6,078 Mystical Chrome Wheels A-Turnin'

Idealism ~ Narcissism

David Brauer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:38:58 +0000

Somehow, yester-day I slept from like 12:30 in the morning until about six in the evening. Yeah, I don’t know how that happened. Though the day before, I was up from 6 in the morning until the 12:30 in the morning the next day, so that may have had something to do with it. Also, my bed is one of two places in my house where it’s actually normal temperature (the other being the shower, though both have the prerequisites that I’m in them, and the shower has the prerequisite of being on, with hot water.) So now, it’s 4:18 in the morning, and I’ve been up since around 6 yester-day. I hope that makes sense… chronologically. I know it doesn’t make sense in sleep schedule terms.

And that was as far as I planned this blog post.

I’ve been re-reading some old John Green blog posts from 2002 to mid-2006. They’re pretty interesting. I particularly like the one where he talks about Gatorade and gasoline:

After I filled up my car with gas, I went home and peed–like I said, I drink a lot of Gatorade–and then on the long walk from the bathroom to the living room, I heard a Gatorade commercial asking, “Is it in you?” Due to the aforementioned urinating, it was not in me…

His “Five Simple Rules for Moving” is pretty good too. Having moved three times, I know that when he says, “Boxes are the great enemies of any mover, because once something gets put in a box, it rarely comes out,” it’s VERY true.

I’ve mentioned before how, due to the nature of the written word, everything is condensed, so whatever you read (whether fiction or non-fiction) seems to have taken over a smaller period of time than it actually did. So even though I know that those blog posts are condensed versions of events in his life, I still hope my life will be as interesting as that. I mean, in all honesty, it probably won’t because I’m scared of people and dislike travel, both of which limit my capacity for life adventures, but still… I wish it were.

I’m listening to a Bob Dylan album (An-other Side of Bob Dylan - my sister lent me a whole crate of his CDs, which I’m now listening to very sparsely and alphabetically, in fitting with my New Year’s Resolution of listening to all of the albums in my music collection – more or less alphabetically), and now I’m thinking about him, even though I don’t know too much about Bob Dylan. I know what I imagine his being though. It’s similar to a lot of those other, early folk-type singers. They don’t have a very high income, living on the verge of poverty, and yet they’re able to create these masterpieces of artistic outpouring. Like, their entire collection of possessions consists of an acoustic guitar, a notebook, a pen, possibly an anthology of poetry, and an old, battered couch. Re-reading those early John Green blog posts feels very similar. And again, I hope that I can do the same, but I suppose even if you’re living in a legendary life, you don’t feel anything special about it. It’s just your life. Unfortunately, that’s the thing about perspective; you can’t see your own life in the same way that you see the idealised life of someone else, because idealising your own life is narcissism and is frowned upon by morally up-right people.

If no-thing else, take that from this blog post.

…

Actually, no, let’s just go with that, because I doubt that I’ll come up with anything better if I keep sitting here and typing.

Lemonade ≠ Lunar Excursion Module (A Shopping Trip)

David Brauer — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:20:12 +0000

I went with my parents to Orland Park to-day, to go to the LEGO Store and Half Price Books.

Half Price Books was first. I found some really good stuff. The best thing was probably In Deep by Argent, from 1973.

There’s a scratch on the first track “God Gave Rock and Roll to You,” but at least that’s one of their more famous songs, so I have it on CD and know what it sounds like. If I have to have a scratch on a record, I’d prefer it to be on a song that I already know.

I also got a book about the Beach Boys (since the SMiLE box set came out, I’ve been more interested in them), a book on digital recording, and a Jefferson Airplane album on CD – 2400 Fulton Street, which, if I remember correctly, is the house where the Jefferson Airplane lived. This inspired part of my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. (I also got more stuff that my parents will presumably gift me later on, including an album by Chicago [Chicago III, I think], Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight, two books of unfinished tales by J.R.R. Tolkien, a graphic novel of Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M, a book about naval warfare of World War I, and Maureen Johnson’s 13 Little Blue Envelopes.)

Half Price Books also had the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo (one of the best albums of 1968 in my opinion and my favourite Byrds’ album) and Graham Nash’s first solo album Songs for Beginners (which I want not only because Graham Nash is a great song writer and musician, but also because I have David Crosby’s first solo album and Stephen Stills’ first solo album, and this would complete the Crosby, Stills, and Nash trio), but they weren’t in very good condition, so unfortunately, I had to pass on those.

