I was going to give each book I read a post, but I’m now five books behind, so forget that. Here we go:
The Velvet Underground and Nico by Joe Harvard
Once I got past the truly terrible chemistry metaphor (that seemed to indicate that water could easily be created it from its constituent elements), this was a good read. The best parts were focused on the recording process more than on the band (probably a good bet when the top guy in the band turned into an insufferable jerk). My favorite anecdote is Nico sobbing “I vant to seeng like Bob Deeeeeeee-lahn!”
The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society by Andy Miller
Not quite as good as Fusilli’s Pet Sounds book, but in the same vein (though Pet Sounds focused more on the artist, TKATVGPS more on the recording): really brilliant guy writes really brilliant album that tanks commercially, but is eventually seen as his masterpiece. Unfortunately, this entire process makes guy go really nuts.
What I also enjoyed was the discussion of b-sides and non-album tracks around the time. The Kinks had a ton of these, which is why all the recent re-releases almost double the album size with bonus tracks. This book came out right before the re-releases, so it’s strange to read Miller describing how rare, say, “Wonderboy” is, when I now have it on my iPod.
Candyfreak by Steve Almond
CANDY! CANDY CANDY CANDY CANDY CANDY! I like Candy. I’ve been eating lots of Lake Champlain chocolate since reading this book. Almond does a good job of staying on the right side of the Klosterman line, where his muddled social life comes up, but doesn’t overwhelm the ostensible subject of the book.
Freakonomics by Steves Levitt and Dubner
If you don’t know the basics of this book, you’re probably not reading this. It was fun finally getting to read the entire thing, though.
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
It was a compelling read, and I finished it quickly, but… sigh. It was very well-written and tightly-plotted. I just don’t care about morally suspect upper-middle class (or above) middle-aged British men caught up in very artificially constructed moral conundra. It was so spare. It makes me long for a good fabulist or magical realist book, with all attendant messiness. No more British novels for a little while, at least.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Catchup!
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Fiction!
Book #13: The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Man, could those women with ill-defined moral codes stop it with the troublemaking?
Other than that, Murdoch is great at describing the internal ditherings of indecisive, flawed folks. I like the two books I've read by her, but they both seem to march on in a somewhat grim, predetermined fashion. It somehow does manage to be wickedly funny, though.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Proof that I read books that aren't about music.
Book #12: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
I almost feel bad writing a SURLY about this. This book covers a year that included multiple hospitalizations for Didion's daughter (Quintana Roo died around the time the book was published); during the first hospitalization, her husband passed away while they were getting ready for dinner.
That being said... you gotta know that a writer whose work is as bleak as Didion's is going to write amazingly on one of the most unrelentingly bleak of topics. And she does, in her way.
Incidentally, if you don't like Didion that much, here's a crazy mean essay about her.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Frankie say read this book.
Have I mentioned that I’m co-running an Indie Rock Tournament, with the willing/capable/gullible Greg? Because I am.
Next up, bookwise: Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 It’s really good. Even though it’s a cycle of “band is interesting, signs to label, oh, look at their decline”, it’s good. Even though it ends with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, it’s good. If you have any interest in the music of this era, I'd strongly suggest you check it out.
My one small complaint: he uses the exact same phrasing (roughly “Unlike some punk bands who claimed not to be proficient but who were actually skilled players,
But apart from my gender squabbles… a fine book.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Hermanueticize!
So, I'm again about 4 books back on keeping up with this thing. In fact, I completed Murmur by J. Niimi before the last couple of bookson this list. What to say about this book... it is a book about the R.E.M. album written by a University of Chicago student. I could emphasize this with a lot of "No, really. REALLY"'s after some of those nouns, but it'd probably be easier to just quote a paragraph from the book (incidentally, about a Wire song) to make the point:
The second half of each chorus ("Squared to it/ Faced to it/ It was not there") seems to imply that the true nature of the thing to which the song continually alludes was eventually uncovered, but that its uncovering was stillborn for the fact that it could still be only communicated through the Leviathan of psuedo-bureau-speak. "It" was never to be revealed, the triumph of its discovery evaporated into clouds of lingua franca, a mutual conspiracy necessary for each party's continued sustenance. Wire turns the expected climax of the chorus into a meditative anticlimax.So if you'd like to read an entire book like that (and I'm not coming down on either side, just noting that the entire book rolls this way), then get to it.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Jennifer Project.
Mike Doughty played “27 Jennifers” during his Old Town show this weekend, and it got me to thinking about the songs that feature Jennifers, Jenny/i/ie/eys, and Jen(n)s. Were there 27 such songs good enough to put on a mixtape? Well, we’re getting there, and you should feel free to help. The ground rules are: song must feature a Jen(nifer) in its title, or such a character must play a prominent role in the song itself. Thus far, we have:
27 Jennifers – Mike Doughty
Photo Jenny – Belle and Sebastian
Rock ‘N’ Roll – The Velvet Underground
Jenny and the S-Dog – Stephen Malkmus
Pop Goes the World – Men Without Hats
Jennifer’s Body – Hole
Jennifer Juniper – Donovan
Jennifer – Stella*starr
Jenny – Sleater-Kinney
867-5309 (Jenny) – Tommy Tutone (sigh)
…and I know I’m forgetting several. So, do you know any?
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Long-delayed, and not much substance.
I have fallen sorely behind in my SURLY-writing. I’ve also fallen behind on reading (thanks, knitting!); so much so that I have only finished 3 books since last posting.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper (33 1/3 Series)
I didn’t know too much about the background of the album, or the start of Elephant 6, so this was a fine book to read. Isn’t Elephant 6 perhaps deserving of a book just about the collective, though? C’mon, there’s a book about Emo.
Cinderella’s Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground By Maria Raha.
Lots of fun information, and the introductions to each time period were great overviews of music and feminist issues that were important at each epoch. However, the actual meat of the book, the analyses of lots and lots of bands, were a bit lacking because they were all so short. “Here’s this band! A little history! Why they were important as feminists.”. I realize that a more expansive analysis would have made this quite the tome, but I may have cut out the chapter about Peaches to hear more about Patti Smith.
Underground by Haruki Murakami
Very good. Haunting. Not the best book to read on the El.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
I Will Dare
Book 6: Let it Be (Replacements) by Colin Meloy (33 1/3 Series)
First off, this is not really about the ‘Mats Let It Be. At least not about the making of it. The sooner you let go of that notion, the happier you’ll be with what the book actually is, which is the memories of someone who came to love “college rock” slowly, his tastes shaped by the whims of distant cool friends and relatives, and built by perusing magazines and record stores, looking for the bands he vaguely remembered someone mentioning. The album is a focal point of this process, and a jumping-off point for ruminations on becoming a music fan. Change all the pronouns from masculine to feminine, and you pretty much have my early years, so I adore this book for completely selfish reasons that may not translate well to anyone else. Its portrait of the indie fan as a young man is absolutely dead-on, right down to the embarrassing music he loved before. Oh, and the author is in a pretty good band, too.
There is a small continuity error in the book, but I pointed it out to the editors, who are fixing it in the reprint and now mailing me a free book from the series, so we should forgive them for that.
Friday, January 20, 2006
It's not terrific, but it's competent.
Book 5: Belle and Sebastian: This is Just a Modern Rock Story by Paul Whitelaw
Things I learned from this book:
-People in bands together should not date.
-The band, their manager, and generally everyone in the book agrees with me that Sinister and Waitress are currently the strongest albums Belle and Sebastian have made.
-Arab Strap was a wee bit peeved about that album title.
-Stuart is a connoisseur of abnormal pants.
-Isobel is the reason Arab Strap and Peasant falter, because Stuart indulged her too much. (See first point.)
Even though the author takes pains to say that maybe Isobel was unfairly blamed for tension within the band, he then goes on to make her sound like a silly twit afraid of travel, sex, adulthood, big crowds, and rock music (oh, and she’s incapable of sustaining an entire solo album). With her memorable quotes including “back when Chris used to bring cakes to practice, that’s when I liked being in the band” and “when you’re on the road, you’re always bent over, rummaging in your suitcase, it can hurt your back”, either Whitelaw is very cruelly sending her up, or she’s an utter twee twit. And speaking of twee, the italicized intros and outros to each chapter are god-awfully precious. Must we keep referring to Stuart Murdoch as “the curious boy”?
Apart from that, though, it provides interesting background on a band that shunned publicity for a long time, and shows the importance of the welfare system for artists in Scotland in the early to mid-90s. Seriously. Everyone was on the dole.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
The count-up continues...
Book 4: Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
Lethem is very, very clever. Lethem wants to show you how he can combine Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. Lethem will not really explain why animals can talk, or what babyheads are. Lethem will make you smirk about everyone being addicted to their own specialized drug mixes. Lethem will let you tie that to today’s use of psychotropics and will let you feel smart and superior with minimal effort. But Lethem can’t quite make you believe that, over the course of a six year lapse that happens in this book, wallets and trashcans and guns (see the title!) start making their own music.
I actually liked this book, although I found the world Lethem constructed a little too busy (at least by the point of the singing trashcans... why?). Also, due to the lack of description of the “babyheads” (a class of people messed up by genetic engineering), I kept picturing them all as large-scale baby Stueys. Still, it’s a fun, smart read; I could see this being made into a very intelligent first-person mystery video game quite easily.
I'm now reading a lot of books on music, so expect it to get less respectable around here. I'm almost done with the Belle and Sebastian bio, y'all!
Monday, January 09, 2006
Books and Surliness
I have no clue how much I read throughout the course of a given year. Sure, I’m usually reading something, but I go through periods when I’m reading magazines/websites/cookbooks/craft books, when I can’t find a book to fit my mood and thus thumb through the first 20 pages of every book in the house before I start trolling the used bookstores, and when I get so busy with various other things in my life that my reading rate slows waaaaay down.
