A string which is fixed at both ends will exhibit strong vibrational response only at the resonant frequencies

Sometimes my heart feels like a guitar string.

Revolution Brewing hosts the Chicago History Museum

Here's the details below, follow the link to buy a ticket.

Punk ‘n’ Brew Beer Dinner

Monday, April 9, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Revolution Brewing, 2323 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Join us for an evening of history, punk music, and rockin’ good food. We’ll enjoy four courses and beer pairings inspired by punk music. Learn about Revolution Brewery’s punk connections while rocking out to a kickin’ playlist. Price includes four courses, beer pairings, tax, and gratuity.

Menu

First Course
Canned Food
House Made Cherry Jagerwurst, Maple Rosemary White Bean Ragout, and Michigan Cherries Soaked in Coup d etat. Beer Pairing: Coup d’état
Second Course
Jonny Rotten Ramen
House Made Ramen Noodles, Soy Egg, Pork belly, Smoked Beach Mushrooms, Leeks Spinach, Toasted Nori.
Beer Pairing: Barley Wine
Third Course
Fried Burrito
Coriander refried beans, braised beef, avocado emulsion, La frère camembert, gorgonzola sour cream, and house made hot sauce. Beer Pairing: TV Party
Fourth Course
The Mohawk
Beet ice cream, spicy brownie, bourbon chocolate shell, blood orange brittle and caramel. Beer Pairing: Repo Man
Cost: $60, $55 members

Potato Artichoke Salad

Copied from Coconut & Lime, one of my favorite food blogs. I'm going to make the shit out of this the next day a cold salad is appropriate. I'm thinking of adding some fresh garlic to that dressing. Chervil if I can find it, otherwise, a mix of parsley and the green part of fennel.

Ingredients:
4 cups cooked, finely diced potatoes
14 oz (canned) artichoke hearts in brine, drained and quartered
1 large shallot, minced
1 stalk celery, finely diced


dressing:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoon Dijon
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon chervil
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8 teaspoon celery seed

Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients. In a large bowl, toss together the potatoes, artichoke hearts, shallot and celery. Drizzle with dressing. Stir to evenly coat the potato mixture in dressing.

Another Mix

Arovane - Tides
Darkstar - Under One Roof
Oneohtrix Point nEver - Replica
Emeralds - Double Helix
Boards of Canada - The Beach at Redpoint
Moderat - Rusty Nails
Four Tet - Angel Echoes
Apparat - Black Water
M83 - America
Fridge - Cut Up Piano
Cave - High, I Am
Arovane - Windy Wishy Trees
Calla - Rise
Burial - Ghost Hardware
The Antlers - Parentheses
Palm Skin Productions - Condition Red
Lindstrom - No Release
DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 1 (transmission 3)
Delarosa & Asora - Paz Suite 3
The xx - Shelter
Telefon Tel Aviv - John Thomas on the Inside is Nothing...
Isotope 217 - La Jetee
Mira Calix - Woody
Tristeza - Are We People?
Foals - Spanish Sahara
Hood - Enemy of Time
The Mercury Program - The Church of Cause and Effect
Juno - High Noon
Kurt Vile - Space Forklift
Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds
Radiohead - Lotus Flower
Red Stars Theory - A Sailor's Warning

Writing in codes

I got to think this morning. Dangerous, I'd not yet imbided any coffee.

1 - I am arrogant enough (not the adjective I'd wanted before, but it slipped my mind) to share with the world the things I like and the thoughts in my head, and I don't give a shit if people wish I'd do it less.

2 - Partially, because, I don't really think we owe anything to anyone. Maybe? I'm not sure how much I really stand by this thought.

3 - I try not to write in codes. I do try to write in an aesthetic style, one that is vaguely confessional without being overly detailed. But, I'm not hiding anything, I'm just assuming if you end up here at all, it's because you know me and wonder what I might say or reveal.

4 - Biggest artistic project idea right now. A series of philosophical poems. Each one is titled with an -ing word, in a series. They go from the meeting of two people, to the dance of courtship, to some end process. It won't be a simple hidden love story (no codes, fuckers, no codes), but will attempt to show how in the act of meeting people, we actually go through identity-defining philosophical processes.

5 - Strangely emotional today. Things keep making me tear up, but all in a good happy way.

Levels of quiet.