After Half Price Books, we ate at Chick-Fil-A. With parents and workers exempt, I was almost surely the oldest person there. Everyone else was somewhere between twelve and four. It was weird. On the wall, they had this phrase: ”Food is essential to life; therefore, make it good.” I was thinking about this and realised, “Hey! ’Good’ is a substantive adjective!” And then I thought, “Psh. I’m probably the only person in here who knows what a substantive adjective is.” And then I thought, “Oh wait. That’s normal.”

Also, an-other example of the weird way in which my mind works. On the plastic lids of the cups, they have the little bubbles that you press in to indicate what the drink is. (First off, mine had all of the buttons pushed. Evidently my drink had an identity crisis.) While I was drinking it, I saw “LEM.” Instead of thinking “lemonade,” which is probably what it really means, my brain skipped to “Lunar Excursion Module.” So yeah. There’s a thing that happened.

I also remembered this word thing I tried to do a few years ago. Basically, I was coming up with word phrases where you had a hub letter in the middle. Like “easternear” could be read either as “eastern ear” or “easter near.” I came up with a much better one to-day: baresores. Either “bare sores” or “bares ores.”

Then to the LEGO Store! Again, excluding parents and workers (also grandparents), I was almost surely the oldest person there. I just kept thinking about how much LEGOs have changed since I was a kid. I mean, when I was a kid, there were just LEGO sharks. Now they have LEGO fish for the LEGO sharks to eat. And LEGO dinosaurs. And LEGO recycling trucks. When I was a kid, LEGO people weren’t as environmentally conscious and still used only garbage trucks.

The interesting thing about going to the mall though (aside from seeing Inception playing on a television, since I just watched it last night), was this store called Plaques Plus. My mind, again in its eccentricity, immediately thought of the dental disease instead of the wall hangings.

Also, here’s an-other picture I took. Evidently, someone walked across the median while the concrete was still wet.

I could also mention that we went to Trader Joes, where I saw a lady with a box that was filled with equal parts water and wine, but I don’t really have anything else to say about that, aside from it was odd.

So there was that shopping trip.

Thursday 12 January 2012

David Brauer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:33:02 +0000

A year and two days ago, I got my second computer. My first one had become slow over the course of my three years of ownership. (Plus it had Vista, which apparently isn’t a very good operating system.) So I’ve had this one a year now. It’s sort of weird that this year anniversary comes at about the same time when I’m finishing my first EP. I recorded most of the guitar parts for a new version of “Burghley” last night and a new piano part a few minutes ago. I still have one guitar track to record (hopefully soon, but not to-day, since I have a blister on my thumb), and then I’ll be done. I might go back and re-record some of the other songs, but most I’m totally done with.

If I can figure out everything, this will hopefully be on Bandcamp in mid-to-late February. I want to have the official release date on 6 February because… it’s February 6th. (For the real and lengthy reasons, click here.)

Also, I really want to release something while I’m still nineteen. I seem always to compare myself with people I have no business comparing myself to. So, I see people like Zach Condon (of Beirut) and most of the Zombies, who had record contracts before (or while) they were nineteen, and I think I should do the same. Even though I started doing music about three years ago, I feel like I haven’t done enough. (Probably because of my comparing myself to people who are obviously more talented and successful than I.)

I don’t really have much else to say about it though. Or, alternatively, I don’t feel like I should say much because I don’t want to hype this up too much and then have no-thing happen, or talk about it so much that people aren’t interested. Plus, I feel either pretentious talking about it or just juvenile and amateur. I mean, I recorded all of these songs just on my computer with Audacity. I tried to make the best recordings I could, yet obviously there are flaws, since I don’t have the best equipment and I definitely don’t have the experience. But I still feel like it’s important to throw something out there before I’m twenty, even if it is just a nine-track EP of instrumental songs I’ve written over the course of 2011.

So if I get everything sorted, I’ll talk about this more on 6 February, when I’ll release it.

The Fault in Our Stars

David Brauer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:41:46 +0000

I got an email around noon to-day from Amazon, saying that my copy of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars has been shipped. Unfortunately, it won’t get here until next Wednesday. But don’t despair, dear blog reader, for the story continues.

