Hrm.

And, so, here it is.


Um... yeah.

Reliable-Shmahviable

So today's The Reliable Source section of the Washington Post quoted my "list-icle" on Meghan McCain, which should be on newstands shortly. Please don't expect an actual article.

In any case! Huzzah's all around.


"I almost registered as a Democrat to be rebellious, but I registered as an Independent instead. Then my dad bragged about it, so it backfired."

-- Meghan McCain on party affiliation in the September issue of Glamour magazine. John McCain 's daughter, 23, registered as a Republican for Father's Day. She's taking a break from the campaign, according to her blog; last week she hung out in Hollywood with another blond Republican: "The Hills" reality star Heidi Montag.


Also, Glamour's EIC Cindi Leive will be on Entertainment Tonight to talk about the "story." Apparently. Last time I saw that show, John Tesh was still on it.

(The one and only time HM's name will be on this blog, believe you me. Cheer's to Glamour for the cutout)

Bringing The Hate: Houston, TX

On why Houston, TX has the lowest recycling rate of any of America's 30 biggest cities:

"We have an independent streak that rebels against mandates or anything that seems trendy or hyped up,” said Mayor Bill White [...] “Houstonians are skeptical of anything that appears to be oversold or exaggerated."

Trendy.

Hyped up.

Houston, I don't know if you've noticed, we're slowly killing ourselves, except it's not really "slowly" anymore. Seriously. So shove your "rebellion" and put the plastic bottles in the blue fucking bin and shut the fuck up.


("Independent streak"? This isn't your parents trying to force you to listen to CCR. What utter shite.)

(Anyone leaving a "Houston, we have a problem" comment gets sent there.)

Critical Ass

This doesn't mean I'm caving in and becoming one of those "bike people," but jeebus. What the fuck?



(via gawker.)

As Ever, With Love

I'm Still Trying To Cut It

From a 2003 article on women protesting the Iraq War.

That protest was outside the Fed building in Westwood, LA on International Women's Day. I believe the back of my shirt said "Fuck the War." Poetic, no?

But really, I want to talk about my hair. That is what happens when you're growing it out. Jesus... Shit is rough!

You People Are Killing Me

It's satire. Someone please flip the irony switch back on.

(Gallery of some of the artist's other New Yorker covers, all of which I love. You might recognize Barry Blitt's work from his illustrations for Frank Rich's Sunday NYT columns. I know I sure do.)

UPDATE: What with the TV-not-having, I don't see the Daily Show as much as I used to (every night at school like clockwork). Now whenever I catch Stewart taking the hot air out of whatever windbag issue that is driving sane people nuts, I feel so grateful I could kiss his tiny little face.

Although, I sort of always wanted to do that.

Here's the Daily Show talkin' some sense. Text is below the player, as the Daily Show's websites and players really don't work. Any one else notice that?



"You know what your response should've been? It's very easy here, let me put the statement out for you: Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist. Because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists! Of which Barack Obama is not. It's just a fucking cartoon!"

This American Strife

Dear Ira Glass,

Thanks for helping me feel better about my entire life.

Again.

kittens and syringes,
e.a.

(thanks for the heads up, flying panda)

With Love And Squalor

Tonight is hot and still, and the heat of August is looming out in the future, promising to kick all of us in the balls, and cook us to death in our own sweat. If we make it through July, which I suspect we will. The city can hack it, even if Con Ed can't.

Thanks to my return to the States, coinciding with reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, and then reading another one of Seymour Hersh's "No, seriously you guys, they're starting a war in Iran" articles in the New Yorker, I'm in one of those malaises that make me want to crawl into bed -- if only I didn't need to freeze the sheets to be able to stand having anything against my skin for that long.

To all of the above, add watching the Obama campaign. If that man breaks my heart, it will stay broken. Giving immunity to Big Money telecommunications companies who spied on private citizens illegally is a good way to break a heart. I'm afraid that I will learn that my faith in a man was nothing more than naivete, and I'm afraid that what happened to McGovern when he suddenly found himself leading the party into the convention, will happen to Obama. That is, he lost track of who he was and what he was running for, made minor, stupid mistakes that added up, so he lost. Nixon was reelected, and the war and cynicism went on and on.

When Bush was reelected, my dad had to tell me to stop walking across campus so I could sit and put my head between my knees. He said that the only comparable feeling to that day was when Nixon beat McGovern, and it was like an entire promise to have faith in America had been beaten down, rather than just one man.

It must be crippling to remember a time when people really thought revolution was possible -- and then also have the memories of watching it all fall apart. I'd rather feel as though we have no people to look up to, that represent everything you hope and strive for, rather than have to watch your icons be gunned down.

Being assassinated is another, different way to break a heart.

I can't imagine what it must have been like see the bodies of prophets stack up like pancakes. And to have the war die out because... Just because, rather than because it was wrong and dangerous. Or to watch everything just die in a wave of drugs and booze and apathy and whatever and ever, Amen.

I think if I'd had to watch all that happen to something I thought was really beautiful, and something I really thought was going to change the world, I'd just...
Be really bummed, man.

Don't break my heart.

