my itunes says:

as with new year's resolutions we have no intention of completing, top ten lists have sprouted 'cross our media universe over the last week or so with no respite expected for the next month.

it's in the midst of this crass display of public self-indulgence i ask myself the question: why not mine?

so, with no apologies, disclaimers, and other ways of dodging responsibility, i give you my 2007 top ten albums played by my 'pod (as determined by the play count):

10. not saying just saying - shout out out out out
9. horn of plenty - grizzly bear
8. yellow house - grizzly bear
7. endless summer - fennesz
6. harmony in ultraviolet - tim hecker
5. the night - morphine
4. sound chambers - ehlers/hautzinger/suchy
3. recordings 1994-1997 - space needle
2. so tonight that i might see - mazzy star
1. musique pour 3 femmes enceintes - marc leClair (akufen)

uh huh.

that's it.

this episode sponsored by a very tasty white widow...

all men are mortal

so, it took a while, but i've finally finished simone de beauvoir's book.

all men are mortal.

a great existentialist in her own right, this book rivals the best of camus and satre, but from quite a different slant. whereas my periodic forays into existentialist fiction over the years have exposed me to protagonists that aim to derive meaning in the face of meaninglessness in their environment - whether family, occupation, society, or tragedy - beauvoir presents us with a narrator whose ill-accepted immortality embodies meaninglessness itself. she uses this device to show how the the secondary characters create meaning precisely because of their limited lifespan.

it's a fascinating, but extraordinarily depressing read!

anyway, my intention isn't to do a book review, but rather to compare some themes with a milan kundera book i read several weeks ago - entitled 'immortality', interestingly enough.

i had posted a quote from kundera contrasting paths to highways as analogues to ways of living one's life. highways lead us from one point to another, from one goal to another, not really allowing us to experience the joy in the moment. paths are made for us to, ah, meander. "a path is a tribute to space. every stretch of path has meaning in itself and invites us to stop."

now from beauvoir by way of a peripheral character, garnier, regarding inertia in the face of eternity: "we don't have to count on the future to give meaning to our acts. if that were the case, all action would be impossible."

it's in the present that we create meaning for our lives. if one is always looking towards the future, driving down that highway at full fucking speed, usually to the next societally dictated destination, we miss out on daily meaning and happiness.

it seems evident that beauvoir's goal in using immortality as the guiding gimmick was to portray the ultimate meaninglessness of grand schemes, plots, and designs. all of our petty ambitions, all desires to leave our legacy or mark on the world are for naught. with death, our ambitions die with us. kundera makes a point that our immortality can last for a generation or two, depending on our fame and the memory of us in others. beauvoir's response is to show her immortal man, fosca, eventually forgetting everyone because, eventually, everyone is forgettable.

one last quote from fosca before i go:

"now i understand them. it's never what they receive that has value in their eyes, it's what they do. if they can't create, they must destroy. but in any case, they have to rebel against what is, otherwise they wouldn't be men."

it all comes back to that, doesn't it? we have to create meaning for ourselves, in our lives. no one can dictate what sparks that fire within. we are our own gods, to create or destroy as we wish...

merry christmas, y'all.

"make me love you and know that you alone exist among all other women. then the world will fall back into shape. there will be tears, smiles, expectations, fears. i'll be a living man again."

- fosca in simone de beauvoir's "all men are mortal"

health

dudes, i am loving health!

i'm listening to their self-titled debut with a little help from some new bud - orange krush. for the first song and a half i thought i was listening to the new liars i'd picked up several weeks ago. the tribal drumming and the monotone vocal stylings are strongly reminiscent of the liars, although more their second-to-last album, drum's not dead, than their recent release. it was the other elements, like the deerhunter-esque guitar work, the droning electronics and even classic 80s hip-hop drum programming (track 9!), that motivated some movement off the couch to check out what was playing in the system.

and it was health!

i'll let pitchfork describe what i lack the energy to:

"sprinting through eleven tracks of orchestrated chaos in a breathless half-hour, health mixes the bombastic pound of boredoms, the skewed structures of deerhoof, the tribal thump of liars, and even the synth squirts of black dice and excepter."

to the last one, all bands i've seen and loved in the last year! but what an inspired mix of genres! boredoms - japanese psych-rock, deerhoof - experimental indie rock, liars - experimental indie heavy on percussion, and black dice and excepter - kings of the electro-acoustic noise scene. with the exception of boredoms, all the groups hail from brooklyn. so you think health was just sucking in all the local influences? nah, health's from l.a.

anyway, check it out. interesting, percussive, and engaging.

gotta go - cd just switched to sightings.

also some awesome shit, dudes...

devendra banhart

i just received my current issue of signal to noise (it's a journal of improvised and experimental music) and as i'm reading through the feature articles, i come across the cover story on devandra banhart.

i've been hearing banhart's name for the last year or so around nyc's music scene and know he's performed at a few of the indie rock venues around town. although he decries the label in the article, most reviewers and critics have slapped the 'freak-folk' descriptor on the music he and his bandmates produce. can't say it's really my thing - the focus is more on vocals/lyrics over experimental instrumentation.

anyway, the article ends with a quote from banhart that encapsulates the trip i've been on for the last several years.

"it's very strange but we have to be compassionate to our younger selves. i think that's why i'm so attracted to native american poetry and writing, which teaches us to walk with compassion. and i suppose it's why i'm interested in hindu spirituality because it preaches that love, happiness and compassion should not be dependent on anything but you. people say they're happy because they have kids or a certain job but it shouldn't be because of anything it should just be because."

yeah, he gets it. not that we should avoid the procreative urge (well, i am) or occupational ambition (i guess i'm kinda doing that, too), but rather that we should be extremely wary of establishing our happiness or fulfillment on these external factors. as supplements to our inner light, sure - although the zen buddhists discourage any involvement as the external world is the source of all suffering - but never as the sole basis for our happiness.

not being artistically inclined in any obvious way, i've always envied those that possess and exercise the creative ability. i believe that one maximizes their happiness by being their own creator, by recognizing the god within. it's this internal recognition that binds us to the infinite creative processes in our world and universe. i feel it's this bonding that produces the feeling of transcendence, of feeling a part of something much larger and infinite than ourselves.

that's one of the reasons i love participatory music - its ambiguity requires idiosyncratic interpretation to evoke meaning. the interpretive process is wholly unique and, therefore, a form of creation. sure, it's not necessarily something i can share with others, but it allows me a moment to experience something larger than myself. it's transcendental. and it makes me happy!

well, that was a bit of a ramble.

so, i might not be into banhart's music, but i can understand his sentiments regarding the nature of happiness and his motivation to create.

not much to chuckle at there, folks. it's that kind of day - cold, snowy, overcast, but beautiful and solemn.

enjoy it...

i'm riding a cab uptown...

yeah, that's what i'm doing.

right now.

is it blowing your mind?

just giving a shout out, complements of the juicy...

a show in brooklyn...

so, funny story:

a few months ago, at the recommendation of a good friend, i bought some tickets for a tiger lillies show. i was new to this group, but i'm always up for tunes that someone else exhibits a passion for. it usually offers something novel, an experience, at the very least. this show referral was from a fellow music-bud, a seeker of sonic sublties (oh hey, guys. say hello to the juicy!) so it meant more than most.

there was one momentous catch - this evening of live entertainment was happening in brooklyn!

hey, man, don't mock me. my abode's upper upper west side! i reside in the birthplace of cool, baby - harlem. so a venture out to another borough was no foray to the corner bodega, or even a trip to the theater to catch a flick...or two. a brooklyn visit required planning, determination, and most of all, ahem, desire...

i dialed up mi amiga el supremo, kara, and pitched the show. it took a second or two for approval - it was on the far side of a body of water, after all - but being the creature of curiosity that she is, not unlike this writer, she was in.

'road trip', we hollered!

yeah, so...

i know hollering 'road trip' in unison sounds a little gay. but, hey, we did it. and? and?!

fast-forward to a mid-december night, the day after the first major snowstorm of the year. the night of my agency's x-mas party. the night of two invites for manhatten-based shenanigans. the point is that there was an overwhelming, some would say staggeringly overwhelming, number of reasons not to cross that bridge into no-manhatten-man's land.

but i had mi amiga el supremo, and she with me create worlds of fun.

my music-bud, originator of the original referral, had emailed me the lyrics to one of the tiger lillies' songs the day prior. check this:

...uh, guess not. sorry. apparently i deleted them in a fit of inbox cleaning...

anyway, well written, political with a touch of humor. yet kinda aggressive. i liked it. anticipation of a good show and kara at my side was more than enough reason to forgo all and forgive the rest and set out on this trek.

after schmoozing with the executive management from my agency for an excruciating - and i do mean slow-removal-of-my-lil'-curlies-one-at-a-time-from-my-scrotum kinda pain - hour, i left to meet up with kara. this was about 6 pm.

we'd decided before to take the train, so when we left her place at about 6:40, we thought we had ample time to get to the venue. hopstop.com plotted the course with an estimated travel time of 56 minutes. the show start at 8. we were on schedule for a chill, hassle-free ride.

we took a puff or two of the requisite travel hit (always the juicy, my friends) and were on our way...

got on the 1 train at 103rd street. we easily procured some seats and settled into our train mode. train mode's just finding people to laugh at.

kara'n i are experts at train mode. those that have witnessed it and recognized our genius have called us grandmasters of this underground entertainment. it's not as easy as you think. many misguided individuals believe they possess the capacity to readily access train mode just because there is such a preponderance of the funnily-faced in this city. for sure, there are a lot of funny looking people, but train mode's more than just pointing out the obvious. the disfigured proportions and mouth-agape-inspiring attire gives you a second or two of funny, maybe enough for a guffaw or half-hearted chuckle. the genius lies in maintaining a continuous flow of gut-spasming, funny-as-shit observations, whispered behind raised hands and turned heads, for the duration of the trip.

yeah, we do it for the whole trip.

jealous?

juicy fruit helps. just helps, mind you - it can't augment what's not already there.

30 - 40 minutes and many annoyed glances later, the train arrives at our stop. and get this, it's high street! really! you want to get to the dumbo area in brooklyn? get off on high street.

after train mode, we were in the best of spirits - super psyched about the show and looking forward to some good tunes.

while still underground, i grab my phone to pull up the hopstop directions to ensure we use the correct exit. after doing a u-turn we find our way topside.

this is where the funny begins.

it's about 7:30, so we still have time to maintain a leisure pace and enjoy our first look at brooklyn in a couple of weeks. i think it might've been a couple of days for kara. why was i making a big deal about this trek to brooklyn, you ask, it we had both visited it as recently as that? whatever, man, it's still brooklyn.

the first sign of trouble: we get curbside and can't find the cross-streets our directions use to orient us. no worries. there's a dude on his cell and he sees us looking around, slightly confused. he asks if we need help and we tell him where we need to be. he points to where we should be - on the other side of eight lanes of brooklyn bridge traffic - and how to get there...he thinks.

we're cool. we're happy. i've still got a mild high going and the frigid air has yet to register as anything other than 'crisp.' we go in the direction he had pointed with such authority. i figured that he put us on the right path and sooner or later his directions would merge with hopstop's.

and it did!

this confirmation that we were minutes away from the lillies revived our giggles. we weren't positive of the direction to head in at the intersection, but hopstop said something about 'go left at brooklyn bridge' and in one direction we did see the unmissable bridge. off we went.

a minute or two later we come to a stop. the next street wasn't what it was supposed to be. 'fuck,' we murmured.

our high was slowly dissipating and the weather was losing its shyness. its hands were all over me. and, yes, weather's hands were fucking cold.

we turn around thinking the road we're looking for is in the other direction. we stomp back with noticeably less enthusiasm. even with a touch of doubt. we pass the subway station. we come to another unfamiliar and, therefore, unwanted street.

