In memory of Spot Night

My first year of grad school, which I started in the fall of 2005, may have been the year in which my life changed the most pivotally. That fall I got really into going to concerts, something I'd never really done before, and then during the spring semester I met and became friends with Cara. Obviously those were two things that would have enormous effects on the rest of my life. But Cara was actually not the first person I met that year of school who would have a big influence on my life.

As a first year graduate student, that fall I was assigned to be a teaching assistant for the first time. I was in charge of a lab section for one of the large undergrad biology lecture courses. I was terribly nervous about this, which to anyone who has known me for most of my life should not come as a surprise. Most of my duties were checking in with the students as they worked on the labs and then grading their lab reports, but I did have to give a brief talk about each lab in front of the assembled group of two dozen or so undergrads. When I was younger I got incredibly anxious about public speaking. (I'm glad to say that's no longer true.) So that TA assignment, looking back, was a pretty important life experience.

One of the most important parts of the experience, though, had nothing to do with my TA duties, but rather involved meeting and getting to know the undergraduate (a senior, I think) woman who was the assistant TA (yes, I notice the redundancy in that phrase) for my lab section, who I'll refer to as D. It's important to note that I was incredibly shy, especially about girls, and had never dated anyone. When I had crushes on girls the result was that I found them too intimidating to talk to. The biggest crush I'd had on a girl I actually knew somewhat well as a person, rather than as a pretty girl who I'd steal glances at from afar and never try to have a conversation with, was on someone who I knew online via a Star Wars message board and chatted with on ICQ in high school and never met in person.

Now, with D, I was put in a position where I had no choice but to talk, in person, to a cute girl. Of course, we had to go over our TA assignments with each other, but we also talked about other things. It turned out that she, like me, was very into indie music, and liked a lot of bands that I liked. A cute girl, who seemed to find me semi-interesting as a person, and who had a similar interest in music???

I quickly developed a very intense crush on D. Now, although I was not actually in any sort of position of authority over her, I realized that with her being my assistant TA, trying to date her would not have been a good idea. Also, as I was disappointed to learn at some point during our conversations, she had a boyfriend. I remember thinking about whether, if she hadn't had a boyfriend, I'd have tried to ask her out after the semester was over, which would have been extremely anxiety inducing, no doubt. But she did have a boyfriend so the point was moot. Nevertheless, I had a very intense crush.

And this brings me to where the title of this post comes from: Spot Night. Almost every week during the school year, on Wednesday night, the Spot, a student bar beneath the north side dining hall at Case, played host to a free concert. This had been a thing during my undergrad years as well, but during my undergrad years I wasn't much for going out and doing things, other than running cross country and track. I had been to two Spot Nights as an undergrad. One was a band called Roshambeaux, one member of which had been one of my high school cross country teammates. The other was Andrew WK, a show I went to because I thought it was freaking hilarious that Andrew WK was playing a show at the Spot, and yeah, it was a lot of fun. But those shows didn't spur in me an interest in going to more concerts in general.

During our conversations about music, D mentioned to me that she was one of the people on the undergraduate student-run University Program Board who were responsible for booking bands to play at Spot Night, and she told me that I should come check out some shows there. Naturally, I did, and naturally, at first my primary motivation for doing so was getting to see D. But it turned out that Spot Night was a totally awesome thing that would become a significant part of my life for many years to come.

I'm sure that with my growing interest in indie music and concert going, I'd eventually have gotten clued in to the awesomeness of Spot Night and started going even without the suggestion from D, but I don't know how long it would have been before that happened. (Also, one significant show that I definitely would not have gone to if not for an invite from D was the National and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Beachland that September; getting to see the National "before they got big" is a memory I'm glad to have.) I saw so many great shows at the Spot over the years but as it turned out, the two most significant both took place during the spring of 2006, as they were my introductions to two artists whose music would come to play huge roles in my and Cara's lives. Andrew Bird was already becoming a well known indie musician, although not nearly at the levels of fame he's since reached, and I remember his show at the Spot being perhaps the most crowded I've ever seen the place. He performed solo that night, and I was in awe at his looping, whistling, violin playing wizardry. I went away from that show a definite fan. A year later came Cara's introduction to Andrew Bird at a show we attended together in Columbus, and he became her most favorite musician of all. Would she and I still have gotten into Andrew Bird some other way if he hadn't played that show at the Spot? There's a good chance of it, but I'll never know for sure. A Northern Chorus, on the other hand, I very likely never would have heard of if they hadn't played a show at the Spot that spring. That show wasn't nearly as crowded as the Andrew Bird show, but to me it was even better. I remember standing in the middle of the floor in front of the stage and just basking in these waves of aural beauty that were washing over me - the swelling strings, the intricate guitar parts, the stirring vocals... I also remember after the show talking to D and telling her how much I'd liked it and that I kind of wanted to buy a CD but I thought $15 for a CD was a little steep, so I didn't buy one that night, which is very funny to me in retrospect because I now have a constant desire to shovel huge amounts of my disposable income into the pockets of musicians I like. A Northern Chorus became one of my very favorite bands, their album Bitter Hands Resign is in my all time top five, and their farewell show in June 2008 that Cara and I attended together remains my favorite show that I've ever seen.

I didn't see D much after the fall semester ended and not at all after that school year (and have no idea where she is now). I got over the very intense crush I'd had on her. In March I met Cara in person and rapidly became close friends with her although it wasn't until November that we started dating. In a way, looking back, it almost seems like my very intense crush on D, someone else I became friends with and made a connection with over a similar interest in music, was a sort of preview of the feelings I developed toward Cara.

