musical monday: mute math

I’m a little late with this particular post, but at least I’m posting something, right? Today’s Musical Monday highlights the song “Typical” by Mute Math. I heard this last weekend during a training meeting in Boise, and I loved it.

Here you go:

Come on, can I dream for one day?
There’s nothing that can’t be done
But how long should it take somebody
Before they can be someone?

Cuz I know there’s got to be another level
Somewhere closer to the other side
And I’m feelin’ like it’s now or never
Can I break the spell of the typical?

Now I’ve lived through my share of misfortune
And I’ve worked in the blazing sun
But how long should it take somebody
Before they can be someone?

Cuz I know there’s got to be another level
Somewhere closer to the other side
And I’m feelin’ like it’s now or never
Can I break the spell of the typical?

I’m the typical
I’m the typical
Can I break the spell of the typical?

Because it’s draggin’ me down
Oh, I’d like to know about when
When does it all turn around?

Yeah I know there’s got to be another level
Somewhere closer to the other side
And I’m feelin’ like it’s now or never
Can I break the spell of the typical?

Break the spell (of the typical)
Break the spell (of the typical)
Can I break the spell of the typical?

I just love that line: “How long should it take somebody before they can be someone?”

As it turns out, Mute Math also have a song featured in the new movie Twilight … Didn’t especially love the movie, but I’ve found the soundtrack to be pretty darn amazing, so that tells me a little something about the band.

And, if you’d care for a little more info about the band, here’s the Wikipedia article on Mute Math.

 

randomness

While I love Idaho in many ways, I have found that I’m not so fond of snow as I remembered.

While I don’t love snow as much as I thought I did, I’m getting used to it.  And I still prefer it to heat.

As long as I’m on the weather–in many ways, I miss the great rain-storms in Texas.

I am more than curious to see how events will unfold after President Hinckley’s funeral (which I’m currently watching).  Who will serve as counselors to President Monson?  When will the announce the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency?  What will President Monson’s administration be like?  How will his General Conference talks change?

I’m frequently disturbed by the mis-representation of the quote that starts, “Anyone who imagines bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around and shouting that he has been robbed.”  While I love this quote, I’m frustrated that people don’t recognize that President Hinckley did not say this.  Rather,  he quoted it from an article in the Deseret News from 1973.  If you’d like to read the quote in full, take a look at the following article (just one of many in which President Hinckley used it): “A Conversation with Single Adults.”

I love teaching at BYU-Idaho.   I can expect so much more from my students than I could at a state university.  Plus, I don’t have to avert my eyes when talking to my students (because they all dress modestly); I can talk about the Gospel openly (which is nice, since it’s a strong vein in my thinking); and I actually feel like I’m a real member of the faculty (which I never really did at UNT).

I would be willing to teach full-time at BYU-Idaho, at least for a few years.  Especially if I could teach some linguistics-related classes, like History of the English Language.

If Sen. John McCain wins the nomination as the presidential candidate for President, disaster will soon follow in the Republican Party.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a major party-shift.

If McCain wins the nomination, I refuse to vote for him.  I will write in Mitt Romney as my choice for President.

I’m on tenter-hooks, waiting to see how things come out in the many primaries and caucuses on “Super Tuesday” (Feb. 5).

I’m wonderfully grateful for the in-depth coverage that has been given to this presidential race.

Although I love my new PC laptop, I still wish I’d gotten a Mac.  *sigh*

While I appreciate the great love that members of the Church–and especially the youth–have had for President Hinckley, I don’t quite “get” the deep sadness at his passing.  I have no doubt that he is much happier now than he has been for some time.  Meanwhile, the Church will move on here on the earth, and can only progress.  What is there to be sad about?  (I don’t mean to trivialize the grief of so many, I am merely expressing my own feelings on this occasion.)

I didn’t realize until just recently that there was some lag-time between the passing of the President of the Church and the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency, even after Brigham Young had cleared up the succession problem.

