Last year I started what I hope will be a lifelong habit of updating a list of every book I read as the year goes on. So here's some more of the same for you.

This year's list is a little longer than last year's, thanks to being a part time student for one semester and being a student at a Great Books college for the next. Nevertheless it's still not as long as I'd hoped for it to be. A month or so ago, when I hit the eighty books mark, I thought it might be possible for me to reach a hundred books by the end of the year. Unfortunately I only hit about 94, if my memory serves correctly.

I realize that's kind of a silly thing to say: "I only hit 94," especially since it's claimed that the average American reads about four books a year. That's 90 more than the average person - not so bad.

Some caveats: this list only includes books that I read in full. Books that I made it halfway or two thirds of the way or nine tenths of the way through aren't on this list. Books that I was assigned to read for school are indeed on the list, though not that many appear thanks to the prior caveat. (Who knows? Maybe someday by some miracle I'll make it through the entire Marx-Engels Reader.)

Without further ado, here's the list. If a title strikes your fancy, click on it and you'll be sent to Amazon.com. Favorites are in bold. (As if you didn't know what bold looked like.)

• Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (re-read)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Lee Goldberg
• V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
• An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (re-read)
• Maus by Art Spiegelman
• Dog Years: A Memoir by Mark Doty
• Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
• Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson
• Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
• The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan
• This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace
• In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
• The Solitary Vice: Against Reading by Mikita Brottman
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter
• Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse by Lee Goldberg
• Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham
• Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
• The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
• I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• Maus II by Art Spiegelman
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Fables: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham
• Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Everything is Illuminated by Johnathan Safran Foer
• How To Be Good by Nick Hornby
• Mr. Monk is Miserable by Lee Goldberg
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• Othello by William Shakespeare
• The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor
• Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Edward Craig
• The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings by Richard Brautigan
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
• Plato and the Internet by Kieron O'Hara
• The World According to Garp by John Irving
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape? by Peter Hedges
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (re-read)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
• Hiroshima by John Hersey
• Travels with Charley In Search of America by John Steinbeck
• Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
• The Art of Racing In The Rain by Garth Stein
• Endgame by Samuel Beckett
• Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
• Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin
• The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
• Oblivion: Stories by David Foster Wallace
• The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp
• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
• Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis by Sigmund Freud
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 edited by Dave Eggers
• Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott
• On Painting by Leon Battista Alberti
• In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development by Carol Gilligan
• Leonardo's Incessant Last Supper by Leo Steinberg
• Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
• Letters on Cézanne by Rainer Maria Rilke
• Cézanne: A Study of His Development by Roger Fry
• The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson
• The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
• The War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells
• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
• The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
• The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 edited by Dave Eggers
• Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
• Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
• Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
• Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell
• Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel In Letters by Mark Dunn
• Kubrik by Michael Herr

Have you read any of these? Do you have recommendations? Comment away.

One

I got kind of a weird email today. When I started reading it I wasn't sure who wrote it, but after a while I came to a conclusion: it was me. I had forgotten that a year ago I'd sent an email through a service called FutureMe, which holds off on sending an email you've written to yourself up to the year 2059. This isn't the first time I've written or received a letter from my past self; in high school I had a couple of teachers who'd asked me to do something similar. The experience is simultaneously surprising, weird and enlightening. Few people these days have the time or volition to make scrapbooks or time capsules. Though FutureMe isn't as tangible as those artifacts, it certainly has the potential to be just as poignant.

Anyway, the moral of the story: I challenge you to write a letter to yourself. Have it emailed to yourself sometime around next year - heck, longer if you'd prefer that. For as neat as it is, it requires little effort.

Two

I somehow managed to avoid the hype machine that surrounded Avatar; I guess that's what watching little TV and using an ad blocker will do for you. By the time the movie was in theaters, I knew only two things about it: that it had a huge budget and that it had been hyped to the extreme. I was skeptical about the whole thing, but when a couple of weeks rolled by and I had only heard a single negative comment from friends and critics, I figured that not seeing Avatar in theaters would be like missing the opportunity to check out Star Wars when it first came around.

