Nov 5, 2009
Nov 4, 2009
Nov 3, 2009
singles
"Sweet Dreams"
Beyoncé
Last week, my co-worker was playing a video linked from FB, some throaty, grey shoegazer with a haircut covering "Single Ladies." It was 'ick. He said, "Why is everybody raving about this?" I said, "...because they're racist." And then I watched the for-real "Single Ladies" video a few times--still good, still a call to arms not a snooze, not even a little bit. Occasionally I wonder if, we spectators get lazy about newness and give the establishment too much credit/obeisance (that "...to be pleased means to say yes" business). Sure. But Be is never not working. She works to make our lives easy, to provide us with half-familiar/half-fresh treats, soundtrackings, jams--21st Century POP MUSIC, red-blooded, healthy post-Modernism. This guy, "Sweet Dreams," the most recent single drawn from I am...Sasha Fierce (the 6th or 7th off the record since last autumn?), is Be's Gothic number, as Industrial as our bright Aughts R&B gets (cousin to Rihanna's "Disturbia") and with lyrics like, "Tattoo your name across my heart so it will remain/Not even death can make us part/What kind of dream is this?" and "Clouds filled with stars cover the skies/And I hope it rains/You're the perfect lullaby." I really dig her invocation of dreamstates. Dreams are--as soon as we become aware of them, waking--histories, passages, memories, inaccessible. This angle lends the song a deal of regret, glances backward. She opens with a loosely cast phrase, "turn the lights on," that is applied as a portion of the driving beat throughout the song. In the track's present tense, Be is no longer falling into soupy, dark love, but attempting to reconstruct and measure it 'in the light'...after.
"Sally"
Sam Sparro
I picked up this dude's album because...um...a gay teen played it for me at an American Apparel, saying, "You wouldn't believe how he looks: cute white boy with a side bang, wearing our shit." Whatever. Ain't no shame. This and the U.K. hit, "Black and Gold," are supreme and smart dance songs, despite their hipster cheese (Sparro is an Aussie living in El Lay....so....). And "Sally." I mapped out something like five music videos (starring me?) for it as I rode the train into Manhattan this morning. My favorite was a tour of the Financial District, dead at night with Christmas decorations on the lamposts, dancing in and out of empty dives and office tower porticoes in a 91/2 Weeks, off the shoulder, creamy Irish cable knit sweater and nothing else (shoes?). The lyrical take on stripper dadsums-issues is a touch ham-handed. But Sam's throwback politics are in the right place (I loathe the fourth-wave approach to sex industry-as-empowerment).
Pure redux--tragic heroines/social issues+gay soul singing+slap-happy synths, a track to get riled up to, to dance yr emotions to. Bless our hearts. Disco isn't ever gonna die again!
Beyoncé
Last week, my co-worker was playing a video linked from FB, some throaty, grey shoegazer with a haircut covering "Single Ladies." It was 'ick. He said, "Why is everybody raving about this?" I said, "...because they're racist." And then I watched the for-real "Single Ladies" video a few times--still good, still a call to arms not a snooze, not even a little bit. Occasionally I wonder if, we spectators get lazy about newness and give the establishment too much credit/obeisance (that "...to be pleased means to say yes" business). Sure. But Be is never not working. She works to make our lives easy, to provide us with half-familiar/half-fresh treats, soundtrackings, jams--21st Century POP MUSIC, red-blooded, healthy post-Modernism. This guy, "Sweet Dreams," the most recent single drawn from I am...Sasha Fierce (the 6th or 7th off the record since last autumn?), is Be's Gothic number, as Industrial as our bright Aughts R&B gets (cousin to Rihanna's "Disturbia") and with lyrics like, "Tattoo your name across my heart so it will remain/Not even death can make us part/What kind of dream is this?" and "Clouds filled with stars cover the skies/And I hope it rains/You're the perfect lullaby." I really dig her invocation of dreamstates. Dreams are--as soon as we become aware of them, waking--histories, passages, memories, inaccessible. This angle lends the song a deal of regret, glances backward. She opens with a loosely cast phrase, "turn the lights on," that is applied as a portion of the driving beat throughout the song. In the track's present tense, Be is no longer falling into soupy, dark love, but attempting to reconstruct and measure it 'in the light'...after.
