The Bleeding Heart Show

  

    

#110

09.04.10

     

The Bleeding Heart Show - 

The New Pornographers

     

Lamprocapnos spectabilis, a.k.a. Bleeding Hearts, are my favorite plant / flower.  I've been collecting photographs of them for a few years, and more so this year using all of my cameras, including the iPhone camera, in hopes of making a blog entry to honor them.  

       

The urge became all-the-stronger when I started getting in to yet another amazing, amazing Canadian collective band - The New Pornographers (TNP).  I've enjoyed some of their music for years over internet radio; but this Spring on my desert drive from Phoenix to Hollywood I heard a song from them that made my brain explode.  {If you've read any of my recent posts, you'll quickly realize that having my "brain explode" can only be considered a good thing.}  So after hearing that song (I'll feature it on an upcoming entry), I started collecting their albums and was thrilled when I first heard this song The Bleeding Heart Show.  After many listens, it is the standout track from what I consider TNP's standout album Twin Cinema.  My favorite TNP songs usually include or feature Neko Case on vocals, which is the case here.  Neko has a strong solo career going in her own right, and likely out-sells the NPs.

       

So please enjoy these photographs and this amazing song.  I am putting up a bunch of photos, in hopes that you might stay through the entire song, and maybe even let it play through several times consecutively.  It starts relatively slowly, and then picks up the pace in the midsection, and then finally lifts you off the ground, hurtling you into a mesmerizing coda at the end.  

     

The perfect song for my perfect plant.
    

   

    

     

    

    

    
This next photo shows T holding some bleeding hearts at the Alaska Botanical Gardens in 2004; the first time I had ever seen them.  {Image taken on my trusty old Nikon 8800, not with the iPhone camera.}
  

    
These last photos were taken in June, 2010 with my Canon Xsi.  The close-up is one of my favorite photos ever.  I used it as a model for a drawing I did on a sympathy card for T after her mother died.  I would have featured it at the top of this blog if I had shot it on the iPhone.  As much fun as it is to shoot with the iPhone camera, there are times you simply must have higher resolution images, right?
      

      

     
CCE
    

CQE, The Emperor

      

     

#109

08.31.10

     

CQE, The Emperor

     

Piano Concerto No. 5, 'The Emperor' 

- Ludwig van Beethoven

     

This blog entry is totally and unapologetically a tribute to my great father, CQE.

   

My family, as well as countless freinds and at-large citizens of the universe, all know that he is without question one of the finest humans to ever grace the planet with his presence.  For those who do not know him, that will sound trite and subjective, and that is both unfortunate and unavoidable.  For those who do know him, they will simply nod in agreement.
    
He has dedicated his professional life to medicine, healing, and teaching.  Many of those years were spent managing what was once the 'indigent clinic' at the old LDS Hospital in the SLC avenues; and now has become the Internal Medicine Outpatient Clinic of Intermountain Medical Center.  (Talk about a state-of-the art facility; it makes any hospital I have ever entered seem archaic by comparison.  And the people there?  Just a different cut altogether.  Non-profits are the best shot at purity of purpose, are they not?)
   
Recently an anonymous donor made a contribution to IMC on the condition that the hospital name the Outpatient Clinic after my father.  Wow - what a total honor, and on so many levels.  And do you think my father told me of the honor?  No... he would never mention any award or acknowledgment like that... my mother had to phone my siblings and I to give us the exciting news.  And when I did get to speak to him over the phone about the honor, he immediately told me of three or four more deserving individuals than himself; and no big surprise, only one of those was a physician.  The others were nurses or other dedicated staff, to him their roles were every bit as vital and important as his own.  
    
And that, my readers, is exactly and precisely why this man deserves an honor such as this.  
 Of course, the honor isn't just his, it is all of ours.  He elevates those around him, and I've been drafting behind him my whole life.  Surely he deserves a turn at the back of the peleton... but he's still right out there in front.
 
Perhaps you think I'm making this stuff up?  Go ahead and do a Medline search for one of his 80+ publications in the finest medical journals; or go to Amazon.com and pick up his textbook Hemochromatosis: Genetics, Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatment, or if you don't have $340 to spare you could pick up the more affordable but highly informative Handbook of Iron Overload Disorders (I just got my copy signed!).  Or I suppose you could look at the 25+ teaching awards he's received over the years, or ask one of the hundreds (thousands, now?) of medical students, interns and residents who look up to him as their mentor.  The members of the American College of Physicians might clue you in; they elected him Governor for the State of Utah on a 5 year term which he currently fills.
 
And me?  I'm so lucky, I get to look up to him on all of those levels, and as my father too.
  
I was privileged to spend a day with my dad on 08.25.10, and what a treat that was:

*  Unveiling of the new clinic (second ceremony, this one was for the staff). The formal unveiling occurred the previous evening, and my older brother and hospital administrators gave lovely tribute speeches in his honor. 

*  Lunch conference with the students, interns and residents.  The discussion was on Medical Ethics, and given by Dr. J.J., specialist in Infectious Diseases, whom my father refers to as "a brilliant discussant", which I was favored to experience first hand.

*  Observing my father take 2 third-year medical students for a few hours to teach the reading of atrial fibrillation with right bundle branch block / right ventricular hypertrophy et al. on an EKG strip; followed by rounding on their previous-day inpatient admissions (ruling out renal bruits in a patient with significant mesenteric vascular disease, and Addison's Disease, respectively).  

 
This will go down as one of the finest days of my life.
   

    
In closing, I must mention that this blog entry is the first to feature classical music.  There's no reason for that; I enjoy classical music, and even went with T and CQEII to a 3 hour concert last Saturday night at St. Andrew's in Eagle River that featured some world class musicians (you should have heard the clarinetist!), and were privileged to see Q's violin teacher, the incomparable KGB join them with her viola.  I say it was "3 hours", but the fact is that we left at the 3 hour mark... it was almost 10:30 p.m. and Master Q was 3 hour's past his bedtime.  I shudder to think what we may have missed after we left.
 
This featured piece, a portion of Beethoven's Fifth (and final) Piano Concerto, was chosen for several reasons; the most important among them being it is CQEI's favorite piece of music.  Secondly, the sort of exposure this blog will create for my dad is not something he is going to like very well.  (I beg my family members to simply not mention it to him, {please?!}, lest he gag outright).  However, in the event that he should stumble across it, my sincere hope is that van Beethoven can smooth out the nausea he is sure to experience. 
     
Finally... this guy, CQEI, my dad, 
is The Emperor.
     
CCE


P.S. Though this blog may seem like it has become a journal of late (the injury, the healing, white daisies passing, the emperor)... that is coincidental, as there have been many 'personal' things going on around here.  I'll get back to the silly low-rez photos featuring music I enjoy beginning next entry.  Scout's honor.
  

Part II: R.R.O. - White Daisy Passing

       

    

 #108

08.28.10

    

White Daisy Passing - Rocky Votolato

      

R.R.O., my mother-in-law of 17 years, was diagnosed with Stage IV (metastatic) cancer on 06.29.09.  After exactly 365 days of some terrible lows and a few brilliant highs, she passed away on 06.28.10.  Today is the two-month anniversary of her passing.

   

I will not be able to write a proper tribute to her, which I had hoped to do.  Perhaps some future day, when I have been able to wrap my brain around it all.

   

For now I will have to let the photos and the music do most of the speaking for me.  But I will mention that R.R.O. loved daisies, and that I miss her, and that I understand her more after her passing than I did while she was living.  I feel badly for that, and can do nothing but accept it and try to be better about understanding those who surround me now.

   

And I will forever look at daisies in a different light.

    
  

These were taken this afternoon.  The rain, the drooping daisies, the listless flag... everything is as it should be.

  

 

  These three photos were taken with my Canon Xsi on the day of her funeral viewing.

  

  

  

This simple, candid iPhone photo is how I will choose to remember our R. forever.

 

I was privileged to spend a full week alone with her and my father-in-law, D.H.O., in March, 2010, and took this one night during a glorious Arizona  sunset.  It is the last photo I took, and will ever get to take, of her.  It is also the last time I stood near her in life.  Despite the devastating loss, D.H.O. has been an anchor for the family through it all.

 

I will always love and miss you, Mom.

 

CCE

  

Part I: Daisies of the Galaxy

   

  

#107

08.23.10

  

Daisies of the Galaxy - Eels 

  Today's entry is another example of my inner "circles" colliding, and spilling out into this blog.
  

I've been collecting photos of daisies this past year with the iPhone camera, though I can't say I've ever particularly appreciated daisies before.  There is a reason for it, of course, and Part II of 'the Daisies' series will further elucidate why.  It has been a struggle for me getting to that blog entry, and my hope is that this gentle Part I might pave the way for me to get out the painful Part II.

   

This is just a gorgeous song by my man Mark O. Everett - the genius behind the band Eels.  It manages to create a bittersweet feeling to my mind's ear.

 

...

I'll pick some daisies
From the flower bed
Of the Galaxy Theater
While you clear your head

   
I thought some daisies

Might cheer you up 
   

***
   

There's a sense of innocence in the way the boy perceives his friend to be confused or sad, and offers to pick some flowers that "might cheer you up".  I also like the how the title Daisies of the Galaxy conjures images of something large, or of epic grandeur, when really it's about a rundown movie house with a simple flower bed.  

  

The Eels will release their new album "Tomorrow Morning", er... tomorrow morning, as it were.  I thought it fitting to honor the occasion by featuring an older song from their catalog tonight.  Interestingly, iTunes releases the new albums every Tuesday morning at 12:01 a.m., which happens to be 8:01 p.m. in Alaska... which means I get to cheat the universe and download albums on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.  Ha!  

 

It's like plucking Daisies from the Galaxy.

The daisies featured in this blog are from my yard.
  

Please stay tuned for Part II (unless I chicken out, again).

   

CCE

  

    

Waiting for the Moon to Rise

  

  

#106

08.21.10

  

Waiting for the Moon to Rise - Belle & Sebastian

  
I'm a total sucker for the twee chamber-pop of Belle & Sebastian, and have been for a long, long time.  They were one of the two total concerts I was able to attend during the 8 years I lived in Philly. Tiffinie and I caught the show at the Tower, and it wound up being one of our favorite evenings together. 


