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Palin Is Dead? [19 Sep 2008|05:07pm] [ mood | pseudo-jetlagged ] [ music | Giuseppe Verdi - Requiem: Quattro Pezzi Sacri ] Forgive me if this post feels a bit out-of-date: in the current news cycle, it might feel so Monday-ish. When I was a teenager, one of my favorite things to do was to obsess on the "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy. You should know what I'm talking about - Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966, but the Beatles attempted to cover it up via hiring a lookalike. However there were a number of clues for the clued-in, particularly "hidden" song lyrics ("I Buried Paul", "Turn Me On Dead Man") and album cover clues. I so fervently believed the conspiracy that I'm still not sure that the guy actually is alive - I mean, if Jose Feliciano decided to sing an elegy to you wouldn't that seem to say it all? So with that, let's now turn our focus to that latest performer in our Theatre Of The Absurd, Sarah Palin. Pre-Labor Day weekend, to the 300 or so people who knew she existed, she was very open about herself, always willing to talk, and if this week's New Yorker is any indication, spontaneous enough in her conversation to talk about anything and everything. But from that weekend on, she has now dropped out of public view, speaks rarely and never drifts from scripts in most appearances. Yet just the mere existence of her seems to have completely upset the course of this election, to the point that its almost unbelievable to remember now that 1 month ago at this moment the thought on everyone's mind was "who will be Obama's VP?" You probably get where I'm going with this (especially for those savvy enough to read my pun of a title, which I confess I thought too clever to leave to my own 3am mind and is the basis for this entire post), but aside from typical crazy religious beliefs, the behavior of this month's Palin differs significantly from last month's Palin. In an almost bizarre manner, the less and less she does, the more and more popular she gets. And the more she drones the same mantra, regardless of its by-now-proven contradictions, the more ecstatic people get. Now I'm not insinuating she was killed (I've already got 2 kids, no time to deal with the feds). I'm just saying, has anyone seen any unusual scars on her lately? Has anyone played her RNC speech backwards? Okay, enough of that. In honesty, as soon as I read the first announcement of Palin's selection and read a quick bio of her, I thought immediately of a Daniel Clowes panel found in one of the early issues of his comic Eightball. The piece was about the future, and the particular panel had a caption like "What if somehow people wrote-in your name for the presidential election and you won, but then you really didn't know what you were doing and suddenly everyone hated you?" and the scene showed "you" in the Oval Office saying "Ulp!" as a baseball smashes through the window and death threats are lined up on the desk. That was immediately what I thought of. I actually had the privilege of meeting Clowes (one of my life heroes) 2 days after the Palin announcement, but rather than mention that I decided to ask him if he still gets as many weirdos at signings now that he is famous. Yes, I allotted my time wisely. 2 comments|post comment

In Defense Of Lenox Mall [08 Jun 2008|10:55am] [ mood | rub it in, tredecimal ] [ music | Kevin Ayers - Unfairground ] There's a tourist guide to Atlanta on The Economist's website that says something along the lines of "Atlantans love to talk endlessly about alternate travel routes & weather, so be prepared." ( And they know what they're talking about. ) Note I call it "Lenox Mall." I will never defend it by its official name, "Lenox Square", as I can't find anything about it that is even square-like. Even the building isn't square! When I become dictator of America, my first action will be to convert everyone to the religion of architectural fundamentalism, wherewith all inaccurately named "squares", "boulevards", "circles", etc will immediately be disappeared. But that would be revealing too much of my strategy. 17 comments|post comment

[01 Jun 2008|09:14pm] [ mood | awaiting lavazza ] [ music | Hector Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique ] Good Sunday morning from seemingly the only person currently awake in the Eastern Time Zone. 7 years since I officially became an item with the missus, as of around 1:30 or so this afternoon - long may it run. I've had writer's block on here for ages, which is kinda funny considering that probably nobody has any expectations for anything I do (nor does anyone probably care that I'm finally breaking the silence). But I was reading in last week's New Yorker, where one of the staff writers has been visiting a Manhattan soup kitchen for the last couple of decades & setting up a writer's workshop there. Now, most of you probably can gather what a writer's workshop is, but I never did anything extracurricular in my academic career outside of WREK and I can therefore be a bit slow. But in reading the activities of the workshop, everyone having a week to write a paper on a fixed theme, keeping the word limit at a max, etc sounded like a fun challenge to me. I thought "maybe I should try to find something like that. I do have the audacity to think I have a voice, however distorted it may be", and then I counter-thought "hey, didn't I set up a livejournal like 6 years ago to accomplish this same task?" My journal, which originally branched out in a couple of directions, eventually settled into the verse-chorus-verse of "here's what I ate for dinner"/"here's my fabulous vacation plan"/"here's some obscure record review for you to scroll through". Not that I don't like writing such things (or reading such from others), but not exactly what I had intended. And then I'll be in the midst of some 20,000 word essay on it all only to say "what's the point?" In fact I've written 2 full LJ posts in the past 2 months, only to finally cancel them instead of hitting "post" just because my internal editor made an all-too-rare appearance. It's not lost on me that by far the most successful thing I've written on here (in my internal definition of "success") is my Japan encyclopedia from 2005. So that said, I have the goal of trying to turn this back into what I originally wanted it to be. Relatively short (note I said "relatively") ruminations on whatever is in my head. Not as much straight autobio as before. We'll see what happens. And now everyone else is awake. 6 comments|post comment

