Sam At Rest: A Photographic Journey

Date: May 2013
Location: Over Home
State of Sleep: Mostly-Relaxed-Yet-Somewhat-Tense - expecting to take a nephew to the gut at any moment 

Date: July 2011
Location: Teddy's White Toyota Corolla - Provo Center Street
State of Sleep: Fully-Unconscious - Sam wasn't meant to work an 8-5 desk job

Date: July 2011
Location: The Most Uncomfortable Chair in Emery
State of Sleep: Fitful at Best - the nearby couch arm was helpful, but the blood drained quickly

Date: January 2013
Location: The Warm Embrace of My Boostability Snuggie
State of Sleep: Contentedly Stressed - probably should've been reading something, probably never folded those clothes

Date: July 2010
Location: On a Bench Next to a Fire in the Mountains
State of Sleep: Had-Been-Out-In-the-Sun-too-Long Bliss - the mild taste of red phosphorus helps

What the Internet Tells Me about My Identity

I'm fascinated by questions of identity, as I've discussed rather extensively on previous occasions. Luckily I live in an age with the internet which is chock full of quizzes that tell you who you are slash would be if you were someone/somewhere else. Because I'm so fascinated by questions of identity, I pretty much always take these quizzes whenever I come across them. That said, I never actually share them via the social medias because I feel weird about participating in the economics of internet page visits and clicks and so on and so forth. While I don't share them directly, I've spent the last year or so collecting the results of my quiz-taking, and I've decided that the time has come to say fair's fair, to pay the rent now, to pay our share. The time has also come to publish the results of my quiz-taking and avatar-creating. So here y'go.

Samuel James Dunn, Esq. as a Peanuts Character

What Era Do You Belong In: Victorian
Which Classic Literary Character Am I: Elizabeth Bennett - Pride and Prejudice
My Villain Evil Twin: Loki - The Avengers
Which Doctor Who Doctor: The 10th Doctor (David Tennant)
Which Jane Austen Heroine Am I: Elinor Dashwood - Sense and Sensibility
Which Greek Deity Am I: Poseidon
Which Lord of the Rings Character Am I: Sam
Which Magical Creature Am I: Dragon
My Greatest Fear: Sickness
Which 90s Romantic Movie Am I: Runaway Bride

Samuel James Dunn, Esq as a Scott Pilgrim Character

Nationality of My Temperament: Italian
European Country Where I Belong: Ireland
City the Matches My Personality: Lhasa, Tibet
Nationality of My Manners: American
My Downton Abbey Job: Lady's Maid/Valet
My Actual Birth Name: Jacob
My Identity in Past Life: Queen
My Job in the Afterlife: Guardian of the Gates of Heaven

Samuel James Dunn, Esq. as a Powerpuff Girl

My Harry Potter Profession: Minister of Magic
My High School Stereotype: The Rebel
My Fictional BFF: Lizzie McGuire
My Harry Potter Animagus Form: Phoenix
My Woman Type: Independant
My Man Type: The Nice Guy
My Most Dominant Character Type: Sensitivity

On Dreams and Bears and Madeline Kahn

You know how they say that when you write down your dreams then you start remembering them more. Well, I've been doing that, and it all paid off last night, because here I am, wide awake on a Thursday morning reliving what was definitely one of my top five best dreams of all time. Right up there with the time when I was a little kid and had a dream where I was in a cartoon and had a talking raccoon best friend. (I had a talking raccoon best friend way before Guardians of the Galaxy made it cool.)

So, my dream.

I was in the Great Bear Rainforest looking for bears with some other bear-loving types and we hadn't been having any luck at all and we were getting a bit discouraged. But we continued on and after some more hiking around we came upon an open meadow that was filled with bears. And by that I mean there were 3 bears. A black bear and two polar bears. At this point I started getting really excited because, I mean, bears.

* quick side note. I know that polar bears don't live in the Great Bear Rainforest. But it was a dream so, just, just... okay? *

As we crouched in the greenery watching the scene, I realized that the bears were acting funny. And by acting funny I mean the polar bears were actually mugging the black bear. (What that means exactly, I don't know. But in the dream I was positive that I was witnessing a mugging.) I felt a keen sense of injustice about the whole thing, but I didn't do anything about it. What could I do? I mean, sure, nobody likes a bully, but when the bullies are polar bears I figure you just gotta get out of their way and let them do their thing. Have you seen how big polar bears are? Plus there are pictures like this of them all over the internet.

Yeah. So that red stuff on their faces? That's not snausages. So if some bloody-mawed polar bear wants to rough up a black bear, sure I'll feel bad about it, but I ain't getting involved. 

Well, it turns out I wasn't the only one who could see what was going on. As I made my gutless decision, a member of our party stepped out of the bushes and started yelling at the polar bears to leave the poor little black bear alone. And who was that protector of innocent?

