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Phoenix, Arizona, United States
musician...artist...bartender...writer...quasi-academic-freelance-literary-something-or-other...rabble-rouser... beat-builder...connoisseur-of-crazy-critical-theory...etc.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Pull Trouble news/ updates.

Thanks to everyone who made the Pull Trouble From the Fire record-release show (AKA "Occupy Dodge Street") in Salem, Mass last weekend amazing. Lots of pictures, footage, etc is still coming in, but you can check out some stuff from my own collection from the night here. (special thanks to Crooked Streets and Harvey Mapcase for making the bill for the night that much more awesome, and Dodge Street for putting it on.)

And, oh hey, guess what? The CD-release event is passed which means... the record is now available! The initial run is fairly small and entirely self-released with no distro or support, so if you'd like a copy, for a mere $5, email me and we'll make it happen. In the meantime, take a listen and download a couple tracks from the album on Soundcloud.


... and now onto the next one. We've got a big show coming up that we're really excited about- We'll be opening for Marco Benevento at The Red Door in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (legitimately, no hyperbole, one of my favorite venues on the planet). This show is part of Marco's 3-week residency stint at the always-amazing Hush Hush Sweet Harlot music-series, and we are EXTREMELY honored to be a part of it. 


Thursday, October 27th, The Red Door. 107 State Street, Portsmouth, NH. Doors at 7, show at 8. $17 in advance, $20 at the door.

Advance tickets are now available here. This is a tiny, intimate room for this kind of show, and there's definitely the possibility that it will sell out, so purchasing tickets soon would be a very good idea if you'd like to join us for an amazing evening. If you're coming, or for added details and conversations about the show as it approaches, stop by the event-invite, RSVP, and share it with your friends!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Pull Trouble From the Fire CD-release show (and a fan-made video!)


My band Pull Trouble From The Fire's CD-release show for our self-titled debut EP is fast approaching! Friday, October 7th, at Dodge Street, in Salem, Massachusetts, with our good friends Crooked Streets and Harvey Mapcase. Be there.

Yeah, that's right. It's a Friday night in October, in Salem. So, yeah, it's going to be pretty insane. You're not going to want to miss this one.

Get details, and let us know if you can make it here.


This is the cover to the forthcoming record. The artwork is by Bill Fennel. Bill also recently decided to make a music-video/ short-film to one of the songs off of the forthcoming record, and did a great job. Check it out, it's pretty neat.




Friday, August 19, 2011

Pull Trouble From The Fire's self-titled debut streaming on Soundcloud!

We've currently got the entire forthcoming record streaming for free on Soundcloud. AND... two of the tracks are available there for a limited time as free downloads! Take a listen, share with your friends.

 Pull Trouble From The Fire, forthcoming self-titled debut. by PullTroubleFromTheFire

Friday, August 5, 2011

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Pull Trouble From The Fire debut-show video-collection!

Thanks to everyone who helped to make our debut live show a very fun night.  Here are some videos.


Intro/ Roach-tree-

Gaslighting-


Long Shiny Black Hairs-


Trainwrecks-


Dead Wait-


Stay Awake (courtesy of Bill Fennell)-


Outro-

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Arrangements for the Pull Trouble From The Fire show...

The show is this Thursday. Like, less than 3 days away. Let's get our situations straight, make sure everyone who wants to go can, and know how we're getting it done.

As of the current moment, it looks like I still have one seat that has yet to be officially claimed in my car. We're heading down early, aiming to leave Portsmouth for Salem around 6, to spend some time in that awesome city, and not feel rushed, prior to the show. Earlier in the day, I will be in Nashua and driving through Manchester. So, if you're off from work that day, and want to tag along, be in touch.

Other than that, I know that several other people are heading down from NH, and I've heard much talk of car-pool options and available ride-situations. Be in touch, I'll put you in touch with some people, we'll make it happen. Consider this an open-thread for ride arrangements.

Also, I'm vaguely considering booking a room in Salem, as a sort of a crash-pad for the NH kids that "accidentally" drink too much to get home that night. A sort of "throw in whatever you feel" arrangement. So, if you're driving down, throw a sleeping-bag or a blanket in the car, just in case.

Either way, be there. It's not that far, and Salem is a SUPER-fun city. It's destined to be a crazy night.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Music updates, part 1

Big news on the music-front (well, big to me, anyway.)

