The Spine Surfs Alone

Now that I've had The Spine Surfs Alone EP for a little while and listened to it a fair amount I think I can say a few things about it. The title track was the kind of song that my brain doesn't really hear the first few times through. I like it rather more now, though, especially the way Flansburgh's voice morphs into the guitar parts.

Unquestionably, my favorite song on this album is Now is Strange. Linnell's vocal gyrations took a bit of getting used to at first, but hey, it's supposed to be strange after all, right? I think that the extremes to which he twists his voice add a very immediate, visceral feel to the song; I feel myself pulled into it much more than if he sang it straight. When he sings the word "unbelievable" in particular, I can practically feel the shape of it in my own mouth. It's wonderful.

I'm All You Can Think About is suitably obsessive with its constantly rising melody and bass lines. To me that seems like an interesting tie-in with the last verse of I Can't Hide From My Mind, at the end of The Spine, but in a greatly intensified way. The bridge that switches into the relative major is somewhat of a relief, like finally taking a full breath of air when you hadn't even realized you'd been holding your breath. But that relief just accentuates the intensity of the rest of the song, more so than if it had been absent.

Fun Assassin seems to fill a similar role for the EP as a whole, since it's the only major-key song on an otherwise very dark album. It's a big contrast to the following Skullivan, which I still think is just weird. The Other Side of the World is a tiny little instrumental that mostly makes sense because of the two songs it connects.

Canada Haunts Me is a good end to the EP, I think. It's another match for I Can't Hide From My Mind, and I like how each song ends its respective album with something a little quieter and more introspective. What I love about Canada Haunts Me is how perfectly they nailed the instrumentation and arrangment. It is not only haunting but evokes a feeling of wind whistling over huge expanses of barren tundra. Very nice.

The WCS Matrix

Last night was the usual West Coast Swing lesson at the Dance Spectrum. I've been going for the last month or so, and doing both the beginning and intermediate classes. The intermediate one is usually considerably more interesting and I'll probably stop going to the beginning ones soon, but getting a new approach on the basics has been really good. Last night in particular I really felt like I got a better sense of how the basic whip works, so it's more fun to do now and I'm less likely to confuse it with a Lindy Hop swingout.

The most interesting part of the class though, was at the end. The classes go roughly in one month cycles, though they're all drop-in-able as well. So this was the last one of the month and R2 was giving us a bit of a teaser to show us a bit of what you can do with WCS as you get better, and to encourage us to keep it up. His focus is on following and expressing the music, and so he described how he organizes this in his mind. He has a matrix of two independent variables (well, probably more, but this was the beginning class, after all) and different ways he dances depending on where a piece of music falls in that matrix.

One variable is heavy/light, which confused me at first, because the music he was playing for each one didn't seem to match my musical conceptions of heavy and light. I eventually decided that the music he termed "light" was generally more consistent and homogenous, whereas the "heavy" music had stronger accents that stood out more from the rest of the sound. The terms seemed to make more sense when he danced to them, working the accents with his body.

The other variable was direct/free, which seem like somewhat more arbitrary terms to me, though I can't think of better ones. With "direct" music, you can dance very precisely and robotically. It's good for beginners, since you can just focus on doing the steps and not stress out about style so much. You probably actually have to be a little better though, to make it look good -- like actual styling, rather than like a robot. With "free" music, everything was looser and more flowing. I wish I could remember the actual examples of the music he played, so I could figure out what the musical distinction in this variable was. I've forgotten now what it sounded like.

So R2 danced short examples to music from each combination of those variables, and it was really very nice to watch. He stuck mostly to pretty simple moves but his style changed dramatically for each one. It was very inspiring. I definitely want to keep learning from this guy.

Harry Potter y la Orden del Fénix

I finally managed to finish Harry Potter book 5 in Spanish this weekend. It took me about a month to do all 893 pages of it. It was every bit as exciting the second time around, even in Spanish. I read it so fast when it came out a year ago that I'd lost a lot of the details by the time I started it again. So that was fun. I must say, though, that I found myself somewhat more disappointed with Harry in this book than I remember being in some of the others. I disliked things like how he handled (or didn't) the Occlumency lessons, or how he forgot about Snape being in the Order, or especially using the Crucio curse. That just wasn't cool, even if it was on Bellatrix LeStrange. Oh well. I think I probably just identify too much with Hermione, anyway.

I'm going to try to get something in Spanish for my next audiobook. Reading Harry Potter is all very good, but listening practice will probably be better for my upcoming Costa Rica trip. Of course, I should practice speaking Spanish, too. But I tend to have fewer chances to do that.

Contra Newbies

We had quite an exceptional turnout at the contra dance last night. I had been doing some recruiting on the Mondae dance list and we actually managed to get about 10 new Stanford dancers to show up. Over half were people I hadn't even known previously. I think most of them had a pretty good time, too, so that probably bodes well for future dances. Hopefully we'll be able to get some people hooked over the summer, so they'll keep coming once school starts again, and so they'll convince other friends to come, too. So anyway, it was all very successful and I was quite happy.

Unclaimed Property

Via a process I do not entirely understand, I have just received $70.90 from the Stanford Bookstore, by way of the State of California. If you go to the California State Controller's website you can search for "unclaimed property." Somehow, a few months ago someone (it was either my dad or my aunt) discovered that I was owed money by the Stanford Bookstore and it was listed there. Unfortunately, their database is bizarre enough that once you've looked something up there, it disappears and you can never find it again. Luckily though, they got the ID number before it disappeared, so I filled out some confusing forms, added a copy of my old student ID card, and cast them out to the government, never expecting to see them again. After just enough time for me to forget about it entirely, I received a check from the state treasury for the full amount. I still don't have a clue why this money was supposed to be mine, or why it got shuffled off to unclaimed property. I'm not going to make much of a fuss about it, though.