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Wednesday, March 20

8:30 PM
Joy and a couple of her friends stopped by to see me this afternoon on their way to Michigan. We went to lunch and the art building, and I showed them my drawings and prints. My sister is cool.

Monday, March 18

1:31 AM
Back at school.

Saturday night Shannon and I got some Jones soda, some pizza from Papa Murphy's where they make the pizza for you but you have to bake it yourself, and watched Ghost World. Now I want to read the book.

I left at about 11am and got home at 10:30pm (I lost an hour). Time now for schoolwork.

Saturday, March 16

1:11 PM
Thursday we went to lunch as it snowed heavily. We went to an exhibition called Unsatisfied at the Hennepin History Museum, which seemed to be a mansion converted into a museum. The exhibition had photos and memorabilia from the 80s rock scene in the twin cities (Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, the Jayhawks, etc). I didn't know that Soul Asylum was from here. They had a couple of walkmans set up so you could listen to some of the songs; they sounded great. Now I want to look up all these bands to know more.

We didn't do anything else for the rest of the day because the snow just kept piling up, probably to 9 or 10 inches.

Yesterday the roads were clear, so we went to the Walker, which we had meant to do the day before. They had a special display of Donald Judd's work, which was amazing. The rest of the museum had some incredible things, all these famous works from my art history book. I was so happy to see them in person. I finally saw another Jasper Johns painting after 7 years I think (the last time was in Washington, D.C.). They also had a ballet set made by Johns that was used by Merce Cunningham. We didn't get to see the whole place in depth because they closed earlier than we expected, but I was glad to have gone.

At night we went to see Michael Moore on his book tour, at a Presbyterian church in downtown St. Paul. The church filled up long before the 7 o'clock starting time, so hundreds of people were turned away, including us, but they said they'd have a second session at 9. In the meantime we went to dinner at a nearby sushi restaurant. We acted like we knew what we were doing. Shannon, at least, was good at holding chopsticks, but not me. We found out what wasabi is by destroying our taste buds on it, and decided to leave it alone. There was too much food so we took it with us.

We went back to the church a little before 9 and had to wait about 45 minutes to get in, and then waited some more while Michael finished signing books for the first group. It was worth the wait, though. He got up and gave a monologue, a lot of the time acting like a comedian, which I guess he is. He showed a 10-minute clip from the next film he's working on (it looks as good as the other one I saw, The Big One), and then spoke some more, and answered some (mostly dumb) questions from the audience. The whole thing took about two hours and I really enjoyed it. I recorded most of what he said to minidisc. I didn't have a copy of his book so we didn't stay for the signing.

Today's my last day here. I'm not sure if Shannon has anything in mind for what to do next. More about it next time.

Wednesday, March 13

11:52 PM
All right, so the concert. Shannon and I went downtown and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, eating fajitas messily. Then we went to the (lovely) Orpheum theater for the show. The opening act was a gal named Leona Naess, who was pretty good. A couple of times she said things like "you guys are in for a treat" and we weren't sure if she meant her next song or Mr. Adams.

So Ryan came on about half an hour after Leona (as cut-outs of Darth Vader and Chewie stood on either side of the stage, with the Star Wars theme playing), starting with "The Rescue Blues", probably one of my least favorite songs of his. But it sounded good. After the song he was going to say something to the audience, but then he said "you're not going to get me to say anything". He didn't really keep that promise, but for the rest of the show, whenever he said something it usually wasn't that funny or anything... (example: "Why can't Darth Vader drink milk? Because he's galactose intolerant." Ryan, you cut-up.) but it was entertaining in a way because he knew he wasn't being very clever. He admitted that he was stoned out of his mind. None of that mattered because they played really well. His lead guitarist had hilariously ugly hair; he looked like a Ramone, kind of. Ryan strutted his stuff and occasionally flung himself into set dramatic poses. I imagined that the whole thing was somewhat like what a Rolling Stones concert would have felt like in their early days. He fell over a couple times, screamed and flailed around.

