I don’t know where to go, or who to love, or what to want from life (if anything).
The past is gone. I should let it be gone.
It’s funny how life turns out… Friday, Jul 21 2006
books and jobs and men 1:11 am
A few weeks back I read a pretty good “chick lit” type novel, Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle. What I liked about it was of course all the Springsteen references, plus the twisty-turny plot–I actually didn’t see it coming, for once. And it was interesting how every single character, even the seemingly minor ones, was important later on.
I’m mentioning this now because I had something kind of like that happen today. I don’t remember if I wrote about it here, but last fall I went to have my resume critiqued by an advisor. The guy was really mean about it, to the point where, if I was the kind of girl who cries, I would have been crying. Being myself, I just sat there in stunned silence and with hurt feelings. I don’t know if he felt bad for being harsh, or if the whole thing is part of his strategy (i.e., shatter a girl’s self esteem so she won’t shoot you down–the old Marines tactic), but he then started hitting on me. I was creeped out and never followed up on the resume.
Anyway, I had a job interview with him this morning. (There were 2 other interviewers, so he couldn’t have tried to get to first base.) I think it went okay, all things considered. I definitely got along better with the other 2 interviewers.
It will be interesting to see how this goes, whether or not I even get offered a second round interview. The job is crappy hours and not a lot of money, so I hadn’t been all that serious about considering it anyway, but the thought of working with him 50 hrs/week makes me want to tell them “nevermind” right now.
Ugh Saturday, Jul 15 2006
friends and jobs and men 11:35 pm
Sooo many job applications. At this point, even if a potential employer called, I would have no recollection of the position.
I’m realizing… I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave Michigan.
As much as I still love Patrick, I’m not going to drag myself to the west coast on the off chance there might be something there someday.
As much as I thought I wanted New York or Boston… it feels disloyal to Detroit, to my tight little group of Russians and Russophiles and Annarborites, with whom I’ve spent these last years and whom I’ve come to love.
And yet I know, I don’t miss my hometown up north anymore, or even like it. There are about 3 people there I even ever want to see again. And so I would probably forget my downstate posse the same way, and the hills and valleys that have become my home here.
But… there could be something here. In the only way that ever really matters. And though it wouldn’t be the mad love I had for a certain horn player, it could be something to build a life on, or around, or however you’re supposed to do it.
Where might the future lie? Thursday, Jul 13 2006
jobs 6:08 pm
If I knew a geographic location, I could be apartment hunting and hall-switching. I might be able to think about maybe dating someone?
But no. The job search takes me in and out of town, to other states, maybe even out of the country (at least temporarily). I don’t know what will work out, or what would be best.
But just my luck, none of them will want to hire me, and I’ll end up back in M-town.
Half These Songs are About You by Nizlopi: A Review Monday, Jul 10 2006
Fo’ shizzle it’s not my nizzle
Pros
Dressed-down acoustic folky pop, nice vocals, indie sensibility
Cons
A bit on the dull side
The Bottom Line
Check out the video online, pass on buying the CD
First things first: ‘Half These Songs Are About You’ is the debut album of Nizlopi, the British duo of Luke Concannon and John Parker, who use acoustic guitar, double bass and beat-box for their own style of folky pop. Nizlopi is currently being hailed across the pond as a “breath of fresh air” in the biz. This album contains 11 tracks, including the two singles, ‘Girls’ and ‘JCB Song.’
I found Nizlopi quite by accident. A blogger whose work I’ve read for years (since before we called them bloggers) included a link on her site to the sweet and adorable animated wonder that is the http://www.jcbsong.co.uk, as well as a (brief) rave for the rest of the CD. And since I’ve always agreed with her music taste in the past (Pearl Jam, Aimee Mann, Counting Crows), and since I had just watched the video 10 or 20 times in a row, I priced the CD on Amazon, but then took the jump of just buying it from Nizlopi’s own site. Whatever I expected (more JCB, perhaps?) I was rather disappointed. I’ve meant to do a review for months, but the album was stuffed away on a shelf and I never wanted to get it out again.
What’s good: The JCB song, of course! The Everyman quality of Nizlopi shines most brightly in this dreamy childhood reminiscence, although it is present elsewhere. Lead singer Luke’s voice–and pronounced accent–are charming and consistent throughout the album, and the arrangements are safe and understated. The cover art confirms the impression that these are two normal blokes who happen to express themselves well in music. At times they remind one of a more upbeat Damien Rice. Or maybe the love child of Tracy Chapman and David Gray. Or perhaps the best comparison is early Barenaked Ladies, with the acoustic guitar/double bass sound, only without BNL’s constant attempts at clever lyrics; i.e., “She’s like a sonnet/She’s so on it” Concannon sings on ‘Freedom.’ Invoking Shakespeare’s favorite form does not Shakespeare make, lads.
