Aural Hygiene

I was at the dentist today, getting holes drilled in my head, and had the option of listening to my iPod during the procedure. It was very difficult to decide what to listen to through the process. Brian Wilson’s Smile? Wilco’s Summer Teeth? Talking Heads’ More Songs about Buildings and Food? (Not particularly toothy, but I drop that title any chance I get. More appropriate, maybe, would be the Speaking in Tongues track, “Pull Up the Roots.”) Should I have made an oral health playlist?

I’m open to suggestions for my follow-up next week, but I just set the ‘Pod to “shuffle albums” and hit play. What resulted was surprisingly perfect for all the grinding, scraping, and high-pitched sqealing going on in my mouth (the equipment, not the patient): Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup. There’s a pleasing blend to the layered, churning bleeps & bloops of this album – just a nod towards a little industrial ambience – and dental work. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

Also significant to this experience: the new sensation of not being able to feel my beard.

Floss, people.

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brand new familiars

Sunni made me a tape labeled “Montana Guys” that became a staple in Denver (“Loose Summer Clothes” was like my national anthem). Then one day in Abilene someone was playing my Montana Guys on their cd player, except it was called Chris and Johnny, and I learned to play “Boulder River,” which seemed like a place I wished I could promise somebody. Then I found out they changed their name to Storyhill, just in time to discover they were breaking up.

But, lo, the Montana Guys rise again! These guys are kind of like the Jayhawks meet. . . well, John Denver, but the guitar and harmonies are solid stuff. I haven’t been as impressed with anything they did after (what eventually became) Clearing was wired into my personal soundtrack, but it’s pretty.

And then there’s this other thing: Jeff Buckley’s Live at the Sin-e “Legacy Edition.”

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A Long Wait

I am not sure that this is a Lenten prayer, but it came to mind today.

They say ev’rything can be replaced,
Yet ev’ry distance is not near.
So I remember ev’ry face
Of ev’ry man who put me here.
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

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Winning is for Losers

Time to wrap this thing up, so I can get back to writing about the weather and commenting on my aches and pains. Oy, vey.

I didn’t really get 10 entries on topic, which was the condition for awarding a prize, but everyone’s work was so fantastic – just brilliant, really – that you are all winners in my book. I mean that.

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They should have sent a poet.

Entries rejected for insensitivity:

Five, four, three, two, one. . . .
Ground control to Major Tom:
Ignite psych profiles.

Spin, media, spin.
Houston, we have a problem.
Hope for star shooting.

Hell hath no fury
Like my alleged assault charge.
Final frontier, fool.

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Second-hand reality television kills

I don’t know this blogger, and I don’t watch American Idol, and I don’t go with girls that do. But I stumbled into this post today, and kind of enjoyed it.

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High queue

Here’s the competition so far (just to save you some click-and-scroll time). I’ll keep the box open until Thursday, and then declare which writer is the most gifted poet in the World.

Orbit passion thwart
“zero-g and I feel fine”
Earthbound rubber tubes

White rocket flying
Love-tranced white-knuckled driving
Whom can I Depend?

In space, heads are home.
If hearts stayed weightless on Earth
We’d all jump the moon.

So early in life
So late in my sanity
It’s diaper time

disguise, pepper spray
BB-gun, new steel mallet
knife, rubber tubing

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With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

A call for haikus:
Whose light verse will reign supreme?
The gauntlet is down.

Of this site’s three readers, I can think of two who are remarkably imaginative (yes, I mean you). This whole avenging astronaut story so lends itself to seventeen syllables, I cannot let the moment pass. I declare a contest: if I receive 10 submissions of haikus related to this story, I will award the most worthy with a prize.* Submit your work in the comments to this post.

This is meant to be neither exploitative nor to represent a prioritization of this story over the real news happening in the world.** But this little narrative is so chock-full of syllables too rarely put to verse, and captures so many themes at the heart of our culture; it is bursting with potential.

*Prizes may include one or none of the following: 1/4 pound of Coffee Klatch Sumatra beans; $5 gift certificate to Audio Lunchbox; 1/4 flock of chicks donated in your name through Heifer Int’l.

**Option 2: In haiku form, provide a brief reflection on the cultural and religious tensions dividing Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq, and a proposal for a movement towards peace in that arena.

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water lilies (of doom)

hurtling sunward,
my astronaut diaper speeds
love’s furious trunk.

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Groundhog Day

Every year on February 2, I peek into my junk e-mail account to see if it looks like six more weeks of unsolicited junk mail will freeze my account, or if I can expect my spam filter to green my inbox. Ok, so this really has nothing to do with Groundhog Day. I just would like to share a few recent spam subject lines:

“Rejuvenize your manhood!” – I think this will be the tag on my next retreat.

“fun is you” – It’s like someone opened the fortune cookie of my heart.

“God hates inequlity” – Oh, wait, that was from Sojourners.

Still the reigning champion in my book:

“Meet Hot Christian Singles in Your Area!”

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