[04 Apr 2008|03:02am] [ mood | the only one up ] [ music | v/a - shadow music of thailand ] Yes, its me. My 6th LJ birthday is this Saturday, and despite being largely invisible on here (and in fact not even being able to read basically anything written from December - March) I was going to write some big post, but who knows if I'll get the time. So here I am, happy birthday me! Here are things I could write about in detail but will summarize: 1) The tortures a music enthusiast goes through when he has to enter into the dark realm of the unknown...CHILDRENS MUSIC. Hey parents out there, any albums you recommend? I prefer non-synthesized instrumentation, no LCD stuff, and nothing that will encourage my kids to run out and stimulate the economy. And anything that mentions "brain power" on the cover will almost automatically be disqualified. I did buy the They Might Be Giants kids' albums although I think they're probably better for older kids, and I did buy some platinum-hits Sesame Street type thing, because even though A-chan has never watched TV she does know a few of the songs. 2) S-chan (in her initialized debut, not to be confused with S) took her first trip out of town 2 weekends ago, to the lovely retreat of Chattanooga Tennessee. tredecimal might be pleased to know that we visited the Incline Railway, Rock City, and the Aquarium, yet without a doubt A-chan's absolute favorite place in the whole city was McKay's Used Bookstore. We even had to go back twice! Oh yeah, we ate at Mojo Burrito in Mt Elmo (is that the name?) near the Incline Railway - pretty boho-looking setup and we were served by a guy wearing an Earth Crisis t-shirt, something tells me that they're friends (or maybe enemies, but definitely on terms) with P... 3) S-chan's 2nd trip out of town was this past weekend, visiting Montgomery Alabama. Over there, we visited museums and memorials to 2 great people linked with the city who could not be further apart - Rosa Parks and Hank Williams. The Rosa Parks Museum, built at the street corner where she got on that fabled bus (and incidentally the former location of the Empire Theater where Hank got his start), was very fascinating in that it was the first time I've ever visited a tourist attraction celebrating insurrection against the very same people who are sponsoring it now. I know times have changed, but its still pretty interesting to see the history of such a corrupt government and then realize "hey, wait a second, I'm there right now!" 4) S-chan's 3rd trip out of town will be in 2 weeks, when she flies to Manhattan. S has gotta see Rent one last time before it leaves Broadway, and by sacrificing my Saturday night for this I get one complete no-questions-asked no-complaints-accepted excursion on my own. Alright record fiends, I've been to Kim's enough and I haven't been to Other Music in about 7 years - I'd say OM, but are there any other places you think I should consider, knowing my tastes? 5) Speaking of music, any year where we've just begun April yet we have new albums from Reiko Kudo, Joshua Burkett, and one arriving in my mailbox any day now from Fursaxa has got to be a good one. And today, the 2 new Sublime Frequencies releases came knocking on my door. This, 2 days after the latest installments of the Obscure Tape Music Of Japan series...etc. If 2008 ended tomorrow, it'd eclipse 2007's highlights, and there's still 8 months of this stuff to come! 6) Going back to travel, the next trip to Japan will be in November (for the event of shichi go san, for those of you familiar with such). The big catch this time? My parents are coming with us. For those of you who don't know my parents, let's just say that they are typically not 2 people you'd expect to run into in your local international air terminal. This will be one very interesting trip - more to come on this, doubtless. Maybe on my actual anniversary I can post some A-chan/S-chan shots on here, now that we've got a fair number. But for now... PS - hey, parents! I'm serious about kids musictalk! Good albums, bad ones, thoughts on children's music in general, whatever... 12 comments|post comment

[31 Dec 2007|06:06pm] [ mood | eating a-chan's snacks ] [ music | Alemayehu Eshete - Ethiopiques 22 ] Yeah, its been a long time. No, I haven't really read LJ in a number of weeks and I really can't now either. Yes, I'm writing solely because its the last day of 2007 and I have a record-geek duty to throw out my obligatory list. No, there are no descriptions this year because I couldn't find time to write them, but I'll be happy to converse on any selection. Yes, I bought a lot of albums this year. And yes, I have made my 2007 mix which contains all of my top 10 (or reasonable facsmilies thereof) and a not indecent amount of other artists you'll find on my mega-list. Yes, I have a couple of spare copies so provided you are not xantha or the family of gatheringmoss who are already signed up I will consider chucking one your way provided you've commented to my journal within the past year (ha!). Okay, my top 10 of 2007, which are largely reissues because (a) there were so many great reissues this year and (b) I'm almost 32 which means I guess I'm starting to become the fabled crotchedy old man that I swore I'd never be: Baby Grandmothers - Baby Grandmothers (Subliminal Sounds) Boredoms - Super Roots 7 (Vice) Vashti Bunyan - Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind (Dicristina) Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses (Leaf) Toshi Ichiyanagi - Obscure Tape Music Of Japan Vol. 5: Music For Tinguely (Omega Point) Kemialliset Ystavat - Kemialliset Ystavat (Fonal) Maher Shalal Hash Baz - L'Autre Cap (K) Sun Ra - The Night Of The Purple Moon (Atavistic) V/A - Eccentric Soul: The Outskirts Of Deep City (Numero) V/A - Keeping The Faith: 40 Years Of Northern Soul (Castle) And that came from the following list of music I acquired this year. * indicates 2007 issue, ** indicates 2007 reissue/old. ( yes, I got all this in one year ) Whew. And just to show you that my ridiculous mix title plays on Thomas Friedman's premise that the world is flat, here's a listing of the places where I acquired such albums just for the heck of it: ( only of interest to the clinically insane ) No, we haven't seen Baby-chan #2 yet although we will within the next 2 weeks (gasp). Yes, all are doing well. Yes, I have new years resolutions. No, I won't post them now. Yes, I know you're relieved. Happy 2008 in advance - at long last, the year we've been waiting for! 14 comments|post comment

