The Professor's House

I found it almost unbearable to consult my writer's gut about reflecting, pen-wise, on Willa Cather's The Professor's House. Like Death Comes for the Archbishop, this quiet novel eludes any classic form of literary criticism—the impression is too shifting, too flexible. To understand it is to feel it, first and foremost. 

And feel it you will—as long as you don't resist the places Cather wants to take you. It is a novel that requires entry to the pit of the stomach, to the stem of the brain, and what it leaves cannot be traced. For that reason, I'll simply express my undying love, gratitude and reverence for a novel that ultimately breaks the peripheries of the written form—a piece of pioneering in its own right.

Please, with all sincerity, read it.

Happy Tuesday and welcome back.

Sunday—a night of chit chat with the fam, drunken debauchery, half-played board games that turned quickly into bored games, future Saturday Market & picnic promises. 

Wifey, Margaret and I ushered in the holiday at my family's house in Vancouver—fast food Vancouver, ghetto Vancouver, million-miles-wide by million-miles-tall Vancouver, Vancouver of the Washington variety (no, not DC, not the capitol, rather the state: Warshington—the r is silent). 

We had a blast. How was your special weekend?

My dad finally gave a verbal mapping of The Olson family history (sorta) and it inspired me to plan a special road trip...

Norway!

This will take some craftiness on our part. We'll need to fully float-ize the car. But it's well worth the effort. I heard that the O-L-S-O-N spelling of my surname (as opposed to O-L-S-E-N) indicates Norwegian ancestry (as opposed to Swedish). The logical jumping off point is the capitol of Norway: Oslo. Look at it! Frickin' Christmasy as heck!

Nova Scotia!

The second stop has to be Nova Scotia, where I still have some older family members floating around (super older, like triple digits older). We've always wanted to move to Canada. How about Halifax, huh?

North Dakota!

Then it's time to see where the old man was born—North Dakota! Apparently there are some great cousins still plopped down in Bismarck somewheres. From here, my grandfather and grandmother moved my dad and uncle out to Washington—and the rest is history. But...

Kentucky!

Apparently, Gramps (youngest of an 11-kid clan) had a brother who opted for Kentucky, so we'll have to make a pass through this beauty! United we stand, divided we fall!

Someday someday someday...

It's time to get weird

In promoting their new album, Valtari, Sigur Ros has put a call out to film directors—make us some bizarre music videos, couldyaplease? And the result: The Valtari Mystery Film Experiment, a series of 12 conceptual music videos, unleashed every couple of weeks this summer following the album's release date on May 23rd.

Here's director Ragnar Kjartansson's vision of the album's opener, Ég anda. The film's respiratory theme seemed odd until I found the title's English translation: I breathe. Nothing like a breath of fresh air, huh? Check it out below—and for more information swing on by the Sigur Ros website.