tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65394081937164052872024-03-05T00:16:57.361-05:00Ceci n'est pas une pipe dream.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-72742227264771231202010-11-06T16:07:00.010-04:002010-11-06T16:31:53.526-04:00Going Too the Zoo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuF2zr09NyxNkgb5uvpP3tdD2StY488sAvPuqj82GstaUBsUB88wDgmnRDF4_U-2ZIwnpxg6BzR4XJwU9efSwg47EFuMH1Bmsm1GF7ixqr2Ut1RYNgLaVHhl8JgavlYitG17X6pf8hSVE/s1600/zoo4.jpg"><br /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nwS1hv59CsxmkHdgHqaRsjSn9-8tfwo18xKalFEyxXHgStaK5LkjgcWG4ywTbyTzGLA4n8S3zhg9OATW2MQWtptkoSPIDXIhU2wIcXb7DDeCoy6zfaGab_YCycf35ET-Ly2Gxtic7E0/s1600/zoo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 414px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nwS1hv59CsxmkHdgHqaRsjSn9-8tfwo18xKalFEyxXHgStaK5LkjgcWG4ywTbyTzGLA4n8S3zhg9OATW2MQWtptkoSPIDXIhU2wIcXb7DDeCoy6zfaGab_YCycf35ET-Ly2Gxtic7E0/s320/zoo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536532017479177378" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Behold, my kindergarten magnum opus, the work that got me selected to attend the North Carolina Young Writers Conference (my elementary school was required to pick 2 kids from each grade). I hadn't yet mastered too vs. to, but hey, I was five.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJ9BhdjAwvC15gHmXb75B8ogrcsDzUtMtyeyCXhkKdHvQWm2Vm5qoSypbvCKb8QflAT9iv6NVT9Z_xiMEeCmPwxHjEjo5qvD9MP0A2BpsX3_1SJUEBvnRCx6mwbXVqqEQMfo8q5IJPZE/s1600/zoo1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJ9BhdjAwvC15gHmXb75B8ogrcsDzUtMtyeyCXhkKdHvQWm2Vm5qoSypbvCKb8QflAT9iv6NVT9Z_xiMEeCmPwxHjEjo5qvD9MP0A2BpsX3_1SJUEBvnRCx6mwbXVqqEQMfo8q5IJPZE/s400/zoo1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536532569474464946" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Also had a little trouble with Z vs. S.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KLUFuKH_2_GVLxUxfr3OlG1KqfXwe-pBCkqqzfpDrc6cZ-w9eya_HJSyHqMSaJ2v2LGjkJbbiYDTR63aF0wQ0TfVIZePB2dPTL4YsHmGNAiWR-8OQ-06EuAHYQwgsq15OIN2kneWna8/s1600/zoo2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_KLUFuKH_2_GVLxUxfr3OlG1KqfXwe-pBCkqqzfpDrc6cZ-w9eya_HJSyHqMSaJ2v2LGjkJbbiYDTR63aF0wQ0TfVIZePB2dPTL4YsHmGNAiWR-8OQ-06EuAHYQwgsq15OIN2kneWna8/s400/zoo2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536533007216635362" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Clearly the beginning of a life-long fascination with language.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivETNPd7ro3HyYDf7Kp5yGSUQcOvXHw5a6KO4d7QkPgW3cUBGohB88I48179NXychxmMdH6hlcOEQx_OoF4Yr5yXb72B_AW3SKmnFZ4wACGvNIWHMsO2ScrUnYixEIxeZuwMCTBVI-aGY/s1600/zoo3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivETNPd7ro3HyYDf7Kp5yGSUQcOvXHw5a6KO4d7QkPgW3cUBGohB88I48179NXychxmMdH6hlcOEQx_OoF4Yr5yXb72B_AW3SKmnFZ4wACGvNIWHMsO2ScrUnYixEIxeZuwMCTBVI-aGY/s400/zoo3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536534889353532578" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />The tension builds...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuF2zr09NyxNkgb5uvpP3tdD2StY488sAvPuqj82GstaUBsUB88wDgmnRDF4_U-2ZIwnpxg6BzR4XJwU9efSwg47EFuMH1Bmsm1GF7ixqr2Ut1RYNgLaVHhl8JgavlYitG17X6pf8hSVE/s1600/zoo4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 303px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuF2zr09NyxNkgb5uvpP3tdD2StY488sAvPuqj82GstaUBsUB88wDgmnRDF4_U-2ZIwnpxg6BzR4XJwU9efSwg47EFuMH1Bmsm1GF7ixqr2Ut1RYNgLaVHhl8JgavlYitG17X6pf8hSVE/s400/zoo4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536535615747825986" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />No sugarcoated happy ending for this girl. In my writing I never shy away from the brutal truth: The zoo is scary, you guys! Yiks!mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-89367963627852375572010-07-17T17:38:00.001-04:002010-07-17T17:38:53.756-04:00wordy-ass bitchesLike, I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">so sure</span>.<br /><br /><!-- Begin I Write Like Badge --><br /><div style="overflow:auto;border:2px solid #ddd;font:20px/1.2 Arial,sans-serif;width:380px;padding:5px; background:#F7F7F7; color:#555"><img src="http://s.iwl.me/w.png" style="float:right" width="120" /><div style="padding:20px; border-bottom:1px solid #eee; text-shadow:#fff 0 1px"> I write like<br /><a href="http://iwl.me/w/d7939cdb" style="font-size:30px;color:#698B22;text-decoration:none">David Foster Wallace</a></div><p style="font-size:11px; text-align:center; color:#888"><em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color:#888">Mac journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me" style="color:#333; background:#FFFFE0"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></p></div><br /><!-- End I Write Like Badge -->mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-30280437236813254382010-07-15T13:32:00.001-04:002010-07-15T13:32:14.526-04:00Har-de-har<!-- Begin I Write Like Badge --><br /><div style="overflow:auto;border:2px solid #ddd;font:20px/1.2 Arial,sans-serif;width:380px;padding:5px; background:#F7F7F7; color:#555"><img src="http://s.iwl.me/w.png" style="float:right" width="120"><div style="padding:20px; border-bottom:1px solid #eee; text-shadow:#fff 0 1px"> I write like<br><a href="http://iwl.me/w/d760c1b4" style="font-size:30px;color:#698B22;text-decoration:none">James Joyce</a></div><p style="font-size:11px; text-align:center; color:#888"><em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color:#888">Mac journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me" style="color:#333; background:#FFFFE0"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></p></div><br /><!-- End I Write Like Badge -->Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-17332806222490721012010-07-01T22:52:00.003-04:002010-07-02T21:23:58.712-04:00"Does it bleed? Is there joy?" An interview with Frog Eyes' Carey MercerThought I'd dust off the ol' blog to share a nugget of genuine interest and one of the more fun phone interviews I've ever done. The oh-so-fresh July issue of <a href="http://www.origivation.com">Origivation</a> holds a <a href="http://www.origivation.com/features/july2010/frog.php">shortish feature</a> on Frog Eyes, but the conversation with Carey was so cool and (I thought) so interesting that I wanted to share the whole thing. He's a very cerebral guy, and also very funny and sensitive, I think. I stumbled over my abstract concept-describing words a little, but I'm not too embarrassed by my bits, either. (Not even my corny sign-off; I totally meant it.) Enjoy!<br /><br />Alexandra Jones: It’s actually kind of been a while since I listened to Frog Eyes, until the new album came out, because for some reason I really, really hated the first Swan Lake album…I didn’t like it so much that I didn’t listen to it all the way through.<br /><br />Carey Mercer: Interesting. We had a feeling when it came out that people hated it. Then we made the second record – this is our impression – the general consensus seemed that when we did the second record, people would go, ‘Oh, it’s not like the first record. The first record wasn’t logical.’<br /><br />AJ: [Before] this interview, I was like ‘You know what, do I even still have it on my iTunes? I should go back to it.’ And I was like ‘Why did I dislike this?’ And I think it was because it was really in between the swooping Destroyer style and the super-jagged style that had been on some Frog Eyes records. And for some reason I didn’t know what to make of it and it didn’t compute in my mind.<br /><br />CM: That’s interesting. I wish more people, myself included, would go and revisit things we had a really strong reaction against. I was just talking to the guy who runs our record label and he was talking about how much he loved Royal Trux major label releases. But when he was 21, he thought that they were the worst records he’s ever heard. So it’s kind of a similar idea, the things that you had a really strong reaction against you might in five years be like ‘What was I thinking?’ The stuff that you have a blasé reaction to, you probably never need to return to. But what you truly despise you might end up liking.<br /><br />AJ: I’ve found that people, when they talk about Destroyer, a lot of times they hate Dan’s voice, or they’re like ‘What the fuck is this guy singing about,’ where Frog Eyes can be interpreted as being intentionally grating or unpleasant or dissonant to some people.