Puerto Rico: Biolumenescent Bay

I came to Puerto Rico to visit my long lost family not having any idea what to expect. I don't visit family, and I sure as hell don't visit family overseas. As we talked on the phone about what I may like to do or see, I was my usual indescisive I'm-sure-that-whatever-you-want-will-be-fine self except I made one thing clear: under no circumstances do I wish to be a tourist.

As the sun sank behind the picturesque horizon, we paddled two by two into a single file line. I thought of baby ducks clad in yellow life vests advertising our tourism company. My uncle and I struggle for control of the boat. Our paddles clanked with the stubbornness of him refusing to take my lead, and me insisting on leading anyway.

As the entrance of the mangrove approached, the wind grew still and the water shallow. The ripe odor of stagnant water mingled with our repellent drenched bodies. As was swerved back and forth, zigzag with and against the channel, we did our best to avoid the roots that stretched out into the inlet. Did you know that Mangroves are the only trees that can stick their roots in salt water and thrive? I wonder they can ever feel it burning and still continue.

We could hear whistling and hooting, the hollowed sound of some special kind of frog. When we’d reach a particularly intergrown bunch of threes they’d form roofs over our heads that blocked out the light in a perfect display of blackness. We had been seeing little glitter like specs of the bioluminescent creatures we had come to admire through the clear bottom of our kyaks. In these enclosures where we couldn’t even see one another or the shore, we began to see our paddles like up as the swept through the water. We kept paddling.

After twenty minutes, we finally came to the opening in the tunnel. We could see the light of the full moon brilliant on the surface of the bay. And as we broke through that curtain of light, the creature greeted our paddles fervently. When we lifted them out of the water, a glistening streaks of light would flow down, leaving bright green drip marks all over the surface of the water. My hand felt the water warm and smooth like melting butter as I swooshed it around to reveal a trail of glow like fireflies and light sticks. We splashed the shimmering water at one another and I found a strand of vegetation from the bottom that when I ran it through the water appeared like a comet trailing my finger tips.

We paddled to the opposite side of the lake and turned around for the most picturesque moment imaginable. The moon peaked up gradually through the densely interwoven branches. It was so many layers of beautiful piled on ontop of the other. The moon, the silhouetted mangrove trees, the serenity of a secluded bay brought alive by the playful kyakers splashing around in amazement. So I guess I'm more of a tourist than I was willing to admit...

endings

I'm exhausted. We're home. Our last show is tonight. Come see us at the Purple House. The following notes will be brief. Perhaps too brief.

Recap:
Louisville: Awesome bands, nobody showed up, Dizzy Whiz is my new favorite restaurant. We heard that Allister Crowley is George Bush's grandfather and seduced his grandmother with sex magic and mind magnetism. Caboladies and Pete Fosco rule.

DC: Perry Palace were fantastic hosts. Tons of kids came out, they were awesome. Also some unexpected Hampshire friends made it an especially nice evening. We stayed with Peter's sister Lisa in her house. She has a beautiful apartment in a very happening part of town. To get to her home, we drove for about 11 hours through the middle of the night to cross all of Kentucky and West Virginia and part of Maryland. We saw the sunrise through the Appalachian Mountains. We ate at the Flying J at 2 in the morning. Peter almost bought socks.

Philadelphia: Cheesesteaks, Hoagies, skillshares @ the white lodge. We are fond of this city and its inhabitants. Peter was told that he looks like Jimmy Kimmel. I was not compared to anyone. Neither was Jim.

Now we are back in western mass. Hi everyone. Come hang out.

-Ben

Boar Toggling

More from tour:

We're in DC. House show tonight. Be there.

We had a kind of weird show in Cleveland. The band Zs ended up playing with us. That was cool. We had to do the show at a bar, which was less cool. We aren't much of a bar band. I think this is because we aren't a band.

Then was Chicago. Chicago ruled and I am pretty sure continues to rule in our absence. Maybe it won't rule quite a hard, but still. Dallas and Liz hosted us. A ton of old and new friends came. WJ had a large contingent. Jim and I ended up doing encore sets for latecomers. Chicago is full of the three B's- Barbecues, bookstores, boyfriends. Seriously, everyone there is in a couple I think.

Anyways, writing happy things is not that interesting.

*

Urbana is more interesting. The headlining band was supposed to be Plan B from Chicago. They were going to suck, but then they didn't even come. In fact , no one came. I think that the booker may have intentionally sabotaged the show, because he kept us far from the venue entrance during the time when people might have come and he let other people know that the main act had cancelled. He didn't even stick around to let us show him my book or Jim's demo, even though we were going to. He just left while Jim and Peter were in another room.

This left us all alone in the Urbana Independent Media Center. This place should have been very cool. It is in a former post office building. It's about 100 years old and has several floors, a radio station, a bike-workshop, a free-internet computer room, and a capacity of almost 1000 people. It was super creepy. We stayed in this weird room in the basement on pathetically small couches. They left the air on-- cooling the whole place to 65 degrees all night long. This is supposed to be a liberal organization. Think about the energy use for that. Anyways.

Then the stupidest hypocrisy of all- they block google. They have free-wifi, but you can't use google or any other websites owned by google. This is, apparently, activism. Note to IMC- Censorship is not a good way to create change. there is a difference between censorship and voluntary boycott. Blocking blogspot and gmail is not going to do anything good for the world. It just inconveniences people. Plus, why block google but not myspace or facebook or even walmart.com? Apparently it's more important to lodge a totally useless protest against a company that has been accused of bending to foreign censorship (irony again finds its way in) than to block companies that cause real harm on US soil. This is largely the same kind of jingoist and self-deluded thinking that leads to people driving 400 miles to DC or New York for Free Tibet protests.

The absurdity of the night kept it from being a total loss.

*

Next came St. Louis. Awesome show at Open Lot. The people there were super-enthusiastic, welcoming and warm. We had a really amazing time.

