the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors

were you run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality?
were you suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China?
my only question, then, is what happened to the angel-headed hipsters lost in the machinery of night?

but this only leads to an overwhelming question (oh do not ask what is it): what of poetry?

the best minds of generations past are lost to most of our generation. why? what is it about words in verse that turn most of us off to enjoying and contemplating some of the most sophisticated ideas of the 20th century? we all know einstein, bernstein, and potok; however, few of us know ginsberg, eliot, or auden (myself included). these poets influence most of modern consciousness, but we place no credit at their feet.

i probably won't start reading modern poetry in an effort to understand the fabric of our modern society. but, it seems like those of us who understand parts of modern life should at least understand the part these poets play in providing literary background to all we do (movies, media, relationships, and understanding).

so, if you don't start reading modern poetry, at least start understanding the parts these poets play in modern life.

(if you took this post seriously then call me)

what are we cheering for (for what are we cheering)?

my little sister the cheerleader. my little sister the violinist. my little sister who has a refreshing sense of humor and bad taste in boys. my little sister, hannah. if i were to think of one compound word to describe hannah, it would be poopface. and if that's not a compound word, it is now.

i went home to utah and i saw her dance and jump and yell and cheer, and now i want you to see the same thing. please feast your eyes on these pictures.





in addition to witnessing hannah cheer her little poopface out, i also saw the twins. the twins are cute. they are small. here are some pictures. i do realize that some of you don't know the twins. as such, this web log entry most likely does not interest you. if that is the case then i suggest you do something else.

here is the picture of the little ones.

midstride

this is art. this is art. and this is art.

why, then, can this not be art? or this? or this? or, for what it's worth, bears! or robots...

boston, snow, and bombs

so here are a bunch of pictures that i don't want to explain. some of them are of libby. some of them are of us in boston. some of them are of the big snow storm. ryan (my jerk roomate) and i dug the car out of the snow tonite. while we are enjoying our snow day in nyc, peter is in puerto rico with marc's girly. what will happen?

some things to look for this coming week: 24, peter's return, my last week of school before the break, 52 degrees on thursday, the twins' good health, and the word 'modernity' (marc, you owe me $5).

peace, ya'll

pictures of pauls little ones

once again paul and amy: congratulations.

amy had babies

last night amy had two babies. they are healthy. amy is too. their names are abby and becca. they weighed a lot. something like 6lb 14oz and 7lb. don't quote me on the weights. pictures are forthcoming (is forthcoming the correct word? is it even a word?). congratulations are in order for both paul and amy. way to go.

whats in a web log

i can't find any satisfaction in my web log as of late. its not like others' that i know. i can't seem to locate that which formerly brought me so much online happiness and satisfaction. maybe i need to find a more escapist means of entertaining myself. or perhaps give in to the mainstream. but its just not like it used to be.

exponents

lately, i've been thinking about big words that start with c. but when i think about that, for some reason the only word that comes to mind is catsup. and then i think about what my mother calls catsup and mustard. you remember ma?

but then i start thinking about big words that start with c, because the teacher in sunday school today brought up some of these words. i will list a few: catechism, cyclone, cataract, constructivism, capitalism, companionship, compliation, construe, conspire, creationism, comparative, comprehensive, colonoscopy, chiasmus, citadel, cops, chide, chortle, and cooperation.

ups is like this guy

the guy from the ups call center

please, if at all possible, do not ship using ups. they are not helpful and their customer service is extremely lacking. do everything you can do to ship with another company. this is my way of striking back. "the d the e the f the i the a the n the c the e. mind of a revolutionary."

jack needs us...part II

24 debrief session
(paul: if you aren't current in your episodes then don't read this)

1: chloe is my hero.

2: ryan, my roomate, thinks chloe and edgar stiles are going to hook up. i couldn't disagree more.

3: walt cummings is involved in a larger scheme--some kind of cia plot to destabilize russia and bring us back the cold war. why else do we care at all about moscow? he must believe he is acting for the good of the country. plus, no one but the cia could know jack is alive.

4: stewart (is that the name of the dude up with whom chloe hooked?) is a good guy. he was duped by 'agent cummings,' as he referred to him, who is being duped by another higher up (the dude who is always on a head-set by a menacing screen with a lot of numbers).