"Sally"
Sam Sparro
I picked up this dude's album because...um...a gay teen played it for me at an American Apparel, saying, "You wouldn't believe how he looks: cute white boy with a side bang, wearing our shit." Whatever. Ain't no shame. This and the U.K. hit, "Black and Gold," are supreme and smart dance songs, despite their hipster cheese (Sparro is an Aussie living in El Lay....so....). And "Sally." I mapped out something like five music videos (starring me?) for it as I rode the train into Manhattan this morning. My favorite was a tour of the Financial District, dead at night with Christmas decorations on the lamposts, dancing in and out of empty dives and office tower porticoes in a 91/2 Weeks, off the shoulder, creamy Irish cable knit sweater and nothing else (shoes?). The lyrical take on stripper dadsums-issues is a touch ham-handed. But Sam's throwback politics are in the right place (I loathe the fourth-wave approach to sex industry-as-empowerment).
Pure redux--tragic heroines/social issues+gay soul singing+slap-happy synths, a track to get riled up to, to dance yr emotions to. Bless our hearts. Disco isn't ever gonna die again!
On Being Post-Revolutionary Aristocrat
"...There's more. Blue is also the color of the wall paint, the velvet mantle-cover she leans against, its fringe and a tassel, the Sèvres and other porcelains on the mantle, assorted flowers, the pouch for her fan, the bell-rope to call servants, the paisley-like pattern on the gold and red cashmere shawl draped over a chair, gemstones in her jewelry, Louise's limpid eyes, even the pale shadows beneath her eyes and along the hand she holds at her chin."--The L.A. Times' Christopher Knight (?) writes the Frick's first loan of Louise de'Haussonville to a SoCal museum
On Being Woman
The painting...confronts the viewer with the disturbing and contradictory visual experience of gazing at Kahlo's nude torso, attractive and available, while standing witness to horrifying pain and inexplicable physical abuse.
- Margaret A. Lindauer, on Frida Kahlo's The Broken Column of 1944.
"kiss me thru the phone"
oh young aj (map of arkansas written across yr face). please don't go and suffer on our account. we love you, and we really love how you twice refuse to blame joe g. for yr poor performance when pressed. what a yankee.
Nov 2, 2009
Verses
What could be worse than having to be seen resorting to your own life? In my case, there was a fixed sum of experiences...to or from which I could not yet add or subtract, but which I was skilled at coming to grief over, crucially, in broad daylight.
--excerpt from Gary Lutz's Stories in the Worst Way (1996)
--excerpt from Gary Lutz's Stories in the Worst Way (1996)
Nail Color For November 2, 2009
Essie, Aruba Blue. Back in Los 90's, metallic sapphire was a favorite, the trailer-trashiest of those non-red/pink spectrum shades. And, aside from dull, Inland-Cali long, square and French white, trashy digits always sing.
Yankee-celebratory nails, from title to sheen to shade. Woop woop.
bam bam
This Postseason has been a consistent thread of comfort en nuestra familia. The Yankees face a near-certain (knock wood) World Series win. I'm prepared for a loss tonight that lets us take the title back in the Bronx, a stadium inauguration (plus Pillow's got es-chool tonight). Of course, I'd also be pleased to make short work of it inside the Lion's Den. Oh the terrible bhoyos and girls of 'illadelphia. I was certain a fight would break out last night, between cracked cracker drunkards in the packed decks or even ballplayers (A. Rod hit 3 times?!). These Keystoners are worse than Massholes, all chipped shoulders and 'helicopter towels' (though I must admit that bell-toll is stylish). If you were only listening last night, catch a clip of Damon stealing third like lightning.
Love.
PARADE.
This track, excavated from our padded memories on Saturday afternoon, has little/nothing to do with La Nueva, but it suits.
Love.
PARADE.
This track, excavated from our padded memories on Saturday afternoon, has little/nothing to do with La Nueva, but it suits.
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