Sometimes, my mom works at our church’s thrift shop, and since she gets done at one o’clock, she usually takes my sister and me (or whichever of us are home at the time) out to lunch. We were going to go to Arby’s, but instead decided to go to Culver’s in nearby Michigan City. This way, we could also look for the series six LEGO minifigures are Meijers.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have the minifigures, but on a whim, I decided to look through the small selection of books, to see if they had a copy of TFiOS. They had two! They both had plain, blue J Scribbles. No Hanklerfishes or Yetis. So, since my Amazon order won’t come until a week from now, I bought a copy. (In the excitement [read: fangirling], I contemplated buying both copies [because they're all signed!], and I thought I’d left my gloves in the store before realising that I’d just put them in my sweatshirt pocket instead of my coat pocket.)

I started reading it at about two, skipped supper, and finished it at about six-thirty. (I read a 300-page novel in four and a half hours; I don’t know whether this makes me a slow reader, but I feel that way.) It was good. Like I mentioned on tumblr, I’m not going to say much about it. Partially because of spoilers, partially because I still have to sort things out in my head. But it was good.

And I’m glad. Not only for the sake of the book itself, but because I bought this copy, have a copy coming from Amazon, and also pre-ordered the audio book box set from DFTBA records (which coincidentally came after I bought the copy at Meijers), I will own three copies. Though actually, looking at the box set (I haven’t opened it yet), I think I have only two physical copies, but still….

I liked how it revisited some themes of previous John Green novels. Actually, primarily An Abundance of Katherines. In particular, the matter of mattering (sorry, I can’t think of a better way to phrase that) and “mysterium tremendum.” That said, the views presented are different. In fact, I think I liked what this novel says about mattering more than An Abundance of Katherines.

I’m sure I’ll read it again when my Amazon copy comes, so I might write a more detailed blog post then. But for the first time, I just wanted to read the story for the sake of the story. And it was good. After thinking about it complexly, I’ll probably like it even more.

Tosspots, St John Golden-Mouth’s Ointment, & a Missing Skull (For Good Measure)

David Brauer — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:16:49 +0000

If you saw my New Year’s Resolution video, you’ll know that for 2012, I’m reading one story of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron every day until I run out.

Last night, since I’d gotten a bit behind, I read the sixth and seventh stories of day one. I came across a few interesting things, so I thought I’d write a blog post about it. (That’s what this is.)

First – tosspot. In context: ”‘So you turned Christ into a drinker, did you, and a connoiseur of choice wines, as if he were some tosspot or drunken tavern-crawler like one of yourselves?’” I came across this, and I thought, “Tosspot!? What’s a tosspot!?” I looked it up this morning; it’s a drunkard. According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of tosspot was 1568. (For a minute I thought, “Wait, how could that be? The Decameron is from the 14th century.” But then I remembered that it was written in Italian, so this is a translation.)

Also, I got this little pop up thing telling me that tosspot is in the bottom 20% of words being looked up. I’m sorry if I want to know what 16th century tosspot means! I’m the type of person who looks up obscure words and gets the helpful suggestion of the dictionary to look up more modern insults. I’m a curious person though. At least I don’t have to look up pragmatic, which apparently is one of the top ten looked up words in the past twenty-four hours. Come on, people. Pragmatic? Really?

So anyway. Tosspot. I feel like this is a word that deserves to be brought back. So even though it means drunkard, I’m going to try to use it in more conversations. That implies that I’ve already used it in conversations. I’m going to try to use it in conversations. So don’t expect it to come back, because my having conversations is a thing that rarely happens.

Second – St John Golden-Mouth’s ointment. In context: ”In brief, he struck such terror into him, that the poor man arranged for certain go-betweens to grease the friar’s palm with a goodly amount of St John Golden-Mouth’s ointment (a highly effective remedy against the disease of galloping greed common among the clergy, and especially among Franciscans, who look upon money with distaste), so that the inquisitor would deal leniently with him.” Despite being an English major (and supposedly knowledgeable about these things), I may be reading this wrong, but I’m pretty sure that St John Golden-Mouth’s ointment is a euphemism for a bribe.

I looked up “St John Golden-Mouth’s ointment” on Google. (Using Boolean because I’m a nerd.) The two listings I found were both the quote from The Decameron itself, which is sort of disappointing. St John Golden-Mouth’s ointment is such a great phrase and a pretty good euphemism, I’m surprised that no one has made an allusion to it before. (I’m going to be writing an album about 19th century criminals in England during February, perhaps I can sneak it into one of those songs.)

