Guest Blogger #¿? or publishing a comment late

Some weeks ago, I did a cut and paste of a Proust-questionnaire type questionnaire, stating that my readers' answers would be more interesting to me than mine and that said readers could just copy and paste their responses into a comment. This guest blogger went one better and sent it to me vía e-mail. In fact, since Laurie is someone I've been wanting to do a guest, I'll count this one of her guest posts! As soon as I have her permission, I'll publish her answers to the questionnaire.

Laurie is one of my sisters-in-law and is reallyreally cool.

Name: Laurie S.

Age: 44

Occupation: Completer of tasks, sufferer of whining, sustainer of life, comforter of death i.e. RN

Home base: Worden MT

Retail standby: Eddie Bauer—makes the only jeans that fit my weird body

Music venue: i-tunes, you tube

Favorite concert: Riders in the Sky at Alberta Bair Theater, Actually the last concert by the High Plains Chamber Singers is my current fav

Music: Pretty much anything done well except for guitar solos and LONG jazz solos

Provisions: Diet coke, carrots, cheez-its, dried fruit, almonds

For gifts: For me? Or for someone else

Restaurant: Staggering Ox (I’ve never been disappointed)

Drink: Red Robin Peach Daiquiri, Vodka Cran (heavy on the cran)

Party central: introvert…. Anti-party

Momentary style obsessions: anything that will hide my fat belly

Reading material: This is your brain on Music, The World According to Bertie, True Mom Confessions

Art pick: Anything by Pernille, Renoir, Cassels, Bruegel

Museums: What’s the one in Amsterdam called?

Movie: Singin’ in the Rain, Princess Bride

Vacation destination: Ohio (?), Oh do you mean DREAM vacation—to go and see my foreign kids

Winter survival tip: enjoy it

Something you are looking forward to this spring: Horselets… actually spring is my second to last favorite season. I really don’t look forward to it.

Ed.'s note:

As editor-in-chief of StringOfLights, it's my policy to edit nothing, but as such, I reserve the right to comment. Today's author's body is just fine and for someone who's anti-party she throws a helluva shindig.

Musician, healer, mother to many, scrapbooker extraordinaire, Laurie also has farm animals!

Guest Blogger #7, or "It's my blog and I'll use nepotism if I want to."

Lucky reader, I'm even lower on ideas than usual. So I'm pleased to post some thoughts by Eric. And yes, we're related - by the "Power of the Great State of Montana...", but he is much more "brother" than "in-law". I asked Eric to write something about music because it's something we discuss often and he has a lot to say about it!

Thanks for writing for String of Lights, Eric!

1.I’ve been interested lately in how people balance work and other life activities. As a nurse you care for lives all day/night at work. What kinds of activities to you like to do when you’re not at work?

My balance between work and life are a bit different from others, in that I work 12 hour shifts, 3 a week to be precise 0700-19:30+, plus the occasional meeting and training/educational hours. They can be any day of the week, but fortunately after 21+ years, it doesn't involve nights anymore. This means the days i work are pretty much shot for anything else, however, I will occasionally go to the gym afterward for 45 min. of weights. Unfortunately, I have had an ever-worsening perception of work as a disgusting, yet effective way of making money, therefore I concentrate on the days I don't work.
Which segues into my non-workdays. Since I live 20+ miles outside of Billings I usually try to stay at home. These last 2 days I have been rather worthless, dinking on the computer and watching TV shows I recorded for the last 2 weeks. The stupid satellite dish has been a real mixed blessing; I never used to turn on the TV before 5 p.m. before. When the weather is more pleasant I like to go out for walks with the dogs, jogs and biking around here, and if I want to get real alone I go SE of here a few miles and may never see another soul for hours while exercising. Sadly, with a foot problem I have had since June, it has curtailed my activities a lot.
Otherwise, much of my life is wrapped up in my kid’s school activities; in small town Montana the schools are the heart of the community. Sadly, my youngest is a senior this year and a huge part of our life will be changing. It has been something that Laurie and I have been really wondering and sometimes worrying about, with this fall coming up.
Photography is one of my other interests, passions, and sometimes frustrations. I enjoy photographing about anything, except people and portraits in particular. Fortunately, most people I know hate having their picture taken anyway. I love photographing animals, drag racing, air shows, but those things are not that available most times, however, sunsets here are and I love them also.
I also enjoy listening to music, got Pandora on right now in fact, but more on that later. Needless to say, my ipod is my best friend; car, home, gym it is always with me.