I should rewind a bit though. Before STL we had a lot of time to check out southern Illinois. We visited the history museum of Vandalia, IL and were shown around by a very lovely elderly woman. The building was in a beautiful former church and our guide even showed us the upstairs even though it was supposed to be closed. She also showed us a tool that Abraham Lincoln once owned and had carved his initials in, logs from the national road, and all kinds of exhibits like photos of Vandalia's first basketball team and the town's first switchboard... lots of odds and ends. It was a very charming little stop.

We then went to the Cahokia Mounds. Look these up. They are incredible. They're a UN world heritage site, home of the largest earthen structures in the Americas and the former home of the largest pre-colonial city in North America (10-20,000 people). The mounds were something like North American pyramids, serving largely as burial grounds for high-ranking members of the community. It's a pretty amazing place.

*

After the history museum, mounds, and St. Louis show, we continued on to Louisville, KY.

I am tiring of blogging. Louisville is a very big and weird city. We went to Dizzy Whiz. Soon I will add details. There will be a post to discuss the last leg of tour. Maybe two.

-Ben

Tour Pt. 2

A brief summary of our stay in Pittsburgh will follow shortly, but first a bit of news.

My book, 78 Stories, is officially up for sale on the No Record Press website. It's at www.no-record.com. Buy it (please). Buy it right here http://store.no-record.com/78stories.html (please).

Shameless self-promotion temporarily aside, I will now recount our last few days. We've been staying with my relatives in Pittsburgh. They live in a great house right on the edge of Frick Park. We've basically spent the last several days being wined and dined and dined again by all of my various relatives. They've been really really generous and we've just been totally relaxing and being taken care of. So the short version is that Pittsburgh has been very awesome. Our show was quite small, but warmly received.

Pittsburgh, contrary to popular lore, is a quite beautiful city.

Tomorrow- Cleveland.

-Ben

PS: We are wondering what is happening on the homefront. Please report news of events in the the purple house. We also miss you.

we're so on tour right now (pt1)

We have a lot to write about, so I'm going to try to stick to the highlights.

Jim, Peter, and I are officially on tour. We started off in New York. Jashin and Egan set up a show for us at Yoyo's amazing loft in Soho. It was also Jess's birthday party.

First: Egan and Yoyp set up a fantastic space and hung several of their photographs and paintings. It was a really beautiful setting. We performed. I think we all performed well. I forget details. There was a lot of wine etc.

Everyone we met was very supportive, even the people we didn't previously know. It is not rare to get to do shows for your college friends, but the mix was much more eclectic than I expected. Besides the usual suspects we had several Germans, a Marine, a professor, a renowned documentarian, and several others and everyone seemed to get along and be into our presentations. As sappy as it may seem, it's actually very touching and inspiring to share work with a large group of people and find that it's genuinely appreciated by such diverse crowd. And then there was the wine etc., which lasted practically until dawn.

The next morning, we cleaned the apartment. Mostly I cleaned the apartment because I woke up early and couldn't fall back to sleep. This led to an unfortunate sequence of events in which a fairly large rag was accidentally flushed down a toilet and amateur plumbing (with all of it's attendant anxiety and hilarity) was forced to ensue. The clog was fixed. The rag was not salvaged. We owe Yoyo a rag.

Our second minor hitch of tour: Getting out of the city. Day 2 was relaxed, but we were also pretty worn out. Peter was still working at the Vision Jazz festival, so Jim and I hung around the city and caught up more with friends.

I am trying to avoid listing names of friends because there are a lot of them and I've chosen to omit all rather than forgot any. Except for the people that actually helped organize the evening. And us. Our names stay in. Anyways...

We'd stashed the car at Russ's house on Long Island (I used another name, but that's really more of a location). Jim and I returned there in the evening and waited for Peter to finish. We made mistakes in planning. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Russ's, but we stayed too long and got started too late on our drive.

Also, we had to return Matt's guitar. This sucked. We got lost. We went out of our way. We did not find his house. The guitar is still with us. By the point of the failed guitar return, it was 2 am and we were in suburban New Jersey. We pressed on to Ocean City, where we had lodging at Jim's shore house. I took over driving and made good time for the first hour or so, and by 4, we seemed about to finally reach our destination. The fog materialized. Visibility rapidly approached zero, as did our speed. We crossed the bay in such a haze that we were unable to tell that we were even above water. We finally crawled into Jim's shore house around 430 and promptly passed out.

We woke up too soon the next morning because we needed to make Pittsburgh by 7. Jim's dad was at the house and we met him and spent a too-brief morning visiting, and then drove for 6 or 7 hours.

We are currently in Pittsburgh. This entry is getting too long. Pittsburgh will be described in the next few days, but for now I am going to sign off.

-Ben

PS: This tour is rad.

It's really hot

Did you know that Hawaii has both the lowest all-time high temperature and the highest all-time low temperature of any US state?

Look it up. Hawaii's all-time high is 100 degrees and all-time low is 12.

To be fair, Alaska's all-time high is actually also only 100, so they are tied for lowest-high, but Hawaii's low is a full 14 degrees higher than second place Florida's -2, which makes Hawaii also the only state to have never been in negative degrees.

Let us contrast this with Northampton, MA which has a low of -30 and high of 100. Our swing is almost 50 degrees greater than the entire state of Hawaii. Honolulu only has a swing of about 40 degrees all-time (95-52)

On the other extreme, the state of Alaska has a 180 degree variation from -80 to 100. The city of Fairbanks alone has seen every temperature from -66 to 99.

World-wide, I cannot give a certain answer for the most impressive variance, but Yakutsk (Russia) might be a good guess. It's been as low as -85 and as high as 103.

-ben

Come to this

This is going to rule. Go to http://stout.hampshire.edu/~pdb04/phtour/houseshows.html for more info

The website I tried to post in the previous entry didn't work properly.

Here it is: http://stout.hampshire.edu/~pdb04/phtour/

we're back..

