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If there’s one thing in life to be desired, that thing is quality. If there’s a second thing to be desired, I would suggest irony–something for the soul, and something for the cynic.

Quality … has become something of an obsession. A lifestyle, and a mindset. Something to be sought after (and, on occasion, obtained). Not a mere descriptor (a descriptor that defies definition), but something of an object of its own. And object that surrounds and bathes in light something possessing it.

Quality of experience. Like getting pulled out of my comfort zone at the Yonder Mountain concert, New Year’s Eve. Pulled out of my comfort zone by a short brunette in a metallic-blue tank top. From by bubble into a circle–now of four–to dance. I don’t, mind you. Dance that is. At least not when sober, or when people might be watching. But, like jumping off a cliff, roof, swing–taking a plunge–once you’ve jumped, there’s no turning back. Sometimes, you’re pushed or pulled. But you’re nevertheless committed, and there’s no sense in struggling.

So she yanked me, from my comfort zone. Into her circle. To dance. Honestly, it was poignantly awkward. I imagine I looked utterly foolish, or worse. Who’s to say? But, then, it was too late, and I just had to enjoy it. And … I did. Enjoyed being completely out of character. Being embarrassed, but committed. So, instead of running, I danced. To the intermission music. One, two, maybe three songs. I felt like an utter square–but at the same time thoroughly elated. Then the band came back on, and we continued our count down until 2008.

I didn’t learn her name, or even where she was from. But she has my gratitude.

And so: quality of experience, by being out of character. By being uncomfortable. But, uncomfortable in a good way.

Uncomfortable, as in the driving gusts of a high-plains wind, just before dawn on New Year’s morning. The bitter cold of early morning–my mom tells me it was four degrees–chopping blocks from the brittle crust of a snow drift by headlamp. The eastern horizon glowed with all the hues of pink and yellow of a beckoning sunrise, as I dug around my car, buried in to its running boards. (I’d backed up, backed way up, to get a good running start at the hundred feet of snow drift. I’d made it forty, maybe forty five, like St. Peter walking on the water, we stuttered, stopped and sank.)

Abandoned, the car sat sunk and lifeless. In the absence of man-made noise rang the scratching, whistling stillness of dark plains. The whisk of low blowing snow. There stood a sole moving figure, standing, face in to the wind. His headlamp, from a distance, was no brighter than the stars, dotting the horizon, of which he became a part. Insignificant, diminished. Utterly obscured by the infinity and eternity of darkened undulating hills–pink and white, speckled with bursting tufts of brown in dawn’s nascent glow.

The figure, dark, buffeted, chopping blocks from the wind-crusted snow. Hewing and squaring them, stacking them to build an altar: to the great plains, or, to dark figures toiling on those plains.

…

Quality of workmanship. Quality of design, of materials, of construction. Quality of thought, of intent, of result.

Quality of speech. Well-measured words. Words that encourage. That open-up. That open up the world a little wider. “Oh God, open the world a little wider.”

Quality of action. Of intent. Of intention.

To these things I dedicate myself. I betroth myself to. I claim for my own. I claim for myself. I set my sights on.

These things, and nothing less.

This afternoon, Sagar and I drove down to Loveland to see Juno. The movie was quite good (despite a criminally scratched scratched 6th reel–the sort scratched that, running a second-run theater (like I do) makes one mutter angry things under one’s breath about “that projectionist” and “if I ever…” and “a dark and otherwise deserted alley-way”…), but not the point of this post. (If you want a review, go to filmthreat.com. Not here.)

The point of this post is that there was a P.F. Chang’s next to the movie theater, and Sagar and I couldn’t help ourselves but to help ourselves to some delicious Chinese food. (If you’ve ever been to a P.F. Chang’s, you know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t … you KNOW it must be good because P.F. Chang’s is a national chain and I, Mark Egge, not only choose to eat there when-ever the opportunity presents itself (even when there is potentially delicious local food to be had), but even encourage OTHER people to eat there!). But that’s not the point of this post, either. (If you want a review of my mean, go to zagat.com. Not here.)

