the best detective's a child detective

Billboard April 22

• Here's also my review of Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe.
  
• It is awesome.
  
• Like if Meg Cabot had written Lulu Dark.
  
• Not that I don't love Lulu with all my snarky little heart and lie awake nights waiting for the Summer of the Fox to begin, of course.
  
• Because I do.
  
• Very very much.
  
• Even more than I used to like Pearl Jam, who are the Billboard cover band this time.
  
• aaa--I just got completely sucked into Bennett's blog. Lulu has a mixtape now!
  
• That's so exciting.
  
• Actually, it looks like Penguin's doing mixes for various YA books.
  
• Anyway, you should read Bad Kitty. It wins the PoBaL Best Use of Footnotes in a YA Novel Award for Achievement in the Field of Excellence.
  
• Which I just made up.
  
• Sarah Dessen, how dare you have a mix for Just Listen when the book is full of fake bands!?
  
• But anyway, it's a cool idea.
  
• You should also read Bad Kitty because its cover is sparkly and if you read it on your balcony, maybe the glitters will distract people walking below.
  
• And Jasmine lifts fingerprints with eyeshadow.
  
• And there's a giant pink sparkly van.
  
• With a CB radio.
  
• Seriously, dude--it's awesome.
  
• Oh, and her evil cousin and her evil cousin's BFF keep making up stupid slang ("fetch" anyone?) and one of the things they say is that things are "visa" b/c they're everywhere you want to be.
  
• Which just reminds me of "A Fish Called Selma" and Troy McClure telling Selma that JubJub was everywhere she wanted to be.
  
• It just got crazy at the library: books on mudpies, computer sign-ups, overly difficult phone computer signups, unnecessarily loud storytime...
  
• Oh my god, I haven't even opened the damn issue yet.
  
• Either Madonna has extremely well-defined kneecaps or she fucked her leg up shaving.
  
• Today's No Shit Sherlock Award goes to...
  
• "James Blunt sells better at mass-market chains."
  
• Man, I'm giving awards away left and right today, aren't I?
  
• One of my patrons was singing "Scotty Doesn't Know" and now I can't get it out of my head.
  
• boring, boring
  
• "Windy City indie-flavored Web site Pitchfork"
  
• Yeah, Pitchfork is indie-flavored like Legs is slightly an asshole.
  
• If I had the energy, I'd go to Underground Garage to find out how Li'l Steven's list is chosen.
  
• However, due to some weeks-old shitty math I discovered at the beginning of my dinner break yesterday leading to hours of Jessy break-down neurotic fun, I didn't really eat yesterday.
  
• By the time the shitty math was corrected, it was too late to eat anything and not feel gross (you know, how you eat too late and you feel gross?).
  
• It's been a long long time since I've had a day that food-void. I think the last one was when I was afraid to eat b/c I thought my period was making me nauseous, when really it was the months-out-of-date painkillers at Kinko's.
  
• Wait--Jack White is having a baby!?
  
• No one ever tells me anything before they tell Li'l Steven.
  
• ...long article about the return of pop.
  
• You guys, I'm kind of sick of that song that samples "Tainted Love". Remember when I was all excited about it? So very long ago...
  
• I've also ALMOST officially given up on the OC.
  
• I just don't give a shit anymore.
  
• But I'll still read the TWOP recaps.
  
• Soul Asylum are coming out with a new album.
  
• You know, I think I need to repeat that.
  
• In all caps.
  
• SOUL ASYLUM ARE COMING OUT WITH A NEW ALBUM.
  
• Yeesh.
  
• But will this one help find missing kids?
  
• Wait, Tommy Stinson's on it?
  
• Iggy Pop's got the 6 questions.
  
• "If I'm going to try a couple tracks with Green Day, why not get the original band?"
  
• I love you, Iggy Pop.

