9:19 AM - When the copied riff drops out of a song
Current mood: inquisitive
Category: Music
I'm listening to iTunes today on "party shuffle." The soundtrack for the party that is otherwise known as "me working." Party! It sounds so much more fun.
Anyway, I love when I learn a new connection between songs. That happened today when my guest DJ, "party shuffle" (DJ PS), came up with Sonic Youth's "Trilogy: a) The Wonder b) Hyperstation c) Eliminator Jr."
Now I never was that much of a Sonic Youth person. I just didn't dig 'em at the time (early '90s). I think I recall that at one of my beginning years of college, they even played at school (Columbia U.) for orientation, at some outside concert -- Fugazi played too. I vaguely recall Brenda and Alan being all excited. I think I had to work or something. I would've tagged along if I'd been available, sensitive as I was to potential pop phenomena.
But I didn't. Didn't see them at Red Rocks in 1992 either. Never paid much attention. (I also disliked the Red Hot Chili Peppers, originally, which I later judged misguided. I now stand behind my original opinion.)
Now, I am liking Sonic Youth. It's fun - they're like oldies now. I get to rediscover them.
But anyway -- you Sonic Youth fans already knew this, but it was fun for me to be editing away and hear the middle song -- "Hyperstation" -- and recognize the guitar riff from an Interpol album.
I wanted to give you both here, but I suspect Sonic Youth nailed Interpol legally, because I found a few (crappily recorded) live versions of Interpol's song "Length of Love," and none of them contain the riff. Excised!
This one (from a bonus disc released a year and a half after the Interpol album) doesn't either, but it's kind of a fun version. Enjoy.
Metrosexual guy: If I was some fish... Girl, not looking up from her bus schedule: Grammar just cried. Metrosexual guy: I don’t follow you. Girl: Good, because if you did, I would have to have you arrested. Metrosexual guy: I am so confused. Girl: Do the words ’you are an idiot’ confuse you? Metrosexual guy: I hate you.
So last night’s concert, the one I was sooo excited about, didn’t happen.
Very sad. And, well, that was the plan for the evening, so to express my disappointment, I drank a little too much wine and woke up at 3:00 this morning. The good news: I got a lot of work done first thing.
The word from Radio 1190 was that Jens was stuck in bad weather. I guess he was coming from the Northwest. Tonight he’s playing in Omaha. I was tempted to jump in the car and drive there. But if he didn’t make it here, how can I be sure he can make it there? Then I’d be drinking too much wine again, but I’d be in Nebraska.
Instead, I spun up some Easter egg-dyed yarn.
I thought about the good things that happened this week, like having a drink with my friend Cathy, and glimpsing (but not getting to say hi to -- he was too busy hosting) an old acquaintance, John, who has grown quite a moustache.
His was between the gringo and the connoisseur.
On my way home, I stopped at Twist & Shout, bought the new DeVotchKa album and had a funny little chat with the clerk that touched on local musicians grocery shopping and the home decor of Jay Munly. I saw one person I recognized at the store ... a transgender flamenco musician who talked with me a few years ago about promoting her album, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t get behind the music.
But last night ... well, we wound up going out for a bite to eat and that was pretty much it. Today? I’m taking the day off, so I only worked about 4 hours this morning. I think we’re going to go check out some art around town. Maybe go to a museum or get crazy and go to two tonight.
Other than that, not feeling inspired to groove on Denver. This city used to be a place I loved. Now I find it perplexing. Perhaps the greater-than-previous concentration of people who moved here to ski and view sporting events, neither of which floats my metaphoric boat.
I’m going to take a workshop in May on spinning mohair.
I’m thinking about taking an art class.
Could go back to a writing workshop.
Just looking for a reason to keep liking Denver ... even when the disappointment drags me down.
Hey, everybody. Happy Easter. I hope you are all feeling redeemed and stuff.
What have you been up to?
I’ve been working.
Spring is here, so I’ve also been having some bubblings in my creative juices.
I’ve been reading again, which is exciting. The latest fat tome on my nightstand is Tom Wolfe’s "I Am Charlotte Simmons." I never read this book when it came out. Not sure why, except I guess I was biased against Wolfe because he wrote "Bonfire of the Vanities," and an author who wrote a book that became a movie starring Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis is unlikely to make my literary snob’s "to read" list.
