Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Hope it's all champagne wishes and caviar dreams for you.  I feel like this picture sums up the Cape & Islands this weekend.  At least how people feel about themselves.  This is usually what they really look like though:

If you're going to stay thirsty, remember to stay classy. 

Have an unbelievable weekend. You deserve it ;)

Nantucket Splendor, Trip to Siasconset

This is why there were no posts yesterday, I was too busy staring at the Horizon from Sankaty Head Golf Club.  If you can get on there, do it! Luckily I was like a proud Asian parent and snapped enough iPhone pics to give you a taste of the day.

Overview of Sankaty Head, Siasconset, Nantucket. #1 (L), #9 (R), #5 (N to Sankaty Light)

Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan!!!

I remember growing up and hearing his name. I remember the words visionary, icon, and genius always being associated with it.  Then I heard him sing. Same guy? His music personified irony, scorned conformity, and evolved from precocious to cynical as he ascended to his spot, regretfully, as music royalty.  Watch DA Pennebaker's documentary "Don't Look Back" to see an amphetamine-fueled Dylan, touring Europe for the first time in '65, constantly denying his success and claiming he's just a songwriter.  It's a dichotomy that's displayed in almost every stanza of Dylan verse. Neil McCormick sums up Dylan beautifully:

"This is music to grow up with and grow old to, songs and performances of such depth they reveal ever more with repeated listening. On the best of Dylan, melody and lyric effortlessly mesh together, all those cascading cadences and tripping internal rhymes swept along by tunes of surprising dimensions and perfectly served by Dylan’s dramatic vocal delivery, resounding with heartfelt if often poignantly understated emotion."

For me, nothing exemplifies this point better than 4th Time Around.  Specifically the Royal Albert Hall Concert 1966 Version.  Unbelievably poetic (check out breaks/spacing), an odd time signature, and the characteristic warbling lyrical delivery describing a tragic event with emphatic beauty.  Typical Dylan.

Do you know what 4th Time Around is about?

Perfectly Imperfect

“…it’s just my own theory that, as the future unspools toward its inevitably cosmetic ends, a counter-reaction will take hold: We’ll be drawn, in our environment and in our bodies, to what is untouched, unspoiled, natural, and perfectly imperfect.”  -GQ's Jim Nelson

Day 2 or 3 of the new world (don't know how Harold Camping calculates it) and I think this quote holds some weight.  As the world throws more shit at us and the older we get, the more we aspire to surround ourselves in a simple, natural state (physically, mentally, spiritually, etc).  Think about growing up and wanting exposure to as many things as possible. You're curious and tenacious, a rough combination when in reality, you have no idea what you're doing, but you already think you're an expert.  You want to grow up as fast as you can.  You want it all and you want it now!  If only you knew what you were rushing towards....

Ladies dug HDT's neck
beard and Walden Ways

The internet has only sped up this process. You can find, buy, sell, design, or inquire about almost anything. Has access to this information made us any smarter, increasingly civilized, or well evolved?  Put it this way: G.W. Bush served two terms as President and "Jersey Shore" is a hit TV show.

When you realize you have access to almost anything is when you should start striving for that which you have the least access to.

The city dweller who wants to retire to the countryside.  The yearly vacation to a secluded beach resort.  The summer-house you always dream of buying so you can relax and "get away from it all".  There's a reason people still study Thoreau, whether or not they search for Walden is their choice.

So now that we've survived and society continues to evolve, pursuing perfection, don't forget that the imperfections are what natural beauty are all about.  It's like how Miles Davis once described jazz music, "Don't play what's there, play what's not there."

Transcendentalist'd