Anthony "Tony" Paul Hafen, in Memoriam

My maternal grandfather passed away on Wednesday, December 21st. He was 80 years old. Here is the obituary. I am glad that we were able to see him briefly when we passed through St. George last summer on our way into the great northwest.

Grandpa was an outdoorsman and a military man, so naturally, most of my memories with him are tied to fishing and shooting guns. In later years, when we would visit, mostly we would just watch movies and talk. My favorite memory of Grandpa is when we spent Christmas with him and Grandpa "Buttons" the year Shaunie and I were married. He read a very colorful version of "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and all of us were in stitches. Grandpa was funny, charismatic, and was an expert at using a well placed swear word. He was a tough man and usually we wouldn't say "I love you" to each other but once at the end of a phone call I inadvertently did do. His response reveals much about his character, in his southern Utah accent he said, "Well I love you too. Hell, I love all you little farts". I think he was referring to all of his grand kids and great grand kids.

I have vague memories of going to his house when I was younger. He had a VCR and we could watch movies on his TV. That was rare at the time. He used to drive truck long haul and I remember meeting him at a truck stop somewhere just to say "hello" briefly. The first time Shaunie stayed at his house with me, when we left he said, "Now I want you to know that I've been on my best behavior and I haven't cussed the whole time you were here." He was on his best behavior. When Evelyn was a baby he didn't want to hold her because he was afraid that we would drop her. He enjoyed seeing the kids grow up and warm up to him enough to give him a hug and kiss before we would leave.

Grandpa and Grandma Hafen divorced when I was too young to remember, but he later married a wonderful woman named Beulah, and she insisted that we call her Grandma "Buttons". After Grandpa and Buttons married he mellowed out quite a bit. It was always nice to visit them, they were both very kind and loving, grandpa in his own way. He had a hat tree in his basement and all of the hats he collected while driving tuck proudly hung on the hat tree, including my favorite, a yellow one with a large, fake, poo on the brim. He had several old rifles hanging in his basement, my Dad and brother Dan helped hang much of the drywall in that basement. His home felt like a home to us and we felt welcome there. When we saw him last summer he had been sick for nearly a year and he and Buttons were both tired. He advised me to do what I could to avoid getting old. We only stayed for a bit because we didn't want to wear them out. It is strange to write about him in the past tense, he's always been there. Despite the fact that I've had relatives die before, I continue to believe that they will go on living forever, and that they will always be there, offering us a bed to sleep in, asking us if we'd like to stay a bit longer, giving us reassuring hugs when we we leave. I love my Grandpa Hafen and I will miss him. The world is a less funny place because of his absence.

I'm pretty sure that I would be able to conquer the academic world....

...if my mustache were half the mustache of Nietzsche's 'stache.

Bacon vs. Bacon

In philosophy class tonight a fellow student brought up Deleuze's book on Francis Bacon. For the rest of class the professor would say things such as, "...as is the case with the Bacon...".

While is was clear that he was talking about this:                I couldn't stop thinking about this:

Hello Seahorse!

Hello Seahorse! is a pop/rock group out of Mexico City. I guess they've been around since 2005 but they are new to me. They aren't allowing their YouTube video for the song "Bestia" to be embedded, so check it out here and chime in to let me know what you think.

Saxophone Superstar Sergio Flores is Above the Law

Translation and Progeny as Repetition: "Al hijo"

No soy yo quien te engendra. Son los muertos.

Son mi padre, su padre y sus mayores;

son los que un largo dédalo de amores

trazaron desde Adán y los desiertos

de Caín y de Abel, en una aurora

tan antigua que ya es mitología,

y llegan, sangre y médula, a este día

del porvenir, en que te engendro ahora.

Siento su multitud. Somos nosotros

y, entre nosotros, tú y los venideros

hijos que has de engendrar. Los postrimeros

y los del rojo Adán. Soy esos otros,

también. La eternidad está en las cosas

del tiempo, que son formas presurosas.

-Jorge Luis Borges

El hacedor, 1960

It is not I who begets you. It is the dead.

My father, his father and their ancestors;

those who have traced a long labyrinth

of loves from Adam and the deserts

of Cain and of Abel, in an aurora

so ancient that is is now mythology,

they arrive, blood and marrow, this day

of the future, in which I now beget you.