5: do you think president palmer is really dead?

6: chase (kim's husband) will return somehow.

7: i keep saying it, and petey hates it, but jack is going to die this season. what better ending for 24 than jack's death?

8: before jack dies, however, he's going to find the first lady and somehow carry on his seed. plus, they will find the nerve gas together.

9: jack will get captured in this next episode by all the president's men but escape because that's what he does.

10: jack's kill count right now for the season is at 8.

11: samwise the brave--the higher up from division--is a mole. he is also rudy.

12: jack's going to kill samwise the brave because no hobbit can cut it at ctu.

12: the 24 parties at our house will continue to grow in popularity: all are invited.

13: isn't sad that i've spent almost 30 minutes so far on this post?

14: i think my dad might be watching this season. if so, then 24 has succeeded in its purpose.

15: jack kills people with scissors.

16: tony will speak for the first time at 3:13 pm.

17: jack already has one broken rib. how many other things will happen to his body?

if you aren't watching this one during the season then you shouldn't have read this post. if you are then i commend you. now watch arrested development because it is much better.

textual relations

the text message: virtue or vice? is it a plague consuming our social intercourse or a modern convenience prompting better and fuller relationships? originally, when i first purchased a cellular communication device, i refused to communicate via textual means. even receiving a message annoyed me because of the 5 cent fee. i would return text messages with telephone calls.

then everything changed when i met peter shigeki. he thrived off textual communication. i soon realized the convenience and ease of use; however, was i sacrificing something more substantial to participate in the convenience of rapid and easy communique (communique acutally means 'an official announcment,' but i figured i would use it anyway)? did my cousin lead me down a path of less full relationships and eternal convenience, or did he open a new world of effective relationship building?



recently, i changed my cellular telephone plan to include unlimited text messages. what have i done? have i sold my soul and traded my birthright for a mess of porrage? paul: i know this doesn't interest you. this is not your scene. so, as an objective observer i'm sure your comments would be helpful. skinny, i don't care what you think about it.



also, i even question my use of this web log. is it indeed exhibitionism, as some claim? should i continue my use of this means of expression? i know not. but i do post random pictures that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. and i haven't done anything in preparation for school today. so...what does it all mean?

well, ma, i'm sorry this isn't like last post. but what can i do.

loves.

jack needs us...

Paul and Jonny—my two oldest brothers. My two married brothers. This break we spent some time together and prepared jonny for marriage (ok, paul actually prepared him for marriage and I listened—but I did throw in my two cents). It was the best Christmas break in recent memory. So I guess you could say this first paragraph is a tribute to the frandsen brothers. May our biking continue together for years to come--regardless of relocations, wives (which I like to call ball and chains), incarcerations, or operations. Right now we span five hours in time zones and over 4,894 miles. And yet I was able to call jonny last night and ask him the last violin concerto he played before his mission because I heard it on an ipod and couldn’t place it. Here’s to you brothers: “hey brothers.”

Now on to other things: the bests in my last two weeks since the break.

Best Tuesday night activity: Alban Berg’s Wozzeck at the metropolitan opera. Atonal with a late romantic feel, Berg condemns the world he has grown to know in 1922. He sets a 19th century play to 20th century music and damns the first world war and all other societal influences that destroy Wozzeck. The met’s rendition was simple and stark, the lighting and set doing almost as much work as the singers. And of course, it was a treat to see James Levine do his thing.

Best Thursday night activity: The Ying Quartet at Symphony Space on 95th and broadway. Combined with musical scientist Todd Machover, they juxtaposed Bach, Beethoven, Byrd, the Beatles, Cage, Eliot, and Machover’s own composition. Machover strung all the parts together with interludes, sound mixing, and multimedia. The result was a strange journey through musical history. Also, it made me realize how much I enjoy the newer stuff (not that I didn’t enjoy Bach or Beethoven—it’s just that sometimes 20th century music is not portrayed well).

Best Monday night activity: purchasing an automobile device on ebay.

Best weekend activity: going to Boston to pick up the automobile device.

Best morning activity: driving to school.

