matt the electrician!

Tonight we saw Matt the Electrician play at The Mill! He was one of the opening bands, but we left after he played: he was all we came for anyway.

Plus! Bonus! We got to meet him at the bar before he went on to play! He was so gracious and let us take pictures with him and shook our hands. We would have stayed to chat a little bit but the first opening band was playing way too loud for any kind of conversation to have been possible, so we made do with just the photos.

It was fun because we went to the show with Gloria and Jarrod who were our two friends who joined us at The Weepies show last year where we first discovered MtE: it was fun to reunite like this. Plus, we've all been so busy this summer that we haven't really seen each other since the wedding and we miss them.

Also, MtE played his banjolele, our favorite of all his instruments.

We walked downtown to the show which seemed like a good idea at the time but I totally forgot that it is the first weekend before school starts on Monday so downtown was crawling with hoards (literally) of drunk undergrads. Go Hawkeyes.

home

Braeden and I are going to learn this song. BUT I'm not sure we will ever be as cute as this daddy-daughter duo...



PS I get to see Braeden tomorrow! It's been almost 364 hours since we've seen each other (everyone knows that Skyping is NOT the same)...but who's counting, right?

(I'll tell you: it's Braeden.)

festival of lights

So, I realize it's a little late, but I can't get this song out of my head that my friend Erica and her husband Spencer posted on their blog at the start of Chanukah. Normally I'm not a huge fan of a cappella, but I think you'll enjoy this one...

cassi and braeden meet tomáš kubínek and the symphony

Tonight Braeden and I went to the world premiere of Tomáš Kubínek Meets the Symphony. Braeden had seen Dr. Professor Kubínek perform a few years ago out in Utah and when he saw that he was coming here he said, "We have to go!" The performance he'd seen before was just Kubínek's solo act (since this was the first ever performance in concert with an orchestra) and he said the solo act was a little better—which I could understand since there seemed to be a fair amount of what can only be described as musical filler—but this show was great, too. I'd never seen Kubínek before and I thought he was a riot. After entering the auditorium held aloft on a litter carried by two strong men, he took the stage and told us that for his opening act he would drink a toast to the orchestra without using his hands. He filled a crystal glass with wine, placed it on his forehead, then proceeded to both whistle and play a tune on his banjolele (a mini banjo-ukulele combo: this is the second time in a month we've seen this instrument played. The first time was at the Weepies concert last Tuesday when Matt the Electrician played on in his set) while contorting himself so that he could remove the glass from his forehead with his kneecaps then crouch and lift it from the stage between his teeth to drink it. Pure craziness. Another highlight was when he strapped a contraption with two shoes attached on sticks to each of his legs and danced the Dance of the Six Shoes. It has to be seen to be believed.

After the show we went over to Prairie Lights for an after-hours Anthology reading (I helped letterpress the posters for it on Tuesday). We randomly saw Jacob there with this guy Scott who's in town for the Non-Fiction Now conference going on right now on campus so we chatted with them before it all started. The readings themselves were varied and amazing. Some of the highlights were Amy Scott's song on the ukulele about Iowa and the final reading about a king mosquito with faucets for knees.

It was a great night.

the less you do

Gloria, Braeden and I went to dinner at Jarrod's house last night before heading to campus for the Iron & Wine concert we'd been anticipating for weeks. At Jarrod's condo he mentioned to me the fact that he commissioned me to make him some books almost 2 months ago. Was it really that long ago? Fail. He made mention of how there's really no excuse for the delay since I'm only taking 2 classes and working 10 hours a week. He's totally right. What do I even do with my time? It's a mystery to me as well, folks. Certainly I've been spending a lot of time with the Braeden, but that's still a fairly new development. Before that? I have no idea. Honestly. It really is true what my mom says: the more you have to do the more you do. The less you have to do the less you do. Just because you have a lot of free time doesn't mean you'll be more productive: in fact, it usually means the exact opposite. Story of my life these days. If only I could be a structure person and set up an hourly schedule for myself then actually do the things I've said I would do at the times I said I would want to do them. Maybe I need a life coach to help me with that or something. As it is, I don't even have a regular bedtime routine. Things are just sort of all over the place. And that's fine, except then it means that somehow I only get the bare minimum done. And sometimes not even that.

