Start of spring

I'm posting at a more or less consistent once-per-month pace, but I've noticed that the posts in question are just hideously long. I think I'm going to try and institute a once-per-week policy instead. With any luck I can squeeze enough out of a week to make a post.

Monday I got the new Andrew Bird album, Armchair Apocrypha, in the mail. I've listened to it 10+ times since then. Yeah it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't say it's as good as & the Mysterious Production of Eggs, but given that that was a pretty much perfect album, you've got to be willing to cut some slack. There's a good interview with Andrew Bird over at the Onion's A.V. Club.

There's an interesting atmospheric difference between the two albums. I don't know the proper language to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. In Eggs, when I listen to it, I pretty much picture my head as a dark parlor room with me standing in the middle and Andrew Bird playing in my ear. It's a contained, private sort of feeling. In Apocrypha, it's different. Rather than there being that sort of contained feeling, it's like I'm in that same parlor room, but the roof's been taken off and the universe is pouring in. It's something in the acoustics of the album, I can tell, that make it sound open-air somehow. It makes me almost agoraphobic.

It's an amazing album, though. It's crazy, so many bands that I like have already released albums or are releasing them later on this year. Air, the Apples in Stereo, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, the Shins, all have new albums out. Once I've listened to them a bunch more I'll probably post up some kind of review.

On Tuesday I finally got my learner's permit. I'm not sure what I would have done if there had been another set-back or if I had failed the test or something. Amazingly, things worked out and I walked out of the DMV triumphantly. It was made all the sweeter by the knowledge that Ben had failed his permit test earlier that day (although he got it the next).

Wednesday was the official first day of spring. I didn't get to enjoy really anything seasonal about it, but it was just a good day in general. Good things happened at school and after school and all that. Thursday was also pretty great. The weather was just beautiful and I had my first driving lesson. My mom took us over to a parking lot and I drove around it for a while and familiarized myself with the controls and habits and suchlike. This driving thing doesn't seem like it's as hard as maybe I thought it would be. Except for parallel parking, that would appear to be as heinous as I ever imagined. Then again, it was my first time actually driving, so I don't suppose I should expect too much.

Friday I went to school and hung out with Rachel for a bit afterwards. On Saturday I went over to Gabo's house to model for an oil painting. Unfortunately, I was oppressed into remaining clothed. Gabrielle is doing it for an art class but she said after the semester's over she'll give it to me. Were I to have a fireplace, I would hang it over it. I suppose I'll settle with hanging it over my bed, or across from it so I see it first thing in the morning.

After I got home from Gabo's I did some philosophy work. Fun stuff. After concentrating on that for a while, Rachel came over. We were going to watch Little Miss Sunshine with my mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend, but while we were waiting one of Rachel's friends called up and said they were going to be seeing 300 at the local multiplex. I'd watched LMS pretty recently and heard a lot of hype about 300, plus I've been fascinated with Sparta since I was taught about the Battle of Thermopylae in fifth grade. So we drove out and saw it.

I thought it was a pretty decent flick. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I can't really compare the movie to it. Nevertheless, I thought the cinematography was pretty cool. The acting was good. And it's awesome because Spartans really were as bad-ass as they were in the movie. Obviously, there were a load of historical inaccuracies, but none that I couldn't really accept as cinematic exaggerations. I did have some trouble with the gore. Not with the quantity so much as the inconsistency. There was a lot of it, but they didn't take it all the way re: decapitation etc. Not that I'm complaining, exactly.

Unfortunately, while I honestly felt it wasn't such a big deal for me to skip the pseudo-family gathering, my mom felt otherwise. I was planning on seeing Chris on Sunday but found myself grounded. I feel it's a little unfair to be punished when I hadn't knowledgeably been disobedient, but my appeal was rejected.

I've been doing some mechanical work on the blog and I've been trying to update it for all the New Blogger fanciness but I'm running into some difficulties. Bear with me, please.
Edit: Turns out Blogger is just giving the shaft to its users who publish by FTP. Nice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I know it was yesterday, but nevertheless.

Two weeks ago I went to see a production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as done by Rachel's school (she was stage manager). They did a fantastic job, it was way beyond any high school dramatic performance that I'd ever seen before. Everything was well done, the acting, the singing, the music. Top-notch all around. So good I couldn't shave for the whole week afterwards.

Later that week Rachel broke up with me. I had been half expecting it for a week or so, so I wasn't that surprised. It's a little more complicated than that. We're still on amicable terms and we're still hanging out. It did bring me low but I'm getting back to myself all right. I'm either just really persistent(ly stupid) or maybe there's still something there, I'm not much in a position to say.

The Friday after that I went to see a couple of bands perform, because some of them were comprised of my friends. I invited Gabo and Rachel along, and Rachel brought her friend Mike, because he's also friends with someone I know in one of the bands. I went principally to see The Raging Pucies (warning: explicit content). They were amazing. It's interesting how having your friends in a band transforms it from being ridiculously bad to just ridiculous. I could have been their bassist but refused upon the startling realization that I have standards. Nevertheless, seeing them up there, I did suffer a twinge of regret.

The other band playing that was really good was Meat Rainbow. Good garage rock kind of stuff. They were just plain good, actual professional-like. After the show we went back to Gabo's place and hung out for a while, and then we went our separate ways.

On Tuesday I went to see The Shins with Gabo at the Electric Factory. It was a really good show. The opening band, Viva Voce, was also pretty decent, although a little bothersome. They started out having some tech issues - the drummer's mic was all messed up. After they fixed that, there was some weird feedback issue in the bass frequencies while they were playing that made the low-end intense enough to make it a little hard to breath at times. Very loud, and we were pretty close to the front. It was also bothersome because you could very clearly hear some bass playing on the songs, yet all there was on stage was the drummer/occasional guitarist and the lead guitarist. It confounded me.

The Shins were really good. It was one of the few occasions in live music where the mixing was really good. I could actually distinguish the instruments, which is pretty good considering there were two or three guitars, bass, drums, and one or two keyboards. They were also really tight. Honestly, I had pretty low expectations, just because for some reason the way the Shins sound on their records made me think they'd disappoint live. Quite the contrary. It's a really nice thing when a band can bring something to a live show that isn't there on the albums.

Friday night I had my first haircut in over a year and a half. I'm not really sure what made me do it, exactly. I've been thinking seriously about getting one and talking about it a lot, but hadn't really come close to overcoming my inertia. But for whatever reason, I ate dinner and then went into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and grabbed a hunk of hair and started cutting. Five minutes later and I declared it to be done. I've done a little bit extra since then, just trying to even it out a bit, but the funny thing is, it's honestly probably the best haircut I've ever gotten. I've gotten a lot of compliments on it, which feels very nice.

It feels amazing to have short hair, it's just such a relief in a lot of ways. It means I won't get food in it when I eat. I (probably) won't get mistaken for a female (as much). (Which I almost regret, since I find it very entertaining indeed.) It cuts my time in the shower to nearly half, as well as my shampoo usage. I don't get it caught in coat zippers or car doors. It's great.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and my friend Rita's eighteenth birthday. I took a train into Philly and hung out with Rachel for a couple of hours and then we took a taxi to the Clown House for Rita's birthday party.

I'm not good at parties. I never have been, and I suspect I never will be. I'm a wallflower by nature and loud music and strange people tend to make me retreat farther into my head rather than bring me out of myself. Nevertheless, I had a pretty good time, better than I expected. There were a few really great surreal moments, like when someone sat down on the couch next to me, picked up a five-string banjo that happened to be resting nearby, and started playing classical music on it.

Rachel and I had a fight at the party but it turned out all right, I think. We don't have a lot of fights, which is nice, but when we do they usually get resolved decently. I managed to relax a little and got involved in some interesting conversations. Those are stories for another time, I think.

After the party, Rachel and I went back to her place where we hung out for another couple of hours before she went to bed and I went to couch (voluntarily; there was a bed available but it was less convenient). My dreams last night were interesting. All there was to them was a map of Philadelphia, with red blinking lights representing taxis moving around it. I always find it disorienting when I dream in something other than the three dimensions I'm used to.

I managed to miss that it's been over two years now since this blog was started. Congratulations, to myself, or something, I suppose.

Music of 2006 et all

(Edit 03/05/07 - Added Day Action Band) So here is my list of music that I enjoyed that came out in the year of 2006! It is all good music and you should like it, too.

• Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
  I like Dear Catastrophe Waitress better but this album is also definitely good.
• The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
  The Decemberists are just good in general and their latest is no exception. It's a lot more cohesive in mood, which is nice. Plus it has the distinction of having the most depressing lyrics of any album I can think of that still has ridiculously catchy songs and mostly upbeat instrumentals.
• The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
  The Flaming Lips are great, their new album is great. It's more like The Soft Bulletin than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots which is nice if you got tired of beeps and boops looped a little bit past tolerable. I love Yoshimi, don't get me wrong. But the return is appreciated.
• The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed
  I first heard of the Long Winters when I saw their frontman do a solo acoustic set of a couple of their songs. Unfortunately I think I liked that better than his band as a whole. There are some good songs that will get stuck in your head.
• Neko Case - The Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
  Old-style kind of songs that soothe me. It goes to show that you don't have to have clean recordings to be good.
• Pigeon John - And the Summertime Pool Party
  I'm not a huge fan of hip-hop or rap, but I make exceptions. This is one of them. I got ridiculously obsessed with this album and I still fight the urge to play it incessantly. I just like rhymes involving self-loathing, I guess. Good rhymes, too!
• Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
  It's kind of phony putting that on here because it's a box set of mostly older stuff, but it is damned good. It makes me wish that I hated Christmas so that I could listen to Sufjan and then he would show me the light and make me love it.
• Tartan Terrors - Who's Your Paddy!
  First I heard them talked about from some of my friends (I have awesome friends). Then I stumbled upon them playing live when I went to the PA Renaissance Faire. It was there I bought the CD, and then I brought it home and enjoyed. Traditional Scottish music fused with jazz? It sounds like a terrible idea, but they make it sound good.
• The Who - Endless Wire
  Call me crazy, but I love the new Who album. Listening to it, it sounds like a mix between Warren Zevon and the Who, which sounds weird, but listen to it and you'll hear what I mean. I didn't find out about the whole Pete Townshend getting prosecuted thing until after I listened to the album a few times, and now my opinion of it has been tainted a little bit. Some of the songs get seen in a new light and it's creepy. Still, I like the album a lot.

I guess my favorite album of 2006 is probably At War with the Mystics. Now, here's a list of albums that came out that made me sad and disappointed.

• Paul Simon - Surprise
  Goddamn you Brian Eno. Stay away from Paul Simon. Ech. I was tolerating it until a couple of songs in and then it just became too much. Depressing.
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
  There's one song out of 28 that I kind of like and it's only because it sounds like a bad rip-off of their earlier stuff.
• The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
  If you listen to this album and you haven't listened to the Strokes in a couple of months, you'll think, hey, this is not so bad. But then if you listen to their album before that, you think, hey, this new one actually kind of sucks. Then if you listen to their first album, you think, hey, that new album really sucks and I wish I hadn't spent money on it. There is one good song on it, and it's because they rehashed the melody from an earlier album.
• Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
  It's okay, but not what I have come to expect from the man. I really don't care too much for the album, but what can you expect from something that's composed of songs that weren't good enough for a real album?

Now a list of music that didn't actually come out in 2006 but I listened to it a lot this year anyway because it's awesome.

• Andrew Bird - & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
  Ridiculously good. After hearing the album, Andrew Bird is in my top three favorite musical artists that are still doing things. So good.
• Day Action Band - Right on Dairyland
  All three of their albums are just great. You used to be able to get the first two for free off of their website if you joined their mailing list, I don't know if that's still true. Great songs produced by two dudes in a shack somewhere.
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the Sea
  I'm pretty late on picking up on NMH, but I love the album. The album is a pretty much perfect composition in terms of how the songs fit together and since all the songs have a baseline of "good" the results are nice.
• Jonathan Richman - I, Jonathan
  Good old fashioned kind of rock and roll. Simple but very pleasurable guitar riffs. Song subjects include: Dancing in lesbian bars, how you can't talk to the dude (no no), and the Velvet Underground.

That's a lot of bullet points.