| no wonder i like his music so much... |
[28 Mar 2004|10:53am] |
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so on friday damien rice was on kcrw's morning becomes eclectic. (one of the best music shows out there. i usually listen to web recasts once i get home from work. you should too.) he guest DJed, playing songs that inspire him. i love hearing people describe in loving detail those things that move them, that send sparks flying. and his fabulous selections only served to further enhance the ridiculous 5th grade level crush i'm harboring. but honestly, he's brilliant live...and he's touring. go see him if you can.
at least i know i come by my obsessing naturally. my mother has bought practically all of johnny depp's movies in the past few weeks. =)
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| please, please, please.... |
[19 Feb 2004|11:42pm] |
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mood |
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existential |
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music |
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the cure: killing an arab |
] |
Coachella, anyone?
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| hells yeah |
[18 Feb 2004|05:12pm] |
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mood |
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 listless |
] |
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music |
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virgin suicides soundtrack |
] |
You're
the United Nations!
Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go. You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country
Quiz at the Blue Pyramid
...ain't that appropriate
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[17 Feb 2004|07:23am] |
we drive into a skyline almost impossibly purple,
shot through with the gleaming trail of a jet engine
soaring above, beyond, away...
and it takes several miles before you
crack open the silence with
"the sky..."
but it's already gone--
faded to the gray of a thick smoke with dying embers
and i'm not sure we didn't just imagine the purple anyway
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[15 Dec 2003|10:19pm] |
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it is 10:18pm and at 11:45 i really must push the submit button on this application in order to make sure it is submitted by the midnight deadline.
and it occurs to me that this is familiar in a comforting as well as panic inducing way...that i've run into countless deadlines at a break-neck speed and yet emerged with vertebae intact. in fact i think i remember starting my essay for the app i sent to the college i eventually attended at about this time.
and i'm just getting better with age. just endlessly resourcefully inventive am i in my distractive strategies. today i managed to go out to coffee with some of the other young teachers (for the first time, not a habitual thing mind you), pay some bills, make a list of presents i still must buy, volunteer to pick up my brother in pasadena, and check out what might be going on this weekend in vegas.
god damn i'm good.
shit...it's 10:30....
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[13 Dec 2003|08:04pm] |
You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the
postmodernists, you collect avant-garde
Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal
articles for breakfast. You positively live
for theory. It really doesn't matter what
kind, as long as the words are big and the
paragraph breaks few and far between.
What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla
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[01 Dec 2003|08:39pm] |
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mood |
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multitudinous |
] |
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music |
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damien rice, O (umm...wow...) |
] |
hehe...cause record store girls are almost as hot as irish boys with guitars
so i made a rhino run tonight to grab O and ended up with the new belle and sebastian (hey, i was gonna get it at some point...plus they gave me a poster!), the polyphonic spree (goddamn those guys are happy), and yo la tengo too...cause i just shouldn't walk in there with a credit card...
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[30 Nov 2003|07:18pm] |
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mood |
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 working |
] |
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music |
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Tori Amos--Mr. Zebra |
] |
so after a brief respite in which susan and jackson and i visited el pavo (yummy) and hung out for a while (yay!) I am back to the working on applications for psych grad school thing.
as i have been for the past 12 hours...
maybe at some point i'll take a break to grade the tests my seventh graders took two weeks ago, or work out blocking for the final scene of the christmas program, or do laundry...life's just full of options.
but on the way home i saw this bumper sticker that made me smile:
I'd rather be
right here now.
and i had my little buddhist moment of "um, hey, life's going on here if you'd pay attention". =) so thanks to the randomn pomona student who made that all possible.
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| A Litany of Secular Blessings |
[29 Nov 2003|09:40pm] |
I give thanks for the yellow
of an aspen bowing to winter,
and the curve of chimney smoke
knitting through a gray sky.
I raise up herb gardens--
lavender and lemongrass, pesto and mojitos--
and revel in mulled cider full of
allspice, cinnamon, and cloves.
I praise the cool sand of a midnight
beach under naked soles,
and the hot breath of a sigh
against the hollow of the neck.
