"The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place" running diary, again

Something that I've done for the past two Augusts is blog while listening to my favorite album in the entire world, Explosions in the Sky's The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. I've enjoyed doing this twice from Stonehill, but for one reason or another, I can no longer experience this album from a New Hall suite. Although that's kind of the point of doing this not once, but twice before, right?

First Breath After Coma
0:37. I remember once comparing the beginning of this song to the beginning of a play. The second guitar to come in is synonymous with the lead role's first lines. This sense of "Okay, we can move on now" kind of deal. And then another guitar, and some drums/cymbals, and we're off.

2:28. Or maybe it was here that I thought represented the opening lines of the lead...hm...

3:19. For anyone familiar with my favorite poem in the entire world, "The Journey" by Mary Oliver, this is what makes me think about stars burning through sheets of clouds.

5:33. If there's ever an opportunity for me to ask an infinite number of questions to EITS, one of my first will be how they come up with song titles, and whether or not they have a story in mind when composing their songs. I know that they've said that the vast majority of their albums and songs were written with the intent to be played live, but there still seems to be a storytelling aspect behind it. Or perhaps, I want there to be one, so I try to create my own version of the story.

8:11. And there's the feedback. One minute, seven seconds of buildup.

9:18. The release.

The Only Moment We Were Alone
0:40. I've actually been able to learn most of this on piano this summer, which has been incredible. It's a little tough to transcribe three guitars into two hands on one piano, but it sounds close enough to the song, which is all I'm going for. For those who have enough knowledge of this song, I tend to stop playing right before the giant crash. Just seems to heighten the anticipation of it when I leave the piano a note short.

3:50. This is the fun part on piano; all of the guitars flow really well together and it's difficult to create the same feeling on piano, but then it gets into it soon enough.

4:52. Another stars-burning-through-sheets-of-clouds moment. A careful violence. I'm starting to fall in love with the phrase "musical chaos," and this seems like an appropriate place to cite an example of it.

6:32. Perhaps a better example of musical chaos, especially at 6:55. This part is super fun to play on piano, and super fun to watch EITS perform live. You can tell how into it they are at this point, and there's a quick release before another buildup.

7:52. I never fail to try and count the beats (two measures of six) during the silences. I never get there the same time as the music, which always bugs me a little. I'm usually slower than the song.

Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
0:55. I feel into a rut for a while (and still may be in it) where I only really felt the need to listen to the first two songs on the album and call it a day, and was thisclose to doing it again here. But I persist.

2:31. If there's any part of the song that gets me out of that rut, it's this one. Might not be on stars-burning level, but as I mentioned in the second post doing this, the guitars fighting right against each other is perfect. It's something you have to listen for if you're familiar with the song.

3:54. For the first time listening to this song, from which the title references the sinking of a boat, I thought about people just floating around the depths of the ocean. Seriously, first time. Think of it like liquid particles slowly moving around.

5:55. Particles fighting for their life, scratching and grabbing hold of anything they can get their hands on.

7:17. It's actually not eighth notes here, it's the two guitars playing off one another, a cross-beat.

Memorial
0:08. If you pay close attention to the first note, and carry it as the beginning moves along, you can hear a pulse. It took me forever to pick up on it because, well, it's one note, but listen for it and see if you can pick it out. It's really cool.

2:12. I've always been a fan of the bass here, but haven't mentioned it, so, I'm a fan of the bass here.

3:50. Having seen Explosions in the Sky live once before, this would top my list of songs-they-didn't-play-when-I-saw-them-but-would-want-them-to-play-the-second-time. Hopefully I have a catchier title for this list before the next time I see them.

5:26. FYI, their only scheduled show on their website is October 4 in Sacramento. Needless to say I'll wait until they're a little closer. Although I did think about it a month ago.

7:21. And, go. Aside from the end of The Only Moment, this is the most violent part of the album. Love it.

Your Hand In Mine
0:41. I almost want to leave this song alone. By which I mean listen to it, but keep my words short of the ends of my fingertips. For whatever reason, that just feels right in this moment.

4:38. The tremolo, the drums...if there's any part of this album that makes me think of stars burning through the sheets of clouds, it's this part. A perfect, innocent, take-my-hand-and-run that doesn't come close to lasting long enough.

7:43. One final note, fading away into forever.