[29 Sep 2007|09:56pm] [ mood | unjetlagged? ] [ music | Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom & The Ys Street Band ] Hi, we're back from the Netherlands, and with that we're grounded until Baby-chan #2 descends from the Great Stork in a few months. I'm not going to write a series of trip diaries, thank goodness, but so you know this is what we did in each city: UTRECHT Dick Bruna Huis - museum dedicated to the creator of beloved cartoon rabbit (in Japan, thoroughly idolized cartoon rabbit) Miffy. Dom Tower - because, awake for roughly 29 hours straight or not, there is no way I can not climb the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. Catharijneconvent Museum - biggest museum of religious art throughout the Netherlands' history. Het Nationaal Museum van Speelklok tot Pierement - in English, the National Museum From Musical Clock To Street Organ: a fascinating museum dedicated to automated musical instruments from the 16th to 20th centuries. OTTERLOO Kroller-Muller Museum - one of the most well-known modern art museums in the world. Large collections of Van Gogh & Mondrian, with one of the biggest sculpture gardens in Europe including a huge piece by one of my heroes Jean Dubuffet. KINDERDIJK Windmills - you really do see windmills all over the place in the Netherlands, but this community has 19 of them grouped together in one field and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. DELFT Oude Kerk - the old church in the town, with a leaning tower. Legendary painter and hometown boy Johannes Vermeer is commemmorated here. Nieuwe Kerk - and what's an oude kerk without a nieuwe kerk? This one is a bit more entwined with Dutch royal history which I am woefully ignorant of. GOUDA Sint Jans-kerk - the longest cathedral in the Netherlands, with beautiful stained glass. Van Den Berg Pastry Shop - famed for its stroopwaffels, an addictive Dutch snack of two thin waffles with a layer of syrup gluing them together. I will not tell my gastroenterologist how many of these I ate on the trip. 'tKaaswinkeltje - because what's a visit to Gouda without visiting a cheese shop? Not only did we leave with ample amounts of aged boerenkaas (aged farmer's gouda - maybe my favorite cheese on earth) and Delft blue, but we also finally tried the real Camembert cheese, the one that you can't legally import into the United States due to our stupid laws regarding bacteria. Oh, I'm sure the chambermaids of the wonderful NH Hotel in Utrecht did not approve of our purchase of the latter come check-out time, but we most certainly did. DEN HAAG/THE HAGUE [I love how its THE Hague] Mauritshuis - small art collection known the world over for housing 3 particularly renowned Vermeers including "Girl With A Pearl Earring" as well as the first renowned Rembrandt painting "The Anatomy Lesson" (the latter not on view currently, so you'll have to get your anatomical kicks elsewhere, lads). Escher In Het Paleis - a museum dedicated to perhaps the only Dutch artist emblazoned on more dorm room walls than Van Gogh, MC Escher. Rest assured you could spend the rest of your life in this place. AMSTERDAM Anne Frank Huis - I must admit, I did not plan to visit this house because I thought it would be overcrowded and I thought I'd gotten enough of an impression of it from reading the diaries. S talked me out of it and for that I'm extremely grateful, because it is no mere cliche to say this was one of the most moving and intriguing sites I've ever visited. Stedelijk Museum - as is virtually everything else in the city, the big modern art museum is undergoing major renovation with none of its permanent collection on view. If, on the other hand, if you're ready for 15-minute video installations depicting somebody's foot standing on someone else's wrist, then hang a left out of Centraal Station and thank me later. The Red Light District - hey, our beloved A-chan turned 2 on this trip, so we figured we should go ahead and show her how the world works before some kid at school tries to get the upper hand on her. Nieuwe Kerk - a church that's no longer a church but instead an exhibition space, containing a show on Dutch heroes currently. We apparently didn't read our guidebook well enough, so we ended up visiting one of the most disappointing cathedrals we've ever visited to see one of the most disappointing exhibitions we've ever seen. But seeing naked photos of Dutch football stars in a church setting seems awfully Amsterdam-appropos in retrospect. Paradiso - one of the most legendary concert venues, or at least its one I've known about for years. Attending a venue where the Soft Machine once played is like sacred ground to me, so it only makes sense to find out the place used to be a church. My Franks APA cohorts and I had the added pleasure of not only attending this club but seeing Amsterdam's finest, The Ex, playing along with Ethiopian jazz saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria for a night of jazzy funky punky mayhem. Van Gogh Museum - yes we've already seen 30,000 Van Goghs in our lifetime, but hey, this is the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam! Really, beating your way through the 30-odd throng of people ogling that sunflower will give your genitalia a particularly tingling sensation here! But really, it is a very well-put together museum even if I wanted to passive-aggressively throttle everyone else there who acted as if they had never seen anything by the guy before (and who knows, maybe they haven't). CoBrA Museum - way out in the suburbs of Amsterdam is my favorite art museum in the city, dedicated to the post-war artists in Copenhagen, Brusssels, and Amsterdam who pooled together their outside tendencies and made some beautiful, tragically undersung art. A-chan reacted to this museum like none other she has ever been in previously. Rijksmuseum - also heavily under renovation, but we may as well hit the trifecta and see the grandaddy of all Amsterdam museums. Although I was horribly disappointed to see that Vermeer's The Milkmaid/"Kitchen Maid" is temporarily in Tokyo of all places! Aargh! But thankfully S has seen it already (I think she's down to the single digits now in her goal to see all of Vermeer's 36 paintings in the flesh). And the rest of the trip was all markets, train trips, Miffy-related shopping, and hangouts with my wonderful, wonderful friends in the music zine collective Franks APA (hellos & nice-to-chat-with-you shoutouts to henry_the_cow and bolshy_spice. In fact, the decision to go to Amsterdam was to meet up with them to celebrate the 100th issue of the zine. I think you'll be able to see the swell cover by following this link. As far as food goes, I have now added raw herring, smoked eel, Dutch shrimp, true pommes frites, delicious Dutch chocolate milk, and the aforementioned stroopwaffels and cheeses to my culinary cataloguing. Other than that, the trip was basically falafels, 3 separate Indonesian rijsttafels, and more Aged Gouda sandwiches than I'll probably eat for the rest of my life. And I couldn't drink over there due to my current medical condition, but an extremely kind Franks cohort presented me with a bottle of Ename Tripel, a Belgian ale he endorses that I can't find stateside for when I can eventually embrace my alcoholic ways once more. Verily I have been blessed. [And post concludes for friends only, since I've got a pic and don't want to show it off on a public post] 2 comments|post comment

[26 Jul 2007|09:55pm] [ mood | fully clothed, for a change ] [ music | Edith Piaf - La Vie En Rose Disc 2 ] Hello from the "Business Center" of the Holiday Inn Express in Duncanville, TX. I'm on a business trip doing stuff in Cedar Hill (a little to the south of here) this week, part of next week, and part of the week 2 weeks after next week. Duncanville is just south of the Dallas metro area - I can get to downtown in about 20 minutes, and I can get to downtown Fort Worth in about 45. I went into Fort Worth after work yesterday, and Dallas today. Let me tell you about them. Preface: This is my 2nd real time in the DFW area. S and I were here last year, and to our surprise we really loved it. People talk trash about Dallas a lot, and maybe if you lived here it might get old quick, but if you are an art/history enthusiast and you've got a weekend to spare you really can't get much better in the USA. Seriously! And the food shocked me too - at home, Tex-Mex is one of the things I don't enjoy eating, since I gain 3 pounds just picking up the menu and its almost always generic. Not to say I still don't gain those pounds here, but the meals that S and I had were all fantastic (even the museum cafes!). ( Fort Worth ) ( Dallas ) So bottom line: forget JR Ewing, forget George W Bush (oh, if only), forget the swagger and forget all of George Strait's exes. The fact of the matter is, Dallas/Ft Worth is the ideal weekend getaway, particularly over the next couple of months while all of these referenced exhibitions are still on. And that's to say nothing of the essential Sixth Floor Museum, which is fascinating regardless of your Kennedy mindset. Which gives me one final thrill to add about the city, because you get that weird rush when you drive over the Kennedy death scene (marked with an X on the road, even) as you're preparing to get on I-35. And really, if a city can make you excited to rent a car for such a purpose, even in a sprawling traffic-laden metroplex like this one, they have to be doing something right... 6 comments|post comment

[11 Jul 2007|10:20pm] [ mood | surviving ] [ music | jad [fair] & nao [ishimaru aka yximalloo] - half alien ] Hello everybody. I've had writer's block for awhile and didn't know what to write about here. No Japan stories. No Minneapolis stories. No Nashville stories. No hospital stories. No Texas stories. And definitely no music reviews. Instead we're going to talk about my trip to Hardeman Primitive Baptist Church this past weekend to participate in a sacred harp singing. ( Sacred Harp Background ) ( the Primitive Baptist life ) ( Lunch & Singing Preparation ) ( As for the singing ) So there it is. I was gone from this portal for so long that a few of you wondered if you'd ever hear from me again. And after this, you're probably thinking "when will he ever go away again?" How about now, temporarily? But before I go, mention must be made for 2 of my most beloved LJ posters of all who will only show up with lines through their names here, ikahana and hedorah. This place just isn't the same without either one of you here. I'm conducting a sacred harp rendition of silence for you right now... 6 comments|post comment

[27 Apr 2007|12:05am] [ mood | taj mahal travelling ] [ music | V/A - Rembetika: Greek Music Of The Underground Disc 1 ] Sorry for those of you just clamoring to read my belated music reviews, but I've been busy lately. As you may have recalled, we were scheduled to visit San Francisco for our 5th anniversary last week. We did so and had a great time indeed. ikahana, my occasional alter ego, penned a 9-page document for us on SF from an insider's perspective, and he was a gigantic help with pointing us in the directions we wanted to go. As such, I wrote him a huge trip summary that detailed everything we did. Its probably more info than any of you will have time for, but just in case you're curious I'll reprint it here. I'm not quite sure I left my heart in SF, but it does appear that I left my belt there. But at least it was an old belt. ( Wed 4/18: getting to SF ) ( Thurs 4/19: North Beach, Fisherman's Wharf, Anniversary Dinner ) ( Fri 4/20: Asian Art Museum, The Mission ) ( Sat 4/21: Ocean Beach, Golden Gate Park, The Haight, SOMA ) ( Sun 4/22: Conclusion ) And now its time for us to roll up for the mystery tour once again - in less than 72 hours, we will be taking that 6800-mile flight to the motherland once again. You've probably read more than enough Japanese trip diaries from me in the past, so I don't know if I'll do one or not (if that's not a sickening populist cry for love, what is?). So mata ne until then, and if you bothered to read any of this post, thanks. And if you didn't...no thanks? 7 comments|post comment

[05 Apr 2007|06:55am] [ mood | too early to wear pants ] [ music | The Vaselines - The Way Of The Vaselines ] I woke up this morning around 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. I just realized it must have been my subconscious notifying me that today is my LJ's 5th birthday! Let's reflect on where I was back then: On April 5, 2002, I: - was still single, albeit engaged - was living in Atlanta with geebs and JS, a veritable bachelor geek Ground Zero - had never left the United States before - was still a DJ at the greatest radio station in America, WREK 91.1FM - was still in the habit of going out to at least one show a week - was self-conscious about eating in nice restaurants because I couldn't hold a fork properly - tended not to drink at that point (beer was still 6% max allowance in GA back then) - spent so much time in L5P I was mistaken for a Wax N Facts employee twice - tended to write long incoherent rambles on newsgroups Well, regarding the latter its nice to see some things haven't changed over times, just the medium. For everything else though, wasn't it such a different life? Where would this journal be without unending travel diaries or critiques of restaurants 95% of you will never be within 500 miles of or the literary joys of unintended Belgian ale aftereffects? Really, doesn't it make you want to cry? In honor of this occasion, here's an old review. clevemire recently mentioned on geebs' LJ my mid-20s goal of eating at every Atlanta burrito joint. Here's an old post I made to my former stomping ground git.talk.grimstari back in the summer of 2001, I believe. The hydra-headed beast that is Moe's (and a beast it truly is) still had only one location back in those days, on Peachtree in Buckhead in the Garden Hills area. Even for those of you who have never eaten at such places, it might be of interest to compare my slightly more gonzo writing style from back then, which was pretty much unappreciated by virtually all of the Georgia Tech civilization (and rightly so). Read on and realize: as voluminous as I write now, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. ( ah, burrito chains ) And if you're dying to hear more burrito talk from me, here's a Chipotle review I wrote for a food LJ a few years ago. Speaking of which, I'm still up for discussions on where to get a good burrito in SF when we visit in a few weeks. ikahana has been an immeasurable help, and I've got the Time Out guide to SF also but welcome all suggestions. And with that I'll stop (not least because its actually time for me to get ready to go to work). Happy pseudo-birthday, me! 15 comments|post comment

