This Is Beautiful: Asexual Awareness Week

As you may or may not know, this past week was Ace Awareness Week! I love that week since it involves mostly me being super obnoxious on social media about asexuality. It's a good time. But I also made an effort this year to get involved with in-person ace meet-ups, and I had a blast. I hope that I remember to do this every year.

It's so important to have a community of people like you, there are things that other aces get that I can't explain to anyone else. It's so important to have people like that around you. Connect to your communities! Make new friends!

“All You Need is Ears” by George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby

I feel like I’ve been trying to find a copy of this book for ages. George Martin is one of my heroes so when I saw that he had written a memoir, of course I wanted to read it. But it isn’t very popular since while The Beatles are very popular, not many people know who their producer was. I found it in the end though at a used bookstore, and I am very glad I did.

Martin takes you through his life, starting with his childhood and upbringing, getting into the music business, and his projects with The Beatles and after. I quite liked how this was clearly a book about Martin, not The Beatles. Obviously they factor heavily into the story, but they are not highlighted and in many ways Martin tries to make it clear that they were one of many artists he was recording.

My favorite aspect of the book is how Martin clearly explains sound recording techniques he used, as well as how he thought about arranging. It gives a really cool insight into the music industry of the 60s and his thought process when coming up with music. It is almost certainly all outdated, but it still is a neat snapshot of how things were done.

To be fair, the book is a bit jumbled. Martin sometimes seems more interested in going from topic to topic rather than chronologically. The result is we keep jumping around and I had to double check the years a couple times to see whether this was pre- or post-Beatles.

Regardless, I loved reading this book. Getting a peak into George Martin’s head was incredible and I would definitely recommend this to any Beatles fan, or to any music fan in general.

This Is Beautiful: webOS

Alright so to absolutely no one's surprise the phone that I use is several years out of date. It's a Palm Plus, and it runs an operating system called webOS. This bad boy stopped getting made in 2011, and all the Palm servers went offline back in 2014. Doesn't have any apps, but it has a camera and can text/call and that's all I need.

I LOVE my phone. Like a crazy amount. It's partially because it's linked to my personality and aesthetic now, for sure, but I adore it. I love not having a ton of apps on me that are constantly distracting. It makes it easier to focus on what I'm doing.

I also get such a kick out of the online community of people who still use webOS phones. There are forums dedicated to using and developing apps for these phones. They've come to my aid a fair number of times when I ran into problems with getting a new phone up and running. I just adore that there are people like me who won't buy into the monopoly that is Apple and everything else.

I hope that someday phones will shrink again and I won't hate all of the technology around me. But until then, me and my tiny phone are doing just fine thank you.

“The Truth About Robin Hood” by P. Valentine Harris

I picked up this book at the used bookstore in Detroit! It’s a quick read, just under a hundred pages. But boy is it a time. Harris here is trying to debunk the theories claiming that Robin Hood is nothing more than a myth or legend, primarily because the evidence suggesting this is lacking, and put forward his own theory that there was a real outlaw.

But first some background is in order. I tried to do some digging on this book, to see how reliable it is, and surprisingly I couldn’t find much. There isn’t a publication date in the book, but I managed to find some information off of the internet indicating that it was published around the 1950s-1970s. So it could be over 50 years old, I have no real way of knowing.

Related to that, I tried to find some reviews or critiques of the book to indicate whether or not Harris’s theories have been challenged or updated in any way. I could find literally nothing. I have no idea whether his ideas or accepted by the historian community or dismissed. And I am no expert on this subject, so take this all with a heavy grain of salt.

The book can be divided into roughly three parts. The first goes over the primary sources that we have about Robin Hood, as in the legends and ballads. The earliest known one is called the Lytell Geste and this is what Harris refers to again and again. Many changes have been made since there (primarily the addition of Maid Marian and Friar Tuck) so the original stories aren’t super familiar to contemporary audiences. Harris goes through them, as well as inferior ballads as well to sum up the evidence that we have.

The second part consists of Harris tearing down other historians’ theories of Robin Hood’s existence. This is honestly quite funny in places, as Harris seems to tire of coming up against the same incorrect ideas repeatedly. There are also points where he takes shots at their researching ability; I sense some animosity going on here… Regardless, the bulk of the book is dedicated to this section as Harris’s thesis is that you cannot prove that Robin Hood is a myth, therefore you cannot eliminate the possibility that he was real. Probably his most salient point towards this is that “Robin Hood,” or some variation thereof, was very common in medieval times and you would think that a legend would have a more unique name!

The third part is the shortest and consists of Harris’s own investigations in the legendary outlaw and his personal theory. Naturally, he thinks that he existed. Harris pins down several names mentioned in the Lytell Geste and evidence to suggest that the king at the time was King Edward II, known for associating with lower-class citizens and pardoning some. His personal idea is that Robin Hood was a small-time outlaw with a reputation for being an excellent archer and very kind to those whose paths he crosses. Over time, the story grew and changed, being associated with a variety of places and time periods. But originally there was an outlaw who started it all.