In short: the CGI in Avatar is fantastic...as it should be, given the time and effort spent making this film. It's so fantastic, in fact, that it makes everything else in the film - the story, the dialogue, the acting, what have you - look decent and/or shabby in comparison. Really, though, I think that's the idea. I don't think James Cameron had set out to make Avatar the sort of film that requires effort on the part of audience members; he just wanted to make a shiny movie. And that's okay by me. I mean, I like intellectually stimulating films, but if a director wants to make a film that just looks cool, I think that's their prerogative.

I don't regret seeing Avatar. I would recommend people check it out. Given what it is, I think that's pretty decent praise.

Three

While we're on the subject of things everyone's talking about, some guy tried to blow up an airplane with his pants. There was suspicion that Al Qaeda or one of its associated groups had something to do with it, and whaddyaknow.

Apparently the bomb malfunctioned for reasons that still aren't entirely clear. The bomb's failure to completely ignite was followed by a passenger, a la United Flight 93, tackling alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

I find this part of the story - some random passenger getting up to save the day - to be both wonderful and scary. It's wonderful because it's pretty damn heroic stuff. It's scary because this actioned, coupled with those of members of Flight 93, suggest that if another terrorist attack happens on US soil, it will not be stopped by TSA or the government; it will be stopped by civilians.

Okay, I admit that my "scary" thing could be construed as a good thing. And while it is great in its own way, it's awful because of this: it suggests that the TSA and the government are not doing their jobs. What's worse is that new guidelines that the TSA are administering, which entail not allowing customers to place things on their laps/walk around during the last hour of the flight, are purely reactionary. It's like realizing someone broke into your house through one of your windows and retaliating by putting bars on the broken window alone.

I'm curious to see how customers and airlines react to these rules. It would be kind of remarkable if a terrorist attack ended up resulting in a lessening of rules.

A month or two ago I decided it would be a bad idea for me to get an iPhone. My decision wasn't based on price or coverage; it was all on my notion that if I were to get one I would spend way too much time on it. If I were given the opportunity to be on the internet anywhere and everywhere I know that I would take it, which in the end, I think, would be a bad thing. The stuff I get from being online is nice, but I'm afraid it would eat too much into other things - like reading books, newspapers, listening to music, or just sitting on the el and listening to other people's conversations.

I've noticed a trend in my life. The amount of time I use spending particular technology follows a downward slope. When I was very young - think the first few years of my life - I watched a lot of TV. As I got older I watched it less and less.

From the ages of five to fifteen, I was on the internet a lot - just browsing and stumbling, you know. These days I try not to get online unless I have a purpose, like checking my email or Facebook updates every few hours. I uninstalled StumbleUpon a couple of years ago; while it's a wonderful tool, I found that after I was done stumbling I would feel as if I'd napped for too long. You know. "What? I spent two hours doing that?"

My latest downward curve has come with Twitter. When I first started using the service I checked up on it a lot - maybe once every time I was on the computer. I also had updates from some people sent to my phone. Now things've changed a bit. I've disabled updates on my phone - they were a little too distracting - and I only check on my updates a couple of times a day. It's a great tool, but best used in moderation.

I wonder if this downward curve will ever affect my computer use. Maybe someday, if things get too complex, I'll just invest in a typewriter and take a page out of Thoreau's book.

The neat thing about Christmas is that when it rolls around I'm never quite sure what day of the week it is. I don't know why it's neat. I don't know why I like that. Maybe if it were another day I'd try to figure out why I'm so partial to that part of Christmas, of all parts. But not today. That would mean writing more words. I don't feel like doing that today.

Because it's been a while:

Media Consumption

TV: I know, I know, I should be watching Season 4 of Dexter, like, right now. I have heard from multiple sources that the season finale is absolutely spectacular and mindblowing and will like, totally change your perception of the world forever. Unfortunately I don't have access to that at the moment, so lately I've been watching Community. There's nothing particularly innovative about that show, but Community has this going for it: it's a really solid single camera sitcom. The writing is funny and the ensamble is great. I'm pleased to hear that the show has decent ratings; I can't see it lasting for season upon season, but I think that's for the best. Anyway, this is the first time I've really had a chance to watch TV in a while, and Community has been a nice gateway drug back to occasional television watching.

Games: Rented The Beatles: Rock Band. I don't have a little plastic guitar or microphone, just drums. But it's fun. Music you know and love, drum fills that are surprisingly complex. The only downside is that the game really shows how underpowered the Wii's hardware is compared to other consoles. I'm also tempted to try to play my way through all of the Mario games that I haven't beat - and yeah, I'm ashamed to say that includes Super Mario Bros. You know. That one game that I've played since I was five. (On a side note: how many Marios have been sacrificed since 1985? Millions? Billions?)