[30 Mar 2007|09:09pm] [ mood | oversalsaed ] [ music | Group Doueh - Guitar Music Of The Western Sahara ] What do you know, I actually have been updating this thing every week or so for over a month now. I should've made this a resolution! No photos this week - our camera battery charger has gone MIA and apparently it can not be purchased in this country. Thankfully a workmate of S' is over in the homeland right now and will bring us back one at the beginning of next week. Now that I think about it, our camera turns 1 year old tomorrow (oh wow, that means I ate fugu a year ago tonight!) and it was pretty cool to come home with a "camera of the future"-type device but I do have to admit this is a downside - ah well, soon...Fascinating, innit? Speaking of travelling, I mentioned our schedule last week, in that we're going to San Francisco in April and Minneapolis in May, right? Well, now we're going to Japan inbetween those two trips. Literally - we will be on a plane 4 consecutive Sundays: April 22 (coming home from San Francisco), April 29 (leaving for Japan), May 6 (coming home from Japan), and May 13 (coming home from Minneapolis). 42 hours on a plane (with an 19-month-old no less) in a little under a month. And on May 20 I'll be driving (alone) to Nashville for a business trip. And May 27 is Memorial Day Weekend. It's kind of crazy, but a good kind of crazy. This Japan trip is mainly to see A-chan's grandmother, who we haven't seen since September (and there's a big difference between 12 and 19 months). Not many ideas of what else to do as of yet. It probably doesn't help that its "Golden Week", a very popular travel time inside Japan, so much so that American guidebooks routinely warn tourists of going to Japan at that time. But because of that we were able to get a special deal during a not-so economical time. I think my only obvious tourist request is to go to a garlic-specialty restaurant, something I've only recently heard of but is apparently quite popular there. We're wondering if A-chan is of an appropriate age to go to the Studio Ghibli theme area also... In the meantime, here's this week's review: Richard Lerman - Music Of Richard Lerman 1964-1987 (EM Records 2xCD 2007) EM Records has its ups and downs, but they scored with this nice set dedicated to bicycle riders everywhere. Mr. Lerman is a conceptual kind of composer who put an album out on Folkways in 1983 featuring music composed purely from bicycles. This was done in both "concert" and "promenade" settings. The concerts involve three bicycles on a stage inverted, with pick-ups attached to the spokes. The wheels roll at certain speeds, and the spokes are malleted which gives off a gamelan vibe (indeed, the title of the continuing composition is groaningly called "Travelon Gamelon"). Its nice, but my favorites are the promenades, which are teams of 25 bicycles riding through a designated city. Its almost like a field recording, as you hear the whirring of the bikes, the bells, surface noise, etc. By now you may think (think?) I'm completely insane but it really is quite fascinating to listen to. Disc 2, on the other hand, is previously unreleased stuff from Lerman's early days and has nary a bike on it but instead lots of early electronics and tape stuff. And while that may sound academic, and some of it is, there's some great spooky collages and modern compositional stuff at work if you're into that kind of thing. To top it off EM has thrown quicktime videos of much of the music onto the discs, which would definitely be worth watching if you're unlike me and have a reliable PC that can handle this task. Dare I say, the ultime EM release? If you just read the above, found it somewhat interesting and have never heard of EM Records, its well worth further inspection. They're a Japanese label dedicated to issuing nothing but bizarre sounding stuff like the above. I bought most of my EM stuff through the Tower Records in Shinjuku (who have an EM section), but I owe my awareness of them to the fine people at San Francisco's Aquarius Records which would be nice to visit next month should I get the opportunity. I promised them my old Harvey Milk t-shirt a long time ago (which got them "Aquarius Records excited") and hopefully I can dig it out of my parents' basement before then. Make the record store employees happy, that's my motto (isn't that right, extyger...?) Oh, one final interesting bit of information. Are any of you people CNN junkies? If so, do you recall a Japanese anchor they had for a long time named Sachi Koto? As it turns out, I've gotten to know her since she's been one of the three students in my Japanese language class over the past 2 months. I confess that I didn't know her although when I casually mentioned her to S she nearly fainted. Apparently you can't be a Japanese person in Georgia (at least) and not know who she is. S doubly fainted the next week when I came home and told her that Koto-san wanted to borrow my DVD of Akira Kurosawa's classic Ikiru. Kind of like making an offering to the gods, I guess. So now when I'm talking to Nihon-jins over here who give me a blank stare when I tell them that Acid Mothers Temple used my washer/dryer, I can just tell them that I've conjugated adjectives with her and I'm Mr. Second-Hand Celebrity... Yeah, I said "conjugated adjectives" above. Now I know why the 16th century Jesuits thought Japanese was the language of the devil, designed specifically to overwhelm missionaries (true story)... And with that, ja mata ne! 5 comments|post comment

[17 Mar 2007|04:05pm] [ mood | Saturday afternoon pajamas ] [ music | Buckner & Garcia - Pac Man Fever ] Its a special "all-music" edition of psyched_out this week. As opposed to the other ones which are typically 94% music content. First off, Atlanta people, this new issue of Creative Loafing and its cover star, Kenny Crucial. Why have I never seen or heard of this guy? I may be a homebody these days, but I was typically front-and-center at a lot of supposedly cool shows over the past decade and I'd think I'd at least have an inkling of this guy. I personally think the dearly departed 315 should have had the accolade - he was somebody EVERYONE knew and he was equally mysterious. But maybe I've just never paid attention, or maybe he's one of those WRAS types. If you're reading this, Mr. Crucial, give me a rundown of every show you've been to since 1992! Second, I bought this new Neil Young album of a 1971 solo concert that came out this week. It was before Harvest was released, but there's a lot of that on here without any "Wooo!!"ing that would've been unavoidable afterwards. There's even 2 songs apiece from my beloved Time Fades Away and On The Beach albums that came later down the line. Its good stuff, great stuff perhaps, but the big surprise came with the little sheet inside the unspeakably annoying packaging: COMING IN 2007 Neil Young The Archives Vol 1 1963-1972 8-CD 2-DVD collection features rare, unreleased studio & live recordings, never-before-seen film footage, spectacular photos, personal letters and a 150-page book. Holy crap indeed. I've been waiting for this as long as I've been waiting for a followup to the last My Bloody Valentine record, although I've always known that this one would truly deliver the goods. Everybody don't sell your kidneys at once! Apparently Neil Young's website has more details and some downloadable stuff on it, but I'd rather let it be unknown until its in my hands. I'm not even going to link to it. Nyah! And now the obligatory music review that inevitably falls on mostly deaf ears (or hands). Ha. Bunalim - Bunalim (Shadoks Records 1972/2007) I try not to drown my reviews in hype, but this probably is the best Turkish psych CD I've heard yet. I've been burned in the past with almost all of the albums I've heard, which usually are decent but not anything that lives up to its reputation (Mr. Erkin Koray I'm looking in your direction). But this one delivers the goods and provides a slight bit of insight in the liners. One thing I've always found strange about Turkish psych is that its almost always American-style garage rock or (barely) Westernized Turkish traditional music, and I'm always hoping for something that falls in the middle. In Bunalim's case, they started out heavily indebted to the West but Turkish nationals heavily persuaded bands to confine more to what it means to be Turkish (I guess similar to that law they have of preserving "Turkishness") and to abandon the demoralizing ways of the West. I'm going to assume this is the case with most bands, since its always one side of the coin or the other. In Bunalim's case, though, who never had an album but instead a collection of singles, you hear the change start to take place over this 3-year time period. And it must be said that they rocked heavy to start with, and they eased into their homeland-satisfying phase more successfully than most of the other groups I've heard. Imagine some kind of cross between Blue Cheer and Trad Gras Och Stenar on their debut single, taking one more big hookah drag as each of the songs roll on. It may not be exactly my mental dream of what Turkish psych can be, but it comes a lot closer than the rest. Strangely enough, though, there's a picture of the non-photogenic band in the liners where they're all playing naked, not a very appetizing scene. Now that's what the Turkish government should have been railing against! Looking back, that's not a very good review, but I realized it far too late in retyping it to scrap it. So you're stuck with it until next week's review. And with that, I'll rock on... 7 comments|post comment