Therefore, I’ve decided to count the books I read this calendar year. This is in part inspired by the 50 Book Challenge on LJ (and VCB’s book blog), but I’m not really looking to hit a certain number, just see what number I hit.
Of course, if the number is looking low, this public documentation may compel me to read more to make myself look better. Can’t measure position without affecting momentum, you know.
With this count, I also introduce a new feature: I will write a Short, Unenlightening Review of Literature for this Year (SURLY) for each book I read. I’ve finished three books far, so let’s get started.
Book 1: Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
I admit, I read this almost entirely because there’s a Decemberists song about the author. It’s sweet, though a little slight, and I liked the earlier part of the book, focusing on the oppression of knowing you’re a mediocre child around smart people better than the latter part of the book, where the emotional distance of the family and each person’s escape into mysticism to fill the void was rather relentlessly expounded upon. Also, although I’ve not seen the movie, I kept picturing the parents as Juliette Binoche and Richard Gere. Way too attractive to be these people.
Book 2: The Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ by Jim Fusilli
This book is like crack to me, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Fusilli covers all of the songs on Pet Sounds, and somehow manages to link Brian Wilson’s sadness to his use of complex harmonies without it sounding like bullshit. It’s a pretty good primer of the Beach Boys up to the recording of Pet Sounds, though it doesn’t get to the part where PAUL MCCARTNEY IS EVIL.
Book 3: After the Quake by Haruki Murakami (partial re-read)
Hey, it’s Haruki Murakami. Hey, it’s emotionally alienated people in weird situations. But this time… there’s a naturally occurring reason! I love Murakami’s short stories (Elephant Vanishes is one of my favorite works of his), and I’ve been meaning to finish this slim volume since I saw the Steppenwolf adaptation of the last two stories. All these stories occur after the Kobe earthquakes, but before the subway attacks later in 1995 (a time during which Murakami lived in America, teaching at Princeton). I’m going to have to pick up his nonfiction work about the latter tragedy, Underground, because his work here is lovely.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
"Behind the Music" + books + good music = love
Oh dear. I’ve just found another cultural product on which I can (and probably will) spend much time and money. I’ve known about it for some time, but I didn’t get addicted until my grandma hooked me up. I’m not even done with the first voyage, but I want to take another trip soon.
Yes, folks, I’ve finally started reading the 33 1/3 series.
I suppose my ardor is pretty predictable. I love books, these are books. I like critically acclaimed music, most of these books are about highly regarded albums and are often written by esteemed music critics or indie musicians. And I love the VH1-style “Behind the Making of the 50 Greatest Albums that Rocked the 90s” shows. (My love for the show on the making of Back In Black by AC/DC exceeds the love I’ve felt for many actual people.) And now, I have books that read like smarter versions of these shows, largely about music I actually really adore. Sweet.
Right now, I’m working through Jim Fusilli’s take on Pet Sounds. It’s a pretty straight-ahead work; a little preface on the author’s tough times and how his life was saved by rock and roll, then right into Brian Wilson’s emotional problems and studio habits. I know other books in the series take different approaches (at least one of the books is a novella), but this was a good starter (not least of all because I adore this album). As smart as she is, though, I suspect my grandmother opted to pick this one over my other recommendations of The Replacements’ Let It Be and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea because she knows who the Beach Boys are.
Now I just have to stay away from that “Purchase all books in this series!” button on Amazon…
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Adventures of Reading The Adventures of Augie March
So, I managed to finally buy I’m Not the New Me yesterday, though I should’ve bought it ages ago. I even managed to read the whole 300 pages in about two and a half hours (I forget how quickly I can down lucidly written straight narrative prose, since I don’t tend to read it that much). I greatly enjoyed it, and was looking forward to discussing it with the author (whom I last saw dressed as a character from a V.C. Andrews novel). I then managed to get on the last Purple Line express train instead of a Brown Line, and thus missed the book club anyhow. Oof.
So, the next Gaper’s Block Book Club won’t meet until January 10th, when we’ll be discussing… The Adventures of Augie March. I have attempted to read this book at least four times. Each of these times, because someone I know and whose tastes in literature I greatly respect has declared it to be a favorite book, and a book worth reading. Each of those four times, I stopped short of 100 pages, and then picked up Dom DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Italo Calvino, and Angela Carter, respectively. My last attempt was awhile ago, but I’m going to finish this time.
I have: 56 days until the next GB Book Club meeting.
My copy of AM is 592 pages long, according to Amazon (I don’t have it with me).
That’s an average of 10.5 pages a day. I am promised that it picks up after a page 45 to page 100ish slump. This seems vaguely doable.
With a support group.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Halloweaning
As you’ve probably heard me babble about if you know me at all (or have read the back-entries of this blog), I used to work at a costume shop. Two years out from my last Halloween there, I’m starting to not hate the holiday any more. To commemorate this, I give you:
My Top Ten Halloween Season Memories.
10. De-thonging the costumes, and inserting a sheet explaining that thongs can be picked up after purchase, and that these costumes were not returnable.
9. Hey! Let’s let people try on packaged costumes with 17 accessories, which they will then dump on the dressing room floor and leave there. Also, who leaves an empty, half-crushed Diet Coke can hanging from one of the pegs that hold striped tights?
8. Do we have pint blood? Gallon blood? Little blood packets? Gel blood? Thick blood? Blood in medical-style bags? How about the 17 varieties of vampire teeth, ranging in price from $.49 to $49.99?
7. My desk was overlooked by a 12’ tall animatronic monkey (with a huge Santa hat for the holidays), and I knew where the actual human skeleton was in the store. And also, how to knock down the pirate section to escape the basement in the case of a fire.
6. Sometimes, my boss would just drop by my desk to stick a nail up his nose and say hi.
5. I am fine with transvestites. I am significantly less fine with crazy chatty people who happen to be transvestites, and I am really rather not cool at all with crazy chatty people who happen to be transvestites and corner me in the fake breast section of the store for twenty minutes about who hit on them at what bar and when they want to get their surgery, until a coworker notices I’m trapped and pages me over the intercom to the front desk. This person is also the reason I can utter the inquiry, “Have I told you the prosthetic vagina story?” and be serious.
4. Having an office on the second floor directly above the women’s dressing room, and thus being able to yell “THREE COSTUME LIMIT” in my deity voice at the sorority girls who tried to bring in half the store.
3. CAKE MACHETE. (Okay, not Halloween, but I don’t care. CAKE MACHETE.)
2. Ordering from this catalog. Also, locking this catalog in my desk because, while Heather and I were the only people who put together orders from Leg Ave, it was shockingly popular with the menfolk.
1. It’s November 1st. Time to order Santa suits, guys.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
In which Ms. P beats up on John Updike.
Thanks to Bookslut, I recently read an interview with John Updike from the Sun-Times in which he said:
"I also read Salman Rushdie's new book. He's an interesting writer. Not quite a master yet, but he's getting there."
Michael Schaub commented that he'd thought Rushdie was a master since about 20 years ago. I'm inclined to agree. Also, while I like some Updike (the Early Stories collection is wonderful and intimidating in its accomplishment), I also find a great deal of his work painfully dull and indulgent, especially compared to the similarly verbose but far more delightful Rushdie. Also, Rushdie is all of 15 years younger than Updike, so I see no reason for him to play the condescending avuncular role.
Because of this, and because I am a mean person who loves meaningless comparisons, I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of books Updike and Rushdie published around the same time. I realize that Updike began publishing significantly earlier, and I think his earlier works are better, and yeah, it's under 10 novels versus, gee, about five hundred by this point, but you see, I don't really care.
1975: Grimus and A Month of Sundays
Ah, the only matchup where I haven't at least read part of either of the books, I'll admit. I have heard that Grimus is so bad that Rushdie tried to keep it out of print and is embarassed when he sees people reading it, so I'll go ahead and give the nod to Updike here.
1980/81: Midnight's Children and Rabbit is Rich
Right on to the one where I've read both books at least twice. Excellent. This one is also a pretty loaded one--winner of the Super-Booker vs. a Pulitzer prize winner. I suppose I could declare it a tie, but I prefer the grand, sprawling, historical-mythological dazzle to the the minutely-detailed account of a man, his midlife crisis, and his private parts.
1983/84: Shame and Withces of Eastwick
I always found Witches disappointing; despite the three heroines being differentiated, they're all such stereotypes that it just hammers home that Updike can't really write a fully sketched, complex woman. Even the movie, with the Ballsy One, the Uptight One, the Shy One, and the Devil, shows a bit more nuance (and doesn't show the women as ravenous man-eaters to quite the same degree). Shame isn't lacking in violent women (including three furies), but it's also a complex allegory of Pakistan, instead of a thin allegory about the dangers of desire.
1988: The Satanic Verses and S.
I find SV difficult and not one of Rushdie's best works, but I once read 30 pages of S. because someone told me I would hate it. I do. Again, a female protagonist. Again, she is a flaky flake-flake, and is driven to do what she does because the men in her life control her. Sigh.
1990: Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Rabbit at Rest
Okay, there's really only one way this could go. It won the Pulitzer. It was good, though Rabbit Remembered later kinda wrecked it for me. Haroun, like Woody Allen's musical, is one of those slight things that I like but realize is not the greatest thing ever.
1995/96: The Moor's Last Sigh and In the Beauty of the Lilies
Well, at least Updike isn't trying to write a woman protagonist anymore. But up against one of Rushdie's best female characters, the religious fable is a little pale.
1999/2000: The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Gertrude and Claudius
Oh, hey! Look! It's Aurora from Moor's Last Sigh! Only... she's a rock star now? Okay, sure. Not as strong as other Rusdie works, but man, G & C knocked me out better than Ambien whenever I attempted to get through it.
I haven't read either's new works yet, so I won't speak to them. But it's still looking 5-2 Rushdie to me. I think he's gotten there.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Evil (Baking) Genius
So, the key to getting your friends to watch 5 episodes of Veronica Mars in one Sunday seems to include a couple rounds of yummy warm beverages, followed by increasingly elaborate presentations of Ghirardelli double-chocolate brownies. And apparently people really appreciate a cocoa-rimmed martini glass full of hot chocolate. I need to get some Godiva liqueur, because the only way this would work better is to get them intoxicated. Now that my apartment is clean (…ish), I enjoy having company, especially on rainy Sundays.
In other news, hey, we won F.O.G.H.A.T. I was the second-highest scorer on our team with a whopping 13.33 ppg. Thanks, Craig! Now I just need to ritualistically burn the Desperate Housewives: Dirty Laundry board game I won. I initially stuck Geoff with this, but his exceedingly evident discomfort with this actually spurred some inkling of compassion in me, and I swapped the Law and Order game to him.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Booker!
You know, I should've prognosticated about the Booker, because I'd seem pretty smart right now. When I heard The Sea had made it to the shortlist, I immediately thought "if a book this obscure got to the shortlist, it's gonna win the prize in an upset". And hey look, it did.
Sucks for Julian Barnes, but Arthur and George isn't his greatest work. They'd be giving it to him to apologize for not giving it to him in the past.
So, time to go pick up a copy of the winner, soon to be emblazoned with a "Winner of the Man Booker Prize" sticker.
Friday, October 07, 2005
The Octoberist
Greg semi-recently posted about this time of the year being his favorite. I am inclined to agree, though not because it's the start of curling season. So here, in no particular order, is a list of reasons I adore October:
-Seasonally appropriate to sing "Moondance" by Van Morrison!
-Leaves changing colors!
-Uptick in squash/pumpkin ravioli with sage butter served at local restaurants!
-Sweaters! Cute fuzzy SWEATERS!
-My mom's birthday! We speak pleasantly!
-My birthday! My mom and I speak pleasantly and I get presents!
-Chicago International Film Festival!
-Cubs fans stop urinating publicly in my neighborhood!
-Because I'm a knowledge loving nerd... memories of school starting!
-School starting always meant new boys! With whom I could flirt! (New-boy giddiness is right up there with new-car smell for top ephemeral joys.)
-New boys... in sweaters!
-Stupid hat/scarf/mittens combo sets! Preferably with poofballs!
-Opals! (Hey, does your birthstone cause bad luck if someone not born in your month wears it? My birthstone is badass.)
-Seeing your breath mist up for the first time! (This gets old by February, but is really exciting after the summer.)
-Halloween! (I'm finally getting a little excited about this again, after the fun was killed off during two years at a costume shop. I'm still not going to dress up, but I no longer shudder at the thought of the holiday.)
Oh, October. If it weren't for the compulsory pantyhose-wearing at work, you'd be perfect.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Birthday plans.
Aw, man. The first season of Veronica Mars would come out the day after my birthday. Guess this means no all-night marathon at casa de Geoff after the concert Saturday night. Bummer.
Speaking of the birthday... does anything want to do something around that time? I'm actually going to a book club the night of my birthday (yeah, yeah, shut up), but a late dinner/drink/running around yelling "wooooo, my age is once again divisible by 2" would be fun.
Musical musings
Now that I've spent a few years plumbing the depths of obscure music, I'm beginning to see a few bands I knew when they were unknown start to get some bigger exposure. Strangely enough, what really hammered this home was the season premiere of The O.C.. (Yes, you can shut up. Thanks for asking!)
Now, I was delighted enough last season when I heard an A.C. Newman song start up, but imagine my surprise when, in the first scene after the credits, Beretta by Manishevitz started playing. Now, this is a really great song, and sounds like a Psychedelic Furs b-side from around the time Pretty in Pink came out; it worked wonderfully in the show. But I know this song because it appears on the Hideout Worker's Comp, which, true to its name, is a compilation of songs by bands whose members work at the eponymous bar. Half the bands on that comp weren't signed; the most famous person on there was the bassist for Wilco, who did a track with his sister. Hearing a track I've been putting on my mixtapes for two years blaring on Fox was a little strange.
Speaking of tracks I've been putting on mixtapes for two years, I believe I've been crowing about Richard Swift's The Novelist for about that long. Roy from Parasol (who may have known Swift through a band they'd both worked with) told me to buy this when it was out in a 600-disc printing from a tiny, tiny label. Fast-forward two years and one vinyl-only single later. All of a sudden, Swift is on Secretly Canadian, is showing up on Salon, Stereogum, PopMatters, and Pitchfork, and goes on his first nationwide tour. He's not exactly showing up on The O.C. yet, but he's a bit of a belated overnight success, in a very independent label sort of way.
Bizarre.
On a similar theme, I have a list of songs for the tournament. They are being vetted by my obscurist friends, and I'll need to find some mainstream friends to go through and point out the bands they've never even heard of before. (Volunteers?) Seeding after that. With any luck, should be up and running by the weekend.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Yet another blog-based music tournament.
You know what? I’ll say it. I’m lonely, lonely, lonely and bored without the dissing and the petty arguments provided by the Craig-curated, Flaxman-officiated Rolling Stone best songs tournament. It also looks like Flax is going to take a (deserved) break after a (really very well-run, despite my whining) tournament before starting up his next one. And it’s time people get to yell at me for a change. So… Susan suggested, perhaps, a best alterna- or indie-rock songs contest. This sounds lovely to me. How do we feel about this? Nominate songs by emailing me at jleahwill latter former irks Susan. Current idea is a 192 or so tournament, ties possibly broken by me or the majority decision of me, Susan, and Greg. But let’s just nominate now. Rank if you’d like. Unlimited number. Go for it, kids.
ETA: I meant that Susan hates U2, though I suspect that at least four songs in a field of 192 would be from them (something early, something Joshua Tree, something Achtung, All I Want Is You, maybe?).
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Bitterness and Bad Puns
First off, congrats Dave and Emily! I had a great time at the wedding yesterday, and I look forward to seeing you for the K-zoo show (and yes, I’ve decided to go after all). Hope you didn’t mind when I hid the camera up my skirt, but Mike was gonna take it and erase the photo otherwise.
Now on to more unpleasant, but possibly more amusing things.
So the day I got attacked, i was IM’ing someone about it, and his response was:
Ass: You know why this happened?
Ass:Sex appeal.
Now, despite his subsequent claims that this was just a lame attempt at humor that backfired, I found this fairly appalling, and I’m not exactly on speaking terms with him anymore, but this faux pas has at least spawned a fun new time waster.
Susan and I, when going to some concert or another recently, were talking about the above statement, when I mentioned I’d been thinking about similarly inappropriate things to say in response to various calamities, things that would also be come-ons and really bad puns. Because I am nice and oh so subtle, I’ve declared these statements "Litvakisms". Susan thought composing Litvakisms was a fine idea, and we started composing some (though I’ve forgotten some good ones):
You know why your house burned down? ‘Cause you’re so fucking HOT!
You know why you got lung cancer? Because you’re smokin’!
You know why that guy stole your purse? Because you stole his HEART!
…etc, etc.
So, anyone have any good Litvakisms they want to share? Comment.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Green Zebra! Talking Heads rap!
After discussing it for many moons, Susan and I rather spontaneously decided to finally eat at Green Zebra last night. It was very, very good, though I was less entranced by the Avocado panna cotta and Susan less enamoured of the lentil cakes than either of us thought she'd be. But the food was overall great, and the desserts were to die for. I do love a mint ice cream that tastes of herbal mint, instead of mint extract.
In addition to the food there was, of course, booze. I'd been volunteering earlier at the Old Town School; since I was the only one of four expected volunteers to show up, someone gave me a free Honkers as consolation. I then got a Purple Haze (raspberry beer!) when we first showed up... and then we ordered a bottle of wine. Needless to say, Susan consumed most of that bottle.
Thus we were both a bit in our cups when we caught a cab back to the red line station. During this trip, rap was playing in the background. At some point, I broke off the conversation when I heard a rap song with the lyrics "She put the sugar on my tongue/She's gonna gimme gimme gimme some."
Me: That's... that's... a Talking Heads song!
Susan: Yes, yes it is.
Me: But rap!
Susan: [nods sagely and/or intoxicatedly]
Me: [high pitched whimpering and incoherent arm pointing and waving]
Susan: You are hurting dogs with that sound!
Having investigated the situation, apparently a southern rapper named Trick Daddy recorded the song, which features Ludacris and Cee-Lo. So there you go.
I'm heading into a five-day weekend, though the latter two days will be a trip to Ann Arbor to deal with the crazy guy who attacked me while jogging last weeekend. I will be going to pub trivia in Ann Arbor, though. I'm trying to find the silver lining of this situation, and pub trivia seems to be it.
Friday, August 26, 2005
I'm about to rename this blog "Bookprude".
It's been awhile. Believe it or not, I've been busy reading. And going to a reading. At this reading, Jessa from Bookslut misidentified me as a Woman and Children First Books worker. Apparently I have the "Women and Children First look" about me.
Well, I bought 10 more books last weekend (8 within 12 hours... stupid slutty Hyde Park! Having high quality bookstores!), but I promise I didn't pay full price for any of them.
From Powell's:
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Vargas Llosa
(shelved both in the L's and the V's!)
Heart of Darkness, Conrad
(Yes, I am the one person who didn't read this in high school. We also read Ibsen in American Lit. What can I say?)
Goodbye, Tsugumi, Banana Yoshimoto
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
The Name of the Rose, Eco
From 57th Street:
The Pursuit of Love/Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Sentimental Education, Flo-bert
Dandelion Wine, Bradbury
From Unabridged Books:
Jonathan Norrell and Mr. Strange, Susanna Clarke
Nowhere Man, Hemon
So yeah, glad I got that book problem under control. Maybe I will get some of them read on the train when I'm travelling to and from Ann Arbor this weekend. Or maybe just on the way back-I have a Gaper's Block function (join in!) tonight at a bar tonight, and I'm getting on a train at 7:50 tomorrow morning. Yup, that's going to work out well. Especially since I've not yet packed. I imagine I'll be getting up at 5, and running around my apartment looking for clean underwear and my iPod charger (sadly, not necessarily in this order).