<br /><br />CM: Frog Eyes has been around for a long time, and that is certainly true of a specific era of Frog Eyes. Which unfortunately was maybe the point when the most people were listening to us. Being forced to listen to us. Because I think that a lot of those things are just not true of our band any more. I think that personally, if I can just speak for myself, my approach to music is a complete about-face from the jarring and grating and piss-in-your-face approach, especially to performance, that we used to have. I had a conception that the only pure performance was one that completely disregarded the audience, that if you just could do that, then the sensitive people in the audience would kind of understand it and enjoy it that much more. Which is not a bad theory, but it kinda gets tiring to throw sonic urine in peoples’ face, night after night. If I’ve had two epiphanies in my life, this would probably be one of them. <br /><br />I played a show in a small town on Vancouver Island where I live. It’s a very working man’s town. I just felt a real kind of fondness for the audience. The audience was made up of kind of local kids who don’t get to see bands too much, and then drunks at the end of the bar, and people who had spent three weeks in a fish camp who had come in to just party. And the fondness kind of turned into this idea that my singing could actually – we could go somewhere together. And it completely worked. It was so scary at first, like Og my God, I’m gonna get knifed by that guy who’s 300 pounds and just wants to hear a Metallica cover. But buy the end these old guys were doing like hillbilly dancing on the tables, stompin’ and hollerin’, the kids were just in the greatest moods and I kinda felt like the singer’s role, responsibility, was not to piss in peoples’ faces but actually take the audience somewhere to kind of [an] otherworldly space. And I think that was the first moment I understood music. After playing it for eight years or whatever. <br /><br />AJ: This was recent?<br /><br />CM: This was really recent. About two years ago.<br /><br />AJ: Because the first thing I noticed about <span style="font-style:italic;">Paul’s Tomb</span> is that not so much your vocal style in particular is different, but the whole album is a lot more contoured, there are still lots of leaps and big transitions, but it’s a lot more…slightly smoother, or flows a bit more easily than a lot of the up and downs. Peaks and crags and stuff. <br /><br />CM: The idea, the fundamental songwriting process, the idea of Frog Eyes, hasn’t changed that much. Because for me, it’s always interesting, always appealing, to try and stuff as many ideas into a song as you can. I’ve said this before, for me it makes sense to use an accordion analogy where in the past the accordion was kinda closed. And all of those ideas had to fit into a song that was two minutes long. Which was just completely exhausting for the listener, right? To have 20 different things bouncing off your headphones at one particular time. So it’s the same kind of concept, it’s just the accordion is now in its most elongated, extended form. So the two-minute song becomes the nine-minute song. Let’s allow, let’s hear a floor tom for four bars, that kind of thing. There’s more space, I guess, and I think some people like that and appreciate it. It’s made for – the idea is that you would appreciate it. It comes back to this idea of inclusiveness, like I actually want you to sit down with the record and actually get lost in it in a pleasurable way. Not in the I wanna boil your skin alive kinda way, which [it’s] not really like that, but there was a kind of oppressiveness in the more misanthropic approach, I think. I feel a little more hopeful. I don’t know why. Yeah, I watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Picard had a real influence and impact on me. And I’m kinda joking, but I think I’m kinda serious. He really believes in the potential of humans. [That’s] a beautiful thing, unparalleled in a lot of literature. [Laughs] That’ll be a nice big quote. <br /><br />AJ: That’s really interesting to hear, because one of the questions I wanted to get to is when I’m listening to the new album, it does require a lot of attention. Because there’s constantly stuff happening, and it’s maybe the transitions are happening, or the songs are moving from one to another, or the sections within the song are sort of percolating around in a more subtle or nuanced way, like sometimes in the past, like you were saying. So you expect people to be invested in your work, but at the same time, so much of the listening experience is done while people are driving, or cooking, or working –<br /><br />CM: Well listen. I don’t listen to music like that. When I listen to music, I put on a record, and I sit there and I listen to it. I don’t listen to music and read. And it’s wonderful. And I think that – I have a good stereo and a record player. I don’t listen to music on headphones, and I don’t listen to music in the car. And I don’t like the iPod. All of our expectations are kinda anecdotal. By that I mean they all come from our own experiences. So my expectation [of] you as listener is to do the same, is to clear even 20 minutes – that’s one thing I love about a record, you only have to listen to one side of it at a time. And it’s kind of nice. It’s only a side of a record, between 12 and 20 minutes? That’s not too long to ask of someone. I know the new media pundits will say that your average attention span is ten seconds. But I don’t care about that. I’m saying no, that leads to a very underdeveloped and boring person, the kind of person who can’t sit still for 20 minutes and just absorb someone else’s art, is essentially someone I’m not interested in. And the opposite holds true too, I feel real genuine tenderness and fondness for someone for just doing that, for clearing away 20 minutes in their day to listen to some music. So that is the ironclad expectation [laughs] that I have of the listener. And that might be Pollyanna, but God, I mean, on the other hand, then music is, at its worst, just the backdrop to a social event or the backdrop to you making your stir-fry. And if that’s the case, why do we take it so seriously? Why do we give it such a vaunted position in our culture? <br /><br />AJ: I think part of it is what happens when the work leaves the artist and people are left to experience it however they can or however they choose. But also the fact that there’s music that is art, which I would say your music is definitely on that side of the scale – that’s how you[intend] it, [listeners] get the most out of it when you pay more attention to it, and you experience it more fully. But there’s also the entertainment part of music, and I think that people who listen for both things – people who listen more to the sort of artsy side of the spectrum are now like ‘Oh, it’s okay for me to like Lady Gaga too so all of this stuff is kind of in my collection.’<br /><br />CM: My retort to that – I cut you off – I just want to say that on a Saturday night, I’ll invite my best friend over and we’ll drink some vodka and we’ll listen to AC/DC the exact same way that I just described listening to my record. It doesn’t have to – my theory of listening to music does not contain those traditional definitions of high and low music. It’s not like we’re only listening to atonal 20th century classical music in that way. Absolutely not. It’s so wonderful to just throw on Creedence and do the same, just like, fuckin’ listen to it. It doesn’t necessarily have to contain that high art, low art binary, I don’t think, personally. So yeah, I know what you’re trying to say. The division between that idea of music as art and music as entertainment is puzzling to me. I don’t really understand it. I just got asked to play at an art gallery in Vancouver, and there’s something kind of appealing to that to me because it’s basically what happens sometimes is – so Frog Eyes has been just pluggin’ away in a capitalist framework, meaning the only money we get comes from record sales or ticket sales. There’s kinda no support there. And sometimes what happens is the art world will pluck singers out [laughs] and say, ‘You know what? You’ve been working really hard. Here, have some grant money,’ you know? It happens occasionally.<br /><br />AJ: Canada’s good for that, right?<br /><br />CM: Canada’s pretty good for that but it’s getting worse and worse. And I can tell you why, if you’re interested. But anyways, that kind of thing is appealing to me but then the gallery was like ‘We want you to do something with sound. We want you to approach sound as art and not as music.’ And I know what they mean, but at the same time, I don’t really know what they mean? [Laughs] It’s like, do you just want me to stick a fork in a cello and just make a weird face at someone and run it through a delay pedal and that’s sound as art as opposed to playing a few chords on the guitar and singing a song, and that’s sound as music, and therefore sound as entertainment and therefore not valued as much? I just don’t really get it, you know? I understand it, but I don’t really get it. <br /><br />AJ: If they asked me to do something like that, I would think that they meant that they would want something put in some big conceptual framework that says more than what the sound actually means, is what I would have guessed. But that’s not fun, because you want the sound to mean something.<br /><br />CM: Yeah, but a big conceptual framework is its own cliché. It’s the easiest of clichés, right? My God, it couldn’t be easier to come up with some half-baked idea. Put a Council of the Arts grant stamp on it. It’s kind of much harder to work in this cutthroat capitalist framework. So I really don’t know what to do. I don’t know how we got sidetracked on that.<br /><br />AJ: It’s really interesting though. Since we’ve gotten talking about the different purposes that music can serve or the different ways that people view it as having purpose, when you write songs for different projects, for yourself with Blackout Beach or for Frog Eyes or in collaboration with others, do those songs all come from your same interior artist? Or do you separate them?<br /><br />CM: Frog Eyes would involve me sitting in a chair playing the guitar. And if I feel the compulsion to stand up, do a little boogie, do a little shuffle, then I’m more than likely to call my wife and say ‘Get down here. I think I’ve got something.’ And then we’ll boogie around together. And if it’s really boogiein’, then we might keep chiseling away until we’ve got something. And the other band members come in and just flesh it out. Whereas my own music is really cerebral, it’s a lot of, a lot of thought goes into it. There’s a lot of, there’s a decision-making process that’s not so immediate. I mean, Frog Eyes is really fucking easy. Just get me up and out of my chair, you know? Do I feel a kind of passion for this melody? Can I picture myself singing this in front of people? Whereas the Blackout Beach stuff is more like, do I feel lost in this? So it’s very different. They work very well together because when I’m tired and my joints ache and I feel old and foolish and ridiculous and vain, I can retire to my den and be cerebral for a while. And after a while, I feel cold and distant and I want to reconnect with that kind of passion. They work really well together in terms of a long-term relationship with music which is one of the most important things for me, is the idea that 20 years from now – I’m obsessed with this idea of continuing. It’s the only important thing, to keep going. To not stop. At the same time, I’ve tried to slow down a little bit too. <br /><br />AJ: I think that’s healthy, the way you’re describing it is almost like the project serve very different purposes for you, psychologically and emotionally. And they’re very much tied to who you are and to your life on an everyday basis. <br /><br />CM: Yeah. Well, who I am, too. And I have a critical impulse. I read criticism of lots of various forms of art, and… [sigh] But at the same time, you know, [it’s] a kind of beast, right? [Laughs] A kind of bellowing beast. So the two extremes work well with that, I think. I’m not very critical when it comes to Frog Eyes. Just, does it have heart? Does it bleed? Is there joy? Is there pain? Something like that. <br /><br />AJ: So Melanie is kind of your first collaborator with Frog Eyes tunes?<br /><br />CM: Yeah. Melanie and I have always – without Mel there would be no Frog Eyes for sure. I don’t understand when people say ‘She’s my muse.’ I think that’s a lie. But it’s a poetic lie. Comfortable for people to say. But I think that I write songs…I write songs for us. <br /><br />AJ: For the partnership?<br /><br />CM: Yeah, so we can play them together. We really love that. It’s wonderful. It’s never not wonderful. <br /><br />AJ: I’ve noticed that I’ve never met another woman who likes Frog Eyes. I’m sure they exist. I’m sure you’ve met them and you’ve seen them.<br /><br />CM: It’s a weird thing, eh? The energy – it’s funny because I myself am not very masculine. There are women who like Frog Eyes [laughs]. There’s more men in the audience than there are women. <br /><br />AJ: I heard about [Frog Eyes] – initially, five or six years ago – when I was the only woman on my college newspaper’s music staff. So it was cool, because I listened to a lot of stuff, got exposed to a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have found, necessarily. But at the same time, [I thought] ‘I like this, but this is obviously bro-nerd music in some way to them.’ <br /><br />CM: Yeah.<br /><br />AJ: […] And now you have another woman in the band. So technically you’re 50 percent female – <br /><br />CM: And yet still the audience is packed full of Vidi Medieval nerds. <br /><br />AJ: So is that the kind of crowd you guys see at shows and who you meet?<br /><br />CM: It depends. You know, it’s hard to say. In Los Angeles, we played and it was almost all guys. And then Santa Cruz we just played and the audience was split. So it’s really hard to say, I don’t know. It’s quite odd. But is it a generalization to say that there’s an obsessive quality to being really invested in music? And it’s almost akin to collecting hockey cards?<br /><br />AJ: That’s something I’ve understood about people in general. But that is a generalization that is applied to men. <br /><br />CM: That’s kind of what I was hinting at. I talk to more men than I do women when doing interviews. So it might just be that we live on the more extreme side of music fandom? And for whatever reason, maybe [on] that side there’s more men than women? I dunno, I don’t want to make gender generalizations. <br /><br />AJ: I don’t really know what to make of it either. But it’s a thing I’ve observed. <br /><br />CM: Yeah. Interesting though, isn’t it? I never really thought about it that way. ’Cause I’d always kind of thought maybe it had something to – we’re not like that. And I don’t mean this to be insulting to women, but we’re not like a hunky band. [Laughs] Frog Eyes has opened up for hunky bands, and there’s a gang of young girls at the front sitting through Frog Eyes, making puking sounds, waiting for the hunky band to come out. And then when the hunky band comes out, they start screaming. So there’s that side of music, too, right? The kind of sexual side or whatever. The Freudian, sexual side. That’s not part of what we do. Jeez, I can’t get an answer why there are more men than women. But it’s not always the case! I think that in university towns the gender divide is more equal. <br /><br />AJ: That’s standard, I would hope.<br /><br />CM: But what does that mean, too? I don’t know.<br /><br />AJ: Maybe people are being exposed to more ideas? Maybe people are looking for more stuff to do?<br /><br />CM: And maybe women, through art, feel more emboldened to launch themselves into more extreme sides of appreciating things? <br /><br />AJ: Yeah, it is weird to talk about these things in generalizations.<br /><br />CM: Well it’s tough because I don’t want to fucking represent women [laughs]. <br /><br />AJ: I don’t either! Let’s talk about the new album a bit more. As far as I know, is this the first time you’ve used a female voice, or a voice other than yours?<br /><br />CM: No, actually. The band that was before Frog Eyes was called Blue Pine, and there’s lots of singing by a woman named Carolyn Mark who’s a famous country singer in Canada. I think she’s much more famous in Canada than she is in America, so I introduce her to you if you don’t know who she is. She’s a beautiful singer, so funny. She should be famous in America, too, and I have every belief that someday she will be. Lots of female singing, and I really love that counterpoint. Kind of towards the last third of the [new] record, Megan Boddy joined the band. <br /><br />AJ: So it was a time-period thing? <br /><br />CM: Yeah. And I met her making <span style="font-style:italic;">Skin of Evil</span>. [She] and Carolyn are the two female singers on that record. And I think they add so much to <span style="font-style:italic;">Skin of Evil</span> and I think Megan adds so much to Frog Eyes, too. So that’s something that’s very exciting, the idea of making that a record and employing that foil to my own beastly, boarlike voice. <br /><br />AJ: Were those songs already written, or were you able to change direction with them once you had this second vocal element?