Playing Catch-up; A Laundry-List.

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve taken a bit of a break from posting here. This was partly intentional, and partly not. I apologize to anyone who missed my periodic ramblings over this time.

For those that don’t know, I’m looking to enroll in a graduate-school program next fall. The past couple of months have been crunch-time for my application process, which, in addition to working full-time as a server in a restaurant situated in a mall and juggling family obligations through the holiday season, trumped most other concerns. I can’t thank my wonderful girlfriend enough for how supportive she’s been through this stressful time period. It seemed for the last couple of months that whenever time was set aside for some enjoyment, a link didn’t work, a school’s website had been restructured, one assignment led to another I hadn’t foreseen, the internet connection crashed, or the sky decided to drop white shit. (on which note, the “winter parking ban” in Manchester has proven to be a MASSIVE inconvenience.)

Not to mention, technology apparently hates me, and the laptop that’s seemed permanently attached to me for the past few years decided to let a demon possess and overcome it at the worst possible time; about a week prior to my first deadline.

Now I type on a tiny blue baby-robot which will hopefully hold me over until I’m enrolled in a program that requires greater gadget features. I’m still getting used to the keyboard that’s smaller than one of my hands outstretched.

I had written a blog-entry that I planned to post over that time, but decided to scrap it, as it seemed a bit more personal, emotional and bitter than I had intended. Suffice it to say, it pertained to an experience that I had at a local bar/ music-venue that I was extremely put off with, that seemed disturbingly indicative of the problems I’ve witnessed with the current Manchester, NH art scene. Lesson being, think hard about the establishments that you choose to support, and the business-actions that you actively condone. I, for one, would need an almost unrealistically compelling reason to return to Milly’s Tavern.

Over the course of the time that I’ve taken off, I’ve also not written very much for my personal portfolio. The poetry that I’ve composed has been far more short and blunt than prior (which is ironically a skill-set that I had been meaning to hone anyway), and minimal in quantity, at best. I have, however, written more than my share of Statements of Purpose, Statements of Teaching Philosophy, Personal Statements, extensive essay-question answers, etc, and profuse amounts of edits to academic writing-samples.

I’ve been conducting a close-read of a first-edition copy of Julian Hawthorne’s two-volume biography of his father, “Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife,” as well as attempting to wade through Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” in my “downtime” before my classes recommence.

I’ve done a bit of visual-art work, but not as much as in months prior… I’ve been currently working on a painting for my mother, a bit of a belated Christmas present, which is a bit of a tradition (I gave it to her, unfinished, saying that I would take it back and finish it… which has also unfortunately become a bit of a tradition.) This is what it currently looks like; I hope to finish it soon…


(eventually titled) Portsmouth Minor Triad, sus. Blue.

My electro-rock act Tipsy Cougar has taken a bit of a temporary break as well during this time, but we hope to resume recording our debut EP “Immaculate Conceptions” soon… To be fair, what the group has been working on most lately is figuring out how to recover the MP3 files of our past recordings that disappeared when my computer crashed. One of my New Years resolutions is to be better about backing up irreplaceable files. We did take some interesting Cougar photos on New Year’s Eve, though…


(l.t.r.; Sara Jane, Bernard LeVautour, MacAlastair Ming)

I’ve realized a lot lately about what I want (and what I don’t want) as active elements of my life. This time-period has presented me with many successive learning-experiences that have proved exceedingly positive, overall.

Over the break, I have received some interesting (and somewhat humorous) feedback on a rather outdated entry to this blog. You can read my response to the “anonymous” criticism on my myspace page.

In other news, I thought of an interesting idea when I was in the shower yesterday. I want to print shirts that say “[front] Thank you, Yoko, for breaking up The Beatles. [back] Support the Avant Garde. Reject Pop Music. (brought to you by the Asbjorn Arts Collective)”. Who wants one?

Now, if I could only get a volunteer from the audience to serve as Coldplay’s Yoko… What’s Bjork been up to these days?