she-mantis

2006-07-16T10:19:00.000-04:00

I Have Seeeen Thees Kind ov Madness on the Set Beforrre...

The past few weeks at the new job have been quite educational, to say the very least. While depressing on many levels, I feel like I'm watching an ant farm, sometimes from the kitchen table, and sometimes from within its very trenches, and that's pretty amusing, if not creepy, stressful and disorienting.

Three days of tasteless, anemic-looking, carb-laden catered lunches, featuring things that would barely qualify as even the most boring cheapskate in the world's "picnic food" + "mandatory overtime" + "mandatory business attire on Monday and Wednesday - Friday because our insect overlords from California are visiting" + appalling heat/humidity for days left the citizens of Cubicleland in a sorry state of drag-ass disrepair this week – self included – though no one seemed able to put a finger on WHY THIS COULD POSSIBLY BE. A shocking mystery, I know.

I actually have been more than a little surprised by how generally tired and miserable people look around the place, and not just this week. I was thinking that a bad omen of layoff sorts was afoot, or something similarly upsetting, but nay. It's just how people ARE in the office arena. I was away for seven months and managed to forget it all, it seems. Strange, because I'd always thought my memories of the half-hearted cheer, the heavy-hearted sighs, the eyeless smiles, the slackened jaws, the intensive and pointless gossip, the meringue handshakes and the faint payday glee were burned into my brain for all space and time. But perhaps it's not the job itself, and the deep gloom hails from far beyond the company property. Maybe everyone else at work has a crap life these days too. I know for sure that a bunch of 'em do. Or maybe I'm just projecting. It could happen.

Another weird thing I've noticed is that the womenfolk look different than they did when I first infiltrated their ranks on a full-time basis a couple weeks ago. The changes are subtle, but they're there. The initial scene was one of puffy 80's hair, bridesmaid/anchorperson makeup, pastel summer clothes, bad/loud radio station-listening, very little courtesy, lots of needless tension and no sense of humour at all. Now there is increasing evidence of sleeker hair, less makeup, darker-colored clothing, iPods dusted off and brought in from home for private tunes-listening, more "thank yous" and even a smattering of relaxed black humour now and then. Oh yes, my will be done, whether I'm actually trying to enforce it or not [and I'm not]. It would seem, anyway. How unintentionally insidious! I daresay that before long the whole office will be on my "cycle" – men included – but we'll see what the lab has to say about that. It really is odd to me, though. I show up and keep to myself, unless some sort of interaction would be rude not to engage in, etc., but gradually and nevertheless, people's spines appear to be turning into Slinkys. Naturally, I must examine this phenomenon further and figure out how best to wield my powers for not good but Eevile. I'm thinking my next move will be to commandeer the trashy, supermarket-grade lunchroom magazines and secretly replace them with something a little more interesting and inspiring. Or address that heinous catering-quality issue, once and for all.

Seriously though, there's no chance in hell that a software company located in Macomb County, Michigan is ever going to become a hotbed of cutting-edge culture and intrigue, and lord knows I'm not the one to spearhead such an effort if it even were possible, but that doesn't mean there isn't a little room for improvement.

These are some bored, clueless people looking for more. More anything, it would seem.

Me too.

2006-07-12T23:41:00.000-04:00

Put On A Gown That Touches The Ground

I'm only about 3/4 of the way through Ascending Peculiarity, even though I got it back in January. Dreadful and shocking behavior, I know, considering it's really the only BOOK-book I've been reading this year, apart from Perfume, which I finished rereading a few months ago. And still it's a collection of interviews, not a novel or such. But in my defense, there's a time and a place for proper indulgence in mirth like this, and such prized coordinated moments/locales have been few and far between these past seven months. Also, I reread the paragraphs of books I love at least 50 times each, which slows things down considerably, you understand.

Anyway, when I read the following passage from the tome this past Saturday, I first laughed in an unhinged manner for an embarrassing amount of time, and then seriously wondered if The Bearded, Scribbly One was metaphorically alluding to me, for an even more embarrassing amount of time. It's Wednesday now and I wonder what the hell I was thinking then... Nevertheless, his words about Bette Davis make me wish I was like her a bit. Life would be that much more fun, non? Especially nowadays, when mine largely resembles a bad screenjob.

Anne Nocenti, interviewer:
"An individual like Bette Davis?"

Edward Gorey:
"Yes, like Bette Davis. God knows she was in some real clinkers, but they were always entertaining. When I was growing up, I thought Bette Davis wildly overacted. When she was in a good movie she was faithful to it. She didn't run amok. But when she saw that the movie was just absolutely bad, she would pull out every stop, she would keep you entertained. And even then I don't think she falsified what she was doing."

Love it.

In other news, Syd Barrett has died. I'm one of the ignorant types who thought he'd already done so years ago, but that's probably due to a blasphemous rumour I half-overheard while abandoning the flat, watery beer line at The Silverdome with great haste as the opening chords of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" began to reverberate through everyone's souls [Division Bell tour back in the 90's. The college years. Those "wilderness" ones.]. Also, there was "happy fungus" amongus, if you will, which no doubt added to my misunderstanding of his whereabouts. Anyway, I won't pretend to be the Biggest Fangirl Evar of Syd & Co., but I certainly have loved me some Floyd in my day. Passionately, even. Since there's no drinking on work nights, I'm postponing my wistful and many-albumed listening party till Saturday or Sunday. It's just better that way. Read here for a nifty tribute to [and quite attractive photo of] the troubled and genius one. Trust me, it's a far better batch of reminiscent typery than what I just hacked together in the middle of another one of the worst weeks ever.

Here's to running amok.

2006-07-08T17:43:00.000-04:00

Seeing photos of yourself looking absolutely horrible in the wee, humid hours of the morn at a party does a lot to reframe your view of said party, not to mention yourself. It doesn't matter if you were aware the photos were being taken or not, or whether you remember actually posing for them or not. Talk about your out-of-body experiences, rude awakenings, unplanned interventions and clues to latent body dysmorphic problemos...

In other but somewhat-related news, two hours spent in an otherwise nice bath the startlingly yellow shade of Mountain Dew or, perhaps, multivitamin-enriched pee [Damn drugstore-grade bath bombs! Gimme Lush or homemade ones anytime.], with a couple glasses of wine, utter silence, a writing pad and a pen can bring some amazing and disturbing things to light. The release of previously unfaced/tamped-down problems of the heart and mind, and oh, the revelations. "They" say that Winston Churchill did his best thinking in a bath. I'd be hard-pressed to argue with that logic.

But I do wonder what brilliant things would come to mind while doing time in one of these babies:

2006-07-07T23:34:00.000-04:00

Awful People, They Surround You

I moved to peer out a kitchen window this eve,
In hopes of seeing my area bunnies get their 8-9pm Eatin' Fest on,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But my idiot neighbor peeing on the side of his garage,
And no tiny reindeer or bunnies anywhere to be found...

An apt metaphor for the latter part of this week, really.

The week started out alright. Last Saturday I appeared in Jazz Age Attire* at a Jazz Age Theme Party at a Jazz Age-Type Manse, and had a Jazz Age Decent Time despite Falling Prey to a Dreadful Attack of the Modern-Day Maudlin Vapors come about 430ish a.m. TERRIBLY untoward and un-bee's knees-like behavior. Some people should really refrain from staying out all night drinking wine and missing someone terribly, i.e., me. I spent the next few days hiding out from horrible summer heat and awful weekday work, eating all the wrong food, sipping additional wine and having many amusing conversations with an oddly accented and becaped foe I know.

Then the work week and annoying homelife and proper diet and much therapeutic running ensued and it was all downhill pissing on the sides of garages from there. Bleh. I'm grateful to be gainfully employed again, but a random woman at my place of saidly gainful employment declared my newly/FINALLY acquired cubicle area "too bare"** and took it upon herself to provide me with three mini sledding penguin figurines. You know, to give my workspace a bit of "pizzazz" and all, so that it would flow bountifully, effortlessly and seamlessly into the tacky, Dollar Store chum-laden river of my immediate cow-workers' godawful tchotchke-esque domain. Also, my vegetarianism has already been frowned upon/blinked at with much befuddlement by several parties even though I've only been there about two weeks and it's fucking 2006***, my natural hair color has been pondered aloud, and IT guys have hovered needlessly and quite conspicuously in my general vicinity, making sure I catch every one of their World of Warcraft refs, the poor, naive dears. Oh, the irky, fragile surface they scratch at with such tawk; the rather unamused and dead-end depths they mistakenly plumb. :) If they really wanted to impress me they'd secretly hook me up with some of that sweet, sweet and very-rationed net access, and make sure that the damningly evidential server logs fall off the back of the truck somewhere west of Albuquerque tout de suite. I'll resort to chloroform if I have to. I'll flush my brain in a healthy manner that doesn't include huddling around the company picnic table out back next to the dumpster with the company smokers, or I'll die trying. Mark my words.

So yeah, pleased it's the weekend again. I kinda need it. I'll listen to Band of Horses, John Jacob Niles and Odetta on repeat in the comforts of my own home. Attempts to outrun the angst via Treadmill-Time Playlists of Fury featuring ye olde NIN, Manson, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Public Enemy have proved cathartic but not wholly problem-solvingly fruitful, I regret to report. I haven't Been Delivered. This persistent left-eye twitch doesn't agree with me, either. Nor does the stress and/or unflatteringly-incandescent fluorescent lighting and life-irk from whence it came.

* Or as I did also call it, "two slips and a bunch of jewelry with matronly hair, too much makeup and too-high heels." What can I say? While Gorey-esque, 'tain't mine usual garb.
** Or as I say, "Spartan. On purpose, thanks."
*** Is it REALLY so strange in this day and age?

2006-07-03T21:39:00.000-04:00

Photic Organs of Lucifer!

There's a new area pet in this modest landkeep of mine, and this night I do officially add the wee beast to the smallish-but-heartfelt roster of rabbity, squirrely, unfortunate things I consider mine own and watch with great wist from out mine windows on dewy morns and golden, sunsetty eves, and consider carrying photos of in mine wallet, truth be told: A lone firefly. A slutty male one, in fact. The brown and non-luminous females emit no beacon, of course. Unfortunate, and au so contraire, mon frere. Wrong.

Anyway... Lone!!! Lone. I'm used to seeing 'em in flashy, gay, strobe-lit bunches. This area male flies solo. Love. Tis truly summer now. Forget that solstice thingy-crap a few weeks ago. Shit be real, now-like.

2006-06-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

I Was Looking for a Job and Then I Found a Job...

And lo, the rainy, mostly cloudy sun has set on day two of my return to the fluorescently lit shadow world of the "full-time employed." I am once again a "working stiff," a "citizen of Cubicle City," a "rat-racer who is not 'on the take,' but rather, 'gainfully employed,'" and what relief and joy come of having a "regular paycheck" and "benefits" have already been fully eclipsed by the doom, anxiety and despair of all the things which accompany that "relative financial security," I'm afraid. Namely, the "people," the "office setting," and the "politics of people in an office setting." I'd forgotten about those things. Seven months spent in the mostly blissful arms of home-based and loungewear-clad contract work and unemployment-collection after an appalling permanent layoff will do that to a person, it seems. But here I am.

The past two days of my foray back into the pinchy, metal-clawed clutches of The Man have been interesting, to say the least. I have a computer-based design job, yet no desk, computer or phone appears to be available for my use. They've had me doing that scary "use the person on vacation's workspace for now" kind of thing, "but not her computer or phone; use that person's for that, or maybe that one's...hmm." And "oh, there's no internet access or IM for the people in your department. I didn't mention that? Do my eyes deceive, or did you just lose your will to live?" That kind of thing.

I'm now spending the rapidly dwindling hours of my daytime life utterly cut off from the outside world, in a greige cubicle that's been lovingly festooned with unflattering photos of very rotund children, their mother and her drunken friends; an array of multi-colored sunglasses-shaped stick pins and Dollar Store figurines, candles and miscellaneous ephemera; depressing holiday photos of bored, red-faced people; a small, dusty pot of red plastic tulips; a teddy bear wearing a rubber band sash emblazoned with the words "rubbr band"; dishes of gross candy; a kittens calendar; a pink mini-fan and... a Navajo blanket. There's a thin, shiny veneer of hand lotion and fast food greazze and tanning booth oil covering all surfaces I've been unfortunate enough to touch by accident. Even the tissues I've drawn from what I thought was a new box seem slick. I fear this On-Vacation Woman, and her eventual return to her work station come Monday. She is in Florida, and she will return oranger and shinier than when she left. With bad white coral jewelry. And tales of vacational exploits so horrifying, I'll have to relay them here in an effort to ease my mind, even if it means damaging everyone else's in the process. It's a good thing I lack the tools to scan photos at work.

On-Vacation Woman's Buddy [my trainer] sits in an identical cubicle directly adjacent to the one I'm mostly stationed in, and she listens to the kind of always-loud radio station that plays James Blunt, Creed and Gnarlz Barkley two-to-five times per hour. She's currently embroiled in what seems to be a heated power play for "second-in-command alpha female" of the department, even though no takers seem to exist. Unless she senses I'm up for it...? Pass. There are better things to dominate than people who design real estate forms and software for a living. When I was unknowingly lamenting aloud the fact that I'd forgotten to bring my iPod with me today [I was overtired. Oops.], she offered me the use of her Nano, earphones and all. Or I could use the earphones of On-Vacation Woman, if I so desired. In fact she insisted, and looked miffed when I declined. I'm still shuddering and wanting to sterilize my ears even though it's been a good 12 hours since that magic moment went down.

I just want my own space already. One I can anoint with rubbing alcohol and then set ablaze like a high school lab table. I'll cleanse it with the holy fire of imagined office... cleanliness, and then decorate it tastefully and zenfully with non-tacky anti-suicidal totems that don't inspire suicide in all who pass. [They may instead inspire quizzical looks and extra prayers at church on Sunday, but I can hardly help that.] I'll sit there and get my paycheck on and be not afraid to touch or focus on anything within arm's reach. I'll refrain from tellin' everyone mah bizznazz. I'll keep my tunes and my lunchtime odors and my bad tv opinions to myself. I won't corner people into horrible lunch outings, baby showers, weddings or "Secret Santa" Dollar Store Offs come December. I won't talk about the weather or the traffic. I'll do my job efficiently and properly, and be the under-the-radar-est, most drama-free and private black sheep in the herd so I can just get the hell outta there and back to life sans too much hassle. It's what I do. Check my references.

2006-06-17T22:57:00.000-04:00

Channeling Vangelis’ Chariots.

I ran like mad all week, in an ongoing and sweaty, tiring effort to get back to that place where I was last autumn, when 7 miles was the standard per eve and 8 had become a Giddy High Point on an increasingly regular basis, when I dreamed of an Effortless 10 and resolved to consider Competing. I'm only at a hard-won 6 thus far this year. Bleh. Twas a "difficult" winter, to put things mildly. I'm no marathoner, and haven't made it back to an easy 7 [yet], but methinks I could mess up a Small Town Fun Run or two these days. Rain on a few overly ambitious parades, at the very least. Detroit's Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot in November, anyone? You know, the early morn after one of the biggest bar nights of the calendar year? Believe it or not, hundreds actually turn up, and I always wish I was among their scary rankses.

My cousin Bruce used to run marathons and mini-ones alike. When covering this "never previously fathomed and/or broached genetic-bonding territory" with him after many, many drinks chez my parents, Xmas 2005, he told me that "the crowd carries you" when I expressed my suspicion that I'd fare terribly if I attempted to run with a pack of humans [even though I secretly covet doing so]. I'm used to running quite privately solo on a treadmill, thanks, which doesn't allow for much competition, much less eeevile elbow-jostling or joggy camaraderie, four distant years of high school track & field experience bedamned, dammit. Sometimes people running outside on the sidewalk pass me, but only sometimes, like when my navigating thumb is too sodged with perspiration to scroll through the Pod properly and I have to stop and find a dry surface to wipe it on, etc. I should note that I did run outdoors at one time, galloping merrily through the treesome and pleasant neighborhood in which I live, but this was cut rather short a couple years ago, when seasonal allergies tried to kill me and gross men honking and lurking about in cars creeped me out beyond all reasonable comfort zonage. I gave up and got myself a treadmill, and haven't really looked back. It's just been better that way. Sometimes the treadmill doubles as a runway - music depending - but that's a post for another and more camply glamourous day.

I did seriously consider doing a run in a neighboring small town recently. Twas a benefit for area animal shelters, and there were shortish runs for people avec and sans animals. Of course I would only settle for running in the "avec animals" event, and even considered purloining my brother's flat coat Lab for the occasion, so that I could frolic amongst all of the fuzzy cute of all shapes and sizes, but as luck would have it, I forgot the date and realized it only when I was about 3 hours too late and a smidgen too hungover the following day. D'oh!

Anyway, it's weird how various elements must fall into place in order to make a decent run happen. Sometimes I'm too overheated, loosely coiffed, leaden, tired, unfocused and totally lacking in flow music-wise, and every fucking step is an Olympic feat. I hate myself, the universe and wonder why I even fucking try. I barely make it through a few miles, and feel as though the entire effort was an utter waste. But then there are the eves when I feel hydrated, taut, fast, tidy, focused and perfectly in synch with what I'm hearing, thinking and doing, and every mile is a breeze [if sweaty]. It all somehow works, and I wish that my every jaunt could be a zen one just like it. I imagine that runners don't normally have sessions like that, but being runners, we have to try anyway.

This year is about halfway done this week. ????? Shesus. Need to speed up in more ways than one.

2006-06-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

From Frying Pan To Fire; Plot To Plate

And so begins another season of Hell's Kitchen, wherein bumbling, lumpen chef-types try to retain some shred of dignity whilst being fileted, flambeed, pureed and sauteed a dark, crispy black-brown by the sweary, shouty Master Chef Gordon Ramsay, before they are unceremoniously soaked in the sink and then scraped into the garbage can with the vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and soiled, damp paper towels. We loves it, Preciousss! : ( Bad tv we can get behind.

I wish the people competing for executive chefdom and/or their own restaurants were people who can't cook at all, like moi. Methinks THAT would make for some good, red-faced cussin' and sub-par food-flingery. I'd try out and shit, even though I'd probably make for bad tv fodder. I'd laugh like mad during the obscenity-peppered dress-downs and refuse to be cowed into weepy submission, which pretty much flies in the face of the ego-battering flow of things, concept-wise. A pity.

To my limited credit, I can make a few things quite well, can read and follow recipes and can assemble a killer snooty cheese board like nobody's business. I've just never had the time, patience, passion and cashola in one place at one time to form any kind of lasting/skilled cooking habits. Again, a pity. Be that as it may, I haven't abandoned my dreams of winning yelly cooking shows or opening my own seasonal restaurant in a restored Victorian farmhouse with its own gardens, wherein area dogs of a certain noblesse trot ably about, helpfully and cheerfully transporting saddlebags laden with freshly plucked produce, herbs and spices to the foody alchemy-staging arena, wherein my partner and I employ all sorts of kitchen witchery to transform these gifts of the earth into edible delights of an inspired nature, and then serve said delights to an appreciative, charming and small-numbered public, who don't talk too loudly or tip badly or chew with their mouths open, and generally provide decent company all around. Le sigh... One day, perhaps.

2006-06-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

Giant Little Animals To Feed

Shows I've missed thus far this summer:

Mogwai
Arab Strap
Sigur Ros
The Duke Spirit
Band of Horses

This is unforgivable, and the me of my 20's would totally join the me of now in kicking my ass for this. I really can't explain it, except to say that I'm so used to never going to shows anymore that I don't know what to do when bands I'd love to see actually come to town. To be honest, though, this cultural vacuum of a metropolis has hosted more than its fair share of traveling talent lately, and I'm not sure how any of the other two or three likeminded people around here are managing to keep up, either. Here's hoping this trend will reverse itself, because otherwise I'll be adding The Legendary Pink Dots, NIN and Calexico to that list very soon.

In other news, I've spent a good and pleasant hour staring at the darkly works of Louviere + Vanessa, the "Creature" in particular. Tres inspiring. Makes me want to a) finally adopt many greyhounds and Weimaraners, and b) finally tackle that collection of odd little stories I've been avoiding for ages, and I think I just might. I'm certainly not too busy attending gigs these days...

2006-06-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

If I Am Lost It's Only For A Little While

Album of the weekend, and perhaps, the summer:

Everything All The Time* - Band of Horses
18 listens since Saturday eve, and counting! I first heard a track of theirs on Jon Moshier's program on WDET a month or so ago. I wrote the band's name down and then spent the next several weeks searching in vain for a copy of the album. Twas sold out everywhere I looked for it; a good sign, if vexing. I finally found it this weekend, at Borders of all places. C'est muy wunderbar to these ears. It's hitting my gushsome obsesso button much like the issue of other indie bands who came out of nowhere and clubbed me over the head with their odd and unexpected charm and then demanded that I peer down my high-horsed nose of tune-based anoraky at once and take a mildly educated chance on them. Of course I'm referring to such entities as Calexico/Iron and Wine [In the Reins], The Arcade Fire [Funeral], The Duke Spirit [cd comp craftily cobbled for yours truly by one Blod the Impaler] and Sunny Day Real Estate [Live], the clever, insidious b'stards. Benjamin Bridwell's reverby, hornlike voice is muchly akin to Brian Wilson's, Perry Farrell's, Mark Kozelek's and Jeremy Enigk's. I do like a singer-man who can effortlessly lilt and soar his way through a register much higher than any kind I'm comfortable warbling within the confines of. It makes for instant wist and pine 'round here.

Tracks of note: All!!! But if I have to narrow it down... "The First Song," "The Funeral," "Part One," "The Great Salt Lake" and "Monsters." Beauteous maximus. That describes the past weekend too, actually. Well, apart from that three-hour 'net outage Saturday night that tried to kill me, anyway.

* A stealthy nod to Radiohead's "Idioteque," perhance?

2006-05-31T21:36:00.000-04:00

I've Got To Say That It [Still] Hurts

On Monday eve a certain area Lady and I suited up and ventured out into the suffocatingly Hades-like weather with the intent to check out Nitzer Ebb and Richie Hawtin [among others] at Detroit's Movement festival downtown. Tis a Memorial Day weekend affair wherein many, many electronic musicians play to a few hundred-thousand people. It spans 12pm-12am Saturday–Monday on a few different outdoor stages near the river, and then it dissolves into many, many afterparties at clubs, bars and blind pigs all over the city. Tis crazay, and mostly scary in terms of the crowd/traffic/parking/bathrooms [to name a few things], but I have a soft spot in my tiny heart for the whole shebang anyway, being a serious fan of the pulsating strobe-lit arts. And I hadn't seen Nitzer since they appeared with Depeche Mode back in 1990, for Le Mode's Violator tour,* so making an appearance this year was mandatory. I fangirlishly hoped the shouty, dark-n-dancey fabulousness was still intact. Twas indeed.

God, was it. The fuckers sounded better live than on their recordings, just as they did back then! And verily we did dance through their entire set, and through Hawtin's as well, which amounted to approximately 3½ hours of nonstop rug-cutting [with only one mini-break in between the two sets]. OW. And barely could we walk afterward. I couldn't really yesterday, either. I run many miles a week and all, but Jebus. Note to self: proper footwear next time, eh?

Twas amusing to see the gothlings and more elderly post-goth types [ahem] emerge from the glowsticky woodwork and get their stomp on as Nitzer played. The usual techno-fan types were a bit .../heh/wtf? as the black-clad swarm suddenly descended upon the concretey realm of the main stage, but all were soon seduced by the aggro-chanty tunes and made to rock out hard in spite of themselves. I do believe that each of the tens of thousands of people there found themselves screaming along with "Join in the Chant," even if they'd just learned the lyrics and didn't even particularly care for ye olde industrial music prior to that night. Arrrghh! So. Fun. So. Loud. I think I'm still partially deaf and hoarse from all the yelling [to and over the tunes], and I do believe that all area buildings lost a window pane or three. A few hours of that heavy four-on-the-floor stuff turned up to 11 will compromise the integrity of any structure, be it human or human-made.

They say that the music you liked in your late teens/early 20s stays with you forevah, and I'm inclined to agree, because I still love all of the indie, industrial and other stuff I loved back then, but it makes me wonder what my golden years will be like, when I'm talking sonic wizardry with wee relatives. My grandparents raved to me about big band music and how they swooned over it when young. I'll be all "DUDE... MINISTRY. MY BLOODY VALENTINE! JOY DIVISION??? SMITHS!!! TECHNO." Oh dear.

Anyway, Richie Hawtin's set [which closed the festival] was way fantab as well. It was more traditionally "techno" and "dance-friendly" to most ears, for certain. Brought back many blissful early 90's warehouse memories, and living room dance-party/light-switch rave ones as well. Le sigh. More than a few times the guy took a break from the mix-mastering and knob twiddlery to gaze out at the sea of dancey thousands and smile. I always imagine it's quite exciting for seasoned veterans to perform for legions of uber-geeked fans, and clearly it was mondo exciting for the fans who turned up for this event, older and newer ones alike. Everyone was shrieking "ONE MORE TRACK" as the area lights were coming on and roadies were wrapping things up. It's probably best he didn't play one, though, because I'd have no feet left. In fact I just figured out the reason for the insane bruising on the inside of my right middle finger: It got pummeled like mad by the silver ring on my left during my extended 808-style handclap attack. Good times. Really.

* Holy showing my age, Batman!

2006-05-27T18:31:00.000-04:00

In Vino Veritas

On Thursday, June 1 I'm officially flinging myself headlong into a month of sobriety. Kissing the bottle of fermented grape goodbye. Climbing back on the wagon after having been bumped off and dragged behind it for more than a little bit too long. Sampling alternative methods of curing angst. Severing ties with my one and only vice, my favorite chloroform. Embracing clarity. Mending bulldozed fences. Not looking a good five years older than my actual age come Monday morn. Hopefully not gaining the weight I did the last time I brooked this particular stream. Possibly birthing another novella or two like I did then, too. Smiting atrophy and apathy in their many creeping forms and clever disguises as I go.

Life is simply too volatile and powder keg-like these days to be strutting around with all of these extra matches. Also, my tolerance levels need a hardcore reset every now and again, the sneaky, inchy, heredity-ingrained bastards. Tis time.

Now to pen a note of apology to the fine people at Foxhorn Vineyards, who will no doubt experience a sharp drop in stock value because of this initiative. Better them than me.

Get thee behind me, Satan! Leave the cheese.

2006-05-24T20:40:00.000-04:00

New Steps Rumoured

Tis Fully Springtime 'round here, and I've been trying to throw off the dolorous shackles of my heavier, more black n' blue wintertime music [read: Dead Can Dance, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday and the like]* in favor of lighter, sunnier, sassier fare like the flamenco-riffic Paco de Lucia, the tawdry Serge Gainsbourg, the sighsome Edith Piaf, jaunty Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and some bossa nova stuff en generale.

In keeping with this trend, last evening I finally viewed Strictly Ballroom, a film that's been very recommended to me very vehemently and very repeatedly by a certain straight** male I know. Twas a delight indeed, and I shall place a copy of the feature in my permanent possession sometime soon for future screenings. Ever so sassy, and sooooo recommended.

Now, I'm no stranger to the art of ballroom dance. I wrestle with my LOVE/HATE for it every time PBS suddenly and without warning [to me, anyway] shoehorns coverage of a national/international competition into its regularly scheduled programming. I'm all over it. I find it impossible to resist the sinisterly ribald rivalry that hisses and breathes so hard through its Gritted and Vaseline'd Teeth of Whitest White Ever. There’s just so very much to behold when it finally rears its shellac'd and brazen head, and emerges like a camp, shimmering mirage from the dark and mysterious shadow world of competitive dance for all to see...

Oh, the horrible, jazzed-up versions of classic, old songs; the fluorescent makeup; le taut skin de l'orange! The stiff/greazzy hair; the thousand-yard stares; the bad t-strap shoes and the leg-whippy dares! It's simply too, too much, dahling. But I live for the flamboyant peacock-men and their mirrorballs, and their tarty she-partners who've been made into veritable drag queens*** in an effort to SOMEHOW appear feminine beside them as they trip the light fantastic together; all of them blindingly bright and shining beacons to us mere mortals who dare to cut a rug before the altar of shimmy! Improvising!!! THROWING IN CRAZY, CROWD-PLEASING STEPS!!!! This is not your Momma's Chicken Dance.

I'm partial to the rhumba, myself. The "dance of love" and all. And I can mambo like there's no tomorrow if we're talking Yma Sumac. But oddly enough, I hate watching figure skating, which is pretty much the same scene on a frozen surface. More wipeouts and career-ending injuries, I think. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

* But not really.
** Really!
*** Sprayed, glued and sewn into glittery, sequined, ruffled, beaded and feathered submission, that is.

2006-05-18T19:06:00.000-04:00

Two Worlds And In Between

I got a copy of my alumni newsletter from the goode olde Oakland University Department of English the other day. Rather than chuck it straight into the garbahhhge [as I am normally wont to do] I had a look through the badly desktop-published, badly titled* thing. Apparently the newest edition features an "exciting make-over of both face and body," but I could uncover no evidence to support this outlandish claim. Not even a hint, actually, so perhaps I was issued a tired, old copy because they ran out of the tantalizingly tarty new ones by the time they got to the end of the mailing list alphabet. WHO CAN SAY FOR SURE.

