23 November 2009

Oh, Animal Collective!!!!

Radiohead and Animal Collective: two bands I can really count on. For different reasons, but they do have the one big reason in common: THEY ARE ALWAYS AWESOME.

Ever since Sung Tongs came out in 2004, Animal Collective has followed the pattern of: release LP, release EP, release LP, release EP. And by EP I don't mean singles (although they do that, too), I mean EPs: little baby jewels that aren't full-length albums, but are not just records of tossed-aside B-sides. Not only that, but every year there's something new:
Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished LP in 2000
Danse Manatee LP in 2001
Hollinndagain Live LP in 2002
Campfire Songs LP in 2003
Here Comes The Indian LP in 2003
Sung Tongs LP in 2004
Prospect Hummer EP in May 2005
Feels LP in October 2005
People EP in 2006
Strawberry Jam LP in 2007
Water Curses EP in 2008
Merriweather Post Pavilion LP in 2009
It's still 2009, but MPP came out in January and leaked on Christmas 2008. Which makes one wonder about the next EP . . .
Oh but here it is!! Fall Be Kind. Digitally out now, for real real out December 8th.
Does it sound anything like any other EPs or LPs they've done? Not really. Hints of Feels and MPP, but it's clearly it's own thing. This is one of the things I can count on Animal Collective for: always changing. Don't get me wrong, I think there is a place for a band that can consistently make good music without changing up their formula too much. But how much Animal Collective changes but remains AWESOME, ALWAYS, ba-lows my mind.
What I'm saying is that if you have ANY brains or want to remain/become my friend, it's pretty imperative you sink into Fall Be Kind. I'll break it down a little for you:
1. Graze - A.) Perfect opener. B.) Avey Tare and Panda Bear both sing, which I love. C.) THERE ARE PAN FLUTES.

2. What Would I Want Sky - A.) Did not cut out intro that they played live when I saw them back in June, but they did clean it up and make it even better. B.) Has first ever licensed Grateful Dead sample C.) Has one of my ALL-TIME favorite Animal Collective lyrics: "I should be floatin,/But I'm weighted by thinkin."

3. Bleed - A.) Avey Tare's voice goes nuts and it's BEAUTIFUL B.) Panda Bear does something I love: becomes a crazy/sorta scary angel voice that haunts the background of Avey Tare

4.) On A Highway - A.) Maybe one of the most coherent Avey Tare songs (lyrically) B.) Sweet sweet sweet breakdown C.) Has the line "Jealous of Noah's dreaming" which is JUST CUTE.

5.) I Think I Can - A.) The Panda Bear show

I am in love. AND LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. SERIOUSLY:

20 November 2009

CRAZY FOR FISH BOWLS!

Photo used for Hanes' 50/50 Crewneck Sweatshirt:

Is a prop so necessary that you have to make it . . . a fish bowl?

18 November 2009

Do not watch while eating

These three things are hard:
1. Finals
2. Being sick
3. Watching Salò

So I'd be willing to go ahead and say that all three at once is triple-hard. And it's true.

I first saw Salò in high school for more or less the same reasons I read Lolita in 8th grade: I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Lolita was beautiful, mesmerizing, forever rewarding. Salò made me vomit. Literally.

It's not a bad movie. The director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was an excellent director and extremely smart. He knew exactly what he was doing and he did it better than anyone else before or since. And I am including in this:
Alfred Hitchcock, for Psycho and Rear Window
The Creators of The Blair Witch Project
Tod Browning for Freaks
Gore Verbinski for The Ring
Michael Powell for Peeping Tom
Michael Haneke for Funny Games
. . . among others. These are all great films. Scary, moving, thought-provoking. They all, in some way or another, have to do with watching. The consequences of watching, of being a voyeur. Haneke gets pretty meta with it, but they're all, in a way, a statement on the role an audience plays. That is, if these terrible things happening on screen are so terrible, why are you watching it?
With Salò, Pasolini took that idea and made a movie that is the ultimate test in how-much-can-you-standness.
Rape, murder, eating feces (own and other's), eating food laced with nails, nipples and penises being burned off, tongues cut out . . . all of this is in Salò. And I mean IN Salò. In front of you. Pasolini doesn't turn the camera away when he's supposed to. You want to watch what he produced? Then fine, you're going to fucking watch it.
It's brilliant, the way he takes film to a new level this way. So smart. And after 34 years no one's come close to touching him. And it lends itself to feminist film theory, which focuses so much on scopophilia, of voyeurism, of women being watched by men. Which in turn lends itself to be a perfect candidate for my final paper in Literary Criticism, which is why I proposed this topic, a feminist critique of Salò, to my professor weeks ago to much enthusiasm.
And it's why it's so hard to write. I'm sick. Whatever I have, a cold I think, has made my gag reflex go berserk with sensitivity. I can't watch Salò for more than ten minutes at a time without salivating in preparation for vomit.
Which makes this paper particularly difficult. In 24 hours it WILL be written. It WILL be turned in. Finals WILL be over. I WILL be free for weeks.
But right now, I'm just being mad at Pasolini and trying to write about Salò from memory as much as possible.