But oh man, it’s awesome! I can’t remember what inspired me to read it, but something did, and I put it on my library hold list, and now I’m plowing through it (no spoilers - I’m only on page 583). The writing is excellent, the characterization is satirical and therefore stereotypical yet excellent (this afternoon I suffered through a college girl’s depressive visit home for Christmas - ugh), the thought in it is uncomfortable/thought-provoking along the lines of Stuff White People Like, and the plot keeps you going. Additionally, it’s vulgar in every sense of the word.
S: (adj) coarse, common, rough-cut, uncouth, vulgar (lacking refinement or cultivation or taste) "he had coarse manners but a first-rate mind"; "behavior that branded him as common"; "an untutored and uncouth human being"; "an uncouth soldier--a real tough guy"; "appealing to the vulgar taste for violence"; "the vulgar display of the newly rich"
S: (adj) common, plebeian, vulgar, unwashed (of or associated with the great masses of people) "the common people in those days suffered greatly"; "behavior that branded him as common"; "his square plebeian nose"; "a vulgar and objectionable person"; "the unwashed masses"
S: (adj) common, vernacular, vulgar (being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language) "common parlance"; "a vernacular term"; "vernacular speakers"; "the vulgar tongue of the masses"; "the technical and vulgar names for an animal species"
S: (adj) crude, earthy, gross, vulgar (conspicuously and tastelessly indecent) "coarse language"; "a crude joke"; "crude behavior"; "an earthy sense of humor"; "a revoltingly gross expletive"; "a vulgar gesture"; "full of language so vulgar it should have been edited"
On another note (I’m changing the subject to music - get it? note?), on Friday I was driving home from Wiggins, Colo., whence I’d traveled with my kid to pick up 105 pounds of naturally raised beef (neatly packaged and frozen). We were driving south on Colorado Boulevard, listening to Radio 1190, when the DJ said "and on Thursday at the Gothic, Jens Lekman."
Just like a character in a Jens Lekman song, I inadvertently gasped. My daughter in the back seat peeled her eyes off the Harry Potter book she was reading and said, "Mommy? What’s wrong?"
My heart was beating frenetically with the thrill. I came home, got out the dolly to move all that meat to the chest freezer, finished my work for the day, and quickly called my mother-in-law to move our babysitting this weekend to start on Thursday instead of Friday. I logged on to the Gothic’s Web site and WHOOO! I am going to see Jens Lekman on Thursday. Did I say WHOOO?
I have rhapsodized about Mr. Lekman on this blog before (in fact, I invited him to dinner, but he didn’t RSVP yet). Anyway, he’s really a fantastic songwriter. I think this one is one of his best:
Or if you’d rather see him being charming, try this:
It’s a beautiful thing to be excited about music again. In addition to Jens Lekman, I’ve been enjoying some fantastic retro listening. I downloaded a bunch of old Love & Rockets and Tones on Tail (added the T on T guys as my new profile song -- one that still makes my pulse race, taking me back to the Void teen nightclub in Wheat Ridge, Colo., ca. 1987).
And the other day, iTunes pulled up 16 Horsepower’s deeply fabulous cover of "Nobody ’Cept You," a kind of obscure Dylan song. Their version is beautiful; I wish I could find it online. Hearing it led me on a chase; I really had forgotten it was a Dylan song, although I’m sure I once knew it, because it’s on Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 2, in the 1991 box set that I think I listened to about 1,000 times. Anyway the song is so very lovely it almost - almost!! - got me inspired to continue working on some writing I had been doing up until last year or so.
That’s it, media-wise -- a short tour of my meandering mind.
And if you’re in Denver, come down to the Gothic on Thursday. And let me know you’ll be there.
I used to walk all the time to work, when I was a young woman. This one commemorates a walk and a visit to my mom's new town. It gave me a little shock of recognition to come across it. And how are you?
Street poem 94
You know who you remind me of? The devil.
That red hair! I hope he comes and gets you.