We're locked out of the public eye

I think I've figured out why Sarah Dessen's books aren't my cup of tea.
It's not just that their stories about normal girls (and we all know my normal girl issues).
--OK, I should stop and say I really haven't read very many of her books. I'm barely a 1/4 of the way through Just Listen* and I read This Lullaby a couple years ago. The only reason I picked that up was because, shortly after determining that, yes, teenlibrarianship is totally my calling, I grabbed the Best Books for YAs list and read my way down. So the rest of her books could be completely different: I don't know. Reading Just Listen was supposed to be me giving Ms Dessen another shot, plus the story sounded good. C'mon, who doesn't love "Owen Armstrong--intense, obsessed with music, and determined to always tell the truth"?**
Yeah, Owen's obsessed with music, but it's clear that this book's intended audience is not. It's not just the usual "he's wears black so it must be loud" passage (although tons o' props for the oxblood Docs mention--you really can't go wrong with oxblood Docs, can you?) It's that the narrator keeps mentioning his iPod without a lick of curiousity as to what's on it. Our girls Andrea Marr, Bleu Finnegan, Cyd Charisse, or Samantha Madison would care, just like I would. Bleu and Sam would make an ass out of themselves to find out, with slapstick hilarity ensuing. Just like I would, most likely.
When Owen gives Annabel a ride home, none of the cds he moves off the passenger seat are named. I think this might have been the point where I said to the book, out loud (in my apartment--don't worry, my next door neighbors were too busy blaring "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Another Day in Paradise" at 11pm on a Monday to notice), "C'mon! What's he listening to!?"
Plus, all obscure bands are made up, so if some girl was reading this and wanted to get into weird unknown music, she couldn't just google any of the stuff Owen plays on his radio show. Doesn't Sarah Dessen have people she could sucker into doing this kind of research? Hell, I'd do it for free. (Suddenly, Owen becomes a HUGE Belle & Sebastian fan...)
Look, I know rampant playlists would make the book twice as long (at least) and naming real popstars dates a book like a bitch, but there's an argument to be made that it places it more in a specific place and time.
Actually, a big complaint I had against This Lullaby was its lack of a concrete place. I prefer books with definite settings, whether I like that setting or not. I hated living in Philadelphia; I love when they get Rita's water ice in Anyone But You (actually Jersey, but around Phila--you get my point).
And that's a lot to take for a girl whose work computer is full of things like the online Girlysounds songs and "All Songs Considered" podcasts.
Owen reminds me of a conversation Tiff & I have had several times about our growing impatience with Thurston Moore. When you're in high school and haven't met very many cool weird kids, Thurston was the best thing going. He's obsessed with records, he loves talking about them and weird pop culture stuff, and he's got such the Cool Girlfriend. Then you get to college, and every boy you meet is a Thurston, and an ass. Except they don't want Cool Girlfriends. They want girls they can teach all about records and "good" music.
Which makes the end of this book especially irritating. Annabel becomes a perfect little music pupil/girlfriend. Oh, yeah, her home life gets better and she learns how to deal and speak up a bit, so that's nice.
This doesn't mean I won't recommend this book to anyone who I think it would be a good match for. It's just when it comes to thoughtful normal girl fiction, my personal reading money's on Deb Caletti and/or Maureen Johnson (seriously, do yourself a favor and read Keys to the Golden Firebird).

*This is when I started writing; I've since finished the book. And realized that, if I want to get any projects done evenings after work, I need to stop taking home my current book.
**Anyone else catch Henry Rollins on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" this week? Awesome, and I'll buy Sarah Dessen a drink if she can tell me Owen isn't based on Hank with a straight face.

chatting and posing and whatnot

Hot damn on a biscuit, I'm a professional bitch.

Yeah, I grabbed the library copy of Why Girls Are Weird to get the quote right.
I also like how ridiculously nervous we both look, and how awesomely inept my dimetrodon paper protector/folder thing is.

Something To Husker

Billboard April 15, 2006

• Man, my office mate was listening to Keane, and now I totally need something thrashy.
  
• Maybe that's why I've got the sudden urge to buy Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take out the Trash for the library.
  
• Or maybe it's that I've got "I Hate Music" stuck in my head...
  
• And, yeah, I realize that there are much MUCH better Mats albums to buy (we don't have any right now), but I think I could sell this one to my kids the best.
  
• Plus, we all know I'm a sucker for desperation + poor production values.
  
• I'll be right back. I'm gonna go sort through our cds...
  
• heh--I forgot about that Screeching Weasel cd I bought.
  
• Yeah, I need to go get some headphones to listen to that, though. I can at least put it on the iTunes for when I've got the office to myself.
  
