My friends have made fun of me before because I complain about my "sleep-cycle getting screwed up." What none of these so-called friends realizes is that getting up at a reasonable time is a constant struggle for me. If I give my body an inch by sleeping in as long as it wants one day, it'll take a mile the next. Well, ever since coming back from the US I've been complaining about jet-lag. What's really happened, though, is I just haven't been firm enough with my body to make it wake up when humans do this week. I missed one-and-a-half lectures this week because I hit snooze so many times on my alarm clock that it malfunctioned and gave up on me (three days in a row!). I have to put it across the room and just admit that I have a problem - there's no other way. Otherwise I'll be waking up at 3:30 in the afternoon every day.
Like today. Since, like my other post said, everyone leaves on Fridays, it was a really mellow Halloween. I have to read Great Expectations for the third time and it's really slow going now that all the suspense and discovery is sucked out of it (Rachel, "you may kiss me if you like"). I also have to read the book of Margery Kempe, which is a Medieval diary by a crazo woman who talks about Jesus hanging out with her and how she loves crying in front of stained glass windows and abstains from meat and sex with her really patient husband and blah blah blah. What a sweet Halloween!
I did celebrate a little, though, by watching one of the movies that absolutely scarred me as a child, The Good Son. Post-Home Alone and right before leaving films for a decade, Macaulay Culkin was looking to shake up his image a bit. He did so by being in a 1993 movie where he plays the absolutely most hate-able little shit you will ever see. I remember coming into the family room as a child and seeing the movie on TV and plopping down to watch good, old Mac. Before I knew it he was forcing Elijah Wood to watch him shoot at animals with a crossbow and simulate suicides in order to cause highway accidents. It really resonated with me, having been forced, like little Frodo, to spend many awkward hours with kids of my parents' friends who were certifiable psychos. Anyways, the movie's aged really well and, though I've seen it three times, it never fails to creep the ever-loving shit out of me. Must be a masterpiece. It's on youtube, if you want to see it, but you have to watch a clip called something like "THE MOTHER OF ALL CLIFF-HANGERS" to watch the end.
A similar movie that I haven't seen since it first came out is Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy. I kind of want to read the book first and confront my demonic memories of this movie by understanding it. I was like, ten or eleven when my dad brought it home from Hollywood Video and I loved horror movies, but I definitely wasn't old enough for this movie not to leave an impression on me. Plus, I'm in Ireland and Patrick McCabe's practically royalty here, right? Or maybe I should make an effort to experience some culture elsewhere. Dig the awesome intro:
Yesterday I got hit with an egg walking to Lavery's pub. That must mean it's.... Halloween in Belfast!
Or, I guess, the night before Halloween. Since everyone goes home on the weekends here Friday-Sunday are dead and Monday-Thursday are wild. Plus everyone drives on the wrong side of the road all the time. So last night was effectively Halloween, since no one will be around tonight. I was probably hit with the egg because I wasn't wearing a costume. Or because people were being wankers (the egg didn't break 'til it hit the ground, though, so no harm done). I got accosted by drunken ghosts, cowboys, Storm Troopers (the Stars Wars kind, not the Nazi kind) and lots and lots of cavemen. Y'know, if you can't pull the caveman costume off, it really turns against you. Also, have you ever seen a group of guys in mariachi outfits talking with Irish accents? It's really disconcerting.
In celebration of this, the day belonging to our Dark Lord and Master... two of my favorite Halloween cartoons!
Betty Boop's Halloween Party: If I could live in any cartoon world it would be Betty Boop's. I really like how everybody is constantly bopping along to some beat. In this cartoon, Betty holds a Halloween party, leads her guests in the traditional Halloween song, "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" before her party is crashed by... the Halloween Ape or something.
Disney's Skeleton Dance: This cartoon upholds various animal myths, like the fact that the cat's tail is connected internally to it's nose and can be played like an cello if stretched; or that you can pluck a bird's feathers by throwing your detached head at it. Also, skeletons ride each other like pogo sticks, play each other like xylophones (while pelvic thrusting!) and ultimately merge into a quadruple-skeleton-horse. I love this cartoon!
Wow, did I get an anonymous mention from an anonymous person in the BFP? That's all I ever wanted! I take everything back! I also got anonymous comments! Does this mean that the ol' Bennington gossip train has picked up my blog as a passenger and been chugging along through the BFP staff? Does this mean that people are showing freshmen my blog and facebook page and telling them what a horrible person I am? Oh no!
"fuck you" writes:
"YOU'RE A HUGE DICK SUCKER. First of all, it is a freshmen perspective, meaning her own opinion as a freshmen at Bennington. You're an upperclassmen, so get the fuck off her back. Second, it's really stupid of you to say "sorry if you're reading this Connie", and then continue to rant shit about her. Go keep on blogging you pathetic asshole, at least Connie has real friends who care about her instead of stupid fucking cyber fantasies of friends. Enjoy the rest of your life as a huge cock sucker you fuck!"
Dear fuck you, First of all, it's my senior perspective on Connie's freshman perspective. Honestly, I don't know who Connie is and I didn't realize I was on her back. If one of these friends that you mentioned felt it was their friendly duty to show her my blog and her feelings are hurt than I apologize to her. If anything my comments on her article are only indicative of my own curmudgeonly bitterness and have absolutely nothing to do with her. Plus she's writing for a paper, which is more than I'm doing, so clearly she wins. Plus my mouth is full of dicks and I have no friends.
Speaking of fellatio, Leahliana writes:
"(Oh, and "Tipping the Velvet" is a pathetic attempt at gay fiction. If you want to read something halfway decent with queer themes, I suggest either Virginia Woolfe's "Orlando" or EM Forster's "Maurice".)"
Dear Leahliana, Thanks for this addendum to a conversation I didn't realize we were having and thanks so much for edifying me about Virginia Woolfe and EM Forster. Being a literature student at Bennington, I've never been exposed to these writers or books. I'll be sure to mention them to the professor who assigned me Tipping the Velvet.
Constant Reader writes:
"It's not my fault the people love me!"
Dear Constant Reader, I don't know who you are or what you are talking about.
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Dear friends and cyber fanatasies of friends, I don't want to fight. If I bothered to write a big long post in my personal blog about the BFP it's because I always look forward to the BFP and enjoy reading it. Like I sort of said above, I totally respect anybody who is even bothering to write for the BFP because I know it takes work and time. I keep a fucking travel blog - I obviously lose. If that post was bitchy it is because I like mouthing off about my opinions like a cranky old man, but that doesn't mean that I think my opinions are more valid than anybody else's. And I love having long discussions about the things I'm opinionated about, so if you actually want to leave your name and talk about it, I'm totally down. Or - hey! - the BFP can write a scathing review of my blog! It's riddled with grammatical errors, self-indulgence and other things that should be making me blush. The power is yours, Connie Panzariello '12 - rip me a new asshole. Hatchet: buried.
