Five

Via Pamela and Colin K, five songs/artists that best approximate my own aesthetic sensibilities. In no particular order.

1. The Kills, "No Wow." Buzz and stomp and a sense of threat. The pure simplicity of lyric. The sense that you're as likely to be kissed as punched. The first time I heard this, in Eric's living room, I thought I would have a panic attack.

2. David Bowie, "Cracked Actor." Seedy and spent and shattered. The sounds and rhythms, the persona. Bliss.

3. Tori Amos, "Datura." The vegetable world, the garden, the catalog.

4. Michael Stipe, "Arms of Love." A cover of the old Robyn Hitchcock song. Naked and plainly stated. (This isn't a performance vid, but uses the song as a background to a variety of pics...odd.)

5. Bjork featuring Thom Yorke, "I Have Seen It All." Self-explanatory, really.

Proofs

I got proofs last night, via email, of two poems coming out in March. I feel like a real poetical boy. Now I just need to finish packing.

IDQoTM--I Think I'm Paranoid

Best Bond Themes...Evah

I really love the old Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary 2 disc set...though by now it's incomplete. (And CK--though I admire Gladys' pipes, her theme has never really clicked for me. Sort of like Chris Cornell's for Casino Royale. I want to like them, but I just don't.)

So here in no particular order, my 10 Favorite James Bond Themes

01. Shirley Bassey "Diamonds are Forever."
02. Lulu "The Man with the Golden Gun."
03. Duran Duran "View to a Kill."
04. Paul McCartney w/Wings "Live and Let Die"
05. Dionne Warwick "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"
06. Madonna "Die Another Day."
07. Shirley Bassey "Goldfinger"
08. Garbage "The World is not Enough"
09. Tina Turner "Goldeneye"
10. Louis Armstrong, "We Have All the Time in the World."

This list of course omits the remixes of various Bond themes by Moby and the Propellerheads.

Yummy

I'm totally obsessed with the Radiohead track "All I Need" from In Rainbows. Here's a live clip from 06 when they were just premiering the song.

Jesus Returns

From WZZM13.com (the link leads you to one of the most atrociously banner-ad heavy sites of all time.):

Hijacked Jesus statue returned to owner

A Kent County woman says a treasured family heirloom has been returned after it was hijacked amid allegations she doesn't clean up after her dogs.

Jean Mansel says her 80 pound cement Jesus statue was taken from a pedestal in her front yard, and a ransom note was left in her mailbox.
[snip]

Mansel says she cherishes her statue as a memento from late uncle. Last Thursday she found the statue missing.

"There were footprints behind it, and footprints in front of it," she says, pointing out where the statue used to be. My husband got a phone call and a real raspy voice over the phone said 'check your mailbox'."

In the mailbox was a ransom note.

[snip]

The note reads: “We are holding Jesus ransom until you clean up the poopie from your wieners and trust us we see you take your wieners for long walks w/out picking up their poopie in our yards. This has upset us dearly so please clean up all the weiner poopie, if you want to see Jesus unharmed. Sincerely, Lindy Lane Residents.”

"It has to be a young person because they put these lines around Jesus, no adult is going to waste their time doing that," says Mansel. "And referring to weiner poopie…my gosh."

[snip, emphasis mine]

I take my dogs for walks; I carry a plastic bag with me and pick up anything that they do. I thought something like that would be safe in our yard, it wasn't, it wasn't."

Sunday night, Jean told WZZM 13 News the statue had been returned, taken not by neighbors but by a family member. She declined to explain further, only that this has now become a family situation.

IDQotM--The World Is Not Enough

It's no "Man with a Golden Gun" (mmmm disco Lulu) but conversely, it's no "All Time High" or "Thunderball," either.

Status

The poeminess continues.

I seriously feel like I'm living someone else's creative life.

Not that I'm complaining.

Jack Frost Nipping at My Nads

2 degrees at about 7am. That's not counting the wind chill.

~*~

My robe began coming apart at the seams. Being intrepid...and perhaps a bit nuts...I took it apart and used it as a template for a new one. That's how I spent my weekend...sewing a robe.

