Nuance and Such

Just when I believed myself to be Over both Andrew Sullivan and The Atlantic (and politics) he/they publish this sapphire:

"We are fighting over something, to be sure. But it is more a fight over how we define ourselves and over long-term goals than over what is practically to be done on the ground.

In normal times, such division is not fatal, and can even be healthy. It’s great copy for journalists. But we are not talking about routine rancor. And we are not talking about normal times."

[clicky for full article]

FYI. This might be the very best political analysis in a decade. No shit!

Simile, Not Metaphor

"Ty is like human LSD."

- Danny, Bethesda (via Berkeley, Austin, & Baltimore)

One Of Those Weird Days

Weird, huh? It just kind of smelled like one of those days. One of those weird days where something is just...a little bit off. You can't pin it down, but you know it. The kind of day where it's a better bet to just stay at home. You calculate your ROI, hold your breath, open your eyes and go for it.


First, I see a Brett's Jeep® (a neighbor) a few blocks from home (next to Two Beaver Lake) with not one but two flats; both on the passenger side. Brett is a world-class safety guy (antennae and lights and gadgets and shit all over that Wrangeler®) so something definitely odd had to have happened for that to happen. He was nowhere in sight. No deer damage.


Then I go shopping and this woman in a black, late model Cadillac sedan barrels into a full-sized grocery store shopping cart. Blam-scatter-scatter! And, get this: after she parks that beast, she gets out of her car and goes into a dry cleaner. Didn't look at the car or anything. I mean, you hear it when you basically crush a shopping cart.


Even I wasn't immune today. I kind of backed into a curb. Seriously. I just tapped it though; an island in a parking lot. No harm. No damage. But the kind of driver error I rarely make.

The funny thing I learned, though, is that when you stumble upon a three-car, injury accident in an intersection (involving a volunteer firefighter, his wife, and an elderly trio, and an immigrant) and start taking pictures, nobody questions you -- or even really notices. Not the principals, not the witnesses, not the police.

One of those weird days, I suppose.

Panda Bear Says Go

If you have patience, you can hear Panda Bear's Person Pitch. If you don't, don't bother.

It's good. Not the best but very good (in many ways the best record of 2007 because it's soooo familiar); reminiscent of Judge Brennan meeting SMiLE for hookah and absinthe tea.

It's on again. Once more I make the call: Pre-production!

"Headphones are good a thing." ®

Untitled (Hunt for Dead Soldiers)

Honoring Our Dead Soldiers (The Concept Is)

Blue Black

Jet Lag Medicine Head

"All across the country, in a thousand rented houses, sitting in small, dark rooms on broken couches covered with tapestries, are four or five friends and strangers who have gathered to listen to albums.

It is these people, for whom we create music.

When you go to see a film you are effectively allowing your consciousness to be hijacked for an hour and a half. That's the sort of experience we're trying to create with One Fine Ride. It's not the kind of music you put on while you're making dinner. It's not the kind of music you listen to on Sunday morning.

When you listen to certain albums the right way, things go by like a ride at Disneyland. If you put on headphones and close your eyes you can become immersed into a different world with characters and textures and sounds; a sonic environment with height and width and depth; a separate reality.

As artists we have complete control of this other world. And as the listener, you have to have unfailing faith that the artist is going to look out for you and take care of you."

-Rich Walkling, the Otter Farm, Maryland, 1998

Clarification

People are kind of addlepated over the "resolutions" post [clicky]. I know, I know...we're trying to do something here.

I am not defining ignore as "failure to notice." I am intending ignore as more like "bar from consideration." I will still observe all the mopes, tools, knobs, dimwits, and assholes around me. Processing powers will continue to engage. I'm just not going to stoop to interacting with 'em.

C'mon, it's me, 2008 or not; superiority complex in full effect.

Think of it this way: people, more than ever, will be like subjects in a long-term study. People are data. Data is useful in my art. It's still self-serving. Duh.

It's A New Year, "Hi, yo!"