It's been too long since this blog was posted in. Far too long.

We have way too many things to talk about that should have gotten blog coverage and now must not. Apologies slighted blog topics.

First and most importantly to the house, we got new people in the double and Kristin moved out. This is the kind of bittersweet news we often have here. Maggie and Lydia are very excellent newcomers however, so overall I'm excited about summer here.

Secondly, Jim and Peter and I are going on tour in a week. Peter made a website:

Go get details there then come see us.

Ok so those are the major house news items. We can begin once again blogging about trivial topics at frequent intervals.

For example, Obama Nation sounds like Abomination, Friendly's was giving away free cones today, and it is 90 something degrees out right now. 

The heat has destroyed my will to carry on writing and my ability to craft a decent sentence.

- Ben

div freedom

So the last few weeks have gone by in a blur. The weather was cold for a while, but now its sunny and cloudless. We had a fantastic show on Sunday with Ladybird and Snaps and Claps. Ladybird warmed everyone's hearts with their french charm and endearing singalong melodies. It was a classic purple house moment, with the sunflower paintings bringing the cheer into the basement. Next, Snaps and Claps went all cute on us. The basement was packed! Maybe 30 people, all very politely sitting on the floor with beaming smiles and the occasional giggle brought on by a witty out-of-tune lyric.
The concert then took a turn for the weird. The crew basically jumped the bill in two waves. Rory and Matt (joined by James Pettingale on Drums) droned their way out of cute land with Rory on clarinet and vocals and matt on 12-string. Enveloped in darkness, James held down the skittering beats. Pretty transcendental, yet imperfect and not too serious. Next, a free jazz all-star debut with me, Gerald, Ben Daly, Zach Ianazzi and Devendra (from Boston). This was a spontaneous, no holds barred aggressive flow of loud piercing squeals and conversational lines held together with some drifting, complex drones. It got a bit more sensitive too, once I encouraged the band to play a quieter for the second song. That was my favorite.
With plenty of free time, for the last five days, I have been working the sound and video for some Div 3 screenings. There was some excellent work over the weekend by Brendan Toller, Bjorn, Emily-Rose, Skylar, Ben Balcom and more. I was completely blown away by the triple threat of three non-fiction films by Dean Colpack, Zach Ianazzi, and Danilo Coleman at a screening last night at film and photo. It has made me very proud of all my friends and peers to see the fruit of their labor get the attention it deserves. I really feel like the class of 2008 has made some great accomplishments this year.
Peter

i have 12 hours

12 hours before i need to hand in my division three. not to be a debbie downer, but it's going to suck. the product, not the act of handing it in. i shouldn't be writing this right now but i'm sick of deciphering jargon at the moment.

i've seen the sun rise almost every day this week. hopefully this will be the last time, at least for a little while. i drank a cup of coffee 2 hours ago and fell asleep 10 minutes later. why does that always happen??

jesslyn is coming home early!

our back porch is perfect these days. it's screened in, the trees are budding, the farms are ripe with sweet smelling manure, even when it's hot out the area is shaded and kept cooler, it has electric plugs for laptops that only work with chargers, the coffee table is out there for the time being, and it's the perfect spot to watch peter and ben act out cheesy novels. also a good area for social smoking, drinking, laughing, schmoozing and taking naps.

Chad Gad Ya

I'm too tired for a very well-written posting, but I thought I should make a quick update in light of the major last few days we've had here.

-Passover is in full swing. I went to a seder in CT at Aliza's house and it was awesome. Thank you so much. I am still thinking about the brisket.

- Peter's Div III was a resounding success. Almost like a Bar Mitzvah, Peter has passed another milestone on the road to manhood. Also lize a Bar Mitzvah, he did it along with family, friends and klezmer music. The Freylech Valley Orkestr is really really good. The whole show was fantastic. The after party was appropriately rambling and raucous. On a related note, we all met his sister, Lisa, and found her to be an excellent house guest. I love meeting people's family members and hearing about stories about my friends in their small-child incarnations.

- Pennsylvania primaries have come and gone, and it seems that Democrats in my home state want to drag this race out in the most annoying and self-damaging way possible. Way to go Pennsylvania! On the plus side, Obama won my home county, the county I went to high school in, Jim's home county, and the county he grew up in along with precisely 3 other counties state-wide. I think this proves that Jim and I leave a lasting positive legacy wherever we go.

- I finished my pint of ice cream.

san fran

okay so now i'm in san fran and this is going to be real quick because one shouldn't blog when they're in san francisco. okay i'm at this really cool hostel in downtown san fran, it has a movie theatre on the fourth floor! cool! anyways i'm staying here tonight and then probably with my friend Lori tomorrow and then i'm not sure. My ranching experience was interesting. i had mixed feelings about it. I did fall in love with a terrier named Buddy, and it broke my heart to leave him but then i remembered that i have a Benny at home (who is having surgery on friday?!) My friends from Maine are also in san fran and hopefully we will meet up at some point. also i'm spending way too much money! i stole stale crackers from the ranch and that's all i'm going to eat until i come home. also i'm real excited for the Leaf music and arts festival that i'm volunteering at/going to in north carolina, just east of asheville. i think it's going to be a lot of fun. okay anyways this is kind of scattered but i'm alive and doing well and missing everyone! i hope you guys are well.

Recap

The game yesterday was one of the best I've seen in a very long time. Kansas came back from down 9 with 2 minutes to play, hit a 3 with 2 seconds remaining, and won in overtime.

As I wrote about in my previous post, foul shooting and depth proved to be the difference. Kansas gave up a few too many turnovers, which allowed Memphis to built up a However, the Tigers' 1-5 shooting of free throws down the stretch killed them.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

Today is the NCAA Division 1 National Championship Game! The Memphis Tigers, led by former UMass coach John Calipari and freshman stand-out Derrick Rose are playing against the Kansas Jayhawks.

