Camera

New camera arrived yesterday. Expect obsessive documentation on a Warholian scale (Dreiss pantless pics optional). Leaving for Ireland/Germany in ten days. There will definitely be pictures of the grocery store-brand liquor. Am far too excited for gramatically correct sentences.

Albums I listen to all the way through

Albums I listen to all the way through

The Futureheads – s/t
Weezer – Blue Album
Sleater-Kinney – Dig Me Out / The Woods
Various Artists - The Once Soundtrack
Nirvana – Unplugged/Nevermind
The White Stripes – De Stijl
Violent Femmes – s/t
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
The Postal Service – Give Up
Jay-Z – The Black Album
Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill
Beatles – The White Album
CSS – Cansei De Ser Sexy
Girl Talk – Night Ripper
Feist – The Reminder
The Gossip – That’s Not What I Heard/Standing in the Way of Control
Interpol – Turn on The Bright Lights
M.I.A. – Arular
Spoon – Gimme Fiction/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Toots & The Maytals – The Very Best Of

Introvert/Extrovert

I recently read a book on introversion and it was pretty interesting, especially as I’ve always considered myself an introvert. I have all the classic signs, according to the book: spending lots of time alone voluntarily, a phone call phobia, a few deep but meaningful friendships, an avoidance of the spotlight. I’ve had those characteristics since childhood, so they’re not something that popped up during a life transition.

I was discussing long-distance commutes with my future roommate last night, specifically commutes where one works in a city in one state for the week and then returns to home in another state for the weekend. I was saying that I couldn’t do it, that work wouldn’t be enough to sustain me during those five days because I’d want to do something else and I’d miss interacting with my family and friends during those days. Future roommate, who asserted that such a situation wouldn’t be a problem for her, then looked at me and said, “So maybe you aren’t as introverted as you think, if you need to be around people like that.” This knocked me for a loop. Then we talked about solitary confinement, which is probably the ultimate test of an introvert/extrovert personality, and future roommate said she thought it’d be great. I was not so enthused.

So all of today I felt like a personality hypocrite. If I am an extrovert, which my book defined based on where one gets one’s energy from, whether it is from outside sources (extrovert) or inner ones (introvert), then I have been so totally dense as to never notice it or I’ve been lying to myself. And right as I was coming to terms with being an introvert. So much for that.

It does help explain why I’d get so horribly lonely and depressed during summers away from college, and last fall/winter. A truly introverted person would have been totally fine, and I fell apart.

This is really not cool. I was looking forward to a deep, meaningful relationship with my introversion, and now the honeymoon is over.

A Conversation With My Mother

Mom: "Emily, why do you want a polaroid camera? It's so OLD."
Me: "Well, I just want one. I've wanted one for a long time, and I finally decided to get one."
Mom, baffled: "Well...it's just so old and outdated. I mean, don't you want a digital camera? They take such better pictures, and everyone has them."
Me: "But I don't want one. I'll get one and they'll come out with a much better model within six months."
Mom, reasonably: "But Em, the film is expensive. And if you move the least little bit it comes out blurry. Digital pictures look so nice."
Me, exasperated: "This is just like the time I wanted a record player and you said it was a dead technology and a pain in the ass and records are unpractical in every way. And I didn't get one and I REALLY WANTED IT. And I would really like a polaroid camera."
Mom, mildly: "Allright, fine. It's just such a strange thing to want."
Me:"I don't care. I would like one."
Mom: "Ok. Here is your father."
Dad:"Hey! What's this I hear about you wanting a polaroid camera?"
Me:"Grumble grumble JUST LIKE THAT TIME WITH THE RECORD PLAYER grumble."
Dad, brightly:"Heck, turntables are great! They're really classic. Why didn't you say something?"
Me, dumbfounded:"What?"
Dad:"Find one you like and let us know!"
Me, still taken aback: "Sure...I saw this portable one in a suitcase...I'll email you the link."
Dad:"Sure. We can take a look at it, see how it sounds."

I had best be getting a LOT of oudated technology for my birthday. I am thinking about wanting eight-track players now, and slide rules.

Feist - 1 2 3 4

Awesomely amazing. Cannot wait to get the whole album.

