Ya Damn Right I'm Thankful.

Michael Jackson - I Can't Help It (Tangoterje Re-Edit) (divshare)

Todd Terje's Oslo disco odyssey

"The names of Brailey, Bricoux, Clarke, Hartley, Hume, Krins, Taylor and Woodward were permanently inscribed into the history books on the night of April 14th, 1912, and their totally unselfish deeds during that night serve as a constant reminder of the devotion to duty many people displayed during the sinking. Shortly after midnight, as the lifeboats had begun to be loaded, Hartley assembled his band in the First Class Lounge, where many of the First Class passengers were now assembling, and began to play. Many people later commented on how strange it seemed to be wearing a lifejacket, awaiting orders to get into the lifeboats, whilst the band continued to play away as though nothing had happened. Later, as more and more people began to realise the seriousness of the situation, and began to file onto the Boat Deck, so too did Hartley, reassembling his band on the Boat Deck close to the entrance of the Grand Staircase.

What went through their minds as they played together on that night can only be guessed. As the slant of the decks increased more and more, did they even consider that this was their last hour alive, or did one or two of them hold out a slight hope that eventually, one of the officers would amble over, and instruct them into a lifeboat? Whatever their thoughts were, we will never know. All eight bandsmen were lost."

X - I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts (div share)

Earth, Wind, and Fire - That's the Way of the World (div share)

winter's bright promise

It's 26° out, and I'm sartorially under-prepared for this, but for all the fear and anticipation of My First Chicago Winter I'm loving the cold this week. It adds a sharper definition to everything in the way that fall air does times two. I will find this charming until at least early December!

Animal Collective - Winters Love (div share)

Sung Tongs is one of my favorite albums of all time and my neighbors across Milwaukee Ave play it really loudly sometimes when they're not having band practice in their living room. It makes me want to befriend them, and send coded messages with flashlights, and string up a tin-can phone.

Scenario Rock - Perfect Love Antidote (Bobmo rmx) (div share)

Bobmospace

I'm reposting this because Hypemachine is ignoring me for some reason:
Pocketknife & Cousin Cole - My My, Hey Hey (Cousin Cole Into the Blue Remix) (div share)

I'm Hypamatized

From today's mailbag. Ice cream and cake and cake, peanut butter jelly time...chicken moose rhino monkey.

About
Flagrant Fowl Records
Previously on GPB

Pocketknife & Cousin Cole - My My, Hey Hey (Cousin Cole Into the Blue Remix) (div share)
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Deaf As a Ghost

Last weekend, while listening to the radio on a long drive, I remarked that I was "deaf as a post." Except someone thought I said "deaf as a ghost" and didn't understand the expression. And yeah, that wouldn't make sense, because the notion of a deaf ghost runs entirely counter to what is historically considered perhaps the only advantage of ghost-hood: omniscience. I'm thinking chiefly about the joys of finally being able to eavesdrop on any conversation and getting to watch people shower, but it also reminds me of a recurring dream another friend of mine used to have after losing her boyfriend of eight years to cancer. After Sean died he would come to Jessie in dreams and she'd get to see his face again. The problem was, whenever he'd try to talk it was either as if there was a wall of plasma between them that would muffle the sound, or else he just couldn't get any words out at all. Jessie half-believed it was actually Sean and not a figment, that they were really trying to communicate but the strict stratification of worlds wouldn't permit it, even in a dream.
I guess I half-believe that too. Partly because my visit with my vegetative mother last week has me feeling that it's only fair we should get some sort of final chance to say unsaid things, or at least ask what it's like in there — in The Beyond, or in my mom's head. If people who are gone can't talk it's only fair to assume that they can listen, right? So for this reason I believe it was Real Sean in Jessie's dreams, and I also believe it because of this, one of my favorite poems ever.

By Marie Howe, from "What the Living Do":

THE PROMISE

In the dream I had when he came back not sick
but whole, and wearing his winter coat,

he looked at me as though he couldn’t speak, as if
there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn’t break.

His silence was what he could not
not do, like our breathing in this world, like our living,

as we do, in time.
And I told him: I’m reading all this Buddhist stuff,

and listen, we don’t die when we die. Death is an event,
a threshold we pass though. We go on and on

and into light forever.
And he looked down, and then back up at me. It was the look we’d pass

across the kitchen when Dad was drunk again and dangerous,
the level look that wants to tell you something,

in a crowded room, something important, and can’t.

Burial - Ghost Hardware (div share)

Blonde Redhead - Maddening Cloud (div share)

but you're still the one pool where I'd happily drown

My trip back east was a full-to-bursting four and a half days that went by too fast. I learned that six months is at once a short and long time and found a lot of comfort in familiar food, voices, and neighborhoods. I was awed and inspired by some people's generosity of spirit and disappointed and confused by others' lack thereof — which underscored my recent realization that there is absolutely no way to predict anything, and that one's perception of another person really is nothing more or less than a perception. I had some meaningless fun that felt kind of oddly meaningful and managed to make it through two days in Delaware without referencing the Wayne's World joke once. All in all, days so well spent that I was grateful for even the ugly parts. I miss you, but it's clearer than ever that I have every reason to leave you behind.

Ween - You Were the Fool (div share)

LCD Soundsystem - New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down (div share)

that. just. happened.

CeCe Penniston - Finally (div share)

Headed out of town again, when all I wanna do is stay here in Chicago.

I Wish it Was Tomorrow Night Already.

When I was in Austin the weekend before last, I heard an album I liked in a store so much that I bought it as soon as I came home. For real, I'd heard almost the entire album in that store, as my best friend was Born to Shop. Paul Duncan is from the south - born in Texas - but lives in Brooklyn as his handsome scruffiness commands him. In the dead of last winter I suddenly started liking Bonnie Prince Billy, and this appeals to me along the same lines.
From 2007's "Above the Trees":

Paul Duncan - The Fire (div share)

Paul Duncan - High in the Morning (div share)

On a wildly different note, I went to the Empty Bottle on Halloween and saw a band called Detholz! ("death holes"). A phenomenon here in Chicago, Jeff Tweedy has taken them on tour with Wilco a few times which is not surprising as they put on quite the show. For the most part they masterfully played very, very whaaat the fuuuck theatrical covers - Like a Virgin, We Built This City, Conga, The Gambler - although they apparently have their own material as well. They opened with the Karate Kid theme and it was amazing.

Detholtz! - FLEX/You're the Best Around (div share)