Download my Goodbye Provo music mix

Making a mix CD is always an interesting way to communicate with people. We make mixes in hopes of making people feel a certain feeling. Or we try to make the listener think a certain way about the maker. For example, one message would be “Look at how good my taste in music is, I am a man of the world". "I am so eclectic and cosmopolitan.” Another popular message is “ Come on baby, you can trust me to be the person to make out with.”
As I look back at my Provo experience my memory could have a sound track to it. My first reaction was to do a greatest hits mix, a nostalgic trip of songs that remind me of this person or that moment living in Provo. While I have really strong beautiful feelings of my life here in Provo that mix would be too hard to make.
The music from this mix is music that I have been loving lately. This mix is schizophrenic. There are dance songs and slow songs. I have epic songs and poignant ones. This is because I am trying to represent the good emotions I remember about Provo. It is celebratory and weirdly nostalgic just as I want to remember Provo. There will be songs that you will like and other you wont. That’s mixes right!?
As I go away from my home I will miss all the lovely people I have met. We had some good laughs. As much as I like to tease those BYU alumni parents that come and tell us young wiper-snappers that The Brick Oven used to be called Heaps-a-Pizza, I fear I might do the same thing. “Hay kids there is The Dojo!” Kids rolling eyes.

Listener, you are awesome and I love you. I will miss you.

Peace!

Download mix HERE (Click on free and then wait 90 seconds then a blue download button will appear ... sorry)

Track listing

(mike e gave this song This song represents the death Of our first born) Siger Ros 

Rebellion (Lies) The Arcade Fire
DREAM CITY FREE ENERGY
Two The Antlers (The song that feels like leaving Provo)
People Got a Lotta Nerve Neko Case
Raindrops Basement Jaxx
Now We Can See The Thermals
Pop Nonsense Dogs Die in Hot
Dull To Pause Junior Boys
The Hottchord Is Struck Still Flyin
The Wolf Miniature Tigers
All The World U.S.E
m79 Vampire weekend
nothing to worry about Peter bjorn and john
Evangeline Handsome Furs
So Human Lady Sovereign
Waiting for a War (benders cover) The Submarines
California Dreamer Wolf Parade

Make your own freash air!

Go ahead make it why don't you? Don't know how? Oh well it is easy. You need a bit of a green thumb. You need four shoulder high Areca Palm per person. You need to wipe the leaves once a week. You need to take the plant outside every three to four months and grow it with hydroponics. (insert stupid drug ref.) there are two other plants that you need to make clean fresh air. To find out watch this. It is only 3 minutes.



There that wasn't so bad. Now breath! BREATH!!!

Big news in the lifes of the Pierotti's

You recently may have had a long conversation with me about art, life, and growing up. I have been using my friends and family as a sounding board. I was having a small life crisis. Not that my life was small, but that the crisis was small. I sent out 9 grad school applications. I threw the bones into the air hoping that the fates would smile on me. But I kept getting rejection letters. After the 8th rejection I started looking at alternative routes. Architecture seemed interesting, I thought. Oh by the way, Ohio University sent me two rejection letters. Maybe because of my low GPA they thought I couldn't read. Okay, I get it! You are glad I applied but you can not accept me. I get it, geez. I didn't want to be a Bobcat anyway. What a wimpy mascot... Now the Ram, now that is a regal animal. That is an animal that can represent me on a shirt or at a sporting event. The Virginia Commonwealth University Ram Bucks offered me a place in their ceramics graduate school. After much prayer and fasting and thinking. Andrea and I feel strongly that we are to take our family to Richmond Virginia to go to graduate school. This is an exciting and a scary time for us. We have the most anxiety about finding Andrea a good teaching job.



VCU is a really good school.

Here is some information about VCU:

Grants and Awards
3 MacArthur Genius Awards ($500,000 each) in the last 5 years!

$75K Tremaine Foundation Grant

American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards (3)

3rd Simultaneous $120,000 US Dept. of Education Jacob Javits Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships (3)

Pollock-Krasner Awards (4)

Windgate Fellowships (2)

International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement Award

National Rankings

Sculpture, #1 overall

Graphic Design, #4 overall (#1 among public university programs)

Painting, #8 overall (#3 among public university programs)

Fiber Arts #4 overall (Dept. of Craft/Material Studies) (#1 among public university programs)

Glass #5 overall (Craft/Material Studies) (#1 among public university programs)

Multimedia/Visual Communications #9 overall (likely a combination of our departments of Communication Arts, Graphic Design, Photography and Film, and Kinetic Imaging) (#3 public university ranking)

Ceramics #12 overall (Craft/Material Studies) (#6 among public university programs)

Things I should have done. Eating my heart out.

