Today I bought Vendela Vida’s book Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. It is next on my reading list, and I am very excited.

I also bought Raising Victor Vargas for $5.99. A great deal. I haven’t watched it again yet, but I forgot how great that movie is. I love the naturalistic acting and the beautiful cinematography by Tim Orr. It really makes me wonder: why hasn’t Peter Sollett, the writer/director, directed anything since?

From this past weekend, probably somewhere over Arizona.

1. I just finished a trio of books (in order from most recently read): A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut, History of Love by Nicole Krauss, and Name All the Animals by Alison Smith. One of the good things about traveling is that it makes for great reading time. They were all quite different from each other. It was nice to have such a shift in tone, writing style, and content after each read. Like cleansing the palette. I enjoyed them all very much, and would recommend them all…though there are very few books that I have read that I didn’t enjoy.

A Man Without A Country is a very fast read. It’s just some of Kurt’s thoughts in no particular order, for no particular rhyme or reason, but it doesn’t come off as high-minded or pretentious. Those are two adjectives that are about as far from Vonnegut as I could imagine. It’s insightful, funny, warm, and unsentimental. Then again, I would probably enjoy reading Vonnegut’s grocery list.

I really really liked History of Love. Yeah, it did remind me of Jonathan Safran Foer’s work (her husband), but does it really matter as long as it’s good? Krauss understands her characters, and their full lives off and on the page. If you asked her what Alma had for breakfast yesterday and how she prepared it, she could probably give an answer fully consistent with her character right off the bat. A lot of contemporary, young writers (Foer, Krauss, Zadie Smith, most of all Dave Eggers, et al) have come under fire and some sort of backlash against their postmodern leanings and inventive, witty, sometimes experimental prose and while these writers are vastly different and I’m not meaning to lump them all together or make any sort of statement, but I guess I would want to say “Hey, at least they’re trying. They’re trying to express and to communicate, and to play and experiment with the form…often as a means of getting at a deeper emotional meaning or to evoke a feeling.” It’s true that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but why so many haters? In this case, I think her style works for the novel. The writing, to me, doesn’t attract attention away from the content…I mean in a way it becomes the content, and man, her style is impressive. I mean she really knows how to write. It’s poetic and descriptive, but also taut and honest. The asides don’t feel like asides, they feel like a secret that you’re being let in on, a secret that gives you greater insight into what feels like a living, breathing human being. And the structure is intricate and complex, but totally makes sense (especially upon a partial re-read). I liked how it alternates narrators, who have distinctly different voices and thus writing styles. It had to have taken a lot of work to write this.

Name All the Animals is a memoir. The author lost her brother in a car accident when she was 15 and he was 18, and it is about her and her family coping with that fact and how she formed her own identity in the wake of his death, a kind of coming of age story as well. It is a sad novel, but quite unsentimental, which I really liked. Smith seems to be able to have an outsider’s insightful perspective on herself and her family, which is a difficult skill. It’s less about feelings, than it is about our actions and behavior in the face of something so devastating, and ultimately, our lack of control. She chooses to recount detailed, specific episodes rather than give a snapshot of their lives post-trauma, which is much more interesting and effective.

2. I meant to write this awhile back, after I saw Ocean’s 13. One thing I noticed (besides the fact that Brad Pitt is almost always seen chewing or eating throughout the series of films), was that the featured choice of air travel amongst those highfalutin capers was none other than Southwest. I was proud to see the Southwest orange and ochre displayed proudly. Even a gang of high-rolling, swift-minded, movie-star quality thieves can’t resist those deals. They don’t need assigned seats either.

So I’m going to ease back into this writing/blog thing with a wonderful quote from Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, from his book A Man Without A Country. I was re-reading it on the plane ride back from L.A. to Omaha (or to be more precise, Phoenix to Omaha) and found it to be inspiring:

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

It is exciting to think that we always carry the power of imagination and creation with us. At any given moment you have the opportunity to create something, with your mind or your hands or both, and bring something wholly new and original into the world.

To extend what Vonnegut said, much more simply and eloquently than I will here, you can create to have fun, to express yourself, to make others happy, to give as a gift, to share your thoughts and feelings, to discover something about yourself, to pass the time, to experiment, to make a mess, to distract, to play, or to grow your soul. You don’t need a reason either, but you may find one of these along the way.

Art is created every day by people around the world, many of them not even knowing it. Doodling while on the phone, taking the time to create an outfit, preparing a sandwich the exact way you want it, making a homemade card or cd, signing our name on a receipt, dancing to music in the car, practicing a new basketball move, these are a few of endless examples of everyday art occurring at a constant pace. We are all creators of art, and together we make up a world where a second doesn’t go by where a performance or piece of art isn’t created. It’s pretty wonderful and uplifting when you think of life in that way.

I had the good fortune on Sunday night to work on the new Cursive video for their song “Bad Sects” off Happy Hollow. The director is fellow Omahan Nik Fackler who is both really nice and talented. He’s done a bunch of other cool videos for bands like Tilly and the Wall, The Faint, Azure Ray, and more…some of his work can be viewed at his website.

I don’t want to give away any details/plot, but you can create your own story based on the photos I’ve provided here. It’s more imaginative and interactive that way.

It was a fun way to spend an evening. Met some nice, down to earth Omahans who are into film (and music). Many said that they would be interested in working on any projects that I was doing in the area, which was very cool. It’s also fun and interesting to see how other sets/crews/directors work. Though it may be much smaller than L.A.’s, it’s nice to see that there’s a little film community out here.

Kyle, Oleg, Erin, Sean and I went to a College World Series game on Friday evening. North Carolina vs. Mississippi State. North Carolina won 8-5. It was very hot. Sticky hot. The smell of hot dogs and sunblock wafting through the air, signaling both baseball and summertime. It was a good time.

The famed Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the College World Series.

Kyle and Oleg waiting in the long, long general admission line to get in.

Action on the field. A fly ball being caught, in case you couldn’t tell from the tiny figures.

Erin and I wait in eager anticipation of the fly ball being caught. We could also be found cheering for our favorite player, Benji. I wasn’t cheering for any team in particular, just for the sport of baseball. I cheered for singles, doubles, triples, strikeouts, batters who were hit by pitches but walked it off, homeruns, fly ball catches, steals, everything. It didn’t matter what team you were on, as long as you were doing something active and exciting, I was cheering for you.

Besides cheering, this is what I do best at a baseball game. This followed a hot dog and an ice cold coke. Man, do I love sporting events.

Sean was hungry too, but was too lazy to wait in the concession lines.

Beautiful.

From the A.P.:

U.S. astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams set a record for the longest single spaceflight by any woman. Williams, who has lived at the space station since December, surpassed the record of 188 days set by astronaut Shannon Lucid at the Mir space station in 1996.

“It’s just that I’m in the right place at the right time,” Williams, 41, said when Mission Control in Houston congratulated her on the record. “Even when the station has little problems, it’s just a beautiful, wonderful place to live.”

She’s been there since December. Crazy.
Atlantis is cleared to come home some time next week.

Also…

“In February, Williams set another record for the most time spent spacewalking by a woman, kicking off a year of achievements by women in space.

In October, U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson will become the first woman to command the space station. Later that month, Air Force Col. Pam Melroy will become only the second woman to command a space shuttle mission; Eileen Collins was the first, in 1999.

If Whitson and Melroy’s time at the space station overlap, it could be the first time there are two female commanders in space at the same time. “The first time we have two female commanders in orbit — that will be neat,” Whitson said.

Almost three decades after the first women joined the astronaut corps in 1978, only 17 of the 94 current active astronauts are women.

Lucid says part of the problem may be the pipeline that delivers pilots to the astronaut corps — the U.S. military. Women didn’t start entering the military service academies until the late 1970s.

