MoodyTunes

Thursday photo: Gargoyle.

Alex — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:01:45 +0000

Nice warm bricks, a spot in the sun.

They came to an intersection.

Alex — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:17:16 +0000

I like making my own coffee at home. I like making my own coffee at home because I probably can’t make it to a coffee shop without getting a headache, but I also enjoy the process: grinding beans, listening to water burble around, settling into my online newspaper-reading position and, overall, waking up in the privacy of my own apartment.

Once or twice a semester I’ll treat myself to a flavored coffee from a coffee shop nearby. Usually, I get a vanilla latte. Not the biggest one and not the smallest one.

Yesterday I thought this is a fine day for Latte Time! and proceeded to my local latte dispensary. I noticed another patron in a typically Nashvillian dark plaid shirt with pearl buttons. He had a backpack that a lot of college students seem to have, one from a camping outfitter or sporting goods manufacturer, and he also wore a hat that struck me as one I’d never wear, and also as a hat that, if a friend picked it up in a store and said “How ’bout this?”, I’d laugh at and disparage. A trendy hat, something a person might wear to make a statement. A statement like, “Hey, I’m trendy.”

Coffee soon in hand, I walked out of the shop and on to campus. I took a random route because when I was in high school I lived on an Army base and was bombarded with Armed Forces Television Network “commercials” that emphasized tactics like varying your routes of travel. Why? To confuse spies, of course. The paths on campus are indirect and winding enough to cause a fair amount of confusion anyway, but I jumbled up my route to be safe.

And what should I discover as I approach an intersection of paths in the middle of campus about five minutes later? The hat guy from the coffee shop approaching from my right. It was instantly apparent that if we both continued walking at the same speed we’d collide in a mess of latte, expensive hats, whatever triple- or quadruple-combination-name drink he was holding, and a fair amount of private school college student and/or faculty angst.

Do you ever hear stories about how people meet unexpectedly, through random chance, and it’s a life-changing thing? Those stories where a person or couple sits there and goes on and on about What if this? or What if that?, as if a tiny little moment like a stop sign or a loose shoelace or a bug on the neck or a mix-up of an order could have delayed what turned out to be an incredibly important meeting?

Well, this was kind of like that except not at all. I slowed down and the guy walked past and we didn’t collide.

Then, as I thought about all the things that could have kept us from meeting at that exact intersection at that exact second, I thought Uh oh, that’s got to be more than just coincidence! and worried that I wasn’t supposed to slow down and dodge Hat Guy. Maybe I was supposed to smash into him, or at least say, “Hey, coffee buddy!”

Now I’ll never know. Except maybe I will, if I go back to that coffee shop tomorrow morning, or next Tuesday morning, and order the same thing at the same time and look out for a guy wearing clothes I don’t like and then follow him and trip him at the intersection of paths and shout, “This is what we were supposed to do last week! What were you going to tell me?! I’m ready now, my eyes have been opened and we shall now have one of those moments we’ll tell our friends and family about for years and years and…”

Noooooooooo. I think I’ll just stick to making my own coffee. This is why I shouldn’t go out on my own early in the morning without proper preparation.

Tuesday photo: Fun with clowns.

Alex — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:27:22 +0000

Do you like clowns? I like this one. He’s the perfect mix of happy, scary, and crumpled paper hats. Sweet dreams!

(Sorry for the pic quality. Cell phone photo… Thankfully, the clown lives in a poster on my wall so I always have access to his jokes and assorted wisdom.)

Choose your own adventure.

Alex — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:10:37 +0000

I made a reference to “Choose Your Own Adventure” books in one of my classes last week and, because I had to explain the concept, because nobody knew about choosing your own adventure, I started to think about how entertainment has changed. It really turns into a pre-computer or pre-Internet thing…

Before computers and/or Internet: Read a book. At the end of a chapter, make a choice. Depending on choice, go to a different page in the book and imagine that you’re part of the story you’re reading.

With computers and/or Internet: See anything you want almost immediately.

