So You Think You Can Dance Mechanically

How come no one invited me to the Robot Dance Competition!??! Robots mimicking the natural movements of humans is one of my favorite things (to be deeply unsettled by).

I Like This

I like this song. And video.

I like this low concept but amusing and visually engaging Web site.

I like this site of Helsinki street style.

And this ends my trenchant cultural commentary for the day.

FDBD (Sooner or Later You'll Bury Your Teeth)

The air gets colder and thinner by the day, leaves are crunchy brown on the ground, pumpkins somehow surviving on porches have mouths that curve inward as they rot so they look like toothless old men smiling at me as I walk past. Everything I see seems witchy-spooky in that autumn way, still. Maybe that's why most songs I've listened to these last few weeks could be the soundtrack to pagan rituals in the woods. I only like magical faerie sprite music now. FDBD For Druids By Druids.

Joanna Newsom - Monkey and Bear

I completely slept on Ys because I found The Milk-Eyed Mender pretentious verging on unlistenable when it came out. Ys won't let me even think about whether I like it or not, because it's too busy exploding my brain.

The Wicker Man Soundtrack - Maypole

The 1973 "Wicker Man" is one of the few movies that truly creeps me out and the soundtrack really captures its amazing Ren-Fair-gone-horribly-awry spookiness.

The Incredible String Band - The Minotaur's Song

My friend Howard recommended The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter after learning of my Ys obsession and yes exactly.

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Cat Black (The Wizard's Hat)

I get that Rolan Bolan is Marc Bolan and Gloria Jones' son and he probably DID dance himself right out the womb and stuff, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Sometimes I feel like I have stack of pancakes for a head

If Hatin' is Your Occupation I Prolly Got a Full Time Job For You.

The fact that my first reaction to this was "Awww, Dirty Jerz!" means that I have officially been away from the Tri-State for so long I'm even romanticizing the most terrible parts. Fist pumpin' like champs! Whatever, I've loved two boys from New Jersey. They grow good tomatoes there.

Mixed Bag

This site started as a way to distribute stuff I was already e-mailing to friends who asked for mp3s after I played them at parties, and then also sort of turned into a depot for my inane ramblings, so I've never considered it a music blog. As such I ignore about 90% of the songs I get e-mailed every day, but here are three recent ones that I like a lot.

Future Islands - Old Dreamer (Pictureplane remix)

If I made an actual non-ADD "best of 2009" list Pictureplane's Dark Rift would be on it. I won't, but it would.

Chew Lips - Seven (Labyrinth Jackals remix)

Chew Lips' songs, unremixed, sound to me like they'd play in an 80s movie montage where a bunch of nerds are building something. At the very least someone would be touching a plasma lamp. If that sounds like it could describe a lot of bands these days: Fair enough.

State Bird - I Don't Love U Anymore

This is off a sampler from The Record Machine and you can grab more State Bird mp3s (as well as some from other artists on the label) on their site.

Anything Can Happen on Halloween, Your Dog Could Turn Into a Cat

Halloween has always been my favorite because I love spookiness, the ramshackle quality of homemade costumes, candy, pumpkins, decorations, and most of all horror movies. My friend Swati and I used to watch them constantly when she lived in her studio on 2nd Avenue; we'd show each other the ones we were obsessed with as kids and look for new ones that made us get that fun-to-be-scared feeling again (with mixed results). Our top 10 favorites — and it should go without saying this means the original and never the remake:

The Evil Dead

The Last House on the Left

Motel Hell

The Stuff

The Watcher in the Woods

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Fright Night

The Gate

House of 1000 Corpses

Cabin Fever

Honorable mentions: Revenge of the Living Dead, Phantasm 1, 3, and 4

Splatter, basically. Giallo is cool but it's too arty and cold for my taste. Lurid 1980s era Tom Savini-style grossness is best. These days I never watch horror movies anymore because it's just no fun without the one girl who fully shared my obsession. When she finally visits Chicago we probably will just stay in and watch some skulls get stop-motion crushed.