Books: I'm enjoying some reading for fun in the midst of what I think'll be an all too short break from reading for college. In a couple of weeks I should have a sort of a review of everything that I've read over the past year, so I won't go into too much detail here. In the meantime: currently reading Sophie's World, which is a nice little history of philosophy with a cute but flimsy Alice in Wonderland-esque story tacked on.

Movies and Music: The only reason I'm grouping these two together is because all is pretty quiet on the front here. The only significant event that I think would work here is a recent viewing of Nicholas Cage's The Wicker Man, which starts out just blah but devolves into a really wonderful and surreal sort of awfulness that this clip manages to capture pretty well.

So I saw this movie for the first time ever last night - it's called The Godfather. Have you heard of this movie? It's fantastic. It's great. You should really consider checking it out.

Okay, believe it or not, I'm only being mildly facetious here. Because I'd never seen The Godfather before, as I was watching it, I found myself going, "Wow! I'd bet some people I know would love to see this!" only to have that thought killed by the less excitable part of my mind going, "Uh, this is the second best rated film on the Internet Movie Database. It's a cornerstone of American popular culture. They've probably already seen it. Multiple times. Remember how it took you eighteen years to get around to watching Star Wars all the way through?"

On a more personal note, tomorrow I return home for a month. There's nothing new about that; I've left a college to return home a couple of times before in my life. The difference this time around, though, is that I plan on returning to this place once my break is over. To you, that's probably mundane stuff, but for me it's new. And it's a good feeling, too.

And while we're on the subject of bonding around a television screen: New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I borrowed it from a friend last night and a bunch of us enjoyed about five hours worth of button mashing, shouting, cursing, laughing and general brouhaha.

The concept behind New Super Mario Bros. Wii isn't really all that exciting: four people playing Mario at once. Honestly, it's kind of amazing that it's taken Nintendo so long to make a game like this. Sure, there've been a few competitive Mario games - the original Mario Bros. released in arcades and on the NES comes to mind - but this is the first time Nintendo has combined side scrolling goodness with the insanity that only comes as a result of Nintendo multiplayer games.

Key word there: insanity. Let's say you're really good at the Mario side scrollers; let's say you've played them since you were five years old. That's, what, almost fifteen years of experience playing Mario you have, if you're twenty years old? Okay, sure. Fifteen years of Marioing.

But that doesn't matter when you play New Super Mario Bros. Wii. As hard as you try to cooperate with your friends, you are going to bump into them and jump on them. And they'll do the same to you. You know how in Super Mario World you could abandon Yoshi in mid-jump, which would result in you gaining a whole bunch of air whilst poor Yoshi would plummet to his (presumable) death? Moments like that happen a lot in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, except with your friends' little characters rather than mindless Yoshis. Just about every time somebody gets or does something good, another person gets screwed over.

That's not a bad thing, though. You can run out of lives, but the game grants you an unlimited amount of continues. Therefore nothing gets too aggravating.

As for single player: it exists, but I can't comment. Not only that, but I'd be reluctant to play this game alone after playing it with others. I bet it'd still be fun, but it'd be a little like playing Smash Bros. or Mario Kart on your own.

All in all lots of fun. I haven't had that much fun doing something for five hours straight in a long time.

As those of you keeping score at home already know (and by "keeping score at home" I mean "who read all of the posts I made chronicling my semester project") I'm going the week without playing musical instruments. To a non-musician this probably isn't terribly remarkable - actually, what do I know? I'm not a non-musician - but for me this is kind of a big deal.

I don't mean this to sound depressing, but life feels a little emptier without occasionally messing around on the keyboard or strumming the guitar.

Also: opening a sentence with "I don't mean this to sound depressing" doesn't make what follows it any less depressing. Sort of like how "no offense" will do nothing to make a huge insult more tolerable.

But seriously, I don't mean that in a depressing sense. Not playing music is just...weird. It makes me feel a little anxious. In fact, I think I have been humming and table drumming and foot tapping a whole lot more than I typically do.

I intend to stick it out, though. Maybe going without playing music will make playing music all the more enjoyable.