2. It’s my belief that you are someone who should start a blog (perhaps about music!). When? And if not, why?

I saw a t-shirt that said, "More people have read this t-shirt, than have ever read your blog" So, I kinda of doubt anytime soon. I do love your blog Val, but I hate typing and rarely feel witty or cleaver or relevant and my writing style and maturity is about on the level of a junior high kid.
Also, a blog for me personally, has a lot of mixed feelings. Part of me believes in the t-shirt slogan, yet there is something compelling about doing one. Laurie had noted that there has been a disconnect with people and families over the last 100 years, both due to technology and the perception that the home is a refuge, not a neighborhood meeting place. People still want to talk and express their thoughts and feelings, but modern society and peoples own paradigms have kept them from doing it more personally. In essence, I really want to tell people what I think and believe they really care and will be enlightened, but the pessimist in me knows, most really don't give a rat's ass and there is really nothing new under the sun. Narcissism vs. real psychological need?
Yet, another reason, I once posted on Facebook a political position summary of my beliefs, while being sick of all the election BS. My first observation was not many people read it, fine with me. Then I noticed that most of the people agreed with me. However, I wound up shocking a few family members and kind of upsetting them. That is when I leaned perhaps it is best to keep my opinions to myself. Or to quote Karl, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink".

3. Music has always been a part of your life. You play an instrument and you listen extensively to a variety of genres. Your post is about music, so I’ll limit my questions about it in order to avoid repetition. But I can’t resist asking this one: If you could pick your “theme song” for this moment, what would it be?

Karl often thinks it should be "Imagine" done by A Perfect Circle as a funeral dirge, not John Lennon's song of hope and there is truth to that, however, this week I think I would pick, "Time", by Pink Floyd. When Jacinta was here last week showing photo albums to a friend of when the girls where young, it dawned on me (again) how little I remember of those days.
"You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find, 10 years have gone behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun".
Just to make Karl happy, here is my other favorite line, "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way". And sometimes "my way".

4. Anything else you’d like our reader to know?
I absolutely love music and have much in my life. And while, it is quite boastful, I do in fact have the most eclectic and coolest music collection of anyone known. Ha.

Thanks for answering my questions! Um...blogs are supposed to be witty, clever, relevant and/or express opinions? Crap. String of Lights must have been absent the day they taught that in Blogging 101. OK, then, on to your post!

O.K., time for a music blog. I had a lot of different Ideas on this over the past few weeks and came upon a great idea last week. Why not write up on every five star song in my itunes collection? Mind you only about 40 songs out of over 5600 songs earned a coveted 5 star rating. Alright, I can tell you why, it would take me days, it would ultimately only be entertaining to me and bore the hell out of the readers and Val would have to seriously rethink the whole guest blogger concept. And really, such a manifesto should be done on my own blog, that no one with a life would read, but it would without a doubt, amuse me to no end.

