My 2010 music picks.

It's a tradition, you know.

"John Wayne," Sons of Sylvia

The first track on their album drew me in more than any of the others I previewed, and I love it for the epic heights they strive for, from the lead singer's unexpected vocal leaps into the stratosphere, to the audacity to tell a woman he's going to come save her just like John Wayne would. Before all the American Gothic ticks were smoothed out of their creativity, this song slipped through, a little dusty, a little dangerous, and all heart.

"It Is What It Is," Lifehouse

Though the height of their fame came ten years ago, Lifehouse is still one of the best groups around. Their latest album felt a little more uneven than the others, but this song, with its slightly R&B flourishes and seriously effortless melody, is mellow and earnest at the same time, and really never gets old.

"You Lost Me," Christina Aguilera

I raved about this after she performed it at the AI finale, and the recorded version proves that sometimes nothing can match the raw emotion of a live song. Still, it's out of place on a mostly throwaway album for its simplicity and haunting arrangement, and I have to give props once again to Sia for writing this song out of the depths of her totally eccentric and fascinating soul.

"Paris (Oo La La)," Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

This band does vintage rock 'n roll and blues and does them well. I saw this performed on the Tonight Show and was blown away. It's gritty, it's got swagger, and it even feels a little dirty though it's not (I think). Grace's voice is captivating. I love it when a group creates a guitar and rhythm lick that's completely infectious and makes me want to dance to it, which I should not be doing.

"God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise," Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs

The title song from his fourth studio album is the best one, and again, I've raved about it here. Ray is just a genius. That's it. It's like he has access to this place juuuuust beyond our own dimension, and he just reaches in and pulls out melody after gorgeous melody, and sets them to perfect lyrics. You need to own all of his albums, but if you're wary, start with this song.

"Islands," Shakira/The xx

Everything Shakira does is fabulous, but that's beside the point; this song off her latest Spanish-language album (but sung in English) is particularly fabulous, and I was surprised to find out it was a cover of an original by The xx. It's just that the lyrics sound exactly like what she normally writes herself. Anyway, her version is breezy, summery, yellow, danceable; the British group's version is low-key, a little brooding, and obviously very hip. I think they wrote a great song, and you should check them out.

"Straight to You," Josh Groban

Unfortunately in our current society, an un-ironic man singing un-ironic lyrics is a strange thing, to be held at bay and regarded suspiciously. This is why Josh will always just kind of be on the outside, doing what he does. (Well, that and he got famous singing classical crossover in other languages) His latest album is a much better reflection of him. This song is beautiful. That's all, it's just beautiful, and as it's a cover of a song from 1991, it was reworked to be this kind of ethereal moment in time. (The original? Not so much) And the words just slay me. "And the sky will throw thunderbolts and sparks/Straight at you/But I'll come running/Straight to you..."

"Roll Away Your Stone," Mumford and Sons

So I just got their album two days ago. Typically when some band is poised to be the next big thing, I shy away; can't explain it, I just do. But I also want to support real music, and they obviously have it in spades. They're a London-based folk group, guys in their twenties, who create very earnest and tightly-drawn songs; some are boot-stompers, some are more delicate. My favorite so far is "Roll Away Your Stone," but I kind of get the feeling this is an album where my favorite will keep changing, until I love 'em like a Ray LaMontagne.


Any good music to share? ;-)

A very special Domesticated Friday.

It's special because 1) it's basically my Thanksgiving post, and 2) it involves actual cooking. O_O

So today, let's talk dressing.

Although Stove Top dressing really is good, it obviously pales compared to dressing made from scratch. And, I think it's important for younger generations - not just old folks - to know how to make staples such as this, because tradition is crucial and knowing how to do something yourself is becoming an increasingly lost art. I'm not a cook by any means, but I understand the importance of the skill. (The real skill. Not just microwaving Hot Pockets. Which I just did)

Please note: the recipe is for Thanksgiving, and presumes that you will be feeding at least 10 hungry people; there will be enough left over to freeze and use for Christmas, too! You're welcome. =)

P.S. You also may want to have an assistant.

So, here's what you'll need:

6 eggs
1 1/3 cup milk
4 tbsp butter
1 bottle of sage
3 loaves white bread
4 boxes Jiffy cornbread
1 full stalk of celery
2 onions
1 jar chicken bouillion cubes
2 packages Italian sausage (five links/pckg)
Salt, pepper
1 mixing bowl
1 large bowl
1 ginormous roast pan

Video game school? GREAT IDEA.

I stumbled across this fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine about a school in New York City (of course, where else?) named Quest to Learn that uses video games as a central educational resource. There are so many different facets of life and education that the article directly and indirectly touches on, that this blog post will probably become over-long, but hey, where else am I going to post this?

