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Archive for January, 2007

Tin Hat, Bags of Cats, and Horsebird Attack

Published by Amandoo on 30th January 2007

Filed Under horsebird, interesting- you should really check this out, reviews

Sunday night, the night I was planning to get everything done, a friend called and asked if I’d go to see Tin Hat (no longer Tin Hat Trio because Rob Burger left and two others joined)

Long story short? Doesn’t usually happen in my book, but it was a delightful spontaneous bout of musical energy, a fantastic night of earful glee.

I’m forever grateful that he called and that we all went. World Cafe Live downstairs is a nice little swanky sweet place. They had delicious eggplant fries and the waiter called me anorexic because he thought I didn’t order anything. Au contraire, mon ami, I was going to just steal from the other two in the party.

The band F! played before Tin Hat. They were fun, I liked the accordion, but we did miss about half of it (behold spontaneity and slow get-ready-ers).

My favorite parts of Tin Hat? That sexy-bass contra-alto clarinet!!! Player Ben Goldberg quipped that he teases friends who play the bass by pointing out that this clarinet goes one note lower than the bass does! It was a sweet, sweet instrument and I don’t know why I have never met it before. And then there was the violinist Carla Kihlstedt, who started off by playing a Stroh violin horn-y thing…very nice, I like!!!

Each artist used their instruments to the fullest ability and beyond. This wasn’t just your conventional strumming on a guitar or bowing and plucking a violin, oh no, they hit and slapped and worked and twerked all parts of the instruments. Nothing short of incredible and quite refreshing.

Genre? Refreshing as well. I was hesitant at first to pay a lot of money to see jazz if I wasn’t in the mood. They’re not jazz, so much as pop, soul, freebooting, and so much more. They’re like the Fresh Cut Salads (genre= pop-secret®) of Jazz.

I don’t normally like to close my eyes while listening to music because I feel pretty bottomy, but I had to because anything else was too distracting, and I didn’t want nothin’ to take away from that beauty full noise.

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In other news? Good things are happening everywhere, I saw it on the news. My news that is. If you want to know more, check this out- yay for knowledge and horsebird’s near hatching.

Lollipops and dog treats from the bank. Have a splendid day.

Thread Tags: cats, concerts, horsebird

Organic Farmland

Published by Amandoo on 27th January 2007

Filed Under reviews

Organic Farmland just opened on the Second Street Pike in Huntingdon Valley, PA. It has healthy, mostly organic products at very reasonable prices! I really enjoyed the odd variety of delicious, healthy foods, fruits, vegetables, treats, and there’s sushi too!

I got a whole tub of pomegranate seeds (quality cost/size ratio, and the work is already done!), healthy and fresh, for only $3.59.

They had potent Japanese green tea with no added sugar. Very good, similar to Sencha Shot Green Tea, but for less than half the price $1.29 for a 12-oz can!

I also got dried mango slices, and some DELICIOUS!!! whole wheat blueberry bars, snap pea crisps, and some RW Knudsen Just Juice- a mix of Cranberry and Pomegranate for like 3 bucks.

They didn’t have sushi left (it was almost closing) but they do have a party tray I’m looking forward to trying.

They have soups, salads, flours, juices, awesome small bags of organic spring mix for 1.99 and spinach for only .99¢. They had lots of healthy drink beverages. They have exciting bagged fruits, nuts, and candied things.

So many wonderful things and it’s all awesome, organic, very well-priced. I’ll let you know what the sushi is like after I try it.

In the meantime you should head there yourself, as we simply need to keep this place in business and they will keep our lives in business!!!

some things to think about

Published by Amandoo on 24th January 2007

Filed Under Uncategorized, talky talk

check out this video. is it shocking? sad? disturbing? how does it make you feel and what can you do about it?

i was listening to a boom bip song called “do’s and dont’s” and it starts off with some voices singing “thou shall not do this, thou shall not do that” and i thought of the commandments and how neurolinguistically programmingally challenged they are. should (shall) is a negative phrase that would create more inertia and inaction than a word like ‘can’. and ‘thou shall not’ seems almost condescending, obviously demanding because it is a commandment. in the defense of the commandments, if you examine them further, there are some good ideas in them, but the archaic and negative phrasing is not very helpful.

drinking three or more units of caffeine-filled beverage products (not excluding caffeine gum as well) can create a mixture of interesting problems.

the government spends something like 468 billion dollars on the army budget and about 58 billion on the education budget. i’ll have to re-find that crazy graph of it, but the numbers were about that bad. point is, it makes you think.

