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1 Sep 2003

It's also a little weird to think of what sort of e-litter one leaves on the internet. I must have numerous email accounts, blogs and passwords to things I haven't considered for months or years. Some time I'm going to go through and read everything I can find that I have on the Internet, which, admittedly, is mostly stuff related to my Carleton website, but even that is now interesting because some of it is a year and a half old.

I was also thinking about how I am ready to do some more radio and that probably my favorite radio moment from last year was when I had to sub for somebody and decided to do an impromptu Velvet Underground bandemonium for well over an hour (with songs from many albums, not like playing If You're Feeling Sinister through in its entirety, which is what I believe I remember Mr Jackflaps attempting last year, though, in his defence, he was subbing at the time) and actually getting positive feedback, a welcome change from the general zero feedback. I do, however, enjoy the occasional negative feedback, like, for example, when I play something that I enjoy and know is good and someone else complains and I laugh and play something else by the same band again. That is always a good time.

The drive home was a musical tour de force. The Postal Service started things off with Give Up, which was odd because I tend to listen to that at night because it seems like something that asks to be listened to at night or at least when it's really cloudy. Then, rather than switching artists with each CD, I listened to My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves, then At Dawn. They are both terrific and the main difference between them seems to be that the new one has horns and the older one has crickets. I want to write a review of the new one (and buy it of course) but that will be done later. I also listened to Badly Drawn Boy's Hour of Bewilderbeast, which I haven't done in recent memory. I'd guess I probably listened to it close to the end of last year, but I can't say for certain. I am now able to fully appreciate it again after listening to it abusively Fall term. The last thing I listened to was Weezer's self-titled debut and, while slightly less fantastic than Pinkerton, it, too, is one of my favorite records. One interesting thing is that it sounds very good loud and doesn't grate like some do when amplified beyond normal levels. My brother agreed with me that one virtue of the album is that Rivers Cuomo provides very sing-along-able vocals, which isn't inherently positive, but it does allow one to get into the songs that much more. It was beautiful.

Saturday I went shopping for four hours with Brian "Iowa State Daily Online Editor" Rumsey, and I bought non-perishable food items, a coffeepot and speakers. We also looked at receivers, printers, cameras and CD-Rs, in addition to purchasing nearly seven gallons of canned drinks. We decided that since much of the food was junk food and that we also looked at electronics, our masculinity was not in question. The grill was a success, including the Hit cookies from Poland. We discovered a few other things in the process: that Aldi (the discount grocer) now sells laptops and thus the digital revolution is finally over, that 7.1 channel soundcards require a lot of computing power and are troublesome in general. Finally, we went to the Ped Mall where we saw many people, none of whom we knew. We were also assumed to be "from the South" probably due to our hats. I wore a Minnesota Twins homerun handkerchief and offered to trade for someone's pink sash that said, "Naughty Bachelorette" or something, but the deal fell through.

Most of the action occurred Saturday. In addition, I burned a copy of 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin' which I enjoyed, but his braggadocio gets tired after a while (reminding me of his ridiculous "I was shot nine times" marketing campaign), and though he claims that his "flow" is extraordinarily "hot", I don't believe him. Generally the singles and those strongly influenced by Dre's production were the best. I'm not quite sure whether or not I'd have been happy had I purchased it. I do know that I have failed to enjoy Television's Marquee Moon and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless recently. It is possible that I haven't gotten familiar enough with them yet, but especially Loveless bored me with what seemed to be overly repetitive song structures. Everything was laid on the table in the first two or three seconds and, though some of the sounds were interesting, after pounding out four to six minutes of unvarying sheets of distortion and spaced out incomprehensible vocals, then repeating eleven times, didn't really do much for me. It just seemed mindnumbing.

I also left my key to the post office and two superballs at home.

I think I'll buy a ticket to Built to Spill next time I'm at a record store in the Twin Cities.

3 Sep 2003

I am currently registered for the following classes:
I considered buying books for them today but decided against it since I wasn't absolutely sure about the class numbers. It doesn't look like there are any books for History of Rock, and I am waitlisted, but I think I'm about first on the waitlist. Although I would also enjoy Liberation Theologies, I would prefer the other and it might not get offered again before graduation. That and I don't want to take three classes in the CMC at one time; I think it might damage me somehow.

Tomorrow we are having a "slumber party" at the post office in which we open from seven to eight PM to accommodate all the desperate Pre-Frosh Trip participants. It is sure to be a wild time.

I'll most likely go see American Splendor tonight at the Uptown and attend the second Matrix at the Riverview sometime later this week. I'd like to see Thirteen and Lost in Translation as well.

Oral history of First Avenue...

4 Sep 2003

I have managed to get past Level 7 in Legend of Zelda but I can't for the life of me find Level 8. I will continue the search this weekend, if not this evening. I also played quite a game of MLB for NES Tuesday night (Royals vs Tigers) which I won 21-19 after an incredible comeback in the late innings. It will memorialized with pictures later.

Last night I went, as promised, to the Uptown to see American Splendor, which I really enjoyed. The juxtaposition of real people and their screen representations was remarkable and effective in cementing their quirks as reality and not just some invention of the filmmaker. I didn't really care to analyze this movie much because I was having such a good time just watching it. It did, however, make me think of something I really appreciate about movies and books and I suppose art in general is that one of its major benefits is that of connecting the viewer or reader or whatever back to the human race. When you can enjoy something in common with others, or, more effectively, recognize yourself in the characters, it somehow reflects to you your own humanity. For me at least, to see this brooding, negative, somewhat pathetic guy on screen having such a mediocre time of it was weirdly life-affirming. The characters were so devoid of traditional positive qualities (not that they weren't made sympathetic by certain techniques otherwise), especially for characters in films, that I couldn't help but love them. And the seats in the lower section of the Uptown are much better than those in the balcony. I also bought Blue Highway's Still Climbing Mountains which was especially nice because it was one of those things that I hadn't, previous to seeing it in the store, recalled that I'd wanted for months. So other than the awful noise coming from upstairs at all hours of the night that sounds like heavy furniture being shoved across hardwood floors, it was all good.

5 Sep 2003

I ate very well last night while manning the post office from seven until eight. Rice, salad, chicken, potatoes, a roll, potato salad, bread and three kinds of lunchmeat, as well as a free drink. In addition, I got paid, so it was a highly successful time. I failed to hook my CD player up to the sound system because they only had a mono plug-in and I couldn't decide whether to go right or left and, therefore, ignored it altogether.