The point of this post is that when the food was brought out, there was one vegetarian dish–coconut curry vegetables–and one dish with chicken–Chang’s Spicy Chicken. The person who brought out our food was not our waiter. He looked at me, and then looked at Sagar (who is, despite the goatee and Prana clothing, the son of two Indian–dots, not feathers–parents). Then, he put the vegetarian dish in front of Sagar, and the chicken dish in front of me. When he’d gone, I laughed, and observed what he had done.

“True,” responded Sagar, “but you can’t fault the guy. At least he’s a little culturally literate. I’ll give him props for that.” And, of course, I had to agree. But, at the same time, I enjoyed that little moment of role-reversal. The Indian, ordering the dish with chicken, and the Scandimerican (I just made up a new word! [even though Firefox doesn’t think it’s a word!]) ordering the vegetarian dinner. Ah.

Oh. And, after driving across several parking lots (from the theater to Chang’s) with my door open and head poking out the side (because I was too lazy to scrape my window, just to drive a few blocks), some yuppy had the audacity to yell at me, “are you CRAZY?!” At the time, all I could yell back was, “HALF!” But what I meant to yell back was, “you’re the crass, upper middle-class American, buying overpriced consumer shit, with 2.3 kids, an attached garage, an Audi, and no sense of self, purpose or the world around you! Are YOU crazy?!” But, alas. Perhaps you, dear reader, are the one who yelled at me tonight. Well, now you know what I think–or wonder, rather. No hard feelings.

Which gives me a wonderful idea. Perhaps, to improve readership, I should go to Cafepress.com (not here!) and print an EATEGGS.COM bumper-sticker. I bet people would show up here … and be confused. Mmm.

I spent some time on a gorgeous, sun-yellow, swing tonight. It was snowing: thick, heavy, flakes–swirling white in the ambicked my legs, swinging higher, and higher. Then, in that downward whoosh that follows, I found myself recounting, out loud, an afternoon experience only a few hours old, set in the same swirling snow.

…

“I was walking from the SUB to the SOB Barn. Two hours ago, I had walked across campus in my t-shirt. Now, I pulled my coat’s zipper tight, setting my shoulder against the miserable, blustering snow. My eyes squinted, instinctively, trying to see ahead without being blinded by the blizzard’s gales. I hadn’t brought my gloves with me [which is why, incidentally, I had two pairs with me tonight]; I trudged along: head down, eyes squinting and averted, my hands jammed in my pockets.

And then–perhaps a glittering snowflake caught my eye–I lakes settled on my jacket and beanie. My eyes focused. All at once, no!—I wasn’t cold. I was flushed with life. The wind wasn’t driving. It was correspondent–vivacious, tempestuous and strong.

I paused for a moment, stunned I had overlooked something so wonderful. Something so arrestingly tranquil. “I must … have been caught off guard by the snow,” I thought. Too caught off guard to comprehend or appreciate the forceful beauty of it all–pouring down all around me. Snow, falling in a tremendous deluge–white, gray, silent, soft. Water turned crystallized solace. How could I be trudging, cold and off-put?

So I looked up. And, in a moment, I walked on–my head up, hands out, eyes open. Yes–the snowflakes stung my eyes, causing momentary blindness. Yes–snowflakes settled on my cheeks, my hands. They must have been cold. By the time I reached the Barn, I looked of a snowman. But I enjoyed every step of the way. I enjoyed the cold and gusts and blindness–a small price to pay, rather than take for granted being alive and well–walking and laughing–amongst so much white and wonderful beauty.”

…

There I was, on the swing, swinging forward, faster, higher! Suspended–instantly but infinitely–in the swing’s apogee. That moment–motionless, floating, and flawless in mid-air. The swing’s chains go slack in your clutched fists; you’re weightless, unrestrained and free.

Then, even before awareness of its absence, gravity, jealous gravity, finds you. Pulls you back down. You fall, but the swing catches you, carries you down in its swinging arc. Down and back. You tuck your legs, go up, reach apogee, then whoosh. You’re down again, but screaming up and forward–up into that moment of being infinite, invincible and unrestrained.

Suddenly a god, I became aware that I had said something beautiful. And then, knowing full and well what I was about to do, I ruined it. Soiled it, made it worthless, black and bitter. I became moralizing–forcing meaning (hate, rancor) on something that, if I had just shut the fuck up, would have been meaningful and true.

“And I guess this is the part where I would say something profound,” I blustered, insipidly. “Something like, … ‘That moment of realization was just like life. Sometimes we’re not ready for change, so we miss the beauty in it. We suffer needlessly because we adjust our expectations too slowly–and all the while missing what’s wonderful and life-giving about change.'”

…

Tuck. Back. Up. Fall. Down. Kick. Forward.

Then–disgusted–I screamed. “But, bull SHIT.”

UP. With the last “T”, the swing’s chains went limp. But instead of grasping tighter–in that moment, suspended and weightless–I finally did what I’ve been trying to do for months: releasing the chains, I jumped.

…

And, in that moment–I didn’t know it–but I was free. Weightless, chainless (unbound!), and flying. The world before me beckoned, clawed, but I was in absentia. And–in that moment–in assumptio.

For some reason, the amount of spam I receive spiked precipitously about three weeks ago. Can’t explain it. After five years of having an email address on my own domain, with limited, if any, spam control, it’s something I’ve grown used to: watching the ebb and wane of spam saturation in my Inbox.

This last spike was particularly bad, however. So, three days ago, I turned … to Gmail. No, I didn’t switch to Gmail. Rather, I’m using Gmail to filter out the spam from my Eateggs email address.

The setup was fairly simple. Under the “Accounts” tab (in Settings, when logged in to my Gmail account), I added my eateggs account under “Get Mail from other accounts:”

Then I went to the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab,” and, under “POP Download,” enabled POP for all mail. I then set the option, “When messages are accessed with POP,” to “archive Gmail’s copy.”

I then followed Google’s straight-forward instructions to configure my copy of Outlook Express to work with Gmail’s server–which has the added advantage of working regardless of if I’m at home, with my Bresnan connection, or at school. I sent a couple test emails. I noticed about a three minute delay or so between when I sent the email and when it arrived in my Outlook Express Inbox–at little slower than normal but, strangely, the only thing that actually arrived in my Inbox was bona-fide mail.

Additionally, every email sent or received, proxied through Gmail, is archived in Gmail. Not only can I now access any email I’ve sent or received through my Eateggs account via Gmail from any computer at any time, but it’s also reassuring to know that Gmail is keeping a copy of my email (–in case my computer should catch fire, explode, or annoy me enough to get thrown out a window or smashed by my car. Gee… I rather with Gmail could keep a back up of my cell phone contacts and text messages!)

In the three days since setting up the Gmail proxy, I have received ZERO–count them: one, two … none!–pieces of spam in my Eateggs Inbox. I logged in to my Gmail account tonight, for the sake of curiosity, and there, in my Spam folder, were 291 fresh new spam messages. Quickly browsing through them, I realized that Gmail hadn’t missed a beat–every message was spam–spam like the spam that, a week ago, was slowly driving me crazy. Er. I clicked “select all”, and then “delete permanently.” And it was gone. All of it. Ejected into the abysmal refuse heap of dark and murky cyberspace. Forever. It’s not even in my “deleted items.” Which means I’ll never have to see it again.

TLDR Summary: 1) too much spam on personal domain email address. 2) routed personal email address through Gmail. 3) no more spam. 4) Thank you, Google!

nyYAAAAAAaar! … Or, I mean, how else does one say, “the semester’s over. For better, and for worse, the semester’s over.” How else does one say, “why didn’t I study those extra three hours? How does McCarty justify such draconian and capricious paper grades?” … does one say, “I’ve been a T.A., films chair, and student. And now I’m not (a T.A. or student, anyway). … does one say, “I didn’t invest in to any relationships this fall. I feel like I should have–in a “blah, blah, relationships are important, blah” sense–but don’t feel bad that I didn’t.” … does one say, “I’m a ruthless and capricious bastard. A power-mongering megalomaniac. A megalomaniac…”

In some ways, it’s a good thing that the semester is over. So many facets of life have been approaching critical mass–the point where they reach density and size enough to become volatile, explosive. Things like the house. God, it’s a mess. It’s a pig-sty, or worse. It disgusts me, and is a thorough embarrassment. But I can’t even blame my roommates–or, at least entirely: I haven’t done any more cleaning than they have, for the last 6 weeks. I want to call them on their bullshit–“I don’t have time to clean today/this week/ever.“–when they sit down to play hours of video games. (And “they” is an unfairly homogenizing term. It’s not all three that have been way, way too busy to clean.) But, again, I’ve done no more than they have, in terms of cleaning. It’s a stupid line to walk: trying to balance between wanting things clean, and so just cleaning it myself, and refusing to clean because they should take some responsibility and initiative.