CNN Headlines of the day: "Haunted jail sounds freaky, cops say." "McCain: 'Racism exists.'"
Exciting news! I know the world has been holding its collective breath waiting to hear what classes I'm taking in the spring. Well, relief is on the way. I know that I'm getting into three 4000-level classes at least: Sitcom with Kirk Jackson, Advanced Readings in Shulz, etc. with Marguerite and Sue's projects class! I tried to get into Stephen Bach's Advanced Screenwriting class, but he was a total bitch about it, so I happily parted with that idea. I'm also trying to get into screen-printing workshop. That's 2000-level so I just threw my hat into the ring and am hoping for the best. If I don't get that I'm going to try beginning painting. Either way, sounds like a fun curriculum!
I'm finally becoming comfortable with the fact that I dress differently than a lot of the people here. It's hard to be in a new place where you're not familiar with the customs and be aware that you're visibly different than everyone but you feel helpless to change it. Now I sort of know what the fashions are and I feel ok bucking them. It's sort of like knowing the rules so you can break them.
Except that that sounds really bad-ass whereas all I'm doing is wearing my ratty sweatshirt and beanie instead of nicer clothes. But, as I stood at the crosswalk today with a girl who had low-slung jeans with a mystifying zipper that ran perpendicular to her buttcrack and under her belt-loops and a guy with a frosted fashion-mullet I felt ok about that.
In other news, I've been catching up on movies finally now that I've figured out how to stream them illegally. At Bennington I had Netflix and the library, but here I was pretty much out of luck on the legal DVD front (unless I, y'know, wanted to pay for them individually). Thankfully the internet has a lot of movies on it! Even though a lot of the movies are things like Rob Schneider's The Hot Chick.
Hey, remember The Hot Chick?
The irritating thing is that a lot of the movies have been compressed weirdly, maintaining their widescreen imagery but squishing it horizontally so it fits into a standard viewer. Because of this and the general poor image-quality, I've been trying to watch movies that are more talky and less visual.
The movies I've watched: I watched Network the other day. Have you ever seen that movie? It is maybe the best film I've ever seen. I was absolutely blown away. In Freed-ian terms: so good!
I then watched The Savages, which wasn't blow-you-away good, but pretty good nonetheless. It's hard to go wrong with Philip Seymore Hoffman and Laura Linney.
Finally I watched Teeth. You know, the movie about a girl with a toothed vagina? After being weaned on movies with brilliant ideas and shitty execution, any horror movie fan knows when not to get his or her (probably his) hopes up too high for movies that sound too good to be true. If every horror movie lived up to the promise of it's premise, Troma would be pumping out Oscar-winners instead of absolute trash (except for Cannibal: The Musical, which is pretty good).
So, obviously, Teeth wasn't amazing, but it was alright. It's hard to judge a movie about vagina dentata (that's right - that's the medical term) by standards except for those that it sets up. It's not like there's a long history of great vagina-teeth movies that it has to live up to. That said, some suggestions on how to make the movie better:
When the vagina eats things it should go "Nom nom nom!"
The twist at the end should have been that Dawn's boobs were also eyes, so her body was like a walking head.
The vagina should talk.
Show the vagina. They showed one of it's teeth, as well as severed penises being eaten by both a crab and a dog, but I'm still curious. The best idea they give us is the morgue dental expert saying that the strange tooth came from something like a shark mixed with a lamprey.
Dawn should meet a squad of similarly afflicted women. They should form a new A-Team.
Let it be known that my favorite type of commercials and billboards are, by far, public service announcements. Let it also be known that my favorite movies are horror movies. Therefore, maybe it's no surprise that I absolutely love PSAs that play out like gritty, fucked up horror movies. I love them! A prime example of this at it's best are the amazing Montana Meth ads and billboards (thanks for the tip, Ian D-T!).
Here in Northern Ireland there are a few issues that seem to warrant advertisements that trade completely on shocking your pants off. Among these are: not walking alone at night (you'll get raped!), not carrying a knife (you'll accidentally stab someone!), changing the batteries in your smoke alarm (your child will die and reprimand you!) and almost every law pertaining to driving. Some of my favorite PSAs:
I. CAN'T. TAKE. MY. EYES. OFF. YOU!
I'm not sure why this version of the commercial is in Hebrew. You can tell it's European because the lyrics on display ("Body to body, funky to funky, we know how to rock the party") are British songwriting at it's best:
But it's not just Northern Ireland! All of Europe loves making you throw up a little while watching TV:
This comes courtesy of Denmark. Ever see the French movie Irreversable? It's kind of like this, but nobody makes a face as funny as when the lady side-ends the car.
These are from Mainland Britain, where playing in traffic is a national pastime:
Maybe if they're not surrounded by fiberglass, bikes should take longer to look for me:
Stop copying me! Stop copying me!
I couldn't find the smoke alarm one, which is easily the most quotable, but I did find Nathan Franklin's seminal short film, "The Happy Smoke Detector," which is about as disturbing:
"Some people did not quite believe that there ever had been a Mr Hurtle. Others said that there certainly had been a Mr Hurtle and that to the best of their belief he still existed. The fact, however, best known of her was, that she had shot a man through the head somewhere in Oregon. She had not been tried for it, as the world of Oregon had considered that the circumstances justified the deed."
-Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now
"I'm a bookkeeper's son/ I don't wanna hurt no one/ I crossed my old man back in Oregon/ don't take me alive./ Got a case of dynamite/ I could hold out here all night/ I crossed my old man back in Oregon/ don't take me alive.
Last night I dreamed my mom called me vain and I wrote her a letter saying that she, the name-caller, was the one in need of reprimanding. I was really hurt. I was staying in a wooden cabin with guys from my high school and I tried to explain to them that I'd enjoyed the camping trip we'd just been on more than any other. Kush was incredulous.
Though everyone else slept in one room, I slept in a single with a giant picture of Laurie Anderson or some frizzy-haired '80s pop chanteuse on the back wall. Looking through the door's peephole you could only see her eye. If it was light and filled with a silhouette of a sailing ship the room was unoccupied.
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I've been having a recurring dream of a Mike Patton album (sometimes with Mr. Bungle, sometimes with Fantomas) from 1999. It has a white cover with dark, inky arabesques from old marine biology textbooks. Inside there are pages of the CD booklet with flowery designs for each song followed by duplicate pages where the same designs are portrayed with Lite-Brite pegs. And the music is so fucking heavy and amazing! I want to listen to it right now!
