At The Mountains of Madness

So what have I been up to for the past few days? Settling in at home seems to be the running theme. It's nice to relax. I'm glad I made the decision to stay home as long as I did. Yes, I do miss out on the Amalfi coast outside of Naples with all the rest of the crew, but I couldn't see myself coming back home for Easter and then making an about-face turnaround and return to Europe and non-stop vacation traveling. The pace is much slower here and that is a nice change from the fast pace that I have been going at recently. Also it is nice to be home in New Jersey and back in all my old prowlings.

I'll elaborate more what I have been doing at home. Met up some Regians: always tons of fun doing that. I had always thought NYC was an expensive town, but now that I returned this time around my perceptions have changed. I was able to get a massive sushi lunch (about 8 sushi pieces and 2 rolls plus miso soup and a Kiran beer) for $10. And then there was a great bar on St Mark's Place which had happy hour $3 beers. If I tried to do this in London, both by converting into dollars and staying in Pound Sterling prices, I probably would starve and lose a few belt sizes (actually I think I have already done that).

I was going to bore you with the Regian fare we did that night in the city (I assure you, Regians would only find it enjoyable and relish doing it) but instead I will answer something that hs probably been on your mind for a while: what the hell is that weird thing in the picture on the side of the blog? The title of this post explains where it is from: HP Lovecraft's novella "At The Mountains of Madness". Those are the aliens that are discovered by the haplessly ignorant Antarctic explorers before they realize the dreadful significance of their discovery--brrrrr! I get chills thinking about the story: the dramatic irony is killer. I have some omnibus volumes of HP Lovecraft's work and I have been making my way through them. I have been reading this volume since I got back stateside and have been reading them at 3AM in my basement all along. And then embarrassing to say, I get slightly scared. Which is completely ridiculous because it is a fictional story. But hear me out first!!! The narrators in all these stories philosophically seem to resemble me: intelligent, learned, highly educated, rationalist, well-versed in the Classics, traditionalist, and skeptical. So these narrators start the story being completely incredulous and then as the story progresses, more and more of a mountain of evidence lands on them showing them their conception of knowledge and the world is entirely wrong. Supernatural (or as it may be beyond our meager abilities of scientific knowledge) malevolent forces suddenly become apparent and the narrator nearly loses his sanity at the impending doom of humanity and the Earth that this discovery entails. Examples: quintillion year old ancient alien beings that created life on on Earth here by accident and still remain hidden away in the wilderness and secret underground cities maintain contact with groups of individuals in occult and witchcraft groups who continue to do the bidding of their evil masters, preserve the dark arts, and prepare the world for the future return and domination of these evil beings. I guess what makes it so believably scary is that Lovecraft writes these stories with the narrator's voice first appearing skeptical and Lovecraft also tries to make the science and events in the stories so believable and realistic that when the "fictional" happens, you feel like you have discovered some great secret horror that should have been left unturned and forgotten.

So yes. I finish a short story like such at 3 in the morning alone in my basement, all quiet and motionless. So then I realize I am being stupid for staying up so late and decide to go to bed finally. But I need to get to my room first. So I make my way through the dark cautiously, turning around multiple times even though I hear nothing. I sort of start when I see something weird in front of me which ends up being a stray piece of furniture. And of course we have a good amount of windows in our house. So when I go by a large set, like in the kitchen or living room, I make sure I am facing the windows and keep my back to the room or turn on lights and quickly dart through! Haha I know this must sound ridiculous, but stuff like this always used to scare me when I was little and I guess to a certain extent it still does. But there is hope: I only seem to get this way after I finish reading Lovecraft, so if I stop doing that, I should be fine then!

"It's Been A Long Long Time, Hasn't It?"

Wow.


I let this go without an update for an entire month? I think the recent Georgetown loss to Daivdson in the NCAA tournament was the catalyst for me to write here (we didn't even make Sweet 16 goddamn!) Hmmm, I almost don't even know where to begin with this.

I guess I will try to be short and sweet and give quick summations.

So my last post saw me scrambling to go off to see Amsterdam. Really nice quaint city. The rumors of decadence, debauchery, prostitution, and drugs is highly exaggerated. It really is only confined to the Red Light District, and even then, I didn't think it was so bad. Hell, I even managed to get coffee from an Amsterdam coffee shop, can you believe that? I think every single Dutch person we met spoke very very good English. Example: while we were trying to find an authentic Dutch restaurant (seems like it almost doesn't exist: Argentine steakhouses are another matter all together) we asked in a butcher's shop and the attendant behind the counter said, in response to us asking if she spoke English, "I don't speak English very well, but I'll try my best" Understatement! We went around and saw the Van Gogh Museum which would have been good except other museums had his best pieces and so the namesake museum was at a bit of a disadvantage. I saw the Night Watch and I was psyched because there is a song about it by the band King Crimson. There is a lyric from that song that I thought was very fitting: "Dutch Respectability" Indeed the Dutch seem like a very kind, helpful, intelligent, industrious people and I think Amsterdam has gotten an unfair seediness ascribed to it. So in sum, yes we did find a Dutch restaurant eventually. And yes, there are tons and tons of bicycles: it seems to be the preferred method of travel.

On March 1st I saw the play "Speed the Plow" by David Mamet with Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey. It was really a lot of fun and their acting was superb. Their chemistry was really good and it went from one moment to the next seamlessly and effortlessly. If this was in the States or in New York City, it would have gotten a tony or something. I really think plays are much superior in London. But NYC has the upper hand on musicals, definitely.

So after Jess and I arrived back, then the spring break D6ers came and we went to our usual Indian restaurant on Brick Lane, Monsoon. That night I went to sleep feeling a little weird and then it started: Gastric flu. For most of the week I was not only sick and out of commission, but sitting on a toilet as well. I'll leave out the gory details: it was not pleasant to put it lightly. To add more to tragedy, Jess seemed to contract a few days later an even worse version of the virus that affected her even more and she ended up having to go to the hospital. I was worried for her--and for our Eurostar train reservations to Paris. But I swear, I was entirely concerned about her health!

In the throes of illness Jess braved with me to see The Zombies in concert for the 40th anniversary of their magnum opus Odessey and Oracle. The concert was awesome. They played the entire album plus other hits like She's Not There, Tell Her No, I Love You, and a cover of Sticks and Stones. Plus they played the Argent song "Hold Your Head Up" Plus they had 4 of the original members (one passed away) and Colin Blunstone, the lead singer, played 3 songs from his first solo LP which had a string quartet on stage. Awesome! I bought that album as soon as I got back home to the States and I love it. A really great find. And people ask me why I always keep searching for more and more music: to find a great beautiful song that I would have missed otherwise. I could rattle off a huge list of fantastic songs that I found that never get any radio airplay and only because I kept on casting my net, I found them. Back to the concert, I was impressed that they hauled out some brass players and yes, a mellotron!!! to completely reenact the album. Chris White impressed me because he sort of looks nerdy with his glasses and out of shape middle aged, but he still could play and sing really well AND he wrote half the Odessey & Oracle album. Impressive. It was a really great concert and I'll always remember it

By the final week of our term, everyone had recovered and we were doing our last bit of work to finish up for term. However more tragedy was on its way: my external hard drive died :-( I think the internal disc is still intact but I have tried without any luck to recover the data. Hopefully going to a company won't cost me too much. 450 gigabytes of music. Damn. Hah and Daniel was nice enough to call it "karmic justice" Thanks!