Yep. Madeline Kahn. 

Giving no thought to her own safety, she stormed into that glade ready to show those polar bears what was up. When she got close enough, she yelled and scolded and shamed the polar bears, providing enough distraction that the black bear was able to run off and climb a tree. At this point one of the polar bears got angry and started yelling at Ms. Kahn, telling her how she was ruining everything and how she was gonna pay for this. As tensions rose I finally found my gumption, I stepped out to try and get everyone to calm down. My sudden presence only caused the yell-y polar bear to grab Madeline Kahn in a classic "don't move or I shoot the woman" move. With the situation having escalated beyond petty larceny, the other polar bear clearly wanted no part in this whole fiasco and kept telling his buddy to just let it (the situation) and her (Madeline Kahn) go. All the while Madeline Kahn was screaming and carrying on about propriety and how they were trying to molest her and what not. 

Unfortunately this was when I woke up, so I never got to see what happened. But I like to think that Madeline Kahn talked her way out of the situation (no thanks to me), gave the bears a good scolding, and that after the whole thing was over she and I went and got some lunch and became best friends. 

Blame It on the Tetons

Language is a liquid that we're all dissolved in great for solving problems after it creates the problems.

I have to admit that I've never really been a big Modest Mouse fan. Their stuff is fine, I guess, but on the whole it has never really spoken to me. I went to that one free show they did in Salt Lake where there were too many people and people got turned away and it was a big deal and whatnot. It was a pretty good show, but yeah, they've never really been my jam. (If I'm being perfectly honest, that night I enjoyed Avi Buffalo a lot more than I did Modest Mouse. So sue me.)

Anyway, with that disclaimer about my real feelings regarding Modest Mouse out of the way, their tune "Blame It on the Tetons," man, it kills me. Ever since the first time I heard the first 10 seconds it was love. I mean, pierced through the gut, felt like I had to reevaluate my life choices love.

You know that thing where sometimes you're going about your business and out of heaven there seems to descend a lyric or a line of poetry or a guitar riff or a sunset or some other perfection that is just so sublime that the very moment you experience it you think to yourself, "yes." And that yes is as affirmative a yes as you've ever yessed? It's like you've been given the chance to look at the actual thing that is casting the shadows of the wall of the cave that Plato was stuck in. And even though it may be that that yes is really just a fleeting yes, as it fleets the yes is actually Yes. You know?

To be honest I'm not sure "Blame It on the Tetons" is quite up to that level of yessitude, but I've listened to it about 30 times today (both the Modest Mouse version and Josh Ritter's cover), and for whatever reason it's been feeling pretty yessy.

The Tetons

RENOIR!!

Every time I go into or leave my office at school, I see this professor's door:

And every time I see this professor's door, I think of this scene from The Great Muppet Caper:

And every time I think of Animal being angry and shouting about missing the Rembrandt/Renoir exhibit I laugh to myself a little bit.

And after laughing to myself a little bit, I want to go look at some art rather than do my grading. 

...

Maybe if I can get things done this weekend, I can stop off in Chicago on my way out to New York to spend Thanksgiving with family. Yeah. That sounds nice. I'm gonna do that.

..

Except Chicago is in the wrong direction. hmmm. I'm gonna hafta think more about this.

Buried Alive

My 5th great grandparents Adam Welker (1771-1840) and Sarah Fletcher (1769-1840) are supposed to be buried in Henry County, Indiana. Guess who lives a little less than 2 hours from there? You guessed it. (I mean, if you guess it was me, Samuel James Dunn, then you did. If you guessed someone else, well, then, I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you.) When I found out that I have ancestors buried here in Indiana, I decided that while I'm out this way finding their graves would be a valid use of my time. Since I'm already out and about checking out the final resting places of other deceased locals, it would be only right, after all.

While on the topic of checking out the local deceased, take a look at this awesome gravestone:

Why is it so crooked? How did it get so crooked? How has it gotten to be so crooked without falling over? I have no answers, and frankly don't want any. My imagined stories are probably way better than some lame explanation about ground water and whatever else probably caused it. 

Anyway, I've spent a little time looking for Adam and Nancy's graves, mostly only to come up empty-handed and little frustrated. But again, I haven't really spent all that much time looking. This evening, I decided to change that. For my own personal FHE I decided to renew the search, scouring the internets for the cemetery where they're buried in the hopes of someday (soonish) visiting it. So far I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I have found that there are a whole slew of Welkers buried in the Chicago Corner Church Cemetery, and at least some of them seem to be at least mildly related to me. Maybe there will be clues on their grave stones that will lead me to the ones I'm looking for. And then they will lead me to some sort of treasure. (Where's Nicholas Cage when you need him?)

