The Invariable Mark of Wisdom is to See the Miraculous in the Common

                                   

Midterms begin tomorrow.

As of Late, What Carmen Has Been Absorbing

MIND-EXPANDING LITERATURE:

Oblivion-David Foster Wallace (in progress)-David Foster Wallace's most consistent story collection.  A decidedly, purposefully dense book whose stories range from 3-150 pages.  Almost bereft of dialogue, the stories suck up perceived reality and decoct it and spew it back with such observational fervor that twenty-page long paragraphs are almost justified.  "Good Old Neon" and "Incarnations of Burned Children" are the two stand-outs.  The first story, "Mr. Squishy" is a relative low point, as the story comes, very slowly, to an unsatisfying climax, especially in respect to the subject matter: a focus group administrator's forlorn love set against the backdrop of a mysterious figures suction cup climb to the FGA's building.  Carmen also recommends, "The Soul is Not A Smithy," an ADD-afflicted adult's reflections on how his third grade long-term substitute teacher went straight bonkers during class one day.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man/Love Letters-James Joyce-As with Ulysses, but to a happily lesser extent, Carmen wasn't blown away by the book, aside from Part III, which is some of the greatest writing the English language has ever seen.  Carmen can admire how JJ shows the gestation of the authorial mind and his dealings with the BIG QUESTIONS, but enjoying these things is a very different beast indeed.

Americana-Don Delillo-The first 50 pages of Don Delillo's Underworld make Tolstoy look like Stephanie Meyer.  It  semi-interesting watch his eventual, incredible voice work its way out in this, his first novel.  That said, the second half of the book has no story, and it still manages to be somehow better than most everything out there.

LEVITY-PROMPTING MUSIC:

Crack the Skye-Mastodon-This is shaping up to be the best metal album since Tool's flawless Lateralus.  Carmen procured a leaked version from CTS, his "in" to the industry and an electronic pirate of sorts.  Don't worry, Carmen had already pre-ordered the album, and thus will not be going to hell for stealing the album, but for one billion other unrelated infractions.  The Czar explodered Carmen's skull from the outside in.

Merriweather Post-Pavilion-Animal Collective-CP hates hipsters/scene people, but these hipsters/scene people wrote "Brother Sport," "For Reverend Green," and "Fireworks," AND perform under monikers such as Panda Bear.   

SOUL-SUCKING TELEVISION:

Californication-A show of untold funniness with preposterous storylines and, irrefutably, the worst title sequence in television history.  Hooray for any program that gives work to anyone from "Luckie Louie."  Sometimes objective critical analysis proves hard for CP, as he must discern if the show is actually good or his transcendent love of David Duchovny is simply blinding him to the show's flaws.  Probably a mix of both, Carmen thinks.

Carnivale-Carmen will watch anything that presents carnies, magic, side shows, mysticism, and bearded women in any medium, and so should you.

A Leaning Tower, and the Herds of Asian Tourists That Strive to Pantomime Its Support

Although Carmen didn't truly venture outside of the TOWER/DUOMO/WELL-KEPT-LOUNGE-READY LAWNS section of Pisa, the town's quaintity was more than apparent, and only 1.5 hours from Florence by train!  The entirety of the picturesque concourse is mobbed with tourists applying their dimensionally-deceiving support to the Tower.  In few corners of the world can one hear the phrase, "No, no, a little to the left," in such an abundance of languages.  Even though it fails to offer the grandiosity or ostentatiousness of its Milan or Florence equivalents, Pisa's Duomo is fittingly cutesy, homey, and personal in a certain way.  Every wall is a painting unto itself, with the dome itself being a highlight, depicting man's ascension to paradise.  Gravity asserts itself in big ways when climbing the tower itself, and Carmen's acrophobia was shattered by the harmonious dusky vistas presented by the Tower's top.  There were huge, unringable Church bells, and seizing the rare moment, Carmen made sure to lurk about their immediate areas, lurking fiendishly, hunchbackly.  The sky was the color of humble embarrassment.

