Snowed In

Snowed In

Maybe there’ll be ice til Wednesday,
Maybe we’ll get off easy
At the end of one of the best semesters
What’s better than a snow day?

Or three?

Writing papers in bed
Getting distracted by friends
And wondering, will we have finals?

I’ll miss the blog party
But it shows that no matter how you prepare for life
There are always unexpected occurances
And the best thing to do is to live with the flurries
And forget your worries.
Drink a little wine
Relax and unwind.
All that you’ve learned is already inside.
So pick up a new book, stop cramming
And access the space in your brain
For all you’ve ever wanted to learn
And go for it. Its your turn to create your own adventure.

I found Section Line Drive's Xmas Medley!

This is extremely funny! Performed at the Acrabrella end of the year concert! Enjoy!

Things I Miss About London

-People calling me “love” all the time.
-Walking by royal albert hall and the Kensington palace on my way to school.
-Musicals. Especially “Wicked” (coming to PDX in March 2009!)
-The underground, and the London Paper
-Discovering a new pub every weekend.
-The South Bank.
-Evensong in beautiful churches.
-Hearing a different language every time I got onto public transportation.
-Double-decker buses that run all night long.
-Markets, especially Borough Market!
-Tea time, and faking British accents.
-Tesco and Sainsbury’s runs.
-Being in on the “high art” culture even if I think high art is a little ridiculous.
-Ballet and Opera.
-Hearing beautiful voices and instruments echo in the underground stations.
-Meeting with my Italian songwriter friend Riccardo.
-Playing in Hyde park.
-Indian food.
-Taking classes that required going to really good performances.
-Having an entire city at my disposal thanks to my oyster card.
-Sharing a flat with 18 friends, where there is always someone to join you on adventures.

Acabrella Concert!

Who would have thought the first a cappella group on campus started 4 years ago would lead to three amazing a cappella groups performing under the umbrella of one unified performance?!? Last night's end of the year concert was incredible. The Merry Weathers debuted their new arrangement of Coldplay's "Viva la vida," Momo and the Coop showed off their dynamic wonders in Hide and Seek, and Section Line Drive drove the audience home with a hell of a holiday medley ending in a remix of Daft Punk's "Harder, Faster, Stronger."


Here's a favorite of mine called Palaisade's sung by Jon Wash.

Where to Go for Music in Portland

After having some friends visit Portland, I started really thinking about what all the great places to go in Portland are. I mean… there is always Powell’s, Saturday market, the rose gardens, maybe the Chinese tea house, and the Japanese gardens as well, and sushi takahashi is a hit. But for how well known Portland is for its music scene, there are only a handful of places I’ve been to this semester to check out. Here's what I've got on the places I've been.


The Doug Fir –
Pluses: GREAT BANDS, lots of local bands and some really amazing touring bands as well. They host a variety of styles with an abundant amount of singer-songwriters.
GOOD SIZE, the venue isn’t too big. You can really enjoy the show and feel a part of it, and it is easy to tell the bands how much you like them because they usually walk around the venue during their opening acts’ performances.
GOOD PRICES: shows usually are in the 10-15 dollar range, very affordable for a night of awesome performances.
Minuses: strange atmosphere of an artificial log cabin, its very unique but I’ve found their promise to be air-conditioned a little counter intuitive as the colder months have been approaching. Before the house is packed, there is no need to keep the log cabin icy cold. Like most Portland venues, an all ages show is rare.


Arlene Schnitzer Music Hall
Pluses: beautiful interior, not a bad seat in the house. It is part of Portland’s downtown landscape. Diversity of events. Speakers, authors, rock concerts, and classical concerts all take place here.
Minuses: Expensive tickets.

Jimmy Mak’s
Pluses: Great jazz music seven days a week. Free on Mondays.
Minuses: I’ve only been here once! But there is the same 21+ problem which I no longer need to worry about, they kick minors out after 9pm. This is just the big fault of all Portland venues.

the fiction within

This is a call to all creative people who enjoy thinking about the meaning of life.


READ JEANETTE WINTERSON. She will rock your world. I've been thinking about the role of fiction lately and i think what i've been thinking about really ties to music. i feel that winterson uses fiction to get at what life is really about. how is it that something unreal seems to explain the truth better than the facts? i think we artists understand how this happens all the time. and it happens in music too, but in a different way. we create a composition.