I feel their multitude. We are they

and among us, you and those yet born

whom you shall beget. The last ones

and those of red Adam. I am these others,

also. Eternity is in this things of time,

which are fleeting forms.

(translation my own)

Carbon Fiber Daydreams

Perspective

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.


"We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth. The fact that just form the distance of the Moon you can put your thumb up and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb. Everything that you've ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself-all behind your thumb. And how insignificant we really all are, but then how fortunate we are to have this body and to able to enjoy loving here amongst the beauty of the Earth itself."

-Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 & 13, interview for the 2007 film The Shadow of the Moon


"When you're finally up at the moon  looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you're going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people."

-Frank Borman, Apollo 8, Newsweek, Dec. 23 1968

"That's not a toaster, that's a deadly weapon!"

Beard Slap

El gran piramde de Cholula: An exercise in ruins

What at first appears to be a cathedral prominently standing atop a large hill is really an exercise in ruins, the ruins of what was at one time the largest pyramid in the world.

While this particular pyramid isn't the subject of my study, these are the beginnings of my dissertation. In an e-mail to a friend I described it in this way:

Mexico in/as Ruins in 20th Century Mexican Poetry and Narrative. The title is a bit broad, but in one chapter I want to look at earlier manifestations of Mexico as ruins. In Octavio Paz and Pacheco, the poetry of the 40-60's often returns to the metaphor of ruins to describe the political or social situation of the country. But there is also an element of time as flux, the past is creeping back into the present, the wrongs of the past that we thought were buried are coming back to haunt us. That may transition into the next chapter which would look at Rulfo and maybe another dude named Tario who, when everyone else is concerned about the nation and a "national" literature, are writing about ghosts and ghost towns. That is their critique of the national project and the govt. and reforms that came out of the revolution. There could also be a contemporary novel included here, because at the turn of the century, it went back to that era and explored how the polished facade of what the nation and the city were, was really just that. That Mexico City was populated by corpses, drug addicts, prostitutes, etc.

Finally the last chapter may be an ecocritical reading of the poetic response to the 1985 quake that literally made a ruin out of Mexico City. I think this topic will allow me to use, as a point of comparison, theory on time, ghosts, and repetition (the stuff I like) while not looking beyond the make and replacing the text with theory.

This project may be derailed or radically changed due to my recent discovery that this book exists. But I hope not. Today I was reading about the building of the Catedral Metroploitana in Mexico City and looking for a good text that I can use in a term paper. In the term paper I want to address that the cathedral (or at least its predecessor which was built by Cortés) was built with stones from the Temlpo Mayor of Tenochtitlan and how the two  buildings are, in a way, one and the same while not being the self-same. If I am understanding my readings this quarter, that means they are an instance of the Deleuzian notion of repetition. But I can't tell you that I am understanding Deleuze well, if at all. That has been a source of frustration and maybe I shouldn't have taken these Deleuze courses this quarter. Regardless, I am excited to get working on my PhD reading list/dissertation list. I am beginning to see light shining through the edges of the jungle.

Útil y muy ameno vocabulario para entender a los mexicanos

I might have to get me one of these. Especially since, as the subtitle indicates, "incluye muchos chilanguismos."

A Love Song for Academia (that's capital A!)

Some weeks the Chicago song "You're the Inspiration" could accurately describe my feelings toward Academia. I think in that scenario I'm the guy on the left with the glasses and his shirt half-way open singing the song to academia. I'm not just singing, I'm playin' the keyboards and rocking my late 70's early 80's man-bangs. Because DANG, "You're the beating of my heart, you're the inspiraaaaaaaaation". I even sometimes have a Karate Kid II moment and want to comfort academia by singing to it that "I am the man who will fight for your honor...!!!!!"

However, there are some weeks where I feel more like the Chicago song "Hard to say I'm Sorry" better describes how I feel about the field that I (¿unwisely?) chose. I mean, check these lyrics out, don't some of you feel the same way every other week?

"Everybody needs a little time away, I heard her say, from each oooooooooother. Even lovers need a holiday, far away from each ooooooooother!" Hold me know, it's hard for me to say I'm sorry. I just want you to stay. After all that we've been through, I will make it up to you, I promise you."

