"Birds flew off with a fallout shelter..."

That one verse from Don McClean's "American Pie" never seemed more appropriate..

Here's a great sign from The Bell Museum, only visible in the colder seasons (note the vines). It's so kitsch! The Bell Museum is a campy Natural History museum from the 60's--loaded with dioramas of taxidermy wildlife. I chuckle each time I pass it. It's hard to believe that people actually had confidence in fallout shelters.


Or that people even believed in this for example: duck and cover, even a newspaper can save you from the atomic bomb!



Ah, ignorance is bliss...

But the Bell Museum is absolutely fantastic. I'm a nut for animals; if I could make money, I would totally be a Zoologist (not to mention you get the really cool perk of saying you're a Zoologist). Something about stuffed grouse and raccoons put into "natural positions" is such a gas to me. My grandpa hunts, and his house is full of his trophies (and, no, they're not trashy). He's got this really sweet lynx that's been stuffed into an alert/pouncing position. Scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid.

I've got Literature in the Bell Museum Auditorium--hence why I'm there so often. Probably wouldn't be creepin' around there so much otherwise, who knows. But damn! As of today, that Lit class is my favorite. I don't think I've ever taken a literature class that didn't ruin the material, until this one. My AP English class in high school murdered Gatsby for me through a violent and unecessary use of MLA formatting and Harold Bloom, coupled with insipid class discussions with my so called "peers." Bah! How I loathed working on that novel. I love the prose, love F. Scott... but Gatsby will forever stand in my memory as an assault upon my patience.

Regardless, this Lit class is as different from the torture of high school as The Guess Who's original "American Woman" is infinitely better than Lenny Kravitz's pathetic cover. Reading material under the tutelage of my university teach Dr. Conley enhances my experience for once, rather than hindering it. The work we read for this past unit has been the kind that electrifies my soul (see my treatise on the beauty of Squalor) and the defragmenting analysis through defamiliarization of the text blows my mind like a shot of heroin. Jesus, take any one paragraph, and let's sit down together and take it a part piece by piece. What is the significance of using "it" instead of "he" in this phrase? Why does this specific use of alliteration strike us so potently? How come the author decided to repeat this motif right here? That's how lecture/discussion in Literature 1101 goes. Oooh it burn burn burns me in the deepest throes of intrigue! I love this class. I cannot stop my hand from raising with some half-crazed idea to babble about to share this beautiful text w/ people my classmates. And to impress my teacher, but that, children, is a story for another time...

The main stairwell in Folwell Hall. Probably the prettiest and most collegiate building on campus.

I have to hike up these four flights of stairs to get to my French class, but even as out of shape as I am, I never really notice the climb. Partially because my iPod blasts out the noise of my panting breath, but mostly because I'm so excited to get to class that my mind doesn't really give a damn about my complaining stamina.

In the few weeks since this semester has begun, French 3015 has simultaneously humbled and reawakened my driving love for the language of baguettes and cafés and escargot. For the first time in a very long time, I have to try in French class, something that this overachiever is not used to.

This new found fascination can basically be all chalked up to my Professor. When imagining the university world, professors are usually stereotyped as slouching old men with corduroy pants, fuzzy white beards and thick glasses who are veritable walking tomes of wisdom. Enter Professor Akehurst--exactly fitting the bill. His teaching method is fairly old school (unsurprisingly) when it comes to teaching French. A lot, and i mean a lot of repetition, memorization, and pronunciation. This method, though frowned upon by the new curricula and the creators of Rosetta Stone, has worked for centuries, and (most importantly) works for me. Suddenly I'm discovering vowel sounds that I have never heard nor uttered before in my life. I have to think on my feet, while this aimiable old Englishman retells the class stories from his glory days and tasty tidbits of French culture. Every class period is a treat worth sitting in the front row for. It's such a pity that this is Akehurst's last semester here.

The Blog Cherry

Alright, so not the most glamorous of photos to start out this blog, but considering the title, I thought it appropriate. That's the Cherry & the Spoon, by the way, slightly obscured by a shitty camera and my favorite people in Minneapolis. I'm the one on the left. We're smiling in this shot... that was one of the better days around here.

I'm a writer, and in some personal mission to strip off the pretentious connotations of that title, this blog is supposed to be my very own version of honesty... whatever that may mean. Hopefully I can sharpen my biting wit in the process.

The concept of blogging escaped me for the longest time. I never quite understood. But recently I've taken it into my head that there is this inherent necessity in all artists to share. Share their art, share their thoughts, share whatever may be remotely interesting, share what is intrinsically fascinating, share and discuss. Share and introduce. And from that, we can all connect.

As convoluted and mildly communistic as that may sound, it's something I believe in--maybe even one of the few somethings that I consistently believe in. So I want to share with you. Can we be enthusiastic about what we experience in this high-flying paradox called life? Please?

I'd like us to share. There's so much to experience, and it's all so exciting. Wouldn't you agree?