"Oh, my God.  Oh, my God.  That is the gayest thing I have ever seen."-Ryan Aguirre

"Ha."-Jude Warne

Thirsty for Payback, The Carnies Get Caught Up in an Obscure Yet Fascinating Phenomenon Known as "Carnival Justice"

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Big thanks to Mommy & Daddy for footing Carmen's tuition bill and allowing him to present the illusion of going to a hoity-toity high-level learning institution for another semester.  It will be added to the endless list of harsh realities averted by some really spectacular parenting and sacrifice.  Carmen expresses intense gratitude in all directions.  Taking the things we have for granted has grown to pandemic proportions in the Western world, and Carmen is ever mindful of how improbably, mind-bogglingly, statistically-unfeasibly lucky he is, at all times.  His cushy, loveflooded life leaves little room for moping.  Still, on rare occasions CP finds his thoughts drifting into the hazy penumbra of melancholy and the infinite sadness.  And in times such as these, he returns to the frothing wells of fond recollections provided by his very own birthparents that already provide so much.  Few things buoy the soul like going back to school day free skates at Winding River with Big Gun, or his Momma tending to him during hallucinatory allergic reactions to Friendly's hot dogs, or performing impromptu renditions of "Like a Stone" by Audioslave with Big Gun on vocals and APR on percussion, or how there was always a perfectly refrigerated Wawa submarine sandwich waiting for him after every, single, day of school, how every episode of Power Rangers was taped sans commercials, how every gift on his demented and scroll-like X-Mas lists was represented regardless of consumer demand.  TY. 

After The Mourning

Carmen's heart may be a black, withered, shriveled raisin in his sunken cavity of a chest, but still, how people found Slumdog Millionaire uplifting, or inspiring, or poignant, or good in any sense of the word doesn't even register on his inner seismograph.  If anything the movie stands to trivialize every emotion, every personage, every movie-making convention and overarching message it depicts.  The sole attribute Carmen can drag from the spiritual landfill is that the millions of missteps throughout the film are carefully masked by a flurry of brightly colored and philistine-pleasuring images, the bottomless vapidity is draped with a shawl of greater meaning.  Is the state of movies to blame?  Or Hollywood's demented agenda?  Or India?  Or philistines?  Or the faulty Oscar voting system?  Or God?  Is it some sick joke, possibly perpetrated by Ashton Kutcher?  Is Ashton Kutcher God?  Is God Kutcher responsible?  Would God Kutcher do that to the simple masses?  No.  

Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar domination is a result of a complex and rarely acknowledged zeitgeist within Hollywood.  This silent killer is known as: Shakespeare in Love Syndrome (SiLS).  Over time, idiocy and sadness and need for mindless satiation begins to tumefy in the hearts of man.  Around once a decade this psychological accumulation reaches it's breaking point, i.e. people are so tired of being tired, close-minded, and generally empty inside that they latch onto something that SEEMS to provide a cure to these ailments.  In 1998, Twas' Shakespeare in Love.  This year it was Slumdog Millionaire.  Both films rest on a beyond preposterous narrative crux, both look really pretty, both have a mass appeal, both are complete and utter filth, but Slumdog Millionaire has committed a far greater sin.  While SiL is a joke from the onset, SM asserts itself as something more, a comment on destiny and love and escaping the limitations of our world.  It is none of these things.  The film hinges on such an improbable premise, executed by one-dimensional character whose aging and random insertion into lush, impoverished backgrounds supplants characterization, that destiny can't even factor into the film's equation beyond a narrative device.  The film asserts itself as a commentary on poverty in India, but the characters and situation are so entirely unreal and Hollywooded it amounts to a pretty guilt trip if anything, the characters don't play as people but lifeless figurines playing against the backdrop of poverty, pantomiming and sucking the soul out of love and spiritual triumph, running the river of a call to action dry.  After SiLS works its slow magic, people are willing to accept even substance-lacking representations of what's important as important, to sit back and absorb and then to come to a resounding agreement about this very fake and in actuality divisive monster, then to celebrate their agreement, not the film itself.  Certain times in the course of human history people must simply agree.  They must label something as one thing when it is in fact something completely different, and cast a rheumy eye over the thing and silently nod in complete unison.  This is what happened.  Things like this happen.  Don't get yourself down about it.  

