You should like Coldplay because they jump around in boxes just like you do. Oh you don’t? Oh…well they do. So like them.

Say what you want about Coldplay, but no matter what you say, they do have legitimate song-crafting talent.

It’s almost a given that the cool indie kids all bash Coldplay. In fact, it’s become so ubiquitous that I think it’s come full circle; you’re now cool and hip if you’re brave enough to admit that Coldplay is actually pretty good…with qualifications, of course. One mustn’t forget the qualifications.

Whatever, without further ado, here is the reason for my post. It’s 3:25 AM and just before heading off to sleep, I stumbled upon the FREE new single from Coldplay’s upcoming album, “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.” Yes, I thought of Ricky Martin too.

I’m likin’ the song and I’m hoping the new album lives up to my expectations.

Song of the Day:

Go get the FREE single! It’s called “Violet Hill.”

Well, it looks like it’s no longer available for free. You can go listen to it though. Sorry if you, like me, didn’t know about this a week ago, and missed out (I got it last minute). I could just upload it, but I’m not testing the RIAA gods on this one. I’m sure they’re out like hawks. Hungry ones.

This post is for National Blog Posting Month, which was brought to my attention by the lovely and hilarious Essaytch. They have something different every month and for April, the objective is to write a letter a day for a month. I’m obviously not writing a letter a day but I’m participating anyway.

And I’m sneaking in two more before this month is over, just to be more of a “participant.” Because 2 is kind of weak. So is 4, but hey, that qualifies as a “handful,” which is all I wanted to write.
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Dear Lit-class Girl,

You probably remember me, but I’m not too sure. You were in a couple of my Lit. classes with me last year. “British Literature after 1800,” and “British Literature before 1800″ the very next semester. Both the classes were held in the same room, and you sat in the middle each semester. I thought you were kind of cute.

You didn’t speak up much — barely, actually — but when you did, it was pretty intelligent, insightful stuff. You had a pleasant voice. You sat next to this kind of annoying guy in the second semester class. But you were always super nice to him the few times he said anything to you. You genuinely conversed with him, when most everyone in the class (myself included) might have conversed just long enough not to be rude — at the most.

But yeah, I wanted to ask you out or get your number, or something. And believe me, I’m strongly against getting involved in a relationship at this current stage in life. I think it will just add unnecessary complications and yet another responsibility on my relatively overloaded plate. But…I figured it would be wise to make an exception with you.

There was an assignment where we had to go see a live performance of Shakespeare and write a paper on it. I figured it was a perfect opportunity to ask you out. But then I figured…what if you umm…respectfully declined? Our class was pretty small and it would be an awkward rest of the semester if I failed.

So I scrapped that plan and figured I’d target the last day, after our final. I’d get done quickly and wait for you to finish, and strike up a conversation then. If it didn’t work out, no awkwardness. Life goes on. What are the odds that we would have the same class a third semester in a row? And I was fairly confident it’d work out…I was pretty sure I caught you looking over at me a few times.

Well, the final exam, an in-class essay, came along and lo and behold, it was pretty damn tough for me. I saw you finish up and then aimlessly flip through back and forth, checking and double-checking, and half-heartedly checking yet again. I can almost swear you glanced over at me a couple times…like you were waiting for me.

I started scribbling as fast as I could. But after about half an hour of checking, you finally let out a small sigh, turned in your test, and walked out. I kicked it into overdrive and finished my essay in the next five minutes and rushed out. But you were already gone. The next semester, I never saw you on campus. I concluded you transferred out.

Well, assuming my hopeful reading of the situation was right, I just wanted to tell you that I wasn’t avoiding you that last day. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. In fact, I was doing everything in my power to get out and eagerly risk making a fool out of myself in front of you.

I kind of regret not taking that opportunity to watch some Shakespeare with you. (I ended up just watching a film version instead, like most everyone in the class.) Now I’ll probably never know what would’ve happened. If I ever do run into you again, I can guarantee I’ll ask you out. Maybe we’ll go watch some Shakespeare.

Regretfully not yours,

Michael

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Dear USC,

Every college I’ve applied to have given me a reply…except you. You say you’ll give me a reply by the 1st of June!? Well, I’ve got news for you. That’s when everybody else wants me to decide by! I’m sure you can see why that’s a problem.

Now, I’ve been slaving away, working, taking time off, and willing myself through school the past several years to have this opportunity to transfer out to a fine school like yours. This time right now is what all that work has built up to.

You know, I’ve heard stories of the stuck-up, spoiled, elitist atmosphere at your school. But I’ve also heard the faculty is great, the education is top-notch, and your reputation is that of a pretty highly regarded and respected institution. And the few USC people I know seem all right to me.

But most important of all, you guys have some very deep pockets and have shown you are willing to dig down into those pockets to pay for A LOT of the education of your students. It is quite likely that you will help me out more than the other stingier (or simply not similarly funded) schools that I’m considering.

