Thursday, March 30, 2006

You smiled once and walked away.

Billboard April 1
  • In what is possibly the greatest front/back cover combo EVER, we have Toby Keith's big mug on the front, and an ad for the new Morrissey album on the back.
  • I was kinda tempted to keep this magazine in my inbox for a few days, and have Mr. Morrissey and his violin stare at me.
  • I officially hate that Bon Jovi smirky face thing.
  • Wouldn't it be funny if WalMart sued them?
  • "Consumers Hot for 'Hee Haw'"
  • So, over at TagWorld (some MySpace wannabe), they're having a contest for musicians.
  • If you win, your music could be in Snakes on a Plane!
  • Quick, someone give me music lessons!
  • Ooo, Todd Martens is talking about Waterloo Records in Austin!
  • I've been there!
  • That's where I bought Boink!, Let It Be on swirly blue vinyl, and This is Just a Modern Rock Song, which I had been unable to find at Paul's.
  • Stupid Paul's.
  • And then, in the dying-mall-esque Austin airport, a guy walked past holding Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant.
  • True story!
  • Waterloo also contained a bunch of Morrissey 12-inches, but I couldn't've flown them all home.
  • Plus, I was under the impression that I would be shortly moving to Austin, instead of into Paul's neighborhood.
  • Then, when I made the Paul's neighborhood decision, I walked in there and blew some of the money I was saving for the move on the Galaxie 500 box and 69 Love Songs.
  • This concludes yet another chapter of "Jessy is an indie rock stereotype".
  • Butterfingers is the worst dressed band I've seen in a long time.
  • This one guy's rocking the flip-flops (I'm so not a fan of flip-flops on boys).
  • Then they've got Mr. Tight Argyle Sweater over Button Down with Studded Belt and Ginormous Black Shorts.
  • Bitch, you aren't the 21st century's Angus Young.
  • Canada is apparently quite hot right now with newcomers.
  • Rife with them, you might even say.
  • What is it with bad band names with the word "plane" in them?
  • Who did I see Planes Mistaken for Stars with?
  • Cara?
  • I believe it was in Philadelphia...
  • They opened for some other band I can't remember now.
  • I think it was at the Trocadero.
  • OK, so while I was doing some "research", I came upon the fact that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing the Troc in April.
  • For $50 a pop.
  • Anyone want to know how much I paid?
  • $5.
  • For them, the Raveonettes, and the Gossip.
  • Same place.
  • Well, plus the price of the Sleater-Kinney ticket, the bill they were supposed to be on, but Karen O had "bronchitis" or something.
  • Victory Records is hiring a bunch of positions.
  • and there's our boy Morrissey again...

nazis + nerdiness = just another day here at PoBaL

I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Here's what it looks like:


This book was really incredible. I couldn't stop reading it, even while on the phone. Even though there were a lot of things I should have been doing.
So, Markus Zusak, if you happen to be reading this, here's a list of things you need to come to my apartment and do, since your book kept me from them:
  1. Wash dishes. I hit critical mass 2 days ago.
  2. Change the cat litter. If you could also stop at the store and buy a bag of Feline Pine, that would be great.
  3. Put away my clean laundry.
  4. Figure out how to rearrange my bedroom, because I don't like the current placement of things.
  5. Make some Princess Bride-themed crafts.
  6. Be a librarian for about a half-hour or so, since I've been late to work and have taken too-long breaks to read your book.
  7. Also you probably owe me some waterproof eyeliner, since I kept getting all weepy.


Actually, I think this is a great new way to review books.

***

So, while I was visiting Tiff this weekend, we went to a bookstore near her apartment. Why? Because we're librarians, incredible nerds, and she wanted to pick up a copy of the BSC comic book.
After hitting the graphic novels (where I got my complain on, again, about 741.5 being the devil and the multiple copies of Fruits Basket celebrating their 3rd month of in-process-shelf habitation), YA section (YES, I go to the YA section of bookstores. VOYA doesn't publish cover graphics, people. Plus, sometimes I like to give customers readers advisory-type advice. I have issues, okay?), and new picture books (new J. Otto Seibold is adorable), there are magazines to peruse.
Tiff finds Nylon before me. I turn the corner to the other side of the magazine thing and hear, "Jessy! Look!" She's holding the magazine up, open to a fashion spread inspired by Daria.
I do that arms-up cheering thing I do sometimes.
And get the funniest, most appalled/a little frightened look from some painfully normal woman. To which I replied, "Look! Daria!"
She looked to be about our age, so I don't understand why she wasn't as excited. Stupid woman.