Well house about this one? I found it here, about Spasmodic Dysphonia…

Good News Day

“As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.

I asked my doctor – a specialist for this condition – how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero. While there’s no cure, painful Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal cords can stop the spasms for a few months. That weakens the muscles that otherwise spasm, but your voice is breathy and weak.

The weirdest part of this phenomenon is that speech is processed in different parts of the brain depending on the context. So people with this problem can often sing but they can’t talk. In my case I could do my normal professional speaking to large crowds but I could barely whisper and grunt off stage. And most people with this condition report they have the most trouble talking on the telephone or when there is background noise. I can speak normally alone, but not around others. That makes it sound like a social anxiety problem, but it’s really just a different context, because I could easily sing to those same people.

I stopped getting the Botox shots because although they allowed me to talk for a few weeks, my voice was too weak for public speaking. So at least until the fall speaking season ended, I chose to maximize my onstage voice at the expense of being able to speak in person.

My family and friends have been great. They read my lips as best they can. They lean in to hear the whispers. They guess. They put up with my six tries to say one word. And my personality is completely altered. My normal wittiness becomes slow and deliberate. And often, when it takes effort to speak a word intelligibly, the wrong word comes out because too much of my focus is on the effort of talking instead of the thinking of what to say. So a lot of the things that came out of my mouth frankly made no sense.

To state the obvious, much of life’s pleasure is diminished when you can’t speak. It has been tough.

But have I mentioned I’m an optimist?

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. A few times I felt my voice slipping away, so I repeated the nursery rhyme and tuned it back in. By the following night my voice was almost completely normal.

When I say my brain remapped, that’s the best description I have. During the worst of my voice problems, I would know in advance that I couldn’t get a word out. It was if I could feel the lack of connection between my brain and my vocal cords. But suddenly, yesterday, I felt the connection again. It wasn’t just being able to speak, it was KNOWING how. The knowing returned.

I still don’t know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of my life.

But enough about me. Leave me a comment telling me the happiest moment of YOUR life. Keep it brief. Only good news today. I don’t want to hear anything else.”
(this is not something i wrote as i said above- obviously- its a mans life story)

There is a lot more to think of, but for now, I must go re-listen to Busdriver’s New Album!

lots on my mindiverse

Published by Amandoo on 23rd January 2007

Filed Under Uncategorized

i do have a lot on it. among other things: gum art i’m thinking about the value of art and the classification of literature as art and its implications. right amandoo, shhh…

so people were talking, and i noticed some stuff, and we all decided that the times, they have uh changed did: and now girls can’t even be girls and classy might be trashy?

i don’t really know what i’m talking about, but i wish that you’d watch arrested development and see about the girls with low self-esteem and their videos. what a show!!! (the show has many wonderful associatable topics and this is just one of the thousands)
do you like geeky number-related raps or soulspirational music? seriously check out my new friend. friend through those internet tubes that’d be
a photo may exist out there with a thousand words describing my temporary loss of bright ideas. maybe that’s because my inspiration lies in music and i am not outletting that properly.

we must go now. to enjoy hot chocolate and sammies. maybe. maybe not.

“i’ll slice you, wife you, divorce you, throw the porsche at you, is what i’m forced to do”

hit em up style. it’s been a while. i smell like a pile of bile. bye y’all.

J Dilla: Donuts

Published by Amandoo on 21st January 2007

Filed Under reviews

Someone put it best in this review, but I will conduct some opinionin’ myself.

To be quite honest- every song on this album is amazing. Great review, right?! But in its own way, whether it be right for you or not, it’s right for someone. And more than you might realize.

The best way to listen to this album is to stop eating and sleeping for a few days and just to listen to it on repeat with no stops. In the car, on your secret g-mini at work, or blasting the bass out of your neighbor’s bicycle, just keep listening.

And just as you hear that woman cry sweetly for the first time: “What is this magic that makes one’s eyes sparkle and gleam, light up the skies? The name of the game is lightworks.” and then later you realize she was always your best friend or your future daughter, you begin to see that life will never be anything but intensely full of, for lack of a better word- lightworks.

