A Funny Coincidence

I would like to write about Flannery O'Connor. I am listening to a band called As I Lay Dying, which is, of course, a novel by another Southern Gothic writer, William Faulkner. This is a coincidence I appreciate.

I'm reading O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, which is one of her few novels (she was much more known for short stories). It is...bizarre. But it's written at a fairly simple level, so at least you aren't ensnared by thick language. Yet as bizarre as it has been so far -- and it's the sort of bizarre, I must add, that is somehow unnerving -- I find myself liking it and wanting more. In fact, had it not been for other tasks tonight (new (Craigslist new) washer and dryer installation -- not the most fun task but one that will pay dividends the next time I need to do laundry and don't want the house to sound like it's foundations are crumbling), I would have indulged myself. But it is the sort of story that you can pick up and plow through easily enough, so it's just as well I wait until some lunch hour later this week.

Are you familiar with Ms. O'Connor? Southern authors in general? Have you thoughts on the species? My opinion, of course, is tainted by the two lovely years I spent in Georgia, but for what it's worth, I'm an ardent supporter. Ms. O'Connor, to recommend her further, was born in that most beautiful and haunted of towns -- Savannah, Georgia. If you're not yet ready to give Southern fiction a chance, perhaps you'd do well to begin by spending a few days (and nights) in Savannah, whereupon its spook and charm may win you over to the South and its band of storytellers.

[Q] and [A]

Do you know what pitch correction is? It's where you change the angle of your arm when you throw, improving the velocity and movement of your pitch. Just kidding. It's basically where they're able to improve/correct the tone of your recorded voice without changing anything else (i.e., dynamics, clarity, etc.) Think boy band. Accordingly, pitch correction is frowned upon by "serious" artists. I don't think there's a real case for it either, except for that this song I keep listening to has a part that is so clearly pitch corrected -- and it might be my favorite part of the song. I'm unapologetic.

There are small orange tomatoes growing outside our family room window. This isn't mysterious; we planted them. But while the dogs were ultimately able to break through (or over, as it were) the chicken wire fence we built and successfully consume/mutilate/murder the zucchini, cantaloupe, squash, radishes, onions, and carrots, they mysteriously spared the tomato plants. So, we are beginning to have summer tomatoes. They are of the pint-size variety, which I somewhat regret, as nothing sounds better than coming home to wash off a goodly-sized tomato and biting straight into it. But the little ones are tasty too, and the majority are still waiting to ripen, so their bounty should continue on for weeks. At this point I should include a picture, but my absence from blogging has left me a bit numb to blogging etiquette. I'll see if I can snap a few pics in coming days.

They look a bit like this...

This one was title-less, and I just noticed.

Sometimes I find it hard to give new/different music a fair shake. My sister, who's musical palate is much more tolerant than mine, will attest to this, particularly as it pertains to sad music. Some people like sad music. It makes good background music. It is often very pretty (and apparently has a sense of irony). I'm not sure if people find it comforting -- like it's nice to hear someone put to word and sound the things you feel. It's not like that for me. It just makes me sadder, moves me beyond introspection and into neurosis.

Of course, fun music has its limits too. My friend recommended the new Japandroids album. Really fun, really catchy, good music for driving through warm summer evenings. But lyrics like...

These girls are all
Bikini Kill
We need a ride to Bikini Island

We run the gauntlet
Let's get to France
So we can French kiss some French girls

...well, c'mon. I'm not given to poetry, much to my dismay, so my lyric interpretation skills probably aren't the keenest. But I dare you to make any sense of the lyrics above. "But perhaps there's no sense to be had?" Yes, I suppose, but that's not likely. Who sits down and says, "I'm now going to put together a smattering of words that, though creating a complete sentence, mean absolutely nothing about absolutely nothing."?

This perhaps explains my weakness for catchy songs with easily digestible lyrics. Talk about girls and the road and growing older. Whatever. Just so long as it's not apparent gibberish that may/may not have meaning. (And this probably gets to my real concern...and insecurity, as it were...that perhaps there is a great deal of meaning in lyrics that seem so bizarre at first, and I'm just too dull to find it.)

The name of that Japandroids song is "Wet Hair" and, in spite of insipid lyrics, is a pretty good listen.

Don't call it a comeback. No, I knew you wouldn't.

A return to blogging? Maybe. I make no promises. Could just be a momentary lapse. Nicole's recent post about the dearth of bloggers out there made me feel convicted. So this is my contribution. It also gave me a reason to waste some time looking for a new layout.

My room has clothes strewn about, which will have to be put away before bed. This will make me go to sleep later than I want, making waking up tomorrow morning all the more difficult. Funny how, even when you know you need more sleep, you can find a million things to keep you up later than necessary. Unfortunately, most of the things aren't worth the lost sleep (except for blogging, of course).

My car has new tires. My bank account is a good bit thinner. It's a give and take, this life thing. But the ride is so much smoother (and that terrifying shaking of the steering wheel at 60mph is gone), so I think it was worth it.

This is turning into a bit of a randoms post. I have two friends, nay brothers, that I have kept regular email chains going with for years now. Our go-to email is the randoms email, in which the writer has the freedom to string together as many unrelated thoughts as he pleases. It's a good way to get caught up, to be able to tell both serious and meaningless stories in the same email, etc. Of course, those emails tend to involve more cursing and/or what some would consider blasphemy, so I can't share their contents here. It's probably best if you just try it out with your own (trusted) friends. But I reserve the right to make use of the randoms format here every now and again. Sans (much) cursing and blasphemy.

Jamie.

