we seem mysteriously unable to discern the proper emotions when approached with the reality of a winter's night on the frontier. for there is fear, deep fear; the openly desolate is cold. the juniper knows, somewhere inside of its frontier DNA, that its destiny is a mere two feet, so it crowds in numbers, in disproportionately concentrated distribution, across the landscape, but is dwarfed so that you can still see the awful curve of the earth above its human-less edges.

the mountains loom. the darkness gathers with the ice. fear is proper. and it drives me to a joyously desperate hurrah; that here, fear is the beginning of understanding. so i shout out loud, hoping desperately that my sounds may extend beyond the borders of this wheeled metal and glass. the fear is what gives me the joy. the contrast is like that of the moon with the mountains; in the bitterness of the winter, it is only the illuminated snow on the mountains that gives me light to still distinguish mountain from sky, tree from plain, road from earth.

The road north out of Granby lead me into the mountains, past the Continental Divide, and down finally onto a snow-covered high plateau.

The view was painfully beautiful; possibly the most beautiful stretch of 100 miles I have ever driven. It was one of those times in which I was fully conscious that my eyes were vigourously engaged in filming a movie of memory: first the eyes take in the colors, then the mind transcribes them deep into the subconscious. Here, the sensations were so strong that no camera was needed to provide insurance against the thought that the landscapes which surrounded me in that instant might not be permanently recallable to my future dream world. Memory alone was sufficient to convince me that the beauty of what I was experiencing was not a dream.

On my journey towards Jackson, Wyoming, the sublime feelings with which i brushed paths with true redemption and encountered the very essence of the divine soon gave way to a paralyzing psychological fear. Despite the sunny weather, the dashboard thermometer soon plunged into the single digits, and the desolate road (on which I encountered approximately one automobile for every 15 minutes of driving) soon became completely covered with a glossy layer of ice. As the high winds swept down the plain, I felt the car slide eerily across the double yellow numerous times. Speeds were lowered. My concentration was heightened. I wrestled with the god of loneliness for more than an hour. He knew I was coming(our appointment was long overdue), and he waited for me on that snow covered plain. "You're not allowed to bring anyone," he said. So the passenger seat was empty, and the radio was off.

And then, after much perseverance, I pass again into the mountains. This time, however, I descend. The temperature rises, the snow disappears, and I soon find myself in another tremendous valley. This valley, however, does not threaten me. The roads are black, and the town of Laramie, Wyoming lies visible 15 miles in the distance.

In the town of Laramie, Wyoming there is a cafe called Grounds. It is next to the University, and it has internet and a bike rack. There is where i sit writing this, en route to Jackson, Wyoming.

inside of the new todd m. beamer student center is a tile floor. its colors are are all shades of grey, yet it demonstrates a remarkable sparkle under the colorless light, so remarkable that one half-expects to encounter the facility's fastidious janitor groveled over with a container of baby wipes, diligently scrubbing off every casual scuff left by the formal-hating pubescents that scour the halls.

the sparkle of the place is not limited to the floor: the walls are a newly painted beige color with a broad red stripe down the middle, and there are chairs and couches clustered around coffee tables, much like the waiting area of a doctor's office. the doors, too, seem to follow this theme: large, square doors evenly separated down a generously wide hallway. the symmetrical bathroom doors have clearly marked signs for Men and Women.

this is the newest building on campus, and yet it is constructed with brick that is eerily similar in hue to those buildings adjacent to it that are several decades old. on one of the interior walls there is a mural in which is inscribed, "he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." the quote is that of Jim Elliot, a 1950's missionary who was murdered in the Amazonian rainforest by the Ecuadorian villagers who he was trying to evangelize.

buried in one corner is a cafe with bars instead of tables. it is late and night, and several clean looking girls are casually talking to the lone employee behind the counter. there is an l.c.d. screen mounted to the wall which displays the 150th anniversary of the college and commemorates it with a verse: "One generation will tell of your works to another..."

in its spotless architecture, the place brought to my mind two other places, all with similar cultural associations despite being in comparatively distant parts of the country.

the first is this place in a town called Gap where we once played a show. right in the middle of rural lancaster county stands this daunting complex bordered on all sides by miles of flat, open farmland. with huge parking lots and inviting street lamps, the place looks as if it was built in the suburbs but then packed up and dropped at random somewhere in the middle of podunk lancaster county.

the Family Center of Gap contains a cafe, gymnasium, several lounges, as well as offices for services ranging anywhere from music lessons to financial consulting.

at the entrance, the reflected light off of the glistening tile floor directs your attention to the walls of a long hallway on which are mounted somewhat awkward photographs of local children and adults of all ages engaged in numerous activities like dodgeball and music. it is clear that some of the children have mental and physical handicaps.

the second place is the Biblical Learning Center at Philadelphia Biblical University, which, to use their own words, "was constructed in 2001-2002 and has 19 state-of-the-art classrooms." there is a lounge on each floor in which several unornamented chairs are clustered around a large lcd tv. in between classes, students are capable of grabbing the latest headlines while simultaneously telling horror stories about their upcoming finals. there is also a newly renovated coffee shop that attempts to emulate the architecture and atmosphere of modern american and european cafes, yet is still unable to escape the feeling of a overly sterile cleanness.

the third place is Christ Community Church in my hometown of West Chester, PA. i remember when we first went to visit. my first reaction as a child of about 10 or 11 was that the place looked and smelled much like a doctor's office. the same tile floors and square doors, the same long, wide hallways, the same coffee shop-esque youth-rooms designed to draw in the crowds.

i was talking with a friend tonight in the new todd m beamer student center. he said that the architecture of the place was too safe. thats what made me think of these other places.

"that's why the sex feels so dirty," he said, referring to the dirt.

there is a cold silence in the drive, and it is warm. but you cannot tell...you cannot tell whether that contented solitude you feel is a rare moment of prelapsarian happiness or a aberrated defense mechanism. for the elusive feeling wears the mask of both courage and fear, hate and love, good and evil, contentedness and holy discontent.

a child will ask, "which is right?" and i will say, "love, my dear, and peace." but peace cannot be the highest good, for we do not say "peace" to our starving brother. we feel ill at ease until we stick our own hands into his mouth, then watch silently from afar as the heaving slowly ceases in degrees of time unmeasurable to us.

between these strands exists a continuum, of which we are perpetually struggling to define, and yet we can afford to delay no longer. we act. we live, and we love. and most of all, we stop thinking.

and then, like a fairy tale, the snow starts falling in that childisly nostalgic town precisely at the moment in which you arrive for the second time.

Miles driven today- 760 (Downingtown, Pennsylvania to Wheaton, Illinois)

Favorite Find- The Low Anthem, Tiny Desk Concert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvyREQwc7qQ

wild west in december trip playlist:

the list, at least musically, is a combination of B-sides/older stuff as well as some of my all-time favorites. Because of the ample amount of driving time involved, the playlist was organized around whole albums as opposed to individual songs.

Music:

The Album Leaf- Green Tour EP, In a Safe Place, Into the Blue Again

Amos Lee- Amos Lee, Supply and Demand

Anathallo- Hymns

Arcade Fire- The Suburbs

Arvo Part- Spiegel im Spiegel

Bad Books- Bad Books

The Beatles- Let It Be

Ben Harper- Burn to Shine

Ben Kweller- On My Way

The Black Keys- Attack and Release

Benjamin Gibbard- Home: Volume V

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- B.R.M.C

Bob Dylan- Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Live: The Royal Albert Hall Concert, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Dylan, Dylan and the Dead, Highway 61 Revisited

Bright Eyes- Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Noise Floor (Rarities)

Bruce Springsteen- Greatest Hits

Cat Power- The Greatest

Clem Snide- The Ghost of Fashion

Conor Oberst- Conor Oberst

Copeland- Beneath Medicine Tree

The Cure- Greatest Hits

Denison Witmer- Are You a Dreamer?

Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca, Rise Above

Dr. Dog- Shame, Shame

Eisley- Marvelous Things

Elliot Smith- Either/Or, XO, Roman Candle

Erik Satie- Works Vol. 1

Ever We Fall- We Are But Human

A Fine Frenzy- One Cell in the Sea

The Format- Interventions and Lullabies

Good Old War- Good Old War, Only Way to be Alone

Guster- Keep it Together

Headphones- Headphones

The Honorary Title- Anything Else but the Truth

The Innocence Mission- Christ is my Hope

Iron and Wine- Around the Well

Jars of Clay- The Long Fall Back to Earth

John Coltrane- A Love Supreme

Johnny Cash- American IV

Jon Foreman- Fall, Winter

Joni Mitchell- Blue

Kevin Devine- Brother's Blood

Lovedrug- Pretend You're Alive

Manchester Orchestra- I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child

Modest Mouse- The Moon and Antarctica, This Is a Long Drive...

The Mountain Goats- Tallahassee

The National- Alligator

Nick Drake- Pink Moon

Nirvana- Nevermind

Owen- At Home with Owen

Page France- Hello, Dear Wind

Paul Simon- The Essential Paul Simon

Pearl Jam- Vs.