Third – the start of the seventh story: ”It is a matter of very common knowledge throughout the greater part of the world that…” I read this and thought, “Hey! That sounds remarkable similar to the beginning of Pride and Prejudice: ’It is a truth universally acknowledged that…’”

This sort of thing is interesting to me because I’m the sort of person who enjoys finding commonalities between works. I started a list of common song titles; this is what I do. Also, I find commonalities like this beneficial for creating my own works, because I can just copy the paradigms of people who’ve written stuff before me. With this, I can see that I just need to say something like, “Well, everyone knows that in [place], [general statement that the rest of the work is focused on].” See? Easy.

Even though nearly all of the stories in The Decameron so far have focused on the hypocrisy of the church, it’s still pretty good. I’m hoping that the subject matter opens up a bit, to make it more interesting. The first day seems to be focused around friars, priests, monks, et cetera; there’s certainly a theme. I just hope they’re not all like that because that would get a bit dull.

—&—

Also, I finished Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician by John Worthen this morning. It was pretty good. A few things on that:

First – Apparently, this is the first biography of Schumann not to assume that he was mentally unstable all of his life. Frequently, the author mentions that people’s recollections have been shadowed by the future knowledge of his death. Id est: looking back, people attached Schumann’s odd behaviour to his later being in an asylum. This biography asserts that those connexions aren’t viable. I guess for just picking a biography of Schumann, I picked a good one.

Second – I read my first autopsy in this book. I’m still not quite sure if that’s a thing I’m supposed to be proud of, or what. I mean, if you think of the firsts in your life, do you think of the first autopsy you’ve read? It’s not very common. In that case, maybe I should be proud of it. In any case, I’m glad of the circumstances of Schumann’s autopsy (excluding his death, of course) because, as the biographer notes, it was written more simply and not as science-y because he knew that Schumann’s wife Clara would read it.

Third – Schumann died in 1856, “in 1879 a new and much grander memorial was erected to Schumann in the cemetery and a disinterment and reburial took place; a cast was taken of Schumann’s skull, but the skull was not replaced. No one knows where it now is.” A few things about this – HOW do you lose a skull? I just…. How? Also, I feel it’s a really interesting story for Schumann. I like the mystery around it. Where is he, really? Certainly, it’s a sad epilogue to an already tragic tale, but the mystery is intriguing.

The Tortoises & Stalking

David Brauer — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:39:54 +0000

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011 was to illustrate my dreams and make videos about them. I had technical problems with this, and by the time I’d solved those, I’d run out of motivation to do the project. I resurrected it for a 2012 resolution, and I even created a separate YouTube channel for them. I named it WithNeonDarkness – a phrase from the Zombies’ song “Hung up on a Dream.”

I’m sort of picky with the dreams I write down. I like to be as complete as I can, so I don’t even bother to write them down if they’re too long. Because if they’re too long, usually I’ve forgotten part of them anyway. Also, I don’t include any bad dreams – usually these are dreams that include the things I’m scared of or things that I hate. (Things like dogs and the private school I went to.) So if a dream includes those, I try to forgot them.

I woke up this morning at 5:45 (I don’t know why), and I almost went to sleep again before realised that I’d had a dream. So I wrote it down and did some sketches for this project. I finished making the video a few minutes ago.

I had some problems with the brightness of the pictures. Also, I’m not going to make excuses for my drawings in the project, but I’m not even going to attempt to draw people. I’m drawing stick people for everyone.

So there’s the start of that project. Hopefully, I’ll have both the motivation and enough dreams to continue doing this.

Re-Reading Paper Towns

David Brauer — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:55:58 +0000

On my winter break, I wanted to read more books (not a hard feat, since at university, I didn’t have time nor opportunity to read much aside from the academic texts). One of the books on my list was Paper Towns by John Green. I finished this last night/this morning, reading it all in one sitting (though briefly interrupted so I could record a guitar piece that came into my head), just like the first time I read it. While the first time I read it, it was really great, and it became my favourite John Green book (and perhaps one of my favourite books overall), this time, I didn’t have much of a reäction to it.

*the following contains spoilers*

Because this was my second time reading the book, I knew how it ended. I knew that Q, Ben, Radar, and Lacey would find Margo in Algoe. I knew that Q had more or less idealised Margo and saw her only as he wanted to see her and not the way she really was.

