Week 6, Cooking Day 5: Mushroom Risotto

Tonight's meal was really and truly a success. I feel like I've been "building up" over the course of this week toward something grand and glorious.

Coming over this evening were my friends Renaissance Man Jayson Greene, Stacy F, and the Shrimp Cracker. As Jayson and Stacy are known "foodies", I had a sense from the beginning of pressure to try and pull off something worthwhile. Whenever I think of food pressure, I am reminded of a touchstone film of my adolescence, Big Night, and the powerful scenes involving Tony Shalhoub and his relationship with the dish risotto. Two things were impressed upon me during that film: 1) do NOT serve someone two starches ("side of pasta with the risotto please") and, more importantly, 2) risotto is a treasurous dish whose preparation requires laborious care and tenderness in order to execute properly. I remember those scenes so vividly and I think of them everytime I think of risotto.

I had never made risotto before; though it is true in the past that I have stood by and "assisted" the Ice Princess with her own risotto--"Stir!" "Stop!" "Hands off!"--I had never even considered that I might be able to make it myself. Which is reasonable, because beyond any doubt instilled by Tony Shalhoub's fearmongering, again: I don't ever cook; to think of stepping up to the plate with a risotto is sort of laughable. But then, stepping up to the plate with any kind of foodmaking seemed laughable before this week. Elevating from hot dogs, Annie's Mac n Cheese, and the occasional Ortega sauce tacos to any of the things I've made this week is a little unreal and it still seems pretty crazy to me that i've done any of it at all. So yes, risotto, for the gold.

Once i'd made my decision to go forward, it was time to decide upon a flavor direction. During an unforgettable weekend this summer in Montreal, I had an excellent risotto in a red sauce with plum tomatoes, but really, in my limited experience the best route to take with risotto is to use it as a vehicle to celebrate the magical fungi of the family Agaricaceae.

Recipe, and more below.

Mushroom Risotto
8 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 onion, diced, divided
2 garlic cloves, minced, divided
1.3 pounds fresh portobello and crimini mushrooms, sliced
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon truffle oil
2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese, grated
Fresh Italian parsley, for garnish

"Italian Salad"
Green leaf lettuce
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp warmed chicken stock
Sea salt & black pepper


Adding the risotto. Frantic stirring begins.

You'll notice the ingredient "truffle oil" listed. The taste of truffles or even truffle oil is pretty heavenly, and makes an almost crucial addition to any mushroom risotto. Truffles themselves are prohibitively expensive, particularly for a person who is half-expecting to make something awful. Given that I am a man who appreciates a little over-the-top excess, I made the sort of crazy/sort of awesome decision to spend $18.95 on a bottle of black truffle oil. Now, I am quite familiar with the hubbub over truffle oils and whether or not any of them actually contain real truffles, but you know, whatever: i'm comfortable with the fact that neither my chef-ing skills nor my taste bud sensors are exactly of Alain Ducasse and that like many Americans, I am occasionally down with "bigger than life flavors that are amped up with aromatics."

Before embarking on any of this, however, I consulted with the Ice Princess on her opinions about truffle oil: "good when not overused, gross when not." I also asked her advice on cooking risotto in general and she had this to say:

Jeffrey, I know you are a retard, but you can do this. Just follow these instructions and you'll be fine.

1. dice onions
2. add oil to pot, let it heat up for a couple of min, but not smoke, on med. heat
3. add onions. cook for about 5 min until translucent. dont let them brown.
4. add about 1/2 cup of white wine. scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen bits.
5. add rice.
6. let it toast for a min or two till there is no liquid in the pan.
7. add chicken stock (you have about 10 cups or so of it in a pot on the stove warming) a ladel at a time and stir.
8. add more stock, only adding when liquid in the pot cooks off.
9. when risotto is soft enough stop adding liquid (about 20- 30 min) add some butter and parmaesan
10. VOILA

I basically stuck to these instructions and, excepting the moment where I freaked out for a second wondering whether or not I was supposed to have already cooked the risotto in a pot (like rice) before putting in the pan, it all went well and great and the risotto came out perfectly. Coupled with the salad and homemade dressing and it was a meal of great satisfaction, and best of all that it was shared with three great friends.


