you! me! dancing!

well. i'm still here.

see you on the flip

marriedtothesea.com

where the wild things are...

okay, so i'm finally moved into my new house and things have been rather hectic. it was an absolute mess as the previous tenants were clearly unfamiliar with the joys of sanitary living conditions. i've lived in many a shithole, but i think i've finally reached hell. so far, we've come across the roach here and there, hornet nests under the balcony and a veritable medley of bugs, but this, this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back:


















yes, that would be a lizard (true to size). a LIZARD in my bathtub. i shan't feel safe again.

query

since when is it okay to post your ultrasound pictures on facebook?

soy de burque

"On March 23rd, 2007 mayor Martin Chavez announced his plans to brand Albuquerque as "the Q". With the help of a large corporate advertising and marketing firm, his goal is to bring in out-of-state investors by making Burque hip and associating it with a hip name. As proud "Burqueños", we feel this is an unnecessary title. Show your pride."

okay, this is from the man who introduced giant 8 ft high, inaccessible pieces of pottery to the median of our freeways.









seriously, join the revolution, cos "the Q"? really?

odds and ends: fat-ist tendecies?

what a lovely shade of orange?

prison inmates in the philippines performing "thriller." i KNOW!! the have quite an oeuvre as it turns out

is it true?

Pelle Carlberg: "Clever Girls Like Clever Boys More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls"

seriously, i want a thumb piano.

1 AN - JENS LEKMAN - A little lost
Uploaded by lablogotheque

je ne comprend pas

i can't believe my time's almost up here in new orleans. immense relief this week, as i think i've found what i was looking for--an early 18th c. manuscript of french sacred songs, various letters and accounts. problem: everything is in old french. merde!

in other news,









apparently chinese officials are developing a compulsory dance program to combat childhood obesity and thwart young love. totally sounds like something my mother would've come up with.

odds and ends: only 2 days until HP!!!!!!!!!
also, i want to know. where can i get










a amplified thumb piano, so i too, can rattle through the streets of paris in a long conga line?

#58.2 - Architecture in helsinki -Like it or not
Uploaded by lablogotheque

would you like a bullet with your red beans and rice?

So I had dinner with the mafia last night. More specifically, I had dinner with a piano man named Snake and his lovely wife Leann, who is directly related to the Gambino crime family. Allegedly. Having fled Las Vegas unexpectedly, they ended up here in New Orleans where you can find Snake playing at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, the oldest bar in the US. Tomorrow he's teaching me the basics of jazz piano, a futile exercise given my poor improvisational skills, to be sure.

Anyhow, I'm liking New Orleans more than I thought I would. I mean, this is a city where you can order drinks to go. As in: there are drive-thru daiquiri stands and one can walk around. outside. with a cocktail. There's also no last call. best/worst idea EVAR.
A typical day:
-I roll out of bed around noon. perhaps awakened by the vegetable man singing out from his truck, "i got some watermelon, eatin' pears..."
-look out the window, see mule-drawn carriages and my neighbor walking her pet goat. yes goat.
-Head to Tulane and root around the archives for a few hours.
-Go back home and take a nap--the heat makes me sleepy, apparently.
-fend off bug bites. seriously, the bugs here can totally eat small children.
-Prepare for a night out mingling with the denizens of the French Quarter, we head out with our "go" cups filled with our poison of choice in hand.
-night after night of fabulous food and fantastic music and crazies. speaking of yummy foods, tater nachos. yes, nachos with cheese, black beans, salsa, and sour cream but with tater tots instead of chips. brilliant.

My lovely roommate Rebecca has kindly compiled a list of things for me to do while i'm here. research? what research?
-beignets at Cafe Du Monde
-haunted house tour through the French Quarter, cheesy, yes.
-drive through the lower ninth
-Barrataria preserve and hang with the alligators
-plantation tour
-Spend a couple days in Breaux Bridge, catch a zydeco brunch and tour the swamps with norbert and his moonshine (he makes moonshine!)
-pictures and updates from the convent forthcoming.

odds and ends: how much do I love this video? dancing eggs (pictures at an exhibition?), angry sandwiches, and the bugsy berkeley-esque dancing trees.

le tired

what is the most unsettling thing about this video (rufus wainwright, "rules and regulations")? a. fleet of synchronized dancing men with luxuriant mustaches, b. wainwright's unceasing gaze, c. long johns.