Cat and Girl Anniversary

So tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of the webcomic Cat and Girl. I could tell you why Cat and Girl is so very awesome, but the post would go on forever and you would quickly lose interest. And Cat and Girl is ALWAYS interesting, and hilarious. Anyway, in honor of this important date, Cat and Girl creator Dorothy is giving out free stickers, and also encouraging sending in things to share, like other comics and mixtapes. Immediately I saw myself creating the most ferocious mix possible, sending it in and having it sent to five other people who would listen and later testify about how this mix Changes Your Life. Flush with the glow that only a truly ambitious and anonymous mixtape project brings, I began. Here is the playlist for the end result.

Off the Hook - Y Pants (Rolling Stones cover)
Fun Fun Fun - Tidal Waves (Beach Boys cover)
Send Me A Postcard- The Shocking Blue
I Gotta Get Outta This Town - Nancy Sinatra
Face For the Radio - The View
Science Books - Arrah and the Ferns
Saltbreakers - Laura Veirs
Satisfaccion-Modern Art Studio (Rolling Stones cover)
Poison-Bell Biv DeVoe
Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby-Islands
Yea Yeah (Flosstradamus mix)-Matt and Kim
Earth Invaders (Spank Rock Remix)
Half Invisible-The Shivers
Turn Into (acoustic)-Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Marianne, You've Done It Now-Vandaveer
I Can't Go For That-Hall and Oates
Past in the Present-Feist
I Found Love-Styrofoam and Sarah Shannon

All come highly recommended. There might be mp3 links for various songs later, there might not.

Movies

Since I've had a pretty bad case of insomnia for the past couple of weeks, why not put it to use and update my woefully neglected blog? Gosh, there is just SO MUCH going on in my life right now, it's like I don't even have time to write about it on the internet!

Saw Knocked Up last weekend and it totally lived up to expectations. Jude Apatow and his whole crew (they should really have some sort of collective name and matching T-shirts) are just so funny and real, and the women always get to be funny and real as well, and not just sex with a fringe of conversation. Plus it's basically a big PSA for USE A CONDOM OR YOU WILL GET PREGNANT and boy, that is not fun at all. For me it was a lot like "Undeclared has a one night stand and gets pregnant" since most of the guys were there although the girls weren't. And if you haven't seen the wonder, the hilarity, the awe-inspiring goodness that is Undeclared, I will totally lend you my copy. This is a show that is guarateed to get you laughing within the first five minutes of viewing, no matter where or when.

And since it appears we are in the middle of the Summer of Apatow, there's another movie he produced, Superbad, out in August. It stars Michael Cera, and those two facts should be enough to get my ass to the local over-priced multiplex.

If you like musicals, Ireland, and pretty music (or if you are Kyle Schuster) go see Once. It was touching and awesome and I've already bought the soundtrack, despite the little old ladies (!) who sat behind me complaining that there wasn't enough song variation. THERE TOTALLY WAS, OLD LADIES.

M.I.A. Can Hit That

I'm feeling kinda crappy today but the fantastic Discobelle.net posted the new M.I.A. track and suddenly I'm feeling a lot better. You should feel good too so here it is via Z-share.

M.I.A.-Hit That

The Gossip Column

I was reading the UK Guardian today, and noticed that they signed on Beth Ditto, of one of my fave bands, The Gossip, to do an advice column. Her introductory statement is pretty damn cool (and also confirms that Arkansas is indeed almost entirely interrelated), and the first column, published last Fri, has some sound advice for coming out of the closet at work. What I can't get over is that a major metropolitan newspaper (I think the Guardian publishes out of London) tapped someone like Beth Ditto to do this, and how it would never in a million years happen here in the US. There she's the frontwoman of a massively popular band and voted the Coolest Woman in Rock by NME. Here, The Gossip is mostly an indie band with a fat lesbian from the wrong side of Arkansas on vocals. The difference in culture and attitude really amazes me, and I wish something like that would happen here.

