Count Countenance

1. The White Noise Companion
2. Calcium Fortified
3. Thematic Distraction
4. Triumphant Beards
5. Wooden Legs
6. Fantastic Tales
7. Paul is Dead

/ / /

I had something of a doppelganger in college. He was a few inches shorter, couldn't quite grow a beard like I could, but damn we looked alike. And not only did we look alike, but in a lot of ways, we simply were alike.

As a teacher, depending on position I suppose, you start to see recurring faces. And these faces come attached to patterns of behavior, predetermined identities governed by a crook in the nose. Phrenology and Physiognomy aren't exactly the scientific fields I expect anyone to depend on, let alone myself, but it's almost discouraging when these archetypes seem to be less a product of their environment and more a biological construct representative of human evolution.

So when you're watching old movies and you see these classical beauties (name a whoever, it doesn't matter) you realize they don't exist anymore. And it's not just that standards have adjusted, it's that those specific physical qualities have faded away, leaving the present to cope with a glut of strange men like myself.

How Gizzard a Day Get?

Mix for 11/14/10 - Triumphant Beards

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Every so often I catch myself speaking with some vague accent or other unusual verbal tics, often acquired from the people around me. Visiting relatives in Colorado, they accused me of having some slight Canadian slur distorting the pronunciation of my vowels, leaving me concerned about my appreciation for plaid-print. When I teach I tend to slow my speech to a crawl while raising the pitch of my voice, resulting in some awful stoner-vibes wafting from the beaches of Point Break. Students are often unprepared for the grand reveal of my actual lusty baritone, as I shout at them about how "Vanessa was riding her bicycle at 30mph for 13 minutes...." Those word problems can get intense. Or: I get pretty worked up when I read them.

As I write, I have a habit of letting my thoughts race ahead of my typing, which results in frequently forgotten particles, participles, and other mundane parts of speech. If my attention starts to lag, I'll begin to hear my internal voice echoing inside my head and I struggle to identify if it's actually a copy of my voice or something appropriated. Sometimes it possesses a subtle lisp, the same subtle lisp that once prevented me from ever saying "synthesizer" out loud when I was growing up. But I have no lisp today, and I haven't for years and years and years.

And it's this constantly shifting quality of voice that results in so much misunderstanding, as it seems to take some months or millennia of knowing me to determine whether I just told I joke. Many jokes have met many stern gazes and never did they find the happiness they deserved. So I find myself often speaking in grand hyperbole, loudly describing terrible absurdities thinking surely it's clear — I am joking now.

Instead I get asked if I need a hug.

Of course I need a hug.

Carl Weathers Was the Worst Mercenary

Mix for 11/04/10 - Thematic Distraction

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A friend said to me, "None of us are doing anything we're good at," a statement only slightly different than the more traditional idea that it's hard to find a job that you enjoy. But it's a fact of our lives (my friend's, my own, and those of our mutual friends) that very little of our work experience is rooted in anything that we're especially competent with or trained in, even if we're finding some margin of success. Part of this stems from how we're all largely "artists" of one form or another, a character description that has little practical application, yet it's strange to think how we've become so cut off from our primary skills.

Of course it's entirely my own fault for being a bit of a nitwit without an ounce of entrepreneurial instinct. My brief attempts at freelance show how little I enjoy the act of selling, whether an idea, object, or my identity. My current job asked that I revise my biographical blurb so that it's more appealing to the clientele, but I find myself completely incapable of abiding by their suggestions because the thought of third-person self-aggrandizement triggers acid reflux.

And so it was, when I went to pick up some photographs of mine that had been kept at my old high school, the woman at the counter asked me if this was my job (referring to the photos) and I could only shake my head and laugh. It's been almost five years since I've taken a picture, which is unbelievably discouraging. Two years ago, when I posted the image of the Daibutsu, I had no idea that I wasn't even a photographer anymore.