Saturday, August 21, 2004
(5:40 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Yes M!ch!gan!
! am !n M!ch!gan, and boy !s my exclamation mark key t!red!No, seriously: I'm in Michigan. Davison, Michigan. I'm at my parents' house, though they are not. Even though I only ever visit home twice or thrice a year, I still carry around a key to my parents' house with me at all times. They have a new puppy that is incredibly small. I'm not good with dog breeds, or I'd share it with you.
One good thing about the car ride today was listening to music. Here's a sample:
- Godspeed You Black Emperor!, f#a#. I like this one for a couple reasons. First, the final section before the long silence at the end of the album is incredibly cool -- it sounds like just jungle drums over and over, but the rhythm is very complex, and it never lets me quite fall into the groove. Second, there is a cameo appearance by the cab driver from Slow Riot for Zero New Kanada, the one who says, "America's a Third World country." His performance is somewhat lackluster this time around, but it's still good to hear from him.
- The Innocense Mission, Befriended. I love the vocalist for this band -- and I mean that in every sense of the word. Imagine my horror, then, when I was informed that the members of the band were Christian! Thankfully, they aren't signed to a Christian label, so I can still listen to it.
- Sigur Ros, Aegytus Burjun. An old standby. (I was actually tempted to bring along a Radiohead album for this trip, but I relented.)
- Godspeed You Black Emperor!, ...like tiny fists to heaven, disc 1. Another old standby. The sermon is my favorite sample in the history of samples.
I also want to give a positive review to the Burger King in Paw Paw, Michigan. I received very prompt and friendly service there, and the chicken tenders were delicious. My Whopper had tomatoes on it, but that's my own fault for not ordering it My Way. One caveat: the new promotional materials in Burger King are aiming for the "likes obnoxious pseudo-irony" demographic, apparently. I'm a little tired of irony, myself. It can be fun in casual conversation, but having a fast food restaurant try to deploy it all of a sudden sucks the life out of it. Maybe if it was a new restaurant, it would be okay, but for the third-largest fast food chain in the world to suddenly decide it can "relate to the young people" by taking on an "ironic" approach is simply stupid. In any case, if I were in charge at the Paw Paw Burger King, there would be raises all around!
I have decided I need to move to a big city. Until I'm done at CTS, the status quo seems to make sense, but after that, la vida rural must end. I will be applying to graduate programs in big cities, and if I don't get in, I'll just find some soul-sucking office job and move to Chicago. Fuck it, you know? Here's my list of graduate programs so far: University of Chicago Div School, Vanderbilt (theology), Duke (comp lit), New School (philosophy), Emory (theology or comp lit), DePaul (philosophy). Six schools, basically two for each thing. I'm still considering Glasgow (theology and lit), Edinburgh (theology), and Nottingham (Goodchild and Milbank). I'll probably also apply to the PhD or STM at CTS, just for kicks -- maybe the president of the seminary will win the lottery in the next year, enabling them to have funding for their research students. As always, I'd appreciate any advice in this matter, but it's not required.
Adam R.'s wish is granted -- his post is now scrolled down. But was this post itself a shit and garbage post? I'll leave that to the reader to decide.