So that's that. A quick 45 minutes, but one always worth taking. As usual, thanks for reading along and listening. No grand gestures or imploring you to find greater meaning in anything this time around. Same music, but different context and different emotions. Hope you enjoyed.

Summer's end

Well, it's official, the best four years of my life are over.

Alright, so maybe I'm being a little facetious, but it is true that August 27 will mark the four-year anniversary of me moving into Stonehill as a tiny freshman. Tomorrow will also be the first day of classes for those currently at Stonehill, which seems to be a nice parallel, despite it being essentially due to chance. It's weird to think that it's actually been four years. I was back at Stonehill yesterday for the first time since graduating, to speak to some seniors about networking that I did through Career Services, and all that jazz. It was fun to talk to people whose position I was in a year ago, it was fun to see a bunch of familiar faces and talk with people that I hadn't seen in a while.

Our New Hall suite, but not really.

For me, being back at the place that I considered a home, it was really weird to walk around campus. The buildings were the same, the grass was the same; nothing had changed besides the color of the bridge between New Hall and the Science Center, and yet, it didn't really feel like home. The exact same place had (and will continue to have) an entirely different meaning. Walking around campus, I realized that I couldn't really go anywhere - I couldn't walk into New Hall to my suite and be home, couldn't sit down at a table in the cafe and grab food, couldn't really do any of that stuff. It was awesome to be back and to see old friends who still have some time left at Stonehill, but it was definitely strange to be there in an entirely new context. As a fellow alum that I ran into said, we have the rest of our lives to be good at being Stonehill alumni. I wonder if I'll be as comfortable in four years as a Stonehill alum that I was in four years as a Stonehill student. (Aside: This is why I blog. Because in four years, I'm going to be able to come back to this post and see if this actually holds up.)

So those are some thoughts in relation to being back at Stonehill for a few hours. What's weird about the real world is that summer doesn't really end, because summer never really started. My life is no longer broken down in semesters, and I no longer keep track of months based on school. Which is great, but also sad in a sense. So here's to you, summer-that-didn't-really-exist 2014. See you next year.

10 super awesome covers

For those who remember all the way back to my tenth blog post, I threw down some songs that were really good covers. Some 413 blog posts later, I've decided to do it again. Without the help of Pandora, here are ten more covers that are fantastic. All opinions of this post are solely mine, and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else. But that's the point of music, isn't it?

1. Bon Iver - I Can't Make You Love Me. Absolutely brilliant song, and the Justin Vernon falsetto is the perfect complement to the piano. Favorite part is 37 seconds in with the piano. One-hundred percent my favorite piano move ever.

2. My Body is a Cage - Peter Gabriel. Sure, I know of this song because it was in a House episode, but the sheer darkness of this song makes it so incredible. Lots of emotional power in this cover.

3. Call Me the Breeze - Eric Clapton. This song, originally by J.J. Cale, has been covered by lots and lots of different folks, by my favorite has to go to Clapton. This is a song that I could listen to for an entire day on repeat and not get tired of it.

4. The Boxer - Mumford & Sons. Love the move by M&S to have Paul Simon on their cover of the Simon & Garfunkel song, and I think they're the perfect band to cover this kind of song, albeit with their own, Mumford-y spin on it.

5. Mad World - Gary Jules. These next two songs are stripped-down versions of 80's songs, and if there's anything that I'm a huge fan of, it's stripped-down music. There just seems to be a certain focus to it that's really appealing.

6. Love Vigilantes - Iron & Wine. What's so perfect about stripped-down music is that it really gets to the core of what the song is about. Listen to either of the originals either here or above, and the 80's-style music seems to shield some of the true tones of the song.

7. Is This Love - Allen Stone. This song is just filled with grooviness, and is certainly a different take than the one Bob Marley had in mind 30 years ago. Definitely one of those songs that is better live, and there are few places better than Bonaroo to perform it. Here's the link to watch it on YouTube.

8. Happy - John Butler Trio. THIS SONG. I actually watched this video for the first time right now, and WOW. The things that John Butler does with music is unfair. I don't need any more words.

9. Ring of Fire - Social Distortion. Johnny Cash's original version of this song may be one of the most well-known songs ever, but this cover kicks serious ass. Completely different kind of style of music, but just as awesome.

10. 99 Problems - Hugo. Mhm. This rocks. Also makes me want to mash up "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" in there, so I'm hoping that someone goes out there and creates this wonderful cover-slash-mashup concoction. Until then, this cover will suffice.

