Study Music

Since I spend the bulk of my time nowadays hunched over a book or Microsoft word. I know a lot of my readership can probably relate. So the issue of good study music has been an important one to me.

Now, as a second preface, I cannot listen to music when I do anything that requires problem solving, so that's basically anything besides reading. Papers I write while listening to music have the tone of a 5th grader, and I absolutely cannot do math (not that I can with open ears either).

Actually, an interview I conducted for a class with Cornell University Music/Sociology Professor Trevor Pinch revealed that I may not be alone in this. In a study he did with his own students, he found that many of them noticed improved concentration in reading while listening to certain rhythmic dance or electronic music. But when it came to solving a problem, many students found music to get in the way of their concentration.

So, reader, you heard the man. Listening to certain music may actually help concentration while reading. Win, win, right?

Here are a few albums I find enjoyable without distracting me from the task at hand.

1. El Ten Eleven - El Ten Eleven

This album is interesting. It's kind of like indie baroque music (for all the uneducated masses out there, think Bach and Mozart). The album is instrumental, with keys, guitar, bass and drums. The melodies are interesting but not abrasive, the drums constant and driving, and there is almost always a fast-moving part underlying everything. There's a lot going on, but it all melds together, creating a constant, enjoyable soundscape, much like a Bach or Mozart piece.

Check out the opener, "My Only Swerving," below (I've written about this band and this song before. Sorry, anyone who remembers).

Nothing's too distracting, and there are no lyrics to zone into, so you can keep your head buried in the textbook I know you love reading.

2. This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You

This is a Texan band some might call an Explosions In The Sky rip-off, but they're solid nevertheless. Listen to this if you're in a dark place, or reading anything in the social sciences (because that will inevitably put you in a dark place. Anthropology majors out there, you know what I mean). The album is incredibly slow and brooding. Almost every song is written around a slow, incremental build. They like to take their sweet-ass time, but it works, especially when reading about The World Trade Organization's willingness to utterly abuse Third World exporters. That's right WTO, I'm on to you.

Check "Threads." It's probably the most easily accessible song on the album (also the brightest).

3. Yo Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer - Appalachian Journey

This album is a really interesting combination of old-timey folk, bluegrass and classical styles, played by a trio of astronomically talented classical musicians. It's all instrumental, save for a songs featuring James Taylor ("Hard Times Come Again No More") and Alison Kraus ("Slumber My Darling"). For the most part, it's brisk and happy and features musicianship you don't hear every day in the rock scene. And hey, it could cheer you up after hour 5 in the library. (Yeah, you're right, nothing will. Sorry I brought it up.)

Check my favorite, "Emily's Reel."

Happy studying! I should do some of that myself now.

Chinese v. American

So I was reading the New Yorker (yes, I am an un-American leftist looney) and I happened upon an article written by a man who was born and raised in America, lived in China for 10 years, then came back. The article, titled "Go West, Scenes from an American Homecoming," essentially compares and contrasts Chinese and American life.

I really hesitated to write about this because the full article isn't free online. You can access it with a digital subscription or in the magazine ($6 anywhere that sells magazines). But I'll do my best to make this interesting without access to the article. Read a preview of it if you want, though it won't help much.

Anywho, I immediately liked the article because it didn't portray the Chinese as the communist drones we tend to think of (and saw in the opening ceremony of The Olympics). Instead, the author used language like, "Everybody [in China] seems to live in the moment," and he portrayed the Chinese moving crew who packed his apartment as incredibly hard and efficient workers, harder workers than the Americans who unpacked it on the other side. (Wait, I thought communism promotes laziness?). To be fair, he was also living in Shanghai, one of the more free places in China.

More interesting still was the comparison between Chinese conversation and American. What the author, Peter Hessler, noticed was the Chinese ask questions, see conversations as a way to gather information and learn. They don't do much in the way of sharing personal experiences, stories or ideas. The Americans, Hessler argues, are more quick to tell a story, share an experience, and they're much lighter on the questions. He said that where the Chinese listen, the Americans wait for their turn to speak.