The Iron & Wine concert was pretty great. It was down at the IMU, or student lounge building thing, and it was sold out: good thing Braeden bought us tickets like forever ago. Braeden joked that I was on a polyga-date since it was just he, Gloria and I because sometimes Gloria and I hold hands (like all the way through the 20 minute movie the missionaries showed us at Jarrod's house after dinner) and that made me laugh. I love Gloria and the fact that she likes to hang out with me and Braeden and it's not weird or awkward, in fact it is more fun because she is there.

This chick Rosie Thomas opened for Sam Beam (his beard made me fall in love with facial hair all over again). Her songs were all about disaster which she told us in her hilariously high, squeaky talking voice (it reminded me of Mel from Flight of the Conchords), but once she started singing she had this beautiful melodious low alto. What?! It was totally jarring every time she went from talking to singing. Braeden and I bought her cd When We Were Small (or rather, Braeden bought it and I will borrow it...) which, sadly, has only singing and no talking, but it's pretty great none the less. She came on later and sang with Sam Beam, too, and it was pretty great. The whole show just had a great vibe to it. Sam made you feel like it was this little bitty concert, which, while it wasn't Madison Square Garden by any means, it was definitely big enough that he could have just stood up there and played his songs, but instead he chatted with the audience and talked to us as if we were old friends.

I love Iowa.

army blues

Tonight Gloria and I went to an Army Blues Quintet concert in town and it was great! The bass player was from Orem and went to BYU. What? Small world. He is also married (sorry, Gloria) and has a new little son named Ethan that he wrote a song for and they played it and it was great. I love songs that are written for people... Especially if that person happens to be me. Fun fact.

I was surprised how much I liked the blues concert actually. There was something about the music tonight that made me really reminiscent and it was like the music was directing my thoughts and feelings in a subtle but direct way. It made me think a lot about the different ways that my life could have turned out. I could be married and have a 3 year old by now, and probably still be living in Utah. I could be back in Ecuador working for the organization I volunteered with last year. I could be in Boston working and going to a bookbinding trade school. I could still be at home making bank and living with my parents, but feeling sort of lost and purposeless. I could be engaged to a boy who told me that he would join the army band to support our family if we wanted to have kids right away so we would have a steady income. And it's really interesting to me that all of these options are totally realistic: any one of these paths could have been chosen at any time in my life, and sometimes it was more obvious than others if not choosing them was really the right thing to do. But you know what? I'm really glad that I am where I am right now. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. So I know that there are good things yet to come: and that makes me happy.

home again, home again, jiggity jig

Last day on vacation! My brain is in denial right now, not ready to accept the craziness that is waiting for me at home (read: packing my life away, driving 2 days to Iowa, figuring out how to even register for classes). This trip has actually been phenomenal. Our family has gotten along amazingly well the whole trip, a rather difficult feat considering the fact that we've spent basically 10 almost interrupted days in each others' company. Think about it: when's the last time you did that with your family?

I have SO much that I want to talk about but there is just so much. (I just discovered today that the internet at this new hotel is free: what? Good trick.) Here are some abbreviated highlights from the last few days:

• Constitution Room at the Shelbourne Hotel
• Hurling (not the vomitous kind)
• Castle exploration
• Irish Tin Whistle purchase (my family hates it...)
• The Cliffs of Moher

Pictures and details to follow...?

dublin

Dublin! As in, Ireland! We've only been here for three days, but it was a lot different than I'd expected. The city itself is pretty small and after our first day I sort of felt like we knew it all. We're staying in a fancy hotel this time since it's a Marriott so the dad can use his hotel points for it. Normally fancy hotel = no internet, but this one has a lounge that we can use that has it. Hooray! It's nice to be connected again, though I've been impressed with how easy it's been to be without cell phone or internet for most of this trip. I think it's good to have to cut yourself off every once and a while to remember how to live in the moment and not always be worrying about what's going on other places.