I don't know if the "her" in this song is academia telling me it needs a holiday from me, or if I'm the her telling academia that we need some time "far away from each oooooooooother!" But either way, I don't know of any other song that captures the love-hate relationship many of us have with academia. Regardless, it's obvious that we need a break. At least that's how I feel today. In the mean time, dig some sweet tunes from Chicago.

me grading midterms at my office on a friday night

"Rachmaninoff on a Wednesday Night" or "A Self-Absorbed Remembrance on Rachmaninoff"

This post could be extremely long, but I'll give you the short version. Part of the reason I want to be a university professor is so that when I'm older and I don't have to worry about tenure, I can, again, take trumpet lessons and continue to learn other languages (read, Russian). I love Russian classical music. I used to want to travel to Russia to hear the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra (still do). When I was an aspiring musician I used to spend long hours by myself listening to the Russians (didn't have many friends, still don't). In the music library at the community college I would try to listen to albums while looking at a score of the piece I was listening to so that I could see how they made a certain sound, or how a particularly moving chord progression was put together. Of all the Russian composers, Shostakovich is my favorite and Rachmaninoff is a very close second. Rachmaninoff wrote a well known piece called Vocalise (Op. 34, No. 14); if memory serves right, it was written as a vocal exercise with piano accompaniment. When I was in junior college my trumpet teacher gave me the sheet music for Rachmaninoff's exercise arranged for Trumpet and piano. I loved playing that piece but I was always challenged by my (lack of) range, I didn't know how to support the higher register and push the air through so the long build up to the notes above the staff was difficult. I was also 6' tall and weighed in at 135 lbs, so I may not have had enough muscle to push as much air through as I needed (though that is just an apologists rereading of history). Regardless, I loved playing Vocalise. Now that Shaunie has a nice digital Claviona and I have a decent trumpet (and I think I've learned how to move the air better) eventually we will get around to playing Rachmaninoff together. I assure you that it won't sound as good as this performance by Vadim Novikov (who better than a Russian trumpet player with a rich, dark tone to play Rachmaninoff?), but we will be making music none the less.

This is hilarious

Philosophy 216

If you ever think it might be a good idea to take a graduate course in philosophy, it's probably not. Especially if your job is to read and analyze literature. In that case you will likely be extremely confused (unless you are a certain group of literary scholars I know, all three of which went to Cornell). Not only are the ideas discussed in the class confusing, but the very terminology and the method used to discuss those ideas are perplexing. This is me on the Tuesday evening of my wedding anniversary. If I would have been smart and not gone to grad school, I could be taking my wife out to dinner right now instead of sitting here feeling confused during the break of my philosophy course. The moral of the story? Don't go to grad school, take your wife to dinner instead.

Ben: 0 - Philosophy: 1

The best eight years...

Copyright Diane Brinkerhoff Photography

Happy Anniversary to my best freind the love of my life! Mushy, mushy, xoxo, etc.

Beyond 1984...but still kind of in 1984

Sean Connery as Zed, wearing a bizarre costume that
seems to be inspired by the campesino dress of the
Mexican Revolution (there is a definite connection
there that you'll notice if you watch the trailer). 

Some of you may remember that on my/our now defunct film blog I once posted a trailer for what has to be one of the ten worst movies ever made, a 1974 John Boorman film called Zardoz. Starring in this monstrosity of a film is none other than James Bond, er Indiana Jones's dad, er Captain Ramius...I mean Sir Sean Connery. In case you missed it, here it is (I apologize in advance).

So why the horrible return of the repressed? Because I found this and I wish it were real, because I would totally get my game on for this:

California's Gold

See Four seasons in Yosemite

Brian Wilson takes you inside the Mind of his Beard

"It's quiet now and what it brings is everything..."

This morning I learned that if it's 5am and I've been up all night practicing German and reading Deleuze and Guattari, it's a good idea to listen to R.E.M. Should you find yourself  in these, or similar circumstances, I recommend this song, or this one. I only wish I could sing along without disturbing my wife and kids who are upstairs, sound asleep, dreaming in rhizomatic shades of fall...

© R.E.M. "Daysleeper"

...I told you, forever
I love you, forever
I told you, I love you
I love you, forever
I told you, forever
You never, you never
You told me forever...