What I want the reader to understand is that I'm not anti-video game. Dear God, the hours and hours I spent in the days before worries playing on systems from the Atari 2600 to the XBox 360. I also am not saying that a video game design course couldn't be integrated into existing curriculums and used interdisciplinarily to great effect. It's just that some of the ideas and philosophies driving the Quest to Learn school indicate what amounts to a scrubbing of all pre-21st century pedagogy in favor of funneling learning through video games.

Video games, essentially, teach us how to be more robotically functioning - greater response time! improved dexterity! increased peripheral vision! There has always been a decision-making function. In the great, old Atari game Pitfall it was, should I cross the lake by hopping on the croc heads or by swinging on that there vine? Decisions happen every day, nearly every instant, as physicists in favor of the infinite universes theory can tell you. So while video games can give us improved military skills and heap more decision-making on us, what they fail fundamentally to be able to teach us is the why in life.

Let's get to the thick of things. The article states, "In a speech given the day before the start of the 2009 G-20 economic summit, Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, offered his own tacit approval, suggesting that playing video games, especially online multiplayer games, fosters collaboration, and that collaboration, in turn, fosters innovation — making it good training for a career in technology. 'Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game,” Schmidt said. 'If I were 15 years old, that’s what I’d be doing right now.'"

But that's just it, Eric - I'm not 15. Nor are about five billion other people on the planet. Just because video games are fun, and because there are grown-ups who find dealing with them easier than dealing with being a grown-up, does not mean that a diversion meant primarily for people who don't have responsibilities 18 hours out of the day is suddenly supposed to be all we ever do and see.

Hamlet was deep.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? -

- who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought...

The current crisis in American job searches.

So you all know how I feel about the job search process.

One of the featured articles on Yahoo today talks about companies strangely not being able to hire middle-level workers (since those were the jobs that were hysterically slashed when the economy took a fall). There are plenty of reasons offered in the article, and I'll let you read it if you want, but the best part about it happened to be the comments section. I'm not a huge fan of these comment sections returning, because so many people are legitimately amoral, racist, sexist, or just stupid, and I hated wasting my time reading past their garbage before and I hate it now. Fortunately, many of the comments for this article actually pertain intelligently to the subject.

People everywhere are angry at the current hiring practices companies have adopted. One commenter really preached it: "I don't want to hear another word from employers griping about not being able to fill positions when they do NOT give the common courtesy of letting candidates know that they have even received application information. They don't return phone calls, they don't want to be contacted, they don't want to pay a fair wage, they don't want to offer benefits, and they certainly don't want to come clean about any going concern issues."

How in the world has it become acceptable to completely ignore the online applications that are submitted, especially when it's most times the only method we have of applying? At my last job we got so many online apps and if we weren't hiring, there was no way to contact them and let them know. We just had to ignore it, delete it from the e-mail system. But the places that are hiring, that have put out ads on Monster and CareerBuilder and so on, can't they at least extend the courtesy of sending a form e-mail that says "thanks for applying"??

And they don't want to be contacted! I have submitted almost 18 online applications and only ONE gave me, in the process, a name and number for a contact. Everyone else - screw you, we don't want to hear from you, we don't give a shit about you.

Another complaint from a commenter was that positions are being eliminated and then combined at a lower salary. His former company laid off a slew of people, then started combining their disparate positions into one and put out ads looking for not only one person to do the job of three or more people, but to do it for much less pay. His theory is that it was done to keep padding the pockets of the top dogs - and it's hard to argue with that. But also...why are Americans being asked to keep taking lower-paying jobs? It should be obvious that employers don't want to pay us what we're worth anymore - that degreed people end up making $25,000 a year or less which is a CRIME - and then they sit around and contribute to articles complaining about how jobs aren't being filled.

I checked in with my temp agency today and the two or three positions they had available only paid nine or ten dollars an hour. I felt bad telling the lady that I just can't go that low, but after reading all the comments from the people at the article, I don't so much now. I have no savings, therefore I have to re-enter the work force in a place that allows me to become financially independent once again. And I won't apologize for that.

I wish I had a proper conclusion for this post, but there are no words to sum up how I feel at this point.

Cottage.

Yesterday I told one of the twelve-year-olds that I wanted her to draw me a cottage. I gave her the specs.

Today I found this on the desk in my office:



Wouldn't it be nice if life could be like that just a little bit? "Here's what I want..." and the next day it's a reality, without blood, without sweat, without tears. Without rejection or missed chances or misunderstandings. Without waiting.

I was half-joking when I told her I wanted her to draw it, the little, cozy cottage in the woods, like in the land of hobbits. But because she is an Artiste - and, it's starting to look like, a really good kid - she drew it anyway.

That was the first thing I noticed about her almost exactly a year ago, when I first came to the center. Her potential for art, at such a young age, is possibly limitless. She does it all. Sketches, paintings; she did an entire spring mural on one of the walls in the classroom using construction paper and magazine clippings. She fitted dolls with new clothes using the fabric scraps on the art easel. She made a papier-mache pinata out of the blue one day. She cut out the most elegant snowflakes to hang from the ceiling last winter, and decorated them with glitter. She drew scarily accurate caricatures of the other students on the computer using an old drawing program. She made an entire safari of animals using play-dough.

