Dave Catches The 3:10 To The West Coast!

Well, I'm back at IWU after a splendiferous weekend down at the University of Illinois. I stayed at Ben's house, called Koininia, and had so much fun meeting his friends and seeing Ben in his natural habitat.

Last night was an adventure. Ben, myself, and a couple of friends went out to Papa Dels pizza. It was amazing! Their crust was as thick as a grizzly bear's hide and their cheese was as gooey as saltwater taffy coated with melted syrup. It was so delicious. I had 3 pieces which, according to Dave's Culinary Constitution, is technically classified as....hold on, let me look....ah, here it is: "stupid." Nevertheless, I was still able to walk the rest of the night without waddling, and it's a good thing too, cause after pizza we trekked all the way across campus to our car which was supposed to drive us to a concert. However, the car must've had too much Papa Del's because it wouldn't start. So, thinking like a jazz musician, Ben improvised with a perfect plan. "Hey, let's go back to Papa Del's!" However, Dave's Culinary Constitution classified that plan as "hazardous to Dave's future," so we decided to go back to Koin and watch a movie instead.

The movie, 3:10 To Yuma, may easily be my new favorite movie of all Movies With Arizona Cities In the Title! It was very entertaining. I haven't seen too many Westerns (let me see...I think I've seen 4) so this was a treat. Russell Crowe did an amazing job playing Ben Wade, the evilest man in the West. I won't spoil the movie, but the gist of the plot involves Ben Wade getting captured and being escorted by Batman and some of his friends across Arizona to catch the 3:10 train to Yuma. However, upon arriving at the train station, Ben's gang (the Sundance Kids) ambushes them in attempts to regain their leader. What follows next is a bang-bang-shoot-em-up scene that will make you dodge bullets from the comfort of your living room. Things didn't look good for the good guys, but then, Daylights Savings Time struck (which it did, last night), and changed the name of the movie to 4:10 To Yuma, thus giving them an extra hour to get Ben on the train. With this unexpected delay, the bad guys had no choice but to surrender and everybody lived happily ever after. If you don't believe me, watch the movie yourself. My only word of warning is that it is rather violent, but, just like our cartoons, what movie isn't nowadays.

Right now, as I blog, I'm listening to a piece of music called "The Holy City of Ashtabula." The piece is 17 minutes long, I've been listening to it for 15 now, and I'm pretty sure it has been one continuous chord for the whole time. That's the thing about contemporary classical music; it's becoming a lot more atmospheric. And if it's not atmospheric, it's usually eccentric. For example, last night, I listened to a piece of music called "Essay For String Orchestra" by a Japanese composer named Mayuzumi. This is the best way to describe it: you're on a beach. All around you are a bunch of sleeping sea lions. One by one, they begin to wake up and yawn. As you watch and listen to this cacophony, you see a crab darting amongst the seals. At random intervals, the crab will pinch a seal and cause it to yelp. All the while, the seals to continue to yawn. And then, all of a sudden, they all go back to sleep. There, that is exactly how Mayuzumi's piece sounded. I hope you enjoyed it.