In the city there is a main shopping area with wide sidewalks and street performers everywhere——that was my favorite part. There were several musicians that were actually really good: all of them had cds for sale for €10 which is pretty expensive, I thought. Among my favorites were a family-type band made up of 2 sisters, 1 brother, and 2 other guys whose relation to the first three was ambiguous. They played guitars, upright bass, harmonica, breath-powered keyboard (kind of amazing), and (my favorite) washboard and jug. I have been kicking myself all week that I didn't even write down their band name. I tried to convince my mom that buying their cd would be a great thing for the family, but she didn't go for it. Sadly I'd already spent all my money on other things, so I had to do without. Another guy played an upright piano with the strings and hammers exposed and he was incredible. His name is Luke Slott and I highly recommend checking out his website. His music reminds me strongly of the soundtrack from the movie $9.99 which I haven't seen but did in fact buy the soundtrack for. My last favorite was this band called The Riptide Movement. Sort of lame name, but their music was pretty great. It reminded me strongly of my punk rock days, not because of their style but because of their energy. One of the things that drew me to punk rock was how you could feel the music in your whole body, not just your ears, and so it almost consumed you while you listened to it. This band had that feel to it. The drummer played on a box with a bass drum pedal attached to it that he also beat out a rhythm on with his hands. The fact that he could keep a steady beat while playing that way was pretty impressive.

Another favorite thing was seeing The Book of Kells at Trinity College (Ireland's oldest college and the second oldest in all of Europe). We'd seen a movie about it (The Secret of Kells) as a family months ago in semi-preparation for this trip, and it was fun that we had because then we already knew some stuff about it. The book itself is incredible. The detail work on the illuminations is so fine that even when it's blown up a hundred times its actual size it's still impressively intricate. I don't know how the old school monks did stuff like that, but they did an amazing job. Super intimidating as an aspiring book artist, I must say.

Brinden and I also went to the Irish Postal Museum. Postal museums have sort of become my thing after Missy and I started the tradition on our Spain study abroad two years ago. No one else in the family wanted to go, but Brin came with me like a champ. It was pretty basic stuff, but we learned some cool things, like that the post office was taken over by Irish Independence rebels on Easter Monday in 1916. Also when they started to deliver mail via train they used this sweet thing simply called The Apparatus, which was basically a giant net. What would happen was smaller towns along the tracks where the train didn't actually stop would pack up all their mail to be sent out in an intense leather belted sack and would hang it on a post by the tracks. The train would go by and they would use this net on the side of the train to scoop up the bag and fling it in the mail sorting car to be sorted. The same thing would work to drop off mail, but in reverse: the net would be by the side of the tracks while the mail would be bagged up and hung off the side of the train. They had some actual footage of it in action and it was almost frighteningly powerful. The museum renewed and strengthened my love for the postal service and actual, handwritten and delivered mail. Not that it was waning by any means, but it was nice to know that there are others out there who share my love for mail of the stamped variety. Additionally! We learned that the someone who has the hobby of stamp collecting is called a philatelist. Awesome.

This afternoon we head off to Shannon! Who knows what the future will bring? (Hopefully not any accidents, though as we've rented a car and the parents will be driving on the wrong side of the road {read: left side, as Ireland is part of Britain and they all do that switcheroo driving here} who knows what could happen?)

the land of corn

I bought a notebook at the Iowa Book Festival today and here is some of what I wrote:

Sitting on the grass at the Iowa Book Festival, listening to the all-female band the Awful Purdies and wondering if I will ever be as indie as they are. Haha.

Aaron Hartley {son of the neighbors with whom I'm staying this weekend} came home for the weekend today and he was nice enough to help me lug a bunch of furniture into the purple house {the house I'll be moving into} today.We went to Stuff Etc, a local consignment shop, where they were fortuitously having a 50%-80% off everything sale, one-day only. I bought a coffee table, a dining room table with 2 leaves, a crate to use as a bedside table, two other crates to use as shelves, and a large silver frame, all for $36.92: the original price of the dinning room table was $39.99: no big deal. Then on the way back to the house we spotted a blue couch on the side of the road that we snagged for free. Uhm, yes. Dear Aaron, who I had only met this morning, was so nice and helpful and all in all quite a man. Basically, the entire Hartley family is amazing and I am pretty stoked that they are going to be my new neighbors. Tonight I'm going to make homemade pizza and chocolate chip cookies to thank the family for being so amazing.