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I had a dream in which I was the "Vanna White" on a game show in which a famous Cocker Spaniel in a transparent polygonal box circled a conveyor belt before I put him in an airport x-ray machine.
Later I was feeding a pet rat a candy called Fancy Chocolate Meiths in milk. When I tried feeding the candy to the rat without milk I was surprised by it's power as it jumped and tore the bag open, scattering Meiths everywhere. The Meiths on the carpet mingled with rat shit. I sat on the floor, shocked at the mess, feeling powerless.
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I dreamed I had to decorate the scaffold of an under-construction high rise building for a movie shoot starring stuffed-animal apes. I was given a bag of jump ropes to tie to the railings in order to make it look more "industrial." The jump ropes ended up supporting a large, haning object. I decided to tie the other end to a desk phone and snubbed the crew member who politely questioned my logic in doing this with a curt word and a quick retreat.
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Last night I dreamed a girl I dated years ago was a transvestite. I tried not to act surprised.
Much to my surprise, somebody told me that they enjoyed my post on '90s albums the other day. I was pretty sure I was just pleasing myself, so that was really nice to hear. Though, I guess it is my blog, so pleasing myself isn't so criminal. In the spirit of that, here's some more knowledge emptied out of the part of my brain that isn't being used for math or science. In the interest of brevity I'll try not to talk each album into the ground, with the exception of the first entry:
In 1994 the artist who shaped me musically more than anyone, Beck, released three albums. The first, Mellow Gold, was his debut with his presumed one-hit-wonder, "Loser." The others were an album of folk/blues, One Foot in the Grave and a collection of throwaways and oddities from past tapes, Stereopathetic Soul Manure. After buying 1996's Odelay and having my 4th-grade mind blown I had hoped that Mellow Gold would deliver the same impact. It did and more. Beck has dismissed the album as being hastily written and recorded. The evidence of this is apparent and also why I love the album so much. There was no time for perfectionism - it's like a rock album by a crazy junkman, veering from blues to hip-hop to heavy metal to Indian raga and mixing them all up. Abrasive songs like "Sweet Sunshine" and "Motherfuker" were scrutinized endlessly by me like archeological objects. Who made songs rapping through a harmonica mic with a drum machine and a kalimba? My young mind saw what some deride as sloppiness and nonsensical dadaism (an argument I now sympathize with, even if I don't necessarily agree) as some mysterious language to decode. What Mellow Gold delivered in that respect, Soul Manure delivered in spades. Though not a classic in any means, the sheer audacity of this album (if you can call it that) still amazes me. It's something that could only be loved like I loved it by a 12-year-old - especially the 20+ minute noise collage at the end with ramblings about leaving horses in the desert for sourdough bread and other nonsense. Lastly, One Foot in the Grave is, like many of my favorite albums now, a record that I hated the first time I heard it. It didn't deliver what I expected at all. In the end it became an even more special album to me than the other two, introducing me to music forms that I had previously had no interest in.
The album that perhaps defined Brit-pop in the '90s was Blur's Parklife. I won't get started on Oasis being puffed-up hacks - comparing Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon's career output to the Gallaghers' does it for me - but I think it's safe to say that even the biggest Oasis apologetic has to respect this album. Known stateside mostly for the hit "Girls and Boys," the album has no weak track. I love their previous, more sprawling album, Modern Life is Rubbish, even more, but Parklife did something that album couldn't - it created a movement (except in the states, where nobody gave a shit).
Elsewhere, in Ireland, one of my favorite overlooked, under-appreciated bands put out the first of two albums. Compulsion's Comforter is probably not on anyone else's 90's best-of list, but it's seminal for me. While Blur explored Britain in a shinier, poppier way, Compulsion put out songs about city sprawl and class unrest, eating and mental disorders, crime and other things in Ireland's musty basement.
And speaking of writing songs about things people don't want to hear, some of my musical heroes and eventual undeserved musical punchline, Chumbawamba, put out the amazing, Anarchy. There's not a lot of love stateside or elsewhere for a 9+ group of vegan anarchists who write unabashed pop songs about politics, but, to my mind, there should be. The thing I love about Chumbawamba is that, like Steely Dan and Randy Newman, they write deceptively smooth and sunny songs about dark, dark subjects. Operating under the ethos that more people are going to listen to you if your music is easy to listen to, Anarchy is full of angry songs about unchecked homophobia, class and, um, anarchy subversively couched in pop songs.
Another overlooked group, Soul Coughing, put out their first album, Ruby Vroom in 1994. As with Chumbawamba, it's not surprising that a band made up of a jungle/jazz drummer, a sampler/keyboardist, an upright bassist and a surrealist beat-poet struggled to find a niche on the pop charts, but it's something of a shame. Soul Coughing put out three albums, each with a sound distinct from the others and distinct from anything else. Mike Doughty went on to become a semi-successful adult-contemporary songsmith and the sampler, Mark de gli Antoni, put out a really bizarre album on John Zorn's label.
Similarly nerdy, though with a considerable cult following, They Might Be Giants put out John Henry, their first album to eschew drum-machines for a real band. Though I hesitate to call John Henry stranger than TMBG's previous, very strange output, it is extremely weird and undeniably darker. Songs like "Why Must I Be Sad?" "Stomp Box," and "A Self Called Nowhere" are songs with a heaviness not evidenced on earlier tracks like "Birdhouse in Your Soul." Likewise, the patience-tasking breakdown at the end of "Spy" is pretty unreal. There's also a track about dirt bikes taking over a town (or something...), painter James Ensor and a gracious hermit crab:
Also experimenting and defying a public that seemed to want conformism was Sonic Youth. Having just put out their most accessable album to date, Dirty, Sonic Youth changed directions and made a truly singular album. Though it's seen by many fans as a bridge between the straighter-ahead noise of the early ninetees to the dense, mature sound of Washing Machine, this view doesn't do Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star justice. This is my favorite type of album: one that fires in all directions and succeeds. It even begins with an acoustic song - more shocking than anything else SY could've done - and netted them their biggest, surprise hit, "Bull in the Heather." It's an album where each track asks to be taken on it's own terms, which is something I love.
Lastly, an album that is nerdy in a way none of these other ones are. Like the Brian Setzer before him, Jon Spencer used to play harder, faster music in Pussy Galore before leaving it to reinvent older styles in the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Taking notes from the Cramps, the Blues Explosion put out their best album in '94 with Orange. Though I think it gets silly at times the best tracks on it are hard to deny (plus they gave Beck an impromptu call to rap over the phone on "Flavor," yielding appropriately strange results - Beck would later remix the song and accompany them in the music video in a chef's outfit, assaulting people on the subway with a Godzilla doll).
Next time, if there is a next time, the end of 1994 - softer and harder, younger and older.