• It's way too mean to play that out loud around people who are too midwest polite to call me on it.
  
• Really, I should be playing with 5th graders today, but that was cancelled.
  
• beating a dead horse: our copy of Nailed has the ISBN13 sticker over part of the publisher info on the back.
  
• Eh, the excerpt actually.
  
• ANNOYING.
  
• Dido looks different here.
  
• Is boogadaboogadaboogada still importing? I kinda forgot about it...
  
• I think there was a contest to pick the worst picture of Roy Orbison possible.
  
• Avril Levigne is wearing what looks like a very cute sweatervest (black, with yarnover holes in an argyle shape and plaid and what looks like maybe a skull sewn on it) and an AWESOME glittery dangly skull bar pin thing.
  
• Seriously. It's very cool.
  
• But then, we all know what a sucker I am for glitter + skulls.
  
• Is it just me, or does the new Pearl Jam single sound EXACTLY FUCKING LIKE EVERY SINGLE OFF TEN?
  
• Seriously, guys, what's up with the backwards?
  
• oh, and Touch Me, I'm Dick.
  
• Plus, as Tiff reminded me and Wacky Neighbor Billy, "A compliment for me, is a compliment for us."
  
• Tower's got an online bookstore now.
  
• I actually bought David Foster Wallace's Girl with Curious Hair short story comp at the Tower Records in Austin, thinking it would be good for the planeride back.
  
• It wasn't.
  
• Then I found Our Dumb Century in a bookstore in the Chicago airport (I was pretending I was in a Galaxie 500 video as we flew in) and ruined my eyes reading the tiny print by my seatlight 'til Pittsburgh.
  
• Where Tiff'n'Alison met me with a sign with my name on it.
  
• Look, that guy has the same name we do!
  
• Little Steven's trying to convince me The Vines don't suck.
  
• Nice try, Li'l Steven.
  
• Agh! Giant picture of the Doors!
  
• Scary.
  
• I much prefer this teeny picture from entourage, of Adrian Grenier/Rory Cochrane.
  
• blah blah blah giant Rascal Flatts section...
  
• Billboard is like the worst offender of entertainment/advertising I've ever seen.
  
• My Intro to Women's Studies (bka The Media Is Evil 101) professor would plotz.
  
• We already have the new album on order, anyway.
  
• Velvet Revolver and George Michael are working on new stuff.
  
• Not together though.
  
• Man, how kickass would that be!?
  
• Dear god, I'm taking the magazine's advice on new bands now. That's scary, but so far (about 20 seconds), I'm liking Office.
  
• Definitely not the trash I was wanting earlier, but more populated-corner-of-the-library friendly.
  
• Panic! At the Disco is boring. And that guy's haircut works much better on what's his face from The HIves.
  
• You know what song I'm loving right now? "Eleanor Get Your Boots On"
  
• Seriously, it's totally awesome.
  
• The Brand New Heavies have a new album coming out?
  
• This review of the new Built To Spill is says pretty much the same thing as the Pitchfork one, but in a nicer way.
  
• I really like it, by the way.
  
• And so does Liz, if you haven't read that comment yet.
  
• Also, I'm assuming that I don't need to link to the Pitchfork review; that those of you that care have already read it.
  
• My little green and white bungalow is still for sale.
  
• I'm really liking what I'm hearing from Office right now.
  
• Plus, I can't help but miss the crap white collar job hipster contingent.
  
• I was such a part of it for so long, you know?
  
• If you have $800, you could have 100 12"s. How tempting is that!?
  
• WTF: "actor-turned-musician John Corbett"

It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)