Best example (I'll type it up, shhh don't tell the New Yorker):

The [American] driver talked non-stop for a hundred and twenty miles, He told stories about his ex-wife, and he described his studies of Biblical Hebrew; he had strong opinions about the Book of Daniel. Nowadays, he lived in a trailer court, but during the nineteen-sixties he had travelled for France, Spain, Greece, and Turkey. "I had a rich uncle who took me there."

"Wow, that must have been nice," I said. "What did your uncle do?"

"That was Uncle Sam."

People in China never talked like that. They didn't like to be the center of attention, and they took little pleasure in narrative. They rarely lingered on interesting details. It wasn't an issue of being quiet; in fact, most Chinese could talk your ear off about things like foodand money and weather, and they loved to ask foreigners questions. But they avoided personal topics . . . Probably it was natural in the culture where people live in such close contact, and where everything revolves around the family or some other group. (Page 53)

This says a lot about the difference between American and Chinese culture. In China, the basic ideal is the common good – everything for the country and everything from the country. America, however, is focused on the individual. We were all taught to be our own person, raise ourselves up, chase the american dream. America, at least modern America, is built on the rugged individualism ideal: life is for the taking, for personal triumph. Whereas in China, life is for the living, and for the betterment of the community.

So it makes sense that Americans like personal stories more. Life is all about personal goals and successes, and our own life story tends to be a favorite; just look at how stacked the biography section is at any bookstore. Everyone likes writing about themselves. We are very selfish creatures here in the U.S. of A. Gotta look out for number one (and turn number one's past experiences into interesting narratives, thus promoting self-worth through glorification.)

The role of the individual in China is diminished (or maybe it's just put into perspective. Some of my friends could use a little of that). The overbearing sense of one-cog-in-the-machine-ism (like that coinage?) makes personal narratives uninteresting.

I don't know whether that's better or worse than what we have here. But I can say one thing: If I were to tell my own life story, I'd tell it to a Chinese person. At least I know they'd listen.

Ben Gibbard and Kerouac

As an addendum to the Kerouac post, I'll discuss Ben Gibbard's relationship to Kerouac's work. They have quite the history.

The clearest and most obvious example is "Bixby Canyon Ridge" off Death Cab's most recent full-length, Narrow Stairs.

Here it is below.

The song is a non-fiction account of Gibbard's trip to a sea-side shack off California's Route 1. There, Jack Kerouac wrote Big Sur and sunk into a drunken depression. Fun stuff, right?

"I descended a dusty gravel ridge, beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge," Gibbard sings. "Until I eventually arrived/at place where your soul had died . . . and waited for you to speak to me."

The song continues as a pretty damn poignant narrative of Gibbard seeking some sort of other-worldly guidance from Kerouac – guidance he didn't receive – as he found himself at a crossroads in his life.

Gibbard calls Kerouac is one of his biggest idols, but also said he knows Kerouac essentially met his end at the cabin in Big Sur. He didn't die there, but he did go crazy. Gibbard calls it the "place where [Kerouac's] soul had died."

In the song, Gibbard effectively said he felt himself going in the same direction as Kerouac, with the line, "And I want to know my fate, if I keep up this way/but it's hard to want to stay awake."

Gibbard went to the cabin seeking reassurance of his lifestyle from his fast-living idol.

But Gibbard "trudged back to where the car was parked/no closer to any kind of truth/as I must assume was the case with you."

He didn't find what he hoped to from his pilgrimage. And, from what I know of Kerouac's book, Big Sur, neither did he.

While Gibbard was at the cabin, he also wrote an essay titled "The Meaning of Life." He started the essay off with a simple description of why he took the trip to Kerouac's cabin.

