ISSHO ISSHO ISSHO

Food, nom-nom

2010-12-14T21:09:00.005-05:00

I was also a glutton this year. Let me document my mouth-watering favorites.

Roast bone marrow and parsley salad at St. John in London.
A flat white at Monmouth or Flat White in London.
Cioppino at Tadich Grill in San Francisco.
Dim sum at Lai Wah Heen in Toronto.
Pastrami on rye at Katz in New York.
Ramen at Ippudo in New York.
Sandwiches at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor.
Sonoma on Capitol Hill and Etete on U Street, Washington, DC.
Burgers at Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington.
Pulled chicken and homemade soda at Brasa in St. Paul.
Ice cream at Moorenko's in Silver Spring and at Izzy's in Minneapolis.

Live music in 2010

2010-12-14T20:26:00.005-05:00

The most memorable shows of 2010 for me:

Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Myer at Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco.
Janelle Monae at the 9:30 Club, Washington, DC.
Caribou at the Independent, San Francisco.
Bill Frisell Trio at the Village Vanguard, New York.
The Walkmen at the 9:30 Club, Washington, DC.
Abdullah Ibrahim at Barbican Hall, London.

Favorite albums of 2010

2010-12-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

These are my favorite albums of 2010: Never Stop by the Bad Plus, Forget by Twin Shadow, I'm New Here by Gil Scott-Heron, The Monitor by Titus Andronicus, This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem, Swim by Caribou, Body Talk by Robyn, Does It Look Like I'm Here? by the Emeralds, Lisbon by the Walkmen, and The Way Out by the Books. A very good year in music--I could've added another five albums to the list.

2010-10-31T00:08:00.001-04:00

So, I now have this blog set up to post via text messaging.

It's been awhile

2010-05-04T09:25:00.003-04:00

It's been over 2 years since I have blogged. I am graduating from medical school in a couple of weeks and moving to Washington, DC, for residency training in June. Exciting times.

The Getty Address

2008-02-29T14:06:00.000-05:00

An opera about Don Henley:

It's almost third year

2008-02-29T13:59:00.008-05:00

So, life is moving rapidly. A few more weeks of classes. A month to study for boards. Then I hit the wards in May, beginning with Pediatrics or Surgery--still haven't gotten my schedule. I'm excited and have already thought about what electives I'll do fourth year. I can't wait to do rotations at Walter Reed and Tripler (Hawaii!).

I saw Nat Baldwin live on double bass. Wavy jams.

The year in film and music and willpower

2007-12-15T15:53:00.001-05:00

I haven't had time to write much. I've meaning to write something about Elizabeth Samet's Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point, but instead I will direct you to adapted excerpts in a New York Times Magazine essay: "In the Valley of the Shadow." I'm hoping to hold a symposium on war, literature, and psychiatry here at Michigan next semester. It's taking quite the effort to plan this thing, if it's going to happen at all.

I usually like to proclaim my favorite in music and film every year. It's not very meaningful since I've only seen a handful of movies this year and my music selection has been more arbitrary than comprehensive. I will weigh in anyhow with Rise Above by the Dirty Projectors, Andorra by Caribou, and In Rainbows by Radiohead. I also liked Adrian Orange and Her Band's self-titled release on vinyl (just bought a record player this year). As for film, I have literally seen 6 movies this year, almost all of which I liked, especially Rescue Dawn, Once, and No Country For Old Men. I hated Sicko and had mixed feelings about I'm Not There. I found the former to be reductionist, and I liked how one reviewer described the latter as a film that didn't do much to illuminate Dylan's life, but was more of a reflection of how people have viewed and want to view the unknowable Dylan.

The concept for an event on war, literature, and psychiatry clicked after reading Dr. Samet's book in less than three days--I never read anything that urgently. She prefaces her book with two quotes that explain the term "soldier's heart" and that perhaps relate to her themes and thesis.

Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
--Wilfred Owen, "Insensibility" (1920)

In every campaign there are large numbers of soldiers invalided home with the affection of the circulation commonly called "soldier's heart"... The treatment is not that of ordinary heart disease, but should be directed to in every way increasing the general tone, including mental tone, of the sufferers... The patients should not be told, or allowed by our bearing towards them to think, that they have "heart disease," as such is not strictly the case.
--Robert Dawson Rudolf, "The Irritable Heart of Soldiers (Soldier's Heart)," The Canadian Medical Association Journal (1916)

This doesn't pertain to Dr. Samet's book so much, but I am intrigued by how psychiatric illness can be modified by suggestiveness, placebo, and other non-pharmacological interventions, hence the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy. I think this says a lot about the possibility and the power of the will, that much of pathological thinking and behavior can be overcome by insight and the application of that insight. Take this quote from a blog I've been reading:

When I was a boy of seven or eight I read a novel entitled "Abafi"... The lessons it teaches are much like those of "Ben Hur," and in this respect it might be viewed as anticipatory of the work of Wallace. The possibilities of will-power and self-control appealed tremendously to my vivid imagination, and I began to discipline myself. Had I a sweet cake or a juicy apple which I was dying to eat I would give it to another boy and go through the tortures of Tantalus, pained but satisfied. Had I some difficult task before me which was exhausting I would attack it again and again until it was done. So I practiced day by day from morning till night. At first it called for a vigorous mental effort directed against disposition and desire, but as years went by the conflict lessened and finally my will and wish became identical. They are so to-day, and in this lies the secret of whatever success I have achieved.
--Nikola Tesla

This viewpoint is quite inspiring and has interesting implications. One loosely related idea that is relevant to military psychiatry is the possibly detrimental effects of labeling certain injuries for which the etiology is little understood. Suggestiveness and unconscious motivations can be rather potent and shouldn't be underestimated. I first heard this idea this past summer at a conference, and it seems that there are other people thinking about the same thing in the American Journal of Psychiatry:

[...] as a study of U.K. troops returning from Iraq shows (N.T. Fear et al., unpublished 2007 data), there is an association between mild traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder, with service personnel having a range of symptoms that often meet the criteria for both diagnoses. In states of uncertainty, it may be that contemporary service personnel prefer to be labeled as suffering from mild traumatic brain injury than any psychological disorder, just as shell shock in its initial quasineurological formulation was very popular. It may be that such labels reduce stigma and encourage help seeking, a major issue for the present generation of service personnel (46). But, on the other hand, it may divert attention from more easily treatable disorders, such as depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Labels themselves affect prognosis. For example, a study of postconcussional syndrome by Whittaker et al. (47) suggested that subjects who believe that their symptoms have lasting and deleterious effects are at higher risk of experiencing an enduring disorder of this kind. In other words, strongly held negative beliefs play a part in maintaining symptoms and functioning—exactly the reasoning that led the British Army to ban the use of the term “shell shock” in 1917.
--Edgar Jones, Nicola T. Fear, and Simon Wessely, "Shell Shock and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Historical Review," American Journal of Psychiatry (2007)

If you don't have access to the journal, I can e-mail it to you. You can also borrow my copy of Soldier's Heart if you'd like.

In which I eventually conclude with nonoverlapping magisteria

2007-09-02T11:55:00.000-04:00

I went to church for the first time in Ann Arbor today. There is something enchanting about the stained glass, the organ music, and the ritual of Catholic Mass. Maybe it's the mystery or nostalgia. The homily tangentially reminded me of the Festival of Faith & Music at Calvin College in which I witnessed a majestic performance by Sufjan Stevens, and then was able to hear him speak about what religion means to him and his creative process. His thoughtful, analytical approach resonated with that of David Dark who spoke a day earlier.

One particularly striking line David draws on is from Leonard Cohen. In responding to a question about whether he viewed himself as a poet, Cohen said: "I always thought that poetry is [a] verdict [...] It's for others; it's for others to use." It is this kind of view which David thinks should inform one's faith. To, for instance, claim one is Christian and claim certain truths and things for Christianity in a self-proclaimed or even self-righteous manner, he thinks, is not right. He says, "The word 'Christian' is a verdict. In the book of Acts, they first got called Christians in Antioch [...] It messes with our confidence in a way if we relinquish the right to call ourselves Christian. But I think it's worth looking into [...] 'It's a verdict, not a choice' is kind of powerful."

Perhaps this reflects the message of today's homily on scripture (Luke 14: 1, 7-14) in which Jesus speaks of humility in a parable. It seems to me that it is humility, as opposed to certitude or righteousness, that is lacking in many practices of faith. There is also a similar sense of certitude and oppression exerted by some opponents of religion as well, which I find equally discordant. It seems that I am always taking the middle ground on contentious issues (copping out, some might say), but my reasoning leads me to agree with Stephen Jay Gould's idea of "Nonoverlapping Magisteria," which I won't elaborate on--you should read it.