Josh Ritter "The Temptation of Adam"

(This version of the song is a little different than the one I am writing about, it doesn't include the strings/horns interpretation, but you get the same fabulous effects of the beautiful lyrics in this incredible song).


For all the songwriter’s out there today, I cannot think of a better lyricist than Josh Ritter. He knows when and how to use a catchy tune with a full band in songs like “Kathleen” and “Right Moves,” but reserves his most poetic story-telling lyrics for instrumentation that only serves to prepare and take listeners on the experiential journey he is about to describe. “The Temptation of Adam” is the supreme example of Josh Ritter’s written gems that refuses to be dusted over in the minds of any one who has experienced truly sitting down and listening to this song word for word. The soft fluttering strings of the intro conjure up images of a quiet morning dawn, slowly granting the listener perception into the story he or she is about to be swept into. French horn comes in over the strings with a simple melody line repeated twice to create direction in the serene atmosphere. We could easily be fooled into thinking we are about to hear an orchestral piece until the horns finish their call and an electronic synthesizer quietly bubbles the scene away as the strings fade out and the story begins told in lyrics so sweet you won’t want to miss a single word.

After the introduction, the somewhat simple serene backdrop of his warm rhythmic acoustic finger picking creates the steady line of tension that the content of the song lies upon. The story is told poetically and colloquially as stories are often told with details of crossword puzzles with five letter words and warhead missile silo hatches that create crisp images to attach the deeper meaning of the song around. Each stanza takes us through the stages of a forming relationship, while cataloging the reasons why this love might not be attainable. The song follows a constant form of ABABABABAB, where the A section generally tells part of the story, while the B section describes the feelings happening under the surface. The story happens so quickly, and the words are so powerful, that one is compelled to return to listen over and over again.

The most beautiful love songs that are impossible to discard occur are recognized by the webs of meaning they create. So that each time the song is listened to, a new feeling or idea is conjured in the process of listening. “The Temptation of Adam” offers many layers of understanding to be discovered by the listener. From what I’ve gathered in my personal listenings, he describes war as a metaphor for love. The song begins “If this was a cold war we could keep each other warm.” So if love was a cold war free of physical contact a war in which people enter with the sole purpose of avoiding destruction, then he and Marie could “keep each other warm.” This is interesting because by keeping each other warm they are coming closer to changing the role that love plays in their lives; it is no longer cold, it comes closer to creating a bond, but it hasn’t yet crossed into a full fledged battle/war. Then he imagines the two of them living in a missile silo with a big red button that would allow him to launch the missile, it is on the grounds of preparation for battle where their relationship is formed. Now instead of love being viewed as a “Cold War,” love is being viewed as a World War, “the Big One.” These terms merge the idea of lifelong marriage with war, the big one could be referring to the big war, or it could be referring to “the one” one is meant to be with. If this correlation is correct, than the song really seems to view love as potentially destructive. Yet the glimpses we get into their relationship seem so romantic. Instead of carving their names into a tree as lovers are thought to do, he is pleading that they pretend that “this giant missile is an old oak tree instead” so they can “carve our name in hearts into the warhead.” He is trying to navigate a love that he feels deep down “just won’t work out above,” and gets at the extreme fear and tension of trying to hold on to a love that he thinks might “live a half life on the surface.” He continues in lines that are as heartwarming as they are heartbreaking “so at night while you are sleeping I hold you closer just because, as our time grows short I get a little nervous.”

The way this song is sung as a story that is being reflected upon and has not yet come to a final conclusion is reflected in the melodic A and B sections that end somewhat abruptly on the words “I think about that great big button and I’m tempted.” The tension here is that he seems to be tempted to live with Marie forever, to “stick pins in the map of all the places that you thought that love would be found”; but by saying he is tempted, he also seems to be saying he is tempted to push the great big button that would send the warhead missile into the earth and create the end of the world. Again there is tension in the idea that love could be great, but it could feel like the end of the world to give everything up for “the big one.” This song really gets to the heart of love in a way that most love songs cannot achieve. He balances this story on the delicate guitar line, creating a format for the listener to walk our way through this cold war zone that is on the brink of becoming something terribly powerful. Because his words are so powerful, and his music allows for the words to be carried and brought into existence with his calm honest voice, the listener feels equally heartbroken and hopeful at the end of the song. An effect that is rare and difficult to achieve in such a powerfully insightful way as Ritter has accomplished in this seemingly simple, yet masterfully worded song.