Fortune cookies

I'm rolling my eyes at the fact that I've had two blog posts in the month of August, especially considering that they came within four hours of each other, one of them being a list of music videos. I have a theory that the existence of Twitter (rather, the fact that I exist on Twitter) has been the driving force behind the evolution of my blog. Take this post, for example. This is definitely something that I would put on Twitter instead of my blog. Same goes for this post, and one more, for good measure. Non-coincidentally, all three of these posts were before I actually had a Twitter, so I think there's some merit to this theory. All of the things I can briefly say, I say in 140 characters or less, so the stuff that's more thought-driven and needs a little more elaboration becomes the main focus of what you read about here.

So, let's reverse that trend. Here are five thoughts, none of which have been prepared prior to this blog post, which always makes things more exciting. The catch is that they all have to be fewer than 140 characters. Think of it as five mini blog posts wrapped into one.

• I've done nothing all weekend besides watch The Office, play piano, and think about how I haven't done anything all weekend.
• As many nice things we say about people after they leave us, we need to say just as many before.
• There's a difference between enjoying a day off, and sitting around waiting for something to happen.
• I only just decided to call this post "Fortune cookies," but I don't think it's that good of a title.
• Thought Catalog would be a lot more interesting if I didn't end up reading the same post written by ten different people.

I was thinking something about movies the other day. The reason that we (or at least I) think that certain movies are good is because we can connect with them. We listen to certain songs because they strike a certain chord (no pun intended) within us, and read particular books because they bring about specific emotions. This is the self-actualization that Maslow created; the need to connect with something deeper. I've spent a lot of time searching for those connections, and have spent a lot of time trying to offer some here. I can only hope that at least one person has connected with something here.

Fear itself

So I just watched an incredible TED talk about fears and storytelling. The main idea is to think of your fears as stories - vivid, imaginative descriptions that keep us awake at night. There are lots of fears, big and small, but the most important thing I took away that I want to talk about is preparing for these fears to come true. There's an emotional component of fear that makes it one of the strongest motivators for humans. I've always maintained that fear and hope are respectively the most salient negative and positive emotional motivators. To prepare for fears to come true strips away some of the emotional gravity of fears, and twists it in a more cool-headed, scientific fashion.

The key is that these fears need to be specific and vivid in description. It can't be something as simple as a fear of spiders or a fear of not doing well in school. The fear doesn't come about because of spiders; it comes about from the potential of the spider, from the stories we construe in our imaginations. We dream up all of the resulting events from failing in school, and that is the fear. So prepare for these fears to become true. An easy one is a fear of death. That one's totally coming true, and what's great about that is that we have our entire lives to prepare for death. The beautiful contrast in this is that we prepare for the fear of death by living, and making it one great life. Have a plan in place in case your fears come true - in the meantime, live in opposition to the fear. If you have a fear of losing someone close to you, then understand what that will feel like. Envision your life without that person, and how it will be different. By making the fear real as a story, we trick our minds into being just a little less afraid of it, and a little more ready for it when the time comes for it to become true.

So take some time to think specifically about your fears and what they mean. Imagine the story that unfolds as a result of your fear - make it real in your mind and in your life, and live in opposition to it. Don't necessarily avoid the fear, because that won't help. Acknowledge it, and let it go. Life will be easier.

10 songs to discover

Think about your favorite bands for a second, and their best-known songs. I'm sure they're good (that is, you think they're good), but I have a feeling that there's more pride in enjoying some of the band's lesser-known stuff. I could be totally off the mark with this, but screw it, this is my blog. So here are ten songs that you might have never heard of, by some of my favorite bands. As a rule, none of these songs can be in Spotify's listing of the band's ten popular songs. Hope you enjoy!

1. Politik - Coldplay

2. Aurora - Foo Fighters

3. The River - Imagine Dragons

4. Teachers - Young the Giant

5. Calgary - Bon Iver

6. Hold On To What You Believe - Mumford & Sons

7. I'd Do Anything - John Butler Trio

8. Grey Street - Dave Matthews Band

9. Open Up Your Eyes - Daughtry

10. So Long, Lonsesome - Explosions In The Sky

(What, you didn't actually think I'd leave out Explosions In The Sky, did you?)

7 things we learned at the MLB trade deadline

What a trade deadline it has been in 2014, as several blockbuster deals were made just before 4:00pm today. Many players changed teams, and there is plenty to talk about. Here are seven things that we learned from this year's trade deadline.

1. The 2014 Stephen Drew reunion tour was a failure. But we kind of already knew this, right? Drew was signed by the Red Sox after turning down a $14 million qualifying offer at the start of spring training, and after being signed by nobody in Major League Baseball. He came back to Boston for $10 million, hit .176 over 39 games, and was traded for Kelly Johnson. Excellent move by the Red Sox to recognize that it was a terrible move to bring Drew back to the team in the first place.

2. Billy Beane is all-in for 2014. The most notable Red Sox player traded at the deadline was ace Jon Lester, the subject of many trade talks in recent weeks. He was dealt with hero Jonny Gomes to Oakland for Yoenis Cespedes, a move that doesn't fit the Moneyball scheme of the Athletics' front office. It was a move that set up Oakland's playoff rotation, which can be any permutation of Lester, Jeff Samardzija, Scott Kazmir, and Sonny Gray. It would have made Oakland favorites in the AL if not for...

3. The Detroit Tigers acquiring David Price makes their pitching staff lethal. If you thought facing Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez, and Doug Fister in the 2013 ALCS was tough, feel sorrier for whoever will have to face David Price amongst the first three names on that list this postseason. Detroit now owns the past three AL Cy Young Winners (Scherzer, Price, Verlander) and made a move that was essentially made in response to Oakland beefing up their staff.

Sonny Gray after 8 shutout innings in a 1-0, Game 2 victory.

4. The best rivalry in the American League is... Detroit and Oakland? Hear me out here. These two have squared off in the ALDS in each of the past two seasons, with both series going to Detroit in the maximum five games. One of the ten games was decided by more than three runs, and these two are shaping up for an epic seven-game series in October this postseason. Any of the matchups between the pitchers has the billing to be a main event including a Game 4 matchup between Justin Verlander and Sonny Gray, the latter of whom threw eight shutout innings against the Tigers last postseason. More, please!

5. The Red Sox will lead the MLB in runs scored and runs allowed in 2015. The Boston lineup could look like this in 2015: Jackie Bradley Jr., Dustin Pedroia, Allen Craig, David Ortiz, Yoenis Cespedes, Mike Napoli, Xander Bogaerts, Will Middlebrooks, Christian Vazquez. Talk about a giant part of the order, featuring four players who could conceivably end up with 100 RBI if healthy for an entire year. Then again, the Red Sox traded away four of their five Opening Day pitchers, so they'll need to score runs to win games next season.

6. Last season really was an aberration. I talked about the magic of 2013 and how it's been gone this year, and then the Red Sox went 9-5 immediately after I posted that. Since I tweeted remarking that the Red Sox went 9-5, they've gone 1-8. So much for wishful thinking that I jinxed it...regardless, it's clear that the Red Sox cashed in their chips and are stockpiling for 2015. And I think that the Boston fan base is smart enough to recognize this, which should make Ben Cherington's life a little less stressful in August and September.

7. You shouldn't be buying any t-shirts anytime soon. If there's one thing that this trade deadline has taught us, it's that you can't trust that one player will remain on a team for his entire career. Too much happens in the business world of sports where it's become a rarity for one player to stay with one franchise. Lester, Price, and Cespedes were all cornerstones of their respective franchises, and they changed hands within an hour of each other. It will take some getting used to, but when all was said and done, the 2014 trade deadline became one of the most memorable in recent time. Here's to the last two months of the regular season, plus what is shaping up to be one exciting October, even if the hometown team ends up not being a part of it. Another shoutout to the new players arriving in Boston, and a huge thank you to the ones departing. (Yes, even you, Stephen Drew.) Thanks for everything and hopefully we'll see some of you back soon.

5 awesome psychological studies

I was talking with someone today and explaining my roots in math and psychology, and explained that while I had always been better in math, psychology had always been way more fun, because of its applicable nature. As badass as math is, psych comes across as a little more relatable, so with that, here are five of my favorite psychological studies, in no particular order.

1. Cutting people in line (Ellen Langer). This study is the crux of why psychology can get you far in life. Langer simply asked to cut people in line to make copies, and about 60% complied. When she mentioned that she was in a rush, this number jumped to 94%. However, when she asked to cut in line because she needed to make copies, this number was still above 90%. The simple existence of the word "because" is pretty important.