So please…PLEASE…can you let me know your answer a couple weeks before June 1st? I’m not even asking for one decision over the other (although I do have a preference). I just want an answer so I can make my decision. I know it’s possible. Your telephone counselor told me so. I’m begging you. Please.

Sincerely (and anxiously),

Michael

___________________________

Songs of the Day:

Vampire Weekend - “Campus”
The Kinks - “Tired of Waiting For You”

This post is a departure from my “normal” posts…whatever that is. I’m a huge fan of the show Lost. Well…I fell in love with Season 1, which was an utter masterpiece in television drama, perfectly fusing a depth of character development with a level of plot development that was pretty much incredible. And now, watching it is more of an exercise in maintaining that initial enthusiasm. It’s still a good show though.
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It’s been confirmed. The “Time-Loop Theory” for the TV show Lost is legit.

I am aware that the writers of the show have said no wacky time-travel related plots will be in the show. Well, they lied. Or made a mistake. Because this theory is too solid.

Basically (and I repeat, this is a very basic summary), what the guy who came up with the theory states is that when the Oceanic plane crashed onto the island in 2004, the entire island was stuck on a continuous time-loop of the year 1996. The island was being sent back in time every 108 minutes, which is how often “the numbers” in the Swan station had to be entered. So by crashing onto the island, everyone on the plane broke through some kind of hole in the time-space continuum and traveled back in time to 1996. (The hole was created when Desmond failed to enter the numbers in the Swann station the first time.)

That explains why Rose and Locke have their former health restored because both Locke and Rose were perfectly healthy back in 1996. That’s also why Jack’s dad is alive on the island (I think). It also explains why the outside world can’t find their way to the island. And it explains a bunch of other stuff too.

The theory also explains the origins of the DHARMA initiative (they’re the bad guys…Charles Widmore is one of them); the motives of Ben, Richard, Jacob, and the Others (they really are “the good guys” as Ben put it); why births can’t occur on the island; what the hell that Black Smoke Monster thing is; and it just explains almost the entire show and what exactly has been going on (even the polar bears). However, it doesn’t really explain how the show will end. That’s not what the theory is. It is basically just a breakdown of how the universe of the show works…and what the rules of the world of the story are.

One very important part of the theory is that Ben and the Others are actually from the future, but in a fairly normal way. They stole the time-machine from the DHARMA initiative in 2007, and went back to 1996 to kill the entire DHARMA organization off…well, except for those members of Dharma who weren’t on the island in 1996, like Charles Widmore (possibly…more on that later). This also makes Ben and anyone else basically invincible until time catches back up to 2007, which would have been never if the island stayed on its continuous loop of 1996.

So…the island was going on in its nice 1996 bubble while the world kept going forward in time outside of it…until 2004, when Desmond failed to enter the numbers, causing Oceanic 815 to come crashing into their 1996 world. And Locke further screwed things up by not entering the numbers at all, leading to the destruction of the time machine.

You can go and read the theory in detail at the “Time Loop Theory” page. It’s quite lengthy…it took me about 20-30 minutes, but really, most of it fits together remarkably well. That guy has seriously put some thought into this. It’s almost like he was a writer for the show or something. Now, as much sense as his theory might make, I’m sure he’ll turn out to be wrong in some aspects — for example, I think he was just a tad off on Widmore. And the actual writers of the show are most likely aware of the theory, and will modify any parts if necessary. But I think he’s really onto something with the whole time-travel/loop business.

All right, so the “basic” run-down is done with.
__________________________

This “Time-Loop Theory” has been around for a couple of months now and has been covered and discussed in forums, Lostpedia, blogs, and probably a million other places. But while it seemed pretty logical, I wanted to wait for the show to start up again to watch for any bits of confirmation. And I think I got it with the last episode (Season 4, Episode 9).

The first clue came when Ben told Locke or Sayid or someone (I forgot when he said it) that “‘when’ is a relative term.” Of course it’d be relative, if you’re a freakin’ time traveler!

Another was when it showed what appeared to be a “flash-forward” of Ben and Sayid in the year 2005, after the “Oceanic 6″ make it off the island. In that flash-forward, we see Ben recruit Sayid to be his personal assassin. He uses the trauma of the recent death of Sayid’s wife as a motivating tool to use Sayid to kill off key members of DHARMA. But…in light of the time-loop theory, this is actually a flash-BACK, my friends. Look at Ben’s contemplative face, when the story shifts back to the events of the island after his supposed “flash-forward”:

“Hmm…I remember back in 2005, when I met Sayid off the island. Too bad I’m back in 2004 now.”

