Black Lung

I've got to get my family out of Utah County.

The last week of school this semester, I could taste the air while walking to school. The car exhaust just seemed to hang in the air. I was so sure that the air quality would be rated poor, by the way my mouth and throat felt by the time I made it up the hill.

Oddly, the one site I checked gave Provo a green rating. But The Daily Herald reported a different story yesterday:

Utah Valley air ranked worst in U.S.

I hate to think what this air is doing to my kids' lungs.

Utah Valley's only growing, and the bowl that is Utah County is only going to hold all that car exhaust each winter. It's time to go.

Grumpy Rooster

Yesterday, my over 2 year-old niece and my under 2 year-old daughter found some of Grandma and Grandpa's books that they brought back from their mission in Africa. They were good picture books and children's stories. The book they snuck into the other room had a big color drawing of a rooster on the cover: Le coq qui ne voulait plus chanter. (If my French is any good: "The rooster who no longer wanted to crow".) This is a children's story by an Ivory Coast author, Fatou Keita.

My niece was excited when she saw that I was willing to read her the book and we could look at all of the pictures. Turning to the third page as I continued reading my niece stops me.

"I'm gonna get another book."

I know I didn't pronounce every word correctly, but I didn't think my French pronunciation was unbearable. Maybe I'll just finish the book on my own.

* And what better to illustrate a post about an African story in French, than a painting by Spanish artist. At least the title is Le Coq (Joan Miro, 1940).

Insects: It's whats for dinner

Dr. Riley Nelson, one of my academic advisers, hosted an informal potluck dinner for the the Entomology Class, the Entomology Club and assorted members of his lab. Attendees were invited to bring bug-themed foods. Most items were in the form of bugs: sandwiches pinned and labeled like bugs in a museum, foods decorated with legs, or even just labels on the food to remind you that some bugs have those shapes. Laura and I brought chips and salsa because... well... chips and salsa.

There was also one food item with plastic bugs embedded inside, but one brave girl actually fried some meal worms she'd bought at the pet store. Here in the States, mealworms are pet food. Elsewhere mealworms are sometimes people food. The little dish was passed around to everyone. With a little peer pressure more than half of the folks had a crisp treat. They tasted like a burnt chip.

After eating a couple myself, I had one more that I handed Maggie. She held it in her hand for a while. I saw her taste it a couple of times still holding it in her little fist, but by the time we got her out of the car at home she was finishing chewing up her little treat. That's when I let Laura know that Maggie was getting a little extra protein in her diet.

If you go here, you can see a few pictures and descriptions of bugs eaten around the world from Man Eating Bugs: the Art and Science of Eating Insects by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, a good book. A google search for the book has many of the pages and photos online. (The photo for this post came from Menzel and D'Aluisio's book.)

I like it

I do like cool paper. It's part of why I took a bookbinding class at the University.

I also like bugs.

I think I'm a little partial to green too.

This little guy* is pretty cool.

You can check out the story here at NPR's The Picture Show blog.

!ORAGAMI!

* Leaf Katydid, by Brian Chan

Christmas Music: Not So Cheery

In our house, we've been listening to Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas. It's a collection of 5 EPs that Sufjan originally recorded to send out to his friends. I generally prefer not to listen to Christmas music, but I bought this CD set for Laura one Christmas after we spent a week constantly going back to NPR to stream Stevens' "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". (That song has tragically been removed, from the LDS hymn book, but the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and others still perform it.)

There are definitely some songs/hymns that I really like, but the way that Christmas music has been treated does little to inspire me.

I am wary of any band or entertainer that puts out a Christmas album. I use that word "entertainer" loosely... it was the best I could think of at the moment so as not to use "musician" or "artist" which are more debatable terms under these circumstances. Christmas albums seem like a cheap shot at sales that somehow someone still concedes to produce as another offering to the undiscriminating masses. I consider the Sufjan Stevens EPs as a definite exception because he recorded 5 EPs over 6 years for friends and then decided to make it commercially available.

To me, most Christmas albums are a tribute to those who don't want to bother with making a real choice about what to listen to. "Harmless" is the only requirement. Just think about how many Christmas albums that fall into these categories: adult contemporary, country, and new age - a selection that runs from bland and blah to downright putrid. Just type in "Christmas" while searching for music on Amazon and you'll get a good picture of this bleak landscape. The inspiration that was required for Handel's Messiah or "Silent Night" is wrung out and replaced by the simple sales point of "hey, listen to me... I know all the words", not to mention the smothering by "original" compositions. bleh.

I think that the hardest part for me about Christmas music is how it is rolled into the mass marketing of the Holiday season. I am frightened of those, and I'm mainly talking about commercial enterprises, who play Christmas music as soon as the turkey's off the Thanksgiving table. Few things are more grating than the barrage of pop-culture mediocrity. There were some definite music fiends that I had to listen to as a missionary because of my inability to convince some of my missionary companions that any album with "Christmas" in the title was not automatically "inspirational" music -- Boyz II Men are definitely going to hell for what they've done.

Sufjan is half of the reason I am writing this post. The other half is because I heard a review of Bob Dylan's new Christmas album on NPR. After listening to the few samples of the songs that were included in that story, the first thing I'd like to say is: ¿Can someone please find Bob a losenge? His throat must be killing him..

Secondly, I do like Dylan's music. If you're not a fan of Bob or even dislike his music, one thing that can help you better appreciate his writing talent is to hear someone else sing his songs: Tim O'Brien's version of "Forever Young", nearly anyone's version of "Girl from the North Country", but I do like Sam Bush's rendition, and there are definite reasons why so many people have covered "Don'tThink Twice It's Alright" and "All Along the Watchtower".

With that preface, I have no idea why. ¿WHY?

¿WHY did Bob Dylan record a Christmas album?

Maybe you can listen to a track or two and tell me.

NPR's All Songs Considered has their yearly selection of Christmas Covers up and running, and The Annoying Music Show also has this year's post. Both programs have Bob Dylan, if that means anything.

* I stole the photo from New York Magazine.

Pop-culture Icons

This video is just over a week old and last i looked, the video is less than 15k short of reaching the 8 million mark. That's crazy. It's easy to understand. I loved "Bohemian Rhapsody" well before the Wayne's World revival, and the Muppets from even earlier. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that this is a good mash-up of pop culture.

Will nearly 8 million views, you've probably already seen this. In case you haven't, here it is: