The talk is louder than I'll sing

So all weekend I tried to put together a brand guideline for a school project. Man, I was just not feeling it at all. It sucked up waaaay too much of my time for such a small return of finished content. Bleh. So much to do, all the way around.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to apply for an internship. I have all of my materials put together, in theory, but I'm lacking the time to fill out the required forms and applications and cover letters. On some level, I'm feelin' afraid of rejection. If I don't apply, I can't be let down when I find out that I wasn't accepted, right? Well, I guess that by not even applying I'm just as good as rejected. And here I am, not even trying. How pathetic is that? I just wish I wasn't so tired.

The weight of the end of my education is starting to pile up. I registered for classes yesterday, and there's all sorts of hoopla surrounding what courses may or may not run. Trying to make sure I get all the graduation credits figured out, schedules, professors... Thinking about employment afterwards. Where I'll be artistically. Am I going to be anything of note, or just one more generic designer and pixel pusher? Will I have any merit to what and who I am as a professional?

Heavy questions. They're hard to keep carrying around. In about a year they're all going to come to a head of sorts. Should I be excited? Hopeful and optimistic? Is it okay to be anxious like I am? Bleh. This subject matter is far too serious to be contemplating on the eve of another work week as a school year draws to a close. Gotta concentrate. Gotta stay on course.

Looks like this turned into one more blog post full of angst and uncertainty. Yeah, 'cuz that's something the internet is so short on.
-Cril

These back steps are steeper to the ground
The brightest stars are falling down
I'm walking the edge, walking the tightest rope
We can be frank, reality rips on through, rolling like a hurricane
I'm over the bridge and under the rain

If everything's falling, if everything's changed
If I'm in the open, if I'm in the way

Mat Kearney - Crashing Down

Every vessel pitching hard to starboard

Get home from work at 9 wearing a shirt of discouragement that's made with fabric of the finest uncertainty. Down a single cold wiener for dinner with two pieces of bread.

And now I'm about ready to start on the five-page paper that's due tomorrow. Yup, it's going to be a loooong night.
-Cril

Toires - Kamoun Soufi

Verbal Doodle – “Group relaxation will be cancelled for the duration of the academic year”

Group relaxation will be cancelled for the duration of the academic year. Please refrain from congregating in groups of two or more for recreational purposes. Violators will be flogged. Likewise, group discussion has been put on hold. Please conduct all communication through the approved digital communication services, to ensure that a minimal amount of participants will become involved. Violators will be flogged. Group meals are hereby suspended, due to becoming an inefficient use of time, due to the aforementioned group discussion that regularly occurs. Meals are to be consumed within designated cubicles. Violators will have their meal rights revoked. And then be flogged.

Underneath this big old sky

It's an unfortunate fact that I've missed a blog post over the last week. That's assuming the verbal doodles don't count. I'll have to make that lost post up at some point. Either way, I don't think I have a whole lot to say at the moment anyways. I'm sooooper stressed out. It seems that I'm entering crunch time, and it doesn't seem like I'll be exiting it until the semester is over. There's just too much to do. When I have the time, though, I need to sit and muse a bit over grades, the competitive nature of school, and what I expect to do with myself once I graduate. Ugh, graduation. That's a scary idea in of itself. I need to do course selections by the end of the month. Sigh.

After a long evening of working on campus, I finally arrived home somewhere around midnight. As I got out of the car, a soft breeze caressed my cheek. I then had a profound thought: "I wish I was at a different point in my life, so that I could go for a walk and follow that breeze for a bit." Instead I went inside and worked until 3AM. Bleh.
-Cril

Now you say it's easy
That you been falling for all of my charm
And getting lost in my smile
Never ceases to amaze me
When I'm chancing my arm
That I still do it with style
And now I hope
You'll be with me tomorrow
With me tomorrow

KT Tunstall - Stoppin' the Love

Verbal Doodle - “There’s a little bit of truth in every lie”

There’s a little bit of truth in every lie. Which should come as no surprise – all these ideas should start off somewhere, no? And we’re all sort of a collection of bits and pieces from the world around us. People we know. That song we heard. The way the wind hustled through the hedge as you walked out to your car this morning. And all these tiny, tiny fragments of the world in which we find ourselves living kind of define our living. So lies, even those things which are the monument of falsehood, have to be based on something. Something of truth and substance. Because to have a lie without that is merely wanton and incomprehensible fantasy fiction.

Verbal Doodle - “Who has more fun than people?”

Who has more fun than people? It’s a difficult question to answer, that. Immediately, of course, oragatanges come to mind. With all those elongated limbs and that happy-go-lucky tree life, what could there possibly be to complain about? The problem with this answer, though, is whether or not oragutangs can be considered a ‘who’. What does define, anyways? Is who a word saved strictly to refer to people? We don’t say that the flowers who are yellow are pretty. We give flowers the ‘that’ treatment. So where do our wonderful, fun-loving primate friends fit into all this? The orangutans who are brown, or the orangutans that are black? Beats me. One thing I know though, is that I’ve written ‘orangutanges’ three times now, each of which has been spelt differently. Whoops. Make that four times.

A Snowdrop with Sunstroke

So a while ago I got a notification that Steven Page would be coming to town to play a show. Not only in town, but literally a 5 minute walk away from class. "I can manage that!" I told myself. Lo and behold, today rolled around aaaaannnnd... Man, do I have a CRAPLOAD of homework to do. And I'm tired. But I decided to go anyways. And between arriving a little bit early and the opening act starting an hour late, I had a lot of time to sit and stew in the guilt of not doing homework before managing to just dose off and kiss the edge of unconciousness. And this was in a loaded bar, no less, which probably speaks volumes as to how sleep deprived I am. But anyways, the main act rolled around and...

