Archive for April, 2011

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I’m not happy and I’m not sad

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The Smiths – This Night Has Opened My Eyes

Just one night: a taste of honey, flickers of light, spreading of legs, tired sleep, ringing alarm, unshared bed sheets, tangled legs, squandered youth, ennui on a mattress. It was fun, but the fun is done with. It’s awakening, sunken eyes, sullen cheeks, scrambling for crumpled clothes, hoarse excuses, lingering touches, strange bruises.

Just one month: unplanned rendezvous, heaving chests, explanations lies, guilty alcohol, sexless mornings, carnal evenings, bitten flesh, vicious intercourse, projected feelings.

Just one night: rinse soul, replace girl, repeat.

[Louder Than Bombs.]

Posted on April 16, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her

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Posted on April 15, 2011 - Videos - No Comments » Share

Nobody ever says thank you

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Emmy The Great – We Almost Had A Baby

At times you hear the sweetness of an assumed ditty and so are lured into the safe arms of not trying – not trying to assume that for three lousy minutes there may be something more to a song than immediate charm. More to a person than the aesthetic. And it doesn’t say much for the listener when he daren’t allow a piece of fervent art to steal him for three minutes. “We Almost Had A Baby” was to me, to my shame, simply a tap and clap along song of waltz and drawn out cello whisper, with twinkling piano, and sneaky electric licks, too. It was once that, but is now hauntingly affecting.

“Well you didn’t stop when I told you to stop, and there was a month when I wasn’t sure…” goes an opening line sold to us in an insouciant tone, yet rocking with harrowing suggestion. I’m thrown. How I expected such a line to be delivered I do not know. Maybe it can’t be delivered, just sung and then experienced. It’s almost poetry in its elemental presentation and involving response. From the forced claim of the partner and his unimportance, to the use of her situation for gain of pride and position, the entire piece is intricate and entirely brutal.

And then with a month came assurance. “I put my hand across my gut; I plan to feed it with a heart.” No; the false alarm. Nothing to feed. [Pledge to Emmy as she celebrates the Royal wedding.]

Posted on April 14, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Customized eHarmony.com profile

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Cat Stevens – The First Cut Is The Deepest

Favorite emotion: Nostalgia

Most commonly felt emotion: Shame

Most analyzed emotion: Loneliness

Favorite color: Pink

Color of eyes: Gray

Color seen the moment eyes are closed tightly: Violet

Color grandmother mistakenly took as preferable and, as such, the hue of the curtains she purchased for a Christmas present, because those first few forays into sarcasm were lost on most/all: Brown

Amount of enjoyment gleaned from each glance at those hideously fecal-colored curtains, left hanging for years afterward: 68%

Amount of happiness the preteen version experienced overall: 82%

Amount of happiness left now: 42%

Amount of heart available to give a potential lover: 37% on a good day

Amount of cities lived in for at least the extent of a week in the past four months: 12

Number of months since the realization hit that a transient lifestyle is irrevocably damaging to even the sturdiest of relationships: Nine

Time left before a hometown is chosen and roots set: ???

Number of lies told about meaning behind tattoo, simply because the real one takes too long to explain in the normal flow of conversation: Three

Extrapolation of the total number of lies told about tattoo this year, given its age at two months: 18

What this makes you: Liar

Where liars go: Hell

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Marry me?

[Baby, I know.]

Posted on April 13, 2011 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

This, too, shall pass

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[OK Go!]

Posted on April 12, 2011 - Videos - No Comments » Share

It’s been a while

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The Strokes – Taken For A Fool

What if the statement lyric on the best song off your most critical album — Dare we call it a comeback? We dare. — was a lie?

“It’s so early I don’t want to wake up./We’re so lucky because we never grow up,” Julian Casablancas sings 105 seconds into “Taken For A Fool.”

Which: fine and inspiring and let’s go drink on the LES until well past 12:51. Etc.

But also: totally, completely, and most importantly, obviously untrue.

Grown up problems defined the making of “Angles.” I know this. You know this. Anyone with a passing interest in the state of Music White People Like knows this. The spider web fractures that extended during the post Is This It years finally broke. Four out of five Strokes recorded the album while Casablancas filled in his parts from afar.

Put the feelings of the group on a scale between love and hate, and you’ll find the weight tilting toward the latter.

A line from 2001: “The Strokes, even on their debut album, sound like experienced professionals for whom mastering the form seems only an album away.”

Three albums later, the existence of Angles indicates the professionalism remains but simultaneously demonstrates how unmastered the form is.

A decade ago — which, you know, sometimes seems like it was only last night — Casablancas knew for sure he was walking out that door.

To where never really mattered.

He knows now where the exit leads. Occasionally, you get the impression he wishes it was all just a dream.

Or maybe just a lie.

[Purchase.]

Posted on April 11, 2011 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

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