'double fuck,' i said, watching my breath crystallize in front of my face. kara suggests calling the venue; while she's doing that i pull out my phone to mapquest from our current location.

both results are inconclusive and we revert back to the hopstop directions. this has taken about 15 to 20 minutes. the show will start in about 15 to 20 minutes. we were almost completely un-high, a very uncool place to be when that place is brooklyn in sub-freezing weather with no idea in which direction to go.

then it hits one of us - i'm not being evasive here, i really don't remember whose insight this initially was - maybe we're not in brooklyn yet?! still in manhattan?! maybe when that oh-so-helpful stranger was pointing to where we should be, he was pointing to the shore on the opposite side of the bridge! maybe his vague finger-pointing towards the bridge and hopstop's directions meant the same thing: go across the bridge and your show will be right there!

could it actually be easier to walk across the bridge to brooklyn than take a train farther into brooklyn and backtrack to our desired location? cold and humorless, we shrugged and decided to give it a shot. so we're up on the bridge walking up the pedestrian pathway trying not to get run over by psychos on bikes exercising in the silliest of weather. really? you guys might be fit, but you're retarded as shit.

anyway, speaking of retarded...

being the optimists we are, kara and i were both trying to make the best of it. a quarter of the way across, we're still talking up the show, attempting to glean something noteworthy on our first bridge-crossing, enjoying the billions of lights from all the buildings of........manhattan?!

it seems we had been in brooklyn. yep, yes we were. there's the empire state building right over there...

i turn to stare at kara, seeing a reflection of my own despair in her eyes. we turn around. again.

we're just about to give up when, arriving at the pedestrian entrance we had used to start that fateful trek across the bridge, i notice another pedestian exit a little farther along. it looked like this one could get us to the other side of the eight lane exit ramp that kind stranger had said we needed to cross.

kind stranger, my ass. at times like this, i begin to believe in a god. a sadistic, petty little bitch of a god.

it turns out this pedestrian crossway didn't so much as cross the lanes as run parallel to them - right down the fucking middle.

8:15.

caged in by a fence on both sides of this sidewalk, we trudge pass our subway entrance. separated by two lanes of traffic, kara gets a glint in her eye and suggests we scale the fence. i laugh, haltingly. her glint doesn't go away. i point out the barbed and mean-looking tips at the top of the fence. her glint fades and resignation sets in.

our faces are frozen and our coats feel purely decorative. only in the distance do we see the exit from this pedestrian prison i regrettably misidentified as our salvation.

five minutes - hours? - later we arrive at an intersection. we're frozen and our bodies feel beaten from the wind and walking, but we're allowed out. we're free.

kara looks at me. i back at her.

'hey, we made it to brooklyn,' she says.
'yes, we did,' i concur.
'i have tenacious d on dvr back at my place.'
'i have some new american dad and xavier shows on my pod.'
'wanna head back?'
'yeah, let's head back.'

'we did make it to brooklyn,' she says.
'yes, yes, we did,' i concur.

only when we see the green globe of the train station in the distance do the smiles try and crack through our frozen visages.

hey. we made it to brooklyn.

that's worth something. right?

joke's on me!

so i'm reading the lastest time out new york issue when i come across the most hilarious of ironies. apparently, this edition's subject du jour (i guess, semaine) is critics, both professional and amatuer. various articles are interviewing critics, critiquing critics, critics critiquing critics, and critics critiquing the rest of us. yes, for sure there's a lot of criticisms being thrown around.

in response to a question assessing professional critics' feelings on the rise of the citizen-critic, linda steel of the new york post responds:

"the internet should come with a warning label: beware any blog that has the words musings, thoughts and ramblings in it. this is as clear a sign of the bad, boring amateur writer as deer poop is for a hunter."

if a meander isn't a musing or a ramble, i don't know what is! it's as if my blog's walking around with a bullseye on its forehead and a sign taped to its back, saying "shoot me in the face if you think i'm self-indulgent and dull!"

wow.