It’s like when we ran out of dish soap last week. Is it my responsibility to buy dish soap for the house? No, it’s not. But I have been the one who has purchased soap for the house, ever since we moved in. So, we ran out of dish soap. We could all see it coming. It was a busy week for me, and I hadn’t been to the store in some days, and wasn’t planning on going any time soon. The soap finally ran out on Ben’s day to do dishes. I hadn’t purchased more soap, nor had anyone else. Needing to wash the dishes, Ben took initiative: he went … well, no, not to the store, but rather to the bathroom, where he retrieved my bottle of shampoo, and then returned to the kitchen. And washed the dishes with shampoo. Because we didn’t have any dish soap.

Two days later, I went to the store and bought dish soap.

And I guess that’s the critical feature: I’m not the house mom. It’s not my responsibility to buy dish soap. But if I want the dishes that I use to be cleaned adequately with soap, not shampoo, it’s going to be up to me to buy dish soap. Because, apparently, everyone else is just too fucking helpless.

Anyhow. Critical mass. The house has reached a critical mass point of being absolutely filthy. So, I’m going to clean. A lot. And in a few day’s time, the house will be presentable again. For a while, anyway.

Critical mass. Sleep.

When I finally crashed, on Friday night (well, Saturday morning), I’d been up for 41 hours. After three weeks of sporadic sleep– three, four hour nights, for days in succession. Well, I crashed Friday night. Since then, I’ve been all but unable to get out of bed. I woke up Saturday night at 6:30 pm– without even seeing the light of day. I crashed again, 10 hours later, and slept until 4:45 pm on Sunday. I crashed again, Sunday night, and slept until 2:00 pm today. And it’s felt completely necessary. A “detox” period, if you will, after a semester of fitful and limited sleep.

Someone asked me, at some point this fall, if I had any trouble sleeping. “The only trouble,” I replied, “is finding time for it.”

And it’s not just the sleep. I’ve felt–not sick, but–unwell for how many weeks, now. For however many weeks since I last ran. Since I last climbed. Since I last slept eight hours, and woke up, refreshed.

Critical mass: being a person.

I’ve come up terribly short on that other set of “important things.” Like making phone calls. Talking to family. Friends. Like … making a point of doing fun things. Playing my guitar, or piano. Reading books, other than “Intermediate Macroeconomics”. Important stuff like that. And, in a sense, I feel like a bit of a shell. I think I’ve put a couple good bullets on my resume, but no memories in the photo album, and no treasures in my personal treasure chest. Life in the desert is hard. It’s arid. Dry. Lifeless. The land grows parched, after too many days in the relentless summer sun. Dry, caked and cracked. Becomes so much dust in the cracks of crinkled and barren soil. It’s economical. And lifeless.

Goethe once said, “Man can stand anything, except an endless succession of beautiful days.”

In the absence of human emotion, I turn on Damien Rice, like rains turned on the desert. More like bottled water– a bottled, overturned on to the desert floor. It pours out, revitalizes and replenishes the soil … but no sooner is the soil sated than drying again … the sun’s parching heat intensified, magnified by the focusing lens of a thousand plastic bottles, empty, strewn about… I turn on The Format. Placebo. It doesn’t have to be good. It just needs to be drenched in human emotion.

The SUB Theatre projection booth redesign began today.

…

It’s curious– the above probably means very little to all except for one or two. But for me … it means the world. For me, the above is … ah. It’s for me. And I’ll leave it at that. And I’ll sleep oh-so-well tonight. (That is, if I ever get to bed…)

—

Saw No Country for Old Men again yesterday. And it seems that I was right: it’s one hell of a movie.

The semester is starting to wrap up. I have one more take-home final to finish, a final exam to proctor at 8 am on Wednesday, and a final exam to take on Friday. Certainly, this semester hasn’t been an unequivocal success. I think last fall was… but not this semester.