I'm rooting for Kansas, who I originally picked to win the tournament. I prefer the Jayhawks style of play and maturity. I also think the Memphis's team is not really made of student athletes. They have a dismal graduation rate and a lot of players have ahd run-ins with the law, including their top big-man, Joey Dorsey, who was seen this summer 'making it rain' at a strip club.

Anyways, moralizing aside, Memphis's free-throw issues will be a serious hindrance and the Jayhawk's incredible depth (they played 12 people in their semi-final victory over North Carolina) will allow them to use fouling as a defensive technique to disrupt Memphis's fast-paced offense.

I'll provide post-game analysis tomorrow or later tonight.

Tip off is at 9:20.

future grilling

Searching for 'futuristic grilling' on google brings up this image:

House Update

Today was an historic occasion for the Purple House. Jim and I cleaned up the back porch and yard. We moved truly epic amounts of garbage. Now we don't look like the town dump but instead like a lovely country estate that's slightly run down but still quite charming.

It's getting very very close to grilling season. We plan to be having fires within the week.

Also, there has been some very serious hanging out and several house dinners (including Peter's excellent pasta sauce and James's equally excellent garlic bread).

Speaking of James, we have new housemate. His name is James, not to be confused with Jim. He is our second tallest resident, a world traveler, and is finishing up his undergraduate work on wind-energy. I can state with confidence that he is a fine addition to the house and to the proud lineage of coupola residents.

Also, I've been watching a lot sitcoms via streaming video on the internet. I am very fond of sitcoms. I think I would like to write for one some day. I don't think my current fiction is likely to get me any offers of that sort, unfortunately.

I would like to close this entry with an apology for slacking on my blog responsibilities. I hereby renew my promise to blog at regular intervals.

Yours,
Ben

Meeting Allison Bechdel

As she read from her memoir, publicly displaying the lascauxian creation myth of herself as a queer artist, she peered out at us from beneath her brow furrowed in uninhibited anxiety. It had made an irrevocable impression on me how she had defined her past into discrete panels of reflection. Her persona was more awkward than funny, her comic more tragic than funny. I could relate to the dry, absurdist tendencies of my own malformed humor.

There was a fastidious quality that permeated her voice as she recounted episodes of OCD that made up her artistic process. Apparently it involved posing and taking pictures of herself for every character she draws before embarking on creating the panel detailed in minutia. That’s thousands of pictures over the course of the entire graphic novel. Then there were a series of layers drawn by hand and on the computer, super imposed over one another and melded into a painstaking whole. It comes out to several hours per square inch. “There went a whole weekend” she would joke, flipping through sketches of the Victorian wallpaper endemic in her childhood home. I could so clearly imagine her silhouetted in a lonely house etching the images that her (justified) resentment had seared into her psyche. What is the difference between the compulsions that enhance our humanity and those that detract from it?

The familiarity of her fidgety and uneven breathing escalated during the q&a period when she as she squinched her face up into a lost expression as she told us she didn’t understand why she did what she did. She almost seemed to plead to the audience to validate her compulsion. Her openness was uneasy on both sides. She seemed pretty desperate about the manner.

How do the stories we tell shape who we are? How do they limit or expand the ways we can understand ourselves? The way we can relate and connect? How does making sense of the world and oneself in relation to it lend justification to our existence? Is there any such thing as credibly and authenticity when one tells one’s own story? How do we prove to ourselves that certain stories belong to us? Why do some people need to share?

--Chlirissa

my adventures in Portland

So i'm on day 2 now in Portland. I'm in love with Portland, everything is sooo green and beautful. Right now i'm at this really great library and they have tons of zines! Everything feels really good here and is working out really well. The hostel i'm staying in is really nice although i wish there were more people around. Last night i met up with a friend of a friend, Erin, and we went to this bar/restauranty place and we had beer and chocolate cake! Suprisingly they make a really nice combination. Erin works at a Cremation Center, she had lots of really great stories.
I'm not quite sure what my plans are for today, probably doing a lot of wandering and lots of picture taking. In the next couple of days i will be heading to Santa Rosa to work on a ranch. I'm really excited for that. whoa, gotta run! Miss you guys!

I just thought the Purple House community would like this little text I found on the Mike Gravel website:

The Stalking Horse
February 20th, 2008 by georgann
Clinton Will Use Ron Paul Delegate Strategy To Clinch Nomination
Just as Ron Paul will harness confusion at the Republican National Convention to convert supposedly “pledged” delegates to his uplifting cause, Hillary Clinton will do the same on the Democratic side. A senior Clinton adviser told Politico’s Roger Simon, the guy who looks a bit like Henry Waxman except without the insane nose, that if forced the Clinton campaign would pursue the votes of pledged delegates—those assigned based on the results of primaries and caucuses.
“This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides,” Simon writes today.
The great unmentioned stalking horse in this whole debate is Mike Gravel, who will in the end persuade every delgate pledged to Clinton or Obama to come to his side, leading to an apocalyptic Gravel versus Paul ‘08 election throwdown in which no one wins … except America.

-Ben

pumping iron

Yesterday we pumped iron. We were like a house of Arnold Schwartzeneggers (sp). It was very good exercise for our arms. We will have stronger arms now than we did before.

-Ben

write (for) me

Dear friends,

I am helping to start an arts/culture magazine with Sean Higgins. We are in the process of looking for writers. Below is a preliminary list of topics/themes that we'd like to get writers for.

Reviews
-books
-music
-film
-art
-zines/websites
Interviews
Celebrity letters (we already have some)
Etymologies/Biographies of words
Histories of Names of (Athletic Team, Band, Art Movement etc.)
Community Spaces/House Venue Profiles
Label/Publisher Profiles/Histories
Debates between intellectuals on a topic chosen by the staff
human body/techno-science interfaces- programming the human
obscure musical instruments
novelty food

Also, today we had pizza. It was so good. Thank you Kristin for pizza. And for ice cream

Also also, it is warming up. I can see part of the ground in the back yard. Spring is amazing. Come hang out. I want to go on walks and roast marshmallows in the back yard. Well, walks far beyond the backyard.

-Ben

when all else fails, hit every red button you can find

today i had a lesson in handy-work. so we bought a half tank of oil this morning and were relieved because we thought we beat the 'EMTY' ticker on the furnace. but when we all went to take showers, the water came out icy like the air in our house. i thought it maybe took a little while before the oil kicked in and earnestly went back to the shower every hour or so until ben got home to see if some of that heavenly warm water would trickle out. when he got home we put two and two together and decided we had to relight the furnace. shit. we make a few phone calls, rally up previous champion furnace starters, consult the internet gods and go downstairs like mario and luigi, minus the plumping. i want to be mario. anyway, we let oil leak all over our hands, find some red buttons to push on and around the box with warning signs printed very neatly with tiny letters in the shadows of the machine. turn on the furnace 20 times, unscrew and rescrew the 'bleeder', meet up with the landlady who calls her friend who confirms that what we've been doing for twenty minutes is the right thing to do....then after i washed the first layer of oil off my hands for the 4th time i figured diane needed to buy a new furnace because ours was broken. no ticker, splatter, fire, or boost of anything was coming from the stagnant pipelined machine. then ben calls the oil company and they tell us to turn on the emergency switch.

i'm sure you can guess that i'm writing this in a warm room. anyway, i learned something today about that old furnace and definitely confirmed the purple house network. nice to know that even after you leave, you're not totally gone. except for the summer people....fuck them. just joking. i need to get back to work. i hope i graduate. jesslyn, come home.

-kristin

brrrrrr

It is morning and the house is very very cold. Westerm Mass. is very very cold. Frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm going to be using the sauna semi-regularly as a means of counter-acting this oppressive weather. Besides helping you sweat out toxins, the intense heat actually raises your heart-rate and so sauna-ing acts as a form of mild cardiovascular exercise.

Today is a sad day, because it is Than's last official day in our house. I will miss you a lot. I think everyone will. I can only speak for myself, but I can state for certain that I'll miss you enough for the house even if they didn't all miss you, which I'm sure they do. Plus also a loss of a Dubin in a household is a grave loss indeed.

On the bright side, everyone is supposed to be getting up and making breakfast today. I'm waiting on breakfast to go to sleep. I'm maybe going to open a bank account this morning too. We'll see if i can stand going outside. It can't be much worse than in here though. The tips of my fingers are freezing and I keep needing to warm my hands so they are limber enough for typing.

On another bright side, we're getting a new housemate. She is named Chlirissa. I may have spelled her name wrong. She will be given the password to this blog and can make corrections as necessary.

I hope everyone wakes up soon. I'm getting hungry and impatient. Also, I still have yet to figure out who it was that commented on my last post under the name 'foronandon' (something like that, maybe another-andon was at the end). Please reveal yourself.

Your cold but devoted blogger,
Ben

Vote Nader

Via nader.org
By Ralph Nader


Here is a short list of what you won't hear much of from the front-runners in this presidential primary season. Call them the candidate taboos.

1) You won't hear a call for a national crackdown on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse that have robbed trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders, taxpayers and consumers. Among the reforms that won't be suggested are providing resources to prosecute executive crooks and laws to democratize corporate governance so shareholders have real power. Candidates will not shout for a payback of ill-gotten gains, to rein in executive pay, or to demand corporate sunshine laws.

2) You won’t hear a demand that workers receive a living wage instead of a minimum wage. There will be no backing for a repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which has blocked more than 40 million workers from forming or joining trade unions to improve wages and benefits above Wal-Mart or McDonald's levels.

3) You won’t hear for a call for a withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA. Renegotiated trade agreements should stick to trade while labor, environmental, and consumer rights are advanced by separate treaties without being subordinated to the dictates of international commerce.

4) You won’t hear a call for our income tax system to be substantially revamped so that workers can keep more of their wages while we tax the things we like least, such as pollution, stock speculation, addictive industries, and energy guzzling technologies. Nor will you hear that corporations should be required to pay their fair share; corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for 50 years.

5) You won’t hear a call for a single payer health system. Almost sixty years after President Truman first proposed it, we still need health insurance for everyone, a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention. Full Medicare for everyone will save thousands of lives a year while maintaining patient choice of doctors and hospitals within a competitive private health care delivery system.

6) There is no reason to believe that the candidates will stand up to the commercial interests profiting from our current energy situation. We need a major environmental health agenda that challenges these entrenched interests with major new initiatives in solar energy, doubling motor vehicle fuel efficiency, and other quantified sustainable and clean energy technologies. Nor will there be adequate recognition that current fossil fuels are producing not just global warming, but also cancer, respiratory diseases, and geopolitical entanglements. Finally, there will be no calls for ending environmental racism that leads to more contaminated water, air, and toxic dumps in poorer neighborhoods.

7) The candidates will not demand a reduction in the military budget that devours half the federal government's operating expenditures at a time when there is no Soviet Union or other major state enemy in the world. Studies by the General Accounting Office and internal Pentagon assessments support the judgment of many retired admirals and generals that a wasteful defense weakens our country and distorts priorities at home.

8) You won't hear a consistent clarion call for electoral reform. Both parties have shamelessly engaged in gerrymandering, a process that guarantees reelection of their candidates at the expense of frustrated voters. Nor will there be serious proposals that millions of law-abiding ex-felons be allowed to vote.

Other electoral reforms should include reducing barriers to candidates, same day registration, a voter verified paper record for electronic voting, run-off voting to insure winners receive a majority vote, binding none-of-the-above choices and most important, full public financing to guarantee clean elections.

9) You won’t hear much about a failed war on drugs that costs nearly $50 billion annually. And the major candidates will not argue that addicts should be treated rather than imprisoned. Nor should observers hope for any call to repeal the "three strikes and you're out" laws that have needlessly filled our jails or to end mandatory sentencing that hamstrings our judges.

