spin one for me

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:53:58 GMT

I have a new screenname: AffectiveFallacy
I have a new livejournal: AporiaAporia

Update your assorted digital means of keeping track of me accordingly, if you want to continue keeping track of me.

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:51:10 GMT

Got my orientation moved to the 6/21-23 date, so I can attend the music banquet.

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 03:01:21 GMT

That was an amazing way to leave. Select choir sounded spot-on, men's choir was just what men's choir always should be, Jazz choir left me crying onstage, Jazz Band is the most amazing ensemble I've ever been a part of. And that was the coolest arrangement of "it's a gift to be simple" I've ever heard

A capella was just so much fun. It's incredibly gratifying to help build something like that, see it succeed, and then pass it on to others.

It hit me a little hard when I got home that I will never again perform as an SHS student. But now I'm off to drive all over town and celebrate.

Wed, 31 May 2006 05:14:46 GMT

I found out today that my orientation falls overtop of the music department banquet. I'm pretty friggin annoyed about that.

Mon, 29 May 2006 14:22:05 GMT

I got myself one of these nifty Royal Mail storm-proof coats.

Thu, 25 May 2006 23:08:41 GMT

I just woke up after a small nap and thought it was dawn. It was profoundly disorienting. A strange feeling.

Tue, 23 May 2006 02:25:47 GMT

Why must my family watch television? At all? I'd be so much happier if they'd just leave the thing off. It's this constant distracting din in our house. No matter where you are, you can never quite get away from it. My Dad particularly will just zone out for hours and hours at night. Or when he leaves the room to do work, or leaves the house - the TV stays on. Nobody in the room. It's just this gaping glowing orifice leaking the media equivalent of diarrhea.

And then the absolutely insipid crap my family insists on watching... gah! I admit, I have my guilty pleasure, House M.D. Fine. I'll grant that people can be weak. But 24! CSI (two or three versions)! American Idol! Law and Order(two versions)! ALL IN A ROW?! How can a person digest that much televised excrement? I just want to read these friggin essays in peace.

EDIT: aosdjfabh;iucvb;aievba;eidcgabue;rda the window with the twenty tabbed journal articles and essays I was painstakingly working my way through just DIED

Tue, 23 May 2006 00:45:47 GMT

"What must materialize from the emergence of the properly anarchist space of freedom is a place of security and sanity in a time that recognizes neither as a viable possibility (Tuan 3). For us the anarchist space can not be literal or tangible, but a morality of refusal—the refusal to legitimate authority because it is authority and to always and everywhere question its legitimacy precisely because it is in some ways privileged. The need for social progress must guide the authority/incredulity dialectic toward its horizon line. There is no rational alternative to that movement. But neither can there be settled understanding of what, exactly, the horizon is. Only that without a goal there is abeyance and the tragedies that follow." Pedagogy, Ideology, and Space in the Classical Anarchist Conception of Freedom / Michael Vastola

Maybe I can get out of this miserable skeptical morass if I start thinking in verbs instead of nouns.

Meh. I have more reading to do.

Sun, 14 May 2006 18:21:35 GMT

I'm going to start keeping track of whatever fragments of dreams I can remember and subjecting the lot of you to them. My dream recall has always been lousy, but I know this tends to improve it.

Dream Record #1 -

I'm in the passenger seat of a car. The driver is a female adult, possibly my mother, but I don't look in her direction. She's talking, I can't make out what's said. We're a major road, and on the right is a white building. It has three lobe-like structures seperated by covered stone walkways and surrounded by foliage. It is overcast. There are children playing in front of the building with an instructor. The building itself is covered in square, white cloth squares, some large, some small, parallel to the walls. They are held out by poles at varying distances from the walls, overlapping each other. It's very, very reminiscent of sails. Perspective shifts without my really noticing to a close up on sets of rectangular windows. In one set are stained glass windows, abstract depictions with bright, primary colors. In another are wooden replicas of bonsai trees, I suppose, made from very thin horizontal slices of wood stacked one on top of the other. Somehow I'm told or am aware that this is a contemporary art museum.

As far as I know, this place doesn't exist. I looked online, but can't find anything remotely like it.

Sun, 14 May 2006 14:21:11 GMT

I'm going to Sigur Ros tonight. Thank you GeoffAli&Meg.

Sun, 14 May 2006 04:31:45 GMT

There are moments when everything is just so incredibly simple.

When your fingers touch ivory and suddenly the notes just spill out, practically of their own accord. The strings sing and it's like a wound bursting, you leave yourself all over the keys.