One of these is good and the other bad. You might guess that "table wine" means bad.


Believe it or not, he's put some faith in me.


Once again, my tools fail me: risotto must be separated into two skillets to continue.


And then it's time to recombine for the final act.


Mmmm.... risotto. Mushrooms. Add parmesan. Yum.


These are cold hands, dirty hands. Also like this and this. Salad.


Mmm. Plated risotto and salad, nearly ready to eat (needs parmesan).


Motherfuckers is like, "Ok, smile now, but please, SIT DOWN ALREADY."


Bites are moments away....


After you eat a good meal, everyone gets fuzzy and the room turns red.


Thank you Stacy and Jayson. AMAZING.

And I leave you with this video:

Week 6, Cooking Day 4: Fettucine with Asparagus and Ginger Cream Sauce w/ Orange-Olive Salad

After last night's late night shenanigans, I set out with a game plan tonight that I would make something exciting that also wouldn't keep me up washing dishes at 2 a.m. Pulling out a cookbook my mom gave me a while back, I found an interesting seeming recipe:

Fettucine With Asparagus and Ginger Cream Sauce
3 large shallots
2 tablespoons coarsely grated ginger
16 ounces asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
3.4 cup plain yogurt
6 ounces fresh fettucine
2 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano

With Orange-Olive Salad
2 eating oranges, peeled and sectioned
12 large Greek olives, packed in oil
Drips of olive oil

I've never tried to make anything like this dish before. I've definitely eaten plenty of food in the vicinity, but it feels like i've almost specifically never tried to make a dish like this before. Also, until a few years ago, I adamantly disavowed olives and asparagus, but as for some reason I felt this recipe calling me when I saw it in the book.

It turned out to be relatively easy to make as well, metered out in simple steps and requiring nothing more complicated than trying to time the steps in a fashion where each runs one to the next, ie simple child cooking stuff. But the result was tasty and off-my-typically beaten path. I particularly enjoyed that the sauce was ricotta-yogurt, giving the dish a somewhat more Mediterranean complemented especially by the excellent orange-olive salad. This salad was ridiculously simple--peeled and sectioned oranges, combined with tasty Greek olives and dashed with olive oil, but it also presented lovely and unfamiliar flavor combinations that made my palatte excited.

Coupled with the wine Suze brought, i'd say the dinner was exactly the type of meal I'd hoped for and right now I feel pretty great. Now onto tomorrow night, risotto.

Pictures:


Sous chef Suz preparing the orange for me.



The saute immediately after adding yogurt-ricotta mix.


Voila! Fettucine with Asparagus and Ginger Cream sauce.


The yummy orange-olive salad, up close.


Suz is freaked out about eating, ginger, olives and oranges all at once.


Messy kitchen, post-cooking.

Week 6, Cooking Day 3: Chicken Enchiladas

[If reading on Wednesday, check back later after I have time to add more detailed "pithy commentary"]

Had a last minute change of plans tonight and no Ice Princess or roast chickey. Which was at first disappointing, but ultimately turned out fine. It was cold and snowy and I decided that I was in the mood for something filling and, boom, Enchiladas came to mind.

I've never made Enchiladas before--if I haven't made it clear yet, I've hardly made anything before. But this is the point, so went again to food.com and found this great recipe from young kid Tyler Lawrence.

Chicken Enchiladas
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast
Salt and pepper
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon Mexican Spice Blend
1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
5 canned whole green chiles, seeded and coarsely chopped
4 canned chipotle chiles, seeded and minced
1 (28-ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
16 corn tortillas
1 1/2 cups enchilada sauce, canned
1 cup shredded Cheddar and Jack cheeses
Garnish: chopped cilantro leaves, chopped scallions, sour cream, chopped tomatoes

For some reasons, it took E-bad and I visits to FIVE stores before we were able to gather all the ingredients necessary. Which I thought was hilarious because it's not like I live in Sutton Place; but then, maybe that was the point. The recipe said "Prep time: 1 hr / Cook time: 15 min" but it definitely took at least that. Venturing out to the super market began at 7:30 and plates cleaned and dishes washed at about 12:15. Right now I am so full I have literally been contemplating making myself puke so I will be able to sleep (which, for the record, is nothing i've ever done before).