In other news, upon typing the phrase "stick it out" I giggled.

If I had to make a list of my favorite sorts of movies, it would probably look like this:

1. Great Movies
2. Good Movies
3. Awful Movies
4. Decent Movies

I know, I know. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you look closely at it; ideally it should go from great to good to decent to awful. But here's the thing about decent movies: they're totally forgettable. I don't like that. I only have so long to live; I would prefer to remember most of my time here. So maybe that'll make things a little clearer for you. I can tolerate walking out of a theater and saying, "That was terrible!" every now and then. Chances are that I'll remember my experience far later on. But to walk out of a theater and go, "That was okay," and forget about it weeks on - that seems wrong. To me, forgetability implies mundanity, and I think going to see any sort of art should be anything but mundane.

That being said: when Jordan introduced me to a little movie called The Room via a list of The Onion A.V. Club's worst films of the decade, I was super fascinated. Clips culled from the film scattered over YouTube were indeed awful, but they weren't awful in a boring sort of way, as many scenes from classic stinkers like Manos: The Hands of Fate or Plan 9 From Outer Space are. No, all of the awful scenes I saw from The Room were thoroughly entertaining, albeit in an unintentional sort of way. I mean, it was almost too perfect. The stiff acting. The amateurish ADR work. The bizarre European accent of its star, Tommy Wiseau. The seemingly random elements thrown in here and there - for instance, why is there a dog on the counter? Why does he have a football? Why did Lisa ask Johnny if he wanted a pizza to begin with? I could go on. In fact, I bet somebody could write a really solid thesis about what makes The Room a bad film.

So I checked it out from Netflix and got a group of people together to watch it. And yeah, the movie is just as bad as it looks from those clips, if not worse. But here's the wonderful thing: I haven't had that much fun watching a movie in a long, long time. There's something about The Room that brings people together. Watching the movie is almost like trying to figure out a riddle. "Is this supposed to be funny?" "How do you end a movie like this?" And most pressingly: "Why is it even called 'The Room?'" (That last one I still can't quite answer. I mean, I have some ideas, but spilling them would mean spoiling the movie's ending for you. And trust me, you don't want to have the ending spoiled.) When we started watching, there were four of us. By the end there were about ten of us gathered in my dorm. Some people who'd arrived midway through and had to resort to standing were still standing, all for this movie.

As for the film's plot: yeah, it has one. It's got a lot of subplots, too - but don't worry, they're dropped as quickly as they're brought up. The important thing is that Johnny and Lisa are about to get married. They are, as the film puts it, "future husband" and "future wife" - the word "fiance" is never uttered. However, Lisa decides that she doesn't actually love Johnny anymore, and cheats on him with his best friend.

But like so many movies, the plot isn't really important. What matters is what happens along the way. And to the film's credit: a lot happens. There are only a few boring moments throughout the entire movie - and I don't even want to give those away.

The Room is not a good movie. It's awful. And yet, if I found a group of people interested in watching it, I'd gladly sit through it again. (That's key - if I'd watched this movie alone, I don't think I would have reviewed it the same way.)

On Netflix I rated The Room four stars. So on my Netflix account, that puts it among the ranks of Citizen Kane, The Dark Knight, and Pulp Fiction, just to name a few. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as any of those movies. But none of those movies kept me grinning like an idiot all the way through.

There's something to be said about bad films. But there's so much more to be said of really good bad films.

I can't blame you if you've skimmed/flat out not read the past few posts I've put up here. If that's the case, I'll summarize them for you: over the past week I wrote and recorded an entire album for school. I managed eight songs that clocked in at about twenty minutes. I learned a lot, but it was hard - especially by the end.

If you're interested, here's a link to the album.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thursday, December 10

After a lot of contemplating and noodling on the guitar in an attempt to maybe squeeze out one more song or two, I decided that I’m going to stick with the songs that I’ve recorded. I think seven songs amounting at about twenty minutes time is rather decent work for five days. True, seven wasn’t my goal, but something doesn’t feel right about slogging through two more songs just for the sake of it.

However, I did decide to record one last song. Two caveats, though: one, it was written a month ago. Two, it doesn’t exactly fit into the theme of this album. In spite of all that, I feel as if now is a good time to record the song; plus, I know of a few people interested in this project who have asked me for a recording of this song, and this feels like a great way to get this song to them.

