Did you listen to that song? If not, please stop reading for a second, scroll back up, and click play. Then you may continue reading.
Tonight I attended the Punch Brother's show in Park City. The song you should now be listening to was the song with which they opened their set and it was, if you can believe it, even better in person than that recording.
I was able to attend because of the truly magnificent generosity of my dear Matt, who decided that I needed to experience Punch Brothers live and so bought me a ticket as a birthday gift (somewhat prematurely, as my birthday is not till September).
Technically he bought me two tickets, though I intend to repay him for the second. The goal was for me to bring someone to the show with me. Unfortunately, it turns out that none of my friends love me enough to come see a band in Park City that most of them have never heard of, which hurt to discover, btw you guys (or, in the case of a few, they HAD heard of the band, they just had lame excuses like poverty or hanging out with their wife's sister who was in town for a short while).
As such, I ended up attending alone. Which was fine except for the part where all of my witty conversation and observations were wasted with no one to hear and inevitably appreciate them. Which is why I'm sharing them with you all now.
So, without further ado, here is a small selection of the conversations I WOULD have had tonight, had I had anyone to have them with....
....wow...it turns out I did not need to leave nearly so early to get up here. How shall I pass the hour and 45 minutes until the show starts? Staring at nothing? Sounds good....
....these people in front of me literally just pulled out 5 bottles of wine...
....This opening act is so boring that I'm daydreaming about getting a blood clot in my leg from this chair so I can leave to go take care of it...
....HOLY COW I LITERALLY CANNOT HANDLE WHAT AMAZING MUSICIANS THESE MEN ARE!!!....
mostly a picture of the drunk people in front of me, but also of the band all tiny at the front
....dude seriously, this song is so great....
....Chris Thile! So nerdy! So adorable! Might very possibly be the most awkward dancer in the entire world. Half the time he dances like Scott Pilgrim, the other half like he just needs to pee reeeeeally bad. He is an even more awkward dancer than Chris Martin....
....Dear Utah, please stop being so tacky and leaving 10-40 minutes early so you can "beat the traffic"....
....And THAT is how you play a bass solo!....
....My mind is still being blown by these guys. Totes 100% worth it!....
....WHAAAA???? Is he seriously busting out his Bach right now?! From memory of course. And this huge crowd of drunk people is actually digging it? Aw yissssss....
....they drank all five bottles of wine, one bottle per person. How are they getting home?....
....SHIRT!....
....Oh crap. I may never get home. I am 1000% lost on this mountain. I will die here. I wonder if anyone besides my mom will miss me. Oh, this is the road I'm supposed to be on. Ok, we're good....
....Dear Heber McDonald's: You might have very fancy bathrooms and a confusing layout, but you gave me diet Dr. Pepper (so nasty) and onions on my hamburger. We are not friends.....
....Who knew driving Heber canyon at night would be so fun! I should maybe slow down? I'll probably definitely get a ticket if a cop sees me. And animals? But...Gypsy Kings are singing "I Did It My Way" in Spanish and my speeds remain marginally safe and if I do crash at least there's no one else in the car to die with me! WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today is a good day to write this post because it was not the happiest day at work I've ever had. Sometimes Caleb takes on contract assembly work for me (that is, other companies hire us [me] to assemble small numbers of products for them) especially when work for me is thin on the ground as it has been for the last month. Unfortunately, the latest contract job he got me didn't come together until this week...aka the week when we finally did get actual work of our own to do. Suffice it to say, this has been a crazy week, made doubly so coming straight on the heels of all my previous down time. I worked over 40 hours in what was supposed to be a short week. I detail all of this simply to set the stage for my day today, which was the day I finally started this contract project. Or rather, tried to start it.
See, the core of my job is PCB assembly. That means that I build these:
quite literally, actually. That's one of the sensors we sell, the GP9, which I assembled last year (and, incidentally, it is the picture I took for the website). I don't know how well you can see, but each of those little parts has a little label next to it, like C1 or U9 or whatever. Those labels tell me which part goes where by way of what we call a BOM (Bill Of Materials). I go through the BOM one component at a time to populate a board.
In a perfect world the BOM lists each type of part together--all the capacitors, resistors, ICs, etc together. It's easy to read, it's clear, and it absolutely does not inspire within me the urge to rip my hair out of my head. The world was not perfect today as I looked at the BOM for our contract project.
