When I first met Spencer Harrison, he thought I was breaking into his house.
I wasn't. I swear.
I was coming over to study with his roommate, who told me to walk in and wait while he went to pull his car out of a ditch. True story, including the part about the ditch.
Now, Spencer, former bassist of Fictionist, has returned to the Provo music scene with Libbie Linton and a great new project: Mideau.
Their album release show last Friday SOLD OUT. As did the album release show for Parlor Hawk! So tonight, you have the chance to see TWO sell-out bands put on one great show at 8 p.m. at Velour Music Gallery (an all-ages venue and wellspring of knock-out music [see: Imagine Dragons, Joshua James, etc.]) in Provo (135 N. University Ave.)
I love seeing good people make great things, and even more so, I love when everyone else sees it too.
After five months of marriage, I'm still surprised by how much it feels like a sleepover—the kinds my best friends and I had when we were kids. I think it feels like that because of the conversations we have.
By 11 p.m., I'm in one of two states: my jokes are getting more ridiculous and I'm cracking myself up or I'm so tired I've gotten weepy. Either way, Super has to get me to stop talking so I'll sleep. In this respect, I most resemble a little kid who never wants to go to bed and needs to make one more trip to the bathroom. We've switched sides of the bed, because the closets in the dark fuel my nightmares.
In the morning, we discuss who won the struggle for the blankets, who took more than their half of the bed, who actually slept, who was awake all night, and who said the most ridiculous thing in their sleep—the most famous of them being when I asked Jacob, "You san't cleep?"
The other morning I woke up and realized my husband was—both literally and figuratively—the brightest thing in the room. I know this because I've had a head cold, and I opened my eyes searching for something bright enough to trigger a sneeze. And I saw him, said nothing, and happily recited to myself the words of Thomas Merton:
"There is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun."
I’m not really a fan of animal movies. When the wellbeing of an animal becomes greater than the wellbeing of a person, it rubs me the wrong way. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that War Horse is really about people. People who drink. People who mock. People who hate. People who love. People who care. People who overcome. And people who die. The film intersects stories of men and women who do whatever it is they do with grace and kindness, and when they tried with the worst, they continue with simple goodness.
In the same sense that this is much more than an animal movie, it’s also its own breed of war movie. Death here is appropriately horrific and appropriately reverenced. The nightmare of the trenches flashes into you in a way no history book catches, yet with a gentle enough hand for you to grab hold of the respect you need and nothing more.
No one character is particularly glorified or outstanding. They each exhibit greatness as they cross paths momentarily. I was distracted throughout the movie because each new character seemed to look just like someone I know: my dad’s boss, my piano teacher, my neighbor. As I watched soldiers descending into the depths of WWII, it occurred to me that these are people I know.
These average looking and ordinary people represent the men who come before me—at least one of my direct descendants—but more so they stand in for the souls that were just down the street from my relatives, who gave and shared bread with them before they died. Where many family lines ended, mine did not, and it survived with the traces of good neighbors who gave their lives in full in the end and who had likely given bits of their time and spirit to their friends before.
War Horse sweeps across these stories lightly against a color palette of hope in bleakness. See it, and savor it.
"Smart girls like us, we can get at least a C on multiple choice tests without even going to class," I told my roommate, Aneka.
Aneka notified me that while this is true, the test she was about to take was for American Heritage—the most infamously terrible and unpassable class in the history of BYU. This class makes grown men cry. Though designed for freshmen, even a seasoned college student will only scrape by with lots of effort.
More importantly though, Aneka is Canadian. They definitely don't prepare you to take American Heritage in Canada.
Of course, Aneka would study and prepare and nail this test on a normal week. These past few weeks have been anything but normal. She's been distracted by this brown-haired man who has two broken thumbs but seems to love her still the same. In our apartment, we're learning to let love trump all other pursuits. American Heritage didn't stand a chance. All you can do at that point is pray though, since in some realm of the universe, it still matters whether Jefferson declared the pursuit of happiness or whether that came from John Locke.
I was at work when I got this text: "I got a 73! I don't even know what letter that is cause I've never done so bad, but I'm so happy!"
This sign that things work out made me so happy that I started crying right then and there for Aneka who got a C and the boy who can't use his thumbs.
I tend to fluctuate in my love and hate of C Jane, but at the end of the day, I must always confess that she is a great writer. After watching this vlog on her fifth love though, I must also confess today that she is a great person who is not so different from myself.
Here are two things you may not have known about New York City.
1) New Yorkers are actually super friendly. I present four evidences for my claim.
a) We are on the subway. Super looks down to check the map, having already figured out the best way to go but wanting to refresh his memory about the stops. The man on the seat below immeadiately begins to tell him the best way to get to where we are going. Super has said a total of four things, but we have found out that this man is from Columbia, has only been back once, loves New York a lot, has retired from the NYPD, and knows exactly how we should get to our destination regardless of where our car is parked. He was the kindest man I've ever conversed with on a subway, excluding Super who looks very much at home and very handsome on a subway.
b) Super and I exit the subway and head for the stairs. I ask what street we are headed to again. "Forty-second," he says. Upon hearing the name of a street, a woman in front of us whirls around as if we'd tapped her on the shoulder and tells us, "That way! Go through the tunnel and up." We went through the tunnel, finding our unsolicited counsel to be just what we needed at just the right moment.
c) Standing up from the table in a crowded restaurant, I sneeze into my coat. From three tables over, a woman says, "God bless you." I feel blessed, though unable to locate the source of my well-wisher since it could be anyone of these people I do not know.
d) Beka and I make a break from the car to obtain frosties at the nearest Wendy's. Beka accidentally cuts in line. The man at the front of the line warmly directs her forward as he's still studying the menu. He's always lived in the Bronx he said, and every year he thinks he'll go to the ball drop in Times Square but always decides against it. "They say not to burn your bridges in things," he tell us. "But if I ever get a chance to get out of New York, I'm burning that bridge down."
2) On Long Island, they have squirrels. I forgot how beautiful squirrels are when they move. Their tails rippling gracefully. As I've been watching them out the window, they just get cuter and cuter to me.
So, if you'll forgive me, I will continue to add some retrospective posts and pictures about my time in New York last week. Here are pictures of some friendly New Yorkers, namely Super's family. His dad took these lovely pictures for us.