Now that everyone was recovered, Jess and I did our one day Paris trip. We got a French breakfast special in a cafe right next to Gare du Nord. Then we hopped on a yellow line tour bus which gave us a tour of the main sites of the city AND a way to get around all day (as you can hop on and offa s much as you want). We saw all the main sites plus went around the Musee d'Orsay which is incredible (both for the impressionist art contained within as well as for the architecture as it used to be a train station and is decorated as such) We went to Notre Dame, by Les Champs-Elysees (Jess- dah-duhduhdah yes you do! haha), L'Arc de Triomphe, Ivalides, Trocadero, but we didn't really want to stop at Le Tour Eiffel, and finally we ended in Montmartre by Sacre-Coeur. There we walked around, saw art, and had crepes. I was a little bummed that we didn't see Pere Lachaise cemetery with Jim Morrison's grave but maybe I'll save that for next time when I have kids....or not...

That night we met up with Reed, who is studying at Science Po, for dinner but we didn't watch our time as we ate away. So we went back to the Metro (which oddly runs on rubber tires and not rails!) but the train seemed to be a long time away and we were worried we would miss the train so we went up to get a taxi. I don't know how but there were no free cabs to stop for us: it was horrible luck. Jess and I got to Gare du Nord running to the train at 9:10PM (it left at 9:13) but the staff was standing around and said we had missed the train. I guess the looks of utter dejection we had on our faces plus the downcast nature of my pleas to figure out how to get out of the city brought us sympathy from the staff and they allowed us to exchange our tickets for the first train out of Paris the next day. So we went back to Reed's dorm and stayed there. I set my alarm on my mobile to wake up for 4:50AM so we had enough time to exchange the tickets and get through security. Then before we went to sleep there was an argument over a mat and where certain parts of us sat on it in relation to each other. I won't go into details. So in the middle of the night, I wke up as my arm had fallen asleep and I look at the time and I see it is 530AM!!! My phone was still on London time which was an hour behind! So we scrambled and got on the RER and God only knows how we did it, but we made the train. I think Jess said multiple times "Jared, we're not doing this again when we travel" Ooops! :-X But in sum, it was ridiculously fun and fast paced and we saw everything we wanted to. Never a dull moment when Jess and I travel. I wonder what is in store for us for our 2 week Central European odyssey in April...

So then that day I flew home and the next I was off to Georgetown for a long weekend. It was good to be back on the Hilltop and it will be nice to be back there for Senior year. And now I'm relaxing at home, in a position to be able to this long overdue blog post. Coming up will be more news on what I am doing this break and if reality and stuff I need to do over on this side of the pond has caught up with me yet. I'll try to be more timely in the future. My apologies. Though I have no idea who reads this anymore.

Quick Assessment of the Strategic Situation

Apologies if I said this already: not living if you're not living on the edge.

Hehe yes it is apt: tons of fun and plenty going on over here in London. So here is a quick recap of some things that have happened and will happen before I head home for Easter. JP dragged me along to the ULU (University of London Union) Rifle Club's range day at a shooting range at Blackfriars. You would never think in such a place with such strict gun control they would allow rifles, much less a rifle range in a city like London. It's very sketchy to get to because you need to walk downstairs to the Embankment and then open up this old gate and everything looks rundown, like where homeless people live (actually homeless people or as they call them here rough sleepers, live here, so the description is apt) and you go down these dark stairs and it is all dirty. Finally you get to the bottom with a door, ring a buzzer, a metal peephole opens and they let you in. After you get in you see they have a metal bar across the door and a 25 (or 50, I forget) yard firing range. It really looks like a holdout for a zombie apocalypse. We fire .22 caliber rifles at paper targets. Lots of fun. Really my only chance to to the ever really, so I plan on coming here as much as I can. It is a little pricey to join the club but the money I see it as going to protect gun rights so why not fight the fascists here in Britain.

I went to a bar called PJ's that Adam found with the very idiosyncratic bartender called Tony who is actually an Algerian. This time around we met this guy named Yussef who works for the BBC. Really neat guy. Besides, Tony makes damn good a Old Fashioned and Margarita! We'll see how often I head back.