Did your high school have Channel 1? My high school had Channel 1.
Rob Thomas worked for Channel 1.*
He wrote a book called Satellite Down about a kid named Patrick Sheridan whose high school has Classroom Direct.
(Other things Rob Thomas has written: a YA novel called Rats Saw God [flashback!], Veronica Mars, Drive Me Crazy**.)
If your school didn't have Channel 1, and right now you're trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about (more so than usual), here you go. Basically, it's a news show geared towards teenagers, shown in classrooms. It has A LOT of ads. All for stereotypically teenagery things. I remember a lot of pop and gum commercials, myself. And a really annoying one about studying abroad with the B-52s song "Roam" in it. In exchange for a captive audience to advertise to, schools get tvs in every room with a close-circuit-thingy, that they can theoretically use to broadcast stuff on their own.
Mostly what I remember about Channel 1 was everyone ignoring it. Homeroom is fuckin' early, most people are talking, etc. I always wondered what one extra subliminal Pepsi/Coke (see? I don't remember. I'm going to assume Pepsi, based on their irritating mid90s "Coke is for old people" pitch.) or Big Red (I remember this b/c I've always wondered what's so breath-freshening about cinnamon) would really change about everyone's consumption, and how much the ad rate would change if execs knew how little attention was being paid.
You know, when I didn't think the whole thing was the scum of the earth and terrifically offensive. I believe I've mentioned before that I went through my humorless feminist phase around 9th-10th grade?
I have 2 programming memories of Channel 1.

1. Being asked if the band they were talking about was the same one on my shirt the Monday after Kurt Cobain killed himself. (Yes, I wore the shirt then. Shut up.)
   
2. A couple of the Ramones guest-hosted one morning. Boy, if you want crap guest-hosts of a news show, pick some Ramones. Their cue card reading was OBVIOUS and HILARIOUS. And momentarily distracted me from the fact that I was the only one in the building who knew who they were. This is not an exaggeration.

Now that I think about it, maybe the huge advertising rates were justified. I mean, I almost always had my nose in a book/my journal, attempting to let the black coffee work its magic (you're getting a great picture of the kind of teen I was, aren't you?), but I can distinctly remember that damn Big Red commercial. People were, like, kissing. And smelling all cinnamony, I'm assuming. Which is, as I mentioned already, gross. And there was a UFO.

Obligatory "It's a Review! I Swear" Comment: Patrick's kind of a dumbass. And just when you thought he's learned to be less of a dumbass, he's pulls the world's biggest feat of dumbassery. I mean, I get not being able to say to Channel 1 head honcho-guy, No one watches, or, I hate this stupid hat, but the whole--SPOILER! SPOILER!--insinuating he slept with a female friend to her jackass crush to, what? save her from said jackass crush? I don't get it. I did enjoy the trip down Channel 1 Memory Lane, though.

*Not the Matchbox 20 guy.
**Which is actually based on a novel by a guy named Todd Strasser, which I didn't think was as good as the movie, but then, reading didn't involve staring at Adrian Grenier. Who I sometimes confuse with Rory Cochrane. Wait! They were both in The Adventures of Sebastian Cole!? Man, I get so easily distracted by IMDB.

I cleaned out my car & found my Neutral Milk Hotel cd.

Billboard April 8 2006.

• New Built To Spill today.
  
• I'm planning on buying it on my way to Indianapolis this afternoon.
  
• Everyone wish me luck on my panel thing!
  
• Is there an Ulta or Sephora in Indy?
  
• I totally need some new perfume.
  
• I also believe I will tell the story of the Last Time I Was In Indianapolis when I come back.
  
• Hey, no double cover action this week. That's nice.
  
• Jenny Lewis is not looking cute here.
  
• Wide stripes on a mini-dress with a giant sash is not a good choice.
  
• Wait, the Get Up Kids broke up?
  
• I'm so behind the not-relevant-anymore times.
  
• Hee--Little Steven is making up band names in his column.
  
• OK, until I can get a full-on iPod/phone and not just "Download 4 songs to your cell!", I don't care about the shit you can put on your phone.
  
• Plus, I'm not worrying about iPod-type stuff until I move back to the Land of Commuting By Public Transportation and Walking.
  
• You know, some asshole in the small town I work in cut me off yesterday while I was trying to cross the street and totally had the right of way.
  
• No one remembers pedestrian around here. It's weird.
  
• And then the maintenance man for the library I guess honked at me from his truck.
  
• I realize there's a lot of things about GirlWorld that boys/men don't know about, but you have to realize if I'm walking down the street and someone just honks, I'm going to ignore it.
  
• Much like, if you see me on the street, you must call out my actual name, because no girl worth her salt responds to "Hey, girl!"
  
• Where'd the expression "worth her salt" come from anyway?
  
• You'd think I'd know that; I did read the damn history of salt book after all.
  
• Oh, god, Chryssie "I'm not a Feminazi" Hynde is doing 6 questions.
  
