This page contains all entries posted to Manufactured Environments in December 2001.

three days to close.

Posted by Daniel Stout on Tue 18 Dec 2001 at 9:14 PM

the leaves have fallen. the sky is gray, cold, and encumbered with a residual feeling of fall. the day it becomes winter is the day the deal is done. pretty people hover in the living room — bringing good cheer, bringing good fun, bringing quiet desperations.

a feeling of excitement — the pulse of the week is fast paced. what a strange, interesting christmas this will be.

after packing fifteen boxes of books, i realize i’m glad i don’t move too often. over fours years in this place, and hopefully many more in the place to come — the place i will call my own — the place on the edge of the city — the place on a hill — the place at the end of the long, winding road — my new home. my realtor sent me an email today. the stars are aligned, and everything is in place.

quiet realities. questions bubble to the surface. russian women are so beautiful. randomness in the city.

No Comments Yet »

you look smashing this evening, darling.

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 17 Dec 2001 at 2:22 AM

boxes have become my life. i’m less than a week away from moving into my own place, and life has changed. instead of waking up to a bedroom full of books, i instead see boxes. boxes lined up in stacks — filled with books, papers, dishes — all the stuff that makes my space mine. the computer, the stereo, they have their own boxes, but the rest of the debris in my life is filled to the brim in xerox boxes that in a former life held copier paper and now hold mystical, mysterious objects. my three large bookcases have filled over fifteen of these puppies. people are coming to help me move, but i look at it as my own personal obligation to move the books. and so i will.

it’s a short week. fours days of work mostly — well, it’s finals week, so things are a little different — but then on friday i get to close the deal. the seller will sign on the dotted line — “give this thing to daniel, i say!” — and then i’ll take that paper and the keys and the garage door opener and whatever else they want to hand off to me and then i’m free to move in. my own place! it has a ring to it. speaking of free, did i mention? i’m free and clear of my apartment. i got a fellow here — a grad student in marketing — to rent my apartment. the landlords are cutting me free of the lease i signed, god bless them. no sublets. no nastiness. in fact, s. stopped by to wish me luck and gave me a bottle of christmas wine from the amana colonies. a nice gesture.

i saw a beauty at the grocer’s tonight. i had some shopping to do and there she was. beautiful as always. deep, dark skin. artistic hair. something to behold. “have you finished your degree?” i asked. “yes, in may.” we talked for a while, holding up the line. she is perfect.

and having said that i realize there are many perfect people in my life. many wonderful personalities and visages. some are beautiful on the outside, some are beautiful on the inside, but most of them are both. i speak of j. and a. and s. and c. and h. and c. and j. and t. and t. and many others. love is beautiful.

so it’s getting time to wrap this up. another entry from the journal of jean-paul xtasy. i hope you’ve enjoyed your stay at manufacturedenvironments.com. there’s much more here than is apparent at first glance. take care. ds.

No Comments Yet »

in the beginning there was pan. a flute he played.

Posted by Daniel Stout on Sun 16 Dec 2001 at 1:48 AM

tonight i’m seeing the connections between all of the dots in my stratosphere. what seemed once like elements far and disparate, have come together in stunning ways this past week.

word started trickling back this week. people have been receiving my christmas letters and cards. the postal service has become suddenly efficient. where normally it would take at least four days for a letter to reach far flung places — this week it only took three. a package sent to me from a far took a very little amount of time to arrive.

the big news of course being that this is a big news year. maybe i’m becoming older or maybe i just wanted more christmas mail. at any rate, it seemed like a good year to send cards to friends far and wide. the farthest west they went was california and the farthest east they went was the mediterranean.

the news this year is multi-fold. first, i received a graduate degree in may. grad school was a wonderful trip. the next news is that i’m buying a place on the east side. i move in less than a week! friends and family are coming by to help me move. i’ve been in the same apartment for over four years now. i’m ready to move to my own place. third, i’ll be an adjunct professor. lots of opportunities and excitements are happening this year.

of course the events of sept. 11 have affected many people. i started the healing with a new series of mix tapes sent to many called the duality of lovers mix series. actually they’re mix cd’s. recorded to 80-minute blank cd’s, they contain 54 songs and over 4 hours of music. the series is three part: “love builder” and “seekers who are lovers” and “soft as fire.” the first, love builder, is the most aggressive. it contains contemporary rock and r&b. the second, seekers, takes a step back — transcendental, reflective — an exploration of the inner self. the third, soft as fire, is an all out amazing mix of contemporary avant garde classical music including steve reich, kronos quartet, brodsky quartet, philip glass and many others. i listen to it all of the time. i designed the booklets with this pieces and they’re quite, quite fine everyone is saying. if you’d like to get a hand on the duality of lovers mix series send me an email.

