Post-lanta

Well, I didn't get much of a chance to explore Atlanta this past weekend, not for lack of interest, but because the wedding in question was about an hour north of the city, and as a member o' the wedding party, my time was mostly occupied with family celebrations and logistical odds-and-ends, and the occasional last-minute hunt for a violin bow on a Sunday morning in Georgia. Apart from a quick breakfast on my way back to the airport, I basically didn't see Atlanta proper at all. Which is a shame - the Southeast is an area I really want to road trip (Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston) - but also not even remotely a shame, because being around Dan, Abbey and their friends and family is exactly where I wanted to be. Some meandering thoughts after the jump...

What the trip lacked in geographic exploration, it made up in deep joy. My friend Chris's wedding in Lexington last month helped confirm that I still love, love, love weddings - and more than ever feel the deep significance and joy they represent, and the privilege of being asked to attend. And Dan's did much the same, with even more deep conversations with new friends, heartfelt explorations of love and commitment, and laughter, stupidity, stories, and late-into-the-night connection with just-before-that-moment strangers. Weddings are magical, kiddos, and I'm thrilled to have one more on my horizon this fall.

In fact, this fall has been exhausting and diffuse in all the best ways - out of town just about every other weekend for weddings, conferences, or other adventures, busy at work on the dissertation, and keeping an active social life afoot in Boston - and looks to continue the pattern up til Christmas break. Beside the last of three weddings, I'm also tremendously excited to revisit the Twin Cities for a conference - it's been years since I've been there with the freedom to actually explore the metro area, one of my favorites, and I am eager to get back to it.

So, there may be some updates here on those trips, and attendant music-collages, although I don't expect the blog to kick back into an especially globetrotting gear again until the end of 2016, when I'll be returning to Europe for a little work and a little adventure. Still working out the itinerary, but that's the next big trek on the horizon...

IN THE MEANTIME, here are a couple of bonus Autumn tunes excerpted from a playlist I recently put together. They're seasonal and relaxing and they sound like my heart feels I guess??

Hometown Redux

Holy crow, fellas. It turns out that working on a dissertation, a stack of on-campus responsibilities, and pursuing an active and three-dimensional social life in Boston all adds up to an extreme lack of time to tap out updates on your dumdum blog. WHO KNEW!

But tonight, while keeping one eye on the debate (with a Manhattan in hand), I finally got around to cutting together a li'l video commemorating my long weekend in Chicago a couple of weeks back. This was a swell time. Video, photos, etc. after the jump!

Having only had a couple of days to slingshot through Chicago when last I was in town, I was happy to have a long weekend to catch up more thoroughly with old friends and make plans with some new ones. Typically when I'm in Chicago I arrange what I call a sitzpub - basically a night where I camp out at a bar in my old neighborhood and make merry with anybody who stops by. It's usually a lovely time and reminds me how many excellent people I've been lucky to find in life.

This time, I decided to skip that and instead make more deliberate one-on-one or small-group plans. This was great, and also led to a totally manic weekend in the best possible way. I came back to Boston exhausted and happy and only slightly bloated and not quite broke. It was a great trip. Hit a few of my favorite food spots and a new joint or two (The Northman, Lincoln Square/North Center's new cider bar, was a nice stop on the way), got some excellent thrifting in, and generally was delighted to be surrounded by people I love who've known me for what suddenly strikes me as an incredibly long time.

With my pal Schmadz at The Northman! GET THE CIDER THAT HAS GINGER AND FIR TIPS IN IT

The video reflects the trip in some ways - I did a better job capturing at least some of the people I spent time with on camera - and not at all in others. (I could do a whole series of posts on places in Chicago for any number of things - film, music, books, food, theatre, artisanal soaps, anything, but this ain't that.) Suffice to say, I love that town for many reasons that are clearer after a summer on the road, and although I'm not getting back as often as once I did, it feels awful good when I do.

I'm back now, albeit only briefly - this weekend I'm off for another trip, this time to see my pal Dan get married in Atlanta (hooray!). In the time that I've been back, I went through the Konmari process on my place - a really radical, sort-of-froofy, bracing and self-confronting process of basically dealing with every individual item you own and reckoning with its place in your life. I shed a lot of stuff that I didn't need and emerged with a clearer sense of my taste and enthusiasms- again, a nice chapter on this year of rediscovering my self after having gotten knocked around a bit.

The Publican, probably still my favorite spot in Chicago, with some of my favorite humans - teachers, directors, colleagues, pals. I'm a lucky dude, you folk.

