50 Book Challenge

Let's say at the turn of 2009, somebody challenged you to read 50 books before 2010. How would you be doing on that front?

I've compiled my list, including (but excluding from the numbers) the books I listened to during my roadtrip.

1. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things - Michael Braungart
2. Wake Up and Smell the Planet - Grist Magazine
3. Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir - Graham Roumieu
4. Bigfoot: I Not Dead - Graham Roumieu
5. General Ignorance - John Lloyd
6. Che: A Graphic Biography - Spain Rodriguez
7. How We Are Hungry - Dave Eggers
8. You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers
9. Lyrical Life -Casey Jones
10. What is the What - Dave Eggers
11. Mother, Come Home - Paul Hornschemeier (this was really sad and beautiful. I'd recommend it to Graphic Novel Nerdfighters)
12. Urban Homestead - Kelly Coyne
13. City of Glass: The Graphic Novel - Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, David Mazzucchelli
14. My Most Secret Desire - Julie Doucet
15. A Primer of Happenings & Time / Space Art - Al Hansen
16. La Perdida - Jessica Abel
17. Savage Inequalities - Jonathan Kozol
18. Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
19. The Complete Handbook of Sewing Machine Repair - Howard Hutchison
20. Things I have learned in my life so far - Stefan Sagmeister
21. Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art - Suzanne Lacy
22. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works - Erik Spiekermann
23. But Is It Art? - Nina Felshin
24. The Pleasures of Slow Food - Corby Kummer
25. Slow Food Nation - Carlo Petrini
26. Letters to a Young Artist - Shelly Bancroft
27. Made from Scratch - Jenna Woginrich
28. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel
29. Unlikely - Jeffrey Brown
30. Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende (this is a really good, interesting and easy read)
30 a. (Audio Book) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
30 b. (AB) Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
30 c. (AB) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
30 d. (AB) The World Without Us - Alan Weisman
30 e. (AB) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
30 f. (AB) Oil! - Upton Sinclair
31. Reenchantment of Art - Suzi Gablik
32. White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness - Maurice Berger
33. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? - Beverly Daniel Tatum
34. Looking for Alaska - John Green


I'm pretty sure I can and will read 16 or more books over the next 3.5 months.

What have you read this year?

The best friends I never had.

In the spirit of Ally's synchronicity, I just spent.....maybe.....12? hours watching the video blog communication project of John and Hank Green.


John Green is an author of young adult romance novels, and Hank Green is an enviro-blogger. They live on the other side of the country from one another, and their communication had dwindled to IMing, e-mailing, texting, and the like. To counter this, they challenged themselves to take turns posting videos on YouTube every non-holiday weekday, and not communcating textually for an entire year.

I stumbled on this project, or rather, their YouTube channel whilst watching videos of cute animals (this originated in Sloths and the Slow Loris)

The video I stumbled upon was the following:



If you google the word "adorable," this is one of the first things that shows up.

This video is after the whole "Brotherhood 2.0" project, but I was so amused that I watched a few random videos and then decided to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) so that I would understand all the lingo.


I feel like I could be (or maybe like I am) good friends with these guys. I also love Hank, but strictly in a celebrity-crush sort of way. This is because 1. He is married (as is John) and 2. from what I gather, our theology differs too greatly for me to have been able to consider him if he even was on the market.

One of my favorite books is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test which, I realized after I finished reading it, is non-fiction. Sometimes, I want another book. To be able to follow up on the characters...because they're real people is really satisfying.

I have had a similar experience with John and Hank Green. It is almost like if The Office were real, and you could send presents to, and potentially hang out with Jim and Pam. You could send them well wishes, and these might actually be received by them.

After the Brotherhood project was over, John and Hank were not finished vlogging. I sort of want to send them a present, but I want to make sure that no one else has given them this specific present, so I am going to wait to do this until I have caught up with all of their videos. They've vlogged through the entire 2008 year (I think once a week at least, each), and it seems that they've continued through 2009.

