The following is an exact reprint of a fax that I sent to Bank of America today about a deposit that I made that they lost:
Dear Sir or Madam to Whom it May Concern:
This correspondence is in regards to Claim #1422921MAR06, which has in the vernacular now come to be known as the case of one Christopher R. Burns v. one Faulty ATM Machine. What follows is a retelling of the events that have unfolded in the past two weeks, in case one reading this letter may be unfamiliar with them.
On March 14, 2006, an ATM deposit was made by the aforementioned Christopher Burns at an ordinary ATM machine in Houston, Texas. The deposit was of three checks, one for $250, one for $50, and one for $279.39, for a total deposit of $579.39. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Burns received a cryptic message from Bank of America itself, stating that only $79.50 in cash was received, and that the remaining $499.89 was to be removed from Mr. Burns's checking account, effective immediately. Mr. Burns took this to mean that, either by some act of God or warp in the time-space continuum (or both?), the checks deposited by Mr. Burns had somehow vanished between the ATM and the bank. On March 21, 2006, Mr. Burns filed a claim with Bank of America, at which time the $499.89 was added back to his account as a "temporary credit" while the matter was being resolved. Mr. Burns then received another letter from Bank of America, advising him to check if the three checks had cleared their originating accounts, and to report back to Bank of America within five (5) days with his findings.
The purpose of this fax is to inform Bank of America that the checks deposited have not cleared their originating accounts. Payment has been stopped on all three checks, and the original parties are in the process of writing new checks. Mr. Burns expects to be in possession of the new checks, totaling $579.39, before an exorbitantly long amount of time has passed. The purpose of this fax is also to serve as written record that Mr. Burns has in fact contacted Bank of America within the requested period of five (5) days from receipt of the aforementioned letter. Therefore please do not remove the temporary credit, as this would cause unnecessary stress on Mr. Burns, both financially and personally.
Lastly, Mr. Burns would be very much appreciative if you would advise him on what should be his next course of action in this matter. Oh, and as I have now told several people on the phone, please direct all future correspondence with Mr. Burns to the above address, not to the address associated with his checking account. Thank you so very much for your effort in this matter.
Most Sincerely and Forever Yours,
Christopher Burns
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Spring Break
So last week was Spring Break (Spring Break! WOOOOOOOOO!). When you go to school up north where it's still cold in March and you need to escape the gloomy gray weather for a week before you kill yourself or someone around you, usually this means that you escape somewhere south, maybe in Florida or Texas, where it is warm and you can go swimming and drink a lot and do other such fun things for the week.
Naturally, since I am now attending school in Houston, I decided to travel North for Spring Break, against the grain if you will. And so I spent five wonderful days in Chicago with Jill and Anne. We saw the CSO play Mahler 2, we ate delicious food at many fine establishments, including a steak house where our waitor's name was Gumer, and we saw the Contemporary Art Museum and the Shedd Aquarium (with its new shark reef exhibit). Also, I got to celebrate both my birthday and St. Patrick's Day in the windy city. It's pretty convenient that those two days come back to back, don't you think? After two solid days of merriment, though, I was pretty worn out. By the end of the night on Friday I was so tired that I couldn't even finish my beer. I know! But don't worry, Anne and her friend peer pressured me into finishing it anyway. Where would we be without peer pressure? That's what I want to know.
Oh, and last night Anne and I went to the Green Mill, an old (and I mean old) jazz club which used to be a hideout for gangsters, and now hosts the original Poetry Slam every Sunday. I was kind of expecting the slam to be corny and not very good, but almost everything was really quite enjoyable. It was a mix of comedy and serious poetry, and both sides had their highlights and lowlights. The funniest of the night, I think, was the guy who came up and ad libbed an 80's ballad-style song about Steven Seagal. It was awesome. Although he might be tied with the guy whose poem was about a blindfold that you could see through, which he bought thinking that he could win all kinds of blindfolded contests, not realizing that nobody trusts a guy who brings his own blindfold. The poem went off from there in completely absurd ways, and the delivery was so perfectly deadpan that it was hilarious.
I think that's enough information for now. If for some reason you want to know every small detail of my Chicago trip, here's a good place to find it. I'm going to go get some still much needed sleep.
