so I'm awake at 4:40 am, after working from 6-1 at Ruby Tuesdays. The Germany - Serbia soccer game starts at 6 am, I believe. I've been having trouble falling asleep of late, anyway. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to watch Korea get stomped on by Argentina. I had hoped it would be closer than 4-1, and was even optimistic for a possible tie after seeing Korea dominate Greece.
I'm listening / watching videos by Pomplamoose on YouTube. check them out, it's amazing stuff. I have watched their videos for almost an hour just now.
I've been meaning to blog for a while now. I originally was just planning on making a travel blog for when I am abroad in Vienna this Fall, but I miss blogging so I think I'm going to make a serious blog beyond travel updates. I like to think of blogging as a kind of combination of journaling and storytelling. I am much more comfortable communicating through writing, too.
This is just me rambling at almost 5 in the morning, so I apologize if this first post isn't coherent. For whatever reason I want to be sure to remember my whole blogging philosophy that I've been thinking about, as well as how I picked this name. I'm very picky when it comes to naming things. For example I spent 3 hours online looking at names before I finally decided to name my violin 'Madeline.' And I won't lie, I would love to write a good blog. Like, one that people who don't know me read. So I kinda wanted to avoid any private jokes. That was easy, because I don't really have any. I love music and art and literature and poetry and philosophy. I'm just an amateur for the most part. I always feel like I should be more knowledgeable about music, since I am a music major. So I wanted it to be clear from the get-go what this blog will be about. I'll make posts about whatever I'm thinking about, and chances are it'll fall into one of those categories. But I plan on posting regular life updates and travel news, too. If I follow through, I hope it'll encompass all the major parts of my life for my friends' and perhaps random strangers' entertainment.
So that's my plan / philosophy. When I read something or listen to something, I'll try to write about it. If it's music I'll try to research the piece. I'm always hearing my friends talk about music they enjoy and they know exactly what's going on. "listen," they implore, "don't you love the way the brass come in here?" or they know that the emotional climax of the piece involves a suspension or some modulation or deceptive cadence. I wish I could just hear music and know the progression. I can't. I just feel it. I always thought the listening journals we did for Survey class were a good idea. And as for poetry, I hope to get back to writing some of my own. I haven't written anything since sophomore year of college. It's a long poem, and I meant to add another section or two. It was for a final (we had a choice of writing a poem or a final paper) so of course as soon as I turned it in I left it and focused on preparing for my juries or something.
As for the name, "Life, Arranged for Quartet," it just came to me one day. I wanted it to be clever, but not pretentious, which I hope it's not. I wanted it to be original, so not song lyrics or quotes. It had to be related to music, and quartets are my favorite genre (if I absolutely had to pick one). It was going to work out nicely as a blog about 4 things: music, philosophy, art / poetry, and life. But I think art and poetry can be separate and I have a reading list a mile long, so I might as well include that, too. But I stuck with Quartet because I so dearly love quartets. I can listen to Tchaikovsky (yes, he wrote one) and Borodin 2 all day (and I have). The "arranged" part just came to me one night. It sounded good, memorable, and not too pretentious. Cool.
I've been strongly influenced by comics the past year or two. A while ago I thought I'd try my hand at them (again. I drew comics when I was a kid) but nothing came of it, even though I asked for and got an electronic tablet for my birthday. I don't think I ever bought software, actually. Anyway, a comic or two might pop up from time to time, if I'm not too lazy.
Right now I spend far too much time reading comics. Almost as much time as I spend facebooking. The first comic I started reading was XKCD. A friend sent me this comic and I loved it, so I went back and read all of them, and I regularly check for new comics. I have a bit of an addictive personality. Next, I started reading Questionable Content. I also read Girls With Slingshots, Dr. McNinja, Sam and Fuzzy, VG Cats, Explosm, and last week I just read all of Sore Thumbs. I used to read Qwantz (Dinosaur Comics) but haven't recently. Those are my favorites, and I'm scared of looking up new ones for fear that my life will be overrun by comics. There are a LOT of good comics out there. Besides online comics, I've always LOVED Calvin and Hobbes. I also love Dilbert, Foxtrot, Get Fuzzy, Baby Blues, Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, Close to Home, and The Far Side.
Finally, while it's not comics, I think Hyperbole and a Half is hysterical. Speaking of which there's a new post. BRB. Okay, I'm back. Also, the Germany - Serbia game is starting soon. Shoot.
Thank God I don't have work tomorrow. I'm going to try to watch the Germany - Serbia and the US - Slovenia games. I've tried to watch back to back games before, and I have always fallen asleep during the 2nd game, since the first game is usually on at 6 am. The last time I slept was during the Greece - Nigeria game at 9 (after watching the Korea - Argentina game, case in point) until I had to get up for work around 5. If I'm not careful I'm just going to turn nocturnal. That's not good. Anyway, game time. I'll try to post something that's not about my own blog soon.
~ Austin
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