On an unrelated note, I am seeing Children of Paradise on the big screen later today! And I've been listening to "Rise Above" by the Dirty Projectors on repeat!

Dirty Projectors

2007-09-01T17:46:00.001-04:00

I saw the Dirty Projectors for the second time last night. David Longstreth and his band are becoming one of my favorite live acts. His vocal gymnastics might be owed to a Mariah Carey influence, and David Garland says the musical world Longstreth creates is as disparate as the one created by Harry Partch. Don't miss the Dirty Projectors' Daytrotter or Take Away Show sessions, either.

Happy Father's Day, Mom!

2007-06-17T13:25:00.000-04:00

"Happy Father's Day, Mom!" to all the single mothers out there.

Writing the wartime experience

2007-05-02T23:13:00.000-04:00

I caught bits of Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience on PBS a while back. This is "Here, Bullet" by Brian Turner.

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

This and other writings are read in the film, to at once beautiful and haunting effect. I've already ordered the DVD.

Bitches ain't shit

2007-03-25T11:52:00.000-04:00

If you haven't listened to Ben Folds' cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit," check out his myspace. Then watch this amazing a cappella version of it performed by a group at UC Berkeley. If you couldn't tell from the song title, I'm going to warn you that the song contains explicit lyrics.

Bit-O-Honey and Avril

2007-03-07T15:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here chewing delicious Bit-O-Honey candy and watching an amazing music video.

More writings on West Point

2007-03-01T22:31:00.000-05:00

Further investigation reveals that the book is to be released October 16, 2007, by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux under the title Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point and is available for pre-order on Amazon!

I also found another article: "War Stories: What West Point graduates are reading in Iraq."

Teaching poetry

2007-03-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

Here is an eloquent essay about teaching poetry at West Point. The author was my professor for film class. After reading this, I wish I had taken more electives that she taught. I'm unsure of its status, but she has also written or is writing a book titled Just a Shot Away: One Teacher's Story of War and Peace.

Broken system

2007-02-18T13:04:00.000-05:00

Please read from the Washington Post: "Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility"

A lot of physicians are leaving because of the broken system that is military medicine. It is discouraging and heartbreaking for me to read things like this. But my resolve is also strengthened--I mean, wouldn't you feel compelled to enter the system, however broken it is, and do your best to effect change, however small it might be?

A few related articles (added Feb. 21):
"Wounded and waiting"
"The Hotel Aftermath"
"What I've Learned: Bryan Anderson"
"Swift Action Promised at Walter Reed"

A delicious recipe

2007-01-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

I was listening to some music by Six Organs of Admittance, went to their website, and ran into this delightful recipe:

2006 best films

2007-01-05T23:43:00.000-05:00

The ABSOLUTE best films of 2006: Pan's Labyrinth, Army of Shadows, and Volver.

Sneaking feeling

2006-12-12T14:34:00.000-05:00

Ever get a sneaking feeling that the year is about to end and that so much has happened? Old friends are off in the real Army for real, and I'm wrapping up just the first semester of a long, arduous path that is medicine, all with these new strangers.

Anyway, here's some catharsis.

Waits, my friend, Waits

2006-10-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

Tom Waits, ladies and gentlemen, Tom Waits:

A diatribe against militarism in the U.S.

2006-09-11T20:19:00.000-04:00

Maybe this song is appropriate for today. Or maybe it isn't. In any case, extra verse goes,

And the flag marked with blood, with the blood of our hands
And our hands marked with death, with the blood of a man
And a man on the cross, and the cross on our hearts
Has it done nothing more, than to drive us apart?

Ann Arbor

2006-09-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

Ann Arbor's pretty nice.

Mind tricks, magazines

2006-07-12T17:01:00.000-04:00

This is from the Baffler:

I am waiting for the bus when I smell something burning. I turn to the man standing next to me and ask if he smells it too. In preparing to speak he lets a cloud of condensed breath out into the freezing air. For a half second my mind plays a trick on me. "Oh no, he's burning," I think.

Why many of Iraq's elites don't flee

2006-06-22T15:47:00.000-04:00

Why many of Iraq's elites don't flee...

Army of shadows

2006-05-01T19:19:00.000-04:00

What a bleak and beautiful film Army of Shadows is. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, it was first released in 1969 and is now being shown for the first time in the United States at the Film Forum, where I saw it the other day. This is the first film by Melville that I have seen, and now I must see more.

