"Bela Fleck" or "An Omaha Trip Worth Taking"

I first heard of Bela Fleck in 2001, and it was really through the Flecktones bassist, Victor Wooten, that my fascination with Fleck began. Since then, I've ended up with three different Flecktones albums (Left of Cool, Little Worlds, and The Hidden Land), the Live at the Quick dvd, and given his albums as gifts. During a summer while I was in Colorado, the Flecktones came to the Rococo Theatre in Lincoln. Since then, I've waited and hoped for the time Bela Fleck would return to the area.

I'm tired of driving to Omaha. For anyone who knows me and knows about my Christmas/New Year treks to Omaha, I've become so tired of driving back and forth, putting hundreds of miles on my car, and spending hours of of life listening to music or not (this part can be pretty worthwhile).

Finally, Bela Fleck returned to the area. And finally, I was all too happy to journey to Omaha. It snowed the afternoon before I went, and I worried for a bit that I may be in for a longer journey than I had bargained for. However, the drive went splendidly and I got to talk tot my brother in Guam for over an hour (only the third conversation we've had since he left last summer).

The Holland Performing Arts Center itself was worth the drive. The hall was absolutely beautiful, and I could have sat and stared around for a long time. Design of such places intrigues me and brings me thoughts of the eternal. My brain drifted often to the thought of God's throne room. If people could create such a fantastic place, how much more magnificent will Heaven be?

I sat on the ground floor next to a couple on a first or nearly-first date. She was nice. He seemed like a tool. "I've been to almost every major city in the country," I heard him say. Who cares? Anyhow, when he left to go to the restroom, I talk with her for a while. She was from Kansas City and had never heard of Bela Fleck. "What brings a person from Kansas City to see a banjo player they've never heard of?" She enjoyed her evening, though, and said that it was worth the trip.

And worth it it was. I could feel myself getting a sore throat while I was there, and I was ill the following two days. Worth it.

After the show, I got to meet Bela. He's a cool guy. I had nothing for him to sign, and at first, I didn't much care. I'm not too into getting a signature if I get to meet the person. But as I stood in line, waiting my time with the Banjo King, I became self-conscious. Nothing for him to sign. Would he care? Probably not, but what if? With a very nice lady holding my place in line, I ducked out and ran to the merchandise table and bought more than I needed. I figured, if I'm going to have him sign something, he shall sign many things. I almost kept buying because I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the documentary. But I was spending up to 50 bucks, and that's more than I wanted. He signed them happily, thanked me for coming out. Earlier in the evening I had thought, "I wonder if he has ever dabbled in the idea of producing a crazy banjo gospel project." So I asked him. "That could be pretty cool," he said. "I could get a gospel quartet together and that would sound really cool." So I claim it now: if it happens, I told him to.

The drive home was accompanied by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba. It was the best drive from Omaha I've probably ever had. My senses were tingling from the show, my mind sharp and alert. I've never been one for concerts (much to my wife's dismay), but seeing Bela Fleck along with such brilliant musicians makes me eager to see more and more shows. My standard now is exceedingly high, with the likes of Trace Bundy being one of few who will satisfy my musical performance hunger, but I am more on the look out for quality, unfamiliar sounds to sate my musical nature.

Culture

Beginning next school year, I officially get to teach a pop culture class. I taught such as a class while I was a student teacher a couple of years ago. Right now, I am unofficially teaching the class under a "General Literature" title. As I'm working my way through things on a trial run, I've come up against a notion that bothers me a bit: how should a Pop Culture class be taught to make sure that it isn't a history class. When I worked with the class before, it was just a smidge away from a history class (and an awesome one at that) that started with a 1950s culture and proceeded through the decades to examine how our culture came to be what it is. But for me and my stylings, I feel the need to firmly establish it as an English class.

My ideas came slowly over the past few weeks and started taking root over the weekend. It will take a load of work on my part, but my plan is as follows:

Our culture is several things. Our is a culture of fear, a culture of youth, a culture of infatuation. Culture can be dissected into several themes, each with a history to back it up. A culture of civil injustice. A culture of music. A culture of rebellion. A culture of media.

I want to establish units around a certain type of culture that has at one point or another made a significant impact on our culture as a whole.

I ask you, oh awesome reader, to add any other cultures you can think of for such a class.

An Interesting Issue of Privacy

I like producing material. I enjoy writing because I enjoy the thought of people reading what I have to say. Since the creation of this page, I have been thrilled with every new person that mentions that they've read it, and even when my best friends talk to me about my blog, my heart beats a little bit faster with the knowledge that my words are not sucked into the internet as light into a black hole.

