Though I really have always been underwhelmed by Victorian novels, I found Jane Eyre to be not only well written and thought out, but something that--despite being over a century old--I could distinctly relate to.

This is Maggie's favorite book, so I thought I would tackle it, to see what Bronte was all about, and I wasn't disappointed. A nice, quick read, that is actually free to download online, if you're into that sort of thing. I think that though this book was a romance, it could easily be adapted to film in the form of horror or suspense, with only a few minor changes.

Anyway. I suppose I should probably say more about the book, but I guess I'm not really wanting to write a post analyzing a book that is required reading for most college and high-school students around the country. Now, Don DeLillo's Underworld, on the other hand...

brett at 10:38 AM on January 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, I discovered an album that I should have been listening to since August of last year.

This has got some hot club jams on it. Man. I can't wait to bump this thing, windows down, come summer. Oh, Too $hort, what a guy. Representing Oakland all day long.

brett at 01:09 PM on January 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the State of the Union is coming up, again, and I've never actually played the infamous State of the Union Drinking Game. I'm pretty certain that I won't be playing tonight, but I probably should. The rules are simple:

Every time Bush says...

• "The state of our union is strong," take one drink (+1 if he breaks down into tears)
  
• "Detainees," take one drink with your hands behind your back.
  
• "Bipartisan," take two drinks (+1 if followed by a chuckle or giggle)
  
• Etc., etc.
  

That's just a sample, but I think you get the idea. Could make for an interesting evening, if I was actually that bored. Instead I'll probably do something constructive and ignore the entire speech. It's nothing we haven't all heard before anyway.

brett at 12:49 PM on January 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

brett at 12:14 PM on January 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm in the middle of about 20 books right now, and was given another one last night by Maggie about the media in Japan, which isn't all that well written but addresses a subject I haven't seen covered at all in Asian-studies literature: the increasing sensationalizing taking place in Japan's news weeklies, and the way this affects the country's psyche.

But now--yet again--I've added another book to the list.

This one is definitely something that a lot of us should pay attention to. From Slate's media critic Jack Shafer comes a nice review on Steven Poole's book Unspeak:

We're drawn to the "semantically promiscuous" word, Poole writes, because it allows us to simultaneously express our tolerance for a group and our discomfort. For example: the homosexual community and the black community. People rarely refer to the heterosexual community, the white community, or even the Christian community, because in the United States and Britain, they are the "default" positions and carry the "privilege of not having to be defined by a limiting 'identity.' " Likewise, a group defined by the majority as transgressive, say, the Ku Klux Klan, would never qualify as a "community" even though it organizes itself with the same conscious effort as the "anti-war community."

This book is about words--not only the way that we use them, but the way in which they affect us subconsciously. As I've said for years, it is impossible to write a story without bias, despite having principles about "remaining objective at all times" rammed into our heads during four or five years of J-school. Words are simply too powerful, and carry too much weight. Their context and presentation are important, yes, but the sublime meanings and relationships going on just below the surface of a news story are what make them so unintentionally influential.

Unspeak, writer Steven Poole's term for a phrase or word that contains a whole unspoken political argument, deserves a place in every journalist's daily vocabulary. Such gems of unspeak, such as pro-choice and pro-life, writes Poole in the opening pages in his book Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality, represent an attempt to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak—in the sense of erasing, or silencing—any possible opposing point of view, by laying a claim right at the start to only one choice of looking at a problem.

I'll be picking this up later tonight, and I'll let you know how it goes.

brett at 10:01 AM on January 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

So far this week I've seen two Sean Penn movies, and they were both pretty good. U-Turn and 21 Grams.

Also, I think I may have developed a crush on French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, who must certainly have one of the strangest faces in all of filmdom.