The song is titled “A Lullaby For The Barely Woken” and it was written for a two minute play with the same title. The play was created as a result of my class with the Neo-Futurists, a local theater group who hold truthfulness and brevity in high regard. The song nicely reflects how I’m feeling right about now. Again, it doesn’t exactly fit the theme of the project – though I suppose with some finagling I could make it about Weber’s theories regarding the spirit of capitalism – and so I’m labeling it as a bonus track.

And with that I’m done. Currently I’m in the process of burning discs and creating a webpage so others can listen to the project if they please. I also created some album artwork just a few hours ago, which will be bundled with the CDs.

Not only was this project a neat way to reflect on what I’ve learned this semester, but it taught me a thing or two about what I’m calling forced creativity. Though working in this fashion is a little unnatural to me, I’ve learned that it’s doable, albeit rather difficult when done over and over in a short period of time.

In listening to this project, I’ve noticed one big thing that I’d like to change, and that’s my voice. Though I’m not as self conscious about singing as I used to be, I’m still less than happy with my abilities (or in some cases, my lack of abilities) throughout the songs. I think that I’ll try to take some sort of vocal class somewhere in the city next semester.

One thing remains, though, and I’m bummed that I won’t get a chance to discuss it in these journal entries. I’m very curious to see how others react to this project. I mean, I’m doubtful that anyone will flat out say, “This is horrible!” to me, but I should be able to at least sort of meter how well people like what I’ve created.

I’m going to press the print button. Then, for the sake of finality, I’m going to put my instruments away for a little while. Hopefully in about a week’s time, I’ll feel refreshed and ready to play again. Maybe by then I’ll even be willing to write a few songs that don’t have anything to do with great works of the western canon.

Wednesday, December 9

I think I’ve hit a wall. I’m having a difficult time with continuing to do this. Generating and fleshing out ideas at a pace like this is exhausting. It’s as if my mind is saying to me, “Nope. You’re on your own, buddy.”

Wrote and recorded another two songs. The first was “Plato and Ideas,” based loosely off of the Ion reading we did at the beginning of the semester. I didn’t think it would be possible to write a “personal” song given my subject matter, but I think this one is about as personal as it can get within these parameters. I’m only have joking when I say at the end that I wish the gods would provide me with divine inspiration.

I attempted to record some vocal harmonies for this song, but that didn’t work out. In my mind I had some very lush sounds floating around; however, when they were actually recorded, they ended up being very painful to listen to. I have no vocal training at all (which ought to be apparent to anybody who listens to this album) and that’s something I’d like to change by the end of next semester.

I realized after recording this track that it might be nice to split the album into two halves. The first would be the “band half” and the second the acoustic half. I’ve always had a fondness for very simple arrangements, and it only makes sense that that would shine through on this record.

With that in mind I finished writing the second song, “The World’s Made Of Number,” which to me feels like a song attempting to explain the Pythagorean worldview to children. It’s a cute song, but it’s not one of my favorites on this album.

I’m very seriously considering calling these seven tracks the whole album. I know that my goal was to record nine songs, but I would prefer them to be nine listenable songs. I’m not sure that will be possible given my lack of creative energy.

I think I’ll sleep on it.

Tuesday, December 8

Wrote about half of one song that I’m tentatively calling “The World’s Made Up Of Number.” I say “half” because I’ve only made a rough sketch of the chords and melody; the lyrics still have yet to be written. The other song – and the only one that I managed to fully write and record today – is called “The Veil.” The melody came to me out of nowhere while I was reading. I hummed it into my computer’s microphone and wrote out the whole thing a couple of hours after that. Usually I have to sit down with my guitar and actually work a little bit to end up with a melody. Maybe I’ve started to train my subconscious into helping me out with this whole songwriting thing.

While filling out the details of “The Veil,” I decided the song would work best as a short, fast, Ramones-y sort of piece: no complex chord progressions, nothing terribly exciting with the bass or the drums, and most of all no guitar solos. The song ended up clocking in at a minute and thirty seconds, which makes it the shortest song I’ve recorded yet. The song’s length (or lack thereof) is totally fine by me; as The Dead Kennedys said over and over on their 28 second ditty called “Short Songs”: “I like short songs.”

