Spring. M.ward.

I just saw a flash of lighting out my window, in the clouds over the Wasatch Mountains. I’ve heard that for Navajo’s the first strike of lightning signifies the beginning of spring. To me this seems more accurate than the lunar or solar calendar. More applicable. More in tune with what’s happening on earth, more able to adapt to the vagaries of inexplicable atmospheric changes. Similarly, the first snowfall indicates the beginning of winter. My college mentor (though not by academic appointment), Barre Toelken, taught me this. He speaks Navajo. His first wife was Navajo. She died at a young age in a snowstorm while out with the sheep, trapped in a box canyon.

Anyway, I don’t know that much about it and there’s nothing more annoying than some Caucasian fool who thinks they’re an expert on Native Americans. Except Barre, who is Caucasian, but doesn’t walk around like a cocky rooster (if he’s cocky, his long life has taught him how to hide it). He’s an academic (and real life) expert on Navajos. I mentioned Barre because I spent roughly 8 years studying with him and he always told me and his other students when he had received the call from his adopted family in southern Utah, informing him of lightning or snow. Aside from that freak snow/hail storm with lightning in January, this is my first thunderstorm of 2005. And now there’s thunder and it sounds like it’s being broadcast to me through a tin can. If only I worked somewhere else, where I could at least OPEN the window. *Sigh*, I guess I’ll have to throw my computer monitor through it.

The other night, Stoker and I went to the M.Ward show. Remind me of why I go to shows? Always the one to romanticize things, I build up how great seeing so and so will be. Then I get there and resent everyone and their body odor, their huge head or afro blocking my view and their stupid clothes. It didn’t help that M.Ward sat down the entire time. Had this been In the Venue* and not the famous/infamous Kilby Court garage, sitting the whole time with his head tilted down (in an LA Dodgers baseball hat no less), tilted down wouldn’t have been a problem. Sure, it’s a cool spot, but only when there’s 30 of you. Any more than that and it’s like being trapped in a closet with your entire high school class breathing down your neck. And Kilby attracts people I don’t know or like. You hear with your ears, not your eyes, is what you’re thinking. Not true. Deaf people hear with their eyes. And I’m partially deaf**. So I needed to see him to know what was going on. If I just wanted to hear the music, I would have stayed at home or in my car and listened. With my ears, not my eyes.

The good that came of it was that I discovered Norfolk and Western (just call me Lewis. Or Clark. Or that Indian girl they took with them, what was her name? Pocohontas? Sasquatch? No, that’s big foot, hmmmm. Lucky for me I have the internet and can look it up in a matter of seconds). And they’re really good. So I’m sharing. See the link on my sidebar.

Also, for my diehard friends and fans, I’ve put an imix on itunes***, under Aries327. Originally there were 21 songs, but itunes didn’t support all the music. So if you’re truly desperate to have the whole thing, email me and I’ll send you the rest of the songs. I’d be happy to do it. Truly.

Sacagawea.

*Who thought that name up? It’s so annoying, “I’m going to a show tonight.” “Oh yeah, where at?” “It’s In the Venue.” After a long pause. “It’s in what venue?” “That’s the venue, In the Venue.” Annoying, for more reasons than because it's a name that begins with a preposition and all that. I shake my fist at the owners of In the Venue.
**No I’m not.
***I’m addicted to itunes. Stupid itunes, it doesn’t even know what it stupid does (see the Simpsons, when Lisa gets on the wrong bus the day of her science fair. I think).