Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song
Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat
Happy birthday, Leonard. And thanks. Thank you so so much.
Buy Leonard Cohen’s music and listen to it while you read:
Sean Michaels on seeing Cohen live, or Michael Barthel explain the curious cultural journey of Hallelujah, or even Daniel’s previous post on this very blog.
of Montreal – Our Riotous Defects (f/ Janelle Monáe)
If you put a human being underground with no access to sunlight, he’ll revert to a 25-hour sleep schedule.
Brad had learned that in a Psych class he audited once. Or he’d read it on wikipedia. Either way he was pretty sure it was true.
I mean, why else would he be up at 4am sipping a Jack and Pepsi? It made sense, really. Every day your body was denied an hour of sleep. Or wasn’t tired yet and wanted to stay up an hour more. Either way, no wonder everything was so off.
Surely this was to account for Bets turning into a crazy bitch a few months into their relationship. Maybe if they’d lived together underground after a nuclear apocalypse she would have been fine, singing in her husky voice as they toiled to recreate societal norms one 25-hour period at a time.
*sip*
Nah, she was probably just crazy.
[Buy False Priest because Rob says it’s pretty alright.]
(Picture drawn by Dave Eggers.)
“Want to go to a free Ra Ra Riot concert Monday?” I texted.
“Who/what is a ra ra riot?” Ron, my brother’s friend, texted back.
“It’s a band. They play music. With instruments.” I’m a goddam riot alright. “Check YouTube to see if you’d like them.”
“Sounds indieish but not half bad. I’m down.”
“It’s at 7 in Queen Anne. Swing by my place at 6 for a drink before we head out.”
So Ron, some 6’4 future Marine, showed up at my place at 6:00 p.m. and we chugged Jack and Cokes and alit. In between the rows of CDs and vinyl at Easy Street Records about 125 people filled in. Ron and I stood behind the electronic section; I noticed some band called O O O.
Ra Ra Riot started promptly and played 20 minutes, even adding an extra song, or so the singer claimed, because we were “rowdy”.
The crowd was pretty subdued. But so was Ra Ra Riot. Without a drummer, the music lost its bite. Instead, fresh-faced youngsters fretted and bowed and plucked along on instruments merrily, sappily.
Maybe it was the high density of high schoolers at the show, including three girls standing next to us who giggled and ‘omigawd’ed their way through the show, but the band reminded me of high school. The violinist was the band nerd with thick glasses who you can never date because she’s actually pretty cute and way too talented for a deadbeat like you. The singer was the popular kid but with a sensitive side which got him laid all the time. The bassist was his slightly darker, quieter best friend. Et cetera.
“What’s with all the handsome grandsons in these rock band magazines? And what have they done with the fat ones? The bald and the goatee’d?”
Ron and I looked at each other after the set and shrugged. We both texted my brother, who adores Ra Ra Riot, to tell him how it went. Maybe he would have appreciated it more, would have savored the thickness of the strings, the whiskey textures, the sweet sentimentality.
Ron and I? We drove home and drank some more.
[Buy The Rhumb Line, which is pretty alright.]
He put out his cigarette and sighed.
He dumped the ice from his drink out on the street and went back inside.
Through the sheen of the window, he could see three girls in bikini bottoms and t-shirts smoking and giggling. They were barefoot and drunk.
In Google he typed, “How does one make life decisions?”
Some guy was yelling, telling the girls to get the fuck out of there, that they weren’t welcome at his apartment, the drunk bitches.
216,000,000 results.
He cleaned the bathroom, swept the living room, dusted the shelves, scrubbed the kitchen.
He flicked on the garbage disposal and jammed the brush down into it just to see what would happen.
[Buy Rain Dogs, please.]
Architecture In Helsinki – Wishbone
Devin pulled her jacket on while heading out the door. A quick stop at the store later, she arrived at Addison’s house and let herself in; it was never locked. Deep in the utensil drawer, she hid a new wine bottle opener, one of those nice ones with the metal wings that made it so easy to uncork bottles.
Out on the street she saw a parking ticket on the car next to hers. Devin slipped it out from under the windshield wiper and paid it.
Then she drove up past the border into Canada. At the first town, she pulled over and found a post office. There she scrawled the name and address of her neighbor on an envelope and stuffed enough money for two months’ rent in it.
On the drive back, she cranked down the windows and played Architecture In Helsinki at full blast.
A mile away from her house, she parked in the driveway of her friend Ryanne and put a bottle of tequila inside the screen door.
In her car, Devin found a crumpled piece of paper and a blunt pencil. In big letters she wrote:
“Hey,
Listen, sometimes life’s alright and sometimes it sucks. But with friends like you, it’s mostly alright. Sorry to hear about your sister. Just know – now especially – that you’re valued and loved and treasured and I really hope you don’t move away.”
She didn’t sign it, just folded it twice and put it in the mailbox of Taylor across the street.
Whistling, Devin went home. In front of her door she found three green apples in a sack that hadn’t been there when she left. She shined one on her shirt and took a bite. It was crisp.
[Buy In Case We Die.]
SOON AFTER SETTLING in Seattle, nearly everyone acquires a version of the people-here-are-sooo-nice story. There’s the comic after-you-no-please-after-you traffic merge. And the fellow who held the elevator door when you were still 20 feet away. Then that time some lady offered you change for the meter.