Best Saturday afternoon activity: BODIES…the exhibition. South Seaport gave us the bodies exhibition and we went with KD Garvin and Petey as our guides. They told us everything about the body and we saw it all revealed. My favorites: the circulatory system display, the nervous system display, and of course the reproductive system. Thanks for the explanations petey, KD, and dad (remember when you gave me the talk at chuck’a’rama when I was twelve? You had diagrams and charts.).

Best tv show: 24 season premiere.

Best new discovery: the ruins.

Best Friday night activity: the MOMA and then Benny’s Burrito’s on Greenwich avenue.

Worst activity: buying car insurance.

Well, I’m sure petey hasn’t made it this far without skimming. Sorry cousin. Peace out everybody. Let me know some of your bests for the past two weeks.

i was thinking about Isis and how she thought I was so reckless

I was just doing my lesson plans for tomorrow and I realized that I haven’t web logged in a long time. I have a lot to share. I want to share it. I will share it. But peter said he doesn’t like long web logs. So this time I will not share everything. I will just share this and the pyramids all embedded in ice.

sunday afternoon

yesterday i had school. i sat through 8 hours of the most pointless classtime ever invented. i wanted to die. so i took my computer and played with these pictures all day. below you will see what i spent my time doing. please have some happy holidays in the next few weeks. you may vote again if you would like.

communal care

bass beats

subway blues

subterranean homesick commuter lines

solemn signs

urban respite

cop nights

hipsters

lonesome railroad blues

fire in the city

the I AM tag

rooftops in uptown

airstreaks

undulating cycles of nowhere

origins of life...

Destiny’s time unraveled. Far more therapeutic are the questions that are unanswered. Where are the greatest minds of my generation? Are they riding trains from battery to van cortlandt park? Or are they underneath the glare of city lights and vagrant misfits thumbing rides on nowhere trains to nowhere?

Five dollars via paypal to anyone who can tell me what that’s about and whom I be talking about (the first name starts with a).

So, I swore that on this web log I would never discuss what happens at my job. But I’m going to. If you do not want to witness this, then please hang up and come again later. If you are reading on, then you do so at your own risk.

So we have this social studies curriculum and we are supposed to be teaching the little ones about money in the community. I was discussing ways people in the community can earn money (you know: doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen, clerks, drug dealers, and prostitutes).

Well, I asked what people in the students’ families did for work. Before they could answer, a girl asked how we get money when we are first born. I deemed it a fair question and told her that’s why we are born into families—families provide for us, etc. She still had a questioning look. “No Mr. Frandsen (can you believe I’m called Mr. Frandsen?) I mean when we were first born. When there weren’t any parents. Where did the first baby come from? How did it get money? Who made the first baby?”

I paused because I didn’t know quite what to say. “Well, Diamondnique (yes, that is really her name), that’s a very good question and a lot of people have had it. In fact, there was once a boy in the spring of 1820 who had the same questions and he went to a grove of trees to find an answer…”

After that conversation was over, we went to the bathroom, clogged the drains, and dunked all of them.

Ok, so it was all true except for the stuff about the spring of 1820 and Joseph Smith. I told her that indeed it was a good question and many people have had it. Ashley chimed in the God created the first baby. She said that God created everyone. I told the class that indeed, some people believe God created everyone. Ashley looked up at me and said, “Some people? God did create everyone, right?”

I didn’t have to answer because Nyzaiah jumped in, “No, our moms create us.” Nicole helped out as well, “yeah, we come out of here.” Before she could start showing or motioning I stopped the conversation, but I was holding back my laughter (the first time that has ever happened; in fact, it’s the first time I have ever smiled at school. That’s why I decided to write about it).

Um…I think there was something else I was going to write about but now I can’t very well remember. So, I’m going to go to sleep. If skinny reads this then that proves he has no life. You go that skinny? Goodbye all.

Oh, and I realize that these pics have nothing to do with this posting. But what can you do?

all right ya'll: vote for your favorite. just go to the comments below and let me know which one is the one.

the village vanguard


dime on a run


postbox blues


yellow is as yellow does


phone medicine


summer dreams


liberating liberty


fashionable???


hi mailbox



forbidden mist


untitled

crucible of miracles and violence and spectacular wonder

i realize now that alien robots are too heavy a subject for those frequenting this web log (is anyone frequenting this web log?). so i would like to turn to the subject of new york.