(Sorry I couldn’t come up with a better caption.)
Also, in that flash-forward, when Ben checks into a hotel, he double-checks and confirms with the front desk woman what the date and year are. Seriously, who doesn’t know the year? No one! No one except a time traveler. You’d have to make sure what year you were in if you happen to travel through time once in a while. I think this was one of the biggest confirmations of time-travel playing a big part in the plot.

But there was also that last scene, when Ben confronts Charles Widmore at his penthouse. It had a whole bunch of clues in it…some of which I’m not too sure what they’re hinting at.

First of all, Ben says that he can’t kill Widmore and that they both know he can’t kill him. Which is weird, because, really, what’s stopping him? He could’ve brought a gun. He could wack him to death with his super-stick that seems to be his weapon of choice. He could choke him, stap him, punch him, whatever. But no, he “can’t” kill him, for some reason…

Then they both talk about “rules,” with Ben accusing Widmore of breaking them when he killed his daughter, Alex.

Widmore also says that the island was his, and that everything Ben got, he got from Widmore.

This is where my addition to the theory comes in…
All this leads me to believe that both Ben and Widmore (along with the Others) traveled back in time. Widmore was the leader of DHARMA up to 2007 and, up to 2007, DHARMA was in charge of the island. That’s why Widmore claims that the island was his and it will be his again. In 2007, Ben joined with the Others to hatch a plan to steal DHARMA’s time machine to go back in time to 1996 in order to exterminate DHARMA from the island. It was at that time that Widmore, after he realized he had lost, made a deal with the Others, and Ben, to save himself. “The Rules” are what the Others laid out for Widmore in exchange for sparing his life. And everyone who traveled back in time from 2007 was made invincible at least up to 2007, because they were all alive up to 2007. That’s why Ben can’t kill Widmore.

One of the “rules” that were laid out would be that Widmore leave the island immediately. But he was still allowed to try to find any way possible to find it again — which explains why he was at the auction of the captain’s log of the “Black Rock” ship (it contains the ‘325 bearing that is needed to make it onto the island). This was an easy compromise for the Others to make because they knew the island was invisible to the outside world — and they didn’t expect Desmond (or Locke) to fail in entering the numbers, which served to both keep the island in 1996 and keep it invisible to the outside world.

Another one of the “rules” would be that no innocent people would be killed, a rule that Ben has repeated throughout the show to both the Oceanic survivors and everyone else. When Alex was murdered, Widmore had apparently violated this rule. BUT, he maintains that Ben in fact murdered her himself — which may be true. Because of the fact that she died indicates that unlike Ben, Richard, and Widmore, she actually did not live through the year 2007; She died sometime before that (perhaps 2004? Which is the year of last week’s episode). Ben could have knowingly killed her for some necessary reason, banking on the fact that he could take her (fatally wounded, but not dead?) body back to 1996 and keep her alive there. As long as she didn’t make it to 2004, she’d be fine. But “fate has a funny way of course correcting,” as evidenced by Charlie, so of course, she died anyway, exactly when she died before — and that’s what Widmore is pointing out.

So…yeah, I’ve concluded this “Time Loop Theory” is legit and give it my stamp of approval. If all this didn’t make sense, I promise it will make sense if you go back and read through the Time Loop Theory that I linked to above.

I’m sorry if this was all esoteric babble for all you non-Lost fans. We will now resume regularly scheduled blog-posting.

Song of the Day:

Weezer - “Island in the Sun”

]]> http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/lost-in-time/feed/ Michael http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/to-a-friend/ http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/to-a-friend/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:50:08 +0000 Michael http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/?p=204

This post is for National Blog Posting Month, which was brought to my attention by the lovely and hilarious Essaytch. They have something different every month and for April, the objective is to write a letter a day for a month. I’m obviously not writing a letter a day but I’m participating anyway.

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What’s up George,

I’m sure you remember me, but I’ll introduce myself anyway. I’m Michael Kim, from way back in the day. We were best friends from junior high to high school. It’s been a while, man. I haven’t talked to you in like 5 years…I’ve been thinking it’d be a good idea to catch up a little.

Some of what I’m about to tell you, you’ve already heard, but I don’t think I’ve gone into this much detail about it.

I think you’ll remember me telling you that I moved to Texas right in the middle of 4th grade, during the Christmas break. The family just up and left when my dad got a head pastoral position out in San Antonio. I had a circle of really close friends that I left behind…every one of them felt like a “best friend” in my 9-year-old eyes.

I never really got the hang of fitting in after I moved. I mean, I was all right and had people to hang out with and stuff, but nothing like the group of friends I had back in California. So when I moved up to junior high (where “social life,” cliques, and all that stuff officially begin), I wasn’t particularly close to anyone.

You were one of the most popular guys in 6th grade. Everyone was friends with you. If they weren’t, they wanted to be. You were also hysterically funny. I mean side-splittingly, can’t breath, silent-laugh funny. Man…I remember all the jokes and remarks you’d make in class. I got in trouble more than a handful of times ‘cos I couldn’t stop laughing at something you said.