The most ridiculous part of this entire story is the fact that, after spending literally 8 hours going over this BOM, sorting out all the parts, asking poor Caleb all the questions, repeatedly bashing my head into the desk, and otherwise cursing every single person who might have even glanced at this BOM and not fixed the one billion problems I was having...there actually only ended up being 2 real concrete mistakes. Just a lot of technically benign stupidity. Which was awesome because it meant that all of the stress I'd passed on to Caleb had really been mostly my own fault. Bless him, he did such a good job of not slapping my face when we finally settled on the two mistake conclusion. He's such a good boss...
Briefly, my problems involved incredibly unhelpful product descriptions, missing parts, part descriptions which didn't match part numbers, and part numbers which didn't match actual parts. The same part was listed multiple times as a new part. And I refuse to feel guilty about my struggles in the face of the ultimate two mistake total. I maintain that anyone would have been confused by the mess that was that BOM.
All of this is to say that my day was deeply frustrating. Frustrations with other people, frustrations with myself, and, of course, dealing with Caleb's frustrations about the whole thing (not least being the fact that I spent an entire day dealing with this madness).
And yet.
In the midst of this I decided I must needs listen to something happy or truly my brain was going to start pinging.
this is where I would put the video of Rory complaining about her brain pinging if I could find it. But I couldn't...which is incredibly lame and causes me to question the state of the internet
So I decided to listen to a song that I discovered yesterday by creepily stalking my friend Jarom on Spotify. And by stalking I mean that it showed up on my player that Jarom had listened to this song and for reasons I do not understand, I thought "huh, that looks good...I'll listen to it!" Understand, the thumbnail they give you of any given album is literally the size the north face of a sugar cube. And the song was called "Ala Barfi" by Mohit Chauhan. Which is fine, I'm just saying that, as the title was in a foreign language I had exactly none connection with it.
All that being said, I did listen to it for some reason and discovered perhaps the happiest song I've ever heard. I proceeded to listen to the entire album (technically, a soundtrack to a movie somewhat unfortunately named "Barfi") as I struggled through the annoyances of the day. And somehow, magically, it was exactly the right thing. My mood picked up and I was able to simply find the entire experience amusing rather than hair-rippingly frustrating.
Which is to say, I am not posting a photo of something that makes me happy, but rather posting that song. If you have the interest I heartily suggest going and listening to the entire album. But that first song was really the best one. So, without further ado, here it is
also, for the first time I find that I want to watch a Bollywood movie...like a lot...
This is pretty much of the worst genre of question. "Your favorite" questions are evil because how many people are there out there who are so resolved and passionate and sure that they have one single favorite anything? So I refuse. And this is my blog, so I can do whatever I want. So I'll give you a selection of artists that I like
I'll begin with the first musician I have any memory of loving...
Yes, when I was about 8 I was completely obsessed with Michael Crawford. Specifically the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera, but it wasn't limited to that. I had these two CDs of him singing various famous Broadway hits and I loved them. I listened to them all the time and could probably still sing them for you today. And before you mock me, because I know you will, I just want to make it known that it was none other than my incredibly music-snobby uncle Jesse who introduced me to Crawford. It was his enthusiastic teenage praise of those two high notes in this very song which converted me to my adoring status. So Jesse, if you read this, feel free to judge, but know that you must also judge yourself.
Next is the second musician I feel in love with. I believe I was 9 or 10. And truly I still love her today. She holds a place in my heart no one else could fill
I must begin with this song because it was my first love. This is the song which converted me to Celine. Also the song which granted her precedence over Michael, as he, too, sings a cover and I infinitely prefer Celine's version to his. But I also must include two others. When I asked Kara what song I should post of hers she said "'I Love You,' obviously." And while I do adore that song, I instantly realized that, while I did always listen to that particular song, it was always on the way to the song that came right after. So, just as it was on my CD so long ago I first give you "I Love You"
And then
No one can belt out love song like Celine. And in case you don't believe me when I say that I still love her, this was a large part of the drive up to Union a few weeks back with Kara
Now, after Celine it gets a bit harder to pick my favorite musicians...I've typically tended more to specific songs than to all of any given musician's entire body of work. I think that, post Celine, the first actual artist I really fell in love with was this guy...
