After many years of trying to fly under the radar as a hipster, and by this I mean hiding my secret yearning to be hip by pretending to simply not care about anything, I am coming clean.... I love the Hipster! Let me ask you something, who wouldn't want to hang out with this????????
I know I do!
The irony in all of this, is that now hipster has become the ultimate insult. If you want to get a group of white people riled up, just drop the H-bomb and bear witness to the indignation that occurs. I now once again have found my timing to be impeccable. My next trick will be joining twitter in twenty years.
But for now, enjoy this preview of the sequal to STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE, it is delicious.
My wife and I and friends took the trek down to Denver this past Tuesday to enjoy the loveliness that is Sufjan Stevens. He played at the Paramount, a small cozy seated theatre in Denver in the heart of the 16th street mall. The excitement and beards were in the air and good old Sufjan did not disappoint. He appeared on stage with his shiny moon pants, angel wings, tape on his arms, and kicked right into a kick drum, electric guitar laced version of seven swans. The band consisted of two drummers, 2 keyboards, horns, guitars, and 2 back up dancers dressed in alien atire (awesome!).
From then on, it was all songs from the new albums. I wasn't quite sure what the new songs were going to sound like live, or how they would even be performed, but HOLY CRAP as soon as he broke into Too Much I was hooked. The new songs just straight up rock live, they are fun, upbeat, and cause your head to uncontrollably bob along with your feet. It appeared that Sufjan had been freed, and it was infectious, you could feel it in the air and in everything he did. He danced with reckless abandon, like he was drunk at a wedding, he explained what he was thinking with this new album and the freedom he felt from throwing away his old shtick. The Highlight was the 30 minute rendition of Impossible Soul, that included Autotuning (which was so incredibly cool live), The entire crowd standing up and dancing, and Sufjan finishing it off dancing with a costume monkey head.
So All of that to say, the concert was amazing, Go See him now!
I've been thinking a lot about music and how intertwined it is to our memories, how everyone person has unique experiences tied to specific songs, and hearing those songs takes you back to them. Well Sufjan has now been around long enough for this to occur to me. I stumbled upon Michigan during a bit of a rough patch, a confused, slightly angry, and very emo college kid. 6 years ago, my friends and I piled into a van and drove straight to Denver to see Sufjan at the bluebird theatre. It was a trip laced with aderol and completely random and ridiculous conversations while driving at 5 o clock in the morning.
Later I met my wife, and we passed back and forth mix cd's filled with Sufjan as we got to know each other. We danced in the car with him, and later got to see him in Austin. Eventually we got married, and my wife walked down the aisle to Vito's Ordination. And now, 5 years later, I got to see him again in Denver, coming full circle as it were. And it's really cool to look back 5 years and see that much in music.
I am tired today. I almost fell asleep in a meeting, I think my laptop computer screen is giving my face a fluorescent tan, and I have spent the last week drinking water out of a plastic keg cup because I am too lazy to find my nalgene. Needless to say, It's an ugly state of affairs over here, although I am wearing a polo shirt at the moment, which is fairly classy......... So now I will leave you with a few interesting news articles and a great Simpsons quote....."How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"
American Religion Test:
This didn't strike me as too surprising.
A Boy and A Bicycle:
By far my favorite read, very very cool stuff.
And Finally, you can stream Sufjan's new album on NPR here
I haven't been able to give it as good a listen as I would like, but from what I've heard so far it is quite lovely!
Life is never easy right? There are a million forces pulling you in a million different directions; There's work and salary, and making a living; paying for things, iphones, facebook, fantasy football, life decisions, dinner dates, lunches, God and the list goes on and on. And if you're not careful, you lose yourself in all of it and lose sight of nothing other than your circumstances. And that is where last week found me. I am a frustrated graduate that is looking for work in a career that I have fallen out of love with, and so with all of the job searching/career change searching everything else was lost and I got sucked into the void that is feeling sorry for yourself.... I became Eeeyore. Which is not good. When your circumstances take over, you're not really living anymore, just sort of wallowing through life, and you lose all of those little things that make life so good. This is what I did all
least week, and it was awful. But not this week my friends! This is the week of gratitude.
For Chagall and love
Long Bike Rides
Foggy Cold MorningsAnd Warm Coffee in the morning!
Deep deep down; inside our rhythmic beat we have to feel that we are right and ok. We play in the grey, and draw a line to make sure we're ok. We talk ourselves into it and toe the line. Anything to make our means justified, anything so that we can sleep at night and carry on. Because deep down we know what's wrong, and we know we shouldn't; but if we are right, life carries on. And I think every person believes they are doing the right thing; we will always justify ourselves until reality intervenes.
I know I do! 
