Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Meet Bozomeat

Who is Bozomeat?

Bozomeat is a myth. Bozomeat is a train. Bozomeat is a lesson.

Friday, March 25, 2005

When You Come Here

I'm so glad. All day long I'm thinking up things to tell you over the internets. Its true. Right when this picture was being taken I was thinking, I'll work this in for you.

All you need to do is comment. FEED!

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Keeping it Fresh

Only now that I don't live in the East Coast (readers, it has been nearly ten years...the realization is coming only now) have I noticed the frank disappearance of an automobile mainstay:


ALL HAIL MY CAR.

Basically this phenomenon is when an incogruously placed crown pops up in the back windows and on the dashboards of the most beaterest of cars. I'm thinking this might be for me. But! Can I risk the scandal? According to the internets and an informal poll of two people, I could get some strange looks, but I might be able to start a trend.



If there are no objections, I'll proceed as planned.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Wish Me Luck

I'm trying a new salad. Its called mache or Lamb's Lettuce.

Be brave.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Stunningly Shocking

Monday, March 21, 2005

POSTED BY GABI AT 4:10 PM

0 comments

Nothing's New.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Brave Shuffles Sometimes Pay Off

80 Steps to Jonah: Head of Femur
New Slang: the Shins
William, It Was Nothing: The Smiths
The Big Dig: Family Fodder
Free Ride: Nick Drake
Rebellion: Arcade Fire

Those were good times--for about 10 minutes. And then it all went to shit:

Life During Wartime (Live): Talking Heads
Too Young: Phoenix
Tale of Old Nanny: Nicolai Dunger
The Body Burned Away: Songs Ohia
Candy Man: Donovan
Sam Hill: Merle Haggard

and then, inexplicably back to
Take Me to the River (Live): Talking Heads.

Egads!

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Have You Seen This Movie?

In the Realms of the Unreal is a film about the life, the artwork, and writings of Henry Darger, a reclusive janitor who wrote and illustrated a 15,000-page book chronicling his creation: the Vivian girls, heroine sisters fighting in what can simply be described as the battle of good against evil. Darger worked on this project for over 60 years and told no one about it. It was only discovered by his landlady after he'd been moved to a catholic mission (where he would later die), indigent and elderly.

The subject matter of the film is incredibly grim as it concerns a person who was effectively abandoned by his family, who then becomes a recluse after a stay at a psychiatric hospital for children, and who may or may not have been schizophrenic. I felt like the details of his life, which I can imagine were difficult to piece together about a person who left only three photographs of himself behind and who had no family, were glossed over and dealt with a bit too hastily. I did like how the filmmaker didn't speak to the question or whether or not Darger was insane, and that she didn't psychoanalyze his work, which must have been tempting since a lot of the illustrations are of little naked girls drawn inexplicably with penises... Had Darger never encountered a sexuality other than his own?

What's done well in the film is how the artwork of In the Realms of the Unreal is animated in a very delicate, thoughtful way--something I thought could have been disastrous. His processes are also described well: Since he was extremely poor his entire life, he improvised both art techniques and the medium he used. The filmmaker notes that he would create ad hoc canvases out of old phonebooks.





That said, I have to admit that the theater was really warm and I was feeling like I was coming down with something, and so, I slept just the tiniest bit during this movie. So, believe me or don't.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

New Purchase

I'm so happy with Madvillany by Madvillan. Its just really good rapping and really good beats with some very interesting samples. One of the best hip hop albums I've heard in a long time, since say, Deltron 3030.

Another Reason Why

I love Brian Eno. Today I found out he's sending me a million dollars, and I also found out that he wrote the theme song to Windows 95.

I had a lot of fun back in '95 with Win95, sweating through typing class for instance. To think that that pretty song was created by humanity makes the memories that much sweeter. I remember rebooting you.

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas.I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's aspecific problem--solve it.''

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that isinspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic,sentimental, emotional,'' this whole list of adjectives, and then at thebottom it said "and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.''