This weekend there is an Isle of Wight "meeting" (or should I say party) at Ben's house at the end of the 188 Bus. Kate Davey is here before the onslaught of D6 in a week or two. I have to laundry very soon because--I'm going to Amsterdam with Jess this week! We plan on having a good time, no worries. Then on March 1st I see a play at the famous Old Vic called Speed the Plow with Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey. I wonder if I should shout out weird quotations from movies like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension to Goldblum. We'll see. Then there is the Muse opening party (I got something published! w00t!) then my last essay for LatAm and any course this year. A Toqueville Society event with Rick Santorum speaking. Then try to make it to Paris for a day trip (leave really really early, like 5AM!) and then I leave for home.

Sorry for the rushed end, as things come up they will be described in detail. Because now I need to have lunch before I head off shooting at Blackfriars so see you later. Ciao!

Spring in February and Updates

Well, I would think it was spring from the unseasonably warm weather here, but it is still February. However it is nearly the end of February and I will be home less than two weeks into March. And Michael came to stay for nearly a week but it seemed like I barely saw him, gave him the unconventional non-touristy tour of London, and then he left. Time flies indeed.

So yes, I survived almost two straight weeks of visitors, though I got a little run down over the course of it. Suprisingly/luckily, work hasn't built up, in fact I am still on schedule. Odd. I did get more of my London explorations out of the way with my parents and Mike. Kensington and Abbey Road to be more specific. I still need someone to go with me to the Tower of London. I'm sure I'll find someone.

Today I went back to Abbey Road, but didn't walk across the famed street. Why? Because 20 other people were doing it, nearly getting hit by cars and I didn't want to feel like a stereotypical tourist. Oh well. Haha at least I walked up to the open door and tried to get into Abbey Road!! Alas it was locked though.

Then I explored the "northern" (relatively) area of London from St Pancras/King's Cross/Euston to Regent's Park to Baker Street to Edgware/Marylebone to Paddington. I wanted to see The Kingsway Hotel where I stayed 13 years ago, but I only took note of the street and not the address and little did I know the whole street is filled with hotels and it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Ugh, I guess I have to try again, but luckily the 7 bus runs from near my dorm so it should be easy to get to. I wish I used these buses earlier, they really are convenient and get you to places where you would normally have to transfer and get held up with if you used the tube. So I have a few museums/sites to see, but besides those I only have a few neighborhoods left to hit. I want to see Holborn Aqueduct again and see how it all connects. That was one big mind-fuck when I figured that all out and I need to revisit it and take it all in. Barbican/Farringdon is another (though if it is bad, I won't stay long). Maida Vale, Cricklewood, Willesden Green, and Turnham Green: all you music fans will know the songs these places are associated with. When I saw these names I almost fell out of my chair. It's nice to be able to put two and two together finally. I might see some places where album/band photo shots were taken. Kew Gardens and other parks I want to hit as well. Primrose Hill right north of Regent's Park was amazing and as JP and I concurred, we are going back for a picnic and bringing people.

Seems like no rado show again this week :-( I'll let you know if that changes. So much music to play, so little time to play it in....I have enough time to see the rest of what I want in London, right? hehe we'll see

Parental Units and A Supreme Court Justice

So, in this hectic week my parents and aunt and uncle came to visit me in London. While they were settling in however, I managed to sneak away to see Associate Justice Antonin Scalia give a lecture at LSE. The main point of his speech was how judges should not be activist, not try to legislate from the bench, not inject their values into their rulings, and not think of the Constitution as a living document. He thought judges should also defer to the democratic process on what should and shouldn't be legal. This all seemed to conflict in my head with the Libertarian values that I hold. So how do inherent individual rights hold up in this?

