...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.

Summers end, Semesters start... A synopsis, of sorts.

I realized how long it's been since I posted last by watching the video that was tacked onto the end of my last entry, and recalled that the evening we filmed it, we had spent most of the day at the beach. Now, the leaves on the tree directly opposite my desk have turned red (almost even past the prime of their foliage.)

My first few weeks of grad.school have been very busy. Which I thoroughly enjoy. It feels great to be finally back in school, my limbo-period finally over.

Today, then, between my scouring of critical essays on Milton, I'll just post a brief and scattered laundry-list of assorted topics.

First... in regards to my last entry (about Alan Kirby's "The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond")... apparently the ideas expressed in that essay have morphed, in the years following its publication, from "pseudo-modernism" to "digimodernism." These ideas have expanded quite a bit, and, I'm pleased to say, seem to have rectified many of my concerns with them over that time (as I found out from the author himself, who learned of my posts via Google Alerts [which seems fitting, due to his subject-matter])... He has a new book out called Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture that I'm actually rather excited to read at some point... whenever I might get time to. You can find information on this, and links to the current evolution of these thoughts on his blog, at his website.

In other news... this seems like an appropriate time to look over my list of "things to do before school starts," and see how much of it I accomplished... Or rather, maybe it's easier to start with the things that I didn't, as the list tended to evolve as items were removed from it over the course of several months. So, I never did "get into good exercise habits" as I told myself to do. I never did submit any of my poetry or short-fiction for publication. Although I completed recording records with both Tipsy Cougar and Swords We Swallow, I have yet to package and make available either record as I had planned to. I haven't written the first-drafts to the two pieces of short fiction that I have mapped-out and outlined in my notebook. And I still have 10+ pages of fragments in the "ideas" section of my notebook that I planned to work through and complete (blog-entries, poetry, fiction, essays, visual-art, etc.) that I have yet to.

Obviously being in school again after a couple of years off involves an adjustment... and, partly, that involves adjusting to the idea that most of these things aren't going to get done (or even thought about) until my next break from classes. I'm trying to negotiate with my own mind a bit in terms of creative ways to still get what I need to out by way of music, art, and creative writing... but this early in the semester, I think it's a bit too early to tell how that will work. I'll keep you posted, I'm sure.

In terms of things that I DID end up getting crossed off of the list...

One of the things that had sat daunting me on such long-term lists the longest (if you haven't figured out yet, I'm one of those weirdos who lives and dies by my to-do-lists) was the idea of getting more of my acoustic-tracks recorded. Looking at that list the week before classes started, I didn't have the motivation to deal with the hassles of audio-recording (my thoughts on that process have become increasingly self-contradictory and problematic in the last couple years... it's a love/hate sort of thing, at this point)... so I decided instead to just run video and jam out some songs... and, in one way or another, I had accomplished that particular bullet-point.

So, then... here are a couple video-clips that I recorded in the process. Enjoy.

Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour- Peepers (acoustic)


Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour- Rusted Tricycle's "Cherry Coke"

Scatter-Brained Notes, Notes From a Scattered Brain.....

If you read my last couple of entries, you might have noticed mention of a fairly full-slate of planned near-future entries. You may also be noticing that its been a little while since I posted those last entries. So, here's the deal...

Since I posted those last entries, Sara and I (and thus, Swords We Swallow) have moved into a new apartment/ studio-complex in Dover to get situated on the seacoast prior to starting grad.school at the University of New Hampshire in September. We've done alot of packing boxes, loading boxes, driving, unloading boxes, unpacking boxes, decorating, organizing, working to get the dog accustomed to the new surroundings (and in turn, getting myself accustomed to living with a small furry dog) and then trying to find time and patience to decompress after this. At the same time, I've been juggling two restaurant jobs in two different parts of the state (which means more driving...) and it's probably worth noting that the new one that I've started has caused a bit more anxiety than anticipated in several regards.

Basically, what this all boils down to... is that I have more than a bit of communication burn-out at the moment. I'm well aware that over the past few weeks I haven't been nearly as good at answering my phone, responding to emails, writing past-promised reviews, etc, as I would like to be, and I apologize. At the same time, however, I am trying to allow myself to get it out of my system while I can, before school starts.

I still have several entries partially written, and now that we're settled in to the new place, I plan to start regularly posting them again. Look for a Civil Vain review, a Lady Gaga critique, and possibly an entry on the imminent demise of the restaurant industry as we knew it, as well as several other tentatively slated pieces, in the very near future.

In the meantime, Tipsy Cougar finished the recording of our debut record, "Immaculate Conceptions," before Sara and I moved out of the Cougar Pad in Manchester... Here's a video of the last track that we completed for the record, "Manchester Song," that we filmed while recording.

Tipsy Cougar - Manchester Song


If you've been following the band at all, you probably know that we record completely live, with as few overdubs as we can manage. This particular track was recorded entirely on two-track cassette tape, with absolutely no addition tracks added... and I'm still incredibly happy with the way that it turned out; a personal goal of mine (the video's audio is from the camera's mic, not the album-version). I believe that the video was a recording of the take that we ended up using for the record.

We're currently working on brainstorming creative ways to package and distribute the record, bypassing the conventional music-industry as completely as possible.

Tipsy Cougar is now also on Facebook! Visit us, become a fan!

Swords We Swallow has set up our new studio in a room of our new apartment in Dover... We recorded an improvised track and video after we had set up the equipment, but we've decided not to make it available because, well... after a day off of unpacking, decorating, and setting up equipment, we'd had quite a bit of wine... and that's pretty evident in the quality of the material. We're currently debating about posting edited segments of the film, as it's marginally entertaining... but we're also working on turning the material that we improvised into an actual song and recording a better/ more complete/ less annoyingly "abstract" version.

In the meantime, here's a photo of our new set-up...



More such photos are available for your perusal on our Myspace and Facebook pages.


So, basically... stay tuned, peel your eyes. I plan to post more in coming days.

A bit of a personal update...

I have received my acceptances, weighed the options, narrowed the field, and eliminated some question-marks… I have decided to pursue the first phase of my graduate school education at the University of New Hampshire this fall.

I have registered for classes, and begin in Durham at the end of August, which means a relocation from Manchester (the home of Metro-grime) to the beautiful New Hampshire seacoast. Sara and I have been apartment-hunting, are coming daily closer to figuring out where to reside in the coming months, and will hopefully be moving from the Tipsy Cougar Pad into a new comfortable and creative Swords We Swallow Studios (presumably somewhere in the Dover area… we’re currently leaning toward a complex with an appropriately [if a bit cheesy] Literature-inspired name) by mid-June.

Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks, what with visits to campus offices, apartment-scoping, searching for a Portsmouth-area restaurant-job… but I’ve still had a couple of entries for this site in the works… one involves an update on Swords We Swallow, with a web-address, audio, release-information, and videos, which I’ve somehow still found some time to put together… and another that pertains to Lady Gaga (pop-music as post-modern performance- and identity- art).

So stay tuned.