And what I love about it is that no one has to prompt her to do this stuff, ever. You just look up and she's either halfway through or already done.

Isn't is kind of amazing to think that every single person has their "something"?

Just imagine if we all got to do our "something" every day for a living. All of us.

You Lost Me.

So I raved about Christina Aguilera's performance on the Idol finale last week of a song off her upcoming album Bionic (due June 8). Even if you're not a fan, check out the song in the video below. I think it's crazy awesome and she is memsmerizing to watch; she interprets the hell out of that song.

As I've been replaying this song over and over the last few days, I wondered what genius had sat down at a piano and plunked it out. Found out last night - Australian singer/songwriter Sia, about whom I'm sure I've blogged at least once. Her last album, Some People Have Real Problems, came out in January of '08 and is fantastic; she's a little quirky, definitely has her own sound, and a serious set of pipes. "You Lost Me" has her stamp all over it. I'm stoked! I love it when a music collaboration comes out so right. I only have to wait like ten days to get the album version and that still feels like way too long.



(for some reason, sometimes video embeds mess up the comment link, so if you don't see it just click on the blog post title and it'll take you to the post's individual page with comment section)

Happy Sunday! I have absolutely nothing on my plate, so I might drive to Old Navy and try on some dresses; I wanna have at least one for my trip!

Why they lost.

ALERT! ALERT! American Idol post. :-)

I'm going to detail why each finalist, up to this week, did not succeed in taking the Idol crown.

12. Lacey Brown - I admire her tenacity, but though her voice was quirky, in the end it simply was not strong enough. No matter what, an Idol winner has to have a seriously strong voice, and she was never going to add that to her resume. Plus, her song choices were kinda bunk.

11. Paige Miles - every few years Simon has a moment of clarity, and I agree with him that she had one of the best voices in the competition. It's usually not good, however, to audition for the show because your co-workers want you to, or your mom, or whoever. You have to go in with a plan, and Paige simply didn't have one. In addition, she often looked dazed, as though she still wasn't sure where she was. And nerves were a problem also.

10. Didi Benami - my official favorite; she wasn't my typical fave, with obvious good looks and a heavy emotional side. But her super-sweet personality, killer voice, and strong stance against judge ridiculosity won me over. However, in this field of contestants, one true misstep was one too many. She took an excellent song choice and performed it as though a fourth member of the Dreams, complete with big curls and glittery gown. That simply wasn't her style. She should have gone acoustic and melancholy, and if unsure of the guitar work allowed, simply had guitarists join her onstage. I was broken to see her go, but at least there was one other person who I liked very well.

9. Andrew Garcia - his pretty awesome take on "Straight Up" during Hollywood week haunted him every week of live competition until he finally, I think, just gave up trying to please the judges. I think that in the end Andrew just wasn't as creative as we wanted him to be, and some very random missteps ("You Give Me Something," "Heard It Through the Grapevine") only added to the lackluster-ness of it all. Very sad. Of course, it would have helped just a bit if the judges didn't insist on actually reminding him of "Straight Up" during every single critique.

8. Katie Stevens - another one of the top voices. Yet strangely, she was far better during the audition rounds than live. She does have a short history of pageants, and that perhaps lent to her performances feeling less than organic. She never really felt the groove, never really let the audience close to her. The facade never cracked. It's hard for someone to gain voter sympathy that way. And so, they stopped caring. I would like to note that I think it's freaking awesome she can speak Portuguese.

Simple things.

It's funny the things we don't remember after we grow up. Like helicopter seeds. They fall from maple trees in the springtime, and whirl and spin their way to the ground like the vehicle they predate by, surely, millions of years.

I had not given one thought to helicopter seeds since I was a child; so, fittingly, I was with children last week when there they were, once again, in my plane of existence. And how is it that I could go so long without even remembering seeing them? Surely they fall every spring. Is it really possible that I was so caught up in the to-and-fro expected of me that I never really saw them? Or that I simply looked right past them? I don't know which is worse.

It was a sunny and lightly windy day, a Wednesday, and as the kids ran and tried to snatch the seeds right out of the air, I stood up and watched the scene. There was a veritable canopy of trees overhead, broken through here and there with the blue and white of sky, and the seeds falling reminded me of butterflies, the way they take flight at the simplest sound and fill the air with their beating wings; except the maple seeds flutter downward fearlessly, unlike those butterflies who are going ever upward and away.

When a good wind would blow, the kids and I would stop what we were doing and race in their general direction, and leap up and try to catch as many as we could. A simple task and infinitely engaging. And I found myself wondering, as I do more and more, why the world must be composed of moments any more complex than this.

Them's the breaks.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying."

~ Robert Herrick, British poet, from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"