I got up some courage (no liquid courage needed) and asked him since the 14th and 15th amendments were passed in the 1860s and Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 affirmed the "separate but equal" doctrine, then wasn't Brown v Board of Education in 1954 an activist ruling going against almost 100 years of precedent? I was a little nervous in speaking (I wonder if it showed), understandably because I was speaking directly to the highest government official I have ever seen in person. He laughed and said I was one of those people who he gets every speech that waves "the bloody red shirt of Brown!" He then proceeded to answer my question. The second half made sense: one example does not make a trend or justify judicial activism all the time. Fair enough and good point: 1 good decision due to activism doesn't outweigh if there are 100 bad ones. Yet his first part of the answer was complete bullshit. He said if he were on the Supreme Court in Brown, he would have voted with the majority decision because he would have agreed with the dissenting opinion of Justice John Marshall Harlan in Plessy. But you can't get a precedent from the minority dissenting opinion!!! After he finished, I heard another voice ask about stare decisis. And sure enough I recognized that voice: backup from Kris Rodgers, a classmate from high school! He heard my question and was trying to further prod Scalia. God I love Regians. Afterwards, Rodgers and I both agreed a dissenting opinion is not stare decisis, so we have no idea of Scalia makes himself sleep at night with that. In retrospect, since he thinks that rights and law descend from the democratic process, I should have asked him what he thinks about the 9th Amendment. Oh well, for next time!

His views sort of alarmed me looking back on the speech afterwards. Scalia said shouldn't put values into jurisprudence, (I agree: last thing I need is a judge saying you have a right to a car or a TV or some other socialist corruption of the meaning of rights) but I think libertarian values are inherently contained in the Constitution and Scalia's strict reading misses a good deal of value structure built into the constitution. I like Scalia and agree with a lot of what he said. Somehow this came to my mind, that people view me as a conservative (the implications of supporting Scalia brought this up in my mind). But Riddle me this, Joker! If I'm conservative would I be the following:
-anti-Patriot act
-pro-gay marriage (well more like anti-state-sponsored-marriage, go to the church of your choice, leave marriage to church, civil unions to state) [Marriage is a semantics game, anyway because a civil union is just a marriage that isn't called that. And also, the standards of marriage have evolved and differed between the church and state like marriages between different races. More about how state institutionalized marriage is contrived here)
-pro-drug legalization
-pro-immigration
-pro-pollution/Pigouvian taxation (but only for replacing others, like income tax)
-anti-draft in the militaru
-pro-normalization with Cuba (it would actually hasten the end of regime if we weren't so damn stubborn)
-pro-privacy rights
-Anti-Guantanamo Bay, torture, and terrorism laws

So yes, since I support the above, am I conservative? Is that what makes a person what he is? Or is it more of how you carry yourself than how you align politically? Maybe this is just more reason why labels are completely empty and meaningless.

The Republicans in turmoil and my family in London was a microcosm of the Republican implosion. My Aunt and Uncle don't want McCain; Janel said she would go Democrat even for Hillary in the November election and was for socialized health care. My uncle just seemed unsure or unimpressed. Dad went for his guts and voted McCain, My mom went with Romney. So yes, that was the introduction to my parents and aunt/uncle's 5 day stay in London. I was really busy going around with them to see some sites, but we went to less stereotypical places because all of us had been to London before and we wanted to catch the stuff on the periphery that we had missed. It is difficult when adults don't run on college time: I would meet up with them at 9 in the morning and go around all day until 11 at night...and then not go to sleep until later. So yes it got very tiring very quickly, especially because we were always constantly in motion going around London. It was good to see them, even though I will be back in a month. I think my parents and aunt/uncle enjoyed it. They were impressed with my navigation skills around the city. They must think I have become a true native: in a way, I have.