Afterward I watched Roman Polanski's Chinatown which I enjoyed quite a bit. It's about thirty years old, but it's a noir-tribute period piece set in 1930's Los Angeles. Jack Nicholson plays the detective and Faye Dunaway his femme fatale (though the film sort of switches their roles since she is, in fact, the one destined to be killed). I also thought it was interesting that Polanski cast himself in the role of the guy who fucks up his star's nose with a knife, but I suppose that's better than, say, pedophilia. Anyway, the noir feel swirls in heavily in the end when the corrupt powers finally rear their ugly head and Nicholson is forced to be quiet about all he has discovered, forsaking his client/lover and her daughter as well, in order to save his neck. I thought it was interesting that Polanski, instead of just using darkness, actually focused on brown (dust, jackets, decor), though to exactly what effect I'm not sure. The pronunciation of the surname (Gittes)of Nicholson's character is interesting as well. Those who know him pronounce it GID-eez while he says GIT-iss and the arch villian, Noah Cross, played by John Huston in a sort of homage to himself since he was an original noir figure in the first place, calls him Mr "Gits". Huston's mispronunciation seems to be an intentional tool to exert his dominance by his disdain for particulars about a man as unimportant as the detective.

Nicholson's is a very complex character. One thing we notice is that, although every noir detective gets roughed up over the course of his investigation, Gittes gets far more than his share and seems to almost enjoy it, or at least uses it to some sort of twisted advantage, as when the orange farmer calls off his boys to ask Gittes a question and Nicholson starts right in again by taking a shot at one of his aggressors well below the belt. He also seems a little goofy, as when he reveals himself while taking incriminating photos and telling a mildly offensive joke without realizing a potential client, a lady nonetheless, is standing right behind him. Neither is he as sympathetic as PIs noir heroes such as Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon) or Fred MacMurray (Double Indemnity). For much of the beginning, Nicholson is almost expressionless and seems to be an emotional wall, impenetrable by the camera. Mostly he exhibits rage or a witty contempt, and though when he is nearly crushed by the corrupt figures in the end we feel something for him, his is a surprisingly neutral presence, as are most in the film. Another noir oddity was that Polanski set much of the film in a rural setting (Cross's villa, riverbeds, dams, orange groves) and although the film is certainly set in Los Angeles, it lacks the urban grime of most films noir. At any rate, Polanski's tribute by way of tweaking and subverting the conventions of the genre is a worthy companion to its earlier brethren.

6 Sep 2003

Well, well, well. On Friday I went to see The Matrix Reloaded at the Riverview and the popcorn was good and there were a lot of people there and the sound and the screen were big and exciting but the movie wasn't probably worth more than the two dollars I paid for it. Due to storytelling constraints, it lacked the spooky duality of the first movie, which thrived on the fact that we assumed the "real" world to be, in fact, real, but discovered slowly that it was a fantasy. The second has no such shock to offer, except that Neo, while he is "The One", does not end the "war" by arriving at "the source". This lacked much excitement since obviously nothing was going to be resolved in the second "act" of the trilogy. The romance between Neo and Trinity seemed forced and kind of stupid since it was possible for Neo to care for her without the sudden and awkward moments of passion that litter the film. Of course the inane ramblings of the various new and tiresome philosophically inclined characters droned on and on, adding nothing but incoherence to the plot and not really even being up to par with, say, the Jedi mysticism of George Lucas. The action scenes were enjoyable and well done, although it is somewhat hilarious when you realize that the highway in the road scene is filled with a total of approximately five different models of GM vehicles. Hopefully the last one doesn't suck as well. On a similar note, The Return of the King opens in three months and ten days and, barring monumental disaster, will not suck.

7 Sep 2003

Yesterday I went to CD Warehouse where I looked at but ultimately declined Blur's Parklife, Lou Reed's Transformer and New Order's Substance. I did, however, listen to another Lou Reed masterpiece, "Heroin", on Velvet Underground and Nico, and marveled at its wonderful atonality, sudden tempo changes and all around brutality. I think the best moment comes when Reed is listing all the awful things he's attempting to escape by shooting up ("All the politicians makin' crazy sounds/And everybody puttin' everybody else down/And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds.") and the insane feedback from the guitar is both that and the mad rush inside him and it's just gorgeous.

Afterward, I hit up Barnes and Noble in order to waste time and look at books and attempted to read part of Ann Coulter's new book for humor value, but failed to glean even that. More than anything I was just sad that somewhere people believe every word that she speaks/writes. I picked up Raymond Feist's Magician because I was looking through the science fiction section trying to decide what was terrible and what wasn't. I was contemplating the dominance of serial works in the genre of speculative fiction and that it stems from the fact that much of the work of speculative fiction lies in the realm of creating worlds and realities different from our own that need much explication and detail. Obviously, anyone who goes through the trouble of creating an alternate reality to tell a story deserves to return there again, but the preponderance of series of really, really long books with ridiculous numbers of titles seems to signal a desire to milk it for all it's worth. That does not, of course, diminish the entire genre. Speculative fiction can often be very successful for asking questions not often broached, or looking at possible consequences of current activity. Somewhat unrelatedly, while at home for Labor Day I discovered that I have far too much SF and fantasy at home relative to, you know, real literature and whatnot. This is mainly a problem because my brother claims he will only read what I have on my shelves and won't go to the library, even if I tell him what to get, because he enjoys being lazy and difficult like that. I think that is all I have to say on that broad and general topic, no firm conclusion is necessary.

I also looked at The 1,000 Greatest Movies Ever Made from The New York Times and may or may not consider getting it later, but the reviews of Chinatown and To Have and Have Not didn't seem very good, although they weren't necessarily wrong. The second review annoyed me a little bit more due to the fact that the critic, whose name I can't recall, employed the tactic of showing its similarities to a contemporary film (Casablanca) and thereby attempting to denigrate it. This isn't entirely worthless because, as we all know, getting run over by a bandwagon that has been jumped on by too many unoriginal artists is no fun. However, I feel it is also foolish to dismiss a film or an album or anything else because something similar has come out lately. That To Have and Have Not stands on its own goes without saying. Of course I recognized the parallels to Casablanca when I saw it: Bogart, the tropical and somewhat seedy locale, the resistance pleading for help. That was unimportant, though, because both of the films were so good anyway. This wasn't a case of Armageddon and Deep Impact, or Space Cowboys and Mission to Mars, these were both brilliant and entertaining films, both of which deserve a place among Hollywood classics. This is a fault that I often notice at Pitchfork as well. Sure, sometimes the same music gets made over and over, ad nauseam, and something must be said. Other times, however, in the case of Belle and Sebastian's second and third LPs, for example. Admittedly, If You're Feeling Sinister may be the better album (though Pitchfork doesn't actually review it, they do term it "a truly wonderful album"), but does the fact that their sound didn't change much ("parody themselves") between the two really merit a 0.8 for The Boy With The Arab Strap, which supposedly means the album "breaks new ground for terrible". Personally, coming to The Arab Strap first, I liked it quite a bit, then proceeded to purchase and enjoy Sinister as well. It didn't strike me upon hearing both that their sound was so weak and mediocre that it could really only sustain a single record and nothing more. As often happens, when a review focuses solely on the temporary frustrations of a critic and doesn't actually take into account the worth of a work of art, said critic will begin to look ridiculous as soon as the uproar he initially creates fades away.

All right, many words have already been written, but also yesterday I saw Thirteen in Edina, and at eight dollars, it was a bargain, especially when I consider the two dollars I threw away on The Matrix. The fact that it's based on real events and stars the co-screenwriter/ex-thirteen-year-old isn't even that important because the film itself is so real and so harrowing and so good. It was made using a handheld camera and looks slightly grainy with a lot of handheld-induced bobbing up and down and sideways that can be annoying but isn't, and adds a sort of documentary-esque feel. The dysfunction of the family works because they seem so close to working things out, yet the uncontrollable emotions of adolescence cause everything to come crashing down time and again. Interestingly, for much of the movie, the mother is portrayed, essentially, as an adolescent. She is referred to as the "fun older sister" and dresses the part. She also starts bouncing around when she learns that her boyfriend (I think, because there is also an ex-husband) is coming home from the halfway house. His arrival is a cause of great concern for Tracy, and may, in part, cause her to go as crazy as she does (cutting herself, stealing, drugs, sex, utterly failing school). He is, along with the slightly older brother, actually one of the more solid influences around, though neither is an angel. It seems like nearly everything is done right here, from the casting to the characters to the setting to the soundtrack to the teenage angst, but really, what did it for me the most was the end, where Tracy realizes the game is up and slowly, torturedly gives in to the arms of her mother, so damaged and confused herself, yet so caring. Aren't you ever just amazed and grateful for the unbelievably realistic and powerful illusion that is the motion picture?

By the way, if you are anywhere near as annoyed as I am about Imdb.com's ratings, take a look at this. Once again, this is an amazing, well-received movie that actually got really good ratings but their "system" just completely fucked it over. I'm starting to wonder whether it's specifically independent films that get this treatment or whether it's just as bizarre as it seems.

In addition, the New York Times is overflowing with words about Fall movies.

I hope it doesn't rain as is forecast on Friday, when I will move everything from Crack House to Evans. Soon thereafter, I will be adding an A/V receiver, a turntable and a new pair of headphones, since mine have probably seen enough wear and tear (I couldn't hear the right channel while watching Chinatown).

The state of disinformation and untruth. According to the Observer: Seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the 11 September 2001 attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.

8 Sep 2003

Soundless Music Stirs Up Ghosts.

I managed to find and conquer the eighth dungeon as well as destroy the Expos in MLB for NES. I furthered my quest for headphones and received a political T-shirt in the mail, though I couldn't access a picture of it. I watched Wild Strawberries, as well as a lengthy interview of Ingmar Bergman, and enjoyed the film, though slightly less than The Seventh Seal. I'll probably watch it with the commentary tonight. His interview, and the accompanying footage, convinced me that I want to find some bleak and forbidding island to live on. It seems like fun.

9 Sep 2003

From the Guardian: "I once asked Andrew Doniger, director of health in Rochester, New York state, how long people were supposed to wait [to have sex]. He said: 'We don't specify, we just say "wait".' I said: "What, you just take the time you want to have sex, add an unspecified amount of time, and then have sex? He said: "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?'"

11 Sep 2003

There was a lot of activity in the last hour at the post office today with all the packages being picked up and the sofas being delivered and the new students asking confusedly about their mailbox keys and other nonexistent things. It will probably be like that the rest of the week, which will end Saturday at two o'clock when I will find a television to watch the second half of Ohio State vs. NC State which may not even be a game if Ohio State brings whatever it was they brought last week to barely squeak by SDSU by three. I haven't yet figured out if I want to wash all my clothes while I move my stuff or what. I think I might just put it all in an enormous pile in Evans 101 and try to connect my computer to the network and not care about anything until Saturday evening. Speaking of the impending schoolyear, I purchased my books yesterday for Probability and Structures and Liberation Theologies. The Probability book was ninety-nine dollars new, and there weren't any used copies available. And I think my meal plan kicks in tomorrow, so no more wasting money on food or other ridiculous vanities.

Last night I played a lot of baseball (Bases Loaded, RBI, MLB) and did pretty well except that my nine run comeback in the top of the ninth, in RBI and subsequent bang-bang-bang bottom half of the inning was not enough as the Yankees walked off on a homerun in the tenth, sending the Red Sox home in shame. Also, Paste, in my current Jersey vs. Boston series in Bases Loaded is 0 for 5. This is unbelievable because he is the most dominant video baseball player I have ever witnessed. On a group of teams with late 80's stats, he is supposed to be hitting .467 with 60 home runs. That's like .550 and 100 home runs in today's inflated baseball numbers. He actually did reach base on an error because he hits the ball so incredibly hard that the shortstop's throw preceded the second-baseman at second base and thus the baseball rolled to the dugout. This guy is a monster who simply must explode. In other weird Nintendo baseball news, I have, while playing MLB, hit to the third base side where somehow the ball and its shadow diverge so the ball goes shooting off into the stands while the shadow bounces around in the yard. This results in foul balls or inside-the-park homeruns, but there is hardly anything more hilarious than watching the stubby infielders chase the shadow of a baseball that isn't even there.

This evening I will go, probably to Electric Fetus, to find the new EP by Iron & Wine and the new LP by My Morning Jacket and maybe the new Guided by Voices and/or maybe some used stuff or whatever. I might also see Devdas, which is showing at the Walker. Or Dirty Pretty Things. I hope Lost in Translation comes to Minnesota this weekend, but I don't know yet. Either way, I am now going to look for Ingmar Bergman's autobiography, The Magic Lantern.