<br /><br />CM: So ‘A Flower in a Glove,’ ‘A Debtor’s War,’ and ‘Year in Love’ were songs that were written once Megan had joined the band, so we would just kind of go in the studio with three songs. We did like three different sessions of three songs and just go in the studio for a day and record them. So by the time that she joined the band, the record was two-thirds done. So in order to have some kind of continuity, I think we went back to some other songs and got her to do the singing. Which is a bit of trickery [laughs] but you don’t need to know that. <span style="font-style:italic;">Paul’s Tomb</span> – the thing I’m really proud about <span style="font-style:italic;">Paul’s Tomb</span> is that it was even made. We didn’t have a stable lineup since 2005, really. To me it really is the sound of just holding on. Holding on to the idea that Frog Eyes needs to make another record. And we did. And we’ll make another one, too. It was a very hard record to make, though, because we were always having new people come in and come out. <br /><br />AJ: What was the time period that you were actually working on the new record seriously?<br /><br />CM: It’s kinda weird, because like I said, the record was made in three days in the studio. There were three days spread out between 2000* and 2009. It’s kinda funny, eh? It seems like ‘They spent three years on the record,’ but it’s not as if we were working every day on it by any means. And the songs were not written in one batch. They were written in three batches. It’s kind of an interesting way to make a record. You put it together piece by piece. It’s almost like the way that people build cathedrals. You work on the cathedral, and then you die, and you never see the cathedral in its finished state. So the band would wor on three songs, and then the band would die because someone would leave. And they would never see or hear the final product until the record was actually done. We’d send it to our buddy who was playing with us at the time. That can be good and that can be bad, but it’s kind of an act of faith that in the end there will be a record. Whereas if you go in a studio with 20 songs, there’s no leap of faith. You know in the end you’re going to come out with 40 minutes of material and ten songs. But you don’t get to lavish the same amount of attention on the songs if there’s ten of them. They kinda loom over you. Whereas three is a very manageable number to really think critically about every little second. <br /><br />AJ: So the break involved snatching these pieces of the next Frog Eyes record but you were also working on your other projects. <br /><br />CM: I was working on <span style="font-style:italic;">Skin of Evil</span> and Swan Lake, and it all works sequentially. So at the time that I was writing <span style="font-style:italic;">Skin of Evil</span>, I was just writing <span style="font-style:italic;">Skin of Evil</span>. And I wouldn’t have written a Frog Eyes song during [that], nor would I have even listened to a Frog Eyes song that we were working on. When I work on something, I just want to work on that, and the same with Swan Lake. I remember, about a month before it was time to get together, [I thought] oh my God, I have to write three songs. And so my wife and I – I got some royalty money, and we went to Hawaii. [Laughs] Sat in the cabin and wrote songs. [It was] wonderful. And then I came back. ‘I’ve got three songs!’ [Laughs] Absolutely wonderful. That’s one thing I know that I can do. If I need to write three songs in a month, I can do that. I don’t have to worry about that. The same is true of Dan [Bejar]. That’s one worry we don’t have. There will always be songs. <br /><br />AJ: That’s a really good tool to have in your toolkit, just for life, I think. What is it like working with Spencer in a different project after he stopped working with Frog Eyes?<br /><br />CM: Well, it’s not that he stopped working with Frog Eyes. There was never like, ‘Okay, let’s shake hands and sign this contract that says you won’t sue us.’ [laughs] He just kind of…I think the practicality of playing in eight bands – and also, we don’t make as much money as his other bands and blah blah blah, and that’s time away from his home and I dunno. I’m kinda painfully aware of that, the stress that being in a band puts on the bandmates. It’s tough, and I always feel kinda guilty about taking someone away from their loved ones. But then I remember that the act of playing of music is so wonderful that it’s worth it in the end. And then I don’t feel so bad. So it’s not as if he’s in or out of the band, or anything like that. […] To get back to your question, I guess it’s a little different. In Frog Eyes, he was always very reverential to the songs, kinda like ‘Is this okay? Am I playing too much?’ He’d sit down and come up with such a jaw-dropping arrangement in like five seconds. Spencer really is a musical genius. He’s one of the few people that I’ve ever met that I would say that about. Swan Lake is very different, because they’re his songs, and I kind of feel that reverential approach to his songs. And yet I stop all over ’em. [Laughs] I trash them to shit. It’s hard to explain. It’s very complex, having all of this history, and then having to sweep away the history and approach Swan Lake as if there is no history. It’s odd, for sure. But it’s quite fun when you’re doing it. It’s just having beers, sitting around and laughing, it’s quite fun.<br /><br />AJ: But having so many projects – like you said, it can add an element of uncertainty that requires you to have a leap of faith and maybe recommit to a project with different circumstances. But it gets more people involved who you might not have brought into that kind of working relationship before. So it can be stressful but it’s also – you wouldn’t have it any other way, right? Because that’s what you do.<br /><br />CM: It’s kinda what you do, as a songwriter, unless you do it all yourself, which is a different thing. It’s much more difficult to do everything yourself and it’s really draining. You need to know how to work with people. Which I think I’m not very good at [laughs] but people tolerate me because sometimes I’m funny. <br /><br />AJ: Well I’m sure the first part of that isn’t true. But the second part definitely is.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />*I didn’t notice this until transcribing, but I wonder if Carey misspoke when he said “2000.” Still, that’s what I hear on the recording.</span>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-19019307000097923022010-03-03T12:51:00.002-05:002010-03-03T12:58:54.482-05:00Stuff I've been writing: Reading Rainbow feature, Origivation, 3/1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.origivation.com/test/images/cover-big-march-2010.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 265px; height: 345px;" src="http://www.origivation.com/test/images/cover-big-march-2010.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Hey look, it's the <a href="http://bit.ly/d1OlcP">article I wrote</a> about frenetic, fuzz-fueled duo Reading Rainbow! Rob and Sarah are super sweethearts who make great music that everyone should buy and go see. They're playing the Elbo room (50th and Cedar in west Philly) Saturday night with my friends <a href="http://myspace.com/junkersband">Junkers</a>, and they'll be at SXSW this year. Do read the story (on the lovely new Origivation website!) and <a href="http://myspace.com/levarmotherfuckingburton">listen to their sounds</a> if you haven't yet.