Why did I think I was going to come here and have this place change my life? I wanted it so badly, as I’m sure Kerouac did. I wanted to cleanse myself with this place. I’d spent years wondering what it looked like, wondering what it would be like to be here. And now here I am, sleeping in the same room Kerouac slept in. I’m walking the same path he walked when he came to the beach and wrote. Jack Kerouac sat here and wrote poems about the sound of the ocean. He sat right here.

As the essay continues, it's evident that Kerouc was not only an idol for Gibbard, but a life changer.

Gibbard was an engineering student – hard to believe, I know. In the essay he said when he first read On The Road, he was in college, taking biology, calculus and physics. Kerouac's book was something he needed.

I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences. And then you’re on the road and you’re doing it again.” The romance of the road, particularly from Kerouac’s work, encapsulated how I wanted to live. I found a way to do it by being a musician, which is what I always wanted to be.

Without Kerouac, Gibbard could be working in an engineering firm right now. Think about that. Thank god.

But Gibbard realized in reading Big Sur that the wild life has its consequences. It's reflected in the later sections of the essay and in the last line of Bixby Canyon Bridge, mentioned above.

Gibbard is approaching that age now. According to Wikipedia, he's 33. Personally, I feel Gibbard has the wherewithal Kerouac didn't, and he'll be able to transition better into later life. And I mean, he's married to Zoey Deschanel. How bad can life be?

Lucky bastard.

In any case, Kerouac was an idol and inspiration for Gibbard. Hopefully Gibbard can avoid what happened to Kerouac. Actually, maybe he shouldn't. Then the door would open for me to marry Zoey. I assure you, folks, that will happen. Just you wait and see.

Jack Kerouac

I'm about to plunge into Big Sur, one of Jack Kerouac's latest and, from what I've heard, darkest and most depressing works.

This worries me.

I go back and forth on Kerouac. One day he's my favorite author and the next day the thought of him annoys me.

By any conventional standard, Kerouac is a terrible writer. His sentence construction is awkward and halting, and at times borders on being grammatically incorrect. And the two books of his I've read (On The Road and The Dharma Bums) have had incredibly anti-climactic endings that seem to peter out when Kerouac decided he didn't have anything else to write about.

On the other hand, Kerouac puts excitement about life and adventure onto page better than anyone I've ever read. He seemed to derive so much joy from his experiences. The simplest things that, if you thought about them yourself, would seem so mundane, seem so incredibly exciting and, well, awesome when Kerouac writes about them. If you ever get a chance to read On the Road, and I suggest you do. Wait until Kerouac described a bebop jazz club. You'll never feel the same way about it again. I'd quote it, but I don't own a copy of the book right now. I suppose you'll have to see for yourself.

Point being, what I like about Kerouac's work is the zest and wonder and excitement about life he puts onto page. It's incredible, really. But as far as prose and story structure go, he's not my favorite.

That's why Big Sur worries me. If it's going to be a depressing, ho-drum account the whole way through, it'll take away the one aspect of Kerouac's work I really like. I'm still gunna give it a shot, but for now, I'm a skeptic.

But, as I said before, On the Road is totally worth reading for Kerouac's take on life and the excitement come through onto page. It could change the way you think. It did for me.

Currently Reading, Again

Alright so back in December I posted the first Currently Reading. One of the books was Guns, Germs and Steel.

I've read 44 pages since then. Ehhh.. school work. But it is really good, and I can already see how important this book is.

Have you ever wondered why people in Africa have stayed in tribal and band level societies while those of Europe and Asia have formed complex, bureaucratic, state-level societies?

Ever wondered why white Europeans and Americans are the head of companies like Nike, extorting labor from sweatshop workers in Bangladesh and not Bangladeshis extorting Americans and Europeans?

Well, the Klan'll tell you that's our god-given right. And Hitler'll tell you its because whites are genetically superior.

That's bullshit. Jared Diamond's theory, however, is not.

I haven't read far enough to lay out his theory with any sort of accuracy, but what the book does is traces human existence from the start, giving explanations for why some areas developed faster than others. If you want to know what it's all about, read it. I will be too.

