this just in...!

Chicago is famous for its "Taste of Chicago" festival that happens every summer. This summer it goes on from June 27-July 6. I don't really know how it works, but I found out today that admission is free. (apparently, you buy tickets to get access to the many foodstuffs there).

Here's the sweetness: On June 28th, Mr. Stevie Wonder is providing entertainment at the festival in the famous Grant Park under the new concert pavilion there. What is the price to see this American legend? Free as can be.

I'm excited(!) and by then the whole family will be (uptight) ready for an exciting outing (Everything is alright).

What?

After every episode of the first two seasons of LOST, my wife would turn to me and with a puzzled and near angry look say, "what?"




Now that she's an uberfan, this video still made me smile in sweet, nostalgic memory.

A little something nice to start the summer (linktastic edition)

If you know me, you know I love the Cure. I was 14 when Andy and I first started sneaking tapes from his older brother's room and dubbing copies. It started with songs like "Boys Don't Cry" and Plastic Passion but I soon became literally infatuated with the their then, most recent release Wish (1992). It is still my favorite album--and I suppose that makes me unique as a fan. Most site their 89 album Disintegration as their best, and I agree that it is an amazing album, but Wish just captures my adolescence so perfectly. The songs were easy to play on guitar; I was only just learning. The guitarist Porl Thompson had a unique sound that I fawned over and tried to imitate--found most prominently on cuts like "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" and "Cut." And the tunes were, for the most part (and despite the "gloom and doom" persona that Robert's hair and make-up may have incited from casual observers of the posters on my wall [parents]), the band was at least 50% pop. The pop tracks were fun to sing and the intense songs were the perfect foil for my mild brand of teenage angst. Both songs were fun to play. In many ways, Only Anything (the greatest teenage band ever to have not gotten big in Tucson circa 93-97) was born of The Cure.

In 96 the Cure released Wild Mood Swings which became an album full of songs that Tina and I now consider the soundtrack of our early courtship (especially "Mint Car" and "Jupiter Crash"). 2000 saw the release of Bloodflowers and later in 2003 they released an eponymous album. Both didn't connect with me as much as their previous work had--which is likely due to changing tastes. Still, a day rarely goes by that I don't hear a Cure song or two.

A new album is due in September--their 13th studio album (Next year is the band's 30th year together so there are other exciting things rumored to be on the release horizon), but they are going to release a new single every month until then on the 13th of that month--kinda cool.

This first single "The Only One" is great. It reminds me of one of the reasons that I started liking the band to begin with--the pop love. Check out Porl's head tattoos! Woah!

big, gigantic sigh of relief

The semester is all but over. I have 14 papers to read and grade, and that should take me a few hours tomorrow, but beyond that, my own coursework has been signed, sealed, and delivered.

There have been several bloggable items occur in the last month since last postage. Starting from the top:

I said goodbye to the White Macbook that I was able to use as part of my affiliation with Writing with Video. It wasn't as teary as I had expected, though, since I purchased a last-gen, mega-marked down ($499 off the regular price) black Macbook several weeks ago. It is so, super sweet. This is the very first laptop that I have ever bought and I spend evenings polishing it with a diaper. Many thanks to friend Mat for giving me access to Grandma Powerbook for so many years... she has now passed, but made me look super retro in my first year in the hood here.

I had a great experience in that Writing with Video class previously posted about and am finding all sorts of ways that New Media works into some of my more general academic interests. If you'd like to see the 4 projects that preceded the final project, please feel free to visit my blog from that class (see sidebar link). They are all there.

Related to those New Media interests, I submitted an abstract as part of a panel for next year's CCCC's (Conference on College Composition and Communication). It is my very first attempt to participate in a large-scale conference. My co-panelists are all advanced students in the program and I feel totally lucky to be included. Our panel (in a very small nutshell) is focused on how internet communities are poised to influence "real world" democratic processes. We still have to get accepted, but if we do (and here is the most exciting part), the conference is next March in San Francisco!

Hmm..let's see, what else...Oh--the most important thing

There are two sweet women who deserve more words from me than I could sit here and write. When I was a child, I called the first Mom and the other, my own children call by the same name. It's a popular name: I just happen to know and love two of the best.