if you like baseball, iron&wine, and me

i'm now writing about baseball full time on another blog (which is to say, part time, but all of my baseball writing time). my friend john just published the first installment in a twins offseason report at the following site:

http://twinsmvb.blogspot.com/

i highly recommend checking out the blog generally, especially if you want to see me doing baseball analysis.

if you're interested in finding out more about me (and mostly about the courses i've taught and the research i do), then check out the newly published brettwerner.com.

in other life news, i have now submitted two chapters (of six) of my dissertation to my adviser. i'm busy trying to get a third to him. i'm also trying to get all the documents together to submit for job applications (mostly interdisciplinary environmental studies jobs). beyond that, i'm enjoying a good group of first year writing students at umn, the chance to walk or bike most everywhere i need to go, and my new apartment (especially the pool/sauna availability).

the two albums i've been listening to most when i'm trying to write my dissertation are sigur ros' agaetis byrjun and beck's sea change. interestingly, i think these were two of the albums i listened to most my senior year of college five years ago.

if you have new music suggestions for me, please post them in the comments--i'd enjoy something new right about now. until then, here's a song i've liked for a while...

pagan angel and a borrowed car by iron and wine

love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees
a bone cold and older than our bodies slowly floating in the sea
every morning there were planes
the shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's skies
every evening i would watch her hold the pillow tight against her hollows, her unholy child
i was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat among the angry cemetery leaves
when they caught the king beneath the borrowed car
righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys

love was a father's flag and sung like a shank in a cake on our leather boots
a beautiful feather floating down to where the birds had shit on empty chapel pews
every morning we found one more machine to mock our ever waning patience at the well
every evening she'd descend the mountain stealing socks and singing something good where all the horses fell
like a snake within the wilted garden wall i’d hint to her every possibility
while with his gun the pagan angel rose to say "my love is one made to break every bended knee"