So, how about this, two songs that have fascinated me this week. First, from the soundtrack to "Grand Canyon", the ending song. Up front, I must say, the movie sucked and I hardly remember a thing from it. Let me take you back to somewhere in the mid 90's shortly after getting a 4 head stereo VCR and pumping it through my big ass stereo was a great pastime of mine. I discovered that not only did jets and cannons make for cool noises, but that there were a number of great music scores at the that time. "Robin Hood", "Hunt for Red October" and many little know ones, such as "The Year of the Comet" and Elmer Bernstein's "Slipstream". Anyway, I would often record these mini masterpieces from the VCR to my cassette recorder and listen to them in the car or at home. Well, I finally found one of those cassettes recently and converted it with a neat machine I got for Laurie a few years ago. So here is how it goes, VCR to cassette to c.d. to computer and then to my ipod. Ain't technology great? Anyway, back to the song, it is only about 2:12, but has the most kick ass brass since the Rocky soundtrack. And unlike the crappy itunes remake I had to do with for years, it has a real choir and trumpets that are not pushed beyond their capabilities. The song has an almost roman fanfare feel to it, but I will quit trying to describe it with my limited vocabulary and just say, it is awesome.

Last night I was watching some shows (pre) honoring Metallica being inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame. First thoughts, what took them so long, if you have seen a list of losers and nobodies inducted before them and it really makes you wonder who is behind all this? Next I should admit, that while I do like Metallica quite a bit, they wouldn't even make my top 10 list. However, I got to see the video for "One" for the first time in many years and it brought back memories of when I first saw it back in the end of the 80's. Honestly, I didn't like it much, it kind of scared me actually, yet, I would watch it every time it came on MTV, (remember when music television actually played music)? Their sound was so harsh and buzzy, and very mean spirited. Lars the drummer would crack me up with the fierce facial gestures he had through the whole thing, why was he so angry? A few years later, during my music dark ages, (the 90's), I bought "And Justice For All" and started understanding the appeal of this nasty head banging stuff. "One" has such a sad, yet strangely melodic beginning, which fully realizes the frightening concept of James's growling lyrics to follow, basically being a self aware corpse, that a war has used and abandoned. Then come the slowly escalating and ascending guitars with inpatient drums just dying with anticipation to do their machine gun bass pedals. The guitars then join in, without mercy, assaulting everything that is right and holy with powerful blasting chords, forcing even the meekest of people to start slowly bobbing their heads, turning into full out banging. Just when you think you get a rest, Kirk then goes into one his most blazing guitar solos ever and then it is back to the head banging that changes it's cadence and key unpredictably and suddenly, just ends.......... that is when you remember to breath with a relieved, but stuttered inspiration.

Wow, that was fun, I wrote all that while listening to the song (and then did a lot of editing and cleaning up). Alright, this took hours for me to write and type, but it was worth it, at least this time. Thank you Val, for letting me blab, and making this quite possibly one of your longest blogs.

Respectfully,

erc

Guest Blogger #6 A very flexible person!

Today's writer is Gina. She's a Ph.D. candidate in my department and one whose work and attitude foster a spirit of collegiality in our sometimes polarized world. We are often asked if we are "Linguistics or Literature?" as if the twain never shall meet. In our work they might not always, but at the interpersonal level, linguists and literary mix quite well. And Gina's one who makes everyone welcome! She's also recently started a blog of her own (with a red background!) and you'll find a link to it off to the side.

Gina, thanks so much for being providing today’s post. String of Lights is honored to have you here. So that our reader might get to know a bit about who’s writing today, I hope you won’t mind answering a few questions.

1. Let’s start with the obvious. What’s your dissertation about?

It centers on taking a multi-disciplinary approach to analyzing the syntactical structures of early medieval notarial documents from the Monastery of Sahagún, León, Spain. Specifically, my project aims to contribute to the philological debate on the issue of diglossia concerning the spoken language in early medieval Spain, by considering factors such as orality, the written word, and medieval literacy when applied to evidence such as notarial documents. Notarial documents, a neglected genre of linguistic analysis, provide a rich source of syntactic variation in the evolving language of Late Latin to Romance to Old Spanish, a potential mirror of the spoken language of the day.

2. What kind of linguistics is that? Structural? Social?

More than anything I would say it is philology, but since I stress the need for an interdisciplinary approach, I would say my thesis is “historiculturalphilologicalinguistic.”

3. Cool! That's so YOU! In addition to being a “linguini” you’re also an artist (and quite a good one). How has doing art helped you achieve that work-life balance we always hear about in grad school?