~*~

I hate to fly. Back when I did fly (rarely) I'd pop a diazepam and have some drinks just so I wouldn't claw my way out of my own skin. My plan for AWP was to drive to Baltimore and take the Amtrak commuter line up to NYC and back after the conference. Brian's apt is conveniently close the station. There were a few nervous days last week when he pointed out that there might be an Amtrak strike at the end of the month. Luckily this has been diverted. I can proceed as scheduled...this makes me unutterably happy.

~*~

Collin asked about my shoes in an earlier comment so here they are. The last pair is not exactly right...the detailing on mine is a natural/beige seude with just a hint of burgundy stitching.

Skechers Angelino

Skechers Crusades

Kenneth Cole Unlisted, Updated Square-Toe


Skechers...Mystery shoe.

IDQoTM--Queer

This song creeped me the hell out when I heard it years ago...then I saw the video. It took me a long time to love it...but then something switched over and I did. It's become a karaoke staple...and a perfect way to start the week.

IDQotM--When I Grow Up, Live 2002

Because I can't friggin stand the video version with the Big Daddy clips (as much as I hate Adam Sandler, I hate the actress more...the one that was in Chasing Amy...what the hell was her name...), here's a live version from 2002.

Tyranny of Options

I'm not someone afraid of choices...changes often, choices, no. I'm more likely to be overwhelmed by the hordes of the dumb and damned in big box stores than I am the stacks of merch and bulging shelves--I like options. So I finally decided I'd look at the AWP schedule and see what was going on--a couple of things I definitely know I'll do...the Pitt Series reading, the Post-Gay Identity panel are musts.

So I printed the schedule and started perusing--easy enough to opt of out some sessions. But then there are several things simultaneously scheduled that I want to do or would like to sit in on. I suppose it's good--if something's too crowded I can opt for something else. All the same, there's that nagging interior whine "but what if thaaaaat's good" thing.

~*~

Poems still coming. Different rhythms and sounds than I normally truck in, awfully exciting.

Still haven't looked at the recently-finished beast. It's staying zipped up in my briefcase--though I desperately want to.

~*~

Why is it someone can find the money to play video keno but not buy soap and deodorant?

Webjunk

Two quizzes, both of which are stunningly accurate.

What book are you? (hat tip to Christopher)

What's your eating style? (hat tip to my junk mail box)

You're The Great Gatsby!

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Having grown up in immense wealth and privilege, the world is truly at
your doorstep. Instead of reveling in this life of luxury, however, you spend most of
your time mooning over a failed romance. The object of your affection is all but
worthless--a frivolous liar--but it matters not to you. You can paint any image of the
past you want and make it seem real. If you were a color of fishing boat light, you
would be green.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

~*~

According to Tickle, I'm an "erratic eater."

Erratic eaters like you tend to have erratic schedules on the whole, and tend to ingest their biggest meals, and heartiest snacks during the evening and nighttime hours. While your evening meal is what you focus most on — and sometimes it can occupy much of your night — how much you eat and when you eat your meals varies day to day. Eating three square meals a day is not your style. Instead, you are the type of person who usually skips breakfast or grabs something small. You also eat lunch at erratic times as well. One day you may eat a good meal at noon, while the next you might grab a handful of crackers at 4pm with dinner at 6pm.

While it's great that you're flexible, there are a number of nutritional downfalls to this style of eating. For one, you body doesn't function well when it's starved of food, which it would be if you weren't eating til those 4pm crackers. Your pattern suggests that it can be hard for you to keep track of what you're eating because the timing and quantity changes from day to day.

Chimps with Sticks

The other night, at a little get-together, Eric asked me what I'd meant in the Brian is Right post. I realize it might be a little vague and lacking context...but it was one of the things I'd hoped to get around to fleshing out last week. It was simply my reaction to the Clinton NH primary win, but Brian, god bless him, expressed it far better than I could have.

He was a Gore 2000, Dean 2004 guy; I was a Gore 2000, Edwards 2004 guy. I still like Edwards and have serious issues with the other two; he hates Edwards and isn't jazzed by any of this bunch.

I remember at the time of the 2000 elections being astonished how many people voted for what's-his-face because his name was familiar; at the time it proved my contempt for my perceived, willful ignorance of the opposing party and their well-earned nickname, "know nothings." I was not surprised (and just as depressed) to read this exit poll article that most of the people voting for HRC in NH would prefer her husband have a third term.