Anyway, it would seem that one of the oddest [read: most favorite] English profs of mine past has embarked upon a new Fellowship project. It is somewhat strangely titled "Shakespeare and The Performance of Rehabilitation," but before anyone dozes off like I nearly did as I finished reading that, let me add that he'll be "studying performances of Shakespeare's plays by prison acting companies." Oh, Professor Herold. Always with the cleverness! I can’t say it shocks me to learn that the man has spearheaded such an effort, because after all, he used to teach English Lit to violent maniacs [the ones allowed out of their cells, anyway] at the maximum security prison tucked far, far up in the northern reaches of this fine state, but I want to see!! I wonder if the he-inmates will play all of the she-roles, as was customary back in The Bard's day. I wonder just how many prison acting companies there are in this land anyway, let alone the world. Clearly more than one exists if The Herold will be scrutinizing "companies." Visions of Sideshow Bob performing the H.M.S. Pinafore*** hath mirthfully sprung to mind, but seriously, who wouldn't be entertained by real-life ruffians theatrically foreswearing one another before faux-unseaming themselves from the naves to the chaps? Huzzah to that.

* The English Channel.**
** I know.
*** This blog should note that "Cape Feare" is one of the best Simpsons 'sodes evar. And speaking of that episode, this blog began to feel a bit "Sideshow Bob DeNiro-like" whilst watching Art School Confidential Tuesday eve amid an audience who didn't get some of the jokes, so it tried to stifle its loud, rude laughter. It did not, however, put out its cigar. Don't be silly.

2006-05-14T16:29:00.000-04:00

A Fangirl-Tastic, Sigur Ros-Riffic
[Old] Gig-Time Review Spectacular

I wrote most of this for an understanding fanboy-type last autumn, and believe me, there were loads more exclamation points and all caps in its original incarnation. I've toned it down a smidgen for the sake of my sanity - if no one else's - but on the eve of September 20 last year, I saw The Ros play one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It’s been on my mind lately because they were in town again this past Thursday, though I was not there. More about why that could’ve possibly been in a bit. The gig I attended was at a place called The Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor - a very grand, very gold-leafed and very red-velveted affair with very gorgeous acoustics and very comfortable chairs. Normally it's an indie theater for film. [Note to self: must see one there one of these days. MUST.]

A quartet of Icelandic womenfolk in curious peasantwear took the stage at 7:30pm sharp and played a dreamy music box-like set of super-mellow and charmingly atmospheric pieces full of gorgeous strings, tinkly bells, harpsichords and odd analogue keyboards with effects modulated via various pro audio gear and a Mac laptop. [It still kinda bums me out to see a laptop on stage at a live gig, but the tool of the devil himself wasn't misused here at all.] They played till 8:15pm and were so lovely and shy with the enthusiastic applause following their set, and they explained in broken, heavily accented English that they had a cd for sale in the lobby. Of course I was in an utterly trancelike state at the conclusion of the evening and totally forgot to grab one. It turned out they were the quartet who plays strings and such for many, many Ros tunes;* a nifty surprise indeed. I'd always wondered who was responsible for that enchanting witchery.

There was a brief stage-reconfiguring break as a cool loop of strings-based droning stuff played, and a white mesh screen was lowered at stage edge to conceal the machinations of the roadies. At 8:38pm the house lights went down and the band could be seen getting into place behind the screen [cue insane fangirl excitement; I live for that first partial-glimpse-of-the-band]. They began to play Takk... [the intro track to the album of the very same name], and then went right into Glosoli, during which time I quite nearly perished with glee. Twas note-perfect and hair-raising, and oh, how I wished a certain fanboy I know had been there to hear it. The stage lights were minimal and oddly set, and when they shone on the four band members [Singer/guitarist, pianist, bass player and drummer. The stringswomen were on for most but not all tunes.], black silhouettes were cast on the white mesh screen, such that the band was made to look like deformed, layered children. So cool and surreal.

They played till 10:20pm - a spine-tingling one hour and 45 mins of big sonic heaven - and they were completely mesmerizing from start to finish. If audience members needed bathroom breaks, they sure as hell weren’t taking them. I know I wasn’t. They did tracks from all albums, and I recognized everything except one tune. Fucking amazing musicians. All eight of them played a few different instruments in addition to their primary ones, and the blended effect of their efforts was nothing short of staggering. And the sound was incredible - between their talent and the arrangements themselves, the acoustics of the room and the skill of the sound guys, it was just flawless and perfect.

There were aaarty projections on to the mesh screen which partially concealed the band for a few songs, and also on to a different screen behind them for others; hazy, bleak, creepy-beautiful and shadowy slow-motion imagery and footage of birds on a wire, a person in a bear suit jumping on a trampoline, a fetal face, Quay-esque doll heads, static-y nature and branchy miscellany. There was this INSANE moment when the band and the Quay-dolls sequence paused mid-song. The band froze, the image froze, and all music stopped for like a solid minute. The silence [apart from two unfortunate theater-coughs] was startlingly beautiful. After the minute or so was up, the band and footage resumed and refilled the theater with the same intricate layers of gloriousness as had been playing moments before. It was SO tight. Seriously. Like a dvd of a show had been paused, rather than a completely analogue live performance by eight fucking people playing insane and multi-layered stuff. Twas stunning, to say the least.

For their encore they did a thunderous wall-of-sound version of track 8 from the ( ) album. By the conclusion of the song, the bass player and stringswomen had all broken strings, the singer was on his knees bowing the fuck out of his guitar and the drummer was bashing the hell out of his kit. At the final note he trashed the whole thing - arrrghh!!! Keith Moon-riffic! Then they all did their linked-arms group bow and watched all of us fan-types go crazy. They were so incredibly shy and sweet in contrast to the intensity of the performance just past. I remember that from the last time I saw them. So humble and honest. The grace... Le sigh.

The audience was rapt and still for most of the performance, or nodding along to the more driving stuff. Verily, I did chair-dance. It was a sit-down affair, though, apart from the standing O's which occurred after some songs. I'm not sure anyone could've stood through the whole thing. Twas knee-weakening, to say the least. Even the security guys [normally listless and bored as fuck] were transfixed. I should note that on this past Thursday eve, the band played St. Andrew's Hall, a chairless, standing-only venue in downtown Detroit. So fucking wrong for their type of music, and one of two reasons I decided not to attend [the other being that I sensed there was no way the performance could possibly top the one I just described], but oh well. I'm sure it was a lovely time for those who stood shifting from foot to foot for three hours nonetheless.

Anyway, the most beautifullest thing in the world to me, it was. Eight people creating a sonic universe of bursting hearts and gorgeous melancholy, and we witnesses feeling totally blown out by it. Twas like being fully immersed in the innocence of an opulent and magical children's book world, but with all adult-level awareness of pain and beauty intact. Very intense. I'd have cried a few times had I not been so stunned and a bit dehydrated. I had throat/chest/soul-ache the entire time. I felt totally wrung out afterward, but in a good way. Twas uplifting and inspiring. Yeah, I'd had two glasses of vino before the show, but the tunes were drugs and drink enough. I fear what would've become of me had I had a few more. I fear that future gigs won’t touch it, in my eyes, but we shall see. Mogwai is this coming Thursday...

* The keyboardist of the band arranges all of Sigur's strings because he's the only member who has actually studied music. I find that incredible, considering what talent the others obviously have. It seems that some of the strings on Agaetis Byrjun are palindromic too - arrrgh! I love when musicians do weird shit like that.

2006-05-13T18:59:00.000-04:00

Balloon Animal Husbandry

I've been thinking hard about balloon animal sculpture lately, as one tends to do in one’s quieter, more private moments, and I've been feeling horribly let down, as one also tends to do in these situations. I cannot possibly be the only person who's grown eye-rollingly tired of the same old giraffes, dachsunds, straight snakes, and straight snakes with knots somewhere in the middle. What’s become of children’s party-type fare, anyway? No evil, creeping aye-ayes; no sinisterly choreographed gorgon-head groupings of meercats; not even a fat, kindly wildebeest?? Where else do these things belong if not among scary clowns and impressionable juvenile types, and what could possibly be so hard about pulling off such twisty feats?

I've found this overly comprehensive and WAY TMI guide to the black arts of deft latex-finagling, and I'm thinking of diving in hardcore. Next stop: This Guyville. Population: me.

2006-05-11T21:18:00.000-04:00

A Giant Foam Finger Flourish

...goes out to Johnny Loftus, Metro Times music editor, for this little gem about "the DJ to 22,000 basketball fans":

"As everyone keeps saying, this is the playoffs, and the action on the court is what counts the most. But when you're at the Palace, doing the running-man in your seat and screaming half-remembered lyrics to Snow's "Informer" at the visitors' bench, it's Steve Conway, the swami of the sound booth, making you the Pistons' sixth man."

I hereby dub his writerly produce officially "Skimmable," because, even though I neither follow popular sports nor attend related events at area stadiums, this did make me laugh aloud several times. Like most people, I don't actually read the MT, but rather skip right to the bar listings with the desperately valiant hope that a band I actually want to see* will FINALLY play this area, but I do like the cut of this guy's jib. I dunno when he became music editor and Brian Smith changed to features editor, but I think it may just work out. Mr. Smith became Skimmable in my eyes several years ago, when he blew into town looking like a member of The Romantics and had the utter balls and/or glorious naivete to accurately label Detroit's then-burgeoning/reborn garage band scene as crappy, overrated and derivative. Oh, the nerve of that man, and oh, the hilarious letters to the editor that flooded in after he attended some area gigs and quite eloquently and frankly let rip in the manner that everyone else had previously been too scared or egomanaical - yet DYING - to risk. We lovesed it, Preciousssss, especially when jackass friend-types were the ones penning the shrill and poorly worded missives! Anyway, it seems young Loftus could be a worthy successor to the illustrious Mr. Smith. I will kind-of occasionally cast cursory glances at his future blurbs and bits and see.