Most every song by B&S is sung by the inimitable Stuart Murdoch, though some real gems on early B&S work feature the lovely Isobel Campbell (cellist) on vocals.  {Perhaps you've heard some of her later solo work?  She is known for a silky, whisperlike delivery, but her albums with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees / Queens of the Stone Age are darkly gorgeous.}  However, on this track the super shy violinist (really - you should see her actively avoid the spotlight during live shows!) Sarah Martin wrote and performed the vocals on Waiting for the Moon to Rise off their 4th album Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant.  Even though she ends up singing a-la Isobel, I think it isn't on purpose.  I sense the shyness in her delivery here, and really am drawn in to the song all the more for it.


I really like how the calm of the song matches the calm of this amazing moonrise over the Turnagain Arm.  I caught it around 10:45 p.m. this past Thursday after attending the Anchorage screening of "Ashes of American Flags", a documentary / collection of Wilco performances in 2008, at the Bear Tooth Theater.  Very, very sadly I was meant to attend their performance that year here in Anchorage at the Moose's Tooth, but instead spent the day fishing with my father-in-law in Resurrection Bay, and missed it.  I suppose I traded one memory for another.


This song is on my favorite "night driving" playlist... and not-so-ironically, the playlist was created for late night drives along the very same Turnagain Arm depicted in the photograph.

All the way back home
I'm telling you I caught the sun
Creeping up behind my shoulder
Another day's begun
I was following a trail
I'd never been along before
Chasing darkened skies above me
Looking like the spring
Like the winter
And the morning

If there's a place I want to go
Then I'll be there with you
Because in my dreams, the things I'm wishing for
Keep coming true

Now a new day comes
Clears the darkness out of sight
And the shadows that were sleeping
Come and dance beneath the light
And I'm trying hard to hide
Keep the sun out of my eyes
Close them tight and now I'm waiting
For the moon to rise

Don't try to say to me
That this was never meant to be
Because the days are long where I come from
The next few days I'm free
There's a train I want to catch
But it won't leave here for a while
Until darkness fills the eastern sky
And streetlights stretch for miles
Through the spring
And the winter
And the morning 

One final aside:  I smile internally at the realization of how tightly focused my interests really are.  It seems like every circle of an interest or attraction I posses intersects with other small circles during everyday occurrences.  Though this may be hard to follow, I'll try to illustrate.

I had just seen one of my musical heroes, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, in the concert documentary film at the Bear Tooth Theater.  Tweedy can come across as somber or morose, and it turns some people off.  But I happen to know he suffers from chronic migraine headaches since he was young, and I think that suffering comes out in his work.  I'm absolutely attracted to his work, and perhaps for no greater reason than that knowledge.  (But come on, he's a gifted lyricist, and that band just moves!)  

I too have suffered chronic migraine headaches since I was 15, with some of them surpassing 30 consecutive days of misery.  In a tie for First Place amongst the triggers for my migraines is Bright Light (Heat being the other).  For as much as I've enjoyed the past few days of Sun here in Anchorage, it just wrecks my head if I don't have my Paul Smith oversized sunglasses ready to go.  Of course, I never allow that to happen... I've been dealing with this for so long that I always have eye protection with me.  

In any event, to try and close off this tangential romp through a briar patch... I can really relate to Sarah's lines in this song dealing with trying to hide from the Sun, and Waiting for the Moon to Rise.  It is The Reason I love Winter in Alaska so much... long stretches of dark that last for months at a time... a soothing salve to an aching brain.  

And that's how headaches, the moon, Wilco, and Belle & Sebastian can coexist nicely within the recesses of my mind.

Perhaps I will extend Mr. Tweedy an invitation to come up here and live in the subarctic with us?  Nah... if physical pain is the impetus for his music, with all apologies to him, I'd prefer he remain in pain.  As for me?  Eh... I suppose I could give it up.

CCE

Unmade Bed

   

   

#105

08.18.10

   

Unmade Bed - Sonic Youth

     

Look who's come back home again
Loser looking for his lucky break
This time he says he just needs a friend
Ain't on the run he ain't on the take

Can you unlock the door babe
Will you undo the chain
Will you take yr time before you
Mix up love, his love and pain

Loneliness lays down his head
Wants to get you high, better take it now
A man like that's like an unmade bed
Stained eyes searching for another way out

Does it matter if you even want this
Maybe you just don't care
All I know it takes just one kiss, babe
For you - he's never there

Hey I know its kinda hard
And maybe this time it will never end
Hit and run lover back in yr heart
Answered prayers you should never have sent

Cuz now that yr in his arms babe
You know yr just in his way
Suckered by his fatal charm, oh girl
It's time we getaway 

 

  

CCE

 

Episode II: The Healing

   

   

#104

08.14.10

   

To Heal - Underworld

 

That's my 5 year old CQEII creating a happy ending to an otherwise sad event.  

 

 

  

    

  

  

So, so proud.

 

CCE