I was going to post something yesterday and the day before but Novell was malfunctioning or something and I couldn't access any network drives. I think was going to say that Ingmar Bergman's films do, as mentioned in the interview I watched, seem theatrical, in that they are mostly staged in a few specific settings with static camera angles but that only makes sense because he spent so much time with theater work anyway and doesn't detract from them. I was also going to post contrasting reviews of Thirteen: good and bad. I think Andrew Sarris, who hated the movie, is actually quite ancient; though I don't know his age, I believe him to be a good deal older than Roger Ebert, who is no spring chicken himself. It is, at any rate, a good reminder to me that just because someone is a critic, even a respected one, doesn't mean he will always agree with other similarly respected critics. I was also going to post this, because the Detroit Tigers are coming to town next weekend and I'm going to see them with Brian "Vanagon Owner" Rumsey, even though Mike Maroth has already lost his twentieth game. If you don't have a nytimes.com Member ID, you're poop. In unrelated news, I bought the aforementioned headphones today, which are supposed to sound better than baby angels crying or something; I hope they do. I also heard on Radio K today, while driving around town in the postal van, that, as they are "real college radio", the listening experience they provide is akin to, "Getting a scalp massage from Lucifer." I think it would kind of suck to have the evening show for them since they have to keep scaling back hours to stay within their daylight restriction (a way of staying around as a cheap, non-profit station and not getting crushed by the FCC).

12 Sep 2003

Yesterday evening I traveled to Minneapolis where, after walking around for a good long time, I realized that, in fact, I had driven by Treehouse Records, my destination, in my search for a parking space which was slightly too far west. I'll just pretend that I had a wondrously fascinating time wandering the streets of Uptown. I had to go to Treehouse because Ira Kaplan namechecked them at the Yo La Tengo show, (incidentally, at least from what I saw that night, Rolling Stone should perhaps have included him in their 100 greatest guitarists sales booster, but there were many such omissions, and despite the fact that I believe David Fricke was involved [one of the few Rolling Stone contributors I genuinely respect], it was still just a tactic to sell more issues) and I doubt I'll be buying any more records before school starts on Monday and I am shackled to campus, generally speaking. I liked it better than Cheapo, because Cheapo feels like a warehouse or a barn, not somewhere I want to spend much time browsing in, and better than Electric Fetus, because that place is just too big. Treehouse was more carpeted and homey, while still stocked with my three sure bets. I decided not to purchase any vinyl until I get a turntable, though I did see some nicely priced items. I came home with Iron & Wine's The Sea & The Rhythm EP, Guided by Voices' Earthquake Glue, and My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves, as well as Soul Jazz Records' New York Noise compilation and Boards of Canada's Music Has The Right To Children. More on them later, when I am connected in my room.

I am on the Internet in my room and that means, despite all the razzmatazz on my floor, that I am fully moved in. There is the matter of the couch (the window, closet, bathroom, radiator and complimentary chair negate the possibility of placing a couch anywhere in the room unless it is vertical) and, as previously mentioned, the incredible pile of stuff everywhere but that will be triumphed over eventually.

Now I can download legal and illegal songs and watch videos and everything and stop living in such a musical deprivation tank, although the room in Crack House is about as close to a sensory deprivation tank you can get. Oh, the internet excites me so. That was the longest I've gone without internet access at "home" for at least six years. I'm not sure if I'll start in again with the instant messaging and the emoticons and the hey hey, because if I do I'll have to rescind my Luddite status, and I don't want to do that because being a Luddite is so much more enjoyable and cool than just being anti-communication. (Yes, you may argue, this sentence is a form of communication, but you're wrong.)

Yesterday I walked from the Library to the LDC in the pouring rain. There I learned that for the first time in the history of higher education, pre-term dinner was at Burton. So I walked from the LDC to Burton in the pouring rain. Afterwards I played some Nintendo baseball as well as mapping Super Mario Bros.

I also watched Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory with Kirk Douglas and was bowled over by how good it was. For some reason I was expecting something a little raw and unrefined but this was incredibly sharp and, shockingly for Kubrick, under an hour and a half. Though Kubrick did include his patented weird-angle close-ups and clever staging in the trenches and on the battlefields, the most powerful effect of the film came in the final scene. Three soldiers have just been executed on trumped up charges and it feels like the world is pretty much a shithole and we go to a group of rowdy men roaring as some sort of entertainer brings out a captured German girl and you just want to stop watching and completely give up hope for humanity because it is obvious that they are going to do horrible, horrible things to this innocent person, and the emcee directs her to sing a song, and we figure its going to be some cabaret number or something awful and equivalent to selling her body through music, but then she begins singing this bittersweet little song that all the soldiers know, and they completely shut up and eventually start singing and then crying. And the movie just ends, no resolution of the role of Kirk Douglas' character, no final justice done to the evil jerks in command of the French Army, she just sings her song and the soldiers weep and the credits roll. It was astonishingly moving. Of course you have to watch the whole thing, though, because it's all great.

Today I ate an enormous amount of sweet things at work and was just generally busy and then moved all my stuff to Evans. By the time I got to the refrigerator (the final item) I just about wanted to toss it on the street and lie down next to it and go to sleep, but I managed to confine all my belongings to the room and then sort of started putting things in order. I was going to take a shower once I finished, but I don't think I'll be able to tonight. I think maybe I'll clear a path and just sort of rustle up what I'll need for tomorrow and take a shower and attempt to listen to the Dismemberment Plan remix album thanks to the internet. Or remove Netware and hope my computer machine doesn't up and die on me.

13 Sep 2003

I cleaned up the pile of stuff in the middle of my room which consisted of a little bit of shuffling things about and putting them on shelves and then spending at least twice as much time going through all my CDs. I have 218 in my main collection at the moment, about half of which I legally own. I'd estimate that I have about 80 CDs I've purchased that I'm either keeping somewhere else or waiting to get rid of. Then there are the extra burned pieces of crap that I don't want and no one else wants and I just didn't throw away. The network is not allowing me to access my drives so although this should have appeared last night it is appearing tonight. The Streets' "Geezers Need Excitement" tipped me off to the fact that the resonant frequency of my room is B-flat slightly more than 3 octaves below middle C which I reckon to be about 29.135 Hz (27.5 Hz [A-natural]*1.059463). I think in Goodhue 309 it was the D above that which was found, I believe, in a song near the end of Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions, probably Disc Two. That will be all.