I spend time in the library looking at magazines. My favorite magazine has been "domus" (tag line) contemporary architecture interiors design art
This magazine makes my mouth drop offen. I am wowed over and over by the slick cool objects that are highlighted in this publication.
http://www.domusweb.it/

http://www.hidra.it/main.php?lang=EN



http://blog.bellostes.com/?p=2099




http://www.kvadratclouds.com/


While i am listing things i think are cool here is that cool BMW i like.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5015266/shape+shifting-bmw-concept-car-is-made-of-cloth?autoplay=true

Haruki Murakami's "The Seventh Man"

I think sharing what you like with others can be a powerful way of expressing yourself. I think what the person sharing, hopes for, is that the sharer and the sharee can experience something together. It is more than just having something in common. It is experiencing similar thoughts and emotions as someone else. It is having an experience together. This might be where the true value of art lies. As my i-pod gives me experiences I wish there was someone else that was hearing the same thing I was hearing.

I must admit that I thought this was the "spirited away" guy. I was surprised because I don't really love Miyazaki movies. But I really loved this story. It makes sense that the stories have different sources. The first part of this link is the story i would like to highlight. The Seventh Man as read by John Shea. http://huffduffer.com/Clampants/2575

Telling people i am an artist fells like the beginning of a joke.

It must shock the hearer when i say i am an artist, because the response seems to be overdone. "wow, that's great" or "what do you want to do with that?" maybe i get "(spit take) cough, sputter... what?"
i am seen as a magical retard by the general population. they see the artist as someone that can do things that no other mortal can do and at the same time they believe life will break the artist for his/her optimistic embrace of life. As my parents (general population) you want to protect me. "Gian, look fire, HOT!" you parents also want me to transform the fire to ice cream. enough with the metaphors.
i am writing this post because right now my life feels like it is on hold. Andrea and i are waiting for grad schools to respond to my application. this time has made me think about what it means to be an artist and how crazy it is. i found this talk on creativity. the writer Elizabeth Gilbert is good at explaining creativity and artists. you will know me a bit better after you see her explanation.

Art 21 Gabriel Orozco | "Mobile Matrix"

Art 21 has given me a large part of my art knowledge. It might be uncool to admit that but thems the facts. Here is a clip were you get to see the construction of a public work of art. You also get to hear the artist speak about the art. I was surprised to find that a whale skeleton looks like a giant tadpole.

BFA final show at the Sego

On 5 December 2008, the Sego Art Center will open What ought to be, an exhibit of new sculptures by local artist Gian Pierotti. The exhibit will feature an adjoining critical essay by writer and art historian Megan Whittaker.

In the Aristotelian tradition, art functions as an imitator, showing us what is, what ought to be and what might be. Though typically imitation in art is couched in the notion of representation, it is the imaginative process of imitation that is communicated tacitly, even instinctively, through the work in Gian Pierotti's new show at the Sego Art Center. Evolved from their earliest stages as formal variations on a Minimal theme, Pierotti's latest porcelain sculptures encase small polygonal shapes in architectural exoskeletons that may be disassembled and reassembled. The results are a playful advancement of an archaic process. The unique forms are deliberately accidental, artificially organic and defy any one direct referent.

Yet the work is both immediately familiar and immensely satisfying. Fitting together the pieces of one of Pierotti's works is as gratifying as locking together two Legos or snapping Construx into place. The toys of childhood are the tools of imaginative imitation, teaching us how to act as adults. Pierotti's works, fantastic constructed entities that call upon us as viewers to animate them, remind us to embrace childlike wonder in the gallery. In the aftermath of Postmodernism, the trend in art has been toward what ought to be – both formally and contextually. The reward of Pierotti's work at Sego Art Center this month is that it offers up what art might be. And what art might be is fun.

I have been listening to podcasts for more than a year now.