I spent the rest of the night playing along to favorite songs of mine. Honestly, it was an act of procrastination, but I like to pretend I was trying to learn a thing or two from the masters.

I’m now a little over halfway through this project. Frankly, I’m starting to get a little tired of it. I’m ready to move on to something new – preferably something that doesn’t involve recording music. Songwriting and recording can be enjoyable, but I’ve been working on this project in a very regimental sort of fashion, which has taken quite a toll on me. I’m seriously entertaining the prospect of packing all of my musical instruments away for at least a week after this project has come to an end.

Monday, December 7

Managed to record two songs today. Both were rather straightforward as far as recording goes.

The first, "Look At The Web" was written yesterday. I believe I mentioned it in the last entry. Recording it was pretty simple. The only instruments on this track were guitar, drums, and my voice. I intended to give the song a sort of a sloppy feel. I learned, though, that it's difficult to make a song sound sloppy but not as if it were hastily thrown together. Hopefully I succeeded here.

The second, "Hey, Hunger Artist" was also pretty easy. I originally envisioned the song to be a little more lush - perhaps like a bubblegum pop track from the sixties - but while recording demo tracks for the song, I realized that the composition might lend itself better to a simple arrangement. I'm very pleased with this one; it may be my second favorite right after "Francis Bacon." It's probably my most self-consciously goofy song. I think this is fitting; Kafka's writing always has comic undertones, and it only made sense to bring them to the surface here.

Speaking of goofiness: it hasn't taken me long to realize that there's something inherently goofy about all of the songs I've written. This doesn't concern me too terribly - I can be kind of a goofy guy and I came to terms with that long ago - but what I don't want to do is make a mockery of my subject matter. This is particularly true with regards to the Social Sciences readings. I'm alright with writing a song about phlogiston or Tolstoy that could be interpreted as having a jokey sort of vibe; however, writing a song about DuBois that could be interpreted as such could come off as tasteless. I don't think there's any easy solution to this concern of mine; the best I can do is to trust my intuition and hope for the best.

Regarding time: on average it takes me about four hours to create an entire song. This entails both the writing and recording process. However, that doesn't include all the time that I spend thinking about this project when I'm doing other tasks. This project has constantly been in the back of my mind since Saturday. I like to think that even when I'm not consciously thinking about the album, my unconscious is working trying its damndest to put pieces together. A quote by Ned Rorem that Sacks uses in Musicophilia sums up my feelings rather nicely: "I'm never not working. Even as I sit here chatting of Kafka or cranberries, sodomy or softball, my mind is simultaneously glued to the piece I'm currently creating; the physical act of inserting the notes on a staff is merely a necessary afterthought."

I have four songs recorded. That's about 44% of my project that I have done. It's going to be very gratifying to make my way over the halfway point tomorrow; still, I fear that it's going to become more and more difficult to generate ideas for this project as time goes on.

Here's part two of the Semester Project chronicle.

Sunday, December 6th

Sitting in a coffee shop writing this entry. My computer refuses to connect to the place's wireless network and my iPod is being uncooperative in helping me drown out the music here (techno that sounds like a skipping record). Fitting, because today's work was rather frustrating.

Writing two songs was a relatively straightforward process. I settled on two subjects - Tolstoy and Gilligan - and wrote out the lyrics and chords for songs titled "Is It Art?" and "The Web." The prior was envisioned as a 50s style rock and roll track, while the latter ought to sound something like something that the punk band Pavement might produce - that is, if Steven Malkamus (their lead songwriter) woke up one morning and found himself overcome with a profound interest in feminism. I feel that the lyrics aren't particularly profound for either of the songs, but given the slapdash process I'm obliged to follow (not to mention my inexperience with songwriting), I'm not terribly concerned nor surprised.

The recording process is where things got complicated. I thought that recording "Is It Art?" would be easy-peasy. Wrong, and I have no one but myself to blame for that. I made the mistake of attempting to begin recording by first laying down a dummy vocal track recorded over a metronome. I then attempted to add handclaps and guitar after that. The problem, though, was that I had no base rhythm to work with. This made recording a guitar part difficult.

