1) I recently accepted a position at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, a two-year school in Myrtle Beach, SC. I’ll be a full-time English/Composition instructor (5 classes!) and I’ll hopefully be teaching a couple of different writing-related courses. I was actually fortunate to have two competing offers for full-time positions. It was a difficult decision, but we were ready to move out of the mountains for a while (the other job would mean staying here in Boone, NC). And with a baby on the way, proximity to family and an airport was very important. HGTC has a wonderfully supportive faculty (I had nearly 15 people at my teaching demonstration on a Friday!) and I’m very excited to be joining their team of teachers.
2) I completed my MA in English with a certificate in Rhetoric & Composition at Appalachian. This semester was busy as I finished my thesis and fulfilled my language requirement all while applying furiously for full-time jobs. Sara was extremely supportive in the process–I don’t know what I would have done without her there to keep me focused, calm and relatively stress-free.
3) I’ve recently scribed a piece on Alan Moore and Steve Bissette’s early Swamp Thing comics, up now as a two-part feature on PopMatters. It’s a close look at the first story arc with Woodrue, the Floronic Man and the revisioning of Alec Holland’s transformation into Swamp Thing. The PopMatters version is a reworking of a paper I presented at an academic conference on popular culture. I’ve stripped some of the verbose, theory-riddled prose and it actually works a lot better. I should have written it like this in the first place. It’s also been a comic I’ve used in my classrooms, employing it as a way to teach writing across the curriculum as Swamp Thing invites perspectives from a range of disciplines.
4) Music reviews are still happening as well. Over at 10 Listens I’ve got a full review of chamber-pop ensemble Dark Dark Dark, a first listen of Chicago post-poppers Caw! Caw! and a lengthy look at Toronto’s Holy Fuck.
Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. I defended and submitted my thesis after some grueling revisions; I survived the final two weeks in the writing center where it seems like half the student body now wants to sit down and learn the nitty-gritty of American English grammar and APA style; and I’ve somehow managed to write a few little odds and ends in the spare time that I can find between classes, meetings and work.
First up is a feature I wrote for PopMatters on the literature of the American suburbs. It features some of my favorite short fiction writers (although I tend to reference their novels in this piece): Richard Yates, Richard Ford, John Updike and John Cheever.
Secondly, my homies over at 10Listens were kind enough to post my raving initial review to Holy Fuck’s new LP Latin. This new record is probably the best thing I’ve come across all semester. As you’ll see from the review, it has the uncanny ability to transcend moods and environments making it a highly adaptable soundtrack to suit nearly any occasion. It’s a booty-shaker, fer shure. The 10L review has a link at the bottom so you can sample the jamz. Highly recommended.
In other news, I’m off to SC for a job interview. We shall see, we shall see…
I’ll say it up front, I was hesitant to listen to this album. I’ve been like this with nearly every Sigur Rós-related release for the past decade or so. Although it’s been on my radar for months, ever since the official Sigur Rós website posted teaser clips counting down to the www.jónsi.com launch, I’ve been awaiting this album with a mixture of curiosity and fear. You know what I’m talking about. That band that’s been with you for over a decade, through valleys and peaks of internet hype and lack thereof, the band that’s provided the soundtrack to the most significant of life’s emotional cornerstones. For me, that band has been Sigur Rós, and to a certain extent, the sweeping falsetto of Sigur Rós vocalist/guitarist Jon “Jónsi” Þor Birgisson.
Áegeatis Byrjun is the album that plays as I reminisce about my first quasi-nervous breakdown at age 19. Endless repeats of “Svefn-g-englar” will still cause me to well up with conflicting emotions, of dropping out of school, and foolishly severing ties with my closest friends. ( ) may be SR’s bleakest album, shedding most of the orchestral jubilance of AB, but for me it is the playlist for my epic return to form: moving to Vermont, going back to school, and moving in with the girl of my dreams. Takk and Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust are similarly monumental (getting married to the ( ) girl, and returning to NC, the place most closely associated with AB).
So, you can probably understand the hesitancy that comes with every new release. Each new record ushers another opportunity for me to listen to my life again. My fear is the possibility that perhaps I will not see myself in the latest release, that the band may have strayed too far from my course, and that those individuals responsible for providing the score to my life’s significant mile markers will no longer do so. Maybe its nostalgia, I don’t know.
It’s a long introduction for Jónsi’s first proper solo release (assuming you discount the Riceboy Sleeps/Jónsi & Alex collaboration), but I hope it offers some insight into my perspective and approach to this record. That said, Go continues in the same direction hinted at on Sigur Rós’s Með suð. It’s all here: fluttering flutes, emotive string arrangements, the cacophony of bells, xylophones and various twinkling noises, and of course, Jónsi’s falsetto, layers and layers of the voice that made SR so distinguishable from the masses of epic, post-rock forgettables.
