School Ish

Just some info I guess.
I got into an Honors program. As long as I complete this semester with a 3.25 gpa or higher, I'll be taking honors English 101. I should get a tuition break and it will look mad good on my transcripts.
Which don't need much helping as it turns out. I enrolled in MAPP, a transfer program between Mesa Community College and ASU. I'll automatically have a spot once I complete my credits and I'll have a fixed tuition (just in case what happened in England jumps the Atlantic).
Luckily this transfer should be rather soon, as I have mapped out my classed for the summer. I should be able to do about 14 credits so I'll keep the BAH AND knock a semester off my junior college.
In other news, I might be an editor for an Academic Journal. I'm meeting the other interested parties tomorrow. Apparently this too looks mad good on your transcripts so hopefully it will be mad fun as well. I'm not the hugest fan of ASB/selling-your-soul-to-reach-the-wholly-apathetic type thing, but I could get behind a sort of read-submissions-and-put-them-in-a-book type thing. Either way, should be interesting.
I turned in all this info to the Veteran's Services department at school so they should handle.
The last real hard thing I have left is calling the VA to tell them I changed my degree program at MCC. Hopefully, it will go smoothly. These things can turn into nightmares.

Sufjan Stevens

I doubt anyone is really surprised I went and saw him, any more than they will be surprised that I blogged about it afterwards. I'm very shallow, what can I say?
So let's jump right into it.
As a preface, I will say that I had my music palate cleanse well before the concert. I watched five episodes of Arrested Development and did my french homework. I was primed and ready!
The concert was at the Mesa Community Arts Center, which sounds super lame (cause it's Mesa) but it wasn't at all. It was called the Ikeda theater (I think). It was very modern with these very geometric walls with this blue LED lighting in the cracks.
The first performer was D M Stiff. The crowd was kind of apathetic, but after his first song someone called out and asked for his name again. I'll admit I had forgotten it too...
The only song titles I remember are Thanksgiving Moon and My Impatience (or Impatient Me?), both show stoppers. The former was accompanied by a trompone and trumpet (it might have been a French Horn, I'm sure someone will tell me the difference someday). It was really melodic and touching. Pretty sweet for a dude with a guitar and somewhat faulty equipment. He attempted to loop himself clapping, to some success, on a song. He mentioned afterwards that it usually turns out much better. We heard proof of this on the last song when he looped his vocals into an eerie chant and then into a sort of choral climax. All and all, very rad.
Then, after reading a day old newspaper and chatting with the guy to my right about iphones (in a short aside, I'm buying one here soon so I went online to read reviews. I swear it was like iporn), it was time for the main event.
I have been waiting to see Sufjan Stevens since the summer of 2006. I had just finished my last real year of school. I had a PACE class over the summer and then an English class at a community college in the fall. That was the end of high school for me. I had a job (but no car) and had been enjoying my newfound bridge into the great wide real world.
Sadly, I was seventeen and rather stupid. I went out with a bunch of kids from school one night and we did a "Senior Prank". Needless to say, it went very badly. This led to a confession (welcome to Christian school) and punishment. Supposedly, we had to do community service once a week for five weeks (or some such nonsense). The first week, there was five of us. The next there was three. The next only two. And the last, only me.
It was on this fateful day After graduation (which I hadn't attended) that I was forgiven and acquitted of my punishment. The principal noticed that I was the only one there and had been there consistently. I don't claim to have ever liked the man, but I credit him with this one act of kindness. He let me off the hook.
So I called my mom and wandered to the nearest mall. I had been listening to Nick Drake and my friend Kyle had noticed and recommended me two artists which I'd like: Elliot Smith and Sufjan Stevens. Other than the All Delighted People EP and some album about a moon, I own discographies for each (thanks Dynamite). But that day, I bought my first. I bought a brand new Come On Feel The Illinoise, with Sufjan in a cape across the front, under the plastic security wrap. To date this nostalgia even further, I pulled the case open and popped the cd into my cd player. I know right?
The first measures of music came through the headphones and I was overwhelmed.
I used to carry around a little notebook that said "Memorandum" across the front and I wrote this note:
Everything has changed
And maybe I have too
With all this history in mind, the heartbreak and the roadtrips, let me just say this:
I was not dissapointed.
And that might just be an extreme emotional reaction, but from the first song (Futile Devices I think) to the last (John Wayne Gacy Jr.) I was enthralled.
I had listened to the new album once or twice, but live!, with the Royal Robertson apocalyptic artwork projected a story high, lights flashing, dancers shimmying, recalling the Danielson Family!; I fell in love! It was like I had thought I had truly loved it before but now I was re-tought to feel emotion and was given a new, better (more electro!) love to use. The Age of Adz was dark and raw and dancy. Too Much and I Walked were energetic and up tempo. Get Real, Get Right was like a love letter to Royal, giving him recognition for having had an effect on Stevens. Sufjan gave a short speech on Royal and his work and what happened to him, further asserting the connection he felt when creating the album.
More than anything though, even with much softer songs like the Owl and the Tanager, it was just fun. Vesuvius had a flames and a geometric volcanoe projected over the band. The real show stopper was Impossible Soul. For this last act a diamond was lowered in front of the dancers, who were then projected onto it. From there the song only escalated to auto-tuning and then further to a dance party and a mild 'battle' between Sufjan and his dancers. This culminated in a sort of 'sing off' between auto-tuned Sufjan and one of the girls, who finally broke and began to giggle helplessly. She continued to giggle and laugh until they launched the final song (before the encore of course).
Chicago.
Too amazing for words.
After the five minutes of non-stop roar from the crowd, he did Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois. Just him and a piano. Then he moved on to probably my favorite song, Casimir Pulaski Day, which I find amazingly touching. From there, his band collected guitars and banjoes and moved straight into The Dress Looks Nice On You, during which I called a sleeping Shelbi. I'm not sure if she heard any of it or will remember it tomorrow, but it reminds me of her too much for me to just let that chance slip by. He then ended with John Wayne Gacy Jr. I heard some girl (a newbie perchance?) remark that the songs namesake "Really was a monster, though."
With that being said, I drove home.
On that day back in '06, before I even had a cell phone, I walked back to the school and waited for my mom to pick me up. I'm pretty sure that since that day then, I really haven't been back to that building since. I have no idea what happened to those people I was so caught up with. Monstrous, I know.
Sufjan told the audience about his anxiety about playing the new material. He thanked us for being loving crowd and told us about his fear of the open spaces. He said that in Age of Adz, he confused heartbreak with the Apocalypse.
"And in my best behavior, I am really just like him..."
Moving forward.