The thing is, the story is told from Q’s perspective – first person limited. So the only impressions you get of Margo are Q’s impressions. (Admittedly, you do hear what other people have to say about Margo, but that’s always filtered through Q’s perspective.) I think it was because of this limited perspective that I wasn’t as interested in the book this time. (Though for some reason, I found some parts much funnier than when I last read it, particularly Ben, particularly when drunk.) Since I’d read the book before, I knew that the impressions I got of her from Q were all just his projections and imaginings. I knew that the Margo I was introduced to wasn’t the real Margo. However, since all of the impressions of Margo are from Q’s erred perspective, I didn’t get a sense of who she really was. Because of that, I couldn’t really care about her as a character. Basically, I couldn’t empathise with the lie of Q’s idealised Margo (or the other characters empathising for the idealised Margo) because I knew it was an idealisation.

Similarly, I couldn’t really get interested in Q’s search for her, because I knew he was searching for something he wasn’t going to find. He would find Margo, but he couldn’t find his idealised version of her because it wasn’t real. Knowing that his Margo wasn’t the real Margo made a last-minute roadtrip seem pretty stupid. Exciting and fun, but pretty stupid.

Now that I know that his Margo was different from the real Margo, his searching for her seems sort of pathetic. Why is he searching for something that he made up? It’s all just in his head.

Admittedly, I’ve done the same thing. It seems my greatest problem is idealising people. I know that in the moment, what you’re imagining seems real. To you, it IS real. But once that idealisation breaks – once you realise your mistake – the whole thing seems foolish. Why did I do that? That’s not the way it is at all.

I think that shows one of John Green’s strengths as a writer though – what he writes seems real. After re-reading An Abundance of Katherines earlier this month (is it crazy to say “earlier this month” when it’s only the fifth?), I felt that his characters were more real than I was. His characters have friends whom they’ve seen more recently than a year and a half. His characters go on roadtrips. His characters have adventures and make horrible mistakes and learn things from them. That’s more than I’ve ever done, and I’m non-fiction.

Re-reading Paper Towns also made me realise one of his other strengths: he has a fantastic ability to combine a philosophical approach with his narrative structure. Other authors disguise this philosophical viewpoint with symbolism and metaphor. Not to say that Green doesn’t do the same (the great white wall of cow, for instance), but he gives the reader a break and states these important viewpoints plainly. As concepts, they’re sometimes difficult to grasp or fully realise; it’s good that you don’t have to wade through the poetic devices first to find the view and then further devote your mental faculties toward figuring it out. I think Green realises that the views that he puts into his books (and his video blogs) – imagine people complexly, the truth resists simplicity, et cetera – are important enough that people need to see them and realise them, so he doesn’t disguise them in metaphor.

Now that I’ve re-read Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns, I’m even more excited to receive and read The Fault in Our Stars.

Keychains & Nostalgia

David Brauer — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:16:41 +0000

I recently re-ärranged my room, and in moving things around, I found a keychain I got from my high school a few years ago for “academic achievement.” I’ve had so many of those academic achievement things, I don’t even remember what this one was for. Probably honour roll or something.

Anyway, I was going to write a short post on tumblr about how I don’t use this fancy metal keychain I got for academic achievement and instead prefer to use a cheap, plastic one I got from the police department of my home town when I was probably five. I found this one, but upon finding it, saw that it was broken.

So now I guess I’m stuck using the metal one I got from my high school. At least it’s a more interesting conversation piece. Either you have, “Oh, I got this keychain when I was five for free from the police department” (for posterity, I’m not sure I was five, but I was six when we moved, so it was sometime early on) or you have, “I got this keychain in high school my junior year for some sort of academic achievement. Four years later, I had Latin class in university and realised that it should be “Veritas” instead of “Heritas,” isn’t that ironic?”

That’s why I didn’t really want to use it – who uses a keychain with a typo? I may have also had some qualms about using a keychain from my high school. I mean, it was high school; you don’t profess any sort of liking for that sort of thing. (Though now that I’m at university, I frequently find myself remembering high school nostalgically, since university is so terrible.)

I guess that’s the rôle that keychains play for me though – they embody some sort of nostalgic feeling, even if that nostalgic feeling is for something I didn’t have any enthusiasm for at the time.

At the age of five, I’m sure I got a keychain more for the excitement of getting free things that remembering to remove my keys, lock the door, and profess my civic pride. (Even at nineteen, I can’t do those things, as I don’t have a license, much less a car, and have no civic pride. These I chalk up to a dislike of travel and moving too often.) Yet more recently, I feel nostalgic for my hometown, even though I have few memories of the place, know no people from there, never attended the public schools, and haven’t even been there for at least five years.

Yet I still feel a weird sort of nostalgia for the place. I mean, I based my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel on that place; certainly I have strong feelings for it. And now being at university and all of the problems I’ve had there, high school seems like it was so much simpler and even, dare I say it, fun. So now I’m feeling a weird sort of nostalgia for high school.

And oddly enough, I can track these feelings of nostalgia with keychains. I guess that gives them some purpose; I hardly ever bring my house keys with me, since I never go anywhere alone.

Three Books in Two Days

David Brauer — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:34:44 +0000

Well, 2012 has started off rather un-stellar. (I’ve been using the word “stellar” and its variations more frequently lately. I’m not sure why; probably just because I haven’t used it before, so maybe I’m making up for it.)

I don’t remember the last time that I wasn’t awake when it was New Year’s. Or New Year’s Eve midnight. Or the changeover, whatever it’s called. I was still awake for this one, but I was in bed, trying to take a nap because I have a cold. Or Tiny Chicken Disease. So now I can make the lame joke that I’ve been sick all year. Though for all the humour that that (probably doesn’t) lend, being sick isn’t very enjoyable, obviously. Sneezing is especially bad.

For some reason, I’ve convinced myself that if I don’t go to sleep, my cold will get better. My logical side realises that this is preposterous (is 2012 a year for big words or something?), but still, I’ve gone to bed at six for the past two days. That’s 6 a.m. Though being the only one awake at that hour has had a few unexpected benefits. It’s quiet enough that I can read books. In the past two days, I’ve finished three books.

Let It Snow - Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle – This one was really good. The first part was especially funny. I think this was the first time I’ve ever laughed out loud at a book. Though, as it was about four in the morning, I tried to not make so much noise.

An Abundance of Katherines – John Green – I’ve read this one before, but since I re-read Looking for Alaska a week or two ago, I decided to re-read all of my John Green books. (Also since Paper Towns was on my list anyway. I first read Will Grayson Will Grayson over the summer, so I’m not going to re-read that yet, as it’s still fresh in my mind, or at least mostly fresh.) It was oddly fitting to read this now, since lately I’ve also been consumed with trying to matter. More specifically, I’m trying to find a way in which the stuff I do – writing songs and making videos and whatnot – is helpful or matters to people. Re-reading this didn’t give me a definite answer (though I doubt there’s a singular answer for everyone), but it did give me some things to think about.

The Lover’s Dictionary - David Levithan – I got this over the summer when I sold my economics textbook back to Amazon. This was certainly a more entertaining read (though it didn’t have much competition). The only thing I didn’t like about this was how short it was. I guess there’s something to be said for that. I mean, I can’t expect to know everything about someone else‘s relationship, regardless of whether it’s fictional or not. Fictional people need privacy, too. But what was there was very good. The form itself – telling a story through dictionary entries specialised for the relationship – is great itself, but the story behind it is equally as good, if not better. (The whole form/content debate.) Also, I liked how there were entries for both “ephemeral” and “ethereal.” I wrote a song for 50/90 in 2010 and got these two words messed up. But still, they are linked somehow in my mind.

Interestingly enough, all three of these books (the editions I have at least) are all white.

I’ve also made progress through the Robert Schumann biography I’ve been reading (Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician – John Worthen). I posted two quotes from it on my tumblr – one about Schumann’s describing his hangovers, the other about his comment on a student’s performance during his brief time as a teacher at a conservatory. I have only one hundred and two pages left of that to read. I don’t know too much about Schumann’s music (I have only one CD of it), but Schumann as a person reminds me a lot of myself. The biographer talks a lot about Schumman’s contradiction of wanting to be alone to write music, but also wanted to be accepted in a group of people. I have that contradiction. Additionally, Schumann was frequently ill. Sometimes I feel that way also.

Reading so much almost makes me want to set a new goal to read a book for each day this year – 366, but since I’m still on winter break and things will no doubt get busier once I go back to university, I’m hesitant to actually commit to this. Also, since four of my five classes next semester are English classes, I’ll no doubt have a lot to read for those. I suppose I could tentatively set one hundred as a goal.

I just signed up for an account on Goodreads. That will help me keep track of what books I’ve read, which I’ve been wanting to do anyway. Also, it can tell you how many pages you’ve read in a year, which seems awesome.