[11 Mar 2007|10:08pm] [ mood | wha'th'hell time is it anyway? ] [ music | Dinosaur Jr - Green Mind ] Apologies to j_is_for_jihad, as we drove up at the last minute to Chattanooga this weekend. We had been mulling it over for a couple of weeks, but then I got that Pseudo-Flu thing that has been going around and it got all iffy. Then S almost got it right afterwards but she decided to starve it which is apparently the key - so if your stomach starts cramping or it feels incredibly full, keep that in mind. As it was my last meal before getting it was a gorgefest at Madras Saravana Bhavan which makes me feel all funny inside anyway. But you don't want to hear about that, right? We drove up to Chattanooga primarily for 2 things, the Aquarium and their Children's Museum. I still think that their Aquarium is better than the one we have in Atlanta, and I KNOW their Children's Museum is better. Atlanta's Children's Museum ("Imagine It!" is the proper name, which sadly is a pretty literal description of its benefits) was one of the most disappointing places I'd ever paid $12 to visit - believe me, save the cash and go to any Barnes & Noble to increase the entertainment factor for all involved. The Chattanooga one, while not perfect and with a number of things broken or in limbo status, had some fun things for all ages, including some hands-on Indonesian-style metallic xylophones that I made such a joyful noise with that some straighter parents came into the room to figure out what was going on. Also there's an installation in there that almost is comparable to a Dreamachine. P, you ought to get one of your bands to play in that room! The Aquarium was great as always, and bizarrely enough the random family we got to take a picture of us all spoke Japanese which gave us a dumbfounded look on the photo when they said to A-chan "Daijobu, baby, daijobu!" The food was pretty good this weekend too, although we miss the Tortilla Factory being gone, which no trip to the Noog was ever complete without. Next time we'll finally budget up enough time (and hopefully cash) to go to that bookstore and giant thrift close to Sitar (still the only place I've ever seen do-it-yourself dosa on the buffet table). Chattanooga, 6 thumbs up! And since Franks APA #98 is probably somewhere over the Atlantic at the moment and the Europeans haven't been treated to the travesty of my 20-page contribution, one final review from the past mailing: Various Artists - How Low Can You Go? An Anthology Of The String Bass (Dust-To-Digital Records 3xCD 2006) One of the more unusual box sets I've run across, this celebrates the invention and early application of the string bass. I had just assumed that the string bass had been around as long as the guitar or the cello, but apparently in the early 20th century bands used tubas for the backbeat. The 1920s saw the first jazz combos incorporating the stand-up, and in fact the first song on here is the very first recording of a string bass. The set goes on to showcase its sound in everything from Dixieland to Western Swing to even calypso and Hawaiian chant, but its predominantly the swing setting that you'll hear here. Some huge names here with deeper tracks: Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, etc. The interesting thing about this box is that, due to the style of the bass player, he never really jumps out in front of the sound. You hear people playing it like a tuba, sliding with it, thumping, etc., but if you were to listen to this set on its own and guess the theme I would be almost positive that you couldn't figure it out. But I say that as a non-bass player, so what do I know? Packaging isn't quite as elaborate as the typical DtD box, but there is a nice book coming with it annotated by Dick Spottswood (along with Joe Bussard, the other famous American record collector). Give this to the bass player in your life for an acknowledgment to his craft. Reviews of relatively recent offerings (perhaps a breakdown of the Boredoms Super Roots series) to come in next week's update, provided I remember to do it. As for now, a quick shower and then a viewing of the Acid Mothers Temple documentary of their 2002 American tour captured on the DVD Dokonan. I'm not sure Atlanta will be featured in it, much less my old apartment, but it would be a nice surprise if so...EDIT: nothing from our apartment in the film, no surprise there, but a decent amount of eyedrum footage and a pan across the pre-show audience showing S visibly, looking quite fetching in a yellow t-shirt and long ponytail. My seat is empty, as it must have been when I went to go buy CDs, but she's in plain view talking to billings (obscured but I know its him) and, uh, whatever Bruce's lj handle used to be that I've forgotten, not that he ever looks at this stuff anymore anyway...and I just realized that next week marks the 5th anniversary of that show - there was a lot going on in my life in Spring 2002... 2 comments|post comment

[02 Mar 2007|10:41pm] [ mood | back from the dead ] [ music | boredoms - super roots 7 ] Hey, remember that quiz from last week that determined if you were a true friend of mine or not that 8% of you decided to take and then it turned out that on average none of you are true friends of mine? Well, let's give you the answers - that way, you may never truly be a true friend of mine, but at least I'll let you cheat in order for you to bluff it - helping you out at test-time, its like I'm in high school again! ( ah, navel-gazing to an audience, ain't it great? ) Enough of that. Here's this week's review, again from the last issue of Frank's APA. Ones from the new issue will start next week. International Sad Hits Volume 1 (20/20/20 Records 2006) I'm not really a fan of Damon & Naomi, but I do share the same interests as them apparently and the maiden voyage of their new imprint label sounded good to me. 4 singers are documented on this album: Fikret Kizilok(Turkey), Kim Doo Soo(South Korea), Kan Mikami, and Kazuki Tomokawa (both Japanese). The motif is indeed that these are guys who sing melancholy melodies with anguished performances, with recordings taken from the last 25 years or so. Everything is quite sparse, usually not much more than a guitar and an impassioned vocal, and even without a word in English you can tell that its bummer material, even melodramatic in spots. It strikes me as a bit curious that they couldn't have just reisued some albums by these people in full rather than as a compilation, especially seing as how the South Korean's 4 songs are all taken from the same album, but I gues this handy comp might move more product. Hey, we all know sad people aren't the richest people in the world. But wait, aren't the richest people in the world usually sad? And if Damon & Naomi are always so bland, why are their musical tastes so rich? You won't find the answers to these questions here, but at least you can cry along with them - sadness is a universal language, I'm happy to say. And mummed lips until later, but this Boredoms reissue really does live up to the hype - who'da thought? 13 comments|post comment

[24 Feb 2007|10:27pm] [ mood | don't drink th'shrimp cocktail ] [ music | Bridget St John - Songs For The Gentle Man ] Its been a year or so since I've done a stupid meme so I guess its that time. Make me feel like I make a difference in your life! Create your own Friend Test here Never mind that "Bill L" created that test. If you get that reference and you are not either geebs or our former roommate, you know way too much about me and I'd honestly be scared to have you as a friend...now onto other things (or thing as it may be)... I've decided to start reprinting some of my reviews here after inuitmonster suggested I do something of the like as he does it with his blog. He and I both write for the greatest music zine in the world Franks APA but as only about 25 people on this planet receive a copy of it not many others see it. I review everything I buy for it, which is to say there are typically a lot of reviews from me in every issue. As a result, I haven't had as much music discussion on LJ as I used to since I save up for Franks, and I typically don't like plagiarizing myself. But its easy enough to do, it gives me more of a presence on LJ and there's only 2 of you (I think) out there that will notice the redundancy. This will continue at a rate of 1 a week until I feel like its served its purpose, I forget about it, or I die. Since Franks people get priority, I won't write anything from the upcoming issue (to be collected and distributed next weekend) so here's a review for an album that's aged a little slightly now: Pandit Pran Nath - Raga Cycle (Sri Moonshine 1972/2006) the master of North Indian song (according to those in the know) finally has another album available, this time on Terry Riley's imprint. The recording contains Riley on tablas and LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela on sarangis, a veritable Hipster Million Dollar Quartet of raga if ever there was one (or if LaMonte was running the merch table, it'd be the Billion Dollar Quartet doubtless). I can't help but feel a bit like a poser on reviewing this, as I enjoy listening to it but I can't tell you what stands out about this record nor could I necessarily pick out Nath's voice from any other Indian singer at this point. But regardless, when I'm making paneer vindaloo at home I can throw this on and all is well with the world. So if its Indian vocal music you like, here's some Indian vocal music for you then. An auspicious debut...hey, at least it was shorter than that Inland Empire review... 11 comments|post comment