I can't really quiet the chorus in my head. Angels and demons oversimplifies it with a false cast of black and white. Still, it is amazing when you can find someone who makes the crowd in your head pause and almost silent, calm, relaxed. That is when my face to the world and the pool inside me reflect the same.

It's Complicated.

Sometimes, I wish I could take back every time I ever said that I'd rather live an interesting life than any other kind. Why didn't I pick easy? Rich? good, whatever that means (and don't get me started, that is a fucked up word)?

I'm not saying my life is some hard tragedy, just that in those areas where I'd love things to be easy, it never is, and is those areas where I want things to be hard and challenging, often they just lose importance and power and end up easy. Or so it seems.

In other news, I've battled this strange eye inflammation issue for awhile, and have worn my glasses for the longest period since I was in high school. I don't like it. I also am amused that they'll never really know the source of my inflamation, just like they never figured out why my brother was sick a couple of years ago. Sometimes, it seems like there's a little too much that ends up unexplained in life, and well, I'm not the kind of person to be comfortable with that. I'm comfortable with the new, and making new things happen, and plunging forward into new experiences, but I suck with things I can't explain and understand.

Music Mix, no. 1

1. Berg Sans Nipple
2. Gotye - Somebody I Used to Know
3. Do Make Say Think - Classic Noodlanding (came across while listening to Berg Sans Nipple songs)

4. Hot Snakes - Salton City
5. Engine Down
6. Moderat
7. Do Make Say Think - Noodlanding
8. The Drift - Dark Passage
9. Young Widows - something from In and Out of Youth and Lightness
10. Small Faces - Tin Solder (colour)
11. Apparat - Devil’s Walk
12. Oneotrix - Replica
13. Constantines and Feist - Islands in the Stream

Feels great...

I am lending my ladyfriend my car while I'm out of town.
It's such a simple gesture. But I love it, it means something in this constantly over thinking head of mine.

Some short movie reviews...

Y Tu Mama, Tambien  - finally saw this after what, ten years of it being out? It's really good. Juxtaposition of Mexican poverty and the love lives of two teenage boys and an older Spanish woman. Interesting twist at the end, in the sense that I felt it brought together two seemingly unconnected stories? I can see how some people would artistically find it a jarring movie though...

Shame - Not sure I liked it, but it was interesting. I couldn't connect to the characters, or feel much empathy or sympathy for them, without knowing more about how/why they were both so fucked up. What about the other people that intersected with their lives? None of them were particularly good foils, aside from the main characters boss (also, a douchebag). I liked a lot of the cinematography though and it told the story as it unfolded well. Just needed more exposition for my tastes. Great filming of the sex scenes...

Shortbus - Had never even heard of this, though of course I knew of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Entertaining. Sad. Funny. Sexy too. I don't think this is as remarkable of a movie about sex as the director hoped, but it IS refreshing. It's a pretty nicely written piece with some amateur acting chops and is fun to watch.

A Very Long Engagement - well, it's also a very long movie, but it's a really interesting tale. A polio-stricken woman trying to find out what happened to her fiancee on the frontlines of WWI speaks a little too much to romantic movie to me, and with Jeunet, I figured it would maybe be a weird romantic piece. Kind of played more like a detective movie in some parts, with everyone contributing to help solve the mystery of 5 condemned prisoners, one among them the fiancee of Audrey Tautou. I had to stick this movie out and finish it, and felt mostly rewarded by it too.

In the interest of...

I'm going to make myself write more in 2012. That's going to start with using this blog more. Mostly, I suspect, it'll be about music, the occasional politics, maybe dating. The latter...well, I won't name her, and if she runs across this post or any others and wants them more anonymous or closed to the public (or to her), that's fine. Music - a weekly mix! See previous post.  The beer blog will get more posts too.

Just got home from work and laughing at the way I pack to head over to the above-mentioned girl's place. It's not easy planning for practical things when all you want to do is get there and unwind. Her apartment is like haven of relaxation. I dig it a lot. Looking forward to finding out how her dog feels about Tweez and vice versa, because I'd like to hang out here more too.

Music Mix Project

Going to make weekly mixes, but based not on some kind of arrangement of good songs that I've chosen with a purpose in mind, or a person, but based on what pops into my head, what I listen to a lot that week, what people share online that I fall in love with, etc.

One per week!