I think I enjoyed U-Turn a little bit better, but then again both of these were abrasive movies, gritty and psychological, so they each had something different to offer the viewer. Now I suppose I should probably go out and rent Babel (which was just nominated for a best picture Oscar today).

brett at 09:25 AM on January 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

So two of my favorite mixtape DJs was arrested the other night. DJ Drama and Don Cannon are in jail for doing what they do best: creating mixtapes full of beautiful music. Shame on you, RIAA. From the New York Times:

On Tuesday night he [DJ Drama] was arrested with Don Cannon, a protégé. The police, working with the Recording Industry Association of America, raided his office, at 147 Walker Street in Atlanta. The association makes no distinction between counterfeit CDs and unlicensed compilations like those that DJ Drama is known for. So the police confiscated 81,000 discs, four vehicles, recording gear, and “other assets that are proceeds of a pattern of illegal activity,” said Chief Jeffrey C. Baker, from the Morrow, Ga., police department, which participated in the raid.

This is really a shame. DJ Drama and Don Cannon have both made major, major contributions to southern rap music this year, and are really at the forefront of the "new music economy" that is mixtapes and Internet distribution.

And for those who might not know, DJ Drama was the one who put together Lil' Wayne's highly acclaimed mixtape Dedication 2 (was in the 30s or 40s on the Pitchfork Top 50 Albums this year).

Bummer.

Brad A. Buckles, executive vice president for anti-piracy at the Recording Industry Association of America, said, “A sound recording is either copyrighted or it’s not.” And he said the DJ Drama case, like most piracy cases, began with illegal product, which was then traced back to the distributor.

This is just absolute horse shit. The RIAA profits heavily off mixtapes, though not directly of course.

Does anyone think that the Clipse album Hell Hath No Fury would have sold half as many units had DJ Clinton Sparks not put out two grey-market mixtapes a year in advance (We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. I & II)?? Of course not, those mixtapes had as much to do with album sales as the singles off the album itself did, as they managed to raise hype for the release to a fervor.

Major labels profit off mixtapes, and this is a ridiculous, unnecessary stifling of creativity.

This whole incident reminds me of Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture, as it makes a huge case for "derivative works," which is exactly the stuff mixtapes are made of: freestyles over other people's beats, unofficial remixes, etc. What's even weirder about this whole thing is that I'm unclear who the RIAA is protecting, because it certainly isn't the artists; Gangsta Grillz, which is DJ Drama's mixtape brand, attracts all of the rappers in the southern scene, who cannibalize one another's (copyrighted) sounds, mixtape after mixtape--and DJ Drama is really just the tip of the iceberg here.

Shutting down the mixtape market is depriving all hip-hop fans of music that will otherwise never be created. I mean, on Dedication 2 for example, it was stellar to hear Lil' Wayne go off over T.I.'s beat, "What You Know," but without people like DJ Drama to facilitate mixtape creation, this type of music will not be produced. Ugh. sickening.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but typing them up gives me a headache. Ugh, the RIAA, there aren't enough slurs and insults in the English language to succinctly state my feelings about your shitty organization. Go burn your books somewhere else.

brett at 09:52 AM on January 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a fascinating article in New York Magazine (that may actually be somewhat old) dealing with our culture's addiction to pornography, though it doesn't simply adopt the standard objectification argument, and instead critiques the way that the ubiquity of porn in America has diluted the way men think about their partners.

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

Bad porn. Real naked women are just bad porn. That's a hell of a thesis statement if I've ever heard one, and something I'm not inclined to disagree with.

When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market ... Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars.

Anyway. Quite thought provoking stuff, though there are some bits of the article that definitely leave me with a few lingering question marks (Orthodox Jewish sex in Israel as more fulfilling than sex in America??), but overall, a nice piece.

brett at 09:09 AM on January 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's true. Even Newton realized it. (which means that you all, meat-eating friends, should abandon your carnivorous ways in favor of something much better... vegetables!) The stink and flatulence, the bad breath and sweating, all byproducts of a diet rich in meat. We certainly are what we eat. Ain't it grand?

But I'm not going to preach (too much), I'm just going to share a brand new book for vegetarians and carnivores alike: The Bloodless Revolution:A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times by Tristram Stuart. At 656 pages, this looks to be the first comprehensive tome on the history of vegetarians, and from what I've read of it so far, it sounds fantastic (and it's in your bookstore today, release date January 8th).

There's a nice synopsis of the book in the New Yorker, which doesn't comment too heavily on the book positively or negatively, but provides an excellent rundown of just what Stuart covers in Bloodless Revolution:

Europeans, having long believed that animal flesh was necessary to sustain vigorous life, were astonished at the existence of the pagan yet pious Brahmins, who ate no meat but evidently thrived. Stuart, a British historian who lived for some years in India, endeavors to show that the spread of vegetarian doctrines in the West during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a result of growing familiarity with the customs of colonized India. Evidently on the side of history’s herbivores, he “outs” as vegetarians canonical thinkers who occasionally reduced their meat intake or advised others to do so; he judges the number of Enlightenment vegetarians to have been “incalculably large”; and he celebrates vegetarianism as the leading edge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought.

So it sounds like we are in pretty good company. Not only can we vegetarians count among our ranks the RZA and Andre 3000, but now we have an "incalculably large" number of Enlightenment thinkers standing behind us, too.

Compassion-based vegetarianism soon assumed the tone of a moral crusade. The poet Shelley, a sometime vegetarian, was certain that Robespierre’s Terror would never have happened had the Paris population “satisfied their hunger at the ever-furnished table of vegetable nature” and that Napoleon would never have made himself emperor had he “descended from a race of vegetable feeders.” George Bernard Shaw is said to have asked, “While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”

I'm not sure I can get behind this completely, but I do tend to agree with the idea that our food choices influence not only the composition of our bodies, but of our minds as well. Wouldn't it follow that the things we put into our body--the things that affect our livers, hearts and tissues--would also affect our brains and behaviors? Maybe. The "living graves of murdered beasts" indeed.

And I know this has been said a thousand times, but I can never end a post about the merits of a vegetable-based diet without tossing around some of the hard facts that meat-eaters tend to ignore when evaluating the ethical and moral questions raised by their food choices:

A recent report by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization reckons that at least eighteen per cent of the global-warming effect comes from livestock, more than is caused by all the world’s transportation systems. It has been estimated that forty per cent of global grain output is used to feed animals rather than people, and that half of this grain would be sufficient to eliminate world hunger if—and it’s not a small if—the political will could be found to insure equitable distribution.

It's somewhat crazy to think that I've been a vegetarian for more than a half of a decade, that Zach and Melissa are vegans because of me, and that they've influenced countless others. Of course, my choice wasn't made independently, I have Megan to thank for my conversion to sanity, health and compassion.

brett at 09:51 AM on January 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay, so I fell asleep halfway through this movie. Maybe more than halfway. I'm very disappointed in myself.

When I woke up Ryan was gone and it was something like 3:30 a.m. He was kind enough to shut off the lights though. I decided to finish the night sleeping upright on my couch--which wasn't so bad--but as for finishing the movie, I'll have to do that after work today.

brett at 09:18 AM on January 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3)

It’s not when I’m sipping coffee between eight and four, or when filling out blank spots in important forms—health, dental, tax, graduate—no, it’s not really at any of those time, not at all. Except the times when it is.

When I realize I’m aging.

The cleaning and cooking and working and neglected diplomas. The winter and snow and credit cards.

“Megan look. You’re the scene queen.”

She and I were the old people at the bar, drinking Old Style and emitting funny adult odors as kids moved back and forth at the front of the crowd. An all-ages show. We were moving too, sort of, at the back, at the bar, in our black adult clothes.

It was all out there. Out somewhere. I didn’t feel out of place at all, not exactly. Out of style, no. Out of beer, maybe—Old Style—but no, mostly it was a feeling of age surrounding me, watching the college kids doing it. I was wearing a black sweater. A collared shirt.

Megan was in boots.

“2027 doesn’t really seem that far away,” Maggie said.

I’ll be 44 then.