10 November 2009

05 November 2009

terrors of my childhood

I've been sort of obsessed with this recently in that way that you can't help but scare yourself, like watching scary movies. I'm sure there's a logical explanation(s) for it, but it freaks me out.
In a roundabout way, thinking about being freaked out suddenly made me remember this memory that I honestly think I repressed in some way. It was of some movie that I had seen on TV and all I really remembered about it were:
A.) Bloody children
B.) Parents cradling their dead, bloody children in a school
C.) A mother was the one that came and killed the kids
D.) A bloody guy crawling around on a floor
E.) it scared the absolute fucking shit out of me.
I don't know when I saw this movie but I know I was young and it was at the height of my childhood nightmares and inability to sleep.
Thinking about that, I set out to find this movie. It wasn't that hard. It's Murder of Innocence. I just watched it on Youtube. As a movie, it sucks. Super dramatic music, weird editing, not the best ever writing (although, based on the real case of Laurie Dann, pretty accurate). But when it got to the end, when all the shooting starts, it still sort of made my heart drop in fear. As it turns out, I naturally remembered stuff wrong, as the shooter wasn't a mother of any of the kids and the scene that I seem to remember so vividly of parents cradling dead kids isn't in there at all, so I guess I made that part up in my head. But the bloody children in the classroom, the bloody guy crawling across the floor (which, when I watched it, was almost disturbingly accurate with the way I remembered it) were all there. And was still fucking scary.
The movie aired in 1993. In the later half of 1992, Pearl Jam's Jeremy video premiered. Because of my sister's obsession with Pearl Jam, I also had a weird 7 year old's crush on Eddie Vedder and liked (or at least pretended to like) their music. But that video . . . you all know the one I'm talking about, with the kid and the gun and the classroom and blood, absolutely scared the fucking shit out of me.
How did I see all of this somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8? I don't know. Probably sneakiness. I was always trying to sneak into watching stuff I wasn't supposed to, most notably Kids in the Hall and Jaws (that second one was a big fucking mistake, jesus). Sort of along the lines of my absolute determination when I was in sixth grade to see A Clockwork Orange, which I did see in sixth grade, and which was also a huge mistake. Now as a near 22 year old, I love the movie, think it's brilliant and funny etc etc. But when I was 12 . . . it was just a big scary rape movie.
In all, I'm really glad I watched that TV movie again. I was actually really scared to because it's late and I'm in the apartment by myself (as always) but I was sincerely hoping that it wasn't as scary as I remembered. And it wasn't, and it was sort of amazing to compare the filmed images to the images in my mind, from how spot-on my memory was to how I completely made up stuff.

It also helps to watch something scary like that with the lights on and Charlie snoring next to me.

03 November 2009

music goodies

I want to be cool and say something like "here's what I've been spinning lately" but that would imply that I'm either A.) really hip or B.) at least have some knowledge of how to use a record player (which I don't).
Either way, here are some good songs in modern digital-age mp3 format:

Christmas Island - Twenty Nine


Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me (WHAT. SUCK MY DICK.)

La Roux - Bulletproof


Au Revoir Simone - Shadows


Au Revoir Simone - Shadows
(Tanlines Remix) (both versions are awesome and sound completely different)

Washed Out - Feel It All Around


Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer


Monotones - What Would I Do

20 October 2009

I guess you could call it fate.