Knowing very little of the research, I thought this was a fascinating read. Obviously I wish it was a little longer; it is very short at only 100 pages. And I do wish that we heard more about Harris’s theory of the real-life Robin Hood, but since there is scant evidence and he focuses mainly on debunking others it is understandable that the focus is elsewhere. There are many things I would give to know how this information has been updated over the years, but until I find a book with a more recent publishing date, guess we will have to wait.

This Is Beautiful: Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe's Poetry

On a whim, I went to a Feminist Futures art launch party at a local gallery in Ann Arbor. There was some mediocre performance art, but by far my favorite part was a poet named Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe. She read this beautiful bell hooks excerpt, and some of her own poems.

My favorite part of her reading though was that after each part, she would ask "what in that bears repeating?" and people would speak up and suggest what parts were their favorite or what spoke to them. It was great because it forced us to process what we read and discuss it as a group. And I think it's a super important question to ask yourself repeatedly when you consume art.

What in that bears repeating?

Am I wasting my time here? What sections speak to me the most? What should be said over and over until everyone knows it? It's a surprisingly personal question, one that speaks to the audience and also to the artist. And it's definitely one that I want to think about more.

Oh and I'm definitely going to look up all of her poems, they were gorgeous, join me on that adventure if you'd like.

Detroit

So about an hour’s drive away from Ann Arbor is Detroit! It definitely has more of a city feel, and has more going on than Ann Arbor. I originally went up for the Detroit Jazz Festival, and would highly recommend that. It’s the largest FREE jazz fest in the US! But since it probably isn’t summer when you’re reading this, here’s other things to do.

In terms of museums, Detroit has a whole bunch of good ones. There’s the Detroit Institute of Arts which has a huge collection in a gorgeous building. The exhibits span ancient cultures all the way up to the present day. There is also a wonderful collection of African-American art that showcases Detroit natives. Then there’s the Detroit Historical Society, which gives you the history of the town. And the Motown Museum, a must visit for any music fans!

There were a couple of really nice stores that I stopped by on my visit. For music lovers, Third Man Records is an incredible record store with a ton of music paraphernalia as well. You can even tour their pressing facilities! But what really drew me was that they have a small record booth where you can record 2.5 minutes of yourself singing, talking, or playing, and it’ll spit out a record for you! So I am now the proud owner of a record of me playing “Smash Mouth” on a kazoo. Another great store is John K. King Used and Rare Books. It’s the biggest bookstore in Michigan! The store is in a warehouse with four floors of books stacked from floor to ceiling. It’s so big that the employees hand out maps at the entrance! I found several books that I’d been looking for in there. Lovely place.

Obviously there is much more to Detroit, but those were the highlights of my visit. Detroit tends to get a bad rep after the housing crisis/economy crash, but it certainly is making a comeback now. And as a prominent music city, there is plenty to do for any music lovers! Well worth a visit or even two.

This Is Beautiful: Love Fame Tragedy

Okay so I think everyone knows that I'm a big fan of the band The Wombats. Recently one of the members, Murph, split off to do a solo project with a whole bunch of collaborations with people like Bastille and the like. The group is called "Love Fame Tragedy" and their first EP just dropped, "I Don't Want to Play the Victim, But I'm Really Good At It." It is excellent!

There are only a couple songs on it, but it really meshes the sense of fun that all of The Wombats' songs have with a little more seriousness and less playfulness. The result is a very polished body of work that still will force you to have a good time. That's not to say that I think this is better than The Wombats, I really like their messy feel, but it's different and similar and still soooo good.

Check it out on Spotify here!

Ann Arbor

So I have now been living in Ann Arbor for a couple of weeks, and it is such a cute little town to be in! There isn’t a ton of things going on, but there are a couple of highlights. And it’s just nice being in a small town while I work on my PhD, so I don’t mind it.

First of all, the museums. There are a number of museums associated with the University such as the museum of art, archeology, and natural history. All of them are rather small, only takes an hour or so to go through them, but they all have some pretty cool things in their collection. I really liked the art museum in particular since there’s a Monet and a special exhibit right now on Schiele.

Besides that, there are a bunch of outdoors-y nature things to do. I walked up to the Leslie Nature Center and really got a kick out of the raptor enclosures up there. There’s a bunch of owls, and even a bald eagle! Then there’s the Huron River, you can catch people tubing and kayaking down the river at any point when the weather is nice. Finally, there’s the Arboretum. In the spring there are fields of peonies but it’s a lovely stroll at any point of the year.

And that’s the bulk of things to do in Ann Arbor! Like I said, not much, but it’s all very cute and very accessible to anyone, nothing I mentioned actually has an entrance fee. I’m looking forward to getting to know this city more!

This Is Beautiful: Departmental Retreats

This past weekend I was off on a departmental retreat with my fellow grad students and professors. I thought it was going to be long, exhausting, and fundamentally awkward since it's a bunch of PhDs all in close proximity. And it was all of that, but it was also so much fun as well!

It was great spending some time just getting to know everyone else in the department. As a new student, I don't know too many of them, but at the same time there isn't exactly an abundance of social events to get to know each other outside of the classroom or lab. So it was great to just take a weekend to hang out with them.

I had a great time, a better time than I expected actually, and I hope that this energy carries me though the next couple of days while all of the sleep deprivation catches up with me haha.