Bomba Estéreo Take Away Show in Bogotá

Visuals & Editing by Vincent Moon

Sound & Mixing by Andres Velasquez

Produced by Vincent Moon & Simon Mejia

José Emilio Pacheco en un momento Borgeano

"El libro"
Lo compré hace muchos años. Pospuse la lectura para un momento que no llegó jamás. Moriré sin haberlo leído. Y en sus páginas estaban el secreto y la clave.

"The Book"
I bought it many years ago. I put off reading it for a moment that never arrived. I will die without having read it. And in its pages were the secret and the key. (translation my own)

...noise...

One year in 120 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

Adventures in Iconoclasm: Episode I

"The name's Lacan, JACQUES Lacan."

"Since psychoanalysis is of no help, reducing as it does every social manifestation of desire to the familial complex, where is one to turn?" -Mark Seem. "Introduction." Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. xviii.

Gone fishin'

We took the kids fishing this morning at a family fishing spot, Rowland Pond, outside McCall. It took some time to get set up and once the poles were cast Jillian could be heard asking questions such as "When is the fish gonna eat the worm?" or "Can I reel it in now?" Evelyn was very patient and when she got a pole cast she sat pretty still waiting for the fish to nibble. Poor Gordon just wanted to reel the thing in constantly and he made a mess of at least to reels before he went home to take a nap. Maybe next year kid.

Jillian caught her first fish on a pole that Grandpa had cast and he let her reel it in. It's a small rainbow trout and it happened to be tagged by ID Fish and Game. Jill wasn't afraid to hold the worms or take a picture with her fish.

About an hour later Evelyn also caught her first fish on a pole grandpa cast (thanks grandpa). She was startled by her wriggling fishy just as I took this photo, so I figured it would be best to hold the line for her.

 Just as we snapped the photo my brother-in-law let me know that my pole had a fish. It was a real beauty too, about 9 inches or so...well it was a kids pond (no teasing Tyler). After we caught our fish we went and looked at other fishing spots around the pond but instead we found a huge swarm of mosquitoes that wanted to eat us. After that the girls decided it would be more fun to go home and get some food. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Cluff for helping the girls catch their first fish!

My Favorite "Bdessert"

A few years back Shaunie tried out a dessert recipe (or, if you are one of my kids, bdessert) that she found in a cooking magazine. It's called Éclair Torte and, as you can see in this photo, it is incredible.

Every time we're invited to a dessert party we bring this and the reaction is always very positive. It's become my favorite dessert and I request it every year for birthday rather than have a cake or a pie (yes, birthday pie, it's an incredible thing!).

Mmmmmmmm, don't you want to eat your computer screen right now? In case you want to try it sometime, here's the recipe:

Éclair Torte                           Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients: 1 cup water, ½ cup butter (or margarine), ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 cup flour, 4 eggs, 1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese, 2 3.4oz pkgs vanilla pudding, 3 cups milk, chocolate syrup, 1 container cool whip.

Bring 1 cup water, ½ cup butter, and ¼ tsp. salt to a boil in a saucepan (you can substitute margarine if desired). Add 1 cup flour, stir until smooth. Add 4 eggs, on at a time, beat well after each addition. Spread into greased 13x9 pan bake @ 400º for 30-35 min. until puffed & golden brown. Cool puff completely. In a mixing bowl mix 2 pkgs (3.4 oz. each) of vanilla pudding and 3 cups cold milk until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat 1 8oz. pkg. of cream cheese until very smooth. Slowly add the pudding to the cream cheese while stirring.  Spread over puff. Refrigerate for 20 min. Spread cool whip on top. Drizzle with chocolate syrup.

Almost there

It seems like I'm always almost somewhere. Almost done with a bike ride, a term paper, a quiz, a tutoring job, cleaning up after the kids for the 37th time in a day, etc. Sometimes I think there is a real danger in never arriving and when I think about it much, I want to drop out of school and get a job already... seriously, this is ridiculous. At the same time I see people around me finishing and getting jobs. It is possible. But even when (if) I "finish" school and get a job (hopefully) I won't be finished. Whether I stick with the PhD program or not, there will always be something else that needs to be done, dishes will need washing, my body will need to be exercised, I will have to grade more papers, prepare another class, get milk, wash the toilet, Death Stars will need to be exploded, etc. It seems we are perpetually in a state of "almost there". I just hope that whenever finishing time comes, whatever that may be, I'm not still "almost there."