Those who move to Seattle also have another kind of story. But you don’t broadcast this one. You keep it to yourself or whisper it to other transplants. It goes something like this:
You’re talking to a co-worker/someone at a party/fill in the blank. In any other town, this person looks like someone with whom you might be friends. Potential friend asks, “So what are you up to this weekend?”
“Oh, I don’t have any plans yet. I just moved to Seattle and don’t really know anybody . . .”
You try not to look desperate.
Friend-to-be smiles and, for a brief, shining moment you think to yourself: Finally, someone is going to ask me to do something. Invite me to a party. Happy hour. Brunch with the girls. It’ll be just like “Sex and the City.” She’ll be Charlotte; you’ll be Carrie!
You feel a chill coming on. Still smiling, Friend-Not-On-Your-Life politely excuses herself, “Well, have a nice weekend then.”
Ouch.
You’ve just experienced the infamous Seattle Freeze. It’s the flip side of Seattle Nice. Welcome to Seattle . . . Now please go away.
[Seattle is] the ideal seatmate on an airplane. We slide in, exchange a smile and a succinct pleasantry, then leave you be for the rest of the flight. Alaska Airlines should capitalize on this with ads that promise: “Uninterrupted service from Seattle — and we mean it.”
(These words stolen from the Seattle Times, specifically Julia Sommerfeld.)
[Pay whatever you can for FUTURE songs, or pay just $10 and get an O.G. cassette tape.]
There are a couple of things that we know, that we learned from Fact Magazine:
1. The king wears a king hat and lives in a king house.
2. Your time will come, but tonight is our night, so you should give us all of your drugs.
3. We have a black president, and you do not. So shut up, because you don’t know shit about where I’m from that you didn’t get from your TV.
But honestly, and be honest with yourself, how much time do you waste? How much time do you blow every day?
[Buy This Is Happening and find yourself compulsively dancing on the sidewalks in front of strangers.]
(Photo yet again by the wonderful Glenn Jones.)
If you’re looking around you and wondering, “Why does everything seem so sexy?” then you are not alone! The world hasn’t seen anything as erogenous as our new layout since the opening scene of Lost In Translation.
The layout design was done by the gracious and gorgeous Jordan Chatwin. Those charming little pictures you see at the top (they change when you refresh!) were drawn by Peter, Chie, and Katie. Send them all warm-hearted thank you emails!
I’ll leave you to poke around and coo in approval, but after you do, remember to like us on Facebook (because all we’ve ever wanted is to be liked), read Joan’s hackneyed thoughts on Twitter @tunethepro, and send us reams of emails to help stave off the loneliness.
Mogwai – I Know You Are But What Am I?
Gaines started collecting aloe vera plants after returning from his year with the peace corps in Bolivia.
It started small, like all life’s obsessions do. A few days after moving into his tidy two-bedroom apartment, a frumpy old lady from next door showed up and knocked on the door. She didn’t say much beyond “Hello” before shoving a small aloe plant out from her squat frame into Gaines’ arms. Then she turned briskly and walked away, presumably to scold school children.
Gaines looked at his house-warming gift, flicked the rosette idly, and put it in a window where it would get plenty of sunlight.
As the months passed, his windows filled with more aloe, some pots hanging from hooks he drilled into the ceiling.
When the frumpy lady moved away, Gaines bought that apartment too. The neighbors saw the sunlamps and honestly just assumed he was growing pot in there. Instead he grew rows and rows of aloe.
Whenever anything bad happened, Gaines had a tendency to write it off, saying, “Well, that’s life I suppose.” He said ‘suppose’, but he knew. Sometimes for all the tenderness and care you gave a plant, it just wanted to wilt. Some plants wanted to live and some wanted to die, and all he could do was let those that wanted to live thrive.
As Gaines’ bushy eyebrows grew white and wild, drooping down the sides of his face, the rows of aloe grew straight and strong. Thick leaf-stems reached bravely toward the ceiling, like the arms of Christians eager to touch the face of their creator.
Gaines used aloe for everything. He made aloe toothpaste (good for the gums!), he devised an aloe bubble bath formula, he rubbed pure aloe onto his face every morning in lieu of moisturizer, he jotted down several dozen recipes that called for healthy doses of aloe.
Every morning, Gaines wakes up and stretches his sinewy arms and stalky legs, walks around both apartments with his upright posture, and waters the plants. Each has a name, which Gaines repeats in greeting with the familiarity of a Hail Mary.
He isn’t sure who will take care of his plants when he dies, which can only be a few more months now. But he’s sure that whatever really wants to live will keep on doing so, with or without him.
[Buy the newly-released live album, Special Moves, which reminds me of one of the greatest concerts I have ever attended.]
[Picture by Glenn Jones.]
Sunset Rubdown – Three Colors (Daytrotter)
I want a girl who’s excitable and quits her job suddenly and bites my earlobe in public and lets me take pictures of her topless and calls me ‘Dahlin‘ and fucks up her haircut on purpose just to see if strangers on the street will say anything and has an obnoxious laugh which she unleashes without self-consciousness and never turns down a triple-dog dare and plays a few bars on every piano she sees and leaves notes in between the pages of library books and listens to Sunset Rubdown.
[Buy Sunset Rubdown albums and become that girl.]