(You are kind, thank you) I always heard of the lack thereof in grad school, and I am no exception in experiencing that lack. I just know that when I do my art, I experience a kind of satisfaction that greatly differs from anything academic.

4. OK, linguistics and art are important parts of your life. But let’s move on to your current passion. Can you write a brief reflection on yoga?

Yoga is my life. It provides the base of my existence and feeds into all areas of my life. The body is the portal to the soul is the portal to the Divine.

5. Anything else you'd like our reader to know?

Yes, you are an awesome blogger/writer, Val, not to mention an all-around neat person!

Aw, shucks, ma'am...I meant about you- not about me! But since it's my policy to not edit my guests' posts...

And speaking of my guest's post, here it is. [umm...it's a little bit about me, but it's a cool story, and well-told by Gina]

Bag-O-Cash

Monday, March 23, 2009 at 1:23am

Valerie's delivery of the humungous (omg, Facebook "spell-check" red-underliner, get a clue--"humungous" IS spelled correctly) bag of recyclables to my truck today merit the telling of this story. Valerie was driving from campus to my house when she started thinking, "gosh I sure wish I had a bigger bag of recyclables to give Gina for her worthy cause of becoming a life-changing Bikram Yoga instructor..."---okay, this is paraphrased a bit---, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, she had to screech her car to a halt because out of the blue appeared a HUMUNGOUS bag of recyclables. She saw the gentleman with the rolled-up blue jeans continue on his bicycle pedaled journey, as she used her "teacher voice" (her words, meant, I assume, to imply the raising of the volume and broadening of the range) to call out to the man, "hey, I will pick up the bag for you, hey, your bag, heyyyyyy......" The man just kept pedaling, so she picked up the bag and stuffed it into her car, with the line of traffic waiting behind her, and immediately began the search for the man who disappeared. However, even after her most valiant attempt, Valerie did not reach this recycling cycler. So, as fate would have it, she went on to deliver her little shopping bag full, along with the new addition of the humungous bag-o-cash. This was Serendipity at its best.

Blog de Anywhere #6 - Bismarck, ND

A prize to the first person who can indicate, vía comment, how many of yesterday's statements were actually uttered. Prize increases incrementally if you can also state which ones were actual quotations and if you can identify the things your author said.

Prize commensurate with personality of winner.

Guest Blogger #3*

*Be warned, you could be #4. And soon!

So, yeah, I basically stalked this week's Guest Blogger...

OK not exactly. On blogger.com (where my orange version of this blog lives) there's this nifty button that reads "next blog". When you click it, sometimes you get an ad, sometimes you get porn, sometimes you get a whiny teenage diary with really cool graphics and emo music. Sometimes you get the blog of one of your my favorite Latin American authors! And sometimes you get one that invites you to read more than a just a few sentences, like this week's Guest Blogger's blog. When I find one I like, I try to leave a comment...



Val: So, first things first. Thanks again for being my guest blogger today! Would you like to tell our reader about yourself and how you’re associated with String of Lights and/or this topic you’re writing about or should I?

You: Sure, I write a blog on my divorce. One day, I received a post on my blog saying… “Found your blog yesterday…” The email was filled with kind words about my writing, so I decided to see what where the perceptive poster came from. That led me to Val, and her “String of Lights.” I read a post a about vacuums, and like the fickle fish of fate, I was lured in.

Val: Do you have a blog? Would you like to put a link to it here?

You: Yeah, I’ll take the free ad space. Is this thing on? Do you do blinking marquees too? I have 2 blogs: grphter.blogspot.com, and descarteslemming.blogspot.com. They’re both about my life and how the divorce saga intertwines. The lemming site has pictures, videos and unrelated stuff to confuse the reader. It’s for the person who likes to put on a blindfold when they drive.

Val: What takes up most of your day?