Bonus: You get the JCB video when you play the CD on a PC.
What’s not: As mentioned above, the whole CD is very consistent and safe. It’s almost too much sweetness and light. If you have any touch of the cynic in you at all, you find yourself wishing they would have let an emo kid or Ozzy Osbourne or old-nose Ashlee Simpson write a lyric or two, just to shake things up a bit. With the exception of ‘JCB,’ most of the songs are not “hooky,” to the point where they’re not particularly memorable (or distinguishable from one another) either.
Nizlopi are at their best with gentle ballads like ‘JCB’ and ‘Girls.” (The fact that these are the album’s two singles would suggest that I’m not alone in that opinion.) Indeed, the handful of uptempo efforts range from dull (‘Call It Up’) to cringe-inducing (‘Love Rage on’ [sic])–it’s sort of like having your kid brother try to go all P-funk on his Casio keyboard at a family party.
All the same, I can’t help but root for these lads. According to the liner notes, Concannon’s parents financed the production of the CD, so that explains why there’s not the overproduced, homogenized sound we’ve come to expect from major labels. And maybe also why ‘JCB’ is an ode to Concannon’s dad’s awesomeness–he’s Bruce Lee, after all.
If you’re feeling down, and want to cheer up with some acoustic strummy indie tunes, British style, perhaps you might want to take a listen. (You can even buy my copy on Half.com!) But if you want fully-deconstructed indie with teeth (melancholy American teeth at that), please join me in electing Sufjan Stevens Secretary of States instead.
Recommended:
No
Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail: A Review Monday, Jul 10 2006
Never Mind Da Vinci, Here’s Rat Scabies
Pros
A fun, interesting journey
Cons
Sometimes a bit bogged down in historical details
The Bottom Line
If you like religious lore, British humour and/or punk rock, or you want to build an Ark of the Covenant, read this book. It’s got something for just about everyone.
Perhaps it is only fitting that I begin a review of a book awash in religious images and holy places with a confession: although I intend to devote my professional life to “serious” Russian literature, my true literary passions are… nonfiction, humor, travelogues, and any combination of the above. I love the late Pete McCarthy. I forced the Molvania website and book on more friends than, in retrospect, I probably should have. So when that magical ‘Recommendations’ feature of Amazon.com told me that I would want to read Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail, I read the description and pulled out my credit card.
The premise: Rat Scabies, punk rock drummer formerly of The Damned, lives in London across the street from a semiretired music journalist, Christopher Dawes, whom he drags all over France in search of the Holy Grail and/or other treasure.
The book is subtitled: CAN A PUNK ROCK LEGEND FIND WHAT MONTY PYTHON COULDN’T? (capitalization theirs, although it would be apropos of punk rock if I were screaming at you, right?) I don’t want to mislead you by saying that the book is terribly Pythonesque, however. The many, many wacky characters are outlandish at times, but no one screams in falsetto, “I’m being oppressed!” Both Scabies and Dawes get in quite a few good quips and wisecracks on the dry English order, but the bulk of the humor lies in Dawes’ cynical, you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up observation of Rat himself, Grail hunters and “Rennies,” the nickname he and Rat give to people obsessed with the small French village of Rennes-le-Chateau, a possible motherlode of treasure, relics, and even the Grail.
Perhaps the title itself is a misnomer, because the Holy Grail is only an indirect goal of Scabies’ (and by extension, Dawes’) quest. He mainly concerns himself with unraveling the mystery of Berenger de Sauniere, 19th century priest of Rennes-le-Chateau, who, the evidence suggests, suddenly became far more wealthy than a rural village priest should be. Codes in parchment, paintings, tombstones, churches, bizarre phenomena, and sinister crimes are only a small sampling of the paths explored by Scabies, Dawes, and company. And is there ever company. One of my chief complaints with the book is that, while having several handy insets featuring a map and some reproductions of the parchments and Rat’s to-do lists (To Find the Holy Grail: Buy metal detector and spades), there is no cheat-sheet list of the numerous characters to remind you (as Dawes doesn’t always do) who it is that just waltzed back into the action and why they matter.