a guy i knew from college, faust gertz, has his own domain, leemarvin.com. who is lee marvin? he’s actor (i.e. the dirty dozen). this is like his previous domain diotima (a socratic dialogue). no front page. mostly just a front for email and his voluminous perl scripts. after being such a philosopher, he’s turned into something of a computer guy. funny what age brings us. my twenties have brought many great things to me: travel on five continents (north america, europe, africa, asia, and australia), a undergrad degree from a private college, a graduate degree for a big ten university, and many interesting, profound times.

i realized the other week that i have over 1,000 songs on my computer, and strangely the one that was playing right now i felt as though i had never heard — or maybe the artist seemed obscure. that’s not that unusual i listen to a lot of obscure music. one thing i’ve noticed over the past couple of years is the evolution in the music i listen to. as a dj in college (kwlc) and grad school (krui) i got to hear a lot of up and coming bands, but these days i’m more likely to put on some philip glass more than anything else. the only radio station i listen to with any regularity is the local classical station. i’m getting ready to write them a letter. the peruse the greatest hits of classical during the week and shift to jazz on the weekends. i want to write them that they don’t play much contemporary music — in fact none at all. what’s the matter. where’s minimalism? where’s atonal? where are all of the great composers of the past half a century? even if they had just a two-hour show at 10 pm on sunday nights i’d be happier about it. they’re stuck in the 1840’s and haven’t a clue what’s happened since then. kronos quartet, for example, has been around for over twenty years, and plays this town nearly every season, and yet they never get airtime on the local station. what’s the matter with this picture?

so that’s the news. thanks for visiting and drop me a line if you’ll be in town for new year’s.

(signed) daniel

No Comments Yet »

listening listening hearing th e mix.

Posted by Daniel Stout on Fri 7 Dec 2001 at 12:15 AM

tonight was productive. i made some progress on a paper i’m writing. also packed up some books for my upcoming move. i’m still dizzy with this dream of ownership — taking a stake in things.

got a meeting tomorrow with a director. we’ll talk about my new life as an adjunct professor.

this has been a week of puzzle pieces getting placed on the table. the pieces, which were strewn about far and wide, are finally coming down together. the pieces fit and the picture on the puzzle can now be seen. the larger elements are coming together as the smaller details resolve themselves.

had a class today that went pretty well. hopefully i was challenging and intellectually engaging.

so that’s life tonight. getting ready to move. getting ready to move on. fitting the pieces together — making this puzzle has been interesting. it’s a time of changes and fortunately they’ve all been good.

the new year’s party is shaping up. it’ll be a lot of old friends from college at my new place. two years ago i was a grad student and now i’m on the other side of the desk. not a bad place to be.

No Comments Yet »

there are dreams, and there are dream eaters. but mostly dreams are realized.

Posted by Daniel Stout on Tue 4 Dec 2001 at 11:49 PM

it’s been a busy week. i have a class to teach tomorrow, but mostly i’ve been getting my syllabus ready for the new class i’ll be teaching next semester. it’s exciting to craft something i can really call my own. teaching is a great joy.

for entertainment i’ve been sending out the invites for my new years party. it’ll be the first shindig in my new place. i’m moving before christmas, which will certainly be a chore. i’ve had this place for four and a half years and finally finally i’m ready for a place of my own. the extra space, the vaulted ceilings, the view. it’ll all be a welcome change in this city that i love. one thing i’m remembering this week is all the shite that needs to get done before i move. people to notify, addresses to change, utilities to hook up, lovers to placate. everyone’s been real helpful though. a co-worker brought by some moving boxes tonight. my soon to be ex-landlord stopped by to say hi too. a month ago i wouldn’t have believed it could all fall into place so quickly. my pessimism bore a newfound optimism apparently. optimism for … a year of change that has past and a year of interesting new beginnings to come.

i realized the other day that i have over 1,000 songs stored on my computer. been listening to a lot of philip glass (symphonies 3 & 5), steve reich (music for 18 musicians) & of course kronos quartet. they keep me happy. they keep me interested. music helps to focus my energy — it gives it direction and purpose. since i’m buying this place, i put my plans of getting a piano on hold for the moment — but that’s the next thing on my list. a piano to call my own, that’s all i ask. and all i can ask is an upright steinway worth the $15k.

happy days, my friends, are here again.

No Comments Yet »

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Validation: XHTML 1.0 Strict • CSS 2.1 • Atom 1.0