At the back of the crowd drinking an Old Style with Megan just near enough. A comfortable feeling. We can leave when we want. We can come when we want. There is a point in your life when you realize you've known someone for a decade, but the word "decade" hardly explains the relationship adequately.

brett at 11:11 AM on January 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have some free Ross movie passes, so I'm going to be using them soon. One movie on the list is Our Daily Bread, a surreal look inside the world of high-tech agriculture.

Should be a good one for all of us to see--and not just the meat eaters who are divorced from the food production process. It seems like there's a lot that vegetarians can learn about where their food comes from in this, too.

In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis. There's little space for humans here. They almost seem like flaws in this system: undersized and vulnerable, though they adapt as best they can, with chemical suits, respirators, ear protectors, and helmets. They do the jobs for which machines have not yet been invented. Dispensing entirely with explanatory commentary or 'talking-head' interviews, OUR DAILY BREAD unfolds on the screen like a disturbing dream: an endlessly fascinating flow of images, an insistent gaze, accompanied only by the persistent industrial soundtrack—whirring, clattering, booming, slurping—of the ingenious marvels of mechanization employed by agri-business.

How can this not be brilliant? It opens February 23rd at the Ross. I'll be out of town that week, but when I get back, someone should come see it with me. As for tonight, however, it looks like it's going to be The Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing.

Unrelated, but also important: everyone send Megan good thoughts, she's home sick with the flu and her little children at school miss her!

brett at 10:46 AM on January 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love this movie so much.

It's been years since I've seen it, and I still love it. One of Tom Cruise's finest performances ever. I'll be checking out the bonus DVD tonight.

brett at 10:20 AM on January 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The weekend was a good one. As usual.

The highlights mainly center around Ryan and his 100 dollar alcohol purchase made at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning--this is after he woke me up at 8 a.m. because he wasn't tired.

Other nice moments include the Green Gateau, a show at the Chatterbox with Megan that made me feel incredibly old, and also SNOW! (Oh, and speaking of that Chatterbox show, check out the band "Once A Pawn," they are great!) There's more at Flickr.

brett at 08:58 AM on January 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two truly amazing men died this week. The phenomenal mountaineer, cartographer, scientist and photographer Brad Washburn, has died at 96. If you are unfamiliar with this man, do yourself a favor and read his obituary in the Boston Globe:

The renowned mountain photographer, explorer and cartographer died from heart failure Wednesday. His family was at his bedside, his wife, Barbara Washburn, said Thursday.

Washburn climbed some of the world's most challenging mountains and is particularly known for his photography of Alaska's Mount McKinley and his exploration of the mountain with his wife.

The effort to remeasure Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak, found its altitude was 29,035 feet, 7 feet higher than previously recorded.

This guy's entire life is an inspiration, Wasburn was a man who never stopped working, and took his life's dreams and ambitions to his very last breath. You've probably seen many of his breathtaking mountain photographs in National Geographic without even knowing it.

The passing of Robert Anton Wilson at age 74 is equally sad.

His best-known work was the Illuminatus! trilogy from the 1970s, a perhaps only partly fictionalized synthesis of every kind of conspiracy theory Wilson and co-author Sheas could mash together. Some of it seemed clearly ridiculous and impossible, some of it probably true. It was high comedy and a grand apocryphal history.

A prolific writer, thinker, philosopher and madman, Wilson brought something new and interesting to the world, and like Washburn, inspired us all. They both will be missed.

brett at 02:21 PM on January 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I should have posted this on Monday, but I'm lazy.

I owe another short congratulation message to my father, who has for a third time proved that neither I, my co-workers, nor my friends have close to as much knowledge about sports as he does. With Florida's victory over OSU in the BCS title game, he won our "Bowl Pick 'Em" pool, the third pool he's won in a row (the other two being World Cup and College Football Weekly Pick 'Em). We tried. We tried so hard. We all conspired against him, not to allow another victory by "Brett's Dad," and yet, somehow he won.

So there it is (click to enlarge). The proof of our failure. Don't even ask which set of picks was mine (though it's clearly visible and quite embarrassing).