Dawes occasionally does ponder bigger questions of why it matters, comparing his own unbelief alongside the various mysticisms and fanaticisms of other questers. He attributes the year of Grail hunting with Scabies to a kind of mid-life crisis. Not to spoil too much, but even this skeptical Everyman has a few experiences which soften him up a bit to the esoteric. Dawes also seems to find the historical details rather more fascinating than I do, so if you are not a trivia fan, you may find yourself skimming the specifics of what church was built when by whom.
The book has a bit in common with the immensely popular Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (which owes a lot to the work of one of Scabies’ cohorts, Henry Lincoln, author of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail), a fact which seems to be addressed in the book by Rat gradually demolishing a paperback copy of Da Vinci–tearing it up for roaches, in fact. It’s Rat’s world, really, the rest of us are just living in it and getting in the way of his schemes. I’m old enough to know that punk rock music has nothing to do with Avril Lavigne or Good Charlotte, but prior to reading this book I had never really thought about what the punks of the 1970s are doing now, or what it would be like to have them as neighbors. It’s a bit different (but charming) to read of a punk rocker having a close, happy relationship with his septuagenarian parents (even if they are the leaders of the nutty Sauniere society). Whether Rat is fixing tea and importing tiny monkeys in London, or scaling cliffs wearing only bedroom moccasins on his feet in the French countryside, he charms you. Dawes, for all his reluctance at getting roped into Rat’s schemes, admits how lucky he is to have such a ‘good mate.’ Perhaps that’s the real story here, the story of a journey to appreciating what you have, even if that mostly consists of a lunatic across the street who wants you to help him build an Ark of the Covenant. So what would it be like to be Rat Scabies’ neighbor and Grail hunting sidekick? Well, as the Damned once sang: Neat, neat, neat!
Recommended:
Yes
Golden Energy CD by the Tomorrowpeople: A Review Monday, Jul 10 2006
The sun will come out… tomorrow
Pros
Ambitious, trippy, erudite, ROCKING album with sublime track “Youth in Orbit”
Cons
Only 10 tracks
A Texan friend turned me on to this extraordinary record from the late, (could have been) great, Tomorrowpeople. They, a band out of Dallas which included Buzz Gibson and Ben Burt from Brutal Juice and Toadies guitarist Daryl Herbert, blew the roof off SXSW 1997 and were slated to become the next big thing. Last Beat Records and Slab Records co-released their debut CD, Golden Energy. Later, Geffen Records signed them, but unfortunately, both the band and the label imploded before a new album was released. I have heard the band self-released another album, Marijuana Beach, before their 2000 breakup, but I have yet to lay hands on it.
Listening to this album, one has to wonder what might have been had circumstances worked out differently for them. The album drew comparisons to the Flaming Lips and Alex Chilton’s Big Star, but in my humble opinion, tracks like “Youth in Orbit” and “Theme Allison” are far superior to anything else out there. I honestly don’t even know how to categorize the music–guitar rock, atmospheric pop, lovely melodies, slick hooks… it’s all in there. I think the Tomorrowpeople were out to send chills down your spine any way they could. Not to mention their singular gift for great song titles, such as “Beneath the Valley of the 3rd World Sugardaddies,” “Gidget Goes to Court,” and “Psyched by the 4-d Witch.” I read US Weekly and Entertainment Weekly religiously and watch VH1 like it’s going out of style, but I am still not hip to half of the pop culture references incorporated in this album.
Here’s the complete track listing:
Theme Allison
Youth In Orbit
Beneath the Valley of the 3rd World Sugardaddies
Something 4 Joey
Queen of Earthly Delights
Psyched by the 4-d Witch
Mercitron
Favorite Song
Gidget Goes to Court
Psychic Friends(Hidden track)
My favorite track is the spacey yet haunting “Youth in Orbit.” The keyboards are strong throughout the album, but the first three tracks are particularly deft. I think musicians in particular will appreciate the guitar and keyboard work here.
This album can be had for mere pennies on Amazon and Half.com, so if you’re tired of the same old recycled lo-fi rock, you really have no excuse not to give the Tomorrowpeople a listen.
Recommended:
Yes
Where are They Now: Conclusion Thursday, Jul 6 2006
As Kasey Kasem would say, “So there you have ‘em…” the top 7 or so loves of my life.
I’m not sure why I did this, other than I wanted something other than my daily mundane life to write about.
And as much as I wish them all happiness, that little edge in me wishes that it might not be so much happiness that they forget me altogether. Which is immature, I know. Were I ever to have a husband, I wouldn’t want him comparing me unfavorably with some girl in his past. But all the same, Miss Stevie Nicks said it best in Silver Springs:
“I’ll follow you down til’ the sound of my voice will haunt you / You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you”
Where are They Now, part 7: Patrick Wednesday, Jul 5 2006
Patrick. Just Patrick.