I have just started reading this fantastic book called PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. It is awesome, definitely a book to which I forsee sacrificing several hours of sleep. There is a lot of mathematics involved in it, especially codebreaking, and I feel sort of odd about that, as math has been taunting me unmercifully ever since second grade, when I had the first of many traumatic breakdowns directly caused by numbers. In this case, there was a test and I believe it involved double-number addition. I was toast and I knew it. Ever since, math has been a sorority that'd I'd like to join because they know how to do some cool things with binary, their alumni list is kicking, and they throw comfortably geeky parties where people earnestly debate the merits of nanotechnology. Plus there's no dress code. But I haven't ever been able to make it past rush week. And not the fun part of rush week, at the end, where you've made it through and there's a party and cake and matching sweatshirts. No, I am firmly stuck in the hazing part of rush week, and the harder I try to do everything right, the more Alegbra II (social chair and head of new recruits) hates it and makes me recite the Pythagorean theorem and the quadratic formula while wearing a diaper and scrubbing her convertible with a toothbrush. It's really painful, actually. That's why I decided to join the bookish writers sorority instead, but they told me I overextend my metaphors and maybe I'd be better off the with the art history people, who mainly watch paint dry and then write manifestos about it. Anyway. PopCo is really fascinating. Read it. And then I will write another post in which I say what I had intended to talk about here, but the sorority metaphor took on a life of its own and inadvertently gave my Math Rage some more fuel and thus I need to end this.

Lil Mama - Lip Gloss Video

I heard this a while and couldn't get into it. This weekend I see this video and now I can't get enough. What I love is that lip gloss is now powerful enough to turn boys into girls, nerds into street dancers, and hallways into dance floors.

I am busy working on stuff, most specifically some sort of mix to post on here in the real near future. In the meanwhile you should check out Chazology for the DJ CASIO mixtape cause that is definitely poppin'.

AWKWARD

I was not one of the cool kids at school. I wore mildly unfashionable clothes, read too much and said too little. Popularity wise, I existed in a weird bubble all my own, flitting between the band dorks, the Christians, the athletes, and one or two popular girls. This may be because I was one of the most ridiculously awkward people I knew, perhaps second only in epic awkwardness to the guy with whom I was voted “Tallest” in my senior class. Luckily, however, through the magical power of the blahgosphere, I have found someone whose awkward exploits are just as cringe-inducing and much better written. That person is Justin, whose blog Awkward Things I Say to Girls has left me speechless with thrilling and inspired nuggets like “You Have Really Good Proportions” and “I’d Like More of You in My Lifestyle” and most especially, the classic “Why Geeks Make Good Lovers.” This last is a wickedly logical point by point version of the one I embarrassingly, but determindly, tried to impress upon a group of eighth grade girls during a project presentation in high school. Sadly, my zealous argument that Geeks Are Hot was completely derailed by my partner, the Acknowledged Cute, Mysterious Yet Athletic Guy of my year. Everytime I attempted to guide these girls towards the truth about the untapped potential of geek love, he would smile shyly and winningly and I knew they were a Lost Cause to the irresistible scent of Eau du Jocque. Sigh.

Lists!

I like lists. I make a lot of them. Usually I never actually get to crossing things off of the list, because the best part is just writing things down in columns. I could care less if I actually accomplish anything, and I'm always finding half-finished lists lying around. ANYWAY this list was going to be a guide to "A Random Selection of Interesting Sites I Found While Bored on the Internet" but then I was reminded that I promised Colin a list of new music he might enjoy. He has a problem with wormholes and lives physically in the present day but makes frequent trips to the mid-eighties and the late nineties. While this is not a bad thing, and is especially useful for Halloween and theme parties, Def Leppard could use a rest on his iTunes. So I will attempt to pull his musical taste, at least, into the late 00's. (oughts? oo's? did anyone figure that out yet?) Below is the list of bands organized loosely by category. Unfortunately I did not have time make handy reference Venn diagrams, so you are going to have to imagine the overlapping categories yourself.


3 Word Name Bands
Usually all dudes. A marked tendency towards rocking.
Dirty Pretty Things
Cold War Kids
We Are Scientists
Les Savy Fav
Broken Social Scene
Neutral Milk Hotel
New York Dolls
Rock Kills Kid


Tousle-Haired Singer Songwriters
Frequently found in coffeehouses. Like to sing pretty songs on acoustic guitars about their feelings. Mostly harmless, but may make you cry.
Willy Mason
Andrew Bird
Sparrow House
Ryan Adams
The Shivers


Our Neighbors to the North
O, Canada! Why must your bands always be so large? Are you trying to make up for something?
Arcade Fire
New Pornographers
Malajube (bonus: Quebecois!)
Broken Social Scene


Drainpipe
Refers to the skinny jeans members of the band are usually wearing. Since they are mostly European, it works on them. Most communicate ironically and through electronic bleeps.
Dirty Pretty Things
LCD Soundsystem
Maximo Park
Klaxons (but only “Golden Skans”)
The Maccabees
The Subways
Los Campesinos
Of Montreal
Phoenix
Postal Service
Beirut
The Rosebuds


The Outcasts
The other categories kicked them out, so they got their own.
Sleater-Kinney (“The Woods”)
Midlake
Spoon
Calexico
The Format
Guster
Oh No! Oh My!
The Bens
Erasure (“Stop!” Warning - Eighties playlist only!)