Found a notebook with
Elizabeth's Second Diary
written on the cover with Sharpie.
Here I am reproducing an entry detailing my intense love for a boy in my class, Robert. He turned out to be a huge fucking prick, by the way. Also, all misspellings are accurate to how I spelled in my diary, not typos. Twelve years ago, (almost to the day) when I was 9 years old:

10/17/97 11:37 p.m.

Well I got him back. I was moved behind him. But, today I walked into class and I think my heart stopped beating. Robert was moved to the front, by Lauren, which is good. But I can't help but feel lonely. Robert is second in the row, I'm fifth. I remember when he sat his pack down on his desk, he glanced at me and frowned alittle. Although being a frown, it comferted me. He actually felt the same as me. The morning looked up in Music Class. My friends Lauren and Kelly were determened to get me leveld with him. At first, it was pretty much handled. I was first in the girl's line. Robert was first in the boy's line. But I turned my head. And when I looked back, he was gone. He was way behind with Randy and Alex. Luckily, so were Kelly and Lauren. They let me cut them so I was once again set. Then he decided he didn't want to sit there. So he moved ahead. We moved ahead. I finally ended up sitting next to him. I was also saved by Mrs. Radcliff's mood. She gave us activity sheets to draw and color. So we got out of our seats and sat on the floor, using our chairs as tables. His crayons spilled, we both made horrible drawings and laughed through the whole class. I guess you could call it fate. Or luck. Or maybe even love. We were laughing and playing. I whatched were my hands went, hoping to get through to him. But I held his hand once again for a split second. Stupid Alex spoiled the moment. I could have ringed his neck. Things also started to look up that afternoon in resource. It was I.E.P. day. First we had to all this stuff that I could care less about. But, we acidently bumbed into each other. I was finished. I was also alone. Robert only had a little to finish up, so I decided to wait for him. I had a plan. I asked Mrs. Wells if I could play Oregon Trail, our fave computer game. It took alittle while to get the computer ready, so he suggested that he and Taylor would do puzzles instead. This was the last thing I wanted. But, with luck, we did it.

Well look at me. Pining over a boy who didn't like me back. Obsessing, stressing, over-analyzing. Man, was I silly!

16 October 2009

grandest literary discovery of our time

Ladies and gentlemen:
Today I found my first ever published piece of writing. It appeared in the November 1998 edition of Harte to Harte, the Alice M. Harte Elementary School Newsletter, page 5, in "Classroom Action" Reports:

STAYING BUSY IN 5TH GRADE
by Elizabeth Dixon
In Mrs. Majeste's 5th grade class, we have been doing many things. We are still doing "Flat Stanley" and, so far, in 1st place is Abby Podratz, in 2nd is a tie between Morgan Ramey and Michael Reiser, and in 3rd is Lauren Woodcheke. Everything will get turned in on October 30th. In Math, we have been studying adding and subtracting whole numbers and decimals. Like most years, the second chapter in math is easier than the first for most people. In English, we are studying singular and plural possessive nouns. In Reading, we are reading stories about animals. In Social Studies, we are busy working on our state projects. And in Science, we are studying sugar and nutrition. On October 30th, we will have a Halloween party with chicken nuggets and nachos, courtesy of Ms. Jan Lore. I hope that everybody is doing good and enjoying the year. Happy Halloween!

Now, I'm biased, but my column was pretty much the best one. Adam's favorite line is "In Reading, we are reading stories about animals," as it really showcases my minimalist style. I personally like my reflection (perhaps subtle metaphor) on math. I wish I knew what the fuck "Flat Stanley" was, though.