[21 Feb 2007|05:16am] When it rains it pours I guess...although this post is spurred on by 2 things: my inability to sleep, and the sad news in my inbox... I'm sure this will be all over the messageboards later today, but since I've only seen it from an obscure source, here's a message from the Sun City Girls: Hello friends, this is one of those e-mails you hope you never have to send but..... With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away on February 19th in Seattle from a long battle with cancer at the age of 54. He went peacefully with friends at his side. He is survived by the two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not aware that Charles was ill and that's because he wanted it that way. Knowing Charlie as we did, we're sure he's already working on new material. We're sorry we can't talk to everybody personally right now as opposed to a blanket electronic statement such as this...we just need a little bit of time to deal with everything. Details of a memorial in his honor will hopefully be announced soon. Richard Bishop Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls) warrenjabali, wasn't that last SCG tour in the spring of 2004? I guess that's when things started to happen if the message above was an indication. What sad news to start the day off with, although it must be a relief for the people who've apparently lived through this (and for Charles himself, finally released). This might explain why the band had splintered off into solo projects & Sublime Frequencies recordings. Sigh... There's never really been another band like the Sun City Girls. I must admit that there are bigger fans out there than myself, because they were a hydra-headed beast of sound and I gravitated to some heads much more than others, but when they were on they were ON. The way they soaked in all of the most esoteric sounds from around the planet and regurgitated them into underground rock mode, at a time when Paul Simon was considered the last word on pop/world crossover by the majority of the music world - the influences are just staggering. I was just listening to Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings the other day, that long opening piece where they do an ethnic forgery of Chinese opera, and I thought "I really really need to see these guys live one of these days." Ah well... Somebody should do a 33-1/3 installment of Torch Of The Mystics. One of the acknowledged classics of underground music, and surely one with some interesting stories to tell. In the meantime, put it on the stereo, turn it up real loud, and send Charles off properly with the opening whipcrack of "Blue Mamba", surely an appropriate soundtrack to entering the next dimension...The world of music seems a little less strange this morning without the presence of Charlie Gocher and the Sun City Girls, but it would've been a lot less strange if they hadn't graced us with their presence to start. You will be missed, Charlie... ( On a lighter note - some thoughts on new music ) Man, I've been writing in here a lot longer than I expected. In fact news about Charlie Gocher's passing has just now hit the routeslist, thereby making this post mostly unnecessary other than as my public eulogy. So I'll stop now and enjoy this remaining hour of solitude before I leave for work. RIP Charlie. 3 comments|post comment

[20 Feb 2007|10:39pm] [ mood | that's italian! ] [ music | hubcap city (from belgium) - superlocalfreakhellride ] Hey, its me. Rumors of Mark Twain's death have been greatly exaggerated...oh wait, it turns out he really is dead after all. But hey, who reads these days anyway? Happy Carnivale, happy Fat Tuesday, happy what have you. geebs, I hope you're having some good meat action tonight, not like you actually give it up for the full Lent like most of your stem-cell saving brethren. But its okay, we all love you anyway. Did I mention I'm kinda drunk? We went to our beloved Sotto Sotto, which was having a Carnivale-inspired dinner, masks included. Our first dinner with just the two of us since the events of September 22, 2005. This is what I had (same as the wife, except no drinks for her): Antipasto Capesante alla Veneziana Diver scallops with bread crumbs, thyme, lemon zest, chickpea puree Inama Soave Classico 2004 Primo Risotto al Nero di Seppia Carnaroli rice with baby cuttlefish braised in its ink Cesari Mara Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso 2003 Secondi Polenta e Baccala Braised salt cod and soft polenta Ottella Lugana 2005 Dolce Gala Pastry cream fritters with glazed fruit Jeio Bisol Prosecco Di Valdobbiadene Desiderio Jeio Dear Lord, yes. I have discovered that I'm not a 4-course kind of guy, at least when you're talking about hearty Italian fare (even taking it easy for lunch today with a bagel and 6 marcona almonds - about 7 forks into the salt cod and my stomach was quivering), but I enjoyed the decadence tonight. Now I know why its called Fat Tuesday... But honestly I'm not here to talk about food. I'm here to talk about another favorite subject of mine, David Lynch. And his latest film, Inland Empire, which we saw this past Sunday afternoon. Have you seen it? [Waiting for affirmative] Good! So now I can tell you what I thought about it. Apologies to Franks-APA people, who'll have to reread thoughts similar to this a month from now... ( Inland Empire: Spoilertastic ) So there you go. My first entry since January 1 and its about a movie probably 90% of you on this friends-list won't see and a meal 100% of you probably didn't eat. Ah, didn't you miss me? 2 comments|post comment

My long "Almost the end of the Chinese New Year" post [31 Dec 2006|11:16pm] [ mood | soba-tastic ] [ music | the beatles - love ] Hey, when I did my New Year's resolutions last year, I told one of you to remind me about it! I've just gotta do all the work around here I guess... for those of you keeping score at home, here's how I did against my drunkenly proposed goals from 2005: ( percentage points good enough for the baseball hall of fame, at least ) Surprisingly I haven't seen anybody do one of those end-of-year memes, so I don't have a convenient form to emulate. But if I had to think of new experiences in 2006, this is a brief off-the-top rundown of what I'd say: ( New things done in 2006 - Originally 3, Edited To Add 5 On New Years Morn ) and resolutions for 2007? ( #0. Make fewer resolutions ) Man, how long have I been writing this? Too long. I will close this by saying that, personal connections aside, I was pleased to meet the following lj personalities in real-life manifestations this year: ikahana, vertamae, pilote, and tabletop (the latter for about 4 drunken minutes in Providence but still). The world of social networking is a very silly world indeed, but honestly you people are all perhaps my biggest connection to popular culture and my life is truthfully richer with your presence. Thank you all for being there and for writing. Okay, I'm being all huggy, its truly a sign that alcohol is taking effect. 2006, you were a good year, but its time for you to go. May I get 50 minutes' worth of kiss-ass points by saying Welcome, 2007! 15 comments|post comment