Holden Caulfield

Since Salinger died, I figure I'd read Catcher. Especially since I had neglected to the first time around.

All in all I liked it. It was really well written. Salinger captured the mind of a messed up teenager perfectly.

He did it in two ways: his prose was whiny, obnoxious, grammatically incorrect and filled with slang. I thought it was great to read but a lot of my friends knock the book because the prose is too whiny. To them I say that's the point. It wasn't that Salinger wrote that way, it was Salinger writing like a whiny kid. So really, A+ for Salinger if my friends think it's too whiny.

Second way: almost everything Holden does is a contradiction. He wants to be the "Catcher in the Rye" and stop little kids from becoming adults, but he also wants to hang out in bars, drink, smoke cigarettes and other adult activities. He calls everyone he meets a "phony" but is incredibly fake to most people he talks to. He rarely says what he wants to. He is, in essence, a phony. The last few sentence of the book are even, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you'll start missing people." That pretty much means don't be genuine, if you're genuine, you'll regret what you've done.

So with that I say Holden is in no way the voice of teenagers everywhere. He doesn't represent adolescence. He represents a confused, sad, lost individual; someone limited by their own pretenses. To say that that represents adolescence doesn't give adolescence enough credit. He's a great character, but is not the voice of an age group. I don't think that's what Salinger intended him to be, and I don't think that's how it should be taught to high schoolers.

Im glad I didn't pay attention junior year, but I'm glad I read the book.

More Salinger

In 1980 a reporter, Betty Eppes, conducted a rare interview with Salinger.

In the interview he said: "I refuse to publish. There's a marvelous peace in not publishing. There's a stillness. When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself."

Salinger's last published work was a short story that ran in The New Yorker in 1965.

He went 45 years without publishing. Do you think he stopped writing? I don't.

J.D. Salinger's unpublished works?

J.D. Salinger passed away yesterday at the age of 91, according to National Public Radio.

Now, I'm going to come right out and say it, I have yet to read The Catcher In The Rye. There, I said it. But don't stop reading just yet, it's on my shelf and it's next in line.

But my confession isn't the point of this post. My point is that Salinger was a recluse. In 1953 he moved to a farm house in New Hampshire where he stayed until his death. He effectively cut himself off from the outside world. He even cut himself off from the local high school when an interview conducted by one of the students ran in the town's editorial page instead of it's high school page (and yes, I'm getting all of this from Wikipedia, shoot me).

So the man didn't like attention and was caved away in his New Hampshire home. What if Salinger was a literary dragon, hidden in his cave, crouching over his unpublished novels, protecting them from any would-be publishers? Minus the imagery, I'd say it's possible. The chance there are a few unfinished or unpublished works lying around in that old house is pretty high.

It's a possibility that intrigues me. How will people handle it? Will they respect Salinger's wishes (what were his wishes?) or will the books be published? I'm getting a feeling they'll be published. However, Salinger's people have yet to comment, according to the Associated Press.

In any case, I'll be keeping an eye out. Stay tuned for more.

Currently Reading

Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a fantastic book, I read it over the summer and loved it. I couldn't put it down. It packs a powerful message while remaining a fun, sometimes really funny, read. Part of that is due to his prose. I'll let you see for yourself, but it's one of the most unique and powerful styles I've come across. I'm hoping his first novel (the one I'm reading) shows the same prowess. In any case, I suggest both books. Foer is young (32) and full of promise; a good author to look out for.

Guns, Germs and Steel- An understanding of the world around us is important. What better way to do so then to read a book that takes an analytical look at the last 13,000 years of civilization?

Though I haven't read it yet, I know that Jared Diamond's book takes a look at the underpinnings of European society (maybe

guns or steel?) and how it allowed for the subjugation of nearly the rest of the known world (I'm going on a limb, but germs may have played a part).

I always love reading something that doesn't sugar coat history. Time to read up on the society my ancestors were a part of and the horrible things that society did. Oh boy!