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-31409486536517655872010-02-18T13:19:00.006-05:002010-02-18T13:34:55.792-05:00Stuff I've been writing: Ape School profile, Origivation Magazine 2/10<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSdCZzd-zpeuCLBvxlmupYHMibTfd7LTSCr_VU9F4hF1TYIzxPqPqOxCCdGLOUJAHcAvda81HOn_UqIyHEGnR7nzWmkT08Fdzb0DUcWJ-Oj1B1lG7a7EN9jmfQ2OlBj66arBSBUoP8gmGh/s1600-h/ape+school+p1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSdCZzd-zpeuCLBvxlmupYHMibTfd7LTSCr_VU9F4hF1TYIzxPqPqOxCCdGLOUJAHcAvda81HOn_UqIyHEGnR7nzWmkT08Fdzb0DUcWJ-Oj1B1lG7a7EN9jmfQ2OlBj66arBSBUoP8gmGh/s400/ape+school+p1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439653319599554818" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kBe2WYMA4_vfcfElUxVh2ryuF_sUf2E1esWJqCwSXP8ENxFLLoaFKlHGblgCOXMYaJjSlCd_rOEU6dpqfUvqa3Dg2Wig5S7aay2BMohUludTDN7hNNe-Z1zvdImruLbnT0OYVhps8ao5/s1600-h/ape+school+p2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kBe2WYMA4_vfcfElUxVh2ryuF_sUf2E1esWJqCwSXP8ENxFLLoaFKlHGblgCOXMYaJjSlCd_rOEU6dpqfUvqa3Dg2Wig5S7aay2BMohUludTDN7hNNe-Z1zvdImruLbnT0OYVhps8ao5/s400/ape+school+p2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439653449812083490" /></a><br /><br />The primary interview for this joint took place at sunset in a grass patch behind the North Star Bar in Fairmount last July, but due to technical difficulties (publications folding, my procrastination), it wasn't published till now. It's by far one of the chillest, friendliest interviews I've ever done (another candidate for that, my chat with Reading Rainbow, will appear in the March issue), and I still think Ape School is criminally underrated in Philly and elsewhere. <br /><br />In other exciting news, <a href="http://www.origivation.com">Origivation</a> has a new editor with a lot of new ideas, so expect something more than long-ass profiles (not that there's anything wrong with that; I've written enough of them) in the future.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-16701740569643870472010-01-27T15:36:00.005-05:002010-01-27T15:46:29.053-05:00The return of Mad Men news-blogging!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.accesshollywood.com/content/images/98/230x306/98827_salvatore-romano-bryan-batt-offers-co-worker-ken-cosgrove-aaron-staton-a-taste-from-his-wifes-kitchen-during-season-2-of-mad-men.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 306px;" src="http://www.accesshollywood.com/content/images/98/230x306/98827_salvatore-romano-bryan-batt-offers-co-worker-ken-cosgrove-aaron-staton-a-taste-from-his-wifes-kitchen-during-season-2-of-mad-men.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />But it might be <a href="http://jezebel.com/5457545/is-salvatore-romano-out-at-sterling-cooper-draper-pryce">bad news</a>: Bryan Batt, who plays Salvatore Romano (closeted gay former Sterling Cooper art director and one of the most compelling characters on the show), hasn't been notified as to whether or not he'll be returning for the new season. <br /><br />The fourth season begins filming in March, and there's <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/save_sal_on_facebook.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fvulture+%28Vulture+-+nymag.com%27s+Entertainment+and+Culture+Blog%29">already a Facebook group</a> dedicated to making sure Batt and his character are back in the show. As Mad Men fans know,<br /><br /><br />[spoiler alert if you haven't seen the third season] <br /><br /><br />SCDP took SC's biggest client -- Lucky Strike -- when they broke off to create their own firm. And the reason Sal was fired in the first place is because of Lucky Strike bigwig Lee Garner Jr.'s drunken, unsuccessful pass at our dear Sal.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-25646097309355116122010-01-25T20:30:00.002-05:002010-01-25T20:34:07.569-05:00check it out<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.theapiarycorp.com"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 205px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz4udlKslaMOv2lNgNOB_BCEN4oXhuMkkpe7FDsIaPOYbTCgWUFoFSOKTrzChBuKkt_UTVz4fxFRM0jwbVKhNX0vqYVjF5Hef5CgiJee2mmJxGJVuaczkvTIlYX57EOICKSE5D7rDOWR8/s320/APIARY3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430855533663947362" border="0" /></a><br />buzz buzz buzz<br /><br />i am editing this thing with some friends! send us your shit.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theapiarycorp.com/">www.theapiarycorp.com</a>mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-11313726089259994752010-01-20T14:56:00.002-05:002010-01-20T14:59:25.831-05:00A passage from Fitzgerald"No," interrupted Marcia emphatically. "And you're a sweet boy. Come here and kiss me."<br /><br />Horace stopped quickly in front of her.<br /><br />"Why do you want me to kiss you?" he asked intently. "Do you just go round kissing people?"<br /><br />"Why, yes," admitted Marcia, unruffled. "'At's all life is. Just going round kissing people."<br /><br />"Well," replied Horace emphatically, "I must say your ideas are horribly garbled! In the first place life isn't just that, and in the second place I won't kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can't get rid of habits. This year I've got in the habit of lolling in bed until seven-thirty." <br /><br />-- <a href="http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/head/head.html">"Head and Shoulders," 1920</a>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-19337964062876044132010-01-18T13:27:00.003-05:002010-01-20T10:01:03.167-05:00Most Listened '09I am incapable of keeping up with music or having any clue what the Best Of anything of anything are, but here's my survival Top 10 -- the songs that helped me make it through another crap year of crap, according to my iTunes. Youtube links where applicable, mp3s forthcoming if I ever figure out how to upload them:<br /><br />1. Orange Juice -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuOVTDShZs0">Simply Thrilled Honey</a> (slightly different version, but they are in an OJ factory!)<br />2. Times New Viking -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=481mapfxYy8">Drop Out</a> (live in Houston)<br />3. Silver Jews --Long Long Gone<br />4. Bob Dylan / The Band -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QrlDYQQFd4">You Ain't Going Nowhere</a><br />5. Fleet Foxes -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE">White Winter in Hymnal</a> (got me through Jan. in Pittsburgh and has not been listened to since, actually)<br />6. Barrett Strong -- You've Got What it Takes<br />7. Camera Obscura -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Who4OL08iR8">Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken</a><br />8. Little Iva & Her Band -- Continental Strut<br />9. Roy Acuff -- This World Can't Stand Long (found a live <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO_qWJmnpcs">Dylan cover</a> from 2000)<br />10. Al Green -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PElFilnmg0A">Funny How Time Slips Away</a><br /><br />honorary most youtube'd<br />Grizzly Bear -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjecYugTbIQ">Two Weeks</a><br />Lady Gaga -- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3R3KqrJAI4">Paparazzi acoustic version </a>mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-56350113887752235912010-01-08T08:32:00.002-05:002010-01-08T08:47:58.798-05:00To the Ladies of 100.3 The Beat fm(which is what I listen to in the car when I absolutely cannot take NPR one second longer...)<br /><br />Dear Keri Hilson,<br /><br />Do you realize when you croon "Miss Keri, baby" it sounds like "Miscarry baby"? It freaks me out!<br /><br />Dear Nikki Minaj,<br /><br />"Bedrock" is a stupid song but you make the word "asbestos" sound sexy on your verse.<br /><br />Dear Kendra G,<br /><br />The fact that you manage to work "Now, I do NOT smoke weed" into your song introductions on a daily basis makes me not believe you.<br /><br />so pumped for my morning commute,<br />Michellemechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-64588301508233292962009-12-25T10:57:00.006-05:002010-01-03T21:50:43.700-05:00the smell of itLet us suppose that a traditional hierarchy of criticism still floats out there in the ether somewhere. You know, literature and visual arts at the top, then maybe dance and theater and instrumental music, then all those things affiliated with the grubby masses like movies and pop music and TV on the next rung (I <span style="font-style: italic;">said</span> traditional), then food and fashion, both of which are too aesthetic to rank any higher but still employ an admirable and tangible amount of skill. Then, down in the dust at the bottom, are the provinces of the effeminate and the frivolous: wine, cigars, perfume, hotels. Writing about these is just more or less an arena for rich dilettantes to throw around made-up terms like "wet rock mouth feel" or "strident floral accords," n'est-ce-pas?