P.S.  Sean Penn's win was not a product of SiLS, but of Hollywood awarding an Oscar not on the merit of the performance but on subject of the performance.  His speech was pretty good though.  Carmen still hates him.

Two Thousand Nine Oscar Predictions

Who should win, even though a vast majority of nominees shouldn't even be that (nominated).

Best Picture: Milk

Best Director: Gus Van Sant

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis

Best Animated Feature: WALL-E

Best Cinematography: TCCOBB

Best Music (song): The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen

Best Adapted Screenplay: Doubt

Best Original Screenplay: In Bruges

Best Documentary Short: Smile Pinki

Aside: An incredible article about how to save baseball's soul lies here: 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3915217

Suckdog Suckionaire: Directed by Sucky Suckle From the Screenplay by Suckon Suckfoy. Based on "Suck & Suck" by Suckas Suckup. Music by M.I.A.

Wait for it.

Belated Post: Movieum Highlights

Highlights from the Movieum: UK's Most Famous Movie-Related Portmanteau Word/Muesem

The hallway of the Tantive IV, the ship from the opening scene of Star Wars.  There was an authentic dead midget in the R2-D2.

Darth Vader and his latest Sith pupil.  She is adept at force lightning.

The Fettman, unfortunately the Slave 1 didn't make the trip.

James Bond's jet pack A.K.A. Sean Connery's Jet Pack.

The fake cow that gets MUNCHIE DOOMED by the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

Joden! Joden! (Jews! Jews!)

Europeans are pretty serious about soccer.  Thursday night, Carmen and 29 other NYU students attended the Florence Fiorentina v Amsterdam AJAX calcio game.  Escorted by the Office of Student Life's Marco, a character that can only be described as pugnacious, who spent the entire match rolling and smoking cigarettes and calling the opposing team schiffosi (roughly translated dirtbags), the students braved the frigid temperatures and saw Florence fall ONE TO NIL to the opposing Aryan force.  Carmen saw an army of Dutch fans nearly flip a bus.  Carmen saw a busful of Dutchmen shell a bus-stop with eggs.  Carmen saw a 20,000 person bleacher section sing complex and well-intoned battle songs and wave flags the size of ranch-style homes.  Carmen saw the cages that separate the teams' fan sections.  Alcohol was not served, to prevent riots.

Beyond Fun Fact:  Ajax fans have developed the tradition of using Jewish and Hebrew symbols to express their allegiance.  Although the fan-base is almost entirely Gentile, die-hard fans refer to themselves as Joden or "Jews."  This, not strangely, has resulted in opposing teams resorting to anti-semantic cheers and paraphernalia when playing AJAX.  Enemy chants including and not limited to: "HAMAS, HAMAS" "JEWS INTO THE GAS" and a collective hissing sound that is meant to express leaking gas, as in leaking gas from gas chambers, as in gas chambers from the Holocaust.  

Inspired by Ausar but not brash enough to assert his own musical tastes onto the unsuspecting masses a la Ausar,  here is a list of what's oozing out of Carmen's speakers as of late:

1. DLZ by TV on the Radio

2. Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

3. Blood and Thunder by Mastodon

4. Guys Eyes by Animal Collective

5. Shrinking Universe by Muse

6. Cowgirl in the Sand by Neil Young

7. Northern Sky by Nick Drake

8. Hopeless by The Wrens

9. Let Down by Radiohead

10. Starship Trooper: Life Seeker/Disillusion/Wurm by Yes

In The King Of The One, The Blind Man-Eyed is Land

                                       

Creativity is man's highest faculty.  Within a true artist rests the ability to bridge the physical and spiritual barriers that exist between him and his fellow man, where he taps into a wondrousness not of this world, where he leaves himself and fuses with silent divinity, where his creation of art becomes almost unconscious, a flurry of genius balletic movements calling forth the infinite lives behind the most banal of objects, illuminating unbridled beauty to the masses with kaleidoscopic brilliance.  James Joyce drunk at the typewriter.  Gretzsky's wrist shot.  Jesus sermoning.  Kobe.  Pollack drunk on the canvas.  Mozart.  Ted Bundy offing people on a cool summer's eve.  The list goes on.  Demonstrated above is one such bout of celestially gorgeous vomitus.  Absorb.