I sanctify music in its myriad forms:
the guitar slinging poet,
a swing’s creaking chains,
the lament of a lone cello.
I speak of the scent of a mother
--
but it is beyond words,
beyond all but instinctual comfort.
I write a litany of the details,
a record of earthy matters;
I sing of embodied wonder
and whisper secular blessings.
just written, had a little burst of inspiration (while i should have been doing my application essays, predictably enough...)suggestions? comments? is it too sappy? i think i've lost my ability to self-critique, it's been so long since i've written anything...
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| bits and pieces |
[11 Nov 2003|08:35pm] |
first, some random loveliness
What Exploding Dog Art Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
and now, the proof that Niall Henry-David McGee, the new nephew, really is the cutest baby ever.
and finally, cause it's veteran's day and Born in the USA has been stuck in my head all day, i found a nice little essay that details for you all what an ignorant ass Reagan was (like you needed reminding) when he adopted this anti-war song as his campaign anthem...
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| doh...i forgot the most important part... |
[10 Nov 2003|10:14pm] |
If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, "Interview me." I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.
Who will play? May I interview you? -- Originally from anoisblue
thank you for the interview sister dear! mwah
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| Satan: "daaamn, it's cold up in her' " |
[10 Nov 2003|09:59pm] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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music |
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bjork--violently happy |
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ok, so it's been many months since jenn posted these interview questions to me. and now, without further ado or excuses, i shall answer them:
1. You've been able to accomplish quite a lot for a person in their early 20s. You've lived in a foreign country, worked for Americore, graduated from a great college, and a number of other things. Of all the things you've done in life what accomplishment are you the most proud of?
well,...talking about the accomplishments that i'm proud of kind of weirds me out. i'm not really proud of doing these things so much as just glad i had the opportunities. i could talk more easily about the thing i enjoyed most, or what i felt impacted me the most. but i guess if i'm going to be proud of anything it's actually the work i did freshman year with the America Reads program. that year i took five third graders who could bearly sound out simple words and brought them all up to at least grade level in reading. i helped those kids in a way that will far outlast the year i spent with them and in some cases got them really excited about learning too. that felt good. =)
2. I find it very interesting that we three Taylor offspring and many other pastor's kids do not consider themselves to be Christians. In general why do you think this is and how do you feel being a PK did or did not influence your current perspectives on organized religion?
wow...um...well ,i have no clue, but i shall just conjecture wildly based on my own personal experience:
Being raised as a pastor's kid, you grow up immersed in the faith of your parents. so it's not a background issue, something you can passively subscribe to...and when i was young that led me to being very devoted to certain aspects of my faith. i found real inspiration in parts of Christianity growing up. but it was ultimately knowing the bible as well as i did that brought me face to face with the parts of it i just couldn't accept and the contradictions it contained. so maybe we PK's know a little too much? throw that in with the desire to seek out the new, something more that what you've been raised with, other explanations and philosophies...and Christianity ceases to be the best option, i guess.
as for the other part, i think being a PK (in our congregation at least) actually gave me a much more positive view of organized religion than i otherwise would have. because though organized religion can be manipulative and condemning, it can also create and support. i've seen work with food pantries and homeless assistance projects grow from faith. i know personally what is meant by fellowship, and the sense of community and support that can come from your religious home. however, i think being a PK also leads to me feeling more acutely a sense of guilt about not sharing the beliefs of these people any longer and therefore not belonging there anymore. which is one of the downsides of a community built around dogma.
3. You've been given the chance to replace ONE of the following with the people/person of your choice:
1. The president of the United States
2. 10 US Senators
3. 2 Supreme Court Justices
Which do you choose and why?
good one! well...i have to go with number 3. this is partially because i like the idea of my choices being permanent (mwahahaha), and partly because i admire the judicial branch's role of keeping the populace and elected officials from stomping all over the constitution. (not to imply that i think the constitution is some sacred document. but if we're gonna base the government on it, we should at least try to keep things internally consistent.)
but mostly it's because they're appointed positions anyway. i find the bush administration and their policies revolting, and i would love to put some Wellstone variety liberals in the Senate, but as ignorant as i find the American voters to be at times, denying them the right to choose their leaders would make me a tad hypocritical.
