2008-02 Vital Source Mag – February 2008
VITAL turns six with Puzzles + Games
By VITAL friends and family Download PDFs of all of our puzzles & games! Just print and play! Coloring page by Natalia Rubanov: VITAL’s birthday girl! Coloring page by Dwellephant Coloring page by Tim Edgar Hidden picture puzzle by Coth Paper doll by Tea Krulos Coloring page by Kristopher Pollard Coloring page by Jeff Noise Find the differences puzzle by J. Jason Groschopf Giant word search Giant crossword Kris kross puzzle, anagram jumble and mega-sudoku
Feb 1st, 2008 by Vital Archives
Guitar Hero
Growing up in a small, semi-rural town where broomball and shining deer were considered high entertainment (if you’re unfamiliar with these provincial pastimes, please, don’t ask), I was keenly aware of a strange, terrifying sub-set of my peers. No, not the girls who harbored abnormal crushes on Channel 12’s Jerry Taft, or even the kids who looked like circus animals (my graduating class alone had three pandas), but something much more puzzling, much more insidious: 13-year-olds with facial hair. For the most part, these freaks of nature were farm kids who drank at least four cartons of milk during lunch, had nicknames like “Goatsy” or “Yummers” and were almost always excellent bowlers. So enamored were these mutants with their precious little dirt-staches that they never once shaved them, instead opting to savor each scraggly whisker for years on end as if it were manna from heaven. Of course, much like a farmer’s field, if you fail to cultivate the land (or, in this case, your upper lip), you deprive your crops the chance to flourish and grow, leaving you with nothing but dirt. And that’s exactly what happened here: all throughout high school, these redneck goons sported the same ill-formed, uncultivated facial hair. Occasionally running into them now during drunken jaunts back to my hometown, I always take a certain amount of pleasure in seeing these grown men still rocking straight-up peach fuzz. I bring up this disturbing phenomenon because I harbor something of an ill-formed mustache myself: my sub-standard guitar playing (in the realm of facial hair, I still remain as smooth and ridiculous as a baby bird). Technically, I’ve been playing guitar for nearly half my life; this statement is entirely misleading, however, when you consider that in my case, “playing” roughly translates to “learning some basic chords when you’re 16 and strumming them to death for the next decade-and-a-half.” Perhaps it was my early frustration with never figuring out that goddamn opening riff to “Come As You Are” (something most eight-year-olds could probably lick in ten minutes) but after a while, I simply gave up. This piss-poor attitude was recently thrown into sharp relief when local tunesmiths The Danger asked me to fill in for their recently departed lead guitarist. It was understood this emergency substitution would be for a single show at the Cactus Club (opening for the criminally underappreciated Dark Horse Project), and that we would only have a few weeks to rehearse. It was also understood that I would be expected to play some of the leads – nothing complicated, I was assured – but leads nonetheless. Would I do it? After carefully considering my utter lack of time, energy or talent, I immediately said yes.(A side note: if The Danger happens to be playing near a venue near you, do yourself a favor and check them out; it’s nice to hear a band that doesn’t rely on chamber-pop chanting or lyrics about robots and zombies to get their point across.) Rehearsals went well, […]
Feb 1st, 2008 by Matt Wild
The fine art of persuasion
In fourth grade, the children at Roosevelt Elementary are taught how to write a persuasive letter. My nine-year-old, Emma, has been faithfully practicing this skill. Here’s a case in point. Recently, our cat Lucius decided to exhibit his displeasure with the humans by peeing on the floor next to where I was standing. It was a short-lived habit, occurring about two times. But in my frustration of the moment, I was overheard saying that I couldn’t keep a cat that wouldn’t use his litter box. Here is Emma’s written response to that comment. Had I been seriously inclined to drop the cat at the Humane Society I’m not sure it would have changed my mind, but in terms of sheer persuasive skills, Emma clearly found catharsis in this process of careful manipulation and has developed it into an art form. May it be a guide to all of us. You’ve got to fight for what you believe in.
Feb 1st, 2008 by Lucky Tomaszek
Allison Moorer
Elegance: if there could ever be such a thing as a one-word review, that would be it for Mockingbird. On her sixth studio recording Allison Moorer set out to record a selection of songs that she hoped would make listeners treasure, encourage and pay attention to the female songwriter. It’s a fairly ambitious undertaking, and with Mockingbird, a resounding success. Allison puts her stamp on virtually every song, spanning an impressive spectrum. Moorer and producer Buddy Miller bring overdriven drums, an acoustic guitar and some subtly delayed piano to life on “Ring of Fire,” re-imagining the entire context of this important lyric while losing none of its strength. From there, she moves easily onto “Dancing Barefoot,” the Patti Smith gem, polishing it to a gleam. There’s a bit of rocking on this one: The Joni Mitchell favorite “Both Sides Now” is gorgeous and emotive under Moorer’s own blue light. But she saves the best for last: her version of Cat Power’s “Where Is My Love” is stunning and powerful. It’s haunting. It’s captivating. And it’s so real. Moorer doesn’t just play these songs, she appreciates them in earnest. Music of this magnitude elevates its listeners. I could’ve typed the first word of this review 100 times and left it at that. It’s just that good.
Feb 1st, 2008 by Troy Butero