I would say that on all fronts the meal was a great success--everything made came out great, and E-bad made some plantains to go along as a sweet treat quasi-desert. Photos below. Bring on the rest of the week.


Learning to skin a chicken, one flap at a time.


Chicken, post-skinning/deboning; pre-cooking


Una casa hispanica por una noche


Focusing intently to minimize the cuts/burns


Some of the post-prep / pre-cook mess. Definitely helps to begin cleaning midway if you can.


The sweet plantains are coming alive.


This was WAY more food than we needed (there were three of us and we didn't touch the white tray)



Obama sweeping the primaries in the background.


I could use some work on my "plating" skills (umm, yeah).


Shrimp Cracker and E-bad discuss whether or not they will plan to let me make them dinner again.

Week 6, Cooking Day 2: Salmon Teriyaki

[Apologies: i'll edit this shit later. literally falling asleep while typing]

Yesterday was a great start as far as attempting to get comfortable (I wasn't), but I wanted today to be even better. I have plans for friends to come over each night of the week to join me in my process, and tonight was a night of what we call in these parts "maximum bro-age," as I was joined by superbestfriends Hot Doorknobs, Shrimp Cracker, and Hyperliving official photographer Ben D (his beautiful photos are featured below).

For such great men, I decided to cook salmon teriyaki, which is an old favorite as well as one the very few legitimate "meals" that I ever used to prepare. Many times--though not all--in the past, however, I would use a teriyaki mix when making this dish, but tonight I knew I needed to make one from scratch. Not like making a teriyaki sauce from scratch is all that complicated either, but I think generally speaking it's nice if you can cook without using any ingredients that feature something called "Xanthum gum".

A quick search on Food.com led me to this and this recipe, and I decided to combine parts of each.

Salmon Teriyaki

For 4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets

1 cup thin soy sauce
5 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons mirin
5 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoon minced peeled, chopped fresh gingerroot
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds

Served with white rice and broccoli. Started with cucumber and green leaf salad, with Asian Sesame marinade dressing.

(scroll below for more)


Ordering my sous chef.

Most recipes either call for broiling or grilling salmon teriyaki; it may just be the crackle and sizzle, but I always prefer grilling/frying when possible.



Laying down the marinated steaks


Nearly ready and cooking nicely.


Some hyperactive maneuvering led me to spray juice all over my T, which Shrimp Cracker very graciously washed for me in the bathroom.


Ahh, the plated meal.


Everyone's ready to sit down and smells good.


Dooknobs engages in a staring concert whilst eating fish.

The salmon turned out great and everyone had a good time. I'm looking forward to each day of the rest of the week, including tomorrow when the Ice Princess comes to teach me about roast chicken.

Week 6, Cooking Day 1: Spinach Curry

Today I watched non-football television for the first time in 2008. It was kind of glorious. I also cooked a meal for some friends, though we didn't eat until about 11:40 p.m., which obviously feels kind of weird--going to sleep with a full stomach of dinner is generally inadvisable when possibly avoidable. Read below for details.


Tiny stove+limited space+inadequate cookingware=dish split in two

Because I was cooking for eight (hah! a silly start), I felt a little reticent about really "preparing a meal", because of the cost financially and timewise, but also because the thought of spending an hour preparing a meal for eight people and have it turn out terribly, leading me to receive forced smiles or false compliments (or open criticism) seemed depressing. So i hedged a bit and made the chicken with a handy Trader Joe's simmer sauce, the generally great Punjab Spinach Simmer. I felt a little guilty about this, but there were after all eight people, and anyway I still had to prepare the chicken breasts and cook them, as well as the rice and broccoli/carrots. And, as I explained to a friend, this exercise isn't about an awesome cook who's just lazy/tired but is once again donning the robes to spread blessing upon the community; I'm a guy who never cooks, knows little about cooking, and frequently makes shitty dishes when he does "cook."