In addition to this moderate family success, I've also come across a lovely local news story from 1928 that seemed like it needed wider publication. So, I've decided to reproduce it here on yo mama llama for the enjoyment of all.

"Man Buried Alive In City Cemetery Workmen Disclose"

Evidence of Struggle by Captive in Earthly Prison Found When Casket is Unearthed

New Castle Times 1928

That a man was buried alive in a local cemetery is the weird and gruesome story told by a city employee here. This man who made the startling disclosure of a man believed dead, but still alive, has witnesses who saw evidence of the fact, while working in the old North 14th street cemetery, some time ago. The horrible affair occurred about the year of 1865, according to available records.

When the city employees were engaged in he work of removing some of the bodies, so that the drain from the wading pool could be built, they came to a casket badly decomposed, that attracted their attention because of its unusual length.

As they started to prepare it for removal to another resting place, they opened its shattered lid, and found to their horror that the skeleton was laying almost face down. People are never so buried--- not even back in 1865 and this set the men to thinking.

Further investigation showed that the man had apparently turned over to brace himself on his shoulders, apparently in an effort to lift the lid of the coffin. His skeleton was in such a position as to indicate that he had been in great strain and strengthened the belief that he had been buried alive and had apparently tried to release himself from this horrible prison.

The officials on looking up the records, found that the man whose name is withheld, for obvious reasons, had died during the yellow fever epidemic about the year 1865. Further investigation shows that none of his relatives or descendents [sic] is now living.

The story told by one who requested that his name not be used, was substantiated by several others, including the workmen engaged in digging the ditch.

The remains of the body were carefully removed to another burial place and nothing was ever said of the event for fear of unwanted publicity over the spread of yellow fever.

Moral of the story, at least from my perspective: Don't get yellow fever in 1865, people can't really tell if you're dead. Also, doing family history can be fun and interesting even if it is mostly unproductive.

Concerning Some Favorite Constellations

Usually I full on hate the fall daylight savings time switch, because it means it gets dark super early. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to sleep in a bit longer, but I'm not sure that extra hour of sleep makes up for it starting to get dark at 4:30 in the pm. That said, I found this evening that being dark by 6:30 had an added benefit that I'd forgotten about: the stars come out earlier.

So this evening when I left my apartment for my customary Sunday evening constitutional, I was able to channel my inner Whitman, wandering off by myself in the mystical moist night-air and from time to time looking up in perfect silence at the stars. (That poem is very important to me, and it played a very formative part in me deciding what I want to be when I grow up.) Anyway, as I was wandering the streets, I got to thinking about constellations and which ones are/have been my favorites over the years. So I decided to write those thinkings about here.

1. Orion. Specifically Orion's belt. This is the first constellation that I consciously remember. I vividly recall being a little kid standing at the kitchen screen door while waiting to leave the house for some reason or another. It was winter, I had my coat and hat and gloves on, and the plastic/glass of the screen  door was cold to my nose (and probably tongue). As I stood there waiting I remember looking out at the sky and seeing three stars in particular that demanded my attention. I was fascinated by them. Why were they all in a line like that? From then on whenever we went outside or drove anywhere and I remembered to look at the sky, I looked for those three stars. At some point I remember Dad telling me that they were a part of the bigger constellation Orion. When he told me that I felt super proud of myself for deciding that those three stars belonged together long before I knew that the rest of the world had also decided that they did. To add to the coolness of Orion, I also found out that one of the stars in Orion was called Beetlejuice. Like the movie that I probably wasn't allowed to watch but that I had watched anyway and thought was awesome. As the nerdy little Astronomy-loving kid that I was, I wanted to learn more about Orion, and when I found out that Beetlejuice and its constellation-mate Rigel were two of the brightest stars in the northern night sky (numbers 9 and 7 respectively), well, what more could a constellation ask for? Pop culture association, cool belt, little kid pride and brightest stars. And Orion was a hunter to boot. That sealed the deal. Favorite constellation.

2. Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia became my favorite a few years later, and I can thank my sister Melanie for that. Melanie was/had recently been in an astronomy class at BYU, and while we were in Emery one summer a few of us were outside looking up at the stars. Melanie pointed out the big W in the sky and said that it was called Cassiopeia. Melanie told the story of Cassiopeia and why she got to be in the sky, and while I frankly don't remember the whole story, one part of the story stuck with me really strongly. Cassiopeia's daughter was Andromeda. At this time Andromeda was my favorite galaxy (Yeah, I had a favorite galaxy. I'm telling you, I was a really nerdy little kid...you know what, let's face it, I'm still pretty nerdy). It was enough of a favorite for me that at this time in my life I wanted to grow up and get married and have a daughter just so I could name her Andromeda. There wasn't a more perfect name. If I'm being perfectly honest, I still think it's a beautiful name, and if/when I ever get married, and if/when we ever have kids, naming one of them Andromeda may or may not be a point of discussion with the wife. But that's beside the point. The point is that when I found out that Andromeda was Cassiopeia's daughter, I had a new favorite constellation.