Blago

Yesterday, I felt a little weird about Blago getting 14 years. A little uncomfortable. This morning I woke up and realized that there's still a small kernel of a hopeful young man in me, fresh out of college, who thinks maybe law school can make him use the system better to help the common good. That kernel seems indestructible really, or so I hope. I realized that this former governor didn't see things that way, but instead saw a system of money and power to be manipulated. Does that happen all the time? Yes. But, should they also be punished severely? Yes.

Amy Winehouse

This sums up my opinion of Amy Winehouse mourning on the web, in the media (something I said to a friend):

"The thing that makes it less sad and upsetting to me is that she was basically a moderately talented person with a mediocre record, but years and years of press built her up to be something more, setting her up for this final tragic fall. And we care more about it than something that was motivated by a political situation that the leaders of the world seem to encourage, rather than want to do anything about. It's sad because our priorities seem fucked up to me when we equate the two things. I'm not raging against you Ginger, I just totally feel differently about it."

Indian Spinach Dip

2 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
1 large avocado
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 cups fresh spinach
1 tsp seasoned salt
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
dash of cayenne pepper

Nightmare

What the fuck was going on in this one last night? It starts with me very very groggily waking up in an apartment that isn't quite my own, but has most of my stuff in it, or things like it. I go into my living room and the TV is missing. It's been replaced with the old TV I've hung on to as a dedicated Sega Genesis TV in my bedroom (fuck yeah Zombies at My Neighbors, Might and Magic, and Sonic in bed). Some other stuff seems messed with. I head downstairs or something like that, and run into Brad Bolt, the manager at Bar Deville, my bar job. He offers to help me out, but basically just wants me to be his wingman for getting ladies' numbers. I can't focus on that because I want to find my landlord or someone I can tell about my TV (I even ponder how I haven't paid rent yet, in real life, and I'll just take care of it when I tell him my story, it's only a few days late). Then eventually I find Lonny Bramzon after wondering around on some dirt roads, an old elementary and middle school friend, who takes me back to the apartment building. Tells me to talk to someone there, and to go upstairs and he'll go tell the police what happened and have them send someone over. Tells me to calm down. I get upstairs and there's two people in my apartment (a blond woman and a bald older man), and one on the balcony that I don't have in real life. They tell me to sit down and I do, and I start telling them my story. About how I think I was drugged, and then someone stole my TV. The woman starts actually cleaning my arm and asking me questions, and then inserts a needle. I verbally protest, but just sit there. I ask who she is. "We're the three people sent to kill you." Something like that, I think she actually said that I was their "mark" and then I queried if that meant I was to be assassinated?

Looked up best screams that are not metal online and the comments on music geek message boards are hilariously retarded! The one thing that holds true is...Monkey Trick by The Jesus Lizard really is the best.

The 30 Day Challenge AND....

I loved it. I like having to pick music to fit a generalized idea of a category. Playing on that, I am going to do another 30 day challenge on here soon, with categories by an internet friend. While waiting for that to get finalized, I think I'm going to do a 10 greatest screams in rock n roll list.

Upset...

This damn blogging service took down/deleted my post that had three youtube links in it? Doesn't google own youtube? Why would they care if I posted links to three videos?

30 Day Challenge, Day 1, Honorable Mentions

Yeah, I'm going to be this fucking self-indulgent and think you care about the other possible favorite songs. At least I'm not clogging up your Facebook feed with 4 youtubes a day.

3 honorable mentions/runner-ups:
Jawbox - Mirrorful
Yeah, Savory is a harder, more killer song. But this is straight out of Seth's life, 1996. On Alternative Nation or 120 Minutes, I bought the song, and it changed my music listening life forever, adding a whole new dimension or two. As important as Hum in making me realize the reward for finding music that touched me was well worth the effort.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXi_TtLSg-Y

Jaga Jazzist - Swedgenborgske Rom
Whenever I'm asked about favorite songs I think of this and mention it. It's compositional, not rock, but I love shit like this. This song almost makes me teary even when I'm just listening to it as I write about it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAWY87KK_LI


Shiner - Cake
The only reason Shiner didn't make the top song is because I can't even fucking pick. This band was my other nickname in law school, besides feldspar. I tore up their shirt playing football. I went to their shows before I had show fans in chicago and met cool people because of it. I was at this show posted below. This is how they originally ended their most rocking record, Lula Divinia. I suppose I could have picked "The Simple Truth" from The Egg.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EltPc9hmHJw