As for who it would be, well i'd replace Scalia and probably Thomas (cause Rehnquist is gone soon anyway), but i'm not sure who i'd replace them with cause i'm not up on my liberal legal experts, and i wouldn't just put, say, Al Franken on the bench...amusing as that might be...
4. Many people consider certain songs to be defining of their teenage years both because of the song's meaning and because of the role the song played in that time period in history.What song do you feel is most representative of your teenage years and why?
ooh, this question makes me happy...let's see...there's so much music i love from my teenage years: the angst of pearl jam, the depeche mode synth pop, the swing music i danced to all the time...
but it comes down to tori i think, with so many powerful songs that i sang into the darkness in high school...and to winter especially. i don't think a more perfect song about the fears and hesitations of growing up has ever been written. slow self discovery, being let down by your fairy tales, everything melting and shifting. and with all my insecurities and self-loathing at the time, "when you gonna love you as much as i do?" just resonates perfectly when i sing back to my former self.
5. You've been given the assignment to go back in time and either prevent or cause the premature deaths of 3 individuals. The assignment is not optional, but who you choose to save or eliminate is. Which 3 people do you choose and why?
okay, i'm not gonna kill anyone. i could discuss this at great length, but i'll sum up as best i can: i don't think it would necessarily change anything. death just leaves a void, into which other people could, and in my opinion probably would, step. stalin, hitler, pol pot, columbus...i could see the same situations unfolding without them...or maybe even worse. then add that to a strong aversion to violent situations. (even so, tell me i kill, say, pol pot, and it guarantees the end of genocide, and i'd do it. but that's not what we're talking about.)
that being said, i don't know who i'd save. maybe i'll think about it a bit more and get back to you at some point. most likely i'd choose someone more knowledgeable of world history than i to advise me. =) anyone have any suggestions?
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| Three cheers for the Supreme Court! |
[26 Jun 2003|05:31pm] |
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mood |
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 jubilant |
] |
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music |
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Pearl Jam--Green Disease (Live, LV, 2003) |
] |
Affirmative Action, Right to Compentent Counsel, and Privacy in the Bedroom, oh my! It's been a good week folks!
Plus Nike is headed to court for false advertising while trying to clean up their image...vastly amusing. =) Of course, this case just got dismissed, no ruling, but it's intriguing. Where does discussing your product end and advertising begin? Do corportations have the same sort of free speech rights as individuals, or are they held to a higher level of accountability and accuracy in their statements because those statements are used to push product? Will it make corporations less likely to speak forthrightly if they could be prosecuted for mistakes? hmmm...
But, yeah, I could have done without the constitutional stamp of approval on internet fliters in my public libraries. sigh...maybe they should have consulted my brother-in-law josh's review of fliter behavior first. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this does mean libraries that don't comply with this will miss out on federal funding, right? grrrrr...
Hey, but, go and feel free to engage in whatever deviant sexual behavior you wish with any gender you'd like...we've got the supreme court's blessing!
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| Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too? |
[21 Jun 2003|03:07pm] |
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mood |
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 dorky |
] |
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music |
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ani difranco-- falling is like this |
] |
ok, so, mostly because i want to play the interview game too, i'm joining this whole livejournal fad you crazy kids have started.
well, that and because setting it up was a good excuse to break from packing...
i know it's convenient for functioning and survival in this world that situational clues engage memories of similar past experiences. but it's also rather destructive to the packing process when i keep remembering all the other times i've thrown books in boxes and clothing in suitcases and packed up and left sections of my life behind. luckily, they're mostly good memories...in the sense that i've never hauled ass out of someplace i hated. so even if the leaving was sad, the parts of it that stick to my bones, the people, the experiences, i'm glad to relive. And, hey, it's not like i'm unaccustomed to being distracted and procrastinating...
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beccataylor's journal