Hear an interview with them on NPR.

Also what is cool about John and Hank is their accessibility. Though they have thousands of subscribers, they keep up with the conversations in the comments, and comment on them. Vlogging is dynamic.

So I think that I could just drop in and hang out with these guys...but then I remember that I am one of sooo many. If everyone were to do that, it would probably be terrible.

Soon after the project began, John challenged Hank to write a new song every other week. I've tried to write songs. Have you heard them? That's right, because I have never finished a single song. Anyhow, Hank's love for TMBG is apparent, and his music is entertaining and enjoyable. He has actually released a CD (almost 2?) of his music, when I believe that it was just a hobby prior.

My love for John and Hank is almost directly related to my love for Liam Lynch.

The idea of vlogging used to really make me cringe. This is in large part due to Tila Tequila and her boring lame vlogs. (I was going to give you a link to the vlog that first made me want to shoot myself, but it appears to have been removed from the webs). However, I have had a change of heart about vlogging due to Ally's entertaining self, and the vlogbrothers.

I think I might start vlogging. It is something I'm doing in service of my Road Trip video (which I will probably upload in sections on the internet). The only trouble is my Flip video camera may or may not have died. (After like 3 months WQHTKXF!?)

One last thing! Hank lives in Missoula, MT. It is not a big town, and I totally stopped there on my road trip. If only I had known about his existence!

I suppose I'm creepy.
On an unrelated note, I suppose I'm a total nerdfighter.

A new understanding of population density

I suppose I never fully understood / considered maps like these.

A brief note.

Dear America,

Thanks for all the road construction.

Yours truly,

Emily

San Diego Zoo: Otis the Hippo

Travel Vlog: Los Angeles, CA

1: In which Emily recounts her time spent in LA during the Michael Jackson memorial service, etc.

http://peoplemath.blogspot.com


2: In which Emily concludes her tale of time spent in LA, specifically, finding the wall of Solutions Audio in Silverlake (from Elliott Smith's Figure 8), checking out celebrity stars from the Walk of Fame and some other crap around Beverly Hills.

Travel Vlog: San Francisco, CA

In which Emily has to make two videos to share her fourth of July weekend spent in San Francisco.

She did not eat any Rice-A-Roni, nor did she ride a cable car.

Travel Vlog: Redwood Forest

Travel Vlog: Portland, OR

Seattle: A cappella performance

A cappella Seattle from Emily Armstrong on Vimeo.

Travel Vlog: Seattle, WA

In which Emily recounts her time in Seattle, kindergarten friends for life, Pho, bike contests, classy and trashy tributes to MJ, thinks about tiny cities and eats some figs.

They were delicious.

Travel Vlog: Eugene, OR

Seattle

For some reason, I didn't expect to like Seattle. Maybe this was intensified by my mother insisting that I would. Maybe not.

I got in late Friday evening. Alyssa and I sat on the couch, chatting and catching up. We went to Kindergarten / 1st grade together. I then moved away, and we would see one another sporadically. Alyssa is now married to a Navy guy, living in Seattle, going to school. Her husband is a homebrew fanatic. There is a kegorator in their kitchen. Alyssa has become interested in eating healthy. She has been reusing the spent grains from his beer-making to make muffins. Maybe we do have more in common than 1st grade.

Saturday we got up early and took the bus to the Space Needle. She has a season pass, which means she gets to bring a guest each time she goes up. Sweet free Space Needle.

I always find myself at the top of things. If there is something to climb for a great view, I do it. I've found that great views don't differ in huge ways. Perhaps the type of buildings that are tiny are different. Perhaps the colors are different. If you have climbed a structure of get a view, you are probably viewing other structures. Tiny.





We stopped by an amazing record store. Two days after the passing of MJ, they had the appropriate homage.



We went to Pike's Market. AMAZING. It is a farmer's market on steroids, and maybe speed.
Produce is delicious and inexpensive. Some fruit sellers told us that they were "fruit pushing fruit." I believe this was their selling point.