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to makea little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

Why Do I Keep Coming Here?

Last weekend what was on the menu was Awful Food. Maybe you've had it before.

From a sickingly cheesy pizza to the usually delightful Eggs Benedict* it was all bad. Undercooked salmon, rotten lettuce. I should point out that I wasn't the chef of any of these creations, I was merely paying for someone's monsterpieces.

This weekend I decided that even though it usually takes a long time for me to ban myself from a place, these compounded events have led me to swiftly make some choices.

In the Year 2005: Eateries to Avoid
Seattle
  • Julia's tops the list for its unremarkable food for high prices. Featuring bad breakfast, sorry salads, and well, just ass-bad food. Eggs Benedict: I agree that it is hard to poach an egg and preparing Hollandaise sauce might be tricky. But when the the Bene is offered with your choice of ham, bacon, or spinach and you choose spinach (Eggs Florentine) you should not get raw spinach from some leftover spinach salad tucked under a hard-poached egg drizzled with the lightest dash of Hollandaise sauce with a flavor close to that of water.
  • The Broadway Grill is a reader submission. I haven't eaten there myself, but I trust the submitter's best instincts. He describes it as "bad diner food for too much money."
  • Specialty's. Christ. This is obvious for many reasons, the biggest being terrible sandwiches featuring fluffy absorbent bread in place of something (anything!) more substantial should surely be. The salads here are dastardly abominations of the terms "fresh" and "green." The one thing they do well is their chocolate bundt cake.

So far there are only three on my list, but watch out. Its only March and there are several (some might say nine) more months to go.


*Julia's Eggs Benedict has been christened Eggs Derelict by H.M.S. Hamlice

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

The Fear of...

boarding an airplane as a passenger and then being asked if maybe you wouldn't mind piloting it

riding a municipal bus and having someone sitting behind you throw up on you by accident



leaving your readership bored and alienated

help me

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Back to My Favorite Topic--Food

Some of my favorite foods
(excluding the staples: the pizzas, the thai food, the burritos, the burgers, the cakes)

oysters
Vietnamese bun chay
a good Caesar salad
chevre
aloo gobi
spaghetti with clam sauce
butter lettuce
samosas
red globe grapes
my mother's roti
crostini
pineapple upside-down cake


Some foods I haven't really gotten yet.

persimmon-- haven't had a good one yet. So far they've all been astringent as hell. Ripeness issues.


osso buco-- never tried it. Sounds good though.


escargot



Am I missing anything?

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

I'm Tackling the Glass Harmonica!

This:



is not a glass harmonica. But this fun little party trick is based on the principles of the Glass Harmonica, where, according to the dictionary this item is a musical instrument consisting of a set of graduated glass bowls on a rotating spindle that produce tones when a finger is pressed to their moistened rims.

Not that I want to discuss fingers and moistened rims.
Here's what a Glass Harmonica looks like. Not bad. I wouldn't mind having one of these in my house.


Next, I found out about this guy called G. Finkenbeiner--an obvious fake name--who created his spooktacular version of the Glass Harmonica in 1986! Can you believe it? Totally.

This is what the GH sounds like: Shenandoah from Revolutions (The kind of music I'd like to have playing on repeat relentlessly in my grave. Please make it happen.)

Who do you think plays the Glass Harmonica besides Ben Franklin? Shoot! All kinds of people!

Stephen Merritt from the Magnetic Fields

This person called Emile Simon who exploited that creative freedom to the maximum, mixing her echoey vocals with samples of rare instruments such as the glass harmonica.

And of course, glass music virtuoso Lynn Drye!
For real folks, she's one of the few glass music concert artists in the world today! How many of you out there can say that for yourselves.

Is that more than enough Glass Harmonica information for you? If you're ever in Philly, take yourself to the Ben Franklin Institue and see Mr. Franklin's real-life Glass Armonica (no typo--no lie!) in person. Spooky!

C'est Trivial Tackles! after all...