Hello again Blogosphere, This is the kind of navel-gazing blog post that I normally hate to read, so, if you're like me, take that as a warning and skip the first bit.
I've just been moping around since I got back from Portland. I met a 21-year-old girl in the student village laundry room the other day. I told her that I feel like I'm a freshman again living with all the first-years here. "I know, isn't it great?" she replied. No, girl, it's not. I've already done freshman year (and sophomore and junior) and the bloom has well worn off the rose. I'm really itching for companionship from people for whom college isn't still a novelty.
This is part of the whole "plunging into a strange environment" thing. As I bitched in my earlier post about music, I naively assumed that I would be around people who might not like the same things that I liked, but would introduce me to new and better things that I would also like. Obviously, it's not that simple. I guess it would be like coming from here to Duke University or something and being disappointed with the fact that everyone really liked watching "Step Up: To The Streets" and listening to Low by Flo-Rida and T-Pain (which, incidentally is still really big here).
I didn't even think about the fact that, if the things I am passionate about are enjoyed by a small niche at Bennington, then of course the niche would be much smaller at a big, foreign school. I'm just so used to being around like-minded people!
In one of the many handouts they gave exchange students here was a graph of the normal exchange student's happiness level as the term progressed. It started at the ecstatic "honeymoon period" where everything is new and exciting then dipped into a long slump where the exchange student "hates everything Irish" before finally coming to the "acceptance stage" somewhere around December. While I don't hate everything Irish, I have come to realize how much I like certain things in America - or, at least, in the niche I've found in America - and I hope it doesn't take until December for me to be totally comfortable here.
If nothing else I'm being forced to find a new comfort zone. I guess it can be hard in a big university to find like-minded people - a social lesson I feel like I'm learning kind of late.
But, tomorrow I have plans to go into the city with a friend and try and find things for a Halloween costume, then to break away by myself and do some sightseeing, if it's not too cold. Nobody's here on the weekend, so it's the perfect time. I don't know what I'm going to be for Halloween. I keep coming back to the low-budget idea of getting some clothes, ripping them up and putting fake blood on myself and coming up with some clever reason why I'm dead. Or maybe I'll be evil St. Patrick - bringing snakes back to Ireland. Or a Protestant/Catholic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that beats himself up.
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In my moping I've been listening to this great little tune from the Eels' first album, Beautiful Freak. It's really wonderful. Presented here by World of Warcraft gnomes, for extra pathos:
And in cheering myself up I've been listening to the greatest James Bond theme of all time, courtesy of Duran Duran. Top this, Jack White:
Dear Belfast and friends in Belfast, I'm a little drunk right now, but before I go to bed I have a confession to make: I hate your music. The music you listen to here is, almost without exception, complete shit.
Before coming over to the UK I labored under the delusion that there was great music in Britain that never made it over to the US due to our cultural differences. I was wrong. America actually does a great job of making sure your Euro-trash nostalgia has as much chance of crossing the Atlantic as British soldiers in redcoats.
I tried to reach out and find common ground, like the Knife, Lykke Li and hip-hop from the '90s, but you rejected me. I wouldn't feel so hostile if you hadn't derided my music, instead putting on the following songs:
Don't fuck with me, Belfast, I know I'm right. The year 2000 is over. You need to move on. None of this is viable music, even if (especially if) you have to put a rave beat behind it and drop pills to make it relevant. And don't get me started on that fucking Kid Rock song. If you didn't know who Lynyrd Skynard was before hearing it, you certainly haven't been "singing 'Sweet Home Alabama' all summer." Also he rhymes "different things" with "funny things," which is not something a "Rock and Roll Jesus" would do.
Also, please stop playing Blink 182 and Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag." It's like rolling a corpse over just to smell it fresh. Some things deserve to be buried!
So I'm back in N.Ireland and I've so many stories to tell. But instead of doing that, I'd rather write more about '90s music. I was initially thinking that I'd write about important albums in a chronological order. Then I thought that I'd do it alphabetical by bands... I've decided that I'm gonna do some mix of the two. Mostly I want to communicate albums that are timeless to me and examples of how awesome I think the mid-'90s were.
Obviously everyone's got their own classic albums and their own tastes. On the whole I fucking hate music journalism, so this is just a personal account. Plus I can't speak for albums I haven't heard, so I would never purport to write about albums on a whole. I'm much more comfortable writing a field guide for albums that have been important to me and that I think sound of their time while being timeless.
Like I said before, I draw a circle around 1994-1997 - between Kurt Cobain's death and the release of Radiohead's OK Computer is the sweet spot. There are albums building up before '94 and echoes afterward, but there is something distinct about those four years. Genres were merging and shifting and, most importantly, exploring.
Let's start with 1994. It was the year that OJ Simpson led reporters on a chase after killing his wife and Ron Goldman. Meanwhile, figure-skating competitor and Portland-home-town-hero Tanya Harding and her husband had rival Nancy Kerrigan's knee bashed in. And, of course, after putting on REM's seminal album, Automatic For the People, Kurt Cobain blew his head off in his Washington home with a shotgun.
This was after Nirvana's appearance on MTV's Unplugged (a show that could not exist anymore), but before the album came out. Though they'd just released an album produced by Big Black's Steve Albini in an attempt to counter the perceived commercialism of Butch Vig's treatment on Nevermind and return their sound to sludginess, the Unplugged in New Yorkepisode and album helped convert the hesitant to accepting Cobain as the (unwilling) voice of his generation. Perhaps the most powerful moments in the concert are the band's covers of some of Cobain's heroes - David Bowie, Leadbelly and the Meat Puppets (who show up on stage to help out):
Meanwhile, fellow grunge-elite Alice in Chains had also stripped away the distortion to create their quietest, most heroin-soaked album Jar of Flies. As with Unplugged, the less harsh sound lent the album an understated power that was subtly effective in ways the band had not been before (not coincidentally, Alice in Chains had their own episode of Unplugged, which is pretty good, too). It was also a daring move for a group whose fan base consisted of more hesher, metal-heads than most of their grunge contemporaries.
(There's a great music video of "No Excuses" out there, but the embedding is disabled so I'm posting this video of someone's vacation pics instead)
And while Kurt was busy bearing the burden of everyone liking him, his wife, Courtney Love's - at that time just as respectable, if more-unknown - star was on the rise. It was shortly after her husband's death that Love's band, Hole, released it's breakthrough (and best) album, Live Through This. In the years since Cobain's death that Love's star has dropped tragically and drug itself around through the mud (with plenty of help). It's a shame that her tattered personal life has completely overshadowed the fact that, at her best, Courtney Love was an amazing, charismatic singer and songwriter in a genre that was (and still is) too much of a boys' club.