I was especially enamored with the neon.


The first Starbucks, and the quickest exploitation of MJ's death:




Alyssa told me about the city wide compost. WTF? Why can't we have this? They just put compostables in with the sticks and leaves. It is all one, with a special trash bin. Why is this system not in place everywhere?

Some other things we saw en route to the bike drawing:

Please notice the sweet Scubacide leg tat. Scubacide. You can't hang yourself underwater.

Alyssa, her husband and I all entered our names into a drawing for the chance to win a bike. You had to be present, at the optometrist's office, when the drawing was held in order to win.


They had a reception, complete with wine, beer, grapes, fancy cheese and crackers. It felt very much like an art opening. This was only intensified by the art work on the walls.



A woman was selected to draw an entry. She spun around. The woman holding the container of entries spun around.

We were not selected.


I took some pictures of myself in the bathroom.


Things seen on the way home:


When we got on the bus, a crazy woman turned and shouted toward the back of the bus: "WATCH YOUR F***ING MOUTH!"
Ironic? Crazy. The pink sweatered woman:


On the way back to their home, we stopped and got Pho (Fuh). This is a vietnamese soup that is quite ubiquitous in the Seattle area. I have made this before, maybe eaten it at Van's....but maybe not. There are enough Pho restaurants in Seattle that they get cute with the names.

Example: What the Fuh.

Brilliant.



Verdict?

I like Seattle.

Missoula, MT

I woke up early (probably when the sun rose) in Bozeman and drove to Missoula. I parked in what may be a government building lot (city hall?) and fed the meter some quarters.

I went in a Bagel cafe to charge my laptop and use the internet.

I asked a question about a house bagel (turned out to be an "everything" type) and admitted that I was not from around here. I got into a little conversation with the cashier about my road trip. I told her that I'm from NY. "I went to NYC once," she said. "I sat down on the curb and whined: 'I miss my mountains!'"

I've had quite the opposite, complimentary experience. As I drive through the mountains I whine: "I miss my buildings!"

My friend had asked me to bring her a tiny bison she could sew onto a headband, so I decided that Missoula would be the place to find it. I asked someone in the bagel place where I could find this sort of souvenir. He directed me to the "Missoula Mercantile," and I drove my car a few blocks away, according to his directions. Though I didn't find the Missoula Mercantile ("That's Macy's now, it hasn't been Missoula Mercantile for 100 years!"), I DID find a million amazing antique shops.

One I found was packed, every square inch. It was a treat for the eyes, and for the camera. There were so many antique tools I wanted to bring home. So many knicknacks. Oh well.

I walked around a bit, and found a giant antique mall. I picked out a butter churn - $10, paddle, glass jar and all, some vintage maps of the west for myself and for presents, and a hand-crank meat slicer - $50. I approached the counter and asked if I could set my items down while I continued to look. The people at the antique mall talked to each other about what an idiot they think Al Gore is, and how An Inconvenient Truth is filled with loopholes and how he makes things seem urgent when they aren't ever going to effect humans. (I of course judge these folk in this mountain town because of this, and am later surprised to discover EcoGeek Hank Green lives in the same town, and is certainly of the opposite camp).

I ask the woman if she can do better on the meat slicer. She tells me that because it is below a certain amount, she cannot. I tell her that I will not take it, then. I watch her writing up my receipt, and I notice something that I hadn't noticed before ---the true price of the butter churn: $110.

Needless to say, I left only with maps.

Bozeman, Montana

Montana is aptly named. It is mountains. Driving through this state is exhilarating and beautiful. It was especially scary to drive down hill around a curve next to a truck. The nice thing about this area of the country is that the truckers are courteous and move out of your way.

As it gets darker, the drive becomes even more terrifying. Uphill and downhill steep grade curves aren't my favorite in bright daylight....when I can hardly see in front of me? Yea.