"Jamie, what you doin' now,
what you doin' now girl?
Please, please tell me,
'Cause I need to know, I need to know now.
When I was down, You came to me,
And promised you'd always be
By my side, now you're gone
And I'm waiting patiently
Jamie, I want you to know

Jamie, Jamie, I'm so glad you're mine
We'll be together a long time"

Rivers Cuomo (Weezer's neurotic crooner extraordinaire) wrote those lyrics. About his lawyer.

The electric version is vintage Blue Album-era, but the acoustic version has some barbershop-esque harmonies that just kill. Track it down on the extended Blue Album re-release, along with some rad live cuts ("My Name is Jonas" in particular, though we all know how great a song that was originally).

I went to the airport today for a work meeting. Why is the airport so cool? Seriously, what is it about airports that captures the imagination (though apparently not enough imagination to avoid cliché phrases like "capture the imagination")? I'm rather fond of Sky Harbor. Always have been. Might be a nice place to work in the future. Hmmm...

Everyone, if you haven't been sitting out on your back porches or pool decks these past evenings, what is your excuse? We all know that this is the greatest time of the year, particularly those hours between the sun's descent and evening's arrival. Oh, were but summer flesh and blood, someone to wrap my arms around.

By the way, do you know how difficult it is to [re]learn how to write a memo? My verbose soul wasn't made for this. I'll be submitting my resignation to the City shortly.

"Jamie, Jamie, I'm so glad you're mine. We'll be.together.a~long time."

Various Media

The dog is making funny noises, as though she intends to throw up. I hope she doesn't. I've been cleaning up more dog bodily (dog-ily?) fluids than I care to these days, what with a new puppy romping about the house. I think this paragraph just made me throw up in my mouth.

Various thoughts... One time, a good friend said something to the effect of, "You can't be good at everything." On the one hand, that's about as clearly true a statement as they come. I could start naming the things I'm not good at right now and be here for the next few hours.days.lifetimes. On the other -- and this was certainly the case at the time -- there's a sudden tug within me that says, "Don't you say that. I can be good at everything, and I intend to be." It's not really hubris, I don't think. It's more an issue of over-self-exaction. Simply, it's this: I'm loathe to admit that I cannot, for it stirs within me feelings of mediocrity, of self-worth(lessness), that I generally do my best to avoid (ironically enough, usually by trying harder not to fail -- and therein lies the grander irony: in trying hard not to fail, one sentences oneself to perpetual failure/disappointment). Life would be much happier if you weren't trying to be perfect.

I've got some pictures. Don't want to get too texty on you.

Savannah (River), GA. Classic.

Country roads, Garden's Corner, SC. It is my intention to, at some point in my life, spend a few weeks/months of each year in lowcountry South Carolina.

The Moon is Down

That's the song playing out of my iPod right now, courtesy of a lovely little band called Explosions in the Sky. I find myself enjoying singer-less bands these days. Explosions, Pelican, Small Sails... It's not really a "Now that I'm older and more mature, I only listen to Bach" thing. On the contrary, the stuff I've been listening to still has what all good pop/rock songs do -- hooks. You've gotta have those hooks. It's just that they come without the white noise of voice, and with a little more tension, a little more buildup.

I guess I should share a bit, as Nancy has asked, about my new job. (Briefly: if you listen to "The Moon is Down" by Explosions, the buildup breaks into a lush valley at 5:47). This is a very fair request, and I can't seem to find any good reasons to avoid it, although I thought Nicole's/Shawn's explanations -- "...when you ask Shawn, 'so what does Aaron do at his new job?" he says "He goes to meetings and meets people.'" -- pretty much covered it. No, no that's not true. I do have the privilege of meeting many people. I do go to many meetings and sit, listen, absorb. I also complete actual work. (In fact, this is really the pressing issue thus far: I have quite a bit of work to do, but getting it done in between meetings/lunches/etc. can prove difficult.) Oh, right, I sort of forgot to mention my employer -- the City of Phoenix. Really, I just feel lucky to be there at all. They're in the midst of a hiring freeze (sidenote: As are many governments these days. You see, when the economy sucks, and your local government -- in response to citizen demand -- relies more on sales taxes than property taxes, they run out of money, since sales taxes are are more volatile. That means people stop buying stuff, so the city has no money.) Unless you're a cop, you're pretty much not getting a job these days (with the exception of a very few, "mission critical" positions -- like when there's no one to drive the garbage trucks. You can get in that way too.) My little program has been around long enough, and has enough of a track record, that the City seems committed to finding a way to continue it, once again much to my benefit.

There are also some sweet perks, aside from a regular, above-the-poverty-line paycheck. Because the program has been going for so long (1950), there are still a ton of former interns in the City government. As part of the acclimation process, each previous year's intern class, or what remains of them, take the current interns out to lunch. The longevity of the program again pays dividends here, as it basically means that there's probably 15 - 20 free lunches we get from past interns. Hey, you gotta take care of the family, right? We also get to take tours of most any city facility, system, etc. we like. Please, allow me to flash the inner-nerd here. The city, for example, cools all of its downtown facilities through a pretty clever system in which water is frozen to ice during the night, then slowly melted during the day while fans blow the air -- cooled by the ice -- into the facilities. Nerdy? Yes. Do I want to tour it? Yes. Will we get to? Almost surely.

Really, I guess what has been at the forefront of my mind ever since beginning the job is that there are just so many opportunities, so much access, being granted me that, had I come into this (or any) organization as a normal employee, I never would've had. This is a gift, most assuredly. And, perhaps best of all, it has brought me back home. Back to PHX, back to real summers, back to storms clouds. Not a morning goes by, it seems, where I don't find myself thinking, generally during the morning commute, how "mine" this place is. I've said it before, and it still holds true. It's good to be home.