A picture of me and Esmé.

Still trying to figure this out.

Why does the music of PJ Harvey connect with my soul so much?

Speaking of souls, I've been reading this book called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" by the world's leading expert on language and the mind, Steven Pinker. His studies and conclusions reject these three notions that have developed over the past four hundred years (post-Renaissance/Enlightenment and forward): The Blank Slate (the notion that the mind is a "tabla rasa", a scraped tablet, that is entirely formed and conditioned by the experiences of life), the Noble Savage (that pre-civilized man was a more decent creature before the affects of civilization and [to a greater degree] industrialization/modernization/Westernization), and the Ghost in the Machine (essentially, the fact that we have a soul).

What he says is amazingly convincing and well-thought out. But the idea that we don't have a soul, something part of us that lives on after the body is dead, as has been believed for milllenia by traditional cultures and even by our modern cultures, is a rather depressing and troubling thought for me. But I reject it roundly. Not simply because I've always believed we have souls and just could never imagine thinking otherwise, or even that it destroys everything I believe in terms of my Christian faith, but mostly because I don't see how the belief in an afterlife and a non-material, immortal part of our being--something that has been believed, as I have said, for millenia--could be so easily proven "wrong" by current scientific understanding of how the mind works. So that is my statement.

PJ Harvey, you touch my soul. More importantly, I still believe in Jesus.

Boob.

"This country's going down the tubes." My dad grieves out the words as he reclines on the couch in front of the HDTV showing FoxNews and the report of the recent earthquake in Pakistan and India.
"Why do you say that?" comes my question.
"Because everybody is in debt and spending money like crazy; there are no morals anymore; everything has become so political."
"Hm," I think, "I guess my dad and I do agree on something."

List.

Compiled a list of albums I’d likely bring with me to a desert island. I know, it is a cliched exercise, but here goes. (Perhaps someday I’ll give my reasons why I chose each album, but by then, it will be different):

( ) Sigur Rós
After the Goldrush Neil Young
At Folsom Prison Johnny Cash
Blood on the Tracks Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road Lucinda Williams
Chronicle, Vol. 1 Creedence Clearwater Revival
Egypt Youssou N’Dour
Elephant The White Stripes
Ella & Louis Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Funeral The Arcade Fire
Gold Ryan Adams
Homogenic Björk
Is This Desire? PJ Harvey
IV Led Zeppelin
Kid A Radiohead
Kind of Blue Miles Davis
Pink Moon Nick Drake
Revolver The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band The Beatles
Star Time James Brown
Summer Sun Yo La Tengo
The Basement Tapes Bob Dylan & The Band
The Joshua Tree U2
The Milk-Eyed Mender Joanna Newsom

Thank God I'm Immortal

Hard to be young and be mistaken for much younger (than I am) while teaching those who are in actuality as old as most think I look all under the guise of professionalism which I have a hard time taking seriously in the first place. Sometimes I don't shave on purpose. But neither that nor the tweed jacket help me look much older. Perhaps I should be sporting a pipe? Perhaps a beard and I don't care how ridiculous I would look in it. Then there is this: I feel I have more in common with those under my charge than with those called colleagues. This is today's recursive thoughts.