Favorite Albums of 2011

Honestly, this is the hardest year in memory for building my annual “favorite albums of the year” list. I’m not entirely sure why. I refuse to use the fogeyist “no good music came out this year” statement — I (mostly) don’t believe that to be true, even though I will admit that as I get older, I’m considerably less interested in what I hear from the indie-rock blogosphere. Instead, I’ll admit that it’s probably my fault: I didn’t invest as much time this year checking out new artists — it was a busy year. Also, I turned a lot of my music-listening attention backwards towards artists and albums I missed (primarily feeding my new-found Nilsson obsession, which then fueled a still-growing Newman obsession, which then fueled a still-growing Wainwright obsession.) And lastly, a good part of my time after September was spent listening back through the R.E.M. catalog, as the announcement of their retirement did nothing but make me want to listen continually to my first and favorite band. (I’ll try and save the R.E.M. eulogy for another post).

Still, there were a handful of new albums I really loved this year, and a bigger handful of albums I truly like and might grow to love as time goes by. Instead of the arbitrary numerical ranking I’ve done in the past – which I always question as soon as I click “Publish” — I’m going to separate this list into two clumps of records: the ones I love right now, and the ones I like right now.

Changes: Why I’m Joining HealthTeacher and Leaving HealthStream

This week, I accepted a position as Product Manager with HealthTeacher. I’m going to wrap up my work at HealthStream in November and start my new role effective December 1. My commute will be all of two floors shorter — third instead of fifth. I guarantee I’ll absently walk all the way up to the fifth floor at least once.

I’m thrilled. This change represents the last step in a full turn in my career that I’ve worked very hard to achieve over a relatively short timeline. It’s been three years since I first reevaluated my career and began to realize my passion for education. While teaching ultimately became an outcome I couldn’t justify (sadly, mostly a financial decision, which says a bit about the state of our education system), the research lead me to instructional design as a field that combined my interest in cognition, learning, and technology. I imagined I’d spend a few years building experience in corporate learning and adult education, and then parlay that into a move to a tech company in the K-12 space. I figured it was something that would take years, and I began to think it wasn’t something I could do in Nashville.

HealthTeacher is the move into K-12 education that I’ve wanted all along.As I have a child that approaches school-age faster than I can comprehend, I find my passion for education growing exponentially. There’s no field I’d rather work in; in my mind, there’s no opportunity to change the world greater than improving an education system that is in serious need of new ideas, new technologies, and new approaches.

Furthermore, HealthTeacher’s mission is big, important, and meaningful in a whole other way — the company is focused on building a youth health movement by teaching good health habits to children. It’s been said that 75% of healthcare costs go to treat conditions that are largely preventable and even reversible by preventative lifestyle choices. Studies have shown that lifestyle choices could prevent at least 90% of all heart disease. Spiraling healthcare costs continue to burden our economy.

We form habits early in life. Good health should be a habit, a competency, a language that we learn at a young age. I’m excited to go to HealthTeacher and build exciting education products that do just that.

In making this decision, I leave behind a job I’ve truly enjoyed. My two years at HealthStream have been fantastic. I believe 100% in what HealthStream does. It has great leadership, fills a very important need in the world, is run with strong vision, and treats it’s employees with respect. I felt like family there, and I’m sad to say goodbye — but this opportunity is too close to my heart to pass up.

Here’s hoping for a relatively-change-free 2012! I could use one year of maintenance.

“Pocketknife”

Pocketknife

Sunday afternoon -
a grandmother removes
a tiny green package
from her bedside table
and drops it gently
into his eager hands.

The boy rubs the inside
of his short index finger
along the glossy green paper
and leans his young frame
against her marigold dress,
while he slips his finger
under the crease
to loosen the tape.
In respect for
this unexpected gift
he does not tear the paper,
but slides the battered case
out of its tight wrapping.

He opens it wordlessly,
his grandmother looking away,
and into his hands falls
a rusty pocketknife
with a handle of worn wood,
delicately carved by
the blade of another,
deeproot stained by years of use,
and scratched onto one side -
the initials of her father,
whom he had never met
but had always known.

“Insomnia”

When I was twelve I had insomnia -
a crippling sense of anticipation
for something that would never come.