But yeah, I thought it was really weird that you struck up a conversation with me that first week of school. I recall it was because you noticed my last name. Our first conversation went something like this:

“So, your name is Michael Kim…are you Korean?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. My mom’s Korean. So I’m half…I’m a halfie.”
“hahahahahah…nice.”

From that point on, we were pretty much inseparable. We would have totally non-girly hour-long phone conversations on which of the sports we’d try out for when we moved up to 7th and 8th grade (we ended up playing, and kicking ass, in all of them), how oppressive our older siblings were, and how we would get each other hooked up with our own respective crushes. For some reason, your plans with girls always worked out. Mine were always a work in progress.

You would crack me up with your jokes and I rode your coattails into the “popular” echelon of school society. I would spark the nerd in you and you strangely wanted to excel in school with me. That was completely okay with me because you made studying cool. I swear we were the coolest kids in the small group of over-achievers that would show up to Mrs. Ramsey’s early-morning pre-test study sessions.

I remember when I had a crush on Genevieve B. back in jr. high and you told me it would be an awesome sign of my love if I wrote “Michael Loves Genevieve” with a bold white-out pen in the concrete ditch by the park. I did and, a couple weeks later, I got stopped several times by kids at school asking, “Dude, did you write that on the ditch?” to which I, after turning red each time, replied, “Ditch? What ditch?”

I also remember when we both discovered what “porn” was while going through your dad’s closet. That was kind of weird, considering what/who your dad was.

Or when we both discovered what alcohol tasted like after secretly drinking a hot, half-filled can of beer that was left in your dad’s pickup. I would stay away from beer for a long time after that. You got over that horrible first encounter much quicker than I would though.

Or that one day when you were at my house, and after a stupid half-joking fight/argument, I told you to get out of “my” house. I didn’t really mean it, but you got out anyway. Your mom told me you were actually pretty bummed and depressed the whole rest of the weekend. My bad bro…shouldn’t have done that to you.

I remember all those heated neighborhood football games we’d play on your street. God, those days were fun…when life was all about getting past that stop sign for the touchdown…

After junior high, we slowly started drifting apart. High school was a big shift. It didn’t help that I had to take some classes on the “Junior/Senior” campus our whole freshman year. I couldn’t eat lunch with any of you guys, who were all back on the “Frosh/Soph” campus for lunch. I knew no one on that upper-classmen campus and my lunches were fairly solitary. But although I didn’t see you, or most of our circle of friends as much during the school day, you also ran cross-country with me that season, even though swimming was your thing. So we still hung out a lot. But there was a gap that was already growing.

For lots of different reasons we drifted apart over the next few years. Some of those reasons were as simple as my class schedule not working, and me not spending as much time with the rest of you guys those early years in high school. But there were other more subtle ones. I think you just grew up faster than me, like most everyone else did. (I don’t know if I would really call it “growing up” though.) I was fine getting together for weekend football games and just chilling at people’s houses. You, along with seemingly every other normal adolescent guy, wanted to drink, party, drive around, and chase girls. Mostly chase girls. I didn’t see what the point, or fun, was in chasing girls. I thought just hanging out with them without making a fool out of myself was a handful.

And then after stuff sort of spiraled down the drain over there, and most of the “friends” in our little social circle turned their backs on me, I moved 1500 miles west to finish my senior year of high school out here. I just want you to know that I appreciate you sticking around during that time, even though we weren’t really that close anymore by then.

Man…it really is funny how life works out. I could’ve sworn we’d be the best men at each other’s weddings by now. Okay…maybe not quite yet. We at least should’ve been working or living together or something.

I don’t really know what you’re up to these days. I heard you joined the army after graduating high school, and you married that one girl from the dance team, Michelle. I didn’t know her too well. I don’t think she liked me much…or thought I was a loser or something. I recently heard you guys divorced, so she probably thinks you’re a loser too.

Actually, the last I heard, you’re stationed out in Virginia…or somewhere around there. Hope things are going well. I hope you’re not in Iraq or something.

You were a good friend, and you’re still the only person named George that I’ve personally known. I hope you write back some day.

Your full-Korean friend,

Michael

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Song of the Day:

Amos Lee - “All My Friends”

I got this cassette tape image at http://says-it.com/cassette/. It’s pretty cool. You put what you want on the label.

I like songs with multiple parts or nice, abrupt but well executed shifts. It’s like getting two or more songs for the price of one. And while going through my music library to make a playlist of my favorite “medley” type songs, I decided I had more than enough to make a nice mixtape out of it. It’s been a while since I made my last mixtape (BDJ Volume 2 is nearly ready!), and I’m long overdue for another one.