Back in the boys' club, the Stone Temple Pilots were putting out their second album. Emerging on the scene a couple of years earlier, STP was still a couple of years too late to be taken seriously. Though successful commercially, the band was derided by critics as being nothing but a Pearl Jam knock-off. Indeed, if everything they put out had continued sounding like their debut, Core, then this derision would be founded, yet the follow-up, Purple, was it's own beast; a more mature, layered record. In part because the guitar/bass duo of the DeLeo brothers had the jazz chops to lead the group into more intricate places and in part because Scott Weiland, presumably tired of being called a poseur, was conked out of his gourd on heroin, Purple is deeper and more interesting than anything Core hinted at, with tracks like "Big Empty" touching on sadness more profound than the . The album begins with the rolling "Meat Plow" (I remember asking my dad what a meat plow was, thinking it was some sort of farm equipment - he told me it was a penis. In the context of the song, neither makes sense) and ending with a hidden track of Weiland crooning smooth jazz. Famous, of course, for "Interstate Love Song," and lesser hits "Big Empty" and "Vaseline," there are so many indelible songs on this album, though, that it's a shame that STP remains more of a punch-line than a respected band.
And while Stone Temple Pilots were being compared unfavorably to Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder's band had critics scratching their heads. Upon releasing their monumental debut, Ten, Pearl Jam were saddled with so much critical acclaim it seemed to feel the need to buck it at once. The more people wanted them to be "grunge as it should be," the more Eddie and co. tried to be something else. Their third album, Vitalogy, was one of many "fuck-you, take-me-as-I-am" records Pearl Jam gave to a head-scratching public that eventually diminished to a cult. Part of the message was Vedder's unhappiness with the still-new CD technology compared to vinyl. In response, Vitalogy was released on vinyl two weeks before CD and sported the unfortunately-named song "Spin the Black Circle." Other parts of the message were off-putting tracks like the accordian-accompanied rant, "Bugs" the bizarre "Satan's Bed," and the bizarre-r "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me." At this point in their career, though, Pearl Jam were still magic men and the public ate up anything they did. The fact that the album sported strong tracks like "Better Man" and "Tremor Christ" didn't hurt either.
Meanwhile, a band truly deserving of the accusations laid on Stone Temple Pilots, Live, put out their breakthrough album, Throwing Copper. One can draw a line through famous Eddie Vedder impersonators with diminishing returns: Scott Weiland -> Eddie Kowalczyk of Live -> Scott Stapp of Creed -> Nickelback. While I consider STP to be a greatly overlooked band, Live not so much (though I think their name is pretty clever). This album, though, features some really good songs. And it was produced by Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, as if to single-handedly give it cred. Among those songs is "Selling The Drama," which hints un-rock-like to Kowalczyk's Christian leanings, and perrenial adult-contemporary favorite "Lightning Crashes," perhaps the only top-40 song to ever contain the word "placenta." For my money, though, the best song is the riveting starter, "The Dam at Otter Creek." In my favorite Vedder-impersonation to impersonate, you can hear Kowalczyk get fired up as he sings the lyrics, as if he can't wait to let loose in a Vedder-like howl: "took a dead man to the riivvvveerrrr...." The album hits it's silliest moment in the overwrought silliness of "Waitress," Kowalczyk's plea for tipping, due, inpart, to the fact that the waitress in question, though a bitch, "wore a funky dread in her hair." "Leave some change behind... some fucking chaayy-yee-ayyeeeyange!"
And lastly for this entry, Soundgarden put out Superunknown, a sprawling album that completely sums up the ambition and excitement of this period. It's hard to write with any objectivity about this album; when I got it for $6.00 in middle school it absolutely did my head in. Everything I try to write about it is just gushing - just to warn you. Let me first state my problems with Soundgarden: Chris Cornell is one of those vocalists who has an amazing range, yet uses it on every song, thus eliminating subtlety and surprise. Likewise, Soundgarden could sound sludgier and heavier than almost any mainstream band, a fact they employed almost too often, making their music drag somewhat. But, both of these facts are offset on Superunknown by the amazing versatility of the writing and the virtuosity of the playing. Unlike prog bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer or metal bands like Metallica, Soundgarden could play intricate, complicated songs without seeming to break a sweat. Charting time signatures while listening to this album is a real treat for me, nerd that I am. I love that even on singles like "My Wave" or "Spoonman" they make liberal use of 5/4 or 7/8 while making it sound natural and easy: almost unheard of elsewhere. I'm gushing again. For Superunknown, Soundgarden's sound had also transformed into something new. Ben Shepherd's songs like "Half" and "Head Down" are almost unclassifiable, as are "4th of July," "Like Suicide" and "Black Hole Sun," though the latter's freshness has been dampened by years of radio overexposure. I could go on and on, but I don't want to sound like an infomercial. I'll just end this entry by saying that any album with "Black Hole Sun," "Spoonman," "The Day I Tried to Live," "Fell On Black Days," and "My Wave" on it would be bound to be a classic. However, on Superunknown these singles are part of a much deeper portrait that, as this writing attests, is very personal to me. I love this album - it is a perfect example of the promise that grew out of grunge's death of something bigger and stranger.
Wow! It's really fun to write about albums that I like. Is it any fun to read about them? Is anyone reading about them? Did you find anything here that you liked? Hated? Leave me a comment, friends. Next time - More '94, less "post-grunge" more "alternative."
From the Charleston Daily Mail via the Portland Oregonian:
In Charleston, W.Va., a man was charged with assault after police said he farted at an officer. Jose Cruz, 34, was arrested for suspicion of drunken driving and taken to police headquarters. While being fingerprinted, Cruz moved near one of the officers, "lifted his leg and passed gas loudly on the officer." Cruz then allegedly waved the air in the direction of the officer. "The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature" with the officer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Harpers:
From a police report filed as evidence in the assault trial of William Singlagah, twenty-seven, of Whakatane, New Zealand. In April, Singhlagah was found guilty and ordered to pay $350 to his victim, who was not named in court documents because he is a minor.
On Saturday, February 9, at about 8 P.M., the Defendant, William Singhlagah, was with a group of associates walking along Eivers Road. The Defendant was carrying a hedgehog. He approached to within five meters of the fifteen-year-old Complainant and threatened to throw the hedgehog at him. The Complainant asked him not to do this. The Defendant, however, took deliberate aim and threw it directly at him. The hedgehog hit the Complainant in the lower right hip, causing a large red welt and several puncture marks. Two quills were left sticking out of the Complainant's hip and had to be manually removed. The Defendant picked up the hedgehog and threatened to throw it at the Complainant again. The Complainant's mother intervened, and the Defendant walked approximately twenty meters up the road before pulling his trousers down to his knees, thereby revealing his boxer shorts. He bent over and pointed his backside toward the Complainant. He then pulled his pants up, rejoined his associates, and continued walking up the road.