Basically, if there's a way to summarize the fall of 2016, it's something along the lines of "total exhaustion balanced out by a sense of gratitude for the people in my life, joy at the rediscovery of who I like to be, and a li'l sense of wonder at the Adventures To Come."

Okay! Atlanta calls. More in the future, kittens!

EVERYBODY ENJOYS FRIENDSHIP WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF JOHN

Provincetown: A Quick One While He's Away

Two weeks ago (good lord time flies when you're chasing a deadline and making plans and living life to the fullest capacity) I spent the weekend in Provincetown, mostly having a real sleepy time and seeing a bundle o' skits at a festival. It's a funny li'l place: has its roots in a fishing village, essentially, and over time became a haven/refuge for artists and the gay community. Now, it's a touristed-up hybrid of the two, offering seaside kitsch and a fab countercultural vibe that's somewhat manufactured but still charming.

It's crazy to me that in four years of being in Boston I never got down the Cape, easily the most high-profile getaway from the city. This was I guess a legacy of having monthly (if not more frequent) trips back to Chicago, the rigors of the grad program, and a bunch of other hurdles not worth mentioning here. I'm glad I finally got to go - and if nothing else, it feels like I have a somewhat better sense of Bostonian culture - this is irresponsible spitballing and overgeneralizing, but it feels like the ability to outsource relaxation to these seaside retreats keeps the city the brusque, blunt place that it mostly is, where I'm more used to cities sort of splitting the difference. Does this make sense? Does anything on this blog make sense? I'll tell you what: maybe.

And now: off to Chicago! Maybe I'll post about that? Who even knows what this blog is for before the next big junket abroad, but I guess we will all learn that answer... together...

Most of my photos replicated the video above (as is usually the case, since I tend to snap photos and video at the same time) so I'm SORRY if you already saw this shot and are BORED of it by now I guess you must be the kind of person who gets bored by ART huh

Autumnmania

Autumn has always been maybe my favorite season.

There's something magical about it to me - the darkening of the world, the bracing cool air, the attendant love of warmth and coziness. It's a season that's rich with associations - the newness of a school year, the warm kitchens full of fresh bread, soups, pies, the crunch of leaves and the impulse to explore. I love the rain, atmospheric and soothing and grim all at once somehow. I love the preparation for winter - relishing these days when being outside is a brisk pleasure and beginning to think of how to prepare for the cold, and who you'd like to stay warm with when the snows come rolling in.

"Fields of Our Home," Tallest Man on Earth. This album has quickly become the soundtrack for fall 2016...

It's been a busy week - rushing to get a conference paper drafted amidst a slew of meetings, and on the heels of a weekend away to Provincetown (photos and a video likely to come in the next few days) that left me without much time to reset and prep for the week ahead. Hence the silent blog (though who knows, maybe we're trending towards a more-silent blog in general in this lull of travel).

But today was a marvel. After sending my paper off, I met a friend for tea, made a grocery run, and stumbled across one of the only bottles of wine that I know even remotely well enough to know that I like it (Domaine Leon Barral, a Faugeres wine that is funky and delicious). I came home to bake bread and throw together a curried squash soup. Made plans to see an avalanche of wonderful people (some of whom I haven't seen in ages, some who I've only met in the past month or so) back in Chicago next weekend. Texted furiously about how Crazy Ex Girlfriend is probably the best show on television. Made the first Manhattan I've ever made for myself (pretty delicious) and sampled a digestif that my friend Mike recommended.

In short, it was a perfectly full and perfectly ambling day, exactly the balance of active-but-not-frenzied that makes me happy.

Autumn is this beautiful season where decay somehow feels like the promise of something new. I feel that this year more than ever. I'm just happy, and that's pretty grand. Feeling the love of my friends, a world alive with possibility and newness, reconnected to my playful, outward-focused instincts, feeling a core of calm as I face a year of unknowable and unpredictable happenings.

I'm not sure exactly what this post is for or about. To commemorate a lovely day, I suppose, and to mark a season that makes me happy and hopeful. To continue to celebrate the rediscovery of my sense of self. To put a little something up until I have time to cobble together a Provincetown post (Provincetown is so weird and nice you guys). But mostly it's about what I'm happiest being about: gratitude, a li'l bit of wonder, and a big dash of being open to whatever mysterious things are headed my way.

Plus, it's October, which means it's practically Christmas! Hokey smokes, you guys!