Naturally, since I am now attending school in Houston, I decided to travel North for Spring Break, against the grain if you will. And so I spent five wonderful days in Chicago with Jill and Anne. We saw the CSO play Mahler 2, we ate delicious food at many fine establishments, including a steak house where our waitor's name was Gumer, and we saw the Contemporary Art Museum and the Shedd Aquarium (with its new shark reef exhibit). Also, I got to celebrate both my birthday and St. Patrick's Day in the windy city. It's pretty convenient that those two days come back to back, don't you think? After two solid days of merriment, though, I was pretty worn out. By the end of the night on Friday I was so tired that I couldn't even finish my beer. I know! But don't worry, Anne and her friend peer pressured me into finishing it anyway. Where would we be without peer pressure? That's what I want to know.
Oh, and last night Anne and I went to the Green Mill, an old (and I mean old) jazz club which used to be a hideout for gangsters, and now hosts the original Poetry Slam every Sunday. I was kind of expecting the slam to be corny and not very good, but almost everything was really quite enjoyable. It was a mix of comedy and serious poetry, and both sides had their highlights and lowlights. The funniest of the night, I think, was the guy who came up and ad libbed an 80's ballad-style song about Steven Seagal. It was awesome. Although he might be tied with the guy whose poem was about a blindfold that you could see through, which he bought thinking that he could win all kinds of blindfolded contests, not realizing that nobody trusts a guy who brings his own blindfold. The poem went off from there in completely absurd ways, and the delivery was so perfectly deadpan that it was hilarious.
I think that's enough information for now. If for some reason you want to know every small detail of my Chicago trip, here's a good place to find it. I'm going to go get some still much needed sleep.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Monday, March 06, 2006
Baseball and Monkey Faces
This weekend I went to my first two baseball games of the season! Granted, they were college games, not professional, and I am about 1800 miles from Fenway Park, so this was not as exciting as it could have been, but still, it was a grand occasion. I saw the #4 Rice Owls baseball team battle the #7 Cal State Fullerton Titans (calstatefullertontitans calstatefullertontitans calstatefulterson....shit!) in the first two games of a three game series on Friday and Saturday, and they won both games! Which was good, because they ended up losing yesterday (probably because I wasn't there, so obviously I now have to go to every single game, good thing they're free!), and Rice has not lost a three game series at home in something like the last 30. So needless to say, I am now an Owls fan, I have a Rice hat, and I can even sing along to the Alma Mater that plays after every game which the Owls win. That is to say, I can sing along to the last four words, which seems to be all anyone else knows anyway (mumble mumble mumble...to RICE! BE! TRUE!). And, as you can see to your right, the Owls, as a result of this weekend's two wins, are now ranked #3 in the country, behind only undefeated Georgia Tech and wildly overrated Clemson (I know nothing about Clemson, but I have to assume that they are wildly overrated). Anyway, those rankings should update weekly, so check back!
I may post more at a later date about the experience of attending a college game versus a professional game, but maybe that's not quite interesting enough for anyone who is not me. One more thing about Saturday's game, though, is that it was extremely sunny and about 85 degrees outside, which caused me to receive a moderate sunburn on my neck and parts of my face. Let the record show that this occurred on March the 4th, and it marks I think the very first time in my life that I have been sunburned before my birthday.
This artwork arrived in the mail today from Josh:
He claims that he used these nine monkey faces to teach his Japanese schoolchildren different answers to the question "How are you today?" He then challenged me to figure out what they all are. So that killed about two hours right there. Let's number the faces as follows:
123
456
789
Here's what I have come up with so far:
1: Happy
2: Angry
3: Depressed/Hungry
4: Overjoyed/In love
5: Sick/Extremely drunk
6: Unsure of one's self/Worried/Having to urinate
7: Evil
8: Pretending to be happy despite being deeply and fundamentally unhappy, because you're not yet ready to talk about it
9: Frightened/Dead
That's the best I've been able to do. If you think I'm wrong, or that you can do better, please comment and tell me what you think they mean. In English, preferably. But, needless to say, I was overjoyed (#4!) to receive these pictures, and they are now hanging on my wall so I can see them and laugh every day. So thank you to Josh for sending me presents!