Yesterday my mom reminded me that it was Tootie Day. When I was much much younger I decided that I would create a holiday. Or something. I can't remember why, but I did create a holiday called Tootie Day, in which "little bugs that bite," called tooties, come out of the ground annually. I remember that I chose Oct. 17th as Tootie Day because it was coming up and I wanted to celebrate my holiday soon. The proper way to celebrate Tootie Day is to have cake.
I'm pretty sure the inspiration for Tootie Day, besides the desire to have someone make me a cake, was my favorite game at the time, Cootie.
The rest of it's genesis is shrouded in mystery.
Anyways, yesterday was Tootie Day and I made a delicious spice cake, on which I frosted a horrendous, green bug with metallic teeth. It was served and enjoyed by the rest of the Bow family.
I am welcoming everyone else to celebrate a belated Tootie Day by making and eating their own cake. I am also welcoming everyone to remind me this holiday exists next year, as I'm sure I will forget and it is the only holiday I've ever created.
So I was trying to find trailers to watch for Oliver Stone's new historical clusterfuck, W. I can't say that I love Oliver Stone's films - Natural Born Killers was alright but Platoon is way overrated - but I'm definitely fascinated by his gall. He makes history films in broad strokes with little regard for reality. His attitude is even evident in his casting - James Cromwell is awesome but he is no George H.W. and Anthony Hopkins is a great actor, but he sure as hell isn't Richard Nixon. There's a surrealism in seeing famous actors playing even more famous historical figures. It takes a lot of balls, too, and I'm really curious about how/if it pays off at all.
In looking for the trailers on youtube I stumbled across even more strangeness. First, one of the official W. trailers:
Then someone's bizarre pet project full of spliced films, newsreels and soundbytes (and Zeppelin!). It's baffling to me why this was made, but even more interesting in the way that it works. There's no denying how cinematic George Bush's story is. (For the record, you only really need to watch the first 30-45 seconds of this to get the point, though the end is pretty good).
And lastly, and most importantly, I ran into this trailer for a completely different W. which I'll let speak for itself.
Whichfilm would you rather watch? Fiction, non-fiction or whatever that last one is?
I've been thinking over the past couple of days about my favorite period in modern music. I think that, when reminiscing, every music nerd has a space of a few years that holds a more specialer place in their heart than all other periods. It's not that this period is better than any other - it's just that they identify with it more than any other. Some people love early '60s rock, or late '60s, or late '70s glam, or mid-'80s new wave, etc. etc. I have a correlating theory that one's magic period is usually focused on the time that they, themselves, became aware of the music coming out around them.
At least both of these things are true for me. Somewhere wedged in my chest is a hollow of glitz and glitter devoted to post-grunge, '90s alternative circa 1994-1997. In reality, the whole decade has me in love with it from the 1989 stirrings of Mudhoney, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, the Happy Mondays, Faith No More and Primus to the final death-rattles that alterna-rock gave as it was successfully co-opted by adult-contemporary radio to be replaced by boy- and girl-groups and the likes of Matchbox 20 and the Goo Goo Dolls.
But, to my mind, after Cobain died the muddy self-seriousness of grunge filtered into a mainstream stew with Brit-pop, electronica, funk, punk, folk, blues, etc. to create a really exciting mixture of sounds that, to my ears, look more to the future than most of the throwback rock/pop that makes it onto the radio now. From the likes of the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Hives and (ugh) Jet to the Killers, the Bravery, Interpol and (ugh) She Wants Revenge to the Kings of Leon and whatever other bland bullshit has been bumping for the past three or four years, mainstream rock radio has become populated with bands that traffic in impersonating attitudes and sounds by bands that did them better decades ago. It's not that the mid-'90s were a font of originality born fully-formed out of a vacuum, but there was a sense of reaching for something new. Today bands reach to the past; retro is in, whether it be murky carbon-copies of the Velvet Underground or Joy Division.
Modern indie-rock, for it's part, has become Ouroboros-like. Fans look for bands based on contrived shticks and self-conscious flailings to set themselves apart from other groups, leading to bizarre sub-sub-categories of music by fans trying to distance their pet-groups from others. "They're like this freak-folk, sleaze-core group from New Hampshire, but they all wear black stockings on their heads so they can't see what they're doing. At the end of the show the lead singer always dresses up like a butterfly and runs through the audience. Their name is unpronouncable, because it's entirely made up of Arabic punctuation." Music has become overlooked for cache and gimmickery causing the turn-over rate for hot new bands has become miniscule.
Meanwhile mainstream rock has become almost non-existant leaving bands-least-likely-to like Nickelback and Hinder to wear the mantles of rock kings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But it wasn't always like this. Over the next couple of days I want to write about my favorite albums of my favorite 4 years of music. They will almost definitely not match up with anyone else's tit-for-tat, so I want to know from people reading this about their favorite period of music. Who else identifies with a musical chunk of history more than any others? You have to answer, cuz this post will look really sad with no comments on it.
Dear Dave, Where have you gone? Just the other day you were blogging like there was no tomorrow and now your computer's broken and you can't even be bothered to go to the library and tell me how you are. What's going on? - the general blogging public
Dear GBP, I'm right here! As some of you know, I've also been incapacitated with a cold, an ear infection and general jet-lag. As some more of you already know, I've had to go back to the US for a week and take care of some bizniss. What kind of bizniss? Call me and I'll moan about it to you. But every shitstorm has it's silver linings. One such lining is... My mom is loaning me her brand new laptop! This means I can use the internet now and I have Skype!
For those of you interested in talking to me face-to-digital-face you can now do so! My name is david.cbow
It's funny: in the past month I've grown really used to communicating (lopsidedly) with the world via this blog and I'm really looking forward to getting back into it. Tomorrow: a big blog post.
PS. Did anyone else watch the Project Runway finale? I don't want to give it away if you didn't/you aren't gay but needless to say, I am happy. Also, Kenley vs. Wendy Pepper: who is the greatest Project Runway villain?
So it's been a week of not-fun bullshit. The least lame of the lame bits being sitting through the BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre. Oh wow is it dire. Not awful-awful, but pretty bad. Problem number one being that Jane Eyre is a total frog-faced uggo:
Problem number two being that it's total melodrama/fairy tale nonsense. Just because the book is the prototype for the romantic novel as we know it doesn't mean that you have to play it like a pulp novel. The guy who plays Rochester's pretty alright, but the script doesn't do his portrayal justice. Instead of drawing out the themes in the book it just telegraphs them to us through stilted expository dialogue: "Has anyone seen my book, 'The Beast Within?'" "You don't really believe a man could be serene on the outside while hiding a dark secret, do you?" Gag.