The world melted away. See, Mr Page was a member of the Barenaked Ladies, which was one of the cornerstones in developing my own taste and love for music. He played the show tonight with Craig Northey (from The Odds), primarily acoustically. Which, for me, is like crack - I love toned-down, acoustic versions of louder songs. And I was surprised that, without a base or drums or piano, all of the songs were so much louder. Not in terms of noise, but in terms of their inherent spirit. Those two men were the full accompaniment that was needed. It was marvellous. Opening with Alternative Gilfriend that rolls into Someone Who's Cool? Yes please. I'm pretty intimate with the catalogue of BNL stuff that was played, as well as a chunk of Page's material. It was fascinating to feel new life breathed into songs that I've known how to recite since what feels like a few lifetimes ago. Leave Her Alone, which usually has a strong big-band horn section, was surprisingly fantastic with a single guitar, a melodica, and two vocals. I was never into the standard/goofy/march performance of The Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel, but it was damn haunting just on two acoustic guitars. I wish I could find a version like that for download. The acoustic approach changed everything. And this rippled down through all the other pieces - everything was presented with the absolute core components needed. Combined with the small venue (I was sitting maybe 15ft from the stage), it made all the songs more... Intimate.

Overall, it was beautiful. Overwhelmingly so. As if I was stripped of a physical body, and the music flowed straight from the artists, out over the stage, and kept on going clean through me and everyone else in the room. And I sat there and savoured every precious moment where those notes were inside me, passing through where my skin and bone and flowing blood should be. You can't grasp or hold on to that kind of energy - it's destined to travel the universe, and just can't be chained down or even touched. But to be that close to the source of this force was utterly moving. It was so rich and pure, and there was nothing to do but sit there and bask in the light of the melodies that temporarily traveled through you, brightening up all the corners of your insides for the briefest of seconds. Phosphorescent sound particles of unbridaled emotion.

It's a bittersweet sensation to feel so consumed by amazement while knowing that you won't really be able to hold onto or replicate that feeling once it's over. But it kinda forces you to live in the moment, this very moment, forcing homework and any lack of sleep just melt away from reality. It's a good place to be.
-Cril

At night all alone
With my microphone
I never come close to the chorus girl

I'm waiting for you now
There's nothing to do now
But save your breath for the chorus girl

Steven Page & Craig Northey - Chorus Girl

Because I'll forget later... Steven got to a point in the song, and stopped singing while they kept playing the chords. He talked about how the best part about being a songwriter was that once you've written something, people take that and it becomes part of their lives. It's not yours any more - it belongs to anyone that finds meaning in it. The chorus girl in that song isn't about a chorus girl - it's about the chorus. Music. That thing that lifts us and binds us and moves us.

Apple

So, I return from New York straight into hell. Where it was snowing (and subsequently frozen), no less. But seriously, though, this will unfortunately be a token blog post where I say nothing of significance, because I am busy beyond my wildest imagination. It's almost as if I should've stayed home and done my homework over reading break. It would've been nicer on my wallet, too, in two ways. One, I could've worked (yaaay money), and b, I wouldn't have been in NYC spending so much (booo money). Still, though, I'm really glad I went. It was an incredible experience, and I learned a lot and broadenified my horizons. I even saw a homeless guy peeing against the side of a fancy downtown building.

Ok, highlights... The Blue Man Group. Incredible. Absolutely mind-blowing. I thought I went for the music. But it turned out that it was one quarter music, one quarter visual fiest, and two parts a mix of... comedy, theater, social commentary, performance, interaction... It was one hell of an experience. The theater was wonderfully small, too. I got a seat in the front row of the balcony which was maybe 20 feet from the stage. It was super intimate. Overall it was just... Marvelous.

The other main highlight was the Museum of Modern Art. The first three floors were kinda okay, and then I got to the fourth where they had most of the paintings, and was blown away. I was kinda underwhelmed by Picasso's stuff. Monet's Water Lilies were incredible - not only the incredible scale, but the expressiveness and colour application across such a massive area. The pointillism stuff by Seurat was mind boggling - it must've taken such patience, precision, and complete genius of colour theory to pull it off. Van Gogh's Starry Night was on display also. I managed to get up close, and before a museum attendant ushered me back, I caught a glimpse of how incredibly thick and contoured the piece was. Not even remotely flat. The jewel of the show though, was sitting by the elevators, almost like a piece of filler. I rounded the corner, and hanging on the wall was Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. I honestly did a double-take. None of the other big pieces seemed to have this effect. I stood there and thought, "Wait, what? That's just gotta be a reprint or something." Which, considering I was standing in the Museum of Modern Art, would be absolutely ridiculous. Yes, as if one of the greatest contemporary art museums on the planet would display prints. But I digress.

I stood there, and I lingered with Christina in her World for a solid 15 minutes. Just... Stood there. Totally absorbed in it. The details were so minute and so absolutely crisp. Birds flying away from the barn. A pair of pants on the line. Individual boards on the house. It was all there. And it all came together to be so beautiful and moving. You could practically smell the wind and feel the grass swaying along. I could hear her sigh.

How do you put a feeling like that into words? I wish I knew how. I wish I was a poet. I wish I could take what's inside of me and and present it in a way that could be experienced by the world that I'm a part of. Instead of being stuck with thoughts and ideas and emotion destined to only ever be exhibited to a party of one. I wish.
-Cril

Bonobo - Black Sands