One Year Later

He had said that a forest fire would make quick work of it. That if an errant spark from a campfire were to find its way into a pile of slash in the canyon below, there would be nothing to stop it. That the spark would grow into a flame and then a blaze as it charged up the hillside, fueled by pockets of wind. He had said that a mile is not a far distance for a forest fire to travel, provided it has enough view. He had stood on the back deck and gestured with his arms to underline the point; a backdrop filled with ponderosa pine and yellowed autumn grass. A bed of dried needles layered upon the forest floor. He had said that yearly cutting and mitigation would only help so much – ultimately, it would be the fire that decided. My 11-year old mind immediately leapt at the idea of a self-aware fire, breathing and swelling and determining what patches of forest to destroy; what homes to swallow. I watched as my father assessed his handiwork, the home that he had just finished building. I knew that he was envisioning it in his mind - the march of flames progressing to the edge of the porch. The first tentative lick expanding to a full-on embrace as the flame curled around the railing and up the side of the house. The blaze working its way from frame to interior with terrible, caustic grace. The house that he had built. Inside, our lives that we had constructed. It’s been twenty years since he said these things. Only the chimney remains.

The day of rockening draws nigh

Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll

Grammar got ya down?

This week, I started working in CSU's Writing Center, a cozy little classroom deep within the bowels of Eddy hall. The Writing Center helps students with every aspect of their papers -- from brainstorming to revision. One thing I'm a little worried about is my own inability to articulate grammar rules for students needing help with editing. Since "Don't look at me, I just play by feel," probably isn't an acceptable answer, I have a couple of resources that I can fall back on. In addition to the Writing Center site, I've also discovered a great resource from Purdue University that's full of helpful grammatical information that my brain refuses to learn.

California Stars

A good friend and I are live music fiends. Back in the not-too-distant past (when I wasn't an impoverished graduate student) we'd make a point of going to shows whenever we could. Wilco has always been one of my favorite live bands. They do a fine job of exploring a lot of musical territory, and aren't afraid to venture into feedback-driven experimentation, either.

I found the above video on YouTube, and thought it provided a good example of a potential new literacy. The author has videotaped himself doing an interesting marker drawing, and he's synched it up to a Wilco song called California Stars. The video has an accelerated frame rate, so the picture is finished at the exact moment the song closes. As a nerdy side-note, the song is from an album called Mermaid Avenue, an album that Wilco collaborated on with Billy Bragg, a British folk singer. The album was "commissioned" by descendants of Woody Guthrie, who apparently left behind over a thousand sets of completed lyrics that hadn't had any music placed with them yet. The collaboration between Bragg and Wilco created a pretty solid album that gave Guthrie a renewed voice that may not have otherwise been heard.

Sorry. I have a tendency to wax nerdily when it comes to rock and roll. Hope that you enjoy the video!