10) The candidates will ignore the diverse Israeli peace movement whose members have developed accords for a two state solution with their Palestinian and American counterparts. It is time to replace the Washington puppet show with a real Washington peace show for the security of the American, Palestinian, and Israeli people.

11) You won’t hear the candidates stand up to business interests that have backed changes to our civil justice system that restrict or close the courtroom to wrongfully injured and cheated individuals, but not to corporations. Where is the vocal campaign against fraud and injury upon innocent patients, consumers, and workers? We should make it easier for consumers to band together and defend themselves against harmful practices in the marketplace.



Voters should visit the webpages of the major party candidates. See what they say, and see what they do not say. Then email or send a letter to any or all the candidates and ask them why they are avoiding these issues. Breaking the taboos won’t start with the candidates. Maybe it can start with the voters.



Than

Scott and Lauren are here. We found an old copy of the Climax in the sofa. It had an article about doing drugs on halloween. A bunch of kids wrote about doing different drugs, and it seemed like they all had a really good time, except for the one who ate pot brownies. Apparently, pot is the only drug that is actually bad for you. Weird.

PS: Who is foronandonandon? You commented on this blog on the last post but left no name. Please reveal yourself.

-Ben

sports, etymology, etc.

Hello.

It's 530 am, which is, I guess a little before bed-time for me these days. I need to get onto a more human schedule, Perhaps.

I was hoping to post with grand news about the new housemate, but such news is not yet available, although I'm certain it will be grand.

I've been a little down of late. Nothing too bad, just feeling the season wearing on me more than usual.

On the plus side, there is always sports. I would like to point out that NCAA basketball is reaching the most important part of the season. Memphis remains undefeated. The rest of Conference USA is quite weak however. I'm actively keeping tabs on those teams that are hovering on the bubble, and I am sad to say that the extremely high level of play across the board in the Atlantic 10 is actually going to hurt the conference come selection time. This is a real shame, but to be expected when reputation is worth as much as skill. I guarantee that if you replaced the 'Atlantic' with 'Big' you'd get 5-6 of those teams in no sweat, maybe even 7, but they're going to have a hard time getting 4. This isn't an idle comparison either. The Big 10 only really has 3-4 deserving teams, and yet will likely get 5, possibly even 6 if Minnesota makes a strong run in the conference tournament. The A10 has at least 7 strong teams, including our 5-college's own UMASS Minutemen, who'll be happy to get an NIT bid because of the relatively weak reputation of their conference.

Speaking of the NCAA tournament, does anyone know the etymology of the term 'on the bubble'?

No longer sports from this point. It's safe to begin reading again here:

A few things we discovered at the house; humans are the tuna of the land, manta rays are the birds of the sea, airplanes are the submarines of the air, frogs are the toads of the water and toads are the frogs of the land. Feel free to add any I missed. Peter thinks Benny is some kind of donkey?

Fish and Chips was today. Too many people came. I felt like very uncomfortable in the little fish market with about 2/3 of the hampshire student body. Speaking of student bodies, bodies politic, etc. I think it's very interesting that the term body, which refers generally to our most personal possession, also doubles for any group of bodies. I'm reminded of the cover to Hobbes's Leviathan in which the body of the sovereign is composed of hundreds of little bodies of the people. On a scholarly note, I'm referring to the illustration of a recent cover which was taken from the plate for the cover of the original edition.

etymological oddity: testimony originates from roman legal practice of swearing on the testes. something here should be written about origination/insemination/testes/the law/the law as father inseminating his own practice. I'm losing my train of thought.

Also, I learned today that in Iranian angelology, one's guardian angel starts off as a positive, beautiful thing, but the moral choices a person makes in life change the character of the guardian angel. Upon death, you get to see your angel and if you were a good person, the angel will be unbelievably beautiful and if you were a bad person the angel will be like a hideous demon. The angel will tell you that they were made that way from the choices of your life, and then you will expire.

I will try to sleep now. Don't wake me before 2.
-Ben

alive in hell

No, not really hell. But hellish. That's my experience with Div. III so far. This week has been particularly hellish though I'm making some headway (slowly) with writing. I've been in my room most of the time, often listening to different pandora stations to keep the spirits up. I can smell dinner downstairs but I don't want to leave my seat because it's too tempting not to come back.

I definitely appreciate the invites out of the house and don't get me wrong, when I say no I really mean yes and when I say 'I'm going to work' I really mean, 'I'm going to sit and read a lot and try to figure out how to put this into my own words while checking the blog every 15 minutes or so'. I have been kind of out of the scene with this house lately, especially in trying to figure out who we want to live with when Than ditches us. (just kidding than). Sorry for being uncommunicative and absent and not very helpful with the process.

I'm really not absent though. My ears are with you. I listen to Peter airing out his trumpet oh so melodically at night and I can hear Jim's voice whenever he talks, it has an authoritative tone (in the friendliest way) and seeps through the ceiling. I usually hear Jesslyn come in at night and I know it's her when she walks past my door because Benny is usually drooling with excite behind her, then he runs into my door. Sometimes he successfully opens the door and rummages through my trash, rubs his ears on my bed and runs away. Little shit! I know Than's around when I can hear his door squeak open and when he walks up the stairs it sounds like he's knocking on my wall. (Don't worry, it's not a disturbing sound). I don't usually hear Ben at all but I do go downstairs and see him sitting on the couch in the living room reading or doing some sort of intellectual self-learning (it seems...who knows he could be looking at animal porn for all I know, he's very discreet though). It's nice to at least hear you guys, even if I don't interact much. Anyway, I know this post may seem like I'm the creepy one...in fact I hope it does. I like you guys in the creepiest way possible and I miss you all. Maybe I'll hang out in April?

Anyway, gotta go 'do work'. No really though, I will. I am. I will, therefore I am.

Western Massachussetttttts

Before I leave the area, I wanted to review a few of my favorite places in the area.