Wow, the network drive access provided for operating systems lower than 2000/NT/XP really sucks. It's even less appealing than Tripod (other than the ads, of course). At least it works now, as opposed to this afternoon. Speaking of this afternoon, I drove around in the Civic to find some place to see how fast it would go, and I got it to 100, which it approached at a slow rate, but I never got to use the place I wanted to, which was east of Northfield on a county road, with a few nice valleys. It was very nice today and there were just enough hills and trees and cloud shadows moving across the fields so that everything looked nice. After that I washed the car because it shouldn't have to sit under trees and get shat upon anymore. I also discovered that it is simply impossible to beat Highway 3 by going through Northfield. Stop signs and cross traffic slow you down no matter where you go. I need to buy a new CD burner.

15 Sep 2003

Upon being questioned, in the History of Rock, about the best movie I saw this summer, I realized that I was going to make a mindnumbingly ordered list of the movies I saw this summer, along with other things, but haven't yet. I might do that tonight or later. I also want to take all my archives and fix the links and remove or restore the pictures and put them all on one giant page because that would be insanely fun. Speaking of pictures, I am disappointed to announce that I accidentally got rid of the pictures I was going to use to document my incredibly comeback in MLB baseball, so I will have to wait until I do something else similarly amazing and attempt to provide lasting evidence.

I mentioned the History of Rock at the top and will again to say that I, along with everyone else who showed up today, got in. I think the waitlist was enormous, but only eight or nine extra showed up. It may be an even bigger sure thing, as far as enjoyment goes, than my film classes. The math classes were fine as well; I think Probability interests me more than Structures, but proofs aren't really anybody's idea of a great time. At least, I don't think so.

I am able to update like this only because internet access returned this evening after I returned from Anna's car which wouldn't start even with Summer and Susannah willing it on. Luckily I think I finally have a car that won't need worked on in the immediate future. It is stored in the Rec Center lot until the Built to Spill concert tomorrow and, of course, this weekend when the Tigers come to town. I really need to get a CD burner. And perhaps Windows XP. This network drive interface is really dumb. Fuck, it won't work again.

16 Sep 2003

Last night I watched Spirited Away and it was pretty good but I don't have anything much to say about it. The only thing it really made me think about was that I used to think of animation as being simplistic, but some part of the movie made me remember that it's not, not because of the work that goes into actually bringing the drawings to life, but that since most movies can be broken down into storyboard scenes anyway, animation should provide greater freedom and a wider range of possibilities when moving from simple mock-ups of the shots to actually playing them out in front of the camera.

I enjoyed Folk Dancing today as I hope I will for the next eighteen times this term. I also enjoy the fact that Cowling is pretty much right outside my door. (Random aside: The "good stuff" cups this year are nearly worthless. I think perhaps next year they'll just have a pencil with no lead and a coughdrop if their descent continues.)

I went to the Built to Spill show at First Avenue this evening and, even though I liked it, realized that, barring Wilco, where everybody talked all the way through and thereby ruined the experience, I've been to a string of amazingly terrific rock shows. Since May, My Morning Jacket, Yo La Tengo and The White Stripes. These were all incredible. So tonight I remembered that even if a concert isn't a transcendental experience, it can still be worth my while. The Delusions, who I made it in time to see, unlike The Solace Brothers, were very solid, and I considered picking up their record but then thought better of it since I like the Reputation's live show a lot better than their album and I figured I could find it later if I needed to. Built to Spill blazed out of the gates (Note: as I don't have any of their albums but Ancient Melodies of the Future, to which I've listened only a few times, I will not be naming the songs.) with four or five loud, crunchy songs with satisfying riffs and a small though effective amount of jamming and experimentation, which a live show must have in order to be worthwhile, otherwise you might as well be at home. I'm not sure if Doug Martsch and company always lack stage presence or if tonight was an exception, but that wasn't really one of their strong points, and that's OK. They played their cover of Velvet Underground's "Oh Sweet Nuthin" which I'd heard before when Teague played it on the radio the song before I went on the air one night. After that I felt like the air got let out a little bit, or the energy wasn't quite as high. When they broke into "Cortez the Killer" I was very excited and, upon further reflection, it made perfect sense. The guitars were spot-on and Doug Martsch sounds as much like Neil Young as anyone I've ever heard. I felt I should have recognized that earlier, because it makes so much sense now, but that will not bother me. Once they got to the third verse they went off on a tangent which satisfied for the first while, but seemed to deteriorate; specifically, there was one seemingly "wrong" note that Martsch kept hitting as if he really liked it, but I couldn't fit it in with the rest of what was going on. After completely exhausting the song, they broke into some reggae-style interplay and, I believe, returned briefly to something kind of related to "Cortez". At least it reminded me of how incredible Neil Young is and how, even though I attempted to not pay much attention to Rolling Stone's list of guitarists, how is Stephen Stills twice as high as Neil, I mean, what's the better rock song, "Cowgirl in the Sand" or "Love the One You're With"? Come on.

Oh look, it's the encore. Yes, Built to Spill played one of their own songs and also The Clash's "White Man In Hammersmith Palais", which I always confuse at first with "Rudie Can't Fail", but I figured it out near the end of the first verse. I think the audience in general was just confused and didn't seem to know the song at all, or they didn't like it, but they seemed to get into it, so it's my guess that they were just initially ignorant. It was a pretty solid version, though I don't think it added much to the original, but what are you going to do? It's the Clash. I was also reminded that last year I believe I was discussing who I would pay $50 to see and I reckon that to see the Clash at the height of their powers, I'd pay probably over $100. That figure could change since I'm really into the Clash right now, but I don't believe I would ever not pay at least $60 to see that. So anyway, the point is, tonight wasn't the rock show that's going to save the world, but it was fun, especially since I haven't been to one in two months, and it was better than homework.

I wonder if I'll be able to use this for History of Rock, and, if so, how many side comments I'll have to edit out.

17 Sep 2003

Today I cancelled Netflix because if I want to watch a movie while in school, I want to do it spontaneously and not pay $20 to have stuff sit around unwatched in my room while I toil through mountains of work. I'll probably get it again next summer because it's so easy and so worth it when I'm not busy.

Oh yeah, and I lost my fucking Structures book today, that was a lot of fun. Actually, I didn't lose it, I left it under my desk in CMC (fuck, I'm an idiot, I emailed professors with classes in 328, not 206, our new room asking them about the book) 206, I guess it was. That made it kind of hard to do homework of that sort tonight, so I finished my reading for Rock class and listened to seventeen songs and wrote about all of it and I will respond to Allen Bloom's disdain for rock music this weekend or maybe tomorrow. I really don't want to have to buy another book.

