the dreaming tree

i’m going to see U2!!!

i’d like to thank michael wallace and katharine ross for this amazing opportunity.

in other news…crash is an amazing movie and you should all see it. and lastly, for any of you that might care, mayor dave and the shorter ones are potentially playing a reunion show in december. i’m excited. oh, but don’t forget that father maple is playing an important show with andrew osenga on nov. 12 at thrio’s in arkadelphia. we’ll be playing WITH him during his set, including a song from his upcoming album. be there…please.

i messed up my left hand playing ultimate tuesday night. i dove to try to d a pass (which i missed), and then landed somehow fingers first. i heard a loud pop and let loose a yelp. then i got queasy and headed to the sideline, not to play again that night. i’ve been nursing it ever since. the top of my hand, right behind the knuckles, is swollen, but none of my actual fingers are. however, anytime i move either of the two inside fingers, they kinda pop…so i think perhaps i dislocated one or both fingers. they both seem to be back where they belong, except online slightly off, and hence the popping. i can make a fist, but not very tightly, and i can’t really grip or turn things. i’m also typing all of this with one hand, which i’m actually able to do fairly quickly, though i’ve made some mistakes. perhaps i have a stress fracture somewhere in the metacarpals (i feel so doctorly giving such a diagnosis, though i truly have barely a slight idea of what happened, and i probably said that all wrong, anyway.) at least my fingers aren’t broken. one of the guys from ultimate showed me how his pinky could bend at a right angle perpendicular to the knuckle, cause it’d been broken so many times. i hope my hand heals fast, cause i need to play guitar for ruf wednesday night. and besides, i like being able to play at all (hey michael, i started a new song).

i’m listening to the brahms violin concerto, which is making me happy…cause it’s a really great recording. it’s hilary hahn, and she’s ridiculously, fabulously stupid good (and young…25! so she’s my age…and cute…hmm. but i’m not even close to as good as she is, and she’s only been playing a year longer than i have. that’s what i get for not practicing. now i’ll have to try to make it in a rock band. maybe that’ll impress her…). by the way, she won a grammy for this album. her website: www.hilaryhahn.com

the stravinsky violin concerto is on the same disc. it’s a really cool piece, and relatively short at 21 minutes (just the first movement of the brahms is 23 minutes). one interesting thing about it is that each movement begins with the same chord, scored in the same way, and it appears throughout the 4 mvt. piece. of course, each movement takes its own course and character. oh, and one other morsel of information: the piece has been choreographed (by george balanchine, if that means anything to you) and performed as a ballet numerous times. anyway, it’s really a great piece and example of stravinsky’s neo-classicism.

and i just finished watching martin scorsese’s recent film about bob dylan…which was amazing. watch it.

what a ludicrously long post…typed out with only one hand.

(listening to the stravinsky now)

i like watching movie trailers at apple.com.

and i love “classical” music. really, i like romantic (including, but not limited to: brahms, beethoven, franck, rachmaninov, liszt, mahler, bruckner, sibelius), neo-romantic (especially nicholas maw and john corigliano) and other 20th-c. composers (like stravinsky, barber, shostakovich, bernstein, rorem, whitacre, albert, ives). there are so many wonderful things to listen to in the “fine art” realm…and when i am listening to them, i often want to play them as loud as possible. unfortunately, there are times when it is not possible for me to do so. 2:40 am when i’m in a house with three other guys is one of those times. but the music is still getting to me. if you’ve never listened to the rachmaninov 3rd piano concerto, i recommend that you do that as soon as possible. the recording i have is martha argerich, and is quite excellent.

:sigh:

arkansas football…how long will you torment me? tonight’s game really disappointed me. for the first half we were playing at least as well as them, probably even better, and led 10-6 at the half. but then, auburn came out in the second half and completely dominated us. arkansas lost 34-17. the thing is, i really don’t think houston nutt is all to blame. robert johnson, our quarterback, doesn’t leave him with much option in play-calling because he is just not a good quarterback. he throws behind receivers, at their feet, over their heads…when they were open, which means there were opportunities, and the players didn’t execute. some of that is coaches, but i hate the people that call into the radio shows and just crucify the coaches and don’t really get to the matter that the players are not executing what the coaches ask of them. so…anyway, while i’m really disappointed, i will continue to support the hogs and hold out hope for a better team one day.

also, people driving home from the game are asses.

a debate rages…nirvana v. pearl jam. first i have to say that i’ve listened to way more pearl jam than nirvana, and also that it’s been only recently since i’ve begun listening to pearl jam-type stuff on a regular basis. of course, the reason i’ve listened to more pearl jam is because they caught my ear to a greater degree than did nirvana. it’s clear that pearl jam was able to branch out a little further from the “grunge” label, but i can’t necessarily fault nirvana for not getting that far since they were destroyed by cobain’s death. who knows what kind of stuff nirvana might be putting out now, had he lived? maybe i should only consider what pearl jam had put out up to 1994, the year cobain died, when comparing the two bands. i would say that vs. (1993) is one of the most brilliant rock albums i’ve ever heard. i’m not too sure about putting the label of genius on kurt cobain (or eddie vedder, for that matter), but i can’t deny that he had considerable influence on the re-emergence of rock. (random pearl jam trivia: they originally wanted to be called mookie blaylock, after the nba player, but they weren’t sure that would fly with the record company, so they went with pearl jam after also considering reenk roink [close call!].) i think i should listen to more nirvana, but i also know i’ll always love pearl jam. this is a really inconclusive post…please weigh in with your thoughts…

the other night, father maple played at a phi mu dance marathon fundraiser for the arkansas children’s hospital. it was…interesting, to say the least. but it was also fun. the best part was being requested to play “that thing you do,” and despite not having ever practiced it together (although, ironically, i have talked about playing it before), we did it. so that was great fun. we also covered “hope to carry on” and “mr. jones.”

today i started my new job at tuesday morning. retail. at least i’ll be making some kind of money.

go hogs!