I see more concert excitement in my somewhat distant future-Andrew Bird at the LSA the weekend after Thanksgiving! I hope Kevin O'Donnell will be pitching in, but at least I'll see him at the Hideout Block Party. (Incidentally, am I seriously considering taking a half-day to ensure that I see all of the Friday portion of the block party? Yes, yes I am.)
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Since I've given up posting, here's some stuff that mentions me.
Well, if I can't get on WWTBAM, at least I helped contribute to Dee's column about the tryout.
Also, I am the orange-haired lass with the red shirt in this webcomic. No, there are no pop stars or ninjas, despite the name.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
More books, plus music
The book binge went well and was relatively small. I picked up Kitchen, as well as a Donna Hay cookbook, at Powell’s. The bit of the Powell’s trip that was totally worth it, though, was finding a book I’ve been intermittently looking for over the last four years, and finding it for five dollars. Oh, Anthony Burgess’s Nothing Like the Sun, I’ve been waiting for you. Then, met up with Susan at the Co-op, where I dissuaded her from buying Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, since I can loan it to her. Do I now have three, count 'em, three copies of The Master and Margarita in my possession? Yes. But the Vintage translation (look at the version linked to through the title) was so noticeably better that I had to get it. I’ll have to put up example sentences at some point.
Moving on, I need to decide if I’m going to take any classes at the Old Town School this quarter. Although I have enough volunteer points for two classes right now, I'm a bit at a loss on this one for a few reasons. I'm a little loathe to take a weeknight class again right now, since I have book clubs twice a month on Mondays, pub trivia on Tuesdays, and may be taking some sort of Spanish instruction before the end of the year. However, both of the voice classes I'd like to take (Jazz Vocals and Harmony Vocals 1) meet at 6:30 on Wednesday, which means I'd have to haul tail down from Evanston to get there. I could do Guitar 1 with Jason on Sundays, but I'd have to figure out where my mom should ship my guitar, goad her to ship it, and take it to get restrung and fixed at the Different Strummer and hope that everything would be resolved by September 4th, which seems like a somewhat optimistic estimate. Plus, this would be the best time for Dan and I to take IO classes, if we're going to do that. And I might be gone several weekends in the next eight weeks. I might just wait until next quarter, or next year.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Shameful secrets
This is hard to talk about, but I feel like I need to.
Back when I was living on the South Side, I developed a little bit of an addiction. I was mostly a clean-cut kid, just trying to stay in school and get ahead, but even those with the best intentions can get swept away by chance. I thought I was just a casual user, but the stuff was so easy to get in Hyde Park. It was everywhere! I found myself hanging around the familiar haunts more and more, just hoping to score a good deal or find that magic trip I’d never taken before.
One of the better things about moving out of Hyde Park is that there just isn’t as much of a trade on the north side. Sure, there are a couple places dealing near where I live (one just around the corner, actually), but it’s not as strong, they don’t have the same sort of stuff up here. I was safe again.
Then I started going to Hyde Park for pub trivia every Tuesday. I was pretty good about going straight to the Pub most nights, but… the old places were so close! If I just got to Hyde Park a few minutes early, I could score some quality stuff. And all of a sudden, I was showing up late for pub trivia, breathless, with a package in my bag distracting me all night long.
That’s right, kids. I’m hitting the bookstores of Hyde Park again.
Powell’s, 57th Street, sometimes the Co-op, I’m looking at you. No matter how many times I go to Unabridged or Myopic or Women and Children First, nothing compares to the books you can find on that dangerous stretch of street. (Though for the overall maximum of attractiveness plus book selection: Unabridged for gay guys, Myopic for straight hipsters, and WCF for either lesbians or sincere glasses-wearing guys who want strong feminist girlfriends.)
Pretty much every surface of my apartment is covered in books right now, including the following to-reads (not a comprehensive list, only those I can think of right now):
Atwood, Cat’s Cradle
Bellow, Adventures of Augie March (terminally unfinished, but a future book club selection)
Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift (unfinished, but currently seems more likely than the above)
Borges, Collected Fictions (a re-read, but from so long ago it’s like a first read)
Bulgakov, Master and Margarita (re-read, but I recommended recently and discovered there’s a new annotated edition, because I clearly need to own three copies of one book)
Hofstatder, Gödel, Escher, Bach (partially read, re-read)
Rushdie, Satanic Verses
Rushdie, Ground Beneath Her Feet (on loan from Susan)
Sontag, In America (partially read)
And yet I have this list, crumpled up in my bag:
Yoshimoto, Kitchen (read while intoxicated, don’t remember)
Young Fem Bookclub books: Mommy Myth, Undivided Rights, Regarding the Pain of Others, Can’t Buy Me Love, Women as Lovers
GB Bookclub books: Dandelion Wine, Nowhere Man, I’m Not the New Me, Division Street: America
Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro
Findley, Famous Last Words
collections by Raymonds Chandler and Carver
More Flaubert!
Lethem?
Heavens. At least this will keep me from buying the DVDs I want. Books are better, right? Right?
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Who wants to be a $20-aire?
Today and yesterday have been very trivial, although in a potentially profitable way.
Yesterday, I ran off to scenic East Chicago, IN with Greg and Dee to try out for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Although I thought I utterly muffed the test, I managed to qualify for a perfunctory and unsatisfying little interview for the regular (not movie-specific) show. We shall see about making the next cut, but it doesn’t seem likely. I think my only hope is if they do the interviews purely to make sure you’re not a freak that talks like Betty Boop, and the fact that I’m a non-hideous girl-type person with interesting stories on her application will pull me through. (Also, yet again, the Polaroid they took of me is hotter than I actually am. My hair doesn't look red in the pic. I don't understand.) But again, I don’t think I’ll hear anything for weeks on this. Ah, limbo. At least I got hours of enjoyment standing or sitting in line with Greg and Dee. And a magnet.
For more immediate (though smaller-scale) gratification, I’m looking forward to tonight’s first convening of the PUB TRIVIA SUPERGROUP. Susan will get lots and lots of smart people things; Dan will get comics, Kevin will get the gay trivia I don’t get, as well as any legal stuff thrown our way; Phil will get shameful things and alcohol, and, um, I forget who the other person on Kevin’s team is, but he or she is totally going to help us out. I will get random music every third round. We will occasionally regret our lack of geographic knowledge. I might even show up by 8 tonight. A team name will be created (Black Market Subash?). Baked goods of high quality may appear. Perhaps we shall actually win money. As much as I love hanging out with the Hyde Parkers, the pirate discomfort would be more tolerable if monetary gain occurred.
Friday, July 15, 2005
My Freaks and Geeks box set now reads "To my favorite mathlete! Paul Feig".
Paul Feig is so completely the real-life embodiment of Professor Frink that I was shocked when he did not mutter the nonsense word that a Prof. Frink website tells me is spelled "gyvyvn".
Thanks to Greg and Mrs. Greg for taking me along.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
My Post-Pride Parade Party spread
I threw a party!
Bevvies:
Fresh-squeezed OJ
Margaritas (no mix, just Cointreau, Tequila, and fresh lime juice)
Rosemary Lemonade (vodka/no vodka, still/sparkling)
Vodka tonics
4 bottles of Southern Hemisphere wine: unoaked chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon from Australia, sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, and a red from South Africa
Foodies:
Crudite plate including all the regulars plus jicama
red pepper, guac, and hummus (thank you, Whole Foods deli case)
Parmesan-rosemary-walnut shortbread
Bruschetta with goat cheese and balsamic-glazed fig
Rainbow fruit with sweet yogurt dip
Cheese plate with crackers (2 ea goat, cow, and sheep)
Deconstructed sushi (seared and marinated sashimi tuna served on cakes of rice and nori)
Le Foof and I have decided to co-host the Best. Oscar Party. EVER. next year. It will be heralded througout the land, forever more. It will likely also be at my place, as my TV is better. Unless Le Foof wins the lottery and buys a flat-screen plasma.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Impotent anger storytime hour
There are anti-choice protestors lining the street next to my workplace right now. I’ve verified that we are in no way involved, that they are on city property, and no, there isn’t much we can do to make them leave, and I figure going down during my break and saying “Hey guys [and they’re almost all guys], wanna hear about the time I used to be part of a bodyguard squad for patients in Wichita that summer when you kept on threatening doctors and talking about pipe bombs?” isn’t going to fly. So instead, I will critique!
This is a personal thing, since I work here, but there are a lot of protestors lined up directly outside our sister building across the street, right in front of where there’s a big plaque reading “THE UNITED METHODIST BUILDING”. Way to make us look involved, even though most UMCers around this area are probably at least tentatively pro-choice.
I'm not sure if anyone but Tyler and Flax are going to understand this, but these protestors are lining Ridge with "graphic" photos of aborted fetuses (and, well, Jesus). Ridge Avenue is an utterly dangerous, fast-moving street on the best of days, and this isn't exactly making it any safer. Also, like I said, cars drive quite quickly on Ridge. Are they even going to see your signs? Did you not get permission to do it on a more logical street, like Chicago Ave? Because I really would have enjoyed the patrons of the Chicago Ave Whole Foods putting the beat down on you.
About those "graphic" photos--and you might want to stop reading if you're of delicate constitution or eating--but I'm sorry, the results of a first-trimester abortion do not look like a dismembered baby doll covered in marinara sauce. I know it sells better for you, and that's part of why it pisses me off, but fuck you for doing it regardless.
And back to work!
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Oh NYT, you're a little daft sometimes.
Wow, I just read the New York Times article on inter-class marriages, one part of their extended coverage of class in America. While I'm somewhat happy that the Grey Lady is actually aware that there are classes in America, I'm not sure this is the best way to spend one day of a short series on class.
