mulled wine on those crisp winter days
26- Mexican food
27- The ugly Christmas sweater I bought at Goodwill last winter
28- Having an equalizer that makes the little colored bars go up and down
29- The Nine
30- Large mugs, with plenty of stories behind them
31- Trombone choir
32- Dr. Smith
33- Law school
34- Half Price Books
35- This audio cabinet we "requisitioned" from Smith's office
36- Drinking good coffee
37- John Coltrane
38- Being able to play frisbee golf
39- The hard body workout
40- Being pretentious
41- Having my facebook profile photo on the front of the Luther yearbook
42- Glassware from foreign countries
43- Freedom from want
44- Tony Guzman
45- Being able to run a 5K without walking
46- The feeling after you turn in a big paper
47- California Burger Night
48- Bill Evans
49- St. Patrick's Day with Ryan
50- Having a semi-adult relationship
51- The new Twins ballpark
52- Mark Rothko prints
53- Watching Seinfeld on Friday afternoons after Jazz Orchestra, having a Coke
54- Doing juvenile things on the weekends
55- Being able to say things that needed to be said
56- American Airlines paying to fix my trombone that they broke
57- Making it back from Brasil in time for Scott's wedding
58- Books by Bill Bryson
59- Minnesota Public Radio
60- The view from Corcovado
61- Reminiscing
62- Feeling proud after my trombone recital
63- Making new friends
64- Playing "Who Puts His Trust"
65- Dressing up like a ballplayer and running around the CFL like an idiot
66- Being able to laugh at oneself
67- Possibilities
68- Bob Dylan albums
69- Living in community
70- Khaki pants
71- This green couch
72- Being able to think
73- Patience
74- That scarf I got in LaCrosse
75- Keeping in touch
76- Being content
77- That free cup of coffee I got on Election Day
78- Russian History class
79- The night in Cabo Frio with the caipirinhas
80- Live music
81- Catching a baseball at the Saints game
82- Cuban cigars
83- Luther College
84- Vinyl records
85- Good memories
86- Thursday evenings at La Rana
87- My blue pullover thing
88- Even numbered seats
89- Baking an edible pie
90- Keeping an open mind
91- Stride piano
92- Guinness
93- Older friends
94- Still having hair
95- Thoughtful conversations
96- People who read this blog
97- Organization
98- Remaining curious
99- J-term science with Grandpa
100- Thinking I'll enjoy what I think will be my job
101- Certain ladies
102- Coffeehouses
103- Getting emails from my Japanese friends
104- Organic chicken
105- Living spaces that do not feel like a middle schooler's wet dream
106- Trombone music
107- Black luggage
108- New glasses
109- Those New Yorker magazines all over the damn floor
110- Early mornings
111- Swing dancing
112- Being alive and well
113- European stuff
114- Snow

Globalisation

Hey folks, how's it going? I'm happy to report that I turned in my research memo this morning at approximately 9:10 AM, CST. The damn thing had basically been my life for the past 3 weeks or so. So, suck it memo, you got yours. Needless to say, I celebrated with a very large glass of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale with friends after class ended.

Now revising for finals starts. Can't seem to catch a break. Shit...

In other news, I'm once again joining my dad in the annual Turkey Trot 5K run on Thanksgiving this morning. And once again, I decided it would be a good idea to start training the week before the race. As this indicates, the solo attempt at the Hard Body Plan without my workout friends has been less than successful. Tomorrow morning will not be pleasant. Probably should put a pillow down to catch me when I inevitably fall out of bed after trying to stand on my useless legs. I must say though, today I ran with my iPod for the first time, and it is really quite revolutionary. Listened to the tail end of a broadcast of "This American Life," as well as some Arcade Fire. For those of you not familiar with "This American Life," I highly recommend you subscribe. It's really quite fascinating. This week's episode was about the Great Depression, and some of the stories were very moving. So this is why all those damn latté sipping, arugula eating, EAST COAST LIBERAL ELITES listen to public radio. It's interesting...

Anyways, I've had a recent email correspondence with a Japanese friend of mine, a woman who I stayed with for two nights on our Concert Band tour to Japan and China. Keep in mind, this happened nearly 4 years ago, but yet this woman (Chie) still loves to keep in touch with my friend Benjamin and myself. She teaches English at a local school. During our 36 hour stay with her and her family, we got to know them pretty well, and seemingly connected on a much deeper level than did many of our musical cohorts. The two of us made fast friends with her little boy Keito and had quite a few laughs with saké swilling Grandpa at dinner. Honest to God, the dude downed an orange juice carton full of saké in probably an hour and a half, all while talking about WWII and nuclear bombs. In Japanese. Once we finally figured out what the hell he was talking about, both of us felt just a little bit awkward.

Needless to say, those were probably the most fun times I had on the tour, speaking for myself only. Chie and Keito took us to an ancient samurai castle, a beautiful Japanese garden, and a shopping mall so I could purchase a horrendously overpriced Japanese baseball jersey with an idiot look on my face. We also explored around their house with Keito. And of course, we had more adventures in Japanese cuisine. If I remember, that was the night we dipped the raw meat and tofu into the raw egg, washed down with a Kirin.