La fuerza telúrica 2.0

Watch this fullscreen in HD

The Arctic Light from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

Oops...sorry Costa Rica.

O-SPAN Classic: CIA Accidentally Overthrows Costa Rica

"Sudden Light" Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

In the prologue to this book...

...Borges cites this poem. I rather like it.                                                Sudden Light

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before –
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall, – I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time’s eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death’s despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

Bed Time

Recently because some changes in our schedule, I've had the opportunity to put the kids to bed all by my lonesome a couple nights each week. In the process I've been reminded just how much I love bed time. When we just had the girls, each of us was in charge of getting a little girl in her jammies after a visit to the potty and some tooth brushing, it was pretty easy. Then the boy came along and bedtime has been pretty chaotic ever since. He's just old enough now that he's starting to calm down at bed time.

The first step in our routine is to finish dinner, clear the plates and table. Then the kids go upstairs and take a potty break and get their jammies on. They come downstairs with a story they want to read and when that's done we read scriptures and pray. Of course there are variations and sometimes for the sake of time and/or sanity we have to call an audible and skip one ore more steps (except potty, potty is of paramount importance).

Our oldest is less than a week away from finishing kindergarten and she's reading like a pro. She enjoys poetry and tonight she read me three of her favorite poems from this E.E. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh collection:

They are just about right for her level but they also provide some challenging vocabulary. Sometimes she wants to read so much at bedtime that we let her read us a scripture story from the illustrated scripture books in place of reading right from the scriptures.

The middle child, our youngest girl, loves to draw. She's usually content with one story as long as she can draw for a bit afterward. Some nights, however, she wants two or three stories, which isn't a problem as long as they are short.

Then there is monkey boy. While I am tucking in the girls he often hangs from my body in various awkward manners. It's a miracle he doesn't have more bruises and bumps. They are all very sweet children and they love to give hugs and kisses. They also will often include a "bones" (fist bump), a "high-five", and a "heads" (a gentle bump on the forehead with their forehead) with their hugs and kisses, and they have to do the same routine to each family member.

When the lights go out we sing two or three songs. Since they were babies I've always sang either "Silent Night" or "What a Wonderful World". There's always some primary songs from church thrown in as well. Once they are tucked in, the girls usually will ask us questions regarding the nature of the universe or related to something else they learned:

Girl 2: Dad, how far is California?
Me: We're in California. We live in California.
Girl 2: Is Costco in California too?
Me: Yes. California is a state and it's a big part of our country.
Girl 1: I know what our country is, it's the Unites States of America.
Me: You're right.
Girl 2: But when we go to see our Uncle Dan is thaaaat California?
Me: Yep, California is a big place.
Girl 2: When we went camping was that California?
Me: Yep, even the beach is in California.
Girl 2: Whaaaaaaaaat!?

The little boy usually asks for one more song. Lately our oldest has continued singing to him after we shut the door. I love my kids and bed time is a great time to show them how much I love them, I think they get it.

"Is there anything I can do to improve my grade?"

If you're a teacher, you've heard this question before. Here is a little video that I will show to my students every quarter/semester for the rest of my life. I will tell them that if they ever engage me in a conversation that resembles this one at any point, I will never talk to them again.

Signs and Murmurs

I like to think that if the eponymous figure from Juan Rulfo's masterpiece Pedro Páramo spoke English and played in a British Indie Rock band, "Signs" by Bloc Party might be one of the songs he would sing to Susana San Juan. (Note, this one sounds great if you turn up the volume and let the synth envelope you).

Two ravens in the old oak tree, one for you and one for me

Bluebells in the late December, I see signs now all the time

The last time we slept together, there was something that was not there

You never wanted to alarm me but I’m the one that’s drowning now

I could sleep forever these days because in my dreams I see you again
But this time fleshed out fuller face in your confirmation dress
It was so like you to visit me to let me know you were ok
It was so like you visit me, always worrying about someone else

At your funeral I was so upset, so upset,
in your life you were larger than this
statuesque

I see signs now all the time that your not dead your sleeping
I believe in anything that brings you back home to me