matthew is writing a book about people with different jobs. he's nine years old, which is like 90 years younger than studs terkel, but basically it's the same idea. his interview with me is on his website now, so go look at matthew's website and read about him and his cat. and enjoy the nice weather.

about me, matthew said:

Cool pictures of you running in the marathon on your blog. I thought you were going to look like a scientist, but you look cool.

right on.

i spent easter evening with a boy with asperger's syndrome. he is about nine. he brought out his notebooks at some point and asked if anyone wanted to write in them. i said "yes!" so he brought them over. one was a regular pad of post-it notes. the other was a pad of X-shaped pink post-it notes. he said, "when you write in my notebooks, you have to write about what the notebook is. this notebook is for writing about x's. do you know what the other one is for?" "no, what's it for?" "it's for writing about notebooks."

i said i would write in both. he said, "you don't have to write in both," so then i thought i wasn't supposed to write in both. so i picked the x one. and you know, i totally understand this kid's logic, and i asked the question i would have wanted someone to ask me. i said, "for the x one, should i write with the x, like diagonally along the legs, or do i hold it upright and write straight across?" he said sternly, "write upright."

i looked in the book, and only one page was written on. i don't remember what it said, but i went to the second page and wrote: "X's stand for kisses and O's stand for hugs." i showed it to him and it cracked him up in a very embarrassed way.

"here, write in the other," he said. it also had one thing written in it. he said, "my mommy wrote in both of them for me." so then in that one (which was about notebooks) i wrote, "notebooks can look like many things, and can be many colors; some are white and some are yellow, and every other color, too."

while i was writing that, his mom came in, and said, "oh, someone's a good sport!" he read it, and then came over and told me, kind of conspiratorially, "i actually don't have a white notebook, but i have one with white pages."

i really enjoyed writing in his notebooks.

i remember hearing kurt vonnegut on the michael feldman show a few years ago. michael feldman said, "you must get a lot of people telling you, cat's cradle changed my life." kurt vonnegut said, "no. they ask me, are you wearing sunscreen?"

Some Beginner's Mind (Demo) (ted leo + pharmacists)
Some Beginner's Mind (LP version)

lately i haven't felt much like buying records, but today i sought comfort in that welcoming place, where i will likely always feel at home. in the record store. i took some comfort there, as paul simon said once.

i got the new ted leo record. you have to feel good about ted leo--he seems like such a nice guy. he's a punk rocker, with the short haircut and the loud guitar. one time i was a last survivor in bowery ballroom along with ted leo, after a ted leo show. he was standing there, a dorky stretched-full backpack on--both straps--and the bouncer kicked him out just like all the rest of us. he was talking to his friends, and he seems so much like a stand-up guy. his songs are all political, in an age when having all your songs political makes you either 1) completely ignorable, or 2) a crazy. but ted does it sincerely, and he's never saying something simple. if he's preaching, very likely he's preaching to himself.

one of my favorite songs of the past year is some beginner's mind, which i've heard a few times at ted leo shows, and he posted a demo version of it on his blog a while back. but it's a new song, and hadn't been on a record yet.

when i opened up the new cd today, the first thing i wanted to hear was how some beginner's mind turned out in a polished version. the demo is loud and muddled, and you often can't understand the lyrics. but it's also loud and achingly sincere. it speaks to me. the LP version--sadly but expectedly--i like less.

imagine how hard it must be, deciding how to record a song. you could play it fast, or slow. loud, quiet, muddled, clean. you could scream the lyrics or you could just say them. you could change the key, and since i'm an idiot i don't really even fully understand all the ways that will mess with the final sound. the old one is big and solid, but the new one is airier. it's slower. you can make out the words. but while the words are excellent, i kind of liked having to wonder about them.

it's a great record. turns out the first song, sons of cain, kicks everyone's ass. (it does. go see the show--you will be deaf.) but, i will probably still listen to my mp3 of the some beginner's mind demo.

if you want to compare them properly, like i did, i would recommend listening to the demo 98 times, over the course of about 13 months. (my windows media player tells me this.) try to do some after-dark listening, and close your eyes. or stare out the window at the lights of manhattan.

i know i haven't been the most talkative puppy in the pet shop window. but there's this thing that's cool--hold on, really.

there's this guy chris, and i don't know him, but i like know people who know people who like know him. he has a set of photos on flickr, taken on a trip around eastern europe.

the pictures are really cool, because they are just of his feet and the ground, but it's always ground that's interesting in some aesthetic way. the titles are apparently the city, and for your american sensibility they add so much: prague, bratislava, dubrovnik, zagreb, ljubljana--these consonant-filled cities are approaching the oriental in their level of mystery--maybe you think of narrow streets and some organized crime, maybe a restaurant with midget waiters--and they recall the ghostly cold war for you. you were thirteen, the iron curtain was down, and we could all die on the same day, later today perhaps.

you kind of feel like you know him, with the white shoes and the red laces. it's cool.