Yes, this is the poppier, more direct version of Með suð, but it also branches out in its own way apart from SR. With the exception of “Kolnðiur” and “Heniglás,” nearly all the songs are in English—and not that barely audible English that was “All Alright” on Með suð. No, we’ve got lyrics we can understand, and as a longtime fan of Jónsi, I was curious as to whether English lyrics would take away from what I considered one of the most pleasurable aspects of Jónsi’s singing: translating songs based on pure emotion and experiential context.
Surprisingly, one of the things I love most about Go is its lyrical themes. Opener “Go Do” begins “Go sing too loud / Make your voice break / Sing it out / Go scream, do shout / Make an earthquake.” The song builds with flute, glitch electronic samplings of Jónsi’s squeaks and peeps, and thumping percussion. He continues, “Go drum, too loud / Make your hands ache / Play it out / Go march through crowds / Make your day break.” It’s opening burst of flittering excitement, followed immediately by “Animal Arithmetic” with its pounding percussive elements, clacking and emphatic declarations of “everything full of life.”
“Tornado” slows things down, way down, with piano and graceful string arrangements (arranged by Nico Muhly, composer familiar to fans of Grizzly Bear). “Tornado” could easily have been a Sigur Rós track, and like a couple others (“Grow Till Tall” especially), it’s hard to see this as a clean departure from the band.
“Boy Lilikoi” was given out free as an mp3 via Jónsi’s website, and has firmly replaced the Arcade Fire for my musical association with Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are. Like “Go Do” and “Animal Arithmetic,” the track is an affirmation of primal life: “You grind your claws, you howl, you growl unafraid of Hoi Polloi / You run, you’re free, you climb endless trees – You reignite / You growl, you howl, you show your teeth / You bite, it’s alright.”
“Sinking Friendships” is the highlight of the album. The song is a wall of ethereal shimmering with vocal loops and strings. A piano keeps time until ever-changing drum sounds take over. In fact, it’s the drums/percussion that sells this one for me. It has that snare-type cadence with glitchy and distorted sounds, which compliment the traditional acoustic instruments perfectly.
Of course, one of the things that I feel that this record is guilty of is a fetishizing of naiveté and innocence. Sigur Rós have always employed child-like images and birds, and at times Go seems to reject adulthood to a point where it’s hard to relate to it lyrically. Like the video for “Gobbledigook” featuring slender young adults (and the band) running naked and glittered through the woods, Go is an attempt to continue that fantasy. And for some, it may be difficult to sustain the fantasy.
However, I listen to this album with the knowledge that my wife and I are currently expecting a child, and Go’s youthful exuberance and rejection of the adult world helps ease some of my fears and anxiety. I listen and welcome sounds of rebirth and reawakening.
You can stream Go in its entirety on the NPR website and buy it in stores April 6.
This past week I finished a full draft of my thesis with some minimal revisions. I printed out three copies and gave them to my committee. Now I await their comments and feedback and prepare for my thesis defense on Thursday, April 8. Just for fun I thought I’d paste the text of my thesis and make a Wordle cloud. For those of you unfamiliar, Wordle is a web app that will take any text and represent it as a word cloud. The most frequent words are visually depicted as the largest. I felt like I’d been writing the same words over and over again. Turns out I was. I think the Wordle below can give you a good idea of what my project is about. I hope to write more about my thesis and the process of writing it soon. I’m even considering adapting sections for this blog. We shall see…
I reviewed The Austerity Program’s new EP Backsliders and Apostates Will Burn EP over at 10Listens yesterday. If you read my initial review you’ll see that this short-player has totally blown me away. Damn. Yeah, I just can’t find enough good things to say about this recording. I’ve had the 4 songs for about a week now and it seems as if they are constantly on repeat.
This is definitely for fans of Shellac/Slint/early Touch & Go stuff. The Austerity Program is two guys and a drum machine, and apparently they are both family guys with kids and advanced degrees. This is family-man punk rock. Take that Henry Rollins! You can read my initial response to their new EP here.
Although the record isn’t released for another month, you can listen to plenty of The Austerity Program on their website and you can get a teaser for the new EP in the youtube promo below. Enjoy.
I’ve got a new first listen review up over at 10Listens. The band is called Dark Dark Dark and while I’m tempted to use Arcade Fire as a reference point, DDD certainly have their own sound. Sara and I listened to it again last night and it’s a solid 6-song EP. I have a feeling that this band has a lot of potential and their output will keep getting better and better. They have a sound that can transcend genre boundaries and stereotypes to reach a diverse audience. One of the greatest qualities of the EP is the recording. Apparently they recorded in a converted church and the space creates great atmosphere for the band to play with melody and harmony.
You can read my review here. At the bottom of the review is a link to the band’s website where you can stream their new EP for free.
I’ve been pretty busy this semester working with technology consultants Dan Kaple and Brian Wilson on some new additions for Appalachian’s writing center. Dan has been instrumental in integrating the e-learning technology Elluminate with the existing practices and methods of the writing center. Basically, Elluminate is a web-based, real-time application that lets writing consultants and clients conduct one-on-one sessions via the internet.
