SST: Somebody Come and Play

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

This morning I am headed over to Amy J.'s place to hang out with her dog Jin. It seems he has been a little lonely and bored since his owner hopped across the Atlantic, and thinking of him stuck in his apartment made me think of this song and these sad organutans:



I'm back in Ann Arbor now, so if somebody wants to come and play, gimme a call!

SST: The Wonderful World of T-Shirts

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

I would like to thank my aunt Barbara for sending me my new Sesame Street t-shirt, as seen in the picture on the left (taken with my mom on Mother's Day). It features Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, Bert, Ernie, and the Cookie Monster and says "I Was Raised on the Street." She wrote a little card with it and said that she saw it in the store and couldn't help but buy it for me. So thanks Barbara, you really nailed it. Sometimes it can be hard to get just the right t-shirt:



In retrospect, this sketch was probably my introduction to anagrams, one of my favorite pastimes. However, the anagram seed planted by Sesame Street would lay dormant until I was a little older and I saw the movie Sneakers with the scene where they rearrange Scrabble tiles ("Seatac Astronomy" -> "No More Secrets," which isn't a real anagram - I bet they didn't think people were actually going pull out their Scrabble tiles and try it out). My greatest anagram creation to date is my legendary all-anagram version of the hymn "Hark All Ye Nations" (a.k.a. "Y'all Ski on an Earth"), containing the line, "O, how glorious from the throne above!" which becomes "O, the glamorous bovine hoof thrower!"

Wishing you a great Sesame Street Tuesday,
Brian David Tanner (a.k.a. "Invade Barn, Darn it!" or "Rent DVD in Arabian")

Spring Road Trip Part II: Westward Ho!

The second leg of my road trip began when my dad and I left my sister Emily's house in Minnesota and headed west (along on I-90 for most of the way), arriving in Utah three days later. The highlights:

• In the first few hours of driving we stopped at a rest area in Blue Earth, Minnesota and got a tip from a local that we should go check out the Jolly Green Giant statue. Definitely worth fifteen minutes.

• Poor South Dakota doesn't seem to have a lot going on, so they have to conjure up tourist traps every fifty miles or so to get people to stop. We decided to fall into a few of the traps, including the world's only Corn Palace, a Taj Mahal-style building with ambitious corncob murals installed every year (we saw big posters saying that former American Idol David Cook was going to play the Corn Palace - that's a sign that he's really made it!) and Wall Drug, the world's largest gift shop.

• We stopped to take a few short hikes in the South Dakota Badlands, probably my favorite activity on the trip. The Badlands look a lot like the canyons and rock formations in southern Utah, except instead of red rock the Badlands are a desolate grey, but in an awe-inspiring way.

• We stopped at Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, which are both impressive and grand. We also took a short tour of nearby Jewel Cave, the second longest cave in the world.

• In Wyoming we saw Devil's Tower from a distance, took a spectacular drive through the Big Horn mountains at sunset, and took a dip in the natural hot springs in Thermopolis.

Overall I thought it was a great trip because we mixed in some big mainstream sites with other stuff that was a little off the beaten path. And it was fun to get to spend some alone time with my dad since it had been a while since we'd done anything like that together.

But my time in Utah has come to an end and I'm hitting the road to go back to Ann Arbor tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for more road adventures...

P.S. - Happy Mother's Day!

Spring Road Trip Part I: Minnesota

The first stop on my road trip from Ann Arbor to Bountiful was St. Michael, Minnesota, home of my sister Emily and her fam. Their oldest son Braden's baptism was that weekend, so my parents were up in Minnesota for that as well. Here are some highlights of the visit:

• While the kids were at school, Emily and I went off and had a little Minneapolis adventure together, visiting both the Como Zoo and the Mall of America. It was so fun to be able to spend some one on one time with Em, without the distraction of three spirited boys swarming around us (not that I don't love 'em).

• The baptism itself was a great experience, made even more special by Braden's request that I perform a musical number with him. We sang "I am a Child of God," and I was shocked when Braden volunteered to sing the first verse all by himself. I wouldn't have been brave enough to do that as an eight-year-old, and he acquitted himself nicely.

• I'm usually really nervous about ATV-type toys, but my brother-in-law Brad took me out in his Polaris RZR, which has seatbelts and other protective features that make me feel like I wouldn't fly off it and end up in the hospital, and it was fun.

• I got a chance to have some fun time with my nephews, including a very successful screening of "My Neighbor Totoro" (I wasn't sure how it would go over, but they demanded an encore performance the next day), playing football in the backyard, and going to a kindergarten music concert.

Overall, I thought it was a great visit (except for the part where the toilet overflowed - that wasn't so cool), and from there I hopped in the car with my dad to embark on the second part of the road trip.

To be continued...

SST: M-OM

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

Happy upcoming Mother's Day, Mom!



Don't you think that the Two-Headed Monster's mom looks like she could be Telly's mom? Could it be that Telly and the Two-Headed Monster are estranged brothers?

P.S. - I finally updated my dream blog. Check out "The Yolks of Wrath!"

Late Entry for National Poetry Month

April was National Poetry Month, a fact that was trumpeted loudly by my friend Brady, who issued a challenge to write poetry and post it, a challenge that a surprising number of my friends accepted. I'm not normally a poetry-writing kind of guy and I wasn't planning on posting anything, but then I remembered this strange little writing project I did when I was in high school. I was writing a paper on a notable historical figure (at that time the logical figure for me to choose was Bob Dylan) and as I worked on the paper, from time to time I would use the thesaurus tool in Word. As I played with the thesaurus a little bit, I found it fascinating that if you ran a word through it enough times, you would end up with something completely different and random.

So just for fun I went through entire sections of my Bob Dylan report and ran every word through the thesaurus several dozen times, adding some auxiliary words and punctuation so it would be a little bit more readable. I then divided it into three increasingly brief volumes (the third volume has but one sentence), and then attributed the whole thing to my newly minted pen name, "Jeremiah Trumeau." [The Jeremiah Trumeau is a sculpture depicting the prophet Jeremiah carved into a trumeau (central doorway column) at the medieval Cloisters of the Abbaye St-Pierre de Moissac, a popular pilgrimage site in Southern France. I had just studied the sculpture in my AP Art History Class.]

I hadn't read through this in about ten years because the only copy I had was on a 3-1/2" floppy disk back at my parents' house. Now that I am back I dug it out and read through it. Man, this is some pretty trippy stuff. It reminds me of sentences generated in the word game Exquisite Corpse, invented by the Surrealists in the 1920s. This may or may not qualify as poetry, but I thought I would use the occasion of National Poetry Month to unleash it on the world. I hope we can still be friends after you read it ;)

[Note: To keep this post from being too unwieldy, I've cut out about half of the original text.]

Surreal Poetry Volumes I - III
by Jeremiah Trumeau

I. The Rage of Imperfect Barley
Rebellious generators of electric mist must end progress toward counterfeit geometry. Superfluous penguins and misleading toadstool endurance rank as substandard dressing. Meanwhile, the finest sanctuary tournament, suffering from barbecue disjunction, briskly replicates over the limitless void of syntax within the chapter’s extent of influence. Regularly, due to the Unsavory-Cheese-Destroying-Backpack (which is enclosed in the university publication), at least. Ignorant tin whistles and rusty gunfire liberty remain in the hillside, understandably. Behold, the vast Lather Ailment Hoax Proposal, adorned by powerful hooks and curious thickening!

Crippled atoms conceal distant icebox cheers in spite of Egyptian philosophy, foremost in broken pine gauge styling. During the juvenile banjo epidemic, savage omissions puzzled the brass flowers when the innocent insects corroded. Hypothetical occupants approach, unyielding yet venturesome, in traditional retail solitude; various perilous alternatives include: Vile yeast! Generous hamburgers! Extreme tapping! A reference book! Mysterious cyclists!

The harsh dwelling, full of remorse, is a suitably publicized formula noted for tangible hatchets and soothing swirls. Subsequently, industrialization is unhindered as it descends into the primeval box cycle. Badges, suffering from an extent of severe dexterity, keep cursed honeycakes distant from homely vermin and their sunlight orb’s glory. Misunderstanding the broom, artistic rituals risk the rage of imperfect barley. Hospitalize residue, rejoice in cotton, overrule seals, and praise the alleged ice, which is disguised as a towering hat.