First off, it's just one family, poor guy, rich woman. While they make the argument that there are more marriages in this configuration these days than rich man and poor woman, couldn't we have had an example of this type of marriage? Perhaps even a well-educated but poor woman?
Beyond my specific critiques, parts of the article just made me wince. Choice quotes:
"[S]he grew up in a comfortable home." Now, anyone who's talked to me about class knows I hate it when people use the term "comfortable", and especially the line, "I'm not rich, I'm just comfortable." Let's look at this comfort:
"My mother's father had a Rolls-Royce and a butler and a second home in Florida"; "When I was little, what I fixated on with my girlfriends was how I had more pajamas than they did. So when I'd go to birthday sleepovers, I'd always take them a pair of pajamas as a present."; "to New York City, where Ms. Woolner's mother lives in the winter"; (where does she live in the summer, you ask?) "[T]hey were at Ms. Woolner's mother's house on Martha's Vineyard."
"Mr. Croteau comes from the working class, and Ms. Woolner from money." (Apparently "Money" is now its own class.)
"Ms. Woolner began paying him a monthly stipend - he sometimes refers to it as an allowance."
"I said, 'Mom, I want you to know Cate and her family are rich,' " he recalled. "And she said, 'Well, don't hold that against her; she's probably very nice anyway.'"
"Isaac [Ms. Woolner's son from an earlier marriage], who also attended the school, is now back at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon after taking a couple of semesters away to study in India and to attend massage school while working in a deli near home."
"Isaac fantasizes about opening a brewery-cum-performance-space, traveling through South America or operating a sunset massage cruise in the Caribbean."
I think I need a brewery-cum-performance space about now.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Friday morning, 5 am
So I woke up this morning to the sound of a woman having a very good time, indeed, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Points of particular interest:
-I was in a dream when I first heard her. I’m pretty sure, while still in the dream, I made the declaration “Wow, that woman is really enjoying her omelet.” I have no clue what this means, either.
-When I fully woke up and looked at the clock, it was 5 am in the morning. On a Friday. Who gets their sex on at 5 am in the morning on a Friday? Next-door neighbors, I salute you.
-I was reminded of a sign that had been up in our lobby a few months ago, which basically stated “To the people who were having loud sex all night last night: Please shut the hell up.” I wonder if that was them.
-Speaking of neighborly annoyance, I begin to hear loud staccato knocking on what I presume is their door. I noticed that the knocking is quite a bit louder than the sex-noise. If their apartment is set up the same as mine, it would make sense that their bedroom is the furthest room from my bedroom, so I’m getting this noise through our mutual wall, their kitchen, and their front room. Damn.
-Even so, who would be knocking? Their apartment is the last apartment before the front of the building. There is a foyer between them and their across-the-hall neighbors. Our ceilings seem thick (I don’t really hear much from the people above me). I suppose they are pretty loud, though, if I can clearly hear them.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
I’ve recently decided the best way to induce myself to work out as much as I should is to, twice a week, haul my sorry self out of bed around 5:30 in the morning, go to the gym then, and leave my bag at the gym, inducing me to have to return after work to do another workout. It’s been working pretty well this week, but I ran into a bit of a snag today.
Because my frontal lobe simply isn’t functional before 7:00 am, I’ve been packing my gym bag the night before. I was doing laundry yesterday, though, so I packed it as I was running out the door today. And I forgot to pack a regular bra.
By the time I realized this, I really had to go to work without stopping by my apartment. I had two options—born free, free as the wind blows, or nasty blue sports bra I bought on clearance in 2002. Since I have pretty severe issues with not wearing a bra (thank you, Department Store Lady who when fitting me for my first bra made gratuitous comments about National Geographic and told me I should wear a bra to bed), and because the Board’s dress code specifically mentions wearing appropriate undergarments, I opted for my old, ratty sports bra. It’s only a little nasty; at least I did weight training this morning, not cardio.
The brilliant thing about this is that even if one of my coworkers notices, they can’t exactly bring it up. “Hey, I notice your chest is a different shape than it normally is” just isn’t going to fly.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Monday at Schuba's
Angie Heaton was opening for Andrew Morgan and Kevin Tihista last night. I worked with Angie back at Parasol and hadn’t seen her in ages, plus I enjoyed the last Tihista/Morgan show I’d attended, so there was no way I was missing it last night. As I walked into Schuba’s purposefully, I managed to knock into someone, that someone being Angie. I hugged her and squealed about her cute new hair cut, then she spun me around and pointed to Michael, my old boss at the label. I talked with him for awhile, subjects ranging from “So how’s life in the big city?” to “Did you hear Bill’s not working at the label anymore?” to “So… I read you had brain surgery in your blog… how about that?”. I adore Michael, he’s just this big, gentle, sweetheart of a man, and I miss the hell out of hanging out at Parasol, so it was great to see folks. Angie introduced me to a couple of her friends, a horticulturalist and a police officer in training/former WLUW dj who live near Midway, and I was their near-constant companion during the night.
Angie played to a pretty sparse crowd, but was lovely and gentle and nervous as hell, like she always is. I got to hear lots of my favorite songs of hers, including “God Speed the Plow” and “Tattoo Blue”, and I was happy when she used the line she often uses in concert, “All my songs are about crushes, or death, or being crushed to death. I guess this is one of the latter.” Everyone in the room fell in love with her and her “funeral folk” (her brother’s term for her music), and lots of people came over to talk to her afterwards.
Once Andrew Morgan started up, we moved to the back of the room. Not to jeopardize my chances of scoring this prime location in the future, but I’ve realized that standing on the platform in front of the oven in the back of the room is a great spot. You get to see all the socializing in the back, but can still see the stage because you’re six or so inches taller than everyone else. Angie held court back there for awhile, as the police officer and I agreed that even when Andrew played his own songs instead of Moz covers, they still sounded like the could be old Smiths songs you’d never heard. A friend of Angie’s who has apparently been to every show anywhere since 1985 or so started chatting me up about improv, which I proved to know a lot about for someone who doesn’t take any classes. I’m apparently going to see his Improv Olympic 5B performance next weekend. Angie leaned over to me and whispered, “He’s hitting on you, but he has a girlfriend!”. I shrugged. “He doesn’t flirt with me.” I pointed out that maybe that’s because she’s a lesbian, though I later realized that, having hung out in the corner with three lesbians all night, I was probably not giving off the straightest vibe ever.
Kevin Tihista started playing soon, singing many of the same gorgeous, miserable, beautiful songs that I heard a couple weeks ago. At some point, I turned to Angie and said, “I don’t believe this, but I think you played the most upbeat set at this show.” She agreed this maybe the first time ever this has happened.
After the show, I chatted with Angie and Michael and some old C-U folk for a little while, and also confirmed that I had in fact brushed by Andrew Morgan on Diversey on Wednesday. Apparently his friend was convinced that I’d said “Hi” instead of “Pardon me,” making Andrew’s response of “No problem” silly enough for them all to remember who I was. We chatted about Kansas-Oklahoma jokes, the labs we’d worked in that got shut down by the NIH, and our various Hyde Park experiences. Altogether, a lovely little night, and worth the sleep-deprivation caused froggy throat I managed to get despite not smoking or drinking a thing.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Hyde Park Vortex, Hideout edition
Oh, so my friend J’s boyfriend is the rockabilly boy from my dorm, and he happens to be a friend of the infamous Mr. Unequal Ex, who doesn’t show. Hello, girl from J's party, oh dear, you have a story similar to mine and UE’s, and it’s about you… and my best friend’s roommate? Heavens. Going to have to talk to my friend about that. Speaking of my best friend, he’s not here, but a good friend of his ex-girlfriend’s is, as is the person who was RA the year before him in that house. Speaking of that house, I run into someone who lived there with my ex-boyfriend, and I agree with his use of the phrase “and it took 16 federal agents to finally restrain him” when it comes to describing his future. Oh, and hello, odd fellow, hope you didn’t mind my allusion to my good friend’s ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, but I just happened to find out about that after you got mildly famous locally. Then I point out the boy I made out with once when he was a prospie to my friend J, and lo and behold, she informs me that they made out once also, and he’s gay now. Isn't that always the way? Say, young fellow with four names, hitting on me quite severely, inviting me to frisbee parties, weren’t you just making out on the dance floor with the girl from above who shares a story with me? Combine this with the fact that J and I both wore my pink bobbed wig last night, causing someone to cry that it was like he'd just met four people instead of two, and it was a very odd night at the Hideout.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Idiocy.
After describing the new iPod shuffle as "Smaller than a pack of gum and much more fun," does Apple's website really need to put a note at the bottom saying "Do not eat iPod shuffle."?
Friday, December 24, 2004
24 hours of improv
Upon a very old recommendation from Jan’s lj, and because I adore both Jeff Tweedy and the Second City, I took a day off work and stayed mostly awake for Letters to Santa , the 24-hour improv endurance test at the e.t.c. theater that ran on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Not to make it even more difficult to get tickets next year, but everyone should go to this next year. It’s a benefit for an organization (run by Heather Whinna, who made a very nice Christian-rock documentary earlier this year) that picks out letters kids have written to Santa and sent through Chicago post offices. Good cause, good music, good comedy, good time.
Due to my sleep schedule still being completely fucked up from this event, my memories are a bit scattered. This is roughly what I remember:
7:30 pm, Tuesday: I show up an hour before it’s supposed to start; this is a foolishly late time to be showing up for any event featuring Jeff Tweedy. For my folly, I’m relegated to the back of the room for the first few hours. Most of the VC’ers (VC=viachicago.org, the Wilco message board I frequent) are up front, but Rosie and the rest of the B family end up toward the back, also.
8:50 pm: I remember that I once decided T.J. Jagodowski, a really great performer who was a mainstage SC performer for most of my college career, is a cross between an angry leprechaun and my father. This still holds true. Joe Canale, another performer, looks like my uncle, which may explain why I cheered so loudly for the several groin injuries he sustained through the night.