So I'm getting really tired, but I'm, it seems, in the middle of nowhere. I have to pee; I have to sleep; I have to stop driving.
Imagine my delight when I see a sign for civilization. Bozeman 1 Mile.

Bahhh zuh mun? Boozemen? I decide I will pull off and pee in the first gas station.

I pass a gas station, two, three...all closed. Eff.

I drive until I find a bar. I park directly in front, parallel, on the street. I walk inside. The bar is full. It is...Thursday night? Maybe Friday. Unlike the crowd in Sioux City, this bar is full of kids my age. Furthermore, they don't appear to be hicks or squares, but kids that I would maybe be friends with.

This is the first thing I notice on my quest for a bathroom. I have to squeeze by them on my beeline to the back of the bar, where the bathroom should be.

There is plastic billowing from the ceiling of the very back, and a bare bulb illuminates the space. It feels almost cave like.....subway tunnel maybe?

A guy sitting near this instructs me to walk all the way out the back door, to where the port-a-potties are.

Three small port-a-johns labeled "men" and one large one "women." Conveniently, the women one is the only one that says "vacant."

I open the door on a dude. He is standing up and his pants are on, but his rear is toward me, so I assume he is peeing. Guys don't really have to remove much to do this. "Oh sorry!" I splurt, clearly flustered.

"Oh, no, I'm just washing my hands," he explains, quickly exiting. This seemed like a reasonable enough explanation for about 20 seconds. Washing your hands....in the port-a-potty? Hmmm.....

While I'm peeing, I notice the Purell dispenser on the wall. Ohhhh, "Washing."

On my way back in the back door and through the bar, I can't help but take in the scenery. The building is tall enough to have two stories, and all but one wall are wood, even the ceiling. The remaining wall is brick. Not that you could notice the walls, beneath all the rows of tap handles, deer heads, and collections of bras covering nearly every surface. Scattered on the floor are a million colorful straws. There is a lot to take in. I definately feel like I am in an old mining town / saloon, but with a contemporary twist (neon?). I get stuck making my way around the pool table, there is a people wall on either side. I don't try too hard to get around either, I cherish the moments to notice the details. Hanging above the pool table is a pair of granny panties so large I could fit in them fifty times over.

A pudgy kid with dark hair and dark rimmed glasses "double fisting" cups of liquid adorned with colorful straws catches my gaze. "How's it goin'?" He inquires. He explains that between 11 and 12 drinks were $1. He offers me one and I take it. Jack and Ginger? Some booze with some light colored soda. We chat for a while and I tell him a bit about my trip. I ask him for a tip on where to park my car for sleeping. He gives me elaborate instructions about a parking lot, and to park on the left hand side so I don't get towed. Soon I'm in a circle of his friends, chatting with different ones, each at a time. I talk for a while with a pretty, unskinny girl with straight dark shoulderlength hair and a warm disposition. I ask her how there are so many kids my age in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, Montana. She proudly tells me that we are in the fourth biggest city in Montana. I ask her how to pronounce the name, and she responded matter-of-factly: "BOWSmen.", with a very round "O" sound. Their group of friends is going to relocate to go to some reggae show at a bar down the street, and I oblige to go with them, on the condition that I will only stay out until 1:30. On our walk, she tells me that this is a city with a population of 20,000, but when college is in session, the population is double that. I was assuming Bozeman was a town of a population 1,000 or less. (Population now means something real to me, and I notice that when a town has a population of about 300, it is practically a ghost town).

We go into another bar. This bar is a lot of wood as well, but it is quite new and modern feeling, clean, with one of those center bars. A socially awkward kid from the group of friends approaches me and tells me that he has been listening to my conversations with everyone and that he has some questions for me. There had to have been a better way to start that conversation, but for some reason, he made himself out to be a creepo, labeling himself a "conversation leech" or something. As I am answering his questions, he stops me, apologizes, and explains that he can't possibly listen to my answers right now because he is distracted by this puppy behind me. I turn around to see a woman sitting at the bar holding a charles spaniel puppy. I reach my hand out to stroke its soft face and the woman HANDS it to me. The whole puppy. I feel like people are more trusting and friendly out here. I am in a bar, in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of the night, holding a puppy. WTF?