It's Too Hot For This Shit

Has anyone else noticed that anyone who has anything to do with making the internet has gone completely off their fucking rockers?

Jeebus!

When Band Crushes Collide!

And so my European adventures have come to a close, and Brooklyn has welcomed be back with large, sweaty arms. Ew.

After the joys of Caserta I hit up London Town where I enjoyed Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Blackheath, clotted cream and scones, Henley, punting and wandering around the mews of Oxford with a bottle of red wine in hand, and lots of other things that make England near and dear to my heart. Also, I met my friend Anna's new baby, Georgia May. If you think it's weird when your friends start getting married, just wait till they have babies.

Upon return I was tickled pink to catch a show at Southpaw with not one, but TWO of my band crushes: Frightened Rabbit and Oxford Collapse.

Both rocked, and FR's live version of "Old Old Fashion" put a grin on my face that still hasn't quite vanished. Oxford Collapse played some new tracks from their up-coming record and they sounded pretty faboo.

In Rome, I finally got the courage to go to Keats's grave. He's buried in the Cimitero Acattolico Delgi Stranieri (The Cemetary for Un-Catholic Foreigners). It's mostly known as the Protestant Cemetery. Not only is he buried there, but Shelley's heart as well. Also, Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist party. Communists and Romantics: my kind of people.
Anyway, the place is beautiful. It's sort of gregariously gothic, with graves and full-blooming trees stacked upon each other. Keats is quietly resting in a corner, and there's a small bench there for people to sit. There's also a little stack of notes left beside his marker, which I contributed to. Shelley wrote of the place, "It might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place."

Go figure.

I also visited the small apartment which looks over the Spanish Steps where Keats died of tuberculosis at the ripe old age of 26. (The apartment also houses a small, perfect museum documenting other Romantics who were ex-pats in Italy, like Shelley, Byron, and Mary Shelley Godwin). When I saw they had Whitman's copy of Keats open to "Endymion" with his margin notes, I may or may not have started crying. Just saying.


Later that evening, my younger brother asked me why it is I'm so into the Romantics, Keats especially. There are a lot of reasons the Romantic Philosophy appeals to me, but none so much as an understanding of the Sublime.

The Sublime, is the feeling you get when you're confronted with that which is more than you are. More beautiful. Bigger. More powerful -- whatever, it doesn't really matter. Whatever makes you feel conscious that there is more out there than you, that there is an enormous beauty and terror and you cannot possibly understand it, that is the Sublime. Poems that aren't written yet, places you've never been, trees that are older than your great great grandmother, cities that seem sentient, realizing that stars are both space and time, meeting your friend's baby and realizing that you love her for no good reason.

The Sublime makes you feel at peace and comforted, but it always makes you conscious of the need to transcend the immediate and reach for the eternal. The Sublime is never nihilistic, but it can be terrifying.

I get it a lot when I see a really great band play.

How do people reach into themselves and pull out music? When music really gets in your brain, really touches something back in your catalog of memories, it's bigger than the people making the music -- chances are they don't even know what they're doing. They're plugged into something way way bigger than three guitars and a shitty drum kit.

I like to think about what makes someone write a song: the memory that sparked it. Even if a song seems explicit to me, there's no way I know what the song is "really" about. It's coming from a place that is totally unknown to me, and the rest of the crowd -- it's untouchable. It's a mystery that everyone knows the words to.

It's the same with great poetry or fabulous cooking, or the perfect goal. Where do people go when they're creating something that is more than just who they are or what they can do?


---
The next weeks are going to jammed packed with work, work, and more work, which I will hopefully be able to fill everyone in on, but until then, I'm knocking on wood, and chaining myself to my laptop.

In the mean time, I hope you'll enjoy this little list of music I've been enjoying this summer. It's by no means a mix, but a random smattering.


1. Summersong / The Decemeberists /The Crane Wife
2. Marry Me / St. Vincent / Marry Me
3. Old Old Fashioned / Frightened Rabbit / The Midnight Organ Fight
4. Handle With Care / Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins / Rabbit Fur Coat
5. You're No Rock'n'Roll Fun / Sleater Kinney / All Hands On The Bad One
6. Bishop Danced / Bruce Springsteen / Tracks
7. In The Springtime Of His Voodoo / Tori Amos / Boys For Pele
8. Saro / Samamidon / All's Well
9. Who Is It? / Bjork / Medulla
10. Poke / Frightened Rabbit / The Midnight Organ Fight
11. Nobody Knows Me At All / The Weepies / Say I Am You
12. Walcott / Vampire Weekend / Vampire Weekend
13. Festival / Sigur Ros / Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Photos:
1. Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit.
2. Michael Pace of Oxford Collapse
3. One Whose Name Was Writ In Water
4. The Protestant Cemetery
5. When Band's Collide! Andy Monahagan on Keys (FR), Michael Pace on Rhythm Guitar (OC) and Scott Hutchinson (FR) rock out on the last song of the night, "Keep Yourself Warm." Toward's the end, Hutchinson threw in a little lyric from Oxford Collapse's "Please Visit Your National Parks," (a favorite of mine): "You should be standing right next to me / Instead of three feet in front of me."