odds and ends: new haircut today and i look a little bit like an anime character. unfortunate.

what simultaneously sucks AND blows?

well, a number of things. given the high levels of suck (texas heat+gauche caviar=aeiq2#%^&*io)
desperate attempts to amuse myself of late:
-inspired by dr. bacon, i spend my saturday mornings imbibing bottomless mimosas at taverna--seriously, they're served in wine glasses. best. idea. ever. (well, until hangover ca. 3 pm)
-inspired by fran, i've spent the past few days trying to come up with multi-syllabic homophones. i.e. principle/principal, precedent/president, karat/carrot (okay, i didn't really come up with any of these)
-pizza beer yes, it's pizza AND beer at the same time. methinks, misguided?
-caption this yourself:


odds and ends: saw menomena on tuesday. to borrow from "dial m", it was totally cop show! check out this video: http://www.subterraneanblog.com/2007/03/09/video-premiere-menomena-wet-rusted/

this piece is in the key of sum 3

courtesy of loltheorists

my apologies for the lack of recent posts--so 2 for today! i'm back in austin where the heat is such that even the squirrels are sluggish. seriously, i actually saw one walking up a sidewalk this afternoon. anyhow, not much to report here, just slogging through dufay and schoenberg.

505

my trip home wasn't nearly long enough


i was whisked from the airport to the best margarita EVAR (at seasons) to fortify myself for adventures to come


we were going to fuck the shit out of bears


so we ventured forth intrepidly.


crossing dangerous waters


hopping across islands


making grand gestures (clue: david is a woman from the 1940s wearing a red dior dress, surreptitiously eying sailors)


sticks and stones did not in fact break david's bones


where are the snacks?


umm, nature and shit

other events of note:

fran found heaven


my sister weed-whacked clara. i KNOW!! right? that bitch (sister, not clara, well, technically clara. but i digress).


hello, my treacherous friends


penguins are the new mice

varia

so there was a monk, rabbi, and atheist on a plane...
sounds like the beginning of a bad joke right? only actually yesterday, i was on a plane sitting between a monk (who was quite portly and ate a large quizno sandwich quite messily) and a rabbi. apropos to nothing except i'm home for a few weeks and have no plans for two weeks! it's a beautiful thing.

odds and ends: looks like i'll be in new orleans for the summer.

making lists is like being productive, right?

a quick check-in before i go on hiatus for a bit. weekend in review:
final papers are like giving birth to an unwanted child. painful. i don't want to. i've had plenty of time to prepare, but that doesn't make it easier or better. always surprising that they turn out okay given the hostile and resentful environment from which they were created. now that i've beaten a crass metaphor to death, things i've done instead of writing said paper:
-ate a cookie.
- solved an obscene amount of sudoku puzzles.
-inadvertently poisoned myself on friday. in the war against bugs, i lose.
-spider-man 3, in a word, EMO. so full of 'drama' and so little to say. give peter parker a guitar and a razor blade and be done with it.
-it's no secret that i love scandinavian pop. here's a track from i'm from barcelona, the twee, swedish version of the polyphonic spree. relentlessly upbeat.


-okay, seriously, i'm going to finish my paper now. really.

odds and ends: i'll be back in the 505 for a few weeks. who's up for giant burritos and hiking in the foothills?

i'm multi-tasking

from former pulp frontman, jarvis cocker, "don't let him waste your time." you almost believe everything will be okay as mayhem ensues. plus he looks a little like shostakovich.















odds and ends: i have a new place to live in august!

bat contact

I received the following email this morning:

If you or someone you know touched a bat near the south end of Bellmont (off of San Jacinto St., across from the Alumni Center) on Monday, April 23, 2007, Environmental Health & Safety needs to talk to you. Please call Environmental Health & Safety, 471-5776 / 471-3511 or call the City of Austin Health and Human Services Department, 512-972-5590, and report that you touched a bat. Thank You.


Carin Peterson
Safety Specialist | Environmental Health & Safety
University of Texas at Austin

a rather specific yet cryptic message. the location is somewhat near the music building so all you bat touchers/vampires, reveal yourselves.

odds and ends: they call themselves you say party! we say die!


and unrelated, this came to my attention this morning. wordsworth, rapping squirrels, my apologies.

big like rasputin, naturally.

in remembrance of boris yeltsin, i'm lifting this from mcsweeney's:

Considered but Discarded Names for the Indie Band Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin.