“I think it’s really great that all of this happening, but obviously, you wonder, why did it take so many years?” asked Lucid, who is in astronaut office management. “At some point, you would like the field to be such that it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re male or female.”

On the ground, Mission Control had its first female flight director in 1985. All three space station flight directors working the current Atlantis mission, and the lead shuttle flight director, are women. Women make up about a third of NASA’s 33 flight directors, who are responsible for running the spaceflight missions.

“So many times, the room is filled with female flight controllers,” Lucid said. “I just think it’s just a wonderful thing that people are getting the chance to do what they’re capable of doing.”

Fireworks was the theme of the night on Thursday. I drove downtown to Sokol, taking the 13th Street exit, which happens to be the same exit that the thousands of college baseball fans around the world take to go to Rosenblatt Stadium, the site of the College World Series. It was a pre-opening celebration, and I was there just in time for the traffic and the fireworks. I sat in my car watching the red brake lights blink and the red, white, and blue fireworks explode. There were some purple and green too, I think, but baseball is America’s pastime, so the red, white and blue seemed to be the colors of choice.

I arrived in Sokol just in time to see a big, burly Sokol worker frantically screaming, “Call the cops! Call the cops right now! Get that guy off stage!” This was a bit alarming. I imagined a guy with a gun jumping onstage and being psychotic. What I didn’t picture was the half of the duo Services totally naked onstage. He was promptly escorted off stage and arrested. The other half of the duo proceeded to fake hang himself with his tie, making a face not unlike Harold in the opening of Harold and Maude. Quite the fireworks to open the night!

The energetic, dance-tastic members of The Faint kept the night’s fireworks alive with their driving bass, pulsing beats, and super fine dance moves. They played a lot of their classics, such as “Worked Up So Sexual”, “Glass Danse”, “Take Me to the Hospital”, “Agenda Suicide”, “Paranoiattack”, and “Posed to Death” (love this song). They also played about 4 new songs. One was slower, one was about “ever growing centipedes”, another was introduced as “The Geeks Were Right.”

They came out and said, “It’s great to be home,” getting a huge cheer from the hometown crowd who had already gotten into the dancing mood from the beats coming out of the Sokol speakers before The Faint even came on.

It was great to see the classic moves of the band: Jacob’s 360s and full backbend touch the floor moves. Todd’s gospel revival movements, air drum playing along with the beat, and smiles. Clark’s hard hitting, sweaty long hair thrashing on the drums. DaPose’s side to side hip move/slide, often accompanied by a snap…pretty flamboyant looking for someone who looks they could’ve been in Slayer. And Joel’s more subtle arms up, occasional rocking out, otherwise bobbing to the beat. It’s oddly comforting to see a band you haven’t seen in awhile displaying their signature styles and moves…it’s the same for Sleater-Kinney, Le Tigre, the White Stripes, etc. It brought a smile to my face and made me feel kind of like everything was right in the world. Who knew that rock/dance music could provide security and stability as well as the feeling of freedom and endless possibility?

Todd made a point about how his friend was arrested for “being in the most natural state of himself he could be in.” He then conducted an informal poll of if people really minded nudity. The majority seemed not to mind nudity, but I have to say, the vote was quite close. This was probably a little closer to Todd’s heart considering he was also arrested for indecent exposure when he mooned the crowd while on tour with No Doubt. Maybe a group will be started: Rock crusaders for Nudity. They already have a few members in Omaha.

Sokol was also super hot. I was in the balcony and danced about 90% less than usual, and was still sweating. The majority of the attendees were completely soaked, including the 50 year old couple that I walked out behind. Their button downs and khaki shorts were soaked through and sticking to their skin. I hope they thought it was worth it. They stayed the whole time, which says something.

Happy Birthday Erica, I hope you had/have a wonderful day!

That second one is of me celebrating with you from afar.

P.S. I had to write that note backwards. That’s how special you are. I will write notes backwards for you.

Behold my precious…it glows…