So I am pleased to present to you all the first volume of the Melodious Medlies compilation mixtapes. This inaugural volume is culled from music mostly made in this millennium (there were a couple favorites I had to include). All of the tracks are filled with smooth and exciting transitions and bridges that connect their various parts. These multi-faceted songs will make you laugh, they’ll make you cry, and they’ll make you want to hug your loved ones — then dance with them.

As I usually do with mixtapes, I tried my best to arrange the songs so they flow together as smoothly as possible. This one proved difficult because I didn’t know it was going to be a mixtape while I was compiling the songs in a playlist. But I’ll make no excuses. This mixtape is still bloody brilliant. I’m a pretty stingy guy when it comes to my iTunes song-rating system…but ALL of these songs are no less than 4 out of 5 stars…yeah…these songs are gooood.

Update: I just realized that the program I used to calculate the run-time of this mixtape is a piece of crap. The whole thing doesn’t fit on a CD (by about a minute)…which was a big disappointment to me. So, of course, I had to re-work the songs and make it fit. I eliminated a track (to be sneaked into a later volume) to make it fit on one CD, then I decided to take this opportunity to adopt the true cassette tape limit of 12 songs by making the last 2 songs bonus tracks that fit on the “B-Side.”  Those of you who downloaded the first, now discontinued, edition of Melodious Medlies - Volume 1 have a real gem in your hands. I’m sure 20 years down the road, it will be worth thousands, maybe millions, of dollars.

So from now on, Melodious Medlies will be made up of 12 main “A-Side” tracks with a “B-Side” of a couple bonus tracks. Both A and B-sides combined will still fit on a regular burned CD.

Now, wouldn’t it be awesome to make a mixtape with both the A and B sides filled to the brim? I agree…so I’m going to make my bigger “Bomb Diggity Jams” mixtapes 24 tracks, split evenly into A and B sides. A more relevant question would be: Does anyone but me care about all this? In one word, no. But I’m excited about it.

Tracklist for Melodious Medlies - Vol. 1

A-side:
1. The Beatles - “You Never Give Me Your Money”
2. The New Pornographers - “The Bleeding Heart Show”
3. The Postal Service - “Brand New Colony”
4. The Rolling Stones - “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
5. The Format - “Dog Problems”
6. Sufjan Stevens - “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!”
7. Belle and Sebastian - “Your Cover’s Blown”
8. The Decemberists - “The Crane Wife 1 & 2″
9. Radiohead - “My Iron Lung”
10. Anathallo - “Hanasakajijii (Four: A Great Wind, More Ash)”
11. The Polyphonic Spree - “Section 24: The Fragile Army”
12. The Beatles - “The End”

Bonus B-Side:
13. Franz Ferdinand - “I’m Your Villain”
14. Silverchair - “Those Thieving Birds”

Download them all in a .zip file by going to the Divshare download page.

If you can’t download at the moment, or are too lazy and/or want to hear a sample first, here are the first 12 tracks streamed at my Muxtape page.

Why not stream the whole thing at Muxtape? ‘Cos 12 is the maximum number of tracks allowed on Muxtape — that being, more or less, the limit for one side of an actual cassette tape. I made my compilation with the CD-limit in mind…but I kind of like the retro cassette literal mix-tape concept. I might consider that for my future volumes…to pay homage to the mighty cassette tape.

Bonus Songs:

And just so no one rolls over in their graves or anything, I guess I have to give some representation to the O.G. experts at this multi-part song business:

Ludwig Van Beethoven - “Symphony #5 In C Minor, Op. 67 - 1. Allegro Con Brio”
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky - “Piano Concerto #1 In B Flat Minor, Op. 23″

This post is for National Blog Posting Month, which was brought to my attention by the lovely and hilarious Essaytch. They have something different every month and for April, the objective is to write a letter a day for a month. I’m obviously not writing a letter a day and I’m more than a week late. No matter…I’m participating. I don’t know how many I’ll do, but I plan on doing at least a handful (Quite literally five. Maybe I’ll do more.) Letter-writing is a very foreign activity for me. I actually don’t remember the last one I wrote. This should be fairly interesting.

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Dear Dad,

I figured since you’ve written me so many letters over the past few years, it’s probably time that I write you one. I realize this is in my blog and you’ll probably never come across it, and you have trouble with English, but whatever…it’s the thought that counts right?

First off, I have a confession about those letters you’ve been sending me. I haven’t read them all. Many are still in their envelopes, waiting to be opened. I have kept (most) all of them though. The fact that they’re all in Korean makes them a bit difficult for me. It takes much longer to read than English. (And part of the reason why I haven’t written back is because my Korean handwriting, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary kind of suck.)

I even went through one day and re-ordered them chronologically. By my record, you’ve been writing since August 30th, 2004. (I’m sure it was a little earlier than that, but I used to throw them away after reading them.) They’re kept in a folder labeled “Letters from Dad,” inside the secured box of hanging file folders in which I keep all my important documents. They’re right next to “Receipts” and “School Records.”