You: I blog, and I do radio research for Mediabase 24/7. They chart radio station airplay and report the data back to whoever will pay for it—primarily record labels and other radio stations. Think of my job as Name that Tune for a weekly paycheck.

Val: What kind of music don’t you listen to?

You: Country. It's funny. When I was a kid, my Mom listened to country (cuz it was going through it's popular early 70s phase). I thought I hated music, until a friend, who was a local "hit radio" DJ brought me some records. It was all radio rock stuff like Grand Funk Railroad and Dobie Gray and Thin Lizzy. Stuff like that. I fell in love! Suddenly music was cool, and I've been listening ever since.

Val: What question would you have liked me to ask you? And what would your answer be?

You: Question: Can I pay you for this?
Answer: Absolutely.

Perfecto. On to your post!

Well Val, we’ve talked about Pandora.com a little. You’ve even asked about one of my stations. Ok, I pointed it out, and you’d said “why are you waving this stinky thing under my nose.” Same thing.

The station is called “An experiment in mellow.” It started as a project for a friend a few years back. The friend has since moved on, but I still prune and water the station. I wanted to see if I could use the parameters of Pandora to create a mellow station that wasn’t whiny. With Pandora, if you add bouncing bands, you risk bumping the beat too fast. You allow too much sentimentality to seep in, and you risk sounding like a doctor’s office. I wanted life and mood. It was my little musical bio-dome.

Artists like Kate Bush, Sarah McLaughlin and the Smiths were among the original seeds. I nurtured branches of Jack Johnson, and Death Cab, while cutting out the Mariah Careys before they even sprouted.

It’s part of how I listen to music, I love how it’s the landscaping for our environment. It creates your setting, sets your mood and invites others who want to know more. In my divorce, I kind of let the music amble, but now I’m coming back. I’ve filled my rooms with extravagant bouquets and arrangements, and the music hasn’t sounded better.

What kind of person asks for this for her birthday?

And what kind of friend actually gets it for her?


I have an expert on MLA citation as my Guest Blogger today!

Val: So, first things first. Thanks again for being my guest blogger today! Would you like to tell our reader about yourself and how you’re associated with String of Lights and/or this topic you’re writing about or should I?

Rower: I taught the String of Lights author (almost) everything she knows about MLA.

Val: Do you have a blog? Would you like to put a link to it here?

Rower: I do, but no thanks.

Val: What takes up most of your day?

Rower: Work, learning, reading String of Lights

Val: What kind of music do you listen to?

Rower: All kinds—especially partial to classical orchestral and piano music.

Val: What question would you have liked me to ask you? And what would your answer be?

Rower: Question: If you were a blog, what would your theme (skin) be?
Answer: Something with boats and water.

Perfecto. On to your post

MLA. Three letters that strike terror into the hearts of students everywhere—or at least bring out the question “Why bother?” Let me tell you why you, too, should hope students everywhere learn to bother.

MLA is the Modern Language Association which, among other things, maintains a style guide. MLA is based on the importance of words, so its internal logic is about getting readers to the original text as quickly as possible. When reading a paper following MLA style, citations occur in the text parenthetically and readers interested in following up have the first item in the works cited entry (author usually) and the page number (or paragraph number) from which the quote or paraphrase is taken.

Now you may be thinking, “That’s swell if you are a nerd and have nothing better to do than look up people’s quotes.” MLA teaches more than good housekeeping in the writing of papers. It teaches how to follow a set of guidelines. Standard operating procedures. It teaches attention to detail. Ever have the tire place forget to tighten the lug nuts? Not cool, is it? Guarantee that tech didn’t bother to learn MLA. It teaches that if you want to be trusted and taken seriously, you must adhere to the standards of your area. Most importantly, MLA recognizes that words still do mean things and that words are important enough to check.

* Interestingly enough, personal webpages are covered in the 6th Edition, as are posts to bulletin boards, but blogs are not. I've made an executive decision to italicize the title of the entire blog. I'd set the individual posts off in quotation marks " " if I were going to cite them in a We're Excited Works Cited page.