• Why do I feel this is somehow related to all the Davies-solo-album press?
  
• Oh, Pretenders have a box set coming out.
  
• "I never had [another] girl in the band, because I never wanted it to get too emotional."
  
• There's only one Pretenders song I really like anyway: "Back on the Chain Gang"
  
• I guess I'm just too much of an emotional girl for them.
  
• Maybe it's because it's that time of the month.
  
• Queensryche have a new album coming out.
  
• There's this adorable little white-with-green-trim fairy tale looking bungalow in the real estate section.
  
• It looks like the house Dirk and Weetzie inherit from his grandmother.
  
• Wait--Alice in Chains are still a band?
  
• Did they pull an INXS?
  
• Or do they have a Bernie who moved into singer mode?
  
• And Dave Navarro's in a band called Panic Channel now?
  
• John Varvatos served mini-corndogs at the launch of his new (cheaper) collection? That's awesome.
  
• AND the New York Dolls performed!
  
• Without Johnny Thunders, presumably.

Who's on top and who's on bottom now!?

Last night, I spent two and a half hours reading a V.C. Andrews book, when I should have been doing any number of things. For some reason, though, I didn't open the wine from the Liquor Barn next to Shalimar.*
And I know you want to hear all about the book.
I got it at my library's kickass annual Friends booksale, on $3/bag day.**
This is what Dawn looks like:

(the Amazon excerpt is a good bit)

At the beginning of the book, Dawn is a naive 14yrold living with her 16yrold brother Jimmy, her dad Ormond, and her mother, Sarah Jane. Who is pregnant with Fern.
A close reader (by which I mean one who has read at least one other trashy novel and/or is not a moron) will notice that, while Jimmy and their parents all have dark complections (Gypsies? Mexican? Injuns? Which do you think is most romantical?), Dawn is Blondy "Freckles" McBlueEyes.
That close reader will also notice that Dawn describes her love interest, Philip, as having similar looks to hers. Several times.
And anyone who knows anything about V.C. Andrews will expect someone to sleep with their brother any damn minute now.

Dawn doesn't disappoint. She actually hooks up with TWO brothers: Jimmy (after it's determined that they aren't related, though there's this whole bit about how their "hearts knew all along" they weren't related or something) and Philip. Philip and Dawn make out before AND after they find out they're siblings. Actually, Philip rapes Dawn in a very Spike and Buffy in the bathroom scene.
The bathroom off the tiny room on the ground floor of her new rich family's huge hotel/estate in Virginia Beach. Dawn is given the tiny room and made to be a chambermaid by her Evil Grandmother***, who totally rules over everything and everyone at the hotel.
But wait! Evil Grandmother isn't actually her grandmother! Dawn's mother was a tramp and got pregnant by a traveling musician (so that's why grandmother was so mad Dawn sang at her...), so Evil Grandmother came up with this plan where they would give Dawn to Ormond and SJ, who had just had a stillborn baby, and pretend to the rest of the world, including Evil Grandmother's son, that Dawn had been stolen away.
And Dawn's real name is Eugenia, and for some reason in a book with a 1990 copyright, everyone acts like being named Dawn is the craziest thing ever.

This book has 2 sequels. Considering that I'm pissed off at my usual hot weather trashy author, Anne Rice, for what she did to Mona Mayfair, I'm looking forward to both of them. Unfortunately, this will probably mean breaking my unspoken rule about only buying V.C. Andrews' books at library booksales.




*God bless Kentucky, and especially Louisville, where you can buy booze after 1 on Sundays. It just warms my little Quaker-liquor-laws-raised heart.
**Stay tuned for more PoBaL posts re: this years booksale. I got 2 disgusting chairs for $1 and several books of outdated sexual advice for teenagers.
***Everyone talks about V.C. Andrews penchant for the hot, hot incest, but I can't be the only person who wonders what she's got against grammas. Her books always have mean, nasty, control-freak grandmothers who everyone is afraid to cross, even to the point of poisoning their own children.

Got some extra $$?

YA library book drive.

Professional Sacrifice

I would totally wear this.

***
Oh, and Snakes on a Plane just gets better and better: Dick from High Fidelity is gonna be in it. I bet you he dies real early on, though.
Who's going to see this with me!?