Hark!

Our good friend Sufjan Stevens released a five-volume Christmas album a little before the season this past year. Thanks to the lovely Miss Ballard, I now find it on my mind and in my ears almost nonstop.

Boasting 42 songs, the album is a mix of classical Christmas hymns, Sufjan originals, and hymns that are not typically associated with Christ's birth. Most of the originals sound like something elves would sing rather than angels, and the strength of the album definitely lies in Sufjan's renditions of the classics. The secret? Don't change much.

Recorded in 2001 apparently in and around the time he was working on Enjoy Your Rabbit and Michigan, many of the songs have the signature rolling banjo lines and wind instruments reminiscent of A Sun Came. Throughout the five discs of this set Sufjan seems to have a particular affinity for the French carols and tunes. O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Holy Night, and The Friendly Beasts stand out melodically from the rest. Songs like Come Thou Fount, Amazing Grace, and Holy Holy Holy don’t typically fit with Christmas carols, but they sound so good, it’s hard to complain.

Interspersed between hymns and originals are a few short instrumentals, often songs that have either been done in full with lyrics previously on the album, or are to come later on. While these are pleasant to listen to and help move the experience along, I was disappointed to find two of my favorite hymns were given only the 45-second wordless treatment: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Angels We Have Heard on High.

Sufjan’s Christmas originals are somewhat confusing to me as they nearly always tend towards the goofy and ridiculous. His exquisite handling of O Come O Come Emmanuel and hearing his newer and newer music in the past few years leads me to believe that he could be quite capable of writing some pretty extraordinary hymns himself, both lyrically and musically. I suppose that since this was recorded six years ago, there’s much to be said for musical maturation, and I’m anxious to see if he ever revisits this medium of Christmas music.

Hilarity

Rhapsody's brief review of the Self Against City album is the funniest two-liner I've seen in a while:

"Wearing wimpy on their sleeves like true emo kids, Self Against City deliver an exuberantly insecure debut. It's not required to get dumped by your girl or boyfriend to fully enjoy Telling Secrets to Strangers, but it is recommended."

Humbling Sessions

I had a pretty rough semester grade-wise this Fall, but I won’t count it as a total loss. Any time this Spring that I’m thinking a bit too well of myself, I will release one of my papers that earned me my lowest GPA semester at UI into the blogosphere, as a way of bringing myself back to Earth through humiliation. And no, this is not an opportunity for me to qualify these papers as “awful,” while secretly knowing they rule so that my reader is fooled into some undue awe. These will be truly terrible papers. I invite you to check back frequently. Cheers.

How the You of Eye Will Paint Ewe and Aye Into A Corner

In order to graduate from this fine establishment, the powers that be demand that I fill out a Senior Survey, which allows me to relate, in rich detail, my overall experience at the school through a list of questions answerable on a 4 point scale from “Not At All” to “Greatly.” Very well.

One particular section was titled “Developed Abilities Enhanced by my UI Undergrad Experience,” or some such thing. I had no problem answering the questions dealing with how my time at UI enhanced my knowledge of ethics and morality. Yes, I certainly learned a ton about the state of the average parishioner at the Church of Liberal Humanism, meeting five days a week down on 6^th Street. In a less jaded way, I learned quite a bit about my own frustrations, joys, morality, and how well I knew what I believed through my interactions with those who didn’t have a clue as to their own. And in a way that teeters dangerously close to optimism, I saw the way Christians act and should act in environments that are constantly hostile to them.

All was well until I came to a series of questions inquiring as to the role of the university in growing my knowledge as to the contributions made to culture by women and minorities. Someone down at the Survey Lab must’ve had a grand time cooking these questions up. How to answer? I could answer “Greatly,” since it was shoved down my throat at least a few times A WEEK throughout my education. So yes, I did hear about this quite a bit. But when my responses are read, do I want to contribute to a group of pleased professors nodding their heads in approval at their mighty powers of “Diversification?” No!

But then what? If I say no, as I hated and disagreed with most anything that came across my way that smacked of cultural affirmative action, I set up the next poor sucker who comes through the system to be bludgeoned DAILY with this tripe. He’ll be shaken and screamed at that “Native American culture is interesting!!! IT IS!!!! SAY IT!!!” until the day he sits where I am and ponders the question of “Greatly,” or “Not At All.”

The High Country

Some fotos from the break are up.

Alive & Well

My apologies for the absence these past few weeks, I've been traveling quite a bit lately. Stay tuned for many new pictures, stories of 40-hour-long train rides, and much more! I was just strong-armed by Goongle to switch my Blogger account to "the new version." We'll see what that yields.

In the meantime, enjoy this.

Moscsnow

Fotos

Check it.

Course Evaluations

Yesterday I took about twenty minutes to fill out my online "Course Evaluations." These differ from class to class and can be as basic as "Rate your course on a scale of 1-5," and as in depth as up to fifteen questions about the class.