The Brood

So David Cronenberg is very well known for doing very strange stuff. One of his first films involved a woman who murdered people using sex. The star of the film was an ex-porn star, but apparently he coaxed an amazing performance out of her. He made the film, The Fly, which may or may not be a remake (I can't recall), with Jeff Goldbloom and Geena Davis. Wonderfully grotesque. In one seen, the editor of a science magazine is watching a video of 'Brundlefly' eating a donut. He explains that in order to eat things, he must vomit an acid on them and then drink it like a smoothie. We don't actually see the drinking. Instead the camera cuts to the editor's horrified face and we hear loud slurps from the camcorder. Cronenberg also did such oddities as Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, and Crash (not with don cheadle and lots of feeling; it's about people who get sexually aroused from car crashes).
But, these fine films were not on the menu tonight.
Instead I watched 1979's The Brood. This was recommended to me in King's Danse Macabre, so of course it went straight on the netflix. It doesn't have any big name stars or mind blowing special effects.
What it does have, is a woman lapping the blood from her new 'born' fetus.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great film.
It opens with a man on a stage talking to another man. He is acting and pretending to be the man's father. He is trying to coax a reaction out of the man until finally the man rips his shirt open, revealing a number of small sores. The camera then picks up with Frank Caverth, who is leaving the auditorium and picking up his daughter. Later he gives her a bath and when he has her turn around to wash her back, he notices a number of bruises and scratches. He is enraged by this and confronts the man onstage, Dr Raglan, the owner and main physician/psychiatrist at a hospital specializing in 'psychoplasmic therapy'. Raglan begs off Caverth. We then see Frank talk to a lawyer and his daughter's teacher. The lawyer explains what he can do about his wife, who is hospitalized at the psychoplasmic center; while the teacher voices her concern without actually going into specifics. Caverth is then seen dropping his daughter off with her grandmother, his wife Ruth's mother. Here's were the horror begins. While Raglan is seen doing therapy with Ruth, there is a loud crash in the kitchen at her mother's house. After a few more crashes, the grandmother stands to go freshen her and her granddaughter's drinks. She leaves the daughter, Candice, on the couch. We see plates and boxes falling. Loud grunting and crashing. The grandmother walks into the kitchen and looks around. She sees the mess, but doesn't understand where it came from. Suddenly, she looks up at the top of the cabinets. We see a small for jump onto her and grab her neck. She gasps and shrieks. The tiny monster has a meat tenderizor and decides to go to town on ole grannies face.
Out of concern, Candice decides to investigate. She walks into the kitchen to see the dead, bloody body of her grandmother. She hears a grunt and turns to look at the stairs. Two small hands grip the post holding the banister, and a sinister gray face snarls at her before disappearing into the darkness.
The movie moves from there. There's quite a lot more blood but nothing so over the top as when Ruth 'gives birth' and then decides to clean her young.
It was a good movie, but more than that, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I was sitting on the couch and couldn't help but look around towards the kitchen. Goosebumps rose on my legs. So good.
While I wouldn't watch it with your mother, I definitely recommend it if you're ever in the mood for a sweet horror flick. I also recommend Fourth Kind.
Fuckin Aye.

Freaky Town

Tonight on my ride home, I had a bunch of guys shout "Gimme yo bike!" at me. Luckily, the light was green so I just sped on by. SO Sketchy.