* Speaking of such elusive creatures, Sigur Ros played Detroit tonight. More about that sometime this weekend.

2006-05-09T08:14:00.000-04:00

A Cleansing of the Wicked Indeed.

In "completely unplanned synchronicity" news, I watched the guns blazing-esque feature entitled The Devil's Rejects last night, after having reminisced about guns here only hours earlier. Strange how these things happen.

Anyway, THIS is a great "bad" horror film. The opening sequence was better than Hostel and Saw put together, but enough about those irksome life-drains. Nice freeze-frames during the title sequence too, though the choice of "Midnight Rider" as sonic accompaniment was far too weak, I thought, considering the haps. There are heavier tunes from back in the day that would work better, etc. Otherwise the soundtrack and score alike worked for me. Hearing Otis Rush out of the blue was a bit of a pool cue to the backs of my knees, but this is not to say that I was sorry to see its inclusion. Apart from Sherri Moon Zombie's teeth being far too white and perfect to be consistent with her trash-tastic psychowhore role, I found it difficult to fault ze film. Nice suspense, violence, insanity, terror, futility, OTT stereotypical character acting [god, the police chief...], bad toupees, ridiculous facial hair and overall cinematography and script, and even a helpful fashion tip: "A tube top is not appropriate for a mechanical bull ride." Dually noted, and ten thumbs up. Nice ode to the Chainsaw, Monsieur Zombie.

2006-05-08T11:16:00.000-04:00

Get out of the way, Hammerhead.

The area male and I used to own a couple of guns. A Beretta 92FS and a Glock 23, to be exact. He had a shotgun or two as well. Now that I read that back we sound like violent, maniacal survivalist-types, but we weren't at all. Really. It was just a hobby for a little while. Really!

We used to like to go shooting at an area indoor range. Twas a thrilling way to kill an hour on a Saturday afternoon. We'd fire our stuff for a bit and then rent other guns for the hell of it. I was partial to the .44 Magnum. It's a huge and ridiculous weapon and I felt all kinds of Harry Callahan when I held it. The thing kicked like a mule, but in a quite satisfying and strangely unscary way. I may or may not have squinted hard and uttered a few film quotes through gritted teeth before firing it each time. I still have the first paper target I abused during my maiden voyage to the range, in fact. 5 out of 6 chestal-region accuracy. I missed the one because I was laughing or something. Not bad for a beginner, I was told. I was also told that women naturally have better aim than men, especially during moments of panic. Good to know, even if it was a lie engineered by impressed counterfolk for flirtatious reasons, and it may very well have been.

The range employees were amusing and crammed with all kinds of knowledge and trivia. One guy was always giving out tips on how best to "flush out and handle" an area intruder, regardless of whether you'd actually requested guidelines for such a thing or not. His top tip was something like "load these kinds of bullets in this order because, ideally, you want to spray, spray, wound, kill." He also advised me not to shoot anyone in my home with the .44, as the bullets would go "through the intruder, through the wall, and through [my] car in the garage." Again, good to know.

Some of the range patrons were amusing too. Most were off-duty cops who kept to themselves and moved about the area in great and serious silence, but often there were these ghetto gangsta-wannabes toting little pea shooters that would do more damage as blunt objects than as the deadly bullet-hurlers they were imagined to be. These guys were always more scared than anyone else, and the most nervous around the guns, oddly enough. We traded ours for theirs for fun and warned them that they'd snap their wrists if they fired the Glock while holding it in the usual awkward [but stylin'!] gangsta posture. We also informed them that they'd hit the target once in awhile if they held their own guns properly. Amazing, but true. "Good to know," they said.

Those heady days of wholly imagined vigilantism are over, and the guns have new owners now, but it was a good run while it lasted. My only regret is that no one ever went ahead and made my day. Le sigh.

2006-04-30T19:11:00.000-04:00

Lady Day, Every Day

The site sort of glazes over her start in music. A molested and abused girl, she was a prostitute at age 20 - not a mere floor-scrubber and errand-runner at the brothel - and she died as an addict, of course, with her $750 cash taped to her thigh. But it's true she learned to sing while listening to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith on an old Victrola, and then she moved on to Harlem clubs. She renamed herself after her absent, dickheaded father. She had a tiny vocal range and sang "just behind the beat," most magically. She felt the pain, but there was a toughness within. She cursed, drank and brawled, and pursued both sexes, and her friends wondered how she survived, but she became the most important female singer in jazz anyway. Told us something about the pain of life, etc.

Oh, Billie. I watched a docu on ye tonight. Not that I'd forgotten, but it's nice to remember.

2006-04-29T21:41:00.000-04:00

Hostel Hostility

I was excited to see Hostel because I was assured I'd be befreaked and entertained, etc., and judging by its premise and its creepy trailers I’d seen and giddy feedback I’d read/heard, this seemed a fairly sure thing. So I indulged in a viewing last eve, looking forward to chills and maybe a gross-out or three. I have this odd habit of taking notes in a journal while watching films [a whole 'nother post in itself], so here be the complete set of notes I took while watching this "amazing, shocking and intense slasher flick":

9:41pm – Here we go...this is gonna be cool.

10:47pm – Okay, finally an "okay" scene.

10:56pm – Heh, Bernie Mac's agent as a new executioner/torturer/loose cannon-type. Amusing.

11:10pm – Revenge! FINALLY. Christ.

11:12pm – Bleh.

11:30pm – I’d like my Friday night back, thanks. 30 mins tops of random "hmm...okay" scenes does not = an "amazing," shocking" or "intense" horror film by any stretch of the imagination.

11:31pm - Oh, the idiot who wrote and directed Cabin Fever did this. Of course. [Editor's note: I actually didn’t mind that film till I watched his stupid ass in the DVD extras.]

Needless to say I was underwhelmed, and many a bored, angry sigh did escape my lips. Another decent premise executed poorly, with a few decent-but-getting-pretty-played-out grimy/arty visuals and some unpleasant-yet-unshocking physical trauma thrown in to "liven things up a bit." Saw and The Jacket, I'm looking at you. At least the acting was better in this film. Would it have killed David Fincher to direct either of these?? Probably, considering Eli Roth and the other guy wrote the screenplays. The film actually put me off Amsterdam and made me want to stay in a Slovakian hostel, which I daresay were NOT the impressions Mister Roth intended to leave.

I should note that I love a good "bad" horror flick, especially if it contains mind-warping psychodrama and makes my skin crawl. I grew up watching nearly every B movie under the sun, and I’m quite willing to suspend my disbelief, etc. Seriously. But does a person have to be an absolute moron to get freaked out by horror films in this day and age?? Is the board we're jumping off really that low? Where did we go wrong?

I should also note that The Ring scared the hell out of me on levels I didn't even know existed, as did the final few minutes of The Blair Witch Project [ARRGHGHGHH! My eyes are watering and I'm chilled to the bone just thinking about them! Anyway.]. So did The Wasp Woman and Salem's Lot and The Thing when I was wee. And The Texas Chainsaw Massacre will ever reign supreme. I Spit On Your Grave is up there in shudderiffic heaven too.

I have yet to see Silent Hill. The video game series is scarier than most horror films I've seen - and I've seen loads - so there may be hope yet. Good gawd, I hope there’s hope. Please let there be hope.

2006-04-27T14:28:00.000-04:00

I Can See for Miles and Miles!

I recently spent an unfortunately largeish sum of money on some new spectacles. Being descended from a long, squinty line of woefully blind and albino cave shrimp, I can't really see without 'em. I normally wear contacts, in a cunning attempt to lure the unsuspecting public into buying my 20/20 ocular powers while enabling myself to wear sunglasses from dawn till dusk, but alas and alack; after a full day stuck to my "seeing-orbs" they burns us, Precioussss, so out come the glasses.

I managed to find a frame I liked; one that would at least semi-stylishly accommodate the hefty lenses I require for my -4.50 mondo corrective action without leaving me looking completely walleyed. A tall order, and oh, the beveling, grinding and redirecting lengths the optical lab went to to make it happen! My frame criteria going in were as follows: black and rectangular, no bling and not too pinchy or eye size-minimizing. From the moment I waltzed into SEE on a recent Saturday afternoon, I knew I was in the right place. Flamingly camp and ridiculously helpful black-clad employees! The Smiths' Hatful of Hollow blasting overhead! Loads of black, rectangular and bling-free styles to choose from [among loads of others I'd never be caught dead in]! Twas nirvana-like for one who wanted nothing more than to not end up with oval fishbowl lenses protruding from gold/tortoiseshell frames, so verily I did partake.

Thus far the reviews of my new glassware - most akin to model #5126 - have ranged from "gay German techno DJ" [maaaaybe], to "nerdly indie record/comic store employee" [true], to "Lisa Loeb-like" [????], to my personal favorite, "Baroness, trusted lieutenant to one Cobra Commander" [Er... I'll take it. Even though the shape and size are all wrong.].

Why yes, I did once have a pet hamster named Destro, dahlink.

2006-04-23T10:08:00.000-04:00

Earth Day

I spent the better part of my Earth Day [a.k.a. "gloriously springtimey Saturday afternoon"] toiling in the yard, trying to beat back the wanton advances Mother Nature has rather sneakily made since I bonsai'd her to kingdom come and parts beyond last year. While my evil eye was fixed elsewhere, the branches did grow, the leaves did fall and then pile up, the stray twigs did multiply, the grass did go bananas, and the hedges did embiggen. How dare they.

But several hours and six garbage bags, eight lawn waste bags and at least ten different species of horrible spider later, a smallish amount of progress was made. Excelsior! I can now declare with some pride that the area surrounding the garage and within = tidy. Apart from all the stuff that needs to be hauled out to the curb on garbage day this coming week, that is. I should probably also include a plate of cookies for the waste management professionals, you know, to take the sting out of all that hell. To be honest, though, I think I’m due a "you must be fucking joking" type of streetside deposit. The junkdudes normally only have to contend with two of my tidy [if clinky] bags, whereas my neighbors seem to gut their entire homes every weekend and dump it all out on the curb come Wednesday morn for pickup. Seriously, how many obscenely ugly and stained couches, credenzas and rugs can one family have in one house???