My Educational Psychology class review was of the sparse variety, with only a number ranking and comments window available for me to vent my grievances. I gave the class a 0, and in the comments section wrote:

I’d like to suggest an alternate title for this course of Ed. 301: “Nothing is Ever A Child’s Fault.” This course seemed to be telling us that if a child shows any trouble with any subject, that he or she is to be excused of any and all misbehavior and labled as having a "condition." This seems to dig a child with problems into a deeper hole more often than not. If teachers and parents caved in every time a student said "I can't," I'm afraid no one would get anywhere.

Sadly, my misspelling of "labeled" probably did irreparable damage to my otherwise objective, helpful response. I suppose we'll see how "confidential" these evaluations really are, and if I end up being summoned to the Ed Department's office.

There are many, many hilarious ways that I could be kicked out of the Ed department. Stay tuned.

Yea Or Nay

The doors to all sins are opened by Pride as one is pushed through by Desire.

How I'm To Be Kicked Out Of The English Department

The scene will of course be Ethnic and Minority Literature. I’ll be sitting in class studying a portrait shot of the Chinese-American author we’re currently reading. Dub Hesser will say “Isn’t this a great, swirling, mystical representation of the Chinese struggle of keeping the traditions of old and facing this new America? Wow. Huh. Striking. What do you think, Matt?”

From the front of the room, I will appear engrossed in the handout.

“Matt?”

I will then furrow my brow at the picture contemplatively, and raise my hand without glancing up. Hessbomb will think “Wow, so engaged in the text, he didn’t even hear his name called but boy oh boy I’m sure whatever he’s got to say is going to be spectacular!”

At which point, after being called on, I will ask “Do Chinese people have eyelashes?”

Adventures With the Romantics

When discussing Byron, one must deal with seductive scenes. The man was a shameless womanizer, and it comes through clear as day in his poetry, usually with hilarious results. In attempting to relate a Byronic seducer to modern times, ol’ Ronny McFargo suggested it to be like saying “Hey baby, I play football for the Vandals [eyebrows up and down with that boink boink noise].”

This was obviously aimed at J., who does indeed play ball for our mighty Vandals. He took it with a humble grin and shake of the head. I like J.

Sniveling Pomp Boy, however, is another story. His response: “Not that that’d get you anywhere,” a bit louder than he apparently intended, as he quickly looked to J. and retracted with “Just kidding.”

But J., the incarnation of Vandal Pride and abused jocks everywhere was not to be appeased by this slippery attempt. He picked up the desk/chair next to him which still contained a flustered grad student, and swung the mass of steel and flesh in an arc straight on top of Sniveling Pomp Boy. As he writhed like a worm on the earth tone carpet, J. picked him up into the air and snapped him in two with a satisfying CRACK.

“IT IS KNOWN TO J. THAT THE FOOTBALL TEAM SUCKETH HARD. BUT HE IS A RARE FORM, ONE WHO IS IN THIS WORLD BOTH AN IDAHOAN ATHLETE AND SOMETHING MORE!!!” he roared, shattering the annoying fluorescent lights in TLC.

He then disposed of the remaining halves of Sniveling Pomp Boy by hurling them through the wall to the ground below, giving our room two much needed windows, and took his seat after slugging a Gatorade and reciting a few lines from Paradise Lost.

An Oracle as to Ground Beef

Better to cook it and keep it than to keep it, uncooked.

Thank U, You of I

A UI student took it upon herself to send out a Facebook message last week informing us how to vote. Not "how" as in, register, go to the fairgrounds, vote, but, well, here's the message:


Tomorrow is election day. Please remember to vote tomorrow, as there are several important issues that will be decided on BY YOU. If you are unfamiliar with these measures, they are as follows:

Ballot Questions:
Proposition 1 (makes education funding a priority -- penny tax sized increase in school budgets) --YES
Proposition 2 (pay developers and land owners, end planning and zoning) --NO
HJR2 (bans civil unions, hospital visitation etc.. and re-defines marriage) --- NO
Advisory Vote on Property Tax Shift (your sales tax pays for special interest property tax cuts) -- NO
Ten Commandments Back in City Park (will bring Fred Phelps back with HIS monument!) -- NO

Ahoy

New pictures be up.

A Companion Piece To Gibbs's Latest

This morning I mentioned to Asher that my Minority Lit class consisted of 90% student led “discussion,” which always boils down to “Ok, can we get into groups and talk about these incredibly bland questions that I’ve come up with? Great.” This was at about 7:45 which left me ample time to get to campus five minutes before class started, but right then I realized that I never wanted to go to that class ever again. I’m going to be hearing the opinions of my peers for the rest of my life; while I’m in college, I want to hear a professor’s thoughts. So I stayed home and read Byron.

I’d kill for a delicious, buttered gender roll.