The Invisible Fountains- Eastworks, Easthampton.

Here you will see a thousand paintings for free! And maybe buy one for 11.11 22.22 or 33.33.... and the artist prints my favorite valley publication (even more so than the Hampshire Gazette!) the Yankee Winebib. Wow, I think we all should have warehouse space to completely pursue wine and painting and movies and whatever your OCD has been hinting at your whole life. Maybe that is the key to happieness? Obsession and PMA??


North Shore Seafood Company- King St. Northampton

Last time I had fish and chips was at a Canadian National Park called.. humm.. Bay of Fundy. Largest tidal changes in the world. The sea goes out and out until rock and rollers from Montreal on road trips ask me, and American, where the ocean is. Thats cool- and I ate lots of fried fish and chips there. It was not a friday. Boats get stuck in the mud during the low tied and my father assumed it was a tourist trap. Anyways, North Shore has an amazing fish fry until 7pm on friday, and it is delicate and delicious. Only fridays cause of some Catholic thing (lent?), and chips are served wit fried fish to cool down the hot grease...

Heavy Metal Warehouse- Easthampton

There is a world of warehouses you never think of, and people running them. Bagel Cutter warehouses, and semi-pornographic fantasy/scifi comic book warehouses.

Trader Joes Dumpster- Hadley.

See Below.

More to come.

Dumpster Divas

We went diving for booty.

Dearest Readers (by which I mean mostly housemates and our significant others, but all other dear readers as well)

News:

We had a tremendous show featuring several of my very favorite people. Peter, Daniel, Andrea&Erin, and the entirety of the American Hornets were all fantastic. I'm sorry I was somewhat absent and less helpful than I probably should have been. A better effort will be made in the future. Still, it was a very good night.

Next Saturday we are having another event. Please be excited for it. Cursillistas, Tre Colori, Sal Feathers and 1 more TBA will be our guests.

Finally, we are still looking for a resident in the house. The coupola is going to be taken by Jesslyn, so her (beautiful) room is very much open, very affordable, and in need of an occupant.

Mitt Romney has dropped out of the presidential race, prompting the exclamation: Call Mom-- No Dom for Rom; Rom Bombs. Our house remains firm in its endorsement of Mike Gravel.

Reviews:

Hud- Hud, played by Paul Newman, has a barbed wire soul. It's in the tagline. He's a bad seed, a womanizer, a drunk, and he's gotten by on charm and good looks for too long. He's not evil, just so deeply selfish and emotionally scarred that he pretty much acts that way. Newman is fantastic, as always. This film is highly recommended for anyone who wants a strong drama and a different kind of western. One final note: The scenes with the cattle are really amazing and horrifying.

Actually, that's the only review I feel like writing at the moment.

-Ben

Two Pieces of News

First, the bad news. This may turn out to be ok news, but we need your help for that:

Than is moving out, so we need a new boarder. The room is in the coupola. It is charming (if on the small side) and the rent is quite reasonable at only 300/month. The room is available starting March 1.

Utilities should be fairly inexpensive, because the majority of our bills go for oil, and you'll have missed the brunt of winter.

Please let us know if you're interested. We can give you an official tour, go over the details of the situation, etc.

Also, please tell any friends you think might be interested.



Second the very excellent news:

17-14, 18-1, if I need to explain further, you wouldn't care anyways.

thank you

Weekly Tea Review

This week's test subject - Pu Erh from "Cooks Shop Here" in Northampton. I think Ben put it best - this tea tastes like expensive top soil smells. It was pretty good.

Weekend News Update

There are many things to post. I've been remiss of late in regards to this blog, but I promise to be more vigilant about posting. Here are some things. I've divided them between house news and national news for your reading convenience. More to come soon:

House News:

- We had a very successful show a few days ago. First congratulations must go to Peter for a very excellent dinner. Second congratulations to the bands. Steve D'Agostino played a very fun set in the living room and Gerald et al were great, but I think special mention must go to our out-of-town guests, the Easy Tease, who I thoroughly enjoyed.

- We've got a house-only ice cream and pizza and rent-gathering social tomorrow evening

- Upcoming on the 7th and 16th are a pair of shows I'm very excited about. I'll post details soon. I'll keep you in suspense though, just know you should be excited.

- Jim and Kristin and Maeve (sp? somebody tell me if i'm butcheriing her name) and I pretended we were a rock band and 'played music' in the basement.

- Price and Tara visited. It was just like old times.



National News:

-obama destroys south carolina, performing decent to outstanding in every demographic except old white people. Old white people aren't really on board.

-economic stimulus package? what about health care, a sustained critique of consumerism, and a promotion of local and sustainable products? Oh wait, structural changes aren't really the sorts of things we go for. According to Nietzsche, in America, "actors become the real masters" and as this happens the "great architect" type becomes impossible. In summary the argument is that we can't plan for the future because our leaders are all only acting (self-consciously so) in roles of leadership that are necessarily short term and limited to the tenure of the role, thus our society lacks the foresight to build the kind of projects that will outlast us. (quote and summary taken from Avital Ronell's discussion of N's 'Gay Science' in her book the 'Test Drive')

- if you take chocolate, toffee, and a dead celebrity and you roll them all together, what do you get?

from the comfortable brown chair, goodnight and goodluck.
-ben

undisclosed P.H. concert

My new room is freeeexing

It still feels a little weird to have four walls. And to wake up, not to the sound of Price's early morning banter.

Yesterday we made a family breakfast: french toast with freshly grated cinnamon and nutmeg then used the left over egg batter for scrambled dessert eggs which weren't a hit. And bacon was on the menu too. I'm going to make a bean salad of sorts, or maybe a bean soup!
Also, I'm devoting most of my life now to the Div. III that hasn't progressed much over these past few months. It's too early to start a count down to graduation.
Procrastinating with this. I think we should send out a missing person's report if Than doesn't come back soon.
-K

House News: Kristin is coming home very soon. Than hopefully also.