I know, it’s not that easy. But it’s the simplicity of the books compared to our “entertainment technology” today that struck me — when I think about CYOA, I can’t help but consider them artifacts from a time when our brains worked differently. But didn’t, really, because we’re always looking for interactive games and stories.

And one day, surely, an iPhone will be an artifact. What’s after that?

I’m happy to see that CYOA is still out there. Check out “Zombie Penpal,” with 13 possible endings!

Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s all the same thing: stories. Different forms, but we’re always telling stories. I don’t think that will change, whether it’s via Kindle, printed pages, chips in our brains, etc. etc.

First day of school. Blue chalkboard.

Alex — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:15:08 +0000

I have to admit, I get excited walking around campus and watching freshman orientation groups tripping over (or colliding into) each other. Not just because I like calamity, either. There’s a lot of positive energy buzzing around a college campus before classes start and it’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement.

To keep things vague for the sake of half-privacy, I’ll just say that I’m teaching this fall at the same school from which I graduated in May. Today I’ll kick off three writing-intensive literature classes that I’ve decided will focus on the use(s) of humor in contemporary fiction. While the prospect of talking about funny stories is attractive, I’m currently much more interested in the classroom technology at my disposal — video screens, automated blinds, a computer built into the lectern, etc. My goal is to dedicate at least one class exclusively to watching YouTube videos.

Even better than all that fanciness, though, is the blue chalkboard in one of the rooms. Here it is:

You can’t beat a blue chalkboard. Now I need some multicolored chalk.

Four years of MoodyTunes.

Alex — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:45:53 +0000

A few months ago I added the Archives link to provide a different method of searching for old posts. I noticed then that everything started in August 2006, and I made a note to write an anniversary post this month. So here we go…my thoughts on a four year old blog.

A few people have asked about the motivation behind bloggers posting stuff on the Internet; for me, this started as a way to write something every day or nearly every day. I wanted to start writing again and it seemed like a good format.

I’ve never settled on a theme or idea, which used to be part of Blogging 101 (no idea if it still is). Rule #1 — pick a concept like crockpot cooking or R/C helicopters and post about it regularly. If there’s anything that links the posts it would be “Odd stuff I see, hear, or think about.” Even though I have plenty of other writing projects, I keep writing blog posts because it’s fun to throw out ideas, share pictures, and read comments. That’s what ended up surprising me the most about writing for a blog: the comments and discussions that developed, or the e-mails I received that showed me someone either far away or close by had seen or felt something similar. It’s an interesting form of detached connection that reminds me a lot of what it feels like to read stories or essays in front of a group of strangers at readings. It’s also a transformation from a random, personal blog project into something that involves multiple people. I can’t explain this very well, but blogging still engages me on a not-quite-identifiable level so I’ll keep doing it.

I thought I’d make a list of my favorite posts…and when I went back through the archives it became too hard to pick, and kind of painful to sort through all that’s happened in the past four years. That was unexpected, too: the discovery that the lack of focus I mentioned means I put all sorts of elements of my life out there rather than simply all my crockpot- or helicopter-based thoughts. Reading back over them is like sorting through old boxes in the attic — flash after flash of memories and emotions — and to stay sane I think sometimes you have to wait until nobody’s around and empty those boxes out, or seal them back up, or move them behind the water heater.

But one day I’m sure I’ll put together a Greatest Hits post. Maybe one favorite per year, or favorite photos, or old Trivia Day highlights, or failed home/garden/car experiments, or frustrated political ramblings, or excerpts from my unofficial war on economists, or pet pics, or beach creatures, or funny signs of the American South, or wacky tales of how undergrads in 2010 aren’t like undergrads in 1997, or books I liked or hated, and so on.

Here’s something funny: When I was proofreading this post I discovered that the first sentence read “A few months ago I added the Archives link to provide a different method of searching for old pasts.”

I think that sums it up. Here’s to an interesting four years, and whatever waits in year five. Thanks to all who have read and contributed to the blog, and because it’s an extension of my self, thanks to all those who have contributed to me.