<br /><br />One reason often given for the fruitlessness of writing about scent is that it's too personal, too evocative of individual memories. But come the hell on -- that only makes sense if hearing a certain song <span style="font-style: italic;">doesn't</span> call to mind how it played every half hour at your old job and the sensation of the too-high cash register drawer slamming into your rib cage after each sale (the song being "Marianne" by Leonard Cohen) or if the taste Neapolitan ice cream <span style="font-style: italic;">doesn't</span> transport you to your grandparents' yellow kitchen on a Saturday night. In other words, I don't buy that one of the five senses is any better at evoking memories than the other four.<br /><br />There's also the old chestnut that goes "Writing about ______ is like dancing about architecture." This also is b.s. The whole point of writing is that you can do it about anything, if you're good, and make it interesting to read. And I'm no modern dance expert but someone has probably choreographed an homage to Frank Gehry or Frank Lloyd Wright, and it's probably pretty cool.<br /><br />Writing about writing does pose less of a challenge than writing about music or art or dance, of course. Attempting to translate the visual into the verbal was my favorite part of art history classes and essentially the reason I majored in such a useless subject.<br /><br />So maybe that's why I've developed a thorough appreciation of perfume reviews lately. How does one convey the sensation of smelling something into language? And not just language for its own sake, as with some poetic turn of phrase, but into words that enable readers to mentally conjure the same fragrance and decide whether or not it's something they want their bodies to smell like.<br /><br />Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez are the reigning monarchs of this particular art. Their <span style="font-style: italic;">Perfumes: The Guide</span> is an encyclopedic work from 2008 (with updates available online) that can be read from A-Z, it's so entertaining. It provides a good foundation, including several essays and a glossary, and immediately made me want to hunt down and smell every 5 start scent they describe. Take this bit, from the review of Dior's Dune:<br /><br />"Dune is a strong contender for Bleakest Beauty in all of perfumery. It is clearly headed from the start for toward that peculiarly inedible cheap-chocolate drydown that made Must, Allure, and a thousand others, though Dune's is the best of the lot, dissonant but interesting. But the way it gets there is extraordinary, with a beguiling transparency, even freshness, particularly in the anisic carrot-seed top notes. It is hard to pin down what makes Dune so unsmiling from top to bottom; it's as if every perfumer accord had become a Ligeti cluster chord, drained of life, flesh-toned in the creepy way of artificial limbs, not real ones. Marvelous."<br /><br />Color me fascinated. Of course, the 1 star reviews are much funnier: "A trite, canned-fruit-salad concoction of no interest except to illustrate the cynicism of its makers," Turin writes of Armani Remix for Her.<br /><br />This being the age of Web 2.0 (or Web.2, as a former professor of mine would always say), the anonymous hordes have of course gotten in the perfume-reviewing game. Obtaining samples has gotten easier and cheaper thanks to the internet, too; instead of trekking to Grasse, or at least NYC, one can now purchase .5 ml samples of even highly obscure fragrances from sites like <a href="http://theperfumedcourt.com">The Perfumed Court</a> for $3-10. So that's at least a good 50 new smells a year if one were to allot a $6 weekly perfume budget.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.basenotes.net">Basenotes</a> and <a href="http://makeupalley.com">Makeup Alley</a> are the main places to find the layman's opinions, along with a fair number of amateur <a href="http://boisdejasmin.typepad.com/">blogs</a>. Like Yelp or Netflix ratings, reading between the lines is key. Sometimes it's possible to tell that a scent that one person hates is exactly the sort of thing you will love or vice versa, such as when a Makeup Alley user named fitmom2 declares Jessica Simpson's perfume, Fancy, "yummy, sweet, soft, romantic...If you love the smell of cupcakes, frosting, soft petals, and vanilla, this is superb." And although there's a whiff of mass hysteria about it, certain perfumes elicit such strong reactions that it's clear <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span> is going on, whether it's Art or not.<br /><br />Apres L'Ondee (forgive my lack of appropriate accents), a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerlain">Guerlain</a> scent first formulated in 1906, is widely held to be one such masterpiece. The name means "After the Rainstorm," and according to Turin and Sanchez it's one of the 20 best ever composed. Reading the peanut gallery reviews makes it sound even more like a magical elixer:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This makes me feel spent and hopeful, as though I'd been crying my eyes out and have just realized that things will get better. Chopin in a bottle.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Pale, impressionistic watercolor evoking the saddest damn song you ever heard, the one you keep playing over and over again because it puts you in such a good mood. Fleeting and lovely, emotional and nostalgic, this is a fragrance for a woman who doesn't really mind being a little bit sad</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sometimes this fragrance moves me to tears of joy. When I wear it, I feel like I am being bathed in bright, bright, sunlight. I think it conjures some memory deep in my subconscious that soothes my soul. I don't wear it all the time because it is so difficult to obtain. I will never be without this.</span><br /><br />A smell that makes you cry? I've cried at books, movies, songs, but never to my recollection a scent. So I bought a sample. And here I sit with the last few drops smudged into my wrist. It smells a little like sweet herbs, a little like rain, a little like powder, a bit like what I thought lavender smelled like before I had ever actually smelled lavender. I am not currently weeping. But maybe I lack a certain faculty of discernment, just as I can't tell an E flat from a B sharp by ear, or whether the baba ghanouj needs more salt or more garlic. It's a good smell, and distinctive, probably one I will be able to recognize easily if I ever smell it again.<br /><br />But it dissipates almost instantly, which sort of defeats the point of perfume. Lately I've taken to wearing <a href="http://www.beautyhabit.com/tdc.bois.d.iris.html">Bois D'Iris</a>, a more modern variation on the theme that's a bit earthier (it smells like a flower that still has wet dirt on the roots) and lasts longer. The idea of finding The One, the single signature fragrance that somehow both expresses your worldview and locks your scent into the lizard brain of anyone whose nose gets close enough to your neck, has to abandoned if there is any hope of true connoisseurship. It'd be like trying to pick a single theme song for your whole life.<br /><br />So maybe I will post some quick Turin and Sanchez style perfume reviews of the samples I've amassed, to see how I do at the scent-to-language translation. Or maybe that would be inane. In any case, I will certainly keep our audience updated the moment I find the smell that makes me cry.mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-22260303147822920232009-12-03T13:37:00.003-05:002009-12-03T13:42:13.783-05:00Stuff I wrote in winter (so far)For your consideration: my interview with Jarrett Dougherty of Screaming Females, one of the few new bands to catch my ears in recent months.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIB_bLmAOuYCphecgxM_j2iLJ5ak-fVZCu2bjnYsBMOf0iQbGdLkhegZBDLBcOne5jVKjoG7-J-Jk5ZOAQnT5iQ5wpt8QX7CBGiHZw-XryfhWIoVlVIsikewF-bu0-6c2AXqvg7T2nlgG7/s1600-h/sfemales.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIB_bLmAOuYCphecgxM_j2iLJ5ak-fVZCu2bjnYsBMOf0iQbGdLkhegZBDLBcOne5jVKjoG7-J-Jk5ZOAQnT5iQ5wpt8QX7CBGiHZw-XryfhWIoVlVIsikewF-bu0-6c2AXqvg7T2nlgG7/s400/sfemales.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411081926694092610" /></a>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-17647511886272034622009-12-02T15:46:00.006-05:002009-12-02T16:06:09.743-05:00Stuff I wrote in fallThe December issue of <a href="http://www.origivation.com">Origivation</a> -- in which I interview North Jersey punk powerhouse Screaming Females -- will be out very soon. In the meantime, check out their video for "Buried in the Nude."