Another victory was logged today against things that are unlawfully unattractive.  On 2/17/09 Chrystler announced its discontinuation of the PT Cruiser.  Remember to celebrate 2/17 with your friends and family, recalling the hard times, the before time, when these monstrosities prowled through your very own hometown streets, TJ MAXX parking lots, and your nightmares.

Nobody likes whiners, especially when said whiners allow Tyler Perry to represent them in even the most remote fashion, but if this cartoon isn't secretly overtly racist then Optimus Prime isn't a big truck that can transform into a big robot.

Tom Cruise: Greatest Actor of All Time or Messiah?

Congratulations to those that deemed Anchorman the funniest movie ever.  Now wait for the real funniest movie ever poll: where Will Ferrell's tour-de-force goes up against the avant-garde maelstrom of Freddy Got Fingered and Jim Carrey's transcendent, transformative turn in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Spurred by an in-London watching of Jerry Maguire, Carmen feels he should list movies that, in ways both good and bad, immediately zombify him with their entertainingness.  Zombify as in if he catches the movie on HBO or STARZ out of the corner of his eye he'll saunter over and couch himself and watch the movie to its conclusion, drooling toddlerishly.

1. Jerry Maguire

2. Shaun of the Dead

3. Mr. & Mrs. Smith

4. The Break-Up

5. Snatch

6. About A Boy

7. Casino

8. Collateral

9. Edward Scissorhands

10. Forrest Gump

11. The Matrix

12. Rain Man

13. Ferris Beuller's Day Off

14. Kingpin

15. Broken Arrow

The Gang Goes Red-Coat Sans NS and Thanks Their Lucky Stars (JKNSIRWHPYTFR)

Haza for Reunions.  Seeing SAR and TCS filled Carmen with belonging and rightness and his soul warmly grinned for four too short days.  London is happening.  Good eats.  Nice people.  Vistas galore.  People are less attractive and you thus feel much better about your own relative unattractiveness.  BIG CITY x.9 with cars on the other side of the road, but Carmen is in no place to make a true judgment.  Here's a picture of Gryffindor Square.  The weather was beautiful throughout, clear and any rain wasn't even felt, which is a fitting metaphor for the trip as a whole, and maybe life.  Think about it.

The tube is far superior and infinitely less confuzzling than the NYC subway station, with wall-painted lists of every stop, less lines, and, bizarrely, cleanliness.  Pizza Express is omnipresent and heavily crowded and delicious and non-express in every way.  Cab drivers drive and conduct themselves humanely.  Paul Cezzane got no love from The National Gallery Saturday crowd.  The British Museum had mummies!  If Carmen didn't want to be cremated and shot into the sun to return as pure light to the earth, he would most def be mummified.

As the picture implies, TCS was in rare form.  A special thanks for showing C+S around the city.  Can't wait to read your script about the nymphs that inherit the time-traveling motel from the future-past, parallel omniverse grandpa.

Big Ben is even bigger than Ben Roethlisberger, way bigger, like 8x bigger, but like Little Big Ben it knows how to get it done.  Parliament is in no way as impressive as Will Zurich. 

