Soppnerism? Sort of, but not quite.

So I was doing a bit of typing today and when writing the word "opportunity," I accidentally transposed my o's and p's. I kind of giggled to myself as I sat in a coffee shop surrounded by strangers.

Just thought I'd take this pooprtunity to let you all know.

Bros before schmos

So I have a new band I'm in love with. This doesn't happen all that often as I'm pretty picky about the kind of music I'll listen to 15 or 20 times in a week's span. The music I become obsessed with has to have a balance of instrumental and vocal performance (or no vocals at all works well), and a pleasing mix of virtuosity and accessibility. Now of course, certain albums have snuck past the gatekeeper (John Mayer's Continuum is one that immediately comes to mind) So if your qualifications are in any way similar to mine you might also love this new band: Punch Brothers. Their first album, released a week and a half ago is aptly called "Punch."

The frontman for the freshly-formed Punch Brothers is Nickel Creek mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile (Thee-lee), one of my favorite musicians in recent years. Actually, to be honest I get a little jealous of people my age who have such amazing levels of success, but it's so danged good. If you're a fan of Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Newgrass Revival, Nickel Creek, Tony Trischka, music, art, sweaters, cats, Precious Moments Figurines, guano, spelunking, historical-fiction, or crepes, you just might like these guys.

Oh, and I wasn't exaggerating about 15 or 20 times in the last week. It's been something like that. Mmmmmm... meaty music with emotion and intellect... delicious.

"Come on... You can do it... Just a little bit more... A little bit more... Almost there... Almost... there..."

So one of the hard parts of my job is that I have to be really careful about talking about the students. There are certain confidentiality issues that can not be breached, and in the interest of complying, I'll tell you a completely anonymous story about a student, a human male or female or hermaphrodite, of school age at the public or private school I work at nestled comfortably at the edge of a Western Hemisphere ghetto. This particular unit was having a particularly difficult morning, and was having a hard time engaging itself in our class's morning check-in time, wherein all units and educational facilitators describe how they are feeling at the moment, something they did the night before, and a goal they have for the day. This particular unit often has a hard time pulling itself together in the morning, and in a frustrated state will put its head down on its desk and refuse to get up. In an effort to encourage said unit to sit up and engage in check-in, I leaned in closer, lending a stream of encouraging words to its ear in the hopes that its spirits would be raised to an adequate degree of functionality. As I spoke, the unit began his own stream of encouragements, each phrase said slowly and deliberately, likened unto a scene from any number of Disney sports movies where the crushed hero is raised from the edge of despair by a single clap which slowly and deliberately leads to an entire stadium, city, county, state, region, nation and hemisphere taking on that applause with great gusto, thereby encouraging the hero to take up his burden and complete the task. This was the gist of this unit's self-encouragement. (Note: To be read extremely slowly, each phrase being raised in pitch as it reaches any punctuation, in the exact fashion an educator would encourage an emotionally fragile student, male, female, or hermaphrodite.)

"Come on... You can do it... Just a little bit more... A little bit more... Almost there... Almost... there..."

And all the while the unit is slowly raising itself off of its desk in the exact position it had started with, arms crossed, forehead pressed against the arms. It was perhaps one of the funniest things I've seen in the last couple months. Yeah, Disney certainly doesn't have a death-grip on the minds of children, and certainly not to the end that emotions are learned by watching a screen instead of direct interaction with real people... But that's a different blog entirely...