Nevertheless, I’ll have a few things I’m proud of. And a few regrets to remember, or forget. But I’ll take that.

—

Andrew seemed to be fighting with his dinner tonight, as it fried in that frying pan that never seems to leave the stove. “You doin’ alright, Andrew” I asked. “Cooking is a battle,” he told me, as he managed to flip his egg–with a bit of a “hurrah!” “They told me to read The Joy of Cooking,” he continued, after a minute. “But I read The Art of War instead.”

I can’t stop thinking about No Country For Old Men. I need to see it again.

My consistent criticism of Westerns–regardless of their “greatness”–is their abject failure to conjure a sense of the “plains”, of the “west” … that sense of a foreboding eternity … of beautiful and rollings hills covered with sage and grasses … hills that are utterly indifferent to the plight or suffering of any who wander there. That sense of something so much greater than ourselves… that subtle reminder that, no matter the degree of our mastery of nature, it’s still inadequate. The reminder that, really, we’ve not even begun to conquer nature. That we’re guests. Transient. Finite, on an infinite stage. And powerfully alone. Powerfully alone on life’s infinite stage…

No Country does that. It creates a sense of the landscape. Of Texas … of its wide-open plains. It’s more than just a motif … it’s the leitmotif. It drives the movie. It underlies the movie.

The film’s “gritty realism” … is based on the land. It’s fear, the lasting sense of unease, worry … derived from the land. And it’s not “gritty realism” like Taxi Driver, where dingy lighting and dismal scenarios form its claim to realism … rather, No Country‘s grit comes from the stubble on Tommy Lee Jones’ face … from the texture of grasses, blowing in the wind.

I’ve never seen a more convincing … period piece. Admittedly, set in the early 80’s, it’s not far removed from 2007– but at the same time, it is. No Country is at once familiar … and far more alien than Marie Antoinette. More alien than Lord of the Rings–the the extent that LOTR is based on familiar human archetypes. It’s fantastic–yet familiar. We’re allowed–an indeed, encouraged to–identify with Legolas, Frodo, Aragorn. I think Tolkein intended, in some way, to edify, to instruct. And if that may be allowed, then the Coen brothers intended to terrify. To meditate on the horrors of modernity… We, at the viewers, are denied any sense of identification. With any of the characters. They’re characters of a different breed, a different generation.

The film closes with the description of two dreams. It’s such a simple scene–husband, retired, and wife, over the breakfast table. The scene is flushed with the light of early morning. And he relates his dream, he just describes it, in his slow, textured, Texan drawl. No visual indicators, representation. And, in so doing … creates a visual image that remains in my mind as poignant as anything I’ve seen in cinema.

EVERY aspect of the film is so rich in details … so many layers… I love the shot of the tile floor in the sheriff’s office: tile, thatched with the scuffs of a countless many cowboy boots. I love the sound design … there’s always a barely-audible layer of music from some ambient source…

Jesus. I just need to see the movie again. I don’t have time this afternoon … but I somehow get the sense that I may be going anyway.

It seems I survived the week. Whoo!

Actually, in terms of academics, this was a rather uninteresting dead week. That’s fortunate, though.

The “big” Procrastinator meeting happened Friday morning. I haven’t had a night where I was unable to sleep … for years. Literally. I think State Mock Trial, junior year, was probably the last night I wasn’t able to sleep because my mind wouldn’t stop churning away at the next day. But Thursday night, I didn’t sleep. I spent 6 hours in my bed… rolling over and looking at the clock, periodically… each time resolving that in another 15 minutes, if I wasn’t asleep, I’d pull out a book.

Then, it was 6:00 am and I was up … it was 7:15 am and I was in the ASMSU office with coffee, scones, piles of paper. It was 8:02 am, and Tegan and I were walking in to the conference room with all the Student Facilities Enhancement Project key players present, and the lead architect and AV consultant present, via teleconference. At 10:00 pm, I was walking out of the conference room … head muddied in a swirl of feelings: elation, concern, gratitude. The conclusion seemed firm: the “key players” were “on-board” to fix the projection booth. The architects were ready to go, and Tom Stump was ready, after a 10:30 am meeting, to “pull the trigger” to get them started.

Whether this happened or not, I haven’t been told not. Until then, I’m holding my breath. But hey– at least I get to be a student again. The last two weeks have averaged to 40 hrs / week with the Procrastinator.