Still, as hard as it may be to imagine, even with this silly little dish I was still nervous about it coming out terribly--under/overcooking the chicken (not a problem), rice (all good), or vegetables (not terrible but beginning to approach the Dot Koeppel land of nutrient-removed mushtables). Luckily, because British people are either nice or too used to eating shitty food, they seemed satisfied enough, which was nice. I will attempt to prepare more complicated dishes as the week goes on, but I felt good about at least getting started here.

More documentation:


Praying I have cooked the chicken enough to avoid poisoning my guests with salmonella


Chickens bathing in currylicious juices.


Squeezing it all in there, sloppily.


Even men in aprons are dangerous with knives.


Harry takes the first bite.


Chicken, relatively juicy and ok. Rice, just about right. Vegetables... nutrient-free 1940s wartime style.


I wish I could say I made this but this is absolutely a gift addition of comestible wizardry from E-bad. She wins.

Week 5, Religion: Unitarianism Pt. 2, or Can You Really Trust a Unitarian?

You can't trust the Unitarians.

So where were we?

I had a wonderful ninety minute lunch yesterday with a friend who graciously offered to share her thoughts, feelings and experiences with me as a woman growing up Catholic in America today. Knowing admittedly only sketchy bits and pieces about her faith, I quizzed her on some relevant details, including Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Holy Week, as well as inquiring about more basic matters like the Eucharist, Sunday School, and what made or broke a Church service.

She talked a lot and I asked a lot of questions, mostly informational but some invasive, and it was pretty great. But when we got to the end, she turned to me and asked if I minded if she asked me a question: "What about you though? I know you're a Unitarian and all, but what do you believe in? Do you believe?"

This is it, really: what is it exactly that I do believe in? Where has my "Unitarian Faith" brought me? I come back to the jokes, which are not based on nothing; at best, I am in the "discussion phase" of my faith understanding, and at worst I have nothing to say. Growing up as a Unitarian Universalist has made me an open-minded person, but having never been asked to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs, I wonder at times what it would feel like to embrace or reject an understanding of the world handed down to me by people I trust most, my parents and priest.

In explaining myself to her, I clarified that while I do not believe that Jesus was a godly savior and I do not know whether or not I believe in God(s), I am also not an atheist. To me, atheism seems kind of pointless: why take effort to refute a concept that is no more refutable than it is provable? For this reason, I am also somewhat suspect of "avowed atheists", as I am not entirely certain what motivates someone to go out of their way to declare their non-recognition of a force they do not believe exists; beyond the sensibility of such efforts, the undercurrent of anger that often courses through these declarations surprises me. But then, this is probably the love-centered, non-confrontational Unitarian in me; maybe the non-committal middle road of "still searching" is in fact worst of all. Also, I haven't lived in a world where I might be burned at the stake for having non-conformist attitudes about faith, so what the fuck do I know about anything?

Is Unitarian Universalist a postmodern religion? Don't laugh. Modernity, as much as it strives for "the new", is the perfect religious domain: its obsessive quest to find the ultimate epistemological heartbeat falls exactly in line with the hopes and dreams of any prophet having eared the words of God. I'll even do you right and even type "religion" but it's still the same question. As a Unitarian, you are taught to accept any and all comers; love, passion, and fairness reign above drown-out shouts and book-thumping quasi-wizardry. It's not that you're told not to refute another woman or man's truth, but simply that you made to understand that you can't. Truths exist together on a four dimensional Tony Robbin plane. Who are we to say which is right or even happening right now?

What that leaves is a sea of love-leaves blowing around America looking for a home. We float down in upstate wherever and nest and make love and families and houses and touch but don't impact the lives of the people around us. Except for I guess Thomas Jefferson, TS Eliot, Emerson, Dickens, John Adams (shitty prez), Charles Darwin, Sylvia Plath, Buckminster Fuller, Rod Serling, Pete Seeger, Alexander Graham Bell, Christopher Reeve, NC Wyeth, PT Barnum, Paul Revere, Marys Wollstonecraft/Shelley, Coleridge, Horatio Alger, Ben Franklin, and of course, Tim Berners-Lee.