After about an hour and a half's worth of floundering I decided to scrap everything I'd recorded. I browsed through the library of drum tracks that came preinstalled with my computer in an attempt to find something that would fit nicely in a good old fashioned rock and roll song, but I had no luck. I then resorted to programming my own drum track with a program called iDrum, which I used to create the drum track for "Francis Bacon." iDrum is a wonderful program; however, using it to make a roots rock song is kind of silly. For one thing, a drum machine doesn't lend itself well to the drumming style inherent in fifties rock. That particular style of drumming is rather sloppy; on the other hand, a drum machine is perfectly precise. Secondly, the drum sounds included with iDrum are primarily of an electronic sounding nature - I have a feeling that the programmers were aiming for a market interested in creating hip hop and electronic music. I found that attempting to make these songs work within my given framework to be difficult in a headache inducing sort of way.

A couple of ibuprofen later, though, I was on my way. After getting the drums finished, recording "Is It Art?" was pretty easy. I'm content with how the track turned out. Midway through the recording process I realized that the song bore sort of a resemblance to songs from the Beatles' early years. Upon realizing this, I tried to milk it for all it was worth. This is particularly apparent in the guitar solo, which I occasionally double tracked portions of, aping the sound of the solo in "Can't Buy Me Love." Hopefully this is just familiar enough to listeners to remind them of the group's Beatlemania era; however, ideally listeners won't be able to outright say, "That sounds like 'Can't Buy Me Love!'"

Exhausted by what turned out to be a rather laborious process for a song that clocked in at under two minutes, I decided to quit for the day for the sake of my sanity and creative energy.

On an unrelated note, I found myself at Barnes and Noble earlier in the day, where I came across a book called Songwriting for Dummies. I flipped through it on a lark and found myself profoundly disappointed. The advice it gave was pretty empty. You know: "Write about things that you care about! Personal experiences make great fodder for songs! If you're in a bind, try eavesdropping in on conversations and using phrases from them as lyrics!" Upon flipping to a page that advised aspiring songwriters to take a close look at the works of "The Beatle's", I decided that looking at the book any longer would be a waste of time. Now, if it'd had a chapter about how to write songs based on things you've learned about at your great books school, maybe things would've gone a little differently.

On a more serious note, I intend to start reading Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia tomorrow. I'm not expecting to get any songwriting advice from it, but maybe I'll be able to gleam an insight or two from it.

As promised, here's the first entry in my Semester Project journal.

Saturday December 5th

I find it kind of odd that it’s taken me long to begin recording an album. This isn’t to say that I’ve flirted with the idea in the past; however, a number of things have held me back.

I first tried my hand at writing songs within the pop/rock framework when I was in eighth grade. There was a problem, though; I attempted to construct my songs by writing the chords first. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this – that is, unless you took the approach that I did. Back then I was of the conviction that if I wrote a song, it had to be completely and totally original. That meant that the chord progressions that I used had to be wholly unique. It doesn’t take a Vandercook graduate to realize that this is a pretty naïve thought. It’s rare for a pop/rock song to have a totally unheard of chord progression. Just look at the songs of the late 50s and early 60s. The chord progression I - IV - V (popularly known as the chords to “Louie, Louie” or “Hang On Sloopy”) probably appeared in hundreds of popular songs of the era. Needless to say, this doesn’t mean that all of the songs sound the same; this is where varying melodies and rhythms help.

There were a couple of other obstacles that stopped me. One was that I had a profound (and equally irrational) fear of singing. I was afraid that if I ever tried to sing, I would be no good, not that I had actually ever tried to verify whether or not this was true. Luckily, this changed when I was about 16. That was the year I got my first car; you can make the connection there.

The final obstacle was that I was never sure what I should actually write songs about. Because I was (painfully) aware of my adolescence, I was unwilling to be emotional or sincere for fear of coming off as whiny or immature. However, things have changed since then. These days I am perfectly comfortable with my whininess and immaturity.

I still toy around with songwriting every now and then. I’ve never really written or recorded anything of any merit, primarily because that whole “what to write about” thing. Luckily, with this semester project, that shouldn’t be an issue. My subject matter has already been decided for me: things that I’ve learned about during my first semester at Shimer. My goal is to write and record nine songs. For the sake of fairness and interestingness, I intend to write three songs per class. Given the rate at which I've started on this project, this amounts to writing and recording two songs a day over the next few days.