BY JOHN FLOWERS

1. Put Your Damn Shoe Back On, Nikita Khrushchev

2. Those Are Some Pretty Boss Eyebrows, Leonid Brezhnev

3. Not Everyone Remembers You, Yuri Andropov

4. Don't You Die Too, Konstantin Chernenko

to this i would add,
still smiling? vladmir putin

tear down that wall mr. gorbachev

c'est too much

imagine this tableau if you will:
one of those moderately trendy restaurants that serves upscale comfort food. you know, the kind where you wonder what wine would pair well with your truffle-scented mac and cheese. should you order that sauterne with your deconstructed peach cobbler? etc. david and i sitting down to dinner. as usual, i'm getting tons of "oh, the poor girl doesn't know" looks from other j-faced diners.

me: david, humor me.
david: what?
me: i've always wanted to cause a scene in a restaurant.
david: and i would like to wish into existence a planet full of unicorns. gauche caviar, i don't want to indulge you in your petty, bourgeois antics.
me: (loudly) you bastard!! what do you mean you woke up naked next to a coked-out go-go dancer of the male persuasion this morning?!?
(david sits looking resigned.)
me: but we were supposed to adopt a fleet of little 3rd world babies and name them snowflake in their respective languages!!
(i gaze deeply into my glass of bordeaux before heaving the contents on david's bewildered face. i gather my things and stomp out with my heels that cut.)
fin.

i'm not gonna lie, i've always thought that it might be fun to cause a scene in a public area. so last night, i had my opportunity at last. i met a friend for dinner and margaritas at vivo which has fantastic margaritas, and as it turns out, a caterpillar infested patio. now, i have an almost irrational fear of caterpillars. while i recognize that they're fairly harmless, the fuzzy ones in particular are frightful to me (no, the fact that they turn into butterflies doesn't help as anyone who has witnessed my interactions with moths can attest to--the fluttering makes me nervous). anyway, it began with a caterpillar crawling up my menu. okay, no big deal, i just moved to the other side of the table. i'm enjoying my margarita until the woman at the neighboring table taps me on the shoulder and alerts me to the caterpillar crawling up my sleeve. arm-waving freak-out ensued. some guy at another table kindly removed the caterpillar from my sleeve.
so undignified.
odds and ends: i'll be laying low for the rest of the semester, it's paper time and i am already having nightmares about it.

santo subito!

this being easter, what better time to question my belief system? here are the results from belief-o-matic:

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (98%)
3.	Theravada Buddhism (83%)
4.	Liberal Quakers (79%)
5.	Neo-Pagan (74%)
6.	Nontheist (73%)
7.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (62%)
8.	New Age (58%)
9.	Mahayana Buddhism (50%)
10.	Taoism (47%)
11.	Reform Judaism (46%)
12.	Orthodox Quaker (42%)
13.	Jainism (36%)
14.	Scientology (32%)
15.	Bahá'í Faith (32%)
16.	Sikhism (31%)
17.	New Thought (29%)
18.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (24%)
19.	Hinduism (24%)
20.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (23%)
21.	Seventh Day Adventist (21%)
22.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (19%)
23.	Orthodox Judaism (19%)
24.	Islam (18%)
25.	Jehovah's Witness (14%)
26.	Eastern Orthodox (13%)
27.	Roman Catholic (13%)

Not a surprise, but what does concern me is the fact that i am more mormon than catholic. also that neo-pagan is even an option.

odds and ends:this is not a game. i need a new place to live.