Week 5, Religion: Unitarianism Pt. 1, or Maia M****, Where The Fuck Are You?

The old joke:

"What do you get when you cross a Mormon with a Unitarian Universalist? Someone who rings your doorbell for no good reason."

Also:

Three children were talking about their religions.
"I'm a Catholic," said one, "And our symbol is the cross."
"I'm Jewish," said the second, "And our symbol is the Star of David."
The third child said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and our symbol is a candle in a cocktail glass!"

And finally:

A Unitarian Universalist dies, and on the way to the afterlife encounters a fork in the road with two options: "to heaven" and "to a discussion of heaven." Without pausing, the UU heads right to the discussion of heaven.

Diminishing returns, yes.



"If you're searching for a religious home that is guided by a quest for truth and meaning, not by a set creed or dogma, we invite you to discover Unitarian Universalism."

Love is the doctrine of this church,
The quest of truth is its sacrament,
And service is its prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
To seek knowledge in freedom,
To serve human need,
To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine -
Thus do we covenant with each other and with our God.

This is all detritus of my childhood


Unitarian Universalist Sanctuary of Oneonta, NY

As I child, I was brought each Sunday to a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary by parents who were raised Catholic and Baptist (the one in the picture above). I was the only one of my friends who attended this "church"--the rest attended local Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist or other Protestant sect churches. Most of us shared an antipathy for our weekly Sunday requirements, and for a while I never thought that my experience was necessarily any different than theirs.

The first time I remember realizing that being Unitarian U wasn't like anything else was when I went to a Catholic Church one Sunday with a friend. I believe I was about 8 or 9. The first thing I noticed was how everyone was all dressed up. More than that though, I couldn't believe that they made the kids sit through the sermons--at the UU church, everything is timed so the kids go downstairs to their youth groups when the talky adult stuff starts. BORING. I also noticed how people didn't seem quite as loving or friendly or familiar with each other, but I understand that this was at least partially due to the fact that there were a few hundred people there, as opposed to the 75-100 or so that regularly made up a weekly UU congregation. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I knew that it wasn't at all the same.

As I began to grow and understand the world better, I gradually came to conceive of what it meant to be a UU: "... Erm, what the fuck does it mean to be a UU?" I had stopped coming round when I was about 12 (at which point my dad and sister stopped coming forever), but I started again when I was 14 because the youth group at that point was pretty cool. Our leader was a woman almost exactly ten years older than me named Maia M**** who I thought was just about the most amazing woman I'd ever met. She taught us about meditation, buddhism, reiki, self-expression and how to drink a cup of coffee for two hours. She also sheperded our group on trips to Buffalo and Ottawa for "UU Youth Conferences", which are about some of the most mental, hedonistic experiences a person could possibly classify under the aegis of "religious activity." But two years later, when Maia left to move to New York and become an actress, and my friends in the group left to graduate high school, I moved on as well, thus ending my renewed relationship with the UU community.

How easy was it for me to just pick up and put down? Or maybe a better question (by anyone of "faith") is "why was that ok?" Before I answer, I want to get into some of the discoveries I've made this week in learning about the roots of Unitarianism.

The Unitarian faith is actually very old, taking shape in the 16th Century during the post-Protestant "Radical Reformation". Unitarianism is a type of nontrinitarian faith, with the concept of the term "Unitarian" referring to a belief in a single God figure rather the holy trinity (father, son, holy ghost). As a result many Unitarians thought of their faith as being in fact one of the oldest forms of Christianity, with roots in early Christianity prior to the Council of Constantinople in 381 whereby the Holy Trinity was officially indoctrinated.

Though the ideas of nontrinitarianism subsided as the Dark Ages began, they came out again during the Radical Reformation as part of the a number of waves of antitrinitarianism. Many of these groups each carried their own distinct agendas, but over time came to be grouped together in 1687 under the banner idea of "Unitarianism", for all "who, with whatever differences, held to the unipersonality of the Divine Being."

The faith continued as a distinctly Christian one until the mid to late 19th Century, when factions of the community began to embrace the idea that their beliefs were grounded more in a quest for truth, knowledge and love of mankind an less in a necessarily theistic "love of God." At this point the church began to take on the shape and spirit more akin to the one I grew up with.

[to be continued]

Week 5: Out of Time (words coming tonight!!)

This is how i'm feeling right now, trying to fit in writing down my thoughts on my religious studies when dealing with crazed sisters arriving from Ghana, houseguests, and a mounting pile of downloaded but unwatched serialized television:


King Khan & BBQ Show

Also,


I have no idea who these people are.

[I have been collecting and listening to different versions of this song about a million times in the past five days. ]

Words will arrive this evening. Thanks also for great thoughts received by email and comments on the next two weeks!

Week 5: Other People's Lives (Seem More Interesting than Mine)

Most of us are on a spiritual journey of some kind or another.



One of my best friends from childhood told me when I was home during Christmas that he had decided that he had reached a point where the only thing he could do for himself to make his life better would be to travel to the country of Gabón in Africa and live among the natives for a few weeks while ritually consuming the iboga plant. Sailing on iboga is on the wavelength of taking a trip on peyote, except harsher and more intense. It's also illegal in the United States. I was in disbelief when he told me he was leaving, but it was also clear that nothing would stop him. I've been worried about him for the past few weeks but finally he wrote me an email today:

hey dude!

yes, im more alive than ive ever been! Im going to be staying a bit longer...

I am still undergoing my initiation: I have had 2 iboga ceremonies and they have been very eye opening. Lots of excruciating pain and terror. it has been really good for me to face these fears. i have one more ceremony to do, and then i will be finished hope you are doing well my friend

-D****

I love "Very eye opening. Lots of excruciating pain and terror."--this should be a couplet I use to end a poem someday.

I can't pretend I understand what he's doing, but I can understand the idea that everyone needs to take their own path.

Click here for a great Salon.com article on a journalist's superpsychedelic iboga trip.

Next Four Weeks of Hyperliving: February

Celebrating after the Super Bowl with a cigarette in the fire.

I've made it through one full month of Hyperliving and am feeling good so far. An unbelievable amount of strange and mostly wonderful things happened to me in January and I can only hope that February even approaches that level of craziness. When I decided to do this project, I knew I was making a commitment to something that I wouldn't back out of, but nonetheless I feel proud that I've made it this far without hitting more than a bumps in the road.

As you may have noticed, I added the next four weeks of Hyperliving to the blog and the Google Calendar. Here they are:

Week 5, Feb 3-Feb 10: Week of Religious Studies (Sunday overlap)
Week 6, Feb 10-Feb 16: Week of Cooking Actual Meals (suggestions requested)
Week 7, Feb 17-Feb 23: Week of Daily Art Projects (suggestions requested)
Week 8, Feb 24-Mar 1: Week Without A Cell Phone

A few brief words on the above:
- Since I took yesterday off for the Super Bowl and to recover from last week, I'm extending Week 5 to overlap onto Sunday, February 10. This will now be a double-duty day, with religion in the morning/day and a meal at night.
- And on the topic of cooking, though I have some ideas in mind, I'd love to hear suggestions anyone might have for easy but nice meals that a person with limited knowledge/experience (but a lot of heart!) could prepare.
- Also, for the following week, please send me any thoughts or ideas you have for art projects I could conceivably do in a day. Obviously I'm planning to do a painting, and a friend is going to let me make something in her ceramics studio, but i'd appreciate any non-photo related suggestions that any of your art folks out there got for me

Ok that's it for now. Next up, Unitarianism.

Looking Backwards: ENO MIX alteration.

Hi all--now that I am listening to tunes again I've been able to go back to some of the music I put together for everyone last week and, of course, my obsessive compulsive attention to sonic detail is taking hold of me once again.

You may remember that Day 5's mix of Week 3 was my Brian Eno popmix. I went on at length about the degree I am obsessed with this motherfucker and how much I love his tunes. I have to say though that upon further reflection, I feel absolutely compelled to post a "correction" to the tracklisting of the mix I posted:

Please revert the order of the first two Songs (after Windows 95), "Needle In the Camel's Eye" and "Burning Airlines" so that "Needle" comes second and "Burning" is third.