When you're dancing and dancing and dancing and you don't care anymore. You don't care what you look like, you don't care what anybody else is doing, you don't care that you're in physical pain, you just move.

When you move one tiny part of your anatomy less than a quarter of an inch - at the same time as a hundred other people - and by some miracle of human construction there's suddenly music where before there was silence. The feeling of the room ringing even after every voice falls silent.

When it's morning and the light falls just so, and the birds are singing and everything is just so profoundly alive that inhaling is like a sacrament.

When somehow black glyphs on white pages make time and other people drop away and replace the world around you with one born of an author's imagination.

When you just GET it. Understanding just springs into your mind fully grown, Athena from the head of Zeus, with no explanation or reason.

Ecstasy. εκστασις. Greek for, "to be outside oneself". A moment where you cease to matter, and, paradoxically, you are all that matters. Those are the moments we live for. The precious seconds of revelation or passion or overwhelming emotion that make us human.

THIS PLACE IS CALLED URINETOWN!

Fri, 05 May 2006 03:19:44 GMT

Urinetown went well tonight - though I managed to have two irritating screw ups. In I.ii, my mic didn't have a clip. It dragged on the ground for the first half-minute until I shoved it in my tie. Then in II.iii, I completely missed my entrance by ~10 seconds. Thank god Richard ad libbed over it. I don't think he gets nearly enough credit.

Whatever. It's my second production in seven years. I suppose I'm allowed a novice mistake here or there, eh? I just won't do those things on Saturday and Sunday.

Everyone sounded wonderful, though. All the scenes rolled along and the music sounded really strong, at least from backstage.

Tue, 02 May 2006 02:30:15 GMT

So, I jump down from a platform at one point in the play. That's fine, I've done it plenty of times. But that was in the light. Wearing real shoes. Tonight I did it in the dark wearing sandals. The results were predictable.

Also, Austin punched me in the gut. I had a pillow between me and him, so Austin thought it would be fine. Well, he knocked the wind out of me. He spent the rest of the night trying to get me to punch him.

Also, Austin sprayed almost all the female techies with axe. Poor girls.

That was basically my evening. Oh, that and 6 hours of drama. I'm having a lot of fun - pity that I didn't do it in earlier years.

Post-ADL Thoughts

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 03:40:35 GMT

I was kicking around some thoughts in the wake of acceptance week. My big criticism of the ADL is that they engage solely in a project of critique. Their entire effort largely boils down, at least in the forms that the student body recieves it, to saying "Discrimination is bad." Duly noted, of course, but also somewhat unhelpful. Overt racism and sexism are not major issues in our part of the world - rather it is the more insidious forms of discrimination that are problems, ones nutured by institutiions and the structures of our society. The ADL never goes the next step of addressing prejudice that's inscribed on our social relationships outside the context of overt action.

I am a heterosexual anglo-saxon male. How do I deal with the fact that I enjoy significant economic and social privileges as a result of this accident of birth? How on Earth should I react to knowing that for my entire life, without ever asking for it and without any hope of surrendering it, perhaps even without commiting an act somebody could point to and call discriminatory, I will benefit from racism, sexism etc? That I will earn more money than members of other races and genders for doing the same work? That I can probably go my entire life without fearing that I will be a victim of sexual violence or harassment? That it is unlikely that I will ever be pulled over for no reason by the police? That the "normality" or morality of my sexuality will never be called into question? What responsibilities do these facts force upon me?

I'd really like to know your thoughts. How do the rest of you reconcile yourselves with the fact of white and male privilege?

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:34:20 GMT

I finished my notes. And listened to Beethoven's symphonies. All of them in a row. The last movement of #9 ended within 5 minutes of me finishing my book.

Urinetown was everything I knew it would be. In the sense that it was the first of many hellish rehearsals.

Then I went swimming at the beach.

I've definately, definately had worse Mondays.

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:39:04 GMT

'English Patient' is due tommorow, tommorow, tommorow. I thought it was due Friday.

Goddamnit.

confessions part I

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 03:58:04 GMT

My name is Colin Downes and I wish to reveal a few things about myself.

1) I do not do what I want.
2) I accept the fact that Kathryn Holland has ultimate veto power.
3) I am an old woman.

More to come later.

**Disclaimer: I am feeling very honest right now and may regret the things I have said later. Do not believe me if I ever try to deny the validity of the above statements.

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 04:35:01 GMT

Biking at the beach, and then I retired for the evening. Saw a pair of movies this evening. "Lord of War" - absurd little flick about a gun runner - and "Ultimo tango a Parigi", which was really good. Also, I got around to making my lj layout look halfway decent. And I checked out my possible schedule for next year.