I feel a little more guilt every time I toss another unopened letter in there. On more than one occasion, I’ve imagined myself reading them, in tears (manly ones), the night before your funeral. And I still don’t open and read them. I’m a horrible son. (And I still don’t open and read them.)

I realize you’re trying to get to know me and connect with me. You’re a relatively old parent. 59. And you’re not too healthy. And I know my minute-long phone conversations aren’t sufficient responses. But Dad, the thing is, I don’t know you. And I don’t mean that in an emotional, tear-jerking, abandoned-by-parent, daddy-issue, emo-child kind of way. I mean it in the plainest, matter-of-fact statement kind of way. I just don’t know you too well. (Or Mom for that matter. But that’s another letter. A letter that may not be made public on here.)

I know being a pastor (or a pastor’s wife) is a tough job. Your church was, and is, very small. And your congregation has been — frankly — grating, tiresome, stressful, ungrateful, and selfish. But many of them have also been genuinely good people (and have shown it). I also know that sometimes family is the first thing that’s sacrificed for church and congregation. I will never say that’s right but I will say I understand. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know you. It also probably has a lot to do with just your personality and culture.

I don’t know how exactly you’ll take this, but I’m kind of…not going to church. I actually can’t tell you with conviction whether or not I believe or not believe. I have so many issues with faith, God, Christianity, the church (and church-goers), doubt, evidence, truth, untruth, and a whole bunch of other things. But don’t worry too much Dad, I’ll work through them soon. And if what you (and basically our entire extended family) do for a living is really based on truth, then I figure I’ll be in line with you guys eventually.

I realize that if I really told you this, you will freak out to no end, most likely affecting your health. And it’s quite possible that I may then have to read every last one of your letters.

This also explains why I sometimes take forever to translate your sermons by email and end up sending them at 2, or 3, or 4 in the morning on Sundays. It’s not entirely because I’m having a hard time doing it like I say am. Much of it is because I’m conflicted with what I’m doing. I don’t feel right dictating what sincere, genuine members of your congregation will hear on Sunday mornings. I know it’s your sermon, and I’m not the one reading the translations anyway, but I still don’t feel what’s said should come from someone who’s as unsure about his faith as I am right now. But I eventually get them done. And I guess I’ll continue doing them. There really aren’t that many options for you guys. I really hate doing them though.

Onto another topic…Dad, I want to be a writer. I know you probably want me to be a pastor like you. But c’mon Dad, look around. None of my cousins are pastors. It skips a generation. Our kids (mine and my cousins’) will probably be pastors…just like their grandparents. But we’re the free generation. Or maybe we’re the “Lost Generation.”

Hemingway, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Fitzgerald…Kim. That doesn’t quite look right. But don’t be mad at me for trying my hardest to make it fit, and look right, some day. (My last name is a girl’s name, Dad, in case you didn’t know. I don’t have a problem with it anymore, but kids used to make fun of me for it, a long time ago. It was stupid and it really wasn’t that big of a deal, I assure you, but maybe I should’ve told you about it. Perhaps we could’ve talked about it.)

But yes, I want to write. Maybe it won’t be fiction, or even as an author. But Dad, I think my future will have something to do with writing. I’m not even sure about all that yet though…and I really have no clue what direction I want to, or should, go in with that.

Well…this is getting too long. I’m supposed to be reading right now. I have an important class discussion tomorrow and I’m kind of sleep deprived these days as it is. But I got too into writing this letter that you’ll never receive. But this was good…and I think it was worth it. I’ll cram the reading and get it done tomorrow.

There is a lot more to be said. I think this is an all right start. You and I, nor anyone else in our family…we’ve never been too good with expressing our love for each other. Whether it be through words (even your letters), or any other means. Maybe we’ll get there someday.

Sincerely,

Your son, Michael

Looking back on 2007 with the distance and perspective a few months provide, there are of course the bright spots and good memories that pop up. But it’s oftentimes the regrets and mistakes that we end up dwelling on. And I will share with you two of mine: Loney, Dear and Delta Spirit.

I missed out on these two bands for my fairly lengthy “Top 28 Albums of 2007″ list.

Emil Svanagen, aka “Loney, Dear” (photo by Peter Beste)

I’ll start off with Loney, Dear, which is the performing/artist name for Swedish singer-songwriter, Emil Svanangen. His music is a swirling mixture of light electronic lo-fi rock, each song built on layer upon layer of itself with things like tambourines, bells, xylophone, horns, accordion, harmonica, hand-claps(!), and other happy-endorphin arousing sounds. And his airy, endearingly (and not annoyingly) earnest voice floats in and out of the music throughout, accompanied by his team of back-up singers and musicians. Independent label Sub Pop have signed him and is distributing his back catalog as well. The current album is Loney, Noir and he is working on a new one as I write this. You can get Loney, Noir straight from Sub Pop.