Fine

Roided Out, High, and Good Old Neon

Does Carmen feel bad for Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez and his PED usage? Indeed. Especially considering his juicing contributed to the early 2000's Texas Rangers franchise.   Why anyone is outraged at MLBP using steroids is really beyond Carmen.  Has anyone ever looked at the amount of 50+ HR players pre-1995 and compared that total to today?  DID ANYONE SEE BARRY BONDS HIT 75 HOME RUNS AND DOUBLE IN BODY MASS AT 35 YOA?  Carmen's sympathy, for both Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez and Mikey Phelps, doesn't stem from their humanizations in spite of the public's idolatry or their concessive apologizes, it stems from people thinking they can comprehend at all the reasons behind what Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez and Mikey Phelps do.  Outside of a heavily marginalized, divinely talented percentage of the population, no one understands how these guys' minds work.  So few people have undergone the types of physical, mental, experiential, and familial sacrifices public figures of this caliber have, sacrifices that amount to such divergent paths from the norm that speculation on their mental processes moves into the realm of the abstract.  They have unlimited amounts of money, adoration, and universal acceptance and what do they desire: normality, escape, a strain of acceptance so high that we get into golden calf connotations, the apex of the like, that once reached one can only be dragged down by very same force that propelled his ascension.  To say that Arod felt "pressured" or Michael Phelps just wanted to "unwind" doesn't even come close to what those two guys actually wanted.  These mistakes are so far removed from the normal conception of wrongdoing that the lines of right and wrong cannot even be drawn.  Carmen feels bad because the public and the media try to attach reasons to these very complex things, to reduce them and these larger-than-life characters to something less than they really are, when the real reason behind it all is the public and media itself, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Carmen read a story by David Foster Wallace yesterday titled, Good Old Neon, that demands a reorganization of his Top-5 short stories list:

1. Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace

2. Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders

3. Emergency by Denis Johnson

4. Little Expressionless Animals by David Foster Wallace

5. The Secret Integration by Thomas Pynchon

Post-Grammys Speculation As To Who The Antichrist Most Probably Is

The Grammys are a sad, sad, boring affair.  Not knowing whether to go for a populist or esoteric appeal, the awards have settled for simply giving awards to everyone that plays an instrument.  There is a Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Performance.  Nominees don't even show up for the preliminaries ones, which are abundant and poorly pronounced by the presenters.  The Mars Volta did show up though, having the lead singer of TV on the Radio accept their award.  Performances outweigh actual awards during the actual broadcast.  As a casual liker of music, the Grammys make Carmen deeply depressed.  The rhythm section of Radiohead didn't even show up.

Who is the Most-Likely Candidate for Anti-Christ in Today's Unsure World?  

1. BO-Carmen likes BO as much as the next media-manipulated pseudo-person, but can one really refute an appeal that broad, his unimpeded ascension during times so trying, the coincidence of his term's culmination and eschaton?  Can one?

2. Bono-"Get Your Boots On" is a song and music video of such impossible badness that universal acclaim is only around the corner, again.  Yeah, this Irishman with his uni-eyed sunglasses has taken a lot of pictures with starving people, but he's also been writing the same song for the past 25 years with the Edge and Larry.  Carmen's all for having sound political views, but when musicians attempt to sway their typically herdish and chowderheaded fans into agreement CP's insides go into Eagle Scout knots. Wow, you figured out that politicians are corrupt, greedy, self-obsessed, megalomaniacal humanoids, here's a Grammy.

3. Michael Bay- If Transformers isn't the equivalent of socio-psychological genocide on a mass scale Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen will be.  

4.  Post-Devil Without a Cause Kid Rock- Listen to Summer Time.

5.  Some Random Guido-....

6. Oprah- Nearly destroyed the reputation of the greatest actor of the modern era, Tom Cruise, while simultaneously stripping the 19-72 year-old female demographic of any and all free thought.  She built a one-million dollar school in Africa, then returned to Chicago and her 999 million dollar fortune.  If Carmen had 1000 bucks and you asked for one Carmen would give you at least five.  COME ON.

Through All The Stubborn Beauty I'd Start At The Dawn Until The Sun Had Fully Stopped Never Walking Away From Just A Way To Pull Apart

Preamble: This post is subject to discontent and SADish ruminations, as it rained for the entirety of Carmen's trip to Milan and his right arm was raped by a half-dozen pigeons.

That said, Milan is spectacularious.  A much more modern, BIG CITYish city.  A higher frequency own dogs, but absolutely none of them, like Florence, clean up the doodie.  Its Duomo is far superior in grandeur and vistas in comparison to the Florence Duomo, and, dareth Carmen say it, maybe granduerier than the Vatican.  The Duomo is so monstrously massive it has its own atmosphere.  The pillars shown above are about the size of St. Luke's Church Funs River, NJ each.  There are less stairs to the roof and the obilisques are sharper and from the top its just grand.  La Scala, the most storied opera house in the world, isn't as big as the Met but its Intermission bar area is decidedly nicer.  Outside of the city center, one isn't presented the fancy-pants fashionable people one would expect, but in the fashion district a milieu of hyper-hip-hipsters overtakes one.  Carmen saw a girl wearing what appeared to be a WWII-era paratrooper outfit with rainbow hightop NIKEs and a ushanka.