Progress; And So It Begins

So this past weekend, I took a walk into the East End of London and The City. I walked from the Temple Tube Stop, all the way along Fleet/Ludgate Hill/Cannon/Tower Hill Street(s) to the Tower of London, then up to Spittalfields which unfortunately was closed, took a bus along the northern edge of The City along Holborn Aqueduct, and went to the parks up by Russell Square. And I think I got all this done in under 4 hours! So now, here are my final areas left to hit:

-Barbican/Farringdon neighborhoods and other various things west of Liverpool Street
-the King's Cross-St Pancras/Euston/Regent's Park/Baker St Axis (this could be one nice long day walk that I might even be able to make it to Edgware and Paddington.
-Maida Vale and Kew Gardens and other parks that I am missing on the outskirts of the city

Maybe I'll hit some of this places with Mike (221B Baker St is a must-see) and my parents. So now I am on to attempting work before the onslaught of visitors and merrymakers arrive.

In other news, one day I went into kitchen and got dinner from my row in the fridge. After I paused for a second thinking about how my row looked, I sat down to eat and my flatmate came in to make dinner herself. When she opened the fridge, she said she was missing two yogurts. Then I realized why I paused as well and went back to the fridge and saw that I was missing yogurt too! Then another flatmate came in and he noticed someone had stolen a whole pack from him! We sort of guessed the reason: our flat door has been open because the flat across from us had their shower completely gutted and they had to use ours. We all figured out when one of them came over to shower (it had been earlier that day) they took our yogurt back! Now we are looking for a yogurt-eating kleptomaniac in Flat E....but to add insult to injury I woke up this morning to find our flat's shower had been completely gutted too and now we would have to use another flat's shower. Completely lame...although now maybe we can launch a counter-attack and rescue operation on their kitchen for our missing yogurts...

Another Month In & Musical Geekiness

Wow again I am surprised that a month has gone by so quickly and in a few days my parents aunt/uncle and Mikey Lavilla will be here in London. And then even more fun continues. Somehow I am going to crack down on all the work before visitors arrive (God knows how) and in all of this I am going on an epic walk through London again. I hit the West End and Westminster last time. Now I am going to head east. We'll see where fate and fortune bring me.

This past Monday, I had an extra long Radio show because the DJ before me asked me to fill in for him: of course I obliged. Jess I think summed up the spirit of my show best: "'It's about mud killing people in a medieval totalitarian society...but I'm not really sure' is what I heard when I tuned into your show. You achieve nerd status more thoroughly than I can ever hope to." Yes, I got really pretentious doing a 2 hour long show focusing on progressive rock. Oops!

But this coming Monday will be a good show: I have a special theme planned that I think people will like...this may even be one of my more accessible shows for the unwashed masses!

To add to my musical nerdiness, I would like to talk about some discoveries I made. First, the band called Tangerine Dream: amazing ambient/electronic music from the 70s/80s. Really, this is some great stuff. People ask me why I have so much music and keep constantly trawling for more. Tangerine Dream and a conversation I had with a friend in NYC sum it up the best. What if there was the perfect song out there, but you never found? Some of the stuff I have found and loved, if I hadn't been adventurous I would have never come across. There are so many great diamonds in the rough (some from stuff even out of print on CD!!) that I could fill up pages. So my search continues and I find music like Tangerine Dream that blows my mind.

Another musical discovery, which may give a hint for the theme of the show this Monday. I always said my favorite rock instrument is the mellotron (want to know what songs contain it?) but now I found something awesome: the first sampler/synthesizer known as the Fairlight CMI. Not cheap (it cost £25,000 when first realized in 1980) it really was hard to come by. But musicians like Peter Gabriel (Shock the Monkey was made from 60 different pieces strung together on the Farilight [Download here and make a free log in name in order to remix "Shock the Monkey" yourself!) and Tears for Fears and producers like Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes (of The Buggles and "Video Killed The Radio Star" fame) made it very very popular. It was very unique in that it had a light wand and DOS computer screen on which, the you could draw the sound waves and the decays of the sounds. It also had a massive (at the time) sample library. Here are some samples that you may recognize hearing in songs. And of course songs, which once you realize were made with the Fairlight CMI, you will never forget its distinctive sound.

So yes, thank you for taking my musical odyssey detour. See you next blog post!