I found out about Delta Spirit in a most unexpected way. Cruising through blogs one day, I came upon one of life’s biggest pieces of crap: auto-start music/video/anything on blogs. I clicked onto this obnoxious person’s blog and the music started up within seconds (luckily I didn’t have my volume turned up nor was I listening to any music of my own). So I reacted how I normally do, immediately moving my cursor to ‘x’ out of the blog…but I kind of liked the song. So I let it play out. Then I googled the lyrics which landed me on the band’s Myspace. I listened to a couple more of their tracks, then I took out my credit card to place an order for their album, Ode to Sunshine, which was released last year.

Soon after, I found out they were the touring mates of the Cold War Kids, who I enjoy quite a bit. It wasn’t too surprising as their sounds are somewhat similar: bluesy and stripped down yet still loud, with a raw, bare rock sound. But Delta Spirit have more of a country-folk twang (I think it’s the “twang” that sets them apart) to many of their songs, which adds a certain rustic, somewhat timeless quality to their music. They can certainly get you up and dancing too. The sample tracks I’ve chosen are the more upbeat songs, ‘cos I like them the most. You’re going to have to get the album to get the quieter, more folksy songs. Buy Ode to Sunshine from the band and receive a free poster!

Songs of the Day:

Loney, Dear - “I am John”
Loney, Dear - “I Won’t Cause Anything at All” /  (album link)

Delta Spirit - “Tomorrow Goes Away” - the song I heard on that blog
Delta Spirit - “People C’mon” /  (album link)

Delta Spirit - “Streetwalker”, off the I Think I’ve Found It EP, which is strangely unavailable anywhere except iTunes. So I don’t have the complete EP yet. I’d be willing to buy it off anyone willing to sell it.

Christian Lander, (co?)creator of Stuff White People Like, pictured here doing something white people enjoy doing.

So I hear the the Stuff White People Like blog is being turned into a book. (I also just realized that their blog uses the same site-theme as mine.) Random House, who are known to take some risks (especially with bloggers), have signed Christian Lander, the creator/author of Stuff White People Like, to what is reportedly a six-figure book deal (here’s a link to the to-be-released book). I can just picture Lander doing a little white person jig of joy and celebration.

This is incredible. The blog started in mid-January and became a viral, infectious, wildly popular sensation in the matter of a few months. I first came across the blog on the post about Mos Def while looking through tags — and I ended up spending the larger portion of an hour browsing through a handful of posts. It was mildly offensive but I was drawn to its satircal and sarcastic tone. And it’s insanely funny a lot of the time. I found myself laughing out loud, all the while thinking in the back of my mind, “Oh…am I supposed to find it this funny?” It was strange to see white culture and race (and, in a larger sense, the upper-middle class) be confronted so bluntly and with such humorous bite that it could be a bit jarring at first. I mean, we see comedians do this all the time — making fun of their own race. But it doesn’t seem to happen too much with upper middle class white-folk (as far as I’ve seen).

The blog has also revealed that I may be a lot whiter than I thought I was — the same goes for a lot of people I know. Which makes it even more plausible to see it as more of a class phenomenon than a race issue, being that I feel I am closer to the middle class than the working/lower or upper classes. I’m not sure how the blog will translate to book-form, but we shall see. Lander says on his blog that 2/3 of the book will be all-new material. Sounds cool, but I think I’ll wait for the reviews on this one.

Check out the blog before it becomes a book. Then you’ll be able to say, “Oh the blog was sooo much better than the book.”

Would that qualify as something white people would say?

Songs of the Day:

The Killers - “Where the White Boys Dance”
Michael Jackson - “Black or White”
dc Talk - “Colored People”
Zero 7 - “This Fine Social Scene”

]]> http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/stuff-white-people-likethe-novel/feed/ Michael Christian Lander http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/randomness/ http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/randomness/#comments Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:10:34 +0000 Michael http://hoppingintopuddles.wordpress.com/?p=180

I was surfing the Internets recently (like I do for most of my waking hours), and I came across this nugget of wisdom:

Writing is 1% inspiration and 99% not being distracted by the Internet…

I cannot emphasize enough how true that statement is for me (and too many others). When I have something important to do (usually a big paper, or story, or article, or report, or something related to my increasingly useless-looking major), I freakin’ waste time in every way imaginable — everything from blogging, music, driving around after I convince myself I have to go somewhere, doing laundry and not folding the clothes for hours, etc.

Half the time, the internet and my computer are what keep me occupied. And I’m either blog-hopping, reading about music and bands ad nauseum, or going on a never-ending train of “Hmm…I’ve always wondered about that, I’ll look it up!” Then I go to bed cussing myself out for wasting the whole day away, and I vow never to do it again. The next night usually ends the same way.