March Madness, however, is right around the corner, and there's no way he's going to win that.

brett at 03:19 PM on January 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night I watched One Hour Photo with a few friends, and I was completely blown away. Completely. This was one of the most beautifully shot films I've seen in years, and absolutely nail-biting-ly terrifying to boot.

Who knew that Robin Williams still had any serious acting talent left in him? I certainly thought he was finished, but wow, he proved me wrong. This movie was a psychological tour de force, a masterpiece that had me simultaneously laughing, crying and hiding behind my hands. There were also a few jump-out-of-your-seat moments mixed in as well. What a phenomenal film.

Because I'm lazy, here's a summary from IMDB:

A department store photo clerk, Seymour 'Sy' Parrish, is exceptionally knowledgeable about photography, and has been developing photos for the Yorkin family since their son was a baby. However, Sy also lives a very solitary and lonely life - with no wife, girlfriend, or family in the picture. Sy begins to develop a disturbing obsession with the Yorkins and what they have, and when he is fired for theft he goes over the top. Having discovered a disturbing secret about Mr. Yorkin, he exacts angry revenge in a chilling manner..

One Hour Photo has an incredible amount of mesmerizing moments in it, from the simple way in which Sy walks through SavMart, to the first time we see him at home--color and timing are used with the music to great success. Each scene looks like a photo, and nearly every single shot is composed as such. An absolutely gorgeous film that tip-toed the line between the real, and the morbidly surreal.

Not only that but it's a great story, a beautifully told tale of a stalker that raises a lot of questions about morality, empathy and our own lives in suburban America. Anyway, go check it out, this is definitely my new favorite movie.

The way in which we see beautiful, happy family photos in the context of a man like Sy serves a purpose in the movie: to make us think. It's always wonderful when a director can take something so simple--the family photo--and present it in a manner that makes one's skin crawl. Such is the case when we first see the Yorkin family transposed into Sy's living room, the snapshots of a loving family are completely transformed by obsession, from simple, cherished memories into something much darker.

I also loved the final scene of the movie, though I won't give you any "spoilers."

John Sypal, this is a movie you must see.

brett at 10:24 AM on January 10, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday we had a feast, for sure. I spent most of my Sunday (aside from the part where I was writing my graduate school essays) with Megan at various grocery stores, shopping for pieces to our perfect meal--a meal that was supposed to include more than just the two of us, but everyone else was busy, so alas it was Megan, myself, a large bottle of wine and a ton of pasta all spending the evening together.

We made pesto and put it over some bowtie pasta with fresh green beans and potatoes. We also roasted asparagus and drizzled it with a delicious red wine-based red bell pepper sauce. There was garlic bread and a nice shiraz, too, and a cappuccino to top things off. This definitely goes down as one of the better tasting two hours of my life. Megan and I are winners at life, clearly. There are more photos at Flickr, to keep you drooling.

brett at 08:11 AM on January 08, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sun has been coming up at about 7:35 or 7:40 a.m. lately, and it has been gorgeous. This week, the first week of 2007, has really been blowing my mind with its skyscapes. From my bed I have a great view of the southeast sky, and I've been impressed the past few days. It brings back a lot of weird memories.

There's really nothing like waking up to a massive orange explosion in the chilly winter sky. Anyone else noticing this stuff?

brett at 10:18 AM on January 05, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I finally watched a movie that I had burned to DVD over 6 months ago: Suicide Club.

Definitely one of the more bizarre films I've seen lately, quite a change from The Devil Wears Prada (which I did enjoy, so keep your comments to yourself). This was, certainly, a departure though. From the Amazon page about the movie:

A wave of unexplainable suicides sweeps across Tokyo after 54 smiling high school girls join hands and throw themselves from a subway platform into an oncoming train. Are the jumpers part of a cult? What is the connection to the website that chronicles suicides...before they happen? And, what is the connection to the Japanese all-girl pop group "Desert?" Suicide Club is a stylish, bizarre thriller that examines pop culture and disaffected youth.