After a year hiding out in our clandestine studio on the New England coast, my first "real" band in years, Pull Trouble From The Fire, just finished our debut record (as of yet untitled), to be released soon, after a string of phenomenal sessions with Richard Marr at Galaxy Park Studios. It sounds amazing, I promise. Stay tuned.

We have also just booked out debut live show, staying true to our word that this would come as soon as the record was complete. We'll be headlining a show at Dodge Street in Salem, Massachusetts (yes, THAT Salem) on Thursday, July 14th, with Cardinal Law. The show is at 9, it's FREE, and it's "Thirsty Thursday," so, you know, drink specials and shit. Plan to come and get crazy with us. (I'm totally willing to help set up caravan/ convoy/ carpool options from various New Hampshire spots, [as well as possibly going in on a room or something, for those of us who don't have to work too early on Friday], so if you're considering making the trek down, be in touch. It's not that far, and Salem's a super-fun city. [Duh.]) I'm working on a flyer and a facebook event-invite today, I'll post it as soon as it's done.

In other music news, the second record from my solo-project, LeVautourEnsemble, "Machinique Meltdown," is coming along, slowly but surely. I dropped a new video of a track from the record this morning. Check it out.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A Rare Personal Entry... Some Sort of Catharsis?

I rarely post purely personal essays here.... (this will be my first entry in a while that doesn't feature the "promo-whoring" tag...) but I've had a lot on my mind lately that makes me think that it might be time (and since I assume that a good chunk of my readers are at least acquainted with me personally, this doesn't seem all that out of line.) For some reason I just have a gut feeling that, as a writer, I need to explore and explain my last year a bit. This may be more for my benefit than yours. I don't think that it matter, I just feel that a few words on the matter need to be said.

This blog is, at its most basic level, about exploring my quasi-academic/ artistic interest in identity-construction, post-post-structural-reconstronstruction, whatever you want to call it (I am well aware that only a small handful of my readership has any idea what I mean by this... the rest of you, thanks for bearing with me...) and therefore a quasi-critical examination and sharing of my own projects must, by necessity, factor into what I do here, in some sort of meta-identity-crit way (hence all the "promo-whoring" tags... tangentially, for my academic friends and readers, I should probably make a long-overdue point here that what I mean by "identity-crit" has nothing to do with the contested, controversial critical camp that we problematically call "identity-politics.") Therefore, returning for a moment every now and then to where I'm coming from as it relates more directly to my personal-life doesn't seem to be a terribly large departure.

I've been, off and on, for the last couple weeks, in an odd, spacey, twitchy sort of mood, and I initially couldn't figure out why. There didn't initially seem to be any tangible triggers. Then it dawned on me. Last year around this time, I was in the process of making a series of conscious decisions to step back a bit and try to change the way that I look at things, think about things, deal with things.

Easter weekend of last year, I was presenting a paper at a literary-conference in New Orleans. Academically, the semester had been quite rocky prior to that; I had been having lots of internal arguments with myself, of the "what is our job exactly?" and "to what end?" sort. Personally, it had been a long time prior to that since I had gotten an opportunity to take any time off from my paying-gig waiting tables. Perhaps more importantly, it had been even longer since I had had any sort of "me-time," particularly in a place where I don't really know anyone (a situation that I tend to thrive off of, to clear my head and reassess.) It was a wonderful weekend. More pointedly, though, in all three ways, that weekend became a sort of a turning-point for me. Stepping back from my usual routines, stepping onto the plane, and then onto the streets of the French Quarter, I began to realize that I felt like I was running on a treadmill, physically, mentally, emotionally. Academically, the experiences of the conference certainly didn't answer any of my questions about our scholarly pursuits and goals, but gave me a far more nuanced way of asking myself them, and gave me a glimpse of the giant academic-dragon we were all trying to ride and wrangle like a rodeo-bull. Personally, I realized that my sanity and stability required a more regular exposure again to the invigorating "myself alone in a crowd" stimulus I had thrived on at certain points in the past, but had tried to ignore or forget for a block of years prior, out of various sorts of apparent "necessity." In short, I realized that weekend that quite a few things that I had come to assume to be "necessities" and "priorities" needed to be reassessed.

A few really messy and hectic weeks later, I chose to end a long-term relationship with a live-in-girlfriend the night of my 28th birthday. (Note to self/ word of advice- Do not make life-trajectory-altering decisions on major memorable dates like birthdays. Bad idea. Again, this has been a year of learning-experiences.)