Robot Pigeons

Just saw this article in Londonist about Chinese scientists and their remote-controlled pigeons. Realized that those same Chinese scientists submitted a manuscript about the same topic in early January and it came across my desk. At the time I thought it was completely ridiculous and possibly one of those crazy people manuscripts we occasionally get but then I watched the short movies that accompanied the paper. Utterly insane and scary at the same time. You could see the scientists operating remotes and making the birds fly along a predetermined path in a large room. The birds were definitely the most freaky looking things ever. Imagine a pigeon, staring in that stupid sort of way they do, but now with part of the top of their head cut off and (apparently) exposing a tiny brain which had a small electrode helment sort of strapped on, blinking with different colored lights. (The illustration is much more sanitized than it really was. The brain was sticking pretty far out.) My first reaction was one of horror, as it’s just a short paranoid hop from manipulating pigeons to manipulating humans, interlaced with the sort of fascination a car crash provokes. Then it just turned into, wtf? And why? Too bad I tossed the movies when the paper got rejected.

Here's the article from Reuter's. It appears they had the same reaction as I did.

Lily Allen

Almost forgot. Wanted to write a bit about seeing Lily Allen on Friday-it was pretty cool. Got there a bit late because I was having dinner with a friend and a friend of a friend, but got to see most of the set from the upstairs balcony. 9:30 Club was packed. I've never seen it so jammed, with the possible exception of Sleater-Kinney's show there last August. The music was great and the samples translated really well into live music. She had a horn section, a fantastic drummer, a guitarist and bassist. Plus a synthesizer thingy that she kept banging on during random moments. It was all really fun, no angst and everyone just bopping along. Lily didn't do too much stage chatter-mostly it was just a bit about the next song and she'd just start into it. Exception was the slapdown for the ATL posse, who apparently ended several states out of their way yet didn't seem to know it. Lily politely corrected them with, "We're in DC, muthafuckas!" Was pretty funny. She didn't seem that drunk but she was drinking and smoking (!) on stage and giggling in a really cute way. You could tell that most of the crowd, if they didn't have one already, was walking out with a crush on her. Not gonna lie, I would not mind being Lily Allen for a while. Singing songs about done-me-wrong exes! Reprimanding your lil' bro in front of thousands! Skipping about in dresses and sneakers to the reggae beat of your own Specials-influenced songs! Touring the world and giggling adorably! Blowing smoke in the face of newly enacted DC smoking ban! I am only slightly envious.

Holiday Fallout

Crap day today. The day after a holiday always is, because you've had that extra taste of freedom and now it's that much harder to go back to the old 9 to 5. Work complete fiasco as it seemed all the authors needed a status update on their manuscript and they needed it NOW or at least YESTERDAY. And they're all for an editor who's been a bit slow with sorting through their assigned manuscripts. Which means I have to be the moderator of Author-Editor Relations, a role I heartily dislike because it means having to feed them a bit of knowledge to keep ravenous authors satisfied while withholding any real information from them, because an author with knowledge of what is really causing the holdup on their manuscript is a dangerous author indeed, liable to call me up and shout angrily about Competition and Significance, or worse yet, ask to speak to an editor. Editors are like priceless treasures behind glass-they are there to see and to judge, but not to touch or have contact with. This includes email.

Anyway, for the concerned, I am feeling better now. More and more it appears that New Year's was the absolute bottom and now I am finally going up.

BIRD FLU - M.I.A.

The newest Asian epidemic to sweep the nation. This time it's dance-related, and I'm rooting for M.I.A.'s captain hat and the little kid in the red shirt. He can lay it DOWN!