Pedro the Lion- Control

Phosphorescent- A Hundred Times or More, To Willie

Relient K- The Creepy EP

Right Away, Great Captain!- The Bitter End, The Eventually Home

Sigur Ros- Von

Sonic Youth- Dirty

Sufjan Stevens- The Age of Adz, Enjoy Your Rabbit, Songs for Christmas

The Tallest Man on Earth- The Wild Hunt

This Day and Age- The Bell and the Hammer

Thom Yorke- The Eraser

U2- War

Watashi Wa- Eager Seas

Weezer- Hurley

Wilco- Mermaid Avenue

Yo La Tengo- I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One

AA Bondy- American Hearts

This Frontier Needs Heroes- This Frontier Needs Heroes

Books:

Travels With Charley in Search of America- John Steinbeck

The Waste Land and Other Poems- T.S. Eliot

Gilead- Marilynne Robinson

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books- Charles Dickens

40 Short Stories- A Portable Anthology (Chekhov, Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Joyce, Kafka, Faulkner, O'Connor, etc.)

Podcasts/Lectures:

The Romanovs and the Russian Revolution- John Merriman, European Civilization, Open Yale Courses

Philosophers and Kings: Plato, Republic- Steven B. Smith, Introduction to Political Philosophy, Open Yale Courses

The Infant Cry of God- John Rogers, Milton, Open Yale Courses

that took a long time to write.

in an attempt to throw some discipline at a concept i have heretofore deemed so off-the-cuff, i will be using this little webspace as my blog for my December 2010 trip out West. i am going to attempt to blog everyday, even if the extent of my entry is but a dull and monotonous retelling of albums currently on repeat and NPR station maps. so, uh...be forewarned, i guess? of something?

perhaps this will formalize certain musical associations with geographical locales. music is so powerful in that way.

currently listening:

Sonic Youth

Wilco- Sky Blue Sky

Currently reading:

The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Been really enjoying the chilly Fall weather lately, more than usual i think. perhaps my tastes are changing. perhaps i will be sick of winter come january.

either way, nothing is better than having some friends over for a comforting november meal. yes, this is what i did tonight, and there are few things i would have rather been doing, especially with such great folk as i currently find myself surrounded with.

in other news, it looks like my childhood dream of going snowboarding out west may finally be coming true thanks to plans for a western family vacay come december. the current iteration in my head (always) is to convince the folks to let me drive their car out a week or so ahead of time and meet up with some friends out in Colorado before heading to Utah to meet up with the folks in Salt Lake City. Then we would all drive up to Jackson, WY and have ourselves a grand ole western holiday. sounds great doesnt it? i think so.

man i miss the west, particularly, the wide open spaces, the fields, the anti sophistication, the road, the stars, the quiet, the peace. i have been looking for an excuse to get back there for a long time now.

been reading the scarlet letter lately. and this morning, while extremely caffeinated, i found myself having an epiphany, as i often do under the influence of caffeine, and found myself framing my next song in the terms of the irony of the prophetic voice. all of a sudden the abstractions made perfect sense, and the melody was there.

i wrote it down before i forgot.

another wedding tomorrow. who gets married at 11am?

Friends,

I have been extremely grateful of late to still be working at the gryphon for over two years now. what an amazing group of people it is that keeps me there. i love my job.

ive also been "interning" at Cedar Street Studios with Producer/Engineer Ted Richardson once a week, though my "internship" so far has involved less of the recording aspect of things, and more of the promotion/management/startup stuff necessary for both gearing up to hopefully head to SXSW this march as well as all the necessary odds and ends of starting a Co-op label. the label is going to be called The Cedar Street Collective, and, for now, will feature four bands from the local Philadelphia area, including The Mechanicals.

This weekend, after driving to northern PA to watch a good friend/old roommate get married, i stopped by AKA Music on 2nd street and picked up some Wilco (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and Joanna Newsom (The Milk Eyed Mender) on vinyl.

some artists currently getting a lot of spins in my phones: Phosphorescent, Sufjan Stevens new stuff The Age of Adz, Joanna Newsom, Wilco (interesting note- tried to get into these guys a couple years ago and couldnt, now im falling in love with them, especially their guitar player on A Ghost is Born), and Manchester Orchestra/Kevin Devine mashup Bad Books.

much love,
AM

Dewey Beach Music Fez

Just played down here at DBMC this weekend. Also, saw some freakin cool bands.

Check out Grey Market (Tampa, FL) and fellow Philadelphians Turning Violet Violet- super cool people.

More to come.

Bye