Monday, February 22, 2010

[New Music] Too Much to Name, Part 2

Back for Part Two, because I almost forgot about the Spoon Off!

I have been doing a lot of crazy... oh, alright... normal things lately. Drunken martial arts (this is a bad idea!), fondling strange bear nipples, dancing about amai ebi in Brooklyn Heights, Pac-Mania, donating blood to my students... and most especially... participating in the first annual SPOON OFF.

What is the Spoon Off, you ask?

To illustrate:






Once upon a time, there were two girls who live in Brooklyn (in fact, they still live there). One of them is sometimes known as Queenmob and the other as at5115. They were having a glum week because they both had crushes on guys who were resistant to their manifest charms (and they were otherwise busy with librarying and illustrating). Since they were both awesome (and had a friend named Mary who was gassing up the van to go cap some boy asses in the name of friendship) but very nerdy, they decided they needed some cheering up. Queenmob, who is obsessed with beating someone to death with a spoon (don't ask!) suggested spooning... and at5115 readily agreed (because she'll do anything once).

And, oh yeah, we were arguing over ownership of Transmetropolitan.

The rest will live in infamy. Or at the very least in a foto comic (which belongs solely to Queenmob --> www.jung-comics.com/:

But now for more music. Because my life is crazy, but the soundtrack is awesome.

Voxtrot (who I love, love, love):



Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes:



Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin (it burns because its wood and now you'll never call me darling):



The Nurses (who were very well displayed on Daytrotter this week, here):



Foreign Born:



Miniature Tigers:



Surfer Blood:

Randomness in closing:

My new bangs:


Ghosts 'N Goblins love (picture by Sarah):


Weird Bear Nipple Fondling:

[New Music] Too Much to Name, Part 1



Damnit Anna, don't you give me away ...
You know very well you say you got a soul to sell
but if you want to meet the devil you've got to go to hell...

Now that I've distracted you with the Morning Benders, who were going to be my birthday concert until I realized the Nurses and the Tallest Man on Earth were actually in town on my birthday (April 20) - perhaps you haven't noticed that I've been lapsing back to atrocious corresponding in this digital medium? Not distracted? Well...



Yes, I posted this on Facebook 'ere long ago... but god I love this video. In fact, I am totally in love with the Tallest Man on Earth (aka Kristian Matsson) and grateful to one of the slowest texters in the world for introducing me to him. And since I would otherwise write about either super creepy things -- the email from my Ex asking me to show up scantily clad to pick up very stray mail (?!), running into my Moroccan stalker at 2am at 14th Street after hours of (surpisingly sober) Pac-Man -- or some super sweet things that I don't want to pluck out of my brain just yet (flutter), I'm going to catch up on my music.

There's a lot of catching to do... if I can remember all the delicious music goodness I've been gathering around me.

To wit (which it becoming my new favorite way to begin): Starfucker!



Starfucker is from Belgium and they currently live in my head. They have supplanted Ra Ra Riot (who broke my heart at BAM a couple of weeks ago with poor concert showing - how I once loved thee, Wesley Miles) much to my surprise and delight. Which reminded me of how absolutely awesome the Antlers were (and with a concept album, no less):



And then there's Brooklyn's A Million Years. I had a first (and what should have been the only) date at a concert - but at least I found a new, awesome band. Incandescent (their EP) is available for free download at their Myspace. I particularly love "Incandescent" itself - because of the line: a mathematic mind loses its cool. But this band rocked - and I don't mean that lightly. The best thing ever is when my heart vibrates against my ribcage because of a thick and heavy wall of bass - and damme, but A Million Years just about tore out my chest. And they're playing on March 4! I'm seriously there.

Next... the Rosebuds. In particular the song Unwind, which I am addicted to.



If you'd ever unwind,
and relax then maybe
we could have a good time
this would help

Fanfarlo! A British band that makes me smile a lot. And again with the Swedish lead vox.