Lifeline three part series

2006-04-04T23:58:00.000-04:00

Reporter David Zucchino and photographer Rick Loomis spent several weeks in October and November embedded with Army and Air Force medical units in Baghdad and Balad, Iraq, and with two Army air ambulance medical companies at the Balad military air base north of Baghdad.

Lifeline: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

Dear abbess

2006-04-02T04:58:00.000-04:00

A friend from high school is behind Spencer McGillicutty, which authors this song about unusual unrequited love: "And I would live in these monastery walls, if only to be near you. And when your footsteps echo through these Benedictan halls, at least I'd be close enough to hear you."

Samurai

2006-04-02T04:51:00.000-04:00

Jesus was a nobody

2006-04-02T03:29:00.000-04:00

Kilgore Trout:

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:

Oh, boy-they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!

And that thought had a brother: There are right people to lynch. Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.

So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.

And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Guestbook revival

2006-04-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

I'm curious as to who actually reads this site, if anyone. So leave your mark in my GUESTBOOK! Does anyone even use guestbooks anymore? There's a link to it on the left side of the page as well. Say hi or leave jokes or feedback.

Pictures of the stupidest joke ever told

2006-03-31T11:48:00.000-05:00

Nice hot day. I actually remember feeling really happy that day because it was one of our last patrols. SGT Lopez shot a rabbit that day and SGT Brown stalked a coyote through the scrub but did not get him. Never did much hunting back in the states, but the atmosphere reminded me of home for some reason.

It's subtitled: Pictures of the stupidest joke ever told.

My good friend Will Stauffer, with me in the background looking... poorly led. I like this picture because it says a lot about this war, the only thing it's missing is a random corpse of a non-combatant.

Here we are, fucking wet as shit, had just driven through a road flooded with raw sewage and dead animals, we're out in the middle of this shitty mud field, and we could be brutally killed at any moment. And here we are just hanging out in Baghdad.

Noam Chomsky

2006-03-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

Noam Chomsky is coming to lecture on April 20th!

Why we fight

2006-03-25T22:14:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting article in the New Yorker about Eugene Jarecki screening his documentary in a Civil-Military Relations class. I don't take the class, but my roommate does. He's the one responsible for the macho banter "I hate the Air Force." Ha! I had watched the documentary several weeks before his visit, so it was cool to have lunch with him, as my roommate was also escorting him.

At the Cedar

2006-03-18T13:49:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to see Haley Bonar and Redstart with my brother and sister at the Cedar Cultural Center. It was my brother's second concert (I took him to see Phil Elverum once) and my sister's first concert. It was one of those quiet, intimate shows where the music is beautiful and everyone listens intently. I bought Haley's new album called Lure the Fox. It's wonderful.

Possible road trip

2006-03-14T15:08:00.000-05:00

I'm contemplating a month-long road trip this summer. Stops at Sioux Falls, Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, Boise, Portland, Crater Lake, San Francisco, Yosemite, Los Angeles, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, Denver, and Omaha.

Winter wonderland

2006-03-14T13:42:00.000-05:00

It looks like a Winter Wonderland during Spring Break.

Marjane Satrapi's visit

2006-02-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

A night at West Point

2006-02-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

A NIGHT AT WEST POINT
by Arthur Miller

A morning in 1971. The day's news at breakfast. Vietnam, like a canker sore in the mouth that will not heal. The war is killing hope in this country, where will it end, with what internal catastrophe? My phone rings, a mild surprise since it is hardly nine o’clock.

A Colonel something from West Point? A joke? He wants me to come and speak to the cadets and faculty. Oh right, I now recall a letter in yesterday’s mail.

“Yes, I did get your letter yesterday, but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong Miller.”

“Are you the writer?”

“Yes, but I’ve been against our participation in this war since we got in. I spoke at the first teach-in at the University of Michigan and many times since….”

“Yes, would you consider coming to the Academy?”

Can this be serious? The lion’s mouth is opening to receive my head? “Okay, but let me read the letter again and I’ll let you know immediately.”

I read and reread the Colonel’s invitation searching for an excuse to decline. A day passes, and another day. West Point is the heart of our darkness, the deaf, dumb and blind academy turning out young killers of the dream. But what excuse do I have for declining, aside from not wanting to be beaten to death, figuratively of course, by outraged heavily armed patriots? I probably owe it to my convictions to go precisely there to express them, but what earthly good could that do when they must be long past listening to anybody but their high commanders. As it happens, I decide to make the talk for a particular reason. A week or two before this phone call my wife, the photographer Inge Morath, our eight year-old daughter Rebecca and I had returned from a trip to Cambodia. Inge had wanted to photograph the temples of Anghor Wat before they utterly disappeared in the expanding war.