06 October 2009

O.K. and here's an mp3 post

The following have been stuck in my head for quite some time for various reasons, though they have one common denominator: they're all awesome:

Diamond Rings - All Yr Songs

Wavves - Cool Jumper

Department of Eagles - No One Does It Like You

Phoenix - 1901

Javelin - Vibrationz (from the album Jamz n Jemz, such a good album title as well as cover art)

Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends Theme
(made me cry as a kid)

Pictureplane - Goth Star

Jackson 5 - The Love You Save (general message: don't be a slut, guys don't like damaged goods)

Bat for Lashes - Daniel
(about Ralph Macchio, no joke)

Bat for Lashes - Daniel (lo fi) (this version is so good for being a gangsta around Savannah with Sascha's bass turned all the way up)

Atlas Sound - Sheila


Beach Boys - Make It Big (thanks to Ben, Jeff, and Jenny Lewis)

Air - Sing Sang Sung (aforementioned)

Cat Power - Half of You

Murs - Better Than The Best

Phoenix - Long Distance Call

Phoenix - Love Like A Sunset (Animal Collective Remix) (might as well be AC b-side. deakin's back, y'all!)

05 October 2009

sing sang sung

I had such a weird dream . . . all I really remember about it was my locker. It was about my locker I was assigned my first day of high school in New Orleans and had until I left for Katrina. I never went back to it to get whatever I left in there, actually. Books, notebooks, photos, ponytail holders, and at least one can of Diet Coke is what I can remember. It's weird though, I have my own apartment and my own car, both of which I love and decorate the way I want. Yet I still miss and feel nostalgic for my high school locker?
This makes me happy though. Air is so reliable for being awesome. And relaxing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuSPRu4lzag

04 September 2009

BACK

Tragedy struck a few weeks ago . . . Thom, my beloved Macbook, passed away unexpectedly. It was pretty devastating.

On the bright side, I have come out on the other side of weeks without internet or a word processor or music to be here now, on a brand new Macbook Pro, complete with Snow Leopard. It closely resembles a beautiful diamond.

And so now summer is winding down, and it has been an absolutely insane summer. Good and bad. I'm really just excited to graduate and write (not necessarily in that order).

12 August 2009

PICTURES, RECENT

Dash came back to Savannah, took an obligatory nap on the Funk Junction couch
He also opened the refrigerator and dropped a coconut cream pie (not sure how that happened exactly)
While I was being influenced I put on Dash's hat and my head is obviously bigger than his because I think it cut off the blood to my brain?
Tandy and I went to a bar, found a box of chocolate muffins hanging out in City Market
Charlie loves Dash Dash and Elgin being dudes watching Wheel of Fortune
Sleeping with my niece, a very good sleep accessory
Charlie and Calvin had a slumber party!
A mosaic of Nelly at a restaurant in New York
In New York, Tandy, Sara, Adam, and I hung out with Cynthia McFadden doing her Nightline thing
Ben sporting a candle ash soul patch In a photobooth in Hell's Kitchen with Tandy and Will Brumley
And finally, Ben has a lot of life lessons for Coleman and Jack

21 July 2009

da bell jar

Ever since I got back from New York, while unemployed, I've kept up a pretty strict regimen of reading and writing. I've tried to alternate between reading new books and re-reading old books that I read when I was a lot younger. The last one I finished was The Bell Jar.
The copy I read was the copy I first read from when I was 12. What made this so good are all the great notes and markings I made. Such as underlining a passage and writing "WOWEE!" because I was fucking 12. Or underlining a passage about categorizing people not based on gender, age, social status, etc, but rather on whether or not they were virgins, and writing "Thank god," because I specifically remember being comforted by the fact that I was not the only one who thought this. It was pretty cute getting little glimpses into my 12 year old self. What was also weird was how when I first read it, I hadn't had my epic mental collapse yet, but I think I still felt a connection with some of the things she said, like there was a part of me deep down that sensed what was going to happen eventually.
And then there's this passage, from Chapter 20:
"To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream."
And then a few pages later:
"I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday -- at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere -- the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?"
Re-reading The Bell Jar was scary and emotional. I knew that the book was good. But now that I've been through what Plath/Esther Greenwood went through, it's absolutely terrifying how completely spot ON Plath was about what happens. It doesn't matter that it was the 60s and I was in the 00s or that she was 19 and I was 17, it's the exact same thing. And when she gets (successful) electroshock therapy in the mental hospital and suddenly feels the bell jar lifted, and is amazed at how much clearer the world is . . . it is identical to the way I felt, also in the mental hospital, when my antidepressents kicked in for the first time and I could just breathe. I could stop crying and breathe and think.
So if you ever wonder what it's like to go nuts, get better, and still live in fear of going nuts again, read The Bell Jar.

