There is something simple and beautiful about this group walking down the street sharing their music with the world. Doesn't it make you a little jealous of their ability to bring a bit of joy into peoples' lives as they wander down the street?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
On the Sharing of Talents
Monday, May 9, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
On Life Without Call, or, On Mistakes, or, I Miss You Guys
Left Coast, 3/2010
I have not been on call for almost a week now, and it has been amazing. I have been to four concerts in the last week with some awesome people. I have read most of an absolutely incredible novel. And I have rediscovered how much I miss my cycling team. Also, do you know how important chamois cream is when cycling? I knew this once; I know it again now. Unfortunately, I did not on Friday. The fifty-miler is not sitting so well.* While riding solo is still fun, I really miss my R4 buddies and our sweet, custom-chalked routes. Even the ones from Roshan and Jess out of Dateland. Oops.
Right Coast, 5/2010
*Pun so intended. Who doesn't use chamois cream? Seriously, how stupid can I be?
Friday, March 4, 2011
Book Review of the Time Period
The Heroes is the latest in a series of fantasy novels by English author Joe Abercrombie. Now, I realize this vile and juvenile genre has turned up the majority of noses in the literary world. This book probably would, too, but not because of the fantasy elements, which are nowhere near the most interesting part of the story. This dark novel, so gritty you can nearly feel a tooth cracking as you chew through it, is filled with a commentary on the abject waste of war and a discussion on what it is to be more than a man, to be a hero.
The author takes the reader through the story from at least a dozen different points of view, on both sides of the conflict. From the generals down to the newest recruits, he shows us what his vision of a world consumed by war is like, and apparently it's one with a lot of graves. And vomit. We get introduced to one character as he abandons his widowed mother in order to join the draft, then watch as he comes to terms with the insanity that battle brings. Finally, we see him take his earnings and rise up to the challenge of protecting his family by being a farmer, leaving the world of heroes behind.
The counter-point, a veteran who single-handedly turns the tide of two battles through his skill and force of will, has his epiphany as the love-of-his-life, and wife of another man, points out what he has accomplished, and who he has helped. "Nothing and no one." . . . "So you love war." She said. But that wasn't her most damning accusation. "I used to think you were a decent man. . . But [now] I see . . . you're a hero." (The Heroes, Just Deserts). We are left with the unmistakable impression that the world would be better of without such heroes, and with a few more men.
The series has been enjoyable, but the last three books have been particularly impressive.The Last Argument of Kings discussed loyalty, and then The Blade Itself approached revenge in a style that would have made Alexander Dumas quite proud.
However, this book is certainly not for everyone. Coarse language pervades, and it's frank description of the brutality of men, made all the more macabre when done face to face with sharp pieces of metal. Still, I found this book to be not only a fun and interesting read, but also a thought-provoking piece discussing far more than a wizard and some medieval soldiers.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
On Medicine, or, News from (too close to) home, or, The Circle of Life?
Sandwiched between REL (90) and JRB (75) on the obituary page is Mr. Patient (29 - MP). His youthful face smiling clearly stands out on this page. Young and handsome, his picture forms a sharp foil to the older, more dated and worn faces he is now surrounded by. MP was a patient I took care of after his twenty-day ICU stay. He was a patient that I discharged home on hospital day #42. He was a patient that I had managed through home nurses for weeks, trying to get him to come in to the clinic. And then, through a PICC line that I had ordered placed – and with medicines I prescribed – he killed himself. And now all that remains is a half-dozen paragraphs glossing over his life.
He was only a few months older than I am.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Highlights of 2010, or, Almost On Time
2010 was, as Dicken's put it, the best of times and the worst of times. As I put it, 2010 was also the mediocorist* of times.
Best Books of 2010 - This category really gets a mediocrity score of 6. I have definitely had better.
1. David O McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, by Prince & Wright. This will only be an interesting book to a small portion of the world, but it provides a really fascinating view into the workings of the President and Prophet of the Mormon Church. Thanks to detailed notes kept by McKay's secretary, Clare Middlemiss, we now have this insider's view into an otherwise mysterious position.
2. Cecil’s Essentials of Medicine - Also only interesting to a small group of people, but this is also a great, appropriately detailed book that does not try and beat the reader senseless like Harrison's, while also giving enough background to help you remember, well, the essentials. I only wish I could say I'd read it all, or remembered half of what I've read.
3. All Things Brandon Sanderson - I've been reading this one dang series for far too long, and now we only have one book left. That alone would be enough to make Towers of Midnight a book-of-the-year in my lists, but this book was also sweet. Then Sanderson published two other great novels this year, too. The dude is really cruising.
4.Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut - I agree with my buddy Mark. I liked Cat's Cradle more, but that does not make this less of a great novel in its own right.
5. The Road, Cormac McArthy - easier to understand than No Country for Old Men, and deserving of the Pulitzer.
Movies of the Year, or rather, The Shows Bryce Really Liked - Mediocrity score of zero. This was a solid year for films.
1. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - This show was so incredible. At least that's how I remember it. I saw it after being up all night at work, basically half-drunk with sleep-deprivation. This show hit all the right notes for my slap-happy self, and though it has a silly portrayal, the theme of tackling life as an adult and the unforgettable line, "I lesbians you," make my totally-awake-self agree with my definitely-impaired-self: this show rocked.
2. The Kids Are All Right - This was another winner (speaking of lesbians . . . ). I saw this show post-call as well, but I have no hesitation in this placement. My friend Crystal summed it well afterward by saying, "I can't remember a movie where I have been so interested in every single character." A really touching film. And funny. And with lesbians.
3. Exit Through The Gift Shop - Banksy is awesome.
4. The Social Network - Man this show had smart, snappy dialogue.
5. True Grit - The Coen Brothers are also awesome.
6. Toy Story 3 - I don't understand how Pixar is making films this good.
Best Albums - 2010 was an exceptional year. Mediocrity score of -5.
The New Pornographers - Together
The National - High Violet
Jonsi - Go
Best Concerts of 2010- Mediocrity score of -10. Really. (Salt Lake has really shown up in this circuit. Mediocrity score: -3)
Best free shows: The Twilight Concert Series is just amazing. Beirut and The New Pornographers were absolutely incredible. I still can't believe I passed up Girl Talk for a bad Mediterranean dinner. The Utah Arts Festival had some great (basically) free shows, too, especially with Cadillac Sky.
Best Venue: The State Room, where I saw Punch Brothers. You know them as Chris Thile's band, and you know Chris Thile as the Mandoliner* from Nicklecreek. Man can he play.
Best ever: Jonsi. The only thing that was not absolutely incredible about this concert was the venue. This is undoubtedly the show that all others will be judged against for the rest of my life. Or the foreseeable future, at least. Runner up: Sufjan Stevens.
Most memorable: Freelance Whales, at Kilby Court. Most memorable for a great show, some great music, and just a great night.
Best in Columbus: Temper Trap. $5. Such a sweet disposition.
*It is a word. Google it. Even if it's only on my blog.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Hope For A Brighter Future, or, Waxing Philosophical
It being Civil Rights Day, I read MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail today. Here are a few thoughts from a 21st Century, worn-out, Mormon (eek), male(gasp) mind. Maybe we as Utahns, Americans, and people, can be a little better at attempts at dialogue and proving contraries. Then we can pay attention to what actually matters.* I think Mr. King would be happy about that.
From NYT article A Tale of Two Moralities, Paul Krugman (Nobel Laureate):
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.
There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.
This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.
And from MLK Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail,
Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood...
RIP Mr. King. Hopefully.
*People, if you're a Democrat, and money, if you're a Republican.
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