That's in juvenile. This is Young Adult.

...or, "It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry."

Last week, one of my coworkers was on the phone for twenty minutes, giving by-the-minute direction action to him while he drove over half an hour to get to our library. You know the kind: "OK, coming up on your left is a Skyline...let me know when you get there..."
What was this patron coming for? Doogie Howser dvds.
The week before that, we all laughed uproariously when another teen librarian told a story about a teen's spectacularly false claims of Dance Dance Revolution mastery. In my head, it looked a lot like the dance scene in Better Off Dead.

(I couldn't find the dance scene. Sorry.)
So is it any wonder that yesterday on my first trip to the record store in the painfully hip part of town I went looking for and then asked the clerk where I could find the new Arctic Fire album.
I also bought this super-cute li'l guy:

I'm so all about Japanese and fauxJapanese surprise toys for "grownups".
And then I went home and did my taxes with an excellent soundtrack.

A Song of Modern Love

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain



We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain

But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away



Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...
on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone



And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain



(I came up with this stupidly funny idea while driving to work this morning. And I promised an invalid Tiff I'd post something entertaining today. Well, at least I think it's entertaining.)

Lying in wait at the Birmingham Mall.

So I was thinking this morning about the AV catalogers I know, and the catalogers I know who are supposed to be general and do AV but don't.
And then I was thinking about how libraries are always all riled up about being more like those bookstores who totally modeled themselves after libraries in the first place.
So now I wonder: When are we going to start modeling our music and movie collections like they do at those stores? (And, yes, I'm fully aware that everyone thinks the music store is dead. Bear with me, and just think about the music sections of Walmart or Target or whatever, ok?)
My library organizes most DVDs into "general" and "feature". As far as I can tell, none of my coworkers know what the distinction is. We all have guesses though. Wouldn't it be easier on the patrons to do like Blockbuster and organize by genre, or do like the stores and just do straight alphabetical? The other library I use doesn't have an anime or a TV programs section. If you want to check out, say, the 6th season of Gilmore Girls (guess what I'm at the library for...), you have to figure out whether some cataloger thought the show was more drama or comedy. Needless to say, most anime winds up in sci-fi. Wouldn't it be easier on the anime fans to throw that stuff all together?
If we can get things like the newest Harry Potter before its street date so that libraries have copies available for check out (or, as is more likely, on the hold shelf) the same day people can buy it, shouldn't we be able to do the same with new DVDs and CDs?

The mixture is all of us and we're still mixing.

I went to the new city this weekend to look at apartments. Because I'm a huge fucking stereotype, I rock the NPR in any city. In fact, I've actually figured out vaguely what time I should drive through the middle of Ohio when I go home for holidays, so I can listen to This American Life and Le Show.
And yet, I always forget about Louisville's 2 goddam hours of What Do You Know., which Cara and I like to call "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me for people without a sense of humor".
There's also this show I hadn't heard of yet, called Weekend America. It annoyed me. A lot.
For starters, it's the weekend before a ginormous election (that I'm not going to be voting in, but that's a story for another day), so of course that's all anyone's talking about. They had a "blue stater, red stater, and a purpler stater" divvy up things, like an argument about whether the Hubble telescope is more blue or red state.
I hate that red/blue state crap. I mean, I live in a--wait, red, right? It's confusing when you think of yourself as a red diaper baby, but red means the opposite thing now, I guess? I don't fucking know--
In any event, I hate the idea that everyone in the state thinks that way. It's like all this "Hoosier values" bullshit. Technically, I'm a Hoosier. I also think 2 girls should be able to marry each other if they want. Is that a Hoosier value now?
So anyway, I'm driving, and it occurs to me--how much of this red/blue crap is a function of the electoral college?* If it was a popular vote, maybe we could stop pretending that everyone in New York City is in love with Hilary Clinton, and everyone in Indiana thinks she's the devil.
***
And it's not enough to offend the good little liberal in me; after this mess, Weekend America pulls out some new cds from the past week, including the produced-by-Ryan-Adams Willie Nelson album. The "Amazing Grace" cover was pretty interesting, but kind of reminded me of how after Jerry Garcia died all the hippies acted like Bob Dylan was their new messiah. But with Johnny Cash instead of Jerry Garcia. The worst, though (oh, I should probably also mention I'm not much of a Ryan Adams fan...), was the song that started with just Willie and a guitar, and I'm down, and it's good, and then the chorus starts and Ryan has all this "rockin'" start and he didn't adjust Willie's voice and it just gets smushed out.
Yuck.
***
Oh, and I did find a place.

*Yes, I'm perfectly aware that I'm the last blogger in the universe to bitch about the electoral college, and that it's totally 2000 to do so.