A New Favorite Album
I have been thinking a lot lately about the nature of my musical tastes. For instance, people will often ask me what type of music I listen to or enjoy the most. Or perhaps they will ask which is my favorite band. I find questions of either type quite difficult to answer, and I'm not sure why. I do have favorite bands, but those change over time. The bands which I listened to the most in, say, middle school are no longer very often in my stereo, but I still feel as if that should not diminish their status as one-time "favorites." And one genre of music usually cannot accurately describe my tastes at any given time, which are in constant flux.
I thought about this, and realized something that, if not true in general, has definitely been true of my listening patterns in recent months. I tend to listen to music one album at a time. I find an album that I love, and listen to it, usually many times. I listen to this album almost exclusively over a span of time that can range anywhere from a week to a month or more. Starting in January, it was Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. Then sometime last month I went through a period of Graceland by Paul Simon. And last week I rediscovered Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Over the past three months, the songs on these three albums have accounted for, I would say, about 80% of all the time that I have had music playing.
This naturally led me to explore possible connections between these three albums, ways in which I could classify them, explain their sudden juxtaposition. At first glance, you could not imagine a grouping of three albums of more different styles, not to mention time periods (disregarding classical music). Astral Weeks came out in 1968, with Morrison weaving acoustic arrangements into serene and mystical poetry. Come 1986, we find Simon blending folk-pop melodies with African song styles. Nineteen years later, in 2005, Death Cab brings a more polished studio sound to their simple but beautiful songs.
So what do these albums have in common? Love, of course, like all music. Death, most often that of a loved one and how we are reminded of our own. Loss, usually as relates to love and death, but also the loss of the past, of youth and adolescence. And finally, new beginnings and new destinations.
"And it came to me then
That every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time"
Thus begins "What Sarah Said," a heartbreaking description of a man sitting in a hospital awaiting the news that his love has died, from Plans. The reactions are almost too realistic. He doesn't cry, he doesn't fall apart, he simply studies other people, rations his breathing, and dissects the smell of the place into its components (urine and 409). All the listener gets are these tiny details. There's no story, no Who, What or Why. The lyrics follow exactly the kind of broken and distracted narrative that would be running through the mind of the singer. This has an incredible emotional effect when combined with the relentless repetition in piano and guitar. This returns throughout the album, this theme of a couple who knows that one of them is dying, and of how their lives and their relationship are affected. In "I Will Follow You into the Dark," it is love that spurs the singer's desire to die with his love, in order to keep her company in death. It is the journey through life without her that he fears even more.
When Paul Simon sings "I'm going to Graceland," he is speaking of this same journey. Having lost his wife, he and his son embark on a trip to the sacred place. The wounds from his loss are obviously still fresh, as he sings:
"She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead"
But he has already decided to continue his journey. He has a new destination, and though it may be arbitrary, maybe it's just the idea of a new place to go, of a new start, that is driving him there. "Or maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland." The album as a whole has a slight feeling of melancholy, of world-weariness, even during the more upbeat numbers. There is a constant sense of randomness, as if the singer is aimlessly moving forward through life, while at the same time being hopeful of some possible progress.
I'm not quite sure what to say here about Astral Weeks. It has been said that W.B. Yeats was an important influence on Van Morrison's songwriting. That seems to be true to the extent that Morrison's lyrics, like Yeats's, are saturated with symbols and references, especially on this album. Trains, ribbons, rain, oceans, horses, stars, and avenues combine to form a world which could be seen in a million different ways depending on how you interpret the symbols. Regardless, the same themes are there, of love and loss, only he doesn't come right out and tell you about it. Instead he immerses you in his world and forces you to try to find your own way out.
In the eight songs on this album, Morrison reaches a beauty and a transcendence which is unmatched in any of his later albums. After all, when you are singing at 23 years old that "I ain't nothing but a stranger in this world, I got a home on high," where can you go from there? The answer is in "Sweet Thing," when he sings "And I will never grow so old again." He has already done his most mature songwriting, and all his future albums, in comparison, seem empty of meaning and emotion. Sure, he comes close at times, in songs like "Into the Mystic." But even then, what happens? He starts to work up to a climax, then when it just starts to get good, "Too late to stop now," and he cuts it off, seemingly right in the middle. He can't go back, can't face those emotions again. It's endlessly frustrating to listen to after you've heard what he's capable of on Astral Weeks.
If you're looking for a new favorite album, one that you won't ever get tired of hearing, I would highly recommend any of these three. Right now, Astral Weeks is my favorite, but that will probably change. If you want to know more about it, I loved this review by Lester Bangs (who, after seeing Almost Famous, I can't imagine as anyone else but Philip Seymour Hoffman).