Going to Spot Night on Wednesday nights was something I'd do most weeks during the school year for years to come. I lived in an apartment that was a short walk away so it became my little weekly ritual to head over to the Spot, grab some of their very cheap wings for dinner, and settle in to enjoy some music. I continued to attend Spot Nights all the way through my last year of grad school, which I finally completed in 2014. By the end, there, going to shows with audiences mostly made up of undergrads definitely made me feel my age, but hey, that didn't stop me from enjoying the music! It really is amazing looking back on all the bands that I got to see for free. Here's a list, just going off of memory, of bands that I saw at the Spot during grad school, ranging from local bands to some touring artists who would later go on to achieve massive fame, and including some artists I was already fans of as well as many who I got into as a result of their playing at the Spot (feel free to skip past if you don't feel like reading a long list of band names):

Andrew Bird, A Northern Chorus, Dreamend, Infinite Number of Sounds, The Never, The Acorn, Jupiter One, Ra Ra Riot, Goodmorning Valentine, To Be A High Powered Executive, Afternoon Naps, The Dreadful Yawns, The Commonwealth, The Morning Benders, MGMT, Passion Pit, St. Lucia, Lucius, Magic Man, The Colourist, Ben Kweller, The Watson Twins, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Tokyo Police Club, Head of Femur, Picastro, Cloud Nothings (a memorable show because a fire alarm went off in the middle of it), Tristen, Plushgun, Woods, Real Estate, Dr. Dog, Like Bells, Ha Ha Tonka... and I'm sure there are a lot I'm leaving out.

(MGMT and Passion Pit deserve special mention because, although not among my very most favorite Spot Nights, they are two bands who would go on to achieve huge levels of success, but when they played the Spot they were both very little known and didn't even have unusually large crowds for a Spot Night - the students on UPB who booked those shows were way ahead of the curve! Years later in 2013 Passion Pit returned to Case for the annual fall concert and played to a huge crowd at the Veale Convocation Center.)

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Spot Night was one of my very most favorite parts of being a Case student. In the years since I finished school I've learned that the weekly Spot Night shows have ceased to be a thing, which makes me sad. But I'm very grateful to have had those shows as part of my life for so many years and kudos to the students on UPB who did such a great job picking out and booking artists and helping create so many great memories!

I always cry at endings

It's a common saying that "there's a first time for everything."

If there's a first time for everything, there's also a last time for everything. And sometimes they happen together.

On Saturday I attended the final show of my friend Amy's indie pop band Heavenly Creatures, at the Grog Shop. Farewell shows are always special. I've been to some really memorable ones over the years, most especially A Northern Chorus and Ohbijou. And Saturday's show was another emotional and memorable occasion.

As this was the last Heavenly Creatures show, my thoughts of course turned to the first Heavenly Creatures show, which I also attended. That show took place in October 2014 at the Euclid Tavern. And that show, as it turned out, was an important "last time" for me.

I had no idea at the time, but it was the last concert that Cara would ever attend with me.

Because going to concerts together was such an important part of our relationship, the last time it ever happened is naturally something that holds special significance to me, even if it was just a little local show. Liz Kelly of The Village Bicycle opened the night with a really nice solo set, and the duo of sisters ShiSho - who I remember Cara particularly enjoying - followed. Heavenly Creatures played last and Cara was getting tired - fatigue brought on by her illness and treatments was a major reason she rarely went to concerts anymore - so she ended up leaving early with our friend Troy driving her home - but she did catch part of Amy's band's debut and we had a good time together.

It's good to be able to cherish the memories of those last times.

Almost a month ago now, I visited Cara's mother Joyce for the last time. I brought with me a box I have full of Cara's artwork, mostly drawings that she made in the last few years of her life, and we looked through it together. We hugged tightly before I left. This too was a last time that I did not expect would be a last time, although perhaps in this case a small part of me wondered if it might.

I recall also my mom telling me about the last time that she saw her father, and how that's a memory she cherishes.

The first Heavenly Creatures show (was it really almost five years ago now?) was an especially big deal for Amy, Heavenly Creatures' frontwoman, lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, because it was the first time she had ever done anything like that. I remember how nervous she seemed on stage. It was really cool to see her grow increasingly comfortable and confident in that role as I caught her shows over the years.

She also created some darn good songs, most notably the very clever and equally catchy "Your Record Collection," a song that's very relatable for a music fan like me.

For the band's final show, Amy did what she called "VH1 Storytelling" in between the songs, talking about the music and about the life events related to that music, which helped make the night extra meaningful. Some of her storytelling touched on the troubled and troubling times in which we live.

Amy had to disband Heavenly Creatures because she has to move because she was laid off from her job at American Greetings. She explained that she wrote the song "The Cheerleaders' Table" in response to a round of layoffs at the company in 2018 - and then she herself fell victim to the same thing a year later. American Greetings, the world's second largest greeting card company behind Hallmark, was founded in the Cleveland area in 1906 and has been part of the local economy for over a century. Last year an investment firm took over majority control, leading to the layoffs. "It's not a Cleveland company anymore," Amy explained. A sad and all too common story of 21st century life.