But there's hope: a new movie adaptation (adaptation #1000, I believe) is on the horizon with Ellen Page as the titular character. Ellen Page - good actress, not an uggo.
So N. Ireland electrical currents have killed my computer. All other Americans' computers are fine, though... Anyways, I'll come back for a proper blog post the next time I go to the library (I'm here right now renting All That Heaven Allows and 3:10 To Yuma). Gay Gay Gay
CNN headlines of the day: "'Help me!' woman yells, then car explodes," "'Power Ranger' could face death in yacht killings," and "Skinny dipper invades Imperial Palace moat" ("Man splashed, threw rocks at police who pursued him in boat... Palace official says its unlikely emperor saw nude swimmer")
So I finally finished The Cranford Chronicles (or 2/3 of it, which is all I hope I need to read) and I feel like I've been sipping tea with old ladies forever. It was a good book, but not what you'd call a page-turner; the conflicts are small and there are no villains - it's just a big, warm-hearted slice of aging Victorian elegance. Fuck that. Now I'm reading Tipping the Velvet, which is all about oyster-shucking boy-ladies who get it on. Though it's about the late 1800s, it's the only modern book I'm reading this term (I don't think many Victorian novelists wrote about cross-dressing lesbians) and it shows. What an easy read! And not just because of all the hot, seafood euphemisms (did you know the 'bearded clam' is actually a seafood dish?).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I also got the second Bennington Free Press in the mail today, courtesy of Laurie Kobick. I'm hesitant to write anything here that someone who writes for it might read (though how many people are reading this? Three?) so I'll be democratic and state my likes with my dislikes:
I'm glad people at Bennington care about current affairs (pro). I'm pretty sure that we're all a tiny bit plugged into politics at the moment. But honestly, BFP, honestly you are the last place I'd ever go for news (con). Even if the writing was outstanding, why would I wait for Henry Lyon to inform me about the financial crisis (in a misspelled front page bulletin, no less) when there are hundreds of sources like CNN, The New York Times and even the fucking OregonianBFP - one Before the End of the World is enough. at my fingertips. The mind boggles! Come on I am interested in reading students' opinion-pieces about current events. Those are unique and something I can't get anywhere else, but I don't need the BFP informing me that the presidential debate was held; the world knows.
Ok, so I said I'd try not to be a bitch, but the above paragraph is pretty bitchy. Let's move on and try and keep it sweet:
There's a tribute to Archie (pro) - along with Dave, the most lovable security guard of all. He will be sorely, sorely missed. A fourth of the tribute is really about Sarah McAbee - the second time she's been mentioned in the two BFP's this year (con).
Someone's taken over Dee's baking column (with the nice title "Baking with Faith") (pro). It begins by suggesting that people of our generation don't know who Gene Kelly is (con). Faith, you go to Bennington - we know.
This next bit might get a little cunty:
Connie Panzariello '12 serves up the requisite Freshman article about how new and exciting and quirky Bennington is and how we're all going to be friends because Bennington is unlike anywhere in the world!
"A Freshman Perspective On Bennington: I like to think of my first night at Bennington as what will probably be a metaphor for my entire college experience here. At the student center, there was this drum dance. That's really the only way to describe it; only it wasn't exactly a dance in the traditional high school vein. In fact, most of my high school population would have run out faster than you could say the words, had they been there. I had my doubts as well, until I just stood there and watched for a little while. Everyone was dancing, or moving their body to the rhythm. They didn't care about how they looked or what anyone thought about them, they just did it. And after several minutes of inital 'Oh my god, what am I doing here?' thoughts - I joined in.
Oh God, Connie Panzariello '12, gag me with a spoon. (Dear Connie Panzariello '12, if you're reading this, I'm sorry). Some things:
Your high school population would have run faster than you could say what words?
Those people you saw dancing - they cared about how they looked and what people thought of them. And/or they were high.
This is not a metaphor for your college experience. I don't even know if it's really a metaphor... I think it's just a memory.
Connie then says she's on a path to self-discovery. It goes on:
I liken it to the proverbial falling without a parachute; only, it's not like you forgot the parachute; it simply does not exist. Before, at home, you probably had your parents, your best friend, and your dog, to fall on. Here you have yourself and about 231 people who are in the same exact plane as you are, but alas, they don't have parachutes either.
Connie, if falling without a parachute is a proverb at all it is one to warn against poor planning and stupidity. Also, it almost certainly ends in death. Are you saying that the freshman class has made a collective stupid decision to go to Bennington and they will all die? Also, who falls on their dog?
It's hard trying to figure out where you stand, how you stand or if you should even be standing there in the first place. Yet, I think the beauty of this place is that no one is going to tell you; you have to figure it out yourself.
Ah yes, the beauty of Bennington. I can see Connie now, five or six months down the road; she is wearing big sunglasses and chain-smoking a hangover away, complaining that nobody knows what they're doing here and that the dances all suck. It's too late to go to Bard, Connie - your credits won't transfer! (con)
Back on track:
Big Guy/Little Guy. What the fuck? I mean seriously. (con)
Eileen Scully's brother wrote Sarah Palin's creepy speech at the RNC? (con) Thank you, the skinny, this is exactly the type of interesting information the BFP should be giving me (pro).
Danny Brylow's thoughtful piece on Nick Brooke's awesome Time and Motion Study (pro).
Paul Newman's in the paper (pro)! It's cause he's dead (con).
Zack Franklin's Lucky Strikes graphs. Does this really need to take up half a page? Is there any logic behind any of this? Also, Zack Franklin, did you ever make a graph in school? (con)
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That was exhausting. It's like four years of anti-BFPaggression just rushed out of me. Is anyone still with me? Did that get too ugly? Why am I not reading about lesbians right now?
Today I got my absentee ballot. The coolest thing about it is the Military/Overseas Voters' Guide, in which I can look at every candidate's statement. It takes the whole running-for-president-is-like-applying-for-a-job thing to the next level by letting me go through everybody's resumes. Chuck Baldwin's crazy-insane bid for the presidency is a clear favorite. Plus this one - get it together, Mark Hass! But ultimately, despite the fact that a Baldwin/Castle ticket promises me that it will pull us out of the UN, treat abortion as a crime, return us to silver and gold money, veto federal funding for education and "pull the plug on the unaffordable American empire," Obama ended up getting my blackened oval.