This lead to self-promotion, slight as it may have been. And with Twitter and now Tumblr, I can write something that is immediately published in two or three places, spreading my written word round the web. Has it become too much. I've felt several times now the urge to write something down, post it, wait to see if anybody shares similar thoughts or if inspiration reaches through them and jerks on the chords of their heart. But my hands stay, hovering over the keys. Though most of the people reading such things would look upon it in interest, I know where my sphere of influence reaches, and in the depths of Facebook, family and fellow church members await my proclamations, and I find that I've worked myself into a corner that requires my censorship. I've spent the time wanting to have my words accessible, not to be read and revered, but noticed. Now, when I am capable of tossing thoughts like kittens in a cotton factory, I worry who will walk in and find me.

Big Ol' Stack of Work

I never enjoy taking days off work. Catching up afterward is such a hassle, it rarely seems worth it. Taking five days off in a row has a greatly amplified effect. My work stack of papers and things to sort out upon my return to work is daunting, indeed. I spent about half an hour just sorting papers without having the chance to grade any of them. I have two student assistants--something I would never consider having if not for my work load. I don't know any of my students' names.

The difference between this and any other day-off conundrum is that this time it was totally worth it. With my son at home, I want nothing more but to be there. If there were a way to work at home, I would take it up in a second. leaving home is harder than ever before and I have to take the time before I mosey out the door to sit and just watch him sleep. He's such a stud and he's the most worthwhile thing to look at since I met my wife.

Vincent Isaiah Prindle

I have a son.

It's my new favorite thing to say.

I have a son.

There is nothing I've felt that is so amazing or surreal or insane or holy. Since his arrival, I've had so many thoughts and feelings that I don't even know how to process them all. "My wife and I made that." "My wife was a rockstar and pushed that out." "He's so little." Then a floodgate bursts and I'm speechless--lost in the sea of emotion.

So far my favorite thing about him is his tiny hands. When he grabs on to my finger, and I know that's all he can hold, it just undoes me. I love wrapping him into his little burrito. I love just holding him and doing nothing at all.

Work has been a little nutty. Planning for an absence and not knowing when that absence will begin was driving me crazy. And as it turned out, it has all happened right before a new semester, so I have a sub starting my classes for me right now. Planning that about drove me bonkers. To top that off, I got a call just before eight o'clock this morning to tell me that my plans were not to be found because the internet was down at the school (I had emailed all my plans to my sub). The beauty of it was I didn't care. The sub is awesome, and if my plans don't get done just so, whoopty-doo. It doesn't matter to me at all.

Because I have a son.

My Twitter and My Blog

Last night I went wandering through my blog posts over the last year and a half, reading comments and taking note of how frequently I would update and how my thoughts were developed. Among the post, I noticed how many were just odd occurrences and student mishaps. "Why haven't I written post like these in so long?" The answer: Twitter.

I hopped on the tweeting wagon last summer during a tech class, having no idea that I would actually use the thing, let only use it frequently. And though my tweets started as bad Facebook-esque posts (i.e. I'm eating candy again!), they have turned into a home for student antics and stupidity. Now, instead of producing a web log entry to show how I am responding or to show my reflections on the sad state of the world, I cram them into 140 characters and let my followers respond and reflect.

There is a benefit to all of this. More people read my tweets than read my blog (because my tweets double as my Facebook updates), and therefore more folk get to laugh at what goes on in my school life. Also, time is saved (when I began blogging my posts took me forever to craft, but that's another writing issue I've got to deal with).

I do want to blog more often and more thoughtfully. The depth issue may be resolved with the near arrival of Young Master Prindle (I can't begin to think what my brain will do when he arrives, and he may give me more to write about also). I suppose for now though, I will have to settle for a few posts a month unless otherwise inspired.

So feel free to bring it on, Muse.

First Work Week of the Year

Lincoln Public Schools ranks in the dumbest of districts in the category of planning. When we take our time off around Christmas, we have to return to finish the first semester. This is stupid for several reasons that can be easily foreseen (such as students' forgetting everything before the take the final for any given class). This year, however, poor planning could not have been entirely avoided. As our semester leaks into 2010 (pronounced twenty-ten if you know what's good for you), Lincoln find itself in another run of snow days. Just as it did right before our Winter Break, we have had three snow days that have left us baffled as to how to best end the semester. The days we have, by the way, are not so much connected to the snow, but to the temperature which is reaching its icy fingers down into the negatives (a "feels like" -20). I don't know when that will clear up, but as it stands, we have had to work twice this week back from break. Nutty. I don't know that it would be any better had the semester ended sooner, but at least I would not have to deal with students strolling in on finals day asking, "What are we doing?" Because for that, I don't know what I could give them and consider it fair.