"Comforting Pain" was another song inspired by current events, in its case the Republican National Convention held in Cleveland in July 2016. The song begins:

The city might kill me
The summer might just kill us all
The temperature is rising
We might not live to see the fall

The Cleveland-hosted RNC was, of course, the infamous event at which Donald Trump received the nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate. "We were afraid the city was going to burn," Amy said while discussing the song's inception, before sardonically adding, "Now the whole country is burning." More like the world? I thought to myself, stories about the Amazon forest fires flashing through my mind.

Amy also mentioned a concert held during the week of the RNC at which her band covered the R.E.M. song "World Leader Pretend," thinking it fitting (in addition to the title, the lyrics mention raising a wall).

I remember that concert well. It took place at the Happy Dog on the west side. I remember driving across town and seeing the big jet plane with the letters TRUMP emblazoned across its side sitting on the tarmac at the lakefront airport. I remember shuddering at the sight. I remember Amy introducing and playing "World Leader Pretend." I remember Liz Kelly of The Village Bicycle exclaiming, "Fuck you, Republicans! Keep your fucking hands off my fucking uterus!" during between-song banter. I remember a business-casual-dressed middle-aged white guy and a boy I assumed was his son entering the venue some time later to grab a late dinner, looking rather out of place, and me thinking they'd probably come from the RNC and wishing they'd arrived in time to hear that profane outburst. I remember the singer from UK band Jesus and His Judgemental Father talking about how this was their first time in the States and how there were unsettling political events happening on both sides of the Atlantic, but also about how much they'd enjoyed their time over here and (quite charmingly) how they'd enjoyed seeing both fireflies and chipmunks for the first time ever.

It occurred to me while I was thinking about this that there's something interesting about the way I remember concerts. As I look back over all the days of my life, even of my adult life, for a large majority of the days I have no concrete memories of that specific day. Most of the days on which nothing really exceptional happened just run together. I'm sure this is true for most people. If you picked out a random day from my past, chances are I'd have no concrete memories from that day. But concerts... for most concerts I've attended, I do have some concrete memory of the event. I can picture myself at that specific concert. Perhaps I can recall something about a particular song or something that someone in the band said. And so concerts are in some sense anchor points in my recollection of the history of my life. (I think an interesting sci-fi thriller novel I just read called Recursion by Blake Crouch probably helped spark these ponderings.)

I wonder if other people have noticed this sort of thing. Of course, important life events such as a first date, a wedding, the death of a loved one, etc. are more prominent anchor points that are sure to have very concrete memories attached, and there are all sorts of other occurrences that could result in clear memories, but for me, I think concerts are the most common anchor points. Especially in the years since I had to give up distance running, as races in particular as well as certain particularly memorable training runs were another common form of anchor point in my memories. What sorts of commonly occurring anchor points do other people have?

Returning to the events of this past Saturday night...

The Heavenly Creatures song "Who Knows (Goodbye)" concludes with my friend Leia, formerly of the delightfully twee band Afternoon Naps, chiming in to sing the word, "Goodbye." Leia and her husband Martin were original members of Heavenly Creatures and were part of the lineup at that very first show in 2014 but did not stay in the band very long. At the farewell show, during the performance of "Who Knows," Leia was sitting next to the stage. As the song neared its conclusion, she edged her way onto the stage and in front of a microphone to add her part to the song - which was very cute, I must say. That "Goodbye," of course, took on extra significance this time. Leia and Martin then joined the band for the rest of the set.

The last few songs were cover songs chosen specifically for the occasion. Amy said that she had had an idea for years to form an all-female Radiohead cover band called Ladiohead. A similar idea, she added, was an R.E.M. cover band called R.E.Femme. (As an enjoyer of really cheesy puns and wordplay, I greatly appreciated these.) Although the performers were not all female, Amy and her band delivered an impassioned cover of Radiohead hit "Creep."

The next song was introduced by Amy as having been the first song she ever performed on stage, and she said that at the time, she'd had no idea the meaning it would one day have. The song? "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying," a classic Belle and Sebastian tune. With lyrics "At the final moment, I cried/I always cry at endings," it's very fitting for a farewell show.

For me the song is strongly tied to another memory. Me seeing Belle and Sebastian at Red Rocks in June 2015, a show Cara had been supposed to go to with me, and witnessing a live performance of that song, and being struck by how the title lyrics "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying" were so similar to Cara's last words, which as I recall them were along the lines of: "I'm dying. I'm dying. Get me out of here."

And I know that sounds like it must be a really horrible thing to remember. I think what the last moments of a life are actually like is something a lot of people don't like to talk about. But it was something that really happened, something really significant in my life, a moment I shared with Cara - and with her mother - and I wouldn't want to forget it.

The last song of the last Heavenly Creatures show was another one very fitting for the moment, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M. As the audience belted out the familiar chorus, it was simultaneously poignant and exhilarating. It was a night to remember for sure.

So thank you, Amy and Heavenly Creatures, for the music and the memories. I think everyone who creates music and bravely puts a piece of themselves out there into the world is doing a little something to help us all make it through this strange and often distressing reality, and for that I'm very grateful.

Thirty-six

Thirty-six is an interesting number.

One thing that makes thirty-six interesting is that it's both a square number and a triangular number - a square triangular number. Square numbers include (of course) 1*1 = 1, 2*2 = 4, 3*3 = 9, etc. Triangular numbers include 1, 1 + 2 = 3, 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, etc. Thirty-six is equal to 6*6 and it's also equal to 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8. Square triangular number.

image source

I learned that bit of trivia as a child and for whatever reason it popped into my head shortly after midnight on my 36th birthday last week (although to be honest I had to use Google for help because I had forgotten the term "triangular number," even though the concept was in my head).