My headphones are scheduled to get here on Monday.

I did laundry.

I don't have much else to say except that the network hates to work, including letting me get email and update this thing and all because they decided to upgrade so I can't efficiently access anything from my computer anyway and it would be really nice to have my Structures book and, to make matters worse, Mooney Suzuki decided to team up with the Matrix, so barring an incredible twist of fate, their next album will be crap compared the really good garage-meets-Motown Electric Sweat. Hopefully we just have the most amazing KRLX board meeting ever tomorrow and then I just won't care.

18 Sep 2003

Hooray for small liberal arts colleges where people leave your stuff alone and you can find your Structures textbook right where you left it twenty-one and a half hours before.

Atoning for past mistakes, Pitchfork recognizes the sheer beauty and wonderfulness that is the new My Morning Jacket album even in its similarity to the rest of their work.

The following is the reflective essay I whipped up for my Carleton Writing Portfolio in not much more than an hour. According to the proofreader, my papers for class should be more like this. I'm not sure if that would work. See for yourself.

The Missing Link

Effective writing is the only barrier currently standing between me and mastery of the universe. From my years of primary, secondary and undergraduate education I have learned that the ability to communicate well through the written word is the greatest tool in existence (excepting that most unwholesome of educational goals, working-in-groups). Human sacrifices, contracts with big wigs in the netherworld and the channeling of dead spirits are no match for the simple power of a concise, expressive sentence or paragraph. In order to attain the position of might and glory that will, nay must one day ultimately be mine, I have chosen to complete the Writing Portfolio. In my case, it includes three sparkling jewels: a research paper for Introduction to Sociology, a film review for Film History and Criticism and an analysis of David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars for The Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

In high school I discussed the related topics of censorship and the obscene for an English class aptly entitled Research. Through the composition of this paper I learned the techniques and strategies I would use two years later to research the effects of sport on the individual in American society. I once again utilized a number of resources from the library to support my thesis and its evil minions, the sub-points. By poring over statistical research and the opinions of experts I came to the stunning conclusion that sports, in differing ways and amounts, affects most members of modern American society. While this is perhaps not the most amazing or groundbreaking of ideas, it is nonetheless well-documented and discussed within the confines of the paper.

Around the same time I deemed it prudent to perform an analysis of Snow Falling on Cedars through the lens of its last sentence: "Accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart." Through careful reading and subsequent examinations of the text I harvested the relevant situations and details to prove that the final sentence of the book rang true throughout every one of its pages. I condensed my observations to 1500 words that vibrate with intelligence, discernment and insight.

During the Winter term of 2003 I undertook a survey of the History of Film and its Criticism at the behest of Professor Carol Donelan. She made a similar request of all students enrolled in the class and we unanimously consented to do so. Early in our journey through a century of filmmaking we screened D.W. Griffith's dated and melodramatic yet visually impressive epic, Birth of A Nation. To that effect I expounded on the inventive techniques and brilliant composition of the film as well as its negative elements, namely the glorification of the history of the Ku Klux Klan. In my boundless wisdom I proclaimed that the film was a timeless classic despite its racially superior leanings.

If there are flaws and mistakes within these pages, that is only because the world is not yet ready for my grammatical and technical prowess to be fully committed to paper. Gentle reader, do not tremble at the collection of profound academic ecstasy that awaits you. Rather, embrace it and behold the joy and wonderment of this sampling of my part in the surpassing pleasure that is the experience of writing at Carleton.

19 Sep 2003

Here are the books, music and movies I consumed over the summer. For each I have provided an ordered (and recommended) list of the best of each and the rest are ordered alphabetically. The "rest" contains some very good stuff and some not very good stuff, so it's listing there is neither a recommendation or a caveat. I just decided I didn't want to rank absolutely everything.

Books.
  1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
  2. Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
  3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
New music.
  1. The Clash Essential Clash [2 CD]
  2. My Morning Jacket At Dawn
  3. Joy Division Substance
  4. Sonic Youth Daydream Nation
  5. The Mooney Suzuki Electric Sweat
  6. The Buzzcocks Singles Going Steady
Old music.
  1. Postal Service Give Up
  2. Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP
  3. Modest Mouse The Moon and Antarctica
  4. Yo La Tengo And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
  5. Luna Penthouse
  6. The Streets Original Pirate Material
Movies.
  1. The Ruling Class
  2. Barry Lyndon
  3. The Seventh Seal
  4. Une Femme Est Une Femme
  5. To Have and Have Not
  6. American Splendor
  7. Heavenly Creatures
  8. Whale Rider
  9. Chaos
  10. Thirteen
  11. The Stone Reader
  12. Paths of Glory
  13. Spartacus
  14. The Maltese Falcon
  15. Finding Nemo
  16. Hard Eight
These are the worst movies I saw all summer and I must make it known.
Also, here is my new record shopping list.
  1. Belle & Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress 7 October [Jeepster]
  2. Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism 7 October [Barsuk]
  3. The Strokes Room on Fire 21 October [RCA]
  4. Various Artists Wig in a Box 21 October [Off]
  5. Neil Young On the Beach 2003 (rereleased) [Warner]
  6. Spiritualized The Complete Works, Vol 1 2003 [Arista]
  7. The Books Thought for Food 2002 [Tomlab]
  8. Desaparecidos Read Music and Speak Spanish 2002 [Saddle Creek]
  9. Pedro the Lion Control 2002 [Jade Tree]
  10. Spoon Kill the Moonlight 2002 [Merge]
  11. Low Things We Lost in the Fire 2001 [Kranky]
  12. The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin 1999 [Warner]
  13. My Morning Jacket Tennessee Fire 1999 [Darla]
  14. Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music for Airports 1978 [EG]
22 Sep 2003

Wow, I haven't posted since Thursday. That is because the new web-access for network doesn't work for my account and so I haven't been able to post from home. So, let's see, Thursday not much happened. Friday I watched the worst baseball team in history and stayed up late. Saturday I bought a five disc Denon CD changer to go along with my new receiver and got the remote control to work for both. My $5/each speakers don't sound amazing, but they were probably worth the ten dollars I paid for them. I also saw much of St. Olaf's campus and learned that they have a student-run radio station, 93.1 FM or something, that I have never heard nor heard of. It wasn't on the air when I attempted to tune in later. I also looked at computers and shit, and bought a CD burner, some CD-Rs, and cables for the CD player. The CD burner, after hours of getting no response from the computer no matter how well the burner was hooked up, I decided that the device was most likely non-functional and, as such, will return it this evening to Best Buy in hopes of getting one that works. Sunday I did plenty of homework and watched Seinfeld and took part in the KRLX All-DJ meeting. Today I got my headphones and, since the volume on the computer was turned up, laid waste to the Windows lab before I could get them down to a manageable level. I could have gotten closed headphones to shut in the sound but these were so much more loved that I couldn't pass them up. They are really comfortable and the cord is nice and heavy and it has 1/8" and 1/4" adapters and all I've listened to so far is Death Cab for Cutie's "A New Year" from Transatlanticism provided by Insound.com. So then, we're up to date and it's only eight more days until My Morning Jacket rolls into town.