My top three are:
1. Radio Lab... The two hosts have a great sense of humor and are able to present science in a way that helps you understand how you fit into this world. It is an artful approach to science. They give new wonder to the world around us. Here is one of my favorites. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/08/05 click on "listen to the whole show"

2. My next favorite podcast is 606 5 live call in show with Danny Baker. It has got to be the one with Danny Baker because Alan Green and Tim Lovejoy are both pratts, Spoony is alright, I guess. Okay, now stay with me. Usually this is your regular English football call in show where people windge about the refs. But on Tuesday night Mr. Baker turns it into story time. People call in to tell stories about topics like "what crazy object have you been hit with while attending a football match." or "where have you seen people wearing English football jerseys outside of England?" This link has an American calling in this is not the norm http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/606withdannyb/audio.shtml

3. The classic Tales podcast With BJ Harrison. This guy was in my old ward. He reads scripture very well. He can really project. The classic tails podcast is Bj reading from classic literature. I put this in as my third place pick because this podcast really lets me get taken away with the story. Just today I heard the story Rikki Tikki Tavi. I had forgotten how good that story is. Maybe I am a sucker for "a boy and his mongoose" stories. I couldn't find the rikki tikki tavi story but you can't go wrong with an O Henry story. http://cdn1.libsyn.com/classictales/CT_83_Thanksgiving_in_NY.mp3?nvb=20081129035054&nva=20081130040054&t=01d8acd5da7d0800d173d

My winter 09 mix

1 Red Yellow And Blue (White Williams Mix) ...Born Ruffians

2 Kettle Drum (I Left A Note) ... Pale Young Gentlemen

3 Undo... Björk

4 Voice in Headphones ... Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire

5 Vänerhavet ...Detektivbyrån

6 Compass ... Absolutely Kosher Records

7 Royal Blood ...The Witchies

8 The Hundredth Time ...Gigi

9 All the Way Down ...Nik Freitas

10 Bloody Sunrise ...Neil Gaiman

11 Phantom Anthills Chad ...VanGaalen

12 Tonight ...Lykke Li

13 Track 01 ...Okay ??????????????

14 Diamond Rings 2007 ... Deer Tick

15 Be Kind To Me ... Michael Hurley

16 Rolling Sea ...Eliza Carthy

17 Blood Red Roses ...Sting

18 Bully In The Alley ...Three Pruned Men

19 Hog-Eye Man ...Martin Carthy & Family

Bjork's "Undo"

I know because of my infrequent posting you hardly come to my blog. Its okay i don't blame you. I guess what i want to share with you is my re-admiration for Bjork. I really think she is great. For my english class i had to do a analysis of a work of art. i chose "Undo" of of the Vespertine album.
Andrea and I were just talking about how brilliant a thing can become if we invest time and focus to it. Undo was a pretty song. Now to me it is a masterpiece. Here is my analysis of Bjork's "Undo". And a live performance at the Royal Opera house in London.
This is an analysis of the song “Undo” by Bjork.

Bjork and I go way back to 1992. In high school I thought you pronounced the “j”, like an English “j”. Boy was I wrong. Now in college I know that foreign words with “j’s” have a “yu” sound.
This song has very simple lyrics. The arrangement of the music feels simple but when looked at closely one finds the progression of the song is unpredictable. It has many subtle layers. Sonically, the song matches perfectly with the lyrics and its total concept.
The main theme of the lyrics cover the fact that life is not supposed to be hard. “It’s not meant to be a struggle”, sings a chorus of angels. Bjork then gives you a soft loving pep talk. She wants you to see that life is good. “It’s warmer now”, as she kind of whispers to the listener. The lyrics are simple and profound. But the music of the song is the moving force. The message of the music is one of reality. What is real, and is reality all that great? The song answers these questions in combination with both the music and the lyrics. Its answer is, "It’s all real and yes, reality is so great."
The music has an otherworld feeling to it. But the lyrics let you know darn well she is talking about earth. The instrument that best gives an otherworld sound is the synthesizer. The synthesizer at once has a feeling of alienation and familiarity. The sound is generated with perfection yet we know it is not real some how. The title of the song “Undo” is linked closely to the synthesizer or the computer. Undo is familiar to us in this computer age as a “do over”. To “undo” is to right a wrong. There is a strong duality of technology and biology in this song and I find it clever that both are used to create this song. The first sounds you her are a sort of piano sound but maybe you are using ears that have water in them. Bjorks voice comes right in at the beginning but it has all sorts of vocal effects like an echoing delay, her inhales seem exaggerated, and there are two vocal tracks running at different times, this makes an echoing refrain in the beginning. A rich life filled texture is created with her inhales and exhales. These sounds are so familiar to us. We breathe all our lives. Sonically different sounds are weaving into and around each other. The music moves slightly closer to earth with a recognizable instrument. The sound of the harp flutters into the song letting you know it is not outer space you are hearing but heaven. Then comes the biology technology. Sound effects are creaking, shaking, there are biggish sounds, and rustling. A count or two later the beat comes in. The beat gives an important toehold to the listener who is used to the Pop music aesthetic. It should also be mentioned that at the time this song was made, beat driven music had a strong presence in America that had recently come across the Atlantic. The beat is not straightforward, but it gives the listener something familiar. Maybe it is a recording of a heartbeat of someone with three hearts, a mother with twins or maybe a celestial being from another galaxy. As the beat begins there is a floating feeling to the song. The chorus and all the sounds float with us for a few minutes, there is a calm euphoria, and then one by one the layers of sounds go away. The volume of the chorus comes down. The stringed instruments begin to fade away. Our ears are left with a lower toned harp sound and Bjork’s soft positive affirmations. The beat stops and the song winds' down. The sound becomes distorted and fuzzy, not in an analog way but in a digital way. The sounds are not dissonant. They are strangely comfortable. And then you are left with silence that sounds good not because you are glad the song is over but because everything is magic and everything is more real even the silence.