It was the summer I worked at the Boise Cascade Particle Board plant. I would have been around 19/20. I was working graveyard and that song came on the radio in one of the operator's shacks. I fell head over heels in love with that voice (how can you not?) and as soon as my shift was over I headed straight over to Wal-Mart to buy the CD. They weren't open yet (our Wal-Mart was not yet 24/7) so I actually sat in the parking lot and waited for thirty minutes for them to open so I could buy it. And I have bought every CD since (though I think I've fallen behind and there's one I need to pick up). Last summer I scored two free tickets; I took Kara and we listened to this song sung live
After my freshman year of college I went on a study abroad to London. It was there that I met one of the greatest musical loves of my life. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the legendary Mr. Freddy Mercury. Broadly, I fell in love with the whole band (Roger Taylor, Brian May, and John Deacon) but most of all did I love Freddy. It started with a show. Before I saw We Will Rock You I was about as little familiar with Queen as it is possible to be in this day and age. That is to say...I knew "We Will Rock You" and "Another One Bites the Dust" and had a vague familiarity with "Bohemian Rhapsody" but I didn't even realize that all those songs were by the same band. After We Will Rock You I came home and stayed up all night reading every Queen related wikipedia page I could find. I discovered that somehow I owned to CDs of Queen's greatest hits (up till that point completely unappreciated and unlistened to). For the rest of my study abroad and, indeed, the rest of that year I entered what can only be called a Queen coma. I listened to nothing but Queen. There was never a time when Queen wasn't playing in my head. I remember I actually started getting worried about the length and intensity of my obsession. Then I realized that there was a queen song called "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and just embraced the inevitable. I eventually surfaced from complete immersion, but to this day they remain a true love. If Queen comes on you sing. At the top of your lungs. Till your vocal chords give out.
This will forever be the anthem of my study abroad and my favorite Queen song.
This post has turned ridiculously long. If you're looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, there's only three more to go...that I'm aware of...
So the Queen mania lasted for over a year. But all things must come to an end, even your obsessive repeat listening to your favorite band. So eventually I began listening to other music. I believe it was during my time in Glenwood that I discovered Mika. Aside from my general love of him music, Mika holds special value to me because it was a long night of singing his music together driving back from Logan to Provo that Taka, aka my surrogate Japanese brother, and I became friends. Mika writes the happiest, silliest, most brilliant music and I have loved all three of his albums. This, however, is my absolute favorite of his songs. It is literally impossible for me to listen to this song without feeling happier. Ironically. Because it's actually kind of sad lyrics.
About the same time I also discovered a completely different sounding band called Punch Brothers.
Now, specifically the artist in question here is Chris Thile. It is possible that I have the kind of crush on him that it's only possible to get on famous people you know you'll never meet--you know, they're the perfect mixture of hopelessness and passion and conviction that if you were somehow ever to meet you would absolutely hit it off. I have that kind of crush on Chris Thile. And I love him in every different endeavor he has been involved with. From his years with Nickel Creek to his absolutely phenomenal collaborations with people like Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, to his recent covers of Bach on his mandolin. But above all of those things I love Punch Brothers best. I love them because every member of the band is just as talented as Thile, but they also haven't quite reached the level of someone like Yo-Yo Ma so they're interested in making music that sells. The combination of those two factors means that you have absolutely majestic, sweeping pieces like the "Another New World" above or "The Blind Leaving the Blind" (a damn bluegrass concerto Thile wrote after his divorce...go find the 3rd movement and listen to it because it's amazing) and then you have songs like Alex
I've been listening to that song for six years now and I love it every bit as much as I did the first time I heard it. Also, this is the video that made me fall in love with him. He's so adorably nerdy!
And at last we make it to the final and most recent of my "favorite" musicians. And if you've known me for the last several years then you know who I'm talking about and how much I love these guys...
And because they're probably the best contender for my current true favorite musicians, I'm just going to give you lots and lots of songs to listen to because there's no way I can just pick one
there are literally no words for how beautiful I find this song...
Just listen to their voices!!!!!!
Please forgive the ridiculousness of the video and just enjoy this song. It's from their new album under their new name and it is just the best!
As many videos as I have posted they have so many more wonderful songs. Go get on Spotify and look them up (Guggenheim Grotto and Storyman). Listen to every single one of their songs. They have the most beautiful voices and their songs are catchy and gorgeous and sometimes funny ("Her Beautiful Ideas" will make you laugh if you have any sense of humor at all). Seriously, buy all their albums and listen to all of their music because it is so so good.
Next up for tomorrow we have: A TV Show You're Currently Addicted To
Well, for better or worse, at this specific moment I am not aware of any particular mood. On the one hand, as it is 11:30, this is good because typically at this hour if I have a mood it is more or less depressed. On the other hand, it is difficult to pick a song to match a mood you don't have. So here is my strategy. I shall pull up iTunes, put my entire library on shuffle, and then keep skipping till I find something that feels right.
Apparently iTunes was really dedicated to the idea of me listening to New Model Army. Matt, you should appreciate that Desdemona is clearly on your side about that band.