My account locked itself again, twice. There seems to be something very wrong. At least this time I got to keep my latest password, which is nice. I think only Mozilla and AOL Instant Messenger can be set to automatically use my password and I think I've taken care of both of those, so I can't figure out why I keep getting locked out. I don't think it even has anything to do with the web accessed network folders, although those are stupid anyway because they don't work. And this keyboard in the lab is unsatisfying.

24 Sep 2003

Yesterday I did a lot of homework and today maybe I will do some more so I don't have as much on Thursday. I also observed the Mariners exit from the pennant race. And I had some tasty mozzarella sticks at the post office care of Lauren Garrison. And I still haven't burned anything with my CDRW drive but I will once I have time for such things. I also acquired CMJ New Music Monthly CD which seems to be better than the other two I heard this summer. I hooked up my computer and my receiver so now I can listen to music simultaneously through headphones and two sets of speakers. Those headphones are beautiful. I only wish they were closed so I could listen louder in the library and other quiet spaces but they sound good at 10 on my portable CD player where sometimes I couldn't even hear everything I should have heard at 25 with my others, and to get a closed set with such good reproduction would, I believe, have cost me a ridiculous amount of money.

Tonight I will, by the good graces of Film Society, see Almodovar's Talk to Her, and I'm also excited to hear the new speakers (surround, finally) they've installed in Olin 149 to see if they are a noticeable improvement over the old ones.

It seems that by leaving out a quotation mark, I omitted the body of my page earlier today. You may now read it above.

Since then, I have read about girl groups from the 1960's as well as surf music. I have also determined that one of the problems related to my account has been AOL Instant Messenger. I had set AIM to check my mail and display a box when I got some, but since I'd been having problems this year, I deleted two, but apparently not all of my mailboxes in Preferences. So, AIM continued to check my Carleton account. However, it had an old password, so it would repeatedly check for mail with the erroneous password and thus lock my account. Because it wouldn't display an error message, I didn't know it was doing this, and was confused by my account locking up so often. Though this doesn't solve all my internet problems, it should at least let me access my email without petitioning the SCIC every time.

At the moment I'm in the Mac Lab for the first time in a while. I haven't been in here since they changed to OS X, and it is quite an improvement, especially the network folders which are actually displayed on the desktop now. I might actually start using the Macs more since they are inherently more aesthetically pleasing and might not impede access to my web site anymore.

I also went to Film Society's screening of Talk to Her as promised above. It intertwines the lives of two male protagonists. One (Benigno) is a socially retarded young man who took care of his mother for twenty years and soon after started to look after the comatose young woman he is currently attending to. In the same hospital ("El Bosque", or "The Forest" outside of which are the trees which Almodovar often features immediately after the passage of time) there is a wounded bullfighter, also in a coma, who had, for months before her accident, been close to the other protagonist (Marco), a nondescript man who works for El Pais. The men bond over the course of their shared time at the clinic, and therein lies the heart of the film. Benigno is a consummate care-giver, always talking to his "patient" and often massaging her with lotion to keep her looking like she would if she were still conscious. Marco is far less comfortable in his position of vigil-keeper, but less bizarre in his feelings toward his partner. There is an emotional give and take between the two throughout the slightly disturbing final act of the film, but it's all conveyed in a gentle and subdued manner, which I loved. The color was slightly restrained, along with the soundtrack and the background noise, and gave the film a contemplative feel. The images that resonate most, naturally, are those of Marco, deep in conflicted thought, allowing only a glimmer of his inner self through except in those moments when it emerges through tears; and of Benigno and his pathetically loving affection toward this woman who, before her accident, had hardly known him, and certainly not under the most friendly of circumstances. Both actors underplay well, as they should in this muted picture, but manage all the same to convey the film's emotion.

The speakers were very disappointing. Only the front two were functioning and, for some reason, sounded woefully underpowered or something as during loud passages (which were relatively pretty quiet) they kept buzzing. The film shone through however. The Stan Brakhage short, "Untitled (for Marilyn)", which showed before the feature, was, I though, well described on the DVD as a "thought process". It was a sort of stream of consciousness series of frames depicting mostly abstract painting-like images, interpolated with handwritten words and images of windows and perhaps the sea from overhead. As it was eleven minutes of silence, there were a few more extraneous noises than desired by the perhaps restless crowd, but it seemed, as a stream of consciousness sort of lamentation, reasonable enough.

25 Sep 2003

Marauding by Moonlight.

The notion is not a new one but this time it is a definite plan which we intend to carry out. We have worked it out carefully and are thrilled by the idea. Naturally we feel a trifle nervous, but the pleasure of anticipation is great. [From Heavenly Creatures.]

Sounds: Velvet Underground, The Clash, My Morning Jacket, Iron and Wine.

So I really sucked at Structures last night. I mean, I don't think I even started a single proof correctly without looking at the back, let alone finishing one. Today I performed much better and it seemed to make sense. Maybe it was Art Benjamin, mathemagician, and his aura of math-liness that helped, but I somehow doubt it. Speaking of the mathemagic show, it was entertaining and I suppose five homework points for free was nice, but I think it will account for a total of something like 0.25% of my final grade. I don't think that'll come in real handy but we'll see.

My shift at the post office was less error-ridden than Tuesday's. Afterward I took down the KRLX mail bin and saw the fruits of online application as well as the iMac in the studio which will be very nice. Cameron and I also discussed the pro's and con's of the state and projected future of the music business and the format in which their product is disseminated. We both lament the impending death of the album as art form, but aren't sure what should replace it, if it indeed must disappear. At any rate, KRLX and its board members/DJs/hangers on are doing our part to "keep it real", pardon the expression.