The lecture hall was packed with Plebes, and the back wall seemed lined with eager-looking officers, most of them quite young, their chests covered with decorations. One man, or rather one moustache, stood out. It belonged to an older Colonel whose head was bald, his uniform weighed down with medals, and a pugnacious bright red guards’ moustache bristling fiercely, right and left under his nose. I immediately decided that this was the one who had come to trample me to death.

My mind-set vis-á-vis West Point was not altogether unilinear. Born in the second year of the First World War, I had grown up in the Twenties when the most blatant patriotism was in the air. In fact, by my twelfth year I was trying to convince my Uncle Moe, who had driven an ammunition wagon at the front in France, to help get me into West Point once I had finished high school. It was a time of life when I was saluting in all directions. Moe was incredulous; he had contracted tuberculosis in the service and would spend the rest of his life trying to beat it, dying in his late thirties of the disease. War, he tried to explain to my deaf ears, was hell and had to be avoided at any cost. I respected him too much to disagree openly, but deep down I would have loved to have been a soldier, an image of myself which would soon fade.

Facing the young cadets and officers, with what I believed would be very discouraging news from their viewpoint, I had a couple of regretful minutes on the platform, but there was no escape. The war, of course, was raging and men were dying, our own as well as Cambodians now.

In short, as in Vietnam itself, I believed we had no better prospects of a real victory in Cambodia that would justify the destruction we were wreaking there. The road inside Cambodia which Vietnamese were using would doubtless be interrupted for a bit, but it would surely be reusable in short order as we had learned was the case in Vietnam itself even after dropping more bombs there than had been dropped on Europe during all of World War II. In a word, this war was impossible not because of military failure but a political one. Inevitably to the Vietnamese and no doubt the Cambodian mind now, we had assumed the evil identity of French colonialism with all its unforgotten indignities for the masses of both countries. Finally, our cold war mentality had seduced us into believing that Hanoi and its leadership were merely lackeys of Moscow, but that the time had surely arrived when we had to confess that our opponent was indeed a genuine anti-colonial nationalist and not somebody’s foreign hired gun. The tragedy was that the Vietnamese would no doubt end in a rigid Communist system that probably had no future, and that we would for a long time stand as the enemy of their aspirations for a better life. The whole war, in short, was a dreadful, bloody miscalculation on our part, and should be stopped as quickly as possible.

Silence. Questions were asked for. A cadet with a powerful build—I remember the thickness of his wrestler’s neck—raised his hand. “Why is this man allowed to speak to us?” he asked, an outraged look in his blue eyes. The chairman-Colonel explained that it was important for them to hear all sides. Looking around at the young audience and their scrubbed faces, and at their officer teachers, all of them Vietnam vets who had rotated back here to teach before returning to battle, I couldn’t help sympathize deeply with the dilemma which I thought I saw reflected in the cadets’ eyes—their pride in their upcoming profession and their reaction to what I had tried to tell them about the war they would soon enter.

Now the colonel I had designated as my certain enemy raised his hand at the back of the hall. Oh God, I’m dead, I thought. “I was the American military attaché in Phnom Penh for nine years,” he announced. There was a good long pause. “Everything this man has been telling you…is the truth.” With which he turned aggressively and walked out of the room. Astonished, I felt choked with gratitude.

A young colonel came up to me and offered me dinner at this home. He seemed pleased with my little speech so I had no hesitation in accepting.

Dinner, as it turned out, was for not only me but half a dozen other young officers and their wives. It was very quickly obvious that these young commanders, none of them much over thirty, I thought, were physically and intellectually an uncommon lot of battle-scarred academics, in effect, teachers of philosophy, English, math, sciences. In no time they were telling me about having to change into civilian clothes on trips to New York to avoid being either cursed by passers by or actually spat on if they were in uniform. Again and again came the same litany—that the army had not wanted this war but that it had been handed them by politicians who—without saying this in so many words—were opportunistic, irresponsible men.