Last night I was so anxious to just get things done that it took me about an hour of lying in bed before I actually fell asleep. Fortunately today has been super productive in terms of schooling and housekeeping and adventure and at this moment I am content. I feel so good about Iowa and Iowa City and living in Jacquie's house and making new friends and going to the University of Iowa and studying book arts and library science and learning!

The purple house that will soon be my new home!
(It's like the Pink House, all grown up!)

The coffee table, with the blue street couch in the background.

The dining room table sans the extra two leaves.
Don't worry, there aren't any chairs to go with it, but I'll figure something out...

music=magic

Music=magic; they even share a lot of the same letters, like m, i, and c, AND all their vowels are in the same place. They are pretty much the exact same word. Maybe I should buy this cd to help learn how to be more musically magical. Or maybe this one. Or find a guitar like this one. (Who knew there was so much magic to be found in the free market? I sure didn't. I thought you had to be born with it or have a wizard give it to you or something. I guess not!)

Anyway, today I brought a guitar to one of the handicapped orphanages (maybe a magic guitar?) and played it for them. Not my guitar, mind you, because there are 3 guitars just sitting up in the library of the house so I took one of those so if something happened to the guitar in transit or on site I wouldn't have to cry. We put the kids wheelchairs all in a circle around me—a captive audience, if you will—and I just played random songs for a while. One of the more mobile girls pulled her chair up really close to me so that she could watch my fingers the whole time. It was pretty cute. The kids really liked the music and it made them smile which made me smile. One of the girls has had her head down a lot recently but she picked it up a few times and smiled while I was playing—that was awesome. I need to memorize more songs because even I'm starting to get tired of "It's All Been Done," "You Are What You Love," "The Sweater Song," and "You Are My Sunshine." And maybe I should learn some in Spanish so the kids can understand what I'm saying... Things to think about.

memories...

Since I didn't blog at all while I was actually at camp, I feel the need to do a little story telling now. I hope you enjoy

Story #1:

Ashley and I are the same person. Ashley, for those of you who don't know (which I realize is pretty much all of you) was my co-counselor at summer camp. She is amazing. She's from Florida/Alabama, is 22, married to Rob—the pottery master and head of pottery at camp—and is hilarious. She was a counselor here at camp last year too and I was so lucky to have her to help me through the trying times that are summer camp. It got to the point where we could complete each others sentences, one of us could tell our girls what we needed them to do then the other would enforce it without even missing a beat. We worked together at T-Shirt Factory (tie dying t-shirts) and one of us could nap while the other helped kids and then we would switch and there was never animosity or frustrations and she is seriously one of my best friends now. She calls me her other-other-half. We even made up our own tie dye fold called The Cashley (or Hugs and Kisses because it makes x's and o's when it's done). In short, I love Ashley Lugo.

Story #2:

We are not supposed to talk to our campers about our personal lives (to avoid awkward questions about drinking, virginity, and the like) so to help deflect questions about me and Jace we just told our campers that we were siblings which usually sparked the comment, "Oh yeah. You do look alike." Well, one night Jace and I sneaked away from one of the evening socials to microwave tiny delicious pies we had bought at Walmart the night before and then forgotten about. As we were trying to eat them without burning either our hands or our mouths Alex walked into the kitchen. He was complaining about how his parents were late picking him up for his night and day off because they were helping his brother move into his new apartment when all of a sudden, mid-sentence he stopped and, looking from me to Jace, asked, "Hey, are you guys brother and sister?" Without missing a beat I go, "Yup." Then he asked if we were twins to which I replied, "No. Not twins." When he wanted to know who was older Jace told him to guess. He guessed Jace (probably because he is taller) and Jace goes, "Yep. Good guess." Haha. The whole thing was hilarious because we were so serious about it the whole time and Alex did all the work: all we had to say was yes or no.