Monsoon

I guess it's been super stormy everywhere this week. Something about the heat wave from the previous week created some pretty wild weather down here in the valley. Today, in fact, while I was chatting with Kristen, it began to rain. During the next five minutes, it moved to progressively heavier rain and wind, blowing the trees sideways (and over in a lot of cases). Then it began to hail. This too grew to the size of gumballs before abating.
Afterwards, I thought, wow I should get going to school so I don't end up stuck in a tornado or some nonsense. I had to wait a bit, as a bit more rain kicked up, but around 2 o'clock I finally set off. Blue skies shown through onto the streams running down gutters. These, I found, led to a river. It may seem like a joke, but I tried to cross Main St and found myself ankle deep, even though my feet were on the pedals.
I turned around and went up University. I had to keep to the sidewalks, far to the right to avoid getting splashed by passing cars. I turned left onto Horne, thinking I would rejoin Main upstream, were the rapids might be calmer. But, hereagain, I found myself stomping my soaking legs out of a basin and onto a sidewalk. Luckily, by the time I made it across the block to Mesa, the water was lower. I still couldn't ride the bike lane, but that was alright considering I was still making forward progress. It was just passed Center when I found my first downed tree. It had fallen in front of some lucky woman's car (I knew it was a woman because I had to ride into the street as she didn't notice my call of 'On your left!').
From here the pattern emerged.
All along Main up to Alma School and from Alma School to Souther, I saw fallen foliage and debris. I had this happy image in my mind of the rain as a healer and cleanser, washing the trash and glass and bottles into the drains. Such was not the case.
As I turned onto Southern, making the push for the final mile to school, I saw police lights up ahead. I was detained at the turn into Fiesta Mall, and a man who had just gotten off the bus joked about my soddened condition. I asked him what had happened up at the light. He didn't know, but was friendly enough about it. I crossed to the left hand side of the road (the wrong side unless you want to be hit by a driver coming out of a parking lot or turning right). I started to cross the Fiesta entrance, as I didn't see any traffic, but a couple cars burned the light. The last cars driver flipped me the bird even though I was stopped in the median. Bad day I guess.
I casually made my way west until I got to the light. I passed more fallen trees and found the lights in the big steel hooks dead and dark. Policemen stood in the intersection and directed traffic. I took a chance and crossed. Luckily, no one pummeled my dumbass.
I got to school easily after that. I noticed the cause for the malfunction of the signal light on my way; there were two powerlines knocked over. My grandma told me later that something like 17 had been knocked over in Phoenix proper. It might be an exaggeration, but not by too much. Once on campus, I parked the bike and walked towards were I had parked it the day before. I had brought an adidas pullover, thinking I'd need it for the ride home. I put it on and zipped up the throat against the cold.
I went and found the key I had lost the day before, lying in the pebbles and dirt, then went to the library. The rain went crazy while I was there, so much so that I watched it for a while in a conference room. Everything was gray and black. I had been growing hungrier and had forgotten to pack a snack for my post-ride recovery. I decided to brave the rain and go to Pita Jungle for a gyro and some garlic potatoes. This turned out to be pretty tame, as the rain began to clear after I walked out the doors.
After the meal, I went back to the library and started Thomas Pynchon's V. Then I went to class. Nothing to it.
Afterwards, I packed up and grabbed my bike. I had a moment when I thought about getting out my headphones, but I decided to leave them locked in the ziplock I had brought to carry my wallet and phone.
This was really lucky.
As soon as I got out of the small area for locking up your bikes, it started to rain. I sighed and started to pump my way home. I got down to Alma School and turned left. The wind came hard and it began to rain a bit more. My eyes were squinted to see through it. I made it down to University and turned right. There was more debris but the weather lightened up noticeably. I thought of turning into the street to make up some time (the first leg had taken me the same amount of time, 30 minutes, as the total trip home had the day before) but at Country Club a big lifted pickup decided he (always is) wanted to blow up the starting line so he could get over in front of the guy in the lefthand lane. What the guy managed to do was spin his tires really loudly, shout forward and sideways at the same time, and then roar down the street to maim others. I decided to stick with the sidewalk for this particular outing.
After that, it was a easy ride home to a hot shower and two very long phone calls.
Exciting stuff, n'est-ce pas?

Month of Horror

So I informally decided yesterday, while on the phone with Lucas, that this October I will go back to my roots. I grew up reading Stephen King, as his works were readily available. My mother read him voraciously, so much so that it is a famously ominous anecdote in my family that she was reading The Shining when she was pregnant with me. She also drank Dr. Pepper, just saying.
In any case, I read plenty from the Grandmaster of Horror. In high school I read:
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Four Seasons
Salem's Lot
All of the Dark Tower books
The Stand
The Shining
Four Minutes to Midnight
A few from the Night Shift
Listened to part of Dreamcatcher
and Cell
These I loved in addition to the many wonderful film adaptations. It was my gateway drug into horror, I think. From there I watched everything from Pet Sematary to Requiem For A Dream (if that scene with the electroshock therapy/sex party/prison isn't horror, my name is Mud).
And then for a while, I wandered off. I had forgotten my first love. I indulged in foreign films and classic novels.
So, I decided yesterday, after watching not only Let The Right One In but it's exact replica Let Me In, that I would make this October something to remember. I want to rekindle my lost love affair with the genre which originally got me righting. I want ghosts and monsters and vampires and vaginas with teeth in them(?)!
In the words of Mr. King
Let the dance begin...