There are infinitely many square triangular numbers, so 36 isn't unique in that sense, but it occurred to me that because the previous number in the sequence is 1, and the next is 1225, 36 is the only square triangular number that can be the age in years of a person who is capable of comprehending and appreciating the fact that their age in years is a square triangular number. Interesting? Well, to me, anyway!

Of course, that's not the main reason 36 is an interesting number for me.

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to feeling a certain way when their age reaches that at which someone close to them died. A parent, perhaps, or perhaps a sibling or a close friend. And for me, it is undoubtedly surreal that my age in years is now the same as the age at which my wife died.

I'm currently reading a sci-fi short story anthology edited by Isaac Asimov called Where Do We Go From Here? Published in 1971, the book includes stories from the previous few decades, and each story is accompanied by a short discussion by Asimov of the scientific concepts in the story as well as some suggested thought exercises and study topics for intellectually curious readers. A very interesting book.

The first story, "A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum, was published in 1934 and is about the first manned mission to Mars, which the story envisions taking place in the 21st century (but amusingly only ten years after the first man reached the Moon, in the story's timeline). In the story, intelligent alien creatures are encountered on Mars, along with an alien artifact, a "little crystal" that gave off light that "destroyed diseased tissue and left healthy tissue unharmed."

The story closes as follows:

"I should like to see," he murmured.

"Yeah," said Harrison. "And the wart cure. Too bad you missed that; it might be the cancer cure they've been hunting for a century and a half."

"Oh, that!" muttered Jarvis gloomily. "That's what started the fight!" He drew a glistening object from his pocket.

"Here it is."

And so our protagonist has absconded with a potential cure for cancer.

I chuckled to myself at this ending.

I was stunned when I read Asimov's words on the next page:

It was the first published science fiction story of Stanley G. Weinbaum who, at one bound, became the most popular author in the field. It was not just the realism of his alien other-world creatures, but it was also his light and easy style, a far cry from the creakiness of the writing of most of the s.f. authors of the early thirties. For two years, he retained his popularity and then, as suddenly as he came, he vanished, for in 1936, at the age of thirty-six, he died of cancer.

This was a few days before my birthday. I was already thinking of the deeply personal significance of my turning thirty-six. The age at which my wife died, of cancer. So to read those words, after reading that story? Very surreal indeed.

This might seem like a mopey post. It's not meant to be. All in all, I feel pretty good about where my life is right now. And I don't mind being thirty-six. I just find it interesting to think about and make note of things like this. They help give life flavor.

Incidentally, in Asimov's discussion of another story in the book, he discusses some odd coincidences, including a story featuring an ichthyologist named Vernon Brock that was read by a real ichthyologist named Vernon Brock who "promptly wrote to" the story's author. Asimov concludes:

Such coincidences abound everywhere. What do you think of them? Suppose I said, "No matter how weird such coincidences may seem, it would be far more weird to have no such coincidences." Would you agree? There is a branch of mathematics called probability that deals with such things among others, if you are interested.

Andrew Bird's Finest Work Yet

The release of a new album by Andrew Bird is something I have no doubt will always bring me mixed emotions.

Andrew Bird was Cara's favorite musician. Although I was listening to his music before she was, he became, of all the musicians we both loved, the one who was hers. Pretty much all the others we either liked about equally well, or I was more into than Cara was. Andrew Bird, to me, was an artist I really appreciated, especially his live performances, but he wasn't in my very top tier of favorites. Cara, on the other hand, developed something of an obsession. (I just loved the passion she had for his music, and how excited she would get about it! On a related note, I always enjoy revisiting her review of his April 2009 Cleveland show.)

So whenever Andrew Bird releases new music, I feel a deep sense of sadness that Cara is not here to experience that music. I want to listen to it with her, and talk about it with her, and most of all, to take in another of his unforgettable live performances with her. And it's not even just about wanting to do those things with her. I also just want Cara herself to be able to listen to Bird's new music because I know how much joy it would bring her. (But maybe, somewhere, she can hear it?) I think, honestly, that there are very few things in life that make me miss Cara more than listening to a new Andrew Bird album or attending one of his shows.

At the same time I feel that sadness, I also feel happy that I'm here to experience his music and that it is and always will be something that helps tie me to Cara.

Last month Bird released the cheekily titled My Finest Work Yet.

(A couple of months before the album release, a YouTube video with the audio of opening track "Sisyphus" was put online, and the first part of the video featured a series of laudatory quotes flashing onto the screen:

"MESMERIZING" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"SEARING" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"DESERVING OF ITS OWN STREAMING PLATFORM" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"ICONIC" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"BIRD AT HIS BEST" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"YES" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"JUST WOW" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"A SWASH-BUCKLING ROMP" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

"I THINK 'MY FINEST WORK YET' IS MY FINEST WORK YET" - Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter

I enjoyed this far too much. Also, the video proper for "Sisyphus" includes Bird on a bicycle. Cara would have loved it!)

After giving the album a good number of listens, remarkably, I think there may be merit to the claim that it (Bird's twelfth solo studio album) is his finest work yet.