Hi ho friends, here is a post about my art show at the CUAC

I have an art show up at the Central Utah Arts Center. I have the opportunity to share the space with the painter Sunny Belliston. The opening has already come and gone. I am grateful for the friends and family that made the long journey. There will be a lecture given on Thurs. @ 7:00pm by Jeff Lambson of the BYU MOA. He is the current Contemporary Curator and has already made an amazing impact.
I did a short interview for the local public access TV guy. You can see it on YouTube here.

Okay, i wonder if you will like this.

I found a funny little phone prank. you can hear it here: http://www.fluxblog.org/2008/05/strobe-light-was-my-mind.html
click on the link that says this:
Andrew Earles & Jeff Jensen "My Friends Call Me Ditchweed. Don't Ask. Okay, Go Ahead and Ask."

The weekend of Sept. 22 and 23

on Saturday night by the state mental hospital, Midwife Crisis will perform another last final show for the last time... again. Matt has decided he wants to come back to utah to play the songs we used to play. we will be the last act of the sago arts festival. I approach this date with great excitement and trepidation. I get nervous just thinking about it. NOT! It is cancelled. Not the sago fest but the midwife show.





Sunday on PBS there will be the first part of the the Ken Burns documentary "The War". I saw Mr. Burns (ha) speak when he came to BYU. he is a great speaker and i like his approach to history. He doesn't see life as ordinary and he finds many extraordinary stories. as he spoke in the marriott center, i found myself feeling like i was proud to be an american. i think i had this feeling because the true stories told of the people of the second world war, were stories of selfless sacrifice told with humility. i hope you will check out the clips found on this site. http://stripesandvelour.blogspot.com/

My scooter has been stolen.

As i went out to the garage i pulled open the door and my heart dropped. there was no cute green scooter in there. after some light cursing i called the police. i am sick just writing about it. as sad as this is deep down i accuse the Hispanic family next door. i don't think they had anything to do with it but i think it helps me feel like i have some control.

Proun History Bright Future

The Pierotti family has decided to follow an English football club. After lots of research i have decided that the team for our family is Aston Villa. they are a mid-table team that is poised to be a more successful side. They have an american owner (Randy Lerner) and a highly rated manager (Martin O'neil). Nike is the new kit sponsor and they have a brand new training fasility.
I do admit i am a bit jelious of the bigger clubs like man u and liverpool they get most of the top players. but i like an underdog... but not too much of an underdog.

It has been a while

what can i say? i haven't been so busy i couldn't write. it is not like there hasn't been anything to write about. i mean come on, Paris Hilton went to jail. i could have given my speculations for the up coming lost season. i have been on two vacations. i got andrea pregnant. i know that you all have stopped checking this blog. but i will try to get things going again.

Rickey's laugh

Remember The Office? The one in Great Brittin.
I found some XM radio clips of Karl Pillkinton, Stven Merchent and Rickey Gervais on YouTube. I thought they where great fun to listen to. I can't help but giggle along with Rick.