This week, I turned 29, marking off a full year since these events. I'm not going to pull any punches, my 28th year was far from my best. It's been a roller-coaster year, in so many regards... experiments (which didn't all work, by any means) with various new ways of thinking about things led to so many moments of varying kinds of instability, for sure. (Massive props to the people in my life who were there for me and supportive through these times. You know who you are. I can only imagine that I've been pretty difficult at times.)

But, hey, looking back, some good things are coming from volatile times... and that was certainly part of the goal. I completed my Master's Degree in December, with marks that I'm certainly not ashamed of (in fact, oddly, my final semester clocked in my only grad-level 4.0 finish, despite personally feeling a bit of a shit-show and a nut-bag at the time.) In need of a distraction over the last summer, I joined my first functional full-line-up band in quite a few years (Pull Trouble From the Fire), giving up in certain regards on my long-running (mis-guided) attempt to quit making (non-oddball/ experimental) music cold-turkey.... which has provided a great return to something that legitimately makes me happy. One recent weekend, oddly situated within that strange span between Easter and my birthday, I went down to Galaxy Park Studios in Allston, Mass. with that band to work on our forthcoming record, marking my first time recording in a pro-caliber studio since I was... 23? Of course, doing so at the beginning of my 29th year inevitably brought to mind the old cliche about "make it by 30 or hang it up"... which becomes an even more quirky and tongue-in-cheek thought considering that, for the first time I can recall, I'm actually the youngest member of this act and (not to throw anyone under any busses here) the only one who has yet to reach that age. A thoroughly wonderful, stimulating, and revitalizing weekend, for sure. My second record with LeVautourEnsemble, the apocalypse-themed quasi-ironic-hip-hop-ish thing that I intended to bust out really quickly as some sort of post-semester catharsis keeps, appropriately, running into various hang-ups and stalls. That's probably a good thing, in the long-run. On a personal note, I realized yesterday that, after a long string of back-to-back LTR's, this is the first year that I've spent completely (intentionally) single since I was 19? And as much as I can't claim that I was always great over the course of the year at figuring out how to DO that again after an entire decade, a full third of my life, it was totally something that I needed. I feel like I'm on a far better track to figure a lot of things out than I was at this point last year, as much as I can't say I'm necessarily any closer to answers. When are we ever? What are "answers"?

In other words, a full year later, I'm getting my motivation back, and feeling like I'm actually starting to live again. The official end of this very messy year feels like a net-positive change. I'm ready to be functional again, in so many regards.

(ok, ok, my quasi-narcisistic verbal-diarhea ends here. I commend anyone who made it this far into this self-centered mouth-explosion. Thank you. For everything.)

Monday, March 14, 2011

You As You As Man-Consciousness-System

Last night I finished and posted a new video for another track from LeVautourEnsemble's forthcoming second album, "Machinique Meltdown."

This one comes about as a response to a sampling-duel with Ross Boyd of The Tuna Fish Discrepency, prodded and mediated by Adhesiveslipper of Headhat Records. It's on, Ross. Can't wait to see what you make of this absurdity.

In my contribution to this excellent game, I mashed the wacky sample in question up in a steaming pot of  crazy-broth with some robots, kittens, bass, beats, and spirally chaos. Who doesn't like those things???







As per usual (or at least often) with LeVautourEnsemble content, I think a little disclaimer is in order here. Since I've had some issues in the past relating to online censorship of nude mannequins (no, I'm not kidding. When I initially dropped the current logo for this site, among similar images from the same concept/ photo-shoot of Miss Chloe Claustrophobia, I was flagged on several websites by the content-gestapo who apparently can't tell plaster from flesh...), I should probably point out that anything in this video that appears in any way naked is NOT human. Most often it's a robot... sometimes a kitten.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Snazzmobbing

Got a crazy idea today. Let's get a new phenomenon started. We're calling it "snazzmobbing."

Basically, we're going to get groups of people together, over-dressed to the swanky hilts, and congregate suddenly in places where our snazziness will seem particularly out of place... like dive-bars to drink (presumably poorly-made) martinis.

Obviously, like any attempt like this, it's not going to be much fun without a bit of help. So, if this sounds like fun to you, pass it on. Share this, tell your friends, post a Snazzmobbing-related status on Facebook... and drop the #snazzmobbing hash-tag into your Twitter stream.

Test-run in the New Hampshire seacoast area sometime soon? Who wants in?

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Twitter...

I finally broke down and joined.