<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/g4LAaiRpLwg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/g4LAaiRpLwg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Also, I never posted my November feature on intergenerational Philly duo Saudi Arabia, plus reviews of albums by Ola Podrida and Junk Culture. Caleb's take on the recent Feelies reissues is there, too! Behold:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYI6xRazuCn7mwFVuHD_uNYJ2YgIc6nL3KqAq1NAm47Dc6xav3D8aNMs43UYo9nsIJ9amfOQY8RT-CWLqWt1GBdiGZG4M_a8I4V39kNIn8yy9J52NzTv_6lvWCl9j72S7_2uHgCcyxcES/s1600-h/saudi+page+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYI6xRazuCn7mwFVuHD_uNYJ2YgIc6nL3KqAq1NAm47Dc6xav3D8aNMs43UYo9nsIJ9amfOQY8RT-CWLqWt1GBdiGZG4M_a8I4V39kNIn8yy9J52NzTv_6lvWCl9j72S7_2uHgCcyxcES/s400/saudi+page+1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410747077960020578" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcxWJ2bg9Wkq_QVNwv-aROqag1LwCGPckZORq_v29Iz_wPn31rdCu-qIoQ7Xq3c2mKiEzavX1iRFvdifUH6IGBbIXZAUmMHW9eTo_G-hDynLEsESNNkd9gmk8B4-bkgXL76eFbbmCDfs-/s1600-h/saudi+page+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcxWJ2bg9Wkq_QVNwv-aROqag1LwCGPckZORq_v29Iz_wPn31rdCu-qIoQ7Xq3c2mKiEzavX1iRFvdifUH6IGBbIXZAUmMHW9eTo_G-hDynLEsESNNkd9gmk8B4-bkgXL76eFbbmCDfs-/s400/saudi+page+2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410747079318272514" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2d7SFDMveV60dcwHXa0zFYIjHZFRLo1UNb_u0qCKXADZNPdtTZ6wKGMmscnD5qFbZmdvelvAgfRBZdxEdcI1_tPR6e84sZ8mX8dUS4mNyJKfoWPoYJumiJlIfmRWxX6Bc2G-NjVmVJu_/s1600-h/saudi+page+3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP2d7SFDMveV60dcwHXa0zFYIjHZFRLo1UNb_u0qCKXADZNPdtTZ6wKGMmscnD5qFbZmdvelvAgfRBZdxEdcI1_tPR6e84sZ8mX8dUS4mNyJKfoWPoYJumiJlIfmRWxX6Bc2G-NjVmVJu_/s400/saudi+page+3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410747088606403106" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtk_IxqXddJQyPN1jYKPzWZCWYZ00MmT57UbS1VLPBNZCYVITADcevRtWt3_49emX7W5v-U3xd-rYIJAfqkIv_bt8A1oOkwUb4S6o6WOU_lPy1WjVOzc47XU__cN2odMPtFl5q5e948am/s1600-h/nov+reviews+p1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtk_IxqXddJQyPN1jYKPzWZCWYZ00MmT57UbS1VLPBNZCYVITADcevRtWt3_49emX7W5v-U3xd-rYIJAfqkIv_bt8A1oOkwUb4S6o6WOU_lPy1WjVOzc47XU__cN2odMPtFl5q5e948am/s400/nov+reviews+p1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410747090760794722" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkD8JfxDBTwCdu67gDzBQCmnpFfdOCill9Se9Mr7sFxhVCFdc4SqSWXM9BVPDOOJVjY_4BdHRBHsZILhFLk1IV21MSZc0mLcRqfK5EY0jNohB8t0hOlI0z4emt6DrkdDlumYOaEK8QDld7/s1600-h/nov+reviews+p2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkD8JfxDBTwCdu67gDzBQCmnpFfdOCill9Se9Mr7sFxhVCFdc4SqSWXM9BVPDOOJVjY_4BdHRBHsZILhFLk1IV21MSZc0mLcRqfK5EY0jNohB8t0hOlI0z4emt6DrkdDlumYOaEK8QDld7/s400/nov+reviews+p2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410747094377583506" /></a>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-16375266608087717222009-11-28T13:05:00.003-05:002009-11-28T13:28:38.680-05:00Linguistics 101Every trip I take to Raleigh becomes fodder for the ongoing mental debate over moving back to N.C. The "Con" column includes the facts that all my friends are in Philadelphia and that 75% of this town is suburban sprawl hellishness anyway. In the "Pro" column: people are so much nicer here; I would get to hear words and expressions that I love but forget about when I'm away too long. Such as pine straw. I had not thought about pine straw in so long, but here it's everywhere and used to be such a fact of my daily life (often entangled in my hair). PINESTRAW. jeez.<br /><br />Another expression I like a lot is the simple, all-purpose response "Do what?" I think of it written as a hyphenate or one word: "Do-what?" or "Dowhat?" or "Dowhatnow?" It can be used anytime you don't understand what someone has said to you either due to mishearing or it being rank nonsense, as demonstrated by the following T-day exchange at the appetizer table:<br /><br />Great Uncle Warren: "What's this here green?"<br />Me: "It's salsa verde. It's made from tomatillos!"<br />Great Uncle Warren: "Dowhatnow?"<br /><br />The "might could" and "might should" constructions are also faves. For my part, I tried to convince my cousin's wife that it's called a cheesesteak, not a "steak and cheese."mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-21601059862868885582009-11-27T00:55:00.006-05:002009-11-28T00:37:47.948-05:00F1rst ThanksgivingMy 12-pound turkey endured a near-second-death experience on Walnut Street (hanging on for dear life out of my flopped-over bike basket), a significant bounce down a flight of stairs (broken plastic bag), and a half-pound of butter, six ounces of chopped bacon, and a fistful of herbs inserted under its skin before roasting. <br /><br />Taste-wise, it was brilliant.<br /><br />My first independently-hosted Thanksgiving day started at 11 am, when my alarm went off. To remind me to cook. Seriously the best. <br /><br />The turkey went in around 1 p.m. (dinnertime was 6, so I left a prudent finishing window). I put in laundry, basted. Watched <span style="font-style:italic;">30 Rock</span> (a Thanksgiving tradition for all-day kitchen marathons), basted. And on until around 3, when Shane showed up to sous with cumin-fennel-brilliance butternut soup, sweet cornbread, and green bean casserole. <br /><br />I took the bird, deep brown and crispy-skinned, out of the oven at around 4. The thigh registered far above its goal temperature of 175F, but the end result still proved moist. Rivers of butter had burst through the skin steeped in the bottom of the pan with the juices of an onion, an orange, and a li'l herb bouquet. A few glugs of cider and brandy, some tedious fat-skimming, vigorous whisking, and 20 minutes of simmering=gravy. <br /><br />In the meantime, Toby (along with a healthy mix of guests -- friends and once strangers -- from a few sectors of my life) showed up with his carving skills and a carrot souffle with brown sugar-pecan crumble on top. Also making appearances: a vat of mashed potatoes, improvised stuffing (from Randy and Virginia), bacon Brussels sprouts, cranberry plum sauce, pancetta macaroni and cheese (Andy), and plum galette. <br /><br />I wish I had snapped some pictures, but I was way too wrapped up in the amazing bacon: Brussels sprout ratio to play photographer. <br /><br />A few bottles of wine, a few helpings, one ukulele and two couches. Dishes done by many hands. <br /><br />Take that, holidays 2009. You can't freak me out.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-55200116799644705552009-11-16T21:41:00.002-05:002009-11-16T21:43:40.342-05:00Do You Need to Buy Me a Christmas Present?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Glitz-Extravagant-World-Pageants/dp/1576875148/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258425563&sr=8-1"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 303px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhukQf7uGKAsnhXb5Jb7Fa7TDlpWcE9Y5-TfhjgFaDL3ipxo4v-3M-iYtU5JM2K1s2CU8S6ya0IIr0XeUR_qt3Y0553KVp3hTCaUDjWyguA4AcEdELmbtE6BY78_H5MAmbqxRDKowN6Xac/s320/HighGlitz_Jacket_060209.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404897487305155186" border="0" /></a><br />This will do.mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-72315929164082311532009-10-29T21:50:00.003-04:002009-10-29T23:42:09.571-04:00In Which I Grow Old, etc.<span style="font-family:arial;">Cintra Wilson, one of the New York Times Styles Section's dastardly critical shoppers, got mega called out for being a snotty, fat-shaming harpy as a result of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/fashion/13CRITIC.html">her review of J.C. Penney </a>a few weeks ago. I do have a sentimental attachment to that particular department store, especially the location within walking distance from my Raleigh home, from whence all my clothes came until I was about 11 and rebelled (and even after that, a good percentage still did -- remember the frustration of combing through the clearance racks in high school, Alex, trying to find the one lone garment that was cheap enough to purchase and also not hideous?) But last Thursday, Wilson took on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22CRITIC.html">Ann Taylor</a>, and I found parts of the article a lot more wounding than anything from her diatribe against dowdy suburbanites -- despite the fact that her overall review is positive:</span><br /><br /> <span style="font-family:arial;">"My shorthand for the look was always 'capitalist burqa' or 'corporate office submissive': cubicle-wear of so-so quality for the single girl in her late 20s whose self-esteem has been almost beaten to death by the beauty industrial complex and whose decent education has been punished with a thanklessly demanding office job. She’s a can-do Cinderella who has always had to change the oil in her own pumpkin and is too overworked to have a healthy social life outside the workplace. Her outfits must therefore be corporate-respectable, yet body-conscious enough to attract a nice tax attorney husband."</span> <br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What I'm saying is I broke down during the first week of my job and purchased a garment from Ann Taylor -- a green short-sleeve sweater on sale for $9.99. It's become the opposite of a good-luck outfit or talismanic accessory. I wear it a lot but but always feel vaguely defeated. </span> <span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Then, today, I ended up reading "Goodbye to All That," sort of by accident. I was taking a break from another pilgrimage to adulthood: walking the three miles from my workplace to the car dealership where I was to pick up the new used vehicle I bought two days ago. This trek happened to involve a stretch of the Baltimore Pike I walked many times in college, although the chain stores are a little different than they were when I graduated in 2007 (I still can't believe the Baja Fresh shut down, or that the supermarket now has a Starbucks inside it). So I went to Borders to read trashy mags, as I was wont to do in college, with girlfriends or sometimes alone.<br /><br /> </span><span style="font-family:arial;">I got bored of the mags and pulled out a borrowed copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Slouching Towards Bethlehem</span>, which has been my public transport reading for a while now. I was finally to the last essay, which is of course "Goodbye to All That." Joan Didion is obviously no corporate submissive, but it seems the same tragedy befalls confessional essayists and office drones alike:</span> <br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things in fact are irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it."<br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:arial;">After that I walked the rest of the way to the dealership (next to the Babies-R-Us, across from the Kohl's), thinking about how my friends can be roughly separated into those who think about The Future and those who won't or don't or can't yet. I finished signing all the paperwork with a woman named Cheryl whose cell phone kept bursting into the chorus of "Single Ladies." She got the mechanic to take my ugly little economy car to the gas station so I'd have a full tank. I drove back down the Pike and almost took a familiar left turn, with the intention of spending the rest of my remaining free time in the college library, where I have alumni borrowing privileges and still know the guest password for the computers. But I didn't want to go in my office clothes, so I just went back to work. </span>mechttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08944650651035471124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-4862219042116238692009-10-21T15:22:00.002-04:002009-10-21T15:24:33.061-04:00Supernerd updateHalfway done. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixoyQY-lIVmACz44rl-26QMjNKqitEcemUbNU2NOKdJRsWIT5ZnVjp2l9JibxeXoXMPtGJUDWNq3M7OCY594ThVK15UgGqV3MjNUXv9RA-eKG_I_aycJKfFdh4vZ-hIWSCp_KUTkT9-uv/s1600-h/Photo+91.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixoyQY-lIVmACz44rl-26QMjNKqitEcemUbNU2NOKdJRsWIT5ZnVjp2l9JibxeXoXMPtGJUDWNq3M7OCY594ThVK15UgGqV3MjNUXv9RA-eKG_I_aycJKfFdh4vZ-hIWSCp_KUTkT9-uv/s400/Photo+91.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395136241040728290" /></a><br /><br />Rather chuffed. <br /><br /><img src='http://silverspoonandpaperplate.com/scarf/scarfimg.php?&reverse=y&showpercent=y&season=14&rows=400'>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-60704045642134097972009-10-15T23:08:00.003-04:002009-10-15T23:16:56.070-04:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirXtBeaqqtgtNLkmGVM4hdViRiV-sEzyJJDlemJJwWMtkfqoQLotMtwu8mp65qum1KfYm_qs52rxyFKW0tnhmZZOazkpgYdOj67xlhz5A54yLsako_uEtWRb3srXqCkZkpLb24cxREj8Fd/s1600-h/Photo+95.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirXtBeaqqtgtNLkmGVM4hdViRiV-sEzyJJDlemJJwWMtkfqoQLotMtwu8mp65qum1KfYm_qs52rxyFKW0tnhmZZOazkpgYdOj67xlhz5A54yLsako_uEtWRb3srXqCkZkpLb24cxREj8Fd/s400/Photo+95.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393030854617902706" /></a><br /><br /><br />Two skeins of Cascade 220 "Sand" arrived two days ago. Progress report: <br /><br /><img src='http://silverspoonandpaperplate.com/scarf/scarfimg.php?&reverse=y&showpercent=y&season=14&rows=116'><br /><br />I have 16 days to knit another 9' or so; in the past two hours, I've done almost 6". I'm not worried.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-58599034312329142742009-10-13T00:08:00.003-04:002009-10-13T00:10:28.608-04:00New Origivation writingsThe October issue of <span style="font-style:italic;">Origivation</span> is so, so out right now. I've got features in there on These United States and the Independent Music Awards. <a href="http://www.origivation.com/issues/origiVation_2009.10.pdf">Read away</a>.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-33372736071875444652009-10-12T13:40:00.002-04:002009-10-12T13:44:07.130-04:00The Wire and Doctor Who, together at last<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6284215/The-Wires-Clarke-Peters-in-Doctor-Who-spin-off.html">Sort of, anyway. </a><br /><br />Clarke Peters (aka <span style="font-style:italic;">The Wire</span>'s Lester Freamon) will voice a character in a new animated <span style="font-style:italic;">Doctor Who</span> spinoff. I have pretty much zero intention of watching this, but we came awfully close to a fave TV show 'splosion for me. Get Ian McShane as the voice of K-9 Mark XII or whatever and we'll see.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-56554213391978184012009-10-07T14:38:00.001-04:002009-10-07T14:39:37.860-04:00DW Scarf Nooz Update #2<img src='http://silverspoonandpaperplate.com/scarf/scarfimg.php?&reverse=y&showpercent=y&season=14&rows=56'><br /><br />I have about 20 rows of the greenish color to do before I have to wait for that fucking khaki shade. DAMN YOU CASCAAAAAAADE! DAAAAAAMN YOUUUUUUUUAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-61030092210754563772009-10-06T03:45:00.002-04:002009-10-06T03:49:47.246-04:00Important newsI've just finished the first color section of the Season 14 Doctor Who scarf. I'm using Cascade 220 in the colors mapped out by <a href="http://www.wittylittleknitter.com">Tara</a>. <br /><br /><img src='http://silverspoonandpaperplate.com/scarf/scarfimg.php?&reverse=y&showpercent=y&season=14&rows=16'><br /><br />The biggest obstacle between now and Halloween (besides the 10' of 12"-wide garter stitch) is that the tan color is on back order from the website I used to buy the yarn. They're supposed to ship it on Thursday, so I'm hopeful that I'll get it by Monday. I can still do 76 rows (9.63 percent) before I need it. <br /><br />Further bulletins as events warrant.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6539408193716405287.post-41837867854880590342009-07-19T15:12:00.001-04:002009-07-19T15:13:36.268-04:00In which I appear in the paperThe first time I was ever in a newspaper, I was 10 years old and wearing a black-and-red flannel shirt and a purple bike helmet. My similarly Angela Chase-ly-clad elementary school friends and I were walking our bikes across Six Forks Road on our way home from elementary school, probably about to go to the Taco Bell and get cups for water and then fill them with all the different horrible sodas. In the caption, my name was "Alex Taylor." Fact checking!<br /><br />Fast forward 10 years and I have a sheaf of college newspaper blathering and a healthy sprinkle of my own electronic opinion strewn about the web. So it's kind of weird for me to be like "Look, I'm in the paper!" but <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1611556.html">here I am</a>, a<strike>n expert</strike> witness to tabloid feuds and contemporary ladymade music. My mom called me at the ungodly hour of 11:30 this morning to ask if I was "Philadelphia-based, feminist music writer (and former Raleigh resident) Alexandra Jones" -- "That couldn't be a coincidence, right?"<br /><br />Wanna take bets on long before The Rachel Maddow Show comes callin'?Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15480788327926708927noreply@blogger.com0