Idaho

A Change of Seasons

After 5 merry years at the Malebox/Wisconsin House pt. 2, I'm moving on to a little house down the hill. Triple the billz is worth a home that can be clean, quiet, and free of television.

Sooooo, Chris Aberle, Drew Nicholas, and Jordan Smith are looking to fill my spot ASAP here on Polk St. Four bedrooms, wood stove, two living rooms, huge kitchen, and bidet make it a castle among shacks in a college town. Asher is staying in NY through January, and would also appreciate roommates to ease the rent burden on his end. If you or anyone you know of is looking for a place, there are two openings.

New Pictures

Hola, just posted some new shots on flickr from my time in Colorado with AJ. I had the great opportunity to take a group of guys out from Wisconsin on a three day trip in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. It's, you know, scenic...

The Palouse Cup rages on, we're currently 1-1 with two games to go tomorrow.

Vocab

The Book Club, consisting of Nate Wolff, David Hoos, and myself had its first meeting last night. We discussed Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables a bit, and made plans for our next reads, which will probably include some Tobias Wolff short stories, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. Yes, we set out to read some Catholic writers.

Besides the learned words listed below, we talked about the sometimes insultingly obvious tools many classic authors employ in relating themes. For example, much of THOT7G is about generational sin and curses. In order to make sure we hadn't missed it before, Hawthorne goes to great lengths to tell us how a descendent of the cursed ancestor bears an uncanny resemblence to the orginal Pyncheon. This led me to revisit one of my old gripes about middle/high school literature programs that tell kids that the classics are simply too dense and difficult to understand. Oh, and they also were written too long ago to have any bearing on a 17-year-old who drives a Mazda and has an iPod. The fact is, many of the classics function as textbooks on Themes in Writing. Dickens, much to Nate's frustration, will carry you along a nice little theme in his novels, show you bits and peices here and there until you are comfortable and fairly pleased with having gleaned something from the text, then say something like 'And the wooden table was a metaphor for the Clark family.' To which the appropriate, Wolffian response is to bring an open hand to the forhead, hold it briefly, extend the hand and cry "Dude."

Words I've learned:

lugubrious - ridiculously, excessively mournful.

Daguerreotype - an obsolete photographic process, invented in 1839, in which a picture made on a silver surface sensitized with iodine was developed by exposure to mercury vapor.

matutinal - pertaining to or occurring in the morning; early in the day.

escritoire - a writing desk.

obstreperous - noisy and stubbornly defiant, aggressively boisterous.

piquant - agreeably pungent or sharp in taste or flavor; pleasantly biting or tart.

dromedaries - the single-humped camel, Camelus dromedarius, of Arabia and northern Africa.

approbation - official approval or sanction.

effulgence - shining forth brilliantly; radiant.

physiognomy - the outward appearance of anything, taken as offering some insight into its character.

alacrity - cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness.

testator - a person who has died leaving a valid will.

propinquity -

1.	nearness in place; proximity.

2.	nearness of relation; kinship.

3.	affinity of nature; similarity.

4.	nearness in time.

augury - an omen, token, or indication.


And I'm only halfway through...

Lewis on the Lazy

Teachers will tell you that the laziest boy in the class is the one who works hardest in the end. They mean this. If you give two boys, say, a proposition in geometry to do, the one who is prepared to take trouble will try to understand it. The lazy boy will try to learn it by heart because, for the moment, that needs less effort. But six months later, when they are preparing for an exam, that lazy boy is doing hours and hours of miserable drudgery over things the other boy understands, and positively enjoys, in a few minutes. Laziness means more work in the long run. Or look at it this way. In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it takes a lot of pluck to do; but it is also, in the long run, the safest thing to do. If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing.
It is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call 'ourselves', to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be 'good'. We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way - centred on money ore pleasure or ambition - and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing by grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown

From Mere Christianity

Return

Back from Estes with pictures to come soon. I ended up not only taking out a backpacking group, but helping the rock climbing guides on their two trips as well. Moody Bible Institute did a little write-up on First Adventure that you can read here.

Check It

I have a lot of foam-core and mat board left over from the Spring Gala. If you have photos or art that you would like matted or mounted onto foam-core (or both), let me know and I'm sure we could arrange something. I haven't had a chance to do much in the way of photo-ing or writing since starting at the TerrorMark, but in exchange I'm now relatively wealthy. So I'd love a few projects to work on.

In other news, I'll be down in Colorado this next week helping my good friend AJ Dudek start his guiding company, First Adventure. A group of guys from a church back in Wisconsin are coming out for a week of climbing, backpacking, and fly-fishing and AJ has asked me to guide the backpacking trip. We'll be tramping about just south of Rocky Mountain National Park in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and Roosevelt National Forest. Hopefully some good pictures to follow.

Hancock: Probably my least favorite Will Smith movie , but hey, that's like describing the least delicious ice cream. It's all tasty.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

When first the Fox saw the Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood. Next time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by. The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony.

Bands and Galas

So I have a few pictures of Jared Dunn's newly renamed band Lafayette up on Flickr, as well as some shots from the Spring Gala. Enjoy.

Mo' Pics

Just got around to scanning some B&W film from the past few months. Adventures in homebrewing, canyoneering, local music, and Mormon wackiness, all captured in two-tone wonder.

Artsy Heartsy

Yes yes, Thee Malebox Spring Gala is set to kick off this Friday at 6:00 with the above schedule of music and readings. We'll be wrapping up music by 10:00, but all day Saturday will be devoted to art showing, with contributions from Paula Gibbs, Vicky Trochez, Austin Storm, Laura Blakey, Mark Beauchamp, Paul Tong, Asher Weinbaum, Yours Truly, Tara Oar, Liz Hall, Caroline Jones, Evan Wilson, Nate and Alexis Stevenson, and Bethany Hoyt.

Hope to see you there, email, post, or call with any questions. If you're reading this and have a site of your own, perhaps you'll mention it?

Rock

Bon Voyage, Von Submarine will once again delight your senses this Saturday at Thee Gallery on Washington, across from City Hall. Also enjoy the alt-country sounds of Whitebird Canyon, the frantic folk of Paul Tong and the Anymore, the electro-stylings of "Josh" (Stevenson), and a possible appearance by Mike Siemens. Show starts at 7:30 and will be $3 or donation.

More Nonsense That I Find Hilarious

For their families of diseaseful brats. They had fierce in
disposition, unlovable, and impervious given unto him by
the celestials. Dhananjaya seated i make no answer in fingersigns,
as needs must disappeared into conjugal obscurity, but ayesha's
had bristled up to prevent them from retracing all very
charming to behold. Artificial woods enthusiasm into imaginative
fact, has woven a david kirke was much dissatisfied with
the agreement, host, terrible to behold, the kaurava marched
hostess. The play was given, he said hoarsely, coffin was
clumsily covered with too short a pall, girl betsey sits
between him and her father. That yudhishthira, having listened
to this excellent near the presence of the king? Mel. I
did. Cal..

People Who Look Like Their Names

1. Wilford Brimley

Under Blackpool Lights

If you're a fan at all of the White Stripes, I highly recommend the "Under Blackpool Lights" concert DVD. It was recorded around the Elephant era and they rock through 26 songs from all three albums they'd released at the time plus a few covers.

Jack White can shred that toy guitar.

Utah

Another great trip to the canyons of Utah. Pictures to follow.