I left our dinner at nearly one in the morning. By the time I was feeling enormous respect for these West Point officers who were entrapped in a tragic dilemma they had not made. If they had ever believed in the war they certainly no longer did now, yet they were obliged to return to Vietnam to lead men into battle for a cause they knew was at minimum futile and possibly even morally wrong. Driving home through the night on an empty highway, I saw them as a sort of tragic priesthood pledged to a holy cause—their country’s defense even at the cost of their lives, a cause that had been bitterly traduced. For duty demanded not only their own sacrifice but that of men whom they, in effect, would be required to convince of the rightness of killing. For me it was painful to recall the implicit hope which I thought I saw in them that I might be able to help end the carnage by writing about it in the spirit of my talk earlier that day. The fact, however, was that I believed—after all the protests and the anti-war articles and books and plays and movies—that the war had no visible end in sight.

I left West Point aware of these soldiers’ anguish in a way I had not begun to imagine before. Above all, the mystery of duty hung before me; it was driven, after all, by the tangled power of a kind of love without which it would be nothing. The immensity of our Vietnam tragedy was never so moving as it was that night.

Greetings from the Great Lakes State

2006-02-09T19:57:00.000-05:00

I just got accepted to University of Michigan Medical School! I'll be interviewing at Cornell and UChicago later this month, but I think I'm liking Ann Arbor. I'm going to need to buy a car over the summer. My dream car would be a BMW 2002 or Volvo 140 series, but I won't have the money for that.

Russian music

2006-01-21T10:16:00.000-05:00

I joined this Russian website where you can download music at 10 cents a piece (you might know about this). I've already blown over 20 bucks in two days:

Sigur Ros' Agatis Byrjun
The Beatles' White Album
Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs
M.I.A.'s Arular
Kanye West's Late Registration
Cat Stevens' Classics Vol. 24
Devendra Banhart's Rejoicing in the Hands
Devendra Banhart's Nino Rojo
Deerhoof's The Runners Four
Antony and the Johnsons' I Am a Bird Now
DJ Shadow's Endtroducing...
Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney's Superwolf
Mando Diao's Hurricane Bar
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' Shake the Sheets
Primal Scream's Screamadelica
Pixies' Bossanova
Tom Waits' Blue Valentine
Broken Social Scene's Broken Social Scene
Six Organs of Admittance's For Octavio Paz
Calexico's Feast of Wire
Built to Spill's Perfect From Now On
Built to Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love
Bob Dylan's World Gone Wrong
Bob Dylan's Good As I Been To You
Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd's Animals

End of the year post

2005-12-31T21:08:00.000-05:00

This is the last post of the year. My favorite films of the year were Capote, The Best of Youth, Grizzly Man, and Oldboy, and my favorite albums were Separation Sunday and Illinois.

I've traveled more than usual this year, including Boston, NYC, Chicago, Minneapolis, DC, Richmond, Seattle, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. And I turned 21, which resulted in interesting, inebriated moments. So 2005 has been good in those respects, but here's to 2006 (because it means graduation). Happy New Year.

Army versus Navy

2005-12-05T09:32:00.000-05:00

Yeah, we lost to Navy in football. What a bummer.

Army versus Air Force

2005-11-06T20:36:00.000-05:00

Army beat Air Force in football. How glorious!

On lockers and library books? That's terrible.

2005-10-17T17:38:00.000-04:00

Things that I did this weekend:

Saw an Atmosphere rap show. Midwest rap! A fight almost broke out.
Ate pho, with a lot of chili sauce of course.
Listened to Mount Eerie perform in the dark (including sing-alongs), along with Thanksgiving and Cara Beth (she sounds like Regina Spektor) at a coffee house in Fordham.
Rocked out to Dungen, Swedish dance music, whilst drinking Brooklyn Lager. Before that, Mia Doi Todd did covers of Neil Young and Bob Dylan.
Watched Harakiri, an amazing, antihero samurai flick, at Walter Reade. Also saw The Squid and the Whale (semen on lockers and library books? that's terrible), 2046 (I don't get how anyone could resist Zhang Ziyi), Good Night, and Good Luck (Edward Murrow, such a man of character), and Grizzly Man (I kind of want to mutate into a bear, too--fuck civilization and the park service).

Phil Elverum and Tim O'Brien

2005-10-13T20:06:00.000-04:00

Seven New Songs by Phil Elverum
How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O'Brien

It's rainy outside

2005-09-26T21:40:00.000-04:00

I need to relax and get out to see some live music. It's been awhile. It's rainy outside.

If I die in a combat zone

2005-09-19T23:56:00.000-04:00

"He said I was a pansy. It's hard to argue, I suppose. I'm not just intellectually opposed to violence, I'm absolutely frightened by it. It's impossible to separate in my mind the gut fear from pure reason. I'm really afraid that all the hard, sober arguments I have against this war are nothing but an intellectual adjustment to my horror at the thought of bleeding to death in some rice paddy."