Counteract Castaway Literature Disease with balmy zebra vapor. Seeds, hailed as wacky, testify during the sponsor’s disturbed peach soliloquy. Pivoting the fabric, the mandolin aches, which may dictate if possible. The virtuous uniform wonders why smooth brain music plays. Ogres offer no more spinal restrictions for doomed beetles.

II. Endless Laundry Fiction

Bags of mayonnaise seem charming, yet are corrupt with disappointment. Mild peninsulas and the wasteful truffle rivalry are rotten, yet fortunate for their fatigue. Arise during the attic bankruptcy trial, first detected in the superior crypt frontier. Q: Who is blurred and aged? A: The watery baker!

Obscure Buttermilk Anxiety beckons the Fantastic-Button-Spiders! “Yes,” said the King of Hidden Shovels, “as delicately as endless laundry fiction flows." When that recognizable philosopher returns, tell him of the gelatin meadows again. While the spice hazard arranged dazed pastries, the Wallpaper Fraud Mystery continued. To dislodge complicated loam, try moistening mirrors.

A summary of the Easy Bucket Shower Doctrine, Article 11A: ...ban bricks..., ...assault the pamphlet pilgrimage..., ...categorize herbs as exotic..., ...introduce Polish meditation.

“Time for slick cabbage tension,” replied the Necklace Harvest Lieutenant. Sophisticated gargoyles illustrate no use for baggy needles; however, empty monasteries are prejudiced and are equivalent to the muddled cesspools. Coincidentally, the Ultimate Salsa Brawl (U.S.B.) victimizes, overlaps, and hastens the stained marrow.

III. The Epic Luncheon

The Epic Luncheon: heirloom of the fictitious, or merely vulgar debris?

Bountiful Gets a Face-Lift

When I was a kid growing up in Bountiful, Utah, we were the only house on our street and the road dead-ended just past our driveway. There were only a few houses up on the hill near us. I was watching some old home movies a few months ago of me and the fam out flying kites in front of the house when I was little, and all you could see in the video were big fields full of weeds and forests of scrub oak where I was the proprietor of several forts. It was a very Tom Sawyer-y kind of scene, where the gullies used to fill up with rainwater and we'd build little rafts and paddle around and play flashlight tag in the forest after dark (although Tom Sawyer wouldn't have had a flashlight - maybe lantern tag?). But when I was six or seven years old they pushed the road through and then houses sprung up all over the place, paving over our little childhood paradise.

After that initially burst of development, it seemed liked time stopped in Bountiful for a couple decades. I remember coming back to Bountiful after spending two years away as a missionary in Brazil and thinking, "Nothing ever changes here." The houses, the stores, the people - nothing. So I naturally assumed that it would be the same way when I returned yesterday after a year and a half absence. But from the moment we hopped onto I-15 just above Farmington, I hardly recognized the place. First of all, I saw that the Legacy Highway is finished and in use. The Legacy Highway??!? Really?!? That thing had been stuck in development for a couple of eons while Rocky Anderson and Davis County fought it out. And what's that commuter train running along side it?? We then passed a humongous new housing development with hundreds of candy-colored little apartments. Where did that come from? Finally, we passed Lagoon amusement park, which had a few new rides out front that I didn't recognize. New rides at Lagoon?!?? Since when did they start adding new rides to Lagoon?? Isn't that a sign of the Apocalypse?

Now this isn't a "I'm sad that my things aren't the same as when I was a kid" post. It's a "I'm glad they're finally mixing it up a little bit" post. When we finally rolled into Bountiful, it looked like the whole town had gotten a long overdue face-lift. The new houses and other additions liven the place up and everything else looks a little bit fresher, a little better kept up. Heck, even the old Burger King playground in Cam Sidwell's backyard (who has since moved away) has a new color scheme.

There is one thing I forget about Bountiful when I'm away and it never changes when I come back: it's so beautiful here. Michigan is nice and green, but man, it's great to see some mountains for a change. The weather has been absolutely perfect since I got here, the grass is so green it's practically glowing, and the sunsets from our back window looking out over the valley and the Great Salt Lake are unbeatable. I hope that never changes.


P.S. - I noticed seconds before posting this that I had written "Bouniful" in the title and not "Bountiful." That's the mark of a true Bountiful native - we never say the "t".