One of the most destructive weapons against the productive use of our time is the invention of decent computer games.  I am currently obsessed with Jojo’s Fashion Show, and a few weeks ago was obsessed with Chocolatier.  Now I can hardly stand not being able to play Chocolatier 2.  And I am addicted to the 60-minute trial scheme.

I have been trying to work up the courage to leave the country for a few years as soon as I finish my doctoral degree.  I’d love to teach English abroad, perhaps in Mongolia or Jordan, perhaps through the Peace Corps or the BYU Kennedy Center for International Studies.  And I frequently think that I’d like to learn a “less-commonly-taught” language like Arabic, Hebrew, or Bengalese and then work as a contract linguist for the FBI and/or NVTC (National Virtual Translation Center).

The BYU-I English Department Secretary recently emailed all the faculty, asking for some help with a special project.  They are collecting favorite one-liner quotes from our favorite authors.  *chuckle*  I think I can do that.  My pick of my favorite favorite quotes ended up at about 2-1/2 pages.

I recently bought the actual album of Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations.  Not just the downloaded version, but the real-life CD, which I can now keep in my car and listen to whenever I want.  Oh, joy!

A few weeks ago, Mom and I watched the movie Dan in Real Life.  I loved it!  From the previews, I thought it was going to be a screwball comedy.  It wasn’t.  And it was so much better than I had expected.  Even if you’re not a Steve Carrell fan, I highly recommend it.  And if you are a Steve Carrell fan,  I still recommend it, as it’s an unusual example of his dramatic acting skills.

 

karate kid

I just finished watching The Karate Kid on TV.  I know I’m supposed to know this movie inside and out, and to have grown up thinking Daniel-san was adorable and Mr. Miyagi was beyond wise — but, to be honest, I never really cared for it.

I watched the show today simply out of a lack of anything more interesting to do.  I hadn’t watched it since I was eight, probably, at some girl’s sleepover.  Frankly, I was disappointed.  I expect that’s why I never cared for it when I was little.   The character of Mr. Miyagi is by far the most interesting thing in the whole show.  Nothing — not the characters, not the plot, not the relationships — is fully developed.  And that under-development carries over into the ending, which I found rather anti-climactic.

My apologies to anyone who grew up thinking this was the greatest movie in the world.  I never had an opinion about it until now, and I just had to share it.

 

gotta love it

I just took a look at my Netflix queue — which I recently whittled down from over 400 movies to about 100 — and then found their new “Watch Now” section. See, Netflix is now offering movie-viewing direct from your PC. There’s no extra charge, they have hundreds (even thousands?) of movies available for instant viewing, and you get an hour of online viewing for each dollar you pay per month. Thus, since I pay $10 a month for my plan, I now have 10 hours of instant-movie-viewage a month.

Tonight I’m watching Clue, and soon I’ll be watching early episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (30 points)

The last quote was from Jane Eyre, and the one before was from Spider-Man (the first one, when it was still good). So elliespen and Paul both get points.

 

spider-man 3

I really wanted to go last night to watch Spider-Man 3. You know, at one of the midnight showings. But there was a small snag. See, I’m not really the type to organize that kind of outing — more the type to follow along when someone else suggests it. So I didn’t think about the necessity of buying tickets before-hand because shows were likely to sell out. Oops.

By the time I thought about it, the closest theater I could find who still had tickets available was 40 minutes away, at a theater I’d never been to before in a town I rarely visit. So rather than stay up until 3:00 am or later and risk getting lost, I decided to just go to bed (I was tired anyway) and watch an early showing this morning closer to home.

On the way to the theater this morning, I caught some reviews of the flick on a local radio station. And pretty much everyone said they hated it. Which made me even more curious.

I was pretty excited for the film — I’ve really loved the last two, except for Kirsten Dunst. But I’ve loved the directing, the writing (for the most part), and — of course — the special effects.