See look, it really happened!







Look at that beautiful head of hair and the sweet pajamas! Some things never change. Still have the pajamas, still have that stunning Hawaiian shirt. The beautiful head of hair...

It's just somewhat amazing to me, that a singular interaction that lasted barely 36 hours over 3 years ago has continued to stay so vibrant. That with a click of a button, I can talk to a person worlds apart, both in time, space, and culture. Chie sent me some photos last week of her class Halloween party. She was excited that I was going to law school, hoped I enjoyed it. And every time she writes, she talks about how much they miss Benjamin and myself, and how eager they are to have us back in Kumamoto. Sorry, that's just pretty frekking sweet. There are people halfway around the world that I barely got to know who are inviting me to come hang out, 3 years after the fact. Fairly intense.

Chie, Hidekazu, Keito, Erin, Grandma, Grandpa, this blog post is hereby dedicated to you. Kumpai.

Grandpa, I still use those chopsticks you carved. And that decorative gourd thing you made is in my room. That was a much cooler gift than my Minnesota photo book and Benjamin's chocolate. Don't you hate being upstaged? Life's a bitch sometimes.

Sober Realizations

This title really has dual meanings. First of all, I'm sober as I'm realizing. Secondly, the realizations are sober. Amazing.

Although with this damn research memo, I could probably do with a change in the first characteristic.

But anyways, I was browsing my iPhoto library today, looking for the perfect photo to set as my desktop. As is my wont, I usually select a photo from my year in England, and the travels that accompanied it. So, I did have a scene of the Welsh highlands before, and I recently had a photo I took of a favourite road sign in Vienna. Who else thinks that the intersection of "Beethovengang" and "Eroicagasse" is hilarious?

But anyways, I settled on a photo that I took from the top of the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix, France. Right in the shadow of Mont Blanc. And, I might add, one of my most vivid and happy memories. Hell, I'll just post the photo. It's absolutely magnificent.



Imagine actually seeing that with your own eyes, thousands of feet above the valley floor.

This past weekend, I got to talk to a friend of mine who is an "actual adult," working a steady professional job, (currently) outside the graduate academia that myself and most of my friends have cocooned up inside. And it was very nice to chat. One thing that came up was my friend's realization that barring a career change or further education, she was in the life cycle of work that could very well consume her for 40 some years. After college, in that working world, as a "real adult," well, it's a sobering reality.

I think of myself, who takes great pride in my European exploits. I've looked at the photos for so long, I've just sort of assumed that it was my destiny to continue that jet-setting lifestyle, going off for month long escapades without a care in the world. My conversation this weekend, combined with a sudden realization of my own imminent professional life, well, that kinda put a damper on things. The reality is that the likelihood of another month spent criscrossing the globe is rather slim. Maybe one more brief trip this summer. But after that, real life sets in. Work, school, friends, (presumably) a family. The proverbial "tying down" that inevitably happens.

It also doesn't help that my old friend Rick Steves keeps sending me emails. He always seems to be sitting in a Parisien cafe sipping coffee as he blogs, too. It's like rubbing salt in a wound. Not you too Rick.

Now, I'm not exactly a believer in the dichotomy that once work starts, dreams die. Or something to that extent. But I'm also a realist, I suppose. The likelihood of me living and working in London is probably rather slim. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but the odds are stacked against it. Barring that though, I'll just have to take advantage of other situations, I suppose.

I might buy a Chamonix poster. Or go hear a symphony this weekend. Who knows.

Album of the Week: Elis & Tom

Evening folks. We're heading back to Brasil for a little bossa nova action for this week's recommendation. Music fans, say "Oi! Tudo bem!" to Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

I picked this album up in Rio de Janeiro this summer. And I'm not just saying that to sound pretentious, I literally did purchase it in Rio, at an extremely overpriced record shop near our hotel. I had taken down a list of musicians from Tony and went in there and showed it to an employee, and asked him in Portugenglish if he could point me to some good albums. This particular album is the one he told me I absolutely had to walk out of the store with. I quickly realized why. This is music of such intense passion, it is incredible.

The thing that I believe distinguishes this from other bossa nova albums is the fact that many of the pieces aren't really bossa pieces at all. There's a lot of string action going on, and a lot of solo voice work. Because of this, the overall tone of this album is incredibly intimate. Intimate to the point that you almost feel as if you're intruding on something you have no business hearing. There's a certain nakedness to the production, a harsh juxtaposition of voice and piano, or voice and strings. Not harsh in the traditional sense, but harsh rather in the starkness of the music.