Sarah hall, in her book the electric michelangelo describes new york like this:

For whenever it felt the urge, the city itself and all its boroughs could toss up a curiosity or a peculiarity, or kilter out a hitherto unnoticed detail, or create a marvel of fiction or of fact right before the eyes to remind its residents that this indeed was new york, lest that absurd fact be forgotten, crucible of miracles and violence and spectacular wonder. These were the moments that defined the city. They were the waking dreams of a never sleeping metropolis.

so I guess I’m wondering if she’s right. Is this place really the crucible of miracles and violence and spectacular wonder? The new york she was referring to was that of 1933. Has it changed? What is this place? Or is it the tough old new york president Hinckley called it? And am I still just a visitor to this crucible, or should I now count as one of many of its residents? Does it matter that I have favorite subway peddlers? Does it make me more of a partaker of this crucible of spectacular wonder? Is washington heights, my home, burning alongside coney and Williamsburg and soho? Does it partake in the waking dream of the never sleeping metropolis?

I don’t know if I yet count myself as a participant, although I do welcome my ascent from the subway to 190th and st. Nicholas. It feels home-like as I see the addicts and vagrants sheltered in our subway entrance, their humorous graffiti welcoming me home and informing me that star is a theif (the actual spelling) and that she is privy to some other things as well. I also have a friend, Edgar, who works in the local hardware store who taught me how to say ‘make me one key please’ in Spanish because I was going in there with constant requests for him to make me ‘just one more key, please.’ Does that mean I’m part of the melding process? Does the fact that I have a regular at a deli by my school mean I have arrived? Am I an element or even a catalyst in the reactions and creations that occur in the greater boroughs? I didn’t vote in the recent elections and I have no intention to vote in any future new york related votes.



but I do walk by this fire hydrant and broken phone booth every Sunday on the way to church. And it feels like it is right and almost like it’s mine and although I don’t feel like I need to fix it, I do feel like it’s right. So what does that mean?

Right now I’m thinking to myself I should go to sleep instead of typing this because I have to wake up in the morning and go to work. Does that mean I’ve arrived? Does it matter that I enjoy seeing everything on my way to and from work, but I don’t enjoy the work itself? Does that mean I’m new yorkish? Will I ever be new yorkish? Is anything really new york? Or is it just an amalgamation of everything and to be new york you just have to be something and that is what makes this place this place? If so then I’ve arrived. I’m an element on this crucible of a city and it makes me wonder if I’m the violent or the miraculous or the spectacular wonder.

alien robotic lafe-logic

Um….i have recently been reading Lafe’s web log. He has posed some interesting ideas. His latest web log title is ‘no aliens involved.’ This is the subject I would like to address today—alien involvement.

Lafe, the statement ‘no aliens involved’ is false. Aliens are involved with everything and they influence and direct everything. Everything we do in life is either in order to please the aliens or defy the aliens. Also, we do these things simply because they are not only aliens, they are alien robots. Many fear them, but those who understand them just fight them. Which are you, lafe? Do you fear or fight?

Let me tell you something about alien robots: they will kill and they will fight. They are not our friends. They put it in peoples’ heads that we should fight and give diamond rings. They also are responsible for both republicans and democrats. That’s right both trent lott and harry reid are spawns of alien robotic culture. What do you think of that, lafedog?

Lafe, did you know why we have thanksgiving? It is to celebrate the pilgrim’s escape from the clutch of evil alien robots. Every year we celebrate thanksgiving and the alien robots are hurt and scared and reminded of their inferiority to the heights and meaning of the human spirit.

Lafe, tomorrow I’m going to see the tree lighting at Lincoln center. This tree lighting is done in order to send signals of warning to alien robots. They will not invade again unless we let them. So we stay strong. Also, later in the evening I’m going to see Chris Thile in the East Village. His music mimics alien robots in a satirical, intelligent way. I will let you know more about it once it is all accomplished. I must go now and prepare myself. I suggest you do the same…