10:00ish pm: Tweedy plays. It’s the first time I’ve seen him solo, and it’s very quiet, very lovely, and very different from the current configuration of Wilco. Much to my delight, he brings up both Sally Timms and Jon Langford for guest spots. At the end of the set, a few Jeff-related items are auctioned off, including a personal concert for 20. A fairly large collection of VC folks (including fellow ironwomen Brianne and Gina) manage to put up a winning bid of $9,000, and then most of them rush off to find ATMs. They’re followed by a good portion of the rest of the crowd. Rosie and I rush up to the front, and we’re rejoined by Gina and Brianne after they finish liquidating their life savings.
1:00ish am, Wednesday: I get pulled up onstage to portray Tony’s “fucking whore sister” from Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding. I don’t really do much on stage, as I am the only person in the Chicagoland area who’s never seen the show. The performers get me off stage with merciful speed. I heart Sally Timms and Jon Langford.
1:00ish am: Things start getting blue. I cover 17-year-old Rosie’s ears a good deal for the next several hours. Kelly Hogan can belt like none other.
3:00ish am: Rosie and I are both fading. To stay awake, we decide to pick a pretend improv boyfriend. She immediately picks a fetching performer who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal but had already left. I reserve my decision until later in the day.
3:30ish am: Pretend boyfriends can only keep a girl awake so long, and I start doing the “fall asleep, head falls forward, feel like I’m falling, head snaps up, repeat” motion. We are made to do various activities through the night, including “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and a jog through the backstage area. The number of stayers eventually drops to 12 or 15.
Jesus Christ it’s latish am: Andy Cobb, another of the performers, corrects himself on a mispronunciation of my name. He jumps ahead in the pretend improv boyfriend race.
What the hell was I smoking when I decided to do this am: Animatronic dog humps dead guy's face. Man with animatronic dog looks like Mr. Void. Everything seems unreal, and I can't figure out if it should be that way or not. We get to the point where the performers aren't just improvising, they're pretending to be other performers improvising. It's interesting, and pretty entertaining at some points, but there's only so much "I'm going to pretend to be Mick Napier pretending to be a pirate" that I can take before I start chanting "don't take the brown acid" to myself.
7:00ish am: A respite--BABY IMPROV! Joe Canale’s daughter Sofia shows up and does some scenes. This is most amazing because she can’t be more than 3. I believe it is during her time onstage the groin injuries begin.
8:00 am: Rosie’s dad Lou drops by to see how we’re faring before going in to work. I run down to a Starbucks that’s in the same building and come to the horrifying realization that it’s light outside.
9:00ish am: A scene is staged where the terms “Brown University” and “academic rigor” are used in the same sentence. Gina (also a UChicagoan) and I both bust out laughing very loudly, not realizing that we’re the only two people to find this to be one of the funniest jokes of the night.
10:00ish am: Steve Albini shows up to get interviewed and harassed mildly by Heather Whinna, who is also his gf. I have my only snack of the day, a handful of Rosie’s trail mix. I move beyond hunger, I move beyond sleepiness, I move beyond any concept of the passage of time, and I move to a place where I’m that annoying girl at the show who shouts out the only slightly workable suggestions for scenes. Why nobody threw a shoe at me or begged for my silence, I don’t know.
3:00 pm: Billy Corgan does depressing, slowed-down, minor-key renditions of Frosty the Snowman, Silver Bells, and Jingle Bells. He then cuts out without saying much. It is the best Billy Corgan show ever.
5:15ish pm: Rosie gets pulled up on stage to do a scene. At some point, she is supposed to use another of the performers, Pete Grosz, as her life raft. She never really climbs on him, probably because her dad is directly in front of her. As cool and calm as Lou B is, I really wish he’d yelled “Get away from my daughter, you old pervert” and rushed the stage.
5:30ish pm: Kid rock! But in a good way. The Blisters play. Heather comes up and talks about the charity. She starts crying a little bit, and it’s very touching. Andy Cobb gets her a tissue, and earns extra bonus points in the pretend improv boyfriend race.
7:00 pm: Robbie Fulks! A brilliant set by him, including the old holiday chestnut “God Isn’t Real”, as requested by my angry leprechaun father. He does a rap about the dead people from 2004. There’s a Derrida joke. I crack up. Andy Cobb cracks up. I declare to Rosie that Andy Cobb is my fake improv boyfriend for the day, but note that Robbie Fulks is the overall winner of the fake boyfriend contest.
8:30 pm: Done! I really can’t remember this. Rosie, Gina, Brianne, and I all managed to make it, and we get invited up on stage, where I hide in the back. Lou B is kind enough to cart my deranged carcass home. I pass out in bed with my shoes on. Make mental note to see more bloody improv since I live blocks from IO and the Playground.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Holiday fun.
I sang Christmas songs adapted with details about the pension firm I work for, in front of almost the entire pension firm, this Friday at the Christmas luncheon. (I keep trying to call it the holiday luncheon, but since I work for Christian organization, it's really all about baby Jesus.) I ended up sitting next to the person who is functionally our CEO, though under a different name. Then I went boozing with some of the folks (Methodist organization, so no alcohol at the party), and discovered that, among the people I work with, almost everyone I can stand is in the 40-55 range. Huh. At least they can afford to treat me to Belvedere on the rocks.
I also finished voice lessons at the Old Town School this week. I want to start guitar soon, but I think I'll wait until the second session of next year so I can (a) volunteer enough to get the class for free, and (b) take Spanish lessons so that I can do that entire graduating from college thing.
Now on to the holiday shopping spectacular; I tried this year to buy as much as I could from local stores, and to avoid downtown shopping like the damned plague. I didn't quite succeed, but I got close...
I'm keeping it to family here, because apart from Collin, I don't buy much. I need to get something for my trainer, and maybe little things for folks like Tyler or Emmie (to whom I owe a backlog of several years of Xmas and Bday gifts, rather daunting), but the major gifts are familial. So, to the rundown of how much I supported big chains this holiday season...
1. Mom. She's getting a big healthy-eating basket o'fun in my ongoing attempt, post-bypass surgery, to get her to eat some fucking vegetables. Thus, I got her a vegetable grilling basket from Bloodbath & Beyond, since she still grills like mad. In addition, I went to The Spice House (feautured on Good Eats!) and got her two salt-free seasoning gift backs, the American Regional and the International. Hope she likes lemon pepper, because she's got three different kinds now. I also headed north to the Southport Grocery and Cafe to get her fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar, grapeseed and canola oil-based grilling and saute sauces, another veggie rub, and a Vosages chocolate bar, because she needs a little indulgence.
2. Grandma. Independent bath and body crap tends to be EXPENSIVE, so I crapped out and got her an Origins Lavendar and Vanilla gift set, along with some saffron from The Spice House.
3. Drew, brother, 21. He said he wanted posters, booze, or music, so I got him three posters from Beyond the Wall (Boondock Saints, his favorite movie; Trainspotting, the movie I think should be his favorite movie; and some wildly inappropriate beer, weed, and sex poster, because he'll love it). Then I got him The Streets' latest album at Reckless, because really, it's better than Insane Clown Posse, which is what he listens to these days. I decided not to get him booze, but I may hit the Crate and Barrel and get him some roly shot glasses, because he will also love that.
4. Christian, nerdy cousin, 14. Got him what I've been wanting for ages, a neighborhood map of Chicago, from 57th Street Books, and a book on great philosophers from Seminary. I plan on wrapping one of these gifts in a piece of wrapping paper that has the London mass transit map on it, which he'll take as a bonus gift.
5. Annie, cooler cousin, 12. She loves lip gloss. I've gotten her lip gloss for the last two years. I can get cooler lip gloss than she can in Oklahoma. So... lip gloss globes from Sephora it is. I tried to branch out with comics, so she's getting a copy of Persepolis from 57th Street Books, and the first trade paperback of Hopeless Savages (thanks, Dan) that I picked up in Evanston at Comix Revolution.
6. Jonah, youngest cousin, 5 1/2. I'm glad Mom told me he likes dinosaurs, because all his parents had to tell me is that he liked Batman and Spiderman, and... ick. So I ran over to Unabridged Books (you can see the gay porn mags from the childrens' section; I love it) and got the Eyewitness series book on dinosaurs. I also got him Neil Gaiman's The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. I hope I didn't just get it for him becuase Neil Gaiman is cool. Guess we'll see if he starts crying on Christmas when he reads it...
So ho-frickin-ho-ho-ho, now all I have to do is get this stuff wrapped. Now I can go to the gym and clean this week... unless I decide to just sleep and watch Gilmore Girl repeats, which is a distinct possibility.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Democracy inaction.
So... I just snapped at an election judge. An African-American old-old-lady election judge. Here's the scenario:
I arrive to vote at 6:00 am. I'm 20th or so in line. They don't open the doors until 6:20. The first person (also an old lady, so there may have been old lady communication problems) gets her ballot at 6:30. Things get marginally quicker as time passes, but as we get closer, everyone around me notices the judge in charge of looking people up in the big book o'registration doesn't have the world's firmest grasp on alphabetical order. As in, she's looking for McCall, gets to McGreevey, and keeps heading back through the book until Ms. McCall sticks her finger in the book and says "M-c-*C*".
Here comes me:
Me: Williams.
OL: [flips to "T", looks confusedly at the book]
Me: Williams. W.
OL: [flips to "S", starts conversation with other election judge]
Me: (loudly) WILLIAMS. WITH A W.
OL: [flips to V, tries to answer question asked to election judge a table away from us]
Person behind me: HER NAME IS WILLIAMS. [begins commenting to head election official, right next to old lady, that someone else needs to maybe be in charge of the book]
OL: [flips to blank forms behind the alphabet, keeps flipping through them.]
Me: Ma'am, those are blank. You've gone past Z. Williams. With a W.
OL: I didn't even know there were blank ones back here! [Gets to w-a, starts flipping forward]
Me: WILLIAMS WITH A W-I-L.