While Clinton may have beaten the other current Democratic candidates, the exit poll shows she would not have beaten her own husband. When asked to choose between their candidate and Bill Clinton - were he allowed to run for a third term - 56 percent of Hillary's supporters chose Bill.

Why do I feel like we're doomed?

Imelda From the Void

Maybe it's because way back in August of 197- I was born in the Philippines and they were our government-approved dictators; maybe because she and Ferdinand became cultural touchstones in the 80s just at the time I was developing my sense of irony and love of schadenfreude and they weren't so low rent Southern as Jim and Tammy Faye (all that Jesus, all that crying, all that mascara, all that hair...it was like Dynasty on a budget just with more prayer, more bad music and fewer cat fights); maybe it's just because I find saying the words "Imelda Marcos" pleasurable...do it, say the words softly to yourself, pay attention to how your mouth moves...it's lovely, really. Maybe.

Or maybe it was the shoes. The breathless reporting after they were run out of the country of people finding thousands of pairs of shoes and hundreds of matching black panty sets. Lately Imelda's been on my mind, because I've become shoe obsessed--looking online, actually going to brick and mortar stores, wishing I still got catalogs in the mail. My urge for shoes is simply short-handed as "inner Imelda." And lately, bunnies, my inner Imelda has grown strong. It's not out of control yet. Roughly a pair of shoes every two weeks since November...that's not so bad, right?

I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from the doyenne of graft herself: "I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty."

IDQoTM--Tell Me Where It Hurts

A new track from the Absolute Garbage set (get the 2 disc version if you're so inclined--the Massive Attack remix of "Milk" is worth it.) This has to be the best Pretenders song Chrissie Hynde never wrote.

IDQoTM--Push It

A Voice from a Cloud

Ach, I've been a bad bad blogger. The details are boring, but I've just not posted much the last week--not that there haven't been things that I wanted to, but hopefully this week I can catch up on some of them.

~*~

A draft of the long-gestating chapbook, long poem, poem series thing is done. It's rough, but it's down. I haven't looked at it in a few days, most likely won't for another week or so because I think I'd be like a drunk at last call, prone to bad object choices (cue the Donna Summer).

Aside from that I've written a few new things the past couple weeks. Very productive, much moreso than normal.

IDQotM--Milk

Brian is Right

"Sometimes democracy sucks."

Updates, New Yearishness edition

The Baltimore trip was grand--much shopping, much eating, good restful sleep, Brian and presents. It was entirely too short though, the only consolation being I'll be back before hieing North to AWP in just a few weeks.

Macy's at the Marley Station Mall was a treasure trove of oddities: from the multi-jurisdictional, 5 cop search and detention of a guy in the parking lot (hands cuffed behind his back, sitting on the pavement), to the discomfiting mannequins inside (heads and armless torsos that look inspired by Return of the Jedi: a gold stretch and sequined sort of C-3PO cum drag-diva model and a red quilted Imperial Guard number stood out and made me wish I had my camera), and disgruntled German shoppers holding up the Men's Wear Denim Sale line--factor in the fact that I found TWO pairs of jeans on sale that give me an ass (no small feat, let me tell you) and I knew it was going to be a day to remember.

~*~

Working New Year's Eve sucks. Being the only sober person in a bar as the ball drops sucks more. This is the first sober New Year's I've had in almost 18 years. Not sure where that ranks on the pathetic scale.

Drove home this morning into an oncoming storm. If I were a different sort of person, I'd assume this was some sort of metaphor. Thank god I'm not Kate Chopin or one who looks for signs and omens.

~*~

Arrived home to find late Christmas packages from the sibs and their spawn--nothing awful that I have to return this year. Everything is the right size and not hideous. Amazing. Likewise, no acceptances nor rejections--so it's a wash mail-wise. Bills of course and a couple of magazines.

~*~

My fascination with those vacuumed space saver bags is a little worrisome.

~*~

One of my favoritest AbFab bits ever. Bubble on New Year's.

IDQoTM--Shirley Manson

A little piece of Tranny-Pop-Candy goodness to start off the New Year. "Cherry Lips (Go, Baby, Go)" by Garbage.

Happy New Year!