Now it's time to rock and roll and then, Saturday, the programming begins!

I just finished listening to girl groups and surf music. Dick Dale's "Misirlou" is such a brilliant whirlwind, it's almost scary. Everything just flies along and it has this sort of feeling like when the camera is twirling around in a movie and nothing can quite settle down. I sort of tired of all the reverb and the wall of sound Phil Spector was throwing at me, but then again, you have to respect a guy who can cram 22 musicians on a little pop track from 40 years ago.

I also explored classes for the rest of the year. Winter Term will most likely feature Statistics, the Media Studies class on television, and Religion in American Culture (or some such thing). If something doesn't work out I'd like to take Existentialism. Spring Term will bring along with it Advanced Algebra, Southern Literature and maybe Film Noir or Italian Neo-Realism. There are so many good classes Spring Term, though, it'll be tough to choose. And Badminton!

A.O. Scott just used the phrase "refreshingly mean-spirited" in my New York Times Movie Update email. He gets a gold star for the day for such a delightful conjunction of words.

26 Sep 2003

Today I took the Probability quiz which could have gone very well, only time will tell. After that I drove to the Clothes Closet, where they failed to be selling any pants I desired, although they did have some interesting buttons. A trip to Fine Groove Records yielded Neil Young's recently rereleased On The Beach, originally from 1974, as well as Spoon's Kill the Moonlight. I considered also purchasing Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica or Agaetis Byrjun, by Sigur Ros, but decided I'd rather have the Spoon since I don't have a burned copy of that. I also saw Link Wray and Roy Orbison records there but I'm not sure which albums by them I want to own yet. At Ragstock I got a pair of "old man" pants, as they have been called, which was kind of tough because none of their pants seemed to have sizes on them, so I had to judge by sight, but these are the first pair I pulled off the rack, so it wasn't that hard after all I suppose. We ate at El Tequila for dinner and looked at housewares. Seinfeld #12 screened tonight, in which George slips his boss a mickey and Kramer takes revenge on the launderer. Now I'm going to clean up this filthy hole of a room, and perhaps find some lost space that it seems to lack. Also, my computer speakers were making odd noises earlier this evening for a while and music playback was bizarre, but they are better now. I think I might just use headphones if they completely explode, or I might move the $10 pair of speakers I have in the corner. At any rate, I'd like to get a turntable, but I don't really want to pay very much for one. And this Vanilla Creme Spritzer I'm drinking reminds me a lot of vanilla yogurt, much more than cream soda. It's not very good.

I want to buy this Mooney Suzuki poster from aestheticapparatus.com, but it's twenty damn dollars. There are so many bad posters for sale it's not even funny.

29 Sep 2003

I just completed eighteen hours of radio programming this weekend. That is a lot of radio. The station does seem to be up and working and everyone has showed up so far, but I'd bet within a while I'll have to go in. I might write more if it was not 3:18 am. I didn't even manage to finish all my assigned homework; I just let History of Rock slide. I've heard of up to eight people from Carleton so far who are going to My Morning Jacket, which is pretty good since I don't think Max and I saw anybody we recognized last time. I played seven MMJ songs on my show this evening. I'm not sure I'll ever play that many songs by one band again in one show. Unless I do a Bandemonium. Perhaps I'll do My Morning Jacket next term or something if I can get The Tennessee Fire and an EP or two. I'll go to bed now.

So it's come to this: updating from the record library at 5:10 am. I'm nearing the end of filling in for a DJ who couldn't handle the strain of his slot. Apparently he feels that I am somehow more available, having only spent 24 hours on radio in the past three days. What a motherfucker. The fact that I enjoy being on the radio only disguises the fact that I'm going to be really, really tired tomorrow. I about collapsed when I finally got home tonight at 12:30, and I thought I was going to do listening for History of Rock. I guess I'll have to try to do it tomorrow night with my ears buzzing. Anyway, I've played a lot of the new Outkast record as well as other stuff from the computer and other old hip-hop. I finally put on Ornette Coleman's Twins which, at least for the first five minutes or so, is just the most insane, rapid-fire horn playing I've ever heard. Nothing like free jazz in the morning. It seems like I should have something else to write, but that's not really the case. Mainly for the past three days I've worked at the radio station whenever I haven't been a) eating, b) sleeping, c) in the bathroom, d) working at the post office or e) doing homework, which I'm still slightly behind on but should be fine by Friday, I think. Man, what sort of idiot assumes that just because he doesn't feel like taking a late night slot he left open, someone else is going to want to take over for him. What a great way to blacklist yourself with the programmers. I think Rebecca said she might be able to come in next week. That's it. I'm tired. And hungry. Too bad nothing's open at 5:30 am.

I've finished the Probability homework for Friday, and the reading won't really help me until the assignment that's going to be due next Wednesday, so I don't think I'll finish it six days in advance. I can study for the quiz while not at Convo on Friday. Then I can study for the test this weekend, which shouldn't be that bad. I pretty much understand everything we've talked about, it's just a matter of sorting out what's what. History of Rock won't require me to do anything except review the 58 songs we've listened to so far so's I can figure out who's making the racket during the quiz on Friday. Structures has gotten easy, but I assume that's probably over. I'll do Friday's assignment tomorrow and Monday's assignment this weekend while I'm studying. That means that I'm essentially caught up on my homework, which will be nice because it's been a while.

And here's how the old record shopping list is looking these days. I think I'll pick up the Death Cab for Cutie album next week at First Avenue, barring disaster.

  1. Belle & Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress 7 October [Jeepster]
  2. Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism 7 October [Barsuk]
  3. The Strokes Room on Fire 21 October [RCA]
  4. Various Artists Wig in a Box 21 October [Off]
  5. Outkast Speakerboxx/The Love Below 2003 [Arista]
  6. Spiritualized The Complete Works, Vol 1 2003 [Arista]
  7. The Books Thought for Food 2002 [Tomlab]
  8. Desaparecidos Read Music and Speak Spanish 2002 [Saddle Creek]
  9. Pedro the Lion Control 2002 [Jade Tree]
  10. Low Things We Lost in the Fire 2001 [Kranky]
  11. The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin 1999 [Warner]
  12. My Morning Jacket Tennessee Fire 1999 [Darla]
  13. Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music for Airports 1978 [EG]