If the world ends in 2012....

**NOTE** this blog is extremely jumpy and confusing, decipher from it what you will

First of all if the world ends in 2012 please react in the same fashion as those in the music plug of the day: Bright Eyes' "At the Bottom of Everything". Even upon death take it with cheer and don't regret the past. This is too good to explain my belief in the end of the world, Walt Whitman once said in "Song of Myself":

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

This is absolutely amazing to acknowledge our unity with all life and times and worlds. We will all return to one form or another but never truly disappear. So those people in your life who you treated unkindly, or completely destroyed a once fruitful relationship will no longer hate you, but will realize your togetherness is meant to be in another life.

Love and caring is what life is all about, over my thanksgiving break i realized this. I also worried as I hung out with old friends whether or not they were truly my friends. So i thought. How many actually "know" me. I realized no 1 friend truly knew me in entirety, that truly takes years and years of being with someone. This is the importance of relationships. The person who you chose to spend the rest of your life getting to know needs to be your best friend. Everything must be perfect and for some reason you need to always be attracted and magnetized to returning to one another. It just takes the right charisma and irrevocable love for the person.

Love,
nick

Drug Rug

I enjoyed a beautiful weekend at home. It was successful on many levels: 1) It reinvigorated my desire to run, 2) Motivated my equally powerful desire to write some more songs, 3) Forced me to spend lots of time alone, contemplating life. Very happy with all three things for various reasons. Plus I received a sweet drug rug from my mom for my birthday. So yes, it was enjoyable. Recently I've become entertained with creating a new blog with a goal of reviewing a movie one week and an album the next week, trading off each week. So please keep your eyes peeled for the first post around the end of this week. The blog will be entitled Vinyl and Cellulose Acetate.

_nick

BTW, WTF Bob Dylan??? But it is actually awesome and hilarious. Love him, plus all money from the album goes to charity.

Happy birthday to me!

Well today (technically yesterday, the 20th) was my birthday and it was pretty average, uneventful, and highly caffeinated. Last night's open mic night was solid, thoroughly enjoyed my buddy Matt Hannigan. So I'm gonna give him my music plug of the day. It was a very late night though, I forgot how to order my life (doing homework at 4 a.m. = bad idea) but I survived. I'm now comfortably at home and enjoying some relaxing hours playing guitar and pondering my life. I'm officially returning to my training plan this week, so hopefully running starts to pick up. I;m really grateful to have people around me motivating me and supporting me, because honestly without them I might just give up. Only b-day presents I received were two books from my mom: Born to Run and a poetry book by Keith Waldrop, who is a professor at Brown and recently won the National Book Award for Poetry, the work is entitled Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. Really looking forward to reading both!

_nick

Anyway as promised, Matt Hannigan:

Compute this

Computers rule this world. They addict me. They frustrate me. The cause me to lose sleeping time. They are horrible creations that need to be destroyed. Yet we can't. We cannot do it. Is this the problem with the human condition? We cannot live a life not ruled by time and machines and cars and computers? Why not? What happened to living with nature and by nature. Our nature is now made of circuit boards and LEDs. Distractions are all around us. The smart avoid them, the dumb succumb. Not just the dumb, but the curious, the thinkers, the observant. They somehow control us yet still. I hate it. Now as I write on my computer at 3 am. Why? Computers made me do it. I hate them but cannot live this stage of my life without it. I look forward to the day where I can leave my computer and never return to it. That will be the day I have found true peace in my life and my own being. That'll be the day when I am happy. I look forward to that day but fear it is too far away.

-nick

My natural nature

Nature is amazing, human nature is destructive. This is what I realized today on a run. As I ran along my favorite route, I noticed a swan swimming in the water, and to his right a bunch of ducks dobbing in the water, then I heard chirping from the trees beyond. It sounded so soothing, as the light rain drops fell from the sky, these little birds sang there cheerful song. Then came the humming, the thundering boom, the giant airplane. Humans have managed to ruin nature. I turn to my left and look over the providence river and the shore is lined with salt piles, tankers, plumes, and smoke. Its disgusting, making the gray November sky seem like a polluted cloud of smoke. I continued, the plane had passed, the birds must have been afraid, for they had gone silent. Then I heard something nice again, raindrops, raindrops, raindrops, raindrops. Gently falling. Making a shimmering sound, majesty and peaceful. It was nice. I truly believe I may have been the only person to stop and think of these things today but I'm glad I did. Really how important is everything we've made? Isn't the stuff that came before us more amazing?

_nick

The drive, the vison, the sound.

I'm enjoying some relaxing time spent at home. I've been feeling pretty shitty lately so its nice to get away from the thing that was making me sick. I've been writing some songs lately hopefully I can try to actually put some together fully. I've realized that the most important thing about producing something good is having the drive, the vision, the sound. If you know what you want, and know what you want it to feel like for others, then you need to devote time to getting that right. There's no easy way to it, its getting it done, through repetition, through hate, through love, through whatever looking glass you put your eyes to!!!

_nick

P.s. Mason Jennings is awesome, listen to him!

