Writers have this thing to kick ourselves in the pants where we keep track of our daily word count, and sometimes publicly share them as a sort of competitive brag. The writing software I use even has daily word count goals.
These are of little use to me as the novel I’ve been writing for way too long has inched into 180,000 word territory. If you’re not a word-counter yourself, rest assured, understand that that’s about 80,000 words too many. Continue reading Reverse Word Count
This is my friend Evan Peterson. Isn’t he handsome? He runs this nifty press in Seattle, and he writes zombie poetry and other things horrific, queer and clever. He has a timid greyhound rescue dog named after a character in an Oscar Wilde story.
This is a mix tape for Evan. So the songs are a little dark or a little queer, or well-stated, just like Evan and the stuff he writes. I’ve also focused on songs that are new wave, electro, or dark wave as I know those are genres Mr. Petersen and I both favor. In honing the list, I’ve favored songs that embrace big topics like God while fearlessly examining our shadow selves, because I know Evan Petersen thinks about the heavy shit.
And this is the part where I explain the choices. Because what fun is a mix if you don’t overthink it? Continue reading Fan Mail for Evan Peterson: Dark Songs With Pretty Words
“I’m confused as to why a poorly designed web site means affordable health care is a bad idea.” Chuck Lorre pretty much sums it up.
Also, I would by that children’s book about the leaf.
This photo is from the pirate store at 826 Valencia St. in San Francisco. They have drawers full of swarthy things, a small theater that faces an aquarium, and a trap door that I can reveal no more about. They sell practical seafaring goods like sypglasses, powder horns, mermaid bait, etc., in order to fund the after-school writing program that meets there daily. The pirate store and writing center was designed by the same folks who make McSweeney’s, which is to poetry what Apple is computers, so you know it’s done with style. This enormously successful non-profit founded by Dave Eggars has gone on to birth other 826 after-school programs around the country. But each has their own focus: New York has a shop for superheros, the Seattle shop is for space travellers, Chicago’s “Boring Store” is secretly an undercover secret agent supply store. But all of them are a space for professional writers working one-on-one with local kids.
Now that you know how marvelous 826 Valencia is, you can bet that when they put out a benefit album, it’s going to feature a bunch of music that you’ll want to get your hands on.
The album is called You Be My Heart and it features The Cloud Room, Melissa Nadler, Bowerbirds, Maps & Atlases and more. Here’s a taste.
The track Mrs. Marquis de Sade from The Cloud Room has an early-nineties jangly vibe.
The Bowerbirds track begins “I’ve seen seven wonders but two were your eyes” and has a lovely keyboard melody.
You’ll be able to buy your own copy of You Be My Heart on December 9th. If you want to know more about 826 Valencia, Dave Eggars’s TED Talk about it is a good start.
Recently Dictionary.com went to the effort to defend figurative use of the word “literally” on their Hot Word blog. Before we get into the details, just a quick reminder so you’re up to speed:
This comic from the Oatmeal explains the controversy nicely.
So you see, many people are only pretending to “literally piss our selves laughing” while those of us who’ve actually pissed ourselves, sadly, have no way to express our mirth.
OK, now that everyone is clear what we’re discussing with what is literally my biggest pet peeve, back to the Hot Word. This thoroughly awful post really calls into question the authority behind Dictionary.com’s blog, and not only because it is wrong. Let’s take it point by point. Continue reading Against the Figurative Use of the Word Literally
About an hour ago Father John Misty, whom some of you better know as J Tillman of Fleet Foxes, played a free show at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.
Continue reading Father John Misty at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park
I love the latest article in The Awl, “I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything“. It’s about a typewriter busker who ended up getting labeled as a hipster in an Internet meme. For one thing, I dig typewriter buskers.
More importantly, as my regular readers may recall, I’ve written two articles about hipster hating, which were republished in a Kansas City entertainment weekly.
It’s this weird quirk of mine that I’m opposed to threats of violence against strangers, simply because of their fashion, beer and bicycle choices, no matter how strange those choices may be. The post in The Awl chronicles what it’s like to be on the receiving end of such threats, and reminds us that people doing weird things (like God-effing-forbid, taking a typewriter out in public) often do them for perfectly understandable reasons. Personally, I take an even more radical position that I don’t think people should be bullied for weirdness, even if there’s absolutely no rationale for their fashion crimes. If only the people posting their hatred of hipsters could devote that passion to fighting climate change or fixing the economy. But no, those are not issues they feel affect them personally, not in the way a guy with clunky glasses, shorts, and a typewriter does. I mean, WHO GAVE THAT GUY THE RIGHT TO SIT IN A PARK WITH A TYPEWRITER?
Before you call the lynch mob though, I ask that you please read the articles I’ve posted on this. Maybe some reason can be talked into you hipster haters before your pitchfork and torches army burns down the whole village.
Just wanted to share this photo of the parents from Freaks and Geeks. This was a screencap that I grabbed that just happened to be where the show was paused. I thought it was a great shot, each of the parents looking uniquely funny. Supporting cast never get enough love, you know?
This is from Episode 15, “Moshing and Noshing”.
Oh, I know, ya’ll are so spoiled you expect a music track on a silly little post like this. OK, fine, but only because Childish Gambino happens to have titled a song as a tribute to the show. Here’s a remix from Star Slinger, who is one of the hottest electro DJs to come on the scene in the past few years. There’s a free download too.
You know how when you learn a new word, suddenly you start hearing it everywhere? Well my new word is “Alan Watts.” Someone on Reddit mentioned this fellow, so all week I’ve been listening to his lectures on YouTube. New Age stuff isn’t generally my thing, but someone on Reddit linked to a video which had the line “What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born.”
Having had my Sudden Clarity Clarence moment delivered to me (my actual thought was, “Like, whoa.”) I figured I’d give this guy a listen, even if he does advocate sitting really still and thinking about nothing.
A fun way to get the flavor of Alan Watts is with this Alan Watts animation from the makers of South Park.
…good stuff, though in fairness I don’t think these videos capture Watts’s sense of humor.
Anyhow, my intent isn’t so much to focus on Alan Watts as that feeling that “I bet now that I know who this guy is I’m going to see his name everywhere.” Kind of like how before I knew who Joseph Campbell was, he was never mentioned, and then suddenly I heard about him on a weekly or monthly basis.
So today I was listening through the most popular new releases in the blogosphere, and this chilled out little electro tune buzzed in my ears by Natural Animal. I didn’t pay it much attention, until Alan Watts started talking over it. I had a YouTube tab open and paused on one of his lectures so I figured it had kicked in it’s autostart. But it turned out to be embedded in the song. Which was pretty neat, because I got to feel in-the-know. And now that I’m feeling all in-the-know, I must praise Natural Animal for being in-the-know as well.
And here I just wanted to share that little moment of serendipity with ya’ll. So you can be in-the-know, because nothing screams “hip” like a Buddhist lecturer who died twenty years ago.So you can raise your eyebrows knowingly when they start selling Alan Watts t-shirts at Urban Outfitters.
Is there a name like that, or a word or a place, that once you learned about it you started hearing about it everywhere?
Here’s that song by Natural Animal, “Who You Are.” Also check out “Dance Alone,” just as dreamy but a bit more uptempo. If you dig “Who You Are,” you can download it for free.