Cale!

Tonight, in my own little celebration for getting through RA Training this week, I listened to my new copy of John Cale's "Paris 1919," his album from 1973. This is a new release of his old album, with many bonus tracks and freshly remastered.

The album has never sounded better, with songs such as "Antartica Starts Here," "A Child's Christmas in Wales," and the title track being revealed in all of their glacial splendour. Cale has said of this album that it's all about ugly things, said in the prettiest possible way, which is a fairly accurate assessment of the music. It is a very "pretty" album, but the lyrics have an undertone of darkness, but with a wistful, longing turn in places. I love the album, and it was good to just sit and listen to it, letting it wash over me.

Too much, I'm listening to music as background, while I'm doing something else. It's good to be able to take some time and really focus on the music. Not to let the musical journey be in the background, but put it to the foreground, to have it be the experience itself. It's rare when we have the time to do it, but I try to make time to listen to music I find worthwhile.

I have to thank Joe McGlinchey for my John Cale fixation, as he introduced me to his music back during my senior year of college, with the album "Fragments of a Rainy Season," which I recommend to EVERYONE.

Of course, I was listening to this, as I mentioned, because of the end of RA Training, and I finally had some time to just sit and relax. Between the 18th and today, I presented a total of about 21 sessions, with each one lasting at least 30 minutes, and with most being an hour. One of my co-workers asked me today if I had ever thought about being a teacher, as he thought I was very natural in front of the group.

I think that if I hadn't gone into Higher Education, I would have enjoyed being a teacher, perhaps in History. That would have been fun, but I like what I'm doing now, so it's all good.

Back to the present job, it's going to become very busy this week, with new students arriving on Monday, and upperclass students coming back on Tuesday. It'll be fun, but hectic. I also need to start thinking about more longer term issues with the work, now that I've got RA Training under my belt.

NP: Steve Hackett - The Silk Road

Brisco!

So, I started watching the DVD set of the Complete Brisco County Jr. series I picked up a few weeks ago. For those of you not in the know, Brisco County was a show on Fox that started back in 1993, starring the talents of one Bruce Campbell, one of my acting heroes.

This show started the same year as the X-Files, and was in fact the lead in for the X-Files, starting at 8pm on Friday nights, while X-Files came on at 9pm. It was a great night of television for nerds, as Brisco County was a western with a twist. It incorporated elements of science fiction into the plot line, with futuristic orbs, odd happenings, and glimpses of the "future," from a world set in 1893.

The show, as Bruce Campbell says in the liner notes, was just "one notch below over the top." The second episode of the series has one of my favorite moments in it from television ever. One of the bad guys on the show has appropriated a futuristic scuba device, and is diving in a lake to retrieve some sunken booty. The female guest star of the show, hiding in the bushes with Brisco watching all this, says to him, "Aren't you going to do something?" Brisco replies, "What, you want me to dive in the water, engage in a life or death struggle while gasping for air, while he's safe in a pure oyxgen environment, smiling safely behind his glass helmet? No thanks, I'll wait here on dry land for them to come back."

Of course, through some plot devices, Brisco finds himself wrestling with the baddy underwater, while the baddy laughs at Brisco, airless and drowning. Brilliant stuff...

I'm glad the show is as fun as I remember it.

In other news, we're about 3 days into the RA Training here at Saint Peter's. I was concerned about today, because I was presenting 3 hour long sessions in a row, and I might get sick of hearing myself for that long, let alone a room full of 25 college students on a nice day. However, we got through it, and it appears to be a productive day. The staff is responding well to the presentations by myself and the other staff here.

Tomorrow (Monday), I have another 3 presentations to do, but they're not in a row, so I'm not as worried about the staff getting bored with me as I was for today. I believe I was doing 18 hour long sessions/presentations during this training, and by the end of the day tomorrow, I will be done with 10 of them. Thursday will be busy again, but after the day tomorrow, I think I'll only have 2 presentations per day, instead of 3. What a country!

I'll give more updates about Training as we get deeper into it. Overall, I have to say it's going well...

NP: Frank Zappa - A Pound for a Brown (1982 Summer)