Most of the songs they played were from Gold, and even the more ballad-like numbers were given a harder edge. In fact, I think the only song from Heartbreaker was the only really fast one, "To Be Young". But he's promoting Gold so it makes sense. In the middle of the show he played some song about Meg Ryan (he called her "Miss Ryan"), about how he was in love with her, and how he couldn't forgive her for marrying the guy who was in Innerspace. He didn't say the name Innerspace explicitly but said something about people being shrunken down. Anyway it was pretty funny. The encore had a different feel. I think it was all covers. First they played "Sin City", then "Lovesick Blues", then some very cool, very short punk song ("You Tell Me", maybe? That line was repeated.), and another which I don't remember.

All in all, it felt very 70s, and it was a lot of fun.

Tuesday was a good day. Shannon took me to this little toy store, and we were the only ones in it. We were looking at all the marbles, and the clerk says "You know how to play marbles, of course?" I said, "Yeah, you try to hit them with a shooter, right?" And then he launched into an explanation of marbles; the various kinds of games and ways to flick the shooter; historical figures who loved to play marbles (Lincoln, Caesar, and... others); how he teaches local kids to play, and helps organize the local marble tournaments. I played a quick game with him so he could show me at least one set of rules. He trounced me. I only got one measly marble, and he got six (out of 10, which means he won). He gave me the circular string that we played in and gave Shannon and me each a shooter. So I was into it, of course, and I bought 10 marbles and another shooter. (So did Shannon.) A good salesman, he was.

We went to Shannon's fibers class at another college, where I just waited and drew and read Nine Stories. I guess I should have hung around to meet people in her small class, but I was uncomfortable. That's just how I act in unfamiliar settings.

At night we went to a lecture at St. Kate's (Shannon's college) given by a professor, from another St. Paul school, named Marv Davidov. He was a political activist/radical/anarchist/etc who was amazing to listen to. He was a freedom rider! He rode to Mississippi and got arrested and went to jail! I thought about Phil Ochs occasionally. The lecture series' premise was that the lecturer would talk as if it were his final lecture, before dying I guess.

Today we saw The Royal Tenenbaums, and I was happy that it was just as good as Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. I wonder if Wes Anderson is going to keep using big stars in his next movies. He uses them well.

We had calzones (I feel obligated to pronounce them the American way now, "cal-zone" instead of "cal-dzon-ay"... I have got to stop being a pretentious ass about foreign languages that I really know hardly anything of). At the restaurant it felt like 1995 or 1996 again because all the music was from that time period, with an occasional 70s song. I wish I could go back in time and just hear 101 in Columbus as it was when I listened to it, when I liked most of the songs they played. Actually, I'd also like to hear 90.5, the public radio station, from summer 2000, "Ante Meridium" with Patrick Testa, which may have been even better (although not for nostalgic purposes). There are some songs that I will never hear again, because I don't know the names of the bands or the songs and can therefore never download them.

Then we went to Half Price Books, but didn't get anything. There are too many books. George Stephanopolous(sp?)' book All Too Human was only $1 in hardcover. There were some books that actually looked good that were cheap, too. But I didn't want to spend any money. I had a headache.

That's enough for now.

Tuesday, March 12

1:23 AM
Just got back from the concert. In short: pretty sweet. More on it later. Goodnight.

Monday, March 11

4:25 PM
I'm in St. Paul, in Shannon's dorm room. It was a long drive here yesterday (11 hours or so) but surprisingly not very painful.

Today is our first anniversary! Amazing... I've never had one before. Luckily we are together for it.

Tonight we're going to see Ryan Adams.

Friday, March 8

1:33 PM
Well, I'm leaving for St. Paul tomorrow to see Shannon. Last night when I talked to her she said it had been snowing, and now it was raining. So I probably won't survive this trip. But here's hoping I do. It's only 12.5 hours this time!

Friday, March 1

11:36 PM
then rushmore. ahh.

olivia williams bears an uncanny resemblance to my friend laura.