3. Cygnus. Cygnus the swan, aka the Northern Cross became my favorite constellation thanks to Dad borrowing a couple of telescopes from the school district and taking them up to the mountains on a ward campout. I don't remember the specifics, but I know that somehow along the way I found out that Albireo, the star at the base of the cross also known as the Cub Scout Star, was a double star consisting of a yellow and blue star (hence the Cub Scout association). I'll never forget standing in that dewy mountain meadow looking up at the sky and only seeing one star, and then looking in the telescope and seeing two, and just having wave after wave of marvel and wonder wash over me. That star was actually two stars! And they were different colors! It was about the coolest thing that I had ever learned. Naturally any constellation associated with such awesomeness was going to be my favorite.

4. Sagittarius. Sagittarius became my favorite constellation during my junior year of high school. It wasn't associated with my discovering previously unknown information about the constellation; by this point I was pretty well on top of all that stuff. Instead it was a purely aesthetic thing, i.e. I liked how it looked. I realized this while laying out on the Riverton High School football field late one night with my astronomy teacher Mr. Hinton and a few other members of my class. We were taking turns pointing out the various constellations that we could see, and after a little while the recitation of the constellations got repetitive and boring. So I started ignoring everyone else, instead looking at and considering each constellation at my own speed. When I got to Sagittarius it struck me as hilarious that this constellation, a centaur, looked like a teapot. A teapot! Plus it was fun to say. It came around to my turn to point out the different constellations (someone had to elbow me because I was thoroughly distracted from what the rest of the class was doing), and when I got to Sagittarius I burst out laughing. When Mr. Hinton asked what was so funny, I tried to explain that it was funny that it looked like a teapot, but my explanation kinda fell flat to my own ears. To my surprise Mr. Hinton started to laugh and said that he'd always thought it was funny too. Mr. Hinton had long been my favorite teacher, so when he validated me and my sense of humor in that moment, I felt really good about myself. And that's all it took. New favorite. Who knows if he actually even thought it was funny, but he recognized that I was probably feeling vulnerable and he made me feel good. So not only did I have a new favorite constellation, but he solidified his place on my list of the best teachers in all the history of ever.

5. Pleiades. For a long time the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, had been on the short list of favorites. For as long as I have known about it (I'm pretty sure it's another one that Melanie introduced me to) I've always thought it was beautiful. I love that the tight cluster works together with the the varying levels of brightness of each star to give the constellation a sense of depth that other constellations lack. That said, it didn't become my favorite constellation until the night, almost exactly 11 years ago, when I decided I wouldn't couldn't make a career of studying astronomy. I had just walked out of the testing center at BYU having taken my 3rd or 4th physics test of the semester, and it had taken me nearly 5 hours to finish that test. While I was confident that I had done pretty well, I also knew that the struggles I was having with the subject matter weren't going away. On top of that, the level of effort I was expending just to be getting halfway decent grades in this entry level course wasn't going to be sustainable over a college degree, let alone a career. For a whole semester I had been trying to rationalize my struggles, saying that this was a weeder course and that they were trying to get the weak to drop out. I knew I wasn't going to be one of those sorry failures that couldn't hack it, so I had determined to ignore any and all thoughts to the contrary. But that 5 hour test proved to be too much, pushing me over the edge, and forcing me to admit to myself for the first time that the goal I had had since second grade of being an Astronomer when I grew up wasn't going to happen. Admitting it scared me. I had never given any thought to a backup plan. As I walked across campus back to my dorm, I looked up at the stars and there they were, those seven sisters, shining as brightly and beautifully as they ever had. At first their beauty only heightened my sadness. Up until this point I had wanted to make that beauty the center of my professional life, and now I was realizing that it wouldn't be possible. But as I continued walking and thinking and looking up at the stars, I also decided that therein was the problem: studying physics and calculus and the like was taking the beauty out of it for me. It was hiding the wonder and awe of the stars behind a curtain of numbers and Greek symbols and math. It was then that I was able to find a little comfort. I was still sad and I still felt lost and I was still a couple years away from finding a replacement field of study that I would find as fulfilling as I had hoped astronomy would be, but in that confusion there was the beauty of the Pleiades. And in that beauty there was some comfort.

Photo courtesy of Hubble

Tonight as I was strolling about town occasionally looking up at the stars and the constellations they form, my eyes naturally drifted to my favorites, those mentioned here (though Orion isn't out yet) and others. As I landed on the Pleiades and remembered our history together, I found that it continues to evoke in me a kind of nostalgic sadness. And I love that. So for that reason I've decided it maintains favorite status.