***

Anyone up for a game of Pony Pong?

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

A box filled up with peas.

The afore-promised book review clearing house. Now with more self-centeredness!

Nailed by Patrick Jones
OK, I was just checking Patrick's website, and why the hell didn't I know about the R.E.M. playlist!? I totally have all the songs, and I would have completely made a copy to listen along while I read.
Hell, I probably listened to at least a quarter of these songs while I was reading the book anyway.
And I'm now loving that one of the songs is "Crush With Eyeliner". That was, like, my theme song for awhile in high school, at about the age the main character of the book is. I loved the video, with the wacky Japanese kids and that furry hat. And Thurston played on it, and what teenage girl who hasn't been exposed to too many record nerds yet doesn't love Thurston Moore?
But I wasn't the "funky" (Please, please, PLEASE take that out of the book description. Please.) heartbreaker, nor was I the kinda popular smart girl. But I think a book about my high school career wouldn't have nearly enough supporting characters to be at all interesting.
(so very very emo...)
This book felt really true: the desperate desire to get out of high school, especially. I think I actually had that conversation with the author, about what made the Columbine kids different wasn't so much that they hated, but that they couldn't see anything after that.
Plus, you know, the mental instability and fondness for guns.
You can tell this is a book about boys b/c Bret doesn't talk about clothes as much as, say, our old friend Andrea Marr.

Monster Blood Tattoo: Book One: Foundling by D.M. Cornish
This book came with red temporary tattoos, which I feel is a hint other books should take. I mean, why can't I have, say, a temp tattoo advertising Nora Roberts latest?
I read this awhile ago. It mysteriously came in the mail one day, along with a letter explaining that another YA librarian had told the publisher people I would be a good pusher for it.
Well, they said it more fancy than that, but you get the idea. My parents were quite impressed.
It's a good, adventuresome fantasy that started a bit slow and ended on a dime. Actually, it ended before the dime. You know, I barely have the patience to wait for sequels when I read things a year after their publication date; it's totally ridiculous to expect me to handle reading a galley copy and waiting for its sequel AND publication date.
(Also, you might have noticed that I can't spell "seque/al". But hey, at least I don't say things are "addicting" when they're really addictive.)
There's also an extensive glossary, all sorts of other appendices, illustrations, and maps. I do love a good appendix. And I like when fantasies have maps, as long as they're not all, You have to memorize every little bit about my imagined world to make heads or tails of my story.
I'm looking at your ass, Tolkein.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
YA doesn't have memoirs; it has thinly veiled autobiography.
The summer after I graduated from college, I had NO clue what I was doing. I took a temp job at--let's call 'em Vespucci Behavioral Care. Other HMO-type places contracted their mental and addiction care management to VBC.
Now, when you're dealing with mental and addiction care, not everyone's care's gonna get paid for. And they need to be told somehow.
The form of telling VBC used that summer was to have a temp plug names, criteria, etc. into form letters to send to people who weren't going to get coverage. Or, as I liked to call it, "Dear so-and-so, You may be crazy, but you're just not crazy enough. Better luck next time. Love, Jessy the Temp."
(Of course, they were later under investigation for denying too many people and had inadvertantly become a joke around the local psych hospital.)
This was the summer of 2000.
Ned Vizzini is roughly the same age as me. I knew that IKOAFS was based on his experiences, but I wasn't sure exactly when he had those experiences.
So I'm reading, and it hits me: what if he was in the hospital in 2000? What if he was "covered" by VBC? What if he had been denied? By a letter I wrote?
I am nothing if not completely and utterly selfless.
Anyway, the timing was totally off; you find out when Ned was hospitalized at the end of the book. But it made me wonder about all those letters I sent out, especially the ones whose birthyears were close to mine, or less than mine. Did they ever get care? What happened to them?
So, if for some reason you got one of those letters May-August 2000 and are reading this?
Sorry for that.

Monday, March 27, 2006

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?

Thursday, March 23, 2006

When I go downtown I always wear a corduroy suit.

Billboard March 18 2006
  • I'm going to see the Silver Jews tomorrow and you're not.
  • Well, unless you're Tiff, of course.
  • Who also, incidentally, got her BSC blog linked in the Jane Magazine blog AND Gawker.
  • So I'm a bit jealous.
  • I've also discovered recently that we still have a video of "Who Burned Mr. Brinker's Store", so if anyone would like to join me in a round of the Ghostwriter drinking game, let me know.
  • I'm planning to view it mostly as research for some more "In the Year 200" posts (see sidebar links if you don't know what I'm talking about).
  • Man, I'm hungry. I ran out of granola bars earlier this week and have been too busy/moody/tired to buy any more.
  • And distracted by sewing notions at Walmart to remember I needed them.
  • Anyway, the magazine...
  • It's all SXSW-y.
  • So I finally heard the Arctic Monkeys record and I think I like it (I was distracted by the usual morning work stuff while listening).
  • I'm going to take it with me on the Dayton trip this weekend as a test.
  • So there's an overly-arty picture of Deadboy & The Elephantmen and the girl has REALLY cute glasses.
  • I think I need new glasses.
  • Or maybe just some serious maintenance on my current ones.
  • Seriously, can all you guys who actually have seen me tell how crooked they are?
  • b/c they look totally crooked to me, but I'd wager I'm more scrutinizing.
  • The last person I asked this of was AndytheX, who had apparently missed boyfriend school on that day, because he replied, "Yes. I really like that about you, how nerdy you look."
  • What the HELL did Debbie Harry wear to the Rock Hall induction ceremony?
  • Here's a picture of her in a red glittery outfit with gold maryjane heels.
  • Actually, the shoes are pretty cute, but the whole thing is way too much.
  • Like the makeup in early films, when it was still stage makeup designed to be seen far away and small.
  • Sarah McLachlan's so annoying.
  • She's such a freshman feminist girl.
  • I know Trent keeps mocking Christina Aguilera's red lipstick, but I'm really liking her new sorta old-school glamour look.
  • Or maybe I'm just a sucker for red lipstick.
  • I think "In Love With Yourself" is my favorite Liz Phair song.
  • Or maybe "Speedracer", which I don't think is available digitally yet.
  • Girlysounds wishlist, anybody?
  • OK, has anyone else heard that song "SOS" that samples Soft Cell?
  • It's such a guilty pleasure/alone in the car song.
  • This indie record store article is just going to annoy and depress me on several levels, so I'm not going to read it.
  • Blondie, Blondie, Blondie...
  • Who wants to hear a terrible secret of mine?
  • Secretly, I'm just not that big a Blondie fan.
  • I mean, they're OK, but I'm never super excited to hear them.
  • I wasn't even pissed when Lara ruined my best of Blondie cd.
  • Actually, the 2 Blondie songs I like the best are "X Offender" and "In the Flesh" and they're never on best of's anyway.
  • You all hate me now, don't you?
  • The ad for this year's What Teens Want Conference features an illustrated girl in the Target Luella Bartley cherry skirt.
  • Do they have to pay for that?
  • I mean, it's such an obvious allusion.
  • Also, this girl must either shop at a different Target from me or be a lot shorter, b/c when I tried that skirt on, it was not that long.
  • You, know, the Flanders chart never fails to make me chuckle.
  • Stupid sexy Flanders.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

tired. so very tired.

Even the Ramones are failing to wake me up.
Stupid split shift.
This is interesting.
And why I posted through my sleepy haze.
Yawn.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

She’s taking an elementary class in kung fu.

Billboard March 25, 2006
  • Today's "no shit, Sherlock" headline: "When hip-hop meets pop, credibility is at stake."
  • Also, after writing that last post, I can't get "Stop Your Sobbing" out of my head.
  • At least it's the Kinks and not the Pretenders.
  • Tom Petty is NOT aging well.
  • and am I the only person who can't hear "American Girl" without thinking of the scene in Silence of the Lambs where it's driving before it gets kidnapped?
  • That movie was all about Vietnam, you guys.
  • At least according to my ass postmodern film professor, it was.
  • Aww, giant Robert Smith picture.
  • yay
  • It's FREEZING down here today.
  • And I'm wearing 2 different socks, Stacey-style, because my clothes all need washed.
  • Joan Jett's playing the Warped Tour this year. Tempting...
  • The hot ringtones chart reminded me of this:
  • So last night, when I called my sister, I discovered that she had done that cellphone thing where I hear a song instead of her phone ringing. It was "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough".
  • So I started dancing to it and was kinda glad it took her awhile to get to her phone.
  • And I guess when I call, her phone plays "Jesse's Girl" because when she picked up, she was singing that.
  • Little Steven has a column now, about Garage Rock. That's pretty cool.
  • OK, who's buying me this?
  • I think Roger Daltrey is my least favorite member of the Who.
  • 7 questions with Prince!
  • #1: Why are you so awesome?