A week or two later Alex came up to us at an evening activity and asked us if we were really brother and sister, which we assured him we were. "Yeah, that's what I said too but those girls over there seem to think you are dating." "What?" I responded. "That's ridiculous." "I know!" and then he walked off.

Meanwhile, camp goes on and we forget about the whole thing. Then, during minicamp, Jace and I were standing together at another evening activity and for some reason he gave me a hug (probably because he said something and then I told him we were through and he had to make it up to me). Alex, unbeknownst to us, was sitting on a bench behind us and commented to Stephanie, who was sitting next to him, how cute it was that Jace was hugging his sister. Stephanie, understandably confused, asked who Jace's sister was. Alex, surprised, said, "Cassi." To which Stephanie responded, "Ummm... They're dating." It is at this point that seemingly out of nowhere Jace and I hear yelled from behind us, "YOU!!!" We turn around to see Alex, open mouthed, pointing at us while Stephanie is sitting next to him beside herself with laughter. Jace looked at me all confused and that's when I realized that the lie we had told weeks ago had come back to haunt us. Well, mostly to haunt Alex. We laughed and then went over to taunt him further. It made our night.

NOTE: The last day of camp Alex asked me if Jace and I were going to get married. I responded, "Oh yeah. We're actually already engaged." To which he responded, "Oh really?! WAIT! I hate you."

Story #3:

I taught my girls The Sweater Song. My 10 year old girls. And it was their favorite. I wrote out the words for them (editing the first line for their and my benefit) and we would sing it together and then they would ask me to play it for them on the guitar like every night so they could sing it. It completed me.

My favorite though was when we had a new group of girls come and the old girls wanted to teach the new girls the song. We played it through for them once and asked them what they thought. One of the girls said, "Well, it's a little inappropriate, don't you think? I mean, NAKED?" It was all I could do not to laugh. The 13 year old girls I had cabin-sat the night before were listening to songs like Birthday Sex and when I tried to tell them that was inappropriate they didn't seem to understand. So to have a song deemed inappropriate just because it had the word naked in it was such a shock to me: in a good way. I smoothed it over by explaining that the "naked" being referred to in the song was metaphorical: he just feels naked without his sweater; he's not actually naked. (I think it went right over her head.)

the vending song

I re-lyriked the song "1234" by Plain White Tees and made it about vending. What could be better? (I mean besides the singing...)

music matt will hate

My friends all like to both listen to and perform different kinds of music. And so do I. Sadly they don't usually agree with each other about what constitutes "good music," but neither do I all of the time. But sometimes I do. So here's some music I've recently found with a little help from my friends. I hope you enjoy the variety...

(from Billy)

(from other William)

(from Sydney)

(from Dave)

(from Jen)

(from Megan)

yesterday

"Yesterday, when you were young, everything you needed done was done for you..."

It sounds like now I am going to talk about all the things other people did for me when I was little and now that I'm an adult (what? I'm an adult?) I have to do them for myself and it is hard. 

I am not going to talk about that.

Yesterday, when I was walking home from Conversations with Bruce (aka my creative writing class), I ran into my roommate Sydney. She was chatting about music with a nice young fellow named William (not banana bread William, a different William). They were discussing hip hop and, because we had recently talked about the history of hip hop, R&B, and rap in my African American Lit class, I actually knew what they were talking about! I am awesome. I said stuff like East coast/West coast, pop 'n lock, Grandmaster Flash, etc. Granted I didn't know everything we were talking about, but more than I would have known otherwise! Plus, William seems like a nice kid. He told me about the Hip Hop Box you can check out from the library that has all these cds with songs all through the history of hip hop with a big booklet (not a book, it's littler, so it's a booklet) that tells you all this stuff. I will have to look into this further...

Then this random kid Jason came over and said, "Hey, so I heard you guys talking about hip hop and I've started to get into it recently but I've had some trouble finding good, clean, new stuff. Do you have and suggestions?" Sydney and I looked at each other like, "What?" Sydney even said, "Is this really happening?" It was like a movie it was so perfect.

Now I have the lyrics "Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge" stuck in my head which for some reason are associated with some memory of a cartoon, perhaps Alvin and the Chipmunks. A memory that is just out of reach...