2. Asch's conformity study (Solomon Asch). While the article may not be the best-written, it has some useful bits of information and a handy video. Participants were in a room with a number of other people, who all claimed the single line on the right to be line B, when in fact it is clearly line C. Thirty-two percent of participants conformed, but what's telling here is the reason they did so. The majority of the 32% believed privately that line C was in fact correct, but did not want to appear in disagreement from their peers.

3. A class divided (Jane Elliott). While this study wasn't conducted in a lab setting, it's a pretty unsettling experiment nonetheless. During the days of segregation, Elliott walked into her classroom and told her students that blue-eyed children were superior. The children quickly bought into this idea of the blue-eyed people being the better people and all it took was one authority figure telling them so. Check out the beginning of this video to see the true power of this study.

4. Change blindness. One of the coolest parts about psychology is that you never think that you'll fall victim to what you're seeing other people consistently do. Try this one - you're giving someone directions, and two people holding a large painting get in your way. Would you notice if there was a different person jumping in the conversation? Watch this video and see what happens.

5. The Milgram experiment (Stanley Milgram). This might be the most famous psychological experiment, and once again goes to show how much obedience to authority, even subtle, subconscious hints of it. Participants were told that they were the "teacher" in an experiment involving another human as the "learner," who would repeat lists of words back and would be shocked by the teacher (the participant) if any mistakes were made. Now, no one was actually shocked in this experiment, but the participants didn't know that. Not only did 65% of participants shock what they believed to be was another human to lethal levels in response to the experimenter, but these results held strong across variations of the experiment. There were distinct differences between the attire of the authority figure (white lab coat vs. regular street clothes), the building setup (Yale academic building vs. an old warehouse), proximity of the learner and the authority figure (out vs. in the same room)...lots of variations that make for some very powerful results. Shocking, even.

Here's why we (don't) exist

Alright, so I'm starting this blog post off with a rather imposing question...what is it that makes us exist? A few blog posts ago, I dropped a line that said "technology, like anything in life, exists in relation to its functionality." What I meant by that is that if we really didn't use technology at all, then it doesn't really have a purpose. Are we any different as humans? There are some 1.3 billion people in China, and that's just a statistic for me - I don't know any of those 1.3 billion people, what they're doing, who they are, or anything about them. Go ahead and tell me they exist, but prove it by doing anything short of flying them to Massachusetts or getting them on Skype.

This is true closer to home, as well. I can all but assume that the people in the house next to ours are alive, possibly sleeping, and will wake up tomorrow morning. But I'm not there, I'm not them, so I really have no idea of knowing. Do they exist? You're likely going to assume yes and furthermore that I'm out of my mind, but even as you read this, I may not even have a mind to be in or out of!

So, if all that we can't experience doesn't exist, then it would logically follow that if we experience something, then it exists. I'm typing away on my laptop with a lamp on and a fan running, so those all exist. I'm laying on a bed and have a pillow under my arms, so they exist too. Everything exists in relation to its functionality.

Which seems to be the great paradox of life. If we're experiencing it, then we exist and all of this matters. Once we're not experiencing it, then we don't exist, and none of it matters because we're not even around to acknowledge that we don't exist. Which is the scariest part about death for me, that we may not even be able to know whether or not there's anything after. If there's nothing, then there's nothing, but if there's nothing, we won't know. 'Dead' isn't a term, 'afterlife' isn't a possibility, there's just nothing, but even then, 'nothing' isn't even a thing either. Crazy, huh?

Acrobat

My eyes dart around the train, music pulsing into my ears.
Seated comfortably, my eyes pause at
Every pair they see.
Two in the finance section of the Globe.
Another ten that are locked onto the screen of an iPhone or Kindle.
At least six that are closed. About a dozen concealed behind glasses.

What do the eyes wait for?
The next update of a news feed, or perhaps
Another round of Words with Friends?
Only a few eyes stare out the windows,
Taking in the universe at sixty miles per hour.

Mine remain fixed on another pair,
Briefly,
Until they escape somewhere else
So as not to be taken the wrong way.

But for a moment,
We were connected.
Two sets of eyes
Creating an invisible tightrope,
Perfectly parallel to the heavens and the earth.

How I wish to be an acrobat,
Dancing along the wire
Between the eyes.
A balancing act, situated
In the middle of the human connection.