My primary goal for this project is that these songs will be enjoyable, even to those who have no familiarity with the subject matter. Ideally these songs would be something that someone would be willing to listen to outside of the context of a Shimer semester project. This, I think, will be the most ambitious challenge of this project, especially given the tight deadline I'm working under.

I started the project today by fully writing and recording a song about Francis Bacon titled (surprise, surprise) "Francis Bacon." I got the idea for this song a couple of weeks ago while lying in my bed trying to fall asleep. This led to the genesis of this entire project. I guess it's safe to say that without Francis Bacon, neither this project nor our modern conception of science would exist.

I'm pretty pleased with how the song turned out. My original image of the song entailed a rather gypsy jazz sort of sound. By the end, though, I feel as if the song sounds more like a bizarre carnival anthem, which is kind of a pleasant surprise.

In many ways this song has set the tone of the entire project. From it I've learned how to most effectively use the recording software that I'm using. Upon finishing the lyrics I also realized that these songs are going to be of a very cursory nature. This doesn't bother me too terribly, though; one can only cram so much depth into a two and a half minute song.

I was also struck by the amount of words and phrases that rhyme with the word "Bacon" - that is, if one takes a few liberties with pronunciation. There's fakin', mistaken, rake in, awaken...the list goes on and on. I was so enthused by this discovery that I ended up going a little overboard in attempting to rhyme things with "Bacon": "Now open up the oven door/and I will throw a cake in/and we will have ourselves a slice/in honor of Mr. Bacon." It's probably for the best that this lyric was axed.

In order to stay on schedule, I'll have to write and record two songs tomorrow. I have a few snippets of ideas, but none are as fleshed out as "Francis Bacon" was. Tomorrow will really be indicative of how this project will go, in that I'm going to have to come up with two songs with rather limited inspirations. I'm excited, though. At this point in this venture looking at a blank canvas has filled me with excitement rather than despair; hopefully that doesn't change.

Yesterday while I was walking toward the El I saw a car sitting in the middle of an intersection. The car's wipers were up, as if somebody was going to clean the windshield. In front of the car was a man lying on the ground. He was in a big puffy coat. He was in the fetal position. I couldn't see his face.

Standing around this man were two people. One was a woman, who was on her phone. The other person was a man. I wasn't sure if the man was a passenger or the driver or a random passserby or what. He was just standing there, looking down at the man.

The really strange thing about it all was that it didn't seem like anyone was panicking. Everything was completely still. It was like this was something that everyone had been through before.

About fifteen people walked by, myself included. None of us knew one another. Some of us walked slower than others, like we were trying to figure out whether or not any of us needed to do something. I just walked by. I felt guilty about it, but I'm not sure why. I don't think there was anything I could have done.

As I stood at the platform for the El I saw an ambulance in the distance. It pulled up at the intersection and stopped. I don't know what happened after that; by then my train had arrived and I was headed north.

At four o'clock my two papers that I have yet to finish will be due. Right now I am writing in an attempt to focus my mind. I feel like if I get my fingers moving on the keyboard and my mind in writing mode, I'll be more focused.

Oh wow did that sip of Vanilla Coke taste good.

Anyway, like I was saying, my papers are due relatively soon. I'm not terribly concerned. I should be able to finish one of them tonight, the other in the morning. The only problem, like I said, is the getting started part.

Once I turn in those papers I will begin on my Writing Week project. See, at Shimer, we don't really do finals. Instead we are given the entire week off to work on a project of our choosing. It's called Writing Week because we have to have a writing component to the project.

My project is an attempt to record a short album's worth of songs about things that I've learned about this semester. I'm thinking they'll be semi-educational, a la They Might Be Giants' Here Comes Science. I'm shooting for nine songs, which'll mean each class I took will get three songs. The writing component of said project will be a series of journal entries chronicling the creative process that writing and recording the album entails.

I'm not sure of I'll be posting the entirety of the album online - that'll depend on how much I like it when it's finished - but I do think that I'll be posting those journal entries up here, so as not to neglect you like I feel like I've been doing.

It'll certainly be an interesting experience. My experience with writing and recording music is pretty limited. What's always got me hampered whenever I tried was the whole picking subject matter thing. I was always afraid of delving into too personal of terrain. The nice thing about this project is that the subject matter is already out there. What remains to be done is to figure out just how exactly things like the life of Francis Bacon and Benedict's thoughts regarding the importance of cultural relativism can become songs.