When you listen to a new Andrew Bird album, to some extent you have a good idea of what you're getting into. The exceptionally talented singer-songwriter has developed a sound that is very much his own, a brand of indie folk/rock that is highlighted by his violin playing, his remarkable talent for whistling, and his distinctive vocals and lyrics. Each album tends to have its own sound, but the sounds of most of the albums occupy the same general musical space. My Finest Work Yet is no different, but there's something about this one that feels like Bird has just taken all the elements that made his previous music so good and melded them together in a really sublime way. Also, I felt that some of Bird's previous albums could have used a little editing; they perhaps ran a little long (2012's Break It Yourself in particular). His most recent full-length before MFWY, 2016's Are You Serious, on the other hand, I felt suffered from too many of the songs being relatively short in length; the music didn't have enough space to breathe. His latest threads the needle perfectly with ten songs that all feel essential to the album, and each song is given the space it needs - the contemplative, six-and-a-half minute "Bloodless" is an especial highlight.

There is one way that MFWY actually is a significant departure in sound from all of Bird's previous albums, and that's in the prominent role of a piano in most of the songs on the album. But here's the thing - until I read the interview with Bird that is included in the liner notes, it didn't even occur to me that it was unusual for his music to have much piano. That's how naturally it's integrated into his style. The piano helps give a jazzy feel to a number of the tracks and it really suits Bird so well.

Putting an interview with the artist in the liner notes of an album is unusual, but I think it was a really good idea. The interview gave me a lot of interesting insight into Bird's mindset and process of making the album. I learned, for example, that the album was recorded live: "live vocals, no headphones, no separation. We were trying to get all the instruments to bleed into each other's mics in a pleasing way as opposed to a messy way." Like the interviewer (author Dave Eggers, who went to high school with Bird), I would never have guessed it was all recorded live, but now that I know that, I can picture it while listening to the album and I can see how it could have helped give the album the very pleasing sound it has.

I also liked Bird's discussion of writing a song and picturing playing that song live, including potentially playing it live many years in the future: "There's one song I've been doing for 16 or 17 years now, almost every show. It's called "Why," and it's a conversation between two people - an argument, if you will - and in it, I'm mostly playing the role of the other person in the relationship that I find myself in, a person that's frustrated with my passiveness. So, in the whole song, I'm getting mad at myself, and I'm playing myself as well. It's mostly the voice of the pissed off person that's like, "Why don't you show more passion? Why don't you get mad?" And I get really mad, every night, and it never fails. I don't think I've ever written a song where I get so much satisfaction over berating myself, or my former self."

Cara loved "Why." It was one of her favorite songs. I remember the first time we saw him together, twelve years ago, and how mesmerized she was at that song, a song that I'm pretty sure she at the time had never previously heard. I'm also amused by Bird's description because I remember that Cara would sometimes get frustrated with my passiveness.

My Finest Work Yet is a very political album, a description that applies to no previous Andrew Bird album. Bird's lyrics still have his usual whimsical style, but unmistakable references to current events populate the album. "Bloodless" laments that "The best have lost their convictions/While the worst keep sharpening their claws/Peddling in their dark fictions/While what's left of us we just hem and we haw." "Fallorun" much more directly references Donald Trump (although not by name): "You think it's just an aberration/That it could not happen here/Such an abomination/Could be the man of the year."

The message of "Archipelago," I think, is especially worth pondering: "We're locked in a death grip and it's taking its toll/When our enemies are what make us whole." More and more in today's society it seems like people are becoming defined by who and what they hate. Trumpism and to a certain extent the modern conservative movement as a whole are a grievance movement - its main reason for existence seems to be exacting punishment and revenge on those (people of color, feminists, LGBT people, immigrants, Muslims, etc.) who members of the movement see as enemies. Their enemies are what make them whole. And while I can't stand both-sides-ism and would never suggest that people who vigorously and vehemently oppose Trump are equivalent to people who support Trump, I think many liberals are also allowing themselves to become defined by their enemies in an unhealthy way. Someone who watches MSNBC all day won't be divorced from reality in the way that someone who watches Fox News all day will, but both people will be spending a huge amount of time having their minds filled with things to be angry about, and I don't think that's healthy.

These topics are touched on in the interview as well. "I'm interested in the idea that our enemies are what make us whole," Bird remarks. "That's what I'm trying to look at. And how we've gotten to this point and how we could, through awareness of it, maybe pull ourselves out of it." That's something we should all consider, I'd say.

I think about sharing this album with Cara and I think about the fact that to explain the album to her I'd have to explain to her the fact that Donald Trump is the president and a burgeoning neo-fascist movement is threatening our democracy and it's all still so surreal. Cara passed away almost two months before Trump announced his candidacy, so the idea of Trump as president was something she never had to hold as one of her concerns or worries. Sometimes a part of me thinks sardonically that she was lucky to escape this bizarre and distressing reality we now inhabit.

It is a very sad thing that we live in a time that causes someone like Andrew Bird to feel compelled to directly address politics in his music. But it's also a very good thing that we have that music to help us reckon with and get through this time.

I really like the the last exchange in the Eggers/Bird conversation so I'll close by sharing it:

DE: Do you find that your audiences are hungrier for some sort of communal feeling during times like this? I can't imagine anything more cathartic or healing than to play music to hundreds of people - that energy in a room, I would think, is rebalancing.

AB: Playing live and meeting folks after the shows does more to set my mind right and reinforce my faith in humanity than anything else I could possibly do. Get off your news feed and gather in a dark room with strangers for something that doesn't involve acrimony. It's that simple.

Love of seasons

On Thursday at work, as I went to get my lunch out of the fridge, I realized with excitement that the weather was nice enough that I'd be able to enjoy sitting outside to eat lunch for the first time this year. After work, I went for a nice little walk in Roxboro Ravine and took advantage of the warm weather and lengthening daylight hours to sit and read for a while at my favorite spot by the waterfall.