When constructing this mix I went back and forth about which of these two songs should come first and though it seemed to make more sense to go with "Needle" first, I decided to go all contrarian and start with "Burning". I realize now I was wrong. So please, to satisfy my insanity, to us all a favor and edit the track number for each into the proper order.

If you haven't already, you can download the (improperly ordered) mix here.

love,
Jeffrey

Week 4, Day 7: Quick Q&A On the Rediscovery of a Long Lost Friend

Week 4, Day 7: VICTORY

Yeah, bitches!

Week 4, Day 7: The Clock Is Ticking

So I've almost made it: 15 minutes until my week of aural solitude concludes. It's been a strange week for a lot of reasons, both related and independent of this project and this task. However, independent or not, all strangeness, weirdness, and discomfort I've experienced over this week has been undeniably "enhanced" by the constant near-silence I've experienced.

While I feel proud of myself for making it through this challenging week, I'm a little disappointed that my efforts haven't resulted in as much for whoever is reading this to digest. I had gone into this week thinking that it would be both relaxing as well as a great opportunity for me to get a lot down on the page, but one thing I've discovered through this exploration is the fact that listening to music is an essential part of the Jeffrey Beaumont writing experience, and that without it the task of writing becomes much more of a struggle.

I think there are two answers at work here, the first of which is the assumption which may seem obvious that "music is inspirational"--that good, powerful, carefully selected music can guide and empower moods and emotions, helping to stimulate whatever particular directions a writer is trying to focus his or her thoughts. It can be as simple as "I am tortured and feel alone and I put on the Elliott Smith self-titled to place myself in a flea-infested studio apartment in the city or in a cabin in the woods"; or sometimes it's listening to Music Has the Right to Children to get in touch with icy late-20th century anadigital isolationism. Even be Jimmy Buffett can you do you right and guide your mind if you're imagining sunny, summery, carefree breeze. Or sometimes you just want some Bach, or Gershwin, or ambient Eno, and they are an atmospheric bed of roses on which you can lie.

Hopefully you know where I'm going; in my experience, most people I know are able to connect with music in this sort of enriching fashion. But the other "answer" I've come to on music and writing, for me personally, is that I also utilize music to keep my massively ADHD brain focused and on track with the narrative of words I'm attempting to construct. For a lot of people music is a distraction, and while certain music in certain situations can be a distraction for me, mostly it serves to help calm the restless and curious part of my brain that remains active and searching even when the central part is trying desperately to work through an idea I've got that I'm trying to stretch into a "piece." This too is no "big news"; I know that people allover, especially today in the age of ultimate stimuli and distractions, experience the constant struggle to focus and stay clean. "Everyone has ADD." Maybe I'm no different than anyone else. But all I know is that my brain is a crazy motherfucker of non-stop thought processes and, try as I might, reining it in is a task that is usually beyond my abilities. Music, provided it isn't "too much" for that exact moment, gives me something for the crazy part of my brain to grab and hold onto, and if I'm controlling the music (rather than vice versa), I can use it help keep my secondary brain activity low and my focus on the primary high.

These are the first six songs I will listen to when the clock strikes midnight (I am a kid again! Let thee early 90s bring us together!!!!!!)--click to listen:

Guided By Voices - "Teenage FBI"
Guided By Voices - "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows"
Pixies - "Something Against You"
Archers of Loaf - "Web in Front"
Pavement - "Box Elder"

Vive la musique!

Week 4, Day 5/6: Slicing Up Eyeballs

I feel almost profoundly depressed. Partially this is due to shit in my own life, but honestly, I need music. I feel the emptiness inside. I need Pixies! I need Spoon! I need more than anyone some sweet '69-'74 Rod Stewart. I am at work and cannot write more than this, but rest assured, I have been affected and it's almost astonishing. I will write more tomorrow, with luck. And I will post the February Hyperliving schedule. For now here's "Un Chien Andalou" for the handful of you that haven't yet seen it. I am not watching it now for Fear Of Music.......... but slice up them eyeballs. Ah ha ha ha. Girlie so groovie. You know.


Go to 1:31 for the famous goods.