shit list

for lack of any exciting or even marginally interesting occurrences in my own life (my weekend included a AMS-SW meeting in huntsville, where apparently they execute people. interesting discussions of madrigals and performance practice, but i think the most striking moment of the day was when we passed a small horse farm--they breed "small horses" (ponies? miniature horses? i don't know)--on the way back to austin and i realized that i in fact, did not dream about small horse farms on the drive up (we left at 5:30 am). it was reassuring to me that my subconscious didn't construct a small horse farm) okay, sorry, i'll stop with the parentheses. i shall borrow material from david's slightly more exciting existence. what better than spending a lovely sunday afternoon coming up with a shit list? david's list as follows:
-people who drink bone dry cappuccinos
-women who work out at curves
-women who work out at curves and then proceed to round off their work out at the krispy kreme next door
-dueling pianos
i would add to this list:
-the use of latin phrases in casual conversation. as in: cheese is the sine qua non of a good meal. shut up.
-similarly, the gratuitous use of acroynms or abbreviations. exempli gratia, PoMo. yes, it's short for postmodernism. fired.
-the fact that it's almost 11 am and i'm still in bed eating tiny cupcakes.

odds and ends: so i don't even have words.

pants are for the weak minded

give david a mimosa and he'll speak in haikus. seriously. *

ironic mustache
tight black jeans and converse shoes
beat up in high school

david has the soul
jennifer has his money
now we can't hear well

jesus fucking christ
it's all disposable shit
large scale soul sucker**

giraffes in texas
no matter what, it's not right
what a travesty.***

blow me new braunfels
and blow gauche caviar too
we don't like strip malls

i get it texas
you like your flags huge and high
compensating much?

*a painful drive to san antonio
**walmart distribution center
***south texas "a wild and vivid land"?

ladies who lunch

skinny pants, leggings and ironic facial hair prevailed as we ventured out in austin for sxsw this past week amidst droves of hipsters and rock stars, margaritas in hand and hangover not far behind. past five days rather fuzzy and we apologize for any phone calls/text/emails.
-completely liquid diet, check.
-champagne bubbles turning into little hammers, ouch.
-japanese high school girl ska band, confusing.
-old people on segways, natch.
-perez hilton, alarming
-pedicabs, priceless.

another one

enough said.

your looks are laughable, unphotographable.

10 am valentines day. i am sitting in bed eating red velvet cake. yes, it has pink sprinkles on it. shameful, i know, but i am as usual, sans valentine (i'm sorry stephanie, you'll have to reapply next year). i am usually a bit of a scrooge of valentines day--black clothes, a perma-scowl...no i don't want to smell the roses! i don't know who actually reads this, but i'm going to break from type this year. my sister made a good point earlier, this should be a day to appreciate all those who are close to me. so thanks to all y'all (get me out of texas!) who have put up with my bitching and moaning and those of you who never cease to make me laugh. so hearts and puppies for all!

g.c.

odds and ends: listen to turina's circulo. muy suave.

namaste, bitches.

i go through this phase every few months or so when i feel like a huge bum and become convinced that i am approaching epic proportions while simultaneously losing bone mass and will have osteoporosis, like tomorrow (thanks mom, for instilling a finely tuned sense of paranoia in me!). usually i mull over this unpleasant thought for about half a minute, eat a cheeseburger and move on. however, i felt sufficiently guilty enough after subsisting on cookies for the past few weeks (new dress=no money for groceries. i make good life decisions!) to start doing yoga again this past week after about a 3 year hiatus, and i have to say, there is something a bit discomforting about being surrounded by people who breath loudly with such intent while being instructed to contort myself in ways my legs just don't want to go. that said, it wasn't much of a workout and i really miss pilates. perhaps if i'm feeling ambitious next week, i might even attempt to bike to school. unlikely.

odds and ends: holy shit, listen to the godfather of nerdcore hiphop, mc frontalot's "rhyme of the nibelung": "I got invited to go see The Ring; I thought it were probably a musical aboot hobbits...the music's hella stupid it don't got no beats and that's the 22nd time I heard the leitmotif"

even the hobos have a spring in their step!

i decided to give my eyes a rest from reading today, so once i was able to drag myself out of bed, oh around noon (i know, i suck at life, but my only class for today was cancelled!) i locked myself in a practice room and pounded away for a few hours. i love learning something new and that moment when the piece really starts to come together--the notes finally make sense and i know what i want to tell. i think i'm getting sucked back into the whole piano thing again and it's good to be back. i spent the rest of the day listening to various recordings of the bach partitas. glenn gould attacks (and i do mean attack) them as though he were on a harpsichord, followed by igor kipnis's recording on harpsichord, which he approaches as though he were on organ. which is to say. none of this has anything to do with hobos and i should go back to reading about musical nuns (yeah, seriously) and consider investing in cable t.v. before i start developing that crooked grin a la susan p.