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical. I wasn’t sure how well my consultation methods, which use lots of visual learning and face-to-face conversation, would translate in a virtual space. Yeah, they have webcams. But could I really consult without changing my approach drastically? Surprisingly, the online consultation loses little of what happens in a face to face session.
Of course it’s difficult if both parties do not have a webcam, but as far as sharing documents and making changes in real-time, using reference materials (I can share my browser so the client can watch as I show how to find certain information), and making little doodles and visuals with the paint-like whiteboard, I find that I’m pretty much doing the same thing I do face to face on the internet. At times there can be tech problems; sometimes clients may have issues with audio, or the network isn’t collaborating. But it’s really been a great way to extend our services to neglected populations: continuing and distance education students that take classes online or at one of the many cohorts around the state.
Additionally, we’ve taken cue from the librarians at Belk Library and have added an online chat feature to our website.
We just put it up and have been trying to figure out how to best make it a part of our daily routine with rotating staff and various on-goings in the center. Luckily we can set it to a “we are away” status and hopefully avoid people messaging the writing center for a quick question and being met with no response. Actually, I learned that the hard way today. Someone sent a chat message with a quick question about APA style and I was not paying attention. So, if this person ever reads this post (who am I kidding?), sorry for missing your message!
If you are reading and have a question that is short enough to answer via chat, head over the writing center’s website and try it out. Maybe this time I’ll hear the little notification and reply in time!
What’s so funny about a dangling participle? Okay, I’ll admit it; the word “dangling” does make me smile. And after watching the new video blog from stellar graduate consultant Ian Burkett and writing center tech guru Dan Kaple, I damn near fell out of my seat laughing. Who says grammar can’t be fun? See for yourself:
One of the things that I’ve been really happy with at our writing center is our expanding reference library. Tasha, the front desk administrator most responsible for our fabulous new acquisitions, has done a lot of research and digging online to find new, helpful resources for all different kinds of writers. Here is writing center consultant Kyle Blochl encouraging you to come check out our bookshelf:
We now have a Writing Across the Curriculum shelf filled with new books to help students enter into discipline-specific discourse communities. Writing for Social Work? Check. History? Check. Film? Check. Anthropology, Biology, Political Science? Check, Check, and Check. A lot of these books are part of the Longman Short Guides and Routledge series for writers. Additionally, we’ve just beefed up our section on books for creative writers, including some great resources that have plenty of 10 minute creative exercises to get ideas moving on paper. I’ve been thinking about using some of the short creative exercises as a warm-up for sessions that deal with more academic writing.
If you’ve got any desire to see my ugly mug on youtube, here’s your chance! In the video posted below I explain a great revision strategy called sideshadowing. I learned and adapted this writing technique from my former teacher Nancy Welch. As an aside, Nancy also happens to be a phenomenal scholar, professor, fiction writer and activist. Her book Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World helped shape part of my thesis, and her short stories aren’t too shabby, either!
This short activity gets authors responding to their own work in the margins (or as I prefer in the video, in a separate document). I use this exercise with nearly all of my drafts as I have a tendency to ramble and to easily take my ideas to unintended places. While the freedom to explore in early drafts can help generate new and interesting ideas, sideshadowing challenges me to see how those ideas work toward one of the larger purposes of the paper (assuming I’ve figured that out, too).
I am currently using sideshadowing to revise a cultural feature on fiction depicting the American suburbs of the mid-twentieth century. After I write on a separate page short summaries and quick statements about how a particular section works toward a thesis, I can look at my list and easily re-order sections that are linked thematically (I have a tendency to write first drafts ordered by novel, and this exercise helps me organize them in more effective ways). I’ve also noticed from my sideshadow list that some of my ideas are much stronger and more developed than others, so I’ve begun to think about editing and deleting some of the smaller tangential paragraphs (or employing them as foot or endnotes).
More than anything, I use this revision activity to find the places where connections to my thesis/purpose are not explicit enough. These are the places where the links and connections to my larger purpose are obvious to me but perhaps not to others. By sideshadowing, I can locate places where it would be effective to gently remind the reader how this idea supports, or is otherwise significant, to my main argument or purpose. I think of a thesis like a coda or refrain in music; there may be various different sub-points under it, but it’s important to have that chorus line pop up periodically, to signal to the reader how ideas refer back to an overarching idea or set of ideas.
Perhaps when I finally get around to uploading one of my finished features I will also upload my early drafts with sideshadow notes, so I can better show I how move from rambling, unorganized early drafts to cohesive, developed final drafts.
I am currently finishing my MA at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. I teach writing to first year students and serve as a writing consultant and a graduate assistant director in the university writing center. Topics of conversation, contemplation and composition: sports, politics, education, comic books, music and technology.