My putting-on-my-costume playlist for tomorrow night:

Laura Branigan - Self Control

(I've talked about the sexy-spooky "Self Control" video before.)

Yacht - The Afterlife

Wave Machines - Keep the Lights On

Scanners - Lowlife (LA Riots rmx)

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born on a Day the Sun Didn't Rise

(My buddy Collin gets disemboweled by a cult of scary girls in the video for this song. It's pretty badass.)

Happy Halloween!

Gigantic

Two things I am super into this week:

Videos of "The Berlin Reunion," a several days-long performance involving two GIANT puppets walking through the streets of Germany. He rises out of the water! She eats a giant popsicle! So beautiful and what mind-bending planning it must have involved. Like I always say, if there's one thing that excites me more than tiny toy food it's giant puppets (this is a thing that I am saying to everyone, all the time). Amazing pictures here too.

Part 3 from Erroll Morris's seven-part series for the New York Times, "The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock," where James Agee's descriptions of rooms in "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" are compared to Walker Evans' photographs, cataloging discrepancies that suggest Evans moved items around for aesthetic purposes. For the most part I subscribe to the 'there is no What Happened' school of thought when it comes to accuracy in documentary anything, but I find this stuff endlessly fascinating.

And as for me: I turned another year older on Sunday and to quote a far better writer than me, something has me in its mouth and it's chewing. It's not an unpleasant sensation; kind of nice actually. Movement is movement and all the directions I'm being gnashed in are good ones.

Dreamy stuff I've been into lately/always:

Feist - I Feel It All (Diplo's Plastic Remix)

Kurt Vile - Don't Get Cute

[Kurt Vile]

The Association - Never My Love

Kate Bush - The Sensual World

The Magnetic Fields - The Dreaming Moon

Mariah Carey + Ghost Town DJs = Magic

Mariah Carey is a total Friend in My Head (TM Wendy Williams). It's her half teflon/half coconuts personality, sandpaper speaking voice, cougar-y marriage, and the perfection that is the first three songs on The Emancipation of Mimi. And as big a fan as I am of Beyoncè, Sasha Fierce wouldn't last one round with Mariah Cray-cray. She's the real deal.

Mariah Carey - H.A.T.E.U. remix ft. Gucci Mane, Big Boi, OJ da Juiceman

I Like Food Food Tastes Good

I was pretty bummed out when the news broke this week that Gourmet magazine had folded. Not because I've ever bought a single issue; I've pored over it at other people's houses but I generally like my food porn to resemble things I would actually make myself. Everyday Foodand the like. Its demise sucks partly because it was a beautiful magazine, but also because — like many others who make their living with words — I get a 'what the eff are we all doing here anyway' sort of feeling when I hear that a big dog like Gourmet got put down.

If you are someone who has "ever loved food and/or magazines," read this Time Out Chicago blog post on Gourmet's closing. As an editor who used to get letters from puzzle solvers who said we helped them through a hard time (sometimes actual hard time if they were incarcerated) or even taught them how to read, I'll never tire of stories about the way magazines can affect people's lives. It's cold comfort to the newly jobless staff, but I hope they read it too.

Some songs about food and drink, some more tangential than others:

Louis Jordan - Beans and Cornbread

[Louis Jordan is king]

Roots Manuva - Cornmeal Dumpling

Dead Milkmen - Filet of Sole

I'm too poor to see Dead Milkmen at Riot Fest this Saturday. Hot tears.

Ohio Express - Yummy, Yummy, Yummy

Jeff Buckley - Lilac Wine

I was just thinking the other day how it is weird that there hasn't been a Jeff Buckley biopic, when of course there is going to be a Jeff Buckley biopic. James Franco, yeah okay. Robert Pattinson, take your weirdly Eastern European sounding stilted-ass American accent elsewhere.

All Summer in a Day

When I was a kid I saw a TV adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story called "All Summer in a Day" about a bunch of kids who live on Venus, where the sun only shines for one hour every seven years and it rains the rest of the time. They have to stand under sun lamps to get vitamin D, and the only one who remembers what the sun was like is a girl named Margot who was old enough to remember seeing it back on Earth. They learn about the sun in science class, "about how like a lemon it was, and how hot," and then they write about it. Margot's poem goes, "I think the sun is a flower/That blooms for just one hour."* Everyone is jealous of Margot and her poetry and her sun memories, so they lock her in a closet and she totally misses the sunshine. And then she becomes a goth. No she doesn't! Well not in the story anyway, but where else does a sun-starved and misunderstood schoolgirl poet go from there really.

At age 8 I already had some broody turned-inward tendencies, so naturally I was obsessed with this and it remains one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. As good as the adaptation was and as beautifully written as the story is, I'm still not entirely clear on the takeaway and given that it's geared toward children there must be a point. Enjoy the sun while you have it? Don't be a bully because you'll feel kind of bad about breaking someone's spirit later? If you have one great memory just hold it tight as you can in your brain and hope it will keep you warm for the next 14 years?

I guess if you read deeper, arguably much deeper than any child or at least child-me would read into things, it's a starkly drawn parable about the damaging effects of being afraid to hope for things. The part I still trip over is that the one person who did the hoping is the one who gets punished. So it's meant to elicit empathy from kids? I didn't fully develop morally until my mid-twenties, but maybe that's just me.

You can watch it here if you want, the end is happier than the in story, kiiind of.

The Temptations - Ain't No Sunshine

Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - Sunshower

[Solid Rock is the coolest Temptations album but good luck finding it.]

[Dr. Buzzard's OSB]

*This is my final mope about what a cold summer it was, but SERIOUSLY. When are we going to reap the upside of catastrophic climate change? It's barely 50 degrees and it's not even October yet, I'm wearing a thermal, I'm looking Minnesota/feeling Minnesota. When did we move to Venus?

There's Been a Wonderful Mix-Up

One of several awesome things I have found about via @questlove's Twitter: Kutiman, a dude in Israel who makes songs by remixing other people's Youtube videos. This was inevitable, wasn't it? He's doing a really, really good job with it.

Questlove compares him to Jay Dilla but it reminds me more of the Emergency Broadcast Network (watch this video for my favorite song by them). Like any remix/mashup fan I am in love with the postmodern pastiche; I recognize all the references in a Girl Talk song and get excited by the great way they've been repurposed and I express my excitement by dancing. But Kutiman's take is more interesting than Girl Talk in a sense, since he's working with this deep well of completely obscure source material. Not obscure like Moby's obsession with the Alan Lomax recordings circa Play but like, some girl singing to her laptop camera in a basement obscure. I feel like Kutiman has really thrown down the gauntlet in terms of digging deep.

Emergency Broadcast Network - 3:7:8

Emergency Broadcast Network - Shoot the Mac-10

[buy EBN]

Tidbits

The brilliant UK-based music obsessives at Noncollective are back with a new mix, "From Brazil With Love." I love Noncollective and I love everything related to Brazil and Portuguese, so this is my favorite thing of the week so far.

This article is still well worth a read, despite the fact that Kanyegate (and all of its attendant Internet memes and other jokes) is officially a dead-and-beaten horse:

Beyonce and Taylor Swift: Sisterhood is Powerful, Especially When Male-Directed

And also, this:

"Keeping in touch with the things that help us feel alive – music, books, movies, even the theatre, if, mysteriously, you are that way inclined – becomes a battle, and one that many of us lose, as we get older; I don't think enough of our cultural pundits, people who write about that stuff for a living, fully understand this. It's one thing to have an opinion on Little Boots remixes if you earn your living hanging about in cyberspace; quite another if you're a full-time teacher with three kids."

I would read a Nick Hornby essay on how he selects jelly at the supermarket.

What Makes a Motherfucka So Damn Fresh

I meant to write about Chrissy Murderbot after meeting him this summer and getting into his weekly mixtape project, My Year of Mixtapes (I'm so in love with this week's hardstep mix, which I'm forwarding to all my mid-90s raver cohorts). In the month or so since I completely slept on doing that post, he's pretty much blown up.

Which is as it should be, because Chrissy's mixes and music reveal a love of/depth of knowledge about dance music's past that I really don't hear in most of the mixes that land in my inbox, and I definitely don't read in many dance music blogs I look at. That could be largely due to the Hype Machine culture's obsession with newness —which I don't see as inherently negative, by the way — and there's also the obvious fact that most of these kids were in elementary school the first time it happened. I never ever want to be one of those over-30 year olds who thinks my scene was more authentic and legitimate because we did it earlier than the people who were born later than us. Hell, if anything I WISH I thought what's coming out today is garbage so I wouldn't find myself at the Crookers show scolding yuppie assholes for shoving teenagers on ecstasy out of their walking path like I'm some twisted mama bear. Maybe I wouldn't still get so irate when people say "it's music for people on drugs" or laugh like I should be embarrassed about the fact that I spent 1995-1999 in cartoonishly large Liquid Sky jeans, doing some very stupid things like all teenagers do. But no, instead I just explain that I'm still good friends with many of the people I met sitting outside the club or holding court in the bathroom for hours. I tell them that I had more fun in just that time period than some people have in their entire life. It more amuses than unsettles me to walk by NYU's Palladium Dorm on 14th St and remember the time I lost Rich and Doug for two hours in the club that used to stand there, just wandering and letting it all blow my tiny mind all those years ago.

I'm not a neuroscientist; I have no idea if my experiences did in fact rewire how I hear music resulting in this lifelong addiction — one that I honestly wish I could kick as I head towards advanced-stage "I'm too old for this shit" Danny Glover Disease. It could be that hearing the Hype remix of "Blue Flowers" just excites me because it's ringing some Pavlovian nostalgia bell. What I do know for sure is that beyond the shallowness, hedonism, and aural A.D.D. that does admittedly present itself in club culture, there's also a rich history of incredible, endlessly self-referential music and there's always something new and old to be excited about. I can hear in Murderbot's work that he really gets that aspect of it. I like that.

DJ Ayres - Push It Higher (Josh Wink vs Salt and Pepa)

[DJ Ayres]

Deee Lite - Good Beat

Utah Saints - Something Good

Orbital - Impact (The Earth is Burning)

Combating a Case of the Tuesdays

After hearing several good remixes of this song I'm actually starting to enjoy Ezra Koenig's voice, as opposed to my usual "meh" feelings on it/Vampire Weekend.

The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (Alan Wilkis rmx)

Tomorrow: A look back at the summer playlist.

my day just got a little more Joe Francis.

[The setting: A parking lot on Milwaukee Avenue. Trudging home and kicking the dust after receiving some disappointing news on the career front, I remember that I need paper towels. I mean, just because you underperform on the hardest edit test ever written doesn't mean the world stops making countertop messes for you to sop up. As I walk to the drug store I can't help but notice the giant pink bus out front, so I stop and gawk. Within seconds a white pickup truck pulls up next to me; inside are two boys not older than 22 wearing safety-orange vests.]

Boy 1: Do you want to go inside?

Me: What! Just...you do this right here? In the CVS parking lot?

Boy 2: Yeah. Well, we'll also be at the club later on tonight [gestures over his shoulder to a club that often has a line of chubby women teetering on heels after 10]. Sure you don't want to come in?

Me: Ha! Uh. No thank you! I'm too...wow. [starting to walk away]

Boy 2: You have what it takes!*

Curtain.

Duran Duran - Girls on Film

*What it takes: big boobs, the rank stench of vulnerability and failure

Return as an Animal

Return as an Animal from Bruno Dicolla

It's sweater weather this week and Walgreens has its Halloween stuff on the shelves, but instead of moping about the season's end I'm welcoming the 'back to school' vibe of autumn for once. Though we had some good times, I'm perfectly happy to wave goodbye to Cold Morbid Summer 09. The most recent high-profile death —DJ AM — was also the one I found the most depressing, not least because of his mammoth talent and young age. Read A-Trak's eulogy to his friend and colleague here, or download this live set of AM's from 2007.

Here in Chicago another much talked about passing this week was that of Radley, the cute old black cat that held court on the Empty Bottle's couch. From his loving owners:

We’ll be sitting shiva for our departed friend on September 1 and revealing a permanent memorial to our favorite feline – the naming of “The Radley.” Friends of the Bottle have long claimed that Radley could be caught cozying up to unaccompanied pints of vodka, grapefruit juice and soda – previously known as a Yachtsman, the popular beverage will be known at the Empty Bottle as “The Radley.”

We should all be so lucky as to get a namesake drink when we go. Personally when my time comes I plan on haunting everyone I know to make sure nobody forgets about me.

I'll post my summer top ten playlist soon, but here are some songs from the inbox got a lot of play this week.

The Raveonettes - Suicide

from the forthcoming "In and Out of Control," out October 5.

The Sounds - No One Sleeps When I'm Awake (La Dolce Vita remix)

[The Sounds]

Lily Allen - The Fear (DOCTOR ROSEN ROSEN Rx)

You can download the rest of this remix album for free here.

Sean Bones - Turn Them

Sean plays the Beat Kitchen on September 21.

Dale Que Tu Puede

A major whiskerwatch alert is in effect here.

A major mixtape alert is in effect here: Logan De Gualle vs. Pitbull

vid via everythingisterrible

mix via RCRDLBL

The Very Best - aka Radioclit and Esau Mwamwaya - are selling their debut, Warm Heart of Africa, months before the physical release comes out in October. Huhuh, I said "physical release."

The Very Best ft. MIA - Rain Dance

I'll Admit It

I am totally jealous that this 7 year old's dutty whine has more fiyah than mine does. As the friend who sent me this said, this girl is my babychild (this is my other babychild). My poor downstairs neighbors had to endure the stomping as I mastered her moves the first 800 times I watched France's National Treasure.

Just Call me Miss Rollings

Even though I'm sick in bed today I wanted to post these because I'd dance to them if my body didn't hurt so much. 

N.A.S.A. - Gifted (Treasure Fingers rmx) (divshare)

Lykke Li - Dance Dance Dance (Buraka Som Sistema rmx) (divshare)

Ghislain Poirier mix for Sinden (divshare)

SoCa reminds me of riding in Brooklyn cabs late at night or Bobby Konders show on Hot 97. The kids love it now! I think Diplo is to blame/congratulate for this. Speaking of, the entire Major Lazer album is streaming on their myspace. Next Tuesday I'll even buy it with actual real money when it comes out.

Ok, off to convalesce.

Hey, Look Over There

I'm guest-editing Radio Free Chicago for a bit. In the meantime I'll probably just be using this as a "Jams Depot," which is all most people probably use this site for anyway and the reason why I feel perfectly fine about writing LiveJournal-y entries like the one a couple back.  

Posting this video from Brooklyn band Suckers because not only do I like the song, upon closer examination I realized it features Cute Quinn, the freshman with the pretty eyes who had more of a hip hop thing going on back in high school:

Suckers

On the Wings of Love

If I buried my face under that wing/radiation growth/unborn twin, I bet I'd find heaven. 

Richard Swift - Lady Luck (div share)

Richard Swift

Rabbits and Carrots - Everyday People (div share) 

Rabbits and Carrots

Sly and the Family Stone - If You Want Me to Stay (div share) 

I Am the Starfish

A year ago this Monday I woke up at 6 am, shoved my screaming cat into a bag and got on a plane to Chicago. I told myself I was going just for the five months that my free housesitting situation allowed me, because five months would be enough time to get to know a new city and the people in it. Did I know on some level how entirely preposterous that theory was? Maybe it was a way to protect myself against the fears that come with jumping in with both feet, alone. Or else I was just naive and thought I'd instinctively know which direction to head on the el train (I didn't) and that a city of strangers would welcome me excitedly with open arms (they didn't). The past twelve months have brought me a job and a layoff, many new friends that I worked like a damned dog to make, and some painful separation of wheat from chaff in the life I left behind. I'm happy here. I now know that I, and anyone with an ounce of sense, should follow their instincts. I don't *love* Chicago like my bones love Brooklyn, but it still hasn't been that long really. I do like it an awful lot though. And the people in it. And I like myself far more than I did a year ago too.

Blind Pilot - The Story I Heard (div share)

All That and a Bag of Chips

Watch Phone Sex Pranks: Early 90s Slang and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

My buddy Dan made this cartoon with comedian Gil Ozeri, and it makes me laugh. 

I wonder how much it cost him to eventually find an operator good enough to get the job done, as it were.

Candy Man - Knockin' Boots (div share)

Salt N Pepa - Shoop (div share)

Yes, I am ready. A thousand times yes.

The Camp North Star Kids Chorus - Are You Ready for the Summer? (div share)

"Meatballs" recut trailer: I Know What You Did 28 Summers Ago

In keeping with the choral theme, because I saw Blue Ribbon Glee Club perform last weekend:

The Langley Schools Music Project - Space Oddity (div share)

the langley schools music project

Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Bittersweet Symphony (div share)

scala & kolacny

DJing tonight at The Burlington

Tonight (Wednesday the 29th) I'm fake-djing again at one of my favorite places in Chicago, The Burlington. Actually I've only been there four times but both the patrons and proprietors are freakishly nice, and the last time I went Flosstradamus did an Oldies Night where Diplo randomly showed up and played. Wait no, the last time I was there was to meet up with a friend in from Brooklyn, what a delightful time. We laughed, OH how we laughed. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah: Come hang out with me at the Burlington later.

The funny thing is I've been listening to almost no new music these past few weeks - mostly just  Yacht Rock-type smoothness, 90s dancehall, and "Night Moves" on repeat. No one but me wants to hear The Doobie Brothers and these Midwestern crackers don't listen to dancehall for some reason. Like, if you're out dancing and it's 1 a.m., this is usually when the DJ busts out some classic Beenie Man/Mr. Vegas type stuff but here they play...well, this song usually. Which is fine, and there probably aren't any Jamaicans in Chicago (?) but its absence is still odd to me. Oh well, it still gets heavy rotation in club My Room. 

Some songs I will NOT be playing tonight:

Of Montreal - Old Familiar Way (div share)

Bob Seger - Night Moves (div share)

Terror Fabulous ft Nadine Sutherland - Action (div share)

Some songs I probably WILL be playing tonight: 

Starfucker - Girls Just Want to Have Fun (div share)

Lykke Li - Little Bit (Villains Rmx) 

Empire of the Sun - We Are the People (Jimmy2sox Remix) (div share)

beginnings and endings

I'm moving this week and my job ends the following day. As soon as I've settled into my new digs and had my previous roommates Eternally-Sunshined from my brain (Morbidly Obese Southern Shut-In, Crazy Eyes and her husband Out of Work Stuntman, the cat with bladder problems, the old mean cat, the convalescing bunny, the ferrets I never had to see thank g-d: I'll see you all in Hell but Mr. Giant Fish you're ok), I'm hoping to keep as busy as an unemployed person can. 2009 has gone by lightning fast so far, but it's been pretty great. Yesterday I ran my first 8k - in a snow storm, adding another item to the long list of things I never thought would happen in the past 365 days. Now I'm starting to get absurdly excited for the summer even though it's still months away.

Back when it actually felt like spring last week I started listening to a compilation called Fly Girls! B Boys Beware: Revenge of the Super Female Rappers! While they could have picked better songs from some of the artists represented - the Latifah, Lyte, and Missy songs are obvsville and it reminded me that I've meant to post some (more interesting) stuff from Bahamadia - there are some inspired choices like Nikki Giovanni. A couple gems:

Sparky D - I Can't Stop (divshare)

Camille Yarborough - Take Yo' Praise (divshare)

Don't Dance, I'll Pay People to Move You

I fall into the camp of finding pretty much anything Andy Milonakis does amusing, though if I didn't know he is sincerely obsessed and in love with hip hop I would probably like this video less. He also has sick taste in reggae music (seriously, look up his Itunes celebrity playlist it's bananas) so it makes sense that Diplo and Switch invited him into the studio for their Major Lazer album which is FINALLY, alledgedly coming out soonish. I have been looking forward to this for so long that there is no way it's going to live up to my expectations.

More parody-rap by people who actually love rap:

The Lonely Island - Like A Boss (div share)

Hibernational

I've actually been going out a ton lately, but between some Life Transitions and a certain laziness cultivated by the weather I feel like I've been in mental deep freeze for the past two months. Just generally uninspired, leading to a stale wardrobe and a lack of blog posts. Sorry So Self-Involved! This ends now. Time to throw open the windows...I mean the brain-windows, it's still too cold to open the actual windows.

Here is a band I'm liking that Luke Temple is in, Here We Go Magic. Hold a Match for a Gasoline World is one of my favorite albums and if you ever get a chance to see Luke Temple perform with or without this band, you really should.

Here We Go Magic - Fangela (divshare)

myspace

Luke Temple - In the End (divshare)

Luke Temple - Serious (divshare)

Another hot-button issue tackled

PK: what do you think of emoticons?

ghostproofblanket: i hate them

i use them as an ironic joke sometimes

but if a guy uses them in an IM convo with me we are never having sex.

PK: haha

11:05 AM ghostproofblanket: there was this one dude i was talking to that used the smiley all the time and it was gross

PK: i can't bring myself to use them

ghostproofblanket: "i'm a nice guy i mean no harm!" =)!

PK: creepy

ghosproofblanket: it does seem creepy! but it was actually just...provincial

11:06 AM PK: i get emails from girls with emoticons in them and I'm just hoping they aren't looking to me to use them as some sign

11:07 AMthanks for helping me to clarify my stance

And there you have it. Two out of two people agree that if you're over 15 and not an ESL student, you should reconsider your earnest use of emoticons. *banging gavel sound*

ANYWAY, Emynd released a free digital EP of "We Don't Give a F*ck" featuring Young Chris from Young Gunz ("can't stop won't stop Rocafella records cuz we get down baby, we get down baby" etc). The DJ Eli remix is my favorite but it's all great, get it here.

Emynd ft. Young Chris - We Don't Give A... (DJ Eli rmx) (div share)

unconditionally, irrevocably, cringeworthily

I like this a lot. It's set for official release in late spring-early summer, I'm told:
Drlkt Freddie - Blood (div share)

Check Drlkt Freddiespace - Their mix of the Lauren Flax track featuring Sia on their page is pretty hott too.

Speaking of blood: a voracious reader friend who has given me some great recommendations told me to read "Twilight" over Christmas, since I'd be spending it on planes and trains a lot. And she was right, I got weirdly hooked on the word-crack. But now I've got to see this thing through to the terribly written end and I've devoted several thousand pages of eyeball juice to this weakass goth shit. Also the home stretch is getting downright creepy, honestly, and the fact that she dedicates it to the band Muse pretty much sums it all up. Yet I STILL won't read this Bitch article (heh "abstinence porn," totally) because apparently I'm afraid of being spoiled? I seriously have no standards at all. As Bella Swan would say, my cheeks are burning with hot shame.

Edited to add: But if you also have read these for some reason and/or seen the movie (I haven't), I Rock I Roll has an excellent Twilight-inspired soundtrack. Cure, duh. Muse, inevitable I suppose.

they have a muchness with each other

"They've really taken a shine to each other as they are both burned and share the same burned smell."

So well put David Tree, volunteer with the Country Fire Authority Victoria. FUCK a he-went-to-Jared. This is what love means to me.

You can donate to the Aussie Red Cross here.

I'm really excited to see Antony and the Johnsons on Thursday at the Vic, it'll be my first time. My first time at the Vic too, which my brother describes as "an intimate dump" (another sign of true closeness with someone else, the intimate dump).

Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone (divshare)

Freak Machine

The 9000's music is slightly more head-centric (as opposed to ass-centric) than I usually take my electronic music but this song is fun and I'm a sucker for low budget yet effective video concepts. Plus the boy in the plaid is cute. Also the director apparently.

Speaking of freak machines, PLEASE watch this clip of a documentary on women who are attracted to and in love with inanimate objects. "I'm definitely physically attracted to this fence...and I would like to get to know this fence better."

Vintage Apple system warning sounds (via Goldenfiddle). Nostalgia-inducing, but in college my Apple II let me record my own warning so it was Black Francis's "Hey!" from the Pixies song.

Links, because I still haven't found a new hosting service

This series of fake vintage paperback covers for modern-day movie novelizations is the coolest thing I've seen on the Internet this week. I would buy several of these if they were posters. (Thanks, Emily G)

Willy Joy, one of my favorite Chicago DJs, has a Pre-Party Jamz mix up over at NickyDigital. All killer no filler. Download it here.

I blathered on about why Josh Wink's new album is kind of depressing to me over at Radio Free Chicago yesterday.

Some coworkers and I were talking about how Mad Magazine shaped our sense of humor in the formative years and my Al Jaffee Googling led to this great classic Fold-Ins interactive on NYT from a couple years ago.

Ok - I have to go put on my Snuggie and lie down now, it's naptime.

Calm down everybody just CALM DOWN

Dear WebMD,
Today's dire economic climate has resulted in staggered layoffs at my company which has in turn caused a swelling epidemic of fear and despair. Even those without kids or a mortgage are having a hard time coming to grips with what it feels like to lose not only a steady paycheck but the comfort of an everyday routine, no matter how joyless it may have been for some. While I am more comfortable than most with sudden upheaval and the specter of poverty, the general air of anxiety is starting to stress me out. This sickness is catching.
Also I have a chicken pox-like rash, the sniffles, and my eye won't stop twitching. Am I dying?
Thanks,
Ghostproof Blanket

Dear GPB,
Yes, you are most definitely dying. We all are. And you should know better than to seek me out for answers when it just freaks you out.
Thanks for writing!
WebMD

Talking Heads - Warning Sign (CBS Studio Demo 1975)

Adult. - In My Nerves

Yo Yo Chicago

I'm DJing (and when I say "djing" I am using air quotes the size of giant foam finger sports-fan hands) with my Radio Free Chicago compatriots Wednesday night at the Burlington. Come hang out!

Another DCMA Blogger Takedown Notification

What made this one extra-special is a.) I got this track from the artist's PR and b.) according to said PR reps, the mixes were made from stems Kanye released himself. Off to back up this blog before it gets deleted entirely which is starting to seem kind of inevitable.

"He Makes Me Want to Be Smarter, He Makes Me Want to Be More Involved"

Scroll ahead to around the minute mark on. My Beyonce love has reached fever-pitch. It was like Here, and now it's Up Here.

Yes, yes, and yes. I'm so sexcited and hopeful about America today! Ok politics time is over, tomorrow it's back to all Giggles N Fartz 2: Kitten Boogaloo.