odds and ends: one more reason to come visit me

on frivolity

it is becoming patently clear that i must quit my job and/or throw away my credit card. working in retail has been a bit of a lark for me. i fold lots of sweaters and pretend to be helpful and attempt to hide my j-face. in return, i get a giant discount and am currently in the process of transitioning from hobo chic to preppy hobo chic. now it's no secret that i'm the marketer's dream subject. my store's particularly good at selling this image--clean, wholesome, summers spent sailing up and down the eastern seaboard. suddenly madras bermuda shorts are looking really good. they would be perfect for that lobster bake you know? i also need cashmere sweaters. in every color. swimsuits with matching flip flops of course for when i summer in the hamptons or some other bourgeois watering hole in a house from a potterybarn/william sonoma catalogue. throw up everywhere. that said, i just had to buy that dress. it was 60% off, it would've been criminal not to. sigh.

odds and ends: i ordered a pizza for dinner tonight. a barbeque chicken pizza. i go and pick it up, pay for it, and as they hand it to me, they tell me, "oh, we ran out of chicken tonight so there's no chicken on the pizza. is that okay?" umm, no. not okay. i'm left with a barbeque sauce and cheese pizza. in the words of the inimitable miss dolan, sick.

non-douchebags of the world unite!

i am currently taking a class on the global impact of american mass culture. the topic of discussion today was the stratification of culture into the highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow and the persistent strain of anti-intellectualism that clings to american culture. now i have been accused of being an elitist--i am studying musicology after all and admittedly have a tendency to seek out the esoteric. if other people know about it, it's time to move on, right? but in reality, i am really just protecting myself from distractions and unwanted attentions. if i have a talent for anything at all, other than wasting time, it would be at shutting out those i have no desire to know. (the years of social awkwardness did pay off! elimination lists are helpful too). i generally try not to be too rude about it, but i definitely make it clear when i'm not interested. so i've been fielding calls from one master douche for about about half a year now. i've not answered my phone since september. to be dramatic, he is my nemesis. most people have at least one redeeming value. so far as i can tell, master douche has none. (seriously, who hates bach?!?) he has offended me in every possible way, and to put it in vaguely marxist terms, we are diametrically opposed. he will, presumably, eventually collapse under the weight of his massive ego and unsavory personality, but perhaps we need a revolution to speed up the process. i am currently enlisting volunteers.

my slow descent into alcoholism i.e. grad school

today began with bailey's in my morning coffee and ended with cheez-its and red wine. in between these two rather demoralizing events, i had an epiphany--i'm really good at doing nothing. okay, i didn't say it was a great epiphany, or a surprising one, but i definitely spent more time thinking about what i needed to do instead of actually doing what i need to do. it's my first week of classes (last week canceled due to bad weather. i love living a city that overreacts to anything other than blue skies) but levels of anxiety are high and the insomnia has return. fun. i hate constantly feeling like i shouldn't be here and that i'm wasting my time, only i haven't figured out what i want so i may as well stick it out in grad school until i figure things out--at least i get a degree right? it's hard to be back here after a great month at home where i successful displayed my talent for doing nothing for a month...it was glorious. but i'm trying to stay positive. i know anyone who's talked to me--ever find this hard to believe (i am actually disgustingly optimistic--aided by copious amounts of red wine and/or vodka). it is good to be playing piano regularly again, especially now that i'm only playing for fun. i'm fairly excited about half my classes--up from hating all of my classes last semester.

odds and ends: i had a little too much fun on itunes today. the jury's still out for me on the new shins' cd wincing the night away. not bad, but unremarkable. however, listen to au revoir simone's "and sleep al mar" it's marvelously creepy.

a recovery of sorts

i've decided (perhaps unwisely) to return from my virtual suicide
reasons for blog:
-well first and foremost, to be discovered by a publisher who will make me an offer i can't refuse, thus bringing me one step closer to my goal of $25 million by 25 (prospects looking grim at the moment).
-this is the literary equivalent of starting your own shitty garage band (next item on my to-do list. big like rasputin will emerge in all its baroque pop excesses)
-i am unfortunately terrible about answering my phone or emails in a timely manner, although i am inordinately good at procrastinating!
-finally. another forum to air my petty concerns and inane observations.