Feel free to follow me, @b_levautour.



Sunday, February 27, 2011

Pull Trouble From The... OCD Diaries...

Pull Trouble From The Fire's recent teaser video has been used as a "mood music" sort of soundtrack-clip to an entry on Bill Brenner's very cool and ultra-informative blog The OCD Diaries.

Check out the entry here... and take a read, this blog is really fascinating.



Also, Mr. Brenner has issued a challenge to the band for more content, and we love challenges, so, in due time, we will be more than happy to comply.

(tangentially, I have no idea whether or not this had anything to do with the selection of the video or the issuing of this challenge, but it definitely crossed my mind while reading the blog that there might be more than a bit of common-ground between the subjects discussed there and the tone and content of Pull Trouble's songwriting...  we definitely have tended to veer, thus far, toward subject-matter that has to do with quirks of the way the human mind functions... or [more often, rather] has trouble functioning...  whether accidentally or not, then... it seems an appropriate match to me...)

(P.S.... baby-step-goals to get back into active music promo- I'm trying to get that video to hit a triple-didgit view-count by the end of the weekend, which would be {by far} the first on the Asbjorn Collective Youtube channel. Help out, share it with your friends? Please? Maybe?)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Pull Trouble From The Fire gets a bit less clandestine....

Pull Trouble From The Fire, the band that I've been playing with, that I spoke of in the last entry, is making yet more gradual moves to step out from the shadows and become a tad less secretive. (Click on the band's name to check out the Facebook page, and click "Like." You know, if you're into that sort of thing. Which you are.)

We dropped a teaser-video and some photo-content this week.



















Enjoy.


{Special thanks to Macalastair Ming of Tipsy Cougar for stopping by our hideout to catch some video-footage and photos at practice.}





Thursday, February 3, 2011

Pull Trouble From The Fire...

Since this summer, I've been playing, for the first time in a very long time, with an actual band, that actually practices, with an actual functional lineup (whoa, right? I know, strange). We've been keeping it pretty well under-wraps up until now (and I'm certainly not going to pull the curtain back all at once)... but the first hints of that band are now on Facebook. Stop by and "Like" us... because you WILL. And you'll want to have the inside scoop as soon as more content starts to drop... I promise.




To be perfectly honest, I had been actively avoiding joining a new "real" band for quite a long time... but these guys approached me at a time when I REALLY needed an outlet, so I agreed to sit in with them, see what they were up to... and, honestly, they turned out to be far too good to not become more seriously involved with. No joke. And as most of you know, I'm pretty damn jaded about most "bands" (hence all the solo/quasi-solo-projects intended to question conventions like "listenability"...This one isn't like that.) Like whoa.





Monday, January 31, 2011

Post-indie, Post-youth...

{free-form, ramble, random thoughts. Go.}

There's something odd about the various forms of late-'90's/ early '00's "indie-rock." Something that reminds me a bit of the "where do we go now?" in critical-dialogues post- post-structuralism and post- deconstruction?  This seems to me to be a bit of an "elephant-in-the-room" right now in the current vogue media-conversation about "what is the hipster"... where does the lethargy, near-fetishistic interest in irony, "lost-generation"-esque nihilistic pompous-non-chalance come from, particularly for the late-20's/ early-30's demographics that most closely fit the stereotypes of that label, yet most fervently hate being associated with it? I'll give you a hint- most of those people, between '97 and '03, were all either playing or avidly listening to some form or another of the "indie-rock" of the time... emo, screamo (before those terms meant what they do now), post-punk, the early-incarnations of "metal-core," melodic-pop-punk... etc. And prior to that? Most of those kids were in punk and hardcore bands in high-school, witnessing the final death-kicks of (the pre-commercially-viable later-incarnations of) those scenes.

I'm reminded of this by quite a few things lately that are unrelated, but tend to weave in and out of each other, nostalgia-wise.

First, there's been a strange superfluity of seminal bands the we all listened to in that era either suddenly getting back together or releasing their first record in countless years within the past couple of months. And there's the constant question at play with all such projects- what SHOULD the new record sound like, when all of the current "hipster" acts are all influenced by your back-catalog, but your "sound" is very conspicuously date-stamped.

I present as example two acts that chose very different answers to this problem.

1) The Get Up Kids are back together. If the handful of tracks that I've heard are any indication, they've taken the "extreme-update" approach-






Sure, this sounds like a whole bunch of what I listen to in 2011. But it certainly doesn't sound like the Get Up Kids... so I'm totally torn on it. There's definitely a bit of the odor of "trying too hard" lingering around this one.