As I get older, I realize I'm appreciating more and more these little things that I can reliably look forward to with the passing of the seasons each year.

I love how each spring brings with it the blossoming of trees and flowers and other plants. How everything starts to get green again after a gray winter. How the days get longer and longer (the first time that I come home from work and it's still light out is something I always take note of and enjoy). And of course, the welcome return of warm weather. Since I've gotten into mountain biking, the first warm day that I'm able to get out on my mountain bike and feel the warm breeze on my face and work up a good sweat is a special source of excitement.

I love spring, but honestly? Spring is probably my least favorite season - here in Cleveland it just has more chilly, windy, and rainy weather (see: yesterday and today) than I'd prefer. It's also the season during which mountain bike trails are most likely to have unrideable conditions.

The truth is I love all the seasons and I'm glad to live in a place where I can experience all four.

Perhaps the best thing about spring is the way it turns into summer. Sometimes it takes frustratingly long to get to reliably warm weather, but it always gets there. I love summer because I love getting out in the warm weather and hiking or riding my bike or swimming or just sitting outside on my balcony or by the waterfall and reading a good book. I love summer because I love being able to come home from work and go out for a 90 minute bike ride and still have it be light out when I get home. I love summer because I love cookouts and camping and going to the beach and my family vacation in the Adirondacks and eating ice cream on a warm day.

And I love going to the ravine and escaping from the city into a world where everything is so green.

Fall was for many years my most favorite season of all, although now it's hard to say if I have one favorite. Fall was my favorite mainly because fall is cross country season and for many years running cross country was the most important thing in my life. Since I'm now unable to do any distance running, there's a certain bittersweet element to the fall. Occasionally while driving home I see the cross country team practicing and it hits me just how much I still miss it. But I still love fall. I love the beautiful colors of the trees and the crunch of the leaves beneath my feet on a walk through the woods.

Fall is also a great season for bike rides. And I love sitting by a campfire at night, wearing a hoodie and jeans, enjoying the refreshing crispness of the fall air and the warmth of the flames.

And winter? It's a less popular opinion, but I love winter. I love winter for basically just one reason but it's a really big reason: I adore snow. I always have.

(The summer after eighth grade I went on a three week trip to the British Isles with a student ambassador group. In the report I wrote about the trip, I drew many contrasts between the countries I visited and my home. One was this: "I prefer the climate here in Ohio. It is hot in the summer, which is good for going swimming. It is cold and usually fairly snowy in winter, which is good because I like snow. And it doesn't rain too much. In the British Isles, it doesn't get too hot or cold, and also I wouldn't like all that rain." Growing up in Columbus, though, I was often frustrated by how it didn't snow as much as I wanted in the winter, so it's fitting that I ended up living somewhere with a much snowier climate.)

I think most kids love snow. Unlike a lot of people, I just never "grew out of it." Actually, I was thinking about why snow, for most people as they age, goes from a source of excitement to a source of annoyance. I think it's largely (not entirely, but largely) because for most adults, snow more than anything else is a source of major delays to their commutes. So they forget the exhilaration that snow brought when they were kids. I'd say this is another way that America's car culture saps the joy from people's lives. (What does that mean? you might ask. People have to commute to work and snow will slow those commutes no matter what. What does that have to do with "car culture"? And I would then point out that if we didn't have so much sprawl - which was enabled by our obsession with freeway building - and if we had better public transit, then the aggregate delays caused by snow to people's commutes would be vastly smaller.)

Just as the first warm day of spring when I can go for a nice bike ride is incredibly exciting to me, the first major snowfall of the winter is also incredibly exciting. And the funny thing? Even as the cold of winter drags on into March and I find myself yearning for warmer weather, all it takes is a nice heavy snowfall and that giddy, childlike feeling of excitement comes back. I love sledding. I love going for walks in the snow. I love the peace and tranquility that envelop the city on a snowy winter night. This past winter I started going for mountain bike rides in the snow and I love that too.

Due to various events in my life, over the past, honestly, more than ten years, it's been rare that I've been able to fully appreciate a good winter. This past winter was a good one and I really savored it. There is just something so beautiful about a landscape covered in a fresh blanket of snow. There were several times in the last few months when I went for a walk in the ravine and found myself just full of awe at how much beauty there is in the world and full of gratitude for being alive to experience and appreciate all that beauty. Just being alive really is such a gift.

So yes, I love all the seasons. If I had to live in a place with only one type of weather, I'd probably pick in the 70s and sunny. And if I lived in a place like that, I'd enjoy the weather, but I'd never get excited about it. Whereas in a place with four distinct seasons, I find great excitement in all four. Life is all about change. I guess there's just something reassuring and comforting about those predictable, cyclical changes that the seasons bring. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for a lot of things.

In praise of the iPod

There have been a number of really remarkable technological advances in my lifetime. Perhaps the most obvious example, both in how futuristic it would have seemed to childhood me and in how ubiquitous it's become, is the smartphone. Being able to quickly access most of the collected knowledge of humanity on a device you can carry in your pocket and with which you can also do all sorts of other things from taking high definition pictures and video to talking face to face with someone on the other side of the world truly is amazing, especially if you think about the level of technology just two or three decades ago. But although smartphones are very useful and convenient, does having a smartphone really make me any happier in my day-to-day life than I would be if I didn't have one? I suspect the answer to that question is no. In fact, the opposite might be true, because there are a lot of things about carrying and using a smartphone that are probably not good for mental health.