Two hits on Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom audiobooks, and, in all honesty, those felt like just exactly what I wanted to listen to. However, the prompt very specifically states a song, so I pressed onward till I found the song where I wanted to stop and listen. Here you go:
Just to see what happens, I shall try this again and see if the next song I stop on is of a similar mood. Fair notice, though. I am a blues dancer and DJ, so there's a very good chance whatever I settle on will be blues-y
Nope.
This song won through pure nostalgic value. Don Williams = my dad. My mom and dad would sing all these great old Don Williams songs like "Lay Down Beside Me" and "Amanda" and "I Believe In You". One day I ran across a "Best Of" album on iTunes and had to buy it. We'll try one more time and see where I land...
This came up almost right away. I think that taking all three of these into account that would put me in just a solid chill mood. Bonus points go to songs I can sing along with.
And there you have it
Click on through to read the actual prompt for today, a photo of the item I last purchased (so exciting!)
In my blog post about the Descendants I mention at the end how I sort of created this future memory for myself. That is, after watching that scene at the end I decided that I would have such a moment in my life someday, and I became nostalgic for a memory that has not yet happened. The thing is, I have a lot of these future memories. I look forward to the rest of my life avidly and I have so many ideas about how I want it to be. Does anyone else do that?
Last night I had this beautifully displacing moment where I created a future/present memory that fulfilled that anticipatory nostalgia. I was driving to the airport with Matt to pick up his roommate. It was late at night, the windows were down and my hair was blowing like crazy, my feet were up on the dash, and Matt was, in his words, "indoctrinating [me] in some of the best music on earth". That is, he was playing me his favorite songs by New Model Army, telling me how he felt about them when he was in high school. It was warm outside and there was a great big, orange, half moon rising over the mountains.
Are you ever in the midst of a moment and, just for a flash, you slip outside of yourself and look at where you are and what you're doing and realize that everything is perfect? Sitting in that car, listening to Matt talk about how much he loved this song and the next song and the next song, with the warm wind....it was a perfect moment. I was absolutely happy.
And then, it was like I slipped even further back and looked at my life like a story rather than a living breathing series of events. This moment I was in, it was the sort of moment that people write about in stories or try to depict in movies-- a sort of Platonic Form of a College Memory. The sort of fabricated "memories" that you almost resent in stories because they're too perfect and too staged and they make you long for things that aren't really even real. And yet, here I was living in one. I knew, in that second, that this was the sort of thing that I would look back on, when I have kids getting ready for college, and I would tell them about it to explain to them why college is such a wonderful place and they should be so excited to go there. And they wouldn't really understand, but I would glow a little bit within myself remembering how happy I was.
After that my night continued to be utterly lovely. On the way back from the airport we progressed from New Model Army to They Might Be Giants, and then to Nickel Creek. Matt and I both love this song and we sang it with enthusiasm. Then, because Matt's roommate Brenden wanted to thank him, we tried to find a Wendy's that was open. We succeeded at the third one. Over salted fries and vanilla frosty...
Then we came back to my beloved Campus Plaza and we sat in front of my apartment in the twilight glow of the lamps and we talked. Matt is leaving soon. In fact he is leaving on Friday, though he will come back a few times before he leaves forever at the end of the month. I can't begin to explain how much I will miss him. He's been my best friend, one of the best I've ever had. And I'm sure we will continue to be good friends, but it won't be the same. He won't live 30 feet away. He will live two thousand miles away. So when we stay up till 3:30 talking I appreciate every second of it. And I guess that's how I want to end this post. With a dedication to Matt (though he'll probably laugh at me for this) and a thank you. I know it's rather wretchedly sentimental. But thanks, Matt, for listening to me whine, and for trusting me so much, and for introducing me to Avatar, and for laughing at Frasier with me, and talking to me, and just for being you.
I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, which has been one of the greatest decisions of my life. Especially on "long weekends" like the one we just had. See, my normal weekend is already four days long so I didn't think the long weekend would affect me (effect me?), but with BYU's obsession with mucking about with the calendar suddenly my long weekend turned into a week off! And over the course of this week off I have done some awesome things.
I sat down and tried to actually plan my life. I sort of didn't quite plan it as thoroughly as I hoped to, but I've made a good start I think. I discovered that this is the best possible semester I could have ever have chosen to miss the last two and a half weeks of school. Truly, it's like it is meant to be. I went to the library and checked out most of the books I need to read in the next three weeks. It's a hefty re-useable shopping bag full and I'm pretty excited.