On another note (pun most enthusiastically intended), are there any songs with “Michael” in the title or lyrics? Seriously…it’s one of the most common names ever and for most of my life I’ve always had to deal with being “the other Michael” (or variations on “Michael #1, 2, or 3..”; or having to go by “Mike,”"Mikey” or the full “Michael Kim/Mike Kim”) in almost every class, job, room, or general vicinity of existence.

And yet, how come it’s so freakin’ hard to find an equal surplus of “Michael” songs?! Life sucks. I only know one “Michael” song off the top of my head, and it’s Franz Ferdinand’s song of a homosexual dancing frenzy. (They wrote a song about a gay friend named Michael who went to a club one night, I think.) An excerpt from the song:

Michael you’re the boy with the leather hips sticky hair, sticky lips, stubble on my sticky lips. Beautiful boys on a beautiful dance floor, Michael you’re dancing like a beautiful dance whore.

It’s actually a very catchy tune but I am looking for a “Michael” song that is more in line with who I am. (I am no “beautiful dance whore.”) I’m tired of everyone else having their own little name songs…like this one girl I knew back in Texas. Her name’s Annie. She has Ben Folds’ awesome song, “Annie Waits.” Or my other friend, Johny. Although his name is spelled kind of weird, he has Chuck Berry’s (and Marty McFly’s) “Johnny B. Goode.”All I have for now is Franz Ferdinand’s “Michael.” And I still have to deal with every other guy (and newborn) having the same name as me.

While I’m feeling annoyed and slighted, I’m going to go on to my next random topic. I have my share of annoyances and pet peeves…and will vent some of them now.

1. People who drive with their high-beams on.

Seriously…why do you people do this? I know many people don’t realize they’re on but c’mon, I know the majority of people do know — and they do it anyway. In my experience it’s usually the young kids or the middle-age to retiring age people who do this. The young kids do it because it looks cool? And the old people do it because they can see better. Well hell, quit being so damn insecure, kids, and quit being so damn selfish, old people. You do realize you’re annoying and dangerously distracting EVERY CAR in front of you when you have those damn things on. Okay, so perhaps many don’t know their high-beams are even on…you still have no excuse. Please learn the basic functions of your car.

2. People who don’t use turn signals

All right, I live in southern California…my whole list can be comprised of complaints about traffic and driving. (I can’t imagine having to drive in places like NYC.) But this one is just as annoying as #1. If you’re going to drive like an idiot anyway, the least you can do is give a few seconds of advance warning to everyone you’re putting in danger. Even if you don’t drive like an idiot, you should still use your damn turn signal — it’s not that hard. Why the hell don’t you use it people!?

3. When people get offended so easily these days.

People playing the race card, or the sexist card, or the religion card, or whatever card so eagerly. I understand that there are all too many things for which there is a reason to get offended and act on it. But not everything is racist or sexist or classist or anything-ist. Sometimes, that’s just how it happened and nothing more. Or it’s not even offensive and you’re just being offended.

4. My horribly inconsistent internet connection (I put this in here so I won’t look like I hate people that much. I actually kind of like people.)

I could be talking to someone on an instant messenger, diligently keeping vigil over potential fantasy basketball moves, trying to blog on here, trying to upload batches of files to put on this blog, checking comments for this blog, emailing, downloading/uploading torrents, or, umm, doing some school work…and my internet will find a way to fail. I hate it. I’ve actually seriously considered moving many times in the past six months solely based on my inconsistent internet connection.

I am an obsessive post/comment editor. But I’ve been wondering…is there a certain unspoken rule about that? Is it ever not okay to edit your own posts and comments? I do it all the time. There are many times in social situations in the “real world” where I do or say something and I look back a few minutes, hours, or days afterwards and think “Dammit! I’m so stupid. I wish I could do that over.” With blogging, I can! So I do.

I look back and I make little tweaks when I wish I could’ve said something better, or if I phrased something wrong, or if I just wasn’t as witty as I originally thought I was (then I change it back when I realize my edit wasn’t that witty either). Just grammatical mistakes themselves make up about 50% of my edits. I’ve even edited another person’s comment on my Quiet Company post.

Songs of the Day: (A massive, unprecedented amount of songs for today’s edition!)

Guns N’ Roses - “Anything Goes”
Elliott Smith - “No Name #3″
Franz Ferdinand - “Michael”
Ben Folds - “Annie Waits”
Chuck Berry - “Johnny B. Goode”
Spoon - “Idiot Driver”
Headlights - “Some Racing, Some Stopping”
Kings of Convenience - “Misread”
The White Stripes - “Offend in Every Way”
Sufjan Stevens - “Dear Mr. Supercomputer”
Director - “Reconnect”
The Beatles - “Fixing a Hole”
The Velvet Underground - “That’s the Story of My Life”