This left me feeling confused and chuckling, yet somehow I felt a sort of understanding that the world we live in today is driving us all toward suicide. Maybe? I think that was the point. Who knows. There's a great scene where a guy jumps to his death but somehow lands on his girlfriend in the street.

Anyway. Bizarre. Bizarre but good. I'm glad Ryan and Megan were around to share this one with me.

brett at 09:27 AM on January 05, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since it is anniversary week, I figured I'd take a look back at my hair, and how far we've come together. I've always been teased, ever since I've had dreads, that my hair never seems to grow. My Japanese friends were particularly ruthless in their criticism of it and its length.

But I think now, three years later, we can all safely say that yes, it is growing. In pictures:

So there it is. Not huge progress, but I think looking at the pictures shows a marked difference from 2005 to 2006. I also can see how thin my hair was in 2004--the dreads were barely together and the tips were all wispy and loose. It looks like they took a year to thicken up, and didn't start gaining length until the middle of 2005, or thereabouts. Not too bad, in terms of progress, I suppose.

brett at 09:11 AM on January 05, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just in case you missed it in my previous post, I have a plane ticket to New York. Like Claude McKay, I'll be headed "Home to Harlem."

This will be my first visit to New York City, and really, my first time ever traveling to the east coast, if you can believe that. It should be quite an adventure, especially considering I have some good friends to put me up. I guess this is me finally confronting my subconscious fear of New York. We shall see what happens.

brett at 09:58 AM on January 04, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I came across this the other day, and wow is it ever great. I love new literature, and this is truly something new for 2007, it's 50 Cent's new book. Who would have thought that he would become a bestselling author? Wait, scratch that, a New York Times best-selling author.

He also released two others, with equally great titles: "The Ski Mask Way: Live Hard. Fight Harder." and "Baby Brother: On These Streets, No One Can Protect You."

I guess this sort of goes back to that ghetto-fiction post from a few months ago. Weird stuff, and yet, I sort of want to pick one up.

From the Amazon.com synopsis of Ski Mask Way:

Back in New York City, Seven was the seventh child. But here in Charlotte he's number one on every ladies' list. Even behind bars, he managed to sex a female corrections officer, who lost her job and found herself pregnant. Now Seven is out of the pen and back on the streets. A small-time dealer with big-time dreams, he's ready to take care of business -- for his baby, his baby's mother, his slammin' girlfriend, and his empty wallet. But first, he's got to play the game with the biggest pushers in town. He'll be a soldier for The Man. Then he'll rob the suckers blind before they figure out what's going down. Sure, it could get him killed. But Seven knows there are things in life worth living for -- and things worth dying for. And sometimes you can't tell the difference.

What I'm really curious about, though, is this dubious claim of being a New York Times bestseller. That can't possibly be right? Can it? These books aren't actually out yet (not for a few more days) and here's what Amazon has to say about sales:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #30,325 in Books

Hmm. I'm not so sure about this New York Times bestseller claim. I checked the NY Times list, and "Ski Mask Way" is nowhere to be found... surprisingly neither is "Baby Brother" or "Death Before Dishonor," yet all three books claim they are a certified NY Times bestseller on the front. Can they really print that on there?

brett at 02:35 PM on January 03, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been on a major hiatus from the world of Skeet, but I'm back.

I had a spectacular little winter holiday, which I will sum up quickly in language that will hopefully be ambiguous enough to leave you wondering, yet be clear enough to jog my memory when I come back to this post six months from now.

It was definitely one of those whirlwind type of weekends, and when I say weekend I mean it in only the loosest sense possible: I was off work from around the 21st of December until yesterday, January 2nd. So I had quite a bit of time away from the desk, and I made the most of it, starting by finishing all of my assignments for The Reader and then immediately heading off to watch Axes to the Sky in their final performance at Duffy's.

So, so wonderful.