While the ability to vote is pretty cool, the true benefit of getting my mail today was that I could make A list of some silly names from the Oregon ballot:
Rick Dancer Allen Alley Walter F (Walt) Brown Pavel Goberman Eldon Jossi Michael Meo Jaynee Germond Jackie Dingfelder Keith Wangle
When I started this blog I lamented the fact that 99% of all blogging is nothing but self-indulgent ramblings that are completely inconsequential to anyone but the writer. I've tried to make this blog interesting over the past month or so in the interest of my friends actually wanting to know what I'm doing halfway across the world and subsequently showering me with comments about how much they miss me. Today's post, however, falls squarely in the useless 99%. If you are not interested in how I spent my day shopping and what (awesome) music I've been listening to in the last week, just go to Boing Boing and please check back tomorrow. I promise it'll be better.
Upon waking up today I was reminded of the fact that I ran out of food before my family visit weekend. All that was left for me to eat this morning were apples, peanut-butter and celery (which all go pretty well together) as well as cereal (no milk) and pasta sauce. So I trudged down to the local Tescoe's to stock up. Here's the thing about grocery stores in N. Ireland: they seem to cater to the New York City idea of buying groceries every couple of days as appetite warrants rather than the rural New York idea of filling the pantry with bulk items that'll last a month or two. In this frame of mind, all perishables are set to expire within three to five days of purchase. How the fuck am I supposed to eat a tub of cream cheese or hummus in three days, Tescoe? (I warned you about this entry)
But, all of this cream cheese related anger can be waived with a bangin' playlist. Most of what I hear in the outside world of pubs and clubs consists of "I Kissed a Girl," "When I Grow Up," and other gayer-than-gay songs. Did you know boy bands are still really, really big over here? Have you ever heard of Boyzone or Girls Aloud or Westlife? Me neither. And it's not just fifteen year-old-girls - our 50-something, male cab driver (after lamenting America's sizable "coloured" population) put on a live Kylie Minogue album. Europe, you are so gay and you don't even know it.
Here's what I've been sheltering myself with, presented to you in embedded videos. Have you noticed how much I like putting videos in my blog entries? If a picture says a thousand words than a moving picture must say 24-thousand words per second.
1. The Eels - Fashion Awards 2. The Pogues - Sally MacLennane 3. Harvey Danger - Radio Silence 4. Wings - Jet 5. Happy Mondays - Stop On 6. Radiohead - Just 7. Cold War Kids - Something Is Not Right With Me 8. Faith No More - Malpractice 9. The Good, The Bad and The Queen - Green Fields 10. Goldfrapp - Happiness 11. Muse - The Small Print 12. Green Day - Hitchin' a Ride
Start it out quiet
Check out Paul's mullet and double-necked guitar friend!
How high do you think the Mondays were during the conception and shooting of this video? On a scale from 8 to 10? You're twistin' my melon, man!
My favorite video from a band known for making great videos
For all the movement in this video why is it so boring?
The second creepiest song off of Angel Dust. It's about being awake during surgery. Shivers!
Nothing seems more British to me than this concept album about England. I'm sure British people would disagree with me, though. It is, in all fairness, no Girls Aloud.
Goldfrapp has the solution to the Cold War Kids' problem - it's not just movement that makes the video, it's perpetual movement shot in one steady-cam shot. And ice-cream-coloured suits.
The most straight-forward rocker on the awesome Absolution. I still haven't got Black Holes and Revelations, because I'm an old man who fears change and stays consistently five years behind all popular music...
...as evidenced by the fact that I never got the memo that Green Day is strictly for tweens now. What a killer album Nimrod is. Do you remember this video? I sure don't. It's like Green Day saw The Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight" video and said, "We can do that... with a Betty Boop giraffe!" The rest was non-history.
Oh blog, what would I do if I didn't have you? Who would I tell about my adventures? People I could see?
News:
I have purchased a pair of really nice jeans at Topman making me a metrosexual from the waist down. Also, now that I know that Topman exists I finally get who Damon Albarn is making fun of in that Blur song, "Top Man" (me!).
I finally finished Jane Eyre (behind the schedule I set for myself) and it was amazing. Easily the best book I've read all year. Now I'm about a third of the way through The Cranford Chronicles, three Victorian comedies which are just as gut-busting as their BBC adaptation (which I also have to watch) looks:
I just got back from a trip to Navin in the Republic with the five dire Americans in my study abroad group. We were down there on our mandatory weekend homestay with a real Irish family. Guess what - not that different from American families. We watched X Factor (Britain's "American Idol" - please watch all of the clips below) as well as Top Gear - a show that's enormous in Britain, but I still can't figure out why. The family was nice enough all-around, minus Copper, the shaved Cocker Spaniel who constantly had a pink, semi-erection dragging on the ground (and anything he jumped up on like my legs when I was at the dinner table trying to eat).
And speaking of eating, the main difference between American families and Irish: the Irish food is amazing. Today I had three potato dishes, turnips with carrots and turkey for lunch. Last night they served us (no joke): fried eggs and fried white pudding to go on fried pieces of brown bread, served with fried sausage and bacon. It was the most delicious, artery-clogging dinner I've ever had. Also, they drink tea and eat biscuits (cookies without the guilt) all day long.
Irish people keep talking about how Americans are fat but they love fried food here! All Chinese food resturaunts here serve french fries. Also, I recently went to a chippy shop, which is basically an assembly line of deep-fat friers and witnessed people ordering things like "the cowboy supper" - fried, battered sausages with fries and gravy.
Today I had my first lecture - Discovering the Earliest Writings in English. Hey, did you know that Old English is not actually English at all? It's actually some hurby-gurby language that sounds all fucked up and shit.
I had been led by Hollywood to believe that Old English was like this:
In fact, it's more like this:
That's right, everything in Old English is about God and farm animals. Crispin Glover nor Angelina Jolie have been mentioned. And listen to how they start the Lord's Prayer:
Faeder ure, the the eart on heofonum, Si thin nama gehalgod. Tobecume thin rice Gewurthe thin willa on eorthan swa swa on heofonum.
Whaaaa? If you are pronouncing that correctly, you should sound something like this:
Luckily, tomorrow I have Medieval English, which I have been led to believe is something like this:
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Jane Eyre, for it's part, is coming right along. That means I only have three more books to read. Yay!
Oh yeah I have this thing
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I kind of forgot about this blog and the Lykke Li song made me wish I never
remembered. I'm broke and jobless and living in new city so I definitely
need t...
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Oh, hello, Verbalblogarrhea, most cherished and neglected pet-project.
Please do not get your hopes up. This is, in all likelihood, little more
than an e-d...
At long last
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-I went to see Ice Age 3:Dawn of the Dinosaurs with Cordell, Lorelai and
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Tiny Vortex
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I keep forgetting to post in this thing, but I will post more soon. Future
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We all hear stories of children going missing. Just walk into any Wal-Mart
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