I met up with Patrick to sign papers that no one ever did anything with. He had a crushing handshake, and I didn’t think he was all that attractive.
But a few weeks later, I thought to offer him some Russian learning materials (he was in a lower level class) and an invite to the Russian group near Detroit. We exchanged emails, IMs, he was charmed by my websites and read every page. We chatted for 20 hours straight one day and night. We went to hockey games and movies.
I was scared. I figured he would change his mind sooner or later, so I held back. I was so deeply in love, in a way I never thought I could be. Cynical, cerebral me was gone. I was a weepy, sleepless, restless mess.
You know what, I can’t go into the details of the next two years. It still hurts too much.
And yet I have written them before. When I went to do NaNoWriMo last fall, all I had inside me was the story of us. And me without us, which is in a way the more interesting story–one chapter sees me writing a desperate declaration of love on Craigslist, and making a bunch of new and supportive internet friends.
This is the last of the series. If I am smart, and we all know I’m not, I will not add to it again. I do not feel strong enough to withstand the heartache again.
Where is he now? Seattle. We talk occasionally. I never have the nerve to ask him if there’s somebody in his life. I would guess there would be by now. But to hear it would probably shatter me, so I don’t ask.
I hope he’s happy and safe and healthy. He probably wouldn’t tell me if it were otherwise, but I hope he’s really okay. I am finally over the urge to fly out there and see for myself from across the street in the bushes.
Where are They Now, part 6: Nick L. Tuesday, Jul 4 2006
men 11:08 pm
Nick’s older sister babysat me when I was a toddler. But soon both our families moved out of that little town.
I remember Nick from when I was about 7 and he was about 11. He was very smart, wore his hair slicked down, was on a local cable access show with a bunch of other smart kids, and his father owned a successful chain of budget hair salons.
There were ups and downs in both of our families, and we were never close friends growing up, though we always got along well when we did talk. It was only when I enrolled at the university from which he had just graduated that we started talking more often–phone calls, emails, IMs. Sure, some of it was the guidance of an alum to a frosh, but I knew that he wanted it to go somewhere else.
He came to visit, and took me to meet his favorite profs, revisit favorite haunts, and then to a party with his weird former roommates. A couple of them drooled at me, “Are you a flight attendant, too?” (Yes, that was Nick’s inauspicious post-college job.) The most normal of them, the one who I was thinking was an ally, asked me to retrieve his cell phone from his pants pocket while he was barbecuing. And answer the call. And take a message. Oh, and then later Nick’s little brother and his friends showed up and everyone gave them drinks (only one of them was over 16).
In retrospect, it wasn’t that bad. In fact, the impropriety and unromantic-ness of this scenario as a first date now charms me a little. I can smile and say, “That was so Nick.” And who knows, maybe he wanted me to play along and say I was a flight attendant too, so all the guys could be impressed that terminally single Nick now had a slutty girlfriend.
At the time, though, it was really uncomfortable. I didn’t drink then at all–these days I might have one drink once in a great while, but I still hate the company of drunk people–so to be offered beers nonstop was irritating.
He called me a few days later, nervous and sleep-deprived (flight attendant schedule), to tell me he was interested. I paced around the house during this phone call, let him say his piece, and then told him that I was interested too but the timing was wrong–I was just starting school, etc., etc.
He waited a year, being a friend. He got a better job. He moved to another state. And met someone, right before we were going on vacation together with a couple other friends.
It was early, I’m sure I could have still fought for it. Instead, I don’t know why, but I later gave him my blessing, after the vacation was over. She turned out to be an evil shrew who dumped him several times, before getting a ring out of him.
In retrospect, I realize that no one will ever be closer to where I’m from (that tiny blip of a town that our families moved out of), and no one will understand the balance of divided families and weird relatives, and no one will relate to my educational path and my geekiness, and no one will adore my quirkiness like Nick did. And I am a damn fool for passing up happiness and comfort for passion and art. As I will tell you about in part 7.
But in answer to the titular question, Nick married the shrew and they still live in her state, where she chides him for saying “pop” instead of “soda” and “tennis shoes” instead of “sneakers.” He is losing his hair and working a desk job that he hates. I sent them an anniversary card (big of me, no?) and he wrote back, an odd little thankyou and update in his own style, where he started by saying that they bought a house and ended up saying that he envies the FedEx guy because he gets to wear shorts and walk around.