By far, my favourite track on this album is Só tinha de ser com você. The use of the electric piano gives it just the right tinge of beachside schmaltz, while utilizing a funky little swing figure throughout to give it some bounce. Simply fantastic. There's also quite an emotional rendition of Corcovado. I think I like it better than Astrud Gilberto's version. The fact that everything is in Portuguese, and there is no lameass attempt to translate the meaning into English helps greatly, I feel. I'm sorry, but I am not a fan of translation in music. People should listen to art in the form that it comes to them. There's this idea out there that everything needs to be tailor made to the consumer. Maybe in some sense, this is true. Like if I were buying a kitchen appliance or something. I'd want my appliance to do what I want. But when it comes to works of art, the point is to tailor it to one audience, if there's one at all. Art is a product of the society in which it is made, and to try and cram it into a different societal framework, well, I think that's a bad idea.

So listen to this in Portuguese and don't complain that you can't understand it. That adds to the romance, the exoticism.

I really don't have a whole lot else to say. I drank too much coffee too late at night after getting up too early and have a bit of a headache. But I popped this into the carousel, and life was good again. Can't say much more than that. If you're into bossa nova and/or want some genuinely fantastic music, go buy this album.

You'll almost certainly pay less than I did.

I would kill for a caipirinha right now.

YES YES YES YES YES

Remember this night folks, because this is the sort of stuff that gets written down in history books.

Tonight, America elected a black man as our President. Less than half a century ago, black people could not eat at a lunch counter with you or I, nor could they use the same drinking fountain. They were routinely disenfranchised.

And right now, America has selected a black man as our President, the individual who personifies our nation to the rest of the world.

This is momentous. Earth shattering, absolutely incredible. I will be telling my kids in the future that I voted for Barack Obama. People will look back at this night and say, "That generation did something special."

But we did not just elect a black man. We elected an individual with the highest degree of intellectual curiosity and vigor, an individual with sound judgment and a broad worldview, an individual who chooses to bridge our divisions rather than exploit them. And I'm sorry to my Republican friends, but the current occupant of the White House is the absolute antithesis of President-Elect Obama.

We showed the world that we choose to live up to our ideals of equality and freedom. Ideals that so often seem like shadows or illusions, ideals that seem out of reach for too many of our countrymen and women. "All men are created equal," our most sacred document states. For too long we neglected that. And to a certain extent, we still do. But tonight, we took a giant step towards that nebulous ideal that we always seem to be striving for.

For too long, this nation has chosen to favor the wealthy over the many. For too long, we have conducted our foreign affairs with arrogance and disdain for other viewpoints. For too long, we have allowed our people to suffer. Here, in the richest nation on earth, we have folks who cannot afford health care, cannot find jobs, cannot keep up with inflation. This is no time to play around with strategies already proven to fail. This is the time to try something new. This is the time for transformation.

Idealistic? Yes. Overly hopeful? Quite possibly. But folks, this country was founded on idealism. It was founded on the ridiculous hope that 13 backwater colonies could defeat the greatest military power known to man. It was founded on a complete change from the Old World, a transformation to a bastion of freedom and respect for human rights. I'm sorry folks, but idealism is woven through the fabric of this country. Those of you afraid of it, afraid of change, maybe you need to rethink exactly what this country is.

I've never felt so proud of my country. Absolutely incredible.

Nov. 4th

Vote.

Vote

Hey folks. Just a quick reminder to the internet void, if you live in the United States, make sure you go out and vote on November 4th.

I will never forget, my 4th grade baseball coach (and subsequent middle school principal) told our team one day that as soon as we turned 18, we had to register to vote. It's a civic duty that far too many people brush off. Millions of our countrymen and women have died supporting rights like these, and it would be shameful to repudiate their sacrifice and our own democratic heritage so tastelessly.

The fact of the matter remains that this election is important. Probably an understatement. And we're all sick of the campaigning and all the TV ads, yada, yada, yada. It will be over on Wednesday, but the choice we make will have repercussions far beyond. Our own national interest is at stake, that's true. We have a lot of problems that need fixing, from the economy to education. But, even though we may scoff at it, the international interest is at stake as well. The US remains the world's foremost power, and whether we realize it or not, our actions have massive effects on the world community. And frankly, I'm tired of having to add the caveat to foreign persons that no, not all Americans are like George W. Bush.

I believe that our nation needs transformational change. That doesn't necessarily mean that we radically alter all of our policies or whatever. It doesn't mean instant Scandinavian style social democracy, or anything like that. But it does mean that we need to project a substantially different version of ourselves to the rest of the world. We need to show that we are still the America that people used to idealize, that people trusted. No more of this cowboy mentality, let's embrace the opportunity to coordinate and cooperate. Let's live up to our best version of ourselves.

A new America needs a new leader. It needs one who represents the best in all of us, it needs one who has the ability to adapt to a changing world. John F. Kennedy once said that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans. That's what we need now, a new generation, a new face for a new age. We cannot base our politics and our national discourse on pettiness and cultural warfare when there are so many challenges to face. That's what I'll vote for.

But even if you don't share my views, make sure you go out and vote. It's something we take too lightly, the privilege of living in a country where we have a say.

Plus, Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee.