Earlier this evening I was making dinner, my laptop providing some randomized accompanying music as I cooked, and Arcade Fire's "Haiti" fired up with its initial sound of rushing (or is it lapping?) water and guitar strums and grabbed hold of me. It's been a while since I listened to Funeral all the way through, but after hearing "Haiti" in that ( Read more... )

On my trip back from the Bay Area to Madison at the end of spring break last week, I had the occasion to spend the night at Midway Airport in Chicago, seeing as buses in my direction keep more regular hours. It was expectedly uneventful, but at around 5:00 a middle-aged man with a nice-looking bag sat down at the end of the row of seats I was ( Read more... )

While listening to an R&B and funk compilation the other day, a song came on that I immediately recognized from a Beastie Boys song, "Car Thief" off of Paul's Boutique. I always enjoy the sample-discovering game, on either end: finding the original source of a sample from a song I love, or hearing a song that samples something familiar. Paul's ( Read more... )

I'm going to be bumming around the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast between May 14 and May 25, looking for things to do, while Zajj is at a summer program in New Jersey. Shoot me a line if you'll be around and I can stay and hang out with you for a few days.

Also, I saw this movie a few weeks ago at the Wisconsin Film Festival, and was floored.

So I may be drifting down to the Bay Area for New Year's. Who all's likely to be around?

There's a guy who consistently rides the same bus that I catch in the morning--no big deal there, of course, as I recognize plenty of the riders as regulars now. But this guy has a unique sense of cool that's immediately apparent. In my mind he's just "Dude"--not "The Dude," as in The Big Lebowski character, just "Dude." Every morning as I watch ( Read more... )

I think it's raining harder than I've ever seen it rain. I got on the bus leaving work at 6:15. About twenty minutes later it started to rain. Within fifteen minutes, the streets were flooding. I got off the bus and waded through water as much as a foot, maybe a foot and a half deep. I'm scared.

Come the first Monday of February, I will return to the ranks of the gainfully employed. Save a week in December working for UPS, I've managed to scratch by without a job since mid-August. Go me. It makes me scratch my head to think that almost six months have gone by this way, as it seems I have accomplished relatively little. Granted there were ( Read more... )

Tonight I saw the re-release of The Passenger, a 1975 movie starring Jack Nicholson. It was wonderful, enigmatic, and beautifully filmed. The second-to-last shot ought to be famous--maybe it is, I dunno. Part way through I realized the lead actress was from Last Tango in Paris, validating a floating sense of familiarity I was feeling ( Read more... )

I've been feeling really keyed up recently, in a strange sort of way. There are dozens of small tasks I need to accomplish, but given the size and number of them I don't get any sense of satisfaction from completing any one. I come to the end of the day feeling that there is still much ahead of me, and so I just want the new day to start so that I ( Read more... )