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.

the kind that are only sorta hot, so they don't mess around with other guys

Just another periodic PoBaL review clearing house. Book reviews coming soon.

Silver Jews in Columbus, March 25.
My damn cheap digital camera apparently ate all the pictures I took at the show, which = lame.
This was a great show. In any other (non-B&S-seeing) month, this would be the best show I'd seen in awhile. But it feels pretty stupid to say something's the best in the past 2 weeks, so let's just forget all that, shall we?
They played lots of stuff, including a song by Cassie Berman, who's got an amazing voice and was wearing a really great velvet dress. I looked on flickr for pictures, but no one had any up yet. I wasn't even disappointed by the lack of room renting song.
And I had a PBR in a bottle, and wondered why I don't more often. Not even comparible (-able?) to PBR in a can...
This was a good weekend in general, what with a visit to the more-and-more internet popular Tiff, the discovery of a good record store, and H&M insanity.
I also took a picture outside the Chipotle we had lunch in on Sunday.

TransAmerica
A very good movie. Shitty popcorn, but a good movie. Sweet and funny, and with lots of shirtless shots of the male-hustler-pretty son. And a surprisingly attractive dirty hippie.

The Contrast Forget to Tell the Time
My favorite record stores are ones with lots and lots of listening stations. Because I don't tend to read about music, or keep up on what I'm supposed to like, I have the most success finding new cds I like when I can listen to parts of them. I try out a few song intros, see what the singing sounds like, listen to a chorus or 2, and then I can usually tell if I should buy it or not.
Even after using this method AND praise from the would-have-been-cute-if-beardless clerk (quoth Tiff: "Maybe they can, like, smell it on you that you made out with one of them."), this album was a bit of a disappointment. At its best, I felt like I could have been on an date with Duckie, Randy, or Fred Bailey. (Yes, I looked up the male characters' names in Valley Girl. I'm procrastinating here.) You know, in the clubs where bands are playing and perfectly audible conversations with cute new wave boys happen simultaneously? I always wanted to go to one of those clubs. In real life, however, my hearing sucks and I get shirty if anyone tries to talk to me while the band is playing anyway.
At it's worst, I was reminded of the crap I listened to in the very early 90s (Gin Blossoms and such), with ham-fisted lyrics. Really, I think my biggest complaint is with the lyrics, and the singer's voice sometimes getting all irritatingly emotive.
Mostly, it reminded me of The Smithereens, which is never a bad thing.

Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
What if social groups were like on "trendy" PBS and Nickelodeon kids shows, where every peer group includes a representative from every demographic?
If they were, the Mike Skinner of A Grand Don't Come For Free and the Arctic Monkeys would be buddies. This album has the same feel, but a different sound.
Let me try this again:
If there's a bar somewhere in England where a beautiful rich girl chats up Jarvis Cocker for a trip to the supermarket (I don't see anyone else there smiling.), the Arctic Monkeys are working on taking her moderately attractive, drunk-off-her-ass friend home.
And not quite succeeding.
And getting pissy about it.
And then forgetting all about her by closing time.
I would've bought this at the kickass Dayton record store Tiff took me to, but I already had the library's copy in my new white purse and would've felt silly with 2.

The Deathray Davies The Kick and the Snare
Continuing the Smithereens, Son of Nuggets, etc. trend, I was a bit reminded of that with this record, too. Mostly the song "In Circles" felt a bit like "Cigarette", which is a damn fine song.
This is much more power-poppy, though--also a good thing. Actually, a great thing.
Isn't it always the way, that when you buy one new cd and one used cd, you like the used one better?

Here's a game.

Or a study in random associations and non sequitors. Even more than one usually finds here, maybe.
I've got 3 songs here with distinct memories/associations. I'm going to tell you what they are and we'll all be entertained.
Then you're going to take these 2 and add one song and give some stories about them on your blog thing. We'll all be entertained some more.
This'll be fun, I swear.

1. Common People--Pulp
   Not technically 80s, and yet still the most popular song at Pittsburgh 80s Night.
   Also the song I tend to speed the most on if it shows up while I'm driving.
   
2. The Greatest Love of All--Whitney Houston
   I wish this song only reminded me of Say Anything, but this is the song we sang at my 6th grade graduation. I was disappointed because the year before, the graduating class sang that New Kids on the Block song with the video of them singing on stools in front of a sky background. What was the name of that? I think it was maybe on the Christmas album.
   When my dad took pictures at my high school graduation, it was on the same roll of film from the 6th grade one.
   
3. Centerfold--J. Geils Band
   Aaaah, Pop-Up Video, who told me about the singer rooming with David Lynch. What an amazing show. And quite a board game as well, especially a drinking game.
   A drinking game I played with, among other people, Cindy, who once thrifted a kids game involving throwing things into a green plastic toilet. She tried to turn that into a drinking game as well. I also remember Cindy finding: the Sweet Valley High game, a Ghostwriter game (not to be confused with the Ghostwriter drinking game Tiff and I made up), and this game of cards, some with boys on them and others with personality issues, and you were supposed to determine which issue you would ignore for which boy. Or something. Except the guys were all ugly, in that particularly 80s "hot" way.
   And then we changed the issue cards to say ridiculous things.
   What I really think about when I hear "Centerfold", though, is the Nothing Painted Blue cover of it, which was on like every mixtape me or Tiff made the summer 2000. Or maybe we just always listened to a very small number of tapes in Midge.
   She had never listened to the 45 that came with Monte Carlo Method and commented on the song one day. I think I said something like, dude, don't you have this too?
   But I don't remember if I was calling people "dude" then or not. Probably pulled out the "go back to Russia" I was digging into the ground then, though.
   And while we've got the Summer 2000 going, I could go into my James-from-Twin Peaks obsession, but I'll spare everyone.
   
   
   

feel sick and dirty / more dead than alive

If you thought the casting of Mrs. Jude Law was the worst thing about the forthcoming Factory Girl, you've got another think coming.

and we'll take a cup o kindness yet

Do people make New Year's resolutions because they want to become better people, or because they think resolutions make them seem like they are becoming better people?
I got a call from my xboyfriend last night. This guy. Who I haven't spoken to, incidentally, since that conversation. He called because, in his words, his New Year's resolution was to "have a better relationship with [me]."
!!!
Have all the girls he's dated got (gotten?) these calls? Is this some sort of "What does it all mean?" thing? ()I kind of hope it wasn't just me; seems less weird that way.
Ever notice how, sometimes, Mr SensitivePonytailMan-ness and plain good sense are at opposite ends of the room? Or, as the case may be, the phone?

A Coincidence?
So today, while I was making a big gluey mess (my favorite kind) and getting all giddy about March 9, I decided to read Pitchfork. Because "paying more attention to music" is my New Year's resolution. (Shut up, you: it's the non-secret one.)
There's a review of the new Strokes album.
--Of course, if you're anything like me, your reaction to this was, "The Strokes have a new album? Why?"--
Now, I just think the timing of this is funny, if it is in fact a coincidence, because, while Andy and I rarely fought, argued, or debated (there are several reasons for this, some less functional than others), we used to bicker about The Strokes all the damn time.
Boring, overrated, and way too clean, I'd say.
Not so! Seen them live, he'd counter.
Am I allowed to read his calling me as the ultimate acknowledgement that, deep down, he's always known how right I was about Casablancas & Co.?

Boys, movies, and shopping too/My favorite things/I thought you knew

Tiff and I used to be roommates. When you live with a good friend like that, there's always the danger that your extreme likes or dislikes will cement into these ridiculous statements and/or obsessions. Since we both have this tendency anyway, things were kind of in overdrive for awhile.
We wrote a Ghostwriter drinking game. (Although, technically, we didn't live together yet here. I just spent a hell of a lot of time at her 'n' Cindy's place avoiding Ken the assface boy.)
We paid for big sexy cable.
Big sexy cable included, among other things, M2 and VH1 Classic.
At some point, we decided that it was okay for us to like Thursday:
*they were cute
*the song was catchy and pretty good, for cash-in emo stuff
*most importantly, there was Super 8 in the video
The first time I heard "Sugar I'm Going Down Swinging" or whatever it's called, I was reminded of our Thursday arguements. Because I believe I'd like to recycle them for this song, which I kind of secretly, kind of unabashedly like. Just replace "super 8" with "Simpsons reference" and we're all good.

This post is my list of some kickass stuff that came out this year, in no particular order. (And I don't want to hear any technically2004 bits. Sometimes I'm late, okay?)
And I'll probably forget a ton of stuff.

I've got a convenient list of a ton o' stuff that came out, YA book-wise, open in another window, so let's start with that.

The repetitive part:
How can I convince you guys to read Looking for Alaska if you haven't listened to me yet? Just trust me on this one.
I really did go on and on about Prom, but then the stupid internet ate it.
Here's where I gush about A Room on Lorelei Street and Peeps.
I was dating a 20yrold; I was reading a book by a 20yrold; synergy! Or something.


24 Girls in 7 Days is bookish crack. It's Say Anything in book form, kinda. Without actually being much of anything like Say Anything.
Far From Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters. You can see the trainwreck coming and you want to reach into the book and stop it, but not in a bad way.
I need to stop and say something here about David Levithan. Boy Meets Boy makes me sad. It makes me sad because I hate to think that the only world where a boy can meet a boy and have only the same level of angst as your average boy-girl meet is also one this forcibly whimsical.
I don't need a crossdressing quarterback/homecoming queen for a sweet love story to work.
I know a lot of people have called this magic realism and tried to work that angle, but that just doesn't feel right to me.
As far as poetry goes, I can stand Realm of Possibility.
Are We There Yet, however, is one of my picks for 2005, I think, even though I forget about it sometimes. 2 brothers who never get along, vaguely Oscar-and-Felixish but not simplistically so, are conned into a trip to Italy by their parents. I guess the whole point of stories a lot of the time is to see into someone else's viewpoint, and this book, with its dual narration, does that beautifully.

Enough of this grown-up beautiful crap. Valiant by Holly Black is totally one of 15yroldJessy's new favorite books. The Spiderwick Field Guide thing is pretty amazing, too.

And Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last is my favorite of the Susan Juby Alice books. True awesomeness, and I really need to find a Canadian to tape the tv show for me. (Not to be confused with Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Alice, who I've successfully avoided having to read for yet another year--go me and my immature aversion to books about seemingly boring "normal" teenagers and anything my YA lit professor recommended!)

Lulu Dark is the bestest accidental-detective-'cause-she-got-her-tacky-purse-stoled I'm pretty sure I've ever read about.

Did The Bermudez Triangle come out this year? Man, where did Maureen Johnson come from? And how come the big guys never talk about her? I like all her books, but this one's definitely my favorite.
The jacket tells you it's about what happens when your 2 best friends fall in love, with each other, but that's not it. What it's really about is what happens when one of your best friends fucks the other one over, the choices you have to make, and if you can really forgive a loved one for hurting another loved one really damn bad.
And who hasn't been in that situation? Isn't it called "college"?

Yeah, Twilight's pretty great, but any teenager with artificially black hair will tell you that; you don't need me.
You also don't need me to talk up Teach Me (substituting YA librarian for Blackie McManicPanic there). But I should say that I think this is the only book about an brittle perfectionist girl that hasn't annoyed the hell out of me.

Oh, and on the movie tip? I'd talk up Mysterious Skin and Serenity here, but I still haven't seen either one of them. Any interested-in-viewing parties should get back to me.

Serenity Rose is cute and funny and kind of spooky and the best kind of thoughtful, with very little cliche and no ham-fistedness. And that's really hard, especially in a comic about a witchgirl.

Oh, and Necklace of Kisses, of course.

And a year where Jacky Faber makes an appearance can't be all bad, right?

I come from Chino, where the asphalt sprouts.

(I'm still mad at myself for not using that as the title for my O.C.fest.)
The Mountain Goats are playing at the Warhol this Friday, and I'm just so mad I'm missing this.
Here's a quick list of other bands I've missed, that I really really really want to see someday:

1. The Shins: Driving to this show was when Buddy's thermostat-thing futzed out in Shelbyville. Nate had a great slightly fictionalized account of this on his website, but preliminary Google-ness isn't bringing anything up.
2. Morrissey: Do we need to mention the Ill-Fated Morrissy show? Do we?
3. Belle & Sebastian were playing Columbus one night, and I could have driven to see them, but I had a paper or exam or something the next day and decided to be a responsible little librarian-in-training instead. Stupid me.

Billboard Oct 22

• Billboard is now doing the same thing Publishers Weekly, where it has 2 covers and the first one is an ad masquerading as a magazine cover.
• Personally, I think it's sad that Thalia couldn't get on the cover, so she went the ad route instead.
• She'll show that Eric Clapton!
• OK, I'm pretty much over They Might Be Giants, but: knitted! KNITTED!
• So cute.
• They remind me of that video with the muppet-type puppets. Tiff knows what I'm talking about.
• And that reminds me of the State sketch where they eat Muppet.
• "I need someone to teach me about near and far!"
• They're making jukeboxes now with slots to scan a credit card.
• I guess now I have no choice but to save all my quarters for laundry.
• Even though, since I did 3 huge loads last night, I'll be able to hold out until Thanksgiving, and then 'til Christmas and can do it at home.
• Such a chicken or the egg:
• Do I hate doing laundry b/c I've got so many clothes and always wait til the last possible minute to schlep to the laundromat,
• or do I have so many clothes so I only have to worry about laundry once a month or so?
• MTV goes Canadian, again.
• Hot damn on a biscuit, Greg Dulli is a sexy bitch.
• Oh, and he's got a new album out or something, should be good.
• Rod Stewart irritates me.
• Here's a quick list of things about Rod Stewart that don't annoy me:
• jokes involving "If you think I'm sexy"
• "Maggie May" and covers of Maggie May
• a few assorted other Faces gems
• But this standards shit has got to go.
• And I'm not just saying that b/c the horrible "station" we played at Kinko's had them in serious rotation.
• I swear, that thing had like 50 songs that they'd just play over and over again.
• Sometimes, I'm in Denny's or something, and I'll recognize a song, then I'll recognize the next, and realize that they've got the same stupid station playing.
• I hate that.
• In Mexico, there are Dulce de Leche Kisses.
• and Mango and Tamarind Jolly Ranchers.
• How can I get my hands on these!?
• This is the best Soulful (TM) picture I've ever seen: sepia-toned, heavy glasses, downcast eyes, cord blazer, hand over one eye, wedding band prominently displayed.
• Was this taken by his daughter in her 9th grade photography class or something? Yeesh.
• Secretly Canadian is all over this thing.
• Cat Steven makes an appearance on the new Dolly Parton album. This is quite possibly the best thing I've heard in awhile.
• ooooooooooo, review of the new Silver Jews.
• and a review of the new Jordan Knight single, too.
• HEE
• "I've always wanted to marry Elton John," says Barry Manilow.

reason #612 on the Why Tiff Kicks Ass List

She's reading the entire Babysitters Club series and recapping them for our blog-reading pleasure.
***
Just for fun, here's a picture of Stuart in a hat, because I am 12.

Actually, I'm looking for a good pic for my Poster Boy bag, to be started sometime in January.

I'm rapidly becoming the Blog of Listy Goodness (depending on your opinion of goodness, of course).

I like music.
I like lists.
I like public transportation.
Seems like it's about damn time to combine these loves, no?

1. Belle and Sebastian "The State That I Am In": "Riding city buses for a hobby is sad." I did a hankie of this one, but mispelled buses, which always looks to me like a plural for Gary Busey.
2. And, in "The Boy With the Arab Strap", Stuart sings a line about missing the bus. He is my soul mate, after all.
3. Wilco "Far Far Away": "Kiss and ride on the CTA." One of my favorite public transportation lines. Tiff and I are such nerds that, on the magestic Spring Break Road Trip, we both made sure to get pictures of CTA buses.
4. Kris Kross missed the bus, and that is something that they'll never do again. This one might be a school bus, though.
5. Replacements "Kiss Me On the Bus". 'Nother hankie: "your tongue your transfer your hand your answer"
6. Violent Femmes "Waiting for the Bus". This used to be my goto I'm Running Late song.
7. The Bangles "Manic Monday". I liked this one better when I thought the line was "blame it on the train but the bus is already there," probably because I used to try and rationalize lateness by blaming a particular route, when another got there ages ago. Example: I missed the 61A by 30 seconds. The 71D takes 10 minutes longer to get to the same place. Can I blame the 71D for being 10 minutes and 30 seconds late to work?
8. The Who "Magic Bus"
9. Screeching Weasel "Totally": "The Belmont bus takes me right by your house"

More to be added as I think of them/people bring them to my attention.

I hate you, Found Magazine guy: I had that idea first.

Some index cards I found in a book (assume sic):

Slide 2
David Robert Jones was born January 8, 1947 In Brixton, London.

Slide 3
The instruments he played were saxophone, guitar, vocals, & keyboards.

Slide 4
He left Bromley Technical high school to work as a commercial artist for 3yrs. After that he started playing in bands such as: the Konrads, the King Bees, David Jones & the Buzz, the Manish Boys, & Davey Jones & the Lower 3rd
1966 he changed name to David Bowie so noone will get confused with him & the Monkee's Davey Jones.

Slide 5
Married Angela Barrett on March 20, 1970 & they had a son named Zowie now called Joey in June of 1971.

After they divorced he married somallian super model Iman & they are still married.

Slide 6
the albums that he made were Changes on bowie, Lust for life Tin machine, Tin Machine 2, & oy Vey, Baby.

Slide 7
Some of the movies he played in were the Labyrinth & the Man who Fell to Earth.

Slide 8
Pictures of Bowie.
Thanks for listening
***
This almost beats out that post-it drawing I found in a book in the teenhole at the Crescent Hill branch of the Louisville public library, with Trogdor and a girl Trogdor burninating peasants. That's on my fridge right now, next to Chynna Clugston-Major's Duran Duran story from Spin.

every now and then I fall apart

Have I outgrown Conor Oberst?
I checked I'm Wide Awake It's Morning out of my library (and yes, I'm the one that ordered it, too--it's hard to judge what buzz people in this town pay attention to, but there was just so damn much around this record). I listened to it this morning when NPR started to repeat. I don't know, I just found myself getting really impatient with it. First off, what's up with his monologue starting off the first track? I know part of my issue was with the fact that I had just put in the music cd because I didn't want to hear talking, and another problem is that, in just about any non-9-11 plane crash-related anecdote, that part of Mallrats starts playing in my head. This was a real problem when I first watched Almost Famous, what with Jason Lee actually being in it and all. But, c'mon Conor: less talk, more rock.
I have no patience with Conor talking on his albums because I'm one of the stupid, stupid people who bought Fevers and Mirrors on record. Seriously, people, don't make the same mistake I did. There's this whole fake college radio interview in the middle of it that's funny the first time you hear it, because it is so totally dead-on, but after that, you just want to get back to the music. But you can't, because it goes on forever. And you have it on record, so you can't just jump to the next track without actually getting up off your lazy ass. Also, I can't quite remember, but I want to say the "interview" is not only buried in the album side, it's also buried in a track.
I've always thought record reviews should also tell you what format is best for an album. Spin sort of does this, with the "download, buy, etc." column. Do they still do that? Or like, driving records used to always be best on tape, which is why I've never owned any Cure cds, and why my copies of It's a Shame About Ray and the Rushmore soundtrack were cassettes. Someone else owns all of them now...
***
With apologies to Tiff for accidental plagiarism or repetition.
I think the real thing with me and Bright Eyes is that they're one of the few bands that were so much about a particular time and place in my life that, even with the new stuff that comes out, my first reaction is nostalgia, not actual objective listening and possibly enjoyment. I hear Billy Corgan in any context, and I'm instantly 15 again, going to see Smashing Pumpkins at the Beaver Community College Epcot Center-lookin' thing with Cheryl Rosenfeld. It's like I have a block against thinking about or feeling anything else. Likewise, I hear Conor's voice and it's like a time machine back to the year after college. This is probably part of my Bright Eyes problem because, if you're anything like me, that first year after college graduation is one of the last years you want to relive, or be nostalgic about. Now add temping, Coffee Tree Roasters, and an ass-faced roommate, and you're where I was. I can still listen to A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 and enjoy it, but only after a walk down mental health denial letter memory lane. And that walk is even crappier than the one from my bed to the record player to skip the fake radio interview, believe you me.
Of course, Bright Eyes also makes remember the show at Roboto, where Conor knocked either his lap steel or his keyboard over (I don't remember which) and Tiff, Cindy, and I pretended to be 1960s model drawings (we did this a lot Spring-Summer 2001) and we saw deer in Schenley Park afterwards. Oh, and Conor asked if anyone had a place he could crash and every girl looked so hopeful, and simultaneously as scary as my cousin's brand-new sister-in-law when the bouquet was thrown at her wedding. At least, I think that was all at the same show. Times when the 3 of us acted like asses in front of Roboto all tend to blend together.
Her rock had been blinding me all day long, but she still needed to catch those damn flowers.
Maybe Conor's just too earnest for me anymore. And he's not self-mocking enough to make up for it, like all my other favorite desperate boy singers.

Is it just me, or is the second half of the Kaiser Chiefs record decidedly Blur-esque? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, though if I was listing my favorite British bands, there are several ones higher up than Blur.

UPDATE! May 23: So last night Melissa, Bryan and I were rocking some Trivial Pursuit and some Collection of Songs... At a particularly emotional point (in the cd, not the game), Bryan exclaims, "Oh my god! Is this guy getting stabbed or something!?"
And I think that just about ends my discussion of Bright Eyes. Couldn't have said it better myself, sir.

Do you sell walnuts?

Well, here I am on another dead Saturday. I was supposed to go out last night, but I've got this thing against paying a cover for bands downstairs when I know I'll be upstairs the whole night. Turns out I should've probably paid the extra money and deadened my senses with a little gin. Instead, I read for a bit (the first book of Lynne Ewing's new series*) and went to sleep, only to be woken up a couple hours later. Conceivably, this is when I would have been getting home anyway, except drunk enough to not notice that, due to my apartment's flimsy construction and wooden floors, it sounded like my downstairs neighbors were having a party in my closet. A party with a stereo nazi, because it's not bad enough that the Pixies, while awesome, don't exactly lull me to sleep, I also have to only hear the first third of every song. And I think someone downstairs was yelling about an ugly girl, and I was so mostly asleep and neurotic that my first thought was, oh no! they think I'm ugly!
I've actually been waiting for this to happen for some time, ever since I found out I was living above 2 guys still in college. This isn't a "oh you kids" thing, but it's true: when you're in school, you can pretty much do anything any time of day. Responsibility is different. You can even start hammering things at midnight, as my neighbors did last week.
Mostly, I'm not sure what to do. Not only do I want to be Mrs. Mean Old Lady Neighbor, I also understand that sound travels really fucking well in my building. Which is why I've been wondering what exactly they've heard from me. Embarrassing best friend phone conversations? Breakdownish Mom phone conversations? The stupid shit I say to my cats? None of this is what I want virtual strangers to hear. Maybe that's why people become more distant as they become more urbanized: no one wants to run into the neighbor they heard screaming at his kid the night before.

***
Random pop junk:

• What the hell is up with Point Pleasant? Who said, Let's combine Twin Peaks with the awkward Christianity of Joan of Arcadia and throw in the "satire" of Desperate Housewives and cast it with a bunch of "teenaged" boys, doe-eyed girls, and Housewives rejects, all of whom only serve to make Grant Show's acting abilities seem stellar? And what purpose did it serve to give Show's character a vaguely vintage suit and some broken dreams in the latest episode? Why don't they just let Warren be the evil guy, instead of what seems to be an ineffectual minion? Pure evil has to get out from behind the sign-up booth to turn the thermostat up to cause mayhem? Come on. I'm so perplexed; I must keep watching.
• Last night, between Pixies' songs and some unrecognizable dance-y stuff I heard the unmistakable sounds of "1979". First, let's take a moment to acknowledge that, despite not having heard this song in at least 6-7 years, I still immediately recognized it. Because, even though "1979" was never a particular favorite (I usually don't like the smash single off '90s albums--if I were rating Weezer, "Buddy Holly" would be at the bottom of the list) the Smashing Pumpkins SPOKE TO ME in high school. But you know what? Not so much after I turned 20 or so. Somehow, "I'm all by myself/as I've always felt" just isn't an amazing lyric to me anymore. It constantly surprises me that there are actually a lot of people my age who non-nostalgically like the Pumpkins, while it never surprises me that they still have 14 year old fans. In the words of Tiffany (the friend, not the mall pop princess), they're so high school deep, that I don't understand anyone over 21 taking Billy Corgan seriously. It's weird.
• Also along Tiffany-the-friend lines, she's working on a list of her favorite love songs, as an acknowledgement that it's not just another manic Monday coming up.** When you're talking about something like this, it's physically impossible to not start creating your own list. But you know, I'm not so well-versed on the love songs. I'm more a fan of the crush songs. Here's a list of some of my favorites:

1. "You and Me and the Moon"--Magnetic Fields ("I'm a little bit shy/you're easy on the eye")
2. "Minneapolis"--that dog.
3. "Long Island"--that dog.
4. "1-2 Crush on You"--The Clash
5. "Customer"--The Replacements
   

*Looks trashy and fun; mostly just boring. And I want to throttle Tolkein for making runes such a part of hackneyed fantasy. I tried to read Daughters of the Moon (or some such title), Ewing's other series, a couple years ago, when I was trying to quit Fearless' repetition cold turkey, and now I remember what drove me back to Francine Pascal's arms.
**I'm sorry, I really couldn't help that. It just typed itself, I swear.

California, here we come. Or, Street lights! People!

I'm bored and don't want to do any of the things on my "Stuff To Do At Work" list because all I want to do is get on the stupid Ohio roads in my new car and drive home, so here's my as-promised entry about The O.C.
You can take that as a warning to leave, if you want. Because this entry is just going to get shallower and shallower and girlie as hell, whether I get around to making "valid" points or not.
OK, first of all, this is a great show, that feels kind of targeted exactly to me. It's got the adult trashiness of Melrose Place, my favorite-est non-reality trashy show EVER, plus the added teen trashiness I never got to savor with Beverly Hills, 90210 because I was always too busy being a humorless sullen teenager during its glory days. It's also got the cute nebbish poindexter nice Jewish boy, who one would think would be right up the Jessy alley and the blond one, who I'm actually more attracted to for some reason. Who knew?
And then there's the music. I will always make excuses for the theme song, because Jason Schwartzman and I belong together. He's like the perfect mixture of poindexter and greasy hipster, plus he plays drums. (As a side note, if you're getting bored of my talk about certain cute boys, go find a Billboard magazine. There's a very pretty picture of Conor Oberst, and maybe you like him better. Also, The Ramones won some award and Marky accepted, being like the only one left, but they refer to him by his last name, as in, "Ramone accepted the award on behalf of the band." I thought this was funny, anyway.) Plus, in the first episode I actually got around to watching, Journey got name-dropped at a Walkmen concert. Two great tastes that taste great together. Plus, I welcome any excuse to tell my Walkmen concert story. And here it is:
For like 5 minutes when I lived in Philadelphia, there was a Steve Madden outlet near my apartment. Steve Maddens are great shoes for my skinny feet and I found these baby blue pointy mary jane flats. I would have gotten pink too, but I found the blue in my size first and Kinko's wasn't paying me enough or giving me enough opportunities to wear pastel colored shoes to rationalize getting both. The first time I wore my new shoes out I had them on with black tights, a very short houndstooth skirt and that boy's dark royal blue sweater. Me and my awesome outfit took ourselves to see The Walkmen, because the other band that I forget was playing way too far away and was more $$ and Alison Farinacci (who I'm still trying to confirm is not dead, by the way) had to study at the last minute and couldn't drive us back to Pittsburgh to meet Jon Scieska and get my Stinky Cheese Man bobblehead autographed. The Walkmen, on the other hand, were playing less than 5 blocks away at the indie rock frat. Yep, there's an indie rock frat at UPenn. And they had a keg, but you had to pour the beer into a Faygo can to drink downstairs, because YOU WERE AT A FRAT HOUSE. The show was really awesome, though, not in the least because This Radiant Boy opened and covered either a Pavement song or a GBV song (I saw them twice and don't remember which was when) and The Walkmen were super good, sounding more like what I've heard of the second album than the first. I hadn't heard them at all before I saw them, because I like doing that. Oh, and I ran into the kid who had come into Kinko's a few days before with a Super8 camera and met his roommates and Jesse Tei and Amy became fun friends for the rest of my Philadelphia stay. I should get in touch with them.
But the point of this story is that people in Philadelphia were still moshing 2 years ago and they moshed to The Walkmen in the indie rock frat and they moshed on my shoes, which is why I don't care what happens to my pointy baby blue mary jane flats, because they've had messed-up points since the very first time I wore them. And then The Walkmen were on a trashy tv show with cute boys. And I think we're full circle now, and can move on to the criticism of said trashy tv show.
I've been watching the first season dvds and, as much fun as I've been having, I can't help but be annoyed at the Seth/Anna thing. Once again, cool-seeming guy passes on cool cute fanboyish girl for normal boring girl. Although, throughout the whole Seth/Anna arc, I kept thinking, "Why are you surprised? You are supposed to be from Pittsburgh, the town that some days feels like it invented the cool boys only want boring girls issue."
And yet I still miss the stupid town.
***
Obligatory collection development moment: with YM now gone to that big GirlWorld in the sky, should I order TeenVogue or TeenElle for the library?

All my black mollies are dying off.

I am getting rid of Buddy.
Yeah, you heard me, I'm tired of feeling like a fuck-up, so I'm buying a car that doesn't need $400 repairs every damn time I turn around, or new tires, or go through gas like a certain Texan ex-governor thinks all us good Americans should, or have the brake failure light come on when I'm 70 miles from home in the dark, or...
I could go on and on.
My new car is a 2004 Alero. It's a 2door coupe, but with the biggest non-station wagon trunk I think I've ever seen. If mobsters had Aleros, there'd be less dead snitches out there. That's how big this thing is. It's also got a cd player (see, now that I've checked out all of the important things on the car, like reversing straight, good brakes, and generally not sucking, I can be girlie about stuff). This is good, because Jackie's got my cassette adapter for her iPod. This is bad because the tape player on my stereo is broken and I think I might have put my last $5 walkman in a "Hey! Free Stuff" box outside my building in Lexington last August. Anyone want a bunch of mediocre mixtapes? I will need to replace some stuff though, like all the Wilco albums I actually like I have on tape (A.M. and Being There, if you're keeping score or buying me a present), and I might actually finally have to break down and buy Different Class. And Staring at the Sea is the perfect driving tape. The cd doesn't even compare. And I'm not just saying that because it's the first tape I bought after I learned to drive, specifically for driving, and all of the fun misadventures Janice and I had in my family's Taurus wagon listening to the Cure summer after freshman year.
Where was I? Oh yeah. The big thing about this car is $$, especially when you factor in insurance (I've switched to Safe Auto, because, even though it's more expensive than Progressive, the Progressive agent was incompetent and their 6-payment plan requires automatic payments direct from your account. Screw that noise.) and those pesky student loan payments I'm going to need to start making soon. So I'm worrying about money right now. It should be fine, if a bit tight--but hey, it's not like I go out or anything, right? I just hate the worrying more than the actual scrimping. And I'm at yellow pill week, which is always a big emotional mess.
Shit! I need to buy pills in a couple months too. 'Cause, you know, there's so much danger I could get pregnant.

There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas...

but this totally makes up for it.
Also, when am I going to get to hear the new version of "Do They Know It's Christmas"? When?
Oh, yeah, and nobody showed up for my program. I'm thinking it's time to spend less effort on programming, more on collection, space, school visits, and one-on-one: the stuff that is getting results. I don't want to get a reputation as that lame-ass librarian who has events no one cares about; I'd much rather be that librarian who almost never has events because she's too busy running around doing what her patrons need/want.

Shut up, Dave Eggers

I've officially given up on this year's best Nonrequired Reading. The kids who select have come way too much under Eggers' thrall (which is the Norse word for slave, or so it would seem from Sea of Trolls, which is the book I've cast Nonrequired over for). Also, it's more fiction than last year, and the fiction is annoying, in that Shut up, Dave Eggers kind of way.

Also, like no one saw this coming:

You are Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling
Sinister.


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