The hostel was quite nice, offering a bunny-eared TV, an electric heater, a kitty-emblazoned comforter, a one-person elevator, and its storied porcelain snow leopard.  All for 23 Euro!
For those keeping count at home, Carmen now only trails Elena Gutierrez's study abroad castles seen total by 12 after this 14th century bad boy.  This castle is about ten stories tall and a thousand wide, housing 10 different and equally huge museums, including medieval weaponry, which Carmen likes, a lot.

Here's the sculpture Michaelangelo was working on when he bought the farm and went to that silver-lined cloud in the sky to live forever with his vaguely remembered aunts and uncles.  If Carmen were to bite the big one, his equivalent would be this blog post.
This guy is Galileo's protractor, the device he used to discover the moon.  Oooo lala!  As Joe Dimaggio said, "It's the little things that matter," and little treasures like this really set certain museums off more than others.

The Inside Part

Apologizes extended for bloglessness as Carmen's trip to Milan was undertaken sans comp.  A fast continuation of the Tour of La Pietra that deserves a small place in the blogosphere follows:

1.  Harold Actin, who left the priceless estate, the largest parcel of land in Florence, 57 astounding acres, 5 villas, a garden recognized as a National Treasure, home to a Vasari and a Donatello among thousands of sculptures, carvings, frescos, and seven libraries of 19th and 20th century literature, and that's not even scratching the surface of the majesty, priceless in every non-Mastercard-commercial sense of the word, to NYU didn't even go to NYU.

1(a).  If that was confusing the previous owner of La Pietra went to Oxford but left the estate to NYU because he thought NYU would honor the tradition of the place more, being a monolithic, consumptive scholastic monster with endless capital and vaguely imperialist policies.

2.  Over the years, nearly all of the royal family of England has vacationed at La Pietra.  There is a touching pic of Princess Di and gnarly Charles in the gardens.

3.  The libraries contain a first-edition copy of James Joyce's Ulysses, a signed first-edition of D.H. Lawerence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, and huge, Carmen imagines signed collection of Graham Greene books, as he was one of Harold Actin's closest friends.

4.  In Europe, black people aren't all pissy about all the wrongs of slavery their distant and most-likely forgotten relatives suffered, and La Pietra has little statuettes of all the negroid, Moor servants.  The tour guide assured everyone that no one cares, really.

5. The Villa is a straight museum, and one cannot enter with first wrapping his/her shoes with papery, blue ER booties.

6.  La Pietra's three story, winding staircased rotunda has a fountain in the middle with Koi fish in it.  This only becomes apparent around halfway up the marble staircase and is greeted with a nice round of ooo, would you look at thats.

7.  The guards feed the fish.

In The Flowers

Thursday found Carmen on a 2.5 hour tour of the main Villa La Pietra and its pretty pretty backyard/garden setup.  The initial part was given by the grounds' head gardener and the overseer of the restoration.  He was a Brit, probably named Nigel, who came to La Pietra for a six month sabbatical and has been here for more than a decade.  Nigel is kinda like a funny accented Kenny Leaver on histological steroids.  Here's some facts Carmen learned on the garden portion of the tour:

1.  La Pietra was erected in 1467 by the Medici, hotshot Italian bankers.  The Medici sold the property to The Caponi, which means castrated rooster in Italian, who lent it out to cousins who sold it to The Sesetti, who sold it to the Actin's who restored it and filled it with endless art and statues and then bequeathed it to NYU.

2.  Pre 20th-Century, it was a fun time to have an outdoor stage where families could host parties, concerts, plays.  When NYU restored La Pietra's outdoor stage The Royal Shakespeare Company performed featuring DAME JUDI DENCH.