Spring, the air is crisp and wet and as I swim
An imperfect stranger wheezes those words to me,
imagine, wishing demons over the sidewalk.
oh baby, you ain't nothing when the world hates you.
A skinny mustache baseball cap man hawking kittens
outside Walmart in a land of gunracks and
seething bumperstickers, this is America, the land
of unfettered domestic animal reproduction, big eyes,
and if nobody takes me – take me to the river,
dump me in, burlap bag fur tiny claws and maybe
a brick for good measure. You know who you remind me of?
The angels. That creamy smile! I hope they come and get me.
Currently
reading
:
Divisadero
By
Michael Ondaatje
Release date: 29 May, 2007
All right. I have considered DNA testing to learn more about my genetic ancestry.
And, in a jump that might at first appear unrelated, I love my dog. I just paid nearly $200 to have a little slice of a lump on his ear tested to determine if it were a malignant growth (good news, kids! It's a cutaneous histiocytoma -- meaning, basically, "lump on the ear").
We are proud to introduce the Doggie DNAPrint® 1.0 Kit - a DNA-based test that looks at 204 unique canine Ancestry Informative Markers (CanAIMs) on the dog genome. This simple and painless test (only requires a cheek swab of your dog) harnesses the power of modern molecular biology and genomics technology to uncover your canine's genealogy.
Currently
listening
:
Who Let the Dogs Out
By
Baha Men
Release date: 26 February, 2002
8:55 AM - A great pop song teaches you something, or Dylan vs. The Robert
Category: Music
For starters, I really shouldn't say vs. It's not a contest. You can have both.
I've had my iTunes playing again this week in the background of my computer as I work. It loves certain songs ("Everything is Everything by Lauryn Hill), but even the most-played songs on iTunes have only shown up four times or so. iTunes informs me that I have 2,989 songs loaded, and it would take me 8 days to play them all. Guess I don't need to buy a new CD.
A couple of oldies came up yesterday and today that I love. Both of them taught me something when I heard them.
Here they are, listed chronologically by both when I heard 'em this week, and when they first entered my world.
First, "The Hanging Garden" from The Cure. I don't know when I first heard it ... It's from the incredible "Pornography" album, which came out in 1982, but I didn't have that album until my friend Gary gave me a copy, which must have been 1988. Sweet sixteen for me.
I had a vague idea of what the Hanging Gardens were, but I just looked them up. They were a consolation prize for a homesick Babylonian queen, one of the original seven wonders of the world, and recently confirmed by archaeologists. Some appeasement.
Anyway, I don't love the song for its lyrics. I love the song for the way the guitars click and play and build. I know the Cure is considered "dark," but how dark is this much fun with guitars? Here is a lovely stripped version of the song (live in Glasgow, 1984, when Robert Smith has a lush head of hair and already is wearing those hideous white sneakers he preferred all through the '80s and '90s, and perhaps still today):
When I started college, we used to discuss how our love of New Wave music had educated us. "Killing an Arab" made my friend read Sartre. A few listens to "Cemetry Gates" and I was requesting (and reading) Keats and Yeats (and the only poem I still have memorized is Yeats').
Then, today's gem came up, with another literary reference. I've always loved "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" -- I love most of Bob Dylan's backwards love songs. Talk about dark: You always know the beautiful love is gonna end.
This one has been in my world since ... I'm not sure. I just know I got crazy about Bob Dylan, completely out of the blue, in about 1993. I started going to the used record store every weekend, buying another album.
7:13 PM - A few of my favorite things today
Category: Life
Hello everyone.
Long time, no blog, eh?
I have really not had much to say. Except I did take 10 days off. Whoooaaa! I haven't had 10 days off in ... um ... Not earlier in 2007. I don't think in 2006, either, but I'm not sure. Maybe July 2005, but we had just moved, AND we drove to Minnesota, AND my mother-in-law was staying with us for five weeks when we returned.
So yeah. Re-entry was tough, but I think I'm adapting. I'm back and better than ever. I'm committed to sticking with a schedule and trying not to get sidetracked and worthy goals like that.
And today, I was feeling kind of grateful for the little things. My favorite things today. No snowflakes, roses, raindrops, kittens or mittens here.
However:
That thing is really cool. It's like a little shot glass for vanilla. (Hint: Do NOT drink vanilla. Even though it smells sooo nice.) You can just pour your liquid measures in there and not worry about sloshing it all over from the measuring spoons, which are so flat and wobbly. Especially if you've been doing shots from your measuring shot glass beforehand. There's a lot of pleasure packed in this little 99-cent doodad.
Oh, asafoetida. Where have you been all my life? This is a key seasoning in some South Indian food. It's kind of woody tasting. (And I know some of you are going to make dirty jokes about that expression, but feel free to keep them to yourself.) I sprinkled it on my butternut squash seeds that I roasted this afternoon, along with salt.
In fact, anything that is nice, but contains "foetid," is pretty cool, don't you think? Like this:
It's rosa foetida, Austrian copper -- it's all over Santa Fe. It smells kind of like cinnamon, which I guess is "foetid" compared to sweet rose smell.
And this is my other favorite thing today:
You know he's good, because he has allergies that cost me a fortune, he has a wart or something on his ear, and he spent the whole day acting like a barking freak outside.
He stood in the snow barking for 20 minutes, then came in and gave me his super sad look while he trembled to tell me he wanted to sit on my lap. Where my laptop was, leaving little room for a snowy, shivering, 25-pound "mini" schnauzer. That's how he rolls. I did not give in.
He is too fuzzy, and yet too shivery to go to the groomer's right now. Therefore, today we engaged in some bonding while I trimmed his butt hairs. He didn't want to engage in that bonding. As a matter of fact, neither did I.
He sleeps in a little dog bed and he received a Samoyed-sized plush dog throw for Christmas. I'm going to cut it in half and sew it up and make it into two plush dog throws. We tuck him in at night and buy him wheat-free dog treats. It's nuts.
But maybe, just maybe, it's better than raindrop-covered mitten-clad kittens.
Currently
listening
:
Women as Lovers
By
Xiu Xiu
Release date: 29 January, 2008
7:24 PM - Hey, baby, what’s your number?
Category: Life
At the beginning of this week, I went to an enneagram workshop at my daughter's school. We read paragraphs describing the various enneagram types and picked which one fit us best.
I was kind of surprised to be a 4. Before, somebody had pegged me as a 1. I don't really like the sound of either of them. Because, you know, you get to choose your personality by how good you think the traits sound from the outside. Right?
But every little clue as to why I see life the way I do is interesting to me. Apparently, when you're a 4, or a 1, or a 6ish/5ish, life needs some explaining.
If you want to know what type you are, the test is here. Then come back and tell me all about it.
1:01 PM - On literary gifts, "funky" gifts, and the aesthetic appeal of the Hot IQs
Current mood: ninja
Category: Writing and Poetry
This is such a great fund-raising idea for Denver's Lighthouse Writers. They're auctioning napkins with snippets of writing by their beloved instructors - and Tobias Wolff, who has the priciest napkin but has no bids yet!
And for those of you who don't speak German or French, or have not indulged in the Free Rice game, "serviette" means napkin. A special instructional shout out to the DJ on Radio 1190 yesterday who could not quite figure that out.
Speaking of Radio 1190, I bought watts during their fall membership drive in ... um ... gee, it was quite a while ago. I still have not received my membership goodies, though -- I'm supposed to get a CD of Tarantella, a mystery Denver-band CD, and the new (well, not really new anymore) CD from the Hot IQs! Maybe they're going to make like Santa and swing by my house on Christmas Eve and sling it out of their flying Radio 1190-logoed Mini Cooper so that SWISH! it lands right under the tree. If so, I hope they will gift wrap each item appropriately (note: The T-shirt isn't for me).
And speaking of the Hot IQs, I saw Eli from the band at Pablo's Coffeehouse on Wednesday, slapping up a poster for their Dec. 22 show. (Really, he was moving slower than "slapping" would imply.) All the Hot IQs are really cute. Look.
They're cuter when they smile, though.
Speaking of Denver (do you like my segue? It's an oldie but a goodie), I tried to buy some locally handmade goodies for Christmas this year at the Fancy Tiger gift fair. I scored great parking and everything.
OK, now that I said "full disclosure" you know something's coming. Well. So I walked into the fair, and it was like walking onto the set of a play about hipsters. All the girls were wearing fuzzy sweaters in earth tones or pink, short tweed skirts and tall boots, with their hair in "wacky" pigtails. All the boys were wearing tousled hair and skinny emo jeans that were sliding down their butts (but the boys were more obviously over 30). Most everyone of both genders was wearing ironic "ugly" glasses. I was wearing my black wool coat, short hair, and I think jeans, which combination rendered me completely invisible. Whoo!
I walked through the whole place. I'm only shopping for a couple of individuals yet. They are not incredibly, ironically "funky," they might be plus-size, and they do not have infants; ergo, there was nothing for them there.
There was a lot of "ironic" and unique gift-selling -- purple and brown candy-striped legwarmers (labeled "Legwarmers!") anyone? Baby clothes to give your enfant the cheery holiday look of a Ronald McDonald shrunk in the wash?
And there was one painfully unironic woman standing near the front door at a table of nametags or something, looking pained.
You know this is all just sour grapes because now I am forced to admit that I'm old (well, admitting I'm old anyway), don't drive a scooter, and don't look good in purple and brown OR ugly glasses. Dammit.
If you're into all that, I'm sure it was really cool. I liked the idea, anyway.
I did buy something at the Denver Potters Association show I stumbled across at a church off 6th Avenue. The very best part is that my credit card receipt reads
DENVER POTTERS ASS
Heh heh.
Happy shopping to you and yours. Nobody sprain a wrist out there.
Currently
listening
:
Songs for Christmas
By
Sufjan Stevens
Release date: 21 November, 2006
I laughed, and those of you who know me well/long, you know I had a big ol' Elvis shrine on my apartment wall when I was 20. I believe I will have to see that movie -- perhaps even sooner than two years behind schedule, as is my wont.
The post has zero official comments. Off the record, I got a couple of "yikes" remarks from friends.
I said that that day wasn't typical ... but in a lot of ways, it is. I am forever juggling my desire to work full-time with my desire to be a full-time parent and homemaker, not to mention doing things the best way (right, moral, green, clean, whatever) I can manage.
Sometimes, this results in very little time to enjoy things. I'm trying to develop a focus on the idea that life is for enjoying. It's hard for me to do. Just stop and relax.
So I'm wondering. What is YOUR typical day like? Do you relax? Do you enjoy? And if so, how?
Seriously, please tell your perspective. I'd love to see beyond TV images and magazine ought-to-do lists and into your real life.
11:17 PM - Are you left or right?
Current mood: dizzy
Category: dizzy Life
I came across this in cyberspace. (Do people still say "cyberspace"? Doesn't that sound weirdly 2004 now?)
When you look at this dancer, is she turning clockwise or counter-clockwise?
Clockwise for me. Although if I stare enough at the blinking ad beneath her, she can turn counter-clockwise. And back.
I was happy to have such a definitive definition of my right-brainedness. I can never decide which side of my brain is dominant. The little nerve impulses dash back and forth, thinking about it, until they get dizzy and throw up.
Although maybe I am left-brained, and I only see it going clockwise because I'm in the northern hemisphere and it's an Australian site? Does it work like that? Like flushing toilets on either side of the Continental Divide?
And have you been to the Continental Divide? I have, of course. One of the bennies of being a Colorado native.
Please post your answers below, dear readers.
Currently
listening
:
Evolution: The Hits
By
Dead or Alive
Release date: 24 June, 2003
I posted a blog at Cheap Like Me about my busy work this weekend. Check it out if you want to know what I've been up to, including old-fashioned handicrafts and some electrical work. I promise it doesn't mention toilet paper.
You know when you really love a band, or a musician, and you think they're so awesome and amazing that you memorize all their songs and tell everyone about them and can't get enough and sing their work in your sleep?
And then they release their whatever, third, fourth, fifth album, and it's doing something totally different and it is so awful that you're embarrassed you ever heard of them, let alone praised them to heaven?
Yeah. I hate that. (Although sometimes I can forgive them enough to still love the old stuff.)
inquisitive
peaceful
ninja