‘Mash’ is delicious. Simply decadent and edible. You can actually eat it. Go to your piano and extract the 11th, 17th, 22nd, 28th, 34th, and 56th keys and eat them. And, as the title suggests, coupling it with a side of mashed potatoes (or mashed anything) enhances the entire experience.

Anti-American Graffiti is untouchable. I can’t really rightly recognize how reality has been reaffirmed for me through this song.

I love that there are songs called “workinonit” and “walkinonit”. I prefer ‘walkinonit’ for personal reasons.

Did you know that Jay Dee produced for various artists not limited to but including The Pharcyde, Common, A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Janet Jackson and Erykah Badu? Yeah, he did.

So what makes this album so magical? Everything about it. Its simplicity, its complexity, and the taunting length of the songs- just long enough to make you fall in love and some end sooner than you’d like like celebrity marriages.

It flows and moves like slippery elm bark, or a baby bald eagle’s first worm, about to be devoured.

In the end, it touches all sorts of parts of your soul, and you basically cannot stop it from doing so. I dare you to try. If you are not human, or if you are not sure whether you have a soul, let me know after the listening experiment.

I’m not kidding. I invite you to a listening party at an unannounced date (because it will probably not happen, but knowing this album exists and listening to it straight for days allows me to be more positive and to believe it just might happen. Probably not.

Buy it, borrow it, $%^& it, and BE IT.

On a final and serious note, JDilla wrote this album as he was dying of lupus disease. And he finished it in a fabricated studio in a hospital room. This reminds me of my aunt Heather, who finished up her album “Spirit on Fire” while unfortunately dying of cancer. The album is haunting and moving, bold and a lot like the title, it’s like it’s on fire.

Deathbed albums are the best. The End.

apologies and apocalyptologies

Published by Amandoo on 17th January 2007

Filed Under talky talk

hello! i did not write all those things i wanted to last night- but every day is a new day, full of beauty, full of possibility- “it’s a powerful world” (the great daryl nathan always knows what’s up), full of the chance to listen to jdilla’s donuts album, well, about 30 times or so. yep. i’ve already done it four times today.

yesterday i went to class, about technology in the classroom, and lo and behold i realized how easy it will be- the teacher said stuff like ’some of you may not know what a blog is, or some of you may not have ever used powerpoint before’. i think i’ll be sailin.

crazy biz- this girl in my class did have something interesting to say, and not academically-related- she was down in the carribbean all last week searching for her missing boss! US aids in Carribbean search for NJ man lost on island yeah. he just disappeared. i think that is weird. and weirder so, because he was an environmentalist. they know nature and nature does not hate on them.

did you know that men are more likely to snore because of the way their nasal passage is shaped? and because they carry more fat around their face and neck area (women get it more in the hips and thighs) and that’s why they snore more. okay?

why people with the name amanda gotta suck the name up for me?!?!? think Amanda Bynes and “the Amanda show”, think that Amanda Congdon lady who supposedly ‘paired up with popurls’ to do something, and it looks more like she’s doing nothing and rather trying to look like something awesome. i don’t know, maybe i’m missing it.

i have no further points at this time. i do fully intend to update, update something later. it might or might not be awesome. you be the fill-in-the-blanker.

bungalows: upping the ante of society

Published by Amandoo on 16th January 2007

Filed Under interesting- you should really check this out

did i already tell you to watch the ‘little superstar’ dancing video? it is quite worth a while or two. and so is that jdilla album ‘donuts’. i will write some reviews this week (i hope) because i believe i’m upping my blogs ante this week/night/day/yearyearday.

what i’m trying to say is why men and women gotta be all hatin on each other like- men suck or women are ____ (fill in the blank here people- you’ve heard it). no one really thinks it, or if they do, how are they going to count out half the population like that.

this blog is to let you know how awesome my other blogs (TODAY!) are going to be once i get back from my first day back to grad school.

if you like that ‘little superstar’ video and don’t like madonna or jessica simpson? go here and listen to the inspiration for that video. people are so pleasantly funny sometime.

so i think i’m going to be raking it in, and not the leaves from the lack of fall/winter weather here. i don’t even know what time of year it is- i’m so busy working all the time now.

i will definitely be doing some tributes later. so keep posted, keep hanging, keep the keeper.

ps if you are reading this tuesday afternoon there is a show from the Fresh Cut Salads to your ears at Pianos in New York. visit freshcutsalads.com for more info. go.

if you don’t go to the show, come back here later for more awesome blogs and side-page-category action! yea!