Every night,
the cautious evening crept into the house
and the water in the pipes would settle,
and the air conditioner would choke itself
in an aluminum rattle -
the vents exhaling their last cool breath
the dust sinking silver against the windows.
I would lie in the dark
restless as the moonlight,
and strangled by the hands of patience.

Sometimes at 2 a.m.
my father, still awake in his tiny office,
would hear my pacing,
slip wordless into my room
and put “Blood on the Tracks” on the old stereo -
Bob Dylan crooning soft and desperate
about losing his wife.
I didn’t understand the words,
but I think I always understood the sound,
the inexorable fear of emptiness.

Now, sitting at the desk,
breathless,
I realize
sometimes the empty spaces
weigh as much as the movements.

My Favorite Records/Songs of 2010

My Favorite 25 Records of 2010

The Complete Avenues Archive

So, I’m finally completing a long-standing goal I’ve had for, oh, 4 or 5 years. The goal was to catalog and archive the Avenues library of video and audio. Why? Well, I suppose for posterity — it’s been 5 years now since we decided to end the band, and I’ve been sitting on video footage and demos and whatnot since then. Its only a matter of time before those things get misplaced, so I figured it’d be best to get them online in case we want to show them to the kids at some point, or just look it all back up in 10 more years when we can hardly remember the names of the songs.

Long Overdue Update: I Had A Kid.

I suppose I started this blog to record some of the more interesting parts of my life. There have been periods of varying success of this goal, but no oversight larger than the fact that it’s taken me 3 and a half weeks to share this little bit of news: I’m a father.

I’ll provide the details, but first, here’s some really non-insightful insight: technology is crazy awesome. From the very beginning of our process, I was keeping friends and family up to date on the whole experience via Twitter and Facebook — it was easier than making dozens of phonecalls and fielding a hundred text messages (plus, we don’t pay for unlimited text so I have to cut ya’ll off somewhere). Plus, I was just so excited at what turns out to be the most unbelievable joyous experience of my life that I wanted to share it, loud and clear. Maybe that’s part of the generation I’m growing up in, maybe I just like to hear myself talk. (Both, probably). But, at the end of it, I have a nice play-by-play journal of the whole three day experience.

So, rather than post a labored-over retelling (seriously, that is not a pun), I’m going to just copy and paste my transmissions from those few days — the chronology of the birth of my first son, Ansel Franklin Briggs.

Update: My Friend Rachel is an Award Winning Composer and My Poems Get to Tag Along

Way back in December of 2008, I wrote this blog post about how my friend Rachel Fogarty had used two of my old poems as text for a song cycle she was composing. It was a surprise, and I was honored that she’d think enough of them to set them to music; then later equally honored to hear them performed at a recital in April of last year.

Rachel sent me an email last night to give me another piece of great news — her song cycle won a national competition and will be premiered in Boston with the Boston Metro Opera for their 1st Annual Contemporary AmericanaFest in May! Details are here and here.

Rachel is immensely talented and I’ve always been humbled by her dedication — I’m so happy to see her being recognized and happy to be a small part of it.

For those wondering, the two poems in question are below.

Project: Introduction to Multimedia Design

I launched my first website today. Well, the first one I built by myself. I’ve launched plenty of websites through work, but none that I designed, coded, and wrote all the content for.

The project was to design an instructional or informational site using CSS. I had lots of help from my co-workers in navigating CSS, and I feel pretty comfortable now looking at code and knowing what’s going on. I chose “climbing” as my topic, as I knew I had quite a few photos I could use for my site design.

You can view the site at http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~briggsa/climbingsafety/index.htm.

Note that the site isn’t actually AT ClimbingSafety.com. I might eventually buy a domain and launch the site off of the school servers, but money doesn’t grow on trees.

My Most Anticipated Albums of 2010

2007 was one of the best years in music in my recollection — career-defining albums from Spoon, The National, LCD Soundsystem, Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, Dr. Dog, Dungen, Okkervil River, Menomena, Iron and Wine, and several others. (My list from that year is on the Grimey’s website.)

Stereogum has a great post right now listing their 69 most anticipated records of 2010, and the follow-up records to most of the highlights of 2007 are on schedule for next year. Based on this list, 2010 is going to be heavy with music from artists I already love and maybe beat 2007 in the race for the most great releases. Since I’m still in the spirit of making inane lists (see my “Favorites Albums and Songs of 2009″ post), I thought I’d whittle the list down to the ones I’m looking forward to: