White Noise

Jul
9th

Thu

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Elbow—“Grounds for Divorce”

Tons of new music acquired in the past 24 hours: old Cat Power (including her original version of “Metal Heart,” which I prefer, I think), new Elbow, that praised Kings of Leon album from ‘08, the new Decembrists (seen it all live but hadn’t owned most till now), a lot of Handsome Furs, Lily Allen, Lykke Li, and some awesome stuff from Jason Lytle, the former frontman behind Grandaddy, who released his debut solo album about a month ago.

Jul
7th

Tue

My life has become a series of ticking clocks, all set to ring in the next 7 to 11 days or so.

Leaving town, leaving the country, finishing an academic monster of experimentation, finishing another piece of work I’ve been tinkering with, all happening very much in the now. It’s a good feeling.

Jul
6th

Mon

Just because your certified , doesn’t mean your qualified

— THE_REAL_SHAQ on Twitter, speaking the truth

Away We Go? ...no

It was my sister’s 18th birthday earlier this weekend and today we caught the new Sam Mendes-directed, Dave Eggers-and-Vendela-Vida-written dramedy called Away We Go. Worth seeing, I guess, but there are some definite issues.

I wanted to like this movie—I really did!—but the whole time I couldn’t get over how much the movie wanted its audience to dislike everyone except for the main two characters, Burt and Verona. It was as if the movie itself were a bully, chastising and criticizing a catalogue of characters loosely connected to the main couple. To see this display, one after the other, was troubling. They even mock the main guy’s father because he likes to use the word outstanding. And outstanding is a fine word! The primary virtue of this movie comes across in the couple’s affection and the reality that many young and good couples do go through this type of geographic confusion…though those two virtues aren’t enough to make a movie. Charming, sure, but at what cost?

In the past I’ve liked and defended some of Eggers’ work, though I trust him and Vendela a little less after this display that, in some ways, comes off as more than a little tasteless and vaguely mean in its smugness.

P.S.The Alexie Murdoch, despite being all right music, didn’t help the maudlin sentimental elements of the movie.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

— Lao-Tze

Jul
4th

Sat

Albert Camus and the Pleasures of Literary Obsession

Jul
2nd

Thu

The Stephin Merritt Standard - The New York Times

Here’s a great New York Times Magazine profile (February ‘02) of Stephen Merritt, the guy behind the Magnetic Fields. I’ve listened through…maybe three of their albums so far tonight? I’ve got just about every album they put out, except for half of i (the album playing now).

Until recently, I had Freedom’d myself out of the Internet in order to write for a solid, nonstop 75 minutes. I haven’t stopped writing, but having the Internet back allows me too much access…I’ve been looking up reviews of different albums and finding articles like this on the side, stuff that, really, I shouldn’t be doing. Did you know there was controversy about Merritt’s supposed racism back half a decade ago? It seemed like utter bullshit, from what I could gather…oddly enough, even David Carr was writing about it at the time.

DON'T GET THAT COLLEGE DEGREE! - New York Post Valid thoughts, mostly.

Why is reality TV so unfriendly?

Jun
30th

Tue

I’ve begun watching Arrested Development again and I can’t stop myself.