who?
october tenth | eleven post meridiem
The world began in Eden, and ended in Los Angeles
I feel I should offer some sort of apology to everyone who I've neglected over the last few months. I spend 8 hours each day on the computer, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is bathe in sicklypalemonitorglow, even if one of the side effects is nicefunnypeoplecleverness. So, sorry; it's not just you, it's everyone, and I've definitely been missing our AIM chats and emails and all the rest.
It's not going to get much better over the next week or so, I'm afraid. J. is coming to visit, and we'll be cavorting around Portland and Vancouver, with probably nary an interweb portal in sight. Of course, y'all could do the same and get off yer lazy asses and come visit me as well. So really, it's all your fault if you feel neglected. Really.
The new Saint Etienne is so, so, so good. Fab. Mahv. Brill. I listened to it all the way through over and over today, but my brain hasn't really absorbed it properly past the first song, "Action", which has the best intro of any song (or album) I've heard in some time: all swirly soaring Moogs with Sarah's voice chasing them around the stereo field, like little kids playing tag in some opulent hanging garden. They're supposed to be the Sound Of North London, or something, but to me they've always been about the suburbs, and in particular row after row of a certain kind of mass-produced sub-Frank Lloyd Wright stone-encrusted houses, with flat roofs and long living room windows, seen under a light that's so bright and flat it drizzles the same yellow over lawns and sidings alike. "Action" comes with a guitar-accented rhythm custom made for walking past these rows, under enormous oaks, past tireless cars on blocks, porch swings loaded down with beer bottles to be recycled, down a slight incline, stepping over the raised edges of the concrete sidwalk awkwardly trying to accomodate the roots beneath it, cutting through playgrounds, with the tops of the downtown buildings in the distance, following and being followed in turn by cats, past rooms you used to live in, down towards the river, and the friends and drinks waiting for you there. And when you get there it's already dark, because this album has a distinct nighttime feel to it as well, as if that beat was only leading you to the club where it truly belongs, up in the rafters with the smoke and flashing blues and reds. And when you've gone past the point of consciousness you wake up the next afternoon and do it all over again.