Provocations

So I've been reading a book of Kierkegaard's writing on spirituality. Some of it is confusing, some I don't get, most of it is challenging. Here's a bit from the other day...

...it is not the obscue passages in Scripture that bind you once you understand. With these you comply at once. If you understood only one passage in all of Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all. ...God's word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you gain expertise in interpreting it.

WARNING: Foul, Todd appropriate, language!

This Gap Sweater Is F*&@#$% Awesome

Extreme Makeover: Meka Edition II

Harsen's Island Vacation 2007

reasons #246, 247, & 248 to visit tennessee

the williamson county fair contained, among other things, an elvis impersonator contest, country clog dancing, and carnival rides. oh, and i tried my first deep fried oreo there...heaven.

grizzly adams

in case it wasn't clear that sabrina and i are sinking into the nerdom of becoming crazy rabbit enthusiasts, recently sabrina nursed a wild baby rabbit back to health. his name is grizzly adams. she found him and released him at the botanical gardens where she works. helluva nice fella. you'd like him. isn't his beard glorious? it reminds me of a beard i have seen before but can't quite place. a beard on someone i kno-...um, scott...have you been pimpin near any rabbit warrens?

Domata Peko // All Heart All the Time

Not only is his name fun to say but he sounds like a killer guy and a fantastic player.

CLICK HERE

Who-dey!

Meka & Dylan in a Steel Cage Match

Midlake // The Trials of Van Occupanther

In competition with Oprah, Brent's "Book Club" has some rules, one of which is "Always judge a book by its cover." Applied to albus as well that is how he found Hem's Rabbit Songs which turned out to be a gem. The band has sense become one of my favorite contemporary music making ensembles. Arrangements from sparse to full orchestral sweeps, instruments from the guitar and piano to the glockenspiel and french horn. Anyway...I love Hem and have always wanted to have my own album cover based discovery.

In todays day of digitlized music sometimes we don't even see the album cover but on emusic I saw the cover for Midlake's The Trials of Van Occupanther and was super intrigued.

Who the heck is Van Occupanther?

So I listened to a 10 second snipit and was hooked.

Upon getting the album I can hardly stop listening to it. I keep coming back to it.

Midlake has an ability to have lush arrangements without over doing it and also preserving the melody, which is often quite strong and often haunting.

The dynamic nature of the music makes it interesting. They can rock but also bring it down. The lyrics are cryptic and interesting like bits of stories parachuted in from Colin Meloy's Moleskine and storytelling harkening back to the Band's Weight and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. You get some evocative details without the entire narrative. But it makes for enjoyable repeated listening.

Another interesting element to the music is the prog-rock-esque electronic sounds. You find yourself wondering whether that's a flute or a synth; that is when you're wondering about Roscoe born in 1891 or who the heck is Van Occupanther?

I take special enjoyment in the fact that I "found" them serendipitiously on emusic by the cover of their album and they turned out to be good; in the same way Brent "found" the gem Hem. Scotty hadn't even heard of them. By the way Scott, I expect your two cents on the album. Andy by the way...you ought to throw down some short stories and record reviews on the blog here. I'm just saying...

Anyway...if you have a face and any portion of a brain that enjoys music...buy this album.

Extreme Makeover: Meka Edition

So with the incoming baby we set ourselves a Labor Day deadline for Meka's new room to be ready.

Phase 1 was moving all the music gear and music crud out of the room and into Neumann & Neumann storage.

Phase 2 was paint and prep; including finding a bed and other furniture. We decided on some paint, gender pigeon holing pink; a design, a wavy stripe which was an idea nicked from some random website and white furniture found via Craigslist and Brent & Erica's garage.

Phase 3 was and is assembling said room.

Phase 4 will be moving Meka in for a good night's sleep. We need to get bed rails before that happens.

Here are some photos of the room including the way we kidized Brent and Erica's dresser. (Thanks for letting us trash that, guys!)