There was laughter and alcohol and all the good things in life, right? Poker, bowl games, a massive New Year's party. 12:00 a.m. on the first spent in my car with Megan. Four dollar cover at O'Rourke's and an Eagle*Seagull show at the Chatterbox that included plenty of free booze, Andrew Donica, a walk home in the rain and that wonderful crashing feeling of falling into bed, comfortable after a long night with all the people you love and none of the baggage that you got rid of. There were Omahans, Lincolnites, New Yorkers and Oregonians. I shared my bed with at least six different people, loaned out my clothes multiple times, and ate bagels and drank coffee at 8 a.m. after one of those 5 a.m. nights--or would it be 'one of those 5 a.m. mornings'?

I got up early to watch Husker football. I spent one of the best dinners ever at the Oven with perhaps the greatest person in the entire world, Megan--thanks again for covering that bill, baby bird. I celebrated birthdays, I consoled a snowbound pal in Minnesota. I bought plane tickets to New York, am planning on getting one for Portland, and I ate one of the best salads ever while wearing sweatpants on a Saturday morning at the Green Gateau. I spent time with my sister. I drank at Buzzard Billy's with happy old people. I spent Christmas Eve in a bar with a former professor.

I mailed someone Donuts, I watched the snow fall at 6 a.m. with one of my best friends on what had to be one of the most unexpectedly beautiful days of the year, December 31st, a day where I didn't climb out of bed until at least 1:30 p.m. A fitting final day for 2006. The snow was just too wonderful to be true, really. I dug my car out of a drift in front of Iguana's with little more than my bare hands. I ate dinner with family. I ate macaroni and cheese, a lot. I cooked and cleaned and burned incense and read Don DeLillo for hours and hours. I took baths and showers and paced around on my dirty white carpet. I listened to music, drank coffee and played basketball with Zach, Luke and Melissa.

I looked at my dreads in the mirror on their 3rd anniversary and thought to myself, yes, they sure have grown. I was reminded of how much I love my parents, and how perhaps their most supportive moments is one they probably don't even remember too well: the time I was in Japan and they told me in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't cut my hair. Not only did they defend me, but they did it with enough vigor to make me realize that I'm in control of my life, and nobody else. I'll never forget what my dad told me during one of our many conversations about the subject.

My hair is still on my head, as a symbol to all of you who wanted it cut so badly, and tried convincing me to cut it. Go away. You all know who you are.

But break?

I finally said goodbye to someone who was once a good friend, and it felt right. I received a singing, dancing stuffed-snowman in a white elephant gift exchange. I ate a delicious mushroom burger--thanks, Maggie. I barely lost in pool to Mark. I barely won against my father and my cousin. I gave Sam a hug. I told Mana goodbye for three months, hopefully Detroit is a blast. I received a letter from across the Pacific in which my name was spelled "Breet."

"Happy Christmas, Breet!"

War On Terror: The Board Game. The Gap. Express. Barnes and Noble. J Dilla. Thomas Pynchon. Boise State. The Devil Wears Prada. Metropolis. Rocky Balboa. Don DeLillo. The Oven. The Green Gateau. The Coffee House. The sidewalk in front of my apartment. The YMCA. Snow. Sex. Beds. Soft things. NCAA 07. Strange cars and nights spent stuck in snow. Bruegger's Bagels. The Grand. Megan's car. Jimmy John's. O'Rourke's. My apartment complex and all those who inhabit it. JJ, Betsy, Nic and more.

There were a lot of great things during that break, almost too many. Sort of an overload kind of thing. Everything good happened and nothing bad. Smiling and moving on and being who I am supposed to be. It's like, this break was something of a culmination, an entire year of reforming my behavior and attitudes all bubbling up for two weeks of great fun with good friends.

Probably, though, the best bit out of it all is that my reconnection with Megan has proven to be more than just a passing thing, it has calcified. It's tangible. She truly is the friend who I count as the most influential in my life, ever, and it's nice to be back in the position to hug her whenever I want. Because of Megan, I am who I am today... really!

One more thing about the snow: it was great, and what made it better is that I had someone to wake up and say, "Hey, look out the window, it's finally snowing! On the last day of the year!"

Happiness, right there, coming down from above in fat white flakes, lumping up on the ground.

brett at 10:49 AM on January 03, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)