2) The new Bright Eyes record is coming out soon. It's currently streaming in its entirety via NPR- http://www.npr.org/2011/01/31/133278431/first-listen-bright-eyes-the-peoples-key . I'm not sure yet that it lives up to the tall-order tag-line the NPR blurb bestows on it: "This is the best record Bright Eyes has ever made".... but it's pretty good (it always takes me a few listens for a Bright Eyes record to REALLY sink in). And there seems to be a complete indifference to the date-stamp issue here, either in terms of recreating past records (which they certainly don't do) or "updating" too conspicuously or exaggeratedly.

Other things that bring this disconnect to mind include the occasional random flare-ups of sudden nostalgic interest in online content related to an emo-pop-punk band I used to play bass for, called Rusted Tricycle... or that, still, for some reason, regardless of how many projects I've played with since, when I go out at night in New Hampshire, I'm most likely to get "aren't you the guy from Rusted Tricycle?" than any other recognition (If anything, I would expect it to be the high-visibility management position I held with an unnamed adolescent-targetted retail store for years prior to moving to Arizona and going to college, but nope. It's that random band that never toured, never recorded a real album, and broke up ten years ago. Strange.)

(photo via Macalastair Ming of Tipsy Cougar.)

For some reason recently, I had a strange impulse to download a whole lot of old Saves The Day material. I have no idea why. And I'm thinking about throwing a random throwback-emo/ pop-punk track into the middle of my forthcoming ironic-"hip-hop" record with LeVautourEnsemble... just for fun. There's something odd about the music of that time (maybe that time in general?) for us, for sure.


Saturday, January 29, 2011

Asbjorn Writing Workshop.

Do you write, or like reading/ critiquing new writing by others?

Over the summer, I had started up a workshopping group. It was starting to gather a bit of productive steam, and then, due to scheduling issues, the ball was kinda dropped for a bit.

But now, it's back, and I would like to build it to be an even stronger resource going forward.

Interested in participating, contributing, or even just observing? Stop by our facebook group-page and send a request to join the group so you can get into our discussion-boards, where the magic happens (at least initially).





Here's the blurb that I posted on the "Welcome" thread on the group's discussion-board, when I initially set it up, back in the summer, just to give a little bit of an overview of what we're trying to do with this- 




"The idea is simple. I want to spend much of the rest of my summer lost in a couple creative-writing projects that I don't have nearly enough time for during the semester. It dawned on me that I was a bit "out of the loop" of one of the most helpful elements of my process when I WAS a more active creative writer- the workshopping group. So, here it is. At least the ground-level, to get it moving quickly. If a different sort of forum would work better down the road, we'll move there. If (ideally) local cells of this group decide to meet up to do some flesh-and-blood round-table work, that would be awesome, and hopefully all tangible meetings will report back virtually for the benefit of those who were a bit out of range to attend.

Here's a quick run-down of the process I had in mind, at least to get started. 

Within the next couple days, I plan to make up a sort of generic form for intended submission for critique by the group... sort of a standardized abstract, with questions about your goals with the piece, intended audience, etc... My hope is that a piece of writing pitched as "experimental literary fiction, intended for academic journals" would receive a far different critical conversation on this forum than one prefaced with "I want to finally try to make some cash with my pen. Aiming for Readers-Digest-accessability." Neither (or anything in between) is preferred over the other here... I'm hoping the emphasis is mostly on writing-craft, with a specific focus on helping each other to most effectively meet our own stated goals.

So, the first step to contribute a piece for critique is to complete the form, and post it to a new thread (this can be done before you even begin writing, as just the synopsis and goals for a nascent idea, or in regard to a piece that you've already written that you wish to get feedback through the process of editing of, or anything in between.) Responses from readers are welcome and encouraged to these initial forms, to help both you and your readers better clarify where we're heading. Then, just run with it. Respond to feedback, mutually brainstorm, post fragments or links to complete files. Receive feedback, respond, edit, rinse, repeat. You get the idea.