There is another amazing piece of technology I carry with me that I think does do a lot for my day-to-day happiness. It's something that is already, to most people, a relic of the past. It's an MP3 player.

(Obviously, a lot of people now mainly listen to music by streaming it on their phones and therefore have no use for an MP3 player. I don't do this. I like having a collection of music that I own. I think streaming has its uses, especially for sampling music before you buy it, but I abhor the way that streaming has replaced buying for most of the music consuming public. The compensation musicians receive from streaming services is minuscule. I strongly encourage anyone who finds value in listening to music to help make it possible for musicians to continue creating that music by buying music.)

I enjoy collecting physical items and being able to look at artwork and liner notes, so I continue to buy albums on both CD and vinyl, but the vast majority of my music listening is done using an iPod. And the ability to carry around my entire music collection with me and pull up and listen to any of the hundreds of albums I own depending on how I'm feeling at that moment is such a wonderful thing for someone who loves music as much as I do. Music is such an important part of my life. It's so beneficial to my mood to be able to listen to my music throughout the day. I've realized recently that in some ways, a lot of the things I do in my day-to-day life are sort of things I do to pass the time while I listen to music. Listening to music is the thing that's really important to me, in the sense of my mental and emotional well-being. Cooking dinner? Something to do to pass the time while I listen to music. Household chores? Something to do to pass the time while I listen to music. (Karyn has marveled at the fact that I don't mind doing dishes. I really don't, because it's a good opportunity to listen to music.) My job? Something to do to pass the time while I listen to music. Okay, there is much more that I enjoy and find fulfilling in my job as a research scientist, but I truly do think that one of the most important qualities of any job I could have would be having the ability to listen to music of my choosing for at least a decent chunk of each day. I had a job delivering a weekly local newspaper when I was in high school and I liked the job mainly because I could listen to music (on a portable CD player back then) while doing it.

My most favorite possession, at least when considering items that I use rather than items of mainly sentimental value, is undoubtedly my mountain bike, but I think second place would probably go to the 160 GB iPod Classic that I got for Christmas something like ten years ago now.

I've spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours listening to music on this wonderful little piece of technology over the years. Two years ago, though, something unfortunate happened. Something in the headphone jack broke so that sound only came out of one of the two channels when headphones were plugged in. I have a 16 GB iPod Nano as well, so I switched to using that until I could get my main iPod fixed. And to do that I waited. And waited. And waited. I'm sure a lot of people recognize the phenomenon that when you have a lot going on in your life, or when you're going through difficult times, or both, you put off doing things that would be very easy to do but that you don't have a pressing need to accomplish. And that's what happened with me getting my iPod fixed, until finally, a few weeks ago, almost two years after the malfunction occurred, I got around to taking it to a repair place.

If I had known how happy getting it fixed would make me, I wouldn't have waited so long!

With my smaller iPod, I could only load a fraction of my music collection. This would generally be all of my recently added music and a sparse selection of the older entries in my library, which I would rotate from time to time. But this meant at any given moment during the day I would be shut off from listening to most of my music. Recently I was finding more and more that the selection of music I had with me at work was getting stale, and that helped push me to finally put forth the minimal effort needed to get the repair done. And wow, once more being able to browse through and select from my whole 10,000+ song library is so great!

(Again, I realize that people using Spotify on their phones can browse through and select from a vastly larger library. To me, there is just something meaningful about having this collection that I put together over the years and that I chose and paid for and own.)

There are some really good albums in there that, due to the circumstances of my broken iPod, I hadn't listened to in years, and pulling up one of those again and letting those familiar sounds once more fill my ears can be an unexpectedly emotional experience. This week I've been listening to a lot of Woodpigeon, one of my favorite bands and a band I was completely obsessed with for much of 2008, 2009, and 2010, but hadn't listened to a whole lot in recent years. I'd forgotten just how much I love their music! And it's cool how hearing a song or an album that you listened to a lot in a certain time period and then took a break from can transport you back to that time in your life.

So that's the story of why I love my iPod. Hopefully it will keep working for many more years to come!

In conclusion:

The wisdom of age and the wisdom of youth

We are often told that we should listen to the wisdom of our elders. Generally speaking, it's not bad advice. What is heard less often is that elders should listen to the wisdom of the young. That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently.

I have a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides of my family. On my dad's side, people are scattered all over the country and there is a family email list mainly used by my aunts and uncles to keep in touch. Some of my cousins and I are also on the list and generally participate less often but occasionally contribute. And there's an interesting dynamic some of my cousins and I have noticed which is that even though we are now all over 30 years old, to some of our aunts and uncles it seems we will always be "the kids." This has been most evident when political issues come up on the email list. It's been a recurring theme over the years, but was most striking last fall, during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, which is what in large part led me to write this post.

Discussion of the Kavanaugh hearings led to a huge eruption of drama and in fact ever since then political topics have hardly been touched at all on the email list. Which is a little disappointing to me because the email list was one of the only forums I had in which I could discuss political issues with people I know personally but who also fall all along the spectrum of different political views. (It's interesting to me that I never made any effort to choose friends based on their political views but it just kind of happened that basically all of my good friends hold generally progressive views.) But then, I have also started to question the point of those discussions, which is partly because of how people in general have just become very polarized and set in their ways, but also because of the aforementioned dynamic of the cousins being viewed as "the kids."