I thought about this, and realized something that, if not true in general, has definitely been true of my listening patterns in recent months. I tend to listen to music one album at a time. I find an album that I love, and listen to it, usually many times. I listen to this album almost exclusively over a span of time that can range anywhere from a week to a month or more. Starting in January, it was Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. Then sometime last month I went through a period of Graceland by Paul Simon. And last week I rediscovered Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Over the past three months, the songs on these three albums have accounted for, I would say, about 80% of all the time that I have had music playing.
This naturally led me to explore possible connections between these three albums, ways in which I could classify them, explain their sudden juxtaposition. At first glance, you could not imagine a grouping of three albums of more different styles, not to mention time periods (disregarding classical music). Astral Weeks came out in 1968, with Morrison weaving acoustic arrangements into serene and mystical poetry. Come 1986, we find Simon blending folk-pop melodies with African song styles. Nineteen years later, in 2005, Death Cab brings a more polished studio sound to their simple but beautiful songs.
So what do these albums have in common? Love, of course, like all music. Death, most often that of a loved one and how we are reminded of our own. Loss, usually as relates to love and death, but also the loss of the past, of youth and adolescence. And finally, new beginnings and new destinations.
"And it came to me then
That every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time"
Thus begins "What Sarah Said," a heartbreaking description of a man sitting in a hospital awaiting the news that his love has died, from Plans. The reactions are almost too realistic. He doesn't cry, he doesn't fall apart, he simply studies other people, rations his breathing, and dissects the smell of the place into its components (urine and 409). All the listener gets are these tiny details. There's no story, no Who, What or Why. The lyrics follow exactly the kind of broken and distracted narrative that would be running through the mind of the singer. This has an incredible emotional effect when combined with the relentless repetition in piano and guitar. This returns throughout the album, this theme of a couple who knows that one of them is dying, and of how their lives and their relationship are affected. In "I Will Follow You into the Dark," it is love that spurs the singer's desire to die with his love, in order to keep her company in death. It is the journey through life without her that he fears even more.
When Paul Simon sings "I'm going to Graceland," he is speaking of this same journey. Having lost his wife, he and his son embark on a trip to the sacred place. The wounds from his loss are obviously still fresh, as he sings:
"She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead"
But he has already decided to continue his journey. He has a new destination, and though it may be arbitrary, maybe it's just the idea of a new place to go, of a new start, that is driving him there. "Or maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland." The album as a whole has a slight feeling of melancholy, of world-weariness, even during the more upbeat numbers. There is a constant sense of randomness, as if the singer is aimlessly moving forward through life, while at the same time being hopeful of some possible progress.
I'm not quite sure what to say here about Astral Weeks. It has been said that W.B. Yeats was an important influence on Van Morrison's songwriting. That seems to be true to the extent that Morrison's lyrics, like Yeats's, are saturated with symbols and references, especially on this album. Trains, ribbons, rain, oceans, horses, stars, and avenues combine to form a world which could be seen in a million different ways depending on how you interpret the symbols. Regardless, the same themes are there, of love and loss, only he doesn't come right out and tell you about it. Instead he immerses you in his world and forces you to try to find your own way out.
In the eight songs on this album, Morrison reaches a beauty and a transcendence which is unmatched in any of his later albums. After all, when you are singing at 23 years old that "I ain't nothing but a stranger in this world, I got a home on high," where can you go from there? The answer is in "Sweet Thing," when he sings "And I will never grow so old again." He has already done his most mature songwriting, and all his future albums, in comparison, seem empty of meaning and emotion. Sure, he comes close at times, in songs like "Into the Mystic." But even then, what happens? He starts to work up to a climax, then when it just starts to get good, "Too late to stop now," and he cuts it off, seemingly right in the middle. He can't go back, can't face those emotions again. It's endlessly frustrating to listen to after you've heard what he's capable of on Astral Weeks.
If you're looking for a new favorite album, one that you won't ever get tired of hearing, I would highly recommend any of these three. Right now, Astral Weeks is my favorite, but that will probably change. If you want to know more about it, I loved this review by Lester Bangs (who, after seeing Almost Famous, I can't imagine as anyone else but Philip Seymour Hoffman).
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