Stephin Merritt, the forced-upon possessor of the moniker ‘Eeyore of Pop’, has dragged (shame on my slapped wrist) from the grave of themes the classic ‘boy-loves-boy’ who isn’t thematically a boy but a girl who isn’t herself real and so said protagonist must lay his blooming love at the cat-flap of impossibility. “I’d sign away my trust fund / I would even sell the Jag / If I could spend my misspent youth with Andrew in drag.” This is fantastic stuff. It really is. “So stick him in a dress and he’s the only boy I’d shag / I’ll never see that girl again, he did it as a gag.” To exaggerate, there is nothing more romantic than the hopeless pining for of the unattainable. It’s the most utterly compelling story of a universal truth, shared blood. “Andrew In Drag” is love for the unresisting and so the non-existent. Of course, he really just wants to shag Andrew or whatever Andrew then represents, prancing about, licentiously sloven, in a half-fitted dress. The grab and pull of love. And who could blame him? But in this here story not even base desire is fulfilled. In early March the Magnetic Fields will allow Love At The Bottom Of The Sea its day of public consumption and it would be a good idea to bring it into your life. [The Magnetic Fields.]

“And speaking just for me, it’s ours to share.”

The forecast is more favorable for Wonder Girls, who mirror Pink Lady’s appropriateness for the time, as their new American single “The DJ Is Mine” features several dubstep-aping portions. Although watching the trailer for their movie can prompt cringes, their TeenNick flick shows that the folks marketing the group know how to zero in on a demographic. Whereas Utada and BoA just showed up in America and presumed being big in Asia would equal sales abroad, Wonder Girls is being introduced—or, for those who saw them open for The Jonas Brothers, further developed—specifically for the teen and tween markets. Given the music industry’s hyper-segmentation, it’s a smart move to focus on the same audience that turned artists like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato into household names.
[The Atlantic / Nobody.]

David Bazan – Gas and Matches

For all its bravura, John Fairfax’s seafaring almost pales beside his earlier ventures. Footloose and handsome, he was a flesh-and-blood character out of Graham Greene, with more than a dash of Hemingway and Ian Fleming shaken in.

At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle.

At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.

. . .

Aboard [his rowboat in which he crossed the Atlantic] were provisions (Spam, oatmeal, brandy); water; and a temperamental radio. There was no support boat and no chase plane — only Mr. Fairfax and the sea. He caught fish and sometimes boarded passing ships to cadge food, water and showers.

Mr. Fairfax was often asked why he chose a rowboat to beard two roiling oceans. “Almost anybody with a little bit of know-how can sail,” he said. “I’m after a battle with nature, primitive and raw.”

[NYTimes / DeerBazan.]

Moonface – Teary Eyes And Bloody Lips

The last several pickup lines used (unsuccessfully) on Maya, an attractive German lady currently staying at my house, during her travels across the hostels and guesthouses of Southeast Asia:

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“You have dirty fingernails.” “Yeah, I know.” “I can cut them for you if you want.”

“Do you want to drink a beer with me? No? Well do you want to be my girlfriend for tonight?”

“I decided I want to have sex with you.”

(Clarifying note because apparently Britt thinks I’m a disgusting slimeball of impressive testicular fortitude: I used, and can imagine thinking up, none of these lines.)

[Heartbreaking Bravery.]

The guitar tones on this album make me feel like someone other than my mother will love me one day. [Animal Joy.]

Leonard Cohen – Going Home

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He will never have the freedom
To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

He wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I want him to complete

I want to make him certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision

That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
That is to SAY what I have told him
To repeat

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

[New Yorker / Old Ideas.]

Shearwater – You As You Were

Fun facts gleaned from 20 total hours spread over two layovers spent in the Guangzhou International Airport:

•   It’s winter in China. “Well, duh,” you are muttering, but I live in Malaysia and was visiting California. In my head, winter exists exclusive in movies and memories. I own exactly one pair of pants and zero coats. “So cold ah?” the lady behind me said as she rubbed my bare arm when we disembarked. I agreed. I’m fairly certain they don’t heat the airport.
•   The Chinese do spacial courtesy differently. Indonesia is a physical, touch-heavy country, but this isn’t that. Personal bubbles are not respected — everyone keeps bumping into and crowding you. Attractive women press up against you in line until you feel you should at least buy them a drink first. The lady might have felt comfortable rubbing my arm because I helped her daughter put on her pink Dora the Explorer backpack or, more likely, because we were already shoved up against each other waiting to exit the plane.
•   People don’t wait for the current inhabitants to exit an elevator when the doors open. Instead, they stream in and expect anyone who wants off to elbow his or her way out.
•   There are no money changers in the airport.
•   There are no drinking fountains.
•   If you want to buy a bottle of water, it will cost you U.S. $5, roughly three times the price quoted in yuan (13). The cashier will hold your 10-dollar bill up to the light, presumably to make sure it isn’t a fake.
•   Your other thirst-quenching option is to wade through the dense haze to the back of the smoking room. There, you can procure a paper cup the size of a shot glass and fill it with tepid water. Just a helpful tip: If you spend several hours battling the lingering smoke fog for those precious shots of warm water, your eyes will probably start to burn and tear up by the time you board your flight.
•   It takes 7 minutes, 15 seconds to pad from one end of the international terminal to the other, and 9 minutes, 25 seconds if you go backwards, against the grain of the horizontalators. (The padding is due to my moccasins, which saved me from shivering and sure frostbite.)
•   Along that 16:40 round-trip stretch there is exactly one bookstore. Sometime between Jan. 17 and Feb. 8, that book store sold exactly both its copies of Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell.
•   If, just as a for-instance, you happened to stand around reading the introduction to The Shack, trying and failing to get past William Paul Young’s nauseating simple-man schtick because both copies of Outliers are gone, and two ladies in uniform walk up and ask where you’re flying, you’ll never ever figure out why they wanted to know or why they looked sheepish and apologized when you told them, “Penang.”
•   Joseph was right; in mainland China they pronounce the number two ‘Arrr’ as in pirates and not ‘Ur’ as in the Biblical location.
•   Many signs advertise (in English) free WiFi, but it’s only half true. You must have a Chinese phone number to log on (I do not). However, if you overturn the small black rectangles on each table in Blenz Coffee, you will find a nine-digit numerical password for WiFi that works a considerable distance away.
•   Both the front and back wheels of the complimentary mini-carts rotate, meaning you can push your bags sideways or whatever tilted manner you choose. I prefer to use a diagonal approach, because facing life straight on overwhelms me.

[Animal Joy.]

[Nine Types of Light.]

Marketa Irglova – The Hanill

“I’m tired,” sighed Marika. Shifting her weight uncomfortably against his tilted ribs, draping her arm across his still chest, his arms by his side. A thumb’s worth of light filtered in through the window. The curtain exhaled with the push of the outside gales, each sharp, focused breath offering a momentary blindness. Marika had been sleeping here the last three nights and still hadn’t mentioned the light, hadn’t brought herself to reposition herself, to close her eyes for longer than a few seconds. Her arms felt limp and lifeless against his torso. His hands never met hers when her skinny, peach-painted fingernails lingered near his open palm, softly scratching at his lifelines. “Maybe I’ll go home tomorrow,” she whispered tentatively.

[1nce.]

Ani diFranco – Coming Up

looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking looking looking finding looking looking looking looking exasperated looking looking looking running looking looking quitting sighing eyebrow-raising looking looking looking looking finding looking.

[Daytrotting.]