During the Kavanaugh hearings, it was abundantly clear that some of my cousins and I were vastly more knowledgeable and better informed on the relevant issues around sexual assault than were any of the aunts and uncles. Several of us wrote lengthy, thoughtful, and impassioned emails only to have most of our points ignored or dismissed by some of the elders of the family. This sort of thing has happened many times over the years but it was especially infuriating in this case because we all know people who have been personally affected by the horrors of sexual assault. Some of us even directly said so, but this didn't seem to help. One elder family member in particular has a tendency to occasionally reply in very condescending and dismissive ways to messages with which he disagrees, mainly but not exclusively toward those of the younger generation, and the irony is that the same elder family member (based on past experience) would basically throw a temper tantrum upon receiving replies containing a fraction of that level of condescension or dismissiveness.

There were a lot of hurt feelings all around from these emails. But what I think most struck me was that it really seemed like some of my aunts and uncles (definitely not all, but some) had hurt feelings due to the mere fact of their nieces and nephews trying to passionately engage and disagree with them on an adult-to-adult level. Like they thought that we didn't know our places and were being disrespectful. And when I look at society at large I think that's a common problem.

As we age, we continue to accumulate more and more knowledge about the world. Everyone knows this. Based on this fact by itself, one might assume that older people, in general, possess more wisdom than younger people, and younger people have more to learn from older people than vice versa. I think some people do think this way. I also think it's a very simplistic view.

As we age, we do continue to accumulate more and more knowledge about the world. But there are other effects of aging. Our minds also become less adaptive. We become more set in our ways. It becomes more difficult to incorporate new information into our internal models of how the world works. There are also, of course, issues like dementia that can emerge with age, but even in someone who possesses a healthy aging brain, it is very clearly the case that there are ways in which that brain does not work as well as it did when it was younger. Recent studies have shown, for example, that the 65 and over demographic is the worst at distinguishing opinion statements from fact statements, and that the 65 and over demographic is the most likely to share fake news on social media.

Of course, there are very smart old people and not so smart old people just as there are very smart young people and not so smart young people. My general point is that age does not necessarily correlate with wisdom. There are two forces working in opposition to each other - roughly speaking, they could be described as the increasing accumulation of knowledge with age, and the decreasing ability to successfully utilize that knowledge. Perhaps peak wisdom occurs at an age that strikes the best balance between the two opposing forces - perhaps about age 35?

Nah, I'm kidding. I couldn't say what that age is. It's undoubtedly very different for different people. It's also undoubtedly different within an individual person when looking at different categories of knowledge and wisdom. So there are certain topics a young person might have more to learn from an old person about, and other topics for which the reverse would be true.

It's struck me that in the last few years the way I view my parents has changed a lot. When you are a little kid, your parents are the ultimate authority figures. You think they know everything. As you grow through childhood and young adulthood, you realize that they of course don't know everything. You start to form your own world view that can diverge from that of your parents, at times dramatically. But you still tend to look at them as authority figures to whom you look up. At some point, though, the parent-child relationship switches to a relationship between an adult and another adult, and while the parent never stops being a source of knowledge and wisdom to impart to the child, eventually the now fully grown child becomes just as much of a source of knowledge and wisdom to impart to the parent, just in different ways. At least that's the way it should be. I think some parents have a hard time with that transition. Perhaps this is even more true for aunt/uncle to niece/nephew relationships in which the aunts and uncles might have somewhat crystallized views in their minds of their nieces and nephews as children.

I think this also applies to the society-level relationship between an older generation as a whole and a younger generation as a whole.

Recent events in society have dramatically illustrated some of the concepts I've touched on here. After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year, student activists have fundamentally shifted the national debate on gun control. Sure, those students don't have the same level of accumulated knowledge about the world as the generally much older people who hold positions of power and authority in society, but those students are much more able to think about things in new ways. Older political figures, set in their ways after having spent many more years on this Earth, assumed standing up to the gun lobby's stranglehold on our legislatures just couldn't be done. The young students realized that taking the fight directly to an organization that opposes something like universal background checks that a supermajority of the citizenry favors can be very effective, and while we still have so far to go, those students have accomplished so much in the last year that older people never could have done. Wisdom doesn't only come from age.

Similar things can be said about the young climate activists who have been taking to the streets in cities across the world.

And many in the older generation automatically dismiss those young voices. It's sad but it's not surprising. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken the country by storm since being elected the youngest congresswoman in history. And along with her dramatic rise, there are of course loud voices dismissing her as crazy or not smart. There are comparisons to infamously dimwitted political figures like Donald Trump or Sarah Palin. These comparisons are utter garbage. AOC won a prize in an international science fair as a high school student and went on to graduate cum laude from Boston University with majors in both economics and international relations.

Not only is she not unintelligent, she is almost certainly one of the most intelligent members of Congress. (Let's face it, there are a lot of congresspeople who don't have particularly notable intellects.) Of course, racism and sexism and political tribalism are all major contributing factors to the attacks on her, but I really do think a significant component for the attacks on her intelligence is the assumption by many old people that someone that young just couldn't understand how the world works as well as they do.

Young people do have a lot to learn from old people, but old people have just as much to learn from young people. When it comes to certain topics, the older generation has more to learn from the younger generation than the other way around. There are many older people who already get this, but there are many who don't, and a lot of the problems in society could be better addressed if we would all listen a little more to the wisdom of youth. I'm making a vow that I won't forget this myself when I reach my later years.