Still to go: a) hornswoggle the area male into tearing himself away from World of Warcraft for one goddamned hour to cut the freaking grass already; b) pare down all greenery in front of the house; c) plant more hostas or some shit in its wake; d) cut back the branchery that seems determined to grow into the house via the roof; e) consider planting stuff like tomatoes, onions and basil in a tidy plot in the backyard; and finally, f) lower that airtight dome over the idiot neighbor's property, as I've been meaning to do for about two years now. I predict these tasks will be complete come next November or so. Maybe. It could happen.

2006-04-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

In area wildlife news, many, many birds of a feather appear to be flocking together in the numerous trees of my yard and the yards of neighboring neighborinis. Never have I heard the tuneful tunes of so many beaked and varied species!

I'm a little scared, actually. Where I used to have more sparrows than anyone could figure out what to do with, a modicum of mourning doves, maybe a brace or two of cardinals, one lone nightingale and an occasional lost pigeon, I now seem to be harboring scads of multi-colored songbirds [and at least one other nightingale]. It's delightful and cheery in a Disney-like manner, but it's also...slightly insidious in a Hitchcockian one. What are they up to, and why now??

Of course the only answer to these quandaries of the ages is that the idiot next door - The Most Clangtankerous Man In The History Of The World - has found something better to do with his time this Spring than randomly hammer and saw and power-sand on cars and other machinery while blasting classic rock music. Amazing the difference a little peace and quiet can make when it comes to nesting types, eh? Self included. I've actually opened a window or two and bought new bedding!! Fruiting around is also at an all-time high for all types involved. Curious!

Nevertheless, it may be time to call in the heavy artillery; The Parents. They can tag and bag most North American avian types at 100 yards, and they aren't afraid to do it. They've memorized their finely illustrated-though-sort-of-boring-manuals, polished their binoculars and paid up their Audobon Society blood money dues. They are ready. And I'd like to know just who's haunting my foliage and ear canals these days. Matter of time, my pretties.

In other news: Spring is making me want to stock way the hell up on Cat Stevens tunes. Or Mark Mothersbaugh ditties. Not sure which yet.

2006-04-19T22:53:00.000-04:00

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

This blog has recently overheard it posited that "Victorian jokes no longer strike us as funny." The crack-pot reasoning behind this scornful humbuggery? "We no longer share the cultural assumptions on which they operated." Whatever. Since this blog was bored and could think of nothing better to do with its time tonight, it decided to noisily debunk this theory as ye olde bullshitte in form of...a blog post. This blog even spent about 5 mins Googling the hell out of the topic at hand in an effort to defend its tenuous non-argument against the similarly tenuous offending one, because seriously, what could possibly be unfunny about jokes based upon Victorian current events, fashions and human foibles? Some comedy fodder is timelessly universal, people. And who could be more endlessly amusing than a people who put skirts on furniture for fear that the chair legs would remind someone of actual legs and get them all riled up? NOBODY, that’s who.

So here we go. Proof positive that Victorian jokes are still fucking hiLARious:

Exhibit A: In a cartoon entitled "Might Is Right," a poorly dressed man drives a three-horse carriage comprised of what seems to be a dumpster strapped to the top of a house. His imposing vehicle hogs most of the road, and is bearing down on a typical Victorian-looking dame who is mid-tizzy, arms all akimbo with alarm as she tries desperately to steer her wee one-horse carriage out of blundering doom’s way. Tis quite obvious she’s got little chance of success. The caption reads: "I don’t know nothun about no right sides, nor wrong sides. You get out of the way, if yer don’t want to be made a wafer of."

Exhibit B: In a cartoon entitled "Blinding New Technology," a bunch of pointy-nosed dandy types sit around a fancy parlor as a moustachioed gentleman plays piano. Nearly all attendees hold girlie-drink-type umbrellas open over their heads, despite the fact that they're INDOORS. The caption reads: "The electric light, so favorable to furniture, wallpaper, pictures, screens etc. is not always becoming to the female complexion, light Japanese sunshades will be found invaluable."

Exhibit C: In a cartoon entitled "Hints to Beginners," an outhouse-looking "bathing machine" sits halfway submerged in a river, while the people stranded on its roof call for help. Medium-level peril! The caption reads: "A nice time to bathe is in the early morning, before anyone is up. Just push the box down, and there you are!"

I... Hmmm. What d... Hmmm.

Nevermind, then. As you were.

2006-04-16T10:23:00.000-04:00

EEEEEEEEEEaster!

Praise the Lard!

Bonus glee: The Edward Gorey House opened for yet another glorious and cape-dafied season yesterday! Must. Go. I'm knee-deep in Ascending Peculiarity and read Elephant House recently, so I'm more than primed to get my fangirl awn. I want to peer into each darkened corner and rifle through his stuff. I want to inspect his journals and his insane music collection. I want to slip away from the tour, change all of the door and window locks and install myself as a permanent resident. No one shall deny me my rightful place as Gatekeeper to The Legacy...muahahaha! Anyway, the first exhibit apparently features the work of Derek Lamb, the marvelous person who turned Gorey's illustrations into the fantabulous animated intro and closing bits of Mystery!. Unfortunately the man no longer draws breath. I should like to view said exhibit and drink a toast to him while mentally kicking him in the shins for failing to animate the rest of Gorey's work. A tribute well-deserved, I think.

2006-04-15T19:34:00.000-04:00

50ft. Queenie

I was out running errands Friday afternoon and belting out the contents of Yaz's Upstairs at Eric's album when I realized that a) I have the same vocal range as Alison Moyet, b) it's hard to seat-dance to "Situation" and drive safely, and c) I haven't been to the drag bar in at least a year. WTF x 3??? The place I've been known to patronize on occasion does two shows on Saturday eves, one at 10pm and one at 12:30am. The roommate and I used to end up there at 12am when bored and buzzed. These things used to happen when the people in this house listened to Deep Dish dance comps too loudly, had lots of weird clothes at their disposal and were otherwise not in the mood for other goings-on at traditional area venues.

I love The Queens. There's something so awwwwwwww! about the inherent tragi-comedy of female impersonation and the scene that ooohs and ughs around it. The s/hes at the particular establishment we semi-frequented are more Priscilla than Dame Edna. Luminescent makeup. Transcendent wiggery. Bizarrely brilliant though quite obviously DIY costuming. Bad songs. Expert lip-synching. They're 7-foot tall mirrored and glittered and feathered water basilisks in radiant spandex, taffeta and sateen, and they walk better in platform stilettos than I do after a couple of drinks. The Host/ess with the Mostest is really fucking funny, too - best dirty jokes and crowd-heckling evar in between numbers.

We'd sit at one of the runway tables and run out of Sweaty Singles by the time half of the six or seven acts had swished offstage. If you sit up-close like that you can see all of the stubble and the bad skin under the pancake makeup, the coke dust and the bloodshot eyes, and all of the finer and more nuanced points of airbrushed feminine contouring and masculine package-hiding. It's gritty and glorious. If I were any kind of photographer I'd so do a glossy, oversized art book of that scene. It'd cover everything... from sewing 40 different outfits; to memorizing elaborate routines to entire Patsy Cline, Toni Braxton, Grace Jones, KD Lang and Barbra Streisand catalogues; to fighting other queens for mirror-space in makeshift backstage dressing rooms before shows; to strutting down stage runways under spotlights; to anonymous sex in restrooms after; to lonely drives home and sober self-examinations during 5am makeup removal. That's some culture right there.

I still daydream of pursuing a career as a female impersonator. I have my songs picked out and everything! "Midnight" by Yaz, or "Remake/Remodel" or "Virginia Plain" by Roxy Music. Nevermind that I'm already a female. Minor technicality, etc.

2006-04-13T13:43:00.000-04:00

The Secret of Life

"The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot possibly do."

Check. But what task? What can I not possibly do?

Eat meat?
Listen to Top 40 music?
Wear boho-chic clothing?
Join an organized religion?
Prefer children to animals?
Watch 99% of network television?
See films on a Friday/Saturday night, opening weekend at the Googloplex?
Read "chick lit"?
Accept that spiders are nothing but pure, concentrated evil?
Go tanning and then "go clubbing"?
Cross the street without nearly getting mowed down by a yuppie fuck after my eye exam today???

Hmmm. Not sure I needed to know the secret to life after all. I'd rather feign ignorance and die happy, thanks.

2006-04-10T19:21:00.000-04:00

Tis National Poetry Month

...and these favorites of mine feel most apt round about now, I'm both pleased and saddened to say:

Love Song: I and Thou by Alan Dugan

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage's nails
into the frame-up of my work:
It held. It settled plumb.
level, solid, square and true
for that one great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

Love in the Asylum by Dylan Thomas

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds

Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Strait in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds

Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.

She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall,
Possessed by the skies

She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust
Yet raves at her will
On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.

And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.

The Only Poem by Leonard Cohen

This is the only poem
I can read
I am the only one
can write it
I didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

Synopsis by Charles Wright

The white crow of belief
The finger of speechlessness
The eggshell of solitude

The needle of lethargy
The black glove of reprieve
The toad of anticipation

The spider of nothingness
The damp stone of unknowing
The wasp of forgetfulness

2006-04-10T19:00:00.000-04:00

Well, it took me over two fucking hours to restore all of the deleted posts, but sadly the comments are irretrievable. ~~Good times.~~ A lesson to all [but namely me] regarding the dangers of drinking and computing.

2006-04-06T09:45:00.000-04:00

On Self-Maintenance

This morn is a Spa Morn, wherein I summon darkly pitch from the Netherworld and painstakingly apply it to mine tresses for midnighting reasons. I shall also do something about my nails, ferchrissakes, and apply a masque of clay to the beleaguered skin coating of my visage for dainty, oil-sucking purposes. Oooh la la, bebe!