We have a show on the 24th.

Scrabble. I played the word purple in scrabble today.

And also, I would like to share that Sean Higgins has a new blog: www.luckycloud.wordpress.com -- I think it's neat.



From Wikipedia: Excerpted Facts about the Color Purple

The word purple comes from the Middle English word purple which originates from the Latin purpura. This in turn is derived from the Koine Greek πορφύρα (porphura), name of the dye manufactured in Classical antiquity from the mucus-secretion of the hypobranchial gland of a marine snail known as the Murex brandaris or the spiny dye-murex.
The first recorded use of the word purple in English was in the year AD 975.[4]
The color regarded as the standard for purple has changed over the years, from Tyrian Purple in ancient times to Electric Purple today.

-- As a result of its association with royalty and luxury, the term purple is often used to describe pretentious or overly embellished literature. For example, a paragraph containing an excessive number of long and unusual words is called a purple passage (see Purple prose).

--People with purple auras are said to have a love of ritual and ceremony

--In politics in the Netherlands, purple (Paars in Dutch) means a government coalition of right-liberals and socialists (symbolized by blue and red, respectively), as opposed to the more common coalitions of the Christian center-party with one of the other two. From 1994 to 2002 there have been two purple cabinets.
In United States politics, a purple state is a state equally balanced between Republicans (normally symbolized by red) and Democrats (normally symbolized as blue)(See red states and blue states).
In British politics, purple is used to represent the United Kingdom Independence Party, a eurosceptic party wanting to pull Britain out of the European Union

--Robert Burns rhymes purple with "curple" in his Epistle to Mrs. Scott. Burns is, as far as we can tell, the only writer to have used the word. A curple refers to 1) the small of the waist before the flare of the hips or 2) a derriere, rump or behind.

--In the Star Trek universe, Klingons have purple blood.

(this is from ben)

History

So, I am not at all familiar with the history of the purple house. I heard it has been the home of hampshire kids for like 3 years! Who were the first residents? What is the legacy?
PEter

Peter moves in!

Hey Folks,
I'm now officially moved in to the front room downstairs. I'm proud to be part of the purple house legacy. This will be a new chapter in kingdom of purple. I'm excited to do all sorts of fun communal and musical things here. How bout a concert? I wanna book one.
Ben gave me the password to the blog, however it was without ceremony. I'm disappointed. I look forward to seeing all of my new roomies that are out of the house for the time being. Ben is right, it is a bit cold in here. But that's okay, cause I'm getting a space heater. Space Peter. If you are a friend of mine reading this and you don't live in the purple house, come and visit me. My gimp foot has drastically reduced my mobility, so I can't really leave unless I'm going to the hampshire library or someone is driving me somewhere. But not to worry, I am getting my sweet ford taurus station wagon shipped out from california in a couple weeks. Then I will go anywhere I please.
Thats all for now.
Peter

ice ice ice

The weather of late has been absolutely terrible. Really really cold. in fact -8. If you're wondering why the number of posts has been down of late, it's because we've all frozen stiff. Our fingers are little icicles and the heat of the computer might melt them and cause water-damage and short-circuiting.

instead of typing, we've been sealing off windows and random holes in the basement wall (seriously). Also huddling for warmth and closing all the doors in the middle of the house. my room is so cold you need 7 layers of blankets before it's comfortable in there. ask aliza, she knows. the sleeping arrangement is called the 7-layer burrito in honor of the taco bell meal.

Apparently the arctic got upset about global warming and decided to move to the purple house. thanks to the magic of jim's fancy insulation, things are improving a bit.

also, i want to pre-welcome peter to the family. it's good to have you. When you move in you will be ceremonially given the blog password.

for now,
ben

picante butt

Dear friends,

Since I have access to a computer for a short time I figured a bulk email wasn't enough. Here's how it's going:
Christmas was spent over the border in Punta Banda with the McAuliffe's and my family. We didn't have any trouble passing through at all (came in through san diego) and there weren't scary men pointing guns at people trying to get in. IN fact, we didn't even need to show someone a passport, which I'm sure will change when we start to head north again. From Punta Banda, Liam and I met up with two of his friends who traveled from san francisco on a sailboat. The swell was too big so they decided to leave their boat in PUnta Banda for a couple of guys to watch (who apparently are always drunk) and we loaded liam's car up nice and good and four of us continued south to chase the sun.
One night coyotes came upon our tent and surrounded us, howling like crazy and laughing at our fear. A few claps and howls back made them run away.
In todos santos now.....want to write more but have to go.
I'd like to think that I miss the east coast but really all I miss there is you guys and the dogs. West is the best. Eatings lots of tacos pescados y tacos con carne asada and haven't pooped in 4 days now....:/

-kristin

Hey guys,

I'm home. Where are you?

-Ben

bloggity blog blog

the house has been empty the whole week except for me. tonight I shot 10 for 25 free throws(i need to practice), and baked delicious shugga cookies. when is everyone coming back?
i just heard a door shut! is someone home?
hmm...
nope.
i've been wearing a tie all day but haven't left the house.
i've learned a lot the past couple of days, some of which include, it's not fun to misplace your rent money, new years in northampton is very strange, and you shouldn't climb trees on new years(the cops don't approve), sex offenders are NOT cool, and lastly i really like my housemates and miss them a lot.

New Year in KY

I had forgotten how people have accents in Kentucky. I was at the mall today, listening to the various people from "the boonies", "the sticks", "Hollers" and other rural areas. Refreshing, I dare say. Like Faust among the villagers during the Easter festival.

Speaking of which, I just read "Faust" by Goethe. Not in German, though that would be fun. After studying medicine, philosophy, theology, he still was not fulfilled. The devil promised him fulfillment if he sold his soul to him. Faust agreed, and in the end was saved from damnation only because he was still striving for a greater completion. Everything else had failed him. Interesting, eh?

Probably not.

Til next time!