Know someone who might be interested in contributing? If you think they'd be a good fit, by all means, send an invite. The more the merrier (and more constructive.) A word of warning however (particularly if you're new to the workshop setting)... I am (at least initially) primarily gearing this group toward professionally-minded writers serious about whipping their writing into shape right up into the publication process. This isn't necessarily always an endeavor for the faint-of-heart or thin-skinned... sometimes, for many of us, the most realistically-helpful feedback is also the most brutal and candid. I can't promise, for instance, that anyone on this forum will tip-toe around your potential emotional-investedness in your work... this is all about making our works the best they can be, not stroking each others' egos. With that said, however, hopefully it goes without saying, but just in case... keep the criticisms clean, above the belt, and constructive, folks (i.e., if you're going to tear something up a bit, cite specific examples, base your argument on craft, no cheap shots or vague derogatory statements, etc.) I don't want to have to police this, but I will if it comes down to it." 




There are already a hand-full of threads up, and a few pieces posted mid-process... But this would still be a great time to get in on the ground-floor, as a few more active participants would be phenomenal.

Friday, January 28, 2011

In case you missed it... (performance-poetry about translation-acts)

...one more video, as part of my catch-up of stuff I've worked on since my last post (as I mentioned in an earlier entry, i'm trying to break my return-to-posting promo-dump into a series of smaller, more specific entries this week, and this is one of those)... primarily for those who don't religiously follow my Facebook feed.

This one was another that began as part of an academic project. It's a bit of performance-poetry this time around.







...there might be others that I missed... if you're curious, you can peruse the Asbjorn Arts Collective's Youtube channel, and subscribe if you like what we're doing here. 

Thursday, January 27, 2011

LeVautourEnsemble Update.

I'm currently working on a new record with my solo-electronic project LeVautourEnsemble. This one will be called "Machinique Meltdown," and is a follow-up to "...whose wings are a dull reality," which came out this past October through HeadHat Records. (If you haven't gotten a copy yet, it's downloadable for free/ donation- click here.)



I'm hoping that this one doesn't take NEARLY as long to finish. In fact, I was originally shooting for exactly the opposite extreme, to start and finish the record in a single week, right after I finished school... but the week turned into two, and now it's been about a month, I have two songs and a bunch of fragments (which, of course, is still a step in the right direction, since that's FAR more accomplished than in any single month over the course of the ten years I was working on the last one for.)

I decided this one is going to veer a bit more into the hip-hop(ish) direction... because I felt like it.  This will also be a bit more of a themed/ conceptual endeavor- a collection of tracks about various sorts of apocalypses.

Here is a video for the first track on the record, "Preface."






Another track, "I Am The Tongue," that will appear on the album was actually originally completed as part of an academic project... but as of now I think that it'll still work-







If anyone out there happens to be interested in dropping a cameo on the new record, by all means, be in touch. I'd love to pack this thing with as many odd-ball guest-appearances as possible.

Also, if you're perversely curious how that "PASTICHE" show that I had alluded to before turned out, peruse the following, at your own risk-















Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Tipsy Cougar on Headhat Records!

After much delay, Tipsy Cougar, my noisy indie-electro/ "metro-grime" project, has finally finished and released our album, "Immaculate Conceptions," through our good friends over at Headhat Records.


... and, guess what? It's available right now, to download for FREE/ donation! Click here to get it directly, or here to browse the rest of the excellent stuff in the Headhat/ Webhat catalog!

I was going to explain a bit about this project and the gradual creation of this record, but... Just download it and see for yourself... I think this mess may speak for itself. 

Yes, it's supposed to sound like that.

Monday, January 24, 2011

...resumptions... or somethin'... again...

So it happened again, after saying at the beginning of the semester that I was going to be better about using this blog than I had in previous terms, my posts fell off about mid-way through. Oh well.

But, that's all in the past now. As of January 1st, 2011, I am officially a "Master of Literature"... whatever that means. I want to send some massive thank-you's to everyone who's been supportive over the whirl-wind last couple of crazy years. You know who you are. It's been real... something.

In the meantime, I've taken the first part of January to decompress and re-gather myself... which has sorta kinda almost worked? Now it's get busy, get motivated, get it done time. Ready or not (jury's still out on that one).

And so this starts again.

I'm not going to lie, I've come to sort of hate these "return-to-posting," playing-catch-up sort of posts.  So, rather than post a laundry-list of links to all the garbage I've been working on and interested in since my last post (I'm not delusional enough to think anyone actually READS my info-dump entries, anyway... I just feel better to know I threw it out there in case anyone randomly WAS actually interested), I'm going to split it up this time into short bursts of more specific promo-garbage over the next week.

So I'll leave you here for today. Welcome back, and see you tomorrow.