Intro to Logic
Calculus I
Art History (Ancient->Medieval)
Physics (Mechanics I)
Latin Prose
Music Theory I
University Chorale
Chamber Choir
Dean's Book [req]

Theoretically, I could take all of those and have a working schedule. But that would probably be insane.

Oh, additionally, you probably know that I'm rather skeptical of the ipod. Well, I've been vindicated, you fools. Your little toy is actually an insidious mind control device. I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with that glistening, slick white plastic exterior and those tentacle-like ear buds worming there way into your very brain. Laugh while the psychoacoustic engineers at the RIAA still let you, you poor pathetic pawns.

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:41:40 GMT

Does anybody out there have a decent digital photo of SHS that they'd give me? I'm looking for one to put on the wikipedia entry for SHS.

"A malady of multitude and immensity..."

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:33:55 GMT

"Corresponding enormity of number - the bewildering of all that has been, is, and will be necessary to fill time and space. An ocean in which we seem to dissolve all the more irrisistably the more lucidly alive we are. The effort of trying conscientiously to find our place among a thousand million men - or merely in a crowd." -de Chardin

I haven't has time to really, really READ in a while. Thank whatever divinity might be out there for vacation.

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 13:48:00 GMT

Museum of Science, Alumni, Pfluger, Ali, Taco Bell, Cosmos, my sulking wallet, Equillibrium,

John D: You know who was better than Shakespeare? Douglas Adams.
Colin D: John, I'm going to shit down your throat.

And then later walking down to SHS in really early morning with a trio of sophomore females - not at all sketchy?

Clouds, then not clouds, a moon, Cushing's playground, annoying skaters with annoying music, escorting the fugitive home...

Not a bad way to spend 24 hours.

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 04:41:06 GMT

Went to Panera and the mall this evening. Bought Crime and Punishment, the Aeneid, and Pride and Prejudice for $10 in all.

And instead of being a good student this evening, I downloaded lots of music (including the entire frigging radiohead discography because that was the only way to download a torrent of even one full album...) based off suggestions of my friends. So there.

Disney etc

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:03:36 GMT

Way too much to cram into a few paragraphs. Selected highlights, in something very vaguely resembling reverse chronological order.

Getting home.
Realizing I need to spend more time with Rashid, on account of the fact that he is one cool dude. Yah, YAH!
Listening to russian composers.
MOLTEN LEAD FLOWING THROUGH MY SINUSES - aka, the terrible headaches I get during airplane descents because of my screwed up sinuses.
Watching acidic, dry, british comedy with Kim.
Watching romantic comedy with Bill and Kim.
So much less drama than last time.
Paying for lunch with the last of my money - exact change.
SQUID BEARD KISSES!
Listening to the jam session by the pool and desperately wishing for an instrument. any instrument, so that I could play.
Watching Moulin Rouge and enjoying it.
Endless hours of sex noises, gay jokes and discussions of the physical attributes and the mating habits of assorted females preventing me from sleeping.
Exploiting Ali's double standard for personal amusement.
Eating about 5 cubic inches of pure sugar.
Talking in a russian accent way too much of the time. Yay-es.
Indulging in rampant gossip.
Drinking about 74 oz of coffee in toto.
WATER PARK! Immense wave, slides, Kim thinking there'd be razors on the slides.
Being surrounded by discussions of tampons.
Seeing a stereotyped, commodified representation of the world and loving it.
Being soy sauce couriers for Disney characters.
The Haunted Mansion.
Being early for everything - but everyone being made late by one or two people every time.

A Fellow Traveler (Katie?): "The German guy said you can tell who the Americans are because they're fat."
Colin Downes: "You should have said you can tell who the Germans are because they're Anti-Semites. No offence, Pfluger."

Fireworks.
Psycho-death run 2006.
LOSING MY VOICE, THROWING UP AND DEVELOPING A SORE THROAT AND A COUGH.
Performing nigh-flawlessly.
Not doing any English work whatsoever.
Mt. Everest.
Riding all the rollercoasters in the magic kingdom.
Austin's Indian magical cures. And insane immune system.
It's A Small World After All.
Disney Philharmagic. Twice.
Wanting to play second cannon in the 1812 overture.
Wanting to play in a penguin orchestra.

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:40:47 GMT

I need to get back into piano lessons (I stopped when I stopped going to church - the organist had been my teacher) and rigorous practice. It's as though I can feel my fingers rotting. I need to focus on technique, too. My fingering has always been lousy. I should drag out the Hanon and the scale books.

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 01:13:37 GMT

On the subject of Mozart...