"Hey, Hey , You, You, I Don't Like Your Girlfriend"

As of this moment I am listening to Avril Lavigne's most recent CD, The Best Damn Thing. The first track, "Girlfriend," drove me to write this little commentary.

Aside from the decidedly "Mickey" beat, girls are doing themselves no favors by taking "Girlfriend" as an anthem. The piece reinforces the teen stereotype adults carry in their hip pockets. In "Girlfriend," Lavigne neatly rolls up the vapid, clumsily scheming tart-vamp, an 18th century French aristocratette in-training. This is the self-centered, under-educated, aggressively apathetic teen bemoaned by many of my colleagues. They see most of the student body interested only in, and controlled by, the melodrama du jour.

I don't believe teenage girls are that simple-minded but, as Ms. Lavigne so artfully intones in the title track:" . . . you're not . . . gonna get any better/You won't . . . you won't get rid of me never/Like it or not even though she's a lot like me."

Perhaps all the little Avril's out there just take a little more growing up and some dedicated, educated and understanding guidance.

Watching Music

Music stirs us. It stirs every base and subtle emotion. We have evolved an aural palette, abhorring discordant sounds and easily slipping into harmonious melodies. To most of us, simply enjoying music is enough. We engage in music in the same way we savor good food or enjoy another's touch. We rarely think about why music can stir us to war, or seduce us to pleasure. Whether it is the pipes and drums of a Highland regiment on the battlefield or the crooning of Barry White in a softly lit chambre d'amour, we respond in the gut and our body releases chemicals to arouse our courage or our ardor.

Add to music the presence of our fellows. Our lusts, killing or sexual, are not so easily aroused by music in the absence of others. We would not so quickly charge a bristling English army armed with a spear, kilt, and a digital recording of Scotland the Brave without a stout comrade at our side. Live buglers at military funerals are always preferred over the best recording of Taps. Interestingly, the digital bugle was developed to fill in when a live bugler is unavailable to give the appearance of a live performance. Now one can be lowered into the ground with a Milli Vanilli version of full military honors.

Perhaps this explains why we generally prefer live performances, even if they are video recordings, over audio recordings. Human beings all recognize and respond to the human face. Indeed, our brains create human faces given only the slightest provocation. So when we couple these two strong stimuli: faces and music, it is no wonder some of us are willing to pay so much to become part of an audience rather than simply popping in a CD.

If you are wondering what prompted this entry, as I am certain you are, groove on over to YouTube and open up a couple of Andy Mckee pieces: Drifting, and Africa (yes, that Africa). Then listen to each piece without watching the video.

After you are done, watch and listen.

I can feel a difference.

Wood Working on my Dormant Dork

You may remember my earlier whinging regarding pay and benefits. Now, a month after leaving the classroom, I am enjoying a vacation unheard of in almost any other field. In two days, I will have been on summer break from one month and still have another six weeks to go before I have to be back for orientation.

My major summer wood working project is well underway: three cabinets with drawers, doors, and bookshelves flanked by two pillar shelving units. I am trying my hand for the first time and, true to form, am eschewing pre-production planning or design. Furthermore, I am using only the best #2 pine one-inch boards I can dig out of the mass of bowed and twisted rejects at my local Home Depot. I could have gone with birch ply, but why take the easy route when one can twist and pound kiln-dried, knot-filled, slabs of wood into usable pieces of furniture? I love the way each board is usually 1/8" to 1/2" narrower or wider than its sister from the same pallet. What makes it even more challenging is my lack of a joiner or planer or table saw. I suppose I should consider using an adze and timber saw next time, just to up the ante.

I have also been re-exploring my dormant dork. Four days at Anime Expo helped me see just how far I had strayed from my origins. I felt like a traitor. My daughter cosplayed (new verb, don't bother looking it up until Webster gets around to adding it) a character from Naruto as well as two tragic Shakespearean women. I went as a middle-aged American male: slacks and a polo. I figure I was seen either as a the clueless-guy-who-brought-his-kid or the closet hentai aficionado there to ogle the Japanese schoolgirls. I'll let you decide which one.

You may have noticed I didn't mention any preparations for the next school year. Lesson plans are languishing and I can feel the the slow buildup of guilt and its accompanying anxiety beginning to push my hand away from the drill and saw and wood glue and clamps and Japanese schoolgirls and toward the computer keyboard.