Upstairs

The boys who live upstairs have some of the most annoying habits I've ever witnessed. It's like living with a spoiled younger brother who always gets his own way, except you can't ever exercise the familial privilege of shouting at him and locking him in his room. The boys upstairs are very fond of believing they are singer-songwriters. Unfortunately their version of singer-songwriter involves too many late '90s covers and a completely stupid amount of foot stomping. I should add that the foot stomping rarely, if ever goes with any actual rhthym, making it hard to tell whether it is actually foot-stompingly good sex, poor dance coordination, or some weird combination that I don't want to think too hard about. And this shit goes on at all hours. It appears that when the Muse tells you to play a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah cover (they're quite fond of "Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Blood") at 3 am, well, you just GOTTA play that shit.

How you say...

I'm in love. Completely, utterly captivated. Exactly my type, too: sweet retro sampling spread over deep bass with a smooth flowing emcee on vocals. And Canadian, too! They have the best national anthem AND fake-looking money with poetry on it. Plus, they make movies about curling.

THUNDERHEIST was what I was crushing out on all day on. It consists of two people, Isis the emcee and Grahm the DJ. They have four songs up on Myspace and damn. Listening to their stuff was like the ecstatic moment when the DJ starts playing the exact song you've been dying to hear all night. You spill your drink, you're so excited. That's what every song was like. Totally perfect party music. The only song you can download right now is "Sueños dolces," in which they sample the Eurhythmics' bread and butter. Listen to all, however, and be jealous of our northern neighbor which is the only place that ThunderHeist is playing shows right now (with the exception of a SXSW showing.) A 12" is in the works but hasn't been released. If this isn't enough for you, the band is Diplo-approved.

THE BLOW - 'parentheses'

Technology

...is a bitch. Something went wrong with the spacing on my last post, so instead of a dramatic narrative list neatly separated by double spacing and as indicated by *, you got a ginormous neverending paragraph punctuated at random by *. I kept trying to re-upload it with proper spacing (and the preview kept psyching me out because it would show the spacing) but ultimately Blogger won and thus, no double spacing.

I'm posting the "Parentheses" video by The Blow because it is adorable. And I really wish there was a karaoke like this near me.

2006 in Review

2006 was a year of change and transition for me, so it was pretty much doomed from the beginning.

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

*My final semester of college, a ridiculous affair in which I took too many credits, continually stressed out, rarely saw friends and did the bare minimum of effort in my organizations. It culminated in April in near-continuous crying episodes to parents and professors and barely graduating, my GPA having taken a severe pummeling for my idiocy.

*Graduation day, where I realized belatedly that maybe I should have been a bit more involved in the academic aspects of college. A day of excessive highs (finally graduating) and lows (everyone crying as they left Framar and realizing that the departure was really the last).

*The entire month of June, as I frantically looked for jobs and tried to decide what the hell to do now. More crying.

*Living in friend's basements for the summer, working temp jobs and looking for apartments in the DC area, having decided to live here because, well, I couldn't think of anywhere else that would be better.

*Finding an apartment where I wanted to live, that wasn't horribly overpriced or about to collapse at any moment.

*Still working as a temp as my place of employment delayed and delayed the decision on whether or not to hire me. Attempted to formulate a backup plan in case I wasn't hired, but could think of nothing better than going back to ye olde food service industry. Tried not to think about it.

*Realizing that I was not going to make friends my own age at work, as it is a mostly middle-aged nonprofit. I am also singularly unsuccessful on the bar/club/twentysomething scene. Begin going down to alma mater on most weekends to save my sanity and to assure myself that some people still do like me.

*Falling prey to an especially severe case of seasonal (or post-collegial) depression as fall ends and winter begins. Become convinced I should be doing something else, something more worthwhile, but what exactly I should be doing remains a mystery. I try to cheer myself up with distractions but any feelings of cheer live a short and unhappy life.

*Becoming more and more paranoid about my lack of social skills. In a particularly deluded occasion, when three different friends/acquaintances do not contact me for a while, I start believing that they now hate me. Later, I find out that one's mother had a malignant tumor and the others were just away for vacations.

*New Year's Eve, the first that I would be drinking and partying on, the previous ones having been spent with the (nonalcoholic) parents. The evening starts off well but quickly disintegrates into a sodden night of self-disgust and negative contemplation. At a bar I refuse to dance with my friends and assorted revelers and instead lean against wall, drinking heavily and wondering at the pointlessness of everything. I begin the new year hangover free and rather sheepish about my previous behavior. The rain does not help things.

In short, 2006 was an utter waste of time. It would have been better spent watching TV series on DVDs, Seinfeld maybe. I probably would have laughed more.