3.  The garden's inlays are baroque, but the garden itself is Renaissance-revival.  Interesting!

4.  During the Renaissance period, whole harvests would be lost in winter and thus walled gardens were constructed to protect against the wind, but after the advent of the railroad, it became much easier to buy imported food and the walled garden was antiquated.  The walls remain.

5.  In winter, lemons were grown in a special indoor, big-windowed room called a lemon room.  The staff at La Pietra still grow the lemons, distributing them to the students in April.

Stay Tuned for The Inside Part of the Tour!

MAKE BELIEVE

Today, Carmen helped out Julian Lionheart from the Office of Student Life with teaching some Freshman in Florence students about how dangerous, dirty, and big-buildinged THE BIG CITY is.  His buddy was really nice and Carmen was forced to talk about all the things he misses about TBC.  There are too many to list, Two Boots Pizza notwithstanding.  Here is a picture of Carmen's favorite reading spot at NYU.  He misses this as well.

Modest Mouse is playing Terminal 5 on March 5th 2009.  Modest Mouse plays about five shows a year.  Modest Mouse's playing at Terminal 5 will not be seen by Carmen.  Hopefully none of the members of Modest Mouse fall victim of carpal tunnel or spontaneously combust before next year.

Carmen's Three Favorite Modest Mouse Songs, Recalled Woefully:

1. Parting of the Sensory.

2. Ocean Breathes Salty.

3. People as Places as People.

BIG OL' FAT RAIN

Day 3 of a forecasted 10-day-long rainstorm.  Here's a few things that Carmen did to help stave off SAD this Tuesday: breakfasting on a bowl of Frosties, attending his 3-hour long Money & Banking class, taking a dreamless nap on freshly laundered sheets, rereading the first 100 pages of INFINITE JEST, folding clothes, pondering on whether to attend Bob Dylan in Florence for the prescribed $200 price tag, trying to figure out Bonaroo schedules that justify his driving to Tennessee this summer, and eating another super awesome dinner.  The dinners on-campus are impossibly good, especially food-wise.  Carmen also made a list of his ten favorite songs of all time and rode a stationary bike to the created list that is subject to vast changes as time eases by but is shown below anyways.

C'SFSOAT(STVCBISBA)

1. Wake Up by Arcade Fire

2. Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips

3. "Heroes" by David Bowie

4. The Golden Age by Beck

5. Cassandra Gemini by The Mars Volta

6. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd

7. Staralfur by Sigur Ros

8. Steam Engine by My Morning Jacket

9. Lateralus by Tool

10. Street Spirit (Fade Out) by Radiohead

Common Thematic Elements In Fav Songs That May Or May Not Say Something About Carmen: Conscious Embrace of Experience, Laterally Interactive Duality, Etherealism, Transcendent Relations to: Time, Reality, Inner Caverns of the Self, Dynamism, Persistence of the Soul, Life's Triumph Over Death and It's Manifestations in Both the Quotidian and Profound, The Concept of Infinity, Being Simultaneously Miniscule and Massive, Modern Theological Pastiches, and Outer Space.

Research Shows: Bird Not The Word

The forces of evil won out once again on Sunday night.  Looks as if all that is right in the world will have to pay tenfold for the Giants' win last year.  Watching James Harrison return that interception can only be equated, by Carmen, to having his (Carmen's) soul dragged through mud for about as long as it takes a fat, black lineman to run 100 yards.  Great 4th quarter nonetheless.  Now, the Steelers can return to their grey metropolis and store their trophy with the five others in whatever febrile underground tomb they are kept in.  Side-note: Carmen did pick up James Harrison on a 2nd week hunch in fantasy.  This does not help in any way.  Side-Side-note:  Out of the 120 on-campus residents at NYU in Florence, 7 watched the Super Bowl.  None of the seven could explain the intricacies of the tuck rule.  Four were die hard Steelers fans.  One was Carmen.  One was Marc on crutches.  The last was Dracula.

Worst Super-Bowl Commercials Ever.  Ever.  Ever.  Aside from the careerbuilder.com one, most were either lifeless and boring or appeared to be Powerpoint presentations.  

Max Weinberg can really keep a beat.

Surfin' Bird

BABABA BIRD BIRD BIRD BIRD IS THE WORD.  Cardinals 27-17.