10 July 2009

plane adventures

July 2nd - Early morning flight going from Savannah to Dallas . . .

Was seated next to lone traveling boy, who at first glance, I placed around the age of 13, given his short height, cracky voice, lack of Adam's apple, and hairless legs. He struck up conversation with me almost immediately, which I tried my best to wiggle out of, though I admit I probably could have done more had I not expected whatever he was going to say would turn out to be gold (though I still think I underestimated it).
He made a first glance age judgment on me, too, which I suspect put me in the 10th-12th grade range (especially when, while waiting at the gate to board the plane, a crew member called for all unaccompanied minors to board first, and the woman sitting next to me nudged me to remind me that they had called for me). He stumbled around with his words a little bit when I told him I was a senior, in college, after he had asked for my opinion on AP classes, and said that he was "Uh, well I mean I'm 15, about to be a sophomore, you know."
I was reading Lolita (ironic? misleading on my part?) and he said, "Hey, if you like reading so much, wanna read this book for me and do my book report?" It was Gulliver's Travels. When I turned him down he kept talking to me ("Where I come from, we shoot what we want - but not with lethal weapons,") while I kept ignoring him. A baby cried a few rows ahead of us and he said that SURELY that baby was HIGH perhaps on MARIJUANA and that to SHUT IT UP the best tactic was OBVIOUSLY to give the baby ALCOHOL although he was quick to inform me that when HE drinks alcohol he actually gets LOUDER so mayhaps that's not the BEST solution.
These comments, along with the throwing in of a "fuck" more often than even I feel is necessary made me a little suspicious that he was flirting with me. I never think anyone is flirting with me, I'm not the kind of person who gets looked at and then is sure that I'm being flirted with. But it didn't seem completely crazy that if anyone was going to flirt with me, it would be a prepubescent (or at least brinkpubescent) boy.
I sat on the aisle seat, he sat on the window seat, and about halfway into the flight he tapped my knee (which he had already grazed a few times searching my seatback compartment for the in-flight magazine that he clearly had a copy of in his own seatback compartment) to indicate needing to get out of the row to use the bathroom. I scooted and manuevered accordingly, not ever really taking my eyes off my book. But I could sense him standing in front of me, instead of moving toward the back to the bathroom. I looked up at him, glanced really.
"Want to join me?" His intentions, at this point, completely baffled me and my first thought was that perhaps I had completely misjudged this person, maybe he was handicapped in some way and expected my assistance.
"What?" I said, leaning forward a little and squinting, looking for signs of gimpiness.
"You know, join me in the bathroom. You know." About halfway through this sentence was when I realized what was actually happening was this child was propositioning me to have sex with him in the airplane bathroom. Immediate reaction: laughter.
"Are you kidding?"
"Well I mean I thought we really hit it off here." I'm going to be honest. Not often do people hit me up for sex, or even hint at wanting to hit me up for sex. This leads me to consider every offer, at least for a second, despite grossness/consequences, mostly out of fear of it never being presented to me again.
However. This was the first time that I can recall being so outrightly offered a sexual encounter and without even the tiniest nanosecond thought of consideration. Instead I sort of stared at him, said "No," and kept reading. Essentially, that ended that.

29 June 2009

july forecast

As of right now, the high is supposed to be 97 degrees when I arrive in Austin on Thursday. This is not good. However, the high is supposed to be 85 degrees when I get to Tuscola next Tuesday, and that's not too bad.
I am basically going on a flight extravaganza:
(this is what happens when you must book cheapest flight, ie lots of layovers)
Thursday: Savannah-Atlanta-DFW-Austin
Tuesday: Austin-Chicago-Springfield (then 90 minute drive to Tuscola)
Tuesday next: (90 minute drive out of Tuscola) Springfield-Chicago-Atlanta-Savannah

So many planes. I will be gone a total of twelve days, which translates to twelve days of no Charlie. I am very sad about this. And twelve days without Savannah friends. But . . .

it also translates to five days of Robert and a week of mom/Katie/new lil baby/kittens at home. So it will be worth it. But I will be exhausted when I come home. And really really really hot.