One would think that working at home automatically makes one an immaculate lady of leisure with all the time in the world for primpery and the like, but one would be sadly mistaken to assume such a ridiculous thing. In fact I seem to have less time for glamourization than I did when I worked 50 hours a week "offsite." One could easily attribute this to poor time-management skills, but one should probably shut up about that. I'm just as OCD about my routine as I was when employed in the cubicle mines, and do happen to get many things done 'round here on a daily basis, but nonetheless I find myself with fewer minutes per 24 hours, for some unknown reason, and well... I need a catch-up day now and then. Unfortunate and shocking run-ins with a mirror are oftentimes the catalyst for such thinking. Crazy, I know.

I've never been the type to frequent salons and the like. I find the women scary and the expense unnecessary, for starters, but I have had to take the plunge for bridesmaid reasons on a few occasions, and the pedicure bits were pretty cool, actually. My maiden voyage into the world of Expensive Self-Tidying occurred at a posh salon as part of a pre-wedding girly-fun thing for my brother's fianceeeeeee.

My feet were soaked, bubbled, moisturized, sanded, filed, arc-welded, curetted, massaged, polished and fragranced within an inch of their lives. It took like 45 minutes and I nearly fell asleep, but, for all the effort, my lower extremities were left well-worthy of worship. It takes a lot of work to bring feet accustomed to being encased within combat boots, platform stilettos and running shoes back from the dead, apparently. I did tip my stylist a bit extra for her efforts, the poor thing. She looked positively winded when she was done. I know I was, and I'd been sitting on my reclined ass the entire time, eating cheese, crackers and fruit, flipping through fashion mags, chatting idly with her and the other members of my party, sighing contentedly and regarding my general surroundings with half-lidded eyes like a proper c-word.

I find the time that uber-groomed women must spend on comprehensive salon treatments truly absurd and astounding, to say nothing of the dinero involved. My single event took almost an hour alone and cost $60 pre-tip, so I can hazard a reasonably fearsome guess at how time- and wallet-consuming Getting The Works must be, especially at the more Costington's of salons. During my visit I was unable to peer into the part of the spa where the body treatments took place, but despite my general distaste for the whole thing, I think I could dig a hot rock massage, a seaweed wrap or a mud soak. I'll just have to remortgage the house or something to make it happen, or perhaps resort to more untoward and DIY methods.

The decor was pretty cool - tres steampunk, which surprised me. I expected a lot of godawful pink and white, but instead got exposed pipe and lots of sleek and powerful but unobtrusive spa machinery crossed with crazy old antiques, with walls in various black, moss and olive tones. [Perhaps Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill have thrown in their graphic novel towels to do interior design?] Loads of natural light, too. I didn't hear any screaming, so I don't think any customers were having Brazilian waxes administered that afternoon. I did purchase an absurdly expensive but divine-smelling candle in "mango tangerine." I guess I was high on beauty treatment bliss or something. They bank on that. You pass an array of very grabbable, very intriguing and useable objects d'art and "Product" and such on your way to the bill-paying. We all walked away with something other than pristine nails, I think.

It was a satisfying run while it lasted, but I still see the properly primpy life as a swirling vortex of vain pain and costly doom. Now that I've written this and am set to embark on my morn of self-administered maintenance I've probably guaranteed myself a return voyage to the Lady Place for "corrective" treatments and/or therapy, but oh well. Life moves ever onward, nay?

2006-04-04T19:30:00.000-04:00

Panic in Detroit and Elsewhere

This blog would be remiss if it did not point out the sheer delight that was the 6 Mix of this Sunday just past. Twas a punktacular extravaganza hosted by Don Letts, the dude who ran ye olde British punk club, the Roxy back in the day, and truth be told, much fun and living room dancing did verily ensue. Perhaps a little too much for a Sunday, even.

But in addition to making me feel elderly-yet-amazing, it all reminded me how utterly lame many of the self-professed "punk rockers" [read: "punk asses"] I've known in my lifetime have been. I speak, of course, of the ones who'd get themselves back on the sizable family inheritance payroll if they'd only cut the grass and apologize to their parents already. The ones who unironically modeled themselves after Vyvyan of The Young Ones, who was a parody himself [albeit a VERY METAL one]. The ones who briefly embraced ska and then leapt right into the skinhead scene. They were the best! They drank Irish whiskey and called [formerly] blonde girls [ahem] things like "my proud Aryan princess" while affecting incredibly, embarrassingly faux and totally inconsistent and random UK accents. They offered to buy said girls Bailey's Irish Cream girly drinks [as if!] at clubs. They wore the requisite oxblood Docs and suspenders with satin flight jackets and yelled "oi!" a lot, and shaved their heads. They pontificated about how punk rawk they all were - and of course, how punk rawk they always had been - till the wee hours wore on and the safety-pinned cows came home. Then there were the ones who dyed their hair all the colors of the rainbow [once it was deemed "culturally and suburbanly safe" to do so in the late 90s, of course], who wore Army coats with store-bought patches all over them, and who took jobs at Hot Topic, where they made fun of all of the baby bats and Green Day fans who came to the mall to buy hair dye and patches for their Army coats. Or they got "job-a-billy" haircuts, guns and IT jobs. Shitty, meaningless or pretentious tattoos all around. Oh, the irony and jackassery! And oh my, the hatey, rambly reminiscery...where was I?

Anyway, listening to the proper garagey/Detroity stuff like The Stooges and MC5 in conjunction with all of the UK-riffic scene gems – not to mention a brain- and pants-melting 30mins of fantabulous, seminal reggae – was beyond magical. Yeah, the tunes got a little too charty at the end. And yeah, too much wine was consumed and some of the listening party ended up blacking out and some nearly punched out the pizza place guy for screwing up their take-out order, but it was exciting to remember a time when amazing things were happening with music and people were a bit cool for once, dammit. I may have lived across the pond and barely got to hear any of the music [apart from the Detroit and NYC stuff] till a few/several years later because American radio is so fucking terrible, but it was formative nonetheless and I praise Satan for it every day. Testify and/or kick out ze jams indeed.

2006-03-29T22:48:00.000-05:00

Mondovino

I viewed this film of the vine last eve. An interesting feature indeed, if you're a wine snob. I'm not sure I qualify for actual wine snobbery, given my recent tendency to sip the stuff that goes for under $10 a bottle, but I try. My nose and palate may not be insured for $1 million like Robert Parker's, but I like to think I could totally school the guy when it comes to choosing low-end and non-vomitous dark reds; shirazes and cab sauvs in particular. Oui, even in my plebian [read: "glamourously in between full-time jobs"] state of grace, I can distinguish between "whore wines," which come on to one immediately and then unceremoniously leave one cold, from the nicer, more "slow-burn vintages," which linger on one's tongue at the end of the night in a velvet manner, and make sure to call in a few days, when they say they will...playful, yet never ostentatious. Mmmm. But I digress. Good film.

For 135 mins, astonishingly rude, arrogant, proud, classist, racist pricks [with cute dogs!!!!] from France, California and Italy talk grape and grapely politics. A central theme is that the presence of wine in ancient cultures indicated "an absence of barbarism," but in modern times, an insidious, profit-making plague has settled over the whole industry and pretty much precluded that line of thinking, despite the plague-bringers' steadfast claims of genteel craftsmanship and business methodology. The current trend is to age vino in 100% new oak barrels, a practice the old-tymey, Yoda-like winefellows of Bordeaux, France happen to find utterly appalling. Sneery Spite City. I think anyone who's ever had the misfortune of sampling the contents of a weirdly toasty, over-oaked bottle would be hard-pressed to disagree. The old ways have had to bend over the barrel, as it were, and comply with the newer, blander, more vanillin-riffic regime so that the glorious Robert Parker stamp of approval may be affixed and sales may soar to sickeningly high levels. Tis tragic. After learning a bit more about the seamy underbelly of the wine world I'm with the little guys of Chateau Le Gay in Bordeaux: Fuck the grapist Mondavi monopoly of Napa Valley and too many parts beyond! Less Brand/Lifestyle, more character and centuries-old tradition! Universally sound logic, really.

I should note that I fell asleep during the last 30 mins of the feature, wherein Italy's grip and take on the industry was unveiled. D'oh! I fully expect to find a horse head in my bed when I rise tomorrow morn, but in my defense, I was tired and still coming down from a trying weekend. I promise I'll re-rent the film at some point and let the thigh boot-shaped land have its grapesome say.

I should also note that the wine culture of Australia was NOT represented, a shocking oversight which alone threatens to render the entire project one huge travesty of a failure. The land's Alice White "Lexia" is the only white wine I can throw down my face like Paul Giamatti in Sideways, and that may well be the most passionate, profit-boosting endorsement of all. Choke on it, Parker! Now to write Ms. White about insuring my palate and see about getting an advance on that million so that I may relocate to a more Lexian clime...

2006-03-28T20:34:00.001-05:00

When hedgehogs are interested in a scent, they lick or chew at its source, create foamy saliva, then wipe the scented saliva all over their quills. It's called self-anointing. This tactic makes them smell like their surroundings and helps to fool predators. - Steve Dale, Animal Smart

Somebody take my pesto away from me, dammit! I'm "self-anointing" all over the place here, and my quills are stained green. I guess this is what I get for trying to while away the evening hours by blending into my basil forest surroundings and trying to hoodwink my savory mush-seeking predators. Or... something.

It's probably wrong that I had slices of cherry tomato, black olive and spring onion fused together with pesto-mayo - heavy on the pesto - for dinner, isn't it? In my half-assed defense, my vegtastic contrabulous fabtraptions in miniature looked like art and tasted like salty heaven, and made for VERY foamy saliva. Clare Crespo would've utterly shit herself with envy had she laid her mondo successful, tidy and darling kiddie-cookbooking eyes on my magically misshapen eatables. In fact, I think I'm going to stay up till 8am making a terrible Flash site just like hers to prove my point. Won't she and Steve Dale be sorry now...

p.s. The hedgehog pictured above is apparently getting ready for surgery. Either the anesthesia being piped into its wee chamber is tasty or the poor thing had too much pesto for dinner like I did. It looks like it's in a snowglobe. Want!! :(

2006-03-26T14:19:00.000-05:00

Today I turned 34. How the fuck did that happen??? My other birthdays never bothered me, and I thought none would till I turned 40, but this one does for some reason.