I later found out that the crazy old west bar is the Crystal Bar. I found some of other people's pictures. I didn't bring my camera in to pee. I suppose that was a mistake.



I can't find pictures of the inside of the second bar, but I figured out that it was Montana Ale Works, and they have a changing picture doohickey on their site. The woman with the puppy was sitting on the last seat of the left hand side of the bar, the one closest to the front of the picture.

Road Trip Vlog: Bozeman, MT

I have a lisp?!?

Wyoming

I was only in Wyoming for a little bit. I did not go to Cheyenne. I did not go to the sheep ranch where my future friend Nick Reid grew up. I was just cutting through, really...cutting the north east corner.

And then an unfortunate thing happened. A bird decided to cross the road by flying about a foot above it. When you have the entire sky, you think you might use it. I suppose this bird was multi-tasking: traveling and foraging.

So, of course, my car and this bird collided. It was one of those moments where you realize that if you made any attempt to avoid it, you would probably still kill the bird AND get in an accident. So I just hit it.

I know that I hit it because I heard the sound of it hitting the underside of my car. Vehicular slaughter isn't something I like to partake in. Like my mom, I covered my mouth. Unlike my mom, I only used one hand, so I was still able to control my car.

After a half hour or so, I started to feel OK again. Soon I was thirsty, so I took the opportunity to pull off at a rest station. As soon as I got off the highway I noticed that my car sounded really loud. (Expletive), I thought.

"Sounds should be muted by the muffler," I thought, "so perhaps I've got a hole in mine."

I parked and walked to the back side of my car, crouch down. I look where my muffler should be. Dust bunnies.

I sat puzzled for a few seconds, and then quickly realize that my muffler is missing.

I went inside the rest area and called my mother as I filled up my water bottle. "Is a muffler something I can install myself?" I ask her.

"No, you've gotta find a shop to repair that. Did you hear about Michael Jackson?"

Expletive.

Mt. Rushmore

Everyone talks such trash on Mt. Rushmore. Quite honestly, if everyone hadn't talked such trash, I probably myself would be doing so. I had such low expectations of the place that the reality of it was pleasantly surprising. Though it would cost something like $10 to park, I drove around a curve and put my car in (what I later realized to be) a staff parking lot.

Mt. Rushmore is always pictured without the surrounding structures, as though you have to hike somewhere or go to some field to find it. There is a gift shop, a museum, a theatre in the little complex. And unexplained flags.



People hype up Crazy Horse. I wasn't impressed. I am 99% convinced that my reactions to these sculptures are a result of false expectations because of the stories of others. Maybe Crazy Horse would be impressive, if they had gotten more of it completed.

Sioux City

Driving north from Omaha, I stopped in Sioux City, IA. The reasons were twofold.

1. Buy a Flip camera like Ally's.

2. Go for a run.

Task number one successfully completed, I drove out of the strip-mall-burbs and back into the legitamite "city," complete with buildings. I parked my car on some street, popped my trunk, and changed out of the sandals I was wearing into a pair of sneakers. It didn't seem worth it to try and change out of the dress I was wearing, so I just slipped a pair of bike shorts on underneath. I grabbed my water bottle and my keys and started my jog. A few blocks down the road, I had nearly finished the small amount of water in my canteen, so I was relieved to see a business that was open -- a bar.

A bar will totally fill up my water bottle, maybe even give me ice.

So I enter this bar. It is entirely filled with weathered farm workers. They all look at my as soon as I enter, as though I have five heads. I walk up to the bar and make my request. While waiting for the bartender to give me ice water, one of the farmers (maybe a rude assumption to make, but I was in Iowa) started a conversation with me.

"Don't worry that they're all making fun of you. You do your own thing and that's great!"

'Oh?' I said

'Is that what's happening?' I thought.