[26 Dec 2006|08:55pm] [ mood | colder than a welldigger's ass ] [ music | erik satie - oeurves pour piano disc 1 ] Well, several of my friends have done their inevitable best-of lists, so I guess its time for me to put mine on here. As always, my disclaimer...This is my listing of the 10 best albums this year, in alphabetical order. It may be a new album, or it may be an old one, or it may be a rerelease, but whatever the case its got a little 2006 on its packaging so that's what qualifies it here. If a band has more than one release that's listworthy (of which there were several this year), I only allowed one album per artist. I personally think 2006 was an astounding year for great music, perhaps the best in recent memory, and as such it was extremely difficult to narrow some of these down. And in fact, in doing so some albums made the list that frankly surprised me, but I tried to be as objective as possible (it may sound silly that I'm attempting to be objective to myself but all the same). There was honestly like a 10-way tie for 11th place and honestly I could've put some cooler albums on but truth be told, these were my 10 of the year: ( oh, the suspense ) And the other thing I always like to do...this is the deck I was dealt. These are the CDs I got this year (hmm, I just realized that 2006 was the first year in at least a decade where I didn't buy any LPs, although I did get a 7"). That way, you see what I listened to and what made the final cut. I thought about doing a shortlist this year since there were so many great albums, but my shortlist would only have been slightly less than the complete list of what I got so I decided to just stick with 10 and show you everything else. Here we go... ( what can I say, I like music ) Samples of all 10 of my best-ofs will obviously be on the mix I'm sending out to those of you (barring the YLT track, I played it safe and put a song from the proper album on instead) in addition to more tracks from some of the other albums. Disc 1 will be the Year 2006 disc, whether new or reissued, with 20 tracks, while Disc 2 is the "Old Things I Bought In 2006" disc, also with 20 tracks. The burning mayhem starts momentarily... Alright, let get the war of the words going! 8 comments|post comment

[25 Dec 2006|12:23am] [ mood | scotched out ] [ music | tom waits - orphans disc 1 (a-chan's favorite) ] "I got blisters on my fingers!" I've never played "Helter Skelter" on the drums, but I have now acquired the fatherly pain of assembling a child's toy on Dec 24 up in Santa's workshop along with my elven friend Johnnie Walker. As if I didn't already know that I'd inevitably be Ringo Starr in a "What Beatle are you?" meme, although that's fine with me as he's my favorite anyway. On a slight train of thought, it would've been pretty cool for them to have spliced together "All You Need Is Love" and "Helter Skelter" on this new Beatles album, but I guess that would be a bit too controversial. Did I mention Johnnie Walker was here with me? Greetings, in other words, and may your yuletide be a full tide of...umm...yule indeed. S is in bed, A-chan is in bed, and I'm up doing a few of these last minute things. We had decided not to put up our fake tree this year, as we figured that a mini-Paul Bunyan lurks in our apartmenthold this year, but she's been acting grown-up around all the ones we ran across and we thought it'd be a nice surprise for our 15-month-old to wake up tomorrow and see a little forest in the living room. And a forest is indeed appropriate, as the word from the North Pole (or Lapland for you Europeans in the house) is that Santa's shopping at Ikea this year and is bringing a rocking moose into the household (vertamae will be pleased). Also underneath this newly constructed tree will be my gift to S. I already bought her a nice new coat as a combo birthday/holiday present last month (be sure to compliment her on it when you see us), and she inadvertently discovered that I bought her the DVD of 49 Up when she happened to be home when it arrived along with some CDs of mine, and she wondered why I didn't want to open the package up in front of her. D'oh! 49 Up is really the gift that keeps on giving, as I actually gave her a British TV bootleg of it for last year's Christmas, and now its in official release. Maybe next year they'll put it out in some commemorative 50th anniversary of the participants limited edition set, and I can buy it yet again. I do have one more present that she's not expecting (if you're reading this, S, before I wake up tomorrow STOP READING NOW!!!!!), a special limited edition set of the BBC "Pride And Prejudice" series from the mid-90s that introduced all the British girls (and the Japanese girls studying in England) to the apparent charms of Colin Firth. I'm secure enough in my masculinity to give her a gift featuring one of her lust objects. Actually, I'm secure enough in my practicality to know that Mr. Firth will probably not come to Fayetteville and sweep her away from me... And as I'm typing this, I'm in the midst of burning my "Best Of 2006" mix-cd for the participants of Franks APA and a few assorted friends. Speaking of which...I'll throw the offer out for any of my fellow LJ soul who happen to be reading this on Christmas Day (and that day alone): if anyone wants me to send them a CD, just let me know and I'll put you on the list if I don't have you there already - only valid for people commenting on 12/25, he said as if this were actually something of worth...I haven't made an end-of-year mix since 1996, and its gotten a lot harder as my tastes are considerably more eclectic than they were 10 years ago - its pretty difficult to put together a set that has one song entitled "The Christian's Hope" and another song entitled "A Menstruating Condoleeza Rice Dropped Into The Amazon River And Eaten By Piranhas In 60 Seconds" and have it work consistently...I'm probably going to put together another mix to accompany it, of music that was not new or reissued in 2006 but was new to me, which should add a little freshness to the comp as a fair amount of my best-ofs will probably be on others' lists as well, but that's for another night this week, hopefully... Speaking of which, I'll be throwing my obligatory "Best Of The Year" post on here sometime before the end of the week, because I am one of those people who look forward to this time of year not necessarily for the festive occurrences that take place but for the multitudes of lists that people throw out onto the masses. Well, that and the holiday ales... Speaking of which Johnnie Walker is acting sullen, so I'd best spend a little more time with him before bed, as he was nice enough to help me with tonight's project. I'm probably not being a good engineer by saying this, but I'm always extremely self-conscious after I build something (particularly for A-chan) that its going to fall apart after about 2 or 3 days. Johnnie helps me a lot with my confidence when he's around...but he can do a messy job at times. But I love the little bastard all the same... Happy fill-in-the-blank to all of you wonderful dear souls, and may fill-in-the-blank bless/tolerate/ignore/humor (choose one) us, each and every one! 12 comments|post comment

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