—

Saw the new Coen brothers film last night– No Country For Old Men. I’m so glad that I saw it in theaters. The film has such incredible texture and rich detail–viewing on any less than a 40′ screen with 5.1 digital sound would deprive the film of much of its greatness. I didn’t enjoy the “plot line” very much, but the vast panoramas of Texan prairie, the intimate close-ups of faces rugged with stubble and years of struggle… yaar. It was good. It was better than good. It will certainly be nominated for best director, probably best actor and supporting actor… screen play (adapted), perhaps … cinematography?

that thought isn’t working. what-ev

Hey. Wait. What happened? How is it … 1:30 am? Wasn’t it just 9:00 a few minutes ago?

Herbert Hoover once wrote, “Bessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.“

Yaar! This theater is eating my life. Eating it whole and raw. My grades this semester are going to suffer, (suffer, suffering, suffered) accordingly. Last week, logging my hours, I came up to 59.5 between Monday and Friday evening. To date, I’m at 417 hours. Logged. Plus however many countless hours not logged, like tonight … reading forums. Learning about screen masking to keep things looking good when we show Flat prints (as opposed to Scope). Learning about lummens per square foot, about aperture sizes and the differences between a lamphouse and a console. Three-phase vs. single-phase power. Stereo vs Dolby Stereo SR (really cool, actually–encodes four channels of data into two analog audio tracks using phase-inversion, which is then extrapolated into six semi-discrete channels) vs Dolby Digital (six true discrete channels) vs Dolby Digital EX (7 discrete channels) vs DTS vs SDDS (8 discrete channels). About a thousand things that are unique and important to the theater industry … that 99% of the world doesn’t even know exists. And it just eats my life. Consumes hours and hours. It’s interesting. And, at times, applicable.

Mostly, I just wish that the people involved with planning and designing the new Procrastinator Theatre had spent a little time doing research … were moderately versed in the subject. Had SOME clue about the difference between a Scope print and a Flat print. Knew SOMETHING about projection booths. About … ghaa.

Oh. I wrote a term paper, the other day. Sat down at 8:00 pm. Finished at 9:00 am the next morning. Rocked steady, the whole night through. And the result … well, I hope my Prof finds it rather interesting, anyway. (Mostly, I suspect he’ll be thrilled by the time he gets to mine just to read complete, grammatically correct sentences…). Here’s the first paragraph:

In his The Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche paints an image of the “noble classes” before the ascendancy of Christian morality. In this paper, I will broadly reconstruct this portrait, examine Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a case study of this unfettered noble spirit, and put both works in a modern context relating to the War in Iraq.

Intrigued? Oh, I’m sure you are.

Here. Just for you. A link! …
https://eateggs.com/files/2007.12.04-PericlesInIraq.pdf

It’s a character study of Mr. Kurtz (The Heart of Darkness), operating from the framework of a Periclean “noble”, as described in The Genealogy of Morals. Man, it’s fascinating stuff. Let me tell you. Actually, you might find it slightly interesting if you’ve read both of the aforementioned works recently. Otherwise, it’s completely inane and academic. Actually, it’s not even that academic. But hey…

Along the way, I came across a quote that I rather like:

One skill is needed—lost today, unfortunately—for the practice of reading is an art: the skill to ruminate, which cows possess but modern man lacks.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals

Clever, eh?

Dear Whoever Just Send Me A Text-Message,

I don’t mean to be rude. I’m not intentionally ignoring your text. It’s just that …

Well, if you didn’t already know …

Fine, I’ll go ahead. I’ll say it. I’ll let you know the TRUTH:

That white light … coming from my phone … is the white background of my blog, shining through my phone.

Most of the time, when I hear the chime that tells me I have a new text, I just laugh. ha ha … ha. ha?

Really, though– why would you text me? To ask me if I’m AWAKE? Honestly, you KNOW the answer to THAT question. Just CALL me, silly!

So yeah. To who ever you may be … please feel free to continue to send me text-messages. Be advised, however, that I will probably never read those messages. Not because I’m obstinate … or trying to be rude, or anything like that. It’s just that there’s a giant gaping hole in my phone where my screen used to be.

Best,
-Mark