Person behind me: [ever louder complaining that somebody else seriously needs to be in charge of the book]
OL: It's going slow because we're short one election judge.
Me: I don't see how another election judge will help you grasp the concept of alphabetical order.
So, yeah. I'm a bad, bad voter. I ended up not voting until 6:50, though, and it's gonna be a HUGE problem as the day wears on if she doesn't speed it up. Four of the eight booths were empty because the pace was so slow.
Anyhoo, on a more positive note--Go out and vote! Vote early, mainly because the lines are gonna be FIVE MILES LONG after work! You, too, can snap at elderly election officials!
Monday, August 09, 2004
I've got stories.
But I don't have time to post about them. They're long. You may already know them. If not, feel free to ask me about any of the following, broken down by day:
Synopsis:
Monday-Wilco in Milwaukee
Tuesday-News; Flight to OKC
Wednesday-Mom's Surgery
Tuesday-Slow Recovery
Friday-But we didn't put you in rehab, Mom
Saturday-Burning stuff with high school friends
Sunday-Goodbye; What do you mean the OKC airport lost power?
Oh god. It's been quite the week.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
The dangers of Eugene O'Neill
I've decided to start volunteering at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and today I had a high-flying time (in reverse order) picking up trash, monitoring the ice bins, and serving beer.
I was quite popular at the beer tent, despite not knowing how to pour at first (pull the tap all the way--if you go part way, it'll be all foam). By the end though, I was serving up lovely little plastic cups of Bass, Rolling Rock, and some wheat beer of some sort. The only major faux pas--when you're working at a beer tent with a man whose name tag says "Ice Man", do not, I repeat, DO NOT make a quip involving the term "cometh" unless you wish to get a response along the lines of "it depends on the girl".
After that, I was left to monitor the ice bins, which entailed absolutely no ice, but a lovely conversation about teen pregnancy with a family practice doctor who was hanging out with her defibrillator. After that, the other team members and I hung out and talked for a little while; most of my conversations were with Katie, a dramaturg who lives just north of the Old Town School. Fun fact: Meredith isn't alone, everyone in the world thinks the guy who opened for the Mag Fields (Andrew Bird) is hot. The volunteer coordinator, when she bought a CD from him, even wrote "you're dreamy" in the memo section. I also had fun talking to a little 4 year old who REALLY likes blue, and found out her dad is a fellow escaped Oklahoman.
Then came trash pickup, where Katie and I talked more, and I found out our boss Shana, is not only working again tomorrow, but is also waking up at 7 to run 17 miles. Compared to this, waking up at 9 to get fruishi seems quite paltry.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
I've never before seen as many people in banana suits as I saw this morning on my way to and from the gym. They've just opened a new Jamba Juice at the Hancock Tower, and there was a trolley going up and down Lake Shore and Michigan, filled with people in banana suits. Beyond this, as my bus passed Hancock, there were about 20 more banana-people milling about outside. By the time I was going back to my apartment, there were only seven or so left, and they looked rather cold and disenchanted with the entire banana-suit-wearing-business.
Speaking of the gym, I have a visible muscle! In my arm! This has never happened before. Sure, it's only on the right side and not the left, but I have high hopes for haivng more visible muscles sometime in the distant future.
I spent about 30 minutes this afternoon talking with an fortyish man in a coffee shop about how much he loves Barbra Streisand. He's part of a group of older guys that hangs out in the coffeeshop in the middle of the day and shoots the breeze for hours on end. I think every coffeeshop is required to have a group of these. The best all-day-talking-middle-age-to-oldish-guys-in-coffee-shop groups, however, are professors in college areas. UChicago is sadly lacking a high-quality coffeeshop in which they can hang out (DivSchool is too hot, Classics is too expensive, Bookstore is too corporate, RC and Uncle Joe's are too... studenty), but Cafe Paradiso in Urbana and Unicorn in Evanston were absolute old professor meccas. Unicorn even got old Russian professors, because they put out preserves for their tea. Old Russian professors? The best.
Friday, November 21, 2003
Move!
I'm back up to Chicago today. I've got a nice little place by the lake, just north of Belmont. I don't have a bed, or a couch, or dishes, or much of anything other than CDs, books, and clothes, but I'll be getting these other things soon enough. I'm still in the process of applying for re-entry to Chicago, but I think they basically want to hear me say "I've grown as a person" and (more importantly) "I can pay for it" to let me back in.
Anyhoo, I will likely be disappearing from the internet as I so often do (no net access planned for the apartment for a little while at least), but people in Chicago, let me know if you want to do anything, or even just want to know how to contact me.
A brief moving playlist:
New Pornographers-Letter from an Occupant (repeat many times over)
GBV-My Valuable Hunting Knife
Belle and Sebastian-Lazy Line Painter Jane
Calexico-The Ride, Pt 2
Neutral Milk Hotel-King of Carrot Flowers Part 1
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
More music, but shorter
Recently, any time I go to Parasol, I come home with a handful of CDs. Thank god I'm moving away before I spend all my money.
Anyhoo, here are some shorty reviews of some stuff I picked up (and an older one that's completely worthwhile).
!!!, Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard
I think this is what I what I wanted The Rapture album to be. That is, two songs long. (Rimshot.) !!! sound a little like Pigbag (well, the one Pigbag song I've heard), but they sound a lot more original than The Rapture, and take themselves a lot less seriously (a good thing for a dance-punk group). And they tell both Rudy and Bloomberg to get down. Put this on, fill the room with foam and let the UChicago kids get down for a study break, I say!
Calexico, Alone Again Or EP
I love this song. I could listen to the original version of this song (by Love, if you don't know, and if you don't, find Forever Changes or the nifty Rhino best of comp as soon as you can) all day long, several weeks in a row. The barking dogs who do Jingle Bells could cover this song and I'd still like it. I like Calexico a lot more than I like the Jingle Bells dogs. I like this version a lot. The other songs are good, too.
Sufjan Stevens, Michigan
Pitchfork has managed to redeem itself from The Rapture debacle by recommending this album of gorgeous, lush acoustic music. The title (fully Greetings From Michigan the Great Lakes State) does not lie: the song titles alone mention Flint, Ypsilanti, Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, Tahquamenon Falls, Holland, Detroit, Alanson, and Sault Saint Marie, and there's a lovely map of the state in the liner notes. Stevens, now living in Brooklyn, is a Detroit native, and this entire album seems like a tribute to the winters of his home state. I declare it morally imperative that all of my Michigan friends get a copy of this. Between this and reading Middlesex, I'm having a very Michigan-y time these days.
Richard Swift, The Novelist
Oh my goodness. This is a completely obscure record, recommended to me by Roy from Parasol, who has friends who are also on this label. I'm not even sure if there are copies still available (though you can try at the label's website. Unless something spectacular comes out in the next couple of months, I'm going to consider this the best new music I've heard all year. The Novelist is something of a concept album, about a Great Depression-era New York writer, and it's recorded to sound as though it's from that era. It's certainly not rock, but it's incredibly powerful. Swift's voice is lovely--reminiscent of Fred Astaire, with a slight touch of the menace of Tom Waits. The album is only about 20 minutes long (4 of the songs are more soundscapes, with 4 proper tunes), but there is not a bit of wasted time on this album. Everything is brilliant. I swear, buy this album, and you'll find yourself wandering around humming "I am New York/Tired and weak/Try to write a book each time I speak." (According to a friend-of-a-friend-of-an-acquaintance-who-knows-somebody-who-knows-somebody-at-some-label, Swift may have recently signed to V2, possibly under Jack White's Third Man label, so if you can't get the record now, it might come out again later. But if you do get it now, you can talk about how you knew Richard Swift was great way back when!)
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Moving and music
Moving happens in a week. I'm freaked out both by the amount of stuff I have to move and by the lack of all the stuff it seems like I need (beds, dish drainers, olive oil, shampoo). I'm trying to ignore the lack of stuff and focus on packing (not that I've done that yet).
Instead of packing, I've been buying lots and lots of music. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my discount at the label will last as long as the label does... once you're Parasol, you're always Parasol, it seems. This didn't deter me from buying up lots and lots of CDs last week, though. You want half-assed reviews, you say? Well here they are:
I don't quite get all these claims that Julian Casablancas is as surly and distant as ever on Room on Fire. The lad was talking about not caring and being out that door a few years ago, but now he's asking his girl to skip the party and drink a nice forty with him. To accompany this new romantic mood, the band has decided to jump forward a decade; instead of the old dirty-ugly fuzzy early-70s sound from Is This It, they've moved solidly into Ric Ocasek territory. It serves the mood well--after all, Debbie Harry proved that one can be pretty as can be and still exude new wave misery.
General complaints--there are some great songs, but the back end of the album is a long, smoke-filled haze of very similar songs. As much as I love Albert Hammond (he just gets scuzzier every time I see him--I really do hope he turns into the Strokes' Keith Richards), the one song where he collaborates on the lyrics, "Between Love & Hate", was the weakest song on the album. Do you really need two people to write lyrics this boring? And do we really need to see Julian's (seemingly waxed) chest on the lyrics page? (I will ignore Ms. Alaska's howls here.)