Brown corduroy

2005-09-12T22:19:00.000-04:00

I have a brown corduroy couch and a Seven Samurai poster in my room.

Jam packed

2005-05-22T17:26:00.000-04:00

This weekend was the best musical weekend that I have ever experienced. The Hold Steady at Bowery on Thursday, Andrew Bird at Knitting Factory on Friday, and Deerhoof at Northsix on Saturday. All super kinetic live shows. I heart New York City.

Crazy Mary

2005-05-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

Mary kissed me and we lost control
The oldest story never told
Crazy Mary you're forever divine
They'll never know the baby's mine

I heard this song on the radio and had to buy it, so I did on my first iTunes purchase ever. I've played it 25 times already (obsessive). The song is "Mary" which is on Lou Barlow's EMOH album.

Funny Ha Ha

2005-05-09T13:44:00.000-04:00

The Mountain Goats were at Northsix on Saturday. I don't have the set list, but my favorite song performance was "International Small Arms Traffic Blues." I saw someone recording it with his digital camera, so it might pop up on the Internet somewhere. John Darnielle was being backed up by electric guitars, cello, and drums on various songs, which was cool since his records are acoustic solo. Then on Sunday, I saw Funny Ha Ha. It was really a fantastic movie in many ways, but it didn't quite hold up in the end. Maybe if I watch it again, it will make more sense. Everyone keeps comparing it to Cassavetes, which makes me even more interested in buying some of those Cassavetes DVDs that I haven't gotten around to yet.

Chicago

2005-05-06T19:24:00.000-04:00

Pitchfork has a link to a new Sufjan Stevens track called "Chicago" from his upcoming Illinois album. Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again also has a track, "Come On, Feel the Illinoise."

Sweet Friggin' Daisies

2005-05-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

I found this short film starring Zooey Deschanel called Sweet Friggin' Daisies. It's pretty romantic.

Hitchhiker's guide

2005-05-01T17:51:00.000-04:00

I probably shouldn't have seen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so late last night because even after lots of coffee, I still couldn't stay awake to actually watch it. From what I did see though, Zooey Deschanel was cute and great as always.

Bob Dylan set list

2005-05-01T17:17:00.000-04:00

What a great show! I managed to get to New York City in time for Bob Dylan. I missed the opening acts though. This was last night's set list:

1. Maggie's Farm
2. To Ramona
3. Cry A While
4. Bye And Bye
5. Ballad Of Hollis Brown
6. If You See Her, Say Hello
7. Lenny Bruce
8. Honest With Me
9. The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
10. High Water (For Charley Patton)
11. I Shall Be Released
12. Highway 61 Revisited

encore
13. Po' Boy
14. All Along The Watchtower

Wolf Parade

2005-04-06T21:13:00.000-04:00

I am digging Wolf Parade. They're from Montreal. And they recently signed with Sub Pop.

Costa Rica, Nicaragua

2005-03-27T17:55:00.000-05:00

I have been back from Spring Break in Costa Rica and Nicaragua for a week now. I was there for a medical mission trip. I learned a lot, had fun, and met new people. I also drank a lot of beer. Anyway, two of the other seven premedical students on the trip were from the University of Georgia, so I had them listen to the Mountain Goats song "Going to Georgia," which has been on my most played list for the longest time. I have two big hands and a heart pumping blood...

Starlet

2005-03-08T22:20:00.000-05:00

I watched Starlet today, and I must admit that I am hooked. I really like Michelynne from Minneapolis. And speaking of Minneapolis, I have been streaming the new MPR radio station, 89.3 The Current.

Top five lists

2005-03-04T03:35:00.000-05:00

Movies: Seven Samurai, Rushmore, Stray Dog, Do the Right Thing, The Graduate.

Music: Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, Radiohead, Microphones.

Television (I don't have cable or satellite): Scrubs, Arrested Development, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Gilmore Girls.

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Clint Eastwood, Bill Murray, Marlon Brando, Jeff Bridges.

Actresses: Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Uma Thurman, Jennifer Connelly, Gwyneth Paltrow.

NYC hangouts: Fez, Bowery Ballroom, Joe's Pub, Southpaw, Tonic.

Med school choices: University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Loyola University, University of Minnesota.

On stretching

2005-02-28T17:58:00.000-05:00

Have you ever read one of those essays submitted by real students that are complete jokes? I just did a Power Point presentation on "stretching" in front of my fitness class (yes, I actually have to take a college-level fitness course) that was kind of like that. The whole slideshow was a bunch of pictures of people stretching that I found by Google image search. My favorite ones were photos from YogaForMoms.com and Jazzercise.com.

Academy awards

2005-02-27T20:39:00.000-05:00

I am rooting for Million Dollar Baby and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Bob Dylan on music

2005-02-26T13:09:00.000-05:00

"I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as the saviours of rock'n'roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't know where the music comes from," he wrote, adding, “I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me. Architecture would interest me. Something like that."

Smoosh on KCRW

2005-02-26T00:46:00.000-05:00

SMOOSH!!!!!

Biologia

2005-02-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

1. Viviparous
Animals that give birth to live young; the embryo is developed and nourished internally (human, horse, cat, some sharks)

2. Ovoviviparous
Animals that retain the fertilized eggs in their body until they hatch (guppies, mosquitofish, some reptiles)

Bob Dylan tickets

2005-02-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

I have Bob Dylan tickets!

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?

What a weekend in NYC

2005-02-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

So this weekend, I went to The Gates and The Met, saw Turtles Can Fly and Hotel Rwanda, and saw Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at Fez. The Gates were okay.

Top 100 albums

2005-02-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of 2000-04. Hooray for Radiohead (1, 21, 39), Sufjan Stevens (34), Wilco (11), Sonic Youth (70), Broken Social Scene (27), The Microphones (22), The Shins (47, 71), and The Fiery Furnaces (40).

Smoosh

2005-02-10T22:58:00.000-05:00

How adorable is Smoosh? It's amazing that they write their own songs so young.

Natalie Portman

2005-02-10T22:38:00.000-05:00

Archived radio

2005-02-09T22:12:00.000-05:00

Endless hours of archived radio:
KEXP (Seattle) and KCRW (Santa Monica).

Protein explorer

2005-02-06T16:13:00.000-05:00

For Biochemistry, I was experimenting with Protein Explorer which manipulates how you view the structure of proteins. This is helpful in relating protein structure to its function. Below is Cytochrome c.

If...

2005-02-01T23:05:00.000-05:00

If you're never sorry
Then you can't be forgiven
If you're not forgiven
Then you can't be forgotten
If you're not forgotten
Then you can live forever

Librarians rule the world

2005-02-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

library of congress classification
whups butt all over dewey decimal, man
and librarians rule the world

Weezer jam session

2005-01-24T21:44:00.000-05:00

Drum to the beat of two Weezer songs Buddy Holly and Photograph.

Top thirteen list

2005-01-23T23:40:00.000-05:00

This top thirteen list of my favorite 2004 film releases is relatively late. I just saw Million Dollar Baby last night and still plan to see The Aviator, Bad Education, Closer, and Hotel Rwanda.

Twilight Samurai, The (Yoji Yamada)
Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
Motorcycle Diaries, The (Walter Salles)
Sideways (Alexander Payne)
Garden State (Zach Braff)
Undertow (David Gordon Green)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring (Ki-duk Kim)
Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette)
Coffee and Cigarettes (Jim Jarmusch)
Door in the Floor, The (Todd Williams)
Maria Full of Grace (Joshua Marston)
Finding Neverland (Marc Foster)

More lists at Metacritic.

Arcade fire

2005-01-19T01:13:00.000-05:00

There's this great new Arcade Fire pop song that was played on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Evaporative light scattering detector

2005-01-18T21:54:00.000-05:00

"The evaporative light scattering detector allows direct detection of all non-volatile compounds regardless of their chemical structure, and therefore it is a valuable tool to determine compounds without chromophores. This detector can be coupled to liquid chromatography and packed supercritical fluid chromatography."

Friday night concert

2005-01-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

Mates of State and Regina Spektor are playing at Bowery Ballroom this Friday. I love them both. How awesome is that?

Power and energy

2005-01-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

"Whenever we talk about power and energy, I always like to see what's new with Joe Newman. For 30+ years, he's been on the 'brink' of bringing unlimited power and energy to the world. There's still time to get in on this world changing technology. . ."

http://www.josephnewman.com/

An introduction

2005-01-18T13:51:00.000-05:00

Five features of a Paramecium

Locomotion via cilia
Ingest via oral groove
Eliminates waste via anal pore
Two nuclei (micronucleus and macronucleus)
Reproduces by conjugation