O!maha

I met up with Brett Vaida and his friends some time after 11pm on Tuesday. I left my things in my car and went with him and his roommates back to the bar right down the block. This bar is called the 49r, and according to them, Connor Oberst used to hang out there before he got famous. As they finished their pitcher and I nursed my vodka-cran-mostly-vodka, they told me all about their relationship with the bar (also a venue, the Super Colliders – their band- play there), and about the area of Omaha we were in. The neighborhood is called Dundee, and apparently, it stretches in its nice hipsterness until Saddle Creek Blvd (?), at which time it becomes the ghetto.

At about 1, the bar closed, so we went back to their apartment and drank a bit more. We alternated between the couches inside and the porch outside, depending on if they felt like smoking or not. I gushed over their boxer, Jackson. I rubbed his ears and kissed his face and pulled on his jowls. I did this until we all went upstairs so Will could show us something on the computer.


I then heard that tell-tale noise that says “stay away from this dog’s mouth.”

Toilet drinker. Gross.


The next day, responding to Brett’s roommate (Dirty Dan)’s joke about having to work for my stay, I raided the fridge and made bacon and eggs. I was given permission to do this.

Brett had to work (in a sushi bar of the Whole Foods?) so I went with Will and Dirty Dan to a “recording studio” several blocks away. Before driving to the studio, we drove to a vintage store several blocks in the other direction – Scout Dry Goods. I bought a dress.

Apparently, no one ever walks anywhere in Omaha.

Dirty Dan informed me that the kid we were going to meet was blind, because he was diabetic. Also, Dirty Dan informed me that he likes to pick on said kid because of this.

So we drive over to a different kid’s house. This kid is small and looks like a Connor Oberst fan. He is attractive, from Detroit, and clearly dating the plain, attractive, red haired girl who would occasionally stroke his arm.

The blind kid, whose name escapes me, might as well be from Blink 182. He has a lip ring, and a ridiculous California – Surfer- Duuude accent that seems supremely out of place in Omaha. He is a really nice guy.

We get nothing done. We listen to three or four of his songs, most likely inspired by Blink-182. It is decided that what is needed is not Will’s guitar, but a few random notes by some other instrument. We sit on the front porch and everybody smokes. I do the smoke detector. Just kidding.

A light haired lanky kid bounces from off the street. “Do you still know how to fix MacBooks?” he inquires of Detroit Boy.

This lanky kid has an amazing Nebraska bicep tattoo.

Disgusting songs are played on laptops and Dirty Dan discusses how he would really like to hit a bird with his car. I tell him a story about being small, and my mom hitting a bird.

She screamed into both hands, and my father had to grab the wheel.

Apparently, this desire is spawned by a story Dan heard a comic tell. Apparently this comic saw a hobo punch a bird out of the air. Perhaps you’ve heard this skit? It is apparently true.

This is foreshadowing.

Dirty Dan wants to go home, Will has to pick up his friend Bre, and I want to check out the shopping area, so we part ways. Later, I get a call from Will and meet up with him and Bre. We go to the Saddle Creek complex. (This is a new building created for the record label. Their apartments and offices are above, with their favorite shops, a venue, and a movie theater below). We go into the American Apparel. Bre is now modeling for them, and they are going to use one of her pictures on their website. They are giving her gift certificates for this.


Bre is a tall, attractive girl, whose looks would generally be dubbed “exotic,” meaning: Not strictly of European, Black, or Asian descendence.

Bre asks the kid working the counter how much she has spent there. Her total is over $600 since December.

We go to the coffee shop in the Saddle Creek Complex. On the door is a smattering of gig posters. I comment on the design of a Connor Oberst one. “I went out with him” Bre says quietly, to herself...sort of blushing. This is so bizarre to me, but I am in Omaha, and this girl is a model, so I believe her. She says this was when she was 19, and she is 25 now. She says he used to live with her friends. I think she said she asked him to make out.

“That only works for me half the time,” I tell her.