In other news not related (yet intimately related, really) to me, the new Animal Collective video for "Summertime Clothes" is out and it is totally goofy but at this point I'm not sure they could do wrong.



And as a special bonus, the Page 6 blurb from the day we had lunch in Michael's in New York:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192009/gossip/pagesix/sightings_174956.htm

24 June 2009

Just got this Facebook message:


[caption] i recently cut my hair off

hi my name is michael. im a nice sweet genorous and loving person ill b 20 this week. i have a 19 month old son im single, and im looking for a a nice woman who is very respectible, independent but also not afraid to ask for help when needed. just someone who is beautiful in the inside. im in the process of becoming a police officer. email me and we can get to know each other a little better. my email is xx@gmail.com. im really just looking to find my true love

I should feel flattered that for some unknown reason this person felt compelled to send this to me. Instead I feel self-pity because of the kind of person I apparently attract (this message is not a first of its kind, for one example, recent terrible dates for another example) which leads me to have a feeling of insurmountable bitchiness for being so judgey.

Oh well!

20 June 2009

NEWYORKNEWYORKNEWYORKNEWYORK

Listen friends:
So much happened this past week in New York that I do not even know where to begin, how to describe it, etc etc. I learned so much, experienced so much, laughed a lot, cried a little, drank a lot, got lost a lot, was in awe of everything most of the time and basically it was unbelievable and amazing. I don't even have more than a handful of pictures from the week - very strange for me - because I was so enamored with everything that was happening that I continually forgot to document it in any way other than in my Moleskine.
Now I'm in a writing frenzy. And it feels so good.

13 June 2009

Whoa, I've got a niece now?

It's true, I do indeed have a niece. Natalie Lillian Zimmerman. That's 9 syllables. I haven't met her, but I will in a couple of weeks. She seems tiny tiny and I'm actually genuinely excited to fulfill my role as "cool aunt," which I've always wanted over "[any adjective] mom." A couple of pictures:

I have not spent any amount of significant time with a child under the age of 1 (maybe under the age of 5, even? no one comes to mind) so it should be interesting.

12 June 2009

Church on a Monday

Disclaimer: Corny stuff/NERD ALERT ahead:

I'm not a religious person and I guess I never have been. Even when I was too young to really be self-aware enough to know whether or not I was religious, I hated the idea of church and Sunday School. So early in the morning . . . so goddamn boring . . . and I specifically remember feeling sort of silly the entire time for whatever reason. Though, again, if I were religious I'd probably think church was cool (or at least bearable).
That being said . . . Monday night I stood right in front of a chanting figure towering over me and white linen cloth, so unbelievably grand that I could hardly look straight at Him at first . . . all three figures made me stand with my mouth open in awe, made me sway, made me choke up, made me feel so content and O.K. and made me the most consistently happy since January. There were moments when He flipped up His wet hair and His sweat landed on my skin, when I heard Him mutter things to Himself ("goddammit" "1, 1, 1, O.K."), when He knelt closer to my level and I could feel waves of His body heat. And even better, there are THREE He's in this situation, raising and lowering their voices together, moving together in sync and sometimes too fast to even be seen. And the He that towered right above me . . . I stared and stared at Him, absolutely loving Him and every single move He made, bewildered by how He could possibly do what He was doing, humbled by being so physically close to Him. I really was worshiping Him, all of the Hims, and for the first time I think I might have understood how some people can really lose themselves and go crazy in the presence of a power that they give themselves up to.
Basically what I'm saying is . . . Monday night's Animal Collective concert was unbelievably amazing, best concert I've been to. There was a moment in Brother Sport, which, naturally, seemed to go on forever, where I could literally feel Panda Bear's voice pumping through my heart (I can't emphasize enough how close I was to him) and I got this feeling, sort of lightheaded, that I could only describe as, "open." To be absolutely completely honest, the last time I had that exact same feeling was when I lost my virginity, still less than a year ago. It was weird, I would never have even been able to remember that exact feeling from then if that moment in Brother Sport hadn't happened. I could not care less how melodramatic/dorky/corny all of this sounds because the entire experience was so amazing, I don't know how else to describe it.
Geologist (far left of the stage)


Avey Tare (middle of the stage)


Panda Bear (far right of the stage - right in front of me)