Safe for now

Today was a difficult day, not only have I been rendered pretty dysfunctional from what I call the "head cold from hell", but I also had my judicial hearing today. Things went pretty well though, I managed to not fall apart completely and the hearing went alright. I didn't get expelled, I didn't get suspended, and I can still live on-campus. So the worst punishments were by-passed and now I must deal with the minor ones I have received. Oh and explaining this to my mom - arguably the most difficult. But anyways, once I'm healthy again hopefully training will start to pick up. As for music, still loving the swell season, here's another vid from the other night at Lupos:

_nick

Fall is a swell season

WEEK 1, day 5: 8 miles (56 min)
WEEK 1, day 6: 13+ miles (1:31)
WEEK 1, day 7: 16+ miles (1:51)
WEEK total: 81 miles

Last night I saw The Swell Season play and they were absolutely amazing! By far one of the most beautiful sets I've ever seen a band play. Each song was filled with passion and meaning, not to mention incredibly talented musical parts. Glen Hansard's ability to sing so gentle and also intensely scream at the top of his lungs, while jamming out on his broken-holed guitar was inspiring. The couple of Glen and Marketa Irglova was beautiful on their duet songs. Someone in the crowd took this video of the opening song, it demonstrates the beautiful relationship of the two musicians:

Someday we will be set free

WEEK 1, day 3 - 12+ miles (82 min.)
WEEK 1, day 4 - 14+ miles (95 min.)

I forgot to set my clock to "a.m" and not "p.m" so needless to say I was fucking late to rise. 5 minutes after waking up, I was in the RISD museum admiring the amazing originality and beauty of modern art as it relates to modern poetry. Really amazing stuff. I loved the "dada" work by I believe Jean Arp. It was incredibly simple but effective. The movement essentially was not a movement at all and their art was not art and they were not artists. And thats why it was just a bunch of dadada. Really cool stuff. I also gained a huge appreciation for Picasso's cubism paintings. Awesome collection and hopefully I'll have a chance to explore it even more sometime. Run went well today, felt pretty good but ran pretty easy. As for music, I've gotta go with another Langhorne Slim:

_nick

An Immigrant Country

WEEK 1, Day 2: 8+ miles (59min)

So first I read this terrible article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/33587668

And this is my response to Mr. Rovell:

Did you also know that the last American before Meb to win was Alberto Salazar? And do you know where Salazar was born? He was born in Cuba, and shared a very similar background to Meb. Though Salazar immigrated with his family when he was two-years-old and Meb was I believe closer to 12 years-old, the fact is they both went to school in America, lived here their entire lives leading up to their vicotries at the New York City Marathon (Salazar won three years in a row), and are in fact U.S. citizens.

So why do you degrade his accomplishment and not Alberto Salazar's? The only possiblity I can deduce from your article and apology may be the color of their skin. Salazar: white; Meb: black. You said: "But Keflezighi's country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country." You had to point to the fact he was from Africa, and belittle his great success.

I assume now that you know Salazar was not American-born, you can write-off his accomplishment as well in another article. The last American born victor was Bill Rodgers, winning four times in a row, spanning from 1976-79, since you are really concerned with when an American-born runner last won.

It saddens me that in this country, ethnicity plays such a huge role with identity. Just look at the questioning of our own President Barack Obama's nationality. It illustrates a huge problem with the media and demonstrates an underlying discomfort with ethnicity in our country. Articles such as your own Mr. Rovell only perpetuate and bring to light this problem.

Other than this seemingly racist article my day was pretty good, tiresome, so I'm going to bed "early": midnight. Busy day tomorrow, need all the sleep I can get.

_nick

Good sleeping music and appropriate video because I have a fruit fly problem in my room:

Lydiard Day 1

WEEK 1, day 1 - 10+ miles (70min)

Today was Day #1 of my 10-week aerobic phase and it went well. An easy 10+ miles and a desire to run more was the result. I've officially run out of food in my room, with the exception of peanut butter. So as Lydiard calls for immediate food after running to increase recovery, I was forced to eat spoonfuls of peanut butter. mmmhhh... Mondays suck - long and draining. Music plug of the day, Ray LaMontagne, I didn't get into him at first (mostly cuz my mom discovered him before me, I felt defeated), but I gave him a second chance and I'm glad, he's an amazing songwriter with a voice that'll warm you better than whiskey.

_nick

American distance running

Today as Meb Keflezighi was running the final mile of the NYC marathon, I felt overwhelmed with pride and enamored by the brilliance of his performance. He accomplished what no American man, since 1982 could do, and he did against one of the toughest fields ever assembled for the race. Absolutely amazing. The feeling of crossing that line must have been absolutely amazing. After the race, I was rearing to go for a run, and so i did a nice easy 12 miles. That is not even half of a marathon and it got me thinking to just how difficult the marathon is. It is by far one of the toughest events to train for. If 6 months of training for one race isn't putting all your eggs in one basket I don't know what is. Today it all payed off for Meb and he deserved it. I'm in a similar 6 month situation now too (I'm not training for the marathon), well I am but I'm not. I am in the sense of 100 mile weeks, but not in the sense of not running a marathon. But watching NYC today truly inspired me, and I hope one day I'll be running across those bridges, down first ave., and into central park. My music plug of the day goes to Blind Pilot, they're playing Nov. 12 at Paradise Lounge with the Low Anthem, should be a great show!

_nick