Oh no oh my:



the bus driver laughs and he shakes his head
says, "You're okay, I drive this route everyday"
you're uneasy and you say you're scared
and if I die at least you'll die too

Coconut Records (seriously, these Schwartzmans are kind of amazing, even if they are Wes Anderson in music):



The Rural Alberta Advantage (tasty Canadian-ness, as always):



And since I could do this indefinately, Broken Bells! I mean seriously Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley) and the Shins' James Mercer? How the hell can that not be all kinds of awesome. In fact, I think it might be absolute magic. The real kind that doesn't stalk you at 14th street/Union Square.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Good Crushes... and Bad (I didn't intend this to be about crushes at all)

I want to start this blog entry with something incredibly mundane. I finished reading the second volume of Scott Pilgrim Cary loaned me on the train this morning. About the same time I realized I hadn’t brushed my hair this morning. I would like to say these two things are mutually exclusive, despite being hallmarks of my semi-slacker lifestyle. I would also like to say that I don't very often forget to brush my hair. But that would be a slight untruth.

The last four weeks have been crazy. A good, rollicking, warm crunchy crushes, Ra Ra Rioty goodness sort of crazy. Mixed with my obsession of the last two days: KiD CuDi. I think I might be too old for crushes, as abstract as mine seem to be. But I have a serious crush on the way someone's (who will remain nameless in perpetuity) eyes pleat in the corner when they smile. This seems like flimsy grounds for a crush, I think, particularly as I barely know the individual in question. But I think I am going to write a story about it. I've been mulling over this idea about a train in France - two people travelling in the 1950s (or early 1960s), too poor for individual train compartments so they share some padded benches and ... other things (I can't help the fact that all my stories end up the same way, eventually). I've just about got the quality of the light in my minds eye, so I will probably work on it this week.

Now that I have that out of the way, here is my crazy (but absolutely, completely true) story of last week (it happened on Thursday PM) from the APB I threw out to Cary/Karen and Queenmob:

I was walking back from the bank and listening to my iPod. I turned to walk down my street and could see the shadow of someone walking behind me. Peripheral glance - it's a guy - but I'm close to home, so I disregarded it. Under the streetlights, the shadow shortens - he's catching up. And then he's almost alongside me, saying, "Hello!" (This is not uncommon in my neighborhood - soon to be ex-neighborhood - where people are so friendly they invite themselves into your house). I turn and offer him a brief hello, thinking that is it.

But no!

He starts talking to me - I have my headphones on, so out of kindness (self preservation?) I remove them to hear what he is saying to me (probably hoping it's not "I am going to kill you"). But lo! I actually recognize this guy. Why? ...

We go back in time about two weeks. I was catching the N train and in sort of a hurry - as always. I walk past this guy on the street and dismiss him as your average Bensonhurst Italian guy in his late twenties or thereabouts. He turns to look at me, looks away and then almost comically snaps his head back to look at me again. He does not stop looking at me. I disappear into the Station, thinking never to see him again. He gets on my train car. And proceeds to stare at me so blatantly (it wasn't creepy so much as I could actually feel it) that even the other women on the train kept looking back and forth between he and I. He gets off a couple of stops later - me thinking I must have ripped my nylons or something - and I never saw him again.

Until the moment he is walking down my street (essentially the same place I originally saw him).

So he tells me that he's recently moved to Bensonhurst from Morocco! (Bolivian Drug Czars, Russian Assassins, Emrati Financiers, Taiwanese Watermen - WTF!) And he has wanted to talk to me since the first time he saw me, but since I always walk so fast and listen to my iPod, he didn't feel like he could bother me. Because I was raised by wolves and have mostly guy friends, my first thought was: "This guy has some real balls to be doing this. I can totally respect this." But at the same time, this is kindof scary.

I'm standing on my front porch steps! He knows where I live. He has no compunction against staring at me unblinkingly or walking up behind me at 10pm on my street. I have a good sense of humor, but suddenly a line from Gavin DeBecker's Gift of Fear comes to me: men at their core are scared that a woman will laugh at him, but women are scared that a man will kill her. As I know KaiBot3000 would sell me down the river for a handful of tuna treats, I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

So I took his phone number to make him go away. Something that has progressively weighed on my mind since that moment. I am essentially a very honest person (I can't even cross the street until I get a walk signal, for goodness sake!) - so I didn't even think to tell him I was married or living with a boyfriend or something!

I called my Mom (her quote: "He's going to kill you!") and my Sister ("You could have at least gone out for coffee with him"). But my Rational Mind (aka Cary and Karen) thought it was more than a little scary. I mean, Hollywood would lead most to think this was high romantics: a man (he wasn't a bad looking guy, actually) seeing a woman on a train and wanting to meet her. And since these sorts of things NEVER happen to me, I'm not sure if I handled it right.

I suppose only time will tell. And hopefully moving out by Spring.