Most of all, though, I’ve loved Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker. The Spider-man story resonates with me, and it’s largely because of Peter. Peter is such a nerd, and I get nerds. And he’s so wonderfully good. Just through-and-through, a good person. And who doesn’t appreciate Peter Parker’s ill luck — don’t we all feel at times like the universe is against us, like nothing goes right for us? It doesn’t hurt, either, that Tobey Maguire is so gorgeous.

***SPOILER WARNING***

As for this third installment, though … well, I have mixed feelings. The special effects were still amazing. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Some computer geeks had a great time with the Sandman.” Thomas Haden Church, who I used to watch weekly in “Wings” growing up (yes, I know, my TV choices have alwasy been a bit lame), was pretty darn good as Flint Marko. I couldn’t help but think how horribly he’s aged: he’s not a pretty man, but that worked well for his character. Topher Grace, also, was just perfect as Eddie Brock — just the right mixture of sleaze and charm. James Franco — returning from the first two films as Peter’s best-friend-turned-worst-enemy Harry Osborn — always has the look and actions of a comic-book character to me. And I mean that in the best possible way: I think he was an excellent choice for the Spider-man films, even though I can’t stand him in pretty much anything else.

But the writing. Well, it was just plain hokey, as one IMDB user put it. All the moral lessons were so stilted, so contrived. We’re supposed to be thrilled about Harry’s sudden change of heart, despite its suddenness. It also annoyed me that his change of heart was based entirely on his butler’s testimony rather than Peter’s — honetstly, who trusts their butler over their best friend? I was disappointed that the “inner battle” Peter faces is really nothing more than black goopy stuff from some meteor. Even if he does have to choose not to let it control him, that choice is so much more poignant when the evil really does come from inside you. Emo-Peter — black eye-liner, black clothes, and bangs hanging in his face — was just ludicrous.

And of course, we had to hear yet another villain explain why he’s not really a bad guy. Ironically, this film is supposed to be about how our choices make us who we are, and how we can always choose to do what’s right — but when a sand-monster chooses to steal money in order to save his daughter’s life, we’re supposed to forgive him. Wait a second! If he chose to do something bad … doesn’t that make him bad? I’m confused.

Oddly, the part I most enjoyed about this movie was the love story with M-J and Peter. It was interesting to see Peter get all into himself and then have to face the realization that he’s not ready for a real relationship with Mary Jane yet.

I guess it all boils down to the unreality of the film. One of the things I’ve loved about the other two is that they felt realistic to me — realistic choices, dialogue (for the most part), actions — even though the story was clearly fantastic. This one, though, just felt silly and fake far too often.

Even the music — both during the action and during the end credits — wasn’t as good as the last two films. The Snow Patrol song, “Signal Fire,” was all right, but it was certainly no “Vindicated.”

Not everyone is meant to make a difference. But for me, the choice to lead an ordinary life is no longer an option. (23 points)

The last quote was from Stan Freberg’s “St George and the Dragonet.” Congrats, Christina!

 

Ioan movies

I’ve been Netflixing lots of Ioan Gruffudd movies lately, wanting to see his acting (and, admittedly, his face) in a variety of contexts.

Last week I watched him in a BBC/Masterpiece Theater production of Great Expectations, in which he played Pip. Now, as many of you know, this is my favorite Dickens book, so I was excited to see how Ioan did. From a purely objective standpoint *snicker* I thought he was quite good. I have to take issue with the writing, to an extent, although I wasn’t as upset by it as many of the online reviewers I’ve read. But I did think that Ioan did quite well in the role, with what he was given.

The next one I watched was Very Annie Mary, which is set in Wales — I was excited to hear Ioan speaking in a Welsh accent, and I was not disappointed, not in that respect. The movie wasn’t that great, overall. The writing was pretty silly and see-through. And people just kept doing stupid things. But Ioan played a gay shop-keeper, along with his best friend Matthew Rhys, and they were hilarious. Probably the best part of the whole movie is the scene where they are having singing lessons from Annie Mary, and they rehearse “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” from Annie Get Your Gun. And ever since then, I keep getting lines stuck in my head in that great Welsh accent: “Ah, poo-r little Bethahn Bevahn” or “He eats twoo full sahndwiches with ehvery mee-al” or “You’re sittin’ on a gohld mine, lass.”

My next Netflix movie is The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain, with Hugh Grant. I’ve always liked that film, though I haven’t seen it for some time, and I’m curious to see how the accents stack up.

“As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him.” (12 points)

The last quote was from Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody series.

 

Amazing Grace

Margo and I went to see the movie “Amazing Grace” yesterday. We went largely so we could see Ioan in period costume again (which was well worthwhile), and it turned out that Rufus Sewell was also in it (which made me all the happier, especially since he was one of the good guys). Personally, I thought it was … well, amazing. I very nearly cried about five times, I kept wanting to clap or cheer out loud in the theater, and when they showed the Scots Royal Dragoon Guards playing the song in front of Westminster Abbey at the end of the film, I just about bawled like a baby. The film was not quite what I had been expecting, and it wasn’t the best film I’ve ever seen, but it certainly was moving, at least to me. I told Margo I now want to name a son William Wilberforce. (Joking, joking … but I have planned on William for some time, so why not just throw in the Wilberforce while we’re at it?)

The film made me remember one of my own personal experiences with the song “Amazing Grace.” When I was living in Switzerland as a 14-year-old, we had mandatory choir classes, and one day when I was bored, I got looking through our choir book, just to see what else was there. “Amazing Grace” was in it (in English, should you be wondering), and so I took a few minutes to memorize some of the verses. I wasn’t particularly familiar with it at the time, but one verse in particular struck me at the time. It’s one of the few verses I actually know, although I never hear it sung, apparently since it wasn’t originally written by John Newton, but was added later by another author. I tried googling the verse yesterday, and didn’t find it online anywhere either — though I did find one brief allusion to it — so I wanted to post it here:

Shall Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone,
And there’s a cross for me.

Since yesterday, I have purchased about five different versions of the song from iTunes, partially in hopes of finding the same version that was used at the end of the film (no luck yet). Again, that’s just what I do.

The last quote was, indeed, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (I think you spelled it right, Kimberly — at least I hope so, since I spelled it the same way). And, yes, that means that I’ve started re-reading them. Well, at least Book 6, that is. I’m not sure whether I’ll really have time for all of them before July — I know I don’t have time for the chapter-a-day strategy espoused by wahlee and susy_gwen. But I would at least like to re-read HBP. The other day, I got thinking about the profundity of Dumbledore’s remark, but from the reverse angle. That is, I was intrigued by the thought of how terrifying something is when we don’t have a name for it. So, we give it names — the Boogie-Man, the darkness, Satan, Nessie — and somehow things are easier to get hold of that way, easier to fend off from our rampant imaginations.

The issue was not the earrings. (125 points)

 

squeaky clean music

I’m really frustrated, because I spent a good, long time updating my blog earlier, but before I could get it published, Firefox malfunctioned and had to close down.

This morning I finished the two-day task of cleaning out my music files. I had collected about 15 gigs of music, and since I only have about 25G on my hard drive, I figured it was time to get rid of some of it. It’s now down to about 11G. The task is not complete yet, since I still plan burn some music onto CDs (stuff like Christmas music that I don’t listen to a lot but still want), but it sure feels good to have that much of it done.

I’ve been feeling really awful the last few days, with a terrbile cold. At least I think it’s a cold, but it’s quite different from my usual cold. Yesterday I even had my home teachers come over to give me a blessing. I felt silly getting a blessing for a cold, but it has seemed to help — I feel a lot better today.

Right now I’m watching Going My Way with Bing Crosby on TCM. Bing is the star of the month, but I’ve seen very little on TCM with him in it. Tonight, though, they’re showing three of his classic films, including Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s. It’s making me pine for some Road to movies.

The last quote was from The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Acting is acting like you’re not acting! (28 points)

 

graduating in England

Dad and I had a good time in England. Once we actually got there. We both were delayed getting to Chicago, where we were supposed to meet up for the same flight to Manchester. We had to stay over in Chicago for a night to take thse same flight one day later, but that turned out to be fine. We got really well acquainted with the international terminal of the O’Hare airport, that’s all.

We got to Lancaster on Saturday. Riding the train from Manchester, I kept feeling like I was coming home again. Everything was just so familiar and comfortable.

On Sunday we went to church at the Lancaster ward, where I got to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and lead the closing hymn in Relief Society. I also got lots of hugs and got to introduce Dad to many of the ward. Vic and Sue Kureczko had invited Denise and Diana to dinner for that afternoon, and they asked us to come along as well. That made me very happy, because I really love spending time with Vic and Sue, and I also wanted Dad to get to know them a little, since they were such an important part of my life in Lancaster.

Monday was my graduation day. We spent about an hour in the morning doing a little shopping downtown, where I managed to find really good presents for Margo, Erin, and Kimberly. I was so excited about them! I could hardly wait for them to open their presents. But I still had about 48 hours before that, so … Instead I showered and got pretty for graduation, and then Dad and I headed up to campus around noon. I got my robes and got dressed, and we went back to the Linguistics Department for our reception. (It was here that I fatally heard the song “Happy Christmas” by John Lennon. More about that later.) We got to speak to Jonathan and Elena, as well as Marj and a lot of the students who were there with me on the same course. I got pictures with them as well, some of which I’ve posted below.

me with Jonathan Culpeper (who supervised my dissertation)

me in Alexandra Park at Lancaster University

The graduation ceremony started at 3:00, so I had to be in my place by 2:00. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the information that I would be attending, so I had to get them to squeeze me in to the line somewhere. I ended up with all the LLM graduands (as they’re called in England), so I didn’t have anyone near me that I knew. The girl next to me was really nice, though, so that made things better. (Oh, LLM is a Master’s law degree, by the way.)

The ceremony itself was quite … ceremonious. We had a knight and a princess present. Princess Alexandra, is a cousin to Queen Elizabeth, and she’s nearly the same age as the Queen. She helped Lancaster University get its charter back in 1964 and served as Chancellor to the university from 1964 to 2004. At the end of the calendar year 2004 she retired from this (largely ceremonial) position, and Sir Christian Bonington took her place. Sir Christian is, I just learned, a famous mountaineer, and as Chancellor, he is the one all the graduands get to shake hands with when crossing the stage. I couldn’t even tell, personally, which one was Princess Alexandra until after we had all walked, and she stood to receive an honorary doctorate in Music. There was a lot of standing up and sitting down, and there were trumpet fanfares when the academic procession entered and left the hall … very ceremonious, as I said. Oh, and we also sang the first verse of the British national anthem right before the academic procession left the Great Hall. (I did sing along, in case anyone was wondering.)

That night, I went to sleep around 9:30, being very tired. I only slept a few hours, though, and woke up again just after midnight. I laid there for a while, found that I had John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” in my head, and eventually got up to sit in the bathroom and read a Georgette Heyer book I had bought on Saturday. After an hour or so of this, I got back in bed, closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing. Instead, I found I still had “Happy Christmas” running constantly through my mind. Try as I might to get it out, it just stuck like glue. After a few more hours, I got up and went back into the bathroom to read again. Eventually Dad got up — apparently he was worried about me, sitting in the bathroom so long, and that woke him. He let me turn the light on again, so I got back in bed and read for a few more hours. Around 5:45, I finally fell asleep again. Unfortunately, we were planning to get up at 6:00 that morning to catch the train to the airport. Dad woke me around 6:40, and I happily still managed to get everything together all right.