(that’s mc miker)

lack love luster

Published by Amandoo on 12th January 2007

Filed Under l'oventures

i’m all out of stock. i can’t have it for anyone. some platonic love might still linger in my being, but i’m not sure about anything more. relationships are just too difficult. i don’t know what i really believe about love, relationships, and marriage. as much as i think i do, i see it so rarely around me today. open relationships, divorce, adultery, cheating, so on and so forth, i do not know how to deal with the real possibility that they’re all out there standing in between me and a perfect marriage. but after a recent experiment i’ve realized that i probably don’t want to marry anyone soon anyway, but maybe someday. until then, though, i should really focus more on awesome-izing my life. and maybe some other stuff too, but that’s not for me to talk about today.

well here, this is kind of stupid, but kind of funny. i don’t know. maybe there are other people out there like me (not to date, but to empathize) but probably not. i’m just a little too bizarre.

on a better note, starting next week, my blog will be more krunktop than ever!

the way life is and could should be

Published by Amandoo on 8th January 2007

Filed Under talky talk

it happened again. the changing. whether or not i want it to, change will inevitably find its way into my life. and what do i mean? the recent l’oventural heart-blending on chop speed? no. i mean, essentially, a good, even very good change! i mean that i am about to embark on a new life pathsake, which will be exciting, non-boring, and profitable for me, and i only had to hope for it, and talk about wanting something to change, and literally, the next day it unexpectedly did. don’t get your romantic hearts up for a game of the fish going type, rather think about a fish that might pair well with the manna of life.

in short- i’m talking new business venturtunities, and though it crushes my heart in some interpersonal aspects, i’m very excited about the others. and it has already so quickly made me realize that i did make friends that i will miss at my current job. i did live a life there that i will miss greatly from time to time, but things are changing!

i will elaborate sooner than later i hope, but until then, know that today brought the most realistic and greatest happiness that could come of a time when i couldn’t resist but to be blue as the sky and all of its profound changes in tiny little color and texture changes, and now i feel hope.

yay. yay for the mysterious higher unionificational power of the world to combine your hopes, goals, and efforts, with the needs and practicalities of the conscious interconnectedness to create a fortunate outcome for the masses.

yay hay.

how do i stop these emotions.com?

Published by Amandoo on 7th January 2007

Filed Under l'oventures

maybe my life would be more interesting, less falsely dramatic, and just plain frighteningly exciting, if i had more experiences with the crusher.

instead, i am forced to dwell in the overdone cesspit of emotion with all the other sorrowful swimmers in the tumultuous wave pool of life. but no one is swimming in my lane right now, and none of my friends are even doing laps nearby; i am alone in the recycled waterfalls of feelings, with something that has happened and is happening all the time, something that will happen as long as humans are not made of computers.

me, once again, here in computerspace, writing about my feelings. but only because i can’t escape them, and as much as i’d like to take them out with the trash, they do not go away. what would possess me (besides the sleep paralysis crusher) to tell a computer screen and then the possibility of whosoever might find this, about my intimate, most personal life? complete and utter apathetic sorrowful depressional lack of caring sharing. i like to share my life’s sorrows so either someone will talk to me about them, or in the hopes that maybe someday, somehow, this will help someone, or they will be able to relate.

one time i wrote an article about living it up, and it said something about a relationship i had just gotten out of and over, and someone at my college actually emailed me to thank me because they were reading the paper, completely depressed, just dumped, and they found my article and it gave them hope (when they were bored and expecting to find nothing of interest- their words)

well, when it happens to you (dips in the stock supply of l’oventures) it does not resemble anything noble, exciting, lively, or any word that means the opposite of sadness, despair, or pathetic-ness.

i will not go into detail. all that i will say is, my soul has been slightly punctured. and the feelings that accompany it just do not go away. incessant angst, boring.com, is something that i do not know how to deal with, do not want to, and certainly do not like dealing with.

and here it is, daring me to keep going, to move on, to move forward. and all i can think of is how extremely bottomy new beginnings are. no more sharing for now, maybe caring later, maybe something more coherently relatable. let me know. that never-ending time thing will probably let me know as well.

for now, i will try to avoid hateration (TM Mary J Blige) and the Great Depression.