Awesome! A picture of the exact re-usable bag that is currently sitting on my backseat stuffed full of YA fiction!
I rediscovered Mumford and Sons and Queen and The Civil Wars, having neglected them for about 9 months.
I played Trivial Pursuit with a lot of people I love and discovered that I'm still really bad at Trivial Pursuit. Not only that, but as soon as you ask me a question to which I do not know the answer I suddenly become incapable of formulating an answer that is even an appropriate guess. I believe this phenomenon is responsible for all of those "Americans are such idiots" videos Leno likes to show.
I actually visited some of the people that you see randomly and say "we should totally hang out some time!" and then you completely forget about them. When I ran into Denise in the JFSB and we said that I said "No, but really. We're picking a day. Right now!" and we did and I went and it was awesome. I went over to their house for dinner on Sunday and I finally met her and Tyson's little boy Will . He is one of the happiest, calmest, adorable-est babies I've ever met and I can't wait to play with him again. I played games with the Remys for several hours and had an absolutely lovely time. Next time I'll have to invite them over to my apartment for dinner. Whether or not they can come with the baby, at least I can invite them. I think they'd enjoy games with my roommates.
are we seeing how cute these people are??
On Monday I forced myself out of my comfort zone to go on a snowy adventure with Griffin, Mike, Jessie, and Griffin's cousin Taylor. Before I went I was not quite to the point of nauseating nervousness, but just shy. But, as it turned out, I had a really great time. I mean really. Such a good time that two days later I'm still thinking about it.
Tuesday I read a book. I read the entire book. Then I felt restless and unproductive for having spent the day reading, even though it was homework. I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and had a killer ipod dance party. I reveled in the fact that my knee only hurt a teeny bit. Then I sat on my floor and started drawing illustrations for a children's book that I have decided to make. Then I watched New Girl with my roommates. Then I came into my bedroom and started teaching myself to knit while watching Tangled. I felt better about my productivity, even though I only created one line of stitches. I'll figure out how to add another line of them!
except I was knitting with much prettier charcoal grey yarn...
And today I read another book. All of it. And halfway through I looked at myself reading my book and I suddenly realized that I didn't feel that anxiety of wasting time that I have felt any time I sit and read anymore. Devoting a second day to reading broke that wall that has slowly built up over the last few years that cut my psyche off from the immense, calming joy that reading has always brought it. I found that joy again today. I felt the old familiar annoyance when I had to put my book away and go to work. Luckily, today I finally got to see our new shop and find out how awesome it is! We have windows now, and the space is so much lighter and nicer, with the potential to be even more awesome as Caleb continues to finish it. And Caleb takes such good care of me! He has set up two full tables that are just for me and he says he wants to get me another one so I have "enough space"! He worked all weekend putting up about eight 100-watt lights to make sure I have plenty of light. He just got me a sonic cleaner and an oven. He is, without a doubt, the best boss I've ever worked for. I love my job so much! And then as I was driving home I realized that working down in Payson will give me the perfect excuse to drive. See, I love to drive, but I don't really ever have anywhere to go and can't really justify just driving around for no reason when I have to pay for gas. But now I get to drive 30 minutes to and from work so I don't even have to feel guilty about it. Awesome!
image searched "driving" and found this. Why does this picture even exist?
Then I got home and decided completely whimsically and on the spur of the moment to buy my friend's Kindle for no other reason than that she wanted to sell it to me and I want it. But I'm pretty excited about it. And my roommates were discussing Lent when I came in, and what they were planning on giving up for their Lenten fasts. And I have decided that I am going to try to give up something. I'm going to give up all meanness in my life. I've been feeling strangely disturbed recently by all the unkindness I've seen around and I think this is the perfect time for me to try and get rid of some that may be of my own creation.
Then end result of all of this is that right now, as I lie here in bed and write this before going to sleep, I feel a great, comforting sense of optimism about my life. I don't know what it shall be, but I am sure, in this moment, that it will be lovely and that I will be in control of it. I don't feel that soothing assurance often, so I am luxuriating in it for now. I am learning how to knit, I'm creating a children's book, I have an awesome job, and I have the benefit of so many wonderful people in my life. I am grateful.
there is no possible better way to end this post than with a picture of Wil Wheaton.
Fact.
Somehow, I can go from a morning spent listening to this, to an afternoon accompanied with this. And I love all of it.
(incidentally, while searching youtube for the second video I mistakenly typed in "Heartbreaker" instead of "Troublemaker" and discovered this little gem. I need to own this song! :-D )