well, boys'n girls. you've been warned away by those paid to do so. any meanderings or ramblings encountered from here on out that don't reward with a chuckle or furrowed brow are solely the responsibility of your masochistic desire for bad, boring amateur writing or a congenital inability to be entertained. regardless, any perceived injury or compensation for wasted time can be addressed to...yourself.

until next time!

awww, babies!

fuck.

who needs them?

okay, y'all. i'm about to do an anti-kid rant. consider yourself warned...

oh, how i love the '...'! what better way to allude to just-slightly-ominous meaning than the ubiquitous '...'? even in a phrase as banal as "talk to you later...", that most plural of punctuation gives it a meaning of vague foreboding. like - will i really talk to you later? just a hint of the unknown. even google can't define '...'.

yes, i've tried.

my apologies, a juicy fruit-sponsored digression...

so. children.

procreation in modern society is a phenomena so devoid of logical justifications it blows the mind! well, at least the mind not fogged with the biological dictates to procreate.

speaking of dictates - juicy fruit's demanding another aside. well, less a demand and more a gently cajoling yet persistant - and at this point, increasingly annoying - "c'mon, dude. tell them what you're listening to. they'll want to know. c'mon. don't you want them to share a fraction of the bliss you're experiencing? don't be greedy, man. c'mon, just tell them..." apparently this'll be a post more about asides and digressions than any real anti-kid tirade.

i'm listening to marc leclair's album, musique pour 3 femmes enceintes. leclair's akufen, for those not in the glitchy know. this album's straight minimal house, unlike his work under akufen. i'm not usually a minimal house kinda guy - simplistic beat structures bore me after a minute or two. but there's a subtle, crunchy noisiness to the atmospheric electronics that keep these tracks sonically intriguing. it's perfect for a night of literary engagement accompanied by background music that doesn't pull you out of your book, but provides aural distraction when your thoughts pull your eyes from the page. nice.

procreation is so obviously concerned only with gene propagation. for the autonomous, sentient person, the procreative drive is almost psychotic. it requires one to cease making their own personal existence a priority. and be happy about it.

well, at least that's what all these new parents are telling us.

but they sure don't look happy. not that they don't have their game face up. but if you look closely you can see a slight tension at the corners of their mouth and a furtive glance in the smiley happy faces of the newly replicated.

and, that's it, man. you're life's over. not only do you not have the time to do anything, you don't have the quiet. sure, they tell us, children become your life and your priority. yeah, i get that. but why?

i kinda like being my priority. it's kinda fun.

yeah, having kids trip that neurotransmitter reinforcement system of endorphins and oxytocin making ya feel all giddy for being a part of this miraculous bonding experience. but heroin can make ya feel all giddy, too, while leading you down the path of personal destruction.

okay. that might've been a tad extreme. the juicy's just having some fun.

uh.

just had a thought. yeah, i know, every once in a while...

i was about to meander on that unrestricted procreation had its purpose in the heyday of humankind development, giving rise to the mass of progressive genetic mutations that modern man has benefited from. then it occurred to me that to deride unrestricted procreation, and even criticize others for succumbing to the tick-tock, was to assume that humankind had reaped all possible benefits of genetic mutation. that the next frontier of development for us is purely intellectual.

what presumption on my part! no one has any clue what the next stage of biological evolution might produce. we could be angels!

well.

huh.

i guess the only thing i can say with any gram of certainty is that kids are definitely not for me.

yeah, no surprise there.

sorry, guys. hope you enjoyed the trip.

if not, then i hope you had a whole lotta juicy...

yet another quote or two...

"what joy there is in this life. lifting past us always. what pointless joy."

and

"we are every second being born."

- richard powers, the echo maker

another amazing author with a penchant for descriptions approximating the ineffable. in 'the echo maker,' powers employs the context of neurological trauma to reveal the fragility of the self, humankind's insignificance in the larger scope of evolution, and the implausibility of love given the inherent psychoticism of consciousness.

yeah, give it a read...

"life is just death in drag..."
- xavier, the renegade angel