We caught our train just fine, but it kept getting delayed on our way to Manchester. It seemed to barely crawl along most of the time, and I was getting pretty annoyed with them. Finally, they decided to terminate the service at Manchester Piccadilly, so we had to get out there and wait for the next train. That meant that we got to the airport around 9:15 instead of 8:45, and my plane was scheduled to leave at 10:00. Even after arriving there, we still had to go find the terminal, which took another 15 minutes. When I finally got to the American Airlines counter, the man asked me where I was going, and I said Boston. He looked at me and said, “You’re joking?” Nope, I sure wasn’t! He took me over to another lady, explained that I was going to Boston. She looked at him, looked at me, and asked, “You’re joking?” When I managed to convince that I was not trying to play a very terrible prank on them, they got me a boarding pass and asked one of the security guys to take me down to the gate express. (Naturally, my bag was subjected to a random search on the way there.) We got to the gate before they had finished boarding, so it wasn’t too awful. My flight was rather uneventful (except that the girl next to me got up to use the bathroom twice), and things were quite nice when I got to Boston. I hadn’t checked any baggage, so I got through passport control and customs very quickly and had plenty of time left to get to my gate, have some lunch, and even finish grading my students’ papers.

My roommates picked me up in Dallas, and we stopped off and had some dinner on the way home. It turns out that Erin and our friends Matt and Kimberly were going to see King Kong at the midnight show, and they had one ticket left. After a long struggle with myself, I decided to go with them. We enjoyed it immensely. It was very intense, and I found myself squirming in my seat a lot. I really love Jack Black, though, and he was wonderful in this role. The special effects were fantastic, too. All in all, we had a good time.

The last quote was from Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”

“I have a plan.”
“Oh, you have a plan. You, who are practically incapable of any thought entering your head that is not – trivial.”
(13 points)

 

nothing particular

Well, here I am. I really wanted to post today mostly so that I could inform my acquaintance that I have a new desktop/wallpaper picture. It has a picture of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby from one of the “Road to” films (I’m not sure which one). I found it on this great website called reeljewels.com. Great stuff.

Bing Crosby is this month’s star on TCM, and we enjoyed that thoroughly last night. We watched the end of a film called Going Hollywood, then Pennies from Heaven was on. “Pennies from Heaven” is one of my favorite songs, and it was fun to see and hear it in its world premiere context. After that, they had two of the “Road to” shows (Singapore and Zanzibar, the first two), and then they played three Bob Hope movies to fill up the wee hours of the night. I really wanted to watch Bob, but I knew I was too tired to stay up for long, so I decided to sleep in the living room with the TV on all night. That way, I reasoned, if I woke up during the night, I would have some Bob Hope to watch. I didn’t wake up at all, and I woke this morning with a terrible headache. (Now that I think about it, we probably could have recorded the movies, but I didn’t think of that at the time. It was late.)

I’m getting excited to go to England in two days. I need to spend the rest of the day here trying to finish up some of my work so that I’ll be ready to leave then. I have lots of writing to do for the Teaching Composition class I had at the beginning of the semester — we have to turn in a Writer’s Notebook, but it is due at the end of the semester instead of in the middle, when the class actually ended. So now I have to finish up all that work. I also have to work on a set of phonology problems, and continue reading about syntax for my online Linguistics class (which I really wish I hadn’t taken).

Somehow, this all reminded me that I wanted to tell Elizabeth in particular about our cool friend Andrew. Andrew is in our singles ward down here, and he’s a Thurber. His last name is Thurber. Right after I first met him, I asked if he might be related to James Thurber, and to my surprise he said he was. Just the other day I was talking to his dad about it too, and he says they’re related to James on two different lines. In fact, Myron (Andrew’s dad) has all kinds of genealogy and family history information about the Thurbers, which has never been published. Having read some Thurber and seen a few pictures, I can see the resemblance in both Myron and Andrew — both their looks and their humor remind me of James.

Well, I suppose I’d better get along now. The last quote was from The Spanish Prisoner, a movie I really enjoy. It’s by David Mamet, who also did The Winslow Boy (thanks, Emily!). The full quote is actually, “It just shows to go ya, you never know who anybody is.”

This next quote is from one of my all-time favorite works. I just ran across it again the other day, and I have a new appreciation for it now, having been to St. Paul’s Churchyard, which is undoubtedly one of the most “breezy” spots on the face of the planet.

If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance — literally to astonish his son’s weak mind. (32 points)