I must admit, the only GBV I'd owned previously were cassettes of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes from way back when. I really liked them, but I lost them before I graduated from high school, and didn't pay much mind to it... until I went crazy and bought the Hardcore UFOs box set last week. (This is what you do when you have a discount!) I haven't gone through all the CDs yet, but that's because I can stop listening to the greatest hits CD, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. It's been said before, but I'll say it again--Robert Pollard might do a little better with some editing, and this edition proves it. Even the strong GBV albums always have at least a couple tracks that are random and bad rather than random and sublime, and this disc is a testament to the fact that Robert Pollard can do a little self-editing when he wants. (Though he does still mix things up a little--the box-set edition of this disc is chronological, while RP shuffles things in the independent-release version, and also chooses some alternate versions of tracks that are found elsewhere on the box set.) But enough with the negatives--this is just a fabulous disc. It spans from 1987 up to Earthquake Glue, and really brings out strong tracks from later albums, which have apparently been a little less killer and a little more filler. I must admit I'm not totally familiar with the newer stuff--I'm still dealing with "I Am a Tree" being DAMN NEAR FIVE MINUTES LONG, which makes it their "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". Fun stats! Songs of length:
0:00-0:59: 1
1:00-1:59: 9
2:00-2:59: 15
3:00-3:59: 6
4:00-4:59: 1
average song length: 2:15
So, um, The Rapture really, really, really like the Cure, a lot. And, um, they like to count (they use counting as lyrics in 3 of the 11 songs on this album, including the chestnut "1234567, I'm floating in constant heaven." Apart from counting, their biggest hit has three lines, two of which are only used twice. They have some incredibly stupid package art, unless you consider several differently-tinted copies of B&W pictures of the band looking very sincere and intense as they play laid out next to each other to be something other than incredibly stupid. Also, they really, really like the Cure. They also use the term "conversating".
That being said, the album is not completely without redeeming features. It's just not very redeemable as an album. There are two really great dance-punk numbers--"Olio" and "House of Jealous Lovers". Yes, this song only has three lines other than counting--"house of jealous lovers" (though I think "jealous lovers' house" might be brought up, I'm not counting it), "shakedown", and "one hand ties the other"--and I don't even understand how that last line works--but it will get your booty shaking. Boys, release a single, not an album. And listen to some music other than the Cure. Maybe you can trade Interpol for their Joy Division albums! You'll like them, I swear! They're moody and British, too! And their lead singer killed himself instead of getting old and flabby. Look into it!
Another short note--everyone who's ever purchased a Matador album should sprint out and buy the re-release of the New Pornographers' debut, Mass Romantic, if only to hear Neko Case's amazing vocals on "Letter from an Occupant." I bought a copy of Blacklisted recently, too, but I haven't had time to really listen to it that well yet. Maybe later I'll talk about that, as well as the five bajillion freebie CDs I have strewn about.
Monday, October 20, 2003
Finally, a sexy costume for me.
So I was hanging out in the sexy costumes area, chanting "Limit three costumes try-on during the visit, one costume in the dressing room at a time, no try-ons on vinyl" to the fraternity girlfriends who were talking about how much their non-existent asses were hanging out of Sexy Tinkerbell when I noticed we had maroon fishnet thigh-highs in stock.
Then it struck me.
Maroon fishnets.
Short grey wool skirt.
A copy of some part of Foucault's History of Sexuality (I'm thinking The Use of Pleasure would be the appropriate one).
One of the tight little UChicago tshirts they sell at the bookstore.
And I would be... SEXY UCHICAGO STUDENT!!!
Unfortunately, I'll be working on Halloween, and nobody I'd see then would get it.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Shameless promotion of personal matters.
Just as a warning: yes, yes, I work for Parasol and they released this album. Shush. I really am recommending this because I’ve been listening to songs from it almost every day for the last week.
So, talking about the Replacements earlier reminded me of the Vertebrats, a band I’d like to recommend to all my Mats loving friends. They were a Champaign-Urbana band in the very very early 80s, and they created some really fabulous, straight-ahead garage rock. Actually, they were so good at it that the Replacements took to playing one of their best songs, Left in the Dark, in concert. (I believe it’s on Shit Hits the Fans, miscredited as Left Here in the Dark.) It’s a great heartbreak song in the fine tradition of Train in Vain, and Uncle Tupelo also covered it--see the bonus tracks from the new reissue of No Depression if you’re interested. What’s more, apparently Courtney Love is slapping it on her solo album, so you all better run out and get the original before she makes everyone hate it.
Anyhoo, if you’re interested, and you should be, A Thousand Day Dream, a compilation of 22 of their songs, has been released by Reaction, one of the Parasol labels. There’s plenty more than just Left in Dark—my faves include Johnny Avante, which mocks art students (and really, they need to be mocked), Jackie’s Gone, which I could almost see Bruce Springsteen singing, Oklahoma (for obvious reasons), and This Before, which is fun and sexy in a really wary and nervous way. You should all, all, all run over to Parasol and buy copies for yourself and your loved ones. And buy other stuff too—the prices are so low! You get bonus points if you wish Angie a happy belated birthday or tell Roy you’re sure his new pullover looks fine in the special instructions section of the order form.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
I really thought my intense fear of map water was weird enough, that I had filled up my odd phobia quota. Unfortunately, I've recently developed a slight fear of large block letters (we're talking 2 feet tall or so), particularly in a red and white color scheme. I think this was caused by the opening credits from the first two series of Red Dwarf. Oh well.
Also, I've seen the beauty of tenure. I was hanging out in HEP's office on Sunday, flipping through his copy of The Metaphysical Club while he checked his email, and his professor dropped by. Said professor, most certainly tenured, was walking about barefoot, with completely unbrushed hair. The only matching thing about his shirt and shorts was how wrinkled they were; there was also a rather vast stain on the shorts (I can only hope that it was a recent coffee stain, but it didn't look that wet). He looked a little surprised to see a non-physics person around, talked physics with HEP for about 10 minutes, then just said "Anyhow..." and wandered off, barefoot, into the physics jungle. I want tenure in something!
Monday, August 25, 2003
Items from the last 6 weeks
-A check is in the mail. For real now. Should be in the next week or two (or maybe three). I’m obviously excited, but it’s hard as hell to practice fiscal responsibility when I know I will be getting a fair bit of money pretty damned soon. On that note, if you can think of any CDs I should most certainly own (especially classic or indie pop, a la Big Star, Raspberries, Velvet Crush), do comment me about it. CD buying bender soon, baby!
-I am not living in a bus station! I got a nice place in Urbana, close to some of my favorite things (the best local coffeeshop, my indie rock label/store, the hippie grocery store and deli). I’m living in the basement, so it’s a little musty, but it’s got a nice front yard, a lovely porch in the back, and… a PUPPY! Well, the puppy belongs to one of my four roommates, but I do enjoy having a dog around, especially since I’m not the person primarily responsible for it… all of the fun, none of the cleaning up messes. Score! Also, toothpaste is more fun when it’s German.
-I spent another fine weekend in the HP. I went to my first MLB game on Friday (Sox-Rangers, 7-1 Sox baby! Go Valentin!), which was quite fun… especially since it was Elvis night. Why Elvis night? Why not! All I know is that there were Parachuting Elvises, and I enjoyed them even though they didn’t get caught on the foul poles. In news that probably doesn’t surprise anybody who knew me in high school, I got into a situation where someone threatened to toss my bra off the upper balcony of the stadium. The crisis was averted.
Saturday was pretty low-key, though I did introduce HEP to a few of the joys of Evanston, namely Dave’s Italian Kitchen (and its apparently killer wine list) and running around on beaches that are probably private property. Just a note—my Evanstonian friends really need to come out and eat cheap and get drizzunk with us at DIK sometime. (Jan, Flax, I’m looking at you, kids.)
On Sunday, I saw Come Feel Me Tremble, a documentary about Paul Westerberg. I hate to say anything bad about him, but I must admit, he is perhaps, maybe, just the slightest bit self-indulgent these days. He talked about how he tried touring with a band, but that the songs just sounded better with him on guitar. Thing is, they really don’t. Really. I also was amused by the complete lack of Replacements songs for the first hour or so of the documentary, followed by an ending comprised of four or so Mats songs in a row. Also, if Paul Westerberg is sober these days, I am really, actually Princess Leia, lightsaber and all. Ain’t no way. I mean, I always knew he was a self-indulgent, drunken prick, but now all of his songs are about him having ADD and smoking cigars. I had to go back and listen to Tim and Let It Be and Pleased to Meet Me to reassure myself that he was, at one point, really, truly amazing.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Sudden activity
So, last time I talked to my lawyer about The Saga of My Leg (and if you don't know SoMY, I cannot be bothered to go into it right now), he was talking about the trial being moved back to fall. I figured this meant he'd call me sometime soon and tell me it was in August or September.
So imagine my surprise when Jackie, Lawyer Paul's paralegal, called me up today and said "You do realize your trial starts on Monday, right?"
I did not, in fact, realize anything of the sort.
She then said "Do you have a copy of your deposition from 2001? You really need to know everything about that, they're gonna try to mess you up on the stand."
I do not, in fact, have a copy of that deposition.
So anyhow, I'm leaving on Monday evening (Monday is for motions, which means I don't have to be there), and will return... later in the week, I guess. I'm running around trying to find a place to stay. Well, places, actually, as four solid days of me, me, me might drive Altman a little crazy. Diversification is a good thing.
I will be getting a copy of my deposition in the mail tomorrow, and I'm gonna read it several times. I don't remember what I said in it, but I figure that it won't be too difficult to absorb, as 1. I was the one talking, and 2. I told the truth, so I just have to remember it. Still, four years since The Saga began, and I have to remember the tiniest details. Eeep.
I also hate my ISP; my net connection has been down for a week. Thank god I have lenient bosses who are never here; they're okay with my sudden week-long vacation, and they aren't terribly aware of my activities throughout the day.
Monday, June 02, 2003
Eek.
You know, I may give the impression that the costuming world is all fun and games, buying sexy bumblebee costumes and cutting cakes with machetes and whatnot. This is not always the case, however. Some days, you get a very disturbed trannie who comes in and talks to your coworkers about his/her prosthetic vagina and asks about makeup to "make it blend in better", and then shows said thing to your coworkers after taking it off in the bathroom. Sure, the manager then throws that person out, but it sort of throws a kink in one's day to have to deal with such things.
(In case you are wondering--no, I am not making this up. How could I make this up?)
On a happier note, at least for Alice, I recently found a sexy Statue of Liberty costume. God bless America (though there is no word on Studly Uncle Sam)!