Time to refurbish the gris-gris, renew the voodoo curse, guzzle from the fountain of youth and bathe in the blood of innocents again, or so it would seem. I might add that MAC's Moisture Feed is another brick in the "Don't Look Over 30, Dammit" wall. Also recommended: gigantor black sunglasses from dawn till dusk, no smiling at any time, and copious gaussian blur. Sleeping supine with arms crossed over chest and coffin lid closed optional. Turning people to stone for aghast gaping highly recommended.

2006-03-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

Today's Pool Cue to the Backs of the Knees

...courtesy of Malcom Middleton, Arab Strap, from the "Nine Songs That Give Me Goosebumps and Make Me Want to Give up Music When I Hear Them Because I Feel Like Dirt Next to Them" item on Pitchfork:

7. Patty Smith: "Frederic"
"Such a positive shout of hope, this song actually makes me physically smile and want to rise up out of this human filth and vibrate so violently that I turn into first sound and then light."

...Chriiiist. Chills!!! I can hear 'im sayin' it and everythin'. Why haven't I heard this song? It might be terrible, and I suspect that it couldn't possibly measure up to that particular level of amazingness, but I intend to seek it out this weekend anyway. I'm dying to see the Strap when they come to my town in a week or so, but alas and alack, the only person I want to go with can't make it. Chances of surviving a solo trek are slim to nil. Living room fest with vino and tunes, it shall be.

2006-03-23T09:12:00.000-05:00

Phil Spector's Holy Wig of Innocence,
so dubbed quite righteously by the internet's Warren Ellis.

I've been both baffled and bemused by The Bouffant since I first laid eyes upon him on Monday, May 23, 2005. That's nearly a year of unmitigated joy! I still want to pat him with a pool skimmer, or whatever else will reach. I still want to see what pants and shoes he chose to wear with Those Buttons. I still want to know whether the courtroom sketch artist ran out of blacks, greys or time while documenting the pompadour'd svengali.

He's Amadeusian in his Elton John, Bob Dylanic in his Gene Wilderness, but best of all he trumps Le Trump Onion Roll for most befuddling man-hair evar.

Apparently, a judge has just agreed to postpone his murdiddlyurder trial until September 11, 2006 due to scheduling conflicts. What could possibly go wrong here? I just hope he plucks the wig out of storage. Nay, I hope he sports an even mightier wig.

I've marked my calendar.

2006-03-22T16:18:00.000-05:00

Poison Pen Letter Time!

Dear Area Trains:

Please reconsider your decision to tie up my already quite dangerous and irritating commute with your slowly chugging 300-car caravans laden with such skin-/brain-/lung-/environment-melting cargo as molten sulfur, liquefied petroleum, loads of other random, gaseous elements and fuck knows what else I'm utterly chilled to see at least twice a week when I'm sitting in a traffic jam at your tracks as people in SUVs try to cut in front of you so that they won't be late getting home to perform crucial, fulfilling tasks like crashing on the couch for the rest of the night and inhaling snackfood while watching American Idol. Your graffiti ain't looking too snazzy either, for that matter. Uninspired, uncolorful and poorly rendered, to say the least.

I liked you better when I heard you lowing softly and mournfully in the distance as you passed through town at 1:45am. Yeah, you woke me up several times a week, but I appreciated your soothing and weirdly arousing siren songs anyway. Even when some idiot wouldn't get off the tracks and you had to lay on the horn like mad for at least 20 fucking minutes, I didn't really mind. I imagined that your cleverly and rather thought-provokingly Banksy-tagged caravan toted things like pillows and comfy nests and moons and stars and melatonin supplements and gifted, non-dangerous hobos like Tom Waits to my overtired land, and all was well.

Now you're all about causing heinous delays and threatening to let your toxic waste spill out on the world. My days are already nightmarishly Camille Rose Garcia-esque enough as it is, thanks.

Seriously.

She-Mantis

2006-03-21T07:41:00.000-05:00

Eye Woe

I spent much of yesterday consumed by dread thoughts of conjunctivitis, or "pink eye," if you're unfamiliar. I bet you aren't. We've alllll been there at one time or another, haven't we? We ain't so pretty then, are we, princess? It's neither fun nor cute to wake up with your eyes glued shut and have horrible things leaking itchily from them, is it? No sirree.

Part of my fear stemmed directly from the fact that I'd accidentally jabbed myself in the eye with my toothbrush Sunday night, and lacked proper eye-flushing materials or the mental wherewithal to do anything remotely self-preserving about it, beyond flushing the eye area out a bit with tap water from the sink. Brilliant, I know. And when things were looking reddishly scary and slightly...gooey yesterday morn I took a deep breath, cursed a bit, and let mine offending eye have it with the contact lens-sterilizing solution. Grrrrl, I sprayed that shit down, and crazily enough, it seemed to work. At the very least, it kept me from having to make a sweary emergency trip to the area clinic for antibiotic aid. I had better things to do, you see, such as rescuing fellow bloggers from the shame and woe of a gigantor font plague.

Anyway, when I gazed in the bathroom mirror this morn, all evidence of red and goo had vanished. Excelsior! General headcold-like irritation verily doth remain, which can only mean that Spring hath officially Sprung, and so, for the next several months, my days and nights will be consumed with dread thoughts of vacuuming my sinuses or perhaps secretly replacing them with the sinuses of a person who isn't hassled by seasonal allergies. Claritin-D set to stun. Area tree pollen-laden siroccos to continue unabated till September-ish. I have been warned. This is my punishment for being a flora-fondling vegetarian. I am only slightly okay with this at best.

2006-03-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

Doing Time at the DSO

I used to work for The Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It wasn't a glamourous job, in that I never got to perform tasks like cleaning out the spit valves of the brass instruments, surreptitiously detuning the stringed instruments or banging the myriad gongs, but I served a purpose, and that purpose was to raise money for The Overall Effort. It wasn't exactly telemarketing, because, in the name of Art and Culture, we fundraisers were made to call people who’d previously made charitable contributions, to ask them if they wanted to repeat a donation or perhaps "up the ante" a smidgen, but the people were just as unenthused to speak to us as we were to them, so it really was like telemarketing in a sense, I guess. A hefty mutual irk sense, that is.

Anyway, it wasn't all terrible. As compensation for our phone-based slavitude, we money-grubbers got free tickets to the open rehearsals for certain performances. An open rehearsal is the run-through the symphony, conductor and special guests do in the afternoon before an evening event. It's casual dress all around, and it allows broke-ass punk citizens and privileged others alike to "get their classical music awn at a reduced rate before all the full price-paying suckers show up for the proper event." It's cool because there's banter between the musicians and the conductor during the rehearsal. Nevermind that the banter is arch, pompous, largely unfunny and mostly impossible to hear, unless you happen to commandeer the front row by kicking wealthy, elderly season ticket holders out of their seats.

Being the classy rabble that we were [and, some might say "still are"], my co-workers and I critiqued the spectacle in a low-toned Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque manner. We'd cover the important issues, such as the performers' hairstyles and choice of casual attire, and I quickly and quite ruthlessly devised a totally fascistical rating system for the musical numbers we heard. I'd peruse the provided event program notes and carefully review how many and which instruments were featured in each piece, as well as who was playing what. The discriminatory criteria I used to determine the worth of a piece was based solely upon how many bassoons it featured:

Three bassoons??? Perfect! Glorious! Enchanting! The goddamned fucking Music of the Spheres!

No bassoons??? Horrible! Worthless! A travesty of justice! An orchestral maneuver best performed in the dark with zero audience! Fuck this shit, I'm going to the bathroom!

I don't care how brilliant or loathsome, or how goodly or badly played a number was. Bassoon-count was God. I’d tolerate one- or two-bassoon pieces, sure, but only just barely. I'd also draw wee bassoons in the margins of the program next to each piece, so that, when the lights were dimmed and the music swelled, I wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of squinting or losing my conviction. When a co-worker would turn to me and nod with approval at a piece we were both enjoying, and say "This is lovely!", I'd knowingly reply "Three bassoons" and let the good times roll. Nevermind that everyone I worked with apart from one person thought I was mad.

2006-03-18T18:09:00.000-05:00

St. Pratty's Day

In a stunning move that'll surely get my American citizenship revoked tout de suite, I conducted all of my St. Patrick's Day business in a green-free manner. I did not cram each and every orifice I could reach with green beer, shamrocks, corned beef and shillelaghs, as bazillions of other fellow citizens did. Instead, I threw caution to the green, plastic-hatted wind and sipped vino, snacked on both tandoori masala and yogurt-dill papadums with two kinds of perfumey, spicy Indian relish, and I viewed Walk The Line, a decidedly leprechaun-free feature.

I did, however, catch a bit of the evening news. Naturally, footage of bleary, red-faced, sweaty, drunken, green-clad and totally-not-Irish revelers reigned supreme. In one of the clips, shot at a local O' Total-Tool's Tavern our hapless area news team had unfortunately been dispatched into the cold, red-bearded night to cover, dancing was visible in the background. Scary dancing. Erins Gone Braghless dancing. Riverdancing. Among the classic "wasted rug-cutting" moves spotted by this blog in the space of about 20 seconds: Jazz Hands, Kung Fu Fighting, Tragic Overbite With Guns Out, Skanky Slut, The Hustle, The Robot and Very Metal Air Guitar. This blog thanks gawd that it could not hear any of the tunes these dancefloor crimes were committed to, but it strongly suspects that ACDC was involved.

2006-03-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

Post the First

Tstetse fly.